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As the rising sun touches her with wings of flame, the ki rin s pearly
eyes offer no answer. The single horn on her broad brow is formidable, but
her cloven hooves are not weighted with claws, nor her jaws with fangs. She
would be the more comfortable companion, but is she the healer? Can she
oppose the might of the blue and white tiger?
As the woman stares and studies, Baby opens his rheumy eyes and
holds out hands that should be plump, but are shriveled and yellowing.
Impulsively, she snatches him from the cradle-board and holds him before
the wait-ing kami.
Choose your champion, my baby! she cries, feeling how frail he is,
silently praying for mercy and justice to guide him.
The baby s hands wave wildly. Then, with a chortle of amusement, he
reaches for the glint of sunlight imprisoned within the ki rin s horn. For a
moment he is suffused with a ruddy glow purification or fever? the
mother does not know. Gently, the ki rin dips the horn s needle-point away
from the baby s hands.
Champion, I, says the storm voice.
And enemy, I, says the wave roar. I give you an hour. The game
ends at sunset.
With a bound of great paws and a lashing of his tail, the tiger is gone,
the forest swallowing his blue and white into green and shadow. The ki rin
raises her head to watch him depart and her flanks shudder with a sigh. Her
pearl eyes are without an expression the woman can read as she lowers
her head again.
Since we are to be companions, the ki rin asks, what shall I call you,
woman?
Yuki, she says and the ki rin bobs her head and Yuki feels that the
kami is smiling behind her eyes of pearl.
Come then, Yuki. Take your baby and climb upon my back. The
forest is deep and the shrine is far and I can run more swiftly than you.
Yuki carefully straps Baby onto his cradle-board and then mounts the
ki rin. Where the ki rin s mane is fullest, she grasps a double handful and
wraps it about her fists.
Even as Yuki decides that she is secure, the ki rin be-gins to run. The
gait is so smooth that Yuki can hardly believe that they are moving, but the
pace is so great that roses blossom on her cheeks. For the first time since
Baby fell ill, she actually smiles.
Beneath fruiting cherry and ripening plum, through sol-emn avenues
of bamboo so tall that the rising sun does not penetrate, the ki rin carries
Yuki and her son. Though Yuki was born on this island and believed that
she knew all of its haunts, she does not know these forests and realizes
that they run in realms apart from those of hu-mankind, where kami, kappa,
and oni are the inhabitants. She shudders then and the ki rin answers
without slowing.
Listen carefully, Yuki. Right or wrong, I am your champion and if you
and your baby hope to return to your home, you must trust and obey me.
I hear you, Ki rin.
The blue and white tiger will seek to keep us from the shrine, but do
not mistake yourself about him. He may seem all fang and claw and terrible
strength, but he is a creature of ancient guile and older magic.
Yuki wonders, unjustly perhaps, if she has chosen the wrong
champion, for the ki rin seems much in awe of the blue and white tiger. Still,
she holds her tongue.
You must obey me in all things, the ki rin continues, and, if you do, I
will not fail to get you and the baby to the shrine before the day s end.
I hear you, Yuki says, and I will obey you.
But she continues to wonder, for the ki rin has only promised to carry
them to the shrine, not to heal the baby.
They run on and the running is like flying, the cloven hooves of the
ki rin never marking the earth over which she speeds.
After a time, Yuki hears a new sound, the heavy thud-ding of feet. The
sounds come from two feet, not four. Nor could such slapping come from
the velveted paws of the blue and white tiger, but nevertheless, Yuki is
afraid. The ki rin increases her pace, but their pursuer is not slowed by the
weight of a mother and child. Soon Yuki sees what follows.
An oni! she shrieks.
The ki rin nods, her horn slicing clear the path for them.
Describe it for me, she says, and Yuki hears her panting beneath
the words.
He is so tall that he seems to brush the sky, and his skin is muddy
blue, Yuki says. His body is tufted with coarse hair but his head is bald as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]