“Unagi’s sons are sword fighters,” he said. “They like to think of themselves as warriors.”
“We hope to kill their father without rousing the household,” Kiku remarked mildly.
“Better to clean out the whole barrel and not let the young eels escape,” Chika replied. “There’s an old man, too. I’ll take care of him. You do your thing and I’ll do mine. I see no reason why you should have all the fun.”
“I suppose you have earned it,” Kiku said, with the strange tenderness he often displayed for Chika.
It was a dark night with no moon, the middle of the ninth month. Again Mu’s eyes dilated like a cat’s. Kiku’s did the same. Chika kept close to them, stepping carefully in their footprints. Even the stars were dim, obscured by a low-hanging haze. Mist rose from the river as the air chilled in the hours before dawn. From the harbor came the sounds of water lapping against hulls and the creaking of boats as they shifted with the tide.
Unagi’s house lay on the opposite bank. There was no bridge across the Kasumigawa; during the day narrow flatboats sculled across and back, but at this hour they were all moored on the bank, their owners and sailors asleep in the flimsy huts or in the boats themselves.
The men moved without a sound. As Chika went to untie one of the boats, a figure rose from a pile of ropes and sailcloth on it. Fuddled by sleep, he did not have time to call out before Chika leaped into the boat and had him by the throat, turning his face toward Kiku. His desperate eyes, wide open, bulging, searched for help and found Kiku’s gaze. They seemed to register something, a mixture of surprise and relief, and then rolled back in the head, as the man went limp, just as Ku had in the forest all those years ago. I must remember never to look Kiku in the eyes, Mu thought.
Chika slid the sleeping body over the side of the boat, letting it go with barely a splash. Mu watched it drift away, rolling in the current, the face showing pale in the darkness.
“Live or die, there will not be a mark on him,” Chika whispered in satisfaction. “He’s known to drink too much.”
Everything had been planned meticulously, Mu realized, from the drunkard’s boat to the exact time of the tide, which carried them across the river without their having to use the oars. The boat nudged gently against the opposite bank. They stepped out and waded through the water, carrying their swords above their heads. Chika knew Unagi’s house intimately. There was a dock where boats were berthed. Two men lay slumped on the boards.
Kiku breathed in Mu’s ear, “Kuro was here earlier.”
A little way up, a bamboo grid covered an arch through which water flowed into the garden of the residence. As Chika lifted the grid aside so they could pass through, Mu felt something brush against his legs. Fish, or maybe eels: the household must keep them here, alive and fresh.
The water lapped at a series of shallow steps, leading up to a kitchen. Ashes smoldered in a stone oven and he could smell soy and sesame oil. A small girl crouched on the highest step, her head on her knees. Mu feared she had been poisoned, too, but she stirred as they went past, muttering something in a dream, not waking.
Silently they entered the main rooms of the house. The smell changed to sandalwood, mixed with the odor of people. Mu could hear the soft rise and fall of their breath. From beyond the gate a dog barked. They froze for a few moments, but no one in the house wakened. If there were any more guards they were at the outer gate.
Here and there lamps flickered, giving Mu glimpses of the rooms as they went through them, each opening into the next. The wooden floors gleamed, wall hangings shone with patches of red. Along the southern side ran a wide veranda, but most of the shutters were closed.
From the middle of the house came the sound of snoring. Chika’s teeth showed white as he grinned and mouthed Unagi to Mu. He slid open the final door and let Kiku go in first.
Kiku took on invisibility immediately and Mu copied him, as he had been told. He could just perceive his brother’s faint outline approaching the sleeping man.
Unagi lay on his back, his head on a wooden headrest. Kiku’s movements were so swift, Mu hardly followed them. For a moment he wondered why the merchant began to twist and kick, why he was making that strange muffled grunting. Then he saw the garrotte in his brother’s hands. Unagi was a big man and it seemed impossible that Kiku should be able to hold him down, but Kiku’s invisible hands were like iron and relentless.
There was a trickle of water, a foul smell, and Unagi’s struggles ceased.
In the silence that followed came a rustling and an intake of breath as the old man, Unagi’s father, stirred. Mu saw the gleam of Chika’s knife, heard the soft sigh as it entered flesh and the gurgle of blood.
Kiku slowly became visible again. Mu could see his expression as the lamps flared. It was both stern and gentle, as if he had undergone a spiritual transformation. He smiled at Chika with that unfathomable emotion.
“That was for you.”
Chika smiled back, pulled one of the hangings from the wall, and placed a corner of it against the flame. As it began to smoulder he lifted the shutter open; the breeze fanned the sparks into fire.
Jumping from the veranda, they ran across the garden to the main gate. A woman screamed from the house behind them. Shouts followed, pounding feet, the crashing of doors and shutters as they were flung open, the ever fiercer crackling of flames.
Kiku leaped for the top of the wall, scaling it easily, and Mu, still invisible, was right behind him, but Chika had turned back and drawn his sword. Running figures came from the guardhouse at the gate, their own swords glinting through the mist.
Two young men, barely into their twenties, came at Chika, attacking without hesitation. In the dark it was impossible to see their faces clearly, but their build and movements were so similar they had to be brothers. They possessed both courage and skill and Chika was forced back to the foot of the wall.
“Go and help him,” Kiku ordered.
There was no time to argue, to plead that he had nothing against these young men and no reason to take their lives. Mu dropped down beside Chika, letting visibility return, surprising the man on his left. The tengu’s sword swung once and cut clean through his opponent’s forearm. The other sword fell in a shower of blood, startlingly warm in the dawn chill.
With a cry of rage and pain, the man drew a knife with his left hand and stabbed at where Mu would have been, if he had not used the second self to avoid the blade, letting it pierce only his shadow. The man stumbled, and with a returning stroke, the tengu’s sword cut him across the side of the neck, severing the artery.
Jumping over the dying man as he crumpled to the ground, Mu turned his attention to Chika. He became one person, fully visible. The surviving brother caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye and thrust at him. Mu made one of the lightning-fast feints the tengu had taught him.
“Leave him!” Chika cried. “This one is mine!”
Mu took a light step back, as the man swung at him again. He could have killed him then, but he heeded Chika’s command.
“Your brother’s dead,” Chika shouted. “Your father, too! Go and join them!”
Unsettled, enraged, his opponent hurled himself forward. Chika’s sword tip found his throat.
Kiku gave a cry of appreciation. Mu could see him. Day was breaking.
“Let’s go!” Chika said to Mu and, side by side, they leaped onto the wall. All three dropped soundlessly down to the other side. They did not go back to the boat but ran swiftly away from the house, which was now ablaze, through the narrow streets, following the river upstream. By the time the sun rose they were walking along a high dike that separated the rice fields from the river. They strolled in a leisurely way, as though they had risen early to enjoy the autumn morning air. Eventually, they came to a pier jutting out over the water. The mudbanks were exposed by the low tide, and herons and plovers patrolled the shoreline, feeding. Under the pier, Kuro was waiting in a small boat, similar to the one they had crossed over i
n.
They did not speak as they climbed aboard. Kiku went first, followed by Mu. Chika handed his sword to Mu and pushed the boat into deeper water, then jumped nimbly in and took up the scull. His face was calm, almost rapt, as though some deep need had been fulfilled.
When they disembarked at the opposite bank, Kuro fastened the boat and looked up with an expectant expression.
“Well? How was it? Success?”
“Unagi and his sons are dead,” Kiku replied. “His father, too.”
“Well done! By what method?”
“Garrotte and swords,” Chika replied. “We set fire to the house.”
“I saw that.” Kuro looked downstream to where the smoke was rising. “I still think poison would have been better.”
“It depends on whether you want to send a clear message or not,” Kiku replied. “With poison, or with snake or scorpion, there is always an element of uncertainty. This time there will be no doubt. The house of Unagi is finished and the same fate awaits all our competitors unless they submit to us.”
As they walked back into the town the smell of fish being grilled for the first meal of the day wafted through the streets, mingled with the sweet odors of soy bean paste and curds.
“I’m hungry,” Chika said.
“We can eat here.” Kiku stopped in front of a low-roofed building whose back room had been extended over the river and turned into an eating place. A large cheerful woman was gutting fish that still quivered with life. She called out a greeting to them as they entered.
“Master Kikuta! What an honor! Welcome!”
They sat down on cushions, a low table between them. The breeze from the river smelled of salt and smoke. A young girl, so shy she did not once raise her head, brought sharp green tea and set the bowls before them.
“What a shame it is not the season. I feel like eating eel!” Chika remarked, making Kuro chuckle.
“Wasn’t that fun?” Kiku said to Mu.
Fun? It had been shocking and elating. It had demanded a new level of single-mindedness and concentration. For the first time he had combined the tengu’s training and his own talents. It made him feel alive and reckless, aware of his own physicality in a way he had not felt since Shida. But four people he did not know and with whom he had no quarrel were dead.
“I suppose it was,” he admitted. “I haven’t used the sword in a real fight before.”
“You fight well,” Chika said. “Not that I needed your help—I’d have dealt with them both alone.”
Mu allowed himself the slightest smile of mockery but did not speak.
“Now that you’ve seen for yourself what we can do, you can tell Shikanoko,” Kiku said. “No one is safe from us, no matter how cautious or how heavily guarded. Give him this.” He placed a small piece of carved jade in front of Mu: a fawn in a bed of grass.
“Where did you get that?” Mu said, taking it up and caressing it with his fingers.
“It was among Akuzenji’s treasures. I kept it because it reminded me of Shika. Whoever he wants to get rid of, we will do it. Tell him that, tell him we are his to command.”
But beneath the words, in spite of the gift, Mu sensed his brother’s lust for power.
9
BARA
Shikanoko had spent years in the north, living with men who chased narwhal through stormy seas and hunted seals on rocky shores. Sometimes they treated him as a god, for he had many powers that he made useful to them, and sometimes as an idiot, for he knew nothing of boats and fishing, and could not understand their speech, so they had to repeat everything three times or more. Then, like the migratory birds that came and went, summer and winter—the local people believed they were crabs that transformed into birds and then back into crabs when it turned cold—instinct told him it was time to take flight.
The Burnt Twins and Ibara followed him, as they had done for years. After a journey of several weeks they found themselves back in the old hut on the borders of the Snow Country.
One morning, Ibara thought she saw a stranger on the edge of the clearing, but it must have been a trick of the light, for when she looked again there was no one. Still, she told Nagatomo and they began to notice signs: Gen, the fake wolf, howled at night; the deer were more nervous; there were footprints, smaller than any of theirs, around the pools. She felt she was being watched and began to take her sword with her when she went away from the hut.
When the figure finally came through the forest one evening while they sat around the fire, Nagatomo said, “It is Takauji,” and Ibara recognized the young man, who had been no more than a boy the last time they had seen him.
“I realized you had come back,” Takauji said, kneeling before Shikanoko and holding out his sword. “I came to offer you this. The Lord of the Snow Country will serve you loyally with all his men.” Then he added less formally, “And if you are going to the capital take me with you, for I want to kill Aritomo.”
“What makes you think I am going to the capital?” Shika said. “Maybe I will just stay here in the Darkwood.”
Takauji scowled, saying forcefully, “My right to my land is still being disputed on the grounds my father was a traitor. Every year some new claimant tries to take the domain from me. I am tired of these challenges, of fighting skirmish after skirmish. They are provoked from Minatogura. I will never have any peace unless I control that city or Aritomo is dead—preferably both! I hoped you would support me.”
“What does your mother advise?” Shika asked.
“She died last winter.” Takauji suddenly looked much older than his years. “But before she died she revealed to me my father’s final words. No one dared repeat them, but one of his men had told her in secret: Yoshimori is the true emperor is what he said before he ripped his belly open. People say the true emperor will return, but he will never reign unless Aritomo is dead.”
“Once, a long time ago, I made a vow,” Shika said. “That I would find Yoshimori and restore him to the throne. But then the mask became fused to my face and I felt I was condemned to live out my life outside human society, like an animal in the forest.”
“But even masked you can achieve great things,” Takauji said. “Look how you helped me and my mother before. I would be dead by now without you.”
Nagatomo leaned forward and spoke seriously to the young man. “Everything you desire must be fought for. And once it is won it has to be defended. You are young, it’s true, but you are a warrior. Act like one.”
“I will,” Takauji promised, his face lightening.
Ibara felt Nagatomo’s words had been directed at Shikanoko as much as Takauji. Shikanoko made no outward response, neither encouraging Takauji nor rebuffing him.
After that the young man came every few days to talk to them. Ibara could see that Shikanoko welcomed his visits. They must have made her careless, for the next visitor took her by surprise. Even though she carried her sword it was no use to her when the stranger let her see him, for he used some kind of magic to paralyze her arm. He appeared on the path in front of her, coming out of nowhere, and she had hardly drawn the sword before it slipped from her useless fingers.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She went for her knife with her left hand, surprising him, but when she lunged at the figure before her the blade struck empty air. His voice came from behind her and as she whirled around she lost all feeling in her left hand and the knife fell beside the sword.
“Gen!” she called, for the wolf had come with her.
“Gen,” the man repeated, a note of delight in his voice. The wolf came bounding out of the undergrowth, sniffed the air, and then approached the stranger, its ears flat, its tail wagging.
“Gen,” he said, stroking its head. “You’re still alive? Do you remember me? Mu?”
“Gen knows you?” Ibara said wonderingly. “Where have you come from?”
“I’ve been sent to find Shikanoko. It’s an added pleasure to meet a beautiful wom
an.” The compliment sounded awkward, as if he were not used to making them. Or was it just that she was not used to hearing them?
“I have never been beautiful and I am hardly a woman anymore,” she replied. “I live like a man and I can fight like a man, unless people use cowardly magic tricks!”
“I fight like a tengu,” he said, laughing. “For that’s who taught me. And it’s by the tengu’s command that I’ve come for Shikanoko. Let’s go and find him. Unless you feel like doing something else first?”
“No, I certainly don’t! Release my hands so I can slap your face!”
Mu picked up her weapons and she felt her hands return to normal. He came closer and thrust his face toward hers. He was thin and ordinary-looking, not very tall, of slight, wiry build, with rather small feet. His features were regular, his black eyes gleamed, his skin was copper-colored, beginning to show signs of aging.
“A slap is better than a kiss to a tengu,” he said and laughed again.
It seemed a long time since she had heard laughter. She gave him a slap that made him stagger; in some ways it was as intimate as a kiss.
“What business do you have with the lord?” she said.
“Apart from anything else, I’ve come to pay him my respects. He is my father.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said. “He is no older than you.”
“My brothers and I age fast,” Mu said.
“Is that a tengu thing?”
“It’s the opposite. Tengu age very slowly, and if they die at all, it’s after hundreds of years. Presumably my life will be short. That’s why I must never waste a moment or an opportunity.” He raised an eyebrow at her.
He intrigued and repelled her in equal measure.
* * *
Nagatomo and Eisei were waiting with drawn swords. Mu halted and bowed deeply. “The Burnt Twins,” he said. “I am honored to meet you. Your fame is widespread.”
“Hand over your weapons,” Nagatomo replied, unmoved by the flattery.