Splendidly, thank you. Though I see you have something even more relevant to share.
Uyo turned to her student. Chiyo’s visible eye was a cold, cruel blue and her inner voice was seething and bitter.
He has come, Chiyo sent. Toshi Umezawa.
The ochimusha, here? I applaud his energy, if not his judgement. Has he …?
He has. The Taken One is nearby.
Well, this is an interesting development. What do you propose to do?
Chiyo turned away angrily. Uyo’s throaty voice smoothly broke in and she said, Chiyo has some definite ideas on that. Suffice to say she wants to kill him with all available speed. She has already asked for a squad of shinobi and bushi to accompany her, but she is ready to go alone if you so wish it.
I do not. Mochi’s cheeks bunched up as he grinned. This is a matter of some concern, but nothing that demands such drastic action. I have a better plan in mind for our friend.
Uyo nodded. You see, my student? Mochi-sama always has a better plan.
Chiyo’s eye narrowed. Then I ask to be a part of that plan.
The little blue kami folded his hands over his belly and rose into the air. His voice was playful. You are, my dear. Intimately and necessarily, you already are.
CHAPTER 13
Toshi slipped into the wilds of East Jukai unnoticed. He was intent on staying unseen and undisturbed until he had time to recover after his ordeal in Minamo and his flight from Konda. The journey from the waterfall to the woods took all night and most of the morning, but in the breaking dawn he was able to find a hidden glen that could conceal him and the moth.
After landing and tethering the moth, Toshi carved a series of protective kanji on the trees leading to his bivouac. His ribs burned with every breath and he had trouble raising his stiff arms, so the symbols were rough. They would alert him if anyone came too close, however, and that was all he really needed right now.
When he felt safe, Toshi dined on borrowed soldier’s rations and sat with his back against a century cedar. Fatigue forced his eyelids down, but he struggled to stay alert. He found it difficult to take his eyes off the stone disk for fear of missing it move again. Part of him wanted to hear more of what the Taken One had to say, and the rest of him was just plain scared of it. It had finally stopped glowing and steaming after it called out to him, but that did nothing to boost his spirits. For all he knew, that just meant it was saving its strength to break free. No wonder the daimyo went mad after spending twenty years with it.
He imagined Konda sitting in his tower alone with the stone disk, endlessly staring as he waited for it to speak or move again. How long, Toshi thought, before my eyes start drifting out of my head like the daimyo’s? There were times when it seemed about to come to life, but they only came when the Taken One was in the corner of Toshi’s eye. If he looked at it directly, it remained inanimate, a lifeless chunk of shaped stone.
Gingerly, Toshi tested his ribs. His kanji magic was extremely limited when it came to healing, but he carried enough medicinal herbs and magical charms to speed his recovery. He couldn’t cure himself in a single stroke as he had with the oni dog’s venom, but he could encourage the bones to knit more quickly.
His eyelids fluttered and his head fell back. Though he hit hard enough to crack the bark, he barely noticed the blow. The major downside of his healing treatment was that it demanded long, uninterrupted hours of sleep to be effective. As his face lolled forward and consciousness faded, Toshi still fought to stay alert. He had too many enemies and too important a burden to let his guard down.
I will stay awake, Toshi thought, even as his eyelids closed and he proved himself a liar.
Toshi awoke on a barren field of gray stone. A strong, gritty wind kept his eyes nearly shut. He shielded his face and looked around, still groggy from the healing medicine.
He was no longer in Jukai. There was nothing on the plain of rock except him-no moth, no Taken One, no forest glen. Toshi turned a full circle and saw only an endless stretch of dull granite.
“Hey,” he called. The world vanished into the cold dry air, barely even echoing off the flat stony ground.
There was no reply except a stinging gust of wind-driven rock particles. He had seen a great many bizarre and terrible things, so now his mind ran wild with potential explanations for what had happened to him.
Night’s Reach might have brought him here for one of their rare face-to-face conversations, or to give him a new task now that he had possession of the Taken One. But that wasn’t likely, because Night’s honden was a gleaming platform of white against an endless black void. This place didn’t look or feel familiar.
Konda or O-Kagachi might have imprisoned him by some spell or artifice so that Toshi couldn’t keep running with the Taken One. Both of them would like nothing more than for the stone disk to stay in one place long enough for them to claim it. But Konda’s army did not usually rely on spells in battle, and O-Kagachi seemed far too vast and alien to bother with anything less than broad strokes. It was more likely to flatten the entire forest into toothpicks than to pin down one ochimusha at the center of it.
Or, the Taken One itself might have switched places with him, so that it was loose in Kamigawa and he was trapped in the stone disk. No immediate counterargument presented itself. In fact, if he put himself in the stolen kami’s place, he could easily see how it might leap at the first chance it had to escape. Assuming its earlier warm words were only a ruse, being swapped was looking like the most likely explanation. Even if it did think it owed him for taking it away from Konda, being kidnapped and held immobile for twenty years would make any entity irrational.
“Uh,” he said, “Taken One? Spirit in the stone disk? Have you brought me here?” Toshi spun around, trying to see in all directions. “Where is here, anyway?”
The wind rose. Over the rustling howl in his ears, Toshi heard a cold, callow voice say, “You are where you should be. You have died, Toshi Umezawa, and all that remains is to determine which hell claims your soul.”
Toshi blinked. “I don’t feel dead. But then again, I wouldn’t know.”
The voice seemed thrown, but it soon spoke again with the same eerie authority. “This place asks the same question of all who pass through it. Your answer will determine your status in the next world. Are you ready?”
“No,” Toshi said. “Absolutely not.”
“Nonetheless, I must ask.” The disembodied voice paused, then said, “What have you done to deserve your reward?”
Toshi kept shuffling his feet, turning in tight circles as he scanned the horizon. “How long can I think about it?”
“Do not toy with this place. Your answer, now.”
“But I don’t understand the question.”
After a pause, Toshi guessed the voice would not be drawn into further debate. He sighed and said, “Okay. I have tried to lead a virtuous life. I paid my debts on time. I honored the promises I made, each to the letter. I avoided material pleasures … well, I didn’t take more than my share of material pleasures. Actually, let’s move on from material pleasures. In general,” he said with a flourish, “I meant well.”
“And you have nothing to recant? Nothing to regret or set to rights?”
“Nope,” Toshi said. “I mean, obviously, mistakes were made. But in all, I’m quite satisfied with me.”
“You are a liar,” the voice said calmly. “You are a thief and a thug. You have committed violence for monetary gain and for its own sake. You have blasphemed the spirits and broken the laws of man. I name you villain, outlaw, oath-breaker, and murderer.”