Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [43]
Sensei Yamada accompanied Jack back to the Shishi-noma. Before departing for his own quarters, he offered Jack one final piece of counsel: ‘Remember, there is no failure except in no longer trying.’
Once he had gone, Jack considered the sensei’s advice. Maybe the old monk was right. He had to keep trying. The alternative was giving up, but that would be exactly what Kazuki wanted him to do and he had no intention of letting his rival beat him like that.
Gazing at the cold crescent moon that hung low in the sky, Jack vowed to renew his training efforts. He would get up early in the morning and practise his sword work. He would also ask Akiko for help with his archery. He had to do whatever it took to be among the top five in the trials.
He had to learn the Two Heavens – if not to protect himself from Dragon Eye, then to defend himself from the Scorpion Gang.
As he turned to enter the Hall of Lions and go to bed, Jack spotted Akiko, dressed all in black, rounding the far corner of the Butokuden. She was hurrying towards the side gate of the school.
Stunned, Jack now knew he hadn’t been mistaken about the identity of that first intruder. He had seen Akiko that night.
Jack ran across the courtyard in an effort to catch up with her, but she’d disappeared by the time he reached the gate.
Luckily, the streets were deserted at this time of night and, glancing left, he spotted a lone figure turn down an alleyway at the far end of the road. This had to be her, but where was she going and why the secrecy of night?
This time Jack wanted answers and hurried after her.
21
TEMPLE OF THE PEACEFUL DRAGON
The alleyway swung left, then right, and Jack emerged into a small courtyard. But Akiko was nowhere to be seen.
He heard footsteps receding down a passageway off to his right. He followed the sound until the passage opened out into a large tree-lined courtyard. Before him was a temple with an arched roof of compact green tiles overlapping like the scales of a snake. A set of stone steps led up to a pair of solid wooden doors.
Jack cautiously approached the entrance. Above the door was a wooden sign upon which the name of the temple had been carved.
He immediately recognized the last symbol as ‘temple’ and tried to remember the other kanji characters Akiko had taught him. He thought the first might be ‘dragon’, the second ‘peace’.
The sign spelt Ryōanji.
The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon.
He tried the door, but it was locked.
Jack sat down on the steps to consider what to do next. It was then that he noticed a tiny gap in the outer wall of the temple, on one side of the doorway.
The wall was constructed of an alternating pattern of dark cedar panelling and white-washed stone. One of the wooden panels was not quite flush to the wall. Jack put an eye to the gap and was rewarded with a glimpse of an inner garden. A series of small stepping stones led across a mossy manicured lawn to a wooden veranda on the opposite side.
Jack pushed his fingers into the gap and the panel slid smoothly aside. Through the concealed entrance, Jack slipped into the temple garden. Perhaps this was where Akiko had disappeared to.
He crossed over to the veranda and followed it round to where it bordered a long rectangular Zen garden of raked grey pebbles, in which fifteen large black stones had been placed in a pattern of five irregular groups. Under the pale moonlight, the garden looked like a ridge of mountain tops thrusting through a sea of clouds.
The garden was deserted.
Through an archway on the far side, Jack spied a smaller plot of raked pebbles, decorated with one or two shrubs but little else. At the end of a stone pathway that bisected the garden was a simple wooden shrine. Its shoji doors were drawn shut, but the warm halo of a candle could be seen through the washi paper and Jack thought he heard voices coming from within.
He stepped