Tengu (30 page)

We walked for hours, in a manner of speaking. I assume my captors walked; I sprawled, skidded, and staggered in their wake. At one point, they stopped and the lower part of the hood was pushed up enough to allow a water bottle to be forced between my lips. I gulped the lukewarm liquid, the organism responding gratefully.
Gotta stay hydrated
, I reminded myself.
Get every edge you
can
. I tried for more, but they took the bottle away and yanked the hood down again. The trail leveled out for some time—we must have started to travel across the slope—then we began to head downhill. I was briefly relieved, but soon discovered that I was equally good at falling in this direction.
Gravity is a wily opponent
. I snickered to myself at the thought—Micky would have appreciated the insight—then felt my throat tighten with grief. The trail seemed to wind on forever.

I couldn’t hear much as we traveled—either the hood blocked it out or they had very good noise discipline. But finally, I could pick up the beginning of various conversations from the people around me. They sounded confident and excited. They dragged me to a halt and there was shouting ahead of us. Then gunshots.

This is how fickle resolve can be; despite myself, when the shots rang out, my heart leapt with yearning for escape.
Oh please
.

Someone tore the hood off and I stood, blinking in the light of a clearing. The people around me were smiling grimly and a few were shooting their rifles into the air in celebration. They forced me to my knees—at least this time I could reach out and see enough to break the fall. I looked around at the circle of men. Filipinos mostly, but some others who looked Middle Eastern. They were all armed to the teeth.

I looked up into the sky. It was still daylight, perhaps late afternoon. I was confused. If they were bringing me to their camp, the journey should have been longer. Had I been taken by another group? Cooke said that they were all over these hills. Or were they delivering me to a different location? I felt an odd sort of panic, a superfluous jet of fear from a person already trussed like a chicken and delivered to his enemies. I felt ashamed. The only comfort I had left was that in one way or another I was going to reach Yamashita. Now had I failed even in that?

The crowd was milling around and I could see glimpses here and there of shelters and tents in the tree line. The clearing was irregular and the long grass looked recently trampled, like these people had arrived only recently. I eyed the men around me. Their clothes were stained with sweat and dirt, their boots showing evidence of recent travel. These were people who had been on the move.

“Where . . . ” I could barely make a sound. I tried to work up some spit. Swallowed. “Where am I?” I finally croaked. Some of the Filipinos laughed.

Then there was movement at the back of the crowd, and the smiles disappeared. The men gave way before he got too close, as if they were afraid that a mere touch was dangerous. They needn’t have bothered. The old man wove through the crowd with unconscious fluidity, the product of decades of intense training. You see someone move like that, you know you’re in the presence of a master. I recognized that, even as I knelt there openmouthed in astonishment.

He was old and short, with a round head. His skin was shiny and slightly flushed across the cheekbones, and it made the glittering slits of his eyes even more frightening. When he opened his mouth, I saw teeth jagged and irregular, like those of an animal, and I could sense his power washing over me, leaving a thousand tiny needles pricking my skin.

It was unexpected, this wash of
ki
here in a mountain field thousands of miles from my
dojo
. So was his unsettling, almost demonic appearance. But what struck me most of all was that he was immaculately garbed in a dark gray kimono with an old war fan stuck in the belt, surrounded by grimy soldiers armed for battle in an era that had long turned its back on the sensibilities of traditional Japan.

“Dr. Burke,” he said in a heavily accented English. “We were beginning to think that you would never arrive.” He cackled at that, and the fang-like teeth flashed briefly. He drew the folded fan from the wide
obi
that belted his robe and lifted my chin with it. He pushed my head so that he could examine each side. It was like being sized up by a stockman. He stepped back a pace and regarded me. “So,” he concluded, “the damage is minimal. I am pleased.” I noticed that some of the guards were fidgeting nervously during his inspection. They seemed to relax a bit with his pronouncement. If the old man noticed, he ignored it.

“Where am I?” I asked again.

“Where?” he smiled grimly. “Where I wished you to be.”

“Wha’?” He was such a freak. An old Japanese guy with a fan.
Man with a fan. Fan man
. The pills had worn off: I was tired and thoughts were getting jumbled. I blinked and tried to clear my head. I was having a hard time following him.

He stood there and looked at me with a curious expression of satisfaction. I noticed that he stood out of the range of my arms, alive to the possibility of an attack. “At times, I worried that the plan was too elaborate,” he confided in me. “The way of strategy is complex,
neh
? Surely your
sensei
must have taught you something of
heiho
?” I said nothing. His expression told me that he hadn’t really expected a reply. He grunted to himself finally. “It is a subtlety probably lost to Westerners.”

“
Wakarimasen
,” I told him in Japanese. I don’t understand.

His eyes narrowed. “Please. We will use English. There is no need to submit the language of the Yamato to butchery by a
gaijin
.”

Gaijin
simply means “foreigner.” But the Japanese use it to describe Them. Barbarians. The Other. It’s a description loaded with condescension. For years, this same attitude on the part of some of the old-time
sensei
had bugged me. I was way beyond it now. But the odd, out-of-place comment from the old man before me gave a slight clue to the workings of the mind that spun behind the remote eyes. He may have hated me for something I had done; I couldn’t be sure. And it didn’t matter, since on a more fundamental level he hated me merely for what I was. There was no rationality in those eyes, and no mercy.

He glared at me for a time. “You wish to know where you are?” Again, that odd, angry cackle. “Why, you are where you wished to be.” And with that, he stood aside. The crowd parted with him, and I could see a crumpled form in the distance, tethered to a post in the earth, as if they feared his spirit could still rise up and do battle.

They let me run to him. I sank beside the wrecked form that had once dominated the
dojo
with its sheer sense of power. Yamashita’s eyes were closed at first—his face was swollen and bruised, and even if he wanted to, it would have been an effort to get the lids parted much. But I whispered his name, and one eye cracked open. He sighed.

“So,” my teacher said. “You
have
come.” His voice sounded like dry wind forced out over a field of broken stones. He took a sudden sip of breath, gripped by a spasm.

I meant to smile, although it probably looked like a grimace. My eyes were taking in a silent inventory of the damage. Yamashita was sprawled there in the grass, legs stretched out in front of him. They looked swollen and lifeless. His left shoulder was slumped down, his arm cradled in his lap. Only his right arm appeared to be intact, although the hand was discolored with deep bruises.

“Ah, Professor,” Yamashita told me when the pain that gripped him had faded, “you have a true talent for getting into bad situations.”

I felt a catch in my throat.
You will
not
let these people see you
cry
, I insisted with a sudden, silent ferocity. I got ahold of myself and tried to smile a little wider at him.

“I have a good teacher,” I rasped in response.

“It is a subtle pleasure,” the old man said contentedly, “to sip warm
sake
as the evening grows cooler. Is it not, Yamashita-san?”

They had brought over a small low table, and he sat with us, arranging a heated ceramic jug of rice wine and its two small white cups on the table. The guards brought over the pawn in the play, Hatsue Abe. I recognized her from her photo. She gazed at me as if trying to read some significance in the look on my face, then sat quietly by Yamashita’s side. She never raised her head, as if afraid to look into the old man’s eyes.

Our captor settled himself and withdrew the long iron-ribbed war fan from his sash. They had tied my lead rope to Yamashita’s post. The table had been set down near it.
If he puts the fan on
the table, I might be able to get ahold of it
, I thought. I could feel my muscles tense in minute rehearsal of the killing lunge I would make at his throat. I thought that there was just enough slack in the rope. The old man stopped his motion in midair and looked at me curiously. “
So desu ne
,” he murmured. Then he carefully placed the fan on the ground next to him, away from my reach.

The old freak gestured with a hand at the woman. “Dr. Burke. Abe Hatsue.”

I looked at her carefully, remembering the formal portrait that I had been shown in a faraway place a lifetime ago. Her hair was cropped short now, her skin was dirt-smudged, and fatigue lined her face. The ordeal had marked her. She bowed slightly and sniffed, but didn’t say a word to me. The old man gestured at the cups and Hatsue carefully filled them. He reached for his and held it expectantly.

“
Dozo
,” he gestured, encouraging Yamashita to drink.

Sensei
lifted his battered right hand. “I am afraid that my fingers will not work well enough for this honor tonight.”

The old man bowed slightly. “I regret it extremely. My men had specific orders to spare the right side . . . ”

“It is nothing,” Yamashita said, clearing his throat to make the statement sound stronger. “A temporary thing.”

Hatsue reached across and silently lifted Yamashita’s cup to his lips. He sipped gently, eyes closed. Then he nodded. “
Domo
,” he told her and she set the cup down. She sat, rigid in formal elegance.

“Perhaps Hatsue-chan may be excused?” Yamashita asked. “She finds this . . . a strain.”

“
Ie
,
Sensei
, I wish to remain with you,” she whispered. She kept her face down and impassive, but you could see the trembling of her features as she struggled for control.

The old man snorted in contempt. “The generations after the war have deteriorated. A woman of an old samurai family should be stronger.” But he gestured to a guard, who led the poor woman away.

Yamashita watched our enemy impassively. Since the old man’s approach, he hadn’t given any indication of discomfort or weakness. His voice was raspy and his words came out as if he were carefully forming them, but his appearance aside, only someone intimately familiar with him would have noticed anything wrong. I marveled at the performance.

Yamashita looked along the tree line to the west. A line of light sky lingered there, the hue sliding from red and gold to green to blue to black as you brought your eyes up to the vault of the heavens. He looked at me, then down at his battered form. “There is beauty in the strangest places, Burke. It is a matter of how you look.”

“Yes,
Sensei
,” I bowed. I looked at the old man.
Red and gold
like fire. Black like smoke
. I remembered the burning and looked at the Tengu.
I’m going to get you, you old freak
. I was stoking my ferocity—it was all I had left.

“The capacity to see true beauty in the oddest places is a truly Japanese sensibility,” the old man was saying. He poured the last of the
sake
into his cup, shaking the bottle gently. Then he finished his drink and licked his wet lips. “We will see how well your pupil has learned this lesson tomorrow, Yamashita-san.”

He rose, his retinue of guards followed after him, and we were alone.

“Tomorrow?” I prompted.

“
Hai
,” Yamashita answered simply. He saw that I was not completely getting it. He settled back against the post, wincing slightly. “Have you forgotten the deadline? We are to be executed tomorrow at dawn.”

I swallowed at the matter-of-fact finality in his statement. “Why?”

Yamashita smiled tightly. “This is one of the things I like about you, Professor. Always the urge to know more.”

We leaned against the pole, my left shoulder touching his right, our heads close together, and Yamashita rasped out the story.

“The old one is a master of
gekken
, the old-style swordsmanship. And other arts as well: nerve points and the body’s power meridians, the darker means of harnessing power through
mudra
and
kuji-no-in
. His skill is legendary. It was said he learned the hidden arts from mountain goblins. His name . . . well, now he is simply called the Tengu. He has become a demon himself.

“He mourns the passing of Imperial Japan. Its culture. He labored hard to preserve it in some way, through passing on his art to a worthy successor . . . ”

“Did he succeed?” I whispered.

“Oh yes. The will of someone like the Tengu is not easily denied. He labored long and hard to find a fitting heir. He trained him, hoping to see this part of old Japan live on. And, truly, the pupil he chose was remarkable. But he was unable to control him . . . ”

“What happened?”

“His pupil answered to . . . other demons. He left the Tengu to pursue his own destiny.” I nodded in silent encouragement. Yamashita could feel the movement of my head. “The Tengu’s pupil . . . is not unknown to you, Burke. His name was Tomita.”

I sat upright at the name, my stiff muscles protesting at the sudden movement.
Tomita!
I thought back to that night years ago when I first learned the terrible implications of walking the martial path. Tomita had left a string of bodies in his wake as he made his way to New York, desperate to wreak revenge on Yamashita for something my teacher could not control. In the end, I had stopped Tomita. It wasn’t something I was proud of, but when the fight was over, I lurched away and left him dead on the floor.