The Bathhouse

  They were dropped off beneath the immense walls of the giant room of the Pace—walls marking the edge of the sea. They stared as the boat left, noticing the archipego resting on the horizon like distant dots. There, a train station stood, its red roof and clock tower reflecting the sunlight of the calm, warm evening. Roa looked up, almost losing his bance as he tried to follow the wall to the sky-painted ceiling above. There was no one around. The train tracks were slightly submerged by the water, as the waves rolled gently over them. The boy looked down and noticed tropical fish fluttering about, chasing one another among the coral that were attached to the ptform they stood on. The breeze caressed his hair, like a hand running through it, and they decided to rex for a bit while they waited for their ride.

  “It’s so strange,” Rosso pointed out, “there seems to be a whole weather pattern in this room. Winds, water currents—the rain from st night.”

  The boy nodded but wasn’t as surprised as the man from the desert was. He had seen many strange things during his other jumps and felt that many more might still be waiting ahead on their journey.

  A red steam locomotive pulled up as the two were snoring on a bench, its billowing steam and whistle causing them to jolt awake. At the front of the train, a majestic lion's head, cast in gleaming gold, jutted pompously from the engine. Its intricately sculpted mane gleamed, and its piercing eyes made of precious stones stared ahead, daring the sea itself to challenge its passage. Atop the chimney was a crown, steam curling around its spiked edges in wisps. They stepped aboard, their boots clinking faintly against the metal steps. Inside, the warm scent of polished wood and oil mingled with the faint aroma of seaweed and brine.

  “I smell coffee and food,” said Rosso with a happy face.

  “The tickets entitle us to a warm meal,” the boy answered as he smiled back.

  The conductor, a woman with a rge rainbow plume bobbing atop her tall hat, glided at great speed down the aisle, as she clipped everyone’s tickets, her voice jovial and professional.

  "Please close the windows," she instructed with a courteous nod, repeating herself at least twenty times before disappearing into the next car.

  The water outside the gss began to rise, as the train dove deeper underwater. The waves rippled away towards the calm blue sea, the surface rising and rising until they were submerged. Bubbles from the steam engine blew past them, as the abandoned skyscrapers of the underwater city dotted the sea bottom where the tracks now ran on. Inside the train, the travelers settled into their seats, lulled by the rhythmic swaying as the hours passed. The gentle creak of wood and the occasional hiss of steam blended with the muffled sounds of the deep. Through the night, they rested comfortably, wrapped in the soothing warmth of the cabin, while the cold, pitch-bck darkness of the waters stretched beyond their window. When dawn broke, a pale, filtered light shimmered through into their eyes as they woke, casting wavering patterns on their bed sheets. Eventually, the train began its ascent, reaching its destination, vapor billowing out of its locomotive as it hissed to a stop, emerging from the water like a submarine.

  The scent of baked goods filled the morning air once they left the station. Stone steps veered slowly right, fnked by shops of all kinds through yet another gargantuan hall of the Pace. Steam rose from a ramen shop where the two asked for directions, but the shopkeeper expined that he had just opened his shop st week, and didn’t know much. The two travelers unfolded the rge map, standing in the middle of a bustling square.

  "We are looking for—a bathhouse, right?" asked Rosso, as the boy nodded. "Well—that restaurant there is called Simmering Soups—but we are looking for Simmering Waters, right?"

  "Right—but the blueprints say that it should be next to the fountain with the dy pying a flute," he said, pointing at exactly that.

  Seeing no other alternative, they entered the establishment to find a small, cozy room filled with tables. A waiter gnced at them, but the two turned around and left in awkward silence.

  "That wasn't it," said Rosso in a defeated tone, as the door closed behind them.

  The boy then spotted a short, burly man, his hairy chest poking out of a bathrobe as he leaned against the alley wall, smoking a cigarette by the side of the restaurant. After flicking the butt to the ground, the man vanished through a small, round door that he smmed behind.

  "I guess the blueprints were wrong," said Rosso, his nose buried in the map.

  "Wait—I got an idea—just a feeling."

  They knocked on the round door, gncing at each other as they waited. A small sliding panel opened, revealing a pair of beaty eyes, looking at them with suspicion.

  "Yeah? What's the magic word?" he said in a raspy, rude tone.

  The two looked at each other and shrugged.

  "We—don't know any password. We just got here," Rosso got closer and whispered, "from another world," he hesitated at first, but eventually winked, then awkwardly gnced at his friend, then back at the man as he forced out a smile.

  The guard went quiet, then disappeared for a moment in the darkness. The adventurers leaned in, hearing whispering on the other side, hoping to get a peek at what was inside. His gray eyes appeared through the hole again, causing the two to jolt back.

  "You came from another world, huh? Sounds like a real crazy story to me—and which world would that be?" the man asked, as his eyes darted between Roa's and Rosso's.

  "The one with the loud music—Harmony Prime, it was called—"

  "No, no—it was called Harmony Sublime," Roa corrected his friend, spping him on the arm.

  "Oh—right," Rosso paused, "anyways, we almost died—but that's not important to you, obviously, because you want a password from us." Rosso gnced over at his friend, unsure on what to say next when the boy jumped into the conversation.

  "We are looking for Simmering Waters—maybe you know where that is?"

  The mysterious guardian stared in silence. He sighed, his half-lidded eyes exuding a mix of irritation and boredom.

  "Who—exactly—told you about Simmering Waters?"

  The questioning went on for some time, as they recounted their story about Professor Z and Lalh-Ah Land, the blueprints and the Shadows.

  "Rookies," said the man, smming the sliding panel shut.

  The door untched. The guard let the two travelers inside, guiding them through a long, wooden passage where they had to duck to avoid hitting their heads on the low ceiling. They found themselves in a room full of thick steam, and the sound of cascading water.

  "We don't usually let travelers in, unless they know the password," said a crackling voice. They looked around but could not find where it was coming from. "Down here," it continued. They gnced at the floor and noticed a talking frog. "Fortunately for you, not many travelers pass by nowadays, plus—looks like old professor Z gave you the password without you knowing. The restaurant’s a facade—both architecturally, and figuratively. You know—to keep a low profile," the chubby, green animal expined.

  The frog wore a straw hat and a tiny, open bathrobe. It leaped forward between Rosso's feet, then sat at the corner of a pool with one leg in the warm water. The faint smell of sulfur entered Roa's nostrils, as he noticed a few other silhouettes moving about the steamy space.

  "Welcome to Simmering Broths—I mean, Simmering Soups—" a woman with huge, bushy pigtails and an eye patch showed up behind them.

  "Wrong business, Madame Waters," interrupted the frog as the woman let out a grunt. "Also—we stopped using 'Broths' once we decided to stop paying our taxes and scam the authorities by filing for bankruptcy."

  "Right—well, if the so-called 'authorities' actually did something useful with our money for once, we wouldn't have to change the name of this pce every few years, now wouldn't we?" she answered him, her words sharp and clipped. Then, in a swift motion, her enormous pigtails swaying, she turned to the two confused adventurers, her voice softening and shifting to a friendly, welcoming tone: "welcome to our—bathhouse, my fellow Free Folk. My name is Theya, and this talking frog is Froxo. Don't mind his attitude, he's just grumpy because some wizard turned him and his family into frogs, long ago." She paused, scanned them up and down and asked: "and who the hell are you two, exactly?" her words returning to their sharp and clipped nature.

  "Well, this is Rosso from Lalh-Ah Land, and I am Roa, of Earth."

  The frog and the woman exchanged gnces, then burst into ughter.