by Steve Bein
Her fingers probed this way and that until she found the lip of another hatch. It wasn’t heavy like the last one. As soon as she opened it, she saw the welcome glow of purple light. Ryujin’s Claw had raked open the keel, and through those gashes she could see coral. These were the wounds that condemned the outlanders’ ship. This was the sea dragon’s deathblow.
And trapped in a mashed, splintered corner was the sword. The mask let her see nothing else. She dived for it. It was a good way down, four or five body-lengths at least. As soon as her fingers wrapped around it, her desire for it vanished, and all of a sudden she felt the wild heaving of her diaphragm. She’d all but expended her body’s breath. And she was twice as deep as she’d ever gone before.
She looked down at the coral and up at the hatch she’d come through. The shortest route to the surface went straight up through the wreck. But there was no straight line there, only a dark and circuitous path. The clearest route lay outside in the open water, but she had to swim farther down to get free of the carrack. She was already far too deep. And the sword was as heavy as an anchor.
It was never the easy choice, swimming down instead of up. But obviously Shioko had tried swimming upward. Kaida was the stronger swimmer, up or down, but Shioko hadn’t shared Kaida’s fear of being trapped in the wreck. And Kaida had already spent too much time choosing. Black spots formed drifting schools in her vision.
Up, down, both options were probably fatal. There was no doubting it. Kaida gave herself over to the mask and the sword. They pulled her downward, out of the wreckage.
Escaping its innards was such a relief that it gave her newfound hope. She even had a flash of insight: she knew she lacked the strength to drag her two anchors all the way to the surface, but perhaps she could use the hull as a sort of ladder, launching herself one push at a time, just like kicking off the sea floor. Suddenly the broken carrack became the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Then she looked up. As soon as she realized just how deep she was, she knew she’d never make it.
49
The black spots in her vision pressed in, multiplied, reeled drunkenly. She saw more darkness than light. Being the strongest diver of her generation meant less than the fact that, unburdened, her body would float to the surface even if she were dead. At least her father would have the chance to give her a proper funeral. Shioko’s mother could not say the same.
Kaida’s lungs had long since stopped hurting. Even her diaphragm had given up its death throes. Kaida pushed off the wreckage one last time, then let her body’s buoyancy do what it could for her. She didn’t think it would count for much.
She blacked out entirely. She could no longer sense the water moving around her, and because of that she was no longer sure she was even floating upward. She vomited into her mouth. Pushing the filth out let seawater in. Kaida knew it was the first taste of drowning.
And then she broke the surface. Her gasps of breath didn’t even sound human. Still seeing black, she nearly slipped below the surface again, but sheer animal instinct forced her legs to kick.
Soon enough daylight pressed its way into her vision. Genzai’s boat was not far away. It bobbed crazily on the waves—or was it Kaida’s mind lurching, throwing everything off-kilter? He was saying something, but she had to get her breath under control before she could hear him.
“Where is the mask?” he bellowed. It was the first time she’d ever heard him raise his voice.
“Down,” she said, gasping, paddling toward his boat like a wounded animal. “Down there.”
“The tether is broken,” he said. She saw Tadaaki beside him, holding the dripping, limp end of it. “And broken cleanly. You cut it?”
“Had to.” Kaida’s breath still came raggedly. “Can’t—can’t dive with it.”
“You cut the cord to the mask,” said Genzai. He’d regained control of his temper. “If you’ve lost it for us, I will kill you. You know this.”
“Anchor line,” Kaida said. At last she reached Genzai’s rowboat. She didn’t want to swim to him, but his was the closest boat, and her body swam to it instinctually, without her willing it.
“Make sense, girl.”
“Anchor line,” she said, hooking the gunwale in her feeble grip. “Haul it in.”
“I felt it the moment you cut it,” said Genzai, his fury so hot she thought she could see it rising from him like the sun shimmering on sand. But that too might have been a trick of her staggering air-starved mind. “I can only assume you cut the anchor line for spite. That will not be the offense I kill you for. Tadaaki, pull in that line. And you, girl, tell me about my sword and mask.”
At first Kaida could not answer. Her relief at having something sturdy to hold, some reason to think she might escape drowning, left her incapable of anything other than a weak, exhausted smile.
“Well? Speak! I will have you tell me where you left the mask before I send your body back down to join it.”
“It was too heavy,” Kaida said. “The sword too. I couldn’t swim back up with them. So I tied them to the anchor line.”
Even as she said it, the demon mask rose toward the surface. Trailing it was a broken wooden spar, the anchor point that had connected Genzai’s little boat to the wreck until Kaida kicked it loose, her last conscious act before ascending to the surface. Trailing the spar and the mask was the sword known as Glorious Victory Unsought.
Kaida watched the light play on them as they came up. They were the strangest school of fish she’d ever seen.
Genzai rumbled like distant thunder, and his anger seemed to lessen somewhat. His breath was less audible, at any rate, and his shoulders and jaws relaxed. Perhaps it was relief at seeing the sword, and no abatement in his anger at all. Kaida wondered if he still meant to kill her.
At length, begrudgingly, he said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to make good on my word.”
“And then some,” Kaida said.
He grunted again. “You press your luck too far, little girl.”
“You said whoever got the sword could name her reward. And you promised to take me with you if I told you how we could dive better. So I did. I told you to tether the mask, not our ankles.”
“What of it?”
The strange fish were almost to the surface now, close enough that she could make out the fangs and horns of the mask. “So you were sworn to take me with you even if the sword remained at the bottom until the ocean dries up. Now you owe me my reward as well.”
He grunted again, almost growling. She didn’t look up, but she could hear him scratching behind his beard. “This one’s too clever by half,” Tadaaki said.
“She is. And damn it all, I’m a man of my word. Name your price, Kaida-san.”
“Not here,” she whispered. “There are too many people listening.”
She wasn’t wrong. Every last villager fixated on her, agape, stunned into silence. Not only had Kaida spared the village from Genzai’s wrath, but she’d also pulled off the impossible, diving deeper and longer than the best ama in the village. She did not meet their stares, and did not speak again until all the other boats had turned in to shore. She waited until the wild-haired grandfather had his iron mask back in hand and Tadaaki had bound the Inazuma blade to his own body, so that even if he were killed it would not sink out of reach again. All the while Genzai scowled at her wordlessly.
At last she asked him, “You’re shinobi, neh? Men of magic?”
“There are no magic men. The only place you’ll find shinobi is in fairy tales.”
“Fairy tales and in this boat. You said it earlier. ‘Spoken like a true shinobi.’ That’s what you said.”
“Too clever by half,” he muttered, frowning at her. “If I were any other man, I’d drown you here and now.”
“But you’re not. You’re a man of your word.”
His grimace became a squint-eyed scowl. “Name your price, then.”
“I want to be one of you. A shinobi. I want you to train m
e.”
He scratched behind his beard. “You do not know what you ask.”
“What need is there to know? I know I cannot stay here. I know my father would do better to see me go than to see me killed by his own stepdaughter’s hand. And I know if I go with you, you’ll sell me off as a whore at your first opportunity. Neh?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Then I need you to make me one of your own. I cannot dive and fish for the rest of my life. Now I see how much more is possible. I don’t want to be pushed around ever again. Nobody pushes you around. You overpowered my whole village with six men. I want to learn how to do that.”
Genzai scowled. A guttural growl rumbled out of him.
The wild-haired one finally broke the silence. “She has her uses,” he said, caressing the mask in his hands. “She has proven her fortitude. And cripples pose no threat. We can put her close to targets we could not otherwise approach.”
“Nonsense,” said Genzai. “There is no place the Wind cannot reach.”
Kaida had no idea what that meant. They didn’t give her time to puzzle it out. “She did retrieve the sword for us,” said Tadaaki, seeming to meet Kaida’s gaze with his missing eye.
“And you would speak to me of what? Debt? Morality?” Genzai scoffed. “The Wind recognizes neither. We have the sword in hand. What is past is irrelevant.”
“Your word isn’t,” said Kaida. All this talk of wind made little sense to her, but she understood moral obligation well enough. “Your word may be in the past, but it matters in the present. You said I could name my reward. Do you stand by that or not?”
“Watch your mouth or I’ll sew it shut,” said Genzai. “Do not take that tone with me again.”
There was an uneasy silence, broken at last by the old man with the wild white hair. “There is another consideration. We have achieved our ends, yes. With or without the girl, we can deliver the Inazuma to whomever we wish. But when that man falls, or when his ambitions no longer coincide with our own, we must place the sword in new hands.”
“What of it?” said Genzai.
“For that we may require the mask again. The other divers did not succeed with it. Can we say with certainty that we know why? Perhaps this cripple was the stronger swimmer, or perhaps her spirit has an accord with the mask, one we do not yet understand. This girl may be a tool for us, just as the sword and the mask are tools.”
“Then we will forge another tool. I will not be a wet nurse.”
“Masa spoke highly of her,” said Tadaaki, seeming to study her again with that empty pit that should have been an eye. “Sharp ears and a strong heart, that’s what he said.”
“He did,” said Genzai.
An image flashed in Kaida’s mind: Masa’s drowned body falling lifelessly to the sand. Then came another image: Masa falling to the sand in a fit of laughter. She’d felt embarrassment at the time, but now she understood that he hadn’t been mocking her; he’d merely been taken aback by her naïveté. If he was mocking anyone, it was Ama-machi.
Hearing he’d spoken up for her gave Kaida a little surge of pride. It also gave her hope. Masa had perceived Ama-machi’s true nature; he understood why it could never be Kaida’s home. His vote of confidence in her said she could find a home among these men. And Masa and Genzai had been good friends. Kaida was sure of it: she’d seen Genzai’s distress when Masa died. Genzai would take Masa’s word seriously. He just had to take Kaida in. She had no other prospects for survival.
“No,” Genzai said. “I cannot. I will not.” Kaida thought he meant to speak with finality, but she also thought she heard a hint of doubt in his deep, grating voice.
“Consider it this way,” Tadaaki said. “You may get lucky. Like as not she’ll die in the training.”
That got an appreciative nod out of Genzai. “What do you say to that, little girl? He has it right: you may not become one of us. You’re far more likely to become a corpse.”
“Better than dying in Ama-machi.”
“Is it?” He scratched behind his beard. “I suppose it may be at that.” Then he shook his head, as if snapping out of a bad dream. “No. You will find no place among us.”
“Then you lose nothing by taking me in,” Kaida said.
“We have no soft futon for you, only a dirt floor. We would sooner serve you shoe leather than fish. Do you think your sisters torment you? Our sensei are worse. Do you think it was difficult, diving for Glorious Victory Unsought? We will push you into the depths of hell. Do not underestimate the comforts of home.”
“A crippled girl is not at home anywhere. My mother is gone and my father has turned his back on me. My village is a prison and my house is a cage of predators. If a cold corner on your dirt floor is all the home you can offer me, it is still more than this crippled orphan can expect.”
“You may live to regret those words.”
“Then make me regret them. Take me with you.”
The two of them studied each other a long time. Kaida could not put her finger on what it was—a slight relaxing of the shoulders, perhaps, a hint of resignation in his breath—but she knew it the moment he changed his mind.
“You cannot kill me willfully,” Kaida said. “You must swear to do your best to train me. If I die anyway . . . well, that’s the fate I get.”
“We shall see soon enough. Welcome to the Wind.”
BOOK NINE
AZUCHI-MOMOYAMA PERIOD, THE YEAR 21
(1588 CE)
50
The brothel in Minakuchi was called the Bridge to the Other Shore and it was true to its name. The broad reception room was in fact a bridge: a narrow brook bisected its floor, burbling pleasantly and giving the building an unusually cool atmosphere. The brothel itself was unusually long and unusually narrow, extending from the road over the brook and deep into the bamboo grove flanking the road. The interior walls were reminiscent of a covered bridge in their construction, just substantial enough to contain the milder air within them.
After a long day of hot late summer riding, Daigoro knew he should have found the Bridge to the Other Shore refreshing. Instead, he felt no less embarrassed than the first time he’d entered a pleasure house. Evidently these things grew no easier with time.
Nevertheless, he knew Katsushima had advised him rightly: he could only afford to stay with those who would not betray his presence. He had even hoped to find Katsushima here, though that was all but hopeless. The brothels along the Tokaido were countless, Katsushima could have chosen any one of them, and none of them would disclose the fact that he was there. That was precisely why wanted ronin took their lodging in a house that knew the value of discretion.
As Katsushima did not happen to be dangling his feet in the brook, Daigoro had no way of knowing whether his friend was under the same roof. He saw only the girls, so delicate that they almost seemed weightless. One of them bowed as he entered and escorted him across the zigzagging slate bridge in the center of the room. “Welcome to the Other Shore,” she said.
Daigoro endured the standard conversational gymnastics, deflecting her flirtations and bandying about food and comfort as an indirect way of discussing the price of a room. Katsushima had always found the game exhilarating, but as Daigoro had no intention of laying claim to one of the girls in the end, he only found it tiresome. He was scarcely a day’s ride out of Kyoto, he’d already gone two days without sleeping, and there was yet more to do before bedding down tonight.
But his rooms were comfortable, the food was warm and filling, and the very walls were redolent with perfume and incense and spice. He almost nodded off while drinking his tea.
It was the sensation of slipping into sleep that caused him to snap back, wakeful and wary. He’d escaped the sprawling capital, but Minakuchi and the Other Shore were still in the heart of the Kansai, and visions of General Mio’s mutilated body left Daigoro feeling cold. He would not feel safe until he was well clear of Shichio’s hunting grounds.
He called
for the madam and asked for a girl who was skilled in conversation. It was one of the geisha arts, and an expensive one at that. Daigoro wasn’t sure what he’d do when his money ran out—he’d never been paid to work in his entire life, and hadn’t the slightest idea of how to go about seeking employment—but he needed to gather information and he remembered Katsushima mentioning on their long ride from Izu that this was the best way to do that. Daigoro wished he had Katsushima with him now.
The girl’s name was Hanako and her kimono was of the palest blue silk, tastefully embroidered with parasols the color of cherry blossoms. She was tiny, not as pretty as Aki but shapely enough to make Daigoro remember how long he’d been away from home. They talked about trivia first, but only long enough for Daigoro to steer the conversation toward politics. “I hear the regent has been beset by something of a storm,” he said. “One of his chief advisers retired or was sent away, I’m told.”
“Oh yes, quite the to-do,” said Hanako. “Only the adviser did not take his leave; Toyotomi-sama executed his adviser on grounds of treason. Can you believe it? It was one of his generals as I recall, a man called Mio.”
“Is that so?”
“Neh?” Hanako clearly found the whole affair terribly scandalous, and all the more delicious for that. “They say Mio-sama was caught with letters to Tokugawa Ieyasu. You know who he is, of course. Well, the regent couldn’t very well have the likes of Tokugawa killed, neh? Think of the message that would send to all the other great houses! So he ordered Mio-sama to open his belly.” She giggled. “And it was quite a belly. As I heard it, this General Mio could have swallowed a whale.”
