Authors: Miyuki Miyabe
Night fell before long, and stars twinkled into existence above Wataru’s head. A blanket of darkness covered the land. Wataru shivered in the night wind and lifted the collar on his cotton jacket.
From there on, he slumped in his seat, unsure of how far and how fast they flew. But it was not too long before he saw a cluster of lights below. Wataru blinked.
“Lanka, capital city of Bog!” Togoto announced.
That’s where Meena lived.
“Sakawa is close, a little way to the northwest. We should see it soon. The merchant city of Lanka knows no darkness, even in the depths of night, but the waterkin of Sakawa can see in the dark, and shun wasteful use of lamp oil. It will be more difficult to see from the sky.”
With the lights of Lanka on their left, Togoto swept his wings to the east and descended even farther. The wind brushing against Wataru’s cheek was salty with the taste of sea brine.
“There, Highlander! The town of Sakawa!”
Wataru leaned forward in his basket, but at first all he could see was more darkness. Soon, they passed over a narrow beach. Even in the darkness he could see the white ridges of the waves as they crashed against the shore. Togoto went out over the sea, then slowly curved back, his speed dropping as they descended.
And there was the town. Wataru saw thatched roofs and the outlines of buildings. Here and there hung what looked like signs. And in corrals throughout town were more darbabas than he had ever seen before.
In the dark streets beneath him, Wataru saw waterkin on the roads and in corrals taking care of darbabas.
Clusters of houses stood open to the air, screens made of long rushes hanging from the roofs in place of walls. Waterkin lifted the screens and looked out. There were similar houses along the shore, with verandas sticking out over the waves, where waterkin sat around tables talking and drinking.
“Oy! A karulakin! A karulakin’s come!”
“He’s got a passenger!”
Waterkin shuffled out into the center of town, waving toward Togoto.
“Settle down on the dunes to the west!”
“Aye!” Togoto replied as they flew out over the spray where white waves crashed against the rocks. They alit on a beach of white sand. The waves were gentler here.
“Highlander!” Togoto cried from above him. “As soon as your feet touch ground, leave your chair! Tarry too long, and I’ll land on top of you!”
The sea spray wetted Wataru’s face. His foot touched to the sand for an instant. Then both feet connected softly, and Wataru leapt, rolling off to one side. Behind him, Togoto came to an expert landing.
Shhhhh Shhhhh Shhhhh…
The waves of the night sea rolled soothingly in, sounding like a gentle lullaby.
“We made great time!” Togoto chortled, folding his wings behind him. “A good trip, a very good trip.”
“It was. Thank you!”
Several waterkin were coming in along the shore. One among them was particularly large, and he jumped and waved both hands. “Oy! Ooooy!”
Wataru knew who it was even before his voice reached them. He began to run across the sand, stumbling a bit until he had run off the numbness in his legs from the journey. “Kee Keema!”
“Wataru! It
is
you!”
Wataru jumped into the beaming waterkin’s arms. Kee Keema snatched him effortlessly out of the air, lifting him up over his head and spinning him around. “My lucky Traveler! You made it! I knew you’d make it!”
Then, from Kee Keema’s shoulder, Wataru saw another familiar face in the crowd rushing toward them. “Meena!”
There was so much he wanted to say and so much he wanted to ask.
Kee Keema lived in a small house near the shore, a simple affair with a roof fashioned from the giant leaves of some indigenous tree. The leaves resembled giant palm fronds, and, as Wataru soon discovered, were used for flooring, roofing, and even some tableware. The leaves also doubled as fans for relief on hot and sticky days.
The three sat in the small house, listening to the sound of the waves. They talked about everything that had happened since they were separated at the Triankha Hospital. As they chatted, Kee Keema’s neighbors and friends dropped by with stewed fruits, giant roast slabs of meat, savory roasted fish, and sweet water in vessels made of carved wood.
Slowly, they pieced together the puzzle of what had happened at the hospital. Kee Keema and Meena had regained consciousness not long after Wataru was taken away.
“One of those arrows wasn’t enough to keep a big fellow like myself down for too long,” Kee Keema boasted.
“Luckily, one only grazed me,” Meena added.
“Anyway, when we regained consciousness, you were gone. Oh, Meena cried something fierce,” Kee Keema said, chuckling.
“Don’t exaggerate,” Meena snapped.
“Hrm? It’s the truth.”
“I was just worried.”
“It’s okay, I was worried too,” Wataru said with a smile.
“We ended up getting lost in the sula woods. I think it was on account of the trees, but no matter how far we walked, we always seemed to end up in the same place. And weirder still, whenever we caught a glimpse of the hospital we’d try to make for it but couldn’t seem to get any closer.”
“That forest was bad news,” said Meena, frowning. “I got so dizzy, I was seeing two Kee Keemas, and believe me, one is enough!” Meena chuckled, but her mirth didn’t last long. “And there was that sound, like singing…”
“I remember looking at Meena and seeing her face go all twisty, like this!” Kee Keema said, taking his hands and squashing his face like a pancake. Wataru laughed out loud, but inside, he shivered, remembering what the man who fired arrows on them had said.
—Toss the other two. They’ll never be able to survive the woods.
“We were in a bit of a fix, no two ways about it. If we’d stayed out there, that sula forest would have gotten the better of us both. I figure we would have walked ourselves to death.”
Yet while they walked, stumbling through the magic woods, a great cyclone had suddenly appeared, and changed their situation considerably.
“That cyclone swept up the entire forest down to the last tree. I thought it was heaven come to punish that evil place. I didn’t care to get blown away with those trees, though, so I dug us a hole and we hid.” Kee Keema flourished his long-clawed hands with pride. “Before we knew it, the trees were all bent over or gone entirely, the leaves were scattered, and the mist was gone from the starry sky. With all the trees cleared out, we could see the hospital quite clearly—except it didn’t look anything like it looked before. Where that big block of a building had stood was only an old ruin.”
The cyclone, of course, had been Mitsuru’s work. The illusion of the hospital had been the work of the cultists.
“Meena and I rushed to the hospital, but everything was a wreck, and there were wounded folk everywhere. When they saw us, some of them tried to run—like they were scared something fierce. I caught one of them, though, a fellow wearing an awfully fine-looking robe.”
“You should’ve seen it,” said Meena, smiling, “Kee Keema snatched him up by his collar, like a baby kitkin!”
She continued: “‘Who are you?’ he asked the man. ‘Were you the ones who fired poison arrows on us? Where did you take that boy?’”
The man had told him everything, which is how they learned Wataru had been inside the hospital. They also learned that the cultists there were radical followers of the Old God.
“When I asked him what had happened to the boy, he told me that the cyclone had picked you up and tossed you into the air—and as far as he knew, you’d never come back down.”
The two had gone back to Sakawa to enlist the aid of the other waterkin in their search for Wataru. “I wasn’t sure how we’d find you,” said Kee Keema, “but I knew you’d turn up eventually. After all, you’re a Traveler under the protection of the Goddess herself. I figured no wind storm would do you in that easy.”
“Your friend must be quite the sorcerer, Wataru,” Meena said, her tail twitching. “To conjure a cyclone like that—that’s wind magic of the highest degree. None but the greatest of mages can wield such power.”
“What can I tell you? He’s a Traveler,” Kee Keema said proudly. “Strength and courage just like our boy here.” Wataru smiled, but the memory of a particular incident flashed across his mind, and his smile froze.
He hadn’t told them what happened in the Swamp of Grief. How was he supposed to tell them?
I killed someone. No, I killed two people. And the stone-baby pointed at me and called me a killer without blood or tears, and all I could do was run.
No, it was an illusion. I had a nightmare brought on by the the swamp water. None of it really happened. If I went back to Tearsheaven now, I would see Lili Yannu knitting clothes by the edge of the lake. Satami would still be sad, Sara would still be waiting for her father to return, and Yacom would still be driving his cart and selling the black water.
“Somethin’ wrong, Wataru?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing.”
“Well, we got a bit sidetracked, you might say, but now that the three of us are back together, it’s time to get looking for that second gemstone. I don’t think we need to rush right out though. We should relax a bit and enjoy the sea. This is a busy place, with lots of folks coming and going. We might hear something.”
“The traveling waterkin will be our ears and eyes,” Meena said with a smile.
“You know it! So, how do you like Sakawa, Wataru? Nice place, eh?”
“It’s beautiful—and the food is great. And the people seem really nice and friendly. I guess I can’t complain.”
“Sure can’t! The beauty of Sakawa and the bounty of the sea are both gifts from the Goddess herself. That’s why we work hard every day to repay her. None are harder working in the south than us waterkin, after all,” Kee Keema said, puffing out his chest.
“I have to admit I’ve grown a little tired of hearing Kee Keema boast about his home,” Meena said, “but I can now see where it’s coming from.”
Wataru watched the two smiling, yet he couldn’t feel at ease. He knew terrible news would be arriving soon—something that would wipe smiles off faces even here in carefree Sakawa.
Had the United Southern Nations sent their karulakin messenger here yet? Was the word already spreading, carried on red wings to every part of the land? When would it reach them?
When Wataru had first heard the story of the barrier and the sacrifices from Shin Suxin, it had frightened him, and seemed cruelly unfair. But now, sitting here with his friends, he felt something more than fear: he felt anger.
What if Kee Keema or Meena were chosen?
Wataru couldn’t stand by and let one of his friends be dragged away. Even if the one chosen said they would go willingly, Wataru couldn’t let it be.
Still, he didn’t want to be the one to have to tell them. They would find out soon enough. He kept his mouth shut and listened to the sound of the waves rolling onto the shore.
There was only one path to take
. I have to get to the Tower of Destiny as soon as possible. I’ll meet the Goddess and ask her to stop the sacrifices. Who cares about some treaty with the Lord of the Underworld? Treaties are made to be broken. They can be rewritten and amended. She can say that it was wrong.
If he begged, if he asked from the bottom of his heart, he was sure she would hear his plea. What kind of benevolent Goddess wouldn’t?
That evening, all the waterkin in Sakawa gathered at the Elder’s pagoda. A great feast was planned in Wataru’s honor. Plates of food and jugs of wine were piled on the table. The dining hall was overflowing with villagers and many more were squeezed outside. Kee Keema had warned Wataru away from the wine—waterkin liquor was powerful stuff—though the older waterkin insisted there was no harm in a cup or two.
The Elder of Sakawa was more than four hundred years old by Kee Keema’s account, but it was difficult to tell his age from his thick lizard-like scales and smooth skin. But his face did look quite dignified. It was the face of a leader.
Everyone was full of questions for Wataru: about his journey, about the trials he had faced when he first arrived in Vision, about the real world. All the while, the Elder sat silently with a smile on his face. Wataru felt something in that warm, genteel gaze—like he was being tested or judged. He had the distinct impression that the Elder had a question for him too, but not the sort of question one asked at these types of affairs.
Kee Keema also weathered an onslaught of inquiries about their adventures in the cave outside Gasara and the state of affairs in Lyris. He retold the story of their capture in the sula woods with much prancing about and exaggerated gesturing.
Even Meena got into the act. Egged on by the crowd, she started to sing, and the level of excitement escalated even further. There was a thunderous storm of applause when she finished, and cries for one more song. She was happy to oblige.
A great crowd formed a circle around her. There ensued much clapping of hands, stamping of feet, and dancing. Wataru was swept up with the crowd—grabbing on to hands and shoulders as the waterkin jumped in the air. It wasn’t long before the waterkin wine took effect. He started to swoon and thought he’d collapse on the floor before the song was finished.