The Greater Death of Saito Saku by Richard Harland Salto Saku awoke early on the day of his dying.

It had rained overnight, and the air was warm and humid. Outside his window, the birds had begun their early morning song. He licked dry lips and remembered: the gokami had come to the Hot Pools. His head was full of cobwebs. At fifty years old, he found it difficult to snap instantly alert. Too much easy living, not good for a bushido warrior. Today lie would have to pay for it. He stretched and sat up in the dim light. Not that anyone had said what was expected of him, not in so many words. The first news had come from his daughter, running up wide-eyed to repeat a muddled rumour. "Be calm, Aoi," he had told her; and when she'd asked what he was going to do, he had answered "Wait". He had waited until an hour after sunset, when the official deputation of mayor and villagers appeared. The bowls of tea had been shaking in their hands as they told him the facts. It was a fully-grown gokami, a legend come to life. No one had seen it arrivethe traditional belief was that the fire-beasts flew down from the Burning Land. This one was reported as standing twice as high as the tallest cedar in Oirinji Forest. It was a monster such as he'd never expected to encounter in his own lifetime. No, they hadnt said what was expected of him. But he understood. For twenty-five years, as protector of Kitake and its three smaller satellite villages, he had accepted their gifts: a splendid house, a fine wife, status and respect. He was expected to keep his end of the bargain. He went out to the cistern in the courtyard. The leaves of the laurel trees glittered in the early light. He washed face and hands, then fastened his hair in a top-knot. At least he could look the part, even if he could no longer play it. Ryosen had left a towel for him on top of the chest by the steps. Perfectly folded, fragrant with the smell of jasmine. Everything ready and in its place. Yes, he thought, he had been fortunate in his wife. His morning meal was also in its place, laid on the mat on the outside verandah. The lotus-root tea, the bowl of eggflower broth, the salted rice cake and the honeyed rice cake. He sat and ate slowly, thoughtfully. The tree frogs were belling in the bamboo thickets, but his ears were focused on sounds within the house. He could hear the discreet movements of Ryosen and Aoi as they went about their household activities. He felt more sorry for them than for himself. They had shared in his status as warrior and protector, always holding their heads high. But after today, every accumulated grudge would be visited upon them. Who would take their side when he was gone? He would be the failed protector, and his family would suffer a loss of face because of his defeat. Occasionally, there were other sounds, too: a faint sniffling, followed by someone whispering Shush, shush, shush. It must be Aoi swallowing back her tears, Ryosen trying to quieten her down. Just ten years old, but already his daughter grasped the reality of the situation. She knew that her father had no hope against a fully-grown fire-beast.

Finishing his meal, he went to the room where he kept his weapons. Swords, staves, bows, breastplates and corselets of mail: all the equipment of a samurai warrior. But very little of it would serve against this opponent. Dismissing the heavy armour, he donned a costume of silk and soft leather. Better to remain mobile. As for weapons, a bow and arrows would be ineffectual, a long-bladcd sword too cumbersome. In the end, he chose a short sword and a barb that fitted onto the shaft of a spear. Of all his weapons, the inward-working barb was the only one that he thought might actually kill a gokami. He took time and trouble over his preparations. He owed it to the villagers to put up the best possible fight. He went to the shrine in the family room to offer his prayers and prepare himself mentally. He stayed until he was perfectly balanced, perfectly composed. His one regret was that Aoi and Ryosen didn't come to farewell him. Yet he understood their reasons. If Aoi couldn't control her tears, if Ryosen couldn't believe in his triumph, then they wouldn't weaken his spirit by letting him sec their doubts. A warrior had to exclude the fear of death from his mind. The day was warming as he walked out along the path. His mandarin trees were a mass of blossom, his azaleas hadn't yet come into flower. This part of the garden he had planted and tended himself. Perhaps he should have been a gardener... The village was stirring, but not with its usual early morning bustle. No children playing, no groups of gossips. As he followed the single road, he could see people on their verandahs, watching in silence. It was as though the whole village was in mourning. But not for him. They were in mourning for their own forthcoming exile. With the gokami at the Hot Pools, they would have to abandon their fields and decamp to a safer region. The decision would probably be taken as soon as their protector had been defeated. No one called out to him, no one made eye contact. Two women were drawing water from the well, but they moved off as he approached. He was sure they hadn't finished filling their buckets. They were ashamed of him, he realized. Ashamed that their samurai warrior was unable to fulfil his duty. They'd maintained him for so long, they'd almost forgotten his advancing age. But with the coming of the fire-beast, suddenly they saw him as he was. They were ashamed to have so little to show for all their gifts. He understood their thinking too well to be angry with them. They didn't want to look him in the face, when he was the embodiment of their own mistake. For their sake, he wished he could have been a younger man, fitter and more vigorous. He walked on in the silence. There was only the drone of flies, the dry scraping of crickets. He sniffed and caught a distinct tang of sulphur, blowing in the breeze from the direction of the Hot Pools. He held himself very upright, with eyes fixed straight ahead. Only once did he cast a sideways glance, as he passed the mayor's house. Higo no Usemi and his family were all there, watching and waiting. Higo pointedly turned his head and looked away. Disowning him! And yet, how often Higo had boasted about the deeds of the village's hired warrior! Small enough

deeds, in truth: pursuing troublesome bandits, confronting a rabble of fleeing mercenaries, threatening the Fukori water thieves. But the prestige of the village raised the prestige of its major. Higo's boasting had grown even as the actual deeds receded into the past. Now, though, it would be the end of an era. Higo couldn't survive, as mayor when the village was forced to re-locate. Everything would change, but Saito wouldn't be around to see it. He lengthened his stride. It was no concern of his any more. The Hot Pools were half an hour's walk away. The volcanic zone was in a state of exceptional activity. There was steam everywhere, and a stink of sulphur so strong that he almost gagged. Even the surrounding rock felt warm underfoot. Weapons at the ready, he moved forward into the steam. Since volcanic heat was a fire-beast's natural environment, he guessed that the gokami would be in the very middle of the pools. For him, the heat and steam was just one more handicap in the unequal combat. The pools were circular and shallow, some lukewarm, some hot, some almost boiling. Here and there stood massive boulders of pumice flung up by powerful geysters from below. Even as he advanced, a new geyser shot suddenly into the air. He heard it before he saw it: a mighty upwards rush that came back down with a smack of spray across the rock. The gokami appeared as a darkness through the steam, like a hill shrouded by clouds. The reports hadn't exaggerated: it was truly twice as high as the tallest cedar in Oirinji Forest. He calmed his breathing, slowed his heartbeat. Fear was as irrelevant as hope. He must study his opponent and work out the most favourable strategy. At present, he couldn't even tell where its head was. He continued forward until he could see huge bronze scales like plates of overlapping metal. He was looking up at its hind legs and back. He ran through the lines of an old poem in his mind. Nature unnatural, forged with heat. Living in armour, the great fire-beast. Waves surged across from pool to pool as another geyser shot up nearby. What was the gokami doing with its head? It seemed to be digging down into the ground. Of course, seeking for volcanic heat! And the heat was rising to meet it! It was disturbing the crust of solid rock, encouraging the instability below. He chose his ground for combat: the largest area of flat rock between the pools. He laid out his weapons, then went in search of a suitable boulder, as heavy as he could throw. The gokami still wasn't aware of him. Returning with a spherical chunk of pumice, he measured his distance, then ran up, accelerating pace by pace. When he came level with his weapons, he hurled the chunk at the monster's hind leg. There was a resounding clang! The scales weren't only bronze in colour, they were real metal!

The great body moved fast. Saito stooped to snatch up his sword and barb. He had just turned to face the head when the tail came at him out of nowhere. It knocked him flat and rolled him into the ground. Crushed and battered, he hung onto his weapons while the weight passed over. No time to count his bruises. He knew what would happen next. By the time he staggered to his feet, the tail was already sweeping back in reverse direction. In a blur of bronze, it rushed at him. He bent at the knees and sprang upwards. Perfect timing! One step climbing, one step on top. As the surface sped under his feet, he kept his balance and dropped down on the other side. The fire-beast shifted position, rotating further around. Saito looked up and saw a shadowy spade shape descending through clouds of steam. High above him was the monster's head. His first impression was of glowing metal wreathed in smoke. Its snout was still hot from digging in volcanic rock. As he watched, the glow faded from orange to dull red. like a poker lifted from a fire. Was it looking at him? The head was faceted in sharp planes like a cut stone. It was so heavily armoured, he couldn't see the eyes. Look for vulnerable spots, he told himself. Shape your attack to your strengths and its weaknesses. But it had no weaknesses. It was magnificent. As a warrior, he couldn't help admiring its terrible beauty. His own imperfections were lost in the contemplation of its power. He forgot his stiffening muscles, his slowing reactions, his aging bones. It was the embodiment of everything he had striven to become. He had trained in the use of weapons, but the gokami was a weapon in itself. He had learned to fight without conscious thought, but it had never known anything else. It was absolutely simple, noble in its simplicity. He worshipped itand attacked it. Raising his weapons, he ran forward with a ritual battlecry. A great claw descended over him. Metal screeched, the air filled with rock-dust. The points of the talon struck deep into the ground all around. He was enclosed as if in a cage. But the sheer size of the claw gave him a chance. The talons couldn't close to squeeze so small a body. He slipped out between the razor-sharp edges, pivoted, then plunged his sword into a chink between two overlapping scales. Useless. He slid the sword in up to the hilt, and still touched only metal. The talons moved, the chink between the scales closed up. The swordblade warped, splintered, then snapped clean off. He discarded the hilt and backed away. He felt almost elevated by this proof of the fire-beast's power. In a strange way, he wanted it to be supreme, invincible. The ground shook as the monster shifted again. He heard new geysers burst into life behind him, he was aware of hot steam and spattering drops of water. But he couldn't turn to look. Step by step, he

continued to back away. Would the gokami Strike with its head or its claws? This time it was the other claw. It swung at him sideways, a casual flick. The force of the flick lifted him off the ground and sent him flying through the air. He fell backwards into a pool of scalding water. He screamed in agony as the skin was stripped from his back. Then screamed again as a geyser erupted beneath him. He had a dim sense of being tossed high, high, high... It was the endhe couldn't survive such pain. His flesh was incandescent. When he landed on something hard and smooth, he hardly realised he hadn't come back down to the ground. He looked out on a world of bronze. Shining plates like overlapping roofs, even larger than the scales lower down. He was in the valley between the fire-beast's shoulder-blades, just behind its neck. It was so unlikely that his mind couldn't respond. He only wanted to get on with his dying. He had fought to the best of his ability, he had fought like a man half his age. He had earned the right to die. The fire-beast was swinging its head to the left and right, searching for its tiny attacker. But it couldn't twist far enough to see him on the bark of its neck. In any case, its search was directed mainly towards the ground. No, no one could ask any more of him. But when he saw the gaps in the gokami's armour, he knew he could ask more of himself. He had discovered its weakness after all. The gaps appeared when it flexed its neck. The scales were less tight-fitting here, and lifted as they rode over one another. He could slip his barb into one of those gapsif he could manage to crawl that far. His body was a mass of pain, as if he'd been skinned alive. He picked out one particular gap and dragged himself forward on elbows and knees. The gap opened when the monster's neck swung to the left, closed when it swung to the right. It was wide open when he reached it. He thrust his barb into the space between the metal plates. The barb met no living tissue. He pushed in with his arm. as far as he could. Still nothing. He would have to crawl bodily inside. He rolled his head sideways and slid himself into the gap. Head and shoulders, deeper and deeper. The upper plate scraped against his back until he almost passed out. Then the tip of his barb encountered something that wasn't hard and impenetrable, something yielding and gristly. He summoned his remaining strength and drove the barb home. Saito had been dreaming. Long dreams of days and nights and days again. He had been thundering across landscapes, stamping over forests and fields, crushing everything in his path. He had dreamed of huge strides and tremendous speedand a small inner wound that wouldn't stop stinging. Awakening now, he couldn't remember the details, only the mood. Power and strength and a kind of grandeur... He lay on his belly in the dark, rising and falling to the rhythm of a distant tlutmp-thump-thump. So the fire-beast was in motion, and he was still half-buried between its scales. The thing in his hand must be

the spear shaft. But what was the sticky wetness? It was all over him. He could even taste its strange metallic tang in his mouth. Then he realised: he was lying in the fire-beast's blood. He must have swallowed it, must have nearly drowned in it. He worked his way backwards and emerged into the open. Daylight burst over his head and made him squint. It was late afternoon, and the sun's beams came in low and level. Where they caught on the scales was a dazzle of gold and bronze. He sat up. The blood was a dried-out river running back over the scales. Dried-out, but with fresh red rivulets in it too. He looked more closely and saw specks of glitter in the red. Not ordinary animal blood, but bearing a sediment of bright metal. Curious, he touched the ridges where the blood had coagulated. They were black on the surface, but hard and gleaming underneath. Encrustations of true bronze! Nature unnatural! He remembered the beginning of the old poem. The gokami grew metal armor out of its own bloodstream. He looked to the source of the river. The wound wouldn't heal, he knew. The barb had detached from the end of the spear shaft and was now working its way deeper and deeper in. With its serrated flukes, it would creep through organs and soft tissue until it pierced the mighty heart. A pang shot through him at the thought. Sharp and stabbing, close to his own heart. He dropped the spear shaft and turned the other way. His gaze followed the trail of blood to where it vanished from view, beyond the shoulder-blades. He raised himself on all fours and began to crawl along the trail. It was odd that he experienced no pain. He remembered how scalding geyser had stripped the skin from his back, thighs and calves. He was covered in so much blood, he couldn't see his own wounds. But he hardly even felt his body any more. Perhaps the monster's blood had a protective, numbing effect? The scales rocked under him, the shoulder-blades rose and fell. The fire-beast was running with enormous strides. He passed beyond the shoulder blades and looked out over its back. The river of blood dropped down onto the great smooth curve of the wing-case, then fanned out over the side. Black and red, with metallic corrugations. It was hard to believe the gokami was still upright, let alone running, after all the blood it had lost. He looked out further, over the landscape. Seen from this height, everything was very tiny. They were travelling across low hills forested with beech and pine trees. Irregular fields of millet occupied the pockets of flatter ground. Most of the slopes were now in shadow. It was an unfamiliar landscape, very different to the area around Kitake. There were human figures, too. They fled from the gokami across fields, along paths, crying in shrill voices. Sometimes they fell flat on their faces, sometimes they made gestures of prayer or despair. Their panic seemed to increase even after the danger had passed. He felt no sympathy for them. Their behavior was alien and vaguely ridiculous, like small pale monkeys. He had felt the same way about them in his dream, he recalled. Insignificant figures like small pale

monkeys. He had seen so many of them scamper away from his thundering footsteps... It occurred to him then that his dreams had been something more than dreams. They were too close to reality not to be real. But it wasn't his own reality. He had dreamed what the gokami had experienced. Yes, days and nights and days again. Travelling across immense distances. Heading towards some goal. What goal? His dreams gave him only the mood, the inkling. He turned and crawled back up the trail of blood. There was more bright red in it now. pumping out in spurt after spurt. Arterial blood. Inside the great body, the barb was approaching its goal. Which goal would come first? He left the trail and climbed the base of the fire-beast's neck. The sun was sinking behind him, the sky darkening to a stormy plum colour ahead. But there was a light in the darkness, a fiery orange glow. Volcanoes! He looked out around the curve of the neck and saw a great chain of cones across the horizon. Bare of all vegetation, ash-grey with streaks of smouldering red and sulphurous yellow. Already he seemed to smell the smoky fumes. A second verse of the old poem rose to his mind: Born in the depths of Mount Chiyo-san Home of the monsters in the Burning Land. Home, home, home. Truly, he felt that he was coming home. The mood of his dreams was his own mood now. Another stab of pain exploded in his chest. His heartbeat shuddered, then recovered. The pain couldn't stop him. He would die, but he wouldn't die of that. He would die in his own way, a greater death. The proper death of a fire-beast. Whatever he had been, he was no more. Past and future narrowed to a single moment. The moment of standing on the rim of Chiyo-san, of unfurling his wings, of making the death leap. Heart bursting as he plummeted into the molten depths. He wanted to give himself back, to be un-made, un-forged. The glow on the horizon lit up with a sudden gout of flame. From out of the middle of the Burning Land came tongues of red and yellow fire. A moment later, he heard the rumble, felt its vibration through the ground. Mount Chiyo-san was bidding him welcome. Very soon now. He lengthened his stride.