by Unknown
As the light began to fade, Jack made one last plea.
‘This is our one and only opportunity to find Dragon Eye before he finds us again.’
‘But he has no reason to return. He’s got your rutter,’ countered Yamato.
‘The logbook is encrypted. Only I know how to decipher it,’ Jack revealed. ‘Once Dragon Eye realizes this, he will be back.’
Jack knew the ninja was enlisting the help of a Chinese cryptologist, but he doubted the man could easily break a code written in such an unfamiliar language. It would take time. The question was: how long?
Dragon Eye might lose patience and decide to break Jack instead.
5
MOTHER LOVE
‘I’ve a very bad feeling about this place,’ muttered Yamato, his right hand anxiously clasping the shaft of his bō staff.
Shindo’s only road was deserted. Dust swirled in lonely eddies and disappeared between a row of rundown shacks that appeared as if they’d been dumped from the sky then forgotten. Though the day was warm and sunny, heat and light seemed to shun the village and the interiors of every abode remained dark and uninviting.
‘It’s a ghost town,’ said Jack, a chill running down his spine as they tethered their two horses and entered the lifeless village.
‘Not quite,’ whispered Akiko. ‘We’re being watched.’
Jack and Yamato exchanged nervous glances.
‘By whom?’ Yamato asked.
‘That little girl for one,’ replied Akiko, nodding towards a thatched hut on their right.
Hidden in darkness, a small dirty face with wide fearful eyes peeked out at them, then disappeared. Akiko headed over to the shack, looking back over her shoulder when Jack and Yamato failed to follow.
‘Come on, you two. I think you can handle a little girl, can’t you?’
Shamed by their lack of nerve, they both hurried after her.
Akiko peered into the darkness beyond the doorway, then called, ‘Hello? Excuse me?’
Inside, they could hear a rattling wheeze of breath like a dying dog’s. Suddenly a man’s hollow-cheeked face appeared at the door.
‘Leave us be,’ he snapped. ‘We’ve nothing to give you.’
The little girl they’d seen earlier was now hiding behind the man’s legs, her eyes fixated on Jack’s blond hair. Jack smiled at her.
‘We’re sorry to disturb you, but we don’t want anything,’ explained Akiko.
‘Where is everyone?’ Yamato asked.
‘They left. You should too.’
The man began to push the flimsy door of his hut closed.
‘But we’ve come to find Kunitome-san,’ Jack insisted.
The man stared at Jack as if noticing his presence for the first time. His face remained blank, the strange sight of a foreigner clearly nothing compared to the horrors he’d already witnessed.
The man snorted.
‘That devil! He’s dead!’
‘What? When did that happen?’ Jack asked. ‘Who killed him?’
The man sighed, the burden of conversation seeming to drain him.
‘He committed suicide. By his own sword,’ spat the man. ‘He’s the reason this village is dead. That swordmaker was a blessing and a curse for Shindo. His skill drew people here from far and wide and we villagers welcomed the money they brought. But his art in devilry, forging evil blades, attracted the worst sort. Now he’s gone, no one comes. But his spirit remains. It casts a dark shadow over Shindo. You should leave. This place is bad karma.’
‘So why haven’t you left?’ Yamato enquired, putting his hand against the door as the man tried to close it.
‘We would, but do you hear that?’ said the man, referring to the rattling wheeze. ‘That’s my sick mother. She refuses to die. And until she passes away, we’re stuck in this death trap. Now goodbye.’
With that, he shut the door in their faces.
They looked at one another, astounded at the man’s story.
‘Seems we’ve come to the end of the trail,’ said Yamato, the relief in his voice apparent. ‘No point in hanging around, we’d better head back before Kuma-san notices we’re gone.’
‘No,’ said Jack, walking in the opposite direction to Yamato. ‘We’ve still got to find the Dragon Temple that Orochi talked about. Look, that must be it.’
The village road ended in a large, eerie temple that sat upon an earthen mound, its red and green paint faded and peeling. Tiles were missing from the roof and two carved dragon finials had fallen from its corners to lie rotting on the ground. The main door to the temple was open and about as tempting as a tomb.
‘You’re not going in there, are you?’ said Yamato, appealing to Akiko for support. ‘It looks as if it’s going to fall down at any moment!’
Akiko smiled apologetically, then followed Jack up the worn stone steps.
Inside, as if all light had been sucked out, the temple appeared an ominous cave of darkness and shadows. Where the smell of incense should have been, only the stink of decay hung in the air.
Jack stepped across the threshold and peered into the gloom.
He almost cried out at the sight of two gargantuan warriors on either side of him, their muscles rippling, their faces contorted. One, who was baring his teeth, wielded a huge thunderbolt club. The other, his mouth tightly shut, swung an immense sword.
Jack stumbled into Akiko.
‘They’re just Niō,’ she laughed. ‘Temple guardians.’
‘They’re terrifying!’ exclaimed Jack, gathering his wits at the sight of the gigantic wooden statues.
He followed Akiko warily inside and over to the central altar where a number of smaller effigies encircled a dust-ridden Buddha. ‘What are the warrior statues guarding?’
‘The Buddha, of course. The right statue is Agyō. He symbolizes violence. The statue on the left with the sword is Ungyō. He depicts strength,’ Akiko explained, then pointed to their faces. ‘Do you see the first one has his mouth open and the other has his closed? They form the sounds “ah” and “un”, the first and last characters of the Buddhist language. Together they encompass all knowledge.’
‘History lesson over,’ Yamato butted in. ‘There’s no one here. This is a complete waste of time. Now that Kunitomesan’s committed suicide, we’ve hit a dead end. We’ll never find Dragon Eye, so let’s go.’
As Yamato turned to leave, there was a shuffling noise behind the Buddha.
‘The swordmaker didn’t commit suicide!’ rasped a figure in the darkness.
They all spun round to defend themselves. An old hunched woman, dressed in a ragged cowl and robe, hobbled towards them through the shadows.
‘Our apologies,’ said Akiko, startled. ‘We didn’t mean to disturb your prayers.’
‘Prayers!’ she croaked. ‘I long since abandoned my faith in Buddha. I was sleeping until you rats scurried in.’
‘We were just going,’ explained Yamato, taking a step away from the foul-looking woman, her face veiled by the lice-ridden cowl.
But Jack remained where he was. ‘What did you just say about Kunitome-san?’
‘You’re not from here, are you, boy?’ the hag spat. She sniffed the air, then seemed to gag on the smell. ‘You’re gaijin!’
Jack ignored the insult. ‘Did you say the swordmaker did not commit suicide?’
‘No. He didn’t.’
‘Then what happened?’
The old woman stretched forth a bony hand, its skin dead as a corpse. She remained silent, but the message was clear. Akiko reached inside the folds of her kimono, pulled out a small string of coins, removed one and dropped it into the woman’s waiting palm. The hag snatched her prizeaway.
‘He didn’t commit suicide, but he was killed by his own sword.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jack.
‘Kunitome-san had been commissioned to make a special sword for a very special client,’ she explained, letting her fingers run down the splintered edge of an effigy’s carved wooden blad
e. ‘The sword was called Kuro Kumo, Black Cloud, on account that it was finished on the night of a great storm. It was his finest sword yet, sharper and deadlier than any blade in existence. It turned out to be the last sword he ever made.’
The hag shuffled closer to Jack.
‘That night the client came and demanded a cutting test to prove the quality of the blade. Kunitome-san arranged for four criminals to be bound over a sand mound. Black Cloud went through all four bodies like a ripe plum cleft in two. You should have heard their screams.’
She extended a talon of a finger and ran it across Jack’s neck. He shuddered at her touch.
‘The client was so impressed he beheaded Kunitome-san there and then with his own creation.’
‘Why did he do that?’ asked Jack, swallowing back his revulsion.
‘He wanted to ensure Kunitome-san never made another blade that could defeat Black Cloud. But when Kunitomesan was murdered, a fragment of his maddened soul entered the sword. As if possessed, the storm then raged all night long, ripping the heart out of the village, ravaging all the crops, destroying the temple. Little was left standing by the morning.’
‘Who was the client?’ asked Akiko.
The old woman looked up, and though Jack couldn’t see her face within the cowl, he swore she was smiling.
‘Dokugan Ryu, of course. The one you seek.’
The hag leant forward and whispered into Jack’s ear, ‘You wish to know where he is?’
‘Yes,’ breathed Jack.
The old woman put out her skeletal hand again. Akiko dropped another coin into the grimy palm.
‘Where is he?’ demanded Jack, impatient for the answer.
She beckoned Jack closer, then croaked, ‘Behind you!’
All three of them spun round to be confronted by a huge green eye.
The old woman cackled at their gasps of shock. But the eye only belonged to a large dragon carving hanging over the doorway, its head turned to one side, its forked tongue flicking out of its red-painted mouth.
‘Very funny,’ snarled Yamato, lowering his guard. ‘There’s no one there.’
‘Oh… but there is,’ corrected the woman. ‘Dokugan Ryu will always be behind you, sneaking up on you like a poisonous shadow.’
‘Let’s go,’ Yamato insisted. ‘This witch is mad.’
Jack had to agree and turned to leave.
‘But it would help if you knew who Dokugan Ryu really is, wouldn’t it?’ whispered the old hag.
Jack stopped in his tracks.
‘Don’t you want to know?’ she taunted, her palm already outstretched, fingers beckoning like an upturned crab.
Jack looked to Akiko. Yamato shook his head in dismay as Akiko begrudgingly handed over another coin.
‘You’re very eager for knowledge, young ones. And I won’t disappoint,’ the hag cackled, slipping the coin into her filthy robes. ‘Dokugan Ryu is the exiled samurai lord, Hattori Tatsuo.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ scoffed Yamato. ‘That warlord was killed in the Great Battle of Nakasendo.’
‘Listen, you little rat!’ she hissed, cutting him off. ‘You paid for a story and I will tell it. Hattori Tatsuo was born in Yamagata Castle in the summer of the Year of the Snake. As a child his eye became infected with the smallpox. He pulled the diseased organ out of his skull himself!’
Akiko recoiled at the thought.
‘Because of his missing eye, his own mother considered him unfit to be the future head of the Hattori family, so began favouring his younger brother as heir. She even poisoned Tatsuo during dinner once, but miraculously he survived, though somewhat maddened and his eye now green as jade.’
Yamato was shaking his head in disbelief and signing to Jack that the woman was crazy.
‘Tatsuo then killed his own brother in order to ensure his rise to power. When he was barely sixteen, he went on his first raid with his father. His father was killed during a skirmish, some say by Tatsuo himself. Tatsuo was now head of the family. But not satisfied with this, he set his eye upon becoming the daimyo of northern Japan. First, though, he sought revenge for his mother’s betrayal.’
‘How?’ breathed Akiko, but not really wanting to know the answer.
‘How else? By gouging out both her eyes!’ screeched the hag.
‘That’s enough!’ ordered Yamato, seeing Akiko wince at the horrific image the woman had conjured. ‘None of this nonsense explains how Tatsuo supposedly ended up a ninja.’
The old hag, tutting, wagged a bony finger at Yamato.
‘Such impatience! There is more. Much more. On the battlefield, Tatsuo gained a fearsome reputation as a ruthless warrior. Soon he became daimyo of all northern Honshu. During his campaigns, he’d borne a son. So he now desired all of Japan for his heir. Tatsuo’s army crushed all those before him –’
‘Until they were defeated at Nakasendo,’ interjected Yamato.
‘Yes, you’re quite right. The battle raged many days and nights. But only the combined forces of the southern and central lords, daimyo Hasegawa, Takatomi and Kamakura, defeated the great Tatsuo.’ She spat on the floor. ‘Kamakura, that traitorous samurai, had switched sides and sealed Tatsuo’s fate. His army was slaughtered, his son cut down defending him before his very eye, by one of daimyo Takatomi’s bodyguards. Yet, despite all this, Tatsuo fought to the bitter end.’
‘But I’ve already told you, Hattori Tatsuo was killed in battle,’ Yamato stated. ‘It’s impossible for him to be Dragon Eye.’
‘No, Tatsuo survived. He escaped into the Iga mountains. Hunted down, he was forced into hiding. But fortune was on his side at last. A ninja clan took him in, where he studied their secret arts and became the man he is today. Dokugan Ryu, the most feared ninja to have ever lived.’
The old woman sounded almost proud at the idea.
‘But how do you know all this?’ demanded Jack. ‘No one else seems to know his identity.’
‘No one’s ever asked me before,’ replied the old woman, pulling back her hood to reveal a gruesomely scarred face… with two empty eye sockets.
6
UEKIYA’S GARDEN
Jack touched the arrow buried in the sakura tree.
His fingers lightly brushed the weathered flights and the sensation sent a chill through his body despite the sticky summer heat. He couldn’t quite believe it was still there, piercing the bark of the cherry blossom tree like a needle in the eye. Its target had been Dragon Eye, but he had escaped, as always.
‘Masamoto-sama commanded me not to remove it.’
Jack spun round in surprise to find Uekiya, the old gardener, tending an immaculate rose bush. The withered man blended in like an ancient tree. He was as much a part of the garden as he was of Jack’s fond memories of Toba, the little port where he’d first arrived in Japan.
Although the reason for Jack’s return was dishonourable, the welcome by Hiroko, Akiko’s mother, had been warm and reflected the care she’d given Jack during his first six months in Japan.
After their disturbing encounter with the blind hag, Jack, Akiko and Yamato had hurriedly left Shindo and the next day departed on the final leg of their journey to Toba. The going had been slow due to Kuma-san’s injury and was made even more arduous by the stifling heat. Upon their arrival, Hiroko had provided much needed refreshments and organized for the bath to be filled so they could wash away the dirt of the trip. While Yamato took the first ofuro and Akiko caught up with her mother’s news, Jack had sought the cool shade of the garden to recover.
The old man smiled a toothy grin, obviously pleased to see Jack once more in his garden.
‘Did Masamoto-sama give a reason for leaving it?’ Jack asked, letting go of the arrow.
‘It’s to remind us never to lower our guard.’
Uekiya’s smile faded as he gently cut a blood-red flower from the bush and presented it to Jack. ‘And this rose bush I planted to remind me of Chiro.’
Jack could no longer meet the gardener’s gaze. He recall
ed the night when Dragon Eye had initially attempted to steal the rutter from him. It had been the first time Jack had witnessed Akiko’s fighting skills, which after two years of training at the Niten Ichi Ryū had now been honed to a fine art. Chiro, however, wasn’t a warrior. She was Hiroko’s maid and had been killed in the attack, while the samurai guard, Taka-san, had been seriously injured defending the home.
It had been a great relief for Jack upon returning to Toba to find Taka-san fully recovered, the only indication of his injury a vicious scar across his belly, which he bore with some pride. But the guilt of Chiro’s death still remained.
‘Welcome home, Jack-kun,’ Uekiya added, forcing a smile back on his face as he continued to prune the rose bush.
‘Thank you,’ Jack replied, settling down beneath the cool shade of the sakura tree. ‘After such a long time in Kyoto, it is almost like returning home. I’d forgotten how beautiful your garden was.’
‘How can that be?’ said the old man, his brow furrowing in puzzlement. ‘You’ve been carrying a piece of it with you ever since you left.’
‘You mean my bonsai?’ asked Jack, referring to the miniature cherry blossom tree he’d been given by the gardener the day he’d departed for samurai school.
‘Of course, it’s grown from the very tree you sit beneath. It’s not dead, is it?’
‘No,’ said Jack quickly, ‘but it does need some attention after the long journey.’
As he had no idea how long he would be staying in Toba, he’d brought the tree back with him in its original carrying case, along with all his other possessions.
‘Let me do it,’ said Uekiya, putting down his pruning knife. ‘Though if the truth be known, I never expected to see it alive again. Bonsai are very difficult to grow. Perhaps you do have a little Japanese in you, after all.’
With a wry smile upon his wrinkled face, the old gardener bowed and walked across the little wooden bridge that spanned a pond dotted with pink water lilies. He weaved his way along the pebbled path towards the house, leaving Jack alone to his thoughts.
