A Thousand Leagues of Wind, the Sky at Dawn

12-1

"Hey, Suzu."

She was wandering around looking for an inn when she heard the voice behind her. Because she had the sansui, she had to stay at an inn with stables. Stealing a pegasus was a serious crime, but they were so valuable that given the chance, no thief was likely to pass it up. At least according to the man who sold it to her. Pretty sure that there ought to be an inn with stables that wasn't all that expensive, she set off for the neighborhood where she'd stayed before.

She turned around. There amidst the bustle of people was the boy she'd met at the cemetery. "It's you… . "

He slipped through the throng piling up at the gates before closing and ran over to her. "You came back? Why?"

Suzu tilted her head to the side. "What are you asking for?"

"You went somewhere, didn't you? You left the inn, so I thought you'd taken off for good."

Suzu remembered that his name was Sekki. "How do you know what inn I was staying at?"

On the day they had met, he hadn't come with her to the inn. They had gone their separate ways in the main boulevard.

Sekki shrugged guiltily. "Ah, sorry. I tailed you."

"Why?"

"I was worried about you. I thought you might try to get back at Shoukou somehow."

Suzu gulped. "Don't be silly."

"So you're fine, then? And the pegasus? You went to buy it?"

"Yeah. I got tired of traveling by wagon. I don't have to worry about carrying a sick kid around any more." She laughed cynically and Sekki looked away. She said, "Fine by me. So, do you know a cheap inn with stables?"

She didn't have much left in her purse, and inns with stables just weren't that common.

Sekki raised his head. "I live at an inn. It's a bit run down and it doesn't have stables, but the back yard should be big enough for a pegasus. But that's okay, 'cause nobody's going to try and steal anything from us." He took hold of her hand. "You can stay with us. Besides, our rates are good."

Sekki's house was located in a run-down block of the city. Men loitering along the way gave Suzu and the sansui suspicious glances as they passed by.

Leading the sansui along, Suzu asked, "You're sure this is okay? It looks like a pretty dangerous neighborhood."

Sekki grinned. "No worries. Ah, here we are."

Suzu looked in the direction he was pointing. It was a bit old but well-kept inn. Sekki ran ahead to the side of the entrance, opened the wooden door, and motioned to her to follow. "Let's go in here."

Inside the door was an alleyway where some barrels and buckets were stored. Through the alleyway was a small courtyard and vegetable garden. Sekki pointed at the hedge. "You can tie it up there. Do you know what it eats?"

"Hay and fodder."

"We'll get some for you. In the meantime, we can water it."

Sekki went to the well and lowered a bucket into the water. Right at that moment, the back door opened and a man appeared there. He was so tall she had to look up at him.

"What are you doing with a fine beast like that, Sekki?" His eyes focused on Suzu. He gave her a very suspicious look. Hauling up the bucket, Sekki turned and smiled at him. He said, "It's hers. She's staying here. I told you before, remember? The girl I met in the cemetery."

"Ah," the man said, nodding. He grinned broadly, flashing a friendly smile. "Yeah, that was pretty awful. Come on in. It's something of a dump, though."

"Do you also work at this inn?"

She was shown into the kitchen and invited to sit down. Suzu politely took a seat. The man dipped a ladle into a big pot, filled the teacup and set it down in front of her. He cut a pretty rough figure as a waiter.

"I guess you could say I'm the landlord. In fact, it's Sekki that's keeping the books."

"You're his older brother?"

"Yeah. And he works me like a dog." He laughed in a loud voice. "I'm Koshou. And you are?"

"Suzu Ooki."

"That's an odd-sounding name."

"I'm a kaikyaku."

"Hoh," he said, a surprised look in his eyes.

Suzu was surprised, too. To be honest, claiming to be a kaikyaku hardly aroused any feelings in people at all. When she thought back about it now, whenever she said that she was a kaikyaku, she kept expecting something dramatic to happen.

"Must have been rough."

Suzu shook her head. She hadn't suffered much during her journeys. She was healthy, and even though her parents had died long ago, she hadn't been chased out of her hometown. Her life was still her own and that was no small thing.

"Koshou, you shouldn't bring guests here." Sekki came into the kitchen and gave his older brother a playful glare.

"Oh, this is okay, isn't it?"

"No, it's not. Now, go find out where we can get hay or fodder."

"Okay, okay," Koshou replied cheerfully. He smiled at her and left the kitchen.

Watching him leave, Sekki sighed. "Sorry. My big brother really isn't much of a gentleman."

"It's fine. Sorry about making you run around looking for fodder. I don't want you to go to too much trouble."

"Don't worry about it," Sekki laughed. "Let me show you to your room. Please forgive the fact that it's a tad unkempt."

Despite being located in this neighborhood, the inn had guests. There were four guest rooms, and in the three days she'd been staying there so far, occupants had come and gone. A bunch of men hung out in the tavern on the first floor. They weren't exactly a high-class bunch and they (and the occasional woman) seemed to be there all the time, talking together in hushed voices. The house across the alleyway that led to the back garden also saw a lot of comings and goings.

This is a strange inn, Suzu thought as she straightened up her things. After some thought, she placed her purse with what few coins remained on top of her bags. She slung a long, thin pack over her shoulder. In the darkened courtyard, she saddled up the sansui.

"You going out at this hour?" asked Koshou, coming out of the house.

Suzu nodded. "I thought I'd go for a walk."

"The gates are closed. Where you going?"

Suzu didn't answer. Koshou leaned forward and gave her a hard look. "Take care," he said, with a wave of his hand. The light from the kitchen glittered dully off the ring on his finger.

Suzu bowed her head, took up the reins, and turned toward the alley.

Oh, yes, it's from a chain, she thought, settling into the saddle. The thin ring that Koshou wore, it was the link of chain. A slender strand of steel just big enough to wrap around a finger, it would be otherwise linked together to form a chain belt. She had seen them decorating the leather belts that the less-privileged classes wore. They'd taken one apart and wore the links on their fingers. A short chain like that hung in a corner of the kitchen like a talisman.

Sekki wears one, too.

Not only Sekki. Now and then, a man she passed in the hallway did, or one of the men lounging around the tavern. Perhaps most or all of the people coming in and out of the inn.

She felt like she'd chanced across something quite strange and curious. Feeling a touch of melancholy, she exited onto the main thoroughfare. It was already night, and even the number of drunks on the street had begun to decrease.

The prefectural hall was located in the center of the city. The prefectural offices occupied the grounds within the fortress walls that surrounded the castle-like complex. On the inner loop road that ran around the walls was a large mansion facing eastwards.

Shoukou, the governor of Shisui Prefecture, the beast of Takuhou.

He had an official residence within the inner castle. A second residence, a large house in Takuhou's second district. And a huge estate in the countryside outside Takuhou.

Suzu had recently taken to walking down this street and had determined that of his three residences, he was currently staying at the one on the inner loop road. The estate in the countryside was solely for entertaining invited guests. The house on the inner loop road was for when he had work to attend to at the prefectural hall. The third house seemed to be reserved for other occasions. This meant the beast was up to his usual tricks at the prefectural offices. She couldn't begin to imagine what sort of sinister plans he was cooking up, but there was no doubt that they weren't for the benefit of the people of Shisui.

Suzu cast a cold look at the house and rode the sansui to the street corner. On the grounds of a deserted Taoist temple, she dismounted and sat down in an inconspicuous spot with a view of the currently-closed gate of the temple.

Now we wait, Seishuu.

She reached inside her vest and touched the handle of the dagger tucked into the sash of her kimono. The blade could cut a youma apart. It could cut apart a wizard as well. She had already determined that the sansui could vault the wall inside the loop road. Anything that could jump over that wall could easily trespass the wall of the house. If the master of the house was present, he would be sleeping in the back. And, in fact, to the back of the building that faced the road was a luxurious, multistoried house.

I will make him feel our bitterness and pain.

She hugged her arms tightly around her knees.

12-2

In the dead of night, Suzu led the sansui to the inner loop road. She turned down an alleyway adjacent to Shoukou's house and stared up at the multistoried building rising over the wall.

She'd leap across the wall and charge into the building. She would dispatch Shoukou and then jump down onto the road and head for Gyouten. There she would arrange an audience with the Royal Kei.

I won't forgive them. Not Shoukou and not the Royal Kei.

She repeated the words as if to convince herself and took up the reins of the sansui.

A hand closed over hers. "No."

Suzu sprang back, colliding with the sansui. The sansui neighed a discontented growl. She looked behind her. The shadow at her back had the height and width of a boulder.

"Koshou."

Another person appeared behind her and tore the reins from her grasp. A man she recalled seeing at the inn.

"Why--?"

It just wasn't Koshou and the other man. A number of others were hiding in the shadows along the narrow alleyway.

Koshou softly wrapped Suzu on the knuckles. He said in a low voice, "Shoukou isn't the only one inside that house. There's guards all over the place. You gonna kill all of them?" He pulled on her arm. "C'mon. We're going home."

"No. Let me go."

Koshou glared at her. "If Shoukou finds out you've been staying with us, we're all dead men."

Suzu caught her breath.

"They wouldn't kill you right then and there. That's the problem. It'd cause all kind of trouble."

"I… . "

Suzu looked at the building rising over the wall and then back at Koshou. She had not intended to cause Sekki or Koshou any grief, but right there in front of her was the house of the enemy.

Koshou patted her on the back. "I know how you feel, kid. So I'm asking you to come back with us."

Men were camped out in front of the inn. When Suzu returned together with Koshou, Sekki ran up to them from behind the wall of men. He was holding a lantern. He said, "Suzu… thank God."

The men echoed this opinion. Suzu bowed to them. Koshou again patted her on the back. He said, "Sorry about this, everybody. But we brought her back okay."

The crowd sighed in relief. As they left in ones and twos, they patted her on the back as well.

"Good to see you're okay."

"Now, don't you be going off half-cocked like that."

"Gave us a hell of a fright, girl."

She had really put Koshou and the rest of them in a tight spot. But as she watched them walk away, the lack of censure in their voices perplexed her.

At Koshou's prodding, Suzu went into the inn and sat down in the tavern. One of the men took the sansui around back.

A number of men were in the kitchen. Ten more came into the tavern with her. An older man hurried out of the kitchen and placed a steaming teacup in front of her. She realized that her body was chilled to the core and her teeth were chattering. She wrapped her hands around the teacup and warmed her frozen hands.

"So," said Koshou, resting his hands on the table and looking down at her. Her eyes focused on the steel ring on his finger. "You hate Shoukou?"

Suzu tore her eyes away from the ring and looked up. "I hate him."

"You're not the only one. Not the only one who knows what it's like to have that kind of hate in your heart. You got yourself a mean weapon there. Do you even know how to use it? What exactly did you think you were going to do to Shoukou?"

"I--"

"Do you know how many bodyguards he's got in that house? And how many of them you'd have to fight to get to his room?"

She bowed her head.

"Suzu, it ain't possible. He's not the kind of enemy that just anybody can take down in a fit of rage."

"But--!"

His eyes softened. "It's really too bad about the kid."

Suzu stared up at him. Her vision blurred. All at once, everything bottled up inside her came pouring out. "Seishuu… " she sobbed. "He was… really sick. And I killed him. He had to run away from Kei and escaped to Kou. Then his village in Kou was destroyed and he had to run away again. His dad got killed by a youma right in front of him and then his mom died. He was sick from getting wounded by the youma. He was really, really sick. A little scratch like that and he suffered so much."

"I know." Koshou patted her tightly clenched hands.

"I was going to find a cure for him. We were on our way to Gyouten. He just got worse and worse every morning. No matter what he ate, he couldn't keep it down. He was getting so thin. He couldn't walk straight, could hardly see… . "

The hot tears burned down her cheeks. "I shouldn't have let him there. I was looking for an inn, but I should have carried him with me. If I had, he wouldn't have ended up getting killed."

He was so thin, he weighed hardly anything at all.

"I shouldn't have come here in the first place. I should have taken him to a doctor in another city."

"Don't hate yourself so, Suzu," Sekki said. Suzu turned to him. He was sitting next to her, watching her intently. He said, "You hate yourself more than you hate Shoukou. More than punishing Shoukou, you want to punish yourself."

Suzu blinked. "Yes. That's true." The tears continued to well up, falling like rain. "I shouldn't have left him there. I shouldn't have come here. It's my fault. If only I hadn't brought him with me!"

She'd been all wrapped up in her fantasies, and Seishuu had died because of it. "He didn't want to die. Oh, he never stopped cracking wise about it, but he was scared about dying, too. But he did. It's my fault, and there's no fixing it now. It's no use saying I'm sorry or asking for forgiveness now!"

Wracked by sobs, she couldn't speak for a long moment.

"That girl, she told me that he forgave me. But I don't forgive me!"

"But, Suzu, no matter how hard you struggle and suffer, you won't resurrect the dead. That's just the way it is."

"But--!"

"What you tried to do would have amounted to nothing, and that's wrong. If all you are is your anger and resentment, if you think it's okay to kill people to revenge a personal grudge, then you are no better a murderer than Shoukou."

"So you're saying I should forgive him? I've heard what kind of person he is. He's made lots of people suffer just like Seishuu. That's why I was going to kill him. You expect me to forgive something like that?"

Koshou slapped her on the back. "Didn't say nothing about forgiving him." When she looked up, he laughed. "Show your hate for Shoukou and you'll taste his retribution. That's what everybody's afraid of, why they all keep their mouths shut. See no evil, hear no evil. But don't you be thinking there's nothing but cowards in Shisui."

"Koshou, you… . "

Suzu raised her head. She glanced at Sekki. Then at the men in the tavern who were all quietly watching over her.

"All of you… . "

They all wore those same steel rings.

"Shoukou will fall. We're only waiting for the right moment. We were afraid you were going to tip our hand." Koshou took a chain from his jacket pocket. He unfastened a link from the chain and presented it to Suzu. "Forget Shoukou and go somewhere else and live a carefree life. Or take this." He added, a severe expression on his face, "But if you do, you may never remove it. Betray us and be prepared to accept the consequences."

"Give it to me." Suzu reached out her hand. "I'll never betray you. I'll do whatever it takes to free myself--and Seishuu--from this grudge!"

12-3

Shoukei climbed Mt. Koushuu to the border of En and Kei and entered Kei. The name of the city at the border checkpoint was Gantou. Thanks to Rakushun, she had no problems crossing the border.

"Take care."

Parting with her in the Kei part of the city, Rakushun returned to En. Shoukei watched him leave and couldn't help but hang her head and say, Thank you.

He'd arranged a passport for her, and given her traveling money out of his own pocket. He'd given her a lot. He brought her this far and hadn't begrudged her a thing. She couldn't begin to thank him.

"Oh, damn," she said to herself, as Rakushun's waving tail faded out of view. She hadn't thanked him in person. She'd never apologized to anyone. Back in Hou, back in the sticks, she'd groveled to Gobo. In the palace in Kyou, she'd groveled to the Royal Kyou. But never with any sincerity. She'd never thanked anybody from the bottom of her heart. She hadn't even been sorry about it.

When she raised her head again, Rakushun was gone from the broad, finely-maintained streets of En. He was probably already on the suugu and galloping back to Kankyuu.

She took a breath and cast a glance back over her shoulder. The kind of differences you saw here at the border of En and Kei were not dissimilar to those at the border of Ryuu and En.

So this is Kei.

The city straddled the summit of the Koushuu Mountains. From the gate separating En and Kei, the city stretched out over the terraced slopes. A commanding view of the city opened up from the thoroughfare before the center gate. At the same time, the kingdom spread out from foot of the Koushuu Mountains.

Along with Shoukei, many others also stopped there on the street and gazed out at their surroundings and breathed sighs of resignation. Compared to En, the view was a desolate one. No snow lay on the wintry countryside, and the lack of snow cover only accentuated the lonely, barren view.

The border city was big. Nevertheless, the hustle and bustle were sadly lacking. Small buildings huddled together along narrow streets paved with compacted earth. It was warmer here compared to cities in the north, but all the windows were tightly shut. Windows glazed with glass were scarce as hen's teeth. It seemed a city stubbornly refusing to extend a welcome to anybody.

The wrecked buildings were everywhere, only the skeletons of their structures remaining behind. The jumble of motley shops lined the road, from the cramped buildings spilled a tide of smashed jars and jugs and furniture and household implements. Countless small huts, shutting out the wind with scrapped wood and old rags, perched along the outer loop road encompassing the city. Ragged, weary people crowded sullenly around the bonfires.

Kei was a country in turmoil. Here the precedent of a long-lived king did not exist. The most bitter difference between En and Kei was the long rule of a single monarch.

Large numbers of people flowed into the Kei side of the city, and the greatest portion of them were refugees.

"I thought it would have improved a bit more," muttered a despondent man, who seemed to speak for the crowds of people flowing down the street. "Yeah, I shouldn't have come back."

Shoukei heard the sighs from people in the group.

"Is it all this rotten, I wonder? It sure doesn't look good."

"I left the country after the empress died. I had no idea it had gotten this bad."

"Yeah, it's hard," Shoukei thought to herself as she walked along. It's going to be hard fixing up this kingdom.

The refugees were a headache to En, but so they were to Kei. People who had been to En couldn't help comparing it to Kei. In fact, compared to her home kingdom of Hou, the condition of Kei wasn't so bad to make her despair. Yet the differences between En and Kei were as obvious as the nose on your face. Side by side with the prosperity and liveliness of En, the Kei side of the city looked a wreck.

The group of people continued on down the street together and entered a cheap inn. She finally found a three-story building with vacancies. Big rooms, but you had to share accommodations.

The refugees staying at the inn expressed a variety of sentiments: from those happy they were able to return to their home country, earnestly optimistic about the future, to those nursing the broken dream of moving back to a blessed, wealthy kingdom and living the easy life.

"You hear that about the empress?"

Shoukei overheard several people talking together in a corner of the guest quarters.

"An empress? Again?"

"If I'd known that, I would have stayed in En."

"Empresses are no good. They don't have what it takes. It's all going to hell in a handbasket soon enough."

"The minute it starts heading down that road, we're hightailing it to En."

"I'm telling you, the next time we leave, we're never coming back."

Yeah, it really was a mess. Shoukei sighed. For some reason, the Royal Kei didn't seem like a stranger to her. When she thought about what it must be like to be the Empress, she had to sigh in sympathy.

And right now she's probably in the palace thinking the same thing.

"I wonder if we just should head back now."

"Never happen. There's nothing left for us in En. No matter how you slice it, we weren't born in En."

"Yeah, but we can't go back to where we was born, neither."

"Hopefully something's left of our hometown."

"Forget it." One of the men leaned forward. "You know anything about ships leaving from Goto?"

"What's that?"

"Warships headed to Tai. One of the governors in Wa Province been dispatching them, or so's I hear. Seems they're picking up refugees in Tai and bringing them here."

"News to me. You gotta be crazy, heading off to Tai, now? Put a cork in it."

"Not, I'm not talking about that. Let's see, where was it… yeah, Shisui. The governor of Shisui, he sends out these boats 'cause of how sorry he feels for the refugees and all. If you get on board and make it to Shisui, he'll give you a plot of land and register you on the census."

"Shisui, Wa Province… that's right on the border of Ei Province."

"Hey, if they can take care of refugees like that, Shisui's got to be doing great, right? If we ask, they got to welcome us in, right?"

"Nonsense." A woman waved her hand dismissively. "It's all sweet talk. People pulling the wool over your eyes."

"It ain't. I heard the same from other people as well. Right?"

There was a lull in the conversation.

"They got you believing in tall tales, all right. That's all they are."

"That can't be true. C'mon, no one's heard of it before? Really?"

In response to his query, Shoukei raised her voice. "I have."

The tight little group suddenly opened up, its attention falling on her. The one man approached her. "It's true, isn't it? I knew it!"

"Well, um, I heard about it in Ryuu. I heard about it from a sailor who worked on ships that sailed from Ryuu to Tai. He said there were ships like that."

A flurry of conversation followed, all of them arguing at the same time about how well off Shisui must be, and how their hometown might not even exist anymore.

"So why don't we just go see for ourselves?"

"My village got destroyed when the river flooded its banks."

"I'd still rather go back to where I was born."

They ended up split down the middle, between those who wanted to start for Shisui right away, and those who thought it all a pack of lies and argued that nothing good would come of it.

"Where'd you come from?" one of them asked Shoukei.

She tilted her head to one side. "I'm from Hou. You know, I'd like to get a homestead of my own, but I'm not old enough." She could always fib about her age, but she wasn't sure about how to carry it off. "But if Shisui really is that wealthy, I don't see any harm in finding out for myself." She nodded to herself as she spoke. "I figure I've got to get a job somewhere, and it might as well be Shisui as anywhere else."

The next day, Shoukei started her journey to Shisui. She'd gotten used to traveling by wagon in Ryuu so that was how she'd decided to proceed. Unlike Ryuu and En, there were many people walking along the roads. In fact, it wouldn't be too cold to walk. The work of walking alone would keep you warm enough, aside from the tips of your feet and hands, to be tolerable.

The road headed south toward Meikaku, the capital city of Wa Province. The highway to Gyouten ran east to west through Meikaku and Shisui.

The devastation of the countryside was severe. Many of the buildings in the villages en route were destroyed. The wrecked fields lay fallow, the ashen forests blighted and burned. With so little snow, nothing was hidden from view. Now and then, in the countryside surrounding a hamlet where people lived, you could see the rows of earthen mounds. So many people had died.

It made her shudder. The ravaged mountains and streams, the loss of life. This was because of the king, because no king sat upon the throne.

"Miss, where you from?" an old man sitting next to her in the wagon asked.

Shoukei tore her eyes away from the view out of the back of the wagon. Many wagons in Kei traveled with the back uncovered.

"Hou," she said.

"Is it true, the stories about the king of Hou dying?"

"Yes."

"Huh." The old man hugged the onjaku to his chest. "So Hou's gonna go through this as well."

Shoukei's eyes widened in response to this matter-of-fact statement. It was true. Many people would die. Victims would begrudge their assailants, the same way she hated the Marquis Gekkei.

And so he should be hated, for bringing such destruction upon the kingdom. She said, "Kei is better off now, with a new empress on the throne."

The old man chuckled. "I suppose you could say it's getting better. But that's what we all thought the last time."

He didn't have anything more to say after that.

12-4

Wa Province was east of Ei Province, stretching from the eastern border of Ei to the Kyokai. Along with Keiki, Youko was traveling to Meikaku, situated in the eastern quarter of the province. A large highway reached straight across Kei from the Kyokai to the Blue Sea. A second major route ran southward from the Koushuu Mountains. The roads intersected at Meikaku.

"Meikaku is an important overland stop," Keiki said.

Using the shirei, the journey took two days. They landed not far from Meikaku and walked the rest of the way.

"This road is the lifeline to the northern quarter of the kingdom. The terminal city of Goto is the only real port that Kei has on the Kyokai. Salt and rice shipped from the south, medicines from Shun, wool and barley from the north, all of these must be purchased with the surplus from agricultural harvest and supplied to the northern quarter to keep the people alive."

"The northern quarter is that poor?"

Keiki nodded. "It is a mountainous region with little arable land. It is dry during the summer, with a long rainy season starting in the fall. The harvest all depends on the weather, but there is no other industry they can turn to."

"Huh."

"Especially now, with shipping traversing the Blue Sea from the south largely at a standstill, Goto has become even more critical. On top of that, there is but one port of entry between En and Kei along the Koushuu Mountains, hence the importance of Gantou to the overland routes and Goto to the sea routes. Cargo coming into Kei from either must necessarily use these roads and pass through Meikaku."

"Could Wa Province be wealthy, despite being in the northern quarter?"

Keiki smiled sardonically. "It is said that highwaymen prowl the roads of Wa. In order to protect cargo shipments, Wa dispatches the provincial guard to build forts and protect the caravans. Because it is paid for with excise taxes, the cost of goods rises accordingly."

"Makes sense."

The unfortunate truth was that there was no way to avoid Wa Province when shipping anything from Gantou or Goto.

"Gahou certainly knows his business."

Keiki scowled. "I think not. There are big cities bordering Meikaku to the north and east that warehouse cargo and house travelers. They're called Hokkaku and Toukaku, and while part of Meikaku they are much bigger than Meikaku. Farmland was procured and leveled, tall walls constructed, and these cities were built from nothing just to house merchandise and people. The people who use those cities shoulder the entire burden. The people of Wa do the work. They're worked like slaves."

Youko said in exasperation, "Why should a man like Gahou be made a Marquis of as important a province as Wa?"

Keiki lowered his gaze. It was the Late Empress Yo-o who had given Wa Province to Gahou. Gahou presented her with a garden on the outskirts of Gyouten. It was a garden the size of a hamlet. Passing through the gates, you were presented with a scene of rustic beauty. A row of six homes, an old man who served as gamekeeper to the deer, a child to feed the pheasants.

Gahou gave Yo-o this beautiful little hamlet, in which the empress could live out her dream of a quiet, uneventful existence. She visited it often, and in thanks gave Gahou whatever he wished. That was how Wa Province came into his possession.

The empress surely was happiest when chatting with the villagers, trimming the grass in the gardens that surrounded the hamlet, teaching the children embroidery in a house built for that purpose. Would things have turned out differently, Keiki wondered, if she hadn't been able to indulge herself so. Every time he pled with her to return to the palace and she wept and refused and carried on, her eventual fate drew inexorably closer.

He should not have put her on the throne. It was not right for her, but the divine oracles had directed him to her. No one else was possible.

"Keiki?"

A soft voice called out to him. Keiki quickly collected himself. His new lord peered up at him, her head tilted quizzically. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing," Keiki said, shaking his head. He raised his head and looked across the countryside. A mountain stream ran alongside the highway. Ahead of them was the soaring Ryou-un Mountain. You could see the walls rising up at its base.

"That looks to be Meikaku."

Meikaku Mountain pierced the Sea of Clouds. The gently sloping hills gathered about the foot of the mountain. The city snaked along the valleys beneath the ridgelines formed by the hills.

"This is the capital?"

Youko stood at the gates of Meikaku and looked down the main boulevard, a broad avenue almost devoid of life. The imperial and provincial capitals had eleven gates. District and prefectural capitals had twelve. In the case of the imperial and provincial capitals, the central north gate or Rat Gate, was left out. In its place, just north of the city was the Ryou-un and the imperial and provincial government offices.

Youko and Keiki entered Meikaku through the western or Rooster Gate. The main boulevard ran straight east seven hundred paces from the Rooster Gate to the municipal offices in the middle of the city. The street was a good hundred paces wide. In every other city, small shops lined the street making it much narrower, and the street itself would be thronged with people and wagons. But there wasn't a single shop in sight.

There was no evidence of the refugees camped out in the surrounding countryside. There were none of the impoverished and homeless people they had seen in every town and city they had passed along the way during the three days, traveling by means of Keiki's shirei. The place was lifeless. Not a store, not a roadside stall. No crowds coursing along the thoroughfares.

A number of the travelers who entered the gate with her looked over the wide street with equal surprise. Youko glanced to the right and left as she passed through the gate. A sullen man approached, walking through the gate with accustomed steps. Youko called out to him, "Excuse me."

The man stopped and turned his blank gaze to her.

"Something going on today?"

The man was carrying a heavy basket on his back. He cast a disinterested look at the street and then back to her and said with sleepy eyes, "Naw. Nothing."

"Yes, but it's almost nightfall."

"Nothing out of the ordinary here. If you're looking for an inn, better go to Hokkaku or Toukaku. For Hokkaku, go to the Boar Gate. For Toukaku, go to the Hare Gate."

He spoke curtly, and in a low voice. He swayed a bit, as if adjusted the load on his back, and then turned on his heels and without another word walked away.

It was not uncommon for cities to have a second or third much larger city appended to them. She had seen quite a few of them in En. The entire metropolis was often given a single name, but the appended cities were known to keep their original names as well.

"What do you think?" Youko asked under her breath.

Standing next to her, tying a bandana around his head, Keiki tilted his head and said, "Well. It is a bit too quiet."

"Yeah. I could understand there being no people here, but no stores or shops either?"

Surveying the shoulders of the avenue outside the gate as well, there was not even a pushcart to be seen. A few people here and there, the sound of the wheels of the occasional horse cart echoing in the empty air.

"Something happen?" asked the people who had just come through the gate.

Youko smirked unconsciously. "Yeah, I had the same question."

The other party was a group of three men. They looked across the wide boulevard, the confusion evident on their faces. "Is this Meikaku?"

"Supposedly."

"I've never seen a capital city this empty. You two from here?"

Youko shook her head. The men gave the street another puzzled examination. "No shops. No people."

"Something bad went on here?"

"If there'd been a disaster, they'd be flying a white flag."

When disaster befell a city, white flags were flown from the ramparts. With this forlorn sight in front of their eyes, travelers would know something had happened. But that didn't seem to be the case here.

They watched the men start guardedly down the street. Next to her, Keiki said, "I smell death."

"Keiki?"

An unpleasant expression briefly clouded his pale complexion. "This city is a swamp of human malice."

Youko spun around. "We're leaving."

"Your Highness?" he replied.

Youko glanced back over her shoulder. "There's a road through the countryside. The cities are to the north and east, right? There should be access from the outside. I'm not chancing going through the city and stressing you out."