Stones (Data) (48 page)

The old man shakes his head. “The professor was a good man, an old acquaintance. I take partial responsibility for his death. I should have acted sooner to protect him. Ryzaard moved more quickly than I expected. But it’s too late now and can’t be helped.” His head goes back against the seat, and his eyes drop down. “You must stay with me. Ryzaard has gone back to New York City with this girl you call Jessica. As long as you are alive and away from him, he will not harm her. She is the bait to lure you into a trap. If you go to Ryzaard now, he will kill you
and
her. The only way to keep her alive is to stay away.”

“Why should I believe you?” Matt’s mind is racing to comprehend all that has happened in the past hour, all that he has lost. “Where are you taking me?”

The old man goes suddenly silent. He calmly faces forward with a stony expression, as if he knows nothing about dragging Matt down from the mountain and throwing him into the backseat of an ominous black car.

Matt’s hands slowly curl into fists. “Who are you?”

“
Ochitsukinasai.
Relax.” The man speaks in a strong Northern Japanese accent and has as much expression as a stone statue on Easter Island. “I am taking you back to the shrine with me for your safety. Unless you would rather have Rzyaard kill you now.”

“My Stone.” Matt stares at the old man, studying the gray fringe around a balding head, the unblemished skin and the dark eyes more clearly now. “Where is it?”

The man’s hand disappears into the folds of his robe and reappears with a small box on an open palm. It has a dull gray surface that reminds Matt of the color and texture of the giant granite boulders he often climbed in Powder Puff Basin.

“As long as it stays inside this box, your Stone will be hidden from Ryzaard.” He places the box back into the deep folds of his rob, and then stretches out a large hand and places it on Matt’s knee. “You must trust me, Matthew Newmark. Ryzaard intends to kill you. He almost succeeded. This was extracted from your neck just in time.” The old man opens the palm of his other hand and reveals a black capsule with small flecks of red on it. With his thumb and index finger, he pinches the capsule until it bursts, spraying a clear liquid around the inside of the car.

Matt touches his neck and feels a stab of pain as he brushes past a tender spot. “In Professor Yamamoto’s office, Ryzaard said I only had five minutes to live. I felt it moving deeper, toward the artery.” A shudder runs through his body as he recalls the events of the past hour. “You pulled me out of the professor’s office. Brought me to the mountaintop. Extracted the capsule before I died.” Matt looks down at his knees.

“We did all that
together
. I helped a little, but you did most of the work keeping the capsule away from the artery, in spite of the pain Ryzaard inflicted. Magnificent.” The old man’s rigid face cracks into a smile. “You
are
stronger than you think. I can help you learn more about the Stone. You
will
need it.”

Matt looks up. “How do you know about the Stone?”

“I have some experience.” The old man opens the palm of his hand and stares into Matt’s eyes.

There, in the old man’s hand, is a claw-shaped rock, mostly dark purple with a distinct shape.

“The
Yasakani no Magatama
.” Matt whispers the words to himself.

The old man’s eyebrows lift. “You know of the Magatama Jewel?”

“I saw a picture of it in Professor Yamamoto’s office.”

“Ah, yes. The only photograph ever taken.” The old man’s eyes drop down, and he puts the Stone back into the recesses of his robe.

“You’re the one who holds the
Magatama
for the Emperor?”

“Yes.” The old man grins. “The professor must have told you.”

“Why do
you
have it?”

“To keep it safe. The way it has been for more than two thousand years.” The old man rests his head on the back seat and exhales a long, deep breath. “No more questions. We have many hours to travel, and you need rest. Close your eyes. Sleep.”

Matt fumbles in his pocket for his jax so he can leave an emergency message with MOM for his dad. Then he realizes that he left it in Professor Yamamoto’s office. No doubt Ryzaard has it now.

The lights dim inside the car. Matt leans back and tries to relax, and then turns to the old man. “One more question. Tell me your name.”

“Naganuma Ryunosuke, the 100th Holder of the Magatama.”

M
att pushes off the rocky edge of the chasm with the ball of his foot and arches his back, stretching out arms and fingers for a handhold on the laser-bright line shooting across to the opposite side. The warmth of the laser kisses his fingers as he tries to grab it, but his hands slip through. Jagged rock walls rush up and away from him as he falls into darkness.

The sense of falling brings him out of the nightmare.

His eyes flip open to a dawn sky, pink against blue mountains on the other side of the valley. As he pulls himself up, the door behind him opens, and he rolls out onto a gravel surface. The door slams shut, and the car speeds away, spitting sand and pebbles in his face.

Naganuma stands a few paces away on the other side of where the car had been, leaning on his staff and smiling down at Matt. “
Ohayou gozaimasu
, my young friend. It’s a beautiful morning. I hope you got some rest. Welcome to my Shinto shrine.”

Naganuma’s sandals crunch on the gravel as he turns and walks to the main torii gate of the shrine, the symbolic boundary like between the unclean outside world and the sacred temple grounds. Fifteen meters high, the two vertical pillars of the torii gate are a meter in diameter, made of smooth wood and painted vermillion red. Near the top, there are two horizontal cross beams. The lower one is the same vermillion color, and the upper half of the beam on top is painted jet black. Its ends curve upward.

“Where are we going?” Matt says.

“I am hungry,” Naganuma grunts. “And so are you. It’s not good to talk on an empty stomach. No questions now. Eat first, talk later.”

Matt stands and walks behind Naganuma through the torii gate to the bottom of broad stone steps leading up to the main temple. Each step is a foot high and worn round from centuries of traffic. Ascending in silence, Naganuma gazes upward as he climbs, and Matt follows a few meters behind. At the top, the Shinto priest turns to face the open valley behind them.

Matt mounts the top step, the hundred seventy-fifth one he has counted on the way up, and breathes heavily after the brisk climb. He turns to face the same direction as the priest.

“I came here forty years ago, just before the 99th Holder died.” Naganuma stands with his hands on his hips over the white robes of a Shinto priest. “It was my first trip to Northern Japan. Very different from Kyoto.”

Matt gazes across the valley at the pink-blue sky where the sun will soon rise. The only road to the base of the stone stairs winds like a thin ribbon through the lush carpet of Japanese cedars that covers the undulating hills. To his left and right, mountain ridges stretch in ever fainter rows to the horizon. Behind him, a peak rises like a great pyramid, covered from top to bottom in abundant green vegetation. The temple grounds are a flat area carved into the mountainside. It feels as if they are standing on an island floating in a sea of green, a massive wave rising high to their backs, ready to crash down and crush them.

“So we’re in Northern Japan? Where, exactly?” Matt keeps his eyes on the valley below. After several seconds, he hears no response from Naganuma and turns to face him, but the priest is gone. Whipping around, he searches in vain, and then hears the sound of wood sliding on wood. With his back to the sunrise, he turns in the direction of the sound. A stone walkway leads to the main shrine where visitors worship the
Kami
, the enshrined deity.

A hundred meters away, Naganuma stands at the entrance to a smaller building to the right of the main shrine, laughing as he waves. He puts both hands to his mouth to shout. “No time to enjoy the scenery. Come now. We eat.” He turns and enters the building under its triangle-shaped roof, leaving the sliding door open.

Jogging up the walkway, Matt moves past two massive
komainu
lion-dog statues standing on either side, guarding the entrance to the shrine. Just like the ones he saw on the mountaintop outside of Sapporo, the one on the right seems to be saying
ahh
with its open mouth and the one on the left is saying
umm
with its mouth closed in the traditional
ahh-umm
style, the first and last letters in the old Sanskrit alphabet. Alpha and omega.

When he reaches the sliding doors, the smell of fried bacon and eggs instantly triggers hunger pains, and he remembers he has not eaten since the previous day. The aroma pulls him irresistibly through the doorway. He turns and slides the door shut behind him.

“Come in,” Naganuma says in the lowest form of Japanese, as if he were speaking to his dog. “Sit down.”

Matt slips silently out of his shoes and steps up onto the main floor. He has heard stories about the resurgence of militant Shinto in some parts of Japan, the same religion that fueled its disastrous entry into World War II during the last century. He remembers that much of Japan’s culture has sprung out of its Shinto roots, and that it’s the only home-grown religion on the Japanese islands. He expects to see the walls covered with gold-framed tributes to past emperors, expensive wall hangings, decorative calligraphy of the highest order, maybe even the old rising-sun war flag of the Japanese Imperial Army.

But the actual surroundings surprise him.

To his right, against one wall, there are two six-foot high bookcases with row upon row of old paperback novels, all in English, all of them science fiction. There is a bluescreen mounted on the opposite wall to his left with Mesh access buttons on the side. And there is the obligatory wall-hanging, this one displaying a single Japanese
kanji
.

It’s the character for the word
see
.

Beneath it, there is small scribbling in an archaic cursive style that Matt can’t read.

The black and white posters are the final surprise. James Dean, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe decorate the walls. At the back of the room in a small kitchen area, Naganuma leans over a frying pan and puts the finishing touches on breakfast. To his right, just a few feet from his elbow, stands a vintage fat-tire motorcycle with a prominent Harley-Davidson logo and polished chrome, leaning on its kickstand. There’s no dust on the black leather seat.

Naganuma turns around as Matt’s eyes are sweeping the room. “The prior Holder had a fascination with American cultural icons, like most Japanese of his generation. You would have liked him.” He walks a few paces to the low table at the center of the room and motions for Matt to sit on the
tatami
floor with his back to the bookcases. Sweeping his arm across the table, Naganuma clears away a dozen books and stray sheets of paper, making room for the fry pan with its sizzling bacon and steaming eggs.

Matt drops down with his legs folded beneath him in traditional Japanese style while the aroma drifts around him and triggers an overpowering urge to eat.

Naganuma sits cross-legged on the tatami floor on the opposite side of the table. He reaches to a small cabinet behind him and slides the glass window back to grab two plates and a chopstick holder. He drops them on the table and motions for Matt to take a plate. Matt picks it up and blows off the dust.

“Sorry for the lack of formalities and clean dishes,” Naganuma says. With chopsticks in hand, he picks several fried eggs and strips of bacon out of the fry pan and places them on the small plate in front of him. “I don’t have guests often.” He raises the plate to his mouth and finds an egg with his lips. It quickly disappears between his teeth with a slurp. Next, he bites into a slab of bacon and pulls it off the plate, dripping grease. Whipping his head back in a smooth motion, the bacon disappears between his lips.

“
Itadakimasu.
” Matt reaches for the chopsticks and bows his head in a show of gratitude. Patiently waiting until the Shinto priest is done, Matt picks out an egg and two pieces of bacon and places them on his plate.

Definitely not a vegetarian
, Matt thinks.

As they eat in silence, Matt feels Naganuma’s eyes on him and tries to look away, pretending to admire the books and posters.

“I can’t stand
miso
soup and rice for breakfast. Never did agree with me.” Naganuma finishes quickly and wipes the grease from his face with a sleeve. “Eat the rest.” He picks up the handle of the fry pan and dumps its contents onto Matt’s plate. Then he licks off his chopsticks and drops them back into the holder in the center of the table.

Matt gazes at Naganuma and then looks down at the chopsticks in his own hand.

With the fry pan and plate, Naganuma walks to the stainless steel sink at the rear of the room and drops them in. When he comes back to the table, he reaches into the folds of his robe and pulls out the small gray stone box Matt saw earlier and places it on the table between them. He turns and walks to the rear of the room, stopping to put a hand on the handlebars of the Harley and casting a backward glance at Matt.