The Sacred Era by Yoshio Aramaki

Author:Yoshio, Aramaki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 Fiction / General
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2017-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

The next morning, K calls Tantra into his office. Once again overcome by his guilt at breaking the commandments, K initially thinks it will be difficult to face him. But Tantra makes no effort to hide his awareness of the intimate relations between K and his daughter. Now, he takes a wholly different attitude with K, acting overly familiar, overly obsequious with him.

Tantra’s attitude annoys K. But he has to bear with it for now. He puts all effort into putting up an unperturbed face for him.

“The ghost appeared here last night,” K says.

Tantra’s confusion makes itself visible on his face.

“He was in the kitchen, drinking water.”

Tantra remains silent.

“You’ve known about it all this time, haven’t you? You don’t need to hide the truth from me. A headless ghost does not frighten me. I mean, I have a pretty good idea as to who it might be.”

Eyes widening, Tantra stares back at K.

“Do you mean? Do you mean, sir, that you know who the ghost is?”

“Yes, I do. Before I came here, the same ghost made an appearance at the Holy Igitur Monastery. Murdered a man named Abir. But I brought you here, Tantra, because I want you to tell me something. The previous director—Bose—did he know about the ghost?”

Tantra gives K a very uneasy look.

“Yes,” he says.

“And the director before him?”

“Yes. I am sure that both of them knew. But is it true? Could it really be the ghost of Darko Dachilko? The man has been dead for seven hundred years.”

“I see. So, Tantra, I want you to tell me the truth now. When you told me that Mr. Bose had gone to Planet Bosch, that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. You are correct.”

The pallid color of shock paints Tantra’s face.

Things are finally coming together in K’s mind.

“Bose was strangled to death by the ghost, wasn’t he?”

“You are absolutely correct. How did you know?”

“The victim at the monastery was killed in the same way. Six-fingered hands strangled Abir by his throat.”

Tantra leans forward as his face turns pale.

“Just as they strangled Mr. Bose.”

According to Tantra, the director prior to Bose also died the same way. Prior to K’s arrival, besides the director, there were four other members of the Planet Bosch Research Center. But after the director’s death, they all fled, not telling anyone where they were going.

“Actually, both the previous two directors were quite into the study of Darko Dachilko. Could this be connected, somehow?”

“I’m more interested in the connection between this mysterious Planet Bosch and Darko Dachilko. Do you know anything about this?”

“No, I know nothing about that. Even just speaking the name of that heretic gives me the shivers.”

Recalling his conversations with the late Abir, K remembers that, just like Tantra, he too was quite frightened about something. But in the end, Abir never got the chance to explain to K what exactly so frightened him. Abir once mentioned that the Papal Court had restricted access to any information pertaining to Planet Bosch, formally designating it all classified.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.