Authors: Miyuki Miyabe
“Now you’ll want to tie your waist to the baggage cart with that leather strap there,” Kee Keema cautioned. “I’m used to it so I’m fine, but when Turbo really gets going, the carriage, she rocks a bit.”
Then with a loud and crisp
hyah!
and a quick snap of Kee Keema’s whip, they were off. Turbo gave a low bellow and steam arose from his nostrils, reminding Wataru of his mother’s favorite pressure cooker.
“That’s right, Turbo’s feeling it now!”
Half of Kee Keema’s words fell short of Wataru’s ears as Turbo launched into motion and the hard seat below Wataru’s rear suddenly transformed into a trampoline. If he hadn’t been holding on so tightly, he would have been bumped up and out and deposited on the ground right then.
“Hang on!” Kee Keema shouted, grabbing Wataru by the collar and pulling him back to the seat. “Don’t be jumping around like that. Stick out your legs, put little a strength in yer gut.”
“I’m tr-trying,” Wataru stuttered, barely able to catch his breath for all the jostling. He was being tossed about like a lottery ping-pong ball, afraid to talk for fear he would bite off his tongue. Every time he tried to grab something to hold on to he clutched empty air. It wasn’t just bouncing up and down either. They lurched to the right, then the left, and sometimes curved through the high grasses at an angle so steep Wataru feared they might tip.
“Can’t you slow down a little?”
Suddenly, Wataru found himself in the air, his arms and legs flailing uselessly. Then he was landing on Kee Keema’s shoulders, until he was riding the lizard-man piggyback.
“Ha ha!” Kee Keema laughed with his mouth wide open. “You’re welcome to sit up there if you like, Traveler Wataru!”
“N-n-no I c-couldn’t! R-really, I-I’ll get off. I’m t-too heavy…”
“Nonsense! Yer light as a feather.”
“But, but, but…” But he couldn’t get off even if he wanted to. The waterkin’s skin looked just like a lizard’s, but it wasn’t slippery at all. Rather it was a dry and sturdy, and his neck was just the right size for grasping onto for dear life.
Wataru found himself wondering how many years it had been since he last rode on his father’s shoulders. His father wasn’t a big sturdy man like Kee Keema, but riding up there, Wataru always felt secure. He would bounce and his father would get angry at him, saying he was too heavy—but Wataru knew he didn’t really mean it.
Or did he? Was I too heavy all those years?
Wataru looked up. Now that he didn’t have to be so worried about falling off at any moment, he could enjoy the scenery a little. As far as he could see everything was grass, glowing like a green saucer catching the sun’s light. The thing like a road Wataru had seen in the distance now seemed to be more of the path worn by the passing of darbaba carriages. It narrowed and widened, at times twisting like a snake, at times lying straight like a white line across the grass, shooting toward the horizon.
The air was a little gritty, but the feel of the wind on his face and in his hair was exhilarating. Wataru breathed deep and felt like shouting at the top of his lungs for no reason at all.
“Fast, isn’t he?” Kee Keema shouted, turning his head so his voice wouldn’t be entirely lost in the wind.
“Amazing!”
“Raised this one from a baby, I did. Best runner in Nacht, or me name’s not Kee Keema!”
Are we in Nacht now? Is that a country?
“Kee Keema, do you think you could tell me some things about Vision?”
“Sure. But, you should know I dropped out of school kinda early, so I might not be able to teach you very good.”
“You were talking about an empire before, right?” Wataru asked. “That’s in a different place from here?”
“That it is. And a good thing too.”
Kee Keema explained that, back before time flowed in an orderly fashion, the land of Vision was born from a swirling rainbow sea. It was the Goddess who first reached down and drew the new land from the waters.
“And this goddess is the same one that Travelers go to see in the tower? The Goddess of Fate?”
“Think so. But no one knows the truth of it. No one’s met the Goddess, you see—we don’t even know quite where she is. We only know there’s a place called the Tower of Destiny, somewhere, and that’s her home. It’s a legend.”
“A legend…”
It seemed odd to Wataru to find that this land that was something like legends and myths and a fantasy world all jumbled into one would have legends of its own.
“Does this goddess have a name?”
“That, I don’t know. Most of the races consider calling her by name a taboo. They don’t teach it in school, and I’m sure no scholar would dare try to research it. But, we waterkin have an old word for the Goddess, it’s
Upa de shalba
. Means “the one who is beautiful like the light,” he said.
One as beautiful as the light. An image of Venus, the goddess of beauty, rose in Wataru’s mind. Whatever she really looked like, she was certainly kind. She would have to be if she really sat in the tower waiting for Travelers to arrive and then honored them with any wish they desired.
“There are two great lands, continents, in Vision,” Kee Keema began to explain. Turbo had slowed somewhat, until he was trotting amiably along.
“One in the north, and one in the south. They’re about the same size, but that’s where the similarities end. Down in the southern lands, we’ve got mountains aplenty, and the seasons bring all sorts of weather. It’s warm though, so there’s lots of animals and greenery. They say the northern continent is covered in ice and snow for near half the year.”
The two continents, he explained, were separated by a vast sea. And this sea, he said, was shrouded in a thick, nearly impenetrable mist.
“It’s hard to see much in that mist, so not a whole lot is known about the open sea. The sailors say there’s a cluster of tiny islands right between the northern continent and the south, but no ships sent out to find ’em have ever returned. Now, some say that right where those islands are, that’s where you’ll find the Tower of Destiny, but if you ask me they’ve got it all wrong. Those islands are where the monsters and villains and enemies of the Goddess are bound in chains. A prison colony, it is.”
Wataru just hoped the Tower of Destiny wasn’t in such a hard-to-get-to place. “But you
can
travel between the two continents, right?”
“Of course you can. There are several known trade routes between the two lands, and merchant sailships ride them pretty often. Sailships ride the waves by the power of the wind, you see. Of course, when there is no wind to be had, they don’t move. That’s why it’s so important to know just how much wind you need for how many days to cross by a certain route, and knowing when that wind’s going to blow, well, that’s the most important thing of all.”
Kee Keema explained that the ones in charge of foretelling the winds were called “starseers.”
“They can tell which way and how hard the winds can blow just by reading the stars, see—thus the name. And knowing about the wind isn’t their only job. Why, they know all sorts of things about the world. They’re virtual treasure houses of information. Should you need anything on your travels, you might try asking one of them a question. The largest towns’ll have at least one set up in a fancy old Seerhall. You’ll find it in no time.”
“So we’re on the southern continent? It must be, with grass like this.”
“Exactly!” Kee Keema said brightly. “Nacht is one of the United Southern Nations, you see.”
There were four of these smaller countries on the southern continent, Wataru soon learned: Nacht, Bog, Sasaya, and Arikita, along with a place with the rather convoluted—to Wataru’s ear—name of the “Special Administrative State of Dela Rubesi.” All of them together formed a sort of Republic. Lacking a notebook, Wataru repeated the words inside his head.
Nacht, Bog, Sasaya, Arikita.
He couldn’t remember ever being this interested in social studies class.
“Speaking generally, Nacht is a country of agriculture and livestock. Most of it is flat plains in the southernmost part of the southern continent. On the opposite side, next to the ocean, is Bog, land of merchants. Sasaya, then, is a haven for scholars. Just about every starseer goes there once in his lifetime to study. Arikita is the most industrious of the southern nations. Lots of mines there too.”
“What about this Special Administrative State of Dela Rubesi place?”
Kee Keema tilted his head. Instead of an answer, he asked a question. “What sort of gods do you pray to, Wataru?”
“Gods? Um…” Wataru hesitated. He hadn’t ever really thought about God, or gods, before. “I’m not really sure. Maybe my mom could tell you.”
“What, is she a priest?”
Wataru laughed. “No, but, my grandpa in Chiba’s grave is at a temple that belongs to some sect or other. I’m really not sure…”
“Hrm? A sect you say? What’s that?”
Kee Keema let go of the reins with his right hand and scratched at his lip with a crooked nail. It was the exact same gesture Katchan would make when the teacher asked him a question at school and he didn’t know the answer.
Wataru wondered how old Kee Keema was. His body was quite large, but it occurred to him he might be younger than he looked.
Who knows? The waterkin may age differently than us—than the ankha, I mean.
“There are many different peoples living in the southern lands, you see, but they all pray to the Goddess of the Tower.”
When Kee Keema spoke about the Goddess, his tone became very serious. “Why, she was the one who made this world. She started it all. In a way, the Goddess is like our mother.”
But, he went on to explain, there were some in Vision who thought differently.
“Some people say that she didn’t make the world at all—that some other god made the world, and she’s just watching it for ’im.”
“Watching the world?”
I don’t suppose a world is the kind of thing you can just throw in a coin locker and forget about.
“So somewhere there’s a god that’s even more powerful than the Goddess?”
“More powerful…or just older. That’s why they call him the Old God.”
He explained that the Special Administrative State of Dela Rubesi was formed of people who believed in the Old God as Creator. In some ways, it was more of a church than a nation.
“Right in the middle of the southern continent is a high plateau, the Undoor Highland, and that’s where you’ll find Dela Rubesi. The people who live there don’t mingle much with us low-landers. They grow all their own food—or so we have to assume, since they never trade for it. Truth be told, no one knows much about them. They don’t let in outsiders, you see.”
“So what do these people who worship the Old God think of the Goddess?”
“What do they think? Not much, frankly. To them, the Old God is much more important. When the apocalypse comes to our world, and the end is near, they say the Old God will come again and bring order to the world.”
“What does everybody else think about this? What would you think, Kee Keema?”
“Hrm…well, I don’t know much about history,” Kee Keema said, avoiding the subject. “But I know about the Old God, because they tell you all about him when you’re a child. They say he’s a god from way way back. We waterkin call the Old God
Il-da Yamyamro,
which means the One Who Brings Order to Chaos.”
“The One Who Brings Order to Chaos.”
Cool name.
“’Course, since the Empire came together ’bout three hundred years back, no one just believes in the Old God anymore. You’re either a true believer in ’im, or a follower of the Goddess, and never the twain shall meet.”
He explained that the northern continent used to be made up of tiny city-states, like the southern continent, with many different races mingling together.
“My grandpa used to talk about how it was so cold up there, and the land was bare, and the mines were stripped—that’s why they spent so long fighting each other.”
The northern continent had starseers too, but they had been too distracted by the war that their knowledge hadn’t advanced to the point of their southern fellows. Without the skill to read the winds, they were unable to cross the waters easily—sparing the rich lands of the southern continent from invasion.
“Until about a hundred years after unification, when our sailships first started making the passage north, we had no idea what it was like up there. That’s what I heard from my Grandpa, and he heard it from his parents when he was just a wee one.
“When at last there was the signing of a trade agreement between the United Southern Nations and the Northern Empire, the South had to agree to an odd sort of promise: we would teach only the history of the North beginning with the Empire’s creation. That’s why, to this day, in the schools of the South, world history begins only three hundred years ago.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Wataru said, a bit too loudly, and he threw up his arms, forgetting his precarious position on top of Kee Keema’s shoulders. He toppled off and was caught only at the last moment by a quick grab by Kee Keema’s strong fingers.
“Watch it, there,” Kee Keema growled, dragging Wataru back up to his shoulders. “Wouldn’t want me good luck charm to get run over by me darbaba. That’d curse me to the end of my days for sure.”