To Break the Demon Gate Read online

  I smiled ruefully. So then the girl is not dead. The smoke of her burning did not rise up the slopes of Mount Toribe, and her family did not mourn, and her ashes were not buried or scattered. None of that happened. None of it could have happened. Like Kei’s visit to me, it was merely a dream.

  I sincerely hoped that Seita’s understanding was greater than mine, but I was hard-pressed to understand how it could be less. As things were, I had to confess myself totally baffled. I finally managed a bit of fitful sleep as evening approached, but there were no dreams that I could recall.

  When I awoke from a shallow sleep the sun had not yet set, but was not long for the sky. I informed the Widow Tamahara that I would not be taking supper in my rooms that evening. I then left her and followed Shijo-dori until it crossed Karasuma, then turned south toward Rashamon.

  My rather vivid memories of my last trip through the Rasha Gate had me a bit on edge as I exited the city proper, but there were no incidents, no sound of rustling paper, nothing. The Rasha Gate’s reputation as an entranceway for evil spirits was matched only by that of the northeast, or “Demon,” gate through which the tengu had entered the city the day before, though the demands and direction of travel required that the northeast gate be well-used despite this reputation. There was less traffic and travel to the south, and only fools or those with compelling reason would find themselves as I now found myself—alone on the southern road within sight of Rashamon. I imagined there could be no one else to which this would apply and be in search of a ghost as well, but that was why I was there.

  The moon was high when I reached the ruined wall of Seita’s home, if such it had been, and approached the bridge that crossed the now overgrown stream, its banks covered in wild vines and briars. I could smell the sakura in the former garden, now grown wild.

  “Seita-san? I need a word with you.”

  Seita did not appear. There was a flash of red to one side of the bridge on the opposite shore, then another close to the water. It winked out like a firefly, then reappeared on the other side of the bridge.

  “Seita, is that you?”

  It was several long moments before I received a reply, almost too faint to hear.

  “Lord Yamada?”

  I frowned. “I don’t have a great deal of time, Seita-san. Why so elusive?”

  “Being elusive is not always a fault. Sometimes it is a necessity. How do I know that you are really Lord Yamada, and not something with Lord Yamada’s face pretending to be Lord Yamada?”

  I think the voice now came from beneath the bridge, but I wasn’t even certain of that. “You mean the way the shikigami impersonated you? And who knows this aside from you, myself, and Prince Kanemore? All the creatures were destroyed.”

  Now Seita did appear on the highest point of the half-moon shaped bridge. “A good point, Lord Yamada,” the lantern said. “But one cannot be too cautious these days.”

  I sighed. “Seita-san, not to be indelicate, but you are already dead and have been so for a considerable time. What have you to fear?”

  “Spoken with the true arrogance of the living,” Seita said dryly. “So, what do you wish of me?”

  “I have come about a girl who was murdered in the city yesterday.”

  The lantern dimmed, then brightened again. “One? There were at least three that I am aware of. Could you be more specific?”

  “The circumstances of the one I speak were very specific,” I said. “A girl surrounded by her friends, and all saw nothing. No wounds, nothing except marks around her throat she apparently made as she strangled herself.”

  “Cannot be done,” Seita said.

  “It was done,” I said, feeling just a bit annoyed. “What I need to know is how and why.”

  “You’re referring to Taira no Kei?” he asked.

  “The same. I imagine the rumors would have reached you quickly.”

  “Yes, but I asked because she wasn’t the only one. Four people have died in the city under similar circumstances within the last month . . . except they didn’t strangle themselves. At least, there was no mention of it.”

  “How did they die, then? Have any become ghosts who would, perhaps, speak to us?”

  “We’re well past idle conversation now, my lord,” Seita said. “And I am hungry. One bowl to start, or my memory might fade.”

  I had expected no less. I produced a measured bag of uncooked rice from Prince Kanemore’s stipend and placed a pair of hashi upright through the mouth of the bag.

  “For the good of my friend, Seita-san,” I said, bowing formally.

  I didn’t look as the bag floated off of my outstretched palms, though I knew what was about to happen. When I looked again, the rotted remains of the cloth bag were drifting away on the breeze like falling leaves. Seita let out a sigh of deep contentment.

  “Much better. Now, to answer your first question: I don’t know. I only remarked on the matter because their manner of death was unusual and much remarked upon among those left behind after the departed’s passing. Thus, those rumors reached me. If your information concerning Princess Ai’s attendant is correct, that merely reinforces what I have already heard, save for the nonsense about self-strangulation. In answer to your second question: at the moment I don’t know but consider it unlikely. Most people pass immediately from this world at death.”

  “You did not,” I pointed out.

  Seita looked thoughtful. “Lord Yamada, when you look at me, what do you see?”

  The question rather took me by surprise. “What do I . . . ? I see a red lantern, about half my height, with a rather large eye and a smaller mouth. Is this not the manifestation you have chosen?”

  “I chose nothing. In my mind I am as I was. My family compound, which you have assured me on many occasions is a ruin, I see as I remember it, a happy place. Sometimes I think I can hear the voices of my mother and father, my wife, just in the next room. I know this is not as things are, but while I linger they remain true for me. Why should I leave? What do you think is waiting for me beyond this realm?”

  It seems that even a ghost may be haunted. “I don’t know,” I said. The lantern sighed, and I felt a chill on the evening breeze. “I do. It’s what awaits anyone who is not an ‘Enlightened Being,’ as the priests say. There are many hells, all waiting to burn away the impurities and delusions of this life for however many ages that shall take. For our own good, of course, and yet you wonder what the dead should fear? Death is easy, Lord Yamada. What comes after is the difficult part.”

  “No doubt I’ll find out soon enough. For now I have other problems.”

  “Which only my memory of hunger, which will not leave me alone, forces me to see as my own.”

  I didn’t argue the point. “That there were other deaths of a similar nature should not surprise me, as my understanding of the matter is so limited I don’t know what is to be expected and what is not. Which is why I have come to you, Seita-san. Can you help me or not?”

  The ghost hesitated. Before this I was merely annoyed. Now I was worried. Seita had been acting strangely before and now it was even more apparent. Normally by now he would have named his price and been halfway to collecting it from me. Yet at the moment he just hovered, silent, at the highest part of the bridge.

  “You don’t see it, do you?”

  I sighed. “Seita-san, if you keep asking me questions, before long I’ll be demanding rice of you. What are you talking about?”

  “A darkness has come over the city, like a great cloud. Can’t you sense it? Even in the daytime? It’s there, though much more powerful at night.”

  “I have not your . . . sensitivity, to such matters. What is it? Some sort of magic? A demon?”

  “I do not know,” Seita said. “Nor do I wish to know. This darkness has eyes, Lord Yamada. It has intentions. What it chooses to notice, it sees. I do not want it to see me.”

  “Is this ‘darkness’ you refer to what killed Taira no Kei and the others?”

  “I am
not sure . . . ” Seita looked about as agitated as I had ever seen him. He finally sighed again, looking resigned. “Damn my hunger. Damn you and your rice, for that matter. Give me some time, Lord Yamada. Perhaps someone within my circle knows more than I do. See me in the evening after two days’ time. Four bowls, if I have your answer. One if you want me to keep trying.”

  “Done, if you’ll tell me who and where in the city those similar deaths occurred. There may be no common thread, but I must look anyway.”

  Seita obeyed, and somewhat hastily. “Now please leave me. No offense, Lord Yamada, but the darkness sometimes seems deeper when you are around.”

  I didn’t argue that point, either. “I will look for you two days from now.”

  “Yes,” Seita said, “and please, not before.”

  He floated back across the bridge and disappeared. It occurred to me that it was little wonder I was usually alone, if even ghosts did not wish my company.

  As I walked back into the city through Rashamon I considered the new information that Seita had given me, trying to see what possible link to Taira no Kei there might be. I had not yet even gotten as far as Karasuma-dori when I came to the inescapable conclusion that there simply was no connection.

  The other four mysterious deaths consisted of a retired prostitute near the Gion Shrine, a nine-year-old orphan girl in service to a fishmonger, a young monk at Kiyomizu-dera, and the wife of a provincial lord from Hokkaido. I went through a quick mental map of the city to locate where each death had occurred, and the pattern, if one could call it that, seemed completely random within the range of the city where such incidents had been identified. While it was always possible there was a connection I was too dull to see, I certainly was not seeing it. If any of the victims, other than possibly the former prostitute and the fish-seller’s servant, had even met each other before I would have been greatly surprised. A prior meeting was definitely not the case with the governor’s wife; she was from the province originally and had never even set foot in the city before, if Seita’s information could be trusted.

  New disease spirits sometimes arose, ones for which the priests had yet to locate the proper prayers. Sometimes the death tolls rose quite high, and the malady turned into an actual plague before it could be brought under control and the correct deities assuaged. Perhaps Taira no Kei and the others were merely victims of one such, and as the threat progressed and was thus recognized, spiritual counter-measures would be discovered. My reasonable side said this was so; every instinct within me—and in Kanemore as well, it seemed—denied this.

  The darkness has eyes. It has intentions.

  Seita’s words came back to me, unbidden. It occurred to me that there was another in my circle who might understand at least a little of what Seita was talking about. I judged the lateness of the hour by the height of the moon and thought, perhaps, there was still enough time. Instead of taking Shijo-dori back to the Widow Tamahara’s establishment when it crossed Karasuma, I continued north toward the Demon Gate.

  Kenji wasn’t hard to find. There were only seven wine shops in the immediate vicinity of the Demon Gate, and the reprobate monk had his favorites; I found him slouched by a low corner table in the third establishment I tried, drinking quietly. This was not a good sign. Clearly Kenji had progressed from the “loud and boisterous” portion of his evening and was well on the way to the “stagger off somewhere and pass out” portion. If I wanted to get any sense into or out of the man, I knew I must proceed quickly.

  “Lord Yamada, you great sullen fool,” he said by way of greeting. “Have a drink.”

  Now this was odd. Kenji never willingly offered his wine to me or to anyone who wasn’t young and female. More to the point, his speech was not slurred, nor was he otherwise incoherent. Clearly, I had been wrong about the man’s state. Yes, he was drinking, but he was nowhere near drunk. If the eyes through which he regarded me were a little reddened, they were still clear and focused.

  “Not that I mind, since I do need to speak to a man rather than the sad remains of too much bad saké, but why are you sober?”

  “That is a good question,” Kenji said. “Frankly, I would like to know the answer myself. No women about. No gamblers willing to lose to a monk. I even have the means to drink as much as I might want this evening. And yet . . . well, I am puzzled.”

  At first I thought the man was mocking me, but on closer inspection I realized he was, indeed, puzzled. There was fear, too.

  “You’re starting to sound like Seita.”

  “You’re comparing me to the dead? That’s bad luck, and I don’t need yours on top of my own.”

  “I meant only that Seita seems worried. So do you. Would you mind telling me why?”

  Kenji took another drink, and then made a face. “I don’t know that. I don’t even know,” he said, taking one more drink and then scowling, “why this fine saké tastes like ditchwater on my tongue. I had thought my spotting that tengu was an opportunity, but ever since I helped drive it out I’ve been jumping at shadows. Perhaps the wretched creature cursed me.”

  I took the opportunity to ask a question that had occurred to me long since. “Why would a tengu try to enter the city in the first place?”

  Kenji shrugged. “They are tricksters not unlike foxes, but their special delight is misleading the righteous.”

  “Then you certainly had nothing to fear from it, and I can understand the attraction since the capital has so many temples and monasteries. So why, then, are we not overrun with the creatures?”

  Even the deliberate insult did nothing to either provoke a response or lighten Kenji’s mood. “Simply because we are thick with temples and monasteries, and powerful ancient shrines, Lord Yamada. The spiritual forces arrayed against any such intrusion are great, especially in the direction of the Demon Gate. That’s why Enryaku Temple was founded to the northeast of the city in the first place.”

  “And yet it felt it could saunter in through that very gate, albeit in disguise, in broad daylight. Perhaps our defenses have been weakened.” I then told Kenji what Seita had told me, ‘dark cloud’ references and all.

  “From which direction does this dark spirit come?” he asked.

  I frowned. “I don’t know. Sullen fool that I am, I didn’t think to ask.”

  “Well, you should have asked. Directions and paths of advancement or retreat are crucial in these matters, so it could be important. Perhaps this dark spiritual energy is what I have been sensing. It would explain why the barriers were low enough to let a tengu inside the city in the first place, and why everything seems so wrong.”

  So Kenji did indeed sense what Seita had referred to, and perhaps the same thing that, in my own dull way, had been troubling me as well. “That’s the way I feel about that girl’s death,” I said, because it was true.

  “I think perhaps this extends beyond even that,” Kenji said. “But I do not know how or what this thing might be.”

  I had an idea. “Meet me at Rasha gate, at sunset two days from now. I have an appointment with Seita, but these matters are closer to your understanding than mine. Perhaps you can think of some questions that would not occur to me.”

  “Doubtless true,” Kenji said, rubbing his chin. He looked thoughtful, or at least as thoughtful as Kenji ever did.

  “You’re going to meet the person who sent the message about your father tomorrow, yes?”

  While I had thought of myself as ambivalent on the matter, when Kenji asked the question straight out my answer came of the same spirit. “Yes, I am.”

  “Do you think that is wise?”

  “I most certainly do not. I have no idea what I’m getting into.”

  “Then perhaps you could persuade Prince Kanemore to accompany you. Just a thought.”

  I sighed deeply. “First of all, I can take care of myself. As for Prince Kanemore, he is a friend but he has his own concerns, and this is my family business, not his.”

  “Even so.”

  “Let us
get back to the matter at hand. There is no need to stall, Kenji-san. I know it is a long walk to the southeast gate, and this really isn’t your affair. I have patronage at the moment, so I can make it worth your while.”

  “No need,” Kenji said, sounding reluctant. “It occurs to me that perhaps this is my affair, though I wish it were not so. If this ‘darkness’ does indeed have eyes, then perhaps it has already seen me through that tengu.”

  As with Seita, I did not argue. Kenji might very well be right, and as I had said, such matters were closer to his realm than mine. In two days, perhaps we would know. As for myself, tomorrow I was to meet the author of that poetic message concerning my father. With the events surrounding Taira no Kei’s death, the matter had been given rather short shrift in my concerns, but now as the time grew nearer—and despite the fact that Teiko’s brother and son required my foremost attention—I found my curiosity growing. Who even remembered my father or cared about the loss of my family’s lands and future? My hopes were not terribly high, but I thought that perhaps tomorrow there would be at least one question answered.

  The following day I spent most of my hours in matters of little consequence, and that evening as the waning moon rose I presented myself at the newly repaired gate of the once-ruined mansion. After a short delay it was opened by Nidai. He still wore his tattered red sash, but his clothing otherwise had been much improved and his hair freshly cut.

  “Lord Yamada,” he said, bowing low. “Welcome.”

  I suppressed a smile. “So you have progressed beyond simple messenger, Nidai-kun. What is your involvement in this affair?”

  “Thanks to my proper conscientiousness as a messenger I am now a lady’s servant, Lord Yamada. Certainly better employment than fighting my comrades for fish-heads stolen from the market. Mistress is expecting you, so if you will follow me . . . ”