“Hurry,” the monk pleaded. “Before they come.”

“Who?”

Instead of answering, the monk shot a fearful glance over his shoulder. He was about sixteen years old; a faint stubble of whiskers darkened his chin and upper lip. His smooth skin was flushed and beaded with sweat. Reiko’s curiosity overcame her resistance, and she let the monk hurry her away. He didn’t slow down until they reached a small Shinto shrine. He drew Reiko through the torii gate and behind a tall stone lantern in the precinct, where pines sheltered a prayer board, incense vat, gong, and a rustic wooden shed that housed the spirit of the deity. The monk fell to his knees before Reiko.

“Forgive me for imposing on you,” he said, bobbing a hasty bow, “but I’m desperate. I have no one else to turn to…”

His face contorted, and he began to cry in hoarse, barking sobs. Reiko’s need for information gave way to an impulse to help a person so obviously in trouble. “I’m here to listen,” she soothed. “Calm down.”

“There’s no time! They know I’m not where I’m supposed to be. They’re after me. That’s why it took me so long to get out of the temple.”

“Who’s after you?” Reiko asked, increasingly baffled. “Why are you afraid? At least tell me your name.”

The monk gulped back sobs; he gritted his teeth to still his body’s tremors. “My religious name is Pious Truth. Before I joined the Black Lotus, I was Mori Gogen.” The two names marked him as a former samurai, as did his educated diction. “I saw you with the abbess and heard her say that your husband is the shogun’s sōsakan-sama?” At Reiko’s nod, Pious Truth blurted, “I need his help.”

“We’ll help you if we can,” Reiko said, “but first, you must tell me what’s wrong.” She spoke calmly, but his anxiety infected her. “What is it that you want?”

“The Black Lotus sect is evil and cruel!” Passion raised Pious Truth’s voice to a shout. “I can’t bear it anymore. I want to leave!”

Excitement flared in Reiko. “Tell me what happened,” she urged.

“My family are retainers to the Kuroda clan,” Pious Truth said. He wiped his face on the frayed, soiled sleeve of his robe. “We’ve always been very religious. Last winter, my father befriended two Black Lotus priests. They came often to pray with our family, and invited us to the temple. When we went there and met High Priest Anraku, we became convinced that he alone knew the true way of the Buddha. I decided to enter the monastery, and my older sister Yasue became a nun. We hoped to achieve enlightenment, but life at the temple wasn’t what we’d expected.”

Bitterness hardened Pious Truth’s voice. He rose, peered furtively around the lantern, then continued, “The priests forced us and the other novices to spend every moment chanting, meditating, and listening to them ring gongs and read prayers to High Priest Anraku. They gave us nothing to eat except seaweed soup. We were allowed to sleep for only two hours each night. There was so much incense smoke in the worship hall that we could hardly breathe. Our legs hurt from kneeling, and we all had stomach cramps and diarrhea from the seaweed. We weren’t allowed to bathe. Whoever complained or disobeyed was beaten. The priests told us we were weak, stupid, and worthless, and unless we passed our training, we were doomed to be reborn again and again into lives of meaningless suffering.”

Although Reiko knew that strict rules, limited diet, and physical discipline were customary in Buddhist orders, this sounded more like torture than religious instruction. “If things were as bad as you say, why didn’t you leave?”

“We couldn’t,” Pious Truth said. “The priests kept a close watch to make sure no one left the temple.”

“Surely your families wouldn’t allow you to be mistreated,” Reiko said, “and the law doesn’t allow temples to hold people against their will.”

Wringing his hands, Pious Truth shifted his weight from one foot to the other as if on the verge of flight. “No one knows what’s going on. We novices aren’t allowed to see or speak to anyone from outside the sect.”

“The priests and nuns I saw at the temple looked healthy and contented and free to wander among the people.”

Pious Truth gave a humorless laugh. “Those are the trusted initiates. They get better food and other privileges. They beg alms and recruit new followers. The authorities and the public are allowed to see them because they won’t tell anybody what goes on at the temple. Their spirits have been conquered by the Black Lotus.”

The story was growing more and more astonishing. Reiko said, “How many novices are there like you?”

“Hundreds. I don’t know the exact number, because we live in separate groups, and I see the others only in passing.”

“But where are they? How can the Black Lotus hide them from everyone?”

“Our quarters are in the buildings near the convent,” Pious Truth said. “The walls are lined with cotton padding to muffle the sound. Outsiders aren’t allowed there.”

Reiko remembered the secluded buildings, Abbess Junketsu-in hurrying her past them, and the sound of muted chanting.

“The temple is bigger than anyone realizes.” Pious Truth leaned toward Reiko, his eyes alight with the need to convince. “What you saw is just the part that’s visible on the surface. The Black Lotus has many places to hide things they don’t want anyone to see. There are underground rooms, and tunnels leading outside. It’s like a monstrous invisible growth, spreading everywhere!”

Shaking her head in amazement, Reiko said, “How could that happen without anyone noticing?”

“It is happening. I’ve seen it,” the monk insisted. “After six months of training, we novices are forced to dig new tunnels. We work at night. The tunnels run beneath the roads, so our neighbors won’t hear noises under their floors.”

Pious Truth jittered with increasing agitation. “In the daytime, we work in a shop in the temple grounds, printing copies of High Priest Anraku’s teachings to sell to the public. That’s where I’m supposed to be now. I sneaked out, but before I got to the gate, they had patrols searching the grounds for me. By this time, they’ll know I’ve left the temple. They’ll look all over until they find me. They’ll never let me go.”

“But if there are hundreds of you, all desperate to be free, why don’t you band together and walk out?” Reiko asked in confusion.

“It’s not that easy. They have spies mixed in among us, to inform on people who are plotting to run away. We can’t trust anyone. And after a while, all the drumming and gongs and chanting and smoke and hard work and going without sleep does something to your mind. You obey and endure because you haven’t the wits to do otherwise. And they put something in the food-some kind of poison that confuses you even more. I found out by accident, when I got sick last month.

“I vomited constantly; I couldn’t keep any food down. But my thoughts were completely clear for the first time since I came to the temple. I realized what had happened to me, and what I must do to free myself and my sister.”

This extraordinary story about imprisonment and slavery wasn’t what Reiko had hoped to hear from the monk, but his words echoed with the timbre of truth. Might the fire be connected to the practices he was describing?

“When I got well, I went back to work and behaved myself,” Pious Truth said, “but I stopped eating the food. I threw it away when the priests weren’t looking.” Belatedly, Reiko noticed the gauntness of his face, the sharp bones under his robe. “But my spirit grew stronger, and I was determined to escape. Three nights ago, I waited in my bed until everyone was asleep and the priests who patrol the novice monks’ dormitory were in another part of the building. Then I climbed out the window and sneaked into the convent.

“I woke up Yasue and led her across the temple grounds. I’d never been out there at night, and I’d expected the place to be dark and deserted, but there were lights in the buildings, and priests and nuns coming and going. We heard strange noises. Yasue was frightened and begged to go back to the dormitory, but I pulled her along. Just as we reached the main precinct, I heard running footsteps. I looked back and saw lots of priests carrying lanterns, spreading out over the grounds. They were looking for us.”