Previously on Coiled Fates, the Mara and the samurai, Daini, join the naga Shadowstalkers to hunt down the Foul. A journey up a mountain pass resulted in disaster, forcing the Mara and Daini to work together to survive.

Now, you can read or listen to the fifth chapter of Robert Denton III’s new serial set in the world of Legend of the Five Rings and part of the saga of the Clan Wars. Discover the heroes and warriors of the naga before the release of Champions of Rokugan, coming soon from Monolith Board Games. Sign up to the Legend of the Five Rings newsletter and subscribe to the Aconyte Fiction Podcast to make sure you catch the rest of the series.

Coiled Fates

by Robert Denton III

Chapter Five

Don’t get lost, she thought, even though the Mara’s pool would not allow it. Even in darkness so complete that her eyes imagined a peripheral glow, the pool would commit every narrow twist and pinch of this tunnel to memory.

No Rokugani could fit through this muddy squeeze. Even with her arms crossed and tightly hugging her shoulders, the stone still scraped her back. As long as she avoided passages narrower than her head, she could slither and corkscrew through, relying on her stomach and tail muscles to do the work.

What if their quarry was not here, contradicting the Daini’s guess? Then she’d have wriggled agonizingly through the muddy stone grip of the mountain for nothing.

There! Golden light and a shimmer of heat emanated from a crack ahead. Muffled echoes of crumbling rocks and shuffling feet became audible.

The opening was barely wide enough. Mud streaked across her face as she pushed and slithered through, finding herself suspended in stale-tasting air. A few stones fell, and she winced as they cracked on the ground below before she slithered out of the hole and darted upward to cling against a corner of the rough ceiling. She looked down at dozens of candles melted to the floor, their light sculpting a jagged cavern from the dark. Roaring water echoed from one of the subterranean waterways belonging to the River of the Sky, like stitches across the fabric of the Shishomen.

Below her, she spotted the shambled rooftop of a dilapidated structure, and a narrow set of stone stairs leading toward its battered entrance. Walls of petrified wood and broken windows gave her the impression of a shrine. Not of the naga; her memory pool could not identify its simple architecture.

What was it doing here? What was there to worship down here?

Movement below. She flinched, her tail struggling to yank her back down the tunnel she’d carved. No time. Instead, she pressed her back against the tacky cavern ceiling and hoped.

Humanoid figures shambled up the stone steps. One slipped and she winced at an audible crunch. But the figure didn’t seem to notice. It slowly clambered up, a bone jutting visibly from their arm. No painful gasp. Not even a curse.

They weren’t emanating heat, she realized. No golden smoke-like coils, no glowing coals in their chests, as it was with the Daini. They listlessly dragged themselves, the candlelight reflecting in their glassy, milky eyes.

The Foul. These walking things were not alive.

Then, the stranger had to be here.

The Daini would be pleased. They’d found their quarry before the Shadowstalkers. She could head back now to tell him what she’d seen. Signal the others. Make a plan.

But she hadn’t really learned anything yet. Only that the Foul-reeking villain, who’d burned her village, and the bandits, who’d attacked her slumbering people, were camping here. She could learn a bit more, couldn’t she? She smiled wryly. This desire to bring back useful information was what had gotten her involved with the Rokugani in the first place.

There was no graceful way down from the crack. Her body thudded on the fragile shrine’s rooftop, the planks protesting under her bulk. But they held, the light flickering through the gaps in the roof barely illuminating her green snakeskin. Through the slats, she saw collapsed walls and ruined chambers.

Someone hunched inside the largest room, seated on an elevated platform at its center. Golden light flooded the chamber from more candles than she could count.

The stranger was here. The Master.

He was disrobed to the waist, his head sunk below his shoulders, legs crossed, hands resting in his lap. Murmuring. Motionless.

And facing away from her.

She could end it right now. Drop down, crush him in her coils. She was larger. Stronger.

But a pair of swords sat menacingly on a small stand within his reach. She had no weapons. She’d shed everything down to her under-wrappings to squeeze through the passage. Her people slithered slower than Rokugani dashed; would he grasp his blades before she could overpower him? She remembered how he’d ensorcelled another’s body to replace his to avoid a death blow. Could he do that again?

Something flickered across his back. She squinted. He was drenched in light, so it couldn’t have been a shadow.

There was a tattoo on his left shoulder blade and crossing his spine. A bush warbler. It was a stylized depiction, but the Mara recognized the smiling beak and dusky belly.

Her eyes widened.

The wings flapped in a shuddering, stilted way, as if jumping ahead several seconds with each movement. A living, shifting tattoo.

Her own people rarely tattooed themselves. After all, the body art would be lost after one shedding. But some in the Asp lineage bore tattoos as a rite of passage, or to brag of their victories. This tattoo was unlike anything in the Mara’s memory pool. It tasted of fire and stone.

“They’ll lead us there,” the stranger said.

She waited, listening. He nodded, as if also listening to someone. Something.

“Almost,” he spoke again. “But we must still drive out the enemy.”

A long silence. Just the Mara’s breath through clenched teeth.

“As you wish, my lord. But what of the marshes?”

Her blood turned to ice.

He couldn’t mean the southern marshes. No one wanted to go into that cursed place. Not since the naga mustered there all those centuries ago before the Great Sleep. Where her people, victorious, imprisoned the Foul.

But what other marshes were there?

What are you planning?

He said nothing. The tattoo flapped its wings.

She pulled away. If he wouldn’t speak more, then she would have to find out his plans for herself. She slithered around the rooftop, peeking into cracks and windows. Tents and rotten cots littered the ruins, smelling of mud and unwashed skin. Shadows lumbered below, but none paused at her passing.

At last, she spotted a window suitable to squirm through. She fell into a division of a much larger room, quarantined by a few thin canvas screens. She took care not to cross in front of the lit lantern on the floor, lest she cast her shadow and alert whoever might be on the other side.

There was a knee-high table covered in papers. A cushion, well-worn. A long scroll was pinned to the canvas divider, surrounded by other papers. A map of the Shishomen, she realized. Someone had scrawled the forest with strange glyphs, and a hasty sketch she assumed represented her village. A black arrow traced from the southern marshes, its head pointing directly at her home. Other arrows pointed from there to beyond the forest. Northeast.

He was trying to free the Foul from the marshes where it was supposed to be trapped, buried deep in a prison forever. But long-sunken things had a way of floating to the surface again, didn’t they? All it took was time. Perhaps centuries, while its wardens slept.

She took note of one more feature: a depiction of a city deeper in the woods, encircled, with several glyphs stacked beside it. She didn’t recognize it or the words.

The Daini needed to see this. Even if it alerted the stranger, if the writing was Rokugani, then the Daini could decipher it.

She untacked the map from the canvas, and rolled up the scroll, carefully sliding it down her gullet. It crinkled in her chest, and she pinched her insides before it could fall into her belly. Carrying things like this always scratched her ribs. But what alternative was there if she was to make it back through the squeeze?

A dividing panel shuddered. The map balled up into her throat. By the time she realized she’d mistaken a door for just another screen, it was too late to duck away, the window too high to reach in time.

A Forest Killer froze in the doorway, hatchet swinging at his hip, eyes bulging at the serpentine woman before him.

The Mara cast about for options. Hook and throw the lantern with her tail. Upend the table. Tackle him, wrest the axe away…

The door closed behind the bandit. Slow, quiet. He made no motion for his weapon. Instead, he extended his hands, showing they were empty.

He whispered, “Do you… understand me?”

She nodded.

“You’re the ones who’ve been hunting us, right?”

An urge to leave now dulled all other thoughts. She inched for the window.

He fell, pressing his forehead into the floor. “I surrender. Take me with you.”

She thought maybe she’d imagined that. But no, he was definitely crumpled in a prone position, hands flat on the floor.

“You… surrender?” Whatever pity she felt fought with her rising anger. How dare he ask for mercy? What mercy had they shown the naga? “You threw your lot in with a madōshi,” she reminded him, plucking words from her pool that the Daini would use.

“We didn’t know what he was! We were starving. Directionless. He promised us things. Have you never trusted the wrong person?”

Trusted the wrong person. As if they’d only ever had good intentions before they met the stranger, before he gave them the power to enact the will of their dark hearts.

He was on the verge of tears. “I never wanted to join the Forest Killers. I thought the master would lead us, but he wanted only pawns to sacrifice. And now we’re trapped. Even death is no escape. He simply makes them… rise again.” He reached for her with shaking hands. “Please. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll even go back to the naga’s prison encampment. Just don’t leave me here with these monsters!”

She paused at the falter in his voice. Maybe they had been misled and didn’t know what they were doing. And how could they? The Rokugani thought the naga were a legend. They did not know the statues were alive. These bandits lived desperately. Of course they would follow whoever promised them a better life.

But was that any excuse? Whether they were fooled, or didn’t know better, it all came from the same place: a disregard for anything sacred. A disdain for history, for people.

And then, she remembered that it didn’t matter.

“You won’t fit through the way I arrived,” she said. “I can’t help you, even if I wanted to.”

She slithered onto the table, reached up to the skylight, and pulled herself up to the roof.

And felt jerked back down. Her fingers barely gripped loose shingles. The bandit clung to her tail.

“No! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he cried.

Heavy stomps shook the door.

Her arms strained under the flailing man’s weight. She couldn’t lift herself up.

Something was coming. It would burst into the room at any moment.

She cursed. Lashing her tail in a whipcrack, she flung the sobbing man into the screen divider. The crash echoed like thunder, but she raced toward the abyssal crack in the ceiling, her memory pool already recalling the way back to the surface.

She swallowed her guilt as she emerged into daylight. After hours of only grays and browns, the verdancy of the Shishomen gleamed in her vision. Cool wind caressed her muddy snakeskin. She was absolutely filthy.

She didn’t feel good about abandoning the begging Forest Killer. But what could be done about it?

Trusted the wrong person. Why did those words haunt her?

She retrieved her clothes from a high branch and swiftly donned them, discarding her stained under-wrappings. Then, she regurgitated the map. She found the Daini shortly after. He jumped as she approached, making for his blade, then relaxed.

“They’re in there,” she said. “I saw the stranger.”

He smirked. “I’ll try not to brag too much. Do you think the others will hear a signal arrow?”

“There’s more.”

She told him everything. His smile faded with each detail. When she finished, he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“A tattoo, you say?” He grimaced. “I see.”

“I recovered this.” She handed him the slimy map, which he took with a wrinkled nose.

“Why is it wet?”

“There is writing I can’t read,” she said hastily as he unfurled the paper. “Can you read it?”

He flinched, his face paling, although he schooled a plain expression, as if to hide his reaction. But she’d been watching him closely these many weeks. She knew him. They were friends.

He tapped the writing by the large city. “It says, ‘pearl.’”

The Pearl of Mists. It had to be.

The stranger sought the pearl, the legacy of her people, the source of the Unity.

But why? What could the stranger do with it? She muttered a curse. She’d uncovered so much, yet they were still in the dark.

The Daini studied the map again. It was obvious he was holding back.

She knew how he cherished his privacy. But if the stakes were this high, she had no choice. She reached out through the pool and touched the shallows of his mind.

Bush warbler tattoo. That’s why the naga could understand him but not me at the encampment. How he spoke with them. Language barriers, distances, even death – there is no obstacle to the words of one who bears that tattoo. By the Fortunes, is that how he’s calling the dead?

And the clan cypher on this map confirms everything. This stranger, this madōshi, is from the Dragon Clan. He may even be my kin.

She caught his sideways glance.

I must keep this secret, or they’ll think my clan is in league with him.

“I wish I could say more.” The Daini tucked the map away. “What is our next move?”

She watched him, the one she thought she knew, the one she believed was her friend. When she spoke, it was soft and coaxing. Hopeful.

“You know that you can trust me. We needn’t hide anything from one another.”

His eyebrows raised. “Why do you think I am hiding?”

Words blurted from her lips before she could stop them. “You still hold me at arm’s length. After all we’ve done, I’m still a stranger to you.”

He looked bewildered. “You’re mistaken. I hold you only in the highest regard. What have I done to suggest otherwise?”

“You’re keeping secrets! You think we can’t be trusted with the truth! That because the stranger is from the Dragon Clan, his actions will be held against you. As if my people cannot be reasoned with.”

He stared at her for a long time.

His eyes narrowed. “How long has the Mara been reading my mind?”

She hesitated, then admitted, “Since we first met.”

He turned and walked away.

“You left me no choice!” She slithered after him. “You wouldn’t tell me anything! You keep hiding things.”

“They are mine to hide!” he shouted. He spun, facing her. His eyes glittered with an angry sheen. She halted, hovering in place. She’d never seen his face so red, his teeth bared.

“Have you any room to speak of trust?” His voice came low. “If you can read thoughts, can you plant them, too? Have you been guiding my conclusions? How many of my thoughts were actually my own?”

“That’s not fair,” she hissed. Her heart thudded in her ears. “I’ve never hurt you.”

“Did you ever plan on telling me you could do this? How long did you intend to keep me as a pet? Just until you learned everything you needed? What you’ve done,” he said, “is unforgivable.”

She clenched her jaw against a well of tears. “You speak of the unforgivable, and yet you are the one who has lied all this time.”

Rustling came from the brush. They spun together.

Gray and withered faces became visible from the woods. Milky eyes sunken and dull watched them. Axes raised. They gathered like a swarm of bees.

She cursed. They’d alerted their enemies with their argument.

The Daini’s frown deepened as he gripped his sword, stepping between her and the amassing undead. “Go,” he said. “Find your kin. I’ll keep them busy.”

He wouldn’t look at her.

“Why don’t you go?” she spat, yanking him back. “This isn’t your fight. It never was. Go save yourself since that’s all you care about.”

His eyes flashed.

And then, he deflated. Somehow, that was worse than if he’d fought back. In that instant, she’d regretted saying anything at all.

“Meeting is merely the beginning of parting ways,” he uttered. “There could never be understanding. Our people are… too different.”

She refused to watch him slip away into the woods, leaving her alone, as the Foul forms advanced and the world blurred in her eyes. She fought them with a pain she couldn’t name and didn’t understand, and even after the others arrived, and the Isha cut a path to retreat, she could not explain to the Shabura why she was sobbing, why she couldn’t stop.

That she was afraid, for the first time, that she’d trusted the wrong person: the Daini, and herself.