The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

"
    Takki smiled a patient smile. "Now, that's hardly enough information. Which kingdom and which province, at the very least. Short of that, why, it's a needle in a haystack."
    Youko hung her head. "The fact is, I don't know anything about this place."
    "So it seems." Takki put down her teacup. "We are one of the Twelve Kingdoms. Specifically, the kingdom of the southeast, called the Kingdom of Kou."
    Youko nodded. "And the sun rises in the east?"
    "Of course. And this is the eastern part of Kou, called Goso. There's some high mountains a ten-days' walk north from here. Over those mountains is the Kingdom of Kei. Hairou is due east of us, by the seashore. Following the main road you can walk there in five days."
    What had been previously completely incomprehensible was bit by bit coming into focus. It was dawning on her that this place was a world unto itself.
    "Just how big is Kou?"
    Takki tilted her head back and gave it a bit of thought. "How big, she asks me. Well, if you was to walk from the eastern-most border of Kou all the way to the western-most border, I figure it'd take you a good three months."
    "That long?" Youko said, her eyes growing wide. She could not begin to grasp what it meant to walk for that length of time, but she did understand that it was quite beyond her imagination.
    "Yes, that long. It might not be such a big place, but Kou is a kingdom. It's about the same distance north to south as well. But because it means crossing seas or mountains, going to a neighboring kingdom is an almost a four month trip."
    "And all the Twelve Kingdoms . . . . "
    "That's right."
    Youko closed her eyes. She had somehow pictured in her mind a world like a small garden. How could she find one person in such a vast place? Without a single clue and only the name "Keiki" to go by? Circumnavigating all twelve kingdoms by itself would take four years.
    "What kind of person is this Keiki?"
    "I don't really know. Probably like the people here. He's the person who brought me here."
    "Brought you here?"
    "Yes."
    "Well, that's a new one on me." Takki was visibly impressed.
    "Is that unusual?"
    Takki said with a severe, little smile, "I don't have much learning about such things. Don't know that much about kaikyaku, neither. You hardly ever see them around these parts."
    "I didn't know that," said Youko.
    "It's true. In any case, he can't be any kind of normal person. What you're talking about, that's nothing any of us could have done. One of the gods, maybe, or a wizard, or one of the half-demons."
    Youko stared at her. Takki smiled. "Going to that other place, bringing somebody back, it's not what normal people do. And if it's not normal people, then it's got to be a wizard or youma."
    "I know there are youma, but gods and wizards, too?"
    "There certainly are. But they live in the world above, apart from the rest of us. The gods and the wizards live up there. They hardly ever come down here."
    "Above?"
    "Above the sky. But that doesn't mean there aren't wizards down here. From king to province lords, they're all up there above the sky."
    When Youko tilted her head quizzically, Takki smiled and explained. "Each of the provinces has a province lord. This is Jun Province. Our province lord is the Marquis of Jun. He rules by will of the king. Normal people don't become province lords, neither. They never grow old and have supernatural powers. They're people from out of this world."
    "I wonder if Keiki is a person like that."
    "Could be."
    Takki again smiled her wry smile. "If it's wizards we're talking about, I hear tell that all the people who work at the royal palace, right down to the underlings, they're wizards of one sort of the other. The same goes for the big government officials. Regular people can't go to that place above the sky because that's where the royal palace is. The king is one of the gods. The wizards are chosen by the king. Now, there are some folks who manage to pull themselves up there by their own bootstraps, but most of them are recluses, hermit-types. They belong to that other world that we're not part of. Us and them, like ships in the night."
    Youko made careful note of everything that Takki said. There was no telling what aspect of this information might later prove important.
    "There's said to be a dragon king that rules over the ocean, but that may just be fairytales. If there really was a dragon kingdom, they wouldn't be normal people, either. Besides them, there's supposedly youma that can change