Glossary. Torii: the entrance to a shrine, a sort of wooden gateway marking the beginning of sacred ground, and the end of the profane. Shinden: usually the main house of a shinden-zukuri, a Heian mansion, which was several smaller houses connected by walkways. Water harp: a sort of underground echo chamber into which water runs, making a sound like the inside of a cave.
Fujiwara Akiko led the way as the long line of sorceresses began to trickle in through the torii leading into the Yamamoto Shrine. She and her charges were met here by Yamamoto-san, a properly dignified-yet-friendly monk, and his daughter, Amaya, a former pupil of Fujiwara-dono’s. They greeted her with deep, reverent bows, and Amaya could not refrain from moving forward to touch Akiko’s sleeve. She retained much affection for Amaya, who had been a promising sorceress, and Akiko's servant as well -- and a most capable one -- but in the end the claims of prior duty had won out, and she had returned to the foot of the mountain to resume her duties as a shrine maiden in her family’s temple. And if it did seem to Akiko quite often that the girl regretted the decision, still she and her father very kindly insisted that the sorceresses stop here each year for a meal before ascending Mount Hiei, and it would have been churlish to refuse. Amaya was, after all, only one of a lot of Dragon-level losses in recent years. Akiko was determined that this should be a pleasant visit, and she would eat her meal with Amaya and her father and not allow any of her own lingering regret over Amaya’s decision to show. What is done is done, she reminded herself. She looked at Mizuno-san, behind her, who appeared to be casting an eye back down the column at the most distant white-robed figures -- there had been some kind of holdup back there to do with a carriage, apparently…
Sachiko glared at the greenery -- and purplery, and pinkery -- at the side of the road. She was aware that the whole column was slowly leaving her further and further behind, but she just wanted to glare at this bit for a little while longer. She had found an apposite grouping here: an acacia tree -- not blooming; it was too early, but its leaves were a pure fresh green -- flanked on the left by a ginkgo, with its unearthly fan-shaped leaves, and on the right by a cherry, flowering like mad, like all the cherries were, letting petals fly, so that they could tangle in the grass, and land on Sachiko, adorning her robe and her hair with their color. This was annoying, but she wanted to set the picture in her mind. She was a firm believer in looking long at what pleases you and longer still at what displeases you.
All three of these trees displeased her. The cherry and the ginkgo always had, the acacia only since she had left home over three years ago. Perhaps an unusual choice of trees to dislike -- not that she'd made a conscious choice. She liked willows perfectly well, oddly; she knew people who feared and hated willows because because they seemed always about to grab one, wrapping spectral arms about one, drawing one forever into the spirit world. Sachiko liked them because their air of gloom and despondency seemed to complement her mood a lot of the time. Besides, if a willow did grab her, she knew what to do about it.
She hardly knew what it was she disliked about the cherry or the ginkgo. It was unjust to the trees, she knew. They'd never done anything to her. Well, the ginkgo fruit did smell pretty dreadful, especially if you made the fatal error of opening it to get at the nut -- and then just try to get the smell off your hands, after. Worse than cleaning fish. But everyone had that experience. It wasn't something the ginkgo had done to her personally. And there had usually been servants to open the fruit and cope with the smell on her behalf, at least until --
Until you left your father's house and broke your mother's heart --
My mother's heart is not broken. She's miffed, that's all. She's been in this state of miffedness for three years, now. As far as she's concerned, only bad girls join the Sorceresses' Guild, and it would take an utterly depraved girl to say she meant to stay with the Guild indefinitely. Ogasawaras have joined, in the past, and now Touko-chan's joined as well, but no one from Mother's family would ever so much as consider --
The Guild isn't what really upsets her. She thought you'd be married by now. That upsets her.
Is it so vital to her that I marry the Nameless One, that Shining Prince from the Hell of Dung, my cousin?
It's vital to her that you marry, and marry well, get properly set on your way in life --
Well, I suppose she's going to have to die miffed, isn't she? I have chosen my way. I'm not marrying that pig -- he should consider himself fortunate I don't turn him into a pig, or perhaps a slug, after yesterday -- I refrain mainly because slugs are decent creatures, and I've no wish to insult them -- and I'm not leaving the Guild, not to please Mother, or that husband of hers...
...I'm being ridiculous, aren't I?
Sachiko was sulking. She knew she had a tendency toward the sulks, but this was not the time or the place...
You are lonely for your mother.
Well, suppose that were true... just suppose. Then I've been lonely for her for three years. Why should the mere sight of her carriage be such a...
Well, why shouldn't it?
Anyway, what can I do about it? Nothing.
Loneliness and hurt feelings were especially disagreeable when the source of them had always before been a source of happiness.
Yumi.
Yes. Her mother was an old story, with no happy or even conclusive ending. Yumi was the one she should be concerned about now. And what did you just do to her?
I was ready to lash out. If I hadn't got away from her just then, I would have said or done something terrible. Yumi doesn't need that.
She doesn't need to be pushed away, either.
Sachiko turned back to the road. She looked toward the column, her eyes searching, but then found that Yumi was standing behind her, only a few paces away. She'd seen, out of the corner of her eye, as Yumi was accosted by Sei-san. For some reason, she hadn't expected Yumi to wait for her, but to go with Sei-san.
Yumi was looking directly at her.
Sachiko walked to her famula.
"Yumi, I'm sorry."
Yumi nodded, and looked down. "You said we should talk to each other, Mistress."
"I was thinking of you, not me."
Sachiko almost said that. Absently. But stopped herself in time.
Oh dear. Is that what I was thinking?
That wasn't very nice at all.
"You don't have to tell me, Mistress," Yumi was saying. "I, I mean, if you'd rather -- I don't wish to pry, or --"
"Not now," Sachiko said.
Yumi looked up, adorably puzzled. Sachiko’s feelings, which seemed to have dried into a tacky, disagreeable paste at the passage of her mother’s carriage, ran fluid once again, and burned within her. None of that was anything to do with Yumi. And she wanted to give Yumi this day. This beautiful spring day, this journey, the savoring of the anticipation of all the mysteries, tangible and intangible, that awaited them down the road. It was all for Yumi, now.
"It's a beautiful day," Sachiko said, "and we have a splendid walk ahead of us. My family situation is... too tedious and silly for such a day." Sachiko put out a hand.
Yumi took it.
And Sachiko was about to pull Yumi gently to her side -- hesitating only because she was unsure if Yumi would want this, after Sachiko's earlier behavior -- but Yumi was already wrapped around Sachiko's arm, in her customary position, before Sachiko could even flex.
I seem to have this girl, Sachiko thought, looking down at the brown head leaning against her shoulder. Cherry petals were getting in Yumi's hair. The effect was so striking that Sachiko began to think that cherry trees might have their points after all. Have I really done anything so wonderful, to deserve this?
She put her free hand on Yumi's cheek. "I will tell you the whole story, Yumi. It's not very interesting or unusual; most everyone in the Guild could tell you a similar bloody tale if you wanted..."
"But I want to hear yours," Yumi murmured. "Because it's yours, Mistress."
What wonderful, wonderful thing? Sachiko nodded. "You will hear."
--
Oe Hikaru had always excited admiration with her walk, which was terribly stately -- just as stately as she could make it. She knew that it had been the first thing that had caught the attention of Suga-sama, for example. And now, Saionji Yukari-san and Kyougoku Kieko-san were trying to imitate it. But it was Hikaru who had been drawing compliments all through the morning, not Yukari or Kieko. Only Ayanokouji Kikuyo-san seemed not to be much interested in improving her walk. Hikaru had never really known what to make of Kikuyo-san anyway. She was one of the group, and had occasionally been useful, and always seemed ready to contribute something to whatever scheme was going forward. But at crucial times it would often seem as if her thoughts were elsewhere. Yukari-san and Kieko-san were far more engaged.
Hikaru usually didn't notice the difference much, but today seemed like a day for noticing things. No one noticed her walk when she was sitting on the grass, as she was now, and they were too busy with their own meals to pay much attention to the care with which she held herself as she ate. She felt out-of-sorts, and had since this morning. Lunch wasn't to her taste. Her friends, the element in which she moved, were annoying her. She was doing her best not to show her annoyance, but a side-effect of this was that she was quieter, and conversation kept flagging at odd moments, and Kieko-san and Yukari-san were having to do more of the work than they usually did, which was making them feel out-of-sorts. And Kikuyo-san, who could normally be counted on to make at least a token effort, wasn't even trying today. She kept looking over at a grassy area nearer the pond, where a certain Dragon-level sorceress and her brand-new famula were sitting and eating their lunch. This seemed to involve an awful lot of Sachiko-sama talking with, occasionally laughing with, and even feeding her beggar-girl, and Sachiko-sama wiping the beggar-girl's face with a napkin. Sachiko-sama's giggling was restrained, but even so it was completely unnatural. A smile on that face was akin to a warm, friendly typhoon breezing gently through and making a few repairs to one's house. And whenever Sachiko-sama's gentle laugh was audible, it seemed to do something horrible to Kikuyo-san, like a blade twisting in her guts. Kikuyo-san would grit her teeth and turn positively green. She hadn't known Kikuyo-san hated Sachiko-sama so much, that the mere sound of her laughter should provoke such a reaction --
Sadako-chan, seated just behind her and to her left, said “Mistress, would you like a little more --“
“If I want anything, I’ll tell you,” Hikaru said coldly.
Sadako-chan fell silent.
Sadako-chan was at least reasonably presentable and bright, if hideously scarred on one cheek, and a touch too talkative for Hikaru’s taste. And she obviously had some experience of being a servant, which was all to the good. But... damn it all, Hikaru was used to Mayuko. It was irksome; she'd looked forward to having Mayuko at hand, but now she had to get used to someone completely new. Oh, well. Sadako-chan would just have to do...
--
Sachiko and Yumi were very well with one another since the scene by the side of the road. They were still learning how to eat together, it seemed. For Sachiko mealtimes had always been orderly, careful affairs, but with Yumi beside her, it could turn chaotic at a moment's notice. Sachiko had done very well for most of the meal -- eaten from boxes beside the shrine’s shining, pink-petal-bestrewn ornamental pond, on a comfortable patch of grass -- but then had been unable to resist feeding Yumi a bite of eel. Well, the eel was delicious, after all. But Yumi had her own, so it was hardly necessary, or sensible.
Then Yumi, in her turn, startled Sachiko by suddenly shifting her knees so as to move closer to her with her chopsticks. Sachiko managed to hold still, and opened her mouth as Yumi fed her a sweet plum. There was an expression of seriousness and concentration on Yumi's face as she did this.
As Sachiko chewed, carefully keeping her mouth closed, she exchanged a long look with Yumi.
"You are becoming bolder, I see," she said at last.
Yumi hung her head and blushed.
"I am pleased by it," Sachiko added, just in case that wasn't clear. "I was only surprised."
"Sometimes it seems as if you're my servant, Mistress," Yumi said hesitantly. "Instead of the other way around."
"Well, really, Yumi! How can you say such a thing?"
"I meant no offense, Mistress... only..." Yumi could not say what was "only"; she blushed even worse, and fell silent again.
Sachiko been startled by Yumi's observation, but hadn't meant the rebuke more than half seriously; she tried to retract it. "Well, of course you didn't, Yumi... oh, I do see how someone might get that impression --" Sachiko stopped herself. She was floundering. It was unsightly. Something about this situation made her feel playful, but she didn't really know how to play, not like this. Yumi hadn't realized Sachiko was only teasing because Sachiko had been unable to smile as she said it; she'd tried, but it had felt ghastly on her face, and she'd had to stop. She felt embarrassed and wretched on one level, not to mention frustrated at her own body's blank incomprehension of what frolicking meant. And yet the joy she felt at the sight of Yumi sitting so close to her, twining her fingers nervously in the grass and unable to stop blushing, would not go away. And she knew that she would have been able to behave more naturally if only they had been alone, but they were surrounded; the whole Order was here, and while most of them couldn't have cared less and weren't watching, someone always was.
Sachiko went for the simple and clear, her usual fallback, but wished it weren't necessary; wished she could think of a playful way of saying it: "I like to take care of Yumi."
Yumi looked up at her, and looked down again, smiling shyly.
And then there were three sweet flowers, linked at the stalks, tumbling up the gentle slope towards them as if moved by some frolicsome wind. These were the girls who had made such a ruckus in the street outside the Guild Offices that morning. Something about them made even Sachiko feel a bit more cheerful, though she was careful not to show it. They were in hysterics about something -- spluttering laughter -- "NO, Madoka-chan!" -- "Impossible!" "Stop talking about it, Yucchan!" -- and Sachiko wondered what it was, but doubted she would have understood the answer, and so did not ask.
She had never been introduced to these girls. As far as she knew they had just joined the Guild in the last month, no longer ago. She was almost certain that the middle girl was a Minamoto cousin of hers, once or twice removed. She had an awful lot of cousins, and had never met most of them.
"Good afternoon, Sachiko-sama!" they said in sweet if squealy unison. "Good afternoon, Yumi-sama!"
"Waaaaagh!" Yumi squalled in surprise. "I am not Yumi-sama -- I only just joined the Guild -- you do me too much honor --"
"We heard that you are a demonslayer, Yumi-sama," said the girl on the left -- taller and gawkier than the other two, with strangely bushy eyebrows for a girl so young.
"My Mistress slew the demon," Yumi said, a little calmer, but still uneasy. "I only --"
"Only, nonsense," Sachiko finished. "Yumi, we both killed it. I might have prevailed without you in the end, or I might not. We won that fight together."
Yumi was twisting her fingers in the grass again. She only made a small sound of acknowledgement, "un," and didn't look up.
Shyness? Unwillingness to put herself forward, to share center stage with her mistress?
“No demon could give you very much trouble, could it, Sachiko-sama?” the girl on the right said. She was terribly earnest.
“What are your names?” Sachiko asked the trio.
The middle one, with her hair gathered behind in a loose knot, said “I’m Momoko. This --“ eyebrow girl -- “is Madoka-chan, and this --“ the girl on the right with evenly-cut shoulder-length hair -- “is Yuko-chan.”
“You and I are cousins, I believe?”
Momoko-chan had plainly not expected Sachiko to acknowledge the connection. She flushed with pleasure and bowed to her.
Sachiko nodded, smiling, and went on. "Well, last night was the first time I ever fought a demon, and it gave me quite enough trouble. It had me in a most terrible grip, at one point. It might have killed me, or at least maimed me, if Yumi hadn't had her familiar pull it off of me --"
"Aaaaah!" said Momoko-chan. "You have a familiar, Yumi-sama?"
Yumi still flinched under the honorific. "Nothing so grand as a -- only a little creature --"
"Or a big one, at need," Sachiko added.
"I don't know where it comes from, or where it goes to --"
"Ooooh! Can we see it? Can we see it?"
"Please, Yumi-sama!"
"Is it cute? Please let us see it --"
Yumi looked terrified. She looked at Sachiko, as if for approval, or rescue.
Sachiko put a hand on Yumi's shoulder, and whispered in her ear -- "I see no objection, Yumi, but it's up to you. Do you think you can? I would actually like to see the creature again."
Yumi looked back at Sachiko, obviously startled. Then her face becamed determined. "Yes, Mistress!"
She looked at the nearby pond, concentrating.
Within moments, the watery homunculus was clambering out of the pond. It seemed to dust itself off -- how does one dust off water? -- and then it waddled sloshily over to the group. The girls made keening sounds of delight and got down on their knees to greet it. “It’s so cute!” “Don’t move so quickly, you’ll startle it!” “Oh, don’t be silly. Look, it’s bowing to me!”
It did bow to them, and touched their fingers in greeting, much to their delight. It even stood in their hands and let them carry it. The girls, for all their noise and overexcitement, were very gentle with it, apologizing incessantly for this or that infinitesimal rudeness which it didn't seem to even notice; carrying it, but not taking it too far from Yumi.
Sachiko, for her part, looked on with a smile. Behind the smile there was a lot of thinking going on.
It is a very calm and pleasant manifestation -- oh, unless there's a demon to fight -- but Sei is right: I don't believe I've ever seen anything like it before. Familiar animals from beyond nature, chained elementals and the like, do what they do at the command of their mistresses, or masters. But this one seems to be self-determined, mostly. Unless Yumi controls it in some fashion too subtle to detect. She looked at Yumi, who was considerably more relaxed now, and seemed as diverted by her creature's antics as her three new friends were.
Is it a separate creature, bound to her by a spell she doesn't remember casting? Or is it some unacknowledged aspect of herself?
The creature would bear watching, obviously. But it seemed friendly -- not the least bit sinister -- oh, not that that was proof of anything, but --
Madoka was holding it, at that moment, and laughing down at it, but it was looking at Sachiko, and she was suddenly sure she recognized the set of its head, and the focus of its three watery eyes -- was it watching her? Considering her, as she was considering it?
What was it considering with? Where in all that water -- any water Yumi could find, anywhere -- was its mind and heart? Its spirit?
Then again, where was any spirit?
The creature tapped Madoka’s thumb, looking up at her, and she immediately squatted down again to place it gently on the grass.
It came to Sachiko at last and bowed. It seemed almost hesitant, and it jiggled a little.
Sachiko extended one finger to it, which it touched without hesitation.
"I am sorry I was so brusque at our first meeting," she told it pleasantly. "You were very helpful last night -- indeed, you turned the tide of battle. Thank you."
The creature bowed again.
--
Yukari-san was addressing her. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Yukari-san. I was preoccupied. What were you saying?"
"Ugh, Hikaru-san, what is the matter with you today? I wondered if you had any ideas about revenge?"
"Revenge?"
"For yesterday's insult! That monstrosity Satou Sei, who wilfully kicked liana syrup at us!"
"Clearly," Kieko-san chimed in, "such a liberty cannot go unpunished."
Hikaru remembered insisting yesterday, in the first flush of her rage, that banishment to the frozen north was the only possible response to such an outrage as Satou-san had committed. She had calmed down since then, however.
"But Satou Sei-sama," Yukari-san went on, "is protected by powerful spirits from the low-rent hell that spawned her, so direct action will not be efficacious."
A very convenient way of saying 'she's more powerful than the three of us put together, as well as being fiendishly clever and quite, quite mad, so we don't have the face to challenge her directly,' Hikaru thought, but didn't say. To say such a thing outright was against the rules of the game. Though anything might be said in private to Mayuko, of course; Mayuko listened and didn't repeat what one said to others. She could tell Mayuko later, and have a chuckle over it --
She bit her lip. She couldn't tell Mayuko anything for at least two months. She'd left Mayuko behind.
She shook her head a little. This was all so inconvenient. Mayuko was not very quick or attractive. It was just that she was handy. She took over a lot of tedious tasks Hikaru would ordinarily have had to do for herself, or get a famula for. Unfortunately, this kind of task multiplied on a Questioning, so that Mayuko would have been even more useful than usual. There were tasks Hikaru had always had to do, not only for herself, but also for her former mistress, on a Questioning. So she had been obliged to find a famula this morning. She had meant to claim Mayuko as her famula, which was a bit unorthodox as they were both Dragons, but she felt sure Suga-sama could easily have smoothed the way for her with Fujiwara-dono. Then, at the last minute, Mayuko had been dragooned into playing the nursemaid for one of the Enemy, and so Hikaru had had to go to the lower dormitory, inquire for the Rats and Oxen who were still unattached, and pick one more or less at random -- one had been a positive mendicant, a shambling girl with short hair that looked as if she'd cut it with a knife, and Hikaru had really had to wonder what the Guild was coming to lately...
--
As they ate, Rikki kept stealing glances at Eriko-sama.
She was waiting for the unpleasantness to begin. Any moment now, she's going to start criticizing the way I eat, or the way I walk, or the way I cut my hair. Her old mistress had had much to say on these and other subjects. "You shouldn't cut your hair yourself," she had told her repeatedly. "You don't look cute at all. You should get someone who knows how, if you're going to cut it. Anyway, why don't you just let it grow out? I deplore this Guild custom of doing odd things to one's hair." Rikki's old mistress had deplored many, many things; in the end she had deplored Rikki, and the Guild as a whole, so much that she had left it, and Rikki, to marry a man Rikki knew she hated.
She had thought that was it, for her. That she would just struggle ahead, learn what she could, fit herself into things in whatever way seemed possible, even if it was just tidying up around the Guild offices, or wielding a sword on missions overseas. She was pretty good at the sword, thanks to Rei-sama, even if she was thumb-fingered at everything else. She had thought no one would ever risk taking her as a soror mystica or even a famula ever again, and even if someone was fool enough to ask her, she would fend them off. Make them all leave her alone.
Then, this morning, when she was about to start her cleaning duties, broom in hand -- suddenly there was this black-cloaked woman with a friendly smile, saying, "Now, you don't really want to hang about here, do you? You'd rather go on an adventure!"
And there she was, promising obedience to this strange woman, accepting her rule. All the things she'd planned to say in such an eventuality seemed meaningless. She just knew, looking into those gently humorous eyes, that no matter what argument she made, she would lose.
She had felt desperate. She hadn't dared hope she would ever go on a Questioning and now, almost without warning, she was going on this one. She felt wobbly, unready; she was going into the unknown, after all. She'd heard stories about past Questionings, and had found many of them unbelievable. And she was making the journey with a woman she already knew she couldn't really defy, and feared that she'd only found another heel to be ground under.
But that had turned out not to be the case. Eriko-sama seemed ready to let her go her own way. But she stood close, making sure she remembered that there was an arm there to support her, if necessary. Walking up the Nijo Road with her, everything around her strange and unfamiliar including her mistress, she had felt unaccountably safe and protected.
She couldn't stand it.
She kept waiting for Eriko-sama to turn out to be like Michiko-sama. She kept waiting for the tyranny to show.
"Would you like to try a pickled plum?"
"I -- I don't care about pickled plums!" Rikki turned her head away.
Now, why had she said that? She loved pickled plums. But she hadn't been able to afford any -- the basic rice-and-dried-fish trail rations were provided by the Guild but otherwise Questioners were expected to live off the land, and other foods were available but cost extra. She was scalded by her own poverty and she didn't want to lean -- she didn’t want people to think she needed anybody...
"Oh, well. I'll just set them here. If you want one, take one. If you don't, then don't." Eriko-sama set the little ceramic jar on the grass between them. "Now, where did I put that..." She turned away, rummaging in her bag.
Pickled plums.
In easy reach.
I could just snatch one -- or two -- or three -- and Eriko-sama would never notice...
There was a brief struggle, which her stomach won. Rikki snatched. One -- two -- three pickled plums.
Holding all three in her mouth at once, hiding them, trying to stretch her lips just right so the shape of her face wouldn't change noticeably, she harbored two plums on her tongue, and bit into the third so that it burst, sour and salty, a flavor of home...
Eriko-sama turned back from her bag with another jar. "And here -- my very own treasure! Tomiko-san's barbecued eels!"
Rikki almost moaned. Barbecued eels from Tomiko the Crab... no one makes them better.
"Would you like to try one, Rikki?"
Say yes, idiot, her stomach told her. But she couldn't. She'd already refused the plums. If she did have to be ruled by this woman, the only way she could keep her self-reliance was not to accept any favors or kindnesses from her. Besides, she hadn't finished swallowing the plums yet, and couldn't until Eriko-sama turned away again. The rest of her just sat there, glowering, while her mouth and stomach wept.
"I'll just set them here, then... now, did I bring that book of poems? I particularly wanted to show you..." She turned away again.
The eels lay there haphazardly in a loosened thick-leaf wrapping. You couldn't really tell how many there were...
Rikki had swallowed the last of the plums. Now -- one eel. Two. Quickly, but carefully, she put them in her mouth. It would be embarrassing to choke on one. At any moment Eriko-sama might turn, and Rikki would be caught, but she had to check for bones...
Delicious!
Then, as she worked the as-it-turned-out boneless eel mass in her mouth for every last bit of flavor, she saw, to her horror, that the sauce underneath, where the two eels had sat, was of a strikingly more vivid color than the surrounding bits, and there was a bit of bay leaf poking out. Eriko-sama was sure to notice --
Eriko-sama turned back, the two ends of a small scroll deftly balanced in the crooks of her fingers like chopsticks. "This book is just small enough to manage one-handed, which is good, because I don't want to get sauce on it. Now for an eel... Mmm! Quite, quite delicious. Are you sure you got enough to eat, Rikki?"
"I'm full," Rikki said, quite truthfully.
"That's good. You're awfully thin. You want feeding up. Now..."
--
"Hikaru-san!"
Hikaru came back to her little circle from what seemed like a great distance. Yukari-san was babbling at her again. "Oh, what is it, you pest?"
"Why, Hikaru-san! I am not a pest," Yukari-san cried.
"Really!" Kieko-san. "Whatever is the matter with you?"
And Kikuyo-san, who had not spoken yet that day as far as Hikaru remembered, said, "She's missing Mayuko-chan, obviously."
There was one of those busy silences. Kieko-san and Yukari-san looked at one another with wisdom dawning in their eyes. Hikaru wondered whether to deny it vehemently, or if that would just be to give the ridiculous idea too much credit, and if she shouldn't just pretend that she hadn't heard it, while at the same time she entertained serious thoughts of strangling Kikuyo-san in the night. Kikuyo-san, for her part, continued to stare up the slope, for all the world as if it had only been a passing thought, and she had no intention of speaking for the rest of the day.
"Oh, my!" Yukari-san gasped.
"My word," Kieko-san gasped.
"What is all this gasping in aid of?" Hikaru asked her friends as calmly as she could manage, shooting for a Fujiwara-dono-like objectivity in her tone. "Kikuyo-san is clearly hallucinating, and you act as if you have both had a proposal of marriage from Prince Suguru. Are you very bored? I am sorry for you, my sweethearts."
"Oh, you needn't cover your confusion, Hikaru-san," Yukari-san said in a mischievously soothing voice. "I'm sure the exertion is too much for you, and it's completely transparent besides. At any rate, you mustn't grieve so at losing your servant. You have Sadako-chan to clean up after you now!"
"Yes," Kieko-san said, "and Sadako-chan is ever so much better, isn't she?"
"What are you blithering about?" Hikaru wondered.
"Yes, Mayuko-chan always struck me as decidedly slatternly," Yukari-san said.
"Good-natured, but slow. Not exactly an ornament to one's household."
"And the good thing about Sadako-chan is that she knows she's only a servant. Mayuko-chan would get somewhat above herself at times."
"At times! Yes!" Kieko-san's voice was all astonishment. "It seemed at times as if she almost thought she was one of the group! Well, then all we could do was slap her down --"
"You never do really attend to that, Hikaru-san," Yukari-san scolded mildly. "We're always having to discipline your servant for you --"
"And having to watch tears roll down that big stupid face of hers is really the most provoking thing --"
"Are you quite finished?" Hikaru said coldly.
Yukari-san and Kieko-san fell silent, only smirking at her.
"As to Satou Sei-sama," she went on, "I have had one or two thoughts. Listen..."
And she hadn't had any thoughts about revenge, any serious ones anyway, but now her rage fed the fires of her invention, and she improvised. After a few moments even Kikuyo-san turned her head to look at her, and listened intently...
--
By prearrangement, Sachiko and Yumi met Satou-san and Youko-sama, and of course Fujiwara-dono, at the torii just as lunch was finishing and it was time to continue the journey. Eriko-sama had agreed to ride herd on everyone else, and as she gathered them together into a column once again, it was wonderful to see the alacrity with which her orders were obeyed. Eriko-sama seemed quite calm and happy, and in her element, her temper wonderfully improved after her conversation with her husband that morning. There was a smaller girl at her side Sachiko had seen about the Guild offices but never spoken to -- untidy, hacked-up hair -- probably Eriko-sama’s new soror mystica; Eriko-sama had a bizarre yet unerring taste in people. This new girl was glaring coldly at anyone who looked like disobeying her mistress, and fingering the just-visible hilt of a sword poking out of her robes, so there was still an unnerving atmosphere lingering in Eriko-sama’s vicinity, in spite of her recovered equanimity.
"Now, Yumi-kun," Fujiwara-dono began. She cleared her throat, "Hem, hem. Now, Yumi-kun. You do know why I've asked for the pleasure of your attendance at this meeting, don't you? Eh?"
"Because demons worry you? I mean! --" Yumi covered her mouth. “Because -- well, demons are worrying, and -- they worry me, anyway, and…” Yumi trailed off, pinkly.
The whole meeting held its breath. Sachiko put an arm around Yumi's shoulders.
"The first answer was best. Startlingly direct," Fujiwara-dono said. "An excellent answer, dear Yumi-kun. Demons worry any sensible person. If we were not ourselves but our savage ancestors, for example, you probably would have been killed last night, assuming you'd survived the fight with the demon in the first place. A young lady who attracts demons in this whorish fashion is not a young lady whose acquaintance one wants to cultivate, but rather a young lady whose acquaintance one wants to set fire to, dance around shrieking, stamp on frantically, and cover with a layer of salt. These impulses lie deep in the human soul --"
"Fujiwara-dono --"
"Please hold your comments for the moment, Ogasawara-kun -- deep, as I say, in the human soul, and could almost be called the basis of human society. People cannot engage in Art, dear Yumi-kun -- poetry, music, literature, gardening, perfumery, hats -- or in, er, commerce, I suppose -- if there are demons leaping about the place, snacking on one's children, defecating on expensive domiciles, or playing needlessly violent games of skill with one's shipping.
"Fortunately, one has rather more craft for managing a demon than one's savage ancestors did, to say nothing of one's more civilized but sadly helpless contemporaries. Therefore, it is not necessary to set fire to you --"
"Fujiwara-dono!"
"You will get your innings, Ogasawara-kun; I did promise. -- Not necessary to set fire to you, as I say, and I'm just as well pleased, as setting fire to girls is a distasteful activity and one which should be eschewed altogether. -- Better, Ogasawara-kun?"
"It should have gone without saying, Fujiwara-dono," Sachiko-said coldly.
"Sometimes I have to speak out, Ogasawara-kun. My character demands it. Now. I will first ask you, Yumi-kun, if you can tell us more of your previous life than you were able to when I examined you the day before yesterday?"
"No, Fujiwara-dono."
"Nothing?"
"I've been thinking about it, as Satou-sama asked me to," Yumi said. "I still don't remember where I came from. But you're right to say I attract demons. They've been following me, for as long as I can remember. Months, I think. I've avoided them, mostly. The one we fought last night I think is the one I've seen most often, it was telling the truth about that, it's been with me for a long time... though I didn’t realize it was with me when I slept…” Yumi shivered.
“Can you describe some of the other ones you’ve seen?” Fujiwara-dono wondered.
“It isn’t easy. They change shape all the time. And sometimes it’s just something horrible, like a bush grinning at me with brown teeth, or a bird swooping down and laughing in my ear. They like to startle me… they like to watch me jump…” Yumi was looking at her feet.
Sachiko tightened her hand on Yumi’s shoulder. She wanted to kill them all. Right now. She was very pleased to reflect that she’d punctured one with a spear of flame.
Fujiwara-dono appeared to be deep in thought. Behind them, Eriko-sama had everyone in a kind of rough formation, and was smiling at Fujiwara-dono.
Fujiwara-dono turned, and strolled out through the torii, for all the world as if she was just taking a musing little walk that might go in circles. But she took it on the Nijo Road, and the land was showing definite signs now of moving upwards. Ahead, the road began to slope up, and the darkness under the trees beckoned.
The column followed.
Presently, Fujiwara-dono said, “’The coming wars.’ Tell me anything that comes to mind when you hear that phrase, Yumi-kun.”
“Nothing,” Yumi said sadly. “I want to help, Fujiwara-dono --“
“They didn’t confide that in you. Probably not… I have a perhaps over-clever reluctance to take the phrase at its face value. Demons are notoriously fond of tricks, and I can’t think of anything that would please them more than the thought that they’d sent me down the wrong road. It may have been perfectly accurate. The demon seemed to be very excited when it let the phrase fall, so I rather doubt it was a crafty improvisation… Other questions occur, Yumi-kun. For example, though a novice sorceress, you have been observed to use some very advanced magic in extremis. This waterish famulus you are able to call up is the prime example. And Satou-san tells me that when running from a determined pursuit, you can give yourself an impressive lead in a very rum fashion, which seemed to involve levitating slightly, disappearing, and reappearing a considerable distance ahead."
Yumi sent Sachiko a shamed look, and then looked down. "I don't... really know..."
"Do you remember being taught how to do these things?" Fujiwara-dono was speaking very gently. The bumptious, provoking grandame of the meeting's beginning was nowhere to be seen.
"No, Fujiwara-dono. Though I did -- almost -- remember a person who might have taught me. There was a voice -- oh, I don't know!"
There was silence.
"Do you want me to leave the Guild, Fujiwara-dono?" Yumi asked, still looking down.
"She doesn't," Sachiko said. "She knows I would leave the Guild too."
"Sachiko, please restrain yourself," Youko-sama said wearily.
"Ogasawara-kun, restrain yourself, and I do know you would leave the Guild too," Fujiwara-dono said, confirming both Sachiko and Youko-sama, to the pleasure of neither.
Satou-san spoke up: "I think what Fujiwara-dono is thinking, o-child-who-goes-like-the-wind, is that you might be either a great asset to the Guild, or a great danger, and we simply don't know enough about you to be sure which it is. You seem to mean well, but the fact is that you don't know enough about you either, to be sure what that well-meaning amounts to."
Sachiko saw a tear fall from Yumi's chin. She glared at Satou-san, feeling angry enough to fight her for the second time in their acquaintance. Satou-san took no notice, and went on to douse the flames: "But Yumi -- as my own character demands it be said -- if Fujiwara-dono did tell you to leave the Guild, then I would leave it too."
Yumi looked up at Satou-san, startled, her wide eyes shining.
Satou-san nodded. "I would go with you and Sachiko. But this is all moot, as Fujiwara-dono isn't going to tell you any such thing."
"The upshot, as I know very well after last night, would be a mass exodus of the Mountain Lily contingent," Fujiwara-dono chuckled. "And the Mountain Lily is the last best hope of the Guild. I will not have all my most skilled and most promising sorceresses leaving. There's been quite enough of that lately, and the Guild overall is in a deplorable condition as a result... Well, I wasn’t expecting to learn a lot. But later today, Yumi-kun, you and I will have a private conversation. We will see if you and I together can come a little closer to the fount of your being, which will necessitate finding out where it’s hidden. If you will continue to go over in your mind as much of your past prior to three days ago as you can recall, I will be much obliged to you.”
“I’ll do my best, Fujiwara-dono.”
Youko-sama surprised Sachiko, and apparently Yumi as well, by giving Yumi a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. She gave Satou-san a meaning look, and moved ahead slightly, Fujiwara-dono at her side. They were taking the head of the column as the expedition began to move up the mountain in earnest.
“I must take the rearguard,” Satou-san said. “Sneak attacks come from the rear, and they consider me best able to cope with sneaks. Set a thief to catch a thief, as you’ll have heard. Yumi, ready yourself for your conversation with Fujiwara-dono. These things can be a drain on one’s force, but it’s necessary, you understand?”
"Yes. Thank you, Satou-sama," Yumi said, looking up at her.
Satou-san seemed confused. "Why, what for, Magic Feets?"
"For last night. Shimako-san told me how you learned of the demon, and called on everyone, and came after me first yourself. I can never repay the debt I owe you."
Satou-san smiled -- a completely genuine, non-jokey smile. Rare on that face, in Sachiko's experience, but not unheard of. "Why, you're welcome, Yumi sweet. If Sachiko doesn't mind it, I'll tell you how to repay me."
Sachiko's brows drew down, but she nodded. Experimentally.
"How, Satou-sama?”
"When anyone needs help, we all help. Always. That doesn’t hold with all sorceresses, but it holds with us, in this little club we're all in, the Mountain Lily Gang of however-many-it-is-at-the-moment, I expect we'll find out on this Questioning. It started with just me and Youko, when I first came here. Then Eriko joined us. And none of the younger sisters has disappointed us yet. If one of us needs help, then we all help. Sometimes, it's something a person has to handle on her own, like Sachiko's lonesome duty last winter. Then you stay out of her way. But you make sure, before you leave her alone with her troubles, that that’s the right thing to do. All right?"
"Yes, Satou-sama," Yumi said. "I'll do my best."
--
And they were moving up the mountain.
In truth it was more an outsized hill than a mountain. Still, the younger girls who were unused to walking great distances were whining a good deal now, and embarrassing their mistresses with complaints of weariness, and sores. Poor Madoka-chan, Momoko-chan and Yuko-chan, who had been rambunctious at first, and swinging themselves around on the trunks of the smaller trees by the roadside, began soon to labor. Their mistresses walked behind them, smiling and chatting amongst themselves -- "Quiet, isn't it?" "Nice and peaceful, yes." Some girls were being tough. Shimako-san was hauling herself gamely up the stone steps, apparently determined not to disgrace her mistress. Noriko-chan wasn't complaining either, but Rei-sama seemed to be giving her a lot of help, a strong arm to hang onto much of the time, everything short of actually carrying her... Yumi noticed, after a time, that there were occasional glares and sardonic smiles being sent her way, and wondered why that was -- what had she done to them all? -- when she realized: all the City-bred young ladies were having such a lot of trouble with this relentless upward road. And here was Yumi, simply climbing them. Only now beginning to break a sweat, but showing no sign of slowing.
Her cheeks, formerly pink with exertion, now burned red with shame... she was revealing her low background by climbing well and quickly. She forced herself to look at Sachiko-sama, sure that a gentle but nevertheless painful reproof was waiting for her, and wanting to have it over --
But Sachiko-sama was smiling at her warmly.
Could she be... proud of me?
"You're sure-footed, Yumi," her mistress said a moment later. "And you have excellent endurance. I'm glad. I won't have to leave you behind when I go out scouting. And I can teach you many wonders of forest and mountain." She laid a hand on Yumi's shoulder. "And I hope you'll teach me what you know, too. You must have learned much, in your travels."
Happiness blazed through Yumi like a wildfire. At that moment, she would not have traded her beggar's legs for the noblest family in the world.
The trees were tall, and close, and the dusty road wound between them, snaking up the mountainside. You could seldom see more than ten paces ahead of you on the path you must follow, and so little sunlight came down through the trees that when one had gone for a time without shaft or beam, one wondered if night had fallen early. Yumi knew better, of course; she had wandered much in forests, and she knew that if night had fallen they wouldn't be able to see anything. Forests could be frightening places, even in places where the light was better, like where they were now. The shafts of sunlight danced so, between the great trees, that it often seemed as if they were alive. Up ahead, there was a dark place, where only a few beams made it through, but even these were made agile by dancing leaves, and the branches looked like great arms waving... then, improbably, like great legs shifting position... and there were horrendous screeching noises from that direction --
There was a giant coming through the trees.
The dark thick trunks and the long shadows they cast seemed to have joined up suddenly, so that this spindly, ungainly creature, a great stick-insect shaped like a man, was dancing in the light between the trees, dancing toward the sorceresses, shrieking horribly in many voices.
There were many answering shrieks on the road, and an atmosphere of panic. A few of the Dragons seemed to be all right, and were shouting orders to their flapping, terrified sorores and famulae, and assuming defensive positions. Rei-sama was ready, chanting, and weaving a couple of blades of grass with one hand -- why? Yumi wondered, remembering seeing Sachiko-sama do something similar -- and Noriko-san was steadfast beside her. Eriko-sama too, though her soror seemed less confident; her sword was out, but she seemed to have doubts about its possible efficacy. But for the most part, it was a rout, girls and young women running in circles, and hiding behind trees and rocks, and attempting to hide behind one another.
Yumi, for her part, was just behind Sachiko-sama and to her right, and at her mistress’s command held onto her right shoulder. "Good. Don't let go of me," Sachiko-sama said in a clipped voice. Yumi knelt there, ready to obey Sachiko-sama’s next command... there was no water here. She wondered if she could make a creature of earth? She hadn’t tried to turn the key of earth yet. There hadn’t been time for another magic lesson since the first one yesterday morning.
She put her free hand through the mulch of dead leaves from autumns gone by, and touched earth.
"Yumi?" Sachiko-sama. She wasn't looking at Yumi. Did she feel me, the way I feel her when she does magic?
--
Sachiko wondered if now was the time for Yumi to be experimenting with the keys. The thing was coming closer, and though it was less repulsive than the demon of yesterday, it was, in a way, more horrible. Trees and shadows grinding together with deep groaning sounds, fresh early-spring leaves sticking out on puny branches here and there, bouncing like hairs, but larger, worse. The wrongness of the thing was like ice down the back of the neck. One kept thinking that it couldn't be real, that it was the opposite of imagining giants in the trees, that if you could only see it at the right angle, in the right light, it wouldn't be real, it would turn out to be just wind and sunlight playing tricks --
"Mistress?"
Yumi didn't sound scared at all. Only confused. Odd, under the circumstances.
Sachiko turned her head and saw something odder - the water creature back again -- only now it was an earth creature: the same exact shape, only sculpted in earth and mud and the occasional dead leaf shape, gossamer-thin, dissolved almost, only veins in spots to bear witness to the leaf it had been; one was molded over the crest on top of the little creature's head like a broad hat --
And it was dancing. In Yumi's palm. A cheerful little dance. Foot moves briskly behind other foot, then the feet switch, back and forth like that, kicking, and then a little jump in the air with the little arms outstretched as if to say "hey!" and then back to foot-behind-foot.
The two of them just sat there for a moment, staring at the eccentric little show-off in Yumi's palm.
Wind and sunlight, or perhaps --
Sachiko turned back toward the approaching giant monster, and stood.
The monster was squeezing between two trees, pushing outward at the great trunks to make a wider passage. This made a rending, groaning noise, a great rustling of leaves, and a noisy rain of tinder and hard fruit.
Sachiko waited politely until it had got through, and was almost within stomping distance of the party on the road. The screams behind her, already loud enough for her taste, were increasing still further in volume --
Then she said, "All right, Sei-san. You can stop, now."
The giant paused a moment, as if considering this.
Then it wasn't there anymore, and never had been. There were only great trees, where trees had stood since before living memory, and only moved in a strong wind. Though you could almost see, where two trees stood close together and their trunks had grown into one another in such a way, that if you squinted, in the right light, it might almost look as if...
And Sei-san stepped out from behind one of them. She seemed pleasantly surprised. "Oh, very well done, Sachiko. I was wondering if I was going to have step on somebody before the light dawned somewhere. You shall have a sweet!"
Anything else she might have said was drowned out by the infuriated chatter that arose from the sorceresses on the road. A few of them even moved forward, toward Sei-san, as if they meant her some violence. One actually put a hand out to try to shove her, but ended up with her arm pushed up her back and yelping with astonishment. Youko-sama was there, pulling one girl back, and yelling "Stop this nonsense! Stop it this instant --"
Then, Fujiwara-dono was between Sei-san and the column. She gave them all one of her mild, vaguely inquisitive looks.
The few who had moved forward now moved back, skulking hastily, to their places on the road. Sei-san released the one who'd come up to her -- Sachiko recognized her as Ayanokouji Kikuyo. And Ayanokouji-kun executed a style of movement Sachiko couldn't remember having seen before: a kind of cringing run.
Fujiwara-dono continued to look at them all. There were many shamefaced grimaces, and silence.
Fujiwara-dono said, "We'll just pretend that little demonstration didn't happen, I think. And anyone who really resents our prank should keep in mind that the next time something big comes out of the woods, it might not be a prank at all; that we have left the City behind and we're all alone out here; that we survive only if we are prepared to repel threats together... There will be training each day, and more drills like this, at odd moments. At least until I feel you're up to dealing with the wilds, and perhaps longer."
And she went back to the steps, and continued up them, past everybody. None of them seemed able to look her in the eye.
Satou-san was back on the path too. Her smile was much subdued, but not gone altogether.
"They attacked Satou-sama," Yumi said, angrily.
"Why, yes," Sachiko said. "No one likes being frightened, and no one likes being fooled."
"Will they try to attack her when she sleeps? Oughtn't we to guard her?"
Sachiko turned to her famula, startled. Yumi seemed really concerned and upset. "I wouldn't worry about it, Yumi."
As Sei-san drew nearer, they heard an amazing litany: everybody was apologizing to her. Even the ones who hadn't actually attacked her. And she, graciously and without fuss -- but with the occasional sly crack -- was accepting all of them.
--
Sei was pleased by the general attitude. She knew most of the rest of the Guild was a bit dubious where she was concerned -- she was regarded as an oddity, and also as a source of fear -- but in the main, she was on good enough terms with everybody, and she preferred to keep it that way. She tore herself away from the cheerful trio of Momoko, Madoka and Yuko, who stood in a little group before her, heads bowed -- "We didn't attack you," Momoko-chan was saying, "but we were angry enough, and you were doing it for our own good" -- really, these girls were all that was charming, and dutiful, and, well, unnecessary. Sei was pretty sure she'd seen someone heading off into some nearby trees that she ought to follow...
A little cluster of pines, and there was the sun over a ridge, and a white-robed figure sitting on a rock alone. She was clasping her arms over her stomach as if it hurt her, and her head was bowed. She was weeping.
"Kikuyo?"
The girl jumped, and swiveled her head to glare at Sei.
"Did I hurt your arm?"
"No. Leave me alone."
"Kikuyo --"
"Don't call me that! Call me Ayanokouji-san, if you must speak to me at all! You're too familiar! You're like that with everybody! I hate you!"
Sei sat down on the rock next to her. "No, you don't."
"I do!"
"No, you don't. What have I ever done to you? Why would you hate me?"
"Because you --" Kikuyo looked away. "Leave me alone."
Sei looked at her. She knew what it was, of course. Kikuyo didn't seem to know how obvious she was, to Sei at least. Kikuyo didn't have a lot of use for Rei or Yoshino either, and none at all for Youko. She despised Youko. She hated anyone who got close to Sachiko, and that was her story. Heaven only knows how she feels about Yumi.
But Sei could see no good in telling Kikuyo this. Kikuyo knew it already, for one thing, and she thought no-one else did, for another. That was her one consolation, and Sei didn't want to take it away from her.
"I'll leave you alone, for now," she said. "If that's really what you want. I'll only tell you: you have a friend in me, Kikuyo, should you ever happen to need one."
Kikuyo turned to glare at Sei again, but she couldn't keep it up. It seemed that she had kept some part of herself sufficiently free from bitterness that kindness could still reach her, could get over her guard. Tears welled in her eyes, and she bowed her head again.
"I'll tell you one other thing: you and I are both going to have to make up our minds before very long."
Sei patted Kikuyo gently on the shoulder, and stood.
She walked -- slowly, deliberately -- back toward the road.
And before she reached it, she found that Kikuyo was walking at her side. Still not looking at me. But it's a start.
Kikuyo shared the rearguard with Sei for the rest of the afternoon.
--
The sun was westering for certain.
The mountain road was erratic in character, occasionally dipping, occasionally humping, now choked with stones and boulders one had to climb over, now disappearing altogether, leaving only grass, dirt, stones; only to reappear further around the ridge. Keeping to it was as much of a challenge, almost, as doing without it would have been.
Yumi walked next to Fujiwara-dono. Ahead of them, Mizuno-sama was leading the way, and far behind them, she knew Satou-sama was bringing up the rear. Everyone was keeping an eye peeled diligently, most wanting to prove to Fujiwara-dono that they'd learned their lesson, or to prove that Fujiwara-dono was wrong and they hadn't needed any lessons, and they were fine.
"As long as they are on their toes," Fujiwara-dono had said earlier, "I don't really care which it is."
But most of the time Yumi wasn't aware of all these other people. Walking with Fujiwara-dono was like inhabiting another world, in a way. The weather had seemed to change, as if a cloud had come down to cover the mountain, and Fujiwara-dono was the only other person she could see. The cloud lifted, and they were all alone, and even the City in the valley behind and below them was no longer visible. It seemed that even the mountain they were walking on was higher, rockier, with snows at the peak. And sometimes it seemed that they weren’t walking on a mountain at all, and it was hard to tell when the land had changed… They saw strange things. Once they were walking by a river, and millions and millions of butterflies flocked together over the water, so close that their wings brushed against each other, as they bobbed and floated above the river's surface. The layer of butterflies between the two banks was more than twice as deep as the height of a man as they made their way upstream like a blizzard of falling flower petals. The river seemed draped in mist for mile after mile, in the dying daylight, so dense that the river was hardly visible. Then the sun set, and the butterflies all dropped into the water and drifted downstream, and the river looked like bolts of white silk were being rinsed in it. Then they went around a bush where the river was no longer visible, and Yumi heard music, and then there was a procession of barefooted persons bearing an elaborate horned, whiskered, antennae'd parade dragon up the slope ahead of them. Their bare feet were all she could see of them, as the rest of them was draped in brown and grey robes and their faces were concealed by large, wooden, starkly painted masks of anger, ecstasy, or lunacy. Their feet were green, for some reason. The light of the sun was coming from another direction than it had been when it was setting over the butterfly river. Then Fujiwara-dono asked a question, and something about the tone of her voice made Yumi look around, and everybody was there again, and Mount Hiei was as she remembered it. The worst thing about those moments away was not being able to see Sachiko-sama, but somehow, she never felt that Sachiko-sama wasn't there.
This was one of those moments when it seemed that everyone else had disappeared, and the whole terrain had altered; cloud cover was so thick that it was almost as dark as night except for the occasional flash of lightning from the clouds, and two spheres of free-floating lightning that danced, chasing each other, around a nearby peak, and the two of them were descending into a valley which was even darker. And Fujiwara-dono, who had made a constant, gentle refrain of "Does this look familiar?" and "You've seen this place before, surely," wasn't saying it this time, but Yumi could tell that she was thinking it, and, well, as a matter of fact, it was familiar. It seemed to her that the last time she'd seen this landscape, she'd been running for her life, and she was afraid now to turn and look behind, lest she see what she had then been running from... had this been her home?
"No, but not far from home."
She, Yumi, had said those words. Dreamily.
"Next valley over?" Fujiwara-dono said nonchalantly.
"Mmmm... a little further off," Yumi heard herself say. "I think I was at least a day's journey out... oh... is it still behind me?"
"It is," Fujiwara-dono said. "But you don't have to worry about it now."
"I don't?"
"It has been slowly losing the power it had to kill you. It might hurt you still. But if, in the end, it loses all power..."
"The pain would be worth enduring," Yumi finished.
"Exactly."
And once again, they were walking with everybody. The sun was angling through the trees in an almost-sunset way, and they were rounding the mountain. Looking back, they could still catch the occasional glimpse, through the trees and over them, of Heian Kyo, almost filling the valley far below, but soon it would disappear from view.
Yumi was walking with Fujiwara-dono. And then she found that Sachiko-sama was at her other hand.
"How long have you been there, Mistress?"
"Oh, quite a while now."
"You didn't say anything!"
"Fujiwara-dono seemed to be making progress. I didn't want to interfere."
Sachiko-sama had a face made for gambles, but Yumi thought she was beginning to be able to tell when Sachiko-sama was upset, even when she was purposely keeping her face calm. If she was too cool, when you might otherwise expect a gentle look, or even a small smile…
Yumi wrapped herself around Sachiko-sama's arm, and pressed her head against Sachiko-sama's shoulder.
And she heard Sachiko-sama sigh in relief.
When she looked around, Fujiwara-dono was gone. She found her at the head of the column again, chatting amiably with Mizuno-sama.
"Be sure to thank her later," Sachiko-sama told her. "That takes some energy, what she was doing with you. I've never done it, but I know that most kinds of deep magic can finish a person off for the day."
"Is that all we're going to do? Only... I thought there would be more questions, and -- I still don't know what the demons are planning, and --"
"You remembered something. Yes?"
Yumi was mystified. "Yes..."
"She expects you to think about what you remembered, at odd moments. And you will find associations, other little things you remember, connected with it. You will remember little by little. It will be very slow, at first. But your remembering will gather speed as you go on."
"Should I tell you, Mistress? About --"
Sachiko-sama gently laid a finger across Yumi's lips. Yumi immediately fell silent, looking up into dark blue eyes, in which a tiny glint of the setting sun coming in over the mountains north of Heian Kyo was reflected. The effect was slightly eerie, but not unpleasant.
"Yumi, they are your memories," Sachiko-sama said very quietly. "They are yourself... I am a very private person, as you may have noticed, and invasions of privacy are a horror to me. I do want to know. I want to know all about you, my mysterious one. But first I want you to think about your memories, and see what other memories follow on, and decide for yourself whether you want to share them with me. They are yours to share, not mine to command. I am your mistress, but that doesn't mean I own your soul."
But you do, you do, Yumi wanted to say. But she didn't say it. Sachiko-sama's words seemed to put a strange distance between them, a distinction Yumi didn't feel was really there. But Yumi knew that Sachiko-sama had spoken these words out of concern for her, and out of a need to do what was right, and Yumi would not gainsay them.
"I will think about it, Mistress," Yumi said. "As you wish. But I feel sure that I will tell you in the end."
"When you are ready. I will listen. I am not as good a listener as Fujiwara-dono, but I will try."
Arm in arm, they moved on along the fragmentary, deceptive mountain road.
--
Night was falling rapidly as they came around to the northeast face of Mount Hiei. Heian Kyo was now south and west of them, and therefore directly behind the mountain, hidden from view. Dominating the basin to the northeast was a huge body of water. The immensity of it glimmered and danced with the light of a moon nearly at the full set in a great field of uncountable stars, as the last of the daylight faded in the west.
Yumi said, "Mistress, is it the sea?"
Sachiko-sama said, "No, Yumi. Lake Biwa."
And then, the stars and the moon began to be obscured by black clouds rolling rapidly in. There was a distant rumble of thunder.
This development was the cause of much consternation. The Dragons did their best to remain calm, but many of the Rats and Oxen were most disturbed. There was a sudden movement towards collecting in a knot or cluster, here on the ridge, which was halted by Youko-sama and Sei-san shouting, from their respective positions, "Keep formation! Keep formation, there!" "Calmly, calmly, my lovelies. Take heart! It's always darkest before the dawn. And before the lightning."
"Mistress," Yumi whimpered.
"Hush, Yumi," Sachiko said, a little sternly. "We're all right."
“Time to pitch camp for the night, wouldn’t you say?” Sei-san called from the rear of the column. "We want to keep good order, but I don't want to get wet either."
"There isn't a good spot anywhere in reach," Eriko-sama pointed out. "Relatively level land is considered best, especially in bad weather."
"But what were we going to do, Mistress?" That was Touko-chan.
"The plan was to press on for the valley below, where there are all sorts of suitable spots, but I doubt we’ll make it now," Youko-sama said.
Oe Hikaru, behind Sachiko, was muttering something about incompetence and bad planning. Sachiko turned to look at her, with a raised eyebrow, and the muttering ceased.
Fujiwara-dono was contributing surprisingly little to this discussion. She was looking around and tapping her chin in a thoughtful manner, and humming her odd, repetitive little tune.
At last she said, "Everyone? Be quiet and follow me."
And she left the path. The direction she took was to the southwest -- further up the mountain.
Everyone followed, of course. Youko-sama first, Sei-san waiting so that she would be at the rearguard again.
“Why are we going up again, Mistress?” Yumi asked -- mostly curious, though with perhaps a hint of being ill-used. It had been a long day of walking. Sachiko was tired too, though she wasn't about to admit to it.
The only thing Sachiko could make of it was that she might be taking them up to one of the monasteries of Enryaku-ji, which had protected, if you listened to them, Heian Kyo from the evil influences of the northeast direction, the "Demon's Gate," since the City's founding many ages ago.
“Really, Mistress?”
“Well, there might be some truth in it, though it’s obvious that some demons aren't particularly intimidated.”
“I noticed, Mistress.”
But as Rei-sama pointed out, walking easily alongside them, with Noriko beginning to nod a bit at her side, there was at best an uneasy truce beween the Sorceresses' Guild of Heian Kyo and the Warrior Monks of Mount Hiei -- come to that, there was at best an uneasy truce between the Warrior Monks and virtually everybody else. "Even if the current political climate were relatively untroubled -- which it isn't -- many sorceresses would pitch tents on a treacherous, boulder-strewn cliffside in a thundering typhoon sooner than ask those wretched monks for help. So I think Fujiwara-dono must have something else in mind."
Sachiko could only concede the truth of this. And indeed the winding route they followed up through the trees only took a very short while, well short of the half-hour or so that would likely have been needed to reach the nearest monastery, and Sachiko at least got the feeling that this part of the mountain was very, very seldom visited, by the monks or anyone else. It had a nervous feel to it, which was mysterious until you realized that a large part of the cause was the absence of night-birds or frogs raising their voices in song. Hunting was forbidden by Buddhist law in all parts of Mount Hiei, and the place had over time become a kind of peaceable kingdom, a place of harmony and gentleness -- oh, apart from the animals' occasionally killing one another. And yet, this little piece of it was silent and empty.
The feeling one got was that this was a place for humans, as well as animals, to keep clear of.
Yumi seemed to agree. Her eyes were wide and dark in the occasional moonlight, and she clung to Sachiko’s arm with unusual ferocity. Sachiko bore this with good grace, though it made it hard to climb, and wondered if her somewhat uncanny imouto felt what the animals felt...
In spite of this atmosphere, there was a house here. As the great shinden -- and its smaller annex a bit further uphill, connected to the main part by a covered walkway -- became visible around a great boulder, the general gasping and astonished sighs of the sorceresses all around them showed that this felt as wrong to everyone else as it did to Sachiko.
The house was lit up, well enough to be seen, but not glaringly so. Tapers rather than oil lamps, as it seemed. And there were shapes and shadows moving dimly in the taper-light, between the shutter-planks, behind the paper doors.
Fujiwara-dono stopped, quite suddenly, just abreast of the boulder. She turned slowly, and waited for the whole column to finish shuffling to a halt.
"Tell the girls in back that if they can't hear me, they should come closer," she said in a somewhat subdued voice. "I don't want to talk any louder than this."
The message was passed back, and much of the fantail moved forward hurriedly. The thunder was sounding closer, and the trees were beginning to dance and whistle in anticipation of the celestial music.
"Can everyone hear me?"
General assent, expressed in nods.
"All right, then. The watchword for tonight is mind your own beeswax. I don't know if we're even going to get inside here, or be able to stay once we're in. The mistress of this house is of a changeable temperament. She may well turn us away."
The not-currently-very-cheerful trio of Momoko, Madoka, and Yuko, huddled together at Sachiko’s right, seemed to feel that this would be all right with them. “Those shadows -- eerie!” Madoka-chan whispered.
“Are they ghosts?” Momoko-chan whimpered, trying to hide under Madoka’s arm.
"Keep your mouths shut and let me do the talking,” Fujiwara-dono went on, “and we might just be in with a chance. But even if we do get in, and if she is in a sociable mood: no personal questions. She doesn't like them. And anyway, you almost certainly wouldn't like the answers.
"Satou-san, with me. Mizuno-san, keep the rest no less than five paces away from us, and the house, for the moment."
And she turned again, and moved toward the light. Satou-san was with her in two bounds, and striding alongside.
Wanting to stay dry, but not liking the look of this at all, the column crept forward. They kept well clear of the porch, in case something came at them from under the house. Fujiwara-dono and Satou-san, however, clambered right up, and Fujiwara-dono said loudly, "Yamiko-san?"
There was a considerable wait. The shadows danced. Yumi seemed quite calm, now, and Sachiko looked at her curiously. Momoko-chan was trembling openly, however, despite her friends clinging to her and her mistress’s hand on her shoulder. "There, there, Momoko-chan," Sachiko whispered to her. "Trust Fujiwara-dono, and all will come right." Sachiko, though not exactly afraid herself, found that she was feeling a bit jumpy. To be surrounded by dark, lifeless forest at the threshold of a house that teemed with unknown life, and to hear... what sounded like distant cries, inside the house, or like very faint singing... the singing of children -- or of ghosts -- or of the ghosts of children -- was just a little --
The door flew open along its runners, causing upwards of a hundred little jumps and gasps. Fujiwara-dono had only just opened her mouth to hail again, but now closed it, and bowed.
There was a most unusual person in the doorway.
The figure was a woman. This much was clearer than it should have been, as her robes were not done up properly. She had been in a fight recently, as there were scratches and bruises on her bare right arm and shoulder, the scratches in three wideset rows, as might result from an attack by a large clawed animal with three toes to a paw. She was very tall, taller than Fujiwara-dono or Sei-san. Her hair was thick, and grew down her cheeks an unusual distance, so that she might almost be said to have sideburns. Her face, in spite of this uglifying detail, was comely, with wideset eyes and high-arching brows. She had a glazed clay bottle in her right hand, which dangled down at her side. The bottle spoke of osake -- so did her general demeanor, come to think of it. She leaned against the doorjamb, and something about her lazy, indolent posture made one think of an animal, a very large, cunning, unpredictable beast, currently taking its ease, but apt to turn difficult in a moment.
There was a silence, as she took them in and they took her in. It was the silence of a lot of girls and young women who had never seen anything so extraordinary before, of a Fujiwara-dono and a Sei-san who were seeing someone who looked much worse than the last time they'd seen her, and of a reclusive person in her isolated home looking out at rather more people than she normally expected to turn up all at once.
At last, the strange woman spoke:
"Well-met by moonlight, proud Akiko-san."
"By lightning-flash it'll be, soon... Well-met, Yamiko-san. I beg your pardon for turning up unannounced like this."
"You, or Sei-san, turning up unannounced, is nothing but pleasure. This unlikely gaggle of unseasoned femininity behind you is... well, not displeasure, that's hardly fair to them, we've not even been..." She paused, and in pausing, seemed to lose interest in completing the sentence -- not that she'd sounded much interested in starting it in the first place. She raised the bottle to her lips. She drank deep. She let her arm fall back to her side. She scanned the many faces before her, as if puzzled to find them still there.
The sound of rain beginning to pelt the upper leaves and branches high above began to filter down through the trees. There were some whining noises among the party, which were rapidly hushed.
"Yamiko-san," Fujiwara-dono said, "I hardly like to rush you. This is your house. But I was wondering if you could put us up for the night?"
Yamiko-san continued to slouch in the doorway, a snake basking in the moonlight. She seemed to the last degree lazy, mocking, supercilious. Her manner seemed almost calculated to offend. Then the moon was at last obscured by clouds for good and all, and they could only see her outline in the taper-light coming through the doorway. Thunder rumbled.
The majority of the party were positive she was going to refuse them lodging until she said, "Why not?" and turned, and walked inside, calling over her shoulder, "Don't stand on ceremony..."
The column straggled inside, unevenly, some reluctant, some overeager. There was some tripping over the porch steps, as the first drops were hitting the forest floor, and no one wanted to be the only one to get a wetted robe.
The front room of the shinden was quite large, broad and high, with a sturdy-looking ladder going up into a half-attic, and great shadows in which roof beams were dimly visible. A door to their left went out to an unkempt garden, in which the fountain seemed to have run dry and the pond was an algae-infested mess; next to this, through a large hole, one could make out broken ceramic suggesting a water harp, now gone silent, and the bamboo water-catcher had been smashed and lay in several pieces on the stones.
The double mystery of the moving shadows and the soft, childlike cries was solved almost immediately: there were cats everywhere, on the floor, on the very sparse furniture, on the beams and in the half-attic. Everywhere you looked, you seemed to see more, constantly shifting position, so that you were never sure whether you'd looked at the same cat once, or twice, or thrice, so that counting them was like trying to count the stars. When the cats weren't grooming themselves or one another, or sleeping, or eating from one of the many mismatched food bowls strewn here and there in all parts of the floor, they were always watching Yamiko-san. But they were keeping away from her physically, as if afraid of her, so that if you didn't want to risk treading on a tail, the best place to be was within a few paces of her.
She seemed at something of a loss, suddenly, now that all these strange faces were crowding into her hall. In the improved light, they saw that she was pale -- a ghastly pallor, rather than a fashionable one done with makeup -- and her eyes were bloodshot. She shut the garden door, turning away as she did so to make a better job of fastening her robe -- when she turned back it was still sloppy, but at least her bosom was fully covered. She said, without looking at Fujiwara-dono, "Akiko-san, my house is shamed. I am not in good supply --"
"I pray you won't think of it, Yamiko-san.” Fujiwara-dono sounded concerned; she reached a hand toward Yamiko-sama’s arm, but withdrew it quickly. “We have shelter from the rain, and that is enough. We can eat our trail rations --"
"Say, at the very least, I can get you all some sake, eh?" Yamiko-sama smiled, a sudden jolly smile, and clambered with alarming, almost insectile rapidity up the ladder, into the roof. She came back a moment later, with a large cask under her arm. She showed a startling strength and agility, for the cask must have been heavy, but she carried it easily, and easily negotiated the ladder one-handed. Sachiko had seen sailors move like that, on the docks, and at sea.
"Anyone for a drink?”
There was an awful lot of silence.
“Oh, come now. Are you all abstaining?" Yamiko-sama looked around, perhaps a little desperately. Don’t make me drink alone, her eyes seemed to plead with them.
"I'll drink with you, Yamiko-san," Satou-san said. Shimako-chan, at her side, raised a hand and smiled a small smile.
Yamiko-sama actually flushed a little with relief. "I had a feeling you wouldn't let me down, Sei-san... Anyone else who wants some, come on up and feel free. There's plenty! and for Heaven’s sake, sit down -- wherever you can find -- there are cushions, here and there…"
With much stiffness, people began to sit, wherever they could find a bit of floor that seemed trustworthy enough. There was no conversation. Sachiko, for one, was ready to know this unusual person better, but it was difficult to overcome the atmosphere. Even the cheerful trio were very quiet in Yamiko-sama's presence, though they seemed to be getting some of their bounce back, now that they were indoors and sitting down. Madoka-chan started to say something about the cats, too loudly, then seemed to realize she was talking too loudly, and shut up. Then Yuko-chan started to say something, but was speaking too softly to be heard, and then lost confidence and resorted to silence. The three had a tendency to stay together anyway, but here they were positively clinging to one another, and sitting almost in one another's laps. A lot of the sorores and famulae were like that, quiet and sitting as close to their mistresses as they were allowed, but it was especially noticeable in these three.
Yamiko-sama was serving out sake, now. She lingered with the three as she filled their cups. "What are three lively young society ladies such as yourselves doing this far out in the woods, hm?" she asked them gently.
Momoko-chan murmured something, but didn't finish. Madoka-chan was the only one who actually looked at Yamiko-sama; the other two kept their eyes on the floor.
"Do you like cats?" Yamiko-sama asked them.
This produced a little more society-lady liveliness. Yuko-chan said she loved them passionately, and sounded as if she meant it. Madoka-chan didn't say anything, but nodded emphatically. Momoko-chan, her voice quivering, said that she liked cats, but she didn't know any that liked her.
"Oh? Why, how sad."
This gentle, thoughtful, wondering tone was another new mood in Yamiko-sama, Sachiko thought. They were piling up. And Yamiko-sama continued to examine Momoko-chan quizzically, leaning her head to one side, and then the other. Momoko-chan blushed and looked down. Madoka-chan and Yuko-chan clung to her somewhat more fiercely, as if afraid that Yamiko-sama would grab her and make off with her into the rafters.
Yamiko-sama did reach a hand up toward the rafters, but only made a rumbling noise in her throat, and then didn't move. A few moments passed, in which she seemed to be having a staring contest with something in the dimness above.
Then a cat came down, falling with startling suddenness, and Yamiko-sama caught it in both arms, with a most graceful and willowy arm motion cushioning the trusting cat's fall. It made Sachiko sigh, the beauty of it. She heard a gasp at her left: Ayanokouji-kun.
Yamiko-sama set the landed cat gently on the floorboards, in front of Momoko-chan. "This is Mizuki," she said.
Mizuki made small-eyes at her mistress, purring, and then began to clean one paw, apparently unconcerned about all the total strangers staring at her. She was a strong-looking, well-fed, handsome creature with glossy black fur.
Momoko-chan held out a hand to Mizuki, uncertainly.
Mizuki finished the paw, said "meer-wow?" to no one in particular, and sort of flowed into Momoko-chan’s lap, stretching and undulating her body beautifully as she went.
Yuko-chan and Madoka-chan began to coo and croon to Mizuki, and tickled her ears. Momoko-chan was silent, stroking her back and flanks and head, an amazed look in her eyes. Mizuki craned her neck up to nuzzle Momoko-chan’s cheek with her nose.
This produced sighing and pleased murmurs from all quarters, and a chuckle from Yamiko-sama. "I thought she'd take to you, sweetheart. You seemed like her kind of person."
The atmosphere eased considerably after this. People began to talk to one another. Ayanokouji-kun, unbidden, filled another large bottle from the cask and began helping Yamiko-sama serve the drinks.
--
Yamiko-sama had started a second cask heating when some few said they might like their sake hot. And when she saw the sorceresses taking out their cold little meals of salted fish and dried greens, she burst out suddenly, "Wait -- only a little!" -- and in a few minutes a pot of rice was boiling away nicely in her kitchen, through a little door in the back of the enormous front room. She had gone from shamefaced, looking-at-the-floor apologies for her poor hospitality to leaping about, the jolly hostess, so completely that it was difficult to recognize the lazy, unconcerned drunk of their first sight in either of the two later incarnations.
"She's dangerous, isn't she, Sei?" Youko asked her friend, when they'd got their rice and a few pickled plums to go with their fish, and found a place to sit together that was a discreet distance from anyone else. They spoke in low voices.
"To her enemies, yes," Sei said. She was unusually serious. "I've only seen her a few times; Fujiwara-dono knows her better. Has she never mentioned Yamiko-san to you?”
Youko shook her head.
“Well, I’m not just the person to tell you best, perhaps… She lives under a curse of some kind, does our Child of Darkness, and she does not age or die -- I'm not sure how old she is, but I believe she and Fujiwara-dono have known one another since Fujiwara-dono's girlhood, which was quite some time back, and Yamiko-san was fully grown then. But it's one of those questions you don't ask. Like to that, I've never known how old Fujiwara-dono is, and I've no intention of asking."
"Me neither."
"Wise as well as lovely!... No, Yamiko-san is dangerous, but she's a lonely person, with few friends, and Fujiwara-dono may be her most important friend." She cast her eyes to the floor by the garden door, where Yamiko-san sat with Fujiwara-dono, pouring them little cups of sake and the two of them tossing them back together. "She's not going to make any sort of attack on anyone in the Sorceresses' Guild, I don't believe. Though she might be a bit unpredictable at the moment."
"Why so?"
Here, Sei looked right into Youko's eyes and lowered her voice even more. "She has lost Ren-san."
"Who is Ren-san?"
"I was never sure. She was a woman in her fifties when I knew her before. She seemed shy of most everyone except Yamiko-san, I don't know why. I thought her mysterious, because she lived in this house, with this extraordinary creature, and Fujiwara-dono told me that she had done so for nearly forty years. But there was nothing mysterious about her person, not like Yamiko-san. She was a woman, wise and kindhearted, and she was a good hostess... and she and Yamiko-san..."
"Yes?"
"Well, they loved one another very dear, I believe. Goodness knows what she's going to do, now. Ren-san helped her bear her burdens. And how many other people will be willing to live in this house, with such a person, alone?"
"Sei, you’re leaving something out. Just where is this Ren-san?”
“Ah, my clever one, that’s just what I’d give worlds to know. I’m sure Fujiwara-dono would too. If Ren-san is dead, why hasn’t Yamiko-san said? and if she’s just up and gone, then why? I was going to ask her about it, but Fujiwara-dono forbade me... What could make her leave after forty years under this roof, a place she seemed so happy?” Sei shook her head. “I don’t like it, Youko. I don’t like Ren-san vanishing this way. And I don’t like the thought of Yamiko-san having to be alone. She’s no weakling, Yamiko-san, but she…”
“She’s the sort of person who shouldn’t be alone.”
“Well, who likes to be alone? But in Yamiko-san’s case, well… she might be more dangerous, if she has to be alone.”
--
"Would anyone like -- music?!"
Yamiko-sama appeared to be quite drunk by this time, on companionship as well as sake. The storm outside was in full thunder now, and the occasional flash filled the room through the paper walls, followed by a crash to shake the floors, and the constant thrumming of the droplets on the roof provided a continuo. Everyone talked the louder, as if to defy all the noise from outside. Many of the sorceresses had let go somewhat. Some had tried osake for their first time tonight, and for them a little went a long way. There was an atmosphere of euphoria.
Yumi had had three small cups of osake herself. She couldn’t remember whether it was her first time or not. She felt a bit dizzy, but certainly not unwell. She was in a glad state, and loved everything around her -- the room, the people, the light, the noise from outside. Now she was ready to love music as well.
The more sober among them were quietly skeptical at Yamiko-sama’s question; they didn't think her likely to be a skilled musician -- there was a rough, uncultured edge to her -- and drunk as she was at the moment, any sudden musical urges on her part promised horror. But the naysayers were outnumbered by the euphorists, and Fujiwara-dono and Satou-sama and Mizuno-sama seemed all for encouraging Yamiko-sama to enjoy herself in whatever way was appealing to her. The overwhelming response was, "Yes, let there be music!"
Yamiko-sama disappeared back up into the half-attic, and reappeared over the lip of it to hand down to Satou-sama a koto, a drum, and a flute. "I've got the drum," Satou-sama said.
"I know you have," Yamiko-sama said happily.
The sorceress who had got her arm twisted by Satou-sama back on the steps -- Ayanokouji-kun, Sachiko-sama had called her -- took the flute from Satou-sama, and blew a trill. "Good tone," she said, in a pleased way, swaying a bit.
"Best sit," Satou-sama advised her, grinning and steadying her by one arm.
Yamiko-sama came down from the half-attic in a fluid leap, startling sorceresses and cats alike. Then the three musicians sat in a vague semicircle by the garden door.
Yamiko-sama deftly struck the open strings of the koto. She had it tuned strangely: the top strings were a step or two lower than normal so that they rumbled like bears, and the bottom two strings were tuned close together so that they cawed like birds, and a full two reaches above the top strings.
Some of the sorceresses grimaced at one another. It was an uncouth sound.
But Satou-san set up a driving rhythm, and Yamiko-sama began a thrumming, growling, prowling progression, now two strings at once, now four, now seven, now all. Kikuyo-san leapt in with the flute, a high trill.
Yamiko-sama began to sing:
This branch is deep in cloud.
I go to
crouch in darkness;
'Wait the sweet-voiced bird.
His song stops in my teeth for
good.
Hi, the cat, the cat, the cat!
A dissonant howl from Kikuyo-san's flute, a joyful howl from Yamiko-sama's glad mouth. A triumphant flourish from the drum, without breaking the rhythm.
The many cats seemed to know the song was about them. They had become more active, and the rumble of their many purrings made a gentle drone to underlie the music. Some simply sat, or lay; some frisked about one another; some slunk along low to the floor, or the ceiling-beams, stalking unseen prey, eyes closed in feline rapture. And some leapt at one another playfully and wrestled, rolling across the floor.
Yumi heard Momoko-chan and her mistress chattering behind her: "Ayanokouji-kun is such a skilled player, isn't she, Mistress?" "Yes, but I've never heard her play like this before! Like the cry of a hawk, or an owl." She was fitting her playing to the wild koto-and-drum under her, Yumi thought, so that she went from low to high and back to low without warning, played loudly, so that her squeals had a tendency to turn to squeaks -- but then would come a more orderly passage, and the true virtuosity of her breath and fingers was made plain.
Yamiko-sama howled again, starting low and moving high, and began another verse:
My home between two rocks
Is ordered to my liking.
Hi, the cat, the
cat!
I cook and clean for one,
And do the mousing on my own.
Hi, the cat, the cat,
the cat!
The song ended in a vibrant mess of thumping drum and koto and flute notes tangling insistently together. There was uproarious, semi-drunken applause. The musicians looked at one another delightedly, and before the applause had even properly faded, they had started something else.
--
Yumi found herself experiencing a new sensation, or at least one she couldn't remember having encountered before: she was by herself -- in a throng of people with no Sachiko-sama beside her -- and yet she was happy, and comfortable. She was just quietly enjoying herself, and she felt no strong uneasiness that she didn't belong here and had no right to be enjoying herself, which would likely have been the case a few days earlier. She could see Sachiko-sama across the room, sitting by Fujiwara-dono, the two of them apparently conversing in low tones. Sachiko-sama was holding a cup of sake, but Yumi had only seen her sip from it once. She caught Yumi looking at her, smiled, nodded very carefully, and went back to her conversation.
Yumi knew that the nod meant that Sachiko-sama would come back to her in a few minutes, but couldn't have said how she knew.
Yamiko-sama and Satou-sama seemed very well together. Yumi heard some of their conversation as she passed on the way to get more osake: Satou-sama was saying, "It was a huge, ugly brute, like a giant chicken with a human head that had taken up wrestling and being cruel to children."
"And you jumped on its head?"
"With the help of some ravens, I did. Youko happened to witness the event, and was helpless with admiration at my panache and resourcefulness!"
"Not the first words I'd choose to describe the sensation," Mizuno-sama put in, "but I suppose they'll do." She'd had a bit of osake herself, and was more relaxed than Yumi had ever seen her. She was leaning one arm on Satou-sama’s shoulder.
Yumi found that the cask was empty. Hm. She'd particularly wanted another little cup...
"Demons are troublesome," Yamiko-sama opined. She was seated leaning against the ladder, in something like the indolent pose they’d first seen her, except with a much greater aura of friendliness and pleasure in her company. Ayanokouji-san had fallen asleep with her head in Yamiko-sama’s lap, and she paused every now and then to stroke the sleeping sorceress’s hair. Come to that, a number of people seemed to have hit their bedtimes; Eriko-sama, seated with the others, held her tousle-haired, difficult imouto in her lap, and Mizuno-sama's imouto with the strange, twirling curls in her hair was snuggled against her mistress's back. "Especially the ones that have their own panache," Yamiko-sama was saying. "If it's the usual murder-by-numbers sort, then their actions are more predictable; they can be downright lumpish. But it sounds as if you got a high chancellor, or at least an intelligencer."
"Not the worst sort," Fujiwara-dono mused.
"Eh?"
Youko clarified, straightening up and turning to face Yamiko-sama politely. "Once its plan had failed, it was done. It had no fallback or emergency plan, in case of failure. It just wanted to kill anybody or everybody; it seemed even to have lost the power of speech. Then Sachiko and Yumi were able to deal with it."
"More the intelligencer sort, then," Yamiko-sama suggested. "A journeyman demon."
Yamiko-sama was preoccupied. Yumi didn't want to interrupt. She decided to just go to the kitchen herself. She picked her way among the seated, or supine, sorceresses.
In the kitchen she found a bit of a mess -- opened cabinets and overturned containers -- Yamiko-sama hadn't been keeping house well, it seemed -- and a girl in the middle of the mess, tending to a heating cask of osake. So Yumi had been beaten to it. But maybe she could help.
"Wasn't the music wonderful?" she asked the girl.
The girl seemed not to realize that she was being spoken to, at first. Yumi had to repeat herself. When the girl finally looked at Yumi, she proved to be a girl she'd had a nice conversation with yesterday, at Prince Suguru's pavilion. Sadako? Yes. Sadako-san had a nice face, but she kept hiding it, turning it away. There was a scar on one cheek, quite faint; Yumi hadn't even noticed it at first, in yesterday’s daylight. Her expression was set, harsh. "It's all right, I suppose, for people who like music."
"I don't know very much about music," Yumi allowed.
"I know more than I want to," said Sadako-san, "and I'm not really in the mood for conversation. This is, to be explicit, the worst day of my whole life. Do you think that you, and everybody else, could leave me alone as much as possible? I'll get you all more wine, as my Mistress commanded, and then you can all swill yourselves into insensibility if you like."
Yumi was taken aback, but it would be going too far to say that she was hurt. She had tramped around the country in all weathers, and people had denied her conversation before; they had also denied her simple company, and food, and a place by the fire, and a bit of roof to her head, which was much worse. Rejection was too familiar a sensation to be really painful, only surprising because she had spent the last few days among people who gave to her freely, with both hands. Oh yes, she thought, there is this feeling too. I had almost forgotten.
"As you wish," she said. "But it has been a glorious, beautiful day, and it has been a magical evening, if also a bit dark and scary, and I wonder what could have happened to you today to make it the worst one you have ever had? I have had a few bad days," Yumi understated, "and none of them was like this one. Not a bit. Oh, apart from all the walking."
"You're not leaving me alone yet," Sadako-san said glumly, looking broodingly at the cask.
"I thought I'd give you a chance to change your mind," Yumi said.
"Why?"
"Because I know what it is to be left alone. Completely alone."
"Do you."
"Yes. It isn't much fun. My life only began to improve recently, when there was suddenly someone beside me, asking me questions."
That made Sadako-san look up, straight at Yumi. Then she looked down, apparently at Yumi's hands. "You killed a demon last night, Yumi-san. Or so I heard."
"Sachiko-sama killed it."
"I heard you both killed it."
"I helped her. Maybe I helped her."
Sadako-san kept looking at Yumi's hands. Then she looked her in the eye again. "Sachiko-sama seems to like you."
Now Yumi blushed and looked away. "Sachiko-sama is... a very wonderful person. I really don't deserve --"
"I hate you.”
Yumi stared at Sadako-san.
Sadako-san dropped her eyes first and looked back at the cask. "No, I don't. I'm sorry I said that."
"Why did you say it?"
Sadako-san shrugged her shoulders.
"Please tell me. If I did something to make you hate me, I want to undo it."
"Your mistress loves you."
"Yes... I suppose..."
"Well, mine doesn't love me."
Yumi couldn't think of a thing to say, for a moment.
--
"What's wrong, Fujiwara-dono?" Youko was beginning to be worried by the look on Fujiwara-dono's face. She wished she hadn’t had any drink.
"Probably nothing, Mizuno-san. Don’t be too upset. But it might be as well to be careful. Yamiko-san is a good friend of mine. But her behavior is so unusual, this evening. And I have to say that the absence of Ren-san gives me some concern."
"Are we in danger here?"
"I think to call it ‘danger’ would be to overstate it. Oh, most certainly. Tell me, Mizuno-san, what do you think of Yamiko-san?"
"Strange... but I like her…" Youko looked across the room at Yamiko-sama, found that local space seemed to shape itself around her, and the weak taper-light they were all sitting in seemed brighter than it should, and more colorful. She still sat against the ladder where she’d been. Minamoto Bunko-san, Ayanokouji-kun’s mistress, was trying to wake her long enough to get her out of Yamiko-sama’s lap and into her bedroll. Yamiko-sama had been careful not to wake Ayanokouji-kun, but had not interfered with Minamoto-san’s efforts; only gracing her with the occasional over-friendly, drunken smile. With a little help from a grinning Sei, Minamoto-san finally got her sleepily annoyed imouto up and headed for bed.
Youko had trailed off, and Fujiwara-dono was looking at her expectantly. "Sorry, Fujiwara-dono. I like her. She’s an excellent hostess, and Sei obviously thinks very highly of her…"
“Sei certainly does,” Sei said, arriving. “What’s up?”
"Hard to say whether anything really is. I know, and now you know, of Yamiko-san's personal peculiarities, but there's still something none of us has done before, me included, and that's spend a night in her house. And there's too much we don't know about the situation. Watchfulness is important… Anyway, practical consideration, there isn't room here, for everybody," Fujiwara-dono said. "Some of us -- about twenty I think -- will go up to the annex. I'll be with that party. Satou-san and Mizuno-san, you will stay here with the rest of them."
"Shall we two sleep in watches?"
"I really don't think it's necessary... and anyway, Yamiko-san might be offended if you did that. But, well, try to sleep light, hm?"
Satou-san and Mizuno-san looked at one another. "We'll do our best, Fujiwara-dono."
--
Sachiko was unpacking her bedroll. This was a sort of large, straw-padded cloak with no sleeves.
"Are you going to sleep in that, Mistress?" Yumi asked her. She was kneeling next to Sachiko.
"We both are, Yumi."
"Oh. Um. Is there room?"
"I believe so. If we're friendly. We’re friendly, aren’t we, Yumi?" Sachiko smiled.
Yumi blushed.
Sachiko was surprised by how much she was looking forward to this. Before, she had used to wonder how her friends at the Mountain Lily Inn -- Rei-san and Yoshino-san, Sei-san and whoever-it-currently-was -- slept tangled up with someone else in their arms. She'd always been quite sure she'd feel stifled, claustrophobic, irritable at having to be that close to someone all the time. But over the last few days, sleeping with Yumi in her arms had come to seem completely natural to her, to such an extent that more than once, while Yumi had been missing yesterday, she had wondered how in the world she was going to get any sleep without her. And in the event, having carried Yumi upstairs, weary to the the bone, she had lain next to her, pulled her into her arms, and gone to sleep right away, like falling into a deep lake. Now they were going to sleep together in the bedroll, in a dark house on a mountain, with a rainstorm still going on outside. There was a romance to it that appealed to Sachiko.
All around them, everybody was settling down for the night. There were one or two arguments about someone taking up too much room, hushed by Youko-sama, who was at one end of the room with Touko-chan, while Sei-san took the other end with Shimako-san. Yamiko-sama was going to sleep in the attic -- she had assured them that she slept up there all the time -- but at the moment she was assuring Momoko-chan that of course, she could sleep with Mizuki in her bedroll, if Mizuki wanted to. Mizuki seemed to be offering Momoko-chan no argument on the point.
Now the tapers were being blown out, so that the only light would be the occasional lightning-flash. Sachiko told Yumi to get into the bedroll first. "That way I can seal it behind me."
Yumi got in. She said, wonderingly, "I've never slept on anything so soft, Mistress. Not even your pallet back at the inn. And it's so warm..."
Warmer still when Sachiko had finished doing up the cloak, and turned to put her arms around Yumi. Yumi turned and snuggled in right away, and put her own arms around Sachiko -- a thing she had done only once before, when she was frightened by the man at the temple baths. She pressed her face against Sachiko’s shoulder.
Sachiko drew a quick breath at this. She squeezed Yumi gently, and began to run her fingers through Yumi's hair. She felt Yumi sigh on her neck.
"Good night, all," said Yamiko-sama's voice from above, in the darkness. "It was good to have someone to talk to, and drink with, and sing with... I've been doing without, lately. I don't recommend it. Sleep... sleep, and dream of mist in the valleys and cloud on the mountaintops... From the depths to the heights, passing in and then out of light, and knowledge... nothing but mist, all the way up and all the way down..." The voice trailed away. There was a little nervous giggling, but mostly silence.
"Is something wrong?" Sachiko whispered in Yumi's ear. "Not that it's wrong to..." She trailed off and put a hand to Yumi's face, gently tilting it up so she could look her in the eye. "Oh, not wrong at all. You just --"
"I know." Yumi put a hand to Sachiko’s face, finding it with seeming ease despite the darkness. A flash of lightning illuminated them briefly a moment later. Sachiko was sure Yumi had caught her in that light looking less guarded than she ever had, that Yumi could see the girl, the child deep inside, hidden under the layers. "It's only... well, I was talking to Sadako-san earlier. She just became Hikaru-sama's famula. And she's hurt and sad because of it. I think she was hoping for a mistress she could feel close to, and Hikaru-sama..."
"What does Hikaru-san do?" Sachiko said. She was suddenly very alert. She had often wondered what sort of mistress Hikaru-san would make, when she got around to it.
"Oh, she's not deliberately unkind, Mistress. She just doesn't include Sadako-san in anything. A few of the girls just got taken on as famulae or sorores today, and their mistresses have been talking to them, teaching them things. Hikaru-sama has mostly ignored Sadako-san. So she's unhappy."
"Hmmm." There seemed suddenly to be a distance between them. Sachiko considered Yumi’s words carefully, and whispered back, "I believe that it sometimes takes time for a mistress and a soror to get used to one another. I shouldn't like to judge Hikaru-san and find her wanting on the basis of her first day as a mistress. I don't think I was the perfect mistress myself at first, was I? And am I now? Is there something you want me to do about this, Yumi? Because I don't know if --"
Yumi burrowed in again, squeezing tightly. "No, Mistress. I was just glad I have a mistress I can be like this with. That's all."
"Oh." Sachiko was startled. And relieved, she had to admit. "Oh. I see." She felt very warm. The slight distance there'd been a moment ago was gone. She stroked Yumi's hair a little more. "I'm glad too, little fox."
And earthly paradise moved slowly but surely into sleep.
--
Yumi was awakened by light.
At first she thought it was the sun of the new day, but on further sleepy examination the light filling the strange room was too eldritch to be sunlight. It was cool and soft like moonlight, but unnaturally bright. Sachiko-sama’s face, wonderfully close to Yumi’s, was etched in harsh shadows by the light.
Something was wrong.
Sachiko-sama's face was very close. Their noses were almost touching. But she was still asleep.
"Mistress?" Yumi shook Sachiko-sama. Harder. "Mistress!"
Sachiko-sama did not stir.
Yumi already knew Sachiko-sama was a heavy sleeper, but… she had a terrible moment there, looking at her mistress's face, one she would remember as long as she lived, and she feared the ultimate disaster -- but it was quickly dissipated: Sachiko-sama's face was warm to Yumi's trembling touch, her breast moved under Yumi's hand, and Yumi could feel breath on her lips, very gentle, when she held her face close. Sachiko-sama was definitely alive. She just wasn't waking up.
Yumi looked around and felt as if her blood had crystallized: Yamiko-sama was standing there, in the middle of the room with sleeping sorceresses around her feet, and looking directly into Yumi's eyes. Yumi squealed, a squeal she swallowed even as she made it, because she suddenly feared that too loud a noise might be her death.
Yumi held still. She wasn't trapped exactly, but the bedroll's doings were on Sachiko-sama's side, and wriggling out would be time-consuming, and Yamiko-sama, as Yumi had seen, was quick and nimble as anything. If Yamiko-sama meant her harm, Yumi was done for anyway, but Yumi held still, kept both arms curled at her side, ready to lash out, and waited...
...and gradually, it became clear that Yamiko-sama wasn't really looking at Yumi. Yumi happened to be lying in the direction Yamiko-sama's face was pointed, and that was all. Yamiko-sama's face was empty, and her eyes expressionless and unmoving. Yumi felt sure that her own face had changed a lot after her initial squeal of surprise: shock/horror, lip-biting tension, set determination, impatience -- the excessive mobility of her face had been remarked upon -- and Yamiko-sama had reacted to none of it. Hadn't seemed aware of any of it, even the sound of the squeal.
There's no one in there, Yumi thought. But where is Yamiko-sama, then?
Then, Yamiko-sama moved toward the garden door. She didn't look down, but her feet stepped around the sleeping sorceresses with eerie deftness, Yumi and Sachiko-sama last of all.
She slid open the garden door, and there was the moon, between two trees. It was full, and it was about twice as large as Yumi had ever seen it, as if it had moved closer when no one was looking.
The garden door slid shut behind Yamiko-sama.
The cats were going mad. They were leaping about, mewing excitedly, even growling.
Yamiko-sama's shadow, tall and dark against the paper door, swelled a-sudden, then dropped to the ground, on all fours. It was at least twice as large as it had been, but it was no longer the shadow of a woman. The moonlight moved, and the shadow stretched.
And the forms of the cats milling about on the floor, on the rafters, and crouched over the sleepers were also larger now. And their voices deepened a little, from the chirping of cats to the hisses and howls of women, all dancing and slinking about, tails and ears twitching, and all hissing over and over, "Mistress, Mistress, Mistress..."
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