Sweet smoke snakes into the air from Nuu’s pursed lips, coiling hypnotically before fading into a haze that softens every edge and detail in her lounge.
She taps the spent tobacco into a porcelain bowl, places the slender pipe on the side table, and looks at her protégé like a cobra might eye up a mouse.
“Let the memories do the work, Satsuki. They shall remember their courtship of you, the romantic strolls, those tender liaisons in secluded places. No need for you to suffer unnecessarily.”
“Madame Nuu...” The young woman doesn’t want to seem weak, yet her fear trips her words. “Once he finds out...”
“Every Vipressa carries ghosts. But remember, you are safe within these walls. The trick is to use their affections against them. Toroja will die by Seto’s hand in a duel. You are but the innocent object of their self-destructive desires. Understood?”
“Yes, Madame Nuu.”
Satsuki’s face becomes a mask of calm confidence. She found her way to the teahouse in another time, another place. Skin and bones, filthy and ragged, shivering upon the doorstep.
Nuu took her in immediately, Satsuki’s sorrow a reflection of Nuu’s own. Misteria is a land of plenty, yet it is not always kind. As with all of her Vipressa, her assassins of seduction, life taught Satsuki to bear pain. Nuu taught her how to control it.
“Before tending to your suitors, pass the word that my guest must be bathed and perfumed. While our master tailor has sullied his cloth, there is no need for me to suffer his mistakes.”
The Vipressa stands and bows, then sweeps out of the room.
Nuu stretches luxuriously before moving to the large window that looks out over Mistcloak Gully. She hisses gently to herself, venting a little of the anxiety she hides so deftly from her servants and patrons.
Of all the places it might appear in Misteria, why has the teahouse brought her back here?
She gazes at the moon and grits her teeth against the distress the silver orb excites within her. The School of the Moon taught her to manipulate the minds and memories of others, yet not her own. To never forget might be considered a gift by many, yet to her it is punishment. While Nuu has experienced the rarest, most exquisite pleasures that existence can offer, the bliss of ignorance is forever beyond her grasp.
A knock at the door interrupts her troubled reverie.
“Yes?” Her soft voice carries with the power of a shout.
A handsome young man enters with a report on the various doings of Mistcloak. Conflicts seeded, feuds reinforced, vices indulged and leverage gained.
Nuu listens, interjecting only to request the tweak of an entanglement or to demand the self-destruction of a life.
The Vipressa commits Nuu’s words to memory, then departs to disseminate her orders.
Her administration of misery done for the moment, Nuu moves to her wardrobe to select a suitable dress for a guest accustomed to fine clothing. Her slender fingers stroke the fabric, trace the threads, absorbing every tactile detail. She makes her selection and slips behind her rice-paper modesty screen.
She is adjusting a lantern to produce the most flattering silhouette when there is another knock at the door.
“Enter!” she calls.
The creak of floorboards heralds a heavy-set man. “Madame?” The voice is deep yet forced, the attempted purr of a mountain cat sounding more like a grunting pig to her ears.
“Make yourself comfortable. I will be right with you.”
As her guest sinks into one of her cushioned chairs, she removes her dress enticingly, knowing full well the effect her comely silhouette will have on the man. With patience that only the long-lived can muster, she dons her new attire piece by piece, wrapping the gift this guest supposes he shall have. When she is finished, she steps out from behind the screen to bask like a sidewinder in the sun of the man’s adoration.
“Madame, I—”
Her fan hisses through the air, silencing him.
“You have done more than enough, Bojani. Your reward is at hand.”
“And my business shall be restored?”
His broad face glistens with sweat. Even through the scented oils her servants have applied, the man reeks of desperation.
Unwittingly, this purveyor of luxury apparel has divested himself of all his wealth and power in the teahouse’s gambling dens. He teeters on the precipice with only agonized fear to offer. And she wants it.
“You will receive the fortune you deserve.”
She begins her dance, each step fluid and mesmerizing, drawing her singular audience deeper into the ritual she now performs. She dances closer, her fans caressing the air around her like delicate tendrils of mist.
The master tailor gasps as she raises her knee to reveal a silken length of thigh before planting her heeled shoe between his legs. He inhales her intoxicating aroma; a subtle blend of perfume and pheromone.
Her lips curl into a knowing smile. The smile he offers back is reckless, beyond his own control. She loves to toy with these mortals, leading them from the heights of pleasure to the depths of despair.
Movement flickers in the corner of her eye. She glances at the window, sees the culprit, a three-legged crow in flight.
Why would something like that distract her?
Behind the smile, unease returns to gnaw at her, a sense of impending fate she can’t subdue.
“At last.” His eyes are fixated on her thigh. His hand raises to caress her skin.
Nuu swats the offending paw aside and jabs him under the chin with her closed fan.
“Look at me!”
He obeys as Nuu curves her hips, her gown flowing over her body like the fog rolling down the mountains of Misteria. Her feet float across the wooden floor, hands twisting through enchanting patterns, her movements like a snake’s rattle mesmerizing its prey.
The man sits enamored, his mouth agape as he stares mindlessly at Nuu. He has given everything to see her perform, to have her, since the day the teahouse appeared.
Nuu’s movements intensify, her fans slicing through the air like knives as the tailor leans forward, entrapped in her allure.
“Betrayal of all that you are,” Nuu whispers. “For the son of a house that has wrapped its ancient treachery in shimmering silk.”
Confused by her words, the man blinks, and as he remembers himself—why he is here—he reaches out to touch her. She spins around him; lifts him to his feet. She pulls his head close and whispers into his ear.
“Relax. Let me remove the burdens you bear.”
She sets her fans aside and undresses the man without her nimble fingers ever touching his skin. He whimpers with excitement as Nuu draws close and touches her lips to his.
A thread of chi courses along her tongue, now forked and flickering.
He flinches at the intensity, his eyes widening in terror as Nuu’s mouth extends, her porcelain skin transforming, slick and scaled. Nuu’s clothes fall to the floor as her serpentine body coils around his.
He struggles in vain, helpless, as the viper kisses his flesh with her fangs. The chi courses from him like blood from an artery.
Nuu takes life as she gives pleasure, engulfing his remaining years, his memories, his very essence. His body shudders, oblivious to the cost of its ecstasy. His racing heart falters and stops. His flesh withers within Nuu’s embrace until he is but an empty husk.
With her meal complete, Nuu uncoils, allowing the corpse to slide to the floor, her human form returned. Her legs tremble as she presses her hands to her churning belly.
The thrill of indulgence fades.
The room suddenly appears cold, hostile.
At that moment, she remembers how different she is. Though she moves among mortals, hunts them with ease, she remains the lone snake slithering through a warren of rabbits.
She dresses quickly, touches up her makeup, then opens the door to address one of her waiting Vipressa.
“Dispose of the body,” she orders.
The woman’s hesitation is brief, but more than enough to cause concern.
“Something wrong?”
“Madame, there is a new patron you may wish to attend to.”
“Power is a delicate affair, one not to be repeated in haste.” She licks her lips. “I am well fed, for now.”
“Of course, Madame. It’s just that, this one’s chi... He’s...”
She trails off, struggling to describe what she has observed. That is enough for Nuu.
“In that case, we shan’t let him spoil the atmosphere.”
The Vipressa bows and brushes past her mistress to deal with the former tailor’s corpse.
Nuu checks herself in a full-length mirror, makes a couple of minor adjustments to her clothes and hair, and constructs a smile that will carefully conceal her unease. There is something strange in the air today. It chills her from tongue to tail.
She makes her way along twisting corridors until she reaches the backstage area of the main hall. The teahouse never unfolds the same way twice. Fresh rooms, secret corridors, new nooks and crannies. Nuu never tires of exploring its ephemeral architecture.
She pauses behind the stage curtains and listens to her Vipressa perform in perfect rhythm; a dance she choreographed herself—a ritual crafted to enchant the gathered crowd. She allows herself a moment of pride for the waifs and strays she has taken in, all trained in her ways and wiles.
She has given that which was taken from her so very long ago. A home.
Nuu steps out onto the stage.
The dancers sense her presence and make way for her grand entrance.
She strides down the catwalk, taking in the crowd with knowing glances and sweet smiles, until she stands over the man whose chi has so unsettled her teahouse.
“And who might you be?”
“Zen,” he answers. “A humble wanderer.”
Her eyes narrow to slits as she appraises him, sees the spiritual strength that lurks beneath his mortal muscle, the mystic claws that envelop his hands.
She turns to look at Satsuki and the swordsman that holds her by the throat. Seto has drawn his tantō and clearly intends to use it. He glowers up at Nuu, daring her to intervene.
Another time she might have, simply for her own amusement. But this is no ordinary day. There is a tiger in her nest, and yet the true source of her apprehension has yet to reveal itself.
“Satsuki?”
“Madame?” her servant rasps back.
The swordsman tightens his grip, choking Satsuki’s words. It doesn’t matter to Nuu. The time for words is over. She gently folds one of her fans, then snaps it open with a flourish.
Every Vipressa in the room knows that signal.
Satsuki draws a Mistblade from the folds of her robe and drives the point through Seto’s arm.
Zen leaps to intercede and Nuu finds herself marveling at his speed and grace as he knocks Satsuki aside, sending her crashing into a stand of tea before disarming Seto in one fluid movement.
He takes hold of the wounded man, intent on dragging him out, but Nuu has not trained her Vipressa to be merciful, especially not when violence is inflicted on one of their own. Jade blades drawn, the dancers leap from the stage and fall upon the tiger and the swordsman.
Nuu watches on with interest as her patrons flee from the melee. Here is a true test for her Vipressa, whether they can overcome their fears, their injuries, as she has been forced to do over so many years.
Even as she thinks this, a young man succumbs to the tiger’s claw, his throat a gaping ruin.
Moments later, a woman tumbles across the floor, her ribs shattered by a spinning wheel kick.
Nuu feels a pang of sorrow, but not regret.
They came from nothing.
They return to nothing.
Such is the cycle of mortality, the serpent that eats itself.
One of her tattooed courtesans tries to drive her dagger into Zen’s back, only to fall prey to the monk’s rapid reflexes. She drops to her knees, delicately inked skin torn and bleeding.
Nuu wonders if it is time to end this fray, to summon the will to feed upon this man’s abundant chi. She licks her lips in anticipation, but then something draws her attention from the battle, an urge so powerful she cannot disobey. She looks to the teahouse entrance and there stands a memory Nuu thought never to see made flesh.
The woman’s face, her stature, her hair and her eyes belong to another person, another lifetime, yet within the stranger there hides an intimacy of history shared. Nuu knows her, feels the cosmic ribbons that twist between them, binding two fates into one.
Nuu steps down from the stage; the battle, her patrons, her teahouse all forgotten. She walks towards the silvered woman, a journey of moments that crosses an eon.
“Fumei?”
The woman stares back at her, confused.
Nuu scowls with contempt as feelings of hurt and betrayal resurface. Even now, all this time later, her friend is incapable of more than a stunted stare. Once a coward, always a coward. Her instincts kick in, her body trembling in preparation for the serpent’s strike.
She will make Fumei remember, just as she has remembered every agonizing moment of her immortal exile.