Linnear 03 - White Ninja (42 page)

Kansatsu said, 'I have been sought, I have been defeated, I am now forgotten.' He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the great room of the stone structure he had created hi the shadow of the Black Gendarme. 'You asked, Nicholas, why I am here in the Hodaka, and this is my answer. Now tell me why you are here.'

Tell me first if I am dead,' Nicholas said. 'I have no idea if this is some afterlife.'

Kansatsu cocked his head. 'Do you believe in an afterlife, Nicholas?'

'Yes. I suppose I do.'

'Then this is an afterlife.' Kansatsu waited a moment. 'This is what you make of it, Nicholas. After a time, you will give it your own definition.'

'But am I dead? Did I freeze to death on the Black Gendarme?'

'That question has no relevance here,' Kansatsu said sternly. 'As I said, it is you who must make the determination. Is this life or death?' The ageless sensei shrugged. 'I no longer seek to differentiate between the two states.'

'But surely you can tell me if I still live? Is this a dream?'

'When you understand how useless these questions are, Nicholas, you will have the answers you seek.'

Nicholas quieted his racing heart. He no longer felt

chilled or numb, but his body still ached and, touching

the side of his head, the scar of the incision was as evident

as ever. I must be alive, he reasoned. But reason seemed

a stranger in this land. -

'You did not seem surprised to see me,' Nicholas said.

'Why should I be?' Kansatsu said. 'You have come here to me many times.'

'What? I haven't seen you since the winter of 1963, and I'm certain that I've never been here in this house before.'

Kansatsu looked pointedly at the plate in front of Nicholas. 'You haven't finished your meal,' he said. 'I suggest you do so. You will need all your strength soon.'

'I know,' Nicholas said. 'If I remember correctly, the descent of the Hodaka is every bit as exhausting as the ascent.'

'I was hot speaking of the physical,' Kansatsu said.

Nicholas looked from his enigmatic face to the bits of food on his plate. He ate. He slept. And dreamt again of the dominance of the Black Gendarme...

... This recurring image so disturbed him that when he awoke he described it to Kansatsu.

The sensei was silent for some time. At last he stirred himself. But his voice was slow, surreal, as if he had been roused from a dream. 'Why does this image disturb you so?'

'I don't quite know,' Nicholas admitted. 'Perhaps it has to do with the emeralds, my grandfather's legacy.'

'Is that so?' Kansatsu's eyebrows lifted. 'Explain.'

Nicholas did, telling him about the box with the fifteen emeralds, about how his mother, Cheong, explained to him that he could use the gems in whatever way he saw fit, with only one caveat: he must never allow the number of stones to drop below nine.

'Did your mother tell you what would happen if this occurred?'

'No,' Nicholas said. 'Do you know what these emeralds are?'

'Perhaps I have heard something of their existence,' Kansatsu said. 'But I had no idea that you possessed them.'

"They are very powerful.'

'Yes. Extremely.'

'But in what way?' Nicholas asked.

'In the Way of Tau-tau,' Kansatsu said.

'But what have I to do with Tau-tau?' Nicholas asked.

Instead of answering him, Kansatsu said, "The dorokusai will want the emeralds. Where are they?'

'Safe enough,' Nicholas said.

'Are they with you?'

'No. I didn't think that being Shiro Ninja I could adequately safeguard them.'

Kansatsu nodded, was quiet for some time after that. At length, he said, 'You have been here some time now. I expect you are strong enough for us to begin.' He was dressed in a black cotton gi, the costume of the martial arts dojo. 'When I sent you to Kumamoto those many years ago,' Kansatsu said, 'you believed that it was to confront your cousin, Saigo. I imagine you have believed that self-deception until this moment. Well, you were young then. And just because you are supremely talented does not mean that you are capable of fully comprehending that talent.

'Of course, I know this because I have had this conversation with you many times.'

'Why do you keep referring to how often this has happened before?' Nicholas asked. 'It's happening now, for the first time.'

'Time,' Kansatsu observed, 'is somewhat akin to the ocean. There are tides, currents, eddies which at certain nexus points overlap, creating a kind of whirlpool of events that repeat like ripples until, having spread sufficiently outward, are spent upon a rocky shore.'

'You have a strange concept of time.'

'On the contrary,' Kansatsu said, 'it is you whose concept of time is strange. But then that is to be expected of someone who still sees a difference between life and death. Coming to grips with this illusion is the same as recognizing the Ten Oxen, the stages of Zen enlighten—

ment. Do you remember, Nicholas?'

'Of course. One begins by searching high and low for the ox, one finds it, ensnares it, tames it, rides it back into town only to find that the ox never existed, that it was a part of oneself, a part cut off, lost, confused.'

'Does that remind you of something?' Kansatsu asked.

'Nothing that I can think of,' Nicholas replied.

Kansatsu turned, took an iron pot off the hibachi stove sunk into the floor. He poured them both tea. It was the bitter, dark red tea of northern China known as Iron Dragon. 'Listen to me, Nicholas,' he said. 'I sent you to Kumamoto in the winter of 1963 to find the ox.'

'But I confronted Saigo and he defeated me.'

Kansatsu nodded. 'And in so doing he defeated me as well. That was meant to be. One month later I left Tokyo for good, and came here to fulfil the last of my three stages: to be forgotten.'

'I never forgot you, sensei.'

'No. You were never meant to. And that is why you have come.'

'As I have said, sensei, I am Shiro Ninja,' Nicholas said. 'I came to the Black Gendarme seeking a path to salvation. I thought Akiko's sensei, Kyoki, would help me because I suspected that he was tanjian, but I discovered him dead, flayed alive in his castle in the Asama highlands. Then I discovered that he had a brother. His name is Genshi.'

'I know,' Kansatsu said. 'I am Genshi, Kyoki's brother. I am also Kansatsu. I have many names.'

'You...' Nicholas almost choked on his words. 'You are tanjian?'

'Before I answer you, you must understand that your spirit is entangled. You are driven by fear. An exhaustion of the soul has made it impossible for you to distinguish between good and evil.'

'Yes,' Nicholas said. 'I understand. Shiro Ninja has

ensnared me.'

'Shiro Ninja,' Kansatsu said, 'was only able to work on you because you have hidden your true nature from yourself. You are still searching for the ox, Nicholas, unaware that the search is counterproductive because the ox does not exist.'

'What are you saying?'

'Remember the winter of 1963, Nicholas,' Kansatsu said. 'In Kumamoto when you believed your cousin Saigo defeated you, took Yukio, the girl you loved, away from you.'

'I believed it happened only because it happened,' Nicholas said.

'Again, you are thinking of the ox when the ox doesn't exist,' Kansatsu said patiently.

Nicholas looked at him. 'I don't understand.'

'No,' Kansatsu said. 'You are not yet strong enough. Sleep now.'

... 'I am lost, sensei,' Nicholas said when he awoke.

'Outside,' Kansatsu said, 'you will gain strength.'

'I am glad you are here to guide me,' Nicholas said, pulling on his waterproof hiking boots, bundling himself, in his Gore-Tex parka.

'Your spirit is still entangled,' Kansatsu said, leading the way out on to the Black Gendarme. 'No one can guide you.'

'It is night.' Nicholas was surprised. - "This time, you slept all night and all day. Did you dream of the Black Gendarme?'

'No.' But Nicholas had the sense that Kansatsu already knew that. 'I dreamt of bullrushes. I was searching for something. I can't remember what it was. Then I found footprints in the black marshy earth. When I knelt down to examine them more closely, they spoke to me. The voice was like the trilling of a night bird, almost a song. And then the bullrushes and the marsh were gone. I was

back in Kyoki's castle, passing through the moon gate in his study.'

'What did the voice say?'

'I can't remember,' Nicholas said.

'Was the voice my brother's voice?'

'Not his,' Nicholas said, 'but the source was close.' He was moving with some difficulty and great effort across the blistered rock wall. 'Perhaps,' he added hopefully, 'I have succeeded in banishing the image of the Black Gendarme from my dreams.'

'Would that be a good thing?'

'Of course it would!'

'Have you so quickly forgotten that your spirit is entangled, that you cannot distinguish good from evil?'

It was then that Nicholas noticed that Kansatsu was wearing nothing more than his tight cotton gi. 'Aren't you cold, sensei?'

'Is it cold out?' Kansatsu said unconcernedly. He gestured to indicate that Nicholas should take the lead. 'I hadn't noticed.'

The icy wind whipped through the canyons, ravines, the sheer, glassy walls of the Black Gendarme. Drifts of dry snow crunched beneath their feet as they followed a narrow winding path up the nearly sheer rock face. Now there was nothing at all but the rock face: vertical, glass-like, supremely forbidding. Nicholas began to climb, digging his fingertips into barely seen fissures, hauling himself up. He grunted with the effort, his breath coming in animal pants.

'When I dream of the Black Gendarme rising like a spectre from the centre of my spirit,' Nicholas said, resting for a moment as he clung precariously to the rock face, 'I awake full of anxiety and fear.'

Kansatsu did not answer, and Nicholas turned his head to find that he was alone on the Black Gendarme.

...

Shisei lived in a brownstone just off Foxhall Road in Georgetown. It belonged to one of the main benefactors of her environmental lobby, but she was rarely in it, preferring St Moritz in the winters and Cap Ferrat in the summers. She had sumptuous villas in both, caring more for Europe than her native Washington.

Shisei lived in the house alone. Every Wednesday a couple came in to clean and, if she wished, cook food for the week, as they had for the past eighteen years.

The downstairs was all carved panelled walls, painted boiserie, ornate marble mantels upon which rested eighteenth-century French bronzes, ormolu-mounted Chinese porcelain, among other priceless knick-knacks. But upstairs, the bedroom Shisei had chosen was relatively simple. It overlooked a small but exquisite garden overseen by a Japanese gardener who loved his charges as he did his children. Sunlight filtered through the tall honey locusts riming in gold the peonies and azaleas.

Coming out from the bathroom barefoot, Shisei went to her closet, rummaged behind the boxes of shoes she had piled up, pulled out her equipment. She set her portable computer on the small French desk, plugged it in, set up the telephone modem. She sat down, inserted a specially modified RCA jacket into the back of the computer, wrapped the featherweight headset around her head.

She began the access procedure not by using the keyboard but by speaking into the microphone of the headset. The powerful computer hummed along to her complex instructions. As it did, the screen went dark, then began to brighten as streams of characters began to fill it. At last, she downloaded the mantis program from hard disk memory. There it sat in the centre of her screen, pulsing like a dark, dangerous jewel.

Shisei took a deep breath, spoke into the mike. The computer accessed the phone line and she gave it a

number. A female voice answered on the second ring.

'Johnson Institute. How may I help you?'

Shisei hit the enter key on her computer. The Institute operator heard only a dialling tone; but Shisei was inside, connected to the Institute's phone lines via her computer, its modem, and the program activated in the small cylinder she had secreted beneath the desk where the Hive brain sat. The cylinder was her link, via the phone lines, to the Hive computer.

Shisei wiped a drop of sweat from her forehead. Her shoulders were hunched, her eyes staring at the screen as she checked and rechecked. It was time.

She spoke a code into her mike, then hit the enter key again. The version of the mantis virus program she had been given was released, transmitted instantaneously through her link-up to the Hive brain.

She could see on her screen the two interfaces - the honeycomb gridwork of the Hive brain and the spirals of the mantis virus - beginning to merge. She saw the spirals breaking down the gridwork, sector by sector, as the virus began to mutate, feeding on the Hive security program, and she began to exult, thinking, It's working. It's going to work.