The Lost Scroll of Fudo Shin (31 page)

Siben's eyes opened wider.  "Are there?  And why would they want to do such a thing?"

"It's a long story," said Jimmy.  "It involves a family I never knew I had until a short time ago."

Siben said nothing for a moment and then took a breath.  “Why are you here, Jimmy Dolan?”

“I’m looking for something.”

Siben nodded.  “And what is that?”

“Scrolls.”

Siben leaned back and Jimmy saw a flicker of surprise wash over his face before it was quickly retracted.  “You are here for the scrolls?”

“Yes.  Is this the temple?”

“It is.”

“I’m amazed I found it,” said Jimmy.

Siben regarded him.  “But you did not really find it, did you?  You merely wandered into our area and we found you.  After all, if I gave you a map, would you be able to tell me exactly where you are right now?”

“Uh, no.”

Siben grinned.  “Good, that is how we prefer things to be.”

“But the scrolls are here?”

“They are.  We have been entrusted with protecting them for many, many years.  And we have waited for the rightful owner to come along and take them back.”

“Rightful owner?  I don’t know if I’m that guy.  I was just supposed to bring them back to my family.”

“Your family,” said Siben slowly.  “And who exactly would they be?”

“The Matsuda-ryu.  We lost the scrolls many years ago.  They were stolen from us by the evil members of the Kotogawa clan.  I am here to return the scrolls to my family.”

“You are Matsuda-ryu, Jimmy Dolan?  With a name like that?”

Jimmy frowned.  “I don’t even know if Jimmy Dolan is my right name.  I’ve just always been called that.  But now…I don’t know.  I mean, I’m doing all of this training and I’ve been speaking with, uh, well, a ghost-“

“-A ghost, did you say?”

Jimmy nodded.  “Yeah, I know.  It sounds crazy, right?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Look, I don’t even understand everything that’s going on here, but I was told to find the scrolls and bring them home.  And Khampa in Katmandu told me that I had to do this alone.”

Siben smiled.  “So you came here alone?”

“Yes.”

“This is dangerous country.  You might have been killed in that bad fall.  You might have frozen to death.”

“I thought the Yeti were going to get me,” said Jimmy.  He laughed.  “But I guess I had more to worry about from myself.”

“It would seem so,” said Siben.

“So, anyway, that’s my story.  Orphan, plucked out by some woman named Vanessa and told that I’m connected to this Matsuda-ryu family of ninja warriors.”

"You talk quite freely.  It is good that we are friendly, otherwise you might have just revealed a great deal of information that might be secret."

Jimmy frowned.  The monk was right.  Sheesh.

Siben peered closer at him.  “I do see the Japanese in you, Jimmy.  But it is not much.”  He leaned back.  “At least not just yet.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like it means.”  Siben collected his robe and stood up.  “Would you like to follow me, please?”

Jimmy stood and regretted it.  His head throbbed.  But then Siben put one finger against his temple and the pain stopped.  

“Now, please accompany me.”

They walked out of the small room and down a corridor.  To Jimmy, it seemed as though all of the temples he’d been in so far had these long, dark corridors.  But this one had longer corridors than most.  And the walls seemed to made out of solid rock.

Jimmy stopped to touch one of them and found it warm.  “How is it that it’s warm here when we’re in the mountains.”

“Exactly,” said Siben.

“Huh?”

“We are, as you said, in the mountain.”

“We are?”

Siben bowed.  “Indeed.  We stay warm because of the geothermal updrafts that bring heat into the temple.  We have filtered water from the snow running through the same rock that shelters us.  There is no way to tell that this temple exists from the outside world.”

“But how do you get out?”

“We have a few secret entrances and exits that provide us with necessary egress points when we need them.”

Jimmy followed Siben down another corridor.  The candles set in evenly spaced holders threw more shadows as they walked.  “You will have a meal before you set about trying to obtain the scrolls.”

“Trying to obtain?  I thought all I had to do was ask for them back and you guys would hand them over.”

“Is that what you thought?”

Jimmy felt a little embarrassed.  “Well, yeah.  Kinda.”

Siben smiled.  “This is the curse of the generation that now walks the Earth.  They want everything without having had to work for it.  They have lost sight of the necessity of struggle in order to achieve success.  But the old ways do not care about what the present generation wants.  The old ways still demand that a petitioner work to acquire what he seeks.”

“So, what do I have to do to get the scrolls then?”

Siben led Jimmy into a room lined with low tables.  A steaming bowl of something sat nearby.  Siben pointed.  “First you will eat that.  It will give you the necessary strength to get you started.”

“Then what?”

“Then we will accompany you to the start of your test.”

Jimmy frowned.  “Test?"

“Indeed.  In order to obtain the scrolls for your family, you must undergo a test to determine if you are truly the one we have waited for."

Jimmy felt a wave of anxiety wash over him.  What would the test entail?  Would he be able to pass it?  But then he took a breath and steeled himself.  If he had to prove he was really part of the Matsuda-ryu, then he'd do it.  And make them all proud.

Jimmy looked at Siben.  “Where will you be when I'm done eating?”

“I will be exactly where you will need to be.”

And then Siben turned and vanished.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“You have eaten?”

Jimmy nodded.  “No idea what it was, but it tasted good.  And my headache’s gone, just like you said it would be.”

“Excellent.”  Siben looked at him again.  “And so now you are ready to go and get the scrolls.”

Jimmy chewed his lip as another wave of fear rolled over him.  Was he?  Did he really care about these things?  What was to stop him from just leaving the temple and going off on his own?  Maybe he could catch up with Mitch.  If he explained the whole Kotogawa thing to Mitch, maybe he could help.

Then again, Kotogawa had already proven himself capable of reaching anywhere around the world to find Jimmy.  If he was determined to kill Jimmy, then there probably wasn’t much he could do to protect himself.  And the things that Vanessa had shown him had already saved his life.

Besides, he had to admit that he was having more fun in the past two weeks than he had in his entire life.  

“Jimmy.”

He snapped back and looked at Siben.  “I’m ready.”

“You are conflicted,” said Siben.  “But even so, you must enter the path before you.  Once inside this tunnel, you will come to a fork.  One path will lead you to the thing you seek.  The other will lead you back out of the temple to the outside world.  From there, you will be able to walk away if you so desire.”

Jimmy frowned.  If he chose wrong, then there’d be no shot at getting the scrolls.  “How will I know which path to choose?”

“Trust yourself,” said Siben.  “And if you do that utterly and without reservation, then you will find your way to the goal you seek."  He smiled.  "Whichever goal that may be.”

Ahead of Jimmy stood a single unremarkable door.  Two torches hung in brackets on either side.  Two more of Siben’s monks stood at either side ready to open it.

Jimmy nodded.  “All right.  I’m ready.”

Siben bowed once.  “It is entirely possible that we will never see each other again, Jimmy Dolan.  In which case I wish you the very best of luck on whatever path may lay before you.”

“Thank you, Siben.  And thank you for caring for me when I fell.”

Siben nodded at the two monks who then opened the door.  Jimmy felt a cool blast of air hit him in the face.  The torches flickered but then sprang back to life as the air pressure equalized in the room.

Jimmy stepped inside.  

Siben handed him a torch, his backpack, and his hanbo.  “Just one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Legend says that the scrolls will only allow themselves to be possessed by the rightful heir to the Matsuda-ryu lineage.”  His eyes wrinkled.  “I hope that person is you, Jimmy.  Farewell.”

The door slammed shut and Jimmy found himself alone in the corridor.  The stonewalls closed in on him and he walked forward for about fifty feet.  

What had Siben meant by that?  Rightful heir?  Was that what Jimmy was?  Was that why Kotogawa wanted him dead so badly?  Without Jimmy around, the family would die out.

Extinct.

Maybe that was why Vanessa and Merlin and even Hideaki couldn’t do this task.  Maybe it was why no one had been able to get the scrolls before.  Maybe it was because Jimmy hadn’t been born yet.

He thought back to Khampa in Katmandu.  It made sense now.  Jimmy had to do this task because no one else could do it and hope to succeed.

But if that was so, then how could Kotogawa hope to get his hands on the scrolls?  If they wouldn’t let themselves be possessed except by the Matsuda-ryu, how was it that Siben and his monks had them?

Jimmy sighed.  More questions that he wanted answers to.  He closed his eyes for a moment and tried reaching out to Goro.

Are you there, Goro-sama?

He got no response.  Maybe the rock walls wouldn’t permit any telepathic waves through.  He smirked.  Telepathy.  Whatever.

He continued down the corridor and thought about the path before him.  He could go after the scrolls, find them, and return them to the family…what?  Did they have a castle or a house somewhere?

Or he could take off and try his fate without anyone knowing he’d gone.  Maybe they’d be convinced he’d perished inside the mountain somewhere.  Maybe Kotogawa would even stop looking for him.

Maybe.

The torch illuminated the entire hallway and now Jimmy could see that about twenty feet further on, the corridor ended.  Two options branched off.  One left.  One right.

What had Siben told him?  That one would take him to the goal he sought and the other would lead him outside.

The choice he made would mean he would take one corridor or the other.

But in order to decide which, he had to look inside and trust himself.

Trust myself.

Jimmy frowned.  He’d been so busy trusting everyone else these past few weeks, finding the courage to believe in himself felt weird.

What do I want, he wondered.  

Heir to the Matsuda-ryu.

What did that even mean?  Was he like some sort of prince or something?  Was he royalty?  Would he be rich and famous?

He’d never heard of the Matsuda-ryu before, but then that didn’t surprise him.  Ninja were supposed to live their lives in secret, weren't they?  And besides, Jimmy hadn’t heard of much outside the walls of the orphanage.

He reached the end of the corridor.

Left.

Right.

His torch flickered and went out, plunging Jimmy into darkness.

“Oh great.”

His voice echoed off the walls in front of him and died on either side.  He thought of Derek and Jamal and how they would have considered this thing one whole giant video game.  They would have loved every moment of this.  All the chases, the danger, the fighting, it was like being inside a game that had real world consequences.

But they were dead now.

And Kotogawa had killed them.

Jimmy felt his heart pound in his chest and took a single deep breath.

Turned.

Walked straight ahead-

And nearly fell right into a pit.  If he hadn’t felt the breath of air on his face that felt different from the rest of the corridor, he would have stepped off the lip and vanished forever.

As it was, he had to jerk himself back and toppled backward on to his butt.  Crawling on his hands and knees, he felt his way ahead until he found the opening.  Then he reached across with his hanbo and figured out that the opening was only about three feet across.

He could jump it.

Blind.

Jimmy took a breath, stood up and then jumped across.  His feet touched down and he fell forward, unused to the sensation of jumping without a visual reference to help his body know when it was about to land.  Instead, he tucked and rolled forward, his body cushioning the blow.

Jimmy came to his feet and then heard a strange whizzing sound.

Wha-?

But then he dropped to the ground again and felt the air shiver as what sounded like metallic bees buzzed past his head.  He heard them strike a far wall and clatter to the ground, bounce a few times and then go silent.

Jimmy reached out with his hand and felt along the ground until he felt something slice into his finger.  "Ow!"

He plucked the small piece of metal up and found it was shaped much like the curved senban shuriken he'd seen on the family crest.  He hefted the throwing star and slid it into his pocket, before sucking at the tip of his finger the shuriken had sliced open.  What would have happened if he hadn't ducked?

He frowned.  The throwing stars would have killed me.

Booby-traps.

Siben hadn't mentioned any of those.  Neither had Khampa.

Have I chosen the wrong path?

He glanced back at the way he'd come.  He could always go back, couldn't he?  Siben hadn't said anything about that.

But as if to answer his question, Jimmy heard a terrible rumbling and felt the corridor shake from side to side.  Behind him, the way he'd come, he saw a whole portion of the wall slide out, sealing the tunnel automatically.

"So much for going back," he said spitting out the bits of stone dust that now clogged the air.  Jimmy coughed once and then turned back to the only way he could now go: forward.

Ahead of him, Jimmy thought he could see a flickering light, bouncing off a curve in the tunnel.  As he came around the corner, a single torch illuminated the area.  He saw that the ground before him fell away on either side, leaving a thin walkway that extended toward another part of the tunnel roughly thirty feet away.  The space on either side of the walkway seemed to vanish into a black void.  One wrong step and Jimmy would fall into that gaping darkness and never be seen again.