Thousand Shrine Warrior (26 page)

“Did you know she was cast out of the Rooster Clan?”

“Was she? Well, they told me something different. I was supposedly the head of the family, but I was only a child. It was many years ago. Most of my family perished in the wars. I liked Oshina. I liked thinking she was happy somewhere. Did you kill her?”

“Why do you think so?”

“It is your fate to destroy the last of seven families. The Rooster Clan was one. Weren't you a chief participant in the wars of Heian-kyo? My relatives perished in those wars. You did kill her, didn't you?”

“It was before the wars. After she was cast out, her life was wretched. She begged me to help her die.”

“I didn't say I blame you,” said Heinosuke. “The roots of this sad destiny are a century old, at least. Perhaps the Thousands of Myriads planned it at the start of time. The seven families have declined in this past century, and those who are left have come to center around Sato clan holdings, here in Kanno where it started long ago. If you happened to help things along the way, it was not really your fault.”

“You know more about it than I, Heinosuke. Will you explain it to me?”

“I nursed you these few days for that reason,” he said. “When you know, you may wonder why I didn't let you die. Maybe it was because of my memory of you as Tomoe Gozen. Maybe I flirt with my own doom, thinking myself dead already. Or I may have a plan that requires your famous sword, a haunted sword to slay a thing from Hell, if you can get close enough.”

“You think Priest Kuro inhuman?”

“I think us all inhuman.”

Heinosuke stood and went to the other side of the single room, ducking under the millworks, still trying to keep the nun from seeing his ruinous eye. He took two chipped lacquered boxes from a shelf and went with them to where the bikuni sat, a quilt upon her lap.

“Tomoe,” he said, and she was glad to hear him say her name.

When he sat upon his knees beside her, he once again chose an angle that kept him from facing her directly. He took a lid from one of the boxes. A scroll, which he had drawn up, lay within.

“You have seen this once before,” he said. “Please look at it again.”

She took the scroll, unrolled it, saw how many names had been deleted since the first time she saw it. “So many,” she said softly.

“And so few left to die,” said Heinosuke. “When you've slain the last of them, Kuro's vengeance shall be met. It is the surest way to exorcise him from Naipon. For it to happen, you must kill them all.”

“You have deleted your own name,” she said.

“I am in your hands already. I don't mind. Without Lady Echiko, I don't see much in life.”

The bikuni did not like to look at the list, would not inspect it closely. She rolled it tightly and placed it in Heinosuke's box. “If you care for Echiko,” she said, “why have you abandoned her to her fate with Priest Kuro?”

“Kuro will not harm her. She doesn't know it, but I have found out she was a foundling. Not Lord Sato's family, except that he says so.”

“It's interesting you would say so. Whose family, then?”

“No one ever knew. Lord Sato's late wife took Echiko in before she was old enough to speak or walk.”

“You say there are seven families endangered by Priest Kuro—or myself. Could Echiko be kin to one of the other six?”

Heinosuke looked upset by this query. “An oversight,” he said. “I had not considered that.”

“I have seen her lately,” said the nun, fixing on her chance to give Heinosuke back a reason for life, a reason to seek action. “She is not well. She starves herself. Priest Kuro chants the sutras for her nightly. If not Kuro's vengeance, then she pines for you.”

Heinosuke turned his face further away.

“Do you think she could not love you because of your one eye? It's not good-looking, I'll admit. You could wear a patch. That would lend distinction. Be assured, Princess Echiko is dying, and Kuro the Darkness has some interest in that death.”

“He has only done away with priests who stood in his way, and members of those seven families,” said Heinosuke, pointing stubbornly at the list he had drawn from genealogies. He had gotten over thinking his knowledge of matters could be used to a good end and did not want to confront anything that would motivate him to hopeless efforts. “No infant recorded in those families might have been Echiko. She is not involved.”

“As you know so much about Kuro,” said the nun, “tell me who he is.”

Heinosuke was glad to think of anything besides Echiko. “I was appointed Lord Sato's archivist, responsible for his family records. It was a good position. I hadn't been at Sato Castle long when I realized Lord Sato's mind was deteriorating. I had reason to suspect the priest was poisoning him. I tried to investigate. Nobody agreed that Priest Kuro's behavior was strange; he only moves about at night. I caused a lot of trouble for myself, warning people something was up. If I had kept silent, I would have been married to Echiko by now; Lord Sato favored me before he became afflicted, and Chamberlain Norifune did not change Lord Sato's policies from before. But could I protect my opportunities while watching my future father-in-law grow senile at his age? In retrospect I see Kuro toyed with me; I was part of his machinations. I became convinced that the plot worked a certain way and put my future on the line. There was no posion. I made a fool of myself; and other castle men began to spy on me.

“I had to keep out of mischief; I attended to my duties. While doing so, I found an old record, which described part of an incident from a hundred years ago. I began to suppose Priest Kuro was the descendant of a certain monk named Nichiroku, and that for some reason an old feud was being settled generations later. But I was still on the wrong track, confused for a while. I wasted a lot of time trying to find out where Priest Kuro came from. If he was a relative of Nichiroku, then he might have been born in Heida province. But I could not discover evidence that he came from anywhere at all. He might not have existed before appearing at the castle and winning Lord Sato's heart.

“His name means ‘black,' but written another way it means ‘ninth son.' I was trying to find out his original name and started collecting genealogies. I could not find a ninth son of anyone who was Kuro's approximate age. Finally I stopped thinking in terms of people alive today. If you reverse the two characters of Kuro's name, it comes out ‘roku' as in ‘Nichiroku,' the sixth light. Nichiroku was a ninth son of a Heida family, and he was the sixth out of seven disciples of Morihei Sato, who became known as Abbot Johei, founder of a Lotus sect in Kanno. I found–out that the other six disciples, and Johei, represented seven families, mainly from Kanno, except Nichiroku. All but one of the disciples were of important families. The seventh disciple, below Nichiroku, was a peasant's son. That family used to farm the land around this millhouse; but there are fewer in that family nowadays.

“As I looked into the fates of those families, I soon discovered my own clan's past connection with Kanno province. All the families had something in common: they had been declining for a hundred years, as though laboring under a curse. In the past year, the remaining members of the seven clans have been especially beleaguered. This coincides with Kuro's appearance here, though a tangible connection cannot be made. The families turned to their priests for help; but any priest who looked into the matter, or prayed in behalf of those families, became himself cursed as well.”

The bikuni asked, “So you think Kuro took his name indirectly from the original Nichiroku?”

“No. Kuro
is
Nichiroku, returned from the dead as a
goryu
or vengeful spirit, eager to complete a vengeance against the families of the abbot and six monks who wronged him long ago.”

“An overwhelming theory,” said the nun. “I still think he could be a mortal sorcerer. It can't have been easy for you to check records of men from Heida.”

Heinosuke took the lid from the other box. A brittle parchment lay within. “This makes it more than my theory. I found it in a secret compartment of a chest in the Sato archives. It tells exactly what happened to Nichiroku. It is the confession of Morihei Sato, who with six disciples did Nichiroku harm. Once I knew the whole story, I understood the origin and sentiment of Kuro the Darkness. I knew that I had no allies in the castle and must act alone to save Lord Sato, his clan, and many others as well.

“I lay in wait for Priest Kuro, intending to cut him when he appeared. I waited a long time in the room where he passes his days. He keeps the place guarded well, but as archivist, I had access to the architectural records and knew of various secret corridors. When he came at last, I leapt forth and stabbed him where he stood! I stabbed his heart!

“I could not get my sword back out. He looked at me with so saintly an expression, I regretted my mistake. He bent his beatific face to see my sword stuck in his chest. When he looked up again, his perfection was erased. He was an appalling mummy, skin stretched upon bones! His eyes shone like two lanterns of green paper! Yet his voice was unchanged. It was still sweet. And he said to me, ‘Don't you see too much, Heinosuke?' He reached out with his right hand, which was bony and clawed and black, and he plucked out my left eye!”

Heinosuke turned to face Tomoe so that she could see the full effect of Kuro's deed and how unfortunately it had healed.

“Yet you did not cry out,” said the bikuni, remembering what Otane had said about that night. “You slipped away through darkness and came to the women's quarters to make Echiko believe you no longer cared; and you have counted yourself among the dead since then. If my Sword of Okio can do better than your common blade, will you count yourself among the living?”

“In such a world as this?” he said. “If you can exorcise him only by fulfilling his desire, will you count yourself among the living?”

“Each day comes and passes. I try to live without regret.”

“I will tell you everything I've learned,” said Heinosuke. “If you do not find it regrettable, then you are very different from me.”

“I would like to know everything,” she said.

Heinosuke placed the lid upon the second box; for he knew the tale by heart, including the words of the confession. He began, “Once upon a time …”

“Is it a fairy tale?”

“No. But it begins with a legend. Don't interrupt as I tell you.”

“There is a legend regarding the land on which the Temple of the Gorge now stands. Long and long ago, a province had not yet been named, and there were only a few people scattered through the lower valleys. Atop the gorge, where rivers converged and leapt forth into a terrifying plunge, demons gathered on certain nights, rising from the Land of Roots, meeting to cavort with the monsters of land and air. It was a joyous occasion for such beings.

“One of the demons was Green Fire Devil, a will-o'-the-wisp who could take the form of a stooped old man. One time he was sent up from Hell to get some things in order for a festival the demons had in mind. As he was drifting over snow-coated swamps and amidst trees, he chanced to see the Snow Woman, who had wandered from the highest peak because the weather suited her. She had the appearance of sculpted ice. Her hair was like frost's etching, hanging on the air. Her eyes were piercing blue. She was vastly more elegant than anything Green Fire Devil had seen before that night.

“When he spied her, she happened to be embracing a handsome woodcutter. He was stiff in her arms, a blissful expression frozen to his face. When she let him go, he remained standing in his place.

“‘Yuki-onna!' shouted Green Fire Devil, much impressed with her beauty and her strength. ‘Yuki-onna, I am an old devil but robust in my heart. Come see if you can cool my flame!' As it turned out, Green Fire Devil was the first being able to withstand the cold of Yuki-onna; and she was the first being unsinged by his affection. Thus they had a long affair, despite that she was beautiful and he was homely beyond compare.

“A gathering of demons celebrated the romance of Snow Woman and Green Fire Devil. It became an annual event, for demons are forever anxious for such an excuse. Their various festivities tended to last whole nights. If there was a typhoon or blizzard, so much the better! If dawn were heavily overcast, they might prolong a party. More commonly, things ended before first light smote the eyes of night's minions.

“The place was known to men, but shunned. If people came too close and witnessed the affairs of demons, they were invariably drawn into the festival, dancing and shouting and having a good time. Afterward, they would go into the gloomy land and not come out again.

“Because the countryside was thinly populated, there were few problems. Peaceful centuries came and went. The number of festivals increased with time; whatever reason could be found, a new holiday was added. The site became famous among the denizens of Hell; for there were not a lot of places where they could walk upon Naipon's topsoil.

“During a time of incessant human wars, armies discovered an important route through the mountains, and Sato Castle was built to guard the pass. The land came to be ruled by the present lord's ancestor, Yorimitsu Sato, a strong warrior. One evening Yorimitsu went up to a high wall of the castle and chanced to look over to the gorge. He saw erratic movement and glowing shapes and suspected an enemy attack. He sent some strong men, who ended up dancing and having a good time but were never seen after that. Only one man returned a little before dawn, trying his best to convince his beloved lord to come join the thousand sporting demons and monsters. At sunrise, this man died twitching and screaming.

“Lord Yorimitsu Sato invited a certain sect of powerful Buddhists to exorcise the place. It took a long time, for the priests had to use occult means to uncover the reason for each demon-festival, then do a different rite against each type of demon and each of their festive excuses. Afterward, a grateful Yorimitsu awarded the land around the top of the falls and provided the funds to build a temple there. That temple was bigger than the one you see there today, although part of the original is incorporated into the present building.