Guardian of Heaven and Earth - Rota - Part 1 Chapter 5 - Red-Eyed Yuzan

  Guardian of Heaven and Earth

-

Rota

(Book 8 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)

Author: Uehashi Nahoko

Translator: Ainikki the Archivist

 

 Part 1 - Searching for Chagum

Chapter 5 - Red-Eyed Yuzan

    

    The sails of a fast, sleek ship reflected the dim light of lanterns from the harbor. A strong-looking Sangalese pirate stood still on the ship’s deck and ran his hand lovingly along the edge of a sail. There were no other people on the ship. Whenever a wave hit the side, light from the harbor played over the pirate’s shoulders, illuminating a tattoo in the shape of red fish eyes.

    When are you coming back? Red-Eyed Yuzan grumbled internally. He hadn’t planned to stay in this Rotan harbor for so long, but his ship had taken quite a long time to repair. He’d spent long years on board this ship, but this was the first time she’d taken such severe damage in a storm. And she’d been damaged before that as well. He felt fortunate that the ship had made it to Tsuram in one piece.

    He also felt fortunate that he had the money for repairs. He’d recently come into quite a large sum by a stroke of good luck, so he’d been able to pay the shipwrights and carpenters in advance to take care of the repairs, including the removal and replacement of rotten sections of his hull and mast. Leaving the rot be would have caused the ship to sink eventually--and likely sooner rather than later.

    So Yuzan had shelled out the money for repairs and waited impatiently for them to be done. He had sold a lot of loot here and wanted to get going. Staying put for too long would only attract the wrong kind of attention.

    Still, he understood why the repairs had taken so long. His ship had been in terrible repair before; he certainly wouldn’t have made it through another storm. He had shelled out the money for the repairs and waited impatiently until they were done. He had sold a lot of treasure here, and that would inevitably attract the wrong kind of attention.

    Yuzan's crew had rejoiced at getting such a long harbor stay and were probably out in the bars and taverns enjoying themselves even now, or gambling or getting into other kinds of mischief. Yuzan liked his crew; they were all good people born on the same island as him. But most of them had loose lips and loved talking, so staying in port for too long was never very safe. His younger brother Rago was the worst of the lot. He loved regaling people with tales, gossip, and really anything he knew.

    It's not his fault; he was just born that way, Yuzan thought.

    Yuzan had forbidden his crew from speaking about the treasure they'd taken on board, but his brother had spilled his guts about it anyway. Yuzan sighed. At least the ship was leaving tomorrow morning.

    Yuzan checked over the rigging of his ship one last time, then jumped to shore. It was past midnight. He needed to round up his crew soon so that they could prepare the ship for departure. He found the bar where his brother liked to drink and entered.

    The air was choked with thick smoke. Six lamps hung from hooks on the ceiling, casting the faces of the drunken people sitting in the bar in dim illumination. Yuzan glanced around the bar, identifying members of his crew and ordering them to return to the ship.

    His brother Rago was sitting in the corner, gambling with a Yogoese man named Orokku. His brown eyes shone with excitement, so he must be winning. He laid down playing cards and chugged his drink as if it were water.

    "Oi, get up," Yuzan called out to him. "We're leaving tomorrow."

    Rago looked at him and laughed. "Just wait a minute. I'm on a winning streak, but I'll come back to the ship soon."

    Yuzan took a peek at his brother's cards. He did seem to have a good hand. Orokku passed two silver coins across the table to Rago with a grim expression on his face. "I lose," Orokku said. "You've got the luck of the stars tonight, Rago."

    Rago laughed. "Not just tonight, my friend--I've been lucky since birth. Now, hand over everything you owe me."

    Orokku rubbed his chin thoughtfully while Rago finished his drink. Rago grinned at Yuzan and said, "Look! This is araku--incredibly rare, even for those that can pay for it, but this place has got it. How about a nightcap before we head back?"

    Yuzan smiled. He liked araku as much as his brother did. It might be good luck to raise a toast with it before the next morning's voyage.

 

 

    When Yuzan and his brother returned to his ship, all of his crewmen were drunk and smelled of alcohol. They talked and laughed while preparing to sleep. Rago called out, “A toast, men! Let’s have one more drink and go to sleep.”

    Rago lifted the cap off of his bottle of araku and poured a large quantity of it into an enormous cup for the crew to share. The crew each took a sip and went to their resting places in the best possible mood.

    Yuzan entered his own cabin and sank into a chair. He savored the lingering taste of the araku in his mouth: bitter and sweet and unlike anything else he’d ever tasted. There was a lit candle on his desk, but it was flickering and puffing. The wick must be too long. I should cut it, he thought, but before he could get up, he fell asleep.

    He awoke some time later. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep; he wasn’t even sure if he was actually awake or still dreaming. He looked down and saw a pool of dark water sloshing around his ankles.

    Huh? Is there a flood? Is the ship sinking?

    He had to get up and warn the crew, but his body wouldn’t move.

    There was a man crouched down near his desk. It was the Yogoese merchant that Rago had stolen the large bottle of araku from; the araku that he’d shared with Yuzan and the rest of the crew. But why was he in Yuzan’s cabin? How had he gotten here?

    “What the hell is going on?” Yuzan asked.

    The Yogoese merchant smiled. “You’re dreaming. I come from the bottom of the sea. Do you want to save your ship from sinking?”

    Yuzan nodded desperately.

    The man chuckled. He was still crouched down in the corner and hadn’t moved. “You’ve planted a seed of disaster--a karuku oh--for your next voyage. Did you know that?”

    Yuzan froze still, then said, “I should’ve known that boy was trouble...”

    The Yogoese man nodded. “Tell me everything you know about that boy. If you don’t, your luck will get a whole lot worse. I’ll take your secrets and misfortune down to the bottom of the sea, so they won’t trouble you any further.”

    Yuzan nodded and smiled with relief. “Yes, yes, I’ll tell you everything. I first saw that boy when...”

    Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain at the back of his skull and groaned. He felt like something hard had hit him in the head; he only received a single blow, but pain bloomed from the point of impact.

    He felt the shaking of the ship in his entire body and realized that he hadn’t felt it before: during this whole conversation, the ship had been utterly still. He glanced down and saw that his legs and the floor of his cabin were both dry.

    Yuzan looked up, wide-eyed. The Yogoese man lay prone on his desk. Yuzan couldn’t tell if he was dead or just unconscious. His body was completely still.

    Yuzan heard movement behind him and turned to see a Kanbalese woman in her mid-thirties standing over him.

    “Have you recovered your senses?” she asked. “Can you see?”

    Yuzan frowned. “What the hell is going on here? And who are you?” There was ringing in his ears. He put his hand over his mouth to repress his urge to vomit.

    “We can talk after I deal with this man,” the woman said. She removed a long length of twine from around her wrist and bound the Yogoese man’s hands. Then she grabbed a towel hanging from the cabin’s ceiling and used it and more twine to make a gag. “Where’s your closet?” she asked Yuzan.

    He showed her. She opened the door of the closet with a loud snap and removed a long, thin length of cloth to use as a blindfold.

    “Do you have rope?” she asked.

    “Yes, in the cupboard on the right-hand side,” Yuzan said.

    The woman used a long length of rope to bind the Yogoese man’s legs so that he wouldn’t be able to move when he regained consciousness. Yuzan wondered if he was still dreaming; the entire situation was inexplicable.

    The woman lifted the Yogoese man upright and carried him out of the cabin. Yuzan’s head still ached horridly; he sat for a few minutes until it felt clearer, then stood up from his desk. Lingering nausea made his stomach protest at the movement. He took his sword, which was hanging from the wall, and unsheathed it. He gripped his weapon firmly as he ascended to the deck.

 

 

    Balsa took the Yogoese man to a shipwright’s hut near the harbor and tied him to a support post with more rope. She didn’t want to let this man live. He was after Chagum and probably trying to kill him. She looked down at the man with darkness clouding her eyes for a long while. She took a deep breath and turned away. She decided to go outside and calm herself.

    Balsa saw the ships docked in the faint illumination of the harbor’s lamps. Red-Eyed Yuzan stood on the deck of his ship, staring at her and holding a sword. She saw no other people stirring in the harbor at this time of night. Balsa picked up a long wooden oar that was leaning against the shipwright’s hut. She gripped it as she would her spear and walked toward Red-Eyed Yuzan.

    Yuzan’s stance was defensive. “Who are you?” His voice cracked a little, as if he were an apprentice pirate on his first ship.

    “How rude. Shouldn’t you be thanking me for what I did before?” Balsa asked. She clicked her tongue.

    “Thank you? For what?”

    Balsa climbed up onto Yuzan’s ship and assumed her own defensive stance. “That man’s a magic weaver. I freed you from his spell.”

    Yuzan frowned. “A magic weaver?” He thought about that for a moment. It was obvious that the Yogoese man was a magic weaver: he’d made Yuzan see things that weren’t there. He must have done that by spiking Rogo’s stolen araku. He’d fallen asleep after just a single sip from the bottle, which was awfully suspicious--and none of his crew was awake, either. They’d done nothing to interfere with the Yogoese man or this Kanbalese woman.

    A chill went down Yuzan’s spine. His face was drawn and pale. “Why did you save me?” he asked.

    Balsa’s expression was flatly serious. “I didn’t plan to save you at all,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t just leave it alone. He was probably going to kill you after you’d answered his questions.”

    Yuzan adjusted his grip on his sword. “What are you trying to imply, woman? I got no idea what you’re even saying.”

    Balsa faced Yuzan squarely and held her oar tightly in her hand. “I don’t have time to explain. I need to know about who you stole the Talfa necklace from.”

    Yuzan took a step back and shuddered. It was like the woman in front of him had just transformed into a monster. Yuzan gritted his teeth, then yelled, “You bitch! I don’t know anything about that! Nothing!” He took a step closer to Balsa and slashed out at her with his sword.

    Balsa blocked Yuzan’s blade with her oar, then shoved so hard that the broad side of the oar slammed into his nose. Yuzan’s blade bent from trying to keep the oar back; sparks flew before Yuzan’s eyes.

    The smells of blood and burning entered his nose and made his nausea so terrible that he actually dropped his sword. His nose was bleeding profusely; he collapsed to the deck and started shaking all over. He pressed down on his nose with both hands to staunch the bleeding, then lifted his head.

    The woman stood over him, looming like the shadow of a mountain. She rested the handle of her oar against his forehead and said, “Attack me again, and I’ll finish you off right here.”

    The place where the oar’s handle touched Yuzan’s forehead felt strangely warm. “You...where’s the other one? The magic weaver?”

    “I’m the one asking the questions here,” Balsa said. “Are you going to answer, or do I have to repeat myself?”

    Balsa summoned all her strength and courage to cope with whatever she would hear next.

    “I should have killed him,” Yuzan muttered. “I knew I should have killed him.”

    Balsa froze still from surprise.

    Yuzan’s hands were red and sticky from his own blood. He pushed himself up a little and sat cross-legged on the deck. “I should have known that boy was a karuku oh.” He shrugged. “I really don’t know if he’s alive or dead.” He looked up at Balsa and said quickly, “And I’m really not lying, I swear. He was really weird; I don’t want anything to do with him at all.”

    “Where did you last see him? Where was he going? Tell me everything you know.”

    Yuzan spat on the deck, his spittle mixing with his own blood. He took a deep breath and started talking. “He told me he wanted to get to Tsuram harbor as fast as possible.”

    Balsa frowned. Yuzan’s story didn’t make a lot of sense so far.

    “He was on a Rassharou ship when my crew and I found him. We don’t usually attack Rassharou ships; they say it’s bad luck to harm them. But my ship had just survived a terrible storm. We were short on food and other supplies, and the fish had all fled to the deeps so we were starving.”

    Rassharou were a free-spirited, independent people who were born on ships and spent most of their lives at sea. Chagum hadn’t been picked up by a Sangalese ship, but a Rassharou one. It seemed that he’d made it most of the way to Rota that way. Perhaps he’d thought that seeking help from the Rassharou would be safer than trying to trust the Sangalese?

    Yuzan was still speaking. “Besides, Rassharou are usually poorer than pirates, so it’s cruel to rob them. But we needed food, and loot, otherwise we would never be able to get the ship repaired. We noticed an astonishingly beautiful girl on the ship; I thought she would sell for a good price in Tsuram. It’s unfortunate that we have to resort to that sometimes, but...well, anyway, we hooked their little ship with poles and yanked them in.”

    The girl, her younger brother and her parents seemed to be the only ones on the Rassharou ship. They all trembled in fear when Yuzan and his men unsheathed their swords. When Yuzan seized the girl’s arm, a young man emerged from hiding beneath one of the sails. He was Yogoese and deeply suntanned. He was dressed in Rassharou fashion, with a patterned garment like a skirt wrapped around his waist; he wore nothing else.

    Yuzan knew immediately that the Yogoese man wasn’t a fisherman or a merchant. He didn’t know how he knew, exactly, but he felt something off about him from the start.

    The young man removed a smooth piece of jade from a pouch at his waist and tossed it to Yuzan. As Yuzan caught it, the young man addressed him in fluent Sangalese: “If you’re looking to sell something, why not sell that instead?” He was so young that he lacked a beard, but he radiated an aura of calm composure. His voice didn’t shake at all.

    The young man gave Yuzan an uneasy feeling. He was in a place he shouldn’t be and had interfered in an unexpected way. Yuzan wanted nothing to do with him, but he also couldn’t just let him and the Rassharou ship go now that he’d seen the young man carrying the treasure.

    “Why settle for selling one when you can sell two?” Yuzan asked brightly. “Right, men?”

    He advanced a few steps, then saw something else in the young man’s hand. It was an incredibly expensive-looking necklace made of gold. His crew noticed it as well and exchanged greedy glances.

 The young man dangled the necklace over the side of the ship and dropped it into the water.

    “Are you out of your mind?!” Rogo shouted. He dove into the water to retrieve the necklace, but the sea was so deep here that it sank like a stone and was lost in moments. Yuzan couldn’t believe that the young man was truly capable of tossing away that much wealth without a second thought.

    The young man removed his treasure pouch from his waist and prepared to drop the entire thing overboard: gold, gems, jewelry and all. When Yuzan moved to stop him, the young man called out, “Don’t move! If you take one step closer, I’ll drop it.”

    Yuzan knew that he was serious. “Why would you do something so stupid?” he asked. “If you do that, my crew won’t have any other choice except to sell you and the girl.”

    The young man smiled. “Are you really willing to give up having all of this? Surely the treasure in this pouch is worth more than me and the girl combined at any market. But I don’t really need it, so...”

    Yuzan sank into silence. There was another necklace inside the pouch, as rare and valuable as the one the young man had tossed overboard. The contents of the bag glittered in the sun. What the young man had said was true: the treasure in that pouch was worth far more than the price of two slaves.

    Yuzan stood in front of the young man and didn’t move.

    The light in the young man’s eyes was so bright that it was blinding. “Leave these people alone, and I’ll give all of this to you,” the young man said. “Return to your ship. Let this ship go and remove the hooks. Then I’ll toss the treasure over to you.”

    Yuzan was wary. “How do we know you’ll really toss the treasure over to us? If you really want to save these Rassharou, come to our ship with us.”

    The young man’s expression was difficult to read. “All right,” he said after a long pause. “On one condition.” He stared straight at Yuzan. “I need you to sell me in Rota, in Tsuram harbor.”

    Yuzan frowned at him. That was certainly a weird condition. Did he actually want to be sold? As Yuzan considered his condition, he realized that this situation could turn out very well for him. Tsuram was the closest harbor; if he sold the young man’s treasure along with him, he’d be richer than he’d ever been before.

    “Very well; I accept your condition. I’ll sell you when he reach Tsuram. Now come here.”

    The young man shook his head. “First, return to your ship. If you doubt I’ll keep my word, you can keep a harpoon trained on me. I swear I won’t make any sudden moves.”

    Yuzan shrugged, then gave his crew the signal to pull back. Everyone returned to his ship. As soon as they let the Rassharou ship go with their hooks, the young man jumped over to Yuzan’s boat with his treasure pouch held in his mouth. After he landed safely on the deck of Yuzan’s ship, he extended the treasure pouch over the water again.

    The Rassharou family waved to the young man. They were openly weeping and crying out words of gratitude. The young man watched their ship recede into the distance with a sad sort of smile.

 

 

    When Yuzan finished telling Balsa about his meeting with Chagum, she nodded a little to herself. “So you sold him to a slave merchant here?” she asked.

    Yuzan shook his head. “I didn’t sell him.” He placed one palm flat on the deck and used it to push himself upright. They’d talked the night away; it was almost dawn. The sea looked steel blue in the early morning light.

    Yuzan's gaze drifted toward the city. "I know you might not believe me, but it's not like my crew's all that greedy. I'm certainly not. A Talfa necklace is a once-in a lifetime prize. Added to the other jewels in the pouch, me and my crew got enough money to hold us over for quite some time. There was no need to sell the brat."

    The gray light of dawn shone on Yuzan's face. Yuzan looked at Balsa and said, "That guy was weird. He gave me the creeps, asking to be sold as a slave like that."

    "What happened to him after that?" Balsa asked.

    Yuzan smiled bitterly. "I told you before: I don't know. I let him off here. He handed over his treasure and we sold it. I have no idea where he went after that."

    Balsa sighed heavily; all the tension in her shoulders released at once.

    Yuzan looked so exhausted that it was like his soul had left his body. He was still looking toward the harbor city. Balsa faced the same direction as him and took in all the shops and buildings.

    I guess my lead ends here, she thought. Chagum had gotten off at Tsuram, but he could be anywhere by now. If he'd been sold to a slave trader, she might be able to keep looking, but apparently Yuzan hadn't sold him. She was glad that Chagum hadn't been sold, but she was still desperate for more information.

    At least she knew that Chagum had made it to Tsuram alive, and that he had left Yuzan's ship a free man. He could walk to his next destination healthy and strong, no matter where that destination happened to be. The idea gave her comfort; this was much better than finding out that Chagum truly was dead or had been enslaved.

    He's alive.

    She couldn't celebrate yet; she had to see him safe with her own eyes before she could do that. She couldn't get her hopes up and risk disappointment. She told herself that, but on the inside, she was practically dancing for joy. Chagum was still alive. He might still be in Tsuram somewhere.

    Tsuram harbor came back to life itself in the glorious light of the morning. Barges floated in the river mouth that would doubtless be floated on to the capital that day. A slight hill rose to the right of the river; homes were built all along the top of it in a long line.

    At the very top of the hill there was a large white building that looked like a palace. It had two towers and shone dazzlingly in the sun.

    "That's the palace of some lord or other, huh?" Balsa asked.

    Yuzan nodded. "That's lord Suan's palace." He paused, then muttered, "That brat asked the same question."

    Balsa faced him so quickly she almost gave herself whiplash. "Really? He did?" she asked.

    "Yep. I told him it was one of the southern clan lords' palaces. He asked whose and I told him it was lord Suan's. He thanked me, then laughed. Ran off in that direction still wearing his Rassharou skirt thing."

    Balsa threw down her oar and seized Yuzan's arm. "When was this?"

    "Uh...well, I'm not sure, I..." He stared into space for a moment, then started counting the days on his fingers. "About ten days ago, I think."

    Balsa frowned. Ten days. When Jin's message had reached her, Chagum had likely still been here. She let Yuzan's arm go and said, "I assume that everything you've told me is the truth?"

    Yuzan shrugged. "I've got no reason to lie. But even if I swore I was telling the truth, I ain't got no evidence, so you're just gonna have to take my word for it anyway."

    Balsa's eyes took on a hard cast as she looked at Yuzan. "You should leave this harbor with your crew as soon as you can. That magic weaver almost certainly has allies, and I doubt they're friendly. You should probably stay out of Rota for a while to avoid them. If you value your life, don't tell anyone else about the young man you saw, or the Talfa necklace or other treasure."

    Yuzan rubbed his nose and nodded a little, clearly at least a little frightened by her threat. "I was planning on keeping quiet anyway. And leaving as soon as possible. It's too dangerous for me and the crew here now."

    Balsa nodded, then started walking away from him. She crossed the plank that connected his ship to the dock, then turned when she felt Yuzan's hand on the board, attempting to disrupt her crossing. He removed his hand from the plank until she was safely ashore.

 

 

    Yuzan realized that the woman was dragging her right foot a little with every step. What a strange woman. He'd told her everything he knew and felt strangely purified by the experience, as if he'd confessed to all his transgressions and been given a clean start.

    He wondered why he'd been so willing to tell her so much from the start; it wasn't like he knew her from anywhere. She was intimidating and made him feel tense all over; she'd asked all her questions without changing her expression or tone, but it was clear that she cared if the young man he'd encountered on the Rassharou ship was alive or dead.

    He remembered the young man walking toward lord Suan's palace after his ship had reached the harbor. He had turned back when he reached the shore and given Yuzan a bright smile.

    What have I gotten myself mixed up in? Yuzan asked himself. He hadn't wanted to get involved with any of this to start with, but the magic weaver and the strange woman had pulled him into this situation even deeper.

    That brat is like a whirlpool. Everything that comes near him gets sucked down to the bottom of the sea.

    Yuzan rubbed his sore nose and started waking the members of his crew. They would leave the harbor as soon as possible.

 

 

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