Dendera (20 page)

“They set themselves on fire and charged us,” Kayu Saitoh said, heaving her shoulders. “This is their last stand!”

“They’ve gone mad,” Itsuru Obuchi said, gazing down at Somo Izumi’s blackened corpse. “They got the plague, they were going to be killed by their friends, and they went mad.”

Mei Mitsuya’s voice boomed, “Don’t let your guards down!” The chief had returned. “This isn’t over yet. Pick up your weapons.”

Her call didn’t impel the women’s spirits into battle but rather gave their defensive natures a push. They began searching the smoke-covered ground for their weapons. Many of them seemed lost in confusion.

Right away, Itsuru Obuchi asked, “Mei, where were you?”

“I was looking for Hono Ishizuka.” Mei Mitsuya bared her teeth. “It’s over. Dendera is finished.”

Kayu Saitoh wondered if Mei Mitsuya had found out about Ire Tachibana and Kushi Tachibana’s acquisition of the plague, but she couldn’t find out. Two more masses of flames leaped from the burning storehouse. The fires enveloping them prevented Kayu Saitoh from being able to discern which was which, but they had to have been Soh Kiriyama and Makura Katsuragawa. As the fireballs came in chase, the women tossed aside the weapons they’d only just now found and ran around in search of escape. In truth, they wouldn’t have been able to do anything even had they held on to their weapons. Their opponents were bathed in flames; to be touched by them was to die, and taking them out meant letting them get into close range, which in turn meant risking death. Red-faced, Mei Mitsuya howled, “Fight!” but no one listened. As panic heaped upon panic, the women made a frantic attempt to flee a scene that had lost all reason and sense.

One fiery mass clung to Kan Tominaga’s back. The woman’s face contorted, her eyeballs nearly popping out of their sockets, and she screamed, “Let me go let me go!” But quickly the flames covered her. The burning heat made her lose her senses, and she ran about uncontrollably, weaving toward Kayu Saitoh, Itsuru Obuchi, and Mei Mitsuya. Mei Mitsuya shouted, “You fool!” and planted her spear into the flaming mass that was Kan Tominaga. But then the fiery mass that had first set Kan Tominaga alight screamed, “Help me, help me!” and rushed toward Kayu Saitoh. The voice belonged to Makura Katsuragawa, and it slowed Kayu Saitoh’s reaction. She assessed the threat a second late and took too long before she started running. Makura Katsuragawa’s flaming arms reached for her, igniting the fur around her neck and the cloth bandage over her head. Kayu Saitoh discarded both just as Mei Mitsuya stabbed Makura Katsuragawa with her spear.

“You’re another fool!” Mei Mitsuya screamed. “Fools! Fools! Fools! Fools fools fools fools!”

Makura Katsuragawa had fallen, but she grasped the spear protruding from her stomach and again shrieked, “Help me!”

Despite the flames spreading to the wooden spear, Mei Mitsuya drove it farther into Makura Katsuragawa’s stomach. Makura Katsuragawa died, but the flames of course didn’t. The fire climbed the spear and ignited the chief’s white robes. With a
bwoom
sound, Mei Mitsuya’s body was swallowed by bright red flames.

She flailed in agony, and Kayu Saitoh hurriedly flung snow to put out her fire, but another mass of flames appeared and dove on top of the chief. For a split second Kayu Saitoh saw Soh Kiriyama’s burned and blistered face through the flames. Soh Kiriyama went limp, becoming one with Mei Mitsuya’s burning body. Kayu Saitoh kept on hurling as much snow onto them as she could, but the fire blazed unabated.

“Mei Mitsuya!” Kayu Saitoh shouted at the fire, within which nothing moved, not even a twitch. “Come on, what are you doing? You can’t die like this. Not as pointlessly as this!”

She started to reach for the chief, but Itsuru Obuchi grabbed Kayu Saitoh under her arms and restrained her.

“What are you doing?” Itsuru Obuchi said. “Stop it! It’s finished … It’s finished.”

Her words rang true. Though the fire and smoke continued to rule over the area, the incident had come to a complete end. Nothing was left but for the numerous charred bodies to release their embers. The survivors, their expressions vacant, had sunk to the smoke-covered ground.

Kayu Saitoh gnashed her teeth and muttered, “We’re finished.”

Just then, the storehouse rumbled and collapsed. The rush of hot air dispersed the surrounding black smoke and, aside from the numerous charred corpses and the burned-out ruin of the storehouse, the view of Dendera remained mostly unchanged from its earlier state.

Kayu Saitoh heard two pairs of footsteps approaching.

One was an old woman whose white hair covered the left half of her face. A gust of wind tossed her bangs to the side and revealed a pool of darkness inhabiting the place where her left eye should have been.

It was Masari Shiina.

Hono Ishizuka walked behind her.

Masari Shiina stood with dignity before the women. Her right eye’s commanding gaze swept across them.

She opened by announcing, “The plague has been completely consumed by the fire.” Then she added, “However, so has our storehouse—and our food. But be at ease. The Doves have a food reserve. We’ll distribute it to you all. First, fill your stomachs. Eat something warm.”

Her right eye swept over them again. “The plague has been consumed by the fire, but the cost was great. First, we survivors must rebuild Dendera. For that reason, as of today, the Hawks are disbanded. Mei Mitsuya is dead. Dendera’s leader is dead. The head of the Hawks is dead. And many others are dead. In these circumstances, attacking the Village is impossible. We must live on. We will rebuild Dendera. We Doves will command this work. The plague is no more. Safety has returned. But strengthening our safety is a necessity. And the Doves’ efforts are a necessity. I—the Doves—have food. Eat as much as you wish. We will accept you. We don’t want to be your enemy. All we want is to live with a single, shared sentiment. I understand your ill will toward the Village, but now isn’t the time for such things. Warring against the Village is not everything. For now, you don’t have to understand what I’m saying. Today, you all fought, you toiled, and you triumphed. You’ve won the right to take rest; you’ve earned the right to take nourishment. And those things I can provide you. We accept you.”

Listening to Masari Shiina’s speech, Kayu Saitoh felt hunger and exhaustion coursing through her body. At the same time, some part of her, proper and shining in gold, cried out in earnest,
This woman is lying. This woman, Masari Shiina, the Dove, is lying. The plague isn’t over. The bear meat wasn’t responsible for the plague. I saw Ire Tachibana and Kushi Tachibana dying, and they hadn’t eaten the stew. Masari Shiina and Hono Ishizuka know this. But now they conceal the truth and spin honeyed words to sway women weary from starvation, exhaustion, and fear. They’re trying to make you submit. They’re trying to make you theirs. They’re trying to make you forget Mei Mitsuya. Well, I won’t accept it. I will not accept their plan. Rejection, denial, and rebellion are a flame inside me that won’t be extinguished. This has nothing to do with the Village and Dendera, or the Hawks and the Doves—I will not accept this shameful scheme. I will never permit it.

The shining, golden part of her shouted for all to hear, but as Kayu Saitoh savored thoughts of sleeping with a full stomach, her throat produced only an empty vibration.

W
inter went on as it had before; though the season had seen many events begin and end, in terms of stage and scene—to put it in somewhat grandiose terms—one fact stood out in sharp relief: not a single thing had changed.

Thirty years had passed since Dendera was founded, and thirty days had passed since Kayu Saitoh came to Dendera. Dendera remained in existence and so did Kayu Saitoh.

Kayu Saitoh was sifting through the burned-out remains of the storehouse in search of useable charcoal. The sun was glaring, the morning blinding, while a chilling wind blew down from the Mountain, and a head cold burned in her throat, which twitched like that of a cat trying not to regurgitate, but despite all this, she remained focused on her work. She did so not out of a desire to make herself forget anything but rather to hew to reality. The season marched on, and the coldness had grown more bitter over the past few days. More charcoal was necessary.

In air so cold it seemed to freeze each breath as soon as she exhaled it, Kayu Saitoh continued her work. Charcoal was smeared across her entire body, including her scraped-up hand and the scar of her mostly healed head wound, while her white robes, caked with soot and dirt and dried blood, couldn’t have been more filthy. Anyone looking at her would have seen not a woman but a black mass. And this black mass was thinking of the fiery masses that had appeared nine days before, and of the women who had perished to them, but her hands didn’t rest from their work.

Though neither the stage nor scene had changed, the events had greatly reduced Dendera’s population from fifty to nineteen. Two of the huts and the two storehouses were no longer fit to be used; all food aside from the Doves’ stockpile had been incinerated; Mei Mitsuya had died to the flames; the Hawks had lost their authority along with many of their number, while the Doves had lost many but gained influence and absorbed the Hawks; and Masari Shiina was now the chief of Dendera.

The new chief’s first move was to offer the women ample food and rest. Next, she ordered several projects intended to redirect the women away from their desire to attack the Village and toward Dendera’s recovery. Within days, Dendera was back on a solid foundation, and after the incident at the storehouse, the plague hadn’t returned. The women regained a peaceful existence. Yet food was scarce, and all were fatigued from the continuous work. Moreover, with their numbers reduced to only nineteen, each woman’s statements and convictions now stood out. But Masari Shiina maintained her command with enticements of food, and the women devoted their efforts to Dendera’s reconstruction.

Such was the current situation.

On her way home after having finished her work, Kayu Saitoh saw several figures gathered behind the manor, formerly home to Mei Mitsuya, currently occupied by Masari Shiina. Three women were having a discussion. Each had Climbed the Mountain five years before: Hogi Takamiya, Shijira Iikubo, and Maru Kusachi. Kayu Saitoh didn’t know them well, and she didn’t think well of them. Even when Mei Mitsuya lived, they had hardly helped with any of the work, idling by without enthusiasm either for attacking the Village or for sustaining Dendera. Their behavior had been similar back when they lived in the Village.

Noticing Kayu Saitoh, Hogi Takamiya said, “Well look at you—you’re completely black. How terribly filthy you are. And you did that to yourself all for the sake of others.”

“Are you mocking me?” Kayu Saitoh replied, ready for a fight.

“Not at all, not at all,” Hogi Takamiya needlessly repeated. “I only wanted to say how
noble
it is for you to work yourself until you’re completely black.”

“And what are you three doing? We’re supposed to be building a new storehouse and constructing the trap.”

“We finished our tasks.”

“Then help with another.”

Hogi Takamiya smirked. “We’re not interested in slaving away over some trap for the bear to destroy.”

Masari Shiina believed that the bear, still alive, would again attack Dendera. Despite the efforts required to rebuild Dendera, the new chief had set half of the women to work constructing a trap to kill the creature. The so-called trap was really only a small hut, but Masari Shiina, inspired by Soh Kiriyama’s rebellion nine days prior, intended to incorporate powerful fire into the trap. Her idea was to shut the bear inside and burn it alive. Having experienced the mayhem firsthand, the other women thought it an effective plan, and Kayu Saitoh agreed. When she heard the plan, she touched at the scar running across her head and reasoned that charging the bear with a single flimsy weapon—one that might or might not even pierce one of its beady eyes—wouldn’t yield a result that was worth the risk.

Facing down Hogi Takamiya, Kayu Saitoh insisted, “The bear isn’t going to destroy the trap,
we
are—with the bear inside it.”

“Assuming the bear abides by the plan,” Hogi Takamiya said, sounding bored. “When I look at you all, I only see little children playing at digging holes for wild rabbits to fall into.”

“That’s because you’ve expected to lose from the beginning.”

“Then you who expect to win can give it your best,” Hogi Takamiya said, and beside her, Shijira Iikubo responded with a laugh that shook the withered lips of her toothless mouth. Maru Kusachi, whose stooped back made her small frame appear even smaller, didn’t display a particular response aside from placing her hands on her hips. Kayu Saitoh surreptitiously sniffed herself, catching a whiff of charcoal mixed with her own body odor. Producing a disapproving grunt from her sore throat, she thought,
They’re nothing more than feckless, spoiled children. A wild rabbit facing death at the bottom of a pit has far greater beauty than they.

Amid Dendera’s reconstruction, Masari Shiina reorganized the nineteen survivors’ living arrangements. She emptied the four western huts, including the two that had been destroyed by the bears’ ferocious incursion, and redistributed the women among the five huts to the east. In the easternmost were Kayu Saitoh, Shigi Yamamoto, and Nokobi Hidaka; next door were Hotori Oze, Usuma Tsutsumi, and Itsuru Obuchi; followed by Hogi Takamiya, Ume Itano, and Tsusa Hiiragi; next were Ate Amami, Hikari Asami, and Shijira Iikubo; next were Kotei Hoshii, Tamishi Minamide, and Tema Tsukamoto; and in the manor were Masari Shiina, Hono Ishizuka, Kyu Hoshina, and Maru Kusachi. Kayu Saitoh saw one ulterior motive to the reorganization. Seven of the women—Ate Amami, Kotei Hoshii, Hotori Oze, Hikari Asami, Ume Itano, Kyu Hoshina, and Nokobi Hidaka—had belonged to the Hawk faction, and Kayu Saitoh suspected that Masari Shiina, wanting to quell any potential problems, had divided the Hawks to prevent them from forming an alliance.

When Kayu Saitoh returned to the hut assigned to her by the calculating chief, Shigi Yamamoto and Nokobi Hidaka were huddled around the sunken hearth. Kayu Saitoh sat facing Nokobi Hidaka and extracted a potato from the hearth’s ash. The vegetable had cooked through, and she broke it in two and stuffed the pieces into her cheeks. Coldness had permeated her body, and her gums protested the potato’s scalding heat more than they should have, but she chewed anyway. The Doves’ food reserves were a fair bit more plentiful than Kayu Saitoh had supposed, and the women were rationed several potatoes daily. When she stirred the ashes in search of a second potato, Nokobi Hidaka found it first and handed it to her.

“You found it,” Kayu Saitoh said, “so you eat it.”

“This isn’t my potato,” Nokobi Hidaka grumbled. “It’s the Doves’ potato. It’s table scraps, courtesy of the Doves.”

“If you let things like that bother you, you won’t be able to keep alive.”

“But Kayu, you must be thinking the same thing as you eat those potatoes.”

“Hawkish talk is dangerous in Dendera now—and futile.” To communicate her point, she snatched the potato from the woman’s hand.

“If things go on like this, the raid will be nothing more than a lost dream.” Nokobi Hidaka looked at the ashes that clung to her empty hand. “Mei must be so sad now.”

“Quit that talk.”

Masari Shiina had forbidden any discussion of not only the plague but of the former chief and the mutineers. Just like what was done sixteen years ago, she was trying to make the events be forgotten.

“Quit it, huh?” Nokobi Hidaka snorted. “You can only say that because you haven’t been in Dendera long. I think I’ve told you this before, but I’ve lived here for eighteen years now. I’m eighty-eight. That’s a long time. So I knew Mei well. As I do Masari.”

Kayu Saitoh lowered her voice. “Do you think Masari Shiina was waiting a long time for this to happen?”

“She hated Mei. When the Mountain-Barring happened, Mei was the one who incited the women of the Village to a frenzy.” Nokobi Hidaka scratched the splotchy skin of her neck. “Relations were stormy between them even back in the Village.”

“I didn’t know that,” Kayu Saitoh whispered. Being much younger than the two women, she hadn’t been aware of their animosity in the Village.

“Apart from that, they were the heads of the Hawk and Dove factions. For Masari, the bear’s coming might not have been that unwelcome. But the saddest part is that without Mei, the raid will never happen. Even Itsuru grieved her passing deeply. I … wonder if that woman is all right.”

“Living long doesn’t seem to be that easy.”

“You got that right. I wanted to attack the Village.”

“Then do it alone—if you’re brave enough,” Kayu Saitoh replied, peeling the skin from her potato. But then she realized she sounded as if she had completely submitted to Masari Shiina. “Of course I have my own thoughts sometimes,” she added. “No matter who the chief is, I don’t see any purpose to living in Dendera.”

“So what are you going to do then, Climb the Mountain?”

“I don’t want to. There’s even less purpose to that. I can’t go to Paradise. I can only live. So I have to do something that only a person who’s alive can do. That’s how I’ve come to think. That’s the only way I can think now.”

“A raid is something only someone who’s alive can do.”

“No, that would be a small thing. Sure, the act itself might be big, but it wouldn’t resolve anything. At the very least, it wouldn’t fulfill me or even change how I feel.”

“What do you want to do, Kayu?”

“I want an aspiration,” Kayu Saitoh said, thinking back to her final conversation with Mei Mitsuya. “I don’t need anyone else’s approval. The act itself could even be something insignificant. But I want an aspiration—something to believe in.”

“And you’re saying it would have nothing to do with the Hawks or the Doves? I’m not sure I understand.” Nokobi Hidaka tiled her head to the side. “And working for the Doves, in this Dendera they’ve taken over—that’s how you’ll find your bigger purpose?”

“Before I can do anything else, I need to eat, and I need to live.”

Kayu Saitoh put the potato in her mouth and looked to Shigi Yamamoto. She couldn’t tell whether the woman was listening to their conversation or not.

Even as Dendera changed, Shigi Yamamoto’s behavior remained constant. Now, as before, she muttered words that no one but she could understand.

Kayu Saitoh chewed her potato, wondering if Shigi Yamamoto had found her own aspiration. No one else would share it, or even know what it was, but possibly she had found something that could bring her true fulfillment, and possibly, at this very moment, she might be devoted to doing everything she could to achieve it.

Patting her starch-filled stomach, Kayu Saitoh headed for the edge of the clearing, where she saw and entered a circle of women with Hono Ishizuka at the center. The hut that was to be a bear trap needed to be sturdy enough to contain the beast, and its construction required a great many materials and laborers. Like the other huts, the vertical posts would consist of wooden logs plunged into a foundation of leveled dirt. In this case, however, logs would also take the place of the straw walls.

Hono Ishizuka cheerfully directed the project. The woman’s high spirits quickly sapped Kayu Saitoh’s desire to work. Hono Ishizuka probably didn’t see anything inappropriate about giving orders with that smirk on her face—after all, no one remained to oppose her viewpoint—but her manner came across to Kayu Saitoh as something unforgivable. But Dendera’s currents had shifted course, and Kayu Saitoh was merely engulfed in them—opposing the new order while keeping herself alive wouldn’t be easy. Instead, she hid her feelings and joined in. But in this state of mind, her efforts went as poorly as would be expected, and she accidentally stubbed her toes on the wood quite a few times. Hono Ishizuka regarded her with scorn and asked her if she wouldn’t please try taking the work seriously. Kayu Saitoh’s anger came to a boil. She tossed down the wood she’d been carrying on her shoulder and asserted how much she’d done for Dendera, but her protests found no sympathy; all her self-justifications, founded upon little more than pride and privilege, didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t work worth a damn.

Without interrupting her duties, Ate Amami advised, “If you can’t help, you should go home.”

“You’re talking like you’re one of them.” A new anger bubbled up inside Kayu Saitoh. “Weren’t you a Hawk, Ate Amami? I seem to remember you babbling about attacking the Village.”