Spirit's Chosen (41 page)

“Together,” I said, framing his face with my hands. “Always.”

The next morning, Rinji appeared in our doorway shortly after Daimu and I had eaten breakfast. The servants were almost as overjoyed as we were to welcome him back, from which I guessed that he had been a very kindhearted master. That made me glad because I liked him.

Rinji was eager to do well, to live up to Daimu’s faith in him, and to earn the respect of his clan and the favor of the spirits. He was also still haunted by his teacher’s exceptional skills and reputation. I wanted to tell him
Stop worrying about how brilliant Daimu is and how badly you fear to
have him outshine you. You are not Daimu. Be
Rinji,
and kindle your own light!

That morning the three of us enjoyed a friendly visit. Daimu and I were careful to behave as though we were only friends while in Rinji’s company. It was not difficult: he was my friend as well as my beloved, and I looked forward to the day when I might be able to introduce him to Kaya. What would Lady Badger have to say about him? Would she feel jealous, having to share her place in my heart? Somehow I thought she would understand and give us her blessing. She would always be my dearest friend and companion, but if the gods allowed, Daimu would become my husband, the father of our children, the spirit whose hand would never let go of mine in this world and the next.

“You should see what’s happening at the burial ground, Master Daimu!” Rinji exclaimed, his eyes bright with excitement as he told him the news. “Lord Ryu must have rallied the workers before dawn. They’ve already laid out the boundaries of Oni’s tomb and are nearly done digging it as deep as it must go.”

“Not Oni’s tomb, Master Rinji,” I said patiently. “A man named
Mori
will rest there.”

“Oh! Excuse me, Lady Himiko, I’m sorry!” he cried, deeply upset by his error. “It’s just that everyone else calls him O—by that name.”

“Which does not make it
right
.”

“No, certainly not, forgive me. Why am I so stupid?”

“I have a better question for you, my friend,” Daimu said, clapping him on the back. “Why are we still
Lady
this
and
Master
that when there is no further difference among us? We are all shamans, all walking the same path.”

“Daimu is right,” I said. “You have been entrusted with the care of our village’s new shrine. As soon as the wolf spirit visits you and makes his wishes known, it can be built. I wager it will become at least as important as this one, if not more so. We must be Rinji and Daimu and Himiko to one another. High-sounding titles have no place between friends.”

Rinji smiled hesitantly. “You helped me find confidence once before, La—Himiko. Now you and Daimu renew that gift. I have something else to tell you, but I was afraid to do so until now. I thought the news would make you angry, and that you would blame me for something that was never my idea.”

“Well, tell us!” Daimu exclaimed with an encouraging expression. “How bad can it be?”

“That’s just it: I don’t know,” Rinji said. “When the tomb is finished … I am the one who will perform the burial rites for your uncle. Lord Ryu wants it so.” He glanced anxiously from Daimu to me, expecting an outburst.

“Is that all?” Daimu’s smile remained unshaken. “Then I must thank Lord Ryu for this. He’s doing all of us a great kindness. By having you send my uncle’s spirit to the next world, he is letting the whole clan know he has full trust in your abilities. He also gives me the chance to mourn Uncle without distraction, as a grieving nephew, not as a shaman concentrating on executing each step of the ritual exactly.”

“I …” Rinji scratched his head. “I have never had to
carry out the duties of a funeral. You taught me all about it when I was your apprentice, but this is an
actual
burial.”

“You mustn’t worry,” Daimu reassured him. “Just remember our lessons. The way we comfort the dead is always the same.”

He was wrong.

Mori’s tomb was rising rapidly. Daimu took me to see the progress that was being made on building the great, square-sided mound that would hold his uncle’s bones. The Ookami burial ground lay far enough from the settlement to keep the dead at a safe distance from the living, but close enough to make the trek there reasonable. It was situated on flat land in the lee of a small hill that hid sight of the graves from both the village and the cultivated fields set out along the opposite side of the valley.

I shielded my eyes from the sun and studied the mound. “It looks almost ready,” I remarked.

“You’re right,” Daimu said. “Yesterday I came out here to speak with the workmen. They told me that the stone lining of the interior is done and that all they’re waiting for are orders about the placement of the grave goods and clay attendants.”

“I wonder how much longer that will take,” I mused.

“What’s the hurry? Uncle has waited patiently this long. A few more days aren’t going to bother his spirit.”

I dropped my voice so that the workers would not be able to overhear. “A few more days and Ryu will be able to turn his full attention to me again. Daimu, I think he’s going to grab the first chance he gets to send me away. He hates
me for many humiliations, and we just gave him a new one: he wanted me to
stay
a slave.”

“What’s wrong with that man?” Daimu muttered. “You saved his wife and son!”

“He hates that too. No one likes being indebted, but it’s worse when the person to whom you owe so much is the same one you think of as your enemy.”

“He’s a fool, then.”

“No, he’s smart; too smart. It won’t take him long to realize my freedom has given him the best weapon he could ever hope to use against me. I have no further place in this village. I do not belong to this clan. I am not an Ookami slave. I am not necessary as a hostage. He’s going to send me away, and I will leave here empty-handed, without my brother Noboru, without my kin.”

Daimu spread his arms without thinking, wanting to hold me close and drive away anything that could bring me hurt or sorrow. Love made him forget where we were and who would see us, but I was aware of the workmen’s idle, curious eyes. In order to dodge his embrace, I had to pretend to stumble away from him. Unfortunately, I caught my heel on the hem of my dress and fell in earnest, sprawled across one of the lesser graves.

“Himiko!” Daimu cried. As I began to fall, he lunged forward, trying to save me from such an ill-omened accident. He only succeeded in tripping himself. He landed with his face in the dirt of the burial ground.

A loud gasp went up from many throats. The tomb builders witnessed our mischance, horrified, but not one
of them made a move to approach us. We had to pick ourselves up and brush the dust of the dead from our clothes.

“Don’t worry; we’re not hurt!” Daimu called out to them. They averted their eyes. Daimu gave me a half smile and whispered, “How do you like being invisible?”

“Why are they acting this way?” I asked.

“They’re afraid our bad luck is contagious. They don’t want to risk catching a curse.”

“What if we’d been injured? Would they
leave
us where we fell?”

“Not forever. If they even
suspected
we needed aid, they’d find a way to bring someone from the village—someone who wasn’t here for the accident. It would be safe for him to see us and take care of us.”

I stared at the workmen, still annoyed at their callous behavior. “Those men need to learn the difference between respecting the dead and being so afraid of them that it paralyzes you.”

“They’re not the only ones,” Daimu said. “In my travels I encountered many clans. One thing they all had in common was that very fear.”

“Hmph.” I raised one eyebrow. “If I could make people believe I had the power to raise ghosts, I could rule more clans with a single word than Ryu does now with a thousand swords.” My tone made it clear that I was not serious.

“You’ll need to wash your clothes first, O mighty ruler,” Daimu said, joining in the joke. “You have a stain that looks like a giant salamander is trying to climb up your backside. Give your dress to Ashi when we get home.”

“I have a better idea,” I said. “I haven’t gone to visit Emi and Sanjirou for several days and I miss them. She’ll be glad to have the chance to tidy me up, the way she did when I was small.”

“Do what makes you happiest.”

I could not go to Emi’s out-of-the-way house immediately. Daimu and I
had
taken a tumble in the burial ground and that meant we
did
need to cleanse ourselves. Once again the servants helped us, and soon I was bathed, combed, and clad in the shabby dress I wore when tidying the shrine, ready to depart.

“I’ll be back soon,” I told Daimu, my stained dress in a neatly folded bundle tucked under one arm.

“Take your time.” He sounded preoccupied, and his eyes were fixed on something only he could see.

“Don’t miss me
too
much,” I said dryly, and left.

I was not gone very long, but in that short time, everything changed.

“Lady Himiko? What’s happened? Are you ill?”

I staggered through the Ookami village, hearing many voices clamoring to know what was wrong with me. How could I tell them the truth? How could I make them see that a ruthless demon had reached up from the core of the world to tear the ground from under my feet? They would think I was out of my mind.

“Leave me alone,” I muttered, slapping away any hands that tried to hold me back. “Let me pass. I have to see Master Daimu. Get out of my way.” I reached the shrine ladder and half climbed, half crawled my way to the top. My head
throbbed and burned, and although my eyes were dry, despair blurred my vision.

Daimu was where I’d left him, seated on a mat in the center of the floor. He was all smiles. “Back so soon, my love? Wonderful! I have excellent news for you: I’ve found the answer to your worries about being sent away. After my uncle’s funeral, all we need to do is—”

“They’re gone, Daimu.” The words nearly choked me. “Emi and Sanjirou are gone. They were taken away this morning, while we were at the burial ground. A woman who lives next door to their house told me what happened and why. I didn’t believe her. It was too horrible. I went to the pottery-maker’s workshop to find out if it was Ryu playing a hideous joke, but when I got there—when I got there—” An invisible fist tightened around my chest and I fought to breathe.

“Himiko, what are you saying?” This time Daimu was able to catch me before I collapsed. He scooped me up like a child and carried me into my sleeping chamber, where he kicked my bedroll open and set me down. I tossed my head, begging him to let me speak, but he had gone to fetch a bowl of water. I watched him crumble a pinch of dried herbs into the bowl before he slipped one arm behind my neck, helped me raise my head, and set the cool liquid to my lips. I drank only a few swallows before shoving it away and sitting up on my own.

“Let me speak, Daimu. The words will poison me if I don’t get them out.”

“Yes, I understand,” he said earnestly, his eyes on mine. “Tell me everything. You went to see the village pottery-maker,
the one who’s crafting the figures for my uncle’s tomb, and …”

“There will be no servants of clay to accompany Mori into the spirits’ realm,” I said, forlorn. “He will be given six human escorts to serve him there: a man, his two wives, their son and daughter. She’s only ten years old, but the potter tells me she was chosen because she—she loves to dance and will be able to entertain your uncle’s spirit.”

“A child …” Daimu looked sick to his stomach. “And—and the sixth?”

“Emi,” I said. “My second mother. Daimu … the family that has been picked to die are also Matsu. Each sacrifice Ryu chose belongs to my people.”

Daimu’s fingers knotted in my hair. “I know that this practice happens in other clans. I never saw it done with my own eyes, but I was told about it on my travels. Having human slaves go into the tomb instead of clay figures is supposed to be a sign of the supreme importance of the person being buried.”

“My clan never did any such thing,” I said. “We never even buried clay images. I told you that.”

“We use
only
pottery figures to accompany our dead,” Daimu said. “What demon’s whisper gave Ryu the idea of sacrificing human beings?”

“No demon but the past. Your image-maker is an old woman. She told me that she recalls a time when the Ookami chieftains left this world in the company of those who had served them best while they were alive. Oh, Daimu, I don’t
care if Ryu received this awful idea from the gods themselves; I just want to stop him!”

“How?” He looked at me, wanting an easy answer.

“I—I don’t—”

He could not wait for me to think. “We could appear before the people and declare that this sacrifice has made the spirits angry! We should put on our most impressive clothes and ornaments, dress the shrine servants in finery to accompany us, carry as many mirrors as we can grasp or hang from our necks! I’ll tell everyone that I had a vision in which fire consumed the entire village the moment a hand was raised to sacrifice the slaves!”

“Daimu, we can’t do that,” I said sadly. “If we betray the trust that the gods have given us to be their faithful servants, they will abandon us and our people. Our lives will turn to chaos.”

“I know,” he said. “Even when I was telling you that plan, my heart was crying out that it was wrong. I never would have been able to do it.” A hopeful afterthought came to him. “Do you think Rinji could do it?”

“Would you sacrifice him like that? He’s our friend.”

Daimu hung his head. “I’m sorry. I’m not myself. The thought of those people dying for nothing—your stepmother—that child—!” Now he was the one who needed comfort.

As I held him in my arms, I felt a change come over me. My wild anguish for the fate of my condemned kin faded, replaced by a strong sense of determination and conviction.
Tears will not save them
, I thought.
Tricks that bargain with
the goodwill of the gods will destroy us all. And as for going to Ryu and begging him to change his mind about this dreadful plan … I know better than to waste my breath on that. There is only one way to rescue the sacrifices
.