The Book of Heroes

by Miyuki Miyabe

  “Let him go!”

  At U-ri’s shout, the creature shifted perceptibly. It stamped on the ground with its two legs.

  “I said let him go, you fiend!”

  Whatever it was, it seemed to understand her words. The creature complied, flinging the mage toward her. U-ri and Ash dodged aside, a spray green and red blood splattering their cheeks.

  The creature lashed out with another tentacle. Ash leapt between it and U-ri, while U-ri readied her mace and took a deep breath. She placed her left hand to the glyph on her forehead, and the glyph began to shine.

  Lifting the glow in her hand, U-ri roared, “Unclean gatekeeper, open the way to us!”

  Platinum light streaked from her hand across the room. Aju squeaked, shutting his eyes against the glare, and even Ash raised his arms to shield his eyes. U-ri stood, head up, unfaltering.

  In the space of a breath, the creature was gone. Even the severed tentacles that had been leaking green blood on the floor evaporated.

  “Where did you learn those words?”

  U-ri lowered her mace and answered, “The glyph told me.”

  “I see.” Ash sighed. “It was a gatekeeper.”

  The gatekeeper to the graveyard, watcher over Kirrick—

  U-ri and Ash walked abreast into the space the creature had left behind.

  They were in a large, circular hall, from the very center of which rose a circular dais, topped by a pair of crosses laid across one another. They were crosses like the ones in U-ri’s region, but she had never seen crosses arranged like this at home. The crosses she knew would have been driven into the ground like stakes.

  “The grave of the mage Elem,” Ash said in a hushed voice.

  “Look at the walls,” Aju squeaked.

  Images of Elem’s followers had been drawn here too. They surrounded the graves, each with the mark of the manji on their hands.

  “Why is it so light in here?”

  There were holders for torches and sconces scattered around, but none of them were lit. U-ri tried covering the glyph on her forehead with her hand, but the light in the hall did not lessen. It wasn’t her glyph that was lighting it—there must have been another source.

  Then she saw that a faint light, a thin, golden mist shimmering like the air sometimes does in the summer, was coming from behind the crosses.

  And then the mist sat up.

  That was the only way she could describe it. Even though the mist wasn’t shaped like a person or an animal, it moved like one. U-ri realized that Ash was holding his breath.

  “Who are you?” he asked, finally, his voice even and composed. “No, let me rephrase that. Who are you here and now?”

  U-ri still had her hand over her glyph. Light spilled out from between her fingers—and not a warm glow like before, but sharp rays of radiance that stabbed like blades at the golden mist beyond the crosses.

  Several of the rays pierced the mist. With each ray that penetrated it, the mist began to coalesce, its outline taking shape. U-ri stood watching it, her mouth hanging open.

  The golden mist was transforming into the shape of a person. U-ri saw that it wore long robes flowing elegantly from its shoulders, like those of a person of noble stature. The figure was facing her.

  “U-ri!” Aju whimpered, his tiny body shivering where he hid in the collar of her vestments. “Don’t be scared, U-ri! It can’t do anything to you! It can’t touch you!”

  U-ri wasn’t frightened by the sight, though. She was entranced. She understood how this figure could steal men’s hearts. How all who faced it fell under its spell.

  Just like my brother had.

  It was the Hero.

  This was the source of that wild energy that had broken from its prison and descended upon the Circle, a subject of devotion and adoration wrapped in tremendous brilliance.

  Then the shining Hero reached forward with one hand, clutched one of the crosses upon the dais and gently slid it off. It lifted the cross lightly above its own head, then tossed it over its back.

  Ash raised his sword and charged. But the Hero simply lifted one hand, and Ash was knocked back as if struck by some invisible whip. He flew through the air and landed at U-ri’s feet.

  Ash was up on his own feet again before she could help him. U-ri stood, transfixed. She remembered what she had seen on that summer night so long ago: her brother bowing his head before a figure in a long cape.

  “U-ri, U-ri!” Aju swatted U-ri’s cheek with a tiny paw and thrust his cold nose into her ear. “Snap out of it, U-ri!”

  U-ri felt the strength leave her limbs. Her hands fell limp by her sides. The mace had almost slipped out of her grasp when she realized it and lifted it again to defend herself.

  Ash charged once more, and the Hero knocked him away. It was playing with him. While it tossed Ash around with the slightest motions of his fingers, the Hero lightly lifted up the other cross and tossed it against the wall. The shattered pieces fell with a racket.

  “Kirrick—” Ash groaned, falling to one knee. “You are Kirrick. Remember! Remember the man you were! Remember how you once raised your sword to defend the oppressed!”

  Even though the shining outline in front of them had no face, U-ri was sure that the Hero was smiling.

  I have no name!

  Its voice was neither that of a man or a woman. It was neither old, nor young. It was unlike any voice she had heard before, and yet it tugged at her memory, the forgotten whisper of a story she had heard as a child.

  I am no one and no thing.

  Did that mean it was nothing? Was that even possible? How could nothing possess such oppressive power? How could nothing shine with such radiant beauty?

  “Then let me change the question,” Ash shouted, spitting blood. “Why are you here?”

  The Hero lifted its hands in front of its face.

  All happens according to the will of the Circle, it replied in a weighty voice. Then clapping its hands together, it thrust its arms into the dais where the two crosses had lain.

  White light suffused the chamber, and the ground shook like something deep below the surface was awakening, rushing up toward the Hero.

  And the Hero was waiting for it.

  Then the tremor that had begun deep underground reached the surface, and the glowing outline of the Hero began to swell. Maintaining its human shape, it expanded to giant proportions. The ground trembled violently, cracks appearing in the rock beneath their feet, and pieces of the ceiling and walls began to break free and fall to the floor of the labyrinth.

  “Kirrick, stop this!” Ash shouted, but he could not move. Neither of them could take so much as a step toward the Hero. A circle of incredible energy had surrounded it and was beginning to expand. U-ri had fallen to the ground when it shook, and now she found herself pushed backward across the rattling stones, as though driven by a powerful wind back toward the entrance. Ash too was steadily being driven back from the grave.

  “Sky! Where are you?” U-ri shouted, her voice almost a scream, but there was no answer. The force pushed her further back. Her vestments of protection fluttered around her violently, whipping in the wind. She was afraid the buttons would snap off. This was no wind, no natural flow of air. This was an incredible energy erupting from the ground, clearing the gravesite, pushing away all the clutter, including U-ri and Ash.

  “Can’t hold on! Auuuuugh!” Aju squealed as the force pulled him away from U-ri’s collar and sent him spinning into the air. U-ri reached out a hand to grab him, but the force pushed down on her with an incredible weight, pinning her to the floor. She would have been swept away herself if Ash’s hand hadn’t caught her ankle. He had managed to hold his ground, clutching the grip of a short sword he had thrust into the hard-packed floor with his other hand.

  “Grab on!” He extended his empty hand. U-ri couldn’t reach.

  Then everything was still. The flow of power ceased. The rumbling in the earth quieted. The light spilling from the grave began to recede.
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  U-ri lifted her head. Ash gave his own head a shake and sat up.

  Then they saw it.

  The Hero had grown until its head reached the ceiling over the grave. It appeared even more human now. Its face, perfectly smooth before, now had two eyes. There were no pupils, no distinction between the whites and the center of those eyes. They were just open pools of inky darkness in the shape of eyes. Though they were dark, they seemed to shine with even more strength and pride than the rest of the Hero. A new power roiled in their depths.

  “So that’s what you left here, Kirrick,” Ash said, his voice a rasping lament. “Your eyes.”

  And the Hero had retrieved them. Now the Hero looked out on the Haetlands through Kirrick’s eyes, once again able to see the breadth of the Circle it so desired to fill.

  U-ri stood in a daze, entranced once again by the Hero’s sheer presence. I wonder what those black shining eyes see? she thought. I wonder what the Circle looks like to it?

  Little thing. Seed of my being. That was another voice, one not her own, in her head.

  There you are, the Hero said.

  U-ri blinked, coming to her senses. What is it saying? Who is it calling to? Not me or Ash.

  It was Sky.

  He was there, walking past Ash and stepping over U-ri who was still lying where she had fallen on the ground. Sky’s robes gently swayed as he approached the Hero. They had fallen loose, revealing one emaciated shoulder.

  Sky walked as though intoxicated. He took a step, and one of his legs bent, but instead of straightening himself he merely toppled over. Still, the devout did not stop. The Hero was drawing him in.

  “No, Sky, don’t go to it! You must stop!” U-ri shouted, but Sky did not so much as glance in her direction. Standing shakily, he stepped inside the light that surrounded the Hero in a glimmering aura.

  There he fell to his knees and bowed to the ground.

  The Hero’s light washed over the devout’s thin body.

  U-ri held her breath. Even her heart stood still. Everything stopped.

  No. This can’t be happening. I don’t believe it!

  Enveloped in the Hero’s aura, Sky was ceasing to be. His black robes melted in the light. Then a bright glow swallowed his shaven head. The last glimpse of him U-ri caught were his leather sandals worn from the long journey and those knobby ankle bones. And then Sky was completely gone.

  Lying on the ground in his place was Hiroki Morisaki.

  U-ri’s brother. Yuriko’s brother.

  U-ri put a hand to her mouth.

  Hiroki Morisaki lifted his head. She recognized him, everything about him. The arch of his back. His legs. The back of his neck.

  He was wearing his school uniform. The soles of his favorite sneakers were coated with…blood. The blood of the classmates who bullied him. He stepped in their blood as he fled.

  Don’t look around, U-ri shouted in her heart. Don’t let me see your face.

  Hiroki turned. Tears streaked his cheeks. His lips trembled. “Yuriko—”

  Then the ground shuddered and a laugh erupted, shaking the walls and ceiling of the burial chamber.

  The Hero was laughing. The King in Yellow was laughing.

  The dregs of my vessel. You may have it, if you wish!

  The laughter grew louder, and louder still. The Hero was shining ever more brightly, boiling with light like a sun going nova.

  “Nooooo!” U-ri screamed, and Hiroki stood.

  For a second, U-ri thought he would come to her, that he might run to her side. But he did not. He only looked at her with his tear-streaked face—a look that lasted for only the space of a breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard her brother say. It was definitely her brother’s voice. His words. “Goodbye.”

  He waved. His fingers were caked with blood.

  Then Hiroki turned, ran to the Hero, and dove headfirst into its light. The light swallowed him and he evaporated. The Hero gave a last triumphant laugh, and the burial chamber began to collapse.

  “No! Hiroki! No! No! No!”

  U-ri made to dash after him, but Ash grabbed her and held her tight. The ground heaved and cracked, sending them flying into the air, while around them the walls began to crumble.

  The Hero rose, levitating over the burial chamber. Its light and power spread, swallowing them.

  “Use your glyph!” Ash shouted, but U-ri, still crying out for her brother, could not hear him. Ash forcibly grabbed U-ri’s hand, putting it to her forehead.

  The Hero took flight. At that moment, the ceiling of the burial chamber fragmented and fell—and the two tiny shapes left behind vanished.

  Darkness swallowed U-ri. It felt like they had resisted an incredible gravitational pull at the last moment, and now she and Ash were hurtling through the void. She could feel the power receding from them—its beauty, its brilliance.

  The Hero left them, trailing a wake of light through the darkness after it. It was like everything she had ever wanted—her brother—had jumped onto a comet and sped off into space, leaving her behind.

  Images of her brother flickered through U-ri’s mind as she flew. One after the other, like photographs in an album. All pictures of his face: smiling, scolding, angry, worried.

  Goodbye.

  How could he say that, her only brother? After all she had been through to find him? After all her searching.

  And he had been with her the whole way. How had she not noticed? Why hadn’t she been able to recognize him?

  A shock ran through her body. Ash’s arms around her, U-ri was ejected from the void onto solid ground.

  They were back in the nameless land. She was sprawled in the same spot where she had arrived when she traveled here from the magic circle in Ichiro Minochi’s reading room.

  U-ri managed to get her arms beneath her, and lifting herself up, she stood. Giving her head a shake, she turned to where the lights of the Hall of All Books flickered in the distance.

  There! There he is! Ahead of them, a single nameless devout in black robes was running toward the hall, occasionally tripping and falling to his knees, only to stand again and continue running.

  “Hiroki! Sky!”

  U-ri broke into a run. Her vestments were practically coming off now, and where they wrapped around her limbs they only seemed to get in the way. She slipped and fell, banging her knees on the ground, shouting all the while, chasing after the devout.

  The nameless devout never looked back at her. He simply ran and ran, running away from her.

  He’s not Hiroki anymore.

  He’s not Sky anymore.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  No matter how fast U-ri ran, she couldn’t catch up. Ahead of her, the nameless devout disappeared inside the outer wall of the Hall of All Books.

  Still U-ri ran. I’ll search the whole place, and I’ll find him! I’ll drag him out of there, I swear it! And then we’ll go home, together.

  But U-ri’s exhausted legs would no longer listen to her. She staggered, tripped and fell, then stood up only to fall again. She was clutching the grass, trying to stand again, when she felt Ash’s hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s no use. Give him up.”

  U-ri looked toward the hall, gritting her teeth. She felt that if she didn’t keep her mouth shut, she’d bite out Ash’s throat, so full of anger she was. So full of hatred.

  “He is once again a nameless devout. He does not remember you. He does not retain even a fragment of the individual known as Hiroki Morisaki.”

  He had become no one, nowhere.

  “It’s better that way. It’s better.”

  U-ri’s hand lashed out on its own, slapping Ash’s cheek. The wolf didn’t even blink.

  “You knew,” U-ri said. “You knew and you didn’t tell me.”

  That’s why he was always so cold to Sky.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “If I had, would you have believed me? Would that have satisfied you?” Ash slowly shook his head. “Neither
you nor he would have believed it. Until you both faced the truth with your own eyes, my words would have had no more meaning to you than the wind that blows across this nameless land.”

  He’s right, U-ri thought. Though it vexed her to no end, Ash was always right. U-ri thought to slap him again, but the strength had left her hand.

  Tears welled in her eyes. How many times have I cried already? How many times had Ash laughed at her for being a crybaby? But she had never cried like this—cried tears that seemed to scorch her own cheeks.

  “The nameless devout you named Sky was incomplete,” Ash said, kneeling on one knee beside the weeping U-ri. His hair was disheveled, his chiseled face as white as his ashen hair. “And an incomplete devout is a danger both to the nameless land and to the Circle. That is why we could not leave him to his own devices. Someone had to purify him,” Ash explained. “That was the reason for your glyph. That was the reason for your journey.”

  Ash extended a hand to her. “Stand up. Let us go to the Hall of All Books. In the Dome of Convocation you may see with your own eyes all that you have accomplished.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Truth

  The Dome of Convocation lay silent in the deep night of the nameless land. The whole place seemed much darker than it had during U-ri’s last visit. Even the torches seemed to burn in shadow.

  The Archdevout was waiting in the middle of the circular dais that U-ri had, on the occasion of her first visit, thought looked like a sumo dohyo of some sort. The casket containing the Book of Heroes—the Hollow Book—was there as well. Next to it, four nameless devout stood at attention.

  When they saw that U-ri had arrived, all of the devout swept aside their black robes and knelt on the floor. A little unsteadily, U-ri made her way to the center of the dais. She approached the casket, its surface carved with innumerable symbols. Her eyes could see them all, and her feet could feel the solid floor beneath her, but U-ri felt nothing. She had no sense of anything—even distances seemed fluid and changing to her now.

  Ash touched U-ri’s shoulder, indicating that they should stop. She brought her feet together, steadied her breath for a moment, then announced to the nameless devout, “I’m back.”