Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel. T. C. Rypel

is...the name of the thing I have come to seek in the West. I have been told many things about these names. Some conflicting things. There are those who say the names refer to nothing more than a European legend. But others would tell you that they speak of a beast...a thing that is not quite a man—or perhaps it’s the other way around. My quest after it has led me here, to this province. In these mountains the lore-mongers name the Deathwind as their God’s avenging spirit, some protective horror that will lay low their oppressors....”

      At this last disclosure there were gasps and whispers all around, for there could be little doubt that Gonji had been referring to the occupying force of Klann.

      “...of course that’s all probably peasant talk, the idle chatter of the uneducated. Who can say?” he concluded, smiling slyly.

      “I think perhaps you know more than fireside prattle,” Mord accused, and Gonji’s arms stiffened at his sides. He was suddenly sorry that he had removed his swords.

      “What do you know of this?” From a concealed pocket Mord produced a large formed metal object. A huge key. The key produced an immediate effect on Gonji’s companions; their flaring nerve ends could almost be seen. But Gonji himself could not remember ever having seen it, though it piqued a recent memory.

      “Nothing. I’ve never seen it before.” He tinged his voice with gentle menace, weary of the sorcerer’s brusque tone.

      “I think you’re lying.”

      “Mord, that’s enough,” said Klann, his tone almost one of boredom.

      “I think you’re all lying,” Mord persisted, “concealing intelligence of interest to the king.”

      Gonji’s mordant tongue, one of the legacies of his Nordic mother, had lost its taste for diplomacy.

      “Very sorry, maho-tsukai-san—Sir Magician—but I believe your great powers are being wasted on this effort at intimidation. Why don’t you try them at divining instead—”

      “Gonji!” Flavio warned curtly.

      “—I would think it to be a simple matter for one who can call up giants and foul carrion birds.”

      Mord raised his arms forebodingly.

      Chairs and benches scraped at all the surrounding tables, a few screams heard as people scrambled to clear the area. Gonji grabbed up the Sagami, its blade whining from the scabbard as he leaped clear of the table.

      “Gonji—no!” the delegates were crying out.

      “Mord—stop this!” came Klann’s bellow.

      The sorcerer worked at forming a shape in the air before him, something long and slithery and fashioned of blue smoke that wriggled and twined its way through the air between him and the samurai.

      Gonji stood still as marble with the katana in a two-handed clench at middle guard, the hilt before his navel, the point fixed on Mord.

      “Disperse it, Mord!”

      The shape descended in a sinuous wave. Gonji took a single step back and raised his blade high over his head for a strike. He felt hands at his shoulders, ignored them.

      “Send it away!”

      Mord brushed one hand across his body in a wave of dispersal, and the shape turned to sparkling blue scintillas that shone an exquisite instant and then fell to the floor as dust.

      “Forgive me, sire,” Mord said, head hanging low, sullen eyes gleaming out of the golden mask’s sockets, “but this barbarian—who knows nothing of what he speaks—kindled my anger. But there was never anything to fear. Merely a warning against disrespectful tongues. I’ll take my leave, if it pleases you.”

      “Yes-yes, go,” Klann said.

      He moved off but stopped at the end of the table and leered back in Gonji’s direction.

      “The shape you saw was but an illusion. The creature it suggests, however, is quite real in substance. I should be pleased to introduce you to it one day.”

      Gonji stood with the Sagami in one hand along his side. He arched an eyebrow. “I’ll look forward to it.”

      And Mord was gone with a rustle of robes.

      Gonji took a deep breath, restoring his harmony. He experienced a sudden chill at the cold runlets of sweat that trickled under his tunic. His bristling nape hairs gave him an urge to scratch vigorously. But he forced a placid expression as he smartly returned the Sagami to its scabbard and placed both his swords back in his sash.

      Already the hall rumbled with low voices retelling the way the incident had been perceived. By morning it would exist in a hundred versions, each more fantastic than the last.

      “All right, everyone—eat, drink; make music, you musicians. We command it!” roared Klann’s voice. “This is a time for gaiety. No, not that funeral dirge!” he called to the gallery. “Give us a happy refrain!”

      Gonji looked over his shoulder at Garth and nodded. It was the smith who had grasped him by the shoulders in an effort at restraint.

      The delegates were sorting themselves out, restoring their dignity after the unsavory incident, when they received a shock that overwhelmed all others on this monumental day.

      “And what of you all these years, mighty man-of-valor?” Klann was booming. “I see that it will have to be we who shatter your stony silence!”

      Klann was addressing Garth.