War Priest: The Complete Series, page 46
“In the meantime, we do what we have set out to do. Entertain people and gather information. If that involves ale, then so be it.”
He really is serious about this, Arik thought, not quite certain of what it would look like to entertain the general public alongside Hojo. They hadn’t rehearsed anything, even if Meosa had a few ideas. Yet here they were, the trio now on the direct path that led to the outer rim of Moonagwa, its inner grounds protected by an earthen wall fifteen feet high.
Hojo had explained the basic layout of the mountain’s village as they put their makeup on, once again reminding Arik that getting inside the walls of Moonagwa was always a task that required heavy scrutiny, doubly so now that the royal family was there.
But there was always another way in, and they intended to seek that way out.
The settlement became apparent in the form of watchfires, the shadows of the trees and the tangled brush crossing their path. As things grew in illumination, Arik once again heard the telltale marks of civilization, from farm animals to people washing their dishes outside. They were still in a dry region, the night cold, the air thin as they climbed in altitude. Arik’s in-breaths had a harshness to them; it was noticeably harder to fill his lungs with oxygen.
“If anyone talks to you, let me be the one to respond, disciple.”
“Got it,” Arik told Meosa.
Moonagwa itself was built upon a flattened hillock that spanned, at least from what Arik could tell, for well over a mile. The outer rim of the city, all outside of its wall, had been constructed down the slopes of the hill, portions of it separated by ravines and city runoff. He noticed an aqueduct system off to his left, and a haze over Moonagwa blotted out the stars.
Soon enough, they came to a group of people standing outside a pub, listening as a man told a story about a famous master illusionist. “Torugan de Avarga knew he was in trouble,” the fellow said in a high-pitched, almost singsong voice. “Backed into a corner, surrounded by wiry bandits.”
The crowd gasped.
“Yet he wasn’t afraid as he pressed forward with his sword and ran it through the body of a man twice, no, three times his size! A giant of the mountains, of yesteryear, from the Jade Realm’s mythical past!” The storyteller stomped his foot down, affecting the movement of a giant. This startled one of the children seated before the storyteller. “Another came for Torugan, two swords whip fast, yet he knew how to deal with such a weapon, considering he had once trained with a combat master of the notorious Crimson Realm.”
Arik glanced at Hojo, yet he couldn’t get a read on the master illusionist’s face. He tuned back into what the storyteller was saying as the man had moved on to a dramatic reenactment of how Torugan had bested his enemies.
Once the storyteller finished, Hojo approached him, a smile forming on his face. Arik assumed that he would speak directly to the storyteller, but instead Hojo moved right past the man, to the crowd that had already gathered.
“You have never seen something like this,” Hojo said, a graveness to his tone that instantly drew the attention of the dozen or so people that had been listening to the storyteller. “There are things in this world that defy logic, and I am here to show them to you. Would you care to take a look?”
“That’s our cue,” Meosa told Arik. It was light, but he could feel Meosa’s power pushing him forward.
Naturally, or as naturally as he possibly could given the current state of affairs, Arik stepped up behind Hojo.
“I give you my assistant, Bariko. Now, watch carefully as I easily levitate my young assistant!”
Hojo pressed both hands out and clapped them together. As he did, Arik felt movement beneath his feet. He could tell that Meosa was trying to make it look like this wasn’t an easy task to perform, Arik’s knees wobbling as he finally levitated about three feet off the ground.
“How did you do that?” a boy at the front asked, the child quickly hushed by his father, who sat at one of the tables gripping a flagon of ale.
“The mysteries continue.” Hojo raised a single finger over his head, and as he did Arik moved with it. He then lowered the disciple to the ground.
“You are an illusionist,” said the storyteller as the crowd began to clap. “None of this is real!”
“None of this is real, eh? Then watch me take that cap of yours!” With a snap of his fingers, the brimless hat that had been sitting on the man’s head flipped to the ground. It hurried toward Hojo, as if it were being pulled by a rope. The master illusionist placed the cap on his own head, the storyteller with his fists tight at his sides now.
“Who would like a glass of water?”
Hojo approached one of the tables and grabbed an empty flagon. He showed the audience it was indeed empty and touched it with his finger. As he did, it began to fill with liquid. “I’m not finished yet,” he said once the liquid was up to the top. Hojo motioned down to the ground with the flagon and tossed the water into the air. As he did, it formed into the form of a bird before filtering away.
The crowed murmured with appreciation.
“Father, did you see that?” the same young boy asked.
“You, sir, are an illusionist!” the storyteller said, again coming forward. As he did he walked right into a wall of water, the man stepping out on the other side drenched from head to toe. He turned, shocked, the wall of water no longer there.
“Do something,” Meosa told Arik. “Make it look like it was you who made the water.”
“Um, sorry about that,” Arik said, the disciple going for a squeaky pubescent voice, the crowd laughing. “I was wondering where my wall of water went.”
“Disciple, we’re not paying you to be funny even if these morons seem to appreciate your humor!”
“You aren’t paying me,” Arik told Meosa through gritted teeth as he smiled at the crowd, most of whom were still laughing.
The storyteller turned to Arik, about to throw a punch when his mouth filled with water. His neck straightened and then he began gargling the water, spitting out little columns as he did so, a crazed look in his eyes. He dropped to his knees and began coughing, the man bowing at the crowd, making it seem as if he were part of the performance all along.
Of course, Arik knew this wasn’t the case.
It had been Meosa, likely speaking to the man and telling him what he would do if he didn’t obey him.
Now, they had a dilemma once the little performance ended. They would need to deal with the storyteller.
After a few more tricks, culminating in both Hojo and Arik levitating, the master illusionist removed his hat and offered it to the crowd, who quickly filled it up with Jadean sen.
“What… what are you?” the storyteller whispered as Hojo approached him and slipped an arm around his shoulder.
“Come with me, and all will be clear.”
****
Hojo led the storyteller to the far end of the pub. Once they were inside, the master illusionist located an empty booth that was secluded enough that they wouldn’t draw too much attention, one barely lit by a lantern with fogged-over glass. He sat down, the storyteller across from him, and Arik was just about to take a seat next to the storyteller when Hojo handed him some of the money they had received outside.
“Bring us some ale.”
“Sure,” Arik said, not quite sure of what Hojo was trying to do. Hojo now spoke in his normal voice, the storyteller either not noticing it, or not commenting.
“He’s right, you know. You would make a good barmaid,” Meosa told Arik as he approached a pair of men serving up drinks, the kami snickering at his own joke.
“Just… keep quiet.”
The crowd around them was rambunctious, reaching over one another and speaking loudly, which forced Arik to squeeze his way through until he could make it to the front. He ordered three ales, realized he was going to have a problem carrying them with the crowd, and went for it anyway, the disciple nearly spilling one of the drinks onto a man leaning far back in his chair.
“Ah, there you are, Bariko,” Hojo told Arik as he returned with the three flagons of ale. The disciples sat next to the storyteller, who now carried an accusatory look on his face.
“If you think that you’re going to fill me up with drink and I will tell you what I know, that is not the case. After what happened out there? After whatever illusionist magic you used against me? And how… how did you force me to gargle the water? Tell me. I demand to know! I should…” The storyteller turned to Arik, who was blocking his exit.
“No need to leave.” Hojo raised his flagon to the man, who begrudgingly did the same, almost as if it were a local custom to toast when toasted at. They both took a sip from their mugs.
“There? Happy? We’ve made peace, now let me go.”
“Relax, friend,” Hojo said calmly. “You want to know more about us? It’s not as crazy as it may seem. The royal family is in town, and we are in a bit of a conundrum.”
“How so? And again, why should I care? All of us are in a conundrum when they visit. It practically shuts the bloody city down.”
Hojo continued. “We are performers that travel with the royal court. We stayed a day longer in Iga, mostly on the account of my assistant here, who was quite sick.”
“Cough, disciple,” Meosa hissed at Arik.
He did as instructed.
“Well, don’t get me sick,” the storyteller said as he whipped his arm away from Arik.
“I’m not contagious.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Arik merely smiled at him and tilted his head down respectfully.
“Play the role, disciple,” said Meosa. “The supposed illusionist clearly is scheming something up here; you don’t want to ruin it for him.”
“Luckily, an itako fixed Bariko here right up, but somehow, we ended up losing our papers,” Hojo told the storyteller.
“Your papers to get into the city?”
“The royal seal, all of it.” Hojo waved his hand as if it were something he was used to dealing with. “They need to make it easier. Everywhere we travel, we have to bring these papers and they get misplaced from time to time. Especially after a wild night out.”
“A wild night out, eh?” the man said with a knowing grin.
“Women in our realm seem to like magicians, at least the two of us. I’m sure you’ve experienced similar things, my friend.”
“Oh, please,” Meosa said, stifling a laugh. “If this works…”
“Yes, to be honest with you, I have. It’s amazing what someone will do for a flattering story. It truly depends on where I am working, but I have had a few small affairs myself,” the storyteller said as he took a proud sip of his drink. “Maybe a few large ones as well.”
Hojo encouraged him to speak, and soon the storyteller was going into what was clearly a hyperbolized version of something that had once happened to him with a pair of maidens from Katano. Arik never touched his ale, and soon, he ended up passing it to the storyteller, who drank it readily as he continued his tale.
After another couple of rounds, Hojo had the storyteller right where he wanted him. The master illusionist circled back around to his original question, getting into the city now that they didn’t have the correct paperwork.
“Look,” the storyteller said as he hunched forward, the man’s long mustache tracing across the top of his fresh flagon, “if you want to know a way into Moonagwa, I know of something that has worked in the past.” He hiccuped. “There’s this tunnel that runs beneath the city to the east that exits in an abandoned storehouse. It used to be for a variety of things, from certain types of entertainment for royal guests to troop movement just in case the city was ever attacked by the Crimson Realm. They keep the tunnel open, but most people don’t know about it. I’ve used it myself once or twice to get in to see an old friend of mine. Heh, let’s call them that.”
“Are there guards?” Arik asked before switching to his fabricated voice. “I mean, are there guards there?”
“There used to be guards and dogs, but they stopped with the canine patrols after one of them attacked a teenage girl who was sneaking out to meet her lover. It was gruesome. I remember that. Saw the body myself…” A haze fell over the man’s eyes. “Where was I?”
“We were just toasting,” Hojo said as he lifted his ale.
They toasted, and the storyteller finished his drink in a single gulp. He belched loudly and placed both arms on the table as he slowly lowered his head down. “Wouldn’t mind a little… little rest…”
“Let’s go,” Hojo told Arik. They left the pub and turned in the direction of the earthen walls that protected the Moonagwa. Once they were outside, Hojo stepped into the darkness and forced himself to vomit.
“The alcohol. I don’t need it in my system.”
“It is already in your system,” Meosa told the master illusionist.
“Less of it is now.”
“Before we go,” Arik said as Hojo began to turn to the east, “why didn’t you just use Chimaura? Why go to the trouble of getting him drunk to get information from him?”
“To show you something. Remember our discussion yesterday?” Hojo asked as he wiped his mouth. Arik could still smell the alcohol on him. “That man, the storyteller, is a perfect example of someone you would want to cultivate to become a local spy. He knows his way around, he’s social, and he likes to gossip.”
“You act like you didn’t goad him into telling you what you needed to know…”
“That is part of the process, kami. At least initially. But once you have the information you need, you also have control. If we did something like slip into the city and kill the royal family, we could always visit the storyteller and remind him that he was the one that revealed the passageway to us. We could extort more information in this manner.”
Meosa scoffed at this suggestion. “Ruthless shinobi.”
“We have been called worse.”
“But why not just use your power to get the information? That’s what I’m asking. If I was wounded, I would heal myself.”
“If you were wounded…” Hojo grinned at Arik. “Heal me. I can still feel the effects of the alcohol.”
“Answer me first.”
“Chimaura isn’t the power that one uses lightly. There is a method to it, and a madness that comes with overdoing it. We don’t need to get into that conversation for the time being, but the entire point of knowing how to use Chimaura, as I have said in different ways before, is to not have to use it, to use your own cunning in its place. That’s why it is different than Revivaura and Thunderaura. Is that a good enough explanation for you?”
Arik nodded. Hojo extended his arm to him and he placed his hand on it; the feeling of intoxication came to the disciple and quickly subsided due to his natural power.
“There, that’s better.” Hojo procured a cloth from the inner pocket of his robes. He used it to smear the makeup on his face, and handed it off to Arik once he was finished. “Clean up a little, and remember, once we are inside, we will continue to be weaponless so don’t push us into a situation where we may regret this. But we should be fine by that point. We get inside the walls, we stay somewhere out of sight, and tomorrow, we visit the itako.”
.Chapter Six.
“Defeat yesterday’s version of yourself for a brighter tomorrow.”
–A quote from Combat Master Jurstrom Yinzo, as told to a group of incoming blades at the Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts, Year 787.
Hojo threaded through the outer districts of Moonagwa, something entirely fluid about the way he traveled. The more Arik watched him, the more he felt like the master illusionist had tuned himself to reality as if existence itself were an instrument, Hojo always one to stop at the right moment, avoiding detection, folding naturally in the landscape as they navigated densely packed living quarters.
It was a remarkable thing to watch.
He tried to mirror his movements, but he didn’t have the fluidity of a master illusionist. Arik nearly tripped on his feet as Hojo glided around a set of stone steps, effortlessly moving to the top of a wall made of stone and dropping down on the other side.
Arik caught up with Hojo, Meosa laughing in his head.
“You have the grace of an aging yamachichi,” said the aqueous kami, referring to yet another yokai that Arik had never heard of.
Arik grimaced and continued on, Hojo light on his feet as always as he stepped over a small trickle of foul-smelling water running from an outhouse. It was as if he had come to the area before and mapped everything out, moving like this was some kind of dance that he had performed a thousand times.
This is Chimaura as well, Arik thought as he watched the master illusionist seemingly float through reality.
A door started to open and Hojo was already stepping around it, his arm extending toward Arik and pulling him toward him just in time. A pig waddled out to their pathway and he glided past it, the swine just lifting his nostrils to the air once Hojo was gone. A creaking sound signaled that a window had opened. A young girl looked out; Hojo bent backward to avoid the arc of light that followed, once again averting detection.
It’s like he’s accurately predicting everything before it happens.
