Brilliance of the Moon (41 page)

Haruka found the last of the wildflowers and a few chrysanthemums
to put in buckets outside the kitchen, as she always had, and their sharp
autumn scent mingled with the smell of mud and decay from the river. The garden
was ruined, the fish all dead, but Chiyo had washed and polished the
nightingale floor, and when we stepped onto it, it sang beneath our feet.

The downstairs rooms were damaged by water and mud, and she had
already started stripping them and having new mats laid, but the upstairs room
was untouched. She had cleaned and polished it until it looked just as it had
the first time I had seen it when I had fallen in love with Shigeru’s house and
with him.

Chiyo apologized that there was no hot water for a bath, but we
washed in cold water and she managed to find enough food for an adequate meal
as well as several flasks of wine. We ate in the upper room, as we so often had
before, and Kenji made Taku laugh by describing my poor efforts as a student
and how impossible and disobedient I had been. I was filled with an almost
unbearable mixture of sorrow and joy, and smiled with tears in my eyes. But
whatever my grief, I felt Shigeru’s spirit was at peace. I could almost see his
quiet ghost in the room with us, smiling when we smiled. His murderers were
dead and Jato had come home.

Taku fell asleep at last, and Kenji and I shared one more flask
of wine as we watched the gibbous moon move across the garden. It was a cold
night. There would probably be a frost, and we closed the shutters before going
to bed ourselves. I slept restlessly, no doubt from the wine, and woke just
before dawn, thinking I had heard some unfamiliar sound. The house lay quiet
around me. I could hear Kenji and Taku breathing alongside me, and Chiyo and
Haruka in the room below. We had put guards on the gate, and there were still a
couple of dogs there. I thought I could hear the guards talking in low voices.
Perhaps it was they who had awakened me.

I lay and listened for a while. The room began to lighten as day
broke. I decided I had heard nothing unusual and would go to the privy before I
tried to sleep for another hour or two. I got up quietly and crept down the
stairs, slid open the door, and stepped outside.

I did not bother masking my footsteps, but as soon as the floor
sang I realized what it was I had heard: one light step onto the boards.
Someone had tried to come into the house and had been discouraged by the floor.
So where was he now?

I was thinking rapidly,
I should wake Kenji, should at
least get a weapon
,
when
the Kikuta master Kotaro came out of the misty garden and stood in front of me.

Until tonight I had seen him only in his faded blue robes, the disguise
he wore when traveling. Now he was in the dark fighting clothes of the Tribe,
and all the power that he usually kept hidden was revealed in his stance and in
his face, the embodiment of the Tribes hostility toward me, expert, ruthless,
and implacable. He said, “I believe your life is forfeit to me.”

“You broke faith
with me by ordering Akio to kill me,” I said. “All our bargains were annulled
then. And you had no right to demand anything from me when you did not tell me
that it was you who killed my father.”

He smiled in contempt. “You’re right, I did kill Isamu,” he said.
“I’ve learned now what it was that made him disobedient too: the Otori blood
that flows in you both.” He reached into his jacket and I moved quickly to
avoid the knife I thought was coming, but what he held out was a small stick.
“I drew this,” he said, “and I obeyed the orders of the Tribe, even though
Isamu and I were cousins and friends, and even though he refused to defend
himself. That’s what obedience is.”

Kotaro’s eyes were fixed on my face and I knew he was hoping to
confuse me with the Kikuta sleep, but I was certain I could withstand it,
though I doubted I could use it on him as I had once before in Matsue. We held
each other’s gaze for several moments, neither of us able to dominate.

“You murdered him,” I said. “You contributed to Shigeru’s death
too. And what purpose did Yuki’s death serve?”

He hissed impatiently in the way I remembered and with a
lightning movement threw the stick to the ground and drew a knife. I dove sideways,
shouting loudly. I had no illusions about my ability to take him on alone and
unarmed. I would have to fight bare-handed as I had with Akio until someone
came to my help.

He jumped after me, feinting at me, and then moved faster than
the eye could follow in the opposite direction to take my neck in a
stranglehold; but I’d anticipated the move, slipped under his grasp, and kicked
at him from behind. I caught him just over the kidney and heard him grunt. Then
I leaped above him and with my right hand hit him in the neck.

The knife came upward and I felt it slash deep into the side of
my right hand, taking off the two smallest fingers and opening up the palm. It
was my first real wound and the pain was terrible, worse than anything I’d ever
experienced. I went invisible for a moment, but my blood betrayed me, spurting
across the nightingale floor. I shouted again, screaming for Kenji, for the
guards, and split myself. The second self rolled across the floor while I drove
my left hand into Kotaro’s eyes.

His head snapped sideways as he avoided the blow, and I kicked at
the hand that held the knife. He leaped away with unbelievable speed and then
seemed to fly back at my head. I ducked just before he could kick me in the
head and leaped into the air as he landed, all this time fighting off shock and
pain, knowing that if I gave in to them for a moment, I would die. I was about
to try to kick him in a similar way when I heard the upstairs window open and a
small invisible object came hurtling out.

Kotaro was not expecting it and he heard it a second after I did.
By then I had perceived it to be Taku. I leaped to break his fall, but he
seemed almost to fly down onto Kotaro, distracting him momentarily. I turned my
leap into a kick and rammed my foot hard into Kotaro’s neck.

As I landed, Kenji shouted from above, “Takeo! Here!” and threw
Jato down to me.

I caught my sword in my left hand. Kotaro grabbed Taku, swung him
above his head, and hurled him into the garden. I heard the boy gasp as he
landed. I swung Jato above my head, but my right hand was pouring blood and the
blade descended crookedly. Kotaro went invisible as I missed him. But now that
I was armed he was more wary of me. I had a moments breathing space. I tore off
my sash and wound it around my palm.

Kenji leaped from the upstairs window, landed on his feet like a
cat, and immediately went invisible. I could discern the two masters faintly
and they could obviously see each other. I had fought alongside Kenji before
and I knew if anyone did how truly dangerous he was, but I realized I had never
seen him in action against anyone who had a fraction of his skills. He had a
sword a little longer than Kotaro’s knife and it gave him a slight advantage,
but Kotaro was both brilliant and desperate. They drove each other up and down
the floor and it cried out under their feet. Kotaro seemed to stumble, but as
Kenji closed in on him, he recovered and kicked him in the ribs. They both
split their images. I lunged at Kotaro’s second self as Kenji somersaulted away
from him. Kotaro turned to deal with me and I heard the whistling sound of
throwing knives. Kenji had hurled them at his neck. The first blade penetrated
and I saw Kotaro’s vision begin to waver. His eyes were fixed on my face. He
made one last vain thrust with his knife, but Jato seemed to anticipate it and
found its way into his throat. He tried to curse me as he died, but his
windpipe was slashed and only blood came bubbling out, obscuring the words.

By now the sun had risen; when we gazed down on Kotaro’s broken,
bleeding body in its pale light, it was hard to believe that such a fragile
human being had wielded so much power. Kenji and I had only just managed to
overcome him between us and he had left me with a ruined hand, Kenji with
terrible bruises and, we found out later, broken ribs. Taku was winded and
shaken, lucky to be still alive. The guards who had come running at my shouts
were as shocked as if a demon had attacked us. The dogs’ hackles rose when they
sniffed around the body, and they showed their teeth in uneasy snarls.

My fingers were gone, my palm was torn open. Once the terror and
thrill of the fight had subsided, the pain truly made itself felt, turning me
faint.

Kenji said, “The knife blade was probably poisoned. We should
take your hand off at the elbow to save your life.” I was light-headed with
shock and at first thought he was joking, but his face was serious and his
voice alarmed me. I made him promise he would not do it. I would rather be dead
than lose what was left of my right hand. As it was, I thought I would never
hold a sword or a brush again.

He washed the wound at once, told Chiyo to bring coals, and, while
the guards knelt on me to hold me still, seared the stumps of the fingers and
the edges of the wound and then bound it with what he said he hoped was an
antidote.

The blade was indeed poisoned and I fell into hell, a confusion
of pain and fever and despair. As the long, tormented days passed, I was aware
that everyone thought I was dying. I did not believe I would die, but I could
not speak to reassure the living. Instead, I lay in the upstairs room,
thrashing and sweating and babbling to the dead.

They filed past me, those I had killed, those who had died for
me, those I had avenged: my family in Mino; the Hidden at Yamagata; Shigeru;
Ichiro; the men I had murdered on the Tribe’s orders; Yuki; Amano; Jiro; Jo-An.

I longed for them to be alive again, I longed to see them in the
flesh and hear their living voices; one by one they bade me farewell and left
me, desolate and alone. I wanted to follow them, but I could not find the road
they had taken.

At the worst point of the fever, I opened my eyes and saw a man
in the room. I had never seen him before, but I knew he was my father. He wore
peasant’s clothes like the men of my village and he carried no weapons. The
walls faded away and I was in Mino again; the village was unburned and the rice
fields were brilliant green. I watched my father working in the fields,
absorbed and peaceful. I followed him up the mountain path and into the forest
and I knew how much he loved to roam there among its animals and plants, for it
was what I loved too.

I saw him turn his head and listen in the familiar Kikuta way as
he caught some distant noise. In a moment he would recognize the step: his
cousin and friend who was coming to execute him. I saw Kotaro appear on the
path in front of him.

He was dressed in the dark fighting clothes of the Tribe, as he
had been when he came for me. The two men stood as if frozen before me, each
with their distinctive stance: my father, who had taken a vow never to kill
again, and the future Kikuta master, who lived by the trade of death and
terror.

As Kotaro drew his knife I screamed out a warning. I tried to
rise, but hands held me back. The vision faded, leaving me in anguish. I knew
that I could not change the past, but I was aware, with the intensity of fever,
that the conflict was still unresolved. However much men craved an end to
violence, it seemed they could not escape it. It would go on and on forever unless
I found a middle way, a way to bring peace, and the only way I could think of
was to reserve all violence to myself, in the name of my country and my people.
I would have to continue on my violent path so that everyone else could live
free of it, just as I had to believe in nothing so everyone else was free to
believe in what they wanted. I did not want that. I wanted to follow my father
and forswear killing, living in the way my mother had taught me. The darkness
rose around me and I knew that if I surrendered to it I could go after him and
the conflict would be ended for me. The thinnest of veils separated me from the
next world, but a voice was echoing through the shadows.

Your life is
not your own. Peace comes at the price of bloodshed.

Behind the holy woman’s words I heard Makoto calling my name. I
did not know if he was dead or alive. I wanted to explain to him what I had
learned and how I could not bear to act as I knew I would have to and so I was
leaving with my father, but when I tried to speak, my swollen tongue would not
frame the words. They came out as nonsense and I writhed in frustration,
thinking we would be parted before I could talk to him.

He was holding my hands firmly. He leaned close and spoke clearly
to me. “Takeo! I know. I understand. It’s all right. We will have peace. But
only you can bring it. You must not die. Stay with us! You have to stay with us
for the sake of peace.”

He talked to me like this for the rest of the night, his voice
keeping the ghosts at bay and linking my spirit with this world. Dawn came and
the fever broke. I slept deeply, and when I awoke, lucidity had returned.
Makoto was still there and I wept for joy that he was alive. My hand still
throbbed, but with the ordinary pain of healing, not with the ferocious agony
of the poison. Kenji told me later he thought something must have come from my
father, some immunity in the master poisoner’s blood that protected me. It was
then that I repeated to him the words of the prophecy, how my own son was
destined to kill me and how I did not believe I would die before then. He was
silent for a long time. “Well,” he said finally. “That must lie a long way in
the future. We will deal with it when it comes.”