The sound of nearby laughter made him turn to his right. A short distance from the track, on the mountain’s downward slope, the Takeda samurai who had wounded Jimmu was displaying his throat to Sadamichi. There was a dark rope mark on Sadamichi’s neck and his head hung awry, his left cheek resting on his left shoulder. When he noticed Jimmu, Sadamichi raised his right arm to show the bloodstained rags wrapped around the stump of his wrist.

“Eh, Farm Boy!” he jeered. “Have you come to cut off the other one?”

The samurai’s throat bubbled as he laughed.

“Which direction should I take?” asked Jimmu.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sadamichi replied. “Wherever you go, you’ll end up in the same place as the rest of us.”

“What place?”

“The place where you die,” Sadamichi said.

Jimmu walked on. The track rose steeply for a while, then leveled out. He passed through blades of dusty sunlight, but when the light touched his skin he felt no warmth. Before long, he came upon a group of men seated around a burned-out fire. Some of the men were the samurai Jimmu had fought at Zato, the rest were the bandits he had slain in the forest near the road to Kyoto.

Toshiro, the bandits’ leader, scowled.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I’m lost,” said Jimmu. “I’m not sure where I’m going.”

Toshiro bared his bloodstained teeth in a smile.

“You’ll never know until you make up your mind,” he said. “It’s your decision. It always has been. You shouldn’t be with us. You belong where things happen. Nothing changes here, and the nothing goes on forever. Get out while you still can.”

“But I don’t know the way out!” protested Jimmu.

“Yes you do,” Toshiro said. “The way out is to live for as long as possible. Stay here much longer, and you’ll be as dead as we are.”

Jimmu sighed.

“It must be peaceful to be dead, and have no worries,” he said.

“It isn’t,” Toshiro informed him. “The living find peace, not the dead. The dead aren’t at peace. They aren’t anything or anywhere. Don’t be stupid. Go back to your life and live it.”

Jimmu left the men and continued along the track, which gradually faded into darkness.

First came the rattle and drip of falling rain, then booming voices and footsteps. The air was peppery with a scent that matched the bitter taste in the mouth. A tongue moved over teeth.

My tongue, thought Jimmu. My teeth. My mouth.

He opened his eyes and saw his room in Mitsukage Castle. A cotton quilt had been drawn over him. His sword stood in the corner. Kambei was seated at his side.

“Are we dead?” whispered Jimmu.

“I don’t think so,” Kambei said.

Jimmu’s shame pressed down on him.