Emperor of the Eight Islands: Book 1 in the Tale of Shikanoko (The Tale of Shikanoko series)

by Lian Hearn

  The girl smiled slightly. “We will arrange something.”

  The boat had docked. Aki had the lute in her hand and their clogs ready when Yoshi came up to her, looking distressed.

  “They say Kai is too sick to travel with us,” he said.

  Aki went immediately to where Kai was lying under the canopy in the stern of the boat, the ritual box next to her. She seemed to have been stricken by a sudden fever. Her eyes were dilated, her skin burning.

  “It is just lake fever,” the musicians said. “We’ll look after her. She will be recovered in a day or two.”

  “We can’t go without her,” Yoshi said, his voice trembling.

  “Do you remember my father saying you must obey me in everything?” Aki replied.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Obedience means not saying but,” she rebuked him. “We must go now. The boat has to leave and we must get to Rinrakuji. Kai obviously can’t come with us. You’ll see her again, but now you have to be strong.”

  He opened his mouth and she thought he was going to argue or scream, but then he bit his lip, knelt next to Kai, and stroked her hair. When he stood and let Aki take her hand he was fighting back tears.

  “I am glad she is staying,” Fuji said. “It is a good thing for her, and it means you are more likely to come back to us.”

  Aki thanked her and then asked, “Who was the old man who shared food with us at Majima?” She had not been able to stop thinking about him.

  “Everyone just calls him Father; he is a traveling priest of some sort. The musicians belong to the same faith. He usually waits for the boats at the markets. They look forward to his blessing. Maybe one day they will tell you the story of the Secret One. It is very strange and moving.”

  Aki found she longed to hear it, but now there was no time. The boat was preparing to move on. She stared briefly across the lake toward Nishimi, her childhood home, lost in the haze. Then she took Genzo in its carrying cloth and stepped from the side of the boat onto the wooden dock. She had her bow on her back, no longer feeling the need to hide it. Yoshi was passed across to her. Cries of farewell and thanks rang between boat and shore.

  The ropes were cast off and the sail raised. Aki and Yoshi watched and waved for several moments, then turned away and began to follow the steep, narrow road that climbed through the mountains to Rinrakuji.

  18

  SHIKANOKO

  Through the courtyards at Ryusonji echoed the voices of singers, accompanied by lute players and by the old blind man, who, it was said, had once been a sorcerer but had lost his powers along with his eyes. He must have had some natural talent, for he had learned the notes and words swiftly in the course of the winter.

  They had new songs to sing, about the victory of the Miboshi and the flight of the Kakizuki, poignant, stirring tales of courage in battle and nobility in defeat, of the shocking but necessary death of Prince Momozono, who had dared to rebel against his dying father, and the virtues of his younger brother, who was now Emperor Daigen.

  Shika imagined that it brought the Prince Abbot great pleasure to hear daily the recounting of his triumph, by his former rival, now fallen into senility. He was uncle to the new emperor, and the Kakizuki, his old enemies, were in exile. The wives and children they had left behind were slaughtered, their palaces were rebuilt and occupied by the victorious Miboshi, their presence was being erased from the capital as though they had not dominated its life, its customs, its arts and fashions for nearly fifty years.

  Yet Shika knew the prelate was not as satisfied as he might have been. Two things irked him, two missing bodies. The heads of the defeated were displayed on bridges and along the riverbank, but Kiyoyori’s was not among them. The Prince Abbot’s men had combed through the wreckage of the palace and the surrounding streets. The corpses of Momozono and his wife were identified in the piles of dead, along with those of their retinue, male and female, who had died in the fighting or the fire, but Kiyoyori’s body had not been discovered nor had that of Yoshimori, only son of the former Crown Prince.

  It was reported that Kiyoyori had been last seen in front of the New Shining Hall. An arrow had pierced him and an unknown man who had dashed in front of him. Both had fallen into the flames just before the roof collapsed. Kiyoyori could not have survived, eyewitnesses said, but because his body had not been found, fanciful tales had begun to spread about him, the most popular being that the dragon child of Ryusonji had carried him away to join his son, Tsumaru, who, it was rumored, had been kidnapped by the Prince Abbot, had died in some mysterious way, and was now a manifestation of that same dragon.

  Shika knew from his own experience that men hate above all those they have wronged, and the Prince Abbot’s hatred for Kiyoyori had grown even more bitter since the discovery of Tsumaru’s body in the lake. He blamed the child’s father for the bungled rescue attempt at the same time as he resented Kiyoyori’s spirited refusal to be coerced. The suggestion that Ryusonji’s own divine being might have aided him in some way was intolerable. The Prince Abbot attempted to suppress the rumors and the tales; his secret police cut out people’s tongues for repeating them.

  Shika had spent at least part of every day throughout the winter with the Prince Abbot. For many of those days he had been required to fast, subjected to ordeals of icy water, and deprived of sleep. Slowly, under these stern disciplines, the natural power of the mask had been controlled. He had been taught words of power, some from sutras, others known only to the Prince Abbot, Gessho, and a few older monks. With the aid of all these things, the mask took him to places beyond the human world, where the spirit of the deer spoke to him and through him.

  But every step forward demanded a price. Often he would emerge from a trance and see in the hollowed eyes and slackened faces around him vestiges of some ritual he had taken part in, without his knowledge and against his will. The mask had been made with both male and female elements; it harnessed the regenerative power of the forest, the sexual drive of the stag. All this interested the Prince Abbot deeply.

  He was delighted with his progress. Shika became his new favorite, replacing the young monk Eisei, who had been so burned by the mask. Eisei recovered from his injuries but would always be disfigured. He wore a black silk covering across his face, behind which his eyes burned with despair.

  Shika went every day to sit with Sesshin. The old man did not seem to recognize him, but smiled at him gratefully and patted his hand. The Prince Abbot often questioned him about Sesshin, but even when Shika was in trances induced by strong potions, the power that Sesshin had transferred to him remained hidden. It would reveal itself, Shika thought, when it was ready and when he was.

  The Prince Abbot also questioned him about Kiyoyori. “That scoundrel has become more popular since he died than he ever was when he was alive,” he complained. “What magic arts did he possess to vanish without a trace? Did the sorceress come for him? Could she have flown into the burning building and carried him away?”

  Shika had learned that many of the Prince Abbot’s questions did not require an immediate answer. He did not reply now, but he was thinking about how Lady Tora had visited Shisoku’s hut in some supernatural manner during the making of the mask.

  The Prince Abbot was watching him intently. Shika looked away toward the garden. It was the beginning of the fourth month, a warm day with more than a little humidity in the air. Outside the sun shone glaringly on the wisteria and the azaleas, giving their flowers an intense hue.

  The waters of the lake rippled suddenly, a sign that the dragon child was awake, was aware of everything.

  Did it remain a child, he wondered, or was it growing to its full size secretly, and would one day emerge? When he looked back into the room his vision was distorted by circles of light and dark.

  “And Yoshimori?” the Prince Abbot questioned. “Was he spirited away, too? Perhaps by Hidetake’s daughter, the girl they call Akihime, the Autumn Princess. As long as he lives, the Kakizuki will have a cause
to reunite and inspire them.”

  He sat in thought for a long time while the room grew warmer. Sweat began to trickle from Shika’s face and chest. He longed for the cool shade of the forest, the dawn mists of the mountain. He remembered the waterfall.

  The Prince Abbot’s voice startled him, bringing him back suddenly. “Is that where you will find them? That place where your mind just wandered? Is it in the Darkwood? Have they fled there?”

  Shika still had not learned to hide his thoughts from the Prince Abbot.

  “I think I will send you after them,” the Prince Abbot said slowly. “She will be heading for Rinrakuji, for she was to be a shrine maiden, but she must not get there. The werehawks will accompany you so I know where you are. Bring me Kiyoyori’s head and the child’s. You can do what you like with the girl, let her live or die. Ride fast. They have already been on the road for days. You must overtake them.”

  “I cannot go without the mask,” Shika replied.

  The Prince Abbot smiled. “I would never separate you from your mask. But be aware, I have cast spells on it so I can be sure my little stag will return to me.”

  * * *

  Shika left the next morning, riding Nyorin, Risu following. He had intended to leave the mare, who was just beginning to show signs of her pregnancy, but at the last moment decided to take her, telling himself he did not trust anyone there to look after her, not daring to admit that he might never come back. He thought only of disappearing into the forest, but the mask whispered to him, reminding him of all he had learned during the winter and all there was still to learn. He was tied in some way through it to the Prince Abbot, who had become his master, but he did not fully understand how or to what extent.

  The Prince Abbot had instructed him to ride north and then cut across toward the western edge of the Darkwood. He could picture it all in his mind, as if on a map: the track that led south to Shimaura, the stream that flowed from the mountains, the bandits’ hut where they stored weapons and loot they had taken from travelers, for it was on the boundary of Akuzenji’s territory and he had ridden all over it a year and a half ago when he had spent the summer in the service of the King of the Mountain.

  With only the horses and the two werehawks for company he had many hours to recall the past and reflect on what his life had become. He found himself dwelling, in particular, on the last time he saw Hina, waiting in the garden of the house below Rokujo for her father to return. There had been no specific reports about her, but he imagined she had been found and killed along with all the other Kakizuki children. He grieved for her and then forced himself to remember the last time he had seen her father, the expression on Kiyoyori’s face when the lord had seen Shika at the Prince Abbot’s side.

  He considered I betrayed him; he regretted sparing my life.

  The werehawks fluttered and cried around his head. When they needed to rest they sat on the mare’s back, preening themselves and croaking and grumbling to each other. Risu hated them and often bucked or swung her head around to bite in an attempt to dislodge them. They fluttered upward, squawking in surprise and outrage, and then returned immediately to their roost.

  Shika did not know how the Prince Abbot communicated with them, but from the first day he set his mind to understand them. How was it done? Did he have to become like a bird himself or did he have to use some deeper knowledge? Did all Nature understand itself, the pine trees and the crows, the hawfinches and the berries, the fox, the rabbit, the hare? Was there some vast web of communication that joined everything? And if so, why should men stand outside it? The stag mask must have given him access to something like that; the power of the forest, Shisoku had called it. If he wore the mask, would he understand the werehawks?

  At first he thought they disliked him. After all, they had attacked him at Kumayama—he still had the scar—and before that he had shot and killed one at Matsutani. But after a while he realized they were trying in some obscure birdlike fashion to ingratiate themselves with him, even to please him. One in particular, which had a gold feather in its left wing, often sat on his shoulder and made remarks in his ear. He called it Kon, and the other Zen, for its wicked eyes and arrogant manner reminded him of Akuzenji.

  They showed him the route to follow, along the eastern edge of the lake, and every night one or other of them flew off to the south, to report back to the Prince Abbot. He resented that they were spying on him, but he knew they were not to blame for it and he treated them well, scratching their heads, feeding them the grain with which he had been supplied, listening to their strange talk, trying to decipher it. They seemed to know something about him, as though they could smell within him the sweet fiery nugget that Sesshin had fed him, and wanted to partake of it.

  He meditated on that power, determined to learn how to use it, following the rhythm of the horses’ pace. He noticed with his conscious mind the lush spring landscape, the fresh green of the new leaves, the flooded rice fields that reflected the sky, aware of his own youth and energy, excited by all that lay before him, glad to be free of the stifling atmosphere of Ryusonji. Farmers worked in the fields, a few monks and merchants passed along the road, all making the most of the fine days before the onset of the plum rains. There were no signs of battle. The Miboshi had confined their advance to the capital and were consolidating their conquests in the east. He wondered what had happened at Matsutani, and his own estate of Kumayama. Whose hands were they in now? Presumably his uncle had been rewarded for handing him over, and had allied himself with the victors.

  One day I will get it back, he vowed.

  He followed the Prince Abbot’s command and rode fast, sleeping for a few hours at night in the woods, using Nyorin’s saddle as a pillow. The werehawks led him away from the lakeside road, through rice fields, skirting the small town of Aomizu. He had never been here before; in the distance to the east the mountains rose, their highest peaks still snowcapped, and he knew that somewhere to the south lay the course of a stream leading him to the pass through to the Darkwood.

  One afternoon he came to the road between Aomizu and Rinrakuji. It was a little before sunset. He did not know if he should turn east or west, so he let the horses graze for a while in a small grove and waited for the werehawks to show him.

  Kon had flown toward the west, and suddenly returned, landed on Shika’s shoulder, and said distinctly, “Prince Yoshimori!” Zen gave a triumphant squawk, flew upward from Risu’s back, and settled on an overhanging branch, peering expectantly.

  Shika crept toward the edge of the road, bow in hand.

  Two figures were hurrying along the road from the direction of Aomizu. One was definitely a child; the other turned and looked back and he realized it was a girl, and that there were two men following her, flitting in and out of sight like wolves pursuing deer, like the wolf that had driven him to Shisoku. There was no one else around. She was running desperately now, dragging the child by the hand, tripping and stumbling. They were closing in on her.

  He heard one call, “I’ll take the girl; the boy is for you. Then we’ll swap.”

  She stopped and spun around to face them. She was carrying a bundle, but she thrust it into the child’s hands and pulled out a dagger. She had a small, light bow on her back.

  Shika thought he could gallop past, seize the child, and escape. The girl was not important. Who the men were he had no idea; they wore no emblems, crests, or armor. But he could see their faces, their undisguised lust and greed. The girl’s courage, her defiant stance, spoke to him. At that moment he decided to save her life.

  He took the arrows from the quiver on his back, drew the bow, and shot rapidly twice. Both arrows found their mark, one in each naked throat. The look of astonishment, the useless clutching at the shaft, the weakening of muscles and sinews, the loss of blood, all took place in a few brief moments. Both men fell dead.

  The girl turned and looked at him, her face white. She did not threaten him with the knife. It was clear she knew she had no defens
e against his arrows, but she drew the boy closer, the blade at his throat.

  Shika saw she was planning to kill Yoshimori and then herself. Her desperation and her resolve touched him even more deeply.

  “Don’t be afraid of me,” he called. “I will help you.”

  And he felt Sesshin’s power come to life within him, and knew he was going to defy the Prince Abbot.

  19

  HINA

  Yukikuni no Takaakira was riding through the capital looking for somewhere to live. Lord of the Snow Country, he was close to Lord Miboshi Aritomo, adviser, confidant, and as much of a friend as anyone could be to that taciturn and suspicious man, who had been deeply scarred by the loss of his family and his years of exile. The Minatogura lord’s temper was unpredictable, his nature unforgiving, his favor, once forfeited, lost forever. He never forgot an insult or an offense, never overlooked a mistake. Yet Takaakira respected him and even loved him, admiring his fortitude, his perseverance, and the unexpected high ideals that had led him to establish courts of law that demanded written records, title deeds to estates, signed testimonies to exploits in battle, and a system to hand out rewards fairly.

  Takaakira saw, with sorrow, one beautiful house after another reduced to ashes, shrouds of smoke still hanging over them. Perhaps alone among the Miboshi, who now occupied the capital, he regretted the destruction of the Kakizuki. As a youth he had visited the city many times and had reveled in the richness of its art, poetry, music, and dance. He admired with all his heart the flamboyant heroism of the Kakizuki warriors in the recent battle, who had sallied out to meet the Miboshi, one by one, as men used to, according to the old songs, calling out their names, demanding a worthy opponent. Under Aritomo’s orders they had been brought down by a hail of arrows from an anonymous and united force. This new form of warfare had broken their spirit. They no longer understood how to fight. The men fled with Lord Keita, presumably to regroup at Rakuhara or some other stronghold in the west, abandoning their palaces and their residences, their exquisite gardens, now in the first flush of spring, and in most cases their wives and children.