Only a Shadow (4 page)

7.

Just as the sun was setting, Tada crept forward through the underbrush to get his first unobstructed view of Hirata's fortress. Breaking into a castle, he thought, was always the least difficult part. The real challenge lay in getting out. Only sentries directed their attention to the outside of a castle, and they were few in number, their movements predictable. Inside the castle there were untold numbers of residents: soldiers, craftsmen, stable boys, wives, concubines. If even one of those countless people noticed something unusual, everyone in the castle would go on the alert.

Thus Tada's strategy from the outset was to enter the castle at the last possible moment. He approached the moat from the southwest corner, where the tree canopy was thickest and the underbrush sparse—or as he saw it, where he had the most cover from the eyes on the wall and the fewest threats to silent movement. The sun had set but the moon had not yet risen; his timing was impeccable.

Before him was the deadly moat, the castle's foundation rising from it like a smooth-walled mountain in a marshland. It smelled like the keel of a rotting old boat. In the failing light one could almost believe it was damp mud. A leaf resting on the surface dared Tada to try to walk across.

From his pack Tada removed footwear resembling nothing so much as small, halved barrels. He lashed his
tabi
boots firmly in place. Then he walked across the glutinous surface of the moat as silently as he could manage. Cats made more noise.

Once across, he found a firm handhold in the sloping stone foundation, then freed his feet from the water-walking shoes and submerged the shoes into the moat. Then he waited, clinging to the western face of the foundation, as still as the stones.

Soon he overheard conversation from around the south wall. He heard someone call out the name Iga Jujiro. The old man had reached the castle.

This was the moment of truth, the cord that bound the whole book together.

Old Jujiro's plan was beyond naïve: he would call on Lord Hirata and ask him to see his famous sword. Then Iga Jujiro, more hated than any of Hirata's battlefield enemies, would be cut down on the spot. The distraction he was to have provided Tada would never arise, and it would be left to Tada alone to carry out a theft for the ages.

Such were Tada's predictions, but after a few moments he had to admit he'd been wrong. He heard wood and metal shift, and gravel crunching underfoot like snow, and heard loud voices grow quieter as the walls muffled them. Old Jujiro had read his enemy rightly after all. After all of Tada's doubts, the old man had gotten inside.

No matter. Back in Gyomin's boat, Tada had planned for the worst possible scenario. Now matters would be easier, not harder. But the window of opportunity had opened, and soon it would close. He scurried up the smooth foundation stones, strapped climbing claws to his hands and feet, and scaled the sheer wooden wall.

Reaching the clay-tiled eaves, Tada found something unexpected. Whoever had designed this wall had struck upon an innovation in building its roof. Points as sharp as spears jutted out at regular intervals, intended to rip out the guts of anyone attempting to climb over the eaves.

Tada's first thought was simply to grab two of them and use them as handholds, but as soon as he gripped one to test it he knew he would have to find another way. The spear point was anchored only well enough to skewer him; it could not support his weight, nor could he noiselessly remove it.

He heard two men in conversation on the other side of the wall, moving in the company of many more men. Armor clinked; scabbards brushed against pant legs. The old man was progressing. Within the castle, all eyes would be on the unexpected guest. Tada knew he could not wait for inspiration to reveal a way over the wall. He would have to do as the old man had said from the beginning. He would have to pass through it.

He chose a triangular musket hole. Of necessity, the holes for aiming muskets were wider than the thin slits used for archery. Tada slipped his pack off his back, tethered it to his ankle with his belt, and lowered it silently. Then, drawing on his yoga training, he slipped his head and left arm through the musket hole. Through breath control, supreme flexibility, and no small amount of pain, he pulled the rest of his body through the hole. His pack followed without a sound and he was inside Toba castle.

If any castle residents were about, their attention was focused on the infamous
shinobi
in the company of Lord Hirata. Tada flitted from shadow to shadow until he reached the foot of the donjon. Climbing claws would not help him, for the four-story tower had four sets of eaves, each one bristling with spear points like he'd seen before. There was no musket hole to slip through this time. Tada crouched in the shadow of a wheelbarrow while the moon climbed too high for his liking.

At long last Old Jujiro emerged from the tower. A dozen samurai marched behind him with spears. Lord Hirata strode beside him, flanked by his honor guard. It was the first time Tada had ever laid eyes on the man who aspired to exterminate the Iga. He was older than Tada had imagined, barrel-chested, with a magnificent black beard striped with white. His swords were well worn, not the pretty ornaments so many lords wore once their fighting days were behind them. This one had no intention of leaving his fighting days behind. As long as he lived, as long as his castle cast its shadow over the Kansai, the Iga would live in constant fear of annihilation.

At the gate Old Jujiro and the daimyo exchanged final pleasantries, each one a veiled challenge, but Tada paid them no mind. Instead, he withdrew the padded grappling hook from his pack and hurled it skyward, a dark silken rope trailing behind it.

The hook snagged an outcropping on the second story, its impact drowned out by the conversation, the wind, and the incessant roar of the waves. Tada tucked the free end through his belt—it would not do for some curious passerby to find a rope dangling inexplicably in the courtyard—and scampered up with all the speed of a monkey.

With the rope supporting his weight, he slipped nimbly past the spear points adorning the roofs' edges. Once atop the tiles of the second story roof, he threw the grapnel again, this time to the moon-viewing deck on the fourth floor. There would be a sentry there, and he would hear the hook. There was no avoiding it.

Tada scurried up the rope, reaching the hook before the armed sentry did. The samurai cried out and drew his sword, but Tada sprang over the railing and slammed his palm into the man's chest. The samurai's breastplate slid up and rammed him in the throat. He fell back. Tada whipped his climbing rope around the sentry's neck, then his wrists and ankles, then his throat again. With a last pass of the rope he gagged the man and bound him by the head to the railing, all in the time it took the sentry to fall to the floor.

Those below heard the alarm cry, but they only heard it once. That would confuse them. The great Iga Jujiro had just left their company. Some, knowing his reputation, might
still
suspect he was to blame. The old man would draw a few samurai, but most would be charging up the tower.

Tada sprinted down to the third floor and saw the Tiger on the Mountain resting alone in its sword rack. He ran to the trapdoor over the second-story stairs and kicked it shut, toppling another sword rack on top of it. The weight of the rack would be no deterrent for a strong man, but deterrence wasn't Tada's goal. He sprinted back to the Inazuma blade, unsheathed it to ensure it was the genuine item—Old Jujiro's table trick was a good one—and then pushed the sword into the waxed leather case on his back, a case he'd carried solely for this purpose.

He shed the pack on his back, withdrew his strap of oilcloth, and made three tight wraps around the seam where the leather sword-case met its cap. He slung the sword across his back, and from his pack he removed the paperbound packet that smelled of horse manure. Next he found the hot metal box bound in leather. The box contained a single glowing ember, which he set on the paper packet. Blowing on it caused the paper to ignite. Tada snatched up his pack and dashed up the stairs.

The little bomb exploded just as the first of the samurai burst through the trapdoor. Smoke filled the entire third story and billowed up onto the fourth. Tada heard clattering as warriors tripped over swords and the fallen sword rack. He removed the last item from his pack, the black silk rope tied with scores of the old man's special knots. One end was already fashioned into a loop for his waist, the other end looped to fit his grapnel. He fixed the rope to himself and to the hook, latched the hook onto the thickest beam of the railing, and leaped.

Popping one by one, the knots slowed Tada's fall. All in the courtyard saw him soar from the top of the tower to the top of the outer wall, then stop in mid-air. If any thought to draw an arrow, they were too slow in their aim. They could hardly be blamed for it. It wasn't every day a man flew like a raven.

When he reached the end of the rope, Tada kicked off hard against the tower. He swung out, snagged a knife from his belt, and at the height of his arc cut the rope from his waist. Two somersaults in the air and he landed like a bird, high on the roof of the battlement. Running headlong, ducking and sidestepping arrows, he dashed across the curved roof tiles and threw himself over the eastern wall.

There was no rope trick to save him this time. He plummeted, wind roaring past his ears, until the ocean knocked the breath from him. He'd shed all his equipment save the sword case, which smashed into the back of his head. He could not let pain distract him; all four limbs fanned so he would not hit the bottom.

It almost worked. His feet hit the stony seabed hard enough to hurt them, not hard enough for the pain to shoot up into his knees. That was good. No broken bones; he could still swim. He pushed off, broke the surface, inhaled desperately.

He had not counted on Lord Hirata's samurai recovering so quickly from their confusion. An arrow lacerated his shoulder. Another brushed his cheek with its fletching. He dove back down and freed a slender black reed from the side of the sword case. Swimming just high enough for the reed to break the surface of the waves, he blew the water out of it and took three deep breaths.

The deception would not last long. The moon was bright; visibility would be good at shallow depths. And Lord Hirata's samurai had already proved they were exceptionally good even when taken by surprise. Already their long war skiffs were hitting the water to the north and south. Here and there he heard arrows from the castle lancing through the water. One of them slashed across his shinbone.

Tada swam not fifty body-lengths before the skiffs were upon him. He watched them from the sea floor, saw their sleek silhouettes against the wobbling white eye of the moon. Each boat followed a glowing orange blur: a fire, hanging in an iron basket off the prow.

Had he still been breathing from the surface using his snorkel, they would surely have spied him. But he was not. He'd found the first cache he and Gyomin had inflated with the bellows that morning.

On land the object was a flat airtight disc; underwater it pulled against its tethers like a monstrous jellyfish, one that threatened to swim away at any moment. But the rocks it was lashed to kept it in place, though it lolled back and forth in a lazy rhythm matching the surf.

Tada hovered under the air-filled sack, the Tiger on the Mountain bouncing against his spine in its case. With the snorkel he sucked all the breath he could from the sack, then swam north. The moon danced restlessly on the undersides of the waves, illuminating nothing at this depth. The water around him was like cold ink.

But ahead he soon saw a faint glow. He commanded his limbs not to pull harder, forced his muscles to conserve his body's breath. The soft glow grew larger as he swam. His lungs heaved. His throat spasmed in vain attempts to swallow air.

At last he reached the light, and even with the water blurring his vision he could see the many sources of it. They were fish, luminescent fish whose favored diet was the seaweed old Gyomin so carefully cultivated on the rocks by his hut. The same seaweed clung to the rocks anchoring each bag of air, and the fish were drawn to it as surely as moths to a flame. They scattered as he approached, but it did not matter; he had found his next breath.

Tada found it strange to be so utterly beholden, to owe his very life, to fish no bigger than his fingers. Their glow was so faint that no one on the surface could even guess they were there. But these little fish would lead him to safety as surely as a sailor's lifeline. Each cache of air held just seven or eight breaths, and progress from one to the next was slow. It was enough. He had already done what no human could do: he had swum a thousand paces underwater, leaving the Hirata samurai far behind. He would swim a thousand more before he reached safety, but he would manage it.

8.

When he reached the rocky spur where Gyomin's hut was perched, he found an underwater mouth ringed with seaweed and glowing fish. Swimming into the tunnel, he found its walls were smooth to his touch, and he wondered whether it had first been formed by lava or by human tools. He soon emerged into a little chamber hollowed from the rock, lit by a tiny candle. There was no doubt that the chamber had been fashioned by human hands, for the hands were Gyomin's. Like Old Jujiro, Gyomin was
shinobi
, and his profession as a fisherman was no more than a long-worn and supremely well-fitting disguise.

Pressing his hands and feet against opposite walls, Tada climbed the wet rocks to a wooden panel. He knocked twice, and when Gyomin opened the panel Tada climbed up through the false bottom of Gyomin's hearth. The old man was smiling at him, a conspiratorial grin that Tada returned. I'm sorry, Tada thought, but you're a fool. You're smiling because you think we stole the sword together. I'm smiling because I'm going to dupe you both.

“I'm to deliver this to Iga-sama right away,” he told Gyomin, patting the sword case. Gyomin bowed, his white beard touching his knees as he did so. Tada lingered only long enough to dry his hair, change his clothes, and move the sword from its bound leather case to a hollowed-out length of fat bamboo, one end of which was cleverly carved to conceal a removable cap. Then he and Gyomin wrapped great lengths of fishing net around the bamboo, as had been previously arranged; it would not do to carry their treasure down the thoroughfare in the same case in which it had been carried from the castle. Better for one fisherman to be seen delivering tackle to another one.

Tada left the old man's hut at a slow walk, heading not toward the farmer's house where Jujiro would meet him but rather into the village. This too had been prearranged. Even though no one had seen him enter Gyomin's house, and even though no one else knew where Jujiro was waiting, none would ever see someone walk directly from Gyomin's house to Old Jujiro's. Tada, the huge rolled net jostling against his shoulders, walked hunchbacked along a meandering path until he reached a cooper's house. He took a moment to ensure he was not observed, then stole quietly into a grass-roofed outbuilding behind the house: the cooper's workshop.

He removed the end cap from the bamboo and withdrew the Inazuma blade and its scabbard. Standing atop a barrel, he nestled the sword deep into the thatching of the workshop roof. This had not been prearranged; Tada chose the cooper's shed in the moment he passed it, solely for the accessibility of its roof. It was dirty work, wedging the sword into the thatch, and grit and mold fell into his eyes as he did it. He made sure to dust off himself afterward, to leave no visible sign of his labors.

He replaced the end cap on the hollowed bamboo. Then he was trundling along with his burden again, hunchbacked, eyes only on the road. He'd been in the cooper's workshop for less time than it took most people to get dressed.

He reached the farmer's hut soon afterward, strangely tired by the roll of net on his back. No, not
strangely
tired, he realized; he'd been laboring for two days running, including an underwater swim farther than any human being had ever accomplished. He knocked twice on the door, and Jujiro bade him to enter.

“It's done,” Tada said once the door was closed and he was sure no one else was listening. Smiling, he said, “I'll need to see someone about these cuts,” and he pulled aside his clothing to reveal his shin and shoulder.

“Not the worst of your wounds, I think,” said Old Jujiro. “Come, sit.” He motioned to the cushion in front of the Korean table. A teapot and two cups were sitting on the table. The cushion was laid immediately before the tiny pinhole Tada had noticed before.

Tada smiled again, bowed, and sat. “Sir?”

“I'd like you to tell me where the Tiger on the Mountain is,” said Jujiro. “Oh, and would you like some tea?”

Tada's smile froze, then faded, as the old man poured two cups of steaming tea. He pushed one to Tada's side, then pulled the other in front of him. “Please,” Jujiro said, “drink.”

“I think not.”

“Perhaps you believe it is poisoned.” The old man sipped his own tea and did not fake it. “Perhaps you should reconsider the advice I gave you when we first met.”

“What advice was that?”

“You need to know when to double-cross, and when not to.” He took another sip. “Your tea is safe, Tada-san.”

“Then perhaps you mean to poison me with the needle that shoots from your famous table. I know about your trap, old man. I disarmed it as soon as you left for the castle.”

“Did you? That was clever. Do take your tea. I didn't make it hot enough for you to use it as a weapon against me; leave it much longer and it will be too cold to drink.” He sipped again. “Now then, where is the Tiger on the Mountain?”

A smile touched Tada's lips. “What told you it's not in the case?”

“Several things. I heard no rattle within the bamboo when you set down the net. Your eyes are red, which I might have thought was the result of the saltwater, but Gyomin tells me your eyes don't redden much after a swim. That makes me think it might be a response to mold, perhaps from where you've hidden the sword. But first and foremost, you're not yet old enough to know when not to double-cross. This one was too tempting; you had to try.”

Tada laughed. “You think you see it all coming. You think you're as wise as a buddha. You're not getting the sword, old man. I came here only to tell you why I did it.”

“Oh, that much is obvious. You think you love fame and you think you love my granddaughter.”

Tada forced his eye not to twitch and his throat not to swallow. “Struck close to the mark, did I?” said Jujiro. He drank his tea. “Don't worry. It's youth that betrayed you, not stupidity.”

That was enough for Tada. “Spare me your lessons. I'm the only one who knows where the Inazuma blade is hidden, and once I've got it back, the elders will know which of us is their greatest
shinobi
.”

“I can't imagine that will be a hard decision for them,” said Jujiro. “As soon as the poison catches up with you, there will be only one of us for them to choose.”

Tada lifted his teacup and ceremoniously poured it on the floor. “I know your tricks. Did you lace my cup with poison before you poured? Or was it your cup that was laced with antidote?”

“Neither. I laced the handle of the Inazuma with contact poison. You started dying as soon as you touched it.”

Tada started to speak, then stopped. His gaze drifted to his hands. “No,” he said. “You saw the sword under armed guard. Under direct observation. Lord Hirata must have been standing right next to you!”

“I am the most veteran
shinobi
of the Iga. Surely you don't believe direct observation would prevent me from dispensing a simple poison, do you?”

Tada felt his heart quicken. The fatigue he'd felt earlier loomed larger now. Was it from all the swimming, or was it poison? He couldn't be sure.

“Perhaps you are considering using violence against me,” Old Jujiro said. “Perhaps you think I have the anti-venom with me, or that you could make an anti-venom yourself if you were to torture me until I told you what poison I used. I assure you both options are hopeless. Do you see the candles by the window?”

Tada looked, and indeed there were eight unlit candles lined along the sill. “If I light the correct number,” Jujiro said, “Gyomin will hurry here with the medicine you need. If I light an incorrect number, or light none at all, he will pour your medicine into the sea. Nothing you can do will create a third option. You will bring me the sword and I will start lighting candles, or you will do something foolish and you will die.”

Tada's mind raced, looking for a way out of the old man's trap. His heart thumped a manic rhythm against his ribs. “I'll kill him. I'll kill you and Gyomin.”

“Kill Gyomin and your hope for an anti-venom is lost. His medicines can be quite elaborate; mix the ingredients in the wrong quantities and the anti-venom can be deadlier than the poison. And should you try to kill me. . . .” The old man smiled a wrinkled, yellow-toothed smile. “Well, you said it once yourself: I'm stronger than I look. I assure you, I have a great many strengths you cannot guess by looking.”

Tada began to feel faint. He stood, took two steps for the door, and fell. “I'll die before I give you that sword. Let it stay hidden forever!”

“You can only have hidden it in this tiny village. Die here and I expect I shall find it before sundown tomorrow.”

“No. I beat you. I planned it all.”

“You planned to steal the Tiger on the Mountain, my boy. An Inazuma blade of legendary power. And tell me, what is that power?”

Tada's heart fluttered like hummingbirds' wings. The backs of his eyeballs tingled. “It protects,” he said, his voice half-coherent even to his own ears. “It protects the building. . . .”

“. . . that houses it, yes,” said Old Jujiro. “Of all the swords in the world, you stole the one you could never hide from me. All I need to do is put this village to the torch. The only building still standing among the ashes will be the one that holds the sword.”

“No.” Now Tada felt pain shooting like darts through his arteries, starting from his heart. “I . . . I could have buried it.”

“If only you'd had the time,” the old man said. “But you didn't, did you? You feared detection. No, I daresay you've stowed it in someone's eaves, or maybe in some moldering rowboat that's fallen out of use.”

“No, I. . . .”

Jujiro opened his palms, almost in a gesture of friendship. “I told you when we first met: I do not relish the thought of having so young an enemy. You assumed I said this because I feared your youthful strength. No, Tada-san: I feared having to kill one so young, one so useful to the clan if only I could cure him of the disease that is youth.”

The old man stood from behind his table, walked across the room, and knelt next to Tada. He was off-balance, unarmed, totally exposed. Totally vulnerable. He said, “Even now you are thinking of betraying me. It is a hard instinct to unlearn in our profession. But let me ask you this: do you understand how little you accomplished tonight?”

“We . . . we saved the clan.”

Old Jujiro chuckled. “Far from it. Lord Hirata will hate us more than ever. We shall have to bring him down soon, him and that castle of his—and
that
is what we did tonight: he no longer has the Inazuma blade to protect him. Our strike will come soon, but even victory is a momentary thing. You could have accomplished so much more, Tada-san.”

He laid his hand on Tada's head and even stroked his hair. It could have been a loving gesture if not for the fact that the same hand had poisoned him. Old Jujiro clucked his tongue and said, “You still cannot see it, can you? You could have taken part in the greatest theft in living memory. I walked into a castle, met its daimyo face to face, and walked out empty-handed, and when next he went to get his sword, it was gone. That was what was supposed to happen. You were not supposed to be heard, much less seen. All were to believe it was me, and that even in my old age I have the magic to be in two places at once.

“Now, in a little while I'll have stolen the sword, not from Lord Hirata but from you. That is unfortunate. You could have been a legend. Now you are only a shadow in the dark. Only a fleeting, intangible thing.”

Tada winced. “That's what I wanted to be,” he mumbled, as much to the floor as to anyone. “A shadow. A nightmare.”

“Even a simple fisherman wakes from his nightmares, Tada-san. You can be so much more. When you bring me the sword, I will know you have learned something of when to double-cross, and when not to. Then I will teach you all the secrets of the Iga. As well as you've performed so far, we will make tonight's work look like an amateur's. You could be my successor, Tada-san. You could be immortal. You might even marry my granddaughter. There is only that one vital lesson left to learn.”

Jujiro stood up and helped Tada to his feet. “Now,” the old man said, “at the moment you suffer as much from panic as from poison. It should be an hour or more before it reaches lethality. Go fetch the sword and I'll start lighting candles.”

Tada stumbled toward the door, dizzy. Slipping his sandals back on his feet, he regained his balance and his clarity of thought. Bowing, he said, “I'll be back right away, Iga-
sensei
.”

Deference at last, Old Jujiro thought. Deference and a trace of fear. It was a hard lesson, but the boy had learned it well. If only he could impress the boy as deeply with the rest of his lessons, Jujiro knew the name of Iga would not fade with the next generation. Youth was not a disease easily cured, but it was more easily cured than old age, and the Iga needed another legend-maker. Perhaps this boy would be the one after all.

Old Jujiro stood in his doorway and smiled at the night. Deference and a trace of fear. The thought of it made him feel like a younger man.