Sano followed the servant out into the night, with Hirata behind him, the judges and four retainers trailing. Nagasaki, former haven of pirates, rebel conspiracies, and underground Christians, had not yielded all its secrets to Tokugawa law and order. The servant led Sano’s party on foot along a circuitous route that only a longtime resident would know, down crooked alleys and through subterranean tunnels, over roofs and under bridges, along the river. They slipped right by patrolling troops. Moving steadily uphill, they left the city and entered the forest. Sano’s trepidation gave way to heady excitement while he recalled the successful hunt for the body thieves.

But now, as the night wore on and Ohira still didn’t come, Sano’s worries revived. Judges Segawa and Dazai muttered angrily. The retainers edged closer to Sano and Hirata. Sano sensed Takeda’s impatience; he saw his own doubt reflected in Hirata’s eyes. Ghastly images flashed through his mind: a death march to the execution ground; himself and Hirata kneeling before the executioner’s sword; troops herding their relatives and friends to the same fate.

Supreme Judge Takeda said, “We shall wait just a few moments more.”

The war drums boomed. Smoke from the bonfires embittered the wind. Then Sano’s extra sense roused to a faint disturbance of the atmosphere. His companions stirred, feeling the unseen presence, too. Without a sound, Chief Ohira appeared in the clearing. The moonlight emphasized his waxen pallor. His eyes were blank, sunken pools of darkness, as if filled with the night.

“Come,” he said.

He turned and drifted through the forest. Sano, hurrying to keep the almost invisible figure in sight, felt as though he were following a ghost to some netherworld hell. A primitive fear awakened within him. Envisioning demons and monsters, he was glad of Hirata’s solid presence beside him. Ohira alternately vanished in the shadows and reappeared, leading the way along forest trails so narrow and crooked they barely existed, up steep paths, and behind a waterfall’s silvery curtain. Watchtowers loomed above them. The bonfires flared nearer, brighter. The air grew thinner and colder with increasing altitude, the wind sharper. Fatigue strained Sano’s burned legs; his shoulder ached; he gasped for breath. On and up through the darkness they labored.

“A journey to nowhere, led by an idiot,” Judge Segawa muttered. “Wait until Chamberlain Yanagisawa hears of this.”

Suddenly they emerged onto open road. A high stone wall loomed up out of the night. Fierce dragons arched above the carved portals of a gate. Ohira led the party through this and into another world.