Session 4. (27/1/12)

Hidasue tells his new employees, "I can't believe you're samurai and yet so bad with horses. Tell you what, you see my stable lad and he'll help you get familiar with the horses. I'll take the prisoners to Akita myself."

Emishi starts to worry that Hidasue might be getting wind that they might not be full samurai, and wonders why he hasn't commented on their lack of clan insignia; then he notices that Hidasue doesn't wear any either. But someone has noticed their "shameful" heritage - in between bouts of falling off horses, Hidasue's gardener, Petennouk, approaches Emishi and says, "I know what you are."

Emishi, ever hot-headed, immediately takes offence. "Clarify," he hisses frostily, hand straying down to his sword.

"You've got Ainu blood in you."

"Says who?"

"You're doing well to hide it. It's best not to be Ainu round here."

"What do you know about being Ainu?"

"My father was Ainu. And my mother."

"But that would make you..." Yoshi Yeesu interjects, then his voice trails off.

"Yes, I'm an Ainu. Master Andō is the only one who'll employ me, on account of him being an outsider too."

"What are you doing here?"

"I used to come with my father to trade with the Wajin. But when the Nanbu kicked the Andō out of the province, all the trading moved with them. I was friends with young Master Andō and I stayed on. And now I've nowhere else to go. There are no boats going to Ezo any more." Petennouk asks about the homeland and the half-Ainu fill him in with the depressing details of constant Wajin expansion into southern Ezo.

"We grew up on the move." - "Pushed from village to village." - "Across the mountains." - "And over the sea to an island which has no bears... now, at least."

"What are your professions?" asks Petennouk.

"Priest!" - Sahpo.

"Fisherman!" - Emishi.

"Basher!!" - Tomtare, grinning.

Emishi asks if Petennouk has heard of the neem tree. "No, can't say I have. Maybe I know it by another name?"

"We need to get some and take it home to save our tribe leader."

"Well good luck! You'll need it, to get home. The wind and currents are against you all the way."

Tomtare is pensive. "The thugs called us Emishi. Is that another word for Ainu?"

"Yes, and not a very nice word."

"You mean I'm named with a swearword?" asks Emishi.

Petennouk abruptly changes the subject. "That was good work you did with those thugs."

"It's just a pity we didn't get the sword back," bemoans Emishi. "I think we must have missed something."

Petennouk takes Sahpo aside. "You said you were trained as a priest?"

"Yes."

"Do you know the Saga of Truth?"

"No."

"Well that's good for seeing things you've missed. Come to see me of an evening and I'll teach you."

Over the next two weeks the young apprentices gain proficiency in horse riding. When Hidasue returns from Akita he asks how the training is going. "We're ready and at your command," chirps Emishi.

"In that case, let's have a race down to the ferry. Mount up and let's go!"

Hidasue lets the newcomers have a slight head start and Yoshi Yeesu canters into the lead; Emishi trots alongside Hidasue while Sahpo and Tomtare lag behind, their horses remaining stubbornly at walking pace. Hidasue and Yoshi Yeesu both get up to a canter. Hidasue gains slightly - it is clear that he has the best horse. Emishi and Tomtare plod along but Sahpo falls off. He remounts, embarrassed. Hidasue and Yoshi Yeesu continue to set the pace, cantering along comfortably while Hidasue's superior horse gradually overtakes Yoshi Yeesu by the halfway mark. Sahpo and Tomtare swap places at the back of the field while Emishi alternates bursts of speed with slow ambles to make up the midfield. With two furlongs to go Hidasue slows slightly, allowing Yoshi Yeesu to retake the lead. Then both canter to the finish, Hidasue catching, catching, and past! - but was it before the finish or after? Hidasue declares it a dead heat. Yoshi Yeesu thinks he won, but wisely decides not to argue the point with his boss. Emishi trots in third over a minute later, followed by Tomtare and Sahpo, their horses rising to a trot only as they cross the line, almost two minutes further behind. Yoshi Yeesu is feted as the equal of Hidasue (gaining 5 On), while Emishi has bragging rights over Sahpo and Tomtare (1 On).

Sahpo attempts to regain some respect by trying out the Saga of Truth on Yoshi Yeesu. "What did you see round the back of the shed?" he asks.

"While we were fighting four of the ruffians, Takahashi and two others snuck out of the back door and ran off into the reeds." Yoshi Yeesu surprises himself with his improved recall.

"Was he carrying anything?"

"Yes, he had Hidasue's sword."

The others are impressed. Yoshi Yeesu now realises that the tracks that he and Ishan Ashte kept finding and losing were in fact two sets of tracks. Takahashi had two people with him, so though one was later found with Ishan Ashte's arrow in him, he still had one other companion. However, there is little they can do about this now. Hidasue decides to give his new assistants regular patrols of Oga town and the nearby villages. This means that every day, one pair of them have a beat to follow in Oga. But there are some initial difficulties. After a patrol by Yoshi Yeesu and Emishi, during which they had to break up an argument in a bar, a deputation of village elders comes to complain to Hidasue that his peace keepers drew swords on unarmed civilians. Fortunately the swords were not used, but after placating the townsfolk, Hidasue has a quiet word with his charges. "You should take a club, or a truncheon, or something like that," he insists.

"A stick?" asks Emishi, incredulously.

"Yes."

"A stick!" - disgustedly.

"Yes."

"I'd rather use my fists."

Hidasue shrugs.

On another occasion, Sahpo and Tomtare see two men brawling, obviously drunk despite it being lunchtime. They decide to interfere. Sahpo readies a spell to pacify one of the men; Tomtare his him with his tetsubo and knocks him out. Sahpo turns to use the spell on the other man. Tomtare swings his tetsubo back again and knocks the second man cold. Sahpo sighs, then uses a healing spell to take the sting out of the bruises and they leave the men to sober up.

On another day, when Ishan Ashte and Onuma are on patrol, the others go riding in the eastern edge of the salt marshes around Lake Hachiro. Suddenly they overhear a conversation. They stop to listen. It goes:

"Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?"

"Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?"

"Give them me."

"No."

"Give them me. Give them me."

"No."

"Then I will howl all night in the reeds, lie in the mud and howl for them."

"Goblin, why do you love them so?"

"They are better than stars or water, better than voices of winds that sing, better than any man's fair daughter, your green glass beads on a silver ring."

"Hush, I stole them out of the moon."

"Give me your beads, I want them."

"No."

"I will howl in the deep lagoon for your green glass beads, I love them so. Give them me. Give them."

"No."

Sahpo and Yoshi Yeesu realise that there is a glowing, shimmering girl talking to an ugly, turtle-like creature; the others can only see the creature, except Emishi who can't see anything at all! The turtle slips into the water and disappears. Sahpo tells the girl his name and asks hers. She doesn't respond. "Are you experiencing some difficulty?" he asks, as assertively as he can.

"Why, I'm waiting for my lover."

"Shall we wait with you?" asks Yoshi Yeesu.

"Will that goblin hurt you?" adds Sahpo.

"No, that ugly kappa is just after my beads. But I'll never give them to him." And she gazes into the distance. After a while, Sahpo and Yoshi Yeesu see a ghostly figure striding across the marsh, his feet never touching the ground. The ghostly man comes up to the nymph, they kiss and immediately disappear. Nothing more happens.

"Well that was odd," comments Yoshi Yeesu.

"What, a man-like turtle sits in a swamp talking to thin air?" opines Emishi. "My father would never have stood for such nonsense!"

When they return, the four adventurers tell Hidasue about their strange encounter in the swamp. "Oh, there must be a thousand folk tales about the lake and the swamps, though I confess I haven't heard one just like this." He goes on to tell them about kappa.

Acting on a hunch, Sahpo uses the Saga of Truth on Yoshi Yeesu to get the most out of their experiences. Yoshi Yeesu reveals that he subconsciously noticed that the nymph's lover walked in a very similar way to the kappa. They form a plan to go back to the marsh at a similar time on their next day off to talk to the nymph again - if she has not left for more nymphish climes. So three days later, out on the marsh, the same conversation is heard. Tomtare and Sahpo (eventually) see the nymph - once again Emishi sees nothing.

The kappa turns to leave; Tomtare moves to intercept. Meanwhile, Sahpo recites the Saga of Truth to the nymph.

"Yes, I see that the goblin is really my lover."

"Then give him your beads."

"But if I do that, he will be locked in his natural form and I'll lose my lover forever."

"Then give the beads to your lover."

"I have tried, but he shows no interest in them."

Sahpo turns to the others. "We must talk to the kappa."

But the kappa has left; Tomtare was so entranced by the nymph that he didn't notice the kappa slip away. Soon the nymph's lover arrives, covering the marsh in giant strides. They kiss and vanish once more.

On the way back to Tennō, the four discuss their mistakes. Sahpo decides to see Petennouk to see if he has any information or advice. "Maybe you can sort this out from the spiritual plane." But Sahpo is not sure he knows how to enter the Astral Plane. "All I know is, in folk tales like this you have to get the girl to give the beads to the goblin. And the only way to do that is to persuade her or force her. So if she's a spirit you'll need to exorcise her before she'll listen to you."

Three days later their duties align and they head out to the marsh again. They have no cucumber available to appease the kappa, but Emishi takes his bow and a fishing line in anticipation of another boring evening. They arrive at dusk and listen to the argument. This time only Sahpo sees the nymph. Yoshi Yeesu talks to the kappa. "I need her beads," it explains. "If she gives me the beads we can be together forever, but she doesn't want to be like me. I don't want her to take on my form either."

"Does she know you're her lover?"

"When we meet in my other form she realises, but every morning she returns to heaven, and every night she comes here memory wiped clean."

Sahpo is trying to persuade the nymph, working her story into the Saga of Truth.

"I know what you're trying to do," she tells him. "I don't trust you. You're working for that goblin."

Sahpo realises that exorcism is his only option, and starts chanting. The kappa sees this and leaps up in alarm.

"What are you doing to her?! No-o-o-o!!" And with that he throws himself at Sahpo. Yoshi Yeesu and Emishi intervene and wrestle with him. However, the kappa is very strong and skilled in sumai, so their combined brawling does him insufficient damage to put him down. Sahpo completes one mantra and the nymph is reduced by one Spirit Rank. The kappa grabs Yoshi Yeesu and twists him this way and that, doing moderate damage. Sahpo completes another mantra and the nymph is down to one Spirit Rank. The kappa executes a textbook uwatenage and throws Yoshi Yeesu to the ground, knocking him unconscious. Emishi looks around for Tomtare, but Tomtare has slipped into a deep sleep - whether natural or supernatural, he hasn't the time to find out. Panicking, Emishi draws his sword and swipes at the kappa as it leaps at Sahpo - and scores a critical hit, chopping off the kappa's leg! Sahpo has just completed his final mantra and defeats the nymph. They cry out in unison, "No-o-o-o!! What have you done?!" The nymph rushes to the kappa, enfolds him in her arms and floats up into the sky, their bodies getting more and more insubstantial until they disappear.

Ignoring Emishi, Sahpo revives Yoshi Yeesu and wakes Tomtare. Emishi stares at the ground, wishing it to open up and swallow him. The party rides back. No-one speaks.

No more conversation is heard in the swamp, despite numerous visits. It seems that the howl of the wind in the reeds is more mournful than ever before.

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