Two decades had passed, and although 
the town was known for its crafts they 
still called  it Iron Town. Glass blowers 
worked where once smelters had 
labored. Rice was a local  commodity, 
not an import. Iron still glinted, but as 
knives and ploughs, not harquebuses.  
In the main streets of the town early on 
market day, vendors could be seen 
selling all  manner of wares: grains, 
spices, wooden toys, pretty dolls, hand-
dyed cloth for kimonos.  Boys loafed 
about looking for beautiful girls to walk 
by, while the older women traded  
gossip and the grown men joked and 
bragged. 

    It was only just light when the enigma 
man walked into town. Ashitaka, 
beloved by his  friends the citizens of 
Iron Town, was by his own choice not a 
part of them. Half-Animal  they called 
him behind his back, out of fear. Yet his 
reappearance in the town was always  a 
happy occasion. Only the early hour and 
the many empty stalls of the market 
kept the  people from swarming him in 
celebration. 

    Muddy and dressed for travel, 
Ashitaka walked quickly as he could to 
the edge of the  town and knocked on 
the front door of a large house. A maid 
opened the door and,  unbidden, 
showed him into a sitting room. He sat 
on the floor, out of place amid the  
trappings of luxury. 

    A few minutes passed before the 
same maid brought in his hostess. The 
years had not been  merciful to Lady 
Eboshi. Lines upon lines creased and 
cracked her wan face. The one  hand left 
to her, that had ruled Iron Town for so 
long, clutched a cane; and as the woman  
entered, her old knees buckled out from 
beneath her. Ashitaka and the maid 
caught her  halfway to the floor. She 
smiled in humility. "Unable to stand and 
greet my visitors, such is  the way of the 
flesh. Ashitaka, my dear boy, it is so 
good to see you again. Can I offer you  
some tea?" 

    "It is urgent. I must refuse." 

    Ashitaka pulled away his mask. Time 
had not spared him either. His face was 
hard,  chiseled into sharp angles by the 
struggle to live outside of civilization's 
walls. He had  looked into the eyes of 
life itself and found a reason to be 
hidden away within the vitreous  
depths. 

    "I have a favor to ask of you, Eboshi-
sama," he said; and then he lay 
prostrate, touching  his forehead to the 
ground. His hostess was so shocked by 
the gesture of humility that she  could 
say nothing for a few moments. 

    When she did find her tongue again, 
she laughed. "Ashitaka, this must be 
some kind of a  joke. There's no need 
for such behavior..." 

    "It is not a joke. And there he is." 
Prince though he was, Ashitaka spoke 
into the carpet.  He did not go on before 
Eboshi lifted his head up for him. 
"Eboshi-sama, San is sick to the  verge of 
death. Neither I nor any spirits in the 
forest can help her. You are a clever  
woman, Eboshi-sama. I beg you, please 
help her however you can." 

    "Mononoke-hime? In trouble?" 
Eboshi smiled. Not a smile of triumph 
or sadism. Its  meaning was too 
mysterious for the man to understand. 
She let his head go and drew  herself up. 
"Of course I will help, Ashitaka. You 
need only have asked." 

    He made no reply. Eboshi continued 
her thought. "I could not live without 
her to remind  me why I live the way I 
do. I feel her eyes on me every hour of 
every day. Come. We'll go  to my 
garden out back." 

    The two walked side by side to the 
back of Eboshi's house. As in days of 
old, flowers and  vegetables grew in 
neat rows between her home and 
where the lepers lived. Eboshi took  an 
iron sickle and harvested some fresh 
herbs that grew along one rock wall. 
"Tell me the  truth, Ashitaka. Did you 
tell Mononoke-hime that you would 
come to me for help?" 

    "Yes." 

    "And did she forbid you?" 

    "Yes, she did." 

    "Then I think it better that she refuse 
me to my face." Eboshi placed the herbs 
into a bag  and drew the string tight. 
"We'll ride. I haven't the strength in me 
to walk long ways  through the forest 
anymore." 

    Yakkul was long dead, but the mare 
Eboshi borrowed was strong and sure-
footed. They  rode until the midday was 
passed, when the mare drew up at the 
foot of a hill and would  go no further. 
"We are nearly there," Ashitaka told 
Eboshi, and they dismounted. He  
carried her on his back up to the 
summit. 

    Looking out over a vale covered in 
the green garb of nature was a small 
cave, hewn by  unknown forces into the 
mighty granite rock. Two yama-inu 
were perched on the roof of  the cave, 
eyeing the humans with suspicion. But 
they made no effort to stop Ashitaka or  
Eboshi as they went inside. 

    The smell of sickness came from 
within the cave. The smell was an 
unholy itch that could  not be scratched 
or exorcised. It was human infirmity 
that flew upon papery wings. Tucked  
away from the sun's light was a small 
nest of pelts. And lying small on the top 
of the nest  was the princess San. Of the 
three, only she had become more 
beautiful over two decades.  Dignified 
and mature, her gifts--hidden by the 
thin wrap she wore--made her look like  
Mother Nature: gentle curves, muscle 
beneath skin, and fertility, an adoration 
for life and  all living things that could 
be shared with whosoever came to her. 

    But on that day, her beauty was 
marred by her disease. San was flushed 
yet shivering. Her  breath came in 
wheezes and gasps. The odor of shit, 
and a companion aura of infirmity,  
clung to her. "Whozzat?" she asked as 
they stepped back into the cave. "I can  
hear...smell...you..." 

    "It's me," Ashitaka said coming close 
to her. "I've brought Eboshi-sama with 
me." 

    "It's been a long time, San," Eboshi 
said, bowing as low as her old body 
would let her. 

    San growled. Only the sickness kept 
her from sounding more vicious, more 
regal, than she  did. "You've come to 
watch me suffer. Is that it, woman?" 

    "No," she replied neutrally, "I've come 
to help you as much as I can. You saved 
my life  and soul once upon a time. I'd 
like to return that favor now." 

    San made no reply, caught in a fit of 
coughing. "Wait outside, woman," she 
said. When  Eboshi had hobbled off, San 
turned her bleary eyes to Ashitaka. "I 
told you, I didn't want  any help from 
her! Or any human!" 

    "Forgive me," he said, "I was worried 
for you." 

    "I _won't_ take any human medicine! 
I won't!" 

    "I had Eboshi-sama harvest some 
herbs from her garden. You can take 
them if you want. I  promise you, I 
won't force you to." 

    She was quiet, and even her 
symptoms seemed to ebb while she 
thought. At length, she  said, 
"Ashitaka...do you...did you ever think 
about...what life would have been like if 
we  had been mated?" 

    "I do. As much now as then." 

    "But you never said anything." 

    "I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't 
want to make you make a choice." 

    She sighed a wheezy sigh. "Send...that 
woman in. Please. Then...I want you to 
wait  outside." 

    Ashitaka did as he was told. Eboshi 
watched San quietly. San saw tears in 
the older  woman's eyes. 

    "You're not saying anything," San 
observed. 

    "What's there to say? We've been 
together a long time, you and I. It's sad, 
now, to think of  losing you." 

    "I stand for things you wouldn't 
dream of, woman." 

    "You've made me dream, then. It's 
something you've shown me how to 
do, different from  however I would 
have." 

    Eboshi waited. 

    "I don't want Ashitaka to see me," San 
burst out. "There've been nights in the 
winter when  I heard the south wind 
coming, felt it blowing through the 
trees, and I wanted his arms  around 
me. And the first days of spring, when 
the mountain cascades flood the streams  
higher than they do all year, and I see 
my reflection, and I want to see his face 
beside  mine. Ten thousand moments 
have passed like that, woman. It's rotten 
to want a human  with me. I've chosen 
not to be with him. I don't know if it 
was the right thing to do  anymore." 

    "He cares about you. Ever since I've 
known him, you've made his life richer 
and happier.  Mine too, even. All of 
ours. But not the same way, oh, no." 

    "I don't want him to see me," she said 
again. With an effort, she raised herself 
up off the  next and looked at the pouch 
around Eboshi's neck. "What's in there?" 
she asked. 

    "Herbs from my garden." 

    "Why do you take plants out of the 
forest and grow them in the company 
of people?" 

    "Because I love them." 

    "That's not love." 

    "I fear losing what I have, then." 
Eboshi rose to her feet and hobbled to 
the mouth of the  cave. "Ashitaka, San 
needs a lot of good clean water. Will 
you go and get her some?" 

    "Of course." 

    Eboshi turned back inside. San was 
watching her with eyes half-closed. 
Eboshi opened the  bag and pulled out 
the drying plants. "These will reduce 
your fever, and these will help the  pains 
in your body. The flowers here will be 
good for your stomach." She pressed 
the  herbs into San's hand. "Let me 
make you comfortable there," Eboshi 
went on. "I can help  you straighten out 
your bed, and clean up that...mess." 

    San stared at the cluster of herbs. 
"Days and days of changes, but 
everything's stayed the  same, and now 
this! I'm going to eat plants that a 
human's cut with a knife!" 

    "You value your pride more than 
your life?" 

    "He loves me for what I am." 

    "He loves you unconditionally." 

    An hour later, Ashitaka returned with 
two gourds full of water. He had seen 
nothing. An  hour after that, as the 
afternoon became evening, an allergic 
reaction seized hold of San.  The herbs' 
alkaloids met the plasma in her blood, 
and something went wrong: chemicals  
didn't bond as they should. Histamines 
slipped into the blood stream to fight an  
unintensional aggressor. San's 
temperature skyrocketed. Convulsions 
set in. She grew  delerious. It was all 
Ashitaka could do to hold her down, 
keep her from hurting herself as  her 
garbled shouting became more and 
more like a wolf's growling. 

    Late that night, on Death's door, she 
had a merciful burst of lucidity. "Why, 
woman?" she  asked. 

    "It's an allergic reaction to one of the 
herbs. There was no way for you or I to 
know it in  advance...I'm sorry. I truly 
am." 

    "I forgive you. You were only trying 
to help me live. Just like you've tried to 
help those  plants in your garden live." 

    "Do you forgive yourself, San? Could 
you live with yourself now, if you had 
the chance?" 

    "I could. I do. Ashitaka, hold me now 
while I can still feel your arms..." 

    And that was how she died soon 
afterwards, in the company of her one 
true love and her  unlikely friend. Her 
kin the yama-inu howled a dirge for her 
as night became dawn, as  things had 
been on the Earth for epochs and 
kalpas. It is the way things are now, and 
they  shall never change, Ashitaka told 
himself. He wept openly for his lost 
love, unashamed. 

    They dressed her in her clothes again 
and brought her outside the cave. "We 
should give  her funary rights and 
cremate her body," Eboshi said. 

    "Rites, yes. But I think we should bury 
her body," Ashitaka replied. 

    "Cremation is cleaner, I think." 

    "You will burn away that which I love. 
I love even the worms in her stomach 
and the bugs  in her hair, for they have 
touched her and grown beautiful 
because of who she has been." 

    So they buried her on a hill near to 
but out of site of Iron Town. The folk 
who admired  her were silent and the 
forest that loved her wept. It was all 
righteous behavior, for every  one of 
them marked the loss with a gentle 
touch. No longer was there a princess of 
the  Mononoke: San, who smelled more 
like dirt than like stone, blood than like 
milk.