Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(26)

“No!” she said. She glanced around again, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness— it must be night here, but what was that strange light?—she picked out things she hadn’t seen earlier. Wadded-up clothing on the floor. Unwashed bowls in piles on a counter. Refuse.

The hero…was a slob?

Well, of course he wasn’t. Heroes didn’t clean up after themselves. Servants did that. So his servants had grown lax in his absence. This was a small room. Surely this wasn’t his sole quarters. She leaned toward the window and glanced outside. There she saw a dauntingly dark sky. No stars at all. A grim nothing up above that felt eager to swallow her. But she was in some kind of large building.

A palace? It was certainly bigger than any building she’d ever been in before. Yet the street was lined with them. A dozen or more palaces in a row! Taller than steamwell eruptions. How did these buildings get so big—ten stories—without collapsing? How did they live without heat from the ground?

It’s the land of the heroes, she thought. Rules are different here. It was colder and darker than she’d imagined, but at least she probably wasn’t dead.

The door thundered again.

“Go,” the hero said. “Answer it and get rid of him.”

“I can’t answer the door like this.” She gestured to her outfit. “The clothing outlines my form! It’s so immodest!”

“Yumi, we were just taking a bath.”

“In the service of the spirits,” she said, increasingly frantic. “Ritual cleansing. That’s completely different!”

“He’ll see you as me,” the hero said. “Don’t you understand? Everyone looked at me and saw you. Now I’m the one that’s incorporeal. They won’t see you being immodest.”

It was…a valid point. So, trying to control her anxiety, shoving aside her famishing hunger, she stepped to the door and eased it open. Doing that for herself would have been a novelty if the situation were different. Now she barely gave it a thought as she found a giant of a white-haired older man on the other side. He wore thick trousers and a buttoned shirt made of some material she didn’t recognize.

He froze immediately, fixating on her. “What the… ?” He looked past her into the little room. “Well, slap me silly,” he muttered. “Would never have expected to find a girl answering Nikaro’s door…”

Yumi stiffened.

He saw her.

He saw her?

Painter groaned behind her. But this foreman seemed unable to see him, for he focused again only on Yumi. “Where is he?”

“Tell him I’m sick!” Painter said, sounding panicked.

“He’s sick!” she said quickly, then felt a stab of anguish at the untruth. Liyun would be disappointed in her.

“Huh,” the foreman said, narrowing his eyes. “You…all right? Everything good here?”

“I…” Then she drew in a breath and gave a deep ritual bow of conciliation. “O great being of the cold skies, forgive any slight or offense I have given. It is not my intent. Please ask of me what you will. I will do all in my power to see it delivered to you.”

“Oh. Uh…” The foreman shuffled from one foot to the other. “Just, have him report in, okay? He didn’t do his rounds yesterday, and we’re already short-staffed. He’s supposed to send word if he’s sick.”

“I will see this message delivered with all due soberness and courage,” Yumi whispered, lowering her bow. “Please go with the blessing of the spirits and find peace in your life.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, sounding…embarrassed?

“Wait,” Painter said, stepping up beside her. “You need to tell him something important. Um, repeat this. ‘Painter says he saw a stable nightmare, and—despite being sick—is so diligent at his job that he is out hunting to get more information. He wanted me to inform you that this is an emergency, and that you must send for the Dreamwatch.’?”

She repeated the words exactly as spoken and glanced up from her bow. The foreman frowned deeply.

“He said that?” the man asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “I vow it.” She knelt and touched her forehead to the floor in solemn consummation of the words.

“Huh. Right, okay then,” the foreman said, then tromped away down the hallway.

“Thank you,” Painter said, relief evident in his voice. “That’s one thing taken care of, at least. I can stop worrying.”

Yumi stood upright, glancing down the hallway as the foreman vanished. She felt herself blushing with the heat of a thousand stones.

A man had seen her. Like this. Not merely wearing…whatever this was she was wearing, but also with her hair disheveled. She was supposed to represent the spirits in every way, but today she would have had trouble properly representing a pile of dust.

“That was strange,” the hero said, wandering around the room. “Why did he see you, Yumi? None of this makes any kind of sense.”

Yumi moved to close the door, but as she did, a door directly across the hallway opened. And a goddess stepped out. Wearing almost no clothing at all.

Her skirt ended mid-thigh, and was made of some kind of glossy black material. Her shirt was filmy and drooped low, exposing the depth of her bosom. Yumi would have thought her a demon but for her beauty. The woman was perhaps Yumi’s age, but her black hair shone with a luster that no amount of combing would ever provide Yumi. She wore makeup that—instead of lightening her face to pale white, as was used for formal situations in Torio—outlined her eyes in dark colors, making them wide and inviting. Her lips were cherry red, her cheeks dusted with a hint of blush.