The darkness shifted around him, but he paid it no notice. What does darkness matter, when shadows are your only friends? The Great Lord sat alone in the throne room, his eyes beneath his porcelain mask fixed upon the sliding door at the far end. Around him, the guard sat motionless, waiting for his voice, the raise of his hand, any motion from their daimyo that might speak to them, command them. The waiting was unbearable, and a single bead of sweat trickled down one man's cheek. The darkness, thick and cloying, settled around them like a traveler's cloak, and their Lord did not move, did not blink, did not breathe . . .

Twenty years ago, the man upon the throne had been a child. He stood upon the high walls of his father's castle and looked down upon the steep slopes below him. Samurai in the command of the Scorpion trained on the fields, far below the high palace. The boy, his face covered in a silken mask that barely hid his deformities, watched them carefully. As he moved closer to the precipice, he could feel the smooth stone of the castle's wall under his bare feet. A fierce wind blew through his tousled hair, sending thick strands into his eyes. Beneath his foot, he felt a stone in the wall give way under his weight, shifting his balance dangerously. He cried out, grasping at any foundation - any outcropping rock that might save him from the fall - but there was none. With a gasp, the boy began to plunge to his death, but at the last moment caught the edge of the wooden rafter that protruded from the wall. The world spun crazily around him and he clutched at the frail support with all his strength, his thin arms shaking from the effort. An eternity passed as the boy slowly pulled himself up the wall, fingers bleeding from scraping against the stone of the castle. When he heaved himself over the top of the precipice he saw his father standing above him, watching with an impassive face.

"Father...?" The boy whispered, staring up at the cold face of the man above him. The boy's legs still dangled out over the edge of the castle, his torn pants waving like banners in the wind, and his bleeding hands left red marks upon the castle roof. "I...," he struggled for words, "I was watching the parade...and I slipped ...."
The man turned his back to the child, and walked away. "If you had not been strong enough to help yourself, you were not worth saving." His footsteps echoed on the cold rocks, and the wind tossed his scarlet clothing in defiance.

. . .The darkness did not move, did not speak, did not falter. The man on the black throne sat with equal impassivity, his chiseled features framed by black hair that fell down his chest like twin rivers of obsidian. The doors remained closed, the shadowy forms on the other side rising and falling as they walked past, like tides. Like the flickering flames of war on the battlefield. The daimyo on his throne stared past the figures, into another time. Another flame. The flame of hatred . . .

Fires scattered before his steed as they leaped over the burning grasses of the field. His sword bright in his hand, he cut down the Lion army and their bodies parted before the keen steel of his family's Ancestral Sword as if they were no more than thin rice paper. Ahead of him, he saw the commander of his enemies, wielding a tetsubo and screaming in rage and fury. Through the smoke and flame, Shoju pointed his gleaming blade at the man and shouted a challenge. The Lion nodded, and readied his weapon. The Scorpion dismounted, his horse fleeing into the carnage around them, and stepped through the black flames like an avenging angel. With the barest flicker of movement, the Lion was disarmed, his tetsubo flying through the air. A kick to the leg, and he was kneeling before the young Scorpion with the iron mask. Gripping the samurai's hair in one hand, Shoju pulled his head back and stared down into his eyes as the screams of war echoed. Through the darkness of night, the eerie leaping of the fires on the plain silhouetted the pair. "Your men betrayed you." He hissed into the paralyzed Lion's ear as he raised his family's sword. "They came to us in the night with your battle plans, and they cursed your name."

"Why.." the man cried out, "Why are you telling me this?"

"When you dueled my father at the Emperor's palace, you said that you sought only truth, little man. Take a close look at your 'truth' now." The sword fell like a scythe, and Shoju held the man's head high above the racing flames, letting his last vision be of the decimation of the Lion army and the slaughter of his loyal men. Above Shoju, the crows wheeled in the sky with ravenous, sickening cries, preparing for the morning's feast.

. . . One of the samurai flinched, the hours of waiting in the throne room shattering his nerves and testing his control to the limit, but the man in scarlet did not notice. Around him, like the wing of a crow, the blackness shivered and breathed. The flowers in the alcove on one side of the throne room were wilting, and a single white petal fell to the gleaming wooden floor. Still they sat in icy silence, the lord and his men, and they waited for the news to be brought to them. The darkness too, it seemed, waited for the story to be told.

It is, after all, only a legend. When the First Hantei was brought back from the battles with Fu Leng's hordes, the legend says that the blood ran from his fingers and his wounded side as if it were a river that would not be quenched. The battle lines were broken, the beasts retreating to the distant south, and the cheers of the armies could be heard on the far plains of the Imperial Palace.

The actors move, spin, wheel in graceful dances about the figure who lies in the center of the stage - the dying Hantei. The play has been enacted many times, and the actors know their parts. Even Shoju, who as a youth once played the role of the unreadable Bayushi, could close his eyes and recite the lines from memory. The legend was still strong.

One, a tall man, paces to the side of the deathbed, a sword in his hand. A maiden in blue kneels by the side of the Emperor, trying vainly to staunch his wounds. Doji and Akodo. in the corner, Bayushi waits . . .
"Will I die?" The Emperor gasps, his voice rattling, the actor's care and precision perfectly miming the failing voice of the dying.

"No," says the maiden, "Your wounds have been cared for - the bleeding is stopping. Oh, my brother, you will not die." Her voice, in contrast to the Emperor's, is strong through tears, and her hands flutter over the bandages as if she could hold his spirit inside him with her strong silk wrappings.

The actor on the couch turns to the tall golden man. "Will I die?" he whispers, his voice ever fainter.
"You will never die, my Lord," the Lion replies, clutching the pommel of his sword and kneeling before the cushions on which the Emperor is lying. "Your deeds, and your strength, are the heart of legend - those things will never fade. Your life will never end."

A faint rattle from the man, a cry from the maiden, and the Emperor raises his hand weakly. "Bayushi - my youngest brother - tell me," the actor punctuates his movements with pained gestures, his pale porcelain mask shining with the painted features of agony. "Will I die?"

A moment, a pause, a tableau. Shoju - Bayushi - Shoju again, behind painted shadows. "Yes, my brother. You will die, and you will be alone." Stunned silence, the whispers of the audience, the cheers of the men on the plain far away. "But we will follow one day, and we will be with you again."

"Thank you, brother." The last words of the Emperor fade into Bayushi's darkness as the Lion reaches for his sword. For an instant all is silent, and then, the temple bells begin to toll.

"Why did you say that?" The Lion's grieving roar shatters the silence, as Doji weeps beside Hantei's corpse.
"She cared for his body - " the Scorpion whispers, each word a drop of blood upon the floor between them. "And you cared for his honor. But I, my brother, only I cared for his soul."

. . . Darkness again, the curtain falls and the frozen figures again begin to move. The rice paper doors open, and a maid steps into the chamber, kneeling before the black throne. Silence, and then her trembling voice. "A . . . a son, my Lord." Shoju's was impassive, his body forged with an iron will. Waiting.

"He died immediately after the birth, my Lord. There were . . . complications . . ." Her voice grew ever fainter, and she crumbled on the floor, trembling in fear.

Shoju rose, his tall form slowly unfolding, absorbing the darkness. Beside him, his guard stood wearily, their knees shaking from the effort and their hands ever ready on the pommels of their katana. As he passed the maid, she raised her head again and whispered, "Your wife lives, Shoju-sama . . .and there is still your firstborn son"

Before the words had left her throat, her head had left her body. Shoju stood over her impassively, his katana dripping blood onto the stainless wooden floor. Around him, the darkness pressed in like a kimono, like a lover, like the curtain after the final act of the Noh drama in which Shoju had been an unwilling part. The darkness around him listened, not only to the story of the past and of the present, but to the faint voices of the future which only it could hear.