Gonji: Deathwind of Vedun: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Three

by T. C. Rypel

  “I’m going to sleep in the chapel tonight,” Gonji announced. “Just till dawn.”

  “So close to danger, monsieur le samurai?” Paille asked, grimacing. “Do you dare the fates?”

  “I want to be quickly available should anything break. Who’s the sentry in the vestibule tonight?”

  “Klaus,” Monetto replied, eyebrows uplifted.

  Gonji winced but nodded. “Well, tell Klaus to wake me when the cocks crow. Tell him I’ll be....” He thought a moment, smiled thinly. “...in the confessional on the left of the altar.”

  “Si,” the biller chuckled, “if God doesn’t crumble you into cinder by morning. Oh—Helena’s out there, I think. She’s been inquiring after you. Shall I tell her you’re about?”

  Iye—Gonji heard the stern voice of denial burst within him. Part of him wearied of the girl’s insistent pursuit. Yet a gentler part of his nature flogged his belly with guilt. He swallowed hard.

  “If you wish,” he said softly. The artist tsked.

  Paille and Monetto preceded him into the nave. When it was determined that there was no threat of discovery and the gathered worshipers had largely cleared the chapel, the samurai emerged from behind the altar. He saw first the great cross from the square, which had again been leveled by the troops and then been brought inside the chapel. It glowed somberly in the light of a hundred candles where it leaned on the altar rail.

  Then he saw Helena, wide eyed, a smile breaking across her lips. He rubbed his nose nervously and bowed to his friends, who departed with self-conscious glances that flicked back and forth between Gonji and Helena.

  “Remember, monsieur,” Paille said without looking back, “you are in the house of the Lord.”

  The merest tightening of Gonji’s jaw betrayed his annoyance.

  Helena came up the aisle and genuflected before the altar. She approached Gonji slowly as he neared the confessional, her eyes soft and large and faintly expectant. What followed was a clumsy exchange of signs that he remembered later as having been both uncomfortable and embarrassing. Several other people who had remained behind in private prayer studiously avoided looking at them, though their continued presence bothered Gonji greatly.

  He busied himself at un-sashing and stowing his swords pointlessly, smoothing out his soiled garments, and preparing a sleeping nook in the cramped quarters of the confessional—pitiable efforts at essaying the role of distracted leader. All the while Helena plied him with half-understood signs inquiring after his well being. And—worse—humble assurances of her continued affections.

  Gonji felt, for all the world, like the insensitive cad to end all cads. He was burdened by karma in a way he had never experienced before. He became impatient with his conflicting feelings and all the less indulgent of Helena for it.

  As he grew increasingly weary of the girl’s presence and irritable with her in his guilt, he became more direct in his rebuffs of her overtures.

  He appealed in what he thought a joking manner to the age difference between them—which he judged as no more than a dozen years. But there was no sense of playfulness in the hard edge of his expression, and Helena’s waning exuberance reflected her dawning sense of futility and rejection.

  She signed desperately that there would be more for them to communicate when the madness in Vedun had ended. The brimming moistness in her sloe-eyed gaze seeped into every crack that fissured his adamant resolve. But his face remained a blank mask that stared back like a closed book, and she withdrew from his impassable dark eyes and departed with a soft rustle and tiny echo of footfalls.

  No one remained in the nave, save Gonji.

  Done. Finished. Karma. There was no other way. I cannot commit myself to a woman I do not love.

  Had he been asked at that moment how fared the good samurai, Gonji would have replied that he felt like shit. He experienced an abrupt insignificance before the infinite and unknowable forms of karma. At the same time he cursed the duality of his nature that caused him to act and then regret.

  He had been too long in the West, and it had engendered in him the beginnings of a scrupulous Western conscience through association with its cultures and religions. Just one more manifestation of karma. All is karma, neh? Nothing but trouble, that is my lot—spies, sorcerers, recalcitrant people, rejected lovers, a price on my head—

  And where is my friend the Deathwind when I need the comfort of his monstrous presence?

  Loneliness among companions....

  From the tunnel sentry he ordered writing materials. The paper, quill, and ink were brought to him by a messenger from the catacombs, and by the velvet glow of the candles that shone through the grating in the confessional, Gonji began to inscribe the ideograms of his death waka:

  The soft white blossom—

  Her eyes, markers of my grave....

  When he was done Gonji folded the paper into a pocket and hunkered back into the modest comfort of the confessional. Leaning into a cramped corner so that he could stretch out his battered knee, he cradled his swords against one shoulder and peered out into the nave. The ethereal aura of gold drew his eye. The outline of the crucified Christ on the tall, leaning cross.

  “What will happen to these people, Iasu?” he whispered. “Am I wrong to lead them into all this? They’re good people, I know. Deserving of life. I must admit that I’m very fond of them, most of them. What place does the wheel of karma serve in their lives? Will we ever reach a common understanding of the ways of the worlds of flesh and spirit?”

  Gonji sighed wearily and willed his body to sleep, but more thoughts crested the horizon of blackness he tried to impose. Fears and insecurities now haunted him in the still, dark chapel.

  Captain Julian Kel’Tekeli. Julian...he might be a shade faster. His technique, a trifle more serviceable in single combat. Iye! Never! His mind, unbidden, framed scenarios of the duel to come. The duel that must come. He succumbed to these only momentarily, arresting them, knowing that this was the worst he could do; it was a distraction and a splintering of concentration—a sure way to lose a match.

  Mushin no shin—mind of no mind.... The total dismissal of the mind’s awareness of itself as a potential agent of action—this alone must be the bushi’s concern. He must admit his fear and overcome it, plan his strategy but bury it. The planting of the seed. Instinct must ultimately rule, as always.

  But what was his fear?

  Not the fear of death. But the fear of failure. Falling short of saving these people, failure at his duty yet again.

  He pondered his motives, deciding at last that it was at least partly his conceit and passion for admiration that made him wish to avoid death until it was over, so that he might be there, for better or worse, having given it his all, for all to see.

  Then the bitter notion occurred that no one would care whether he would be there or not; that life would continue as it always did, even after his death. His death might have meaning only to him. Right now no one thought or cared whether Gonji would survive, only whether they would, and their loved ones.

  Iye, he told himself defiantly, there are those who care and will remember.

  And as he drifted through the hazy borderland into sleep, he dreamed of a strange forest that swelled with the chanting of distant choirs. And of trees bedecked with headless corpses that swayed and pointed as he floated past. And of Jocko, and Hawkes. And of a young woman with a somber face and hair of harvest gold....

  CHAPTER TEN

  Klaus awakened Gonji before the dreary dawn on that day of the full moon.

  A few old women present in the pews were startled to see him emerge from the confessional to stretch languidly and mount his swords in his obi. He tried to hide his scowl when he saw them cross themselves in reaction to his apparent irreverence.

  The samurai bowed to them solemnly and raised a finger to his lips to beg their silence, then moved quietly to a window to peer out into the street.

  Commerce came to slogging life in the dawn mizzle. The
city, soaked and puddled, was shrouded in fog. Visibility was limited to a block in every direction. Farmers and herdsmen guided their animals toward the gates. Early merchants plodded to the marketplace, where many of them would, they knew, present little more than the semblance of business as usual. A caravan of an itinerant chapman ruddled over the wet cobblestones. The drivers seemed wary but cheerful; they’d be less the latter when they found their wagons commandeered for the militia effort. There were few soldiers in evidence. Cattle lowed and sheep bleated nearby in the stubborn fog. Dogs began to bark as the roosters touted the sun’s reticent presence in the mountains to the east.

  It was the day, Gonji’s harpy of guilt reminded him.

  “Did I wake you too early, sensei?” the lumpish buckle-maker fretted.

  “Nein, Klaus, this is fine. Keep your voice down.”

  “Will you break your fast with us down in the catacombs?” Klaus went on. “Some of the bushi are—”

  “Shh! No. Not now.” Klaus’s nasally tone was irritating so early in the morning, but Gonji regretted his curtness with the solicitous fellow. Klaus seemed not to notice.

  “Can I get you anything? Something from the market stalls?”

  Gonji waved him off. “Nein, nothing now, Klaus. If your relief is here, why don’t you go down and join your friends. Anything break during the night?”

  Klaus launched into a tiresome recital of every trifling detail he had observed during his sentry shift. He took his job seriously and was certainly thorough, so Gonji indulged him with feigned interest. Nothing of any consequence had transpired.

  “Good job,” Gonji said when he had concluded. “Be off with you now, good fellow, and stay alert.”

  Klaus bowed to him and padded off. Gonji exhaled a long breath as he watched him move away, his thoughts turning to what he had in mind.

  It would be foolhardy, but he had to do it. This was the day, and whether by dint of his training in the Land of the Gods or the influence of the Christian chapel he had slept in, Gonji was in a ritualistic turn of mind.

  He would cleanse himself for what lay ahead. And that meant a very ill-advised trip to the bath house....

  Alerting the new chapel sentry as to where he would be, the samurai slunk off through the fog with an adrenal flush. The reckless action was akin to spitting in the devil’s eye. The thrill of danger surged through his bowels as he moved from cover to cover, running in a crouch, sword hilts clutched for steadiness, wiping his dampened face repeatedly on a sleeve of Milorad’s capote.

  He reached the bath house without incident. The kami of purification smiled down on his effort.

  As he had expected, the baths were empty but for the Polish lad who attended them. It would be the women’s hours at the bath house for a time, he knew, but he instructed the nervous boy to turn away any who came, paying him handsomely in advance for the private-rental service.

  The attendant knuckled the grogginess from his sleepy eyes and set to work, heating the coals under the hot water with flame and bellows and hurrying to prepare the stones in the steam chamber.

  Gonji removed and folded his garments ceremoniously, careful to keep both his matched set of swords and his tanto knife within arm’s reach at all times. He performed his morning stretching regimen and a few necessarily compacted kata.

  He laved himself in the hot water, enjoying its bite to the fullest. After a short session of deep breathing exercises and a time of meditation, he relieved himself in the chamber pot located in a small latrine at the back of the bath house. Ever vigilant for disturbing sounds from the street, he moved to the swirling clouds of white heat in the steam room, where he luxuriated awhile.

  He glanced at his weapons to be sure of their position when the boy engaged in a brief, spirited argument with a group of early bathers. Gonji chuckled to hear the indignant female voices jabbering away along the Street of Hope, vaguely pleased that there were some in the city who had not allowed their state of occupation to interfere with their daily lives.

  The boy entered with more hot water, smiling sheepishly and flinging up his hands over the embarrassment he’d suffered. Gonji grinned and, reaching into his kimono, tossed the youth another coin.

  He leaned back, wrapped in a long linen cloth, listening to the hiss of the steam, allowing it to bestow its therapeutic graces on his body. He unbound his stiff knee and found that it responded well to the magic of the heat. Euphoria seeped through him, and he tried to express his gratitude for the simple pleasures of life by composing a poem.

  Then he heard the high giggling of the women, followed at once by the surly laughter of men.

  At first he thought it must be the women the lad had rebuffed, returning now with their husbands. As soon as he heard the terrified piping of the boy’s voice in the small lobby, clearly trying to warn him, he knew it could only be soldiers.

  Cholera....

  The boy was jabbering in a loud, high voice the same words he had spoken to the women earlier, telling them the bath house wasn’t open for business yet. Gallant lad, Gonji thought, grabbing up his swords. He let the linen wrap drop free and sprang to the farthest wall, through billowing clouds of thick steam.

  A grunting, swearing male voice in the lobby—the boy’s high whining tone again—A woman said something that evoked laughter. There was a sharp slap and the boy’s outcry.

  Gonji gritted his teeth in reflex. Soundlessly in the steamy sibilance, both the Sagami and the ko-dachi slipped free, their scabbards discarded along the wall.

  A man’s voice again, cursing. Drunk. Roisterers out to extend a long night’s carousing with a few aquatic antics. Gonji swallowed and crept along the wall till he came within sword’s length of the right edge of the doorway.

  The boy burst in, holding his face. Red welts swelled on his cheek in the shape of a man’s fingers.

  Gonji snarled to see it and hushed the lad, making calming gestures. The boy’s tear-filled eyes seemed ready to bolt their sockets.

  “Shh-shh. How many?” the samurai whispered urgently. “How many men?” He tried to remember the Polish word for man. Couldn’t. He held up two fingers, three—

  The boy bobbed his head in terror. Held up three and two, three and two. Three men, two women.

  Gonji nodded. “Domu,” he ordered, recalling the word for “home,” and appending a thumb jerk. The boy left at once.

  A woman’s voice called out. “Hey, dummy!” It was Italian, as was the cry that followed, this in a man’s voice, thick with drink:

  “Hey, you little jackass! Where you going?”

  Gonji thought he recognized the voice. From the sound of what followed, it was clear that the boy had made good his escape. More grunting and laughter. The sounds of clothing being removed with difficulty and tossed to the floor. The tinkling laughter of the two women again. Their mirth rankled Gonji. His jaw tightened with disgust.

  They were in the baths now, just past the doorway to the steam room.

  And then one of the brigands was inside, yanking a woman behind him. Both were naked. The mercenary flung an arm up in a mock gesture of fending off the heat of the steam.

  The woman saw Gonji and shrieked.

  The bandit turned, his lips describing the mouth of a funnel, hands flung before him defensively. Gonji sliced open his midsection, the force of the blow driving the man down onto the baking stones. He screamed in agony. The woman fainted in the archway, and Gonji leapt over her into the main bathing chamber.

  Now it was the second woman’s turn to scream as Gonji confronted the pair of startled bandits before the hot tubs—

  One of them was Luba, the bald, muscular brigand from the boxing matches. Gonji’s eyes flared to see him.

  “So the time has come, neh?” Gonji growled. “Come collect the price on my head, swine!”

  Luba sucked in a shuddering breath and shoved the woman at Gonji, lurching after his sheathed broadsword on a nearby bench. The samurai nudged the woman aside, whirled his blades in an
intimidating display of shimmering magic.

  The second man fisted a dirk, seemed poised to throw it. But then Luba pulled his sword from its scabbard and charged, howling with fury. Gonji sidestepped the strong but awkward two-handed arc of the other’s long blade. Dancing inside Luba’s overswing, Gonji slashed right-left with his blades, finishing with an inside-out crossing blow, relieving Luba of a hand and ribboning his flesh with deep wounds. The bald bandit’s eyes glazed over, and he slammed face first into his own pooling blood.

  The remaining mercenary emitted a strangled cry and threw his dirk with such wild frenzy that it crashed into a corner near the ceiling. Gonji sprang after him, but his bare feet slipped on the wet floor and he stumbled to his knees, dropping the ko-dachi.

  His opponent still wore boots and breeches. He seized upon Gonji’s misfortune and scrabbled to the lobby. He reached the door to the street, yelled for help, and a second later had his head snapped back by a blow of such force that he was knocked cleanly off his feet to land unconscious next to the benches in the lobby’s waiting area, his jaw shattered.

  The huge figure of Simon Sardonis appeared in the doorway, as if materializing out of the fog.

  Gonji descended on the unconscious man, finishing him with a single stroke that brought a moan from the sobbing woman who’d been pushed at him.

  The samurai blew out a breath and mopped his face.

  “You’re looking well this morning,” Simon said wryly, indicating Gonji’s nakedness. “A fine position for a warrior to get himself in, don’t you think?”

  Gonji sneered and went for his clothes. The woman who fainted had by now come around to sit shuddering against the steam-room arch.

  “Do you kill them, too?” Simon asked in French, his throaty voice harsh and gravelly.

  Gonji’s jaw worked with indecisiveness, though he knew that he would not. “We shouldn’t leave witnesses to our presence in Vedun,” he found himself saying, testing Simon’s own attitude.

  “With your traitor about,” Simon answered without pause, “it’s not going to matter. Anyway, infidel, we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. Are these local women?”