At dusk, I waited at the stable for Surei. To pass the time, I checked the horses over to make sure they were properly prepared. They seemed fine. She arrived just as I finished.
She had changed into her usual disguise, so she looked like a member of the imperial guards about fourteen years old. I felt a pang of sorrow at the sight. She reminded me so much of Akiko when Mouse and I went drinking and carousing that it hurt.
Surei’s hair was caught up out of her way and tucked under her headgear. She had a tachi on her belt. I could see the hilt of the tantou she wore on her forearm peeking out of her left sleeve. In her right hand, she carried a small leather bag.
“I thought we might get hungry, so I had Cook pack up some dried food,” she said as she stowed it in her already full saddlebags.
We traveled quietly through the back alleys of the capital until we reached the east gate of the city. There were only a few people out and about as we crossed the bridge over the Kamo River. We cut north of Stone’s gambling house and headed for Lake Awaumi.
Once out of the city, I was less worried about noise and more concerned with speed, so I took the reins from Surei and put the horses into a canter. Behind me, I heard whoof whoof. Glancing back, I saw Surei holding on to the saddle and bouncing up and down. Each time she landed, she made a whoof sound.
“Let go of the saddle. Hold on with your legs and try to match the horse’s stride,” I said.
Between gritted teeth, she answered, “It’s not working. Just keep going.”
I turned back around and focused on the road in front of us. We had to go most of the way to Ōtsu, where I had seen the dramatic rendition of the Kojiki with the high priestess’ caravan. However, our route turned north just west of the town, then followed the shore of Lake Awaumi until we reached the cliffs, the onsen, and the onryou.
We traveled in silence. I watched for signs of other people on the road, and Surei concentrated on staying on her horse.
As I rode, I worried. Surei falling apart had spurred me to take the lead. We were faced with a problem, and if Surei didn’t know what to do, I had to come up with something. Now we were committed to an insane course of action, and I was beginning to question my decisions. I had always blamed Surei when her choices turned out badly. Who would I blame if this turned out badly? I knew who Surei would blame. The only comfort I could find in this mess was if things went wrong, we were unlikely to survive long enough for Surei to extract revenge.
As we came around a curve in the road, six mounted men blocked the way.
Catching sight of us, they broke into a trot and rode straight for us, whooping and laughing. From their complete lack of discipline and motley assortment of clothing and arms, I knew they were a group of bandits.
Bandits operating this close to the capital? Things really are going to hell.
“Stop the horses, Yoshi.” I started to argue with her, but she cut me off. “We can’t outrun them, and I don’t want to risk you getting killed in a fight. I can take care of it.”
I stopped the horses.
She slipped to the ground with a groan. I heard her muttering something under her breath as the men closed with us.
I unsheathed my naginata and tried to look threatening. “You don’t want to do this.”
The men suddenly pulled their horses up short, their faces masks of terror as they stared at me.
I was pleasantly surprised my efforts had been so successful until I realized they were staring behind me.
I heard a horrible howling. Glancing over my shoulder, I yelped at the sight of a huge oni with black horns and enormous fangs standing directly to my rear.
In Surei’s voice, the demon muttered, “Gods, I am never riding another horse.”
In a louder and much deeper voice, she roared, “Flee! Flee if you wish to save your souls!”
The demon reached for me, and my horse shied away. I tried to avoid its horrid grasp, and Surei’s hissed at me, “Hold still, I need to eat you!”
I kept my trembling mount from moving as the apparition appeared to snatch me from its back. I felt something grab me by the leg and yank downward. I dismounted, pretending to fall. The demon muttered, “Scream! You’re terrified, remember!”
I started yelling in terror.
The mounted men reversed course and drove their horses at a full gallop back in the direction they had come. They disappeared around the turn in a cloud of dust.
When I turned back around, the demon was gone, but Surei stood there, chuckling. “I love doing that. I almost never get to use that spell. Remember when I used it on Yamada? He just about soiled himself, he was so scared.”
“I thought you weren’t that great at magic?”
Surei shrugged. “I have never had any problem with illusions. Probably because of grandmother. Kitsuné have a real talent for it.”
I tried to help her back on her horse.
“Aren’t we close enough to walk from here?” she complained. “I am going to have bruises on my bruises before we get done.”
The rest of the ride was quiet except for Surei’s muttered complaints. It was just after midnight when arrived at the onsen. For safety, we decided to travel the last bit on foot, so we tied the horses up near where I first met Mouse. Surei had told him before we left, “Wait until dawn. If we are not back by then, come to where you first met Yoshi, pick up the horses and take them back to the Spring Palace.”
I fastened my naginata to my back with some cord, just in case. Surei tied her tachi down and secured her tantou more tightly to her arm. Then she removed her saddlebags and slung them over one shoulder.
Surei waddled, legs apart, taking overly careful steps. She glared at me. “No more horses.”
“Sshhhh,” I told her.
We traversed the final short distance up the slope on our knees. When we lifted our heads above the last rise in the ground, the onsen and gathered onryou were right in front of us. Surei shivered as she saw the ghosts. “That is what happens when a woman gives her heart to an unworthy man.”
I forbore comment.
She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out two items. “Here are the talismans. Hold out your left hand.”
She fastened it to my left wrist. I tugged at the strap several times to make sure it was secure.
I took a deep breath and started to stand. Surei laid her hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. “Let me go first. If they get hostile, maybe you can soothe them with your flute.”
She walked out towards the onsen, shifting the bags on her shoulder to a more comfortable position.
The thought came to me, not for the first time, that she was very brave. She had no idea how the ghosts would react to her, and she still marched into their midst.
They ignored her. I kept expecting the ghosts to turn and mob her, but nothing happened. She got all the way to the bubbling spring of heated water without a single specter paying her the slightest attention. Walking right up to one of the spirits, she passed her hand through it, yelling, “Hey! Here I am!”
It went on its way, unperturbed, although I saw Surei flexing her fingers and rubbing her hand. I remembered how cold my shoulder had been when an onryou touched me.
Finally, in an irritated tone, she yelled up at me, “Yoshi, someone wants to talk to you!”
I got to my feet and began moving. I couldn’t help glancing at my wrist every few paces to make sure the talisman hadn’t somehow slipped off while I wasn’t looking. I nervously pulled at the ties of my naginata to verify it hadn’t come loose.
The walk seemed to take a thousand years. As I approached the ghosts, it occurred to me I had been so focused on finding a solution to the problem of Surei’s loss of heart I hadn’t really taken the time to think through what my solution entailed. It was just as well. If I had actually examined the course of action I was proposing, I probably wouldn’t have gone through with it.
Who, in their right mind, would willingly give themselves over to a murderous onryou? Besides me.
The onryou became aware of my presence and floated towards me. Their exclamations of “Am I not beautiful?” and “Come to me, my love!” were no less unnerving the second time around. It took all my willpower to hold my gaze on one of them and not avert my eyes.
At first, all I saw was the horrid pale skin and inky-black eye-sockets, but the longer I looked, the more I became aware of her sad, beautiful, face and the unworldly splendor of her eyes.
She reached out, and I surrendered myself to her embrace. I wanted nothing more than to join her. I raised my arms to return her caress, but something stepped between us. I elbowed the obstruction aside and reached again for the lovely creature in front of me. Something wrapped itself around my waist, but then I was enfolded in the onryou’s arms, and nothing else mattered.
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Vaguely, I thought I heard someone yell “Yoshi!”
With a rushing sensation, we flew into the air, then dived beneath the surface of the lake. For a short time, I could see by the water-filtered light of the moon and stars, but we kept going down and down, deep into the lake, until there was no light but the glow of the bewitching face of the captivating spirit in front of me, drawing me after her. We began passing through a narrow channel. Thanks to her weak luminescence, I could see walls hurtling by at a tremendous rate on both sides.
I have no idea how long we traveled like that. It seemed an unimaginably long time and yet no time at all. My attention was completely taken with the impossible vision of loveliness ahead of me. After a time, the walls fell away, and we slowed to a stop. With a small noise something like a sigh of satisfaction, the onryou released her embrace.
I immediately came to myself. The first thing I noticed was my left arm was numb, the blood cut off by Surei’s hand around my upper arm, hanging on for dear life.
I had the impression of a large space surrounding us, but the only light was the weak glow of the spirit. Before I could take much in, the onryou abruptly raced away, her light traveling up and away from us until it suddenly vanished into the distance.
We were left sitting on a soft surface in utter darkness. I could feel the movement of water around me, cool but not unpleasant. Surei said, “Yoshi?”
“Yes?”
“I can’t see anything.”
“Neither can I. At least we can breathe. And talk.”
Straining my eyes in all directions, I thought I detected a slight difference in the quality of the darkness directly before us. I stared ahead, squinting to see if I could make out any details. With all my attention focused forward, I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt something cold and slimy sliding along the back of my neck.
My convulsive jerking lifted me off the surface and I floated in the water, unable to determine which direction I was facing. I had no idea of up or down and floundered around until my wildly flailing arms slapped against Surei’s hand. She hauled me back down to where she was standing.
The water was definitely getting lighter. I could make out the bare outlines of our surroundings, an area of uneven terrain. The light gradually brightened until we could see we were standing in the midst of a huge pile of skeletons and disconnected bones. On top of the bones were a few corpses in various stages of decomposition and consumption by the local scavengers.
When Surei saw the bones, she shrieked, jumped up from the pile of bones, snatched up her saddlebags, and began swimming away.
I followed closely behind. “Surei, wait, we don’t know the way to the palace. Let it get light first.”
She stopped swimming and just floated in place.
“I’m not going back down there.”
She began swimming again.
“What are we looking for?” I asked, still trying to keep up. For someone who claimed she couldn’t swim, she moved very quickly under water.
“The mirror showed a cassia tree near the Dragon King’s palace, just like is written in the tale of The Hunter and The Fisherman,” she said.
We searched for the telltale yellow flowers of the cassia tree.
“There!” Surei pointed and started swimming to our left.
I followed along, eventually spotting the tree in the distance.
Behind the tree a sheer cliff rose from the lake bottom. The cliff had an enormous gate set into it. The gate was closed, but we could see a spectacular courtyard through the bars.
Surei took a deep breath. “We had better get dressed.”
“What?” I stared at her.
Has she lost her mind?
She dropped her saddlebags to the ground, opened them up, and began dragging out clothing.
“You don’t seriously expect me to appear before the Dragon King of the Lake dressed like a man, do you? I brought formal robes for you, too.” She struggled to get her jacket off.
I shook my head in disbelief. A dragon king was an unimaginably powerful magic being with complete control of water. If angered, he could decimate whole cities. In some tales, he was reported to have caused the deaths of thousands of people. And Surei was worried about how she was dressed?
Surei was still trying to get her jacket off. In her flailing around, she had knocked her hat off, releasing her hair to float free in the water. Her floor length tresses had gotten tangled around the fabric of her clothes and she was stuck with the jacket half-on and half-off.
Frustration filling her voice, Surei called, “Yoshi! Get over here. I need your help.”
I gently took her hands and helped her get her hair free of her robes.
She may have thought to bring formal clothes, but it didn’t occur to her how difficult it would be to dress underwater.
“I don’t believe this. We are about to face a creature that could easily kill us and you are worried about clothes?”
“Showing up at court improperly dressed is disrespectful. It also bespeaks a complete lack of respect and sophistication. Do you want to insult the Dragon King or give him a bad impression of us?” There was a note of hysteria in her voice.
I had never heard of anyone fighting a dragon king and surviving.
I would rather be putting on armor than formal robes. Since we don’t have any armor, then I’ll just go along with Surei and hope she is right about making a good impression. If nothing else, it might help Surei calm down.
Surei had stripped down to her white cotton kosode and was fighting to hold it closed against the movements of the water. “Hand me my hakama.”
Surei struggled into the bright red hakama, the belt on the wide-legged trousers serving to hold her kosode closed. Then came five layers of thin, almost transparent underrobes, ranging in color from deep purple to a pale pink—the color of a sakura blossom. In order to get the proper effect, she stood still with her arms held out while I draped the robes over her. She was very particular about how they were positioned and gave detailed directions on how I should arrange them.
“…the overlap of the sleeves needs to be no more than two finger-widths…”
Does the Dragon King eat people who displease him? Or does he just have them killed?
“…make sure the front edges of the robes lie perfectly flat…”
Can I even fight effectively underwater? If I am not careful, I am likely to launch myself up off the lake bottom and just hang there like a fruit waiting to be plucked from a tree.
“…the fabric of the sleeves needs to be completely smooth, or the layers at the neck won’t line up correctly…”
Is there any way I could go in first without Surei? Then, if there is a problem, she might be able to get away.
“Yoshi!”
“Huh? What?” My focus snapped to Surei.
“Pay attention to what you are doing,” she said sharply. “You are getting it wrong, and I am trying to tell you how to fix it.”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t spent much time as a ladies-maid, I’m afraid. I have more practice getting women out of their robes than into them.”
“Sweet Buddha help me.” She glared at me angrily. “Quit daydreaming and focus on the task at hand.”
“The robes keep moving with the water. I can’t get them smooth! I can’t make them overlap precisely. It just isn’t possible!”
Surei closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry Yoshi. I’m a bit nervous.”
I tried to keep my mind on what I was doing instead of worrying about getting killed by the Dragon King.
After all five underrobes were arranged as well as could be arranged, she put on a lined outer robe the same dark purple as the first underrobe. Over that, she wore a heavy red silk robe with patterns of colored butterflies sewn into the fabric. The outer robe was held closed by a silk cord tied around her waist.
The final piece of her costume was a white jacket with pink brocaded flowers. The jacket was short in the front, but had a train trailing out behind it a little longer than Surei’s hair.
After arranging the train behind her, I stepped back to get a better look at her. I had to admit she was beautiful and elegant, even there under Lake Awaumi.
“You look stunning.”
“I wish I had a mirror,” she complained. “I forgot to bring one.” She twisted around and poked at her garments until they were to her satisfaction. She seemed much calmer now. Dressed as a lady of the court, she began to play the role of one.
“Your turn, Yoshi.” She pulled more clothing from the bag.
Fortunately, men’s court costumes weren’t nearly as elaborate as women’s. With Surei’s help, I was soon dressed in my unaccustomed court finery.
Surei straightened my jacket. It didn’t fall quite right in the water. She twisted and pulled some more.
“Enough, Surei. We need to do this.”
We gazed at each other. I could see the fear in her eyes. I hoped she couldn’t the see the fear in mine. “Surei, I…”
I wanted to tell her how much I cared for her. I didn’t want her to die without knowing, but I couldn’t find the words.
She waited a few moments, then threw her arms around me in a fierce hug.
I stood in shock then hugged her back.
“The Dragon King was a friend of my great-great grandfather. That makes him an old friend of the family. Sort of.”
“Yes Surei, I am sure it does.”
She gathered up our things and put them in her saddlebags.
I picked up the naginata and held it in my hand.
We banged on the gate trying to attract someone’s attention. From inside the depths of the palace, a beautiful carp came up to the gate and inspected us carefully.
“We are here to see the Dragon King of the Lake,” Surei announced grandly.
The fish looked at her for a moment then swam back into the palace and disappeared.
“Well! That was rude,” Surei complained. “He should have said something.” She thought for a moment. “Do you think he can speak? I am sure animals talk in the dragon king tales. Maybe they can only—”
A pair of massive doors swung open at the other end of the courtyard. An enormous head, longer than I was tall, emerged. It was covered in magnificent scales of a bright iridescent red. Dozens of gold tendrils formed a mane surrounding it. Two tree-like front legs ended in feet with claws as long as Surei’s tachi.
My heart stopped beating and my legs got weak as the dragon king gazed at us. Even in all my worrying, I had never imagined anything like this. I could not possibly defeat it.
If I hit him on the nose with my naginata, all I would do is break the weapon.
He cracked open his mouth, exposing hundreds of teeth the length of a kodachi.
Is he smiling at us or just looking for a snack?
He proceeded forward. As he crossed the courtyard, the ground shook with his every step. I marveled at his long sinuous body. His head was nearly to the gate before his back legs emerged from the doorway.
Kuzu-no-ha had better be right about him being glad to see us, or we are dead.
He stared at me with silver eyes the size of a Chinese round shield. I slowly became aware my left hand hurt. Surei was holding it so tightly she was crushing my fingers. The monster’s eyes shifted to her and she stopped breathing.
After a slight hesitation, she bowed deeply.
The dragon spoke in a deep booming voice. “Ah, there you are. We have been expecting you.” He looked her over. “Quite lovely too.”
He asked Surei, “Who is your companion?” He turned to face me.
The impact of his gaze took my breath away. “I am Minamoto no Yoshimitsu, your majesty. Most people call me Yoshi,” I managed to squeak out.
The Dragon King waited, seemingly expecting me to say more. When I remained silent, he nodded his head. “Ah, a man of humility, not given to boasting of his no doubt many deeds of heroism. Welcome, both of you, to my humble palace. Please come inside.”
The palace gates opened silently outward under their own power. The Dragon King of the Lake turned and led the way into his abode.