Siinji - Or, Ankūro and the City of the Golden Boughs

26

Part 6
26

One truth is revealed,
Another mystery, then,
Appears, with no end.
- Momiji.

She saw no other option, at this moment. They were in the clutches of Mafosi Drellis. They had defeated Ankūro and only Tuccé seemed prepared to continue fighting, but fighting would prove fruitless against such overwhelming odds. Even now, Akemio's warriors held bows at the ready, should the old woman decide to try anything else.

Instead, Yurivno decided the only thing she could do was to continue moving through the path detailed on the tablets and hope that, at some point, she could persuade Drellis not to unleash the weapon. That, or find a way to destroy the weapon before Drellis and his master, the Yāttō, could make use of it.

It was a dangerous path. Even though Drellis had shown a reluctance to kill them, he had no compunction against causing pain. That, he had shown while using Tuccé to draw out Ankūro. That had confused Yurivno, however. The old woman had played cat and mouse with Drellis' soldiers, cutting them down with impunity, only to allow herself to become drawn into the open. There to become victim to the arrows of Akemio's warriors.

True, Drellis had healed her wounds, up to a point, but it still seemed out of character for the wily old woman. Yurivno couldn't help but believe that the old woman still had a trick or two up her sleeve. Even now, Ankūro sat, surrounded by soldiers with swords at the ready and under the watchful, distant eyes of the Na-oi Sansui in the devastated golden trees.

"Are you ready, daughter of my enemy?" Drellis laid a hand upon her shoulder and Yurivno tried not to stiffen at his touch, her tail curling around her legs.

With a wave of a hand, one of the soldiers stepped forward, handing Drellis the cloth-wrapped tablets and the key, found on Tuccé. Unwrapping the tablets, one-by-one, Drellis handed her the first. With one last look at Ankūro and then Tuccé, she turned back towards the altar, holding the tablet in both hands.

"Don't do it, Yurivno!" Tuccé's jump to his feet came to a halt as a soldier pushed him back to the ground. "If we're going to die anyway, don't die giving him what he wants! Smash the tablet!"

"It's alright, Gochin. I know what I'm doing." She desperately hoped that that wasn't a lie.

"Don't." The voice became almost a whisper, pleading with her, but Yurivno turned her back on Tuccé. "Don't offer any more of yourself. You've suffered enough for this."

At those words, Yurivno looked at the palm of her hand, wrapped in the bandage, she couldn't see the dozens of holes where the slivers of metal had penetrated. She still felt weak, after opening the doors to the city, and she doubted she could survive such a sacrifice again. Tuccé simply didn't understand.

"My dear Gochin, this isn't what you are thinking." Drellis stepped towards the altar while staring at Tuccé, smiling. He lifted the hand of the Kannai skeleton from the altar and showed it to Tuccé. "This injury didn't happen here. It is an old wound, from what, I couldn't say. This altar does not need an offering, only a clever mind."

Drellis dropped the skeleton's hand to the ground and it fell apart from the other bones. Yurivno wished Drellis would show the dead a little more respect, a little more care, but that seemed something the Hathbadi had little of. Trying to avoid disturbing the skeleton any more, she moved closer to the altar, examining the indentations and the protruding circles.

There were symbols and writing upon the altar that matched the writing upon the tablet, and spaces, defined by thin, lifted lines, that matched the size and shape of the tablets. The trick, or the key, to opening this next door laid in the laying of the tablets in the correct places. Like a child's puzzle, but far more complex.