Thirty Five Years Ago

The mountain loomed high above him; dark clouds swirled and rumbled ominously in the sky near the peak.

"Oho, now that doesn't look good," he murmured. "That doesn't look good at all."

"Master Mikon, slow down!" a voice called from behind. "Wait for me!"

"Usually it is I who ask you to slow!" Mikon called back. His disciple staggered up, puffing and gasping and leaning heavily on the walking stick he'd taken from the shrine when they'd left. "What happened to your famed stamina, Imio-ku?"

He smiled at him and slapped the young man's back where it was not completely covered by their traveling gear.

Imio glared at him, which only made the old shrine-master smile wider. The glare faded away at the sight of the imposing mountain.

"Do you really think there's a spirit here, Master?" he asked.

"Well, something's happening here, for sure," the old man said, turning to regard the massive spire of stone as well. "One does not see phenomena like this often, no you don't. Spirit? Maybe, maybe. But the balance of the area is most certainly gone."

"How can you tell?" Imio asked. The old man closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

"It is a sense. A feeling one can intuit..." he said slowly. Imiyo looked around and closed his eyes as well. Mikon then smacked Imio over the head. "Look around you boy! Do you think the clouds would be so troubled and yet not rain down if they were in balance? Or the desolation of the area? Oh, the poor fortune of this old man, to have such a half-wit for a student!"

"I'd probably be able to understand this better if you stopped teaching in riddles, you senile old goat," Imio grumbled while rubbing the spot where Mikon's bony hand had smacked him.

"Eh? What was that? You should really stop mumbling all the time, Imio-ku, you know I'm an old man, all the hair in my ears keeps me from hearing as well as I did in my youth."

Imio snorted.

"I don't hear any goats though, so I must have been mistaken," the shrine-master continued. Imio gulped and hurried along, the short break enough to have got his breath back. Mikon grinned and trundled along behind, his walking stick jangling brightly due to the rings hanging from the hoop on top. He took another deep breath, noting that the air felt heavy in his nose, like the wind before a sea-storm. He pondered this and the looming feeling of dismay and anger coursing through him that was most definitely not his own. It felt tired though, as if it were the hatred of a dream.

He was deep enough in those thoughts that he nearly walked into his student, who'd stopped for some reason right in the middle of the road. He grunted loudly and moved to go around the admittedly large man.

"Well boy? What is it? I hope there is something, because my disappointment will have reached a point that cannot be superseded if I learn that you stopped in the middle of the road for no reason—"

He stopped, lost for words.

"Master," Imio breathed.

Before them was a battlefield; one of a kind that Mikon had not seen since his younger days. Dead men lay in the road and long its sides, some from blaster fire, but most from sword-wounds. A camp was visible to the side of the road, but no sound or sign of life was there.

"Must have been here for some time, but not longer than a week, I dare say," Mikon hummed. Imio glanced at him in surprise. "The smell, boy. Some of them are still bloated, too. They haven't yet burst."

The large shrine-keeper in training grimaced, but said nothing.

"Very dashing these men must have been when they were alive," Mikon noted while looking at the as yet only lightly faded banners that had somehow remained standing. "But they all wear the same sigil. I wonder what could have made them fall upon each other like this?"

Imio glanced around quickly. "Do you think it might be the Spirit of the Mountain? The one we heard about in that song?"

Mikon hummed again, and started picking his way through the maze of dead bodies.

"Ah, ah, you are dead, you are dead," he half-sang. "Go along, do not stay, for you cannot breathe again."

Imio remained silent while he followed him, and stopped only when the old man stopped.

"We must burn them. There is a sadness here, a haze. It must be cleared."

Imio looked at the dozens of dead men. He wondered what had brought them here, and why they had all died fighting each other when they were obviously retainers to the same lord. But he thought he could feel the same thing Master Mikon felt; that whatever had caused them to kill each other had been something of a madness, which had robbed them of their reason. The idea made his skin prickle, and the thought of cleansing the remaining miasma of their deaths with fire was a welcome one, though he knew the smell would probably make him retch.

Nevertheless, he dropped the traveling pack he carried and set to the task.