Two facts were not adding up. Between Trish’s memories, Yubi had seen Lau doing something beside a pot in the fireplace. What they were eating, though, were small-cut vegetables with a tangy sauce stuffed into a larger, hollow vegetable. One does not prepare a cold salad with fire.

  He took a bite. “This is good,” he said, honestly. “You did a good job,” he added, probing.

  “I… well, you know…” Lau looked away. “I asked Dali for help. I’ve been meaning to study culinary arts, but I can never seem to find the time for it.” She sighed. “One of these days I’d like to make something nice for her, something she’s never had before.”

  “Hmm…” For her? He took a bite. “In the other world cooking is just a matter of following recipes. Is it different here?”

  “Instructions… like how to make a specific dish?”

  “Mhm.” He then clarified a “yes” when the sound wasn’t understood.

  “Some dishes have instructions, but you need to learn the arts to know how much of each food material to put in, how to control the boil, things like that.”

  “Ah. In the other world, they have tools to control heat precisely and they include measurements in their recipes.”

  “Ehh? And they don’t even use mana? Next you’ll tell me they all live on boats.”

  She seemed to mean it as a joke, but he wasn’t sure how. Eating gave him an excuse for his silence, but eventually the vegetable ran out.

  Yubi leaned back and thought. The wife can’t cook so she asked for help from the concubine. Cooking is different here, so is the system for names… is it possible that marriage is different too? He glanced at Lau returned to facing the ceiling. I guess I’m the only one who can answer that… There’s too much I don’t know. Mana, diagrams, politics, food… Why did that guy attack me earlier?

  He groaned. “Why am I so stupid?”

  Lau laughed. “Stupid? You? Yubi, there’s a reason you're the nation’s head strategist.”

  “You say that but I don’t even remember what that position means.”

  “It means you’re smart enough to win wars. Actually, do you remember when you got that position?”

  “No?”

  “So I get to tell you your own story,” she chuckled. “Strange indeed! It happened around seven years ago. I was about to leave to attend the academy, when somebody killed the previous Leader, Ouyavaoya. Poisoned in his sleep, I think. Something gruesome like that. The whole compound was misaligned so that nobody could leave.”

  “Misaligned?”

  “Oh- uh, on the first of every month, the fortress is rearranged to make invading harder. When this happened, they rearranged it so that the halls didn’t connect to the stairs. So the only way in or out was with diagrams.”

  “Huh.” So that’s why Kyuzu said not to bother remembering the way to the stairs!

  “Anyway, a while after the murder you invited me to attend the royal court. I’m not especially interested in politics, but you said it was important. So I put on my finest clothes and you teleported us directly into the room. I don’t remember much from that day, but I definitely remember why you thought it was important. You see, you had figured out that the murderer was actually the previous head strategist! So you and the head general brought out a whole parade of evidence which ended with your predecessor being teleported directly to the dungeon.”

  “Wow, just like that?”

  “Yeah, but that’s only half the story. Since the old strategist had lost his position, Aiyaloya had to appoint a new one. I remember feeling bad for him back then, that boy looked so little on that big throne. Anyway, Gor had-”

  “Gor?” That difficult man from the royal court earlier?

  “Yeah, Gorisomething, the head general. He started recommending a replacement when the little Leader put up his hand and appointed you on the spot. You tried to turn it down saying the academy needed you as head diagramist, but the response was that you could just select your replacement and switch roles. So you did. The general was so mad at the end, it was really something to see.”

  I guess that’s why he doesn’t like me. “I wish I could remember doing that. Right now I feel like I can’t do anything.”

  “Well, what do you want to do?”

  Yubi blinked and then looked up again. What do I want to do? The question was something to chew on. He remembered wanting to bring Ya back, whatever that means. He remembered wanting to defeat some demons, but that still felt too abstract.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “I want… to help my friend. Do you know Rioshkaltis?”

  “Um… we’ve met but you knew him better than I. I’ve heard a bit about what happened…”

  Yubi nodded. “So have I. They say he sabotaged a diagram. The sentence is forced possession by a demon, an ambassador they said. I’m not sure whether he did it but… if he’s innocent then I can’t let that happen. Even if my friend is guilty, I need answers.”

  Lau smiled, “If anyone can find answers, it’s you.” She looked proud to say it.

  He got up. “First I’ll need to know just enough to move through this world.” At the couch, he pulled a dream powder pill from the pouch. “When this wears off I’ll be a bit delirious. These also only show me memories of things happening, not just raw information, so I’ll probably have a lot of stupid sounding questions to fill in the gaps. Can I count on you?”

  “If it’s simple or about plants, I’ll be ready!”

  Yubi took the pill and activated the visualizer diagram.

  How does teleportation actually work?

  The battlefield stank of charred flesh and burnt wood. War with humans was fast and subtle, but not so with the demons.

  Head general Goriyuyo suggested a cowardly course of action. “We still have time to retreat. If we peel soldiers off the back of the formation, we can get them through the diagram to the base camp without the demons noticing. It won’t be a victory, but our men will live.”

  Ouyavaoya actually considered this!

  Naiouyubi entered the head strategist’s tent with a suggestion. “Grind up the fireleaf armor of our dead and put it in the river. This will make the water poison, but the poison will hurt the demons more.”

  The strategist relayed this to the Leader, who put the plan into motion, siding against the general. Within days, the battlefield stank of the rotting carcasses of demons.

  When they returned to the base camp, which was downstream, they found more dead and sickly demons.

  Yubi’s predecessor gloated to the general. “See? There was an ambush waiting. If we had retreated like you said, our men would’ve died anyway. My plan saved their lives.”

  “Odd.” The general’s eyes sparked with rage. “I don’t recall you mentioning any lives but the demons'!”

  Why did that guy kill the previous king?

  After the former strategist was put to death, Naioyubi gained access to his documents, including a copy of a message.

  Yubi could read every letter on the page. It condemned the predecessor more than the evidence of his murder. He addressed vile demon allegiant heretics as friends. He expressed sympathy for the weaknesses the demons had exploited to turn them away from Ya. Worst of all, he doubted the virtue of his own hand in bringing hoards of demons to their demise.

  There are people who side with the demons?

  His home had felt more lively ever since the addition of Voilauisan’s relief. This courtesan he’d found in the city had played her part well, until she showed her true colors.

  He’d returned home earlier than usual, enough to overhear his women speaking in the bedroom.

  “...maybe he does,” Lau was saying, “but he only kills the bad guys.”

  “Killing is killing,” said her Dali. “Don’t you think we should at least acknowledge it?”

  “You think so? Even the demons?”

  “Demons… they do bad things but… aren’t they people too?”

  That had been the moment when separating the two became necessary.

  Wait, what?

  Naiouyubi sat in the parlor of a wealthy priest. The door opened letting in a girl. She sat beside him. That pompous lout that had sired her had dressed her so provocatively. Her tabard clung tight to her figure, enough so that a gap ran up the side revealing how little she wore underneath. He ached for that gap. To run his hand just under and feel the curve of her back.

  “Papa says we’re getting married?”

  He stilled himself. “Yes. You see, distraction from God is an illness of a kind. But if I have you, Voilauisan, it will be easier to focus. Thus it is better to marry than for the heart to burn with such sickness. Consider our arrangement to be purely prophylactic in nature.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Hold on, what the fuck did I do?

  Little Loya cried onto the new head strategist’s sleeve.

  Naiouyubi patted the boy’s head. “Yes, yes. Your father was a good man and it’s a tragedy to lose him.”

  The boy looked up. “Why, though? Why did it have to happen?”

  “Because Ya is not with us. When He was on earth, He could look over every shoulder. If anyone stole in the market or attacked in the night, Ya would be there to render immediate judgement.”

  “Then where is Ya? Why isn’t he here?”

  “We live in an era of demons. When men began turning away, Ya left us to ourselves to sort it out. When we do, He will return and everything will be made right.”

  He stood in line down a walkway in the church. At the front of the line, people addressed God, told Him how their family was doing, and promised they’d do all they could to bring Him back.

  Further than Yubi could see, Loya stepped forward. He spoke in a newly low voice.

  “Dear great Ya, this is Aiyaloya who leads Yaldabia. I beg that you return as soon as you can. We have not lost faith and we long to see you in the flesh. The demons run wild, but they would fall easily by your mighty hand.”

  The line held their breaths as Rio stepped forward.

  “Dear just Ya, this is Rioshkaltis, descendent of Mercutus of Mesar Oya, who walked with you. Our line has remembered the strength you taught us. We have walked many a boulder’s weight in seeds great across distances. As the young one said, we beg for your strength so that we may use it to vanquish your foes and clear your path. Raise the sun that we may see, raise our crops that we may walk, and raise our spirits in memory that we may greet your return.”

  It was a brilliant way of saving face for a young man who asked too much.

  In the night-dark of his home, Naiouyubi stood over his concubine.

  “...and that is why I can’t have you filling my wife’s head with near-heresies!”

  Dalishnkater nodded her hand without saying anything. She was true to it, none of the love letters she exchanged with Lau, who was away at the academy, said anything of sympathy for demons.

  Is that why Dali doesn’t talk to me anymore?

  As the visions dragged on, Yubi caught glimpses of many things. They twisted and distorted until he couldn’t tell what was real. Some of the things, which he only half saw, he hoped were merely imagined.