Only a Shadow

Only a Shadow

A Story of the Fated Blades

Steve Bein

N
EW
A
MERICAN
L
IBRARY

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ISBN: 978-1-101-60571-4

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

I
NTRODUCTION

The following story is an episode in the long history of the fated Inazuma blades, forged a thousand years ago by Japan's greatest sword smith, the mysterious Master Inazuma. It shares the same universe as my novel,
Daughter of the Sword
, which follows three Inazuma blades through crucial moments in Japanese history and in the lives of the warriors and clans that the swords have brought to glory, or to ruin. The novel centers around Tokyo's most determined cop, and what the fated blades have in store for her. The sword known as the Tiger on the Mountain appears in both
Daughter of the Sword
and in “Only a Shadow” though the events in each story are independent of the other. In
Daughter of the Sword
, the weapon exerts its influence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. “Only a Shadow” tells a story of this powerful weapon in the fifteenth century, and of the dangerous men who would claim it.

1.

Muromachi Era, the Year 117

(1442 CE)

The young man walked into Old Jujiro's candlelit study with his head held high and his shoulders square. He's a quick one, Jujiro thought, if he's already guessed this is a test. Is he trying to impress me with this mask of boldness? Does he think it will earn him entry into the arcane secrets? Or is he not quick at all, but simply rash? Is the boldness genuine?

Jujiro hoped it was not. At this point in his career, everyone he met treated him with deference—and, more often than not, with a trace of fear. This boy showed neither. Still, the clan elders had endorsed him. If his reputation was accurate, this boy was exactly the one Jujiro needed to pull off the greatest theft in living memory, to say nothing of saving the clan from extinction.

“What is your name?” Old Jujiro asked. The reedy quavering of his own voice surprised him. He sometimes exaggerated the effect when meeting someone for the first time—it was no small advantage to be underestimated by strangers—but this time there was no need. Age was catching up with him all too swiftly.

“Tadanao,” the young man replied. He stood in the center of the room, tall enough that he had to duck below the rafters. Dressed in simple blue farmer's garb, his features were sharp, his black hair short, his cheeks freckled from laboring in the sun. His loose-fitting pants were dusty, the cloth about his shoulders faded. He looked shabby. All to the good, Jujiro thought; he knows how to be nondescript.

“Sit, Tada-san.” Old Jujiro motioned at the wooden floor with a spotted, callused hand. He laid his hands on the lacquered black table before him, its surface so polished he could see his reflection even by candlelight. The wrinkles there surprised him, as did the wrinkles across his gnarled knuckles. How had he grown so old so quickly? Or was it being in the presence of this lithe, muscular boy that forced him to recall the grace and power of his own youth?

Tadanao kneeled on the mat, close enough to Jujiro's low table that he could touch it. His back was still straight, his head high. If he'd taken offense at Jujiro calling him by his childhood name, he gave no sign.

“Tell me, Tada-san, what do you know of the daimyo Hirata Nobushige?”

“Enough.” Jujiro did not approve of the boy's haughty demeanor. “He has been fighting for control of the Kansai since before I was born. Now that he has finished his new fortress, they say he will win.”

“And what do you think of that?”

“I think Hirata has been hunting the Iga like dogs. If he secures the Kansai, I think our days are numbered.”

“Indeed,” Jujiro said. “And do you know who I am, Tada-san?”

“You are Iga Jujiro. They say you are the best
shinobi
in the clan.”

Jujiro nodded curtly. The boy used no honorifics, none of the deflections and self-deprecations of polite conversation with an elder. Another sign of boldness, and of pride.

“Do you know why you are here, Tada-san?”

“I am being evaluated,” he said, masking the resentment in his voice almost completely, narrowing his eyes so slightly and so briefly that Jujiro almost doubted he'd seen it at all.

“Do you know why?”

“No.”

“Ah.” Honesty, even when it rankles, Jujiro thought. Good. “Now,” he continued, “the second test.” He reached by his side for a length of rope, showed it to the boy, then quickly tied a knot of his own invention. “Take an end of the rope,” he said.

Tadanao did as he was told, and Jujiro took the other end. “Slowly now, lean back,” he told the boy, and Jujiro did the same. For a moment they each supported the other's weight, hanging back over their haunches with a two-fisted grip on the cord. Then Old Jujiro sat back up, the boy mirroring him. “The knot can support your weight and mine,
neh
?” said Jujiro. The boy nodded.

With a quick tug on both ends of the rope, Jujiro made the knot pop open. “And yet it cannot,
neh
?” He passed the rope across the table. “Tie the same knot. Then tell me why it can support your weight and mine, and why an old man like me can pull it apart so easily.”

Tadanao took the rope in both hands, bowing slightly as he accepted it, and tied the knot quickly and efficiently. He
is
bright, Jujiro thought. He retains what he sees, and needs only to see it once.

“Weighted slowly,” the boy said, pulling on both ends of the rope with gradual pressure, “the knot will hold. But weighted quickly, the knot will unravel itself.”

He jerked on the ends to demonstrate. His face belied his surprise, for the knot did not loosen in the slightest. He gave a hard jerk, then a harder one, and at last the knot popped open, leaving a straight length of rope in its place. “You're stronger than you look, Iga-sama.”

At last the honorific, Jujiro thought. He is bright
and
bold. Good qualities in a
shinobi
. But he respects ability, not seniority. Does he have enough wisdom to respect wisdom?

“Now the third test,” Old Jujiro said. “The table you see before me once belonged to a great daimyo. He won it fighting the Koreans, and brought it back from across the sea.”

Jujiro watched the boy's eyes as they took in the table: its low, broad, inky black surface, reflective as a still pond; its curving black legs; the mother-of-pearl inlays adorning the front. Did he pause for a moment on the pinhole he was seated before? Did he guess what was behind it? If so, his eyes lingered for less than a heartbeat.

“It became the daimyo's favorite heirloom, Tada-san. He took every meal at it, and had it placed beside his bed it every night. It weighs as much as I do, and it cannot be taken apart without irreparable harm. How would you steal it from his crowded palace?”

Tadanao bowed low. “Perhaps the question should be, ‘How did
you
steal it from his palace?'”

“So you have heard the story.”

“Only that you were the one who stole it. But I've put much thought into how you might have done it.”

“And?”

“You built a duplicate.”

Jujiro allowed himself a small smile. “Did I?”

“You must have. You concealed the duplicate poorly in a wagon, and you arranged for the wagon to be seen as the daimyo returned from some errand. The daimyo gave chase, along with all his men, and you were free to carry his table out the front door.”

“Not bad.” Old Jujiro smiled again. “You've passed every test save the one I cannot give you, Tada-san. You are patient, quick-witted, creative, and insightful. The question that remains is whether you know when to double-cross—and, more importantly, when not to.”

Tadanao cocked his head, looking at him through the corners of his eyes. “Do you mean to suggest that I would double-cross
you
, sir?”

Again the honorific, Jujiro thought. “Why wouldn't you?”

“You are a legend, Iga-sama. I heard stories of you from the moment the clan took me in. For a long time I wanted to
be
you.”

Old Jujiro nodded. “The clan would be very fortunate indeed to have a good
shinobi
who knows when not to double-cross. You would be lucky to know it, and I would be lucky if you knew it too: I do not relish the thought of facing so young an enemy.”

He placed his wrinkled hands on the smooth lacquered tabletop. “Now then, have you heard of the Tiger on the Mountain?”

“I have,” said the boy. “It is a
katana
, made by the master Inazuma if the stories are true.”

“They are. What do you know of the Inazuma blades?”

There it was again: that tiny, fleeting narrowing of the eyes. The boy didn't care for having his ignorance laid bare. “Very little,” he said. “Inazuma is said to be the greatest sword smith in history,
neh
?”

“Just so.”

“And his weapons . . . I don't wish to be thought a fool, Iga-sama, but it is said that some of them are magical.”

“Indeed. And the Tiger?”

“It is said that so long as the Tiger dwells in a castle, that castle can never fall.”

Jujiro nodded. “Tell me, what do you think of such rumors, Tada-san?”

“I am not sure what to think. I am not one to put my faith in ghost stories. The common folk believe in
tengu
, and a good
shinobi
can use such superstitions to his advantage. But everyone says the eruption that destroyed Yamamachi left one wooden hut untouched. They say the lava did not so much as singe the straw of the roof.”

“You have a good knowledge of history, Tada-san. Yamamachi was destroyed nearly a hundred years ago.”

“People in the village are telling the story again. They say Lord Hirata's great-grandfather took shelter in that hut, with the Tiger on the Mountain at his hip. He is supposed to have broken his leg fleeing the lava, and he thought the hut to be as good a place as any to meet his end.”

Jujiro gave the boy an approving nod. “You are not a fool to believe the legend, Tada-san. I am old enough to have met Hirata's great-grandfather, once upon a time. He limped for the rest of his life, but he died a silver-haired old man.”

“Because of the sword.”

“Just so. And that sword now dwells in Lord Hirata's newly constructed fortress at Toba. From his seat in that fortress he means to carry out the extinction of our clan. He claims Toba castle is impregnable, and he says his Inazuma blade will never be stolen again.”

“He lost it once before,” said Tadanao. It was not a question. The boy caught on quickly. A moment later he added, “It was you, wasn't it? The first time it was stolen, it was you.”

“Yes.”

“Is that why he hates us?”

“I certainly hope not. That was thirty years ago. A man his age should have outgrown bearing grudges.”

“How did he recover the sword?”

Jujiro shrugged. “I stole it under contract. It was not my place to ask what became of it after that. Perhaps the one who hired me sold it right back to Lord Hirata. I can only guess what price he paid. In any case, Hirata said no Iga will ever take it again. Naturally he meant me.”

“The clan cannot let this stand. It is an insult to us all.”

“It is more than that, my boy. If he had his way, he would cut my throat with that sword, and yours too. He means to use Toba castle to lock down the Kansai, and then to kill every last Iga in the region. Mothers. Daughters. All of us.”

“Then we should raze the castle.”

“The elders have already tried,” said Jujiro. “Firebombs hidden in the cook's wood stores. Sacrifices to the
kami
to summon a typhoon. Dead animals secreted away to disease the waters. Thus far neither the castle nor its garrison show any sign of harm.”

“You embarrassed him badly when you first stole the sword,
neh
?”

“I suppose so.”

The boy smiled. “How are we going to steal it this time?”

“I will do my part, and you will do yours. But you will need to prove yourself a true
shinobi
. You will need to walk on water. You will need to pass through walls. You will need to fly like a raven, hold your breath longer than the oldest sea turtle, and see in darkness where even cats are blind. Are you ready to begin?”