Year of the Demon fb-2

by Steve Bein

  Kaida felt a crushing surge of shame. Not one of the villagers reacted. They would never have greater provocation to kill this man, the leader of the outlanders. Nor would they ever have a better opportunity. Yet they sat and did nothing. Some even had the temerity to glance at the heap of riches Genzai and his one-eyed henchman had dumped so indifferently at their feet. Now more than ever, Kaida wanted to get away from this place. She could never look her neighbors in the eye again. They were no fiercer than a shoal of sticklebacks: skittish, flighty, impotent even when traveling in huge schools.

  And yet she was proud of her father. He alone stood up to Genzai, and he was the one with the best reason not to. He knew exactly what kind of violence this man was capable of. If she’d ever felt certain about leaving Ama-machi, about leaving her father to his new family, that certainty was crumbling now. Her father would stand up for the whole village, but who would stand up for him?

  She took a deep, tremulous breath and told herself it was her long run, not fear, that made the breath flutter in her throat. Then she stepped out of the elders’ hut and made a straight path toward Genzai. She had never felt so exposed.

  His eyes caught her first. Then he turned to face her, arms folded, the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. She wanted it to be a smile of paternal pride. More likely it was the thrill of anticipation in seeing wounded prey.

  “I will get your sword,” she said, wishing her voice wouldn’t quiver.

  46

  “It’s too heavy,” Cho said, adjusting the demon mask on her face.

  Genzai watched as the one-eyed outlander—Kaida remembered his name was Tadaaki—gave a last tug on the leather ties, undoing the little adjustment Cho had just made to the mask. Tadaaki had bound it to her head tightly, with twice as many ties as were necessary. “What does it do?” Kaida asked.

  She was ignored. “I cannot dive with this,” Cho said. “We put our weights on our feet, not our faces.”

  “Weight is weight,” said Genzai, rocking easily in the prow of the boat. “Diving is diving. Just get the sword.”

  He and Cho weren’t in Kaida’s boat. Their boat was abeam of Kaida’s, in a whole fleet of ama rowboats. All the village women were out, and all the girls of diving age too. They were clothed in light yukata, not naked as they usually went, because usually they spent their time in the water, not cooking in the hot sun in their boats. The outlanders would only allow them to dive one at a time, for they had only one mask.

  The ama boats floated in close company like so much flotsam, rising and falling each in their turn as the waves rolled in. There were not enough outlanders to go around, so Genzai could only man one boat in four with one of his own people. Once again Kaida’s village embarrassed her. In every boat the outlanders were outnumbered, and spread out as they were, none could come to another’s aid—not immediately, anyway, and it didn’t take long to brain someone with an oar.

  Genzai shared his boat with two other outlanders: Tadaaki and the other one she’d seen sitting by the fire two nights ago, the one with the wild, white, wispy mane and the ragged clothing not so different from his hair. He stank of days-old sweat, and his cloth was so tattered that Kaida wondered why he wore it at all; it certainly did nothing in the name of modesty. He made a ceremony of handling the mask, caressing it almost like a lover until Tadaaki took it from him to tie to the next ama. Kaida thought she heard him chanting under his breath, but his hair and beard conspired to cover his mouth and the wind was coming in too strong for her to hear clearly.

  But she could hear Cho well enough. “It is the mask that prevents us from finding your sword,” she told Genzai. “Our way is to let our sandbags carry us down, then let our rowers pull the bags back up. We never swim back up with anything heavier than a catch bag.”

  “Not today. Dive.”

  Cho sighed in defeat. She was the tenth diver of the morning, and the other nine had worked themselves to exhaustion, all with nothing to show for it but a series of failed experiments on how best to dive under these conditions. They’d fastened an anchor line from the prow of Genzai’s rowboat to the widest hole in the carrack’s hull, so that no effort need be spent steering the course of their descent. And they dived with extra sandbags too; the faster the extra weight could bring them down, the more bottom time they’d have for searching. Yet none of them had so much as laid eyes on their quarry.

  “At least let me dive without this silly tether tied to my ankle,” Cho said.

  “No. That mask is one of a kind. We need to be able to pull you back up if you should drown.”

  Cho’s face blanched. Until that moment, Kaida had been a little proud of her—begrudgingly so, to be sure, but she was the first to speak up to Genzai. It was obvious to all of them why these outlanders hadn’t found their sword; they knew nothing about diving. But only Cho had said so, and Kaida thought that bespoke courage.

  But Genzai cowed her with a stare. Cho got in the water and did as she was told, and to no one’s surprise she did not find the sunken sword. She dived again and again came up empty-handed. Kaida watched her as she went down. Cho was as pale and lithe as her eldest daughter, and like Miyoko she swam as gracefully as any creature of the sea—but much deeper, staying down much longer. An ama’s lungs tended to get stronger with age, and wisdom and experience gave insights into diving that none of the younger girls understood. The oldest ama didn’t move at all on their descent, and when they swam it was only little flicks, like a sea turtle’s: small, strong, precise. Every movement, every flexion or tension of the muscles consumed the body’s breath. Kaida understood the principle better than any girl her age, since with her handicap she needed to make the most of every movement. On most days, she tried to let the principle direct her dives, but on this particular morning she could not help but resent it. At this rate, one of the older women was certain to retrieve the sword before she could get to it herself.

  She already knew the reward she’d ask of Genzai. She just needed to get to the sword before anyone else. But the ama had decided among themselves that the oldest would dive first. They were the strongest, and it was better for the village not to risk girls of marrigeable age. Diving on the wreck was precarious enough by itself, they said, even without the hungry ghosts that must be circling it like sharks. But Kaida wasn’t afraid of ghosts. She was only afraid that someone would find the sword before she had her turn. At thirteen, she was close to the bottom of the list.

  Her mind raced. She had to think of a way to make Genzai choose her, and more difficult yet, she had to think of a way to find his precious sword. She’d already scoured every corner of the wreck; she’d pulled up every treasure she thought outlanders might want. There weren’t any swords down there.

  Not in the open, anyway.

  But then there were the dark spaces, the holds that were still intact, still locked up tight. She’d never mustered the courage to get into those.

  As if to mock her, Cho’s pale silhouette wriggled into the gaping dark maw of the carrack. From the surface, it looked exactly like the wreckage had gobbled her up.

  “Scary, neh?” said Miyoko. Kaida looked up to see her stepsisters riding abreast of her. Sen was their oarsman again, gazing blankly from under the shadow of his broad sugegasa. Kaida wondered what lies Miyoko had conjured to coax him into rowing his boat closer to Kaida, within tormenting range. Her thoughts strayed to the knife she’d bound to her stump, still concealed by the loose sleeve of her yukata. It was of no use to her at the moment, but she was glad to have it nonetheless.

  “Neh, Kaida?” Miyoko said it as sweetly as if she were talking to a newborn. “What a fright it must be, swimming inside that dark shipwreck. It must feel like the walls are closing in.”

  “Not such a difficult problem to fix,” Kaida said. “Don’t dive.”

  “Oh, but if we don’t dive, how can we win the treasure? You do want the treasure, don’t you?”

  Kaida didn’t feel like exercising patience tod
ay. She jumped headfirst over the gunwale, thankful for the cold water rushing past her ears. Genzai’s boat was close, but she chose to swim under it and surface on the far side, out of sight of her sisters.

  “Why is that sword so important to you?”

  Genzai looked down at her, frowning. “That is no concern of yours.” He turned away, redirecting his attention to the wreck and the ama within.

  “I can tell you how to get it,” Kaida said. “Tell me what it’s for.”

  He gave no hint that he’d even heard her speaking, and Kaida had almost resigned to swim back to her boat when finally he broke his silence. “The man who tames Glorious Victory cannot be defeated in battle. In the right hands, that blade can change the fortune of an empire.”

  “And you want to be emperor? Is that why you’re here? You’re a warlord?”

  “A broker.” He smirked. “Battlefields are for fools. Those who prefer their heads attached to their shoulders find other ways than war.”

  Kaida thought about that for a moment. “Is there a battle coming? There is, isn’t there? And you want to choose who wins. Is your plan to give the sword to some other warlord? To tip the balance in his favor?”

  A laugh rumbled in Genzai’s throat. “You are no fool, Kaida-san. Shortsighted, but not a fool. There are many battles to come, and we do not leave their outcomes to chance. Now tell me, what is your secret for retrieving the sword?”

  “If I tell you, will you choose me next?”

  Genzai gave her a grunt of disappointment. “So you can be the one to claim the sword? So you can demand that I take you with us when we go? No, Kaida-san. If a little ribbing from three little girls is too much for you, you’ll not fare well with us when we leave.”

  “You were listening?”

  “That is what you want, neh? For me to take you away from those sisters of yours?”

  “You said whoever gets the sword gets whatever she wants. You said she could name her reward.”

  “I did.” He glanced down, prompting Kaida to do the same. Cho was just emerging from the wreck. “Tell me your secrets, Kaida-san. How would you reclaim Glorious Victory?”

  “I will say nothing until you agree to take me with you.”

  He scratched behind his beard. “Very well. If you tell me how to make these women retrieve the sword, we will bring you with us when we take our leave.”

  Kaida felt a thrill of triumph. “One more thing: promise you’ll let me dive next. Before the rest of the older ama.”

  “Because you’re so sure someone else can use your secret to find the sword?” He gave her a studious frown, as if she were some new breed of seal no one had ever seen before. At last he grumbled his consent. “As you like. Reveal this secret art of yours and you will dive before any of these grown women.”

  Kaida all but floated with glee. “We cannot swim with that tether tied to our ankles. Tie it to your mask instead. That way you won’t lose your mask if I get into trouble, and I can dive deeper because I won’t have to make my ascent with that big iron weight pulling me down.”

  Genzai looked at Tadaaki, then at the other one, the outlander with the hair and beard like clouds on a stiff wind. “The mask must be worn to serve its purpose,” said the wild-haired one. It was the first time she’d ever heard him speak a coherent word.

  “Bind it to me if you like,” Kaida said. “Just not as you’ve been doing. Tie it so I can take it off.”

  Genzai looked to the old man again, who frowned as he thought about it. At last he gave a curt nod.

  Another thrill of triumph ran down Kaida’s spine. Her skin bloomed with goose bumps not born of the chilly water. “You, girl, get in the boat,” Genzai said.

  Kaida started to get in, but Genzai told her, “Not you. The tall one.”

  He pointed, and Kaida followed his finger to Miyoko, whose broadening grin bespoke victory and malice and joy all at once. She looked at Kaida as a flame might look at dry kindling.

  “No,” Kaida shouted. “Genzai-sama, please, you swore you’d let me go with you—”

  “If you found the sword,” Genzai said. “I will stand by my word: no grown woman will dive before you. But I have no desire to drag a crippled peasant girl in tow. If you should retrieve the Inazuma blade, I will carry you along with the rest of our luggage. But I intend to give every one of your sisters the chance to find it first.”

  47

  Kaida was heartbroken. All she could do was sit dripping in her wet yukata. She’d sealed her own fate.

  On any other morning, she would have no fear that Miyoko would claim the sword. The water was just too deep. But between the anchor line and the extra weight of the mask, Miyoko could reach the carrack with no effort at all. Worse yet, all the ama who dived before had worked out a sort of verbal map of the ship’s innards. Kaida’s best advantage had been her knowledge of the wreck. She’d dived on it dozens of times, while everyone else came to it for the first time. Now Miyoko had detailed instructions about which holds had already been combed over, which way to turn after swimming through this hatch or that one.

  On top of that, Miyoko had the mask. Every ama who wore it said she felt it pulling her toward the sword. Kaida didn’t quite understand how that worked; all of them admitted they hadn’t seen the sword, and Kaida could not grasp how they knew they were being pulled toward something none of them could see. But that hardly mattered. Miyoko had one unsurpassable advantage over Kaida: she wasn’t scared of closed spaces.

  Miyoko positively glowed as Tadaaki fixed the mask to her pretty face. “Take care not to snag the line,” he told her, just as he’d told every ama before her. “Should you lose the mask, we will send your corpse down to join it. Understand?”

  He’d said that to all of other divers too. Miyoko nodded and promised and did everything else a good little girl was supposed to do. Then she flashed Kaida a sinister smile and made her first dive.

  Kaida hoped she’d drown. Then she saw Cho’s face.

  Cho knew perfectly well that none of her daughters had ever been as deep as the wreck. Kaida’s aptitude for deep diving was freakish for girls her age. Cho couldn’t hide her apprehension: she bit her lower lip; her hands clasped tightly to each other; she held her breath.

  Only when a slender white form slipped out of the battered hull did she allow herself to breathe normally. Kaida saw the tension pour out of her shoulders, and she realized then that she couldn’t wish any of her stepsisters dead. Not really. She imagined her father with the same anxiety, and then with the same relief. He would have been a more attentive father if Kaida were a boy, and that was wrong of him. The death of a son would have hit him harder than the death of a daughter. But whatever his failings, a father should not have to bury his child, and the same was true of a mother like Cho. Kaida could wish her stepsisters would disappear, but she couldn’t wish them dead.

  “Too deep,” Miyoko gasped when she surfaced. “It’s too—I can’t—”

  “I can do it,” said Shioko, exactly in time with their mother’s saying, “It’s all right, sweetheart, they can send someone else.”

  “Get back down there,” Genzai said, as deadly calm as ever.

  “I can’t,” said Miyoko, still panting. “It’s too deep.”

  “Not for me,” Kaida said. “Give me the mask, Genzai-sama. I’ve been down there. You know I can do this.”

  For once Shioko ignored her. “Did you see the sword, Miyoko? I can do it. Just give me the mask.”

  “No,” said Genzai. “This one goes next.” And he pointed his finger at Kiyoko.

  Ever the follower, Kiyoko agreed. But she trembled as Miyoko removed the mask and actually broke down crying when she donned it herself. She did not shed tears so much as squirt them. Fear gripped her entire body; she looked as if she was about to faint.

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Cho. “Please, Kiyoko-chan. . . .”

  As it happened, Genzai and Cho both got their way. Kiyoko dived, but she only made it
halfway down to the wreck before she lost her nerve and flailed for the surface.

  “I can do it,” said Shioko. At last she had the chance to outdo both of her sisters. All she had to do was touch the hull and she’d have surpassed Kiyoko. Surpassing Miyoko had been her goal for as long as she’d been alive. Her whole life she’d been catching up. Now, at long last, she had her chance to excel. And Kaida wasn’t sure she’d survive the attempt.

  “Shioko, this is foolish at best,” she said. “Suicide at worst. You’ve never been that deep. You only stand to get yourself hurt.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Shioko said. “I’m a better swimmer than Kaida. Just look at her. Please, Genzai-sama, let me go next. I can do it.”

  Genzai looked at Kaida, then at Cho. If there was even a trace of compassion in him, Kaida could not see it. “This one goes next,” he said, and he summoned Shioko into his boat to don the mask.

  She rushed her first dive, paddling with her arms to hasten her descent; by the time she reached the wreck, she had to come right back up. With coaching from Miyoko she made the second dive in fine form. Kaida started counting when Shioko disappeared within the wreck, beating time with her thumb against the haft of her hidden knife, which she’d been concealing by crossing her arms and sitting hunched—no doubt seeming sullen to everyone else. Now she forgot herself, counting forty-nine raps of the thumb before Shioko emerged again. It was a good dive. At this depth Kaida herself didn’t always stay down that long.

  Shioko came up gasping, swallowing as much air as she could. Cho’s relief was almost palpable; Kaida imagined waves of it rippling through the air. “Well?” said Miyoko.

  “I saw it,” Shioko said when she could manage to speak. “With the mask I saw it. It’s just as you said, far forward, almost at the bow. It’s so dark in there. You can only see with the mask.”

  Kaida couldn’t make sense of that. The mask had eyeholes, not eyes. But Miyoko and Cho nodded as if Shioko made sense, and in any case Kaida had other worries. As Shioko described it, the sword was in the deepest, darkest, narrowest part of the wreck. The mere thought of such a place made Kaida’s throat grow tight.