The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

Youko asked him timidly, "where are we going?"
    The man looked at her suspiciously. "You talking to me?"
    "Um, yes . . . where are we going?"
    "Where? To the county seat. You're going to see the governor."
    "And after that? Will there be, like, a trial or something?" She couldn't shake that feeling of being branded a criminal.
    "Oh, they'll shut you up someplace safe until they figure whether you're a good kaikyaku or a bad kaikyaku."
    The bluntness of the statement made Youko turn her head. "Good kaikyaku or bad kaikyaku?"
    "Yeah. If you're a good kaikyaku, you get yourself a guardian and you get to live someplace. If you're a bad kaikyaku it's off to prison, or they just execute you."
    Youko reflexively shrank into herself. Cold sweat ran down her back. "Execute . . . ?"
    "When a bad kaikyaku shows up everything goes to hell. If bad things start a-coming and it's because of you, off with your head.
    "When you say, bad things coming . . . . "
    "I mean wars and disasters and hell following after 'em. If you don't kill 'em quick they'll wreck the whole kingdom."
    "But how can anybody be sure?"
    The man laughed a mean little laugh. "Oh, lock 'em up for a little while and you find out quick enough. You show up and bad stuff starts to happen at the same time, that means you're bad seed, no doubt about it." There was a threatening look in his eyes. "You brought a few disasters along with you, didn't you?"
    "What do you mean . . . ?"
    "That shoku that sent you here. You know how many farms got buried in the mudslides? This year's harvest in Hairou going to be a complete bust."
    Youko closed her eyes. Oh, yes, that, she thought. That's why they were treating her this way. To these villagers she had become an omen of doom.
    The thought of death frightened her to the core. The thought of being killed, even more so. If she were to die in a foreign place like this no one would weep for her, or miss her. Her parents could not even claim her body.
    How did it come to this?
    At any rate, she could not believe that this was her fate. The day before yesterday she left home just like on any other day. "Later," she had said to her mother. The day had begun like always, it should have ended like always. Where had everything gone wrong?
    She probably shouldn't have approached those villagers. She should have been more patient and stayed there by the cliffs. She should have stuck it out with those who brought her here--or for that matter, not gone anywhere with them in the first place.
    But she didn't exactly have a whole wide range of choices open to her. Keiki told her she was coming with him whether she liked it or not. Then they were pursued by those monsters. She'd done what she had to do to protect herself.
    It was like she'd been lured into some kind of trap. On that perfectly ordinary morning the snare had already been set. In the hours that followed the noose had drawn closed. By the time she'd noticed that anything was amiss it was too late, there was no way out.
    I've got to get out of here.
    Youko checked her growing desire to spring into action right then and there. There was no room for failure. If she blew her chance at a clean getaway she could not imagine how they'd make her pay. She had to pick the moment and get herself the hell out of here.
    Thoughts and ideas were spinning around like crazy inside her head to a degree she'd never experienced before in her life.
    "Um . . . how long will it take to get to the county seat?"
    "By wagon, about half a day."
    Youko raised her head. The sky was the kind of clean blue you see after a hurricane. The sun was directly above. She'd have to make a break for it before the sun set. She had no idea what the county seat would be like, but no doubt escaping it would be a lot harder than this horse cart.
    "What about my things?"
    The man looked suspiciously at Youko. "Everything a kaikyaku brings gets turned in. Them's the rules."
    "The sword, too?"
    The man again flashed her a distrusting look. She took it as a warning. "What you asking for?"
    "Because it's important to me."
    She lightly clasped her hands behind her back. "The man who caught me, he wanted it real bad. It's such a relief to know it didn't get stolen."
    The man sniffed. "Useless crap. We'll hand it over like we're supposed to."
    "Yeah, it's just an ornament, but it's got to be worth a lot of money."
    The man looked into her face, then opened the cloth sack on his knees. The jeweled sword buried within gleamed and