I let a moment or two pass and thought about what Zeru-Meq had seen and Sailor’s theory about what it meant. I wasn’t sure if the theory was the correct one or not. There were so many contradictory facts concerning the Fleur-du-Mal. Sailor’s theory seemed too simple and predictable for Xanti Otso. I’d looked in his green eyes many times and each time there were more heads than one on the beast inside.
“Did you know Matai Otso, Sailor?”
“No, I did not. He had an unsavory reputation to say the least, yet he was never said to be unstable or particularly vicious. He was merely known as a reliable and efficient killer.”
“Did you know Hilargi?”
“Yes, I knew her well. She and Zeru-Meq had a bond as close as twins although she was five years his junior. Hilargi had a pure heart, a warm smile, and a quick wit. I shall never understand why she crossed in the Zeharkatu, nor shall Zeru-Meq.” Sailor paused and sat forward in his chair. “Zianno, regardless of the Fleur-du-Mal’s motives, we must free Susheela the Ninth. This is imperative!” Sailor’s “ghost eye” cleared instantly.
I hadn’t heard him mention Susheela the Ninth in some time. “Have you heard…the voice recently? In your dreams?”
“Do you mean Deza or Susheela the Ninth?” Sailor asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Either…both.”
Sailor remained silent for a full ten seconds. “No,” he said finally.
Sailor and I left Kenai for Anchorage soon after, where we lived through the winter and spring, the “long season” I called it because of the many short days and long, dark nights. In Anchorage, I was able to contact St. Louis. I was surprised but pleased to hear Carolina’s voice. She had returned to St. Louis earlier in the year when Jack told her he would be away from St. Louis for an extended length of time. I asked if she knew where he was going. Carolina said Jack told her he was “on assignment.” “For whom, the Post-Dispatch?” I asked. “He never said,” Carolina answered. She also mentioned she had been in touch with Star, Willie, and Caine in Cornwall, and Mitch in Paris. They all feared war was inevitable in Europe. Caine was in his second year at Cambridge and Carolina was worried. I asked if she’d heard anything from one of us. “Not a word,” she said, then added, “Z, are you all right?” I assured her I was fine and so was Sailor and I promised to write a long letter. It would be over two years before I did, and under much different circumstances.
During that spring in Anchorage, Sailor found and befriended a local taxidermist who had met with Tomizo Hiramura the previous year concerning various methods of mounting large birds of prey, such as hawks and eagles. This was puzzling information, but it was our first lead in months. The taxidermist believed Tomizo had relocated to the interior, possibly to Fairbanks.
After paying too much for a bush pilot and a flight to Fairbanks, our frustrations only began to multiply. Not one person we spoke with had ever heard of Tomizo, and life for two boys traveling alone became more difficult daily. It was much harder to remain anonymous in Fairbanks. We left two months later with nothing but a piece of advice, which Sailor construed to be a good clue—the best place to watch eagles. An old man in Fairbanks had told him to go to Homer where the eagles were “thick as crows.” We reached the little town of Homer at the far end of the Kenai Peninsula in six days, one day after war had been declared in Europe.
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.