Chương 27: Book 1: Chapter 9 - The Crows [Part 4]

The senior retainer's expression hardened.

"We also have a thing that wore the name Sakurai Iori, entered a commission through the Adventurer's Za, signed under witness, and walked among armed men without being recognized." Aya's brush moved rapidly, a frown crossing her pretty features.

"We do not know whether one cause lies behind every event. We do not know whether an enemy directs the yōma, encourages them, or merely understands how to profit from their appearance. This chamber is where we will answer those questions." He looked toward the priests and scholars.

"Those who read, pray, cleanse, calculate, and remember will compare what is known. Those who fight will report what they encounter, provided they return alive. Each survivor will be questioned before drink, fear, grief, and pride have time to improve the account." Several warriors shifted at that.

"What one man learns will be given to the others. If a creature fears fire, every fighter will know. If another follows blood, no patrol will discover it by losing its first wounded man. You will train separately and, when we have learned enough, together." Nagai rested his hands upon his knees.

"You will also receive instruction in protective rites." A faint murmur moved through the warriors.

"Some of you already know fragments. The nine syllables. The seals formed with the hands. The lattice cut in the air with the sword-fingers. Written charms carried in armor or fixed over doors. Mountain practices, temple formulas, shrine purifications, and family rites whose meanings have been forgotten while their forms remain." Chief Priest Noritsuna took up the explanation.

"Those are protections, not toys. The kuji without discipline may steady the mind, or it may do nothing. A seal copied without transmission is only a knot made with the fingers. Greater teachings require an oath and a teacher willing to answer for the student." Nagai nodded.

"Those judged suitable will sign a kishōmon before the kami and buddhas. The oath will bind secrecy and obedience. After that, the priests and other teachers may transmit what they consider safe." Tarō spoke carefully.

"And what do they consider unsafe?" Abbot Ryōzen rolled one bead between his fingers.

"Those teachings are usually the reason an oath is required." Nagai looked over the room.

"My lord has invested coin, men, records, and religious favor in this work. You are not heroes. You are an expensive answer to a question we do not yet understand. See that the expense returns something other than corpses." The debate began soon afterward. Kuroha spoke first.

"The yōma are the dead who have forgotten how to leave." Her voice was thin, but it carried without effort.

"Men die with hunger, hatred, shame, or promises still bound to them. Some go where the dead should go. Some remain until the shape of the person rots away and only the wanting survives." Chief Priest Noritsuna shook his head.

"Not every yōma was once human. Pollution gathers around blood, violated boundaries, defiled graves, broken oaths, and anger. Spirits caught within such corruption become distorted." Abbot Ryōzen moved another bead beneath his thumb.

"If attachment and pollution explain them, why do proper rites sometimes fail?"

"Because proper rites are rarer than priests claim," Kuroha accused, not looking at him. Ryōzen smiled at her politely, but it contained no warmth. Kuze Sōtei cleared his throat.

"There are records of yōma appearing in valleys where no settlement stood and caves sealed before the local villages were founded."

"Old deaths," Kuroha replied. Abe Chikanori leaned forward.

"Then what of the creatures with human counterparts?" The room quieted.

"Sakurai possessed a name, habits, speech, and sufficient memory to pass among men. Was he a dead man altered after death? A living man transformed? Or something that found a face and learned to use it?" Abe questioned. No one offered an immediate answer, so Chikanori glanced toward the gathered warriors.

"I do not think the yōma are the battle itself. They are crows gathering above it before men realize where the bodies will fall. Their increase may warn of war, famine, a weakening boundary—or a hand deliberately preparing all three." The one-eyed samurai laughed bitterly.

"I suppose crows pecked out my eye. I should have waved my arms harder." A few men smiled. Abe bowed toward him.

"What took it?" The warrior touched the patch.

"A woman with no mouth." The smiles vanished. Abe reached for his brush.

"Tell us." That began the interviews. The warriors were taken one at a time into an adjoining room. Those waiting remained under guard and could not hear what was said. When Shimon's turn came, drawings covered the floor before the panel. One showed a long creature with backward-bending limbs and a jaw divided almost to the throat. Another depicted a woman whose face ended in smooth skin beneath the nose.

There was a child-shaped thing with too many joints, a black mass stretched across a roof, and a hand rising from the stones of a well. Notes surrounded each image: place, date, weather, phase of the moon, wounds, smell, sound, number of witnesses, behavior before attack, and what had happened to the remains. The witnesses had been kept apart so that one account could not infect another. Nagai sat at the center.

"Begin at the boundary rope." Shimon told his story again and questions interrupted him constantly. Slowly, the account reached the moment Tarō struck the tree. From there, Shimon was the only surviving witness. He described Sakurai pinned by Kuroda's spear, Mizuno fighting with one ruined eye, and the grey creatures advancing. His account became less precise after Mizuno fell. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"I drew and struck them down," Ayanokouji explained evenly, steeling himself under their collective gazes. He could not explain how he had killed all four after the other fighters had fallen. Only that he survived. A samurai attributed his victory to the battle clarity that comes over some when desperation calls, a strange madness from which sometimes heroes are born. Kuze appeared willing to accept the confusion of battle combined with unusual skill and fortune. Abbot Ryōzen remained unreadable.

Nagai did not look convinced, and neither did Abe Chikanori. Kuroha, however, looked pleased.

A banquet followed the interviews. Shimon sat between Tarō and the warrior who had recoiled when he first entered the council chamber. The strange man introduced himself after the first cup of sake.

"Matsunaga Heita." He was perhaps thirty, with a scar beneath his chin and restless fingers that worried at the edge of his cup. He avoided looking directly at Shimon. Tarō noticed.

"You know Ayanokouji?" Heita's fingers stopped.

"No."

"You looked as though you had seen him before." The scarred man looked unsettled.

"No." The second answer came too quickly. Shimon leaned closer.

"Where?" Heita finally met his eyes. Fear crossed his face before he looked away. He drank.

"Nowhere." Shimon exchanged a glance with Tarō and let the matter rest. The room grew louder as the night progressed. The one-eyed warrior, who introduced himself now as Kagawa Hachirō, sang a marching song. Abbot Ryōzen drank more than Shimon expected. The scholars argued over the reliability of burial records, and several warriors improved their own stories with each cup. Kuroha drank nothing. Her attendant raised a small black vessel to her lips from time to time. Eventually, bedding was brought into the room.

Few men wished to negotiate the castle's gates and steep roads after so much sake. The women and notables were led elsewhere. Tarō fell asleep almost at once, and Matsunaga lay with his back toward Shimon. Shimon watched the ceiling until his eyes closed. A hand touched his shoulder. Looking blearily around, he saw that it was Kuroha's attendant who knelt beside him. The young man raised one finger to his lips and gestured toward the door.

"The lady wishes to read your road," the attendant explained.

"My road?"

"Your future. It is a great honor," he insisted. The phrase sounded more like a warning than an invitation. Refusing Kuroha might create trouble, however, and he had a feeling that she knew more than she should. So, Shimon took his short sword and followed. The attendant led him through a moonlit corridor to a smaller room. Cloying incense reached him as the door opened. Kuroha sat behind a single candle, a dark cloth spread before her.

Upon it rested small bones inked with marks, black and white stones, knotted hemp cords, dried leaves, several teeth, folded papers, a bowl of water, and a bronze mirror darkened by age. The attendant closed the door and remained behind Shimon. Kuroha beckoned.

"Sit." Shimon settled beyond easy reach.

"Would you know your future?" she offered. He did not believe in fortune-telling, though recent experience had made disbelief less comfortable than it once was.

"I would not insult your art by refusing," he responded diplomatically.

"A courtly answer," the old woman scoffed.

"I have been taking lessons." The attendant made a soft sound behind him. Kuroha gathered the bones and shook them between her hands. They clicked together while she muttered words the chip could not help him translate. Some resembled Buddhist syllables; others seemed to have no relation to any language Shimon knew. She cast the bones onto the cloth and moved incense smoke across them with a black feather. The room grew heavy.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL DETECTED] Signal Strength: Moderate Pattern: Structured Source: Unresolved Kuroha studied the arrangement.

"You are not like other men." That was vague enough to be worthless, and Shimon had to bite back a scathing reply.

"You are far from home." That required no divination.

"Yet you are not far," she continued. Shimon's dismissal faltered ever so slightly.

"You stand beneath the same heaven and upon the same earth. The road between is longer than distance." She lifted the bronze mirror, and for an instant, the dark surface reflected fluorescent lights, rows of shelves, and mist moving through the New Kanda Archive. Then there was only candlelight.

"You miss those who have not yet been born." Shimon's fingers tightened against his knees.

"Your brothers. Your father. The small beast waiting beside the door." Mochi.

"Your parents look for you. Your mother cries because she does not know where her seventh son has gone."

"No," he denied. The word escaped before he could stop it. No one in this world knew he was the seventh son.

"Who told you?" Kuroha ignored the question.

"You will become a great man. You will stand beneath banners, and men will speak your name." The candle flame lengthened.

"You will kill men. Many men. You will kill yōma. You will open doors that should remain closed and close others with blood." Shimon began to rise, but Kuroha's hand shot across the cloth and closed around his wrist. She moved far too quickly for an old woman, so fast that even he could not react. Her fingers were cold, not with age but with the same unnatural chill he remembered from the yōma flesh in the forest. Her eyes shone through the incense.

"You are his." The voice no longer belonged to one old woman.

"He marked you. Claimed you." Something moved behind her face, as though Kuroha were a paper screen and several figures stood on the other side.

"But you could be ours as well," the words came as if from more than one throat. Kuroha smiled.

"We could share you. Share in our power. We are not jealous." Orange text filled Shimon's vision. [PACT OFFERED] Join Them? Benefits: Unknown Cost: Unknown Accept? He pulled back, but Kuroha's grip held with impossible strength. A hand caught his robe from behind and dragged him away. Shimon turned, reaching for the short sword. The attendant stood behind him, one fist knotted in the cloth of his robe. The young man's face remained dutifully blank, but his eyes were alert.

"It is late," the attendant explained smoothly.

"The lady is tired. It is time for Ayanokouji-sama to leave." Kuroha released Shimon and sagged over the bones. The pressure in the room eased, but the orange screen remained. Accept? Shimon backed toward the door. Kuroha raised her head. The greedy smile returned to her face. Accept?

"No," Shimon said aloud. [PACT DECLINED] The candle went out, and darkness filled the room, but not before he saw Kuroha's smile widen.