Toshi paused as something like a good idea crossed his mind. He stepped back from the Taken One and sat with his legs folded. He cleared his mind and then called out to his myojin. She had far more knowledge than Toshi did. Perhaps she could tell him if the prize was alive and, if so, what to do about it.

  He sat waiting patiently until his legs began to stiffen. Shortly after that, he opened his eyes and swore.

  Inscrutable as always, Night was either unwilling or unavailable to talk to him. He shouldn’t complain—she had just personally saved him from the soratami’s mind tricks, and she must have millions of other acolytes to look after. Still, she had saved him to do what he was now doing, so she should at least acknowledge his request for an audience.

  release me

  Toshi started and jerked his head toward the Taken One. The etched dragon was moving again, readjusting its position with the rough sound of stone on stone.

  “Absolutely,” Toshi said. “That’s where we’re going next, I promise.”

  now

  “I can’t now,” he said. “Not by myself. We have to go get some expert advice.” Toshi hoped the people he had in mind counted as experts, and that they would have advice. He didn’t know where else to go.

  To his horror, the disk began to tremble violently. It vibrated against the cedar sapling Toshi had propped it against, making an angry tapping sound. The image of the serpent was pressed up against the surface of the disk as if it were a window. Her tail thrashed angrily.

  father

  Toshi instinctively looked up, expecting to see multiple giant heads bearing down on him. The sky was empty but for a few trails of black smoke drifting in from the west.

  father is coming

  “I know,” Toshi said. “But we’ll be long gone. He’s a little slow to get going, as I see it.”

  The Taken One rattled loud enough to crack the sapling and then shot into the air. The stone disk hovered and turned with its face to Toshi, but the image of the serpent stayed fixed at its center.

  coming now

  “He isn’t,” Toshi insisted. “There’s no sign of him.” He waved to the sky, wondering how much it could see beyond its stone prison. Then the disk began to glow and smoke as it had in Konda’s tower, only the smoke hissed angrily now and the glow withered the plants nearby.

  “What can I do?” Toshi shouted in frustration. “What do you want?”

  The disk snapped to a halt and let out a withering blast of smoke and ash. The glow scintillated across its surface, and tiny arcs of energy leaped to the nearby trees and scorched their bark.

  freedom

  In spite of himself, Toshi grinned crookedly. “Who doesn’t?” he said.

  The stone disk did not respond, but slowly turned like the wheels on a cart. The etched serpent stared solemnly at Toshi, but all he could do was shrug.

  Then the Taken One flashed like lightning, sending a brilliant column of white rocketing into the sky above her. Toshi was carried back by the force and he smelled his own hair burning.

  Dazed, he rubbed his eyes with one hand while he patted out his hair with the other. When his eyes cleared, there was a gleaming column of white stretching from the Taken One all the way up to the clouds. Even in the bright afternoon sun, the gleaming tower burned brightly enough to make Toshi’s eyes water.

  … father protect me from father protect me from father protect me from …

  “Oh, good,” Toshi said, his ears ringing from the fury of the plea. “Just perfect.”

  Konda had seen amazing things during his long, fabled life. He had seen the tower at Eiganjo rising from the Towabara plains long before the first shovel had broken dirt. He had seen the mysteries of the spirit world laid bare before him. He had gazed upon the splendor of his prize and seen the answers to eternity therein. These things all amazed or enlightened him, but the sight of the soratami armada razing Jukai outraged him like nothing he had seen before.

  They came in huge numbers, a massive force of the noblest beings in Kamigawa. He had considered the soratami his closest allies. He had permitted them to keep their distance from the rest of the world and seclude themselves in their cloud city. He had done so out of respect and to allow them to explore their mystical and cultural pursuits … not to raise and train a standing army. Had he even dreamed the moonfolk had a military, he would have kept them under much tighter control. They were of course entitled to defend themselves, but this … this was an army of demigods large enough to meet him on the open field.

  This day in Jukai, against the orochi, the soratami armada was an unstoppable force. They drove the snakes east from the ground and above, shattering the orochi’s beloved trees and burning their territorial homeland. Soratami warriors used blades and spells to maim and kill, their perfect rows hardly noticing the steady stream of reptilian bodies. From above, the soratami seemed like a silver-white plow blade, separating the soil as it ripped through the forest. Only this soil was made from living beings Konda hoped to have as allies, and the plow driven by intimates who had already betrayed him.

  “Unacceptable,” he growled from his place at the head of the moth-riders. “Completely unacceptable.” Konda turned back to the east, where the bulk of his ghost army was charging to catch up to him with all possible speed. They would arrive here at this cursed site in a matter of minutes. Would it be soon enough to stop the slaughter?

  A plaintive cry ripped through his ears and Konda grimaced. The sound was simultaneously foreign and familiar, like a stranger singing new words to a melody he knew by heart. Before the pain had faded, Konda recognized the Taken One.

  His eyes had never wavered from the right spot, but now Konda turned his face, his body, and his entire being toward his goal. There, in the distance, where the column of light touched the sky. It was there, well within range of his moth-riders. It was so close he could feel it, so close he could leap to the ground and run to it.

  The moth-riders responded to their lord’s unspoken command and soared up over the canopy, gathering speed as they bore down on the tower of light.

  Faster, Konda thought. Faster.

  The moths would carry him to his prize. His army would follow behind, engaging the renegade soratami on the way. Once Konda had recovered the Taken One, he would carry it triumphantly back and rejoin his ground forces. Together they would punish the presumptive soratami and decimate their army.

  The closer he came to the brilliant white beam, the more anxious he became and the faster his moth-riders flew. Konda put his hand upon his sword, every muscle in his body tensed and ready. I’m coming, he thought. You will be mine once more.

  Below him, Jukai became nothing more than a blur as he closed in on his goal.

  Toshi saw the moths bearing down on them and cursed the double burden of his duty and his stubborn insistence on avoiding that duty. It would be so easy to run now if Night’s Reach hadn’t just gone out of her way to save his life. Would it make such a difference if he were to escape into the nearest shadow and let Konda have his prize? The daimyo could contend with O-Kagachi; let those two determine how important it was that the Taken One was showing signs of life and self-interest. All Toshi would have to do would be to keep his head down for a year or so and these truly important entities could all kill each other off without his help.

  Toshi scrambled to his feet and rushed to the stone disk. Abandoning the disk was not an option he could pursue … at least not yet. Better to load it up on the moth and take to the sky. He had outrun Konda and his ghost-moths before, and with Night’s help he was sure he could do it again. In fact, he was eager to do it again, just to imagine the look on Konda’s face.

  The Taken One still floated just above his head, so Toshi placed his hands on the lowest edge and pushed. Whatever was keeping the disk afloat also allowed Toshi to move it easily without turning it insubstantial. In fact, it was faster and easier to move it this way, as he could really dig his heels into the turf and use his body weight to hurry things along.

  He reached the moth in short order and guided the disk into the harness. This would be a narrow escape, but it would still be an escape.

  father

  Toshi paused as the Taken One’s voice echoed in his head. When the lingering sound faded, so did the shining white tower. Toshi continued to squint, dazzle-blinded. The half of his body closest to the Taken One’s beacon felt seared and tender.

  His eyesight returned to normal just as he completed tightening the last strap. He started to swing his leg up over the moth’s back, but something heavy seemed to be pressing in on all sides. He glanced up to check on Konda’s approach and noticed the ominous purple sky glowering from the east. Had it grown much darker all of a sudden? Or was the storm casting a shadow over all of Jukai?

  Twelve flaming suns suddenly ignited around the spot where the tower of light pierced the sky. Toshi stood frozen and agape as O-Kagachi materialized behind the six sets of sun-eyes, appearing whole and solid in one fell swoop. Six square, horned heads roared from massive, swaying necks. Its coils formed an impossibly large and complicated tangle of muscle wreathed in jagged scales, and their bulk filled fully half the sky from here to the horizon.

  Toshi still stood motionless, awestruck by the titanic beast hovering so close. O-Kagachi opened all six of his mouths and roared. Back to the east, Konda’s moths had begun their descent, silent but no less threatening than the old serpent.

  Toshi’s eyes darted back and forth across the sky. Konda himself was streaking toward them and he was surrounded by an unsettling glow. O-Kagachi opened one set of jaws wide and likewise drove down at Toshi and the stone disk. There were only seconds in which to decide. One way or the other, the chase for the Taken One was going to end here.

  Or, Toshi thought suddenly, I can do things my way. He took hold of the moth’s tether and made himself insubstantial. The leather strap separated from the tree and fell to the forest floor. Then Toshi became solid, unbuckled the harness, and slipped it off the moth so that the leather straps were still fastened to the stone disk. He slapped one hand onto the surface of the Taken One and pulled, guiding the prize over to the closest tree.

  “You’re free,” Toshi told the moth. “You lucky bastard.” He slapped the moth lightly on the rump. It burbled one last time and rose into the air.

  Toshi locked all ten fingers around the Taken One’s harness and swung himself like a child on a rope swing. His weight pulled the Taken One down so that when he slipped into the shadow at the base of the tree, the stone disk was pulled along with him. The last things he saw were Konda’s furious face and a wide-open mouth that could have swallowed a mountain.

  Then he and his cargo/passenger floated safe and alone through an endless black ocean of silent darkness.

  Konda’s roar of frustration was almost as loud as O-Kagachi’s as they both watched their prize follow Toshi into the shadows and vanish. Fortunately for the daimyo, his moth-riders were far more agile than O-Kagachi’s crashing coils, and they veered off as soon as it became clear that their target was gone. The old serpent was not as maneuverable and he plowed into the forest.

  The ground exploded in a white-hot blast of destructive energy. The back of the moth formation was blown across the sky like leaves in a typhoon while the front was merely buffeted. Konda’s escorts tilted him perpendicular to the ground before regaining control.

  The daimyo’s eyes had lost sight of their quarry and they darted maniacally across his face. He commanded his moths to turn about so he could confront O-Kagachi—he would at least avenge the attack on Eiganjo. In the time it took to return to formation and complete the about-face, the great serpent had already begun to fade away. As the terrible serpent went, the bright light of early afternoon reclaimed the sky.

  Konda swore viciously. How many times would this thief vanish from under the daimyo’s nose? How often did he have to track down and corner the prize before he could reclaim it once and for all? He had traveled to the farthest reaches of his kingdom for nothing, and now he must go on for what would almost certainly be more of the same. He needed to find a way to pin this man down, to force him into a situation where he could not run. But how?

  The daimyo’s eyes suddenly snapped to the northwest and stayed there. Konda’s rage cooled as he felt the presence of his prize. He was and would remain connected to it, no matter where the ochimusha took it.

  Perhaps this was how he could finally catch Toshi. So far, it was the visible approach of his army that gave the thief time to prepare his escapes. If Konda led a much smaller, less obvious party that relied on stealth and Konda’s unerring sense of direction, he could easily surprise the ochimusha and cut him down. His full army would ride openly and in triumph once he took back what was his.

  Pleased with his new plan, Konda called out to his infantry with the intent of summoning them to follow at a distance. In the crazed rush to seize the Taken One, he had forgotten that they were already engaged. A cruel smile crossed Konda’s lips.

  Here was the place for a demonstration of his full might, in the forests of Jukai. The soratami had come expecting a slaughter, and Konda would see that they got it. Responding instantly to their lord’s thoughts, the moth-riders banked and headed back to the site of the armada’s latest battleground.

  The war-torn clearing had grown far larger as the soratami battered and burned their way east. Moonfolk samurai still poured from their cloud chariots, sometimes leaping off the vessels high above the forest floor and floating safely down with their feet wreathed in fluffy white fog. A significant force of new orochi had joined the faltering defenders and slithered out to face the invaders head on. Brutal close combat raged across untold acres of forest with devastating effects on both sides.

  The orochi had mustered themselves into ranks instead of individually concealing themselves and waiting to ambush. They seemed to be organized around a single individual who sent them against the invaders in carefully timed waves. The forward edge of his attack was a line of brightly colored orochi who only attacked with their long, sharp fangs. They snapped and bit the leading soratami, not seeking fatal wounds but seizing whatever body part they could latch onto. Once they had struck, they forced their flexible limbs and bodies deeper into the soratami formation and bit again. In this manner they envenomed dozens of soratami without giving the moonfolk time to strike back. Their toxin seemed especially virulent, blackening the flesh and stiffening the lungs of every soratami it touched. Dozens of samurai faltered and fell, disrupting their graceful formation and throwing their charge into confusion. This left the invaders vulnerable to the next wave of orochi, who were among the biggest and best-equipped snakes the daimyo had ever seen. Most had metal weapons harvested from the soratami themselves in all four hands, and while they were not expert they were able to inflict serious damage on the moonfolk. The rest of this second wave fought with bare hands, but those hands were so numerous and powerful that the soratami found themselves stymied and unable to press forward.

  Konda approved of this change in tactics. It was better to keep them off balance and use their numbers against them. It was what he would have done. Whoever the orochi leader was knew his business. Konda looked forward to meeting him when the fighting was done.

  A larger cloud chariot came down from the canopy, shrouded in a decidedly blue-tinged mist. Konda wondered what made this vessel different, and as he ordered his escorts in for a closer look, the reason became clear.

  A single soratami female levitated from the center of the blue chariot in shimmering blue robes and a ceremonial headdress. She stretched her pale, thin arms over her head, pressed her palms together, and then jerked them apart. A small blue ring of smoke formed between her hands and began to spin.

  Quickly, Konda had his moth-riders soar up above the canopy. He maintained his view of the blue cloud chariot long enough to see the soratami wizard hurl the ring of smoke down to the forest floor. It fell like a stone.

  The ring burst the moment it touched the loamy soil. The blue smoke vanished, and a bitter wind rose, churning the leaves and other debris into a huge funnel cloud. The whirlwind gathered speed and strength, thickening as it rolled east. The orochi in its path held their ranks until the leader hissed, and then they broke and scattered, melting into the brush.

  The blue cyclone tore trees from the ground as it approached, and then gouged the ground itself as it passed. The terrible funnel-cloud plowed on, scattering the forest defenders and flattening a wide alley in the tangle of ancient cedars.

  Overhead, Konda paused to respect the tacticians on the soratami side of the battle. This was both how they were moving so quickly through the thick woods and driving the orochi back. Their powerful wind magic served both purposes at once, with the added benefit of breaking up the orochi into smaller groups that were far easier to defeat. In fact, as soon as they were out of sight and earshot of their field general, the orochi fell back to their more comfortable but far less effective strategy of attacking the soratami individually.

  Konda drew his sword. Fortunately for the orochi, he was able to inspire his army no matter where they fought, or against whom. By the stirring in his heart and the sound of hollow-voiced war cries coming closer, Konda knew he was at last in position to chastise the arrogant soratami.

  The first of Konda’s spectral retainers broke through the brush into the scorched battlefield. They did not need to assess the situation or formulate a strategy, for Konda had already done so. Without hesitation, the ghost army of Eiganjo tore into the soratami’s flank, creating a gruesome cloud of pale limbs and thin, sticky blood.

  Konda guided his escorts down, both to give him a better view and to allow the moth-riders to support the infantry. Now the soratami would face an army that was in every way its superior: Konda’s troops were better trained, better armed, and more aggressive than the moonfolk. They also had the element of surprise and, since their resurrection, were as strong and fast as the soratami were … perhaps faster and stronger.