‘Desire is the curse of the universe,’ he answered. ‘It condemns us to the misery of never-ending existence.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that, though if anyone could… anyway. What I mean is, not only might your Abbot be wrong in what he did, he may also have got it wrong. You’re absolutely certain that he cursed Manabumaru to become a jikininki?’
‘I was there in the Golden Hall—at least, I was close enough to hear him pronounce judgement, to hear Manabumaru scream!’
‘Well, that’s very strange. Because so far, all I’ve seen is an overzealous priest, a group of villagers taking advantage of the situation and a monster who’s obviously not as monstrous as he’s made out to be. The ladies didn’t seem to have any complaints, or the boy in the lantern.’
Shichiro repressed another sob. ‘So what? You’re saying there’s no curse?’
‘Oh, there’s a curse alright, else I wouldn’t be here. I can be summoned by accident, but not on suspicion: it just doesn’t work.’
‘Please,’ he said, ‘I don’t understand. Can you help him? Because if you can’t—’
‘All I’m saying is there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Which brings us to our real problem.’
‘Which is?’
‘How are we going to pin down a combination marathon runner, rock-climber and martial artist for long enough to get some real answers?’
‘We have to find him first.’
‘This path is certainly leading us somewhere. And I have a hunch that it’s going to be a sheltered cave. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it contains a hot spring, the kind that monks and pilgrims just don’t use.’
As Shichiro followed her up the slope, he wondered why she spoke of possessing a crooked spine.
The Cursebreaker had been right about the hot spring in the cave. But trapping Manabumaru in this net was never going to work. Nevertheless, Shichiro shouldered the heavy mass of rope and leather, and approached the crevasse. The sulphurous exhalation and sound of frenzied boiling would repel most explorers before they ever noticed how the space widened out below. Around the pool was a fair-sized cave, expanding into darkness. Lanterns had been judged necessary and acquired, with the net, from the monastery storehouse.
He climbed slowly down into the heat and steam. It was not a hard climb, but he took especial care that his feet were lodged securely on the wet rock before reaching for the next handhold. The net sagged, starting to unravel from its neat bundle. It was the means by which the brethren plunged over the waterfall known as the Dragon’s Tongue, an exercise it had taken him long years to master. Perhaps he could manage to secure it across this vent, but even if this was the jikininki’s lair, even if Manabumaru had been reduced to his basest instincts, not even an animal ran blindly into a snare. It had to be frightened or starving. Nothing frightened Manabumaru.
Only that was not true. Thinking back to this morning, Shichiro thought that Manabumaru had fled the Dragon’s Tail the instant he recognised his opponent.
‘Hurry up Shichiro, we’re starting to lose the light,’ called the Cursebreaker. She was standing up there, peering over the edge as his feet touched, then sank into the stinking morass at the bottom. Great bubbles burst from the spring, creating a ring of blackish deposits. But where his footsteps broke the crust, they showed yellow, red and a startling blue, as though here the earth rotted like a leper. Some of them he tentatively identified as the salts of alchemy, a practice which Tetsumonkai condemned as an evil sorcery. Truly, this was a place where one would only go who sought Hell.
His legs were itching and the hem of his robe befouled. He stared upwards, seeking a place where he might set the net, and fume and shadow disguise the ropes.
There seemed to be a deeper cleft in the darkest part of the cave. He could hide the net there, but to what purpose? Unless the darkness represented a further passage, perhaps to where the jikininki slept… by the mountain spirits, it really was a passage! His next step miscarried and he slipped, landing on hands and knees too close to that boiling pool. As he raised his hands they were already blackening: it looked like he had been beaten to the point of losing his nails. Once again, Shichiro remembered being a small boy crying in the dark, homesick and hurt but no longer alone. Then, as if summoned by his sheer longing, Manubumaru’s voice fell to him from above.
‘I knew it! A mountain goddess, come to assuage my hunger!’
‘Goddess? No. Very much no.’ The Cursebreaker sounded distinctly alarmed.
‘Doesn’t matter: I’m beyond all hope of redemption!’ So this was indeed the jikininki’s lair and here he knelt with the trap in his hands and the monster directly above. Any incautious move or sound louder than the roiling spring would surely draw his attention.
‘You know Manabumaru, I doubt that,’ said the Cursebreaker. ‘Just so long as you stay on your side of the crevasse and I on mine.’
Perhaps the monster’s preoccupation with the spirit woman would permit him to launch a surprise attack… Shichiro groaned silently, remembering how the same distractions had not prevented Manabumaru from overpowering him in the Dragon’s Tail.
No. That was not the truth of it. His own distraction had been his undoing, just as it had been moments ago when he slipped. If Tetsumonkai had taught him anything, it was that no circumstance, no matter how dangerous or uncomfortable, justified the loss of control.
He inhaled the putrid steam, noticing for the first time the currents of air portending from the passage. He listened to the rhythm of the bubbles welling up in the water. To him it sounded almost like chanting, the constant repetition of Amida’s blessed name, as matters worsened at the lip of the crevasse.
‘I don’t care what you are,’ carolled Manabumaru, ‘spirit or woman, peasant or Empress! Let me caress those heavenly orbs!’
‘Look,’ said the Cursebreaker, ‘I’m not saying you’re not… perfectly built, under all that shit. When was the last time you had a bath and a shave?’
‘I had enough of that when I was human! Now I’m free! Oh, come and be free with me! What need do we have of baths, or clothes?’
‘Now you just keep that on by—the—Fates: even if I was of a mind, your boyfriend would never forgive me.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I’m sorry; but it’s pretty obvious.’
‘Is he here?’
‘Not exactly—oh wait, Manabumaru, don’t go!’
‘Just keep him away from me! I don’t want him to see me like this.’
‘Manabumaru, it’s not that bad—’
‘No!’
There was a scuffle and a startled gasp. Shichiro looked up in time to see the big, pale body in the kimono plunge towards the boiling pool.
He leapt up, dragging the net over his shoulder as another body flashed down through the fumes—
As a massive splash sent scalding droplets over his arms, his face and he threw the net out across the surface—
As he dragged the heavy weight through the muck to his feet, he did not see the pattern of the kimono. What he saw was reddened skin and shoulders, a man’s shoulders. Again, he fell to his knees, hands grasping at the ropes, at the hot flesh and dripping hair.
‘Oh Gods, I didn’t mean to push her!’ Manabumaru thrashed in the net. ‘She’s still in there, save her!’
‘The important thing is that it worked,’ said the Cursebreaker, wading out of the pool. Apart from being soaked, she seemed to have suffered no ill effect. ‘And we’re all down here together.’
Manabumaru had been lightly scalded on his right side but the most dramatic effect was the dissolving there of months of acquired dirt. Apart from his shoulder-length hair and the light beard and moustache, he looked exactly the same as ever and felt solid, so wonderfully solid in Shichiro’s arms.
‘He stays in the net,’ said the Cursebreaker, ‘until we’ve got a few things straight.’ She squatted down, tugging futilely at her wet kimono. ‘Manabumaru, I’ve got some bad news. You�
��re not a jikininki.’
‘Of course I am!’ His eyes met Shichiro’s with a flash of unease.
‘No; you’re a young man making a rather half-hearted attempt to behave like the myth says he should.’
‘I know I haven’t eaten any corpses yet, but there’s bound to be some come Winter! And I steal food! I sleep in a hole! I get drunk and fuck in a cemetery!’
‘And I’ve known places that would make you an undergraduate. Now, what did you do to piss off Tetsumonkai so very much?’
‘I refused to undergo the ordeals.’
‘To become a living Buddha. How does that work?’
Unmistakably, Shichiro felt Manabumaru tremble. ‘You begin a great fast,’ he said, hesitantly. ‘Both of food and water. During that you perform feats of endurance for which our exercises are just the preparation. When I saw, I… I was afraid.’
‘You weren’t afraid,’ said Shichiro. ‘I was. I know Manabumaru, you refused him for me.’
A dark flush spread across the fuzzy cheeks. ‘But I have to be cursed!’
‘You obviously suffered a great shock,’ said the Cursebreaker. ‘People react to extreme situations in extreme ways.’
‘But I couldn’t possibly have stolen… I would never have gone with that… I wouldn’t have enjoyed it!’
‘For someone who spent his teens in a monastery, I’d call your behaviour perfectly natural.’
Shichiro felt his own face burning. ‘But you said there had to be a curse!’
‘It’s around here somewhere.’ She turned her face towards the passage, as though hearing something in the dark.
‘It’s alright,’ Shichiro whispered, stroking his lover’s hair. ‘It will be alright, I promise.’
The Cursebreaker raised one finger. ‘Have either of you ever seen a living Buddha?’
‘Let me up!’ Manabumaru flexed violently. ‘I’ll prove to you that I’m cursed, unable to enter sacred ground!’
‘If this involves climbing back up to the monastery,’ said the Cursebreaker, ‘may I suggest we return instead to the village and wash?’
Shichiro felt Manabumaru relax. He peeled the netting from his head and down his chest before remembering that, in the martial arts, loosening the muscles did not necessarily preface inaction.
The force of his leap knocked Shichiro back against the wall. ‘What are you doing?’ he cried, ‘Manabumaru, I don’t care!’ But he had already vanished into the darkness that was the guts of the mountain. ‘Manabumaru!’
‘Lantern,’ said the Cursebreaker, handing him one.
This was the abode of spirits. Shichiro glimpsed inhuman faces in the fleeting light, felt the brush of stone-cold fingers as he followed the sound of Manabumaru’s feet. Behind him the Cursebreaker scuffed and swore in terms he understood perfectly. He felt like using them himself, as the passage climbed and climbed.
Then he was no longer listening to the sound of feet. The sound he heard, the rhythm he followed without thinking, so familiar it was, came as chanting. The name of Amida, the promise of the Pure Land.
‘The monastery!’ he gasped. ‘We must be beneath it!’
The next turn brought light and the next showed him Manabumaru, poised on the threshold of a roughly-worked chamber. One more burst of speed and Shichiro dug his fingers into his lover’s shoulder.
‘I can go no further.’ Manabumaru sounded strangely content. ‘The sanctity of the living Buddas bars my way.’
‘Sanctity…’ panted the Cursebreaker, ‘my… arse…’
‘I cannot so much as look upon them,’ said Manabumaru. ‘Where I should see glory, I see only despair.’
The stench was appalling. A series of cavities had been scooped from the rock and inside at least five of these, he saw a withered corpse. The flesh had dried and shrunk, the skin tightening about the bones of crossed legs and hands retracted to the chest. Cheeks and noses collapsed into contours that nonetheless caused Shichiro shocks of recognition. But such things had no business speaking. No business shaking and twitching. Yet twitch they did and yet they chanted, an endless, meaningless drone like the boiling of water, the grinding of stones.
‘Habitual dehydration,’ muttered the Cursebreaker, ‘a gradual restriction of calories… autohypnosis… by the kindly ones, it’s possible.’
The sound that had accompanied Shichiro day and night for so long as he could remember was here unbearable. It worked into his ears and teeth. It was almost worse than seeing those eyes move, sunk in hollows so deep they seemed like parasites sheltering in skulls. Not a one of the living Buddhas turned towards him or showed any other sign they knew they were observed. That they knew they lived. He felt his stomach convulse and then he was hauling at Manabumaru, dragging him back down the passage that led to the spring. ‘I am resigned to my doom, Shichiro,’ he said, sounding positively happy.
‘Tetsumonkai wanted you to become one of those? To do that to you? He is a shit-eating demon from the seventh Hell!’ He clung to Manabumaru and stroked his face, knowing now what had snapped his mind and taken him so far from himself. He begged his forgiveness for not following him, for cringing from the sound of Tetsumonkai’s fury as he now cringed from the chanting and the roiling stench of rotting flesh.
‘This is the curse!’ he cried, loud as he could. ‘Oh merciful spirits, this is it!’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said the Cursebreaker.
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because,’ she said, ‘these poor souls are practically mummies. That stink isn’t coming from them.’
‘How DARE you intrude on this sacred place!’ As Shichiro flinched from the Abbot’s voice, Manabumaru’s arms closed about him. The shadow of a peaked hat crept up the floor towards them, towards the Cursebreaker, who stood before the mummies without displaying the slightest tremor.
‘Greetings venerable Abbot.’ It was the calm in her voice that made Shichiro realise just what she was. How old and how terrible in her pale flesh.
‘You are no spirit. A magician, then, come to oppose me?’
‘Oh, I’m no magician either, though I’ve known a few. And witches. A saint, even. You’re no saint, Tetsumonkai.’
‘I have never claimed to be.’
‘But you are a scholar; those were your books Shichiro read. So you know that any man can call down a curse. You also know that a man can curse himself.’
‘Dharma. There is no way to avoid dharma.’
‘I’ve seen far too much to be shocked at what a person can do to themselves and others in the name of faith. So how long has it been, Tetsumonkai? Since your faith condemned you?’
‘In one day you have uncovered a truth I have hidden for forty years.’ The Abbot’s voice held an incredible weariness. ‘I bathe in the spring that I forbid to others. I smother myself in robes and incense, and stay apart, always apart from my boys. I never touch one, save with my cane. Still, every day I expect they will smell me out.’
The shadow falling along the passage was of something bent, hooked and hairy.
‘You feed off them, don’t you,’ said the Cursebreaker. ‘The living corpses.’
‘I can’t help it.’ His voice was a sigh now. ‘But by helping them ascend, perhaps I may earn forgiveness.’
‘The transformation is impressive, in its way. Only the very strongest could achieve it. But you understand, such a sacrifice can only be made by the self.’
‘I know. I only wish to help them achieve what I could not.’
‘Is that why you pretended to curse Manabumaru?’
‘That was a warning! I tried, tried and failed once more.’
‘I don’t judge you, Tetsumonkai. I don’t even care what it was that plagues your conscience so, that they still remember in the village.’
‘She was only a woman, but my sin was the greater for that. Night after night I descended to meet her. She would have borne my child but all I could think of was the shame and penance I would endure if it became known. I blamed he
r and what I did to stop it, killed them both.’
‘And so you cursed yourself.’
‘And corruption entered men’s hearts and the war began.’
‘Well, you needn’t imagine that’s your fault. But this,’ she waved at the niches, ‘this isn’t helping.’
‘I help them avoid the trap that snared me!’
‘You trapped yourself, Tetsumonkai.’ The putridity in the air intensified and before the young monks’ eyes the leftmost Buddha collapsed in upon itself, tongue stilling at last. ‘But there is a way out.’
‘I am so, so tired.’
‘Accept you will never earn forgiveness. You can only ask and receive. Can you do that, Tetsumonkai? Can you forgive yourself?’
Through the thickening shadow, the human remnants and the ground itself a vibration ran, growing stronger, deeper and harder to distinguish from either mountain or flesh. The lanterns guttered and something that was not the light went out.
Then there was silence.
Chaos possessed the monastery. The cessation of the chanting had caught the attention of monks returning late from the summit and they had woken the others. The corpses below had been discovered and among them, the long-decayed remains of Tetsumonkai. Prayers and lamentations still resounded from the Golden Hall; while some roamed the complex weeping and others performed frantic star-jumps, a few had commenced plunging from the prayer gate on the grounds that the waterfall was too far away. Only here in this courtyard was there anything approaching calm. Brother Heihachi had been accosted by the Cursebreaker and persuaded to brew some genuine tea. Fears assuaged, he was cooking with increasing enthusiasm.
‘Manabumaru won’t stay.’ Shichiro sat on the steps of the refectory, gazing at the lightening sky. ‘He’s asked me to leave with him.’
‘It’s a dangerous world out there.’ The Cursebreaker swallowed a red bean dumpling. ‘But I guess Manabumaru has discovered things in himself that can’t be dealt with by climbing mountains.’
‘Yes.’
‘At least now he’ll be properly dressed.’ She speared another dumpling. ‘And will you follow him?’
The New Hero: Volume 1 Page 14