Heaven's Net Is Wide Lian Hearn (leveled readers .TXT) 📖

They stopped to rest briefly at the top of the pass. It was so cold that swaths of snow still lay unmelted across the black rock of the mountain, gleaming ghostly white in the predawn light; yet Shigeru did not feel it. He fell into a light feverish sleep and woke sweating, bands of dread tightening across his chest.

The Fox leaned over him. It was day, the first rays of the sun touching the peaks around them, turning the snow gold and pink.

“We must move on.” A flicker of concern crossed his face. “You’re burning. Can you walk?”

“Of course.” Shigeru got to his feet, swaying slightly as the blood rushed from his head. The cut was throbbing. He went to the snow and scooped up handfuls, rubbing them over his scalp and neck, wincing as he scraped the surface of the wound, then cramming clean snow into his parched mouth. He took several deep breaths in one of the exercises he had been taught at Terayama, gazing out across the unbroken green of the forest below.

“Let’s go.”

The Fox led the way, and they clambered across boulders and began the descent. It was hardly a path that they followed, more a fox track. Often they went on all fours through dense undergrowth, as if tunneling through the earth. From time to time the Fox turned back, as though suggesting they should rest, but each time Shigeru indicated that they should press on.

He did not remember much about the journey, the alternations of fever and shivering, the throb in head and ache in lungs, compounded after the second day by bruised and cut feet and constant thirst. At the foot of the first range was a small valley, cultivated with rice fields and vegetable gardens. It took only half a day to cross it, and on the way a farmer gave them some early greens and carrot thinnings. He seemed to know the Fox, as did the other peasants working in the fields, but Shigeru had never been into this valley before, had not even known it existed, and in the hollow-eyed fugitive they certainly did not recognize the heir-now the head-of the clan. At its farther side he could see another range of mountains, steeper and higher than the one they had just crossed, and behind it another. He forced himself not to think about the next ascent and the one after but to concentrate on walking, one foot after the other, keeping on only through the strength of his will.

They ate as they walked: the food brought the saliva back into his mouth and he began to feel a little better. Sometime after midday they began to climb again. The fields around them were terraced steeply, tiny patches of earth cut out from the stony ground. The sun vanished early behind the mountains; they came quickly into the deep shade of the east-facing slope. Shigeru looked back briefly at the far side, which was still bathed in light and warmth. Between the bamboo groves and the cultivated fields there was no sign of any buildings: he wondered why the villagers had not built dwellings on that slope to take advantage of the longer hours of sunlight-some ancient tradition or superstition, no doubt.

They climbed a little farther and rounded a rocky outcrop; at that moment he realized the inhabitants of this valley had priorities other than afternoon warmth. Between the rocks and the cliff face, a massive log gate had been erected; it stood open now, but once closed, it would seal off the hamlet inside. They passed through the entrance, the Fox greeting the guards who sat beside it-powerful young men who looked more like warriors than farmers-and Shigeru found himself in what might have been a village, except that there were no wooden dwellings. The cliff here had been hollowed out, and these villagers lived in caves. There seemed to be ten or so, each with wooden doors and shutters, which all stood open on this mild afternoon of early summer; there was even a shrine, recognizable by its vermilion bird-perch-shaped gate. Women sat outside, preparing food, washing vegetables in the spring water that had been channeled into cisterns. The Fox went to one of these and brought water back in a bamboo dipper. Shigeru rinsed his mouth and hands, and then drank deeply. The water was cool and soft from the limestone.

“What is this place?”

“Somewhere you can hide and rest for a few days.”

“I have no intention of resting,” Shigeru said. “I must get to Hagi as soon as possible.”

“Well, we’ll talk about that later. Come inside. We’ll have something to eat and then sleep for a while.” The Fox saw Shigeru’s impatient expression and laughed. “You may not need to rest, but I do!”

In fact, he showed no sign of fatigue, and Shigeru was sure the man could go for another week without sleep if he had to. He realized the fever was subsiding momentarily: he was thinking more clearly. He wondered if he was now a prisoner, if he would be allowed to walk out past the guards or if he would be held here until Sadamu’s men came for him: presumably the Tribe would demand a huge payment in return-for he had fallen into the hands of the Tribe: he had no doubt about that. The Fox was no spirit but a man with the astonishing abilities of the Tribe that his father had described to him.

He was both appalled and fascinated: ever since the conversation with his father, when he had learned of the existence of his older brother, he had kept in the back of his mind the idea that one day he would find out more about the Tribe and about his father’s lost son. There seemed something preordained about this meeting: the man had even brought Jato to him. He glanced at the Fox-surely it could not be