Guardian of the Dream
Part 4 - The Night of the Flower
Chapter 2 - The Lake in the Mountains
As the sun sank in the western sky, Balsa ordered a halt for the horses. She dismounted first, then lifted Torogai, who had been sitting in front of her, down from the horse.
"That was awful, just awful." Torogai stretched her aching back, muttering all the while.
Yugno slipped smoothly off his horse, then crumpled to the ground. He had ridden on horseback only a few times before as a reward for singing for rich people, but such experiences could not have prepared him for riding alone at the speed necessary to keep up with Balsa's horse in front. The skin on the backs of his knees had peeled away, and his thighs would not stop trembling. He wouldn’t be able to stand for a while.
"You okay over there?" Balsa leaned over to give Yugno a once-over. Yugno moaned as he rubbed his cramping legs.
Balsa placed a hand on Yugno's shoulder. "Let's rest for a bit. We had the horses go pretty fast. Human legs couldn't possibly keep up."
They'd been on the move for almost five hours since leaving Tanda's hut and getting horses from the nearby village of Yashiro. Once mounted, they’d left the village and crossed the shallows of the Blue Bow River. There were paths leading up into the mountains that had been made by woodcutters and loggers who traveled up it for their livelihoods. Balsa and the others continued their journey by following one path in the direction of the Mountain Palace.
Balsa had called a halt at a watering place for the horses. Lumberjacks often let their own mounts rest here. The logging road veered off to the north from here and wouldn't lead them any closer to the Mountain Palace. To continue, they would have to enter imperial lands, where activities like cutting trees and hunting were not permitted.
Balsa left Yugno and Torogai to rest, then unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down. The watering hole consisted of a bamboo pipe which transported water from the lake to a box in a hole dug out at ground level. She collected the cold water dripping from the pipe and brought some to Yugno and Torogai. Then she pulled the horses along by lead ropes and let them drink their fill. When she placed the feed bags around their necks, they happily and noisily devoured the contents.
Watching them made Balsa feel hungry, herself. So far, they’d been riding with such urgency that she’d given no thought at all to food and water.
Not much of a bodyguard, am I? Balsa thought. She took out a parcel wrapped in bamboo leaves and peeled it open. It contained shuluji, which was made of finely-diced dried meat stewed in salt and sugar after drying and then mixed with freshly cooked rice. The whole mash was formed into shapes that were easy to hold and eat while on journeys.
Torogai noticed Balsa eating and extended her hand in a supplicating gesture that conveyed, Give me some, too.
"You guys are amazing." Yugno murmured, his breath feeble and coming in gasps. "I couldn't possibly eat anything."
Balsa sat down next to Yugno and took out a small wooden container from her bag. She opened its lid, removing a fragrant red maika fruit stewed in honey. "Get this in your mouth. Chew it slowly, then swallow, bit by bit."
Yugno scrunched his face up in distaste, but still put the honeyed fruit in his mouth. Soon after, his eyes flew open in surprise. The refreshing sweetness of the fruit spread through his entire body. "I didn't think maika were this good," he mumbled.
Balsa grinned. "I brought a bit of Tanda's prized honeyed maika along. I think he slowly boils it in honey with an herb called roga."
"Interesting. My head feels so much better. I feel like all that tiredness was just taken away."
"I know, right? It's the best medicine for exhaustion."
Balsa remembered being eighteen, returning home in a state of bone-deep weariness. Jiguro had pushed her past her limits that day. Tanda had brought her some maika on a plate. She’d never forget the taste of it.
Torogai reached out and took a maika for herself. "They say that healing is a woman's job, but that's a load of crap. Tanda is a born healer. Making this kind of stuff is what he's best at."
Yugno glanced at Balsa. She was frowning down at the fruit in her hand.
When everyone finished their fruit, Balsa wiped her hands on the grass and stood up. "Let's get going. We have to get to the lake before the moon rises."
Balsa tied the horses to a tree next to the watering hole and hefted the now-slightly-lighter luggage over her shoulder on the end of her spear. They would have to traverse the pathless slope on foot from here on.
Balsa took the front and made a path, sometimes cutting through underbrush with a hatchet. Yugno followed behind her with Torogai bringing up the rear. Balsa made steady progress, but Yugno and Torogai were both considerably slower. The maika had helped, but all that horse riding had really tired them out. They pushed on, taking breaks when they had to.
The sun continued its descent, casting the woodlands in gathering darkness. The three walked in silence, between the trees.
Near moonrise, Balsa stopped for a while to use some flint and tinder and skillfully lit a torch. It was made from a candle in a basket woven of thin bamboo, held away from herself by a short handle.
"Can you carry this?"
Balsa passed the torch to Yugno, then went back to cutting a path through the undergrowth. The light hardly reached Balsa's feet, but her pace never slackened. Other than the cries of birds startled by the noise, Balsa's hatchet-cutting, and three sets of footsteps, the forest was silent.
As Torogai walked, she began to feel like she was in a dream. It was like when she was young--like the time when she was called by the mountains. She kept walking until she reached the lake. She was in a dream back then, after all, surrounded by the dark mountains. Walking and walking and walking…
They came to the lake. It looked just as Torogai remembered it, stretching out before her like a great black mirror, extending from mountain peak to mountain peak.
Torogai felt a numbing shock go through her. She was frozen to the spot. "We’re here…" Torogai’s voice was hoarse with emotion.
Balsa and Yugno turned around.
Torogai stood, dazedly looking at the lake, then pointed at the northern mountains. "Last time, I crossed the mountains from that side. My birth village lies beyond those mountains. The graves of my children…"
A cold hand passed over Torogai’s face. Memories of her husband and the deaths of her children flowed before her eyes like some unstoppable current. She’d kept a lid on these memories for all this time, but now, they rose to the surface. The cold hand she felt wasn’t real, but it might as well have been; her past was reaching out to her out of the cold and bitter past. There could be no forgetting what had happened to her.
The Mountain Palace towered over the lake. Torogai shivered as she took it all in: the huge gate, the white roof made from wood joined in complex patterns. She remembered it from her dream.
Was the upside-down palace floating in the lake that I dreamed of fifty-two years ago a reflection of this palace through time?
Torogai took in a deep breath to steady herself.
Impossible. The Mountain Palace is an imitation of that dream. Built by someone who had the same dream as me. I heard that it was exactly the same in Chagum's message, right?
Torogai knew why she was so shaken. She closed her eyes, then said to encourage herself: I'm not the miserable, weak little Tomca anymore. I am the magic weaver Torogai. I left that woman behind half a century ago.
Torogai injected some of her conviction and strength into her voice as she said, “Let’s make a barrier. Prepare as I showed you before. Move it.”
The three of them walked past clumps of reeds that grew on the shores of the lake and came to the edge of the lapping water.
Torogai stabbed four thick, long reeds into the bank. She connected the reeds with a rope woven from thin grass. Meanwhile, Balsa and Yugno took out the four gridirons for containing fires that they'd brought with them. They placed some charcoal on each gridiron, then lit them using the torch. To get the fires burning, they put some peculiar-smelling dry grass on top.
White smoke rose from the dry grass, drifting into the air like a smoke signal. The smoke settled slowly over the lake.
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