Amatsu Mi's page

A Tian-Min woman of about nineteen years of age, Amatsu’s skin is unnaturally pale and her long black hair is usually disheveled; she rarely bothers combing it even though it falls nearly past her knees. Her clothes are in similar disarray, her kimono neither properly folded or wrapped, though she somehow manages to keep it crisp and white--the color, some would say, of a Minkain funeral, though Amatsu usually just laughs at such a suggestion. Her eyes shine an iridescent violet--not the sickly pale color common among the people of Avistan--but more like the scales from an exotic insect with the way they shine in the light.

Nineteen years ago, in small estate at the edge of the border between Minkai and the Forest of Spirits, a child was born to a noble samurai and his wife. As a child, Amatsu knew neither sorrow nor want--that was, until her father died in battle and her mother remarried. Her new stepfather was a cruel man, ordering her locked in an abandoned wing of the estate, with only the flowers in the garden to keep her company. When her mother became pregnant, Amatsu soon found herself growing ill--she couldn’t leave her room most days even if she wanted to. Her stepfather was a frequent visitor, scolding her for being so wicked to distract from her new half-sister with feigned sickness. Soon the meals delivered to her became less and less frequent, and of worse quality--usually just a bowl of bitter soup, and Amatsu found herself forced to sneak into the larder to get enough food. But as sorrow and loneliness began to overtake her, even these meals became rare. One day, while sleeping in the garden, Amatsu was awoken by a voice speaking to her. At first she thought it was her stepfather, scolding her for her laziness, but she quickly realized it could not be--the voice was too small and quiet, and too close to the ground. Instead, it was a spider.

The spider spoke to her, and told her of her stepfather’s plans to let her waste away to nothing so that his own daughter could take her place in the family’s house. The soup he had been allowing her was poisoned--just enough to make her appear ill. He had already told the servants that she was refusing to eat and not even her mother cared enough to see if that was true. For a moment, Amatsu resigned herself to her fate--but then the spider spoke to her again. There was a way to recover from the poison--if she let the spider bite her each day, soon the toxin would no longer her effect her. Amatsu agreed, and found herself regaining her strength--though she still appeared in the throes of sickness, so her stepfather’s suspicions were not aroused when he would visit her. Next the spider told her of how she could end her stepfather’s wickedness forever. In the gardens of the estate grew flowers that could save her--were she willing to use them. The spider agreed to help her--but assistance would come with a price, a price she would have to pay later. With the creature’s assistance, Amatsu gathered nearly a dozen kinds of flowers from the garden, some with petals deep and purple, some with thorns that pierced her skin, others that smelled of noxious musk and made her wish for sleep. She gathered the flowers and ground them into fine powder, and then she snuck once more into the kitchen of her family’s estate. She sprinkled just a tiny bit into the wine that she knew her stepfather favored, just as the spider had advised. Each night would visit the larder, and each day her stepfather would grow sicker--soon Amatsu could walk the halls of the estate again. And soon, it was not just her stepfather who was ill--one by one the servants grew sick as well, and had only Amatsu and her mother to care for them--and soon they did not even that.

Only one person died from Amatsu’s poisons--her mother, the mother who had abandoned her and allowed her to be locked away by a cruel stepfather. Of course, with the household all sickened and nearly incapacitated, Amatsu was effectively in charge of the estate, and she had much better things to do than look after a child half her age. With no mother and a father to ill to leave bed, her little sister found life harder and harder--and someone was keeping the larder tightly locked, so it was no surprise when the child died of hunger. Soon after this, her stepfather died of grief--he was helped along, of course, by a vial of black poison left at his bedside. And then, one night, the spider appeared at her bedside and spoke again--for a moment, Amatsu shuddered as she wondered what the price would be--but it told her that she had already done exactly what was required of her, and all through the night it told her of the exalted cruelties of her new mistress--Mazzmez. Soon after her stepfather’s death, Amatsu used the money she gained selling her stepfather’s estate to travel to Goka, where she boarded a ship bound for Avistan. The fact that half the crew grew ill on the trip was, of course, a coincidence. Amatsu traveled from port to port, gifting people with the blessing of Mazmezz before at last she arrived--in Cheliax.

Amatsu found this new country to be a delight, but she had spent much of her fortune traveling half-way across the world. In Longacre, she found herself in need of funds, so she set up shop as an apocathery, offering her services to the town as a healer. Of course, some of her treatments were rather excruciatingly painful to the patients--but as long she kept most of her customers alive and relatively healthy, most of them had no complaints.

”You are looking better, mistress, says the servant girl as she runs the comb through Amatsu’s hair. She had not seen the oldest daughter of the house in some time--everyone had been far more interested in the new daughter, but since the lord of the house had fallen ill Amatsu had started to walk the halls again--and the girl thought perhaps she should try to get back in the lady’s good graces. In truth, Amatsu was not looking well--she had lost much weight in her years of illness and even though she had regained the strength to walk she looked almost like a ghost--and her hair, which she had not properly styled and let grown wild and tangled, and her dress, which was stained brown at the hem from mud--and strange dark purple at the edges of the sleeves--completed the picture. She was practically already a phantom, but the girl put the thought in the back of her mind as she kept combing her hair. She was about to speak again, which she felt something--crawl across her hand. She looked down and saw that out of the nest of black hair there was a spider--barely bigger than a gold crown, which was still far bigger than any spider she had ever wanted to see, and it was slowly climbing up her hand.

”Ohhhh! You’ve found a friend,” hums Amatsu, stretching out the word friend, her voice trilling up and down as she speaks. She looks back at the girl and half-smiles--their eyes lock and the serving girl can’t help but look away. She tries to pull her hand away from Amatsu’s hair entirely--but finds that she can’t--it’s become tangled, somehow, caught in the knots of her lady’s hair.

“Don’t be frightened,” whispers Amatsu, her smile growing into a full on grin. She creeps towards the girl, her hair falling in front of her face, swaying back and forth--the girl tries to look away but can’t help herself--and each time she looks she counts more eyes on Amatsu’s face. ”As long as you are not afraid, no harm can come to you. The bite of this spider isn’t deadly--but you can’t flinch. Promise?

The girl didn’t answer, and just watched as the spider skittered up her arm--once it was half way up she could not take it anymore and swatted it away. At least, she tried--the spider did not budge an inch, and instead it buried its fangs in her skin. The girl tried to scream--but found she could not open her mouth--she couldn’t even breath as she collapsed to the floor and the spider at last crawled away.

”The spider’s venom isn’t deadly, says Amatsu, rising from the floor, sweeping her robes to her chest, almost as if they were a flower about to bloom that has suddenly snapped shut. ”But it is a rather potent paralytic. You’ll dream all night of being smothered to death--I don’t think that’s because of the poison though. I think it’s because you can’t breathe--well, almost. Good night. And next time someone is sick, perhaps you’ll do a better job visiting her, won’t you?