The Book of Heroes

  With a murky gurgling scream—like a hundred drunks voiding the contents of their stomachs at once—the massive sphere of fangs and flesh began to spin rapidly. It shot up, ricocheting off the ceiling, the walls, the floor, the windows. Everything smelled of the creature’s blood. The stench was unbearable. Make that a thousand drunks. The envoy whirled and slammed into the walls, spraying fluids and gradually growing smaller and smaller.

  Youuuurrrgh!

  The great mouth snapped shut, and the creature was an eyeball once again. It stopped in a corner of the ceiling and blinked. The white of the eye was now blood red.

  The man in the cape bounded lightly over to U-ri. With his teeth, he pulled the glove off his right hand and swung it around toward U-ri. Before she knew it, his hand was on her forehead. He released her almost immediately, then turned back to the bright red eyeball, his hand up—the same hand that had touched U-ri’s face—raised.

  A single band of light erupted from the man’s hand, striking the giant eyeball dead center. The eyeball screamed, then dropped down to the floor like a fly hit by a blast of insecticide. It morphed back into a nasty lump of toothy flesh on the way down, shooting out its fangs in a last desperate attempt. U-ri hardly saw the man move at all. His swords were a blur, and his cape swished, knocking every last fang out of the air. In one smooth motion he ran over to the fallen eyeball, knelt, and thrust his swords into it. This time, the envoy didn’t even scream. There was just a faint hissing sound, like the air escaping a punctured tire.

  And then it was quiet.

  The giant eyeball creature slowly collapsed—like a time-lapse movie of a sand castle eroding in the rain. Soon there was nothing but black dust on the floor where it had been; then there was nothing, leaving the man kneeling there with his swords in the shape of a V, stabbing the empty hallway.

  The man withdrew his swords and stood. He turned, his black cloak billowing. U-ri was sitting where she had fallen on the floor, hugging the still-unconscious Sky. Behind them, Michiru lay flat by the library doors.

  The man turned to look down at U-ri. Their eyes met, and U-ri unconsciously flinched.

  The man looked much younger from the front. He was in his mid-thirties, his early forties at most. He had a long face with a dramatically pointed nose and chin, as if his features were carved from wood.

  His brows were bushy over his eyes, black hair streaked with white. His eyes were black, and his lids were half closed, almost like he was sleepy. One of his ears had been pierced, and a silver chain hung from it down to his jaw.

  Everything beneath his cloak was black too. His shirt with a raised collar was black. And on top of that he wore something like a vest made out of several overlapping layers of black leather. He wore a thick belt wrapped twice around his waist and loose-fitting black pants beneath that with ragged holes in them where something had burned through. U-ri noticed that his boots had straps at the top that wrapped tightly around his legs, like the sandals she had seen in history books.

  He was still holding his swords, but when U-ri’s eyes went to them he seemed to notice, and spinning them around once, he sheathed them in two scabbards at his belt.

  U-ri took a deep breath. Something was creeping up her back. She jumped, picturing a tentacle snaking out of the floor. It was Aju.

  “You okay, U-ri?” Aju looked slightly flattened, like he had been thrown down one too many times, but otherwise he was none the worse for wear. She nodded, and he breathed a sigh of relief—stopping short when he noticed the man in black. “Uh, who’s that?”

  The man smiled with half of his mouth. His skin was brown and had the look of tanned leather. “I am afraid I have not yet introduced myself.”

  He lifted his thick-soled boots and took two strides toward them. U-ri shrank back, though she hadn’t intended to. Her eyes were transfixed by the man’s angular chiseled face.

  He knelt on one knee before her and extended the index finger of his right hand, pointing it squarely at U-ri’s forehead. “You saw how I used it just now on the envoy?”

  He’s talking about the glyph.

  “I’m guessing you’re new at this, Lady Allcaste,” he added, smiling again with half his mouth. “Are you injured?” His voice was surprisingly gentle.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied—though she wasn’t so sure about Sky.

  “And this nameless devout and…rat are with you?” The man peered at Aju and frowned. “You’re a dictionary, aren’t you? If you were going to transform into something, why not pick something a little more useful?”

  Aju’s whiskers trembled. “How rude! I’ll have you know that U-ri gave me this form!”

  “I see. How like a girl.” The man sighed and U-ri thought she heard him mutter, “Why’d it have to be a girl?”

  U-ri’s mouth curled into a frown. Apparently, he didn’t think she was good enough.

  “There something wrong with being a girl?”

  The man ignored her question. “I think it’s past time you revived your servant, there.”

  U-ri blinked, suddenly embarrassed. “H-how do I do that?”

  The man placed his bare right hand on his forehead. When U-ri didn’t react, he sighed again, took her right hand and put it on her forehead for her.

  “Like I just did. The power of the glyph goes into your hand, see?”

  He’s right! A faint circle was glowing on her palm—it was the exact same pattern as her glyph.

  “Now place that on your servant’s forehead.”

  U-ri did so, and Sky moaned softly. He opened his eyes. A second later, he jumped to his feet, almost butting heads with U-ri on the way up.

  “Lady U-ri! Lady U-ri, are you all right?”

  Seeing him pop up like a jack-in-the-box made U-ri smile despite herself. “I’m fine, Sky.”

  U-ri then turned to do the same to Michiru, but the man in black grabbed her wrist.

  “The girl is not your servant, is she?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then let her sleep awhile. Until we are through talking, at least, for we have much to discuss.” The man’s eyes went to the door. “I sense books. That’s a library?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent. That should provide a perfect place for us.”

  Without waiting for U-ri to respond, the man scooped Michiru into his arms, cradling her gently. U-ri stood and opened the door.

  Once they were inside the library, the man in black laid Michiru down on the book checkout counter.

  “What if someone comes—”

  “There’s no danger of that. The field formed when that creature arrived still stands. The people in this region will not be able to see us or hear us.”

  Now that he mentioned it, U-ri noticed that no one had come out of the classrooms to see what was going on, even with all the ruckus.

  The man walked toward the back of the library. Around him, the books began to whisper to one another. “A wolf! A wolf has come!”

  The man paid them no attention. Grabbing the back of a nearby chair, he carried it over to U-ri. “Have a seat, Lady Allcaste.”

  U-ri remained standing. “You’re a wolf?”

  The man put a hand to his waist and bowed slightly.

  “Allcaste! Allcaste!” The leader of the books in the library—that female from before—called to Uri in a trembling voice, though she seemed more excited than fearful. “He is a wolf, a famous one. They call him the Man of Ash.”

  The man in black smiled faintly, then turned to address the books. “You know much for children.”

  “We may be young, yet we still possess knowledge,” the female voice responded.

  “Yes. Your network of friends is quite valuable.”

  “Didn’t you know who he was?” U-ri whispered to Aju on her shoulder. But before he could respond, the man in black turned to her. “Books that have few dealings with people know little of this world, Lady Allcaste. Your dictionary companion there spent a long time stored away somewher
e, I would imagine.”

  Aju bristled at that. “How rude!” he squeaked, but very quietly.

  “Not to mention he bears the Yellow Sign—though it’s rather faded.”

  He could tell that just by looking at him?

  “The majority of books lose themselves when exposed to the power of the King in Yellow. They forget who they are. Perhaps that is why your wee one knows so little. He has lost both wisdom and knowledge to the King.”

  Aju didn’t even squeak this time. He crawled up to the nape of U-ri’s neck where he curled into a tiny ball.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, little one. You’ll remember everything in due time,” the man said, though his tone was more explanatory than consoling. U-ri petted Aju with the tip of one finger.

  Then the man in black, the Man of Ash, straddled a chair and sat. U-ri stayed standing. Sky walked up shakily, leaning on the back of her chair, then hurriedly stood back when he saw that U-ri wasn’t sitting.

  “It’s okay, Sky. You should rest.”

  The devout’s eyes were still slightly unfocused. U-ri took him by the hand and pushed down on his shoulder, forcing him to sit. “Don’t laugh at us,” she said with a sidelong glance at the Man of Ash. “We’re new to this, like you said.”

  The Man of Ash didn’t even smile. “I’m not concerned, and neither should you be. It is this way for all allcastes in the beginning.”

  U-ri felt herself relax slightly. Though the man looked frightening, it seemed he wasn’t as darkly cynical as he had appeared at first.

  “Thank you…for saving us.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How did you come here? How did you know we were here, I mean.”

  “We wolves have a nose for this sort of thing, allcaste. If we didn’t, we’d be out of a job.”

  U-ri took a long look at the man. He lifted a half-shut eyelid.

  “Not good enough for you?”

  “No.”

  The Man of Ash sighed deeply and looked away. It was a while before he returned his gaze to U-ri. “I have been chasing the Book of Elem since it first appeared in this region.”

  U-ri closed her lips tightly and nodded.

  “Yet I was unable to find and claim it before the last vessel was filled. I was too late.”

  What the man did next was entirely unexpected. He apologized.

  “Because of my failure, there were casualties. I’m sorry.”

  “The vessel…my brother is the last vessel.” Aju tickled U-ri’s neck to console her as she spoke.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Your brother? Odd. I thought for sure it was one of your parents.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because, Lady Allcaste, only those who are related by blood to the vessel may receive the glyph—and only children.”

  “My name is U-ri,” U-ri said then, as coolly as she could muster. “Do not call me ‘allcaste’ until I am worthy of the title. In fact, don’t even call me ‘Lady.’ Just U-ri is fine.”

  The books around them began to whisper to one another again, so U-ri turned to them and apologized. Now that the fright of her encounter with the envoy had passed, she found herself blushing with shame. She had put everyone there in danger and been entirely unable to help. She had panicked like a little child. And she was upset that the Man of Ash told her not to worry about it.

  “Very well,” the man replied, staring at her.

  “Will you tell me your name? I’m guessing that ‘Man of Ash’ isn’t the one you were born with.”

  “You can call me whatever you like—”

  “Ash-head,” Aju suggested, cutting in.

  “That’s hard to say,” U-ri said with a chuckle. “Are you named that because of your hair?”

  The man gave his long braid a shake. “Quite so.”

  U-ri thought a moment, then said, “I’ll call you Ash, then.” That was the name of the main character in a comic book she liked, and as the Man of Ash looked so much like a comic book character himself, it fit.

  Aju wrinkled his nose. “I dunno. That’s not all that different from what you call me.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to deal with it. Don’t worry, there’s no danger of me mixing the two of you up. And,” she looked at Ash, “this is my servant, Sky.”

  Sky was rubbing his head, a pained expression on his face. He was about to bow, but Ash shook his head, cutting him off.

  “I know who you are, nameless devout. You need not introduce yourself. I would hear what has happened before you met me. Have you found anything out about your brother, U-ri?”

  U-ri explained everything as best as she could. Aju, done moping for the time being, pitched in now and then with additional information to round out the story.

  Ash listened, his eyes half closed the entire time. It made U-ri uneasy. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, and U-ri risked losing the thread of her own story several times. If Aju hadn’t been there to help, she was sure she never would’ve made it through the whole thing.

  Finally she got up to where they had met Michiru in that very library, and when she was finished, she felt like a student at a music recital, waiting for the teacher to give her a grade.

  Ash stroked his pointed chin with his fingers, and his half-lidded eyes slowly turned to U-ri. “Best not to give that girl Michiru a false sense of hope. There is no guarantee we can bring Hiroki back.”

  U-ri felt her hackles rise. “What do you mean we can’t bring him back?”

  “Maybe not in the way that Michiru hopes, at least. He has become the vessel, after all.”

  It sounded like he was declaring that Hiroki Morisaki would never again return to his old life. U-ri swallowed the cold fear she felt rising in her throat. “So we can’t even find him?”

  “That I do not know. It’s mostly up to you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’ve been around.” Ash turned to Sky. “You there.” His tone was cold, accusatory. Sky tensed. “Why did you accompany U-ri?”

  U-ri stepped between Ash and the devout. She felt like she had to protect her servant, though she wasn’t sure why. “Look, when the Hero broke free of its prison the Hollow Book was damaged.” U-ri quickly began to explain all that had happened in the Dome of Convocation—mixing her own thoughts with what the Archdevout had told her. Ash listened without blinking. It was less like he was actually listening and more like he was simply letting U-ri explain herself into exhaustion. When she paused, he looked again at Sky.

  “I asked you, not her,” he said. “I want to know what you think.”

  U-ri glanced sidelong at Sky. He looked confused. When he began to speak, he did so shakily.

  “I am…a nameless devout. I waited in the nameless land for Lady U-ri to arrive. I…wanted to see the world beyond. I wanted to join her. That is why I was cast from the nameless land—”

  “That’s enough,” Ash grunted, cutting him off.

  U-ri gritted her teeth. “He’s just answering your question! Why do you have to be so mean to him?”

  “Be mean? To a nameless devout? Now there’s an interesting concept.” Ash pointed at Sky. “He is nothing, you understand, and nothing else. Whatever you think he might feel or might think is all illusion.”

  “Then why did you ask him what he thought?”

  “I merely wished to know what the illusion contained,” Ash said. “And what he told me was pretty much what I expected. I don’t need to hear any more of this.”

  Now U-ri was really getting angry. I take back what I thought before. His heart is as black as his robes. “Sky is my servant! I’d have you treat him with the respect he deserves!”

  “Respect?” Ash lifted an eyelid and leaned toward her, fixing her with his gaze. “Did you just say ‘respect’? Very unusual.”

  U-ri stammered, taken aback. “B-but I’m an allcaste.”

  “And that’s something special? Is that what the Sage and the nameless devout told you?” Ash poi
nted his chiseled nose toward the ceiling of the library and laughed out loud. “Newly forged, and yet you strut with the best of them. You don’t even know why allcastes exist!”

  U-ri recalled how the man had dispatched the eyeball creature in the hallway. How he had sighed when he saw her.

  “I didn’t mean to be prideful,” U-ri said at last, restraining her desire to shout at him. “Just, I don’t think you should call Sky ‘nothing.’”

  “Why not?” came Ash’s immediate retort.

  “Because he’s standing right here. He’s not ‘nothing.’”

  “Lady U-ri,” Sky whispered, touching his fingers to her arm. “It’s all right. I am indeed fashioned of nothing.”

  “You’re just going to let him call you that?”

  Sky shrank away from her. Ash bent his thin legs and sat again, shaking his head. “So quick to get all excited. This is why I don’t like dealing with girls.”

  U-ri’s eyes blazed. “There you go again!”

  “Learn to walk the walk if you choose to talk the talk, child,” Ash advised her, raising one of his bushy white-streaked eyebrows. “Standing there with your pet and your servant. How very like a child you are.”

  Unconsciously, U-ri took a step away from Sky.

  “And as far as Sky is concerned, I believe you were far more frightened in the hallway than he was. I’m surprised you haven’t given up chasing the Hero yet and gone home.”

  She thought he was teasing her, but then he pointed at her forehead. “You should go to the Sage who gave you that glyph and have him take it off. You’ll be free of all this then.”

  U-ri stepped back, ashamed of the fear she felt. “B-but then you’d be in trouble, without me.”