Read The Incense Game for Free Online

in search and rescue. A part of him always remained on alert for one particular aura—the conjoined energy from the three fellow disciples of Ozuno, his teacher. Hirata never knew when they would show up, and he was always on his guard in case they did.
    He followed a dirty track through the slums of Odenmacho, which were carpeted with the remains of flimsy hovels once occupied by Edo’s poorest citizens. Emaciated men, women, and children crowded around fires. Haunted eyes gazed at Hirata from grimy faces. Suddenly Hirata felt the aura, a mighty, booming pulsation that countered the rhythm of his heart and tingled along every nerve. Its force made the air ring and shimmer like shattered crystal. His hand flew to the sword at his waist at the same time he fought instinctive terror and the urge to run. He reined in his horse, jumped down from the saddle. The cart driver halted his two oxen and beheld Hirata with puzzlement.
    Three men appeared, some fifty paces away, as if they’d materialized out of the bonfire smoke. Side by side, they moved toward Hirata. Although they strolled at a leisurely pace, they covered the distance so fast that they arrived in an instant. Their aura dissipated as if sucked inside them by a vacuum. They, unlike other people, could turn it on and off. They stood before him, two samurai and a priest.
    “Surprise,” the samurai in the middle said. With his athletic physique and strong, regular features, he looked the perfect samurai. His flowing dark gray coat and trousers swirled around him in a wind of his own creation. A twinkle in his deep black eyes, and a left eyebrow that was higher than the right, gave him a rakish charm.
    “Greetings, Tahara- san ,” Hirata said.
    Tahara was the trio’s leader, the one Hirata feared most, although he was almost as afraid of the others. They were the only men in Japan capable of defeating him in combat. His friendship with them felt as hazardous as holding a wasp in his mouth.
    “Fancy running into you,” Hirata said. “I haven’t seen you in, what, seven days?”
    “Eight.” Tahara’s eyes twinkled brighter: He knew that Hirata knew the exact length of the time since their last meeting. “Sorry to make myself so scarce.” His voice had a curious quality that was at once smooth and rough, that brought to mind a stream flowing over jagged rocks. “I’ve been busy guarding the Tokugawa rice warehouses.” His clan were retainers to the daimyo of Iga Province, known for its tradition of mystic martial arts practiced by the ninja , a cult of peasant warriors adept at stealth. The daimyo had loaned Tahara to the government for security work.
    “Pity the poor thief who tries to get past you,” Hirata said.
    Tahara, who could kill a man as quickly and effortlessly as look at him, shrugged with a modest smile.
    Hirata turned to the other samurai. “What have you been up to, Kitano- san ?”
    “Leading Lord Satake’s fire brigade.” Kitano Shigemasa was a retainer to Lord Satake. He wore the iron helmet and armor tunic of a soldier. Although he was in his fifties and gray-haired, his figure was robust. His eyes crinkled as if in a smile, but the rest of his face, a mesh of scars, remained immobile. As a youth, he’d been wounded in a drunken brawl, his face badly cut. The cuts had damaged his facial nerves. “Can’t let the rest of Edo burn down.”
    The government delegated the responsibility for fighting fires to the daimyo , whose efforts had proved woefully inadequate during the earthquake. Since then, they’d much increased their manpower and vigilance.
    “And you, Deguchi- san ?” Hirata turned to the third man.
    Deguchi was a Buddhist priest from the Z ō j ō Temple district. His maroon cloak covered a saffron-dyed robe. His shaved head was bare. Thirty years old, he could pass for twenty or forty. Although his long, oval face was plain—the eyes heavily lidded, the nose flat, and mouth pursed—he had a haunting, luminescent