Brilliance of the Moon (18 page)

I had never been in a room like it. Even the top floor of the
tallest castle was not this high or this open to the elements. I wondered what
happened when the autumn typhoons came racing up the coast. The building was
sheltered by the curve of the island; to construct something like this spoke of
an immense pride as great as any warlord’s.

Terada sat on a tiger skin facing the opened windows. Next to him
on a low table were maps and charts, what looked like records of shipping, and
a tube not unlike a bamboo flute. A scribe knelt at one end of the table,
inkstone in front of him, brush in hand.

I bowed low to Terada and spoke my name and parentage. He
returned the bow, which was courteous, for if anyone held power in this place
it was undoubtedly he.

“I have heard a lot about you from my son,” he said. “You are
welcome here.” He gestured to me to come and sit at his side. As I moved
forward, the scribe touched his head to the ground and stayed there.

“I hear you dropped one of my men without laying a finger on him.
How did you do it?”

“He used to do it to dogs when we were boys,” Fumio put in,
sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“I have some talents like that,” I said. “I did not want to hurt
him.”

“Tribe talents?” Terada demanded. I had no doubt he’d made use of
them himself and knew perfectly well what they might be.

I inclined my head slightly.

His eyes narrowed and his lips pouted. “Show me what you do.” He
reached out and whacked the scribe on the head with his fan. “Do it to this
man.”

“Forgive me,” I said. “Whatever small talents I have are not to
be demonstrated as tricks.”

“Unnh,” he grunted, staring at me. “You mean you won’t perform on
demand?”

“Lord Terada has put it exactly.”

There was a moment’s uneasy silence, then he chuckled. “Fumio
warned me I wouldn’t be able to boss you around. You inherited more than the
Otori look; you have their pigheadedness too. Well, I’ve not much use for
magic—unless it’s the sort that anyone can wield.” He picked up the tube and
placed its end against one eye, closing the other. “This is my magic,” he said,
and handed the tube to me. “What do you think of this?”

“Put it to your eye,” Fumio said, grinning.

I held it gingerly, trying to sniff it unobtrusively in case it
was poisoned.

Fumio laughed. “It’s safe!”

I squinted through the tube and couldn’t help gasping. The
distant mountains, the town of Hagi, seemed to have leaped toward me. I took
the tube away from my eye and they were back where they were before, hazy and
indistinct. The Terada, father and son, were both chuckling now.

“What is it?” I said. It did not look or feel like something
magic. It had been made by the hands of men.

“It’s a sort of glass, carved like a lentil. It makes objects
larger and brings the distant close,” Terada said.

“Is it from the mainland?”

“We took it from a mainland ship and they have long had similar
inventions there. But I believe this one was made in a distant country by the
barbarians of the South.” He leaned forward and took it from me, looked through
it himself, and smiled. “Imagine countries and people who can make such things.
We think we are the whole world here on the Eight Islands, but sometimes I
think we know nothing about anything.”

“Men bring reports of weapons that kill from a huge distance with
lead and fire,” Fumio said. “We are trying to find some for ourselves.” He
gazed out of the window, his eyes filled with restless yearning for that vast
world beyond. I imagined confinement to the island was like imprisonment to
him.

Something about the strange artifact before me and the weapons of
which he spoke filled me with a sense of foreboding. The height of the room,
the sheer drop to the rocks below, my own tiredness, made my head reel for a
moment. I tried to breathe deeply, calmly, but I could feel cold sweat break
out on my forehead and prickle in my armpits. I foresaw that alliance with the
pirates would both increase their strength and open the way to a flood of new
things that would change completely the society I was struggling to establish
myself in. The room had gone silent. I could hear the subdued sounds of the
household around me, the beat of the eagle’s wings, the distant hiss of the
sea, the voices of the men at the port. A woman was singing quietly as she
pounded rice, an old ballad of a girl who fell in love with a fisherman.

The air seemed to shimmer like the sea below, as though a veil of
silk had been slowly withdrawn from the face of reality. Many months ago Kenji
had told me that once all men had the skills that now only the Tribe
retained—and among them only a handful of individuals like myself. Soon we
would vanish, too, and our skills would be forgotten, overtaken by the
technical magic that the Terada so desired. I thought of my own role in
eradicating those skills, thought of the Tribe members I’d already destroyed,
and felt a searing pang of regret. Yet I knew I was going to make a pact with
the Terada. I would not recoil now. And if the far-seemg tube and the weapons
of fire would help me, I would not hesitate to use them.

The room steadied. My blood flowed again. No more than a
few
moments had passed. Terada said, “I believe you have a proposal
to make. I would be interested to hear it.”

I told him I thought Hagi could only be taken from the sea. I
outlined my plan to send half my army as a decoy to tie up the Otori forces on
the riverbank while transporting the other half by ship and attacking the
castle itself. In return for help from the Terada, I would reinstate them in
Hagi and keep a permanent fleet of warships under their command. Once peace was
restored, the clan would finance expeditions to the mainland for the exchange of
learning and trade.

“
I
know the strength and
influence of your family,” I concluded. “I cannot believe that you will stay
here in Oshima forever.”

“It is true that I would like to return to my family home,”
Terada replied. “The Otori confiscated it, as you know.”

“It will be returned to you,” I promised.

“You are very confident,” he exclaimed, snorting with amusement.

“I know I can succeed with your help.”

“When would you make this attack?”

Fumio glanced at me, his eyes bright.

“As soon as possible. Speed and surprise are among my greatest
weapons.”

“We expect the first typhoons any day now,” Terada said. “That’s
why all our ships are in port. It will be over a month before we can put to sea
again.”

“Then we’ll move as soon as the weather clears.”

“You’re no older
than my son,” he said. “What makes you think you can lead an army?”

I gave him details of our forces and equipment, our base at
Maru-yama, and the battles we had already won. His eyes narrowed and he
grunted, saying nothing for a while. I could read in him both caution and the
desire for revenge. Finally he smacked his fan on the table, making the scribe
flinch. He made a deep bow to me and spoke more formally than he had until now.
“Lord Otori, I will help you in this endeavor and I’ll see you instated in
Hagi. The house and family of Terada swear it to you. We give you our
allegiance, and our ships and men are yours to command.”

I thanked him with some emotion. He had wine brought and we drank
to our agreement. Fumio was elated; as I found out later, he had reasons of his
own for wanting to return to Hagi, not least the girl he was to marry. The
three of us ate the midday meal together, discussing troops and strategy.
Toward the middle of the afternoon Fumio took me to the port to show me the
ships.

Ryoma had been waiting on the quay, the tomcat sitting next to
him. He greeted us effusively and followed me as closely as a shadow as we went
on board the nearest ship and Fumio showed me around. I was impressed by its
size and capacity and the way the pirates had fortified it with walls and
shields of wood. It was fitted with huge canvas sails as well as many oars. The
plan that had been a vague idea in my head suddenly became real.

We arranged that Fumio would send word to Ryoma as soon as the
weather was favorable. I would begin moving my men north at the next full moon.
The boats would come for us at the shrine, Katte Jinja, and would bring us to
Oshima. We would make the assault on the city and the castle from there.

“Exploring Hagi at night—it’ll be just like old times,” Fumio said,
grinning.

“I can’t thank you enough. You must have pleaded my cause with your
father.“

“There was no need: He could see all the advantages of an
alliance with you, and he recognizes you as the rightful heir to the clan. But
I don’t think he would have agreed if you had not come, in person, alone. He
was impressed. He likes boldness.”

I had known I must come in that fashion, but the knowledge
weighed on me. So much to achieve, only I to achieve it, only I to hold
together my patchy alliance.

Fumio wanted me to stay longer, but I was now more eager than
ever to get back to Maruyama, to start preparations, to forestall at all costs
an attack by Arai. Besides, I did not trust the weather. The air was
unnaturally still and the sky had clouded over with a solid leaden color,
black-tinged on the horizon.

Ryoma said, “If we leave soon we’ll have the help of the tide
again.”

Fumio and I embraced on the quayside and I stepped down into the
little boat. We waved farewell and cast off, letting the tide carry us away
from the island.

Ryoma kept gazing anxiously at the leaden sky, and with reason,
for we were barely half a mile from Oshima when the wind began to pick up.
Within a few moments it was blowing hard, driving a stinging rain into our
faces. We could make no headway against it with the oar, and as soon as we
tried to put the sail up it was ripped from our hands.

Ryoma shouted, “We’ll have to turn back.”

I could not argue, though my spirits sank in despair at the
thought of further delay. He managed to turn the fragile boat with the oar. The
swell was getting heavier with every minute, great green waves that loomed
above us and flung us upward only to drop us as if into a chasm. We must both
have gone as green as the waves, and on the fourth or fifth drop we both
vomited at the same time. The slight acrid smell seemed painfully feeble
against the huge backdrop of wind and water.

The gale was blowing us toward the port, and we both struggled
with the oar to guide the boat into the entrance. I did not think we would make
it; I thought the force of the storm would drive us out into the open sea. But
the sudden shelter in the lee of the land gave us a moment’s grace to steer
behind the breakwater. But even here we were not out of danger. The water
inside the harbor was being churned like a boiling vat. Our boat was driven
toward the wall, sucked back, and then thrown against it with a sickening
smack.

It tipped over. I found myself struggling underwater, saw the
surface above me, and tried to swim upward to it. Ryoma was a few feet from me.
I saw his face, mouth open, as if he were calling for help. I caught hold of
his clothes and dragged him up. We surfaced together.

He took a great gasp of air and began to panic, flailing his arms
and then grabbing me and almost strangling me. His weight took me underwater
again. I could not free myself. I knew I could hold my breath for a long time,
but sooner or later even I, with all my Tribe skills, had to breathe air. My
head started to pound and my lungs ached. I tried to free myself from his grip,
tried to reach his neck so I could disable him long enough to get us both out
of this. I thought
clearly,
He is my
cousin, not my son
, and then,
Maybe the
prophecy was wrong
!

I could not believe I was going to die by drowning. My vision was
clouding, alternately black and filled with white light, and I felt an
agonizing pain in my head.

I am being
pulled into the next world
, I thought, and then my
face burst
through the surface and I was taking
great gulps of air.

Two of Fumio’s men were in the water with us, attached by ropes
to the quay. They had swum down to us and dragged us both up by the hair. They
pulled us up onto the stones where we both vomited again, mostly seawater.
Ryoma was in a worse state than I was. Like many sailors and fishermen, he did
not know how to swim and had a terrible fear of drowning.

The rain was lashing down by now, completely obliterating the
distant shore. The pirates’ boats grunted and groaned as they were rocked
together. Fumio was kneeling beside me.

“If you can walk now, we’ll get inside before the worst of the
storm.”

I got to my feet. My throat ached and my eyes stung, but I was
otherwise unhurt. I still had Jato in my belt, and my other weapons. There was
nothing I could do against the weather, but I was filled with anger and
anxiety.

“How long will it last?”

“I don’t think it’s a real typhoon, probably just a local storm.
It could blow itself out by morning.”