“Grandfather, the Furumori legion has marched to the Aisoto pass. They are only two days away now. Will you light the Bone Lantern and summon the phoenix-knights?”
Miushii held his breath. The scent of sandalwood and pine floated on the air; otherworldly, ghostly. The smell reminded the young one of age and power. His short life had been lived in the scents of steel, oil and sweat, a warrior’s aroma. But here, in the ancient house of the eldest, the oldest candles were burned. Even the flames seemed to waver slowly, stately on their slender wicks, tiny but dangerous dancers of gold and orange. The candles glowed in a great, wide fan around the carved altar in the rear of the house that he did not dare look at, so many that Miushii’s fussy mother often feared that her revered father might burn the place to ashes.
His chest ached with worry and Miushii dared to lift his forehead from the threadbare carpet that he knelt in reverent prostration. It was woven of the eldest, mustiest silken threads, the vibrant colors so dulled by the turning of years that the original pattern was long lost. Instead, it seemed a muted script of formality, slow as the groaning growth of heartwood when times demanded speed, Miushii thought.
The old man stared down at Miushii from his high dais, a living version of his forest of candles. A seam-faced ancient with skin like dusty, melted wax and hair like pale spider’s web. Even his long kimono was colorless as unearthed stone, lackluster grey belted with a long sash of flat black. Only his frosty blue eyes gave the elder gave away any semblance of life. Miushii’s face felt hot when he the hard eye met his. He bowed his head to touch his brow to the floor once more.
“Grandson, you come before me again to ask this,” he said, a voice soft as the tread of mice. “And again I tell you that I will not. The Bone Lantern is to be lit in times of only the most terrible of danger.”
Miushii’s heart hammered as he retorted. “Do you not hear my words, grandfather? A legion of the mountain lord’s warriors marches on us! A hundred dragon-knights and ten times that in footmen! We’ve less than two score of our own men to fight. We will be crushed in less than a night! What greater danger can there be, grandfather? We must call on the phoenix-knights.”
The elder’s robes rustled like dead leaves, his ancient joints creaking in weathered harmony as he raised one spotted hand.
“Only in the most terrible of danger,” he repeated, wheezing. “This army can only kill us, grandson. There are far, far worse things than death.”
Miushii opened his mouth to protest, not sparing a thought for the old man’s rather cryptic comment, though he did not raise his eyes to the dreadful old man. But the old man spoke again, silencing his grandson.
“I will not light the Bone Lantern. Go now and I will forget your foolishness,” he said.
Hot-faced with rage and shame, Miushii stood, keeping his head down, and bowed. As he backed towards the door, the elder began to snore. How could the terrible old man sleep now? How could he face the coming slaughter with such peace? The young warrior slid the paper-paned door closed as he left. He sat on the wide, open porch that encircled the hilltop house and pulled his sandals back on. Even through the thick wool socks he wore, split at the large toe so he could still wear the stilted sandals through the mud, the night was wet and bitingly cold.
Miushii finished knotting the laces around his ankles and stepped out into the rain. The downpour was invisible in the blackness of the night, the clouds that birthed it shrouding any sign of the moons or stars, but he could feel even the heavens weeping for him. Then what were the lights that picked at his vision? Miushii blinked the rain from his eyes. The elder’s hill was some distance from the village nestled in the grassy valley below. Every lantern and fire tonight was cradled protectively indoors, safe from the downpour. There should have been barely a shimmer of light.
It was not the village itself, Miushii realized. The far side of the valley was covered in winking, dancing light. It was as though every hidden star had come down to earth. But those lights were nothing so benevolent. Torches.
Miushii swore to the Grey Goddess. They were supposed to be two days away yet! The mountain lord must be pushing his men night and day to come upon them so quickly. They would be on the village within the hour.
Despite the great distance between them, Miushii reached in angry instinct for his sword, then hissed another oath. It was forbidden to bring weapons into the elder’s house; he had left his blade at home with his wife and young daughters.
He was useless to them! By the time he could bolt back down the long path towards the village, the fiery dragon-knights and their men would be wading in the blood of his family and his neighbors. What good would a sword do him then?
Below, Miushii watched as red warning lanterns were lit in the guard towers, one of the other warriors banging on the great brass gong to wake the town. Tears stung in his eyes. What good would it do? There were not enough swords in the village, much less hands to wield them, to save them. Only one way remained to save them all, and that was in the hands of a senile old man.
Miushii set his jaw and turned back to his grandfather’s house, striding purposefully through the thick mud. He would not stand by and watch his people die. One man’s hesitation would not damn them while he drew breath.
Thunder crashed, echoing Miushii as he smashed the fragile rice-paper door aside with a gauntleted fist. Weapons were forbidden, but armor was not. Behind him, another din rose; the screams and cries of the village below as they saw their death crawling down the valley walls towards them. The elder stirred and blinked his eyes at the noise. He sat up straight on his dais, blue eye taking in the broken door, sopping grandson and distant shrieks.
“Pray with me,” he said. The old man’s voice barely broke through the rain and voices, sad and sleepy, but Miushii was closing quickly, already far closer than tradition dictated to his grandfather.
“I’ve no need to pray. I can save them,” Miushii snarled.
The young warrior raised his hand, fingers curled into a tight, angry fist and brought it down across the elder’s temple. The metal plates riveted to the glove smashed against the old man’s skull. He sagged soundlessly. The old man was still breathing, but shallowly. Miushii brushed past his kin without looking back to the altar that stood behind the dais. In the center, flanked by useless relics, was the Bone Lantern. The breastbones of five men, all carved to filigreed translucency and stitched together with red-dyed sinew set into a circular base of blank black stone.
The field of candles flickered in the wind now coursing through the house, puffing out one by one. Miushii caught the last just as it was guttering and shielded it with his hand. When the flame strengthened, he dipped the candle to the open top of the Bone Lantern. There was a quiet wheeze. Miushii froze.
“Grandson, do not do this thing,” the elder whispered. He held a robed sleeve against the dark blood welling up from the side of his head and streaking his hair with gore.
“We must defeat the mountain lord and his dragon-knights,” Miushii replied, hesitating. “The Bone Lantern will call the phoenix-warriors to save us.”
“They will defeat your foes,” his grandfather agreed in a wavering voice. “But they will not save you. The price is far too high. Stay your hand, grandson, and accept the peace of death.”
Miushii thought of his wife and children, still and dead; of the houses of his friends, forever silent and cold. He raised his hand again.
“No!” he cried. “Anything is better than death!”
The elder wailed thinly as Miushii pushed the candle into the open top of the Bone Lantern. The flame instantly ignited the pool of oil set into the bottom. A slender pillar of green flame shot from the mouth of the lamp, washing over Miushii’s hand. He leapt back, dropping the candle, snuffing it out. The young warrior cradled his hand against his chest, waiting for the bright flame of pain to race through his body from the wound.
There was nothing. Miushii looked down at his fingers, expecting to see blistered skin and blackened flesh. Yet his hand only looked perfectly marble white… But he felt nothing. The meat at the end of his wrist felt chill and dead to the touch. Miushii dropped his own hand in horror, but it did not fall useless to his side. Instead, it reached of its own volition to seize a short, curved dagger that lay on the altar.
“Grandfather!” he screamed in terror. He could not felt the fingers as they wrapped around the hilt of the blade.
But the green column of light had split like some kind of monstrous tree. One coil of sickly flame was reaching for the elder, who watched it in weary horror. He looked up sadly at his frightened grandchild.
“My foolish grandson… It is not for play that they are called phoenix-knights,” he breathed. “From the ashes of this deadly, cold fire, we will rise again. And we will fight. We will not live, but we will fight. And no force of the world will be enough to stop us. We will watch in horror as prisoners in our own bodies.”
The green fire of the Bone Lantern snaked across the floor, through the open door. Like hellish jade snakes, the chill fire pushed down the hill, towards the village. Miushii wept in horror as the cold numbness crawled up his arm, as his heart stopped and the scream froze in his still lungs.
Though his body died, Miushii’s soul burned on, bright as the terrible green fire of the Bone Lantern. Through dead eyes, he watched his lurching progress down the hill, his grandfather white and icy by his side. They stumbled on dead, nerveless feet into the thick of battle. Their dead bodies were slow, clumsy… but impossible to stop. A helpless prisoner in his own dead corpse, Miushii watch himself fight.
The night wore on, the sun rose, arced across the uncaring sky, and set again. Still, he fought beside the other the flame had claimed. Without sleep, without eating, the battle raged on. And when the legions of the mountain lord had fled, Miushii and the other slaves of the Bone Lantern marched on tirelessly in search of new wars to wage.
Miushii screamed in the silence of his own mind. There was no weariness to give him the respite of sleep, nor even a throat to grow raw and painful to silence him. As the bloody years rolled past without cease, he could only scream.
There were worse things than death.
