Guardian of the Dream
Part One - The Dream of the Flower
Chapter 2 - Those Who Won't Wake
Tanda bent over his little niece, Kaya, and took her pulse. He felt the worried looks of his brother’s family boring a hole in his back.
Asleep, Kaya looked much younger than she was. At fourteen, she was underweight and very pale. A blanket woven crudely of shilya vines clung to her sleeping form. Her breaths were shallow and even and her pulse was normal--perhaps a bit slow.
Kaya was asleep and wouldn’t wake up, but there didn’t seem to be anything else wrong with her.
"This has been going on since morning, you said?" Tanda asked, turning around to face the family. Noshir, Tanda's brother and Kaya’s father, nodded.
"Yes. Even if you shake her, she won't wake up."
"She didn't hit her head hard or anything, right?" Tanda shifted his gaze to the worried faces of his nephews and sister-in-law, but they all shook their heads.
"She was the same as always until last night. She usually wakes up at dawn and works all day, but now…"
Tanda turned back to Kaya. He took her wrist and tried shaking her vigorously, but she continued sleeping, breathing normally. She was smiling as if she were happy--as if the dream she was having was a good one. It seemed a shame to wake her, but she had been unresponsive since dawn. Her condition looked harmless from the outside, but it definitely wasn’t normal.
Tanda took a deep breath and placed his fingertips together, lightly joining his hands. He murmured an incantation to sharpen his awareness of the room. In this heightened state, he checked Kaya’s pulse again with his right hand and settled his left hand over her forehead.
Tanda reached out to Kaya with all his senses, shutting his eyes tightly to block out the world and focus only on her. At long length, he sighed and opened his eyes.
“What is it? What did you do?” Noshir asked. “Is she cursed?”
Tanda waved away that possibility, but Noshir didn’t seem to be paying attention. Noshir stood up abruptly, then gestured Tanda over to him. Tanda, puzzled, left his niece’s bedside and joined his brother in a corner of the room.
"Answer me as quietly as you can. Has Kaya been cursed?" Noshir asked.
"There are no traces of a curse," Tanda said. “Whatever is wrong, it isn’t that.”
"What is it, then? Some kind of disease?"
"I don't think it's an illness, either."
Noshir narrowed his eyes. "What is it?" He was losing his patience.
"I have no idea why Kaya won't wake up,” Tanda said. “There’s no obvious reason for her to stay asleep like this. She’s not cursed, and she’s not ill.”
Noshir snorted. "You're sure you can tell whether or not it's a curse, right?" Then he sucked in a breath. Tanda was his little brother and he was used to talking down to him, but a lot had changed in the past year. Noshir had always treated Tanda as his weird and unreliable younger brother, but now, Tanda was a national hero who’d helped the Crown Prince save the country from a great drought. Noshir ducked his head, then cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry,” Noshir said. “I’m sure you’re right. None of us understands magic weaving--certainly not better than you do. I meant no offense."
Tanda nodded placidly. "Anyway, I'm sure it's not a curse. But you’re not wrong for wanting another opinion. I'm still an apprentice magic weaver. Master Torogai is home right now, so I'll go consult her. Then we'll know what's going on."
Noshir scowled and looked down. He returned his gaze to Tanda.
"I'm grateful for that. But even if you find the reason, tell the others that her sickness is a curse."
Tanda looked askance at his brother. What was the point of lying about any of this?
"You know why! She’s getting married in the autumn. It will hurt her reputation less if others think this is a curse and not some strange disease."
Tanda shook his head. "I understand that, but if a rumor that someone cursed her spread, girls who don't like Kaya, or even completely innocent people might be suspected and suffer for it. I can't agree to lie about that. Not when it might harm others."
Noshir’s expression set in rigid lines. "We're talking about your niece! About Kaya! You don’t live in the village anymore. You live in the mountains alongside evil spirits and whatnot, so you probably don't understand, but just see what happens if you spread weird rumors around here. Kaya would never live it down! She’ll suffer her whole life for it!”
He paused. Then his eyes lit up as if he’d just gotten an idea. “We won’t lie. We’ll blame that traveling performer who came to our village recently. It doesn’t matter if his reputation gets ruined around here. Not compared to Kaya’s reputation."
Noshir’s shoulders slumped. "Tanda… how old are you? I'm thirty-eight, so you must be around twenty-nine. It's about time you settled down and had a child of your own. I know there aren’t a lot of women in the mountains--your aged master and that female bodyguard don’t count. But you’re too old to be playing in the mountains and chasing after spirits. It’s time to grow up, Tanda. You’ll never understand our lives here until you mature enough to settle down yourself.”
Tanda managed a smile. It was a smile of habit; he was the youngest son of the family, and Noshir was the oldest. Disparagement and misunderstandings between them were common. Tanda preferred to live away from the village for many reasons, not least of which was that he and his brother were too different from one another. Sometimes it was hard to believe they shared blood. The differences between Tanda--odd, quiet, shy and a magic weaver--and the stalwart, square-jawed farmer Noshir formed a gulf between them that was too large to be bridged.
Noshir sighed, then put a hand on Tanda's shoulder. "It’s not that I don’t trust your judgment. You’re a hero, and people trust you, including people in the village. No one thinks of you like one of those shady traveling magic weavers. I’m sorry I snapped at you, I… I’m worried about Kaya. Please do everything you can for her.”
Tanda nodded.
Noshir let him go back to check on Kaya. Her mother, Naka, knelt by her side. Tanda addressed her. "Try to give Kaya something to drink three times a day. Sit her up carefully and help her drink so that she doesn’t choke. If she keeps down water and doesn’t spit it up, dissolve some honey in warm water and give her that next. Keep her body as clean as you can."
Naka was a farmer, too: her shoulders were broad and her arms were corded with strong muscles. She nodded at Tanda’s instructions. Unfortunately, it was just after the rice planting season, which was one of the busiest times for the family. But Kaya was important to them all, and the whole family would pitch in to help Kaya until she was well again.
***
Tanda walked down the path leading away from his brother’s house, deep in thought. It was unusual for him to brood. His unlined face and kind, open countenance didn’t lend themselves well to unpleasant thoughts. He was well-known as an herbalist in the area; people came to him just as much for his expertise as they did for his kindness.
Noshir’s judgment stung him. He was an herbalist and a magic weaver, so he would never be accepted as a villager, even if he decided to do something crazy like settle down here where he knew he wasn’t welcome. Herbalists and magic weavers weren’t farmers, so their contributions to society weren’t valued. They didn’t have to pay taxes, since those were usually paid in rice. Because of that, in times of famine, Tanda wouldn’t be able to request any rice to eat from the government, either. He couldn’t marry anyone in the village or participate in festivals. Though it wasn’t strictly forbidden, people feared magic weavers, saying that they spoke to spirits, sent souls to the afterlife, or traveled through other worlds.
Tanda didn’t want to impose his solitary existence on anyone else. He lived close to the Misty Blue Mountains, roughly an hour's walk away from New Yogo's capital, Kosenkyo. New Yogo was founded two hundred years before. The settlers had rejected their own warlike kingdom of Yogo and crossed the wide sea to move to this green and plentiful land on the Nayoro Peninsula.
Before the Yogoese came, the peninsula was inhabited by the indigenous Yakoo people. Unlike the Yogoese, the Yakoo had dark skin and eyes, and spent their days cultivating small fields, hunting wild animals and gathering plants. Over the generations, many Yogoese farmers intermarried with the Yakoo, so most common people were mixed-race Yakoo and Yogoese, with tan skin and brown eyes. However, the royal family, nobles and very prosperous merchants avoided marrying Yakoo to keep their bloodlines pure.
Like most common people, Tanda was part Yakoo and part Yogoese. His skin was a dark brown, as was his short hair. His eyes shone with a soft light. His face, which was usually unperturbed, was pulled into tight, grim lines. His low, slightly upturned nose completed the picture of Tanda deep in thought.
Tanda's hut stood in a small meadow surrounded by the Misty Blue Mountains. It was just a single room with a small well in the corner. He shared the hut with his master, Torogai, but she had a habit of suddenly disappearing and staying away for long stretches of time. They’d never formalized the arrangement, but the hut was just as much Tanda’s as it was Torogai’s.
Tanda brooded all the way home. When he opened the sliding door leading into the hut, the smell of warmed rice wine wafted to his nose. Torogai sat the middle of the room, stirring the contents of a clay pot suspended above a hole in the wooden floor that opened onto the bare ground to allow for a cooking fire.
"What a smell! What are you cooking, Master?"
Torogai lifted her head. Her skin was very dark and wrinkled, and her hair was white and unkempt. Her eyes were thin slits, and her nose was broad at the base and curved at the tip. She was incredibly ugly, except for her eyes, which were bright and clear and shone with the strength of her spirit.
Torogai was said to be strongest and most skilled magic weaver of her generation.
"I'm boiling chicken in some rice wine," Torogai said in a low voice. She sounded tired. She looked up at Tanda and frowned. "What? Is there something on my face?"
Tanda down next to the fire and explained his niece's strange condition. "I thought it would only make him worry, so I didn't tell my brother, but I think her soul isn't in her body right now."
"You tried finding it through her Soul Thread, right?"
“No,” Tanda said, though that wasn’t a bad idea. “I tried to link our souls.” To create the link, Tanda had touched his niece's wrist with his right hand and her forehead with his left, trying to join their souls briefly through touch. "Her soul isn’t gone--she’s still alive--but I couldn't find her soul in her body."
Life force and the soul were separate forces, but they were connected--bound by an invisible link that Torogai called a Soul Thread. When a person died, the Soul Thread snapped, untethering the soul from the body. This untethered soul then connected to another body in the process of rebirth, forever continuing the circle of life. The soul was responsible for feelings, thoughts, and dreams. Life force ended forever, making the physical body die, but the soul carried its half-remembered experiences from body to body as it continued on, eternal.
The mobility of souls made them subject to tampering. Ordinary dreaming was a case in point. The soul created dreams. Dreams were usually a mix of memories and current desires, but some souls had the inherent ability to leave the body they were linked to and visit another world, Nayugu, while that body slept. The waking sleeper considered the dreams of the other world nothing but a fantastical experience, even though Nayugu was real.
There was magic weaving that could separate a person’s soul from their body. The death of a body also severed a person’s soul from it. The soul couldn’t be reborn until it had forgotten most of what had happened during their previous life. Those that didn’t forget--who harbored hatred or grudges over old wrongs--became ghosts, haunting the shadows of their old lives.
Magic weavers like Tanda and Torogai knew techniques to soothe angry souls and send them peacefully into the afterlife and the circle of rebirth. That was why Tanda could tell that Kaya’s soul was no longer in her body. It was still connected to her, but he didn’t know where it had gone.
"Hmm… This can't be a coincidence," Torogai muttered. She scratched her head. "I went to see Shuga this morning."
"Oh. He’s that Star Reader from before, right?"
Star Readers were learned men of New Yogo. They were considered authorities on matters of religion and scholarship. Their research was conducted in the Star Palace of Kosenkyo, the capital city of New Yogo. Shuga was a bright young star among the Star Readers; people said he was a genius. Shuga and Torogai became acquainted after Second Prince Chagum fled the Imperial Palace to save himself from his father’s harsh and unfair judgment. Now, Prince Chagum was safely home, but Torogai and Shuga had kept up their correspondence in the months since that misadventure.
"Yes. He wanted advice on a case exactly like your niece's."
"There are others who won't wake up?"
"The First Queen has been sleeping for two days already."
Tanda’s eyes widened in surprise. The First Queen was the mother of the the Emperor's oldest son, Crown Prince Sagum. A little over a year before, Crown Prince Sagum had died of a terrible illness. Her grief over the loss was so great that she’d spent most of the last year in mourning, secluded in the Mountain Palace far to the north of Kosenkyo.
"Two whole days," Tanda said, stunned. "What could cause this?"
"No one in the Star Palace knows. What about your niece? Your brother didn't say that anything had happened to her, right?"
"He didn't. But I just thought of something."
Torogai raised an eyebrow.
"I'm close to Kaya. I don’t see her often, but when we talk alone, she tells her strange uncle things she wouldn't tell anyone else." Tanda smiled a little, then said, "Not too long ago, a traveling entertainer came to the village to sing. Apparently, he had a really good voice. Kaya was impressed, and she’s not easy to impress that way. I’ve never seen her so head-over-heels for anyone else. I thought it was just a cute girlhood crush, but what if it wasn’t? I mean, I know the traveling entertainer wouldn’t give her the time of day; he’d have no reason to fall in love with her. “
Tanda paused. “That entertainer left for the next village. Maybe Kaya is heartbroken? She couldn’t follow him, so… so she settled for dreaming of love instead of being denied it in the real world.”
Tanda rubbed his chin in embarrassment. "It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. The other day, Kaya’s parents decided to marry her to a farmer from the next village over. He’s eighteen years older than her. She didn’t complain, but my sister-in-law told me she’s been depressed since then and doesn’t want to work. She's at the age when thoughts and feelings tend to get jumbled, so… I might be wrong, but it’s all I can think of.”
Tanda sniffed at the chicken stewing in rice wine. He blinked. "Also--I just remembered--when I was trying to touch Kaya's soul, I smelled something. Something like… flowers?
"When someone is cursed, they smell like burned dolga root. That’s what's usually used in curses. Kaya didn’t smell like that at all. Is there some way of cursing people with flowers that I don't know about?"
Torogai said nothing in response. She stared vacantly into the flames of the cooking fire as if she was looking through them to a different time and place.
This was one of Torogai’s moods. Whenever she got like this, Tanda wouldn't be able to get an answer from her no matter what he asked--not until the mood lifted. Tanda sighed, then bent forward to look into the clay pot where the chicken was brining. With practiced movements, he skimmed the broth and tasted it. Bitter alcohol stung his tongue. His nose scrunched; he moved to the well to draw up more water for the broth.
That done, Tanda added some green vegetables and potatoes as well. If Torogai wanted to drink her food, he could at least make it taste marginally better than this.
When the broth reached a rolling boil over the fire, Torogai moved. Tanda scooped some of the soup into a wooden bowl and passed it to Torogai.
Torogai held the bowl as if she was only warming her hands with it. A few minutes later, she drank the broth and swallowed down the meat and vegetables with a vaguely dissatisfied expression. It was early summer, but nights in the mountains were still cold. Hot soup containing rice wine warmed the whole body from the inside.
Torogai sipped a tea made from ramon leaves and mumbled a few words. "Maybe it's time for the Night of the Flower in the other world."
"Night of the Flower? What do you mean? Does that happen in Nayugu?"
The Yakoo knew of the existence of two worlds. One was the everyday world, that everyone saw, which was called Sagu. The other world was called Nayugu, and it was usually invisible to everyone except magic weavers.
The Yogoese didn’t believe in Nayugu, as a rule, but both Torogai and Tanda had seen it personally. They could even converse with some of the creatures that lived there.
"Tanda. There are a lot of things I haven’t told you. I never wanted to tell you. My past makes a poor story, and it puts me in a worse mood." She frowned, deepening the dark wrinkles in her skin.
Torogai spoke haltingly, like she was hand-selecting every word. It was so unlike her usual way of flinging words out helter-skelter and not caring how or where they hit. “You know how Nayugu and Sagu overlap with one another. But you haven’t swum in Nayugu’s depths; not yet. Nayugu is like… a bottomless swamp. The deeper you go, the deeper it gets. Two-bit magic weavers never find out how deep it goes, and think the surface is all there is. And that's fine. For weak magic weavers, the deeper parts of Nayugu are deadly."
Torogai grinned hugely, exposing broken teeth. "My master, Norugai, went really deep. I think I've finally managed to match her in my old age."
Tanda smiled in encouragement.
"Tanda. Nayugu isn't the only other world out there. Sagu and Nayugu overlap, like bubbles pushed together underwater. Other worlds are the same, though the Yakoo haven’t named them."
Torogai sighed. "Before I knew anything about magic weavers, I met someone in a mysterious world. That was soon after I lost a son."
Tanda looked at Torogai in mute amazement. "A son? You have children?"
Torogai's expression twisted. She glared at Tanda. "I was young once, you whippersnapper! Of course I had children!"
"Oh. Oh, yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean any offense."
"I gave birth to three children: two sons, one daughter. It was long ago, and the village I lived in was poorer than most. No one could make a living off the land, and all of my children died.”
“...died?” Tanda echoed dully.
“Before they were four. All three of them.”
This was the first time Torogai had told anything of her past to Tanda. He understood why she hadn’t wanted to speak of it. Her early life was more tragic than he’d guessed.
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