Chapter 42
A Conversation at Night
The trees that surrounded the huts of the Watchers glistened with dampness in the rainy night. Large droplets fell from the sky, smacking into the broad leaves, waking them from fitful sleep. Have to stay up. Can’t go to sleep yet. For Wayfinder Lau is still awake in his little home. The leaves of the forest rustled and shook, and waited.
Wayfinder Lau had spread several thick books out on the desk in front of him, and with a long-stemmed pen in his hand, he wrote furiously. He had pulled a lamp right next to his head and wore small, round glasses balanced on the tip of his nose.
The sound of the pen tip sliding across the paper was loud in the quiet little hut. Oil smoke rose from the burning lamp. Quite suddenly, Wayfinder Lau’s hand stopped, as though someone had called out to him. He looked up from his work. It was a small room, but the lamp was even smaller. Someone was standing at the very edge of the tiny circle of light cast on the floor.
Wayfinder Lau took off his glasses and squinted. “M’lady?”
The someone standing in the room shook with laughter and took a halfstep away from the circle of light. “Don’t look so surprised!” said a girl’s sweet voice. The voice that had made Wataru think of fairies.
“Your appearance…” Wayfinder Lau began, setting down his pen and standing.
“You don’t think it suits me? I occasionally wish to appear as a person, you know.”
Still hidden in the dim light at the corner of the room, the one Wayfinder Lau had called “m’lady” walked in a little circle. The hem of her skirt fluttered as she twirled.
She appeared as a young girl, incredibly slender, with a fragile beauty. From her clothes, she was not someone of Vision. “I don’t look so horrible all the time because I want to, you know. Sometimes, well, it’s good to get out.”
“And where did you borrow that little girl?”
“She was in the Tower of Destiny.”
“Then she is from the real world?”
“Yes, in fact. Must be one of his friends,” she answered, raising her borrowed right hand and placing it upon her borrowed right cheek. “I wonder if she’s his girlfriend? In any case, his mind has been tuned to her for some time now.”
Wayfinder Lau maintained his silence, unsure of where she was heading with this.
“Don’t you think if I appear to Wataru like this he might grow to like me—and her—all the more?”
“Not your best plan ever,” Wayfinder Lau said gently.
“Oh? But I merely want to make him happy.”
Make him happy so he’ll take your side? People are not quite so simple as all that. Perhaps she does not yet realize this.
“Besides, I’m rather fond of this look,” the little girl said, twirling around once more. Despite her childlike bounce, Wayfinder Lau’s keen eyes could see the weight that lay upon her heart.
The two were silent, listening to the sound of the rain on the forest leaves outside.
“He’s going to the north,” she said suddenly.
Wayfinder Lau knew this without being told. All the birds throughout Vision had been keeping tabs on the Travelers, informing him of their every move.
“He’s gotten quite far. One more step to the tower. Things are racing toward a finale.”
Wayfinder Lau replied slowly. “Then the path ahead of him, as you know, is his true test.”
She didn’t seem to be listening—instead, she seemed preoccupied with the circle of light on the floor. “It sure rains a lot around here. I don’t like the rain.”
Sitting in the warm lamplight, staring at her profile, Wayfinder Lau felt a sadness—a kind of pity—swell in his heart.
“Whose side are you on? Mitsuru’s? Or Wataru’s? Which do you want to win, Wayfinder Lau?”
“What I think is irrelevant.”
“But one of them must be chosen for the sacrifice, to become the Lord of the Underworld.”
“That is up to the Goddess to decide.”
“Why does she get to decide all these important things anyway?” The girl pouted, resting her borrowed hand upon the window frame. “Not that I care who wins. Even if Wataru should lose, my feelings will remain the same. If he is to become the Lord of the Underworld, then I’ll become the Goddess. Then we can rule Vision together. If he is to go back to the real world, then I’ll follow him like I am now.”
The girl sighed. “I’ve grown quite tired of Vision anyway. You know, I think we should just let the chaos win this time. The people in the real world have active enough imaginations—they’ll just make a new Vision. I’m sure there are plenty of little future Visions out there somewhere. One of them will grow, and bloom, and we’ll have a whole new world. How beautiful.”
“Are you jesting with me?”
“Oh no, I’m quite serious.”
Wayfinder Lau sat back down, slowly shaking his head. He reached his hand out toward the lamp.
“Stop!” came a sharp command from across the room. “Leave the light as it is. Please.”
“I thought you were fond of how you looked?”
“Oh, I am. I just don’t want to see myself right now.”
For that would make the transition back all the more painful. Wayfinder Lau took his hand off the lamp and put it back upon his knee.
“I’m going to fight, and this time, I’m going to win.” Beyond the circle of light, the girl’s eyes sparkled.
“This is why you come to me tonight? To tell me this?”
“Yes.”
“All that way?”
“I wanted to let you know that this time, no matter what you do, you won’t be able to stop me.”
“Oh?”
“Not in the slightest. I’ll be working with Wataru, you see. I’ll show you.”
“Not with Mitsuru?” Wayfinder Lau asked, though he knew her answer. He saw her flutter in the corner. “Mitsuru was too tough a nut to crack, is that it?”
She sighed. “He’s useless,” she said with a pained expression on her face.
Wayfinder Lau lowered his eyes. It was a simple thing to imagine how things must have gone. Mitsuru was quite talented, and his eyes were sharp. “You beckoned to him, and he saw through your disguise and pushed you away. Is this not what happened?”
The girl did not answer. Wayfinder Lau could see her slender shoulders hunch over tightly. “Wataru is nicer,” she said in a little voice. “That’s why I want to help him. That, and his determination is unlike that of any Traveler I’ve ever seen. Oh, I’m sure he’ll go far.”
Wayfinder Lau brushed his robes, shivering. When did it get so cold? “Wataru is not the only one with a will of stone. Mitsuru is the same. I wonder why you cannot see this?”
Continuing, he said, “It is because they are young, m’lady. For the very young to rail against their own bitter fate, they must draw upon all their strength and spirit. That is why they are so steadfast.”
And that steadfastness is why you will not succeed. No matter how gentle Wataru may be—so Wayfinder Lau thought.
“Remarkable, simply remarkable,” the girl said, with a voice that sounded like grinding teeth.
Outside, the relentless patter of the rain marked the passing of time.
“I’m sure that even if Wataru knew my true form, he wouldn’t push me away. That’s why it’s going to work. I’m sure of it.”
Wayfinder Lau turned back to his desk and picked up his pen. He began to write. Before he had even finished a sentence, the girl standing by the window disappeared. Wayfinder Lau did not bother to look up. Even though she was gone, he still felt a presence—something low to the floor, weighty and vile, slinking away from the light of the lamp.
When he could no longer feel the presence, Wayfinder Lau stood up from his chair, walked over to the window, and opened the heavy shutters. A fine mist of rain brushed against his face, dampening the white hairs of his brows and whiskers. The trees in the forest swayed. They were shaking their heads, scratching their branches together, all of them wide awake.
“Sorry about that,” the Wayfinder said to them in a little voice. “To bed with you now. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing will happen to our Vision. Sleep, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
The rain continued to fall quietly. The trees of the forest clung together, half frightened and half wary. They continued their sentry of the Village of the Watchers—the rain falling like silver from the sky.