SHIRO BRIDGE
Komaru Mikomi releases "Shiro Bridge" in the theater season of 236. She herself is in seclusion in the early part of that year, seeking to purify her spirit, so Chantal Komaru performs the actual production. This play is set in the current Age, featuring many historical characters, although there are strong indications of fictionalization of many events.
The play has six Acts. Some speculate that the peculiar structure of the play draws in some fashion on Komaru Mikomi's known dabbling in the occult.
NOTES
(1) A jitte is a traditional Bellatrix weapon used for catching the swords of others.
CHARACTER INDEX
Cordelia Vain as An unnamed Woman
Kazusa Maita as Basile Bellatrix
Alberic Rouviere as Corin Bellatrix and a strange Figure with a Book
Leila Ardant as Phoebe Bellatrix
Hiroji Hachirobei as Lucien d'Aramis
Maxim Tavernier as Thomas Karra
Lance Desjardins as Alessandro Komaru
Calliste Gillaumin as Ligeia Komaru and a Glowing Figure
Tomoe Riensi as Kahana Komaru
Armand the Sensible as Mica Touraine and a Tiger-Headed Figure
and
Tarrant Delaine as Mordred Yuasa
ACT I: AUGUSTIN
A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises. (Taking the sign with it.)
Open on a spacious ballroom. PHOEBE BELLATRIX, a young actress made younger through dress and makeup, sits on a bench to the side. LIGEIA KOMARU, similarly young, enters.
LIGEIA: It is the year 197. My name is Ligeia Komaru, daughter of Valentin Komaru, and I have been sent to stay with his grace Augustin Bellatrix for a time. Tonight, there shall be a ball. For now, the lady Phoebe Bellatrix there has taken it on herself to make me comfortable here.
LIGEIA: The Endtimes draw near.
LIGEIA walks over to the bench, and sits down next to PHOEBE.
There is a pause.
PHOEBE: It is hard to imagine: three years until the end of the world.
LIGEIA: I imagine it daily.
PHOEBE: It is not enough time. I do not think I shall have half my affairs concluded by then.
LIGEIA: It should hardly matter then, though, should it?
PHOEBE: I do not know. I see the world returning to the Light, our souls rising towards the sky as pillars of fire, and I wonder: what shall happen then? What if the Light judges us based on our accomplishments in this life, or on our net worth?
LIGEIA: Father Valentin has said I shall be judged by how many I have slain. But he does not expect the cosmos should judge me worthy.
PHOEBE: I think his ideas align with mine. Wealth measures how many lives, or deaths, one can command. So gold and death are the same. But I think I am too young to kill. Have you slain many?
LIGEIA: Seven. Have you much gold?
PHOEBE: None at all. You can see why I worry.
LIGEIA: I'm sorry.
PHOEBE: I have a plan, however, which I consider an architecture of genius. As these last few years progress, the nobles and Church of Komaru shall prepare for the End. If I do not explain to them the importance of money and land, they will begin buying wine, beef, and other short-term goods in abundance, while selling off their more valuable but longer-term possessions. I hope to help sponsor some of the merchants who will take advantage of this, and ascend to the Light a woman rich on these spoils.
LIGEIA: You have planned this out thoroughly. Myself, I do not know where my next kill is coming from; I am adrift.
PHOEBE: Tell me, do you lie often?
LIGEIA: Pardon?
PHOEBE: Just a few years ago, when I was a young girl, I made a great discovery. Lies, deception, and concealing the truth are certainly useful tools. However, the practice of absolute candor --- openness of thought, openness of speech --- has a unique benefit of its own. Thoughts that otherwise lie silent and unformed in one's brain sharpen. Ideas take solid form. One climbs the mountain of achievement! As the plans for my future develop, I give thanks to this simple formula. --- I find that it can improve one's vocabulary, too.
LIGEIA: I lie often.
PHOEBE: See? An excellent start.
LIGEIA: I do not think I would survive if I did not. Father Valentin does not approve of dissension.
PHOEBE: He would not kill his own child.
LIGEIA: No. I guess not.
PHOEBE: See? Now try it. Speak with openness; see what ideas for murder unfold.
LIGEIA: Not murder!
PHOEBE: No?
LIGEIA: I do not kill people. I only kill, you know, things. Like the gray things in the south.
PHOEBE: Those are people.
LIGEIA: Well, they are not Komaran. And I killed a corpse once.
PHOEBE: That hardly counts.
LIGEIA: It was still moving!
PHOEBE: Good thing you put it down, then.
LIGEIA: A couple of . . . things. Things father Valentin made. I'm not supposed to talk about them. And a Kitsune.
LIGEIA: It was not easy. It fought very hard and was very angry. But it said it could not make me dream because my dreams were dead.
PHOEBE: I'm sorry.
LIGEIA: I think I should like to kill Merru. Because I do not trust the sea.
PHOEBE: The sea is, really, outside our sphere of concern. Why should we fear or distrust it?
LIGEIA: It wants to swallow all of Komaru someday. You can see it when you look at the water. It is hungry. I saw it once when I was younger and it felt like it was reaching for me. Like the lapping waves were hands.
PHOEBE: You would have to walk into those waves to kill a Merru.
LIGEIA: I would. But I would be stronger than them. They feed on memories, you see. Father Valentin mentioned that once. So I think that when it reached for my very best memory, I would stuff the worst things that ever happened to me right in its mouth. And while it choked on them, I would cut out its life. Or drag it to the shore.
PHOEBE: I suppose, then, that you have a plan. Are you sure you would not prefer to murder some more gray men?
LIGEIA: They make such human noises when you cut them open.
PHOEBE: Ah.
LIGEIA: Tell me about Augustin?
PHOEBE: Oh, I adore him. He is a man without equal.
LIGEIA: I am nervous, since I will meet him soon.
PHOEBE: Do not be nervous. He is a very pure man, dedicated to the Light within. He does not care much about material things and he does not eat young girls. At least, he has not eaten me.
LIGEIA: You are of his family.
PHOEBE: Well, true. But . . . Augustin sees himself as a guardian. He lives to protect those things in the world that need protecting. He wants to stand between Komaru and the horrors of the world.
LIGEIA: But he cannot.
PHOEBE: You are an extremely gloomy person, did you know that?
LIGEIA: I'm sorry.
PHOEBE: It is all right. I like you anyway. And look! Augustin is here! Soon the ball will begin.
Curtains close.
. . . A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises.
The scene is a dining room, where PHOEBE and LIGEIA sit.
PHOEBE: How are you enjoying your stay with the Bellatrix?
LIGEIA: I am in exile from my father's house, sent to stay with a man I think he rather dislikes, in the name of broadening my experience of the realm. All this considered, it is going rather well.
PHOEBE: I do not understand how one could dislike Lord Augustin.
LIGEIA: I do not spend much time with him, and do not know.
PHOEBE: I am trying to spend as much time as I can with him. It is difficult; he is an important man, and does not have much time to spare.
LIGEIA: I think you are in love.
PHOEBE: I am not! The notion is ridiculous. He's old enough to be my grandfather.
LIGEIA: As you say.
PHOEBE: If you wake up one day buried to your neck in sand, you shall remember this conversation and say, "See? This is what my folly led me to."
LIGEIA: I thought you believed in absolute candor.
PHOEBE: . . . I suppose that I find something about him compelling. He burns, as if the Light is already alive inside him. I find myself burning, too, when I am with him. My skin grows hot. My thoughts grow more focused. My imagination rises to new heights. I suppose that my heart beats faster, too. But it cannot be love, as I do not think of Augustin when this happens. I do not think of being with Augustin. I am simply there, and afire, and afire with myself, with being Phoebe. More than I am when he is not there. And when he has gone, I am less.
LIGEIA: I do not know if that is love. I suppose you could be right, that it is something else.
PHOEBE: He is old enough to be my grandfather.
LIGEIA: True.
AUGUSTIN BELLATRIX enters. BASILE BELLATRIX and CORIN BELLATRIX enter behind him, in Church garb.
AUGUSTIN: It will be a small dinner tonight. I hope that you do not mind.
LIGEIA shakes her head.
PHOEBE: Of course not, Augustin-sama.
AUGUSTIN: I have brought two guests. This is my nephew Basile, and beside him the Luminance Corin. They shall both become Illuminati before the End.
LIGEIA: Your holinesses.
PHOEBE: Your holinesses.
AUGUSTIN: Basile, Corin, these are Ligeia Komaru and Phoebe Bellatrix; they are guests of my house.
BASILE: I have long heard of your beauty, Ligeia-san, but had not expected to see it here.
LIGEIA: You have heard incorrectly. I am not beautiful. You are a perceptive man, and will notice this shortly when you examine my features.
PHOEBE: Ligeia! . . . You will have to pardon her. She is of mercurial disposition.
BASILE: It is of no matter. It is pleasant to meet you both.
CORIN: And for me.
AUGUSTIN and CORIN sit. BASILE remains standing. AUGUSTIN glances at BASILE in some puzzlement.
AUGUSTIN: I had understood you had not eaten.
BASILE: I have not.
AUGUSTIN: Then why do you not sit?
BASILE: I would not have you wrestle me from my chair when you cast me out, Augustin-sama.
AUGUSTIN: You are a guest in my home; I do not retract my hospitality so quickly.
BASILE: Is it so unconditional?
AUGUSTIN: You threw up into my favorite hat when you were two, boy. If I could let you live then, I can put up with you now. I take it you have brought ill news.
BASILE sits.
BASILE: I bear a message from the Hawks of Light, whose vigilance shields Komaru from sin and horror.
AUGUSTIN: You shall find neither sin nor horror within my walls.
CORIN: No.
BASILE: You have not fallen from our grace, Augustin-sama, and never will. But a vision has come among us, and I bring it to you.
AUGUSTIN: Speak.
BASILE: Look to the sky, Augustin, and you shall see yourself; for you are the sun. Your light brings life to the harvest and burns the desert bare. You shall live your life to protect and heal this land, but where you walk, you shall leave a trail of scorched earth and cindered lives. At the end, your hand shall draw the closing measures on Komaru, and your sword shall light the fire of the world.
There is a short pause.
AUGUSTIN: And my alternative?
BASILE: I offer you none. Accept your destiny; it shall make you strong.
AUGUSTIN: I shall instead hope, Basile, that the vision proves inaccurate.
BASILE: It is a vision of the Light; there is no uncertainty.
AUGUSTIN: I spoke once to Phoebe on this subject. Phoebe-san, do you remember what you said?
PHOEBE: I am not sure. I think that I said "If I can act, I do not need to speak. My action has spoken for itself. If something is foreordained, why would it need to be prophesied? Destiny will demonstrate itself."
AUGUSTIN: Do you have an opinion, Ligeia-san?
LIGEIA: I think you should throw him out after all. If someone said such rude things to father Valentin . . . he would not approve.
AUGUSTIN: I do not need to defend myself against your words, Basile. Mere children can do it for me. But perhaps you had best leave.
BASILE: I am hungry.
AUGUSTIN: Basile, I have other guests. If you should begin to spout vile destinies at Ligeia and Phoebe, I should be quite embarrassed.
BASILE regards LIGEIA and PHOEBE.
BASILE: I need not speak to them of destiny; no doubt theirs shall work out as is best.
AUGUSTIN: Then eat with us. But do not speak again.
Curtains close.
. . . A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
SPRING AND SUMMER, PARACELN 198
The curtain rises.
Open on LIGEIA's guest bedroom at AUGUSTIN's estate. PHOEBE knocks, is invited in, and enters. She looks significantly more wan than in previous scenes.
PHOEBE: It should be dinnertime soon.
LIGEIA: It should.
PHOEBE: I am tired already, and plan to go to bed with my supper. But I had not seen you today.
LIGEIA: Why so tired?
PHOEBE: I have been watching Augustin conduct the affairs of his lands. He is very diligent and I have much to learn from him. But it is tiring; my mind and body have run at such a high pace for so very long today!
LIGEIA: He still affects you that way?
PHOEBE: I cannot imagine why he does not affect you so.
LIGEIA: . . . Honestly?
PHOEBE: It is our agreement!
LIGEIA: I have noticed it. I am . . . hard to stir to emotion, but he does invigorate me. I think it is the safety I feel in his presence. He . . . tests me, but I do not think he would allow me to come to harm. It is an interesting sensation.
PHOEBE: You are an odd girl, Ligeia. You've killed a Kitsune and still you worry about safety so?
LIGEIA: You do not know father Valentin.
PHOEBE: I do not think I wish to.
LIGEIA: You are rather odd yourself. For a girl as obsessed with wealth as you claim, you waste an awful lot of time going goopy around Augustin.
PHOEBE: It is my theory that the energy he gives me can only improve my ability to pursue mercantile interests.
LIGEIA: But you are tired after you are with him.
PHOEBE: That's true, I suppose. Perhaps I should take advantage of this energy while I am actually around him.
LIGEIA: Can you divert your thoughts from his chiseled features long enough?
PHOEBE: Ligeia! . . . I've told you, it's not really him I think about. I think about many things. I simply have . . . focused too much on ephemera, and not on my grand plans for my life.
LIGEIA: And not much more than two years of it remain.
PHOEBE: True. I had best get moving.
LIGEIA: Starting with?
PHOEBE: Bed and supper.
Exit PHOEBE. Stage lights darken, connoting time passing, and then return. PHOEBE knocks, receives an invitation, and enters. LIGEIA is sitting on her bed contemplating a half-knit sweater; PHOEBE sits down heavily at the bed's edge.
PHOEBE: My.
PHOEBE: You ought call him Augustin-sama, or his grace.
LIGEIA: I ought.
PHOEBE: But yes. I went out riding with him. I fell, once; he helped me back up. What an amazing gentleman.
LIGEIA: I have not known you to fall when we ride together.
PHOEBE: I was careless.
LIGEIA: It was not so that he would help you rise?
PHOEBE: Ligeia! . . . but no. I do not consider a plan "clever" if it involves a significant risk of breaking my neck.
LIGEIA: I sometimes wonder if your time with Augustin is healthy. Pardon; with Augustin-sama.
PHOEBE: How could it not be? I feel exhilarated! Refreshed! Full of light and energy!
LIGEIA: When a theurgist's soul fills with Light, they die.
PHOEBE: But I am not a theurgist! This point is subtle but important.
LIGEIA: I suppose that is true. How proceed your plans to seize wealth and power before the world dies?
PHOEBE: They proceed. Have you found anything new to kill yet?
LIGEIA: I think that Augustin-sama would object if I skewered his seneschal or maids. I am eyeing the master-at-arms suspiciously; perhaps he is not human.
PHOEBE: He still refuses to dispense you a jitte?
LIGEIA: I am a guest! His refusal is unreasonable and indicates that he may be some sort of fell monster in disguise.
PHOEBE: You ought to complain to Augustin-sama.
LIGEIA: I dare not. I wish him to think me a sweet and uncomplaining girl, so that he should continue to shelter me.
PHOEBE: Stuff and nonsense. He is a pillar of justice.
LIGEIA: Perhaps. Is it dinnertime again?
PHOEBE: It is. But let me rest a moment; I have had a hard day.
After a moment, PHOEBE heaves a sigh, stands, and exits. Stage lights darken, connoting time passing, and then return. PHOEBE knocks, receives an invitation, enters. LIGEIA is at a desk, writing. PHOEBE flops on the bed.
PHOEBE: I think I may just die now.
PHOEBE: I do not know how his staff survives his company.
LIGEIA: They are not smitten with him.
PHOEBE: Ligeia! . . . I think it is the honesty.
LIGEIA: Pardon?
PHOEBE: I think that most people, seeing Augustin-sama, say: this is an important man, but I am more important. Because most people lie to themselves. In their head, they are the most important person in the universe. Everyone else is just an accessory. They say: I will keep my soul my own. I will not yield it to some man who stands thus larger than my life. Whereas I see him for what he is, and admit to seeing it; and so my soul belongs to him.
LIGEIA: So you believe that I would handle him better if you had not corrupted me with your notions of honesty?
PHOEBE: Hardly corrupted; I think you still lie as freely as a chicken.
LIGEIA: Do chickens lie freely?
PHOEBE: Probably not, but better metaphors refuse to spring to mind.
LIGEIA: I want you to leave.
PHOEBE: Pardon?
LIGEIA: Return to your parents. Get away from him. He isn't healthy for you.
PHOEBE: I do not see you rushing to leave.
LIGEIA: Father Valentin is not healthy for me.
PHOEBE: . . . Oh.
LIGEIA: He hates me, you know. For not being Calandra, or Mirabelle. He has shown it in his own ways.
PHOEBE: Augustin-sama does not hate me.
LIGEIA: I could stab you right now and I'm not sure you'd even roll out of the way. He's good for me, Phoebe. Not for you.
PHOEBE: I cannot leave.
LIGEIA: I will take you away.
PHOEBE rises quickly to her feet, backs away.
PHOEBE: You don't understand.
LIGEIA: What don't I understand?
PHOEBE: Anything!
PHOEBE exits. Stage lights darken, and rise. LIGEIA is fencing with the air. PHOEBE returns to the edge of the stage and pounds frantically on the door.
LIGEIA: Come in!
Even as LIGEIA speaks, PHOEBE wrests the door open.
PHOEBE: You have to leave. Now.
LIGEIA: Pardon?
PHOEBE: He's going to kill you. Augustin is going to kill you.
LIGEIA: He would not.
PHOEBE: Your father crucified ten Churchmen. We are in revolt against the crown.
LIGEIA: I have not crucified any Churchmen!
PHOEBE: I do not think Reyhari cares. And Augustin obeys the Principal Light.
LIGEIA moves for the door, but it's a bit too late; three GUARDS with drawn blades enter the room.
GUARD LEADER: Put down the weapon, Ligeia-sama. Phoebe-sama, move away from her.
LIGEIA stabs the guard leader. He falls. LIGEIA: Eight.
The other two GUARDS slash at LIGEIA. She steps back, turns, and lunges. Another GUARD falls. AUGUSTIN enters, holding a sword and a jitte.
LIGEIA: Nine.
The remaining GUARD has not seen AUGUSTIN, and looks a bit panicked. He fences with LIGEIA a moment and dies.
LIGEIA: Ten monsters slain.
LIGEIA: Will you be eleven?
AUGUSTIN quietly shakes his head. As he steps closer, and LIGEIA lunges, his jitte catches her blade; he wrenches it from her hand. He steps close, with LIGEIA's eyes on his sword, drops his jitte, and swings his fist into her face. She falls.
AUGUSTIN: No one else will be slain today.
PHOEBE: Augustin-sama . . .
AUGUSTIN: I am sorry you had to see this. Come here.
PHOEBE steps reluctantly up to AUGUSTIN, who embraces her.
AUGUSTIN: Do not fear. You are under my protection. The corruption of the Komaru shall not touch you; nor shall the war that comes.
PHOEBE's eyes close and her head falls against his shoulder. The curtains drop.
ACT II: ALESSANDRO
A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises.
Open on a card table. MORDRED YUASA sits at the table, with an unused deck in the table's center and a pile of coin in front of his chair. There is a pile of coin in front of another chair, where EMILE KOMARU will sit. As the scene opens, EMILE KOMARU is standing.
EMILE: For over a year, Lord Protector Augustin has crushed this land. My name is Emile Komaru, and I have written his name on my sword; I dream of baptizing it in Augustin's blood.
EMILE: I live a shadow life, for the Church would kill me; and at the edge of my shadows are the shadows of others. Among them, that of Mordred Yuasa, Count of Darkridge, here.
EMILE sits at the table.
There is a pause.
MORDRED: It's down to the two of us for cards, then.
EMILE: It would help if you stopped killing our opponents.
MORDRED: It's the way the game works.
EMILE: I am fairly sure that stabbing someone who wins too much is not in the rules.
MORDRED: I do not mean the game of cards, but in the greater game of life that surrounds it. I am a man of the world, and keep that more important contest firmly in my mind. To claim too much of my fortune is to commit a bad play in life; it leads one to a disenfortuned end, wherein one has earned no wealth at all.
EMILE: I am glad I am a poor player of this game.
MORDRED: You underestimate yourself, Emile. You bluff poorly but cheat remarkably well.
EMILE: I do not cheat.
MORDRED: I have never seen you draw less than a good hand, nor have I ever observed the mechanism you employ. Granted, you do not know how to take advantage of this gift, but perhaps you shall learn better cardsmanship in time.
EMILE: Mordred, I would not bother lying to you about whether I cheated; I have no reason to imagine that you would find it objectionable. But it is a fact that I do not. If I draw well, it is a certain quality of my nature; I consider myself in synchrony with the cosmos, a man in tune with the world. How could I not draw cards that reflect my needs? The deck was made between the sky and the earth that love me well.
MORDRED: I should like to play against you with the cosmos cards someday. Simply to examine this conceit of yours in detail.
EMILE: Perish the thought. I touch the cards and feel echoes of strange forces moving through the sky.
MORDRED: But you have suggested that the cosmos loves you.
EMILE: I have heard you declare your impassioned love for our last player, Sayuri, many times. How am I to interpret her absence?
MORDRED: It is my humbly advanced philosophy that lovers should share all things alike. I proposed this to her in all reason and kindness. It should have justified her returning to me a portion of what she won last week. She chose instead to deny me cruelly. Whatever else may have followed is simply the natural unfolding of fate.
EMILE: Is that truly natural?
MORDRED: Most violence is committed upon a loved one. Most murder, too. It is the way of the world; passion drives one to acts of madness. Love erases reason. Lust abolishes restraint.
EMILE: Then you may readily see why I do not want the cosmos powers touching my life, even though they love me well.
MORDRED: I see your point.
EMILE: At that, weren't you in love with Madoka too?
MORDRED: The topic grows tedious. I live a tragic life, full of love and loss; we need not dwell on it. How fare your plans to break the Protectorate and restore the Komaru?
EMILE: Why, Mordred, I cannot imagine what you mean. I am but a humble farmer.
MORDRED: Not well, then?
EMILE: It is difficult to find support. In one year, Shiliya claimed, the Endtimes come. The people do care who rules them for the next year. Their resentment towards Lord Protector Augustin and the Principal Light builds. But they do not care enough, not when they believe they are in the last year of their lives. What legacy does one year of rule leave?
MORDRED: You sound skeptical.
EMILE: The world does not feel ready to end. I can sense . . . something subtle, perhaps, as if Komaru is turning towards winter from fall, as if the measures of Paraceln's Age were drawing to a close --- but not in a year. Not in a dozen years. I would be surprised if I lived to see the end.
MORDRED: You are an irredeemable mystic, Emile. It will be your doom.
EMILE: I expect so. I cannot bear this, Mordred. Augustin rose to power on the backs of dead children. And the world does not sit right while a Bellatrix is on the throne. It must be the Komaru. It is what we are for.
MORDRED: And to set the world properly on its fundament, you will fight now --- not in two years, not in five, but now, when no one will fight with you?
EMILE: Well, not now, as such. Right now, I wish to play cards. But yes. It will be this year. It must. Or I shall choke on the stench of Augustin's reign.
MORDRED: You do remember that Valentin was rather a mad and bloody-minded old sot, yes?
EMILE: Yes. I loathed him. But Augustin's hands are every bit as bloody, and he is a traitor to boot.
EMILE: I seem to recall rather liking the Bellatrix before they began hunting me. But the memory has faded somewhat.
MORDRED: I suppose. --- Emile, we cannot play with just the two of us. There is no strategy in it.
EMILE: I believe I have a solution, but I hesitate to propose it.
MORDRED: Please, speak.
EMILE: There is a man who has newly come to this city who has expressed a certain interest in our game.
MORDRED: Go on.
EMILE: If I bring him here, then you will be in danger. If you betray him, you will die. If you do not, you may die.
MORDRED: This is beside the point; does he play a good hand of cards?
EMILE: I have never met a better.
MORDRED: Then by all means, bring him.
EMILE: (called out) Alessandro!
ALESSANDRO KOMARU enters, dressed in tradesman's clothes. MORDRED leaps, startled, to his feet.
MORDRED: Your highness!
ALESSANDRO: Milord Mordred Yuasa. Emile-san. I understand you have a game to play.
MORDRED: But, Emile, you did not mention this --- a direct heir of Valentin's line! Why did you not come to the table beaming with joy?
EMILE shrugs helplessly.
EMILE: He does not feel the time is right to come forward. If I am to restore the Komaru, it shall be without him.
MORDRED: Your highness?
ALESSANDRO: Emile-san has an excellent sense for the timing of the world, but I do not accept his intuition as a gamesman. If I come forward now, I will be killed.
MORDRED: You realize that I could sell you out to the Bellatrix and become a prosperous man.
ALESSANDRO: Try it.
MORDRED: Let us play cards.
Curtains close.
. . .
Once again, SUMMER, PARACELN 199.
Open on a card table. EMILE KOMARU, MORDRED YUASA, and ALESSANDRO KOMARU sit at the table, with cards strewn about and a pile of coin unevenly distributed between them. ALESSANDRO clearly has the lion's share.
MORDRED: I swear, Alessandro, you come away with more of my coin in every game.
ALESSANDRO: Fortune favors the just.
MORDRED: I am a paragon of justice! I divide my malice and treachery indifferently among my friends and enemies; I show no favoritism. I treat you as I would my mother, whom I hated, or dear Ayame-chan, whom I loved.
EMILE: Dead.
MORDRED: Would you stop saying that every time I mention a loved one?
EMILE: Well, isn't she?
MORDRED: My history is not in question; your aggravating mannerisms are the point at hand.
EMILE: Paragons of justice have nothing to fear from words; they are above reproach by the very essence of their nature.
MORDRED: You note that whenever you mention the Komaru, I do not mutter, "Dethroned." --- With apologies, Alessandro-sama.
ALESSANDRO: I do not shy from the truth.
MORDRED: An admirable trait.
Enter BASILE BELLATRIX. All three turn to look. MORDRED's hand goes to his sword.
MORDRED: I was not aware that you had invited a fourth to our game, Emile.
BASILE: Sadly, I do not have an invitation.
MORDRED: You are a Hawk of Light.
BASILE: Did the outfit give me away?
MORDRED: I hope you at least know how to play.
BASILE: I should not wish to embarrass you, your Excellency, by demonstrating my superiority.
MORDRED: It is common wisdom that the Hawks of Light hate vice so much because they cannot succeed at it themselves. Admittedly, that notion is more often applied to lust than cards; still, the principle applies.
BASILE: You invite dangerous recriminations, milord.
MORDRED: Either you have brought overwhelming force or you have not; my words will make no difference here.
BASILE: I have brought no force at all.
ALESSANDRO: Then sit.
BASILE pulls a chair away from the table and sits.
BASILE: You are Alessandro Komaru, child of Valentin Komaru.
EMILE: Yes.
BASILE: Not you.
ALESSANDRO: Thank you, Emile. But yes.
BASILE: I have a message for you.
ALESSANDRO: I assume it reads something on the order of "surrender yourself now to a just execution or we will be forced to execute you?"
MORDRED: Irony is lost on a Hawk of Light.
ALESSANDRO: But I find it entertaining.
BASILE: I have not told my superiors that I have found you.
ALESSANDRO: Then you are dead.
BASILE: Agreed; but hear my message first.
EMILE: Speak.
BASILE: This is the destiny written for you in the stars. You are the spider of Komaru. Your web shall bind and catch a nation. You seek to weave order from chaos, but where you walk there shall be stillness, and in that stillness, death. You shall make our land from a place of life and hope to a graveyard of desiccated insects bound in your web, and the names those insects wear shall be Komaru, and Yuasa, and Issorat, and Bellatrix, and Sone, and Touraine, and Minamet --- and all the hundred thousand names of the peasants of their lands. You are the steps of the dance that kills the dancer, Alessandro. You are the script for the play that kills the players. You are the end to all things, for when your works have passed, there shall be no more works done.
There is a short pause.
ALESSANDRO: If I am the End to this world, then your Church lies. I have no intention to strike at the powers of Komaru upon the hundredth anniversary of Paraceln's death.
BASILE: You are the End, and the Church lies.
ALESSANDRO: And my alternative?
BASILE: I offer you none. Accept your destiny, Alessandro, and may it choke you.
ALESSANDRO: I find this prophecy disturbing, and suspect that the best way to ease my stomach is to kill you.
ALESSANDRO rises from his chair. BASILE watches him calmly as he shoves his sword into BASILE's chest; then, slowly, in a pool of red rice paper, BASILE falls. ALESSANDRO returns to the table.
ALESSANDRO: We were saying?
MORDRED: I was complaining of your luck and finesse, Alessandro-sama.
ALESSANDRO: There is no luck to it; there is only the game.
MORDRED: If you would have it so. Still, I admire your play.
ALESSANDRO: Are you loyal to me, Mordred?
MORDRED: You do not wish to ask that question, Alessandro-sama.
ALESSANDRO: And why not?
MORDRED: If you were to pry too deeply into my motivations, you would discover unsettling phenomena.
ALESSANDRO: And those would be?
MORDRED: Alessandro, I have gamed with you three times; and each time, I have come to admire you more. I begin to grasp --- with the edges of my thoughts --- the nature of your mind; the structure of your will; the power that lies within you. These things come out as the cards rise and fall.
ALESSANDRO: This is flattery?
MORDRED: When I was a child, I did not wish to be the man I am. I did not seek to rule my destiny. I dreamed of a hero who would come, and lift me up: someone whose brightness I could never aspire to, but who welcomed me. Someone whose valor I could never achieve, but who put me at their side. I wished that through some intermediary I could transcend myself and reach the greatness that does not lie within me.
MORDRED pauses.
MORDRED: You are too much like that hero, Alessandro. Loyal? I think I am in love. And I do not wish to hear Emile mutter, "Dead." each time I speak your name.
ALESSANDRO: I do not think that will happen, Mordred.
MORDRED: Oh?
ALESSANDRO: For one, Emile-san would kill you and feed your corpse to the hounds.
MORDRED: Ah.
ALESSANDRO: For another, milord Yuasa, I have not placed you at my side. If you wish to dream of me, remember that your dreams have not yet come true.
All three rise, and leave the room. ALESSANDRO retrieves his sword on the way out.
BASILE stirs jerkily, then struggles uncomfortably to his feet, like a puppet pulled upright by a puppeteer. He smiles, teeth bared, at the door through which the others passed.
Curtains close.
. . .
Once again, SUMMER, PARACELN 199.
Open on a card table. EMILE KOMARU, MORDRED YUASA, and ALESSANDRO KOMARU sit at the table, with cards strewn about. A pile of coin sits in front of ALESSANDRO; the others have nothing.
MORDRED: It seems impossible that I have lost everything to you, Alessandro-sama.
ALESSANDRO: If you had not gambled it, you could not have lost it.
MORDRED: Still, I have played well, and had good fortune.
ALESSANDRO: There is no such thing as fortune, milord Yuasa. When we sat at this table, the possibilities were formless; the cards, random; the outcome of the game, undecided. I proceeded to give form to the possibilities, pattern to the cards, and decision to the outcome. You and Emile attempted the same, but your dedication to your own sense of order was less.
MORDRED: Still, I had intended to use some of that wealth to purchase a courtesan for the evening and sake for the night. My funds are limited here, far from my family's holdings; it shall take me several days to recover them.
ALESSANDRO: I feel a deep and biting sympathy for your plight.
MORDRED: Perhaps you should return to me some portion of my coin, as a sign of gratitude. For more than two months I have gambled with you, and never once taken your name and presence to the Church. In addition, I have enlivened your existence with amusing anecdotes and a sparkling personality.
ALESSANDRO: I am sorry.
MORDRED: Damn it, Alessandro, you are pushing me.
ALESSANDRO: I see. You are tempted to kill me and Emile and retrieve your funds; and then, of course, you shall curse yourself for years after, thinking, "What excellent companions I had in the game, who lay now dead."
MORDRED: You are leaving me with few alternatives.
EMILE: You could suffer for a few nights without courtesans or sake.
MORDRED: I would, and willingly, for either of your sakes. Ask me for my coin; I am a generous patron! Ask me for my talents; I am magnanimous with my virtues! But if I allow him to take my pleasures from me through guile then I have lost myself. The tenet of my existence is that I must choose my own road --- that I must see my way through the mazes and games of my competitors and rise, if not to the top, to the point of my own satisfaction. If I allow a loss this once, then I have compromised my soul.
EMILE: You are clearly a passionate philosopher, far superior to those who are simply poor losers.
MORDRED: You speak the truth, but with sarcasm. This demonstrates a certain lack of insight into human nature.
ALESSANDRO: It does not matter, Mordred. What I have won, I shall keep.
MORDRED: Perhaps you shall say, "I need these funds for my eventual rebellion," and I shall selflessly permit things to stand as they are.
ALESSANDRO: Instead, I assert that you have already compromised your soul by betting more than you could afford, and that no course you can take from here shall earn it back for you.
MORDRED: Why did you just say that, Alessandro?
ALESSANDRO: Whimsy. Emile-san, how proceed the plans for the revolution?
EMILE: Poorly. I am now able to envision its ultimate ending.
ALESSANDRO: Which is to say?
EMILE: I will die horribly at the hands of the Bellatrix, and few of those who follow me will survive.
ALESSANDRO: You are welcome to wait until I am ready, Emile-san. I would gladly have you at my side.
EMILE: I do not think so, your Highness. The stars have charted the course of my destiny and I choose to follow it. I know that some greater good must follow from this wrong.
ALESSANDRO: I hope, at least, that your knowledge of this greater good is as firm as the premonition of your death.
EMILE: I have stood beneath the night sky and watched the galaxy and thought on this very point, Alessandro. But I can give you no answers. I intend to make the utmost effort to heal this broken land, not because I expect success, but because I am human and I am Komaru and the meaning of these things is "striving". That I know my doom does not mean that I should concern myself with it. My life is not so precious as that.
MORDRED: You cannot just ignore me!
ALESSANDRO: Mordred-san, why is your blade still sheathed? You have as much as stated your intention to kill us both. Has Emile lied to me all this time about the trail of corpses you leave behind you? Are you in fact as meek as a rabbit?
MORDRED: I do not wish to kill you, Alessandro.
ALESSANDRO: And why not?
MORDRED: You are the only Prince I would swear to.
ALESSANDRO: Then you are in a peculiar predicament, are you not?
MORDRED rises to his feet, his hand on his sword. EMILE does the same in turn, but ALESSANDRO simply watches.
ALESSANDRO: Do you have the strength to do it, Mordred-san?
MORDRED: Damn you.
ALESSANDRO: I wonder how I may interpret your hesitation. You have spoken once or twice about the "greater game", about how you see life and death as just another contest of bluff, skill, and fortune. Perhaps you have forgotten how to play this greater game, and now find yourself defeated there as well. I am, you well know, the better gamesman.
MORDRED: There is none better than I.
ALESSANDRO: Life, Mordred-san, is an inchoate chaos on which we impose an order with our will. By my choices, I narrow the span of fate; I make some destinies happen and unravel others to naught. I am very good at life, Mordred, which is why I am still here to live it. Accept my victory at the table and you will not need to face me at the larger contest.
MORDRED: I cannot.
ALESSANDRO: Before I came here tonight, I asked Emile-san to read the cosmos cards for us. Yours was Searing Maiden, the card of loss. How should I interpret this, Emile?
EMILE: He shall lose something important to him tonight, Alessandro-sama. The thing he loves above all others.
ALESSANDRO: I recommend against testing yourself against me, Mordred-san. You have a great deal to lose.
MORDRED slowly pulls his sword out of its sheath.
ALESSANDRO: Emile, please sit down.
EMILE, reluctantly, sits down.
ALESSANDRO: Try it.
MORDRED: Please, Alessandro. Give me another way.
ALESSANDRO: You have other ways.
MORDRED: I hate you.
ALESSANDRO: I know.
MORDRED flings the sword aside, and sits down.
ALESSANDRO: It is as I have said. You have forfeited yourself.
MORDRED: Yes.
ALESSANDRO: You have gambled yourself, and lost.
MORDRED: Yes.
ALESSANDRO: Then I claim you as mine, fairly won.
MORDRED: That being the order you have imposed on the events of the night?
ALESSANDRO: That being the order I have imposed on the events of the summer.
MORDRED: You did not ask me if I wanted to belong to you.
ALESSANDRO: It does not behoove a future Crown Prince to ask. I take what I want, Mordred. I may need the Yuasa. I may need your father Faust. So I told Emile to bring me here.
MORDRED: I am yours to command.
ACT III: LUCIEN
A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises.
Open on a stone chamber. MICA TOURAINE relaxes on a lounge, glass of wine in hand. Another lounge, where KAHANA KOMARU will recline, has a glass of wine next to it. KAHANA stands near the front of the stage.
KAHANA: It is the year 201 of Paraceln's Age, and the world is not dead.
KAHANA: My name is Kahana Komaru. I am not the most favored target of Augustin's Protectorate, but I have nevertheless seen fit to remove myself from its sight. This is the Duke of Aoiyama, Mica Touraine, who has graciously opened his home to me.
KAHANA walks to the lounge and arranges herself upon it, picking up her glass of wine.
There is a pause.
KAHANA: I appreciate your hospitality, Mica-sama. These are hard times to be a Komaru.
MICA: Hard times for us all. Still, I cling to a point of philosophy.
KAHANA: That being?
MICA: What I survive, I can forget. The pains of the past are gone; the pains of the present fade away. As long as I may look towards a brighter future, free of the chains of the Church of Inner Light, I need not despair in their sumptuary laws and their persecution of my peers.
KAHANA: I do not know if that brighter future remains to us. Raymond Veron tried to break the Church; he failed. Emile-sama tried to return the Komaru to the throne; the Bellatrix gutted him. At this rate, the royal line shall die out entirely before the monster Augustin steps down from the throne.
MICA: What was it that Emile said, as he died? "There is still hope."
KAHANA: I dismiss that quotation as rumor and fancy. Still --- it is the kind of thing he would say, regardless of its truth. He strove after his deepest ambition; he made significant progress; he died knowing that he gave his utmost. This is a worthy end, and I am sure that Emile saw it as such.
MICA: Do you intend to organize a rebellion of your own?
KAHANA: Mica-chan! I should not imagine so. If I were to line up the men who have pledged me their lives, their service, and their honor if I should give them but a single kiss, and tell them, "Then I call you to arms!" --- they would shuffle their feet uncomfortably and make their excuses. "Perhaps I could have the kiss in exchange for this fine ruby," they might say, "or give you my steward instead of my pike?" The people of Komaru admire a pretty face, but they do not respect one.
MICA: I graciously stifle various innuendoes regarding pike.
KAHANA: You are a dear man. But you yourself would give me no better.
MICA: Perhaps not. The promises of yesterday are no more real than its pains.
KAHANA: I hope you shall not think that when the Church comes to your door asking for me.
MICA: Indeed not! I shall tell them, "Kahana? I vaguely recall that name; did she not give some sort of fabulous party back when the Komaru were in fashion?"
KAHANA: I sulk. You should remember at least two of my parties, even were you to forget everything else.
MICA: So noted.
KAHANA: Really, I do not understand why the Church is so uptight. They practice chastity, do they not?
MICA: That is commonly considered a reason to be uptight.
KAHANA: Nonsense. Lust gives a man energy; it gives him something to strive for. It fills his thoughts with worldly things and thrilling fantasies. The Church should be practically boiling over with passion and love for life at this point. And, of course, the longer the wait, the more fiery the release; it is a wonder that roving groups of Hawks of Light do not collapse dramatically into wild orgies.
MICA: The notion is difficult to contemplate.
KAHANA: I imagine Shiliya must have been fun to be around when she finally burst.
MICA: I think they may technically be allowed to sleep around, in any case. As long as they avoid children, attachment to the material world, indications of moral degeneracy, and suchlike.
KAHANA: Hm. I have never measured the effects on a man permitted sex but denied wildness. I suppose they should be similar, but I am not sure. But nevermind! How fare things in your damp Touraine world?
MICA: Well enough. I have been thinking of the Merru a great deal.
KAHANA: An interesting subject for thought.
MICA: As far as I can tell, they exist in a kind of symbiosis with the water. They do not simply live in the ocean: they embody it. So I consider the possibility: what if a noble can do the same thing for his land? What if I can sink my consciousness into my Duchy Aoiyama and let it speak to me as the ocean speaks to the Merru? This would enable an effective administration and possibly a potent tool for resisting the Church.
KAHANA: And how have you progressed?
MICA: Not very far. I can successfully dig large holes in the sand and lower my torso into them, but this does not induce any sort of mystic union. Similarly, my candle meditation has yet to set my consciousness free to merge with the land. Still, perhaps I can ask the Merru themselves for help if the task proves frustrating.
KAHANA: If you do so, may I make one or two practical suggestions?
MICA: Of course.
KAHANA: I have heard that the Merru are devastatingly attractive; is this so?
MICA: I have heard a similar rumor. I have also heard rumors that they are abhorrent, so I do not entirely trust these stories. You understand, I have never actually seen one up close.
KAHANA: If you should encounter one of impossible appeal, then you must keep several things foremost in your mind. First, the exceptionally beautiful are used to admiration. To interest them, you must present a front of diffidence. This induces curiosity and desire.
MICA: A valid consideration. And second?
KAHANA: Second, you must remember to tell me when you return with news of your success, "Of course, Kahana-chan, you are more beautiful yet."
MICA: Understood.
There is a knock at the door.
MICA: Come in.
KAHANA: Why, Mica-sama, you did not tell me you had another guest.
MICA: Of course! How could I forget? This is the worthy Lucien d'Aramis, a traveler and merchant of some accomplishment.
LUCIEN: And the lady?
KAHANA: The gentleman may choose his own name for the lady.
LUCIEN: Then I shall call you Kahen, for you have the look of a rose petal.
KAHANA: The gentleman is astute.
MICA: Lucien d'Aramis actually traveled beyond the Eastern Furnace --- can you believe it? Myself, I can scarcely imagine; it is so very dry there.
LUCIEN: Yes. It was very dry.
MICA: And returned with truly amazing secrets and lore. Or so he has explained to me.
LUCIEN: I take it we may trust the lady Kahen?
MICA: With your life! And possibly mine. I would have to think longer, however, on that.
LUCIEN: As your grace says.
MICA: In my youth, I used to keep track of the brighter minds of Komaru; the artificers and philosophers and such. Evidently Lucien has been in search of such to help him properly capitalize on his discoveries. I am still reviewing my notes on the subject; I have at best dim recollections of my earlier pastime.
LUCIEN: Yes, your grace. I had hoped that you had made some progress.
MICA: You must be patient, Lucien. I have other guests to entertain.
KAHANA: And what shall you do with this knowledge, Lucien-san, once you have found these shining minds?
LUCIEN: I shall have such power as to make and unmake as I please, milady Kahen.
KAHANA: And how shall you use that power?
There is a short pause.
LUCIEN: Perhaps I shall be gallant, milady, and lay it at your feet. What would you see done?
KAHANA: If you can do this thing, then unmake the Lord Protector and his Church. Leave the Protectorate in ruins. This is my sole and solitary request.
LUCIEN: Milady, that would cost endless thousands of lives. Why should I make such a sacrifice to replace one regime with another? Would you have me claim the vacant throne and wait for the assassins to come?
KAHANA holds out her hands, palms up.
KAHANA: These are my wrists. My blood flows through them. You may feel the pulse of it, if you like. It is innocent blood, Lucien d'Aramis, that has never done a man or woman harm. And it is blood that the Protectorate would spill in an instant, if they had both my person and the slightest excuse. It is blood that the Bellatrix hounds yearn for. If you have the power to unmake them, and do not do so, then you commit a crime against the world.
LUCIEN: Perhaps, then, milady Kahen, I shall heed your request.
Curtains close.
. . .
In the same room, KAHANA KOMARU, LUCIEN D'ARAMIS, and MICA TOURAINE sit.
MICA: I have sometimes walked along the very edge of the sea. Allowing it to wash over my bare feet. It is a peculiar sensation: this most lethal of all forces, tickling my toes as if they were a child's.
LUCIEN: You are brave, your grace.
MICA: I am often tempted to walk out further. Perhaps to my knees. Or perhaps to my hips. While there is firm sand under my feet, what can be the harm?
KAHANA: 'Firm sand', Mica-sama?
MICA: Well, you understand my meaning. Something that I may brace against if the water tries to swallow me whole.
KAHANA: There is a children's story about that. About a boy whom the Merru want, so they call to him as he walks along the shore; and each day, he walks a bit deeper in the water; and then one day, when he's sure he's perfectly safe, it pulls him down with hundreds of clutching hands and drowns him.
MICA: I wonder who observed the boy through all of this, writing down the story, but did not think to say: "Hey. You! Maybe you shouldn't walk any further out than that!"
LUCIEN: Perhaps the storyteller did not like the boy very much.
MICA: Perhaps.
LUCIEN: I believe you should do this, your grace.
MICA: So that hundreds of clutching hands can drown me?
LUCIEN: Of course not, your grace. You have not yet provided me with the information I need. I mean, simply, that you cannot live your life in safety. If you feel the need to be closer to the sea, then indulge this; in this manner, you free yourself from constraint and allow yourself to grow.
MICA: And if I die?
LUCIEN: I will feel extremely apologetic.
There is a knock.
MICA: Come in!
MICA: This is unexpected.
EMILE holds up a hand as KAHANA moves to rise.
EMILE: Do not rise, lady. My time in this world has passed; my flesh is cold; I return only as the voice of the dancing of the stars.
MICA: I have heard of the Merru waking the dead, although the details elude me. I had not imagined their power could reach Emile's grave.
EMILE: My apologies for the intrusion. I seek a certain Lucien d'Aramis. I believe he may be found herein.
LUCIEN: I am here. Unless you have returned to kill me, in which case I am actually far away from here in Minamet lands.
EMILE: I have a message to deliver to you.
LUCIEN: Speak.
EMILE: This is my rede. You claim the desire to make and unmake as you will, Lucien d'Aramis, but this is not your nature. In your soul, there is no creation. In your heart, there is no maker. You are a wind, and where that wind passes, nothing survives. Grass rots, stone crumbles, towers fall, humans die, and Mourn cries out its pain. Until you die, you shall protest that you wish to make a better Komaru, but the only power in you is to undo the bindings of the world and set its horrors free. You shall live amidst a firestorm and your own nephew shall send you to your grave unmourned.
There is a pause.
LUCIEN: I do not like this message. Perhaps you could offer me another, happier message, possibly including some music and a cheerful dance step?
EMILE: I have given you my message; I do not have another. I am sorry, Lucien d'Aramis.
LUCIEN: I am not so much upset as thrown and slightly puzzled, so do not fret yourself over it. What is my alternative?
EMILE: I know no alternative for you, but I shall say this. A man who seeks harmony with the world, and knows his place within it, finds his hands guided to brightness. If you keep this principle in mind, perhaps the world will survive your presence.
EMILE: Yes?
KAHANA: You were brave. Braver than I could be. I always wished I could have told you that.
EMILE looks at her silently for a moment, smiles slightly, and leaves.
KAHANA: How terribly sad.
LUCIEN: I wonder.
KAHANA: And what do you wonder?
LUCIEN: Emile-sama spoke of my destiny; and I wonder if it would be such a bad thing, if it were true.
KAHANA: To become a living embodiment of destruction? I would be unable to invite you to any of my affairs.
LUCIEN: That would, indeed, wound me, milady Kahen, but I must think in the broader context. What is there in Komaru that deserves to remain as it is? The Churchmen say the nobles are decadent and corrupt. The nobles point at the Church's hands, dipped in blood and hate. The merchants have no interests at heart save their own --- myself the exception, of course --- and the peasants are powerless. Paraceln shattered the castles of our ancestors; which of today's castles deserves to stand? The Hawks of Light burned the libraries of the past; what do we know today worth the keeping? If I should cast Komaru into the fire and the wind, then what would emerge could hardly be the worse.
MICA: I have heard this refrain before.
LUCIEN: Oh?
MICA: It is strange, the things that stick in one's mind when so much else is forgotten. A strange young man ranted --- something much the same --- in Valentin's court. The princess Calandra looked up and said, "If you live in a condition of hate, then you shall see hateful things."
LUCIEN: A vacuous response.
MICA: Yet it stayed with me; and the young man's name, I have forgotten.
LUCIEN: If she did not see hateful things in Valentin's court, your grace, then she has little to contribute to this discussion.
MICA: So will you embrace Emile's prophecy?
LUCIEN: No, your grace.
MICA: And why not?
LUCIEN: I do not wish to make myself into a soldier, your grace. Nor a duelist. Nor a rabid dog. Whatever vision has prompted the stars to seek me out, it is incomplete. I intend to prune Komaru like a gardener, your grace, pulling out the weeds, cutting away the disease, and carving carefully at tangled growth. That is my form of unmaking the world; and I shall plant many new seeds as well.
KAHANA: Then you have chosen to destroy the Protectorate?
LUCIEN: Milady Kahen, it is diseased, and the rot began to spread when the Endtimes did not come.
KAHANA: Then I am content.
LUCIEN: Are you so certain that there is nothing of the weed in yourself, milady Kahen?
KAHANA: You have said it yourself, Lucien-chan. I am a rose petal.
LUCIEN: I can say nothing more; milady's logic surpasses my own.
Curtains close.
. . . A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises.
In the same room, KAHANA KOMARU and LUCIEN D'ARAMIS sit with wineglasses. MICA TOURAINE looks broodingly out the window.
MICA: There is a man named Florello Lacroix, Lucien. In Ladieu. I believe he shall meet your needs.
LUCIEN: Then I shall be on my way.
MICA: Do stay the night. It will give you time to ready yourself for the journey.
LUCIEN: Of course.
KAHANA: I wish you luck on your quest, Lucien-san. Although I admit that I find the stories of eastern magic and strange devices somewhat fanciful.
LUCIEN: Milady Kahen has been generous to humor my peculiar visions; but I ask that she try and take some hope from them, as well.
KAHANA: I do, I suppose. I simply dare not . . . invest much hope in them, now that you will proceed.
LUCIEN: Of course.
KAHANA: Sometimes I do think of challenging the Protectorate myself.
LUCIEN: Milady is bold.
KAHANA: I could try and serve as a rallying point. To become a standard for the cause of Komaru and righteousness against Augustin and his beasts. Emile-sama acted too soon; but 100 years since Paraceln's death have come and gone, and the world none the much ended for it. The Protectorate stands on a shaky foundation.
LUCIEN: I find this an interesting notion. How does one proceed to become a standard?
KAHANA: I would make myself as visible as I could. I would tell the world, "I am the sign of change. I am a Komaru clean of Valentin's taint and Augustin's brutality. I am a rallying point for those of you who suffer under the Protectorate." In saying these things loudly enough, I would make them true. Or I would die.
LUCIEN: That last is something of a risk, milady Kahen Komaru.
KAHANA: People are driven by desire for the things they cannot have. I would promise wealth to those who are poor; safety to those who lack shelter; pride to those who lack purpose. I would tell the people that I am the only tool for them to satisfy their needs, and they would stand beside me in their desperation. If enough stood beside me, I would not die. And if those who stand by me die for me, it would not break my resolve; for I would still have given them hope, and that is a great blessing.
LUCIEN: It seems a reasonable plan. Will you implement it?
KAHANA: No.
LUCIEN: No?
KAHANA: It would be a fine thing to do, Lucien, but it would bring too much death and too much pain.
LUCIEN: You do not have the spine for it?
KAHANA: I long to bury the realm in the corpses of those who hunt my family, Lucien. Sometimes, I even dream of it. But I have made a choice. I am not in this world to bring death and pain. I choose to bring joy; to spark desire and passion; to make people more alive than they were without me. I do not think I can give that up even for a war. I am not sure I could give it up to save my life.
There is a pause.
LUCIEN: That is selfish, then, milady. To let the realm suffer for your qualms.
KAHANA: Then I am selfish.
LUCIEN: It is inconsistent; you prize desire but will not pursue your own.
KAHANA: Then I am inconsistent.
LUCIEN: If I cannot trust in milady Kahen's hate, how may I trust that destroying the Protectorate is right?
KAHANA: You decided to act against Augustin long before we met.
LUCIEN: A few weeks ago, you told me: if I have the power to unmake the Protectorate, and do not do so, then I commit a crime against the world. Is it different in your case?
KAHANA: . . . I am uncertain. Destroying my own nature is also a crime against the world.
LUCIEN: Then I will purchase that nature.
KAHANA: How?
LUCIEN: You heard what Emile-sama told me; and the destiny he proffered. I will reject it, and seek a brighter future, if you yield to your desire.
KAHANA: Why?
LUCIEN: Because, milady, while you sit in his grace's castle and dream of things you will never do, you are not free.
KAHANA: . . . the bargain is fair, a soul for a soul. I accept it. But I shall not look at your face longer.
KAHANA rises and leaves.
MICA: That was rather cruel. I liked Kahana-san better alive.
LUCIEN: Is that her name? I had wondered.
MICA: I doubt she still wishes it concealed.
LUCIEN: You will stop her from committing this foolishness, of course.
MICA: I could. Why?
LUCIEN: I wished her to decide to fight, your grace, but only because such decisions matter in this world. I have no interest in her actually fighting; and, in fact, think it an extremely unfortunate idea.
MICA: You are arrogant, to rearrange a noble's mindset to your liking.
LUCIEN: I am. I will also rearrange yours, before I leave.
MICA: This impresses me; your time is rather short.
LUCIEN: I must, your grace. I have come to admire yourself and milady Kahen; if I do not trim you now, I should hate to prune you later.
MICA: I could have you killed now.
LUCIEN: A silly notion; my arrogant explanation is in the past, and what matters is the moment at hand.
MICA: Your logic is sound; why should I care about your ravings?
LUCIEN: I have only one request, your grace. That you should walk along the shore with the water risen to your knees.
MICA: It seems a foolish risk.
LUCIEN: It is.
MICA: Then why should I pursue it?
LUCIEN: So you may always have that in your future: the moment of communion between your grace Mica, the sea, and the shore.
MICA: You put it poetically.
LUCIEN: And your fear of death?
MICA: If I die, it ought to be in a moment of exaltation. In a moment of brilliance and power.
LUCIEN: Even so.
Curtains close.
ACT IV: CIARRA
A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises.
Open on a snow-covered field, with a prominent tent (attached by thin wires to the backdrop so that the audience side can be open to view.) Inside, THOMAS KARRA lies on a thin cot, under heavy blankets. Occasionally through this scene, he coughs. There is a small sack under the cot. A WOMAN stands at the front of the stage, outside the tent, her face covered by a mask.
WOMAN: In the 202nd year of Paraceln's Age, Alessandro Komaru rose in rebellion against the Protectorate. Much of the peasantry supported him, for the Protectorate was not well loved. Some of those peasants took arms.
WOMAN: Alessandro declared himself to the Royal Council. Certain Touraine offered him their support. The Sone offered him supplies and refuge. And the Yuasa came to his side.
The WOMAN walks into THOMAS' tent.
There is a pause.
WOMAN: Pardon.
THOMAS' head turns to look at the woman.
THOMAS: Marie? But you're dead.
WOMAN: I'm terribly sorry. I'm not Marie.
THOMAS: Oh. You sound --- you look just like her. I'm sorry.
WOMAN: I was looking for Mordred Yuasa.
THOMAS: Mordred? . . . Oh. Him. He'd be with his Highness, I think.
WOMAN: Thank you.
THOMAS: I don't suppose you could sit down for a moment? I'd . . . like to hear her voice again.
WOMAN: Of course.
The WOMAN sits.
THOMAS: I'm Thomas. Thomas Karra.
WOMAN: Thank you for your name. How fares the war, Thomas Karra?
THOMAS looks momentarily confused, then shakes his head to clear it.
THOMAS: A lot of people die. Every day. On both sides. Is that good or bad?
WOMAN: Typical, I think. It must be distressing to live through.
THOMAS: Yeah. I'm kind of used to it by now. But sometimes it's overwhelming. Looking at all the corpses and knowing that those people are just gone.
WOMAN: If you accept the doctrine of the Church, then it is for the best. They are at last freed from the material dross of Mourn and have left only the least important piece of themselves behind.
THOMAS: You won't find his Highness' camp big on Church doctrine, begging your pardon, ma'am. What with the excommunication of our Crown Prince and their sending all these Bellatrix soldiers to kill us and all. But I appreciate the comforting thought.
WOMAN: I don't hold much with it myself. But there was something about picking my way through piles of frozen corpses that made me wish . . .
THOMAS: I want to hold them here. I want to stand between them and whatever other fate they're going to and say, "Don't leave this world. It isn't worth it. There's still so much here to do." To our men. Sometimes to the enemy too. I mean, I hate them a lot, but sometimes I see something in their faces that makes me wish they didn't have to die.
WOMAN: There are ways to do that, you know.
THOMAS: I know.
THOMAS struggles a hand out of the blankets and taps the sack under the cot.
THOMAS: I write about it. I write about it all. So that someday, someone can read the book and say, "That was Marie. She's dead, but I know her now." And then she didn't completely leave the world.
WOMAN: Not entirely what I meant, but it's a good start.
THOMAS: I don't know if I'll finish it. People are dying. Just from the cold and the hunger. Probably me, too.
WOMAN: There's a trick that I've found for that.
THOMAS: For what?
WOMAN: Staying alive. See, I learned a long time ago that death has eyes and ears, just like people. It looks, and it listens. Sometimes it sniffs the air, like a hunting hound, and, if it's really dark, it may feel for its victims with long thin fingers. You know it's coming when you get a little tingle right next to your heart. That's when you know to hide from it. If death can't find you, why, you'll just have to live.
THOMAS coughs.
THOMAS: I guess I could try that, ma'am.
WOMAN: Do.
THOMAS: I think I kind of have my own way not to die. But I don't know if it works.
WOMAN: By all means, share.
THOMAS: See, I figure that everyone has a little fire burning inside them, measuring out the days of their life. Sometimes, there are gusts of wind, and maybe it threatens to blow the fire out. Like when someone's trying to stick a sword in you. Sometimes, the fire just sort of naturally dwindles down, like when you get old or sick. But if it's a fire, then you can always keep it lit by giving it fuel. And I figure that the fuel is the things you believe in, absolutely. So as long as you hang on to those things, those centermost things, the beliefs and faiths and trusts that make you you . . . you can't die.
WOMAN: That has a certain quaint appeal.
THOMAS: Me, I just have three things I believe in.
WOMAN: Oh?
THOMAS: Marie. Katrin. And Alessandro.
WOMAN: He does seem to have that effect on people. But I thought you had said Marie was dead?
THOMAS: She is. Katrin too. But I still believe in them. Death's not strong enough to take that away from me.
WOMAN: You must have loved them greatly.
THOMAS: I think if I were stronger I could pull them back. Rip open the veil that keeps them from me and bring them here. Again. I can almost feel it sometimes, when I sense their spirits close to me.
WOMAN: I like my life and do not wish to die. But I think, if I died, I should not want someone yanking me back. I would dance in the cosmos and hide behind the edges and corners of the world, making faces at living people and copying their actions in mocking fashion. If possible, I should also find a way to be a great trouble to my children.
THOMAS: If I lost my love for them, I would lose two thirds of my own life's fire.
WOMAN: I am not proposing that you cease to love them, only that you accept their escape from Mourn.
THOMAS: It isn't love if you ever let them go.
The WOMAN rises.
WOMAN: Then I had best stay no longer; for if you should confuse me with Marie more thoroughly, I might never find Mordred.
THOMAS: Why are you looking for him, anyway?
WOMAN: He claimed to love me, once.
THOMAS: Don't let death sniff you out.
WOMAN: What a peculiar thing to say.
The WOMAN exits.
Curtains close.
. . . A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises.
Open on a field with less snow, similarly decorated. THOMAS KARRA sits cross-legged on the floor, writing in a journal. The WOMAN stands nearby again, her face covered by a mask.
THOMAS talks as he writes.
THOMAS: Today, we won the first of what I hope will be a long string of victories. Since we were forced to retreat, the usurper's forces held the town of Wall on the outskirts of Yuasa territory. Wall's fortifications were such that no one expected any attack to seriously threaten it. The Bellatrix never knew what hit them: the cannons tore through their walls like swords through paper screens.
WOMAN: Cannon? You must have had the Kitsunes' own luck.
THOMAS jumps up, startledly, dropping the book.
THOMAS: Katrin? No, you can't possibly be Katrin.
WOMAN: I'm terribly sorry. Again. Last time, you thought I looked like Marie?
THOMAS: . . . of course. Of course you do. My mind must be going.
WOMAN: I would not worry about it overmuch.
THOMAS: What brought you back?
WOMAN: I wished to discover the progress of the war, and so I came; and I thought: I should see that young man again, that Thomas Karra, and see if he learned to hide properly from death. So I asked around after your tent, and here I am.
THOMAS: I do not know if I have learned to hide from death. I think it has simply not come for me yet. But perhaps I am cleverer at hiding than I realize.
WOMAN: This is often the case. A person does not realize how much of their life they conceal until they look in the mirror one morning and see nothing but shadows.
THOMAS: You are a very strange person. Begging your pardon, ma'am.
WOMAN: I prefer to think of myself as eccentric, yet comfortingly familiar.
THOMAS: As you like.
WOMAN: Is this war doomed, then?
THOMAS: Pardon?
WOMAN: Using cannon seems a desperation measure; you are lucky if you have any artillerists left.
THOMAS: Old news. I don't think we'll be losing any more people to such things.
WOMAN: Why is that?
The WOMAN waits.
THOMAS: I suppose it can't do much harm. These merchants, Lucien d'Aramis and Florello Lacroix, came to us with a way of stabilizing cannon and guns. So they don't blow up when you use them. I wouldn't say we're doomed, ma'am; I'd say we're going to win.
WOMAN: How interesting.
THOMAS: And then there's Ciarra.
WOMAN: Oh?
THOMAS: Florello's daughter. I look at her sometimes and almost forget about Marie. There's something about her . . .
WOMAN: I thought you had dedicated yourself to the belief that one should never let one's loved ones go.
THOMAS: I know. I haven't forgotten. I still hang on to her. I still want her back. It's just sometimes, you know, it gets harder. I don't write about that part. I figure if I don't write about it, it won't have happened, you know? Because I know you can love two people in your life. Or three, or four, or however many.
WOMAN: Indeed.
THOMAS: But Ciarra's smile clouds my memory sometimes.
WOMAN: I'm sorry.
THOMAS: It's not a thing one feels sorry about. It's just another kind of death, maybe. Where Marie passes a little further from the world, a little out of memory. I'll bring her back from it. And I deserve a little life, too, and Ciarra is . . . that.
WOMAN: Is she?
THOMAS: Pardon?
WOMAN: I have looked at Ciarra in my dreams, and this is what I saw. She is the dark moon. She is the night. Her open hand promises mysteries, and in those mysteries power; and there are those who shall follow her for mysteries and secrets, never learning more. Her closed hand is the occlusion of truth, passing across things true and clear and leaving only shadows behind. She shall pour from her open hand the corruptive gifts of Darkness. Her closed hand shall block out the sky. When she has done with the world, she shall leave nothing but the void. Castles shall still rise, but they will be empty. Death shall swallow the sun. If life still exists, it shall not know itself, or remember what it means to live.
There is a pause.
THOMAS: You are harsh, and you have not even met her.
WOMAN: I do not mean to give offense.
THOMAS: I do not think what you say is true.
WOMAN: In what manner do you disagree?
THOMAS looks down.
THOMAS: I guess she might have mysteries that promise power, or something, but those aren't the mysteries I'm interested in.
WOMAN: You do seem rather more practical than that.
THOMAS: And she hasn't taken anything true and clear from me.
WOMAN: What do you have that is true and clear?
THOMAS: I guess the same things that feed that fire in my heart. You know. The truths, the loves, the beliefs that make me me. Katrin. Alessandro. Ciarra.
WOMAN: Marie.
THOMAS: Marie. . . . whatever happened with you and Mordred?
WOMAN: He tried to shoot me. Called me an insane, depraved witch and said I was probably here to hurt Alessandro.
THOMAS: But ma'am, you don't seem like that at all.
WOMAN: Thank you, Thomas Karra. I rather like to think of myself as well-loved, but for some reason, he is resistant to my charm.
THOMAS: Mordred's an odd duck. But he helped get us the Yuasa.
WOMAN: Yes. I suppose you and Alessandro should be grateful to him for that.
THOMAS: Ma'am . . . which side are you on?
WOMAN: I haven't decided yet. But don't worry about it.
THOMAS: Okay.
Curtains close.
. . . A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
The curtain rises.
Open on the same tent. THOMAS KARRA again sits cross-legged on the floor, writing in a journal. The WOMAN stands nearby again, her face covered by a mask.
THOMAS: So does Alessandro. I know when I'm overmatched.
WOMAN: So does Alessandro what?
THOMAS: Katrin! . . . wait, no. It's you, isn't it?
WOMAN: I'm sorry. I really don't mean to resemble your lovers so precisely.
THOMAS: She was my little sister . . . Katrin, I mean. She was the core of my life when we were growing up. I guess that's why I keep seeing her in other people's faces . . . it's impossible to really forget her.
WOMAN: I'm glad.
THOMAS: Yeah. So am I.
WOMAN: So does Alessandro what?
THOMAS: He's in love with her too. Ciarra, I mean. I kind of hate him for it. I don't have a chance any more. I might have had a chance before, although she is kind of feisty.
WOMAN: It must be very hard. When someone you love so much steals someone else you love so much.
THOMAS: I guess. I do sort of love him too. Or . . . anyway. I'm staying here. I'm still fighting for him. Anyway.
WOMAN: Why?
THOMAS: You have to ask?
WOMAN: Yes.
THOMAS: Maybe it's the children.
WOMAN: Hm?
THOMAS: Alessandro wants to save the world. It's what he does. It's what he is. And there are all these people, children, babies, people not even born yet, who depend on the world being saved. People who will die, and die horribly, unless Komaru is governed right. Maybe it's a good thing Valentin is gone, but the Protectorate isn't good for anyone. Augustin is still waiting for the world to end, as if the Light will suddenly notice its mistake and the past three years will go up in a puff of white flame. That's all he wants people to do with their lives --- wait for the world to end. And that kills people. That eats souls and it eats hearts and it makes nobles and Churchmen into monsters who think they can kill whomever they like. Because it doesn't matter. Because the world is going to end. Because the Church says: don't give a damn what's going on in the world around you, unless you see a Komaru, in which case, kill him. I don't care if Valentin did crucify priests, that's no creed to live by. So, yeah. I don't really have to care about Alessandro. I can just be here, I can just fight, because I am going to be a wall between the Protectorate and every one of those lives that it might ruin. When death comes, I'm not going to hide, and I'm not going to let it take me. I'm going to fucking stand between it and everyone else it wants to gulp down. I'm going to be a wall.
There is a short pause.
THOMAS: And if I'm going to do that, then Alessandro is the man to stand by.
WOMAN: I think you have won me for his side.
THOMAS: I'm glad. Although, you know, I'd be gladder if I knew who you were.
WOMAN: I'm terribly sorry.
THOMAS: Why won't you say?
WOMAN: Thomas Karra, you have told me that what keeps you alive is the fire of belief in your heart. For the things that you care about.
WOMAN: And because you believe in them, you would order their destinies; you would have something in your heart that cries, "I will never let them go."
THOMAS: Yeah.
WOMAN: I do not wish there ever to be a man, or woman, who will not let me go. The flame in my heart is the sovereignty of living unseen, unknown, and unloved. While I am not held by others, I am free.
THOMAS: I won't love you, you know, just because you give me your name.
WOMAN: You are even less likely to if I do not.
The WOMAN rises.
WOMAN: I shall need to speak to my order. Doubtless I will return.
The WOMAN leaves the stage. The lights dim, then return, as THOMAS KARRA picks up his book again and continues writing. The WOMAN reenters.
THOMAS: We had a surprising set of guests today. Three Veiled Guard appeared in camp, inside our defensive perimeter. They were carrying a long bundle, and asked to see Alessandro. They wouldn't surrender their weapons, but Alessandro met them anyway. They gave him the Royal Katana. Alessandro unsheathed the blade known as Cloudgatherer to the cheers of the entire camp.
WOMAN: Pardon.
THOMAS leaps up, dropping the book. He looks apologetic.
THOMAS: I did not know you would be coming here . . .
WOMAN: I'm terribly sorry. I'm not Ciarra. I hope she is not dead.
THOMAS: . . . oh. It's you. . . . why does this always happen when we meet?
WOMAN: I must just have one of those faces.
THOMAS: I suppose so. Thank you for coming; it's always nice to talk to you.
WOMAN: You are certainly nicer than Mordred.
THOMAS: Well, if he does think you're an insane, depraved witch, I suppose he's within his rights to be a little nasty.
WOMAN: You are too kind.
THOMAS: I'm not saying he's right, ma'am. Just, you know, we're all a little jumpy sometimes.
WOMAN: I understand that.
THOMAS: And I'm not sure I can trust someone who always looks like my loved ones.
WOMAN: It's okay.
THOMAS: . . . yes, I suppose it is.
WOMAN: I think that sometimes, in hiding from love, I make it hunger for me. That it searches me out, its thick paws quiet against the earth, and seeks to bind others to me; sometimes, even, to bind me in turn to them.
THOMAS: I guess love can be a bitch.
WOMAN: I do not have long. I cannot stay. I simply wanted to bring you something I made.
THOMAS: Oh?
The WOMAN pulls out a small worked stone figurine of a young girl.
WOMAN: I asked around at Karra's Mark. They told me what she looked like.
The WOMAN holds out the figurine to THOMAS, who takes it and peers at it.
THOMAS: Who?
The WOMAN pauses.
WOMAN: Katrin. Your sister, Thomas Karra.
THOMAS: Ah.
WOMAN: Ah?
THOMAS: It has been a long time. She has been a long time dead.
WOMAN: I'm terribly sorry.
Curtains close.
ACT V: LIGHT AND BINDING
A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
SUMMER, PARACELN 204
ONE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF SHIRO BRIDGE
The curtain rises.
Open on a tent with a view of Shiro Gorge and Shiro Bridge. AUGUSTIN sleeps within. PHOEBE sits on the floor, examining a sword. She occasionally tests its edge against her wrists. After ten or twenty seconds of this, a shift in the light shows the slight trickle of red down one wrist. The rear and front of the tent are complete, although one long side is open to the audience.
MORDRED, dressed in black, walks onto the stage near the rear of the tent, pulls out his sword, and stealthily cuts an opening in the canvas. PHOEBE rises, equally stealthily, and holds out her sword. MORDRED steps in, and the point of her sword winds up more or less directly on his Adam's apple. He rapidly backs up, but PHOEBE is fast enough in following him out into the camp that the closing of the torn tent does not prevent her from keeping him at sword's point.
PHOEBE: Who are you?
MORDRED: I find in life that who I am is rarely as important as what I am; which is, right now, someone who could reward you very highly for putting aside the blade and finding other activities in this camp.
PHOEBE: I do not care what you are at all. Give me your name.
MORDRED: Mordred, milady. Did I tell you, you have the most fascinating dark eyes?
MORDRED: I could hardly help but be so, inheriting it from my father as I did. In fact, this is but one of the many ways I am a hapless pawn on the currents of fate; surely you can see it in your heart to forgive me for the situation cruel fortune has cast me into?
PHOEBE: You have come to kill Augustin.
MORDRED: If you search my person, you will find a deck of cards; I intended only to game with him.
PHOEBE: I do not care what you have on you.
MORDRED: You are an exceedingly indifferent young lady. Perhaps you do not care, either, if I should turn and leave?
PHOEBE: I wonder if I do --- but do not attempt it. I did not know Alessandro stooped to assassinations.
MORDRED: In all honesty, milady, he does not know that I am here.
PHOEBE: Honesty. I approve of that.
MORDRED: I can say other honest things if you like.
PHOEBE: Why come to kill a man shamefully when your own commander would not approve?
MORDRED: I love Alessandro, milady, and I intend to see him on the throne. I do not require his approval; in fact, I prefer to operate without it. I feel too much owned when I follow his orders as well.
PHOEBE: Love can be cruel.
MORDRED: And loving Alessandro, crueler than you can imagine.
PHOEBE steps back, and lowers the sword slightly.
MORDRED: If I turn and run now, you will shout and raise the camp.
PHOEBE: Most likely. I am skittish.
MORDRED: Whereas if I saunter away slowly, I am likely to be caught by the camp's guards. I had to kill seven already just to get here unnoticed.
PHOEBE: Such is fate.
MORDRED: Milady, you seem as if you understand. Perhaps you will accompany me to the edge of the camp. Or allow me to take you hostage, if that is safer for you.
PHOEBE: Really, you have amazing presumption.
MORDRED: I do, milady. It is one small aspect of my charm.
PHOEBE: How do you bear it?
MORDRED: Being charming?
PHOEBE: Loving Alessandro.
MORDRED: I do not, milady. I dream of killing him at night. But every time I reach for my sword, I think, "But then my life will be empty."
PHOEBE: I do not know if I should be empty if I killed Augustin.
MORDRED: Experiment! This is my recommendation.
PHOEBE: Tomorrow, Mordred Yuasa, we will destroy your army. I recommend to you, in turn, that you run like the Yuasa dog you are. . . . if you like, you may begin now. I will not scream.
MORDRED: You are a gracious hostess, milady. And I meant what I said, about your eyes.
MORDRED darts offstage.
PHOEBE frowns.
PHOEBE: I shall have to explain to Augustin about the blood-stained hole in his tent.
PHOEBE walks back into the tent and sits down with the blade again.
A GLOWING FIGURE in a mask walks onto the stage, and passes easily through the front of the tent. PHOEBE jumps to her feet and puts her sword to its throat; it does not seem fazed.
PHOEBE: Twice in one night! We must get better guards.
GLOWING FIGURE: Augustin, awake.
PHOEBE: Do not ignore me!
AUGUSTIN stirs, opening his eyes, and then sits up.
AUGUSTIN: What is that you have at your blade's tip, Phoebe?
PHOEBE: I do not know.
GLOWING FIGURE: I come as a representative of the Light; for there is a thing the Light would tell you.
AUGUSTIN: Very well. You have no human look to you. Speak.
GLOWING FIGURE: Tomorrow, you shall drive Alessandro to Shiro Bridge; and you shall catch him between your forces and your lancers there. When he reaches that bridge and raises his standards, you shall raise your dead around him; and he shall die.
AUGUSTIN: This is in essence the battle plan, yes.
GLOWING FIGURE: If you should ride forward to see him fall, you will also die.
AUGUSTIN: Then I shall avoid it.
GLOWING FIGURE: If you do not ride forward, you shall belong to the Light.
AUGUSTIN: I do not know what you are, but I have already made my dedication to the Light; I shall not revoke it now.
The GLOWING FIGURE nods, and departs.
PHOEBE: If I were Ligeia, I would have slain it.
AUGUSTIN: If you were Ligeia, you would be dead, like the rest of Valentin's monstrous brood.
PHOEBE: Do not heed it, Augustin-sama.
AUGUSTIN: It is no great matter to let others watch Alessandro die.
PHOEBE: If you give yourself to the Light, you shall become the sun. Basile said. Where you walk, you shall leave a trail of scorched earth and cindered lives. At the end, your hand shall draw the closing measures on Komaru, and your sword shall light the fire of the world. That is the nature of the Light, is it not?
AUGUSTIN: Do not concern yourself over such trivialities as a mad priest's vision. To dedicate oneself to the Light is holy.
PHOEBE: Do not heed it, Augustin-sama.
AUGUSTIN: Do you want me to die?
There is a pause.
PHOEBE: Yes.
There is another pause.
AUGUSTIN: Why?
PHOEBE: You have already lived four years too long.
AUGUSTIN: I have taken you into my care for all these years . . . and this is how you judge me?
PHOEBE: If you do not die, then I will kill you myself.
AUGUSTIN sighs heavily.
AUGUSTIN: I shall heed not the prophecies of priests and spirits. I shall heed not the pleading voices of young girls. I am Augustin; I shall ride where I choose to ride and watch what deaths I wish to watch. And if I die of it, then I shall at least know that you are satisfied.
PHOEBE: I love you.
AUGUSTIN: Come here.
AUGUSTIN holds out his arms, and PHOEBE steps reluctantly into them.
AUGUSTIN: You are a perverse and twisted creature, and why I brought you to a war, I do not know. I am sending you back to the family before morning's light.
Curtains fall.
. . . Open on a similar tent, where ALESSANDRO sleeps. Outside the tent, the masked WOMAN broods over a campfire.
MORDRED comes stalking onto the stage.
MORDRED: I hate this world! It makes a mockery of everything that is Mordred! Paraceln, come back and cast the whole bloody lot of it into fire and ash!
The WOMAN looks up.
WOMAN: Oh, Mordred, the world doesn't have to make an effort; you quite make a mockery of yourself.
MORDRED: You! You are not Augustin. Or that girl. I will not kill you tonight.
WOMAN: Thank you.
MORDRED: Your good luck. I know what you are.
WOMAN: What am I?
MORDRED: I don't know.
MORDRED sits down by the fire.
MORDRED: You didn't need magic, you know. I used to think you were quite marvelous without it. Back when you were normal. Back when you didn't look like Alessandro or Kahana when I caught you out of the corner of my eye. Who are you hiding from?
WOMAN: Just about everyone, really.
MORDRED: I could have protected you. Whatever it was that you were afraid of, I could have protected you from it. I know that I can be harsh with those I love, but this does not mean I cannot make sacrifices for them. It does not mean I would not stand between them and the storm.
WOMAN: I don't think you understand, Mordred. I am not afraid for myself. I am afraid for everyone else. I fear for the children of the world; I wish to hide them from the wolves. I fear for the virtuous men; I wish to take them beneath my cloak and seal them away from the blades of their enemies. I used to fear for you, terribly, Mordred. You always seemed to hate yourself so much after you'd killed somebody.
MORDRED: I eventually got rather used to it.
WOMAN: That was my conclusion when you attempted to blow my head off without even saying hello.
MORDRED: I said hello.
WOMAN: That was afterwards.
MORDRED: Point taken. Milady, it is not good for you to abandon yourself this way. If you hide from the world too well, one day you will simply disappear. Nothing shall remain of you. Your heart shall be gone, for you hid it. Your mind shall be gone, for you hid it. The things you loved, the things you feared, the things that drove you to passion, the things that made you ache --- they shall remain, but you shall not love them, or fear them, or feel passion, or feel pain. All that will remain of you is a mask, and no woman behind it.
WOMAN: And shooting me?
MORDRED: If you lose yourself to this occult art, then I fear you a danger to others as well.
WOMAN: As opposed to yourself, for whom the only appropriate adjective is "safe".
MORDRED: I did eventually realize I was being unfair, which is the other reason I am not killing you tonight.
A FIGURE WITH A BOOK enters, on the other side of ALESSANDRO's tent from the fire. His fingers are more than twice human length, and he wears a demonic mask. He moves towards the tent.
MORDRED and the WOMAN both look up simultaneously, as if sensing something. Then both rise quietly to their feet and move towards the tent in turn. MORDRED enters a little before the FIGURE; his sword tip touches its throat as it enters.
MORDRED: Ha! I can do it too.
FIGURE: Alessandro, awake.
MORDRED: Yes, Alessandro, I'm being bold and heroic, wake up and see it.
ALESSANDRO stirs, opening his eyes, and then sits up. His eyes are sharp.
ALESSANDRO: What is that you have at your blade's tip, Mordred?
MORDRED: I am not entirely sure. Perhaps some sort of mummer.
FIGURE: I bring a message for Alessandro.
ALESSANDRO: Is it human?
WOMAN: No. It is a thing of the cosmos.
ALESSANDRO: Well, then, creature, speak.
FIGURE: I wish to offer you an opportunity, Alessandro, to transcend mortality.
ALESSANDRO: Go on.
FIGURE: Tomorrow, Augustin shall raise the Bellatrix dead around you and your risen standard, and one of them shall take you through the chest with a spear, and you will die. If you so choose. Or, if you are willing, I shall bind you to this world and gift you with my power; and you will not die for a hundred years and more.
ALESSANDRO: And why would you do this thing?
FIGURE: Your highness, I seek an order to the world. I seek to make things proper and natural and right. If you pact to the binders, to the weavers, to the makers of seals and locks and cages, you shall be our greatest ally. To offer you power and an opportunity to live past tomorrow's rain is the smallest of all possible rewards. No, we can give you more than that; for we do not care what order comes, and should happily impose yours upon this world.
ALESSANDRO: Mordred-san? Ciarra?
WOMAN: I'm terrib ---
MORDRED: She is not Ciarra, but a degenerate witch; I have explained this to you before.
ALESSANDRO: I recall now.
MORDRED: Do not accept this pact.
ALESSANDRO: And why not? I favor order.
MORDRED: Alessandro, I could say: because this will make you the spider of Komaru. That you will seek to weave order from chaos, but where you walk there shall be stillness, and in that stillness, death. That you should become the steps of the dance that kills the dancer. The end to all things.
ALESSANDRO: And instead you will say?
MORDRED: Do not give yourself to another power. If you choose to make pacts with the cosmos, seize them of your own will. Take them of your own choosing. Never give any trace of your soul to them. It is not worth it.
ALESSANDRO: I had not realized it hurt you so much.
MORDRED: This is not about me and you, your Highness. It is about another person whom I once loved, who gave herself too thoroughly to the night.
WOMAN: Really, Mordred. You're being ridiculous.
ALESSANDRO: Very well. Everyone out. I reject your bargain, demon. I shall live or die of my own efforts. I shall order the world in my own fashion. And, in addition, out of my very own efforts, I shall go back to sleep. I am tired, and there is a battle tomorrow.
Everyone save ALESSANDRO, reluctantly, leaves the tent. MORDRED and the WOMAN go back to the fire. The FIGURE departs. ALESSANDRO lies back down.
WOMAN: You really are being ridiculous, you know. I have a heart. I have a mind. I have things I love, and fear, and desire, and abhor.
MORDRED: I cannot see them, milady. When the sun rises, you shall evaporate like the mist.
Curtains fall.
ACT VI: DARKNESS, DESTRUCTION, AND THE BATTLE OF SHIRO BRIDGE
A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
SUMMER, PARACELN 204
THE BATTLE OF SHIRO BRIDGE
The curtain rises.
The stage is a battlefield, paused in a moment of violence. Shiro Bridge is depicted, as epically as possible, on the stage background behind. Soldiers are locked in combat, but very still --- the actors should choose positions that, while clearly part of a fevered battle, allow them to remain in that position for a fair length of time. Rain drizzles down. For technical reasons, there are a few more soldiers in Alessandro's colors than Augustin's. One of the soldiers is recognizably MORDRED, engaged with two Bellatrix.
The WOMAN walks onto the stage.
WOMAN: I have never seen anything like what I saw on that day.
The WOMAN walks past two combatants, who come to life, and murder each other with brutal efficiency.
WOMAN: Augustin's forces caught Alessandro's flank before he could reach Shiro Bridge. They drove Alessandro's forces towards the gorge in disarray.
The WOMAN walks past another two combatants; they die similarly.
WOMAN: When Alessandro reached the bridge, the Bellatrix were already there.
Three combatants; two die, the other, one of Alessandro's, staggers away wounded and freezes.
WOMAN: I could have saved one, two, perhaps a dozen. I had no answer to the death of hundreds, or the crush of Augustin's forces around them.
Another two, dead, as the WOMAN walks through the battlefield.
MORDRED and both of his antagonists, dead. MORDRED can die showily if desired.
Another one, of Alessandro's, dead.
Another two, Alessandro's dead and the Bellatrix crippled.
At this point, there are no longer any soldiers in battle positions: just living soldiers of Alessandro, and (again, for technical reasons) fewer soldiers of the Bellatrix, not currently engaged. The rest are sprawled dead on the stage.
WOMAN: I was among the reinforcements, then, who could not reach Alessandro. With them, and Lucien, and a noncombatant named Kahana, who had come to the camp because she believed in Alessandro's cause. People often said I resembled her. Lucien would later join the fight. Kahana would not.
The WOMAN moves to one end of the stage, away from the soldiers. LUCIEN and KAHANA walk onto the stage, and stand by the WOMAN.
There is a pause.
KAHANA: I have learned that there are people who go out after the battle and cut the throats of those who are going to die anyway. To make their deaths come faster. Did you know that?
LUCIEN: I am generally aware of this.
KAHANA: I've volunteered to be one of them.
LUCIEN: I would not trade places with you, then, milady Kahen, even if this battle were to give me a fatal wound. Why have you taken on this morbid assignment?
KAHANA: Before all this started, I only wanted to bring joy; to spark desire and passion; to make people more alive than they were without me. But I have seen the fields after we fight, and these people do not want to be more alive. They joy in death. I do not think I could be true to myself if I did not give it to them.
LUCIEN: I worry that you will do yourself harm.
KAHANA: There is more harm here than I can imagine, or take upon myself.
LUCIEN: And what shall you say to them as they die?
KAHANA: Hm?
LUCIEN: You are a woman of wit; if you cannot find words for the dying, then I think you ought not visit them at all.
KAHANA: I shall say: You are beautiful. . . . To each of them, I will whisper it. You are beautiful for your eyes. You are beautiful for your mouth. You are beautiful for your bravery. You are beautiful for a life of service. You are beautiful for those whose lives you have touched. I shall say such things to each of them as I close their eyes, for these are things I have often found touch me to hear.
LUCIEN: You are beautiful, lady Kahen.
KAHANA: Whisht! I am not dying yet.
A TIGER-HEADED FIGURE approaches. KAHANA turns, startledly. LUCIEN's hand falls to his sword. The WOMAN looks tense.
LUCIEN: I had not thought we had invited the Aten.
WOMAN: That is no Aten.
LUCIEN: Then what is it?
WOMAN: A cosmos thing. I suggest you pay it no heed and hope it goes away.
LUCIEN: Really, now. If someone comes all the way from the cosmos to visit me, I should at least greet it. You! Cosmos thing! Greetings.
TIGER-HEADED FIGURE: Lucien d'Aramis.
LUCIEN: Indeed. Unless you mean to kill me, in which case I am Lord Protector Augustin and you have been terribly misinformed.
TIGER-HEADED FIGURE: You have asked for the power of unmaking. I am here to give it to you.
LUCIEN: The thought is appreciated, but I had intended to claim it on my own merits.
TIGER-HEADED FIGURE: The bargain is simple. Alessandro shall die. You shall have it within your power to restore him.
LUCIEN: I have no such power.
TIGER-HEADED FIGURE: Leave him dead. I shall exalt you; you shall be Prince among the Komaru, then King. With but a touch, you shall shatter armies, mountains, castles, and seas. You shall surmount the world.
LUCIEN: In exchange for betraying my brother and my Crown Prince.
TIGER-HEADED FIGURE: In exchange for permitting the natural processes of death to take place as they ought. For allowing Alessandro to join the spirits of his ancestors in the cosmos and trouble this world no more. He will not desire for you to call him back.
LUCIEN: That is a lie, I'm afraid. I do not know if Alessandro likes his life, but it is very precious to him. How else can he change the world?
TIGER-HEADED FIGURE: Does his vision for the world concur with your own?
LUCIEN: Forgetting the moral aspect for a moment, how would I know that you mean to keep faith?
TIGER-HEADED FIGURE: I shall place the power in your hands the moment you take up the Royal Sword. If you do not save him, it is yours forever.
LUCIEN: Then you have said all you need to say; depart.
The TIGER-HEADED FIGURE inclines its head and departs.
KAHANA: You cannot seriously consider this.
LUCIEN: Why not?
KAHANA: You shall become a wind; and where that wind passes, nothing will survive. Grass will rot, stone crumble, towers fall, humans die, and Mourn cry out its pain. You will undo the bindings of the world and set its horrors free. You shall live among a firestorm and your own nephew shall send you to your grave unmourned.
LUCIEN: I had considered that. Besides these points?
KAHANA: It would make me most displeased with the gentleman.
LUCIEN: Ah! Now we come to a worthwhile objection.
KAHANA: I think you tease me.
LUCIEN: Reverence is a vastly overrated virtue, milady Kahen. I shall tease you; I shall tease fate; I shall tease the cosmos itself if I so choose. In any event, you are quite correct and I remain untempted.
KAHANA: For what reason?
LUCIEN: Because the power to unmake is nothing without the power to build, and I do not suspect that that would remain to me.
KAHANA: Could you not say something more virtuous, such as, "I love Alessandro my brother, and would never betray him?"
LUCIEN: I love him more than you can imagine. He is the other half of me. . . . But surely you would like to see me wield this power? To put an end to the lives of all those whose lives are fallow? To crumble the Protectorate with one breath, to break storms and droughts with a wave of my hand, to stand at the ocean's edge and turn back the sea? You have become a missionary of death, milady Kahen, and yet you protest so vigorously that I must stand firm against it.
KAHANA: My position seems consistent to me.
LUCIEN: So you still intend to go out and kill after the battle?
KAHANA: Lucien, you do not understand me at all. This is all I believe: that desire is a gift to give to others. One should not give it the throne of one's own heart.
LUCIEN: Milady Kahen, you humble me.
KAHANA: Pah. You never intended to let him die.
LUCIEN: I promised you three years ago, Kahana-sama, that I would seek a brighter future. I will not turn from that now.
WOMAN: Almost as he spoke those words, Alessandro reached the bridge; and raised his standard; and Lucien began towards him.
ALESSANDRO walks out on stage, bloody, and lifts his banner.
WOMAN: And when Alessandro raised his standard, Augustin raised his dead.
The Bellatrix "dead" soldiers rise. At this point, the living soldiers of the Bellatrix outnumber the living soldiers of Alessandro substantially.
One of the Bellatrix spears ALESSANDRO. AUGUSTIN comes out on stage to watch him die.
There is the sound of gunfire, and AUGUSTIN's face explodes in red, and he falls.
WOMAN: Thomas later told me that Ciarra shot Augustin. That in that horrid moment of Alessandro's death her heart caught fire and rose in her breast like a phoenix of fury. That she rained the powers' own revenge down on the Lord Protector and his men. But I did not see her shoot. I only saw Lucien running towards his Prince, and Kahana turning her face away. She was crying. So was I.
There is a pause.
WOMAN: We had heard the thing from the stars tell us that Lucien could save him; and we knew that Lucien would; but still we cried. We could not help it; for we had seen Alessandro fall.
Curtains lower.
. . . A sign hangs before the curtain, naming a year and season in large print:
SUMMER, PARACELN 204
AFTER THE BATTLE OF SHIRO BRIDGE
The curtain rises.
Open on the battlefield. THOMAS stands at the edge of the stage. KAHANA walks amid a field of bodies, murmuring things to them as she slits their throats.
THOMAS: This is what I would write of that day.
THOMAS: After Augustin's death, the Bellatrix troops rallied, and attacked one final time across the bridge. This time, the Crux was ready. As the bridge, an ancient monument built by forgotten hand, trembled beneath their weight, the Crux demolitions planted the night before brought it crashing down. The Bellatrix lost their best and brightest, their blood staining the gorge walls red and filling the river with bodies.
THOMAS: We had won. And so I came out to the field, to contemplate the dead.
There is a pause.
KAHANA cannot continue; she walks to the edge of the stage and stares at the field in quiet shock. THOMAS: I know you. Lady Kahana, aren't you, ma'am?
KAHANA: I am.
THOMAS: You shouldn't be out here. Some of them might try and hurt you.
KAHANA: I dreamt once that the stars told me, it is the lowest of men and women who shall claim your life. These are not the lowest of men. They are simply soldiers, for one side or another.
THOMAS: I guess.
KAHANA: You have the advantage of me; I have no idea who you are.
THOMAS: I'm Thomas. Thomas Karra.
KAHANA: You aren't here to kill.
THOMAS: I couldn't take it, ma'am. I'm just here to look at the bodies and think. Wish, maybe.
KAHANA: Ah. . . . Tell me, Thomas, what do you wish for?
THOMAS: I don't know any more. My head's full of shadows where there used to be dreams.
KAHANA: War can do that.
THOMAS: Do you know, a cloud of night came to Ciarra Lacroix today?
KAHANA: I did not.
THOMAS: It told her it was here to make her an offer. That it would shelter her forever. It would let no person harm her. It would let no person touch her. It would give her knowledge and keep her from the knowledge of others. All she had to do was forsake her heart.
KAHANA: I see.
THOMAS: Alessandro's been pursuing her for . . . forever, it seems. And she hasn't let him near. I thought she'd take it. I thought she'd seal herself away. I thought she'd let herself become that darkness that the lady told me of. But something was different, since Alessandro fell. Since the whole world kind of stopped. Since everyone on the field felt the wrenching pain of a world gone wrong. So Ciarra wouldn't give it up. She said that she'd rather love him, even though he was dead. She was there. By his body. Crying. And she wouldn't give him up. And then the night left and Lucien . . . brought Alessandro back. I don't know how.
KAHANA: I think Ciarra made the right decision.
THOMAS: The Crown Prince isn't going to wind up with a lady like her. And she's not going to wind up with a man like me. Nobody wins.
KAHANA: Thomas Karra, do you want to know the most important lesson I have ever learned?
THOMAS: Yeah?
KAHANA: It is all right to give up what one desires. It is all right to sacrifice one's needs and hopes and wishes and wants for the sake of another. And it's also all right if you can't meet your needs, feed your wants, and realize your wishes and hopes. But you have to have them.
THOMAS: Why? Why not just disappear into the cloud of night?
KAHANA: Because the world exists so that you can desire it. It is very cruel and uncouth to shut one's heart away.
THOMAS: Love's cruel too.
KAHANA: Cherish it, Thomas Karra, and move on. Your blackbird has flown to another; surely you have other loves to strive for?
THOMAS: Nothing.
KAHANA: No other loves? No other dreams?
THOMAS: I did, once.
KAHANA: Close your eyes, Thomas Karra.
THOMAS closes his eyes. KAHANA reaches forward and taps him firmly on the forehead.
KAHANA: I have heard that Ciarra is like the dark moon. So she has passed before your face? Let her pass on. Imagine other things. Desire other things. Me, if you like. There, now; open your eyes.
THOMAS opens his eyes.
THOMAS: You know, you sort of look like Marie.
KAHANA: That's so. Every beautiful woman looks like the woman you love.
Curtains fall.
******
NOTES ON THE ACTORS
(In general, it may be assumed that actors have appeared in plays by other playwrights, even if only Mikomi's plays are listed.)
Cordelia Vain is the star actress of the Komaru theater circuit. She starred as Miroko Komaru in "The Four Sisters" and played the unnamed Woman in "Shiro Bridge", in addition to her performances in many other works.
Kanada Morie is an older actor recently emerged from retirement. He played Lord Protector Augustin Bellatrix in "Shiro Bridge".
Kazusa Maita is a skilled performer with perfect hair and an excellent aura of menace. He appeared as the demon Senken in "Wind from the Norh" and Basile Bellatrix in "Shiro Bridge".
Alberic Rouviere is a long-time friend of Kazusa's, and they often appear together on the stage. He played the demons Aware and Koroshi in "Wind from the North" and Corin Bellatrix in "Shiro Bridge".
Leila Ardant came to the stage young, nevertheless playing the role of Iroke in "Wind from the North" with precision. She had a minor role as Gitany Yaezaki in "On the Excrescence" before playing Phoebe Bellatrix in "Shiro Bridge".
Hiroji Hachirobei is an established and well-respected actor with dramatic flair and a long history of significant parts. In Mikomi's recent plays alone, he served as Genjiki in "The Four Sisters", Duke Jurobei in "Wind from the North", Gitany Hotokegi in "On the Excrescence", and, of course, Lucien d'Aramis in "Shiro Bridge".
Maxim Tavernier is a carefree and dissolute performer who nevertheless maintains professional conduct on the stage. He played the King in "The Four Sisters" and starred as Gitany Celestino in "On the Excrescence" before taking the role of Thomas Karra in "Shiro Bridge".
Lance Desjardins is a shiningly handsome and sometimes overenthusiastic actor --- although a good director can usually keep him in hand. He appeared as Duke Hajime in "Wind from the North", Gitany Gouka in "On the Excrescence", and finally Alessandro Komaru in "Shiro Bridge".
Sada Murakami is a relative newcomer to the stage. His role as Emile Komaru in "Shiro Bridge" represents his first major part.
Calliste Gillaumin is the child of two actors, and has grown up in and around the stage. She has had a variety of small parts playing children, a modest part in one of Soron's recent works, and now she plays Ligeia Komaru in the work above.
Tomoe Riensi has kept her youthful beauty well as she advances in years. She was already well-established when she played Solari in "The Four Sisters"; she also had a minor part as Gitany Futoji in "On the Excrescence" before playing Kahana Komaru in "Shiro Bridge".
Armand the Sensible freely admits that he adopted his unusual moniker to help him stand out on theater programs; but, as he usually notes, promoting his career by whatever means come to hand simply lives up to his name. He appeared as the nimble Yofun in "Wind from the North" before his performance as Mica Touraine in "Shiro Bridge".
Tarrant Delaine has not been seen before in Komaru theater; his stunning work as Mordred Yuasa is, however, certain to make him a name.