Sky of Paper: An Asian Steam-Driven Fantasy Tale

by Matthew Seaver

Miss Nishio didn’t reply. I looked up and glimpsed the side of her slender face. She gave a small smile, like she knew a great many more things than she was willing to let Master Lu believe. I think he felt offended at her tiny gesture, because he made an annoyed sneering sound, then turned away and strode back into the ship. She looked back at us and motioned for us to follow her.

  If I told you that the inside of an imperial ship, was just a series of corridors and metal rooms, you would probably not be surprised, for this was how most ships looked on the inside, both the sea-going ones and the ones of the air, as well as the ones of the past and those of today. But that is only a portion of the truth. Back then, each imperial airship of Rui Nan had two different sections: The one which everyone knows, of metal walkways, steam pipes and machines, and the one which only a few were aware of. This secret section was the most sacred and closely guarded part of the ship. It was a place of rituals and tradition; an extension of the great Imperial Temple and the very heart of every Rui Nan vessel that sailed the sky. To even tread upon these decks, we found that we would first need to be presentable.

  As we came to what must have been the front of the ship, we stopped at the end of a corridor that was blocked by a pair of metal doors. A soldier was guarding one of them and waved us off to the one beside him. As it opened, a great burst of steam came out, and I immediately felt the warm, moist air against my skin.

  "This is the ceremonial wash room," Miss Nishio said, shuffling us in ", hurry and get inside. We must prepare you for the journey."

  As we stepped inside, I was blinded at first, by a wall of hot mist. Then, from out of the steam, came several female attendants who quickly removed the bags we were carrying and stripped off our trousers and shirts until Han, Kidou and I were left in our undergarments. They took us to the middle of the room, which was covered from floor to ceiling with gleaming white tiles and great big porcelain tubs filled with hot water. The attendants scrubbed the three of us vigorously and as quickly as they could with brushes and hard sponges. I resisted at first, uncomfortable at the thought of someone cleaning my body for me. The attendants were quick to react and shook away the stiffness in my arms and legs until I finally surrendered.

  "If you scrub any harder, there might not be anything left of me, but soap and water," Han said jokingly.

  "All of you be quiet." Miss Nishio was standing just outside the entrance.

  After the attendants were done, we were redressed with a set of gleaming white cotton trousers and a shirt trimmed with thick, gold threads. Over the left breast was a gold chrysanthemum woven into the fabric.

  "This is a sign of great honor," Kidou said as we picked up our bags and were led out of the room ", we now wear clothing with the Imperial symbol. That makes it official. We are now servants of the Emperor."

  We were each handed a pair of socks and white shoes as we exited the room. Han tried to put them on, but Miss Nishio stopped him by abruptly tapping him on the head.

  "Socks only. No shoes are to be worn on the ritual decks. Also, you will need to make sure your bodies are clean at all times. Those who serve the Emperor do not walk about, looking like dirty beggars." She looked at the three of us sternly.

  We gave a silent nod, then put on our socks and stuffed our shoes in our bags.

  When we approached the guard again, he turned very rigidly and opened the other door. The other two soldiers, which had escorted us, remained behind and the four of us entered what Miss Nishio called, the forbidden ritual decks.

  What I saw at that moment, as we went through the door, was just a glimpse of my life to come. Yet, I suddenly felt as though I were unworthy to be part of what my eyes beheld. It was as if we had exited the ship and entered a grand mansion. There were no winding metal corridors or ugly piping protruding from odd places like the rest of the ship, but rather, polished wood floors and walls, with sliding paper doors and beautiful banners, some with water color paintings of landscapes, others with large characters written in a language that only the upper class were permitted to use. The air smelled of incense, the same kind that Miss Nishio used in her home. A few older men and women dressed in Kimonos floated about, going down hallways and disappearing and reappearing around various corners. I would later come to learn of the existence of many ships such as these, ones which were metal on the outside, but had small, elaborate wooden palaces built on the inside to house passengers of great importance.

  Han blurted a few words in surprise. His voice must have been loud enough to have been considered rude, because a few sliding doors cracked open and several eyes peered in our direction. Han clenched his mouth shut seeing that Miss Nishio was on the verge of giving him a scolding. She took off her footwear and placed it neatly in one of cubby holes that honeycombed the wall next to us. She led us down the main hallway towards a dimly lit tatami room where a middle aged woman was kneeling behind a low table writing things down next to a stack of papers.

  "I have the next group of children, " Miss Nishio said softly ", these are the three from Rune."

  The woman put down her pen and adjusted her glasses, looking at the three of us with a superior look on her face. "Very well, I will show you their room."

  She slowly stood and led us back down the same hallway we came. At the far end, she slid open one of the doors along the wall. I looked inside and saw that it was completely empty, except for four small futon mattresses that were lying along the four corners of the square room. The woman gave a small bow and shuffled away.

  I felt Miss Nishio pat an urgent hand on my back. "Hurry you three. Put your bags in the room. We have to go right now, or else we’ll be late."

  "Late for what?" I asked.

  "We are going to the ritual room. You will see what I mean when we get there. Now put your things inside and let's go."

  We did as she told and we went back down the hallway, making a few more turns and passing one or two rooms before we came to a very large archway enclosed by a pair of thick, wooden doors. On either side were two bald men, monks dressed in plain red robes. Miss Nishio gave a deep bow, which they returned, then reverently clasped the handles of either door and gently swung them open.

  Inside, was a room larger than any I had ever seen. Bigger than the meeting place in the town hall of my village, my house could have easily fit inside. The wooden walls on either side curved around like the edges of a rubber ball. At the far end, peering over the front of the ship, was an enormous bubble of glass that looked like a rice bowl tipped on its side. Metal frames crisscrossed its face and the glass allowed a breath-taking view of the world outside .

  There were forty other children about my age, half on one side of the room and half on the other, leaving a small path down the center for us to walk through. They were kneeling on thin mats in neat rows across the polished wood floor, all wearing the same white, gold trimmed clothing. I could hear their hushed whispers as they stole glances at me and my two companions.

  "Sit down." Miss Nishio pointed to several empty mats towards the front. "When the ceremony begins, be absolutely quiet. No talking. No fidgeting. Just sit and watch. Understand me?”

  She seemed to particularly emphasize this at Han. We gave a quick nod. For a moment, she gave the three of us a long stare as if she were waiting for one of us to ask a question. I started to open my mouth, but she turned and walked away before I could speak. I looked at Kidou, but I knew that he was not up to any kind of conversation. He sat absolutely still, gazing straight ahead, like a Buddhist statue. I wondered if he was meditating or taking Miss Nishio's commands too literally. Han just shrugged his shoulders, enamored by all the unfamiliar faces in the room.

  "This is your first launch ceremony isn't it?" said a young voice behind me.

  I turned around and saw a girl with a flat, oval face. Her raven hair was tied back in a single bun and she kept her chin slightly raised, hinting a deep well of confidence. Though we knew she was speaking to the three of usm Kidou decided to ignore her and rema
ined in his meditative posture.

  "A launch ceremony?" The expression on my face must have been amusing to her because she gave a small giggle when I asked the question.

  "Yes. Before an airship takes off, there’s almost always a launch ceremony. This is my second time seeing one. All of us are supposed to attend it. My Seeker told me that it’s very important, because it calms the spirits of the sky and assures a safe journey."

  "Seeker?"

  She gave me a blank stare. "That woman who spoke to you earlier. Isn't she your Seeker?"

  "I don‘t think so," Han said. "She‘s just someone who found us and prepared us for this trip."

  "Then she’s your Seeker." She chortled, which made Han‘s cheek‘s turn red. "You must have known. Or maybe she didn’t bother to tell you who she was. A Seeker's job is to look for people like us, people with certain gifts. They take care of us and give us tests to see if we’re worthy enough to be accepted into the Imperial Temple. Since you‘re here, you must have passed her tests."

  Since first meeting Miss Nishio, I’d wondered about who she really was. Judging by all she had done so far, I gathered that she was no more a fortune teller than I was Mr. Takaya’s apprentice. I suppose it was no surprise when the girl revealed to me who she truly was. But somehow, I felt uncomfortable, realizing that from the moment I met her, she had been choosing for me, the path my life would take.

  "Oh, by the way, my name is Etsu. I was picked up from the town of Shu Mei," the girl said cordially.

  "I'm Han. This person next to me is Terr and the silent one over there is Kidou. We all come from Rune."

  "Etsu, why are your eyes brown?" I asked. "I thought only people with strange colored eyes were allowed here."

  She blinked awkwardly, as if she started to doubt whether or not we belonged on the ship. "Your guardian did a very bad job at telling you about our ways. Girls' eyes never change color. Only boys. Among chienkuu ko, you will see that boys and girls are very different from each other."

  "What do you mean?" Just as Han finished speaking, Kidou's hand slap the side of his head. "Ow. What did you do that for?"

  "Turn around and sit still. I think it's starting," Kidou grunted, paying little attention to our conversation.

  Han and I immediately faced the front just in time to see a large, wide-shouldered man dressed in a Kimono and Hakama walk through an open door on the far, right side of the room. Sheathed at his side was a long, slender Katana. He looked similar to the sword warriors from our nation's past, before people used gunpowder and rifles. Behind him, followed a boy and girl, both of which looked a few years older than me. The boy wore a white long-sleeve satin shirt that glowed amidst the pale light from the room‘s lanterns along with a pair of matching trousers; the kind which I later learned that martial artists wore in the western continent of Kin Ju. The ends of his sleeves and pants were bound to his wrists and ankles, wrapped by strips of white cloth. The girl wore a plain, but elegant peach-colored kimono. Her hair was done in two buns on either side of her head. She had no hair decorations, except for the ribbons that tied her buns in place. Both of them had the Imperial Chrysanthemum on the sleeve of their left shoulder.

  "That swordsman in the lead, he's their guardian, " Etsu whispered. "Most high ranking chienkuu ko are assigned one."

  The slow, reverberating sound of a bell echoed from deep within the ship as an old man in a blue robe, decorated with silver serpents entered the room. I instantly recognized him as Master Lu, the man whom we met on the ship‘s ramp. As if the Emperor himself had walked in, everyone in the room was quick to honor him with a deep bow. Another man dressed in white robes walked in, waving a short, wooden stick about the length of my arm. At the end, were long strips of paper, with characters written on the face of each one. He shook and waved it about as if painting the air with it. I would later learn that it was a warding stick, which priests used to scare off evil spirits. He waved it in front of the boy and the girl, mumbling strange words that were meant to bless them and make sure no misfortune would befall them. Then he wandered about, continuing to wave the stick, blessing the room. After he finished, a young girl carried a tray with two cups to Master Lu. He presented one for the boy and the other to the girl. They drank reverently, then handed the cups back with grateful bow.

  "What are they drinking?" I whispered over my shoulder.

  "It's a special kind of strong tea," Etsu replied ", it keeps them awake."

  "Awake to do what?"

  "Shush. You’ll see in a moment."

  The entire procession turned in unison and filed slowly out of the room, leaving behind the boy, the girl and the guardian. Everyone gave one last bow as Master Lu disappeared behind the door. The guardian walked up and down the neatly rowed children, giving all of us suspicious looks, as if searching for a demon that was hiding amongst us. His heavy feet thumped against the wooden floor and he breathed heavily, like an animal just before a charge. Finally, he made his way to the back of the room, where he stood, like an imposing sentinel, observing the two older children as they took take their places.

  At the front of the room, just where the wooden floor stopped and the enormous curved, glass wall began, were three large, thickly lined circles drawn side by side. A fourth circle lay further back, centered behind the other three. The boy took his position in the middle of the three circles while the girl knelt down on the fourth behind him. They kept their backs to us as they faced the wall of glass in front of them. Minutes passed. The ship’s bell continued to ring several more times, and when the sound finally died away, all that remained was an unsettling silence.

  Then, a series of smaller bells could be heard chiming from inside the room. Everything was too far away for me to see clearly, but I managed to see what looked like a small collection of dials and gauges displayed like a vast painting in front of the boy. Each one seemed to beckon his attention by making their own separate chiming sounds. He must have seen this as his cue, as this was the moment when I would see first hand, the reason why Miss Nishio had chosen me.

  If I asked you today how airships fly, you would probably say it is because of the machines, and the engines and gyros inside. You would probably mention the simple mechanics of the lifting properties of bags of hot air. Or, if you were especially knowledgeable, you would talk about the ships of the west that levitate without hot air; the ones that use a strange, crystalline mineral known as rose phasia, a rock that has the added property of floating when treated with a certain amount of flame or heat. Store enough of these in pontoons and you could make any vessel fly.

  But what if I told you that there was a time when a single nation, called Rui Nan, made airships fly without hot air or heated rocks. That instead, such a feat was done by the actions of a sacred group of very gifted people? What if I told you that Rui Nan had unlocked the secrets of the heavens and had found that certain young people could make things, both massive and small, soar like a graceful crane riding the summer winds? Today, the people of Rui Nan would call it nothing more than nonsense. To them, flight is just the manipulation of science and machines, and that is all they are willing to accept. There’s a bit of sorrow to be had, knowing that is all they will ever understand. Little do they know, that just a generation ago, in the years of my childhood, our nation possessed a secret glory that was as much the embodiment of our culture as it was the reason our airships commanded the sky.

  The boy stretched out his arms like a bird preparing to leave the earth. And just as he did so, I heard the floor and walls creak around me. There was a sudden shutter, an abrupt shake, and then a gentle vibration. Gasps and whispers filled the air as the other children around me watched with anticipation and wonder at the boys sweeping arm movements. At first, I thought about how strange it was that he would dancing at such a time as this. It was then that I realized that his movements were the same as the performers at the summer festival. The girl that accompanied him, sat in the back while her partner performed in front wi
th his back to her, just as I had remembered so many months ago. Outside the glass wall, I saw something particularly strange wisp and wave about unnaturally, like someone was pushing at the wind, guiding it somewhere else. I blinked in surprise as I noticed that what I had been seeing outside the glass, were in fact, lights drifting about, the same ones I had seen before the rains. This time, there were so much more of them. So many in fact, that they were the only thing I saw. It was as if the world had been submerged underneath the ocean.

  "Do you see it Han? Do you see what I see? There‘s lights everywhere, like we‘re underwater. And he's moving it around with his arms," I said quietly.

  "I see something. But I don't see water. I can make out scattered, glowing blobs. It’s kind of funny, because it looks like he's making them dance," Han replied with a slight chuckle.

  "Blobs? Is that all you see?." Kidou was watching with a calm, expressionless face. "The lights look like tiny rivers and he's using his arms to snake them from one direction to another."

  "All three of you are right," said Etsu ", and also wrong. My Seeker calls it, second sight. All chienkuu ko boys have it, but your eyes are not properly trained yet, so you‘re each seeing the Great Ether differently. Some see it as a few speckles, some as puddles or little streams flowing in all directions. But after you’ve spent some time training at the Imperial Temple, you’ll learn that it’s really more like an ocean, and we all live underneath and within it. If you look closely, you’ll see that the girl is watching his hand movements. You see, a chienkuu ko, is actually two people acting as one. The boy can see the Great Ether, and the girl can move its currents, change its course and its form. One can see, but cannot change, the other can change, but cannot see, so they work together. When the boy moves his hands, he’s telling the girl how to move the Ether."

  "So the girl is actually moving the lights I see out there?" I asked.

  "Yes." Etsu‘s eager face popped up from behind my shoulder. "I didn't understand it at first either. But my seeker explained that it was just like a painter standing before a blank canvas with a brush in his hand. Terr, Han, Kidou, you three are the eyes that can see the painting unfold as you guide the hand with the brush and show it where to paint. If the eyes were alone, it would just remain a blank canvas. If it were just me, I could paint, but I’d do it blindly and in the end I’d just create a mess. That’s how both boys and girls are different, at least according to what I‘ve heard."