by Rokuro Inui
He had the illusion of feeling his heartbeat traveling down his arm and through his fingertips into the automaton’s heart.
Through her breast, mingled with his own pulse, Kyuzo felt a balance wheel within her rotate backward and strike a pendulum. A rhythmic, regular cycle began.
Her eyelids opened.
“Kyuzo … Kugimiya?” she said, quietly but distinctly.
Kyuzo leapt back from the bench, his whole body shaking.
Even while working with Keian on the infant automaton, some part of Kyuzo had viewed the project with skepticism, dismissing the possibility that an automaton might move or talk like a human, much less think like one.
Without rising from the workbench, Eve turned her head to look at him.
Even this was too much for him. Kyuzo fled the room.
V
“I never even imagined …”
As Eve finished her story, Jinnai could not help but exclaim in wonder. The Kyuzo he knew almost never let emotions show. To think that he had once acted this way!
The two of them were sitting together on the verandah behind the Kugimiya residence. Between them was the four-legged box with Eve’s painting of a fin whale on it and something that had once been a man shut up inside.
“It was some time after that that Kyuzo closed his heart for good,” she said.
“The foiled rebellion?” asked Jinnai.
Eve nodded, striking the box. She liked to carry it outside on days like this when the weather was fine, to sit in the sun. Kyuzo’s students would see her chatting to it and cock their heads, remarking that she was a fine girl but did have a strange side to her. And every new student who joined the school, without fail, made the embarrassing mistake of sitting on it before being dressed down by Eve, her face red with fury.
Jinnai put a hand to his chin and thought.
Keian Higa’s Institute of Machinery had taken in not just trained artisans like Kyuzo but also second and third sons from minor domains, as well as penniless ronin and the like. It had been a difficult time for the shogun’s authority, and domains were seeing their holdings reduced or even dissolved entirely for the slightest offenses. Many of the dissatisfied and disgruntled had gathered under Keian.
Keian had only been a karakuri artisan himself, but he had received an unprecedented offer from the shogunate to be granted samurai rank and to head the refinery. Nevertheless, he had steadfastly refused this, and his connections with the imperial palace had been deep. This was what had secured for him the support of officials and country samurai from the smaller domains, who were worried what the shogunate might do next, as well as ronin with no hope of reentering official service.
Jinnai suspected that Keian’s personal animus against the shogun had been slight. His main concern had likely been the prospect of the shogun gaining enough power to uncover the empress’s secret and disturb the imperial tomb.
Put another way, it was a kind of parental feeling for the imperial automaton. Jinnai could not see it any other way: Keian’s motivation had been to protect his daughter from the gawking eyes and filthy hands of those he feared would violate her.
When the previous shogun had died of illness and the empress had formally ordered the currently reigning shogun, who was just eleven years old at the time, to take his place, Keian had finally begun to take concrete action. He used his skill with machinery to create short firearms that could be hidden in the front fold of a kimono and fired without flame. He made clockwork arson devices and automata that looked like birds or cats but were packed with explosives. All of these were part of his plan for the rebellion.
First, the ronin would rise in Tempu, lighting fires in a dozen or so strategic locations to start a raging inferno across the city. Next, men hidden around the magistrate’s offices and Tempu Castle would take advantage of the confusion to assassinate as many high-placed officials as they could get their hands on.
Meanwhile, Keian would enter the imperial palace and wait for the report from his students before accepting the empress’s orders to subjugate the shogun and having those orders promulgated across the land.
The automated empress was like a daughter to Keian, and he expected that many of his students’ domains would willingly raise their banners and join the fight against the shogun, now the empress’s enemy, alongside the ronin waiting in Tempu and Kamigata.
But all this planning had been for nothing. The mole planted in the institute by the shogun’s intelligence service had seen to that.
And that mole was Kyuzo Kugimiya.
“I know you are a mole, Kyuzo,” said Keian.
Kyuzo, summoned into the depths of the main house to meet with his master, was stunned. Still kneeling, he felt cold sweat trickle down his neck and into his armpits as the fists on his thighs trembled.
“How long have you … ?”
“I have had my suspicions for some time. You meet with some kind of go-between for the shogun’s spies in a gambling house, if I am not mistaken.”
Matsukichi. If Keian knew that much, Kyuzo had no hope of talking his way free.
Keian stared at Kyuzo through half-closed eyes, as if seeing directly into his mind. His usual persona of the jovial old man was nowhere to be seen. Kyuzo could not meet his eyes.
Suddenly, a screen slid to the side.
Kyuzo tensed, thinking that one of Keian’s ronin students had come to dispatch him with a sword.
But beyond the door stood a young woman.
She wore a vivid red kosode, and her black hair was twisted around a long kanzashi.
For a moment, Kyuzo did not recognize her. But then he knew who she was, and all words failed him as he cried out.
It was Eve.
Kyuzo stared as she took her place beside Keian, holding the front of her kosode in place as she sat down smoothly. She then made a formal bow to Kyuzo.
“I am Eve,” she said.
When she looked up again, she had a faint smile on her face. Kyuzo could see his flustered form reflected in her sparkling eyes of dark agate.
“She is familiar to you, I think. As is her name.”
Overwhelmed, Kyuzo could not answer.
“I understand that you stole into my workshop many times when I was away. Eve told me everything.”
“I …”
He had thought the day when Eve woke and spoke to him had just been a dream or a fantasy arising from the shame he felt at what he was doing.
“But I do have one question. How did you set this automaton in motion?”
“How … ?” Kyuzo’s voice cracked partway through the word. He was not sure what the other man meant.
“In theory, her mechanism was fine,” Keian said, “but I simply could not get her to walk. But after contact with you, she began to move of her own will. So I ask again, how? What did you do?” By the end of his speech, Keian’s brow was deeply furrowed, his voice urgent and low.
“I do not know.”
Kyuzo searched his memory, but nothing in particular suggested itself.
“Fine,” Keian said. “I understand that you gave her the name Eve as well. She insists on retaining it now.”
Kyuzo’s face burned. Under Keian’s grilling, he realized for the first time that he had invested more in this lifeless automaton than he had in any living woman.
“I have used Eve’s body as the basis for improving the imperial automaton,” Keian said. “In sophistication it is now Eve’s equal.”
Kyuzo raised his head.
After they had completed the infant automaton—really more of an experiment—he had only been asked to make individual components based on provided schematics. He had never seen the upgraded automaton itself, since Keian’s students were not permitted to accompany him into the palace.
The public, at least, believed that although the empress had passed on
, her daughter and heir had survived and would one day inherit the reins of power from her older brother.
“To be honest,” Keian said, holding Kyuzo’s gaze. “I regret what you have become. My other students know nothing but theory, but in your hands lives the art and spirit of the machine—of its creation. This is a rare thing. Knowledge lies, but art does not. Understand this: divinity resides in the hands.”
Keian was already well outside the bounds of their usual master-and-apprentice conversations.
“The gears and springs and other components your hands bring forth are free from error, whether of dimension or detail. They are also free from lies. That is why I decided to trust you.”
“Master Keian …”
His voice but a hoarse whisper, Kyuzo trailed off, lost for words. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes.
“You were sent to the institute as a mole. It would be pointless to criticize you for the events that brought us together. In any case, you have been here ten years now. In your heart, I believe that you are on my side and that of the institute, not the shogun.”
Kyuzo nodded, firmly, repeatedly. He would have supplemented this with words, but none came. He felt as if any reply he made here would only sound false.
“I assume you remain in contact with a go-between for the shogun. The truth is, that serves my purposes well.”
Kyuzo gasped, realizing what Keian was working up to.
“The day of rebellion against the shogun is already set. The planning is underway.”
Kyuzo had suspected as much. More people were coming and going than before, and many of them were clearly not there for lessons in karakuri design. Whether to report this to Matsukichi had kept him awake many nights of late.
“The rebellion begins on the first Day of the Hare in the twelfth month, at sunset—the Hour of the Rooster. Make sure your contact gets the message.”
Kyuzo nodded, understanding his role: to pass false information to the shogunate so that they would be surprised when Keian made his move earlier.
What must be done must be done. If deceiving Matsukichi was the goal, he would simply report what Keian had said without mentioning that it was untrue.
He understood, too, that this was a test. Keian could have simply given him the false information without revealing what he knew. But he had chosen not to.
If he passed this test, Kyuzo thought, and endured what was to come, then he could finally be Keian’s apprentice in full, with no secrets between them.
After leaving the room and making his preparations, Kyuzo set off for the inn. By coincidence, a meeting at the gambling house was already planned for that day. Matsukichi seemed suspicious about movements within the institute of late and demanded that Kyuzo see him more frequently than ever.
Matsukichi’s company was never pleasant, but today Kyuzo’s feet felt light as he walked toward his destination. He even felt a twinge of excitement at the prospect of deceiving the man.
If the plot against the shogun succeeded, Kyuzo would finally be free of Matsukichi and the intelligence service behind him.
Reaching the gambling house, he lowered the guard over his inner thoughts and headed for the second floor where Matsukichi was waiting.
Against his expectations, Matsukichi did not raise an eyebrow at Kyuzo’s story. Instead, he scratched his chin with his fingertips and said, “The question is, who to believe?”
“What do you mean?” Kyuzo asked, feigning calm.
“The thing is, Kyuzo, what you’ve just told me doesn’t match what my other source said.”
Dread welled within Kyuzo. “Surely you don’t …”
“If you thought you were the only mole there, think again,” Matsukichi said, sipping from his cup. “Our other guy’s one of the ronin that drop in there. I have contacts with Muta domain, and I’ve arranged for him to step into a nice official position there once everything’s over.”
Matsukichi grinned and threw back the rest of his cup.
“I guess Keian and his people have you figured out.”
“That’s …” Not knowing how to respond, Kyuzo fell silent.
“Fed you fake plans, a fake date. They know you’re connected to the shogunate, and they think they can use you to put us off guard. But my other guy gave me a date ten days earlier. I’d say that’s the real one, wouldn’t you?”
Matsukichi nodded as if convinced by his own reasoning.
“You can’t go back to the institute now. You know that, right? You’ve outlived your usefulness to them. Luckily, you still have me. We can head back to Tempu together in the morning.”
“I …”
Matsukichi glowered at him. “I’m doing this for you, Kyuzo. Unless it interferes with some other plans you have, of course.”
Kyuzo held his tongue. If Matsukichi realized that Kyuzo was in on the attempted deceit, he would be cut down right in the gambling house without hope of mercy. And that would also end his dream of becoming a true apprentice of Keian.
“I didn’t send you into that place just to spy,” Matsukichi continued. “The shogunate needs someone with your skills who’s willing to put them to work for the world—unlike Keian, who keeps turning us down. Plus—”
Matsukichi’s pupils suddenly seemed to expand.
“If those fools really do launch a rebellion against the shogun, everyone in the institute will be put away. You’ll be the sole heir to the technology. Not a bad setup. You’ll be made a samurai, with an official post and everything.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Kyuzo had never dreamt of receiving such an unprecedented offer. No—not unprecedented. This was surely the same proposal that Keian had rejected. The shogun had given up on Keian and now hoped to bring Kyuzo to heel by dangling the same conditions.
“Oh, I’m very serious. I’ll introduce you to my boss as soon as we get back to Tempu.”
“I have no interest in meeting the head of the shogun’s spies.”
“I’m not talking about Kihachi. I mean someone much higher up. Likes to blow his own horn—or conch, if you get my drift.”
Matsukichi’s laugh was one of genuine amusement, although Kyuzo could not see why.
In any case, things were moving quickly in a direction he had not anticipated. Matsukichi was a boor, but he was not with the intelligence service for nothing. Catching him off guard and slipping away to return to the institute would be difficult and would definitely arouse his suspicion.
Kyuzo bit his lip hard. He cursed his own cowardice. Even at this stage, he still feared death, which left him no choice but to obey Matsukichi.
And so, on the eleventh month of the seventh year of the Shuyu era, magistrates from both the east and the west moved to arrest vast numbers of students and ronin from the Institute of Machinery. Many were caught red-handed with clockwork arson devices, ready to burn down half of Tempu.
Keian himself fled his residence just before the authorities reached it and took refuge in the imperial palace. After more than twenty days of steadily increasing pressure from the shogunate, however, the palace finally handed him over.
The planned imperial commission to subjugate the shogun, of course, was not forthcoming. The armies of the shogunate had camped around the palace in rings ten or twenty layers deep. The threat of war on the imperial household itself was obvious.
When Keian opened the palace gates to this ominous sight, his face was surprisingly calm, as if he had achieved some goal and made peace with his situation. He accepted his bonds without resistance.
Students and even regular visitors to the institute, as well as domain samurai and ronin with no connection to the rebellion itself, were tracked down and captured one by one. Several minor domains were completely dissolved, with the attempted rebellion cited as the cause.
At the execution grounds in Mitsutsujigah
ara, the Field of the Triple Crossroads, more than a hundred men were beheaded for involvement in the incident. The heads of Keian Higa and those deemed chief conspirators were left on display until the crows and maggots had stripped them of every shred of meat and they were sun-bleached skulls with only their hair remaining.
The declaration to the magistrates about the plot by Keian Higa and his associates contained two names. The first was a ronin who would later be restored to samurai status by the Muta domain.
The other was Kyuzo Kugimiya—“assistant at the shogunal refinery.”
I died inside that day.
As Kyuzo looked down on the Vessel, which still showed no sign of motion, remorse washed over him.
Granted a sprawling property on the outskirts of the city, better paid by far as an “assistant” than the actual head of the refinery, he had brazenly, shamelessly survived to this day.
To destroy the other former mole at the institute and the entire domain that had taken him in, Kyuzo had planted an automated cricket on him at the tournament. Then he had used Jinnai, working for the master of accounts, to seal Matsukichi’s fate. Lord Haga, the man who had pulled the strings during the incident involving the imperial automaton, had been tricked into a course of action that ended in his domain’s dissolution and his own suicide by shogunal decree.
In this way, Kyuzo had taken his revenge. But the dark mist that filled his heart had yet to clear.
After Keian had been beheaded and his head put on display, Kyuzo had been summoned to the refinery’s workshop to inspect the machinery and papers confiscated from the institute. He had concealed the schematics for the imperial automaton by renaming the book The Mechanism’s Workings Are Obscure and hiding it in plain sight among the other volumes.
But as he examined the confiscated goods, Kyuzo noticed something peculiar: the automaton who called herself Eve was not among them.
He checked the register of executions and imprisonments but found no record of a young woman who might have been her. In any case, if she had been captured and revealed to be a human-scale automaton, there would have been uproar. Only a handful of people even knew of the existence of automata like this, who moved and spoke as people did.
