Endsinger

  i

  know

  where

  came shapes carved of nightmares, all mouths and eyes and skinless meat, things of wings and fangs and ash-smeared flesh, backward fingers and razor smiles and names all children know in the deep black of night and grow in the light and choose to forget.

  Oni …

  They rose in a swarm, only a handful, but still, but still … Voices raised with Hers, with Hers, and looking to the south, to the Stain, to the heart of the corruption humanity had planted in its own skin, Yukiko knew the true shape of fear.

  She knew at last where all this had been leading.

  What was coming.

  Who was coming.

  She knew.

  “Lady Izanami,” she breathed. “Great Maker, save us…”

  * * *

  The sky about them was ash-choked, seething, the remnants of the Tōnan mountains and First House falling among the black snow. A wave of fumes rose from the Stain below, fissures crumbling, the deadlands dropping down into bottomless black—just a great, seething hole where the entire plain once lay. Kaori looked down into that darkness, felt it looking back; a black too vast and bottomless to comprehend. A bone-snapping wind rose from the fissure, the stench of funeral pyres and burning hair, her mind alight with a tuneless, screaming hymn, a roar of pure psychic terror, and she clawed her ears bloody in her attempts to block it out.

  “Fly!” she screamed to the comatose helmsman. “Godsdamn you, get us out of here!”

  The female thunder tigers roared in terror, tearing away north as things rose up from the darkness, seething at its edges, shapeless winged nightmares, slithering, skinless horrors, fingers with too many joints, faces with too many mouths, heads with no faces at all. And beyond it, swelling pregnant in the gloom, Kaori could feel it, feel Her, a fear and hatred so perfect she could sense her sanity splitting, clawing its own eyelids as it screamed.

  Her father’s body lay on the deck in front of her. Eyes closed. At peace. How easy would it be to lie down beside him? To sink into the arms of the things rising from the maw beneath them, to welcome them home, to smile and hum along with the song that would slay the world?

  You promised.

  The thought dragged her in from the dark. Dug fingers into her skin.

  You promised him.

  She crawled across the deck, grabbed the helm and dragged herself to her feet. Misaki lay on the boards beside her, gleaming spider arms dancing a twitching, terrified jig, her head beating against the deck with a stuttering, off-beat time. Eiko was curled up in a corner, screaming, just screaming, knees against her chest as she rocked back and forth. And Kaori spun the wheel hard north, pushing on the throttle as if by will alone she could make them fly faster.

  A chill wind rose at her back, frozen fingers entwined with her hair, a whisper in her ear, old as creation itself.

  “I am home, oh my children…”

  Eyes locked on the skies ahead, teeth gritted, refusing even to blink.

  “And I have missed you so…”

  * * *

  A howl in his mind, a wail from a time before the womb, before the dark, when all was void. Kin rolled onto his belly, hands to his ears as he screamed, the ground splitting beneath him and crumbling away, dragging him down into bottomless, empty black. But no, he wasn’t falling, he wasn’t, all in his mind, his mind, gods what is that noise?

  The air was filled with the stuttering clatter of mechabacii, every Guildsman twitching on their backs as the machines on their chests spat the same broken-beat rhythm, the backs of their heads beating against the floor in time. Kin crawled to the closest Shatei, dragged out his aidkit with shaking hands. Filling a hypo of opiates, he stabbed the needle into his arm, sighing as the pain disintegrated. Bliss rose up on shadowed wings, whispering for him to sleep, close his eyes and let all of it just wash away.

  Hush, child.

  Eyelids fluttering on his cheeks like the wings of butterflies he’d only seen in paintings.

  Hush now.

  The kind that didn’t exist anymore thanks to the lotus poison spewing ever skyward …

  And he raised his head, clutching his thigh. He stood on feet he couldn’t feel and stumbled through the smoking dark, finding Shinji twitching and drooling, smashing his head against the floor in that stuttering rhythm. Kin unplugged the mechabacus from the boy’s chest, the machine falling silent, the seizures slowing until Shinji opened his eyes wide, pupils like saucers, teeth chattering as if he were freezing to death.

  “Shinji?” Kin touched the boy’s arm. “Can you hear me?”

  “Gods above…” Shinji blinked, wiped the tears from his eyes. “Kin…”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I could hear Her,” the boy breathed. “My gods, She was singing to me.”

  “Can you walk? We have to get out of here before they wake up.”

  Shinji looked down at the mechabacus strapped to his chest. The cables burrowing like worms into his flesh.

  “I don’t think they will.” The boy shook his head. “Not while She’s singing…”

  “Get up.” Kin stood, dragged Shinji up with him, faintly aware that his palms had no skin, that his forearms and knees were bleeding, shedding and frayed.

  Shinji raised an eyebrow. “First Bloom, are you all right?”

  Kin pointed to the empty hypo on the floor, a mirthless smile on bloodless lips. Shinji grabbed another aidkit from a comatose Guildsman, fishing out pressure bandages and wrapping Kin’s wounds. The boys limped across the listing floor, through near-blinding smoke, the ticktick of cooling metal accompanied by the beat of a dozen heads bashing into the floor. Climbing the stairwell, along the upper gantries, Kin felt lighter than air, tongue slightly too big for his mouth.

  Passing more Shatei in the tight corridors, all flat on their backs, twitching in time to the soundless tune. They reached the service elevator at the Earthcrusher’s spine, stabbing the control and watching it descend. Kin licked the taste of smoke and bad dreams from his lips, breathing deep. Dislocated in the opiate haze, reminded of the Iishi again, the burns he’d suffered there, he and Yukiko sheltering in their little cave by the rock pool.

  “I won’t tell them. N-never tell anyone. I won’t let them hurt you. I promise, Yukiko.”

  Kensai towering over him in the hospice, eyes ablaze in that perfect, beautiful face.

  “Tell me everything you know…”

  He opened his eyes as the elevator reached their floor, stepping inside and pressing the button for the bridge. Shinji frowned.

  “Our best exit is down in the nethers. Why are we headed to the bridge?”

  Kin smiled, closed his eyes as they ascended.

  “Someone I need to see…”

  * * *

  Hana screamed a war cry as the arashitora swooped from the skies, down onto the twisted nightmare shapes rising from the deadlands fissures. Yukiko and Buruu were at their head, blade raised high, flurries of black snow falling amidst ashes and smoke. Hana had stolen a chainkatana from a dead Iron Samurai, now holding it aloft and gunning the motor. The vibrations up her arm felt good and strong, gifted her with something close to courage as they flew toward the abominations rearing up from the deadlands wounds.

  They cut through a thing made of gibbering mouths and leathery wings mounted on spurs of bone, Kaiah tearing and clawing, Hana chopping away with her chainblade. The thing’s blood was black, steaming, filling the air with the stench of rotten corpses and burning hair. It fell screaming, back into the pit below, the pair turning and swooping on a tall, long-limbed demon, midnight blue skin crusted in ash, a belt of skulls about its waist. It was standing at the fissure’s edge, blinking like a newborn, one hand up to the light as they fell on it from behind, hacking at its throat, blackened blood spraying through the air, burning where it touched their skins.

  What the hells are these things?

  - DARK ONES. DEMONS FROM THE DEEPEST HELLS. -

  Yukiko??
?s voice echoed in the Kenning amidst the blood-soaked roars of the Everstorm pack, falling on the demon brood and tearing them to bloody rags.

  “They’re oni. Children of the Dark Mother. We fought them before in the Iishi mountains. But nothing quite like these.”

  What the hells are they doing here?

  Kaiah tore the throat from a faceless monstrosity, disemboweled it with a vicious kick and sent it tumbling back into the wound that had birthed it.

  - DYING. -

  Hana sliced at a thing with too many faces shrieking backward words she could somehow almost understand. A nameless terror shook her insides, pressing her to reach out to Kaiah’s heat, her strength, the thunder tiger’s iron will entwined with her own. And still, her hands trembled on her blade.

  - COURAGE NOW. I AM HERE. WE ARE TOGETHER. -

  Gods, how can you be fearless when the whole world is splitting apart?

  Kaiah tore the demon’s head from its shoulders in a spray of thick black, the mouths still gibbering as the carcass tumbled into the pit.

  - ONLY FOOLS KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE FEARLESS. SEEK ONLY TO BE AFRAID AND STAND TALL ANYWAY. THAT IS WHAT IT IS TO BE BRAVE. -

  They moved amidst the horrors, Hana gritting her teeth, pushing down the cold, deep in her belly. She could see Kitsune soldiers on the Yama battlements, watching the thunder tigers and stormdancers cut the demons down, send them back to the dark that had birthed them. The men’s eyes were alight, cheering as each horror fell. She remembered Kaiah’s promise in the Iishi—the thunder tiger’s vow to the wounded, frightened Burakumin girl she’d once been.

  You asked who would sing for me.

  - NOW YOU KNOW. WE WRITE THE WORDS EVEN NOW. -

  Yukiko and Buruu were circling, picking off the demons still crawling from the pit. One of the Morcheban arashitora had been eviscerated by some nameless horror, falling into the darkness. Only four packmates left now, but they were unharmed. The demons had seemed dazed; confused somehow, like newborns blinking through their first dawn.

  Hana wiped black gore from her face, spitting, still tasting it on Kaiah’s tongue. The soldiers on the battlements raised their blades, roaring in triumph. She looked to the girl leading their pack—pale skin spattered with bloody tar, hair streaming in the wind—and she saw what the soldiers saw. What they must see in her also. Not a girl who was small and afraid and bleeding from a wound in her heart too deep to even acknowledge. Not a thing of flesh and blood and hurt and tears.

  A legend.

  A stormdancer.

  Hana flicked a sluice of black blood from her chainkatana, glanced into the darkness beneath them. An open, yawning mouth, spitting the children of Yomi into the world of men. A crack in Shima, leading all the way down to the Hells. Her eye ached to look at it.

  “What the hells is going on, Yukiko?”

  The girl’s reply echoed in the Kenning, laced with the same dread Hana felt in her belly.

  “I don’t know.”

  Yukiko turned her eyes to Kitsune-jō.

  “But I know someone who does.”

  46

  INTERSECTION

  They sat in the forward carriage, swaying with the motion of the tracks, inhaling chi fumes as the train sped north toward Yama city. It was Isao’s turn to mind the engine driver, and Yoshi was staring out the window, watching the deadlands fly by to the west. The Stain lay sprawled out on their left-hand side, endless miles of cracked earth, wreathed in choking fumes.

  “A terrible sight.”

  Yoshi turned to stare at the False-Lifer, watching him intently. She’d told him her name was Kei, that she’d joined the rebels some years past, recruiting the big man Jun, and the young one, Goro, who never seemed to stray far from her side. Her face was thin, lips thinner, fierce and calculating and sharp like the chrome razors on her back.

  Yoshi shrugged, turned back to the window.

  “You can find pretty in anything if you look hard enough.”

  “And what beauty is there to be found in the Guild’s desolation?”

  Yoshi looked down at his wrist, the pale blue veins etched just below the surface. He made a fist, watching the tendons flex, the muscles at play beneath his skin.

  “Maybe the one we make.”

  “Always riddles with you…” Kei shook her head.

  “Why do the Guild burn folks with the Kenning?” Yoshi looked up from his wrist, eyes narrowed. “Why torch us?”

  “The Purifiers teach that you are tainted by the Spirit World. That in order to achieve Purity, we must cleanse all taint of yōkai blood from our land.”

  “But why? What is this Purity they talk about all the time? What happens when you ‘achieve’ it? The heavens open up and blowjobs rain from the sky? What?”

  “Yoshi-san, the Purifier’s doctrine means little to me,” Kei said. “Always I questioned it, even as a girl. But understand: if you are taught the gaijin are your enemies by everyone you trust, you will believe it. If you are taught children must be put to the pyre for a matter of faith, you will believe that too. Especially if no one else in the crowd raises their voice in dissent.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question…”

  “If I knew the answers, I—”

  Bright light bloomed to the southwest past the deadlands, a blinding sheen cutting through the beach glass windows and Yoshi’s goggles. The boy hissed as the western sky grew summer-bright, pulsing, burning even on the backs of his closed eyelids. Kei cursed, Isao shouting a warning from the driver’s cabin. The flare slowly died, flared again and dimmed, Yoshi standing and staring out the window, hand pressed to the glass as he saw an enormous mushroom-shaped cloud rising on the western horizon above the Tōnan mountains.

  “Izanagi’s balls…” he breathed.

  The train began to tremble, a crumbling, bass-deep shifting of the tracks beneath them, the entire island shivering in its boots. The train rocked side to side, bucking on the rails as the driver slammed on the brakes, a hail of sparks falling outside the window amidst the agonized shriek of metal, a hundred tons of momentum grabbed by the crotch curls and dragged up short.

  Yoshi was pushed forward by the sudden deceleration, losing his grip and bouncing off the bulkhead. Jun, Kei and Goro all went flying, slamming into the foremost wall, Takeshi crying out from the aft carriage, followed by a loud thump. The train bucked and rolled, brakes screaming, tremors intensifying, flinging everyone about like a mob of rag dolls. Yoshi cracked his head on something hard, slammed into something soft, heard a grunted exhalation of pain. And then they were tilting, tilting, the crashing screech of snapping axles, wheels leaving the tracks and hitting gravel, and the world turned upside down and over and over, Yoshi grabbing a pillar as the train flipped onto its side, its roof, metal shrieking, iron and steel shredding like paper, glass splintering, people screaming, sparks and smoke and popping rivets, rolling over and over again as Yoshi roared and flopped about, blood in his mouth, the deafening kaleidoscope of sound, of momentum and inertia and gravity and mass, coming to rest at last in a twisted, smoking, moaning heap.

  The engine died amidst the hiss of escaping pressure and creak of spinning wheels.

  “Raijin’s fucking drums…” Yoshi groaned.

  The boy lifted his head, one eye gummed shut with blood, the wound at his ear bleeding fresh. The ground was still shaking, a colossal roar building in his ears. Yoshi looked around, saw Kei lying dead, her skull smashed open, the boy Goro hanging half out the shattered window, crushed beneath the train. But beyond the boy’s corpse, Yoshi could see a dust cloud rising miles into the sky, like a tsunami across a waterless sea. Moving fast as the wind.

  Right toward them.

  He dragged himself up, eyes locked on the incoming cloud, blood dripping from his cracked brow and spattering on the broken glass at his feet. The door to the driver’s cabin was torn aside and Isao staggered in, bleeding from a broken nose, a horrid gash in his forearm.

  “Gods, is everyone—”

&
nbsp; “We need to go,” Yoshi breathed.

  “Where’s Takeshi? Atsushi?”

  Yoshi pointed at the incoming dust cloud. “Isao, we need to go!”

  The boy paled, and the pair fell to their knees, crawling out through the shattered windows on the eastern side of the train. Yoshi stood, head swimming, rappelling up a service ladder and looking back west. The ground bucked and rumbled, roar building until it was almost deafening, and as Yoshi squinted through the rising cloud of deadlands ash, he realized the Stain was collapsing, a massive chasm spreading its arms out toward them, miles upon miles of earth falling away into nothingness amidst the howl of a colossal, tectonic unmaking.

  “Run…” he told Isao.

  “What do you see?”

  “RUN!”

  Yoshi dropped from the ladder, bolted away, Isao struggling to keep pace. Over the broken stone and gravel at the side of the tracks, into the fallow lotus fields on the other side, tripping and tumbling on the snow-sludged earth. The ground bucked and rolled away from them, throwing them down and tossing them up, the roar near deafening now, impossible to think or speak, but only to run, to run as fast as you could, the aches of your body a distant second to the raw panic in your chest, pumping your veins full of adrenaline and bidding you to run, run until there was nothing left inside you.

  A roar overhead, scattered shrieks. Yoshi dared a glance up and nearly choked as half a dozen familiar silhouettes darkened the sky above. Blade-sleek and slender, all feathers and fur and cruel hooked beaks. He had no idea under heavens what the beasts were doing there, but there they flew, as solid as the shuddering earth beneath his feet, and Yoshi locked his eyes on the leader and screamed, screamed into the Kenning with everything he had left.

  Help! Help us, please!

  A voice touched his mind, loud as thunder and as beautiful as sunset lightning.

  *YUKIKO?*

  Isao stumbled and Yoshi dragged him to his feet, risked a glance behind him and saw the chasm spreading closer, closer, swallowing the locomotive, twisted carriages tilting and tumbling down into the bottomless maw.