Gonji: Red Blade from the East (2 page)

Done with them. And glad to be alone.

* * * *

They tracked upward into the mountain foothills, the samurai lost in his thoughts, the sturdy animal sure-footed even in the increasingly rugged terrain. Long shadows pointed the way before them. Cool draughts of pine-tinged breeze washed down over them, but the heat of the dying sun held fast at their backs.

A mile or so into a sloping stand of timber Gonji reined in and swung lightly to the ground, patting Tora’s shuddering haunches. The horse shuffled and nodded with relief, poked at the wild grass. Unhitching his swords, Gonji removed his damp kimono with a grimace that evinced aching muscles. He stretched elaborately a few times, then replaced the swords at his waist.

He paced laterally along the banked earth a few yards, sniffing at the fragrant air, the rugged sandals laced about his thick
tabi
crunching sharply in the stillness.

He froze.

Both hands shot to the hilt of the killing sword as he crouched slightly in a defensive posture. He fixed the target in his vision. The Sagami sang free, scarcely touching wood, and cleft center of the object.

The samurai snatched the blade back into its sheath with an efficient two-step sliding motion, then set himself. Again. Off a bit this time. A third time—quicker, sharper. Again—better still. Several more—real time was all but forgotten. A final blurring pass—

Excellent.

Silver death in a mote of time.

He executed a leaping full turn, drawing and slashing in midair, a growling
kiyai
roaring from deep in his chest, echoing through the hills. He had landed with feline grace and splendid form, breath held in check, his mighty challenge unanswered.

Tora kept nibbling and paid him no heed.

Gonji picked up the heaped kimono and returned to his mount, breathing deeply, feeling the tension flow out of him, the light rippling of his well-toned muscles. A mild breeze feathered his damp armpits, causing a brief outcropping of gooseflesh. He tied the kimono around the spare killing sword lashed to the saddle and tugged loose a square of white cloth. He rubbed his face on a tunic sleeve.

“Again you ignore me, eh?” he spoke, stroking Tora’s neck. “What’s become of us? You used to find me so amusing!”

Tora nickered and shot his head from side to side, and Gonji chuckled, fishing a bag of oats from a pouch and sifting the last few handfuls. “See? Plenty for everyone,
neh
? Eat, proud fellow.”

The glowering orb of the sun pressed the western edge of the world.

“Do you know something?” Gonji said, sighing expansively. “We’re heading back the way we came again. Yes, that is so. Oh, not so far north this time. Through the mountains. This time we’re looking for a—how did he say?—‘stone sanctuary perched on a mountain aerie.’ Sanctuary...do you think it will be a sanctuary for
us
, Tora, eh? Do you think those mad Hungarians are still looking for us? Ahh, you don’t think at all, do you, dumb beast? Or you’d have slowed and let them catch us and you’d probably be in stud right now!

“Strange people. Strange. Bad as Mongols. Give them what they hire for and they try to kill you. For a while there I thought we had a home for a time....” He gazed wistfully into the distance, his face a mask of sadness.

“I’ll tell you something,” he said cheerfully, “if we meet in the next go-around,
I’ll
have a turn at the bit and
you
do all the thinking! How does that suit you, eh? You like that, don’t you? You like that....”

Gonji hopped backward a few merry paces and affected a passable imitation of the innkeeper’s bloated carriage. He waddled about Tora, bowing obsequiously and flapping his arms in mock solicitude.

“I go to get some food now,
Pan
Tora,
yeh
?” he mimicked, puffing his cheeks.

Taking the white cloth, he loped off to a nearby thicket in which he had spotted some wild berries. He ate a few handfuls to appease his grumbling belly while he filled the cloth, then scanned the hills ahead to determine the best shot at a stream near which he might make camp for the night. Perhaps there he might catch some fish.

A vague unease gradually cost him his interest in hunting for his dinner. Then with the graying shadows of hazy twilight came the dark and nameless fears he had known since the first night in this territory. The thought of another campfire shared with the things that rustled and coiled and stared from beyond the fringe of light brought a surge of bitterness that he fought to swallow back. Something was happening in these mountains. Something evil. And it was aware of the intruder.

Gonji’s eye caught a fallen limb.

Could it be
that
downed tree? Had he circled back to the same wretched spot—No. It wasn’t, he was sure. Days past. Miles away. There would be in that place a shriveled corpse, by now worried by the beasts that thrived on carrion.

A man. An ancient, withered hermit. Dying. The stench of death, ugly death. The horrid odor of some racking, consumptive disease. Leaning against a fallen limb, arms spread along the wood. Reclining in crucifixion.

Circle wide, circle cautiously, wear the scowl of distaste only a warrior knows at thoughts of such plague-ridden death. He stares, eyes bulging like rotted eggs. A sere hand trembles free of the supporting limb. Is it a twig or a lean brown finger that points
(at me!)
as the slack jaw works:

“Here there be...
monsters
!”

(vile wretch!)
Draw and kill the ogre! How
dare
he? Step carefully forward and rend him
(still pointing)
—
rend
him.

A long rattling sigh.... His last. Already dead. You’ve been the fool. Stupid, fearful, mistrusting fool. Still he points, but not at you, no, not at you but at....

...the road you travel.

Gonji’s eyes refocused, and he shrugged off a sudden chill. Bounding up to Tora and swinging into the saddle he glanced about him in a wide arc.

“I am Sabatake Gonji-no-Sadowara,” he stormed to the mute hills. “Ride with me if you will, against me if you dare!”

And with a hearty laugh he spurred Tora onward at a gallop. Deep into the forest they rode, the wind in the trees whispering and murmuring at their passing.

* * * *

Night encroached.

The fire crackled in the tree-rimmed clearing, its lambent glow pulsing and ebbing at the encircling blackness, now parting the veil, now shrinking before it.

The samurai sat cross-legged in the radiant warmth, a sullen frown tugging at his lips, arms limp, elbows on knees. He waxed meditative in the flickering patterns of color, the charring twigs becoming dying memories he sought to quicken, to order, to understand.

Always the needs, the nagging aches in one’s head and heart. The needs and...the search, the search back and forth and up and down this angry continent....

The Sagami lay naked along his left side. To the right, two things he had crudely fashioned: a torch of dry grass tied to a sturdy limb; and the mystical implement made from his
seppuku
sword and the spare killing blade. A dirk was lashed to his thigh. Apart from these, there were none to call friend this night. Loneliness washed over and through him like waves lapping an eroding shore.

Tora snorted peevishly and stamped at the carpet of pine needles under his hooves. Although he had been unburdened of the saddle, he was unused to being tethered. But something else was making him skittish—something that had cost both horse and rider a good deal of sleep over the past few nights. Gonji could only guess at what the animal felt. But to him the sensation was of entrapment, the predator studying its prey from silent vantage.

Gonji yanked a slab of beef from its perch over the fire. No luck in the stream, and even the flame hadn’t helped the beef; it tasted like stropping leather. He tossed it aside with a scowl and munched the last few berries. Leaning back on his arms, he regarded the tattered patch of sky the jutting treetops allowed him.

A pale yellow moon nestled between twin pine peaks. From the lowlands the moon spread a cheery glow over the earth. Here in the high hills it was different; sharper, hard-edged, glowering, offering little comfort. In a few days it would be full. In its present aspect it looked about as friendly as a bloated leech.

Gonji drank deeply from a skin filled with fresh water. He had chilled the wineskin in the stream and would have much preferred the heady drink. But after pulling at the skin once, he had decided to forego the pleasure, caution tugging at the back of his mind.

At length he stretched himself. Loose, circular contortions. He growled and sneered, baring his white teeth casually, like a languidly reclining lion.
Confidence. Always display the swagger of dominance in the face of the enemy.

Gazing at the starry pitch above, he wondered whether, as the people on this continent believed, the dead lived on somewhere beyond the heavens. If so, was his mother there now—she who had both blessed and cursed him? Did she watch him from above, guide his meanderings? Had she, in her incredible voyagings, traveled farther than he? Had
any
man journeyed as he had? seen what he had seen? if so,
lived
as long as he to tell of it? Was it, as some said, that the sky above was a great wall which no man can pass, the stars but portals through which the gods may peer at the folly of men?

Kojimura thought that way. Kojimura....

The wind moaned on the slopes, alluring and deceitful in its movement, as if diverting the attention. An unnatural stillness settled over the forest.

I am
, the grand thought came,
a man
of destiny.
Why else would my life become such a mad whirl of ironies, tragedies, misbegotten motives, ridiculous quests? Can I not see into my own head, the good and right that is there, the thoughts of others lost to me? Perhaps they have none. Is not all illusion? Then, if it is
my
illusion, why can’t I change it to suit me?

And as Gonji thought on these things, ominous clouds gathered at the fringe of his consciousness, and he saw the images of his mind through a murky haze, a rolling tapestry of bitter loneliness—mutual hatred—friendless death—all manner of foulness from bottomless hells—the good suffering, the evil triumphant—swords raised in skeletal fists—starving children—ravaging plague—creeping things that stole the peace of death—eternity without purpose—life without duty—empty souls that shared nothing—kills, endless kills—rivers of blood—
the Weeping Sisters
....

The samurai’s soul cried out in its pain.

And the children of darkness heard its cry.

They had come at midnight, sensing his anguish and acute vulnerability. Never had they been able to approach so closely before. The glade became an unholy arena, crouching and slithering shadows pressing forward anxiously. He had felt their presence before. Never in the vision, always just at the periphery. The eyes. The hot red eyes that burned with forbidden hunger; the cold yellow slits, dispassionate, commanding, beckoning with...promise...lust....

As one they moved inward.

Gonji could hear Tora’s frenzied bolting. The animal’s fierce whinnying carried challenge, bordered on madness. Brave steed. The visions that had stolen Gonji’s will departed, but he had been a fool. The meditation had lulled him, allowed them to penetrate his defenses. Still in a half-trance, he could only stare into the flames. The fire had burned low.

They sighed, and as a body moved closer.

Gonji tried desperately to strain against the icy chill that numbed his flesh, his sinew, penetrated to the core of his being. Sweat beaded on his brow, trickled down his arms, lidded his eyes in a way that bade sleep. Sweet, peaceful sleep—
no!
Fear. Rampant fear....

It is a power, Gonji-san. A force which may be used like any other. Learn to use it. The predator knows well its strength....
Have you ever known such fear, Master Oguni?

Still Gonji stared. He reeled slightly with his effort to move, nausea roiling in his belly. Behind, Tora stomped and screamed, lashed backward with his hind legs. The embers burned lower. When they were spent—

When the first soft tinkle of the Sisters’ sobbing came to him, Gonji was able to raise his head, focus his spotted vision. They advanced to right and left, two of them, white as the lotus blossom in their nakedness, sinuous and hypnotic as only the sea can be when it courts one to floating death. First came the deep longing, the searing heat in his loins. Then the mellifluous voices that gently massaged his aching mind. Their weeping was for him alone....

—See how lonely he is, tiny, fragile man!