‘They are dead,’ Toshimichi said. ‘Sugihara took his own life after… after the curse took his daughter.’
Gunichi crossed his hands in front of him in the sign of the celestial dragon while Masanori drew a small bottle from his belt and took a swig of its contents. Komatsu was more voluble in his reaction.
‘Curse? What curse?’ the swordsman demanded.
‘The curse that haunts all the Nagashiro clan,’ the Dowager explained. ‘The curse that rises once a century to visit death upon this family.’
Komatsu shook his head in denial. ‘I am not of your blood! I married Masanori’s daughter!’ He looked at Otami. ‘We are not of the Nagashiro. We have nothing to do with this!’
‘But you do.’ The words echoed through the desolate hall. The speaker came striding out from the doorway just beside the niche with the imposter armour and swords. He was a middle-aged man, his hair still a lustrous black, although traces of silver infiltrated his beard. The tunic he wore was a deep scarlet with the emblem of the Nagashiro clan embroidered in green thread. From the centre finger of his left hand, a huge ivory ring repeated that emblem and pronounced his rank and title. Baron Eiji Nagashiro.
The baron strode into the great hall, his sharp features drawn back in a reproving expression. Two burly retainers dressed in Eiji’s livery flanked him as he approached the table. ‘When you married into this family, you merged your blood with ours. The prosperity of Nagashiro, which you coveted, is yours. And so too is our curse.’
‘I want no part of any curse,’ Komatsu stated. He turned from the baron and gave Masanori a withering look. ‘You said nothing about any curse when I courted your daughter.’
‘It is a burden all the Nagashiro clan shares,’ the Dowager said. ‘For centuries its shadow has hung over us.’ She wagged a bony finger at Masanori. ‘You should have warned Komatsu. When he hears what is in store for him, he may decide to take your head before Yorozuya comes for it.’
Komatsu drew his sword, the sharp blade shining in the hall’s dim light. ‘Let this Yorozuya try to take my head! I am the best blade in all the Khanate! I have fought forty-seven duels and never suffered a scratch! Just let this Yorozuya dare show his face.’
The swordsman’s boasts brought grisly laughter from many at the table. Toshimichi did not share in the morbid humour. He turned towards Komatsu. ‘I have delved deeply into the history of our family and the curse that haunts us. Perhaps there was a time when you could have crossed swords with Yorozuya and emerged the victor, but that day is long past. Yorozuya died almost four hundred years ago.’
‘You see, Komatsu,’ Gunichi proclaimed, ‘it is no mortal foe that threatens you, but a vengeful wraith from the underworld.’
The swordsman sat back down, his face almost ashen in colour. He laid his weapon across the table but kept a ready hand upon its grip. ‘A ghost,’ he muttered. ‘A murdering ghost.’
‘A ghost that seeks to murder us all,’ Toshimichi said. He gave Otami a grave smile. ‘When you married into this clan, you became part of our blood as far as Yorozuya is concerned. He will seek your heads as viciously as ours.’
Otami could not control the tremble in her voice. ‘But why? Who is… or was… this Yorozuya?’
Baron Eiji took it upon himself to answer that question. ‘Yorozuya was the Lord Executioner of King Ashikaga Hidenaga at the time of the Five Princes. One by one, King Ashikaga brought battle to each of the princes and one by one their castles fell.’ He paused and gestured at the room in which they sat. ‘This was one of those castles, and Jubei Nagashiro was one of those princes. The king was determined to solidify his rule and leave no spark of dissent to trouble his legacy. So when he defeated a prince and captured a castle, he called upon Yorozuya to execute the entire family. Down to the least trace of noble blood.’
Toshimichi pointed to the ring the baron wore and the pendant around his mother’s neck. ‘One of the Nagashiro escaped the massacre. Now, once a century, Yorozuya’s spirit returns to try to complete his duty to King Ashikaga. When he begins to kill, he continues, relentlessly. Once a month, he seeks out a victim. For years he hunts us down, until whatever infernal force drives him is spent. At least for another century.’
Baron Eiji stepped away from the table and slowly paced the hall. ‘When the wraith is loosed from the underworld, the descendants of Jubei die. It does not matter how far they run, or where they hide, Yorozuya finds them. He raises his great two-handed sword, the executioner’s blade he wielded in life, and with a single stroke he removes…’
‘Did you summon us here simply to remind us of the horror that hangs over us?’ Masanori demanded.
Baron Eiji smiled at the merchant’s outburst. ‘No. I called you all here because this is where it all started.’ He let his words linger in the air, watching his audience as they waited for him to continue.
‘This is where the curse started,’ Baron Eiji declared. ‘And this is also where it can be brought to an end.’
Gunichi gave a sour look at the markings which Baron Eiji’s retainers had scrawled across the floor. The priest of Dracothion did not care for this occult display and made that disdain obvious to the others. ‘No good can come from dabbling in the profane arts,’ he warned. ‘This smacks of necromancy, the dark magic of Nagash.’
‘If you are so opposed, you do not have to join the circle,’ Baron Eiji told him. ‘Of course, being outside the circle would mean forsaking its protection. Are you so certain your god values you enough to safeguard you against the wraith we would conjure?’
Toshimichi could see the doubt in Gunichi’s eyes. A moment more and he walked forwards and took his place within the strange design that stretched across the floor. The flickering light from the seventeen black candles arrayed about the circle did strange things to the dragon embroidered on the priest’s robes, making it seem as though the wyrm were writhing in protest and trying to pull Gunichi away.
Toshimichi fought to suppress his own misgivings. He wondered if the priest truly knew how deeply Baron Eiji had delved into the black arts to perform this séance. The scholar’s own studies had touched upon these occult practices. The seventeen candles, for instance, had to be rendered from the fat of murdered men in order to evoke their arcane potency. The chalk that marked the floor drew its ghostly colour from the crushed bones mixed in with the powder. At the four cardinal directions, a tiny brazier smouldered and filled the hall with a sweet incense – an odour derived from the slivers of coffins exhumed under the full moon. All these things, and many other macabre preparations, were designed to draw into the room the magic of Shyish and the grisly energies of the dead.
With Gunichi’s entry into the circle, the balance was complete. The priest took his place in the triangle where the stars of the celestial dragon had been drawn. Each member of the family stood within a geometric shape that contained a constellation peculiar to their nature. Masanori was in a rhombus with the stars of the weasel while Otami reposed in a hexagon with the lights of the dove. Toshimichi noted that his own place was a pentagram with the owl. Baron Eiji, at the centre of the complex intricacies of the circle, was bound by a chalk octagon and the constellation of the wolf.
The dour retainers were quick to act once Gunichi was inside the circle. Keeping outside the shape, they moved to cast down powder and seal the design, creating an unbroken perimeter around the Nagashiro survivors. Their task completed, the men bowed towards Baron Eiji. A gesture from their master sent the men scurrying away. Toshimichi could hear their hasty footfalls as they withdrew through the castle’s desolate halls.
‘Each of you has, in a way, attempted to defy the curse of Nagashiro,’ Baron Eiji stated. ‘Be it stealing away to the protection of a temple or trying to trick a renowned swordsman into serving as your champion. All of you have tried some way to escape the revenge of Yorozuya.’
‘And you have promised a better way,’ Masanori growled. ‘A way that is certain to work.’
Baron Eiji nodded. ‘It was not pride that caused me to restore this keep or fabricate the lost relics of our clan.’ He turned and looked to the Dowager. ‘You made a study of the arcane sciences in an effort to break the curse.’
The Dowager grasped the ivory pendant with a bony hand. ‘It was my dream that I should be able to protect my children. I have failed in that ambition and now I find my last son to be rushing headlong into calamity.’
‘There is an old adage, mother, that the man who would escape danger must first embrace it,’ Baron Eiji stated.
Toshimichi felt a chill rush through his body. ‘You mean to call up the spirit of Yorozuya,’ he said. There was no question in the scholar’s mind. He could read the intention in the baron’s eyes.
Baron Eiji made a placating motion with his hand. ‘Do not be afraid. What is there to fear except the thing that already menaces each of us? Would you go back, run away to wait and tremble until the Lord Executioner finds you? Or will you stand here and help me to break this curse?’
‘Yorozuya will kill us all!’ objected Masanori and his argument was taken up by many of the others.
‘Not if you stand with me,’ Baron Eiji said. ‘The courage of a moment and you will save your lives.’
‘What is it you intend with this rite?’ Toshimichi asked. ‘What do you hope to accomplish when you call Yorozuya?’
‘I intend to deceive the ghost,’ Baron Eiji stated. ‘That is why it was necessary for all of you to come here, for all of you to enter the circle. Every living drop of Nagashiro blood is within this circle. When Yorozuya is called, he will seek a head to claim, but he will not be able to take any who stand in the circle. We will be invisible to him.’
‘And when he finds none to slay, he will believe his task accomplished,’ Toshimichi mused. ‘At least until the next cycle begins.’
‘That would be a century from now,’ Otami said. ‘There will be no menace over any of us.’
