Thousand Shrine Warrior (30 page)

Kosame didn't bother to go look at the map. She picked at the coals with a pair of iron tongs and said, “Stupid if Lord Sato's priest or regent fails to think of it, too.”

Shi-u spoke at last. Her voice was a boyish monotone. Her expression never altered. “Not stupid,” she said, “if it is shunned for good reason. It's not on people's tongues today, but who knows if the gorge is wisely left to itself.”

Kosame and Ha-yugao became still, thinking over Shi-u's stark innuendo.

“Stupid to follow her, then,” said Kosame, breaking the silence.

Ha-yugao laughed ironically. “Since when have we been smart?”

Kosame, relenting, joined the others around the map. She squinted at it, making a sour face, then said, “Well, if she wanted to avoid the vassals, she'd probably find some way down into the gorge about here.” She pointed near the waterfall. “But we can go where we want.” She slid her finger along the gorge's ridge and stopped at a particular place, saying, “We'll climb down here and cut her off.”

“If there's a way down,” said Ha-yugao.

“We'll take ropes,” said Kosame. “One way down—or another.”

“Is it a good plan, Shi-u?” asked Ha-yugao; for, little as she showed it, Shi-u mastered them. To the present query, she did not answer, but leaned back on the floor with her hands behind her head, staring at shadows on the ceiling.

A lone vassal was stationed in the tiny guardhouse near the rope bridge, seated on a stool, his spear against a shoulder, his feet tapping a nervous rhythm. An iron tripod and basket stood outside the guardhouse, full of burning, aromatic wood, flames murmuring and casting unpleasant shadows. Light began to streak the distant heavens; it was not yet enough to aid vision.

Many of Lord Sato's men had died recently. The guard felt as though some war were being waged against the Sato clan by a foe able to appear and disappear at random and in numerous disguises. At this very post, a guard had recently vanished. At first it was supposed that he deserted, and who could blame him if he had; but a peasant reportedly witnessed the missing guard's fate: a family of red-eyed demons, alabaster white, noble of countenance, set upon the guard, the strongest lifting him bodily and tossing him into the crashing rapids far below!

Dawn broke and the guard's mood was relieved somewhat. He went out to stand in the warmth of the flaming tripod, striking a pose intended to be monstrous and severe, though it fell short. He stood watching hoarfrost crystals, sticking out like millions of needles or minute swords from the heavy ropes of the bridge, grow before his eyes.

He tensed at an unexpected sound: a soft wail in the distance. He listened with a sense of uneasiness, and the sound became more distinct. He started across the rope bridge, thinking the sound came from the further side.

Ghosts weren't ordinarily creatures of the dawn, but the guard's tremulousness was not markedly relieved. There were all manner of monsters who were fearless by day. The guard thrown into the gorge had apparently been attacked by daylight fiends.

Each step was made tentatively. The guard's nape was drenched in sweat as he walked along the swinging bridge.

The sonorous wail was loudest at the center of the bridge. The guard looked downward into darkness. For a long while he stood transfixed, his face tilted, his expression worried and stiff. By the dim light of the morning sun, he could see a dense fog below, stirring restlessly, lapping like a tide. He heard the roar of rapids and the boom of wave against boulder.

He heard the ghostly sound of someone playing a flute.

While pondering the unlikelihood of music from the gorge, a gorge noted for hostile spirits, the rope bridge lurched, and the guard squeaked with fright. From sheer clumsiness, his foot went through woven ropes and he nearly lost his spear. Regaining balance and a small measure of composure, he raised his spear and pointed it in the direction of three presences in the long shadows of morning.

“Hold there! Off the bridge! Who seeks to cross?”

He hurried toward them. They were the three women who the vassals were buzzing about. The lone guard found them as startling as they had been described. One stood with a short-poled halberd and a disdainful, bored look. The one beside her carried an oversized axe. The third had placed herself in a shadow; he couldn't judge her demeanor or countenance. All three bore long and short swords.

There had been no order to interfere with these women, who were rather too colorful and overbearing to be suspected as spies. But the vassal felt the perfect fool for having been frightened by their sudden appearance, and needed to save face by demanding some sort of identification and statement of business. He postured with self-importance, covertly admiring the beauty of the two women who listened to his pointless objurgations, exchanging bemused glances between themselves.

While he was carrying on and making pompous commands, the third woman, who had been standing apart, stepped to the fore and said,

“Samurai, tell us: How can we get into the gorge?”

Her rawboned tallness and the unwavering look in her eyes undid him at once. Her inconceivable query struck him mute. Who in all Naipon would go into such a place?

Ha-yugao said with a sharp sort of sweetness, “We'll obtain rope if it's the only way.”

The vassal worked his mouth up and down, but nothing came out.

Kosame, her nagamaki held loosely, observed wryly, “He's quite a fellow, isn't he?”

Ha-yugao snickered; the weighted chain hung from her obi jangled when brushed by the axe handle.

Shi-u placed a strong, long hand upon the guard's shoulder. She leaned close and said, “Somehow, you annoy me.”

He found his voice, though it squeaked more than he remembered it. “An old s-stairway f-far along that way! It's broken and d-dangerous!”

“Thank you,” said Shi-u, drawing away from the quaking vassal. The other two women had already started along the cliff-edge path in the direction the guard had indicated. Momentarily, Shi-u followed.

Well before the wives of Yoshimora Wada imposed upon the quaking guard, while they slept at a village inn, another drama unfolded near Sato Castle. Heinosuke of Omi passed over a snow-covered field in the castle's moonshadow, himself the swift shadow of an owl against the night. He went undetected into a stand of leafless trees. Among the trees that grew along the river, he came upon an ancient cairn, built by the primitive, earlier race of Naipon. He moved three large flat pieces of shale aside, revealing a narrow black gaping hole. Squeezing into the cairn, he crouched long enough to blow spark and tinder into a flame with which to light a candle. He started along a passageway less ancient than the cairn, though more forgotten.

As archivist for the Sato clan during the previous year, Heinosuke had approached his chores with an enthusiasm unmatched by the retainers who had held that post in previous generations. In the course of arranging, sorting, and taking inventory of the remarkable collection of family records, books, and documents, Heinosuke chanced upon many foxed and mildewed maps of early Kanno, as well as the original architectural plans for the construction of Sato Castle. It was doubtful that any living individual knew as much as Heinosuke had been able to learn about the underground routes.

The tunnel went deep, deep into the ground and came out into a vast natural cavern. The floor was a rugged trail of pits, pools, and strange formations; crystalline walls glittered in the candlelight as Heinosuke passed. There was a particularly acute dampness where the cavern passed beneath the castle's moat. Beyond this point, Heinosuke found the chiseled passage that led upward at a sharp angle, away from the vaulted cave.

The artificial mesa on which the castle was built consisted of blocks of granite and a great deal of fill. Riddling this tremendous groundwork was a perplexing maze of claustrophobic burrows, few of which were known to the present generation. Fewer still were used. Heinosuke concentrated on his memory of a specific route. It was far from inconceivable that a man could become irrevocably lost among the interconnecting and misleading passageways.

Here and there, tunnels had collapsed over the years. Others had filled with water. It was necessary to amend the route in these places, to find other ways through, so that Heinosuke became less certain of direction.

The occasional pitter-patter might have been rats or running water or something unimaginable. Sound was distorted. Time and senses were muted. Only by the fact that he had started on a second candle did Heinosuke realize that a lot of time had passed. He was uncertain of the path that lay ahead. He was more certain of his retreat. Yet, if he fled back to the cairn and the relief of fresh air, his efforts would have been wasted and Echiko would remain in danger's midst.

He had only the word of Tomoe Gozen that Echiko was abused by Kuro and his plots. As the bikuni's actions were influenced by the sinister intrigues of the revengeful spirit, Heinosuke had tried to discount the information brought by her, one of Kuro's unwitting conspirators. Yet it was true that Heinosuke, with all his snooping and research, had been unable to establish the exact lineage of the foundling princess. As the bikuni had suggested, it was possible, after all, that Echiko was related to one of the seven families that Kuro sought to destroy.

Even were Echiko not one of Kuro's objects of revenge, he might use her for the furtherance of his goal. Or it might be as simple as the bikuni had suggested: Lady Echiko pined to death; Heinosuke's pretended lack of concern was the greater curse against her.

Thus Heinosuke had set out in this endeavor, to enter Sato Castle by little-known subterranean routes, to see Echiko's condition himself. If it appeared necessary, he would kidnap her, whisk her to safety, if such a place existed. What they would do thereafter was difficult to conjecture. But he had been lax too long, lost in his self-pity, disappointment, failure, and unebbing sense of horror.

There was a movement in the tunnel, far ahead. Heinosuke pinched his candle's flame. He pressed against a shallow cavity and watched the shadow of a hulking samurai, head bowed under the low ceiling, a small paper lantern in his hand. Heinosuke was relieved that it was at least not some monster!

The thickset samurai might have passed Heinosuke without detecting him, except for the chance placement of the lantern. For a fraction of a second, the light lingered between two faces: one-eyed Heinosuke's and the dour, high-cheeked, chiseled features of Ittosai Kumasaku. In the next moment, Ittosai had dashed the lantern to the ground and stomped it into a slimy puddle. Both men drew steel in the quick and utter darkness.

Metal sparked against metal and Heinosuke's shoulders were jarred deep in their sockets. He leapt backward from the powerful opponent, panting, while Ittosai remained still and calm and could not be heard in the least. Heinosuke stamped about in mild panic, sword waving to block whatever blow might come his way. Ittosai, motionless, listened. But he did not try anything risky in the confined space.

A booming voice echoed through the tunnel, and there was a quizzical aspect to Ittosai's loud musings. “I was under the impression that only Kuro the Darkness had resolved the complexity of these passages and had imparted to none but myself a single route by which I might come to him with information or receive instructions. Now it seems as though Heinosuke of Omi knows the labyrinths, too.”

Heinosuke was uncertain how to take Ittosai's offhand tone. With undisguised disdain, Heinosuke said, “You are that horrid Ittosai of the Graves! People say you serve a monster without pity or qualm!”

“If I spare you, it won't be out of pity,” Ittosai admitted. “When you die, I will bury you without compunction. But it is not
my
duty to take your life. As you say, I am merely the man of the graves, though once I was noted for better things.”

Heinosuke heard Ittosai's sword begin to slide into its sheath. He could not believe this devoted servant of Kuro truly meant no interference, for the man's reasoning was outside Heinosuke's sphere of understanding. Therefore Heinosuke leapt at the sound of the sword sliding into its scabbard, knowing it to be his best chance to overcome the powerful Ittosai Kumasaku. But Ittosai had moved silently to one side, and the younger man's incredible speed was wasted in the darkness. His cut went into the clay earth of a wall. Ittosai's huge hand wrapped around the back of Heinosuke's neck, lifting him from the floor.

Heinosuke felt the weightlessness of flight and the jarring impact with a wall. He landed in a battered heap, coughing, stunned, his neck sprained. Ittosai spoke without the least emotional investment in his own words: “I won't stop you from taking the Lady Echiko from the castle, if that's your plan. My master's plots are more bewildering than this labyrinth. If you leave Echiko to starve herself to death, Priest Kuro doesn't mind. If you make a chivalrous attempt, then you play into his hands in some other way. Nothing is left to chance. No option turns out well. Believe it!”

Heinosuke regained his breath, his head no longer swam, and he stood slowly. He clutched his sword in too tight a fist.

Ittosai said, “Consider life's futility, Heinosuke! I feel sorry for you. Why not do as I? Look to your own life instead!”

There was a twisted sort of concern in Ittosai's voice; but could momentary compassion be trusted in a man whose advice was selfish and inhumane? Heinosuke had collected his wits by now, calmed his thinking. He became as quiet as Ittosai. Heinosuke knew he had one skill above others: he was capable of inimitable swiftness. He knew where Ittosai stood and launched himself with silent speed. He heard Ittosai's startled grunt.

Heinosuke pushed at the huge body. By his touch, he knew that his sword had only gone into the underside of Ittosai's arm. Ittosai raised a knee into Heinosuke's stomach; and as Heinosuke bent double, Ittosai drew his sword in such a manner as to slice across the young man's lowered face.