All the Gates of Hell (8 page)

O-Jizou made a slight noise, little more than a clearing of his throat, but Jin knew what it really meant -- her cue. Jin headed for the bridge, even though as yet she didn't have the slightest idea what she was going to do, and understanding that it was her nature to sort just such things out didn't make her feel the least bit more confident.

The understanding that Mariko was little more than a skeleton in a white kimono bothered Jin just a little, and not for the obvious reason. If all hells were personal -- and Jin knew that to be true -- then the particular torment, experience, and appearance of the punished one were all personal as well. Yet here was little more than an assemblage of bones and scraps of cloth pretending to be, as Jin perceived her, a young girl of about seventeen. Why? Jin could understand if Mariko was at a place where she would be subjected to horror and revulsion at her appearance; that was a torment that made sense, and Jin could look for understanding there. Yet Mariko was alone. Here there was no one to see her bones, her sorry pretense at being a living girl, so what was the point of it? It's not as if the girl carried a mirror to look at herself; so far as Jin could see she only carried a fan tucked into her sash, and considering the height of the bridge it was unlikely the water below could cast a reflection plain enough for Mariko to see.

Perhaps she merely wants it to be clear that she has died...but clear to whom
?

Jin approached the bridge and Mariko didn't react. It was only when she stepped onto the wooden walkway that Mariko turned to look at her.

"Saburo -- " Mariko stopped. She sounded confused. "You're not Saburo-sama," she said, staring at her with the black holes where her eyes should be.

Jin took another step. "No. My name is Jin."

Mariko took a step back. "What are you doing here? Did Saburo-sama send you?"

"You're waiting on Saburo, aren't you?" Jin asked, dodging the question like a hurled stone. She took another step. So did Mariko, in the opposite direction.

"Stay back!"

Jin paused, her hand still on the railing. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Mariko shook her head slowly. "I know who you are. I won't go."

"Go where?"

The question seemed to confuse Mariko. "Where Saburo-sama isn't," she said finally.

"It would seem to me," Jin said dryly, "that
this
is a place where Saburo-sama isn't. How long have you been waiting?"

Silence, then Jin saw tears forming at the corners of Mariko's fleshless eyes. The idea that this was an impossible thing to happen came and was dismissed in a moment; it happened, so obviously it was not impossible. Not at that place, at least.

For a moment Mariko's fear and suspicion deserted her. "I'm so tired," she said. Tears glistened on the bones of her face. "Please go away."

"Who do you think I am, Mariko san?"

"You are Blessed Kannon. You do not look as I expected, but it is you, I am certain."

Jin nodded. "You're an interesting girl, Mariko-san. I don't think you're confused at all about where you are and who you are. Yet you tarry here wearing a face like death itself waiting for someone who is never going to come. What was this 'Saburo-sama' to you?"

"Everything," Mariko said. "And he
will
come. We could not marry, but he said we would be re-united and we will. When that happens, he will see that I kept faith with him!"

Jin had a pretty good idea of what Mariko meant by that, but this was not the time for guesswork. She had to be sure. "Mariko, take my hand."

The ghost-girl took another step back. "I won't!"

"I'm trying to help you, Mariko, but I can't unless you help me, too. I promise I will not drag you away from here if you really don't want to go."

Expression was hard to read on the face of a skull, but Jin was sure Mariko was doubtful. "Well..."

"Kannon does not lie," Jin said.

Reluctantly, Mariko extended her bony hand and Jin grasped it gently. She felt none of the revulsion she had half-way expected to feel.

She saw what Mariko saw, felt what Mariko felt. In that instant she
was
Mariko as she had been a thousand years before. She stood on a small bridge in the garden of her father's house. Her father emerged from a small tea hut father down the path, and he had a guest. Jin felt her heart beating faster at the sight of the handsome young man accompanying him. Her normally gruff father was in a surprisingly good mood and he smiled at her.

"Daughter, come greet our guest."

As Mariko/Jin and Saburo bowed to each other, for a moment their eyes met. In that moment Jin finally knew what it was like to fall in love because, in the mind and spirit of a girl dead for a thousand years, for the first time and yet again she did fall in love. The sadness was almost more than she could bear. The details came flooding into her, filling in the small gaps that, to Jin, already seemed like a completed picture: Mariko was a girl of good family who fell in love with a scholar visiting her father's house. They spent one blissful night together but he was promised to another and told her so. In a moment Jin knew all this and more beside, no more or less than what she needed to know. When the vision ended Jin knew it was still up to her to put the pieces into place because her previous view of the matter was askew in one very crucial area.

Jin glanced at the ornate fan in her sash. "That was Saburo-sama's token to you, wasn't it?"

Mariko tugged her hand free and placed it protectively over the fan. "He will see that I have kept faith. I've waited for him here, he will see -- "

"The face you have chosen to show him. He will see your death. You didn't always wear this face, even after you came here, did you?"

"I-I don't remember."

"Oh, yes you do. Death doesn't come again to one already dead, but time still exists for all who cannot remove themselves from it, and you've waited a long time indeed. You became very angry with Saburo-sama over the years, didn't you? It was then that you started to let the memory of flesh fall away and now you're not waiting for him at all. You're waiting to show Saburo-sama what he did to you!"

Mariko didn't say anything, but she didn't have to. Jin smiled at her. "Break the fan, Mariko-chan. Let it go."

Mariko closed both skeletal hands around the precious fan and hugged it to her chest as if to protect it from Jin. "I won't! I will wait..."

Jin shook her head, slowly. "Did it never occur to you that maybe you misunderstood? You're not waiting on Saburo -- he's waiting on you."

Mariko just stared at her for a moment. "What are you talking about?"

"Saburo never understood what he meant to you. He didn't get word of your suicide until he returned to his father's house where his new bride was waiting for him. Because of his obedience to his father he tried to forget you but never managed, and that regret has followed him across the River of Souls numerous times since then."

"So why has he not come to me here?"

"Because he
can't
! This is not a meeting place. It is only where you wait for what will never happen while Saburo lives out his lives without the potential of settling matters between you, because you hide in this place."

"That's not true..." Mariko began, but Jin didn't let her finish.

"Kannon does not lie," Jin repeated. "Either break the fan or I will. Your choice."

"No you won't," Mariko said in triumph. "You promised!"

"I promised not to drag you from this place if you didn't really want to go. You do want to go, Mariko."

"No I don't! I will wait forever!"

"You don't have forever, Mariko. Sooner or later you will settle matters with Saburo, because you must. You've delayed that long enough. You've punished Saburo enough."

"No," she said, and that was all.

"You've got every right to be angry," Jin said gently, "But do you really never want to see Saburo again? If you can honestly say so, Mariko, I will leave you here. Only, for your own sake, tell the truth."

"I..."

Mariko's voice trailed off. She seemed puzzled again, and it was only then that Jin saw what she had missed the first time -- Shiro. He was in the fan. In that moment Mariko's manner changed and, for a moment, Jin saw the face in Mariko's memory, her true face and then it was gone again, replaced with something much colder and harder than bone

"He can rot in whatever Hell comes to him," Mariko-Shadow said then. "I will not go -- "

Jin took the fan. She never took her gaze from the ruined face, but Jin's right hand snaked out and snatched the fan from between Mariko's bony fingers.

"Get out of her you bastard!" Jin snarled as she snapped the delicate fate across her knee. Again, the visions. Brief, fragmented. There was no time.

Mariko howled like an enraged animal and lunged. Jin grabbed Mariko's wrists and held on as the girl snarled and tried to bite Jin with her skull full of teeth. Jin held her there as the shadow pooled itself and fell away. In a moment Mariko's bones clothed themselves with the memory of flesh just long enough to smile a little wistfully at Jin. In a few more moments she was gone, along with the bridge and the river and everything that had to do with Mariko's time in that place.

The shadow named Shiro, on the other hand, remained, but only fleetingly. It flowed away like dark water over the dry and desolate wasteland and Jin set out in swift pursuit of Shiro in her full demon form.

"I'll stick you in an ink bottle and write bad poetry with you, see if I don't!" snarled Jin as she ran. "I'll--I'll do worse than that! How
dare
you!"

Shiro eluded her by the time she reached the River of Souls. He seemed to have flowed away into the ground and under the rocks themselves, out of reach. Jin even dared opening her Third Eye to try and find him but, though she saw a great deal, there was no sign of the shadow creature at all.

She was hunkered down on the bank of the river of souls, her head resting on her knees, staring at nothing, when O-Jizou found her again. "Please don't do that, Jin. You're scaring the children."

"What? Oh." It was only then that Jin realized she was still in her demon form and the children on the opposite bank were cowering in little groups, hugging themselves and crying. She returned to being Jin again. "I'm sorry about that."

"Why is the Goddess of Mercy so angry?" he asked.

"That was Shiro. He was here!" He shook his head, and Jin went on, "When I first met him he was helping to keep a little girl trapped in one of the corridors and came very close to trapping Mariko as well. The blasted creature seems to reinforce whatever's keeping them from moving on. I don't know much else, but he used to be a man named Shiro. I know that much."

"Perhaps he's some sort of demon now. People do that, sometimes. I've known a few. But how did he get here?" O-Jizou asked.

"I don't know. It does seem to get around..."

The implication of what O-Jizou said finally got through to her. "...which should not be happening, should it? Only those who belong in a particular hell should be able to reach it. Perhaps he's following me somehow. I'll have to be more careful." Jin stood up. "I have to go now."

O-Jizou nodded slightly. "You'll be back soon. For now and on Mariko's behalf, I thank you."

"For doing my job?" Jin asked, a little shortly.

"For helping her," he said quietly.

Jin just nodded. "Sure... Listen, I don't mean to be rude, but I've got to go talk to someone. I can find my own way back, thanks."

Jin sat off at a pace that O-Jizou himself could only respect. In a short time she was back in the corridor leading to the gateways. She glanced neither left nor right but kept going until she passed through the door on the opposite end of the corridor.

The statue of Guan Yin and her attendants stood softly glowing in the torchlight, as they always did, but Jin didn't pay them any mind. She found the two guardians marking the way back to Medias and stopped there.

"Did you see a creature made of Shadow leave O-Jizou's realm?"

CERTAINLY, they said.

"And you let him go?" she asked, hands on her hips, glaring up at them.

OF COURSE. WE ALWAYS LET HIM GO WHERE HE WILLS.

Jin could barely believe what she was hearing. "Since you two are supposed to be guarding the doors, would it be too rude of me to ask why??"

BECAUSE THE LORD OF THE FIRST HELL HAS DECREED THAT HE MAY DO SO. IT IS NOT OUR PLACE TO QUESTION HIS WILL.

"Teacher...? Dammit, he
knew
!"

Jin sat down again. Not for the first time she wondered if she was going to be able to discuss a matter rationally with Teacher before she ripped his lungs out. On the far side of the cavern, the statue of Guan Yin smiled at them all.

(())

Chapter 6

"Whatever the reason you've taken on this mortal incarnation, I really hope you don't do it again, Lady. You're not very good at being human."

Teacher was waiting for her at the dais after she left the two guardians by the passageway entrance as if he was merely keeping an appointment. He accepted her ranting with the same blend of weary patience and exasperation he seemed to be dealing with everything she'd said to him lately.

She shook her head. "The problem, if anything, is that I'm too damn good at it. Including mastering the finer points of losing my temper!"

Teacher sighed. He leaned back against the platform supporting the three golden statues. "Jin, Jin, Jin...haven't we been through this already? Anything I say to you about the Shadow Creature may interfere with your own divine plan which, for the record, you did not share with me."

She shook her head. "We can drop the 'Shadow Creature' spookiness. He has a name, as you well know. If you weren't in on the plan, then giving him access to all the hells wasn't
part
of the plan, now was it? You did that on your own, and now that thing is interfering with my duties; he almost prevented me from freeing that girl -- "

"Hmmm," said Teacher.

Jin crossed her arms. "Don't start, Teacher. I want the story. All of it."