Apex Book Company

Short Fiction: In the Shadows of Meido

History recorded that in the year 1703, in the town of Kodaiji, Japan, Tojiro Okami–commander of the Otoyo han guard–slaughtered the han heir, in a heinous act of treason. What do you want me to tell you about Tojiro Okami? Well, he was damn stubborn. A man destined to have many songs written about his deeds, to have pretty girls swoon at tales spun by those who claimed to have known him, not to have his name whispered by mothers to scare their children to bed. I don’t remember how I came into his acquaintance, I don’t remember a lot from those days. Many men dismissed me as a fool drunk; it helped them sleep better at night. I was many things: overindulgent eater, occasional gambler, priest, but I was not fool drunk. I was a damn fine drunk. That dry coarse itch at the back of my mind still haunts me, especially when I recall the events that led to Tojiro’s tragic downfall.

“Stay here Sune,” Nogi commanded.

“As much as I’d like to,” I found myself saying, “the temple has heard the rumors and petitioned Daimyo Ashida Otoya for answers. I’ve been ordered to assist.”

“As you wish,” Nogi replied, his voice not betraying his displeasure. Someone was going to be ordered about though. “You men secure this area. No one comes in or out without my say.”

The yoriki and his investigative doshin parted–finished with whatever policing they had been bribed not to see–as we rode toward the three room shanty on the outskirts of Kodaiji. We made a curious trio: Tojiro, bangashira of Daimyo Ashida’s honor guard; Nogi Gasai, the next in charge; and my humble self, priest of Tojiro’s temple. I dare say Tojiro allowed me to ride with him to be a burr in Nogi’s under garments. Nogi ran hot-tempered, yet cold as a winter’s moon; projecting the bearing of manliness, but not the soul. The wind stirred dead leaves across the road, skittering like roaches across wooden floors. The smell of butchered rotten carcasses lingered in the air like a cheap yotaka’s perfume on your pillow after she’d long since plied her trade. Not that I’d know.

I concentrated on Tojiro as we entered the home. No, it no longer felt like a home. A home was someplace warm. Safe. This place was defiled. Violated. The anguished pallor of the police outside made more sense: my own dinner churned within my belly threatening to revisit my palate.

“Focus on the details,” Tojiro whispered to me. Even in what passed for gentleness, the hardness of a samurai pervaded his voice. “Do not look upon the horror in it entirety.”

“And don’t think about the girls,” Nogi said, smirking. His young sculptured musculature rippled beneath his armor. He never once turned from the picture before him.

A family of four cobbled a meager existence within the confines of their straw-thatched hut. A hand-carved wooden cabinet, tossed like an oak in a typhoon, spilt its contents like a splayed sow’s belly. Tojiro examined a peculiar blade from the carpenter’s tools. Its grooves matched the wounds of the father’s flayed leg. The carpenter’s face emanated a sadness; withdrawn, yet seized in terror. His pooled blood formed a curdled sanguine lacquer on the wood shavings beneath him. Damn Nogi’s hide. Don’t think about the girls.

Only the slapping of our sandals against the wood floor dispelled the somber silence. Fear permeated the house, like an unwelcome guest. The acrid stench of rent flesh seared my nostrils. The mother slumped in the corner with the serenity of twisted rigor. Her robes drawn tight in some hideous embrace, her shoulders displaced in some futile struggle. Terror etched forever on the face she wore into the next life. Dull, ruddy flakes encrusted an overturned tea kettle nearby.

“We can not learn anything more here,” Tojiro said.

“I didn’t see anything I did learn,” I replied.

“It was not what I saw but what I didn’t see.”

“There was a lot here I wish I didn’t see.” Don’t think about the girls.

“Yes, but considering the severity of the wounds, I expected to see more blood sprayed about.”

“Are you thinking maybe one of the black magic cults?” I asked.

“Perhaps we should report directly to the daimyo,” Nogi said; a raw nerve of naked ambition who sought any opportunity to report to the daimyo. Tojiro, ignoring him, spied a nue resting on a nearby crumbling wall. The bird’s eye’s had the intensity of human intelligence, its fat black body squatted, as if pleased with itself.

“Do you feel that?” Tojiro asked.

“Feel what?” Nogi replied.

“A black wind.”

“What is it?”

“Didn’t spend much time around farmers, eh?” I said. “It’s a south wind during the rainy season. It’s supposed to be a harbinger of a bumper harvest.”

“So it’s not an ill omen,” Nogi said.

“Ill omens have become my life,” Tojiro said, watching the nue take flight.

“Namu amida butsu,” I murmured my prayer of mercy for the dead.

#

The last time Daimyo Ashida summoned him into the great audience chamber, Tojiro was promoted to head the honor guard. The carved tiles of the palace walls unsuccessfully masked a pervading loneliness that filled the halls. The four guards that escorted us, matching Tojiro’s stride, halted at the chamber entrance. Ashida sat atop a raised platform–his retainers lining the walls on either side of them–staring in silence. Grand cypress pillars supported the balcony that wound around the chamber’s perimeter; the aroma of amber pine resin haunted the air. Ashida’s robes enveloped him, too much fabric for his aged form, his head reminded me of a budding flower. Tojiro prostrated before him.

“How goes your investigations?” Ashida asked.

“Slowly, my lord.”

“If I may be so bold,” Nogi stepped forward and knelt, “perhaps a direct approach may be needed. Rumors are starting to panic the people. I think one of the blood cults may be responsible.”

“I see,” Ashida said in his sedate meter. “Why don’t you take over the investigation.”

“My lord.” Nogi hid his smile, but his face sleekened, like a scavenging shark. He turned to lead the guards out, leaving Tojiro and myself.

“The investigation is in fine hands,” Ashida said, “and I have need of you elsewhere.”

“Honored sir, I go where you send me,” Tojiro said, still the eager student seeking his master’s approval.

“I know. I know. Tell me, how is Izami?”

“The day draws near when she will give birth.”

“You have been a source of great pride ever since I brought you into my house after the untimely death of your parents. Soon, you will know the burden and joys of parenthood. Tell me, what might one do for love?”

“My lord?” Tojiro asked.

“Might a man forfeit his life for love?”

“Losing one’s life for the sake of a loved one is the ultimate form of love.”

“Might a man sacrifice his honor for love?”

Ashida loved his secrets and his games as much as his honor. I studied Tojiro. If this was some sort of test, I would’ve failed. I was uncomfortable enough hearing the daimyo speak with such intimacy to a subordinate. I should have grown suspicious with that nonsense about the untimely death of Tojiro’s parents. As long as I had known him, Tojiro’d never mentioned his parents.

Tojiro remained silent. Daimyo Ashida taught Tojiro about the samurai’s code of honor. Honor was everything: first your personal honor, then the honor of your lord, and then the honor of your lord’s state.

“Duty is my honor, my lord. I live for the day that I may die in your service. And I would never betray the family I served.”

“Well answered,” Ashida said. “I wish to bring you closer to the castle. I want my most trusted guard to watch over my son.”

“Truly you honor me, sir.”

“No. I trust you to…do the right thing.”

#

Tojiro, though he never admitted such, considered Daimyo Ashida’s sole fault to be his indulgence of the young lord Yoshi. Most people avoided the inner recesses of the castle where Yoshi lived, so no one objected as I followed Tojiro, though I was, however, warned that “Yoshi’s behavior may trouble even you.” Paintings of Gozumezu, the beast-headed demons of Meifumado, decorated the walls. The demons held terror-seized farmers in their monstrous grip; mouths open in lusty roars, blood dripping from their fangs. Panels of solid oak sealed his verandah by day, allowing Yoshi and his “guests” to sleep.

I overdressed for the occasion, as the revelers pranced about. Naked. Their raucous laughter shattered the eerie silence of the surrounding castle. Let no one romanticize the idea of young people dancing and cavorting in all manner of lasciviousness: sweaty, unwashed bodies sought to spend their lust on whomever, or whatever, slowed down long enough to permit it. Tojiro blocked it all out as he searched for the figure at the center of the spectacle. Yoshi Otoyo.

A dead-white mane of hair, with the faintest hints of green, crowned the young lord. Smooth pale skin, bluish like a long drowned man, looked unused to work was partially made-up, like the Kabuki actors–the drunken lot of them–that surrounded him. Their smeared make-up gave them the appearance of melting clowns and added to their pallidness. His perpetual, green eyes brimmed with a bemused impatience. He exuded an unearthly calm, as he reclined within a mound of pillows. His kimono flung open, a young servant girl rested across his lap, even as he stroked the face of a boy.

“You must be Tojiro Okami,” Yoshi said, with a voice like spun silk, “wolf, come to guard this lamb. And you are?”

“Sune, a priest from the temple.”

“Spirit of the fox. Come join us.” Yoshi’s manicured hand gestured us to his side. He passed an overfilled goblet to each of us. “Drinking doesn’t stand on ceremony. There are no superiors, no inferiors.”

Yoshi threw his head back in bellowing laughter, infecting me with his gregarious manner. I hadn’t felt the need to drink, yet I found myself craving it, then drinking; as if pushed into Yoshi’s reality by the force of his will. Tojiro gazed at the goblet, tempted.

“I do not drink,” Tojiro said.

“Too much pride,” I whispered to him, “not good for your bowels.”

“I don’t trust a man who doesn’t drink.” Yoshi sneered. “Perhaps we’ll have the priest teach you.”

“All men are equals in the realm of drunkards,” Tojiro said.

Yoshi’s disposition soured, his eyes bristling with indignation. Yoshi’s kimono fell from his shoulder revealing a tattoo–a samurai about to be devoured by a great serpent–draped across his back. The daimyo’s son, tattooed like some stable boy; I turned from him, feeling some empathy for the shame of his parents. It seemed inconceivable that Daimyo Ashida was the father of such an undisciplined creature. He pulled the servant girl up from his lap by her hair. Her yelp was squelched as he rammed his tongue into her mouth. He then ran his tongue along her neck before tossing her aside.

“Make no mistake, samurai…” The word ‘samurai’ spat out like an epithet, “…they are all here, you are all here, for my amusement.”

#

After his watch, our traditional meanderings took us past my temple where Tojiro often came to pray for peace and the souls of the dead. The recent rash of slayings burdened his heart. Lanterns illuminated the extensive network of the ponds and bridges within the elaborate gardens surrounding the temple. A thick blanket of moss covered the huge rocks. Tojiro closed his eyes, meditating on the still melodies of the cedars, and dreamt of him and Izami. And their coming child.

“I have just the thing to lighten your spirit.”

“What is that, drunken one?” Tojiro’s words stung.

“I have tried my own childish hand at writing. May I?”

“I wait on my lord.”

“Good:

My heart torn, a fish prepared for grilling.
My love’s lips, fickle crimson cherry blossoms
Spurn me. To be nibbled by river crab…

It’s still in its early stages. Your thoughts?”

“I fear you have only made my ears suffer,” Tojiro said beneath a stoic smile.

“I forgot the key to fully appreciating my verse.”

I produced a small metal flask from my vestments. The stink of cheap sake wafted on my breath, as I steadied myself against my staff. My straw mat cloak hung on my back like a snail’s shell protecting me from the night’s chill. The wind picked up, rustling the blossom leaves with a dirge-like rhythm. We enjoyed the full view of the temple. A lone woman climbed its steps.

“What would a woman be doing at the temple at such an hour?” Tojiro asked.

“Watch.”

The woman withdrew a straw doll from her robes and nailed it to one of the pillars of the temple. She spoke to herself for a few moments, then crept away as silently as she arrived.

“Come along then.” I sprang to my feet as if she’d just delivered fresh sake to the temple. “Maybe there’s still a thing or two this drunken one can teach you.”

Tojiro examined the straw doll pinned to the pillar. It bore a striking resemblance to lord Yoshi. “What is it?”

“She was performing an ushi-no-koku-mairi.” I sighed at Tojiro’s dull eyes. “It’s an occult ritual to lay a curse on someone. They have become more common, with the recent spate of killings. Many vengeful and angry kami walk this evening.”

“The dead do not rest.”

#

I didn’t know what kept Tojiro going back to that dread place. No, I did know. Tojiro was an idea from an earlier age, living when ideas, like the heroes who spawned them, were dead. The willingness of a samurai to die for a cause, even a pointless cause disgusted me. Honor was a lie. An illusory virtue we claimed to have built our society on, but remembered only when it was convenient to us. Maybe I had simply lived too long.

Time passed slowly, like marriage to a nagging wife. I saw Tojiro less and less, as his duties bound him ever more to the side of the young lord. Then one sunrise, while performing my morning rituals, a weary samurai collapsed at the steps of the temple. He scrounged for comfort, but he found only a not-yet-drunk priest. I offered him my dented tin flask, meant only as a polite gesture before I drank. Instead, he took the flask and sucked it dry. I waited for the sake to loosen his tongue.

“Do the dead sleep?” Tojiro asked. “Do they dream?”

“The spirits of the dead often wander the dream ways. Is that what troubles you?”

“Yes. No. It’s Yoshi.”

“What about him?”

“Last night, I searched for him, cursing myself for a novice for having letting him elude my watch in the first place. He looked ill all evening and if he was ill, wandering the daimyo’s castle was not place for him. When I caught up to him, instinct stopped my steps short. Maybe it was his suspicious skulking. Maybe it was the coldness of his eyes that radiated the spirit of death, like those of a battle-weary samurai who had seen much bloodshed. One so young should not have such eyes.

“Yoshi moved with a loose abandon, the swagger of a hunter too sure of his prey. He stopped, his head cocked windward as if catching a familiar scent. His eyes searched in my direction. I lurked in the shadows. A grin crossed his face as if he did not care either way. Or he preferred an audience. A melody–one of those songs the women sing as they launder clothes by the river–whistled out from around the corner. It was one of Yoshi’s servant girls.

“He locked eyes with her, in the way that cats draw a mouse to them. She approached him. He caressed her along her arms. Her head tilted back as a gentle moan escaped her lips. Her hand reached toward his face, which nuzzled along her long succulent neck. Her body jerked, like a fish caught on a line. Her fingers locked, tearing at Yoshi’s neck. Her spasms subsided quickly, her body slumped with a sickening thud. Yoshi roared in ecstasy. An abomination of blood-clotted teeth.

“I am not sure what happened next. One moment Yoshi appeared frozen in time, the next he was a mist, a blurred streak that came into focus beside me. By the time I reacted, Yoshi had latched about my neck, his frail arm lifting me from the floor. Up close, he was like a bloated leech, horribly swollen, engorged with blood.

“‘So mighty samurai,’ that foul creature mocked, ‘you wish to protect your charge?’

“‘You…’ Words failed me. I grasped for my katana’s hilt.

“‘Don’t. I have found you a man with a profound, though disturbing, sense of honor and duty. Both of which you pledged to my father.’ He drew my face close to his, the hot coppery steam of his breath stoked my nostrils.

“‘My father has faith in the samurai’s giri, I don’t. We all like our games, I simply prefer simpler ways of buying silence. You are vulnerable in ways you can’t imagine.’ A taloned nail scraped the side of my exposed neck. ‘How’s Izami?’

“‘Stay away from her or I will…’

“‘Will what samurai-san? Kill me? Don’t waste your breath with threats you can’t fulfill. Even now I could take a taste of your unborn child.’

“Yoshi’s jaw unhinged like a snake preparing to swallow a rabbit. His throat rippled, strained as if he were attempting to disgorge his belly. From behind taut lips and long incisors, his tongue slowly expelled like an uncoiling rope. The tube-like extension nestled against my face. An unnatural frigidness coated my insides, like an approaching morning frost. The tongue flitted about my face, tracing the oval of my mouth and the slight flare of my nostrils. I imagined a helpless Izami.

“‘I could suck out its insides and leave her with nothing but a fleshy husk to expel in her monthly flow. Nothing tastes as succulent as the internals of babies. Leave well enough alone. For your sake…and theirs.’

“With that, he let me go and disappeared into the night.”

“Has young Yoshi ever been ill?” I asked, breaking the growing silence.

“So near death, the maiden’s gossiped that his brain was filled with devils. Once he recovered, he boasted that death could not hold him.”

“Maybe, but tales of revenants scurry about these islands like lost sailors. We call them kyuketsuki.”

“Is he like kami? Obake?” Tojiro asked.

“No, those are just ghosts. We have more ways to describe the undead than either the living or the dead.” I smiled without humor. “Kyuketsuki are undead creatures that feed on the blood of the living. It is said that the person has died and a demon has replaced their soul. Some legends say they have animals as familiars.”

“Can they be killed?”

“They can’t tolerate the sun’s light. And few things function well without a head.”

“That is good to know.”

“For what? Why not renounce it all and take the warrior’s pilgrimage, wandering and honing your skills?”

“I can not. It is my duty…”

“You choose not. In obedience, you betray your state. In disobedience, you betray your lord. Either way, you dishonor yourself.”

“I must do what needs to be done,” Tojiro said. “The people must be protected.”

“Some men have their fate chosen for them,” I said, “some men choose their fate when they choose their life.

“I dreamt an old dream.
Lost as I seek my shadow.
I shall go mad
As I follow my own path
My empty, lonely path
Seeking that I once had
And lost.”

“You improve,” Tojiro said.

“Perhaps. Still, excuse my amateurish work.” Events were beyond our control; we were leaves caught in a stream’s current. “Walk now in o-tento-sama.”

“I doubt I am within God’s providence.”

“That’s what they would have you believe these days: that faith in the holy, in your God, would do you no good. These are godless times and there are too few good men to stand up in them.” The bile of hypocrisy clotted in my throat. “Tonight is an oborozuki-yo. When the full moon rises on a cloudy night, Obake are said to walk about. That’s as good a night as any to end this.”

#

The overcast sky smothered the lurid gloss of the moon. As dawn prepared to bleed away the night, lord Yoshi and his retainers retreated to their inner chambers, inebriated from their night’s activities. Tojiro and I–with a contingent of his most trusted men, Nogi was not among them–relieved the duty guards. The eerie quiet of the room, especially after the carousing, left them undaunted. The trashy perfume of geishas clung to the strewn clothes; intermittent wafts of burnt cinnamon incense, tarried like graveside markers. Heavy curtains further darkened the room.

The rhythm of my pulse pounded a funeral chorus in my ears. Tojiro waved us to halt.

“Do you feel that?” he whispered, the shadow of his spirit disturbed. His thumb clicked his katana’s hilt free of its scabbard.

“What?”

“Death approaches.”

The very darkness stirred and took form around us. Yoshi grinned with malice, the fiend slobbered in anticipation of his kills. His eyes smoldered like burning flesh. I shrank into the corner. I was there to pray. Tojiro thought it wise that something holy be present at this place. He chose me: you couldn’t ask just anyone to help you kill the daimyo’s son.

If any fetid odor was unholy, surely it was the smell that cloaked Yoshi that night. The stench of a mildewed corpse, recently disinterred, choked me as I prayed. Tojiro’s blade hissed through the darkness. A lovely stroke, though it struck nothing solid.

“Deciding to break your pledge, samurai-san?” Yoshi asked.

“You would not understand matters of duty and honor, demon.”

“Don’t you dare lecture me, you filthy dog!” Yoshi snarled. “Our clan was an ancient and noble bloodline long before your whore mother spread her legs.”

The clanging din of blade against blade rang over the wet hacking of blade against flesh. Yoshi’s retainers sank into them from all sides. Yoshi lunged like a disturbed tiger. Tojiro parried his assault, gagging on the sulfurous smell that issued from him. Tojiro swung his blade. He squinted his eyes through a veil of burning tears.

A gnarled hand, cool as the grave, wrapped itself like a noose around Tojiro’s neck. Elongated fingernails dug into the too soft flesh of his throat. Yoshi’s gaunt face leered. His withered arm wavered with the failing strength of a starved man. Flashing jade shards gleamed in the darkness. Wrinkled eyebrows met in harsh furrow above his nose. Pointed ears sprouted silver tufts of hair.

“Do you feel that heat, samurai-san?” Yoshi said, between raspy breaths. Being the daimyo’s son had been a fat and lazy life and he wasn’t used to expending so much energy to feed or fight. The unblinking Yoshi stared deep into Tojiro’s eyes. “That rush is sakki, the bloodlust. The thrill of battle, the thrill of the kill.”

Tojiro dangled, peering into Yoshi’s eyes. Yoshi arched a taloned hand above his head.

“The sun rises!” I jumped onto the creature’s back. Up close, Yoshi’s unhealthy white pallor looked more like fine white fur.

“You will trouble me no longer,” Yoshi said, his putrid breath thick with the rot of the grave. He tossed me against the far wall, further into the shadows of the room. I felt like table scraps being saved for a dog’s treat. Tojiro fell in a jumbled heap. His katana clanged beside him. He shook his head. His eyes adjusting to the darkness.

“First finish your fight with me!” Tojiro yelled.

“You will never know the pleasure I take in killing you,” Yoshi cried, “the streets will run red tomorrow due to your effrontery this evening.”

Yoshi melted into the darkness. Tojiro listened for his approach. The night curled into a fist and hammered into him. Tojiro slashed near where the blow came from, striking air. He took a curious half-step backwards only to fall forward from a slam to his head. Tojiro steadied himself enough to hack at the air. Raking claws whistled from nearby. Tojiro ducked. He rolled further into the pit of the room. Tojiro knew he was being herded. The night grew darker, despite the rising sun. The sounds of his compatriots were a fading cacophony. A flutter of wings came to rest nearby, followed by the haunting caw of the nightbird. Its panicked cry was reminiscent of an alert. Maybe Tojiro understood the devilish link of a familiar and its master. Maybe he hoped for a painful backlash. Maybe his frustration at Yoshi’s toying demanded release; a spiteful hurting of something that belonged to Yoshi. His blade sang through the night.

Yoshi screamed as if he himself had been split.

He leapt toward Tojiro with a spider’s grace. Tojiro paused, as if meditating in the center of the room, listening for the movement of the air. He threw his katana even as he reached for his short sword. The katana plunged through Yoshi. His lunge stopped in mid-leap. Yoshi crumpled to the ground. He studied his impalement. He laughed in disbelief.

“Well struck, samurai-san,” Yoshi gasped, “but this won’t stop me.” Tojiro had only moments to act before the bemusement of skewering wore off. Tojiro ran to meet the impaled Yoshi, pushing the sword to pin him against the wall. Tojiro turned, short sword in hand, toward one of the paneled walls. He struck the paneling. A lone ray of sunlight arced into the cavernous room.

Yoshi howled like a dying cat as his body writhed in agony. His form charred beneath the beam of light. His face contorted, as if he mimicked a bad kabuki play. His ribs cracked with the groan of a pierced swollen cavity collapsing on itself.

“Let me die with honor,” Yoshi said. He stretched his neck forward. He burned where the beam hit him, but his unlife had not fled. His request reminded Tojiro of his service as the han’s second. A true samurai–during seppuku, stabbed himself below the waist on the left, drew his dirk across to the right, then turned it in the wound and brought it up toward his heart–could sit, revealing no pain, for hours before he died. A second stood behind him to sever his head with a precise stroke that left a flap of skin attached to the front. Thus the samurai was sped to his death and his head didn’t roll across the floor. Tojiro poised his sword above Yoshi’s neck. The final stroke was magnificent.

The sounds of combat subsided. Tojiro’s men dispatched the remaining retainers as though the will to fight fled them. They gathered the bodies and removed the retainers’ heads. The men drove spikes into the mouths of the creatures. The risen dead would rise no more.

#

“Leave us,” Daimyo Ashida dismissed Nogi. Nogi bowed, his top knot pulled tightly beneath his turtle shell of a helmet, a cold smile chiseled on his face. He received no end of pleasure escorting us to the great chamber. Ashida paced along his platform. “The only question that remains is what to do about you two.”

“I imagine we are politically inconvenient,” I said.

“Your continued survival, ‘priest’, depends on your ability to remain silent.” Ashida returned to Tojiro who contented himself in examining the floor. “He’s right, however, I can’t afford the scandal within the shogun’s court if I were to bring charges against you.”

“What scandal?” Tojiro asked.

“My son being revealed as undead strikes me as fairly scandalous.”

“You knew?”

“A father knows his child’s heart, as only a child can know his father’s. Yet, I am also the daimyo. My entire han faced extinction.” Daimyo Ashida never seemed as small as he did then; just another frail old man. “When a tree threatens your house, you can trim the branches all you wish, but they only grow again…”

“…so you fell the trunk. What of the investigation?”

“Investigations lead to questions. My proposition is simple: confess to committing the murders to frame my son and stir dissension against my han. I will spare your wife and even adopt your son as my own.”

“So, you have Tojiro sacrifice his name to kill your son, while saving the honor of the han,” I said.

“I am old, my years short. I shall beg them both their forgiveness in the shadows of Meido, the dark land that divides heaven and hell.” Ashida turned to me. “For now I need a trustworthy witness.”

“What of my men?” Tojiro asked, not raising his eyes.

“They joined you on your jigoku-tabi, your journey into hell. Thus, seppuku. They killed themselves this morning.”

“Let my disgrace be my own,” Tojiro said, “my head can be brought to you.”

When honor was lost, it was a relief to die. Silence, like a shamed conspirator, claimed us.

#

After Tojiro’s ritual suicide, his family name was erased, their crest forever removed, and their name never again spoken. All who viewed the body simply saw a dead body. But Ashida knew. And I knew. For there are two faces of severed heads: munenbuki, the face of regret, and juyobuki, the face of obedience.

And Tojiro was ever obedient.

That night I set a nagashi toro–a votive lantern, usually released on the last night of the O-Bon Festival of the dead, inscribed with the name of a departed loved one–afloat down the river. I wrote the name Tojiro Okami on it and watched it float away on the rivers eddies.

The boy sat still, betraying no emotion, listening to the priest’s tale. A fine samurai’s son.

END

“In the Shadows of Meido” was first published in IDW Comics in December, 2005.

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Maurice Broaddus works as an environmental toxicologist by day, a horror writer by night, and a lay leader at The Dwelling Place, a faith community in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a notorious egotist who, in anticipation of a successful writing career, is practicing speaking of himself in the third person. His stories have appeared in dozens of markets (from Weird Tales Magazine to the Dark Dreams anthologies to Horror Literature Quarterly), but it should be noted that he only want to get famous enough to be able to snub people at horror conventions. Visit his site so he can bore you with details of all things him at www.MauriceBroaddus.com. Most importantly, read his blog. He loves that. A lot.

Check out Orgy of Souls, the Apex Publications horror novella from Maurice Broaddus and Wrath James White.

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