For centuries, the serpentine naga have slumbered beneath the enchanted boughs of the Shinomen Forest. Some are finally awakening, but the world is not the same as when they began the Great Sleep. The naga discover they share a realm with the samurai of the Great Clans, but also the enemies of the Emerald Empire…

Read or listen to the first 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 One

Among the memories the Mara inherited from those who once carried this name, there was none where these creatures named Rokugani had ventured into the Shishomen. It warranted closer observation; she was sure the Dashmar would agree, had he ever awakened.

They were as strange as the scouts described, reminiscent of goblins, but taller and less bestial. About as numerous, though; she counted dozens. They clambered shakily over kudzu-woven rubble with their hip stalks – “legs” was the word. They sang as they cleared away trees, coordinating axe-chops with their song. She swayed to the cheery music, curled around her lofty branch. Smoke tickled her nostrils, and her forked tongue tasted starchy grains and roasting fish. Her jaw unhinged hungrily at the smell.

A new people. Incredible. What wonders must fill the world beyond the forests after all these past centuries!

Maybe they were friendly?

Stay hidden, she chided. She longed to approach, but she was only here to observe. Just one peek.

Slithering through the canopy, the Mara worked a fist-sized egg from her bag and swallowed it whole. Her throat spines cracked the shell, and she drank the thin yolk as she watched the curious beings erect shelters below her. They must be loggers, she decided. Why else would they have painted axes on their armor? Did loggers normally wear armor?

In the Shishomen they might. The forest did not take kindly to loggers, but it would leave them alone as long as they stayed in the ruins. Did they suspect these crumbling structures were once a naga city? She dredged for an image of how it once was, not as it was described to her: golden domes, raised walkways, and pearl-encrusted shrines floating on warm canals. Surely, a memory of the city that actually existed was somewhere in her pool.

Ages ago, the elder dreamseers of the Cobra lineage – the jakla – bound her people to an artifact called the Pearl of Mists. Within was an otherworldly river snaking through the Realm of Dreams. It carried thoughts along its current, a myriad of experiences pooling into grottos. Memory pools, formed from accumulated lifetimes of each prior naga, inherited through the progenitor’s name. Thus, the jakla had conquered death; the Unity was the great gift of her people.

Not that it helped her now. No memory of this city rose from its depths.

But she was sure that she’d lived here once. Hadn’t she?

How frustrating! The Mara’s pool should not be so shallow. What had become of her generational memories?

Gliding closer, the Mara hung from a low branch to continue her study of the loggers – Rokugani, she reminded herself – but something caught her eye: a large apparatus, vaguely bow-shaped, with a wicked spear mounted in place.

It looked like a weapon designed to kill giants.

Why would loggers need such a device? Come to think of it, some carried axes that weren’t weighted for lumbering. Her eyes drifted over stockpiled spears, bows, armor…

They weren’t loggers. This was a war party.

But who was there to war against in the Shishomen?

A sinking feeling came over her as she retreated back into the branches. She was armed only with her spearbow, a few arrows. Surely, the preceding naga scouts noted the stockpiled weaponry. It wasn’t her role, her responsibility, to go any further. She shouldn’t even be here; she hadn’t exactly asked for permission. The smart thing was to leave. Now.

Then, she spotted sandstone bricks and realized she couldn’t.

That stone had been hewed from the ruins. Knowing that, if she left without checking the statues, then whoever would carry this name next would also carry her cowardice. She had to be sure…

Quietly, she slithered down and flattened against the forest floor. No one turned her way. She wove through cover, scrunching behind columns, clinging to shadows and her spearbow.

There. In an overgrown cloister, a serpentine statue coiled around a broken column. A bare torso with outstretched arms. A face tilted to the gray sky. A naga. Like her.

Those naga under the Great Sleep were indistinguishable from weathered statues. They appeared as sculptures, not living beings whose spirits wandered the Realm of Dreams.

Ropes tightened around the statue as the Rokugani pulled in tandem with song, cracks spiderwebbing across the weathered stone. They were killing her kin.

But why? Why topple these statues? What was the point?

She had to alert the council. She had to leave now.

Yet how much damage would these brutes do in the meantime? What happened to a naga whose slumbering body was destroyed? Would they be trapped bodiless in the dream, forever?

The Unity. She could alert them instantly through the river.

Could she? Communicating at this distance was difficult for even their oldest seers.

She had to try. She dove inward, the cold void of the Mara’s memory pool manifesting around her, chilling through her snakeskin. It wasn’t real – no, it was real, a manifestation in the shared dream of her people – just not in this realm. The physical sensations came from her mind. She plunged deeper, lungs aching, fingers outstretched to touch the bottom where channels to the great river awaited. She just had to find one. Just one.

Where were they? Where was the Unity? She should have found a current by now! Her tail thrashed bubbles in the inky darkness. She was alone, a life hanging in the balance, and any moment–

A thunderous crack. Her eyes split open.

A stone hand bounced off the ground. Cheers erupted around the shattered statue.

“You’re monsters!”

That is you, she realized. You’re rising from your hiding place, ribs expanding, fangs unfurling, dwarfing them in your shadow. You horrify them. See their pale expressions!

Send them scattering! You can save–

An axe clanged inches from her face.

No, you can’t.

She dove for the statue’s hand, yanking it away from a grazing arrow. She ducked another axe and scrambled, spiraling up a column, then a tree, axes thudding around her. Her muscles ached as they pushed her up. Sticks scraped her face.

Warm sunlight. She’d broken through the canopy.

On her abdomen, she sidewinded across boughs, clutching the stone hand to her chest.

She should have been worrying about what she’d say to the council. But all she could think about were those dark waters with no current. Months after awakening, and the Unity still did not recognize her. She didn’t know why.

And now innocent naga would die because of it.

The Isha slid into the Mara’s path, barring her with the pearlstaff. She tried to brush past but instead bumped into his chest and the smoke-hued tunic worn by the Shadowslayers.

“You’re cold,” he remarked. “What happened?”

“I saw something at Kashydar,” she began.

“You went to Kashydar alone? While untethered? What were you thinking?”

“Listen! The Rokugani there are destroying the unawakened. You must tell the council before they kill everyone.”

He searched her face, as if seeking a way into her pool. Without the Unity to project what she’d seen, he’d have to trust her on word alone. But they’d both hatched from the same clutch. She’d been the firelighter at his ninth molting. Their paths may have diverged, but with all their history, surely he would believe her. Surely!

“No.” He shook his head. “You’d better tell them yourself. Come. I’ll announce you.”

She exhaled, relieved. Now came the hard part.

Guards eyed them as they slid through the archway into a nature-reclaimed atrium. Cool water rippled beneath her. Lotuses bobbed as she traced a wake with her tail. They made their way to the source of the shallow waters, a waterfall cascading down from the open-air chamber above. She struggled to keep her downcast gaze on her watery reflection, and not at the warlords in their bowed-head communion, each coiled around a column.

Especially not at the Qamar, the crystalline water spilling down his shoulders. He stirred, unfurling his serpentine body, eyes opening. The others followed. From their tired expressions, she imagined their search for others through the Unity hadn’t been fruitful.

“I am disturbing the silence,” spoke the Isha, offering the most formal way to beg one’s pardon. “I offer the word of the Mara, if it will be heard.”

Such politeness was unlike him. She would tease him about it later. She bowed while suspending her hands palms-up above her head. She knew better than to speak without permission, even as the news twisted her up inside.

The Shahadet, champion of the Asp bloodline, made a pained expression. “Not her again. What is it this time?”

The Qamar raised a gentle hand, and the Shahadet grunted.

“The Mara may speak,” rumbled the Qamar, sounding grateful for the distraction.

A deep breath. “The Rokugani at Kashydar are destroying the unawakened.”

The warlords exchanged silent glances. They should be reacting more urgently than this. It is because I am untethered, she remembered. Having to prove everything she ever asserted was getting tiresome. Couldn’t they just take her at her word?

The Shahadet glowered at the Isha. “You let her go unaccompanied?”

The Mara interjected. “He knew nothing of it. I acted alone.”

“Alone,” the Shahadet repeated. “Concerning.”

The Shahadet never cared for the Mara. Always he wanted her beneath his eye, in his coils. Loners were strange and distrusted in naga culture. Not that she had any say in being one!

The Qamar shook his head. “The dream protects the unawakened from mortal eyes. They would be overlooked.”

Were she able, she would simply show them her memories. Instead, she produced the stone hand and it splashed in the shallow waters.

The warlords’ enraged eyes widened. Gasps and hisses cascaded through the chamber. As she suspected, her trespass was immediately forgotten.

“I can have a squad ready in moments, my Qamar,” the Shahadet said. “I will avenge our fallen.”

She shared their anger. Slumbering naga were helpless and she wanted justice for them. Yet her memory pool weakly recalled that her progenitor always championed peace, even for their enemies. If she did not speak in favor of mercy, then she would not be the Mara.

But it wasn’t her place. If only the Dashmar were here, he would–

“The Mara has something more?”

Had the Qamar addressed her? She had the warlords’ attention again. The Isha nodded encouragingly.

It was rare for one of lower station to weigh in on such matters. Especially one with a diplomatic pool, while warriors were in charge. She considered her words.

“It’s possible they don’t realize what they’re doing. We should make diplomatic contact first. Afford them a chance to make amends. We do not know enough about them to start a conflict.”

A bulging warrior with red eyes, the Balash, slithered forward. “We are in conflict already,” he thundered. “We have lost three of our kind to Rokugani arrows. I avenged them myself. There is no sense in trying to understand them.”

The Mara reeled. She’d only learned about these new people this morning and yet they had already come to blows with the naga? When? Why had the Shahadet sheltered this information?

You look like an uninformed idiot. She retracted to her subservient position.

The Qamar addressed her again. “You were the Dashmar’s protege, yes?”

Images rippled across deep waters. His smile when she released a rabbit from his trap. Laughing as they fled from nezumi spears. Warming themselves on flat rocks in the summer. Her mortification when he interrogated a suitor. His pride at her ninth molting, her snakeskin burning in the fires as she embraced the Mara’s pool.

“I am,” she said.

“I regret that your teacher has not awakened with the rest of us. Now, you speak for the Dashmar. For peace.”

He raised his voice. “Something went awry with the Great Sleep. Only some have awakened. Many are missing memories or are untethered from the Unity. We are vulnerable, safe while hidden. Yet inaction would prove our doom.” He turned to the Shahadet. “Recapture Kashydar, but take prisoners. We will question the Rokugani.” He paused. “Show restraint, my champion.”

The Shahadet obediently dipped his head, but as they dispersed, the Mara caught his venomous glare.

The Dashmar was like the others in the Stone Garden: petrified and patched with algae, a living colony for mussels and pondweed. The light filtering through the deep water highlighted the crevices of his peaceful face, his thick eyebrows that she’d teased him about so many times.

Any moment now, he would awaken, shedding his stone skin and becoming flesh again.

No. No, he wouldn’t. But maybe she could reach him?

Cradling his face, the Mara found her pool and plunged inward. Again, it descended forever. It wasn’t supposed to be this cold, this lonely. She reached for the bottom, for him, for anything that was not abyss.

The Dashmar remained still as stone.

Why did you think that would work?

Most believed that the Cobra jakla wove the Great Sleep to prepare the naga for some great purpose. Yet none could say what that was. No one knew where they’d hidden the Pearl of Mists, and so none knew why some, like the Mara, were severed from their people.

How could anyone live in a world where one’s thoughts, one’s memories, were locked inside the thinker’s own mind? A life hidden, unshared. What if she would be like that forever? What a lonely, terrible existence.

A hand squeezed her shoulder, and she spun into the Shahadet.

What was he doing here? The Shahadet never visited the Stone Garden. Didn’t he have a war party to organize?

She swam away, up to the surface, breaching the water and sliding onto dry land. Around her, glowing moss lit the caved grotto.

Water beaded on the Shahadet’s armor, his weapons strapped to his tail. “I didn’t intend to startle you. I forgot the untethered cannot…”

“Am I untethered?” she scoffed. “My thanks. I would certainly forget if everyone didn’t remind me at every opportunity.”

“I think you do forget,” he said, darkly. “Your condition. Your place. You’ve complicated our mission. What is in the Mara’s pool that makes you so sympathetic for these apes?”

“You can’t hold all Rokugani responsible for the actions of a few. We don’t know enough about them to say if–”

“They’re attacking us!” he snapped. “When you abandoned the warrior path, did you also abandon your senses?”

“I didn’t–”

What was the point of arguing? He would never understand her choice to follow the Dashmar, to embrace a diplomatic pool. She would forever be a fool in his eyes.

“What do you want?” she huffed.

“The Mara’s counsel.”

If he meant to stun her into silence, it worked.

“You were right,” he admitted. “We don’t know enough about what awaits us at Kashydar. But you got closer than the scouts. You saw numbers. Weapons. The lay of the land.” His pupils narrowed. “We can set aside our differences for now, yes?”

This changed things. She had something the warriors wanted. Her reconnaissance could spare unnecessary violence, ending the conflict quickly.

But what then? The Shahadet would take credit, and nothing would change. If the Dashmar were here, he’d find a way to leverage this opportunity. Raise his own clout. The warriors would have taken him seriously.

“It would be better if I accompanied you.”

“No.”

She frowned. “I passed the same trials as you. I even outperformed you with the spearbow.”

He scoffed. “I don’t recall it quite like that.”

“Whose pool is missing memories now?” That would crinkle his scales. “I’ll stay with your archers, advise you–”

“I said no!” he shouted. “I will not risk the Mara! Your pool is too precious!”

She had not expected that. She grasped for words.

He slammed his fist into stone. “Damn your fangs. You are the only Embassarian to awaken, the only pool with diplomatic experience. We will need that soon.” He jutted a claw. “What will happen to the Mara’s pool if you are killed while untethered? The Mara could be lost forever. You realize that, don’t you? You realize what you’re risking every time you strike out on your own?”

Everything. She risked everything that was the Mara.

That hadn’t occurred to her. But he was right. Could any of them depend on the jakla’s works, on the Pearl, as they had before? Finally, she saw the enormity of what they faced: death, true death, for their entire people. She regarded the Shahadet with new eyes. His hovering, his opposition to her goals… was he trying to protect her?

Did that change anything?

She spoke calmly. “Any diplomat for the naga must be one they respect. If I do not fight beside you, who would respect the Mara?”

They stared at each other. The Mara refused to break first.

“Stay out of sight,” he finally said. “Engage only at range. Retreat when I say. Understood?”

She bowed, hands facing upward.

So far, she’d succeeded in turning bloody retribution into a recon mission. The Qamar had acknowledged her as the Dashmar’s student. And now she would accompany the Shahadet, which could win her much prestige. So why did she feel that she’d failed just now? That the Dashmar would have done better?

It was because, for a brief moment, she believed she might discover the ways of a new people and finally see the world beyond these woods, as she’d always dreamed. But that wasn’t meant to be, was it? The warriors were in charge. The Rokugani were hostile. Her world was destined to be small, and the sooner she accepted that, the happier she would be.

Then why was it so difficult to force it to feel true?