The Incense Game si-16 Read online

  “Does this mean Ienobu is out of the picture?” Reiko said.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Sano said. “He has allies who are enemies of Yanagisawa and won’t want Yoshisato inheriting the dictatorship. And Ienobu isn’t the kind of man to accept defeat without a fight.”

  Masahiro came into the room, greeted his parents, and said, “Is there any food left?”

  “Yes. You’re in luck,” Reiko said.

  Sano remembered something. “What did Ienobu say to you this morning?”

  Masahiro ducked his head over his rice bowl. “He said I was overstepping my station. He told me to stop giving advice to the shogun, or he would make me sorry.”

  “What kind of advice?” Reiko said, sounding as puzzled as Sano was.

  “Just some things you and Father taught me.”

  “How did Ienobu know you were advising the shogun?” Sano said.

  “He heard us,” Masahiro said.

  “Didn’t I tell you to be careful?”

  “I try to be. But the shogun was upset, and he asked me what to do. I had to say something. And it was during his exercise in the garden. I’d never seen Ienobu there. He doesn’t like the cold. But he was there that day.”

  “What an unfortunate coincidence,” Reiko said sympathetically.

  But Sano’s instincts tingled in warning. “Somehow I don’t think it was a coincidence. Why did Ienobu choose that particular time to brave the cold in the garden?”

  “Maybe Hirata- san knows,” Masahiro said. “He was there, too. I saw him.”

  A bad feeling rippled through Sano as he thought of the house that had mysteriously risen from the chasm. He wondered if Hirata’s presence at the scene wasn’t a coincidence either. “Yoshisato isn’t the only unknown quantity. There’s something else going on.”

  That night Hirata climbed the hills to the clearing in the forest. There he found a ritual in progress. Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi stood chanting inside the circle of flaming oil lamps, their hands touching, around the altar. They didn’t notice Hirata watching nearby. A figure hovered in the gold-flecked purple smoke from the incense burner. It was the giant warrior in the horned helmet and the old-fashioned armor, his face hidden by his helmet’s visor. Fiery veins of light connected him to the men. Hirata was surprised that he could see the ghost even though he hadn’t drunk the potion or breathed the smoke. Perhaps after seeing it once, he didn’t need to be in a trance to see it again. Its terrifying power boomed and pulsed. He resisted the urge to run.

  “Why are you troubled, my lord?” Tahara asked the ghost. “Ienobu has witnessed Masahiro’s influence on the shogun. He can counteract it. Everything went just as we planned.”

  Fury beset Hirata. The secret society had known all along, and not deigned to tell him, that his action would put Masahiro in jeopardy!

  The ghost spoke in its alien language that Hirata could now understand. “The boy is a minor threat compared to the bastard who purports to be the shogun’s son.” Hirata frowned, confused. Something must have happened while he’d been away from court. “The bastard must be eliminated. Nothing must stand in the way of Ienobu’s becoming the next shogun.”

  “How will Ienobu’s becoming the shogun destroy the Tokugawa regime?” Kitano asked.

  “Ienobu and his allies are plotting changes in the regime,” the ghost replied. “Within a generation the Tokugawa will crumble under pressure from inside and outside. And I will have my revenge for my defeat at Sekigahara.”

  Hirata burst into the circle of light. Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi started. They turned toward him, their hands still touching. “What are you doing here?” Tahara said without his usual humor.

  “Joining the ritual,” Hirata said. “Why didn’t you invite me?”

  “We never told you that you would be part of every ritual.” Kitano’s eyes were cold.

  “There’s a lot you never told me,” Hirata retorted. “Such as, that the spirit was an enemy of the Tokugawa. Or that its idea of ‘destiny’ is to destroy the regime that I serve!”

  “If we’d told you, you wouldn’t have joined us,” Tahara pointed out. Deguchi nodded.

  Their callousness fueled Hirata’s rage. “I was a fool to trust you, or it.” He flung out his hand toward the ghost, whose image wavered because he’d interrupted the three men’s concentration. “But I won’t trust you anymore. Because I’ve uncovered your lies.

  “Ozuno wouldn’t give you his magic spell book, so you tried to steal it. He fought you. That’s how your face got cut up.” Hirata glared at Kitano, then Deguchi. “That’s why you’re mute.” He said to Tahara, “You didn’t inherit the book. You stole it from Ozuno on your second try, after you killed him. When you lured me into your secret society, you made me a party to our teacher’s murder!”

  The men’s dismayed faces were taut and perspiring with their effort to maintain their trance. The veins of light dimmed. The ghost’s image faded.

  “Then you forced me to endanger my master’s son.” Hirata was so angry that he could hardly speak. “All the while you were intentionally involving me in treason against the Tokugawa regime!”

  “So the detective has found us out,” Tahara said. “Congratulations.”

  Infuriated by his sarcasm, Hirata said, “Did you ever stop to wonder if I’m not the only one who’s been deceived? What did the spirit promise you in exchange for meddling with politics? Mystical powers such as have never been seen? A chance to train and lead a legion of superhuman martial artists that will rule the world someday?” It was a wild guess, but the men’s cagy expressions told Hirata it was correct. “How do you know that the spirit won’t dump you after he’s given you nothing more than a few magic tricks? Maybe you’ll have sold your honor for nothing but a selfish, petty man’s revenge on his dead enemy.”

  For the first time Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi looked worried. The ghost’s image shrank as their energy faded. “We’re going through with it.” Tahara sounded as though his fear of betrayal had only solidified his conviction. He looked to Kitano and Deguchi, who nodded. The ghost’s image enlarged, grew clearer. “And so are you. Or Sano will die.”

  “No,” Hirata said. “I’m ending this now.” He drew his sword despite the fact that he was outnumbered by these men whose individual skills exceeded his own.

  Alarm, then aggression, flared in their eyes. They must defend themselves, even if they didn’t want to fight Hirata, because someone was bound to be killed, which would ruin their plans. But they didn’t reach for their swords. Their outstretched hands seemed stuck together as if by magnets on their fingertips. Their jaws clenched with their effort to break free.

  Sword raised, Hirata lunged at them. The veins of light crackled. He stalled in midair. The ghostly warrior glowed bright, brighter, orange-hot, then white, leaching energy out of Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. Blinded, Hirata had the sensation he’d experienced during his trance, of being sucked up toward the sky, then falling, accelerating, and cartwheeling. He thought, The ghost prevented a battle because it needs us all alive.

  Consciousness briefly fled him, then returned. Hirata found himself lying on cold ground by the altar, in the gray dawn. Tahara, Kitano, Deguchi, and the ghost were gone. All that remained was Hirata’s conviction that he must make a clean breast to Sano, shut down the secret society, and consign the ghost to the netherworld from which it came.

  If only he knew how.

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