Time Dancers

It was four o’clock in the afternoon. The sun was already a faded, pale yellow far to the west. Low, broken clouds spread across the sky. Sailor and I walked the length and breadth of Homer in twenty minutes. Sailor said he felt an odd sensation, but didn’t elaborate. At the south end of town, jutting out on a spit of land and rock, was a restaurant and saloon with its own sizable dock and direct access to the sea. As we approached, we detoured down to the water’s edge and made our way toward the dock. Suddenly Sailor stopped in his tracks, holding me back and pointing to a lone figure of a man squatting on the dock, staring up at the forest of pines and boulders in the hills above the restaurant. We followed the man’s gaze with our eyes. “Eagles,” Sailor said, and he was right. I could see at least fifty or sixty bald eagles perched in the tops of trees and maybe twenty more in the air, circling and soaring. We walked the ten paces separating us, stopping just short of the dock. The man had his back to us. He was wearing baggy trousers and a heavy, plaid shirt. His hair was dark and thick.

Sailor said, “Sak?”

The man turned in one motion and stared at both of us without saying a word or showing any expression. Gradually, a trace of a smile crossed his face and he reached inside his pocket, fumbling for something. He found it and extended his arm with a closed fist toward Sailor. Then the man surprised us more than we had surprised him. He turned his hand over and opened his palm, offering Sailor a small cube of salt and uttering the oldest of Meq greetings. “Egibizirik bilatu,” he said. “I am Sak.”

Sailor glanced once at me and turned back to Tomizo Hiramura, saying something I had never heard him say to a Giza. “I am Umla-Meq,” he said, “Egizahar Meq, through the tribe of Berones, protectors of the Stone of Memory.” After that, he introduced me in the same manner.

Sailor then dropped his formal speech, but continued talking. Once again I was amazed by his facility with languages. Speaking to Sak in the same even tone he always used, he spoke for twenty minutes. There was nothing unusual about that, except it was in fluent Ainu, a language I had never heard, nor had many others. I had no idea what Sailor said; however, I heard him mention the Fleur-du-Mal twice. He finished abruptly. He bowed his head once, saying in English, “I thank you for listening to the foolish tale of a foolish traveler.”

Silence followed for a moment with Sak and Sailor staring at each other. Sak was only a few inches taller than Sailor and me. He had a wide, square jaw with a thick beard and thick eyebrows over dark eyes, and looked to be about forty to forty-five years old. He and Sailor stood on the dock nearly eye level with each other. In the late light, the only eagles visible were the few still in the air.

A hint of a smile appeared again on Sak’s face. In a deep and clear voice he said, “What do you wish of me, akor ak?”

Within twenty-four hours the three of us were in Anchorage and booking passage to Nome. In that short span of time, Sailor had learned that Sak did know of a casi, or mountain castle, purchased around the turn of the century in Japan by his father and sold to a Meq known to the family only as Xanti. The location of the castle was kept secret, even from Sak, but he said his brother, Nozomi, could find out. I wondered how Sak had known the oldest of Meq greetings, “Egibizirik bilatu,” which roughly translated means “the long-living truth, well-searched for.” I learned from Sailor the ancestors of Pello and the ancestors of Sak were part of the same great clan of Giza who were seafarers and travelers during and after the Time of Ice. Using reindeer hides for sails they navigated the world’s oceans and seas for millennia, migrating immense distances, trading knowledge of the sea, sailing techniques and technologies, culture, and most of all— language. Sailor believed the Ainu tongue, at its root, is the only language on the planet similar to Basque. Sak agreed to help us and even lead us to someone he called “the Russian cousin,” who would take us into Japan without being noticed. Sak seemed more perplexed at how we became aware of his existence at all, let alone found him. Sailor didn’t tell him about “Cardinal,” but he did mention Solomon, whom Sak had heard his father and sister speak of many times and always with great respect.

Landing in Nome, we disembarked just as the first winter winds swept in from Siberia. Sak led us to a small hotel in an older part of the historic town. Nome and the small hotel had both seen better days. A devastating fire in 1934, combined with the Great Depression, had taken its toll on Nome.

The storm that followed the winds gave Sailor and me time to get better acquainted with the odd, middle- aged Ainu, Tomizo Hiramura, or Sak as he preferred to be called. Sak had a keen mind and wit. He spoke English well, with only a slight accent, but he had a habit of incorporating slang terms and certain expressions that were purely his. For example, he called everyone “son” in the same way Mitch might use “man” to address someone, and every so often for no apparent reason, he would shout out the phrase “Holy Coyote!” None of this affected his efficiency, however. After the weather cleared, we traveled up the Seward Peninsula to the home of “the Russian cousin.” The man’s face was lined heavily and burned dark from years at sea. His name was Isipo and Sak introduced him as “the last of the Kuril Ainu.” Isipo owned a fishing trawler, which regularly sailed the coasts of Alaska and Russia, fishing mostly for salmon and trading with the native populations, and caring little for international laws and regulations. He could easily get us to the Russian port of Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. From there, we could make our way through the Kuril Islands and into Hokkaido. Once we were safely in Japan, we could find Sak’s brother in Tokyo. Isipo assured us we could make the run before the weather got too rough. The plan sounded risky, but good, and Sailor and I put our complete trust in the two Ainu men, two of the strangest characters we’d met in years.

It took Isipo a mere four days to prepare the trawler and gather enough false papers and certificates of commerce to cover us if we happened to be stopped or boarded. Isipo set the time of departure for dawn the next day. Sailor and I used the time to shop for new clothes and footwear more suited for life at sea in rough, cold waters. In Nome, finding them in boys’ sizes wasn’t easy.

Sailor thought we should not send word to St. Louis about what we’d learned or where we were going. “What purpose would it serve?” he asked. “Even if Geaxi or Opari or any one of the others were to receive the information, it would be too late.”

“Too late?”

“Yes. If…no, I should say when the Japanese are finally at war with the West, the Fleur-du-Mal will surely return to his castle and Zuriaa, and especially Susheela the Ninth. He will not lose her nor take the chance of it. I have no doubt.”

“How do you know the Japanese will be at war with the West?”

“I have seen countless wars begin, Zianno. Except in scale, this one is no different. Believe me, another world war is coming. It is simply a matter of time.”

Luck was with us crossing the Bering Strait and sailing south to the fishing lanes along the coast of Russia. Isipo handled the trawler skillfully, while navigating our way through wild and turbulent seas. Many times, the troughs between waves sank twenty to thirty feet deep. Nevertheless, in a month, we were preparing to enter Avacha Bay and the city of Petropavlovsk. It was bitterly cold, but clear, and the majestic, snow-covered peaks of three separate volcanoes rose up behind and around the old port.

“Koryaksky, Avachinsky, and Kozelsky,” Isipo said, waving at each of them one by one. “Most beautiful,” he added with a grin.

There was a sizable Soviet naval force stationed in Petropavlovsk, as well as an extensive coast guard. Isipo was stopped by a small patrol boat and asked a few questions. Gratefully, we were cleared and told to proceed into port. We made repairs and restocked supplies, then set out for the Kurils the next day.

In three weeks, we’d snaked our way south as far as Kunashir Island, where we were surprised just after dawn by a Japanese naval patrol. While Sailor and I stayed silent and unseen in the background, Isipo showed the young lieutenant his false papers. The lieutenant scanned the papers and gave Isipo and Sak a hard, vicious look, followed by an expression of disgust. He turned and ordered his first officer to draw his pistol and arrest Isipo. Sailor and I glanced at each other. We hadn’t used the Stones in years, but we had no choice. Without hesitating, Sailor and I withdrew our Stones and held them out toward the two sailors.

“Lo geltitu, lo geltitu,” we droned in unison. “Ahaztu! Ahaztu!”

The lieutenant’s face suddenly clouded over with confusion and he instantly went blank. His first officer dropped his pistol on the deck and stared at it, as if the gun had no meaning whatsoever.

“Go like lambs, now, Giza. You will forget,” Sailor said in perfect Japanese. “Ahaztu!” he repeated.