The Golden Naginata (26 page)

“I don't think you are such a monster,” Tomoe soothed. “But I think you must consider very carefully your mother's devotion.”

Koshi sighed and said, “I cannot leap from the cliffside now, for you would be left without a guide, and this trail might fool you yet if I am gone. Perhaps I will always find a good excuse like that! I am sorry for my mother and love her very much. But it is hard to believe she would be happier if I were with her, for I have caused her much pain by being born. I am sorry for myself as well, and would rather be the most beautiful child in a hellish place than the most hellish child in beautiful Naipon.”

They were silent awhile, and careful of every step. At last they came to the bottom of the waterfall, which crashed mutely, and vanished into the thirsty ground. There was no river or anything that Tomoe could see out upon the flat plane. Koshi said, “I do not need to accompany you further. There are no obstacles now, except those which you cannot avoid, and no special landmark to prove your arrival, although arrive you must. The land out there is infinite, but at the same time it is very small; you cannot be lost. Time and distances are distorted, for which reason it is best not to stay long. You will find your way back I am certain, if the Naruka does not kill you as it boasted it would do. I will be waiting here, to lead you back the way we came.”

“It may not be necessary to wait,” said Tomoe. “I am sure I can find the way now that you have shown me once; and if I forget a turn, Taro will not. I am also not certain if I can return by the same path, to be perfectly frank, for a yamahoshi priest who gave me access to the Hollow Land has promised not to help me out again. In whatever case, your duty has been fulfilled, like the stout boy you are. Now your only concern should be about your mother. I should not lecture you, but a tengu-devil's tribe appointed me protector of demon children, and as you are half-bakemono, I am compelled to say these things. But the decision is yours in the end, like the decision to give up your paper ball. I once heard a Buddhist nun call the soul
tama-shii,
or ‘ball wind.' Perhaps the paper ball was symbolic of another thing you must give up: your spirit's vanity. You will be called a monster in Naipon, it is true, but there will be those who love you just the same.”

Koshi climbed off Taro's back, and Taro hurried away from the cliff wall to stand by Tomoe Gozen. Koshi said, “I will give every consideration to what you have said.”

When they parted, Tomoe was not certain whether or not she had succeeded in the part of her task assigned by Old Uncle Tengu.

The shadows on the ground swirled like the shadows of waves and eddies, but whatever cast them remained on some level beyond Tomoe's vision. That they were ghosts and demons and ghostly things, she was sure. That they watched her passing, more certain still. But they did not make themselves visible, perhaps because the living were as ghosts to the dead and she was frightening to them; perhaps because they would not gladly challenge her Golden Naginata. But some of them must be bolder than the others, for she heard muted laughter and vague threats … nothing quite clear enough to understand completely. They were following alongside her and Taro, trailing behind, and dancing in front of her like clowns, jeering and pointing and having a grand party at her expense. At least, these are the sorts of antics she suspected. None of it could be seen. Nothing sprang forth to cause her harm.

The shadows rose and writhed like snaky mists, so it was never possible to see far ahead. When she looked upward, the colorful roof over the sky was hidden by fuzzy greyness. When she looked back the way she came, she could not see the cliffs; but she could find her way back when she needed to do so, for her feet left indentations in the gritty land, and she could follow these … if no one erased them.

The loudest sounds were the padding of her and Taro's footfalls. Now and then, she thought she heard the “crunch-crunch” of some additional pair of feet, but could not catch sight of anyone. The ghostly, invisible surroundings did not place any mar upon the ground, so Tomoe realized that if she were being followed by something more tangible than a ghost, it would leave a track similar to those of herself and the Shinto dog.

Suddenly she turned about and strode through the greyness, her Golden Naginata held forward like a lamp as well as for protection against any possible foe; and this quick tactic startled her pursuer, who was bent over busily smudging out his track and hers.

“Ushii!” she challenged, sounding angry. “A dirty trick to erase my trail!”

He jumped up and back, reaching for his sword but not drawing it. His hair hung loose about his face. He snarled. He was dirty and his clothes were tattered. He shouted back,

“I am proud to run errands for Emma, King of Hell! He suggests I keep an eye on you, for he does not like having living flesh marking up the ground. I erase my trail and yours to keep him happy!”

Tomoe said, “Those who dislike samurai are fond of calling all of us dogs. But my companion Taro is less slavish than you! If I see this King you serve, I will spit at his feet, for I have seen his treatment of innocent children, and I am unimpressed with Buddhist justice. Even a dog would not serve him!”

“You cannot know the Way of Emma!” shouted Ushii, angered to hear his master slandered. “Mortals cannot understand the Gods!”

“But you can understand?” asked Tomoe. She was sarcastic. “You can understand because, living here, you are immortal!”

Ushii became petulant. “I know my master is wise and benevolent.”

“
Baké
!” She moved toward him threateningly, but he withdrew. She said, “All you know is pain and madness! But I remember our old friendship and therefore have brought you a present. In exchange, you must shadow me no longer, but go your own way and pursue your own fate!”

“What can you offer me?” said Ushii disinterestedly. “I have a house in the higher country, among the roots. In it are many things. Everything I need.”

“You need a healthier spirit!” said Tomoe. “A sword is a samurai's soul, and yours is rusted from neglect. Therefore I will give you this one. My own soul is temporarily invested in the naginata instead, and the soul of the sword I've brought with me belongs to someone other than myself.”

She pulled the longsword and sheath from her obi and held these to Ushii Yakushiji.

“It looks nice,” said Ushii, whining worse than Taro had ever done, easing forward to see it as a dog might sniff a bone. “Maybe I will accept your present.”

“Good. You will be glad to know whose sword it was, and whose spirit resides within it.”

“Tell me who,” whined Ushii, acting now like a dog whose head was patted, who had made friends with someone it had barked at before.

“It holds the spirit of your friend and lover Madoka Kawayama, who you slayed on a battlefield before casting your living flesh into Hell!”

Ushii held the sword and sheath, but began to shake the way a nervous dog would. He looked as though he might throw it down, but he was greedy to keep it, too, like a dog not trusting strangers yet eager for a bone. “Madoka?” said Ushii, cocking his head. He held the scabbard in one hand and drew the steel forth to inspect it and, seeing it, fell upon his knees and gazed the harder. “My face does not reflect in the polished steel,” said Ushii wonderingly. “But I am not a ghost, and I should have a reflection.”

“The sword reflects the soul,” said Tomoe, still sounding angry.

“There
is
someone reflected here,” said Ushii. “But it is not me. Is it you, Madoka? Do you forgive me for killing you? I have never forgiven myself. I have tormented myself in Hell to make restitution. Why have you never come to visit me before now? Did you love me not so well after all?”

“Ushii,” said Tomoe, gentle to him for the first time. “You must get your master to let you go free, so that you can return to the face of the land a proper mortal, and throw yourself upon Madoka's sword. You have no soul left of your own, but his is strong enough to carry you into the next life. Then you can start again.”

Ushii did not acknowledge Tomoe, but he must have heard. He asked the sword, “Have you waited for this occasion, Madoka? Have you come to take my life as I took yours? Are you strong enough to bear this soulless man into a better life? I have been immortal for only a few years. Perhaps I am not so addicted to it that I cannot throw eternal life away.”

He stood abruptly, still not acknowledging Tomoe, but looking healthier than when Tomoe first found him. His shoulders were no longer hunched, and his eyes were more clear. He still gazed only at the sword as he spoke. “I will help you take revenge against me, Madoka! Then we can be joined in the next life as a single man!”

So saying, Ushii Yakushiji turned and fled into the greyness of the Land of Gloom, leaving a track which might later lead Tomoe to the cliff wall.

Taro had not been around while this was happening. Tomoe looked at the paw-marks on the gritty ground, and followed after the Shinto dog. She heard him barking, though the sound was muffled by the shadows.

“Taro!” called Tomoe, going quickly. The track led her to him soon enough. He stood with long teeth bared, and hackles raised upon his back, glowering into the shadows at something Tomoe could not see. But there was something there, for whatever it was had a voice, and it said in soft, unctuous tones,

“Call the
komanio
off of me.” Komanio meant “hideous dog,” and despite the fact that Taro was a handsome dog, he would not seem so to a creature of Emma's Hell. Tomoe stroked Taro's back until the hackles lowered, but she did not tell him to cease his careful watch.

“Who are you hiding there? Make yourself visible to me!”

The shadows wavered into a faint form, something like a tree. From behind the tree there stepped a woman dressed in red.

“Tsuki!” exclaimed Tomoe. “Where are your scars? Are you all right?”

She came forward with a pleasant smile, her walking staff held casually. “I have been cured of all deformity,” said Tsuki. “We can be friends again.”

Taro started to leap at the Buddhist nun, but Tomoe still held him by the hairs at the back of his neck. So busy was she restraining Taro that she did not act swiftly enough when the staff of Tsuki Izutsu swept out and struck the hand which held the Golden Naginata. Tomoe shouted and shook her smarting fingers, letting the weapon fall. Now she saw that Tsuki Izutsu was not cured of her scars at all. In fact, the scars that had previously been on only one side of her face were now on both sides, and Tomoe Gozen had never seen a more hideous woman. Tsuki snarled like a beast, and Taro snarled back.

The weird nun's staff struck Tomoe in the stomach, knocking her backward, further from where the Golden Naginata lay. Taro was free of Tomoe's restraint, and he leapt at the nun's throat, harried her, forced her back before she could deal Tomoe a third blow. Tomoe rolled to her feet, shortsword to hand, and as Taro was knocked away by the monster-Tsuki, Tomoe took his place, and sliced through the weird nun's neck.

Although Tomoe felt the resistance of flesh and bone, by the time her sword passed through the other side of the neck, it was already healed, so the head did not topple off. Tsuki's face twisted into an even more horrible scowl, and she laughed with notes so bass that Tomoe knew it was not the nun's spirit she was fighting, but the Naruka.

The Naruka showed its true shape, which was like a warrior carved in wax and partly melted, so distorted that it hardly looked human. What had looked to be a nun's staff before had become a
konsaibo
, a hardwood and iron cudgel long as a staff. Tomoe ducked a sweeping blow to her head, but Taro was less lucky, smitten in the ribs so hard that he rolled away, yiping. Tomoe hurried to keep the Naruka from striking the dazed dog again, deflecting the konsaibo's next blow with the flat of her shortsword. As Taro began to rise from his side, Tomoe rolled with another blow of the konsaibo so that it did not contact hard enough to smart; and as she rolled, she let loose of her shortsword and snatched the Golden Naginata from where it lay upon the flat ground. She came back to her feet in a ready posture.

“Inazuma-hime will cut you better!” she said, and swung her weapon through the Naruka's midsection, severing the monster in two. Strange to say, the monster did not die, for nothing born of Hell is truly living in the first place. Its legs ran one direction; its torso ran another on its hands. The legs and butt rushed Taro, stamping madly. The arms carried the torso toward Tomoe, and though the half-Naruka could no longer swing an iron rod, the sharp teeth snapped fiercely.

Taro grabbed the buttocks of his half of the demon, holding it in snarling jaws, while Tomoe cut the head from the other part's shoulders. Still the parts would not die or give up, so Tomoe used her naginata like a shovel and made a small hole in the ground and dropped the head in there, covering it over with grit. The other pieces could no longer see what they were supposed to do and could not fight effectively. As Tomoe stomped the ground flat where she had buried the head, the torso ran off into the shadows, and the two legs ran another way, and it is possible that neither part of the body ever again met up with its other half.

Tomoe reclaimed her shortsword and placed it in her sheath. Taro shook his body as though he were wet all over. Both of them were bruised by the encounter, but neither one complained. As they backed away from the site of the conflict, Tomoe staggered and Taro yelped, for the floor of a house had appeared beneath their feet so suddenly they almost lost their balance. The floor was covered with fine tatami mats from one side to the other.

A moment later there was a wall. On the wall hung a tall, narrow painting depicting the Fox Goddess, watching a billowing fire. In front of the wall there appeared a lacquered table on which sat a big vase. Another wall appeared, with rice-paper doors; and then there were the other walls as well, with entries to other rooms. Tomoe blinked her eyes in disbelief, and in that blink, there appeared futon bedding rolled out upon the floor. A dead old man and dead old woman were partially wrapped in this bedding, speared while making love.