Lord Oda's Revenge

by Nick Lake

  He walked over death’s bridge, which was inlaid with jewels, and which was exactly as it had always been described, even though it was completely different. He would not be able to explain how this was, if he was asked. He would not be able to explain how it felt, to be in this place – the closest thing he could think of was a dream, that strange state of being where it is logical to be one moment on a mountaintop surrounded by white peaks and then the next in the sea, and yet having the sense of following a path. He was aware of the souls of evil men, struggling below him in the dark waters, and yet he was not afraid. His body was numb – he didn’t even know if it was his body, or if it was just an image projected by his mind. When he touched his skin his fingers didn’t pass through it; but he didn’t feel them either.

  On the other side of the river, he passed by a great throne made of bones, and on it sat a man with long horns who could only be Enma.

  Enma was the judge, the one who decided which realm of Samsara each deceased person would be consigned to. In this way it could be said that he was a god presiding over death – for he and he alone could choose, after weighing a person’s deeds, to send that person to be reborn as an ox, or to languish in hell, or to pass into the light of the Pure Land.

  But Enma was not a god, not truly. The priests and monks taught that he was always a man, chosen from among men, to judge his own kind. The name Enma, in fact, was a title, a crown – many had worn it. Taro peered at the current incarnation. He seemed a smallish sort of man, a thin moustache joining a long white beard. His eyes were bright and black, though veiled by boredom. At his sides were Horse-face and Ox-head, his retainers, and in his hands were the scroll and pen with which he recorded the names of all the dead.

  Enma looked at Taro, then down at the scroll in his hand. ‘You are not dead,’ he said.

  Taro shook his head.

  A smile twitched at the corners of Enma’s mouth. ‘Interesting,’ he said slowly. Then he waved Taro past, already turning to the next shade to cross the bridge.

  Taro steadied himself, and proceeded into death. He should have been terrified to see Enma, he knew, but instead he felt nothing – it was no worse than facing a tax collector. Enma was not Death, he was human, and one day he too would die – his own name would be written in that scroll, by Enma-taka, the Death of Death, and then another person would be chosen to be Enma for a while.

  Once, the priest in Shirahama had explained to Taro how death could die. There was a story, he said, of a monk in Tibet who knew that if he meditated for fifty years without pause he would achieve nirvana. Yet on the forty-ninth year, and the eleventh month, and the twenty-ninth day, he was disturbed by bandits, who wished to steal his robe and jewels. ‘Please, wait until tomorrow and I will give you all the gold you wish,’ he told them. He was a footstep away from eternity. But the bandits would not wait, and they hauled him out of his cave and killed him.

  Furious, the monk felt himself changing. A sort of satori, a moment of enlightenment, seized him, and in an instant he realized that the old Enma was gone and he was the new one. He grew tall and terrible. He tore the two bandits into small pieces, scattering them on the mountainside. Then he descended into the valley, and began slaughtering its inhabitants, such was his anger. He had the power not just to judge the dead but to kill, too, and he wasted no time in using it.

  But the abbot of his monastery, seeing this, also felt a change come over him – and suddenly he was Enma-taka, the Death of Death, and his stride encompassed mountains. He walked to his old disciple, his countenance appalling to behold, and he reached down and touched Enma, the gatekeeper of death, and Enma looked up and realized that his own death had come for him. He sank down and was a monk again, lying still on the ground. And after that the abbot shifted again, changed, and was himself Enma.

  Taro wondered if this was still the same Enma that he had just passed – if it was still the abbot who had been forced to bring death to his own monk. He wasn’t sure if he believed the story anyway, though he did like the idea that death could die – he would kill death himself if he could, for one more day with his mother. He turned, but already he couldn’t see Enma any more. He saw only mist behind him.

  The thread led him onward, and soon he was walking through a landscape made of heartbreak, in which ran rivers of tears. He crossed a vale of devastation, and then he was in the realm of the hungry ghosts. This was as the priest had described – although at one and the same time it was completely different.

  For one thing, it didn’t burn – and it didn’t burn in such a way that it made Taro understand it was his own world that was always burning. He lived in a realm that was on fire everywhere you looked, being destroyed at every moment, and the name of that fire was time.

  Here there was no time, and so nothing was on fire. Instead everything was still. That was why there was no food, because nothing could grow, thrust itself out, become fat, be eaten, and in being eaten, die. There was nothing to eat or drink because nothing changed, ever.

  Taro walked through this landscape – or it would be more accurate to say that he remained entirely static, and the landscape did too, but somehow he arrived at last at his destination.

  The demon was not a demon and the pot was not a pot, but otherwise everything was exactly as the priest described in the story of Mokuren, and his mother was there with hunger in her eyes and in the emaciation of her frame.

  ‘At last,’ she said.

  Taro bowed. ‘Mother,’ he said. ‘I am so happy to see you again. I love you so much.’

  His mother nodded. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But after this, you must let me go. Ko wa sangai no kubikase.’

  Taro felt a sadness the exact same size and shape as his body settle itself over him, and knew he’d have to bear it the rest of his life. What his mother had said was this: a child is the yoke that ties us to this world. The abbot had used the expression too, the day that Taro sat down on the rock and asked to be left alone.

  Taro understood, finally, that it really was his love for his mother, and her love for him, that was keeping her in this terrible place.

  ‘You were trying to tell me something,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said his mother. ‘I tried to tell you before I died, but that girl cut me off.’

  Taro smiled. It was precisely like his mother to make a joke at this moment.

  ‘But what was it?’ he said. ‘What did you want to tell me?’

  ‘You were looking in the wrong place,’ she said. ‘I dived the wreck the day the ninjas came, but not to hide the ball. I only wanted anyone watching to think so.’

  ‘So. . . there’s another one? A real one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then where is it?’

  Taro’s mother smiled. ‘Have you heard the story of the ama and the prince?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Taro. ‘The prophetess told me.’

  Taro’s mother nodded, as if the prophetess were known to her, and not a complete stranger, but Taro thought that perhaps all the dead knew one another. ‘And where did the ama put the ball, when she recovered it from the wreck?’

  Taro’s eyes widened. ‘In her chest.’

  ‘There you have it,’ said his mother. ‘I’m sorry for haunting you, and stealing your strength. But perhaps now you can see why I needed to tell you, before you went ahead with my cremation.’

  ‘But. . . if it’s in you. . .’

  ‘Then it’s smaller than the fake I put on the reef. Yes. A thing doesn’t have to be big, or made of gold, in order to be precious.’ Joy burst in Taro’s chest; the sensation was of his heart starting again. The ball was real. He could take it, and he could make Hana wake.

  Taro had a hundred more questions, but just then his mother started to shine – it was the only word for it – and then it was as if she were wearing a robe of light. She looked down at herself. ‘Ah,’ she said, as if her appearance explained something.

  And then she was dazzling – again, there was no other word
for it – and it seemed like she couldn’t possibly belong to this still world with its lack of movement and growth and nourishment, and then – just like that – she didn’t belong to it any more.

  She was gone, and only an impression of light, fading fast, remained.

  Taro then felt a similar light enveloping him, and he looked down at himself. He had seen his mother disappear from this spot. Now he saw the mountains that were not mountains and the clouds that were not clouds dimming, and he knew that he was returning to life; that really had been his heart starting, and now he was going to leave this place. His own body was growing faint, indistinct. As everything faded, so something exploded in his mind, bright as a sunburst, and suddenly he found that he understood. . . everything.

  He thought, dimly, So that’s what it means.

  And then he didn’t know what ‘it’ was any more, and soon he didn’t know what the word ‘means’ meant, and then finally he didn’t know what a word was.

  And then there was nothing.

  CHAPTER 55

  HIRO WAS HOLDING Taro’s wrist, and so he felt it the moment the pulse stopped. He seized the abbot’s hand and said, ‘Do something!’ but the abbot held his hand up in a soothing gesture.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  Hiro opened his mouth to speak, but then he felt a twitch beneath his fingers, and it came from Taro’s wrist – he felt as if he had lifted a dead chick from a broken nest after a storm, and it had come back to life in his hand.

  Taro opened his eyes and smiled at him with something like the old light in his expression. ‘Am I alive?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hiro. ‘But you scared me, you idiot.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Taro. He turned to Hayao, who was sitting to one side. ‘I’m glad to see you again,’ he said. ‘Hana. . . did you keep her alive as you promised?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hayao. ‘I fed her with water and honey.’

  ‘Good,’ said Taro. ‘Good.’

  ‘Where did you go?’ asked the abbot.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Taro. ‘I can’t remember. But I remember what to do.’ He put his hands on the rock, palm down, and pushed himself up into a position roughly approximating standing, and then he accepted Hiro’s arm under his as he staggered off the rock. ‘Take me to my mother,’ he said. ‘And someone get me some blood.’

  ‘As an offering?’ said the abbot.

  ‘No,’ said Taro. ‘The blood is for me.’

  CHAPTER 56

  TATTOOS HAD BEEN etched into the skin of her arms and her face, Sanskrit symbols meant to help her on her journey.

  And they worked, thought Taro bitterly. They sped her on her way to the realm of hungry ghosts. . .

  But she was at peace now. He kissed his mother’s forehead and then untied her white kimono at the neck. The abbot was standing to one side, seemingly uncomfortable with this desecration of the dead, but Taro had been to death. He was aware that his mother’s body was nothing now but sinews, meat, and bone. The essential part of her had dissipated into brightly glowing light. He remembered that part at least.

  With the intricate ties undone, he parted the kimono so that he could see the middle of her chest, where the ribs met. There was an old scar there, a silvery line that ran down her collarbone, a hand-span long. His mother had always told him that she was wounded in childhood, falling onto a sharp agricultural tool.

  Taro wondered why he had never questioned this dubious story before.

  He traced his finger along the scar. Then, taking a deep breath, he raised his other hand – the hand that was holding a very sharp knife.

  Holding the air in his lungs, he pressed down with the blade, and was surprised when no blood welled up. But he supposed the body had been drying here on the mountaintop for nearly a month, turning slowly from living flesh into earth. He was glad there was no blood, anyway. It made what he was doing seem less an act of violence, and more a ritual performed on the corpse – or at least that was one of the advantages.

  It also removed any temptation. She was his mother, but he was still a vampire, and a weak one too, his qi depleted by days of haunting and near starvation. He wasn’t sure he could resist the smell of blood at full strength, let alone now.

  Drawing the knife towards him, he expected to have to cut through the ribs, but met with almost no resistance. The skin opened up smoothly, like earth behind the blade of a plough. Suddenly Taro’s fingers trembled, and he dropped the knife. It bounced off her chest and clattered on the ground.

  ‘Sorry. . .,’ he said. ‘I can’t do it.’

  He felt more than saw the abbot move up beside him, stooping to pick up the knife. He turned away. Hiro clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You did well to even start it,’ he said.

  The abbot was far too old and wise to gasp as he withdrew what lay inside Taro’s mother’s chest. But he did suck in air through his teeth, making a whistling noise. Taro turned to see, and the abbot handed over what he had found.

  It was small – much smaller than the golden, false ball. But it felt heavy in his hands.

  ‘It’s not even gold!’ said Little Kawabata.

  Taro frowned at him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not.’

  The object he was holding was a tiny, perfect sphere. The outer layer seemed to be a kind of glass. Beneath this was a layer of air, which in places – he was turning it in his hands to examine it – was white and opaque with what seemed to be clouds. Inside, beneath the air, was a smaller sphere. Mostly blue, it was also covered with strange, warped shapes of green, and at the top and bottom were circular coverings of white.

  ‘It’s a representation of the world,’ said the abbot. ‘As it would look from up there.’ He pointed up at the sky.

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ said Hiro. ‘That can’t be the world! If it was round like that we’d all slide off.’

  ‘Idiot!’ said Little Kawabata. ‘Have you never seen a globe? My father saw one when he had to kill a Portuguese merchant.’

  They entered into a loud discussion, but Taro was still looking at the ball. ‘I’m not sure it’s a representation,’ he said. ‘Look.’ The others leaned over and peered into the ball, as Taro held his finger over the clouds.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ asked Little Kawabata.

  ‘Wait,’ said Taro.

  It was the abbot who saw it first. ‘Oh, my,’ he said.

  The clouds were moving.

  CHAPTER 57

  AT FIRST TARO thought an earthquake was coming. But he could see that the others didn’t feel it, this thrumming, vibrating feeling. It was the ball that was doing it, he realized. It was humming to itself, and the noise and movement were tiny, but the impression was of unbelievable, enormous power, which just happened to be contained in something small.

  Taro looked closer, and then he was falling through clouds, air rushing at him, whipping his hair, forcing itself into his nostrils, a hollow whooshing in his stomach. He broke through the clouds and then he was in blue sky, in freefall, the sensation of speed thrilling and terrifying at once – he passed a gull and it squealed, wheeling away from him. And then his breath stopped with terror when he saw that there was ocean below him, the sharp waves rising to meet him, very fast, getting bigger and bigger, and soon he was going to crash into the water. He leaned back and—

  He was standing with his friends again.

  He twisted the ball, peered in close to the green. Instantly he was falling through clear air, unobscured by clouds, only the moon was out on this side of the world, and glowing fatly in the evening sky. Rushing towards him was a landscape like nothing he had ever seen, a whole country, it seemed, made entirely of beach sand. This great beach stretched out thousands of ri in every direction, scattered with a sparse covering of tough-looking trees, and uninterrupted by rivers or lakes of any kind.

  Taro leaned his head to try to work out where the sea was, but the ground was moving towards him so quickly that he finally pulled back, and found himself on the mountain again,
his mother’s body before him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Hiro.

  Taro grinned. ‘Yes. Yes, I’m all right.’

  ‘What does it do? Is it. . . real?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Taro. ‘I think it is.’

  ‘Make something happen,’ said Little Kawabata.

  ‘I plan to,’ said Taro. He turned to Hayao, and the abbot. ‘Take me to Hana,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 58

  HE WASN’T SURE what he was doing as he descended the stone steps, or even as he stood in the wooden structure that had been erected around her body. She looked the same as when he had left her – hair dark and glossy, eyes closed, skin almost luminous in its paleness. Her chest rose and fell gently with her slow breathing. The abbot and Hayao had kept her alive, as they had promised. Now the two of them, as well as Hiro and Little Kawabata, waited anxiously outside the shrine.

  Taro wanted to be alone for this, and not least because he didn’t know how it was going to work – or if it was going to work, even. The sutras did not record how the Buddha had saved his disciple, and Taro was hoping, perhaps naively, that the ball would somehow show him the way.

  He held the ball over Hana’s sleeping form and gazed into it. Shadows chased one another over the sea; tiny stars covered half the earth, blanketed in darkness. He concentrated on the tiny sun, which rotated gradually around the bright side of the miniature earth in his hands. If death was darkness, then the sun was its opposite. Holding it in his sight, he felt gravity let go of him, and then he was plunging down towards the ball of fire, his skin burning up with the heat.

  Previously he had pulled back, before the ground crushed him or the sea closed itself around him. But this time he closed his eyes and fell. His stomach slid down and backwards, seemingly into his legs, as if trying to abandon his plummeting body. The glow from the sun grew brighter and brighter, even through his eyelids, until he might as well have had his eyes open.