Akuzenji no more than a bandit. Shika learned how he protected merchants and their goods on their way to the north and west, trading out of Kitakami and other seaports, where ships loaded with copper coins, iron, textiles, and medicines came from Silla and Shin, on the mainland. Akuzenji fought off other marauding bandits and made life safe for the woodsmen who cut trees on his mountain and sent the logs downstream to Lake Kasumi and then on to the capital. He had always been a superstitious man who liked to keep a number of shamans and sorcerers on the mountain and in the forest to consult about dreams and omens. Now he had become obsessed with obtaining a suitable skull for Shisoku’s magic and had settled on the Kuromori lord.
He soon realized Shika could move as silently as a deer, with the same keen eyesight and hearing, and began to send him on scouting missions to the land around Matsutani. Shika came to know Lord Kiyoyori well: his favorite horse, a tall black stallion; his manner of riding; and the retainers and pages who accompanied him, to whom Shika assigned nicknames in his mind: Gripknees, Wobbly, Neversmile.
When he was not scouting he practiced archery, shooting endlessly at the straw targets, or made arrows from close-jointed bamboo, some with humming bulbs carved from magnolia wood. He fletched them with feathers he found in the forest or took from birds he hunted, eagles and cranes. He also carried out the countless chores that were laid on him as the youngest of Akuzenji’s men, feeding and grooming the horses, including Akuzenji’s white stallion, Nyorin, fetching water from the well and firewood from the forest, skinning and butchering dead beasts.
Only when he was alone and certain no one was watching did he take out the mask made from the deer’s skull. He placed it over his face and tried to meditate. But what stirred within him was the ancient power of the forest, the stag’s drive to mate and make children. There were many women in Akuzenji’s fortress, but they already had husbands, lovers, or other protectors and favorites and were out of his reach. And then there was the one who had ridden with the bandit to the mountain sorcerer’s hut, whose name he discovered was Lady Tora. Men lowered their voices when they spoke it and whispered about her among themselves. She had some power that terrified them, though they would never admit it. He knew the mask was powerful in the same way, but he had not yet learned to turn that power to his own advantage, and it left him disturbed and confused.
One warm, sultry evening he went deep into the forest and came upon a waterfall that fell white in the twilight into an opaque black pool in which was reflected the thin sickle of the new moon. Hot and restless, he took off his clothes, laid them on a rock with the brocade bag that held the mask, and plunged into the water. When he surfaced, shaking drops from his eyes, he saw some creature moving on the bank. He thought it was a deer coming to drink, but then he saw the long black hair and the pale face and realized it was a woman.
Lady Tora stood where he had left his clothes. She bent down and took the mask from the bag. She beckoned to him. He came naked out of the water, his skin wet and cool. She placed the mask on his face and kissed the cinnabar-colored lips. Beyond the rocks was a mossy bank and here they lay down together.
She was without a doubt the same woman who had come to him in the sorcerer’s hut. She was using him for some purpose of her own, just as the sorcerer had used him to create the mask, but, as then, he had no will to resist. Skillfully she led him into the Great Bliss and together they heard the Lion’s Roar. A sudden gust of wind drove spray over them, soaking them.
Then Tora took the mask off and kissed the real lips, the real eyes. “Now you must lie with no one, woman or man, until you wed the one who is meant for you.”
“Will I never lie with you