Utsuwa was bouncing up and down as she and Lily climbed onto the side rack, while Kudo straddled the vaguely equine two-wheeler.
“Whoa… It really doesn’t tip over.” The carriage maintained its balance even after Kudo took both feet off the ground.
The fox-eared man gave him a brief explanation of how to operate it. “Thaumaturgical devices are generally made to be easy for anyone to use. As long as you don’t run out of mana, this will never tip over.”
“So it runs on the mana of whoever’s ridin’ it?”
“Sorry, I should’ve been more clear. It’s not your mana, but the mana crystal that makes it move. All wizardly devices use them.”
Opening a side panel, he showed Kudo the glowing bluish-purple crystal housed within.
“The purple fades and turns transparent when the crystal runs out of mana. Top it up and it’ll start moving again. You can actually supply it with mana while you’re riding, but almost no one does.”
“So what do they do?”
“Get their young apprentices to refill them. The ones who won’t die if they run out of mana. For wizards who’ve lived for over a century, mana’s the stuff of life itself.”
“What about you? What do you do?” asked Kudo.
The fox-eared shopkeeper gave him a wry smile. “I walk. That’s what the roads are made for, as far as I’m concerned, and it does me just fine. I’ll be eighty next year. Better to focus my mana on keeping up my health.”
“Kind of ironic.”
“Sure is. Here, take hold of this. Turn it to FORWARD and the carriage will go. It’ll take you quite some time to get around to all the places Lady Utsuwa’s ever eaten.”
The two-wheeler slid effortlessly down the road. It was fast, and almost too simple.
“…Man, I need these for my unit… This thing’s way better than a horse.”
Horses got tired, and they needed food and water─but wizard carriages could run forever, so long as they had mana. They were the height of convenience.
Kudo went wherever Utsuwa directed, stopping at shops to pay up for her lifetime of snacking. Everyone refused at first, of course, but when Utsuwa said, “As I cannot choose the hour of my own end, I wish to do as I please while I’m still alive,” the shopkeeps gave in and humbly accepted her payment.
“Nobody gets to choose when they die,” Kudo said the first time he heard this.
“Is that how it is in the Forbidden Land?” Utsuwa asked him, surprised.
They were clearly talking past each other, so the conversation fizzled for the time being. At the final shop on their itinerary, however, they stayed to try some new treats, and found themselves with their first extended break of the day. It was in searching for subjects of small talk that Kudo decided to bring up the earlier topic once more.
“So in the New World, people can choose when they die?”
“Yesh,” Utsuwa replied through a mouth full of pastry. “Talented wizards won’t die, so long as they have mana.”
“But they could get killed, or die in an accident.”
“That’s fine as long as their souls are safe.”
Kudo recalled Ulula, who had lived on in her familiar’s body after she lost her own. If that was the norm for the wizards of the New World, he could understand how they might be a little weak on the concept of death.
“…That mean you’re gonna grow up to be like your mother, then? You’re just a kid right now, but someday you’ll be a great wizard like her?”
“Utsuwa is going to become Mother.”
“Right? So then─”
“And Mother is going to become Utsuwa.”
“…Huh?” Man, this conversation really ain’t comin’ together.
Utsuwa made quick work of the rest of her pastries and smiled at Kudo. “In the end, once Mother has become Utsuwa, she’ll eat the Utsuwa who has become Mother. Then Utsuwa and Mother can be one.”
“So you’re a…vessel?” Lily put in timidly.
Utsuwa nodded. “That’s right. Utsuwa is a vessel for Mother’s soul. When the world’s mana started running out, the Grand Magisters thought up a new way to maintain their bodies, one that doesn’t require mana. It’s called the ‘rite of rebirth.’ You make another self, raise it, then take its body.”
Utsuwa was so matter of fact about it that Kudo and Lily didn’t know what to say.
“…Utsuwa.”
“What is it, Lily?”
“Don’t you mind? Aren’t you scared of disappearing?”
“Utsuwa thinks it’ll be fun,” the girl answered with a grin. “Utsuwa is looking forward to becoming Mother. Becoming one doesn’t mean disappearing. Everything Utsuwa has been will become a part of Mother.”
Neither Kudo nor Lily had strong enough convictions to tell her that was all wrong. One word from Utsuwa─an “I don’t want to,” or an “Utsuwa’s scared”─and they would have brought her to the ship and told the others they had to save her.
“…You’ve got mana potions now, though, right?”
Utsuwa’s eyes went wide. “That’s right! Maybe Utsuwa will become a grown-up after all. The rite of rebirth is supposed to happen when Utsuwa turns fifteen, but now I need to think about what I might do after that!”
Her little brow furrowed at the thought.
“Why don’t you come with us, take a trip to the Forbidden Land?”
“What?! Can Utsuwa really come with you?!”
The girl leaned forward excitedly, and Lily wiped some powdered sugar from the corner of her mouth.
“I don’t see why not. Gotta live free.”
The gatekeepers swam lazily through a sky painted with the colors of sunset. Once Kudo and Lily had returned Utsuwa to the tower, they took the road back toward the harbor.