Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

  The Raggedy Man dropped the wooden cups, one by one, onto his foot and kicked them gently toward the nearby children. The children caught the cups and beamed with joy. “Now, children,” the Raggedy Man said, “hold out your cups and don’t move.”

  The children held out their cups, and the Raggedy Man dropped a ball onto his foot and kicked it into an arc that landed it directly in a cup, then another, and another, and another.

  Hands empty, he back-flipped with a flourish and ended with a bow. The throng erupted with applause and hoots of approval.

  A sudden tingle of unease whispered through Ken’ishi again, and he looked around. He caught sight of Chiba, arms crossed, leaning against the corner of a house, watching the affair. He met Ken’ishi’s eye with a stab of flinty hatred and a smirk. Splashes of blue-black bruises darkened his entire face. He spat on the ground, turned away, and disappeared.

  The Raggedy Man held out a bangled straw hat and collected the pittance of coppers the villagers carried with them, accepting the money with great humility. His eyes flicked toward Ken’ishi, appraising him, but only for an instant as he continued busking the crowd.

  * * *

  Crickets sang as Ken’ishi shut the door to his modest house. Clouds darkened the night, rolling in across Hakata Bay, lending the scent of incoming rain to the smells of the tatami and the thatched roof. A breeze trickled through the open window. The room felt chill and empty. There was no basket of food left for him, no lingering scent of Kiosé’s presence. As he walked back and forth, carrying wood to the fire pit, he was conscious of grit between his bare feet and the tatami, dust accumulated from his several days of absence. Kiosé had always kept his floors immaculately clean without him ever asking.

  He placed Silver Crane on its rack and sat before the fire. Hunger had chewed the pit in his belly deeper, but he had no food prepared. He could not bear to go to the inn where she would be working. Her indifference, appearing to not know him at all, was worse than if she hated him. The memory of her soft sigh as she fell asleep against him brought another sigh out of him.

  He boiled a pot of rice and sat playing his flute quietly, trying to clear his mind of this detritus.

  Hage had been strange, but some of his words recollected the way Ken’ishi’s master had taught him to seek the Void, the timeless moments between instants, to forget the past, to lay no hopes or fears on the future. The Void was where all things became possible, where pain and fear and joy disappeared.

  A cold, steel voice brushed against Ken’ishi’s mind. The man sees the Way. Will he walk the clear path? Or will he yearn for it from the obstacle-bound wilderness and continue to wish for things that he cannot have? Wants and wishes have no place in a warrior’s heart.

  “If the warrior does not wish to serve a master, or have want of prowess, then what good is he? Does not the reaching for things then carry a warrior away from the Path?”

  A warrior’s duty is to serve. If he has no master, he must serve Mankind.

  “Men fear a warrior with no master. The ronin is wild, uncontrollable, tossed by the waves of life; at least, so they believe. How can a warrior serve those who fear him?”

  What is the man afraid of? The fear that others bear him?

  “That fear breeds distrust. Misplaced distrust makes me angry. I have never harmed anyone who didn’t deserve it.” Except one. A small mercy was that perhaps she did not remember.

  And with those words, the man again steps off the path.

  He punched his thigh in frustration, the same thigh that ached sometimes when the weather changed. The touch of the cold steel drew away from his mind.

  From Norikage’s house, next door, sounds of passion burst into the night, Hana’s gasping, whimpering voice, denying and yearning in the same breaths, Norikage’s deep grunts of pleasure.

  Ken’ishi sighed again and readied his bed. Even after having slept for four days, he was suddenly bone-weary and sick of heart.

  The demon went on, “Nowadays there are many swordsmen whose techniques are mature, whose ch’i is integrated, who have tested their efficiency in combat, who have no doubts, whose spirits are settled, and who have gained freedom in action. Though we may say that they are like gods of that mysterious function, if they have not been able to escape relying on something, they still know nothing.”

  — Issai Chozanshi, The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts

  The boy without a name woke up one long-ago morning, thinking everything was going to be same as it had always been. It was going to be a warm, breezy summer day. The evening before had been so pleasant he had slept outside, but the morning grew chilly in the pre-dawn hours. He lay upon his crude straw mat, perched on a stone shelf above the entrance to the cave, looking out over the lush valley below. The evergreen forest lay almost black in the shadows of the mountains, except for the wandering, silvery stripe of river that reflected the fading colors of the dawn sky.

  As always, the boy’s first thought was to wonder where his teacher had gone. Kaa was seldom present when the boy woke up. The tengu never said where he went or what he did; he just appeared.

  The boy spent all of his nights alone on the mountain, high above the world. Sometimes he wondered about the society of human beings, longed for it in sharp, lonely bursts. Kaa sometimes told him of the human world, but often things so vague or contradictory that the boy came to believe that the tengu was unfamiliar with human things. But Kaa was the master, so the boy did not press him.

  The tengu sometimes chose to sneak up behind the boy, as if from nowhere, and rap him on his pate with his feathered knuckles, as if to test the boy’s retention of the lessons with awareness of the kami. Since before the boy had begun training with the wooden sword, he was always calmly alert when Kaa was not in sight. In spite of the single time that he caught his master unawares, the boy could seldom detect Kaa’s approach. Even though the boy had never seen any such display of magical powers, Kaa assured him of magical powers aplenty.

  On one occasion, the boy had grown angry and defiant. “Show me something magical!”

  Kaa had cocked his bird-like head at that particular angle that bespoke long-suffering annoyance.

  The tengu approached a nearby pine tree and picked up a cone from among the exposed roots, hefting it in his thin hand. “Come here, Monkey-boy!”

  The boy approached.

  Kaa tossed him the pine cone.

  The boy caught the pine cone, turned it over and over in his hand, expecting it to transform into a bird. But it remained a pine cone.

  He looked at his teacher, perplexed.

  Kaa pointed at the pine cone. “That is the child of that!” Then at the tree. “That little thing—so small and insignificant—will sprout trunk and needles and fingers of roots. It will explore the earth and reach for the heavens, and it will join this city of its brethren on this wind-swept mountainside. That is magic, Monkey-boy!”

  The boy sighed, disappointed; he had been hoping for something extraordinary.

  Kaa’s black eyes narrowed as he stalked forward and snatched the cone out of the boy’s hand. “Bah! You are not worthy.” He threw the cone far down the slope. “Magic surrounds you! It sparkles in every blade of grass, every leaf, every worm wriggling blind through the earth to its own unknowable purpose. Every moment is a wonder! Not something to be endured on the way to elsewhere!”

  “Yes, Sensei,” the boy said, but he did not understand.

  “Bah!” Kaa crossed his arms and shook his head in disgust. “I reserve my magical powers for enemies. You’re a fool, Monkey-boy, if you wish to be anywhere nearby when I use them.” Then Kaa cuffed the boy on the ear. “Go and practice with your bokken.”

  That day, the boy had fought back the tears and pretended the invisible enemy he fought with his wooden sword was his master.

  But on this day, he climbed down from his sleeping perch above the cave entrance and started a small fire to cook breakfast.

  A sharp rap on top of hi
s head made him wince.

  Kaa said, “You grow lax. With senses like that, you will be dead before you are twenty.”

  The boy turned and faced his master, bowing. “Good morning, Sensei. Sometimes you use your magic to sneak up on me.”

  “Irrelevant. You still do not understand. The world itself is magic that we make with every step we take. Our dreams take the earth, our breath the air, our tears the water, and our spirits give it fire, and we make the world with magic every day. Every breath forges our destiny.” There was a strange tone in his voice. “It is going to be a fine day. But a sad day.”

  The boy tensed. What could his master mean by such a portentous statement? He noticed the cloth-wrapped bundle in Kaa’s hands; it had not been there moments ago. The bundle was long and thin. Just the right size … The boy’s heart leaped. Could this be the day he had awaited for so long?

  “Let us eat,” Kaa said. “Then we will talk.” His voice was strangely subdued, less shrill, his manner less urgent than at any time the boy could recall, as if a great weight bore down upon his spirit.

  The boy could hardly contain his mingled excitement, anticipation, and fear. What if this was the day? What if it was not? He kept control of himself, however, as he stoked the cookfire, and boiled a pot of rice and water for tea. His gaze kept wandering to the cloth bundle.

  While they waited, they watched the world coming to life below them. Every shade of color shifting with the dawn, the endless carpet of greens and browns and blues down below, the taste of the air, the breath of the breeze, the grit of the earth beneath them. A serenity settled over the boy the likes of which he had never experienced.

  Kaa breathed, “Marvelous.” The air warmed, fresh breezes whispering across the mountainside, ruffling his fine, silvery-gray feathers, the boy’s wild shock of hair. In the distance, birds awakened in the trees, greeting the day, quarreling with their spouses or neighbors, seeking their breakfast in the earth or in the water or in the grass. The scent of pine needles, the dusty, bird-like smell of the tengu beside him, the smoke of the small fire. Before he knew it, an endless series of tiny moments had passed, and the rice was ready and the water was hot.

  They ate in silence, and the boy savored the taste and texture of the rice, the earthy, emerald green of the tea. He suppressed the questions bubbling in his throat. Mealtime was not for questions. Afterward, they sat quietly sipping their tea.

  Kaa spoke first. “You are about to burst with questions. I can feel you quivering through the earth under your arse.”

  “Yes, Sensei.”

  The tengu looked off into the distance. “All of my teaching, all of your training, and all of your fortunes have led up to this day. I saved you from your father’s assassins because he was the first talking monkey I had ever met whom I respected. He had a blade for the ages, and he knew how to wield it. We had fought a duel, once upon a time, and he defeated me. No talking monkey had ever managed that. He was a true swordsman.”

  The boy had never heard even a trace of admiration in Kaa’s voice before. Excitement surged through him until his entire body tingled.

  Kaa squawked, “You must conceal your emotions! If you do not, you will be an outcast.”

  “I am sorry, Master.”

  “The time has come when I must move on. My own people have demanded that I return. They do not understand why I saved your life, much less why I went to the trouble to raise you, and to train you. Your father spared my life, so I spared yours, and I have tried to make you in his image. There is much good in you, Boy, and there is evil, too. Some among my race can see the future, and I have asked them about you. But they say they cannot see where your path leads. You are a strange, rare person, as if you are outside the natural order of the world. This outside-ness means that your fate is not set. My people believe that although some people have their fate decided for them before they are ever born, yours will be made as you go through life. That is a rare gift from the kami, perhaps even a curse. Do not squander it. You will meet many strange and dangerous people. Many of them will not like you because you are different. Humans hate things that are different.”

  “But aren’t they just like me?”

  The tengu’s coal-black eyes closed and his shoulders shook in silent laughter. “Oh, no, monkey-boy! Not at all! Humans are as different as you and I! They have incredible ability to imagine themselves as ‘us’ and some other group as ‘them.’ No matter what lies they tell themselves.

  “You are a warrior, Monkey-boy. It is in your spirit and your flesh. Your family was bred for it. You have been trained for it. But being a warrior does not mean that you simply take from those weaker than you. Your father was samurai, so you were born samurai. But the word ‘samurai’ comes from the meaning of ‘servant.’ To be a true samurai, you must serve. Humans do not trust samurai who serve no one—they call them ‘ronin’—because it means they serve no one but themselves. The word ‘ronin’ means a man who is tossed about by the waves of fortune. A skilled warrior out for only his own gain is a dangerous thing.”

  “But who was my father?”

  “He is gone. If the existence of his son was revealed, his enemies would come. It is better that you do not know. The best of him is here.” Kaa picked up the cloth bundle beside him. “And there.” He pointed the tip of the bundle at the boy’s breast. “That is what is important.” Then he unwrapped the bundle, and the boy stared.

  Within the coarse cloth was a sword, in a scabbard old and worn, with chipped engravings of cranes with mother-of-pearl inlays. Throughout his life, the boy had imagined the sword would be encrusted with gold and jewels, things of celestial beauty. He felt a vague confusion when he saw no such thing. Disappointment shot through him, and he scowled.

  Kaa stood and drew the blade. The boy gasped, because now he saw the true jewel, the hidden treasure. The long, curved sheen of polished steel gleamed in the sunlight.

  “This is a fine, masterful weapon. I just had it polished for you. I have kept it safe, in hiding, for many years. Its quality surpasses any human-made blade I have ever seen, almost as good as a tengu blade. It will serve you well, provided you treat it with the reverence it deserves. You must keep it clean and oiled. Have it polished when you can. The scabbard will last a few more years. You must practice with it often. Its weight and balance are a bit different from a bokken. You must join your spirit with the spirit of the blade, let the blade become part of your body.” With a lightning quick movement, he returned the blade to its scabbard.

  “Listen well. Today may be the last time you ever see me. There is no one else to teach you. There is still so much that I wish to teach you, but the time has come. I have other things for you.” Kaa waved his fingers and a pile of objects suddenly appeared at the boy’s feet. The boy jumped back, startled.

  Kaa laughed again. “I told you I have magical powers.” Then he took objects from the pile, one by one. “A bedroll. A water bottle. A pack for carrying things. A blanket. Inside the pack are things for helping you live—fishing line, hooks, some thread, and needles.”

  The boy stared. “Thank you, Sensei! But this gift is too much!”

  Kaa frowned. “It is paltry little. But I cannot shower you with riches. You have a good head and a strong hara. The center of your spirit lies in your hara, your belly.” Kaa’s spindly finger pointed to just below the boy’s navel. “If the kami are with you, you will prosper. And do not forget your bow and arrows.”

  “They are inside.”

  “Go and get them.”

  The boy ran into the cave to retrieve his bow and quiver of arrows, and his flute. When he went back outside, Kaa had carefully reassembled the pile of objects and put them in the pack.

  Kaa stood beside the pack, holding the sword in both gray-feathered hands. His voice was solemn. “Boy, I give you this gift. Wield it with honor and strength.” Then he bowed and offered it to him.

  The boy bowed deeply and accepted the sword in both hands. The moment his fle
sh touched the smooth, lacquered scabbard, he felt a tingle begin at his fingers and travel like gooseflesh up his arms. After he straightened, he looked at it for a long time, memorizing the chips in the lacquer, the old stains, and the well-worn hilt lined on each side with the strange, rough hide of a ray.

  “Now go.”

  The boy looked up at Kaa in sudden panic. “Where should I go?”

  “Wherever your path takes you. There is a human settlement in that direction. You remember where the smoke came from when the village was on fire. They have rebuilt, and they are still there. Be careful. Be strong. Go.”

  The boy picked up the pack, slung it onto his shoulder, clutched his weapons to his body as best he could. He bowed deeply to his master. “Thank you, Sensei.”

  The tengu bowed in return. “Goodbye.”

  Then the boy turned toward the path down the mountainside, and walked away, off to make his destiny.

  * * *

  As Ken’ishi opened his eyes, unease misted his awareness like the gray morning fog. The kami buzzed in his mind. The sea lapped at the distant shore with the outgoing tide. A cock crowed, an austere, lonely sound that struck deep into his heart. Everything was as it always was, a morning like so many others. Except that he felt alone, more alone than any time he could remember.

  He rolled onto his knees, rubbed his eyes, his face, went outside to make water in the privy house he shared with Norikage. His nostrils felt plugged by a strange scent. By the time he came back inside, his mind was already on preparations for his morning sword practice.

  His eyes rose to the sword stand, and he froze.

  It was empty.

  His gaze dashed like a hare around the room.

  But there was no doubt. He had placed Silver Crane there last night, just as he always did.

  Silver Crane was gone.

  A choked snarl leaped into his throat. He ran outside. The cold gray fog lay dim against the land, obscuring the morning sun. The sea rumbled and frothed. A fisherman ambled toward his boat. The street was empty. A myriad of footprints scuffed the earth around his house. He ran to Norikage’s house and pounded on his door. “Norikage! Open up! Come out!”