by Lian Hearn
“Come again,” he said. “I will look out for you.”
“Goodbye!” Kinpoge cried, turning Ban’s head to the east.
She did not tell her father or Ima about the encounter. Both had warned her never to let herself be seen, never to talk to anyone. But she could not stop thinking about the boy, Takemaru, and she wanted very much to see him again. The next day she wove a fresh garland of spring flowers for Ban and, in the afternoon, she set out again. She knew she should not fly toward the west, but somehow she could not help it.
The days were lengthening and there were still several hours before nightfall. The sun in the west dazzled her. It made the shiny new green leaves glisten as they danced in the breeze. It was the fourth month and already very hot. There was no sign of rain and even the dew, which usually soaked the forest every night, had dried up. Every tree was familiar to her and she could tell each one was suffering. They had responded to the demands of the season and had put out new leaves, but it had cost them; they were becoming frail, their roots no longer held firmly by the embracing earth.
She guided Ban to the same tree and there was the boy, alone this time. His face lit up when he saw her and he held out his hand. Kinpoge took it and, still holding Ban’s bridle so the skull horse could not fly away, stepped nimbly onto the branch.
The tree swayed in the wind, the leaves rustled, the humming of insects rose around them. There was a strong, heady smell of blossoms and catkins. Take held her firmly.
“I’m all right,” she said, easing herself from his grasp and sitting down astride the branch. “I won’t fall.”
“You should be an acrobat,” he said, sitting down facing her. “You are so light and adroit. But, I don’t know why, girls never are, only boys. Even Kai, who is agile like you, has to be content with playing the drum.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. They were so close, their knees almost touched. “What’s an acrobat? Is it something to do with the monkeys?”
“In a way. We do tricks with the monkeys. People like to watch us. They give us food, clothes, even coins sometimes. We go to all the markets and every year, at this time, we come to the forest to look for suitable monkeys to train—do you know what train means?”
“I do!” Kinpoge screwed up her face. “My father is being trained by a tengu. It’s been going on for years. I hope your monkeys don’t take as long!”
“A tengu?” She could tell this interested Take very much. “A real tengu? What is he teaching him?”
“Everything. But mostly how to fight with sword and bow.”
“How to kill people?” Take’s eyes gleamed.
“I suppose so, though I think it’s more about not letting them kill you, as far as I can see. And then there’s a lot of meditation and spiritual exercises. My father is often absent for weeks and when he comes back he seems like a different person.”
“Different in what way?” Take asked, and then added quietly, “I have never known my father.”
“You haven’t missed much. Fathers are very tiresome, at least mine is. He has seen and learned things most people don’t know about. Well, I can’t really say what most people do or don’t know, as you are the only real person I’ve met. But the tengu teaches him secrets and shows him hidden things.”
Take sighed. “I’d give anything for that kind of instruction. I feel I should have been born to the way of the sword and the bow. But the acrobats I grew up among follow a different path. They will not kill anything. They eat only fruit and plants.”
“Come back with me,” Kinpoge said eagerly. “Ima, my uncle, will make you roast hare or a meat stew. And we’ll ask my father if he will share the tengu’s teaching with you.”
* * *
Ima was out in the forest, somewhere. Mu was alone, going through the rigorous exercises he followed every day. The tengu no longer lived at the hut—he had gone away on a mission he did not reveal—but Mu continued to work as if Tadashii still breathed down his neck with his hot peppery breath and clacked his beak in admonishment.
He was inside the hut, in front of the altar that Shisoku had made years before. The tengu had shown him the meaning of all the objects the old hermit had collected: the augury sticks, the reed arrows, the protective carvings made of peachwood, the panels depicting the twelve cardinal points, the twelve-month guardians, the twelve animals of the cycle of the years. He had explained how to use them, and access their power, just as he had explained the curses that lay sealed, with the five poisonous creatures, in their jars—curses that killed an enemy and then controlled his soul.
Mu had grown up among these things and had never appreciated their power, though Kiku had. His brother had known enough to perform rituals in this place, with the fox woman, Shida. After that time, Mu could hardly bear to enter the hut and at one time had wanted to burn it down. Through Tadashii’s teaching, he had faced that pain and humiliation and seen them as illusions of heart and mind. The memory no longer touched him.
He did not like to be interrupted or even watched. Usually, Kinpoge and Ima kept out of his way. But now his daughter’s voice broke into the clear well his mind had become, sending unwelcome ripples through it. At first he ignored her, wanting to stay in that removed state of concentration that had become the source of knowledge and power for him, but her voice was as sharp and insistent as a crow’s.
“Father! Father, where are you? I’ve brought someone to meet you.”
He heard steps right outside and leaped to his feet. He did not want to let any stranger in. Taking on invisibility, he slipped through the doorway. For a moment, unseen, he studied them: the girl, his child, her ragged clothes and unkempt hair, her small face appearing like the pale moon among dark clouds, her bare arms and legs, scratched and scarred. And alongside her the boy, tall, handsome, he supposed, with the face of a young warrior, but wearing strange red clothes, his hair tied in a topknot, his shoulders unexpectedly broad for his age, his arms and legs as muscled as a grown man’s. He recognized him, and after a moment remembered he had seen him on his flight over the land. What did that mean? That he and the other acrobat and the girl drummer were all somehow connected to him and Tadashii? Despite this, the sight of him filled Mu with a kind of unreasoning anger. It would be a pleasure to kill him.
He was surprised by the anger. It was a long time since his peace of mind had been disturbed by emotion. He looked at it dispassionately and let it slip away.
Then he said quietly, “Kinpoge. I am here.” He let himself be seen.
They both turned at the sound of his voice, the boy with a startled expression on his face, the girl more exasperated.
“Don’t play tricks on us, Father!”
“Surely we walked right past … how did we not see him?” the boy whispered in Kinpoge’s ear. Mu heard him clearly.
“It’s just something he does. I told you he was tiresome.” Kinpoge held the skull horse by the woven reins. She gave it a perfunctory pat and thrust its pole into the ground.
“Did the tengu teach him?”
“He’s always been able to do it. But he’s got better at it, since the tengu came.”
It amused Mu to hear Kinpoge’s assessment of his progress. He was smiling, as the boy approached him, which must have encouraged him, for he bowed his head and said boldly, “Sir, my name is Takemaru. There’s no reason why you should show me any favor, but your daughter has told me about your great skill and, well…” His formal tone deserted him and he dropped to his knees. “I have no one to teach me how to fight with the sword and the bow. Please let me become your pupil.”
“What a ridiculous idea,” Mu said, neither moving nor bowing. “Go away. Don’t come back. Kinpoge, you are not to meet him again.”
As the boy raised his head Mu saw the disappointment in his face. Kinpoge said, “Father, please!”
“Don’t argue! It’s impossible. Now go away.” Mu settled himself, cross-legged, and pretended to tend the fire.
/> “I’d better go,” Takemaru said.
“I’ll come and see you again.” Kinpoge’s voice was thin with emotion.
“No, if your father forbids it, you must not,” he said seriously. “You must obey your father.”
“Quite right,” Mu remarked. “Now get going!”
“Goodbye, sir. Goodbye, Lady Kinpoge.” He bowed formally and began to walk away, his back straight, his stride proud.
“Wait!” Kinpoge cried. “I’ll go with you. I’ll show you the way.”
“Stay here,” Mu ordered.
He sensed the conflict within her between desire and obedience. He saw her struggle and then, suddenly, with no warning, the second self emerged. He had seen it so often in his brothers and, since the tengu’s arrival, he had used it himself, with increasingly refined mastery, but he had not really expected his daughter to have the same skills. The shadow Kinpoge began to flit after the boy who walked resolutely on, ignorant of what was happening behind him. The real Kinpoge wavered for a moment. Her eyes began to roll backward. Mu caught her as she fell.
The other Kinpoge faded as the two selves merged. He splashed water on her face and rubbed her wrists. After a moment she opened her eyes.
“What happened?”
“You did one of my tiresome tricks,” Mu said.
“Was I invisible?”
“No, there were two of you. You discovered your second self.”
“Really? It felt strange.”
“You will learn to control it,” he said, “and use it when you want to.”
“How exciting!” Kinpoge’s eyes gleamed. “But I’d really like to be able to become invisible.”
“Maybe that will come, too.” It made Mu sad. She was almost grown up. What would become of her? Who would marry her? Who would look after her when he and Ima passed on? The tengu had promised he would be free of all attachments, but this one for his daughter obstinately remained.
She lay in his arms, in a way she had not since she was a child. They were still sitting like that when Ima returned carrying a large dead hare. He looked at them but said nothing, then began to build up the fire, which had almost burned out, with exaggerated care.
“Uncle, I used the second self,” Kinpoge announced.
“You did? I thought you would sooner or later!”
“You expected it?” Mu said. “I didn’t. It took me by surprise.”
“You only have to consider who her father is, and her mother, for that matter,” Ima replied.
While the fire burned brightly, producing the glowing embers that would roast the hare, Ima skinned the creature and removed the entrails. Kinpoge took the skin down to the creek. Two of the dogs followed her hopefully. Mu could hear the scrape of the knife on the skin. The fur was thick and soft. They sewed the hides together to make blankets for winter.
The meat smelled fragrant as it began to roast. He thought it would bring her back soon; she was always hungry. Then his sharp ears caught another voice. The dogs barked and fled back to the fire.
“Hello, little girl. That smells good. I think I will stay for supper.” The tengu stepped out of the shadows and jumped nimbly across the stream.
Kinpoge dropped the skin and the knife, and hugged him. Tadashii picked her up with one hand, set her on his shoulders, and walked toward the fire.
“It’s not cooked yet,” Ima warned before he could say anything. “Don’t touch it!”
“You know I don’t mind raw meat,” Tadashii replied sulkily.
Kinpoge slipped down to the ground. “Let’s play a game while we wait.”
“Maybe later,” he said. “I need to talk to your father.”
“Did you finish cleaning the skin?” Ima said to Kinpoge.
“Nearly,” she replied.
“Well, go and finish it. Then string it up where the animals can’t reach it.” Ima’s voice, as always, was kindly but firm. Kinpoge usually obeyed him, without question, whereas she tested her father, arguing with him endlessly. Now she went back to the bank of the stream and picked up the hare skin. From the way she shook it, Mu guessed it was already crawling with ants.
“Let’s go inside,” the tengu suggested.
Mu looked at Ima before he agreed, but his brother was staring at the hare as it sizzled in the embers, and did not return his gaze.
When they were in the hut, the tengu bowed respectfully in the direction of the altar and sat cross-legged on the floor. Mu sat opposite him, just where he had been a short time ago when Kinpoge had called him.
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” the tengu said.
“Who?” Mu’s thoughts had progressed to the boy, Takemaru.
“Your brother, Ima.”
Mu shrugged. “I don’t, on the whole. But sometimes it seems a little unfair. We were all born at the same time from the same mother. None of us chose our parents or our circumstances. Yet Kiku, Kuro, and I have talents our brothers don’t have.”
“Fair, unfair, these words have no meaning for me.” Tadashii dismissed the idea with a contemptuous wave of his four-fingered hand. “Your brother Ku is perfectly happy being a servant to Master Kikuta in Kitakami. And Ima has talents you still don’t appreciate. He plays a very good game of chess, for example. He is content with his life, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. Is he?”
The tengu scowled, as though he was unable to answer this. “That’s not what I’ve come to talk to you about,” he said.
Mu raised his eyebrows and remained silent.
“I sent you a pupil,” said the tengu. “And you sent him away.”
“You sent him?”
“Well, not in so many words. But I intended him to come.”
“You could have told me,” Mu replied.
“I expect you to discern this sort of thing,” Tadashii said, sounding irritated. “Didn’t you recognize him and guess who he might be?”
“He told me his name was Takemaru.”
“Takeyoshi is his real name. He is the son of Shikanoko and the Autumn Princess. He has come to the Darkwood with the one they call Yoshi, Yoshimori, the true emperor. Neither of them know who they are. They think they are monkey boys and acrobats. We need you to teach Takeyoshi to be a warrior, join forces with your brother, find Shikanoko, and offer him these forces so the Emperor might be restored and Heaven placated. Then we can get back to normal.”
Mu recalled the acrobats he had seen, the girl with the drum. “Is that what it’s all been for?” he said. He gazed past the tengu’s face at the objects of power clustered all around him, some on shelves, hidden in awe of their effect, beneath seven-layered cloths or in boxes within boxes.
“Well, it’s part of a plan we came up with. Out of desperation, if you must know.”
“Why don’t you teach him?” Mu asked.
“I might, in due course. In fact, I must. An injustice was done a long time ago that I am trying to put right. Something that was stolen must be recovered. But it is hard for me to make contact with a fully human person who has no knowledge of the other worlds. You have shown that you can travel between them. You will be my bridge to Takeyoshi. It’s your turn to be the teacher. You never know how complete your learning is until you pass it on. You could call it the ultimate stage. And the other parts of your mission could not be achieved by anyone else. You alone can be reconciled with your brother. You alone can find Shikanoko.”
“I saw him,” Mu said. “That time I flew. He is in the Darkwood, but far to the north.”
“Very good!” Tadashii seemed more pleased than Mu had ever known him before, and even though he suspected the tengu was flattering him so Mu would carry out his wishes, he still felt a warm glow from the praise.
“I thought I saw a woman there with him,” he said, “and two men.”
“We hope the woman is going to kill the man called Masachika,” the tengu said. “And the men are known as the Burnt Twins. Shikanoko has to be brought back to this world. If he stays much longer in the Da
rkwood he will become a deerlike creature, and if he dies his spirit will be that of a stag, possibly a god, but he will not be able either to enter the pure land or to be reborn.”
“When I saw him he wore the deer mask and was dancing,” Mu said.
“He is close to the edge. Soon he will be beyond saving. Unless the mask is removed by a pure spirit who loves him, he will be lost.”
“Is there any such person?” Mu remembered the raw emotion with which Kiku had revealed what happened at Ryusonji. “He loved the Autumn Princess, but she is dead.”
“I don’t know much about that side of human life,” Tadashii said. “I’ve observed there are certain acts that bring pleasure and produce children—that’s all very well, I suppose, but why complicate it?”
Mu said, “There is passion, and jealousy, the desire to possess another, the fear of losing her.”
“But you have put all that behind you, haven’t you?”
“I suppose so,” Mu said. “Living here, I haven’t had much choice.”
“I’m glad, though, that you seem to know something about it, for you may recognize such a person.”
“It could be any one of us,” Mu said. “We all loved and respected Shikanoko.”
“I think it has to be female,” Tadashii said bluntly.
“What about the woman I saw?”
The tengu laughed, in a coarse way. “No, she is not for him.”
“Which should I do first?” Mu asked, thinking about the various tasks that lay ahead of him.
“Follow your nose,” Tadashii said, tapping his own beak and cackling.
“Should I go after this Takeyoshi and bring him back?” Mu said.
“You have missed the opportunity,” the tengu replied. “It will be another year before he returns to the Darkwood. Next time, don’t turn him away.”
9
YOSHI
That was one of the best performances we’ve ever done, Yoshi thought as he walked toward where Kai sat with her drum balanced between her knees. It was a warm, still night—too hot for early spring—but the drought seemed more bearable once darkness came and the brilliant stars appeared in the clear sky. Crowds lately had been harder to please. People had more serious concerns: their crops, their children’s health, shortages of food, ever-increasing taxes. It had been a hard winter followed as usual by the most difficult time of year. Spring brought more work but less food and in the warmer weather diseases spread more rapidly. Tonight at the start the crowd had been sullen, even hostile, but by the end they were laughing.