Chapter Eleven
Well, so they were finally on their way.
Seiryo glanced at the controls of his ship briefly, flicking the switch to auto-pilot as he got to his feet, casting a final gaze around the drive room of the Unko before heading back into the main body of the ship. As he stepped into the craft's spacious living area, he caught sight of his travel companion huddled up against the back of her seat, gazing with frightened eyes across the dark star-speckled landscape of space and he sighed, coming to sit down beside her.
"Tokimi?" He murmured, and the girl turned towards him, relief touching her expression.
"Nii-chan." She whispered. "We are…Jurai is…all the way away there now, isn't it?"
She pointed towards the space-scene outside, and Seiryo nodded, slipping a comforting arm around her as he did so.
"To help Washu we had to leave Jurai behind us for a while." He said softly. "But I promise we will go back, Tokimi. As soon as we've found Washu, we'll go home. Okay?"
"Home is gone." Tokimi said absently, toying with a stray lock of her hair. "All gone. Like Kihaku. Jurai isn't there any more…not at all."
"Jurai is still there." Seiryo assured her. "We've just travelled away from it. That's all. It's like when you leave the Estate and go walking to the palace to visit Sasami-sama. The house is still there when you walk back. And Jurai will be there when we fly back, too. It's not like Kihaku. Jurai will still be there."
"You promise?" Tokimi looked doubtful, and Seiryo nodded.
"I promise." He agreed quietly.
"So where are we going, then?" Tokimi tilted her head on one side, eying him quizzically. "Where is Washu-neechan?"
"As yet, I'm not entirely sure." Seiryo admitted. "But I do think we need some help. We're going to the Galaxy Police, Tokimi. I want to ask Kiyone to come along with us – since she's probably the only Galaxy Police employee who'll speak to me, considering."
"The Police are coming?" Tokimi's eyes became big. Seiryo nodded.
"Hopefully." He agreed. "I think it will help, to have them on our side."
He frowned, shooting his companion a sidelong glance.
"Tokimi, I need to ask you to do something, also." He said softly.
"Yes? What is it?" Tokimi looked startled. "What can Tokimi do?"
"I want you to write down those words that Sasami-sama scribed on the ground." Seiryo spoke gently, feeling her body tense even as he spoke the words. "I know that it's not a prayer you like – that it's to do with death. But it might be helpful…will you do that for me? If I give you a pen and some paper, will you write down the prayer, like Sasami-sama did?"
"I…I don't know." Tokimi bit her lip. "Sasami did not write all of the prayer…she did not finish it. Finishing it…"
She faltered, and Seiryo sighed.
"Noone will die if you finish writing it, I swear." He said quietly. "I won't let that happen, you should know that. And it might help find Washu quicker, if I know what I'm looking at. I need your help here – will you do it?"
"I suppose so." Tokimi let out a gusty sigh, but nodded her head, and Seiryo reached for a scrap of paper, fumbling in his pocket for a pen as he held them out to her.
"Write it…in Kii?" Tokimi looked hesitant. Seiryo nodded.
"Yes." He agreed. "And then you can tell me what each thing means. Just in case it's important…can you do that?"
"I can." Tokimi said reluctantly. "I will. For Nii-chan and Washu-neechan, I will."
She took the pen clumsily in her slender fingers, pausing for a moment, then beginning to carefully scribe columns of strange characters. As Seiryo glanced at them, he frowned, shaking his head.
"I wish I could follow it, but I can't." He admitted, frustration clear in his tones, and Tokimi paused, glancing up at him in surprise and consternation.
"Nii-chan cannot read it." She murmured. "Nii-chan doesn't understand Kii…Kii letters are different from on Jurai."
"Now you know why I need your help so badly." Seiryo acknowledged. "Is that it? All of the prayer?"
"Yes." Tokimi nodded her head.
"Will you read it for me?"
"In Kii?"
"Yes…then translate it for me, please. I want to try and understand how it's written down. Somehow I'm sure this is the key to what Princess Sasami saw, but I can't quite figure out why. At least if I understand the pattern, I might be able to make some progress. After all, Kii is practically a dead language. But the Princess's vision was very clear, so this must have something to do with Kihaku and with Washu's past."
"And Tokimi's past." Tokimi said absently. Seiryo shot her a sharp look, then nodded his head.
"As you say." He agreed evenly. "Trace your finger alongside the characters as you read it please, Toki-chan. I want to understand your writing as best as I can."
"All…All right." Tokimi agreed hesitantly, pressing her finger to the page. Carefully and slowly she read out the prayer in her native tongue, and Seiryo listened carefully to the sounds, picking up the unusual inflections that littered the girl's speech. It was a gentle, rhythmic sound, but try as he might, he could find no logic to its construction. He frowned.
"And now in Galactic Tongue?" He pressed gently. "If you can. Trace the words again, Tokimi-chan. Then I'll understand more easily what you're trying to say."
"The World does not begin." Tokimi obediently recited the words anew, though her discomfort was clear in her sapphire-blue eyes as she did so. "The World does not end. All are subject to the World, sheltered beneath the wings of the eagle God.'"
She paused, then tapped her nail against one of the characters.
"This is not a word." She said softly. "I don't know how to explain. It is…when you use an important name. Like for Sasami. It is…it is like that."
"A mark of status, maybe? Like a title?" Seiryo suggested. Tokimi hesitated, then shrugged.
"It means that the Eagle is more than anything else." She said softly. "He is the World. That is all."
"All right." Seiryo pursed his lips. "And you wouldn't say it out loud?"
Tokimi shook her head.
"It is a holy symbol." She said simply. "It is only written, but must be written. It is respect for the Kami-sama."
"I think I understand." Seiryo said carefully. "So the equivalent would be, if we were to write Tsunami's name down…you'd think to include that symbol after her name, to mark out the fact that she's a Goddess and so more important than anyone else?"
"Yes." Tokimi's eyes flickered with relief. "That is it."
"Fine. Then I'm with you. Go on." Seiryo gestured back towards the sheet of paper. "What does the rest of it say? The bit Princess Sasami didn't write down, I'm guessing…what does it mean?"
"In darkness and in light, so I become one with the World, and watch over those whose souls have faith." Tokimi said softly, and Seiryo squinted at the sheet, indicating one of the characters as he did so.
"There's that symbol again." He reflected. "This is heavy duty doctrine for Kihaku, isn't it?"
"I don't understand." Tokimi looked bewildered.
"I suppose it doesn't matter." Seiryo shook his head. "All right. We've some time before we get to Headquarters, so will you go through these letters with me one by one? I want to be sure I'd recognise them again, if I saw them. It strikes me that, if Sasami-sama wrote them down, maybe they're written somewhere where Washu is being held. And though I want your help, Tokimi, I don't want to put you in any danger. I want to be sure that I can identify these pictures from any others that I see – just in case. I don't know how many letters the Kii use for their language, but if they're all so complicated…"
"There are many." Tokimi admitted. "I…I do not know them all. Many tribes never write down their language. The Priest's tribe, they write things down. And the Scribes of the Priest and those the Priest has taught. Like me. But even Father did not know all the letters of his ancestors."
"That's what I was afraid of." Seiryo acknowledged. "I think I'll recognise that one – I've seen it before, on Juraian paintings. It's changed somewhat from what I know, but it means Kihaku, doesn't it? The symbol for the World."
"The Eagle Feather." Tokimi nodded, then her eyes widened, and she grabbed up the pencil once again, scrawling two distinctive characters onto the page.
"What does that say?" Seiryo looked puzzled.
"Washu." Tokimi whispered. "Washu is called Eagle Feather. See, here are the letters."
"That doesn't look the same character to me."
"Kii has many letters for Eagle. The Eagle is important on Kihaku, but only one letter means the Kami-sama." Tokimi said with a shrug. "It is wrong to name a baby with the Kami-sama's letter. So Father used a different letter. But it means the same. It means Feather of the Eagle."
"Daughter of Kihaku, in other words." Seiryo rubbed his chin. "He wasn't mincing his words when he named her, was he? He really saw her as his heiress, when he passed on to whatever afterlife your people believed in."
Tokimi looked troubled, but she did not reply. Instead she idly began to sketch the vague form of an eagle onto the paper before them. Seiryo frowned, eying her keenly.
"Tokimi? What are you doing now?"
"Nothing." Tokimi dropped the pencil with a clatter, pushing the sheet away and getting to her feet. "Nii-chan, Tokimi is tired. Tokimi…I…I don't know where we are, and…and I…I didn't sleep last night."
Seiryo's eyes narrowed, but he nodded his head.
"Then you should get some rest." He said gently. "Go take a nap. It's a while before we get to Headquarters, and I want to spend some time looking at these letters myself."
"All right." Tokimi looked relieved. She gazed at the paper, making a curious gesture with her hands. Then she was gone across the ship towards the little chamber he had prepared for her use, and Seiryo sighed, slowly shaking his head as he scooped up his companion's discarded sheet.
"Well, it's something to go on, but I wonder." He murmured. "It has her on edge, and I don't like that it does. I feel like I'm forcing her…but she did say she wanted to help Washu."
He glanced at the characters, pursing his lips.
"Eagle feather, huh?" He mused. "That's interesting. Washu never told me that…in fact, she glosses over her connections to Kihaku's coronet most of the time. I know she was heiress at one point – because that's why Tokimi took control. I wonder if this is all connected somehow…have we not seen the last of the planet Kihaku after all?"
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"So the prisoner has escaped?"
Yuzuha drew her cloak more closely around her body, turning her glittering, orb-like eyes on first one guard and then the other as she tried to digest what they were telling her. "How, pray, is that possible? The woman was locked in a cell, was she not? A barred door and cuffed, too? How could she possibly escape?"
"Lady Yuzuha, she...the door...it exploded." The first guard stumbled to his knees before his mistress, fear in his eyes as he grovelled at her feet, and hesitantly his companion followed suit, making fervent gestures of obeissance as he did so. "We do not know by what manner of magic it happened, but...but..."
"I see." Yuzuha's eyes narrowed, and she held up her hand to prevent the man from continuing. "An explosion? In the prison quarters? And yet you were guarding this place all the time and you know nothing?"
"We were...we were outside the confines of the dungeon, Lady Yuzuha." The first man said hurriedly. "We were not...we did not..."
"What orders did I give you two?" Yuzuha's aura shimmered with dark energy, and the men shrank back, terrified by her sudden show of anger. "When I sent you there, what did I tell you!"
"To guard the prisoner, Yuzuha-sama." The second man whispered. Yuzuha nodded, a curt bob of her head that sent the folds of her heavy hood billowing in the draughty chamber.
"To guard the prisoner." She echoed softly. "And yet, where were you waiting? Outside? Are you boys or guardsmen? Do you understand what it means to guard a prisoner, either of you? The woman was in your power...you should have watched over her without fail. And now...now she is escaped..."
"Lady Yuzuha, we are sorry. We are truly sorry." The first man prostrated himself on the ground before her, and Yuzuha snorted.
"I want her found." She said, her tones dangerously low. "And more, I want to know who helped her to escape. A guileless wanderer she may have been, but either way, I want to know who seeks to use her in their own schemes. You will not fail me again, either of you. If you do...you will be the ones who face the fires at dawn."
"Lady Yuzuha!" The second man's eyes opened wide with fright, and Yuzuha nodded again.
"Make no mistake, it's not an idle threat." She said evenly. "So go now, gather your companions and find this missing woman. Dead or alive, I care not which. But find her, and find her quickly. I will not have outsiders tramping around our planet, and more, I will not be made a fool of by idiot heathens unable to properly do their duties!"
She gestured towards the door and it creaked back, watching in derision as the two men scrambled to their feet, hurrying from the chamber before she could change her mind.
"Such fools." She muttered, turning on her heel and moving towards the back of the chamber. "But this is concerning. That woman...was she just a simple traveller, after all? No sign has been found of a spaceship, it's true. And yet...and yet..."
Her frown deepened.
"She did not seem unusual, when I spoke to her." She mused. "She seemed much like the others who have been fool enough to wander into the planet's atmosphere. But I've been so careful to cloak this world from view from ships that pass it by. The last thing I want is powerful people like those damned Juraians deciding to hunt me down to this place, after all. Heathens they might be, but those stupid, frightened people provide me with shelter and power, with remarkably little effort. And as for the few who slip in..."
Her eyes narrowed once more, flames of energy flickering in their depths.
"Keeping the people in fear of invasion is important." She reflected. "And invoking a Kii tradition to do it seems to have worked as well as anything in maintaining my grip on this world. If only I did not have to let down my guard to witness such events...I'm sure that is what draws the strangers in, in the moments when I am not able to hold the shield as I should like. But then again..."
She faltered, her thick brows drawing together under the hem of her hood as she contemplated.
"I have not let the shield down for some days." She realised. "No sacrifices have been made in well over a month. So how, then, did this traveller come to find us? How did she get here?"
She clenched her fists.
"I must find her, and I must destroy her." She decided firmly. "As soon as possible. It won't matter who she is or where she came from if she is dead. And if there are fools planning insurrection by releasing her, well, they will burn as well. This is my world now - noone here is powerful enough to challenge me. This Kii Priestess of legend, and this wretched eagle - they are all just myths. Stories told to the fools who wanted something to believe in. Well, now they have my power to believe in. They don't need anything else. And I will make sure of it. Rikishouki is my world now...noone and nothing will intervene."