Dendera (19 page)

Having said that, Hono Ishizuka walked around to the opposite side of the storehouse and disappeared into the shadows. For a moment, Kayu Saitoh watched the woman go, but then she realized that wasn’t her role, and she joined the others finding warmth around one of the fire baskets.

The storehouse remained ever still.

As Kayu Saitoh puzzled over what the three women were doing inside, her hand began to itch from the fire’s heat, and she scratched at it like a filthy monkey.

Eventually, a voice called out from the darkness. The eight women had returned from the Mountain carrying a log. From the looks of the log, Kayu Saitoh thought that no matter how well barricaded, the door wouldn’t stand a chance.

The eight women’s spirited expressions conveyed their confidence in the success of their plan. They laid the log to rest on the ground and brought their frozen bodies to the heat of the fires. Mei Mitsuya warmed herself as she explained her plan. As far as plans went, hers was simple. If the further attempts at negotiation were ignored, they would use the log to break open the door, and then they would butcher the three plague-bearers inside. Smiles of relief and optimism spread on the faces of the listening women, who then began a growling chant, saying, “Kill the plague, kill the plague.” Kayu Saitoh didn’t join in, but neither did she object to the butchering of the three women cloistered inside. She didn’t even think it was the wrong thing to do. She still had a thought or two for Soh Kiriyama, Makura Katsuragawa, and Somo Izumi, but she wasn’t in a position to give them any serious amount of consideration.

“All right, let’s begin!” Mei Mitsuya shouted and ran to the log. The others in her group followed, took their positions, four on each side, and heaved up the log. From the point of view of the storehouse, Mei Mitsuya, Inui Makabe, Kyu Hoshina, and Ume Itano held the right side, while Chinu Nitta, Tai Komaki, Guri Togawa, and Naki Sokabe took the left, and they all stood at the ready. Hono Ishizuka hadn’t returned, so Hotori Oze attempted the negotiations, but no matter what she said, no response came. Mei Mitsuya held up her hand, and the rest of the women divided into two groups and moved to each side of the doorway, ready to attack as soon as the door was broken open. Kayu Saitoh had joined with the group on the left, looking from the storehouse.

When all were ready, Mei Mitsuya let loose a bestial roar. Her voice lit a fire within the others. The sensations of battle filled Kayu Saitoh; her breaths came heavily and she clutched her wooden spear, no longer capable of reconsidering what—or whom—that weapon would be killing.

The women holding the log charged ahead with ferocious force. When the storehouse door suddenly opened, they were unable to halt that force, and the eight women and the log went all the way inside. Mei Mitsuya, Kyu Hoshina, and Ume Itano scrambled back out, but in the next instant, the door was closed again. None of them knew what had happened; none of them realized what had been done to them.

What brought them to understand were the screams coming from within the building. When Kayu Saitoh heard them, she finally realized that their plan had been countered. The three women inside had predicted the others would try to ram through the door and came up with an effective countermeasure. In secret, they unbarred the door, and just as the charge came, they opened the entrance on their assailants and locked them inside. Mei Mitsuya, Kyu Hoshina, and Ume Itano had barely escaped, but the other five—Inui Makabe, Chinu Nitta, Tai Komaki, Guri Togawa, and Naki Sokabe were trapped inside. And now came the screams. The door sprang open again, one of the old women was tossed out, and the door immediately closed. It was Inui Makabe. Her stomach was punctured in several places. Kayu Saitoh could see her chest rising and falling, so she thought the woman was still alive. But this was a simple misunderstanding; the motion was nothing more than the muscle spasms of the freshly deceased.

After Inui Makabe’s corpse had been tossed out, the storehouse returned to silence. The door didn’t open, and no more screams could be heard. The women outside could only stare at the closed door. Kayu Saitoh thrust her spear into the ground and hastily left the scene. She had made a grave error. She had bungled a crucial judgment. These thoughts occupied her head as rage against Soh Kiriyama bubbled up inside her, while the same anger spread through the crowd surrounding the storehouse. Infuriated, Kayu Saitoh walked through the night. Most of the women were gathered at the storehouse, and a deep stillness filled the rest of Dendera, with little separating the settlement from the Mountain itself.

She heard something, possibly a voice. She stopped and listened, and this time she could make out the voice as what it was: a moan. It was the moan of unceasing pain and fear wanting to be released, if only by some small measure. It seemed to come from within a nearby hut, and Kayu Saitoh peered inside. There, Ire Tachibana and Kushi Tachibana had collapsed in front of the hearth. A stone pot rested beside them. From the stench of the blood, Kayu Saitoh realized what had happened and quickly backed away from the hut. Breathing in and out through her nose, as if the night air would cleanse away the lingering smell, she tried to think of where Hono Ishizuka and Masari Shiina were and what they were doing.

“Kayu.”

As if Kayu Saitoh’s thoughts had taken form, Hono Ishizuka appeared behind her.

Kayu Saitoh shoved Hono Ishizuka against the wall of the hut. “The plague and the bear meat are completely unrelated! Ire Tachibana and Kushi Tachibana didn’t eat the stew. But they’re vomiting foul blood.”

“Kayu,” Hono Ishizuka repeated, her expression solemn. “Not a word of what you’ve seen to anyone.”

“The plague is spreading. It’s spreading, and it has nothing to do with the bear meat. How can I not tell the others?”

“Telling them the bear meat didn’t cause it won’t change anything. It’ll only add to the chaos, and everyone might start killing each other. We need to let them go on thinking the bear meat was the source.”

“Hono Ishizuka … You
do
know something about the plague.”

“If I knew, I’d be doing something to stop it. Kayu, I’m a Dove, not a monster.” Her eyes glistened with indignant anger. “After we spoke in front of the storehouse, I thought that the situation would remain unchanged for a time, and I was going to go into the Mountain to look for food. But then …”

“You found these two vomiting blood, is that it?”

“I don’t think anyone but us knows.”

“This isn’t something that can remain hidden forever.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“That’s a fool’s talk.”

“It’s no such thing,” Hono Ishizuka said heatedly. “I will protect Dendera no matter what. I won’t let something like this end us.”

“Where do you find such spirit?” Kayu Saitoh said, but overpowered by Hono Ishizuka’s palpable determination, she released the woman.

“Kayu, you have it too. The people who live in Dendera have only Dendera.” Hono Ishizuka felt at her shoulder where Kayu Saitoh’s grip had been. “Climbing the Mountain is forever closed to us, and we have no hope of defeating the Village. All we have left is Dendera. To protect its continued existence, I would perform any deception, and I would tell any lie.”

“I won’t lie,” Kayu Saitoh said without hesitation.

“That means telling everyone about Ire and Kushi. If you do that, there’ll be slaughter. You’ll be the villain of Dendera.”

“Nonsense. I’ll only be telling the truth. And you mean to tell me to keep it to myself? That won’t make the plague go away.”

“It went away sixteen years ago,” Hono Ishizuka said. “We killed the ones with the symptoms, and the plague went away. We don’t have any proof connecting the two, but … No,
because
we don’t have any proof, we have to do the same thing this time.”

“You want to kill Ire Tachibana and Kushi Tachibana? They’re still breathing.”

“What if I did? Would that make me the villain?”

“I’m going to follow my beliefs. You can follow yours.”

“Then I will. I’ll let the rest of you take care of the three in the storehouse.”

Kayu Saitoh returned to the storehouse, but she decided to keep quiet about the new victims. Beside one of the fire baskets, she joined Hyoh Hamamura, who told her that nothing new had transpired. No further reaction had come from the storehouse, and the safety of the four women who’d been trapped inside remained unknown. If there had been anything that could be called progress, it was that Inui Makabe’s body had been moved aside.

Meanwhile, Mei Mitsuya had collected herself and was holding a discussion, this time speaking quietly so as not to be overheard by their enemies. The topic was what to do with the women trapped inside—Chinu Nitta, Tai Komaki, Guri Togawa, and Naki Sokabe—assuming they still lived. Two possibilities were discussed: either they were allies to be rescued, or they were potentially dangerous plague-carriers to be cast aside. In short order, the women unanimously picked the latter. They were exhausted, and nothing remained in their thoughts aside from self-preservation. Like that, the night passed, and none of them had slept when the new dawn came.

Even when daylight shone upon Dendera, the situation remained unchanged. Wearied, the old women waited with listless anger and frustration. Kayu Saitoh gave one displeased yawn after another, each leaving her with the dreadful, bitter taste of quiescence; the dreadful, bitter taste of unending starvation, without battle—even defeat—in sight. Of the women, only Mei Mitsuya maintained her zeal.

She commanded the women to go with her to chop down another fir tree, but none gave even the hint of a response.

“One single failure, and this is how you become? Fine. I’ll do it myself!”

Mei Mitsuya gave them a look of unbridled contempt, then disappeared off somewhere. The other women again paid her no attention and went on doing nothing aside from placing wood in the fire baskets.

Kayu Saitoh didn’t react either. She kept turning thoughts over in her mind—Soh Kiriyama’s decision; Ire Tachibana and Kushi Tachibana’s undisclosed contagion; her discussion with Hono Ishizuka; herself, as a villain—but she couldn’t transfer any of it into concrete actions. All she could do was cling to the bear cub pelt around her neck. She opened her hand and looked down at her fingers. In the glare of the morning light, her fingers appeared mere twigs.

In this stasis, only time marched diligently ahead, and at some point, the sun had moved, shining down on them from directly overhead. But the women didn’t move from the fires. Starvation coursed through their bodies, draining them of the strength needed to make any judgments, let alone to take any action that might create progress. Kayu Saitoh noticed a close similarity between this experience and the Climb. But this wasn’t the Mountain; this was Dendera. This wasn’t the Mountain, which existed for death; this was Dendera, which existed for life. For this reason, death in Dendera wouldn’t lead to Paradise. Kayu Saitoh clutched her empty stomach and let out a pitiful moan as far removed from pride and passion as could be, while the other women trembled by the fire baskets, their expressions stripped of all dignity.

But not everyone could remain idle forever. The world wasn’t shaped by only those who stagnate and surrender. Some held on to dignity and pride, and through their actions do events advance.

In Dendera, this was the three women inside the storehouse.

Kayu Saitoh felt a surge of heat. She looked up, stretching the wrinkled sags of her neck. The fire baskets were burning the same as they had been. But Kayu Saitoh felt a crackling warmth spread across the front of her body. Someone shouted. The storehouse had ignited. Distinctly visible even in the midday sun, thick, lapping flames crossed the rooftop. By the time Kayu Saitoh saw the fire, more than half of the roof was ablaze. Black smoke arose belatedly and climbed into the sky. The walls creaked and squealed as the fire evaporated the moisture within them. The flames embracing the outer walls were nearly transparent, their intensity imparted by the savage heat.

The silent storehouse’s sudden and violent proclamation sent the women into chaos. None of them, Kayu Saitoh included, had seen the first moment of ignition.

“Fire! There’s a fire!” Hyoh Hamamura shouted, her expression stiff. “Who did it? Who started it? Who acted too soon?”

“No one did it,” Kotei Hoshii said. “None of us would do such a—Oh!” the woman exclaimed. “They started the fire themselves!”

Heedless of the panicking women, the flames strengthened and blazed. The black smoke expanded with impossible speed, completely blocking any view of the storehouse.

Suddenly, a mass of flames erupted.

The flames crashed into Hyoh Hamamura. She caught fire, and screaming she fell to the ground and into the black, billowing smoke. She struggled in anguish, but soon her movements turned clumsy, and then stopped, and then she just burned. Kayu Saitoh peered into the smoke and the fire. Her eyes found the mass of flames that had incinerated Hyoh Hamamura. It had a face, smoldering, and it belonged to Tai Komaki. Kayu Saitoh realized what was happening.

“Run!” she shouted reflexively.

But just then, more masses of flame burst out from the blaze one after another. They were Chinu Nitta, Guri Togawa, and Naki Sokabe, alive and enveloped in flames. Due in part to Kayu Saitoh’s warning, the other women managed to dodge the fiery masses. But the next one out proved more trouble. The burning woman pursued them relentlessly, screaming incoherently. She crashed into Koto Onodera from behind. The woman’s body erupted in flames, and she rolled to the ground. The stench of burning flesh spread in the air. The mass of flame chose Kayu Saitoh for her next target and charged, pushing through the smoke. And then, suddenly, she was sent tumbling in a different direction. Holding a spear, Itsuru Obuchi emerged from the smoke.

“Are you all right?” Itsuru Obuchi asked, her lips trembling. “What the hell is happening?”

The mass of flames writhed about on the ground, then went lifeless. Kayu Saitoh kicked snow to put out the remaining flames, and could finally—and barely—tell it had been Somo Izumi. Where her face used to be, red flesh popped and hissed between the cracks in her charred skin, and blood, expanding from the heat, oozed out.