Sky of Paper: An Asian Steam-Driven Fantasy Tale

by Matthew Seaver

  "What you did might not have been a wise thing to do, " Lai said. "In the eyes of the temple masters, to deface such a sacred object is the same as giving great insult to yourself."

  "I didn't do this," I replied.

  "Didn't do what?" Etsu came up to see for herself. She stared at it with wide eyes.

  Kassashimei gasped, hovering curiously over my shoulder.

  "I had no idea you were such a good artist," Kassashimei teased.

  "Everyone back away, " Lai said, taking the tamma from my posession. "Kassashimei sit back down. We need to continue. He will be judged by his teachers, not by me, or anyone else here."

  Etsu stepped away, regarding me with what seemed to be, admiration.

  Kassashimei did what she was told and sat back down with her usual smug smeared across her face.

  "Now, concentrate on just floating the boat, " Lai said, mounting the ball on the pedestal. "No more surprises like last time."

  I nodded and looked over my shoulder at my partner who waved me on impatiently. Attempting to ignore my growing anxiety, I gazed out beyond the bow and concentrated. Sadly, just like before, minutes passed and the ether refused to reveal itself.

  I squinted, widened my gaze, turned my head in every direction possible, but still, my purple eyes would not grant me their gifts.

  "Don‘t feel ashamed if its too hard for you," Lai said. "We'll just practice some more forms and techniques."

  I shook my head and waved him off as he approached. "I want to do this. I want to learn how to control it."

  "Terr, close your eyes." Etsu called out from the edge of the clearing. "Close your eyes for a moment."

  At first, I felt the need to disregard her, but all too quickly, I was compelled to ask, “why?”

  "Just do it," she blurted.

  I did just as she instructed, waiting patiently with my eyes shut.

  "Now, when you open them, make sure the first thing you see is your tamma. Don’t look at anything else, otherwise it will not work."

  "What won't work?"

  "What do you think?"

  "Etsu, don't tease him with false hopes," Kassashimei chided. "Pond fish have more control over the sky than him."

  I ignored her, leaning forward, until I was sure the tamma was directly in front of me. Then, slowly, like a nervous animal cub, peering at the world for the first time, I opened my eyes.

  A fierce, white glow, like a thousand fireworks, radiated outwards from the glass ball. The air, the sky, the ground; the light encompassed everything until I found myself going blind. I cried out, hastily feeling for the side of the boat as I lost my balance and fell backwards.

  I could hear the worried murmurs of everyone around me, but refused to acknowledge them as I stood myself back up. When my eyesight returned, the white wall of light had died away, and the blue and green shimmering ether was once again revealed to me.

  "I see it," I exclaimed. "I see everything."

  The tamma was alive with countless arrows and needles of different sizes and lengths, pointing the directions of even the slightest of currents.

  The distance of my sight felt almost limitless. Even the restless, ethereal waves churning far against the starlit horizon was visible.

  "Are you alright?" Mai climbed onboard and placed a concerned hand onto my shoulder from behind.

  When I turned to face her, I was so surprised at what I saw, I immediately shut my eyes and covered them with my palms. Cautiously, I looked at her again, but my vision of her had not changed. She was a shadow, a hazy specter with only a dark silhouette for a body. As I gazed at the others, I saw that they too, had been turned into formless blotches. Every one of them was the same, except for Kassashimei, whose body was not shrouded in shadow, but instead, was covered in a shimmering, bluish-green light.

  "What's happening?" I said in desperation. "I can't see any of you. You're all ghosts!"

  Frightened, I lost my balance again, but this time, I fell off the boat completely.

  It felt like several hours had past, but in reality, I was unconscious for only a moment. I was afraid to open my eyes. Still, when one of them suggested that we should stop for the day I told them that I was fine. Mai helped me to my feet, but I quickly lost the will to stand and slumped back to the ground.

  "Terr, what happened?" Mai asked. "What did you see?"

  My eyes were still shut, afraid to be greeted with the same image that had so startled me. “Please tell me that you're all real, that your not really spirits."

  "What are you blabbering about?" Kassashimei said. "Stop being a coward and open your eyes."

  "Kass, stop picking on him," Etsu protested.

  I took a slow, shallow breath, allowing my eyes to open slowly. Thankfully, everything was just as it was before. The lights, glows and eerie spectres that I had seen previously, were once again the familiar faces of my companions. My visions of the ether had subsided, leaving behind the faded shimmers of the stars against a dark, blue-gray sky. I sighed with great relief and fell backwards, laying flat against the earth, my eyes wide with a mix of confusion and gladness.

  Etsu kneeled down beside me and held the lantern over my face. I suspected her to be surprised or worried, but instead, she offered me a humble, mysterious gaze, much like a teacher witnessing a student grasping a lesson's meaning for the first time. As I looked into her alluring gaze, I found myself growing suspicious of her.

  She calmly patted my forehead like a mother to a child then stood up to face the others.

  "We’re finished for today," she said in a serious tone. "We will try again tomorrow."

  As we trekked back to the temple, Etsu remained close at my side, eyeing the pouch tied at my waist, which held my tamma.

  "Keep a close eye on that and make sure you never lose it," she said.

  "You know something, don't you Etsu?" I asked.

  "Of course she does," Kassashimei said, shoving her way between us and waving her strange feather stick about. "She knows everything. Why do you think she's our class leader?"

  She continued to strode ahead, stamping her feet and humming an odd, unfamiliar tune.

  Etsu shook her head at her then turned her attention back to me.

  "Your tamma, those markings, it means you're special." Her voice was hushed, as if she were worried the trees were eavesdropping.

  "Special? I‘m not sure if I should be happy or worried." I stuck my hand into my pouch, cupping the sphere in my palm. "It was given to me by Master Lu's daughter, but I still don't know why."

  "You’re not the only student to receive one of those Terr. My shyo mu got one too. But I'm not sure of its meaning yet. All I know, is that it heightens your second sight, makes it more sensitive, attuned. It has a way of training your abilities much faster than others."

  "You have a shyo mu already?" I blurted. "But how? We aren't even supposed to be paired until we graduate to the River Temple."

  "You're already paired," she said matter-of-factly, pointing to the stick-wielding girl ahead of us.

  "But that's different. There's a test I have to prepare for."

  "We’re all preparing for something Terr. You think you’re the only person in this predicament? There are many students with secret lives, training themselves for things that you may never see or take notice of. As for me, I am to be tested as well, same as you. At least that’s what they say. But I don’t think it’s a test. They just call it that so we’re not suspicious. I have a feeling that we’re being prepared for something, like we’ve been chosen for something very important. You and I, and everyone else with that tamma are intertwined somehow."

  "If that’s true, then I’m not sure I’m ready for what they want me to do. I don‘t think I could handle worrying about a future I know nothing about."

  "When I was chosen to be class leader, I felt so overwhelmed. My master came up to me and said that I should only be thinking about today. And then, for every day that comes afterwards, keep my mind just on that day
. You should do that too Terr. Don't worry about why you’re doing this or that, just do it, and later, everything will start to make sense.

  And what Lai said about the markings on your tamma, don't worry about it. Students carve pictures or symbols on them sometimes, usually for luck, sometimes just so they can tell theirs apart. Most of the time, the teachers don't pay much attention to what a student's tamma looks like. Lai is just one of the few serious people that actually cares about these things."

  "Etsu," I said interrupting her again. "Are you scared about all of this, about everything that's happening?"

  I think she was surprised by the question, because for a moment, she was eerily silent. It was then, that Kassashimei's laughter pierced the icy air. Etsu jumped so suddenly at the sound, that the lantern shook in her hands, causing the shadows around her to dance and squirm.

  "Did I just hear a boy admit that he's scared?" Kassashimei announced.

  "I didn’t say I was scared," I spat, annoyed by the strange girl. "I just asked if Etsu was scared is all."

  "Well I'm scared." Kassashimei changed her steps to a playful trot, looking over her shoulder as she spoke. "I‘m scared of you screwing up and getting us hurt. And I’m sure you’re going to send us crashing again. "

  "And how exactly do you know that?" I said defensively. “So I made a mistake. I‘ll learn from it, just like everyone else."

  "You are not like anyone else," she replied. "You barely got here and already, you think you can move the sky."

  She came up to me with a sly look on her face and rasped my nose teasingly with her feather stick. "You keep forgetting that you're no better than the other beginner students."

  "That's enough Kass," Etsu said calmly. "I doubt that any one of us are much better than the other students of our class, but someone thinks we should be. You, me, Terr, and who knows how many others, we aren't being treated like normal students. Maybe we are being tested, or it might be that we really have been chosen to do something important. Whatever that is, you should remember that you are in this, the same as the rest of us."

  "Hmph." Was her only reply. She rasped my nose again with the stick and pulled it away before I had a chance to reach for it and take from her. She turned away and continued to proceed ahead of us, all the while humming her strange tunes.

  "You may not like her Terr," Etsu said. "But she’s your partner now. Watch over her. Keep her safe. "

  Chapter 8

  When a boy and girl are joined together as shyo mu and shyo mah, there is a certain ceremony that must be done. I can only ever recall witnessing it four times in my youth. There was always a priest present, watching over the two as they placed several burning incense sticks on a humble, wooden alter.

  Such affairs were kept as private as possible. Even their guardian, usually a large, imposing man with a sword at his side charged with their protection, was required to stand outside, next to the temple entrance.

  At first sight it was easy to assume they were getting married, but unlike marriage, both the boy and the girl never looked at each other, or expressed fond emotions. Instead, they sat side by side on a bamboo mat before the alter while the priest bound their palms together with a red ribbon, symbolizing their unity.

  After the priest had given his blessings, the two picked up their tea cups with their free hands and sipped it reverently. For such an important moment, it was one of the simplest ceremonies I had known.

  Unfortunately, none of this happened when it was decided that Kassashimei would become my shyo mah. It was such a landmark moment in my young life to be paired with someone, and yet, for reasons that were not explained to me, it had to be kept a secret. As such, there would be no ceremony for us.

  Beginner students such as myself were forbidden to be bound to another, which was why I felt both scared and confused about the strange situation I found myself in. It was as if I was standing in an empty field and told to walk to a certain place without knowing which direction it lay, or what awaited me when I got there.

  I found myself so worried and filled with apprehension, that during tamma reading class, I had lost a great deal of my focus.

  We were doing an exercise in the courtyard, which involved all of us to walk in the same direction, gazing only at our tammas. If the arrow in the glass ball pointed a certain way, we were to follow it. The idea was that we all would move and turn at the same time, like a flock of birds, as we followed the changes of the currents.

  We were made to concentrate as hard as possible while we moved about like performers on a vast stage. Master Wa was quick to scold anyone who looked at anything else besides their tamma. We were spaced out in such away that we could hardly see the person next to us without turning our heads. He wanted to make sure that none of cheated by looking at the other students and copied their movements.

  Every once in a while, Master Wa would call out my name.

  "Terr, you're going too slow," he would say. "Why are you stumbling around?"

  Sometimes the arrow would continue to point to the right or left, which meant I had to spin or continuously move in a circle. Because my anxious mind continued to be distracted, I would find myself running into other students, or accidentally shoving my shoulder against them. At one point, I became dizzy from all the spinning and turning and clumsily fell to the ground.

  I looked up to see Masa's foot strike my shoulder. He pretended to not see me and acted like he was stumbling before regaining his balance. I groaned as I sat up and rubbed at the pain in my shoulder.

  "Stand up, stand up right now," Master Wa said firmly.

  "But my shoulder."

  "I don‘t care if it‘s bleeding. Now get up and continue your tamma reading."

  He smacked the ground with a swatting stick he had grown accustomed to carrying around with him.

  As I got to my feet, I found that Masa had been pulled aside by one of Master Wa‘s assistants. He was sternly lectured, at first by the assistant, then by Master Wa himself, who personally inspected his posture, then expressed his distaste for the boy’s actions.

  With all my tripping and hapless floundering, it only took Masa one simple stumble to catch the teacher's undivided attention. For the remainder of the class, everyone else was largely ignored while Master Wa and his assistant railed, trained and pushed Masa until he was performing to absolute perfection.

  After what I had witnessed, I found my animosity towards him subsiding. Though I constantly worried about an uncertain future, Masa had just as much to be distressed about, as he was treated with even less compassion than me. It seemed that every teacher in every class waited in earnest for his slightest mistake. He was the son of a temple master, and so, his every action carried the weight of his father’s expectations. To a certain degree, our class’s reputation was a reflection of his performance.

  That evening, Han had informed me that I was being summoned to the Wudan Wall for further training. When I asked him why, he simply shrugged. As I stood alone at the wall, I thought about Masa again; about how I too, had become the center of attention, but for reasons unknown to me.

  The wind always seemed stronger at the wall. Even though the trees in the surrounding area remained still, the single everbloom tree, that hung over the wall's edge, waved ceaselessly to an unending breeze. It was as if that very spot had been blessed by the presence of an undying wind spirit.

  "Well, what are you waiting for?" the Boar said as he approached from behind a small rise. "The chalk is already there. Start drawing. Show me what you have learned so far."

  Without question, I hurried over to the wall and picked up the chalk. Starting at the at the furthest edge, I slowly began drawing lines in an effort to trace the path of the forces that drove the wind, just as I and the other students had done everyday in the Boar's class.

  When we first began, we were instructed to draw dots across the wall, showing the high and low points of the ether's path. As our eyes became more attuned, we started drawing small
line segments, showing more and more detail of how it flowed. The tree's branches were shaken, and as its blossoms came loose, they drifted to follow our meager lines and dots, but never as perfectly as that demonstration was saw on that first day.

  That evening, I was overly confident and decided to draw one, long continuous line. Doing such a thing took time, and I was very slow and careful, checking and rechecking how the invisible forces curved and twisted, sometimes, with strained eyes.

  "Don’t be too ambitious Terr."

  I heard his footsteps behind me and I turned to acknowledge him, but he quickly waved me away.

  "Keep your mind on your task."

  I nodded and continued to draw as he lectured.

  "Serving tea to one of the temple masters. Early morning training with the advanced students. Why, you were even invited to attend the Jade's End ceremony with Master Hotaka. You have been most busy. Certainly, your days would not have been this studious if you had remained in your home village.

  There are a great number of things that you will come to realize in your future. If you are willing and gifted enough, I will prepare you for them."

  "But what is all of this for Master Ichiro?" I asked, looking over my shoulder. He sternly waved his pipe and I immediately turned my attention back to my task.

  "Why are you doing all of this?" he said, repeating my question. "Why are you here, and not your whole class? Why are you doing all this extra training? Why is there so much focus on you?

  Why it is because I believe you have a gift you have not yet realized. Isn't that enough?"