YUMI WAS IN the darkest place of dead spirits.
That was the only explanation for the strange hostile lights coming in through the window—not warm like the sun, instead cold and terrible. That was the only explanation for the chill air, particularly under her bare feet.
The door thumped and rattled. Some beast was out there. No, some terrible force from beyond life.
She must be dead. But if that was so, why was she so very hungry? She felt like she’d been weeks without food. Was that another part of the torture? Had…had she been taken to the cold skies, where the souls of the unworthy drifted? Was she forbidden the embrace of the warm earth below? Was…was she that bad a yoki- hijo? Had she failed the spirits that terribly?
Nearby, the hero groaned.
The hero. He was here. Hope surged. Was this part of their quest?
She’d learned in the histories that many heroes traveled to the place of cold, frozen spirits. She tried to contain her terror and make herself
feel strong. Perhaps this was what the spirits wanted. Maybe…maybe
she wasn’t dead, but on their path?
The door pounded again, louder.
“Nikaro!” a voice shouted outside. “You answer this door!”
“Great,” the hero said (lowly). “It’s the foreman. Yumi…you’re going to have to answer that.”
“What?” she said, her voice going shrill.
“I can’t touch things,” he said, proving it by waving his hand through a table beside the strange altar he’d been lying on when they awoke.
He then seemed to notice her confusion. “This is my room in my world, Yumi. Like I was in yours?”
“Your…world?” she said. “You live in the land of frozen souls? The
land of the sky?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Are we dead?” she whispered.
“I…don’t think so. But if the foreman is forced to break in here, he might strangle one of us…”
The door pounded once more. “I can hear you talking in there!” the terrible voice shouted. Some kind of demon, perhaps half person, half animal. Yumi stepped back, and only then realized what she was wearing. Some kind of loose trousers and a buttoned shirt, made of a thick but soft material.
She gasped. You could see the exact shape of her— That and the curve of her— “Yumi,” the hero said. “Look at me. Are you all right?”
“No!” she said. She glanced around again, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness—it must be night here, but what was that strange light?—she picked out things she hadn’t seen earlier.
Wadded-up clothing on the floor. Unwashed bowls in piles on a
counter. Refuse.
The hero…was a slob?
Well, of course he wasn’t. Heroes didn’t clean up after themselves.
Servants did that. So his servants had grown lax in his absence. This was a small room. Surely this wasn’t his sole quarters. She leaned toward the window and glanced outside. There she saw a dauntingly dark sky. No stars at all. A grim nothing up above that felt eager to swallow her. But she was in some kind of large building.
A palace? It was certainly bigger than any building she’d ever been in before. Yet the street was lined with them. A dozen or more palaces in a row! Taller than steamwell eruptions. How did these buildings get so big—ten stories—without collapsing? How did they live without heat from the ground?
It’s the land of the heroes, she thought. Rules are different here. It was colder and darker than she’d imagined, but at least she probably
wasn’t dead.
The door thundered again.
“Go,” the hero said. “Answer it and get rid of him.”
“I can’t answer the door like this.” She gestured to her outfit. “The clothing outlines my form! It’s so immodest!”
“Yumi, we were just taking a bath.”
“In the service of the spirits,” she said, increasingly frantic. “Ritual cleansing. That’s completely different!”
“He’ll see you as me,” the hero said. “Don’t you understand?
Everyone looked at me and saw you. Now I’m the one that’s incorporeal. They won’t see you being immodest.”
It was…a valid point. So, trying to control her anxiety, shoving aside her famishing hunger, she stepped to the door and eased it open.
Doing that for herself would have been a novelty if the situation were different. Now she barely gave it a thought as she found a giant of a white-haired older man on the other side. He wore thick trousers and a buttoned shirt made of some material she didn’t recognize.
He froze immediately, fixating on her. “What the… ?” He looked past her into the little room. “Well, slap me silly,” he muttered. “Would never have expected to find a girl answering Nikaro’s door…”
Yumi stiffened.
He saw her.
He saw her?
Painter groaned behind her. But this foreman seemed unable to see him, for he focused again only on Yumi. “Where is he?”
“Tell him I’m sick!” Painter said, sounding panicked.
“He’s sick!” she said quickly, then felt a stab of anguish at the untruth. Liyun would be disappointed in her.
“Huh,” the foreman said, narrowing his eyes. “You…all right?
Everything good here?”
“I…” Then she drew in a breath and gave a deep ritual bow of conciliation. “O great being of the cold skies, forgive any slight or offense I have given. It is not my intent. Please ask of me what you will. I will do all in my power to see it delivered to you.”
“Oh. Uh…” The foreman shuffled from one foot to the other. “Just, have him report in, okay? He didn’t do his rounds yesterday, and we’re already short-staffed. He’s supposed to send word if he’s sick.”
“I will see this message delivered with all due soberness and courage,” Yumi whispered, lowering her bow. “Please go with the blessing of the spirits and find peace in your life.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, sounding…embarrassed?
“Wait,” Painter said, stepping up beside her. “You need to tell him something important. Um, repeat this. ‘Painter says he saw a stable nightmare, and—despite being sick—is so diligent at his job that he is out hunting to get more information. He wanted me to inform you that this is an emergency, and that you must send for the Dreamwatch.’ ”
She repeated the words exactly as spoken and glanced up from
her bow. The foreman frowned deeply.
“He said that?” the man asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “I vow it.” She knelt and touched her forehead to the floor in solemn consummation of the words.
“Huh. Right, okay then,” the foreman said, then tromped away down the hallway.
“Thank you,” Painter said, relief evident in his voice. “That’s one thing taken care of, at least. I can stop worrying.”
Yumi stood upright, glancing down the hallway as the foreman vanished. She felt herself blushing with the heat of a thousand stones.
A man had seen her. Like this. Not merely wearing…whatever this was she was wearing, but also with her hair disheveled. She was supposed to represent the spirits in every way, but today she would have had trouble properly representing a pile of dust.
“That was strange,” the hero said, wandering around the room.
“Why did he see you, Yumi? None of this makes any kind of sense.”
Yumi moved to close the door, but as she did, a door directly across the hallway opened. And a goddess stepped out. Wearing almost no clothing at all.
Her skirt ended mid-thigh, and was made of some kind of glossy black material. Her shirt was filmy and drooped low, exposing the depth of her bosom. Yumi would have thought her a demon but for her beauty. The woman was perhaps Yumi’s age, but her black hair shone with a luster that no amount of combing would ever provide Yumi. She wore makeup that—instead of lightening her face to pale white, as was used for formal situations in Torio—outlined her eyes in dark colors, making them wide and inviting. Her lips were cherry red, her cheeks dusted with a hint of blush.
Yumi gaped at the gorgeous person, barely noticing when Painter cried out behind her, then waved his incorporeal hands through the door as if to try to shut it.
The woman turned to Yumi and paused, then cocked her head.
“Oh,” she said, taking in Yumi’s state of dress. “Um…hello. Are you… a friend of Nikaro’s?”
“She’s going to think we’re sleeping together,” Painter said. “This is bad. She’ll never talk to me again. Quick, uh, tell her you’re my sister!”
“I’m his sister,” Yumi whispered. “Yumi.”
Then immediately panicked.
Her earlier lie about Painter being sick had been a…stretch of the truth. He was sick in a way—he was incorporeal. So while it wasn’t strictly the sort of behavior proper for a yoki-hijo, she could rationalize it.
This was different. This was a deliberate untruth. The sort that she’d never spoken since having impressed upon her—as a toddler— the gravity of her duties and the requirements of the spirits. She cringed, expecting the spirits to rise up and destroy her. She had to be better than such behaviors.
However, no divine recrimination seized her.
The woman across the hall relaxed. “Of course you are,” she said, evidently amused that she’d considered otherwise. “That makes sense. I’m Akane. Are you visiting Nikaro for the first time?”
“Yes,” Painter said quickly. “Tell her that you came to see the big city.”
Yumi repeated the words, numb. Maybe…well, if the hero was telling her to say these things, maybe they didn’t count as lies. After
all, the spirits had sent him to her. He must know what he was doing.
So instead of worrying, she tried to figure out this woman with the
strange dress and kindly smile.
“Close the door,” Painter said.
Instead Yumi asked the woman, “Do you know Painter well?”
“What, Nikaro?” the woman asked. “Well, I knew him in school, and we live across from each other. So…I suppose, maybe?”
Yumi frowned, cocking her head. But then it clicked. Akane lived in his palace. She dressed like this. Painter was concerned she’d think that Yumi was sleeping with him.
“Oh!” Yumi said. “You must be one of his concubines!”
“His what?” Akane asked.
Painter groaned, flopping back onto the altar he’d been lying on before.
“He told me that he’d been with many women,” Yumi said. “Er, intimately, I mean. A hero like him has many such conquests in stories. I apologize for my blush. I am…not experienced. He explained it to me when we were bathing together earlier. He told me all about the hundreds of women he’d been with! I should have realized when I saw you that you were one of his concubines!”
Yumi bowed. It was only proper to show the concubine of an important hero such deference. When she came up from her bow, however, she noticed the look of disgust on Akane’s face. Which quickly became a look of violent anger, Akane’s nose wrinkling in a sneer.
“He said all of that,” Akane said, her voice as cold as the air in this strange place.
“I…” Oh no. She’d misjudged, hadn’t she? Perhaps this was a woman he’d known intimately, but hadn’t made his concubine. That would explain her anger. Except something about the way she was fuming…“You’re…not one of his conquests?” Yumi asked.
“Girl,” Akane said, “your brother has trouble conquering a bowl of noodles if it has too much spice.”
“He’s…a mighty hero though. Right?” Yumi asked.
In the other room, Painter groaned louder.
“Hero?” Akane laughed. Then she turned and stalked away down the corridor, wearing shoes that did not look like they would survive
the ground’s heat. But then, Yumi was beginning to think maybe this place wasn’t ever hot.
She shut the door, then put her back to it. “I…did poorly, didn’t I?” she asked.
Painter just continued staring at the ceiling.
“Painter,” Yumi said, “are you a hero? Like you’ve been telling me?”
“I…”
“Painter,” she said, her voice growing firm as she stepped toward him. “Have you been telling me untruths?”
He turned his head and met her eyes. “Look,” he said, “I’m a very good painter. Well…okay, I’m a weak painter. But I’m capable enough, right? So you said you needed someone like me, and I figured…”
He held her eyes a moment, then turned away with obvious shame, flopping back down on his altar again.
“It’s not my fault,” he muttered, “what you assumed.”
Yumi felt a crushing sensation inside her, something squeezing the air from her lungs, her chest constricting.
He wasn’t… She… She gasped in and out for several breaths, then sat on the floor. It wasn’t warm. How did they live without warmth underneath to bolster them?
“What was I supposed to do?” Painter said. “I got home from work, and next thing I knew, I was in your world. In your body. And there you were, asking for help. And I do consider myself kind of heroic, you know? So…”
“You lied,” she said. “You lied. And now…now I have no idea what’s going on. I thought the spirits sent you to me, and…and that you’d know what to do…and…” She focused on him. “And you peeked at
me when I was bathing!”
“You peeked at me.”
“You’re not a holy vessel chosen by the spirits!” she said. “I am. I…I need to stack something.”
She stormed through the small chamber, gathering up bowls of various sizes, some plates, other kitchen…things. She didn’t really know what went into cooking. She’d never done it before.
She plopped down on the cold, lifeless floor near his table, which was low like the ones she knew. Why make low tables if the floor was
cold?
Her stomach growled.
She ignored it, instead stacking the dishes. And mind you, this wasn’t normal stacking. No simple largest-to-smallest tower. No, this was expert-level ceremonial, artistic stacking. With a vengeful air.
Painter watched her, transfixed as the stack grew higher. Then he sat up, staring as she positioned several bowls on their edges, with maipon sticks used to balance them and make the stack seem to teeter on stilts—though if you were to touch it, you’d have found it
surprisingly sturdy.
“Wow,” Painter eventually said.
Yumi ignored him. She waited, praying, hoping the spirits would see this creation and visit. Offer wisdom, explain what they wanted of her. Why was she here in this terrible place? Why had they sent her a liar instead of a hero?
No spirits visited. She felt nothing other than a ravenous hunger. “I need something to eat,” she said.
“Rice cakes in the cupboard maybe?” he said, waving. “Some dry instant noodles. You can eat them raw. I do.”
She followed his vague gesture. The food she found—wrapped in a strange clear material she was too famished to wonder about— proved to be a nasty, crunchy substance, like something proper that had been left on the ground to steam for far, far too long.
She ate the entire thing anyway, then carried five more cakes—all he had left—back to the table and continued eating. Why hadn’t the spirits answered her? Did they not exist in this place? Were they ignoring her offering?
Or…or was there a more terrible answer? Maybe they’d rescinded her gift, taken from her the blessing of being the yoki-hijo. The possibility terrified her.
“That’s amazing,” Painter said, still staring at her tower. “How did you manage to (highly) stack them rim on rim like that?”
“I managed nothing,” she whispered around bites of strange rations, “save the exercise of the talents the spirits gave me. I am nothing. Merely a vessel for their will.”
“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry that—”
“I do not want to hear your lies, nor your excuses for lies,” she said.
“Please keep both to yourself.”
“Fine.”
A moment later the building trembled (as it often did when a bus passed by outside). That was enough to shift the balance of the stack, and it came tumbling straight down in a clatter of wood and ceramic. Yumi, even in her state, was shocked it didn’t all break and
shatter.
“Sorry,” Painter whispered.
“The creations are unstable,” she replied, “unless blessed by the spirits. Which mine…might never be again…”
She wiped crumbs from her mouth, then pulled her arms close, feeling like she was shrinking down into her strange clothing. Wishing she could vanish.
But she had not been chosen because she was weak. She had to believe—at least had to pretend—that she could fix her situation.
“So…what now?” Painter asked. “Not to sound rude, but you basically ruined my chances with Akane back there. I’ve been working on repairing my relationship with her for months. I’d rather not let you put a wrecking ball through the rest of my life.”
“The spirits came to me,” she replied, “and said they needed help. I have to believe they picked me for something special, regardless of how this looks or feels. But why did they pick you to help me?”
“Beats me,” he said (lowly). He sat up, then heaved a sigh. “I need to know how much time I lost. I felt like I was on your world only a few hours, but the foreman says I didn’t check in for an entire day.”
“How do you know what day it is here?” she asked. “Do you check the stars?”
“The star, you mean?” he asked. “Your planet is the only thing we can see in the sky here. It wouldn’t tell us anything even if I could see it right now.” He stood up and moved to a piece of glass affixed to one wall. He tried to touch it, then muttered softly as his hand passed through it. “I keep forgetting. Here, come turn this knob.”
She did so, making two lines of light—soft purple and blue—appear behind the glass. They vibrated and shook, taking on the shapes of… people? Yes, small people barely two feet high, but incredibly
detailed. Sound came from the glass as the two people talked—a woman made of the blue, and a man made of the violet.
“—But your brother,” the woman said, moving to touch the man’s arm. The image grew more detailed, zooming in on her face, though it remarkably appeared to all be made of a single continuous line.
“What will he say?”
“Lee? Why should I (lowly) care what he says? I live my own life. I have to.”
“Ah,” Painter said. “Times of the Night. That means it’s Samday evening. I haven’t seen this episode, so it’s the first showing. So I missed one day, didn’t report to work last night, and the foreman came to check on me in the evening.”
Yumi settled on the floor and stared at the moving lines with wide eyes. “How… What happened to those people? Why did they turn into lines of light?”
Painter chuckled. “They’re fine. Those two are actors. You know, like a play? You’ve seen a play, right?”
She shook her head. “Too frivolous for a yoki-hijo,” she whispered.
“But I’ve heard of them.”
“Don’t you get any time to relax?”
“I have plenty of time to meditate and pray.”
“No, I mean…have fun?”
“If I waste time having fun, people starve,” she said, still watching the two figures made of light. “How are actors doing this?”
“They’re standing in another place,” Painter explained, “and projecting onto the hion lines. Uh…I don’t know how it works. Kind of
like a photograph, maybe?”
She looked at him blankly.
“Right,” he said. “I guess you don’t have those. Just…imagine a pair of people standing in a room somewhere acting out this play. And these lines mimic the actions they’re making. Anyone in the city with a hion viewer can watch.”
“Is…that what the glass is? A hion viewer?”
“Nah, the viewer is these boxes on the side, which manipulates the shape of the lines. The glass is to keep you from touching the hion.”
She nodded absently, mesmerized. The play, she pieced together, was about a man who had woken up one day without memories. This
was important because he’d been the only one who knew the location of a fantastic treasure. But the story didn’t seem to be about the treasure. It was about all the different people trying to persuade the man that they’d been his good friend, and about the man piecing together the fragments of who he’d once been and discovering—bit by bit—who was actually an ally and who was lying.
She knew that she should have been doing something else.
Meditating, at the very least. But for some reason the story connected to her. The man with a blank life. Everything he tried was new… She was so tired. Overwhelmed. There was something incredibly therapeutic about sitting, pulling a blanket around herself, and watching someone else’s problems for a while.
When the story finished she gasped softly. “It can’t end there!” she said. “What is in the safe?”
“It always does this,” Painter said. “Every time. It ends right before it’s going to reveal something important or interesting. I think they want to make it so you have to watch the next episode.”
“We have to!” she said. “When is it?”
“This one is weekly,” he said. “Some are daily, others every other day. For this, the actors have other obligations, so they can only do it
once in a while.”
“A whole week?”
The spirits were surely punishing her.
Yumi pulled the blanket close, trying to keep warm. Maybe this was for the best. She wouldn’t be distracted by the story…except the lines remarkably started vibrating again and forming new shapes.
“It’s returning!” she said.
“That’s the next program,” he said. “Seasons of Regret. It’s one of
the best.”
“Another program… How many are there?”
“A different one every hour,” he said. “All day. Though in the late night and early morning, they’re mostly reruns. Which is nice, in case
you miss an episode.”
Every hour? All day?
This device was dangerous. She reached up and flipped it off before it could draw her in. She had to focus on her predicament. The spirits needed her.
“Did anything happen to you?” she said. “Anything unusual before you woke up, having stolen my body?”
“I didn’t steal anything,” he said, lying back on his plush altar, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. To be honest, Yumi was feeling a little worn out herself.
“There was something,” he eventually continued. “Like I had you tell the foreman. A nightmare—one that was almost fully corporeal.
That’s rare. I’ve never seen one like that.”
“Nightmare?” Yumi said, frowning. “You were asleep?”
“Nightmares walk in my world, Yumi,” he said. As if that weren’t the most terrifying thing someone had ever said. But he seemed unafraid.
So maybe he wasn’t a complete waste. “But normally they’re formless, without the strength or ability to hurt people. I told you, I’m a nightmare painter. My kind keep them in control.”
“That…actually does sound a little heroic,” she admitted.
“See?” he said, sitting up. Then he wilted. “But I’m not a warrior.
We use ink, and…it’s normally not dangerous. Boring and mundane, really. But I did encounter one. The foreman will take care of it though. Send for experts that…”
He stood up suddenly, causing her to yelp and pull back.
“The Dreamwatch!” he said. “They’re warriors, Yumi. They fight stable nightmares. Maybe if they come to the city, we can talk to them about your problem. Maybe the spirits want us to meet with them?”
He hesitated. “That doesn’t make sense though. How would they help with your world? And why wouldn’t the spirits send one of them to you instead of me? So…I don’t know.”
Yumi nodded, though she was barely listening. She found her mind oddly cloudy. She…she had to… Suddenly she was tired. Incredibly tired. Though she intended to respond to Painter, she instead stretched and curled up on the floor, nestled in the blanket. And fell asleep.
YUMI AWOKE TO delightful warmth underneath her back. As her eyes fluttered open and she moved to sit, her hand—unfortunately— passed through the floor.
She could feel the warmth, but her body was again incorporeal.
Next to her Painter sat up, disturbing blankets, wearing one of her thick, enveloping sleeping gowns. He looked toward the window, where sunlight streamed in, and groaned.
“I guess,” he said, “we’re going to have to do something about that bathing issue…”
