Mists of Iga (Sons of Yokai Book 1) by Kyle Mortensen & Kyle Mortensen

Author:Kyle Mortensen & Kyle Mortensen [Mortensen, Kyle]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2020-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

Seventh Entry,

In the past months, my time on the seaside town gave me nothing but days of depression and reflection on my past life as a swordsmith. Being in the midst of the holiday of Obon, this fact only fueled my feelings of darkness instead of commemorating my ancestors like all others had.

When the sun rose the next day, I remember sitting on the cold little bench in the smith shrine I had made, as still as the rocks all about me. In one hand was a massive earthen jug of sake, in the other was a shining ten-inch tantō, unsheathed and held with the tip pointing inward toward my abdomen. I gazed out beyond the stonewall, beyond this world entirely, into dark recesses.

For the three days of Obon, there I sat with little food and less sleep, contemplating to end my life through seppuku. My depression fueled by my legacy of going down as a demon swordsmith. Each day I only removed to relieve myself and to fetch more sake from my stores. When night fell, I lit an oil lamp and wrapped myself tightly in a light linen kimono, for even in the dead of summer the wind off the ocean brought a chill in the black of night.

On the third night of the shrine vigil, surrounded by empty broken jugs, I began to weep. I wept for the ancestors I did not know, for those killed by the swords I had made, those who wielded them, and for myself.

Reaching out through my tears I grasped the burning oil lamp, hurling it violently onto the hearth, where it burst into a great fireball that lapped the stones and singed my sleeve. Staring into the flames as they leapt and danced on the rock and shattered porcelain, I was suddenly comforted. My face which previously had been contorted in agony, relaxed into tranquility.

Rising from the bench, I staggered out into the garden, quickly collected what kindling I could find by the light of the summer moon and returned to the shrine. I then carefully introduced tinder to a tiny flaming puddle of oil that had not yet burned out. Once the kindling was ablaze, I made another wobbling trip to the garden, and returned with a load of proper tinder from the wood stack. Building a large fire on the hearth, I curled up next to it on the ground and began to feel at home.

As flames burned low, and the embers glowed a brilliant red, I was enveloped by sleep like the heavy fog that was climbing from the bay to my stone forge.

Darkness overcame me.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying before a pile of smoldering ashes whose flames had long burned out. All about me was the sort of impenetrable darkness that one only finds in a deep cavern or a dense forest on a moonless night. I was still wrapped in my kimono, the cuff of its sleeve was still yellowed and crisped by the previous fire.

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