Year of the Demon

by Steve Bein

  It took a little work to hide the knife properly, but for once her stump worked to her advantage: her yukata never fit right—the left sleeve was always much too long—and with her teeth and her right hand she found a way to tie the scabbard tightly enough to her stump that she could hide the knife up her empty sleeve.

  By the time Kaida got back to the village, everyone she’d ever known was huddled together on the beach, a dark, whispering mass not far from the Fin. Kneeling and sitting as they were, they looked like a shoal of big, docile birds. The outlanders surrounded them—but only if surround was the right word to use for six people corralling a hundred. As soon as she thought of it that way, Kaida marveled at it. How could six men imprison a whole village? And how could the people she’d grown up with be so utterly cowed by only a handful of outlanders? She had no love for life in Ama-machi, but she did respect many of her neighbors. That respect was ebbing away even as she looked at them.

  She moved cautiously, remembering all too well how easily Genzai and Masa had disabled her, fearing what the outlanders might do if they found her armed. Genzai might believe her if she said the knife was for her stepsisters, not for outlanders, but none of the other outlanders would care. Flitting from the shadow of one house to the next, she got as close as she could to the beach without being seen. In the end she had to sneak into one of the elders’ huts—a grave transgression; she could hardly believe she was bold enough to do it—and peer out the window.

  Genzai marched up to the base of the Fin, holding one end of a long, bulging, rolled-up tarpaulin. The one-eyed hunchback held the other, and Kaida wouldn’t have been surprised if they had a full-grown seal rolled up in there, because it looked unbearably heavy. Genzai was as strong as any man in the village, and the muscles in his arms stood out as if they were about to tear free.

  “We come with an offer,” Genzai announced. As ever, his voice was deep but soft, emotionless but utterly riveting. The villagers strained their necks forward to hear him.

  “There is a shipwreck in the bay, and somewhere deep in the wreckage there is a sword. Its name is Glorious Victory Unsought. No doubt that name means nothing to you. In a place like this its power is meaningless. This is a sword capable of carving out an empire, while your village is no more than a barnacle clinging to the edge of the empire, so far away from anything that matters that you’re not even aware it’s an empire you’re clinging to.”

  He said it without the slightest hint of derision. For him it was a simple observation, and if any villagers took offense to it, Genzai showed no sign of noticing. He spoke to them just as he might have spoken to a cluster of barnacles, Kaida thought.

  Genzai still held his end of the heavy, rolled-up tarpaulin; the tendons in his arm quivered, taut as an anchor line, but he still spoke as if he were sitting calmly on the beach. “Even the dullest of you will already have guessed we have taken our turn at diving on the wreck,” he said. “The brightest of you have already guessed that we have not yet found the sword. I have decided that one of you will find it for us.”

  “Why should we?” said Kaida’s father. Even with a ruined arm, even though his every breath pained him, he was always the first one to defend Ama-machi’s interests. Even though she still felt hurt, Kaida found herself feeling proud of him too. “The Maw is treacherous. Why should we risk our lives for a sword that’s no concern of ours?”

  “Because you’ll be amply rewarded,” said Genzai, and without ceremony he dropped his end of the rolled-up tarpaulin. Gold spilled out like water. And not just gold; jewelry, jade, treasures of every sort Kaida had found and then some. Miyoko gasped with delight. Shioko did too, and a beat later Kiyoko followed suit. Their mother, Cho, had a similar reaction, and she was not alone; at least half of the adults rose halfway to their feet, the better to see the riches gleaming before them.

  Kaida thought it was stupid. What could they buy with all that pretty gold? The sea provided everything needed for life in Ama-machi, and to the best of her knowledge, Kaida was the only one who wanted a life elsewhere.

  “Name your price and you shall have it,” Genzai said, “if you are the one to retrieve the sword.”

  A wave of chittering swelled up among the villagers, but the loudest voice belonged to Kaida’s father. “What price is so great that we can enjoy it in the afterlife? Show us what else you took from the sea yesterday. We saw your friend’s body.”

  That caused chittering of a different tone. “You said it yourself,” Kaida’s father went on. “That sword of yours means nothing to us. We have no intention of risking our daughters for it, and neither will we risk them for you.”

  “A commendable position,” Genzai said. “I salute you.” He scratched behind his beard. “You put me in a difficult position. I told my men any ama village worthy of the name would provide us with good divers, and as you well know, I am a man of my word. So if none of your daughters will dive for us . . . hm. I’ll have broken my word. That won’t do.”

  He folded his legs and sat in the sand beside Kaida’s father. As if speaking to a co-conspirator, his voice so low that Kaida could scarcely hear him, he said, “But I think there may be a way out. If I were to kill every last one of your women, down to the newborn girls, it would no longer be an ama village worthy of the name, would it?”

  Seated as he was, he was vulnerable. The villagers outnumbered the outlanders more than ten to one. And Genzai had just threatened every family among them.

  Kaida felt a crushing surge of shame. Not one of the villagers reacted. They would never have greater provocation to kill this man, the leader of the outlanders. Nor would they ever have a better opportunity. Yet they sat and did nothing. Some even had the temerity to glance at the heap of riches Genzai and his one-eyed henchman had dumped so indifferently at their feet. Now more than ever, Kaida wanted to get away from this place. She could never look her neighbors in the eye again. They were no fiercer than a shoal of sticklebacks: skittish, flighty, impotent even when traveling in huge schools.

  And yet she was proud of her father. He alone stood up to Genzai, and he was the one with the best reason not to. He knew exactly what kind of violence this man was capable of. If she’d ever felt certain about leaving Ama-machi, about leaving her father to his new family, that certainty was crumbling now. Her father would stand up for the whole village, but who would stand up for him?

  She took a deep, tremulous breath and told herself it was her long run, not fear, that made the breath flutter in her throat. Then she stepped out of the elders’ hut and made a straight path toward Genzai. She had never felt so exposed.

  His eyes caught her first. Then he turned to face her, arms folded, the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. She wanted it to be a smile of paternal pride. More likely it was the thrill of anticipation in seeing wounded prey.

  “I will get your sword,” she said, wishing her voice wouldn’t quiver.

  46

  “It’s too heavy,” Cho said, adjusting the demon mask on her face.

  Genzai watched as the one-eyed outlander—Kaida remembered his name was Tadaaki—gave a last tug on the leather ties, undoing the little adjustment Cho had just made to the mask. Tadaaki had bound it to her head tightly, with twice as many ties as were necessary. “What does it do?” Kaida asked.

  She was ignored. “I cannot dive with this,” Cho said. “We put our weights on our feet, not our faces.”

  “Weight is weight,” said Genzai, rocking easily in the prow of the boat. “Diving is diving. Just get the sword.”

  He and Cho weren’t in Kaida’s boat. Their boat was abeam of Kaida’s, in a whole fleet of ama rowboats. All the village women were out, and all the girls of diving age too. They were clothed in light yukata, not naked as they usually went, because usually they spent their time in the water, not cooking in the hot sun in their boats. The outlanders would only allow them to dive one at a time, for they had only one mask.

  The ama boats floated in close company l
ike so much flotsam, rising and falling each in their turn as the waves rolled in. There were not enough outlanders to go around, so Genzai could only man one boat in four with one of his own people. Once again Kaida’s village embarrassed her. In every boat the outlanders were outnumbered, and spread out as they were, none could come to another’s aid—not immediately, anyway, and it didn’t take long to brain someone with an oar.

  Genzai shared his boat with two other outlanders: Tadaaki and the other one she’d seen sitting by the fire two nights ago, the one with the wild, white, wispy mane and the ragged clothing not so different from his hair. He stank of days-old sweat, and his cloth was so tattered that Kaida wondered why he wore it at all; it certainly did nothing in the name of modesty. He made a ceremony of handling the mask, caressing it almost like a lover until Tadaaki took it from him to tie to the next ama. Kaida thought she heard him chanting under his breath, but his hair and beard conspired to cover his mouth and the wind was coming in too strong for her to hear clearly.

  But she could hear Cho well enough. “It is the mask that prevents us from finding your sword,” she told Genzai. “Our way is to let our sandbags carry us down, then let our rowers pull the bags back up. We never swim back up with anything heavier than a catch bag.”

  “Not today. Dive.”

  Cho sighed in defeat. She was the tenth diver of the morning, and the other nine had worked themselves to exhaustion, all with nothing to show for it but a series of failed experiments on how best to dive under these conditions. They’d fastened an anchor line from the prow of Genzai’s rowboat to the widest hole in the carrack’s hull, so that no effort need be spent steering the course of their descent. And they dived with extra sandbags too; the faster the extra weight could bring them down, the more bottom time they’d have for searching. Yet none of them had so much as laid eyes on their quarry.

  “At least let me dive without this silly tether tied to my ankle,” Cho said.

  “No. That mask is one of a kind. We need to be able to pull you back up if you should drown.”

  Cho’s face blanched. Until that moment, Kaida had been a little proud of her—begrudgingly so, to be sure, but she was the first to speak up to Genzai. It was obvious to all of them why these outlanders hadn’t found their sword; they knew nothing about diving. But only Cho had said so, and Kaida thought that bespoke courage.

  But Genzai cowed her with a stare. Cho got in the water and did as she was told, and to no one’s surprise she did not find the sunken sword. She dived again and again came up empty-handed. Kaida watched her as she went down. Cho was as pale and lithe as her eldest daughter, and like Miyoko she swam as gracefully as any creature of the sea—but much deeper, staying down much longer. An ama’s lungs tended to get stronger with age, and wisdom and experience gave insights into diving that none of the younger girls understood. The oldest ama didn’t move at all on their descent, and when they swam it was only little flicks, like a sea turtle’s: small, strong, precise. Every movement, every flexion or tension of the muscles consumed the body’s breath. Kaida understood the principle better than any girl her age, since with her handicap she needed to make the most of every movement. On most days, she tried to let the principle direct her dives, but on this particular morning she could not help but resent it. At this rate, one of the older women was certain to retrieve the sword before she could get to it herself.

  She already knew the reward she’d ask of Genzai. She just needed to get to the sword before anyone else. But the ama had decided among themselves that the oldest would dive first. They were the strongest, and it was better for the village not to risk girls of marrigeable age. Diving on the wreck was precarious enough by itself, they said, even without the hungry ghosts that must be circling it like sharks. But Kaida wasn’t afraid of ghosts. She was only afraid that someone would find the sword before she had her turn. At thirteen, she was close to the bottom of the list.

  Her mind raced. She had to think of a way to make Genzai choose her, and more difficult yet, she had to think of a way to find his precious sword. She’d already scoured every corner of the wreck; she’d pulled up every treasure she thought outlanders might want. There weren’t any swords down there.

  Not in the open, anyway.

  But then there were the dark spaces, the holds that were still intact, still locked up tight. She’d never mustered the courage to get into those.

  As if to mock her, Cho’s pale silhouette wriggled into the gaping dark maw of the carrack. From the surface, it looked exactly like the wreckage had gobbled her up.

  “Scary, neh?” said Miyoko. Kaida looked up to see her stepsisters riding abreast of her. Sen was their oarsman again, gazing blankly from under the shadow of his broad sugegasa. Kaida wondered what lies Miyoko had conjured to coax him into rowing his boat closer to Kaida, within tormenting range. Her thoughts strayed to the knife she’d bound to her stump, still concealed by the loose sleeve of her yukata. It was of no use to her at the moment, but she was glad to have it nonetheless.

  “Neh, Kaida?” Miyoko said it as sweetly as if she were talking to a newborn. “What a fright it must be, swimming inside that dark shipwreck. It must feel like the walls are closing in.”

  “Not such a difficult problem to fix,” Kaida said. “Don’t dive.”

  “Oh, but if we don’t dive, how can we win the treasure? You do want the treasure, don’t you?”

  Kaida didn’t feel like exercising patience today. She jumped headfirst over the gunwale, thankful for the cold water rushing past her ears. Genzai’s boat was close, but she chose to swim under it and surface on the far side, out of sight of her sisters.

  “Why is that sword so important to you?”

  Genzai looked down at her, frowning. “That is no concern of yours.” He turned away, redirecting his attention to the wreck and the ama within.

  “I can tell you how to get it,” Kaida said. “Tell me what it’s for.”

  He gave no hint that he’d even heard her speaking, and Kaida had almost resigned to swim back to her boat when finally he broke his silence. “The man who tames Glorious Victory cannot be defeated in battle. In the right hands, that blade can change the fortune of an empire.”

  “And you want to be emperor? Is that why you’re here? You’re a warlord?”

  “A broker.” He smirked. “Battlefields are for fools. Those who prefer their heads attached to their shoulders find other ways than war.”

  Kaida thought about that for a moment. “Is there a battle coming? There is, isn’t there? And you want to choose who wins. Is your plan to give the sword to some other warlord? To tip the balance in his favor?”

  A laugh rumbled in Genzai’s throat. “You are no fool, Kaida-san. Shortsighted, but not a fool. There are many battles to come, and we do not leave their outcomes to chance. Now tell me, what is your secret for retrieving the sword?”

  “If I tell you, will you choose me next?”

  Genzai gave her a grunt of disappointment. “So you can be the one to claim the sword? So you can demand that I take you with us when we go? No, Kaida-san. If a little ribbing from three little girls is too much for you, you’ll not fare well with us when we leave.”

  “You were listening?”

  “That is what you want, neh? For me to take you away from those sisters of yours?”

  “You said whoever gets the sword gets whatever she wants. You said she could name her reward.”

  “I did.” He glanced down, prompting Kaida to do the same. Cho was just emerging from the wreck. “Tell me your secrets, Kaida-san. How would you reclaim Glorious Victory?”

  “I will say nothing until you agree to take me with you.”

  He scratched behind his beard. “Very well. If you tell me how to make these women retrieve the sword, we will bring you with us when we take our leave.”

  Kaida felt a thrill of triumph. “One more thing: promise you’ll let me dive next. Before the rest of the older ama.”

  “Because you’r
e so sure someone else can use your secret to find the sword?” He gave her a studious frown, as if she were some new breed of seal no one had ever seen before. At last he grumbled his consent. “As you like. Reveal this secret art of yours and you will dive before any of these grown women.”

  Kaida all but floated with glee. “We cannot swim with that tether tied to our ankles. Tie it to your mask instead. That way you won’t lose your mask if I get into trouble, and I can dive deeper because I won’t have to make my ascent with that big iron weight pulling me down.”

  Genzai looked at Tadaaki, then at the other one, the outlander with the hair and beard like clouds on a stiff wind. “The mask must be worn to serve its purpose,” said the wild-haired one. It was the first time she’d ever heard him speak a coherent word.

  “Bind it to me if you like,” Kaida said. “Just not as you’ve been doing. Tie it so I can take it off.”

  Genzai looked to the old man again, who frowned as he thought about it. At last he gave a curt nod.

  Another thrill of triumph ran down Kaida’s spine. Her skin bloomed with goose bumps not born of the chilly water. “You, girl, get in the boat,” Genzai said.

  Kaida started to get in, but Genzai told her, “Not you. The tall one.”

  He pointed, and Kaida followed his finger to Miyoko, whose broadening grin bespoke victory and malice and joy all at once. She looked at Kaida as a flame might look at dry kindling.

  “No,” Kaida shouted. “Genzai-sama, please, you swore you’d let me go with you—”

  “If you found the sword,” Genzai said. “I will stand by my word: no grown woman will dive before you. But I have no desire to drag a crippled peasant girl in tow. If you should retrieve the Inazuma blade, I will carry you along with the rest of our luggage. But I intend to give every one of your sisters the chance to find it first.”