by Jeff Minerd
She recalled the smells of grilling meat and baking bread from the markets yesterday. She decided a trip to a market was in order. She needed a decent pair of shoes and thicker socks. And a heavier weight for her braid. And some new clothes, the better to blend in.
“And definitely a real breakfast,” she said, braiding up her hair.
She was about to leave her room when some instinct, some little tug in her belly, made her stop and turn around. The heart-shaped stone sat on the nightstand. She had the strong feeling that she didn’t want to leave it there, alone. She picked it up and stashed it in a pocket.
Brieze jostled and bumped her way through the crowded, twisting streets of Kyo, doing her best to follow the map Mama Kasshoku had sketched for her. When in doubt, she followed her nose. Eventually, she came to an open-air market that was probably the one Mama Kasshoku intended her to reach. She spotted racks of clothes and stacks of shoes at some of the vendor’s stalls, set out under awnings to keep off the lightly falling snow.
“Clothes first,” Brieze said, then corrected that to, “No, breakfast first.”
After locating and consuming more fried dumplings drizzled with honey, and a local delicacy called egg-drop soup, which reminded her of Tak’s mother’s soup, she felt fortified enough to search the racks of clothing at the outdoor stands. She knew what she wanted. She’d been studying the women of Kyo ever since she’d arrived. She wanted one of those warm-looking, brightly colored padded jackets with the big shoulders and sleeves. And a matching pair of baggy trousers. But she soon discovered the clothes at the outdoor stalls were not good quality. They felt thin, and she could tell by the stitching they were not made to last.
Nosing about, she discovered an indoor clothing shop in one of the buildings bordering the open-air market. An actual shop with stone walls and a very old, slightly warped wooden door that wouldn’t close all the way. A bell on the door chimed as she entered. The proprietors, a middle-aged couple, greeted her with smiles and bows. They wore brown kimonos, the robe-like garments, belted around the waist, that everyone wore in Kyo. Spectacles perched low on the woman’s nose. A tape measure draped around the man’s shoulders.
The jackets and trousers here were of much better quality. But Brieze fretted about choosing a color. All the colors—the greens, blues, reds, and yellows—were extravagantly bright and vibrant. Not really her. She’d feel like a peacock in any one of them. She found herself wishing for the muted, earthy tones popular in Spire. On the other hand, she wanted to fit in here. She’d just decided on an emerald green jacket and trousers when she spotted more clothes on a rack in the back of the store. These were all black.
Black! That was her color. She hadn’t seen many people dressed in black, but there had been a few. A black outfit would allow her to fit in without feeling gaudy and uncomfortable. Quickly she selected a black jacket and trousers and brought them to the counter at the front of the store. The man’s smile wavered for a moment when he saw what she’d selected. He exchanged a glance with his wife. But he remained polite as she asked the cost in the Eastern language. He didn’t frown at her pronunciation. He spoke to her with simple, easy-to-understand words and phrases as he conveyed the cost and helped her find the right coins from her purse.
But as Brieze counted out the coins, the man’s brow wrinkled anxiously. Something was bothering him. Before the sale was final he said, “You sure you want black? Many other pretty colors for pretty young woman.”
“Yes,” Brieze said. But she understood from the man’s nervous tone that more than just a fashion choice was at stake here. “Is something wrong with black?”
The man conferred with his wife in whispered undertones. Finally he said, “Black color only for…important people.”
Ah, that was it. Brieze remembered. In the Eastern Kingdoms black was reserved for people of high station. High-ranking government officials, nobles, scholars of exceptional note. In some parts of the Eastern Kingdoms it was actually illegal for people to wear black without official permission. She couldn’t remember if Kyo was one of those places or not.
Should she choose another color?
The answer came to her from within. If she were going to meet with the Fujiwaras, she needed to look important. She needed to remind them she was the apprentice of a powerful wizard, not some young girl to be taken lightly. She wasn’t going to ask permission to wear black of anyone. She would assume it as her right. And if they wanted to challenge her, or arrest her, well they were welcome to try. She drew herself up to her full height and gave the man her best, black-eyed, glittering, Nagmor-slayer look.
“Black,” she said.
“Black,” he agreed meekly.
As she navigated the crowded streets back to Mama Kasshoku’s, Brieze’s stomach rumbled, reminding her it was past lunchtime. She wore her new black trousers tucked into a comfortable pair of fur-lined black boots. Her new jacket felt crisp and snug and warm. The silver-gilded buttons down its front gleamed in the winter sun. Her breath came out in cloudy puffs. A light snow fell, the flakes catching in her hair. She carried a sturdy duffel bag with a strap over one shoulder. She’d bought it to hold her new belongings, and her old. In it were her old clothes and shoes, several pairs of new warm socks, and a jade and silver weight for her braid which she was sure she paid too much for but didn’t care.
She had an excellent, almost eidetic, memory. She recalled every twist and turn that had led her from Mama Kasshoku’s to the market, and she had no problem retracing her route. She also remembered the location of every stand selling grilled meats, and she stopped at several of these on her way back, buying small portions of mouth-wateringly fragrant, spiced meat on wooden skewers and eating as she walked. Some tasted more like fowl, some more like fish. They were all delicious.
As she walked, rubbing shoulders with the masses of Kyo, she again enjoyed that easing around her heart, that dropping of her old defenses. Nothing about her attracted anyone’s attention or marked her as different. No one gave her a second glance. Some even offered her friendly smiles. Every face was like her own, familiar in a way. She felt herself blending in, and relaxed into a peaceful sense of anonymity. She felt as if she were light, floating, barely there—a bird about to take flight on the next wintry breeze.
Which lasted until she got back to Mama Kasshoku’s.
The first thing she noticed as she approached the house was a large airship hovering directly above it. The crew were executing a hovering maneuver exactly like the one Tak had taught her. She wondered if it were an unusual thing to have a large airship hovering over Mama Kasshoku’s, and she guessed that it was, judging from the number of people who’d come out into the street to stare at it.
The next thing she noticed was Mama Kasshoku standing out in front of the house as if she were waiting. An official-looking man in a gray navy uniform stood next to Mama Kasshoku as if he, too, were waiting.
Mama Kasshoku introduced the man. She spoke in the Eastern tongue, in a rush. Brieze didn’t catch the man’s name but she got most of his title. Something along the lines of military liaison to the diplomatic service. Or possibly diplomatic liaison to the military service. In any case, the man spoke fluently in the Western tongue.
“Greetings,” he said, bowing. “May I presume you are Lady Brieze, apprentice to Wizard Radolphus of the Kingdom of Spire, and we have the honor of your visit to the city of Kyo?”
“That is correct,” Brieze said, straightening her shoulders. Everyone in the street stopped staring at the airship and stared at her instead.
“And am I also correct in understanding you desire an audience with Takashi Fujiwara?”
Brieze blinked, taken aback. She knew from what Hiroshi had told her that Takashi Fujiwara was head of the clan, ruler of Kyo and the mountains of Onshu. “I had hoped to meet with someone from the Fujiwara clan,” she said, “but I wouldn’t presume to request an audience with Mr. Takashi.”
“Well, he would very much like to meet with you.”
Brieze swallowed. This was all happening extremely fast. And not how she imagined it at all. “I would be honored,” she said, a bit breathlessly. “When?”
The man grinned and cocked an eye up at the airship. Already, the crew was lowering a rope ladder with wooden rungs. “Why, now, of course,” he said.
The Emperor’s Palace crowned the tallest of Kyo’s three mountains, called simply Big Kyomont. From the deck of the approaching ship, the palace looked to Brieze like a giant, elaborate layer cake. At the bottom, a foundation of pillars held up an ornate roof. This roof in turn supported another, slightly smaller, set of pillars and a roof, and these another, and so on and so on as the palace rose into the sky.
The ship docked at the palace quay, a stone structure just like those at the port, jutting from the mountain below the palace. Brieze and the liaison official disembarked. He led her up steep stone steps, through the palace’s main gate—past guards who nodded deferentially—then along a labyrinth of hallways and stairways until they entered the Emperor’s throne room.
The Emperor was not at residence in the palace. He occupied a palace in the mountains of Kaido to the north, leaving Takashi Fujiwara to manage his affairs in Kyo and the mountains of Onshu. Exactly why this was so, Brieze wasn’t certain, but she didn’t doubt it had to do with the political maneuverings of the Fujiwaras.
The Emperor’s throne room was not so different from its counterpart in Castle Selestria. A forest of tree-sized pillars held up a roof far, far above. The walls were stone here—paper could never keep out the mountaintop winds—and massive windows, closed against the winter chill, let in streams of sunlight. But Takashi Fujiwara did not sit on the throne. That would be too presumptuous, even for him. The man led Brieze to a side room, one of the suite of rooms that Takashi Fujiwara and his staff used as offices and meeting rooms.
There were no chairs. Easterners didn’t seem to use chairs. Takashi Fujiwara sat on a plump cushion in the center of the room, in front of a low table set with a tea service. His wife Emiko sat beside him. They both wore black silk kimonos, embroidered with gold and silver dragons. Their faces were fleshy in the way of those used to good food and comfort, and their eyes were calm and heavy-lidded in the way of those accustomed to power. Brieze guessed they were about her grandparents’ age. Takashi had a thin black mustache and goatee. Emiko’s hair was done up in an elaborate coif held together with jeweled pins. Her face was powdered white, with rouged cheeks and lips, as was the custom among aristocratic women.
A servant invited Brieze to sit, poured tea for everyone, and disappeared. She sat face-to-face with the Fujiwaras. This is it, she said to herself, and she kicked herself for not having rehearsed anything to say. She’d thought she would have more time. As with her farewell speech, she was going to have to wing it. And she remembered how well that went.
Fortunately, they engaged her in small talk first. And they used the Western tongue, which they both spoke fairly well. They asked her politely how old she was, where she lived. They asked many questions about the wizard’s community and the floating island. Then they asked her about her journey, and especially about the encounter with the Nagmor. They made her recount the entire adventure in great detail. Brieze answered honestly, and as well as she could. As she talked, the Fujiwaras looked at her as if she were some strange new chess piece that had appeared on their board, and they were trying to figure out how it moved.
Takashi cleared his throat. “So, you killed the beast with nothing more than two small bombs that fit in the palms of your hands?”
“That is correct, your eminence,” Brieze said.
“We would be very interested to have these bombs, or know how they could be made. They would provide great protection to our ships.”
Brieze hesitated. She had not expected this request, although she should have. The bombs were her wizard father’s own private invention, and not part of the technology wizards had decided to share with others. Although he had not expressly forbidden it, she knew she could not simply hand over the bombs to the Easterners. That would violate wizard law. She explained this, as well as she could. But she also knew an absolute refusal would not be polite or correct, and it wouldn’t get her anywhere with the Fujiwaras.
“I would be pleased to write the wizard and ask him,” she said. “And to share this technology if he approves.” She knew he would say no, and she expected the Fujiwaras knew it too, but it was the best she could offer.
“That would be well,” Takashi said, and switched his line of questioning. “So tell us, what brings you to our city?”
Brieze swallowed. Her mouth went dry. This was really it. Time to just muddle through.
“I came here to find a man named Kaishou Fujiwara, who traveled to the West seventeen years ago in a merchant ship called the Atago Maru,” she said.
The Fujiwaras instantly tensed up. They exchanged glances, then looked at her as if she were a strange new chess piece that had just made a puzzling, potentially threatening, move.
“And why, may I ask, are you looking for him?” Takashi asked.
Brieze forced the words out of her dry mouth. “I believe he is my father.”
Takashi and Emiko gasped as one. And not just the two of them. Brieze heard a third surprised gasp in the room. Her eyes darted to where it came from. The gasp came from behind an ornate paper screen, adorned with drawings of lotus flowers and peacocks, set up in a corner of the room. From behind the screen, a wooden chair creaked.
There was a dreadful uncomfortable silence.
“What do you want?” Takashi finally said, his lips tight and his tone edged with anger.
“Nothing…” Brieze stammered. “Just to meet with him…and ask him some questions.”
“You come here claiming to be the daughter of a Fujiwara. And you make claims to shame us. Is it money you want? Do you think to blackmail us? Do you have any proof?”
“No proof,” Brieze said. “Just what my mother told me.”
Takashi and Emiko talked fast and low in the Eastern tongue. Brieze caught none of it.
“You will leave now,” Takashi said. “You are no longer welcome in the Eastern Kingdoms. You must return home. Guards! Come in here. Escort this woman to—”
“Wait!” came a voice from behind the paper screen.
Takashi and Emiko paused. The guards, who’d just entered the room, paused too.
The wooden chair creaked again. And then, by slow degrees, and old woman emerged from behind the screen. Her back was bent, and she used a cane to walk. She wore a plain black kimono. Her face was cracked and ancient. Her silver hair was cut short like a monk’s. Nobody moved as the old woman shuffled up to Brieze, her cane wobbling with each step. She peered directly into Brieze’s face. She wore spectacles that made her fiercely intelligent eyes look huge as she studied Brieze’s features. She gripped Brieze’s chin with gnarled fingers and turned her head to the left, then the right. Finally, she stood back with a grunt and leaned on her cane.
“You are dismissed,” she said to the guards. They vanished in an instant, closing the door behind them.
“Takashi,” the old woman said, “bring me my chair.”
He jumped up and fetched the chair from behind the screen. He set it behind the old woman and held her elbow as she creakily lowered herself into it.
“You are fools,” she said, folding her hands atop her cane. “Even my old eyes can she is the image of Kaishou. She has his eyes. His nose. And his build.” She looked Brieze up and down. “Tall and spindly. Like a crane.”
“Even so,” Takashi said. “We cannot—”
“Silence,” the old woman said. “I want to hear what Kaishou was up to all those years ago in the West. I want to hear the girl’s story. So my little crane, speak.”
Brieze took a breath, wet her lips with a sip of tea, and told the story as her mother had told it
to her.
When she finished, Takashi said, “This tale, if true, dishonors us.”
Anger welled up in Brieze. “It was my mother who was dishonored. And come to think of it, I do have proof of a sort.” Brieze took her mother’s heart-shaped stone from an inner pocket. “If the tale is true, Kaishou will recognize this stone. My mother said he inscribed it and gave it to her. Let me show it to him and see what he has to say.”
The old woman extended a hand for the stone. Brieze gave it to her. She examined it, turning it over in her hands. “He never should have gone on that voyage,” she said softly. “He was no merchant, no adventurer. He was a scholar. He had a head for mathematics and science, not airships and trading.”
“It is a son’s duty to do as his father commands, not as he would please,” Takashi said. “Though if I had a second chance, I would have let him stay and continue his studies.”
“And as my son, you will do as I command,” the old woman said. “We will not throw the girl out like a beggar or a thief. We will take her in as a guest of the palace.”
Brieze’s eyes flitted from the old woman to Takashi. She wasn’t sure if she was following the conversation correctly.
The old woman sighed. “And there may be no dishonor. We can never know for certain,” she handed the stone to Brieze and leaned back in her chair. “My dear little crane, I regret to tell you this, but the Atago Maru never returned from that voyage seventeen years ago. Nor did any of her crew.”
“The ship was lost,” Takashi said, his voice husky with years of grief. “With all hands aboard.”
Brieze sat there blinking, stunned.
Kaishou Fujiwara was dead.
And the ancient woman who sat before her was, evidently, her great grandmother.
Takashi and Emiko were her grandparents.