Floating City (42 page)

He crossed to the foot of a circular, black, wrought-iron staircase. He could hear a clock ticking, then muffled voices coming from upstairs. He took off his shoes, went up the metal treads that would magnify even the smallest sound.

The voices became clearer: two women. He paused at the head of the stairs, looking at the hallway, which branched in two directions, four doors each way, perfectly symmetrical. Light streamed into the hallway from the last door on the right.

He crept down the hallway, chose the door on his left just before the end. The room was dark, and he took a moment to allow his eyes to adjust. He saw a bed, dresser, night table, and a door on the wall closest to the room with the light. He went through this, found himself in a vast bathroom. Marble blocks and mirrors everywhere. On the far side of the bathroom was a connecting door to the far room. He went to it, put his ear against it. Then, his hand on the knob, he turned it, allowed the door to open a fraction at a time until a sliver of the lit room beyond was revealed.

Someone crossed in front of the lamp. Vesper? No, someone else; a flash of a face that was instantly familiar.

Croaker could see her shadow moving on the wall. Then, in two strides, she had reached the bathroom door and had pulled it open. Margarite’s sister, Celeste.

Yoshino was a sacred place. It was where, over the centuries, heroes had been forged in blood and sacrifice, where
yamabushi
made arduous pilgrimages across the steep mountain fastness, where Shugendo, the syncretic and vibrant amalgam of Shintoism and Buddhism, still survived, despite the best efforts of the two-hundred-year reign of the Tokugawa Shogunate to stamp it out. The Tokugawa, obsessed with power and the abasement of all perceived enemies, real and imagined, had favored Buddhism’s formality. If all Japanese were Buddhists, the shoguns reasoned, they would be registered at their neighborhood temples and, therefore, be easy to keep track of. Shintoism made no such demands on its followers. Its only tenets were those dictated by the seasons and by the
kami—
the spirit—of the area where the Shinto shrine was built. For Shinto, there is no God, no Buddha, but, rather, the spirit guardians who dwelled in every atom of the universe.

The slopes of Yoshino’s mountains were covered by, it was said, one hundred thousand cherry trees, whose splendid blossoms of the palest pink were, for three days in the spring, the most magnificent and moving sight in all of Japan. It was to Yoshino that a profusion of Japan’s emperors over the centuries had made pilgrimages in order to worship the mountains’
kami,
and it was here the information provided by the Yakuza under
oyabun
Kine Oto, also known as Zao, had brought Nicholas and Tachi.

“Zao took V. I. Pavlov to see a man here named Niigata,” Nicholas said as they headed up the narrow mountain road. This time of the year, Yoshino was shrouded in mist so deeply one had the impression that the mountain rose to a level just below heaven.

“According to Zao, this Niigata is something of a recluse and has become a Shugendo monk.”

“I take it that means he used to be something else,” Tachi said.

Nicholas nodded, noting that Tachi had only sketchy recall of the interrogation of Zao. What had the invocation of Shuken done to him? “Yes. A nuclear physicist. If that sounds odd, it gets more so. Niigata returned to Japan six months ago after a lengthy stay in Vietnam.”

Tachi’s neck cracked as he turned from watching the road to glance at Nicholas. The car jounced violently into a rut and out again, and Nicholas said, “Watch it, Tachi!”

“Vietnam,” the
oyabun
said. “He wouldn’t have had contact with Floating City?”

“Zao didn’t know. But he knew that Pavlov and Niigata talked about Abramanov.”

“We’ve got our connection to Rock!” Tachi said triumphantly as he pulled into a narrow ramped driveway in front of the
ryokan
where they planned to stay the night.

Blue mist gathered around the slopes of the mountains with such tenacity that they had virtually no view from the windows in their rooms. The place was one of those new-style
ryokan
where everything that had once been wood was now either tile or plastic. There was a TV in the room’s tokonoma instead of a vase with a fresh flower. One paid for it by feeding coins into a slot to view half-hour intervals. The walls were papered green instead of being hand-painted, and the hallways to the toilets were lined with vending machines dispensing everything from hot sake to iced cappuccino. It was not a restful place and had none of the rustic charm that made traditional
ryokan
desirable places to stay.

This supremely practical side of modern-day Japan was often tough to take. There seemed no connection at all with the culture that turned the manufacture of even everyday items such as combs and hairpins into high art, until one understood that Japan was a country of facades. Like lacquered walls, paper screens, translucent
noren,
which hung in open doorways, there was in all things Japanese the impression that something else lay just beneath the gauzy layer one had come through; if one sensed the truth was beyond the next layer, it was an illusion, and the cultural imperative to project secrets inward had accomplished its purpose. According to Zao’s information, Niigata lived at the bottom of a deep valley that lay between two Yoshino hills. They ate a quick meal, then left the
ryokan,
walking up the main street of the village, ascending toward the main Shugendo shrine where, it was said, dwelled the remains of the rebel emperor Go-Daigo, who in the fourteenth century set up a southern imperial court here.

The road forked at the foot of the steps to the shrine, and they took the right-hand route that led down an increasingly narrow street, past isolated stores and residential houses until it petered out at the edge of a flight of steeply winding steps overarched by a procession of vermilion torii gates.

They had been driving almost all day, and they were tired. It was nearing evening, and the twilight turned the heavy mist to jewel tones. As they descended, the light became aqueous and a chill emanated from the forest floor, seeping through the lichen, moss, and ferns. Tachi shivered, pulling his coat closer around him as they descended the seemingly endless stone stairway.

“This place gives me the creeps,” he said.

They paused, hearing an eerie sound echoing through the woods that now rose far above their heads. It came again before the echoes of the previous sound had died away.

Tachi looked around. “What is that?”

“The priests are calling the evening service by blowing through giant conch shells,” Nicholas said. “They’ve done it this way for centuries.”

They continued down through the dense wood, accompanied by the otherworldly sounds echoing through the trees like the cries of Yoshino’s awakened
kami.
Ahead, they could see that the stairway made a forty-five-degree turn to the right. In a niche just before the corner they came upon an enormous sword, its massive butt set into moss-covered stone. Metal flames struck off the edge of the blade, serving as poignant reminder that Yoshino was filled with the
kami
of long-dead heroes such as Minamoto no Yoshitsune. It was here that Yoshitsune hallowed his sword in a Shinto ceremony of fire purification.

For Nicholas, Yoshino was forever infused with the special melancholy conjured by the doomed romance between this thirteenth-century hero and his favorite mistress, the dancer Shizuka, widely renowned as the most beautiful woman of her time. It was to Yoshino that the couple fled after an aborted attempt on Yoshitsune’s life by his enemies. Shizuka was almost magical in her dancer’s abilities. She was supposedly able to end droughts with rainstorms and bring grown men to tears with her ethereal dances. And it was here that the legendary lovers were parted by fate, where Shizuka was betrayed and captured by Yoshitsune’s enemies.

In his mind, this twilit winter’s afternoon, Shizuka and Koei were inextricably entwined, and the deeper he descended into the Shinto valley, the more his personal memories were caught up in the tendrils of history that endured here, overcoming the advent of plastic geta and television tokonoma.

As they advanced down the last flight of stairs, they glimpsed the shrine. It was set beside a swiftly flowing stream that cut obliquely through the floor of the valley. Its peaked crimson roofs and massive polished cedar columns rose up through the trees, seeming a natural part of the terrain.

They passed over a small wooden bridge beneath which the stream rocketed over a bed of stones worn smooth by the water’s passage. Beside the bridge was a thick column perhaps three feet high on which stood a bronze figure of a curled snake-dragon. This was Noten O-kami, a manifestation of Zao Gongen, the avatar of Yoshino.

“Tell me a bit about Seiko,” Nicholas said as they crossed the bridge.

Tachi, looking at the image of the coiled Noten O-kami, said, “I think that would be most dangerous for our friendship, given that the two of you are sleeping together.” He turned to Nicholas, his lips curled in the ghost of a smile. “Weren’t we taught in Tau-tau that three is the number of conflict?”

“She says you’re not like other
oyabun.”

Tachi raised his eyebrows. “Well, perhaps that is so. I am
tanjian,
and that alone sets me apart, doesn’t it.” Beyond the other side of the bridge, stands of tall, ancient cryptomeria marched along the floor of the valley, then upward along the far slopes. “But you don’t really mean to ask me about Seiko. I sense that you already know more about her than you’d like to.”

Nicholas stopped. “What does that mean?”

“Knowing Seiko is bad enough, but caring about her is the same as getting caught in quicksand. She is a woman who has no sense of herself at all. She is, quite literally, what men have convinced her she is. If she seems strong now, it is because men have taught her to be so—I among them, I’m afraid. Inside, however, she has lost contact with who she is. To be brutally honest, it is likely she was never in touch with it at all.”

“And that makes her dangerous?”

“Oh, yes. A person who has no self-worth lacks the ability to put value on human life—any life. Seiko is likely to do the expedient thing, listen to the last compelling male voice she hears. Most people can be persuaded by money, sex, ideology, or the promise of power, but not Seiko. She’s motivated by whim, a capricious breath of air, and this makes her wholly unpredictable.”

“Let’s be clear about this,” Nicholas said, wondering if Tachi knew the story of her brother’s terrible death. “Are you saying that she is incapable of love or of experiencing any human emotion?”

“No. What I am saying is that her definition of love or of any other human emotion is unlikely to be close to yours or mine. And, in a very real sense, this is the more difficult and perilous possibility, because she can easily communicate what appears to be the real thing. It will come as quite a shock, I can tell you, when you realize it isn’t anything like what you thought.”

To their left the priests, their conch shells beneath their arms, were congregating for the evening service. Nicholas and Tachi moved off, down a hump and between two of the shrine buildings toward a road that wound into the rear of the valley.

Nicholas said, “Why did you say before that I didn’t really want to talk about Seiko? I did.”

“Perhaps. But we both know what is foremost on your mind.”

Shuken.

The word stood between them like a ghost at a feast, turning food into ash and wine into stagnant water. Shuken was what Tachi had over Nicholas, and now a future that seemed to have had many branchings just a day ago had been narrowed to two. Because Shuken would be present, invoked or threatened to be invoked, at every decision, confrontation, and opinion. Everything they did now was prejudiced by it, and either they would be friends or they would be enemies. This was what Shuken had done to their futures; there was no room for compromise or a middle ground.

“Yes,” Nicholas said, not wanting to utter a word. “Shuken.”

“And of course you want to know whether I will teach you how to reach the sphere.”

Nicholas said nothing, continuing along the road that was actually no more than a dirt path. They had quickly left the more civilized area of the shrine compound and had now plunged into the raw countryside. Birds twittered in the tree-tops, lost in the maze of cryptomeria needles.

“I already know your answer by what you have just said.” Nicholas turned to Tachi. “You are right. I have no love of the Yakuza—far from it in fact. But with you I was willing to make an exception because...” Nicholas looked into the trees, cloaked in the coming of night. Their pitchy smell pervaded the area. “Because our minds touched and there was a chance we could learn from one another. Tachi, we live such isolated lives that I... I lost a wife because of that isolation. I imagine I have lost someone else special to me for the same reason. In my youth, the splendid isolation of my internal art was enough for me. But that was a long time ago, and I was another person entirely.” He shook his head. “You’re right to believe that I have sought Shuken almost ever since I became aware that I was
tanjian
—and I have compelling reasons to seek it that you could never fully understand. But I will not play power games with you or anyone in order to possess the integration of Akshara and Kshira.”

Tachi was motionless as he contemplated Nicholas for a long time. A black bird flew above their heads, disappearing into the forest of cryptomeria. At last, Tachi said, “Who told you that Shuken was the integration of Tau-tau’s two paths?”

“No one. I just intuited...”

“The theory of integration is a myth, Linnear-san. Do not be deluded. Shuken exists and
koryoku
is its only pathway, but what Shuken does is hold the two paths, light and dark, separate in one mind. The perfection of integration is, like any other form of perfection in human existence, an impossibility.” Tachi saw the look on Nicholas’s face but had no inkling of what it might portend. He could not know of the Kshira time bombs ticking away in Nicholas. “But I will willingly teach you everything I know. I pledged to do as much with each
tanjian
I met, but even had I not, I would give you what I have been taught. We are friends, are we not?”