The Wings of Dreams

once human?”
    “Yes,” he said over his shoulder.
    “Then you have a name? Shinkun is a nickname or title, isn’t it?”
    He nodded. As if remembering something, he took hold of the shawl wrapped around his shoulders. “You’ll need this when crossing the desert.”
    He undid the shawl and tossed it to her, revealing the armor underneath. The sunlight slanting through the treetops sparkled off the chain of jewels.
    “What’s this?”
    “You’re missing a sleeve. You’ll get sunburned otherwise.”
    “Thank you. What was your name again?”
    “What good will knowing it do you?”
    “When people meet, their names become the foundation of the relationship.” Shushou said with a slight bow, “My name is Shushou. That is Gankyuu. The haku still doesn’t have a name. Gankyuu said I could give it one. If you don’t mind, yours will do nicely.”
    He grinned. A breeze tousled his hair, black tinged with blue. He said, “The name is Kouya.”

Chapter 44
    [6-6]  T he sun climbed high into the cloudless heavens. Gankyuu eyed the sky with a puzzled expression. “There’s hardly been any rain.”
    “Is that so strange?”
    “It doesn’t rain that much in the Yellow Sea to begin with. But the lack of rain up to now is quite extraordinary. A good thing we were able to stock up on water here.”
    “Hmm.”
    Through the branches of the pine trees Shushou could see the crisp ridgelines of the mountain far in the distance. That, as ever, remained their goal. Except—
    Shushou took the reins while Gankyuu set the saddle on the haku’s back. “Gankyuu, do you know the way back to the road?”
    He answered with an air of exasperation. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be concerned about water.”
    “You don’t know where the road is?”
    “The result of all the running away we did. The koushu village is over there, so I should be able to get a bearing on our position eventually. But I’m not a goushi. The road is not usually where I go.”
    “I should have made Shinkun take us back to the road, even if that meant twisting his arm.” Shushou held the ends of the reins in her teeth and handed Gankyuu the shawl Shinkun had given her.
    “You can be one mean little kid.”
    “Not as bad as you, Gankyuu. Do you think we’ll meet up with Rikou and the goushi?”
    “Dunno. We’ll figure out something.” Gankyuu carefully folded the shawl. They still had a few miles to go before it’d become necessary. “Seeing that we had the good fortune to run into one of the gods of the Gyokkei, running into the goushi should be a piece of cake.”
    “That’s right. I am an extremely lucky person. That luck saved you too, wouldn’t you say, Gankyuu?” Shushou smiled as she fastened the travel packs to the saddle.
    Gankyuu climbed into the saddle and reached down for her. “Considering what we’ve gone though up to this point, I’m getting you to Mt. Hou no matter what. We’ll think about what comes next after that.”
    “If the empress business doesn’t work out, I am going to become a koushu. How about you take me on as an apprentice, Gankyuu?”
    He said with a wry smile, “You do have parents, don’t you, Shushou?”
    “Of course I do.”
    “You don’t like them?” Gankyuu asked as they descended along the bank of the stream.
    “It’s not that I don’t. But I really can’t respect them. Their way of coping with life is to put more bars on the windows and hire more bodyguards. When I ask them why they don’t go on the Shouzan, they laugh and say they’re just humble merchants.”
    “Aren’t they very wealthy merchants?”
    “The commodities trade alone is huge. My father has every other government official in Renshou on the take and exploits the chaos to expand his trading opportunities. He recruits refugees and makes them indentured servants. Using that dirt-cheap labor, he beats down the price of grain in distressed farming areas, corners the market, and jacks up the prices in places where people are on the verge of starvation. There’s nothing to admire about a man like that.”
    “Oh.”
    “Since I’ve been a member of the family all along, it’d make sense to stick around for the long haul. It’s not like I don’t feel a sense of obligation for being given a life so much better than most other people. But when I turn eighteen and receive my allotment, I’m leaving home. My brothers sold their allotments and joined the family business. Not me.”
    Shushou twisted around and