Revenge. Revenge upon the Imperior for the way he had treated me. Revenge upon the Anais Ninjas for their slaughtering of my teacher. Revenge upon...

Veruh? Veruh w.a.n.g Ho?

My love.

My true love.

I had gotten to my feet, my imagination caught up in the giddy antic.i.p.ation of piles of body parts everywhere. My unleas.h.i.+ng of the demon to cause havoc amongst the ranks of those who had done me ill was joyously tempting.

But Veruh was allied with the Anais Ninjas. Veruh, who was the first woman I dared consider to be a true love. Veruh, for whom I felt an attraction that bordered on the mystical. My belief in the notion of fate was dodgy at best, yet I had come to embrace the notion that Veruh and I were truly fated to be together. If I unleashed the power of the demon sword upon the Anais Ninjas, would that cost me her love?

How could it not? I mean, really? How could she go on loving someone who destroyed her allies?

Except... well... I was going to destroy the Imperior as well. And she very much wanted him gone.

What it came down to, I reasoned, was which was more important to her: the death of the Imperior, or the lives of the Anais Ninjas.

It took me no more than an instant to answer that one for myself: the death of the Imperior, certainly.

Veruh aspired to power. She wanted to take over Chinpan, to give it over to the Forked Tong. And she was evil. Evil alliances never hold. Ever. Sooner or later, the partic.i.p.ants in such alliances turn upon one another, and the alliances are transformed into "last man standing" scenarios.

If I disposed of the Anais Ninjas through the power of the demon sword, that would only benefitVeruh. It meant fewer people with whom she would have to share power. And really, who had any desire to share power with a group of women who could sneak into and out of the shadows and probably kill you in your sleep whenever it suited their priorities? She'd be better off without them. h.e.l.l, she'd thank me for it.

I felt as if a great weight had been lifted off me.

I was not going to kill myself. I was going to accomplish exactly what I had set out to do. And the need and reason for vengeance had gone far beyond that of avenging the death of Chinpan Ali. Now there was the entire village of Hosbiyu to avenge. Every man, woman, and child had died in the name of the pointless quest involving the Imperior's honor. Well, that was going to be turned around against him.

In a way, it saddened me. As much contempt as I normally held for philosophies involving self-sacrifice and n.o.ble aspirations, I had an inkling that a well-placed sense of honor might not be such a bad thing. To try to live by an ethical code of personal conduct which demanded n.o.bility and the preserving of a public persona that one could count on.

What was wrong with honor, really? Nothing. And perhaps somewhere there were countries where it was maintained in its good and pure form, and helped shape a society of decent and civilized behavior.

Not here, though. Here it was simply used as a weapon. As a means of abuse.

And it was going to stop.

I was going to stop it.

I crouched over the ashes that had been a small girl, and sifted them through my hand. Then I took them and smeared them upon either side of my face, leaving angry streaks upon it.

"This is for you," I whispered, and headed off for Taikyo while the crows descended and prepared for their feast.

BOOK THREE.

Peons of Ma.s.s Destruction

Chapter 1 Playing the Palace.

As peacelord, when I had embarked upon conquests, I had often formulated complex and involved military plans in doing so. That had been necessary not for myself, but for my forces. I myself was invulnerable to harm, but my army was not. So I had to make accommodations in order to minimize losses. After all, what kind of commander would I have been to march troops mindlessly into battle, uncaring of what happened to them, while I went on my merry way impervious to all injury.

But this was a different situation. The only person I had to worry about was me. And with the demon sword in my hand, I wasn't all that worried. For that matter, even without the demon sword, I wasn't worried.

As peacelord, I'd considered myself above petty concerns such as morality. Because I could get away with anything, and not have to worry about punishment, I felt that good and evil didn't apply to me any more than they applied to hurricanes or floods or other forces of nature.

This was a very different circ.u.mstance. I knew there were risks. A long-distance archer who saw me coming could still put a brace of arrows in me before I uttered a word. I could still probably manage to say the magic words, but it wouldn't do me much good if goose-quill shafts had rearranged my innards in the meantime. For that matter, if the Slojinn of the demon sword was busy battling overwhelming odds, I might still be cut down while he was occupied elsewhere. The demon sword did not confer invincibility upon me. All it did was help a.s.sure that if I was to be destroyed, my opponent's destruction would be mutual.

In my state of mind, that was more than enough.

As much as I had taken pains to hide myself on the trip to the now defunct village of Hosbiyu, that was how little I worried about being spotted as I rode back to Taikyo.

And I was indeed spotted.

On two occasions, I found myself accosted by groups of Hamunri.

The first time, I was on horseback. I saw the riders approaching before they saw me, and I reined up my horse, angling it crosswise across the road to make it clear I was going to be squarely in their way.

Not only did I make no effort at concealment, but I threw back my hood to reveal my features. Then I drew the demon sword and waited.

They came to a halt a short distance away and stared at me, apparently unable to believe their eyes.

When one is hunting for someone, one usually a.s.sumes that the hunted will at least make some effort to stay out of the way. It is certainly not expected that the hunted will be waiting for you, staring you in the eye and almost daring you to make the first move.

"Po," said one of them, sounding a bit tentative.

"Yes."

This emboldened them. One would have thought that, considering they outnumbered me five to one,they would have been utterly confident from the beginning of the encounter. But the unusual nature of the way I was facing them down had been briefly disconcerting. Perhaps they'd simply decided I was insane, and were going to proceed from that a.s.sumption.

"You have dishonored the Imperior," said the same man, a bit more robustly this time.

"So he says." I paused.

"You will die for that action. You will be given one chance to do the honorable thing."

"Honorable thing," I echoed, shaking my head. "Back in that direction," and I pointed with the sword, "there was a village of farmers. I once resided there. The entire populace was murdered in the process of being questioned as to my whereabouts." I waited a moment, allowing that to sink in. I wanted to make sure we were all clear on the subject. "My question to you is: Do any of you have any problem with that?"

They exchanged looks. It could be they thought this was some sort of trick question. The spokesman said, "This has nothing to do with the dishonor that you--"

"Just answer the d.a.m.ned question. Or are you afraid to do so?"

Their scowls deepened. "No one questions our bravery."

"Then answer me."

"No. I have 'no problem' with that. Do any of you?" He looked to his a.s.sociates. They all shook their heads.

"So you don't care," I asked.

Again shaking of the heads.

"Then I don't care," I said, and braced myself.

Then came the heat, and the pain that burned while not burning. My horse bucked in fear, and I nearly got myself tossed right off. Even as the demon ripped free of its imprisonment and tore into the Hamunri, I was busy making a mental note to myself that next time I unleashed the demon, I had to make certain not to be on horseback.

Within seconds, the small group of Hamunri had been torn to shreds. Apparently Aulhel had broken loose with an even greater vengeance this time. That didn't bother me in principle, although I was slightly concerned that the creature's ferocity could build to the point where I could no longer control it. But as long as I could maintain dominion over the Slojinn for the time that I required its services, that was all I needed. After that...

Well... after that, who knew? Once my immediate concerns had been attended to, why not continue to utilize the blade? What was wrong with having a weapon that could annihilate my enemies ten times over? Twenty times over?

It wasn't as if I would use it for evil, or for dominance. I had already been down that road, knew the mistakes that could be made and the pitfalls to be avoided. The second time I employed the blade along my journey, however, a problem arose. One that I had not foreseen... and yet, strangely enough, had in fact predicted. Whether it was a lucky guess on my part, or some intuition I'd developed because I'd been carrying the sword for a time, I really couldn't say.

The incident occurred when I had decided to stop for a brief rest along the way. I was seated along the side of the road, leaning against a tree, devouring some simple breadstuffs I had in my pack. There was a peddler walking slowly down the road, pus.h.i.+ng a small cart filled with knickknacks that swayed gently as he moved. He smiled toward me, tilting his head in greeting. I waved in acknowledgment.

Then the peddler stopped, and I could see him reacting to that which--at that moment--I only heard: The oncoming of horses. Four this time, by my estimate. Somehow I knew that it was going to be more Hamunri. I was right.

They rounded the corner of the road, started to move in formation around the peddler, and then spotted me. They stopped, glanced at each other, silently concurred that I was who they were looking for. Then they started to move toward me.

I pulled the demon sword, and much of the conversation I'd had with the previous group of would-be attackers was repeated, almost word for word. It was nicely ironic--or perhaps pathetic. I couldn't quite make up my mind which.

It reached the exact same point as the other, with my uttering the magic words which unleashed the Slojinn. "Slo" he might have been in name, but certainly not in deed. He tore into them with the same ferocity and efficiency he'd displayed the previous day. I sat there and watched, and smiled, and enjoyed every moment of it.

If vengeance is a hollow pursuit, the joy of that is, since it is hollow, one can dine upon helping after helping and never fill up, so one is always ready for the next course. Sort of like an endless banquet.

Technically, I supposed, this had moved beyond vengeance. These soldiers, after all, had done nothing to me, any more than the set I'd encountered on the road the day before had. But my reasoning was simple: If they didn't consider the travesty visited upon the good people of Hosbiyu to be a crime of the first order, then that meant they endorsed it. If they endorsed it, then it was acceptable within their code of conduct. That being the case, there was a possibility that--sooner or later--they would do something similar.

Better then for all concerned to get rid of them before they had the opportunity to do so.

But when Aulhel was finished with the Hamunri, he turned his attention toward the peddler. The poor fellow let out an alarmed shriek, and immediately I shouted, "No! Leave him!"

The Slojinn stayed rooted to his spot for a moment, and looked at me with a combination of contempt and frustration, as if he hated having to explain something to me. "When I am summoned, all I see, die.

That is my way."

"I don't care!" I shouted.

He staggered, twisted, as if bands of invisible force were trying to insinuate themselves around his body. He took several more steps toward the peddler, and then turned and faced me with obvious frustration. "Beware of sending mixed messages from mixed emotions," he snarled. "Lack of focus may well be the death of you... and of others."

And then in a burst of blue flame and a wave of heat as he discharged energy, the Slojinn vanished back into the sword. The blade was intact once more, although I could have sworn--looking upon the blade--that I could see the snarling face of the demon reflected in its polished surface. Then it vanished.

The peddler was lying on the road, trembling. For a moment I thought he, too, had dropped dead from stress or something similar. But no; he was fine, albeit shaken. I went to him and extended a hand to help him up. Instead of taking it, he pulled away from the offer of help as if my hand held some great disease in it.

"You could thank me for saving your life, you know," I said, sounding a bit testy.

"Shall I... also thank you for endangering it?" he asked.

Well, it was a valid enough question, I suppose, but it still annoyed the h.e.l.l out of me. I walked away without pressing the point.

I knew then that what I had told Veruh w.a.n.g Ho was correct. Once the demon was unleashed, bottling him up once more could present a problem. He would attack indiscriminately, killing everyone who was in his immediate field of vision, and he was not at his best when being made to obey orders that involved holding back.

This required a slight rethinking of my original plans regarding the Imperior. Demons are, by their nature, not to be trusted, and this Slojinn was no exception. It was clear that I could not simply ride up to the outside of the palace, unleash Aulhel, and tell him to fly straight as a crow to the Imperior and dispatch him for me. The odds were far more likely that Aulhel would annihilate not only the Imperior, but everyone else in the palace. Every servant, every woman and child. Yes, even Mitsu. And all of that mayhem, blood, and destruction would be on my head.

Well... fine. That was hardly an impossible problem to deal with. I would simply have to make certain that the Imperior and I were in the same room, and no one else who could remotely be considered an innocent was.

I was prepared for that. Really, I was prepared for anything. I was prepared for my mission to be a success. I was prepared for it to end in b.l.o.o.d.y failure. All of it was the same to me, for I had lost the capacity to care about anything...

... except...... except... Veruh. Veruh w.a.n.g Ho, the mysterious woman who had so fascinated me, captivated me.

As I continued my ride toward Taikyo, I wondered whether what I felt was genuine. Was it all motivated by some desperate desire to experience that which Mitsu had made sound so tantalizing? The embracing of a soul mate, the dizzying rush of love at first sight?

No. No, I was convinced it was more than that. There in the darkness, we had come together, bonded in ways I had never thought possible. What we had done transcended mere s.e.x. We had not simply been using each other for release, or benefit, or to try and maintain a particular rank. We were two souls uniting as one. How pathetic that must seem to you, the reader. After all I had been through, to find me capable of the same giddy, pathetic failings as others who are far less cynical than I. How disappointed you must be in me. "Oh Apropos, what were you thinking?" you must be demanding. "Where is the unsociable, alienated fellow we've come to loathe and despise with the fiery pa.s.sion of a thousand suns? You have succ.u.mbed to a pathetic, obsessive love that could befall any foolish, callow 'hero.' You disappoint us, Apropos! You have truly let us down!"

Have I? Have I let you down?

Ah well. Why should you be different from everyone else in my life?

I was expecting a welcoming committee when I entered Taikyo. Such was not to be the case. I moved through the streets on horseback, my back straight, my head held high. I saw that I was being recognized, pointed at, discussed as I rode past. It gave me a sense of smug superiority.

I also noticed something else rather interesting: All the wanted posters had been taken down. The only conclusion I could draw was that Veruh w.a.n.g Ho had instructed her Skang Kei friends to take them down because... why? They offended her sensibilities, perhaps. Or maybe they wanted to make it a bit easier for me to move about the town.

Well, I wasn't planning on a lengthy stay. I knew exactly where I was going and, although I was not one hundred percent certain of what I was going to do once I got there, I had enough confidence in my ability to think quickly that I felt I'd be able to figure it out.

I briefly considered heading toward the dark side of town to see if I could seek out Veruh. Ultimately I decided against it. Best not to prolong matters. I had business with the Imperior, and I could see no advantage to putting it off.

The palace loomed in front of me. I headed for the towering bridge that would carry me across the moat, bracing myself for possible difficulties in terms of getting in. I saw several Hamunri guards ahead of me, at the entrance to the bridge, about the same time they saw me. There was quick, excited talk between them that I didn't quite understand. As fluent as I had become in Chinpanese, I still had difficulty comprehending it if two or more natives were uttering it at full speed among themselves. Between the excitement in their voices and the distance I had yet to cover between us, this was one of those occasions.

I drew within range and stopped. As I looked down at them from atop my horse, my hand started to wander toward the hilt of the tachi sword. The magic summoning words were poised upon my lips.

And then the guards separated, the four of them stepping two to each side, allowing me full access to the bridge. To make matters even more curious... they bowed.

I didn't know what to make of that. A bow was a display of deepest respect. Why would they be displaying respect for me? What possible motivation could they have?

I had been expecting them to, at best, announce that I was their prisoner and they were to bring me before the Imperior at once. If they had done so, I would have willingly accompanied them, since to the Imperior was precisely where I wanted to go. If they had attacked me, or tried to divest me of the demon sword, I would have been prepared for that as well. It was not my preferred course of action. I didn't desire to tip my hand too soon. Why alert them to my possession of a devastating and irresistible weapon before I'd even set foot within the palace proper?

But this response on their part was just... strange.

Nevertheless, I was hardly in a position to ignore it or dismiss it. So I bowed in reply, snapped the reins, and headed the horse over the bridge. Its hooves clip-clopped steadily on the wooden surface.

And now I could see others peering out the windows, or stepping out onto balconies and pointing.

My return to the palace was definitely not going un.o.bserved. I wasn't certain, but I thought I even saw the princess standing in one of the balconies and looking down upon me.