Previously on Coiled Fates, Dragon Clan samurai Mirumoto Daini accidentally stumbles into a hidden naga city, where he comes face to face with the Cobra jakla known as the Shashakar. When undead forces attack, the Shashakar entrusts the Pearl of Mists, a precious naga artifact, to Daini for safekeeping…

Now, you can read or listen to the seventh 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 Seven

This time, the Isha did not bother with ceremony. “The stranger who beset us with the Foul is seeking the Pearl of Mists.”

The naga warlords slowly uncoiled from their column-seats. Murmurs cascaded throughout the atrium, and the Mara avoided the gaze of the Shahadet from his place beside the Qamar. She focused on the Shabura standing beside her and her shaking fists, balled so tight that the snakeskin flaked and peeled, ready to be shed.

They were supposed to return as heroes diverting a crisis. Instead, they’d become the bearers of bad news.

The Shahadet growled. “How do you know he seeks the pearl?”

“The Mara infiltrated his camp, overheard him, and recovered a map with crucial clues. The Daini provided some clarity. It is my opinion that once the stranger gleaned the pearl was not here, he became disinterested in besieging us and left us alone.”

“It would explain why he didn’t try again.” The Shahadet eyed the Isha’s charcoal-colored tunic. “And why have the ‘elite Shadowstalkers’ not brought us this sorcerer’s head, as promised?”

The Shabura slithered forward, holding her hands palm-up in apology. “We proceeded with the belief that the sorcerer’s forces were dwindling, that the forest was wearing them down.” She grimaced. “This was incorrect. As his Forest Killers fell, the Foul made them rise again. And as he ventured, the Foul minions sought him out and joined him.”

“From where?” the Shahadet demanded.

The Mara finally spoke when the others hesitated. “The southern marshes. And he plans to release more.”

Where before the warlords exchanged murmurs, now there echoed thunderous silence. The greatest battle in the history of their people, with the greatest toll they’d ever endured, had taken place at that marsh. Their sacrifices bound the Foul there. But if the prison no longer held the prisoner, then all of that was for nothing.

A distant look washed over the Qamar as he sank into his seat. “Misfortune enough that our great works should fall to ruin. Misfortune enough that our loved ones should not awaken. Now, even our victory over the Foul, time has undone.” He stared at his wavering reflection in the pool’s shallow waters. “For what reason do we even exist? What was the purpose of all our struggle, our suffering?”

“I do not believe this possible.” The Shahadet laid narrowed eyes on the Mara. “Bring forth this map. I would see it myself.”

This was the moment she dreaded. Her chest was as tight as a drum head, her heart the drummer. “I do not have it,” she admitted.

“The Daini took it,” the Isha said suddenly. “We do not know where he is.”

For a moment, the two of them exchanged looks. His face was a story of hesitance and regret. The Mara pled with him in silence to soften what she had told him to the council, hoping he would remember that she was there when he broke from his shell, that they were reared together as ashamana, before they had names or memory pools or ancestral duties. That she had hopes riding on this.

“The stranger and the Daini are both of the Dragon Clan.”

She felt as though he had impaled her.

Hissed murmurs. The Qamar’s brow knitted, stunned by the implications. The Mara’s heart sank like a stone. Had everything she and the Daini built, the foundations of an alliance between their peoples, just been obliterated?

“This is most troubling,” the Qamar said. “The Daini seemed to mean well. I must consider what this means for our people.”

“Consider what it means?” The Shahadet reeled on the Qamar. “It means we were betrayed! It means the Rokugani are in league with the Foul! What more proof do you need?”

“It proves only that this sorcerer is the true enemy,” the Qamar said. He was drowned out by the other warlords’ voices. They argued, shouting over one another, factions forming before the Mara’s eyes. The Shahadet and the Qamar glared at each other, each baring their teeth. They were arguing in the Unity, she realized.

No one knew what to do. No one listened to anyone else.

So, this was the conduct of the hundred-times born.

She slithered from the atrium, the water rippling in the wake of the squabbling behind her. She passed through the village in an angry daze, stopping only at the bridge crossing over the canal, where the crystalline waters bedded clutches of unhatched eggs and the slumbering unawakened. Leaning on the banister, the Mara studied her reflection and drew slow breaths. In and then out. The breath slowed her thoughts, the noise dimming, as though she floated in deep waters. Breathing in. Breathing out.

As the Daini had taught her.

She hadn’t understood this “meditation” at first. But whenever he was troubled, or he wasn’t sure what to do next, he would find a place to sit with his back straight and his legs crossed. He would sit there, sometimes for hours. Finally, when he invited her to join, he explained the breathing, how to focus on the breath so the mind emptied, and to simply let thoughts emerge and leave at their own pace, without focusing on any particular thing. She saw that this was his version of diving into a memory pool. He trusted that, deep within him, there was an answer to whatever troubled him. He just needed to let it rise to the surface.

Now, she could think only of him. Climbing the tallest pine and looking out over the blanket of the Shishomen, and how wondrous the sight was through his eyes. His patience while teaching her the strange stone-and-chart game of his people, and his annoyance when she beat him at it. How she could say anything, tell him anything, and he would accept without judgment. The night they were trapped in the cave. The stories of his family. Would he mention her to them when he returned home? Would she ever see him again?

He had the right to be angry. But why did he have to hide from her? Friends didn’t do that, did they?

Even so, he was still her friend. Maybe even a true friend.

True friends never abandoned each other, though. He’d left her to fight alone.

Because she told him to leave. He’d only done what she’d wanted.

You idiot. What have you done?

She sensed the Isha as he slithered over the planks. His reflection appeared in the water next to hers, intently studying the lilies floating on the canal’s surface.

“The Qamar dismissed the warlords,” came his soft voice. A long pause. “The Shahadet praised your bravery after you left. He suggested you be promoted. So… congratulations are in order.”

The Shahadet said that? Didn’t he despise her? She couldn’t imagine him praising her at all. He was difficult to impress.

She should be overjoyed. A promotion was what she’d wanted. But that was when she thought it would empower her to explore the world beyond. Now that her people were ready to consider the Rokugani their enemies, what was the point?

He sighed and looked at her. “You have every right to be angry. But I hope you will understand why I spoke up. We cannot keep secrets from our people, can we?”

Was this how the Daini felt when she’d argued much the same? Betrayed and disappointed?

“Do you really think the Rokugani are our enemies?” she asked.

The Isha frowned. “I don’t know.”

She slammed her hands on the railing. “I told him we wouldn’t condemn his people for the actions of one! Thanks to you, we’ve done exactly that! If you were ever a friend to me–”

“I am your friend!” He gripped her wrist. “The Rokugani are strangers. Can you no longer tell the difference?” He shook his head. “They’re not like us. We must accept our ways are incompatible. They may not be our enemies, but they are not our friends either.”

“The Daini is my friend,” she replied. “He is no stranger, especially to me. The Rokugani are more like us than they are different.”

The Isha made to refute her, but she returned her gaze to the waters. She almost told him to leave her alone. That she needed time to think.

But neither of them said anything. They both saw the bubbles rising from the canal at the same time.

A sign of life.

They exchanged looks. The only things down there, other than fish and mussels, were the slumbering unawakened encased in stone.

She dove in. The splash of the Isha followed only moments after. They descended, the waters growing dark as the Mara’s heart opened the smallest crack with the barest amount of hope she could muster. She almost didn’t dare to hope at all. If she was wrong, the disappointment would be too much.

They slowed near the bottom of the trench beneath the blank gazes of mossy stone statues. The pedestal that once carried the Dashmar was empty.

He swam just above it, his robes swirling around his withered body, bright green snakeskin glowing in the dim light. His wrinkled face smiled as a flicker of recognition ignited in his eyes. The Mara wanted to cry with happiness.

The Dashmar had awakened.

The Dashmar sighed after his third cup of juice. “Ah, good. I missed that.”

Coiled by his seat, the Mara’s mind raced. Why did he only awaken now? Was his memory pool intact? Was he tethered? Or was he as adrift and unanchored as she?

She studied the deep lines on his face. Pieces of stone still clung to him, like bits of unshed skin. She brushed some away, and he batted at her fussing.

“I’m fine. Don’t bother.” His broad, gentle smile lit the dim cavern where they rested. As it was for them all upon awakening, the Dashmar was exhausted. “Tell me, was I the last to awaken?”

The Mara shook her head solemnly. “You’re the only one, other than myself. The rest of the Embassarians are…”

The Dashmar shrugged. “They will awaken soon enough, I’m sure.”

“We thought you never would,” she blurted out.

He seemed amused by this. His brows knitted as he rubbed his chin.

“I had so many dreams,” he remarked, finally. “I dreamed I was a deer who lived in the woods by a great manor. Then I dreamed I was a bird. I lived so many lives. And then” – he gestured as he spoke, as if trying to conjure the right words – “I saw… a person. A strange creature. He had flesh without ridges, the color of wood, and long dark fur on his head. He moved on two stalks–”

The Mara perked up. “Legs. You saw a Rokugani!”

“Rokugani?” His brows rose. “Interesting. I thought he was called the Daini.”

The Mara reeled. The Dashmar patiently nodded as she described him. “Yes, yes. That was him. Only… he spoke with your voice. I followed it here, found my body, and awoke.”

The Mara rose and slithered in a tight circle, chasing her thoughts. That her elder saw the Daini as his last image in the dream could be no coincidence. But what did it mean?

His face lit again, this time with revelation. “You and he? I didn’t know that was possible. Fascinating. Promising.”

“Nothing is promising.”

It might have been, if the Daini were still here. If they hadn’t parted ways. If she hadn’t–

Concern overcame his features. “Why does the Mara cry?”

She pushed her fists into her eyes to stop the flowing tears, but she couldn’t hold back now that the dam had broken. She felt relieved that her mentor had awoken. She was terrified that war was coming. She was sad, ashamed, confused and too many things to carry at once.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “The Foul is escaping. The sun is setting on our kind. The Qamar and the Shahadet are fighting and it is too dark for me to see the way forward. I don’t know what to do. I am so, so untethered.”

“Child, you are not untethered. You are tethered to the Daini, aren’t you?”

She looked up at his patient features. “I drove him away,” she confessed. “I broke a rule I didn’t know we had. When I learned it was a rule, I broke it again. He doesn’t trust me anymore.”

“Hmmm.” The old naga stroked his chin. Thinking.

“I remember one dream,” he said. “I approached this… Rokugani. He seemed so serene. I wanted to know what made him so peaceful. I admit I don’t remember what I asked. But he told me this: ‘The fate of all things that walk the beach is to have the water smooth away their tracks from the sand. Yet death is not forever, because nothing is.’”

He shrugged. “I am not sure what it means. But perhaps we have lived too long. Long enough to witness the erosion of everything we’ve done. That is a different sort of death, isn’t it? And we thought we were so clever. Our time is over, I think. Perhaps our purpose now is to guide those who come next. So, if we are unsure of what to do, we should seek to do good. Even if we fail, that effort is not wasted.” Golden eyes met hers. “Do you trust the Daini?”

“I do.” She realized she’d never stopped. He was stubborn, prideful, and he kept secrets, and he’d made her so angry. But she knew his heart was good. Even if he had secrets, he wouldn’t knowingly hurt her. That was what trust was.

“Did you think,” he continued, “that your friendship was so fragile, he would throw it away so easily?”

She shook her head.

“Then it is your good fortune,” he replied. “Because the Daini is on his way here. So you can tell him all this yourself.” The old naga suddenly frowned. “Oh. But you must catch him before the Foul does, or all will be lost.”

The Daini was still in the Shishomen? Memories of the corrupted things floated in her memory pool. Claws, milk eyes, the stench of death.

“He is fighting the Foul?” she asked. “How do you know?”

“I’m not sure,” the Dashmar replied. “I think… I think I feel him, too. Curious. I cannot reach out to the Qamar, nor the Shahadet, but I think I feel your Daini. He’s being pursued, but he’s evading them.” The side of his mouth turned up. “He’s thinking about you, right now.”

If the Foul was chasing him, and he was headed here, then soon they would be beset by nightmares. She had to reach him first. She couldn’t let him face the darkness alone.

She grabbed her spearbow and quiver, hastily donning her padded archer’s cloak.

“Follow your connection,” the Dashmar advised as she sped from the cavern. “You’ll find him.”

She could feel him, through the woods, as though by an invisible line. They were tethered together, their fates coiled. She realized, elated, that she couldn’t lose him if she tried.