He took a deep breath and glanced down at the cup in his hand. I saw him consider drinking it off again. Then he replaced it on the table and sat up straight.
“You can safely trust us, Toshiro,” I reassured him. “We are here to cleanse the Festering, whatever form it takes.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, in this land, it has taken the Shogun. It was years ago now. I was one of the Shogun’s retainers. We had been in countless battles together as he subjugated and put down the bandit rebellions in the northern provinces. I was one of the elites, his closest unit of bodyguards. We were an unbeatable force in campaign, and stronghold after stronghold fell before us. Shogun Morai’s coming was like the advancing of the great sea; none could stand before him, and we all basked in his glory.”
Toshiro’s eyes were unfocused now, gazing into the distance as he remembered his old life. “The campaign was won, of course, and peace was brought back to the land. Shogun Morai ruled well and justly at first, but as the years passed some began to whisper that not all was as it should be. There were complaints about trade taxes, about favoritism, that kind of thing. I paid no heed to any of that; politics was never my interest. We had become a ceremonial retinue, now that there were no more rebel groups left to fight, and I was dissatisfied with life. There was a woman in Otara whom I had my eye on, and I knew that I had this place to retire to if I so chose.”
He gestured around him at his beautiful, peaceful home. “One night, I couldn’t sleep, and so I decided to ask the man I admired the most for advice: Shogun Morai. I climbed from my bed and made my way up the stairs to the Shogun’s chambers on the top floor of Otara castle, knowing that he was always generous with his time for those he favored. I would ask him for an audience, and I felt sure it would be granted. When I reached the door to his chambers, I found to my surprise that he had sent all his servants away. There was a flickering light coming from behind the screen door, and a sound of... voices. Voices like I’d never heard before, as if there were ten thousand people all whispering in unison. Fear came over me, but I mastered myself. I stepped forward and pushed aside the door.”
This time he did lift his cup. He drank half his wine down in a slow, methodical gulp and then put it back down. There was an unsteady clink as the ceramic cup met the iron table. It was the first real sign of disturbance he had shown since we’d met him, despite his terrible experience of earlier.
Cara and I waited. We were totally absorbed in his story. Toshiro sat silent for a moment. Around us, the light had dimmed to a blue and hazy dusk, and the chirring of evening insects filled the air with a homely, comforting sound. Fireflies danced in the darker air away from the house. Nearer at hand, fat white moths fluttered around the hanging lamps that were suspended from the house’s outer walls.
After a short time, Toshiro sighed and continued.
“I will remember that sight until the day I die,” he said reluctantly. “Shogun Morai stood alone in the center of a ring of candles. His arms were raised, and he wore a black and hooded robe from head to foot. Outside the ring of candles, shadows had gathered like a fine black mist. They swirled and danced all round the circle, and faces leered in the darkness, terrible, evil faces that leered and chattered at him, but seemed unable to pass the barrier of the candle light. I stood, frozen, witless, with the door half drawn, staring into the room. As I watched, a figure began to materialise inside the circle. It was made of the condensing mist, and as it grew and took shape I saw that it had skin the color of wet ashes. It was horrible, like one of the Wokou, but deformed...”
“The Wokou?” Cara said gently.
Toshiro startled, glancing around fearfully for a moment as if he had become so absorbed in the memory that he had lost touch with where he sat at this moment. His eyes snapped back into focus and he looked from one to the other of us. “Of course, you do not know. Forgive me, I was forgetting you are new to the land. The Wokou are... small people, like men, but short and stocky. Even the tallest ones do not come up higher than my chest. They are always bearded, and they take pride in their beards. They are fierce fighters with axe and bow, and mighty cunning at building with stone and at the casting of weapons from metal. We have gained a great deal of our metalworking knowledge from the Wokou, and we buy a great deal of our raw metal from them. They are famous traders, and they run mines and smelt ore in great quantity in their mountain settlements, far away up the coast from here.”
Cara and I looked at each other. These Wokou sounded familiar.
“Dwarves?” I said.
Cara nodded. Quickly, she explained to Toshiro about the Dwarven miners who inhabited the mountain ranges to the north of Saxe. Skilled builders and metal workers, fierce, proud, long-bearded fighters, the dwarves were the allies of the men of Saxe. Long ago, there had been war between us, but it had benefited neither party, and for long years now the men and women of Saxe had been profitable trading partners with the Dwarves.
Toshiro was nodding. “Dwarves,” he mused, trying out the strange word. “They certainly sound the same, except for one thing; in Yamato, the Wokou are seafarers. They mine with
