The Wings of Dreams

the direction she’d last seen Hakuto. But the kijuu was nowhere to be seen on the crowded high street. Several adults tailed after her and assisted in a cursory search. They concluded only that the thief and the moukyoku had left through the main gate.
    “Sorry about that, Miss.”
    The man held out Shushou’s bags. He’d picked them up for her. Shushou took them from him. The two travel bags that had been slung across Hakuto’s back now dwarfed Shushou as she hugged her arms around them. She sunk to her knees and let out a long sigh.
    “Um, Miss, are you going to report this to the constable?”
    Shushou looked up at him. “Won’t the government offices be closed by now?”
    “Then tomorrow?”
    “I appreciate your concern. Thanks for getting my bags. And helping me look for Hakuto.”
    “Ah, no problem.”
    Shushou again checked out her surroundings. Dusk had settled on the town. Hakuto was nowhere to be seen.
    “There’s nothing else I can do now but keep pressing forward, and all the more so without Hakuto.”
    She looked at the people standing around her in confusion. The remainder of her itinerary would take an adult three days on foot. For Shushou, things would get a lot chancier. But she had no choice but to struggle on and see things to the end.
    “Can anybody point me to a quiet, safe inn? I guess it doesn’t have to have stables.”

Part Two
Chapter 9
    [2-1]  T he morning of the Spring Equinox, the innkeeper saw off the girl and the man she’d hired as her bodyguard, the concern evident on his face.
    Gankyuu held the reins of the haku as they walked along the dark streets, swept along by the throngs. He sighed mightily. He had patiently explained during breakfast how crazy an idea this was. Not only did his remonstrations go in one ear and out the other, but Shushou lay her head on the table and took a nap.
    He was left with no choice but to resign himself to the situation.
    Gankyuu was no stranger to life in the Yellow Sea. Many people were going on the Shouzan and many of them brought along family members and bodyguards and hearty kijuu.
    Escorting the girl to Mt. Hou and back again, not straying into dangerous territory in search of kijuu, was hardly impossible. He’d never worked in that capacity before but was familiar with the bodyguards—known in the trade as goushi or “guardians”—who made a living at it, and was friends with several of them. He’d heard his fair share of hard-luck stories. He figured he could weather it well enough.
    While she was on Mt. Hou, he could work in a little kijuu hunting on the side. Not bad work for sixty-five ryou, he reminded himself over and over.
    “Hey, Gankyuu.”
    The handful of trouble he was stuck with hunched her shoulders against the cold and glanced guilelessly up at him.
    “What?” he said.
    “What are you wearing that poncho for?”
    Instead of answering, Gankyuu clucked to himself. The reason he had the poncho draped over his head like a shawl was to keep from being spotted by his mates. He didn’t want it noised about that he was escorting a child across the Yellow Sea. He’d never hear the end of it.
    “Son of a bitch,” he grumbled.
    Shushou laughed. “You don’t know when to bow to the inevitable. You need the money, don’t you?”
    Damn straight, he said to himself. Gankyuu glanced down at her. She’d removed her two-piece ruqun and replaced it with the humble underjacket he’d scrounged up the night before, and then wrapped her padded kimono around that.
    He’d expected her to bitch and moan about taking off the ruqun and sneer at the underjacket even more. But without him pointing out that the long sleeves would be a pain to deal with, she’d agreed to the change without any fuss, thank heaven.
    “Where did a girl like you come up with money like that?”
    “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you are implying. I took whatever I could find lying about the house.”
    “You what ?”
    “Including the kijuu. But the kijuu was stolen by a bad-tempered man like you. A sad and sordid tale. And then to have my lodgings practically stolen out from under me. You adults really are a sorry lot.”
    Gankyuu couldn’t help thinking that she’d broken even on the stealing business. He said, “A kijuu?”
    “Named Hakuto. A moukyoku. Do you know the species?”
    Shushou recounted how her moukyoku was stolen as they checked out the street stalls. The stores opened this early for travelers who’d left necessary