Part 13 (1/2)

I slipped the letter inside my clothes and we embraced.

”Some strange fate ties you to this house,” he said. ”I believe it is a bond you cannot escape.” His voice broke and I saw he was close to tears again.

”I know it,” I whispered. ”I will do everything you suggest.” I knew I could not give up this house and inheritance. They were mine. I would reclaim them. Everything Ichiro had said made perfect sense. I had to escape from the Tribe. s.h.i.+geru's records would protect me from them and give me bargaining power with Arai. If I could only get to Terayama...

7.

I left the house the same way I had come, out through the upstairs window, down the wall, and across the nightingale floor. It slept under my feet, but I vowed next time I walked on it I would make it sing. I did not scale the wall back into the street. Instead, I ran silently through the garden, went invisible, and, clinging like a spider to the stones, climbed through the opening where the stream flowed into the river. I dropped into the nearest boat, untied it, took up the oar that lay in the stern, and pushed off into the river.

The boat groaned slightly under my weight, and the current lapped more strongly at it. To my dismay the sky had cleared. It was much colder and, under the three-quarters moon, much brighter. I heard the thud of feet from the bank, sent my image back to the wall, and crouched low in the boat. But Akio was not deceived by my second self. He leaped from the wall as if he were flying. I went invisible again, even though I knew it was probably useless against him, bounded from my boat, and flew low across the surface of the water into another of the boats that lay against the river wall. I scrabbled to undo its rope and pushed off with its oar. I saw Akio land and steady himself against the rocking of the craft; then he sprang and flew again as I split myself, left the second self in one boat, and leaped for the other. I felt the air s.h.i.+ft as we pa.s.sed each other. Controlling my fall, I dropped into my first boat, took up the oar, and began to scull faster than I ever had in my life. My second self faded as Akio grasped it, and I saw him prepare to leap again. There was no escape unless I went into the river. I drew my knife and as he landed stabbed at him with one hand. He moved with his usual speed and ducked easily under the knife. I had antic.i.p.ated his move and caught him on the side of the head with the oar. He fell, stunned for a moment, while I, thrown off balance by the violent rocking of the boat, narrowly escaped tumbling overboard. I dropped the oar and clung to the wooden side. I did not want to go into the freezing water unless I took him with me and drowned him. As I slid to the other side of the boat Akio recovered. He leaped straight upward and came down on top of me. We fell together and he seized me by the throat.

I was still invisible but helpless, pinned under him like a carp on the cook's slab. I felt my vision blacken; then he loosened his grip slightly.

”You traitor,” he said. ”Kenji warned us you would go back to the Otori in the end. I'm glad you did, because I've wanted you dead since the first time we met. You're going to pay now. For your insolence to the Kikuta, for my hand. And for Yuki.”

”Kill me,” I said, ”as your family killed my father. You will never escape our ghosts. You will be cursed and haunted till the day you die. You murdered your own kin.”

The boat moved beneath us drifting with the tide. If Akio had used his hands or knife then, I would not be telling this story. But he couldn't resist one last taunt. ”Your child will be mine. I'll bring him up properly as a real Kikuta.” He shook me violently, ”Show me your face,” he snarled. ”I want to see your look when I tell you how I'll teach him to hate your memory. I want to watch you die.”

He leaned closer, his eyes searching for my face. The boat drifted into the path of the moon. As I saw its brightness I let visibility return and looked straight into his eyes. I saw what I wanted to find: the jealous hatred of me that clouded his judgment and weakened him.

He realized in a split second and tried to wrench his gaze away but the blow from the oar must have slowed his usual quickness and it was too late. He was already made dizzy by the encroaching Kikuta sleep. He slumped sideways, his eyelids flickering erratically as he fought it. The boat tipped and rocked. His own weight took him headfirst into the river.

The boat drifted on, faster now, carried by the swelling tide. In the moonlit road across the water I saw the body surface. It floated gently. I was not going to go back and finish him off. I hoped he'd drown or freeze to death but I left it to fate. I took up the oar and sculled the boat to the far sh.o.r.e.

By the time I got there I was s.h.i.+vering with cold. The first roosters were crowing and the moon was low in the sky. The gra.s.s on the bank was stiff with frost and stones and twigs gleamed white. I disturbed a sleeping heron and wondered if it was the one that came to fish in s.h.i.+geru's garden. It flew off from the highest branches of the willow with the familiar clack of wmgs.

I was exhausted but far too wrought up to think of sleep, and anyway I had to keep moving to warm myself. I forced myself to a quick pace, following the narrow mountain road toward the southeast. The moon was bright and I knew the track. By daybreak I was over the first pa.s.s and on my way down to a small village. Hardly anyone was stirring, but an old woman was blowing up the embers in her hearth and she heated some soup for me in return for one of the coins. I complained to her about my senile old master sending me off on a wild-goose chase through the mountains to a remote temple. The winter would undoubtedly finish him off and I'd be stranded there.

She cackled and said, ”You'll have to become a monk, then!”

”Not me. I like women too much.”

This pleased her, and she found some freshly pickled plums to add to my breakfast. When she saw my string of coins she wanted to give me lodging as well as food. Eating had brought the sleep demon closer, and I longed to lie down, but I was too afraid of being recognized and I already regretted I had said as much as I had to her. I might have left Akio in the river, but I knew how the river gives up its victims, both the living and the dead, and I feared his pursuit. I was not proud of my defection from the Tribe after I had sworn to obey them, and in the cold light of morning I was beginning to realize what the rest of my life would be like. I had made my choice to return to the Otori, but now I would never be free from the dread of a.s.sa.s.sination. An entire secret organization would be drawn up against me to punish me for my disloyalty. To slip through their web, I had to move faster than any of their messengers would. And I had to get to Terayama before it began to snow.

The sky had turned the color of lead when I reached Tsuwano on the afternoon of the second day. My thoughts were all of my meeting there with Kaede and the sword-training session when I had fallen in love with her. Was her name already entered in the ledgers of the dead? Would I have to light candles for her now every year at the Festival of the Dead until I died? Would we be joined in the afterworld, or were we condemned never to meet again either in life or in death? Grief and shame gnawed at me. She had said, ”I only feel safe with you,” and I had abandoned her. If fate were to be kind and she were to come into my hands again, I would never let her go.

I regretted bitterly my decision to go with the Tribe, and I went over the reasons behind my choice many times. I believed I had made a bargain with them and my life was forfeit to them-that was one thing. But beyond that I blamed my own vanity. I had wanted to know and develop the side of my character that came from my father, from the Kikuta, from the Tribe: the dark inheritance that gave me skills I was proud of. I had responded eagerly and willingly to their seduction, the mixture of flattery, understanding, and brutality with which they had used and manipulated me. I wondered how much chance I had to get away from them.

My thoughts went round and round in circles. I was walking in a kind of daze. I'd slept a little in the middle of the day in a hollow off the side of the road, but the cold woke me. The only way to stay warm was to keep walking. I skirted the town and, descending through the pa.s.s, picked up the road again near the river. The current had subsided from the full flood caused by the storms that had delayed us in Tsuwano, and the banks had been mended, but the bridge here, a wooden one, was still in ruins. I paid a boatman to take me across. No one else was traveling so late; I was his last customer. I felt he was eyeing me curiously but he did not speak to me. I could not place him as Tribe but he made me uneasy. He dropped me on the other side and I walked quickly away. When I turned at the corner of the road, he was still watching me. I made a movement with my head but he did not acknowledge it.

It was colder than ever, the air dank and icy. I was already regretting that I had not found shelter for the night. If I was caught by a blizzard before the next town, I stood little chance of surviving. Yam-agata was still several days away. There would be a post station at the fief border, but, despite Ichiro's letter and my disguise as a servant, I did not want to spend the night there-too many curious people, too many guards. I didn't know what to do, so I kept walking.

Night fell. Even with my Tribe-trained eyes it was hard to see the road. Twice I wandered off it and had to retrace my steps. Once I stumbled into some sort of hole or ditch with water at the bottom, soaking my legs up to the knees. The wind howled and strange sounds came from the woods, reminding me of legends of monsters and goblins and making me think the dead walked behind me.

By the time the sky began to pale in the east, I was frozen to the bone and s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably. I was glad to see the dawn but it gave no relief from the bitter cold. Instead it just brought home to me how alone I was. For the first time the idea crept insidiously into my head that if the fief border was manned by Aral's men, I would give myself up to them. They would take me to Arai, but first they would surely give me something hot to drink. They would sit me down inside by the fire and make tea for me. I became obsessed by the thought of that tea. I could feel the heat of the steam on my face, the warmth of the bowl in my hands. I was so obsessed by it that I did not notice someone walking behind me.

I was aware suddenly of a presence at my back. I turned, astonished that I had not heard the footfall on the road, had not even heard breathing. I was amazed, even frightened, at my apparent loss of hearing. It was as though this traveler had fallen from the sky or walked above the ground as the dead do. Then I knew that either exhaustion had unhinged my mind or I was indeed seeing a ghost, for the man walking just behind me was the outcast Jo-An, who I thought had been tortured to death by Arai's men in Yamagata.

So great was the shock, I thought I would faint. The blood rushed from my head, making me stagger. Jo-An grabbed me as I fell, his hands seeming real enough, strong and solid, smelling of the tannery. Earth and sky turned around me and black spots darkened my sight. He lowered me to the ground and pushed my head between my knees. Something was roaring in my ears, deafening me. I crouched like that, his hands holding my head, until the roaring lessened and the dark receded from my vision. I stared at the ground. The gra.s.s was rimed by frost, and tiny particles of black ice lay between each stone. The wind howled in the cedars. Apart from that, the only sound was my teeth chattering.

Jo-An spoke. There was no doubt; it was his voice. ”Forgive me, lord. I startled you. I didn't mean to alarm you.”

”They told me you were dead. I didn't know if you were a living being or a ghost.”

”Well, I might have died for a while,” he whispered. ”Arai's men thought so and threw my body out in the marshland. But the Secret G.o.d had other plans for me and sent me back to this world. My work here is not yet done.”

I lifted my head carefully and looked at him. He had a new scar, not long healed, from nose to ear, and several teeth missing. I took his wrist and brought his hand round so I could see it. The nails were gone, the fingers clubbed and twisted.

”I should be asking your forgiveness,” I said, sickened.

”Nothing happens to us that is not planned by G.o.d,” he replied.

I wondered why any G.o.d's plans had to include torture, but I did not say this to Jo-An. Instead I asked, ”How did you find me?”

”The boatman came to me and told me he had ferried someone he thought was you across the river. I've been waiting for word of you. I knew you would come back.” He took up the bundle he'd placed by the side of the road and began to untie it. ”The prophecy has to be fulfilled, after all.”

”What prophecy?” I remembered that Kenji's wife had called him the lunatic.

He didn't answer. He took two small millet cakes from the cloth, prayed over them, and gave one to me.

”You are always feeding me,” I said. ”I don't think I can eat.”

”Drink, then,” Jo-An said and handed me a rough bamboo flask. I wasn't sure about drinking, either, but I thought it might warm me. As soon as the liquor hit my stomach the darkness came roaring back, and I vomited several times so hard I was racked by violent shuddering.

Jo-An clicked his tongue as you would to a horse or an ox. He had the patient touch of a man used to dealing with animals, though of course he dealt with them at the moment of their death and then, afterward, flayed their corpses. When I could speak again I said through chattering teeth, ”I must keep moving.”

”Where are you heading?” he asked.

”Terayama. I'll spend the winter there.”

”Well,” he said, and fell into one of his familiar silences. He was praying, listening to some inner voice that would tell him what to do. ”It's good,” he said finally. ”We'll go over the mountain. If you go by road they'll stop you at the barrier, and anyway it will take too long; it will snow before you get to Yamagata.”

”Over the mountain?” I looked up at the jagged peaks that stretched away to the northeast. The road fromTsuwano to Yamagata skirted around their foot, but Terayama itself lay directly behind them. Around the range the clouds hung low and gray, with the dull damp sheen that presages snow.

”It's a steep climb,” Jo-An said. ”You must rest a little before you attempt it.”

I began to think about getting to my feet. ”I don't have time. I must get to the temple before it snows.”

Jo-An looked up at the sky and sniffed the wind. ”It will be too cold to snow tonight, but it could well start tomorrow. We'll ask the Secret One to hold it back.”

He stood and helped me up. ”Can you walk now? It's not far back to the place I live. You can rest there, then I'll take you to the men who will show you the way over the mountains.”

I felt faint, as though my body had lost its substance, almost as though I'd split myself and somehow gone with my image. I was thankful for the Tribe training that had taught me to find those reserves of strength of which most men are unaware. Slowly as I concentrated my breathing I felt some energy and toughness return. Jo-An no doubt attributed my recovery to the power of his prayers. He regarded me for a moment with his deep-sunk eyes, then turned with a flicker of a smile and began to walk back the way we had come.

I hesitated for a moment, partly because I hated the thought of retracing my steps, losing the ground it had cost me so much to cover, but also because I recoiled from going with the outcast. It was one thing to talk with him at night, alone, quite another to walk close to him, to be seen in his company. I reminded myself that I was not yet an Otori lord, and no longer one of the Tribe, that Jo-An was offering me help and shelter, but my skin crawled as I followed him.