Chương 33: Book 1: Chapter 11 - Communications [Part 1]

"Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world." - Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings. Morning arrived with the unwelcome discovery that the two kami were gone, or at least that was what the strange Matsunaga Heita told Shimon when he questioned him about the previous night. The barracks chamber looked much as it had before exhaustion finally dragged them into sleep. Pale light filtered through the paper screens, bedding lay scattered across the floor.

Nothing crouched beside the offerings now, nor did anything impossible hang among the ceiling beams. If some invisible presence remained in the room, the other warrior appeared unable to find it. The biochip agreed, although its agreement on supernatural matters had become considerably less reassuring with every passing day.

[PASSIVE MONITORING ACTIVE] Sleep Quality: Poor Muscular Recovery: Accelerated Stress Response: Moderate Unknown Carrier Signal: Low / Intermittent Multiple-source interference: Not presently detected"They left?" Shimon asked quietly. The odd man sat nearby fastening the cords of his armor, his restless fingers moving with familiar care despite the fatigue gathered around his eyes. Heita glanced toward the household altar before tightening a knot and giving a reluctant nod.

"Before dawn," he said curtly.

"What were they?"

"Two kami."

"I know what you called them, but what were they?" the young man insisted. Matsunaga's fingers moved to the scar beneath his chin, worrying at it for a moment before he answered.

"Then you know as much as I do." That was nowhere near enough, but Shimon knew he would not be able to get anything more from him. Around them, the other hunters had begun rising and preparing for the day. The young castle retainer Fujita Kenzaburō inspected the damage to his armor from the previous night's hunt, while the broad-shouldered Seki Jūzō sat with his back against the wall and retied the cloth over the claw mark across his forearm.

Tarō appeared carrying two bowls of rice and soup with the proprietary confidence of a man who had apparently conquered the kitchens on their behalf.

"Eat," the surviving Kume instructed, passing one bowl across.

"The scholars want us after breakfast." Jūzō looked up at him.

"They always want us after we have done something unpleasant."

"They want Kagawa most," someone added. Seki glanced up from his arm. The missing top of his left ear gave his square face a permanently battered appearance, though his expression remained as unimpressed as ever.

"They will need more paper to fill his record." The scarred, one-eyed warrior was not present to hear the remark, which probably explained why Seki was able to voice his true opinion. Still, despite everything, they had killed three yōma and returned without losing a hunter, which represented an unquestionable success. Under the circumstances, he supposed that he should probably concentrate on his achievements rather than worrying about one of their more troublesome team members.

The young scholar Abe Chikanori had indeed brought more paper. By the time Shimon entered the concealed council chamber, the room had begun to resemble the headquarters of a criminal investigation, though no one in this age would have understood the comparison. Sheets covered the walls and much of the available floor.

Maps had been marked with circles identifying disappearances, disturbed graves, abandoned houses, and reported sightings, while sketches of yōma stood beside increasingly detailed notes recording their size, behavior, smell, wounds, feeding habits, weather conditions, and the number of witnesses whose testimony the scholars considered reliable. At the center of the room sat Aya.

The young miko had exchanged the white kosode and red hakama Shimon associated with her shrine duties for subdued clothing better suited to long hours spent working with ink. Her dark hair was bound neatly behind her, and several brushes rested beside bowls of pigment, water, and a stack of heavy paper. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. One large sheet before her showed the previous night's battle. Shimon stopped to examine it.

The scene possessed the flattened, stylized perspective common to the artwork of the period, yet the details were surprisingly accurate. The cave mouth opened beneath crooked trees, while three Grey Feeders moved across the clearing with their long arms, distorted joints, and divided jaws reconstructed from the descriptions supplied by the hunters.

Kurobane dominated one side of the image in a violent burst of black and rust-red feathers, his jaws fixed upon a yōma while the scarred mounted warrior cut downward from the saddle. The painting flattered Kagawa considerably by omitting the fact that his charge had almost destroyed the formation. On the other side, Shimon recognized himself principally by his height and the enormous sword raised above one shoulder. Heita's naginata hooked around the neck of the creature beneath him.

"Your left foot was farther back," Abe remarked from behind him. Shimon glanced over his shoulder.

"What?"

"In the final cut," the narrow-faced scholar clarified, tapping the lower part of the image with his bamboo pointer.

"Aya drew it as you described, but Matsunaga insists your left foot was farther back." The warrior with the scar on his chin sat against the opposite wall and nodded with complete seriousness. Shimon looked between the attentive scholar and Heita.

"You remember where my foot was while a yōma was trying to eat us?"

"I remember many useless things when frightened," the spiritually sensitive warrior returned somberly.

"That may be the most useful thing about you," Seki snorted in disbelief from nearby. The shrine maiden lowered her brush, though not before Shimon caught the slight movement at the corner of her mouth. Abe gestured toward the painting.

"The purpose is not beauty. We require something that a man who cannot read can recognize. If a hunter sees this creature on a road, in a field, or entering his house, he should know what other men learned before him." Shimon returned his attention to the picture and understood more clearly what the scholars were attempting.

It was a primitive form of forensic reconstruction: separate witnesses provided their accounts, Abe and the long-bearded Kuze compared them for inconsistencies, and Aya transformed the agreed testimony into vaguely useful to a farmer, hunter, soldier, or village headman who possessed neither letters nor the luxury of prolonged study.

"You are very good," Shimon told her. Aya looked up, a quizzical expression on her face. The compliment escaped before he could wrap it in the proper degree of formality, and he quickly corrected himself with a small bow.

"Your painting, I mean. It resembles them much more closely than I expected anyone could manage from descriptions alone." The young shrine maiden regarded him for a moment before a hint of mischief entered her expression.

"That sounds almost as though you expected me to fail, Ayanokouji-sama."

"No. I meant that—" The look in her eyes informed him that she was teasing him. Shimon wished Tarō were close enough that he could direct some of the resulting embarrassment toward him, but the older spearman had already been taken into the adjoining room with members of the other cell. Aya lowered her gaze toward the page again, concealing a small smile as she cleaned the tip of her brush.

"Thank you. Abe-sama makes certain I correct anything that pleases the eye more than it resembles the witness's account."

"Artists improve things," the narrow-faced scholar grumbled.

"Witnesses improve themselves for posterity. Between the two, truth has many enemies."

"I have never improved you, Abe-sama," the young miko returned mildly. The elder scholar Kuze Sōtei coughed into his sleeve, his long beard shifting over his chest while ink-darkened fingers settled more carefully upon his papers. Shimon noticed Aya's eyes move briefly toward him before returning to her work, and an unwelcome memory of Tarō's advice at the shrine immediately surfaced. She has looked at you twice, he remembered. Annoying man. The questioning began soon afterward.

The hunters were separated where practical and brought through the encounter step by step. The younger scholar wanted to know as many details as possible. Kagawa's decision to charge received particular attention. When the one-eyed rider finally entered, he defended the choice with all the confidence Shimon had expected.

"The creature was exposed," the dinosaur rider maintained.

"It was beside another creature," Abe reminded him.

"Kurobane had the first."

"The formation had been ordered to hold." Kagawa's remaining eye narrowed.

"I saw an opportunity." The senior retainer Nagai Morichika sat near the rear of the chamber with two clerks beside him. The powerful man had listened without interruption until then, his posture as precise as it had been in Lord Satomi's audience hall, but now his gaze rose from the notes.

"And created another opportunity for the enemy," the commanding man corrected with measured calm. The one-eyed samurai fell silent, while Abe continued writing with obvious satisfaction. The debrief occupied most of the morning.

Aya altered the painting repeatedly as the separate accounts refined it, moving Kurobane farther forward, changing the angle of Tarō's spear, widening Shimon's stance, and enlarging a fallen cedar until the picture became an uncomfortable approximation of memory rather than merely an illustration. That gave Shimon an idea.

"Aya-dono." Her brush paused above the paper.

"I have something else I would like you to draw." Abe immediately looked interested.

"Another yōma?"

"No." Heita's head snapped toward him. Shimon continued before the pale warrior could find an excuse to leave.

"Matsunaga sees things." The strange samurai's face tightened. Seki glanced toward him.

"Most of us do."

"Things the rest of us cannot," Ayanokouji amended. Now the room's attention settled upon Heita. The naginata fighter folded his arms and regarded Shimon with the betrayed indignation of a man whose private affliction had just been placed on public display. Shimon raised one hand.

"They already know you saw the third Grey Feeder before most of us did." Abe leaned forward eagerly.

"What else do you see?" Matsunaga closed his eyes for a moment.

"You are a terrible man, Ayanokouji."

"That has been mentioned recently," the young, narrow-faced scholar insisted. Nagai's expression sharpened.

"What has Matsunaga seen?" Shimon hesitated. Involving Aya had seemed sensible because she possessed the skill required to turn Heita's descriptions into something he might be able to analyze. Informing the senior retainer of every interaction with the thing attached to him was another matter entirely.