by Ben Stevens
We’d exposed a series of wooden boards, fixed into what I assumed were rafters below. My master had with him his bag of specialist tools, and selecting one he then set to work raising several of these boards up. I held the lamp above the area he was working, so he could see a little better.
The lifted boards exposed a cavity in the floor below. I restrained a gasp of surprise. There was a thick stone slab, maybe two-feet square, raised slightly on several courses of brickwork that went into the earthen floor.
My master wiped some of the sweat from his brow.
‘Quickly,’ he said quietly. ‘Help me lift this stone.’
It was awkward work, as we could not both get inside the narrow cavity. Instead, we had to squat down and then put our arms below the level of the floor. This is hardly the best position in which to try and raise a heavy piece of stone. But with much muffled grunting, we finally succeeded – in the process exposing what was clearly an entranceway into the ground!
‘Master…’ I began.
‘We will have to wait several minutes – to allow the air to enter as much as possible into this tunnel,’ returned my master, continuing to squat as he stared down into the blackness. ‘This will hopefully ensure that the lamp remains lit, when I enter inside.’
Now, if my master – for all his extraordinary physical and mental strength – had one weakness, it was his fear (indeed, almost paranoia) of enclosed spaces. This was something about which he told no one – I’d only discovered it due to years of living and working together with him – but still he went almost out of his way to ensure that he was never in too confined a space.
‘I will go inside, master,’ I said softly. I admit to having certain reservations myself about descending into that inky-black tunnel – but it would hardly cause me the fear I knew it would my master.
My master nodded, and avoided looking at me directly for several moments. I knew he was feeling slightly ashamed, although he needn’t have done. To speak honestly, it was almost refreshing to know that my master had at least one human ‘failing’ – as it were.
‘You will hardly go down any distance, before you find another tunnel heading in the direction of the large pond outside which has the carp in it,’ declared my master.
I started with surprise.
‘How do you know –’ I began, but with a gesture of irritation my master silenced me.
‘It will not be a wide tunnel,’ continued my master, ‘but you will be able to crawl along it, the lamp held ahead of you. The tunnel runs as far as to that stone statue of the dragon which sits in the centre of the pond. The tunnel then leads up in the direction of that statue – and somewhere there, if I am correct, you will find another stoppered length of bamboo. Bring that back here.’
I nodded, and then commenced lowering myself into the darkness. I had to hang fully from my arms before my feet touched solid ground below. My master then leant down, passing me the lamp.
I held the lamp below my waist, and there saw that another tunnel headed in the direction of the lake, as my master had said. The top of this tunnel was rounded, clad in several courses of rough stone.
I quailed at the thought of entering this dark, tomb-like place, and then crawling under all that water. Exactly what was the total weight of it all, I wondered? Supposing the ceiling should suddenly give way in some place, because of the sheer weight and pressure of all that water? I would be drowned.
My master hissed at me to hurry, and so I got to my knees and then put first my head and shoulders and then my elbows inside that tunnel. The lamp was still glowing – if a little less brightly than before. It illuminated the semi-circular tunnel, the roof of which was approximately two feet above my head.
As I have said already, it was lined all round by several courses of thick stone. The floor – which I’d almost been expecting to be wet, muddy and thoroughly unpleasant – was in fact completely dry and so dusty it made me want to cough.
I crawled along, trying not to think of all that water above –
Wait… Who said the water was just ‘above’ me? This was a semi-circular tunnel; so it was raised, I suddenly realized, slightly above the bottom of the pond…
The water was all around me…
‘No man / May pass through me / Untouched’ – I at once recalled some of what had been written on that scroll, which my master had found just the previous evening…
Water! – that riddle referred to water! I remembered more of what had been written – ‘I am life / Beauty / And sometimes death / I destroy villages / And can defeat / Mountains’…
Yes, it was obvious now. The beauty, power and might of water. How could you ‘pass through’ water ‘untouched’ – that is, without getting wet? Except through this tunnel. Somehow, my master had realized its existence; and furthermore had secretly confirmed this existence, through the elaborate pretence of falling into the pond that morning.
I felt pride at my master’s brilliance, mixed with a sense of shame – for I had almost doubted him, earlier…
Anyway, such were my thoughts as I made my way along the tunnel. These thoughts at least served me so that I barely considered the stifling atmosphere, the flame of my lamp that threatened to expire at any moment, and my own gasping breath. Then I was at the end of this tunnel, another one now rising straight upwards. This, I understood, rose up through the water and into the statue of that stone dragon.
I stood up slowly in it, and raising my arms to their fullest extent found the top lip. On this I placed the lamp, and then pulled myself up. It was extremely cramped inside the statue – there was barely room to sit on the edge of the opening – and filthy with cobwebs, crawling creatures and such. But none of this really mattered because there, as my master had predicted, was another length of bamboo, brown with age and plugged both ends with pieces of wood.
Taking this length of bamboo, I then lowered myself back down and commenced the return journey. What was contained inside the piece of bamboo this time? Another ancient piece of paper, upon which was written another riddle?
I’d soon find out.
I crawled quickly on through the tunnel, in a hurry for my master to open this length of bamboo and reveal its contents.
I left the tunnel which ran along the surface of the pond. As I began to stand up and hold out the oil lamp in one hand, and the piece of bamboo in the other, I said –
‘Master – I have it!’
I felt both items being taken from me; and then a voice I instantly recognized as Katamari’s said –
‘How interesting. So, this piece of bamboo is the reason why guests at this temple have taken to stealing around under cover of darkness, is it?’
7
I emerged out of the tunnel into the tearoom. My master was stood near Katamari, holding the lamp and looking embarrassed.
‘I thought I heard a noise,’ said Katamari, alternately looking hard at my master and then me. ‘And now I enter the tearoom to find – Well, what is this?’
My master gave a quick (and it seemed to me, reluctant) explanation of what he’d realized, and consequently what we’d found these past two evenings. As he spoke, Katamari’s brow creased with confusion, and he shook his head several times.
‘This is… This…’ he mumbled, most of the previous indignation having now left his voice.
‘You seriously mean to tell me,’ he succeeded in saying at last, ‘that what is written on the scroll in the dining-room – those words of Gyoja-sama’s – were merely instructions to find this… this rolled-up piece of paper placed in a sealed length of bamboo and secreted behind the mirror in the main entrance? And that this piece of paper directed you to come here, and start demolishing half of the temple’s tearoom in an attempt to find the next sealed piece of bamboo?’
My master took a deep breath.
‘I believe,’ said my master slowly, ‘that these… messages, if you will, are leading to something important. Indeed, I believe that this is the last riddle
– or message. If we can understand what is written here, then we will have solved this puzzle set by Gyoja-sama several hundred years before.’
Katamari seemed to look shrewdly at my master for a moment. But when he spoke again his voice, although low, was also harsh.
‘Why did you not say anything to the Jushoku, when you found this first scroll behind the mirror?’
‘Katamari-san, the Jushoku seemed so ill this morning, I really did not like to… Add to his troubles, if you will,’ returned my master. ‘I would rather give him something definite, some sort of answer concerning this ‘curse’ he believes is on this temple, than just cause him further anxiety with strange messages found inside sealed lengths of bamboo.’
Katamari suddenly looked exhausted. Previously he’d appeared hawkish, and in this room angry – but now I saw that the temple’s recent tragedies had also worn away at his own nerves.
‘Ennin-sensei,’ he said, and this time his voice was free of any mockery or haughtiness, ‘I confess I may have… underestimated you, if you will. I see now your reputation is deserved – although I still find your actual methods of deduction to be a little peculiar.’
He thought for a moment, his thin lips pursed. Then he continued: ‘The Jushoku is sicker than I first thought. He went to bed early today and I may have to call a doctor for him tomorrow. This is hardly the first time he has been bedridden by his health, but now…
‘I fear what has happened here, just during these past six months, has taken a huge toll on him. No monk wants to come here, now; and those who are here wish to leave. This temple is the heart of the Shining Path branch of Buddhism; and yet the reputation now surrounding it is one of fear and unexplained death.’
My master nodded and looked serious at Katamari’s words.
Sighing, the senior monk said then: ‘You say what is in this sealed length of bamboo is the final – riddle? How can you be sure?’
‘I can’t,’ confessed my master. ‘But this will be the third message or riddle we’ve found, and if only because the number three occurs so frequently in the Buddhist religion – I cite the Three Jewels or Treasures merely as an example – I believe this will be the final test. If we realize this, we will learn all of that which Gyoja-sama one day intended to be discovered.’
‘There is so much I simply do not understand…’ murmured Katamari; then, in a firmer voice, he said, ‘Let us see what is inside this piece of bamboo, in any case.’
He tried to pull one of the wooden plugs from the bamboo, but was repeatedly unable to. Finally, my master modestly suggested that he might be permitted an attempt – he succeeded the first time. He made to hand back the piece of bamboo to the senior monk, but Katamari said –
‘No, you found the other one. You be the one to see what this contains.’
My master pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper – which, we then discovered, had inside of it an old iron key.
We looked at the words written on the paper, both my master and Katamari holding their oil lamps close (but not too close).
We read –
Natural beauty becomes
True beauty?
In accordance with
Human ideal
A dwarf
Or a cliff
Swept by the wind
Or by attachment to a rock
Salvation
Sometimes
Four hundred years old
Sometimes
Fuel for the fire
‘What does this even mean?’ demanded Katamari almost despairingly. ‘And what is with this key?’
‘That,’ said my master, his gaze intent as he continued to stare at the words, ‘is for us to determine. But this is the last riddle set by Gyoja-sama – of that I am now fully certain.’
I saw now that the senior monk was eyeing my master with the same air of desperate hope as I’d seen displayed in the Jushoku’s face. Yet it seemed to me that these messages hidden around the temple were merely a diversion from the real problem at hand – that is, the awful and still-unexplained deaths of two young monks within half a year.
That was what my master had been requested to come to this temple to investigate. Not these bizarre riddles or whatever they were, set by a supposed religious leader several hundred years before.
In any case, my master assured Katamari that he would try to realize the true meaning of this latest message found (the senior monk kept hold of the piece of paper upon which the riddle was written), and so having replaced the tatami mats and generally straightened the tearoom, we then returned to our respective rooms.
We got ready for bed, and then in the darkness my master said suddenly –
‘So now we know what drove Isuke to the point of insanity. It was that riddle relating to water, and the inability to pass through it without getting wet. And yet also the necessity of doing just that – in order for the next veiled set of instructions to be discovered.’
‘A tunnel built at the bottom of the pond,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing – so I would never have guessed that it was there. Indeed, I only realized that particular riddle’s relation to water when I was actually crawling through this tunnel.’
‘Isuke went… well, practically mad trying to work out what the words meant,’ said my master, his voice again sounding somehow far-away. ‘The scroll in the dining-room – yes, that pointed to something tangible. We already know someone had realized it related to the mirror; and moreover, that this ‘someone’ had removed the mirror from the wall and thus found the riddle relating to water.’
‘You think this was Isuke, master?’ I enquired.
‘That is to ignore the death of the first monk, Matsuo,’ declared my master – something that made me catch my breath and almost sit up. Had my master realized some sort of correlation, as it were, between these hidden scrolls and the mysterious deaths of the monks?
‘But we will set aside this matter for the moment,’ continued my master. ‘Enough to say, at the present time, that the young monk named Isuke was fully aware of the scroll secreted behind the mirror – that he’d read (or at least was somehow aware) what was written on it, and realized that it related to water.
‘But here he came unstuck. Did this riddle, he found himself wondering, relate to something tangible – something that had been hidden somewhere, as was the case with the first scroll? Or did he now have to contemplate, and furthermore understand, one of these bizarre Buddhist koan?’
‘Master?’ I queried. I didn’t quite understand this word.
‘A koan,’ repeated my master. ‘One of those strange, Zen-like riddles teachers like to direct at their teachers. ‘What noise is made when one hand claps?’ and the like. They have no definite answer; they are intended more to challenge a student’s thoughts and progress.’
‘Oh,’ I said simply. I am fundamentally a simple man and, for the life of me, could barely understand my master’s ‘explanation’ (such as it was) of these so-called koan.
‘Anyway,’ said my master then. ‘Soon beginning to doubt that this riddle pertaining to water even had a tangible answer, Isuke – by now driven half-insane through ceaselessly turning the riddle over and over in his mind – took to walking in the rain, hoping that by doing so he might obtain some flash of insight concerning how one could ‘pass through’ water – ‘untouched’.
‘And then,’ finished my master softly, ‘he was silenced – murdered.’
‘Silenced – why? And murdered how – and by who?’ I blurted, my thoughts racing from all I was hearing, so that I thought I might also be driven mad. It seemed absurd; yet at its simplest level, I thought I understood what my master was saying.
‘That, again, is something upon which I need to think further. I have also to realize what this last riddle refers to – and when I do, and speak of it, then we will both be in the gravest danger. We will have to work fast, and be on our utmost guard.’
Incredible, after all my master had said, t
hat he could then just bid me a simple goodnight. I knew he was lying there, eyes open and thoughts turning; but he said nothing more.
He had to realize one more riddle – just this last one…
8
The Jushoku was absent from the service in the temple hall the following morning. I supposed he was still resting from this latest bout of ill-health caused by the mysterious deaths of two monks – and the desire these deaths had created in those other monks to flee this temple. I could hardly blame them. The priest had spoken of a ‘curse’ – well, that seemed as valid an explanation as any other right now.
The only person who had a chance of discovering what had really caused those two young, and seemingly healthy monks to die was extremely quiet all that morning. I knew when my master was deep in thought and so I tried to disturb him as little as was possible.
Katamari looked at him curiously once or twice during the morning service, but he did not speak to us – far less make any mention of what had taken place the previous evening. He was waiting, I understood, for my master to inform him of what this latest riddle pertained to. For while the Jushoku was sick in bed, Katamari was in charge of this main temple of the Golden Path.
But would my master be able to solve this riddle, set by Gyoja several hundred years before? There was a key – so clearly the successful interpreting of the riddle would lead to a locked door of some kind. Somewhere in the temple? Or someplace hidden outside?
I thought back on the riddle, for I’d memorized the words, but it seemed entirely bereft of meaning. What had been written on the first two scrolls was almost simple in comparison. And I knew that my master had still not guessed its meaning – far from it. I could almost sense the frustration welling up inside of him as he turned those words over and over in his mind, although his expression remained customarily impassive.
The day passed slowly, what with my master saying next to nothing and there being no one else to talk to. I even attended the afternoon service, as though seeking a little light relief. Finally there was dinner, and then we returned to our room to rest. Which was when, quite unexpectedly, my master said suddenly to me –