Read L5r - scroll 04 - The Phoenix for Free Online

is it?" she whispered.
    "A bat maybe," he said, "or an owl. Stay back." But as the words left his lips, they both saw what it was—a small bird winging its way through the darkness.
    "That's strange," said Ishikawa.
    Kaede shook her head. "It's a message from my people." The Mistress of the Void extended her hand, and the bird came down and perched on her outstretched finger.
    Ishikawa had never seen a bird like it before. It was small, about the size of a dove, but its plumage was brilliant orange, red, and gold. It had a soft tuft of yellow feathers on top of its head and a downy orange frill around its neck. Its eyes and lalons sparkled like pure gold. It made a small trilling sound as Kaede gazed at it.
    A thin golden cord bound a small scroll to the bird's right leg. Kaede took the note, unrolled it, and read. She frowned.
    Then she sighed and said, "I've been summoned to the Elemental Council."
    Ishikawa nodded. "I'll tell your servants to pack for the trip."
    SUMMON1NGS
    ^sawa Uona leaned her left hand on a rock and looked up. The wind whipped around her, blowing her black hair into her face and making the red and yellow birds on her white kimono flap their tiny silken wings.
    The mountain towered over her, not so tall now as it had been a short while ago. The summit remained just a brief climb away. Uona smiled; she loved the mountains almost as much as she loved the wind.
    Where else on Rokugan could one stand and touch the clouds? Where could one be closer to the wind and air? Where could one escape the everyday duties of court life, the intrigues, the romances, the boredom? Some in the Phoenix preferred the great libraries, but Uona preferred a secluded mountaintop.
    The wind found the crevasses in her kimono, but she didn't mind. The cold invigorated her skin rather than chilling it. She drew a deep breath in through her nose and exhaled it
    in a slow whistle through her mouth.
    Probing the mountain face with her fingers, she found a handhold and pulled herself up once, twice, three times. As she topped the ridge, the mountainside flattened out. After a difficult climb, the summit was only a pleasant walk from this point on. Uona smiled.
    Small scrub pines, like bonsai trees, dotted the rocky pathway. Uona strode confidently to the peak. She gazed up at the sun goddess, Amaterasu, and raised her hands in supplication. The breeze tugged at Uona's kimono, kissing her pale flesh, begging her to run with it. She turned circles on the balls of her feet and reveled in the sun and wind.
    Uona gazed from her mountaintop over the majestic countryside below. Around her lay the Great Wall of the North—Kyodai na Kabe sano Kita—one of the chief mountain ranges of Roku-gan. Away to the south stretched the sacred wood, Mori Isawa, and beyond that, the fertile lands of her kinsmen.
    Past the borders, she knew, lay chaos. The Emerald Empire had been in upheaval since the death of Hantei the 38th. His son was no replacement for the wise old ruler. Even now, clan fought clan and plague ravaged the land. Not here, though. Here only the breeze touched her, only the clouds could find her.
    The wind whispered its secrets in Uona's ears. It pushed gently, insistently at her back. It caressed her like a lover through the folds of her robe. With a smile on her face, Isawa Uona threw herself off the precipice and into the open air.
    She fell, thrilled at the wind rushing against her body. The tiny silk birds on her kimono fluttered and flapped. Her hair trailed behind her, a dark comet in the afternoon sky. Her pale brown eyes drank in the earth far below as it rushed up to meet her. Uona laughed—a musical, joyful sound.
    The wind laughed with her, touched her, lifted her up. Soon she was no longer falling. The wind embraced Isawa Uona, Mistress of the Air, and carried her up, past the mountaintops and into the sky.
    She danced among the cloud tops, gathering their cold wetness into her hands and lathering her lovely face with it. She