Then again the earth cried out. The second quake began. It was more violent. Then the earth ripped open at the far end of the plateau. This gaping fissure rushed toward them at an incredible speed, passed five paces away, and tore onward. His disbelieving eyes saw Toranaga and Mariko teetering on the brink of the cleft where there should have been solid ground. As though in a nightmare he saw Toranaga, nearest to the maw, begin to topple into it. He came out of his stupor, lunged forward. His right hand grabbed Toranaga's sash, the earth trembling like a leaf in the wind.
The cleft was twenty paces deep and ten across and stank of death. Mud and rocks poured down, dragging Toranaga and him with it. Blackthorne fought for handhold and foothold, raving at Toranaga to help, almost pulled down into the abyss. Still partially stunned, Toranaga hacked his toes into the face of the wall and, half dragged and half carried by Blackthorne, clawed his way out. They both lay gasping in safety.
At that moment there was another shock.
The earth split again. Mariko screamed. She tried to scramble out of the way but this new fissure swallowed her. Frantically Blackthorne crawled for the edge, the aftershocks throwing him off balance. On the brink he stared down. She shivered on a ledge a few feet below as the ground reeled and the sky looked down. The chasm was thirty paces deep, ten wide. The lip crumbled away under him sickeningly. He let himself slide down, mud and stones almost blinding him, and caught hold of her, pulling her to the safety of another ledge. Together they fought for balance. A new shock. The ledge mostly gave way and they were lost. Then Toranaga's iron hand caught his sash, stopping their slide into hell.
"For Christ's sake..." Blackthorne cried, his arms almost torn from their sockets as he held on to her and fought for holds with his feet and free hand. Toranaga grappled him until they were on a narrow shelf again, then the sash broke. A moment's respite from the tremors gave Blackthorne time to get her onto the shelf, debris raining on them. Toranaga leapt to safety, shouting for him to hurry. The chasm howled and began to close, Blackthorne and Mariko still deep in its gullet. Toranaga could no longer help. Blackthorne's terror lent him inhuman strength and somehow he managed to rip Mariko out of the tomb and shove her upward. Toranaga clutched her wrist and hauled her over the lip. Blackthorne scrambled after her but reeled backward as part of his wall fell away. The far wall screeched sickeningly as it approached. Mud and stones tumbled off it. For a moment he thought he was trapped but he tore himself free and groped half out of his grave. He lay on the shuddering brink, his lungs gulping air, unable to crawl away, legs in the cleft. The gap was closing. Then it stopped - six paces across the mouth, eight deep.
All rumbling ceased. The earth firmed. The silence gathered.
On their hands and knees, helpless, they waited for the horror to begin again. Blackthorne started to get up, sweat dripping.
"lye." Toranaga motioned him to stay down, his face a mess, a cruel gash on his temple where his head had smashed against a rock.
They were all panting, their chests heaving, bile in their mouths. Guards were picking themselves up. Some began running toward Toranaga.
"lye!" he shouted. "Mate!" Wait!
They obeyed and went down on their hands and knees again. The waiting seemed to go on forever. Then a bird screeched out of a tree and took to the air screaming. Another bird followed. Blackthorne shook his head to clear the sweat from his eyes. He was seeing his broken, bleeding fingernails gripping the tufts of grass. Then in the grass an ant moved. Another and another. They began to forage.
Still frightened he sat back on his heels. "When's it safe?"
Mariko did not answer. She was mesmerized by the cleft in the ground. He scrambled over to her. "Are you all right?"
"Yes - yes," she said breathlessly. Her face was daubed with mud. Her kimono was ripped and filthy. Both sandals and one tabi were missing. And her parasol. He helped her away from the lip. She was still numbed.
Then he looked at Toranaga. "Ikaga desu ka?"
Toranaga was unable to speak, his chest grinding, his arms and legs raw with abrasions. He pointed. The fissure which had almost swallowed him now was just a narrow ditch in the soil. Northward the ditch yawned into a ravine again but it was not as wide as it once had been, nor as deep.
Blackthorne shrugged. "Karma."
