Scott McGough: Heretic, Betrayers of Kamigawa

“Hello,” he said. He continued to stir his stew.

It is time, my acolyte. Are you prepared?

“I am. But first … you are adamant that this is necessary?”

I am. Your loyalty is a fickle, malleable thing. I would have you simplify your entanglements and clarify your dedication to me .

“I am your humble servant.”

Servant, perhaps, but never humble. You may begin whenever you are ready .

Toshi left the spoon in the stew pot. Still not looking at the myojin, he rubbed his left wrist. He gazed into the fire, past it, and far beyond. Then he moved the stew pot to the cave floor and slid forward onto his knees.

His hand moved up to the kanji cut into his forearm. He closed his eyes and faded from sight. Still in the same position, Toshi extended his left hand into the fire. He rotated his wrist so that the back of his hand was directly over the flames. Slowly, bit by bit, Toshi willed himself solid.

He had been rubbing the hyozan tattoo on his hand with special oils and extracts for hours, chanting softly as he worked. He was real enough to be burned by the fire, but it caressed his hand rather than consuming it, the flame flowing around his skin without ever touching.

Toshi stopped reforming himself and started to fade once more. He could still see his hand in the fire, but the flames flickered through it without resistance. Toshi waited until a single tall flame danced steadily through the center of his palm. He began chanting again and with agonizing precision, slowly drew his hand out of the fire.

The hyozan tattoo seemed to snag on the tall spike of flame. Toshi eased his progress but kept pulling his hand away. The tattoo pulled free of his flesh, clinging like a scab as it detached from his hand.

Clean, unmarked, and unburned, Toshi pulled his hand away. In the crackling fire, the hyozan tattoo fluttered like a flag on a pole. The symbol caught fire, withered, and disappeared up through a hole in the roof with the rest of the smoke.

Well done, my acolyte. Now our real work can begin in earnest .

Toshi looked up at the wide curtain of black behind the white mask. In it, he saw visions, glimpses of things that were true or could soon be true.

He saw Konda leading an army of twisted ghosts to the edge of the Kamitaki Falls.

He saw soratami warriors in chariots, raining magic and destruction down on the Jukai Forest.

He saw a vast field of dead soldiers and bandits, each frozen solid with a look of mortal dread on their faces.

He saw the All-Consuming Oni of Chaos and O-Kagachi clashing in the sky under a crescent moon.

He saw himself, trapped between Kiku with her camellia on one side and Hidetsugu with his spiked tetsubo on the other.

And he saw Michiko, her eyes bright and terrible, as she raised her father’s prize high overhead with both hands, preparing to dash it to the ground. There was blood on her hands and tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” Toshi said out loud. He was free of the reckoners for the first time since his teens. He had earned the personal enmity of the daimyo and re-earned the personal trust of the princess. A primordial beast had come to destroy the world, provided an ancient oni didn’t devour it first. And he was an open and declared enemy of both the soratami and their patron spirit.

He turned to the white mask, once more rubbing the back of his left hand.

“Yes,” he said again. “Now our real work can begin.”

As the Myojin of Night’s Reach withdrew back into herself, Toshi wondered exactly what work she had in mind. He wondered how vastly her plans differed from his.