“I DON’T KNOW why you require this, Chosen,” Liyun said, kneeling bleary-eyed before Painter in the shrine. “I have fetched it, but…it is one of several very unusual actions you’ve been taking lately.”
Painter settled down, listening to the shivering and shaking of the trees, bumping into one another in the wind like a crowd at the carnival. He’d been harsh toward this woman in the past, but…well, he thought he was coming to understand her.
“It’s a hard duty, Liyun,” he said, “being the warden of a yoki-hijo. If something goes wrong, nobody can impugn the girl chosen by the spirits; she is beyond recrimination. But someone must pay. Perhaps the one who guided her poorly.”
Liyun looked up, shocked. Then nodded. “You’ve grown…wise, over the years, Chosen.”
“I appreciate your service,” Painter said, reaching to take the rolled- up piece of paper she’d brought. “If you’re worried about my unusual actions, you can be content that they’ve helped more than you can
know. After all, my work yesterday proves that I’m returning to myself.”
“You…still sleep over twelve hours a day, Chosen.”
“What’s better?” he asked. “A yoki-hijo who cannot work at all, or one who is slowly returning to herself?”
Liyun nodded again, her head bowed.
“Know that if your Yumi returns,” he said, “it’s because of what you have done. Your faith in her. Thank you.”
Liyun stood, and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. He’d thought her as likely to cry as a rock was. She bowed to him again, then withdrew, her clogs sounding on the stone until she vanished down the path between the trees.
“That was sweet of you,” Yumi said, kneeling next to him. “I know how she riles you.”
“I’m thinking that maybe I understand the pressure she’s under,” he said. “She could be less a personification of a crusted-over paintbrush, mind you. But…I can empathize.”
He held up the scroll that Liyun had delivered, then looked to Yumi and took a deep breath. They’d waited to do this until after bathing and their meditations. They’d needed his paints, after all, at the shrine.
With a firm hand he unrolled the scroll, revealing a map of Torio, Yumi’s kingdom. This was the map used by the driver of Yumi’s wagon to get from town to town. He studied its scale and nodded.
Then, from memory, he painted a copy of Masaka’s drawing at the same size as the map, using some grid lines as guides.
He laid his copy atop Liyun’s map to find that they overlapped perfectly. The circles Masaka had drawn—each of which represented an impenetrable wall inside the shroud—were directly around some of the larger towns on Liyun’s map. Kilahito wasn’t represented in the map of Yumi’s lands, naturally, but the circle that Masaka had drawn indicating the biggest of the walled-off regions was listed on Liyun’s map as Torio City. The capital, seat of the queen, home to the university. (If you’re curious about the scale, both nations were relatively small by modern reckoning—less than fifty miles across. There wasn’t a lot of life on the planet. Painter’s people were quietly content with a small
and intimate collection of cities. While Yumi’s nation could grow no larger than the steamwells allowed. On these maps, then, Kilahito and the town they were currently in were less than five miles apart.) Yumi leaned forward as she studied the two maps—his done on thinner paper, so the lines beneath showed through. “Painter,” she said, her wonderful eyes so wide they could have been canvases, “you were right. This time you were right!”
Right. He was right.
Their lands were somehow the same. Cities in Torio existed in the dark space between the cities of his nation. No overlap of actual living spaces, but many of them were shockingly close.
“It seems impossible,” Yumi whispered. “We’re both in the same place. Existing right next to one another.”
“Like we’re overlapping,” he said. “Two peoples. One land…” He sat back, proud of having been able to see this. At the same time… what did it change? There was only one way forward. “I need to destroy that machine.”
“We need a plan,” Yumi said. “One that isn’t you simply walking up and trying to beat the machine to pieces with a rock. They’ll think we’ve gone insane—and no matter how spindly those scholars are, you won’t get far with all four of them piling on top of you.”
“What else do we do?” he said. “Like I said before—we don’t have any resources.”
“No,” Yumi said. “There is one resource we have that we haven’t tried using in a while. The truth.”
He frowned at her. “What are you saying?”
“You’ve shown me,” she said, “that I have more power than I ever dared to wield. The spirits brought you here so that I could realize it.
We are the ultimate authority in this town. Not those scholars, not Liyun, not even the local officials. The yoki-hijo can ask for anything.
Demand anything.”
“So we just walk up and insist that the scholars let us break their machine?” he said. “I think they’ll ignore us, yoki-hijo or not.”
“Then we don’t give them any other option.”
They locked eyes. The truth. The (lowly) truth. He wished he’d been brave enough to use it more in his own life. He nodded. “Your world, Yumi,” he said. “Your rules. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Thank you,” she said, moving her hand next to his, almost touching. “Thank you, Painter.”
She had him quickly step down from the shrine and slip on his clogs. He left behind his paints, including the sketches of townspeople he’d done while waiting for the map. This wasn’t a task for a painter, but for a girl of commanding primal spirits.
He found Liyun outside, chatting softly with Hwanji and Chaeyung.
Together they bowed as he approached, by now accustomed to the way he decided when his meditations were done.
He stepped up to them, braced himself, then spoke the words Yumi had prepared. “The spirits came to me,” he said, “and asked me to destroy the machine that the scholars brought. I do not entirely know the reason, but I believe it is hurting them.
“This knowledge is partially to blame for my erratic behavior lately.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to navigate my duties, the social norms I’ve been taught, and this strange demand of the spirits. Today, it is coming to a head. I want you to support me in gathering the people of the town. Then, together, we’re going to go to the scholars and demand that the machine be destroyed.”
All three stared at him. He tried not to wince. And yet, saying it like that…felt good. Actually, it had been easier than he’d imagined.
It was a test with dangerous stakes. How far did Yumi’s authority go? How far could he push these people?
“Are you certain about this, Chosen?” Liyun finally asked.
Yumi stepped up beside him and spoke, with him repeating the words. “I have never been so sure about something in my life, Liyun.
This is what the spirits wish of me. You will help me. Either that or you will remove me from my position—but you would have to physically restrain me. Because I am going to deal with that machine right now.”
Painter blinked at the force in her words. He’d thought that kind of sternness was reserved solely for wayward stone-stacking trainees.
Chaeyung and Hwanji looked to Liyun. Who, at last, bowed.
“You are the yoki-hijo,” Liyun said. “If you have carefully considered the ramifications to both yourself and to our order…”
“Even if I’m right,” Yumi said through Painter, “then others will undoubtedly see it as jealousy. They will paint me as erratic, someone who has lost control of her emotions and her mind after
seeing the machine replace her. I will likely be removed from my position. I know, Liyun. Nevertheless, this is what the spirits have demanded. So I serve—as you taught me so well.”
“You might,” Liyun whispered, “spend the rest of your life in… captivity. Serving only under lock and key, stacking with strict oversight.”
“And you will be disgraced,” Yumi said through Painter. “I know, Liyun. I know.”
Liyun hesitated, then bowed, a deep and flowery bow. “Chosen,” she said (highly). “We are your servants.”
“Ha!” Hwanji said, grabbing Painter by the arm. “I knew something was wrong with those scholars, Chosen. We had other scholars from the university come to my home village, and they were kind and quiet men who helped us with the disease upon our crops. These men though, they spend all day sneaking around. Shooting everyone dark glances.”
“Quickly, woman,” Liyun said. “Go and fetch the town officials. We will need their bailiff to execute this command. Assuming it pleases you, Chosen?”
“It does please me,” Painter said. “Thank you.”
Within half an hour, they marched through town with not just the town’s bailiff, but twelve of its strongest men, who carried hammers for breaking stones. Painter walked at their head, Yumi at his side, seeming nervous but relieved.
“It is a better plan, isn’t it?” she whispered.
He nodded. “You’re wrong about one thing though,” he said back softly. “You said the machine would replace you. It can’t.”
“But—”
“It can summon spirits,” he said. “But it can’t create art. Art is about intent, Yumi. A rainbow isn’t art, beautiful though it might be. Art is about creation. Human creation. A machine can lift way more than Tojin can—doesn’t make it less impressive when he lifts more than almost any human being.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t care how well a machine piles rocks. The fact that you do it is what matters to me.”
She smiled back, brushing her hand against his, causing their arms to radiate warmth. But then they reached the scholars’ tent. It was
time. The machine wasn’t in its place out front, but they often rolled it into the tent for brief maintenance. As the group arrived, the lead scholar—Painter couldn’t remember his name—was stepping out, wearing his tall hat. He froze when he noticed them all.
“Scholars,” Painter said. “By the authority of the spirits themselves, we have come to destroy your machine. Step aside.”
The scholar cocked his head, then called into the tent.
“Sunjun! They’re here!”
Sunjun, the most engineering-minded of the scholars, popped out of the tent. “Already?”
“Indeed,” the lead scholar said. “Looks like it’s time for a confrontation.”
Sunjun sighed, then took out some device and activated it. Painter couldn’t see what it did, but this wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for. They didn’t seem frightened, or even surprised. More…regretful.
Perhaps they were stalling. Honam poked his head out of the tent, then handed the lead scholar something. A pair of goggles. He affixed them to his face, then looked at Painter.
“Stand aside,” Painter said. “And relinquish the machine.”
The lead scholar instead studied him. “So,” the man said. “This is the descendant of the nomads. You’ve done quite well for yourselves, as a people. Tell me. What is it you think is happening here, boy? The division between our nations? The fact that you have entire cities
nearby that can’t visit ours?”
Painter froze.
They knew?
He felt cold. Yumi pulled closer to him, and the scholar looked at her, seeing her. It was the goggles maybe?
Painter swallowed. The bailiff and the others had frozen. Even Liyun just stood there. Completely motionless. Were they waiting for something from him? Their orders were to go in and destroy the machine if the scholars refused to surrender it. Yet nobody moved.
“Different dimensions,” Painter finally said to the scholars. “That overlap somehow. That’s what’s going on. We exist in the same space, but can’t see each other or interact, except in specific ways.”
“Oh, that’s an excellent theory,” the lead scholar said. “You hear that, Sunjun?”
“Sure did,” Sunjun said as the two other scholars rolled their machine out of the tent, onto a large plank that sloped to the stone ground. “The theory has problems, but it’s pretty good for a kid without any real context. He’d have made a good scholar.”
“Indeed,” the lead scholar said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Painter said, pointing. “Bailiff, take that machine.”
“Painter,” Yumi said, “maybe we should get more information first.”
“First,” he said, “we at least…” He trailed off, noticing that the bailiff, the city officials… Liyun, Hwanji, and Chaeyung were all just standing there. He noticed for the first time that their immobility seemed
unnatural. They weren’t even blinking.
“Liyun?” Painter asked. “Chaeyung?”
“I regret to be the one to reveal it,” the lead scholar said, “but you have no idea what is happening here, child.”
Painter seized Liyun by the arm, shaking it. And her very shape— clothing included—began to shift. Darkening. Giving off wisps of blackness. She looked at him, and her eyes had gone white. Like… like holes drilled in her head.
Painter screamed, his voice joining Yumi’s own cry. He jumped away, wiping his hand on his tobok.
“What did you think they were?” the lead scholar asked as the machine started up.
Painter, desperate, grabbed a rock. He rushed the machine, but the scholar grabbed his arm. Contrary to what Painter had assumed before, this man was strong. In desperation, Painter slammed his rock against the man’s head.
The scholar’s head shifted, its color bleeding away before darkness, his eyes becoming ivory bores into eternity.
“No,” Painter said, pulling out of the thing’s grip. “You too?”
“I’m afraid so,” the lead scholar—nightmare—said.
“Painter!” Yumi cried, backing up toward him, cowering as the entire landscape began to change. Buildings turning black, giving off wisps of smoke. The ground. Even the light in the sky darkened.
“All along?” Painter asked, pained. “Were they just…puppets?
Nightmares, with no thoughts?”
“No, the machine let them be themselves,” the lead scholar said, his face distorted, made of shifting wisps of smoke—still wearing
goggles, oddly. “It’s what happens when it needs us. It’s hard though.
To walk the line between the memory of what we were and the reality of what we have become. They have to be kept from understanding their natures. Otherwise there are…complications.”
The thing that had been Liyun turned toward them, and her form took on a lupine cast. With spiked sides, inky darkness. Painter recognized this thing; it was the stable nightmare he’d been hunting.
Liyun was the stable nightmare.
Unlike the scholar, she suddenly appeared to have no memory of who she’d been—or who Painter was. She prowled toward him, going down on all fours, growing to enormous size.
Painter tried to stand between it and Yumi. “You won’t take her.”
The thing stopped, and for the briefest moment seemed to recognize him.
“Child,” the lead scholar-nightmare said. “What is it you think you’re protecting?”
He froze, and his heart became ice. He turned to find Yumi had fallen to her knees. She was distorting—far less than the others, but still twisting, her skin turning to smoke. She looked at him, horror warping her features in an unnatural way.
“No…” he whispered. No.
He…he couldn’t think.
Yumi. Yumi… “Nikaro,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I… What is happening…to me…”
“Tragic,” the lead scholar said, stepping forward and seizing Painter by the arm. “I admit, this was an excellent ploy by the spirits. Connect one of the girls to an outsider to anchor her soul? Prevent us from altering her memories? It might have worked.”
He heaved Painter back, slamming him against the machine, where the other scholars—also having become nightmares—were tweaking it.
“I’m sorry this took us so long to do,” the creature in front of Painter said. “The delay makes it more cruel, I understand. Regrettably, this machine needed to charge up—our power source didn’t work. And beyond that, some rogue spirits had to be captured. How they
escaped is…distressing. Thank you for helping us return them to their prison.”
“Please,” Painter said, then reached toward Yumi, his heart wrenching at the sight of her huddled on the ground in a fetal position of pure terror. Darkness streamed off her as she clawed at her arms, as if to tear her own skin off. “Please. Let me help her.”
“The machine is lord now,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
The scholar nodded to the others, his hollow eyes expanding. They turned some switch on their machine, and Painter felt a surge of coldness wash through him. Followed by a distinct, terrible snap.
Whatever it was that had linked him to Yumi broke. Painter felt himself hurled away from the scene. They shrank, and he smashed into a blackness—like he’d plunged into the ocean. Only he was still
moving, an arrow in flight.
Darkness.
Hion lines like a flash.
A blur of buildings.
Then slam. He hit something.
Incredible pain followed, coursing through him, accompanied by sickening pops and a sound like leather being stretched. When it finally subsided he found himself lying in his apartment, covered in
sweat.
Once again occupying his own body.
With Yumi nowhere in sight.
