Day One of the Journey: A Street Performance
The sky I crossed astride my broom was a canvas of blue, and across it the clouds had been brushed on in white paint. They looked like cotton candy, so tempting that a single bite would have been enough. Did this world even have cotton candy?
In my previous life, people liked to say that dentists had invented the stuff. If it didn't exist here, I could simply make it myself: that sweetness popping on the tongue, the sugar melting soft and slow. The thought alone was a pleasure. I turned all sorts of happy imaginings over in my mind as the cool wind met me.
"So refreshing..."
The wind was showing me which way I ought to go. There was a reason travelers called it their friend, their companion, their comrade-in-arms; it was not an empty saying. Had becoming a woman made me a little sentimental? Even in my previous life, people had teased me for painting like a girl. It had never bothered me. I was simply glad that someone had noticed me at all.
It was absolutely not that being called girlish had pleased me.
Really.
"Oh. There it is."
The capital: a great castle, and a whole city visible even from far away. Vast and built of stone, the Empire's citadel, with the many brick houses showing within it, was a delight to the eyes. This was the castle where the Emperor lived, the seat of the nation and its political, economic, and cultural heart, and it was already warming with festival fever for the imperial prince's birthday.
"I arrived at the Empire at just the right time."
Luck was with me. I could enjoy everything the festival had to offer. Two hundred years of waiting had been worth it.
"Broom Flying in the Sky, let's go down."
I sent the broom the signal to descend, and as if it understood, it settled slowly to the ground. Landing right up at the front would only have drawn eyes, and I might even have been hunted as a witch.
A great citadel sheltered the imperial city, the way a parent tries to keep their children safe from the world. It had a massive gate as well, and before that gate the guards were hard at work, controlling the carriages and checking identities. With the festival underway, the labor was nothing short of hell for them.
I joined the long line myself and waited for my turn to enter the Empire.
"Miss."
"Yes? Are you talking to me?"
"Who else is there besides you, miss?"
I'm not a young miss. I'm a grandmother...
At the unfamiliar voice calling from behind, I turned. There stood a pleasant-looking man with a brown beard, green eyes, and a head so smooth that not a single hair remained. Behind him was a wagon packed full and hidden behind a screen, waiting in the same line as I was.
If I had to put a name to the feeling...
The uncle from next door?
"Miss, would this happen to be your first time in the Empire?"
"Mm... yes, I suppose? How did you know?"
He spoke to me with a good-natured smile. He even knew it was my first time here.
Is he just that sharp-eyed?
"I've never seen a mage dressed the way you are, miss."
"A mage? Not a witch?"
"A witch...? What's that? A woman who uses magic? These days we say mage."
"Ah... it's similar. And how did you know that, too?"
The pleasant man had called me a mage, not a witch. Two hundred years ago, they had named those who used magic witches and put them to death. Had the age changed?
"Your clothes stand out, miss. That's why."
My clothes stand out? Isn't this how you're supposed to dress in a fantasy world?
Only then did I look at what the people around me were wearing. They might put on robes, but no one wore a hat as conspicuously enormous as mine. When a hundred people all say an answer is right and one person says it is wrong, the wrong answer belongs to that one person.
...So I was the strange one.
But these clothes, and this hat, were precious to me.
I absolutely cannot take them off!
"Mmm... it's to show that I'm a mage."
"Ooh... I knew it!"
In truth, I had made it up on the spot. The pleasant man took my empty little philosophy for something profound and let out a sound of admiration.
"You said it was your first time in the Empire, yes? Then would you care to try this? It would suit a mage perfectly."
Ah. So he was a merchant.
Tsk. I should have pretended not to understand.
The Merchant began taking all manner of goods out of his wagon: perfume, pendants, music boxes, earrings, even necklaces. They were ornaments any woman might take an interest in. I cared more about dressing up than I had in my previous life, and I very nearly bought something on impulse.
Hah? I can't do that... I don't even have any money...
This was the moment my easy thought — I can just earn money while I travel — came back to catch me by the ankle.
"Ah, or do you need a slave instead of these? I've got some sturdy ones. Have a look."
"A slave...?"
It might be a fantasy world, but slavery still existed? There would be a revolution someday. Having said as much, the Merchant lifted the screen just a little and showed me what was inside.
Within, I saw a boy with clouded eyes. He had black hair, like mine, and a body covered in wounds, shut inside an iron cage. Lifeless pupils fixed on the floor.
"Ah, this one is a Cursed Child. Not him — the ones in the back..."
How pitiful... a slave...
But I'm sorry. I don't have the money to buy you.
I understood the ache of it, but I was no saint... no, no saintess. You'll meet a good person. I'm sure of it.
"I'm sorry. I don't have any money."
"You don't have money?"
The instant I confessed to being penniless, the Merchant's face twisted. He dropped the screen back into place and turned a filthy look on me.
Discriminating against beggars? That's too much.
"Next person, come forward."
An awkward moment — and then my turn to enter the Empire arrived, and a Gate Guard began calling for me. The timing was perfect.
"I'm sorry. I'll buy something next time."
"What... of all the..."
I offered him a careless apology and stepped up before the Gate Guard. Clad in armor of iron and leather, he held his palm out toward me.
Does he want to shake hands?
I took his hand and shook it up and down. Looking thoroughly displeased, he knocked my hand aside — fwip, fwip — and opened his mouth. The heavy dark circles under his eyes showed just how exhausted he was.
"Please present your identification, or a pass."
"I don't have anything like that."
The Gate Guard's face pinched, as if to ask what kind of person this was. He sighed and spoke again.
"Then you must pay the toll."
"I don't have any money, either."
The Gate Guard ground his teeth and began to glare at me.
Is this really something to get so angry about...
You shouldn't let your mood become your manners...
A child who only looks twenty or thirty, and he doesn't even respect his elders...
Once again the Gate Guard let out a great sigh and handed me a sheet of parchment. Writing was packed across it, line after line.
How am I supposed to read this? I was illiterate.
"Please sign."
"What is this?"
At my question, the Gate Guard glared as if he might kill me for not knowing even that.
...A person can fail to know things...
"It is a contract. Should you cause an incident or an accident within the Empire, you will receive severe punishment, and in the event that you damage property..."
He wore an angry face, and yet he was explaining it to me kindly. Hmm. It seemed I had misunderstood him. To take such a kind public official for a fierce-looking man... I wasn't acting my age, either.
"...Do you understand?"
"Yes. Thank you for telling me."
I let the kind Gate Guard's kind explanation go in one ear and out the other, then offered him my thanks. With a soft scritch, I signed the contract in mana and passed into the Empire without trouble.
"Good work. Thank you, young man."
"Young... man?"
Even as I walked in, I did not forget to give thanks. People are creatures who ought to know gratitude. The Gate Guard stared after me with a strange look until the very end. I decided that look had only come from being ground down by fatigue.
The streets were full of children's laughter. The imperial capital was a joy just to walk through, and with stalls and sights of every kind, my eyes had no chance to rest. Voices and footsteps pleased my ears, and the smells of all sorts of food pleased my nose.
So witches have been forgotten completely.
People glanced at my clothes and simply took me for a mage before moving on. The age of fearing witches, and of hating one another because of them, was over.
I wish Mother could have been here too...
Ah, what am I doing, ruining my own mood? I came to a festival. I ought to enjoy it.
But enjoying a festival required money. Where was I supposed to get it?
The method was simple. I went to a fountain where people's eyes would fall just right, and took my place.
Picking the coins out of the fountain, you ask? I was not that sort of senseless person.
Behavior like that belonged only to people who had grown old without ever growing wise. What I meant to do was a street performance. In my previous life it would have been close to illegal, but now was different. This was a fantasy world.
Around the fountain, people were already performing — magic shows, busking, and the like. It would be fierce competition.
I can do it. If it's me.
One by one, people began to turn their eyes toward me where I had climbed up onto the fountain. I might have lived a long time, but it was a fact that I was pretty, so of course the gazes gathered.
"Ahem."
I cleared my throat slowly, announcing that the performance had begun. The people must have held some expectation of their own; they stopped mid-step and began to watch me. A performance needs more than a singer. A singer also needs instruments behind her, so with a soft rush of air I drew several from Subspace and conjured an ensemble to play alongside me. All of it was me, sounding each part one by one with magic... but still.
I closed my eyes and began to play. The song I would sing was a lullaby, the one Mother had sung to me in this life when I was small. A beautiful melody rose from the instruments and led the people's ears into a crucible of feeling.
La— lala—
Lala— lala...
Melody left my own mouth as well, and set the citizens' ears at ease. Even the other performers paused their shows and began to focus on me. Before long the crowd had become an audience, sinking into the performance.
"Hoo..."
When it ended, the audience opened their eyes and answered with applause and praise. There were those who struck their palms together to cheer me on, those who shed tears as if old memories had surfaced, and those who gave me money.
The last sort have the best sense of all.
It might look like a two-hundred-year-old grandmother squeezing coins out of young people... but I'll just think of it as pocket money, all right?
Hmm... huh?
The black-haired child?
The boy with the wounded body and the clouded eyes was looking at me, and his eyes were shining.