'Flame of the Ocean' - Chapter VIII
The squid-lights were out when Kasumi returned to the throne room. Father, Mother, and Namika were all gathered around the globe, which showed the hall Kasumi had just left. They were watching me, she realized.
“Do you think to make fools of us, child?” Mother asked, in tones as harsh as a northern current.
“You heard me perfectly well,” Kasumi replied. “I told him nothing about the next two rooms. He’s found the way to claim the pearls all on his own so far.” She was thankful that Satoshi had said and done just the right things to make that technically true from the globe’s eye. “You should be as fair as you expect him to be.”
Namika all wore different faces as they looked at her. Sayuri’s was still unreadable, and Ayako’s matched Mother’s, cold and unamused. But Hikari gave the smallest of smiles, the first she had ever given Kasumi.
The dragon king’s face was stone. “We will see,” he said flatly, flicking his tail toward the shifting globe. It took another high view of the next room.
The room of ever spring was a sprawling meadow, with all the flowers in bloom. A rainbow spanned over the horizon while beams of sunlight shot through the holes in the dark purple clouds. Kasumi remembered the smell of fresh rain that clung to her whenever she played in that room.
In the meadow was a herd of sika deer and a band of horses. The horses, Kasumi knew, were bred from warhorses brought below the sea when Father sunk the ships carrying them many years ago. He had let them, and their descendants grow wild in the room of ever spring. The deer were descended from a herd gifted by Mother’s great-grandfather, to get them away from his forests. There were three of them about, two does and a stag. A white silk ribbon was tied about the stag’s throat, and attached to the ribbon was the third pearl.
If it was so easy to spot from above like this, it shouldn’t take Satoshi long, thought Kasumi. Denko stuck his head out from her hair just as the globe showed Satoshi step through the doorway. Only seconds passed before he gave a little jump and start, a clear tell he had seen the pearl. But Kasumi didn’t like how easy it was to find, or these sets of animals in the room. She could guess what Father and Mother had planned.
She watched as Satoshi tried to creep up on the stag, in big slow steps up on his toes. He got closer than she would have guessed before it spied him, but once it had, it thrashed its antlers to drive him back. It reared, bucked, and made for the line of trees at the meadow’s edge. Its charge went through both the herds. The does scattered and went for the trees, but the horses fell into a mad gallop. They broke in all directions, cutting through the morning glories and spider lilies and magnolias of the meadow. They came together, leapt up, and split apart. In the middle of it all was Satoshi, leaping and rolling and flying from the horses, always trying to get after the stag but never able to clear the whirlwind around him.
He was on his knees when the mare came at him. She was white, sea white, her mane streaming out behind her like the foam of a wave. Kasumi bit down hard on her tongue as she watched the mare rear up in front of Satoshi and bring her hooves crashing down. But Satoshi rolled to one side, sprang up on his feet, and threw himself sideways across the mare’s back. His left hand was closed in a tight fist, with something dark sticking out near his thumb. Kasumi heard mother tsk and Father grumble. She let out a little sigh and reached up to pat Denko’s head; the dormouse was shaking in her hair. I hope you’ve learned to stay ahorse, Satoshi.
The mare kicked and bandied about in a greater fury than good Hayami’s farm horse could dream of matching. Satoshi managed to right himself along her back, but without bridle or saddle, he could only cling to her mane, and her neck once he had pulled himself forward. Kasumi saw him nudge the mare with his feet and tug at her mane. She fought him all the way, but he managed to turn her onto the trail of the stag.
Once he had the mare on the right path, Satoshi let go of her neck with his left hand, still closed around that dark shape sticking out by his thumb. Then he let go with his right arm and plunged it down his yukata. The mare reared again, and Kasumi and Denko both cried out. But Satoshi held on with his legs, pulled out his sling, loaded it with the small stone from his left hand, and got off his shot at the stag before the mare finally bucked him.
He landed in a patch of andromeda. His stone landed on the back of the stag’s head. It staggered at the blow, tripped, and fell to the ground. Even from the globe’s high view, Kasumi saw its tail wiggle and legs twitch; it was only stunned. Satoshi was too; he lay where he fell, his mouth open and his eyes half-shut, while the mare fled into the trees and the rest of the horses settled back into grazing. After a few minutes, Satoshi pulled up one leg, then the other, and pushed himself onto his haunches. Kasumi could see the pallor of his face, and the tremble in his arm when he leaned on it. But he rose to his feet and slowly made his way to the stag, still fallen on its side. He untied the ribbon and loosed the third pearl.
Father hissed before he had even recalled the globe, and Mother let out a growl herself. They coiled together over the throne in conference. Kasumi saw Hikari take Sayuri by the arm to whisper something, and Ayako shift away from them as if they were squid who had shot ink. When the seahorses returned with Satoshi, only Kasumi noticed.
“Are you alright?” she asked him. He was still pale, and he could tread water but weakly, but he smiled and nodded. Denko swam out of Kasumi’s hair to snuggle against Satoshi’s face. He held out the pearl for Kasumi to see.
A snarl loud as a wave’s crash turned their heads to the throne, and the dragon king’s fuming gaze. “We forbid you from having a beast find the last two pearls for you,” he said.
“And they didn’t,” Satoshi answered hotly. His treads became surer, and his hand closed tight around the pearl. “It was tied to that stag – I spotted it on my own!”
“So you did,” Father conceded, with ill humor. “But the mare –”
“Did no finding,” Kasumi shouted. “Satoshi can ride and hunt. With the one skill he harnessed and urged that mare, and with the other he brought down the stag. You never forbade him to use his skills, and they delivered the pearl into his hands.”
The dragon king raged and roared. He uncoiled enough of his length that he could circle the room twice before he brought his head in to confer again with Mother. Kasumi heard Satoshi grumbling beside her, and she felt her own fists shaking. It was bad enough that they tried to kill Satoshi with those wild horses, but all those tricks with the rules just weren’t fair. She wasn’t sorry at all now for her plan to fix the room of ever winter. The safest is last, Satoshi. I’ve seen to that. I’ll get you home soon.
Father and Mother’s faces were hard when they looked up, as they had been all night, but there was something else there. Something cruel. “The third pearl is fairly found,” Father said, in oily tones that didn’t suit his voice. “But you shall make no use of any beast, or sling, or stones, or anything but your own person to find the last pearl. All shall be removed from the room of ever winter. You shall enter it alone, find the treasure alone, and leave alone, or you will fail the challenge.”
“I’ll take those terms!” Satoshi cried, before Kasumi could say anything. She wanted to slap him. She wanted to strike Mother. She wanted claws of her own to give the dragon king a swat, before she took Satoshi home and ran off on her own. She wanted a deep vent to open up on the ocean floor and pull her down into it. If the room is emptied and he gets no tools, then all my plans are done. And Satoshi…
“You can’t keep changing the terms like that!” she roared. Namika gasped, Mother’s face curdled, and even Satoshi pulled away from her a little. But the dragon king swept his head down to face her, the squid lights reflected in both his eyes.
“We have set this challenge,” he said, his voice still full of oil. “Your farm boy shall complete it fairly by our terms. We have given way to you throughout this night, but here we are firm. And you shall not see him to the last room. We won’t have you whispering in his ear again.”
Kasumi started to protest, but the dragon king’s tail struck out, wrapped around her, and covered her mouth. The dragon king clapped his hands, and narwhale appeared to lead the way to the last challenge. Satoshi only had time to wave to Kasumi before he was pushed by the flat of the narwhale’s horn out of the room.
Denko kicked his way back over to Kasumi. Instead of putting the dormouse back into her hair, Kasumi put both hands around him and held him to her chest. The squid dimmed their lights, Father summoned the globe, and Kasumi watched as the turtle guards herded all the seals and sea-eagles from the room of ever winter. The seals and sea-eagles she had told how to get Satoshi safely through the room.