Siinji - Or, Ankūro and the City of the Golden Boughs

28

28

Life has progressed far,
Then fallen, again, to ruin,
Hated by Patrons.
- Rasakūn.

Great pieces of metal cylinders pushed open the doors, giving off an ominous hissing sound as they did so, and the grinding of the stone doors continued. Yurivno felt fascinated by the doors. With a wood and metal surface that hid the stone beneath, and the stone itself a flawless grey colour, solid and made from one piece of that stone for each door.

Inside the door, they saw the start of another tunnel, one seamless arch from floor to floor. More skeletons littered that flat, featureless floor, though these were more like piles of bones than they had found within the first doorway, as though tossed around, torn apart by some great beast. Yurivno felt a sense of dread as she saw these bones, for these skeletons had carried weapons. Weapons bent and broken.

Embedded in the surface of the tunnel, she could see things that looked like lamps, set at regular intervals, though they appeared sealed in glass and she could see no way of lighting them. Stepping forward, she pressed her hand against the cold surface of the tunnel wall. The stone had a dusty feel to it, as though the ages had weathered it to the point of crumbling.

"Sakicho. Have the men prepare torches, lanterns, lamps." Drellis stepped forward, standing at Yurivno's side. He didn't even glance at the bones. "I have a feeling we won't see any more daylight in there."

"Are you not concerned by the bones? Once again, it looks as though they tried to escape something. Something terrible." Crouching, Yurivno looked at one of the weapons, chipped and broken, careful not to reach out for it. She looked back at the doors. "These people used everything to try to get through that door."

"Any creature unleashed in here is long dead." He glanced at the weapon Yurivno examined and turned away, uninterested. "It's over two thousand years, nothing lives that long."

Yurivno did not feel as confident. Something had killed all these people, had torn apart the city, ripping trees from their roots and tossing them. She remembered the murals beneath Kōshitō's home. Of the giant beings looming above terrified Kannai. She had thought it represented the Patrons, dealing their vaunted wrath upon mortals. What if they were something else?

As Sakicho handed Drellis a shuttered lantern, lit and emitting faint light, Drellis began to step into the tunnel. Upon reaching the growing darkness, he opened the shutter, holding the lantern up to examine the tunnel before him. Yurivno glanced towards Tuccé and Ankūro to try to gauge their thoughts.

Tuccé still looked despondent after his confession, the night before, as though unburdening himself had broken something inside of him. She felt her innate empathy wanting to comfort him, but she still felt too much anger.

Ankūro, however, appeared to have awoken from her waking slumber. She stood as tall and erect as her tiny, overweight, aged body would allow. Her eyes filled with the sparkle of life, now, as she took in everything before her. She observed the soldiers around her, accepting branches made into torches. She paid attention to the weapons on the tunnel floor and, most of all, her eyes played along the tunnel, searching.

What the old woman searched for, Yurivno could not tell. She had no understanding of the thoughts that ran through that woman's head. She had given so little of herself since they had met, saying nothing about her past, about her as she was now. Answering questions with grunts and embarrassed scratches to various parts of her body. She remained a mystery, though a mystery Yurivno trusted her life to.

"Keep moving." Sakicho shoved her shoulder, turning her around to follow Drellis as soldiers hammered metal stakes against the doors, preventing them from closing.