“You fucking liar! You’re not a warrior! You’re just a fucking fiend!” He wept and screamed and cursed Galla. He didn’t even know if she could hear him. The nameless devout dragged him relentlessly on. The grass caressed his back. The stars twinkled in the sky above. The torches danced and flamed.
His captors began singing in unison, their voices low and subdued. The words ran together like an invocation in a dark, unfathomable language. Kotaro wished he could cover his ears. The singing had an ominous rhythm.
“Stop! Shut up! Let me go! Come on, leave me alone!” He cried and screamed, but no one heard him. No one came to help him.
He had arrived at the center of the Circle, and its furthest reach.
If words must be born naked of meaning …
If they must be born pure and undefiled …
Why can’t people live without them? Why do they keep creating them?
The Tower of Inception. The birthplace of the souls of words was beauty beyond description, a world of pure silence, yet it betrayed the very meaning of the existence of words.
A thing that seals darkness into its own shadow and tries to be free from defilement is by that very act filled with deceit. Words can never be pure and undefiled. They can never be born free of meaning.
That was the biggest lie in the Circle. It was also just another story.
Galla the Warrior waited beside the Gate of Sorrows. Its shadow overlapped her own on the ground—a shadow inmate in a fortress of shadow, a prisoner waiting for the moment of liberation.
The night wind swept over the sea of grass. The lights in the Hall of All Books shone brightly.
Galla pondered the shadows and waited. A warrior must be where he belongs.
In the region where words were born, words poured from the bell, bathed in light. For each word it bore, the bell sealed more darkness into the world beneath it.
We guard that darkness so that it may not encroach on the Circle. Be darkness. Embrace it, so that it cannot cause harm.
We shoulder the burden of darkness. As long as we are, the glory of the Circle will abide, even if that too is only a story.
Galla felt a word.
It was Mother.
She raised her eyes.
“My child, my son. Auzo the Warrior. Oh, how ghostly you are! Hardly more than a trembling shadow in the night, less substantial and solid than my own.”
She released her human form. As a last gesture to the young man who would serve her son as scapegoat, she cast aside the appearance that had deceived him. She returned to her true form.
“Auzo, remember. This is what you truly are.”
Mother.
It was not the voice of Auzo. It was only a word, an echo of his will. There is no time in the Nameless Land, yet those who are confined there quickly lose their real form.
“Auzo, you are free. You shall return to the Tower. You must fulfill your mission. From the inception of the Circle until its extinction, you must stand in darkness.”
I cannot.
The two winged shadows faced each other beneath the gate. Of old, people knew them as demons.
Mother, I cannot. You practiced deceit to lure a child to the Nameless Land. That was an error. He cannot take my place. He is too pure, too weak. I shall remain here.
“Auzo, why?”
The dim presence wavered.
I saw the light that fills the Circle, if only for a moment. I glimpsed the world of light, and by so doing, Mother, I gained something you shall never have: a heart. To atone for my sin, I will remain here in emptiness.
Galla’s eyes narrowed, but she was not perturbed. She felt no sadness. She was not surprised.
She had no heart. She only was. She was a mother and Auzo was her child because that was how it was, and that was all. The two shadows facing each other were mirror images. Ultimately they were the same reality.
I will become a nameless devout. I will bear the burden of my sin. The sin of seeking the world beyond, if only for a moment.
Mother, I must leave you now.
The presence receded toward the Hall of All Books.
Galla did not follow. She stood by the gate, a prisoner in its barred shadow. Darkness embodied as a demon, imprisoned in shadow.
She understood now. Auzo would not return.
She raised her eyes to the vault of the heavens above the Nameless Land.
The wind rose again, blowing from the Hall of All Books. Something light rolled along the ground and stopped against the demon’s clawed foot.
It was a scythe handle. No blade, no Skull of Origin, just a simple length of wood. She reached for it and stopped. She would not need it anymore.
The handle burst into flame at both ends and was quickly consumed. The ashes blew away in the wind and disappeared.
The guardian was without her weapons. Her mission had vanished. She turned her back on the fortress and looked in the direction she had come. As though it had been waiting for this moment, the gate began to close behind her. The earth trembled.
The shadows cast by the pikes fell in stripes across the demon’s face, flowing over it as the gate closed.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Galla faced the heavens and spread her arms wide. She spread her wings and flapped them powerfully—once, twice. The shadow of the Gate of Sorrows covered her completely.
My child, Auzo, will not return. There is no hope. There is no craving.
I must pay the price for opening the gate.
The black demon cried out and kicked off from the ground. It rose into the sky over the Nameless Land.
An endless abyss.
Kotaro cried himself hoarse, fought and struggled until he almost blacked out from rage. But he remembered everything: being dragged for what seemed an eternity before the surface beneath him became something like cobblestones and his captors stopped their incessant singing.
Dragged faceup, all he could see was the flames of the torches. They had reached the fortress. Candles spaced along the walls cast their flickering light over shelf upon endless shelf of books. They went on forever, and between each book he saw a tiny gap, a sliver of darkness.
The ceiling drew back and became a gigantic dome. He could not see how far it extended; it was too high above the torches. They kept passing shelves and more shelves of books. The heavy pillars and beams along the walls were covered with complex patterns. Light mingled with darkness. There was a comforting smell of old bindings.
The floor became glassy smooth. The bare feet of the devout pattered on its surface. Somewhere along the way they had grown fewer. Two of them dragged him along the floor and another walked behind. His hands were clasped, fingers interlaced over his heart.
Three opponents. Maybe he could shake the front two off, kick aside the one behind, and escape.
His legs were paralyzed.
The corridor curved right, then left. Shelves, endless shelves of books. The walls were lined with them, lit by candles in sconces. They passed a row of slender decorative pillars carved with Japanese characters in relief.
It was time to fight back. This was the moment. He was ready to escape.
He couldn’t move at all, couldn’t feel his limbs. By now he experienced nothing more than a vague sensation of being manhandled along.
Somewhere ahead he heard a chain being reeled up, and the creaking of something heavy being lifted.
The end came abruptly. He was heaved into darkness, without stars or the light of torches. Impenetrable night. He realized he was in some sort of chamber and heard the unrolling of the chain and the sound of the trap door slamming shut. He looked up to see the silhouettes of the three devout disappear.
He was falling.
He fell slowly, drifting downward. No, he was sinking. He was still paralyzed, frozen in the
posture he’d been in when they cast him into this void like a drowned corpse, arms and legs outspread, faceup.
He was in a vertical shaft that plunged downward without limit. The shaft was clogged with darkness, thicker than water or blood. He fell slowly, like silt drifting to the bottom of the ocean.
What’s going to happen to me?
He could still think. He was paralyzed, but his eyes worked. His ears still heard.
He opened his mouth and tried to scream. His voice would not come. Darkness flooded his throat. He swallowed it reflexively. He took darkness into himself. He was becoming darkness.
He felt himself melting away.
Darkness seeped in through his eyes and ears and in the gaps between his skin and nails. As he sank, the pressure rose, driving it into him faster. It was neither cold nor hot. It was not painful. He was not afraid.
It kept filling him up. He was merging with it. When the darkness reached the center of his brain …
I will be pure emptiness.
He was becoming lighter. Disappearing. Everything he’d clung to desperately until now was vanishing along with the will to cling.
What am I? Who am I? What have I done with my life?
He crumbled silently, like a sugar cube in a cup of tea.
Who did I kill? What was I hunting? What is hunting? Who did I hate? Whose blood did I shed?
He sank faster and faster, down an immense distance. The surface of the darkness was far above his head.
It was so easy to let go, so comforting. To merge with emptiness was to gain supreme happiness. To feel nothing, remember nothing. To become empty meant overcoming all pain and suffering. He’d never dreamed that ceasing to be human could bring so much relief—
There was a deep tremor. He jerked to a stop, suspended in the abyss. He felt his half-melted face twitch with alarm.
Time ran backward. He was being reeled upward from the depths.
It was pure agony. Who’s doing this to me? Why? Don’t send me back! I don’t want to go back! I want to sink. Melt.
He opened his mouth for a silent scream. He felt it opening. He couldn’t breathe; he tore at his chest in desperation. He felt that, too.
The boundaries of his body, of Kotaro Mishima, were regenerating.
He moved his fingers, shook his head. He moved his legs. He was speeding upward. The darkness fell away quickly.
He flew through an opening in the floor of a corridor. He saw a kaleidoscope of dazzling torches and endless shelves. They raced past him, filling his sight—
He was flying. The wind hurt his eyeballs. He threw up his arms to protect his face as his body knifed through the air.
He rode the wind, swept along in the night sky. He felt the outlines of his body sharpening and filling in. The darkness that had eaten away at him streamed away as he hurtled onward.
He saw the Hall of All Books receding in the distance. There was a long line of torches like a fiery thread—the nameless devout. They were streaming toward the top of a hill; what was up there, anyway? A pair of enormous wheels lit by torches. The wheels were as large as a town. Hordes of devout seemed to be circling them. Maybe they were pushing them?
That must be the Great Wheels of Inculpation.
Two enormous wheels, sending stories out into the Circle and drawing them back again.
He felt tiny, fragile. He flew higher and higher, leaving the Hall of All Books and the great wheels of fire behind. At this rate he would soon reach the pike barrier. The Gate of Sorrows.
Child of the Circle.
The sheltering wind itself, carrying him through the sky, was calling to him.
I shall return you to your world.
Whose voice? It was very close. It was as though his ear were pressed against some giant object rumbling from within, sending pulsations throughout his body.
To return safely, you must call on your will. Remember. Think of the most wonderful thing in your life. The most beautiful, the most precious thing. Something you revere more than anything. It will guide you home.
Suddenly the wind fell away, and he was thrown headlong into the night sky. A pair of dark wings crossed the edge of his vision and vanished.
I am sorry.
The body of Kotaro Mishima, released from emptiness, traced out a parabola dictated by the law of gravity, the same parabola the moon would follow until morning in the Nameless Land.
A slug masquerading as a real coin. A proxy with no value. Something to toss aside without a second thought. The Gate of Sorrows was no barrier for something of no value in the Nameless Land. No strength was needed to open the gate, or close it.
Kotaro saw her. Echoes of the bond he and Galla had forged in their short time together in the real world let him see her.
The Gate of Sorrows had a new Sentinel, a petrified monster. An immovable seal so far above the plain that a visitor standing below would not even see it.
Galla the Guardian, turned to stone.
The price for opening the Gate …
Whoever vanquished the Sentinel became the Sentinel. Whether or not their hopes were fulfilled, whether or not they accomplished their aim, they would defeat the Sentinel and take its place.
Abandon all hope.
Galla …
She had betrayed and deceived him, but still he felt an upwelling of sorrow.
You knew all along it would come to this. You did it for your child. For your second self. What could that be, other than the workings of a heart? You had a heart after all.
“Galla!” He called to her with all his strength as he fell through the night.
He no longer knew where he was. He was simply falling, too fast to make anything out now. He didn’t even know whether he was facing up or down.
To return safely, you must call upon your will.
“How do I do that?”
Remember the most wonderful thing in your life. Picture it, and it will guide you home.
“What in the hell is that?” Did something like that even exist? Every time he thought he’d found it, every time he’d dared believe in it, it had been taken from him. Those were the memories that were sharp and clear.
Ayuko had been murdered. His trust in Seigo had been undercut with doubt. He wouldn’t believe in anyone or anything ever again, so who cared how things turned out for him? He’d threatened a friend, used him for his own purposes. He didn’t deserve anyone’s help or kindness.
He didn’t trust anyone because he wouldn’t trust anyone. And from there it had been a straight shot to bathing in someone’s blood.
Something beautiful, something warm, something revered …
He’d tried to save Mika and failed. Now there was nothing left.
I’ve got no home to return to. There’s nothing out there to guide me.
He longed to be a monster again, return to his real form, fall from the sky, and smash into a million pieces. Yeah, that’s it for me. Just let me die.
Remember something you revere.
“There’s nothing like that for me.”
Help the world, at least a little.
Then he heard a new voice. Uncle.
He opened his eyes.
Your mother is right next to you. She’s always by your side. That was his voice, a memory of it.
Always close to Mana, gently lighting up her daughter’s smile.
His eyes filled with tears. An angel’s halo.
It banished the darkness, engulfing him in radiance.
“Come on, boy! Wake up!”
Kotaro stood up with a shock. Why was someone yelling at him?
No, he wasn’t standing. He’d just lifted his head an inch or two. It was pounding. Where am I? Why am I lying on the ground? What’s all this stuff? Blood. My blood. My nose must be bleeding. Shit, it’s all over the front o
f my T-shirt.
There was something in his mouth. He spat it out. A broken tooth landed in his lap. Blood and saliva dribbled from a corner of his mouth.
Pain. His mouth was full of salty blood. His eyes wouldn’t focus.
This was the real world. He was in the park near his house. Mika and Gaku’s bench was a few feet away.
The spider was nowhere to be seen. The blood on the bench was gone.
His head hurt. His nose kept bleeding. This was no dream. It was real blood, his blood.
A dog was barking nearby like a metronome. He heard a shrill voice.
“Oh, my god! What happened to you?”
An old man looked down at him, wide-eyed with surprise. The man’s Shiba dog was doing the barking. His bald head glowed under the street light. When Kotaro turned his head toward him, his expression changed from surprise to fear.
“You’re covered in blood.” The man ran to him and tried to help him up. Kotaro clutched at his arm. He didn’t care about himself. Mika. Where was Mika?
“Did—did you see a teenage girl here? With her boyfriend? I think they might be in trouble.”
The old man was baffled. “Trouble? You mean a fight?”
“No, not a fight …” Kotaro’s head was spinning.
“How did you get hurt?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. But I’ve got to help them or something horrible will happen.” Talking made him suddenly nauseous. He turned his head and vomited.
“This is bad. I’ll call an ambulance,” the man said in alarm.
His vision was blurred. The dog kept pacing back and forth nervously behind its master. It seemed to get bigger and smaller and bigger again. He felt an overwhelming vertigo.
Another voice. “There he is, officer!” A woman in a tracksuit. A policeman, too. They ran to Kotaro.
“Are you all right?” asked the cop.
“Don’t move,” the woman said. “Just stay put.” He heard the squawk of a police radio. The trees against the sky seemed to be revolving, with him at the center.
“The medics will be here soon.” The woman held his hand and spoke quickly, trying to comfort him. “I saw the license plate. The police are looking for them. Your friends will be all right. The police will find them soon.”