The land was rising steadily. We had been walking for perhaps an hour, saying little, when we reached Toshiro’s home. The flats ended in a tumble of hills, and the path began to climb steeply. The rocky hills were thick with low trees, not blossom trees this time, but graceful birches in the full flush of spring.
“This land is beautiful,” Cara said, a little out of breath from the heat and the climb.
Toshiro bobbed his head and smiled as if she had complimented him. “Yamato is the most beautiful land in all the world, and this mountain sanctuary is the most beautiful part of the most beautiful land, at least in my opinion.”
After half an hour’s walking, we came to a cleft in the rock. Toshiro gestured us in.
We stepped into a passageway running through the cliff. It was narrow, barely wide enough for two to walk side by side. The walls soared up sheer on either side, showing a narrow slice of blue sky high above. Cara was in front, and as she turned a corner ahead of me, I heard her gasp in surprise and amazement. I hurried forward, around the corner, and stepped out of the narrow passage to stand beside her.
Below us was a wide, roughly circular valley surrounded and closed in on all sides by sheer cliffs. Water dripped and sparkled as it ran down these rock walls. The cliff walls were rough, gray, natural rock. The trickling water fed a dense growth of thick ferns, deep moss, and small trees. In the middle of the space, the running water pooled to form a wide, deep lake. The runoff from this made a gurgling stream which chuckled merrily away and disappeared through a crack in the base of the cliffs, off to the left of the entrance where we stood. The whole enclosed valley was brimming with dense growth.
By the edge of the lake, a sprawling, eccentric-looking wooden building stood on stilts. It had the strange roofs with curled edges and red tiles which I was becoming familiar with. At first glance, the building was a chaotic jumble of multiple floors, decks, stairways, and roofs, but the closer I looked, the more I realized that it followed a strange but definite order. There was a lower central portion on the main deck, and from this three wings extended on both sides and behind. The central part, I saw now, was constructed with stone, but the extended wings and the many smaller floors piled on top of the central structure were all made of wooden planking, like the shrine had been.
All around the building were tended gardens, and I could see figures moving to and fro down there. Shafts of afternoon sunlight shone down into the valley. A winding path made its lazy way up from the gardens, past the lake, and up through the high ferns and low trees to the valley entrance where we stood.
Cara reached out and squeezed my hand. I glanced down at her in surprise and found her smiling up at me.
“It certainly is an amazing place,” I said.
Toshiro smiled with satisfaction as he stepped onto the path and began to lead the way down.
“And this is your home, Toshiro?” Cara asked. “How long have you lived here?”
“How long? I don’t know exactly. I don’t count the passing years, not anymore. It’s been a long time, a very long time, I suppose. I am older than I look.”
He left that intriguing statement hanging, and we followed him down along the path toward his house in silence.
The valley was deep, and while the afternoon sun arched down into it now, I guessed that for much of the day, Toshiro’s home would be surrounded by cool shade. In the colder climate of Saxe, that would be an undesirable trait for a home. Here in Yamato, it seemed a very attractive quality. Already, Cara seemed refreshed by the cool, damp air of the valley. It was yet another interesting difference between the world we had come from and the world we were in.
“We call it Ferndale,” Toshiro said, gesturing at the valley around us. “There is an abundance of ferns here, and we cultivate them. Some have healing properties, but many are just pleasing to look at.”
“You say ‘we’,” Cara asked. “You don’t live alone?”
“No, no, I have a considerable staff of servants here, to look after the house and the garden, and to take care of things while I am away. Not that I leave often these days, but I enjoy the company.”
While they were talking, I looked around the valley, enjoying the cooler air and the sound of running water everywhere around us. It felt like a peaceful place, a place of sanctuary.
After walking for a little while, not hurrying, we reached the house. Servants greeted Toshiro gladly. Although a few of them cast questioning glances in our direction, they seemed to accept our presence without much difficulty. Toshiro offered no explanation, and his servants asked none.
He took us through the main hall of the house, a dim, cool, mostly empty space with bright painted artwork on the walls and simple furniture in the shadows at the edges of the room. Out back, we found ourselves in a well-maintained garden with fruit trees, brightly flowering bushes, and more ferns all surrounding a small pond where plump, golden fish moved and leaped in the water.
There was a round table there and three comfortable seats. An elderly man in a practical purple outfit of tunic and trousers hurried out of the house. When he reached us, he bowed first to Toshiro and then to us.
“Ah, Win,” Toshiro said, then turned to us. “Cara, Leofwine, this is Win, the head of my staff. He manages the servants and runs the household on my behalf. Win, these honorable people are my guests. Please show them to the guest suite on the top floor, and ensure they
