The Quantum Wanderer

The shogun walks forward, and lays one hand on the shoulder of the two guards that were in the very front of the each line.

“Congratulations, invader. What is your name?”

I am still shaking blood from my hands. I could burn it all out, but then I would loose the padding inside the armor. I was about to answer him, when Akiko approached and whispered in my ear.

“Honored guest, you should tell him to offer his name first.”

I turn my face to the group of thirteen people.

“If you are asking for my name, you should offer yours first.”

He opens a smile.

“Very well. I am Takeda Oemutso. I am responsible for this small group of proud warriors.”

He bows his head lightly towards me. I answer him.

“I am Marcelo, a… ronin from a far away land.”

“So… Before I propose a duel, would be kind to explain why you would want my head? Or risk yours, for that matter?”

I open a smile. This guy is talking about his own life or death with an amazing calm. We could be talking about the weather with this tone of voice.

“I don’t want your head. I have been repeating that since we came in here.”

“What is it you want?”

“I want access to the sacred texts that were in the Minamoto Temple. Unfortunately, this was the way to get your attention.”

He takes a look at the walls. The guards were all unconscious. He takes a look at the snake head on the ground, now with glassy eyes. He looks at the arrows on ground, by my feet, destroyed by their momentum. He sighs. He turns around, turning his back to us.

“DISMISSED! GO TAKE CARE OF YOUR BROTHERS! YOU AND YOU, go ahead and heat water, we will have tea!”

The guards look at him. He moves his head very lightly, the guards bow at 90 degrees and start moving, each one to a different place, very quickly. He turns around to face us.

“Please follow me.”

We cross the patio towards the huge house. The unconscious guards around the door, and an unconscious gardener makes a little creepy.

I manage to take a look at the place from up close. It is a huge house, the center of it higher than the borders. It feels like it has around 5 floors. To my left, there is another house, or construction. By extending the mana sense I realize that there are several unconscious guards in it.

There is an entrance that has a lower side and a higher side. There is a very low step. He takes off his shoes and steps up. He looks around and sees an unconscious servant around. He sighs, turns around and sets his shoes in the corner, pointing out.

I let Akiko proceed in front of us, she does the same.

I take a look at my shoes. They are not as simple to take off as the shogun’s wooden sandals. I kneel down and take them off, first the armored top then the shoe itself. I put them in my bag of holding. It makes me a lot more comfortable knowing that I have my stuff with me.

The girls do the same, storing their shoes inside their bags of holding.

We follow Takeda while we hear some kitchen noise somewhat away from us. My mana sense tells me that there is a troop stationed in this big room to my left, covered by a closed door.

Wood is the main material. Wood windows, wood flooring. There are some painting hanging here and there with different motifs.

Takeda gestures us through a sliding door that was already opened to a tatami room, with a stone hearth and cushions around a low table. He gestures us to sit down.

As we are sitting, the two lieutenants enter with materials. They deposit wood in the hearth, then a crate, then a bule on top of it.

While one keeps arranging the wood, the other one again leaves the room.

“I must apologize for this messy house. These two serving us are not particularly skilled with tea.”

Once the wood is set in a very organized fashion under the bule, the lieutenant lights it up with a controlled fire spell.

After some moments, the second lieutenant arrives with a pot of tea powder, with a wood spoon inside it.

Akiko sits, or kneels, next to the kettle of water, I sit next to her. Takeda sits on the other side of the table, in the very middle. The two lieutenants kneel behind him.

Akiko prepares the teas, one by one. The gestures she uses are delicate and purposeful. It looks like she doesn’t have any other concern in the world but this moment. The smell of tea is loaded in the air.

Takeda clears his throat.

“It is shameful to have guests prepare the tea.”

“It is my pleasure, “ Akiko retorts, “though, with my lack of practice I hope it is up to your standards, Takeda-sama.”

He picks up the cup, turns it twice in his hand, and sips. He opens a smile and nods slightly to Akiko. He turns to me.

“A house that forgets how to boil water,” he says, “has been guarded too well by servants.”

He says it lightly, but neither lieutenant laughs. I do, just a little. He glances at me, and the corner of his mouth moves. I take a sip of the tea. I myself would add some sugar or honey to it, it is on the bitter side. Not that it matters.

He looks at my group.

“I have to say, you intrigue me, Marcelo-san. Nothing in your group is what it seems. Except perhaps for these two ladies?” He says, referring to Akiko and Cecilia.

I look at my group. Cecilia obviously didn’t like the tea. Ruby is bored. Close to scribbling with her nails in this very old wood table. Aquamarine is observing the room around us, the paintings on paper hanging from wooden walls. Opal is keeping her regal behaviour, while Shandon is getting on the bored side, a mix of Cecilia and Ruby. Muninn and Huginn are just playing crow.

I shrug.

“And?” I ask.

“I would much like to hear about your story.”

“My story is not all that interesting.” I answer.

Takeda laughs.

“You enter my home with four beasts, each one strong enough to raze this place to the ground. Accompanied by yokais. No, not quite tengu, but something else. I know it is rude, but I must disagree from you. That being said, I have already provided my name, guests. May I inquire who I am talking with?”

I answer him.

“This is Akiko, she is a friend of ours. These are my wives. Cecilia, Shandon, Opal, Ruby and Aquamarine. These are Huginn and Muninn. I have to say they are like my children to me.”

Takeda reacts just a little bit to Akiko’s name. Muninn jumps on to the table, with wings open, turning to me.

“BY THE GODS! PAPA! AM I ADOPTED?” Muninn asks, all of a sudden.

Huginn hits him in the back of the head with her beak. No words are necessary. Ruby, Cecilia and give a little giggle, but I quickly fix myself. This is not the place for jokes.

The two lieutenants react immediately to Muninn’s words, but Takeda’s only expression is a very calculated slight smile with the corners of his mouth.

Takeda turns to Akiko.

“Akiko… I haven’t heard that name being used for over a decade… One can even say that this name is taboo…”

Akiko turns stiff at this observation. Takeda turns to me, and continues.

“Having said that, you asked for the sacred texts,” he says. “Before I decide whether I can place them in your hands, I would understand why a ronin from nowhere breaks my barrier, spares my men, slays my summoned guardian, and then waits for tea.”

The room grows still around the steam rising from the bowls.

Akiko lowers her cup without drinking. For a moment, her fingers remain around it as if the warmth alone is keeping her steady. The steam curls between her and the shogun, thin and pale, and in that little veil she looks older than she had when we entered the room.

“The matter is mine,” Akiko says. “These honored guests came because my daughter and grandson were taken. The path to them may lie in the sacred texts that once belonged to the Minamoto Shrine.”

Takeda looks at Akiko. He watches her over the rim of his bowl. He does not drink. “Your daughter.”

The two lieutenants kneeling by the wall go still. The room had been quiet before, but now the silence gains edges.

Akiko inclines her head. “Yes.”

“Then the old rumors were true.” Takeda finally takes a sip. He sets the cup down with care, turning it half an inch before letting it rest. “Twenty-two years ago, a shrine maiden fled the goddess’s road. She carried with her a forbidden child, and she left behind a shrine, a teacher, vows, and a country that had no name for what had been broken.”

Akiko’s shoulders tighten, but she does not deny it.

Ruby shifts beside me. The motion is small, but the tatami creaks under the pressure of her body wanting to rise. Cecilia’s hand touches Ruby’s sleeve before I have to. Shandon’s eyes are fixed on the shogun. Aquamarine watches Akiko instead. Opal sits like a carved thing, her expression unreadable.

Muninn clicks his beak softly. “This is the part where men with clean floors explain the price of dirty history.”

Takeda’s gaze moves to him. For the smallest moment, he raises his eyebrows, and then returns to his poker face. “And crows mock from branches, yet still eat from the battlefield.”

Huginn’s feathers lift slightly. “Careful.”

Takeda bows his head to her. “I meant no insult. Only balance.”

“Then speak plainly,” I say. “We are not here to debate poetry while a mother and child are missing.”

“Plainly, then.” Takeda folds his hands in his lap. “What she did angered the goddess. The rain failed. Not for a day. Not for a season. The streams thinned. Rice cracked in the paddies. Wells that had served villages for generations turned to mud, then dust. Children learned the taste of rationed water before they learned letters. Farmers prayed until their knees bled, and still the sky remained empty.”

Akiko closes her eyes.

The shogun continues, his voice steady enough that the steadiness becomes crueler than anger. “The emperor demanded an explanation. The priests could not give one without naming the shame. The shrine had failed. The goddess was offended. A sacred line had been broken, and a child had vanished with the one who broke it. My father was shogun then.”

The older of the lieutenants lowers his head until his brow nearly touches the mat.

Takeda does not look at him. “My father could have blamed the shrine. He could have named the woman who fled. He could have offered priests, retainers, peasants, anyone beneath him. Instead, he placed his seal on the report, wrote that the failure was his, and opened his own belly before the emperor’s envoy.”

No one speaks. Even Muninn says nothing.

“His death gave the court an answer,” Takeda says. “It gave the people a shape for their fear. It bought time for the priests to appease what they could. The drought did not end that day, but the country did not tear itself apart seeking someone to punish.”

Akiko’s hands tremble around the tea bowl. “I did not know.”

“No,” Takeda says. “You were gone.”

The sentence lands softly, which somehow makes it worse. Ruby’s fingers curl against the mat. Shandon’s breath comes out warm enough to stir the steam in front of her. I lift one hand, just enough. They both still.

Akiko bows until her forehead touches the tatami. “Takeda-sama, I was selfish. I was afraid. I chose my child. I will not pretend I would choose differently now. But I did not know your father paid for my choice.”

“Would it have changed what you did?”

Akiko remains bowed. “No.”

Takeda’s expression does not change. “That is the first honest answer I have heard today.”

Cecilia leans forward slightly. “If the goddess is still angry, then helping us find Hikari and the child may be the only way to make this right.”

“Perhaps.” Takeda looks at her, then at me. “And perhaps the goddess’s anger has outlived its reason. I am not a priest. I do not claim to know divine intent.”

Aquamarine tilts her head. “Then what do you claim?”

“Responsibility.” Takeda answers immediately. “My father died carrying another’s sin because the country needed the wound closed. I inherited the scar. That does not make me innocent. It only makes me the man who must decide what price opens the next gate.”

Opal finally speaks. “Say the price.”

Takeda turns his tea bowl slowly, aligning the imperfect foam with the painted mark on the ceramic. “Sometimes,” he says, “to save the future, you sacrifice the now.”

The words are gentle. They carry no order. No threat. No raised blade. Yet the room understands them all the same. The lieutenants look down. Cecilia’s face goes pale. Ruby’s hand reaches for a sword that is not there. Shandon’s lips part, and a little line of heat ripples the air before she swallows it back.

I stare at him. “You are asking for her head.”

Takeda does not deny it. “I am asking whether the woman whose choice began this drought is prepared to end what remains of it.”

The mana starts leaking from the girls, together with murderous intent. I can feel that he is enhancing his body, preparing for a fight.

“No,” Ruby says.

It is not loud, but the single word has enough violence in it that both lieutenants shift despite themselves.

“No,” Shandon echoes. “Absolutely not.”

Akiko raises her head. Her face is wet, but her voice is calm. “I agree.”

For a moment I do not understand the words. Or perhaps I understand them too quickly and my mind refuses them.

“Akiko,” Cecilia says, almost whispering.

“Hum. I wonder. Let’s change this into another scenario. Another shogun rebels against the emperor. You start the journey with your troops. In the middle of the road there is a big farm, owned by a peasant.

“You ask for passage, and he agrees, but he demands the heads of your lieutenants. What should one do?”

“It depends on whether you need a guide.” He sips some tea.

Muninn starts laughing.

“Do you really think, old man, after having the image of the safe those scrolls are in, that we wouldn’t know?” He opens a creepy smile, his four eyes come out and then recede again.

“If you want a head, we can provide you one. Yours.” Shandon says, dripping murder intent.

“Do you really think that one life would scare me?” The shogun asks.

“Not one. 457.” Huginn says, pulling out her four eyes.

“What do you mean, yokai? It is 454.”

Huginn’s eyes shine.

“You forgot to add the woman and the two children.”

His breathing changes a little.

“Our lives belong to the emperor.” He says with a smile.

“458.” Huginn answers, covering her beak with her wing. “Of course, give or take a few thousand.” The quick display of her four eyes, four red slits, help drive the point.

Takeda breaks the bowl of tea in his hand, in spite of keeping his face mostly inexpressive.

“You do feel like a powerful group, I don’t deny. Still, it’s a far call.”

Ruby sighs. At this point, I notice the doodle that she has been making on the solid table with her nail.

“My lord, why are still talking? Muninn already extracted the location. Why don’t we behead them and go?”

The lieutenant serves another cup to the shogun, as if Ruby had said nothing. I feel that we would be impolite, but then again we are pressed for time. I turn to Muninn, speaking in [human].

“Do they have a way to destroy the contents of the vault before we get there?”

“There are some traps on the way, father, but they don’t have such a device.”

“Fine. Cecilia, can go home with Akiko? We are going to meet you two there, shortly.”

Cecilia and Akiko stand up. Cecilia opens a portal home. When they turn around, the whole thing happens way too fast. One of the lieutenants takes a step toward them, reaching for his sword. The sound of a big explosion, together with the building shaking. After the shock, he is pinned against the wall, like a dead butterfly in a collector’s board, through Ruby’s sword.

Takeda looks at his lieutenant and sighs.

“I apologize for my subordinate’s rudeness.”

Cecilia walks towards the portal, but Akiko freezes, shaken. Cecilia comes back a step and pulls Akiko by the hand, through the portal to my study.

The apology hangs in the room for less than a breath. No one accepts it. No one refuses it either. The tea ceremony is simply over, cut cleanly in half like the summoned serpent in the courtyard.

“Excuse me.” I say, and we all stand up. I nod at Muninn.

Cecilia’s portal closes behind her and Akiko. For a heartbeat, I keep looking at the place where they had been. Akiko had agreed to give her head, then allowed Cecilia to pull her away like a woman walking through a dream. I am not sure whether I am angry at Takeda, at Akiko, at the goddess, or at the entire shape of this country that can make such a sentence sound almost reasonable.

Ruby retrieves her sword from the wall with one sharp pull. The lieutenant drops to the tatami, dead. The wood pilar behind him is ruined. Ruby swings her sword with one hand, to clear the blood from it. It creates stains on the tatami.

Takeda does not rise. He sits with blood on his sleeve, broken tea at his knee, and the same calm face that now feels much more like a mask than humility.

“If you leave this room like thieves,” he says, “you will prove every accusation that could be made against you.”

“We entered like invaders,” I answer. “At this point, I think the etiquette has already suffered.”

Muninn hops from the table to my shoulder, light as a thought and twice as smug. Huginn jumps to Opal’s shoulder, watching Takeda with all four hidden eyes that I know are there even when she does not show them.

“Left corridor,” Muninn says. “Second garden. Covered passage with the black beam. There is a painted screen with cranes. Behind it, a service passage. Down two flights, through a stone door. He is very proud of the hinge mechanism, father. It took three craftsmen and one dead apprentice to make it quiet.”

Takeda’s eyes move to Muninn, then back to me. For the first time since we met him, the shogun looks less like a man judging what sacrifice to ask from others and more like a man who has just realized that one of the walls of his house has always been made of paper.

“You read my mind.”

Muninn opens his beak in that awful smile. “Not all of it. Some corners were dusty.”

The remaining lieutenant shifts as if he might try something heroic. Ruby turns her head one inch in his direction. He stops being heroic.

“No more,” I say. “No more tests. No more prices. No more poems about sacrifice. We came for the texts. You can either walk with us and keep your people from doing something stupid, or stay here and count how many of them die.”

Takeda looks toward the doorway. Beyond it, the palace has become a held breath. Somewhere distant, men shout. Somewhere closer, a servant or guard groans awake and is immediately told to stay down by someone wiser. The bamboo water hammer outside fills, tips, and strikes stone with its hollow knock.

“If I walk with you,” Takeda says, “my presence will calm some and enrage others.”

“Then speak quickly to the calm ones,” I tell him.

He rises at last. Not hurriedly. Not fearfully. But the movement costs him some of that perfect composure. He glances at the fallen lieutenant, then at the broken cup, then at the untouched tea cooling before Akiko’s empty place. Whatever he meant by saving the future, the now has become very ugly around him.

We leave the tea room without bowing. Muninn directs us with short, smug instructions, as if he had lived in the palace all his life and found the place badly labeled.

“Left. Not that left, Ruby. The other left. Yes, the one that does not involve going out of the pathway.”

Ruby looks disappointed but obeys. Shandon walks beside her, still radiating heat in waves that make the air shimmer around her shoulders. Aquamarine studies every doorway and ceiling beam, as if expecting water, poison, or both. Opal remains at the rear with Huginn, and the two of them watch Takeda’s back more than the path ahead.

We cross the second garden through a covered passage. It is beautiful in the same controlled way as the rest of the palace: stones raked into pale waves, moss trimmed like velvet, a twisted pine leaning over a narrow pool where orange fish move with absurd serenity. The serenity does not survive our passage. A guard steps from behind a pillar, sees Takeda, sees us, sees the blood, and opens his mouth.

“Stand down,” Takeda says.

The guard’s jaw closes. His eyes remain wide. He lowers himself until his forehead nearly touches the floorboards and stays that way as we pass.

Muninn points his wing toward a screen painted with cranes flying through mist.

“There.”

Takeda does not touch it. For the first time, he hesitates. I sigh.

“Open it,” I say.

He slides the screen aside. Behind the painted birds is a passage so narrow that no guest would ever imagine it belonged to the palace’s public face. The walls are plain wood. The air changes at once, losing incense and cedar polish and gaining dust, stone, old oil, and metal that has not seen daylight in years.

“Down,” Muninn says. “Then down again. There are two traps on the first stair. Pressure boards. We should avoid the third and seventh planks unless we want needles.”

Ruby perks up. “Poison needles?”

“Ceremonial poison needles,” Muninn says. “Very proud poison needles. Please respect their feelings by not triggering them.” Muninn says, while laughing. I don’t think they have a material capable of piercing our skin.

We descend in single file, Takeda first because the passage expects his shape and authority, Muninn guiding from my shoulder, the rest of us close.