Thousand Shrine Warrior

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  “I had to keep out of mischief; I attended to my duties. While doing so, I found an old record, which described part of an incident from a hundred years ago. I began to suppose Priest Kuro was the descendant of a certain monk named Nichiroku, and that for some reason an old feud was being settled generations later. But I was still on the wrong track, confused for a while. I wasted a lot of time trying to find out where Priest Kuro came from. If he was a relative of Nichiroku, then he might have been born in Heida province. But I could not discover evidence that he came from anywhere at all. He might not have existed before appearing at the castle and winning Lord Sato’s heart.

  “His name means ‘black,’ but written another way it means ‘ninth son.’ I was trying to find out his original name and started collecting genealogies. I could not find a ninth son of anyone who was Kuro’s approximate age. Finally I stopped thinking in terms of people alive today. If you reverse the two characters of Kuro’s name, it comes out ‘roku’ as in ‘Nichiroku,’ the sixth light. Nichiroku was a ninth son of a Heida family, and he was the sixth out of seven disciples of Morihei Sato, who became known as Abbot Johei, founder of a Lotus sect in Kanno. I found–out that the other six disciples, and Johei, represented seven families, mainly from Kanno, except Nichiroku. All but one of the disciples were of important families. The seventh disciple, below Nichiroku, was a peasant’s son. That family used to farm the land around this millhouse; but there are fewer in that family nowadays.

  “As I looked into the fates of those families, I soon discovered my own clan’s past connection with Kanno province. All the families had something in common: they had been declining for a hundred years, as though laboring under a curse. In the past year, the remaining members of the seven clans have been especially beleaguered. This coincides with Kuro’s appearance here, though a tangible connection cannot be made. The families turned to their priests for help; but any priest who looked into the matter, or prayed in behalf of those families, became himself cursed as well.”

  The bikuni asked, “So you think Kuro took his name indirectly from the original Nichiroku?”

  “No. Kuro is Nichiroku, returned from the dead as a goryu or vengeful spirit, eager to complete a vengeance against the families of the abbot and six monks who wronged him long ago.”

  “An overwhelming theory,” said the nun. “I still think he could be a mortal sorcerer. It can’t have been easy for you to check records of men from Heida.”

  Heinosuke took the lid from the other box. A brittle parchment lay within. “This makes it more than my theory. I found it in a secret compartment of a chest in the Sato archives. It tells exactly what happened to Nichiroku. It is the confession of Morihei Sato, who with six disciples did Nichiroku harm. Once I knew the whole story, I understood the origin and sentiment of Kuro the Darkness. I knew that I had no allies in the castle and must act alone to save Lord Sato, his clan, and many others as well.

  “I lay in wait for Priest Kuro, intending to cut him when he appeared. I waited a long time in the room where he passes his days. He keeps the place guarded well, but as archivist, I had access to the architectural records and knew of various secret corridors. When he came at last, I leapt forth and stabbed him where he stood! I stabbed his heart!

  “I could not get my sword back out. He looked at me with so saintly an expression, I regretted my mistake. He bent his beatific face to see my sword stuck in his chest. When he looked up again, his perfection was erased. He was an appalling mummy, skin stretched upon bones! His eyes shone like two lanterns of green paper! Yet his voice was unchanged. It was still sweet. And he said to me, ‘Don’t you see too much, Heinosuke?’ He reached out with his right hand, which was bony and clawed and black, and he plucked out my left eye!”

  Heinosuke turned to face Tomoe so that she could see the full effect of Kuro’s deed and how unfortunately it had healed.

  “Yet you did not cry out,” said the bikuni, remembering what Otane had said about that night. “You slipped away through darkness and came to the women’s quarters to make Echiko believe you no longer cared; and you have counted yourself among the dead since then. If my Sword of Okio can do better than your common blade, will you count yourself among the living?”

  “In such a world as this?” he said. “If you can exorcise him only by fulfilling his desire, will you count yourself among the living?”

  “Each day comes and passes. I try to live without regret.”

  “I will tell you everything I’ve learned,” said Heinosuke. “If you do not find it regrettable, then you are very different from me.”

  “I would like to know everything,” she said.

  Heinosuke placed the lid upon the second box; for he knew the tale by heart, including the words of the confession. He began, “Once upon a time …”

  “Is it a fairy tale?”

  “No. But it begins with a legend. Don’t interrupt as I tell you.”

  “There is a legend regarding the land on which the Temple of the Gorge now stands. Long and long ago, a province had not yet been named, and there were only a few people scattered through the lower valleys. Atop the gorge, where rivers converged and leapt forth into a terrifying plunge, demons gathered on certain nights, rising from the Land of Roots, meeting to cavort with the monsters of land and air. It was a joyous occasion for such beings.

  “One of the demons was Green Fire Devil, a will-o’-the-wisp who could take the form of a stooped old man. One time he was sent up from Hell to get some things in order for a festival the demons had in mind. As he was drifting over snow-coated swamps and amidst trees, he chanced to see the Snow Woman, who had wandered from the highest peak because the weather suited her. She had the appearance of sculpted ice. Her hair was like frost’s etching, hanging on the air. Her eyes were piercing blue. She was vastly more elegant than anything Green Fire Devil had seen before that night.

  “When he spied her, she happened to be embracing a handsome woodcutter. He was stiff in her arms, a blissful expression frozen to his face. When she let him go, he remained standing in his place.

  “‘Yuki-onna!’ shouted Green Fire Devil, much impressed with her beauty and her strength. ‘Yuki-onna, I am an old devil but robust in my heart. Come see if you can cool my flame!’ As it turned out, Green Fire Devil was the first being able to withstand the cold of Yuki-onna; and she was the first being unsinged by his affection. Thus they had a long affair, despite that she was beautiful and he was homely beyond compare.

  “A gathering of demons celebrated the romance of Snow Woman and Green Fire Devil. It became an annual event, for demons are forever anxious for such an excuse. Their various festivities tended to last whole nights. If there was a typhoon or blizzard, so much the better! If dawn were heavily overcast, they might prolong a party. More commonly, things ended before first light smote the eyes of night’s minions.

  “The place was known to men, but shunned. If people came too close and witnessed the affairs of demons, they were invariably drawn into the festival, dancing and shouting and having a good time. Afterward, they would go into the gloomy land and not come out again.

  “Because the countryside was thinly populated, there were few problems. Peaceful centuries came and went. The number of festivals increased with time; whatever reason could be found, a new holiday was added. The site became famous among the denizens of Hell; for there were not a lot of places where they could walk upon Naipon’s topsoil.

  “During a time of incessant human wars, armies discovered an important route through the mountains, and Sato Castle was built to guard the pass. The land came to be ruled by the present lord’s ancestor, Yorimitsu Sato, a strong warrior. One evening Yorimitsu went up to a high wall of the castle and chanced to look over to the gorge. He saw erratic movement and glowing shapes and suspected an enemy attack. He sent some strong men, who ended up dancing and having a good time but were never seen after that. Only one man returned a little before dawn, trying his best to convince his beloved lord t
o come join the thousand sporting demons and monsters. At sunrise, this man died twitching and screaming.

  “Lord Yorimitsu Sato invited a certain sect of powerful Buddhists to exorcise the place. It took a long time, for the priests had to use occult means to uncover the reason for each demon-festival, then do a different rite against each type of demon and each of their festive excuses. Afterward, a grateful Yorimitsu awarded the land around the top of the falls and provided the funds to build a temple there. That temple was bigger than the one you see there today, although part of the original is incorporated into the present building.

  “When the Temple of the Gorge was completed one-hundred and five years ago; it was not long before part of the ground gave way beneath it. Half the temple tumbled into the gorge. Many monks were killed. A passing pilgrim claimed to have seen a green-colored yane-no-mune or roof-ridge ghost dancing on the tiled peak just before that part of the building collapsed. None credited the witness. Attaching no supernatural importance to the matter, the abbot preferred to believe the error was in placing the temple on a weak fault too near the cliff.

  “After proper consultations, the temple was reconstructed, giving the cliff greater berth. Yet, the following year, at the height of winter, fire broke out in the repaired part of the temple, destroying one-third of everything, including the abbot’s quarters, which had been untouched the year before.

  “This time they could not deny supernatural implications. The temple had burnt with the rich blue color of the fires of Emma’s Hell. A stooped old man, made of green fire, was seen in the blue holocaust, wailing like a lonesome dog and jerking his body in a piteous dance.

  “The next day, a woodcutter and his two sons were discovered in the snow-shrouded forest. They were standing on a path, frozen to their places, as though embraced by Yuki-onna.

  “The sect abandoned the vicinity, but it was not left vacant long. Yorimitsu Sato had meanwhile died of a strange illness, and his cousin Ofuku Sato was made Lord of Kanno. Ofuku Sato had an older brother named Morihei Sato who had shaved his head, become founder of an order of Lotus monks, and changed his name to Johei, with seven chief disciples and numerous lesser followers.

  “Lotus monks were generally impoverished in those days, having yet to raise up a great proponent like Saint Nichiren. This group considered it their good fortune to inherit such a large temple, due to Abbot Johei’s relation to the Lord of Kanno. They were a belligerent sect then as now and boasted that the temple’s past havoc had been the cause of previous monks not being holy enough. They rebuilt the burnt-out part of the temple with funds provided by Lord Ofuku Sato to Abbot Johei. They were certain they would never experience the kind of demonic persecution a less meritorious sect endured.

  “Before the first year ended, Raiju the Thunder Animal came tramping across the forest roof. A hurricane tore one-quarter of the temple from its foundation and dashed it into the gorge. Many of the novices were killed by Raiju’s lightning. The seven disciples had to nurse each other’s injuries.

  “The self-esteemed order took solace in the observation that less of the temple had been destroyed than on previous occasions, when another sect had been in charge. But to tell the truth, they were depressed fellows. Their pride had been dealt a wicked blow.

  “The abbot was joined by priests of other Lotus enclaves so they might discuss the problem best. By means at their collective disposal, they discovered that the exorcisms commissioned by the late Yorimitsu Sato had caused the separation of Green Fire Devil, who was dispatched to Hell, from Yuki-onna, who wandered on the snowy peaks. Whenever Green Fire Devil heard his lover’s sorrow, he would cause the temple harm, just by trying to get out of the gloomy land.

  “The romantic ties of demons are not very common. The Wonderful Law suppresses the cruelty of demons, but regarding sentiments of love, the Law is helpless. The priests did not wish to consider the least failing in the Lotus Sutra, however, and continued to be self-assured. They drew floor plans of the temple and compared the areas variously stricken, seeking some pattern. They saw how on the first year a part had fallen away with the cliff’s edge; where on the second year a part had burnt to the ground; and on the third year some of the building was snatched away by spectacular winds. Those areas of destruction overlapped at a particular point which the priests finally deduced was no larger than a trunk or a coffin. Green Fire Devil was able to ascend from the gloomy land at that spot, given the right conditions.

  “Various magical rites were performed. A special tablet was made and buried deep in the ground in an effort to seal in the lovesick demon. Only when these things were completed was the temple rebuilt, the monks hardly courting the possibility that they would fail twice.

  “But the monsters of land and air had consulted much as the priests had consulted; and they considered countermeasures to the efforts of the strongest adherents of Shaka’s Wonderful Law. These monsters pitied the hapless couple who were being denied their meetings with one another. As a result of these unfathomable consultations, there was a fourth catastrophe at the Temple of the Gorge in the following year. It was the worst event of all.

  “During an especially shocking windstorm, Raiju the Thunder Animal returned, leaping from tree to tree and snarling, a beast as big as seven horses but able to pass daintily over the forests. Large stones of ice came pounding from the sky. And the monstrous Nure-onna rose out of the mists of the gorge!

  “Nure-onna the Wet Woman is like a big snail pulled out of its shell, but with the head and torso of a woman. Some say the part of her that appears human is beautiful, while others say she is horrifying at both ends. All agree she is deadly to encounter.

  “She crawled up the face of the cliff, as snails can do easily, and continued right up the temple wall. She found a certain place on the roof that especially interested her, and with taloned claws began to tear away the tiles.

  “Despite the sound of Raiju and the furious hailstorm, monks heard the odd scratching on the roof. They came running out under their umbrellas, but the umbrellas were beaten to pieces by the huge balls of hail. The monks saw Raiju roaring in the trees. They saw Nure-onna clawing the temple’s roof.

  “The monks ran about, pelted by ice-stones, not knowing what to do. Some of the novices tried to hide in the forest, but they encountered a woman made of ice, sparkling crystals whirling about her body and seeming to explode into stars. She raised her arms as though desirous of the chaste novices, and they ran back in search of their abbot, who was nowhere to be found. They beseeched the seven privileged disciples to effect some miracle, but the seven were confounded.

  “The disciples were able to collect their wits enough to order the frightened novices to the armory to fetch spears. These were soon brought, and the seven began pitching spears at Nure-onna. The wind was Nure-onna’s ally, and the spears could not reach her, but only clattered to the roof among the balls of ice.

  “The Wet Woman remained intent upon her task of making an opening in the roof, high above the site where priests previously divined a source of evil. When the hole was big enough, her slimy body oozed into it. Most of the monks were too afraid to go inside to see what she was up to. One, less afraid than others, was called ‘sixth light’ or Nichiroku. His one affectation was that he never shaved his head, and for this reason he was called, behind his back, ‘Disciple Page,’ for his effeminate appearance. He alone had the bravery to rush into the temple, a sturdy spear his sole companion.

  “Winds rose and Raiju’s claws sparked, striking blue flames to the branches of trees. Monks ran for cover in woodsheds and the like. They could not hear anything inside the temple and were not eager to go in and see how brave Disciple Page fared.

  “After a while, the Wet Woman squirmed up from the hole in the roof. She went down the outside of the temple, then over the cliff. Raiju, settling down and retracting his claws, tiptoed over the roof of the forest, wishing to avoid the sun. A few monks had taken refuge in an outbuilding near the cliff and
they saw Nure-onna go slowly into the mist. Certain she would not climb up again, they hurried to the temple to see what havoc had been wrought.

  “It was dark within, except for the dim morning light showing through the ruined roof. By this light they saw a rough opening in the floor. The Wet Woman had broken through the floorboards and dug a pit beneath the temple. From the pit, she extracted the ceremonial tablet, on which was scribed the Lotus Sutra; and it lay broken upon the altar. The face of the wooden Buddha had been scratched by the vindictive Nure-onna’s talons.

  “In the bottom of the pit sat Nichiroku. His spear was stuck through his thigh. He moaned the Lotus Sutra, but in an odd way. The monks were afraid to help the delirious fellow, for when he looked up from the bottom of the haunted hole, his eyes shone like emeralds.

  “Abbot Johei came at last, making no excuse about hiding for so long. He strutted about proudly in his priest’s robe, but it was false pride and barely disguised his budding doubts regarding the Lotus Sutra. Peering into the hole, he revealed no emotion at” the sight of Nichiroku, injured by his spear, mouthing the sutras strangely.

  “The abbot, his faith faltering, sent the novices away, and addressed his six remaining chief disciples. They had always obeyed him implicitly. When he invented an explanation for the terrible events, they may not have believed him; but they were unwilling to express their doubts. ‘The Wet Woman was trying to help us,’ said Johei, pretending divine inspiration. ‘A Shinto monster has shown us that a human sacrifice alone can preserve the sanctity of our Buddhist temple.’

  “With dour expressions, the six disciples pushed dirt into the hole, the dirt Nure-onna had dug out from under the floor. Afterward, they made a hidden door over the spot, disguised in such a manner that none could suspect the floor was ever damaged. They patched the roof as well. Then they went about their business, pretending they had never buried one of their own alive. But you may well guess that none of them could recite the Lotus Sutra without remembering Nichiroku. In their dreams they heard him chanting. They heard the secret door open up, though it could not be opened from below, as it had heavy objects placed on top.