The room beyond the figure was filled with shelves of ritual objects used in Buddhist ceremonies: gilded bronze bells, thunderbolts, scepters, and wheels of the law jostled gongs and plaques of every size on stands and tables.
“It’s getting dark,” said his guide, and took up a pierced bronze lantern, lighting the candle in it from the oil lamp.
They went on. The flame of the lantern flickered as they walked, transferring gigantic swooping birds and moving branches from the decorative pattern of the lantern onto the walls and ceiling. Sharp looming shadows distorted pillars and doorways into swaying tree trunks and cavern openings until Akitada felt he had passed into another world. He stumbled with tiredness and disorientation. The long journey up the mountain and the strangeness of this temple had taken their toll. Shaking his head to rid himself of the sense of having wandered into some nightmare, he abruptly remembered his horse in the rain outside the temple gate.
His guide said, “Your horse has been stabled, my lord.”
Akitada stared at the old monk’s back. Had he spoken out loud, or was this monk a mind reader? And how much longer must he follow the shuffling footsteps?
“We are almost there,” said his guide, and opened another door.
They entered a very large, empty hall. One whole wall was covered with dark curtains, and a strange smell, part mineral and part resin, hung in the air. The monk reached for a rope to pull up the draperies. Akitada’s eye fell on one section where the fabric had parted first. He started back with a cry.
The lantern light shone on a gruesome image. A child, a small boy no more than five or six, was sitting there. His rounded features were distorted in agony and he held up two bleeding stumps where his hands had been.
His guide said reassuringly, “It’s very realistic, but it’s only a painting, sir. That’s the hell screen His Reverence wanted you to see. He is very proud of it. It isn’t finished yet, but we think it will be quite wonderful. The artist is Noami, a man who is most devout and meticulous. He has been painting the screen for the past year.”
Akitada nodded.
The monk held up his lantern to illuminate another section. “This is the hell of the slashing blades. It will be much clearer by daylight, of course, or when there are many candles burning in the hall.”
Akitada sincerely hoped not. Even given the fact that the people in it were not really life-sized, the realism of the details was painful. The horrors of the scenes before his eyes were quite shocking enough by the faint light of a single lantern. Hell screens were, of course, not uncommon in Buddhist temples, being an aid to teach people the penalties of their sinful lives. But this… this was beyond anything he had ever seen before. He saw nude men and women who were writhing in the clutches of black demonic creatures, while streams of blood poured from terrible wounds made by swords, pikes, and halberds. The mutilated child was one of many victims. Near him his mother clutched a halberd which had entered her stomach and protruded from her back, while a huge black-winged demon slit her throat, releasing a fountain of gore. More demons were slashing the face of a beautiful lady with sharp knives, and her handsome young lord had lost both legs and was crawling away on the ground, leaving a broad trail of blood behind him.
The monk said proudly, “It looks very real, doesn’t it? And look at the flames of the burning hell! It makes you feel hot just to look at it.”
It did indeed. Red, orange, and yellow flames filled a large area of the screen, and in the flames humans could be seen, writhing, their skin scorched and blistered, their mouths and eyes wide with screams of agony. Here, too, demons, black-skinned and long-haired, drove reluctant naked creatures into the flames with burning torches or tossed them into a river of glowing lava.
Akitada shuddered. What kind of faith was this that celebrated human suffering, and what sort of mind could call up such scenes of horror and agony?
“Noami has been working here tirelessly day and night, except when he goes home to make more sketches for the next scenes,” said Akitada’s guide. “I have seen some of them. He will paint the judge of the dead next. Emma will be right here, in the center, and his attendants will stand around him, and the soul of someone just dead will be kneeling here, with demons waiting to take him to the hells of fire or of ice. The rest of the screen is also blank, but it will depict the freezing hell. Noami says he cannot start that yet until winter gets here.”
Akitada blinked, “Until winter gets here?”
“Oh, yes. Noami always works from nature. I myself have seen him build a fire in the courtyard to paint the smoke you see there.”
Akitada looked respectfully at the bluish black clouds which rose from the flames of the burning hell. They looked real enough to choke him. “Let us go!” he said. “I am tired.”
The monk drew the curtain again. “It’s not much farther,” he said.
They left the hall of the hell screen and walked down another dim corridor. Turning the corner, the monk pushed open a sliding door. “Here we are. These rooms are reserved for official guests. It is much quieter here than in the visitors’ courtyard. Especially today. We have a group of traveling actors staying with us. They have given a performance of bugaku and are to travel on tomorrow. I am afraid they may be very noisy tonight. We do not allow wine in the temple grounds, but such people rarely abide by the rules.” He went to light an oil lamp on a tall stand in the corner.
“I am too tired to care,” said Akitada, hoping the chatty monk would get the message. The room was plain and perfectly empty except for a yellowed calligraphy scroll suspended on one wall.
“Someone will bring you food and bedding,” said the monk. “The bathhouse is at the end of the gallery to the right. I hope you will rest comfortably. May Amida bless you!”
Akitada murmured his thanks, and the old man bowed and shuffled off.
The air was stuffy from disuse. Akitada walked across the bare floor and threw open the shutters. Outside was a tiny courtyard, no more than a few square yards enclosed by high plaster walls. It was getting dark, and the two small shrubs growing in one corner next to a stone lantern were indistinct in the gloom. They were surrounded by a patch of moss, black with moisture and outlined by swirling patterns of raked gravel. The gravel glistened wetly in the light from Akitada’s room, but the rain had slowed to a drizzle and only trickles of water fell from the eaves above in a regular, soothing pattern of small sounds. Akitada breathed in the fresh, pine-scented mountain air gratefully. That hell screen had shaken him more than it should have. He had seen so much of violent death in his lifetime that a mere painting ought not to upset him to this degree. He shook his head. It must be his exhaustion. He decided to leave the shutters open to air out the room, and hoped the promised bedding would arrive soon. He needed sleep more than food.
His eye fell on the scroll. He carried the light closer to read the inscription: “Higher Truth and Common Truth are different and the two cannot be one, though they are known as the Twofold Truth.” He frowned. It made no sense. The abstract philosophies of the Buddhists struck him as irrational, mere conundrums to dazzle the ignorant. How much more humane and instructive were the teachings of Confucius, who had a useful lesson and practical virtue for every circumstance of life.
He replaced the lamp and decided to go in search of the bathhouse.
It was just where the old monk had said it would be. Mercifully, both the undressing room and the bath itself were empty except for the attendant, a young monk, naked apart from a loincloth and glistening with sweat and steam.