InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Edge of Resistance ❯ Our Notices ( Chapter 3 )

The Edge of Resistance

Book One: The Dreaming World

 

 

Chapter 4: Our Notices

 

 

"It's nothing," returned Mrs. Chick. "It's merely change of weather. We must expect change." -Charles Dickens

 

***

 

 

Gliding on vents and columns of warm summer air, high above the Shikoku range, the falcon saw below what appeared to him a strange procession of pilgrims. He saw a tall demon heading the procession.

 

Powerful by the looks of it, he thought to himself.

 

This demon lord was flanked by a young girl (human, or I'm a cat!) and by what he could only guess to be some kind of large toad. He wondered what could bring about such a strange fellowship, and why they wandered up into the foothills. He was curious, but also hungry, so he never found out any more about it.

 

Far below, using the two-headed staff to aid him in climbing the slopes (he was growing older than he would ever admit), Jaken wondered why his lord bothered with these occasional surveys of his lands. It seemed to him that forests and mountains could maintain themselves passably well with little or no supervision. When he first came to live at the Hyouden, he thought it was hubris: Sesshoumaru's way of reminding himself of his own wealth and might. Since then, however, Jaken had remade his opinion. He now suspected that Sesshoumaru did not like to stay in one place for too long. The simple truth was that the surveys were an excuse to travel. But Jaken did not dare to inquire about his lord's motives, and least of all to propose his own theories aloud.

 

There were numerous locations about the outskirts of Sesshoumaru's lands where others had taken up residence. Most paid tribute, though Jaken was never very sure of the nature of it, and Sesshoumaru did not seem to care. Most were demon. Most, but not all.

 

Those who had never seen Sesshoumaru at home would doubtless have been unable to believe that he allowed humans to dwell on his lands. These miniscule villages lived off rice and fishing and were inhabited by persons seeking, above all else, peaceful isolation. They therefore did not bother Sesshoumaru, and he in turn took small notice of them. Their only relation to him was an ancient agreement that they would send messages to his palace if the lands were under serious threat. It had worked out quite well for the humans for generations, because no demon tribe of any sort would dare attack Sesshoumaru's lands. For Sesshoumaru's part, he never gave the humans any thought, being that he did in fact disregard their worth.

 

Their last stop on this journey was a cave in the low slopes of the mountains that opened southeast. Sesshoumaru bid Jaken and Rin to wait outside.

 

Inside were the dwellings of dark spider demons, who had no love of sunlight. They spun a glittering palace for themselves deep in the bowels of the earth in an interminable task that had no focus. Their hunger for living blood, mortal or not, was never satisfied, but they dared not assail the Lord of the West, in part because his presence in these lands was a protection, in part because to do so would mean their immediate destruction. Sesshoumaru entered without leave and without caution.

 

But there was no one to receive him. Only tattered ghosts of old and abandoned silk remained clinging to the cave walls. Even the stench of the spider demon was faint. Sesshoumaru stood in the heavy emptiness and absently brushed aside a finger of cobweb that grazed his cheek.

 

It was not like the spider demons to disappear. Because they feared and despised the “hate-fire”, as they called the sun, they seldom ventured far from the mouth of their caves, and then only when they were famished. It was not like them to involve themselves in the affairs of other demons.

 

Under normal circumstances, it was not like Sesshoumaru to become involved in the affairs of other demons. However, he could not ignore the wind that carried loud, brassy notes of warning that a great change, some new threat, was hiding on the edge of his awareness, building momentum.

 

To Rin and Jaken the survey seemed uneventful. As far as Jaken could tell, the lands seemed more or less in order with the seasons. Hunters kept on hunting, flowers kept on flowering, lovers kept on loving, trees kept on…treeing.

 

Neither Jaken nor Rin were a fraction as perceptive as Sesshoumaru, however. He knew long before they turned to go home that something was wrong. The land was much too quiet. The brutish air of summer was immobile, like a retracted coil, waiting to unleash its tension in one direction or another. There was a scent of dreadful anticipation so heavy that Sesshoumaru could not believe that those less in strength than himself were not drowning in it.

 

As far as he knew, the settlements and dwellings that spotted his lands existed more or less in perfect safety. Yet there was about them a feeling of fear and dread. He noticed the human villages in particular had thinner populations. He never went near them but he could feel the villagers watching him from afar with fearful suspicion, even hatred.

 

They returned to the Hyouden after a little more than two days of travel. Rin skipped ahead; always happy to see her home whether she had been gone for two days or two months. She came to an abrupt stop.

 

Sesshoumaru reached her and saw that she was staring at the main door. On it, there was a small scroll of paper tied to the iron knocker with a length of glossy black horsehair.

 

Rin took it down, as it was much too high for Jaken.

 

“It has writing on it.” She turned the paper around in her hand as if that would make it easier to understand. Sesshoumaru remembered that she had never learned to read.

 

“Give me that!” Jaken snatched it away. He cleared his throat.

 

“To the great Lord Sesshoumaru, mighty Prince of the West, King of the Hyouden, our most honored and esteemed benefactor.”

 

There was no doubt whom had sent the message. Only the Karauma, the horse demons who lived in the foothills of the southern mountains and paid allegiance to Sesshoumaru and all his kin, would ever write with such formality.

 

“As part of our careful obedience to the tradition laid down by our forefathers, who long ago swore allegiance to your forefathers, we have sent this message to inform you of important matters. Thus let all in the land observe the tireless compliance of the Karauma to all their treaties and obligations so that they may in turn do the same.”

 

Sesshoumaru sighed in spite of himself.

 

“Our most revered leader, Ishida the Patient, has been felled by enemies to the north. The Youshun have become unaccountably aggressive and have taken much of the lands on our northern border, which were set aside for our use and our guardianship by your ancestor. Ishida's widow, Shinme the Wise, has sent this message in hopes that you, in your judiciousness and unrivaled ability, can avert further bloodshed. Furthermore, to show our duty to you, she has also offered an important message, meant for you, that only she can give:

 

Worry not my daughters,

Worry not my sons.

We will all go bare and swim in the air,

When all is said and done.”

 

Sesshoumaru snorted. “What nonsense.”

 

“Would you like me to send a reply, my lord?”

 

“Don't be absurd. Those who dwell in these lands are fortunate enough that they are allowed to do so. The integrity of their imagined borders is this own problem.”

 

“If I might be so bold, my lord,” Jaken bowed so low that his small forehead grazed the grass.

 

Sesshoumaru stood silent.

 

“These are your lands. If you allow others to show their strength here, it might be perceived as weakness on your part by others.”

 

“What others perceive does not concern me.”

 

“Ah yes, of course my lord, however, if I might suggest—

 

“No, you may not,” Sesshoumaru cut him off. “I am well aware of your friendship with Shinme, Jaken. If you feel the need to protect her, you have leave to depart.”

 

“Ah!” Jaken hopped up and down, waving his arms. “No, no, no, my lord. I could never dream of abandoning you!”

 

But Sesshoumaru was already entering the house. Rin stood beside Jaken, poking him in the ribs.

 

“It's not because you're scared, is it Master Jaken?” she teased him.

 

“Don't be so insolent, silly girl!” He smacked her on the bottom with his staff. “Get in the house! Make yourself useful for once and prepare something to eat!”

 

In truth, Sesshoumaru did not feel as indifferent as he made it seem. Shinme's warning sent a shudder through him and left him cold, even while his brain tried to process it the same way it had always processed everything. He told himself he had always ignored such things. It was his privilege to ignore such things. Why should now be any different?

 

The prince thought that perhaps if he further investigated the disappearance of the spider demons, he could shirk any lingering uncertainty. Their unexplained disappearance was doubtless the cause of this annoying sense for foreboding. He needed to discover how they had managed to move across his lands in large numbers without being detected and what had driven them to do so. Once this small matter was clarified, no doubt it would be a simple matter to shrug off the air stifled with dread, the unexplained sense of alarm, and the enigmatic notice letter.

 

Like everything else, he thought, just the same as it ever was.

 

Sesshoumaru decided to continue on his own, unhindered. He left his charges standing on the north wall, Rin's long kimono sleeve fluttering in the wind as she waved goodbye. He cut a steady path, low across the sky and north by northwest, until he came again to the slopes of the Shikoku, where he found a poor, disheveled hut nestled against a tiny creek in a gully. He noted with satisfaction the presence of a thin, grey tendril of smoke rising from a hole in the center of the roof. He landed with a light step and entered without announcement.

 

Tamotsu, Sesshoumaru's first cousin, was a dog demon of honorable lineage but questionable reputation. This tiny hovel was Tamotsu's home, in the strictest sense of the word. It stood dark and empty except on the rare occasions he used it as a place for rest or for diversions of a various and often sordid nature.

 

He was also the closest living relative to the Lord of the West.

 

Except Inuyasha, of course. But should you ever overhear Sesshoumaru declare Tamotsu as his closest relative, it would be best not to argue.

 

Today he was alone, sitting cross-legged on the bare, dirt floor in front of his puny fire. His robes, which were dirty and patched, hung half open, and were secured by a length of rope tied in a lazy knot on his hip that also held a short sword, without a scabbard and with a nicked and notched blade. His right foot, bare and filthy, tapped the ground while he waited for a roasting fish. When Sesshoumaru entered, he did not look up.

 

“Fish?” He offered his cousin an unsavory looking charred trout, crammed on a stick.

 

Sesshoumaru gave him, and the offered “food”, a look that spoke volumes.

 

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, and set to tearing off bits of fish with shiny, white teeth.

 

“So,” he began, mouth still full. “What brings you here?”

 

Sesshoumaru answered without hesitation.

 

“I saw the smoke. I was curious and I came to see if someone was here or if this pestilential piss hole of yours had spontaneously caught fire.”

 

“You're in fine form today,” his cousin congratulated him. “Good weather for flying?”

 

“Were you coming with me? Or did you just need an audience for your disgusting habits and clever remarks?”

 

Tamotsu's eyes went wide with innocence. “You came to me!” he protested.

 

Sesshoumaru turned his back on him.

 

 

Not much later, they stood outside the abandoned cave of the spider demon.

 

“It is strange,” Tamotsu agreed, scanning the area with narrow, golden eyes. “These creatures, if I remember, hate the sun. They do not wander. That is why your father never troubled himself about their presence.”

 

Sesshoumaru remained silent.

 

Tamotsu adjusted the hilt of his sword as he sat with an unceremonious flop on the dusty ground.

 

“I do not understand why you are troubling yourself over this. They were always rather unpleasant creatures. Good riddance.”

 

“Perhaps.” Sesshoumaru murmured. Hot air moved his silver hair as he gazed out on the plains north of the Hyouden. The random thought occurred to him that the heat of the season had so far been exceptionally oppressive and implacable.

 

“But it bothers me still. I would feel better if I knew what could have drawn them from my lands, and how they moved unnoticed. I have never been one to doubt my instincts.”

 

Tamotsu chuckled. “True.” He stood up again and turned toward his cousin. “So I'm off then. I will find what I can and return as soon as I can. You go in the opposite direction.”

 

He did not wait for an answer, but turned, lifted a foot, and was gone in the direction of the east in an instant.

 

Sesshoumaru's trek into the western most edges of his lands yielded nothing. Always thorough however, he took his time covering the forests, streams, and even the unlikely and forbidding coasts. He stopped when he came to the deep and dark waters of the bay. No matter what contrivance or devilry was driving them, it was unthinkable that the spider demons would attempt such a crossing. Just to cover all possibilities, he made a slight turn to the north, right to the southern edges of the Karauma lands, but there was not so much as a hint of the spider demons' passage. Sesshoumaru was confident that the horse demons would have prevented the trespassing of such loathsome creatures, or, at the very least, reported it to him.

 

Sesshoumaru was in no particular hurry as he made his way back to the cave. He paid scant attention to the scenery, his thoughts absorbed in the ominous message of Shinme. Although the Karauma were not powerful demons in any sense, he was well aware of his family's history with the predictions of their queen. He imagined what his father would say.

 

When he returned to the spot where he had parted with Tamotsu the previous day, he did not find his cousin there. He took that as an optimistic sign that the skillful tracker had discovered a helpful lead to the east.

 

It was the grinding of rock against rock that warned him. It was not loud at first, but Sesshoumaru was already floating above the ground when the path beneath him crumbled. The path had winded down from the cave along the edge of a cliff that faced the northwest. That edge now disintegrated into the ravine below. As the earth trembled and heaved for only a few moments, the smell of its distress was sickening. He saw a great cloud of dust and debris rising hundreds of feet in the air above the Hakusan Mountains many, many miles away.

 

When the disturbance passed, Sesshoumaru resettled on the earth and seated himself against the trunk of a scrawny tree that grew on the dusty ledge. He tried to remember the last such disturbance in this area, but could only touch the feathered edge of a dim memory.

 

“Well, that was dramatic.”

 

Tamotsu had arrived amid the tumult and was standing on what was the new edge of the cliff.

 

Sesshoumaru lifted his eyes again to the north, the cloud of debris was still settling. What sort of power could have such an impact? He was about to suggest to his cousin that they investigate the disturbance, when the sky broke open all at once and began to pour heavy rain. It was almost shocking, because they had not even noticed the gathering of a storm. It was as if someone had brushed clouds of thunder and deluge in a few large strokes across the summer sky.

 

Tamotsu shook his matted hair and blinked at the clouds. “Well, at least I'll get a bath.”

 

“The gods have smiled on us all.”

 

But that was not the last surprise. The rain was not pure but tainted with an unpleasant toxin and a faint smell that was like burning wood and putrid mud and flesh.

 

Tamotsu wrinkled his nose. “What is that stench?”

 

One thing at a time, Sesshoumaru told himself.

 

“Did you find anything?”

 

“Oh! Yes, actually.” Tamotsu answered. “The spider demons definitely went northeast. They passed through the human-occupied lands. Large numbers of them over the past few months. Took lots of humans as they went too, as snacks I suppose.”

 

That explained the unease of the human settlements, and the sparseness of their populations.

 

“So many demons could move without being detected?” Sesshoumaru asked.

 

“Well, the humans certainly weren't going to detect anything, not until it was right on top of them. And get this: they say that you were driving them.”

 

“So they are delusional in addition to being useless.”

 

“Crazy or not, that's what is being spread around. Some even say they saw you first hand, with a terrifying sword, whips of flame, trailing clouds of destruction and ruin—all that.”

 

That explained why no human had sent word to him to raise any alarm. Not that he would have done anything about it, of course. Probably.

 

They meant to travel northeast then, to track both the spider demons and the strange destruction they had just witnessed (Sesshoumaru wondered if they were in fact related). This direction took them close to the Hyouden again, and Sesshoumaru came to a sudden halt.

 

Tamotsu stopped when he realized Sesshoumaru had fallen behind. “What is it?” he called.

 

It was faint now, almost washed away by the tainted rain. But a smell still seemed to be coming from the house, the same smell that came with the rain. He looked down.

 

The house appeared to be in perfect order. Then he noticed that the front door was ajar, only a small crack. That was not usual. Rin was often forgetful about such things.

 

Still…

 

Sesshoumaru changed course and came to his doorway. He gave it a careful push.

 

No one was in the entryway, but it was in violent disarray. A table had been overturned, and new scorches and cinders marked the left sidewall.

 

What had happened?

 

---

 

Higurashi was changing. Standing in the doorway of the old well house had so far offered her little in the way of comfort. In reality, Kagome had not been gone long at all and her mother should have been used to her absences by now. However, Higurashi was not inclined to be reasonable. She had been tormented with dreams since she had last seen her daughter, terrible visions of fire, smoke and ruin. Once the notion of an unknown calamity had entered her head, she could not free herself from it.

 

A songbird began a sudden, loud tirade from a branch above the courtyard, breaking into her thoughts like a pebble dropping into still waters. It lasted only a moment and then it was gone, and Higurashi returned to the darkness of her fears and her dread. She stood fumbling with a large, blue button that had fallen from Kagome's sweater and that she had found among the uneven stones.

 

The hours passed like falling snow and Higurashi's anxiety grew. She took great care to hide it, in particular from Souta. She went from day to day, rehearsing the normal measures of her life with an increasing distance and numbness.

 

By this time, she had long accepted that she must indeed have been mad to have gone along with this whole affair. She remembered her previous reasoning, that Kagome's destiny was immutable, with a sense of self-reproach and ridicule.

 

But then, Kagome was not fifteen anymore.

 

What's done is done.

 

She sighed, and with a movement that betrayed frustration and self-disdain, she abandoned the silly, orphaned button on the ground and walked into the house.

 

Higurashi was changing. She could feel something growing, moving inside her like a terrible and enormous parasite, ricocheting around inside her rib cage. She could feel it gnawing at the edges of her joints. She could smell it in her head. She did not fully comprehend the nature of this internal movement until one day, almost four weeks after Kagome had returned through the well; she was peeling potatoes while seated on a low, wooden bench in the courtyard. Suddenly there appeared in the courtyard two large figures, one a man, the other some kind of dog.

 

The man was tall, the tallest she had ever seen. His hair was a kind of white, but cast in strange hues like warm silver, and his eyes were amber colored and like those of an animal, though calm and wise. The dog was no ordinary dog, but a great hound, with legs as long as Souta's and flanks like those of a horse. It had teeth like the points of curved daggers and eyes like black pearls. The beast's fur was white and gray and grew in great shaggy tufts that covered its body thickly and moved in the wind like willows.

 

To her credit, she wasted no thought on calling for help, or running away. She knew that the figures before her did not occupy any true space. As the two specters moved toward her she thought that they did not touch the ground, and when they were close enough she saw that the movements of the immense canine mirrored those of the man, like a shadow. Then Higurashi understood that the man and the dog were one. At random, she wondered if understanding this would in some way cause one to melt into the other, but it did not.

 

Higurashi said nothing, but rose with simple grace and bowed her head. The man responded to this with a slight bow, and the hound sat back on its haunches, letting its tongue roll out in a sort of laugh.

 

“Do you always greet apparitions so courteously?” the man asked of her, looking amused.

 

“I have not had the pleasure, my lord,” Higurashi tone was placid, even indifferent, and she returned to her potatoes. “To what do I owe this one?”

 

“I have come to offer you some small comfort,” he answered, not moving, “for I know in this hour your need is great.”

 

Higurashi said nothing. Once her sense of wonder subsided, she felt icy and distant, as though this stranger was the cause of her misery.

 

As though I was someone else.

 

“It is not needful that you speak at this time,” he said, trying to sound soothing. Higurashi got the impression that he had not been very good at it in life. He paused, regarded her with a calm air that wrapped her in an atmosphere of anxiety. At last, he spoke again.

 

“It is needful that you know that mine will always see to the safety and well being of yours.”

 

Higurashi lost her restraint as his implications slammed into her. As soon as he uttered this last sentence, she leapt to her feet, a desperate question on her lips and spilling the potatoes on the ground.

 

But he and the hound were gone. She could see that they had left no footprints in dusty courtyard.

 

Thereafter Higurashi knew no peace. It seemed that this one vision had given all her dreams permission to walk by daylight; and she went about the entire next day dreaming on her feet. The following dusk found her standing lost in the center of her own kitchen where she thought she saw the Hero and his Hound sitting at the table feasting and singing war songs.

 

Higurashi was not one to give in to insensibility and she strove with an enormous effort to regain her lucidity and practical nature. She drank a bitter cup of tea with crushed oyster shell, in an effort to bring on sleep. When this did not avail her, she attempted to count the tolls of the clock, the notes in a waltz, or a certain kind of flower in the patch behind the shrine. She was convinced her illness was brought upon her by stress, and she undertook every device she could wring from her mind to ease her impossible anxiety.

 

Like most people, when nothing else would work for Higurashi, she fell to prayer. She prayed with such pathetic fervor that she wept in prostration. Hounded by ghosts throughout her house and tormented by the notion that the past was unassailable and all the world was dying—dying backwards— she prayed that some contrivance would soon reunite her with her daughter.

 

At noon of the fourteenth of August, a sudden, squawky sound startled her, and she dropped a porcelain cup that shattered when it hit the floor. It was the doorbell that had succeeded in re-introducing reality.

 

***

 

[End of Chapter 4]

[Next chapter: Our Frailty]