He stood on the bank, trying to catch his breath, wondering if he was dreaming, for, though he had traveled all over the Eight Islands and had taken part in countless extreme secret rituals, he had never in his life seen anything like the scene before him.
Rocks like animals turned to stone; carved statues with lacquered skulls; animals that had once lived and were preserved, still lifelike; creatures that had never been conceived within a mother or borne by her, but that had a sort of life and that moved and walked and watched his approach with their blue gem eyes; birds that flapped the carefully woven and glued feathers of their wings and turned their empty skulls toward him.
He transferred the knife to his left hand and drew his sword with his right, raising it threateningly if any animal came too close. They made his skin crawl in disgust. He understood the pollution and profanity to which he was exposing himself and feared he would never be clean again. Even when he had lived in the Darkwood himself, he had never imagined such a place might exist within it. The whole thing must be cleared, he thought. We will scour it from end to end and rid it of this vile old magic.
Muttering incantations, the hidden names of the Enlightened One, the secret words known only to initiates, he went forward into the clearing, to a hut with walls of animal skins and a roof of bones. There was no way of approaching silently. The horde of animals and birds was already uttering cries and howls of alarm, which rang through the clearing and echoed back from the surrounding mountains. Gessho, characteristically, turned this to his advantage, shouting at the top of his voice, “I am Gessho of Ryusonji. By the authority of the Prince Abbot, I command whoever is the source and cause of this abhorrence to reveal himself.”
He saw a movement on the slope behind the hut. Someone was hastening down, taking great leaps over logs and boulders. Gessho sheathed his sword and quickly put an arrow to his bow, muttering a binding spell to it. Even as he loosed it he felt an opposing magic and knew it would go wide.
He took another and shot swiftly. A crow-like bird with an eagle’s head dived onto the arrow in mid-flight, grasped it in its beak, and flew away with it. The werehawk pursued it, shrieking in rage.
Gessho flung the bow down and drew his sword again. He sensed someone behind him and turned, slashing wildly, but there was no one there, or no one visible, for he was sure he caught a shadow of movement.
Then the throb of magic in the air grew stronger, making him spin back. Someone—it had to be the sorcerer—was standing at the edge of the clearing, a few hundred paces away.
Gessho called, “I command you, in the name of the Emperor, and his uncle, the Prince Abbot of Ryusonji, to submit to me and surrender any fugitives you are hiding.”
“There are no fugitives here,” the man replied. “Only those who belong to the forest. You are the stranger, the intruder. Or maybe you are the fugitive, escaping from an unjust, cruel master. In which case, lay down your weapons and be welcome.”
“There is worse perversion here than I have ever seen in my life,” Gessho shouted in response.
“Then you do not know your master’s heart,” the sorcerer called back, in a voice of extraordinary clarity.
Enraged, the monk rushed forward, sword raised. In his path the air seemed to shimmer and suddenly a young boy stood before him, a handsome lad with a calm face and an ethereal smile. Gessho halted, his reason telling him it must be an imp of some sort, or an illusion created by the sorcerer, his mind wondering if it could be Yoshimori himself, his heart pierced suddenly by the fragile, innocent beauty before him.
In wonder, he leaned forward to look at him and the boy smiled more widely, opening his mouth, showing small white teeth. From behind those teeth came a stream of tiny darts, spat into Gessho’s eyes.
He knew at once that they were poisoned, for they burned agonizingly, like a bee’s sting. As he gritted his teeth against the pain, he felt an invisible being leap onto his back and slip something around his neck, a leather strap that he struggled in vain to break. He arched his back and flexed his huge shoulders and felt the leather give slightly. He thrust his fingers under it and wrenched it away. As he flung it down, the creature holding it came shimmering into view. It was another boy, the same age as the first and strikingly similar, although his features were distorted by an animal-like snarl.
Shadows darkened Gessho’s vision, but his enormous strength was not yet exhausted and he still held his sword. It was protected by powerful prayers and would not be subject to the sorcerer’s magic. He struck out at the second boy, only to see him leap into the air, like a monkey, out of his range. Then he realized imps surrounded him on all sides. They were tormenting him like a swarm of hornets, disappearing and reappearing, darting in to stab his legs, or flying past him leaving wounds in his neck and face.
He was bleeding from a dozen cuts but was still far from giving up when he heard hoof beats and splashing and, turning, saw his horse cross the stream with Shikanoko on its back. The boys fell back, giving him a moment’s respite.
“Shikanoko,” Gessho called. “The Prince Abbot commands you to return to Ryusonji. Where is Yoshimori?”
“So this is your horse, Gessho,” Shikanoko replied, leaping to the ground. “But why have you come on this doomed journey? Now I’ll have to kill you.”
“Come back with me and you won’t have to kill me,” Gessho said boldly.
Shika replied, “I would tell you to inform your master that I will return to Ryusonji for one purpose only, which will be to destroy him, but you will not see him again until he meets you in Hell.”
Gessho called to the werehawk, circling overhead. “Fly, fly to Ryusonji. Tell my lord what became of me, and where.”
Shikanoko snapped his fingers and the bird flew to his shoulder.
Gessho knew then that all was lost and his life was over. He heard the voices of the spirits in Matsutani.
We could tell him what happens to him when he goes into the Darkwood.
What, that he loses his head? No, that’s too sad.
And it was too sad, that he should be undone by sorcery and magic, he who had never yet lost an argument or a fight. His eyes filled with water, tears mingling with his blood. He remembered his dream of his mother.
“Stand back,” Shikanoko said to the boys. “We will fight with swords, now.”
“Where is Yoshimori?” Gessho demanded, as they began to circle each other.
Shikanoko did not answer.
“Do you have him here? Tell me!”
The animals had fallen silent. Out of the corner of his eye Gessho saw the sorcerer approaching, his straggling hair, his gleaming eyes. He sensed his aura of magical power. He could fight a swordsman, he could strive against a magician, but he could not do both at the same time, and he feared the magic more than the sword. The animals, false and real, turned their heads toward their master, waiting for his command. It would take only one word from them and they would attack him. The idea of his death being delivered by their fake mouths, their wooden teeth, their metal claws, filled him with revulsion and desolation.
Shikanoko was becoming impatient, making ever fiercer thrusts and slashes, which Gessho parried, able with his greater strength to drive the younger man back. With each circle he moved closer to the watching sorcerer. When he judged the distance was right he leaped backward, as though avoiding Shikanoko’s sword, and, turning in midair, his knife in his left hand, stabbed the sorcerer in the throat as he landed.
For a moment he regretted not taking the old man hostage and forcing Shikanoko to submit, but he did not think he and his troop of imps would be swayed by any human compassion. Gessho pulled out the knife, marveling that the sorcerer’s blood spurted red and warm like any other man’s, and then turned to face Shikanoko.
* * *
A howl of fear and desolation came from the animals, as their master and maker crumpled to the ground. Shikanoko, too, cried out in fury.
“The fight was between us! Well, now you will pay!”
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His sword, Jinan, descended, slashing Gessho from shoulder to waist. Its returning stroke whipped through his neck, severing his head. The eyes stared for one final moment, blinked one last time. The body swayed and crashed like a felled cedar.
Shika stepped between the body and the head, ignoring the flowing blood, and knelt beside Shisoku, gripping his hands.
“You made me what I am,” he said, tears falling down his face. “You brought me back from the edge of death and despair.”
The old man was beyond answering; he would never move or speak again, would no more create his strange creatures nor practice his powerful haphazard magic. The five boys gathered around.
Kiku said, “He asks you not to waste that fine skull.”
“And to take care of the animals,” Mu added.
Then they all wept bitterly for their teacher, one of their five fathers, who, without knowing, taught them human grief.
They gathered wood and made a pyre, watching as the old sorcerer’s corpse was reduced to ash. The animals howled mournfully and even the insects gave out strange, sad susurrations, all the melancholy sounds of autumn distilled like one of Shisoku’s potions.
Shisoku burned like grass, but when they rolled Gessho’s body onto the pyre it smoked and sizzled like a roasting boar, the smell mingling with the fragrant cedar branches. Shika was going to burn the head, too, but Kiku took it from him and buried it beneath a wooden marker.
The boys caught the werehawk in a net and killed it. Kuro removed the beak, skin, feathers, and claws, and after boiling the bones carefully so all the flesh came loose, buried the remains deep so the animals would not dig them up. The boys ate many birds, but some instinct told them this half-magic bird was poisonous. Kuro put the rest out to dry, adding them to the bones on the roof, covering them with the same net to keep the real birds away.
Shika was both sad and relieved the werehawk was dead. It could have been a useful spy, but on the other hand it might have switched allegiance at any moment and flown back to the Prince Abbot. He already knew that the birds were capricious and untrustworthy. He had the scars on his face to prove it. He mourned the death of Shisoku for many weeks, wishing he could have saved him, regretting that it was because of him that Gessho had found his way to the sorcerer’s hut. The monk’s appearance brought back memories of Ryusonji, of the Prince Abbot and his secret rituals. They made his skin crawl; he wondered if he would ever be free. At night he took out the mended mask, purified it with prayers and incense, and finally dared wear it again. Deep in the forest the stags bellowed, and from their calls he learned the movements of the autumn dance and its knowledge of resignation and death.
* * *
The boys grew and learned with supernatural ability. Kiku knew how to embalm and lacquer and could combine secret elements to make spirit-returning incense. Mu could forge steel and mend broken tools. Kuro was familiar with all the poisons of the forest, the plants, and the five deadly creatures, which he kept live, and tried to re-create when they died. Ima was good at tanning skins, and also knew all the forest plants and insects, though he was more interested in their healing properties and in the many remedies Shisoku had recorded in his own idiosyncratic code. He and Ku mostly looked after the animals, fed them and patched them up. Morning and evening, all the boys repeated Shisoku’s prayers and chants that protected the forest.
They played on the horse, a mature and good-natured creature that put up with them vaulting on its back and making it gallop around the clearing and jump over rocks and statues. They named it Kuri, for its coat was the same glossy shade as the chestnuts they collected in the forest.
Kiku, being the eldest, was usually the leader in all their activities and games, but he had a cruel streak that made the younger boys wary of him. Mu had a better sense of humor—Kiku never laughed from amusement or pure joy but only in mockery—and was kinder to the two youngest. There was a rivalry between the two older boys that led them to test each other and fight constantly. Shika had to forbid them to use actual weapons; instead, their tools of combat were the strange talents with which they had been born, the second self and invisibility, and these they practised endlessly. They were like fox or wolf cubs, perfecting, through play, all the skills they needed for adult life. They seemed to age a year every month, and not a day passed that Shika did not recall Sesshin’s words, They will be demons. Sometimes he reflected he should have killed them the moment they were born, but now it was impossible. They had become precious to him. Their beauty and their strange skills intrigued and delighted him. He loved them as much as any man loves his sons, and he trained them as warriors’ sons, for all the time he was planning strategies to take Kumayama.
About a month after the deaths of the sorcerer and the monk, when winter was setting in and the clouds filling up with snow, Shika was skinning a hare by the fire, watched hungrily by Gen, who had become enough of a wolf to eat real meat. He had just slit open the carcass and was scooping out the entrails when Kiku, also waiting by him, quivering like a dog at the smell of blood and raw flesh, said, “Someone is coming.”
Shika could hear nothing besides the crackling of the fire and the panting of the animals, but he trusted Kiku’s hearing, which grew more acute every day.
He skewered the hare and set it over the coals to roast. “Someone human? One or several?”
“One man on a horse.”
Shika wiped the blood from his hands and stood. “Go to your positions,” he said quietly. They had prepared for unwanted visitors. “Don’t move unless I give you a signal.”
Kuro held Kuri’s muzzle to stop the horse neighing. Ima and Ku summoned the pack of dogs and wolves and hid with them behind the hut. Kiku and Mu picked up the bows Shika had made for them and took up position on either side of the ford across the stream, concealed behind rocks.
Shika waited in front of the hut, sword in hand.
A man rode across the stream on a dull-coated black horse, so thin Shika was surprised it could still move. Its hip bones stuck out, its back was swayed, its eyes sunken. He felt a pang of pity, for he recognized it as one of the famous Kuromori blacks, brother to Kiyoyori’s own stallion. With that clue he identified the rider: Kiyoyori’s retainer Kongyo, husband to Haru, the children’s nurse.
Kongyo looked as half-starved as the horse. He slipped from its back and walked forward warily, his hand on his sword. His eyes glanced quickly around the clearing, taking in the skulls, the bone thatch, the clumps of feathers, the drying skins. He seemed to master a quiver of disgust and some other emotion when he smelled the roasting hare. The horse lowered its head and began to tear at the dying winter grass. Its belly gave a hollow rumble.
The two men stared at each other. Shika wondered if Kongyo knew him. It was more than a year since they had both served Lord Kiyoyori at Matsutani. Kongyo had been sent to Miyako before Lady Tama had put out Sesshin’s eyes and turned him and Shika out into the Darkwood, but in the preceding weeks they had seen each other daily. Then, Kongyo had been the Kuromori lord’s senior retainer and Shikanoko the dispossessed son of a dead warrior, tainted by his association with the bandit chief, Akuzenji. Now they stood on a more equal footing, determined by the fact that Kongyo was starving and Shika had food.
“Do you still call yourself Shikanoko?” Kongyo said finally.
Shika nodded briefly.
“I am Kuromori no Kongyo—”
“I know who you are,” Shika interrupted. “How did you find your way here?”
“My son told me the monk Gessho had come back to find you. I sent him to follow Gessho; he marked the trail. He saw Gessho die and he recognized you. You may remember him: he is the same age as Lady Hina and often played with her and her brother. We call him Chika.”
“I remember him,” Shika said, wondering how none of the boys had noticed him. They must have been too involved in the fight with Gessho, and then distracted by the death of Shisoku. And hadn’t Chika prided himself on being able to flit ar
ound Matsutani unseen?
“He said you overcame Gessho partly by magic,” Kongyo said, seeming to choose his words carefully as if anxious not to offend Shika. “That you employed spirits in the shape of children who could appear and disappear.”
“Perhaps his shock at witnessing the death made him see delusions,” Shika replied.
“But you have children here? We hoped one of them might be Yoshimori. Why else would the Prince Abbot send Gessho after you?” Kongyo’s eyes were shining with a kind of mad hope. “If Yoshimori is alive, my lord did not die in vain.”
Shika hesitated for a moment, but then decided he had nothing to fear from this starving man, who had been Kiyoyori’s most loyal warrior. “Yoshimori is alive, but he is not here,” he said. “I was with him, but I was injured, we were separated, and then, as your son saw, some other children came into my care and I could not leave them and go to look for him. Now it is nearly winter and soon it will snow. What can I do before spring?” He made a sign and one by one the boys appeared and gathered around them. Kongyo looked at them, taken aback by their appearance.
“They look as well suited to the forest as wolf cubs,” he said finally. “But will a child of imperial blood, who has been raised in a palace, survive a winter in the Darkwood?”
“He is not alone,” Shika replied, thinking with sorrow of Akihime, and the horses. “I can’t explain everything to you now, but I believe he will be safe, until the time comes when he can be rescued and restored to the throne.”
“We all pray that Heaven will decree it,” Kongyo said solemnly. “But I have something else to tell you that I hope will encourage you to act. The night my son returned and told me he had seen you kill Gessho, I had a dream about you. I saw you as tall as a giant. Your head rested on the mountains of the north and your feet on the southern islands. I woke convinced Heaven has a plan for you. Why else should you have escaped death so many times? You were believed to have died when you fell off the mountain. Akuzenji could have killed you but he did not. My lord, Kiyoyori, spared you alone among the bandits. Your uncle captured you but handed you over to Gessho. The Prince Abbot did not put you to death but took you as his disciple. You escaped from his service, and now I find you here, alive, in this place of death.”