do they celebrate the New Year at Shrine Island?" he asked.
The gardener looked mysterious.
"You wait and see. New Year's Eve on Shrine Island is different from New Year's Eve anywhere else in the world."
Tatsu could hardly wait. Even the executioner's silence didn't keep him from feeling a fine glow of excitement. Luckily he didn't need to wait very long. Soon the journey to Shrine Island was arranged. Jiro and Zenji were to go along, too.
"We'll travel by boat," Kiku explained, "across the Inland Sea."
That was fine for Tatsu. All the way from the City of the Golden Marsh to Shrine Island, he sat in the bow of the boat trying to look as though he'd been sailing all his life.
The Daimyo and Kiku sat on red cushions laid on straw mats in the middle of the deck.
Gushi the gardener and Hachi the executioner took turns standing in the stern and steering with a long pole like an enormous oar. Jiro and Zenji manned the sails.
Tatsu loved the rolling motion of the boat as it sailed through the beautiful Inland Sea. Still, he felt a little uncomfortable when he saw Hachi the executioner watching him during one of Gushi's turns at poling the boat. There was a look in Hachi's eye that Tatsu didn't like.
They sailed past green islands and rocky shores until at last they landed on Shrine Island. It was afternoon of the day before the New Year.
"Here's where the fire-fighting ceremony will be held," said the Daimyo.
Tatsu stifled a bit of anxiety when he heard the word fire. He had almost forgotten the wizard's warning.
"Those old fire demons will all be scared off tonight," he heard Gushi the gardener say. "They'll run off so fast they won't be back all year long."
"Let's take our retinue to the temple. We have to get into the procession," said the Daimyo.
The retinue lined up, the Daimyo, Kiku, Gushi, Hachi, and last of all, Tatsu, with Jiro standing up inside him to made his front legs and Zenji standing up inside him to make his hind legs. The retinue wound its way to the temple.
"Now we must make our torches," said the Daimyo. "Kiku, you may sit here in front of the temple and watch how it is done. And Tatsu, see that no harm befalls her. We'll come back for you after the procession is over."
Tatsu accepted the responsibility, proudly waving his brown yarn tail.
Jiro and Zenji joined a crowd of workers who were lashing light pine boards together into cylinders to make torches. They dipped the ends into pitch so they would burn brilliantly.
As it grew dark, the procession lined up in front of the temple. Tatsu saw boys and men dressed in the ancient costume of the fire-fighters, white jackets and tight-fitting trousers, with coarse straw sandals bound tightly around bare ankles.
All of them carried torches. Jiro and Zenji and Gushi joined a group who lifted a long torch to their shoulders, and Hachi managed to find himself a place with a group of priests in the foremost ranks. The Daimyo and a number of other noblemen bore the largest torch of all.
Then Tatsu saw a white-robed priest hurrying from man to man lighting the pine torches with a wax candle that burned with a flame said to have been brought down from a fire in the shrine on the mountain top that had been burning for a thousand years.
The noblemen's torch spluttered and coughed, then blazed and shot fireworks like all the other torches carried by young men and old.
"Yoi! Yoi! Yoi-no-yoi! Yoi-no-yoi!" shouted the runners, sprinting along the hard-earth pavement in time to the weird rhythm.
Tatsu wondered what Yoi-no-yoi meant. Maybe it didn't mean anything—just showed how excited the runners were.
Soon the whole curving street that bordered the seashore was a mad lane of fire. The flames leapt and snapped as the torches trailed sparks. The sharp odor of pitch filled the air. The procession had started. Let the demons beware!
Tatsu the Fire Demon
Tatsu sat with Kiku on the steps of the temple where he had a wonderful view of all the proceedings. His dragon blood boiled with excitement as he watched the waving torches and heard the shouting. But as he saw the leaping flames he kept remembering the wizard balloon man's words, "Beware of fire!" It was better to watch in safety from the temple steps than to burn to a charred rag.
But Kiku's patience was short. Why should she, the daughter of a Daimyo, sit tamely on the temple steps just because she was a girl?
"Come on, Tatsu. We're going to get into the fun. We haven't a torch, but we can run."
"I can't run because I haven't any legs."
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