The Golden Naginata (22 page)

About the Hour of the Ox she was awakened by an icy rain and leaks coming in, so she built the fire up again. The rain sounded like a child's crying, reminding her for some reason of Koshi, although Koshi never cried. The rain increased, becoming the sound of a thousand children crying, and Tomoe was given to thoughts of the Dry River in Emma's Hell, where the ghosts of children lived, and played, and were tortured.

The shadows were so cold and black that the fire wouldn't penetrate the corners of the dwelling. Tomoe began to imagine the place haunted. She had always been taught that by talking politely to ghosts, they would be less inclined to cause harm. She sat on her knees by the glowing hibachi and said, “If you are the spirit of Okio, take heart that I will visit you in a couple more days, and you can make your feelings known to me. If you are the spirit of someone else, please tell my friend Ushii Yakushiji that I am bringing him a gift, and will not try to make him leave eternal life in Hell if it is his wish to stay there.” She bowed her head to one dark corner and then another. She said, “I am grateful for the courtesy of your house.” The rain pelted the roof as she offered other platitudes. Time passed and she was still leery of going to sleep. A wind hissed through the cracks of the structure, and the dwelling shook throughout. The main central beam cried out in a voice which made Tomoe fall suddenly silent, speaking to the ghosts no more.

The sound had been familiar and yet it couldn't have been. The creaking wood reminded her of her mother's painful moans at her moment of dying. The hiss of wind through the walls was like her father when he was angry. In a moment, Tomoe found herself calling out,

“Father? Mother?”

Struck by sudden sadness, Tomoe dropped to her hands and bowed head upon the packed-earth floor. In the distance, she heard a temple bell ringing ominously behind the sound of rain, scaring the ghosts of the mountainside away. Tomoe looked up quickly and cried out, “Forgive the weakness of my filial piety! I have made amends to you and wed the Knight of Kiso as you wished, and have been a good wife to him. Rest happily father! Rest happily mother!”

She awoke with sun shining through the cracks of the poor house. She was not certain any of this had happened.

Above the final line of evergreens there was only snow and rock. The peak of Kiji-san seemed close enough to touch, but this was an illusion of the clear air. She climbed the whole of the morning, Amaterasu high above her head by the time she came within arm's reach of the top. The route had not been as steep as she feared, but she was weary from the cold and the thinness of the air. Kiji-san and her twin, visible to the right, were not the largest mounts of the Karuga range. From her lofty view, Tomoe saw the range bend away in two directions, and she saw dozens of peaks higher than the easy one she had challenged. Yet the Twins were the most perfectly formed and conical of them all. Tomoe Gozen knew that she had come to a special and holy place.

Through the hours of her climb, a sweet, whispering, feminine voice had talked directly into Tomoe's mind, but the words were senseless and baffling. Now she rested, listening closely with her mind, certain that whatever communicated in this way would clarify itself if the listener would only open her mind completely. It was difficult for Tomoe to do this, for she was not certain such a voice should be trusted, and her leeriness was blocking the mind-sound.

As she squatted beneath the ledge of the crater, Tomoe Gozen unsheathed her sword, which was the sword of Madoka Kawayama, and breathed her foggy breath on the shining steel of it. Then she raised the blade above the ledge and used it as a mirror. Even fogged, the brightness of the Golden Naginata's reflection was hard on Tomoe's eyes. The naginata sat in a socket in the very center of the crater, with a constant flow of energy radiating from the upthrust blade. Tomoe lowered her sword, sheathed it, and waited for the spots in front of her vision to fade. For a while, she did not move, but listened more intensely to the voice inside her head. At last the message was clear:
Do not come to my domain.
It was the kirin, the holy monster, warning her away, as it must have done to yamabushi in the past, negating their curiosity.

“I must come,” said Tomoe, her back to the outer rim of the crater.

Not to my domain.

“Yes, to yours.”

Not to mine.

“I cannot be stopped.”

The kirin will stop you.

“We will see.”

She removed the parcel from her obi, the parcel which was the length of a shortsword and twice as thick. She unwrapped it, removed the shaku first and replaced it in her obi, near the knot in back to keep it out of the way. The sheath was more important on this part of her mission. She placed it through her obi, but in front where she could snatch it to encase the magic weapon. The cloth which had wrapped the two objects throughout her journey was of the most immediate importance: it would serve as blindfold.

Tomoe hesitated about tying the cloth around her eyes.

“Kirin,” she said, speaking softly but certain the holy monster would hear. “Let me see you once before I'm blind.”

Blind. Blind.

“Let me see you.”

Don't come to my domain.

“That part is settled. I would see you so I know what I must fight.”

She withdrew the sword again, held it up so that she could see into the bright crater, but at an angle which would not reflect the Golden Naginata's terrible light. The shining clouds overhead were descending into the crater, falling in a swirl of mist, coalescing into the form of the monster. The kirin slowly became solid, its fierce white eyes looking directly at Tomoe's upheld sword, and into Tomoe's eyes.

The kirin's neck was longer than its whole body, and the body was that of a splendid, powerful deer, larger than a horse. Its split hooves opened and closed like iron vises. From its forehead three spikes protruded, the central one bending backward. Its muzzle was full of huge, round teeth. The exceedingly long neck was fully maned; and some otherworldly wind, which Tomoe could not personally feel, caused the mane magically to dance and sparkle. The fur of the beast was mottled red on orange, startling in its fiery brightness.

“The kirin is beautiful,” said Tomoe, and the gentle but adamant voice replied,

Kirin is fierce.

The monster began to dissipate. Tomoe held her sword aloft, watching the kirin until the last possible moment, and was sad when it was gone. When it had vanished into colorful mists, Tomoe sheathed her sword, and tied the scarf around her eyes.

She climbed into the crater.

No further,
warned the soft voice.
Go back.

“I am resolved!” Tomoe shouted, running blindly over the flat ground of the crater's interior. She had memorized the position of every rock along the way and so was able to dodge obstacles although unable to see them through the cloth. She made it halfway to the upright weapon when a swirling mist threw her to one side. She was not sure how far she had been tossed from her intended route.

So it must be,
the kirin's voice said sadly, and Tomoe envisioned in her mind's eye how the creature coalesced again. She sensed it becoming more tangible, knew that in a moment it would be solid and attack. She turned her blindfolded face until, even through the cloth, she could see the bright light of the Golden Naginata like a half-moon behind gauzy clouds. Immediately, she was on her feet and running toward it. She no longer knew where the obstacles were and so caught her foot in a depression; she went sprawling into a foolish posture. The kirin roared tigerishly and stomped the ground with its iron-hard hooves. Tomoe rolled away from the place where the hooves stomped, and carved upward with her sword, striking the neck to small avail. Common steel could not cut any part of the kirin.

Tomoe ignored the feminine laughter which answered her feeble attack. That laughter might have unnerved another. She lunged toward the handle beneath the light, pulled upward so that the Golden Naginata was in her hands. She now stood with the long-handled weapon above her head, its balde pointing toward the kirin. Its snaky neck moved right and left trying to find an entrance to bite Tomoe; but the samurai's senses were at their keenest, and the blade of the naginata was able to follow the kirin's motions.

I cannot be killed,
the voice of the kirin whispered in Tomoe's mind.

“But you can be injured,” Tomoe countered, and leapt toward the sound of the kirin's breath. It snaked its neck backward, the blade passing between its jaws. It made again the sound of quiet laughter, which Tomoe heard both inside her head and in the ordinary way, with her ears. She leapt at the sound of laughter, and the kirin was forced to give ground. Tomoe pressed the attack, but the kirin had tricked her into doing this. It grabbed the upper part of the naginata's handle below the blade and tore it from Tomoe's grasp! Again, the laughter. Tomoe was surprised, but more angered than upset, and she surprised the kirin in turn. She leapt blindly for its head, and it could not bite her without letting go of the naginata. She clung to the monster's gorgeous mane which was softer than silk and hundreds of times stronger. She was lifted up and up and shaken madly, but would not let go of her grip.

One hand knotted in the mane, Tomoe grasped with her other hand until she caught hold of the bottom part of the naginata's handle. She hung on while the kirin threw its neck around and tried to make her let go of mane, or naginata, or both. She did let go of the mane, only to hang from the naginata with both hands. The huge molars of the kirin were occupied on the handle so that Tomoe could be close to the mouth and not fear being bitten.

A split hoof of iron tried to kick at her, but the creature was not good at kicking toward its own face. Tomoe rolled over the handle of the naginata as though it were a mounted exercise bar, and with her sandaled foot, gave the kirin a blow to one huge eye. It roared a response, no longer laughing, opening its jaw in complaint. Tomoe landed on her feet, the Golden Naginata ready.

She wheeled around, sweeping with the weapon, but the kirin reared and an iron hoof kicked the side of the blade. Tomoe listened for every coil of neck, every movement of hoof. She knew the kirin was turning about, planning to kick with both rear legs. Logically she should leap backward, but she was not sure what the ground was like, did not know what she might trip over, and her mind was quick enough to suppose the kirin
expected
her to leap backward and fall. Instead, she leapt
forward,
the iron-hoofed legs missing her underneath, and she landed high on the back of the kirin.

You would ride
? the feminine voice asked in disbelief.

The naginata was so long that, astride, it was difficult to cut the monster with the blade at handle's length. The kirin bucked like a wild, long-legged horse, twisted its neck to try to bite its rider. Tomoe pressed the butt of the naginata against the kirin's horns, pushed the head back. Then she let herself fall off in such a way that the kirin would think it had been an accident. As it reared to stomp her where she lay upon her back, the Golden Naginata swept quickly upward, catching the kirin in the breast.

Chill blood covered the blade. The kirin cried out in anguish—more for the loss of the treasured weapon than for the pain of any wound—and then returned to mist. Tomoe whipped off her blindfold but not soon enough to see the gorgeous kirin again. She saw only dawn-colored mists. She knew the holy monster would not reappear for a while, not until its wounds were healed.

You have won
, said the kirin, and the voice had become sad and sensual, seeming far away. Tomoe heard no more.

She gazed upon the blade of the Golden Naginata, which glowed even through the filter of the kirin's rosy blood. The temper pattern was shaped like lightning, and this lightning-temper shined with a greater radiance than the rest of the blade. Tomoe said to the weapon, as though it were a sentient being, “I will call you
Inazuma-hime
, and we will be friends for a while.” Inazuma-hime meant “Princess Lightning,” and it seemed an appropriate title. Tomoe turned her face to the cloud-streaked heaven and called out a last time to the kirin, “Do not pine so much for Inazuma! I will return her when your wound has healed and your blood has worn from her metal! Then you may guard your treasure once again!”

Placing the miraculous weapon in the carved, unlacquered sheath, the light of Inazuma-hime was completely doused; and though the day was not near ending, Tomoe sensed a darkness about the crater which was psychic, a sort of melancholy caused by the light of the Golden Naginata being doused and taken away. Although moved to pity, Tomoe Gozen hardened herself to the temporary theft, and descended toward the yamabushi monastery for her planned meeting.

On the third day after leaving Lost Shrine, Tomoe returned to see Oshina and Koshi. She was greeted on the bridge by the white dog. “How are our friends, Taro?” she asked, and scruffed the dog's big head. The rooster was loose, picking and scratching in a weedy patch of ground. The place seemed cheerier than before, especially in contrast to the severe monastery she had stayed in the previous night.