Lord Oda's Revenge (25 page)

All the same, he was not prepared for how much it hurt.

‘Oh laywoman who has recently returned to the source,' said the abbot, ‘if you wish to take refuge in the precepts, you must first make repentance. Repeat after me: I entirely repent the evil actions I have committed in the past, arising from beginningless greed, anger, and delusion, and manifested through body, speech, and mind. . .'

Taro stared at his mother's serene face, and for a moment felt that she must be on the point of answering, that she would simply sit up and say the words back to the abbot, but she did not. She only lay there, unmoving.

Taro felt a tearing sensation in his throat, and his eyes welled up with tears, and he knew that if he didn't exert control on himself, he would break apart and be carried away by his own body, his mind fragmenting into the sound of wailing and the water running down his cheeks. He knew the monks meditated to find their place in the
dharma
; he meditated only so as not to break apart.

Absently he heard the monk's words again, though these had been flowing all the time, low and unobtrusive. ‘You have attained great purification. . . Next you must reverently take refuge in the three treasures: Buddha,
dharma
, and
sangha
.'

Taking a dish of water from a monk who had come close, the abbot sprinkled it on the dead woman. He took a bell from his robe and rang it, once, then began to chant, the other monks joining in.

You may,
thought Taro,
but I do not. I take refuge in nothing. I will not rest until these deaths are avenged.
Some part of him was aware that he wanted to deal death to others only to distract him from his guilt, but he didn't care. Once he had taken his vengeance, he would die himself. He was sure the Buddha ball could arrange that.

The chant finally over, the abbot again began talking, this time listing the ten precepts, which after the first –
Do not kill
– Taro ignored, for they did not and could not apply to him. He was empty inside, and the only thing that could fill him up would be the deaths of those who had hollowed him out.

Finally the initiation was over, and the abbot stepped away from the bodies. He breathed in deeply, then addressed the gathered mourners. ‘We are painfully aware that birth and death give way to each other, that cold and heat cannot exist together. They come like lightning flashing in a vast sky; they go like waves calming on a great sea. Today that is the case with these people you see before you, who have returned to the source. Understanding the impermanence of all things, they take nirvana as ease. I respectfully request the pure assembly to repeat after me the name of Amida Buddha. . .'

‘Namu Amida Butsu,'
said Taro, with everyone else, but the words were empty as unstruck bells.

The abbot held out the torch. ‘We humbly pray that their
spirits might cross over into the Pure Land; that their karmic afflictions might fade away; that the lotus will open its highest grade of blossom, and that Buddha will grant a rebirth.'

And, because all rituals, no matter how elaborate, must always end abruptly with that which has been feared and awaited for so long, he touched his hand to Taro's mother's forehead, then turned and walked away, the other monks following.

Taro let out a long sigh. It was over.

Shrugging off Hiro's consoling arm, ignoring Hayao's sympathetic gaze, he turned and walked quickly from the others, wanting to be off this mountain and far away. With Hiro behind him – he could hear his friend's breathing, his heavy footsteps, but Hiro knew him well enough not to speak or intrude – he wandered down the mountain slope away from the surviving temple buildings and the surviving people, touching his hands to the trees and staring sightlessly at the stones and moss.

At first he heard only shouting from a long distance away, back on the other side of the mountain, where the stone steps led down to the world beyond the monastery. It intruded into his consciousness only as much as the harsh cawing of the crows above him, in their precariously high nests.

But then the shouting grew louder, and finally there was a monk running towards them through the trees, babbling something incomprehensible. The man stopped before Taro and Hiro, his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Taro's hand went to his sword, thinking that the samurai had come again.

‘Another attack?' he said.

The monk looked up, his face burning red with his exertion, and shook his head. ‘No. . . not that,' he said, through tearing rasps of breath.

‘Then what is it?'

‘The. . . girl. . . in the Hokke-do. . .'

‘Yes?' said Taro.
Gods, they've found her body,
he thought.
I don't know if I have the strength to see it. . .
‘How. . . bad is it?'

The monk took a deep breath. ‘You don't understand,' he said. ‘She is not dead.'

 

H
ER SKIN WAS
smooth, her hair glossy and black. The fire seemed not to have touched her at all, as if she were precious to it. Beside her lay a skull – presumably that of a monk who had been caught in the Hokke-do when it burned. The remains of the hall were all around her. A blackened beam, two handspans wide, had been snapped by the falling roof, as if it were a twig, and lying under it were ashes that Taro hoped had come from the burning walls. Charred remnants of pillars stuck up from the ground like the stumps of burned trees, warped shapes of melted glass glinted in the light, and everything stank of charcoal.

Even as Taro looked down on her, monks were going about on their knees in the fine ash, picking up the larger fragments of the monk's bones with chopsticks, making sure to place them in the urn in order from toe to top of the head, for otherwise the dead man would lie unquietly, upside down.

Taro touched Hana's face – it was warm. He kneeled and put his ear to her mouth. To his shock he found that she was breathing, very slowly but steadily. Her chest rose and fell, and yet she did not wake. He pinched her arm – nothing. He could not understand it. Even the floor of the building was burned away,
so that she was lying on a bed of soft ash. ‘It's impossible,' he said. ‘The heat alone. . .'

Her eyelashes, as delicate as threads of silk, were not even singed.

‘It is a miracle,' said the abbot. He gestured to a pair of large charred beams, lying crosswise a few paces away. They were blackened by the heat, with great cracks running along their length from the intensity of the fire. ‘Those were on top of her. When the monks lifted them – and it took four men to move each one – she was lying underneath.'

Taro, still kneeling, spoke in her ear. ‘
Hana
.'

‘She won't wake,' said the abbot. ‘We've tried. She just lies there, sleeping.'

Hana's arms were folded over each other, and she lay on her side, her whole body curled and wrapped around the golden scrolls. Taro could see that she had held them close to her, then huddled around them, protecting them from the fire with her own flesh. He was in awe at the extent of her sacrifice – she had been willing to
die
for these sutras. And yet she wasn't dead. She was lying here, breathing gently, still clutching the precious treasure of the monastery.

Taro saw where her hand was gripping one of the golden tubes and tried to uncurl her fingers. He grunted, surprised. They were unyielding as china, or stone.

‘We tried that, too,' said the abbot. ‘It is impossible to remove them.'

Taro looked at her with wonder. A rosy blush was on her cheeks, the shadow of a smile on her lips. He half expected –

hoped

– that she would simply stand, brush off her kimono, and none of this would be real. The only hint that things were
otherwise was that her eyes were closed.

‘How did this happen?' he asked the abbot.

The abbot shook his head. ‘I've never seen anything like it before. But there is one thing—' He broke off, as if unsure of what he was about to say.

‘Yes?' said Taro.

‘When the founder of the Tendai monastery copied those scrolls, it is said he received help. From Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. She gave him insights not contained in the original Sanskrit. That is why these particular sutras are so special – they are the only ones to contain the words of Kannon herself.'

Taro glanced behind him at the path that led to the summit. Though the wind had died down, the prayer wheels – dedicated to Kannon – continued to creak on their axles, reading out their endless prayers to the air. It was an eerie sound, he realized suddenly.

‘You think Kannon did this?' he said.

The abbot shrugged. ‘It's possible. When Kannon died, she could have melted into oneness with everything, because she had achieved enlightenment. But she turned her back on that bliss and returned to earth to help humanity. Those scrolls contained the very distillation of her wisdom, and your friend was ready to give her life to save them. I believe Kannon would understand that, and respect it. Perhaps she used her power to keep the flames from the girl.'

Hiro frowned. ‘If Kannon saved her, why doesn't she wake?'

Again the abbot made a gesture of resigned ignorance. ‘Even bodhisattvas are not all-powerful, for there is a flow in the world that even enlightenment cannot allow us to dam, or divert. Kannon may have saved her body, in gratitude for her sacrifice. But perhaps she could not save her soul from making the journey
into death. That is a voyage that cannot be reversed. At least, not since—'

‘No!' said Taro. ‘She's not dead.' He felt as if he had been struck in the stomach. He touched Hana's mouth – something he had never done when she was awake. ‘She's
breathing
,' he said.

‘I've seen men continue breathing, after they have been dealt blows to the head,' said the abbot. ‘And yet their souls have left them. They do not speak or eat or drink, and eventually they die.'

Taro felt sick. He looked at the face of the girl he loved, so fragile and beautiful. ‘She won't die. I—I won't allow it.'

The monk put a gentle hand on Taro's arm. ‘That may not be for you to decide.'

Hiro, too, reached out to touch Taro, but Taro pulled away from them. ‘Wait,' he said. He turned to the abbot. ‘Just now you were about to say something, when I interrupted. About the voyage to death being reversed
only once
. What did you mean?'

The abbot sighed, but it was a compassionate sigh – the sigh of one who doesn't want to give false hope. ‘That was a long time ago,' he said. ‘When the last Buddha was still alive. It's said that after he achieved enlightenment, but before he ascended into nothingness, he had a ball, which represented all of
dharma
and samsara, too, and that with it he could order the world as he chose. Once, a demon attacked one of his best-loved disciples and stole away his soul to Enma's hell. The Buddha used the ball to get him back.'

Taro smiled. ‘Then that's what I'll do.'

‘But the ball is just a story!' said the abbot. ‘It is never mentioned in the Sanskrit sutras, apart from that single time when the Buddha rescued his disciple. No one has heard of it, or
seen it, in a thousand years. There's a folk tale of the amas, which says that it was thrown off a treasure ship from China, off the coast of Japan. But that's just a legend! People are easily seduced by the idea that something so powerful might be so close, yet so hidden.'

Taro looked at Hiro, who raised his eyebrows. Both of them had reason to think the story was true – if only because Lord Oda believed it, and so did the prophetess. It was also true, though, what the abbot said about the seduction of power. Taro had never understood why people wanted it – why they wanted control over the world and the doings of men, and were willing to kill to get it.

But now he saw. Even if mountains and tides were raised against him, he was going to find the Buddha ball. And when he had it in his hands, he would destroy those who had hurt him. And then he would summon Hana's soul from death itself, and look her in the eyes again. She might hate him, perhaps. She might remember that it was Hayao, and Hiro, who came after her – that Taro had abandoned her.

And that was all right. Taro hated himself, after all. What was important was that he bring her back. Let her marry Hayao – at least she would
live
.

‘Nevertheless,' said Taro. He touched Hana's cheek again. ‘What will you do with her?'

‘We can't move her,' said the abbot. ‘We've tried. It's as if she is part of this place now. My idea was to build a new temple around her, and the scrolls in her hands. Already the story of her sacrifice is spreading. People will want to pay their respects.'