The Beast Warrior

by Nahoko Uehashi

  Elin shook her head. “Who is responsible is not the point. For those killed, that makes no difference at all.”

  At these words, a fierce light kindled in Seimiya’s eyes. “Regardless, it is my role as the ruler of this land to order my men to lay down their lives for the safety of our people. The best I can do is to avoid making them die needlessly.”

  Clouds drifted across the sky, casting a fleeting shadow across her face until the light touched her pale cheeks again. For a moment, Elin thought she caught a glimpse of the Yojeh’s ancestor in that face, an image of the woman who had determined, at her discretion alone, the lives of men and beasts and the fate of this country; the woman who had sought only to bring peace and security to her people. Although Seimiya was standing right beside her, to Elin she suddenly seemed very far away.

  “Just as you have chosen a different path from your mother’s,” Seimiya said, her voice almost a whisper, “I, too, have sought to break the seals fixed by my ancestors. Because I believed that was the best way to protect the lives of our soldiers. But…” She grimaced. “If the catastrophe that you fear should come to pass, I will be remembered for generations to come as the Yojeh who led her kingdom down the wrong path.”

  There was a tremor in her voice. The image of Jeh that Elin had seen in Seimiya’s eyes vanished, and a look of anguish suffused her white face.

  8

  ELIN’S DIARY

  Jesse had no memory of how he made it home. The guard who opened the door for him spoke, and he heard himself answering as though from the other side of a thick fog. Passing through the guardhouse and into his own quarters, Jesse closed the door behind him. As he stood by the hearth in the empty room, words kept echoing inside his head: “You plan to shoulder all responsibility for what may happen on the battlefield alone, don’t you?”

  The Yojeh’s words. His mother’s expression as she answered. Everything he had heard and seen from behind the tree spun around inside his head, crushing him.

  There was a lot they had said that he hadn’t understood, but as he listened, fear had boiled up like a black cloud in his chest and finally taken shape. He turned his vacant eyes to the spot where his mother always sat.

  She plans to die …

  For a long time now, something had been bothering him. He was sure that his mother hated having to train Leelan and the others for war. Royal Beasts were so powerful, he doubted anyone could ever beat them. But the thought of the Beasts dropping from the sky and ripping people to shreds made him wonder how his mother could ever have agreed to do it. “They’ll be killing our enemies. What’s wrong with that?” his friends had told him. But they’d never seen a Royal Beast bare its fangs. They had no idea how ferocious, how absolutely terrifying they could be.

  Even now, he shook violently at the memory of Leelan’s snarling face, of her jaws pulverizing the broom. And the thought of what would have happened if it had been a person instead made his stomach churn. Besides, no matter how powerful the Royal Beasts might be, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that they could be destroyed if enemy soldiers and Toda managed to surround them. By training the Beasts, his mother might be leading them to their deaths.

  At times she looked at the Royal Beasts with such anguish in her face that Jesse was sure she hated what she was doing. Yet she kept on going. And she never showed her pain to others. This is what had been bothering him. With the Yojeh’s words, his vague fear had taken shape and pierced his breast.

  So that’s it. She plans to die to make up for the fate she’s forcing on Leelan and the others. But why? Is that really the only way?

  Questions tumbled and whirled inside him. Sinking to the floor, he wrapped his arms around his knees. Loneliness stabbed him. If war broke out, his mother and father would leave him here all alone. Tears welled in his eyes, and he buried his face in his knees. Inhaling the scent of his skin, he wept. For so long now, he had kept a lid on the loneliness that lurked inside. The days when his family had lived together in town seemed like a dream. His father leaning over a chest of drawers he was working on, the scent of wood shavings, the smells of food cooking in the neighbors’ houses, the shouts and laughter of his friends, his mother chopping vegetables in a corner of the kitchen—he missed it all so much that he could barely stand it.

  He had thought that his father would come home when he was finished fighting the Lahza, and they could have their old life back again. But maybe they never would.

  His knees were wet with tears. His father and mother were going to go far away and leave him behind. In his mind, he saw their backs receding into the distance.

  He clenched his teeth. He was mad at them both. They always did this—left him without telling him what he needed to know, without any thought for how he felt!

  He gulped for air and brushed his tears away. He wanted to break something. Plates, cups, anything. He wanted to hurl them at the wall and hear them shatter. But if he did, the guards would come running to see what had happened. He couldn’t stand the thought of trying to explain or of listening to them lecture.

  With gloomy eyes, he surveyed the empty room. To his surprise, the door to his mother’s room was slightly ajar. She always kept it tightly closed, but today, there was a space as wide as his fist. She must have left it open when she went out at dawn so as not to wake him.

  He stared absently through the crack. When they lived in town, she had often stayed up writing by the hearth. He would climb onto her back and peer over her shoulder. She would laugh and say, “You’re too heavy. Off you get.”

  “What’re you doing?” he would ask. “Writing about what happened today,” she would say. She had taught him how to read and write the strange letters she used. But since they had moved here, she no longer wrote by the hearth. Instead, she stayed in her room, studying and writing. When he asked what she was doing, she only smiled and answered vaguely.

  Jesse stood up. Walking around the hearth, he put his hand on his mother’s door. His pulse beat faster. A voice inside told him that he shouldn’t, but he pressed his lips together and opened the door wide. The afternoon sunshine fell upon the small desk and bookshelf. Books jammed the shelves, and more were piled on the floor. Several books bound only with thread lay on the desk. Jesse walked stealthily to the desk, although he knew it would be some time before his mother returned. Suppressing his guilt, he began flipping through the pages.

  The top five books recorded the lives and ecology of Toda and Royal Beasts. When he opened the one beneath these, letters written backward from the way he had been taught at school leaped into his eyes.

  Mirror script. The one his mother had taught him when he was small. He paused, startled. As a child, he had thought it was a game, but now a completely different thought occurred to him.

  I see. Mother uses this so that no one else can read what she writes.

  After this realization, he couldn’t stop himself. He ran back to the living room and grabbed a hand mirror from the top of the dresser. Angling the mirror so the words were reflected on the glass, he began to read.

  * * *

  The ringing of the bell brought him back to the present with a jerk. Dusk already filled the room. He had been so engrossed in reading, devouring one diary after another, that he seemed to have missed both the lunch and afternoon breaks.

  Hurriedly, he gathered the books he’d left scattered about and returned them to their place on the table. Leaving the door open a crack, same as he had found it, he went back to the living room. It was sunk in darkness. As he knelt by the hearth and stirred the embers with a poker, he thought over what he had just read, feeling as though he was returning from a long journey.

  The loneliness and anger of the morning had sunk deep inside him. In its place, a leaden feeling weighed down his chest. His mother had written about her life, sharing things he had never known about her past: about her mother and her mother’s people; about how she, and now her family, were connected to the Yojeh; about the Royal Beasts and
the Toda. His mind was reeling with the knowledge of how she had lost her mother when she was only ten and how she had learned to communicate with Leelan.

  Someone had once told him that his mother had Ahlyo blood. He had never thought about what that meant, but now the reality of it thudded in his chest, making him shudder. Just like the Yojeh, the blood of those who crossed the Afon Noah long ago ran in his veins, too. His green-eyed ancestors had been the first to turn Toda into weapons of war, while the Yojeh’s ancestors were not gods but a people who had raised Royal Beasts in the Afon Noah. Both had crossed those mountains to reach Lyoza. Even now, remnants of the Toga mi Lyo, who called themselves the Kalenta Loh, lived in a valley somewhere in the Afon Noah.

  His mother had written that she wanted to seek them out. What happened long ago? How did the golden-eyed Jeh and the green-eyed Toga mi Lyo, who should have been enemies, become friends and end up helping each other? Why was it wrong to pit Royal Beasts against the Toda? His mother had hoped that the Kalenta Loh could help her find the answers to such questions. When Jesse read why she had been forced to abandon her search for that valley, the magnitude of what surrounded his whole family hit him full force.

  To the very last page, which had ended with yesterday’s entry, Jesse had felt as if he were walking with his mother. Distant memories had come alive. How long ago was it? They had still been living in town. He remembered the buzzing of cicadas, so it must have been summer. His father and mother had taken him on a long journey, deep into the mountains. Sweating with the effort, they had climbed a steep mountain trail until suddenly they came upon a meadow that spread as far as he could see. It was filled with a profusion of flowers that seemed to brighten everything. Their fragrance was so intoxicating, he had run laughing and shouting through the field and then thrown himself on top of the blooms. His mother had lain down beside him. Holding hands, they had gazed up at the blue summer sky.

  Tears fell from his mother’s eyes, but she had just let them slip quietly down her cheeks as she looked at a cloud drifting lazily. When he had started to ask what was wrong, his father had swept him up in his arms and started tickling him. He giggled and squirmed, and his mother had sat up and begun tickling him as well. He had laughed so hard tears had run down his face.

  Having read his mother’s diary, he could now guess why she had cried. She had written about a man named Joeun who had nursed her back to life and raised her as his own child. Every summer, he had taken her to a small hut in that field of flowers. She grieved that he had died before she could repay his kindness. She had wanted to show him that she’d grown up and built a happy life. Maybe she’d been talking to Joeun as she lay in the grass gazing at the sky. Maybe she had brought her family there to show him.

  Now that Jesse knew the life his mother had lived, memory fragments from his childhood took on new meaning. Maybe she’s writing it for me, he thought suddenly. So that if she vanished from his life, he would understand. If so, then what he had guessed must be true. She was planning to die.

  He felt as if his mother’s hand had gently touched his hair. The embers in the fire blurred, and Jesse closed his eyes tight.

  9

  FLIGHT OF THE OCHIWA

  It began drizzling at dawn on the day the Yojeh was to leave Kazalumu. The rain signaled the end of spring. Once it had passed, the sky would turn to the color of summer. The Yojeh was scheduled to leave before noon, and the carriage was already standing by, but she seemed reluctant to go. She went to the stable, bidding each of the Royal Beasts goodbye. She left Leelan for last. Looking up at the Beast dozing in the dusky shadows, she breathed a soft sigh.

  “In the end, you didn’t respond to my voice, did you?” Leelan must have heard, because her ears twitched, but her eyes remained shut.

  Seimiya turned to Elin, who was waiting behind her. “Will the day ever come when Leelan responds to me?”

  Elin smiled and nodded. “Yes, most certainly.”

  Seimiya’s lips twitched. “You speak with such confidence. Do you have some reason to think so?”

  “Yes, I do. Perhaps you didn’t notice, but Leelan’s behavior has changed greatly since you first arrived, Your Majesty.”

  Seimiya blinked and looked at the Royal Beasts. They were all napping, perhaps made drowsy by the pattering of the rain. As she watched them, a slow smile spread across her face. “You’re right,” she said. “They have changed. When I first came, they glared at me and growled.”

  Every time she had approached the Royal Beasts alone, they had raised their wings and rumbled, staring down at her with a cold gleam in their eyes. Seimiya wondered when they had stopped. The change must have been gradual because she couldn’t remember when they had ceased threatening her. Clearly, however, they no longer considered her a danger because here they were, sleeping peacefully in front of her. A warm feeling spread through her chest.

  After standing for some time gazing up at the Beasts, Seimiya turned to Elin. “They’re amazing creatures, aren’t they? Even when they’re sleeping like this, I can feel their power.”

  “Yes.”

  A light shone in Seimiya’s eyes. “It must be a wonderful feeling to control the Royal Beasts so freely.”

  Robbed of speech by this unexpected remark, Elin could only stare at her for a moment. “To be honest,” she finally said, turning her eyes to Leelan, “it is. Frighteningly so. Especially when I’m speeding through the sky on Leelan’s back and the Royal Beasts suddenly change course in response to my harp. It always gives me goosebumps.”

  She turned her eyes back to Seimiya and said quietly, “These magnificent creatures move as I will them, and that’s incredibly exhilarating.” She took a deep breath and carried on. “But the next moment I am always overcome with fear. Many times the terror twisting inside me has caused me to shake so badly that I can’t play my harp until it passes.”

  Seimiya’s brows rose. “But why?”

  “Yes, I wonder. Why?” Elin murmured. “Perhaps because I feel I’m doing something that’s beyond my capacity. Lady Seimiya, have you ever skied?”

  Seimiya shook her head.

  “What about riding?”

  “Yes, I love riding.”

  “Then I think you can understand what I mean. Have you ever found that when you set your horse at a gallop, it feels wonderful for a time, then suddenly you’re afraid? You feel the horse picking up speed to the point where you can no longer control it, and you’re frightened of what will happen if it doesn’t stop. Have you ever felt that kind of fear?”

  Seimiya nodded emphatically. “Yes, I have.” A smile touched her eyes. “When I was a child, there was a very gentle horse that did whatever I asked. That made me so confident, I decided to surprise the guards who were riding with me and urged it to a gallop. It tried so hard to please me, that it took off at tremendous speed. I was petrified. It took everything I had just to cling on.”

  She stopped abruptly and looked up at Leelan. “Yes, I see what you mean.” She paused for a long moment. The sound of the rain on the roof and the gentle breathing of the sleeping Beasts filled the stable.

  “I have been so afraid,” Seimiya finally whispered, her eyes still fixed on Leelan. “Ever since you came to me that night long ago and told me about my ancestor. Ever since I learned that I wasn’t a god but just an ordinary human being.” Her voice was almost inaudible, as if she were talking to herself. “It’s been so hard, trying to be something I’m not, trying to do something I can’t.”

  Slowly she turned her face to Elin. “But when I met you again and you told me more about Jeh, it suddenly hit me. She also knew she was just an ordinary human being, yet she managed to achieve so much.”

  Elin said nothing.

  “While I was listening to you,” Seimiya continued, “I was thinking that she must have been far stronger than me. But then remember? You told me a cornered mouse is neither strong nor weak.”

  “Did I?” Elin murmured.

  Seimiya gave a crooked s
mile. “Indeed, you did. I remember it clearly.” Her gaze was calm as she looked at Leelan. “I may be weak, but I will no longer use my lack of capacity as an excuse to run away. When the time comes, I will send you and the Royal Beasts to subdue our enemies. Still…”

  Her face twisted, and she turned to look at Elin. “I can’t help but be torn by regret. If only the knowledge of the past had been passed down to me, if only I knew what happened when the Royal Beasts were sent to battle! Then I wouldn’t suffer such fear and anxiety about what I’m doing!”

  Her shoulders trembled. Elin took a step toward her and placed a hand gently on hers. Seimiya’s eyes widened, unused to such a familiar gesture, but her fingers pressed against Elin’s in response.

  “Many times,” Elin whispered hoarsely, “I’ve dreamed that I was an ochiwa flying through the sky to the Valley of the Kalenta Loh, the ones who remain. Each time, I find the green-eyed ones and the golden-eyed ones living together and beg them to tell me what will really happen if I fly the Royal Beasts to war.”

  Seimiya blinked. “An ochiwa? Why an ochiwa?”

  Elin brushed tears from her eyes with her fingers. “Do you remember me telling you that I read an ancient diary when I was staying in the manor of Yoha— I mean the lord of Amasulu?”

  “Yes.”

  “An ochiwa is mentioned at the beginning of that diary.” The words were seared into Elin’s memory, and she recited them softly. “While spring is young and snow remains, then comes the ochiwa.” The diary said this exchange of messages was begun ‘to cheer the spirits of the young maiden who had once again donned that heavy mantle, her heart troubled by the fate of a people in the lowlands far away.’ Our Royal Ancestor Jeh and the Kalenta Loh sent messages to each other by ochiwa.”

  As Elin spoke, Seimiya frowned suddenly. “What is it?” Elin asked.

  Seimiya shook her head. “I had no idea. So that’s how the Flight of the Ochiwa started.”