Spirit's Princess (34 page)

I leaned forward until my lips nearly brushed my teacher’s ear. “Lady Yama?” I whispered. “I’m here. It’s Himiko.”

“Himiko …” My name rasped from her mouth. I sat back on my heels and dabbed her lips delicately with the wet cloth to moisten them.

“You’re thirsty,” I said. “Don’t try to talk until I’ve brought you something to drink. I’ll get you some honeyed water.” I tried to rise, but her hand shot out and gripped my wrist hard, her cracked nails digging deep into my skin.

“Stay, my princess,” she croaked. “Stay, my queen. I need no more water. I have put on a crane’s broad wings and flown from here to the sea! I have bathed in the waters that surround this island and all the islands that our people know as home. Ah, Lady Himiko, where are your wings? Mine are white as the snow that cloaks the sacred mountain, but yours—! Yours blaze with the holy light of the sun goddess’s own splendor.”

“Gods be merciful to her,” Father breathed. “Her mind is gone.” He must have thought he was speaking softly enough so that she wouldn’t hear him, but he was wrong.

A hoarse, distorted version of Yama’s familiar chuckle echoed within her house. “Gone?” she said. “Oh yes! Gone far from here! Gone to behold sights that you never could imagine, you sad little mole, your eyes buried so far beneath the soil that you can’t see the wonder that lives under your roof. Himiko? Child, are you there?” She squeezed my wrist so powerfully that I felt the bones grind together.

“Yes, Lady Yama,” I said with a gasp of pain. “I—I promise I won’t leave. Please, would you mind—?” I plucked lightly at her grasped fingers, urging them to release me.

“Ah, forgive me.” She let me go and sighed. As if in response, a faint rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.
“Do you hear that?” For the first time since I’d come to the shaman’s bedside, Yama’s eyes opened wide. “The gods strike the drums of heaven to drive the demons from your path. They send a rain of stones to crush you, but your feet turn them to steps that carry you higher with every stride: from shaman to chieftess of the Matsu, from chieftess of the Matsu to ruler of countless other clans, from ruler to legend! You will conquer the secrets of wind and water, of human hearts and animal spirits, of life and its darkest reflection. Your name will cross the wide waters to reach the throne of a mighty empire in the sunset lands. You will hold the mirror in which our people will see our true, glorious destiny. Oh, my beloved queen, I see it all, and my heart dances!” A radiant smile bathed her face with such rapture that the cruel signs of sickness faded away.

“Madness, ill-omened madness,” Father muttered. His hands shook, and the sword that he held trembled. Another roll of thunder reached our ears, closer now, and the first raindrops began to fall. Father looked sharply to the doorway of the shaman’s house, where Masa still stood waiting. Despite the rain, he did not cross the threshold.

“Madness,” Father said again, hunching forward. “If she were my eldest, if there were only the little boys and her, then—But no!” His voice rose sharply. “I have sons who’ll rule after me; grown
sons
. Almighty gods, be merciful! Don’t let this woman’s ravings turn to spells of destruction! Strike
me
, and let my life be the wall to shield my precious children!”

“Father, it’s all right.” I laid a hand on his forearm. “She’s sick, so very sick that she doesn’t know what she’s
saying.
Aki
will lead our people, not me! I don’t want to. All that I desire is—” I caught myself.
All that I desire is to fulfill my training in the way of the spirits
. But I couldn’t say such things to him yet, and so: “All that I desire is to follow my own path, Father. I promise you, it won’t lead me anywhere you need to fear.”

“
Your
path, my queen?” Yama’s words resounded above the rushing downpour of the rain. “You think you see it so clearly before you, cutting through the future like a wide, well-traveled road? Oh, Himiko, so wise and yet so young, you cannot know that even the best-cut path can be swept away by storms, and even stones—even stones”—she drew a deep, shuddering breath—“are sand.”

The last whisper of life trailed from between her lips, and she was gone.

I sat alone in the doorway of Yama’s house, listening to the sounds of grief and fear sweeping through our village. The cries of lamentation rose from every house, countless voices calling out to the gods for help and mercy. I leaned my head against the doorjamb and slowly closed my eyes, drained of everything but complete weariness.

The rainstorm that had swooped over us and snatched away our shaman’s life had dwindled to a few random spits of drizzle. There was a large puddle an arm’s length from the threshold where I sat, its surface pocked now and again with the last lonely drops to fall. It showed me the reflection of a clearing sky, a scrap of white cloud, and then the faint image of Mama’s face.

“Come home, Himiko,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t linger here.”

I looked up bleakly. “Why not, Mama? Lady Yama was my friend. Her spirit won’t hurt me.”

“It’s still not a good idea to stay too close to—” Mama cast a nervous glance over my head, into the living darkness biding under Yama’s roof. “To a house of sorrow.”

I shook my head. “Where do you want me to go? Listen: our whole village is a house of sorrow today,” I said with a rueful smile.

Mama hesitated, then turned resolute. She straightened her back and glared at me as if I were little Sanjirou, caught doing mischief. “Himiko, go home
now
.” Judging by her tone, she wasn’t going to hear any argument.

I wasn’t going to give her one. I merely looked at her calmly and didn’t move.

“
Agh!
What’s
wrong
with you?” she exclaimed at last, exasperated. “What do you think you’re doing? Sitting in the dirt like that isn’t going to bring her back! And if you get sick, will that change anything?” I remained silent. “Do I have to pull you to your feet and
drag
you home with me?”

Mama’s hands reached for mine, as though she were about to fulfill her threat. Abruptly, she let her arms fall to her sides and went down on one knee. When she took my hands in hers, it wasn’t to haul me away with her but to clasp them lovingly and draw them to her heart.

“You think you failed her,” she said. “My poor child, you blame yourself.”

“Oh, Mama, it’s true!” I burst into loud, body-shaking sobs and flung myself into my mother’s waiting arms. “I should never have left her alone! I should have been with her all the time! I should have looked at her wounds more often! I should have—”

“Hush, hush, my sweet baby.” Mama stroked my hair
and whispered comfort. “She was never left alone, you know that. And even if you’d spent every moment with her, do you imagine that sleep wouldn’t have overtaken you sometimes? You’re holding yourself guilty for nothing. You were only her helper, following her directions. Do you want to blame our shaman for her own death?”

I lifted my face from her shoulder and shook my head. “No, Mama,” I said in a small voice.

“So you see how it is.” A fond half smile curved her mouth. “Lady Yama was this clan’s treasure. She saved so many lives, young and old, that it would take days to speak of them all. Her skills were a gift from the gods. But there were also many lives she couldn’t save. It didn’t matter how hard she tried, or if her remedy was exactly the same as one she’d used successfully on someone else; she failed. I remember how my heart broke when—” Mama’s gaze drifted to a place of past sorrow until she wrenched her attention back to me. “Well, never mind that. What’s important is that you understand you’re blameless.”

I sat back and dried my tears with the heel of my hand. “I don’t feel blameless, Mama,” I said.

“That will come, dearest. Trust me.” She helped me stand up and gently urged me to go home with her. As we walked, she said, “We’ll all feel better once Aki, Shoichi, and the rest return with our new shaman.”

“What if … What if they can’t find him?”

Mama sighed. “I don’t know what we’ll do then. Lady Yama should have trained someone to take her place, but she never did. I think she was relying on her half brother to succeed her. I wish she’d done more than that.”

She did
, I thought. My heart fluttered with hope. Our clan couldn’t survive if we had no shaman to perform the rituals, to ask the gods for their blessing, to ensure the benevolence of the earth. If Yama’s half brother didn’t come back, how long should I wait to reveal that I had been her student, her apprentice, her heir?
Father will have to allow it. The Matsu will need me, and what else will he be able to do then? Turn to another clan for help? Never. This is the design the spirits have laid out at my feet. I will wait, but I will walk the pattern and serve my clan as Yama always intended me to do
.

Even if I hoped that our search party came back empty-handed, I could see how deeply distressed Mama was at the notion of an uncertain future. I had to offer her some reassurance. “Don’t worry, Mama,” I said. “Aki’s a great hunter. He can track anything
and
anybody. And Shoichi will help him.”

Her eyes wandered again. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if things were as they used to be. In the past, our chief was also our shaman, and our chief’s heir was given the training he would need for both positions. If he had brothers and sisters, one or two of them would share those lessons, in case the chief’s heir wasn’t fit for his duties to the clan and the gods, or if some calamity claimed him. The responsibility was always handed down that way, parent to child, until Lady Tsuki’s reign.”

“Lady Tsuki …” I remembered that name very well. I’d heard it spoken in the past, and I’d also heard it deliberately
not
spoken, to keep her spirit at bay. Never once had I heard it voiced with love. “She was our ruler before Father became chieftain, yes?”

“Our ruler, our shaman, and our punishment.” Mama’s eyes lost their usually sweet look, turning to bits of flint. “She never served our clan the way your father does or the way Lady Yama did. She only used her powers to lift herself above us all. Too many of us lived our lives in terror because she had convinced us that she only needed to utter one accursed spell and the vengeful ghosts of a thousand generations would pour across our land. She had to be flattered, satisfied, and indulged at every turn, but above all, she had to be obeyed!”

“Lady Yama told me that she envied Michio—Master Michio—and that was why he had to go away.”

“No doubt of that,” Mama said with a sniff. “I heard that he showed remarkable gifts from a very early age. The thought of anyone having skills that might rival hers was poison in Lady Tsuki’s belly. There was a rumor that she caused the death of another woman of our clan because that one was more favored by the gods than she. The dead woman was the mother of both Lady Yama and Master Michio, and before she died, she gave both of them the proper training to become great shamans in their own right. Lady Yama had the wisdom to pretend that her only talent was as a healer, and that the world of the spirits was closed to her. Master Michio made a different choice.”

We climbed the ladder to our home. Yukari and Emi had dinner ready for us. Masa was doing his best to keep our younger brothers from getting into everything and looked worn out from the effort. He gave Mama and me a welcome fit for heroes!

“Thank the gods you’re here! I’m ready to take all three
of them down to the forge and tie them to the anvil.” He groaned. “Why couldn’t I have had three more sisters?”

“Because your little sisters would be as much trouble for you as your little brothers, Masa,” I replied. “I’d make sure of that.” I swung Noboru into the air and made him crow with glee, then planted him on my hip and looked around the room curiously. “Where’s Father?”

“Gone to the burial ground,” Masa said. “There are many things to do before tomorrow.” A heavy pall trailed after his words and settled over all of us except the little ones. Somewhere in our village, my teacher’s body was being prepared by the old women who knew the right way to do such things. At the burial ground, our strongest clanfolk were making a grave. When both were ready, our shaman would be given to the earth and a square mound raised over her. Only then would Father summon the whole village to honor her spirit and say farewell.