They followed the other bank of the tributary back to the main river. It felt to Tomoe as though they were going a direction contrary to the one they had taken before. Although the path was similar, it was never exactly the same.
There were roots hanging downward from the sky, but they did not quite reach the ground, did not threaten to cling like tentacles or bar the way. At least, they did not threaten her and Taro at first. There was a place along the river where the roots did reach all the way into the water, drinking of the poison, and blocking the path above the bank. Tomoe said, “I do not remember any place like this from before, Taro! Can you sniff the way yet?”
Taro slunk close to the ground, ashamed. “Useless animal!” said Tomoe, annoyed quite a bit. Her naginata began to cut a path, but the roots oozed dark blood which Tomoe knew must contain poison from the river, and she and Taro came back out of the rooted place in a hurry. “We can’t get through there,” she said. “We will have to go around.”
They followed the edge of the rooted place, until stopped by a high wall built of gargantuan masonry. In the wall there was an iron gate thrice as high as Tomoe’s head. Now Tomoe was more confused than ever. “We must get out of this place fast, but are not finding the way!” she complained. “Aren’t we sincere enough, Taro? Which one of us is holding us back?”
She pressed the iron gate and, despite its tremendous size, it swung inward. From inside wafted a horrifying odor. When she looked in, she saw a garden of rocks and raked gravel as stark as the place which hid the Gate of Hell in the yamahoshi monastery, though larger by far. There was a spraying fountain, the water of which was yellow, and it was the source of the noxious odor.
In the middle of the garden of rocks sat a monk with a pilgrim’s staff, his head shaved, and he was fatter than was healthy. She could see him only from behind.
“Bonze!” cried Tomoe from the gate, wrinkling her nose because of the odor. “Do you guard some gate that goes away from here?”
The monk stood, his back still to her. Slowly he turned around. His face was that of a demon, the mouth too big and filled with sharp teeth, the eyes glowing red, the brow deeply etched with infamy. The monster said, “I am Emma, King of Hell, and I have brought you here to offer you a retainership. I need a living being to run errands for me on the land above. I have recently lost my previous employee, and that is why I need another.”
“I will never serve someone cruel as you,” she said with supreme belligerence. “But I will search under these rocks for the doorway used by your last retainer.”
She put the butt of the Golden Naginata against the nearest rock and, though she hardly pushed, the rock tipped over. There were only centipedes underneath. The centipedes had human faces.
Tomoe strode across the raked gravel, ruining the nice design the rake had made, and knocked over another boulder.
“Most destructive,” growled Emma, but he did not stop her.
Other rocks turned over until there was only one left to try, and this one would not budge.
“I have found it, Taro,” she said. Then, looking at Emma, she asked, “Will you keep me from looking under this one?”
“As you please,” said the King of Hell, studying his pilgrim’s staff as though he had no interest.
The rock still would not budge. Tomoe put her shoulder to it, but strive as she might, it would not tip over. She gave up struggling and said,
“Perhaps it is necessary to fight the King of Hell!” She raised her naginata above her head, her stance a challenge.
“What do you want of me?” Emma asked, refusing the challenge.
“I want the rock removed so I can go through the Gate to Naipon!”
“Did you not once boast that you would spit at my feet if you met me?”
“Twice I said so!” she eagerly confessed.
“I am less wicked than you think, Tomoe Gozen. A king does not always choose his country. To prove my goodness, I will grant you one request and one request only. What will it be?”
“The rock!” she said.
“Good,” he said, and the rock fell over by itself. There was nothing but the biggest centipede beneath, its little human face screaming for fear of its exposure. Emma said, “There never was a Gate to Naipon here. You have given me the only vengeance I require. Do not insult me anymore! Now, leave my sanctuary and find your own way home, if there is any.”
“I will do as you say,” Tomoe replied, moving with Taro toward the gate. “I will neither serve, nor be served by, a monster who makes children suffer.”
Outside, there were no more obstacles. The roots had withdrawn higher into the sky. She and Taro passed beneath the roots and came to the river bank again. They followed the trail between the coursing water on the one side and the forest of roots on the other side, until they came to the cliffs whose heights they must not gaze upon. They waded through the channel between the high walls, going along the spine of Jishin-uwo. Tomoe thought of her meeting with Emma, and wondered, “Did I win that time, Taro? I do not know myself if I did! Okio said I must win all but one encounter. Was that the one to lose?”
They ventured on, Taro swimming at her side. She said,
“Koshi said that time would be warped for us in the Land of Gloom; so we do not know how much time is left before the fighting in the Imperial City. It is necessary to go fast, but this sluggish river makes us go so slowly. If I am impatient, I may fall into the poison water, or awaken scaly Jishin-uwo underneath my feet. It is harder without Koshi helping, Taro.”
They came out of the channel between cliff walls and regained the bank, making better distance once again. The river became a trickle, then a swamp with ginkgo trees which grew thicker and thicker until they practically filled up the riverbed.
The dog trailed behind the samurai, still no help in sniffing out the way. “If we come to the dry part of the riverbed soon,” said Tomoe, “we will know for sure that this is the right direction.” But the swamp went on for longer than she expected. She could see no end to it. If these things weren’t trouble enough, there was some creature moving noisily among the ginkgo trees in the swamp.
Once or twice she caught a glimpse of the beast’s long snout and oversized pig’s body. When she tried to look at it straight on, it would hide; but when she pretended not to be paying attention, it was quite bold. From the corner of her eye, she saw it foraging among the fan-leafed ginkgo, digging in the mud with its tusks. It seemed to be finding rocks which it picked up with its snout and shoved into its mouth, masticating them with big molars, creating the terrible grating sounds.
Whether it foraged along this way without regard for the samurai and dog, and only accidentally kept abreast of them, or whether it went the same pace as they did for some cunning reason, Tomoe could not guess. She thought she had seen a beast like it before, but could not quite remember. It was so odd and ugly and strong in its appearance, it was hard imagining how she could have seen such a thing and forgotten it. Yet some memory tugged upward from her subconsciousness until she had a headache and gave up further considerations on what the beast might be and where she might have seen it.
After travelling long, and still seeing no sign of the dry part of the river, and hearing nothing of the children’s pretty songs, Tomoe became frustrated and sat down on the bank to ponder the whole mess. She said, “In this swampy riverbed of ginkgos there stalks a noisy, chewing monster; and to the other side of our path the root-forest has become impenetrable. There is no other way but that which we have found, Taro! I know that I sincerely wish to find the way out of here. But we must both want to succeed or it will not happen. Why are you not helping?”
Taro held his head low, wanting to be forgiven.
“Maybe I should not blame you,” she said. “Maybe I am the one who is less sincere than I believe.”
She sat thinking.
“It is possible that I am not eager to fight in Naipon this time,” she considered aloud. “My husband has made unwise deci
sions, but I must obey him. Perhaps one hellish road is like another, and I have become discouraged.” She looked at Taro again, sharply. “I wish you could talk to me! I need advice on these many things. I was always taught, ‘Consult even your own knee,’ but my knee has never answered, and neither does bad Taro!”
She stood abruptly and the dog shied away, whining a bit, but not too much.
“Find the way, Taro! Lead us!” She stomped the ground demandingly. Then she stopped acting like a child, scratched her head, and observed, “Hell is not a good place in which to improve oneself. Come on, Taro. I will lead us.”
When she turned to walk on, there was someone in her way. It was another bonze, dressed like King Emma, but with a sweet face and a pleasant smile. “Who are you?” demanded Tomoe, more confused by every complication. “Have you come in here to help me? Are you a yamahoshi? Your chief instructor is a bad man! He trapped me in here and I can’t get out!”
The pleasant bonze bowed graciously. He said, “I am Jizo, and I have come from back this way, where I was helping some unfortunate children.”
“I know you then,” said Tomoe, surprised. “Jizo-sama, the Buddhist Saint, protector of small children! Well, I should think you’re needed here. There are thousands of children hurting!”
“That is a terrible truth, and I try to be of some help from time to time, but there is only so much anyone is capable of achieving in this place.” Jizo-sama looked forlorn and weary, but pleasant even so. “I hear you passed the Dry River some while ago and that you helped the children at that time. We are alike, then! Are we not? I have even heard that some Tengu devils declared you patron of their children!”
“I think that was a mistake,” said Tomoe, almost indignant.
“Don’t think so hastily,” said Jizo-sama. “Don’t be afraid of responsibility. It may not always be possible to help everyone. Helping someone now and then is often the best that we can do. Also, sometimes we will fail. But so long as we continue, it is good enough.”
“I am a warrior,” said Tomoe, feeling slightly belligerent toward this too-nice bonze. “I haven’t time to be a nanny, especially not to the children of devils.”
“Sometimes I feel that way as well,” said Jizo-sama, sighing deeply. “Well, I am glad to have met a kindred spirit in this country! But if you will forgive me, I must go. There are children and mothers begging my attention at shrines up in Naipon.”
The bonze turned and started to walk away. Tomoe ran after him, saying, “You know the way to get up? You must show me!”
The bonze turned around and his face was that of Emma. Tomoe let go of his shoulder and stepped back from him, looking angry. “You tricked me!” she said.
“We are alike as I told you,” said Emma. “If you were Buddhist you would know that Jizo is my brighter aspect, and I am not a trickster. You are a killer who helps children. So am I!”
“You are a cheat who makes a bad place to put innocent children, then helps them now and then for your own conscience!” cried Tomoe, and she charged with her naginata. Emma raised his pilgrim’s staff and knocked the weapon right out of Tomoe’s grasp. He said angrily,
“That was a clumsy attack! Do you think there is so much magic in your weapon that you can forget your skill? Your Inazuma-hime is good for fighting supernatural monsters, even the King of Hell himself. But it does not make you a stronger, better warrior. It is really only an ordinary weapon if you use it against a common warrior; so I knocked it from your hands as a common warrior would do. Hell has made your fighting form contemptible! You had better get out before it is too late for you!”
Saying these things, Emma turned away once more, and strode up the path with big, firm steps. Tomoe could not chase after him, for she must recover the Golden Naginata, which had been flung into the swamp near a big hump of mud.
“A nuisance,” said Tomoe, climbing off the bank into the muck. As soon as she reached the Golden Naginata, the monster which had been following came running out from the ginkgo trees. Taro did not bark or move from his comfortable place high up on the river bank. He cocked his head and watched as though nothing mattered to him. Tomoe saw this and was convinced at last that it was Taro’s lack of sincerity, not her own, which had kept them trapped! She resolved to leave the dog behind, despite the help he had been before, but for the present she must fight the monster. Inazuma-hime came upward in her hands, and the monster stopped in its tracks to avoid getting its snout lopped off.
It was no higher than a horse at the shoulders, but was stouter by far, like a bristly old boar. It had a boar’s blunt tusks and big yellow teeth, flat for crushing rocks. It raised its ugly snout and trumpeted, its mouth yawning wide and its thick pink tongue licking out hungrily.
“I am not rock!” said Tomoe. “Go eat something else!”
The snouted creature paid no attention. It darted back and forth with such speed that it kept Tomoe from getting back up on the top of the bank; but it was not quick enough to get around her naginata’s guard. If Taro would help, it would be easy to defeat the creature, but he only lolled his tongue and panted, disinterested in Tomoe’s problems. The rock-eater ran forward, and the samurai tried to cut the fiend with Inazuma-hime. But the naginata was deflected against the creature’s tusks.
It yawned its mouth at her again, a mouth big enough to gobble down her head in one swallow. When it charged the next time, she struck at that open mouth, but it only bit hard on Inazuma-hime and would not let go. Those teeth were made for chewing up rocks, and even the Golden Naginata could not cut through molars hard as that; but at least the molars could not undue the supernatural temper, and the blade could not be crushed.
The monster pranced forward, its molars still clamped firmly on the blade, forcing Tomoe backward. There was the big lump of mud behind her. The butt of the naginata was soon pressed against this. Though the mound was soft, it somehow managed to hold together and stop the snouted rock-eater from pushing any further.
Her back was against the soft mound, which felt like cold flesh. She began to think it peculiar that the heft of the naginata could not be pushed into the mud no matter how hard the snouted monster tried. She took as much advantage of the situation as she could, holding the naginata’s handle with only one hand, and drawing out her shortsword to stab the monster on its big nose. She stuck the shortsword deeply, and left it dangling from the top of the snout.
The creature trumpeted and lurched away, letting go of the naginata. Tomoe felt the hump of mud moving in an unlikely way, and as the snouted creature was shaking its head in pain, the samurai looked behind herself to see exactly what she had been leaning against. There was a crease or fold in the mound which began to part in two directions. The mound was a gigantic eye! As it opened, she saw that it was pink and angry. It was the eye of Jishin-uwo, the earthquake causing catfish who slept beneath the mud and water of Hell’s river, its body and its fins reaching to every subterraneous corner of Naipon.
The rock-eater finally shook the shortsword out of its proboscis and came at Tomoe madder than before. She held her naginata upward and knew that this time she had the correct angle to successfully cleave the rock-eater between its eyes.
Taro decided at that moment to join the trouble, but he did not help Tomoe. He launched himself from the bank, flying not toward the beast but toward the samurai. His white teeth were bared and it was evident that he intended to clamp a hold of Inazuma-hime’s handle to ruin Tomoe’s balance and defense. She turned the blade quickly, and Taro fell upon the ground cut in half, his two parts thrashing although he was already dead. At the same moment, the big mouth of the rock-eater came at her face so quickly she could not get away. The big jaws snapped onto her entire head. She could not see a thing. She was certain her neck would be bitten through in a moment.
In that moment of certain death, Tomoe remembered where she had seen such a beast as this: in her most terrifying nightmares. It was the Baku, whose stomach was strong enough to eat the least digesti
ble things, such as iron and bad dreams. The Baku was a welcome sight if the dream were bad enough, for he would take the dream away and rend it like a piece of meat.
The Baku spat Tomoe away as though she were tougher and worse tasting than gravel or nightmares. She fell into the mud next to the horrible eye of Jishin-uwo. But the Baku was not going to let her off completely. It scraped the ground with its front hooves and prepared to attack with its two tusks lowered, intending to impale her. For she had hurt its nose when the only thing it intended to do was its usual favor; and the Baku sought revenge. Tomoe was too dazed to raise the naginata or pick up the shortsword near her fingers. She could hardly move; her mind was confused by the Baku’s breath.
She would have been killed but for the ghostly, white horse rising from Taro’s halved body. It was a warhorse, and one that Tomoe recalled having ridden into battle many years before! The white horse reared its legs to keep the Baku from doing anything more to Tomoe.
Jishin-uwo was beginning to thrash beneath the ground. The root-forest shook madly. Tomoe grabbed the shortsword and thrust it in its sheath. She held tightly to Inazuma-hime while scrambling to the top of the bank. The ghost-horse which was Taro’s spirit stayed behind to hold off the Baku. Dust and stones were shaking loose from the sky above. Bits of roots were falling everywhere. A crack appeared in the ceiling of the Land of Roots, and Tomoe found herself in the thickest part of the root-forest, climbing toward the light of Amaterasu, the Sun Upon Naipon.
As she went, her mind fought against forgetfulness. The Baku had bitten into her memories, and she was not convinced she wanted to lose them. She recalled her adventures in the Hollow Land in snatches, but the larger portion of what she had seen and done was drifting from her mind. She realized that the Baku had been the challenger Okio had warned her not to defeat. The Baku was the monster against whom Tsuki Izutsu had failed to lose! Strong Tsuki had escaped the Hollow Land remembering every detail of horror. To defeat the Baku was to recall each of the crippling nightmares of one’s whole life, and what sanity could survive a thing such as that? Taro had known it from the beginning, but Tomoe had cleaved him in half, misunderstanding his intentions.
The Golden Naginata Page 21
