“I guess so, yeah.”
“What year are the girls?” Yuriko asked.
“Kazumi will be a ninth grader in April. Mika’s a year behind her.”
“I wouldn’t be too complacent then. You have no idea what girls of that age can get up to.”
This struck Kotaro as a little condescending—after all, Yuriko wasn’t much older than Kazumi and Mika.
“It’s because they’re young. They don’t have the capacity for judgment. Girls can get pretty extreme.”
“Well, ‘I’m going to kill you’ is pretty extreme.”
“Not if it’s just words. The problem is the story behind the words.” Her expression was suddenly intensely focused, like a child who loves to observe insects and has just found a colorful, poisonous bug on the underside of a leaf.
“The story?” Kotaro thought he understood what she meant, but her choice of words was puzzling. “I think you mean the motivation, right? The reason?”
“No.” She shook her head. “The story. Everything is a story. Human beings live their stories as they create them. Each person spins a story, and their words come out of those stories.”
That’s backward. Words come first, then stories. I mean, come on.
“I just read your story, Kotaro.” She leaned toward him. “I read the flow of the story you’re submerged in, even now. How else could I have known about your family? Or your friends?”
“The flow of my story?”
“It’s like a flow of energy. But it’s hard to explain in words.” She stroked her cheek impatiently with a fingertip. The gesture had a girlish freshness.
“I’d almost like to call it an ‘aura,’ but everybody uses that word. It makes it sound phony.”
“Yup, it’s phony all right,” Kotaro said.
“Still, my reading was on the mark, don’t you think?”
He didn’t answer. Yuriko took a deep breath and scanned his face carefully.
“You’re a very smart person.”
“What—”
“You’ve had a very strange, dangerous experience. Way more than what you saw with me today. Yet your feet are still on the ground. Most people are different. If they have even one experience that’s totally outside their world, they go off the deep end. But you’re not like that. You’re onto a big mystery and you’re hungry for the truth. Yet when the truth finds you, you don’t just swallow it whole.”
I think she’s praising me.
“I can solve your mystery for you. But to do that—to do it the right way, in a way that’s true for you—I’ve got to know more. So could you tell me? How did you end up meeting this winged warrior? I need to know everything, from beginning to end, with nothing left out.”
Kotaro gave her another sidelong look. “What happened to the ESP?”
“You and I are from the same region. I can read your story. But where you made contact with something from another region, that I can’t read. I know something happened to you. I can see how it’s influencing you, but I can’t see what actually happened. And that’s probably a good thing. If I made a stab at reading the part of your story that overlaps with another region, things could get … messy.”
Kotaro’s disorientation was starting to turn into a headache.
“That person you’re so worried about—he’s involved with another region too, isn’t he?”
“You read that?”
“No. It’s just a logical assumption.”
“We work at the same place. His name’s Kenji Morinaga.”
“So he’s around the same age. Then that other person, he’s older than you—way older than you, from your point of view. You feel close to him too, I think. He’s involved with the being you encountered, just like your friend from work. That makes it hard for me to read him clearly.”
Kotaro hung his head. He was drained. Emotionally, he was on his knees. “Okay, but I warn you, it’s a long story.”
He told her everything, truthfully and concisely. Yuriko barely moved during the entire account. She only interrupted him a few times to confirm a name.
When his story was finally over, she turned her head to gaze at the library. The glass exterior glowed golden in the late afternoon sun.
“All right, first things first,” she said finally and smiled. “Don’t worry about your friend Kenji. He’s alive. He’s just not in our region now. Those other people who disappeared, they’re in that other region too.”
“Can they get back?”
“Probably.”
“But not for sure?”
“It’s not a hundred percent certain. It depends on what they want.”
“What they want?” Kotaro couldn’t help but frown.
“Kenji and the others—they weren’t kidnapped. They aren’t trapped in Galla’s weapon. It’s like they’re making a deal with her. At least that’s my guess.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the best I can offer. I’ve never dealt with a Tower guardian. All I can do is judge based on precedent.”
And you wouldn’t take a test without studying the sample answers first, I bet.
“If it’s a deal, that means Kenji gets something out of it,” he said.
“You’d think. Except in this case, his reward is what he’s giving up.”
“Could you please start making sense?”
“Galla is gathering something from this region, something people have. She’s gathering desire. Or craving. Yearning.”
“She said she was gathering power.”
“That was the truth. Desire is power. It’s the most fundamental power human beings have. The flip side of desire is inhibition. These two drives are always competing to find some kind of balance in people’s hearts.”
“That’s too simple by half. Desire isn’t a source of power.”
“Then what is?”
“Stuff like love, or creativity.”
“But isn’t desire behind everything? You desire what pulls at your heart. You have a desire to create something. You do what you do because you want to. Am I wrong?”
“But some people love without being loved in return.”
“All that means is that their desire for love can be satisfied just by giving it.”
“You’re not totally convincing me. But how is inhibition just as important?”
“Of course it’s important. If you loved someone and couldn’t control your love, things would end badly. Same for creativity. If people couldn’t put the brakes on their creativity—if they just created without concern for others—society would be in chaos.”
“Why? How?”
“You meet people like that every now and then. People who make their own rules.” She shrugged. “Like that guy who tried to pick me up back there. If he sees a girl he likes, he takes her picture without even asking. It’s rotten manners and totally outrageous, and ignores the other person’s feelings. But guys like that have already decided it’s okay. He’s okay with it, so that makes it okay.”
“Is that really an example of creativity?”
“Sure it is. Everything people do is creation.”
Kotaro couldn’t think of a comeback.
“Kenji and those other people who disappeared had a supreme desire, and they lived with it every day without it consuming them. But the effort it took to hold back that desire was making them suffer. I think Galla came to this region looking for people like that, people whose hearts were out of balance, so she could harvest their desires.”
“So what’s in it for the people who disappeared?”
“She took away their burden, the thing that was making them suffer because their hearts were out of balance. She gave them relief, even if the relief is only temporary. She gets the desire, they get relief. That’s the exchange.”
“There are lots of possibilities. If you’re homeless, maybe you want to see your family again or rejoin society. Or have a real job.”
“What about Kenji? He had a family and a job and school. Friends. He had everything.”
“Then there was probably something else he desired with all his heart. Some thing, or some result. He just didn’t tell you about it, that’s all. Also, this older guy you look up to? He changed after Galla purified him. It’s the same thing. You said he was a retired detective?”
“Yeah. He still looks the part.”
“He probably wants a job. He can still work. He can contribute to society. He needs a goal in life. A purpose.”
Shigenori had devoted himself to solving the riddle of the gargoyle. To him, it had been a “case.” Kotaro felt a chill as he remembered. “Galla told him he’d harvested too much evil.”
“He was like a fisherman, driven to gather evil with his net. He couldn’t stop himself. The weight of all that evil—no, the satisfaction he got when he trapped another sinner—was something he couldn’t let go of. That must be what Galla meant.”
Her expression softened. “It’s not forever, you know. In time, your friend will return to the way he was. As long as the heart is alive, desire always blooms again.”
“Why didn’t she just take us, then? Like she did Kenji and the others.”
“You can answer that yourself. It would’ve been dangerous. If she’d taken you both, that wouldn’t have been the end of it, especially since you and Kenji were friends.”
“So she took away the thing that made Shigenori a threat to her and left him behind.”
“And she only threatened you. She probably assumed that was more than enough.”
Hearing this from a tenth grader made Kotaro feel more miserable than ever.
“Galla said she was sorry, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. A few times.”
“I think she was telling the truth there too. She knew both of you were worried about Kenji. She felt bad about it, and that’s why she dealt with you mercifully.”
“I don’t know. I still can’t shake the feeling that Galla didn’t think I was worth worrying about.”
“Listen to me, Kotaro. The guardians of the tower aren’t evil. Galla wouldn’t go out and harvest people without a reason. You’ve got to understand that.”
Kotaro was no longer sure what was evil and what wasn’t. He wasn’t even sure if he understood what evil was.
“Why do you think Galla needs to gather power?”
Yuriko shook her head. “No idea. Only Galla can answer that.”
“But it must be something important.”
“I think it must be something so important, it affects the very stability of her region. That would explain why Ash is worried.” She smiled. “Now it’s my turn to answer your questions. Like, what the Circle is.”
Kotaro unconsciously sat up straight.
“The Circle is the sum total of all the stories that make up this world.”
“Stories?”
“The world is right here. Isn’t it?” Yuriko spread her fingers and gazed up at the sky. “The universe is here. We can’t see it, but we know it’s there. Science proves it. But we can’t live our lives based on science alone.
“Human beings live in a world of objects and phenomena, but those are not the only things we need to live. We interpret our world, and we project our desires and beliefs on that interpreted world. Only then can we live as human beings. Those desires and beliefs are stories, and the Circle is the sum of all of them—all the stories we tell about the world we subjectively experience. Because everyone in the world creates his or her own story, the Circle is much larger than the world of things that exist. It encompasses regions beyond counting.
“This reality we live in—this is a region. Japan is a region. Regions can be big, or they can be tiny. The Earth itself is a region—a region made up of all the stories of all the people who live here.”
“Ti … ti—”
“Time out?
“Um, yeah. Listen, Yuriko. You’re wrong.”
“How so?”
“Nationalities and countries don’t exist because of shared stories. They exist because of shared history.”
She smiled confidently. “That’s true. Except that history is just another story.”
“Oh, come on! What do you think historians do? They don’t make stuff up.”
“Are you sure? Can they go back in time and check? Historians give us their conjectures about what happened and why. Conjectures, stories—it’s all the same thing.”
He wanted to disagree, but he was floundering.
“Scientists never say ‘Now we know everything about such-and-such’ or ‘Our knowledge is pure, 100 percent truth.’ If they did, that would be a lie.”
Kotaro was ready to throw up his hands. I’m losing a debate to a high school hottie.
“The further scientists push back the boundaries of the unknown,” she continued, “the longer that perimeter gets. The more we know, the more we don’t know. That’s what scientists do. It’s their job. They’re always formulating theories and conjectures about what lies beyond the boundary. It’s a creative process, and all those explanations they’re creating are stories too. Just because a theory turns out to ‘work’ doesn’t change the fact that it’s a story.
“A good scientist knows where the border with the unknown lies, at least in his own field. He never blurs the line between known and unknown—they have to be kept separate at all costs. But for people who aren’t scientists, the line between known and unknown isn’t all that clean and sharp. The same even goes for scientists, when it’s outside their field. Then they’re just as likely as the next person to blur the line. So the stories keep multiplying and spreading out farther and farther.
“Now this,” she added carefully, “is not a problem, in itself. Stories are not evil. After all, they’re made up of people’s hopes and their joy in being alive. Or they can make people feel better. Teach them something useful, like justice or compassion.
“Yet ultimately, stories contain the seeds of evil, because they represent their own reality. Even stories that people generate out of compassion have an intimate connection with the karma of their weavers.”
Kotaro’s mouth was ahead of his brain. “That sounds like religion to me.”
Yuriko’s eyes sparkled. She nodded. “Religion is a story too. So is God. That’s the greatest story humanity ever told.”
“That kind of thinking could get you in trouble in some parts of the world.”
“Sure it could. You make one story the basis for everything. If people don’t agree with you, attack them. Like the Inquisition during Europe’s Middle Ages. Or terrorism spread by fundamentalists. All of these are evils spawned by stories. They happen when stories bring out the evil in people. It’s a simple concept, but it has big implications.
“The two of us sitting here now, talking. That’s a story. It’s us, interpreting the world together. People can’t live without their interpretations of the world. That gives birth to the Circle, and from there it keeps growing.”
She suddenly leaned toward Kotaro. “Where do you think stories come from?”
He drew back in surprise. “Where else? From people’s heads.” Or maybe their hearts.
“No. That’s wrong. All stories come from a single source. They flow out of the source and return to it. That source is called the Nameless Land.
“In the Nameless Land, there is a pair of huge wheels called the Great Wheels of Inculpation. The turning of those wheels sends stories out into the Circle and draws them back again. The Nameless Land is the source
that keeps stories circulating in the Circle.”
Kotaro rolled his eyes in aggravation. “How would you even know such a thing?”
“I’ve seen it. I went there to save my brother. He went there too.” A cloud seemed to pass over her face.
“Inculpation … Are you talking about accusation? For crimes?”
“That’s right. People create stories, and their stories devour them.”
“But you just said stories aren’t evil!”
“They’re not. But karma is karma. Sin is sin.”
“I give up. This is nonsense. Listen, can I point something out to you?”
“Feel free.”
“If our talking to each other here is a story, then this Nameless Land thing is a story too. You know that, right?”
“Of course.”
Just like that. Kotaro felt the wind leaking from his sails.
“The Nameless Land is another region, another story,” she said. “I wouldn’t argue with that. The only ‘real’ thing is the Circle itself. No one can escape from it … And no one needs to,” she murmured.
He took a deep breath. This was going nowhere. She was running him in circles. He had to bring her down to earth.
“Are the Nameless Land and the Tower of Inception different regions?”
Yuriko nodded firmly, yes.
“Okay, the Nameless Land is the source of all stories. What is the Tower of Inception?”
“The source of all words. It’s the region where the souls of words are born. The Nameless Land and the Tower of Inception are a dyad. Stories and words, words and stories. It’s impossible to say which comes first. They’re like a circle—two snakes, each with the other’s tail in its mouth.”
Kotaro burst out laughing. “Words come first! That’s obvious.”
“Why is that?”
“Can’t tell a story without words.”
“But stories about the origins of words are stories. How could people use words if they never appeared in a story before?”
Kotaro stared at her open-mouthed for a few seconds before he could answer. “I feel like I’m talking to the Cheshire Cat.”
Yuriko laughed joyously and clapped her hands. “Kotaro, you’re so interesting!”
The Gate of Sorrows Page 27
