The Boy in the City of the Dead

by Kanata Yanagino

  I looked down guiltily.

  Gus’s astonishment made me feel shame more than pride.

  Because I had memories from the life I’d once lived, I had knowledge—however shallow—that should have been impossible for a toddler like me to attain. It made me feel like I’d cheated a little.

  If a “talent” was a gift you had since birth, then maybe these memories of mine did count as a talent. But it still felt wrong.

  Gus flew out of the room, phasing right through the wall. He located Mary and Blood in the main hall, and before even reaching them, he burst out, in a flurry of stutters, “Th-Th-Th-Th... The kid may be almost as gifted as me!”

  I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable.

  “Goodness. Is there something the matter, Old Gus?”

  “Ohh, Mary, that boy! Why, I—”

  I watched from a distance as Gus relayed excitedly what had just happened. With his pale blue spectral arms gesturing wildly, he explained how my ability to form an argument was extraordinary for my age, how I was insightful, how the ability to grasp something’s true nature equated to magical talent...

  Mary the mummy listened placidly. “Really.”

  As for Blood the skeleton, he was leaning against a wall, looking in another direction. He didn’t seem remotely interested.

  “If we train him in a few things early, he might actually be good for something! Personally, I prefer not to pick trash up off the ground, but perhaps this kid is different. He could—”

  I froze.

  “Old man!” The voice lashed at him like a whip, before I even had time to form a thought.

  It was Blood, still by the wall. Pale blue flames roared in his empty eye sockets. “Quit running your mouth. The kid’s only a couple years old. What you just said is going too far.” I could tell Blood was glaring at him.

  “He was found on the ground! Am I wrong? I didn’t want to get involved with him.”

  “Not the point.”

  “Now that I know he’s got some talent in him, I’m not saying I won’t teach him a thing or—”

  “Still not the point.” Blood took a step towards him.

  To me, it seemed like an invisible aura was enveloping his entire body. I hadn’t really been aware of it up until this point, but Blood was very large. What people meant when they said “big-boned.”

  “Hey, now...”

  Even just watching from the sidelines, I could feel my skin tingle from the sheer force of Blood’s advance.

  “Listen, Old Gus. I know it’s your nature to talk like that. I’m not gonna bother trying to change you after all this time. This is what makes you who you are.

  “But you don’t call a kid ‘trash’ while he’s in earshot. Even you’ve gotta be able to imagine how hearing that must make him feel.” Blood glanced at me, then stared back to Gus.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  “Mgh...”

  Arrogant, bigoted Gus was being overpowered. This despite the fact that it was normally Blood who got chewed out by the other two for his irresponsible, “it’ll do” attitude.

  “If you want to stay out of raising Will, be my guest. You can go be a crank where none of us have to listen to you. But if you’re gonna be teaching him, do the kid a favor and cut that stuff out. That sound fair to you?”

  Gus was silent for a while. Then, shaking his head slowly and sighing, he accepted the blame, and backed down.

  “You’re right. It was a thoughtless remark. I’ll be a little more considerate in future. Sorry, Will.”

  “Uh, it’s okay...”

  I’d never seen anything like this from either of these two before. Pulling myself together, I decided to say something to defuse the situation. I had to make a show of overlooking it so we could all move on.

  “Um, I’m fine, Gus. Don’t worry about it.” I couldn’t think of anything better to say.

  Hearing that, Blood cooled off as well, and bowed his head slightly toward Gus in apology. “I was out of line, too. Shouldn’t have gotten aggressive with you all of a sudden like that. Sorry. Can we let it be?”

  “Mm.” Gus nodded. “Your lack of refinement is nothing new. Forget about it.”

  “Hey, Mary, gonna borrow Will for a sec.”

  Mary had been watching over the two of them with her usual peaceful expression. “Yes, all right. Gus, would you mind telling me a little more?”

  “Will, come outside a moment.”

  “O... Okay.” I couldn’t really grasp the meaning of what had just happened. It had all been too fast.

  But I was sure of one thing.

  Blood had gotten angry, and he had done it for me.

  ◆

  The city’s ruins were as beautiful as ever.

  The morning sunlight was glittering on the lake.

  “Uh, so... Will.”

  And sitting on the hill, gazing at this glorious sight: a skeleton.

  The mismatch was phenomenal.

  “You probably don’t know anything about this, ’cause you’ve been here as long as you can remember, but...” Blood scratched his skull, as if hesitating over how to explain. The pale blue flames in his sockets swayed. “You can still tell, right? That you’re different from me and Mary and Old Gus.”

  “Um... Yeah. I know. I’m the only one who’s warm and breathing.”

  “Yeah, that. It’s, uh, complicated. All kinds of complicated...”

  I was obviously aware there were some unusual circumstances behind where I came from. A ruined city, the undead, and in the middle of it all, one single living human child. It was unnatural.

  Gus said I was “picked up,” so maybe I was an abandoned child or something. Mary was the mothering type, so maybe she took me in, and Gus was against it or something. I could make all kinds of guesses, but ultimately, I wouldn’t know the truth until it was explained to me. And...

  “Now’s... not the time.”

  “Yeah.”

  It wasn’t surprising. No respectable adult would tell a child my age he was adopted, or try to explain all the complicated background of it to him, no matter how brainy he seemed for his age. You’d keep it hidden.

  Blood shrugged his shoulders gently. I suddenly realized that the reason Blood got mad at Gus might not just have been for being so thoughtless around a child, but also because he spilled the beans about my background.

  “Uh, and about Old Gus. Don’t be too mad at him, okay? When he gets excited, he’s, y’know, whatever he’s thinking just comes straight out. Even when he’s not excited, he doesn’t do the whole ‘considerately choosing your words’ thing in the first place.”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. I’m not mad. It just surprised me a bit.” And the reason his anger had been so ferocious might also have been to distract me.

  Before I fully understood what Gus meant by “trash off the ground” and started to think poorly of him, Blood had caused a scene and given me something else to think about.

  “Hm. You’ve got a big heart, Will. It’s good to be big. How about this. When your body gets as big as your heart, and you’re old enough to take it all in, I swear I’ll tell you all the things I can’t talk about right now.”

  “Yeah.”

  It was all for me.

  Now that I could understand him, I found that Blood was being surprisingly compassionate towards me.

  Blood is amazing, I thought. Had I treated other people like that before I died? Had I managed to be like that? My memories were vague, but I thought the answer was probably no. Almost never? No, straight-up never. The thought made my chest tighten.

  “Blood?”

  “Hm?”

  “Um, thanks. For all this.” I couldn’t word it very well. He deserved better.

  “Hahah! Don’t worry about it.” The will-o’-the-wisps in his eye sockets shimmered. I couldn’t read the expressions of a skull, but I felt as if he’d just grinned at me warmly.

  He ruffled my hair and stood up. “Okay. Go talk to Gus an
d learn about writing and magic and all that. At the end of the day, that old man’s a damn good sorcerer. A zeni grubber first and foremost, though.” Rattling his jaw in laughter, Blood added, “Ah, I guess you don’t know what zeni is. Right...” and cackled a few more times.

  “Oh, and if the old man’s teaching you, then I’m gonna do my part, too! I’ve got a ton of stuff to teach you! Look forward to that!”

  “Yeah! What are you going to teach me, Blood?” Now I was curious. Blood didn’t really look like the scholarly type.

  “Hm... Violence.”

  Come again?

  “Violence. How to really go berserk. And how to train your muscles, I guess?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s useful.”

  What?

  ◆

  “While Blood was alive...” Mary began, as she sat beside me on a bench in the temple’s main hall.

  “Uh, while he was alive? Then, wait, that means...”

  “Yes. We weren’t always like this, you know. It was... a lot of things. Yes, a lot happened for things to turn out this way.” Mary smiled a little sadly.

  I couldn’t bring myself to ask just what had happened. Of course, even if I had, she would probably have dodged the question.

  Still, this felt like something important to keep in mind. The three of them hadn’t always been in the forms of a skeleton, mummy, and ghost.

  According to my memories from my previous life, the standard for these things was that the dead were being dragged along by their regrets and attachments. Did this follow that formula, or was there some other reason?

  Due to my age, I still had very little access to information, and couldn’t say anything for certain. I decided not to engage in conjecture and avoid holding any strange preconceptions.

  “While he was alive, he was a warrior.”

  “A warrior?”

  “A warrior. It means a person who fights in battles with a weapon. Little boys love that sort of thing.”

  Then this place had a social system archaic enough for an occupation like that to exist. After seeing the ruins of that city, I did have this world pegged at about that stage of development, but this confirmed that conflict between humans was present here as well.

  If I was planning to live in this world, and I was, it looked like it was probably going to be in my best interest to learn how to fight.

  “Blood really was strong, you know? He had lots of experience, and was highly skilled. He started with fighting other humans, and moved up to wild creatures, beasts, goblins, the undead, giants, demidragons, demons, ‘whoever wants a piece of me’—like that.”

  “Huh,” I idly responded, and then stiffened.

  “Um, Mary?”

  “Yes?”

  “What did you just say?”

  “He started with fighting other humans, and moved on up to wild creatures, beasts, goblins, the undead, giants, demidragons, demons—”

  Wait, wait, wait. I wasn’t about to jump to conclusions. After all, it wasn’t necessarily the case that these were the same kinds of monsters I’d remembered, right?

  “Other humans, I get... What are the others?”

  “Oh!” she laughed. “I’m sorry, how silly of me. I never explained those to you, did I? How could you have known?” She thought for a moment. “Let me see... I think there was an illustrated book of them all in Gus’s room.”

  She held my hand, and walked with me to Gus’s small stone room. Gus was out, but Mary seemed perfectly comfortable searching the room and borrowing the book without asking.

  “Here we are. These are wild creatures. Hungry wolves, lions, giant snakes...” The illustrations depicted a variety of familiar animals. Familiar, of course, only as part of the knowledge I had from before my death, and then only from documentaries I’d seen on TV. I could hardly contain my “joy” at seeing them again.

  “Beasts are creatures that are extremely aggressive and fierce.”

  “Okay...”

  “As for the others... You learned how the legends started from Gus, right? The Creator, first of us all, benevolently made all kinds of beings, but also created the propensity for evil. In the end, it was the bad gods that the Creator made which brought about the Creator’s own demise. Then, the bad gods created different kinds of minions in accordance with their natures.” Mary slowly turned the page.

  “The minions of the god of tyranny, Illtreat, are called goblins.”

  The page showed something like... I dunno, maybe oni? There were unmistakably crafty and cruel-looking little ones, and large muscular ones that would be better called ogres.

  “Then there are the minions of Dyrhygma, god of dimensions. They are the demons, who come from Hell...”

  Demons and nightmare-spawn filled the next page. Humans with bird heads, spiders that had grown numerous arms in place of legs—disturbing beings that were a muddled mixture of human and animal parts.

  “And the undead, which are the minions of the god of undeath, Stagnate...”

  Zombies—and skeletons, ghosts, and mummies.

  But I couldn’t get any impression of intelligence from the undead on the pages of the picture book.

  “We entered into a contract with the god of undeath,” she murmured. “The strength of our wills at the moment of death led to our contracts with Stagnate, and the forms we have now. We’re traitors to the forces of good.” Her words felt horribly bleak, and sounded so sad.

  “What happened?” I couldn’t help myself, even though I knew there was nothing to be gained from getting involved.

  “Heheh... A lot. I’m sorry, this isn’t something a young child like you should have to worry about.” Mary smiled. It was forced.

  She collected herself and continued. “The good gods also have minions, of course. There are elves, dwarves, halflings... All kinds of races.”

  “Mary...”

  “There are powerful neutral races as well, like the giants and the dragons. Some are followers of the good gods, and some are followers of the bad gods. It’s a big, wide world, and there are many races out there. The ones listed in this book are just the most well known.”

  She had deliberately changed the subject, and I could tell that she had no intention of going back.

  So I played along with her. I had no way of getting information from her that she didn’t want to share. There would be no point in starting trouble about this.

  “So this world is... pretty dangerous?”

  “Yes, it is. Things were comparatively peaceful while I was alive, but I don’t know about now. I think, most likely, things have gotten much worse.”

  The lack of sugarcoating shocked me. I didn’t know what had made her think that, but I was already worried. “Do I need to get strong?”

  “I would rest easier if you did.” Her words were gentle, but they weighed heavily upon me.

  I decided to spare no effort in becoming stronger. By the sound of it, only the tough could survive in this world.

  At the same time, I felt it was my duty not to forget what the three undead had hinted to me about their own circumstances. Even now, they were trying hard to build me up from someone completely powerless to someone with the strength to make it through life. My parents had once done the same for me, and what had I ever given them back? As I remembered it, nothing but worries and trouble.

  I hoped that this time, when I was old enough, I could return the favor.

  ◆

  Five years passed.

  I was now seven, but it seemed that birthday celebrations were not one of this world’s customs. In fact, they didn’t even keep track of birth dates here. Instead, they used a traditional method of counting a person’s age. Newborn babies were “one year old,” and became one year older at the start of the new year.

  As for the reason it didn’t start at zero... I was briefly afraid I’d discover they didn’t yet have the concepts of zero or place-value notation. In fact, they had both. Newborn babies being “one” was ju
st a holdover from previous times, before the numeral “zero” existed within their culture.

  Old habits die hard.

  By this world’s reckoning, then, I was eight years old, with my “one” added to the seven I’d lived through. Simple enough so far. The only question that remained was when the new year actually began. The answer to that, astonishingly, was, “Nobody knows.”

  No, technically, everyone knew which day was the first of the new year: the shortest day with the longest night. The day the sun was at its weakest, and one day away from starting to recover its power. In other words, the winter solstice, which marked the beginning of spring’s return.

  But we were on the outskirts of a ruined city, far from human society. Not only did none of the three have much interest in the calendar, but after becoming undead, they were now less sensitive to changes in temperature, too. As a result, their perception of time was no richer than, “Oh, the flowers have started blooming,” “The sunlight is strong,” “The leaves have turned red and yellow,” and finally, “A little snow is falling.”

  Their lives here had no interaction with the outside world. What was the point of tracking the movements of the heavens? I had no idea how long the three of them had been living here, but it would only have taken one single slip-up or period of laziness to cause them to forget the date. That would’ve been, in any case, the end of accurate time measurement.

  Anyway, enough of that topic. I had managed to gather a good amount of information through study and questioning, so allow me to provide a summary of the situation.

  I’ve been a bit noncommittal in my choice of words so far. Even now there are still things making me hold back from saying it. Still, all the same, it’s time I came to terms with it.

  I had been reborn.

  Rebirth, reincarnation, metempsychosis, samsara... It wasn’t important what you called it. In short, my memories were those of a previous life. I had died and been born again. And moreover, into a different world.

  Assuming I could trust memories left from before my death, magic certainly wasn’t real in my prior world, and there were no skeletons or ghosts wandering around, either. Those had all been mere products of the imagination. Despite having certain points in common, this world and my previous one were clearly different.