- LIX –

The people of this mountain told him they cremate their dead. The piled-stone cairns just off the eastern road say otherwise.

He has seen such graveyards all too often. They are the products of too many bodies in too short a time – victims of pestilence, bandits, or in this case, famine—and too much grief and too little strength left amongst the survivors to honor their neighbors according to custom. Instead, the dead receive shallow pit, an earthen covering, and later, perhaps, a stony monument.

Ginko presses his spade into the soil beside the nearest cairn, and begins to dig.

- LX -

"I asked my father about the comb—the one I found in the Vale."

Ginko pauses his work, and wipes the sweat from his brow. "Oh?"

"His lips went thin and white," Kayo says, frowning. "That only happens when he's very angry. Or afraid."

The ground is frozen hard, barely yielding when Ginko sets the spade to it again.

"Keep asking around, please. It may be a matter of life and death."

"You really think it's important?"

"Kayo, that comb could feed your village for a month. No one throws away something so valuable unless they have something to hide."

- LXI -

The stranger raises his hand to the weak winter sunlight, watching the flutter of the imitation pulse in his wrist. He will be able to rise soon, he thinks. His Otherself murmurs agreement.

The Mushi-shi's blood is stronger than he expected.

There is river of golden light refracted within its life force, and a promise of one-eyed darkness—

And memories—

A scraggly child who had lost his mother. A white-haired one who had lost his name. A man who chases myths and phantoms, who wears the clothes of an era not yet come to pass.

Yes, this blood is strong.

- LXII -

It is as Ginko suspected.

The graves are empty. All of them.

Kayo gasps in horror. "Who could have done this?"

"The Mushi, Ginko replies. "It's been an exceptionally hard winter. They're hungrier than usual. They came to spirit away what little desiccated flesh they could find, and in doing so created the monster that now ravages your village."

"What? How?"

"A Gashadokuro is born from corpses improperly buried, remember? Especially those of poor souls dead from starvation."

He drops the spade. "A ghost from twenty years ago is behind all this. That is the Truth we're seeking, I'd wager."

- LXIII -

Fear has a certain smell. Sharp and metallic. Coppery, like fresh blood.

The villagers filing past the stranger's hut reek of it.

The Mushi-shi has called them all together, it would seem. He must mean to confront them, to draw out the truth and the Truth behind the Mononoke's origin.

A useful man, this Mushi-shi.

All humans carry secrets within their souls; these villagers are no different. These people of the mountain must soon face the creature they birthed in the shameful darkness of their hearts—else, they will be destroyed.

Grinning, the stranger stands, and reaches for his sword.

- LXIV – LXXIV -

"Let me tell you a story," Ginko says.

The mass of villagers encircling the well – nearly every person on the mountain still left alive – stares back at him with dull eyes. Ginko's work has oft brought him before such crowds, but on this day, though, Ginko does not come before these people as a Mushi-shi.

Today he stands as their accuser.

"Let me tell you a story," Ginko begins again. "It is not a very good one, carved as it is from speculation and conjecture, but it is one nonetheless.

"This story is about a man—a traveler—who hailed from a place far beyond this mountain. I know it was a man because of the shape of the Gashadokuro's hips, and I know he was a traveler because he carried this—"

Ginko holds aloft the ivory comb. He has polished it, and its chipped inlay of mother-of-pearl shines in the sunlight, opalescent, alien against the drab huts and muddy streets.

"I do not know whether he was a wealthy man or merely a peddler. He may have been a thief or a bandit, though I suspect not. I know without a doubt, however, that this traveler was a good and just man, and it is the Gashadokuro's mercy—yes, its mercy—that tells me so."

The crowd shifts uncomfortably. Strange shadows have begun spreading over some of the upturned faces, welling up like ink blotting through paper. Is it fear or guilt or anger, he wonders.

"This story," Ginko continues, "is also about a village, a mountain village, one so remote that its nearest neighbors are two days walk away over high passes and narrow roads. Twenty years ago this man came to the village but never left again. He perished there, you see, and his bones remained in the valley at the mountain's foot. I cannot tell you how and why the traveler died—but I can tell you what happened after."

The shadowed faces are darker now, and more numerous.

Ginko presses on. "Around the time the traveler arrived, a great and terrible famine struck. Scores of the villagers died, and they were all of them buried in shallow graves upon the mountain. And then, twenty years later, in the depths of a harsh winter, their lonely remains were found and taken from their resting places.

"The villagers have long told tales of a demon that dwells in the valley below, one that steals away and devours all things made of dead flesh, whether it be meat or corpses or even leather. But, in truth, there is no such demon dwelling in the place the villagers call the Vale of Bones; instead, there is only the Hidaruihokori, the Hungering Dust, a rare Mushi which feeds on carrion. It is this Dust which stole the famine's victims from their graves, took them, piece by infinitesimal piece, into the Vale, reassembled the bodies again, and then consumed them at last, leaving behind only dry bones.

"But what are a few unburied human bones against the thousands already in the Vale? 'Enough' is the answer. Enough for them to bind together to form an Ayakashi. Enough to unite with the disquiet soul of the fallen traveler. Enough to become a Mononoke, a terrible Gashadokuro that would one day devour the villagers' families and neighbors."

A few of the older men and women amongst the watching villagers have begun to quietly make their way towards edges of the crowd. These people have realized what Ginko is going to ask of them, and he is sure now that the dark expressions they wear are ones of guilt. He allows himself a slight prick of pride at this, for it means his conjectures are correct. Only a prick, however, for it is a grim matter.

"I said earlier that this was a poor story, and so indeed it is. I have asked many of you, and searched this village from end to end, but I still do not have a name for the unfortunate traveler buried beneath the mountain. Are there any amongst you who could give me that name and complete the story? Is there one amongst you who would speak?"

Ginko looks out at the crowd. Some of the villagers stare back, sullenly defiant. Others merely peer up at him blankly. Many will not meet his eyes at all.

Their secrets are long buried, and pale and slimy with rot. He had not expected exhuming them to be easy, and so he forges ahead, undeterred.

"Seven of your children have now met the Gashadokuro," Ginko says, "and all seven have returned unharmed by it. The man whose bones lie in the Vale is transformed into a monster, but yet he spares those born after his death—those souls innocent of the ill fate that befell him.

"I spoke to you of the traveler's mercy, and his honor. Is your silence how you repay such a just man? I offer you, too, a chance to save your people—and all I ask is but for a name."

A long and heavy silence reigns over the crowd. Finally, slowly, Ume's father steps forward. "I do not recall the traveler's name, for I was but a boy then," he says. "He was a peddler of trinkets. Ribbons. Incense. Combs."

"And what became of this comb peddler?" Ginko asks. "How did he die?

Ume's father licks his lips. "He—"

"Be silent!" barks the village elder, emerging from the crowd. The old man turns to Ginko.

"You are an outsider, Mushi-shi. You know nothing of the hardships our village has faced. You have no right to judge us."

"It is not I whom judges you," replies Ginko. "I merely seek to understand what has happened. It is the Gashadokuro which weighs your past deeds, and finds them lacking."

The elder's face creases in anger. He opens his mouth to speak, but his words are lost when the air is rent by a woman's scream.

- LXXV -

A hundred thousand golden motes swirl and dance over snow, over root, over earth and stone and ice.

We will eat well tonight after the work is done, when the moon is risen (they sing to themselves). Soft meat, soft flesh. Fresh and young and sweet.

Once, they waited for the full stillness before they began their harvest. Now they pluck the fruit at half stillness. And, in time, when half stillness becomes full stillness, they feast.

Soft meat and soft flesh (they sing).

Down into the valley, the golden motes dance. Down and down, unto their cathedral of bones.

- LXXVI -

The screaming woman is the headman's daughter, and there is a fine ivory comb in her hair.

"My baby, my baby!" she wails, clutching an empty bundle of blankets. "I was holding him. I wasn't watching him. He must have fallen asleep. The Dust has taken my baby!"

She grasps the Mushi-shi's arm tightly. "Please, you must help me. He is too young. He will not survive the winter night. You must go into the Vale. Please, please, you must bring him back!"

"No, he will not," says the stranger, striding forth from the crowd. "Your child is beyond saving."