The Three Faces

Sixteen Years Ago

The silence in the private room was palpable, and he could swear he was looking into the past as the young girl stared at him, her chest heaving with panted gasps. The whores had stopped screeching finally. They and the other men were all pressed against the walls of their tea room. Not all of the other men, but enough of them to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"Who are you?" Faderen asked. The underworld boss (he wasn't quite sure which cartel he'd sold his soul to, but then it didn't really matter, did it?) was one of the few who hadn't cowered at the girl's entrance. He glanced down: the guards were still alive, but unconscious. The girl said nothing in return, which made Faderen angry. She tossed her head, throwing a dirty mane of black hair behind her shoulder and out of her face. "You'd do well to stop ignoring me, and speak when I ask you a question."

She fixed her eyes on the crime lord, still quiet. Her loose clothing shifted on her thin frame, but was well tightened at the key spots to keep it from hindering her movement. It was nondescript, even for this area. She wore breast bindings underneath, which more than anything made her look like an effeminate adolescent boy. Her breathing had evened out some. Faderen looked somewhat intimidated. He snorted, drawing those inky black eyes to him. He remained in his reclined position, his tumbler of wine gripped lightly in his hand. He took a drink, and smacked his lips in appreciation. Despite his pretensions to class and power, Faderen did have a good eye for alcohol.

She stared at him, her eyes glinting like a starry night sky. His eyebrow raised. It had been a while since he'd seen anyone from his backwater of a homeworld.

The room had fallen silent, and a few had even seemed to stop breathing.

"You are Onashi Serasai?" she asked in heavily accented Basic.

"I am," he answered. She took a deep breath in through her nose, and gripped the blaster and blade in her hands tightly. She then drew herself into a tight stance, her feet evenly spaced beneath her.

She stalked forward, and stopped only a few paces from where he sat.

"My name is Onashi Hanza," she said, and dropped into a supplicating position on the floor. "You are my honored father. I bring news of my mother's death, and the seizure of our lands and my brother by Honored Grandfather. I beg you, Honored Father, to come with me and restore to us our lands, our home."

He took another deep drink of his wine, finishing off the glass and set it on the table nearby. He leaned forward and said nothing for a time, causing the girl, Hanza, to look up at him.

"Please, Honored Father," she said again.

"She's dead, eh?" he asked, his voice clear and without tremor. "Shame."

Hanza looked down at the floor, her fists clenching over her weapons.

"No," he said. She shot up from kissing the floor and looked at him in consternation. He smirked. "Nah. Pop's an old geezer by now. He might have been a tough fight a while back, but he's probably a breath away from dying himself."

"But, Honored Father!" Hanza said. Serasai Onashi shook his head.

"I may have helped make you, girl," he said, "but I am not your 'Honored Father'. So go home, and deal with Pops yourself."

Her face twisted. He felt a twinge, a memory of a fiery young girl beneath a plum tree challenging him to a race through the orchard.

"I challenge you," she whispered, her breath deepening. He smiled.

"I accept."

Thirty Five Years Ago

The mountain loomed high above him; dark clouds swirled and rumbled ominously in the sky near the peak.

"Oho, now that doesn't look good," he murmured. "That doesn't look good at all."

"Master Mikon, slow down!" a voice called from behind. "Wait for me!"

"Usually it is I who ask you to slow!" Mikon called back. His disciple staggered up, puffing and gasping and leaning heavily on the walking stick he'd taken from the shrine when they'd left. "What happened to your famed stamina, Imio-ku?"

He smiled at him and slapped the young man's back where it was not completely covered by their traveling gear.

Imio glared at him, which only made the old shrine-master smile wider. The glare faded away at the sight of the imposing mountain.

"Do you really think there's a spirit here, Master?" he asked.

"Well, something's happening here, for sure," the old man said, turning to regard the massive spire of stone as well. "One does not see phenomena like this often, no you don't. Spirit? Maybe, maybe. But the balance of the area is most certainly gone."

"How can you tell?" Imio asked. The old man closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

"It is a sense. A feeling one can intuit..." he said slowly. Imiyo looked around and closed his eyes as well. Mikon then smacked Imio over the head. "Look around you boy! Do you think the clouds would be so troubled and yet not rain down if they were in balance? Or the desolation of the area? Oh, the poor fortune of this old man, to have such a half-wit for a student!"

"I'd probably be able to understand this better if you stopped teaching in riddles, you senile old goat," Imio grumbled while rubbing the spot where Mikon's bony hand had smacked him.

"Eh? What was that? You should really stop mumbling all the time, Imio-ku, you know I'm an old man, all the hair in my ears keeps me from hearing as well as I did in my youth."

Imio snorted.

"I don't hear any goats though, so I must have been mistaken," the shrine-master continued. Imio gulped and hurried along, the short break enough to have got his breath back. Mikon grinned and trundled along behind, his walking stick jangling brightly due to the rings hanging from the hoop on top. He took another deep breath, noting that the air felt heavy in his nose, like the wind before a sea-storm. He pondered this and the looming feeling of dismay and anger coursing through him that was most definitely not his own. It felt tired though, as if it were the hatred of a dream.

He was deep enough in those thoughts that he nearly walked into his student, who'd stopped for some reason right in the middle of the road. He grunted loudly and moved to go around the admittedly large man.

"Well boy? What is it? I hope there is something, because my disappointment will have reached a point that cannot be superseded if I learn that you stopped in the middle of the road for no reason—"

He stopped, lost for words.

"Master," Imio breathed.

Before them was a battlefield; one of a kind that Mikon had not seen since his younger days. Dead men lay in the road and long its sides, some from blaster fire, but most from sword-wounds. A camp was visible to the side of the road, but no sound or sign of life was there.

"Must have been here for some time, but not longer than a week, I dare say," Mikon hummed. Imio glanced at him in surprise. "The smell, boy. Some of them are still bloated, too. They haven't yet burst."

The large shrine-keeper in training grimaced, but said nothing.

"Very dashing these men must have been when they were alive," Mikon noted while looking at the as yet only lightly faded banners that had somehow remained standing. "But they all wear the same sigil. I wonder what could have made them fall upon each other like this?"

Imio glanced around quickly. "Do you think it might be the Spirit of the Mountain? The one we heard about in that song?"

Mikon hummed again, and started picking his way through the maze of dead bodies.

"Ah, ah, you are dead, you are dead," he half-sang. "Go along, do not stay, for you cannot breathe again."

Imio remained silent while he followed him, and stopped only when the old man stopped.

"We must burn them. There is a sadness here, a haze. It must be cleared."

Imio looked at the dozens of dead men. He wondered what had brought them here, and why they had all died fighting each other when they were obviously retainers to the same lord. But he thought he could feel the same thing Master Mikon felt; that whatever had caused them to kill each other had been something of a madness, which had robbed them of their reason. The idea made his skin prickle, and the thought of cleansing the remaining miasma of their deaths with fire was a welcome one, though he knew the smell would probably make him retch.

Nevertheless, he dropped the traveling pack he carried and set to the task.