John Donohue
YMAA Publication Center
Wolfeboro, NH USA
YMAA Publication Center, Inc. Main Office PO Box 480 Wolfeboro, NH 03894 1-800-669-8892 • www.ymaa.com • [email protected]
© 2008 by John Donohue
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Design: Axie Breen
ISBN-13: 978-1-59439-125-5 (cloth cover)
ISBN-10: 1-59439-125-4 (cloth cover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59439-123-1 (paper cover)
ISBN-10: 1-59439-123-8 (paper cover)
POD 1108
Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication
Donohue, John J., 1956-
Tengu : the mountain goblin / John Donohue. -- 1st ed. -- Boston, Mass. : YMAA Publication Center, c2008.
p. ; cm.
ISBN: 978-1-59439-125-5 (cloth); 978-1-59439-123-1 (pbk.)
1. Burke, Connor (Fictitious character) 2. Terrorists--Fiction. 3. Martial artists--Fiction. 4. Martial arts fiction. 5. Suspense fiction. I. Title.
2008936440
0810
PS3604.O565 T46 2008
813/.6--dc22
TABLE OF CONTENTS
8. WATCHER
9. BEAST
10. BLOOD MONEY
11. VOID
12. CAGE
13. SIMPLE THINGS
14. LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
15. ESKRIMADOR
16. CHAIN
17. TESSEN
18. COUNTDOWN
19. KEIKO
20. PALADIN
21. TARGET
22. FINAL THINGS
23. MA-AI
24. KAISHAKU
25. FLASH
26. FLIGHT
27. EDGE
28. HIDDEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY JOHN DONOHUE…
BOOKS FROM YMAA
DVDS FROM YMAA
To my sisters and brothers
Patricia, Anne, Peter, Matthew, Mary, and Christopher:
First companions on the way.
A famous physicist once said that it’s impossible to examine the world objectively: The very act of looking disturbs the gossamer filaments that bind the universe together and, as a result, they vibrate with unanticipated harmonics. Our mere existence changes everything.
We move through life thinking that the distinction between ourselves and others, between ourselves and the world, is absolute. The Zen masters know better. We are linked in ways that are both intimate and fearsome.
I have come to believe that this is so. I don’t think I could ever have anticipated the events that would have brought me somewhere far from my home, facing death beside the one person I most admired in the world. Looking back, it is as if we were drawn to that place by a chain that, for all its invisibility, was stronger than the steel of the sword that my master taught me to wield.
Our progress through this world sets the sea of molecules in motion. Like tide or wind, our very passage through the world creates unseen patterns in the fabric of life. They churn and swirl. Some fade away into quiet; others spawn into things of a size and monstrous intensity we could never imagine.
These, ultimately are the demons that haunt us. They are not some force from out there—they are creatures of our own making. They grow, sometimes without our awareness, spinning off into the darkness, until the day their orbit brings us once more into collision.
The old teachers were men alive to the currents that swirled around them. Human storm cells themselves, they churned through life with an intensity that de-stabilized the system. And they knew this. So they searched the darkness, aching to divine the pattern of the cyclones that moved, just beyond the limen of consciousness. The power they sensed was something to harness, something to defend against. Something to fear.
The sensei, students of both motion and stillness, know that the quest for mastery and control creates new currents, new powers, and new challenges.
These
