He hefted his staff with the prayer rings at the top and thumped it against the dirt at his feet. Once, twice. Clapping his hands together over the wood, he lowered his head in prayer. When he rose, his eyes were grim.
“Bad weather,” he said. “You should be in bed.”
She looked out over the woods and the low-lying fields, feeling a weight of pressure wash over her, surrounded by fatigue. Her joints ached; her eyes stung. The clouds had started to come in, sunset stabbing through them to the west in bright violent sweeps of light.
“What’re you doing?”
Jobo sprinkled wood shavings into the fire, bit by bit. “Trying my hand at divination, as the Hassho does. Let’s see what the gods will tell us. O great god of the road, we are plagued by monsters. Will you show us the way?”
A silence resumed. The fire flickered. Ash and embers danced. “Give us some answers, you asshole!” he shouted, and burst into laughter as the shavings ignited and sent a flutter of sparks into the air.
“What the hell,” Rui said. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh, just living,” he said.
“Are you mocking them? You are,youof all people.”
“Don’t worry. It’s just having fun. The gods understand. We’re not so different, and they have a sense of humor, too.”
“I don’t think it’s very funny.”
“If you were to die tomorrow, don’t you think it would’ve been worth it to enjoy a little more?”
“It’s hard to enjoy it when you’re cursed,” she said.
“It’s hard to enjoy it when you don’t let yourself.”
He shook his head, serious now, holding the small bone he’d been carving in his hands. “Everything will fade,” he told her. “Everything is impermanent. And no matter how strong or determined you are, death always comes before you want. Such is the way of things. It’s something, I think, everyone understands, though maybe not so many would admit it. What a miracle it is, that we’ve made it through today, don’t you think?” His gaze went back to the fire. The bone in his hands. “Yes,” he said. “A miracle.”
He placed the bone carefully into the embers.
“It’s true, nothing is perfect. And in the end, all is emptiness. But… is that to say we can only watch the plum blossoms when they’re in bloom? Or the full moon only on nights like tonight, when the sky is clear, and unclouded?”
He shook his head. “Life may be suffering, but it will pass as we do. So, what will we do, while we’re here? That is the path we can choose. Those steps are ours, after all.” He shrugged. “We can still choose to take them.”
“You’re not no’in,” Rui said. “You haven’t lived a life where everything’s been decided from the start. Where you’re born, who you are…”
“Don’t tell me what I haven’t lived, child,” he said.
“How do you have a choice when it’s all happened already? Before you even get a chance.”
He indicated the frozen fields beyond, nodding at the rise of the hill. “Would you not want to watch the sun sink beyond the slope of a hill, covered with a blanket of budding peonies or azaleas in the spring? Or the gentle turning of the tides on the western islands, the calls of seabirds and divers searching for pearls? No, in this life, I say we can still choose our steps.”
He fell silent then. “Three will fall,” Rui said. “The Hassho told me… ‘Three will fall like dead leaves.’ What does that mean?”
His face grew grim. “Ten’in, Keishi, Gensei. Three families who once were allies.”
“What happened?”
“Same thing that always happens,” Jobo said. “Prestige, wealth. Greed. They used the system to take power, and once they got it, they didn’t want to share. That’s why Sen’s father rebelled. Not very noble, is it?” After a moment he continued: “They say the emperors are descended from the sun-goddess, and that may be true. The ancient seals have stayed intact for generations and even the most vengeful of gods know there would be only pain if they were to break the truce. They don’t want to destroy the world any more than we do. But they are petty, as we are. When they have been wronged, they want revenge.
“Some of them, the higher gods, or the oldest, maybe, can see past the foolishness of retribution. Some, they say, can see all of time, what was and what will be, spread out before them like a map. They see us, here, at this point, in this place, in this time, and they see where the map will lead. But those gods will never share their answers. Though,” he said, chuckling softly to himself, “humans never cease to ask.”
He stared into the dying fire, the charred remains of bone that lay among the embers and the ash. She tried to figure out what he saw in them, but no matter how she looked, she saw nothing more than what they were.
At first, the signs were subtle. An abandoned oxcart. An empty field. A road trampled by heavy feet. The ruins of a barn in the distance. Something smoking, burned.
They reached Oda-town after sunset the next day.
