The outhouse was sweltering and my stool was unyieldingly firm. What was worse is that, after I left trying to force what I could from my bowels, I exited the outhouse to find that my sword had gone missing. I had left it leaning up against the side of the structure, I was sure of it. I thought that maybe my rocking and beating against the walls in my struggle just prior had knocked it to the ground. But, though I searched the tall grass that grew up around the outhouse for some time, I could not find it.
“Are ya finished?” I heard the wet, thin voice of an old man ask. I suppose I had missed his approach during my search.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Are ya finished? With your business?” the old man asked, nodding to the outhouse. He was a crooked fellow, hunched over so that his long, gray whiskers nearly touched the ground. His dark eyes peered up at me through narrow lids under bushy eyebrows, lawless in their overgrowth, as if they were compensating for the bareness of his wrinkled scalp.
“Yes, yes. I was just looking for my sword. It seems to have gone missing,” I told him.
The old man lifted his head up as far as his hooked back would take it and slowly shuffled his tiny sandaled feet to turn left and then right as he scanned the ground around us.
“Well,” the old man began when he shuffled to face me again, “if I see it in there, I will let you know.”
He then entered the outhouse and I resumed for a bit my search along the ground. I turned to look down the small dirt trail that led back into town, through the alley between the tavern and the potter’s studio. A great many footsteps were imprinted in the still wet earth and I could make no distinction between those which had been made recently and those which had been there.
I approached the door of the outhouse, knocked, spoke through the door, “Excuse me, old man?”
“Someone is in here!” he croaked from within.
“I know, old man. I just want to ask you a question.” I waited for a response and when there was none, I continued. “Did you—”
“Sorry, there’s someone in here!”
“I know! I just have a question for you!”
“Okay.”
“Did you see anyone come from this way recently?”
I could hear the old man shifting about, attending to himself. Finally he spoke.
“Well, there was this big fella looking around for his sword.”
I turned and walked down the trail back into town. I stood where it ended at the edge of the main road that cut through the small woodland town of a name I cannot remember. A few rickshaws passed, their carts full with men who sat with legs spread wide and women who fluttered ornamental fans in front of their face. A young child kicked a ball back and forth across the road between their passing. An ox drawn cart slowed to a stop in front of a general store across the street and two barefooted teenage boys somberly marched out from the open doorway and began to help the driver unload his wares. It reminded me, in its buzzing tranquility, of my hometown, Ruchu, which I had just set forth from 6 days prior.
It was not a big town, stunted by its relative remoteness, but it was along one of the major roads to the north. It was to be the last town for some miles until the woods grew sparse and the northern plains began. I could not continue my journey, though, without first finding my sword.
 I turned immediately to my left and ascended the few steps to the deck of the tavern. Three men were gathered around a small table playing dice. I approached and hailed, “Hello, dice players.”
They could think of no greeting in return, so I continued. “Would any of you happen to see someone pass through this alley with a sword in hand? A katana with a silver guard and bright red cords. A brown sheath. Or is it black? It would have been… a dark color. Have you seen anything like that?”
The three men cast glances at one another until one of them, a thin and frail man with an even thinner mustache, spoke. “Oh, it was you who walked past here with a sword like that!” he responded as if he had solved some riddle.
“Aside from me,” I said, my patience tested. “Someone else, walking back this way with it? It would have been but moments ago.”
Another of the men, of average build and with hair shaved short to the scalp, said, “Heck, there’s people walkin’ this way and that constantly around here. You think we set up our table here so that we can keep track of who goes in and out of the outhouse?”
I put up my hands in a gesture of disarmament.  “I accuse you of no such tallying. I believe my sword was stolen from me by someone who may have passed this way. That’s all. If you haven’t noticed anyone—”
“You know, I may have seen someone leave the tavern a bit ago and head that way. Don’t recall seein’ him since,'' interrupted the thin man, scratching at his sharp chin.
“What did he look like!? Can you describe him!?” I asked, perhaps more heated than I had intended as the men were sent jolting back in their chairs.
The thin man, after regaining his countenance, looked pensive, and turned his eyes upward as if in the throes of recollection. He hummed for a moment, closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked back at me and narrowed them in a stern expression.
“He looked…crafty.”
“Crafty?” I asked.
“Yes. Very crafty.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, that’s all I can recall.”
I looked at the other two men. “What about you? Did either of you see this man?”
“Like I said, I ain’t no outhouse peeper,” muttered the short-haired man, who then spat into the street.
“What’s a lad like you doing with a sword anyhows?” asked the man that had yet to speak, who looked remarkably like my Uncle Kadaati.
I shuffled to gain firmer footing and calm myself before I spoke.“Since you asked, I am traveling to join The Emperor and his armies in the war effort to the North, where the fighting I hear is at its most intense. Through weilding my father’s prized and holy blade in righteous conflict against the enemies of The Nation, I intend to bestow honor upon my name and upon the people of my home village.”
The men made little reaction, undoubtedly their former impressions of me shattered. A long pause ensued until the impact of the ball kicked by the child against the side of the deck shook free the men of their stupor.
“Hmmm. You don’t look much like a warrior to me,” spoke the thin man.
“That is because I do not have my sword,” I responded. “Now, you said this crafty-looking ne’er-do-well came from inside the tavern?”
“That’s right,” he nodded.
“Then that is where I must inquire further. I thank you for your assistance.” I made for the tavern’s entry.
“Good luck finding that sword, son,” I heard my uncle’s doppelganger call out.