by Yusuke Kishi
“The important thing is to just avoid the rock, right? Even without taking the exact same route, we’ll still be able to find the next part of the path.”
I could still clearly remember the animal trail in the bushes higher up on the hill.
“Sure, but how are you going to do that?”
“Make a path with our cantus?”
“I see…yeah. That’ll work.”
I wonder if our judgement had been impaired by fatigue and anxiety. The plan was just as reckless as Mamoru hauling a child’s sled up a steep hill. We cleared a path in front of us using the image of a giant shovel. The path that cut through the snow looked much safer than the slippery road we had been using.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We went single-file along the narrow path. The cleared path was only about forty or fifty meters, so when we reached the end, we had to stop and remove more snow.
Then, there was an unpleasant creaking sound.
“Shit. An avalanche…!”
We stood, petrified. Come to think of it, we had cleared a horizontal path right in the middle of a steep hill. I’d have been surprised if there wasn’t an avalanche.
“A roof!”
“Split it!”
We shouted over each other. A terrifying torrent of snow was rushing toward us with the intent of burying us alive, but was diverted by two invisible wedges right above our heads to either side. The snow fell to the bottom of the valley in a glistening shower.
It was over in less than a minute, but felt like an eternity.
The avalanche stopped before we even realized it. Most of the snow on the hill had fallen off and only small dustings of snow continued to trickle down every now and then.
“Saki, are you okay?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Totally fine.”
Both of us had used the image of a gabled roof. Instead of trying to stop the entire mass of the snow coming toward us, diverting its path was a better alternative. Luckily, our cantus did not touch, and the two of us were uninjured. Still, it took us a while to calm down and stop shaking.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…yeah right. Look.” He pointed at the top of the hill.
Now that all the snow was gone, all that was left was the rough, frozen snow from yesterday. If we had caused an avalanche right at the beginning, we would have been able to travel more safely. But there’s no point dwelling on the past.
Soon, we found the place where Mamoru’s sled had fallen. We took the faint animal trail in the bushes up the hill.
“Almost there.”
There were no footprints to follow, but Satoru knew where he was going. At the thought of being reunited with Maria, I sped up unconsciously.
“Huh?” Satoru stopped without warning and I almost crashed into him.
“Don’t stop all of a sudden like that!”
“I don’t see the snow hut.”
“No way…”
I looked around at the sparse forest. I thought this was the place, but I wasn’t completely sure. It might be just a little farther ahead…
Me eyes fell upon two pine trees about thirty meters ahead.
“Over there! It was between those trees.”
We searched the area carefully. There was no trace of the hut, but something looked off. There were clumps of snow stuck high up on the trunk.
“Someone destroyed the hut and leveled the snow.” Satoru rubbed his chin, a sign that he was deep in thought. “A queerat couldn’t have done it. There was a lot of snow; I don’t think it could have managed to pulverize all of it and spread it around. Either Maria or Mamoru did it with cantus.”
I felt slightly relieved. At least they had been fine when they left here.
“But which way did they go?” I looked around again. There were no footsteps or sled tracks.
“No idea. It looks like they made sure that no one would be able to follow them.”
“You think they went to the trouble of erasing all their tracks?”
“The queerat probably did. Maria can fly quite well even when carrying Mamoru.”
I was at a loss for words. I had thought everything would be fine once we made our way here. Now I realized how ridiculously naive I had been.
“…I don’t suppose they went back home?” I asked hopefully.
Satoru shot me down immediately. “If they did, they wouldn’t have had to erase their tracks.”
What were we supposed to do? I was about to cry, but managed to hold it back because Satoru was with me.
“We have to look for them.” Even as I said that, I was painfully aware that we didn’t really have a plan.
“I know…but we should rest a little first. Let’s build a fire and make lunch. It’s no good trying to do anything when you’re half-starving.” Satoru brushed away the snow on a fallen log, sat down, and opened his backpack.
Feeling just slightly relieved, I sat down beside him
Having to retrace our path back to the boats felt like a colossal waste of energy. But I couldn’t complain. There wasn’t a lot of time left.
The sky had grown darker as the cloud covered sun moved slowly west. It was probably just after three in the afternoon. The snow had mostly stopped; only the occasional flake fell here and there.
Our speedboats flew up the dark grey river.
Compared to two years ago, our steering skills had improved dramatically. That, plus the fact that the boats had been engineered for speed meant we traveled at a blistering pace. We passed through the Holy Barrier at some point, but since the rope didn’t extend out onto the water, I’m not sure when exactly we did.
Our landing point wasn’t clear, but we managed to do alright based on Satoru’s sense of direction. There was a map in the boat, but we didn’t have the time to study it, so we pressed on ahead.
Satoru slowed the boat and shouted across to me. “I think this is the right spot!”
“Are we going ashore?”
He pointed ahead to a wide bank with a snow-covered plain extending all the way north from it. This wouldn’t be a bad starting point.
We moored the boats and went ashore. Since we had been using cantus the entire time, my head felt hot and stuffy. I wanted to stop and rest, but there wasn’t time. We strapped on our skis and started moving immediately. We went up a hill and soon crested the ridge. From there we descended a gentle slope, letting gravity pull us down. Once we were on level ground, we shuffled forward using only our legs.
My head felt better after a while, but now the physical exertion made it hard to breathe. I gasped and wheezed desperately for air.
“Wait a sec…” I managed to call out as I stopped.
Satoru slowly turned around and came back toward me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just let me rest for a bit.”
I collapsed onto the powdery snow and waited for my breathing to return to normal. The wind felt good against my burning face, but soon my sweat made me clammy and uncomfortable. Wisps of steam rose from my body as I dried it with cantus.
“Try to stay hydrated,” Satoru said, handing me a cup of tea from his bottle.
“Thanks.”
I looked up at Satoru as I drank. For the first time I saw how kind and reliable he was.
“What are you staring at?”
“I was just thinking about how nice you are.”
He turned away abruptly.
“…hey, do you think we’ll find them?”
“We will,” he said firmly, looking back at me. “That’s our only chance of saving them, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s why we’ve come all the way…what’s wrong?”
I had frozen with the tea halfway to my mouth.
“Don’t turn around. About a hundred meters behind you…there’s something on the hill.”
“What?”
“A queerat, I think.”
All I could see was a dark shadow so I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t a bea
r or a monkey and it was too small to be human. I couldn’t think of any other creatures that would be in this area.
Satoru used one of his special cantus techniques to create a floating mirror about thirty centimeters square and aimed it carefully at the hill far behind him.
“There it is,” he said in a flat, quiet voice.
“Can we catch it?”
“It’s too far away. We’d have to get closer.”
Just then, the sun came out from behind the clouds and its light glinted off the mirror. The dark shadow vanished.
“It noticed us.” Satoru clicked his tongue in frustration.
“We have to chase it.”
We flew over the snow. The short break had restored my strength for the time being.
There was no way we’d catch it skiing as leisurely as we had been earlier. We put all our cantus into making the skis go faster.
We crossed the open field in an instant and were barreling up the hill.
“Which colony is it from?”
“Who knows? But it isn’t Squonk, is it?”
It couldn’t have gone that far in such a short amount of time.
The queerat was nowhere to be seen when we got to the top of the hill. We hurriedly scanned the ground for tracks.
“There!”
At the other end of the hill was a line of small footprints.
“This way,” I said and immediately set off following the trail.
“Wait!” Satoru shouted.
“Huh?” The second I turned, the ground dropped out from under me.
I felt myself floating gently, falling through the snow.
Satoru’s voice came from far away.
Then everything went dark.
I opened my eyes.
Above me was a ceiling made of woven bamboo. Light came from a paper lamp, making the shadows on the ceiling waver. I was in a small room, lying on top of a thin futon. There was a small hearth right next to me, on top of which was a bubbling iron kettle.
“Saki.”
Satoru’s voice. I turned toward it.
“What happened?”
Satoru smiled with what seemed to be relief. “You stepped through a cornice.”
“A what?”
“An overhang of snow that collects on the edge of a mountain. From the top it looks like normal ground, but it’s really just snow so if you walk onto it, you fall through.”
“Did I fall all the way to the bottom?”
“No, I managed to stop you just before you hit. So you shouldn’t have any injuries. I was worried because you didn’t wake up though.”
I moved my arms and legs slowly. Everything seemed to work. After the surge of fear, all I felt was weariness. I wanted to sleep.
“What is this place?”
“Take a guess. You’ll be surprised. It’s the place we’ve been looking for. ”
“No way…seriously? The Robber Fly colony?”
“Yeah. It’s a small place, but this is the colony’s guesthouse.”
Satoru explained that the queerat we had been chasing was a soldier of the Robber Fly colony. When it saw me fall, it had hurried back to report the incident. The colony had sent out a rescue team and brought me back.
“So you’ve met Squealer already?”
“Yeah. But he’s been promoted and has a different name now.”
I heard a voice outside the room.
“Thank goodness you’ve awoken.”
“Squealer!”
Appearance-wise Squealer looked no different from other queerats, but his voice was unmistakable. Two years ago he had been wearing shabby armor, but he now had on a comfortable bear fur robe.
“It has been a long time, gods.”
“It really has. Have you been doing well in the meantime?”
“Yes, thank you. …lately the chances to show devotion to the gods have been plentiful, and I was honored to be bestowed with a most noble name,” he said, puffing out his chest a little.
“What is it?”
“I am now Yakomaru. It’s written with the characters for ‘wild fox’.”
It seemed that Squealer…Yakomaru really had been promoted. Since he was more of a strategist than a warrior, it was fitting that his name had the word ‘fox’ in it, in contrast with Kiroumaru’s ‘wolf’.
“In the past two years, the Robber Fly colony has made great strides towards recovery. Once, our very existence had hung in the balance, but we have merged with a few neighboring colonies and our numbers now reach eighteen thousand. This was possible only because of the favor of the gods…”
“I’d love to hear about the colony later, but we have an emergency right now,” Satoru said, interrupting the beginning of what sounded to be a long-winded speech. “We need your assistance.”
“Certainly,” Yakomaru agreed without even listening to the request. “Leave everything to your servant Yakomaru. I will always lay down my life to aid the two that I am most indebted to.”
He sounded almost too willing, but at the time that was the reassurance we wanted to hear.
“Where’s the Goat Moth colony?” I cut straight to the point.
“About four or five kilometers northwest of here. It’s not affiliated with the Giant Hornet colony, and has been unwilling to join our coalition…one of the few independent colonies.” His eyes flashed. “What would your business with the Goat Moths be?”
Satoru and I looked at each other. We needed Yakomaru’s help, but that meant we had to reveal a certain amount of information.
“We’re looking for our friends…” Satoru said, trying to summarize the situation without giving away more than he had to.
“I understand! And the fastest way would be to located the individual called Squonk. We’ll go to the Goat Moth colony first thing tomorrow.”
“I’d rather go right away…”
“I understand your feelings in the matter, but the snowy paths are dangerous at night. I fear that the Goat Moths might also construe our approach as a raid. There are only four or five hours until sunrise, if you don’t mind waiting.”
I was surprised that it was already so late. I looked over to Satoru, and he nodded, agreeing to postpone our departure until morning.
“We have prepared a simple meal. It’s not much, but I hope you will enjoy it.”
At his signal, two queerats came in bearing lacquered trays.
It reminded me of the rice gruel I had eaten at the Giant Hornet’s camp two years ago. Soft rice, miso soup with burdock, taro and other ingredients, unidentifiable dried foods, and grilled fish. The dried food was tasteless and hard as shoe leather, but everything else was alright.
Yakomaru stayed with us as we ate and pestered us with questions. It was obvious he was only pretending to chat with us in order to glean more information, and that annoyed me. When we finished eating, I decided to make a request.
“When we came here two years ago, it was nighttime too, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, yes. I’m very fond of that memory. Though, to be exact, it wasn’t at this location.”
“That time, we paid a visit to the queen even though it was already very late. I would like to greet the queen now, too.”
For some reason, Yakomaru looked perplexed. “I see…very well. I suppose the queen would be resting right now, but let us go anyway. If you like, I could show you the colony at the same time. It has changed considerably.”
We left the guest house and followed him into the colony. We were stunned by what we saw.
Two years ago, the queerats had mostly lived underground. The only things close to aboveground structures were small towers that resembled anthills. But now, the collection of dwellings they had looked just like a town.
The most common buildings were shaped like giant mushrooms. Yakomaru explained that the framework was made of wood or bamboo, and then covered with clay or processed manure. Lights glowed in the round windows and doors.
“Since we’re subterranean creatures by natu
re, all the houses are connected by a network of tunnels.”
There were factories for smelting, weaving, dyeing, and paper-making all crammed together and bustling with night workers. There was even a cement plant in the center of it all. Limestone brought all the way from Mt. Tsukuba was pulverized, mixed with clay and baked at high temperatures. It was then mixed with gypsum and pulverized again to make cement. Sand or gravel was added to make mortar or concrete.
“And this is the first of our buildings made with concrete.” Yakomaru gestured to the center of the colony.
It was a round, flat-topped structure thirty meters in diameter. I could only stare in wonder at this building that was as dignified as any building from the ancient civilization.
“This is assembly hall of the colony,” Yakomaru said proudly. “The sixty representatives of the eighteen thousand of us discuss and decide matters in this building.”
Two years ago, the colony was centered around the queen’s nest. How was it possible to bring about such a drastic change in such a short amount of time?
“What happened to the nest?
His tone darkened a little at my question. “As you can see, we have moved most of our activities aboveground. As such, restructuring of the nest was also inevitable. In addition, as colonies joined, they each brought their own queen, and it became necessary to consolidate them under one roof…”
“Then let’s go. We have to ask her about tomorrow too.”
“As you will. …but colony matters are decided by the assembly. In this particular case, I, Yakomaru, will act as the representative and take all responsibility of-”
“Whatever,” Satoru snapped. “We just want to say hello.”
Yakomaru looked defeated. “…very well. I will show you the way.”
Just then, the servant that had been sent ahead to check on the queen returned. He made his report in a squeaky voice and Yakomaru dismissed him with a wave of the hand.
