The Shadow of Issu

Surge of Memory: The Days of a Young Orchid

The body was pale, broken, and covered in snow. Akha’s breaths hastened, but his instincts as a Kinus’s apprentice hastened quicker. It was common work in these lands. An unceasing and overbearing work that sacrificed both emotion and thought. Who would remain sane if one had done nothing but bury the dead for fourteen seasons?

A blanket of grey clusters draped the sun that hang to the west. It was not particularly hard to tell that it was a few hours after the noon. It bleached the entire sky into an empty hoary silver that reflected faint colors of fire, snow falling softly from it, bringing the scent of distant heavens, and with it came the scent of death.

He placed his eyes upon the corpse, observing it. Before the burial, the monks must examine the cause, as ritual requires. It is believed that every death is deemed intimate to the world beyond life, and so required a variety of prayers.

So he observes—a long and pressed cut deepened to the chest, pierced from the abdomen and swelling to the back, a sheer pressure that cracked the spine and snapped the ribs. The blood had already dried in her silks. Pity it had been a girl of young age, but pity should not be a question for a youth such as him. Given purpose, to see that the deceased reach the next world, redeemed from all things vile that had once desecrated the body, such as this, that was left to rot and be taken by feral beasts.

“Earth and wind bear witness.”

He placed the cold shell into the deep furrow and placed a cairn of stone above the grave, and prayed.

 “You are giver and taker. An act is paid where act is taken.”

 Akha emptied his lungs and filled it with the cold air. It was no easy task to become a Kinu. But he was not tasked to think— to question the motives behind his pure work. He was to do it with blind obedience, and tenacious integrity. A morbid task, he agreed, though it justifies itself through services of purification. He knew its purpose, how consequential these ceremonies can be.

For a dark omen haunts these lands, or so his master tells him.

In the foliage soft thick snow-covered grass from where the body lay, Akha had noticed the glint of an object. He could not have missed it. The boy picked it up by the hilt. A makeshift dagger, rusted and stained black with dried blood. He knew death was common in the enswoods, but murder was very unlikely. There is a difference between the two. It is known that death with an intention of malice, can be deemed murder, and that it is by itself, an act of evil. In the harshness of the wilderness, animals kill to survive, and only those taken by malice, kill only to incite satisfaction, and he felt it when he touched the girl’s body— malice— and a sharp ice went down his spine.

But it seemed that the wound that had killed her did not come from the weapon. The opening was forced, as if pierced by a blunt object with great pressure, or torn clean open by a set of huge claws. It was probably done by some large animal, and an animal that murders without discrimination. This portion of sharp metal that could barely be called a weapon must have been the only tool to defend herself.

He noticed faint blood-trails that sunk deeper into the woods. “A wolf, or a wild dog, or something bigger. The scent drew them in, must have escaped with a wound.” He whispered. But if there was one strange thing that came from the weapon was it was soaked in blood as black as the night sky, and to recall, he had not seen an animal with blood as black as coal. He dropped the stained dagger and buried it in the ground, kicking over snowy dirt until it was lost.

 It was rather an undesiring question to ask how she had come to these uncharted paths. It is rare to pass the nameless routes to Atano, for no one could or dare cross Sureyu, and Atano was directly below its slopes. Some, who tend to get lost, find their way into these treacherous forests to cross the Grey Mountains, where fate misleads them to horrible, forgetting deaths. But the promise of green pasture was sure to lead on these intrepid, daring souls. For it is in the river of Maketa, that legend is written, its waters led to a place where the sun does not hide behind the shadows of great giants, and the nights are filled with a thousand suns. If any promise sweeter than that rings in the woods of the Grim Forests of Atano, then it will only be a matter of time that some ambitious vagrant would dare attempt it, only to lose his life before realizing its impossibility.

The gradients, the great snow-storms, the beasts that prowl in its mountains, to cross the Grey Mountain of Sureyu is to face death in the eye. As other alternatives could suggest, one might wish to follow the waters of Maketa, only be led up to the mouths of the Wallowing Caves, where the river runs deep and silent, and undisturbed things lurk there hungry and malicious.

But beyond all this snow and death, the rumors tell of the fields beyond Atano, a land where the sun shines upon endless stretches of green fields and blue mountains. They were all just rumors, Akha knew that much, and from where he assumed the beaten path, there were no proper roads that led on to such a place.

The sun had slowly descended in the peaks of the Grey Mountains, so he continued to check the traps that he had lain in these woods. They have been there for days but not one was successful.

Atano was a cruel mother, unforgiving and filled with much toil. The land was too sour to yield herbs, and a constant bitter cold made livestock impossible, so they have resorted to hunting. Animals such as moon-elks, or ensdeer, both species born of Atano’s wild, could only survive such extreme climates, but still pose endearing threats in matters of domestication.

The young monk continued to sprawl upon the others. He took his trails down to the enswoods, a place of gods and spirits, pressing soft ground to find areas reaching to the Red-Thickets that stretch miles to the north, though never crossing the great Sureyu.

Night would soon come fast, and dusk draws faster in the woods, obscuring everything in darkness before the sun even sets. Empty handed from his traps, and with what little daylight has lingered in the canopies of the trees left, Akha decided to end his day as he always does.

Crossing a narrow path that led to the end of the forest, he came to thicker canopies and finally to a small opening. A small shrine was built just a few walks to his right, where a chime, a chest filled with beads, and a string tied with several beads were laid on a patch of well maintained grass that smelled of sweet-scented spice. He picked up one of the beads from the box and tied it to the string where it took a place amongst the other, there were 76 beads to the string. Each bead represented a duty fulfilled, and one’s duty is that of one day of service. A string of 100 beads is said to grant any Kinu a wish, if the ritual was performed correctly. He rung the chime and struck his palms together.

“To set my eyes upon the sea, I desire nothing else.” He whispered. Then he stood up and prepared. Beside the shrine, an iron staff laid. He placed his master’s wooden one and picked up this metal rod. He approached the center of the field, across the pillar.  The snow was still falling from the sky, but as he took his breaths deeply, closing his eyes as he assumed a form, the coldness of the iron staff reaching to his unwavering grip, until each snow flake fell slower, and slower, as if time had been frozen solid by the cold.

He let in a deep and resonating breath as he extended his left leg back and let out a forward cleave from where he held the staff. Bringing his left foot up, he raised his staff overhead, both hands gripping hard on the shaft of the weapon. With a sudden and controlled exhale from his core, he anchored his foot down and struck the pillar with such swiftness and force that when the air was cut into two, the snow stopped, and the forest rang with a loud silence, then it fell back again. It was a thing to behold, but his face showed discontent. The pillar had not been cut into two.

Again and again, he struck the stone, with each strike more powerful than the last, but it did nothing. He threw the staff away and dropped to the snowy dirt, his eyes cast towards the setting sky like it was looking at a person.

He stood up, and picked up what he had thrown so blatantly. He turned to the small shrine and kneeled, his hands faced together as he said words in a solemn, repenting tone, taught by his master.

It was until a sudden rustling in the leaves disturbed him. When he partook of these serious ceremonies, his mind reaches a state of complete awareness, and from that, he could feel a pair of eyes burn at the back of his head. With his instincts that kept him alive in the woodlands, the boy stood to observe. The ember had turned the sky blood-red, as auburn streaks faded into the expanse of a dimly lit lavender sky. Darkness soon came and called out the creatures of the night, and spirits in the enswoods with powers as secretive as their motives. His ceremony was ended prematurely and he decided to investigate.

Akha observed his surroundings a bit longer and found himself west into the thickets where he slowly crouched near a great white tree, where the sound was the loudest. Its branches were protruding like tortuous fingers that latched on nearby groves and canopies. His breath came to a standstill, holding it until his ears had rung, taking small breaths to listen to the sounds.

The woods were a hiding place for all things that dwelt before the ancient times. The uncanny haunt these untouched lands. To see things here no normal man has as a pilgrim’s eyes have, was ordinary episode.

From afar, Akha saw the figure, gaunt and dark. He could hardly make known of it—Arms as long as its torso, a weird twisted spine that bent backwards, like an arc. It seemed more human than animal, yet from the seeping darkness that melted into the woods and the thick foliage, he could not make known of it. All of it was assumption, as if what he had seen was merely the moving of the branches. That is if trees had learned how to walk.

Then he heard his traps trigger.

From his east, Akha heard the squeak. He paced slowly towards it, and rushed to where he had set it. Two hares were caught in its snare. He looked again, and the figure was gone, maybe it was merely his imagination playing with the tress. With a quick glance to his west and a hurried rummaging in his sack, he shortly cut the rope from the hares and tied them up. He ventured a different path outside the woods to the foot of the mountain, where the air was moist and the snow was shallow.