Chapter 1 The Village of the Watchers
Chapter 1
The Village of the Watchers
Wataru walked through brilliant light for an indeterminate time. Then, just like that, the light faded and he found himself in a deep forest. A cool breeze brushed across his cheek.
The forest grew thick with massive trees that seemed tall enough to touch the sky. He looked up until his neck became stiff, finally spotting a patch of blue sky peeking through the canopy far above.
There, in the middle of that sky, hung a golden sun.
Fwee! Fwoo!
Wataru heard something—like somebody blowing a whistle. He looked around, and then as quickly as he could, he spun on his heel. There was nobody in sight.
Fwee! Fwoo! Fulululu!
He heard the sound again, and then a bird with brilliant orange feathers came flying out of the bushes directly in front of him. It must’ve been that bird singing.
Wataru turned his attention back to the forest. He’d never seen woods so deep and vast. The thick-growing leaves and branches intertwined above his head, making everything pleasantly cool. Oddly enough, it wasn’t as dark under the boughs as he would’ve expected. Probably because the sun is so high in the sky, he thought. It must be nearly noon.
The ground beneath his feet was soft, and comfortable to walk on. Humus, that’s what it’s called. Dad taught me on a camping trip when I was in first grade, was it?
The ground was covered with rich green moss, and low, leafy plants with pretty white flowers. Grass was growing everywhere—soft and thick, it felt like velvet to the touch. He looked closer and saw traces of a path worn by the passing of many feet. It wound off through the woods, heading into the distance.
Wataru took a deep breath and began to walk down the path. He heard another birdsong, like a whistle, off somewhere in the woods. Wataru whistled, trying to mimic it, then waited. The bird replied, the end of its song lifting as though in question.
Fwee, fwoo, fololo?
Wataru mimicked the call again. For a moment, there was silence. Then the bird answered. Fwee-fee, fwolololo fwee! Fwee fwololo fwee fwee fwoolulu!
He shook his head and laughed. “Okay, okay. You win. There’s no way I can do that.”
The bird gave a satisfied-sounding chirp.
Walking further, he came to a place where the path zigzagged through the undergrowth. There was a clearing ahead.
In the open space sat a small hut, with a red roof and stumpy chimney. Behind it was another, and another. A village.
Wataru walked up to the nearest structure. He now counted five houses standing in the forest clearing. They looked practically identical, with one exception: smoke was rising from the chimney of the nearest hut. Wataru climbed three steps of cut logs to stand before a small log door.
“Hello?”
There was no reply. White smoke drifted lazily from the chimney. A pleasant smell of burning wood hung about the house. Wataru sniffed at the air.
“Is nobody home?”
Suddenly the door swung out with a bang. Wataru was so surprised he lost his balance, slipping on a step and falling on his rear in the grass.
An old man wearing a long robe stood holding open the door. “Foolish question, boy!” he snapped.
Without thinking, Wataru pointed at the old man. “You!” The wizard from the Porta Nectere! The color of his robes was different, but there was no mistaking that voice and wizened face.
But his eyes looked menacing, and he seemed much grumpier than he had been when Wataru met him before. He glared at Wataru, and began to frown. “Were nobody home, how could they answer? Tell me that! Wasted words, boy.”
“Um…” said Wataru, still squatting on the grass.
“More waste!” the old man shouted to the heavens. Wataru feared that the spray of spit flying from the old man’s mouth would fall on him. “If you mean yes, say yes. If you mean no, say no. What kind of a word is ‘um,’ anyway? And why would you say it, but to follow with a proper answer directly afterward? More waste!”
“Um, but I…” Wataru began, stopping short when he saw the old man’s face go red. He began clawing at his breast with wrinkled hands, spitting furiously.
“No, no, no! A criminal waste of words! Stay where you are, miscreant, and I shall mete out proper punishment!”
Robes swirling, the old man dashed back into the hut. As Wataru stared, dumbfounded, he returned, swinging a heavy-looking cane with both hands. “Prepare yourself!”
Wataru shrieked, shot to his feet, and began to run.
“Wait! No running!” Protesting, the old wizard gave chase. Wataru ran in a circle around the standing huts, like he was playing a schoolyard game of tag. The old man seemed incredibly lively for his age, and his anger never seemed to lessen, nor did he run out of breath. Wataru was afraid he might actually be caught. Panicked, he ran to the edge of the clearing, up against the forest and stopped. There was nowhere else for him to go. He was cornered.
He glanced to the side to see the back door of the rearmost hut directly to his right. Dashing past the fuming wizard, he ran for the door. The small log door opened smoothly inward, and Wataru tumbled inside the hut.
He saw a small chair, a table, and a thin blanket on a hard-looking bed. No sooner had he taken stock of his surroundings than the door behind him swung open again.
“I said no running!” screamed the wizard, charging in. Panting, Wataru flew across the hut and out the front door.
What am I supposed to do? How did I get into this mess?
Mitsuru had told him to go to the Watcher first. If this grouchy wizard wasn’t the Watcher, Wataru couldn’t think of who it might be. He was the one who he had first seen standing by the Porta Nectere, after all. Why is he chasing me? It didn’t make any sense.
Wataru thought as he ran, looking for a hiding place, when suddenly he realized he was no longer being chased. Huh? Maybe his pursuer had tired at last.
Wataru turned around and looked at the village. Something was slightly different about it, but he couldn’t quite pin down what it was. It was like one of those find-the-mistake puzzles.
The chimney. The white smoke coming from the chimney.
When he first arrived at the village, smoke had been rising from the first hut. Now the smoke was rising from the furthest one—the one he’d just run through.
It occurred to him that, though the wizard had chased him into that particular house, he hadn’t seen him come out.
Walking cautiously across the soft grass, Wataru approached the front door of the farthest hut. He put his ear to the wood. Nothing.
Wait…is that someone humming?
“Um…excuse me, is anybody home?”
The humming stopped. Soft footfalls approached the door.
The door opened, and the wizard from before stuck out his head. He didn’t seem angry at all. “Well now,” he said, spreading his arms. “Perhaps you might be the new visitor Mitsuru has told me about?” His voice was kind and gentle. “What’s going on here?”
“Um, Mister…” Wataru began. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”
The old man opened his eyes wide. “Me, mad? At you?” But he lowered his arms and peered at the space between his hands, as though he were looking for something. “Why would I be angry with you?”
“Why—but just now—you sure you aren’t angry?” Wataru pointed at the first hut. “When I met you over there, you were grumpy from the first minute. You said I was wasting words, and you were going to hit me with your cane!”
The wizard inserted a long slender finger into one nostril. “Me? I did that?”
He’s gone senile.
“You did,” Wataru said, rather forcefully. He feared he was being toyed with.
But then it occurred to him that perhaps this was a sort of test—a trial for new Travelers to Vision. You had to placate the Watcher to pass. If that was the case, Wataru better play it serious. “Um, I am a Traveler here, actually,” he said, pulling out the pendant. “Mitsuru Ashikawa, he gave me this. He told me to show this to the Watcher in Vision, and he would prepare me for my journey. Are you the Watcher?”
The old wizard thrust his hands into the folds of his robes and brought out a comically large device resembling a telescope. Then, yanking Wataru’s hand closer, he examined the pendant through the scope.
“Hrm, yes,” he said. “You are the second Traveler. What is your name?”
“Wataru Mitani.”
“Too long. Here, your name will be Wataru. It’s an odd enough name, and no one should be mistaking you for anyone else as it is.”
Wataru nodded, not wanting to make a fuss and risk raising the old man’s ire again.
“Well, come in, come in,” the wizard said, pushing open the door and waving Wataru inside. “Sit on that chair by the table. I’ll get the map.”
Wataru did as he was told, sitting at the simple table. His heart thumped in his chest.
The old wizard shut the door and shuffled over to a little bookshelf in the back of the room, from which he pulled out several books. To Wataru’s surprise, he then tossed the books aside and thrust his hand into the empty space where they had been.
“Here it is,” he said, pulling out what appeared to be a long scroll. It looked exactly like an item, the merchant’s map, he remembered from Saga II—even down to the slightly yellowed edges.
In the game, the merchant’s map wasn’t a complete map of the Kingdom of Juma. As its name suggested, it was a map used by merchants to mark places of trade, and, as such, showed only the main routes and population centers. To win the game, you had to go to the Land of Faerie. Once there, you needed to add further land and sea information to the map. Then, if you could win the hundred-man bout in the capital city of Jumarang, you would get the Adventurer’s Map. All you had to do after that was place the two maps together to reveal the location of Balbalan, Isle of Enchantment, where the final labyrinth in the game awaited.
The old wizard sat across from him at the table and spread out the map. He had to hold the edges down to keep them from curling back. The wizard’s hands were so thin they looked almost skeletal.
“This is the map to the Cave of Trials. Follow this path, and even the greatest fool in the land could find it,” he said with a significant look at Wataru.
Wataru looked over the map, and felt an immediate and profound sense of disappointment. The map in Saga II was a work of art. This looked like a kid’s doodle. Even a sketch of the way from Wataru’s apartment to the nearest train station would have been more complicated.
“So, this is where we are now?” Wataru asked, pointing to a picture of five huts in a circle.
“Precisely.”
“So I just need to go into the forest to the north, straight from here?” A single road led northward on the map.
“Precisely.”
“That’s all?” Wataru said with a laugh. “I didn’t need a map to find that!”
“Yet you need a guide to climb a great mountain—even though the only way to go is up,” the wizard said solemnly.
“Climb? I have to climb somewhere?”
The wizard gave Wataru a swift slap to the forehead. “It was a metaphor,” he barked. “I said you’re going to the Cave of Trials. You don’t climb a cave, boy.”
Wataru sighed. “Right. So, why do I have to go to this Cave of Trials, anyway? Is there something there?”
“What, Mitsuru did not tell you? That is where you will prepare for your journey.”
“Here?” Wataru said, stabbing at map where Cave of Trials was written. “But it’s just a name. Don’t you have a map of the cave itself?”
“Of course not. It wouldn’t be much of a trial if I did, now would it?” the wizard said, rolling his eyes. “Listen, you will go into the cave, and then you will have your map. When you come out, you will be ready for your journey. That’s how it works.”
I get it! Wataru clapped his hands together. “So the dungeon has, like, a global positioning system feature!”
Slap! went the wizard’s hand on his forehead. “I’ve never heard of such a spell. And there is no such thing in Vision as a spell of which I’ve not heard. Foolish words, spoken by a foolish mouth.”
“But I’ve played all the games in the Saga series, I know all about role-playing games! You see…”
Wataru trailed off. The old wizard was scowling at him in ominous silence.
“Now, go,” the wizard said, pointing out the window. “The Northwood is that way.”
“Right, I’m off,” Wataru said, standing. “Wait, don’t I get a weapon or something?”
“Weapon?” The old man lifted a bristly white eyebrow.
“Yeah, like a sword or staff.”
“We have no such things here.”
“Nothing?”
“No,” the wizard answered crisply. “Now leave.”
“But what if I get attacked by a monster?”
“Then run.”
“Well, if I can, sure, but…”
“Just run fast.”
“Right. Got it. Great advice.”
The wizard glared at him again. Wataru turned and headed for the front door. Just as he was about to step outside, the wizard added, “If you are that worried, you might try picking up a stick in the Northwood. Find one sturdy and strong.”
Fine. Great. Wataru left the hut, cutting across the soft grass that grew between the houses, toward the thick green forest to the north.
A stiff wind blew at his back, lifting his hair. He could hear a birdsong, fwee fwee, like a whistle, carried past him on the breeze.