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:: Oh, let me ::
But the blood!
*the blood is of us*
[and in us] —and because of us—
/ and from us/ |and it is us|
(and there is always blood)
{when new things are}
born.
IX
MT. HIBA
The white-capped monks shivered—it was night, and the stars gave no heat. Did they weep? I could not tell, their faces hunched together; they all refused to meet my eyes. They ought to have wept—it is that sort of story.
“You see how it was, now,” I sighed, “and you will not spread Izanagi’s lies any longer, I know.”
“No, musuko,” they murmured, and they turned their faces tighter towards each other.
“Musuko, musuko! What a stupid word. You have no sons at all. But please,” and here I leaned close in, hearing my knees creak into the crouch, “I will overlook your wormy vocabulary if you will only tell me why you have those carvings, of the eight-headed snake and I. Did you dream such a scene? Do you know where the snake is to be found?”
The abbot’s shining head rose bravely from the throng, which seemed to me in that moment to resemble most ridiculously a bouquet of flowers, bunched together and nodding in the breeze. “Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the serpent carved on our walls has plagued these valleys since my grandfather was a boy. It likes especially to eat maidens and young mothers. We made these icons in the hope that you would vanquish it, cut its heads and tails from its body, and add to your already immeasurable glory. They are our prayers.”
So simple, then. They knew nothing they ought not to have known. I was not walking through an already-told tale. I was myself, and no other, not the storm-seed, not the flesh-cased man. I should have known how empty they would prove.
“I have resolved already to kill it, and wed the last girl it seized, if she is still alive. It is only that I cannot find the beast. And I have been distracted by . . . family matters.”
“Of course, Storm-Lord! But why would a god marry a poor farm girl?” asked one of the bound novices, his voice thin and chirping as an insect.
“All things must eventually mate,” I shrugged, “having been cast into a man’s flesh I must do as flesh does. And it hardly matters whether one mates with a woman or a rock or a river—the end result is the same. Once all the world wed stones and trees—but this is a degenerate age, and no one keeps to tradition.”
The abbot spoke again among his bright-robed brothers. “The serpent has been quiet of late, but it is easy to spot, for in the last year terrible trees have sprouted from its back, and it drags a train of black, clotted blood behind it like a bridal veil.”
“But where?” I cried, and curled my fists, “no one can tell me where it drags its bloody belly, where these trees grow!”
Stroking his beads like a girl brushes her hair, the abbot pursed his lips. “The last time I heard its cries was outside of Hiroshima.”
“The city,” I said heavily.
“Yes, the city, the city,” the monks nodded eagerly, “now let us go!”
“Everyone points me towards that reeking, wasted city. I do not wish to go there, I do not wish it!” I suppressed the urge to stamp my feet and tear my hair. Instead, I simply turned my head to one side and then the other, worrying the serpent in my mind like an old bone.
“Do you make the eight-times-brewed wine in this shrine?” I asked suddenly with a voice like a crow.
“Yes . . . yes,” answered the novice, confused, “we have some barrels left, but the brewing season is long past.”
“If you will bring eight barrels, and a quantity of sacred camphor wood, I will let you go—but you must come with me into Hiroshima, which stinks of meat and bodies, and do as I say.”
The monks wept then, certainly, and shook their knots, and swore they would obey me, whatever I should ask.
“Wait,” I whispered, “before we leave—do you know, do you also know where the entrance to the Root-Country is, the path down into Ne no Kuni?”
