The Way of the Sword

by Unknown

37

  BODY CHALLENGE

  The rain fell as hard as nails.

  The single-track road, churned up by the horses’ hooves and pedestrian traffic, had become a quagmire of mud slowing their progress to that of a snail’s. The tall trees on either side rose up into a sky pregnant with black clouds and blocked out much of the evening’s fading light. There was a growing unease among the travellers as they wound their way through the wooded mountain pass to the town of Iga Ueno, for the dark recesses of the forest concealed any number of dangers, from wild boars to pillaging bandits.

  The column of students trudged on wearily, headed by Masamoto and Sensei Hosokawa on horseback. Although only six entrants had been accepted into the Circle of Three, there had been an open invitation for supporters to attend. Around half the school had decided to join the expedition. Many were now regretting that decision.

  Suddenly something broke from the undergrowth and flew at Sensei Hosokawa.

  The sensei’s sword flashed in the twilight.

  But it stopped short as a black-feathered grouse flew overhead. The bird would never know how close it had just come to death.

  Masamoto laughed. ‘Scared of an old bird, my friend? Or were you thinking of killing it for your supper?’

  Jack noticed that Sensei Yosa had also gone for her weapon and was cautiously releasing the tension on her bow and returning the arrow to her quiver. In fact, out of all the sensei, only Sensei Kano had remained at ease, seemingly aware from the very start that the threat was harmless.

  ‘Why are the sensei so jumpy?’ asked Jack, quickening his pace to walk beside Akiko. Not that he was any less nervous. Despite being under the direct protection of Masamoto, Jack was concerned that some unwitting samurai loyal to daimyo Kamakura might try to expel him from Japan, either respectfully or by the sword.

  ‘We’re passing through ninja territory,’ whispered Akiko.

  In Jack’s mind, every shadow in the forest suddenly grew eyes. He caught a movement on the edge of his vision, but it turned out to be nothing more than the swaying of a branch. Behind him, Yamato, Saburo, Yori and Kiku, who had overheard their conversation, glanced around nervously, little Yori turning white as a sheet.

  ‘This region is the stronghold of the Iga clans,’ continued Akiko under her breath. ‘In fact, these mountains provided refuge against General Nobunaga’s attempted destruction of the ninja thirty years ago. He brought in over forty thousand troops against some four thousand ninja. The ninja still survived and somewhere in those mountains is Dokugan Ryu’s hiding place.’

  ‘But how do you know all this?’ asked Jack.

  ‘From stories, hearsay, the sensei…’ She trailed off and pointed up ahead. ‘Look, we’re nearly there. Hakuhojo, the Castle of the White Phoenix.’

  Through the rain and mist, Jack saw that the track had opened out into a small valley basin ringed by mountains. In the distance a three-tiered castle of white wood and grey tiled roofs materialized. However, the mist quickly descended and the castle disappeared as if it were a ghost in a storm.

  Night had fallen by the time they reached the outskirts of Iga Ueno and the castle was now only discernible by the lanterns that burned within.

  Jack was relieved to enter the safety of the town. The journey from Kyoto had been tough and, like everyone else, he was soaked through, cold and tired. His back was stiff from carrying his pack and his muscles were aching and sore from dragging his feet through the mud. He would be glad to reach their temple lodgings, get a warm bath, food and a good night’s sleep.

  ‘Get up!’ ordered Sensei Kyuzo, kicking the sleeping form of Jack with his foot. ‘The Circle of Three begins now.’

  Jack struggled to his feet, bleary-eyed. He’d not been asleep more than an hour when the sensei had begun rounding up the entrants. Jack followed his taijutsu master along the corridor and entered the main temple, a dark wood-panelled room lit by softly glowing lanterns. The room was dominated by a large wooden Buddha, which emanated such spiritual energy it seemed to have a life all of its own.

  As Jack lined up with the others facing the shrine, he was greeted by several rows of shaven-headed monks in brilliant white robes chanting a mantra that sounded as if it had been sung since the beginning of time.

  ‘…om amogha vairocana mahamudra manipadma jvala pravarttaya hum…’

  ‘It’s the Mantra of Light,’ whispered Yori reverentially. He stood next to Jack, nervously tugging at a paper crane concealed in his hand. ‘The phrase contains the Buddha’s wisdom which helps guide these monks to satori.’

  Jack nodded and gave his friend what he hoped was a confident smile. In reality, he was a bundle of nerves and excitement. After four trials and several months of training, the Circle of Three and its three challenges of Mind, Body and Spirit would be revealed to them.

  A sudden stab of doubt struck his heart. Had his impatience to learn the Two Heavens clouded his judgement? Was he ready for such a test? He was so tired from the journey and he now realized their sleep had been disrupted as a trick to unsettle the entrants at the first stage. The challenge of the Circle of Three had already begun.

  He glanced down the line in Akiko’s direction. Despite the determined look in her eyes, the dark shadows that ringed them showed she too was exhausted from the long journey. Next to her was Harumi, the other girl contender, who appeared equally tired. At the end stood Tadashi. He nodded to Jack and held up a clenched fist as a sign of encouragement. Kazuki then filed in and stood next to Jack, but ignored him completely.

  Led by Masamoto, the teachers entered and seated themselves to one side. Then the student supporters filed in and knelt behind them in four neat rows. The monks’ chant rolled to an end, receding like the sound of a wave, and the High Priest stood to greet the congregation. The priest’s face was old and wrinkled, but his body appeared as resilient as stone and, like the Buddha statue, radiated a powerful inner energy.

  ‘Welcome, Masamoto-sama, to the Tendai Temple,’ he said in the serene voice of a man at peace with himself.

  ‘Thank you for allowing us to stay as your humble guests,’ Masamoto replied, bowing low to the priest. ‘May I present to you our entrants for the Circle of Three? May they prove worthy in Mind, Body and Spirit.’

  He gestured towards Jack and the others with a wide sweep of his hand. The priest surveyed the six young samurai, his eyes falling upon Jack last. Jack was hypnotized by the intensity of the old monk’s gaze. As deep as a well and as infinite as the sky, it was as if the monk was aware of everything. Jack felt he was staring into the eyes of a living god.

  ‘We shall begin with the Body challenge,’ announced the priest.

  Stepping forward, he blessed each of the entrants with words that Jack didn’t understand, but sensed had great power. Once the priest had finished, six novice monks stepped forward with a cup of water, a bowl of thin miso soup and a small ball of rice. They handed each in turn to the entrants. Realizing how hungry he was, Jack drained his soup and water and devoured the rice ball in a matter of moments.

  Next they were presented with three pairs of straw sandals, a white vestment, a sheathed knife, a rope, a book, a paper lantern and a long straw hat shaped like the upturned hull of a boat. The monks helped the entrants into the white robe, tied the hat to their heads and slipped a pair of the sandals on to their bare feet.

  Throughout all this, no explanation was given.

  ‘What’s all this for?’ whispered Jack to the monk who was helping him to dress in the strange assortment of clothing and equipment.

  The monk, busy with wrapping the rope round Jack’s waist, looked up.

  ‘You’re wearing a robe of white, the Buddhist colour of death, to remind you of how close you will come to the limits of life itself,’ he whispered. ‘The rope is known as “the cord of death”. This, together with the knife, serves to remind all novice monks of their duty to take their life if they do not complete their pilgrimage, either by hanging or self-disembowelment.�
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  Not being a monk, Jack was glad this rule didn’t apply to him.

  The preparations complete, their lanterns were lit and the six entrants were led outside into the darkened temple courtyard. The rain had eased, but there was a chill wind blowing and Jack gave an involuntary shudder.

  The priest, sheltering beneath an umbrella held by one of his monks, beckoned them into the centre of the courtyard. The six of them gathered round, each shivering in their own pool of lantern light, their faces drawn and anxious.

  ‘You are to complete just one day of the Thousand Day Pilgrimage my Tendai monks have to accomplish as part of their spiritual training,’ he announced. ‘Our temple believes challenge is a mountain with enlightenment at its peak. Climb the mountain and satori is yours.’

  The priest pointed into the darkness. Against the thunderous sky, Jack could just make out the shadowy outline of a mountain backlit by sheet lightning.

  ‘You will go to the top of the first Circle of Three and back, praying at each of the twenty shrines marked in your books,’ explained the priest. ‘You will undertake this challenge alone. You cannot stop to sleep. You are not allowed to eat. And you must return to this temple before the first light of dawn strikes the eyes of the wooden Buddha.’

  The priest looked at each of them in turn, his gaze seeming to penetrate their very souls.

  ‘If you hear my monks complete the Mantra of Light, then you are too late.’

  38

  RUNNING ON EMPTY

  Jack had hit his limit.

  He couldn’t go on. His body was rebelling and a lonesome desperation descended upon him as he listened to the sound of his straw sandals squelching in the mud.

  The rain, which had slackened at the start of the challenge, was now cascading in a torrential downpour and Jack was soaked to the skin. His feet were aching blocks of ice, his second pair of straw sandals were already disintegrating, and his muscles burned with a sickening pain.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  He wasn’t allowed to.

  ‘To reach the top, you have to climb a mountain step by step,’ the High Priest had told the six Circle entrants prior to commencing the Body challenge. ‘You will experience pain on this journey, but remember the pain is only a symptom of the effort you’re putting into the task. You must break through this barrier.’

  But Jack was finding the pain too great to overcome. He’d been running for over half the night. He was hungry and weak from exhaustion; the energy from the pitiful last meal was already burnt up and he had visited only fourteen of the twenty shrines he had to reach before dawn.

  Jack stumbled on.

  But the fifteenth shrine was still nowhere in sight. Surely he must have passed it by now. He began to question whether the Two Heavens could be worth such physical punishment and all the momentum from his body ebbed away as his mind took hold, coaxing him to stop.

  ‘Climb the mountain and satori is yours,’ the priest had told them.

  Jack no longer cared for enlightenment. All he wanted was a bed and to be warm and dry. He felt his pace almost grinding to a halt.

  This challenge was impossible. How was he supposed to find his way along mountain trails, made treacherous by the rain, in complete darkness? Somehow he was meant to cover a distance equivalent to crossing the Channel from England to France, with only a paper lantern to light the way and a tiny book of directions to guide him to each of the twenty shrines.

  There was no chance of taking a short cut, since the shrines had to be visited in a set order and his book stamped with an ink woodblock to prove he’d been there. Jack wished he had someone else to follow and encourage him on, but each entrant had been separated by a short period of time measured by the burning of a stick of incense. He was alone in his suffering.

  Without food or sleep, he wondered whether anyone would get to the temple’s main shrine before the first light of dawn struck the eyes of the wooden Buddha.

  Despair had Jack in its grip and it weakened the last threads of his determination. His foot struck something solid and he went tumbling forward.

  Jack fell to his knees, defeated.

  His lantern, miraculously still burning in the downpour, illuminated an old moss-covered gravestone. The whole trail, Jack had discovered, was littered with such burial sites, each one marking the mortal fate of a monk who had failed in his pilgrimage.

  He looked down at the rope round his waist and the knife in his belt. That would not be his fate, however desperate things became.

  Jack attempted to stand, but the effort was too great and he slumped to his hands and knees in the mud. His body had given up.

  The Circle of Three had broken him at the first hurdle.

  Jack had no idea how long he stayed there on all fours in the pouring rain, but deep in the recesses of his mind he heard Sensei Yamada’s voice, ‘Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would expect you to fall apart, now that’s true strength.’

  Jack hung on to these words like a lifeline. His sensei was right. He must continue. This was his path to becoming a true samurai warrior. His fast track to learning the unbeatable Two Heavens technique.

  Jack crawled through the mud.

  He willed himself to rise above the pain in his legs and knees.

  He had to complete the Body challenge.

  He reminded himself that this single night’s task represented only one day of the Thousand Day Pilgrimage the Tendai monks had to complete as part of their spiritual training. The High Priest had told them that over a period of seven years, his disciples would run the equivalent of the circumference of the world. Only forty-six monks had ever completed this extraordinary ritual in the past four centuries, but the old priest was living proof that it could be done. He was the forty-sixth. If that old man could complete one thousand days, then surely Jack could manage one.

  He lifted his head, letting the cool rain wash the grime from his face. In the darkness, a glint of light from his lantern reflected off the fifteenth shrine only a little farther up the path.

  Don’t try to eat an elephant for lunch.

  The phrase popped out of nowhere and Jack laughed at the absurd saying Sensei Yamada had given Yori. But now he understood.

  By breaking down the course into smaller sections and tackling it piece by piece, perhaps he could finish the challenge. Jack focused on the fifteenth shrine as his first achievable goal. A trickle of energy seeped into his body and he got back to his feet. He took one unsteady step forward, then another, each step bringing him closer to his goal of the fifteenth shrine.

  Reaching the shrine, Jack rejoiced and said a little prayer. The words filled him with optimism. With a renewed determination that masked his aches and pains, he stamped his book and set off down the path to his next goal, the sixteenth shrine.

  He was running. He had broken through the pain barrier the High Priest had spoken of. But Jack hadn’t gone twenty paces when he spotted two red eyes glaring at him out of the darkness.

  A strangled scream erupted from this devilish apparition and it charged straight at him.

  39

  YORI

  Jack barely had time to avoid the bloody tusks as he dived for cover.

  The wild boar thundered towards him, its head down to attack. The tusks slashed upwards, missing Jack’s left leg by a hair’s breadth. The animal careered past before disappearing into the undergrowth.

  Jack lay there in the bushes, panting for breath. He listened to the hellish squeal recede until eventually it was drowned out by the storm. In his desperation to evade the wild boar, Jack had dropped his lantern and it now lay crushed and useless in the mud, its flame extinguished.

  What was he to do now? It was the middle of the night and the dense forest meant he could barely see more than a few feet in front of him. He would surely get lost on the mountainside if he tried to find his way down in the darkness. And, he reminded himself, he was deep
in ninja territory. His chances of finishing the challenge, let alone getting off the mountain alive, were minimal.

  Having been the last to start, there was also little point in waiting to be discovered. If he stayed put, there was a danger of dying from the extreme cold.

  His predicament couldn’t be much worse. Too tired to cry, he got angry instead. Getting to his feet, Jack stumbled onwards down the path.

  He would not be defeated by this mountain.

  He would survive.

  He walked straight into a tree.

  Jack cursed, but kept going. He remembered the lesson the Daruma Doll had taught him the previous year in Taryu-Jiai. Seven times down, eight times up.

  Taking a moment to calm himself, Jack realized he should be using the techniques Sensei Kano had taught him in sensitivity training. With hands outstretched, he cautiously felt and listened his way through the forest.

  For the first time ever, Jack began to appreciate what Sensei Kano faced on a daily basis, and his admiration for the blind teacher grew ten thousandfold. For the bō master, life was a constant struggle through a pitch-black forest, yet he took it all in his stride.

  Having got his own troubles into perspective, Jack battled on.

  Rounding a corner and heading down the trail, he noticed a flickering light in the darkness. As he got closer, Jack could hear a low moaning. He quickened his pace. He saw a figure lying in the mud and recognized Yori.

  ‘What happened? Are you all right?’ asked Jack, stumbling up to him.

  ‘A boar attacked me,’ Yori groaned, his face pale with shock in the glow of his paper lantern.

  Jack redirected the light and inspected his friend for injuries. He discovered Yori had a large gash on his right thigh. It was bleeding badly and Jack knew he would have to get his friend off the mountain as soon as possible, if he was to have any chance of surviving. Jack ripped off the sleeve of his robe and tied it tightly round Yori’s leg to stem the bleeding.