Lord Oda's Revenge (31 page)

Taro himself had not believed it was real, until he saw that a man like Lord Oda no Nobunaga was willing to kill for it.

A voice broke into Taro's thoughts.

‘Your mother dived the wreck the day you both disappeared,' said the priest, sitting down beside him.

Taro stared at him, surprised.

‘And now you want to go there yourself,' the man continued, running his fingers over his grey stubble.

‘No, I—,' Taro stammered, but he wasn't sure what he could say.

‘It's all right,' said the priest. ‘You don't have to explain. I could tell you the wreck was dangerous, but I think you know that anyway, and I doubt it would do much good to discourage you. I could see, yesterday, that you had experienced much more than you were telling me. When you lived here, you didn't carry a sword beneath your clothing.'

Taro's hand went to his side, where a
katana
was strapped beneath his kimono.

‘Yes, I see more than I say,' said the priest. ‘And one thing I can see is that karma wants me to help you, even if I don't know why.' He pointed to a boat that lay bobbing in the water just offshore, close to where they sat. ‘That's mine,' he said. Then, apparently
following another train of thought, he jerked his thumb back towards the village. ‘I'm leading a service this evening, before we send the ghosts back to Enma's realm in their little boats. There will be a lot of
o-sake,
and the service is likely to go on for a long time.' He turned again to the sea. ‘If my boat were to go missing in that time, I would be highly unlikely to notice.'

Taro couldn't believe what he was hearing. ‘I. . . thank you,' he mumbled.

‘You are welcome,' said the priest. ‘You know,' he added, ‘I was there the day your father brought you in his arms from the beach, after you rescued Hiro from the shark that killed his parents. You were bleeding from a terrible wound, yet you had killed the shark, and when you opened your eyes and spoke, it was only to ask if Hiro was all right.'

Taro glanced down, embarrassed.

‘And you haven't changed since then,' said the priest. ‘You're still brave, but also unswerving, which can be bad for one's karma, and one's health. Not many people would take a knife to a
mako,
let alone a boy.' He looked at Taro, and his gaze was serious now. ‘I know you will go to the wreck, and that there's nothing I can do to stop you. But be careful, do you understand? There are things on this earth that you cannot even imagine.'

Like vampires and ghosts?
thought Taro. But he just nodded. ‘I'll be careful,' he said.

‘Good. Just don't get yourself killed. We have enough ghosts to be contending with, this
obon
season.'

Taro sighed, thinking of his mother's ghost. ‘Why are you helping me?' he asked.

The priest gave Taro a keen look. ‘Do you believe your mother is at rest?' he asked, answering Taro's question with another.

‘No,' said Taro. ‘No, I don't.'

‘You've seen her? When we were at the shrine, you went as pale as a ghost. I thought perhaps. . .'

‘Yes,' said Taro. ‘Yes, I've seen.'

‘That is what I thought. It seems to me that whatever is keeping her on this plane might have something to do with the wreck. I am just a foolish old priest, but I see a woman dive there on the day she disappears and her husband is killed, and I wonder if there's a connection.'

Taro nodded. ‘I think there might be,' he said.

‘You must be careful, though,' said the priest. ‘There is a reason why people avoid the wreck, much as you may not believe it.'

‘Demons?' said Taro, with a weak smile. ‘Kappas?'

‘Yes, and worse,' said the priest, with no trace of humour.

 

O
ARS RAISED
,
THE
little boat rocked on the waves. Taro had rowed out to the far north side of the bay, taking the priest's fishing boat. The moon was bright, uncovered by clouds, and illuminated the scene before him as if it were daylight, only leeched of colour. Everything – the sea, the wood of the boat, the mountains – was silvery blue. Taro glanced back at the lights of Shirahama, seeing no movement. The people were inside the gathering hall, beginning the closing ceremony of
obon
. He had perhaps three incense sticks before they would move to the beach and place in the sea the boats in which their relatives' shades would return to the land of the dead.

Reaching out with one hand, he touched the water. It was cold, even though it was the Month of Leaves and the land was warm. But the sea was another kingdom, and everything was different here. Still, he could not let the cold stop him. He had to hurry – not only so that he could return to the village before the congregation reached the beach, but also because he could feel the wind rising. Already the sea all around him was becoming choppy, the waves standing up in points, like the teeth that encase a pine cone. Taro had never come close to this part of the bay. Now he felt a physically palpable animosity from the place,
as if the wreck below him were a spidery monster, squatting malevolently on the sand. The air felt gelatinous and resistant – it wanted him gone too.

He sent a silent prayer to the Princess of the Hidden Waters, hoping that the
kami
would protect any diver, not only the exclusively female amas. Then, quickly so that he couldn't change his mind, he dropped backward into the water.

Immediately he had the old sensation of breaking through a membrane and into another realm. The water was clear in the moonlight, and even from so high up, he could see the first spars of the wreck, perhaps the depth of three men standing on their shoulders. Curving out of the sand, these glistening wooden staves resembled the bones of a whale. Farther to the north they disappeared, as the sand of the bay gave way to rocky reef, a landscape of the Kanto in miniature, with coral for hills and fronds of anemone for trees.

Taro felt that greasy resistance again, but he pushed downward, feeling the pressure in his ears. He was glad he was a vampire and did not need to breathe as much as an ordinary person. The wreck was deep. By the time he had forced himself through the water to the white sand below, his ears were ringing and his eyes stinging with the salt. He kicked forward and grasped the nearest rib of the ship, wanting some purchase in this shifting, contingent world. A cold current snaked around him and out to sea, ruffling his hair, as if wanting to take him with it.

Carefully Taro swam farther into the wreck, between the ribs of the ship. He could see other things now, sticking out from the seabed. A rusting anchor, a teacup, what looked like a bone. He tried to put himself in his mother's position. Where would she have hidden the ball? She could have buried it anywhere, in the
sand, and it would take him days to find it. He stared hopelessly at the sea bottom.

Suddenly an enormous octopus detached itself from the reef before him and moved quickly over the sand, its colour – which had blended with the greens and greys of the reef – changing to an angry, pulsing red. Taro backed away, alarmed. He had been willing to dismiss dragonflies and crabs, but this was a giant octopus, and it was coming towards him. He grabbed another rib, pulling himself behind it. The octopus curled its legs around the same piece of wood and began to climb upward.

Taro knew that the amas feared octopuses more than sharks. It was said that no shark had ever attacked an ama, knowing that they were protected by the Princess. But octopuses were different – they were low creatures, and didn't answer to the
kami
, or to any bodhisattva. Once an octopus had caught an ama as she dived, and made her his wife. Some of the women said that they had seen her, a skeleton clothed in tattered flesh, floating out of a cave in the reef, tiny fish floating in and out of her eye sockets, crabs scuttling in her hair.

Taro felt panic taking him over. Forcing himself to be calm, he let go of the rib and kicked out, knowing that there was one direction he could move in quicker than the octopus – straight up. Moments later he broke the surface, gasping for breath. The wind was howling now, and his boat had drifted farther out to sea. He cursed. There had been nowhere to tether it, and he had not thought of what to do if he lost it. Now it was being carried farther away by the moment.

To the south, a large ship plied the coast, no doubt taking cargo from Osaka or Kyoto to the territory of one of the northern daimyo. It would pass him, but not close enough for him to wave
for help. He'd just have to hope he could swim back to shore when he was finished.

Already, though, clouds were massing overhead. He didn't have much time. He trod water for a while, then dived once again, heading closer to the reef this time, hoping that the octopus would have stayed where the ribs of the ship met the sand. A small voice at the back of his mind said that he was wasting his time, but he ignored it. Swimming strongly, he glided through the water towards the reef. Here the ribs no longer rose in mocking echo of their original shape, making a ghost ship that sailed on sand. There was only broken wood and debris, scattered all over the rocks.

Taro swam right down to the reef and then moved slowly along it, picking his way over splintered pieces of plank, so old that they were more barnacle and coral than wood. Fish moved serenely around him, unworried by his presence. Some of the bolder ones even nipped his fingers, as he pulled himself along the reef. In a crevice, he spotted an eel, seeming to glare at him. The coral was all the colours of bone and rust and wood, so that it was hard to see what was detritus from the wreck, and what had grown in this place. He wondered how he would ever find the ball in this underwater realm. There were countless cracks in the reef, and between them and the sand, it could be hidden anywhere.

But that was when he saw it.

Just ahead of him, cradled in the soft purple fronds of an anemone, was a golden orb, shining in the moonlit water.

Relief surging through him, Taro swam towards the ball. His lungs were burning and his limbs aching, but he didn't want to go back up, for fear he wouldn't find this spot again. As he came closer, he could see the etchings on the surface of the ball, which
he was sure had been cast from a single lump of gold. What he thought were Sanskrit characters covered its surface, gleaming dully in the dim light.
This is it
, he thought.
I've actually found it
.

He reached out to touch it, and something gripped his wrist. He saw a head like a snake's, teeth sunk into his flesh. Fear struck him like a rearing horse, knocking his body backwards in a convulsing effort to get free. Blood pounded in his ears and his eyes opened wide, and he saw before him an enormous turtle, its furry legs paddling the water as it worried at his arm, biting him.

A Kappa. It's a Kappa.

Taro struck out with his other hand, trying to free his wrist. The ball shimmered before him, seeming at once close by and far out of reach.
This is why my mother shook her head
, he thought.
She wasn't pointing at me, she was pointing at this place. . . She didn't want me to come here. Oh, gods, I'm going to drown.

Desperately he clawed at the head that had seized on his wrist, but it had clamped on with the force of a barnacle. He looked around him, trying to find something – anything – that might help him. A length of wood, perhaps.

And that was when he saw them.

Swimming towards him over the reef, like grotesque shelled dogs, was a school of grinning Kappa demons.

 

T
ARO NEARLY BREATHED
in water as he twisted his arm, trying desperately to free himself. Salt burned his throat. Already he'd been under too long, and dark stars burst in front of his eyes. His forearm burned with pain, from the tight grip of the Kappa and his own attempts to tear his limb free.

All the while, the other Kappas swam towards him.