Brave Story (102 page)

When he first went to meet with the emperor’s daughter, he’d been so surprised his breath was taken away. Her face looked like someone he knew. They were almost identical.

The woman was his aunt—his father’s youngest sister.

After Mitsuru’s father, enraged at his wife’s infidelity, had killed Mitsuru’s mother and his little sister, then taken his own life, Mitsuru had been shuttled around between various relatives, eventually ending up with his young aunt. In truth, he’d been pressed on her. Here was a young woman, just graduated from college, who doubtlessly sympathized with Mitsuru, yet certainly lacked the means and wherewithal to raise a young boy. She tried being nice to him and that failed, and when she tried to control him, she lost control of herself and ended up crying and screaming.

She was not, in general, a happy person. Her eyes always had a sad, forlorn look to them.

Mitsuru grew to hate his father. Had he not committed suicide, Mitsuru would have killed him with his own bare hands. That all-consuming rage opened the Porta Nectere. It provided Mitsuru the chance to enter Vision.

Everything about the emperor’s daughter reminded him of his aunt. Her little affectations. The shifts in her expression. The timbre of her voice. Everything. He thought his aunt must have been like this when she was a high school student, beautiful and unafraid of what lay ahead.

The Watcher of the gate, Wayfinder Lau, told Mitsuru he would encounter people in Vision who closely resembled those he knew in the real world.

—Even though they may look like two peas in a pod, the people you meet here are not who they are in the real world. They may have not a single thing in common. It is merely your own energy that causes them to appear the way they do.

Mitsuru had taken Wayfinder Lau’s words to heart, and, for better or for worse, he hadn’t yet met anyone resembling someone from the real world in his travels until now. Lady Zophie was the first.

And now, staring at her face from such a close distance, he began to wonder if Vision wasn’t really more than just something created by the surplus imaginative energies of people in the real world. Perhaps the real world and Vision were like two sides of a coin, each complementing the other. Making the other whole.

What had been discarded in the real world, what had never seen form, those dreams that never came true, these were what made Vision.That was why Halnera required a sacrifice from both worlds.

If this were the case, then Zophie’s easy smile and unfettered happiness belonged by all rights to his aunt back in the real world. Mitsuru would reach the Tower of Destiny and straighten out his twisted fate. On the morning he returned to the real world, all the happiness that had been Zophie’s would be returned to his aunt. This he promised himself.

It made the task before Mitsuru quite simple. The relationship between his aunt and Zophie was a perfect example. He would merely apply the same principle to his mother, his little sister, and himself.

Perhaps this is why, before he claimed the final gemstone, he had been confronted with this challenge and forced to do a little self-reflection. The Tower of Destiny had given him this encounter with Lady Zophie to prepare him.

That is why, in Zophie’s mindless prattle, he felt the weight of his mission. The enormity of what he stood to gain made his heart race.

“Master Mitsuru?”

Mitsuru snapped back into focus. Zophie was looking directly at him. He was afraid his attention had wandered in the middle of their discussion. “My apologies! My mind began to drift off into the clouds.”

Zophie smiled brightly. Her hairpin—an elaborate affair covered with stones of many colors and bound with a silver chain—swayed elegantly. “Do not worry on my behalf, for I know what it is that concerns you and causes your mind to wander. I know the source of this concern is my father…”

Mitsuru’s face tightened.

Zophie turned to her servants standing ready. “I must speak on a very important matter with Master Mitsuru. I will call for you when I need you,” she ordered.

The servants shuffled quietly off, leaving them alone in the Garden of Victory.

“Sending your servants away?” Mitsuru asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Of course, sending them away does not ensure that one of Adju Lupa’s men does not hear our every word, but I care not. For it was none other than Adju Lupa himself who suggested I speak to you on this matter, Master Mitsuru.”

Mitsuru was not surprised to hear that they might be observed. He had assumed that Sigdora’s eyes gleamed in every dark corner. But he was startled to hear the revelation that followed. “What is it that Lord Lupa said?”

Zophie bit her lip lightly, glancing in the direction of the shrub where her manservant waited. “Before I speak of that, may I ask you, Master Mitsuru, if you have divined the true nature of the man who pulls my rickshaw?”

Chapter 46
The Mirror of Eternal Shadow

The change of subject was so abrupt that for a moment Mitsuru merely stared at Lady Zophie.

“Adju Lupa told me,” she continued, amused by the shock in Mitsuru’s eyes. “He said Master Mitsuru possesses strange powers as a Traveler, and he is able to see people’s true forms. Perhaps you use your staff for this, no?” Her gaze went to the staff leaning against the armrest of Mitsuru’s brick chair.

“Truth be told, I’ve seen you use your staff on my servant here several times. Each time, you have the most curious look on your face.”

So she’s sharper than she lets on.
Mitsuru returned her smile. “It is as you say. You are quite clever, m’lady.”

Zophie did not seem pleased. “Tell me, what did you see? I’m betting you didn’t see a thing. That is why you look at him so suspiciously. Am I right?”

Mitsuru nodded, wondering where she was going with this.

“Of course you saw nothing—for there is nothing there to see. Though my servant has the shape of a man, he is not a man at all. He is what we call a
shell
—a form without a soul. Though he follows his master’s orders faithfully, he has no will of his own. He feels no emotion, or pain. Yes, he can fall ill, and if you kill him he will die, so he has life. Yet it cannot be said that he lives.”
A pity,
she added under her breath.

“This is the first time I ever heard this word,
shell
, used in this way,” Mitsuru said. “I never heard of this sort of thing in the south.”

“No, of course you did not. Shells are found only in the north.”

“Is it some disease?”

Zophie shook her head vigorously. “No!”

Mitsuru squinted. “Then a drug perhaps, or magic? Or is this the effect of some external device?”

For the first time a look of fear came across Zophie’s expression. “Such frightful things you say!”

“It was only conjecture.”

The emperor’s daughter straightened herself in her seat, fixed her hair, and regained her composure. “When a man gazes into the Mirror of Eternal Shadow, he becomes a shell. There are some who think that the mirror itself sucks his soul away. Others believe that what he sees in the mirror is so fearful as to scare his soul straight out of his body. None, I daresay, know the truth. Still, no matter how strong or how wise a man may be, if he should so much as gaze upon the Mirror of Eternal Shadow, he will never speak again.”

Mitsuru’s mind raced furiously. As far as he could tell, Zophie was telling him the very thing that her father had kept secret. The secret of the Imperial Family, unrecorded in any of the many documents Mitsuru had scoured. Yet this information was coming to him courtesy of Adju Lupa. Somewhere inside Mitsuru’s mind a scale was tipping as questions formed. Did Zophie understand the meaning of what she was telling him? What was Adju Lupa’s game?

“This Mirror of Eternal Shadow—this is the first I’ve heard of such a thing.” Mitsuru shook his head. “It sounds frightful. This is here, in the north?” Mitsuru spoke calmly, as though he was merely making conversation. Zophie on the other hand was as wary and nervous as a hare who has heard the soft footfalls of an approaching predator. Scare her even a little, and she would jump into her hole, never to poke her head out again.
I must tread carefully.

As expected, Zophie slowly looked up, gauging Mitsuru’s expression carefully before continuing. “My father—he did not tell you about the Mirror of Eternal Shadow? It is about as wide as I am tall, silver in color. It is quite beautiful to behold.”

“Nope. I’ve never heard of it.”

“Truly?”

Mitsuru smiled. “Really. It must be a deep, dark secret to make you so fearful.”

Zophie sighed and put a hand to her throat. It was a more theatrical gesture than was called for, but her dismay seemed genuine. “Master Mitsuru, you journey toward the Tower of Destiny, where the Goddess resides, yes?”

“That is my mission as a Traveler.”

“And you need one final gemstone. And this gemstone rests upon the crown of the Imperial Family.”

“Yes, the Crown of the Seal.”

“Ah, you know of this?” Zophie’s long eyelashes swept down, her eyes closing in thought.

“I was told it was a very important crown, that it might not be moved without proper precaution.”

“This is true. Thus my father makes you wait in this way, Master Mitsuru. Tell me, how did my father explain the need for your wait?”

Mitsuru sat up straight and recounted the details of his exchange with the emperor. Just talking about it made rage rise in him. He could feel it churning beneath his skin. He wanted to tell Zophie, right to her pretty face.
I can no longer bear to wait on your father’s whim.
What a relief it would be to admit how, only an hour before, he had stood on the terrace, plotting the destruction of her precious capital.

Yet Mitsuru’s anger was so great he knew he had to keep it inside. Zophie stared at his face, calm and composed. When Mitsuru was done telling her all he knew, he paused, taking a sip of cold tea.

“And this arrangement—doesn’t it strike you as odd?”

“In what way?”

“My father has not told you how important the Crown of the Seal is, or what calamity will visit us should it be moved, has he?”

“He has not,” Mitsuru said, carefully choosing his words. “I did ask, but he told me nothing more than I have related to you just now.”

Zophie suddenly leaned forward, reaching out her hand and placing it upon Mitsuru’s. “Please forgive him. I do not intend to make excuses for my father, but I believe he did not tell you because he did not wish to burden you with problems that are not yours. You see, the conditions surrounding the Crown of the Seal are, for the most part, taboo to speak of. It is…unclean. I’m sure my father felt that these were things unfit for your ears, coming from the real world as an emissary of the gods, as you do.”

“I understand,” Mitsuru replied, his hand resting under hers. “Yet, m’lady, if I’m not totally mistaken, you are now going to tell me these things about the crown?”

Zophie nodded, her eyes never leaving his. Then, with a start, she lifted her hand and stood from the table.

“I thank you deeply,” Mitsuru said, lowering his head. “But I worry. Won’t the emperor be upset?”

Zophie smiled the sort of smile one uses for a close friend who has told a valuable secret. Hurriedly, she picked up the teapot and made a motion to pour him some more tea. This was a service she was apparently unaccustomed to performing, as she spilled tea all over the table. Mitsuru quickly wiped it up with a napkin.

“Adju Lupa told me,” Zophie said, her voice little more than a whisper. “He said that when you are alone sometimes, Master Mitsuru, you look very sad.”

The rotten spy.
In one corner of his mind, Mitsuru cursed the man and his prying eyes.

“I think this must be when you remember the real world you have left behind. When you recalled the faces of your friends, and those you loved. It must make one very lonely to be so far from home.”

Mitsuru did not reply, which Zophie took to be an affirmation. “Lupa said you must want to get to the Tower of Destiny as soon as possible. I think he is right. It is only natural.”

She paused. “Still, still—my father has good reason to make you wait, Master Mitsuru. Adju Lupa suggested that perhaps, with only the explanation my father gave you, you would not understand why. That is why he asked me to speak with you on this matter.”

Everything was on account of the Mirror of Eternal Shadow, she told him. “The thing that the Crown of the Seal holds at bay is the mirror. Only the noble gemstone set upon that crown has the power to resist the mirror’s horrible strength. This gemstone you seek, it is the stone we call the Gem of Darkness.”

The Gem of Darkness. Something inside Mitsuru’s chest stirred.

“This gem was brought from the Dark to Vision. That is why it is able to stop the Mirror of Eternal Shadow.”

Mitsuru couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer. “What exactly is this Mirror of Eternal Shadow? And this ‘Dark’? Is this another world, like the real world or Vision?”

A shadow came over Zophie’s lively features, and she seemed reluctant to speak. “It seems odd for me to be explaining this to you, Master Mitsuru, you being the Traveler, but please bear with me. The real world and Vision exist as a pair of opposites. But Vision exists only because the real world exists. Without the real world’s energies, Vision would cease to be. Between the two stands the Great Barrier of Light. And around them yawns the Abyss of Chaos.”