“No wonder we couldn’t find any clues,” Nanatsuka said. “It must have been terrible for you.”
“I had given up all hope. Having been used as a concubine, I could never become a shrine maiden again. Yet out of all the women in the chancellor’s hall, this gentleman found me. He told me that the magatama guided him. Thanks to him, I’ve regained my pride in my family heritage.” Her eyes shone with gratitude as she looked at Sugaru.
Sugaru smiled and turned to Toko. “And I bet you were thinking something entirely different, weren’t you? I hope you’re sorry for misjudging me.”
Toko shrugged. She could not think of a quick retort, but it still didn’t change the fact that he had been off having fun on his own. Why else would Lady Kage look at him like that? Sugaru, she concluded, was wicked.
At their request, Lady Kage related what she knew about the shrine in Kazuragi. “There’s a range of mountains behind our village. The god lives on the tallest peak. He has the body of a serpent, and he’s a terrible, vengeful god. Just to put foot on the mountain brings down his wrath. Since the time of our ancestors long ago, my family has been entrusted with the task of stilling the god. There’s an altar on the mountainside where we take offerings and pray for the safety of our village. It’s forbidden to climb beyond that point, and those who try, whether priest or laymen, die by their own choosing. Once, an emperor climbed the mountain intending to subjugate the god. But before he had even reached the peak, he fled, barely escaping with his life, and he ordered everyone to leave the god alone. So no one has ever seen it—except the priest who was first entrusted with performing the rituals.”
TOKO WANDERED away from the hut and strolled through the woods, thinking. She had plenty of time to think on her own. Sugaru and Lady Kage, who had spent the night traveling, needed rest, and Nanatsuka had rushed off to give new orders to his men. Every time Toko recalled the story Lady Kage had told them, she was more astonished. The magatama had left the hands of men and been given to a fierce and punishing god. As a Tachibana, Toko could not tell whether that action had been wise or deplorable. But there had probably been no alternative if they were to protect the magatama right here within reach of the emperor’s hand.
The problem was how to wrest the stone from a god who was likely to kill anyone who came near. According to Lady Kage, not even members of her own family had ever met the god. It was unlikely that an outsider like Toko or Sugaru could enter his territory and come out safely.
If only I could ask the Keeper of the Shrine in Mino. I know nothing of the gods. I don’t even understand the mission of the Tachibana or what I should do. There’s so much that I don’t know.
Despondent, she crouched down at the edge of a small creek. It was already close to sunset, and the shallow stream sparkled in the long rays of the sun that shone over the brow of the hill. After staring blankly at the water for some time, she reluctantly admitted to herself that Lady Kage, brought here by Sugaru, was one cause of her gloom. Toko was beginning to feel completely useless, just a burden, even to Sugaru. How could she retain any confidence when faced with this bond between Sugaru and Lady Kage, which had been forged by the magatama?
“So there you are. You made me look all over.” Toko jumped and turned to see Sugaru approaching. To her surprise, dusk was already falling and the light was growing dim, even though she thought she had only paused for a moment.
“You’re up already?”
“I didn’t want to leave without telling you. Lady Kage and I are going to the mountain. I wanted to let you know.” Toko opened her mouth, but Sugaru did not give her time to speak. “You’re not coming. I told Lady Kage the same thing, but she won’t listen. She says that she has a duty to pray and still the wrath of the god.”
“Then how can you tell me not to come? Of course I’m going with you.” Her voice was sharp.
“Knock it off, Toko. Can’t you see how stupid that would be? Besides, why would we want a kid like you tagging along on our lover’s tryst?”
“Sugaru, stop teasing me.”
But Sugaru was indifferent to her anger. “All right then,” he said with a faint smile, “I’ll be serious. It’s impossible for you to get the magatama this time. It’s impossible for you or any other ordinary human being. You’ll be killed. I’m the only one who can do it. Stay here and out of danger. I’m telling you this for your own sake.”
“But it was you who came with me, wasn’t it?” Toko cried. “Just who do you think was trying to gather the magatama in the first place? I’m the one who needs the Misumaru. I’m the one that’s got to destroy the wielder of the Sword. I’m not going to back down now just because there’s a little risk.”
“It’s about time you woke up, Toko,” Sugaru said earnestly. “Stop pretending you don’t know what everyone else knows. You can’t become the bearer of the Misumaru. There’s no way you can kill Prince Ousu. I know you’re obsessed with this idea, but that’s just because you can’t forget Oguna. That’s all. Even if he’s now the wielder of the Sword, Oguna is still Oguna. And you still love him.”
“That’s not true!” Toko shouted. “I don’t love him. I hate him. I hate him so much that if I don’t kill him with my own hands I’ll never get over it. Sugaru, why are you saying these things? Don’t you see that I can’t possibly stop now?”
“It’s all right,” he said, his expression lightening. “I’ll kill him for you. I’ll avenge you and your people. No matter how you look at it, I’m the warrior who must bear the Misumaru. I now know that we can’t let Prince Ousu live. Leave it to me, Toko. And forget your obsession. It’s unnatural. If you carry on like that, you’ll never escape from his shadow.”
Toko’s voice was shaking. “No! You can’t do this. Please don’t take that away from me. It has to be me who goes to him.”
“If you said that you loved him, I could understand your insistence. Why won’t you admit what you really want?”
His words confused her and her confusion made her angrier. “Don’t judge me by your standards. Don’t put me in the same category as people like you who lose sight of reality because of so-called love.”
Sugaru gave up. “Stubborn little squirt. Don’t come, you hear me? If you do, you’ll be sorry.” He turned and began walking away.
“Sugaru!” Toko ran after him, but he spun around and put his finger on her nose.
“Listen. You’re not the one who bears the stones. You have no right to put your life at risk. Whether he wills it or not, the bearer becomes something not quite human. Your Prince Ousu is the same. He’s no longer human. But you, Toko, you’re just an ordinary girl. Think about that until it sinks in.” His face was stern, and Toko felt as if he had shoved her away. Not even she could follow him after that. She burst into tears. Sugaru strode off through the trees without a backward glance—toward the place where Lady Kage waited.
Stupid Sugaru! Toko wept out loud and threw herself onto the ground, crushing the grass in her fists. She could not help but feel sorry for herself. Never had she dreamed that Sugaru would betray her in this way. He had told her he didn’t need her. He had told her not to come because she wasn’t the bearer of the magatama. Yet even as she reeled with shock and felt all hope ebb away, a tiny flame flickered stubbornly inside her. I know it’s illogical. I know there’s no proof. But even so, it still has to be me who goes to Oguna. It has to be … If only I had a magatama. Then I could prove it … Suddenly her eyes flew open and she gazed into the darkness that was closing in on her. A crazy idea had just entered her mind.
There is a stone in Mahoroba. One besides Lady Kage’s. In the palace. In the emperor’s hall. Lady Akaru’s magatama.
4
NANATSUKA had returned to the marketplace on the main road to contact his men. While he had been away, several incidents had occurred that required his instructions, and after discussing the situation with his followers, he had spent the night at the hideout, intending to return to Kazuragi in the morning. He was thus astound
ed to wake the next day and find Toko, her eyes red and swollen, standing outside the door.
“What’re you doing here?” he demanded. “Where are Sugaru and Lady Kage?”
Toko smiled. “They’ve gone to find the god on the mountain. I walked all night to get here.”
“Couldn’t you stay put and wait in the hut? That was so dangerous. What if you’d been captured by bandits?” Toko burst out laughing for Nanatsuka appeared to have forgotten that he himself was a bandit. There was a hard edge to her laughter, however, and Nanatsuka quickly realized that something must have happened. “What was so pressing that you couldn’t wait until morning?” he asked.
“It’s quite simple. You’re planning to take revenge on the emperor, right? And you have men in the market who gather information for you. So I thought you’d be the best person to tell me how to sneak into the emperor’s palace.”
Nanatsuka hastily grabbed Toko’s arm and pulled her inside, closing the door firmly behind her. “That’s not something to talk about lightly. It’s a good way to shorten your life. What’s going on?”
“I want to get Lady Akaru’s magatama,” Toko said, a fierce light in her eyes.
“You’re planning to sneak inside and steal it?”
Toko nodded.
“That’s crazy.”
“I know it’s crazy. But it’s not impossible. No matter how strong the emperor may be, he’s still only human. He’s not a god like the one Sugaru has to face. If he’s human, then even I should be able to do something about him. You can’t be sure that it’s impossible for me to get the stone.”
Nanatsuka thought he could now understand what had happened. “So you had a fight with Sugaru, did you?”
“That’s not the problem.” Her gaze was so resolute that Nanatsuka was taken aback. “Sugaru is doing what he needs to do to get the magatama. I can’t blame him for doing that. And when I think about it rationally, the reason he pushed me away was out of consideration for me. He didn’t come to destroy the wielder of the Sword by choice, you know. Nanatsuka, the bearer of the Misumaru must be me. I can’t keep taking advantage of Sugaru’s kindness. If I don’t lay my own life on the line, then I’ll never know if I have what it takes to be the bearer.”
Nanatsuka sighed. “You’re willing to go that far to get to Prince Ousu?”
“It’s a gamble,” Toko replied. She remembered how she had viewed Sugaru and his friends’ love of gambling with contempt. Now, however, it was her turn to gamble, her turn to stake everything on the greatest, most desperate chance of all.
“I can see in your eyes that you’ve already made up your mind. You’re ready to give up everything and still laugh,” Nanatsuka said. “You remind me of Lady Akaru. When she fled with the prince, her eyes were just like yours. She was dazzling. I would have been justified in hating her for causing the prince’s downfall, yet I couldn’t find it in myself to hate her. It made me glad to see them together.” He paused for a long time, lost in thought. Toko was silent too, following her own memories. Finally, Nanatsuka said, “So you say that the emperor has something that belonged to her, a memento, right? It would be unjust to leave it with the man who treated her so cruelly. I’m sure the prince would be very angry.”
Toko’s heart began to pound. “You mean … you’ll help me? You’ll tell me how to sneak into the palace?”
“I will be your guide. I walked the palace from one end to the other many times with the prince. I know it well.” He flashed her a quick grin. “It’s a matter of my honor as a thief. Let’s find it and get it back.”
NANATSUKA set his men to work and by evening everything was ready. Calling Toko to him, he quickly explained. “We managed some time ago to infiltrate strategic points in the palace. We have only a handful of men inside, mind you, but they’ll help us once we’re in. As for Lady Akaru’s magatama, there are three possible places where it might be kept—the treasury behind the emperor’s hall where he keeps almost all his gems, his dressing chamber where the court ladies wait and where he keeps oft-used accessories, and, finally, his own room. We won’t know where it is until we actually see it, but there’s a record of all his treasures that I’m having checked secretly right now.”
“When are we going?”
“Tonight,” Nanatsuka answered, as if he had guessed that Toko couldn’t wait.
“Really?”
“We got word that there’s a huge banquet planned. People will be distracted by all the entertainment. How could we pass up an opportunity like that?”
“But won’t it be easier for people to see us? They’ll light more torches and there’ll be more people everywhere.”
“No problem. We’ll dress as if we belong there too. You’ll go as a court lady and I’ll go as an officer. The palace is so crowded that it’s quite common to run into people you’ve never seen before.”
One of Nanatsuka’s men prepared clothes for them. Toko stared at her outfit in admiration. How he had managed to procure it she didn’t know, but it was made of real silk. The top robe was a beautiful jade green tied with red ribbons, and the long skirt with embroidered hem was as light as cicada wings. The costume came complete with a crimson comb and a hair ornament decorated with artificial flowers. Even when Toko had lived in Mino, she had never worn anything as luxurious as this. Of course, she had refused to wear skirts or anything feminine in the first place, but that was beside the point.
Well, it can’t be helped. It’s a disguise after all, she told herself, though she couldn’t help feeling a flutter of excitement. The skirt, the first she had ever worn, was so light and soft it made her feel like she was floating. She could not take long strides in her usual manner without stepping on the hem, but she’d adjust to that somehow. The problem was the hair ornament in her hand. She had always worn her hair in a simple ponytail and had never put it up by herself. She was still struggling when Nanatsuka came to see how she was faring.
With a laugh, he said, “Here. Give me that, will you?” Despite his huge, knobby fingers, he deftly fixed her hair. He brushed it until it shone, then wound it up into a bun and fixed it in place with the comb. Into this he slid the hair ornament.
“Nanatsuka, you can do anything!” Toko said in awe.
“I’ve tried my hand at a lot of different things since I left home, you know.”
“Where are you from?”
“A land so far away that no one here has ever heard of it. Hidakami.”
The name seemed familiar to Toko. “The land of Hidakami … where the sun rises?” she exclaimed.
“Yes, it’s a remote place at the far eastern edge of this country.”
“Nanatsuka, there are Tachibana there too, guarding a magatama.” Excited, Toko told him what little she knew, but it did not seem to spark any memories.
Nanatsuka shook his head. “It’s unfortunate, but I never heard any tale like that where I was born. It’s a land of great open spaces, nothing like here. Just wide meadows and soaring mountains. So perhaps the people you speak of do live there somewhere. I come from a place where the Emishi, another race, mingle with the people of Toyoashihara. Someday I would love to show you Hidakami. The wind sweeps through the reeds that stretch as far as the eye can see; deer and wild horses race through the morning mist. That’s what my home is like.”
The homesickness in his voice touched Toko’s heart. The fact that he never showed it must make his yearning for his homeland all the stronger, she thought. He remained silent for some time and then said, “Once I told Prince Ousu about the herds of deer in the reeds. That was when Prince Oh-usu was alive and I was still planning to retire to Hidakami someday.”
Toko suddenly remembered that Prince Ousu was now heading east. Did he recall the tale Nanatsuka had told him?
Toko was ready. Nanatsuka held out his hand and helped her rise to her feet where he carefully inspected her. Seeing the admiration in his face, she waited, expecting a compliment. “You can have confidence, Toko,” he said, nodding. “Y
ou definitely look like a woman.”
SUGARU and Lady Kage stopped and looked up at the crosspiece over a dilapidated shrine gate. They had wound their way up the mountainside and were now standing before the altar. Behind it, the slope rose steeply upward, but the peak was hidden beneath a menacing cloudbank that had become lower and denser as they climbed. By now, the clouds were dark and glowering, pressing down upon their heads.
“This altar is the boundary,” Lady Kage said. “Beyond this point is the god’s territory, the place from which those who enter can never return.”
Sugaru looked up at the cloud. “All right. You stay here and pray that the god of the mountain peak doesn’t get too upset. I suppose it would be asking too much to pray that he won’t get mad at all.”
He seemed about to leave without saying goodbye. Lady Kage called after him. “Do you have to go? Even though it means you’ll be punished by the god? Do you really have to get that magatama?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll come back with the stone.”
Lady Kage shook her head. “How can I not worry about you? The god at the top of this mountain is terrible. If you don’t come back, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”
“I wouldn’t bother going if the odds weren’t good. I’m not an ordinary man.” He smiled at her. “You should know that.”
Lady Kage looked at him sadly. “When I first saw you in the chancellor’s hall, I thought you were a god, not a man—a god materializing out of a whirlwind right in front of me. I thought the same thing when you grabbed me and ran. As long as I live, I will never forget how a god descended to the earth to save me. But …” She cast her eyes down. “Your hand is warm. You laugh and you feel pain. I do not think that I can merely worship you as a shrine maiden worships a god. I am afraid for you, afraid of this battle with the merciless god of the mountain peak. I’m so worried I can’t bear it.”
Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince Page 32
