by Ronan Frost
Chapter Six
I watched only my feet, thoughts mired in a loop of how much I hated walking, how I hated it to my very core. I had no destination in mind, and with every step the feeling within grew of the futility of my flight; I should just stop and turn around, return to the castle to face my demons. Aki’s own words ordering me to flee began to lose their imperative, my memory of that encounter blurring until I was not even sure she had said such things at all.
And yet I continued along the road as it dropped and followed a valley formed by the cupped hands of mountains on either side. The snow was not as deep here, yet that made the path all the more treacherous and I had to place each step carefully for fear of twisting an ankle on frozen mud.
Around mid-morning I came across a pair of farmers going the opposite direction, bent almost double under the weight of their load upon their backs. I stopped as they approached, and tried to speak to them. One of them slowed his pace and narrowed his eyes at me, returning the greeting with a suspicious nod, but as soon as I began to ask for some food he made an ugly noise in the back of his throat and continued on his way.
A little later a messenger overtook me, weaving past my lumbering form and quickly vanishing up the road. Other than that, I met nobody else for the entire day, and I did not see the man from the previous night nor, although I looked for them, signs of the passage of his cart.
My trek was by no means a solitary one, however, for it felt the constant watch from tiny stone statues peering from the undergrowth every now and again. Tiny red bibs tied about their necks, the color to expel the demons of sickness and the color of fertility, stood out in vivid stark contrast to the white blanket of snow, lending their stone visages an eerie life. The profusion of these little roadside gods concentrated about the many shrines set back from the road in enclaves in the trees. Mostly, the shrines were small red-painted wooden boxes filled with candles and incense, yet others were huge towers, twisted fibers of symbolic rope thicker than my arm hanging over the entrance. I did not pause at any to pray; I did not deserve any pity or mercy from the gods.
Towards mid-afternoon I came to a rest house build upon the side on a hill, the steam and distinctive rotten-egg aroma of natural hot baths drifting from the windows into the chill winter air. There were a score of people moving about various tasks at the river nearby, hauling loads of laundry and buckets of water. Very slowly I drew closer, and tried to catch the gaze of anyone who would glance my way. My hunger by this stage was crippling, and my condition must have been pitiable for a few people threw some scraps towards me which I gathered up and ate ravenously. As evening drew deeper more a donkey drawing a wagon pulled up. The peddler who tended the donkeys finished his tasks, drawing the coverings upon his wagon up tight against the dew, and threw me a suspicious glance. On his way inside he paused in his tracks and spat.
“Mind yourself, brat. I don’t take kindly to thieving rats!”
He took a half-step towards me, stooping as he did so to collect a handful of rocks. I was on my feet in an instant, almost falling over myself as I retreated, the shower of small stones thwacking into the ground as I danced away. The peddler seemed satisfied and gave a sweeping gesture with the back of his hand and turned back into the warm orange glow of the rest house.
I withdrew further to the edge of the forest, the misery of my own company a fitting and just punishment for my worthlessness. With the rapid failing of light, vast clouds began to brood on the edges of the horizon, ominously dark yet beautiful in their intricacy, birds moving unseen in the gathering darkness, calling the coming night. Very quickly the road became transformed in clear bright white light of the moon, which seemed a fragile and small thing as the choking fingers of encircling clouds slowly crept inwards. In the darkened dapples upon the moon’s surface I clearly saw the silhouette of the rabbit, standing upright upon hind legs, pounding rice cakes with a long pole. It seemed impossible that I had gazed up this same rabbit as a child, how could it be the same when so much had changed? I was struck suddenly by the bitter pang of regret, wishing things had been otherwise. My life seemed a series of blunders one after another, and now, because of my stupidity, I had lost everything. I was hungry, cold, and alone.
And of course of thought of Aki. I dug up every memory I had of her face, trying to open myself to them to imprint every detail more firmly into my mind. The sound of her voice, the smell of laundry that I would always associate with her, and her incredibly beautiful face framed by her long black hair. Her lips had a way of pouting, her high cheekbones and her eyes of such composure and depth that caused me to both to be drawn and shy away.
Had I imagined it, or was there something between us in those few times we had met? Now that I dwelt so restlessly upon the memories, I felt that perhaps the rush of giddy emotion that had weakened me also had some reflection in her, something that made her linger in my presence. In her, I had seen strength and exquisite beauty, yet also a fragility and longing. It was a feeling that made me want to be strong, to give everything for her, including my life, if only I knew how.
I shook my head to myself. I had neither the strength nor the courage to act upon my conviction. If there had been a time to act, I had missed it, and if my life were a stream, I had missed the moment where a fork in the current would have led me to her. My spirit was crushed and I hung my head further between my legs.
Just then I heard a voice in the night. I hadn’t realized it, but I had drifted into a kind of dozing sleep in my crouch, hugging my legs to my chest, yet the voice brought me to full wakefulness. Unnerved, I fought to regain my senses, disorientated in the chill darkness, for the moon had been swamped by thick cloud.
Shadows by the rest house were moving in my direction, and as they approached I heard the clinking and creaking of lacquered armor.
“Over here,” said a voice. “I chased him off.”
I squinted in the dark, and saw the silhouette of a bent-backed man and recognized him as the peddler. To his side strode a giant of a man, by the outlines of his armor unmistakably a samurai warrior. I leapt to my feet, hearing the wind gusting through the trees and feeling as if a thousand eyes watched with wicked intent from the shadows.
“Skinny bastard, looked like he was on run, just like you described. I’m sure it’s him. He was around here somewhere, I’m sure of it, I’m sure.” The peddler gestured towards the forest. “He must be close by, he won’t have gone far, you’ll see.”
I stayed perfectly still as the samurai stopped, and stood with hands upon his hips as the peddler darted up down the line of the trees. A break in the clouds allowed the moon to shine through, and I could see the samurai bore the crest of the Date clan: two facing sparrows, wings outspread, enclosed in a circle of branches. He was not wearing a helmet, and his clean-shaven head other than a topknot was a gleaming dome in the faint blue light.
With exaggerated care I stepped backwards into the forest, keeping my face downturned so as not to catch the eyes of my hunters. The peddler continued to chatter away and I saw from the periphery of my vision the samurai’s head move back and forth, scanning silently like a bird of prey. Keeping my movements as steady as possible I trod lightly into the undergrowth and lay down flat and motionless.
The peddler’s voice grew more nervous.
“I swear, he was just like you described,” He gave a nervous laugh. “I’ll get a portion of the reward, right? That’s only fair. Vital information, you’ll get him soon. Not the whole bounty, mind, just a portion, that’s all I ask.”
His voice faded as he followed the samurai back down the hill, his pitch rising in protest.
“I’ll send my boys out, they have dogs, we’ll get him soon enough, you’ll see. If you’ll wait just one –”
I heard the sound of a katana being swept out of its scabbard and instinctively squeezed closed my eyes and hunched my shoulders, breath freezing in my throat. When I raised my head, the samurai was walking calmly back to the rest house
. It took me long moments to distinguish the headless body of the peddler as a dark shadow upon the ground.
With a surge of adrenaline I was on my feet and running into the forest, stumbling through branches with uneven footing until I came across a narrow trail. I followed it as it led away from the rest house, snaking up the side of the mountain, my chest heaving. By degrees my pace was forced to slow into a walk, and I did not stop until the clouds began to glow a pale pink in the eastern sky. My mouth was parched, my stomach an empty hard ball beyond hunger.
At times the trail met with others, and sometimes it split. I chose directions that led east, the rising sun at my back, with little hope now left in my being. I came across a gate of three carved beams of wood forming a simple archway, the topmost horizontal beam peppered with a dusting of snow, and knew there must be a shrine nearby. I passed under the gate, the narrow path winding through the forest, trees that I had no name for that were hundreds if not thousands of years old standing straight as the shaft of an arrow into the sky with such impossible height they dwarfed all else. The path dropped and the roar of rushing water grew louder until I came to the base of a bridge spanning a small river. I stopped for a time upon my knees by the bank of the river, cupping my hands to my mouth and drinking until my stomach sloshed.
Standing, I crossed the supple rising arc of the narrow bridge and stood upon the middle, where the sound of rushing water through rock and ice was at its crescendo, drowning all other thought. Stepping down the other side it seemed that intense roar had flushed my mind away, putting me into a strange kind of daze as I climbed the hill upon the far side, the path rising upwards. I only saw what was right before me, as if I viewed the world through a long tube. My gaze swung left and right, the bright red of scarves garbing statues of monkeys and foxes with furious little faces catching my eye.
Weakened and dizzy with hunger it felt as if I would collapse at the next step, my guts so shriveled it seemed my body was consuming itself with the very act of staying alive. At last I paused for breath and realized in that moment I was hopelessly lost. The trail I had been on had long since dwindled away, and I had been fooling myself into thinking I still followed it. I was among tall bamboo and could not see the sun; even the shadows were complex, making it impossible to judge which direction.
Then I heard a rustling and the noise of running footsteps. I spun about but saw nothing, the vertical bars of bamboo forming a cage on my vision. The footsteps were coming closer. I found myself dropping to a defensive crouch, eyes darting and trying to pierce through the maze. I snatched up a fallen piece of bamboo, holding it about the middle as a kind of defensive staff. My enfeebled hands, like numb clubs, could barely hold its weight, let alone use it as a weapon.
The footsteps were passing now, no longer coming straight on, it seemed whoever it was had a course set and was following it like an arrow. A shadow flashed between the stalks.
A young boy. The ghost.
He did not pause as he ran, head forward, and in moments had disappeared again, footsteps receding into silence.
Nothing happened for a long time. I lowered the staff, finding myself leaning upon it. The encounter rattled me and my head spun upon my shoulders. I knew then that no matter how far I fled, my ghost would be there. Tears brimmed at my eyes and if I had had more courage I would have shouted a challenge into the wilderness, yet all I could do was stand there and tremble. At last I started staggering one way and then stopped, reversing my steps and going the other, running now, breathless, when suddenly the woods opened up into a clearing, with, at its center, a five storied pagoda surrounded by snow heavy branches. The sun suffused indirect light, strengthened just enough at that moment to resolve features to the shadows. I was aware of an odd roar of silence pressing upon my inner ear. There was nothing, no birdsong, no wind, no sound of the river. Even the sound of my own rasping breath had vanished.
I walked forward and the pagoda towered overhead, and with every muted step my perspective changed the angles of the structure. Throughout my life, earthquakes had shaken the ground, stacks of shelving losing their contents, sometimes even parts of the castle needing repair. How could such a structure of this enormity withstand such forces? This could only be a dream. My legs trembled and I stumbled over heavy feet, my hand reaching out for support -
My fingers, numb and blackened with cold, touched the polished wood. Instantly it felt as if a hood had been suddenly removed; the narrow corridor my field of vision flung wide open, swamped with sensation, the forest erupting to a roar of life. I was a stone in the bed of a fast rushing stream, buffeted on all sides by a crowd of monks flowing quickly past, jostling my shoulders. I felt the sun appear from behind a cloud, the natural beauty striking awe in my heart. Above me loomed the pagoda’s grace of curved roofs, each storey stacked upon the other like a sculpture, irresolute in its fortitude as it stood among the forest giants. Patches of melting snow pooled in the shade of the larger trees, everything soaked with early morning dew, a light mist in the air making the distance grey and mysterious, rocks shiny with water and gleaming patches of vine clinging to the southern bores of the thousand-year-old trees, themselves a rich brown with absorbed water.
I withdrew my hand, and the scene vanished.
I backed hastily away from the pagoda, blinking rapidly, scared of what I had just witnessed. My eyes were drawn, as if by a will other than my own, to a path that led up the hill.
A flush of cold sweat traced down my back and I swallowed, then set my jaw and started up the path. The hill rose and the ground became slippery; there were no steps, and in places running water had hollowed a channel through the middle of the track. I had to reach out and grab the tough stalks of the grass half buried by the snow to keep from sliding back down. My breathing became heavier and at last the trail levelled off and the path quite suddenly broke into a clearing. My gaze, which had by then become fixed to a point, tracked upward to find a temple towering before me.
The temple grounds were expansive and well-tended; not a leaf lay upon the swept gravel free of snow, even the trees growing behind picket fences seemed manicured, perfect, unblemished. The central building was huge, a set of at least twenty stone stairs leading up to the door. Two giant lion statues stood guard at the entrance, facing one another, heavily muscled, their manes and tail dense with curls. The pedestals of these stone guardians showed a rising carpet of verdant green clawing algae, the higher surfaces mottled white. Massive pillars traced with intricate woodworking ran upward to the thatch of the roof; thicker in width that the height of even the tallest man. The shutters were all open but the temple remained quiet, apparently empty. I opened my mouth to call out a greeting but my mind was a sudden blank. What was I doing here? It felt like I had been suddenly plucked from my service in the castle and by some invisible hand; the events of the past handful of days like a vivid dream. This sense of misplacement shook me.
Almost as if I was not in control of my own body, I found myself moving to the temple, passing between the stands that held the wooden tags of prayer tokens and placing one foot on the lower step. It felt like I was in a walking dream as the stairs leading upwards seemed to stretch longer before my eyes.
A trick of the shadows made it appear that the eye of one of the lion statues to my side moved.
“Hello…?”
I took another step. Noises melded together from the encircling forest and formed a gentle rhythm; the wind ghosting through the upper branches of trees heavy with snow, the trickle of water against rock, the twittering of small birds. The mud on my shoes made a scratching noise and looking back I saw I left a line of dirty footprints on the impeccably clean stone. I tried to tread lightly upon the ball of my foot as I took several more steps. I called out again:
“Hello…?”
Then I heard movement. At first I was confused, and the I placed it; the swishing of a broom, and the clack-clack of wood. It grew louder, until a head appeared at the top of the stai
rs. The sweeping stopped as the man saw me, his face screwed up. My vision blurred and I wasn’t sure if it was an expression of anger or concern.
The groundskeeper stood his straw broom against the wall and hurried down the steps. He wore yellow and white robes, hakama pants cinched tight at the waist and about his shins terminating in white split-toe socks. The top of his head was completely bald and mottled with age spots, deep wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. Curiously, the most striking impression the groundsman made on me was his wooden sandals. Most were constructed from two vertical tooth-like planks atop a wooden platform, keeping the wearer’s feet, most often a peasant or farm worker, above the mud. This groundsman’s sandals, however, had only a single vertical plank about a hands-width high affixed at the midpoint. They were tengu-geta: goblin-sandals. I could not keep my focus away from them as he descended the stairs, a rapid clack-clack tattoo upon the stone as he danced upon the impossible-looking constructions with an agility that belied his apparent age.
The groundsman stood before me, the extra height bestowed by the tengu-geta forcing me to look up to meet his eyes. His eyebrows were an almost comical profusion of grey hairs.
“You look you’ve had your share of bad luck, my boy.”
I hesitated.
“Please…” was all I could say.
He reached out and caught me as I weakened and almost fell, leading me up the steep stone stairs, with every step the entrance of the building looming larger overhead.
The vastness was overwhelming; I saw each exposed beam of the structure was constructed of massive yet identical tree bores, twin entry doors flung wide open and taller than two men standing atop of one another. They seemed to spin around me, a giddy sick feeling in my stomach. I had been walking for so long that it seemed every fiber in my body were shrunk as tight as a drum. We stopped in the vestibule and the groundskeeper sat me upon the step and plucked at the laces of my threadbare boots and shucked them off before we entered the temple.
I felt the austere emptiness of the air as soon as I took one step inside the temple. Wooden storm shutters on all sides were hitched open, swiveled upon hinges like massive eyelids, admitting fresh torrents of gusting air. Starkly empty and immaculately clean, the room was a vast expanse of tatami matting so bare and quiet it seemed an eternity since it had seen inhabitation. The coldness of the air only added to the impression of desolation.
“Where am I?”
The groundskeeper smiled.
“Mount Haguro. The home of the yamabushi.”
“The yamabushi?”
“You’re no ordinary pilgrim.” The groundskeeper gave a laugh. “Most people coming to us at least know our name.”
“No, I don’t need…” I tried to resist, only then realizing how weak I had become. “I cannot stay. I have to keep moving, I have to keep…”
The groundskeeper held me upon the course that crossed the room. As we walked the tatami gave fractionally underfoot, joints in the beams and joists creaked in various echoes as the temple spoke in its own unique voice. In my delirium, I felt it were trying to tell me something. The groundskeeper lowered me to a flat square cushion at the foot of a knee-high table set at the back of the room.
All struggle had gone out of me, and could only watch dumbly as the groundskeeper crossed the room to a low cupboard set discretely along the wall below the windows and slid the door open. He returned to the table with a solid wooden box held in both hands, which he placed wordlessly before me then moved away once again. Disappearing again from my sight I heard the sounds pouring water and he returned a moment later with earthenware teapot and cup, obvious from the steam escaping the top of the teapot and the way he carried it, heavy with hot water. He placed them on the table alongside the box before lowering himself to sit upon the folds of his feet. I noticed he had to use the table for support as he did so, as if his back pained him.
He took the small earthenware cup and placed it square before him; it did not sit flat, but rocked slightly upon an imperfect base, simple in design, rustic-looking in texture. He poured tea and indicated with a nod that I should take it.
“Yamabushi -” I tried again.
“Stop talking and drink. It will dull the pain.”
I pressed the cup between the palms of my two palsied hands and raised it to my parched lips. The tea held a strange mix of spices that I could almost, but not quite, identify.
The groundskeeper’s face flashed an expression that disappeared too quickly for me to consciously register. “Drink it all,” was all he said.
Suspicious, I lifted the cup again, letting the hot aromatic tea touch upon my lips, and let a little more liquid pass into my mouth.
“Relax, boy. I mean you no harm.”
Suddenly I was reminded of my strange night with the man and his animals by the fire, for the atmosphere held the same kind of unreal tension. “Is this real? Are you real?”
The groundskeeper sat back on his heels, his eyes twinkling. “Oh, real enough.”
“Who are the yamabushi? What is this place?”
“As I told you, Mount Haguro. We have been here a long time, more than a thousand years.”
I felt my skin prickle. “A thousand years. You’re a thousand years old?”
He laughed. “I may look it perhaps, but no, boy. But old enough to know a few things.”
“This temple… it’s so large, so remote. I never knew such a thing existed.”
“Have you heard of Prince Hachiko?”
I shook my head slowly, and the groundskeeper gestured encouragingly to the cup and waited until I started to drink again before he began talking.
“It was a long time ago. His father was Emperor of the entire land. And when his father was assassinated, Prince Hachiko was forced to flee into the wilderness, all claim to his title lost, and nobody left alive to call kin. A three-legged crow took pity upon him, and guided Prince Hachiko up a mountainside. Such was the exquisite serenity of the place -” The groundskeeper paused and swept his hand to encompass the view the room commanded through the open shutters. “- he remained for the rest of his long life, and in time others joined him. He led them in tasks of reflection and trials of self-denial, founding the order of the yamabushi. Do you know your characters, boy? Yama…” he traced the character for mountain in the air with three flamboyant strokes. “Bushi…” He drew the character meaning to lay down to rest. “And the mountain they named after the crow that had led him there: Hagu… Ro…” He drew characters for feathers, and for black.
I nodded slowly, for I was finding it difficult to concentrate on his words. It was becoming harder and harder to push air from the paper lantern of my lungs. Suddenly I had a thought: Master Masakage had taught me many things, among them the many powders that can be dissolved in water that can be used to incapacitate an enemy. And in that moment I placed the smell of the tea the groundskeeper had given me. Knowing I had been poisoned, I struggled to raise my guard, but it seemed all the blood had rushed away from my head, leaving me dizzy, clawing for my grasp upon reality.
I pushed the cup away and it hit the edge of the tabletop with a crash, splinters bouncing across the floor.
“Nothing is finished,” came his voice, soft, droning, as if from far away. “And nothing lasts forever.”
I wondered how the groundskeeper had moved away so quickly, for when I looked up I was confused to see him standing right over me.
Quite suddenly a droning roar filled my ears, and all faded into black.