Mirrortide

O.

Soft rain patters on glass windows, trailing streaks across the ghostly pane. Dim light hardly illuminates the large room. White carpets are faded grey; a bundle of meadow flowers, dry and browning, curl over the porcelain lip of a vase; and green armchairs sink into the gloom. Nestled between its cushions, as if a seed in its shell, a woman sits on her side, knees pressed to her chest, feet in the crease of the armrest. She stares across the room, though her gaze is empty. Her skin is subtly creased, weathered at the brow and corners of the mouth, but still smooth and holding its colour. She rarely moves, only shifting her weight between limbs or brushing strands of dark fringe from her face.

Rumbling thuds echo from outside, muffled behind the thick door. Periodic and slow, several seconds apart. But the thunderous crashes are not accompanied by flashes of lightning. She does not move. She does not notice. Or does not seem to care.

The rumbling ceases. It’s followed by a banging at the door. A bassy slam rather than a delicate knock.

She glances at the heavy door. A visitor. But she turns her head into the armchair, burying her face in its felt.

Her eyes are closed, pressed into the armchair, so she does not see it. But she hears its cacophony. First there is a snapping of splitting wood, slow like an axe head dragging through lumber. The heavy door is pulled from its frame, the wood splintering at the hinges. But it is not thrown. It moves smoothly, held aloft for a moment, revealing the open doorway. Clutching the round door handle is a great pincer, two half-moons brought to a point, the size of a train wheel, but formed of fired clay. And to that pincer, a cylindrical limb, lined in folding layers of terracotta like the armour of a warlord. And that limb to a great central mass. The height of two men on top of one another, the behemoth blocks the doorway in its entirety. Its body, a single smooth curve like an oaken barrel, is shaped like the carapace of a crab. Across the smooth brown-orange body is pressed a line of four black dots, dark stones in its carapace. The top of its stony body is darkened brown in streaks and spots, its orange skin soaked by the thin rain. But the spots evaporate into thin wisps. And from its back billow greater jets of steam, like the whistle of a train, casting a misty shroud around the golem.  Below its carapace, the behemoth stands on two layered limbs, widening toward its flat base like an elephant foot. Its other arm is by its side, ending in a second pincer, opening slowly as the two great talons separate.

It stands on the threshold motionless, the heavy door held in the grey air. The woman looks up to the strange sight. She screams. The behemoth turns, its whole carapace slowly facing toward her, the four black gems directed into the gloom. It opens its great pincer, dropping the heavy door to the floor with a crash and a crack. It steps forward, bending itself low to avoid the doorframe, but its size is too monstrous. It crashes through the wall, pulling the doorframe around itself as it steps. Orange bricks crack and tumble as it glides through the house’s façade with ease. Each of its steps fall with a heavy thud, shaking the house.

The woman pushes herself away, off the armchair and backwards, away from the monster at the doorway. But the room is blocked by its hulking size. She clambers backwards on hands and knees to the corner of the room. She stares up at the behemoth.

And the golem steps again toward her. Each step is slow and cumbersome, the beast lifting its heavy limbs one by one, crashing them down upon the floor. But its limbs do not tense or bulge, the layers simply slide over themselves – a collection of solid pieces formed into something moveable. Its great leg pushes the armchair to the side as it walks forward, as if it was weightless just in the way. It stands tall, gouging a line through the ceiling as it moves, looming over her. The grey light beyond the window catches the edges of its matte body, enshrouding the golem in dark shadow. Its pincered arm lifts slowly above the woman.

The air is split by a scream. But the woman is silent. It instead echoes from the other side of the large lounge. From between the behemoth’s thick legs, her young son stands in the hallway. The child’s face is red and scrunched tight. He stands still, screaming at the strange creature.

She shouts to the boy, begging him to flee, but he only continues to scream. She repeats louder, pleading to him to run.

The behemoth turns again, its pincer lowering back to its side as its beady eyes shift toward the child at the other end of the room. The behemoth, many times the height of the boy and countless times his weight, looks down at him from across the room. Then it lifts its leg and begins its approach.

The woman yells at the golem from the corner of the room. She grabs whatever she can find, a vase of dead flowers, and hurls it at the monster. The vase shatters, raining pieces of porcelain on the greyed carpet, but passes as if glitter across the beast’s back. It did not even seem to notice. It slams down its heavy foot into the carpet, stepping toward the boy.

She pulls herself to her feet and charges the beast. She throws her full weight into a punch, bringing her fist down against its back, but her fist stops sudden against its solid skin. Her fist hits the golem with a crack and her skin erupts with sweltering pain, burning on impact as if striking iron fresh from a furnace. But the beast’s carapace is untouched. Its skin is firm and unchanged, solid as fired clay. The woman recoils, clutching her hand, yelling in pain. The golem turns back around, its large arms swinging wide. She’s knocked to the ground from their sheer weight. The carpet softens her fall, but she is dazed and bruised. She squirms on the carpet as it looms over her, its dark beads glinting in the faint grey light. A swirling cloud of mist continues to coat the ceiling above its great silhouette.

It lifts its blunt pincer above her. It turns again to the boy, still screaming, red in the face. It stumbles backward, knocking the armchair onto its side. It turns and runs. It barrels back through the wide puncture it had left, shaking the house with each footfall, and out into the trickling rain. It disappears into the grey.

---

I.

Tall cedar passed quickly, a blur across wide windows, as the train snaked through low mountains. Yumiko had watched the sun arc its way toward the western peaks, the seats rumbling as the train had galloped north several hours. It would be another few stops until she would reach Nakamori – after the sun had long since fled. Nakamori, where Shikako had supposedly travelled a few moons prior.

At each town the train would roll to a stop, its billowing steam rising to join the lonely clouds above. Passengers quietly rose and shuffled from the carriage when it was their time to move on. And others would enter, replacing their seats, still warm. A constant ebb and flow of men and women drifting from one town to another along the singular railway that traced Yushima’s coast.

At a small town in the hills, a middle-aged man squeezed into the seat facing Yumiko. He had slotted his briefcase onto the high shelf above and was lowering himself into his seat when he noticed Yumiko’s bead-adorned wrist and the slate-arches of Shinigami on a thread around her neck.

“Oh – mind if I sit here?” His voice was quiet and polite, as if avoiding a librarian’s ire. Yumiko removed her gaze from the deep forest. His dark hair was slicked back, its waxy sheen orange in the late sunset. His robes were neat and delicately pressed, black and swirling grey – worn only by followers of Shinigami and those in mourning. Yumiko motioned with a slender hand to him. Sit.

He settled in his seat, the train’s shriek splitting the silence, before the train ambled from the station northward. On both sides, the earth rose into tall mountains, the railway meandering through narrow valleys. Thin conifers stood tall in formation, rows upon rows that scaled up the inclines, splitting the orange glow into rays that periodically pierced between branches. Yumiko squinted through the evening light, tracing her fingers gently across the black stones about her wrist, mindlessly sketching the symbols each in turn. The branches of the conifers were restless. Their needles rolled in waves, churning beneath strong winds. The seas would have been violent today. The easterly gales would be roiling waves across the jagged rocks.

Why return to Nakamori?

What even remains there now?

Her fingers absently pressed into the creases on the polished stones, embedding their markings into her fingertips.

“My lady,” the soft voice appeared again, drowning beneath the train’s rumbling growl. “What happens when we die?” His face was solemn, wrapped in thought and melancholy.

Yumiko was rattled from a whiplash of thought.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” he continued. “But… you’re a follower of the Grey Maiden? A Sanctifier, right?” He glanced at the beads adorning her wrist.

“When we die,” Yumiko began, “the soul drifts aimlessly, no longer bound to a beating heart. Eventually it’s found and plucked and returned to the Mist. There it’s planted, to disperse into dust and rejoin the cosmos.”

“How long does it stay near?”

She shrugged. “It’s gathered when it’s found.”

“By you?”

Yumiko scoffed, smiling at the concept. “Not by me. The Collectors roam the cosmos through cracks in the earth, through the sea between worlds. When they find a soul, they pluck it for the Grey Maiden. But they might wander many years before finally returning to home.”

“So a soul could stay nearby for many moons?”

“Certainly. Perhaps even more.”

“Is it possible to speak to souls?”

In a way, yes, but it’s not so easy. “No,” she said instead. The man slumped into his seat with a sigh. The carriage dissolved into silence again. Yumiko returned to her own thoughts, turning back to the rolling forests beyond the wide window, relishing the return of the quiet.

“My brother passed away recently…” the man spoke again.

“Sorry to hear,” she replied plainly.

“About a moon ago. I haven’t been able to visit until now.”

People often confided in the followers of the Grey Maiden, as if they had some grand answers or comfort for grief. But Yumiko’s concerns were demons and shades, skulking beasts and lost souls – all that defy the mists, not those who succumb to it. She had no kind words nor warm comfort she could offer.

“How did he pass?” she asked.

“Ah – that’s a sad story.” He began with a sigh, looking vaguely at the twisting wooden grains across the tabletop. “He had a rare disease. Terrible really… Burned him from the inside out.”

“Burned him?” Yumiko’s gaze shifted from wandering to fixed, intent.

“I thought it was just a fever. But, apparently, one day… he just…” he made a vague gesture with his hand, waving fingers like flickering flames.

“Pyrocardia,” she said. “A sickness of the soul.”

“Oh.”

“Causes the soul to burn. And the body along with it.”

“I see.”

“How old was he?”

“A couple summers more than me. About… 40.”

“Impressive. Few make it beyond childhood.”

“It only appeared several summers ago. Must’ve been dormant.”

“He never showed symptoms when he was younger? Burning skin, hot flushes… excessive sweating?”

The man shook his head at each item on the list.

“Not at all,” he replied. “It really came out of nowhere.”

“Your mother didn’t have it?”

“My mother?” But shook his head. “Why?”

“It’s… rare to catch it later in life.”

“There’s no other way?”

“Pyrocardia isn’t from our world. It’s from the Ignis. Anyone here would have received it from their mother, when their souls entwine during pregnancy. To contract it otherwise… you’d need to submerge yourself within the worldsoul of Ignis itself. You’d have to be born there or delve far below its surface.” Her words began to tumble away as she spoke, piecing together her thoughts aloud, forgetful of her audience. “It’s rarely documented in Sirillia: a disease that combusts at a flare-up does not often lead to lives long enough to migrate between worlds.”

“Combust…?” The man was stricken pale, as if suddenly ill at the word.

“He never spoke of visiting foreign worlds?” she asked, oblivious.

“I wouldn’t even know how he’d do that.”

But Yumiko did not reply. She waited quietly for a proper response.

 “He never mentioned anything like that,” the man continued. “He had no reason to. Everything important was there in Nendoyane: his wife, his kids.”

“Very strange then,” Yumiko puzzled.

“It was probably just bad luck.”

“Perhaps.” She replied, but she did not agree.

“Have you travelled to distant worlds?” The man asked.

She smiled, as if the question was absurd. “They’re not so easily reached. The routes are found deep underground or at the bottom of oceans. And, regardless, I’m sworn to protect Yushima – I have no interest in distant worlds.”          

“Then thank you, Priestess, for your protection. And for your kind words and concern.”

Priestess. The word made her sneer. It reminded her of Haiyama Shrine, how visitors addressed her when she was a child.

“Yumiko,” she said with a small bow of her head. “Of Haiyama shrine.”

“Kenji,” he replied, with a nod. “Are you visiting Nendoyane?” he continued. “Or travelling further?”

“Further.”

“Nakamori?”

“Shin-Nakamori.” She corrected him.

“Of course, apologies.”

Her retort had been instinctive, a base reaction to the word, but he was indeed correct. She was in fact going to Nakamori. Though he had meant the new city to the south, Shin-Nakamori, that had been rebuilt over the last decade. But she did not correct herself, for it would raise unnecessary questions. Nobody would visit Nakamori. There’s nothing there anymore.

She felt the lurch of the train carriage as it rolled out of the tall forests toward residential streets. The train slowed, walking into a covered station. Orange walls of brick buckled under a heavy curved roof of terracotta tiles. The walls were fractured with long cracks, tracing green vines that gripped the brick. On the short platform was a large sign, a mosaic of small, glazed chips of clay. In many shades of orange, strewn on white, they traced the town’s name, Nendoyane.

The stop after this would be Shin-Nakamori, just a few hours further north. She would soon be in Nakamori. But the thought of its ruins is suffocating. She had not returned since childhood. She hadn’t even visited Shin-Nakamori, the resurrected town. She had caught only glimpses from train windows and turned away whenever she passed it.

Kenji said his goodbyes, thanking Yumiko again, as he raised from his seat, reaching for his briefcase on the high shelf. But his thanks found no recipient. She was staring through the glass at the station sign. Her wandering thoughts had unearthed the long-buried town, raising it before her eyes just to collapse it again.

She sprung from her seat.

“I’d like to give the blessing of the Grey Maiden,” she sputtered. “And visit your family.”

“Oh – thank you, Priestess,” he spoke, surprised at the sudden outburst. “Follow me.”

---

II.

Nendoyane was nestled in the thin valley between mountains and hills. It’s many terraced houses, tall and thin, were built of orange brick and topped with curved roofs of terracotta tiles. The town was vibrant, uncommon for Yushima where most buildings were dark timber and white plaster. The main thoroughfare was busy, though the air carried an evening chill and the sun had sunk below the mountains, casting a pink wash over the clouds. Men and women sat on high balconies, talking and laughing with small clay bowls and stone cups. Some wore fine robes of deep blue and sparkling bronze; while others wore peculiar outfits, like linen shirts or mainland dresses.

The paved road clicked under her boots. A blanket of terracotta chips formed a makeshift cobblestone, though its surface had been worn delicately smooth. Nendoyane was a great exporter, its soils and hills rich with terracotta clays which were sold throughout the Sirillian Isles and even across the mainland. Above the town, the mountainsides were scarred with great pits and quarries, clawed deep into the earth – red blots within a verdant sprawl.

They passed quietly through narrow streets, twisting through the valley, until the houses had become smaller – neatly fitted into square plots. Each house followed a template: two stories, green lawn, walled garden.

“I was sure it was this one. Number four…” He had stopped in place. The house before him, another sketch from that same stencil, was punctured by a vast hole where the door should have been. As if a great fist had punched through the house’s façade, orange bricks split at its edges or lay broken at the threshold. The hole was the size of two men on shoulders, floor to ceiling, now covered by a pair of white curtain sheets. Long wooden planks were placed as makeshift supports within the hole to prevent further collapse, but the upper floor was slowly buckling over these bending stilts.

On the lawn, there stood a woman in dark robes beside a line of flower bed. Her was hair cut short into a bob that rested on small shoulders. She held a watering can in one hand, showering a torrent of water over the earth, a vacant look on her face. The flowers were wilted and brown – turning their drooping faces to the dark soil as streams of droplets poured from their petals.

Kenji called out her name, Aoi, as he paced up the lawn. The woman turned, water continuing to pummel a sorry bundle of peonies. She responded quietly, a tinge of surprise hiding within her timid voice. Kenji approached with open arms and wrapped his arms around her. And immediately she wept, breaking into a heavy sob that quickly dampened his shoulder. Yumiko waited at the end of the path as moments passed, the stillness only broken by Aoi’s occasional sniffs and sighs. This was a bad idea. I should have continued to Nakamori.

Once she had settled, Kenji removed himself from the embrace and, remembering Yumiko patiently standing to the side, introduced the two. Aoi, Kenji’s sister-in-law, a recent widow after Kanichi’s passing, greeted Yumiko with shy respect and few words. Priestess of Shinigami, Kenji had introduced her. Ward of Yushima, Yumiko had added.

Aoi invited the two in, leading them through the draping curtains. They passed through a large front room with an empty fireplace and green armchairs. The grey carpet was torn in places and buckled with wide dents. Then, as they passed through the narrow hallway, she introduced her children, thirteen and three, and her mother, likely in her seventies. Her youngest son, Jiro, clutched onto his mother’s legs as she passed. He held a small toy rabbit limp in one hand, it’s ears dirty and floppy.  She lifted the boy up onto her hip, wrapping his small arms around her shoulders, and led Yumiko and Kenji on through the kitchen. It was a quaint space reminiscent of a countryside cottage, with rustic wooden cabinets, a large clay oven, and wide patio doors. Though, in its centre, was a great blemish. The terracotta tiles that lined the floor were blackened and cracked, as if the site of an earlier bonfire. The ceiling above was dotted with black and brown blotches, scarred by a touch of flame. Yumiko looked away, gripping the slate arches that rested between the folds of her robes, as she continued to the tidy patio outside.

They sat there, uncomfortable on cedar chairs, shaded by wooden arches that wove pale wisteria over itself. Off to the side, on the patio stones, rested a simple copper bathtub. It lay there empty, a tinge of green crawling across its surfaces. Aoi gently cradled Jiro on her lap as he slumped into her shoulder, playing with his small toy. Yumiko waited for Kenji and Aoi to talk, but they were quiet, ignoring the empty fourth chair. She spoke instead.

“Aoi, you have such a lovely home. But I was just wondering what caused the great hole in the front door?”

“Ah,” Aoi’s eyes widened as if surprised by the question, despite its immediate and obvious scar on the house’s exterior. “It was just a few days ago,” she replied meekly.

“What happened?”

“It – er – fell down.”

“An earthquake?”  

“I – er – I think so.” She absentmindedly rubbed the blistered skin of her hand.

“You think so? Your neighbours don’t seem to have been affected at all.”

Aoi fidgeted in her seat, shifting uncomfortably, as if being asked something deeply unpleasant. Her gaze remained on the patio stones. Her mouth was open, as if formulating a response, but nothing came out.

“What are you hiding, Aoi?” Yumiko’s gaze was pressing onto Aoi, trying to pry behind those averted eyes.

“Is everything okay?” Kenji asked.

She looked up at each of them, but averted her eyes as soon as they made contact. She shuffled again in her seat. Jiro sleepily turned his head up to his mother and mumbled.

“What about the crab, mummy?”

“The crab?” Yumiko and Kenji spoke together.

“Shush, honey.” She pat Jiro gently on the head.

“The big crab man.” He pulled his arms away from his mother and sat himself up. He held the floppy ears of his bunny, one in each hand, pushing and pulling them together like a pair of scissors. “Snip snap snip snap.”

“Aoi, what happened?” Yumiko pressed.

“He’s just saying silly things. Aren’t you, Jiro?” She smiled nervously to him, but Jiro only stared back confused.

“You can tell us. We.” Kenji spoke kindly.

“We…” Aoi began. But she broke suddenly, hiding her face in her hands. “We were attacked. By this… big… crab man.” She sighed, unable to find the right words.

Yumiko was sceptical: she had never heard of a creature that could fit such a description. But she let Aoi continue.

“But… it seemed like… it was kind of…” she was struggling to find a way to describe it. She continued, apologetically quiet, “it seemed… man-made. Like it was made of clay.”

“Clay?”

“It was burning hot too.” She showed the skin of her hand, still reddened and slowly healing over with blisters. “It was shooting steam like a train.”

“Is everyone okay?” Kenji leaned forward in his seat.

“We’re all okay. It just seemed to loom over us. Like it was trying to intimidate us.”

Yumiko had stayed quiet, taking in the narration of the strange events. She delved through her memories, trawling through tales of strange creatures, but none landed on walking statues. She had heard of recent inventions, machines that billow steam and run red-hot, but nothing that mimicked a man in size or structure.

“Why were you scared to tell us?” Yumiko asked, eyes narrowed.

“I –” her response was timid. “I think it was sent as a threat.”

“Why would someone want to threaten you?”

“Well…” she responded slowly, evidently apprehensive to unveil her truths. But, speaking before the Ward of Yushima, she conceded, since she had already begun.

She spoke of her late husband’s illness, with its sudden unexplained appearance. How, they had sought help from physicians, but they had all simply called it a fever. But it would appear and re-appear again and again, worsening each time. At first, she had assumed it was cruel fate or the work of the gods, but then Cricket had turned up at their house one day. Cricket, the owner of the quarry in which Kanichi worked, had come over after Kanichi quit his job in the quarry. They had spoken in private, but it had rattled Kanichi so much that he had never told her what was said.

“So, it was definitely Cricket’s fault!” Aoi said. “And now he wants to silence me because I know he caused it. Because I figured it out: he caused the illness by casting a spell!”

You can’t summon a sickness by song, Yumiko smiled at her naivety. “He’s a magus?” she asked.

“He must be! Kanichi said he spent a lot of time around that magus from the mainland who used to live here. He was always up at the quarry.”

“Used to?”

“Apparently he passed away.”

“Ah.”

“He was in Nakamori.”

Yumiko flinched.

“Thank you for being open with me, Aoi,” she said flatly, ending the conversation abruptly.

---

III.

Yumiko had stayed until morning, leaving westward along Kenji’s directions. The many buildings of Nendoyane seemed, although in some places unkempt and untidy, untouched by the roaming clay statue. But there were small hints to its movement, scattered about the narrow streets. The terracotta chips underfoot were shattered and broken in places. Tall gas-lamps bowed gently, dented and buckled at odd heights. And, when Yumiko found the steep path out of town, its stone steps were cracked and collapsed.

The westward path meandered up a high hill in tight turns, turning a short ascent into a long hike. The terracotta chips had subsided to dry dirt, packed firm by boot and bicycle, surrounded by sparse rows of thin cedar along the hillside.

Finally, at the hill’s top, the path came to a break in the forest. And, at the expanse’s centre, there spanned a great circular pit, it’s deep walls a dirty orange, extending far below sight. At the lip of this great pit there was a hectic wooden shack. The place was a sprawling mess of extensions – corridors and rooms were haphazardly attached to one another or stacked in teetering towers like the blocks of a child’s toy. Each wall leaned precariously against another, tilting its own direction, and its attachments extended far over the wide chasm on bending stilts. The path to the shack winded through a graveyard of terracotta – cracked pots and broken urns lay scattered in the long grass of an overgrown lawn.

Yumiko approached the front door to the shack cautiously. It leaned inward, slightly ajar, as if abandoned, swinging lonely in the gentle wind. The interior appeared dim, boarded windows filling the entry hall in thick shadow despite the morning Sun. She knocked on the door gently and it creaked, opening a little more, welcoming her into the darkness. But she remained on the short porch. She waited, leaning her ear towards the open sliver, but no sound reached her from inside.

Slowly, a noise revealed itself within a rustling of grass behind her. A clinking, like mugs bundled into a sack. It was faint, gradually becoming clearer. Then, several paces away the tall grass parted to reveal the clattering source. A round clay pot, the size of a melon, came scuttling out of the grass. Scuttling…? From the top of the jar, just below its wide opening, protruded six legs, only long enough to raise the pot an inch off the ground. Its limbs were pointed at the ends and separated into three equal segments, whirring back and forth with great repetitive speed, though the creature moved at a snail’s pace. A domed lid covered the pot, joined at a hinge, clattering as the little pot bounced up and down. Two small black gems, crudely cut into ovals, were affixed to the rim of the pot, opaque but glinting in the sunlight.

The pot approached from the grass slowly, like a crab seeking the sea, and scuttled up a step onto the shack’s shallow porch. It seemed to take no notice of Yumiko, unaware as it passed directly between her legs and proceeded to bump itself into the front door. It froze for a moment, dizzy and confused from the sudden collision. It turned this way and that, re-orienting itself on its spindly legs.

Yumiko crouched over the little thing. It crackled faintly like a smouldering fireplace. Peculiar, she thought. She had never seen a creature like it before, nor could imagine any song that could create such a thing. Most spells, as she knew them, were crude. They make and move raw energies – far too simple to create the minute movements of a scuttling creature.

She cautiously reached out and lifted the lid of the pot. Immediately the pot recoiled, bumping into the door again in a feeble attempt to flee. Very odd, she thought. The inside of the pot was simply filled with clear water – the interior was all visible, hiding nothing but glazed clay. There was no hidden contraption, no organs, and yet the thing moved on its own. Yumiko let it go and the little pot rebounded through the small crack in the doorway, disappearing into the gloom.

“Trying to peek my secrets, are ya?” A voice appeared from within the hallway. From around the top of the door had curled a man’s face, peering down at Yumiko with a wide grin that revealed his large, crooked teeth. His hair was magnificently wild, a long curling quiff seemingly defying gravity as it coiled into the air like a whisp of smoke. Beneath his hooked nose, twisted a wide pointed moustache that curled at the ends and his pointed chin came to a small straggly tuft. His eyes pressed intently onto Yumiko, so wide and magnified behind round glasses that they battled his other features for claim over her attention.

Yumiko had not replied, shocked into momentary silence. He let out a high-pitched chuckle, though it cut short suddenly with a hiccup. He swung open the door fully, revealing his tall but gaunt figure, draped in a half-untucked shirt under tightly-clamped suspenders.

“Welcome! Welcome!” He outstretched his spindly arms wide, as if expecting a hug, though Yumiko only rose slowly, keeping her distance.

“I…” Yumiko stuttered. She cleared her throat. “I am Yumiko of Haiyama Shrine, Ward of Yushima and Lady of the Grey Maiden.”

“Great to meet ya, Yumiko!” His exuberant energy was overwhelming. “I’m Cricket. Sculptor and mechanist. At your service.” His hair flopped forward, brushing the ground, as he leaned into a deep theatrical bow, hand on heart. Apprehensively, Yumiko returned a brief bow.

“Might I come in? I would like to ask some questions.”

 “Of course! Be my guest.” He motioned with a wide swing of his arm inward, and Yumiko followed. He left the door slightly ajar behind her, just as Yumiko had found it.

“Follow me!” He squeezed past her, leading through a narrow corridor. Or rather, the corridor was wide in structure, but the sides were covered in thick clutter – lonely chairs with broken legs, spiralling towers of leatherbound books, tables covered in pewter tankards. It seemed like an optical illusion, the longer Yumiko looked at a pile of trinkets, the more seemed to appear within them. What at first seemed a pile of spare metallic parts hid dusty silver wristwatches; over there a small satchel was buried deep in a mound of silverware. The place was a fractal of hoarded items.

“How about in here!” With a swish he opened a heavy wooden door that scraped across the ground, gouging a deep line into the floorboards. Immediately a wave of assorted objects piled over him. An ironing board, metal kettles, and even an old bicycle tumbled out the tall doorway directly on top of him. With a yelp he was pinned to the floor as the corridor filled with a torrent of tinkling clutter.

He laughed up to Yumiko, his face peeking through the spokes of a bent bicycle wheel.

“I forgot I turned that one into a storage closet!”

He pushed the clutter to the side and raised himself to his feet. Leaving all the items still strewn across the ground, he turned and opened another door behind him.

“And… voila,” with a flourish the door swung open. This one had not hidden a torrent of items but instead led into a dim room. Yumiko stepped inside, Cricket motioning her forward with a long hand. The room was large, haphazardly filled with wide workbenches that hosted a multitude of contraptions and implements. A complex series of thin wires looped between pullies and weights on the nearest workbench, dangling over burned-out candles, stretching this way and that like yarn on a loom.

He pulled out two wooden stools from beneath the workbench and dropped himself down on one. He twisted to find the correct angle to sit comfortably on the lopsided stool. He motioned for Yumiko to sit beside him, patting the small stool.

“Ah!” He jumped with shock, before breaking into a grin. “Where are my manners? Refreshments!” From his pocket he pulled out a tiny glazed-clay ocarina, smaller than his palm, and pressed it to his lips. He whistled through it, or at least he seemed to blow hard into it, yet not a sound came from it.

Yumiko lowered herself slowly onto the seat. The wood was unsanded, rough to touch – she could feel the ridges catching against her robes.

After a moment, there was a clattering from the hallway before the small clay pot appeared again, scuttling around the open doorframe. It seemed to move even slower than before, heavily burdened by a great weight. It approached Cricket, stopping just before his feet.

“Thank you, Kaniko,” he addressed the pot, as he lifted its clattering lid and peered inside. With an abrupt change, he chastised the pot. “Clay? What am I supposed to do with clay, Kaniko? Our guest can’t eat clay?” And he kicked the pot to the side. A dark mixture of soft sodden mud sloshed out the pot onto the dusty floorboards. Cricket squeezed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Where’s Inuko? He’s always taking my biscuits the dumb little thing. Now he might actually come in useful.”

Soon several more pots filtered in through the doorway, bouncing against each other as they tried to squeeze together through the narrow entry. Each was identical to the others in size and sculpture – six three-segmented legs protruding from a round clay pot with two small black stones on top. Their uniqueness though appeared in their movements, each using their many limbs in different ways. One bounded in before the others, springing in long leaps, much lighter on its sculpted legs, though wobbling precariously with each landing. Its round body was more battered, scarred by shallow cracks and scratches. Three pots tried to enter all together, but found themselves stuck, bouncing each other out of the way as they marched. They were slow and methodically on their limbs, placing one in front of the other in turn, unlike the fast whirring of Kaniko. Another climbed over them as they blocked the doorway, extending its long limbs on top of their lids, pulling itself over graciously.

Eventually, the three clattered through and wandered up to Cricket. He leaned over and picked one up, lifting its lid.

“Here we go!” He pulled out a handful of round biscuits. “You little rascal, Inuko. Caught red-handed!” He placed it back with the others and held out the biscuits in his long hand, open-palm to Yumiko. Apprehensively, but politely, she took just one, as a guest must. It was stale. 

“What are they?” Yumiko spoke plainly. “I’ve never seen creatures like them.”

“That’s because they’re no creature! They’re the Dokki! All my own creation. None other like it in all the isles. I assure you.”

“They’re constructed? How do they work?”

“Steam and steel!” He exclaimed.

“Like the engine of a train?”

“You could say that,” he continued. “But, if I do say so myself, they’re even more marvellous! You see, the steam is pressurised through channels and valves in the clay structure. And by controlling its heat, you can push or pull steel wires that-” he gestured to the intricate contraption that sprawled beside them across the workbench. But he interrupted his ramblings mid-phrase, something catching his eye from across the room.

“Get down from there!” He shouted. “How many times!” Yumiko span suddenly. One of the pots had found its way atop a workbench and was standing at its edge, crouched and wiggling as if ready to leap to an adjacent surface-top. Cricket jumped to his feet, but it was too late. With a great springing force, the little pot leaped, throwing itself into the air and stretched its spindly legs far. The gap between the workbenches was narrow, no more than a couple chairs wide, but the pot had little power in its thin legs. Its leap reached only a few inches, hardly clearing even the workbench’s edge, and it tumbled to the ground. It hit the floor with a crack, kicking up a cloud of clay dust from the dirty floor, though its thick shell resisted the shattering impact. It rolled briefly on its round body before sheepishly lifting itself back onto its wobbling legs.

“You silly little thing,” Cricket said. “You’ll break yourself if you keep doing that.” He strode over and lifted it off the ground. Its legs scuttled in the air, reaching for surfaces, as he sat back down. It wriggled to be free, but he kept it still. And gradually it began to settle, its limbs relaxing, as it twisted in his lap.

“Their eyes…” Yumiko began carefully, eyes narrowing. “What are they made from?”

“Eyes?” He looked back to the clay pot that sat on his lap, holding it up in his hands. “Ah! I see what you mean.” He shook his head with a smile, tapping the small black beads that protruded through the lid of the pot. “Just decoration.” He chuckled to himself. “They just wouldn’t look right without them, don’t you think? Makes them much more crab-like!” He smiled back to her.

But she was not convinced. A train’s great engine needed fuel – vast mounds of coal to satiate its hunger. These pots, if they did work the same, would surely need it too. But there was no space for coal or oil, only thick clay walls and those black gems. Their beady eyes… They had the familiar black sheen of polished magnetite, just like the beads around her wrist – or, as it was more commonly called, soulstone.

“Oh! And my greatest creation!” He suddenly sat up, animated. “I wish I could show you.” He looked around erratically, scratching his chin. A new pot appeared in the doorway, same in appearance as the others though drudgingly slow. It placed one leg firmly onto the floor before moving the next, sluggish as if trekking through treacle. “Ah!” Cricket put a crooked finger in the air. “Follow me.” And immediately he was standing and leaving the room, stepping over the small slow pot.

Cricket was already out of the room by the time Yumiko had even raised from the teetering stool. She followed the long trail of waddling pots, snaking through varied corridors and piles of clutter. They passed in and out of tiny rooms and short hallways, turning lefts and rights through a labyrinth. The rooms were randomly adorned and unintelligible: one contained only squat wooden benches and high cloak hooks along its walls; another was filled with shovels, buckets, and trowels, dirty and rusted; a third was filled entirely with great bails of thick rope. They came to a long corridor that bent into an arc, the end out of sight. But here the gaps between the floorboards were suddenly apparent. Beneath the corridor, Yumiko stared deep into the dark clay pit, its end swallowed by shadow far below. The floorboards creaked, precariously bending underfoot, as if gasping their last breaths. She continued carefully, testing each board before pressing her weight upon it. But the pots continued, unphased, in their long line around the corridor.

Where the corridor concluded, thankfully back onto solid ground, it opened into a large oval room, the domed ceiling much higher than before, propped up on wide wooden columns bearing great splits. Immediately Yumiko was confronted by a great wave of heat, a wall of sweltering thick air, an ethereal curtain at the room’s threshold. The entranceway was raised above the wide room as a balcony, stairs curling down to the excavated room. The curved sides of the room below were lined with shelves and desks, littered with heavy books and unfurled scrolls of parchment, riddled with messy inks.

At the far end, raised on a plinth and fixed into smooth stone, was a great bulbous kiln, the width of an ancient cedar and shaped into a round dome. Its hatch was closed but its belly crackled, radiating heat into the wide room. Before it, illuminated by a single ray of soft light from an open iris at the dome’s zenith, a great stone slab lay between the four tall columns that held the ceiling above. It silhouetted a vague shape, pressed into the rock like a thumbprint, rounded at the top, tall and wide, barrel-chested and four-limbed.

“And this is it!” Cricket outstretched his arms wide toward the imprint as if revealing some great masterpiece. “Or rather…” He lowered his arms, back arching. “This is where it was… But!” He animated again. “Another! We rebuild, we improve!”

“What was it?”

“The Yadokari, the greatest of my creations. My most ambitious project to date. A resounding success, I say! But now – iterations, iterations!”

“And where is it now?”

“Ah! He – er,” he let out a snort. “Ran away.” He pushed his glasses further up his bent nose. “Though, though, likely at the bottom of the pit by now. He was a bit clunky, you see. I doubt he got very far.”

“It’s not.”

“Not in the pit?”

“Your instrument. It summons your Dokki?”

“Indeed it does.”

“Does it summon the larger one?”

“It does.” His voice quickened as he added, “but there is no way he would hear. If he’s not in the pit, then he’ll be miles away by now.”

“Give it to me.”

Cricket leaned away, holding his hands over the shirt pocket that bulged with the small ocarina. “He’s harmless. There’s no need.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t attack anyone would it?” She mocked him.

“Not at all.”

“It was in Nendoyane. Attacked a mourning family. Broke through their door.”

Yumiko scanned his face for the slightest tell. A twitch of a muscle or flick of the eyes, anything to give away what he was hiding. But there was nothing. He seemed genuinely surprised as if hearing it for the first time. His brow furrowed in confusion.

“He attacked them? Who?”

“A recent widow, Aoi, and her family.”

“Oh, that’s not right…” He scratched his pointed chin.

“Did you know her?” She asked, feigning ignorance.

“Her husband used to work in my quarry. Real shame what happened to him.”

“It seems no-one could figure out what caused his illness.”

She noticed him flinch slightly, but he hid it well, stoppering whatever had initially come to his mind.

“It’s a shame,” she continued. “If we knew its cause, we could save others from the same fate.”

“Others?” He turned to her with a pale shock.

“It’s highly contagious,” she lied. “It’ll spread quickly if we don’t figure out its cause… It’ll burn people alive.”

He became restless, fidgeting on the spot. The sweltering heat of the kiln was pulling the sweat from his skin.

“You haven’t noticed any symptoms yourself, have you?” She pressed further. “Hot flushes… excessive sweating?”

He slowly put a hand to his forehead. It came away damp.

“We found a rock in the quarry!” He exclaimed abruptly.

“There are many rocks in quarries, Cricket.”

“Kanichi found it. A huge vein of fired clay, like it was already baked. But when he cracked through it, the inside was black stone and scorching hot.”

“What did you do with it?” But she already knew the answer.

“Kanichi excavated it. And I used it for the Dokki. I thought if I didn’t handle it, I’d be fine. But if I’ve got it too-” He spoke erratically, phrases tumbling in panic. He looked at Yumiko with wide eyes. “How do I stop it? What’s the cure?”

“There’s no cure,” she spoke solemnly.

Cricket squealed.

“But you don’t have it,” she continued.

He sighed in relief.

“You’d only have received it had you crawled into the rock itself. Kanichi alone bears the misfortune of finding it.”

“Phew – you really had me there,” he laughed, nudging Yumiko in the ribs. But she did not react.

“Haiyama will be confiscating the pieces, Cricket,” she spoke plainly. “From the eyes of the Dokki…”

“Is that really necessary? You said yourself that you’d have to crawl inside the rock to get it, so it’s surely not an issue! Look at all the wonders I’ve created so far!”

“And from the Yadokari. It’s not safe.”

“I’ll fix him: he won’t attack anyone else!”

“It’ll explode, Cricket.”

“Oh.” His face froze.

“You’re meddling with things you don’t understand. If the stones contain frayed strands of a burning worldsoul, they’ll only worsen over time. And, unlike Kanichi, they’ll have no body to burn out. The gems will burn hotter and hotter until eventually…”

“So, I’ll just build something stronger to contain it!”

“No, Cricket.” She spoke firmly. “We must dismantle it.”

She held out her open palm again and stared him in the eyes. He conceded, placing the small ocarina into her hand.

“But how will he even hear?”

About her wrist were those black beads, on a fine thread, clattering together.

 “I caught a demon in Ishimura. A potent soul. It’ll amplify the ocarina.”

“A-a demon?” He glanced to her wrist.

“When the Yadokari arrives, Cricket, we need to destroy it.”

Cricket winced, putting a finger in the air, “I’ll prepare a trap! Then we don’t have to break him! We can just pop out the gem and leave my masterpiece intact!”

Yumiko sighed.

Cricket’s suddenly beamed with a mischievous smile. “I’ll begin immediately.” And he was away, back through the twisting corridor and out of sight.

---

IV.

Yumiko stood alone in the large room. Heat radiated from the round kiln, thickening the air. The Dokki remained in their small ring, huddled around her, occasionally shifting on spindly legs and bumping into one another.

She kneeled on the floor and delved into the bundles of fabric that wrapped around her body, pulling out her thick notebook. She flicked through its pages, passing sketches of strange creatures, scratched lines of star charts, and paragraphs of frantic handwriting – all a blur of black ink on white paper. Eventually she stopped at a page titled “Echo (Evocation)”. Its page was scored with wide ruled lines bundled into staves and its margins were scrawled with many messy comments. She studied the page for some time, then placed the notebook open before her. She placed two fingers around one of the beads, only recently re-strung, and pressed the stone to her lips. Still looking upon the page, she began to sing a short melody. But the pitches did not move in a melodic way, following no standards of notes or musicality. The notes hit the spaces between tones or shifted in eerie intervals. The rhythm was absent and grating, notes appearing at absurd times or drawn out for awkward lengths. She continued, repeating the ancient phrase over and over.

“no béopé híma néogé en méopé híta néowé.”

Slowly the phrase began to split in two, growing louder in two halves. Amplified, the notes began to rumble through her until she could feel their movement within her chest, reverberating in rippling waves – an echo bouncing from the stone.

She stopped and suddenly the room fell quiet again, filled only by the soft crackling of the kiln and its quiet echoes bouncing from the bead between her fingertips.

Then she placed the small ocarina to her lips, holding the echoing stone just beyond its narrow throat. She blew and, though no sound could be heard, she felt the ocarina’s shrill shimmering across her skin, hairs pricking at the invisible shriek. The stone quivered in her fingertips and the Dokki, watching in their small circle, suddenly cowered at the ethereal sound. Their thin legs contracted momentarily, clattering to the ground rigidly, before their legs slowly unfurled again. The agitated squeals of mice fled between the floorboards, having huddled beneath the kiln’s crackling warmth.

When she had finally let the silent shriek end, she placed the ocarina into her sleeve pocket and the dull stone back upon its thread. All that was left now was to wait. Perhaps the golem would come, if it had heard the call, wherever it was. But even if it had, it might take hours for it to reach the shack, traversing miles of hill and forest. And, what if it doesn’t come…? she thought. She sighed. I’ll stay until nightfall, she told herself. Then I’ll stop wasting time.

But as her mind began to wander again northward, she diverted her train of thought, casting it instead toward the burning rock. If what Cricket said was true, he may have excavated much more than just those small stones. And, had he not already pawned it off unaware, he may have hidden the rest somewhere in his shack. But a burning rock would surely burn down the wooden shack were it not safely contained. The kiln, she realised. There were no chutes or chimneys towering from it – merely a round bulb in the room. She could recall no billowing smoke or steam from the shack’s shoulders. The sky behind had been as clear and blue as ever. But the kiln remained burning, nonetheless.

The kiln continued to crackle in the corner. She raised from the ground, slipping her notebook back beneath the folds of her robe and paced toward it. And with each step she felt the heat heighten, as if wading through a thickening sea. She felt the sweat begin to be pulled from her skin across her brow. When she stood just before its closed hatch, she could feel her skin dampening beneath the many layers around her body. She grabbed a set of blackened tongs, propped up beside the kiln, and opened the great hatch. The interior was dark, shrouded in shadow, without any flicker of light or flame. It was filled with oily-black stone entirely, a small hollow carved of crudely cut edges. The stone crackled, as if its surface were splitting into a thousand fractures, but the surface bore no such cracks.

Led by a gnawing curiosity, she pulled a pinch of grey dust from a pouch at her waist, beneath the folds. She knew the dust would hardly illuminate mere strands of a distant worldsoul, caught within the rock. She knew that, though surely powerful at a planet’s godly core, a worldsoul is dull at its surface. The burning rock would be too dilute to catch the grains; only a mortal soul could possibly illuminate the ash.

And, when she blew the dust into the kiln’s dim interior, the specks ignited suddenly into a cloud of flame, a ball of fiery orange. She felt a rush of wind from the blast, lifting her hair and billowing her robes. And when the burst of flame had quickly passed, orange embers began to dance in the twirling gust within the kiln’s hot belly. Where they flit and fell onto the dark stone, flashing with occasional flecks of faint blue, they disappeared as dark grains onto the oily stone. But there, within the ember glow she noticed them, pressed into the crevasses and corners of the stone, crude cuts of that same black rock – small round beads. And where the embers fell upon them, they glowed bright with a ghostly blue hue. Instinctively she reached out, but the fury of the kiln buffeted her back, threatening harsh burns, and she recoiled.

She closed the hatch, quelling the intensity that had been loosed into the room, and turned to the workbenches that lined the walls, eyes darting between strewn scrolls. They were chaotic and messy, splashes of ink cast in long lines and arcs like manic calligraphy. But they were simply mundane, sketches of disparate clay pieces to be fitted together for the golem. There were no notes, no scribbles, about the dark stones. No mention of songs or songcraft, of souls or sundering.

Suddenly, with a clatter, one of the Dokki scuttled its way up onto the workbench. Its round body was vaguely patterned by small cracks at the pots lip. Meekly it wandered over to where her hands were placed on the table, gently butting her hand with its body. She shooed it away, pushing it to the side. Its thin legs scraped across the countertop, pointed ends tearing through strewn paper.

She looked up to the shelves of books that towered above her. The arcing wall was covered with many worn spines of varying colours, titles in both Sirillian and foreign symbols. She scanned the spines just above the bench, but the collection was nonsensical and varied. Some seemed to be textbooks on engineering and the sciences or construction and pottery. But then there were old fairy tales of Sirillia, the kind told to children: the Moon & the River Wheel  and the Boy & the Shrew. Then, strangely, a great many on zoology and animal husbandry. The remainder she could not read, the symbols of mainland languages she did not know.

Again, she felt the clay pot pressing against her hand. This time from behind her wrist, lifting her hand on top of itself. Again, she shooed it away, this time picking it up and placing it onto the floor. But as soon as it left her hands it was away again, up the stool and shelves and onto the workbench with surprising agility. The small black beads looked up to her, the small crab-like pot bouncing on its long legs.

“What do you want from me?” She exclaimed, as you would to an overbearing pet. But it simply stared up to her, bouncing on its little limbs. She shook her head in frustration, ignoring the little pot and looked up to the higher shelves, squinting to discern the titles on the distant spines. How do you even reach these ones, Cricket? She thought. But as if an answer to her question, the little pot had begun scuttling up the shelves. Delicately and nimbly, it scaled the bookshelf until it reached the top in a dark corner of the ceiling. It nestled into a wide space between the books, clothed in shadow, turning in its space. Yumiko smiled. Peculiar little things, she thought. But just as quickly as it had gained her admiration, it betrayed it. A tome, leatherbound and heavy, came hurtling from the top shelf, knocked off by the little pot. She raised her arms over her head, ducking to the side, but the book still made a glancing blow.

She cursed at it loudly. But as she looked up, down came another, and another. A heavy rain of them, a torrent of parchment and paper as the little pot pushed them off the shelf one-by-one. Yumiko stood to the side, out of the crashing waves, watching the pot in disbelief. When finally, the attack had ceased, the pot sulked away into a dark corner of the shelf, out of sight.

Yumiko looked at the mess it had made, several books now haphazardly strewn across the countertop and floor in varying angles. She began to gather them, occasionally glancing up to ensure there was no second ambush, checking each title as she piled the books into a tall tower on the workbench. But one she came to, old and weathered, the pages within it creased and folded, sparked a distant memory. In Haiyama shrine. It was familiar. The spine was long faded, the golden illumination all worn away by time and hands. The corners of its fabric cover were threadbare and splitting in holes. The embroidered title, she could not read, even though it remained legible. It was Gildéan, the language of a far-off nation on the mainland. But she recognised the shapes of these words. She knew them to mean “Songs of the Soul”. But the title bore a different numeral, a latter volume than the one she had studied.

The book she remembered had been Shikako’s. And though similar, they were not the same. For that book had been Shikako’s only possession when she was brought to Haiyama. A single remnant of a prior life. Her only memento of an unknown family.

Her heart beat suddenly in her chest as the front page creaked open. On the inside page, stamped as ink onto the inside cover, was the familiar insignia of LaGuette college. And below it, a faded word in flowing foreign letters, curled and extravagant. She could not read them. But she recognised them. They were identical to an inscription she had seen before. The single signature in Shikako’s tome. Rook.

She caught her shallow breath, unable to comprehend as thoughts piled in her head. How did Cricket come into possession of this? Did he know Shikako’s father? Was her father the magus of Nendoyane? Shikako had known very little of her life before Haiyama and had confided most everything she remembered to Yumiko alone. But Yumiko could answer none of these questions.

Was Cricket a magus? Had he learned these spells too?

Opening the tome to an early page, she found a song sheet, but the title was in that same foreign script – unreadable. The page was scored with parallel lines in bundles, marking the staves of a song sheet. Small circles were printed delicately between the lines, entangled by long-arcing curves, labelled by precise numerals. Beneath the staves were lyric, printed in the ancient language of Emrin. The words were unnecessary, traditional mnemonics to remember pitches and pacing, phrases from ancient poems to fit the melody. But this song she remembered. It was this lyric that Shikako had taught her. It was these words she had recited into soulstones, boiling water and melting wax as the stones crackled red hot. The opposite page was crammed with neat paragraphs of tiny Gildéan text – long descriptions of the spell’s effects and considerations for its use. Its design mirrored her own notebook, though the printing much neater than her freehand writing.

She flicked through the book again, but it opened willingly to a page near the middle. A crammed pile of paper scraps fell from it onto the countertop. Each scrap was covered with scrawling ink in messy handwriting, noticeably alike the wide designs and notes already covering much of the workbench. ‘Bugs don’t work. Too dumb. Try lizard.’ Another: ‘Capture JUST after death. MUCH easier to find. Else they wander off.’ Beneath that one, a scrap of paper contained only a single word, crossed out aggressively with many lines: ‘Bear???”

The open page revealed diagrams, displaying a technique she knew all too well. The diagrams showed a figure, stone in the palm of a clenched fist, striking a figure squarely in the chest, directly upon the heart.

To sunder a living soul, trapping it within a soulstone, was an affront to cosmic law, to be performed only on those cheating Death. From a corpse, it would rob the soul of its path to the mists. From a living body… it would rob them of their life.

“Have you summoned the Yadokari yet? I’ve just finished my…” Cricket was stood on the high balcony at the entranceway, a wide smile across his face. He stopped mid-step. He held a contraption in his hands, a tense ring of wire held tight in a coil by strong steel bars. The grin faded.

---

V.

“Cricket,” she began, looking up to him through the balcony railing, placing the book back on the table. Before she could continue, he turned, scrambling on his feet toward the doorway. But she was on him quickly, with a springing leap onto the handrail and over the raised balcony. She grabbed onto the collar of his shirt, pulling him back before he could reach the corridor. But he turned suddenly in her hands, clutching the metal coil with white knuckles. There was a click, a snapping of metal hinges, and the device erupted with a bang. Yumiko and Cricket were thrown apart as a great wire net filled the balcony, swallowing Yumiko and suddenly constricting around her. The sheer weight of the mesh smothered her, entangling her limbs. She tried to move but all she could muster were twists and turns as the silver mesh pressed her arms to her chest and her legs together. The fine wires, coarse and sharp, scraped at her flesh as she writhed there.

“Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,” Cricket exclaimed bewildered. “It actually worked!”

The world around Yumiko was a grey blur, the light diffused between the mesh’s tight weave.

“Cricket, let me out!” She shouted, but the slender silhouette now loomed over her.

“Let’s just make a deal okay. I don’t want to hurt you and I’m sure… well I’m not fully sure… but surely you don’t want to hurt me, right?”

“You’re making a big mistake.”

“Okay – ah – well, maybe you do want to hurt me…” he chuckled to himself. “But, but! All I want is to continue my creations. There’s no harm in that, right? Let’s just go our separate ways and forget all about this. Just forget whatever you saw.”

“Your actions defy the gods,” she continued to struggle against the tight weave. “To sunder a soul is blasphemous.”

“I haven’t killed anything, so what’s the harm really?” he swatted away the words. “I’m just collecting what’s already dead and left around.”

“All that dies must join the mists.”

“It’s just some cats and dogs! They’re not going to throw the cosmos off-balance!”

“Death is final.”

“So, what about your beads then? Shouldn’t they be joining the mists too? Hmm?”

“That’s what I’m doing, Cricket.” The words spat from her mouth. “I take those that cheat Death. I bring them to their rightful place.”

“Well, I’ll give them new life! You’re the reaper, I’m the saviour!”

Yumiko breathed a deep sigh, stopping her useless struggles. She could see the silhouette above her, arms wide in a dramatic gesture, shaking its head. It dropped its arms to its side and began to pace away, out of sight. The footsteps creaked floorboards as they descended to the forge below.

With the figure supposedly out of sight, Yumiko began shifting slowly in her restraints. Though her limbs were fastened tightly, she twisted in her cocoon, pressing the small ocarina from within her sleeve pocket against the floor. Gradually she pressed it up along her arm, under the taut weave, past the elbow and over the shoulder. The process was slow and draining, moving hair-widths with each push.

The voice began again, muffled by the distance, quiet ramblings that seemed to pace around the room below.

“If we can’t agree, dear Yumiko, then I have no choice. Now I wasn’t expecting any of this to happen. But… I really would like those beads… A demon soul! Oh my, imagine what I could create for a demon! The power it could wield with a burning soul. I could make a titan! A titan! Larger than a building. It could fuel a great steam engine, fit for a train. Or more!” He distracted himself with his ramblings, stopping suddenly mid-speech, his voice ceding to the sounds of flicking paper and scrawling pens.

Finally, she dragged the tiny ocarina to where the weave was looser around her neck. Without anything to guide it, she struggled to find it, eventually biting down on the fired clay, clamping it between her teeth. She blew through it, singing its silent song through the still air. Quickly, there was a familiar clattering from the floor below, the sound of metallic pin-point legs whirring across floorboards and up stairs.

“Huh?” Cricket muttered. The sound of scrawling stopped. “Ow!” He exclaimed as a loud thud hit the floor. “What are you doing up there!” There was another thud and the sound of fluttering pages, followed by another and another.

Yumiko pushed herself off the floor and over one of the small pots, trapping it suddenly beneath her. It tried to scuttle away, thin legs scraping across wooden boards, but it was pinned beneath the heavy mesh. She pressed her face as close as she could and sang a quick melody to its small beady eyes.

“no saigo chéodé tashera ríogé muro kokéo rosha.”

“No, no, no! Stop that!” Cricket exclaimed from below, amongst the heavy rain of falling books.

But with just one phrase, the crudely-cut stone began to glow red. And then the red brightened to orange, then further to yellow. And where the mesh pressed against the bright stone the wires began to glow and stretch. The net, once finely woven, began to widen. With a loud pop, the mesh snapped under its great tension, the wires stretched too weak, and Yumiko was freed from its grasp. She released the pot, which bounded quickly away around the curling corridor and out of sight.

As she picked herself from the floor, standing tall, the silver mesh cascaded from her like the fabric of a falling dress. She pulled a small knife from its holster, hidden on her lower leg beneath her many layers. The blade was small and incredibly thin, weighted for throwing, coming to a deadly fine point. Slowly she descended to the forge below, her black eyes glaring, as she curled the blade deftly between her fingertips. Each slow step bore a deathly weight. Each footfall reverberated with surprising bass, shaking the still room. Cricket began to back away, pushing himself into the far corner of the room, beside the kiln’s growling heat.

“Please don’t kill me!” He whimpered, hands over his head

“As you said yourself, Cricket, it won’t throw the cosmos off-balance.” She spoke slowly, wreathed in the dim shadows of the large room, her face a porcelain white beside black robes and dark hair.

He whimpered, crouching low to make himself as small as possible, arms over his head.

“Haiyama confiscates your soulstones, your kiln, and your songsheets. And we never meet again.”

“But-”

“But, what, Cricket?”

Another rumbling thud echoed through the room. But she had stopped in place. Dust drifted from the ceiling, knocked free by the shudder. A few moments of quiet. Then another thud. They were infrequent, slow, but growing louder each time – thunderous footfalls shaking the entire building. Before she could speak again, there was a loud drawn-out cracking, the panels above the kiln splintering inward. As the puncture widened, shards split and fell to the stone floor below, revealing a hulking golem between its cracks. A monstrous behemoth, the size of two men on shoulders, with great pincers coming to deadly points. Steam billowed from its back, curling around its great silhouette like a thin veil of smoke. Four black gems pressed into its wide carapace like the eyes of a giant crab.

It placed one hulking foot onto the stone kiln, the dome cracking and buckling under its weight, as it lowered itself to the forge below. Cricket yelped at the sight of his crumbling kiln, used simply as a stepping stone. The whole room shuddered as the golem steadied itself on the stone floor before the kiln, towering above tall Yumiko. She was still and readied, muscles tensed, knuckles white around the hilt of the knife. The beast turned its hulking carapace, looking from Yumiko to Cricket and back, angling its small black beads back and forth.

Suddenly Cricket exclaimed, arms outstretched before himself, pointing at Yumiko and her brandished knife,

“Help! Help! She’s trying to kill me!”

The golem lifted its monstrous leg in a slow step, raising its great pincers toward her.

“Call it off, Cricket.” She shouted, but he had crawled beneath one of the many workbenches, surrounded by a swath of jittering clay pots.

With a single fluid motion her arm flicked forward, as if flinging a stone across a still lake. The thin blade sang through the air on a straight path. It struck the golem’s carapace, between the third and fourth gem, embedding an inch into the thick clay with a small crack. But the golem continued, unaware of the assault. The room shook with its footfalls, rattling the pots and knocking books off shelves. Yumiko stepped slowly back, low and ready on her feet, leading the golem deeper into the room. She scanned about her, forging a plan of how to defeat a stone goliath, eyeing each implement and furnishing in the large room.

She leapt forward suddenly, seeing her moment, between the tall pillars and over the stone block, around the golem, nimbly rolling over onto her feet. At the far side of the room, beside the kiln’s crumbling dome, she grabbed the long forge tongs, heavy and blackened, brandishing them like a blade before her.

The golem turned slowly, unaware of its hulking size, knocking into one of the thick pillars. The wood splintered, caving in and buckling, but still managed to hold the weight of the room.

With a burst of speed, Yumiko charged toward the golem, pressing firmly into the wooden floor and leaping high into the air. One foot pressed onto the stone slab, then higher again she rebounded from the buckling pillar. Then she pressed her boot onto the knife, embedded high in the golem’s carapace. And with that she mounted the golem’s round crest, crouching carefully on its clay top. Steam billowed suddenly from the golem’s back through its many pin-point holes. She smothered her face in her robes, shielding from the burning mist. As the golem swayed, puzzled, she delicately balanced herself atop it as if a boat on stormy seas. She felt her boots sink slightly into the firm clay, the soles melting at its burning touch. She swung round, holding the tongs in both hands, and struck them down toward the golem’s black beads. She pressed firm around one and heaved, but the stone did not shift. The golem swung its huge arms high over its body, clay talons pressed together as a wrecking ball. Yumiko ducked, but it wasn’t enough. The golem swatted her away, sending her tumbling across the floor, hands still firmly gripping the black tongs.

She was winded by the heavy fall, but pushed herself to her feet. She raised the tongs, still clamped firmly together. Between their jaws they gripped a small black gem. She smiled.

From beneath the workbench, Cricket loudly cursed. But he was looking beyond Yumiko’s triumph, toward the golem instead.

It was crouching low on its legs, curled over itself. The black holes across its back were covering completely with billowing steam, the jets spraying faster and further now. The white cloud rose wide around the golem, collecting between the high rafters as a cloudy sky. Suddenly, it slammed a pincer into the floorboards, cracking the wood and sending splinters around it. It reared back, standing tall on its monstrous legs, and spun toward Yumiko. And, as it spun, its heavy limbs swung wide, crashing through the bent pillar, severing it and sending it tumbling under the weight of a collapsing ceiling. Yumiko leapt to the side just before it would crush her, but her boots clung to the floorboards, sticky with melting rubber, and the pillar knocked her to the ground. She tumbled onto her back, dazed and bruised in the collision. A corner of the ceiling crumpled into a heap just behind her, heavy lumber crashing into a cluttered pile, narrowly missing her.

The golem was fast upon her. The white steam surrounded her vision as it loomed over her, three black gems across its wide carapace. But one of its gems had begun to brighten, glowing a deep red as it crackled loudly. She scrambled to her feet, but the golem was ready. Its great pincers clamped suddenly around her, pressing her arms against her body, squeezing her with excruciating force. She struggled to be free, but her limbs could not escape the golem’s unnatural strength. Soon the floor left her as she was lifted from the ground, eye-level with the golem. It held her there aloft before itself and stopped still. She could feel its sweltering heat radiating from the fired clay. Steam continued to pump into the room, white clouds curling in their turbulence.

“Yes! You did it!” Cricket clumsily scrambled from below the workbench, the clay pots clattering around him. He bounced onto his feet, brushing dust from his crinkled shirt. The golem turned slowly toward Cricket, holding Yumiko high in the air within its talons. Cricket skipped toward them, pushing his glasses up his nose again, before muttering,

“I’ll take those.”

He reached out to Yumiko’s wrist, but she twisted suddenly, clasping his wrist in her hand. But as soon as she had him, the golem tightened its vice. The pain forced her grip open, and Cricket quickly slid the thread and its beads from her wrist. He stepped away, holding it up in his hands to the light, inspecting the smooth black stones and their delicate inscriptions.

“Cricket, you don’t understand the power within those souls.” Yumiko struggled the words through gritted teeth, still shifting in her vice. “You’ll only hurt yourself and others.”

“Yumiko, dear.” He addressed her but his eyes still wandered over the gems. “Look around. I’ve created a new way of life! I can figure out how to trap a demon in an engine.”

“Your last creation attacked Aoi and her child. You think a demon won’t do worse?” The golem’s grip loosened slightly, lowering Yumiko just a hair-width, though it remained motionless. She tried to shift but still she was clamped tightly in its immovable claws.

“I didn’t tell him to attack them. He just did it!”

“If animals won’t obey your commands, do you think a demon will?”

Cricket gripped the beads tightly in his hand. His face was strangely stern. He spat as he shouted at her.

“I have created masterpieces! I am prolific! Revolutionary! You have no idea what I am capable of!”

“Discard the demon. You’ll be remembered for the death and destruction it will cause, not its design. You will be remembered as a monster and a crafter of monsters.”

“I will be remembered as a creator. A father to all that will be reborn, immortal under my design.”

“It won’t listen to you, Cricket.”

“Oh, won’t it? Well let’s see if my animal listens to me now. Hmm?” He theatrically addressed the golem. “Yadokari, dispatch of this cynic. Throw her in the pit.”

But the golem did not move. Its carapace faced Yumiko still, holding her aloft in the air.

“Are you broken? I said throw her in the pit. Throw her in the pit!”

But suddenly its pincers released. Yumiko dropped onto her feet. The golem stumbled away into the corner of the room. Yumiko was taken aback.

Cricket glanced around frantically but found nothing. He looked at the gems clutched in his fist. He held them high, to his lips. He repeated a familiar melodic phrase, spoken only minutes before.

“no saigo chéodé tashera ríogé muro kokéo rosha.”

Yumiko turned at the sudden phrase and charged toward him. But, instead of glowing red, or orange, or yellow, the beads began to alight one-by-one. They ignited, caught in flame like small fiery suns. They singed his lips and fingers, burning the thread, and fell to the stony floor at his feet.

She had already leapt, tackling him to the ground, but it was too late. The spell had ignited the potent soul of the demon and burned as a wildfire through its dense fuel, catching through the other trapped souls upon that thread. The smooth stones rolled across the floor, scattered to the corners of the room. They rolled from the stone forge, falling between floorboards, tracing burning paths beneath workbenches. And where they rolled across a fallen page or nestled on dry wood, they burst it into bright flame.

Yumiko scrambled to her feet, but smoke had already begun to rise through the wide room. Orange flames spread quickly across the floorboards until it was a carpet. She coughed as she grabbed Cricket by the shirt, pulling him up onto his feet. But the hesitation had already let the bookshelf alight, the walls flickering with orange flame now as the inferno grew, swallowing more of the house.

Yumiko turned to the kiln, and the great puncture high above it. The kiln lay crumpled below, the distance too high to climb or jump.

She interlaced her fingers, crouching down as a foothold, and commanded him to climb. But he stared at her frozen, confused that she wasn’t taking this opportunity to finally dispatch him. She shouted at him again, but now the orange flames had crawled up the central pillars like vines in the cracks. The ceiling above them, another corner, fell suddenly. Yumiko tackled Cricket away from the tumbling beams, saving them both from the crush. But the burning pile collapsed onto the kiln, igniting the black stone. The inferno rose up the walls. The shack of teetering walls was collapsing all around them. Time was running out.

Cricket shouted at the golem for help, but it was vacant, unmoving.

Yumiko grabbed him, shaking sense into him, and shouted at him to follow. She broke into a run, up the curling stairs between rising flames. She held her long sleeve over her nose and mouth, shielding from the black soot that poured through the room. Cricket followed, sputtering through the smoke and stumbling over the burning rubble.

The fire was now crawling through the corridor before them, turning the twisting path into an orange tunnel and filling it with white smoke. She stumbled through the flames, head down and light on her feet, but stepping carefully on secure floorboards, avoiding the gaps that fell into the pit below. The corridor creaked around them as they ran. But there was a crack. A sudden jolt and the corridor bent inward, breaking on its supports. It collapsed behind them.

Yumiko steadied herself, confident in her balance, but Cricket stumbled. He caught himself with a heavy step, but his foot broke through the floorboard, kicking it to the abyss below. He slipped as the corridor fell away behind him, grabbing onto boards as his legs dangled below.

Yumiko span and held a hand towards him, shouting for him to take it. He struggled with his own weight, lifting one hand toward her, but the corridor lurched again, tilting further into the pit. The walls and ceiling broke away, falling as fragments far below. Yumiko was almost thrown with it, but grabbed between the boards, holding herself above the pit’s dark maw. Her fingers whitened as she looked down to Cricket, struggling to maintain his grip. She lowered herself further along the floorboards toward the splintered end of the corridor that hung over utter darkness.

She reached out to him again, straining toward his extended fingers. But all she caught was his wake. With a sudden crack, the board split beneath his fingertips. He fell. Wide-eyed fear stained his face as the pit swallowed him. She did not hear him hit the ground.

She slammed her fist against the corridor’s floorboards, now vertical and pressed against the pit’s clay walls. It cracked and broke free, falling into the darkness. She looked up to the end of the corridor, but it was several yards above her now. Smoke rose as clouds into the grey sky, above the towering flames that crested over the pit. She pulled with all her might onto the next floorboard, her muscles burning under the tension. Her breath was heavy, ripping through her lungs, choking on the smoke, as she prepared for the next rung. But the corridor shifted again with a crack, dropping a few inches, losing all the progress she had made.

She prepared herself for another burst of effort, summoning her strength, when a pillar of lumber suddenly crested over the pit. Fractured at the end and round, it leaned over the edge above her through the smoke. She braced herself, but it did not fall. Instead, it moved slowly, lowering itself over the edge toward her. Then the grey curtain peeled away, revealing the golem’s clay carapace, three black gems pressed into its body, a small knife embedded between its eyes. Its great pincers clamped the other end of the wooden pillar as it held the pillar still beside her. She wrapped her arms around it, digging her fingers into the splintered cracks. And when she was secure, the golem lifted it up, swinging it over the pit and above its body with ease. Yumiko leapt from the pillar on top the golem, balancing carefully.

The golem threw the pillar to the side and began to run. Its footfalls were heavy, shaking the burning house as it moved, but it built speed quickly. It ran through the cluttered corridors of the haphazard shack, now entirely wreathed in orange flames, ducking through smoke-filled rooms. It barrelled through blockages and walls, holding its pincers over its head to shield Yumiko from the embers and splinters. All around them, the teetering towers of the house began to fall, collapsing onto their sides as they burned from below.

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VI.

The golem burst from the front of the house, through the porch, and onto the green lawn of strewn terracotta. It stumbled a few steps further, before setting Yumiko safely in the long grass. She fell to her knees, as the house was consumed by the inferno before her. Acrid smoke filled the air as the monumental bonfire crackled, spouting white clouds into a burning sunset. Occasionally a great crack would ring through the air as rooms slowly collapsed into the pit.

She looked upon the inferno with vacant eyes, watching as walls cracked and crumbled within the flames. Her hands trembled as she watched it burn and fall away. She felt sick. She wanted to scream. But she shook her head violently, casting away her foolish thoughts, and muttered to herself instead. Stay focused. You’ve got work to do.

She rose to her feet and stomped over to the golem. Reaching high, she yanked her hair-thin dagger from the beast’s carapace. In its place, a jet of steam screamed through the crack, joining the white smoke above.

Then she revealed that small clay ocarina again from her sleeve pocket and pressed it to her lips. She whistled through it, the silent shriek piercing through the crackling inferno. Then she kneeled, waiting quietly, intently peering into the blaze, absentmindedly twirling the blade between her fingertips.

Soon, the Dokki appeared, huddling slowly around Yumiko in their clattering circle. Some were chipped or cracked, blackened by soot. Some limped on bent and broken legs, dragging limbs through the dirt, but they continued, nonetheless.

“Time to move on,” she spoke plainly, stoney-faced, as they nestled up to her. “Say your goodbyes.”

She picked up the first clay pot, turning it in her hands. Its shell was hot, burning her palms and fingertips. But she only winced and accepted the pain. She brandished the thin blade and pried the two gems from the clay. With the first gem removed, wisps of grey steam calmly rose from the empty recess, pouring from hollow veins within the pot’s thick walls. But the gem was cold to touch, not burning with that bright spark, and the pot still whirred, reaching for solid ground. But when the second, the burning gem, was released, the thin limbs went suddenly slack. The whirring ceased, and the legs went limp.

She collected the stones in a small pouch, where they rattled together, radiating a dull heat. When she had harvested each stone, she tossed the hollow Dokki into the long grass, now returned to lifeless pots, alongside Cricket’s other discarded work.

She picked up the last of the Dokki, keeping it firmly restrained in her lap, and pried out the first of its gems. Its spindly legs continued to squirm as she wrestled with it, trying to angle the blade beneath the final gem. The needlepoint scratched lines across the shell as she struggled against the pot. It kicked at her hands wildly, deflecting her each time. She clamped the pot and angled the blade against its gem. She drove the blade hard beneath the gem socket, twisting and screeching. But the gem held firm. The blade slipped suddenly free, scoring the surface of the pot with a long scar.

The knife clattered violently across broken clay, as she hurled into the grass. The pot’s lid clanked, falling to the floor with a crack. She spun, pressing wrists against her temples, but fell to her knees just a few steps away. She folded over, pressing her forehead into the dirt, and squeezed her eyes closed behind the heels of her palms. The world disappeared, replaced by a heartbeat and heavy breath. She tried as she could to focus on the touch of grass on skin or robes on her back, but her mind was punctured as the shack cracked and fell away. It pierced as swirling images through the darkness. And though she desperately shoved them away, they surfaced, nonetheless. They burned an afterimage in her mind and refused to fade, relishing their rare moment with her attention. A figure falling into darkness, swallowed by the earth. A hand outstretched toward her, beyond reach. A word echoing in the darkness. Live.

A heavy weight gently placed itself upon her back. She turned slowly to see the golem above her. Its great carapace leaned forward, three black gems, dead eyes, looking at her. Its stone pincer rested on her back softly. Though it stood above her unblinking and motionless, it was somehow a comforting presence beside her.

She rose to her knees again and brushed a hand through her dark hair, flattening the unkempt strands that strayed from her high ponytail. Her hand came away dark, stained by soot and ash.

Ahead of her, through the sparse forest of narrow trees, she caught a glimpse of the orange town below, dim within the hill’s long shadow. The cramped town smothered the narrow valley, filling the corners with its suffocating streets. Brick houses huddled along tangled alleys, forming coiling lines of terracotta rooftops, bright beneath a blazing sky. Its image was jarring in the Yushima landscape, its colours and construction unfamiliar and foreign.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” she spoke absently to the living statue, not meeting its unblinking gaze. “But Nendoyane was once made of timber and plaster, just like the rest of Yushima. But now it’s all been replaced, piece-by-piece. What came before was demolished and forgotten.

“When they decided to rebuild Nakamori, they made it the same as it was before. The streets, the houses, the temples – all identical to what was buried. It all looks the same, sure. But if you see it after dusk, the houses are dark inside. They try all they can, but the city will never be the same.”

She rested her head on her soot-stained fingertips.

“And now Shikako’s there… Though I don’t believe at all that a demon bested her. She’s far too smart for that.

“And what would a demon want in Nakamori anyway? She’s likely just searching for her past. Something pointed to Nakamori and now she’s unearthing bodies she never knew were buried…

“What’s the point? Just be happy with what you have.”

She sighed.

“I met this widow yesterday,” she continued. “The first thing I see: she breaks into tears. Completely falling apart. And yet she continues to live in that house. Her kitchen bears the scar of the exact moment it happened and yet she decides to keep walking past it every day. You can’t live like that – you’ll make yourself miserable. Surely, it’s better to forget? To tear it all down and rebuild? Forget and move on, right?”

She turned to the golem, as if expecting an answer from the living engine. But it had stepped away, just a pace. It was wreathed in curling white steam, a swarming cloud billowing from its back. One of its dead eyes was burning bright. Not red or orange, but a ruinous yellow. A swollen sun, sunken into the terracotta, ready to burst.

Yumiko leapt away, shielding her head from an imminent explosion. Broken clay clattered beneath her as she tumbled through the long grass. But the air remained still. The golem was instead stepping further away, turning toward the forest, toward that curling path to the town below.

Yumiko shouted after it, screaming for it to stop. But its limbs were whirring, propelling it through the tall grass. It was slow on its heavy feet, but unstoppable, shaking the ground with each great footfall. It ignored the twisting path, heading down the slope directly, snapping through tall cedar. Yumiko sprung to her feet, picking up her hair-thin blade, and slid into its wake. But her limbs and lungs screamed at her, unable to lift her into a sprint. So, she stumbled after it, unable to reach it.

She watched as it entered the town below. Its steps splintered the orange street with each impact. It barrelled through the narrow street, erupting a trail of white steam between the tall houses. Tiles rattled on rooftops as the alleyway shook. Onlookers cowered round corners or pressed close to walls.

Yumiko screamed down the narrow street. She begged the onlookers to flee. She prayed they escape the blast. But the beast was far now. Her pleas were unheard. And the onlookers only watched with curious caution, not in terror.

One lapse of focus. And I bring ruin.

The beast towered above the parting crowd and emerged into the town square at the long road’s end. Yumiko did not allow herself to look away. She wouldn’t give herself that kindness.

The golem stopped suddenly. White steam poured from its back until it was completely covered in mist, disappearing within the haze.

A second passed.

Then another.

And the great cloud slowly dispersed. Wisps of curling steam drifted away gently, revealing the golem once again, intact. The jets on its back had calmed and it stood utterly still, as if returned to a standing statue. But wisps still crawled from the holes on its back, gingerly wading through the air.

Yumiko pressed on, despite her burning limbs and spluttering lungs. She pushed through the crowded street and carefully approached the tall golem. But its burning eye had dulled, returned to its gently-crackling red. It was unmoving, staring at something across the square. And when Yumiko followed its gaze, peering over the gathering crowd, she saw a group of familiar figures, gathered around a flower stall.

A young boy sheepishly accepted a small handful of coins from the florist. To his side, a man with slicked hair patted the boy on the back, kindly chatting away. A woman in dark robes held a slumped child in one arm, who drooled drowsily on her shoulder. In her other, she held a bright bundle of red flowers. They were in bloom now, opening for the equinox, ready to guide souls through their onward journey. But though they were stark images of grief, she smiled softly as she pressed her nose into their petals. And in her hand, the blossoms were bright and magical like the blazing sparks of painted fireworks.

Yumiko looked back to the tall golem, now finally understanding it for what it truly was.

“Kanichi…” she spoke ruefully. And the golem turned at the word, twisting its great carapace toward her.

“I’m sorry, Kanichi.” She shook her head. “But I can’t let you stay. You’ve already died. All that dies must join the mists. And… and if you flare again, you could explode. I can’t let that happen.”

There was no reply, since the golem could not speak. But it raised its dark eyes again over the crowd, glimpsing finally at all it was to leave behind.

“It’s better this way…”

Its burning eye faded, returned to its unassuming, empty black.

She stepped forward solemnly, readying her hair-thin knife once more, but the golem stopped her. It blocked her with its great pincer and, instead, lifted its other hulking claw. With the two points of its pincer, it plucked out the three black gems, one-by-one. They clacked across the rocky floor, bouncing across the chipped terracotta. And when it had removed the third and final gem, its limbs slowed and stiffened. Its great arm lowered slowly to a stop. The black gem, once a bright and burning sun, was clasped delicately between the heavy talons, dark and opaque.

There the golem stood, frozen in the town square, returned to a lifeless statue. And there it stayed, a sudden monument in the heart of the city, its origin unknown and only rumoured. Those who had seen the priestess beside the golem believed it to be a gift from the protectors of Yushima, a symbol of engineering and artistry in the city of brick and clay. And most preferred this to the other tale – that it was once a hollow shell for a dead man, its creator slain by his own hubris.

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