Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ch6: Fated Interventions
This time the golden tunnel was longer, and Gyousou fell for about a minute or so. It was enough time for him to process that his life had been spared, and wonder what was at the end this time.
Then he was standing in the middle of a forest, surprising considering Bun Province didn't have any. Also, the battle with the rebels had been in April, but the ground at his feet was carpeted in reds and oranges and yellows while the wind blew swirling leaves off trees into his stunned face.
Gyousou tried to coolly and logically work thought events. Asen was now indisputably the mastermind who had planned everything. He had killed Taiki and cut off his horn at some point, presumably to kill Gyousou. When this had happened would determine how long Gyousou had left and whether or not he could do anything to stop Asen in the meantime. Asen had also clearly meant that battle in April to be the death of him, but that golden tunnel had appeared and Gyousou was swept away to… wherever that had been. Asen had tracked him down to there and was just about to kill him when Gyousou was swept away again.
What was that golden tunnel of clouds and light? The first time Gyousou had not known what to make of it at all, but this time it had blatantly saved his life.
Whatever it was, it gave Gyousou hope. Hope that maybe someone somewhere had saved him for a purpose, that Tai was not completely damned yet. He was still in shock at seeing Taiki's severed horn, but he was also the king of Tai, even if the countdown clock to the end of his reign had begun ticking. Someone somewhere had saved his doomed self, presumably so he could put the country back in order before he died.
He checked directions quickly, using the horizon level sun as a rough guide. It was either dawn or dusk, and if he waited a little while he could determine east from west, but Gyousou had no time to spare. At best he had a year left to try and fix things as best he could. He began walking towards the sun, careful to stay in the same direction. He would keep walking that way until it eventually led him out of the forest, and to somewhere with people.
It was dusk, Gyousou quickly discovered, and he was heading west. After the sun set he used the stars – now in the positions for October – to guide him as he walked through the night. He couldn't afford to rest in the open since he had no sword.
At what he judged to be about ten in the morning the next day he saw smoke rising over the tree tops and headed there. Whatever the loyalties of the people living there were, they were unlikely to recognize this dirty vagrant as the king. The smoke came from a small cabin, and when he banged on the door it was opened by a very startled old lumberjack.
"What the devil are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?" The man had the sloppy look of someone at home that doesn't expect any company, or nosy neighbours.
Gyousou tried to look scared and uncertain, but the best that could be said for the attempt was he didn't look particularly intimidating. "I'm lost."
"You sure are, if you ended up here." The man held the door open wider, and smoothed his ruffled sleep clothing. "Come in and eat something, you look ready to keel over any second!"
The bland porridge Gyousou was given tasted better than anything made by the most skilled cooks in the realm. The lumberjack gave him seconds and probed him with questions. Gyousou asked him first for a map, since any lies he made up would need to – at the very least – be centered in the right province. He wasn't particularly surprised when the man pulled up a map of Jou, since lumber was its main industry. The spot the man pointed to was right next to Bun Province, on the other side of Mt. Kan'you.
Gyousou made up some lie about travelling into the woods with his friends and getting separated, then wandering around looking for them. The lumberjack harrumphed.
"You young'uns! Don't you know when you get lost you're s'pposed to stay in one place and wait for someone to find you!"
"I apologize for my lack of foresight. I will take your words into account and be sure to thoroughly contemplate my actions and exercise proper judgment in the future."
The old lumberjack looked taken aback, and Gyousou remembered belatedly that he was pretending to be a peasant, and peasants don't talk like courtiers.
Time to change to topic. "So, you the only one living 'round here or there others?"
"My son lives here as well. He's out working, but as I've come down with a wee cold thought I'd better rest today. Lucky for you, I guess, since usually no one's home in the day."
"No neighbours?"
"Who'd want to live in the middle of a forest? There's a couple other cabins dotted around, but the nearest town takes a day in the cart to get to." Something just occurred to the man. "Say, in a couple days my son and I are driving into town with our load. You need to rest up and eat up, by the look of you, so you can do that for two days and then we'll take you with us. Once you're in town you can find a way back to your friends. Can't really have you wandering around the forest alone now, what with all that's been going on since the king died."
The king spat out his porridge, "What!"
"Yeah, since the king died everything's gone downhill. Crops failed so everyone's drawing their purse strings tighter and it's cutting into our business, and now some malcontents started up a rebellion here in Jou. The new general isn't handling it very well so they sent for General Ryuu, 'cept apparently it was her that offed the His Majesty and Taiho so..."
"Risai?! Risai kill m… the king and Taiho?"
"Yeah, so now the people in Kouki say she's accused of high treason and needs to see General Jou, but she ran off. They say she also burnt down the Nisei castle and killed everyone there, to try and steal the hakuchi's foot."
Gyousou's porridge laden spoon was forgotten halfway to his open mouth. "Asen accused Risai of high treason?"
The old man swatted him lightly. "Don't be so disrespectful! It's General Jou and General Ryuu, don't address them so familiarly! And hurry up and eat that before it goes cold!"
Gyousou quickly stuck the spoonful in his mouth, and then said, "Do you know where General Ryuu was last sighted?"
"No idea. Pretty sure it wasn't around here, though, so don't worry."
Two days could not pass quick enough. Gyousou built up his strength as best he could in the time and rested uneasily. What he really wanted to do was track down where Risai was last seen and join forces, but he was currently in no state to do so. With the popular belief the king was dead added to his distinctly un-regal beggarlike appearance he would only be able to enlist the help of those who knew his face, and the only retainers he trusted to not betray him were the ones Asen had put a head price on. Risai was ideal, since she was also a military commander and, as general of the capital's Provincial Army, would know the situation of Hakkei Palace up to her arrest.
At the town the best answer he got was that Risai had been arrested a fortnight after crossing the Zui-Jou border, and had escaped on her kijuu during the night as she was being escorted to her trial. So he started discreetly searching for her in areas around the borderer line, but she was remaining well hidden. He found her whereabouts a few times, but only after she'd been forced to flee the area.
To make matters worse, Asen had put everyone he trusted on Gyousou's trail. The only reason he ever managed to fall asleep at night was because of the golden tunnels. Every time his pursuers caught up to him and he was placed in immediate danger one would open up and he would be whisked away. He still had no idea who or what was causing them, but he'd worked out a pattern in where he'd end up. It was never too far away from where he'd been, and it was always an area devoid of humans. He got so good at predicting where it'd take him that he began to set up camp with the nearest deserted area in mind, in case he was attacked in the night.
At the same time Gyousou felt the sands of time running out of him. How much more time did he have left? Taiki must have been killed just before Asen had appeared before him, because it was once again October and nearing the day Gyousou had come across the cabin in the woods. He wasn't sure if there was anything he could accomplish in the time remaining, but he felt duty bound to continuing seeking out Risai. At the very least, she deserved an apology for letting her down.
He finally caught her trail: she was staying with an old hermit and his granddaughter in an isolated cottage that was only a day's walk away. At this point Gyousou expected to die any day now, and so he rushed towards there through the night.
As he was racing along the road an arrow flew at him from a nearby tree, and all of a sudden he was falling through gold.
Perfect! He thought bitterly, Just perfect! Once I arrive at (probably) those crags on the cliff by the ocean the locals claim is haunted, it'll take me a week to walk back! I don't have that much time left!
For a while now each time it appeared the tunnel became longer. The last one had taken a good hour to fall through, and he wondered if he wasn't misremembering that the first time he had still been swinging his sword when he arrived. He stared impatiently into the golden hued clouds, which he had discovered occasionally showed glimpses of things outside, usually things in between his origin and destination.
When he arrived it was at the crags on the cliff, and he turned towards the direction the cottage was in, intending to storm back there and hope he made it in time, when suddenly he was falling through gold. Again.
He was aggravated at this unexpectedness and anxious about what it could mean. Unless some random person decided to go for a stroll on the top of the haunted crags by a cliff in the dark and decided to murder some random stranger there, it meant that either the golden tunnels were malfunctioning or Asen had worked out the pattern to where he would appear. Both were terrifying ideas.
The clouds normally flowed up around him as he fell, but all of a sudden they jerked like a horse being reigned in and began to flow up only very, very slowly. Then, with a shudder, they were completely stationary. Gyousou flailed his arms and legs like a swimmer, but he couldn't move an inch forward or backward in the tunnels.
With a dawning horror, Gyousou realized he was stuck.
