words stung Gonji deeply. Rampant visions swelled: The vulgar drunken spectacle he’d made of himself; his failed duty; his shame and embarrassment at being forbidden even the saving stroke of seppuku.
He strove to lay at rest the mocking voices, to come to terms with painful honesty.
“Hai...you’re quite right,” Gonji replied with a thin, tight smile. “At least half-right. The action was not of my order. But I, too, have failed in my duty toward these people. Yet if I can I’m going to salvage what’s left of their way of life. When I came into their service it was unbidden, owing them nothing, at least at first. But you—you—they’ve been protecting your secret, harboring you, sheltering you, some of them, for a year now. Abiding all the while your anti-social contempt. Now they’re dying in the streets by sword and pistol and sorcery, crying out for assistance, and what do you do? Nothing but lash out on your own, strike down Klann’s troops as it pleases you by cover of night, only to have citizens beaten and shot for your crimes—ja, crimes—”
Simon’s scalding eyes followed him. “Mind your tongue, barbarian—” The ensorceled hermit began to circle warily again, such that they now described orbits around each other. The roncin mare shrilled and bucked as Simon neared her tether.
Gonji’s own anger rose again. “An old Polish farmer once told me of a proverb spoken in these territories. Something about the filthiest bird being the one who befouls his own nest. From my vantage you’re a pretty filthy bird these days—”
“Have a care, heathen swine.”
“Hai, call me ‘heathen’ as well you might. But if it’s insults you crave, then call me fool for having sought you out these many long years. Ten—miserable—karma-laden years as a worthless ronin, wandering this backward continent in search of the legendary Deathwind—him who would guide me to my destiny!” Gonji snorted and spat noisily behind him. “That’s for the trail I’ve ridden. If your wish is to insult me, then laugh at the way the gods mock my every effort.”
“That’s your problem.”
“Ha! Mine and that of the people of Vedun, now that their lives have become entwined with mine,” Gonji sneered. “How easy for you to cast aside the troubles of the world you move in, with a simple swipe of your legendary aloofness. And you’re wrong, Sir Hermit—there are those who still care about you. Tralayn saw to that with her constant insistence to them that a powerful Deliverer would be coming to their aid. Despite all my efforts on their behalf, with all the scratching and clawing and dishonorable compromise of principle I’ve had to bear just to win some measure of respect, they still wait for you.”
Contempt filled the glade as they stalked each other cautiously, the wind a vortex that sledded around the clearing. Simon seemed about to respond, but Gonji grimaced and cut him short. “You think you have just reason to be bitter because your fellow man has made you an outcast? I could teach you a thing or two about loneliness, Herr Beast-with-the-Soul-of-a-Man—or is it the other way around? You think you’re the only man who ever felt starved for the approval, the companionship, the affection of his fellows? Do you know what it’s like to be a half-breed, to have no life of meaning on any continent? Those people are going to die back there in Vedun, and their deaths will be owing much to you, you and your misdirected vengeance—”
The samurai broke eye contact with him, turned his head away, his breath coming in strained pulls now. “To so lose control like this goes against all my noble training, and I would as lief die by my own hand in this spot as bare my emotions. Yet I can do nothing right now to disguise my revulsion for you....”
Simon stopped pacing and glared at him, his hard gaze transforming, for just a moment, into a curious mix of sympathy and uncertainty. But Gonji saw nothing of it.
The tall man looked down at the bow and quiver at his feet. “Why don’t you pick up your things...and go now.”
The sheathed katana’s hilt was squeezed in a grip that might have throttled a man, as Gonji spat a choked curse and regained his harmony after a struggle. Again he met the mystery man’s eyes, and now his own eyes of black marble flashed with implied threat.
Do what you’ve come to do, by whatever means....
“How can you worship as you claim?” Gonji queried. “You make a shrine of your self-pity and worship there.”
Simon’s eyebrows arched in quiet, rising petulance. “You’ve said what you’ve come to say. Now go—”
“Aren’t followers of Iasu supposed to band together for their common good, for the struggle against the evil things in the world? Even the civilians in Vedun have abandoned their hand-wringing for—”
“The things of which you speak are quite complex,” Simon responded hotly. “I doubt that you’re qualified to discuss them.”
“So?” Gonji affected a coy archness. “I believe I’m educated enough in your worship to make such comment. But no matter....” He considered something, nodded resolutely. “If you refuse to help, maybe I’ll go back to Vedun and tell everyone what kind of a...thing they harbored.”
Dangerous territory. Simon began ambling toward him unsteadily, mayhem stirring in his eyes of flaming iron.
“I can remedy that right now, infidel,” he grated. “I can tear your wagging tongue from your throat.”
Gonji stopped and steeled himself, returning Sardonis’ wilting gaze. “Ah, intimidation—the bully’s stock in trade. You think you can frighten me the way you frighten other men?” Wisdom. Although the bold words had caused Simon to halt and study him closely, Gonji changed the subject without transition: “Will you help these people?”
“Nein.”
“Will you help them for protecting your secret all this time, for suffering because of your vendetta?”
“They care nothing for me; I care nothing for them. They hate me, as do all other men.”
“Nonsense!” Gonji roared. “You hate yourself, what you are, but you can’t deal with it like a man so you punish others for your guilt. Will—you—help undo the trouble you’ve made for them?”
“What’s happened has happened—I’m not to blame. What about your meddling, slope-head?”
The samurai bridled at the insult. “I’m trying the best I know how, using whatever power I can claim to help. You’re sitting imperiously in a cave and slithering out at night to satisfy your bloodlust—Christian! Is this what your faith means to you? The prophetess spoke of you as the Wrath of God. I look at you and what do I see—a symbol of impotence. Even the priest Dobret told me to tell you to help.” Simon froze, taken aback by the statement. “Hai,” Gonji continued, “it was he who became my last link in the journey which led to you. He said that I should enlist your power against the evil that’s descended here, and that you should avoid personal vengeance.” His voice trembled slightly in delivering the half-lie. But conviction rushed back fast; the priest couldn’t have known what would become of this business, and surely he would have urged assistance.
Simon emitted a small gasp. “By the Christ and all the saints—I swear that Tralayn’s restive spirit has infused itself in you. Don’t you understand—any of you—that what you ask of me is utter madness? Leave me be! Leave me alone with my shameful curse before it destroys you all!”
Deadlocked, stubbornly determined each in his way, they stood not ten feet apart, expressions set like treasure-vault doors.
Gonji knew he was defeated, his blustering performance failing him, his appeals to reason muddled and ineffectual, his last-ditch effort at trenchant emotional probing unable to penetrate this enigmatic being’s lifetime conditioning of self-centered defense. He sighed at length and voiced something that had been nagging him.
“All-recht. I’ve wasted enough of my time on you. But something bothers me—”
“I’ve nothing more to