The Tengu's Game of Go

by Lian Hearn

  Kai had come to Yoshi to help him get away. She had made the journey pregnant and alone. He was amazed and impressed by her devotion, and concerned for her and the unborn child.

  They are going to Aomizu, he realized. They will seek out the old priest, the one who told me not to be angry. They will tell the families how the others died, ask for forgiveness, and pray with them. They will hide, like all the other runaways and outcasts, among the people of the riverbank.

  Just before the barrier at Kasumiguchi he saw Kon flying overhead. The sight of the bird comforted him. It meant he was going in the right direction. Kon would lead him to Yoshimori.

  The barrier was still guarded by Kiku’s men. They were stopping people and demanding, “Red or White? The new emperor or the old?” as though all alternatives had been reduced to a single choice: True or false? Right or wrong? How did anyone know ultimately?

  They were persuaded by Take’s excuse of hunting, and let him through as they did most of the common people. They were concerned only with arresting fleeing Miboshi warriors.

  Yoshi and Saru would have looked like the many ragged youths who were walking in either direction, to the capital to sell produce and firewood, or going home to their villages.

  After the barrier he let Nyorin walk for a while to rest him. Gradually the road became less crowded. There were fewer villages, the land was wilder and more mountainous. He had grown more used to being alone, but as night fell the solitude of the landscape began to make him uneasy. He tried to sing to raise his spirits, but all the songs he knew reminded him of the dead musicians. He seemed to hear their voices echoing from the darkness, the ghostly strain of a lute, the rhythmic beating of a drum. He felt Kai was ahead of him, and the drum was hers.

  The moon rose, casting shadows of horse and rider on the frosty ground. He did not want to stop, it was too cold, so he let the horse walk on. From time to time he dozed a little, feeling his head grow heavy and his eyelids close. He smelled smoke, not sure if he was waking or dreaming, and heard a rattle and clicking of stones.

  Nyorin came to a halt, pricked up his ears, and turned his head. Take looked in the same direction and saw a shadowy figure silhouetted against the firelight. He recognized the bulky outline, the beaked head.

  “Tadashii!” he said. Nyorin gave a low whinny and stepped purposefully toward the fire.

  “Ah, here you are,” the tengu said. “Come and sit down. Meet my friend—actually, I think you met, after a fashion, before. He doesn’t have a human name, but that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t speak and, anyway, you will never see him again after tonight. We are just passing the time until … well, never mind what, just passing the time in a game of Go.”

  The board was carved on the stump of a kawa tree, the white stones were shells, gleaming with mother-of-pearl, the black ones were obsidian pebbles, river smooth. They rested in bowls of mulberry wood, reflecting in the firelight.

  Tadashii rattled the black stones in his bowl. His opponent grunted in irritation and rolled his eyes.

  “It’s considered very rude to do that,” Tadashii said. “But I like to annoy him.”

  He picked up a black stone and placed it on the board with a loud clack.

  “This is you,” he whispered. “I knew you were on your way, but he didn’t. You getting the Rain Bow upset him, but this will shock him, even more! Oooh, now we are in the endgame!”

  He laughed loudly, the sound echoing back from the cliff face as though twenty tengu were laughing with him.

  “Wait,” Take said. “Why am I a piece in your game?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the tengu replied. “Rest by the fire. I think there’s a flask of cold broth and some bones left if you’re hungry. Tomorrow it will all work out, you’ll see.”

  Take’s eyelids were drooping against his will. He barely found the strength to unsaddle Nyorin. The old horse shook himself, exhaled heavily, and lay down. Take drank the broth and ate the rice balls he had brought with him. He cracked open the bones with his teeth and sucked the marrow from them. He had no idea what animal they were from. Then he lay down next to Nyorin, resting his head on the horse’s shoulder. He heard the rattle and clack of the stones through his dreams.

  Toward dawn he heard Kon calling and felt the beat of wings on his face. When he woke the tengu were gone. The embers of the fire were still warm and the tree stump remained, but it was no longer carved into a grid nor was there any sign of the shells and stones.

  Was the game over? Had they moved on to play somewhere else? Or had he just dreamed it all?

  Nyorin got stiffly to his feet, snorted, and let out a stream of urine, which steamed in the freezing air.

  “I suppose we must go on,” Take said, lifting the saddle to place it on the stallion’s back.

  Something, or someone, had left a trail on the ground. At first he thought they were shells, gleaming white, but when he saw them more clearly he realized they were feathers, each tip spotted with purple.

  Did tengu bleed? Had Tadashii pulled feathers from his wings to show Take the way? He was touched by this sacrifice, but then it occurred to him the tengu would do anything to win the game.

  The trail led to a clearing by a small pool. It was full of birds, blue and white herons. They all had their heads turned in one direction, watching two young men on the bank. Kai sat on the edge of the pool, her head turned, like the birds’, toward Yoshi and Saru. Her hair covered her like a cloak. Her feet were bare. How beautiful she is, he thought with a surge of longing.

  Yoshi and Saru were walking on their hands, reflecting each other’s movements with perfect symmetry. It was a routine he remembered, but it seemed empty and sad, lacking the older men and the monkeys. He could move in and take part as he used to, but he had vowed he would never do acrobatics again. That part of his life was over. It was over for Yoshi and Saru, too. No matter how hard they tried to re-create it, as they were doing now, it was gone.

  A shadow darkened overhead. The birds all took off at once, crying in alarm. A huge tengu, Tadashii’s opponent, swooped down and seized Yoshi by the feet with its talons.

  Saru flipped over, screaming, and leaped to grab Yoshi’s hands. The unexpected weight made the tengu falter, but its wings began to beat more powerfully. Kai leaped to her feet, calling for help.

  Take pulled the bow, Ameyumi, from his back and fitted the arrow to the cord, with steady hands.

  Kon flew screeching at the tengu’s head.

  Take aimed at the body, hoping not to hit the bird. The arrow thrummed loudly above Kon’s cries and Kai’s screams. The tengu made a hideous noise and opened its claws, letting Yoshi and Saru fall heavily to the ground. Then it pulled out the arrow and threw it away, drew its sword, and flew toward Take.

  Nyorin reared, striking out with his front hoofs. In that moment Take slipped from his back, dropped the bow, and drew Jato. The sword came alive in his hand, just as the tengu delivered a savage blow at his head. He parried it, felt the shock run up to his shoulder, then jumped sideways as the backward sweep of the tengu’s sword nearly took off his arm.

  For a few moments he fought instinctively and defensively, then gradually, as time stretched out, he recalled the teachings of both Mu and Tadashii. He recovered his stance and began to notice the tengu’s weaknesses. The arrow had done some damage and the tengu was losing blood—so they definitely do bleed, purple—and despite its enormous strength, it was slower than he was.

  Kon, meanwhile, was doing his best to distract the tengu, making fluttering attacks at its face and neck. The herons returned, with their long beaks and harsh cries, and, at Kai’s urging, flew at the tengu, further disabling it. It slashed out at them angrily and one fell flapping to the ground, but in that moment Jato found the unprotected chest and thrust upward through the ribs to the heart.

  Blood gushed out, purple and frothy, but still the tengu did not die. It threw its sword at Take and, with a look of hatred in its eyes, made a gesture of surrender and
farewell. Its wings moved slowly, barely enough to lift it from the ground and clear the treetops, its feet scraping through the branches, blood dripping in large spots like summer rain.

  A noise came from the mountains, an echo of Tadashii’s laughter. Maybe I just won your game for you, Take thought, but now I have my own endgame to play.

  Yoshi and Saru lay on the ground, unmoving. For a moment he was afraid the fall had killed them, but then Saru moaned and he saw Yoshi’s eyes flicker open. He knew he should kneel and offer his sword to the Emperor, but his fury got the better of him.

  “You nearly got me killed! The birds of the air came to my aid! You could not defend yourself or help me?”

  He looked at the dying heron with sorrow. “Even the heron knows who you are and gave its life for you. Kon has followed you loyally for years. Won’t you recognize that, admit you are the Emperor and accept it?”

  For a few moments Yoshi did not reply. A deep silence filled the clearing. No birds called; even Kon was mute.

  Then the Emperor got to his feet and walked toward Kai. He held her in a close embrace, swept back her hair, and kissed her ears. He whispered something to her and she looked at Take and nodded, tears pouring from her eyes. The Emperor glanced at the heron and at Kon and then turned to Takeyoshi.

  “Kai does not want to be an emperor’s concubine. I am entrusting her to you. Bring the child up as your own. Maybe one day, if she agrees, you will marry. To honor the heron you will take it as your crest, and, as your name, Otori, like the houou that Kon has become. Now help me onto the horse.”

  Otori Takeyoshi bowed and obeyed, then lifted Kai up behind Yoshimori.

  “You can walk.” The Emperor turned the stallion’s head and rode in the direction of the capital, Take on one side, Saru on the other, the golden houou flying overhead.

  21

  SHIKANOKO

  The Emperor acted as he had threatened, and his first act, after ascending the Lotus Throne, was to exile Shikanoko from the city. Next he granted lands in the extreme west to Iida no Saru and Otori Takeyoshi, in the wild area that would come to be known as the Three Countries. In exchange for her estates of Matsutani and Kuromori, and in recognition of her family’s sacrifices and losses, he gave the domain of Maruyama, where her mother had been born, to Kiyoyori’s daughter, Lady Hina, stipulating only that it should always be inherited through the female line.

  It was as though he wanted no one around him who knew what he had been formerly, nothing to remind him of all he had lost.

  The Kakizuki lords ran the city as they had before, taking over Aritomo’s improved administration and more productive taxation system, and continuing to love music, poetry, and dancing as much as ever.

  Eisei became the abbot at Ryusonji and, with the advice of Sesshin, developed a close enough relationship with the dragon child to ensure its blessings and protection. The two werehawks lived with them. He and Sesshin also composed The Tale of Shikanoko: the ballads of the Emperor of the Eight Islands, the Autumn Princess and the Dragon Child, the Lord of the Darkwood, and the Tengu’s Game of Go, as they are known today.

  Nagatomo went to Maruyama with Lady Hina.

  In Kitakami, Mu and Kiku disagreed about everything until Mu—Master Muto by now—moved with Ibara and their children to Hagi, where Otori Takeyoshi was building a castle. Take’s courageous and cheerful nature had endeared him to the natives of his new land. He knew that life was like a game of Go, complex and demanding, but still only a game, and he was determined to play it as best he could. He and Kai came to love each other, marry, and have many children.

  Kinpoge married her cousin Juntaro, but her life and Take’s continued to be entwined, one with the other. The tengu Tadashii had been wrong, for once, when he said they would not see each other again.

  Shikanoko spent more than a year on a lonely island off the far southern coast, with only Gen for company apart from the islanders, who taught him ways to fish, as well as various secrets and spells that calmed storms and summoned sea monsters. It amused him that he had, indeed, straddled the Eight Islands, from north to south, as Kongyo had dreamed, but as an exile not as a ruler. Somewhat against his wishes, he gained a reputation for wisdom and power, and in his second spring on the island he began to receive many visitors seeking help and advice.

  One of these came in the third month, when the island’s surface was covered with tiny purple and yellow flowers and the air was filled with the chirping of seabird chicks. He wore a black silk covering over his face.

  Gen wagged his wispy tail and whimpered.

  “Nagatomo!” Shikanoko said in delight, and embraced his old friend. “What brings you here?”

  “It seems you have been pardoned, to the extent that you may leave the island, though you may not return to the capital.”

  “I hope I never visit that place again in my life!” Shikanoko replied. “But where am I to go?”

  “Anywhere you like, west of the High Cloud Mountains.”

  Shikanoko was silent, remembering, reflecting. Then he said, “So I am never to see the Darkwood again, nor Kumayama?”

  Nagatomo did not reply directly but said, “Lady Hina sent me.”

  “Is she well?”

  “She invites you to Maruyama. She said to tell you she must have a daughter to inherit the domain, but a daughter cannot be born without a father.”

  Shikanoko smiled and said, “She must have hundreds clamoring to be her husband.”

  “She will marry no one but you,” Nagatomo said. “My opinion is, you owe it to future generations.”

  “So I do,” Shika agreed. He was imagining his daughters, as wise and beautiful as Hina, as brave as Takeyoshi. And then he remembered Hina’s hands on his face as she removed the mask, and a wave of hope and longing swept over him.

  “We will leave on the next tide,” he said.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Tale of Shikanoko was partly inspired by the great medieval warrior tales of Japan: The Tale of the Heike, The Taiheiki, the tales of Hōgen and Heiji, the Jōkyūki, and The Tale of the Soga Brothers. I have borrowed descriptions of weapons and clothes from these and am indebted to their English translators Royall Tyler, Helen Craig McCullough, and Thomas J. Cogan.

  I would like to thank in particular Randy Schadel, who read early versions of the novels and made many invaluable suggestions.

  All four volumes of Lian Hearn’s The Tale of Shikanoko will be published in 2016.

  EMPEROR OF THE EIGHT ISLANDS

  April 2016

  AUTUMN PRINCESS, DRAGON CHILD

  June 2016

  LORD OF THE DARKWOOD

  August 2016

  THE TENGU’S GAME OF GO

  September 2016

  FSG Originals

  www.fsgoriginals.com

  ALSO BY LIAN HEARN

  TALES OF THE OTORI

  Across the Nightingale Floor

  Grass for His Pillow

  Brilliance of the Moon

  The Harsh Cry of the Heron

  Heaven’s Net Is Wide

  Blossoms and Shadows

  The Storyteller and His Three Daughters

  THE TALE OF SHIKANOKO

  Emperor of the Eight Islands

  Autumn Princess, Dragon Child

  Lord of the Darkwood

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lian Hearn is the pseudonym of a writer—born in England, educated at Oxford, currently living in Australia—who has had a lifelong interest in Japan, has lived there, and studies Japanese. She is the author of the bestselling series Tales of the Otori. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Epigraph

  The Tale of Shikanoko List of Characters

  Map

  1. Aritomo

  2. Masachika

  3. Takeyoshi

  4. Masachika

  5. Mu

  6. Takeyoshi

  7. Tama

  8. Mu

  9. Bara

  10. Shikanoko

  11. Hina

  12. Masachika

  13. Tama

  14. Masachika

  15. Hina

  16. Masachika

  17. Aritomo

  18. Hina

  19. Shikanoko

  20. Takeyoshi

  21. Shikanoko

  Author’s Note

  Books in the Tale of Shikanoko Series

  Also by Lian Hearn

  A Note About the Author

  Copyright

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

  Copyright © 2016 by Lian Hearn Associates Pty Ltd.

  All rights reserved

  Originally published in 2016 by Hachette Australia

  Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  First American edition, 2016

  Map by K1229 Design

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hearn, Lian, author.

  Title: The Tengu’s game of go / Lian Hearn.

  Description: First American edition. | New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. | Series: The tale of Shikanoko; book 4