“Don’t you worry about me, missie. I’ll be disappearing soon enough. Don’t have what it takes to go down below, myself. Just one last word of advice, if you don’t mind?” Morgan stooped down, bringing his eyes on a level with hers. “No matter what happens down there, remember it’s none of your doing, missie. None of your brother’s either. Neither of you have done anything bad. It’s not your fault. It’s just fate. The people who live in this region of the Circle are stuck in their story as it goes to and from the nameless land—they can’t get out.” He straightened up again. “So, you can cry if you like, but don’t despair.”
U-ri thought she felt the man lightly tap her shoulder, but Morgan was suddenly nowhere to be seen. He was so huge, and yet he had vanished in an instant like some kind of fairy.
When he said he was going to disappear, he meant it literally.
U-ri thought about what she knew of the wolves. It was true there seemed to be more than just one type, with more than just one role to play in their struggle.
U-ri held closed the collar of her vestments against the wind sweeping down the street as she hurriedly weaved through the passersby to join Sky. The devout’s eyes were as wide as ever, but he wasn’t looking at anything. He was just staring vacantly. It’s almost as if he’s hollow.
For a moment, U-ri couldn’t help but wonder if there really was nothing under those robes of his. She looked at them fluttering in the wind. Of course there’s something there. What am I thinking? How many times have I held Sky’s hand?
And yet—
“Sky?”
There was no response. She grabbed his hand, shook him again and again, and still his eyes stared out into space. All he did was sway back and forth.
“Sky? Sky! What’s wrong? Wake up!”
U-ri’s nose wrinkled, and her voice cracked. From beyond the tents—probably around where the palace had once stood—she heard a crowd of people shouting, though she couldn’t tell whether it was in fear or anger.
Sky blinked and seemed to notice U-ri standing there for the first time. His purple eyes were dry, and dust from the street clung to his lashes. “Lady U-ri?” he said, and the old Sky was back. He blinked again, and his eyes began to water.
U-ri’s knees went weak as relief washed through her, though it was not enough to completely lift her unease. “We’ve come to a really scary place. And to be honest, I’m getting more than a little frightened. No, I’m downright scared.”
Sky wobbled again, his arms hanging down by his sides.
“We’re going down there,” U-ri said, grabbing his hand. “We’re going down to where the palace fell. Will you come with us?”
Sky did not answer immediately. He wobbled again, shifted his feet, then turned to look at the doors he had been leaning against this whole time. They were double doors, built strong, with narrow weatherboarding covering the front.
“This…appears to have been a greengrocer’s,” he said.
The windows on the front side of the shop had been smashed, and U-ri noticed that though the doors were closed, they were slightly askew and hanging from loose hinges. It looked like there had been an awning, but that too had been destroyed, leaving only a bent frame above the door. U-ri looked around but could see no shop sign announcing the name of the place. If there had been a sign once, it was long gone now.
“When we first came through the gate, I saw the owner of this store closing up. He’d put all he had for sale into boxes and was carrying them away,” Sky whispered to her. “As he worked, he prayed. He prayed again and again for protection. He prayed for the favor of the gods.”
Sky put a hand on the door. “I knew his prayer. I had heard it before.”
U-ri stepped up beside him then, and she too placed a hand upon the door. She thought that maybe if she did what he did, she would feel the same things he had.
Sky slowly turned around, looking at U-ri. “Lady U-ri. I know this town. I know Elemsgard. I remember her streets. I remember how the people live here. I remember what the palace—here until just this very morning—looked like, towering over the rooftops. I remembered—”
The wind blew against Sky’s black robes, thick with dust and smelling of charred wood, pressing them against his emaciated body. U-ri wondered anew at how thin the devout looked. Yet there were his shoulders, and his chest, and his legs. Sky was right in front of her, so why did it feel like he was growing more and more distant? The real Sky was escaping her, little by little. It was a strange, illogical feeling, and yet it made her tremble all over.
What, Sky? What did you remember?
“Maybe,” U-ri managed to say in a tiny voice, “maybe before you became a nameless devout, you lived here, in the Haetlands. Here in the capital. Maybe that’s why you remember it.” That has to be it. Sky wasn’t a nameless devout anymore. He was gradually regaining his former individuality as a human being. Slowly but surely, it was happening. Hadn’t Dr. Latore said as much back on the mountaintop? He had talked about Sky’s burden having been lifted. Yet the weight on U-ri’s chest felt heavier and darker by the day. Sky getting his memories back should have been a wonderful thing. She should be jumping with joy, so why was she so anxious? It’s Morgan’s fault for filling my head with questions again. And Sky’s fault for looking so scared.
“Sky,” she said, hoping to get it off her chest once and for all, “you’re becoming human again.”
“Because I became your servant?” Sky muttered, his head hanging, his eyes blank circles.
“Yes—because you stayed with me and protected me.”
“I have done nothing,” he said weakly, his shoulders sinking.
“That’s not true at all. You’ve done lots. I know. I remember.” U-ri held a hand out. “Let’s go. Or aren’t you coming with us?”
Sky looked up at U-ri’s hand. His arms still hung limply by his sides. He slowly raised his eyes further until he was looking at her face. “Lady U-ri, I am frightened.”
“Why? What’s there to be frightened of?” U-ri said as bravely as she could, though it felt like the wind whipping down the street blew right into her heart. It gusted past U-ri and Sky, pulling them away from each other.
No, I won’t let it.
“I’m with you, Sky. I am the allcaste. You have nothing to fear,” U-ri declared loudly. She grabbed his hand. It was startlingly cold. U-ri could feel the numbness spread from his skin to hers. Doubt, bewilderment, mysteries sinking into her flesh, stabbing into her bones. Why did Morgan say that? Why can’t Sky go below with us? Why did he pull Ash aside and chew him out like he did? Where did he get off acting like that?
U-ri heard a pair of heavy boots hit the ground. She looked around and saw Ash, Aju on his shoulder. He had a dirty cloth sack on his back and was holding what looked like a tarnished silvery club in his hand. What appeared to be weapons and various tools protruded from the top of the bag on his back.
“Here, your mace,” Ash announced, thrusting the silver club in front of U-ri’s face. It was a simple thing—basically a stick with a round bulge at one end. U-ri accepted it without thinking and found it surprisingly heavy.
“Bless it with your glyph,” Ash told her.
U-ri put a hand to her forehead, then used the same hand to grip the silver club. From the spot where she gripped it, the metal’s color shifted from silver to platinum. White light spread to both ends of the mace. At the same time, the weight of the thing seemed to evaporate, until it was lighter than a feather in her hand. U-ri gave it a swing. She wouldn’t even need to use both hands to wield it. She spun the mace around and brought it in front of her eyes. The orb at the top sparkled with light.
Ash, his face straight, turned to Sky. The nameless devout let go of U-ri’s hand. His purple eyes still looked empty, yet there was a new resolve in his expression as he looked up at Ash.
“Will you join us?”
Sky’s lips trembled almost imperceptibly.
“If you come with us below, you’ll get your
answer—the answer to that question that only now has begun to take shape inside you.”
If you know all that, why not tell him the answer now, right here? U-ri was about to shout when Aju hopped onto her head and squeaked, “Let’s stop chatting and get going!” He began furiously tugging on U-ri’s hair and pounding on her scalp with his tiny feet.
“Ouch! Aju! Just wait a minute! I want to know—”
“If you’re going to sit here and blab all day, we’re leaving you behind, U-ri!”
U-ri was about to retort when she noticed the sadness in Aju’s voice. She felt something tiny and wet fall on her head—the tears of a mouse.
“Let us go,” Sky said firmly, stepping up to Ash. “Take me with you. I will go. I must go.” He turned back to U-ri and smiled. “Perhaps it is as you say, Lady U-ri. Perhaps I once lived here in the Haetlands, and by being with you I have slowly regained some of my past, some of my humanity. If this is true, how could I stand by and do nothing? How can I stop now?”
Sky’s smile and that look in his eyes reminded U-ri of a little boy who, after falling from his bicycle, stands up, brushes himself off, and shouts to his mother that he’s fine. U-ri knew she was supposed to smile back. That’s right, you’re fine.
“The way down is this way,” Ash said, swiftly turning to walk in the direction from which they had seen several soldiers and other men leave. U-ri’s confidence wavered, and it took her a moment to take that first, hesitant step. Sky was already ahead of her, following after Ash. His eyes were cast downward, one hand clenched in a fist, the other holding his black robes close to his chest.
“Why are you sad, Aju?” U-ri asked as she walked, more swiftly now, putting up a hand to stroke him where he sat clinging to the hair on the top of her head. “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay. I won’t ask. Just, don’t cry, okay?”
“S-sorry,” Aju squeaked after a moment. “I’m not sad, U-ri. I’m…I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed of what I am—a false dictionary. I’m a fake, U-ri—”
“You know, I heard Morgan say that, but I have no idea what it means, so I don’t really care, Aju.”
They passed between the thickly clustered tents toward the middle of town until they emerged onto a brick-lined street that must have once been a broad city thoroughfare, but the scene that awaited them was enough to make U-ri pinch her own cheek, just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
It was very much like something you’d see in a dream, or maybe a nightmare. U-ri just stared.
There, no more than thirty feet ahead of where they stood, the town simply ceased to exist. Whatever had been there before was gone, sunk into the ground along a fault line so straight and clean it was as if the giant hands of some god had reached down and carefully folded the city center into the ground, creasing the edge with a massive thumb. Everything was gone: the palace, the roads, all the buildings, leaving nothing but the blue sky stretching overhead.
“Come look, Lady U-ri,” Sky said, stopping and pointing. “There, where the road was severed. Look at the colors.”
She saw it immediately. It was like a thin screen, floating up from the edge, rippling with a rainbow of light.
“That is where the roads were pushed underground,” Ash told them, walking forward. “I heard one of the patrolmen talking about it. There’s no fear of further collapse. The entire palace and its surroundings are below here now.”
U-ri shook her head, and realizing her mouth was hanging open, she snapped it shut and steadied her breath. “How did it happen like this?”
“I’m sure we’ll find out.”
When they approached the rainbow screen, U-ri realized they wouldn’t need ropes or ladders to go below. Though the line of the edge was straight, the road did not drop straight down, but instead sloped down in steps. Where the road had been straight before, now it traced a gentle spiral, like the path along the edge of the cavern beneath the abbey ruins. It was as if the palm that had pushed the city down had slowly twisted at the same time. Here and there she spotted guards on watch duty or lying injured on the ground, or huddled together in fear.
At the bottom of the spiral lay the darkness that had swallowed the palace whole—a giant rent in the earth. She could see strata of earth along its ragged edge. And there was something else—
“That’s Kirrick’s family crest!” U-ri exclaimed.
It seemed to have formed naturally from pieces of rubble along the rock wall where she could see the layers of sediment—the same crest she had seen in the portraits under the ruins of Katarhar Abbey.
U-ri walked toward the opening. Aju stood up on her shoulder. “The crest of House Dijkstra?”
“Yeah, that’s it. I’m sure of it.”
As she said it, the mace in her hand flashed brightly. Then the crest of House Dijkstra hanging over the crevice began to glow in response. A moment later, the glyph on U-ri’s own forehead began to glow as well.
The strange three-part chorus of lights was over in a few seconds, each light winking out at precisely the same moment.
U-ri heard a voice. It was distant, coming from an indeterminate direction, but there was no mistaking it.
“Yuriko!”
U-ri’s eyes and mouth opened wide. She wanted to shout, to cheer, to scream, but nothing came out. Emotion filled her chest to bursting.
It’s Hiroki. He’s calling for me!
“Hiroki!”
Finally, she found her voice. U-ri ran to the entrance of the underground labyrinth, but before she could reach it, strong hands grabbed the collar of her vestments, and her feet were treading air.
“Let me go! Let me go!”
Hiroki’s calling for me! He’s waiting for me!
“Don’t listen to it.” It was Ash. He tossed her back behind him, away from the entrance. Sky caught her before she could fall.
“If that’s all it takes to get to you,” Ash said, “you can’t be allowed to go any further.”
U-ri pushed Sky away and stood catching her breath; then she launched herself at Ash, flinging her fists at him, kicking, screaming and spitting, her teeth bared.
“Get out of my way! Out! Who are you to say where I belong or don’t belong? What do you know?”
Ash said nothing. He did not block her blows nor try to stop her. But when she pushed past him, he again grabbed her by the collar and tossed her back. In a rage, U-ri attacked again, only to have Ash grab her and toss her back once more. Over and over they repeated this until U-ri was completely out of breath. Dizzy, she collapsed into Sky’s arms.
“I’ve been hearing that voice for some time now,” Ash said calmly, standing between her and the way down. He was less like an impenetrable wall and more like a drawn blade: barring the path, slicing into U-ri’s heart. U-ri felt the blood rise to her head, and she glared at him, never seeing the darkness in his eyes.
“You mean you heard it back up on the road?” Aju asked. He had somehow managed to cling to U-ri through all that charging and being thrown around. “You did hear it. But it didn’t sound like Hiroki to you, did it? To you, it must’ve sounded like—”
Like Kirrick’s voice.
U-ri slowly came to her senses. Catching her breath, she let Sky help her to her feet. She recalled how Ash had stopped on their way into the city, as though he were listening to something. He heard Kirrick calling to him all the way back there?
“It means nothing, no matter who you hear or how many times you hear it,” Ash said, straightening his bag on his back and turning to face the entrance to the labyrinth. “It’s merely an illusion, a figment of your imagination. A trap, set by the King in Yellow to divert those who would pursue it from their path.”
“But it was my brother’s voice!” U-ri protested, trembling.
Facing away from her, Ash laughed. “See? You hear nothing, learn nothing. How childish you sound, how unreliable. How weak.” Ash swiftly turned back toward U-ri. “That’s what it wants you to think. What’s the best way to turn a glyph-wieldin
g allcaste back into a powerless little girl? Make her think she’s got her big brother back. That’s what the King in Yellow will try to do.
“Cover your ears. Close your eyes. Put a lid on your very heart. Believe only in the power of that mark upon your forehead. That’s what I’ve learned through years of trial and error. That’s why I get to tell you what to do, little miss allcaste.”
His words were overbearing, yet his voice was filled with pain. “With my ears, I have heard Kirrick calling to me dozens, hundreds of times. I have heard him calling for help, and I have searched and searched and found nothing. I know that he is not where the voice leads me. He is no more. And neither is your brother. Time’s arrow flies forward only, never in reverse. No one can undo what has been done. There is no going back, U-ri.”
U-ri stared back unblinkingly into Ash’s eyes, noticing with a start that for the first time Ash had called her by her new name, her allcaste name.
“It is the power of stories that makes us think we can turn back time to bring back what was lost. That is the logic of the Circle. It is something beautiful and warm, and sometimes it can touch the truth in our hearts. But it is not truth itself. That is why we say those weavers who spin the Circle’s stories are sinners. You cannot bring back the dead,” Ash said, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword at his belt.
“Where we go, we will not find Kirrick. Nor will we find your brother. The vessel has been used and spent, its life ended. Only phantasms remain. If you cannot prepare yourself to fulfill your role as allcaste, to stare at those phantasms and see them for what they are, then you should leave now. The glyph will not stop you.”
The mark on U-ri’s forehead glimmered once then, as though to agree with the Man of Ash. Her skin prickled beneath the glyph. She touched it gingerly with her fingers and found that the lines of the glyph were raised on her forehead, like a boil. It was as though the glyph were saying “If you wish it, I will leave you this instant and fly away.”
Tensing her fingers, U-ri pushed the glyph on her forehead back down. The glowing stopped. Her forehead was as smooth as before.