The Disfavored Hero

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  “How is it possible!”

  “The sorceress was not really here,” said Shindo, wading back to the flat dock and climbing out of the water. The hem of his robe dripped around his bare feet. “That was her soul wandering from the body. Most people’s souls wander now and then, while dreaming. When the dreamer wakes, there is rarely memory of the events. The sorceress probably won’t recall having visited you and me. But it worries me. When someone of occult learning has so little control over her soul, it usually means trouble for everyone.”

  “Then I must do something tonight!” said Tomoe. “Or she might interfere with our vengeance tomorrow.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I saw her earlier today. She’s a fortuneteller in one of the low districts. I’ll find her and wake her up!” Tomoe started toward the garden gates. If Shindo wanted to dissuade her, he disuaded himself from saying so. He said,

  “Be careful, Tomoe.”

  The nearly deserted street appeared somehow askew, as though hinged from the stars at a slight angle. A few candles were still lit inside paper lanterns hanging outside the doors of late-night establishments. A fat woman came out of a sake house, a dirty towel tucked in her obi. She looked up and down the street, her eyes narrow and expectant. Then she took down the lantern, collapsed it, and blew out the flame. Tomoe stepped out of the night and said, “The fortuneteller who wears red. Where does she live?”

  The fat woman glared at Tomoe with a blank expression: no fear, no surprise, no concern. Smoke trailed up from the extinguished candle in her collapsed lantern. Slowly, as though dreaming, the woman raised a large hand and pointed with pudgy fingers. Tomoe said, “Thank you,” and strode on down the street.

  She stopped outside the door of an inn which the fat woman had indicated. Its light was already taken inside; the door was bolted from within. Tomoe slapped the door with the flat of her hand. After a while, a sleepy voice called, “It’s all sold out!” which meant his inn was closed.

  Tomoe said, “Think well of me,” a formal phrase, “and slide your door aside.”

  She heard grumbling, but the door was unbolted. The innkeeper was a small man who hunched down even smaller. He looked out from his establishment cautiously, but he wasn’t measuring Tomoe; he was looking elsewhere on the street, as though afraid a horde of monsters might take advantage and come running in behind her. Dim candlelight shone from inside, behind the little man’s back.

  “There are no ghosts with me,” said Tomoe, hoping to discourage his apparent fears. He let her enter. She left her zori sandals on the ground inside the door, then climbed onto the polished, elevated wooden floor. Tomoe said, “I need to see the woman who hides her face.”

  The innkeeper stepped back from Tomoe, looking as though he regretted opening the door for her. He said, “What fortunes she tells bode ill! You do not want to see that one. There are better fortunetellers in Isso—famous ones.”

  “I don’t seek my fortune told,” said Tomoe. “I come to tell her hers.”

  The innkeeper slapped himself on the cheek and looked even more upset. “No trouble in my inn tonight, please!” he pleaded. “It’s always trouble where that one’s concerned. I’d evict her but for my fright.”

  Tomoe moved closer to the fellow. He cowered as she neared. “What kind of trouble does she cause?” the samurai asked.

  “She talks to devils!” he said, whispering as to a confidante. “When you slapped the door, I was afraid it was her pet, a red colored oni who follows her around.”

  There was a strange look in the man’s eyes. It caused Tomoe to say, “You’re too dream-sotted to answer doors. You’re too free with information about your tenants.”

  The little man was insulted, then suspicious. He said, “Perhaps you’re the oni after all, disguised as a samurai.”

  “Perhaps I am,” said Tomoe. The innkeeper squeaked like a mouse and hopped away. Tomoe raised her chin and looked up the staircase. She asked, “Which is her room?” He told her at once, then ducked backward into a side room and bolted himself in.

  Tomoe removed an “S” shaped candlestick holder from the top of a doorframe and carried the light with her up the steps. Strangely, the candle barely penetrated the darkness of the stairwell. Tomoe felt momentarily disoriented, but caught her balance before slipping down. At the top of the stairs, she lurched forward as though forcing herself through something invisible but strong. When she tried to slide the occultist’s door aside, she discovered it would move only a finger’s width. The door was tied shut with red yarn. She stuck the sharp, upper part of the “S” candlestick holder into the lintel and peered into the room through the door’s narrow crack.

  Shadows seemed to dance within; but when Tomoe blinked and cleared her vision, there was only the shape of a woman lying on a futon rolled out on the floor. Without the slightest sound, Tomoe drew her shortsword, cut the string, sheathed the weapon, and slid the door aside. She stepped into the room.

  The sense of disorientation which she had experienced on the seemingly tilted street and again while coming up the staircase was far stronger in the room. Everything felt slightly awry, although a quick glance revealed nothing overtly amiss. The trouble was as subtle as a dream’s reality; everything seemed proper although nothing really was.

  The woman lying on the floor jerked awake and sat up abruptly. The dreaminess of the room was instantly dispelled. Tomoe, too, felt suddenly wakened. The fortuneteller, sitting cross-legged on the futon, faced the other direction. She did not turn around, but said, “Have you come to see your future after all, samurai?”

  Tomoe had left the sliding door open and the candle at the top of the doorframe. The candle’s light cast appalling dark shapes up the wall and out the window. Moonlight shone into the room and cast opposing shadows. The fortuneteller, therefore, had two shadows: one from the moon, faint and long; the other from the candle, sharp and hunched down. Although the double-shadow was explicable, Tomoe was unsettled by it. She said,

  “Explain yourself to me or I’ll behead you without reservation. I think you are a danger to an important mission.”

  A wind blew from the window and the candle went out in the hall. A cloud passed before the moon. Tomoe’s sword was out of the sheath at once, prepared to decapitate this woman of sorcery. But something had crawled into the open window, and it bore a sword. In the darkness, Tomoe was a shadow herself, and one shadow fought another. She sensed that her opponent was far weaker; but whatever the thing was that was fighting her, it could apparently see without light. It’s better vision weighted the battle more evenly.

  “Stop it,” said the woman who had not moved from the futon. The specter ceased fighting. “Leave at once,” she said; and the specter slunk out the window. Tomoe saw its outline for the shortest moment: a horned oni devil. She remembered seeing it before, across the garden’s pond earlier that evening. The sorceress sat very still and said to Tomoe, “Forgive my friend’s protectiveness. Despite what you have witnessed, please think well of me and sit down.”

  Tomoe sat.

  The sorceress reached toward her straw hat, which lay beside her walking staff near the futon mattress. As she donned the hat, she said, “Also pardon my eccentricity.” The veil attached to the front of the hat hid her face before she turned toward the window and faced Tomoe. The cloud parted from the moon, lighting the room and the sorceress.

  “Do you know that you are dangerous when you sleep?” asked Tomoe. “Your soul threatened a bonze halfway across the city. Also, everyone I passed in this district was affected by your slumber.”

  “I do recall a dream,” said the woman behind the veil. “In it, I went searching for a friend, a woman I knew long ago. I found her with a yamahoshi who had a long beard and wild hair and ticks. He told me that he was adverse to magic, but I knew he was a sorcerer. I rushed forth and killed him with my walking staff! Only, when his corpse had fallen, I saw that somehow I had killed my friend by accident.”

  “T
hat is an interesting dream,” said Tomoe. “You went looking for a friend and found me. You wanted to kill a yamahoshi priest, but threatened a novice instead. Fortunately, the part about the killing has no counterpart in the waking world.”

  “Perhaps that part of the dream is in the future,” said the fortuneteller.

  Tomoe said, “If that is so, then it is good I’ve come to kill you.”

  “If I were killed, the oni would be upset.”

  “I don’t fear devils. I’ve fought stronger ones than yours.”

  “I did not mean you should be afraid. You should feel sorry for the oni’s sadness if I die.” The sorceress took up a flat dish containing leaves from the kaji tree, a tree associated with magic. She indicated a teapot full of water which was within Tomoe’s reach. “If you would grant a final wish before I’m killed,” said the sorceress, “let me tell your fortune. Pour water onto the kaji leaves and I will hold the saucer up so that stars reflect on the water. By the placement of the leaves and the stars, I can see your life tomorrow.”

  “I don’t believe in destiny,” said Tomoe. “There is only now.”

  “That may be so,” said the occultist. “But ‘now’ has no beginning and no end. Those of us with vision can see other parts of ‘now.’ Unless you are afraid, grant my final wish and pour from the pot.”

  Tomoe did so. Then the occultist held the saucer of leaves and water up to reflect starlight. Tomoe sat between the woman and the window. Stars reflected in the fortuneteller’s eyes, which were all that showed of her face.

  “The stars reflect red in this saucer,” she began. “That is unusual. It means you will fight many kinds of devils, human and not.”

  “I like adventure,” Tomoe jibed, then added sardonically, “And will I fight an oni?”

  “The stars suggest redder devils than my oni.”

  “You, too, are clad in red.”

  The occultist refused to be ruffled by Tomoe’s failure to take the reading seriously. She concentrated on the dish of reflected stars and continued, “Blood is your nemesis. Red death. There is only one white star in the saucer, and it must be yourself; although you might be a red star, too, and the white one is someone else. A red star and white star stand together. Red stars surround these two, as though to attack. Wait! What was that? A momentary streak! The falling star was blue! I don’t know what it means.”

  Tomoe found herself unable to make more snide comments. The blue falling star was undoubtedly the tengu, of which the occultist could know nothing by ordinary means.

  “The placement of the leaves is more interesting,” she said, her voice suddenly oily and sweet. “I see romance. I see marriage. I see a round-faced child …”

  Tomoe slapped the dish from the woman’s hand. It was the sort of fortune sold cheaply to romantic girls at Star Festival every year. To have her attention gained only for an insult enraged Tomoe! She had died to her family and would never have a family of her own; of this, she was certain. Painful anger caused her to draw her sword and cut toward the woman’s face. The veil was clipped off. The fortuneteller turned halfway around so that Tomoe could not see her … but Tomoe saw the face clearly in the moon’s silver light.

  The fortuneteller was beautiful.

  “You are the nun!” said Tomoe. She scooted closer, all anger cast away, looking intense and concerned. “You’re Tsuki Izutsu! Once you tried to convert me to Zen. I thought you’d been killed long ago!”

  The woman’s profile was turned down, frowning. She said, “You have unveiled my face, but not my identity. I don’t remember the name Tsuki Izutsu. If you must have a name for me, call me Naruka.”

  Naruka was a kind of monster that lived near the bottom of the Land of Gloom and was never seen in the living world. It was not a good name for a woman, not even if she worshipped Oh-kuni-nushi, God of sorcery. Tomoe would not consider the name appropriate. Tsuki Izutsu had been only kind! Tomoe said,

  “You must recall!” She scooted nearer. “We fought side by side! You were good at bojutsu, fighting with your staff! We battled seven oni devils of various colors! When you were injured, I thought you died; but one of the oni carried off your corpse. It was the red oni! Why did it save your life? Why does it stay close to you now?”

  “I remember nothing of the sort!” The occultist was insistent, almost hysterically so.

  “They were mountain oni although we fought them in the lowland swamps. The one who saved you must have carried your broken body to the mountain priests to be healed.”

  “I despise the yamahoshi!” said Tsuki-cum-Naruka. She turned her face toward Tomoe. Hate filled the woman’s eyes. Tomoe gasped; for, lit plainly by the moon, she saw that half the woman’s face was scarred and ugly. The cheekbone was caved in. One nostril had been torn larger. The corner of her mouth was drawn down. She spoke venomously: “You recoil from my visage? Good! Yes, I remember the yamahoshi ‘saving’ my life! They had me brought back from Emma’s hell, sending that foul, devoted oni after my soul! I would rather have been left dead. Of Tsuki Izutsu, there is nothing left, if that was ever my name.”

  The occultist snatched up her staff and began to stand. “You think I am some friend from your past?” she asked in exclamation. “I am your worst possible enemy! Did you not wonder how the young warrior Azo Hono-o found you in Isso, where you had come in secret? It was my sorcery which planted the idea of coming here, though she herself thought it intuition. You believe you could defeat her easily, but I do not think you can. She is like a younger, more impetuous Tomoe. To kill her would be jigai; it would be killing yourself. I think you will let her win!”

  Tomoe whispered, “Why have you this grudge?”

  Tsuki-cum-Naruka looked confused by the quiet question, then replied hotly, “I need no grudge! I am the evil Naruka and desire to do mischief only!”

  “Someone makes you,” said Tomoe. “Someone who is a greater magician than you. I would suspect the giant who was the enemy of the swordsmith Okio, but Uchida Ieoshi is no sorcerer. Therefore my enemy is unknown to me. Will you tell me?”

  The occultist looked still more confused, the ugly side of her face contorting madly. She exclaimed, “I am your enemy! Your only one! You need suspect no other!”

  For the first time Tomoe spoke loudly, “That is not your voice!”

  “If you fail to kill me now,” said the occultist, “then I will kill you later!” Saying this, she moved toward the samurai. Tomoe started for her sword, but could not move her hand against Tsuki Izutsu, no matter how cruel the woman had become. Despite the crooked leg, the woman leapt over Tomoe’s head and out the window. Tomoe whirled around and saw her one-time friend hobbling across the lower roof. Then she jumped onto the street. She ran brokenly into the night. Behind her, the red oni followed like a faithful dog.

  In the morning, Tomoe awoke, momentarily wondering where she was. She had spent the night in the fortune teller’s abandoned room. The innkeeper came up the stairs and looked into the room, for the door had been open all night. Tomoe said,

  “The occultist has run away. I doubt that she or her oni will return.”

  The little man looked doubtful, then hopeful, then gleeful. He jumped in the air and whooped happily. “A reward!” he exclaimed. “Let me show my gratitude by making you a meal and pouring you saké!”

  Tomoe nodded. “Don’t bring it to this room. I will eat on the main floor with your other guests.” The innkeeper scurried away, singing a gay folk song as he went. Tomoe closed the door for privacy. She squatted on the shibi to relieve herself. She found a bowl and poured water into it so she could splash her face. She cleansed her ears and teeth. She groomed her hair with a comb kept in a small kit in her sleeve. The most difficult undertaking was to remove the wrinkles from her hakama, for she had unfortunately fallen asleep before taking them off. She removed the baggy trousers and laid them flat on the floor to press the pleats with her fingers; then she put her legs back into the garment and retied the straps around her waist,
making a fine bow in front.

  In all these morning practices, she took her time and tried to be relaxed. Thoughts of Tsuki Izutsu the gentle nun changing her name and occupation to something more devilish interfered with Tomoe’s sense of calm.

  Other tenants were already gathering on the main floor of the inn. Tomoe joined them, descending the stairwell with her sheathed shortsword through her hakama straps and obi, and her longsword and straw hat carried in one hand. There were a few flat pillows for kneeling, but not enough to go around. Tomoe chose not to use one. She knelt upon the polished floor, aloof from the motley group around her.

  The fleet-footed innkeeper brought individual trays of food for everyone, and a special gold-leafed tray for Tomoe in particular. Her presence dampened the group, for her neatness caused the others to try to be as mannerly about eating. She was not the only samurai in the room, however: there was a young samurai sitting apart from everyone else, with an even younger girl in his company. The girl was too shy to be a geisha or even a geisha’s attendant. Her hair was covered with a peasant’s towel; Tomoe suspected the girl was hiding the fact that there was very little hair under that towel. Most likely she served a nearby temple, which was why her hair was short, but she had run away for wont of romance. It was a common story. And the fate of such girls was generally sad. The young samurai was dressed for travel and, though he might have been sincere in meeting her during Star Festival, he obviously could not legitimize any relationship. A month later, the girl would almost certainly be a geisha’s attendant, learning a more harrowing trade than temple chores.

  Tomoe noted these things without attempting to judge.

  When the samurai raised his face in her direction, Tomoe’s muscles tensed. She recognized him, though they’d never met previously. His name was Ryoichi Nomoto. His name and his face were one of the ten burnt into her memory by the ghost of the Imperial Swordsmith.

  For the barest moment, the two samurai met eye to eye. The youth looked away first, disturbed.