Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,25
weird things. My bastard brother has been dead nearly five years, and we never got along. But when I saw him tonight…” He shook his head. “I felt that me dying was the only way for him to be at peace, the only way to make things right.” He snorted a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “It sounds ridiculous now.”
“It’s not,” I told him, and both men looked at me in surprise, as if just remembering I was there. “I felt something similar, Okame-san,” I went on. “I saw…Master Isao and the others…calling to me. Telling me I belonged here, with them.”
Daisuke nodded grimly. “I had a similar experience,” he admitted, letting Okame pull him to his feet. “This place…” He gazed into the fog, where ghostly faces swirled through the mist, their voices sobbing and angry. “It’s not the spirits that call to us,” he murmured. “It is our own failures and regrets we see. The things we wish we could have changed, the memories that haunt us.”
“That is the lure of Meido,” said a wheezy voice, as Master Jiro came toward us on the path. Ko walked at his side, her white fur glowing softly against the constant gloom. “Only a few souls are pure enough to go to Tengoku, the Celestial Heavens, when they die,” he continued, his staff thumping softly as he came forward. “Those who have lived their lives without regret, who have suffered no uncertainty or hesitation. On the other end of the spectrum are the souls who are corrupt, who indulge in travesty with no regret. They will find that Jigoku awaits them at the end of their lives. For the rest of them, the souls who are neither unblemished enough for heaven nor wicked enough for Jigoku, they find themselves in Meido, awaiting the time they can be reborn. That is why it is also known as the Realm of Waiting, of reflection. It is a place to ponder your past life, to remember every regret, every failure, all the things you would have done differently. According to the teachings, only when you have come to terms with your past, when you have relinquished your previous life, can you be reborn.” His gaze slid to the ghostly figures in the fog, and his brow crinkled with what looked to be pity. “Though for some, it can take centuries, if they cannot let go of their former lives.”
“Daisuke-san! Yumeko-chan!”
With Chu bounding along beside her, Reika hurried forward and slid past Master Jiro to peer down at us. “Are you all right?” she panted, looking equally worried and exasperated. “One moment you’re right behind me, the next you’re nowhere to be found. I blinked, and you were gone. What happened?”
I stared at her in amazement. “Didn’t you hear the spirits calling to you, Reika-san?” I asked. “Was there no one from your past, urging you to join them in Meido?”
She made a face. “Of course there was. My spiteful mother, who never wanted me to become a shrine maiden. She was planning to marry me off to a wealthy samurai so she could reap the benefits of my marriage. I had to listen to her call me terrible things all my life—why would it be any different, now that she’s dead?”
That made Okame laugh. “I wish I had seen it,” he chuckled, as Reika frowned at him. “I wish I had been there to see the spirits of the dead get scolded by our shrine maiden.”
“Well, I see you are all taking this as seriously as I expected.” Naganori materialized a few yards down the path, watching us with a rather sour look on his face. “And you have all survived the temptations of the path, how…inspiring.”
I scowled at him. “You could have warned us what would happen.”
One corner of his mouth curled. “Did I not?” he asked in a voice of infuriating calm. “Well, no matter. Come.” He turned his back on our glares and raised a withered hand. “The night is waning, and we have wasted enough time chasing shadows. We will be on the path for a while, yet. This time, if you are inclined to wander off, do it quickly so the rest of us don’t have to search for you. I would like to make the border of Earth lands before dawn.”
Okame glared as the majutsushi strode away. “I suppose it wouldn’t be very honorable to accidentally shove him off the path,” he muttered as we started following Naganori