Authors: Miyuki Miyabe
“You think so?”
“Yeah. My parents said pretty much the same thing. They said the time might come again when we have to leave our island and join forces with the people who live on the land.”
Again?
Wataru and Kutz exchanged glances.
“Did that happen sometime in the past?”
“It was before I was born, about three hundred years ago. Something happened in the north and the dragons left their island to fight.”
“Three hundred years ago? That would be around the end of the War of Unification,” Kutz muttered. “Do you mean to say that dragons fought in that war?”
“Not in the war, no, no. Dragons never get involved in land-dweller conflicts, or take sides. Especially not something like the War of Unification.”
“Then what did you fight?”
“Demonkin,” Jozo replied immediately.
From the way Kutz’s eyes looked, Wataru guessed it was her first time hearing the word too.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not so sure myself. We’re not supposed to talk about the demonkin—it’s taboo. Still, they sound like incredibly dangerous, terrible foes. If we dragons hadn’t flown from our island, all Vision might’ve been destroyed, they say.”
“There is much we do not know about the history of the north,” Kutz admitted. “We’ll have to ask this wyrmking.”
“Do you think he’d just tell us?”
“Never know, unless we ask,” Kutz said. The idea of chatting with a king of dragons didn’t seem to faze her.
“Then that’s it. I’ll introduce you to my parents! My dad’s amazing! He’s at least three times as strong as I am.” Jozo grinned with pride.
Wataru wondered if Jozo’s parents worried about him when he ventured far away.
And here I am dragging him across Vision on my errands.
“We’re heading out over the open sea pretty soon. We’ll be in the Stinging Mist before long. Everybody, keep your heads low and stay between my wings. Don’t sit up, whatever you do. The mist will run you through like a thousand tiny swords.”
As he spoke, Jozo gave a powerful beat of his wings, and their speed increased.
The island looked like a dragon sleeping quietly in a corner of the mistshrouded sea. It was actually shaped like a dragon’s head and neck. It even had two horns. Its large eyes were closed. Two round nostrils—probably mountains—looked up toward the sky. It had a massive, protruding jaw, and sharp fangs where rugged fjords formed a small bay. This scene would’ve looked perfectly at home in a museum with a label like “Dragon Taking a Leisurely Bath,” if only it weren’t so cold, and the sea wasn’t the color of pale blue ice.
“Hardly needs introduction,” Kee Keema whispered, peering out from beneath Jozo’s wing. “But I’m guessing that’s the Isle of Dragon!”
“That’s right! Home!”
A thick mist veiled the sea from the air, but they could tell that around the island there was nothing but open water. No small outlying islands or even rocks were visible. In all things, the dragonkin stood alone.
“Whoa! Whoa! Stay down, you all!” Jozo called back frantically. “We’re still in the Stinging Mist!”
“You’re right,” Meena said, putting a hand to her face. “I felt a sting!” A small drop of blood formed below her right eye.
“Me too,” said Kutz, holding down her hair to keep it from blowing up in the wind. Two lines of blood trickled down her forehead.
Wataru shivered.
Mitsuru passed through this. He must’ve used his magic to create a barrier to protect himself…
Seeing the mist firsthand, it now made sense that sailships had to plan their departures from the south carefully. Clear, too, was the value of the starseers’ ability to predict when the winds would blow just right so a ship might make the crossing while avoiding the mist. But what struck Wataru the most was the realization that powered ships—without sails or oars—could be easily piloted from inside a cockpit. The army that had those would rule Vision.
Jozo’s scales sure are tough.
“Don’t your eyes hurt, Jozo?”
“Not a bit. I’m just a little cold—but it will be warm when we reach the island.”
Jozo had told him that the dragon island was volcanic. Wataru craned his neck, looking for cones among the mountains on the island below. Just then, as though it had been planned, a puff of white steam from the two hills that were the dragon’s nose rose up into the air.
The closer they got, the more impressed they became with the sheer size of the island. It made sense, when you considered how large Jozo was, and that he was only a child. There would be a limit to how many adult dragons you could cram onto a smaller island.
The ground itself was barren, like a giant rock had been carved into the shape of the dragon’s head and left to steep in the water. Wataru couldn’t see a single blade of grass.
Jozo seemed to be heading for a spot between the dragon’s horns, where the various rocks and boulders had been cleared away to form a kind of landing strip.
Jozo descended in a slow spiral, making for the clearing. When the mist finally cleared around them, Wataru spotted two dragons sitting by the edge of the clearing, looking up at them. Compared to Jozo’s ruby-like coloring, these firewyrms were a more subdued, darker shade of red.
“My parents!” Jozo said. Then he called down to the dragons on the ground below them. “Father! Mother! I’ve brought Wataru!”
Wataru was half expecting to see a family scene with Jozo getting scolded for bringing people to the island. Jozo’s parents were at least twice his size—even their fangs were as thick as Wataru’s wrists.
Jozo touched down, and Wataru and the others hesitantly clambered down onto the rocky ground. Thankfully, Wataru’s fears were misplaced, for, while the gust of wind from Jozo’s parent’s nostrils was steamy, and their voices boomed, the words they greeted them with were as gentle as a spring day.
“Welcome home, Jozo. And welcome, Traveler. Has Jozo been an aid to you?”
It was first suggested that they warm their chilled bodies in the hot springs.
“You have hot springs?”
“The island
is
a volcano.”
Kee Keema, sluggish with the cold, and Meena were both ecstatic.
“I’ve never been in a hot spring!” Meena exclaimed. Kutz alone seemed impatient to get on with the mission. But it turned out that a wait was in order regardless.
“The wyrmking is resting, and it will take some time to arrange the Council of Fang and Wing. Go to the hot springs, and I believe we shall be ready when you are done,” Jozo’s mother told them.
“What is the Council of Fang and Wing?”
“This is what we call a meeting of all dragons,” Jozo’s father answered. “Our daily affairs are decided by the wyrmking and the seven pillars—one chief dragon from each clan—yet when important things are to be decided, all dragons on the isle come together to speak.”
The dragons on the island were all descendants of the great firewyrm, yet still, there were slight physical differences between them in the shape of their wings or the count of their fangs. They had been divided into seven types by these characteristics. Each of these types formed clans, and each of these clans had a chieftain, called the pillar. Thus, the seven pillars, Jozo’s father told them.
Apparently, the wyrmking—who was only slightly younger than Vision itself—spent the greater part of the day napping, and a bit of time was required to wake him. All things considered, even Kutz eventually agreed the hot springs was a good idea.
The interior of the dragon island was made up of a labyrinthine network of caverns. Several side passages led off of the twisting, splitting passageways, and here the dragons made their homes. It appeared they were roughly separated by clan, but the dragons were friendly, and many of the nests housed more than one family, making the network of caves crowded and lively.
While the exterior of the island was all rocks, the inside of the caverns was lush with greenery. There were even small forests here and there. Flowers grew from the walls, and there were fruit trees in small gardens created in nooks in the caves. Wataru had been told that the dragons subsisted mainly on fish caught from the sea, but he couldn’t detect any fishy smell in the caverns. On the contrary, the whole place smelled of fresh leaves, tinged by a hint of salty sea air.
The hot springs were open to the sky, being near the upper levels of the caverns. The hot water felt great in the cold air. Shrubs had grown up in the rugged rocks around the springs, and Wataru could see them swaying gently through the steam.
“Ah, nirvana!” Wataru said, repeating something he had heard an old man saying once at a hot spring near Tokyo.
Kee Keema laughed. “What’s nirvana?”
“Well, it’s kind of like paradise. That’s one of the words we have in the real world for talking about the place where God lives.”
“So it’s like the Tower of Destiny?” Kee Keema asked, then seemed to regret it. He didn’t want to remind Wataru.
Wataru pretended not to notice. “A little different. People go there when they die.”
“So everybody just goes there when their time comes?”
“Well, not exactly. Only good people go. The bad ones go to a place called Hell.”
It occurred to Wataru to wonder for the first time where people from Vision went when they died. He had never even thought to ask.
Kee Keema sunk into the water up to his chin, his eyes half closed. “When we die, we become light,” he told Wataru.
“Light?”
“Aye, we become the light of the sun and shine upon the land. And then, when it’s our turn, we are born again. But, if you are bad in life, you don’t become light—no, you sink into the Abyss of Chaos. Don’t think you even get to be reborn from down there.”
That reminded Wataru that the Precept-King of Dela Rubesi had said much the same thing. If he died having broken his oath with the Goddess then his soul would be impure, and he would be unable to be born into the next life.
“You don’t think people in Vision are reborn as people in the real world, do you?” Wataru muttered, half to himself.
But, after a short while, Kee Keema answered, “I hope that would be true. Then I could meet you in the real world and become friends there too.”
Wataru laughed. He could picture Kee Keema in the real world being a deliveryman for one of those express package companies. He’d certainly make the biggest, strongest, nicest, and most popular deliveryman Wataru could imagine.
Kutz and Meena were relaxing in another part of the hot springs. The water felt exquisite, but the heat had opened the wounds they suffered from the Stinging Mist.
“It really stings,” Kutz said with a frown. “Jozo’s mother was saying something about an ointment—maybe I’ll have to get me some of that later. That cut beneath your eye is swelling.”
The salty water of the springs stung.
“Say, Kutz…”
“Yeah?”
“I was wondering about what Jozo was saying about the seven pillars.”
Kutz raised an eyebrow.
“Isn’t it strange to call them pillars? I mean, you usually think of pillars as being intended to support something. I got to thinking —maybe it’s got something to do with the Great Barrier of Light.”
Kutz was silent for a while before responding. “The dragons were deeply involved with the making of Vision, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a connection. But I wouldn’t think about it too much.”
Meena smiled and nodded. Something about being relaxed after so much danger and the chill of the flight made tears come to her eyes. She hurriedly dipped her face in the water.
When they left the hot springs, Jozo was waiting for them. “We’re ready for the council. I’ll show you to the cavern where it’s held.”
The place he took them next was the largest cavern they had seen so far. It looked as big as a hangar you might find for one of those jumbo jets at an airport. The torches burning here and there struggled to light the place, and the high ceiling was lost in darkness. Holes for ventilation in the walls let in cool blasts of air, making the cavern chilly after the warmth of the springs.
Between the walls and the rocky protrusions on the ground sat dozens and dozens of dragons. They were of all different colors and sizes, some with long tails, others with barbs running down the length of their wings. Every giant black dragon eye in the room was turned toward Wataru. Their breathing rasped loud in the cavern.
The wyrmking sat upon a particularly high outcropping of rock at one end of the cavern. Sitting—or possibly sleeping. His wings were folded, his legs pulled underneath his body, and his tail hung limply down the side of the rock. When Wataru and the others were brought into a small open area in the middle of the room, he lifted his head slowly and with great solemnity. But his eyelids were only half open.
The wyrmking was roughly the same size as Jozo’s parents. His scales had lost their luster and most of their red color, becoming a faded violet. Where the scales met at his neck and joints, Wataru could see wrinkle after wrinkle of tough dragonhide. He was wearing a shining crown upon his head, directly between his two horns.