The Wings of Dreams

head. “Twenty-seven years. The empress died a whole twenty-seven years ago! Now youma are even appearing in Renshou. More and more people are dying—”
    She looked up through the barred skylight of the stables. When a kingdom lost its emperor, the kingdom descended into chaos and youma roamed at will.
    “And yet well-meaning adults bar the windows and the doors and say they sleep soundly at night. What foolishness. As long as we have no emperor, the world will deteriorate around us. What must they be thinking?”
    Hakuto looked at her like a child not quite getting the gist. Shushou smiled and took up the reins.

    Where the sunlight slanted beneath the eaves, Bashi and his workers sat together and finished up various handiwork and chores. They were amazed at the sight of a moukyoku galloping across the grounds of the “cold room.”
    “Miss!”
    They jumped to their feet and ran out, waving their arms to stop the bolting pair. With an almost lazy leap, the moukyoku soared over them, as if dancing right into the sun.
    “Miss!” Bashi called out. “Shushou-sama!”
    The moukyoku vaulted over the eaves and bounded across the bright green roof. All Bashi could do was watch as Shushou’s bright voice rained down from the sky.
    “I’m just off for a little jaunt!”
    “What in the world—! Miss!”
    “Don’t worry! I’ll be fine!”
    Leaving the confounded Bashi and the other behind in the dust, the moukyoku sprinted up the roof of the main wing. Shushou turned in the saddle and waved goodbye.
    The white tail of the moukyoku flashed against the gleaming enamel. The guards posted at the four corners of the estate looked up and pointed at the fleeting kijuu. Shushou laughed and waved and urged the moukyoku on. As they cleared the great roof of the main wing, the endless spring sky reached out before her.
    White clouds trailed silky threads across a light blue tableau tinged with pale violet. The tile roofs of Renshou spilled down the slopes beneath her, cresting and falling like ocean waves. As if corralling the city against Ryou’un Mountain behind it, the twisting, entwining barrier walls were bathed in white, tinged by the golden rays of the sun.
    Beyond the walls was black earth and green valleys and hills. Everywhere lingered the early signs of spring, suffused with the soft light.
    The white kijuu kicked off the waves of tile, landed on the nearby wall, and with a sidelong look at the startled sentinels ran along the top of the battlements. The galloping moukyoku glanced back at Shushou with a look that said, You sure this is okay?
    “It’s fine. It’s fine. The only moukyoku in Renshou is you, Hakuto. Nobody’s going to take a shot at Banko’s kijuu.”
    Shushou smiled at Hakuto as she took in the sun-drenched countryside. “I simply couldn’t abide sitting around twiddling my thumbs. If no adults are going to step up, then I will!”
    Where to? Hakuto seemed to ask with a second glance back.
    Shushou said, urging the kijuu towards the outskirts of Renshou, “To Mt. Hou! We’re going on the Shouzan!”

Chapter 5
    [1-5]  I n the center of the world was the Yellow Sea.
    The Yellow Sea was a dry sea, equal in size to any of the surrounding kingdoms. It was a land that lay outside civilized law and order, where youma roamed at will. The Yellow Sea was the domain of neither humans nor gods. The one exception were the Five Mountains in the middle of the Yellow Sea, known collectively as the Gozan.
    The Gozan was home to the gardens of the mountain wizards and Seioubo, the “Queen Mother of the West.”
    Gods and humans did not mingle together. People could only pray at the ancestral shrines, and the priests and wizards participated in the shaping of the world only by absorbing into themselves the prayers uttered there.
    Supposing that the Five Mountains were indeed the gardens of the wizards, and the Yellow Sea the province of the youma, this still remained a world unconnected to human habitation. Mt. Hou alone was not entirely divorced from mortal concerns.
    Mt. Hou, also known as Taishan, was the holy ground where those divine creatures, the kirin, were born. The kirin were magical beings of great power. Exercising affection and compassion, wise both to the Way and the reason of the world, they heard the Divine Will of Heaven as dictated by Providence.
    The human world was divided into twelve kingdoms, each ruled by a emperor or empress. They were not chosen according to their bloodline or