text: The morning dawned bright and clear. Before the yamabushi rose the peak of a massive mountain. Around them rose other peaks, as massive and imposing. They started through the mists of the morning. Satsuki bore up well with early rising, something that was not her habit. She wondered what she, a lone woman, was supposed to be doing here. From the comments she overheard she realized that the younger yamabushi were as puzzled. The older ones kept their counsel, but she managed to note many a searching glance sent in her direction.
  
  Now the route became difficult. They clambered over and between massive rocks and through brush where the path seemed to disappear and only the knowledge of the more experienced yamabushi allowed them to proceed.
  
  Their path led up, switching back and forth across the steep face of a cliff. Near the summit the climb necessitated handholds. Then the ledge widened somewhat. Satsuki peered over the shoulders of the men before her. Daisangyoja stood before a wide crack that bisected their path. There was no way around, and no way down, considering the difficulties of the climb. He turned to his followers and called, "Believe!" then turned and leapt the chasm. The rest of the yamabushi followed.
  
  When Satsuki's turn came, she looked down curiously at the cleft. Between the lips of the ledge was a fall of several score feet. Below it lay jagged rocks. Seeing her hesitation, Tsuneyoshi turned and called out, "Believe!" Startled at the call she jumped and landed handily on the other side.
  
  More cliffs, more rocks to be traversed. Again they climbed a cliff, inching painfully up a narrow path, the chasm below them yawning deeper. The ledge beneath their feet narrowed, then widened to a clearing that could take most of the group. Daisangyoja stood before them again.
  
  "Here is the final test," he said. "To pass here you must think of the Eternal Nothing, you must banish the world from your thoughts. There is but one way to pass here, by purifying your minds." On a more prosaic note he added, "The only way to pass here is by sliding up the ledge with your back to the wall. When you reach the Rock of Nothing, you must pause. Thinking of the Great Nothing, you swing your body into the void. For those who are without desire there is a hold on the other side. For those who are still attached to the world, there is nothing but a long fall..."
  
  He turned and proceeded along the path, which narrowed as before. Inching down the ledge with their backs to the rough wall, the party progressed. Before her Satsuki could see far down and away into a verdant valley. The peaks rose in majesty around her. The sky was clear, and she was lost in its azure depths. Her outstretched left hand found a smooth, well-worn handhold, a rock sticking out of the cliff face. She held it firmly. Her left foot encountered emptiness, and a smooth bulge of rock impeded further progress. "Now!" came a faint voice to her bemused mind. She swung away from the cliff. For a dizzying moment that seemed to last forever she was suspended between heaven and earth, supported only by a grip on a knob of rock. She had the momentary urge to let go, to sever all ties with this world of woe. All too soon her body dragged her back to earth. Her right foot completed its swing and found purchase on the other side of the rock. Her hand was held by Tsuneyoshi's, and she was hauled to mundane safety.
  
  "Thank you so much!" she said with great propriety.
  
  They travelled the steep wooded mountains the rest of the day, penetrating deeper into the wilds. At last they came to the thin thread of a small stream. They passed through a tangle of bush after reciting a magical formula imparted to them by Daisangyoja in a whisper. Satsuki was not vouchsafed a formula. She parted the bushes and bowed to the fierce-faced figure behind it.
  
  "It's only a statue," laughed Hachibei, who had been right before her.
  
  "True," she answered softly, "but a statue of the venerable Shakamuni." And she bowed again.
  
  A cliff barred their way. Daisangyoja stood before it, unmoving. The file of yamabushi clustered silently at his feet.
  
  "We are now approaching the climax of our pilgrimage," said the master in his hypnotic voice. "The Tozan-ha and the Honzan-ha have perverted the way of En-no-Gyoja, our founder. Here is the site where the true letter of the law will be reborn. From here the brightness will be reestablished. You must go forward without fear or doubt. I will open the way for you into the precincts of the Western Paradise. Later, through my magic, I will open the New Age and reestablish through austerities that only I know, the New Age of blessings." He turned and faced the cliff face and bowed deeply.
  
  "Open!" he called in a terrible voice.
  
  "Hear and obey!" called the senior yamabushi. The novices took up the call.
  
  "Open!" he called again.
  
  "Hear and obey!"
  
  He raised his beringed staff in his left hand, then lowered it slowly until the butt touched the ground. He turned again and motioned Satsuki to his side.
  
  "When the mountain opens," he said quietly, for her ears only, "you will crawl through the buddha womb. When you come out, straddle the exit and wait!"
  
  He turned again and bowed to the mountain. "I, the complete being, demand you open!"
  
  He raised his right hand above his head and then in a flick of an eyelash slammed his palm against the rock face. There was a shattering sound, the part of the rock face crumbled to reveal a narrow opening in the cliff. Daisangyoja moved to one side, turned, and motioned to Satsuki with his eyes. She bobbed her head at him, climbed into the hole, and disappeared inside.
  
  It was dark but reasonably smooth. The floor was rough rock, and the tunnel seemed to wander on forever in the dark. She could only crawl along on all fours, hoping for an end and wondering about her appearance. She tried to see behind her, but the small circle of light quickly vanished behind a turn in the tunnel. She wondered desperately how she could maintain her appearance after climbing through the dirt. She narrowly avoided hitting her head on the ceiling, turned with the tunnel, and saw daylight. She crawled out, to find herself on a small grass-floored glen between two rocks. She lay there panting for a moment, then recalled that others were to follow her. Hastily she checked her appearance. Her gaiters were filthy, she noted, though her robe had been protected somewhat by her travelling pantaloons. Her hair was a mess, but a few strokes of her comb made it at least manageable. Fortunately she had worn a kerchief, so the damage was not irreparable. Hastily she set herself to rights, then, following instructions, stood braced against the cliff wall, her legs straddling the cavern exit. She dreaded the ordeal, knowing that nothing in her appearance—neither her underclothes, her smell, nor her toilet—would bear close inspection. She vowed that the humiliation of having to present herself in this fashion, without the minimal amenities, would not soon be forgotten.
  
  The first of the yamabushi poked his head out of the cavern, noted Satsuki straddling the exit, and crawled through between her legs. Another followed, then more. Daisangyoja was the last to emerge. He bowed to her without a word.
  
  They were standing in a small fan-shaped meadow. The two sides were bound by cliffs that towered above them. The third side gave a magnificent view of the mountains, rolling away from them for mile after mile. The meadow sloped down, terminating abruptly in a fall of hundreds of feet. A perfect hideout. At the apex of the meadow was a shallow cave. The cliffs appeared unclimbable, but for some scraggly pines that clung grimly to the rock.
  
  The yamabushi dispersed and began setting up a ritual enclosure. The paper-festooned rope was stretched to encompass the entire space. An altar was prepared on nine layers of nine sticks each. Brass implements, drums, conchs, and other paraphernalia were produced from the yamabushi's bags. She wandered around, peeped into the cave, which was nothing more than a small person-high depression in the cliff extending two feet into the rock. Then she waited patiently, standing near the cliff's edge, enjoying the view of the mountains and the sky unfolding before her.
  
  The rituals took up the rest of the day. Throughout, Satsuki sat where she was told and followed the intricate moves of the ritual with only half her mind. She could not help wondering what would become of her, what her place was in the scheme of things. And beneath it rose tiny streams of resentment. She had so much to offer, and it was all wasted on these wild men.
  
  The ritual was over. At last she had her own role to play. Nude, she entered the cave as she had been bidden. Daisangyoja stood before her, his head touching the roof, his faced shadowed. His magnetic eyes bored into her own, and he pressed his warm flesh against her cool curves. His mouth opened. She parted her own red lips expecting an exploring by his tongue. Instead of a warm oral digit, however, only a single syllable came out, a sound to end all sounds. With the mantra still echoing continuously from his mouth he sank down to a lotus position. His skin stroked smoothly over her own. The emitted breath of the magic syllable stirred her unbound hair, then caressed her face. He descended lower, sinking from her sight in the gloom. The power of his breath puckered the valley between her breasts. Her nipples, erect from the cold, felt the passage of the sound until it passed and penetrated the recess of her nave. There it stopped. As if in a trance she felt his hands urge her downwards. She complied, her thighs curving naturally around his body. She was not surprised to find herself being impaled on his massively erect member. The blunt head of the instrument parted her soft nether lips. She sighed in accompaniment to the magic syllable he uttered. The hot sword penetrated her willing flesh without pause until she rested comfortably on his thighs. Her heels clenched behind his hard ass, and her arms curled around his neck. She jogged up and down to increase their pleasure, but Daisangyoja's firm hand stayed her.
  
  There were sounds from the entrance. Past her shoulder Satsuki could see hands coming and going as willing helpers blocked up the entrance to the cave with rocks and clay. The pale entrance grew darker and darker, the pale sky becoming a blot, a spot; then it was gone.
  
  "How long will we have to stay here?" she asked tremulously.
  
  "Forever!" he answered, and his sword of flesh stabbed up into her vitals.
  
  Moving slowly, his hand began a sensuous movement over her back. In the narrow space, enclosed by masses of earth and rock, she could not move. He stroked the skin of her back, touching all the sensitive planes of her torso. Gradually the tempo of his moving hands quickened. She saw her former lovers in her mind's eye. Her deceased husband, the many men she had pleased in her professional career. She tried to move and support his thrusts into her willing body, but the binding earth stopped her motions.
  
  Her breathing quickened with the tempo of his moves, and she was suddenly conscious of two things: his cock was barely moving in her, all sensation being caused by his hands, and her climax was rapidly approaching. She tried to resist the latter. She forced her thoughts onto mundane things, but the insidious motion of his hands on her back and ass brought forth the reality of her body. She whimpered in the dark, hungering for more pleasure; then the orgasm shook her, and she let down a shower of juices that moistened their joined hairs.
  
  He commenced his movements again, his mouth sought hers, and he locked her firmly to him while his maleness plundered her soft insides. They remained joined until Satsuki lost all track of time; only her repeated orgasms served as a metronome, tolling away the hours.
  
  With time, thought ceased. Her climaxes continued, but they detached her body from herself. She floated somewhere on a hazy cloud, approaching satori; the death within life, the unity with her lover, the cessation of her being. Not thinking any more, her limbs disobedient, she waited for death to come. Suddenly she felt cool air on her back. Painfully she managed to turn her neck. A small point of light came into being. It widened, and she could see moonlight illuminating the niche. Daisangyoja's face was unnaturally calm, his eyes open to mere slits, a slight smile on his lips. He is beautiful, she thought, and abandoned herself to the delicious pleasure of his erect member still distending her soft cunt.
  
  She turned again as a crash of rocks and hard breathing broke into her reverie. A wild face, barely seen, glared at her. It glistened and stank of male sweat and a sweet stink that hinted of something worse. The wild eyes saw her in the moonlight, and a grin split the dirt-smeared face. More rocks flew aside until the opening was wide enough for the figure to insert massive shoulders.
  
  "At last!" the face croaked, and a horny, filthy, massive paw grasped her naked shoulder and pulled her back. She looked at Daisangyoja's calmly smiling face and screamed as she was dragged into the moonlight.