Shattered in a Moment
25 November 2005
by Loren Dean

The palanquin carrying Doji Shiju, borne by his four samurai bodyguards, moved slowly along the forested road. Riding in the rear of the column, Ridachi glanced at the gaijin priest beside him.

'Father' van Rijn was a somber-looking man, dressed in a vague approximation of the robes a real monk would wear. Ridachi had always heard that gaijin looked very strange, and van Rijn's eyes were certainly abnormal, rounded and pale as they were. But the priest's lighter hair was no more odd than the bleached or dyed manes of Lion or Crane samurai, and his clothing, while slightly outside the norm, was close enough to something Mantis or Unicorn that he would probably go unnoticed at a distance. And traveling with the albino Tetsujin and the hulking Yul, the man could likely go unnoticed completely.

Until he started talking, at any rate. Van Rijn had mentioned something a touch arrogant about the dead kami he followed, Cristus. He had called Cristus the "true" kami, and while he did not elaborate, something about the tone used in the statement made it tickle at the back of Ridachi's mind.

The whole thing was crazed anyway. Religion aside, this entire scheme of Shiju-sama's, taking gaijin to Kyuden Doji hoping to exploit a gray area of the Emperor's law, was insane, and was liable to get them all killed anyway. Ridachi was wondering how to talk his way out of trouble while maintaining the appearance of honor when he heard the whistling.

The first feathered shaft plunged into one of Shiju's palanquin bearers, the man going down before he knew he was dead. A half dozen more thumped into the sedan chair itself, shredding into the paper and thin lathing of the side even as the three remaining bearers struggled to set it down gently. The entire column erupted in confused motion then. Tetsujin, Yul, and the Crane samurai Katai plunged into the trees in search of the ambushers. Nikana moved for the palanquin to check Shiju-sama. The gaijin Captain Postma, in his ridiculous frilled collar and bloused "doublet." slid from his saddle and scrabbled at a pistol in his belt.

Ridachi turned to van Rijn to tell him to get to cover. He had no sooner opened his mouth, however, when an incoming arrow in the next volley caught van Rijn in the chest and threw him to the ground whether he wanted to be there or not. Ridachi went to ground himself, between the horses, next to the wheezing van Rijn. He could hear Nikana curse at the planquin, and Takako throw a bolt of lightning into the trees to discourage further fire. The rest of Shiju's bearers were down, one whine-grunting as his blood pumped from a transfixed thigh.

Ridachi crawled to van Rijn, and checked to see if the man was still breathing. He was, but it was shallow. A sharp crack behind him signaled Postma returning fire with his pistol, and Ridachi winced at the unfamiliar sound.

Van Rijn could very easily die here, Ridachi thought. And in that brief moment, the tickle in the back of his mind turned to consideration of helping it along. Van Rijn was potentially far more dangerous than Postma. Postma was just a merchant, and sometime soldier. Ultimately, he was just a man from another land; his presence, while possibly illegal, was in reality little more than an inconvenience to the Empire. Van Rijn, however, was a gaijin monk, with gaijin religious ideas and a supposed gaijin kami backing him. The Celestial Order, at least as far as Ridachi understood it, had no place for such ideas, and there was no telling what sorts of chaos the arrival of a new kami's priesthood could bring. After all, the Unicorn clan had returned from their sojourn long ago, and the changes they wrought were still playing out.

Van Rijn was also the fluent speaker of the pair. Postma's Rokugani was not terribly good, and as such he could likely be enticed to simply leave quietly without significant debate. Which would probably be good for everyone.

Ridachi felt for his knife, but decided that would be too obvious. Better to simply manipulate the arrow in van Rijn's chest until irreparable harm was done. He reached for it.

"No, no," came Postma's voice from behind him. There was still shouting in the trees as the ambushers were found and engaged. Postma himself had also moved to van Rijn's side, and Ridachi cursed himself for not noticing that he could have been observed. The gaijin captain was already tearing pieces of bandages, and drew a knife to clip the arrow for removal.

Ridachi sat back and let Postma work. He certainly couldn't eliminate the captain on his own, and even if he could, the questions of his companions would be impossible to dodge. No, he decided. Van Rijn would likely live to reach Kyuden Doji after all. And the kami only knew what would happen then.