Hyakkimaru's Birth
Book 1 of the Dororo Novel Series
Toriumi Jinzō
Part 3 - A Nightmarish Fate
Chapter 2
Candles lit in a vast hall flickered in the evening wind. The light of the candles didn't reach the hall's tall ceiling. The surrounding darkness closed in on the candles as if it wanted to swallow the light.
Forty-eight statues of demons stood inside the hall, feet planted with eyes like angry red embers. Some figures gnashed their teeth. Others reached their clawed hands to the heavens in an attitude of reverence or prayer. The statues had the look of devils or rakshasa, man-eating monsters.
The candlelight danced over the faces of the statues and cast their shadows on the walls of the hall. A voice emanated from deep in the earth: "Jukai, we demons summon you to the Hall of Hell."
The demon statues moved and writhed in the dim light, laughing as loudly as thunder after a lightning strike.
Jukai screamed.
He awoke to the sound of his own voice crying out. It was just a nightmare. Jukai took a deep breath to calm himself.
Oniwakamaru called out from his room. The autumn wind roared outside the estate's walls like a wild thing trying to get in.
"Oniwakamaru!" Jukai leapt to his feet and dashed to his room. The hallway separating their rooms was chilly and dim. Cold sweat broke out along the line of Jukai's spine. His nightmare had completely terrified him.
Jukai tried to tell himself that it was only a dream. He'd been telling folk tales and stories to Sakuzō last night before going to bed. The topic had turned to the Hall of Hell in Fushimi, so Jukai had told Sakuzō everything that he'd learned about it on Akamano Gotarō's ship.
But the Hall of Hell was just a story, and what Jukai had seen was just a nightmare. It had to be.
When Jukai reached Oniwakamaru's room, he found Sakuzō there ahead of him. Sweat beaded on Oniwakamaru's forehead as he tossed his head back and forth in agitation. Sakuzō pulled him gently into his arms and made soothing noises.
"What's wrong?" Jukai asked.
Oniwakamaru said nothing.
"What's wrong, taifu?" Sakuzō asked. "Is he sick?"
Oniwakamaru had only cried out once. He breathed heavily, but made no other sound. Jukai took his pulse under the collar of his pajamas. His skin temperature was normal, so he didn't have a fever, but his heart was racing.
"I think he's just scared," Jukai said. "Let's give him some gastrodia to help him calm down."
Sakuzō left the room to fetch the medicine, which was made with orchids and could be used as a mild sedative. Sakuzō returned with the medicine and helped Oniwakamaru swallow it. Oniwakamaru calmed down slowly, but his mouth remained slack and open in an expression of shock.
Jukai looked Oniwakamaru straight in the eyes and asked, "Did you have a dream?"
Oniwakamaru gave him a tiny nod.
"Was it a nightmare?" Jukai asked.
"Yes," Oniwakamaru answered hoarsely. His eyes shifted back and forth from nervousness.
Jukai and Oniwakamaru had both had a nightmare at the same time. A strange silence fell between them as Jukai thought about what that meant. If Oniwakamaru could hear and see inside the dream as well as he could when he was awake, then he might have seen the demons in the dream and heard their voices...but it was also possible, even probable, that Oniwakamaru's dream had been entirely different from his. Jukai didn't want to jump to conclusions before he had all the facts.
"Tell me about your dream," Jukai said.
"I've never had a dream like it," Oniwakamaru said. He sounded calm thanks to the sedative, but the skin around his eyes twitched.
"What did you see?" Jukai asked.
"I don't know," Oniwakamaru said. "I've never seen pictures like it, either. They looked like—monsters. Monsters scarier than the Deva Kings who guard temples."
"How many of them were there?"
"A lot of them," Oniwakamaru said. "They were all monsters, but none of them looked the same."
Jukai's hands shook. He clasped them together to keep them still. "Where were they? Did you see?"
"It was dark, and so big—they were inside, I think, in a temple."
Jukai sucked in a breath. He and Oniwakamaru really had shared the same terrifying dream. The coincidence was too great for his rational mind to easily accept, so he immediately tried to rationalize away the similarities between their dreams. A lot of places in this world look like a hellscape. Kyōto these days is nothing but a sheet of fire.
Sakuzō ran his hands soothingly through Oniwakamaru's hair. "It was just a dream," he said. "Try to forget about it."
"The monsters said they were in the Hall of Hell," Oniwakamaru said. "I just remembered."
"What?" Jukai asked. "Are you sure?"
Oniwakamaru nodded in confirmation. All the blood drained from Jukai's face. Oniwakamaru glanced back and forth at Jukai and Sakuzō.
"Was it lit? The place you saw?" Jukai asked.
Oniwakamaru nodded. "There were candles. Four of them."
"Four?"
"Yes."
"And how many monsters were there? Did you count?"
"They knew my name," Oniwakamaru said. "They said they were in the Hall of Hell. And they said they were—"
"—forty-eight demons," Jukai breathed.
Oniwakamaru gasped. "Yes. That's what they said. How did you know?"
Jukai had no more questions. He couldn't rationalize away what Oniwakamaru had seen.
Oniwakamaru and Sakuzō looked at Jukai with expressions of puzzlement.
"What are they? The forty-eight demons?" Oniwakamaru asked.
"Do you know what they are, taifu?"
"I heard about them a long time ago," he said. He kept his answer vague because he wasn't sure how much he should say.
"Hm." Sakuzō wasn't satisfied with his reply.
"Go back to sleep, Oniwakamaru," Jukai said.
Jukai returned to his room and drank a huge gulp of cold water from a basin. His throat felt so dry. He tossed and turned and couldn't get to sleep again.
Oniwakamaru and I dreamed the exact same thing. It's not a coincidence. But why? Are the forty-eight demons responsible for the dreams somehow? And if they are, what is their motive?
There were too many questions that Jukai couldn't answer. The dream terrified and shocked him. His fear lingered long after he awakened. He comforted himself with the idea that the dream couldn't possibly be real. There was a tenuous relationship between waking reality and dreams, but dreams had no power to affect the world of the real. Reality was reality; dreams were dreams....but Jukai and Oniwakamaru had definitely shared a dream. Perhaps Jukai had created a connection between them when he'd picked up Oniwakamaru at the Takano River.
Jukai's memory of that day was very clear. The strip of sky between the mountains of Konpira and Hyōtankuzure had been black with thick clouds. Both Jukai and Oniwakamaru had been attacked by strange lightning. The god of Iwakura Shrine had intervened to protect them both. Jukai had never discovered who or what had attacked them that day, but it could have been a demon—or several.
Jukai's restless thoughts plagued him all night. He packed a bag before dawn and left the estate. His destination was the Hall of Hell in Fushimi. He didn't tell Oniwakamaru or Sakuzō where he was going.
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