The Road Goes Ever On

The path leading away from the palace was cobblestoned and well-trod. Despite the growing amount of sun, the air was still cold. Pine trees lined the path like sentinels, their fallen, rusty needles carpeting the earth beneath their branches. There were no forks in the road yet, just one way to go. We were the only ones coming or going, though there was enough space for a cart to pass us by comfortably. With the palace out of sight, it felt like we were the only people for kilometres around. The childish urge to shout rose in me to see if it might echo.

“So,” I called up to Princess Mizuki. “What’s the plan for today, exactly?”

“We make for Bhojin. If we keep a steady pace, we should make it there by nightfall.” Her tone was cool, professional. I wouldn’t have guessed she’d been fighting with her mother a moment ago. “Between here and Bhojin, there are a few landmarks but no villages. It should be a quiet day.”

She glanced up at the sky, as if daring the gods to prove her wrong. Or perhaps that was just the rebel in me. She may have simply been checking the weather.

I snorted. “Way to jinx it.”

“What?” I could hear the frown in her voice despite her facing away from me.

I hummed as I tried to think of a way to explain. “Hmmm. Well, where I come from, saying what you want to happen out loud can invite bad luck. You’re jinxing it.”

“I see. So it’s like a curse you cast on yourself.”

I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Right, exactly.”

“Can you tell us more about your world?” Vris asked.

I twisted back in my seat to look at her. “The princess knows this, but I have a strict question tax. I’ll answer you, but in return I get to ask a question.”

Vris squirmed in her seat. “I’m not really supposed to—”

“As Princess of Wosurei, I give you permission to answer whatever questions Seer Rin asks. I will also do my best to answer,” Mizuki said, cutting off Vris’s protest.

Her response took me aback. I had come to know the princess only a little, and what I saw made her out to be something of a rule follower. Seems I was wrong. The road went on, the pine trees stretching off in every direction. I hoped for a change of scenery soon to prevent monotony from setting in.

“Thanks,” I said to the princess. I gestured at Vris. “Go on then, ask your question.”

Her eyes lit up. “Is it true people can fly there?”

“Who told you that?” I asked with a raised brow.

She flushed with embarrassment. “Seeker Len said one time, when he was in his cups, that the previous Seer was a specialist who could fly.”

A specialist who could fly? Fly a plane, or a helicopter maybe.

“He might have been a pilot,” I said. “Which means he’s one of the people trained to fly a plane. It’s a . . . thing we use to fly people from place to place.”

“So it’s true, you can fly!” Vris crowed with delight. I’d never seen her so animated.

Princess Mizuki turned to face me, brow furrowed. “Truly?”

Air travel was one of those things that, if you thought about it for a while, was only one step away from magic. The airports and early flights, the baggage claim and the weather delays made you forget how crazy it was. Featherless humans had devised a way to stand on any continent at just about any time by flying through the air.

“It’s true,” I said, unable to hold back a smile at their awe. “We created these machines that look like metal birds. We make them go fast with engines, now don’t ask me how engines work, and they go so fast the air makes them lift off and they can transport a few hundred people across oceans.”

“Have you ever been on one of these planes?” Vris asked, leaning forward in Chamomile’s saddle as if to drink up my every word.

“Yes,” I said. “A few times. It can be expensive though, depending on where you're going. Usually the longer the distance, the more expensive it gets. Now, I gave you a lot of information just there so I think I’ve earned two questions.”

Vris mirth ebbed away, her mouth tightening. “Very well.”

There were so many questions I had, but Vris and Mizuki wouldn’t necessarily know the answers to many of them. I settled on one I thought they may know. “Why doesn’t Seeker Len have an apprentice?”

Both Vris and Mizuki went dead silent. The only sound was the steady click of our elk’s hooves against stone.

Vris swallowed hard. “I . . . he did have an apprentice before. He swore he wouldn’t take on another one after what happened.”

“What happened to them? I asked, using up my second question.

“She took her own life,” Mizuki said. Both Vris and I turned our attention to her. “I am not privy to all the details, but it’s said she had a disagreement with Seeker Len. The rift between them grew so large that it became insurmountable. Her position became intolerable to her.”

My heart sank. Poor girl. As a person fundamentally opposed to Seeker Len, I had nothing but sympathy for her.

“Why didn’t she just leave?” I asked.

This was technically my third question, but Mizuki answered anyway. “She couldn’t. Once a Seeker is sworn in, they can never leave, staying in the palace until they die. She took the only way out available to her.”

A heavy melancholy settled over us. What would have made her so desperate to leave? Mizuki and Vris didn’t know, and Seeker Len certainly wasn’t going to tell me. It may have been important, or it may have been a distant tragedy that had no bearing on me. We rode in silence for long minutes. The pine trees had begun to grow shorter with more distance between them. Soon, we had left the forest behind and emerged into a hilly area.

I cleared my throat. “Ah, so, I believe I owe someone a question.”

A pause, then Vris asked, “Does your world have an Emperor?”

And so the questions resumed.