Chapter Twenty-One Rui #2
He took Rui’s hand, as he had so many times before, and lay quietly, listening to the subtle cadences of the coming night, the animals and evening grass, the rustle of wind in the leaves.
“We could stay here,” Rui said. “No one would find us ever again. We could do what we want. We could run away.”
Sen turned. “Everything’s so complicated,” he said, and laughed.
A sad sound, a little sound; and yet, a laugh.
By the time they left the bamboo grove, the sun had vanished, spilling long shadows through the woods, and the air glinted with flickers of light.
They walked through the trees bending down around them in a tunnel.
The sky, beyond them and above, blazed pale gold.
Two deer sprinted across the path and vanished.
The low sun dipped behind a cloud: the woods swept them with a chill.
Something flitted above, swift as birds.
Night came at them fast. Over the whole valley, it fell upon them, the field and winding path, the mountains, the curving road, a thick, deep veil of purple light. It grew darker. It landed on them with the weight of a physical thing, sharp in the mouth, and cold.
Rui shivered. Her breath clouded air. As they walked the long path back toward Kitano, she became aware of something behind them, and when she turned, she saw someone walking at the edge of the trees.
She slowed, half a word on her lips, as Sen shifted and saw it too.
It was the distant shape of a figure coming toward them in the falling leaves, walking slowly with a lantern in hand.
The flame grew brighter as they approached.
Sen planted his feet. “Hello?” He called out again but there was no response. For an instant Rui thought she saw a strange, tall figure, wearing white through the trees. But then they had passed behind the roughened boughs again, and vanished from her sight.
The stranger, she thought, remembering her premonition by the trail. The light was shifting. She turned about and tried to peer through the branches, but the figure was gone.
“Where’d they go?”
“I don’t know,” Rui said. The night seemed suddenly so dark; the world loomed around them, and her breath caught in her throat. It was the same feeling she’d had when Jobo tried speaking with the gods.
Let me in, the stranger seemed to say. Let me in.
Now a new voice came, swift as shadow, cold as ice.
“You’re here.”
The red trees shivered, bending with a crackling, muddy sound, like roots in a swamp, like branches in rain.
“I know you’re here,” said the voice again, sibilant as wind. It dripped across the grass. Sen retreated, hand out, as if to guard Rui, or perhaps reaching for her own.
When she turned, a figure in black stood before them. The world seemed to go still.
“Who are you?” Sen shouted. “Why’re you following us?”
There was a great, impenetrable silence.
The figure watched them, motionless, wreathed in a dark shape, a shadow that fluttered and billowed as though torn by wind: it tricked the mind, first seeming black as night, but then white, and red, and ochre, then a shifting color like soft earth, then black again.
Rui heard the ringing of a bell.
The creature came at them as one walking on uncertain ground. Leaves and branches hung about its body, and as it approached, it seemed to somehow unfold itself out of the ground as much as walk across it. Its face was a blank wood mask. Four eyes painted in thin lines.
“Rui,” Sen whispered. “That’s a god…”
A cavernous voice boomed over the path, coming from everywhere at once.
“I see you,” they said.
“Who are you?”
“One who sees in all directions.”
Rui gasped. Hososhi. What had the old woman said? The god is coming. The One Who Sees.
They come to warn us.
She stepped forward. “Calm, spirit, please…”
“I see evil coming for you, Sen-of-the-Starlight,” the god said. “I hold the gate no longer. The demon has blinded me… they have stabbed out my eyes… Where is your master, bird-child?”
Sen drew his sword, shouting, “Back!” in a wavering voice. The god knocked him aside as though he was an insect, moved in a great lumbering circle: “Where is your master?”
Sen lay on the path, leg wrenched beneath him. The god loomed over him, a horrible weight bearing down. He shouted, voice trembling with defiance, with fear. The world seemed to fall away. There was only this. These woods. This god. This malice, overwhelming.
“Sen!”
Rui moved without thinking. She found Sen’s sword in her hand, sharp, the handle dry as bones. She found it where he’d dropped it.
“What god are you, that treats us humans so?” she cried. “Get back!”
The blade stabbed in, bright, searing. And her arm seemed to burst into fire, the blow seemed to bite her when it hit. She fell as if thrown, smashing her head against a tree, and the demon-god began to turn, and the malice changed, and it all made sense.
“You,” they said.
I’m the one who’s cursed. Not Sen. It’s me. They came for me.
The world broke. A horrible screech pierced the air. Rui staggered, jarred, her arm burning with pain where she’d struck. “Get away!” she shouted. The god merely looked at her, and their strange, mask-like face stared back, blank, unreadable.
“Fool child.” The god’s words hissed like wind through leaves.
“What do you want?” Rui couldn’t stop her voice from shaking. Somewhere above her came a high, hollow sound, like far-off laughter.
“You,” the god whispered. “You.”
The god came closer, and stopped. The masked face paused, listening.
“I am too late,” they said. “The winds change. She is coming.”
“Get away,” Rui gasped. “We have nothing for you, please, go away…”
“I will have a use for you,” the god said.
And flew forward. Flew at her, into her, a waterfall into her heart, and she fell, pain blooming, a cut, a cry, a splinter—
Everything gone. Everything dark for a moment. She heard the sound of wind, raging like a storm, and heard the endless, echoing voice:
“Rui Misosazai,” they said. “You will die in one hundred days.”
The darkness turned solid. It turned into a shroud. The giant tree-creature folded around itself, roots pulling up from the ground and coiling around her body, until the god shifted into the web of trees again and was gone, leaving Rui gasping for air, on her knees, and clutching her heart.
“Rui!” Sen cried. “What happened – what did it do?”
Rui’s voice scraped, raw. Her vision fluttered. “Rui!” He seemed so far away. “Rui, hang on… hang on, I’m taking you to Jobo…”
After that, there was nothing.
She stumbled to the earth. She thought she saw someone coming toward her. Somewhere, far off, she thought she heard another bell.
Then she fell again, and the world slipped into a warm, blanketed darkness, a great soothing river that enveloped her completely, lifted her from the dirt, and carried her away.