by Steve Bein
“Oh no,” he said, and his eyes shot up to the scarred rafter. His sympathy for the rafter startled Daigoro. The peacock studied Glorious Victory’s edge, then the ceiling again, then the steel. “Oh, thank the gods. I didn’t blunt the sword.”
Daigoro looked at him in horror. Until now he hadn’t realized the depths of Shichio’s depravity. This man felt more for works of art than he did for human beings.
The same horror showed in Oda’s eyes. “Lord Kumanai, the boy is right,” he said. “Cut him loose and make him kneel. If he’s too cowardly to open his belly, I’ll behead him for you. But this … this is no way to kill a samurai.”
“Oh, but our Bear Cub isn’t a samurai, is he? Okuma Daigoro—now there was a samurai if ever there was one. But this whelp? Look at him. Does he shave his pate? No. Does he fight honorably? No. He comes dressed as a woman. Even now the smears of face paint linger, despite all the sweat and blood. He looks like a ghost.”
Shichio returned to the heap in the corner, where Daigoro’s clothes and armor were strewn. Lying atop the pile was Daigoro’s wakizashi, until Shichio kicked it across the room. The sight was more than Daigoro could bear. That was an Okuma blade. It once belonged to Daigoro’s father, and to his grandfather before him. Now this peacock had sullied it with his foot.
Shichio kicked it again. “What makes a samurai? The topknot and swords, neh?”
“Honor,” said Daigoro.
“Well, yes,” Shichio said, “that too. If you count a reign of terror as honorable. You’ll forgive me; I’ve only been samurai for a month. I haven’t quite worked out which acts of butchery our honor code permits.”
He kicked the sword again, rolling it toward Daigoro’s feet. “I understand the bit about the swords, though. Only samurai are allowed to wear the daisho. So if you’re not samurai, this wakizashi of yours is illegal, isn’t it? Yes. Yes, I think it is.”
Glorious Victory rose and fell. It sheared right through Daigoro’s wakizashi and into the tatami. The Inazuma was unharmed, but the Okuma blade lay in severed halves. Daigoro felt it as bitterly as if Shichio had cut off his arm.
“There,” Shichio said. “I have two swords and you do not. I have a surname and you do not. I have lands, and lordship, and this ghastly topknot. What does it matter which one of us has honor? I am samurai forever more. You will die a common criminal.”
Daigoro could stand no more. He pulled at his bonds but only succeeded in digging the ropes deeper into his wrists. Shichio enjoyed the show. He left Glorious Victory stuck in the floor, jutting up like the mast of a listing shipwreck. Stepping gingerly around it, he came to stand at Daigoro’s side. Then, in a sickening act of kindness, he caressed Daigoro’s cheek.
It was a lover’s caress. Daigoro pulled his head away, but there was only so far he could go. “My dear boy,” Shichio said. “We’re just getting started. These bonds will slow your bleeding considerably. And you’re a tough one, neh? Yes, you are. This could take until morning.”
Shichio drew Hideyoshi’s wakizashi again, and laid it against a strangled bulge of muscle just above Daigoro’s armpit. The blade was so close that Daigoro could see his panicked breaths misting on it. He watched as the blade glided smoothly through skin and sinew. Dark blood spilled from the wound, steaming on his skin. The sight made him gag.
He was not alone. Even Shichio seemed sick. Lord Oda actually ran from the room, his torch guttering loudly. He retched in the darkness. The sound redoubled Daigoro’s urge to vomit.
“Samurai!” Shichio said with a snort. “Savages and hypocrites, that’s all you are. Ask you to kill a thousand unarmed monks and you set about it with a will. But make it one of your own kind and it’s a different story, isn’t it? Render you unarmed, render you helpless, and all of a sudden the bloodletting is ‘dishonorable.’ Neh? Only now does it make you sick.”
“You too,” said Daigoro. “I can see it. You’re turning green. I guess you’re one of us after all.”
Shichio slapped him. “No! And … and yes.” His head sagged, pulled down by the mask. It was as if the mask had doubled in weight—and perhaps it had, not physically but morally. He was a different man wearing it. The pettiness was gone, replaced with a thirst for blood. He gripped his sword like a half-starved dog clamping down on stolen food. His whole body spoke of desperation.
“It is wrong,” Shichio said. “I know it is. And yet …”
“Take the mask off,” Daigoro said softly. “Free yourself of it.” And then free me so we can fight like men, he thought.
“No!” Shichio snarled, baring his teeth. “I will not take orders from you. Command me again and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
“Do it,” Daigoro said. Better to drown in his own blood than to die one slice at a time. “I command it.”
Shichio took another piece out of him, just to show he could. Daigoro heard a grunt of dismay and realized Oda had returned. He hadn’t noticed before, which meant Oda must have doused his torch before coming inside. If he was to be a spectator to Daigoro’s torment, perhaps he did not want to see quite so vividly.
“Lord Oda,” Daigoro said, “look at the man you’ve taken sides with. He is a monster. You know this—and you are better than this. Remember your pride, my lord. Remember you are samurai.”
“Silence!” Shichio raised his sword as if to open Daigoro’s throat. Daigoro welcomed it; anything was better than dying piece by severed piece. “You killed his son! Have you forgotten?”
“No,” Daigoro said. “I remember. I took his son. I took his livelihood. But no man can take your honor, Lord Oda. Your enemies can take everything else from you, but you give up your honor of your own free will.”
He wished he could see Oda, to know whether his words had any effect. He could hear the man’s breathing, but Oda stood somewhere out of sight. Daigoro had little ability to look for him, for he could not move his head freely—not without cutting himself on Shichio’s razor-sharp sword.
“What’s this?” Shichio said. A smile spread behind those iron fangs. “Is that fear I see? Yes it is. You don’t like the look of my blade, do you?”
He took it back as if to sheathe it, then raised it so its tip hovered just in front of Daigoro’s right eyeball. It edged ever closer, until at last Daigoro’s eyelash brushed the very point of it, freeing a drop of blood that melted into Daigoro’s eye.
“I would scoop that eye right out of your head,” Shichio said, “if only I didn’t want you to see what comes next—”
He cut himself short. His sword fell mercifully away as Shichio sniffed the air. “What is that? Do you smell it?”
Daigoro did. Wood smoke. Now that the sword no longer dominated his attention, he noticed an orange glow in the back of the teahouse. It could not be approaching torches; the light was too low to the ground, and also much too loud. Daigoro could hear it crackling.
“Fire!” Oda said. “My lord, look!”
Shichio wheeled around just in time to see the flames crawl into the teahouse. A cold breeze came in off the water; the flames drank deeply of it, then sprang up the walls. They cloyed to the rafters and danced across the tatami. The heat was enough to beat back the breeze, filling the air with smoke.
“How?” Shichio said. “How is this possible?”
“The black powder,” said Oda. “It smolders sometimes. This damned wind must have rekindled it. My lord, this teahouse is over a hundred years old. Its timbers are as dry as an old wasp’s nest. We must go.”
Shichio twisted around like a snake, looking at Daigoro. He eyed the ropes binding Daigoro’s wrists and ankles, then looked back at the fire. Already the blaze had begun to blacken the ceiling. “Yes,” he said. “This will do nicely.”
47
Shichio had never seen a fire spread so fast. Already it had claimed three of the four walls for its own. It must have crawled along the outside of the teahouse before it ever ventured indoors, yet somehow it had gone undetected. Ah, yes, he thought. The breeze. That was
the culprit. It had fended off the smell of smoke, and probably eddied behind the teahouse to fan the flames.
His only route of escape was to leap from the teahouse into the pool. His feet slipped on the slate when he landed, slamming him onto his tailbone. Oda followed, equally graceless, holding his swords high so he would not land on them. Shichio realized he should have done the same, then noticed Hashiba’s wakizashi was still in his hand, naked and gleaming. The pool had washed all the gore away.
He looked up and saw the Bear Cub wriggling like a worm on a hook. It was no use; he was bound fast. Shichio hoped the wind would keep the boy from choking to death on the smoke. Usually that was how people died if you burned them. But if the breeze stayed steady, the flames would take their fill of him before he died.
Shichio had burned buildings before. People too. He’d put his own village to the torch, and had watched from a distance when Hashiba razed a Jodo Shin temple that harbored a suspected Ikko Ikki rabble-rouser. He’d never heard of black powder setting off a blaze like this, but he did know the stuff was fickle. A single fire arrow could kill an entire musket platoon if it pierced the right barrel.
Shichio shuffled awkwardly to shore, moving distractedly because he did not want to peel his attention away from the Bear Cub. Already the whelp grunted and cursed. The squeals would come soon. Then there would be noises piteous enough to turn Shichio’s stomach, sounds so inhuman that there were no words to describe them. They would float all the way to the top of the cliff, leaving that old ronin with the choice to burn them into his memory or throw himself over the precipice, to deafen his ears forever.
Shichio looked up there, and was rewarded with the orange glimmer of firelight on armor. His mask could see the ronin’s swords, and a clutch of arrowheads too. That sort of thing was hard to make out by daylight, but at night the mask’s vision was clearer.
Relishing in the mask’s second sight brought to mind that brief moment of satiety, the one he’d felt just as his fingers closed around Glorious Victory Unsought. The mask and the sword were born for each other. Shichio knew it the moment he first touched the sword, right after watching Oda kick the Bear Cub in the back of the head. That was a delight to see, but not half as satisfying as the touch of Inazuma steel. As soon as his fingers curled around its grip, the mask’s hunger was gone. Sated. Fulfilled.
It had stayed that way while Shichio tied up the boy, and if it began to stir, he had only to touch Glorious Victory and—
“No!”
He surprised himself with his ferocity. Oda jumped too. “The sword!” Shichio screamed. “Glorious Victory! It’s still inside!”
He could not believe he’d forgotten it. The flames were so hot, the threat of pain so near. And his moment of triumph was at hand. The Bear Cub, helpless before him. Fear and exultation, swelling so swiftly that they drowned out even the mask. Now it shrieked at him, biting at his mind with cruel iron fangs.
“It’s priceless,” he sobbed. “That beautiful, beautiful sword …”
Oda Tomonosuke grimly presented his daisho to Shichio. “Here,” he said.
“Fool! You think these shoddy, rust-bitten—”
Oda punched them into Shichio’s chest, so he had no choice but to take them. “They are not for you,” Oda said, his voice like ice. “I am going to get your sword.”
Shichio looked at the blaze, which was bright enough now that the waterfall itself had become a fountain of yellow light. The wind had died and black smoke roiled from under the teahouse roof. Shichio could not see the whelp, but he could hear wheezes, coughs, and cries. No sane man could possibly set foot in that inferno.
Oda shed his belt, then his hakama, leaving his legs naked. He kept his kosode, but slipped his arms out of the sleeves so he wore it like a cape. He strode into the pool, the heavy fabric floating behind him like a shadow until at last it absorbed enough water to sink. Halfway to the teahouse, he dove under the surface, the long garment vanishing behind him like the tail of a sea dragon. The dragon emerged just where the teahouse veranda hung over the water. Oda pulled himself up in one smooth motion, hiked the sodden kosode all the way over his head, and crawled into the flames.
*
His father had taught him never to cry, but tonight Daigoro failed his father.
The smoke chewed at his eyes with hot, stinging teeth. Its claws would tear out his throat if he let them, but the air was too hot to breathe. He wanted to simply squeeze his eyes and lips shut and wait bravely for the end, but his body betrayed him. It would not allow him that dignity. So he bucked and twisted, and only managed to grind blood-soaked ropes against raw skin. He thought his skin was already as hot as it could get without actually catching fire, but the raw patches burned hotter still. It was as if the flames could smell his blood. They had a taste for it.
At last he could hold his breath no longer. He inhaled through his nose and singed both nostrils. It was not enough air. He inhaled through his mouth and burned his throat. Now the smoke shoved its fist down his gullet. Coughing expelled what little breath he had left. He grew faint. His legs gave out. He sagged from his tormented shoulders; he’d long since lost feeling in his hands and wrists. So much the better; at least they would not make him suffer when they burned.
A black devil crept across the floor. Daigoro did not know what else to call it. It clambered out of the smoke, shapeless and steaming, faintly reminiscent of a manta ray. Then it sprouted a human hand. The hand seized Glorious Victory Unsought by the grip and ripped her out of the floor. The devil rose to its full height and enveloped Daigoro in blackness.
Cold, wet fabric pressed against Daigoro’s forehead. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever felt. He risked taking a breath, and though the air remained hot and foul, it was not quite so cruel as before. Daigoro closed his eyes, relishing the cold before the fire sapped it away. When he opened his eyes again, to his great surprise he found himself face-to-face with Oda Tomonosuke.
Oda had draped the two of them under a sodden blanket—or something like that, anyway; Daigoro’s head was spinning too fast to make sense of everything. He was only sure that he was still alive, and that he had Oda to thank for that. But instead of thanking him, all Daigoro could say was, “Why?”
“Honor.”
Daigoro did not understand. Oda fixed him with eyes hotter than the fire. “You were right. I could not stand by and let him kill you. Not like that.”
“So you …”
“Set fire to the house. Yes.”
Daigoro struggled to make sense of that. Oda had left holding a torch and come back without it. He’d stayed by Shichio’s side long enough to see Daigoro bound hand and foot, but left as soon as he saw what Shichio had in store for him. Had he stayed out of sight long enough to set the building ablaze? Daigoro couldn’t remember. He’d lost all sense of time.
As those thoughts swam confusedly in Daigoro’s mind, a careful swipe with Glorious Victory freed his legs. His bonds had strangled all feeling out of his feet, and now they were not strong enough to hold his weight. Oda learned that as soon as he cut Daigoro’s hands free. Together they fell to the tatami, and for the first time in an eternity, Daigoro caught a breath of clean air.
Raw heat pummeled him from above. Blinding light seared his eyes even through lids pinched tight. Then the world grew dark and wet, and if not cool, then at least not hot enough to kill. Daigoro opened his eyes to see Oda turtled above him, taking shelter under the wet cloth. “The sword comes with me,” Oda said. “As do you. We will fight, with no interference from that simpering pansy. You will kill me or I will kill you. That is how this ends.”
“Agreed.” No one had ever struck a fairer deal. “Oda-sama, I once asked you if you are a samurai or a coward with a topknot. You have proved your mettle, my lord. Let no man call any Oda a coward.”
Oda scowled. He had no patience for praise from the boy who had killed his son. “Can you stand?”
Daigoro tried and failed. “Soon, I think.”<
br />
“Make it sooner.”
Outside their dark little world, the fire roared like a dragon. Something heavy moaned like a falling tree. Whatever it was, it cracked, and then the whole floor shuddered. Flying embers pelted Daigoro’s legs, and he realized he could feel his feet again.
He curled himself into a ball under Oda’s huddled form. His feet were shot through with pins and needles, incapable of supporting his weight. He decided they did not need to. He gave Oda a nod, then got to his elbows and knees and crawled toward the pool. Oda moved with him, a human turtle shell.
Another moan and a crack, this time without warning. Something crashed down, slamming Oda in the back. He fell to his knees and knocked Daigoro flat. Then the whole damned roof came down.
*
When the roof caved in, it sent ten thousand fireflies swarming into the night. The flaming ruin belched forth a wall of heat that struck Shichio hard enough to stagger him. Shielding his face, he looked up to see a black form flying from the blaze. It streamed smoke and embers behind it, and it hissed when it struck the surface of the pool.
The sea dragon. Lord Oda. He’d made it after all.
Shichio gaped unblinking at the cold, black water, waiting for Oda to surface. Yellow and orange rippled across the water. No one emerged.
With the power of the mask Shichio could see a luminescent line glowing like a long, curved ember under the water. Glorious Victory Unsought. It had to be. It rested at the bottom of the pool, lying perfectly still for a very long time. Had Oda dropped it? No; if he’d survived, Shichio should have seen him surface by now. More likely he’d drowned with it—better than burning to death, Shichio supposed—and now his stubborn dead samurai hand still clutched the heavy sword like a chain fixed to an anchor.
No matter. Shichio knew how to swim. For anyone else, finding the sword in ink-black water would have been impossible, but Shichio’s mask would show him the way. But—wait. Was it moving? Yes. He would not have to go to the sword after all. It would come to him.