A Myriad of Oddities

The first thing I register is a murmur of familiar voices. The second thing an equally familiar sharp peck to the forehead.

“Hey! If ya go evil and try to kill us again I’m gonna slice you up!”

Ah, there’s Sels. For a brief moment I expect her to be larger before my current reality folds itself around me again with the sight of a equally younger Meil past her, watching me with far too many care lines stressing her eyes, a teabowl in her hands. Sister seems to be somewhere further out of sight, as well.

“Hmm.” I close my eyes again. “I don’t feel particularly evil right now.”

“Great.” She pecks me again for good measure. “Cos that was spooky.”

“I’m sorry. Caught me off guard, it seems.”

“How do you feel?” Meil asks, her tone maintaining a clinical distance.

“Mmf.” I’d like to pass out again. “Apologetic. Sister well?”

“It wasn’t deep. Fortunately.” The sound of a delicate sip of tea seems somewhat deliberate. “It heartens me to hear you inquire after my good health, brother dear.”

I huff a laugh, sharply ironic smile cutting my lips. Ever the mistress of returning tit for tat. “Equally heartened to hear that, dear sister.”

Killing her as things stand now would be quite unfortunate for the both of us. I doubt she knows how to anchor the chain yet—who knows where or when I’d wind up. Knowing my luck, it would be back at Devil’s Mouth rather than yester-morning.

“Okay, yeah, great, so you’re extra cursed or something?”

I crack an eye open at Seelis. “No, just cursed.”

“Yeah?” She winds up for another peck. “So what was with all the wrapping us up in your freaky blood magic and freaking us out, huh? Sister-princess here says she had to cleanse you or somethin’. Of extra curse.”

“Eviscence. Evil essence.” I rub between my eyes, bumping into the mask’s edge before I remember it’s there. “We have spirit essence, and a frission has evil essence.”

“Duh.”

I exhale a twitch of a smile. “I’m marked by Noruaas, I have a form of it attached permanently to me. Which makes me more susceptible to its use. It can... it does strange things.”

“Like turn ya into a devil?”

“No.”

“Ya sure?”

“Yes.”

“You sound like this has happened before,” Meil says, something in her voice, a cold kind of suspicion that says I’m not being careful enough with how I put things. I blame the fatigue. “How could you possibly know it wouldn’t do that? That sounds like what it was after.”

“It wanted to weaken the chain and kill me.” I regard the ceiling. “That’s what it would do. If I was overcome with eviscence, I would die and Noruaas would inhabit my corpse and displace my spirit. That’s how it works.”

“Is it,” sister murmurs.

I close my eyes. “My deepest apologies for the trouble I caused. You should room with Meil, Sels.”

“No way. Ya only woke up cos I slapped you awake! You had weird gunky stuff on your neck and you were twitchin’ in your sleep—if I didn’t wake ya, that thing would’ve shoved your spirit out and we’d be fighting evil undead Lonni Dyste!”

“The guardian has a guardian-goose,” sister comments. “How fitting.”

Every good guard-dog needs a guard-goose. “You shouldn’t even be here. The chain woke you?”

“Fortunately for you.”

“Eternally grateful.” I roll over on my futon, someone having thoughtfully lugged me onto it. “Now fix the hole you put in my wall and go back to the palace. We all need sleep.”

Ξ-Ξϟ†ϟΞ-Ξ

“You need more than miso.”

I steadfastly ignore Meil’s eyes boring into my skull.

“I know you’re planning to go after that immissure. You won’t get far on a week’s worth of broth and one decent meal from the night before. Especially not after a month of barely clinging to life at all.” Chopsticks attempt to stab me. “You. Need. More. Substance.”

The little child refuses to listen to his mother and continues sipping his flavoured water around said substance without comment.

“If you’re chasin’ it you gotta bring me!”

“And if you’re going to have her along, you’ll need enough oomph to keep up.”

I’m hardly going to get anywhere if there’s enough in my delicate stomach for it to rebel at any moment. “And who said she was coming?”

“Hey, you need somebody to stop ya goin’ evil! I can slice any weird black stuff with my super-yell real easy.”

“Just as you did last night, yes. A brilliant strategy.”

My knee winds up the victim of a harsh peck this time. “I was aboutta but then ya tried to slice my head off!”

“I apologise. Warrior’s reflexes.” Really, she’s taking all of this better than I thought she would. I was expecting that suspicious wariness from the dim light of last night to last for days, not for her to crash into all of this headfirst.

And I thought the Sels I knew was fearless. This little goose is impetuous enough to get herself killed. I clearly can’t trust her to have any self-preservation—she’ll treat a real fight with a frission like it’s a game right up until she gets burnt.

But knowing her, she’d still find a way to follow me if I didn’t bring her.

I set down my bowl and rise, turning to pick up Atsukute. “Come, then.”

I find Yoive shuffling about in the main room as Sels scrambles to follow me, leaving Meil muttering under her breath. The old man smiles, twisting his hands. “Ah, master! Going out, yes? Well good luck, good luck, indeed. Should I perhaps let the mistress know where you’ve gone? Just in case, mm.”

“Just in town. She’ll know where to find me.”

In the light of day, the wild yet carefully-curated grounds outside the old guardians’ quarters are far more vibrant than they were in any time I spent here, the sunlight fading patchily through the clouds to glint on wet leaves and stone path. As a boy, I saw it often from the palace, half-hidden among bamboo and fool’s pine, but was never allowed to explore it.

Not that it ever stopped me. The gryphon who used to guard it was surprisingly nice, if almost as odd as Yoive. Still, trees have grown since that distant time, the ancient sparring/meditation grounds unused to human eyes and hiding shyly from view, just like our devil and its trail.

In contrast, the city is lively and loud, the noise filtering up the winding cliff road under the creak of borrowed wagon wheels until it shakes every hapless visitor by the cheeks. An energetic child compared to the wheezing, aged monarch bowed under disease and disaster that I know.

Ah, Nachisi, to see you in the prime of your beauty again....

“Er, my lord,” the hesitant voice of the cart-driver calls after me as I abandon the wagon, “should I take you back on your return...?”

“No, carry on as you were.” I wave over my shoulder. “And call me ‘guardian’, I’m no lord.”

“Ya act like it,” Sels puffs, scampering to catch up and nearly tripping a stocky man carrying a loaded basket with a “whoop, careful there!”. “Eesh, there’s a lotta people in this place.”

“Indeed there are.”

Many of them turn as I stride past, idle eyes twitching up and taking notice. These clothes aren’t the blinding white of a noble, or stitched in Imperial airs—rather the more familiar dark attire of a guardian, if still somewhat stiffer than I’m used to. They bring little attention, but the white half-mask is immediately recognisable.

“So... somebody here’s a devil in disguise?”

“Maybe.” I catch snatches of whispers like flotsam in my wake. “If we’re lucky.”

“Cool! Y’know, I’ve never seen one. They really just like real ugly humans? Cos you’re already kinda ugly.”

“Seeing an immissure isn’t ‘cool’. If you do see one, it usually means an invasion is coming.” Now which street was it...? “They can go where fissure beasts can’t, stray further and for longer—even live alongside us, if they can manage to be discreet about feeding. They won’t pass a hard glance, but they can skulk around easily enough.”

“Wait, what d’they eat?”

“Blood.”

Aha, this is familiar. Down a crooked street along the backs of more reputable businesses, I find the meanderers perusing herb shacks and winehouses, a few four-legged, with flicking feathered ears and twitching tails. All of them watch us.

“Oh. Yeah, I knew that. Shoulda said drink. Wait, can you do tha—?”

I clear my throat, pushing through a veil of tinkling beads. “A good morning to you and yours.”

Clad in a pink kimono-dress, not a bend in her spine to be found, the tiny old lady kneeling in the middle of a jungle of herbs and knick-knacks smiles up at me, eyes crinkled closed. “Ah, a strong young man and a gryphon child. A strange pair in my humble shop.”

A trio of squirming rascals tumbling from the rafters, fledging wings flapping wildly as they squawk and nip at each other, somewhat refutes that. “Do no young men come to visit such a beauty as yourself, Madam Kasanma?”

“Who the hells are these guys?! Thought ya said there’re no gryphon kids in this place!”

I lift an eyebrow back at Seelis, currently using my leg as a shield against the curious chaos attempting to bowl her over. “Careful, you might get adopted.”

“Wha-huh?!”

“Such a flatterer you are,” Madam Kasanma chuckles, “but I’m afraid I’ve never met you before. How does the former prince-heir of the Sunset Empire come to know of an old woman selling herbs?”

“Through a hot-tempered young woman she used to teach, mainly.”

“Ah yes, Meilan took part in that ill-fated gaggle of warriors.” She rises slowly, eyes still closed, smiling up at me. “But she didn’t tell you where to find me. You knew it yourself.”

“Did the sureness of my footsteps tell you that, madam?”

“Hmmm.” Her smile widens, laughter lines crinkling as she pats my arm and shuffles through the chaos. “Come come, I’m very curious—what a puzzle you are. Mei always spoke of a young man’s taste for strong green tea, and I have some fresh rice cakes, just cooling.”

As I move to follow, Sels claws up onto my shoulder—the bad one—fluffed-up and tail-lashing. “Hey, go maul somebody else!”

“Other side.” I glance down at three pairs of sad beady eyes, pushing Sels to the other shoulder. “There aren’t many closer to their age here. Try and humour them.”

“Hey! I ain’t a chick! I’m fourteen!”

As soon as I sit in Kasanma’s humble kitchen/lounge—also overgrown—they’re back to pawing at her, churring innocently. “Have you noticed any fissure activity in Nachisi lately, madam?”

“Ah, I wondered if you might be here for something like that.” She settles the pot on the hearth between us, tame white-blue embers glowing. “Strangely, only recently have I heard the whispers of unease. Strange figures in the night, rumours of a chill from the mountains to the northeast.”

“More than one?”

“Rumour tends to multiply. Who can say but those who know?”

I can’t see Ilempo trying an assassination with only one if he has more. “Any idea where it might be?”

“An immissure of the devil moves swiftly and hides to lick its wounds. Somewhere in the forests would be my guess.” She pours two steaming bowls, spooning in the strong concoction. “Its shadow seems to have left the city.”

My younger self’s love for the darkest teas continue to haunt me. “Hm.”

What trail there was lead along the river and disappeared down the cliff by the waterfall. My best chance of tracing it in that case might have to be trekking all along the base to find a sign.... I was hoping it would be in town. Seems Ilempo agrees that this city isn’t so easy to hide in. “No one saw anything last night?”

“Not in the squalls that passed us over."

Well then. I sigh, Sels squawking and hissing at the gryphon children in a fierce threat display finally dislodging them, just in time for their much larger father to come stomping in.

“Oi, get off the guests!”

I sip at my practically black-green tea, ignoring the flapping of goose wings, rebellious peeping, and rumbling hawk-bear towering over everything and everyone squeezed into the tiny space. “In any case, if you could keep an eye out and let me know of any sightings, I would appreciate it, honoured madam.”