Shadow of the Moon, a Sea of Shadows ttk-1 Page 5

  Youko shook her head.

  "You want to get dragged the whole way there? Huh? Quit clowning around and get your ass over here."

  "No way."

  More people were gathering around them. The man took a step towards her. Youko pulled the sword from the scabbard.

  "What the hell!"

  "Don't come any closer … please."

  Everyone around her froze. Youko eyed them and backed way. As soon as she turned and started to run she heard footsteps behind her.

  "Don't follow me!" she shouted, but as soon as she had glanced back to see them coming after her she drew up, raised the sword, her body preparing itself for combat. Her blood roared in her ears.

  "Stop it," she told herself.

  She lunged with the sword towards the nearest man charging towards her.

  "Jouyuu, stop!"

  It was pointless to argue with him. The tip of the sword traced a graceful arc in the air.

  "I'm not killing any more people!"

  She shut her eyes. At once the movement in her arm stopped. At the same time someone came upon her on horseback, yanked the sword from her hand and knocked her roughly off her feet. Tears welled up in her eyes, more from relief than pain.

  "Stupid girl." They jabbed and kicked and punched her, but it was not too much to bear. Someone dragged her to her feet and pinned her arms behind her back. She did not care to resist. She pleaded with herself, with Jouyuu, do nothing.

  "Let's take her back to the village. Better take that strange sword to the governor as well."

  Her eyes still tightly shut, Youko could not tell who had spoken.

  2-3

  Youko was marched down a narrow path that wound through the paddies. After a fifteen-minute walk they arrived at a small town surrounded by a high fence. It was the hamlet she had spied earlier, little more than a rough handful of houses. Here, though, set into one wall of the squarish fence was a sturdy-looking gate.

  The gate opened inwards, revealing another interior wall decorated with many pictures drawn in red colors. In front of the wall, for no discernable reason, someone had left behind a wooden chair. Youko was pushed along past the wall and towards the center of the village. When she came around the red wall, an unbroken view of the main street opened up to her.

  The scene again roused in her both feelings of familiarity and strangeness. The feelings of familiarity came from its overall resemblance to oriental architecture--the white, plastered walls, black tiled roofs, the distinctive latticework of the arbors. But despite this, she felt no affinity for the place, undoubtedly because of the utter lack of a human presence.

  A number of smaller paths branched out to the right and left of the wide street facing from the gate. She didn't see a single person. The houses were no higher than a single story, but were all hidden from the street behind a white fence that reached as high as the eaves. Gaps appeared in the fence at regular intervals, revealing glimpses of houses set back behind small gardens.

  The houses were uniform in size, and looked very much the same, despite small differences in their outward appearance. They could have been rolled off an assembly line.

  Here and there a window was open, the wooden shutters propped open with bamboo poles. Yet from the street Youko could sense no human presence. Not a single dog. Not a sound.

  The main thoroughfare was no more than a hundred yards in length, ending at a plaza. Commanding the plaza was a building tiled with brilliant white stones. Yet the dazzling decoration seemed little more than a facade. The narrow streets intersecting with the plaza ran no more than thirty yards or so before meeting the surrounding wall of the town and bending out of sight.

  On the streets there was no sign of human activity.

  Youko glanced about the plaza. Beyond the uniform black-tiled roofs she could see only the high wall of the town. Turning around she could begin to make something of its shape. It was something of a long, narrow and deep box. The confines of the town were suffocatingly narrow, no more than half as wide as her own school. It was like being inside a big well, Youko thought. The town itself was like the rubble buried beneath the water at the bottom of the well.

  They brought her to the center of the buildings facing the plaza. The building reminded her of Chinatown, in Yokohama. Yet the red-painted pillars the sparkling walls struck her as no less superficial than the rest of the town.

  They entered a long, narrow hallway in the center of the building. It was dark and also devoid of people. After pausing to discuss some matter, the men prodded her forward again, and then shoved her into a small room and shut the door.

  Her immediate impression of the room was that it was a jail cell.

  The floor seemed to be covered with the same tiles as the roofs, though many of the tiles were cracked and broken. The earthen walls were cracked as well and stained with soot. A single window high up on the wall, blocked with bars. A single door, its peephole latticed with bars. Looking through the peephole she could see men standing just outside the door.

  The room's furniture consisted of a wooden chair, a small table, and a larger platform the size of a single mattress. A thick cloth was attached to the top of the platform. It was obviously intended to be a bed.

  She wanted to ask where this place was, what kind of place this was, what was going to happen to her next, and a thousand other questions. But she hadn't the courage to ask the guards. And they clearly had no desire to talk to her, either. So without another word, she lay down on the bed. There was nothing else she could do.

  As time passed the human presence within the building became more marked. Outside her cell people came and went. There was a changing of the guards. The blue leather body armor the two new guards were wearing reminded her of policemen or security guards. She caught her breath, wondering what was about to happen. But the guards only gave Youko a pair of fierce looks and said nothing.

  It was almost more cruel this way. It was better when something--anything--was happening. Several times, she determined to speak to the guards, but could not find the courage to speak.

  The hours dragged on. It was enough to make her want to scream. After the sun set, and the cell had sunken into blackness, three women arrived.

  The white-haired lady at the head of the three wore the kind of outfit Youko had seen in old historical dramas about China. It was a tremendous relief to finally meet someone, and a woman at that, not one of those grim-faced men.

  The old lady said to the two who had accompanied her, "You can leave now." They deposited the articles they were carrying on the bed, and, bowing deeply, exited the jail cell. After they had gone the old lady pulled the table next to the bed. She placed the lamp on the table. The lamp resembled a candlestick of sorts. Next to it she put a bucket of water.

  "Well, then, you'd better wash up."

  Youko answered with a nod. Slowly she washed her face and hands and feet. Her filthy, blackened, reddened hands soon regained their normal color.

  By this point, Youko began to notice how hard it was to move her limbs. This was no doubt because of Jouyuu. Over and over he had forced her body to do things it was hardly capable of, and now her muscles were torn and stiff.

  As best she could she washed her hands and feet. The water soaked into the fine lacerations. She went to comb her hair, undoing the three braids gathered at the back. That was when she became aware of something truly strange.

  "What … what is this?"

  Undone from the braid her hair spilled down like a wave. She stared. She knew she had red hair, a red that faded at the ends, almost as if bleached. But not this! Where did this bizarre color come from?

  It was red, a red steeped in blood, a red changed to a deep, dark crimson. To be called a redhead was one thing, but this was not that! She could not think of what to call it, this impossible, freakish hue. A shudder ran through her. It was the same red color as the coat of the creature in her nightmares.

  "What's the matter?" the old lady asked. When Youk
o indicated her hair, she tilted her head to the side. "Why worry yourself so? There's nothing strange about it. A tad unusual, perhaps, but pretty enough."

  Youko shook her head, searched in the pocket of her uniform and brought out a small hand mirror. No doubt about it, those scarlet locks were hers alone.

  But who was this person peering back at her? For a moment it didn't make any sense. She timidly lifted her hand and touched her face. So did the stranger in the reflection. It was her, she realized in amazement.

  This is not my face!

  Even accounting for the effect that her hair might have on her appearance, this was somebody else's countenance. Its attractiveness was not the problem. The problem was plainly that this face--with its sun-bronzed skin, its deep emerald eyes--was the face of a stranger.

  Youko cried out in great alarm. "This isn't me!"

  The old lady turned to her with a dubious expression. "What isn't?"

  "This! This is not who I am!"

  2-4

  The old lady took the mirror from Youko's distracted grasp and calmly examined it. "Nothing wrong with the mirror from what I can tell." She handed it back to Youko.

  Now that Youko thought about it, her voice sounded different, too. She had become a completely different person. Not a beast or a monster, but … .

  "Well, then, so you don't look exactly like you used to."

  The laughter in the old lady's voice made Youko look at her. "But why?" she asked. She again peered at herself in the mirror. It gave her a strange sensation, seeing that stranger in place of herself.

  "Why, indeed. Not something I'm bound to know."

  With that, she took hold of Youko's hand and with a wetted cloth dabbed at the many small wounds.

  When Youko looked more closely at the her inside the mirror, she could begin to tease out the vestiges of herself that seemed familiar. But they were very faint.

  Youko put down the mirror, resolved not to pick it up again. As long as she didn't look it wouldn't matter what she looked like. True, mirror or not, she couldn't very well ignore her hair, but if she pretended it was dyed she could put up with it. That didn't mean she was resigned to every other aspect of her appearance, but at this point she didn't have the courage to take an unvarnished look at herself.

  The old lady said, "Can't claim to know much about it myself, but it happens, or so I've heard. Sooner or later you'll settle down and get used to it."

  She took the bucket off the table. In its place she placed a large bowl. It contained something like mochi rice immersed in soup.

  "Go on, help yourself. There's plenty more to be had."

  Youko shook her head. She had no appetite whatsoever.

  "You're not going to eat?"

  "I don't want any."

  "Give it a taste and see. Sometimes that's the only way to know if you're really hungry or not."

  Youko silently shook her head. The old lady sighed. From an earthenware teapot that resembled a tall water jug she poured a cup of tea.

  "You come from over yonder?" she asked. She drew up a chair and sat down.

  Youko raised her eyes. "Over yonder?"

  "Across the sea. You come from across the Kyokai, did you?"

  "What's the Kyokai?"

  "The sea at the foot of the cliffs. The sea of emptiness, the sea as black as night."

  So it was called the Kyokai. Youko tucked the word away in her mind.

  The old lady put a box with an inkstone on the table and spread out a sheet of paper. She took a writing brush out of the box and held it out to Youko.

  "What's your name?"

  Youko pushed aside her mounting confusion, obediently took the brush and wrote down her name:

  "Youko Nakajima."

  "Oh, yes, a Japanese name."

  Youko asked, "This is China, isn't it?"

  The old lady cocked her head to the side. "This is Kou. Specifically, the Kingdom of Kou." She picked up another brush and wrote out the characters.

  "This is the town of Hairou. Hairou is in Shin, a county of Rokou. Rokou is a prefecture of Fuyou, which is a district in Jun. Jun is a province in the Kingdom of Kou. I am one of the elders of Hairou."

  Her style of writing was only subtly different from the Japanese Youko knew. Even the Chinese characters looked pretty much the same.

  "That's kanji, right?"

  "If you mean what I'm writing, then that's what it is. How old are you?"

  "I'm sixteen. So what are the kanji for Kyokai?"

  "It's the Sea (kai) of Emptiness (kyo). What's your occupation?"

  "I'm a student."

  The old lady paused hearing Youko's answer. "Well, you can speak, and you do know your letters. So, besides that strange sword of yours what else are you carrying?"

  Youko emptied out her pockets: a handkerchief, a comb, a hand mirror, a notebook, and a broken watch. That was it. After a cursory examination, the old lady asked what each one was or meant. She shook her head, sighed again, and deposited everything in the pockets of her dress.

  "Um … what's going to happen to me next?"

  "Well. That's to be decided by my superiors."

  "Did I do something wrong?"

  They were sure treating her like a criminal, Youko thought. But the old lady shook her head.

  "Don't mean you've done a thing wrong. It's just that all kaikyaku got to go see the governor. That's the way it is. No need for you to go jumping to conclusions."

  "Kaikyaku?"

  "Means the visitors (kyaku) from across the sea (kai). They say they come in from the east over the Kyokai. They say that at the eastern edge of the Kyokai there's a country called Japan. No person has ever seen it for himself but it must be true, what with so many of them ending up here."

  The old lady looked right at Youko, "Sometimes those Japanese people are swallowed up in a shoku and wash up right on our shores. Like you. That's what the kaikyaku are."

  "Shoku?"

  "It's written with the same character as 'eclipse.' It's a tempest, a great storm, but it's different from a storm. It's there in the blink of an eye, and gone in an instant. Afterwards, that's when the kaikyaku appear."

  Then she added with an uneasy laugh, "Most of them are long dead. And even if they're living, they don't last long. But, still, we take them to the governor. There's lot of very smart people up there who'll figure out what to do with you, too."

  "Like what?"

  "Like what, you ask? Frankly, I wouldn't know. The last time a living kaikyaku came ashore in these parts was back in my grandmother's day, and the word was that he died even before he got taken to the prefecture seat. A lucky girl you are, making it this far and not being drowned along the way."

  "But … . "

  "What, child?"

  "But exactly where am I?"

  "The state of Jun, I told you. Here." The old lady pointed to the list of place names she had written down.

  "That's not what I mean!"

  She turned and pleaded with the old lady, who looked back at her with wide eyes. "I don't know anything about this Kyokai. I don't know what kingdom the Kingdom of Kou is. I don't know anything about this world! What is going on?"

  The old lady had no answer except a troubled sigh.

  "Tell me how to get back home."

  "Can't be done."

  The abrupt answer made Youko wring her hands together. "It can't?"

  "No human being can cross the Kyokai. No matter how they somehow arrive here, there's no going back."

  This explanation did not satisfy her in the least. "No going back? That's just stupid."

  "It's impossible."

  "But … I … . " Tears welled up in her eyes. "But what about my mom and dad? I didn't go home last night. I missed school today. I have to go to school. Everybody's going to be worried."

  It was an awkward moment. The old lady averted her gaze. She stood up and began arranging the things on the table. She said, "Probably better you get used to things being the way they are."


  "But coming here wasn't my idea! I had nothing to do with it!"

  "That's what all kaikyaku say."

  "My whole life is there. I didn't bring anything with me. Why can't I go home? I … "

  No more words came. She burst into loud sobs. The old lady paid her no mind. She left the room. Everything she brought with her she took with her, even the candle, leaving Youko alone in the pitch black cell. The sound of the locking bolts echoed in the dark.

  Youko screamed, "I want to go home!"

  But it was too hard to carry on in such distress. She curled up on the bed and wept. She finally cried herself to exhaustion.

  And slept without dreams.

  2-5

  "Get up."

  Youko was roused from sleep. Her eyelids were heavy from weeping. Hard sunlight stung her eyes. Fatigue and hunger left her drained but she still had no desire to eat.

  The men woke her up then bound her--not too tightly--with a length of rope and led her outside. When they emerged from the building there was a wagon waiting in the plaza, harnessed to a team of two horses.

  She was hoisted onto the horse cart. From this vantage point she could see around the plaza. Here and there and on the street corners crowds of people had gathered and were staring at her.

  Where, she wondered, had all these people been hiding? Yesterday the place had looked like nothing more than the deserted ruins of a town.

  They appeared Oriental, though the color of their hair was markedly different. With so many of them together it made for quite the human kaleidoscope. Every person wore a mixed expression of curiosity and hatred. They really did see her as a criminal getting shipped off in a paddy wagon.

  In the fleeting moment in time between when she had opened her eyes until she had truly woken up, she had prayed from the heart to make it all a dream. The dream was shattered by those men dragging her out of the cell.

  They hadn't given her any time to tend to her dress or appearance. Her school uniform was still drenched with the stench of the ocean from when they had plunged into the whirlpool in the sea.