ELEVENTH SCROLL: SASA SANCTUARY
Once down the mountain, I paused at the crossroads to read the signs and get my bearings. I had been through all of Taka Pass before going to Kusa Village and had seen no signs of any dogs. The bridge to Seian City was raised, so it was doubtful that any Canine Warriors had crossed the river; the cliffs were far too steep for any of them to climb. And there was something nagging the back of my mind…a memory that I couldn't quite catch…something to do with the Satomi orbs…
The chime of the Canine Tracker disrupted my chain of thought. It drifted to the left, although the tempo of the chimes did not increase. Curious, I walked in that direction. Ahead stood a tall torii gate arch. I had gone right past it before because the path under it led to a sheer stone wall. A fat little man was huffing and puffing, trying to push through the cliff. This time I stopped and read the signpost. It said "Sasa Sanctuary." I looked at the Canine Tracker, which was still trying to drift in that direction. Mr. Bamboo had said that the Sparrow Clan closed the gates to Sasa Sanctuary…could one of the Canine Warriors been trapped inside, unable to leave? I did not know how strong the Sparrow Clan was, but perhaps they posed a challenge, even to a Satomi Warrior. Still, it was worth looking into. Perhaps I could find a way to sneak into Sasa Sanctuary if the Sparrows refused to cooperate. It would be a bit of a challenge getting over that cliff, but I had to try.
But as I loped up the path, a curious thing happened. The rock barring my path simply…vanished. Like it had never been. I stopped. There was no eerie green light like at the base of Sakuya's tree or when I'd passed beneath the Harumi Lake gate, indicating that I'd passed into the spirit realm. It was more like some kind of illusion. I turned, ran back under the gate and circled around it. This time, the stone stayed as it was. I padded up next to the fat man and sniffed the stone. Then I pawed it, and, finally, gave it a good head-butt. No, the stone was solid out here. The fat man kept babbling about how Sasa Sanctuary was on the other side and how those of pure heart and noble intentions were the only ones who could enter. I wondered if he had bothered to go under the gate, but perhaps the illusion only dropped when a pure-hearted being passed beneath the gate. With a shrug of my shoulders, I loped back around and passed under the gate again to drop the illusion. I entered a narrow pass lined with clumps of bamboo without any trouble. Interesting. It seemed Sasa Sanctuary was not quite part of the spirit world, but it wasn't quite connected to the living world either.
At the end of the narrow pass was a bathhouse. Clumps of ornamental bamboo ran along the edges of the stone path and a wooden gate barred the entrance. Aside from rhythmic tapping of bamboo water fountains, the place was eerily silent. The bathhouse was built so that there was no way to sneak around to the side, and there were no Konohana blossoms. Unless I suddenly grew wings, I would have to enter through the front door. I took a single step forward.
A flurry of angry chirrups and beating wings came from the top floor of the bathhouse. Standing on either side of a balcony were two members of the Sparrow Clan. They were indeed sparrows, but they stood about half the height of a human and wore simple kimonos with a small dagger slipped into each of their belts. Both were fluttering about in great agitation, making all kinds of dire warnings, threats, and demands. They said that for my insolence, I would have to answer to the great Jamba. I tensed as part of the balcony wall swiveled, revealing the biggest sparrow I had ever seen! He was easily twice the height and three times the width of his lackeys. A black silk patch covered one eye and his costume was richer and more elaborate than the simple robes of the guards. So this was Jamba, leader of the Sparrow Clan. I could not tell if his expression was of contempt or boredom. However, when his only response to his underlings' urges to take me on was a single chirp, I began to suspect the latter. When the underlings reacted as though their boss was really angry, my skepticism grew. Still, even if the great Jamba wasn't showing any emotion, I gleaned from his underlings' twittering that his daughter Chun was missing and that her disappearance was the reason Sasa Sanctuary had been sealed. The doors would not open until she was found.
Suddenly, I remembered the strange old woman, Mrs. Cutter who had chased me away from that creepy house the previous day. My blood ran cold. What if the young Sparrow had been captured by her? I turned tail and raced from Sasa Sanctuary. My abrupt departure caught Issun off-guard; I could hear him yelling around my ears as he clung to my fur. He stopped when I reached the gate that led to the Cutters' house. Now he realized why I was in such a hurry and did not argue about it. He'd also felt the strange atmosphere in the valley. This time, I did not see Mrs. Cutter with her large basket, but there was a gnarled old man with a long mustache and a twisted cane in his hand standing outside the house. When he saw me, his little eyes lit up with glee and said that I would make a fine addition to the sparrow at their table that evening. I snarled and charged, determined to knock him aside and ransack the house to find the Sparrow child.
Unlike a normal human, Mr. Cutter did not flinch at the sight of an angry charging wolf. He leapt forward swinging his cane. I dodged, but he was faster than I thought and landed a blow on my side. Yelping, I twisted out of the way. The blow hurt far more than it should have; I felt bruised and the stink of dead flesh and dried blood filled my nostrils. Mr. Cutter closed in and, like with his wife, I retreated. Once beyond the gate, Mr. Cutter stopped pursuing me and I slowed to a limping walk. My side was throbbing with pain. Issun hopped down to take a look. The skin was not broken, but the skin felt tender and I flinched at the slightest touch.
Neither Issun nor I wanted to stay near the Cutters' house while I was like this, so I limped up to the Mermaid Spring to rest and think of a plan. Issun even found some herbs to place on my side that eased the sting. I whimpered my thanks and rested my head on my paws. The sound of the running spring was soothing, but my thoughts kept running in circles. The Cutters had the young Sparrow Chun. I had to rescue her. Who knew how long she'd been imprisoned? And yet the Cutters were more formidable than I had expected. There was something unnatural about them and it made my fur stand on end and strangely reluctant to fight them head-on. If a glancing blow from Mr. Cutter's stick had hurt me so badly, what could Mrs. Cutter's knife do?
It was then that Issun presented an idea. Like me, he suspected that Mr. and Mrs. Cutter were not what they appeared to be. He told me that monsters hiding within the bodies of humans or those who wore illusions could not keep up such a ruse when exposed to moonlight. Perhaps if we dragged the Cutters out under the moon at night their weakness might be exposed. Since the Cutters didn't seem likely to eat their prey before nightfall (and because I had no better plan), I agreed. I just hoped that, hungry as they were, the Cutters would not decide to start their feast early.
As the sun started to set, I rose and loped back to the Cutters' house. The herbs Issun gave me had taken away most of the pain and I was no longer limping. Now I was angry. I did not approach the house from the gate, but rather went to the edge of the cliff overlooking the house. From up here, the house looked normal enough, but I could feel the evil aura wafting up from the little valley. Mrs. Cutter was outside cutting some plants with her cleaver. The huge basket was still strapped to her back. The lid shuddered, as if something was trying to get out, and a few feathers poked out. Either Chun was still alive and stuffed into that basket, or the Cutters had ensnared another Sparrow. Mrs. Cutter hurried inside as the last light of the setting sun vanished and the evening star appeared.
I waited until the moon rose, listening intently, but there was no sound of a Sparrow crying, only a faint scraping sound that set my teeth on edge. The sound of a knife being sharpened. As soon as I was sure that the moon was high enough, I leapt down into the valley. I did not want to enter the Cutters' house through the front door. Surprise was the only way this plan would work. Luckily the house was not tall, and it was in bad shape. A piece of wood lay propped against the side. I clambered up, and found that part of the roof had a hole in it. It was shabbily patched with a few rotting boards. Issun peeked through the narrow gap, and then hopped back onto my head. The Cutters were inside, both of them. I took a deep breath, and jumped onto the boards.
The wood was too weak to support my weight. I dropped down in a shower of splinters. Mrs. Cutter gave a yelp as I broke through her ceiling. I did not wait, but grabbed her by the scruff of her kimono and pulled her into the pool of moonlight. She screamed and swept her cleaver at me, forcing me to let go. I jumped back and crouched, ready to attack again…and froze as I saw her shadow. It was not of a human. It was something…else. Something demonic. She shrieked again in rage, a sound that human throats were not meant to make. I bolted from the house and the two Cutters followed me, screaming obscenities in their hate. As they left the house, the moonlight poured down upon them and they shed their human forms. In their place, a pair of demons rose up on ash-grey wings. Tengu. That's what they were. Among the demons, tengu and kitsune were the most intelligent, and the most likely to use human forms to hide their true nature. These two must have decided this was a good hunting ground, killed the previous occupants of the house, and claimed it as their own.
The two tengu shrieked and drew their swords. Each also held a fan which could be used as a shield. I howled back and lashed out with both Brush and Divine Instrument. I drove back the tengu that had been Mr. Cutter, forcing him to use only his fan to ward off my blows. The second tengu, Mrs. Cutter, swooped, intending to slice me in two, but I dodged. I used my Brush to slice off her wings, grounding her. Mr. Cutter raised his fan and lunged forward. His rage made him careless. Without his fan shield, I cut him down easily, then finished off the former Mrs. Cutter as she writhed on the ground. Without their illusions or a human host, tengu were just as vulnerable to my power as any other demon. The death I had dealt to these two was far quicker and more merciful than the ones given to their victims.
As the broken bodies turned into flowers, I felt the evil aura in the valley dissipate and heaved a sigh of relief. My great anger and the bloodlust that burned in my veins abated. I went back into the house, which still sank of decay but no longer felt evil, and looked for Mrs. Cutter's box. She had dropped it when I grabbed her. I pulled it out into the clean night air and Issun cut through the fastening with his tiny sword. A young female Sparrow tumbled out with a squawk. She sprang to her feet. She must have heard the dying cries of the two tengu because she didn't seem scared at all. She thanked me for rescuing her from the tengu and petted my fur. I gave her a toothy smile; she was still a youngling, probably no older than Kokari from Agata Forest or the little boy Mushi in Kamiki Village. I suppose Issun didn't care for children because he wasn't thrilled about having to escort her back to Sasa Sanctuary. Chun reciprocated the ill-will, calling him stupid. I growled at the Poncle. There was no way I was letting a child wander around Taka Pass at night, especially after what she had been through. He'd been fine with rescuing her from the Cutters, but apparently babysitting was not something he cared for.
The walk back to Sasa Sanctuary was mercifully short and uneventful. Chun chattered happily the whole way and was overjoyed to be reunited with her father Jamba. The underlings were shocked when I came trotting up to their gate with their little missing Sparrow. They claimed that Jamba was very happy although all he did was chirp once and continue looking bored. Or perhaps he was happy; the faces of Sparrows are hard to read. When Chun told them what had happened, the two underling Sparrows unlocked the gate and told me to come see Jamba in his receiving hall.
The inside of Sasa Sanctuary looked very much like any other bathhouse…except that all of the staff were Sparrows. I walked up the main stairs and climbed into an elevator that took me to the third floor of the building, which was apparently reserved for Jamba. Once again I was thanked for saving Chun (once again, Chun and the two guards interpreted Jamba's monosyllable chirps) and gave me free access to all of Sasa Sanctuary. I was glad, for the Canine Tracker was making noise again, although the Sparrows didn't seem to notice the Tracker any more than the villagers of Kusa Village had. After bowing my thanks, I went to explore the rest of the bathhouse.
Some of the rooms had various guests, none of which was a dog. Once I had looked in all of them, I followed my nose down a hallway that led to an outdoor hot spring. Or what used to be a hot spring. A dry stone depression under a massive bamboo water fountain sat where a hot spring should be with a distressed Sparrow bath attendant doing some kind of dancing ritual with a pair of torches. Part of me wanted to stop and examine the spring, but the Canine Tracker was chiming more urgently, drifting towards another passage on the other side of the courtyard. I followed it past some lit lanterns and up a set of stone stairs. A bamboo forest loomed on the other side of the fence lining the stairs. They almost blocked out the stars, the stalks were so dense. No wonder Mr. Bamboo enjoyed coming here.
As I climbed I heard someone sobbing up ahead. The odd, hiccupping tweets meant it was probably a Sparrow. Sure enough, at the top of the stairs sat a very large Sparrow. He was bigger than the others, although not quite as big as Jamba. For some reason, I thought that he was probably picked on a lot because of that. I nudged him and whined softly. Issun was not so gentle. He asked what was up with the kid Sparrow's "freaky cry." I growled, but neither the Sparrow, who called himself Tai, nor Issun noticed. Tai explained that he was crying because his dog Take had gotten lost while they were walking. His sorrow reminded me of how Kokari had been when his dog Ume. I glanced at the Canine Tracker. It was whirring faster now, which meant that this dog Take was probably nearby…and one of the Satomi Warriors. I nudged Tai up the second stairs, trying to tell him that we would look for his dog together. Still sniffling, he followed me.
At the top of the stairs was a wide bamboo grove. Here, the stalks were as tall as trees and they rustled in the wind. The moon cast strange shadows but bathed the center of the grove in silver light. The center of the grove was clear of bamboo. Instead, there was a strange seal cut into the ground. It was too large for me to really see it properly, but something about it made me tremble. I was not afraid, but I did feel…sad. Something sad had happened here… or something sad was connected to this place. I looked up at the moon shining brightly above me. It looked so close…
The sight of one of biggest bamboo shoots glowing interrupted my reverie. The Canine Tracker went crazy hovering next to it. I used my Power Slash to cut open the bamboo, revealing a dog with a purple Satomi orb around his neck. Like Chi, this one had somehow become trapped within the bamboo. However, unlike Chi, this dog did not want to be fed. He was growling, even as Tai chirped with delight. We had found Take, but he was not pleased to see us. He introduced himself as Gi and challenged us to battle. He attacked with a series of lunges, but he was not as powerful as Tei. I dodged his strikes, but Gi kicked pebbles into my face, momentarily blinding me. I leapt into the air and heard the snick of his teeth closing just below. Anger filled me. Here I was trying to find these Canine Warriors and all they could do was beg for food or fight me. They were wasting valuable time while Orochi grew more entrenched in Nihon! Still unable to see, I drew a Cherry Bomb. I knew Gi could dodge the explosion, but he could not jump as high as I. I felt the concussion below me. I landed and rubbed my eyes with one paw. When I could see, I looked over to find Gi lying on the ground, stunned. I walked over to him and placed my paw on his throat, growling.
Something buffeted me across the head. Startled, I backed up. It was Tai, come to stop the fight. His feathers puffed out as he squawked at me to leave Take alone. I sat down, my anger fading. Gi seemed to have calmed as well. He explained that he had heard Princess Fuse's summons, but he dared not leave the Sparrow Clan for fear that demons would overrun it. Although we had been fighting just moments ago, it was plain that he did feel torn between these two conflicting duties. I felt sympathy, but was not sure how to resolve such a conflict. But then, the Satomi orb around Gi's neck began to glow. It grew brighter and brighter and suddenly flew forward to hover over my Divine Instrument. The aura of power that I'd come to associate with the Canine Warriors was gone from Gi. Gi's (or should I say, Take's?) tongue lolled in a dog's smile. He said that the Satomi orb had chosen and that he no longer needed to worry. He would remain in Sasa Sanctuary to protect the Sparrow Clan. Both Issun and I were confused…but I did not feel like arguing the matter. I had found one of the three missing Canine Warriors. If Princess Fuse really wanted the dogs to be returned, I could tell her where they were and she could fetch them herself. I was getting a little sick of playing fetch.
Tai fussed over Take like a hen over her chick. I had to smile. Tai and Take really were like Kokari and Ume…My heart turned cold. I remembered now. The memory that had been niggling the back of my mind…the feeling of familiarity about the dogs with their Satomi orbs…I had seen dogs with orbs secured around their necks with sashes before. In Agata Forest. And Kamiki Village. To retrieve the missing Canine Warriors, I would have to take away Kokari's and Mushi's playmates.
