Chapter Three: A Mistaken Identity
They made good time and they did, indeed, reach Sonne before nightfall, passing a group of returning refugees on the way.
"I w-wonder if that m-man's still there."
Ryu turned to face Scias. "What man?"
Nina explained. The last time they had passed through, there had been a man standing in front of a house at the other end of the village; he had stayed there throughout their visit. "Remember him?"
"I think so. Wonder what he was doing."
"Probably some lovesick twit…"
"Says Deis."
The Endless might have gone and the head been cut off the Empire, but Sonne felt so serene that Ryu thought he might have inadvertently stepped backward in time. On their previous visit it had been somewhat disturbed by the refugees from Chedo, but now that those people were gone, the prevailing calm was ruffled only by their arrival.
As they headed into the village proper the others veered off to bargain for supplies. Ryu headed onward, reviewing each part of the village.
Last time an old man had asked him if he fished. Ryu had replied in the affirmative and they'd had quite an interesting conversation, if you were interested in fish; now when he saw the old man he remembered a denial, and the old man saying that he hadn't looked the type. A small child played on the path outside his house - last time he had mistaken Ryu for someone else. Now Ryu knew who that someone else was, and he also remembered the knowing chirp - "I know you! My mom says you're the fella that's shackin' up with Mami!" Whereupon the child had tipped his head and wondered, "What's shackin' up mean, anyway?"
A number had been surprised the first time (or was it really the second? No, the first) he had come to Sonne, mistaken him for that someone else. Now they were surprised all over again. He saw them lifting their heads as he approached, looking about. Eventually their gaze caught on him, and then they would shake their heads and return to their prior activity.
Ryu looked down at the bell hung around his neck, Mami's bell; he watched it bounce lightly off his chest and jingle again as it did.
But of course. That's it. For a moment they think it's her.
He almost laughed.
And there - there was Mami's house, or what had been her house, at the other end of the village, with the man standing in front as before, shoulders hunched - waiting for his ladylove to emerge? Now he wasn't so sure. There would be an impressive crack in the back wall, near the oven, large enough for a man to squeeze through - had it been repaired by now?
They hadn't gone near last time, they'd had no business going there. But when he drew close enough, he could see the man was muttering. Nearer, and he heard a one-sided argument.
"It… ain't me fault."
He didn't know the back of the man, but he knew the voice. The man had blocked the path out of the village, begun to interrogate him. Mami came to his rescue, calling him Ryong, a fitting name. Her cousin Ryong, stationed in Kyoin, who'd bumped his head so just answer any funny questions he asks, okay? And then quickly guiding him back to her house for more rest. There he had found out the man was the landlord of Sonne.
The man continued. "It's yer fault, Mami…" He trailed off and paused, as if listening to her response. "Ye shouldn'ta done that…"
He had climbed down Mt. Yogy and the man had been there with Mami. The man had been on the verge of lunging at and attempting to throttle him, demanding to know what he had done to the false Endless that lived in the volcano, asking again who he was, what he was.
The next day he had left Mami's house to see the man approaching, with Imperial soldiers and General Yohm close behind. He had reentered, trapped. Mami, realizing the danger, had run to him, shoved past the group assembled in front of her house and blocked the way long enough for him to get out through the crack in the back wall. The last time he had seen her she was pressed against the shaking door and smiling. Smiling because she'd never thought that crack could be put to such good use.
Ryu took a step forward and reached out, for a moment aiming to grab the man's neck from behind and snap it, or even venture strangulation. But people did things they regretted, in the heat of the moment. He didn't want to leave the others with the burden of breaking him out and hiding him, for who knew how long. Besides, there were things to be said.
As he pulled back the bell jingled and the man spun.
"Wha - wha - Mami - You again! What be ye doing here?"
He glanced sideways. The villagers just coming in from the fields had all stopped to gape, as had the old man and the child. Nina looked up from her discussion with a woman carrying a basket of beans and ran towards the scene, her wings arched and stiff. "Ryu! What is it? What happened?"
The man jabbed a finger at Ryu. "Ye know him? Ye know he-"
She shoved in between them and faced the man, holding out her arms. "I think… I think there's been a misunderstanding. He's not who you think he is, I'm sure of it! You haven't met him before, have you, Ryu?"
He blinked and craned around her for another look at Ryu. "… ye be right, miss -"
Ryu tapped Nina on the shoulder. When she turned he mouthed, "I'm sorry" and stepped past her. As he did the man stepped back and came up against the front wall of Mami's house. Ryu took hold of his wrists and gently lifted them before his face. He felt his mouth open and heard words come through. "Thou wert correct the first time. We hath met before. And I hath returned." Fou-Lu's words again, they must be. He never talked like that.
"What be ye…" I'd like to know that myself.
"But! Thou wert in error regarding another matter."
He hadn't noticed the sounds of the village until they ceased. Fou-Lu's
words shot into the silent air like gunfire and dissipated slowly. Soon more
of them followed.
"'Twas no fault of hers."
Nina murmured something inaudible behind him, and he turned for a moment to stare at his sudden audience. Cray and Scias and Ershin were coming toward him now, just as confused as she was. Whispering and satisfied-looking nodding began among the watching villagers.
He turned back to the man. "Fault doth lie with thee, as it doth lie with me, and it doth lie with others who hath a hand in her demise." Despite the whispering his voice seemed just as loud as before and as he spoke the whispering and the nodding stopped. "But not her." The whispering began again as he released the man's wrists. "Never her."
He turned toward Nina as the man struggled for words. For once Ryu could sympathize; in speaking for himself, Fou-Lu seemed to have drained all of Ryu's own speaking capability. "I'll be just a minute," he managed before he stepped into the house. Same pair of sleeping mats, one of them mussed. Same table, and cooking things still hanging on the wall. Same crack in the wall.
As he stood there, the man found his words. "Tha- around his neck there -"
Ryu touched the bell, still dangling from the cord, and as he did he fought the memories.
Nina blinked at the words. "The bell? What about it?"
There was a moment of glancing about and blinking, and the crowd galvanized. Someone cried out, "Ah! Sir, ye ought to have a lie-down!"
The man Ryu had confronted (but had it been Ryu?) shook his head. "Nah, I-"
"Ye should not be out all day and night without even a proper meal!"
One of the women propelled him towards another house. "I got rice balls done for the people from the capital. I got some left, ye must try one. Ye must have at least a taste!"
As the door closed behind the pair the talking truly started.
"Mami had one just like it," said the woman she had been bargaining with. "But not round her neck. Strung it on a ribbon an' wore it in her hair."
"Got it special all the way from the capital, she did."
"One a' her only vanities, that girl."
An old man raised his eyes with a nostalgic expression. "Lovely thing to hear in the mornings, her walkin' about with that jingly bell."
Nina nodded. "Excuse me, but who's Mami? What happened to her?"
"Great girl."
"So sweet."
"Worked so hard! More'n the boys." A number of the men shuffled and mumbled in reply.
"Ye see, she took in a man what got hurt something fierce."
"Did he have very fair hair?" Nina asked. "A bit long, for a man? And green eyes?"
"Oh, aye, that he did."
"She said he was her cousin, Ryong-"
"-but ain't nobody wi' a brain who believed a word of it."
"They were shackin' up, didn't do much in the way of hiding it at-all."
"Mom! What's shackin' up?"
"Never ye mind."
"Going on about 'involving' right in the middle of the fields, they were."
"When he got better he got rid of a big boar what was trampling about in the forest."
"An' then he went and kilt the god in Mt. Yogy."
"Gods don' die, that be what makes 'em gods."
"Whatever ye say, but he kilt it an' the landlord weren't happy about it."
"He got up to Kwanso and talked to one of them big Army people. General - what was it again?"
"Yang."
"No, Yohm."
"Yes, that was it, General Yohm."
"Turned out that he weren't her Cousin Ryong-"
"Of course he weren't her Cousin Ryong!"
"Anyhow, he was a wanted man! Important secret Army matters, they said. They came here to arrest him."
"An' Mami helped him get away, so they took her off to Astana."
"Haven't heard of her since."
"And I guess she still be locked up there now."
"For aiding and abetting."
"That's terrible," said Nina. And as she said this a truly terrible thought assembled itself.
Ryu said they aimed the hex on that forest at Fou-Lu. Hexes are stronger the more of a relationship you have with the target - that's why Yuna tried to use my sister, for stronger hexes on Alliance countries. This Mami - she was 'involved' with Fou-Lu, and they took her to Astana, where she was never heard from again.
Astana's where the Carronade is.
"He said 'demise,'" said one of the villagers, as though he'd been listening in on the words in her head. "That mean… that mean Mami's died, then?"
Nina thought she would be sick. "It… looks like it." A wave of horrified gasps swept the crowd, which quickly broke up into whispering knots and wandered away.
Soon after, Ryu emerged from the house. "Um… I…"
"Ryu." Nina took his hands. "Are you all right now?"
"I was always all right." That's not true. "But I think we'd better talk. All of us."
"Yes," she said, "I think we'd better."
"Deis says she believes so as well."
Scias nodded. "B-better be s-somewhere out of t-town."
"Yeah." Cray tilted his head upward. "Look, the sun's setting already. Let's make camp, have some of those vegetables we picked up. Then we'll get started."
Ryu nodded. "Okay. Let's get to it."
He had come to his decision quickly. Considering recent events, he was hardly welcome in the vicinity of Chedo. He might as well shadow his master. Who knew what perils that had been easily surmounted before might bring down a mortal? And it was good to be out in the open again.
A-Tur watched with interest from the shield of a stand of trees as the group left the village and began to set up a tent.
MORE NOTES: Okay, as you might have guessed, still keenly appreciate all reviews, especially those with advice on archaic speech, Scias's stutter, and the Sonne dialect-thingy. Thanks.