Chapter Six
The Blind Girl
"We were attacked," explained the Shenwu, once they were seated around a small fire.
Though the cloudy skies did not allow them to discern what time it was, the dull light grey mistiness of the day was giving way to a dull dark grey fogginess. In general, it seemed as though the sun was setting and the time of the day was finally going to reflect the colour of Amefuri's mood.
"Not long after you left, a few days after the Black Dragon rose, one of the parts of the nine-headed beast found us. She has long dwelled in the waters of the rivers, a corrupting, blackening influence, causing hitherto mighty life-giving rivers to turn into streams of poison and water no longer suitable for anything. She found us through the Shoryuu, and attacked in the night."
"We saw your camp," said Amefuri, grimly and rather bluntly. "We thought you'd all died."
"We did lose some of our finest," said the Shenwu, his lined face reflecting deep sorrow.
"And your home," added Reishun.
The Shenwu looked a bit puzzled at this suggestion. "We did not lose our home," he said, frowning. "You cannot lose a place you never ... owned."
Donghai, sitting across from the Shenwu and Reishun, squinted at the man, not sure if he was being interesting or just strangely vague. It was true that these Black Bear people had arrived just in the nick of time and saved all of their lives. But since then it had been a lot of walking and talking, and not much of it felt clear to Donghai. He was not fond of vagueness and disclaimers. Oh, he enjoyed a good metaphor every now and again, but when it came down to it, he really preferred clarity and directness. No point beating about the bush.
"So are you nomads?" he asked, keeping his voice as polite as he could. There was a lot of coldness, irritation and unnecessarily acerbic crap going around in the camp, mostly bouncing from Amefuri to Reishun and back, and everyone was getting caught in the crossfire. He was determined to be as reasonable and civil as was possible. Not to mention that he was still responsible for twenty children - who had been firmly seated around a different fire and were now being fed by the rather disgruntled ninja-type warriors who were not scouting the woods around them.
"In a manner of speaking," said the Shenwu. "Those caves were our home for the longest time. Since the nine-headed beast has released almost all the clasps placed on her, we decided that it was best to move. Some of our tribe - women, children and old soldiers mostly - have shifted to a different village. But our tribe has tracked and battled the nine-headed beast too long to not participate in the battle against her."
"Wait, what does that mean?" asked Donghai, determined to speak in clear sentences and get things sorted. "Who is this nine-headed beast person, that snake that Miss Wu Ming killed in the woods?"
The Shenwu smiled at his eagerness, the lines on his face stretching out as he did so. "I can trust you," he said, with a hint of delight and warmth. Donghai wondered how he may have reacted if he had though he wasn't trustable. "You seem clean at heart. Why else would you rescue all these children-"
"Nearly got them killed," added Amefuri, and Donghai had to admit this was quite true. He looked over at Amefuri and sighed. She was sitting a few paces away on a rock as though determined not to join any circles or spaces that could stand as a metaphor for camaraderie and warmth. Her loss, really, for it was pretty cold that morning. The cloudy skies, grumbling overhead occasionally, made it impossible for the meager warmth of the winter sun to reach the ground, and as a result, everything was grey. The small fire they had built too seemed dull, as though its colours had faded.
"Your heart is in the right place," said the Shenwu, "and that is what matters. "So I will tell you the truth, though I urge you not to share this indiscriminately. The nine-headed beast is a creature we, the Black Bear people, have fought for centuries. Thousands of years ago, she was most likely a shaman, like myself, who ventured too far towards the realm of the gods. It is difficult to say what she wanted, but she had dark desires at the core of her being - desires to gain power, not to rule, but to destroy the balance of heaven and earth as we know it."
"Why?" asked Donghai again, feeling a bit stupid. He was missing something, clearly. "Why would anyone want to destroy the balance? Isn't it more self-serving to want to take over the heavens or so...?"
"It is not for us to know why she is operating in the way that she is," said the Shenwu, looking strained. "We can only put together the pieces of the puzzles that we are aware of. We know that thousands of years ago, when she violated the natural laws of heaven and earth, the gods split her being into nine pieces. Some of those fragments are human - like the commander of Sairou's forces, who is conspiring with the Black Dragon, or so it seems anyway. Those fragments can only be reunited once the sacred scroll that binds our universe together, the treatise of the gods, is destroyed."
"I don't understand," said Donghai, in what he felt was a dramatic understatement. "You just said she has released the clasps-"
"Not all," said the Shenwu. "Or she would have known the pain of integration and become a whole being. If you think the Black Dragon, who she has fooled, is powerful, you have no notion of how terrible the nine-headed beast can be. For as a shaman and a wise woman, she is powerful on earth; and in her dealings with the gods, she had become powerful in heaven. She is a channel, you see, by nature able to traverse between the worlds. Without the bounds of natural laws, she could rule or destroy as she saw fit.
"I imagine that this is why you are moving, to find the final copy of the book - the one your warrior friend was seeking," he said to Reishun, who scowled. "The one, I think, you are seeking now..."
"Do you know anything about it?" asked Amefuri, still seated very quietly - deceptively demure, Donghai thought - on the rock and listening very intently. "We have heard nothing but rumblings and stories from old crones..."
"Unfortunately, we are guided by little else. There are two tales that offer some clues about the whereabouts of the final - and I think original - manuscript. There is the tale about an old man who travelled to the east, towards the rising sun, who was the first writer. He learned how to write on oracle bones and brought the art back to our lands. And so we too are travelling to the east, though there is just as good a chance that we find it in Hokkan - the oldest and most magical of the four kingdoms. East is our best guess, however, I think. She has already corrupted so many rivers and towns in Hokkan. Are you then willing," he added, looking from Amefuri to Reishun rather cautiously, "to travel together with us for a while?"
Donghai looked away, feeling as he sometimes did with the two women, that he was rather out of his element. The best anyone could have said about him, really, was that he was an honest bandit, which was truly not saying too much on the whole. He was not sure where he was going, or what he would do with the twenty children now that he had rescued them. No one really talked about these parts of rescue missions. Heroes swept in and out of dangerous situations, getting away unscathed and looking pretty cool. Not often did people comment on why the hero in question was such a doofus that he needed to go barge into dangerous situations all the time, or what he did with the rescued damsels and children afterwards.
"What about these children?" asked Reishun, voicing his fears for him. "And Donghai? We can't very well keep dragging him into dangerous situations all the time."
Donghai smiled. He could appreciate how considerate she was being, given that not long ago, she had knocked him into a cauldron and tied him up herself. He did seem to be getting into an unusual amount of trouble, even for a bandit. But he certainly wasn't about to take a step back from the fight. Not to mention-
"Seems like he's creating them for himself," snapped Amefuri, tossing them all a contemptuous look and going back to glaring at an unfortunate squirrel.
"She's right," said Donghai, smiling despite the acerbic nature of Amefuri's words. "This was my doing. And," he added, as Reishun opened her mouth to argue, mostly because she seemed unable to not rise to Amefuri's baits, "I want to come along. Once we can find a safe place for the children, that is."
"We can take the children to Chouhou," said the Shenwu, presently, looking at Donghai. "I can think of a few orphanages who would take them in. Though it isn't the best solution..."
"No," said Donghai, shaking his head. It truly wasn't. The harsh and horrible truth was most of these children were already orphans, and those who hadn't been before were now likely to be, in the outbreak of the skirmish at Takeshi's camp. "It isn't. But it is the best we have."
"I'll come with you," said Amefuri, a little surprisingly. It seemed that something about the children seemed to propel her into something that almost resembled humanity. Then, she turned to Reishun. "You can stay here and recover," she threw at her, sounding like she was saying something altogether rude. As she stood, Donghai blinked.
"Do you mean NOW?" he asked, suddenly alarmed.
"Once they have eaten," said Amefuri, still sounding like she was holding back on a rude name or two at the end of her proclamation. "Do you have something better to do?" She turned to stalk off, leaving Donghai to resonate with Reishun's rather hurt and shaken expression. The whole thing was moving quickly, as he knew it must, but it left him with a sense of worry. What would happen to those children - he had to struggle not to think of them as "his" children - if they left them at the capital? It wasn't as though the city was particularly better off as compared to the rest of the country. He wanted more time, more sureness, to know that he would not be leaving them to die or get caught in another political skirmish amongst the claimants to the throne.
"I am coming too," said Reishun, snapping him out of his reverie, to no one in particular, sounding almost a bit defiant. As he turned to look at the rather pretty girl, looking prone and more than a little sulky, he began to consider the possibility that for all her efficiency and intuition, she had missed the boat with Amefuri a bit.
Long after the last song had been sung and the last dance danced, Hikari found herself lying in bed with her eyes deliberately wide and open. Nyan Nyan was curled up next to her, a small warm bundle under the blankets. Snow fell on the little village again that night, and the prospect of stepping out into the cold again was terrible.
But tempting as it was to stay, though, Hikari could not get the music and laughter out of her mind. She couldn't bear to think of what it would be like if the Black Dragon swept in over them. It would take him no time at all to eviscerate everything, their hopes and dreams, their laughter. She could hear Batu snoring in the next room, a gentle, grumbly almost welcoming sound that reminded her of home as well.
It was with a lot of effort that she straightened up, pushing the blankets off herself and reaching for the coat Batu had offered to give her in exchange for the monstrous coat she had stolen, which Batu thought would fit one of Tomite's cousins. As she turned to wake Nyan Nyan up, she noticed something outside the window, something small and still and unmoving, only barely silhouetted in the light of the fire.
Hikari's heart turned to ice, and she knew, even before she rose from the bed, that it was the little blind girl.
The little girl stood very still on the frozen ground. Hikari didn't know how, but she was starkly aware that the girl was watching her without sight, watching her in a way that was somehow all the more terrifying.
The little girl was dressed in a frail sort of coat that looked like it was too short for her. She must have stolen it from some child somewhere. Her feet were burrowed within the snow and it seemed as though she had been standing there for a long time, not ten feet from the window of the house where Hikari slept, watching...
Hikari rose carefully from the cot, keeping her eyes firmly on the little girl. A part of her wanted to scream - in terror and as a warning. If she was here, certainly, no good could come of it. But for some reason, she walked to the window and watched the tiny figure instead. She wasn't sure what the different parts of the nine-headed beast could do or if she had any extraordinary powers.
But, if she did have some powers, wouldn't she have used them by now? Hadn't Hikari been more vulnerable than this in the last few weeks...?
Later, Hikari wouldn't be able to say what had made her do it, but she was suddenly determined to ask her what she was up to. Was she going to kill her or just watch her?
The part of her that was terrified resisted mightily, setting up a mental diatribe of "BAD IDEA, BAD EFFING IDEA HIKARI YOU DUMDUM" in her mind, and her heart pounded. But she was oddly drawn to the girl. She thought briefly of waking Nyan Nyan, or Batu, or Tomite. But she knew what they would do - call the little girl "evil" (Hikari had to admit that this was probably true) and drive her away, or worse, while Nyan Nyan sobbed. She felt almost defensive against the idea, protective, as she had felt protective of her rage and grief and hatred.
It was so cold that Hikari nearly cried herself, mostly from the memory of her horrifying experiences the night before. How could the little girl be standing there in the snow like that?! Then another thought occurred to her. Had the little girl followed her in those clothes in the snowstorm as well?
As the girl turned her head to place her iris-less eyes on Hikari, her mind offered her some nasty suggestions. Maybe she's not really alive and so she doesn't feel much. Maybe she's a zombie, an undead child who likes to feast on human flesh. Maybe she's only here for your eyes, and will gouge them out to eat them. How do you think she got that coat from the other child in the first place? Hikari almost moaned, but reminded herself, against the images of scary, zombie-esque, flesh-eating children, that Commander Xiang had burned, burned like flesh and blood, and that Hong Jiu had sweated all over the corridor of the Palace at Eiyou, leaving behind an aroma she had sensed even though she had only been there in a dreamscape.
Still, her hands shook rather violently as she stepped up to the girl, almost expecting her to lunge at Hikari or scream or do something hideous. She was about four feet away from her when she decided this was close enough for comfort, though she had no idea what she was about to do.
Up close she could see the girl's face more clearly. She was not, as Hikari had imagined, possessed with porcelain white skin, scarily unblemished. If anything, the blemishes seemed real, and oddly human. Around her eyes were jagged scars, now faded to white. They were vicious, imprecise, and, Hikari realised with a jolt, had clearly been made by human nails. As though someone had, in a moment of deep anger lashed out and been unable to stop, and as a result almost literally scratched her eyes out. Her wrists were thin, thinner than seemed right, her face white under what looked like several layers of dirt, and her hair matted, long and circling into frightfully filthy dreadlocks. As the snow landed on her head, some of it slipped, coming off a different colour.
Hikari had seen homeless children, of course, both in person in certain parts of Tokyo and on the internet. In her furious research as a self-proclaimed political activist who wanted to learn all about Burkina Faso and Somalia and the starvation and hunger problems of the world, she had seem pictures of emaciated children, filthy, abandoned and forlorn. Though this girl was slightly better fed than some of those children, Hikari thought she had never seen something quite so pathetic and uncared for.
There was something about the sight the little girl presented, the idea of her standing outside in the snow and looking towards the window of a warmer house... something about the mismatched clothes, the feet buried beneath the falling snow... something quite lost, and forlorn, and in a rather strange way, something recognisable. Hikari knew what it was to be that cold now, and she was suddenly confused. Why, if she wasn't going to kill her, was she standing in the cold like that?
"Aren't you cold?" asked Hikari, unable to think of anything else to say.
The girl stared at her for so long and so piercingly that Hikari began to wonder whether she could hear her at all and if she truly was going to feast on her flesh. She certainly looked thin enough to think of that as a healthy prospect. Finally, the little girl nodded twice, slowly, and drew her hands out of her pockets to show her blue fingers, torn in placed where blood had frozen to look almost black. Hikari almost recoiled at the sight, and suddenly knew what she wanted to do.
Still, rationality demanded that she have at least a modicum of self-preservation. "Are you going to kill me?" she asked, trying not to look at the girl's hands and unable to look away. Could she retain those fingers or were they lost to frostbite? Hikari shuddered at the thought of an ancient Chinese amputation, without medicines or anesthesia or a doctor.
The girl stared at her again, as though not quite comprehending her question. A minute later, just as Hikari was about to repeat herself, she shook her head.
"Okay," said Hikari. "Wait here for two minutes, and I'll come back."
But as she turned, a small hand reached for hers and gripped it with sudden, swift urgency. Hikari turned to find the girl shaking her head, and though her expression did not change, Hikari had the distinct impression she was scared. "Um, but," Hikari began. She had been about to wake up Batu and ask for help, and explain the situation gently. She didn't know how to deal with frostbites and skinny hungry little girls half frozen to death. But she had to admit she had no idea what Batu would do. For all she knew, the older woman would think drowning the little girl in the hot springs was a better idea.
There was no reason to trust the little girl either. The last time Hikari had been this close to her, she had taken blood from her arm. On the other hand, she had only been doing what she had been told to. Maybe she had been instructed only to watch Hikari. Or maybe it was smarter to draw her away and kill her where no one could hear her screams. And then feast on her flesh.
Hikari scowled, making up her mind. "Okay," she said, "I'm going to trust you. Don't eat me."
The little girl hung her head, but did not let go of Hikari's hand. Her fingers were like blocks of idea. Taking a deep breath, Hikari led the girl through the village towards the hot springs.
It became quickly clear to her that her ability to consistently "watch" Hikari had nothing to do with vision at all. The girl was completely blind and stumbled on everything in her path, rocks and twigs and little blocks of snow. She fell so often that Hikari started to guide her verbally, and eventually, when it seemed as though she really wouldn't be able to make it, offered to carry her. The girl clambered into her arms almost immediately, clinging to Hikari so tightly that she almost couldn't breathe. But after that they made quicker progress.
Everything in the snow covered forest was silent and grey. Hikari was oddly unafraid, given that she was carrying the thing she was most terrified of in her arms. It was almost painfully silent but even that was oddly comforting. She would hear anything or anyone if they came close enough to bother her. It was strange, and she felt quite weird doing it, and at the same time, she felt comfortable, almost sort of ... as though this was the right thing to do.
If the girl was only doing what she was told, then she wasn't dangerous until she was told to be. And there was no one to tell her to do anything, not here in the silent bowels of Hokkan's mountains. And if Hikari had learned anything today, it was that a little kindness could go a long way.
So she carried her to the caves with the hot springs. When the girl stood by the pool, looking completely confused, Hikari undressed her and led her into the pool. It was unnerving, not only because of the girl's slightly odd disposition, but also because of how easily she trusted Hikari. She did everything Hikari asked her to, undressing with no shame and complete candor, stepping into the pool when asked, sitting down at the spot Hikari indicated, so that Hikari could use the warm water to bathe her, slightly awkwardly at first, and then with ease, taking care to be very gentle. It occurred to her that the little girl's did not trust so much as she obeyed.
For a girl so little that she barely came up to Hikari's thigh, she was scarred everywhere. Her wrists and ankles were marked with white scars from manacles, as though they had been burned into her skin. Her right ear had a similar mark and seemed almost shredded. There were whip marks all over her back, though these seemed more precise, more careful than the scratches over her eyes. As Hikari bathed her, she found herself horrified and terribly moved, both disgusted and full of a painfully soft compassion. It was difficult now, sitting here in the pool, to be scared of the child. A distant part of her mind remained aware that such obedience could just as swiftly be turned into a weapon. But the scars on her body, her complete surrender, her total lack of fight, made it very difficult to feel anything other than pity.
After she had bathed her, Hikari made her stay in the water, to unfreeze her fingers and toes, while she washed her clothes. She was not too sure how frostbite worked, but she had a vague idea that it was better to keep the fingers and toes in a warm space for as long as possible. A while later, when the clothes were washed, she had the girl hold her fingers up to find they had almost completely healed. That was a little odd. But then again, her own scars along her arms were a lot better as well. The water in the springs, for whatever reason, was healing them both.
Indicating that the little should put her hands back into the water, Hikari sat down and considered the situation. They had a while before the clothes dried, and the hot water was a good way to stay warm. Hikari too sat by the pool and put her feet in, this time consciously noticing that the small aches and pains in her feet dissipated in a few moments. This didn't surprise her as much as it might have before; after everything she had been through, magic hot springs were hardly a bolt from the blue.
"Are you going to talk to me now?" she asked the girl, presently, but knew that she wouldn't. "Can you talk?" she asked, as an afterthought, to be rewarded with a small nod after a long moment. It was as though words took longer for the girl to process, as though she was a bit slow. Or perhaps it had just been a while since someone had spoken to her. "It's okay if you don't want to talk," added Hikari, shrugging.
The questions that had started to form in her mind before, after the nature of the nine-headed beast, came back to her as she considered the girl. She was sure that either Jiang the black-eyed, black-hearted and cruel commander who had accosted Reishun and her at Shishantsung, or Commander Xiang, who somehow felt like the political head of their creepy little outfit, the voice, the most visible and for all intents the leader, had told the little girl to follow her.
"Did Jiang tell you to follow me?" she asked, finally, deciding to simply check.
The girl's white eyes pierced Hikari again, and again, for the longest time, it seemed as though she would not answer. But then, at long last, she nodded, twice, slowly, as was her wont.
Hikari nodded as well, processing this. "And he told you not to kill me?" Again, a pause, and then two nods, slow but sure.
"And if he had told you to kill me, you would have done that?" asked Hikari, and was rewarded with a deep chill and shudder as the girl nodded again. "Even now?" she asked, her heart beginning to race a little.
The girl paused for a slightly longer time at this, as though thinking about it. In the end she did nod, but Hikari noticed two shimmering tears roll down her cheeks and into the pool - as though she did not want to, but would be compelled by Jiang no matter what she wanted. It was almost like he was her parent, a cruel and unrelenting father. But Hikari decided now to test out another theory she had been formulating for the last few weeks.
"Is Jiang... are you... are you both pieces of the nine-headed beast? Are you a part of him?"
But this time the girl shrugged, looking very distraught and almost depressed, as though not being able to answer the question made her fearful and sad. She wanted to please Hikari, the thirteen-year-old realised, even if she would not hesitate to kill her if she was ordered to. Maybe she was afraid that if she didn't, Hikari would hurt her. "It's okay," she said, trying to keep her voice soothing. "Don't worry about it." Then, deciding to change the subject to happier matters, she asked, "Are you hungry? I can sneak you out some food later if you like. You could come in-" As the girl started to shake her head vigorously, Hikari cut herself off. "Okay, don't come in. I'll bring some food out to you. Would you like that?"
And again, a short pause as though it took her a long time to process kindness, and two short, slow nods.
The snow had stopped falling and the sky was turning from black to greyish pink when they emerged from the caves, the little girl's clothes having dried up for the most of it. Hikari wasn't sure what they were to do now. She didn't want the girl to leave by any measure, but she knew taking her back to the village was not an option - because of how scared the girl was and also because of how the villagers would respond.
In the end, she decided that packing her with food was the best she could really. And maybe when she travelled here on out, she would keep an eye out for her. A part of her wondered if she was just generally being kind or stupid or actually rather cunning by making friends with one of the "enemy". But the truth was the girl would kill her if told to, and Hikari had no doubt about it. She didn't LIKE the girl, but felt infinite pity for the creature, for she didn't seem to be in control, exactly. If anything she was like a highly obedient and very ill-treated pet. And somehow, spending time with the girl had been less upsetting and undoing than spending time with Batu, or Tomite and Hikitsu, whose respective dispositions left Hikari winded and terrified.
In a strange way, she was looking forward to running away from their homely village and exuberance and songs and beauty. She didn't want to make friends, like Tomite had almost insisted on doing, or talk about her plans, or share and ask for support and eat in groups. She didn't want any of it, even though the physical comfort was tempting. She wanted the shroud of her solitude back, the quietness in which she could hide her deepest fears and darkest feelings, and protect everyone else from her own fate. In a way it was fitting for her to make friends with the enemy; a part of her knew she had to confront the nine-headed beast at some point before it all ended.
As they reached the village, though, Hikari realised her craving was not to be satisfied. In the center of the huts, beside the fire that had been rekindled to smolder and splutter in the snowy morning, sat the tall rider, her other pursuant. There was no time to run, for even as Hikari registered his presence, he looked up, locking his gaze on her so his presence - and her failure to keep him away - was inescapable.
Eian.
