The Comfort Of The Knife

We made it two steps—then came that malevolent whistle. Sphinx reacted before me. Atomic Glories used as thrusters to push us a few feet to the right. Dirt and stones showered us like wedding rice. Where we once were was now a gash in the earth at least four feet deep. The terrestrial wound terminating just before touching the stone my would-be executioner still sat on. She dismissed the stroke with a flick of her wrist and the folded-up fan she held.

The drumbeat of my heart swallowed any words or pithy phrases I could’ve made. I knew my spirit burned hot, capable of besting most sorcery of my link and higher, but resistance wasn’t immunity, and whatever this was had already proved its killing power on my stolen prey whose corpse was dyed in the acid color of the glade’s flowers. Sphinx conjured an Inviolate Star above us while I slid from her back to take stance—and there came the whistle again.

I’d just assumed the correct grip and directed a thought—the smallest idea—of violence toward the woman. It was enough. The whistle approached from our two o’clock allowing Sphinx and myself to face it head on. That baleful sound which heralded death was the accompaniment to a phantom that peeled itself from its illustration on the folding screens that enclosed the glade. She—as all the figures on the screen were feminine—danced and twirled with her blade held behind her, rending stroke following in her wake like a duckling.

With a cartwheel, the phantom woman brought her sword down on the outer edge of the Inviolate Star’s light. My nerves hung on the moment of that collision. She didn’t immediately disperse. Would the star fail? Then, with a wink, she exploded into an aurora mist of Dreams and War. The combination felt familiar to me; a song whose words I could feel but not repeat.

“Interesting,” the woman said. “You think fast.”

As my heart rate fell, I assembled what information I could easily parse. First, she hadn’t formed a single hand-spell as far as I saw. Second, the attacks targeted my exact location. More of a two-A point, if evaded the attacks carried on in a straight line even if it would hit her. Finally, each attack happened without the familiar scent of Bloodlust that normally preceded an act of lethal violence.

I loosened my grip on Mother’s Last Smile. Propped a hand against my hip and took my time to assess the woman. She wore heeled boots whose tips were capped in gold depicting a snarling ogre. Wrinkleless slacks the dark blue of a stormy night and a black thigh pouch that matched her boots. Topped with a white button-down whose sleeves she wore rolled up and the first of four buttons undone. Leaving bare the tattoo of abstracted storm clouds that rolled across her body—half conquered by ink and the other blank flesh. Her aesthetic bisection even showed up in her hair, brown and undercut, with the uncut portion arching down in a nutty wave to her jaw.

“Why’re you smiling?” she asked.

I admitted, “My luck’s pretty bad usually, but at least my executioner is hot.”

She lay supine on the rock—a predator sunning itself beneath a sunless sky. Pulled free a sucker from her pocket, tapped it twice against her tongue stud, then closed her mouth.

“You know I’m like, ten years older than you, right?”

I said, “Doesn’t make you less hot, or more dangerous.”

“I’m hot but not dangerous, explain.”

Gesturing with my glaive at the partition, I said, “This is dangerous, any trap is at least the first time. You made the mistake of letting me see it three—scratch that—four times. Sort of loses its touch after a bit.”

She smirked around her candy. Closed her eyes and with her empty hand pulled free four shuriken from her thigh pouch that glowed the bluish-white of Catharsis. Whipping her hand, the shuriken hung in the air before zipping toward Sphinx and I—spinning stars of Cathartic lightning. When they struck the light of the Inviolate Star the lightning peeled off in energetic petals of Storms and Stars. The metal shuriken themselves continued on, but it took only a lazy Atomic Glory to reduce all four into nothingness. The woman opened her eyes to find me leaning against my glaive.

“That was a bad idea,” I said. “You gave the game away.”

She shrugged, “What’s the game?”

“Intent. You covered your eyes so that you showed no intent to hit me. If I moved or didn’t that was my choice. While you remained divested from the actual result,” I said. “It’s why you didn’t attack me first. This trap’s rules affect you as much as me.”

“You sure about that?” she asked. “It could be a field-spell. Maybe I’m switching things up to lull you into a false sense of security.”

“Sphinx, could you drop the star?” I asked.

“Easily,” Sphinx said, doing just that.

With the star down, I threw my arms out in embrace and challenge. Breathing deep the cool air.

“If it’s a field-spell,” I said, “then cut me.”

We locked wills, neither moving, but as the seconds stretched into a minute—we’d been fighting for only a minute—my executioner fell back onto her rock with an exasperated sigh.

“Ugh, your file is wrong,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s wrong. Alls below, it said you have a short fuse, a lust for violence, and an animalistic desire to prove your superiority against anyone.”

“That,” I said, “feels inaccurate.”

Sphinx quietly chuffed.

“Oh, so it’s not all inaccurate?” the woman asked.

“Sphinx, don’t be a traitor,” I said.

Sphinx tipped their head in a sarcastic apology. “My apologies for mistaking crimson and maroon, Nadia. Whilst the same color family their hue and saturation do differ.”

I didn’t quite follow the metaphor, but it felt at my own expense.

“Anyways, sorry your formation didn’t prove as effective as you expected,” I said. “Now which screen gets me out of here?”

The woman answered, “None of them. The Lunar Enclosure formation, segments local space away from each other. Everything on the other side of those screens may as well be in the Underside. No one gets in or out until it falls, and I’m not budging.”

I groaned realizing the stalemate we’d arrived at. Any violent action I took would be met by the formation responding in kind. Sphinx could block, but attempting to counter would only cause more attacks to come our way until our defenses ran out. The trap might have not been dangerous but it was undoubtedly canny.

Noting that I’d come to the conclusion she began at, the woman said, “Summoner on summoner combat is all about deception and cheating. I won the moment you let your guard down chasing this guy. You must think of yourself as quite the killer, huh?”

“It’s a talent,” I admitted. “Any chance I can get your name?”

She considered the request, but her entity answered for her. Emerging from within her spirit, it took the shape of a woman with four floppy bunny ears that covered her ears and eyes bound down with an embroidered band. While her body was wrapped in voluminous robes that banded over her form in a manner that reminded me of the ribbons Dad would stick onto presents.

“My bondmate’s name is Tsumugi. I am but a mere swordbearer and you may call me thus,” she said, pressing her head to the ground in a kneeling bow.

Tsumugi snapped, “Woman, you don’t have to reveal all that.”

“Hmph,” Swordbearer huffed, “you are my bondmate, not my mistress. I shall reveal what I wish when I wish. Especially when in the presence of royalty.”

“Equal bond?” I asked.

Tsumugi nodded. “I wanted a partner, not a slave. I don’t regret it…”

“But some moments are easier than others?”

“Yup, the cost of free will cuts in both directions,” she said. “So, what’s Swordbearer talking about calling you royalty when you’re a soldier like me?”

“It’s a weird story,” I said.

Swordbearer hopped to her feet—which weren’t really feet, but rather flat nubs of some lacquered material. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Apologies, but it’s not a weird story,” she said. “It’s a marvelous one. Tsumugi, it’s a Canonical Path and we’re a step on it!”

Swordbearer squealed in glee.

“Cease your prattle unless you mean to cross ancient treaties,” Sphinx said.

While Swordbearer blew raspberries at Sphinx, Tsumugi and I shared a moment of confusion.

“This make any sense to you?” Tsumugi asked.

“None,” I said. “Sphinx, what’s Swordbearer talking about?”

“Things that are to remain beyond mortal ken until the Sovereigns deem otherwise.”

“Sorry, Tsumugi, I did say too much,” Swordbearer stated.

“Moving on from that,” I said, “I’m going to need you to drop the formation, Tsumugi. Right now there’s a circle hunting down well-connected examinees and they’re—.”

“Planning to kill them all and pin it on Lodgemaster Khapoor,” Tsumugi said. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“If it is then let me go. Melissa, my…um, ex-fiancee is being targeted.”

Tsumugi whistled, “A bit young to have already annulled an engagement, aren’t you?”

“Fuck,” Swordbearer swore, “the beleaguered path?”

Sphinx nodded.

“Yes, I know, but I might be able to fix it,” I said, ignoring the entities' commentary. “That is, if she’s not dead.”

“I love a good romance, Nadia—can I call you Nadia?” Tsumugi asked

“Sure.”

“Great. Now, I love a good romance in books, but in real life I have higher concerns.”

I slammed the butt of my glaive into the dirt. Teeth bare I hissed, “Then do it so the entire region doesn’t go up in flames. If Nemesis is ousted it’ll be chaos!”

“Probably,” Tsumugi said, “but that’s not my problem.”

“If you don’t care then why are you testing here?” I asked.

Tsumugi leaned forward resting her arms on her knees. She removed the sucker from her mouth—it’d shrunk to the size of a pea but hadn’t fallen off the stick—then pointed it upward.

“The Tenken-bumon,” she said.

The heat of anger I felt was perforated by the curiosity the name inspired.

“And they are?” I asked.

“Normally, not your concern,” she said. “Our name translates to ‘Heaven Sword Division,’ and that’s what we are. The sword of the heavens, of the Godtenders and their incarnate deities. Through us, they see to problems across the world. My division handles those which a sword is the best tool for.”

I scoffed, “You’re telling me the Godtenders have a secret force of summoners to what, destroy problems? They don’t need soldiers like us.”

“Everyone needs soldiers like us,” Tsumugi said.

“Right, so you just came all the way from Tokyo—.”

“Shin-Tokyo,” she enunciated with a voice heavy as a sunken stone. “We don’t shorten it.”

I held up my hands in surrender. The last thing I wanted was to destroy the diplomatic bridge I’d build between us—even if at the time it was largely rapport.

“Sorry, a friend had told me otherwise,” I said.

Swordbearer rubbed Tsumugi’s thigh in support while the Tenken-bumon agent exhaled the frustration my gaffe had injected into her. She squeezed Swordbearer’s hand.

“Must have been an old friend. It’s been Shin-Tokyo for two generations,” Tsumugi said. “Anyways, I wasn’t set for something as minor as a plot against a regional lodgemaster.”

“What were you sent for?” I asked, fighting down my own frustrations.

“Hybridae,” Tsumugi said. “Human-entity blends, forbidden under the heavens. My superiors tell me that wherever you find hybridae the apocalypse is sure to follow. See? Higher concerns.”

My mouth went dry. She was looking for the White Wombs—the Godtenders knew about them, but only sent a soldier? If they knew beyond rumor they’d have sent someone else higher up the Chain, and not have them bogged down with an exam. I looked up from my own thoughts to meet Tsumugi’s uncovered eye—blue as the azure sky on a summer day—unflinching and all-encompassing in what it saw.

“Do you know something?” she asked.

About the White Wombs or my own strange heritage? The thought skipped across my mind sprouting images of the White Wombs, hybridae, floating inside their tanks in that hidden facility. Then came the thoughts about myself and my relationship to Mom. I drew my foot back, angling my body in a calm yet martial stance. I didn’t know how accepting of mysterious curiosities, like myself, the Tenken-bumon was. Did I have to be born a blend, or was it enough that a Sovereign let me speak her coronation name and granted me access to her Court through Mother’s Last Smile—those techniques I used were Mom’s no matter what Amber said.

Amber, she said people just called it Tokyo, but they hadn’t for two generations apparently. How long was a generation? The thoughts poured from me in a flood that threatened to knock me from the perch of calmness that I’d found inside Tsumugi’s trap.

Tsumugi said, “There exists a line, Nadia. You don’t see it normally, but it’s there if you know where to look. The horizon. Those moments we decide to lie or tell the truth. When someone offers you a way out if you’d only take their hand and accept their terms. Alls below, it’s there every time we decide whether to kill someone or not.”

“The partition between Is and Is Not,” Swordbearer said. “That which determines one from zero, and makes two from one.”

“A sacred severance made mundane for how little we consider it,” Tsumugi said.

Swordbearer intoned with pride, “The Court which is first and last. Whose Sovereign is twin-faced awake yet sleeping.”

“Make the right choice, Nadia,” Tsumugi said.

I looked up—Tsumugi’s face was devoid of her prior calm yet not committed to a new stance. If I was on the line of choice then so was she. A smile crossed my face as copper teased my nose—a memory, a premonition perhaps? I shrugged it off and sat my focus in the moment.

“Or what, you’ll kill me?” I asked.

Tsumugi stood, “If the heavens demand—.”

“Tsumugi,” Swordbearer screamed.

There it was, Bloodlust, that faint scent which came from Tsumugi’s own determination to do right by the Godtenders too lazy to solve this problem themselves. It was paired with the whistle of a scything blow trailing behind a sword-wielding dancer.

Tsumugi leaped from the rock—below where she’d sat was the control circle for the formation, I was right. Wielding the enclosed fan she parried her own trap. At the same time, I circle strafed with Sphinx conjuring an Inviolate Star above my fingers.

“We need not defenses, Nadia,” Sphinx said.

“The Inviolate Star is a defense, but its purpose isn’t to block.”

I tossed my glaive to Sphinx, and with my other hand grasped the Inviolate Star between my fingers. Stealing a page from Tsumugi’s grimoire, I slid to a stop, wound back my arm, and whipped it forward releasing the Inviolate Star as a shuriken.

“It’s to unspool sorcery and defy fate,” I explained. “Sometimes that’s better than any defense.”

Swordbearer swung her head away from Tsumugi and over to us, but she was too slow. It plunged into the stone seat that served as the formation's control point. The Underink that Tsumugi used went up in the chalcedony flames of Revelation. Sorcery unspooling as if a spell had struck its light or tried to sink into my body.

Fwoosh. In one beautiful sweep, all the folding screens combusted burning down into skeletal remnants and then not even that. Only through Omensight did I see the aurora smoke of Dreams and War twinning through the air to merge back into the general tapestry of the world.

“Ahhhh, Nadia,” Tsumugi said. “Your file didn’t mention you loved bad decisions.”

“I’m starting to think the examiners have it out for me,” I said.

“You’d deserve it. Swordbearer,” Tsumugi said, “to me.”

Swordbearer raced to Tsumugi. I formed the seal for Atomic Glory, wrapping the tie of Bloodlust that hung dripping with promised violence between Tsumugi and myself around my fingers. Fate is faster than physics—I split infinity content with my victory.

Tsumugi raised two fingers miming scissors—a hand-spell—and brought them together severing our tie of fate. She turned to me sporting a smug grin. A wind blew lifting the brown curtain of hair and unveiling her hidden eye. A scar ran over it—thin and well-healed—but the pupil was split into two hovering halves set within the same iris made of two colors: gold and azure.

“What’s wrong, Nadia,” Tsumugi asked, “didn’t someone teach you scissors beats string?”

Swordbearer reached Tsumugi’s side in a kneeling powerslide. Back arched, the arcing robes that covered her flesh blossomed. Breasts bare she graced me with an upside-down smile, and the perfect view of why she was termed, ‘Swordbearer.’ Up her chest, from crotch to sternum, were the intertwined fingers of two hands which composed her torso. They clutched tight around a sword sheath which curved graceful as a woman’s eyebrow.

“In the name of our Twin-Face Sovereign—draw,” Swordbearer declared.

The thumbs of the two hands lifted from the guard no longer imprisoning the sword in its sheath. Tsumugi drew and cut with the curved saber in one motion. She was across the glade from me having raised neither a hand-spell nor uttered an incantation. Yet Bloodlust flooded my nose, dilating my eyes and tuning my ears to catch the angle from which violence would find me.

My spirit told me it was already there as something—a sense, a memory, knowledge that hid where I’d made the cut between me and what lurked in the mirror—passed through me. Horizon Severs Sea From Sky. The name vibrated through the fibers of my spirit as it passed cleanly through the pre-existing cut in my spirit. With it came a memory too fast to recall.

“You two are annoying,” Tsumugi said, bringing my attention back to the glade.

I inhaled a breath to remind myself I was alive. Sphinx had interposed herself between me and Tsumugi just in time. The bright metal head of Mother’s Last Smile, the bulwark that defied what had happened to trees at my side and behind me. All of them were cleaved in two perfect halves. Their stumps smooth as tabletops.

“The forest is stronger than soldier Sorcery,” I stated.

Tsumugi pointed the saber at me. “If you want to destroy them then yes, but what happened to them is natural. A possibility that can’t be denied if they’re to be Real.”

“Fate?”

Tsumugi mimed zipping her lips. I hefted my glaive—it wasn’t like I needed an answer that badly. We charged. Behind us, our entities threw spells down in great volleys at the other’s summoner alternating between offensive and defensive in smooth transitions.

Sphinx released an arcing cascade of Atomic Glories. Swordbearer swept her arms conjuring a sliding door that caught them all before burning away. She lifted her arms releasing scything waves promising bisection. Sphinx conjured and kicked an Inviolate Star intercepting it.

Below them, Tsumugi and I traded blows of our own. She snaked around the head of my glaive twisting like a reed. Step-by-step gaining ground where she could before leaping forward in a swipe meant to take my head. I bent back like a willow in a storm letting the entity conjured weapon taste air instead of flesh. Then pushed the end of the glaive’s shaft down kicking the head up toward Tsumugi’s heart. Only for her to leap and barrel roll through the air returning to the range I wanted her to stay at.

In physique and Sorcery we were even. She was cunning and I was quick. Hers were ten years of hardened skill at fighting within this link. Mine came from—well, not to brag, but talent—and a taste for killing that I sought to sate in every exchange. Yet, somewhere in our dance where every step felt known and right and we could chase each other through the glade until the sun rose—I’d forgotten that this was a fight and not a dance. I’d allowed her to gain my measure, and so she did what I’d not entertained in twenty moves.

“Solar Severance,” Tsumugi incanted, while raising the seal for the same hand-spell.

Instinctively, I raised my glaive to defend myself…then I followed her eyes. It was for Sphinx! A horizontal wave of gold cut through the air. I formed the hand-spell for an Inviolate Star tossing it to Sphinx. It spun fast and flew hard arriving just in time for the wave to strike it. Reacting, she flapped her wings shooting herself backwards just in time for the star which had saved my life so many times prior was cut.

Revelation fell to pieces. The wave severed the tips of Sphinx’s wings. I tried to run over.

“No cheating on your dance partner,” Swordbearer said, as she spun conjuring partitions that segmented local space—splitting the glade in half.

I yelled, “Sphinx!”

“I’m hurt,” Tsumugi said.

I whirled to face her. My glaive raised high in one hand. Mouth opened, ready to rip out her throat with fangs that craved blood—her face was so close. Close enough to kiss. Why? Something dripped onto the ground between us.

Looking down I found my answer—she’d stabbed me. In the moment I cared for Sphinx she’d found my end. Mother’s Last Smile fell from my hands hitting the ground with a thud.

“It’s not fair,” I said.

Tsumugi tilted her head, “Life usually isn’t. You should be happy you’re tasting failure now rather than when you can’t come back from it.”

I stumbled forward. Wrapped my hand around the back of her neck. Laid my head against her—Tsumugi was nice enough to let me. Nice enough to hear the final words I whispered.

“No,” I said. “It’s not fair for you.”

“What are—?” Tsumugi didn’t finish her question.

Swordbearer’s scream had clipped the end off. The partition she’d conjured fell into the ground discorporating into nothing in a grand reveal to display Sphinx—triumphant, as I knew she would be—with her fangs sunk into Swordbearer’s neck.

“No,” Tsumugi said. “How?”

“Take a peek,” I said.

Tsumugi looked down to find her answer. What had dripped onto the flowers wasn’t the blood of my Dream Shell. It was the melted remnants of the sword which had come from Swordbearer.

“‘Summoner on summoner combat is deception and cheating,’ you said, and I never showed my full hand,” I said. “Wanted to see what you knew about me. Which, from how you kept throwing spells my way like they’d work, wasn’t much. See, it’s new but my spirit burns so hot that it melts entities and sorcery alike.”

Swordbearer howled in pain as the weapon pulled from her body—of her body—melted to the guard. Tsumugi shook her head in disbelief before raising up a pleading expression.

“Nadia, the hybridae—,” she said.

“Aren’t my highest concern,” I stated. “That’s taken by my vengeance and my people, and all things in between those two concerns—well—I’ll enjoy killing them.”

I split infinity with my other hand, cupping an Atomic Glory gentle as an egg. Then pressed it against Tsumugi’s chest, grinning as it ate greedily of her body. Wreathing her in beautiful chalcedony until you couldn’t make out a single discerning feature. I watched her burn and let her final sight be my broad fang-filled smile of ecstasy as I drank in the unique scent of our paired Bloodlust wrapping about one another. It wasn’t a real kill—no more than reading a smutty novel was real sex—but after what she put me through…it still hit the spot.

Her Dream Shell popped banishing away the flames of my Atomic Glory. As well as washing away the half-pleasure I’d found in her ‘death’. As I stared at her slumbering body there in the flowers, I felt the red rivers of Bloodlust erode the stone of sanity I’d constructed in my mind. A dreamer’s death wouldn’t sate me. It wouldn’t make me less hungry.

“Princess, please spare my summoner,” Swordbearer called out.

I rolled my eyes, lying, “Oh, of course I was. No point in killing her killing her.”

“Apologies,” she said, “your mien said otherwise.”

Sphinx unhinged her jaw allowing Swordbearer to scurry to Tsumugi’s side. As if she’d change her mind about what I presumed was a withdrawal from our fight, I hurried toward Sphinx. Burning droplets of chalcedony blood dripped from her wounds reminding me of her tears. I stroked Sphinx’s face once, twice, three times.

The ritual of my fingers sliding through her hair pushed back the tide of Bloodlust. With my mind returned to me I called out to Swordbearer, “What Court are you anyways?”

She twisted her head to face me and answered in the language of entities—that mystical vibration of the spirit known as conceptual speech. Somehow still a wind stole her answer cleaving off portions of the tune.

“Divi****,” she answered. “It’s not my place, but may I ask a question?”

“Sure,” I said.

“How did you evade Tsumugi’s horizon which cuts the world?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it was because Sphinx blocked with this?”

I raised my glaive up. Swordbearer shook her head.

“She was too slow. Please, for me, think harder.”

I swam upstream through the memories of my duel with Tsumugi. Trying to return to that place when I felt the horizon pass through me. It passed through me as if I was what it already sought to do. Swordbearer awarded me a tiny applause.

“Take the lesson to heart,” she said. “What already is struggles to be acted upon. Good luck with your path, Princess.”

Sphinx nudged my leg—we had to hurry. I climbed astride her back, and we left Tsumugi and Swordbearer behind in the glade.