The Ennin Mysteries: Collected Series 1 – 5 (25 Stories) MEGAPACK

by Ben Stevens

  The Demon King did not even look at me.

  ‘Perhaps you would care to silence your servant, Ennin,’ he said, staring at my master, ‘before I have one of my samurai do so…’

  My master raised one hand at me, his gaze never leaving the Demon King, and I said no more.

  ‘You could be executed for having killed your opponent with a foul strike,’ declared Jubei then, ‘but I am prepared to be merciful. One more fight, Ennin – one more. Against an opponent I shall again choose. To take place in exactly… three days’ time.’

  This was ludicrous. Already, ugly, mottled bruising was showing on my master’s chest. I suspected that several of his ribs were cracked or even broken.

  Yet my master nodded, and replied –

  ‘I will fight whoever you choose.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Demon King, emitting a slight burst of ugly laughter, ‘Whoever…’

  What he meant by this last word I had no idea; in any case, my master said then –

  ‘I will go to a mountainside near here, to train. My servant will remain in this castle, as a guarantee that I will return.’

  ‘I need no guarantee, Ennin – I know you are a man of your word, at least,’ said Jubei, still showing that slight, cruel smile. ‘Yet your servant may remain here. Three days, Ennin – three days. And be careful in the mountains around here – there are bears up there…’

  The expression on the feared daimyo’s face – until now cold and cruel – showed perfectly the confusion felt by everyone present (including myself), as my master then replied –

  ‘Bears, my lord? Oh, but I hope there are. I really do…’

  4

  My meals were brought to me in the tiny room I’d been allocated within the castle. But I ate little, my mind too aflame with worry and questions to allow for much appetite. Who was my master to fight so soon – and how could this mysterious opponent possibly be any worse than the nightmare he’d killed by punching it in its throat?

  After my master had agreed to another fight, he’d left the Great Hall, giving me just a look. All the world’s defiance had continued to show in his face, despite the beating he’d received before he’d finally managed to end the thing’s life. But with such injuries as he’d undoubtedly received – cracked and possibly even broken ribs, and whatever else – how could he hope to fight anyone in just three days’ time?

  It was then, as I sipped a little of the warm sake that had been given to me along with the meal I’d barely touched, that I reached a decision. Whoever this next opponent was, I vowed, I’d do what I should have done against that hideous creature who’d so cruelly injured my master before – by some miracle – my master had managed to destroy it.

  I’d secretly produce my knife, then leap out and stab my master’s opponent. He was in no fit state to fight – the whole situation was ludicrous. The Demon King clearly desired just one thing and that was my master’s destruction. And just what opponent had Jubei lined up for my master on this coming occasion, after that half-human beast he’d apparently succeeded in dragging up from hell itself…?

  Small wonder, I thought, that this daimyo was in fact called the ‘Demon King’…

  …Yes – come what may, I’d leap out with my knife and save my master from whatever unimaginable horror he had to face next.

  I’d save his life – just as he had once saved mine…

  My mind flashed back, to that time several years ago now… When I’d fallen from being a reasonably prosperous trader to what is euphemistically known as a ‘night-soil man’ – that is, someone who empties human waste from the latrines of communal toilets and also those private bathrooms of the well-to-do.

  It was about the only job I was capable of doing, having lost my wife and infant daughter to a virulent fever that had swept through our town approximately a year before. This fever had also caused me to become dangerously ill; yet I alone had recovered. Not that I was grateful for this – in fact, not a day went past that I did not wish for death.

  My job, my previous wealth… All was lost as I left the area where I’d been born, brought up, inherited a prosperous business from my father and then had started to raise a small family of my own.

  Now I lurched around in the darkness, clad in a filthy kimono, sipping secretly from the flask of cheap sake I always carried and yelling out –

  ‘Night-soil man! Night-soil man!’

  And every so often someone (a servant to a wealthy person or family, usually) would call out –

  ‘Over here, please,’ and I would oblige, using a ladle to empty the pit of their latrine into the large wooden bucket I carried, receiving in return the few coins it took to maintain my squalid, miserable existence.

  But one evening I’d drunk a little more than usual. So it was that as I walked, carrying my bucket full nearly to the brim with human excrement, I tripped and fell over – straight into the path of two ronin.

  The contents of the bucket splashed straight across their geta and the lower part of their legs. The master-less samurai cried out in disgust and anger – and then set about letting me know of their displeasure in no uncertain way.

  They were beating me to death; again and again their feet and fists crashed into my face and head. I believe they didn’t use their swords only because it would have been too quick – they intended to really make me suffer for having splashed them with...

  Well – about that I’ve said already.

  As I began to lose consciousness because of their blows, both men suddenly gave a muffled grunt and collapsed down beside me. Then I felt myself being hoisted onto someone’s shoulder; and then that someone was running like the wind, cutting quickly through the darkness in spite of the weight of my body.

  We left whatever town it was I had been working in (really, I’d not even taken note of the name), and were now heading up a bamboo-covered mountainside. And then the inside of a hut, like that which a hermit might choose to construct.

  And it was in this hut, on top of a rough bed, that I was nursed back to health over the next few weeks. I’d been beaten so badly that my face was very swollen, so that I could barely slurp down the hot, nutritious broth and tea which the tall, lithe man who curtly introduced himself as ‘Ennin’ frequently gave me.

  Other than that he said little, and was frequently absent for hours on end. When I was well enough I got up from my bed, and walked around outside the hut – for the hut itself was scarcely big enough for one person, let alone two.

  It was, as I say, in the middle of a bamboo forest, and naturally had been constructed from such materials as you might expect to find in such a place. There was a narrow river flowing nearby, beautifully cool and clear. I bathed in it one day, starring up at the swaying tops of the thick green bamboo and the sky discernible in patches above.

  Incredibly, I felt somehow renewed – I still often thought of my wife and daughter yet, somehow, the pain was not quite so overwhelming as it had been before, when the only way of dealing with it had been to keep sipping at the sake flask always in my possession…

  ‘You are well again, I see. You may be on your way, now,’ said the man called Ennin one day, after I had indeed regained sufficient vigor and strength after the violent beating I’d received.

  ‘I wish to stay, to learn from you or serve you in whatever way you see fit,’ I replied; and I almost did not even think of the words before I spoke them. This man called Ennin was clearly some sort of travelling hermit, perhaps a monk, and I had discovered in this short space of time that such a lifestyle appeared to suit myself.

  ‘You can go now!’ retorted the man who would become my master, picking me up bodily and dumping me outside of the hut.

  But there I sat, obstinate. Refusing to move no matter what threats and insults he hurled at me. Somehow I felt that it was almost destiny which had brought me and this rather peculiar-looking man together. I just couldn’t get up and walk away from this hut in the middle of the bamboo forest.


  Once the man called Ennin became so exasperated with my persistence that he again picked me up, carried me to the river – and there hurled me in. But I merely clambered back out of the water, and soaking wet as I was returned to sit outside his hut.

  But it was now late autumn, and getting chilly in the evening. I soon developed a nasty cold. Still I would not move, but as the foggy night descended I frequently gave a hacking cough, my arms wrapped around my still-wet kimono in a futile attempt to instill some warmth into my body.

  Finally – as it began to rain heavily – the rough door to the hut flew open, and the man whom I would shortly come to call ‘master’ stalked out to drag me inside. A small fire of twigs, dried moss and such was boiling water for tea with a soft hissing sound. The rain pattered against the roof of the hut – which fortunately proved waterproof.

  I have said already that this was a small hut. My master and I sat in close proximity, his high cheeks almost gleaming in the fire-illuminated darkness as he said –

  ‘You wish to be in my service? Well, I don’t wish for you to be. But rather than have you die like some stubborn fool outside of this wretched hut in the middle of nowhere, perhaps there is actually a purpose you can serve…’

  And with this, my employment in his service began. The very next day, I assisted my master in stealing back the lifesavings of a poor geisha from an unscrupulous (and powerful) trader who’d professed his love for her, but had only desired the wealth he knew she had hidden. When he’d discovered the location of this fortune, he’d first stolen it before promptly abandoning her.

  As I say, my master succeeded in getting this money back for her. He also refused any reward, having taken pity on the unfortunate woman whose heart was still broken.

  We left the tiny hut after that, beginning our travelling lifestyle together…

  …Yes, I decided there in the tiny room that was situated within the Demon King’s castle – just as my master had saved my life, so it was now up to me to save his.

  I was surprised by a slight tap on the door, and then it slid open. My surprise increased as I saw that it was Takahira, the Demon King’s personal bodyguard, and the man whom my master had beaten earlier just that day, who entered. He was carrying a tray, upon which was some food and another small flask of sake.

  Takahira surely noticed my perplexed expression, for with a slight, rueful smile he said –

  ‘Perhaps you are wondering what the head bodyguard to the Demon King himself is doing, wandering around carrying a tray like a common servant? Well, the answer is that I have been demoted from my post – due of course to my defeat at the hands of your master – and have also been assigned such menial duties as this, doubtless in further punishment.’

  Setting the tray down on a low table, Takahira then looked seriously at me.

  ‘Your master is a fine fighter,’ he declared; then – ‘No, that does not do him justice. Not even slightly. He is an expert fighter; the best I have ever encountered. Never mind the simple fact that he beat me – someone who had never been beaten in his life before, and who served as head bodyguard to the most feared daimyo in the whole of Japan…

  ‘No, never mind that; I am talking about the fact that he beat that creature that did not even have a name, but which was kept down in the castle dungeons for…’

  Takahira suddenly paused, and looked almost shamed. Regardless of his defeat by my master, I reflected right then that he was undoubtedly one of the strongest and toughest men I have ever met. Yet there seemed to be… I don’t know quite how to properly describe it… a decency in him, a sense of compassion, so that I wondered just how he could have occupied such a senior position under a man like the Demon King for so long.

  ‘For what?’ I heard myself asking, in a low tone.

  ‘If you repeat any of our conversation, then I am as good as dead,’ returned Takahira, with a shrug. ‘But I have suffered such a disgrace today – several disgraces – that I question whether I am even fit to continue to be called a samurai…

  ‘Well, you may as well know that the creature your master killed previously existed only in the murky, sprawling dungeons that are located at the very bottom of this castle. Sometimes, if someone had caused my lord Jubei exceptional displeasure, that person was in effect ‘given’ to the creature…

  As he continued to talk, Takahira had trouble meeting my eye –

  ‘As you can imagine, this was a terrible death. I can still hear the screams of some of those men, as that thing smashed them against the stone floor, pillars and walls…’

  I looked away, sickened by what I was hearing. Many daimyo across Japan practice horrendous tortures and methods of execution (I have already described a number of these, in the cases I have written about to date) – yet this was the first time I had ever heard of a monster being used to effectively smash men to death in a castle dungeon.

  And my master had not only defeated but also killed this beast – so just what manner of opponent did the Demon King have in store for him, when my master returned from the mountainside to this castle for his final fight?

  My thoughts naturally prompted my next question to the samurai –

  ‘Just who is my master to fight next, Takahira-san? Tell me that, at least.’

  Takahira shook his head, his expression genuinely troubled.

  ‘I do not know, I swear. I do not know what – who – could be more terrible than that beast my… lord Jubei had transported up from the castle dungeons. Yet if there is such a thing more terrible, he – my lord – will find it…’

  The slight hesitation in Takahira’s voice, before he mentioned the Demon King, seemed to me to show that he disapproved of what his daimyo was doing now.

  ‘I – and many of the other samurai watching the fights – came to respect your master very much. He beat me fairly, and in doing so actually taught me a lesson in humbleness and humility that I’d perhaps needed to learn for quite some time.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, when Takahira finished –

  ‘May Buddha help your master now.’

  ‘Takahira-san – ’ I began.

  ‘No, no – I’ve said far too much already. I must go now,’ returned the samurai, who then left the room, closing the sliding door behind him.

  As the day darkened to night outside, I lit a small lamp and sat brooding. Yes, there was only one possible course of action – to leap to my master’s aid with my knife, the moment I saw just what opponent the Demon King had found for him. For there could not be the slightest doubt that this opponent would be hideous.

  And then…

  Well, it seemed that we – that is, my master and I – would be killed whatever ultimately happened. It was obvious that the Demon King desired nothing less than my master’s total destruction; and so I would also be eradicated, with less consideration being given to my own demise than a man gives when swatting a fly on his arm…

  With such cheerful thoughts flitting through my mind, I finished the flask of sake and settled down upon the futon in an attempt at sleep.

  …Sometime later I awoke, the lamp since extinguished, the room in pitch darkness. The sweat was pouring from my brow, the terrible noise I’d just heard – which had awoken me – reverberating inside my mind.

  Had I even heard it? Had it not just been part of some awful nightmare I’d had? Just the memory of it was threatening to turn my bowels to water. Surely nothing on Earth or even in hell could be capable of making such a – sound…

  No – I was certain now. It hadn’t just been part of some foul nightmare. This… sound… had come from the direction of the mountains situated to one side of the castle. There where my master was currently staying, before he returned to the castle the day after tomorrow. There where (as the Demon King had mockingly informed my master) there were bears…

  There would be not a moment’s more sleep for me tonight. I lay there staring into the darkness, my thoughts – my very guts – in turmoil from that hellish noise I’
d heard coming from the mountains, and also from the certainty that, before too many more hours had passed, my master and I would be dead…

  5

  I was escorted down to join the great mass gathered in the Great Hall. The Demon King was sat before the huge wooden door, samurai kneeling either side of him. I was led to a place nearby – and then my arms were pinned to my side, as a hand roughly felt inside of my kimono.

  ‘What is this?’ I demanded of the samurai performing the search.

  ‘You are hardly discreet in what you write,’ said the Demon King himself, raising his voice so that I could hear as he looked over at me. ‘You mention the knife you always carry in one of your stories – and so I thought, perhaps it would be better if it was taken away from you, lest you might be tempted to use it shortly…’

  As this mocking explanation finished, the samurai searching me found the knife and pulled it out of my kimono. He held it up, so that the Demon King and the several hundred people gathered within the Great Hall could see it.

  ‘Stay by him, to see that he doesn’t try anything foolish,’ ordered the Demon King curtly. I was pushed down to my knees, a samurai warrior on either side of me. Then I happened to catch Takahira’s gaze, the former bodyguard now sat some distance away from Jubei. Takahira’s eyes were sorrowful, his expression weary as he then transferred his attention away from me to instead look at my master.

  My master was stood almost directly in the centre of the Great Hall. Again he was bare-chested, so that everyone could see the ugly purple bruising across one side of his chest. He was unshaven, and there was a wild, almost unholy light in his eyes. I wondered if the mental and physical strain he’d suffered recently, coupled with those few days and nights living rough on a mountainside (and just why he’d decided to do that, I’d not the slightest idea) hadn’t in fact served to unhinge his mind.

  The low babble of conversation abruptly stopped as the Demon King addressed my master. As he spoke, the familiar cruel smile played on Jubei’s lips, and the eyes burnt with obvious anticipation –