Raven's Quest

by Karen Hayes-Baker

  “Here you are. We are waiting for you. The others have arrived. Karasu?” It was Taku. He had been sent by Furuki.

  “Yes I will come.” Karasu replied and followed the Samurai back to the inn. They discussed their next moves over a lunch of noodles and fish soup, but once it had been agreed that the band reconnoitre the city the ronin slipped away again and repositioned himself by the sea wall. This time nearer to the ship. Furuki Jun watched him go wondering as to the fascination with the strange looking vessel. Odd? Yet Jun understood there must be a reason for the interest and was not a man to question the ways of a Sennjo.

  There was great activity aboard the Brig. Karasu witnessed men labouring with heavy guns and slinging them in ropes. They swung the hoists towards the quay and over a period of a couple of hours disgorged their ship of ten cannon and twenty two sacks and boxes, most of which seemed inordinately heavy for their size. As they did this, overseen by a sullen faced First Mate, they occasionally glowered towards the city and Karasu could sense their enmity.

  At dusk a band of twelve soldiers, six men with oxen drawn carts and the little translator arrived at the harbour and made their way along the mole. They began loading the wagons, struggling with the weighty cannon and were watched, without offer of help, by a malevolent looking crew. Some words were exchanged and this time Karasu was near enough to hear them. At first he did not catch their meaning, not prepared to hear a foreign tongue though in hindsight he realised he was naïve to expect anything else. After a minute or two he began to follow the conversation, although the accent of the foreigner was hard to discern.

  “Kapitan Devlin return in morning Mr Aledd,” the translator called, his face red.

  “He had better Mr Akika. If not I’ll find you and gut you while you still live, you treacherous little snake,” the big man shouted back.

  Akika cringed and shook his head violently. “No, no. You have First Minister’s word. Kapitan will return, unharmed. Then you must go and not come back. I so sorry Mr Aledd. Please forgive,” he cried.

  Aledd grunted and spat over the gunwales of the Brig in Akika’s direction. He said no more and he and the crew moved away from the ship’s rails with the exception of a couple of sailors in the rigging who watched on darkly.

  The man named Akika urged the soldiers and servants to hurry loading the carts, evidently uncomfortable with his situation. After much labouring and cursing, the wagons were ready and the men and oxen began to trundle them away towards the town, the effort required to do so evident on both master and beast alike. The translator fell in behind them and trudged miserably away from the Brig. A hand at his chest stopped him and he squinted up in startled surprise into the eyes of a young man wearing the clothes of an exiled priest. Akika bowed hurriedly.

  “Mr Akika is it?” the ronin asked.

  “Yes. Why do you stop me holiness?” Kouhei answered and glanced anxiously at the backs of the retreating soldiers.

  “I am curious to know what goes on here,” Karasu replied.

  “I cannot say. I am simply a translator.” The little man made to step away, but the ronin moved to stand in his way. Kouhei studied the face and though his vision was poor he beheld a very young man but one with a self assurance he had never possessed. “Why do you wish to know?” he queried still squinting.

  “Oh, I’m just interested. They were not happy with you were they? What did they call you? A traitor? Have you betrayed them Mr Akika?”

  Kouhei felt his mouth go dry and his heart rate begin to increase. He nervously looked around, but could see no one except the slowly disappearing carts and the man who barred his way.

  “You understand their language?” he asked surprised.

  “I do. It was taught to me by and one of their kind; a friend of my father when I was a boy. Who are they?” Karasu continued to question.

  When he was a boy! He didn’t look much more than that now, Kouhei thought, yet he was a ronin priest, someone to fear and respect. And he was a good head taller than himself with twin katana at his waist. The translator relented and answered the lad’s questions.

  “They are pirates from the Westlands. Lord Kurohoshi is angry with them and has taken their leader a prisoner. He will be returned now that dues have been paid and then they will leave. Please Shukke, you must let me pass now.”

  Karasu stood aside. “Thank you Mr Akika,” he said with a polite bow and as the translator hurried away he rubbed his chin thoughtfully and took one long last look at the Brig before starting to walk towards the inn.

  A sudden jolt of the ground caused him to stumble and he half fell forwards as the earth seemed to move away from him. He grasped the sea wall to steady himself and remained holding tight until the tremor died away. The shaking continued, a deep rumble accompanying the juddering land. The calm water within the harbour writhed and boiled momentarily causing the men aboard the Brig to run on deck, shouting to each other and clasp at the rails to stare in search of what made their ship shudder so. Before a half minute was out the quaking had disseminated into a faint tremble of the ground and a diminishing thunder. Karasu let go his hold on the wall and stood up straight. He turned his gaze in the direction the sailors were facing, towards the volcano above the city. A meagre red glow hung above its summit, casting an eerie hellish light upon the earth below, but otherwise it seemed quiet enough. The ronin frowned and struggled to quell the rising dread within him.

  FIFTEEN

  “What is it? What’s happening?” Thom cried out as the cell he lay in and everything around it began to tremble and shake. Wide eyed he rolled off the rough futon and as crumbling pieces of plaster and masonry began to drop from the ceiling above, he pulled the mattress over his body and curled into a tight ball, his head tucked between his knees. The torches flickered and rattled wildly in their brackets and all around the sound of creaking walls and groaning iron of the dungeon cages filled the squalid air. Thom shut his eyes tight and pressed himself against the floor. He had no idea what was happening, no experience of this terrible shaking. At first he thought an explosion had occurred, but this was no man-made terror, the earth quaked with a violence that surely would rent it apart. Then suddenly it died away becoming the merest vibration and leaving a soft ringing in his ears from the cell bars.

  Thom stayed beneath his futon for some seconds after the shaking stopped, every sense he possessed heightened by his fear. He thought he could even hear the scurrying of frightened mice and insects across the prison floors. With dawning realisation he became aware of a yawning, deafening silence. The rumble had died away and it left nothing in its place. No sounds from the castle above, no whispering breeze through the skylight above his cage, no calls of alarm or hurrying footsteps from the world outside. The hush stretched on and on for what felt like many minutes before, at last, came the calls of men from above and like a tidal wave the noise of a startled city washed into the dungeon. Slowly Thom lifted his head and pushed the mattress from his body, expecting to see a mess of devastation around him. However, all that covered the floor was a thin veneer of plaster and a few pieces of crumbled stone. He looked across to his only fellow prisoner, the body of the old man having being removed the previous day.

  “Hayato? You alright?” he called.

  “Yes. It stop now,” Hayato replied calmly.

  Through the dim glow of the torches, as their light danced through a fog of dust, Thom could make out his companion’s figure sat upon his own futon and from his voice tell there was no fear there. Feeling suddenly foolish, but at the same time angry, he cleared his throat and determinedly composed himself.

  “What was it? Why did the earth shake so?” he asked.

  Hayato stared his way at first puzzled by the question. It had not occurred to him that the pirate would not have felt an earthquake before; after all they were so frequent in Ashima. He searched for the words to explain.

  “It happen much in Ashima. You not know?” he managed after a moment.

  “N
o. I have never experienced this before. Will it happen again?” Thom laughed nervously. But Hayato could not catch his words, in his anxiety Thom had rambled too quickly. Still the nobleman understood the fear in the pirate’s tone and the slightly neurotic laughter and he smiled to himself.

  “ Angry Kami,” he said feeling he had to say something and not knowing what question had been asked of him.

  “Kami? What is Kami?”

  “Umm. I think you say Gods. Not same,” Hayato explained.

  “You mean the ground shakes because the Gods are angry?”

  “Yes.”

  Thom laughed. “You believe that superstitious claptrap?”

  “I not understand?”

  “Do you think that is true?” Thom simplified, a sneer of derision evident in his voice. The tone was not missed by Hayato despite his difficulty with the language. He responded angrily.

  “No! People think. Not I think.” Then he muttered something lowly in his own tongue.

  “Sorry mate. I did not mean to make fun of you. Hell, I was scared to death. You are the one that should laugh. Will there be more?” Thom appeased by deriding himself, but the worry remained.

  Understanding that some kind of apology had been made Hayato softened. He knew what worried the Kapitan and it was not in his power to totally reassure.

  “Some time more. Some time not,” was all he could manage. He lapsed into silence once more wracking his brains for the vocabulary he so desperately needed. How he wished he had mastered this language now and how he chastised himself for not having the patience to do so.

  “You leave soon,” he managed at length.

  “Huh! What do you mean by that? I think I’ll rot in here my friend,” Thom mumbled suddenly depressed again.

  “ I get gold back,” Hayato persisted.

  “Gold! Hey, there is no way his Lordship up there is getting his hands on my gold. Over my bloody dead body,” Thom spat angrily but slumped onto the floor and began tracing a finger through the settling dust his mind lost in dark reverie. Hayato did not disturb him. The doubt had been sown and that was enough.

  SIXTEEN

  Kurohoshi held the flaming torch in front of him as he ascended the steep wooden steps to the top floor of his castle. No one came up here expect himself and a single servant, a woman whose tongue had been cut out and whose empty eye sockets were sewn shut. Three times a day the blind mute would climb the tower with a tray of food and drink and occasionally she would leave with a pile of soiled clothing or bed linen, shuffling along in her oddly lurching way, one arm extended to feel along the walls. But the servant was in bed now and Kurohoshi knew he was alone, that no one had seen him come into the tower. He reached the final step and after taking in a deep breath he entered the door in front of him.

  The room glowed red from torchlight and a small glass lamp filled with rancid fat for fuel. Its bitter perfume filled the air and stung his nostrils. He recoiled in disgust having never got used to the heavy atmosphere of these rooms and the fact that no daylight ever touched them and no fresh air ever entered their locked and shuttered windows. A fire burned in the grate despite the sultry warmth of the summer’s night and the heat hit him in hot, sickening waves as he stepped forward into the gloom.

  “I wondered when you would come my son. You have been avoiding me since our last conversation,” a mocking female voice greeted from the darkness.

  “Forgive me Mother. I was angry. You provoked me greatly,” he returned and shoved his torch into a bracket on the wall reluctantly closing the door behind him. He was answered by a cackling laugh.

  “So like your father you are. Well have you done it yet? Have you mated with her?” the voice demanded.

  “Mother please. I am not an animal and she is no beast. I am determined to wait until the marriage rites are fulfilled.” Kurohoshi protested.

  “Hah! You sentimental fool! The Akutenshi grow restless and your delay angers them. You must get her with child and then all will be well once more. The child will be his, the dark one, Akuma. When he is born Akuma may be brought forward into the world once more. His banishment will be over. You must take her soon. Then she must be cast into his domain until her time. You will be there then and bring the child back and the resurrection of the Dark One will be completed.”

  “But, she may die Mother.”

  “What of it? She is not important, but her Sennjo spirit is. It is that he needs; that and the unborn child.”

  “And what of me and my needs? Do you not care for me Mother?” Kurohoshi demanded his anger barely hidden.

  “You are not important either. What makes you think you are? You supply the seed that is all. You will bring the child up, but he will not truly be yours. Once she is within the mountain our Lord’s spirit will take your place and he will be reborn to us.

  “Anyway, you already know all this. Why do you still rebel? Get it over with. I do not understand why you delay or why you insist on going through with this sham marriage. We have no need of it. You should take the girl and her brother to the mountain tomorrow. He will be your sacrifice and then you can mate with her and fasten her in the cave. You need only take her food and water after that. Your job is done.”

  “Damn you woman! You think I have no feelings at all. You think my needs are worthless. I want this woman more than anything and I want her as my wife, not as a whore to be cast aside. I have had my fill of women such as that.”

  The crone cackled once more and slowly moved from her shadowed corner rubbing her long finger-nailed hands in front of her. Kurohoshi cringed at the sight of her. His own mother repelled him with a revulsion so deep he scarcely laid eyes upon her. She shuffled up to him and he hung his head to hide the fear and loathing in his eyes. He could not bear to look upon the yellow, wrinkled skin and oddly pale blue eyes that pierced into his soul. He knew her hair was white now, white as snow and her teeth had all but gone, but he did not want to look upon her. Her smell was bad enough. A mixture of sweet sickly breath and stale sweat. For years she had lived in this tower, scheming and consulting the evil Kami she worshipped, the Akutenshi. For years he had feared her Sennjo ways and powers, but he rarely disobeyed her as wilfully as he was doing now. He felt her hand caress his head.

  “My poor boy. You really are smitten with this girl,” she whispered scornfully.

  “Yes. Yes I am. For once in my life I want something, someone. I want to come first, not your bloody Kami. Let me do this one thing properly Mother. I promise I will do as you ask once she is married to me, but let me ensure she is safe. I would like her to return to me when it is finished. I do not wish her to die.”

  “Hah! Sentimental tosh! Have you not felt their anger? They do not understand why you delay and they let their displeasure be known by shaking the earth,” the crone shouted.

  “Please Mother. You can talk to them. You can ask for their patience. It is only a short delay. Please, for once allow me some happiness,” Kurohoshi begged and tears of fear and despair fell from his lashes.

  The woman grunted in disgust and shuffled away towards the fire where she held her hands out for warmth despite the sweltering heat of the room.

  “You sicken me with your weakness. Get out of my sight. I will ask for a little time, but I advise you bring your plans forwards. She must be impregnated before the dark of the moon otherwise I cannot answer for their wrath.” She waved her hand dismissively at him and he bowed his head low, backing away towards the door.

  “Thank you Mother,” he uttered as he grasped his torch from its bracket and retreated to the stairs. Outside the room he fled to a tower window and flung it open allowing the balmy air to blow into his face. He took in deep gulps trying to dispel the foul smell and heat of the room behind him and he allowed the fear within him to flow, unhindered from his body in long shuddering sobs.

  SEVENTEEN

  Karasu watched the six castle guards march their charge across the harbour in view of a small but curious crowd of fishermen an
d merchants. The man in their midst was taller than they and he held his head high with proud dignity. He was tanned and lean, but his appearance otherwise somewhat dishevelled with his chin lightly bearded and his dark, long hair hanging in a tangled mess around his fine featured face. This was the man Mizuki had spoken of, Karasu felt sure of it, though he wished he could confirm it with her. Another night had passed without her presence in his mind. He felt her nearby, but she did not seek him out and this perturbed him.

  Casting the thought of Mizuki away he continued to watch the little procession make its way to the sailing Brig along the wharf. He was joined by Furuki Jun.

  “Why are you so interested in that ship Karasu?” the First Samurai asked.

  “The man amidst the guards. You see him, the foreigner?” Karasu nodded his head towards the group of men. Jun followed his intimation and picked out the prisoner.

  “Aye. I see him. What of him? He is nothing to us is he?”

  “He will help us Jun.”

  Jun studied his young companion and then turned his gaze back to the ship. The guards had reached it now and the deck of the Brig was full of sailors leaning over the gunwales to stare at the quay below. The man’s bonds were cut and the soldiers parted allowing him to walk through them. Slowly the foreigner climbed the gangplank onto his vessel and following what appeared to be a short exchange of words he disappeared from view and the crew returned to their work.

  “They are preparing to sail Karasu. See. I think they will be gone on the next tide. How can he help us?” the First Samurai pointed out.