Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [217]
The path to Sonn wound through marsh and thicket, but it had been well trodden by Shin on his trips for supplies, and was relatively easy to follow.
Sonn was by far the smallest of all the towns and villages Wataru had seen during his time in Vision. A grand total of ten simple houses with thatched roofs sat huddled together in a small clearing cut out of a copse of trees. But it was adjacent to a vast pasture on the sloping side of a hill, many times larger than the town itself. The pasture was divided by several fences. These separate enclosures held darbabas, udais, and other strange livestock Wataru had never seen before. The beasts bleated and bellowed, locked horns, chewed grass, and slept.
The town master was a beastkin who looked like a long-eared dog, with warm eyes peeking out from beneath bushy eyebrows. Wataru’s udai had been taken special care of, and its coat shone with a recent brushing.
“Why, we’ve some karulakin in town right now.”
The karulah, it turned out, came to Sonn to trade their decorative feathers for furry creatures called mols. Mols were smaller than mice, and famous for their voracious appetite. They especially liked the tiny insects that were fond of living on the underside of karulakins’ wings.
“You’re young, yes, but a Highlander is a Highlander,” said the karulakin to whom the town master introduced Wataru. With his red feathers, gaudy headdress, and stately way of speaking, the karulah reminded Wataru much of the one who had saved him from the gimblewolves in the Fatal Desert. So striking was the similarity that Wataru started to wonder if even the karulah had trouble telling each other apart.
“And if we were to turn down a Highlander’s request, why, that’d be to the shame of all karulakin everywhere, wouldn’t it, town master?”
“Yes, quite,” the long-eared town master replied, smiling. “This here’s Togoto of the Kakkuu. He’s the swiftest-winged of the Kakkuu, I hear. You’ll be in Sakawa in no time.”
“You speak imprecisely, town master,” Togoto said with a frown. “I am not only the fastest of the Kakkuu, but the fastest of the Rakka as well. Even still, the trip to Sakawa will not take ‘no time,’ as our dear town master suggests. Why I think you should have time enough to, say, hear me recite the History of the Karulah from the birth of the first ancestors up to, well, about the reign of the Second King and the Battle of the Breaking of Gara Pass if you so desired!”
While Togoto prepared for departure, the town master spoke in a hushed voice to Wataru. “Stick a ball of rolled up mol-fur in each ear, and you’d be able to sleep like a baby at the foot of a roaring dragon. Here’s two of them for the trip. Togoto may be fast, but his pontifications are anything but.”
“Understood,” said Wataru, smiling.
“And don’t worry too much about having to say anything yourself. Just go ‘Oh, right’ and ‘Ah, yes’ and throw in a ‘My, that’s quite remarkable’ every once in a while and you’ll do fine.”
Wataru had imagined Togoto would carry him in his claws, as it had been with the karulakin in the gimblewolf desert, but when he was told they were ready to depart, he found a chair like a wicker basket waiting for him. It hung by means of a cleverly designed harness from Togoto’s torso.
“I’m sorry you have to do all the work.”
“A Highlander should not be so eager to apologize. When an apology is called for, it should be for a suitable crime, and only after all proper documentation has been submitted. Why, at the Accord of the Battle of Taro, the ancestors of the karulakin…”
And so the lecture started even before takeoff. With most of the village folk waving goodbye, Wataru sped up into the air.
They passed so close over the thatched roofs of Sonn, Wataru could’ve stretched out his toes and touched them. A child waved, and Wataru waved back. They were blessed with perfect weather. The sky was a solid sheet of blue, without a trace of any clouds. Togoto ascended rapidly, so fast that Wataru felt himself wanting to shout,