The Book of Heroes

by Miyuki Miyabe

  “It’s nothing,” Sky whispered, though he sounded on the verge of tears. Delicately, he removed U-ri’s fingers, gingerly nudging her hand away as though it were some fragile object.

  He looked up at Ash. “We are going further in, yes? Let us be off.”

  Ash nodded and turned. Behind him, Sky stood, bracing himself against the wall for balance. He put a hand to his chest and rubbed it where he had been hitting himself only moments before.

  With the exception of Ash, none of them were familiar with the palace in the least—which was now an advantage it seemed, since they would not be misled by memories twisted into distractions by the incredible changes that had been wrought to the geography of the place.

  Not only was nothing where it was supposed to be, but rooms were connected to rooms in the most haphazard and unconventional ways, as though the giant hands had reached in and scrambled the palace interior heedless of left and right or up and down.

  There were stairs stuck in odd places, and corridors that wrapped back around on themselves. The one thing they could count on was the threat of dust-creatures around nearly every corner. U-ri quickly got used to the weight of the mace swinging in her hands, and with each encounter felt an increasing awareness of the extent of her glyph’s power.

  They saw some people, but far less frequently than monsters, and only a handful of the people they found still drew breath. Most were knights in shredded armor, though occasionally they found a minister in courtly robes, or a woman in a long dress.

  On one occasion they found a man lying on the ground, still breathing, though only faintly. He did not stir when they called to him. When U-ri tried using her glyph, Ash stopped her, saying it was too late for that. Again and again this happened. They would find a new room, defeat what creatures lay in wait by the entrance or that came storming up from a dark corner, and then U-ri, Ash, and Sky would look around inside at the scattered corpses in the vain hope of finding a survivor.

  “Why would Kirrick do something like this?” U-ri asked, her breath short—not due to the constant exertions of battle, but with frustration. “What possible meaning could any of this have? Killing people, then mutating them into monsters just so that his pursuers can finish them off?”

  “It’s all conflict, isn’t it?” Ash said. He was in front, but spoke without glancing back. “Furthermore, this is not Kirrick’s fault. This is the work of the King in Yellow.”

  “But isn’t Kirrick at the King in Yellow’s heart?” U-ri insisted.

  “He is. Together with your brother.”

  “Say,” Aju cut in in a high squeaky voice, “I thought a search party came through here before us. Funny we haven’t run into them. Maybe they’re just up ahead?”

  “Which way would that be?” U-ri wondered out loud, voicing the thought in everyone’s mind.

  They reached yet another dead end. The ceiling in this chamber was high, though nothing on the scale of the throne room. Smooth, cold walls surrounded them on four sides, and the floor was littered with the bodies of various creatues. There was only the door through which they had entered and a small slit high up on the wall to the right-hand side, with no visible means for reaching it. The search party must have fought here, been victorious, and continued on—but which way?

  “Looks like we go back.” U-ri sighed. Then she heard someone calling out in a weak voice. The four of them turned, looking to see where it might have come from.

  “Is someone there?”

  The voice is coming from that slit in the wall!

  “One of the search party,” Ash said. He looked up and raised his voice: “There is a wall between us—we cannot get through. How did you get where you are?”

  There was no immediate answer. U-ri imagined a man wounded, lying on the other side. We have to get to him! Quickly!

  “The wall…” came the voice again. “It is enchanted.”

  Ash lightly rapped the wall with one fist, then turned to U-ri. “Knock it all down!”

  U-ri put a hand to the glyph on her forehead, then turned it toward the wall, and in that instant, the giant gray slab of rock stretching up in front of her vanished like a mirage, opening up an entire vista beyond. Aju clung tightly to the back of U-ri’s neck. Even Ash seemed startled. For a moment, U-ri thought they had somehow returned to the Katarhar Abbey ruins. They were staring at a giant mountain of rubble. The room containing it all was enormous, with another high ceiling and chunks of stone and plaster piled high to the very top.

  U-ri looked up and spotted something glimmering there. They all saw it.

  “The crown,” Ash said. “It’s Harvein the Second’s crown.”

  The owner of the weak voice they had heard was sitting at the foot of the mountain of rubble, his legs splayed out in front of him. He was not a knight. He wore clothes similar to Ash’s, with black hair falling over a young face. His cloak had been badly torn, and part of his chest seemed oddly crumpled inward, like a dented sheet of metal. He was bleeding.

  U-ri ran up to him, and the young man attempted a smile. “You a wizard, little girl? Good on you. My partner couldn’t even make a scratch on that damned wall.”

  “Try to sit still. I’ll fix you up.”

  She knelt down, noticing that one of the man’s legs had been torn apart, leaving little flesh by the knee.

  “Did you see what did this to you?” Ash asked over U-ri’s shoulder while she sat there, trying to decide where to start in mending the man.

  “I did not, for it was invisible. It went down there,” the man said, pointing toward the rubble with a trembling finger. “This wreckage is what’s left after it devoured the palace. This here’s the leavings the thing spat out.”

  Ash walked across the room, examining the rubble as he went. “Interesting.” He tapped a pile of stones with the pommel of his sword. “There appears to be more room beneath this one, as though it were hollow. Here. It’s a way down.”

  U-ri applied the light of her glyph to the man over and over, but the bleeding would not stop. She would just manage to mend one wound only to have a fresh one open beside it.

  “Give it up, little one. It’s too late for me.”

  “You be quiet. It’s not too late!”

  “You’re an undertaker too, I see,” the man said to Ash. The wolf nodded.

  “My partner—Narg’s his name—he’s a wizard. Couldn’t handle that wall you just took out, though. He went down the hole by himself, thought he might find a way out that way.” The man attempted another smile. “If you’re really going down there, you’ll save him for me, won’t you?”

  “That we shall,” Ash said quickly. “Did any others descend deeper?”

  “Some knights,” the man rasped, then he began to cough violently, each spasm leaving blood-flecked spittle on his lips. “The first patrol. We were in the second. But no one’s come back.”

  “Ash, stop making him talk!” U-ri protested, but the man took her hand in his own and gently pushed it down. Two of his fingers were broken, the nails ripped clean off. The young man stared at Ash.

  “Be careful,” he whispered. “Its voice…I heard it. It has no shape, but it can speak.” He coughed. “It spoke with the voice of a child—a boy.”

  U-ri froze.

  “A boy no older than this little one here,” the man added, his eyes losing their focus as he spoke. His head slumped to one side as he continued his tale, more weakly now. “Reminded me of my little brother, it did.”

  Ash stepped up beside him, then knelt on one knee. “What did this boy say to you?”

  The man turned to Ash, summoning the very last of his strength to do so. His lips parted and a trickle of blood spilled from them.

  “He was laughing…he was happy. He said…he said he was going to make the world beautiful. Get rid of all the filth that’s messing it up. And…” He paused, catching his breath. “And he said no one’s going to stop him.”

  The man’s head slumped forward. U-ri looked at his still-o
pen eyes and realized that the life had fled them. Her own eyes were stinging with tears. What can I do? What is there to do? U-ri trembled and could not stop for some time.

  “It was my brother,” U-ri said, the taste of iron on her lips. My own heart is bruised and bleeding. Pretty soon, it’ll break, and I’ll be coughing up blood just like this poor dead man. “The King in Yellow is using my brother’s voice!”

  U-ri swayed and nearly fell, catching herself on the floor with both hands at the last moment. Her body convulsed like she was vomiting, and a sob came from her mouth.

  “No crying, U-ri!” Aju squeaked in a high voice from the top of her head. “No crying! Stand up!”

  The little mouse yanked on her hair as hard as he could, but U-ri felt no pain. She wiped her tears, sat up, slapped her face several times with her hands, and lifted her eyes at a world blurred by sorrow.

  But she could see them—Ash standing there like a hungry ghost. And Sky, all in black, even thinner than the wolf.

  Up until now, whenever U-ri had broken down, it had always been Sky who ran to her first. Now he shrank away, frightened, clutching his black robes tightly to his chest and staring at her. Their eyes met for only an instant before he quickly looked away. Ash set down the grimy sack he carried, pulled out a coil of rope, and asked, “Ever rappelled down something?”

  “Why would I have done something like that?” U-ri snorted.

  Ash lifted an eyebrow and told her, “It’s a lot easier going down than it is going up.” Then softly, “You can close his eyes now.”

  Stairs led down the mountain of rubble, the steps crafted from seemingly random collections of rock and sand—as if whatever exterior force had pounded the earth here had caused it to fracture just so, creating descending ledges. Several of the “steps” were taller even than U-ri herself, so she had to clamber down, sometimes with Sky’s help. It was very dark. Ash and Sky had both discarded their torches as they needed their hands free to navigate the steps. Only the light of U-ri’s glyph lit their way, like a spelunker’s headlamp. The light it cast cut a perfect circle out of the gloom, so that whichever direction U-ri wasn’t facing was plunged in utter darkness.

  U-ri had been under so much tension for so long that now her tears had completely dried. She was even beginning to think, as she listened to her own ragged breath, that her chest was heaving only with the exertion of their descent and not the pain she felt in her heart.

  Yet the wound in her heart still ached and bled. Partly because of her brother’s voice, and partly because of Sky’s increasingly odd behavior.

  He had always been there right by her side, before. Now she had to turn around to find him, somewhere back in the darkness behind her. She had always been able to sense him before too, even when he did not speak, but now it felt like Sky was intentionally trying to disappear—out of sight and out of mind.

  “What did you see in the light?”

  Ash’s question to Sky. He hadn’t answered. He had hit himself, like he was punishing himself for something. Then he urged the party on, as though nothing had changed.

  What did you see in the light of my glyph, Sky? Did what you see do this? Did it draw you further away from me?

  What was it?

  The questions spun around inside her head, and U-ri had to screw her mouth shut tightly to keep them from spilling out. Going down the rough-hewn steps felt less like a descent and more like sinking into the depths.

  They met no more creatures on their dishearteningly long and dangerous way down. When they had reached what appeared to be the bottom, U-ri noticed that the ground was hard and level in a way that none of the many steps above them had been.

  The walls, illuminated by Uri’s glyph, had clearly been man-made.

  “We seem to be in some kind of underground complex,” Ash said. “I’m sure in the past there were proper paths down here from the palace. But the force that did this damage chose none of those paths, instead preferring to simply open a hole in the ground.”

  From U-ri’s shoulder Aju squeaked, “I think that room up top with all the rubble was a prayer hall of some sort. I spotted an altar and some fragments of religious-looking paintings.”

  “That would make it the royal family’s private chapel. Makes sense. It would want to destroy that first,” Ash said, unwilling to call “it” by its proper name.

  Behind him was an impassable wall of wreckage. No way to go but forward. U-ri fixed her grip on her mace. They began walking by the light of the glyph, and small bits of plaster rained down on their heads from the darkness above. Ash extended an arm, barring U-ri’s path. “Walk carefully. The impact that destroyed the palace has left its mark here.”

  U-ri nodded, swinging her head to give them a better view of their surroundings. She found a crack in one wall, a fallen sconce, and some broken candles. So this place was once lit like the rooms above.

  The corridor was flat and wide enough for two to walk abreast, yet it turned frequently, always at a right angle, and following a pattern: they would come to a right turn, which led to an intersection where they went straight, only to come to a left turn. This happened over and over.

  “It’s a labyrinth,” U-ri muttered.

  “An inverted swastika, actually,” Aju chirped, his voice filled with an unusual confidence. “A manji to you, U-ri. Isn’t that right, Ash?”

  “It is. Not bad for an aunkaui dictionary.”

  “Thanks,” Aju replied coolly.

  “But you’re both right. It’s a labyrinth made up of manji, the ancient symbol for eternity and cosmic balance. Not a labyrinth in the sense of a maze so much as a labyrinth in the sense of a spiritual path,” said Ash.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Like the path one walks to visit a grave,” Ash explained, a sense of urgency in his voice. “And I am sure that, at its terminus in the center of the labyrinth, we will find the grave of the mage Elem, whose symbol the manji is.” After a pause, he added, “Or, to be more precise, it was the symbol of those who worshipped her.”

  Though Elem did not take on a single disciple during her life, there were many in the Haetlands whom she had saved with her power and knowledge. It was only a matter of time before some began to worship her as an apostle of the creator. Though not on a large enough scale to be considered a proper sect, her followers gathered to her, assisted in her research, and joined her on her many travels.

  “The followers of Elem bore the mark of the manji upon the palms of their hands.”

  “That’s all very fine and well,” U-ri said, “but why did they have to go and make this whole labyrinth?”

  “Probably to keep Elem from leaving easily,” Aju suggested. “This is how the royal family of the Haetlands held Elem here beneath the palace. Only they would’ve known the proper path for winding their way through.”

  They turned, walked, went straight for a while, then turned again. As they went, the walls around them gradually began to change. They were whiter here, and brighter, adorned with murals faded and crumbling from the walls but with parts that were still visible. Most of the paintings depicted people. There were young and old, men and women, standing in orderly lines. All of them wore hooded white robes, their heads bowed reverently, with both hands held up by their chests. U-ri could make out the inverted swastikas on several of them.

  “And images of her followers were placed along the walls of the labyrinth to quell Elem’s restless spirit,” Ash said with a sneer, quickening his pace. “We’re nearing the center, where we’ll find Elem—and something of Kirrick’s buried with her, be it a possession or a body part.”

  Though they lived at different times, both mages were guilty of the same sin. Elem had planted the roots of it, and Kirrick had caused the sin to bloom like an evil flower.

  “In other words, we’re heading right where it went,” Ash said.

  They soon came upon the bodies of many other fallen knights, their vacant stares underscoring Ash’s words. Some had the
ir armor stripped from them and rent to pieces. U-ri was saddened, but she did not slow her pace.

  “I wonder if the mage friend of that man we saw at the top of the stairs made it any further?” U-ri asked. No sooner had she said that than a bloodcurdling scream split the darkness ahead. Ash ran forward without a moment’s hesitation, while U-ri stood rooted to the spot for a breath before following after. But then she stopped again—and this time it was of her own volition.

  “Sky?”

  Sky was hugging the wall, terrified by the scream. He slid to the ground before her.

  “You’re not going? Will you wait here?”

  Forehead to the wall, Sky slumped, then shook his head. “No. No…I will go.”

  “Let’s go then,” U-ri held out a hand.

  Sky looked away. “I will go, but you must stay here, Lady U-ri. Please wait here.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous! I can’t stay here!”

  U-ri had just about had it. Whatever. Do what you like! She dashed off down the corridor, feet stomping on the ground. She was just around the next corner when something sleek slid through the air, and she reflexively swatted at it with her mace.

  The corridor had grown suddenly wider. The darkness was less complete. We’re getting close.

  U-ri blinked and saw that most of the open space she had come to was filled with one particularly large creature.

  In form, it greatly resembled the thing that had appeared outside the library at Hiroki’s school. But this one had legs, two of them, each with sharp claws. Above them hung a misshapen lump of a body from which tentacles grew in every direction, making it impossible to tell which way the thing was facing.

  If it even has a face.

  U-ri recalled the creature whom she had met deep beneath the Katarhar Abbey ruins, the one that had once been Ichiro Minochi.

  The creature was bleeding green blood. Ash had already severed several of its tentacles with his two-handed sword. Still, it was clinging to something—a man, his arms and legs hanging limp, his head flopping on the end of his bent neck. The monster held it aloft with many of its remaining tentacles, holding the body high over the ground and not letting go. From the robe he wore, U-ri guessed this was the mage.