Читать книгу Rise - Amanda Sun - Страница 5

Chapter One

Mukashi, mukashi, long ago, as the Kami later told it, there was nothing of the islands of Japan but a swirling whirlpool of black ink, spanned by a bridge of crimson and gold. A single thin shoreline, stained black by the waves, stood at either end of the crossing, each sandbar no longer than ten steps to the edge of the opaque waters. The world was small then, unformed and infinite in possibility.

The chaos of it engulfed the kami Ameno, the fog swirling around him in clouds of unshapen mist. A golden bead of ink dripped down the side of the spear he clutched to his chest. He could hear the roar of the ink around him, flecked with shining gold like a mirage in the distance. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t heard the rush of it, when he hadn’t longed to reach into the waters and feel the warmth of the flowing ink as it raged toward the edges of the mist.

Another bead of gold dripped off the spear as he reached it toward the darkness. He grasped the naginata spear in his hands, the blade of it gleaming with gold, gems of darkly lit sapphire and azure dangling from a string wound around the weapon. He tilted the naginata’s blade toward the ground as the ink fell.

The ink bloomed into the shape of a reed leaf, a single stem that bent in the flow of the dark waters. The golden light of it faded, and the reed stood there, a tiny shoot of bright green against the swirling chaos.

“You’re painting again,” said a voice, and Ameno turned toward it. The edge of the riverbank curled under a lip of dark fog, the geta sandals of another kami pressed into the sand of the shore. The kami wore a kimono that shimmered faintly with specks of gold that faded into plum.

“The ink waves tumble toward the future, Kunitoko,” Ameno said, tilting the spear toward the other kami. “It’s been quiet for too long, with no life for them to crash against.”

Kunitoko grasped the hilt of the spear and nodded. “I, too, tire of the endless roiling of the waves,” he said. He took the spear in both hands, the gems gleaming with dark light. He threw forward the curved edge of the naginata’s blade and the golden ink gleamed, the clouds of fog dissipating as they swirled backward.

The shoreline cleared, a red-and-black pagoda looming in the distance. Ameno nodded, leaning against the planks of the bridge that scaled the shoreline to the other side, shrouded in mist.

Two new kami lay on the banks of the sand, their eyes blinking as they stared at the golden dust of the ink, flying upward like a backward snow of sparks and embers. The two of them curled around each other, heads side by side but one facing the pagoda and the other the inky waters, one of them in a robe of white with long black hair that spilled over the fabric, the other wearing black with his hair pulled into a tight coil.

“Let me help you,” Kunitoko said, reaching his hand out for the kami in white. She looked around the shore, her eyes wide.

“What is this place?” she asked as the kami in black rose to his feet, dusting the sand off his hands.

“It is everything,” Kunitoko said.

“Everything is very small,” said the kami in black. “Only a bridge, a shore and an angry ocean.”

“No,” said the kami in white. “There is a small reed leaf, there, that fights the current.”

Kunitoko smiled. The naginata’s blade gleamed with golden light. “Would you paint more?”

The eyes of the kami in white went round and amazed, her mouth opening in a small O. “What can I paint?”

“Anything,” Kunitoko said. “But the kami in black was formed just before you. Let him paint first.”

The disappointment on her face was quickly extinguished by her excitement as Kunitoko offered the spear to the kami in black. “Go ahead, then,” she said to him. “I invite you to paint on this moving canvas.”

“As I invite you,” the kami in black said. “For Kunitoko has painted a masterpiece in you.”

The kami blushed as she pulled her white robe tighter around her. The warmth of the feeling shut out the swirling cold of the mist.

“Izanami and Izanagi,” Kunitoko nodded. “The kami who invite creation. I’m eager to see what you will paint.” He clapped the kami on the black shoulder of his robe. “Go ahead and begin, Izanagi.”

Izanagi stepped toward the river, the spear dripping with golden possibility.

“Up here,” said Ameno, and Izanagi startled at his voice. He stepped onto the planks of the bridge, the gems clinking against the side of the spear in an out-of-tune harmony. “You can see everything from here.”

Izanami followed them onto the bridge, her eyes cast down toward the swirling mass of fog. It was cold here, dark and oppressive. She wanted space, light. Warmth. Yes, more of the warmth she’d felt when Izanagi had smiled at her.

Izanagi reached the spear over the side of the bridge, as if he were fishing. He pressed the naginata into the waters, the blade rattling as the current threatened to dislodge it from the shaft of the spear. The gems tossed back and forth in the foam, their lights blinking in and out like fireflies. The lights lifted into the air as Izanami thought it, lightning bugs of sapphire and azure and gold.

“It won’t budge,” Izanagi grunted, pressing against the waters. “The chaos is thick and immovable.” The blade shuddered in the current. Izanami tensed; if the blade was lost, nothing could be painted. Only shadow and ink would remain forever.

She stepped forward, resting her hands upon his. The softness of his skin filled her with warmth again, the press of her fingers molding against his. This was what it was to be alive, she thought. Izanagi looked at her, his eyes softening, his grip on the staff loosening under her touch.

Together they moved the heavens, swirling the chaos in a mass of churning ink. The fog pressed back, the light of the hundreds of risen fireflies gleaming in the sky. The sudden light blinded Izanami, and she threw her hand up to shield her eyes. They had turned to stars, lighting the darkness in a ceiling without end. Below, the reed leaf had risen from the waters, attached to other leaves, to other stems, and to roots. The roots to shoreline, heaving and steaming as it crashed forward from the waters. The bridge was propelled farther into the sky, the land pushed farther below.

Ameno’s eyes crinkled with delight. Kunitoko pressed his fists to his sides as he nodded.

Izanami looked down at the land as it shaped below them into islands. Her mind teemed with ideas for the painting to make it bolder, more fluid. Warmer.

“Will you help me?” Izanagi said, looking at her. Izanami smiled, her glance falling as she looked away from the warmth of his face.

“For all time,” she said.

The golden ink lifted in a flurry of sparks around them.