Thousand Shrine Warrior (25 page)

Shiumi and her child appeared as though from nowhere, from a shadow of the room. The occult power of the birds to perform shapeshifting was enhanced by the mere fact of an emergency, and by the spells Bundori had cast before sending any of them on errands. Omo and Akuni alone did not take on human form; and even they were roused from sleeping late and peered down from the rafters. Shiumi, usually sharp-tongued when possessed of human speech, went quietly to Iwazu's infant to watch over him.

Observed by his friends, Bundori placed medicine-compacts against the terrible rents of Raski's body. “A normal youth would have died of these already,” said Bundori. “I can't help him. He will die soon. Do you know what happened?”

Guma had a dour expression. Omo turned away, unspeaking.

“He helped the nun do a lot of killing,” said Guma, his voice deep and serious. “Twenty, thirty men at least. Probably more. Some won't be found until spring thaw, as the blizzard hid the corpses.”

Bundori was upset. It could mean the nun was dead, the snow her shroud. He raised Raski's head and put a wooden pillow underneath. Then he bent to Raski's face and asked, “Why did it happen?” Raski grimaced, then stared blankly.

“Is he smiling?” asked Shiumi, who was further away than the rest, caring for the children. “Is he proud of what he has done?”

“It's a look of pain,” said Omo, who rarely spoke. His tone chastised Shiumi. “He is not insensate, after all.”

Bundori spoke abruptly, more sharply than was his usual manner. “Be birds again! Leave me for a while! I don't like what's going on and may abandon this place soon.”

Iwazu said wryly, “A bad time of year to choose asceticism.”

“Foolish to wait for good weather!” said Bundori. His usual humor was overwhelmed by disappointments. “A true ascetic relishes the cold!”

The bird-folk were not happy to hear Bundori threaten to leave White Beast Shrine. But they would not argue with him about it. It was neither his fate nor duty in life to make things pleasant for birds. They began to shrink away, for he had commanded it, taking on their normal forms. Simultaneously, Raski's body began to writhe and contort, shedding size and weight, becoming thin as rope. In a short time, he was only a small, brittle white snake with a faint, yellow pattern along his back and injuries from his head to his tail.

Bundori cupped his weathered hands about the snake and lifted him. “Piteous fellow,” said Bundori. The snake was stiff and dead. “Maybe in your next life you will be more fortunate. I will make of you a relic and keep your remains with me in seclusion. If I had paid better attention to you, and had I not secretly wished Tomoe Gozen to do something about things in this province, then you would not be dead, nor would you and she have killed so many people.”

Bundori held the ruined snake near to his heart and wept. Later in the afternoon, having yet to hear anything of the nun, the Honorable Mister Paddy-Bird began to pack the fewest possible belongings, and tied them to his back. He had dressed warm, putting his cloth-wrapped feet deep into straw boots. At the door to his home of many years, he said, “Forgive me for not taking better care of you, my dear family. Take care of yourselves. I've given everything up just now. I must erase my sin!”

Then he tramped along the half-cleared path and left White Beast Shrine forever.

Awakening, the nun had no way of realizing a number of days had passed. She lay pondering her last of a series of dreams, earlier ones forgotten. In the one recalled, she was adrift beneath the skin of the world, floating in a red cloud of murderous spirits. She was armored and armed and held her own among the others. In this dream, she could not figure out why they were fighting; but it was important to continue. Nobody was quite able to die in this dream. No one was capable of winning. The red cloud rained blood upon the world below, which was Emma's Hell. Only on waking did she know that she had been one of many
asura
, endlessly fighting ghosts of samurai who in life had been too cruel even for Hell's liking, never to touch the fiery ground, doomed to everlasting battle in the hollow sky.

Her senses came back by degrees. She was in a warm place, wrapped in a tattered quilt. She opened her eyes, turned her head, and did not immediately recognize what kind of building she was in. There was a pot of radiating coals placed near her. She remembered the old aunty whose dying deed was to press a knife into the belly of an emotionally agonized nun. The bikuni placed a hand under the quilt and inside her kimono and felt a linen bandage. She dug fingers beneath the bandage, partly out of a morbid curiosity, and felt the wound well-scabbed and healing. Thus she ascertained she had been out of her wits for several days.

She was stiff. It hurt every muscle and especially her stomach to try to rise. It was an incredible hardship to move. The very thought of it started her panting.

As her mind cleared, she had vague recollections of one-eyed Heinosuke mopping her fevered brow and propping her up to force her to drink herbs and salty soup, which she would spit up like a sick, helpless baby.

“Suke?” she ventured feebly, but no one replied. She was alone.

Above her head were the workings of a mill, broken, cannibalized, and useless. So she was in an abandoned millhouse. Heinosuke must have gotten her across the gorge; she was presently in some obscure place among the farmlands. It looked as though Heinosuke had lived here quite a while. He had built several makeshift shelves and gathered things to sustain himself through a hard winter. There were a few possessions, including the genealogies he had filched from various temples.

She had previously supposed Heinosuke lived in or near the Temple of the Gorge. She had left him a note to that effect, which was embarrassing in retrospect. He wouldn't live in such a place.

When she felt bold enough, she crawled out from under the torn, ratty quilt and toward the door. From hand and knees, she reached out and slid the wooden door aside. A wintery breeze took her breath. Beyond the door stretched a fallow field, unploughed for a few years. The field was covered by a lot of snow. Here and there some weedy patches poked up. There were saplings in the middle of the field, by which she was able to make her judgment that the place had been in disuse for more than one growing season.

There was no surfeit of strength in her arms and legs; but she managed to scrabble up the doorframe and stand gazing out into the cold, cold morning. Though sunlight was diffuse, the sky and ground were startlingly bright. The world had rarely appeared as white as it appeared at that moment.

A leafless, gnarled tree grew near the millhouse. Snow lay thick along its branches, making it look alive with plum blossoms. On the tree's trunk were finger-length hoarfrost crystals, glittering wondrously. A motion on the horizon caught her attention: herons passing over the roof of a forest. She saw the glaciered peaks of higher mountains and could also see the highest donjon of Lord Sato's castle. It was a long way off.

Unseen, a hungry crow went “kaa! kaa!” perturbed to find itself caught in the mountain's premature winter. He would starve to death unless he could make it to the lower lands, where there would be a lot of autumn's rubble to pick through. The bikuni felt as lost as a skinny crow of winter. How melancholy his homely sound!

There were footprints around the outside of the millhouse.

“Suke?”

If he were anywhere near, she could not call loud enough to be heard.

She turned to walk carefully to where her hakama trousers and long vest had been left, cleaned and folded. She could not consider putting them on over her kimono of raw, cream-colored silk; it was dirty and badly wrinkled from having been slept in and sweated in. She took it off and tried to do something about it, but it was hopeless. Someone had spot-cleaned the blood as she wore it, so at least there were no lasting stains. There was a small cut where the old woman's knife had gone through. The left sleeve had a tiny hole. The bikuni had a miniature sewing kit in her wallet, but lacked the motivation to worry about repairs.

Her underlinens, wrapping breasts and loin, were filthy. The wound's bandage alone was clean. Heinosuke had cared for her modesty as well as her injury, but it had left her somewhat less than sweet-smelling.

She went outside carrying her kimono, barefooted and half-naked, searching for some part of the creek that was not iced over. There were no farmhouses in sight, though she could smell fireplaces. She would be embarrassed if Heinosuke returned just now and saw her undressed. But she would be able to see him from a long way off, should he appear across the fallow field.

The mill wheel was stuck in mud and the mud had frozen solid. Sections of the wheel were filled with snow. The creek had changed its course with time, veering away from the wheel. A few paces on, the creek rushed between two snowy banks, tinkling like wind bells.

She stripped of linen and crouched naked on a tiny flat bridge to wash her things. She did not wish to bathe in such icy waters, but used some snow to scrub her body; it didn't get her as wet, for which reason the snow seemed less chill than running water. She was shivering when she was finished, but it was invigorating; it eased her aches and stiffness. Belatedly, she found a wooden bucket, and took water into the building to wash her hair.

Soon her wrung laundry was hanging from the broken workings inside the millhouse, above the pot of coals. She wrapped herself in a quilt, waiting for things to dry. The millhouse was quite small, so the coal pot was sufficient to keep the temperature pleasant.

She found things to eat, but had trouble swallowing. Her stomach hurt to be stretched even a bit. Strength was returning to her, though she would not like to get in a fight.

The Sword of Okio was leaning against a wall. She checked the blade and saw that it had been cleaned and oiled for her, though not powdered. Heinosuke's austerity left him with fewer things than a sword might require. It was audacious to clean someone's sword without permission; but it would have been terrible to have left it stained with gore while the bikuni lay fevered for days. She was grateful for Heinosuke's concern, and took his forward behavior with her sword as indication that he remembered their friendship when he was a child and was called Yabushi.

By the time her clothing was dry and she had clad herself completely, arranging the pleats of her hakama just so, and placing her shortsword through her belt, the bikuni was weary from so much exertion. She sat upon her knees near the coal pot, drew a quilt over her lap, and looked through the genealogies Heinosuke had collected.

They didn't mean a lot to her, except that it was clear they represented the lines of only seven main families. They covered a period of time that stretched back a little more than a century. The temples would have had genealogies going back much farther; but Heinosuke had placed restrictions on his interest, had devised a framework within which to pursue his research.

She wished Heinosuke would return from whatever errands he was on. She was still too weary to return to the village at random. Before she showed her face, she would like to know the outcome of the horrible slaughter.

Her shakuhachi lay upon a shelf. She was about to take it from its bag when she heard someone at the millhouse door. Heinosuke entered, stamped his feet before removing straw boots, and managed not to look at the bikuni. He wore a quilted jacket over his kimono and hakama. His longsword's handle was particularly long, his shortsword normal. He took his jacket off and moved into the interior of the millhouse in such a way that the bikuni would not see his sunken, scarred eye.

“Good morning,” she said; for when in doubt, banalities suffice.

He nodded curtly. He was a pretty boy, despite the eye; but how sad he looked. He was like a younger Ittosai Kumasaku, not as world-weary and cynical as that big samurai, but equally morose.

“You're feeling better, Neroyume?” he asked.

“Neroyume? How do you know about that name?”

“You talked a lot in your fevered rest. You said your Buddhist name was ‘Sleeping in the Dead Country.' A good name for an esoteric nun.”

“If you're serious, I should thank you for such flattery. All the same, feel free to call me by my former name. I chose ‘Neroyume' when quite beside myself.”

“I studied esotericism,” said Heinosuke, “before I left Omi. It is a cruel religion, and realistic. Even Kwannon, Goddess of Mercy, is viewed in the aspect of Benten, the many-armed dragon-slayer, weapons in her many hands. An esoteric nun should cherish such a name as Neroyume.”

“Life exists that life may end,” said the bikuni. “But I must confess I chose Thousand Shrine Sect for the amount of freedom it allowed. You know more of esotericism than do I. When we knew each other before, you were considering Zen.”

Heinosuke nearly smiled, with what memory the nun could not be certain, until he said, “That was because of our mutual friend. I haven't thought of that pleasant Zen nun in years. She once said to some rude fellows, ‘My friend likes to kill people.' She meant you. ‘I feel sorry for her and would ask you to leave quickly for my sake.'”

“I don't remember that,” said Neroyume. “It isn't true I like to kill.”

“Oh?” Heinosuke's hint of smile was no longer to be seen. “Wasn't her name Tsuki? Yes, I haven't forgotten. It's too bad she died.”

“She lives in a place not far from Shigeno Valley,” said the nun. Heinosuke looked surprised. “She is nearly blind in one eye, but not in bad health. Your own eye is more greatly damaged.”

“I thought she died,” said Heinosuke, turning the side of his face more to the wall.

“Well, she didn't after all.”

“But my sister died?” he said, removing the length of hair from inside his kimono, the locks the bikuni had left, with an ill-considered missive, at the Temple of the Gorge. Heinosuke sat against a beam of the millhouse and sighed sadly. “I thought she was well. What happened to her?”