The Harsh Cry of the Heron Read Online Free PDF

and pity him, and
the pity made it all easier to bear: not only the abuse and punishment of the
day, but the tears and caresses of the night, the dark things that happened
between them that he half-dreaded, half-welcomed, for then was the only time
anyone embraced him or seemed to need him.
    Hisao told no one of
how the dead woman called to him, so no one knew of this one Tribe gift that he
had inherited, one that had lain dormant for many generations since the days of
the ancient shamans who passed between the worlds, mediating between the living
and the dead. Then, such a gift would have been nurtured and honed and its
possessor feared and respected; but Hisao was generally despised and looked
down upon; he did not know how to tune his gift; the visions from the world of
the dead were hazy and hard to understand: he did not know the esoteric imagery
used to communicate with the dead, or their secret language: there was none
living who could teach him.
    He only knew the
ghost was his mother, and she had been murdered.
    He liked making
things, and he was fond of animals, though he learned to keep this secret, for
once he had allowed himself to pet a cat only to see his father cut the
yowling, scratching creature’s throat before his eyes. The cat’s spirit also
seemed to enmesh him in its world from time to time, and the frenzied yowling
would grow in intensity in his ears until he could not believe no one else
could hear it. When the other worlds opened to include him, it made his head
ache terribly, and one side of his vision would darken. The only thing that
stilled the pain and noise, and distracted him from the cat, the woman, was
making things with his hands. He fashioned waterwheels and deer scarers from
bamboo in the same way as his unknown great-grandfather, as though the
knowledge had been passed down in his blood. He could carve animals from wood
so lifelike it seemed they had been captured by magic, and he was fascinated by
all aspects of forging: the making of iron and steel, swords, knives and tools.
    The Kikuta family had
many skills in forging weapons, especially the secret ones of the Tribe -
throwing knives of various shapes, needles, tiny daggers and so on - but they
did not know how to make the weapon called a firearm that the Otori used and so
jealously guarded. The family were in fact divided over its desirability, some
claiming that it took all the skill and pleasure out of assassination, that it
would not last, that traditional methods were more reliable; others that without
it the Kikuta family would decline and disappear, for even invisibility was no
protection against a bullet, and that the Kikuta, like all those who desired to
overthrow the Otori, had to match them weapon for weapon.
    But all their efforts
to obtain firearms had failed. The Otori confined their use to one small body
of men: every firearm in the country was accounted for. If one were lost, its
owner paid with his life. They were rarely used in battle: only once, with
devastating effect, against an attempt by barbarians to set up a trading post
with the help of former pirates on one of the small islands off the southern
coast. Since that time, all barbarians were searched on arrival, their weapons
confiscated and they themselves confined to the trading port of Hofu. But the
reports of the carnage had proved as effective as the weapons themselves: all
their enemies, including the Kikuta, treated the Otori with increased respect
and left them temporarily in peace while making secret efforts to gain firearms
themselves by theft, treachery, or their own invention.
    The Otori firearms
were long and cumbersome: quite impractical for the secret assassination
methods on which the Kikuta prided themselves. They could not be con- cealed,
nor drawn and used rapidly; rain rendered them useless. Hisao listened to his
father and the older men talking about these things, and imagined a small,
light weapon, as powerful as a firearm, that could be