The Fox's Quest Read online

  “Why do you do this for me?” the son asked. “Why should I not die in truth as I have already died in my father’s heart? There is but one honorable solution for me.”

  “Your mother would allow no such thing to happen. Since she is gone and I am not, I will do for you what I would wish another to do for a child of mine.”

  “A samurai unable to walk is a disgrace,” he spoke in despair. “I can do nothing.”

  ‘Wash the blood from your mind and the good spirits may choose to help.”

  The son took heart at her words. He began to spend his days writing poetry and had a monk brought to him so he might study matters of the soul.

  The fox wife shortly found herself with child. She went to her husband with the news, saying, “Husband, I bear life within me. I must return to my clan.”

  In those times, the Fox clan was fiercely defensive of their secrets, for supernatural blood ran in their veins. When they allowed a daughter to wed outside the clan, it was always with the understanding all children would be born and raised in the Fox clan. They would return to their father at the age of adulthood, but only if they were needed for the succession.

  The man grew angry. “You may carry my only heir and you wish to take him from me? I refuse! My heir will be raised in his father’s house, as is proper!”

  The fox wife bowed stiffly to her husband’s will. “The consequences will be yours to bear.”

  She knew her husband would not change his mind, for she had come to know him as a hard man who cared for little else than his own glory and power. She also knew she could not allow her child to be born here. If she could not escape, her duty would be to end her life—and her child’s—to preserve her clan’s secrets. The hard man could not be trusted with such secrets. She watched the men guarding her rooms and waited for her chance.

  She thought of many plans, either too dangerous to her child or too likely to betray her secret. As her belly rounded, her fear grew. She begged her husband to let her go, to no avail. She tried to find a fox to be her messenger, but she was kept away from the forest where they dwelled.

  Her time was running out and she had no solution. She wept in her sleeves, afraid it was too late to save the life growing within her. “I must try to escape, even if I shall surely perish in the attempt. There are too many guards and I am slow and heavy.”

  The paralyzed son, for whom she cared still, was filled with sorrow at her plight. “If I could walk, I would take you away from this place.”

  She looked into his eyes and saw only truth and kindness. “Do you swear on your honor?”

  “I swear.”

  She watched him intently. “If I reveal to you our clan’s secrets, will you keep them in your heart forever?”

  “I swear.”

  “If I restore your legs, will you take my child to my clan?”

  The son was astonished by the certainty in her voice. “Do the daughters of your clan have such great powers? I swear.”

  “I believe you trustworthy. For you I will give up one of my tails.”

  Under the son’s eyes, she turned into a beautiful fox with a smooth red coat and dainty paws. Behind her rose not one but three tails, and he knew her then for a being of legends, a fox spirit.

  Jumping on his chest, she touched her muzzle to his forehead. Strange warmth filled him, spreading from his forehead to the rest of his body. Wherever the warmth went, feeling and strength returned to him. He commanded his legs, feet, and toes to move, and all obeyed.

  “Thank you, fox lady, thank you,” he said in joy, tears on his cheeks. He spoke low, for he knew guards stood at the door and he’d promised to keep her secret.

  The fox showed no joy: she lay panting on the floor, for the effort of healing him had induced early labor. She had but two bushy tails left, the third a stump.

  A tiny kit came forth, almost ugly in its nudity, and fed at its mother’s teats.

  Take her to my clan, the fox commanded in his thoughts. Take her to safety.

  “My father has broken his promise to your clan. He knows he cannot let them learn of it. He may hurt you if he comes to understand where I have gone.”

  Fear not for me. I will fight for my life if I must. Save my daughter.

  The son thought a moment. “I have a plan. I will hide your daughter in a basket full of offerings. Tell the servants I wish to be brought to the healing spring again, to see if the good spirit has decided to help me. When I am there, I will take the basket and run.”

  The son lay down and pretended to be injured still. The wife returned to her human shape and used a cushion to make it seem she was still with child.

  It went as planned: the son was borne away to the healing spring and there asked to be left alone to beg the spirit’s mercy. Then he rose on his healed legs, dressed hastily, and took to the forest with the basket in which a fox kit slept.

  He sold the items in the offering basket and used the money to buy a horse. When he arrived at the Fox clan house, it was in a state of exhaustion. In his hands, he held a kit crying with hunger.

  Upon hearing what had befallen one of theirs, the Fox clan took up arms and went to war. The powerful man’s castle burned. The wife was saved and the daughter grew safe.

  As for the son, who had saved two lives but betrayed his father, he joined the order of monk warriors that dwelled in the mountain. He later became a liaison between the order and the Fox clan, helping to forge an alliance between them. So it was the Fox clan won its closest allies in the fight against demons.

  See? Isn’t it oddly accurate? Sanae said.

  “It is,” Akakiba allowed, “besides the part with the multiple tails. Although…” He tilted his head at Sanae’s five tails. “It might be mangled truth.”

  “Is this a story leaked from your clan?” Yuki wondered. He wore an inn-provided yukata, his damp hair in the process of drying and taking volume. It hadn’t been so long ago that baby Drac, yet unnamed, hid in that mop of brown hair. The dragon had been cute then, before it grew up, learned speech, and became competition for Yuki’s attention. But the dragon was no longer a problem.

  He answered Yuki’s question, to encourage his interest. “If it had originated from our clan, we would have heard it from our parents. But I can’t recall a story remotely like this.”

  Sanae pranced. It gets better! The man who narrated the story claimed he was a descendent of the miraculously healed son in the story. I wonder if the Great Temples keep good records? We could investigate.

  “You mean it could be a true story?” Yuki leaned forward. “Is it like that for your women? They marry away, but have to come back to give birth?” He paused, expression disturbed. “Do they truly give birth to kits?”

  Amusement pulled at the corners of Akakiba’s lips. “A fox gives birth to foxes and a human gives birth to humans. The young learn to shift early, but not that early. For the women, well…” For the sake of encouraging Yuki’s attention on this light and safe topic, he explained, “It used to be we let daughters go to powerful houses, to build kinship links. Neighboring clans have a bit of our blood here and there in their ancestry. These days we marry to humans with greater frequency to improve our fertility rate, but we favor humans of modest background and with older siblings to ensure their families won’t fight us for the children.”

  “But the women still have to go and pretend to be human wives.” Yuki eyed him sideways. “Is that what your mother wanted you to do?”

  So much for a “light and safe” topic. He rose abruptly. “I’ll go and ask for tea.”

  “You get angry when I ask questions,” Yuki said to his back. “But if you don’t answer, how am I supposed to understand?”

  He halted. That was a fair point. Curse it. He could have left regardless, but... This was his chance to try and make up. Dra
c was gone and there was nothing left to harm their friendship except his own cursed stubbornness. If Yuki only wanted to understand… Maybe it wouldn’t end in complete disaster. Maybe it wouldn’t end the way it had with Jien, all those years ago.

  Turning round, he realized Sanae had left the room. When, he couldn’t say. Sneaky girl.

  He couldn’t help his tensed shoulders, or his defensive tone, but he could consider his words carefully. “Ask.”

  “Why does it make you angry?” Yuki kept his eyes averted as he spoke. “I wouldn’t treat you differently if you wanted to be a woman.”

  Akakiba swallowed a groan and sat down. The human wanted to understand, fine. He could try to get through. “I am not a woman. I have never been one or wanted to be one. My birth was…an accident.”

  Yuki waited, evidently expecting a more substantial explanation. How to make it plain?

  “When I was a child,” he said slowly, “I always assumed I would grow up to be like my father. Puberty was a betrayal from my own body because it changed in all the wrong ways. I fought it with bindings around my chest and my hips but still they swelled. Puberty is also the time we develop complete control over shifting. I learned to shift male because my birth shape disgusted me. I would have taken a knife to my chest if I’d had no other choice to make those growths go away. That’s how bad it was, how wrong it felt. It took months for me to gain proper control, to be able to remain male constantly. Once I achieved it, I never went back. But the physical part isn’t the real problem.”

  Yuki’s eyes flickered. “It’s how you’re treated. If you married an outsider, you’d be expected to keep your clan’s secrets. You’d have to be a woman for him in every way. Constantly. And he’d treat you like a woman, and love you like one, and it would be a lie.”

  The earnestness in Yuki’s tone made it difficult to take offense, even if that was the most embarrassing thing Akakiba had ever heard. Embarrassing, because it was closer to the truth than anything he’d ever wanted to admit aloud.

  “Saying it like that is a bit exaggerated,” he protested stiffly. “A suitable husband can be adopted into the clan, which means there’s no need to keep secrets from him. I believe my mother would even have been content if I’d gotten with child without marrying.”

  “It would still have forced you to be a woman. Pregnancies take a very long time.”

  “True.”

  “I’m glad,” Yuki said, voice growing thick, “I didn’t ruin your last chance to shift. I pushed you to shift human because I was scared you were trapped as a fox. Afterwards, I was scared I’d made you pick something you didn’t want. But if you don’t want to be a woman…”

  “I don’t,” Akakiba said firmly. “If I’m to be trapped in a single shape, I’d rather it be this one.” Even if it hurt to think he would never, ever hunt on four paws again. Even if it was gut-twisting to think he would never again feel Yuki’s hands running through his fur. He could manage another shift to fox if he wanted it badly enough, but would he be able to get out again?

  To think that one tiny reaction delay, one nick from an evil sword, had led to this situation. Destroying the sword and its copies wouldn’t fix him, but it would make him feel slightly better. Slightly.

  Yuki studied the blank wall. He seemed to be waiting, but what for, Akakiba couldn’t guess. Wasn’t the conversation finished? What else was there to discuss?

  “I do have wits and the ability to understand things if you’ll just explain,” Yuki said at length. “Sometimes I even understand things you don’t explain. This matter with the swords, it’s important to you. You always felt like you were a traitor to your clan for not marrying. But if you fix the underlying problem and restore strength and fertility to your kind, you’ll have redeemed yourself. It’s even more important now, because breeding doesn’t seem to be an option for you anymore.” His gaze darted aside to his companion, then darted back to the blank wall. “Am I correct?”

  It was a rather fascinating wall, Akakiba decided, studying it too. He wanted to protest, but Yuki would probably just say something worse. If he folded, the unbearable embarrassment might end more quickly.

  Quietly, he answered, “Yes.”

  “We’ll try. Maybe we can’t fix it, but we’ll try.”

  “Yes.”

  “And,” Yuki added with emphasis, “you’ll stop considering me a piece of porcelain. You should know what it’s like when nobody listens to what you want. I want to help.”

  But you’re human, Akakiba thought, and weaker, and easier to break. Sanae died so quickly, and she had advantages. He couldn’t speak such thoughts, so he said, “Yes.” Between agreeing to Yuki’s demands and risking alienating him as badly as his family had alienated him, he’d rather agree.

  Silence stretched.

  Yuki let out a long drawn out sigh, as if he were deflating. “Okay, I’m done. That was awkward.”

  Akakiba risked a look: Yuki’s face was about as red and mortified as he thought his own was. Unexpectedly, laughter bubbled up. “Awkward, yes. I agree.”

  Everything had been said, the matter closed once and for all. Except…

  “Sanae,” he later hissed into moonlit darkness. “Did you invent that story?”

  She manifested, glowing faintly. If I were to invent a story, it’d be a better one. The woman would have rescued herself, at least. I just thought it might get his mind off Drac and on you instead. Seems to have worked.

  They both looked over at where Yuki was deep asleep, hidden beneath two plump layers of futon. Rice paper doors were very nice in summer, but in winter they did nothing to keep the chill out.

  “It’s wrong of me to be pleased he lost the dragon, isn’t it?”

  It was a fortunate thing, in a way. The breaking was unexpected and he was given no choice in the matter. It’d have been worse if Drac had made him choose while the bond was still there.

  Yuki might have been safer living on the edge of a lake but safe didn’t mean happy. There’d been a strangeness in their human-dragon bond. Who was to say whether Yuki would even have been able to make his own choice if asked? He might have been too heavily influenced to oppose his bond partner.

  Sanae misinterpreted his silence. Don’t make that gloomy face. He would have picked you, no matter what. I’ve been in his head so I know.

  That was absurdly cheering. “Thank you, Sanae.”

  It’s nice you’re calling me by my name now. Was it really so hard?

  “What is this,” he said defensively, “the day for deep and serious conversation?”

  She sat there, gleaming black eyes seeming to plead with him. Perhaps she needed to understand, too.

  He didn’t explain he’d thought her a ghost for a while, because in hindsight it had been a weak excuse to rationalize feelings he didn’t want to consider too closely. It was time to face the real problem.

  “I know who you were before,” he told her reluctantly. “But I’m not certain whether you’re still her. If you’re truly Sanae, the whole of her, then why are you always in fox shape? Why won’t you show her face?” He rubbed at his forehead, trying to articulate feelings that had little to do with logic. “When I left my body, I understood better. I was still me. But I was different, too. I didn’t feel whole again until I was back in my flesh. I don’t know if I’d remain myself if my body died and I could never return to it.”

  Sanae was silent a long time, completely motionless in a way a living being couldn’t be. Jien asked me once if I were “Sanae’s fox half.” Maybe he got it right. Maybe I did lose a bigger part of myself than I wish to admit. Maybe I’m still mourning for that lost human half.

  She evaporated in thin air before he could frame a reply. Whereas the conversation with Yuki had made him feel better afterwards, this one made him feel worse. He buried back under th
e covers and wished she’d laughed at his questions and given the answer he wanted to hear. He had Yuki back; couldn’t he get his sister back, too? If he had at least that much, his impending loss of shifting wouldn’t seem so bad.

  The next day, they were in Kyoto.

  They found the targeted drinking house, where the miscreants had been supposed to bring the sword copy. It was a cheap place with a surprisingly high number of hard-eyed men sitting around. A hub for activities of various levels of illegality, no doubt.

  “You’ll fit right in, Aki,” Jien said after they had reconnoitered the area. “You can do ‘murderous bastard’ as well as any of them.”

  He ignored Jien’s words. “You and Aito stand out in this neighborhood so you’d make terrible lookouts. You should be the ones to go inside. It’s also possible the courier will be a possessed man. He might recognize what I am and flee. Aito is harder to detect.”

  “Then you’ll be our lookout,” Jien said, patting him on the shoulder with inappropriate familiarity. “Hang around and look murderous. It’ll work perfectly.”

  Sword copy strapped to his back, Jien sauntered inside. He was to tell the barkeeper the secret code “I have heard the phoenix’s song.” It was the kind of meaningless phrase of which shinobi were fond.

  While Jien and Aito were drinking inside and—one might hope they’d think of it—covertly studying the patrons, the rest of them stationed themselves to watch the building’s various entrances. Whoever came to retrieve the sword wasn’t getting away.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mamoru

  Kyoto, capital of the land, did not look so grand as Mamoru had expected. He’d seen cities during his training and Kyoto was merely bigger and busier. Rows and row and rows of sloped roofs with gray tiles, streets lined with paper lanterns, and a vast, ever shifting crowd—locals gossiping, servants carrying purchases, workers with loads on their backs, and shrieking children dashing through.