The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

governor, you say? No governor lives here. The head guy here is the magistrate."
    What's he talking about, Youko muttered to herself. "I've always heard him called governor."
    "Ain't no such person."
    "During the winter, people live in the towns, and when spring comes they return to the villages."
    "People live in villages. In the spring they go back to the hamlets."
    "Yes, but I . . . "
    The old man stared fiercely at her. "Who the hell are you!"
    "I'm . . . . "
    "You're not a kaikyaku like me at all! I've been here by myself in this strange country forever! Abandoned here in the middle of a war, not knowing nothing about none of these language or customs, no wife, no kids, just me!"
    Why was this happening? Youko desperately searched for an answer. No matter how she thought about it, there was no clue in anything she had heard up to now that explained it.
    "Out of the frying pan, into the fire, that was me. We made all the sacrifices during the war and you got to live the easy life! Why is that?"
    "I don't know!" Youko shouted back.
    A voice asked from the hallway outside the door, "Is there something wrong?"
    The old man hurriedly put his finger up to his lips. Youko turned towards the door and said, "I'm sorry, it's nothing."
    "There's people here trying to sleep."
    "I'll be more quiet after this."
    From the other side the door, the sound of footsteps trailed away. Youko sighed. The old man looked at Youko with an amazed expression on his face.
    "You understood what he said?"
    The language they were speaking, he meant. Youko nodded. "I understood it."
    "You was speaking our language!"
    "Whose language was I speaking?"
    "You was speaking Japanese!"
    "But, the man I was speaking to, he understood me."
    "So it seems."
    Youko had spoken the same language she always spoke, she had heard the same words she always heard. What could account for this strange phenomenon?
    The old man's expression softened somewhat. "Fact remains, you're no kaikyaku. Not in the slightest. You not just some ordinary kaikyaku, that's for sure."
    The way he said "kaikyaku," it wasn't just the intonation he used, now that Youko had become accustomed to his voice, the way he pronounced the words was a bit different as well.
    "How is it that you can understand them words?"
    "I don't know."
    "Don't know, huh?"
    "Honestly, I haven't got the slightest idea. I don't know why I came here in the first place, or why we're different from each other."
    And why had her appearance changed? As she asked herself this question she touched her dyed hair, now hard to the touch. She said, "How are we ever going to get back?"
    "I been searching for the same thing. All they say is, can't. That's the only answer."
    He gave Youko a dispirited look. "If there was some way to go back, I would've done it a long time ago. Now, even if I did get back somehow, I'd be like old Rip Van Winkle. So . . . miss, where you are headed?"
    "No place in particular. Can I ask you something?"
    "What's that?"
    "Did you get arrested when you came here?"
    "Arrested?"
    Seizou gave her a wide-eyed look, and then a thoughtful expression. "That's right. They arrest kaikyaku here. Nope, not me. I washed ashore in Kei."
    "What? What difference does that make?"
    "It's because different kingdoms treat kaikyaku different. I arrived in Kei, got my papers there. Lived there until last year. Then the king died and the whole place went to hell. Living there got to be impossible, so I got out, came here."
    Youko recalled the refugees she had seen in the city. "So . . . you can live in Kei without anybody arresting you?"
    Seizou nodded. "True enough, but you can't live there now. There's a civil war going on, the whole place is a mess. The town I was living in got attacked by youma and half the people was killed."
    "Killed by youma? Not because of the war?"
    "When a kingdom goes to hell in a handbasket, that's when the youma show up. And not just youma. Droughts and floods and earthquakes, too. Nothing but bad things happen. So I left there in a hurry."
    Youko turned away. So you could live in Kei without people chasing after you all the time. Staying a fugitive in Kou or risking it in Kei, which would be the safer course? She was pondering this when Seizou interrupted her.
    "The women, they left a long time ago. Who knows what the king was thinking, but he drove 'em all out of there."
    "You're kidding."
    "It's the truth. There was this rumor going around that if there was any women left in