Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter

by Richard Parks

  I let out a breath. “When did you notice the letter was stolen?”

  “Lord Sentaro says it disappeared three days ago.”

  Now I really didn’t understand and, judging from the grunt to my immediate right, neither did Kanemore. “What has Lord Sentaro to do with this?”

  “He is the Emperor’s Minister of Justice. In order to clear my reputation, I had to let him know of the letter’s existence and arrange a time for the letter to be read and witnessed. He asked that it be given to him for safekeeping. Since he is also Kiyoshi’s uncle I couldn’t very well refuse.”

  She said it so calmly, and yet she had just admitted cutting her own throat.

  “Teiko-hime, as much as this pains me to say, the letter has surely been destroyed.”

  There was nothing but silence on the other side of the veil for several seconds, then she simply asked, “Oh? What makes you think so?”

  I glanced at Kanemore, but there was no help from that direction. He looked as confused as I felt.

  “Your pardon, Highness, but it’s my understanding that the Fujiwara have their own candidate for the throne. As a member of that family, it is in Lord Sentaro’s interest that the letter never resurface.”

  “Lord Sentaro is perhaps overly ambitious,” Teiko said, and there was a more than hint of winter ice in her voice. “But he is also an honorable man. He was just here to acquaint me with the progress of the search. I believe him when he says the letter was stolen; I have less confidence in his ability to recover it. Lord Yamada, will you help me or not?”

  I bowed again and made the only answer I could. “If it lies within my power, I will find that letter for you.”

  “That,” said Kanemore later after we passed through the eastern gate, “was very strange.”

  The man, besides his martial prowess, had quite a gift for understatement. “You didn’t know about the letter?”

  “Teiko never mentioned it before, though it doesn’t surprise me. Yet . . . ”

  “The business with the Minister of Justice does surprise you, yes?”

  He looked at me. “Since my sister trusts you I will speak plainly—Lord Sentaro is Chancellor Yorimichi’s primary agent in the Fujiwara opposition to Takahito. If I had been in Lord Sentaro’s place I would have destroyed that letter the moment it fell into my hands and danced a tribute to the gods of luck while it burned.”

  I rubbed my chin. “Yet Teiko-hime is convinced that the letter was not destroyed.”

  Kanemore grunted again. “Over the years I’ve gone where my Emperor and his government have required. My sister, on the other hand, knows no world other than the Imperial Court. If Teiko were a koi, the Court would be her pond, if you take my meaning. So why would something that is immediately obvious to us both be so unclear to her?”

  “Perhaps we’re the ones who aren’t clear,” I said. “Let’s assume for the moment that your sister is right and that the letter was simply stolen. That would mean that Lord Sentaro had a good reason for not destroying it in the first place.”

  “That makes sense. Yet I’m having some difficulty imagining that reason,” Kanemore admitted.

  “As am I.”

  I looked around. Our path paralleled the river Kamo for a time, then turned south-west. Despite the lateness of the hour there were a few people on the road, apparently all in a hurry to reach their destinations. Demons were about at this time of night, and everyone’s hurry and wariness was understandable. Kanemore and I were the only ones walking at a normal pace by the light of the setting moon.

  “Your escort duties must be over by now and, as I’m sure you know, I’m used to moving about the city on my own,” I said.

  Kanemore looked a little uncomfortable. “It was Teiko’s request. I know you can take care of yourself under most circumstances,” Kanemore said, and it almost sounded like a compliment. “But if someone did steal the letter, they obviously would not want it found, and your audience with my sister will not be a secret. Sentaro himself saw you, for one.”

  “I didn’t think he recognized me.”

  “I would not depend on that,” Kanemore said drily. “The man forgets nothing. His enemies, doubly so.”

  “You flatter me. I was no threat to him, no matter how I might have wished otherwise.”

  “Why did you resign your position and leave the Court? If I may be so impolite as to ask. It could not have been easy to secure the appointment in the first place.”

  I had no doubt he’d already heard the story from Teiko, but I didn’t mind repeating events as I remembered them.

  “Your sister was kind to me, in those early days. Of course there would be those at Court who chose to misinterpret her interest. I had become a potential embarrassment to Princess Teiko, as Lord Sentaro delighted in making known to me.”

  “Meaning he would have made certain of it,” Kanemore said. “I wondered.”

  I shrugged. “I made my choice. Destiny is neither cruel nor kind. So. Kanemore-san, I’ve answered a personal question of yours. Now I must ask one of you: what are you afraid of?”

  “Death,” he said immediately/ “I’ve never let that fear prevent me from doing what I must, but the fear remains.”

  “That just means you’re not a fool, which I already knew. So, you fear death. Do you fear things that are already dead?”

  “No . . . well, not especially,” he said, though he didn’t sound completely convincing or convinced. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I’m going to need help. If the letter is in the Imperial Compound, it’s beyond even your reach. Searching would be both dangerous and time-consuming.”

  “Certainly,” Kanemore agreed. “Yet what’s the alternative?”

  “The ‘help’ I spoke of. We’re going to need several measures of uncooked rice.”

  He frowned. “I know where such can be had. Are you hungry?”

  “No. But I can assure you that my informant is.”

  About an hour later we passed through Rashamon, the south-west gate. There was no one about at this hour. The south-west exit of the city, like the north-east, was not a fortunate direction, as the priests often said these were the directions from which both demons and trouble in general could enter the city. I sometimes wondered why anyone bothered to build gates at such places, since it seemed to be asking for trouble, yet I supposed the demands of roads and travelers outweighed the risks. Even so, the most hardened bushi would not accept a night watch at the Rasha Gate.

  The bridge I sought was part of a ruined family compound just outside the city proper, now marked by a broken-down wall and the remnants of a garden. In another place I would have thought this the aftermath of a war, but not here. Still, death often led to the abandonment of a home; no doubt this family had transferred their fortunes elsewhere and allowed this place to go to ruin. Wasteful, but not unusual.

  The compound was still in darkness, but there was a glow in the east; dawn was coming. I hurried through the ruins while Kanemore kept pace with me, his hand on his sword. There were vines growing on the stone bridge on the far side of the garden, but it was still intact and passable, giving an easy path over the wide stream beneath it. Not that crossing the stream was the issue. I pulled out one of the small bags of uncooked rice that Kanemore had supplied and opened it to let the scent drift freely on the night breezes.

  The red lantern appeared almost instantly. It floated over the curve of the bridge as if carried by someone invisible, but that wasn’t really the case—the lantern carried itself. Its one glowing eye opened, and then its mouth.

  I hadn’t spoken to the ghost in some time, and perhaps I was misremembering, but it seemed much bigger than it had been on our first meeting. Still, that wasn’t what caught my immediate attention: it was the long, pointed teeth.

  Seita did not have teeth—

  “Lord Yamada, drop!”

  I didn’t question or hesitate but threw myself flat on the ground just as the lantern surged forward and its mout
h changed into a gaping maw. A shadow loomed over me and then there was a flash of silver in the poor light. The lantern shrieked and then dissolved in a flare of light as if burning to ashes from within. I looked up to see the neatly sliced-open corpse of a youkai lying a few feet away from me. The thing was ugly, even for a monster. A full eight feet tall and most of that consisting of mouth. The thing already stank like a cesspit, and in another moment it dissolved into black sludge and then vanished. I saw what looked like a scrap of paper fluttering on a weed before it blew away into the darkness.

  Where did the creature go?

  I didn’t have time to ponder; another lantern appeared on the bridge and Kanemore made ready, but I got to my feet quickly. “Stop. It’s all right.”

  And so it was. Seita came gliding over the bridge, with his one eye cautiously watching the pair of us. Now I recognized the tear in the paper near his base and his generally tatty appearance, things that had been missing from the imposter’s disguise.

  “Thank you for ridding me of that unpleasant fellow,” he said, “but don’t think for a moment that will warrant a discount.”

  Kanemore just stared at the ghost for a moment, then glanced at me, but I indicated silence. “Seita-san, you at least owe me an explanation for allowing your patron to walk into an ambush. How long has that thing been here?”

  I think Seita tried to shrug, but that’s hard to do when your usual manifestation is a red paper lantern with one eye and one mouth and no arms, legs, or shoulders. “A day or so. Damned impertinent of it to usurp my bridge, but it was strong and I couldn’t make it leave. I think it was waiting on someone. You, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps? Almost certainly, yet that doesn’t concern me now. I need your services.”

  “So I assumed,” said the lantern. “What do you want to know?”

  “A letter was stolen from the Imperial Compound three days ago. I need to know who took it and where that letter is now. It bears the scent of Fujiwara no Kiyoshi, among others.”

  Kanemore could remain silent no more. He leaned close and whispered, “Can this thing be trusted?”

  “That ‘thing’ remark raises the price,” Seita said. “Four bowls.”

  “I apologize on behalf of my companion. Two now,” I countered. “Two more when the information is delivered. Bring the answer by tomorrow night and I’ll add an extra bowl.”

  The lantern grinned very broadly. “Then you can produce five bowls of uncooked rice right now. I have your answer.”

  That surprised me. I’d expected at least a day’s delay. “Seita-san, I know you’re good or I wouldn’t have come to you first, but how could you possibly know about the letter already? Were the rei involved?”

  He looked a little insulted. “Lord Yamada, we ghosts have higher concerns than petty theft. This was the work of shikigami. The fact that they were about in the first place caught my attention, but I do not know who sent them. That is a separate question and won’t be answered so quickly or easily.”

  “Time is short. I’ll settle for the location of the letter.”

  Seita gave us directions to where the letter was hidden. We left the rice in small bags, with chopsticks thrust upright through the openings as proper for an offering to the dead. I offered a quick prayer for Seita’s soul, but we didn’t stay to watch; I’d seen the ghost consume an offering before and it was . . . unsettling.

  “Can that thing be trusted?” Kanemore repeated when we were out of earshot of the bridge. “And what is this shikigami it was referring to?”

  “As for trusting Seita, we shall soon know. That thing you killed at the bridge was a shikigami, and it’s very strange to encounter one here. Thank you, by the way. I owe you my life.”

  Kanemore grunted. “My duty served, though you are quite welcome. Still, you make deals with ghosts, and encountering a simple monster is strange?”

  “A shikigami is not a monster, simple or otherwise. A youkai is its own creature and has its own volition, nasty and evil though that may be. A shikigami is a created thing; it has no will of its own, only that of the one who created it.”

  He frowned. “Are you speaking of sorcery?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And of a high order. I should have realized when the thing disappeared. A monster or demon is a physical creature and, when slain, leaves a corpse like you or I would. A shikigami almost literally has no separate existence. When its purpose is served or its physical form too badly damaged, it simply disappears. At most it might leave a scrap of paper or some element of what was used to create it.”

  “So one of these artificial servants acquired the letter and hid it in the Rasha Gate. Fortunate, since that’s on our way back into the city.”

  “Very fortunate.”

  Kanemore glanced at me. “You seem troubled. Do you doubt the ghost’s information?”

  “Say rather I’m pondering something I don’t understand. There were rumors that Lord Sentaro dabbled in Chinese magic, even when I was at Court. Yet why would he choose shikigami to spirit the letter away? It was in his possession to begin with; removing it and making that removal seem like theft would be simple enough to arrange without resorting to such means.”

  Kanemore shrugged. “I’ve heard these rumors as well, but I gave them no credence. Even so, it is the letter that concerns me, not the workings of Lord Sentaro’s twisted mind.”

  Concentrating on the matter at hand seemed a very sensible suggestion, and I abandoned my musings as we approached the deserted Rasha Gate. At least, it had seemed deserted when we passed through it earlier that evening. I was not so certain of that now. I rather regretted having to leave my sword behind for my audience with Teiko-hime, but I still had my dagger, and I made certain it was loose in its sheath.

  The gate structure loomed above us. We checked around the base as far as we could but found no obvious hiding places. Now and then I heard a faint rustle, like someone winding and unwinding a scroll. Kanemore was testing the looseness of a stone on the west side of the gate. I motioned him to be still and listened more closely. After a few moments the sound came again.

  From above.

  This time Kanemore heard it, too. He put his sword aside in favor of his own long dagger, which he clenched in his teeth like a Chinese pirate as he climbed the wooden beams and cross-bars that supported the gate. I quickly followed his example, or as quickly as I could manage. Kanemore climbed like a monkey, whereas I was not quite so nimble. Still, I was only a few seconds behind him when he reached the gap between the gate frame and the elaborate roof.

  “Goji-san, they are here!”

  I didn’t have to ask who “they” were. The first of the shikigami plummeted past, missing me by inches before it dissolved. If the body survived long enough to strike the flagstones, I never heard it, but then I wasn’t listening. I hauled myself over the top beam and landed in a crouch.

  I needn’t have bothered; the gap under the roof was quite tall enough for me to stand. Kanemore had two other lumbering shikigami at bay, but a third moved to attack him from the rear. It was different from the other two. Snakelike, it slithered across the floor, fangs bared and its one yellow eye fixed on Kanemore’s naked heel.

  I was too far away.

  “Behind you!”

  I threw myself forward and buried my dagger in the creature near the tip of its tail, which was all I could reach. Even there the thing was as thick as my arm, but I felt the dagger pierce the tail completely and bury its tip in the wood beneath it. My attack barely slowed the creature; there was a sound like the tearing of paper as it ripped itself loose from my blade to get at Kanemore.

  Kanemore glanced behind him and to my surprise took one step backward. Just as the creature’s fangs reached for him he very swiftly lifted his left foot, pointed the heel, and thrust it down on the creature’s neck just behind the head. There was a snap, like the breaking of a green twig, and the serpent began to dissolve. In that instant the other two shikigami seized the chance and attacked,
like their companion, in utter silence.

  “Look out!”

  I could have saved my breath. Kanemore’s dagger blade was already a blur of motion, criss-crossing the space in front of him like a swarm of wasps. Even if the other two creatures intended to scream they had no time before they, too, dissolved into the oblivion from whence they came. Kanemore was barely breathing hard.

  “Remind me to never fight on any side of a battle opposite yourself,” I said as I got back off the floor.

  “One doesn’t always get to choose one’s battles,” Kanemore said drily. “In any case it seems you’ve returned the favor for my earlier rescue, so we my call our accounts settled in that regard.”

  I picked up a ragged bit of mulberry-paper, apparently all that remained of our recent foes. There were a few carefully printed kanji, but they were faded and impossible to read. “Fine quality. These servitors were expensive.”

  “And futile, if we assume they were guarding something of value.”

  It didn’t take long to find what we were searching for; I located a small pottery jar hidden in a mortise on one of the beams and broke it open with my dagger hilt. A scroll lay within. It was tied with silk strings and the strings’ ends in turn were pressed together and sealed with beeswax impressed with the Fujiwara mon. I examined it closely as Kanemore looked on.

  “Your sister will have to confirm this,” I said at last, “but this does appear to be the missing letter.”

  The relief on the man’s face was almost painful to see. “And now I am in your debt again, Lord Yamada. It has been a long night and we are both weary, yet I do not think that this can wait. Let us return to the Palace now; it will be stirring by the time we arrive.”

  The lack of sleep plus the sudden stress of the fight, now relieved, had left me feeling as wrung out as a washerwoman’s towel. I knew Kanemore must have been nearly as bad off, even though from his stoic demeanor I’d have thought he could take on another half-dozen shikigami without breaking a sweat.

  “We’ll go directly,” I said, “but I’m going to need a breath or two before I try that climb again. You could do with some rest yourself.”