Fortress of Lost Worlds (21 page)

Morales grinned impishly.

“
Arigato, senor
,”
Gonji said, bowing curtly, “for the troubles you’ve taken on my behalf.”

“Ahh!” Morales dismissed it with an impatient gesture. “You don’t belong in this wretched place. I’ve met more than one trooper who’s served with you in the past. Almost to a man they swear to your valor and sense of honor. And what a man of honor believes in his own heart is his own affair, as far as I’m concerned. Just so you don’t try to subvert my children with your filthy Eastern ways! Here, now, eat hearty and quickly—you’ve a visitor this morning.”

Gonji complied, though he tried to check his alacrity with a facade of unconcern. He was consumed with curiosity.

Gonji studied the face of the man who peered through the grating a half an hour later. Deep, warm eyes, penetrating in their intensity, engaged Gonji’s. The visitor had a strong, prominent nose and a sharply chiseled chin accentuated by the neat trim of his beard. He was fiftyish and graying, but he exuded the youthful vigor of a probing intellect.

“
Senor
?”
Gonji said.

“Forgive me,” the other apologized, “I forget my manners, but you are indeed an astonishing man to look upon. I am Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. I do not presume that you have heard of me. I am a scribbler of popular fictions—no! Their critic! I am an iconoclast, in my way, shattering the masses’ notions of how they should be entertained. Ever attempting to uplift them even as I distract them.”

“A magician, then,” Gonji said with some amusement. “You should be imprisoned here with me.”

Cervantes laughed, but immediately assumed a sympathetic expression. “
Si
,
but this is deplorable, is it not? I’m afraid they live in dreadful fear of you. Would that we might meet under better circumstances. Have they made it unbearable?” His eyes glistened moistly, sincerity welling up from the depths of his soul.

Gonji’s eyes narrowed. “It
is
what my life has become. All of life serves up some burden that must be borne, Cervantes.
Cervantes
…” he repeated thoughtfully. “I
do
know your name. Haven’t you been a correspondent of the mad poet Paille?”

Cervantes’s eyebrows raised. “
Alain
Paille? Hah! Don’t tell me you’re an acquaintance of that lunatic!”

“It seems so.”

“I haven’t heard from him in some time. He wrote me about his town’s having come under siege by dragons and witches. Sent me, in fact, portions of an extravagantly imaginative in-progress epic he’s composing to commemorate the siege. Can you believe it?! Life is never flamboyant enough for Paille. He must embroider it with—but surely
you’re
not the Red Blade who is the central focus of these events in—where was it?—
Vedun
? In Rumania?”

Gonji’s lips were pressed into a thin line. He knew not whether to laugh or cry. “How could I be? I’m surely not
flamboyant
enough to be this hero who—what?—tilted with a cretin giant? Attacked a wyvern alone with bow and arrow? Perhaps…led defenders against a monster worm in the catacombs beneath the city itself?”

Cervantes’s droll tone became serious. “You
are
the one. The Oriental who partakes in an adventurous quest after something called the Deathwind. The one who’s spoken of the idiocy of European life, of the blindness to wonders untold. Tell me,
senor
,
in your questing, have you found the secret of what you seek? What
is
this Deathwind? I must know what lies at the end of the quest for one such as yourself. I have myself undertaken a lengthy work concerned with the idealist’s quest after the substance of his dreams. Tell me what you have learned,
por favor
.”

Gonji wasn’t sure whether to be honored or insulted. But the philosopher in him rose to the challenge. “All right,
amigo.
I’ll tell you what my quest has brought me. The end of knowledge, the ephemeral nature of life, the mockery of fate. These things I’ve been rewarded with in my quest.”

They spoke at length, Cervantes drawing Gonji out, cajoling him to elaborate on his specific adventures. All the while the writer lent his arrested attention.

“Do you really believe all the things you relate,” Cervantes finally asked, “truly happened?”

Gonji pondered the question before answering. “What does it matter? Whether they were real or illusion, I now bear their consequences. All of life seems a great, shifting illusion. It’s very strange, you know. Some say that I should recant the loom of lies that’s woven my very life. Others, that I’m guilty of
causing
the incredible events I’ve survived. Only I, who am favored by the truth, say that it ought to be forgotten, for the meaningless illusion it is, the ephemera of moments.”

“Illusion,” Cervantes repeated pensively.

Gonji laughed, breaking the spell. “Take nothing I say too seriously,
mi amigo
,
lest you find madness in trying to make sense of it. The best you could do right now is use your influence to obtain me writing materials so that I, too, may correspond with you.”

“I shall do my best, then,
senor
.”

They parted friends, Gonji feeling uplifted for the meeting. But he still received neither quill nor paper.

* * * *

Following the visit by Cervantes, Gonji experienced a sense of renewed hope. It seemed he was not yet consigned to the Land of the Dead; there must still be those who thought of him, who were interested in his situation. The ensuing days were filled with a heightened zest for life as the samurai pursued his daily regimen. He once again became curious as to the Inquisition’s intentions toward him. He began to chide himself inwardly for having allowed himself to withdraw so deeply. They had yet to bring him before a tribunal on any formal charges, but although he plied the seemingly sympathetic Morales for information, the sergeant was either unwilling or truly unable to provide him any.

One night as he lay half asleep, the groans of the newly tortured evoking ragged snatches of unsavory dreams, Gonji felt the eyes that watched him through the grating. He gathered his faculties, pushed up to his feet abruptly, and strode to the door.

He peered into the large, blinking eyes that radiated both fear and hostility. It took a moment to recall the title that went with the face—the Grand Inquisitor himself, who had glared at him with such loathing but said nothing when Gonji had been brought to Toledo those long weeks ago.

“Repent, witch,” Bishop Izquierdo said shakily, the words thrust out with a total lack of confidence, like the lunge of a timid fencer. “Repent and be delivered of your sins.”

“What would you have me say?” Gonji asked earnestly “Why do you keep me here in this dishonorable place? If you would only deliver me my swords, I would save you the trouble of bedeviling me further. What charges do you prefer against me?
Let’s have an end of this
!”

Gonji swallowed hard and reestablished a calm exterior a once, regretting his outburst, though he felt the better for it. He relaxed his stranglehold on the grating when he saw Izquierdo stumble back in surprise. A sentry stamped forward to rap his knuckles with a sword hilt.

“Even your own words condemn you,” the Grand Inquisitor declared. “Heresy, witchcraft, the perverted wish for suicide—last refuge of the despairing soul.”

“Judging by the little I’ve been allowed to hear, you want me to recant my entire life. So sorry, but that is quite impossible. Even the Catholic monks who filled my youth with the learning of
Iasu
didn’t try to take my swords from me. They understood that a samurai’s soul is bound to his swords.
Cholera—
why
do you accuse me? So stupid,
neh
?
Heresy? By the holy name of the Christ himself, I have no wish to subvert your followers. And as for witchcraft, you credit me with far too much power, priest. Had I such power, I’d have surely delivered myself from your clutches long ago.”

“Lies!” the Grand Inquisitor railed. “The power of Christ restrains you here! You’ve left behind you a trail of wickedness and carnage no deceit can ever eradicate. You are the Deathwind of Vedun—the Scourge of Avignon—murderer of women and children. You hold commerce with witches and demons, and even now you await deliverance by your familiar demon, the one you call
Simon
!”

Gonji’s face contorted as if with a sudden pain. But he began to laugh. He turned from the grating and clutched at himself as he laughed spasmodically. He faced the bewildered bishop again only when he had regained control, though his eyes still reflected his astonishment.

“You have things so twisted, priest, that I could scarcely begin to unravel them. Someone has poisoned you against me, and I think there’s no cure, not at this advanced stage. But this Simon you speak of, do you truly know anything about him? He’s a tormented soul, all right. Tormented in a way none could fully appreciate, I think. But not the way you say. He is no familiar demon of any witch. Have you never heard of the wolf-child raised in a convent? Raised in the ways of
Iasu
?”

“
Si
,”
Izquierdo fumed, “and by the power of the demon within, he
destroyed
that convent, and
others
,
and when he comes, seeking to free you, we shall be waiting for him. And by the power of the Lord God he shall
share your destiny
!”

Izquierdo stalked off.

“Then have done with me,” Gonji roared at his departing footsteps. “Bring me my swords, or throw me to your sadistic dogs. But let me be freed of this filthy Spaniard corruption! And here is a thought you can take with you to your cold, dark bedchamber:
Simon is coming
!
Sleep well, Inquisitor!

“Simon is coming!”

The guard rapped Gonji’s knuckles so hard as they gripped the grating that the samurai cried out in pain.

“
Cholera-pox
on you, Spanish scum! Bastard! Coward!”

Lamps flared alight in the dungeon block, and a flurry of activity followed his outcry. Moments later a squad of troopers stormed into his cell and overpowered him, dragging him to the torture chamber for another session under the whip.

Gonji tore a piece of the lapel from his devil-cloak with his teeth and bit hard on it to keep from crying out during the ordeal. When they were done, he feigned swooning until the soldier who had broken his knuckle leaned near. Bellowing an ear-piercing
kiyai
,
he leapt and kicked the offending guard under the chin. The man’s lower jaw snapped like celery.

The other guards fell on Gonji in pummeling vengeance. They drove him to the whipping post again and were about to recommence when they were interrupted by the appearance of a prelate who stayed them with harsh commands.

Gonji heard words spoken to him through an echoed ringing but understood nothing of it. He dimly saw the hands that descended to his face, saw the folds of the prelate’s cowl.

A small man, speaking—moving his lips—floating—fading into blackness.

* * * *

Hic jacet—

Hic jacet Sabatake Gonji, samurai—

“Here lies Gonji Sabatake, samurai, warlock, monster of a thousand shapes,

“Whose crimes are so numerous they shall go without mention.”

Early summer fanned the outside world with warm breezes. Gonji sat on the floor of his cell, sullenly sifting through his morbid thoughts. With the summer had come the flies, and a new practice was added to his monotonous daily regimen: He snatched the buzzing nuisances out of the air to sharpen his quickness and coordination, concentrating more on the injured right hand as it gradually healed.

With the coming of summer, the lice had become more active. Also the rats—he had stomped one to death in his cell earlier that morning as it had tried to beat him to his meal.

The fly-catching segment ending, signaled by the guard’s removal of his meal scraps, Gonji rose and performed his stretching exercises, loosening his inflamed joints. Next came the long series of empty-hand
kata.
As he was deeply emerged in these, his body now coated with a thin film of sweat, he noticed the face watching him through the grating.

The small priest again, whom he’d come to know as Father Martin de la Cenza. It was this
padre
who had spared him the wrath of the night guards some weeks earlier. De la Cenza had descended to the dungeons to try to make small talk with Gonji several times since, but the samurai had stubbornly resisted communication. He was suspicious of all Spanish priests now, for it was they who kept him in this torment. Regarded him as some inscrutable beast.

“Why do you mimic the actions of animals?” de la Cenza asked pleasantly.

Surprisingly, Gonji stopped and met the priest’s eyes, the present
kata
having concluded. He stared blankly at de la Cenza, who was surprised to hear Gonji answer him.

“There is much that can be learned from the animals. Their suppleness and grace are beautiful to see. The artistry of the Great Kami,
neh
?” He moved nearer the door. “Why did you stop them—my torturers?”

“I did not wish them to harm you further.”

“Ah,
so desu ka
?
Iasu would be pleased,
neh
?
You could have pleased him further still by stopping the torture of those others so that we might all sleep at night.”

The priest nodded. “
Senor
Sabatake,” he began slowly, eyes brightening suddenly. “May I call you Gonji?”

“Gonji-
san
would be more polite. In any event, I cannot stop you. But you needn’t fear that I’ll use your name. That could grant me sorcerous power over you,
neh
?” Gonji said archly.

De la Cenza smiled. “Call me Martin…
san.
You must believe me when I tell you that there is nothing I can do about the torture. There are many of us who do not agree with it; yet it has been ordained by superiors.”

“But not by Iasu.”

“No,” the priest sighed, “not by Jesus.”

“
Giri
,
then,” Gonji concluded. “Duty. Obligation. I am uniquely suited to understanding that. But, of course, some duties are less zealously pursued than others.”

After a long, guilty silence, de la Cenza spoke again.

“I must ask you, for your own good, to cease this game of ‘Simon’s coming.’ It does nothing to help your situation. This person you name has also been singled out for special attention by the Inquisition.”