“Tomiko?” It was half a guess—it was hard to be sure of an identity from muffled footsteps and a single whispered word. However, it seemed that my guess was right, since the speaker on the other side of the door did not correct me.
“Hurry. It’s almost dawn.” The door eased open again. Tomiko took my arm and guided me forward. I stepped over a crumpled body that lay on the ground.
The sun had not yet risen, but the darkness was starting to lighten. Instead of swimming in a pool of black ink, we were wading through a swamp of gray forms in a gray mist. Tomiko had planned her route well, as I’d expect of any student of Madame Chiyome. My bare feet felt the trodden earth of a stable yard, then the plowed furrows of a field. Soft grass, ankle height, came next, and after that firm earth again—a path.
By the time we reached a clearing, there was enough light that I could see a figure rise from where it had been concealed under a ridge of stone. My hand moved instinctively toward where my knife should have been, even though I was quite sure I knew who this was and that she was no threat.
“Kata. Thank every god.” Arms reached out to take me in a quick, tight embrace. “Oh, I was worried.” Masako pulled back to touch my face with gentle fingers. “Are you hurt? Badly?”
I shook my head.
“You have somewhere for us to hide?” Tomiko’s voice came out of the dimness at my left.
“This way.”
My old schoolmate led us swiftly along an overgrown path. As she walked, she kicked apart an arrow made of three sticks on the ground and later knocked over a few rocks that had been piled into a tower, so I knew she’d been here before and marked her trail.
I wondered if she’d found a cave for us, or was heading deeper into the forest, but she’d planned better than that. Her path took us down a muddy slope. At the end of that slope a quick little river ran. A boat was tied to a sapling that bent and bowed with the strength of the tugging current.
At first both Tomiko and I huddled in the bow, kept from view of prying eyes by a rough cloth cover, while Masako steered the boat downstream. As hours went past and the day lightened, however, she eventually used her paddle to steer the boat to one side, and we felt it bump against a soft bank. “You can sit up now,” she said quietly.
Tomiko and I shook off our cover, relieved to draw in breaths of fresh air and move stiff muscles. Masako had taken us under a willow tree, the dangling leaves and drooping branches making a shady shelter. Through their screen, I could glimpse a dense green growth of alders along the bank. Mist was rising off the river with the damp warmth of the morning.
Masako had tied the boat to a root that arched up out of the water. She smiled broadly, reaching this time to hug Tomiko, who blinked in surprise and sat stiffly in her embrace.
“You did wonderfully,” Masako said, letting her go. “Here, you must both be starving.” From the bottom of the boat she picked up a bundle wrapped in a large, square piece of blue cloth. The cloth was a bit damp, but the baskets inside were dry. Masako pulled the lid off one and handed out balls of sticky rice. I bit into mine hungrily, discovering a salty piece of dried fish in the center. Tomiko took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully.
“Jinnai found me the same day you’d been taken,” Masako told me, her fingers busy with the knot of a second bundle. I nodded. I’d hoped he would; I’d certainly paid him well enough to get word to Masako if anything should happen to me. But of course, you could never be certain that an ally, however well paid, would keep up his end of the bargain.
It was something all three of us had been taught at Madame’s school. Trust no friend farther than you can see her. Trust no ally for more than you’ve paid him.
“One of the gatekeepers remembered an oxcart leaving in the dead of night, so it wasn’t too hard to follow you,” Masako went on. She’d pulled the bundle open by now and spread it out on her lap. I smiled.
A deadly little knife in a sheath. A black silk cord that could be tied around a waist. A set of narrow metal bars, some with pointed ends, some with hooks, some hammered into flat shapes like tiny shovels. A simple hair ornament whose stick could twist open to reveal a wicked sliver of a blade. A few small ceramic jars, their mouths sealed shut with wax. Flint and steel and a tinderbox. Finally, several strings of cash, the brass and silver coins threaded together by a cord through the square holes in their centers.
Masako had known exactly what I would need.
“Then I just had to find the boat and get word to Tomiko,” she explained as I set about strapping the knife to my forearm, securing the pin in my hair, distributing the other tools among various pockets of my jacket, feeling all the while like a turtle crawling back into its shell. I never felt like myself unarmed.
Tomiko swallowed the mouthful she’d been slowly chewing. “Masako made me a promise,” she said, as I slipped some of the metal rods into a narrow pocket along the seam of my sleeve. “In your name.”
I nodded. “I’ll fulfill it.”
Tomiko dropped her eyes to the food in her hand, but did not take another bite. “Right now I’m a runaway. If Madame finds me—”
“Madame will spend the day searching every field and hollow and storehouse around that farm,” Masako said briskly. “And that will give us a start.”
“A short one.” Tomiko applied herself to eating as if she’d suddenly remembered an unfinished job. “I want what was promised to me.”
“Now?” I took a second ball of rice. Working for Master Ishikawa, I’d gotten fairly used to regular meals. My empty stomach felt like a well with no bottom.
“I think there’s a good chance you won’t be alive to give it to me later,” Tomiko answered.
Masako frowned. But Tomiko hadn’t spoken harshly. She was merely calculating odds. We all did. It was part of our training.
Hidden in a panel of embroidery on the left sleeve of my jacket was the loop and hook that kept a secret pocket shut. I opened the flap and slid out what I kept inside—two rubies and an emerald with a dark, cloudy flaw at its heart.
The jewel Fuku had knocked out of my mouth hadn’t been the only one I’d taken from Master Ishikawa. It was a pity, I thought now, that I hadn’t added that stone to the ones in this pocket, but I’d been afraid so many objects in there at once would make a noticeable lump.
Not nearly as noticeable, in the end, as a jewel bouncing across the floor mats, but there was no way to fix that now.
I handed all three stones to Tomiko. Even with the emerald’s imperfection, it was a valuable hoard. Enough to buy a ninja. I knew, because I’d bought several.
“That could pay for passage across the Inland Sea,” I said as Tomiko examined the jewels critically. “Or you can go back to Madame and bargain for your freedom, and she’ll let you be.”
Tomiko snorted. “Or she could keep the jewels for herself and put me in a cage, like you.”
Masako shook her head, and her loose hair swept across the collar of her plain cotton kimono. “I don’t think she would. She’s honored every bargain Kata’s made with her.”
“Until now.” Tomiko tucked her jewels away into a hidden pocket along the hem of her own jacket.
“Madame didn’t come after me because of the girls I’ve bought from her,” I said. “She did it for a client.”
Masako and Tomiko turned their faces toward me.
“For Saiko.”
Tomiko’s fingers paused on the fastening of her pocket. Masako drew in a slow breath. A ripple rocked the boat under us, and the leaves of the willow flickered in a breeze.
Then Tomiko finished what she was doing and patted the pocket smooth. “In that case, I’m leaving now.”
“Tomiko.” Masako stirred and put out a hand. “You don’t have to go, not so quickly. You can come home with me. My husband won’t mind. And I can find some work for you to do. Listen—you have choices now. You don’t have to be what Madame made you. What she tried to make all of us.”
Tomiko looked genuinely astonished. �
��What else could I be?”
Masako’s slow smile spread over her wide, plain face. “Anything. That’s the amazing thing, Tomiko. That’s what Kata bought for me. For Ozu and the others. Now for you. You can be anything.”
Tomiko’s forehead only crinkled in further bewilderment. “What else would I want to be?”
Masako hesitated, glancing at me. But I had nothing to add. Tomiko’s choices were her own now—not for Madame to dictate, not for Masako, not for me.
“You don’t understand …,” Masako began.
“I understand that Madame will never rest until she’s delivered Kata to Saiko. And I don’t plan to be caught in the middle.” Tomiko slid herself deftly out of the little boat, barely causing it to rock as she stepped to the bank. “Good fortune to you both. You’ll need it.”
Before she pushed aside the willow leaves, I spoke. “There’s no debt between us?”
Tomiko touched her pocket briefly. “None.”
She slipped through the leaves and was gone.
“She could have stayed,” Masako said in dismay. “I would have taken care of her.”
I smiled. Only Masako would think that a girl who knew at least thirty-nine ways to end a life would need her tender care.
“But she’s right, you know, Kata. Madame will be searching for you. We need to find a way to keep you safe.”
“We need to keep the pearl safe from Saiko.”
“Very much the same thing. She found you once, Kata. Where can you hide this time?”
An idea was stirring in my mind. I closed my eyes to see it better, and a picture danced behind my lids—wavy blue lines on a sheet of paper that, somehow, meant the same thing as the heave and slap of heavy, cold water, vast distance, the tang of salt, and the kiss of chilly wind.
“There’s nowhere in the world, Kata. There’s nowhere she won’t go to find you.”
“I think the world might be bigger than we knew,” I told her.
SIX
I climbed out of the boat and waited beneath the willow tree as Masako retied her bundle and followed me onto the bank. Then she undid the rope, kicking the boat out into the current. A shame to lose it, but tied there, it would only serve as a signpost showing any pursuers where to look for us.
Something caught my eye, a quick flash of white, a flicker of movement through the silver-green screen of long, narrow leaves. I touched Masako’s arm, pointed, and pushed the leaves aside.
We were deep in a soggy thicket of alders and more willows, so close there was little room for grass to grow around their roots. Between two bushy trees, its eyes yellow in the sun, a white fox sat watching us.
Masako twitched in surprise, but I deliberately relaxed the hand that had moved toward my new knife. I hadn’t been expecting the fox, but I was not surprised to meet her. She had a way of turning up when I was unsure of my path.
I had seen her last two years ago, when I had become the pearl’s guardian. Now she turned and trotted off, her tail a flag that we could follow.
Masako glanced at me in question, and I nodded. We set out after our guide.
Somehow the fox always found firm ground to stand on and places where we could push between leafy branches. Even so, we were scratched and disheveled and weary of slapping biting insects by the time the creature led us out onto a road.
It would be better called a track, hardly wide enough for one oxcart, the ruts faint and overgrown with grass. Even so, I winced to feel so exposed. People had made this; therefore people might see us here. I’d felt safer in the trees.
But I had learned to trust the white fox, whose tail was now vanishing around a curve ahead. Well, trust was too strong a word, perhaps. The fox had never led me into harm—and yet I knew I was not her concern. It was the pearl she watched over, the pearl she wanted to protect. That meant protecting me as well, for now.
And so I followed her. For now.
She led us along the path, which narrowed as we went, scrubby bushes and tall grasses closing in, weeds growing thicker underfoot. I kept my ears alert, and the twitter and rustle of birds in the branches (somehow they were not afraid of the fox) told me the forest was at peace around us.
Our track took us uphill, growing rockier and more rugged, carved more deeply into the earth. Mist gathered, cool and damp in my lungs and on my lips.
Ahead, a smooth gray shape loomed out of the greenery. I stopped; behind me, I heard the oily hiss of Masako’s blade sliding from its sheath. I raised a hand, palm down, to let her know that what I’d seen was no threat—and neither was its twin on the other side of the path.
The fox sat between two statues of dogs, their stone pelts overgrown with lichen, the teeth in their open mouths snarling through moss. Beyond them I could see the upright posts that had once supported the lintel of a ceremonial gate—and there it was, or what was left of it, fallen across the path, rotting into the forest floor.
“A shrine?” I asked the fox. “I don’t think prayers will help us at the moment.” Not with Madame hunting us.
The fox tilted her head, gave me an impatient look through narrowed eyes, and darted into the undergrowth, leaving us no chance to follow.
“She wants us to … visit the shrine?” Masako asked doubtfully from behind me.
I studied the fallen gate and the neglected statues, and let my eye travel farther along the path to a set of stone stairs laid into the hillside, cracked and worn, damp with the mist that obscured whatever lay at the top.
“I think she’s telling us it’s a safe place to stay,” I answered Masako. “For a few days, at least.” And it was also a place where I might be able to find the kind of help I would need next.
No priests served at this shrine anymore; no villagers came to make prayers or give offerings. We climbed the slippery stairs to reach a compound thick with cedar and pine. A basin at the top of the stairs was choked with needles; a thin puddle of rainwater lay on top. Beyond it stood the shrine’s main building, or what was left of it. Two walls were still standing, and half a roof slanted down over them. Whatever spirit once dwelled here had obviously fled.
Even so, Masako paused at the basin to clean her hands and lift a mouthful of water to her lips, showing respect. She glanced at me, but I shrugged. I wasn’t here to beg a favor or plead for mercy from the gods; I was here to fulfill a mission they had laid upon me. They would have to take me as I was.
I turned slowly, eyeing the tumbled shrine, the enveloping trees, the ground thick with layer upon layer of golden needles that looked as if they had been undisturbed for years.
I could not see any watchers. I could not hear them. But I was sure they were nearby. This was just the kind of place they liked. I raised my voice a little and reminded myself to ask, not to order.
“I request the honor of your presence,” I called into the crisscrossed maze of green needles and gray mist overhead. “I want to make a bargain with you.”
The trees quivered. Not the faintest trace of wind blew against my face, but in every direction, pine and cedar needles quaked.
Behind my right shoulder (where she had placed herself, out of old habit, so that her own right arm would be free to swing a weapon), Masako drew in a breath.
Black wings flickered among the dull, deep green and the swirls of mist. A faint murmuring arose, curious and urgent. Then a birdlike shape lifted from a branch and winged through the air toward us.
Dark as a crow, agile as a hummingbird, the tengu swooped to a spot just level with my eyes and hovered there. It had a bird’s body, but two human eyes regarded me over the dull yellow beak. On the end of each black wing there was a five-fingered hand.
The right hand held a curved sword, more elegant than anything made by a human smith. It looked sharp enough to slice wind.
I put my hands together and bowed. Masako did the same. The tengu swished its sword impatiently through the air. It wanted to know why I had called.
“Will you do me the honor of carrying a message?” I ask
ed, careful to keep my tone respectful. Tengu were notoriously touchy; I’d known it from legend and found it out for myself on more than one occasion over the last two years. “And I’ll need two friends of yours as well.”
The tengu narrowed its eyes.
“The usual payment, of course.” I added another little bow, for good measure.
The tengu sneered at me. I never knew how they managed that with the beak, but they did. Then it nodded.
I told my messenger who to seek and then kicked aside the needles at my feet until I came to bare earth. With the point of a stick, I sketched a few characters and a rough map in the dirt. The tengu eyed them briefly and nodded again. Their memories were remarkable; I knew it would reproduce the message perfectly when it reached its destination. And that meant no scrap of rice paper or bit of rolled silk to carry, which was a risk avoided.
The tengu extended the hand that was not holding the sword.
I folded my arms. “Payment after the job. Not before.” A pinecone was lobbed at my head from above, but I was prepared for it, and batted it aside.
The tengu scowled. I lifted one eyebrow.
Suddenly it dipped a wing to pivot in midair and dart back to the branch it had come from. There was a rustle among the leaves and a squabble of conversation, mutters and caws that my ear could almost, but not quite, make into words.
Masako let out a slightly shaky breath. “I never get used to that,” she murmured. “Are they always watching you?”
“Always. As long as I have it.” Ignoring the urge to reach inside the jacket and touch the pocket with the pearl, I left my hands at my sides as I used one toe to scuff out the message I had written and scatter evergreen needles back over the ground.
Masako had taken in its meaning before I erased the characters. “So we’ll meet them here in three days’ time?”
I nodded.
“And what will we do when they get here?”
A plan was evolving in my mind, but I wasn’t ready to speak of it, not yet. “First we’ll need supplies,” I told her. And one of the things we’d have to buy would be three flasks of rice wine. It would not do to start a journey in debt to a tengu. They tended to be quite intolerant about that kind of thing.
Deadly Wish: A Ninja’s Journey Page 4
