Japanese Dreams by Sean Wallace (ed)

Author:Sean Wallace (ed)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Japan, Japanese culture, spec fic, paranormal, ghosts
ISBN: 978-1-59021-224-0
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 2009-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Tale of the Poet and the Dog

Jay Lake

It is a tale little told now, but the Fox women once climbed out of their heather beds and went to war. No one will speak of this behind the paper wall, and the farmers in their fields claim they have never heard of the story. Still, the rice men leave out their hopeful offerings of aburaage and politely look away when a kitsune slips past them.

Kamakura, Warring States, Tokugawa, even the Gaijin Shogunate—history does not matter to Fox women, any more than it matters to kappa or red ogres. They do not see our years, only the four seasons that turn in a wheel around the axle of the sun over and over again in eternal sameness. The islands are a cart to them, bound on a journey that never ends. To their eyes all men and their works are but rats in the rice bin.

Still, there was a time when a younger son in terror of the armies of Kublai Khan roused them from the bright country of their dreaming.

His name was Mimura. He had been trained in the gentlemanly arts of his day—poetry, painting, the proper arrangement of flowers. Being a practical lad he also knew how to dress a kill, bind a harvest and weave a bolt of cloth. Being a younger son, little care had been taken to prevent him from soiling himself with such base knowledge, and less care to school him to horse and armor and the discipline of fire and sword.

Mimura was in his father’s audience chamber, attending the daimyo quietly from behind the ranks of the warriors as was his station, when the runner came from the Chinzei Bugyo with the red-and-white banners. A great hubbub arose, for many in Mimura’s fathers lands had expected Lord Kifume to march from the north in the next turning of the seasons, but not yet.

“No, no,” the messenger shouted, so bereft of his reason that he was beyond custom or duty. “The ships come, each with a hundred mounted warriors carrying bows that can shoot the shadow from the moon. The armies are gathering at the ports and beaches all through Kyushu. The Bakufu will have the west lined with steel to drive them off before they can land!”

“The shogun is a fool,” Mimura’s father said quietly.

With those words the entire audience chamber fell into a deathly silence. A man’s head could be carried three times around the walls of Prince Koreyasu’s palace for less, while his body was sent home in a tub of offal.

Mimura’s father rose from his throne and drew his sword. “We will fight. It is our duty. But we will make a column of march on the Hill of Withered Plums, where we can watch the western sea and move great force to wherever the enemy will land. There are not enough men in all of Kyushu to wall the beaches as we have been commanded, but still we will prevail.”

Mimura slipped away.

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