A Game of Questions

The road to the Eternity Temple was well maintained. It was made of light grey cobblestones, curving gracefully between massive trees. These pines were thick as sycamores, so building the road around them had no doubt been easier than trying to cut them down. The air was warm and the wind had picked up, making for a pleasant temperature. The whir of insects shuffled around us with the occasional trill of a bird high up in the canopy. I wasn’t a strong enough birder to guess at the species, though it might have been a bird that didn’t exist on Earth.

I had resigned myself to a journey of silence and contemplation when the princess pulled her elk off to the side and slowed down until she was riding next to me.

“So,” she said. “I believe we met under less than favorable circumstances.” Her tone was polite, the pinnacle of propriety.

“In what way?” I asked. My guess was that a princess was probably used to formal introductions and randomly coming upon me after she beat a man in hand-to-hand combat wasn’t what she had in mind.

“Ordinarily, we would have met in a much more dignified manner,” she said.

Bingo. I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

“Where I come from, people meet in all kinds of ways, not all of them favorable,” I said.

“Are you--” she paused and reconsidered her words. “What position do you hold, in your world?”

This was a point of divergence. I could shut out the princess entirely, treat her as I was treating Seeker Len. She was a member of the royal family which makes her an accomplice or at the very least an accessory to my kidnapping. She hadn’t been there when I was summoned, but she knew that it was going to happen. Still, I didn’t exactly know her thoughts and feelings on the matter. She might have voiced concerns and had them pushed to the side. I recalled the sight of her fighting with Yuto. Playing nice with Mizuki seemed like a solid strategy, at least at the outset.

“If by position, you mean a job, then I didn’t exactly have one,” I said. “I was a student at university.”

“What is a university?” Mizuki asked, her intonation a bit odd on the last word, a word she’d never heard or said before.

“Ah, right. Well, it’s a school for adults. You generally enter it when you’re eighteen and study for a few years to learn how to do a particular job.”

Mizuki nodded slowly. “That is similar to our academies. Each academy is dedicated to the teaching of a handful of skills to help prepare the students for their future position. What were you studying?”

“I have a proposal,” I said, dodging her question for the moment. “Since you’ve asked me a question, I think it’s only fair that I ask you one. For every question you ask, I get to ask one of you in return.”

“Very well,” she said. Her spine was ramrod straight and her gaze was carefully blank.

“What are you princess of?” I asked. There was so much I didn’t know, too much, but getting a sense of the geography and politics wouldn’t be a bad idea.

She blinked at me a few times, then said. “The Emperor rules over the seven clans of Wosurei. Each clan has a head and that head is responsible for a province. All the provinces have a portion of governance that doesn’t involve the throne, but their loyalty belongs to the Emperor.”

The pine had thinned and given way to maple trees. The fullness of autumn could be seen in their scarlet leaves, swaying in the breeze. Many leaves had already fallen, covering the path with their bright bodies. Sweet decay was all around them, the once vibrant sparks now returning to the earth.

I hummed, then gestured at Mizuki. “Your turn.”

“What were you studying at this university?” Mizuki asked promptly.

I fought back a sigh. As if I didn’t hear that question enough back home.

“Art history,” I said flatly. Then, out of kindness and to save time, I added, “It’s as it sounds, looking at art throughout history from different parts of the world and learning about them.”

“You wished to be a historian,” she said. It wasn’t phrased as a question so I couldn’t turn the rule back on her, but to agree with it would give her a false impression of me. In the end, I just said, “Not exactly. Now, it’s my turn again. What is the Eternity Temple?”

“The temple was built over six hundred years ago,” she said. “It was commissioned by the first Imai Emperor, who had it built to try and communicate with the gods. Ever since, it’s served as the place the Emperor and his family use to entreat the gods on how best to retain their favour.”

“Are we going to try and speak to the gods?” I asked, hope rising in my chest.

“I believe it’s my turn to ask a question,” Mizuki said with a smile.

I huffed. “Fine, ask away.”

“Do the gods exist in your world?” Her smile was gone, replaced with complete seriousness.

I sucked my teeth. “That’s. . . to be determined. Some people think there are gods. A lot of people think there’s just one God. But if there is a God, or gods, they don’t talk to us. Not like you and I are talking now.”

“So they didn’t speak to you before you arrived here?” Mizuki asked, her voice rising.

I considered pushing back, as she did to me when I asked two questions in a row, but her frantic turn had me concerned. “No. I had no idea I was going to be summoned to Wosurei.”

Mizuki frowned. “That goes against the texts. The hero summoned from another world is contacted prior to their arrival to determine if they are suitable.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Ah well, I don’t recall speaking to any gods. I just went to sleep and woke up in that cave.”

“Cave?”

I opened my mouth to elaborate when we turned a corner and the Eternity Temple came into view. There was a man standing in the middle of the path, halfway between us and the temple. He wore a bright green robe with three stripes of colour (yellow, pink, and bronze) embroidered around the cuffs and collar.

He bowed to us in the same way the Emperor bowed to me, evoking the image of a low lunge. “Greetings, Princess Mizuki and Seer Rin. We have eagerly awaited your arrival.”

Our game of questions was over. Now it was time to figure out exactly what the hell I was about to do.