Her rawboned tallness and the unwavering look in her eyes undid him at once. Her inconceivable query struck him mute. Who in all Naipon would go into such a place?
Ha-yugao said with a sharp sort of sweetness, “We’ll obtain rope if it’s the only way.”
The vassal worked his mouth up and down, but nothing came out.
Kosame, her nagamaki held loosely, observed wryly, “He’s quite a fellow, isn’t he?”
Ha-yugao snickered; the weighted chain hung from her obi jangled when brushed by the axe handle.
Shi-u placed a strong, long hand upon the guard’s shoulder. She leaned close and said, “Somehow, you annoy me.”
He found his voice, though it squeaked more than he remembered it. “An old s-stairway f-far along that way! It’s broken and d-dangerous!”
“Thank you,” said Shi-u, drawing away from the quaking vassal. The other two women had already started along the cliff-edge path in the direction the guard had indicated. Momentarily, Shi-u followed.
Well before the wives of Yoshimora Wada imposed upon the quaking guard, while they slept at a village inn, another drama unfolded near Sato Castle. Heinosuke of Omi passed over a snow-covered field in the castle’s moonshadow, himself the swift shadow of an owl against the night. He went undetected into a stand of leafless trees. Among the trees that grew along the river, he came upon an ancient cairn, built by the primitive, earlier race of Naipon. He moved three large flat pieces of shale aside, revealing a narrow black gaping hole. Squeezing into the cairn, he crouched long enough to blow spark and tinder into a flame with which to light a candle. He started along a passageway less ancient than the cairn, though more forgotten.
As archivist for the Sato clan during the previous year, Heinosuke had approached his chores with an enthusiasm unmatched by the retainers who had held that post in previous generations. In the course of arranging, sorting, and taking inventory of the remarkable collection of family records, books, and documents, Heinosuke chanced upon many foxed and mildewed maps of early Kanno, as well as the original architectural plans for the construction of Sato Castle. It was doubtful that any living individual knew as much as Heinosuke had been able to learn about the underground routes.
The tunnel went deep, deep into the ground and came out into a vast natural cavern. The floor was a rugged trail of pits, pools, and strange formations; crystalline walls glittered in the candlelight as Heinosuke passed. There was a particularly acute dampness where the cavern passed beneath the castle’s moat. Beyond this point, Heinosuke found the chiseled passage that led upward at a sharp angle, away from the vaulted cave.
The artificial mesa on which the castle was built consisted of blocks of granite and a great deal of fill. Riddling this tremendous groundwork was a perplexing maze of claustrophobic burrows, few of which were known to the present generation. Fewer still were used. Heinosuke concentrated on his memory of a specific route. It was far from inconceivable that a man could become irrevocably lost among the interconnecting and misleading passageways.
Here and there, tunnels had collapsed over the years. Others had filled with water. It was necessary to amend the route in these places, to find other ways through, so that Heinosuke became less certain of direction.
The occasional pitter-patter might have been rats or running water or something unimaginable. Sound was distorted. Time and senses were muted. Only by the fact that he had started on a second candle did Heinosuke realize that a lot of time had passed. He was uncertain of the path that lay ahead. He was more certain of his retreat. Yet, if he fled back to the cairn and the relief of fresh air, his efforts would have been wasted and Echiko would remain in danger’s midst.
He had only the word of Tomoe Gozen that Echiko was abused by Kuro and his plots. As the bikuni’s actions were influenced by the sinister intrigues of the revengeful spirit, Heinosuke had tried to discount the information brought by her, one of Kuro’s unwitting conspirators. Yet it was true that Heinosuke, with all his snooping and research, had been unable to establish the exact lineage of the foundling princess. As the bikuni had suggested, it was possible, after all, that Echiko was related to one of the seven families that Kuro sought to destroy.
Even were Echiko not one of Kuro’s objects of revenge, he might use her for the furtherance of his goal. Or it might be as simple as the bikuni had suggested: Lady Echiko pined to death; Heinosuke’s pretended lack of concern was the greater curse against her.
Thus Heinosuke had set out in this endeavor, to enter Sato Castle by little-known subterranean routes, to see Echiko’s condition himself. If it appeared necessary, he would kidnap her, whisk her to safety, if such a place existed. What they would do thereafter was difficult to conjecture. But he had been lax too long, lost in his self-pity, disappointment, failure, and unebbing sense of horror.
There was a movement in the tunnel, far ahead. Heinosuke pinched his candle’s flame. He pressed against a shallow cavity and watched the shadow of a hulking samurai, head bowed under the low ceiling, a small paper lantern in his hand. Heinosuke was relieved that it was at least not some monster!
The thickset samurai might have passed Heinosuke without detecting him, except for the chance placement of the lantern. For a fraction of a second, the light lingered between two faces: one-eyed Heinosuke’s and the dour, high-cheeked, chiseled features of Ittosai Kumasaku. In the next moment, Ittosai had dashed the lantern to the ground and stomped it into a slimy puddle. Both men drew steel in the quick and utter darkness.
Metal sparked against metal and Heinosuke’s shoulders were jarred deep in their sockets. He leapt backward from the powerful opponent, panting, while Ittosai remained still and calm and could not be heard in the least. Heinosuke stamped about in mild panic, sword waving to block whatever blow might come his way. Ittosai, motionless, listened. But he did not try anything risky in the confined space.
A booming voice echoed through the tunnel, and there was a quizzical aspect to Ittosai’s loud musings. “I was under the impression that only Kuro the Darkness had resolved the complexity of these passages and had imparted to none but myself a single route by which I might come to him with information or receive instructions. Now it seems as though Heinosuke of Omi knows the labyrinths, too.”
Heinosuke was uncertain how to take Ittosai’s offhand tone. With undisguised disdain, Heinosuke said, “You are that horrid Ittosai of the Graves! People say you serve a monster without pity or qualm!”
“If I spare you, it won’t be out of pity,” Ittosai admitted. “When you die, I will bury you without compunction. But it is not my duty to take your life. As you say, I am merely the man of the graves, though once I was noted for better things.”
Heinosuke heard Ittosai’s sword begin to slide into its sheath. He could not believe this devoted servant of Kuro truly meant no interference, for the man’s reasoning was outside Heinosuke’s sphere of understanding. Therefore Heinosuke leapt at the sound of the sword sliding into its scabbard, knowing it to be his best chance to overcome the powerful Ittosai Kumasaku. But Ittosai had moved silently to one side, and the younger man’s incredible speed was wasted in the darkness. His cut went into the clay earth of a wall. Ittosai’s huge hand wrapped around the back of Heinosuke’s neck, lifting him from the floor.
Heinosuke felt the weightlessness of flight and the jarring impact with a wall. He landed in a battered heap, coughing, stunned, his neck sprained. Ittosai spoke without the least emotional investment in his own words: “I won’t stop you from taking the Lady Echiko from the castle, if that’s your plan. My master’s plots are more bewildering than this labyrinth. If you leave Echiko to starve herself to death, Priest Kuro doesn’t mind. If you make a chivalrous attempt, then you play into his hands in some other way. Nothing is left to chance. No option turns out well. Believe it!”
Heinosuke regained his breath, his head no longer swam, and he stood slowly. He clutched his sword in too tight a fist.
Ittosai said, “Consider life’s fu
tility, Heinosuke! I feel sorry for you. Why not do as I? Look to your own life instead!”
There was a twisted sort of concern in Ittosai’s voice; but could momentary compassion be trusted in a man whose advice was selfish and inhumane? Heinosuke had collected his wits by now, calmed his thinking. He became as quiet as Ittosai. Heinosuke knew he had one skill above others: he was capable of inimitable swiftness. He knew where Ittosai stood and launched himself with silent speed. He heard Ittosai’s startled grunt.
Heinosuke pushed at the huge body. By his touch, he knew that his sword had only gone into the underside of Ittosai’s arm. Ittosai raised a knee into Heinosuke’s stomach; and as Heinosuke bent double, Ittosai drew his sword in such a manner as to slice across the young man’s lowered face.
Heinosuke tumbled backward, his hand clamped to his one eye, blood oozing through his fingers. When he moaned, it did not convey the depth of his pain and his horror. Ittosai whispered, his voice yet thunderous in the darkness of Heinosuke’s world, a darkness which would now extend beyond the walls of the tunnels. “Was it your eye?” said Ittosai. “It’s unfortunate. Even now, I won’t kill you.”
When the big man was gone, Heinosuke began to crawl, dripping gore from his sliced eye, feeling the wall one-handed. He strove to retain consciousness and reason and to bear in mind the ancient maps of the castle’s deep foundation.
Neatly rolled and strapped across the bikuni’s back was a traveling quilt, tattered and unwholesome. She had scavenged it from the Temple of the Gorge, where some wayward pilgrim had left it who knew how long ago, quite likely having fled the haunted place too swiftly to gather bedding. The small quilt would suffice for the few cold nights to be spent in the depths of the canyon.
The bottoms of her hakama trousers were lifted and tucked into her obi, so that she could climb where necessary. But once the floor of the gorge was obtained, there were only a few occasions that called for her to scrabble over natural monuments or the debris of landslides.
The whole of the morning she walked along the river and through persisting fog. Every sound was rendered spectacular when sight was so hindered. At times the rapids crashed with uproarious insistence against banks and boulders; at other points the river was almost quiet, so that fish (or something!) could be heard leaping.
She made excellent speed, for the river was lowest at this time of year, though still fabulous. There were dry beds of gravel softened by snow, high banks with animal trails, or swamps frozen solid enough to be reasonably safe to traverse. It was unexpectedly easy passage in all, discounting the gorge’s daunting and oppressive mood.
If she thought plainly about that indefinable mood and investigated whatever presented itself from the mist, there was nothing unexpected. But, like dim stars seen more clearly from the side of one’s vision, if she dropped her wariness and expectation for the least moment, formless presences became tangible at the periphery of her awareness.
She fancied herself blithely strolling along the Sandzu, Hell’s river. The musky fog was a vast, amorphous entity through which lesser ghosts swept to and fro, gazing on those who passed. Finding her mind unnecessarily imaginative, the bikuni made herself increasingly uneasy. To placate, if not disperse, the spirits of the gorge, she drew forth the shakuhachi and began to play. The sound of it calmed her own spirit as well as those around her, irrespective of the unearthly manner in which the melody rebounded from unseen cliffs.
The fog began to burn away in the cold afternoon sun, revealing the looming cliffs, from which numerous projecting shapes of stone appeared eager to tumble down. The route had led sharply downward from highland Kanno, so that she was soon below the snowline, disregarding isolated isles of snow. She doffed the straw boots, which would wear out on naked rocks, and stuffed them in the end of her rolled traveling quilt. Then she donned the geta that had hung like wooden bells from the bedroll. The raucous clatter of her new footgear lent an easier familiarity to her trek, lulling her into a false security.
Near a bend, a black and leafless tree was seen to have fallen into the river. It had once made a valiant effort to root itself high upon the face of the cliff, only to be chucked down in the prime of its growth. It lay in the torrent, rocking faintly, its black limbs raking upward. The bikuni was nearly drawn into melancholy thoughts at the sight of so awesome a symbol of life’s unfairness and struggle’s futility.
The tree did not quite bridge the two banks. From the bikuni’s vantage-ground, it looked as though the other bank might provide an easier route further on, whereas the present bank looked narrower and more rugged in the distance. It would be tricky crossing by way of the insufficient bridge; the tree was thin near the head and a leap from there might not work out well. It would be a bad idea to get soaked in this cold weather.
As she stood pondering the wisdom of climbing across the river versus the wisdom of adhering to the present course, a flash of blue cloth caught her attention. Something was snagged in the tree’s submerged limbs. At first the nun approached slowly. Then, as it became more evident what it was the black tree had captured, the nun began to trot over the rocky terrain.
Her mind reeled with the recognition. All the subtle dreariness of the gorge heightened and descended upon her sensibility, as a smith’s hammer pounds steel. Before she climbed out onto the tree, she first drew her sword, severed a hooked limb to be used as a tool, then resheathed. Branch in hand, she climbed toward the middle of the river.
Some of the limbs were sharp as thorns. Some were brittle and snapped against her weight. To reach her objective, it was necessary to brace herself across three limbs, none of which could hold her weight alone, and lie almost flat, hovering above clear, rushing water. She reached downward with the limb in an effort to hook onto the obi that tied Shinji’s and Otane’s bodies together at their waists.
They had been in the river for a week, since the night they were freed from the cruciform, only to seek a more horrible demise. They were recognizable only because of the blue peasant cottons that they had worn on the day they were captured and crucified, and by the fact that they were bound as people bind themselves when pledged to commit shinju or love suicide.
The hooked end of her branch caught hold of the obi. She pulled; and she whispered, “I will see you put to rest, Otane, Shinji. I have not abandoned you yet.” As their bloated, pallid corpses were raised, the bikuni realized the three limbs would not take the added weight. She spread herself wider, flattened herself more, braced across six or seven limbs of different sizes. One broke and poked her. Her free arm grabbed blindly for a sturdier branch, and found one. She began to crawl backward, toward thicker limbs and the trunk, moving spiderlike, pulling the corpses with her. For a moment her bamboo hat caught on a small limb, but the twig broke and the bikuni made it to the slippery trunk.
Rapids beat against the tree. The bikuni found surer footing and pulled Shinji’s and Otane’s bodies from the water. At the moment of success, the tree began to shift. The bikuni was thrown backward and nearly impaled upon a sharp limb. The hooked branch she had used as a tool was broken near the end. There were terrible scraping sounds and snapping limbs against the riverbottom. Neroyume clung for the sake of her life and saw the bodies of the clinging lovers slip under the log, beyond view.
The tree found better anchor. The nun hurried back and forth along the trunk, frantic to see where the currents had whisked the two bodies. She saw them at last, among frothy rapids far down the river, bashed against a boulder, then rushed beyond sight. The bikuni despaired. She had failed Otane and Shinji again.
The tree’s new position offered no hope of crossing to the other bank. The bikuni continued along the way, watching for the corpses to resurface, although there was not much hope of seeing them again.
The bikuni’s inability to cross to the other bank proved unfortunate. The river widened, meeting the cliff on one side, leaving no path. It became necessary to climb the wall about a fifth of the way up, where a ledge presented itself
. It was not an easy route, though it could have been worse. If she were careless, a plunge into the freezing rapids might be her last mistake. But by taking the ledge slowly, it was not excessively dangerous.
The ledge wound around a hump on the cliff’s face. It was impossible to see ahead. For all she could tell, the route would only take her halfway before coming to a sudden end.
It was essential to hug the wall and find handholds wherever possible. Shale broke loose and clattered toward the river. While upon this precarious perch, the bikuni heard someone reciting the Kwannon Sutra. The rush of water blended with the chanting, lending an inhuman aspect to the litany. She clung to the wall, motionless, trying to judge where the sutra originated. It became stronger and more distinct.
“Shin-kwan, shojo-kwan, kodai chie-kwan … clear vision, pure vision, vision wise and full of mercy. Clear vision, pure vision, we rely upon thee ever. Thy merciful heart is a wonderful cloud/ from which falleth sweet dew extinguishing/ the flames of earthly passion. Clear vision, pure vision, vision wise and full of mercy. Clear vision, pure vision, we rely upon thee ever.”
In a moment, the chanter appeared from around the curve of the cliff’s face. He ceased reciting and became most quiet, glowering at the nun, the two of them standing almost side by side.
He was young, homely to a high degree, and head-shaven. His hat hung at his back and his clothing were the blackest black, his kimono’s sleeves hanging below his knees.
They were in quite a predicament. Neither could continue their journey, and it was an equal nuisance for either to retrace the distance they had come.
“We’re in trouble,” said the bikuni, a forced smile barely showing from beneath her hat.
“I don’t think so,” said the monk in a holier-than-thou tone of voice. He immediately quoted: “‘A monk is higher than a nun; a nun is higher than a lay monk; a lay monk is higher than a lay nun.’ I cannot tell by your costume whether you are a nun or a lay nun. In either case, since I am a monk, practically a full-fledged priest, in fact, there is no confusion as to who should remove herself as quickly as possible from my chosen path.”
Thousand Shrine Warrior Page 23
