Shadow of the Moon, a Sea of Shadows ttk-1 Page 8

  She was so exhausted that she had no problem sleeping. Sleep did not address her growing hunger, though. She didn't feel like she was starving to death as long as she held the jewel, but that didn't fill her belly. Her body felt as if it was being gnawed away from the inside out by thousands of little worms.

  On the fourth day she gave up on the idea of walking around without any destination or direction. She still had no idea of which way to go. She'd been operating on the expectation that she would eventually run into what she was looking for. Now she had to face the fact that she was simply going around in circles. She wasn't going anywhere.

  She had to find Keiki. To do that she had to go where there were people. But once they found out she was a kaikyaku they'd lock her up and she'd be right back where she started.

  Youko looked herself over. She really had to get herself some different clothes. If she could only change her appearance that way, people probably couldn't tell at a glance that she was a kaikyaku.

  The problem was how to get her hands on different clothes. She had no idea what they used for money here, and besides, she didn't have any cash on her. So she wasn't going to be buying anything. Doing things aboveboard, her options were limited. On the other hand, she could threaten people with the sword and take their money.

  The logic of a wardrobe change dawned upon her pretty quickly. Actually robbing somebody, that was another story. But wandering around in the mountains for four days had made up her mind for her. She had to stay alive. That didn't mean killing people and robbing their bodies. She was approaching the limit of what she would hesitate doing.

  From the shadow of a large tree Youko looked down at the small village. The village was a collection of humble dwellings crowded together in the center of a narrow valley.

  Mustering her courage, she left the shelter of the trees. She approached the nearest house in the village to take a look. Instead of a fence or wall, the house was encompassed by a small garden. The roof was black tile, the white mud walls worn down to the slats.

  There was no glass in the windows. The heavy wooden shutters had been left open as well. She drew nearer, scouting out the surroundings. These days she could look a rabid beast right in the face and not even blink, but right now, if she hadn't been clenching her mouth closed her teeth would have been chattering.

  She snuck a peek in one of the windows. She saw a small dirt floor, a fireplace and table. It had the look of an ordinary kitchen. She didn't see anybody there, heard nothing out of the ordinary.

  With muffled steps she crept along the wall of the house. Next to the well, she came across what she took to be a wooden door. When she pushed on it, it opened, though stubbornly. She held her breath as she peered inside. She had by now concluded it was a house and that nobody was home. Slowly letting out her breath, she went inside.

  The room was about ten feet by ten feet. The accommodations were modest, but it smelled like a home. Four walls, some furniture, the various implements of daily life. These alone were enough almost enough to bring her to tears with homesickness.

  Upon closer examination, the room otherwise had only a few cupboards. She went to the one door. It opened into a bedroom. There were two beds at opposite ends of the room. A shelf, small table, and a big wooden chest. Apparently these were the only two rooms in the house.

  She checked to make sure the window was open, stepped in and closed the door behind her.

  First off, she scanned the shelves. She found nothing there. Next she opened the wooden chest. A variety of cloth and fabrics were packed inside. A second look told her that there was nothing she could wear. A further look around the room revealed nothing else that might contain clothing. With every expectation that in there somewhere must be something to wear, she began pulling everything out one by one.

  The wooden chest was almost as big as a large screen TV. It contained a number of smaller boxes that in turn contained a miscellany of things, sheets and faded quilts and some children's outfits she knew were too small for her.

  She couldn't believe there were no clothes that fit her. As she cast her eyes about the room again, she heard the front door open. Youko literally jumped, as did her heart. She cast a quick glance at the window. It now seemed miles away. It would not be possible for her to move from where she stood without attracting the attention of the person on the other side of the door.

  Don't come in here.

  Small footsteps padded about the adjoining room. The bedroom door moved. Youko couldn't. She stood there frozen in front of the chest, its contents strewn all about her. Reflexively, she went to grasp the handle of the sword, stopped herself.

  She stole because that was what she had to do to stay alive. Yes, it would be easy to intimidate people with the sword, but if intimidation didn't work she'd actually have to use it.

  If it hurts so much, it could be over in a moment.

  The door opened. A woman started to enter the room, a large-framed woman approaching middle age. Seeing Youko she stopped and started so violently it was like she was having a convulsion.

  Youko had no inclination to run away now. She stood there silently. By the by, her nerves settled and she resigned herself to the inevitable. She'd be arrested and herded off to the county seat and likely be executed. It'd all be over. She could finally forget forever about being hungry and tired.

  The woman looked down at the clothing and fabric scattered about Youko's feet. She said in a trembling voice, "Got nothing here what's worth being stole."

  Youko waited for the woman to scream.

  "Was it clothes? Was it because you needed something to wear?"

  The plainness of the question left Youko too bewildered to reply. The woman took her silence as a yes. She moved from the doorway into the room. "I keep the clothes over here." She went over to the bed next to Youko, knelt down and drew back the quilt, revealing a drawer underneath. "That box there is for old things I don't need anymore, like for my child that died."

  She opened the drawer and took out an outfit. "What kind of clothes do you like, then? Don't have much else besides my own." She looked up at Youko. Youko stared back at her. When she didn't answer, the woman held up a kimono. "Too bad my daughter died so young. These are all pretty plain."

  "Why … " Youko blurted out. Why didn't this woman sound the alarm? Why didn't she run away?

  "Why, you ask?" the woman said, turning to Youko. Youko found herself at a loss for words. The woman laughed, a bit stiffly, resumed laying out the kimono. "You come from Hairou?"

  "I … um … . "

  "Big fuss there about a kaikyaku running away."

  Youko fell silent. The woman smiled a wry smile. "Lots of hard-headed folk about, that's for sure. Kaikyaku are going to ruin the kingdom, they say. Kaikyaku do bad things right and left, they say. A shoku happens and it's all because of the kaikyaku, they say. The things fools say."

  She looked Youko over from head to toe. "Where'd that blood on you come from?"

  "When I was in the mountains, the youma … . " She could say nothing more.

  "Ah, you were attacked by the youma, were you? Lots of them about, lately. You seem to have come through well enough."

  The woman got to her feet. "Go on, sit yourself down. You're a hungry one, I bet. Had anything to eat? You're looking positively gray."

  Youko could only drop her shoulders and shake her head, no.

  "Well, then, let's have ourselves a bite. I'll heat up some water and we'll get all that grime off you. We can decide on what to wear after that." The woman cheerfully gathered up her things and started to leave. She glanced back at Youko, who still hadn't moved from where she stood. "Now, what was your name?"

  Youko started to answer. No words came out. She sank to her knees, the tears spilling down her cheeks.

  "Oh, you poor thing. It's okay, it's okay." The woman spoke in a motherly voice, her warm hand stroking Youko's back. "It must have been very hard for you out there. You'll be okay."

  The
weight of everything Youko had endured overwhelmed her all at once. The sobs tore at her throat. She curled up on the floor and wept as if the world would end.

  3-2

  "Well, then, why don't you change into this?"

  Standing behind a folding screen, the woman handed Youko a nightdress. "You'll be staying here tonight? You can wear this for the time being."

  Youko bowed her head deeply in gratitude.

  The woman consoled the still teary Youko. She prepared rice gruel sweetened with azuki beans. Then she filled a big tub with hot water and prepared a bath for Youko. Her long, aching hunger satiated, Youko washed in the hot water, put on clean nightclothes. She was starting to feel like a real person again.

  "I'm really, really thankful for all you've done." Youko came from around the folding screen the woman had set around the tub and bowed again. "I'm so sorry about everything."

  After all, she had tried to steal from this woman.

  When she looked at her directly, she could see that the woman's eyes were blue. The woman's blue eyes softened and she laughed.

  "Oh, don't worry about it. Let's leave it at that. Have something warm to eat. Drink this as well. It'll help you sleep. I've made up your bed."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Like I said, not a problem. I hope you don't mind, but I put away that sword of yours. It was making me uncomfortable."

  "Yes. I'm sorry."

  "Oh, nothing you need to keep apologizing for. Now, I don't think I caught your name."

  "Youko Nakajima."

  "Kaikyaku do have funny names. You can call me Takki." She handed Youko a teacup.

  Youko took it and asked, "How is your name spelled?"

  Takki sketched the characters for "achievement" (tatsu) and "maidservant" (ki) with her finger on the tabletop. "So, Youko, was there someplace you needed to get yourself to?"

  Youko shook her head. "No, no place in particular. Takki-san, have you ever heard of a person named Keiki?"

  "Keiki? I don't know anybody by that name. Are you looking for him?"

  "Yes."

  "Where's he from? Is he from Kou?"

  "All I know is that he's from around here … . "

  Takki smiled a patient smile. "Now, that's hardly enough information. Which kingdom and which province, at the very least. Short of that, why, it's a needle in a haystack."

  Youko hung her head. "The fact is, I don't know anything about this place."

  "So it seems." Takki put down her teacup. "We are one of the Twelve Kingdoms. Specifically, the kingdom of the southeast, called the Kingdom of Kou."

  Youko nodded. "And the sun rises in the east?"

  "Of course. And this is the eastern part of Kou, called Goso. There's some high mountains a ten-days' walk north from here. Over those mountains is the Kingdom of Kei. Hairou is due east of us, by the seashore. Following the main road you can walk there in five days."

  What had been previously completely incomprehensible was bit by bit coming into focus. It was dawning on her that this place was a world unto itself.

  "Just how big is Kou?"

  Takki tilted her head back and gave it a bit of thought. "How big, she asks me. Well, if you was to walk from the eastern-most border of Kou all the way to the western-most border, I figure it'd take you a good three months."

  "That long?" Youko said, her eyes growing wide. She could not begin to grasp what it meant to walk for that length of time, but she did understand that it was quite beyond her imagination.

  "Yes, that long. It might not be such a big place, but Kou is a kingdom. It's about the same distance north to south as well. But because it means crossing seas or mountains, going to a neighboring kingdom is an almost a four month trip."

  "And all the Twelve Kingdoms … . "

  "That's right."

  Youko closed her eyes. She had somehow pictured in her mind a world like a small garden. How could she find one person in such a vast place? Without a single clue and only the name "Keiki" to go by? Circumnavigating all twelve kingdoms by itself would take four years.

  "What kind of person is this Keiki?"

  "I don't really know. Probably like the people here. He's the person who brought me here."

  "Brought you here?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, that's a new one on me." Takki was visibly impressed.

  "Is that unusual?"

  Takki said with a severe, little smile, "I don't have much learning about such things. Don't know that much about kaikyaku, neither. You hardly ever see them around these parts."

  "I didn't know that," said Youko.

  "It's true. In any case, he can't be any kind of normal person. What you're talking about, that's nothing any of us could have done. One of the gods, maybe, or a wizard, or one of the half-demons."

  Youko stared at her. Takki smiled. "Going to that other place, bringing somebody back, it's not what normal people do. And if it's not normal people, then it's got to be a wizard or youma."

  "I know there are youma, but gods and wizards, too?"

  "There certainly are. But they live in the world above, apart from the rest of us. The gods and the wizards live up there. They hardly ever come down here."

  "Above?"

  "Above the sky. But that doesn't mean there aren't wizards down here. From king to province lords, they're all up there above the sky."

  When Youko tilted her head quizzically, Takki smiled and explained. "Each of the provinces has a province lord. This is Jun Province. Our province lord is the Marquis of Jun. He rules by will of the king. Normal people don't become province lords, neither. They never grow old and have supernatural powers. They're people from out of this world."

  "I wonder if Keiki is a person like that."

  "Could be."

  Takki again smiled her wry smile. "If it's wizards we're talking about, I hear tell that all the people who work at the royal palace, right down to the underlings, they're wizards of one sort of the other. The same goes for the big government officials. Regular people can't go to that place above the sky because that's where the royal palace is. The king is one of the gods. The wizards are chosen by the king. Now, there are some folks who manage to pull themselves up there by their own bootstraps, but most of them are recluses, hermit-types. They belong to that other world that we're not part of. Us and them, like ships in the night."

  Youko made careful note of everything that Takki said. There was no telling what aspect of this information might later prove important.

  "There's said to be a dragon king that rules over the ocean, but that may just be fairytales. If there really was a dragon kingdom, they wouldn't be normal people, either. Besides them, there's supposedly youma that can change their appearance to look human. That's what we call the half-demon. Most of them just look human, but there are some of them that can disguise themselves so that you can't tell the difference.

  Takki poured some more tea from the earthenware teapot. The tea was cold. "They say that somewhere the youma have a kingdom of their own. I can't say if it's true or not. At the end of the day, though, what it comes down to is, youma and people, they come from completely different worlds."

  Youko nodded. What she was learning was changing the way she saw things, and things were getting a lot more confusing. Like, Keiki probably wasn't human. If he wasn't, what was he? Hyouki and Kaiko and those strange beasts must be some species of youma. If they were, then didn't it stand to reason that Keiki was a half-demon?

  "Um … have you ever heard of youma called Hyouki or Kaiko or Jouyuu?"

  Takki gave her a funny look. "I haven't heard of any youma like that. Why do you ask?"

  "Or Hinman?"

  A surprised look came to her face. "Ah, Hinman. The possessor. A youma that possesses warriors on the field of battle. No body except for its red eyes. How did you come to know about a creature like that?"

  Youko felt herself shiver. Jouyuu was a youma called the Hinman, and even now it possessed her. But admitting that would probab
ly only make Takki think she was weird or something, so she shook her head.

  "Or kochou?"

  "Kochou." Takki wrote out the characters for "rice worm" (ko) and "carve" (chou). "The horned bird. A ferocious animal that eats people. How did you come to know about the kochou?"

  "I was attacked by one."

  "Surely not! Where?"

  "That other place … where I'm from. A kochou attacked us and we had to escape. It appeared out of nowhere, like it was pursuing Keiki and me. We had to come here to keep from getting killed … or that's what Keiki said."

  Takki said in a low voice, "Did such a thing really happen?"

  Youko took a deep breath. "It doesn't sound right?"

  "Not right at all. It's a serious thing for people around here if youma start showing up even out there in the mountains. Back then, youma didn't make it a practice of coming around where people are."

  "Really? Is that really true?"

  Takki nodded. "But recently, for whatever reason, there's been a lot more of them. It's gotten dangerous. After sundown, people don't dare go outside. But when one of those mean ones like a kochou appears, what a hullabaloo."

  Takki gave her a stern look. "Youma are like any other wild beast. They're not the kind of creatures to go chasing after one person in particular, let alone to the other side of the sea. Never before heard of such a thing. You know, Youko, it sounds like you might have met up with something quite serious."

  "I guess I did."

  "Well, it's not that I'm any kind of expert. But recently, what with so many more youma around these parts, it all gives me a bad feeling."

  The tone of Takki's voice even made Youko feel uneasy. It seemed common sense to her that there were youma in the mountains and that they attacked people. What in the world had she gotten herself caught up in?

  Seeing her caught up in her thoughts, Takki said in a cheerful voice, "Well, not much point to worrying ourselves sick when it won't change a thing. So, Youko, do you have someplace to go after this?"