The Wings of Dreams

Prologue
    I n the center of the world was the “Yellow Sea.” An island, actually, surrounded to the north, east, south, and west by four inland seas known as the Black, Blue, Red, and White.
    Early one morning, a tiny black dot appeared in the sky to the north above the Black Sea, the shadow of a kijuu pegasus taking flight from the western shores of the Kingdom of Kyou.
    Bathed in the rays of a rising sun—now approaching the spring equinox—it cast off occasional flashes of silver as it streaked through the air straight toward the southwest. Beyond the melancholy shades of the briny deep, a great wall blocked the way before them, shimmered in the mist like a mirage.
    The tops of the enormous wall traced a ragged line between the heavens and the waters. These were the mighty Kongou Mountains that encompassed the Yellow Sea.
    Though the kijuu crossed the sea at speeds faster than any sailing vessel, only the gradually darkening hues of the cliffs of the Kongou Mountains provided any indication of the shrinking distance. And yet, as the steadily soaring peaks made clear, they were indeed drawing inexorably closer.
    The kijuu flew all the faster. The sun reached its zenith above the fleeing shadow and turned toward the west. The Kongou Mountains filled the entire horizon.
    The bottomless spires broke the surface of the sea like rows of jagged fangs, forming a near-vertical line of palisades that continued on and on, higher and higher, converging into a enormous mountain range that clawed at the sky.
    A small sandbar came into view at the base of those cliffs. A speck of dirt compared to the Kongou Mountains. The kijuu drew a bead on that sandbar and slowly descended in a broad arc.
    As the kijuu approached the spit, it became clear that far from being a mere sandbar, it was a broad table of land. Closer still and the coastline of this pitched land facing the Kongou Mountains came into view. Ships flying gray, weathered sails queued at the mouth of the harbor to the north.
    The flying beast dropped in altitude, glided through the sky above the harbor, and headed straight for the Kongou Mountains.
    The small shadow raced across the rice paddies, the thick foliage and treetops beginning to bud, skimmed above the forests that covered the mountains like a low-lying fog, swept through the skies above quiet villages and old crossroads.
    Dropping lower with each landmark, the kijuu arrived at the foot of one of the minor ridges in the Kongou foothills, home to the most distant city in the realm. Completely enclosed within its barrier walls, the city spread out against the base of the peaks that comprised the Kongou Range.
    A single road led the gate, etched now with long shadows. Travelers on the road picked up the pace. Several turned their faces to the sky, stopped in their tracks, and stared at the winged creature alighting in their midst. Then scattered in all directions. The kijuu set down on the patch of bare ground.
    “What the hell!”
    “If you’re going to land a kijuu around here, do it in a field! Not the middle of the bloody road!”
    A thirty-something man dismounted from the kijuu. Oblivious to the voices of protests erupting around him and ignoring the other travelers, he took in the signboard over the city gate.
    “ Ken County Seat, ” it read. This “sandbar” projecting out from the Kongou Mountains was the administrative capital of Ken County in the Kingdom of Kyou.
    After a glance at the signboard and a brief stretch, he took up the reins of the kijuu and entered Ken. Crossing the crowded main thoroughfare, he made his way to an inn in the northwest corner of the city.

    “Welcome!”
    A child picking up litter next to the gate brightly called out and hurried over to him when he passed through the old stone gate of the inn. He peered at the boy’s face and grinned. “Ah, you must be Shoumei.”
    “Yeah, but—?” the boy answered with understandable caution.
    He leaned over. “I’m Gankyuu. Remember me? We had a lot of fun together last time.”
    “Uncle Gankyuu?”
    “That’s right. Do you remember me now?”
    The boy chortled. “It’s been a long, long time.”
    Gankyuu gave the boy’s head an affectionate pat. They’d last seen each other two years before. The boy had been ten at the time, doing odd jobs around his father’s family business. That hadn’t included greeting guests.
    Gankyuu handed him the reins. “So you’ve been promoted to guardsman, eh?” he joshed.