Laura Rowland: Black Lotus

Anraku spoke with quiet authority. “Release her.”

Kumashiro hesitated; his brows slanted downward in displeasure, but he obeyed. Haru thudded onto the floor. Anraku held out his hand to her.

“Come,” he said.

With a glad cry, Haru crawled over to him, seized his hand, and pressed it to her face. “I knew you wouldn’t forsake me.” Now she wept for joy. “I’ll do anything to repay your mercy.”

“My lord, don’t you see that she’s playing on your sympathy, just as she’s always done?” Junketsu-in said. “How can you still be so blind to her evil ways?” She leaned anxiously toward Anraku. “Please don’t take her back. She’ll destroy us all-if she hasn’t already.”

“I’m afraid the abbess is right,” Dr. Miwa said timidly, sucking breath through his teeth.

Reiko watched Anraku draw Haru close, and anger glint in his eye. “Do not accuse me of blindness or gullibility,” he said. “I see and understand all that mortal fools such as you cannot.” Miwa and Junketsu-in cringed from his wrath; Haru sat below the platform, snuggling against his knees. “Haru has played the role for which she was destined. She performed the blood sacrifice necessary to set the cosmic forces in motion. She occasioned the persecution that generated spiritual energy within the Black Lotus. And now she has ushered in the third sign heralding our day of glory: The siege of the temple.”

Reiko marveled at how the high priest had interpreted events to fit his prophecies. Indeed, he seemed to believe his own insane logic. His faith in it, plus the force of his personality, had turned his followers’ desire for spiritual fulfillment into a desire to kill and die for him.

Regarding Haru fondly, Anraku caressed her hair. “My child, you are indeed an instrument of fortune. Because of you, the triumph of the Black Lotus is at hand.”

And he viewed mortal crimes as steps toward spiritual enlightenment. The magnitude of his madness and his perversion of Buddhism astounded Reiko.

Haru preened like a child praised for good behavior and directed a triumphant gaze toward Junketsu-in. “You always hated me because I’m more important to him than you are. Now I’m going to tell you exactly what I think of you. You’re a mean, jealous, stupid whore.” As Junketsu-in sputtered indignantly, Haru laughed, then turned to Dr. Miwa. “And you’re a dirty, disgusting lecher.”

Dr. Miwa glowered; Haru’s contemptuous stare encompassed him and the abbess. “You tried to get rid of me, but it didn’t work,” Haru taunted. “You’ll both be sorry you said bad things about me.” Then, while Anraku beheld his followers with lofty amusement, she glared at Kumashiro. “And you’ll be sorry you tried to scare me into confessing.”

Reiko was appalled by Haru’s selfish spite. The girl had committed murder and arson, and people were dying by the score, yet all she seemed to care about was regaining Anraku’s esteem and taking revenge on her enemies. Reiko felt fresh shame over befriending Haru.

“I must contradict your opinion of how well things have turned out,” Kumashiro said to Anraku. “I’ve been aboveground and seen what’s happening. Our people are being slaughtered. There won’t be enough of them left to conquer Edo, let alone the rest of Japan. Our mission is doomed.”

“It wouldn’t be, if you’d trained the nuns and priests into a better army.” Junketsu vented on Kumashiro the animosity she dared not express toward Haru now that the girl had Anraku’s favor. “You’ve only yourself to blame for our defeat.”

“Peasants are no match for samurai,” Kumashiro said defensively. “I taught them as well as anyone could.”

“The poison I concocted is very potent,” Dr. Miwa said in a voice timid yet prideful. “If even a few of the couriers reach the city, the result will be most gratifying.”

Junketsu-in gave a disdainful laugh. “A few doses of your stinking goo will accomplish too little to matter. If you’d perfected the poison gas, it would have spread on the wind. But Shinagawa proved that you’re a miserable failure.”

Dr. Miwa muttered. Kumashiro walked over to Junketsu-in, his fists clenched. “What right have you to berate us?” he demanded. “You, who are a weak, ignorant female, and good for nothing. Hold your tongue, or I’ll cut it out of your head.”

The antagonists either still trusted Anraku and didn’t blame him for the havoc he’d wrought, or were afraid to criticize him, Reiko thought.

“My lord.” Kumashiro addressed Anraku in respectful entreaty. “The soldiers will soon come looking for us. We must leave at once.”

Panic shot through Reiko. If they left, what would she do?

“We will stay,” Anraku said, his expression obstinate. Haru rested her head on his knee, blissfully oblivious to the argument. “My army shall triumph. We shall achieve enlightenment here, on this night, as my vision has foretold. I’ll not let the enemy drive me away.”

Yet Junketsu-in’s face displayed fear and shock. She said, “They might be coming even now. They’ll kill us all. I want to go.”

“You wish to desert me at the advent of my new world?” Impervious to reason, Anraku frowned. “Is this how you repay me for the wealth and privilege I’ve lavished upon you? With cowardice and disloyalty?” He flung out a hand, waving Junketsu-in away. “Then by all means, go. But if you do, our paths shall never again converge.”

“No,” Junketsu-in cried,”I don’t mean to desert you. “ She lurched toward Anraku, as if to throw herself into his arms, but Haru already occupied them. “I want you to come with me.”

A loud boom from aboveground shuddered the tunnel. Reiko gasped. Crouching, she covered her head with her arms as dirt trickled through the rafters and startled exclamations arose from Anraku’s chamber. She heard Dr. Miwa cry, “They’re setting off the bombs,” and Junketsu-in’s panicky voice: “The temple will come down and crush us!”

The idea terrified Reiko, yet the thought of Sano up there in the explosions terrified her even more. A burning smell drifted through the tunnel-the temple must be on fire. Reiko fought the urge to run to Sano. Looking through the window, she saw Junketsu-in, Miwa, Kumashiro, and the priests huddling near Anraku as if craving shelter from him.

Another blast rocked the hanging lanterns. As Reiko braced herself against the lurch of the ground under her feet, Anraku said suavely, “Perhaps it would be best to pursue destiny elsewhere.”

So he still had some sense of self-preservation, Reiko thought, quailing at the calamity that his flight posed for her. If Haru went with him, Reiko must follow.

“I’ve ordered provisions packed for a journey,” Kumashiro said. “There’s enough money for us to live on indefinitely. Your followers in the provinces will shelter us. We’ll hide until the hunt for us dies down, then take on different names and recruit new followers. You and I will revive the Black Lotus and found another temple.”

Reiko saw shock freeze the countenances of the abbess and doctor as they absorbed Kumashiro’s meaning. Haru, still seated close to Anraku, looked around, confused. Junketsu-in demanded of Kumashiro, “You think you’re going to take him away with you and leave the rest of us here? Well, I won’t stand for that. Where he goes, I go.”

Dr. Miwa said with a nervous smile, “Honorable High Priest, surely you’ll need me to help you start over.”

As Anraku surveyed the group, cunning gleamed in his eye. “We’ll all go,” he said. Reiko supposed that he needed devoted attendants to help him survive, and thrived on the discord among them. He rose and stepped off his platform, raising Haru to her feet.

“Not her,” Kumashiro said.