Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 33 of 49

The kamayaki book sat open on the clean part of the table. Kensei turned its pages while Ha-ni slept. He wanted to read the priest's blessing for himself. But the words stopped him. Whole lines used letters he did not know. He read one aloud and it came out as noise. "I can't read this part," he said when Jeon-min came in. "It changes into another tongue. Look." Jeon-min bent over the page. He traced a line with his finger and shook his head. "That's not our writing. It's kamayak. The language of the kamayaki." He turned two more pages. All of them broke into the strange letters near the blessing. "The heart of it is written in their own words. We can't read the heart of it." Kensei sat back. The book held proof his love was old and blessed. And the blessing itself was locked. "Then we learn it." "No one here speaks it," Jeon-min said. "It's dead." He pulled the folded map from his bag, the one marked with craftspeople he had found in four cities. He smoothed it on the table. "But I asked the dyers. In the north kingdom, past the border, a few old people still speak kamayak. The last ones. If we want the blessing read, we go to them." Kensei looked at the map. Then at Ha-ni's door. "That's far. With her." "With her." Jeon-min did not soften it. "Or we never read it." They did not decide by talking. Kensei stood and pulled his travel clothes from the chest. The bold set Jeon-min had made him for the road, red and dark blue, the cloud pattern stitched in gold thread. He put it on. Jeon-min looked at him in it and said nothing, which was its own answer. They packed for three. Bread, coin, the trade papers with the royal stamp. The kamayaki book, wrapped in cloth. Kensei folded Ha-ni's blanket last. She woke as he lifted her and stared up at his face. "Ah-pa," she said. Then she frowned at the bright cloth on his chest. "Red." "Red," Kensei said. "We're going on a road." She patted the gold thread once. She did not understand. But she was quiet, and she watched. They locked the house at dawn. Jeon-min carried the pack. Kensei carried Ha-ni. The road out of the fifth city ran north, and they took it. No one stopped them. No decree waited at the edge of town. By midday the city was behind them. Ahead lay the border, and past it the north kingdom, and somewhere in the north kingdom the last mouths that could speak the blessing aloud. Kensei held his daughter and walked toward them. The book rode wrapped against his side, still half unread, but not for much longer.