Beyond Time
The Samurai of Sendai leave the Ancestral Palace in the night sky, under the comforting corona of U-Mani the Moon, and fly on their Ki-Rin mounts not down toward the Realm of Man, but upward toward to blazing fiery inferno that is A-Buji the Sun.
Pressed on by Udo’s urging and with an unstoppable dragon god not far behind, the Ki-Rin shoot like comets through the great void between the two gods – never tiring – galloping on a road of shimmering sparks that fly from their hooves with every fervent step.
The journey seems timeless, dragging on hour after hour, and then day after day – until the Samurai are weary from the ride – only their two Wu-Jen companions, Yuki and Sakura, having been able to sustain them with magically conjured water and food.
At length, almost the entirety of what lies before them is filled with blazing white fire, when the Ki-rin finally pull to a stop. Behind is an empty expanse of darkness – U-Mani the Moon still visible as a small pale orb, standing watch over the Earth so very very far away …
Then, scanning the vista before them, the Samurai spot an almost invisible mote of darkness – floating just below the lower horizon of A-Buji’s all-consuming fire – held there by spiraling coils of flame emanating from the sun god itself.
It is a tiny world of some kind – but black against the night sky – seeming to absorb all the light and energy that A-Buji is feeding into it.
The Ki-Rin nicker and prance is a nervous manner, as if gathering courage in themselves, then rear back, whinny, and charge toward the dark planetoid.
Getting closer, the Samurai see that the darkness comes not from the surface of the tiny world – only measuring about one hundred and fifty miles in diameter – but from black swirling mists that enshroud it.
In a matter of moments, the Ki-Rin plunge into the dark mists – the light of the Ki-Rin’s fiery bodies struggling to penetrate the all absorbing darkness.
The Samurai can see only about twenty feet ahead of themselves with the Ki-Rin radiating a brightly as they can.
Then something large and shadowy slithers past – just beyond the light – followed by another and another.
As the Samurai move downward through the darkness, it feels like they are in an ocean surrounded by a pack of sharks – circling just beyond the edges of the light …