Chương 118: What Sinbad Left Behind

After sending replies to the Papal State, the kingdom, and the tribal council, Seria opened the next blank page of the border joint ledger. She did not write that Kichan was an angel. Nor did she write that he was a weapon of God. After erasing the first sentence three times, she wrote this. Han Kichan fed the hungry and mended the wounded, people and animals alike. Theor added the next sentence. He stole army provisions from both sides and beat the soldiers who came to protest, no matter which side they were on.

Seria looked at him.

"Do we have to write that too?"

"We said we would not write only one side."

"Right." The two kept writing. He was not the fixer of this war. Seria and Theor had been wrong to place that role on him. He saw the hunger and wounds before him first. In the end, faced with deaths he could not bear, he sang the song he had carried from his own world. After that song, people regained their breath, and he was pushed through the light into his own world. Seria read the sentence and was about to close the ledger. Under her hand, a joint investigator slid in three documents.

The first page recorded that Lauren had concealed the grimoire's purpose and authorized the limited reconnaissance. His suspension as operations officer would remain in effect. Lauren's direct subordinates, who had blocked both routes carrying the withdrawal order, were removed from duty during the investigation. Before the public notice board, Lauren removed his seal and placed it in an envelope.

The second page kept in effect the field-command suspensions of the chief who ordered the red reinforcement signal and the three guard captains who bound the messenger. The chief set down his command plaque, and the three guard captains set down their armbands before the joint ledger. The third page did not name any one person as the chief culprit of the war.

In chronological order, it recorded the mistaken shot, the two blocked orders, the reconnaissance unit that moved first, and the commands that had failed to disable the automatic artillery. The old checkpoints on both sides of the bridge became joint messenger posts. Emergency documents were made in duplicate, each bearing both the human army and demihuman seals, and two messengers from different camps crossed the river together on the temporary ferry. Even after Kichan disappeared, people kept giving him names.

A Papal State messenger called him an angel. Kingdom officials called him a ration thief. Among the demihuman tribes, some called him a human sorcerer. The market people said it more briefly.

"The one who cooked soup."

"The one who gave extra meat."

"The one who got angry when we stood up during meals." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"The one who traveled around with Batu and those weird things." One Papal State mason proposed building a small monument before the collapsed fortress. The proposal was to carve the gold ring and wings and mark the place where Kichan had sung. Marena looked at the stacked monument stones.

"I heard the bridge was short of stone." Bram and Kur heard that and brought a cart. The Papal State mason stopped them.

"These stones are to mark a holy place."

"A place for people to cross comes first." Bram and Kur loaded the stones onto the cart. The round stone meant to bear the gold ring was carried to the construction site as a support stone in the middle of the new bridge. The place where Kichan had sung was not marked. The children kept playing over it until, before long, no one could tell where it had been. The children continued their Kichan Gang game. Anyone could play Kichan.

A human child held a broom, a long-eared child held one, and the smallest child climbed on the back of the child playing Batu. The child playing Argaon still stuck chicken feathers in their hair. No one could correct that part. Before the first frost, an old merchant from the coast stopped at the market. He watched the children stealing sacks of army provisions and handing them out to the children playing hungry people.

"Was that person a king?"

"No." Tira answered.

"A general?"

"No."

"A saint?" Seria shook her head.

"Then what was he?" The children gave different answers. Thief. Alchemist. A person who sang. A person who cooked. A person who went around with strange animals. The old merchant told them a story from his homeland across the sea. It was a story about a traveler who had a home to return to, yet kept leaving for strange islands. He met monsters and treasure, fled empty-handed, then came home from the next voyage with a whole household and piles of goods. The traveler did not become king of any country.

"He was like Sinbad." The children put the name they had just heard straight into their game.

"Then what about the Forty Thieves?"

"They lived a long time ago."

"Kichan stole army provisions too."

"Then they can come out together." From that day on, the story became Sinbad and the Forty Outlaws. In the children's story, Sinbad found treasure and still gathered medicinal herbs before gold coins. The Forty Outlaws raided warehouses at night and sewed children's clothes by day. The scene where Batu got stuck in golden armor was always included. That part grew longer with every telling. Whenever adults heard a wrong detail, they opened their mouths and then stopped.

The ledger remained as the ledger, and the song remained as the song, carried from mouth to mouth. People from different eras, who had never met each other, robbed the same warehouse inside the children's song. Elvar wore a mask at night, and Kichan held the wake-up rod in broad daylight with his face exposed. Theor tried to correct the wrong parts. Marena said,"Leave it alone."

"It differs from the record."

"It's a song." Theor looked back and forth between the ledger and the children, then closed his mouth. The new bridge joined the two banks on the day of the first frost. This time, Kichan did not hold it up. Bram checked the level while leaning on a crutch. Kur drove in wedges with one arm.

"Your side has one stone too many." An old thief said.

"Count again and we'll throw you in the river." Bram and Kur answered at the same time. The first cart carried molly leaves. The second carried mandragora and salt. The third was left empty to load goods from the other side on the way back. A small griddle was placed in the middle of the bridge. It was a stone slab like the one Kichan had used on the day of the prisoner exchange. When people reached the griddle, they leaned their weapons against the railing. No one had to tell them.

Marten and Grad met in the middle of the bridge, not in a secret shed. Marten received the cup with his stiff hand, and Grad supported the bottom for him.

"You boiled the molly too long."

"After a fever, this much is better." The two did not declare that they were friends. Nor did they say the war was over. Instead, they made public the lists of artillery devices dismantled by their own sides and the names of those who had not returned. In the evening, soup boiled in the market's small pot. Marena poured water into the unbroken cup. The children sang the thieves' song, and the wrong note remained. A mason fresh from bridge work sat in Kichan's old place and ate soup.

When the fire burned low, Tira pushed in one piece of firewood. The pot began to boil again.