“You sure were. You had a heavy dose of swamp poison running through you. I thought you’d had it.”
“Um…where am I?”
Shin waved a finger and answered his question with another question. “You don’t remember at all?”
To his regret, he remembered everything that happened in the Swamp of Grief. Yet, it all felt unreal, like a passing dream, and many of the details were blurry. But still, he remembered what he had done. That was burned into his heart.
“You know the town of Tearsheaven?”
Wataru nodded.
“Well, I found you by the marsh on the opposite side of Tearshaven from the Swamp of Grief. This observation hut we’re in now is on the edge of that marsh.”
Wataru noticed for the first time that the light streaming through the simple striped curtains was a shade of pink. It was evening.
“About three days ago, right around this time, I came upon an udai wandering lost a little ways behind my hut. He was wearing a saddle, and paddles for walking in the marshes, so I started thinking someone had gotten lost out there. I went out, and found you lying near the path to the swamp.”
Though it made his stomach ache with fear, Wataru asked, “Did you find anyone else? Maybe an udai with a cart?”
Shin shook his head. “Nothing of the sort. Were you with someone?”
“No…”
“Right. Oh, by the way, that lost udai I found, I passed it off to a darbaba driver who came through here the other day. I’ve no food to feed such an animal, you see. He’s since gone to Sonn—that’s the village nearest to here. There are handlers there who will know how to take care of the thing. They’ll be expecting you to come pick it back up when you’re well.”
Wataru slowly sipped his soup. From the smell he thought it had to be delicious, but it tasted like sand in his mouth.
Where had Yacom’s udai gone if it wasn’t in the swamp? Maybe he’s alive. Maybe he rode off somewhere with his bottles filled with swamp water. Maybe the horrible images burned into Wataru’s mind were mere illusion, a nightmare shown him by the swamp poison. That would mean Lili Yannu was still alive, and the horrible stone-baby never existed.
That had to be it. He wanted it to be. There wasn’t a bone in my body that had wanted to kill Yacom. I may have been angry at him, and frightened. He was so like Dad. And more. He had been brutally honest, saying things Wataru could never imagine his father saying, even though he feared they might be true. But I never wanted to kill him. I can’t do that sort of thing. I’m not that kind of person.
But then, when he thought about it, it occurred to him that he had done many things he never would have believed possible since coming to Vision. He had done battle with monsters—tests that took him to the limits of his strength and wit. Twice he had almost been executed, and twice he hadn’t shed a tear, or uttered a single cry for mercy. All the while, the Brave’s Sword hung at his side…
Maybe he had become a different person—ever since he had passed the test at the Cave of Trials. From that point on, he wasn’t Wataru. He was a Traveler; stronger, braver, and smarter than Wataru.
If I had to, couldn’t I kill someone, really? Isn’t this the brave Wataru I always wanted to become? Isn’t that why I’m wielding a Brave’s Sword?
Yacom was a bad person, an evil person. The depth of Lili’s evil might have been lesser than his, but still she had hurt others by acting out of pure self-interest. What if it wasn’t an illusion? What if it were true? Would I really have to blame myself?
“You’re a Highlander, aren’t you?” Shin asked. Wataru looked at the firewyrm band on his arm. “Which branch are you from?”
“Gasara.”
“I see. You’ve come quite a long way, then.”
“You don’t think it’s strange to have a child like me be a Highlander?”
“Not at all. In the village where I grew up, the grown-ups would always go elsewhere for work. We children and the elderly were left to defend our town against bandits and monsters alike. The branch chief in our town was an old man with a bad back, and all the Highlanders under him were quite young. They did good work, though.” Shin blushed and scratched his head. “I was always a bit on the cowardly side. Can’t say I was much of a help to them.”
The sun had set, and it had become quite dark inside the hut. Shin stood and lit the lamp on his cluttered desk. A soft golden light filled the room, along with the faintly medicinal smell of lamp oil.
“I think it takes bravery to do research here all alone like you are, though.”
“Well, that has less to do with bravery, and more to do with me wanting to keep my job.” Then he fell suddenly silent, though it seemed as though he still had more to say.
He’s shy. Wataru thought it best not to pry too deeply into his private affairs.
Wataru touched the red leather of his firewyrm band. He remembered what Kutz had said. If a Highlander’s hands should ever be stained with unjust deeds, the firewyrm’s flame would blaze out of the band and burn him alive. Those very flames he had seen firsthand when he met Jozo in the Swamp of Grief.
But there was his band, still on his arm. Did that mean he hadn’t done anything wrong?
It must’ve been a dream. Or, even if it really happened, then it was the right thing to do. The more he thought about it, the more confused he became. Dreams, dreams, and more dreams. That’s what it had to have been. How could it be right to murder someone? How could someone who was truly brave run a blade through a defenseless woman?
“I don’t mean to pry,” Shin asked, “but where were you headed?”
Wataru looked up.
“Were you doing something in the Swamp of Grief?”
“Well, no, not really,” Wataru lied. “I got separated from some friends…”
Wataru briefly explained what had happened outside Lyris. As he listened, Shin’s clever eyes opened wide, then fell dark. “Lyris, eh?” He sat with his arms folded across his chest, shoulders slumped. “It’s hard to say whether the people you encountered were true followers of the Old God, but it’s clear the movement is gaining a foothold.” Dr. Baksan had warned them all of this, he muttered.
“Do you think it’s coming from the north?”
“Oh, I have no doubt that’s a factor—but more than that, we have the times to consider.”
“The times?”
Shin nodded, his eyes still dark. “This isn’t something we’re allowed to say publicly, but I only give it two weeks or so before word gets out, and trouble starts. And, anyway, you’re a Highlander, so you should know first. I’m afraid you’ll have busy times ahead.”
Every thousand years, a great danger visits itself upon Vision, he explained. “This world in which we live exists at the depth of a vast chaos. In the past, all matter, once formed, would eventually return to this chaos, and nothing could last for long…”
It was the Great Barrier of Light that protected them from the chaos. “When the Goddess created our world, she made a pact with the Lord of the Underworld who presides over the chaos. Once every thousand years, an Age of Making comes when Vision must make a human sacrifice to the Lord of the Underworld. He then uses the life energy of that sacrifice to create the Great Barrier of Light. So is Vision able to exist.”
Wataru’s eyes went wide. “So, when you said the times before…”
“Yes. The time of the sacrifice is nearing. It will soon be time to create a new barrier.”
“How do you know?”
“In the north sky,” Sheehan said, pointing to a section of the ceiling in the little hut. “A star—the Blood Star—appears, telling us that the time has come. In fact, the society of starseers began with the express purpose of finding and identifying that star as early as possible.”
“And you can see this Blood Star?”
Shin nodded. “I can now, though I wasn’t able to find it on my own. More than two months ago, another student, far more advanced than me, released the first report of a
sighting from the observatory in Arikita.”
Shin’s instructor, Dr. Baksan, had consulted the ancient tomes. He was able to find observational reports linked to the Blood Star. All of the star charts had been perfectly recorded. “That place was close by, so he sent me out here to make observations.”
That had been more than a year ago.
“That long ago?”
“Yes, but it was only ten days ago that I first saw what I thought might be the signs. Dr. Baksan wasn’t too pleased with me, I tell you,” Shin admitted, wilting like a flower.
“Isn’t human sacrifice a little harsh? I mean, the person dies, right?”
“No, they do not. Yet their fate is worse than death, for they must live for eternity in loneliness.”
Until the next Age of Making came, they were bound to serve the Lord of the Underworld, and look upon everything that lived in Vision, ensuring that nothing was corrupted by the chaos…
“It would not be such a mean task if one only had to observe love, friendship, helpfulness, smiles, and songs. But there is hatred and betrayal and jealousy in this world, stealing and killing. Living beings are sadly capable of all these things.”
It was a fact of which Wataru was painfully aware. For a moment, he felt a chill, as he recalled the faces of Yacom and Lili.
“I’d imagine it’s hard, seeing people driven by greed—never knowing happiness or joy. But endure it they must. They must take in everything, and let it be as it is. If they do not, the Great Barrier of Light would break, and all Vision would be destroyed. This is the burden the sacrificed must bear.”
Wataru thought. As Shin said, it would be hard protecting people who merely fought with one another. He could see how it would even seem ridiculous at times. But wouldn’t it be harder defending their happiness? Being a sacrifice for their smiles? Enduring such terrible loneliness, while the people below merely laughed? Wouldn’t he wonder why it happened to him, and why it couldn’t have been someone else? Wasn’t that terribly unfair? Wataru imagined that holding that kind of grief inside for one thousand years would be the hardest thing of all.
“How is the sacrifice chosen?”
Shin shook his head. “That I do not know. There is no record in the ancient tomes. It all depends on the will of the Goddess, I suppose. Sometimes a very young person is chosen, other times a very ancient one.”
“So it’s a matter of chance?”
“Pretty much.”
When the Blood Star first appeared in the northern sky, it would be like a beacon, shining with a bright white light. But once the Goddess began selecting the sacrifice, it would glow blood red until the Lord of the Underworld carried the chosen one into the abyss. When the making of the barrier was complete, the star would again glow white, and then fade by the next dawn, not to reappear for another thousand years.
“We call the time that the Blood Star glows Red Halnera—it means the ‘time of sacrifice’ in the ancient ankha tongue.”
“Halnera,” Wataru repeated. When the Goddess chooses her sacrifice. “But if the Goddess was the one who started this whole thing, why did she have to make it work that way? It seems unnecessarily cruel.”
If she were powerful enough to create all of Vision, it seemed to Wataru she should be able to protect her creation from the chaos herself without having to sacrifice a person to do the job.
“You think so?” Shin said, blinking sadly.
“Of course!”
“Yes. It is a question that has plagued the starseers for many long years. What does the Goddess want of us? Why must she test us in this way? Is she not torturing us, forcing us to endure hardship at her whim?”
A Goddess playing whimsically with her creations. It wasn’t so hard to imagine.
“This is also one of the tenets of the belief in the Old God. They claim that the Goddess does not love the people of Vision, that if she did love us she would never require this horrible sacrifice, not even once in a thousand years.”
She did not love the people of Vision, they claimed, because she did not create Vision. She merely stole what the Old God created.
“Thus, whenever Halnera comes, there is a surge of support for the belief in the Old God. The followers come together and they pray. They pray that the Old God will hear them, and come down once again to Vision, and drive away the evil Goddess once and for all. This is the great rectification of which they dream.”
When Shin put it that way, Wataru found himself becoming confused. So the ankha extremists had at least one good reason for their denial of the Goddess. Wataru saw how it would make sense that people would turn to the Old God. “Shin, is what you’ve told me a well-known fact in Vision? Or is it knowledge held only by the starseers?”
Shin Suxin rubbed his weary eyes. “It was known only in a few circles until recently.”
“Until recently?”
“When it came time for the Blood Star to appear again, the starseers held many conventions at the National Observatory in Sasaya. Then there was a debate with the United Southern Nations government. They’ve only just now come to a decision—I received my copy from a darbaba driver yesterday.”
Shin stood from his chair and opened the topmost drawer of his desk. He pulled out a tightly rolled scroll. “This is their promulgation. They decided that knowledge of Halnera should be told to all people in the south.”
The Highlanders would be busy indeed.
“There are many millions of people living in Vision,” Shin said quietly, standing at the window, looking up at the night sky. “Only one of them will be chosen as the sacrifice. Many think that there will be little reaction when people hear of Halnera. The chances of any one person being chosen are quite low, you see.”
“But if you got chosen, it would be you, and only you!” Wataru said, a little louder than he had intended. “There’s no odds anymore once you’re it. What if you were the one chosen, Shin? Think about that!”
“Indeed…”
From the window came the soft hooting of a night bird. The night was otherwise quiet. But somewhere, high in that silent sky, the Blood Star was waiting.
“Do you think it would have been better not to teach people about Halnera? If they did not know, there would be no need to fear. One day, in some city or town, a person would simply disappear—their family and friends would worry. Perhaps they would search for a very long time, but on the grand scale of things, this is a trifling matter. Do you think this way is better?”
Wataru didn’t have an answer.
“Dr. Baksan says that no matter how difficult it is to bear, or how evil the news, everyone in Vision has a right to know. There were two schools of thought at the debate in the National Observatory in Sasaya: those who sided with Dr. Baksan, and those who claimed that ignorance is bliss. They argued for days and days. Some of those opposed to spreading word of Halnera wanted to take it a step further. They felt that all reseach should be banned. If we do not know about it, they claimed, then it is as if it didn’t exist at all.”
Shin, still standing by the window, cradling his head in his arms. “I am frightened,” he said. “I did not want to know of this. The more I learn about Halnera, the less I want to know. I regret that Dr. Baksan told me. I even regret having become a starseer.”
It was more than loneliness that prompted Shin to tell Wataru all this. It was his fear. If Wataru had not been a Highlander, perhaps he would have held it back.
“I’m not worried only for myself, of course. I’m worried for my parents, my brothers, my fiancée, my new colleagues at school, everyone that I know and love. What would I do if someone I knew was chosen? I think about this at night and I cannot sleep.”
Who wouldn’t go crazy thinking about it, Wataru thought. Then he realized that Yacom wouldn’t. What if Satami were chosen as the sacrifice? Wouldn’t he be pleased? People only worried about the well-being of those they knew when they also happened to like them.
Wataru was the same. He certainly didn’t w
ant to be sacrificed, but what if it were Kenji Ishioka instead? He could see himself living with that. Thinking back, he hadn’t been all that concerned when the school delinquent was consumed by that Vision creature.
“I’m sorry, I have spoken overmuch,” Shin said, rubbing his eyes. “I did tell you I was a coward.”
“I don’t think you’re a coward, Shin. We’re all like you inside.”
“You should rest now. You must be tired. I’m sorry to talk so much.”
“It’s okay. Actually, I was wondering—is your observation equipment in the loft up there?”
Shin nodded.
“And you are using it to watch the Blood Star? Might I see it too? Or would I need some special knowledge?”
“I’m not sure. We could certainly give it a try. The Blood Star rises after midnight. Go to sleep now, and I will wake you when it is time.”
As promised, when the night had grown deep, Shin Suxin nudged Wataru awake, and he let him peer through his telescope. It was a very powerful telescope, and the night sky was like luxurious velvet, studded by countless stars. Still, even with Shin’s careful instruction, Wataru was unable to pick out the Blood Star from among them.
Chapter 26
To Sakawa
The next morning, after eating a simple but delicious breakfast, Wataru was ready to leave.
“You’re welcome to rest longer if you’d like. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“I feel much better, thanks.”
Kee Keema and Meena weighed heavily on Wataru’s mind. What had happened to them? He hadn’t seen them captive at Triankha Hospital, so they must have escaped, but to where? Now that he knew Halnera was coming, he wanted to see them again more than ever.
“If one of your friends is a waterkin darbaba driver, they might have gone to the town of Sakawa,” Shin suggested. “That’s the darbaba drivers’ base of operations for much of the shipping that goes on in the south. Even if he’s not there, someone might know where he is.”
Both Sakawa and Gasara were equally distant. “You might try going to Sonn and speaking with the karulakin there. They’re quite proud, and if it was a Highlander asking, they very well might lend a helping hand. A karulah could get you to Sakawa in, oh, two days or so. You are pretty light, after all.”