Brave Story

  “Yes…I suppose one might say that.”

  “Isn’t that right?”

  “Vision exists in the space between two mirrors. These two mirrors are the seeds of our world.”

  Meena, finally recovered from her shock, blinked slowly and looked up.

  “One of these mirrors, of course, is the Mirror of Truth. The other is called the Mirror of Eternal Shadow.”

  “The Mirror of Eternal Shadow?”

  “If the Mirror of Truth is the accumulation of all that is good, then the opposing mirror, is, perhaps, the accumulation of all that is evil. I say perhaps, because I have not seen it for myself. But, the Mirror of Eternal Shadow does exist. Of this you can be certain.”

  Kee Keema glanced at Wataru and then back at the Precept-King. He was having a hard time following their conversation.

  “The Mirror of Truth—the accumulation of truth that determines the very form of Vision—was broken into countless fragments and spread throughout our world. Every time a Traveler comes, these mirrors guide their path. So then, where is the Mirror of Eternal Shadow?” the Precept-King asked before answering his own question. “Certainly, without a doubt, it is in the north. Thus are North and South opposed.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” Meena said, raising her voice. “My mirror came from my parents, and they’re from the north, originally. That would mean there are fragments of the Mirror of Truth on both continents. It would make more sense if the Mirror of Eternal Shadow were also broken up into many fragments and scattered everywhere too.”

  Wataru’s eyes widened. He had never heard Meena talk in this way. She seemed older, somehow.

  The Precept-King smiled at her like a pastor about to deliver knowledge to an ignorant believer. “Yes, truth has been broken into many fragments, too numerous to count, and spread among many people, but Eternal Shadow—which is evil—this exists in one place. Can you not see that this is Vision as she stands today?”

  Kee Keema shook his head, not following the train of discussion. His face looked even more pale than before.

  “That is why Vision knows happiness still,” the Precept-King said mysteriously. “Yet the question is, is this a good thing? Is it good for evil to be so bound in one place? I do not know the answer.”

  Kee Keema’s head jerked up. His voice was loud, despite the fact that his lips didn’t want to move in the cold. “You don’t mean that everything that’s going on in the North—all the prejudice and the killing—is because that other mirror is up there?”

  The Precept-King slowly turned his back to Wataru. “I do not know. Yet it is certain that the Mirror of Eternal Shadow is in the north. And I would think that the Northern Empire considers it quite a burden. That is why the emperor will stoop to any means to obtain our mirror here, for only a whole mirror can hope to contain the threat that is Eternal Shadow. Or perhaps he merely wishes to use our mirror to obtain knowledge from the real world. It is hard to say…”

  Wataru stood, his mouth closed. He hadn’t said anything in a while, and now it felt like his lips were sealed together. The cold seemed to seep into every fiber of his being.

  “Didn’t the Goddess tell you anything about it?”

  The Precept-King shook his head. “It is not knowledge I would be privileged to know in the first place. Not I, a weak Traveler who ended his journey halfway toward completion.

  “In any case, you see the situation at hand. Should the fugitive cross to the north, things would progress rapidly. This fugitive came to Vision when the Porta Nectere opened ten years before. He is a Traveler. His knowledge of affairs in the real world was much more current than mine. It is possible that he had begun to plan all of this—his betrayal—from the very moment he abandoned his journey.”

  Meena put her hands to her mouth and knelt on the floor. Kee Keema, looking concerned, patted her on the back. It was a noble gesture—by all accounts, he was the one out of all of them who was suffering the most.

  “Please,” the Precept-King said, his hands brushing Wataru’s arm. It was almost as if he wanted to grab on tight and plead but lacked the strength to do so. The freezing cold and hunger had mixed with despair, robbing him of his strength and willpower. “Please, you must stop the fugitive before he crosses to the north. Save our souls.”

  It was the first time anyone older than Wataru had pleaded with him like this, and he found the experience oddly frightening.

  “Since the fugitive left, I have called out to Travelers through this mirror. I know that the Porta Nectere is open now, and new Travelers have come to Vision. How many times I wished my cries would reach them.”

  “When you called me, I remember you saying something about me being a boy too…” Wataru began. “Does that mean that another Traveler answered your call, before I did? A boy?”

  The Precept-King nodded quietly.

  “Was his name Mitsuru? He’s not a warrior in training like I am—he’s a great sorcerer.”

  “Ah,” the Precept-King said, his eyes opening wide. “You know him?”

  “Yes. He’s my friend.”

  “Your…friend? This is a surprise.”

  Mitsuru had answered the call, the Precept-King explained, and only a few hours after had used a great wind magic to come to Dela Rubesi.

  “Yes…he’s much more powerful than I am,” Wataru admitted.

  “Perhaps, but he did not listen to my request. He said he had come to Vision to meet with the Goddess, and as such had no interest in the affairs of Vision, or the enmity between the North and the South. It did not concern him.”

  Wataru had to admit that sounded a lot like the Mitsuru he knew. It made sense when he thought of his objective as a Traveler. For some reason, Wataru felt embarrassed on Mitsuru’s behalf. Half of him wanted to defend Mitsuru’s actions, and the other half was irritated with his selfishness.

  “He told me then that there was another Traveler come to Vision. He said this other Traveler was too kind for his own good. From the way he spoke, I did not imagine that you two might be friends.”

  Wataru’s face grew red with embarrassment.

  “Sounds like Mitsuru wanted to sidetrack you so he could get to the Tower of Destiny before you, doesn’t it,” Kee Keema said, snorting. His anger and his tongue, numb with cold, made him sound like a belligerent drunk.

  “I don’t think he’d do that.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure!”

  “Anyway, now we know what’s going on. Let’s get out of here quickly and go to the port in Sono.”

  “Right. If we leave him waiting much longer, even Jozo will freeze,” Meena said, springing to her feet. She’s a real fighter, Wataru thought, impressed.

  “We’re leaving now. Here, take my hand. Can you walk?” Wataru stretched out his hand, but the Precept-King pushed it away. “What’s wrong?”

  “I cannot leave. Did I not tell you?”

  “But you asked me to come here and help you!”

  “I asked you to save our souls. I do not hope to escape death.”

  Holding onto the chair for support, the frail man leaned over and picked up the hammer from his seat. He was unable to lift it, and so it hung down by his knees. “We allowed the fugitive to escape, and, through the breaking of our oath, won the Goddess’s wrath. That is why we must be punished. My companions have already died. As their leader, it would not do for me to live any longer. The Goddess would never allow it.”

  “That’s no fair!”

  The Precept-King shook his head. “Capture the fugitive, undo his plans, and our sin may yet be forgiven. Only then will our souls be purified, and ourselves reborn into the next world. Fail, and not only my soul, but those of all my companions, will be laden with sin, fated to wander the Eternal Vale for all time. That is why you must go. Now.”

  This wasn’t the deal! “Don’t you want to live? You’re still young. How can you just give up on yourself like this?” Wataru asked, the words coming out of his mouth in a flood. The Precept-
King whirled around with far more speed than Wataru would have thought possible. His face was twisted. “Give up on myself? Me?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  The Precept-King chuckled. “I’m not giving up on anything. No, I want to protect myself. As, I’m sure, did my fallen companions. I do not wish to go to the underworld. Nor would I go to Vision or the real world. Our paradise was here and here alone.”

  The Precept-King spread his arms, pointing around them, spinning as he looked up at the ceiling in a strange dance. “If I am to lose this, what need have I of life? It is far more desirable that I be reborn, a purer soul, to search for paradise again in the next life.”

  Shivering, Meena stepped over to Wataru.

  “In the real world…” the Precept-King took his hand holding the hammer and pressed it to his chest. “In the real world, nothing ever happened as I wished it. All my efforts came to nothing, all my dreams were crushed. No one understood me, and no place accepted me. My life did not love me, there can be no doubt of that. It gave me nothing. That is why I left it and came to Vision.”

  The Precept-King’s feet stomped on the stone floor. “Yet even here, in Vision, my dreams were not fulfilled. Reach the Tower of Destiny?—I could not even make it from one town to the next! Here, as in the real world, nothing went as I hoped. That is why I abandoned my journey. I chose instead to align myself with the Goddess. From that moment on, I lived here.”

  He chose to live here? This barren city of the gods? This beautiful, empty temple?

  “The Goddess knew us for who we were. This city is concealed beneath the hem of her robes. We were the chosen ones, living above the clouds, given the high calling of defending her mirror. At last, we’d found the world in which we wished to live. We had no dealings with the lowlands, with their filth and corruption. Dela Rubesi was our paradise.”

  Yet one among them didn’t understand that—he couldn’t give up the mean greed that ruled in the lowlands, and so he betrayed the oath.

  The Precept-King put a bony fist to his forehead. “We lived like gods here. From this place, we looked down on the lands of Vision. We lived our days in solitude and grace. This is what I truly desired, you see. That is why they called me the Precept-King—I held in my heart a purer essence, a belief that separated me from the ignorant world’s inability to understand. Do you see?”

  Wataru didn’t see. What precepts did he teach exactly? And to whom? And if he was a king, where was his kingdom?

  “If you had all these great precepts,” Kee Keema said, slowly forming the words with numb lips, “and you were king of these people here, how come one of them betrayed you and ran away?”

  The Precept-King made no reply, and instead stared off into space as though he had not heard the question. It was as if the question had never been asked at all. Then he sighed quietly. “Those who could not understand us were not our companions. The traitor, he did not qualify to be among us in the first place.”

  “Had you noticed this before? Before he ran away?” Meena asked. “Did you see he was somehow not qualified? If so, why didn’t you do something about it earlier?”

  The Precept-King frowned slightly. “I do not believe you have the right to accuse me of wrongdoing here. All of this is his fault, you see. You do not know what it is like to be betrayed and wounded like I have been.”

  “Still…”

  “No! That is no way to speak to a chosen one of the Goddess.”

  Meena looked at Wataru. She didn’t know what to say, and she was rapidly running out of the desire to say anything. Suddenly, it occurred to Wataru that he knew why this man had abandoned his journey through Vision. He had always been like this. The only thing he held dear was his own excuses. The only things he saw were what he wanted to see. The only things he desired were those things he wanted for himself. The only one ever hurt was him. He had abandoned everything that didn’t go the way he wanted it to go, cut away everything that didn’t please him, ignoring things that didn’t make sense.

  Of course he had never found a place where he belonged. No kindness could ever reach him. He would be the last to see the signs of a coming betrayal. And here, in this land of peace that he had finally found, he clung to his oath with the Goddess.

  The Precept-King called himself chosen. What did that mean? Chosen for what, and for what reason? Had this place been his reward for failure?

  He’s no Precept-King. He’s a Void-King. The high King of nothing. And the Goddess knew it. That’s why she made him this fake city of the gods.

  Wataru’s body felt like ice, yet the thought still sent chills down his spine. Suddenly, he realized who the Precept-King’s face had reminded him of. It was that man—the young man that stepped on his hand without so much as a word of apology, back when he’d gone out shopping with Uncle Lou.

  His uncle had been furious, Wataru remembered, and the man had been mad too. Yet the man’s anger was simply indignant rage at being yelled at, with no understanding of why.

  To him, Wataru hadn’t even existed. In his world, there was no boy lying there on the ground. Wataru was just an obstacle in his path. That’s why, when he stepped on Wataru’s hand, he kept going. It was like he had tripped on an empty can, or stomped on a plastic shopping bag in the street. If he had ever visited Vision, Wataru thought, he would make a great Precept-King. And he would be satisfied, down to the very bottom of his heart.

  Wataru shook his head. I’m thinking too much.

  “Your hair…” Wataru said quietly. “What made it white? Was it fear at the Goddess’s punishment of your city?”

  The Precept-King’s face had returned to the expression it held when Wataru first saw him: he looked bored to death. His mouth opened slowly. “I wished it to be this way. I did not need youth. Youth, and the immaturity that comes with it, were not fitting for one chosen.”

  Wataru had nothing else left to ask.

  Kee Keema and Meena looked frozen solid. Wataru stood, his eyes still on the Precept-King’s face. “Let’s go.”

  “But, Wataru…”

  “No, he wants to stay here. We don’t have the right to tell him otherwise.”

  “Yes, go,” the Precept-King said, smiling slowly. Then, with great gravitas, he lifted his hammer over his shoulder and turned toward the Mirror of Truth. “My last task lies before me. I must break this mirror. All of the fragments we brought here will return again to fragments. And they will spread throughout Vision. There, they will wait until they can find new Travelers. This is as the Goddess desires it to be.”

  The Precept-King closed his eyes as if in prayer. “When this is done, the Goddess will mete out her final punishment. You had best hurry, lest it find you too.” Then his eyes turned toward Wataru one last time. “Go. Finish your journey. Do what we could not.”

  For that one brief moment, Wataru thought he could see the mask drop, revealing the man’s true face. It was a lonely face—the face of a man who had resolved to change his fate, who had come all this way…for this. A lonely Traveler.

  Wataru felt tears rise in his eyes. I can’t leave you here, after all. Don’t make me do it.

  But the Precept-King saw what he was thinking. “Go,” he commanded before Wataru could protest again. “And be wary of evil.” Then he fell silent and turned to the task at hand, mustering all the strength he had left in his thin arms to lift his hammer.

  Wataru slowly shuffled backward. Unconciously, Meena tugged on his arm. Then it was like a thread snapped. Wataru began to run. Together, the three of them dashed up the stairs and out of the hall, turning only once at the arched entrance to catch a final glimpse of the Precept-King. It was an image which would be forever burned in Wataru’s memory. The face of the Precept-King blended for moment with that of the young man in Tokyo. Maybe they don’t look so alike after all. Maybe it’s just me throwing them together in my head.

  Their pace quickened the farther away they got from the mirror room. Even if the destruction of the
city hadn’t been imminent, they would have run just as fast. They felt like if they didn’t run, if they didn’t get away, then the weight of what they had left behind would draw them in, like a sinking ship, and they would drown in this place.

  “There you are!” Jozo was jumping up and down. “I was getting worried. You do what you came to do?”

  “Y-yeah,” said Wataru. While they had been under the surface, it seemed that the city had grown even colder. His lips were frozen shut.

  “I was afraid you weren’t going to make it in time! We’re flying now—hang on!”

  “Make it in time? What’s wrong, Jozo?”

  With his crimson wingtip, Jozo pointed toward a corner of the sky. “Look up there. It’s coming straight for us.”

  There, among the clouds that shrouded Dela Rubesi, a single star shone in the sunlit sky with a hard, diamond-like radiance. On closer inspection, it was moving.

  Either my eyes are playing tricks on me, or whatever that is has wings.

  “That’s a servant of the Goddess, that is. Bringing a wind of punishment down on this place, I should imagine,” Jozo said with a shiver. “And where that wind blows, I don’t want to be! Let’s fly!”

  The three clung tight to his scales, and Jozo lifted into the air. As soon as they were in a cloud bank, he began beating his powerful wings, taking them as far away from Dela Rubesi as he could go.

  Through the swirling clouds, Wataru watched the approaching star. It did have wings, after all, wings of frost—as though countless shards of ice had come together to form a giant bird. It was even larger than Jozo. Each beat of its wings sent a frigid gale down to the earth below. The great ice-bird was headed straight for Dela Rubesi.

  “Jozo?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think you could circle around here, just a moment? I kind of want to see what happens.”

  “It’ll just give you nightmares. I don’t recommend it.”

  “Please. I…I have to see this through.”

  Jozo snorted, then, reluctantly, turned his nose back toward Dela Rubesi. He began tracing a wide circle around the frozen city.