Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [130]
“Kee Keema of Sakawa,” Kee Keema announced, pulling something that looked like a card with a long string attached from the folds of his kilt. He waved it at the man atop the pillar. “I carry mai and mamas to Posura, by request of the Mercaid Merchants of Bog. Here’s my writ.”
A man strode purposefully out from inside the gate and began inspecting their cargo. His clothes resembled a single burlap sack with a hole cut in it for the head. His pants were short, looking like Wataru’s silk pants, but cut off just below the knee. He walked swiftly on woven sandals.
“You may pass.”
Turbo walked into town. Once through the gates, Wataru saw many houses like log cabins. As he looked around, Kee Keema hunched toward him and whispered in his ear. “Wataru, I forgot to tell you something very important. Listen up.”
Wataru leaned in closer.
“Remember when I first asked if you were a refugee from the north?”
Wataru nodded.
“Now everyone thought the ankha of the Northern Empire had peace of sorts until the refugees started arriving. Most of them risked their lives in handmade sailships to cross the sea, and as many that made it, many more probably died along the way. But some of them, they came across in merchant ships, and brought with them a great deal of gold.”
Something about that sounds familiar…
“To hear them tell it, there was fighting among the ankha of the north. Those refugees, they brought with them news, which was good, but they also brought their religion—the faith of the Old God. And it spread.”
In addition to being a rejection of the Goddess, the faith in the Old God had one more characteristic, Kee Keema explained. “Those who believe in the Old God think that Travelers like you are, well, evil.”
The followers of the Old God had a name for the Travelers who came through the Porta Nectere: “zaza-aku.”
“In an old ankhan tongue, it means ‘false gods,’ or ‘those who pretend to be gods,’ see?”
To deceive the Old God, the story went, the Goddess sought to remake herself in his image. Yet to perfect the form, she needed to practice, which she did by making false ankha—trial subjects, in other words. When she was done with them, the Goddess discarded them into the Abyss of Chaos at the edge of the land. But one of them lived, and passed from Vision into the other world—Wataru’s world.
“They say that the Travelers to Vision are the descendants of that one false ankha.” Kee Keema whispered, his teeth gnashing. “Don’t seem fair to me. Nobody ever talked such nonsense when I was a wee one. It’s a recent rumor about ancient things, it is, and that’s just backward.”
Kee Keema warned Wataru that among the followers of the Old God there might be some who would seek to do a Traveler harm. These men believed that killing a zaza-aku was one of the greatest demonstrations of faith possible—proof that one was a true warrior of the faith.
“Now normally you don’t need to be worried about anything. In other towns, that is. But Gasara is a merchant town, and all sorts gather here. You’ve a much greater chance of running into one of those Old God believers here than anywhere else. That’s why you might want to keep it under your hat that you’re a Traveler, ’kay?”
“Okay,” Wataru whispered back. “I’ll be careful. Thanks.”
Kee Keema sat up in his seat, and in a loud voice asked, “Well, Wataru, where shall we go? Lodgings first, I think.”
Suddenly, Wataru realized he had a problem. His fortune in finding the darbaba driver had completely distracted him from his situation. He had no money, and he had no idea what to do. He didn’t have a single lead as to finding one of the gemstones. He felt a bead of cold sweat trickle down his forehead. Kee Keema frowned. “Something wrong? I said something strange, didn’t I?”
It occurred to Wataru that this kindly waterkin had no idea that his lucky charm, Traveler Wataru, was nothing more than a lost boy adrift and alone in a place he did not understand. Wataru was so lost