The boy climbed the mountain. It stretched forth great wings of snow to cover him, curled its ice-laden branches around him like fingers, coaxing him upwards. It breathed its coldest breath on him, and, unafraid, he climbed into its teeth. His face was white and blank as her slopes, and when his muscles numbed and tired and finally gave up, he sat down on the mountain's great side and turned it up to gaze upon her peak.

The boy climbed the mountain. The summer sun beat on his shoulders until he came under the protection of the pines. He carried a small sack which he held very carefully, as one might a baby bird or a ten pound firework.

“These are very fine bowls,” the hermit said, “Much higher quality than any I own. You must thank your father for me.”

“They are my work,” the boy told him.

The hermit turned a dish this way and that, so the sun struck a dull glitter from its patina.

“I should have guessed,” he said. “Though their shape is perfect, there's an impatience in the marks of the fire. Quite striking, actually. You'll make a very fine potter some day.”

The boy was often pleasant and polite, though rarely without great anger seething somewhere beneath. It threatened to burst forth now.

“I'm not going to be a potter.”

“Oh, no?” The hermit gave the boy that innocent, bright smile that so disquieted him.

“Why would I want to spend all my days scrabbling in the ash and mud?”

“You don't think your skill would be wasted, if you did something else?”

“No. I have other skills.”

“Ah, you're growing up so quickly,” the hermit said, placing the bowl gently by the hearth. “You look much taller than when I saw you last.”

“I came less than a month ago. How could I be taller?”

“You're right, of course,” the hermit chuckled. “It must be me who's getting shorter.”

The hermit's hair was streaked with more silver than it used to be, and the fine lines at the corners of his eyes had begun to linger after his smile. The boy rose to put the kettle on the fire.

“You're not old,” he mumbled.

“Soon you'll have to fight the girls off with a stick,” the hermit sighed, measuring tea leaves into the new earthenware cups.

“The village girls are boring,” the boy said. “They just like to sit around and twitter about nothing.”

“Boring as pottery, eh?”

“And dumb as cattle.”

"Why do the cherry's new-blown blooms/scatter like restless thoughts?"

“None of them care about poetry.”

“A very grave problem, indeed,” the hermit said. Though his face was serious just then, his eyes were always laughing.

The boy climbed the mountain as the sun began to set, and the breeze began to chase away the day's heat. The moon lit his way where the sun left off. It was round and cool as a pail of well water.

“Oh,” the hermit said, “You startled me. I thought you might be this mountain's tengu come to play a trick on me.”

“You're the tengu, old man,” said the boy, now nearly a man himself.

The hermit chuckled. “Am I?”

"You are," the young man said.

He sat down beside the hermit, on the rough bench by the hut's door. They'd built it together some years ago, from the wood of a knotty pine. One by one, the crickets began to sing again.

"I'm going away in the autumn," the young man said. "I'm leaving with the harvest when it goes to the capital."

"Took you long enough," the hermit said. "I suppose you're off to shave your head, then."

"If I never did for you, why would I now?"

"I wonder."

"It doesn't matter that I was born a craftsman. In the city, there are men that value talent above class, and money above talent."

"So you're off to become one of them?"

"I'm capable of far more than that."

The hermit laughed. The effect that sound had on the boy had changed little over the years, though he understood it better now.

"I've never been to the city," the hermit said, "But I can picture you there."

"Sometimes I think you grew out of this mountain like a flower."

"Save that kind of talk for the city women. No, long ago I was a farmer, the type you know well. I even had a wife, myself, for a while."

“You had a wife?” the young man asked.

"You don't have to say it like it's such a shock."

There was a pause, in which the hermit pretended to pout and wait for an apology. Instead, the young man asked:

"What was she like?"

“I suppose you'd like to hear how beautiful she was,” the hermit said, “but really she was quite plain. She worked much harder than I ever have, I'm afraid. She used to take in injured birds and nurse them until they were well. I would tell her she'd never have a thousand arms, no matter how hard she tried. Now, though, who knows.”

He smiled up at the watery moon. A soft night breeze caught and lifted the long, gray strands of his hair. The young man reached out and smoothed them back down, brushing the hermit's skin where it stretched thin over his temples. The young man imagined how that skin might lie elsewhere, pale and warm under his earth-brown robes. When he took the hermit in his arms, the hermit was not surprised nor did he resist.

“I once thought you were a very holy man,” the young man said, later.

“And what do you think now?” the hermit asked.

The young man frowned at the bundles of herbs hanging from the hut's ceiling, at the patched blanket and the muddy hoe leaning in the corner. He touched the hermit's hair, where it pooled against his bare shoulder.

“Wait for the morning,” the hermit murmured. “Even with eyes as young and sharp as yours, it's a dangerous descent in the dark.”

To a mountain, a year is like a pebble dropped down a very deep well; one can barely hear it splash. Snow lived, conquered and died again. Trees grew leaves and with them whispered songs too vast for mortal man to hear. Birds came to eat berries, stayed to build nests and rear chicks, then fled the oncoming cold. The moon rose over the mountain whether its slopes where green, or white, or brown.

All these things happened many times.

A man climbed the mountain, carrying a long sword. Young in body he still was, and very handsome. His robes were of finer stuff than any in the village had ever seen, which was why he had not passed through it. He climbed the mountain alone, slipping through the rain like a ghost.

It seemed to him he wandered far longer than he'd planned. Finally, he came upon a stream, where an old man was doing some laundry.

The old man was very surprised to see him, and said:

"Even the fishermen's sleeves/On Ojima's shores,/Though wet through and wet again,/Do not so change their colors. I didn't recognize you."

"I heard the sound of pine trees growing," said the man. Part of him wanted to embrace the old hermit, but pride restrained him. "Why are you doing laundry in the rain?"

The old man smiled, just like he used to. "All of my clothes were wet already, so I figured it made sense. Why are you carrying around such a fancy sword?"

"It was given to me by a man who honors those with talent."

"Do you know how to use it?"

"I've killed other men who asked me that question."

"You say that like it's something to be proud of," said the hermit, and slapped his wash sharply against a rock. "Since when is murder a clever comeback?"

The flap of wet cloth continued, rhythmically, as did the rushing of the stream and the patter of the rain. The man thought of drowning, but pushed the image from his mind.

"I didn't expect to fool you with a bit of bushido," the man said, finally.

"What did you expect?" the hermit asked, voice harsh with exertion.

"To see you," the man replied, though he was suddenly unsure.

The hermit beamed at him again, like the sudden rise of the sun from behind the mountain.

"It's good that you've found what you were looking for, then." He plopped the robe into a basket of wet, crumpled cloth, and hopped to his feet. "Come along to the house."

The hut was still the same, just out of sight of the stream bed. The man wondered how he hadn't been able to find it. As the hermit began spreading his laundry over bushes and tree limbs, the rain trickled to a halt and the sky began to lighten. As the clouds lifted, the gray peaks of the mountain seemed to lean down towards him in a vast and silent embrace.

A man climbed the mountain on horseback, until the way became too steep, and the horse too frightened. He gave it over to his page, to hold until he returned.

He could not find what he was looking for, though he searched every thicket, cliff and grove on the southern slope. From the heights he could see down the valley, which was withered brown with drought, and, in some places, scorched and torn with hoof-marks.

Many hours later, as the sun crawled down the western face of the sky, he happened upon his horse again. His page was not there, nor his packhorse. There was only an old man, stroking the charger's black nose.

"Have you been having fun?" the hermit asked, by way of greeting.

The man's shoulders slumped a moment, as if with weariness.

"What, rattling all over your mountain, when you knew perfectly well where I was?"

"What makes you think I'd know a thing like that?" the hermit asked.

"I would be very surprised if there were anything you didn't know. For example, what's become of my page boy?"

"You give a foolish old man far too much credit," the hermit said. "But I did see a boy galloping a horse down towards the village. Perhaps he's not as brave as you yourself."

"You're the only one brave enough to stay long on this haunted mountain," the man told him.

The hermit drew himself up, indignant. "My mountain? Haunted?" He cupped a hand around his mouth. "Don't believe a word of it, darling!" he called toward the distant peak.

"I'd think a big, brave soldier like you wouldn't believe in those kinds of superstitions," the hermit said, as the man struggled with the urge to laugh.

"You're right," the man said, "I don't."

The hermit turned from him, and began walking with the horse along the path. His hair was nearly to his waist, and the pale gray of unpolished silver. His back still seemed straight and strong, though he walked slowly, carefully. The horse followed, curving its neck toward the old man's hands. The soldier had to hurry his steps to catch up.

"If anywhere is haunted now, it's not my lonely little mountain," the hermit said. "Those were not foreign soldiers who were cut down and plowed into the fields."

"The drought has been very hard on the people," the man returned. "The heat makes them forget themselves."

"And, you came up here, why? To make excuses?"

"I was honored to be received by the daimyo himself, who praised me as a hero."

"I see. And so you feel like a hero?"

"No," the man admitted. He smiled, and the hermit did not smile back. "That's never been what I was after."

They walked for a time in silence.

"Those who know when they have enough are rich," the hermit said, placing the charger's lead into the soldier's palm. "When your horse is on the brink of a precipice it is too late to pull the reins."

"And foolish old men have nothing left but tired proverbs?" asked the soldier, but the hermit had melted into the brush and was gone.

A man climbed the mountain. He arrived with the tax collectors' procession, which had come to the tiny village at the mountain's foot to collect the daimyo's share of the harvest. He was his Lord's closest adviser, now, one of a few trusted men who administered his vast lands and armies. He walked away from his duties with his head held proudly, and no one questioned him.

For the first time in some years, he found the hut without incident. Inside, the hermit was writing, swathed in unraveling blankets, using a roughly squared log for a desk. A roaring fire filled the hut with shadows and oppressive heat. The man brought the old pine bench inside, and seated himself without asking permission. He was impeccably poised in his stiff formal garments.

"You come with news," the hermit observed, looking up at him with a fixed half-smile.

"My Lord saw fit to entrust me with his sister," the man said.

He paused a moment, but the hermit did not react. His eyes glittered in the shifting light of the fire.

"The woman had become infatuated with me, I'm afraid, and refused both food and water until we were united. I, of course, wouldn't refuse any honor my Lord chose to bestow on me."

Still, the hermit sat unmoving. The man shifted on the bench, pricked with strange feeling. An old and dusty anger threatened to well up, though such emotion seemed completely inappropriate.

"She has already borne me a fine son."

And now the hermit broke into a real smile, which crazed his skin into a web of soft lines.

"A fine thing indeed," the hermit said. "There is no joy on this earth quite like one's own child."

He wrote several characters, slowly, rhythmically. The skin of his hands had become nearly translucent, but they were perfectly steady, impeccably graceful.

"Though I've seen your hands ink-stained many times, I've never before seen your caligraphy."

"I only dabble," the hermit said, absently.

He dipped his brush again, and carefully produced the column of characters which meant 'sitting quietly.' It was identical to the other columns filling the page. The hermit put his brush down carefully on its rest, took up the page and lofted it gently into the fireplace. The thin paper fluttered in the updraft, spun once, and settled onto the crackling logs.

"So," the hermit said, picking up a clean sheet of paper, "Tell me more of business at the capital. Did they discover who poisoned the Lord's brother?"

The man wondered how, after all these years, the hermit could still do things that surprised him.

"That was over a year ago," the man said.

"Oh. It has been a whole year, hasn't it," the hermit said. "I suppose you didn't go to war with any of the neighbors over it, then."

"No, though it was a near thing. My Lord, unfortunately, is no diplomat. But he is at least canny enough to surround himself with very capable men."

"Mm. Canny enough."

The hermit's voice was suddenly tight and rasping. A moment later he broke into a heavy cough, barely lifting his brush from the page before the spasm began.

The man resettled the voluminous sleeves of his robe, clenching and unclenching his fists in the fabric.

"Come with me," the man said, as the hermit caught his breath, "I could use your insight more often than once a year. There would be a comfortable house for you, servants, a title so you could attend court."

"And fancy dinners, I suppose. Silks to wear and to sleep on, donations to a temple in my name. The hospitality of your lovely wife. Skilled doctors."

"Yes."

"You know I cannot."

The man sat very stiffly. "But I need-"

"You would come to distrust even me, in time, were I mingled in with the company you keep."

The man bit his tongue against a bitter reply.

They sat together for some time longer, the hermit copying characters, the man struggling for a topic of conversation. His thoughts seemed to slide away from things he should say, writhing like eels into the darker crevices of his mind. Outside, the sun had set, and a yellow-blue twilight lingered. The wind moaned around the corners of the mountain.

"You never asked me, all those years ago, why I was climbing the mountain in a snow storm," the man said.

"I figured it was none of my business."

The hermit threw his page into the fire. A neat grid of characters was lit briefly in the orange light; the character 'nothingness,' writ thirty-six times, dissolved into flame.

The man climbed the mountain. In the tiny village at its base, his retainers waited, and whispered back and forth.

“He comes here every year,” one said to the next, “And always climbs alone.”

“They say he always comes back with brilliant new strategies, or the answers to difficult public matters. Perhaps there's a venerable old wise man up there,” said his neighbor.

“I heard it was an evil spirit, a demon he sold his soul to,” whispered the first, and a chill passed down their spines.

There was a third rumor, which no one dared voice aloud. If they did, they'd have to speak of horrific injuries on the battlefield that never hindered victory, of villages sacked and burned, prisoners executed without trial, opponents, concubines and bastard children disappearing in the night never to be seen again. The daimyo, it was feared, had locked his own heart up in a chest and hidden it somewhere on the mountain - had, in fact, become a demon himself.

Up on the slopes, the maples rattled their bare branches together. The general leaned on a ruined fence. He did not hear the moaning wind. He did not see the red blaze of fallen leaves. He watched the ice-white bones which lay in the garden, picked clean and disarticulated by the crows. He stood and did not move for a very long time.

"Should I blame the moon," he said, aloud, "For bringing forth this sadness,/As if it pictured grief?"

He stood a moment longer. The moon, pale in daylight, hanging low above the pines, made no reply.

"Sentimental old fool," he muttered.

The daimyo went down the mountain and did not return.





Notes

*This is meant to be a pre-Saiyuki reincarnation fic. It is set in feudal Japan, roughly during the Sengoku or warring states period. I apologize for any inaccuracies in the setting; my research was admittedly half-assed. Other than poking around on the internet whenever I came up with a subject I wanted to know stuff about (caligaphy, shoguns, traditional ceramics), said research consisted of reading a book of Japanese folktales. I should mention that Japanese folk tales are totally bizarre and half of them seem to be dirty jokes in disguise.

*Despite the setting, I tried to use mostly English terminology, since it seemed more in keeping with the language of the prose. I only left a few Japanese words whose meanings are altered when translated, like bushido.

*Traditional Japanese pottery is unglazed and fired in wood-burning kilns. The ash from the fire gives it a natural glaze and patina.

*All quoted poems are from Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, an incredibly influential compilation of poetry collected in the thirteenth century. They are, in order quoted: 33, 90, 16, 86

*Tengu are mountain demons traditionally depicted with a red face and a very long, phallic nose. They can also assume the form of a bird or an elderly monk from a sect of mountain ascetics called the yamabushi. They were said to be created from the souls of monks who had been corrupted by arrogance.

*To shave one's head means to become a monk. In Sengoku Japan, many sects of monks were militant, and helped foster and lead several rebellions again the various feudal lords.

* Daimyo were regional lords. During the Sengoku period there was no central authority in Japan, and the powerful Daimyo were almost constantly at war with one another.