The Lost Scroll of Fudo Shin (32 page)

"Great."

Crouching down, he saw the walkway was perhaps four inches wide.  This is what he would have to walk across in order to reach the next part of the tunnel.

One quick look told him it would be too far to try to jump across.  And there didn't seem to be any handholds on the smooth walls that would help him climb over.

He'd have to walk it.

And trust himself.

Keeping the hanbo level in both hands, Jimmy took a deep breath, exhaled and then walked purposefully across the tiny walkway, keeping his hammering heart calm by continuing to breathe and focus on the next part of the tunnel ahead of him.

I can do this.

Just as he reached the halfway point, the walkway behind him started to crumble and fall part.  Jimmy glanced back, saw that the walkway beneath his feet would soon fall apart as well, and then turned back, increasing his speed.

He barely reached the other side in time.

Behind him, the tunnel was nothing but an open black void.  Even the torchlight could not penetrate its depths.  Worse, the torch failed to shed any light on this new tunnel section.  Ahead of him, everything was pitch black again.

Jimmy took a deep breath and then turned back into the new section of tunnel.  He walked on and twenty paces further on, he ran into a dead end.

“Now what?”

He backed up and ran his hands all over the wall looking for a path that he had somehow missed in the dark.  But he found nothing.  As far as he could tell in the dark, this tunnel did not have an opening to the scrolls.

Maybe he’d chosen wrong.  

Maybe he wasn’t supposed to find the scrolls.  Maybe this entire thing was a trap Kotogawa had constructed to capture him.  Even now, the evil mastermind might be planning some horrible death for Jimmy.

A brief flutter of panic swelled in his stomach, but then Jimmy shook his head.  Why go through all that trouble?  If this was a grand plan by Kotogawa, he could have already killed Jimmy in many ways.

No, it was legitimate.

And Jimmy had to figure this out.

He sat down on the tunnel floor and ran his hands over the shaft of the hanbo.  Feeling the hard wood reassured him of his training.  The hanbo had served him well in fights and its presence made him feel good about himself.

The scrolls could not be taken by anyone but the rightful heir to the Matsuda-ryu.  What did that mean?  Apart from the obvious?

Jimmy stood and ran his hands over the brick wall in front of him again.  His fingers scrabbled over the stone, trying to discern something out of the ordinary.  

On his fourth time going over the stones, he thought he found something.  A small knob of stone stood out from the relatively smooth surface in front of him.

Could that be something?

He wanted to discount it, but he could find nothing else.  And hope made him believe that there had to be something more here.

Jimmy left one hand on the knobby stone and then ran his other hand down to his right.

There.

Another protrusion that was set higher than the rest of the surrounding stone.

Two points.

Were there more?

Jimmy ran his other hand down to the same position on the opposite side and found a third protrusion.

Three points.

And then he found a fourth one at the bottom.

He stepped back and tried to visualize the image in his mind’s eye.  Four points that he had found, but how did they open up the tunnel to him again?

Four points.

He tried pressing on one of them but it didn’t budge.

After a few moments, he slumped down next to the wall and sighed.  This was going to be harder than he thought.

Four outcroppings of rock didn’t mean much on their own, so what was it that made them special?

Siben words came back to him.  “The scrolls will only allow themselves to be possessed by the rightful heir to the Matsuda-ryu…”

But what did that mean?

If it’s me, then whatever is it work here should know that I’m here.  The tunnel should open.

What was it waiting for?

He closed his eyes and thought about everything he’d learned in the past few weeks.  His life was far different now than when he’d started.  He remembered it all, every moment.  

But especially when he’d finally met his grandfather Goro.

Goro Matsuda.

Jimmy was the rightful heir to the Matsuda-ryu.  That was why he was here.  That was why Goro had been talking to him.  He’d been trying to prepare him all along for this mission.

And now Jimmy was here.

And failing.

What was it that he was missing?

The four points.

Compass points?

No…

Jimmy leaped to his feet.

“The shuriken!”

He reached out and found the top point and then traced his hand down to the right, then from there down to the bottom and then up to the left and finally he brought his hand back to the topmost point where he’d started.

Open, thought Jimmy.

He heard a crack and then saw a thin sliver of light trace around the rock in the exact form he’d just run his hands.

And in the darkness, Jimmy saw the senban shuriken of the Matsuda-ryu ninja appear before his eyes.

The wall drew in on itself and the portal opened.

Beyond the opening he could see a raised dais in front of him.  Torches blazed in braziers casting light and shadow about the chamber.

And on the dais sat the Lost Scrolls of Fudo Shin.

Chapter Thirty-Six

There were three scrolls sitting in a simple pile, bound by a band of red silk.  They were small and as he approached, Jimmy saw what looked like an oiled skin pouch obviously meant to carry the scrolls in.  Jimmy couldn’t see a single speck of dust anywhere close by.  In fact, the entire chamber seemed to be utterly clean, as if there’d been nothing disturbing the air for years.  Apart from the simple stone dais, there was nothing else to see.

Jimmy stood over the scrolls and examined them from every angle.  What if they were booby-trapped?  He smirked.  He definitely thought about things in a different way now that he’d been training with Vanessa and exposed to the strategies of the Matsuda-ryu.

He lay one hand on the scrolls and picked them up, surprised at how light they seemed.  If there were secrets contained within them, shouldn’t he open them now and read the scrolls?

That wouldn’t work, he thought.  They were probably written in some archaic or coded form of Japanese, just like the piece of paper that Hanzo had given them.  No, the right place for the scrolls was back with Goro.  He would know what to do with them.

Jimmy tucked the scrolls into the oiled skin pouch, then slid that into his jacket and knelt to grab his hanbo.  It was time to get out of here.

But just as he was about to turn, the portal behind him closed.  As it did, another portal opened at the opposite wall.  Jimmy glanced back and then strode to the new portal and followed it through.

The corridor was bright with flickering torches.  The path sloped up gradually and the air grew colder.  Jimmy wondered if he was headed to the outside of the mountain.

He used the hanbo to aid him as he walked and then the path jumped up at a sharper angle.  Jimmy had to lean forward in order to power up the slope.

And then he saw a crack of daylight.

His breath appeared in front of his face.  It was cold all of a sudden and he figured he must have just emerged from warmth of the geothermal updrafts that Siben had spoken about.  

He aimed himself for the daylight and saw that it was a fissure running up through a massive boulder.  Jimmy edged his body into it, felt the rock close in on him from all sides, but kept squeezing his way through.  With a final push, he fell out of the mountain and into the knee-deep snow beyond.

Bright sunshine made him wince and the surrounding area was completely white.  He felt blind and blinked his eyes furiously to acclimate himself.  But Jimmy smiled.  “I made it.”

“Congratulations.”

He turned and saw a Japanese man standing there.  He was unlike anyone he’d ever seen before.  A mop of jet-black hair topped an otherwise hideous face, disfigured by the lines of several intersecting scars.  The skin had been drawn taut over the bones in his face and in the searing sunlight, looked almost translucent.  Jimmy could see a network of veins running like roads just underneath the skin.  His yellowed teeth gave him the appearance of a monster.

“You must be Jimmy Dolan.”

Jimmy gripped his hanbo tighter, feeling his heart thunder in his chest.  “And you must be Kotogawa.”

Kotogawa smiled.  “Indeed.  I see that our paths have brought us together at long last.”

The scene confronting Jimmy was not a good one.  Along with Kotogawa, there were about a dozen men spread out on the side of the mountain, each of them carrying an assortment of swords and metal staves.  And he frowned even more when he saw that Merlin, Vanessa, and Hideaki were kneeling in the snow with their hands on their heads.

Prisoners.

Jimmy eyed Kotogawa.  “How did you find me?”

Kotogawa held up a cell phone.  "Can you believe that they can make an app for this thing that can track a tiny homing device anywhere in the world.  Amazing really, what technology can do these days.”

“What homing device?”

Kotogawa smiled.  “The one you swallowed back in Katmandu.  Served up by my formerly good friend Tak, who is unfortunately not with us anymore.”

So much for Tak's betrayal, thought Jimmy.  But Kotogawa didn't seem like the type to get his hands dirty unless he absolutely had to.  "Which one of your goons killed him?"

"I did."  And then Jimmy saw Hideaki stand up suddenly, brushing the snow off of his parka.  He grinned and stepped forward.  "Guess you didn't see this one coming, did you?"

"You-?"  Jimmy shook his head.  

Merlin gasped.  "But we were-"

Hideaki glared at her.  "Be quiet, girl.  You don't know anything about who I am."

Jimmy saw sadness eclipse the surprise on Merlin's face and he wanted to go to her.  Instead, he stared at Hideaki.  "I thought you were one of us."

Hideaki laughed.  “That’s what you were meant to believe.  Down to me almost killing you on the ship.”

“You could have killed me then, so why didn’t you?  Isn't that what he wants?”

Kotogawa laughed.  “Because that wasn’t the point.  We weren’t going to kill you.  We needed you to get to the scrolls.  To lead us to them, once you’d managed to find them again.”  He took a deep breath and glanced around, basking in the sunlight.  "Of course, now that we have them-"

Jimmy brought his hanbo up.  “I won’t release them.  They belong to my family.  Not yours.”

Kotogawa waved his hand.  “All right now, let’s not be so dramatic.  You will put the silly piece of wood down right now.”

“No.”

Kotogawa sighed.  “Really, do we have to go through this charade?”  He turned to Hideaki.  “Kill the one you call Merlin.”

Jimmy saw surprise flicker across Hideaki's face, but then he reached under his jacket, brought out a knife and started to turn.

In that instant, Merlin exploded out of the snow faster than Jimmy would have ever believed possible.  "Traitor!"

She barreled into Hideaki and the two of them tumbled across the steep slope, kicking up snow and ice.  Hideaki's knife flew away into a snowdrift.  Merlin's fists rained down on Hideaki and Jimmy heard the grunts and heaves as they battled.  He wanted to help Merlin, but Kotogawa held up a hand.

"Don't even think about it or I'll have my men kill the other."  As if to underscore the point, Kotogawa nodded and Jimmy saw another of his men slap Vanessa across the face.  She winced and spat bright red blood into the snow.  The look on her face was one of savagery.

Another grunt brought Jimmy's attention back to Merlin and Hideaki.  They rolled ever closer toward the steep precipice.  Merlin seemed to be gaining the advantage over Hideaki, her fists raining down on him with such speed, that Hideaki couldn't defend himself.

But then Merlin's leg slipped on a patch of ice and she went down, scrabbling for some sort of grip.  Her hands flailed.

Hideaki scooted himself back onto firmer ground.

Merlin slipped toward the edge.  Her hands still trying desperately to find something to grab on to.

"No!"  Jimmy started forward.

Kotogawa blocked his path.

And beyond, Merlin seemed to pause for one indescribable moment before simply slipping over the edge of the cliff.

Gone.

Jimmy sank to his knees.  It felt like the icy cold grip of death had just squeezed all the blood out of his heart.

"Merlin."  His voice was a quiet whisper on the mountain breeze.

She hadn't even screamed, he thought.  One moment she was there and the next she was simply gone.

Forever.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

His eyes stung with the sharp heat rising in them, but Jimmy blinked away the tears furiously, refusing to allow Kotogawa the joy of seeing his sorrow and grief.  Merlin hadn't given him the satisfaction of screaming; the least Jimmy could do was be as strong as she had been.

Vanessa bowed her head and spat another wad of blood into the snow.

Jimmy shook his head.  How could Hideaki kill someone who had loved him?  How could he be so utterly unfeeling about her affection?  It was as if she hadn't mattered even one little bit to him or his world.

He'd killed her.

Without any remorse.

No hesitation.

"I want those scrolls, Jimmy."

Kotogawa's voice knifed through the air, cutting away the sorrow Jimmy felt.  

Jimmy sighed.  There was no way he was going to give them up.  But what could he do?  He shifted and then felt something in his pocket stab him in his leg.

The shuriken.

If he could just get to it, somehow...

He looked up and saw Vanessa eyeing him intently.  Her eyes blazed with fury and Jimmy could see she wanted nothing more than to be fighting for all she was worth.

"The scrolls, Jimmy.  Give them to me."