“I’ve seen the priests wandering the streets,” I admitted, “and it is certainly unusual. Yet what reason would the good monks of Enryaku-ji have to rebel against their Emperor?”
“I am sure I do not know why they should bother,” the old woman admitted. “The city is nearly run by priests and monks as it is; this temple or that, this shrine or that. The Gods I do not mind so much, Lord Yamada. They accept their offerings and advance as is their right and retreat as is their wont. One knows one’s obligations in their regard. But the saints? Feh. Useless.”
I frowned. “Indeed? Then why did the emperors install the temples to protect the city?”
“Protect who? People are dying, Lord Yamada, dying in strange ways. The monks are charged with keeping evil from the city, and yet instead of remaining in their temples praying, they are swaggering about the streets. Let them have their way, and they’ll turn all the poor merchant women out into the streets and close the wine shops and brothels. Before long we’ll all be shaving our heads and denying our natures, and the evil spirits will be the least of our worries.”
“If I hear of any such edicts,” I said, “I will do my best to give you ample warning.”
“You’re smiling at me, I know it,” she said. “But you mark me, Lord Yamada—those monks are up to something.”
I couldn’t very well argue with the woman on that score, since I was rapidly coming to the same conclusion. Or rather, that Lord Sentaro was up to something and his current base of operations meant the monks of Enryaku-ji were part of it as well. Indeed, it would be foolish to assume otherwise. Even if Lord Sentaro’s renunciation of the affairs of the world was as sincere as a crow on a corpse, for the man to forego all politics and scheming was simply beyond his nature. Whatever was afoot, I was fairly certain it would not require the Widow Tamahara to take the tonsure herself and I told her so. She just shrugged and took her leave of me, but I know she was not convinced.
When the sun touched the mountains to the west, I made my way back to Karasuma-dori. The warrior monks were no longer in evidence, but whether this was because they had withdrawn from the city as evening approached or merely dispersed themselves within it, I did not know. It did occur to me that, if they were quartering at one or more of the temples throughout the city, this fact should not be difficult to uncover. I put the matter aside for a later time and concentrated on the matter at hand.
Chang Yu was waiting at the doorway of his shop, apparently unconcerned, but I could tell he was scanning the dwindling crowds along the Karasuma-dori as evening approached.
“Are you ready to get started, Chang-san?”
He grinned. “Started, Lord Yamada? My part is all but done. Come see.”
Since Chang and I understood each other, perhaps to a greater degree than his normal run of clients, I was spared most of the, shall we say, more ceremonial accouterments of his craft. At the rear exit of his shop he contented himself with one brief droning utterance that could have been an invocation, or could have been a comment on my parentage. While I had certainly given him cause to do so now and again, he did understand that such would be lost on me. I thought it more likely the chant actually was an invocation, since Chang understood my interests in his methods were far less than my interest in the results. Which, I had to admit, the old man had delivered as promised.
“Honestly, Lord Yamada, it was almost too easy.”
The alley behind his shop was part of the maze that led to residence compounds, gambling establishments, and even more obscure little shops. In the alley there hovered what in all appearance was a walking stick with two great bulging eyes and the tiniest slit of a mouth. Those huge eyes were currently staring down the alleyway, and the creature’s agitation was plain.
“His name’s Gintaro,” Chang Yu said. “If you want anything else from him you’ll have to ask it yourself; I’m weary of talking to the silly thing.”
I looked at the creature in the alley, then at Chang Yu. “I have to ask this: how are you holding him?”
Normally the fine details of the conjuration were of little interest to me, but in this case my curiosity was aroused, simply because there didn’t seem to be any means employed. The ghost was plainly trapped and not liking that fact in the least, but I couldn’t see what was holding it. I expected a barrier of some sort, perhaps a rope hung with talismans and anchored with images of the Buddha, or something, but the ghost merely hopped up and down in place and did not move right, left, forward or backward. I did see it levitate once, to a height of about ten feet, but it soon came down again.
The old man grinned. “He’s under a spiritual obligation to the god of the earth, who is currently residing to the west. Therefore he can only advance west to east until the god relocates. Normally, when he reaches the western gate he simply vanishes and reappears at the Demon Gate to begin his journey again. You’ve seen the same thing among the living . . . except for the vanishing and reappearing part.”
I had, though I heard it more often used as an excuse; something along the lines of “I would go home now as you wish, my sweet lady, but I am under spiritual obligation to avoid advancing to the north, where my home is. Surely you would not turn me out into the cold streets?” Still, many people took such things seriously. As apparently did this ghost.
“Well then, why does it not advance to the west?”
“Because I can’t, of course,” said the walking stick. “That fat tick of a charm merchant has blocked my way. And it’s very rude to talk about someone when they’re within hearing, you know.”
“You call me a fat tick and you speak of discourtesy?” Chang Yu asked. “Feh. I’ll set your wood on fire if you take that tone with me again.”
The walking stick glared but did not continue its invective. I leaned close to Chang Yu and whispered, “If I needed to release him, how would I do it?”
I was adept at neither conjuring nor banishing spirits, but the one thing I did have experience in was the extraction of useful information from them. Now, Seita had been an easy case. He was, at his core, a Hungry Ghost. Feeding him always assured his co-operation. This thing, on the other hand, seemed to operate on a more religious level. I would have to use that if I wanted to find out what I needed to know.
“Just dig down two inches into the dirt of the alley where that white pebble sits. When you find the barrier you’ll know what to do,” Chang said.
I acknowledged Master Chang’s instructions and then turned to the ghost. “Gintaro-san, were you near the Demon Gate two nights previous?”
The walking stick looked sullen. “Aren’t you in league with this corpulent sorcerer? Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because if you do, I’ll set you free. If you don’t, I’ll let you sit in Master Chang’s back alley for weeks or months before the god relocates. I think he will be very cross with you for not fulfilling your obligations.”
“It’s not my fault! The god will know it is not my fault!”
“Will he care? Gods understand obligations very well. One thing they are less clear about is excuses. Do you want to take such a chance? I would not.”
The thing scowled. “What do you want?”
I shrugged. “A few trifling questions you can easily answer, and then be on your way. Is that so much to ask?”
“Get me into trouble, they will. I know it,” the thing said, though each word seemed to cost it in pain and aggravation. “Ask.”
“Were you within a bowshot of the Demon Gate two nights ago?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a dark cloud of spiritual energy present that night?”
“Yes.” The answer came slower this time but not because the thing was confused. I think it understood very well what I was asking about.
“I may require an answer that goes beyond a simple yes or no,” I said.
“That has not happened as of yet,” the walking stick pointed out.
“Do you know what the cloud was?”
“Yes. Considering the rather basic nature of the questions so far, I assume you eventually ask what you really want to know?”
I started to rebuke the ghost harshly, but it occurred to me that the thing had said nothing more or less than the truth. “What was that thing?”
“Everything,” the walking stick said. “Everyone.”
“What do you mean ‘everything, everyone’?”
“Just that. We were joined with it. It was . . . Satori. Transcendence. I lost it. I lost it.”
“You’re telling me you were one of the ghosts consumed by that thing?”
“Consumed? No. We were all still there, ourselves and yet not. Knowing each other. Understanding each other, for the first time. Can you imagine what that was like, to know that and to lose it? We all did. It will be back. We will be waiting. This time we will not run, those of us who shared that night. We will embrace the darkness.”
“Waiting? Embrace it? Why?”
“To become one with God.”
Part Four
Your sleeves remain dry,
nor even the dew applied
to feign your heart’s ache.
How can I believe your love
on such threadbare evidence?
“The assumption has always been that evil enters the city through the northeast gate,” Prince Kanemore said. “We must face the possibility that the evil, whatever it may be, is already here.”
Kanemore had not returned to the city for three days, and when he finally did come back it was another day before we could arrange a meeting. The insight I had hoped to gain from his visit to Enryaku Temple was even slower in coming.
We sat together at an isolated table at the Widow Tamahara’s establishment. He sipped rice wine and I sipped tea. I rather wished we could trade cups, but at that moment I was afraid should I once more crawl into a saké cup, I might never have the strength to crawl out again.
“The pattern of attacks seems to argue otherwise,” I said. “The one thing those attacks have in common is that none, so far as I can determine, happened more than two miles from the Demon Gate.”
He sighed. “I don’t argue that point. Just that this may simply mean the focus of the creature, whatever it is, requires that it originate there. We have no real evidence it’s using the gate as a portal.”
I wanted to argue because I firmly believed otherwise but, strictly speaking, Kanemore was right. We did not know and could not prove the entity was entering through the gate, yet that had been my base assumption from the time I finally spotted some pattern to the attacks, and that was their proximity to the northeast gate. There was no other common thread and this was, so far as I was concerned, the only trail worth following. I didn’t like being reminded of just how tenuous a path it was, but Kanemore had said no more than the truth. As he sipped his wine, it was soon clear he had more to say.
“There has been an unspoken assumption all along in this matter,” Kanemore said. “We felt that Enryaku-ji was somehow involved.”
“Culpable, if not actively engaged,” I said. “How could anything like what I’ve seen enter the city without Enryaku-ji knowing?
“Master Dai-wu thinks that what we’re dealing with is a culmination of decadent and impious influences within the city. That in some regard the attacks are the work of the spirit of the city, attempting to cleanse itself.”
“ ‘Master Dai-wu’? Do you mean Lord Sentaro?”
“I mean Master Dai-wu,” Kanemore said softly. “Goji-san, I know what you are thinking, and believe me, I thought the same. But I’ve met the man. He has changed.”
I sipped my tea. The fact that Kanemore had used the more familiar “Goji-san” rather than “Lord Yamada” was not lost on me. He was telling me that he was a friend, in case I had forgotten, and he spoke as one.
“Prince Kanemore, you and I both know Lord Sentaro is incapable of being anything other than what he is. This is the same man about whom you once said: ‘to call him a pig is an insult to pigs.’ Did I remember that right?”
Kanemore reddened slightly. “I’ve met the man since, Lord Yamada. You have not.”
Again, I could not argue. As the willow bent to elude the wind, so I considered what Kanemore had told me. “What sort of ‘impious influences’?”
“The un-ordained priests, for one. Always going about alms-begging and drinking and whoring. Their numbers are huge within the city.”
“So why does the cloud not attack them, if it is angry with the mendicants?”
“I do not know. Perhaps the city is merely angry. Like a wounded thing, it strikes blindly.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Kanemore sighed. “Not really. Yet I stand by my opinion that the man once known as Lord Sentaro has undergone a transformation. I’m as astonished as you are.”
That part, at least, was the Kanemore I knew. I had known him to be fierce and headstrong but never quick to anger, and certainly not indecisive. His uncertainty now in this matter was troubling, more for the fact that some of it actually made sense. Not the part about Lord Sentaro, of course; I don’t know what false geniality Lord Sentaro had used to seduce Prince Kanemore, but I knew it could not be genuine. Still, the ghost had said something about being one with all. It was rather vague, but if the spirit of the city itself was on a rampage, how then would any single spirit or ghost subsumed into that maelstrom feel, think, or see? Perhaps they would have reacted the same as the little walking stick ghost that Chang-san had trapped in his alleyway.
“I gather the Enryaku-ji monks within the city were sent as observers with the Emperor’s permission?”
Kanemore indicated this was so. “I did not know the context at first and saw nothing of them from within the Palace Compound, so I thought little of the matter. Yet when I heard the Emperor was sending a delegation to Enryaku Temple for counsel, I volunteered. I wanted to see for myself what was going on there. I confess I rather thought to singe the dragon in its own den, but Master Dai-wu surprised me. He was quiet, calm, thoughtful, composed, and serene. None of which are attributes I’ve ever associated with Lord Sentaro.”
“Nor I,” I said, rubbing my chin. Was what Kanemore telling me actually possible? Had the man changed; was his devotion to his new station in life sincere? I could hardly believe it, and yet this new theory on the nature of the entity made as much sense as anything that had occurred to me so far.
“The monks will be back,” Kanemore said. “Armed, this time. There has been agreement between the Emperor and the Master of Enryaku-ji to attempt to weed out any evil influences within the city. It is thus believed that the kami of the city may be appeased. You might . . . well, you might want to mention this to that somewhat disreputable monk you’ve been known to associate with.”
“I might indeed. Prince, tell me if you know: how many monks are slated to enter the city itself?”
“No more than two hundred.”
“How many guards are stationed at and around the Imperial Compound?”
“That is something I don’t think I should reveal,” Prince Kanemore said, taking a long drink. “Even to you. Forgive me.”
I bowed. “No reason to apologize, and I did not mean to pry into matters that are not, strictly speaking, my concern. Yet are you going to tell me that such a large force within the city, a force whose loyalty is not primarily to our Emperor, does not concern you? Even from a tactical standpoint?”
“Of course it does, but the matter is out of my hands. Yet I will do what I think needs doing, Lord Yamada. Count upon it.”
I bowed. “I expected no less. Can you tell me when the monks are returning?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Well, then,” I said, “I guess we shall see.”
After Kanemore left, I went to the veranda outside my rooms and rested for a bit. I considered seeking out Kenji, but as it turned out the scruffy priest saved me the trouble. He appeared in the Widow Tamahara’s garden.
“I heard Prince Kanem
ore returned today.”
“You heard correctly. I’ve met with him.”
“And?”
I told him about the ghost I had spoken to, and what Kanemore had said about the monks and “Master Dai-wu.” Kenji looked thoughtful.
“If that is Enryaku-ji’s opinion . . . well, it almost makes sense,” he said grudgingly. “I think such a thing is at least possible.”
“I think the same, which is the frightening part. In either case the monks will do as they have been charged to do. There’s no help for that.”
“I will spread the word among the mendicants. Those who have sense to listen may avoid the net. Those who do not, well, they at least cannot say they were not warned.”
“And what of you, Kenji-san? You said the theory made sense. You did not say you believed it.”
“Neither did you, Lord Yamada,” Kenji said. “As for me, I’ll try to make myself less conspicuous. I may be fully ordained, but this net may not make such fine distinctions. You know where to look for me at need.”
“As do you.”
The fourth month surrendered to the fifth as the last sakura fell from the trees to be replaced with the green of late spring.
Over the next few weeks and despite Kenji’s efforts, several dozen itinerant priests were taken off the streets of the capital by the monks of Enryaku-ji, and placed in seclusion within the temple grounds outside the city. They were forced to bathe and meditate regularly, but were not otherwise mistreated.
The warrior-monks were now a common sight on the streets of the city. Many people had even come to welcome their presence, as they were polite and respectful and kept good order on the streets, even better than the Emperor’s ministers charged with that duty. They had even persuaded visiting officials and provincial lords to keep the number of their bushi retinues in check, and those present under stricter control. This had reduced the Widow Tamahara’s normal clientele somewhat, and she was not happy about it, but even she was of the opinion that things had not turned out as badly as she feared.
As for me, I was still worried; though I was, it seemed, just about the only one concerned. Even Kanemore viewed their presence with some detachment now, and told me as much when we met at our appointed time near the beginning of the fifth month on a warm afternoon.
To Break the Demon Gate Page 13
