Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
‘Yet sorcery seems to be man’s only hope now.’
The Kunshin’s dark eyes glittered from out of the darkness. ‘Of sorcery The Dolman was born. His death can only spring from the same source. It is necessary, not desirable.’ He took a small sip of tea. ‘No matter what transpires here, the Bujun shall join the Kai-feng. It is our karma.’
Ronin stood up. The Kunshin set his teacup carefully down on the top of a lacquered table.
‘Why was Moeru sent to the continent of man?’
‘She went for a purpose unknown to me,’ said Azuki-iro. ‘You must ask her husband, for it was he who sent her.’
He had a hatchet jaw that in anyone else would have been a mark of considerable comment. Here it was but another bit of the unusual background terrain upon which the network of angular white scars was embossed, a mere hillside to the neighboring dells of his sunken cheeks.
He looked like the walking dead.
The web of scar tissue ran upward along his neck, crisscrossing his square jaw, zigzagging obliquely across his high cheekbones with such completeness that there seemed to be no normal skin in that area. His left eye, an earthen green that was nevertheless hard and cold, was pulled down at the outer corner by the last outpost of these minute wounds. His right eyelid never opened.
He stood squarely in a thick bar of light slanting obliquely through a high open window in Haneda’s west wall. Beyond the white casement, brown sparrows chased each other through the twisting maze of the cryptomeria. Higher up came the leathery sound of the restless bats.
‘The waiting is at an end now.’
Nikumu slid a sheaf of rice paper across his long wooden table.
‘There is still some little time.’ Then more softly. ‘There must be.’ A muscle spasm seemed to grip his face. He grimaced. The other looked on placidly. Then he shook his head and the scars danced in the light like a thousand fireflies.
‘Have you not had enough of illusion?’
Nikumu spun about, his hands flat and deadly, the fingers stiff.
‘It is agony, pure agony!’
‘Yes, I know. Do not forget—’
‘Oh, I do not think for a moment that you would ever let me forget!’
‘It is what I have to give you.’
‘Give me?’ hissed Nikumu. ‘You would be nothing—nothing without me!’
‘History has already passed judgment upon me. Your struggle—’
‘But you were not content with that.’
‘Nor were you,’ the scarred man pointed out equably.
Nikumu’s features twisted. ‘I do not remember asking you to be my conscience when I brought you—’
‘Do you mean to say that there was a certain understanding between us? Nonsense!’ His tone abruptly changed, chilling the chamber. ‘Beyond the summoning, events will happen as they will.’
‘Of course,’ cried Nikumu, ‘and that is why he keeps you like this!’ With a furious lunge, his clawed fingers shot forward toward the other’s throat.
Within the deep shadows of the alcove near the spiral staircase, Ronin’s muscles tensed. Then, stunned, he pressed himself back against the cool stone wall. He stifled the hiss of an indrawn breath. Nikumu’s outflung hand had passed through the flesh of the scarred man as if it were made of smoke.
‘Childish.’
The other stepped back a pace. Nikumu did not follow. His arm fell to his side and he clutched at the table as if his legs would not support him.
‘He is too powerful,’ Nikumu whispered like a frightened child.
‘He has that which you will him, Nikumu.’
‘I am not as strong as you were. I do not think that I can win.’
The scarred man looked away, as if deeply disappointed. Then his head snapped up and for long moments he appeared to be listening for or perhaps to something. Nikumu, his face full of pain, took no notice.
Abruptly, as if coming to a decision, the other strode across the stone floor of the chamber, opened a copper-bound glass case. He withdrew three masks, one at a time. Ronin wondered at this. Was the man truly insubstantial or had Nikumu’s attack been an illusion, some trick of the light.
‘It is time for the Noh, Nikumu. You know which play.’
The scarred man donned one mask. He now had the countenance of an elderly man, kind and avuncular.
‘Toshi, the priest,’ he announced, carrying the second mask to Nikumu. He held it out at arm’s length.
Nikumu took it, settled it slowly on his head.
‘Reisho, the warrior,’ said Toshi.
One mask remained lying atop the copper and glass case and as Ronin stared at its glistening face, he understood that the scarred man had heard him somehow. He also knew for whom the last mask had been left.
As the scarred man drew Nikumu, now Reisho, across the chamber, away from the case, Ronin went silently across the stone floor and donned the mask. He turned.
‘Look!’ cried Toshi. ‘My lord Reisho, look who comes behind you!’
Reisho whirled.
‘Tsuchigumo!’
The utterance, from within the mask, was alive with overtones and the acoustics of the open chamber acted like an amphitheater, causing his voice to reverberate without excessive volume.
Now they were all within the Noh.
‘I warned you!’ Toshi called, pointing at Tsuchigumo. ‘The strange illness which incapacitates you is caused by him!’ His body described the beautiful ritualistic turns.
‘No,’ said Reisho, his voice hollow. ‘The failing lies within me.’
‘No, sire, you must be mistaken,’ said Toshi, bowing before Reisho. ‘Look again, it is Tsuchigumo, the great spider. Can even one so grand as yourself prevail against so powerful an evil?’
‘I do not know, priest, but your words give me hope, for perhaps in defeating Tsuchigumo, I can prevail over myself.’ Thus Reisho danced slowly, drawing his great sword. He bent his knees, holding the blade vertically, a line cutting his face into two halves. And Tsuchigumo saw that the left half of his mask had differing features from the right half, as if he were a man at war with himself.
‘This battle, my lord, are you wise to fight it?’ said Toshi, his tone wheedling.
‘What do you mean, priest?’ Reisho paused in his advance. ‘This is a struggle to the death.’
‘Yes, to the death, lord,’ said Toshi, dancing around Reisho. ‘And to what end? Tsuchigumo is powerful and you are weak now. It will only serve
his
purpose to battle you now.’
‘Yes, perhaps you are right.’
‘Certainly, lord.’
The sword lifted. ‘But I am Reisho, the warrior. I am Bujun. I must do battle!’
Tsuchigumo moved forward, into the strong light of the fire.
‘Ah!’ cried Toshi, raising a fist within which he held a curved blade. ‘Now I have the power to destroy you!’ The blade began its descent, toward Reisho’s side. ‘For so long have I served Tsuchigumo, all for this one instant of power!’
Reisho whirled, his blade flashing up.
‘Traitor!’ he cried.
His blade pierced Toshi’s heart.
And Reisho, within the same movement, turned and rushed at his hated foe, Tsuchigumo, who, standing his ground, withdrew his own blade, taking the warrior’s initial blow along its long length.
Wordlessly, with small gruntings and harsh exhalations of breath, sounds made strange by filtration through the masks, they matched blow for blow, feint for feint.
They were master, both.
There was little actual movement around the chamber; a fixed space of perhaps three meters on each side was all that either required to attack or make his defence.
Each a superb warrior, they fought as mirror images, almost as if they were aspects of the same person. So evenly matched were they that the combat appeared eerily to be more of a complexly choreographed dance and Ronin was reminded of the ending of the Noh he had witnessed at Asakusa. As that actor, playing the goddess, had filled his stage with his consummate skill, so now these two actors, these two warriors, filled the stage at Haneda with the culmination of their craft.
The metallic clangor became their music, the harsh exhalations of their breath, the percussives to which they matched their oblique movements. Muscles jumped and sweat oiled their bodies. Eyes gauged and compensated, nerves fired, triggering swift move after move, blurred counter after counter.
And the air was now unclear, white and shiny with the precise whirling of the blades, so that the pair seemed encased in lethal glass, a bloody womb from which only one would emerge.
Within, Tsuchigumo saw that his path was set. Yet it would not have been the one he would have chosen. Still, he
had
chosen it and was now locked within the combat within the Noh. Somehow, he must get through before the bloodshed began. Where was the scarred man? He had understood Ronin’s presence at Haneda, had even chosen his role in the Noh: Tsuchigumo, the title figure.
And Tsuchigumo must initiate the action. But what?
Reisho pressed his attack, his white blade moving faster than ever, but Tsuchigumo refused to move and his defense was awesome. Reversing, he went on the attack, a ferocious barrage of blows culminating with the difficult
solenge.
Tsuchigumo saw the startled eyes behind Reisho’s frozen visage and he was but a centimeter from being through the guard when Reisho executed the proper defense, the only defense, with blurring speed.
‘Enough!’
The Reisho mask trembled and Nikumu stripped it from his head. Ronin removed the mask of Tsuchigumo.
‘How does a foreigner fight in the manner of the Bujun?’ Nikumu cried.
‘I cannot answer that, Nikumu, but before our quarrel resumes, let something more important speak to you.’
He reversed his sword, unscrewed the hilt.
‘No!’ cried Nikumu. His blade flashed up and now was the moment of his destiny. The honed tip quivered centimeters from Ronin’s naked throat. He stood his ground, a warrior still, and watched Nikumu’s flashing eyes, ignoring the blade below.
‘You are my enemy!’ Nikumu’s lips were thin and bloodless in his fury. ‘You have taken my wife!’
Ronin spoke slowly, softly: ‘No, Nikumu, I freed her. She left Haneda with me because it was her wish—’
‘Liar!’ He restrained himself from jamming his blade into Ronin’s flesh. ‘You plotted against me, poisoned her mind. She loves me!’
‘She fears for you,’ said Ronin without emotion. ‘You are no longer someone she knows. What have you become, Nikumu? What has your sorcery made you?’
The tall man before him jerked as if he were a marionette. A muscle spasm at the side of his right eye ticked off the seconds like some monstrous clock.
‘Where are you?’ His eyes flicked about the chamber. ‘Where have you gone?’
‘We are alone here, Nikumu,’ said Ronin. ‘Just the two of us now.’
The ghost of a horrific smile creased Nikumu’s mouth for an instant. ‘Never alone, now. Never.’
‘The scarred man has gone.’
‘Not him, you fool! Can you not feel the presence?’
‘I see only you.’
The blade dangerously close and he began to judge distances and reflexive times. No chance.
‘It is within me that you must look!’
‘You did it with Moeru!’
The muscles tensed, the nerves on their fevered edge. He would be dead before he took one step.
‘She wanted me to help you.’ Perhaps this was it.
‘Then do it!’
Had the point moved fractionally toward him? What arcane struggle raged within Nikumu? Only one chance now because the tension was building far too rapidly. Nikumu was losing the battle and when that happened, he would lunge forward and his blade would pierce Ronin’s heart. Odds were outrageously high but he had no choice now. Karma.
‘I will do nothing to help you.’ He fed emotion into his voice. ‘You are pitiable. You call yourself Bujun but it is as false as the mask you wore. You are a coward, Nikumu! Yes! Kill me. That will surely bring you solace! Oh, false warrior, your sorcery has made you weak and frightened. It has let in the gods of death and their power has made you less than a man. Look not to the other or to me for support. There is no succor for you this night, for history writes itself here. The last chapter reverberates within these stone walls and there can be only one writer.’
The eyes before him were feral. Shadows shifted in their dark depths as he spoke, figures fleeing across a barren, unstable landscape, the pursuer and the pursued.
Slowly, while still he stared within those eyes, his hands resumed their work on the hilt of his sword.
He drew out the scroll of dor-Sefrith.
With its release, Nikumu’s gaze broke with his and the tall man looked down. Ronin put the scroll in his hands. His sword clattered to the floor and his legs appeared to fail him. He sank to his knees. Ronin stood perfectly still. Above their heads, a bat clattered about, confused by the light, then it raced upward into the dark of night.
Sweat rolled down Nikumu’s face, dripped onto the stone floor. It bathed his forehead, stung his eyes. He blinked. His mouth gaped open and he gasped. He reached out with trembling fingers and grasped the lip of the table. His fingers slipped and he groaned but, as if with enormous effort, he raised his arm again and held onto the table. His knuckles turned white with the pressure he exerted. He seemed a drowning man.
With his other hand he opened the scroll of dor-Sefrith. His fingers shook as if with palsy.
His head jerked again, this way and that, but at last he forced his eyes to the writing on the scroll.
High above them, the horned moon soared over the tops of the cryptomeria, pouring down its platinum light into the high chamber at Haneda.
Nikumu’s lips began to move and as their litany began, the liquid light from the fire seemed to fade, become insubstantial, turning them into shades.
Then the moonlight flooded the room completely, cold and clear. Every shape became sharply defined.
Nikumu continued to recite the glyph pattern which dor-Sefrith had written so many eons ago, his voice slowly becoming more confident, less ambiguous. He stood up.
And now it seemed to Ronin that Nikumu was altering form. Surely the outline of his body became translucent, pulsing out of focus for a brief instant. Surely now he towered over Ronin, shoulders wide and sharp in the traditional Bujun robe.