Scott McGough: Guardian, Saviors of Kamigawa

Gingerly, he crawled to his knees and then stood. He didn’t recognize the coastline. In fact, he didn’t recognize the ocean. He was used to dark, brackish water that barely crested above three feet. These waves were a light blue-green and huge-the smallest swell was taller than Toshi himself.

Out to sea, he saw two huge spires of rock. They looked too perfect to be natural, but who could have constructed them? And what purpose did they serve so far away?

He was ravenously hungry, but the only edible thing he saw was a twig-sized sapling that might someday be a fruit tree. He carefully approached the edge of the rocky cliff. It was a sheer drop of over one hundred feet to the pebbled beach below. If he wanted fish, he’d have to navigate down the treacherous cliff face, and his ribs were in no shape to do that.

Toshi inhaled and then coughed. The air here didn’t smell or taste right. He began to have serious concerns about where Night had deposited him.

Toshi . Then the myojin’s voice came to him, soft and muted as if she were far, far away. You’re awake. Excellent. Let me ask you … did you ever wonder why I wanted you to protect the Taken One?

“Where am I, O Night?”

It’s rude to answer a question with a question, Toshi .

Toshi sighed. “No. I didn’t give it much thought, actually. I supposed it was because you liked the way things were, and if Konda or O-Kagachi got it back, things would change.”

You were partially correct, but there was another, far more interesting reason .

“It sounds interesting. I am interested. But must I guess this other reason, or will you tell me?”

When Konda acquired the Taken One, he changed the fundamental balance in Kamigawa. He broke through the barrier that separates the real world from the spirit world. O-Kagachi embodied that barrier. Konda’s act was a direct attack upon him .

“I understand.”

In fact, Konda’s crime allowed me to see the barrier from a whole new perspective. When the serpent turned his attention to finding and reclaiming what was stolen, the barrier between worlds was further weakened. And without his being wholly dedicated to protecting it, I found I could traverse not only the boundary between physical and spiritual, but the boundary between Kamigawa and other worlds. Strange, new worlds with different rules, different paths to power. While O-Kagachi was not watching, I was able to visit these worlds. What do you think I found there?

Toshi did not like where this was going. “Uhh,” he said.

“Treasure? Enlightenment? New purpose?”

All of those things and more. I found that just as I am worshiped on Kamigawa, so I am on other worlds. They call me by different names and they practice different rites, but every new world I saw ascribed some deeper significance to the darkness that fills half their lives. This knowledge was very … stimulating to me .

Toshi nodded. “So you wanted me to keep O-Kagachi running so you’d have more time to get to know your new followers.”

In a sense, yes. I even harbored notions of making you my chief acolyte on Kamigawa so that I could explore other realms on my own. That was of course before you brought the Taken One to my honden and she treated me so roughly .

“I tried to explain-”

Hush, my acolyte. That is all in the past. What matters now is the future of Kamigawa, a future for which you helped lay the foundation. The sisters mean to change the way magic functions. They will succeed, in time .

“But that isn’t my-”

And when they succeed, I will have to relearn the blessings I can bestow. I will have to grow and adapt and change .

“Change is good,” Toshi said. “Change is life.”

In this case, change is an inconvenience. I preferred Kamigawa as it was, Toshi. And I can never have that again. So, for your part in all this, I am rewarding you thusly: you are no longer in Kamigawa, but in a new world that I recently discovered .

“New … as in empty?”

Not at all. There are billions of people here .

“Billions?”

And billions of other sentient creatures. Magic here is quite different from what you’re used to. I thought it appropriate thatyou should be in the same position you put me in. There is great power here, Toshi, amazing reserves of magical energy. But you cannot access them by prayer or by kanji. Just as I will have to learn a new way, so must you .

“So,” Toshi said, “I’m banished.”

Not banished. Planted. You are a seed, Toshi, and it is my sincere hope that you flower. Every nation should cultivate an Umezawa to keep things from becoming static. To keep those in power from taking it for granted. The landmass you are currently standing on is ruled by a powerful queen who styles herself a goddess. You are my gift to her, to this entire world. A bold and clever man like you will go far … or, he will be killed by someone more powerful and treacherous in the first year. I can’t imagine someone more powerful and treacherous than you on Kamigawa. But this is not Kamigawa .

“I’m starting to appreciate that.”

Before I leave you to your new life, I have one final gift. It would be unfair of me deposit you here with nothing but your natural advantages. I hope you can use this to define yourself, to set yourself apart from the common man .

Goodbye, Toshi Umezawa. Perhaps I shall return to check on your progress someday. When I do, I am sure you will have justified my faith in you .

Toshi decided to say nothing as Night’s presence left him alone on the alien shore. There was no point in antagonizing her. If he left the impression, of being a good little acolyte who took his punishment like a man, she might even remember him fondly. She might find a use for him back on Kamigawa.

No sooner had Night departed than Toshi’s vision began to fade. The image of the sea, and the spires, and the fledgling fruit tree were the last things he saw before darkness obscured all. He turned his face toward the sun and felt its warmth, but he saw nothing but a curtain of unending black.

“Blind,” Toshi said. “Great.” But he felt surprisingly calm. He turned in place until he felt the sea breeze on his back, and then he walked carefully away from the cliff.

He scratched a few kanji into the sandy soil with his finger, but nothing happened. Blind, abandoned, and powerless. He might as well just turn about and run off the cliff at top speed.

The wind shifted then, and the inland breeze caried the rich, loamy scent of a swamp. Not a rotten, toxic cesspool like Numai, but a sweet scent. It was the scent of swamp grass and thick moss, of ferns and clean mulch. In Numai, things rotted without ever rotting away. This new swamp smelled of decay, but it was the decay that broke down dead things into the raw materials living things needed. This swamp was alive, vibrant, part of a larger cycle that fed the entire landscape.

Toshi smiled. This was clearly the new power Night’s Reach had talked about. All he had to do was find his way there and figure out how to tap into it. He might fall in a hole or get bitten by a rabid wolf on the way, but it was a far better plan than running blind off a cliff.

Toshi tilted his head back and sniffed deeply, fixing the healthy swamp smell in his mind so he could stay oriented on it. This wasn’t so daunting a task. First, find the swamp. Then, find a way to use the power there. Then, settle in and build a life that doesn’t revolve around rats, looting, and reckoner gangs.

Toshi took one step toward the swamp. He didn’t stumble, didn’t fall, and didn’t plunge his foot into a hornet’s nest.