Purifiers took the old man from the merchant’s arms, dragging him beneath the Burning Stones. Brief lightning lit the skies, Yoshi squinting behind his goggles, catching a glint of metal in the crowd. A crooked face. Narrowed eyes. Gone now, too quick to see.
The Purifiers were gathered about the old man, forming a screen between themselves and the crowd. Even standing on tiptoes, Yoshi couldn’t see for the mob and the rain and the wall of glinting brass. Eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks, the boy reached out in the Kenning, to the dozens of corpse-rats scattered about the Square, finding one little crooked mongrel crouched amidst the kindling at the Stones’ feet. And as Yoshi’s skin crawled with the bites of phantom fleas, he forced those tiny eyes of black glass up to watch the Purifiers work.
The Guildsmen held the old man in a pitiless grip. A blade gleamed, marked with kanji of the Guild. Blood flowed from a cut wrist, the old man struggling, scarlet dripping into a vial in a Purifier’s hand. When the vial was full, the Guildsman carried it to a bench, stacked with half a dozen identical iron boxes, perhaps a foot square, again embossed with Guild sigils.
Yoshi watched through stolen eyes, fascinated despite himself. In days past, this ritual would have been performed within chapterhouse walls. He couldn’t fathom why the Guild had taken to testing in public. Something to do with the Guild rebellion? Regardless, it was a glimpse inside the chapterhouse walls he’d never expected to see. This sect of zealots and their archaic rites, their devotion to gods that had never once made themselves known to Yoshi or his kin.
Madmen …
The crowd pressed in, all eager to catch a glimpse. The Purifier with his vial of blood was speaking some kind of incantation. Yoshi heard snatches from the Book of Ten Thousand Days, invocations of the Maker God. And finally, the Purifier slid back a panel in one of the iron boxes and, upending the black vial, dripped the blood inside.
A hush fell over the Square, broken only by the whispering rain. A shot of thunder rolled across the clouds. Onlookers blinked, mumbling disappointment, the merchant who’d leveled accusation looking distinctly uncomfortable. Yoshi scowled. What the hells were they expecting? Lord Izanagi to descend from the heavens to waggle his divine finger at this poor bastard? A choir of oni to rise from Yomi and howl the— White noise.
An inversion of sound, as if his skull had been turned inside out.
Yoshi put his hands to his ears, found his shuriken wound bleeding anew. He felt as if someone had driven a fist into his stomach, tasted ash on the back of his tongue.
The iron box on the bench trembled, rattling on the table’s surface, three hundred beats per minute. And with an utterance that was not so much a sound as an absence of it, the rivets popped and the sides buckled and the box twisted upon itself as if some invisible giant had clutched it in one mighty fist and squeezed.
Thin white smoke issued from cracks in the metal. Something black leaked from sundered seams. And though it was mad, Yoshi swore he could smell sweetness. A breath of Iishi wind, crisp with the scent of green and good, before the stench of exhaust fumes and ashes filled his nose and throat again, bringing stinging tears to his eyes.
“Impure!” cried one of the Guildsmen.
“Impure!”
The old man cried out, arms twisted behind his back as he was marched to one of the Burning Stones. Wrists dragged above his head, slapped hard into hungry manacles smeared in charcoal leavings of the hundreds before him—women and children and young and old. The fanatics in the crowd raised their voices, fists to the sky. The merchant smiled and bowed as the Purifiers handed him his chi in small metal drums. Bought and paid for in blood.
“Burn him!”
“Impure! Impure!”
“Are there any more who would level accusation this day?” A Purifier held up his hands, calling to the crowd. “Any more tainted by the Spirit World’s stain, haunting this world of men? Bring them forth, that they may be tested and found as wanting as this wretch!”
An accusing finger was leveled at the old man, now shaking with terror.
“I only wanted to make the children smile! Gods have mercy!” He caught Yoshi’s eyes amidst the mob, pinned him in that terrified stare. “Please! Mercy!”
Mercy …
Yoshi felt the tsurugi’s hilt beneath his fingertips, hard and cool. His right hand around the iron-thrower at the small of his back, staring with stolen eyes at the tinder waiting beneath the old man’s feet. It’d be mercy to put a shot to him. Flat-out end him before the sparks started to fly. But then what? There might not be many bushi about, but a mob would see to him straight, and the Purifiers would make him squeal. Probably chain him to that stone in the old man’s place to sing in time while the flames danced over his skin.
The smart step was to ghost. Back to Kigen Station. Buy passage north with this yakuza iron. Get back to Hana and the war that would decide the future of the entire country …
And then what?
Lead an army? March in line? Send a corpse-rat horde against the Earthcrusher?