Dendera (7 page)

Kyu laughed loudly, and as she did her mouth opened out into a gummy, toothless grin. Presumably malnutrition had claimed whatever of her teeth she still had on the day she entered the Mountain. Then Kyu’s face turned serious again, and she solemnly whispered that not being able to speak anymore was the thing she feared most of all. Kayu Saitoh realized that Kyu was talking about her friend Sasaka Yagi. Kayu Saitoh recalled how close the two women had been and remembered the day Sasaka had Climbed the Mountain, how Kyu, younger than Sasaka and left behind, had bawled her eyes out right in front of the whole sending-off party, even though such a thing was considered unseemly on what was supposed to be a joyous occasion.

The memory was not enough to make Kayu Saitoh’s next words any more sympathetic, however. “Well, Sasaka’s not going to Paradise now, is she?” Kayu Saitoh blurted out. “She had her chance to Climb the Mountain, but she ran away from her fate, and now she’s been killed by a bear.”

“Ms. Kayu, why must you always be like that? So harsh and unyielding?” Kyu asked, still walking beside Kayu. “You know, when I first discovered Dendera, I was overjoyed, truly I was. I would be able to live with everyone again, and damn the Village and its rules. Don’t you feel like that at all, Ms. Kayu? Not even a little bit? Weren’t you
happy
when you discovered that the people you thought were dead were actually still alive? Didn’t you feel any
joy
?”

Kayu Saitoh was a human being, of course, and the truth was that she couldn’t deny that she had felt something like that. When she first saw Makura again, or Mei, she had been almost overcome with feelings of nostalgia, of memories of good times past, and Kayu Saitoh supposed that these feelings could be called
happiness
or
joy,
if you had to put a name to them. No, it wasn’t that Kayu Saitoh didn’t feel happy. Rather, it was that her other feelings—disappointment at not reaching Paradise and anger toward the cravens who insisted on defying the tradition of Climbing the Mountain just so that they could scratch out a few more miserable years—these feelings were stronger, and they crowded out her positive emotions. The very fact of these women’s continued existence riled Kayu Saitoh; they made her feel filthy, unclean. And anyone who can make you feel like that, well—it’s easy enough to suppress any feelings of sympathy or love that you might otherwise have felt toward them.

Unable to articulate all these conflicting emotions, though, Kayu Saitoh simply said, “When you get to Paradise you are granted eternal happiness.”

“Eternal happiness? As if such a thing could exist,” Kyu fired back. “So you believe that once you are in Paradise you’ll be perfectly happy forever and ever. You really believe that?”

“Well, won’t I?” Kayu Saitoh said, defiant.

“As far as I can tell, Paradise is just a place where people’s thoughts and dreams go, so it’ll be just as full of hope and despair and anger and wishes as anywhere else. Can you really call that happiness? No, when you die, nothing changes and nothing ends.”

“So when are we going to be able to finally rest in peace?” Kayu Saitoh asked.

“There’s no peace. No rest.
That’s
why we all have to carry on living, as best we can.” And with that, Kyu disappeared off into the distance.

It was an irritating conclusion to a disturbing conversation—there was no closure for Kayu Saitoh, no satisfaction. It would have been far easier to deal with if Kyu had simply denied the existence of Paradise, but no, she had to go and decide what Paradise was
like
,
and it troubled Kayu Saitoh; it gave her thoughts she didn’t want to have. Determined to banish the unease from her mind, Kayu Saitoh concentrated on picking up her pace as she ascended the snowy slope in an effort to catch up with the rest of the expeditionary squad ahead of her.

At the plain at the top of the slope, the squad were standing still, focusing intently on their surroundings, bristling at every flurry of snow falling from the branches of the surrounding trees. They were fixed intently on their course: to recover the corpse of Sasaka. Now and then, Mei advanced nimbly forward, giving signals to the others to follow or to spread out. The expeditionary squad had been divided into smaller units, and Ate, Hatsu, Somo, and Naki clustered around a fir tree on an outcrop up front, with Makura, Soh, Kaga, Guri, and Ume positioned at another fir tree some way away from that one, while Kotei, Hikari, Tai, Tahi, and Tamishi stood next to a creeping pine positioned some way behind the two fir trees, while Chinu, Koto, Shima, Hyoh, Tema, and Tsusa were in a linear formation with Nokobi, Itsuru, Kyu, Tsugu, Tsuina, Kan, Mitsugi, Usuma, and Mumi forming another line behind them. Mei herself was positioned sideways on, giving her a full view from which to survey and command her assembled troops. When Mei saw that Kayu Saitoh had finally arrived, she narrowed her eyes and grumbled how Kayu Saitoh was late.

Kayu Saitoh ignored Mei’s comment and just asked, “Any sign of Sasaka, then?”

“This is where the trail of blood stops. Kayu Saitoh, you go line up over there with the others.”

Kayu Saitoh made to move toward the rear wall that she had been assigned to, but suddenly Kayu Saitoh sensed an immense, looming presence somewhere behind her, causing her to tremble. It happened so quickly, without warning, out of nowhere. Kayu Saitoh hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t heard anything, and hadn’t understood anything. And she didn’t need to.

A mass of blackness emerged.

It appeared from the direction of the creeping pine. Kotei, Hikari, Tai, Tahi, and Tamishi all just about managed to leap or roll out of the way of the black bundle as it charged at them, but the ferocity and the suddenness of the attack, combined with the uneven, precarious surface of the ground, meant that they all ended up collapsed in heaps on the snowy earth. The black mass’s momentum continued unabated, however, and now it was charging toward the old women posted at the fir tree on the outcrop. Makura, visibly disturbed by this development, was waving her wooden spear to and fro and shouting some incomprehensible war cry, and then the black mass split in two, and the smaller half barrelled into Ume, tossing her body into the air as if it were a child’s doll.

“Bear!” someone cried.

Kayu Saitoh had already ascertained that much for herself, of course, but was nevertheless surprised, both by the fact that the bear that had assaulted Dendera yesterday had a cub and by the implication that therefore the bear must have been female. She had heard that with bears, as with humans, it was the female that weaned the child. But this bear was so big! Even on all fours, it was easily as tall as a horse.

Its legs, like logs.

Its shoulders, towering like a mountain range.

Its belly, thick and strong.

Its claws, hook-shaped and black as treacle.

Its head, looming massive, even compared to its already huge body.

Its fangs, fully bared, menacing.

Its eyes, small, deep-set, the color of night.

And its red hair that sprouted down its back.

The last vestiges of night had disappeared, and morning had fully broken, but that didn’t change the fact that somehow this awesome creature had been living in the Mountain and with a child to boot.

The creature roared.

The roar was a challenge and a declaration.
Submit to me, you weaklings. I am stronger than you by far. There is nothing you can do to stop the carnage that is to come.

The old women, startled by the creature’s sudden appearance, were in disarray, screaming and scrambling to get out of the she-bear’s line of fire. The beast paused for a moment to scan the scene with its beady eyes and then charged again toward the two lines of old women. In an instant the lines crumbled as the women dispersed as quickly as they could, some running to try and scramble up a nearby tree, others tumbling down the mountainside, and yet others discarding their wooden spears and rolling themselves up into tight balls. Pathetic whimpers and cries echoed throughout the Mountain as the she-bear roamed as she pleased, treating the old women like so many playthings.

Kayu Saitoh started to clamber up a slope to her side and found that someone was tailing her. It was Kyu. Kyu was using two wooden spears almost as crutches to help propel her along. The two women’s eyes met, and although neither of them made any signal, a mutual understanding somehow seemed to be formed. They acted in tandem. They turned to stand their ground between two trees and blocked the path. Sure enough, the she-bear appeared in front of them, bearing down powerfully, throwing chunks of snow into the air in its wake. Its movement was also surprisingly fast, nimble even. Surprising to Kayu Saitoh, that is, for she had never known just how agile a bear could be, and this cruel new discovery imbued her with a fresh sense of dread, but even so she managed to hold her nerve and keep her wooden spear firmly outstretched in front of her, bracing in anticipation of that moment when the she-bear finally barrelled into her. The she-bear closed in on her and closed in again, but the impact never came, for the she-bear stopped suddenly in her tracks in front of the two old women. Kayu Saitoh was now barely a spear’s length away from the she-bear.

The she-bear’s nose twitched, and she seemed to be evaluating the two women that now stood in front of her. Behind the she-bear was the cub, anxious and wary. The cub’s eyes showed not anger or hostility but something closer to fear. Kayu Saitoh decided that the cub was not what she needed to be worried about now and focused her attention on the much more imminent threat of its mother.

The she-bear stood tall on its hind legs and outstretched its front legs.

Standing tall, the she-bear was now over twice as big as before. Kayu Saitoh’s entire field of vision was now dominated by russet-brown fur.

“What did you do with Sasaka …” Kyu’s voice was trembling, but she too managed to hold her ground.

The she-bear, of course, didn’t answer. Kayu Saitoh looked at the animal’s sturdy paws, huge balls of flesh from which five thick claws protruded. An image flashed through Kayu Saitoh’s mind of the scene of carnage this morning by the food stores, and she felt like she wanted to shrink away into nothingness, but then she thought of how Kyu was using her righteous anger toward the she-bear to bolster her courage, and Kayu Saitoh tried her best to do the same. But the fact was that unlike Kyu, Kayu Saitoh did not truly belong to Dendera, and in her listlessness she still even now couldn’t help but feel somewhat detached, not truly angry. No, she was living in a void. She could survive all right, but not truly draw strength from her surroundings, not when she believed in nothing. Kayu Saitoh didn’t know what to do next, and that sense of unease welled up again inside her. She knew full well that any sign of weakness would be pounced upon by the she-bear—figuratively and literally—but still she could do nothing. Her spirit had been broken once, and who could spring back from that on command, as if nothing had happened? Kayu Saitoh’s ears were filled with an uncomfortable clattering sound, and she realized that it was the sound of her own teeth chattering together. She would die now, she thought. She would die and never reach Paradise, but rather she would be cast into the void forever.

The she-bear stood there, on its haunches, staring at the two women, but then it placed its front paws back down on the ground and abruptly turned away before heading off into the mountains, its red back rapidly becoming a distant memory as its cub scurried off to follow.

The immediate threat had dissipated, just like that, but Kayu Saitoh remained rooted to the spot, frozen. The same was true of Kyu. Both of them remained that way until the other old women finally caught up to them and tapped them hesitantly on their backs and shoulders to help Kayu Saitoh and Kyu snap out of the daze. Once Kayu Saitoh regained her faculties somewhat, she noticed in the distance the figure of Ume being dug out of the snow. Ume, the sole casualty in the recent attack, turned out to be miraculously unscathed—the soft snow seemed to have cushioned the blow after being hurled through the air.

Mei raised her staff into the air, declaring that now was their chance to find Sasaka’s body. The rest of the women, however, were overcome with helplessness in the face of the she-bear’s might, and they were now more a disorderly mob than a fighting unit capable of taking orders. No one seemed to hear Mei’s command, and instead they started huddling together as a mass, each woman jostling for a safer place in the center. It was only when Kyu took action that the disorderly squabbling finally stopped. Kyu forced her still-wobbling body onward and started on an unsteady course after the bears, disappearing deeper and deeper into the mountains. Hatsu, seeing this, sternly admonished the others, asking if they were going to just let their sister go off and get killed, and then she followed after Kyu. Eventually, the rest of the women started to pull themselves together and went after Hatsu.

It was Mitsugi who, before long, gave a loud yelp as she was searching near a fir tree. She had discovered a large mound of snow and blood scattered all around. Mitsugi started brushing away at the snow to reveal pieces of cloth and chunks of flesh. The white robe, soaked in blood. Pieces of straw that had once been an overcoat. A right arm, hand missing its ring finger. Two legs, covered in deep bite marks. That was all that could be found. The rest had evidently been eaten.

“Sasaka …” Kyu burst forward, ignoring the women around her who tried to stop her from seeing the grim remains of her friend. The moment Kyu set eyes on the dismembered pieces of flesh, her face went white, her eyes blank, and she collapsed, insensible, to the snowy ground.

It was just after noon when the expeditionary squad returned to Dendera, carrying with it the unconscious body of Kyu and the remnants of Sasaka.

“I need you all to listen to me while you eat!” Mei Mitsuya said from her balcony.

Immediately after the expeditionary squad arrived back at Dendera, the chief gathered to the clearing the forty-one inhabitants who could still walk. Not even having been given time to eat, they squatted uncomfortably, faces and lips wind-chapped, eating potatoes, looking up sullenly at Mei Mitsuya on her balcony.