“Little dust puppet…you are the gate?”
“In their original forms, the Hero and the King in Yellow are nothing more than stories, invisible to the eye. Though they may reside in men’s hearts and guide their actions, they cannot manifest physically within the Circle.”
“But the Hero took Kirrick’s form back in the capital!” U-ri retorted. “That was because it took his eyes, wasn’t it? Not because of some gate!”
Ash smiled mysteriously. “This is because the Haetlands is itself a story. It is an imaginary place. Had you forgotten?”
U-ri put a hand to her mouth. “So stories like the Hero and the King in Yellow can take shape in regions woven of stories?”
“Yes, but this is a parlor trick, ineffective in the Circle. And yet, that creature appeared quite readily by the library in your brother’s school. Do you know why? It is because Sky was there. That giant eyeball manifested itself through Sky. That is what is meant by the ‘gate.’ Were you to bring Sky back home with you, you would be giving such creatures free access to the Circle. They would boil forth and destroy all within their reach. And the people would rise up to drive them back, weapons in hand. There would be war.
“I am sure you do not need me to tell you what war entails. It is nothing less than a most terrible sign of the coming of both the Hero and the King in Yellow to the Circle,” Ash said, his voice growing stronger. “What happened in Elemsgard could happen in the Circle, in your region, your country, your town, your school. The ones you love would be devoured by monsters, transformed into horrible things. Lamenting, they would bury the bodies of their loved ones and drift through the wreckage of their world, forced to hunt down and destroy former lovers, friends, brothers, and sisters who had become something other than human. Do you really want your hometown turned into Elemsgard?”
U-ri had forgotten even to breathe, had forgotten that Ash and the Archdevout stood before her. She had retreated entirely inside herself. Visions of the bodies she had seen strewn about the wreckage of the palace filled her mind. The terrible, deformed creatures that seemed to bubble forth from the ground, no matter how many they slew—
That could happen in my world.
If she hadn’t seen what she had seen, her choice would’ve been simple. If the Archdevout had turned to her and told her the truth the moment he took the book from the casket and saw the sign, U-ri would have taken Sky by the hand and brought him directly back to Ichiro Minochi’s reading room. Then they would have gone home. No matter how much they might have pleaded with her, U-ri’s desire to save Sky—to save her brother—would have been stronger, pushing all such concern aside.
“So you did it to convince me, then,” U-ri whispered, and a tear rolled down one cheek. She didn’t even remember having wept it. “You hid the truth and sent me on my journey so that I would see it for myself.”
“And for that we are sorry,” the Archdevout apologized as he prostrated himself before her. U-ri looked down at him and sniffled. Her next tear fell from her chin onto the nape of the Archdevout’s neck.
“During your journey, did Sky not begin to recover fragmented memories of Kirrick and the Haetlands?”
So Ash had noticed too.
“He did remember, and it made him worry.”
“The Book of Elem was the key to the Hero’s escape. That is why Hiroki Morisaki, as the last vessel, possessed a dim recollection of Kirrick. That is what Sky remembered.”
“And Morgan, the wolf we met in Elemsgard?”
Ash nodded.
“He said you were doing something terrible. He knew what was going on, didn’t he?”
Ash cast his eyes aside, as though he were ashamed to meet her gaze.
“He thought it was wrong to bring Sky along with me.”
“He has a good heart, that Morgan.”
“But he lacks wisdom,” U-ri said, startled that Ash’s wry smile from before seemed to have made its way to her own lips. “I had to go. There was no two ways about it.”
“Do not judge him so harshly,” Ash said. “It was only right for Morgan to censure me. And right for him to want to better your lot. Anyone with a heart would do the same.”
What was that Morgan said to me, there in the chaos of the broken city, with the mob thronging around us?
“…You can cry if you like, but don’t despair.”
Good advice, thought U-ri. She let her tears fall.
“Did Doctor Latore know the truth too?”
Ash nodded.
So that’s why he stopped Sky from going with me to the bottom of the cavern to meet my great-uncle.
“And Aju?”
There was no immediate response, so U-ri looked up at Ash. His face was drawn in a scowl.
Then U-ri remembered something terribly important. “Back in Katarhar Abbey, after we met Mr. Minochi, I passed out—” And when I awoke everyone was acting so strange. “Is that when Aju discovered the truth?”
Ash sighed, his face still dark. “When you saw Minochi’s true form, you screamed, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“Sky heard that scream and came running down there, all the way to the bottom. He ran without thought, concerned only for you, wanting to save you, pushing aside all who tried to stop him. Yet he never reached Minochi’s cell. I barred his path.
“I do not believe that Sky fully understood why at the time, though he must have thought it odd, and perhaps even guessed at the truth—but Minochi knew. As soon as Sky came close, he sensed it, I think. It was to prevent this that I stopped him. But I was too late.”
Ash shook his head. “Minochi began to call out. With his power—the very power that twisted him into the form you saw—Ichiro Minochi could peer through Sky’s mask to see the remnants of Hiroki Morisaki within. He called Hiroki by name. His madness took him, and he howled with laughter, screaming ‘Hiroki’ over and over.”
Minochi had laughed and babbled words of apology that made no sense, then began to chant the jumbled words of a curse. Minochi had completely lost his mind.
Thankfully, none of his words reached Sky. But, Ash explained, Aju was not so fortunate.
“The aunkaui dictionary knew deep shame then. While you slept, we discussed it together. Aju spoke with the books in the abbey, asking for their advice.”
It had been Ash’s suggestion that Aju leave as soon as it was possible.
“But Aju swore he would stay by you to the last. He wanted to be there when you learned the truth.”
Warm tears streamed down U-ri’s cheek. “Where is he now?”
The last time she had seen him was in Elem’s burial chamber, when the Hero’s power had literally blown them all away. “I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.”
“Do not worry. I’ll find him and return him to his original form. Books cannot die,” Ash added, a genuine smile on his face for the first time in a long while.
“Archdevout,” U-ri asked, wiping her face with the sleeve of her vestments and turning to the ancient man. “If the nameless devout were all last vessels, that means you too were once a last vessel, yes?”
The Archdevout sat with his hands on his knees and nodded slowly. “Though I have no way of counting the time that has passed in this land where time stands still, I believe my own transformation happened in another age, far in the distant past.”
“I remember, before I left here the first time, when I asked you what bad the nameless devout had done, you told me that you were guilty of the sin of trying to live a story—trying to live a lie, to make the lie real. What does that mean? How could that be worse than allowing the Hero to escape?”
The Archdevout did not reply, but quietly raised his eyes and looked in Ash’s direction.
The response came from Ash, in the form of a question. “What is a story, U-ri?”
“Something a weaver makes, I suppose. A lie.”
“Not only weavers make stories. All people make stories simply by living out their lives.”
&
nbsp; Doctor Latore had said something similar. He had told her that there was no other way for men to live.
“As people walk through their lives, they leave stories behind them, like footprints in the sand. Yet sometimes we place stories in front of us, choosing the brightest from those that hang in the firmament of the Circle to guide us—and when we try to live those stories, we fall prey to foolishness. For we are attempting to imitate the story as we think it should be, not as it is.
“These stories we follow have many names. Sometimes they’re called ‘justice.’ Other times ‘victory’ or even ‘conquest.’ Sometimes they are simply called ‘success.’ We charge forward, following a vision invisible to those around us. That is the sin of trying to live a story. In our pride, we place the ideal before the deed, and this brings only misfortune. The sin of living a story is great indeed. So great that the last vessel becomes a nameless devout sent here to atone for that sin over an eternity.
“But let me be clear,” Ash continued, “the sin lies not with the story. Yet the weavers know that sometimes stories can mislead our hearts. They know this, yet they continue their weaving. That is a conscious act that invites karmic retribution—still they are allowed to continue in their work because they also bring hope, goodness, beauty, warmth, and the joy of life to men.
“As the Hero and the King in Yellow are two sides of one coin, so are the nameless devout who turn the Great Wheels of Inculpation here and the weavers who remain in the Circle. The cycling of stories is also the cycling of human deeds,” Ash said, his tone that of the philosopher expounding on a well-known truth to one of his students.
“My brother was guilty of such a great sin?” U-ri asked, her voice faltering, her body swaying. “He did something so bad?”
“He tried to become the Hero,” Ash replied, “the very embodiment of heroic justice. And he did not wisely choose his means to that end. Your brother took the life of one of his classmates. Without a moment’s hesitation, he sullied his hands with the blood of another child of the Circle.”
All for justice, for victory.
U-ri shouted, “But the kids he was dealing with were really bad! They attacked him first! You mean you’re not allowed to strike back?”
“Does that make it all right to commit murder? Was it all right for him to be their sole judge and executioner?” Ash shook his head. “When a child anywhere in the Circle takes up a weapon in order to remove those who do not see as he does, this leads to war—a war great enough to destroy the entire Circle. It is not an isolated event. Surely you understand that now.”
A world in which a child may take the life of another is the same world in which ten thousand soldiers may kill ten thousand more. One is many, and many are one.
U-ri realized that “ten thousand” wasn’t just a number—it referred to the idea of everything, everything inside the Circle.
“So who gets to judge evil, then? Are we not allowed to accuse people who do wrong?” U-ri asked, her voice almost a scream.
Ash waited for the echoes to fade before he replied, calm as ever, “That is why men created the story we call ‘law.’ Even as we walk on through an eternity, leaving repeated mistakes and endless sacrifices as we cross rivers of tears, we have found a story that attempts to put things right. The story of law is written in the language of our footsteps. Because of this, it is not without faults. Yet should we forget the law and make stories as we wish for us or others to live, that is a sin.”
U-ri hugged herself and cried. Then another thought occurred to her.
“But the people he fought—that teacher and the bullies in his class—they all did the same thing. How was their ‘justice’ any better than Hiroki’s?”
“It was not. They are sinners too. Inculpated, and rightly so,” Ash said, his voice expressing nothing but sadness. “Yet they did not find the Book of Elem. They did not meet the Hero. Thus are they judged only within the Circle and not here in the nameless land.”
“But that’s not fair!”
In that instant, U-ri understood why Ichiro Minochi roared in the dungeon beneath the Katarhar Abbey ruins. She understood his thirst to put things right by his own hands, to make just the unfairness that had taken his one hope, his one consolation away.
That’s why he wanted to raise the dead.
U-ri whimpered. “My brother might have wanted what the Hero had to offer the moment he picked up that knife, but that was the only time. Just one moment out of so many. Why should he have to give up the rest of his life to atone for that?”
The Archdevout laid his hand on U-ri’s back. “There is no time in the nameless land.”
So does that mean there’s no suffering? No weariness?
Something thing Morgan had said flashed through U-ri’s mind. Hadn’t he called the nameless devout holy men?
Holy men. Carrying the weight of man’s sins.
“Your brother is not here in the nameless land,” the Archdevout said then. “All that is here are nameless devout.”
Ash nodded. “And the nameless devout are nothing. Your brother’s soul rests in the great flow of stories until such a time as it will reenter the Circle inside another life. You see? He waits for rebirth. He feels no pain. You ensured that when you purified him.”
But the wolf’s words did not reach U-ri’s heart, and all she had to offer in response was more tears.
“What will I tell my mom, my dad? They’re still hoping, still worried, waiting for Hiroki to come home.”
“Leave that to stories, for facing grief is one time when stories can help most. And pray with them. Weave a new story with your prayers. That the peace your brother has found might someday enter the hearts of your parents as well. Now stand,” Ash instructed. “It is time for you to return to the Circle. Remove your vestments and return them to the Archdevout.”
For a moment, U-ri didn’t understand what he was saying. And when she did, her body went rigid, and she clutched the vestments to her, doubling over where she stood.
“I won’t! I can’t go home!”
On the floor, she began to crawl away from Ash and the Archdevout. “I’ll stop the Hero! I’ll avenge Hiroki! I’m the only one who can do it, right?”
And the Hero is still free.
“I am the one who bears the mark!”
Eyes closed, Ash shook his head. “Not any longer. The glyph has left you. Your role here has ended. Remember just now when the glyph was absorbed into the Hollow Book? The glyph you bore had no further purpose after you purified Sky. You are no longer the allcaste, nor will you ever be again.”
“Why not? Why can’t I be?”
“Don’t you wish to return home?” Ash asked, a hint of his old mocking tone returning to his voice.
“Well, what will you do now then, Ash? How are you going to bind the Hero without an allcaste to help you?”
“There are other allcastes, U-ri. I merely need to find them. In fact, you might say that the tides have shifted in my favor. The Hero used the Book of Elem to create a material form. It becomes more and more like Kirrick every day. An enemy that imitates my brother is an enemy I know well.”
So all Ash would have to do was find someone, an allcaste, whose voice could reach Kirrick.
“U-ri,” Ash called her name, his voice more gentle than she had ever heard it before. “The nameless devout were once last vessels, yes? How many nameless devout do you think are here in this land?”
U-ri thought about it a moment, and her mouth opened wide.
“That’s right. More than any of us can count. This, more than anything else, is proof that the Hero has escaped many times before, and been caught just as many times. In fact, the times when the Hero is not in the Circle are fewer than the times when it is. The Hero’s imprisonment is the exception. He is imprisoned only for brief intervals between long stretches of time during which he roams freely,” Ash explained. “It is a testament to how much men desire the Hero. They desire it, even when they know the dangers of
the King in Yellow. It is in our nature.”
Ash smiled. “So do not worry. You’re still young. Return to your world and live out your life. Live, and be happy. I will handle things on this side. That is why we wolves exist—why we are allowed to live.”
Ash extended his hand from his tattered robes. U-ri took it and stood. Beside her, the Archdevout stood as well.
“Just be careful. The Hero is in the Circle. A time of conflict is at hand,” Ash warned her, squeezing her hand tightly in his own. “You’re one of few in the Circle to return there, knowing the ways of this forsaken land. When conflict rages and men look up to the Hero, their eyes deceived by the lure of the King in Yellow, you will know what to say. Do not lose your voice. Your eyes can see what is right, and what must be. Do not close them. Your courage led you here and to the successful completion of your duties as allcaste. It will not fail you.
“If today, one child should learn how to sheathe a blade, then tomorrow the armies will halt their march.”
One leads to many, to all.
“Master Ash,” the Archdevout called out to the wolf. “You have forgotten something very important.” The Archdevout smiled at U-ri. “Though the Hero was not bound, you have completed your mission, Lady U-ri. Before you leave us, you have the right to name a part of our land.”
U-ri led Ash and the Archdevout to the central courtyard of the Hall of All Books. It was as jumbled a place as it had been when she had first seen it, with its bizarrely winding roads and passageways. Yet it was dear and familiar to her all the same. Now, those buildings stood beneath a sky full of stars, their light the nameless land’s only ornamentation.
“That,” U-ri said, pointing straight up. “Sky told me you call that the heavens here.”
“This is true,” the Archdevout said, nodding.
“But those aren’t just the heavens, that’s the sky. The sky of the nameless land.” U-ri shook her head. “I wonder if it will ever be blue?”
She could see the stars so clearly. Who could say that the sun wouldn’t rise someday soon into a cloudless sky, and the nameless devout who had joined her on her journey would look up, his eyes filled with wonder.