Dendera Read Free Page B

sat a solitary old woman.
    She wore a mask that framed the edges of her face while leaving her features visible, as well as robes that were so dirty that they could be called white in name only. She sat atop a pelt of some unidentifiable animal, and beside her was a well-used walking staff.
    Kayu Saitoh peered at the face framed by the mask. It was a heavily sunburned face, and she had no memory of it.
    “What’s this? Don’t say you don’t remember me? Or perhaps you’re going senile in your dotage, hmm, Kayu Saitoh?”
    As soon as Kayu Saitoh heard that ugly rasp the mystery was solved, and she was brought back half a century. The old woman’s looks might have become gnarled beyond all recognition, but that distinctive braying voice immediately gave her away. It was Mei Mitsuya. Mei Mitsuya, who had entered the Mountain thirty years ago. Due to their age difference Mei Mitsuya hadn’t really played much of a direct role in raising Kayu Saitoh, but Mei Mitsuya had been an important figure in the Village for a number of years, a de facto leader of the women even, so Kayu Saitoh naturally knew who she was.
    “Mei Mitsuya, is it,” Kayu Saitoh said briskly, without any ceremony. “Well, you can tell me what’s going on, I’m sure. What’s this all about, this—”
    “So, how do you like my Dendera?” Mei Mitsuya blurted out, drowning out Kayu Saitoh in her usual loud, unrestrained manner. “Anyhow, sit. Relax. Make yourself at home. We may have a hierarchy here in Dendera, but we don’t stand on ceremony. Every woman is as good as any other.”
    Kayu Saitoh was still none the wiser regarding her new situation, but she did as Mei Mitsuya ordered and sat down in front of her.
    “So, Kayu Saitoh. It’s been a while. I remember when I last saw you, you were a mere stripling of forty. Yes, you’ve aged quite nicely, ripened to maturity. Life in that shitty Village has taken it out of you, all right! So how do you like my Dendera? Great little place, no?”
    “Are you one of the founders of this place?” Kayu Saitoh asked.
    “I asked you how you liked my Dendera, gir l !” Mei Mitsuya snapped and then appeared to reconsider her outburst almost immediately. “Still, just this once. Just this once I’ll answer your little question for you. Yes, I founded this place. I Climbed the Mountain thirty years ago, but of course I had no intention of dying. So I climbed down the Mountain, down the other side, away from the Village, and found myself here, in this place. Back then there was nothing here. Nothing here, nobody here!” Mei Mitsuya was shouting now. “I had no tools. I knew nothing about survival. Oh, it was something all right, it was something! The rains! The storms! No people. No food. But I never gave up the fight, not for one moment. For the first year I must have survived on anger and bile alone. Then, the next year, when Mountain Climbing Season began, I staked out the Mountain, waiting to rescue the abandoned, the discarded, and make them my friends, my neighbors. And with these new friends, together we built this place. What you see around you. A refuge for the abandoned. That’s what this place is. Dender a. ”
    “Thirty years …” Kayu Saitoh mused aloud. It was an incomprehensible length of time to be in this place.
    “And so I turned a hundred. A hundred years old! How’s that for a freakish life span? Sometimes I feel more like a devil than a person, I can tell you.” Mei Mitsuya laughed, a demonic cackle emanating from her large red mouth.
    “So, how many?” Kayu Saitoh had finally started to regain her composure. “How many of you here in this Dendera of yours?”
    “Forty-nine,” Mei Mitsuya grinned, her toothy smile disconcerting. “And you bring it up to a nice round fifty!”
    “What have you done, Mei Mitsuya? What have you been doing?” Kayu Saitoh asked, her voice full of reproach.
    “ ‘What have I done?’ Come, now, I’m sure you can think of a better way of