Brave Story

“Is that it?” Wataru asked, leaning forward.

  “Hmm?” Kee Keema lifted his whip and pushed aside some low-hanging branches that threatened to snag the darbaba’s fur. “Ah, must be!”

  It was a building of whitish gray rock, a perfect cube, standing about three stories tall. There were several windows, each lit from the inside. It being morning, this seemed odd, but then it occurred to Wataru that ever since they had entered the sula wood, the light had grown decidedly dim.

  Looking up from the darbaba cart, he was startled to discover that he couldn’t see the sun at all. How is that possible? It had been a perfectly clear day. But here, the patches of blue sky were hazy, as though a white veil had been drawn over the heavens.

  “Strange, there isn’t a fog,” Kee Keema muttered, gripping the reins. His darbaba shivered and snorted, stomping its hooves. With a little bit of coaxing, the steed took a few more steps forward before completely stopping. “Oy, oy…what’re you so scared of, then?”

  Kee Keema rubbed the darbaba behind its ears. Now it wasn’t just stomping, it began stepping backward.

  Meena, sitting hunched over in the cart with both hands on her nose, suddenly shot to her feet, her ears standing straight up. “Something comes!”

  Wataru felt it too. Where? Here—and there, and there. He felt like they were being swiftly surrounded. The air moved. In front of them. Behind them. The sula trees rustled, and the thick scent assaulted them anew.

  Fzzing!

  Something cut through the air. The next moment, Meena fell from the cart with a shriek.

  “Meena!”

  The darbaba cart creaked to a halt, and Wataru jumped down onto the ground. Meena was lying next to the front wheel, face down, out cold. Her cheek was stained red with blood.

  “Yowch!” Kee Keema shouted from atop the cart. “Wataru, get down!”

  Wataru glanced around and saw an arrow stuck deep into the waterkin’s right shoulder. The arrow was fletched with venomously red feathers.

  “They’re firing from the trees! Hide underneath the cart!” Kee Keema barked, crawling off the driver’s platform. He seemed to be moving clumsily, in slow motion. It looks like he’s drunk—like he’s swimming through water.

  “This is bad. This…”

  Several sharp noises came all at once, and Wataru saw a whole quiver’s worth of arrows thwunk into the cart frame right above his head. One even came close enough to graze the tip of his nose.

  “Paralytic…” Kee Keema gasped, falling to the ground like a sandbag. Unthinking, Wataru ran to him. His eyes were closed, and his long tongue hung limp through his teeth.

  “No, Kee Keema! Wake up!”

  Wataru felt a fiery sting in his right leg. He looked down to see an arrow protruding from his calf. For a moment he stared at it dumbly, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

  Blood immediately began to seep from the wound. Wataru reached down and pulled out the arrow. To his chagrin, the flow of blood increased. His pants were soon stained a dark crimson.

  The world around him began to spin. Up became down, down became up. The thick scent of the sula trees assaulted his nostrils. His tongue felt numb. He tried to move his hands, but they seemed frozen. He felt his knees begin to knock…

  Then he collapsed to the forest floor, flopping over forward, like a student falling asleep on his desk after an all-night cram session. He fell across Kee Keema, feeling his own body rise with Kee Keema’s breathing.

  At least he’s still alive.

  Two feet in leather sandals appeared in his field of vision, just before his eyes closed. Sturdy sandals. Strong legs. “We only need the boy,” he heard a cold voice say. “Toss the other two. They’ll never be able to survive in the woods.”

  Then Wataru plunged into darkness.

  A low, whispering sound coming from somewhere.

  Where?

  Where am I?

  I’m asleep. I’m lying on the floor in my living room. Mom would get so mad. “If you’re going to nap, do it on the sofa! Don’t roll about like a dog. You’ve got a dust allergy, you know! Do you want to be sneezing the whole day?”

  But I like it here—the feel of the hardwood flooring on my cheek. Cool in the summer, and right where the heater fan blows out warm air in the winter. I can stretch here, I don’t sink in, the ceiling is so far away…

  But something hurts. And what’s that noise? I wish it would go away. Sounds like moths flying through an open window. They’re hovering around my face. I have to brush them away—lift my hand—brush them away…

  “Wataru. Wataru, wake up!” came a clear voice from above him. It was a sweet voice. He remembered having heard it somewhere before. A girl’s voice.

  “I said get up, Wataru, up! You have to escape! Please! You don’t know how much trouble you’re in!”

  The voice made his ears throb. Wataru closed his eyes. Escape? Why? I’m just lying on the floor in my living room…

  My body hurts. This floor—this isn’t the wood floor in our apartment. My leg hurts. My right calf. An iron claw, stuck in my calf. What is that?

  Something was moving by Wataru’s head. Rustle…rustle. He tensed, and the sleepiness faded from him in an instant. He tried to jump to his feet, and the pain in his leg flared. He looked down to see a filthy rag wrapped around his pant leg. It was stained the color of dried blood.

  Suddenly it all came rushing back to him. The attack on the darbaba cart, Meena and Kee Keema, the two sandaled feet he had seen just before he passed out, the cold voice giving orders.

  He was in a square room. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all that same whitish rock as the hospital he had seen in the distance. That’s why it’s so hard and cold. Wataru saw a single door in the room. Looks heavy. Locked, of course. On the opposite wall was a single small window, just high enough so that Wataru could touch it with his fingertips when he stood on his toes. Thick metal bars prevented exit.

  The strange rustling sound was coming from a large amount of dried leaves spread evenly through the room. They looked like sula leaves. That peculiar scent remained, though it was somewhat stale.

  “Whew, you’re awake. How do you feel? Can you walk?” The sweet voice was coming from the window. Someone was outside the bars. “It’s me, Wataru. Remember?”

  The fairy! No, he corrected himself, the voice I assumed was a fairy.

  “Are you really there this time? Where am I? Are Kee Keema and Meena all right? What’s going on?”

  “I asked if you remembered me, Wataru,” the sweet voice said, sulking.

  Wataru crawled up to the window, and lifting himself up on the wall, he raised his voice. “I’m sorry. I just—wait, have you come to save me?”

  “I would if I could,” the voice said simply. “But there’s really nothing I can do.”

  Wataru’s mouth opened and shut a few times, then he finally managed, “Well, at least tell me what’s going on. I was shot by this arrow and carried here…I know that, but that’s all.”

  “Well, you’re right so far.”

  “What about the other two?”

  “How should I know?” the sweet voice said with a sigh. “So the girl with a tail, she’s your type, is she? That’s a disappointment.”

  “I’m not even talking about that!” Wataru said, gritting his teeth. “Where is this place? Am I inside the hospital?”

  “Yes. In the middle of the sula forest.”

  “Are you captured here too?”

  “No, actually.”

  Wataru leaned against the wall. “Then, can’t you do anything? Maybe there’s a key to the door…”

  “Like I said, there’s nothing I can do,” the sweet voice said quickly. “I just came to cheer you on. I crawled all the way up here just to talk to you before it was too late. You should thank me.”

  “Thank you…” Wataru glared at the window. What did she mean “crawled up here”?

  “Wataru, you should really try to stop breathing so heavily in there
. Breathe by the window.”

  “Why?”

  “The smell of the sula isn’t good for your head.”

  Wataru leaned flat against the wall, staring at the heaps of leaves rustling in the faint breeze from the window.

  “Not good for my head?”

  “They cloud your mind,” the sweet voice said. “They’re used, sometimes… for torture.”

  Wataru was about to protest how ridiculous that sounded, when he heard a clattering noise against the heavy door.

  The door was thrust open, and a large man holding a bowgun quickly entered the room. He was wearing workman’s clothes, heavy boots, and had a bristly beard.

  The arrow set in the bowgun was pointed straight at Wataru’s head. Without a word, the bearded man moved to the side of the door, and a second person entered. His companion was smaller, and thinner, and he wore a longsleeved robe—much like the one worn by Father Diamon at the Cistina Trabados Cathedral. Not only that, but in his right hand he held a scepter, and in his left, a small hand mirror, just like the statue of Cistina.

  “You have awoken,” the robed man said in an oddly high-pitched voice. “Do you know where you are?”

  Wataru worked his numb tongue into motion. “Triankha…Hospital.”

  “I see. Then your memory is intact.” The robed man smiled faintly. On closer inspection, he seemed little more than a boy, a pretty, naïve boy—wait, or was he a girl?

  “I—I came looking for a friend,” Wataru said, his voice trembling. “Branch Chief Pam in Lyris said that a boy of his description had been seen at Triankha Hospital…”

  The robed man, still smiling, approached Wataru. As he walked, the sula leaves on the floor of the cell swirled to the side, making a path. “We, too, received word from Chief Pam. He said that a daemon—a servant of the Goddess—with a terrible madness in his eyes, and evil plans in his heart, had set foot on our holy ground.”

  “Pam said what?” Wataru gaped. “But he was the one who told us about Triankha Hospital!”

  That was when he finally realized what had happened. They had been drawn here on purpose. The chief had lied. He didn’t know where Mitsuru was. He had sent them off into the sula wood so that they could be captured. He lied to me!

  “It was a trap…” Wataru muttered, unable to control his trembling. The robed man stepped even closer, still smiling. He knelt, and brought his face so close Wataru could feel his breath. “You’re a Traveler, yes?”

  Wataru didn’t answer. Chief Pam didn’t know that. And he thought it best not to tell these people.

  “You need not say a thing, you still cannot hide the truth from us,” the robed man continued. “We know what you did in Gasara. We hear many things. Chief Pam only feigned innocence. He knew it all from the very beginning.”

  So that’s how it was. Wataru now totally regretted telling people his secret. He should have listened to Kee Keema.

  “So what if I am a Traveler?” Wataru said, forcing himself to breathe calmly. “What do you care? Is that wrong?”

  “Travelers are our eternal enemies,” the robed man answered quietly. “To go against the teachings of the Old God would be a sin.”

  Wataru didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

  “You’re believers of the Old God?”

  The robed man nodded curtly. “It is so.”

  “And I bet you’re behind the rise in discrimination in Lyris. And the cathedral—that’s for your purposes, isn’t it. It’s really a church to the Old God.”

  The robed man did not answer, but the glimmer in his eyes was enough for Wataru to know he was right. “You’re proselytizing for the Old God at the Cistina Trabados! And the chief is one of your converts!”

  “He seems a bright lad. Pity,” the small man said. The bearded man made no reply—he just continued to point his bowgun at Wataru’s head.

  Just then, the robed man moved his hands quickly. Thinking the scepter would hit him, Wataru flung up his arms, covering his head. But the blow never came. The robed man was holding out his small hand mirror, sticking it in Wataru’s face. “Look! This is absolute proof! Evil daemon of the Goddess, know that the Mirror of Truth reveals only pure souls. You are as nothing to me!”

  Indeed, there was nothing in the mirror. Even when it was pressed up so close it nearly touched his nose, all Wataru could see reflected was the white rock wall behind his head.

  “Your destiny ends here, servant of the Goddess. By our hands shall you be reduced to the filth and sinful dust whence you came.”

  The robed man shouted so loud his cheeks flushed red. Jumping in the air, he thrust the scepter and mirror above his head. Seizing his chance, Wataru mustered all his strength and pushed as hard as he could against the man. With a great cry, he fell on top of the bearded man behind him. Both tumbled to the floor, the bearded man flipping onto his back with a heavy thud. Wataru leapt up and shot for the door.

  “There is no escape!” the robed man shouted, climbing to his feet behind Wataru. He swung his scepter, and a whirlwind rose in the room, lifting the dried leaves from the floor. As Wataru watched, they fluttered into two piles at either side of the room, but he didn’t stop to see what happened next. Grabbing the handle and yanking the door open, Wataru dashed out into the hall.

  Along the side of the smooth rock wall that ran down the hallway, Wataru saw several doors just like the one he had come through. The wall on the other side of the corridor was smooth, without a single window. He looked right and left, but both ways faded quickly into darkness, and it was impossible to tell how far they went.

  Wataru ran to the right. His leg was on fire. The white hallway was perfectly straight and featured an endless string of heavy metal doors. No matter how far he went, it was exactly the same.

  Suddenly, a door about fifteen feet ahead of him opened wide, swinging so fast it bounced off the wall and started to close again. Then, from the other side of the door, a large lump of dried leaves appeared. It looked as though the leaves had gathered to form the shape of…

  It’s a man. The leaf-man was twice as tall as Wataru, with an oversize head, and it walked with two bristling arms extended, like a mummy in an old horror movie. It stood before Wataru, blocking the passage.

  Wataru screeched to a halt and whipped around so fast it hurt his neck. One by one, the doors behind him were opening. From each stepped a leafman. He was surrounded.

  The long corridor filled with the pungent odor of leaves. Wataru felt his legs shake beneath him. He felt dizzy. His vision dimmed.

  “Edoro wara sabtalongi sigur!” a high voice was chanting. It was the robed man, standing at the side of the corridor, scepter and mirror crossed on his chest. “Come forth, o spirit of the woods, destroyer of the evil Goddess’s schemes, your voice shall join ours and bring righteous victory!”

  As one, the leaf-men opened their mouths and howled. A sound like a giant cloth ripping filled the air. Then they charged.

  When Wataru came to, all around him was darkness.

  The wound in his right leg continued to throb. He was lying on his side. The floor beneath him was hard. He couldn’t move his hands. Am I tied up? He couldn’t move his feet. He couldn’t stand.

  When he tried to roll over, there was a metallic clinking sound. The sound of chains jostling against one another. Why is it so dark?

  He heard low singing—not one but many voices. They weren’t that far away, but Wataru couldn’t decide which direction the sound was coming from. Right? Left? In front? Behind?

  He heard a footstep and sensed someone’s presence. A hand grabbed him from behind by the collar and dragged him violently upward. He felt the hand unfastening something by the nape of his neck. Suddenly, the darkness broke. Whatever had been covering his head was taken off.

  He was outside. It was night. He could see the Triankha Hospital, the sula forest.

  A great crowd surrounded Wataru. They were wearing clothes that looked like large grain sacks. They held candles in their
hands, and they wore white hoods. He couldn’t see their faces, but Wataru instinctively knew they were all ankha. This must be them, the believers in the Old God, the flock of Triankha Hospital and the cathedral back in town.

  The chanting voices belonged to the men. They had formed a large circle with Wataru at its very center. His hands and feet were chained.

  The stench of sula leaves stuck in his nostrils. He felt lightheaded.

  “Stand,” said a voice from someone at his side. He looked to see a believer standing next to him. Large hands emerged from beneath his grain-sack clothes.

  “Stand.”

  The giant hands stretched out, grabbed Wataru by the collar, and dragged him to his feet. The hands were covered with thick black hair on both sides. If he hadn’t seen the hair, he might have thought the hands belonged to a statue, they were so hard and cold.

  “Walk.”

  The hands moved, pushing Wataru toward the edge of the circle. Wataru stumbled and fell, only to be dragged once again to his feet.

  “No stalling,” the giant grunted. “Stand. Walk.”

  Wataru began to walk on unsteady feet. His Brave’s Sword was still at his waist, though his chains were too short for him to grab it. There was nothing he could do. He could hardly even think straight. He staggered forward, and the singing of the believers grew louder, turning into a great chorus. Part of the circle broke, giving Wataru a view of what lay beyond.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes. Even after blinking several times and shaking his head, the scene before him didn’t change.

  It was a guillotine. He’d never seen one before, but he was familiar with them from video games and comic books: a simple stand, with an angled blade for cutting off the heads of criminals.

  The young man in the robe, holding only the scepter in one hand, still smiling, walked up to stand next to the horrible device. He wore a wine-red sash over his robe. Directly behind him, a great bonfire blazed, making him look as though he were surrounded by a golden aura of light.

  Wataru found he couldn’t take another step forward. His knees shuddered, and he froze in place. “Your destiny ends here, daemon, servant of the Goddess,” the robed man’s voice sounded in his ears.