Fated Blades 00 Only a Shadow by HISTORY ASIAN Bein Steve

Author:HISTORY ASIAN Bein, Steve [HISTORY ASIAN Bein, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9781101605714
Google: OkR0yjTDjv0C
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-09-03T22:00:00+00:00

8.

When he reached the rocky spur where Gyomin’s hut was perched, he found an underwater mouth ringed with seaweed and glowing fish. Swimming into the tunnel, he found its walls were smooth to his touch, and he wondered whether it had first been formed by lava or by human tools. He soon emerged into a little chamber hollowed from the rock, lit by a tiny candle. There was no doubt that the chamber had been fashioned by human hands, for the hands were Gyomin’s. Like Old Jujiro, Gyomin was shinobi, and his profession as a fisherman was no more than a long-worn and supremely well-fitting disguise.

Pressing his hands and feet against opposite walls, Tada climbed the wet rocks to a wooden panel. He knocked twice, and when Gyomin opened the panel Tada climbed up through the false bottom of Gyomin’s hearth. The old man was smiling at him, a conspiratorial grin that Tada returned. I’m sorry, Tada thought, but you’re a fool. You’re smiling because you think we stole the sword together. I’m smiling because I’m going to dupe you both.

“I’m to deliver this to Iga-sama right away,” he told Gyomin, patting the sword case. Gyomin bowed, his white beard touching his knees as he did so. Tada lingered only long enough to dry his hair, change his clothes, and move the sword from its bound leather case to a hollowed-out length of fat bamboo, one end of which was cleverly carved to conceal a removable cap. Then he and Gyomin wrapped great lengths of fishing net around the bamboo, as had been previously arranged; it would not do to carry their treasure down the thoroughfare in the same case in which it had been carried from the castle. Better for one fisherman to be seen delivering tackle to another one.

Tada left the old man’s hut at a slow walk, heading not toward the farmer’s house where Jujiro would meet him but rather into the village. This too had been prearranged. Even though no one had seen him enter Gyomin’s house, and even though no one else knew where Jujiro was waiting, none would ever see someone walk directly from Gyomin’s house to Old Jujiro's. Tada, the huge rolled net jostling against his shoulders, walked hunchbacked along a meandering path until he reached a cooper’s house. He took a moment to ensure he was not observed, then stole quietly into a grass-roofed outbuilding behind the house: the cooper’s workshop.

He removed the end cap from the bamboo and withdrew the Inazuma blade and its scabbard. Standing atop a barrel, he nestled the sword deep into the thatching of the workshop roof. This had not been prearranged; Tada chose the cooper’s shed in the moment he passed it, solely for the accessibility of its roof. It was dirty work, wedging the sword into the thatch, and grit and mold fell into his eyes as he did it. He made sure to dust off himself afterward, to leave no visible sign of his labors.

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