Brave Story (42 page)

Far across the grassland, Wataru spotted another clump of trees. “We’re ’bout halfway there,” Kee Keema said, pulling on the reins. “How’s about we take a rest at that oasis, hrm?”

Instead of a well, this stand of trees had a small spring surrounded by stones, from which clear water bubbled and burbled in an ever-flowing stream. Wataru cupped some in his hands and tasted it. It was sweet.

“I’m famished! Aren’t you? Let’s eat.”

Wataru sat down by the spring and spread the package he had received from the Wayfinder on his knees. Meanwhile, Kee Keema brushed down Turbo, then went back to his carriage. Thrusting his hands beneath the cover, he pulled out something that looked like a slab of some dried meat.

“What’s that?” Wataru asked, craning his neck to see, when he saw with horror that the thing in Kee Keema’s hands had two eyes shining a violent shade of red. Kee Keema’s jerky had a face.

“This? Dried n’bara. Best thing on the road,” the waterkin said, licking his lips and taking a big bite out of the thing’s side.

Wataru swallowed the bile he felt rising in his throat, and steadied himself. Though it was hard to tell from its current desiccated state, he figured the n’bara was a small animal that looked something like an extremely ugly raccoon.

So the waterkin are carnivores.

Wataru noted this new fact in his head, and quietly ate his bread. Kee Keema finished the n’bara jerky in three bites, and began picking fruit from the trees around the spring. Crunching one between his teeth, he offered another to Wataru. “Mako berries! They’re a little on the sour side, but they won’t mess with your stomach like baquas. Careful not to get any of the juice on yer shirt, ’cause you won’t be able to get it out later.”

Wataru was reminded again of the importance of knowing what you could and couldn’t eat around here. He would have to learn a lot if he was going to be able to travel in this place alone. He was incredibly fortunate to have met someone like Kee Keema so soon after beginning his journey. Wataru was determined to learn as much as he could before they parted ways.

First things first, though. Back to the history lesson. Wataru begged Kee Keema to continue. The waterkin gave a satisfied belch, and raised an eyebrow. “What were we talking about again?” His long tongue lashed out and licked the top of his head. “Oh right, the northern continent, unification thereof. Well before unification, the Empire was just another small country in the North, a land of ankha.”

Three hundred years before, this small country had tenaciously clung to victory through a long series of wars, and proceeded to slowly unify the entire continent.

“That’s when the first emperor, Gama Agrilius I, arrived on the scene, saying his family was directly descended from the old God. And the Goddess who said she received the world from the old God—the Goddess that we pray to—they said she was of a lower rank than even their own ancestors. She wasn’t even qualified to rule our world, they claimed, but she had deceived the old God and tried to steal the world away from its rightful owners: House Agrilius. Can you believe it?”

And that wasn’t all.

“When I first picked you up, remember I told you that the ankha were the first race created by the Goddess, and that’s why they look so much like her? Well Gama Agrilius I, he said that was a pack of lies. The ankha don’t look like her, he said, they look like the Old God. After all, according to them, he’s the one who made the world.”

This new emperor went on to claim that the true form of the Goddess wasn’t anything like the ankha at all, but was a crude, aged thing too horrible to bear looking at.

“That’s why she doesn’t tell us her name, and that’s why she hides in the Tower where none can see her. Because, if we could see her, then we’d know the truth. That’s what they say, anyhow.”

Wataru folded up his lunch while Kee Keema continued with his story. The lizard-man’s face was drawn tight.

“Like I said, the lands to the north knew war for years, and the people there lived on the brink of starvation. Oh, they had to struggle terribly just to stay alive. Gama Agrilius I, he said the endless wars, and the lack of food, were all the fault of the Goddess. See, she visited plague and hardship on the ankha because she resented them. She’d rather have ugly, twisted things, like her, to take their place. The long and the short of it was, the Goddess was trying to exterminate the ankha, and it was up to them to fight back.”

Kee Keema tilted his head and blinked slowly, deep in thought. “What happened next I can hardly believe. The ankha living in the northern lands—not only the emperor’s family, but them that lived in the other smaller countries as well—they all ate it up, every last word! Oh, they clapped and shouted and cheered him for saying it.”

There were many different races living in the northern lands, Wataru learned, but of them the ankha were by far the most numerous.

“They joined together and started exterminating the other races, and they were strong, real strong. If you lived in the northern lands and you weren’t an ankha, your house and fields’d be taken away, you’d be killed, or thrown in a camp and made a slave. The number of non-ankha dropped by the day. And then, the ankha had their glorious empire.”

It was clear to Wataru now why Kee Keema had said he was glad to have been born in the south.

“Now, three hundred years since unification, they say there’s hardly anything but ankha living in the north. If there are any other kinds left, why, you can bet theirs ain’t an easy lot. It’s enough to make you cry.”

It didn’t take much imagination to conclude that the Empire would like nothing better than to invade the southern continent with the excuse of strengthening ties with their kinfolk in Dela Rubesi. Then they would proceed to make an empire of the south as they had in the north, Kee Keema said glumly. “But, these three hundred years, not a single high priest of Dela Rubesi has made the slightest motion toward joining House Agrilius’s empire. They seem content to live in seclusion up in the mountains, with no ties to the world below. Us nonbelievers here don’t even know what the high priest looks like.”

The Northern Empire couldn’t make ties with Dela Rubesi if the latter had no contact with the outside world.

“We in the United Southern Nations are careful how we deal with Dela Rubesi and the believers, though. Wouldn’t want to rile ’em up and give ’em cause to look for
friends
to the north, if you get my meaning. That’s why we agreed to their odd demands in the trade agreements, so as not to provoke them and give them reason to come storming into our territory. Aye, dealing with Dela Rubesi’s a bit like having a snake in your bed. You don’t want to kick it out or try to trap it because it might bite you. You just leave it alone.”

Wataru nodded slowly. The whole story sounded vaguely familiar—like maybe something of the sort had happened in his world—but whatever it was, they hadn’t learned it yet in social studies.

“When I came here,” Wataru said, “I was told that Vision was created by the imaginations of people—humans—living in my world. Maybe that’s why events here seem kind of familiar?”

Kee Keema scratched at his upper lip. “What’re
hoomans
?”

Wataru grinned. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks for telling me so much.”

“Right, then, let’s be off,” Kee Keema said with a smile. “The long and the short of it is, stay in the south and you’ll do fine. We know peace, here.”

Chapter 5
Gasara, Merchant Town

Once again they took off, rocking and swaying across the grasslands.
By now Wataru had grown used to Turbo’s gait and was able to sit on the wooden seat without the constant risk of falling off. Wataru asked his helpful guide question after question: what was safe to eat, what dangers lurked in the wilds of Vision. Kee Keema was happy to oblige with answers.

After they had gone some distance, Wataru spotted a thick, verdant forest far ahead of them, a hundred times larger than the small wooded oasis they had previously seen. A building like a tower with a triangular roof stood among the trees.

“The town of Gasara,” Kee Keema announced, pointing ahead. “A merchant town. Lots of folks come here: darbaba teamsters like myself, sailship merchants, even starseers on their travels from town to town in search of new knowledge. It’s a lively place, Gasara.”

The air was bone dry here, and the sun was hot. Wataru wiped the sweat off his brow, and squinted as he looked over the town of Gasara. He noticed something glinting to the left of the woods surrounding the town—riders on darbaba, heading out over the grassland.

“Who are they?”

Kee Keema looked out over the grass. “Oh, them? Them’s probably the Knights of Stengel—the ones in charge of keeping the peace here in the United Nations. That’s quite a few of them too. That sparklin’ you see is the sun on their armor. From their direction, I’d say they’re off to fight gimblewolves out in the Fatal Desert.”

Ack! Gimblewolves!

“This Fatal Desert…it’s close?”

“Aye. Turbo here could make the journey to the gorge that leads into the desert in about a day.”

“Why the name?”

“Because it’s big, and it’s surrounded by rocky crags, so you can’t even get a good look at it until you’re right in the thick of it. With no maps of the place, and gimblewolves running amok, many are the fools who wander in never to be seen again. No return, see?”

Wataru remembered his run-in with the gimblewolves, and the hair stood up on his neck. “Wait, why do they have to go kill the gimblewolves? The wolves don’t come out of the desert, do they? Do they attack people?”

“Sometimes. Those corkscrews’ll eat anything, and they never seem to get full. That’s why they come over the rocky crags and attack merchant caravans traveling the road on the other side—huh?” Kee Keema looked curiously at Wataru. “You know about the gimblewolves?”

“Unfortunately,” Wataru answered. He didn’t want to think about it. “I’ve…heard stories.”

“Have you now? Well I’m happy to say stories are as close as I’ve ever gotten to the things meself. I hear they stink something fierce.”

Turbo glided to the left, and the gates to town appeared before them—heavy wooden panels suspended between two thick pillars of stacked brick. Atop one of the pillars sat a man wearing what looked like a straw hat. Kee Keema waved, and the man waved back and shouted something in a loud voice to someone behind the gates.

Turbo approached the gate slowly, stopping a good distance before them. Just then, the gates creaked into motion, opening outward. Turbo was wise. He stopped just far enough away that the gates wouldn’t hit them when they opened.

“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.”