Promises
By Rich Wulf

Nine Years Ago…

Eiji smiled faintly as he watched a small army of his servants descend upon his new home. They scurried into and out of the house, carrying furniture and bags of Eiji’s possessions and carting away what was already inside. The young courtier admired the ugly furniture and rude, tasteless works of art as they were removed from his property. They were memories of the past that would not be missed.

“Why, Eiji?” said a soft voice beside him.

Eiji looked down at the small old woman. Her fine silken dress was pure white, as it had been since his father’s death. Her mask was a simple veil. “Mother, you should not be about,” he said, offering his arm to steady her as she hobbled toward him. “You are not well.”

“I am old and feeble but you are the one who is diseased,” she hissed, drawing away from him. “Ippei was your brother, Eiji.”

“And he will be missed,” Eiji replied sincerely, a tone he had been practicing over the last few weeks.

Eiji’s mother scowled behind her veil. “You can lie to your superiors,” she replied in a low voice. “You can lie to your servants, but you cannot lie to me. You have always envied Ippei, that he inherited so much and you inherited so little. You caused this.”

“Ippei was slain by the Steel Chrysanthemum’s armies,” Eiji said with a chuckle. “Surely you do not blame me for that, mother.”

“You are the Emperor’s recruiter,” she answered. “Ippei was no warrior. He had assurances from the Seppun that he would not be called to duty.”

“A samurai’s life is duty,” Eiji said sternly. “We must all be prepared to die, when duty commands it.”

The old woman’s face fell. She shook her head sadly. “He loved you Eiji. He knew what you were and he loved you nonetheless.”

“Then he should have done better justice to father’s legacy,” Eiji snapped. “I assure you, mother, the inheritance is better off in my hands.”

“Where did I fail, Eiji?” she asked with a deep sigh. “Why are you such a wicked man?”

“Trite as this may sound, it is a wicked world, mother,” Eiji replied, “and in a world such as this only men such as myself thrive.”

Eiji’s mother said nothing, only looked at him for a long time. Eiji stared back blandly, uncertain what she wished of him. Probably some shadow of remorse, some regret over having assigned his brother to the front lines of battle. None were forthcoming. After a while, she went away and left him to his thoughts.

* * * * *

Eiji stood in the street, looking up at the house that had once been his brother’s. The building stood quiet now, blanketed in white by the first snowfall of the season. Though he was dressed only in a in a light silken robe and his black scorpion half-mask, the cold did not bother him. He simply stood in the street, arms folded in his sleeves, and waited.

The doors of the house opened, and a young woman stepped out onto the steps. She was small, delicate, and perfect, like the snowflakes that fell around them. Kiyo, his wife, his Snowflake. He felt a chill upon his face, and realized after a moment that his tears had frozen there. Kiyo looked down at Eiji, her face a mix of expression and concern. He smiled in return.

Down the street, he could hear the sound of hoofbeats approaching.

* * * * *

One Year Ago…

The blizzard swirled mercilessly him, a mad pattern of pain and chaos. Eiji trudged forward, clutching the heavy cloak around his shoulders. He had laughed, last spring, when Ide Michisuna had given him the rude fur cloak as a gift. Now he blessed the Unicorn in the name of every Fortune he could recall. It was the only thing he had recovered from his luggage after he had become separated from his guides and, for the moment, it had saved his life.

He stumbled forward in a daze, unable to feel anything below his knees. The dull thud of the earth on his feet was nothing more than a sound, as if it were happening to someone else. The cold air burned his lungs, clawing at them like some wild beast. Eiji ignored the pain and moved on. He knew the worst thing he could do would be to stop, to sit still, to let the storm claim him.

No. He had defeated worse challenges than this. He would press on. He would survive. He would not be undone by some random act of nature. Only miles from Kyuden Doji, where he was to spend the winter as ambassador to the Crane, the storm had struck. Eiji had spent too long making preparations, and now he had paid the price. Winter in Rokugan was no time for travel. If he did not reach the castle soon, he would die, simple as that.

The wind kicked up around him, blinding him in a swirl of sparkling white particles. He would have been taken aback by the beauty were he not so terrified and exhausted. The wind shrieked in his ears, and somewhere in the noise he thought he heard his brother’s voice.

“Eiji…”

“Hello?” he whispered, looking all around him in fear. He had heard legends that the forests near Kyuden Doji were haunted by all manner of spirits. His teeth began to chatter in his head, both from terror and the cold. He searched for any sign of the voice, but heard nothing but the storm.

Eiji fell to his knees, his strength draining. Memories flooded through him, memories of growing up beside his brother. He remembered the days before they were samurai, when Ippei had been his closest friend. He remembered the days after. Eiji had become consumed with study, with perfecting the arts of politics and manipulation. Ippei worked for nothing - he was always popular and loved. Eiji had come to hate his older brother. After his father had died, he had destroyed his brother, as surely as if he had been fighting in the Steel Chrysanthemum’s armies.

For the first time in his life, Eiji felt remorse for what he had done. He buried his face in his hands and began to sob, the tears freezing on his face and shattering on the wind as the storm took them. He no longer wished to keep moving. He no longer wished to survive. He only wished to suffer for what he had done to his brother.

“Ippei…” he whispered. “I am sorry.”

“Who is Ippei?” asked a quiet voice.

Eiji opened his eyes and looked up. The sight before him was the most beautiful he had ever seen. A young woman, with coal black hair to her waist and sparkling green eyes. Her skin was fine and flawless, and though she was dressed in a simple peasant’s garments, Eiji was stunned by her gentle smile and caring eyes.

“The blizzard,” Eiji mumbled, looking up at the girl in alarm. “Take this or you will die.” He rose to his feet quickly, somehow finding the strength. He pulled the cloak from his shoulders and wrapped it around her small body.

“I am not cold,” she said, looking up at him with a small grin.

Eiji looked into her eyes. There was something there, something inexplicable and depthless. As she handed him back his cloak, he felt the cold wash away. Feeling returned to his fingers and legs, as if he were sitting beside a warm fire. He only stared at her in dumb silence.

“You seek Kyuden Doji,” she said with prim confidence. “Follow me, I will show you the way.” She took his hand and led him along as she would a child. He followed along obediently; it seemed the thing to do.

“What are you?” he asked after a time, the pain and grief of only minutes before now replace by curiosity.

“What kind of question is that?” she asked, looking back with a bright laugh. “What do you think I am?”

“I think that you are a spirit,” he said. “I think that you have taken me into these woods never to be seen again.” He smiled at her. “And I do not think I mind.”

She laughed again. “You are half right, samurai,” she said. “I am a spirit, but I am taking you to Kyuden Doji, where you will be safe.”

“What manner of spirit are you?” he asked, his voice still tinged with awe.

“Why do you ask?” she asked impishly. “Do you think I am an oni, perhaps?”
“If oni were so lovely I think all the Empire would be corrupted,” he said.

She rolled her eyes at him. “I am a kitsune,” she said. “A fox spirit. I am named Snowflake.”

“Snowflake,” Eiji replied with a laugh.

She frowned.

“I do not mean offense,” he said. “The name suits you. I would call you by no other.”

She grinned again.

“I am Eiji,” he added, “and I thank you for saving my life.”

“You are fortunate, Eiji,” she said. “I have watched your world for a long time, always curious but never daring to step through the passages to the mortal realm. This was the first night the Lady of the Forest allowed me to take my taboos and enter Rokugan.”

“Then the Lady has my thanks as well,” Eiji said with honest gratitude. He noticed that the blizzard had died down considerably, and they know walked with ease over an even path through the forest. “What is a taboo?”

Snowflake smiled. “What is the wind?” she asked. “What is truth. Taboos just are. I have taken three. They are promises my kind must take to bind our spirits and keep them safe, lest your world corrupt us.”

“Much as a samurai might carry jade in the Shadowlands?” Eiji replied.

“What are the Shadowlands?” Snowflake answered.

“A question best left unanswered,” Eiji replied. “So what are these promises you have taken, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

“Are you always so curious about those you have just met, Eiji?” she asked.

“All the beautiful forest spirits I meet, yes,” he replied.

She laughed at him again, leaping nimbly onto a fallen long and reaching down to help him over. He climbed up with some difficulty, surprised by her strength as she helped him up. When he finally stood atop it, he had moved very close to Snowflake. He could feel the heat from her body through the distant cold of the blizzard. She looked up at him with a fearless, caring smile, innocent and perfect.

“I promised never to let a shugenja’s elemental magic touch me,” she said, dropping down from the log and scampering off down the path ahead. “And I promised to answer every question with a question.”

“Every question?” Eiji asked, climbing down to follow her.

“What do you think?” she asked, looking back with a giggle.

“And what is the third promise you made?” he asked. He caught a flicker of movement from one eye, a silver fox darting deeper into the forest.

Snowflake’s eyes followed the fox, then looked up into Eiji’s. Behind her, the storm parted. The snow ceased to fall. Kyuden Doji stood in the center of a broad white plain, overlooking the vast sea.

“Can I trust you with that promise?” she asked. “The third lies closest to my heart.”

“Then wait till I have earned that trust,” he said.

“I may not see you again, Eiji,” she said. “I am a spirit, I wander as I will.”

“Then come with me,” Eiji said, taking her hand impulsively. “I will show you this world you have watched for so long. I will teach you everything you would wish to know.”

Snowflake’s green eyes widened in fear, surprise, and curiosity. She looked at the sapphire spires of Kyuden Doji shining in the distance, then looked back at Eiji. “Will there be no questions?” she asked. “Will no one wonder from whence I came?”

Eiji smiled shyly. “Not if you are my wife, Snowflake” he said. “None would dare question me.” Eiji realized, distantly, that he had just offered to dispose of one of his greatest political assets. Marriages in Rokugan, especially those of high-ranking courtiers like himself, were all pieces in a great game - tools used to maneuver and maintain alliances. At this moment, he did not care. Nothing mattered to him quite so much as to make certain that this girl did not vanish from his life forever.

Snowflake looked back at the castle again, the distant and mysterious center of the human world she had watched for so long. She looked back at Eiji, her eyes trailing momentarily over the cloak that he had given her.

“You must marry me, Snowflake,” he said, holding both her small hands in his. “I did not ask a question, so that you would be able to answer.”

She looked into his eyes. “Promise me you will never tell them what I am,” she said. “Promise me, or I will vanish like the storm.”

“I promise,” Eiji said, and never before had he been more sincere.

* * * * *

Snowflake walked toward him slowly, still frowning up at him. In one hand she held a small porcelain mask painted in bright colors, the mask she had carried and sometimes wore in the custom of Eiji’s clan. The Scorpion Clan were the masters of secrets and deceit - how ironic it was to Eiji that the purest of them all had the darkest secret.

In the distance, the hoofbeats grew louder.

“What is happening, Eiji?” she asked. “Who is coming?”

“Why did you do it, Snowflake?” he asked in a sad voice. “Why did you save me in the forest a year ago? Why not leave me to my fate?”

“Why have you stolen my trick?” she asked with a small laugh. “I am the one who answers questions with questions.”

“You never told me why you saved me,” he said. “Your kind fears humans. Why risk yourself to save one?”

She looked up at him sadly, as if you disappointed by his words. “You never knew?” she replied. “I saved you for the same reason I have always stood with you. Because you were kind.” She held one small hand out to him.

“I am not a kind man, Snowflake,” he said, not taking her hand. “You do not know me as you think you do.”

“I know the part that counts,” she said.

Down the street a pack of horses galloped into view, all bearing the proud mons of Bayushi Sunetra. Eiji stepped away from Snowflake and looked up to meet them. Snowflake looked up at him with confused, soulful eyes, then looked toward the riders.

* * * * *

Ten Months Ago…

The air was still thick with the smell of soot and flames. The Dark Lord’s armies had marched upon Otosan Uchi, and the defenders of Rokugan had been unprepared. The horde had been beaten back, for now, but only at great cost. Many heroes had fallen in the battle. Many men and women Eiji knew had died. Oddly, none of that affected him. He had no friends, only acquaintances. In his line of work, one could not afford to grow too attached to anything.

The sole exception to that rule now lay in bed before him, her small body covered with perspiration. Snowflake had grown ill with fever since their flight from the city, and all the expensive medicines Eiji had found for her had done nothing. Now he simply knelt beside her bed, held her hand in his, and prayed quietly.

His wife no longer responded to his presence, lost as she was in some strange other world. She was dying, he knew. Something had happened in the city, something unnatural about the Shadowlands attack had disturbed the fragile balance of her spirit body. His Snowflake might have fooled the Empire into believing she was human, but she could not fool Fu Leng.

In Eiji’s other hand he held a folded letter. It had arrived two days ago. The message was simple

“There are ways other than shugenja to heal a broken spirit. What was taboo can remain taboo. Place a red chrysanthemum by your door if you agree to accept our aid.”

Eiji had done so without hesitation. He was wealthy, powerful, and influential. No price was too great for his wife’s health. All of this Empire could go directly to Jigoku, but he would not lose his Snowflake.

“Eiji-sama,” said an elderly servant, sliding the door open behind him.

Eiji looked over one shoulder with a sneer. “If that is the shugenja again, send him away! We do not require his aid.”

“No, my lord,” she replied. Eiji noticed the old woman’s eyes were wide with fear. “It is no shugenja.”

The old woman stepped quickly aside as three figures pushed past her into the room. All three wore robes and masks of pure black, disguising their identity. They moved swiftly and silently to surround Snowflake’s bed. The one standing at the foot bowed to Eiji as he rose.

“This is Kiyo?” the man asked, citing the Rokugani name Snowflake had taken. “This is your wife?”

“Leave,” Eiji ordered the servant, not taking his eyes from the stranger.

The door slid closed.

“This is she,” Eiji replied once the servant had gone, “but if you are shugenja, I warn you all to leave now or face my wrath. I promised that a shugenja’s elemental magic would never touch her.”

The man chuckled. “We are no shugenja, we promise you that,” he said. “Our magic has nothing to do with the elements. We can save her, Soshi Eiji, if you will agree to serve us.”

“I will do anything,” he hissed. “I would give all that I have and more, for her life.”

“Very well,” the man said. He rolled up his sleeve and drew a knife from his belt. The other men began chanting.

Eiji had somehow expected these strangers would be tsukai - practitioners of blood magic - but to see it confirmed caused something in his soul to sink.

“We will need a vessel,” the man said as he drew the knife across his arm. “A sacrifice to absorb the Taint so that we and your wife may remain pure.” The man locked his gaze with Eiji. “Call the old woman back.”

* * * * *

Snowflake looked at Eiji, then looked down the street toward the galloping horses. The beasts suddenly reared to a halt as one, drawing confused and angry shouts from their riders. The horses all looked at Snowflake with patient eyes, ignoring their masters until she commanded them otherwise.

“What is happening, Eiji?” she asked, looking back at her husband. “Who are these men?”

“If you love me, Snowflake, you will leave me now,” he said in a thick voice.

“I will never leave you, Eiji,” she said, her tone growing alarmed. “Have they come to harm you?”

“Let the horses go, Snowflake,” Eiji whispered urgently. “Before they realize what you are and hurt you!”

Snowflake frowned at Eiji, then looked at the horses. They broke into a gallop again, stopping a dozen feet from Eiji and Snowflake. The leader, a large man in piecemeal armor and a mask as white as the moon glared down at them. He held an odd double-ended spear in one hand, one blade hooked like a scorpion’s tail.

“Soshi Eiji,” the man said. “In the name of the Mistress of Secrets, are you prepared to fulfill your end of the bargain?”

“I am, Yudoka,” he replied, stepping forward.

* * * * *

One Week Ago…

“You have willingly served the Shadowed Tower, corrupted traitors to our Champion,” Shosuro Yudoka said, pacing back and forth across the small, darkened temple, “yet you come to me now, begging for forgiveness?”

“I ask for no forgiveness, and I expect none,” Eiji said, kneeling on the floor before the Scorpion lord. “I wish only to share my knowledge of the organization so that those agents who yet escape your justice might be dealt with.”

“And what do you know of the Shadowed Tower?” Yudoka asked, pausing to scowl fiercely down at Eiji.

“I have served as their agent for many months,” he replied. “I have given them information about Crane and Scorpion trade routes. I have arranged for magistrates to be reassigned from areas where their activity was high and replaced with those under their control. I can tell you the locations of these areas and the identities of these magistrates.”

“And what if I already have this information?” Yudoka asked. “My own network is extensive. What you have to offer may be useless.”

“Then you will at least know that I am not lying,” Eiji replied. “Remember, Yudoka-sama, your agents did not discover me. I have confessed of my own free will.”

“True,” Yudoka replied. “And I have repaid your honesty by allowing you to confess freely, rather than summoning my torturers. They are quite persuasive, and they have less tolerance for Shadowed Tower collaborators than I.”

“I was coerced into aiding them,” Eiji replied, “Though I suspect that matters little.”

“Very little,” Yudoka answered. “Better you had taken your own life than helped the tower. The information you gave them no doubt lead to the deaths of many others, others more worthy than you.”

“And I have come to atone,” Eiji said, “bowing his head. “I ask only one thing in return.”

“There is no bargaining in atonement,” Yudoka replied. “But speak,” he added, more softly. “You may have been a traitor once, but you have realized your error. You have gained my patience, if not my mercy.”

“Very well,” Eiji said. “Do what you will to me, but I ask only one thing…”

* * * * *

“Is this she?” Yudoka asked sharply, leveling his spear at Eiji. “This is your wife?”

“Hai,” Eiji replied. “May we have a moment?”

Yudoka looked at Eiji coldly, then turned to Snowflake. The merciless warlord’s eyes softened slightly, and he nodded as his horse backed away.

“They are here to kill you,” Snowflake said, her voice filled with dreadful certainty. “They have come to take you to Traitor’s Grove for the things you have done, the things you tried to hide from me.”

“No, not Traitor’s Grove,” Eiji said. “Yudoka has shown me that mercy. I will be taken to Kyuden Bayushi and allowed to atone for my crimes before the Scorpion Champion with honorable seppuku.”

“But you will die just the same,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

A samurai’s life is duty,” Eiji said sternly. “We must all be prepared to die, when duty commands it.”

“How can I go on without you?” she asked softly.

“I have doomed you either way,” Eiji said, bowing his head.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The Lady of the Forest came to me on the night of our wedding,” he said. “She told me of your third taboo. She told me that you had promised to marry within one year, and that the man you would marry must be a good man.” Eiji closed his eyes and pulled his mask away, revealing a face torn with worry and regret. “I am not a good man, Snowflake, but I pretended otherwise. I have failed you.”

Snowflake’s frown softened. She lifted one hand, touching his face with her small, white hand. He could not help but smile, despite the pain and sadness.

“Tell me, Eiji,” she said. “Is this what you must do?”

He opened his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “For you and for my clan.”

“Among my people we know a secret,” she said with a small smile. “There is no fear in death. Death is nothing, merely the path to a new world. Far worse is a life lived poorly. You have served your clan well, though you doubt yourself, and you have always loved me. You are a good man, Eiji. I will watch over your clan, and we shall meet again one day.”

Eiji looked down at Snowflake in surprise. He laughed despite himself. Somehow, he felt strengthened by her words. Eiji reached forward and impulsively embraced his wife. As the first snows of winter fell, he kissed her a final time. Handing her his mask, he stepped forward to join Yudoka’s men. Soshi Eiji was led away to Kyuden Bayushi with no trace of fear in his heart.

* * * * *

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