by Paul Kidd
“Right! We should get in there and broil! We have a lot of hard relaxation to get on with!”
Chiri flicked an eye up at Kuno – trying hard to hide her face. She blushed slightly and cleared her throat.
“I may just join you in a moment, Sura san. I have just remembered something I wanted to do.”
Sura arched her eyebrows, divining what was going on. With a concealed, arch little smile, she drifted innocently off towards the baths.
“I think I’ll go feed the monkeys! Way way waaaaay over there!” Sura gathered up the two wandering elementals, who were keen to hover about and eavesdrop. “Nuh-uh! This way! Come on!”
The fox wandered away, wine bottles swaying, giving a great, curling fluff of her tail. She chivvied Bifuuko and Daitanishi down the steps ahead of her, shooing them towards the baths.
Chiri awaited Kuno in a high state of nerves. He smiled as he arrived – his cheeks flushed from the crisp, cold air.
Chiri bowed to him – also blushing pink. Her tail was living a life of its own.
“Kuno san!”
Kuno bowed – ever handsome, ever welcoming and sincere. He lit up in Chiri’s presence.
“Chiri san. Not yet in the baths?”
“No – no...” The rat was suddenly horribly inarticulate. “We were watching the snow.”
The samurai joined Chiri side by side, looking up at the great, slow feathers of snow that drifted slowly down through the air. Kuno watched some flakes waft upwards on the hot air from the springs, and gave a great nod of satisfaction.
“Exquisite.”
They stood in silence, watching the snowflakes, the clouds and the great white peak of the mountain.
Plucking up her courage, Chiri finally managed to speak. She immediately began stumbling over her own words.
“I… It is good to have some time just to to relax! Together, I mean.” The rat cleared her throat. “Just… time to think.”
Kuno felt infinitely glad to be there.
“Time just to think.”
He sat down upon a rock, looking at Chiri in gentle fondness.
“I think you need the rest, Chiri san. I have been concerned for you. You seem… quite stressed.”
“What? Oh – oh, yes.” Chiri sat herself down beside Kuno, not daring to look at him. “I have some things on my mind.”
Time stretched – slowly, painfully... Chiri looked down at her hands, quite at a loss for words. She started to speak – then thought better of it. The rat spirit gave an unhappy sigh.
Kuno sat beside her, simply pleased to be there in her company. After a while, he noticed her strange agitation. Kuno turned to her, tilting his head.
“Is it anything I can help you with, Chiri san?”
“I have been… uncertain what to say.” Chiri’s voice sank almost to a whisper. “I have not known how to say it. Or whether I even should…”
Tonbo came tromping down the steps from the inn, wearing a ludicrously short yukata robe. His tetsubo was over his shoulder, his sword through his belt and a lantern in his hand. He came and planted himself beside Chiri and Kuno, standing like a mighty man of bronze.
He gave a stern nod, glaring off towards the baths.
“I am ready.”
Kuno stood up and stretched. He nodded to Tonbo, then bowed happily to Chiri.
“I am sleepy. Too much food and good company!” He looked down towards the baths and shook his head. “But still Sura san will be most upset if I do not make Tonbo peek.” He held up a hand. “Third fence post from the right! Chiri san – you might want to wait a few minutes before you enter.”
The rat wilted.
“Yes, Kuno san.”
Deflated, Chiri watched Tonbo and Kuno walk down towards the baths. The rat spirit gave a miserable sigh.
Kitsune Sura popped her head out from behind a nearby boulder. Daitanishi and Bifuuko peeked over the edge of the rock beside her. They all tried to project an aura wherein they had been innocently behind the rock and in no way engaged in eavesdropping.
Sura bit her lip as she saw her friend’s face. She came quietly over and sat beside the rat, putting an arm about her. She held Chiri and leaned her face against the rat girl’s hair. She passed Bifuuko over, and let the creature nuzzle against Chiri’s neck.
Sura handed Chiri a bottle of wine.
“Here. Cheer up.” Sura sighed, and gave the rat a squeeze.
“Come on. I’ll do your back for you.”
Chiri gave a watery smile. She let herself be coaxed up onto her feet. Sura led her hand in hand down the steps, towards the great, dark, steaming baths.
Snowflakes slowly fell, touching the paths only to melt quietly away.
Bushes beside the hot springs parted. The scar-faced son of the inn’s hostess rose stealthily out of hiding.
Domei watched the glimmer of the lanterns moving away towards the baths. He moved slightly forward – hands flexing with uncertainty. But then the wind atop the mountain groaned.
The young man looked swiftly up towards the mountain. Reluctantly, he drew back into the bushes – took a last glance towards the Spirt Hunters then vanished back into the dark.
Chapter 3
In the morning, the sky was filled with a low, silver grey ocean of cloud. The sun shone through it across a landscape covered with new-fallen snow, glittering from ice crystals that covered every wall and eave. Pine trees carried thick clumps of snow high in their broad green boughs. Every sound seemed strangely muffled in the sharp, still air.
Sura and Chiri – dressed in fur trimmed robes and straw boots – walked through the brisk cold, heading towards the village. Sura carried her spear, and Chiri had her natagama. Bifuuko and Daitanishi were well snuggled beneath Chiri’s hood, peering out at the soft white world.
The path into the village was ankle deep in fine, new-fallen snow. The snowfall seemed to have been far deeper out on the main mountain slopes. Sura craned to look up at the mountain, where great, heavy banks of snow now capped the blue-green glacier.
“Wow. That snow storm must have really choked up the passes!”
Chiri nodded. She kept her hands inside her nice warm sleeves. “I am glad that we already intended to stay.”
A few villagers were out and about: children and old women were clearing paths, or listlessly taking firewood into their houses. The women flicked strange, guilt-ridden looks towards the visitors, and moved quietly away. Sura ignored them and chivvied her friend on towards the village heart.
Chiri seemed sad and withdrawn. Sura was quite determined to cheer her up. She took her friend by the arm and steered her towards the tall rooves that promised shops and streets and taverns.
“Don’t be down! We’re on holiday! All problems always work themselves out on a holiday!” The fox pointed the way onward with her spear. “Look – let’s go shopping!”
Chiri allowed herself to be towed onward.
“Sura san – we are in the middle of the mountains. What could there possibly be to buy here?”
“Hey, it’s a resort town. There must be something! Clothes, shiny baubles, cakes, booze…” The fox gave a gleeful wave of her tail. “I swiped the purse from Tonbo’s clothes while he was in the baths last night – let’s go!”
The village had a broad central road lined with impressive buildings – tall, two story taverns and broad shops with curtains advertising clothing, wines, mountain herbs, pottery and mountain liquors… Sura pointed to an impressive structure with a great earthen pot beside the door.
“Here we go! Pots and porcelain! We could do with a second teapot for on the road! Then we can use one for breakfast rice milk, and one for tea!”
The shops all seemed oddly silent. The hanging curtains seemed a little threadbare. Chiri look uncertainly at the shop as Sura pushed up the curtain and walked inside.
“Sura san – this shop might not be open.”
“It’s full morning. Of course it’s open!” Sura handed Chiri the purse
. “Here we go – get whatever you want!”
They walked into a great, gloomy space of dust and damp. Chiri jogged Sura’s purse up and down, felt some odd shapes inside, then opened it to peer inside.
“Sura san – this is not money. Someone has swapped your coins for pebbles.”
The fox snatched back the purse and plunged her hand inside. Sure enough, the entire purse was filled with flat little pebbles. Sura clenched the purse in her fist and seethed.
“Tonbo! That lumbering git! He swapped purses on me while I was in the baths!”
Chiri gave a nod. “The two of you share a quite impressive rapport.”
Fox and rat now properly saw the ceramics shop. Both blinked in quiet surprise.
The building was apparently abandoned. There were rows and rows of dusty shelves, and a counter sprinkled with long-dead flies. A few broken pots lay on the floor. More potsherds lay just inside the door. It did not seem to have been violently robbed or looted.
A calligraphy painting sporting the word ‘prosperity’ hung askew on one wall. Below it, two withered, cobwebbed flowers sagged in a tiny vase. The place had an eerie chill about it – some strange, lingering sensation of grief.
Daitanishi came out from Chiri’s robes to drift quietly about, frowning at the dusty shelves. Sura crept a little deeper into the shop, peering towards the living quarters out the back.
“Hello?”
There was no reply. Sura nudged a curtain aside with her spear point and peered through into what had once been a central room. Daitanishi floated up beside her, peeking carefully into shadows and corners.
The old hearth was filled with ashes. Tatami mats were covered in dust. A few pot hooks hung above the hearth – all of them covered in dusty cobweb strands.
Sura came quietly back out into the shop, where Chiri was carefully examining a broken piece of fine white porcelain.
The fox gave a frown.
“Totally deserted. No one’s been in here for years.”
Chiri looked towards the rear door. “Perhaps the owner died?”
“Yeah, but he’d have a son or a nephew or something to take over.” Sura pushed back her hat. “Furniture’s all gone – but they left the tatami mats…”
Puzzled, Sura looked out the door and into the street. Granted, it was winter... Still – there was only a single pedestrian out on the road, and the houses seemed dark and full of gloom.
“It’s damned quiet out there. Did they have a plague or something?”
It was an unsettling thought. Chiri immediately put down her potsherd and dusted off her hands. Bifuuko and Daitanishi looked in sudden suspicion at the dead flies on the counter top.
Sura lead the way back outside into the street.
The open road was oddly still. Snow on the streets showed several trails of footprints – but surely not enough for so rich a place? An old man and a young woman were carrying firewood along the street. They put their heads down and walked onwards as they caught sight of Sura and Chiri standing in the old shop door.
The two Spirit Hunters crossed the street to what was supposedly a store selling tea and spice, only to find the place also utterly deserted. The same went for the wine shop next door. There were a few empty flasks – a row of dry old sakē kegs, and a little wall shrine that had been emptied of its effigies.
Chiri stood in the street with her two elementals now floating beside her. As Sura emerged out of another empty shop, the rat slowly curled her well-wrapped tail. She nodded her head towards a pair of women hastily crossing the street a dozen paces away.
“The villagers seem nervous about speaking to us.” The rat thoughtfully stroked at her whiskers, quite intrigued. “It is almost as if they feel guilty…?”
Sure held up a hand to stop Chiri’s thought in its tracks.
“Are you going to suggest we start investigating something?”
“Well – perhaps some subtle observation might…”
“Nope! No no no. Holiday!” The fox turned Chiri about to face her down the street. “Mysteries no – relaxation, yes!”
“But what if…?”
“Not interested!” Sura firmly towed Chiri towards a large, friendly looking building that seemed to be full of people. “Hey – here we go! There’s a tea house here. Let’s see what’s on the menu!”
The tea house was back from the main street behind a garden filled with well-trampled snow. Smoke rose from kitchens at the back of the building, and the scent of hot food filled the air. Sura and Chiri bowed in beneath the curtain that hung over the entry way and stood stamping their straw boots free from snow. Bifuuko and Daitanishi shook themselves free of ice and cold.
The room beyond held at least a dozen villagers – old men, old women and girls, all eating and drinking. Maids were serving omelettes, hot soup and tea. But as Sura and Chiri entered, the room fell silent. The maids and villagers all stared at the visitors in shock. Guilt haunted their faces. Everyone immediately hid their gaze and pretended to be looking elsewhere.
Standing at the doorway, Sura completely lost her temper.
“We’re on holiday!”
The cowed villagers made a nervous show of going back to their meals. Sura gave a curse. Tail fluffed out behind her, she towed Chiri back outside.
In the road, villagers ducked their heads and walked quickly away. Sura muttered to herself and tromped off down the street, heading past forlorn old shops. Towing Chiri along beside her, she headed out towards the trees at the far side of the village.
In a quiet dell some distance from the village, there was a peaceful field. A rustic little shrine stood far over to one side beneath the trees. The snow here was clean and almost unmarked. A single dainty set of footprints crossed the field, leading down from the mountain and then off over the rocks and towards the inn.
Sura kicked her feet deliberately in the snow, glaring back towards the village and grumbling beneath her breath.
“All I ask for is a little bit of peace and quiet…” The fox gave a frustrated sigh. “Anyway so I guess that’s the village.”
They reached the edge of the snowy field and came to a halt. A sharp chill seemed to shiver through the air. Sura and Chiri pulled their robes tight, while Daitanishi and Bifuuko drifted forward, carefully taking station in the trees.
The field was intensely quiet. There were no winter birds – no hares or deer. The only sound was a strange clear tinkle of ice crystals in the forest, cracking and spreading slowly in the cold.
The air felt so harsh, so brittle, it almost seemed to fracture. Sura and Chiri stood, gazing out over the field. They slowly realised that the open ground was covered with dozens and dozens of odd little mounds.
Chiri looked at the mounds in dawning amazement.
“Sura san, what are these? Graves?”
They moved carefully forward. Sura knelt and gently brushed snow from one of the mounds. It was a little rough-cut statue made from two stones – a funerary image wearing a coarse crown.
The image seemed to be a Kannon statue – an invocation of the Buddhist Bodhisattva of mercy. Sura sat back, looking from one image to the next and the next – the entire field seemed to be covered with them.
The fox was quite mystified.
“Memorial cairns. Placed when there is no body to bury…”
There were at least fifty of the little statues across the field. They all seemed essentially identical, as if cut by the same hand.
Chiri’s skin crawled. She watched as Sura brushed snow away from a plain wooden board that had been planted in the ground beside one statue. It bore a name, a date, and an invocation for Buddha’s mercy. Sura moved to a second board, and then a third and fourth, freeing them of ice and reading the names.
She looked from one board to another, feeling oddly cold. Sura quietly read out the names.
“Wakado... Zuji… Watanabe… These names are all male.” The other nearby boards were all the same. “The dates… look. Last year. Three years
ago…. Six years ago…” Sura brushed off yet another board, and then sank back with a puzzled scowl. “These are all new! There’s nothing older than six years.”
Chiri carefully brushed the snow away from a statue.
“This one is brand new. There is no moss on the stone.” She examined the wooden plaque beside the statue. “Tsuniachi Osado. Two names. He was a samurai.”
Sura was mystified.
“There must be fifty statues here.” The fox lifted her muzzle to look up at the mountain. “Are these from avalanches? Perhaps the mountains are more dangerous than we thought.”
She squatted back on her heels and pondered, her tail slowly swishing back and forth. She looked back at the field of statues – all levity suddenly quite gone.
“Alright – I’m interested.”
Sura brushed away the snow in front of her, bowed low to the statues, and then sat back to offer up prayers for the dead.
She swirled her hands, and the Tao symbol glowed in the air before her.
“One world, one life, one Tao.
Peace. Let no souls grieve.
There is a vessel that has no sides
Infinite, it can never be filled.
Eternal, it may never be emptied.
Fathomless, it is the origin of all things.
Coming from the eternal – returning to the eternal… What is there, then, that can ever be truly lost?
Drift now in the fountain of all being, and be filled with boundless joy.”
Bifuuko suddenly came flashing back to Chiri’s side. Sura looked up, one hand upon her spear. Chiri knelt with her hands spread, ready to summon a spell. Power shimmered at her fingertips.
A sad-eyed old woman entered the graveyard. She seemed weighed down and worried. The woman wore white suikan robes and a tall eboshi hat – the costume of a Shinto priestess. She did not see the visitors in her graveyard. Instead, she walked into the thatched shrine at the far end of the field.
The old priestess knelt down, bowed and clapped her hands in prayer. She prayed silently and fervently, wringing her hands with emotion.