by Nick Lake
Taro frowned. Why had his mother been diving there? When asked about it, she’d said something strange—what had it been? He searched his memory. Something about how they were always taking from the sea and—
Shusaku stepped forward. “This changes everything,” he said. “How extraordinary. I knew the boy was special, but this is …” He waved his hand in the air to indicate that he didn’t know what it was. “We need to leave, soon,” he said suddenly. “Taro won’t be safe until we’re at the mountain.”
The old woman nodded. “He would have to be eliminated before anyone else could make a play for the shogunate. That’s if they are aware of the prophecy, anyway, and believe that he is the boy described in it.”
“Wait,” said Taro. “You’re saying people want to kill me because of some old story? I’m just a peasant.”
“I keep telling you that killing peasants is what daimyos do,” said Shusaku.
“No,” said the old woman. “The boy’s right. There is something more. Think about it. All those ninja, to kill one boy? It doesn’t make sense.”
“What else, then?”
“It’s all in the story,” said the woman. “I shouldn’t have to explain everything.”
Suddenly Heiko leaned forward. “In the story the boy isn’t the only powerful thing.”
Yukiko’s eyes opened wide. “The ball.” The old woman nodded, smiling.
“What?” said Shusaku. “No—that’s just a story. Everyone knows the Buddha ball isn’t real. I mean, I’ve heard of it, but it’s just …”
“A story?” said Hiro. “That’s what you said when I told you I didn’t believe in vampires.”
Shusaku breathed out. “Gods.” He turned to the old woman. “You don’t think it’s real, do you?”
“I’ve seen the future,” she said. “I know it’s real.”
CHAPTER 21
The abbess yawned, tired from looking into the Tao, and it was only then that Taro saw something in her mouth—elongated canine teeth, sharpened to a point—and realized …
“You’re a vampire,” he said.
“Yes. It is not only boys who play at assassins.”
Shusaku laughed at Taro. “I wondered when you would realize.”
“You may have noticed,” said the fortune-teller, “that no lamps or gaku hang outside my door. You see, I have no need to banish evil spirits from my home. I am already here. Of course, the province has become more dangerous of late. Lord Oda is fearful, constantly demanding that I tell his fortune. It is very tiresome.”
“You still do his bidding?” said Shusaku, a little sharply.
“He protected me,” said the abbess. “And I prefer not to take sides.”
“What about the girls?” said Shusaku.
“You saved their lives. It is only proper you should choose their loyalty.”
Shusaku nodded as Taro, bewildered, tried to digest their conversation.
Then the abbess swept a hand over the sand in the tray, smoothing it. “And now I think I should see what I can see of each of your futures.” She beckoned to Hiro. “Come. Sit before me.”
Hiro stood warily and moved over to where she sat.
The abbess took his hand, then sipped at her tea. She chanted for a while, the incense in the room seeming to pool strangely at ground level, then her eyes rolled back in her head. Putting down the tea and picking up the metal bar, she sketched a character in the sand.
“Loyalty,” said Shusaku.
Taro smiled at Hiro. The abbess’s eyes rolled back to normal and she blinked at the big wrestler. “You’re a good friend,” she said. “And I see that you will follow Taro anywhere. But the path will not always be easy.”
Hiro shrugged. “I go with Taro.”
“Yes. Of course.” She turned to Taro. “Might I see the scar?”
Shusaku watched Taro, confused, as Taro folded open the top of his kimono, revealing the semicircle of scar tissue running around his chest and shoulder.
“Gods,” said the ninja. “How did you do that?”
It was Hiro who answered. “I didn’t grow up in the Kanto. I came from inland—from the plain below Nagoya. We fled when Lord Yoshimoto’s samurai advanced on our land. My parents knew nothing of fishing. They borrowed a boat, went out into the bay. They threw blood into the water, to attract the fish. I was with them, and none of us could swim.”
“Ah,” said Shusaku.
“The mako knocked us out of the boat. My father was killed by the beast; my mother drowned, I think. But Taro was on the shore that day, playing with his bow. He saw the fin but he swam out into the bay anyway. He got hold of me and swam with me back to shore.”
“Extraordinary,” said Shusaku. “Such courage.”
“I don’t really remember it,” said Taro, embarrassed.
Heiko touched the scar gently. “And this?”
“He went back, after he laid me on the shore,” said Hiro. “He was looking for my parents. He had a knife with him …”
“You’re not saying he fought the shark?” said Yukiko. For the first time Taro could hear a cautious respect in her voice.
“Yes,” said Hiro. “And killed it, and dragged it up on the beach to show me. But the shark had bitten him. He fainted and I ran to the huts, screaming. His father carried him home.”
“I understand now why you wouldn’t abandon him,” said Shusaku.
“Yes. My life is his.”
The abbess smoothed out the sand again. “Of course, your loyalty will cost you dearly. You know that.”
Hiro smiled. “Things that are worthwhile always do.”
“That is true.” She motioned for Shusaku to take Hiro’s place. He hesitated.
“I’m not sure—”
“Come here, Shusaku.”
Shusaku appeared ready to resist, but didn’t. He sat down on the cushion Hiro had vacated, staring at the fortune-teller with his hard, clear eyes. She drank another cup of tea, began chanting, and soon fell into a trance again. With the metal rod she scratched a message into the sand.
When her eyes opened again, she looked down at the message. She trembled lightly. Shusaku too read the character in the sand, then turned away quickly.
“What does it say?” demanded Heiko.
The abbess looked up, eyes brimming, her already lined face seeming to have aged another ten years in as many seconds. “It says …,” she began, her voice uncertain. “It says, ‘Beware. Your eyes will betray you.’?”
She stared at Shusaku. “Be truly careful,” she said, suddenly serious. “I sense danger for you.”
Taro wondered what the relationship between this woman and Shusaku was. She seemed to really care for him.
“Nonsense,” said Shusaku, standing. “I am in no danger at all, as long as I continue to be watchful.” Taro thought he seemed nervous, though.
“You can’t tell us any more?” Taro asked. “Help Shusaku to avoid whatever danger is coming?”
The abbess shook her head. “Sometimes I see whole scenes, as when I watched you save Hiro from the shark. But sometimes it is only phrases, or ideas, that come through. Joining with the Tao is a bit like dreaming. Sometimes you dream in color; sometimes you remember your dreams, and sometimes you don’t. There are times when I write in the sand, and when I wake I have no recollection of doing it.”
“Which was it when you said I would be shogun?” said Taro.
“It was … in the flow of the Tao. I didn’t see it, but I could feel everything in the world leading toward it. You can no more avoid being shogun than the moon can avoid circling the earth. Though I did see a single scene—you, wielding the Buddha ball. You were not much older than you are now.”
“I keep telling you,” said Shusaku. “The Buddha ball isn’t real.” But his voice lacked conviction, and Taro wondered if he wanted to believe it so he could believe too that he wasn’t in danger. “If it were real, wouldn’t it have shown up by now? Something so powerful could not remain hidden so long.”
The abbess shrugged. “They say that when Tankai died, his official son searched for the ball but could not find it. Fusazaki was suspected, of course. He was a dispossessed son, so he had cause to hate Tankai. And everyone knew that it was his mother who’d recovered the ball from the wreck. Yet when they found him, he was living in the little village of Shirahama near where his mother died, occupying a simple peasant hut, taking onsen baths, meditating, and eating raw fish.”
A funny tremor ran through Taro at this mention—again—of the village where he had grown up. Surely these momentous events could not have played out against such a modest backdrop?
“So he didn’t steal his father’s ball after all?” said Heiko.
“It didn’t seem that way to Tankai’s heir, or to the samurai entrusted with his security. But I don’t know.” The abbess’s eyes crinkled with what could have been a wry smile. “Not everyone who comes into the possession of an object so powerful is tempted by it. Not everyone wants dominion over the world.”
The idea, for some reason, gave Taro a faint thrill—the thought that this enlightened noble son, this product of a lord and an ama, could have lived out his final days in a basic peasant hut, while all the while having in his grasp a ball that could allow him to bend the whole architecture of the world to his will.
The abbess yawned again, and Taro could see that the exertion had taken its toll on her. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her skin was pale. She began to get to her feet, but then, with no warning or preparation, her legs let go and she fell. Shusaku rushed toward her, just catching her head before it hit the wooden floor. He lowered her gently onto the cushions. Heiko and Yukiko too were on their feet quickly, and went to kneel by their foster mother. Yukiko whirled accusingly on Shusaku. “You’ve worn her out!” she said.
“No,” said the ninja. “Look at her eyes. She’s in a trance. She’s seeing something.”
And that was when the woman’s eyes snapped open, only they were white, like eggs, and her pupils had rolled up into her head.
She turned that ghastly blank stare on Taro with horror written on her face as clearly as the messages she had scrawled in the sand. Tears were running down her cheeks. She stumbled to her feet, keeping her eyes on Taro.
“Keep me from that boy,” she muttered. “He brings death to all around him.”
Taro felt an overwhelming urge to run from her and keep running, as Shusaku murmured soothing words to the woman. Then, just as suddenly as her eyes had opened, they closed again. A moment later she looked at Shusaku, puzzled, and blinking as if she had opened a door from her bedroom onto the bright light of day.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
CHAPTER 22
The abbess—who clearly remembered nothing of her vision, whatever it had been—declared herself tired beyond endurance, and Shusaku led her toward her own room. Yukiko glared at Taro, then swept out of the room behind them.
Heiko gave him an apologetic look. “She loves the abbess very much,” she said. “It pains her to see her frightened.”
“I understand,” said Taro. His heart felt heavy in his chest, ponderous and slow. He had caused his father’s death, and now it seemed he would be responsible for more devastation. He could not rid himself of the image of the abbess, staring at him with those boiled, empty eyes.
He sank onto one of the cushions.
“The things she sees … they don’t always come about,” said Heiko. “Sometimes the choices people make can change them.”
Taro grunted. Perhaps. But perhaps too he was just a poison—the price of his life the pain of others.
Hiro put an awkward hand on his shoulder.
“You could go, you know,” said Taro, not looking at his friend. He was looking out at the garden, and he concentrated on the blossoms that clung to the trees, the moon that shed light on the flowers. “You heard what she said. I’m a monster. A demon. You’ll suffer if you stay with me. You may even die.”
“Where would I go?” said Hiro.
“I don’t know. Anywhere. I have to go with Shusaku, otherwise I won’t find my mother. But you …”
“Could leave and start a new life,” continued Hiro.
“Well, yes.”
Hiro sat down beside him. “I have already started a new life,” he said. “When you saved it.”
Taro nodded, feeling bleak. Nothing he could say would convince his friend to leave him, and that both warmed and chilled him. He was glad to have such a constant ally, yet he couldn’t bear the thought of Hiro being hurt on his account. He also found, to his surprise, that the idea of Shusaku being hurt was abhorrent to him. The man had saved his life.
When he looked at Heiko, he saw that there was a tear in her eye.
“I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to Shusaku,” she said. “He saved my life.”
Taro nodded, startled to hear his thoughts echoed in her words. “Mine, too. But don’t worry about him,” he forced himself to say. “He can look after himself. He fights with the grace of an apsara and the determination of a demon. I’ve never seen him show weakness of any kind.”
“Yes,” said Heiko thoughtfully. “That’s what worries me.”
Taro nodded. He really didn’t want anyone to have to suffer because of him. Then he had an idea. “It’s still obon, isn’t it?” He looked at Heiko. “Do you have colored paper left? Candles?”
“You would send a message?” she asked.
“Yes. My father. He was killed when Shusaku rescued me.”
She nodded. “I’ll get the things.”
A short time later Taro stood with Hiro and Heiko on the bridge where they had first seen the girls. Taro held in his hands the oblong shoryo-nagashi. Leaning over the bridge, he lowered it into the water. The message inside was simple—though Heiko, being Heiko, had drafted it twice before seeming satisfied with the strokes of her brush.
I’m sorry, it said. I miss you. Please protect my friends.
Taro began to murmur the words of the prayer that would take his communication to the Amida Buddha, and from him to his father’s soul, wherever it was. He hoped it had gone to the Pure Land of the Amida Buddha, not to the realm of the beasts, or of the hungry ghosts.
Taro was barely aware of Hiro and Heiko melting away behind him, leaving him alone with his grief as they retired into the house.
He stayed there a long time, listening to the murmuring of the stream, looking at the shadows of the trees and the strange, drained colors of the flowers in the moonlight. So still did he stand that the heron they had seen earlier returned, and stood, neck bent, in the stream, gazing down into its clear water.
Finally he took a deep breath and turned for the house. That was when he heard a low babble that added itself to the noise of the stream. This, though, was not water. It was the sound of two people talking in quiet whispers.
He followed the voices to the left-most of the shoji screens. It gave onto a room smaller than the one in which the fortunes had been told, and Taro could see little of what lay inside through the transparent wall of the decorated paper, other than the shadows of two people who stood close together, conferring seriously.
Shusaku and the abbess.
Taro crept as close as he could to the screen, concentrating on keeping his footsteps as soft and silent as possible.
The abbess was speaking. “… now that Tokugawa has showed his hand with an attempt, there is—”
Shusaku gasped loudly, cutting her off, and Taro pulled back, convinced he’d been detected, so he missed the next thing the ninja said. But it was obvious Shusaku had been shocked by the abbess’s words.
He put his ear again to the screen. “… long were you with those ninjas?” he heard the abbess say.
“No more than a month,” said Shusaku.
“Ah. Then it occurred after you left.”
Shusaku whistled. “Tokugawa tried to have Oda killed? What about their alliance, which they want so much for people to believe
in?”
Taro stifled a gasp. Lord Tokugawa was the daimyo of the western prefecture, and the greatest ally of Lord Oda, who controlled the eastern lands, among them the sea village where Taro had grown up. Both lords were among the daimyo chosen by the previous shogun to watch over his young son, keeping him in power, and so they possessed a shared purpose. They fought alongside each other to protect the shogun, shared the respect of smaller lords whose land abutted their own, were even married to two sisters.
That the one lord should threaten the other was unthinkable. But the abbess was claiming it nevertheless.
“Who did he hire?” asked Shusaku.
The abbess murmured something. The first part of what she said was garbled and quiet, but Taro just caught the end. “… while riding in the forest. Only Oda’s peerless skill with the sword saved him.”
“Ronin?” exclaimed Shusaku. “Has Tokugawa lost his senses?”
“I don’t believe Tokugawa does anything without thinking about it very carefully,” said the abbess. “In this case he hired samurai whose lord fought on Yoshimoto’s side in the great battle against Lord Oda. These men hate Oda more than all the demons. It was not difficult for Lord Tokugawa to provoke them into trying to kill the lord who stripped them of all their pride and privilege. Sadly, they had also lost their discipline, and they were caught and interrogated. It became obvious that Tokugawa had provoked them.”
“Gods,” said Shusaku. “And Oda? What did he do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” said Shusaku. “But …” There was silence, and for a moment Taro thought again that they must have become aware of his presence, but then Shusaku went on, and Taro realized that he had only been thinking. “Ah, of course. He waited for Tokugawa to make his move.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Tokugawa blamed his elder son,” said the abbess. “The boy had nothing to do with it of course, but—”