So simple, then. They knew nothing they ought not to have known. I was not walking through an already-told tale. I was myself, and no other, not the storm-seed, not the flesh-cased man. I should have known how empty they would prove.
“I have resolved already to kill it, and wed the last girl it seized, if she is still alive. It is only that I cannot find the beast. And I have been distracted by . . . family matters.”
“Of course, Storm-Lord! But why would a god marry a poor farm girl?” asked one of the bound novices, his voice thin and chirping as an insect.
“All things must eventually mate,” I shrugged, “having been cast into a man’s flesh I must do as flesh does. And it hardly matters whether one mates with a woman or a rock or a river—the end result is the same. Once all the world wed stones and trees—but this is a degenerate age, and no one keeps to tradition.”
The abbot spoke again among his bright-robed brothers. “The serpent has been quiet of late, but it is easy to spot, for in the last year terrible trees have sprouted from its back, and it drags a train of black, clotted blood behind it like a bridal veil.”
“But where?” I cried, and curled my fists, “no one can tell me where it drags its bloody belly, where these trees grow!”
Stroking his beads like a girl brushes her hair, the abbot pursed his lips. “The last time I heard its cries was outside of Hiroshima.”
“The city,” I said heavily.
“Yes, the city, the city,” the monks nodded eagerly, “now let us go!”
“Everyone points me towards that reeking, wasted city. I do not wish to go there, I do not wish it!” I suppressed the urge to stamp my feet and tear my hair. Instead, I simply turned my head to one side and then the other, worrying the serpent in my mind like an old bone.
“Do you make the eight-times-brewed wine in this shrine?” I asked suddenly with a voice like a crow.
“Yes . . . yes,” answered the novice, confused, “we have some barrels left, but the brewing season is long past.”
“If you will bring eight barrels, and a quantity of sacred camphor wood, I will let you go—but you must come with me into Hiroshima, which stinks of meat and bodies, and do as I say.”
The monks wept then, certainly, and shook their knots, and swore they would obey me, whatever I should ask.
“Wait,” I whispered, “before we leave—do you know, do you also know where the entrance to the Root-Country is, the path down into Ne no Kuni?”
After a long silence, the abbot folded his hands in his lap.
“No, my lord. No man knows that.”
EIGHT
Call us Monster. Call us Leech. Call us Daughter.
We smelled it first. The scents came looping and spinning up through the banyan-roots and into the little clearing where we lay in our cradle of blood, and it smelled, oh, it smelled like warm rice and pickled eyes, it smelled like cassia and persimmon, it smelled like jellyfish thin as breath.
And it smelled like Kazuyo-that-was.
And it smelled like Kameko-who-laughed.
And it smelled like Kiyomi-who-wept.
And it smelled like the Kaya-bird.
And it smelled like Kyoko-who-was-plain.
And it smelled like Koto-who-had-no-story.
And it smelled like Kaori-who-waited-outside-the-door.
And it smelled of Hiruko-who-wailed-for-its-mother.
And it smelled like Kushinada, Kushinada, who tasted of tea.
It smelled like ourselves, and we were drawn to it.
Of course, under that we could smell you, brother—even in your new skin you smell of scorched air and boiling water. But the other smells—the other smells were better smells, and we have wanted better things. It is not that we were fooled, or befuddled. We were fed all our life on eyes: there is nothing we do not see.
We came down after it, down the grassy hillocks and the forest chasms, and our back rolled and creaked like a ship under the weight of flowering trees—but in the reflections of the puddles and paddies we thought ourselves beautiful, and our blood was so red, so red. And we saw the city of Hiroshima, and the river delta, and the sun on the water—and oh! The manifold fence! Out of red and smoke-scented woods a fence had been thrown up, and in it were eight doors, and each door was thrown open as though you were expecting us for festival, brother, as if you welcomed us. Just beyond each door were eight pearl-lined bowls, and each bowl was filled with rice-wine eight-times-brewed. They were laid out so carefully, so sweetly, that we thought—forgive us!—for a moment, that you knew us, and wanted to drink to ghosts among family.
Was it not clever of him, to lay out such well-crafted dishes? I think there has never been anyone so clever as he.
We bend our heads, ducking under the lip of the eight-fold fence, crossing the threshold, threaded as through an ornate needle. Blood pools beneath us—we do not notice. Its warmth has become familiar as a hand. We look hopefully for our brother, to greet us, to toast our health. There is no one; the city below is quiet. Not far from here Kushinada was born in the witness of a fish; not far from here Susanoo-no-Mikoto descended from the rage-blind fire of heaven, the fire which blanches all things to bones. We thought we could still see the afterimage of that fire still laid over the streets, a scald in our vision—but perhaps it is nothing, nothing, perhaps it is a trick of the sunlight, and the wine, which drinks up the gold and throws it up into our eyes like a column of flame.
We look again for our brother-who-is-not-our-brother—the genealogy is muddy, now that we are ourself and no longer a leech and eight girls—we put on our best and most practiced smile like a festival dress. Come see us, come see that we grew up to be beautiful, after all.
There is no one.
The rice-wine smells of fish-eyes, and salt.
It will not hurt, certainly, if we drink a bit before he comes.
He would not begrudge us wet throats.
X
HIROSHIMA
The wretched, stupid thing drank itself into stupor. Its heads lolled on the grass as I approached, looking up at me with great dark eyes, its translucent eyelids opening and closing weakly over sixteen dark irises. It tried to raise each head, one after the other, and let them fall with a heavy slap onto the dirt road beyond the manifold fence. Spittle dribbled from its mouths. It was pitiful; it could hardly moan. Stinking blood ran in arm-thick rivulets from its prone belly, and on its back grew a tangled, stunted forest of trees whose flowers, too, were streaked with bloody muck—in among the ruin there might have been sprigs of cassia, but who could tell? I ran my hands over the massive body, through the thin trunks and the dripping belly. The skin beneath was silver, flushed with blue and gold, rose and green, iridescent as that of a snail.
It was helpless as an infant, unable to stand, and I could smell, still, the skin of Kushinada on its breath.
The monks crowded around, prodding the beast, awe-struck at its size and nearness, this thing they had feared for so long. They tugged at the eight tails, even tasted the oozing blood, and plucked limbs from the forest of its spine. The abbot put a decrepit sword into my hand, the ceremonial blade of their shrine, hardly sharp enough to cut lard. But even below the cellars of heaven, my arms are strong.
I walked to the first head, and in the late afternoon light, the eyes seemed to struggle, the lid seemed to draw aside like pale curtains, and its mouth seemed to protest. With that blunted sword I hewed into the gray-green flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a shriek:
/Is this how the snot-born earns back his godhead? He slurps us, oh, we are his soup!/
I walked to the second head, and hewed into the silver-blue flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a rattle:
(Is this how the unloved child punishes the only one less loved than he? He chews us, oh, we are his gristle!)
&nb
sp; I walked to the third head, and hewed into the pearl-gold flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a scream:
—Is this how the suitor greets his bride? He buys us, oh, we are his prize!—
I walked to the fourth head, and hewed into the nacreous flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a hiss:
{Is this how the dog shows its dam its adulation? He gnaws us, oh, we are his bone!}
I walked to the fifth head, and hewed into the bruise-violet flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a sigh:
|Is this how a cloud shows the sun its strength? He hides us, oh, we are his crime!|
I walked to the sixth head, and hewed into the tarnished opal flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a howl:
[Is this how the hero defeats his dragon? He cuts us, oh, we are his supper!]
I walked to the seventh head, and hewed into the watery flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a shudder:
*Is this how family honors family? He stains us, oh, he stains us, we are nothing to him! No, please, Susanoo, let me stay, let me live beside you, as Mother meant—*
I walked to the eighth head, and hewed into the worm-slick flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a maddened cry:
“Please, oh, please, I am afraid! The jellyfish, the jellyfish—I can’t see! The jellyfish crowd overhead!”
I opened the last neck and lodged there, as though she had just been swallowed, was the body of Kushinada, laid into the green-black flesh like a gem set into a box. She was as beautiful as they promised, her hair wrapping her body, strands sticking in the pooled blood, her pale and perfect face streaked with bile and slime. She lay clutching the length of the serpent’s gnarled spine with all her strength, her arms and legs clasped around it, weeping piteously.
“No, no, Kameko, Kazuyo! Kaya, Kiyomi, my sisters! Kyoko, Kaori, Koto! Come back, come back, Hiruko, please, it is cold out here, I am alone, I am alone, we said we would none of us be alone again. Come back!”
I pulled her from her throat-crèche, pulled her out of that wreckage of blood and tissue as a midwife pulls a child from a dead mother, and she trembled beautifully in my arms. I brushed her hair from her face, tenderly and dear.
“You are not alone, Kushinada. I am here, and I have saved you.”
But she kept weeping, soft as a mouse, and shaking her head, whimpering:
“No, no.”
It became tiresome.
I gave her over to the monks to clean and comfort, for a thing had caught my eye. Kushinada—jewel among maidens!—had clung to the serpent’s spine as though it would save her. It gleamed white as a tooth in the slough, the vertebrae knobbled and arched almost in the shape of a sword. I knelt in the sodden grass and pulled the bone from the muscle, ligaments popping and cartilage cracking as it came free. With the blunt and heavy edge of the abbot’s sword I hacked at the length of it until it shone with a terrible edge, and a hilt which as so bright and pale as to seem nearly hewn out of diamond.
I sweated in the deepening twilight, but I was proud of my work. I gave the blade a flourish and with one blow halved the trunks of eight tall weeds sprouting from the serpent’s corpse. Kushinada gave a sharp yelp like a kicked cat, and fell to her knees, tears steaming on her perfect cheeks.
“That is the flesh of my sisters, flesh of my flesh, bone of our body!”
“No,” I answered her, “it is mine, I have made it, it is fine, and I will call it Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword.”
I brandished the sword again, and put it into the hands of the abbot.
“Take this to the temple of my sister, Ama-Terasu. Give it to her priests and her cawing roosters, and perhaps the old wretch will make white-haired boys out of it this time. And perhaps she will forgive me the Piebald Colt, who was a good beast, after all.”
The abbot nodded and folded up his relic, fading into the city streets, as monks are wont to do.
Kushinada and I were alone in the flotsam of the eight-headed serpent. The sun was almost gone, but still glittered redly behind flax-clouds. Kushinada sat in the grass, her naked form covered in blood like a dress, holding one of the severed heads in her lap, crooning at it and rocking back and forth.
I watched her for a long while, and smelled with some interest the metallic tang of death hovering over the manifold fence. Is that, I wondered, what Mother’s hair will smell like?
“I have solved it,” I called to my bride, “I know now the path to Ne no Kuni, and all because of this brainless drunkard of a snake.”
Kushinada wept into the mottled head.
“Would you like to know it? Your husband-to-be is the cleverest of all possible men—will it please you to hear how I have solved this puzzle?”
Kushinada sniffled like a child, and wiped at her bloodied face with bloodied hands. She said nothing.
“You see,” I said softly, sitting gingerly next to her as one will sit next to a feral cat one hopes to pet, “I descended not far from here, my first footprints on the earth made their impressions in the dust of Hiroshima and Izumo, and Yasugi and Mt. Hiba. I descended and was made a man, and from that moment I could not find my way into Yomi, the land of shadows.”
I turned her face towards me, and the whites of her eyes showed.
“I could not find my way, you understand, because I am a man. No man knows the way. But sitting in all this blood, stepping through the corpse-geography of the serpent of Izumo as my father must have stepped through my mother in the light of his comb, I have solved it: I may go to her as easily as any man, if I am willing to die for her. Who can go into the kingdom of the dead while he is living? Only my father, first of all things that trespassed, and I am not he.”
Kushinada’s eyes searched mine. “Then . . . then you will let me go?”
I laughed. “Oh, no, you are promised to me—I will die, I will go to the slopes of Mt. Hiba and I will go down into the earth, I will claw the roof of hell until mother lets me in, I will eat earth, I will eat loam and clay until I choke, and she will take me in, and I will become in her primordial womb my old self, crowned in clouds. I will rule beside her in the kingdom of the dead, and when I have shed this flesh I will come back for you.”
She crumbled into my lap; her legs tangled in the jaws of the snakehead, and shuddered. “You are neither old nor young, handsome nor ugly; you are neither man nor god, you are neither alive nor dead, and after all this, after all this, I will be the only one of us taken to wife.”
I patted her head comfortingly. “It will not be so bad, my love, my love—when I am myself again I will turn you into a beautiful jeweled comb, so that you can come into the land of the dead while you yet live, as my father brought his comb. And I will place you in my headdress, and your teeth will lie close to my scalp, always, so that I know you are there, and that you love me. And every now and then, a jewel will fall from its setting, and those jewels will be our children, and they will grow up to be wonders: your rubies will be samurai and your sapphires will be court poets, your emeralds will be concubines and your diamonds will be magicians, and your silver will be empresses, and your gold will be emperors. They will fall like colored rain onto the radiant flesh of Izanami, and everyone will marvel at the glittering children of Kushinada!”
The mother of all emperors bent double on the wet earth, clutched her belly and opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came, nothing came but spittle and strangled gasps, and then she began that tiresome rocking, rocking and crooning.
I left her there, kissed h
er forehead like a dutiful husband, and told her I would return. I walked away from the manifold fence with a straight back and a cool brow—I looked back only once to see her with two of the massive, broken heads barely contained within her skinny arms, kissing their gory skin and sobbing.
The guttering sparks of the sun lay over Hiroshima far below, and I thought—only for a moment—that, as if I had already walked there, already eaten and drunk and slept and wakened there, I could see my footprints flaming over the city, burning white and sere, like an afterimage, and a hot wind followed after them.
XI
YOMI
“Mother!” he called to the bloody-flowered acacia.
“Mother!” he called to the top-knots of snow.
“Mother!” he called to the stones from the barrels of earth.
And it was the stones that answered.
“Here,” they murmured in their grinding, “here.”
Susanoo-no-Mikoto pushed stone aside from stone, slate from shale.
“Here,” they sighed, and moved from their loam, “here.”
He clawed at the mud, tearing thick furrows in the ground.
“Mother!” he wheezed, falling onto his face, beating his fists against the soil.
And in the long shadows of the night whose shape the sun cannot guess, the black earth closed her arms over her son.
UNDER
IN THE
MERE
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutched the sword,
And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
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