by Keanan Brand
“Maybe he's one of Chiyoko-sama's brats,” said someone behind the archer.
“Too filthy to be hers.”
“Still, little remains secret in the market.”
*
Ryu walked the garden, the sun's warm hand on his back, the wind on his face. Chill and fever had fled, yet patches of skin itched at his neck and temples. Must be an effect of the poison. He scratched the base of his throat idly.
A handful of boys repairing the broken gate scarce paid heed as he passed. They knew their work and had no need of his help. Behind him crept curious children, hiding, giggling. He whirled. Muffled shrieks erupted, then more giggles. Suppressing a smile, he pretended not to see the quivering shrubbery.
The path turned toward a swath of grass surrounded by trees. Hotaru sat at a table in the shade, and kept her gaze studiously on her painting. She was aptly named Firefly. Even in the shadows, light found her.
He pulled close a lithe branch, plucked a plum, and set the fruit on the corner of her table.
After a moment or two, she said, “Plums are not yet ripe.”
Ryu smiled, knowing full well it made him more grotesque. “Sweet in appearance, like the artist in their shade, and just as sour.”
She lifted her brush, and her stare spoke more than words. He knew he should appear chastened, but his smile widened. She cleaned her brush and set it aside, then rose and stepped around the table. Ryu braced himself for a slap or a scold. Instead, she studied him. He drew back a little, unused to such unabashed scrutiny.
“Your story,” she said at last.
“A tale of adventure and woe.”
She almost smiled. “May it end well.”
They walked the garden, and he spoke more than he had in a lifetime. He began with Master Daiki finding him as a wandering orphan, illiterate and starving. He wanted to train with the rest of the students, but the teacher kept him aside, making him do chores and sleep in the kitchen and eat only after all the others had been fed.
“Because you were not from a good family?”
Ryu shook his head. “I was not the only orphan, but I was the newest and youngest. While the others trained, I learned to read. While the others were at their books, I sparred with Master Daiki.” He chuckled. “My ribs hated him, but by the time he let me train with the rest of the dōjō, I was strong and fit and a fair match against any of them.”
She turned her head as if watching a sparrow. “You have been to war?”
“Mm.”
“You were nigh dead in the street.”
“Hai.”
She made an annoyed little sound in the back of her throat, and he ducked his head to hide a smile.
“You are curious about the scars.”
“It is impolite—”
“It is human.”
She said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
He told of the emperor and a handful of blood-spattered samurai who sought aid and shelter at the dōjō, and how the exhausted emperor seemed somehow to know him, asking about Ryu's kindred and his upbringing. Two days later, when the small contingent limped back toward the capital, Ryu went with them as an imperial bodyguard.
He did not tell of the secret of the One Tree, imparted by the master and the emperor in the pre-dawn darkness, and he spoke almost nothing of the war, but he did recount the battle with Kane, a warrior twice his breadth and skill. Yet Ryu had slain him, sword thrusting home a breath before Kane's clawed club could land the killing blow.
“Thus—” He ran a thumb along the scar twisting his mouth and turned from her a little, showing only the unmarred side of his face. He had woken disoriented and afraid, his head swathed in bandages and his garments soaked in sweat. The emperor's doctors had thought his broken mind merely the lot of any warrior who survived when he should not. They told the servants to keep him calm and isolated until he returned to himself.
“Too much care is suffocating,” he continued. “I escaped the sick room and sought the sunshine.”
“As you did today?” Hotaru's words held a smile.
“Unlike today, I died.”
She touched his arm, but for so brief an instant he might have been mistaken. “Who killed you?”
“A man I called brother.”
Then he turned to conversation. “I have been here before, with the emperor, but remained outside the gate.” He glanced down at her. “I remember your mother's face.”
The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. “She and he were old friends.” She steered the topic back. “Your brother. What a great chasm must have grown between you.”
He knew not why nor how. Few harsh words had passed between them, and though their sparring had been fierce, it had always ended with a polite bow and a gracious word, even when both parties were injured.
“My first clear memory after the arrow, I woke alone and covered in ashes beneath the One Tree. By the time I returned to the palace, Minoru had broken through the gates.”
She stopped and gazed up at him. He looked away.
On the other side of the garden, the boys whooped in celebration as one of them opened and closed the repaired gate. One wrestled another, and two others hurled mallets to see whose flew the furthest along the wall.
“Minoru is still purging his enemies. And now he knows you live.”
He nodded. “I will leave tonight, after sunset, lest there be any spies about.”
“He does not yet know where you hide.”
“I will not see this family harmed.”
They walked in silence, once more passing her table. Hands clasped behind his back, he continued onward until he heard the slithery rustle of rice paper and realized he walked alone. Ryu turned.
Hotaru had painted a perfect face, turned just enough to hide the scar, no darkness under the eyes, no scar contorting it into a demon mask. In the hollow of the throat and at the shadowy temples gleamed hints of blue-green scales, like the rough skin of serpent fruit or the glittering hide of a dragon. In the corner was written a name. Tatsuyoshi.
*
Fists clenched, Ryu stood rigid and pale. “How do you know that name?”
“Has not everyone heard tales of the emperor's favor toward an unknown warrior? He gave him a name and a place of honor.”
“The emperor is dead, and it is better for you if I remain dead, too.”
He would not look at the portrait, as if it shamed or frightened him. As if he wanted to rend it, to make it show the scar. As if the wound still bled.
Hotaru rolled the paper and slid it into a bamboo tube, then placed inks, paints, and brushes into their boxes. He might now call himself merely dragon rather than beautiful dragon, but her brushes were made of thornwood. They told the truth.
The gate slammed opened. An archer stood gripping the neck of a dirty-faced boy.
Children scrambled from their hiding places, dropped their games, and ran toward the house, crying for Mother. Tools gathered, the older boys stood aside, wary and watching.
Arashi stared at Ryu. “How many times must I kill you?”
*
Behind Arashi arrayed a band of armed men, and in the street behind them rode the shōgun with men ahorseback. Minoru dismounted and strode forward.
Ryu stepped as a shield in front of Hotaru and stood with feet planted, strange fire igniting under his skin and spiraling along his bones. The skin at the base of his throat itched, and he longed to run to the well for a long drink of cold water.
Minoru halted a few paces away, hand on his sword. “Where is the One Tree?”
“Will you pay the price?”
“Any sum you name.”
“Your life.”
The sword slid from its sheath. “Where is the One Tree?”
Ryu stood silent.
Minoru turned his blade toward the boy. “Life for life.”
Carrying a tray with a white jug and an array of sake cups, Chiyoko stepped between the shōgun and Ryu. As she greeted Minoru, she rem
oved a cloth-wrapped object from the tray and placed it in Ryu's palm. He thumbed aside a corner of the cloth. Half an apple with the skin still on. Rather than the usual cut lengthwise from bottom to stem, it had been cut around the middle. Well done.
“Come, sit in the shade,” Chiyoko said, “and let us take refreshment.”
“Go back to your kitchen, old woman,” said Arashi, but Minoru lowered his blade.
The shōgun bowed slightly. “This criminal is of use to me in an urgent matter.”
“So urgent you threaten an innocent child?”
“You were highly esteemed by the late emperor. I beg pardon for the offense.”
“The offense is not mine.”
His stiff smile declared no old woman, however venerable she might be, would induce him to apologize to those beneath him.
Hotaru stepped from behind Ryu. He grabbed her wrist, but she pulled away and looked up at him—It is well—then approached Arashi. The man tightened his grip on the urchin's shoulder but, at a glance from Minoru, he released him. The young woman took the boy's hand and led him to the house. Chiyoko followed.
Ryu faced his enemies alone.
“The tree in the center of the imperial garden is a serpent-fruit tree, but it is not the One Tree. For that lie, I could put an axe to its roots or a torch to its branches, but the people in their ignorance would not understand.” Minoru pointed his sword at Ryu's throat. “Twice you have lived when you should not. And you are the only assassin trained to call forth the serpents. You, then, must know the truth. Where is the One Tree?”
“If you seek it because you are ill—” Ryu unwrapped the serpent fruit and offered it to him. The shōgun swatted it from his hand, but instead of landing on the ground, the half-sphere whirled in an arc and returned to settle in Ryu's palm.
Minoru stared. “What craft is this?”
Ryu said with a slight smile, “The fruit of the One Tree.”
He threw the apple high into the air. All the men looked up at the glittering fruit. It spun, and a single snake unraveled from the brilliant skin.
Ryu did not wait to witness the victim. He ran to the garden wall, leapt atop it, then dropped into the alley on the other side. Shouts rose. He dodged down one narrow way and then another, keeping out of the wider streets but aiming for the city gate.
A straw hat hung from a nail outside a shop. He dropped a coin on the doorstep, grabbed the hat, and tied its strings under his chin as he ran.
A woman gathered laundry from a line. She turned her back, and he tossed two coins into her basket then snagged a robe, sliding his arms into the wide sleeves as the garment's hem flapped behind him.
Nearing the broad place before the gate, he slowed to a walk, settled the robe more discreetly, tilted the hat to hide the scar.
Already the shōgun's men gathered near the gate, their horses milling as the riders looked this way and that. In the shade of vendor's stall, Ryu watched.
The fire under his skin had eased, but when he reached up to scratch his throat, a cascade of blue-green scales fell down his front, lodging in the folds of his clothes, shining like strange jewels. He stared at them.
Hotaru's painting.
A small group of farmers passed. He stepped into their wake. Another farmer led a yoke of oxen pulling an empty cart, and he nodded a greeting at Ryu as they walked past one of Minoru's riders standing in his stirrups, straining to see over the eddies of humanity.
Out of the city and down a hill, the road forked, and Ryu parted with the farmers. In late afternoon, he abandoned the road and entered the forest.
4
At sunset, Ryu pushed open the dōjō's well-oiled gates. Vines covered the walls surrounding the buildings, and grass grew between pathways. His groundskeeping was careful misdirection: enough to keep gardens healthy and buildings strong, as if occupied, but not so much to give an impression of wealth worth stealing.
He tossed the hat and robe up to the porch surrounding the main house, then stood in the shadow of a tree in the center of the compound. In this shade Master Daiki had watched students train or had fallen asleep in summer's heat. Here he drank tea with village elders or city guests. Here he died, an open book on his knee, his walking staff leaning against the trunk behind him. Here his ashes were buried.
This was Daiki's legacy and the emperor's charge.
He should have known the message for sensei was a trap to catch loyalists.
He should have minded the tune he whistled in the market.
Ryu climbed the lordly old tree, its trunk marked by a winding ribbon of something not tree but embraced until it grafted, becoming tree. He climbed until the light of the setting sun turned green leaves gold and glinted along the curves of iridescent globes. He plucked a few of the blue-green fruit and tucked them into the front of his tunic. Then he rested, gazing at clouds, watching the red light grow dim.
As the evening breeze gentled, the tree sang. Its melody rooted the tree and drew the sap, thrummed below the ground and painted green in the garden, wove through the thatch and underpinned the houses, pulsed through the air and strengthened the walls. Daiki-sensei had whistled it through his teeth when sparring with students, and Ryu hummed it before battle. Arashi called it the assassin's lullaby.
Arashi. Of all the men who had trained here, only he and Ryu remained. Arashi had turned on his brothers and chosen the bow, felling at a distance his masters' enemies or his own. In an irony worthy of a fireside tale, under the sheltering branches of this life-giving tree, he had learned to kill.
Heart heavy, Ryu climbed down in the deepening twilight.
A man in frayed garments stood in the patch of bare dirt at the base of the tree. He leaned on a gnarled staff and looked around as if he saw wonders. “I followed the song.” He placed his palm flat against the ribboned trunk. “I thought there would be thorns.”
“There were, once.” Ryu, too, touched the smooth vine embraced by the bark. “The tree took the thorns, sparing us the pain.”
“Is it barren?” The man squinted upward in the growing dark. “Where is the fruit?”
“There is more than enough for those who seek.”
Then Ryu gestured toward the kitchen. “Hungry?”
He cooked rice and cut vegetables while the visitor told of hearing a whistled tune in the marketplace. It led him here.
The beggar studied his hands. “I began the day a blind man. Then I died. When I woke, I could see.” He bent to watch a beetle scuttle along below the window. “If the One Tree is here, how did the fruit of another tree bring me back to life?”
“The fruit in the imperial infirmary is from this tree. When stored for medicine, the apples remain fresh for months.”
Even dried, they retained a measure of power. The shōgun could have cured his ailment at any time, but Minoru could not escape the cause. He carried it with him. How many times had the fruit banished the illness, and how many times had it returned? The rebel general wanted the reward without the cost.
Ryu set out chopsticks, two steaming bowls of rice, and a plate of seasoned vegetables on the short table between him and the beggar.
The almost-forgotten road past the dōjō spanned the forest between two villages. On his own, Minoru might not find it, but Arashi had lived here long before Ryu. Time might forget, but feet would know the way even in the dark. “Tomorrow, I expect unwelcome guests.”
“The men who killed us.”
“Mm.”
“They will kill us again.”
“They do not know”—Ryu filled two cups with water, and handed one to the other man—“we who live are now fruit of the One Tree.”
The beggar took a long drink then picked up his chopsticks and dug them into the rice, scooping up a small mound. “It is a new life,” he said around the mouthful. “I need a new name.”
The two men ate in silence then drank tea outside, listening to the tree and the crickets and the night wind.
“Genji,” Ryu said at las
t. The man who lived twice.
*
Chiyoko fed her children, including the ragged boy brought by Minoru's men, then she sent them to bathe while she washed the dishes. As she worked, she glanced up at the empty pot on the shelf.
Stones grated underfoot. Someone stopped outside the kitchen. Chiyoko turned.
Hotaru stood in the doorway, the brush box under her arm, the well-scrubbed urchin by her side. “The tree is calling.”
Ah. The old woman blinked back tears, and wiped her hands on her apron. So that is how the road lies.
She unfolded clean squares of cloth. “Take food.”
The seaweed-wrapped rice balls they could eat as they walked, but Chiyoko measured out beans, rice, and dried meat into small cloth sacks and handed them to the boy. He dipped his chin in a bow. Chiyoko touched his head, kissed Hotaru, and walked them to the gate.
5
In the cool of early morning, Genji wandered the grounds and stopped to stare at the sky. The world, he said, was bigger than he'd imagined.
Ryu watered the garden, hauling dripping bucketfuls from the well, then he made a simple breakfast. The two men ate in the shade of the One Tree, speaking little, their attention on the gate.
No one came.
Genji cleared away the meal. Ryu went to the weapons room. Edges gleamed, and rust was a stranger. Genji was still unaccustomed to sight. Would he even be able to gauge distance or movement well enough to defend himself with a weapon?
The longer Ryu stood in the doorway, the louder the tree sang and the greater the fire blazed beneath his skin. Did his body still battle poison? The itching had spread to his back, and each time he scratched, blue-green scales fell in a glimmering cascade. He thought of Hotaru's painting. Tatsuyoshi. What need of swords had a dragon?
He closed the armory door and locked it.
So it was, when the rattle of spears and the tramp of feet signaled the arrival of a troop and Genji opened wide the gate, neither he nor Ryu bore weapons.
The shōgun and his archer led the troop through the gate—and halted.
Eyes no longer milk-white, and his tattered garments replaced by a fine robe, Genji bowed. “Welcome to the house where the dead live again.”