The Golden Naginata (43 page)

Outside, it was so warm that no bird wanted to sing. There was no wind, so no branches were stirring. The silence comforted Tomoe.

Inside her haori jacket, near her belly, was a small bundle of provisions for the road, which Shan On had prepared in advance. Among the various small items was a funeral tablet upon which was printed in tiny letters the death-names of the shi-tenno, including her own brother, and above these four names were slightly larger characters: Kiso Yoshinake's title, Rising Sun General. Tomoe removed this object from her jacket and placed it on the floor in front of her. It was smaller than most such tablets, for it was intended especially for travel. She spoke to this tablet a long while, as though her husband and the Four Great Men were truly with her. She told them about the things which had transpired of late, and of her immediate plans.

Thus, in meditation, prayer, and private ceremony, the afternoon passed more quickly than she had thought possible, and dusk approached its verge. Tomoe Gozen closed up Shan On's house and started through the cemetery, lingering a moment by the monument raised to Madoka Kawayama and Ushii Yakushiji, the monument with the rustic god on top. Ushii's remains now resided in this grave as long intended, beside his life-long friend Madoka. Tomoe did not speak to them, but she bowed slowly and held her bow several extra moments. Then she lifted her face to the sky, no tear evident, and started off toward the north forest.

As she went along the highway—boldly, as though she were not a hunted woman—it did not seem that she was beginning something new, but drawing out an end. She wondered if there could be anything unexpected in her life from here on. Although she had made her decision to adhere to the Warrior Way, what additional fame could she achieve by this means? She had risen higher, and fallen further, than any woman or man of Heida, and the folk of her hometown, and all Naipon, could never sing her praises louder than today. Fame was a hollower reward than she had long imagined; the greatest pride was yet too small a thing to see or touch. Now, to continue in the only thing she had ever known did not enrich her mood, but made her feel as though she were a gaki spirit, a hungry ghost wandering the Eternal Isles unreconciled. Truly, she had been ready to die at Awazu at her husband's side; it was as though she were already dead. Though her sorrow and guilt had been mostly healed by the time spent with Tsuki, and she felt no regrets, neither did she feel as intense about life as she had felt in other times. She did not believe she could ever regain that sense of energetic action.

The road rose steeply out of the valley, leading through thick forests. The warm breeze raised dust to annoy her. Sunset's colors faded into grey. She did not know what waited outside Shigeno Valley, what was worth achieving. It wore upon her to consider the samurai Way might be, just possibly, a thing of vanity, not holiness. How could she dare nurture such a thought? Surely it was only herself that was vain.

She heard the roar of the river before she saw the waters. Then she saw the high, wooden bridge. Shan On's plan had worked, for none of Wada Yoshimora's men waited for her there. But there was someone else: the black-robed yamahoshi outcast Makine Hei, standing in the center of the bridge, a straw hat like an inverted bowl upon his head. He was fully armed with sword and iron-reinforced pilgrim's staff, and blocked her chosen route with his huge bulk. Tomoe did not break her stride until she reached the beginning of the bridge, and there she stopped. Upon her visage, there was no emotion. His face was hidden beneath the brim of his large hat. Tomoe asked,

“How could you have known that I would come?” There was less query than resignation in her tone.

The sorcerer-priest untied his hat and tossed if off the bridge; it spun, descending to the rapids far below. Makine Hei's deep, resonant, unmodulated voice replied: “I had lost you for a while, but have watched you closely these last six days.”

Now Tomoe did register surprise. In fact, she seemed upset. She knew that Makine Hei could not have been lurking near the sangoya, so what he told her meant one thing:

“You can still see through the eyes of my friend Tsuki Izutsu.”

Makine Hei turned his head from side to side, and Tomoe was visibly relieved by his negative reply. “The oni,” he explained. “I can see through
his
eyes. Would you like for me to tell you what he is seeing now?”

“No,” said Tomoe, wishing no news of Tsuki's venture to the Castle. She said evenly, “What you tell me means you know about my child, and your magic still is close enough to Tsuki that you might cause her harm if she is unwary. For these two reasons, I should kill you if I can. But I remember you as Goro Maki, as dear to me as my own brother who has died. I cannot believe you are only Makine Hei, a wicked shugenza, evil man of sorcery. That is why I ask you, let us put aside our grudges here at Hisa Yasu Bridge. Hisa Yasu means ‘everlasting peace,' and it is proper for us to each forgive the other at a bridge so named.”

Makine Hei's terrible visage seemed almost to soften, but only for a moment. Tomoe put foot to bridge and began to approach the shugenza. He said,

“You are a fool to attempt placating me this way. You have not suffered the indignity of a clerical life, but have wallowed in recognition for your deeds. I will never change my mind.”

Still, she approached. The man of sorcery did not draw his sword, nor raise his
shakubo,
the fighting stick with ringed shaku at its tip. Tomoe recognized the shaku as the one once belonging to bonze Shindo, the monk she had beheaded at Kiso Yoshinake's command, and who Makine Hei had loved as a son.

She stopped in front of him, close enough to be smitten by the shakubo if Makine Hei wished to try. Shindo, though unjustly slain, still would not approve his shaku being used to strike Tomoe.

“Goro,” Tomoe whispered, hoping to awaken his old self. In reply, Makine Hei began to hum a note so low Tomoe barely heard it; but she felt it sure enough. She staggered back, clutching between her breasts, for her heart felt as though it had been snatched in a tightening fist. She fell at once upon her knees, groaning, unable to catch a breath. She looked up into the face of Makine Hei, her foe, and could find no trace of Goro Maki, her friend. She tried to speak to him anew, but could force no word from her convulsing lungs. The deep sound made in Makine Hei's throat and diaphragm intensified, and she could hear it better, and feel it more painfully. His kiaijutsu was perfected; clearly he could kill her with his voice. She wondered if it were necessary to do it slowly due to some limitation, or if he drew it out only because his cruelty exceeded vengeance. Surely he lengthened it out of cruelty, for she was nearly helpless, and he might at least have drawn sword to end it mercifully, but did not. She would like to think better of him than this, to believe it took his entire concentration to achieve this much, and that was why he could not use the sword to end her torture.

She tried to stand, then tried again. The sound was a weight upon her shoulders. She managed to find her feet, staggered toward the railing of the bridge. Makine Hei turned his mountainous self in order to continue directing the killing sound her way. He seemed to need no breath.

Soon she was blinded, or at least could see no more than vague shadow. Her fingers pained her, like a rheumatic old woman. Yet she clenched one hand around the hilt of her longsword and lurched toward the sound Makine Hei was making, drawing her sword in a rapid, even arc. The sound ended suddenly and she staggered halfway to the end of the bridge before she found her vision. Makine Hei was behind her; she turned in time to stop him striking with the shakubo. Only then did she see that she had clipped his beard in her rush, and more, cut into the throat itself to still the awful sound, to free herself from the blinding agony. Yet he pursued her with the pilgrim's staff. Blood flowed down the front of the shugenza's robe; Makine Hei was a crimson fountain. Yet he was still breathing, through the neck's gash and not through mouth or nose. Blood would fill his lungs eventually, so he would not breathe for long; but in the meantime, his throat burbled a sickening froth, and he refused to abandon the fight.

A blow to her head was averted by her sword, and when he struck again, her sword came down and cut the shaku loose from the staff. It was the only amends she could make to Shindo, who would not want to be involved in this.

Makine Hei drew steel. He attacked, attacked again, and Tomoe Gozen was hard-put to block the tremendous, well-aimed cuts. His red throat smiled at her. His blood spattered across the bridge called Everlasting Peace. How long could he fight her when so badly injured? She had seen low ranking footsoldiers of mediocre training fight on and on despite mortal wounds. By contrast, Makine Hei was a highly skilled samurai capable of conserving strength, a priest with meditative skills which slowed the body's functions, and a sorcerer into the bargain. She could not guess how long the grisly battle might endure. She was caught between a desire to deal him a merciful last blow, a reluctance to strike again the man who was once her friend, and the immediate fact that her mixed emotions became quite without pertinence when it was tough enough to keep herself alive.

At length he began to slow his fierce pace, for death could not be held back forever. She thought she saw an opening, but he had tricked her. Nearly cut by his trick, she leapt backward to the bridge's rail and barely kept herself from toppling over the side. Makine Hei's sword went up, ready to slash down, but she rolled along the rail and the sword cut through wood and not Tomoe. He pulled the sword loose, turned on her again, but she performed a dance of evasion while blood gushed from his opened throat, until there was so little blood left in him that the flood became a trickle.

The big man plunged to his knees and the whole bridge quaked. He glowered at her with hatred unabating, but he looked pitiful also, for he had failed in spite of cruel sincerity. He tried to stand, much as Tomoe had done when held down by the sound of his voice; but he tumbled backward to lie upon his back on Hisa Yasu Bridge. Tomoe approached him, not certain he was harmless. She realized her face was wet and suspected she had been cut without realizing; but the moisture was not crimson. She wiped away sweat and tears and knelt beside the expiring man who was warrior, priest, sorcerer, enemy, and long ago a friend.

She pried Makine Hei's fingers loose from the sword. Although he had changed the hilt of the sword so that she would not recognize it, she had known the instant weapons crossed that it was her own Sword of Okio which Makine Hei had stolen from its retirement in a temple. No doubt he believed the haunted blade still hated her, and would help him in his vengeance; but Okio had forgiven her after all, and she might wield this sword again.

She shook blood from the sword she had been using, sheathed it, and placed it on Makine Hei's chest, drawn a knuckle's length as was done for the dead. But Makine Hei lived yet a little while, his malevolent eyes still watching her. She sheathed the Sword of Okio and placed it through her obi, next to the shortsword, guardian of her soul.

“I have killed a friend,” she said, disregarding his hateful glower. “I am not made sad by the Way, but it is possible that it has made me weary. Although I dare not and cannot question the tenets of bushido, I have come to doubt the means of my adherence to those tenets. If honor and success means always the death of friends, then there is something I have failed to comprehend. If I am to find some method of overcoming my vanity, to pursue the Way more sincerely, to better myself each day, and champion those I love instead of watching them die, then from this moment on my road must change noticeably. You were bitter to have retired, Goro. Would you feel avenged if it were me as well as you?”

Having spoken to him this way, Tomoe Gozen drew forth her Sword of Okio and held it behind her head. She cut the long, black, gorgeous ponytail hanging down her back. What remained of her shorn hair fell forward to frame her face. She placed the bound length of hair upon the chest of Makine Hei, beside the sword she had traded him. Her last words to him were, “Perhaps here, on Hisa Yasu Bridge, we have both found peace after all.”

Silent thereafter, she kept him company until the dusk became the evening, until Makine Hei was dead; and only then did she continue across the bridge and through the forest. Waters roared behind her. A breeze murmured above. The trees rustled among themselves, passing on the news of what they had seen. A cricket sang: symbol of good fortune. A crow responded with a hoarse contradiction. Tomoe Gozen vanished into the early night.

dondo haré

NOTES ON PRONUNCIATION–

The lyric quality of Naiponese, like our own world's Japanese, is easily mastered phonetically. Vowels are limited to five distinct sounds: A E I O U are AH EH EE OH OO. There are no silent vowels. As with Italian, ending vowels are sounded. Therefore, Tomoe Gozen's name is pronounced, with hard O's, TO-MO-EH. Kiso Yoshinake's name is KEE-SOH YO-SHE-NAH-KEH.