Brave Story (89 page)

“Of course, he had other motives.”

“Like what?”

The Precept-King turned to Meena. “With that information he carried, the Northern Empire would welcome him with open arms. He would be a most valued citizen there. My dear kitkin, it is as you fear. With powered ships, the North would defeat the South in the blink of an eye. Vision would be unified under one leadership, whether it wished it or not. That would make our fugitive a grand contributor to the new order. He would stand at the top of Vision along with the Imperial Family of the North.”

The light in Meena’s eyes dimmed. “That’s it? That’s what he wants?”

“Indeed. That is why he brought knowledge from the real world here to Vision—to satisfy his own greed. That is why the Goddess is angry.”

Wataru glanced at the Mirror of Truth. Its smooth surface once again reflected the three of them, standing around the robed man.

“Do you really think the fugitive can secure passage to the Northern Empire so easily? I wonder if anyone would really believe him when he told them about the boat.”

“Oh, they would believe,” the Precept-King said, his eyes filling with sorrow. “As I have heard, the empire in the north has been trying for some time now to obtain a Mirror of Truth for themselves. It appears that someone in the Imperial Family knows of its workings. If they could open passage to the real world, they know what power it would place in their hands. There was a time when they tried any number of despicable ways to create a mirror such as the one we have here.”

Wataru looked at Meena. All expression had drained from her little face. Her thoughts were racing backward through time.

When Sigdora—the special unit of the Northern Imperial Army—attacked Meena’s home, they had been after her family’s Mirror of Truth. Her parents were merely casualties. That was why they were after fugitives to the south as well. It was all for the mirrors.

The Precept-King furrowed his brow as he gazed at the mirror beside them. “Do you know what the Mirror of Truth is?” he suddenly asked Wataru.

“I’m not sure what you mean. It opens a corridor between this world and the real world, right?”

“Yes, this is one of its vital functions. But that is not why the mirror exists in the first place.”

The mirror presides, as its name might suggest, over truth in Vision, the Precept-King explained. “It is composed of the very elements that make Vision what it is—the seeds of the world. A gathering of parts that create the world—perhaps this is the best way to describe it,” he said, running his finger along the edge of the mirror.

The seeds of the world?
Wataru shook his head.

“It is not surprising that you do not understand. You are still a child, after all,” The Precept-King said with an ironic smile. “Vision is but a void, yet it has form. It is here, yet it is not. It exists, yet it may not exist.”

Oh, that clears it up.
Wataru began to feel like he was listening to a lecture at school.

“You do not know the story of Vision’s creation, do you?”

Wataru frowned. “Actually, I do. Vision is created by the imaginations of people living in the real world.”

“Yes…I suppose one might say that.”

“Isn’t that right?”

“Vision exists in the space between two mirrors. These two mirrors are the seeds of our world.”

Meena, finally recovered from her shock, blinked slowly and looked up.

“One of these mirrors, of course, is the Mirror of Truth. The other is called the Mirror of Eternal Shadow.”

“The Mirror of Eternal Shadow?”

“If the Mirror of Truth is the accumulation of all that is good, then the opposing mirror, is, perhaps, the accumulation of all that is evil. I say perhaps, because I have not seen it for myself. But, the Mirror of Eternal Shadow does exist. Of this you can be certain.”

Kee Keema glanced at Wataru and then back at the Precept-King. He was having a hard time following their conversation.

“The Mirror of Truth—the accumulation of truth that determines the very form of Vision—was broken into countless fragments and spread throughout our world. Every time a Traveler comes, these mirrors guide their path. So then, where is the Mirror of Eternal Shadow?” the Precept-King asked before answering his own question. “Certainly, without a doubt, it is in the north. Thus are North and South opposed.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Meena said, raising her voice. “My mirror came from my parents, and they’re from the north, originally. That would mean there are fragments of the Mirror of Truth on both continents. It would make more sense if the Mirror of Eternal Shadow were also broken up into many fragments and scattered everywhere too.”

Wataru’s eyes widened. He had never heard Meena talk in this way. She seemed older, somehow.

The Precept-King smiled at her like a pastor about to deliver knowledge to an ignorant believer. “Yes, truth has been broken into many fragments, too numerous to count, and spread among many people, but Eternal Shadow—which is evil—this exists in one place. Can you not see that this is Vision as she stands today?”

Kee Keema shook his head, not following the train of discussion. His face looked even more pale than before.

“That is why Vision knows happiness still,” the Precept-King said mysteriously. “Yet the question is, is this a good thing? Is it good for evil to be so bound in one place? I do not know the answer.”

Kee Keema’s head jerked up. His voice was loud, despite the fact that his lips didn’t want to move in the cold. “You don’t mean that everything that’s going on in the North—all the prejudice and the killing—is because that other mirror is up there?”

The Precept-King slowly turned his back to Wataru. “I do not know. Yet it is certain that the Mirror of Eternal Shadow is in the north. And I would think that the Northern Empire considers it quite a burden. That is why the emperor will stoop to any means to obtain our mirror here, for only a whole mirror can hope to contain the threat that is Eternal Shadow. Or perhaps he merely wishes to use our mirror to obtain knowledge from the real world. It is hard to say…”

Wataru stood, his mouth closed. He hadn’t said anything in a while, and now it felt like his lips were sealed together. The cold seemed to seep into every fiber of his being.

“Didn’t the Goddess tell you anything about it?”

The Precept-King shook his head. “It is not knowledge I would be privileged to know in the first place. Not I, a weak Traveler who ended his journey halfway toward completion.

“In any case, you see the situation at hand. Should the fugitive cross to the north, things would progress rapidly. This fugitive came to Vision when the Porta Nectere opened ten years before. He is a Traveler. His knowledge of affairs in the real world was much more current than mine. It is possible that he had begun to plan all of this—his betrayal—from the very moment he abandoned his journey.”

Meena put her hands to her mouth and knelt on the floor. Kee Keema, looking concerned, patted her on the back. It was a noble gesture—by all accounts, he was the one out of all of them who was suffering the most.

“Please,” the Precept-King said, his hands brushing Wataru’s arm. It was almost as if he wanted to grab on tight and plead but lacked the strength to do so. The freezing cold and hunger had mixed with despair, robbing him of his strength and willpower. “Please, you must stop the fugitive before he crosses to the north. Save our souls.”

It was the first time anyone older than Wataru had pleaded with him like this, and he found the experience oddly frightening.

“Since the fugitive left, I have called out to Travelers through this mirror. I know that the Porta Nectere is open now, and new Travelers have come to Vision. How many times I wished my cries would reach them.”

“When you called me, I remember you saying something about me being a boy too…” Wataru began. “Does that mean that another Traveler answered your call, before I did? A boy?”

The Precept-King nodded quietly.

“Was his name Mitsuru? He’s not a warrior in training like I am—he’s a great sorcerer.”

“Ah,” the Precept-King said, his eyes opening wide. “You know him?”

“Yes. He’s my friend.”

“Your…friend? This is a surprise.”

Mitsuru had answered the call, the Precept-King explained, and only a few hours after had used a great wind magic to come to Dela Rubesi.

“Yes…he’s much more powerful than I am,” Wataru admitted.

“Perhaps, but he did not listen to my request. He said he had come to Vision to meet with the Goddess, and as such had no interest in the affairs of Vision, or the enmity between the North and the South. It did not concern him.”

Wataru had to admit that sounded a lot like the Mitsuru he knew. It made sense when he thought of his objective as a Traveler. For some reason, Wataru felt embarrassed on Mitsuru’s behalf. Half of him wanted to defend Mitsuru’s actions, and the other half was irritated with his selfishness.

“He told me then that there was another Traveler come to Vision. He said this other Traveler was too kind for his own good. From the way he spoke, I did not imagine that you two might be friends.”

Wataru’s face grew red with embarrassment.

“Sounds like Mitsuru wanted to sidetrack you so he could get to the Tower of Destiny before you, doesn’t it,” Kee Keema said, snorting. His anger and his tongue, numb with cold, made him sound like a belligerent drunk.

“I don’t think he’d do that.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure!”

“Anyway, now we know what’s going on. Let’s get out of here quickly and go to the port in Sono.”

“Right. If we leave him waiting much longer, even Jozo will freeze,” Meena said, springing to her feet.
She’s a real fighter,
Wataru thought, impressed.

“We’re leaving now. Here, take my hand. Can you walk?” Wataru stretched out his hand, but the Precept-King pushed it away. “What’s wrong?”

“I cannot leave. Did I not tell you?”

“But you asked me to come here and help you!”

“I asked you to save our souls. I do not hope to escape death.”

Holding onto the chair for support, the frail man leaned over and picked up the hammer from his seat. He was unable to lift it, and so it hung down by his knees. “We allowed the fugitive to escape, and, through the breaking of our oath, won the Goddess’s wrath. That is why we must be punished. My companions have already died. As their leader, it would not do for me to live any longer. The Goddess would never allow it.”

“That’s no fair!”

The Precept-King shook his head. “Capture the fugitive, undo his plans, and our sin may yet be forgiven. Only then will our souls be purified, and ourselves reborn into the next world. Fail, and not only my soul, but those of all my companions, will be laden with sin, fated to wander the Eternal Vale for all time. That is why you must go. Now.”

This wasn’t the deal!
“Don’t you want to live? You’re still young. How can you just give up on yourself like this?” Wataru asked, the words coming out of his mouth in a flood. The Precept-King whirled around with far more speed than Wataru would have thought possible. His face was twisted. “Give up on myself? Me?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

The Precept-King chuckled. “I’m not giving up on anything. No, I want to protect myself. As, I’m sure, did my fallen companions. I do not wish to go to the underworld. Nor would I go to Vision or the real world. Our paradise was here and here alone.”

The Precept-King spread his arms, pointing around them, spinning as he looked up at the ceiling in a strange dance. “If I am to lose this, what need have I of life? It is far more desirable that I be reborn, a purer soul, to search for paradise again in the next life.”

Shivering, Meena stepped over to Wataru.

“In the real world…” the Precept-King took his hand holding the hammer and pressed it to his chest. “In the real world, nothing ever happened as I wished it. All my efforts came to nothing, all my dreams were crushed. No one understood me, and no place accepted me. My life did not love me, there can be no doubt of that. It gave me nothing. That is why I left it and came to Vision.”

The Precept-King’s feet stomped on the stone floor. “Yet even here, in Vision, my dreams were not fulfilled. Reach the Tower of Destiny?—I could not even make it from one town to the next! Here, as in the real world, nothing went as I hoped. That is why I abandoned my journey. I chose instead to align myself with the Goddess. From that moment on, I lived here.”

He chose to live here? This barren city of the gods? This beautiful, empty temple?

“The Goddess knew us for who we were. This city is concealed beneath the hem of her robes. We were the chosen ones, living above the clouds, given the high calling of defending her mirror. At last, we’d found the world in which we wished to live. We had no dealings with the lowlands, with their filth and corruption. Dela Rubesi was our paradise.”

Yet one among them didn’t understand that—he couldn’t give up the mean greed that ruled in the lowlands, and so he betrayed the oath.

The Precept-King put a bony fist to his forehead. “We lived like gods here. From this place, we looked down on the lands of Vision. We lived our days in solitude and grace. This is what I truly desired, you see. That is why they called me the Precept-King—I held in my heart a purer essence, a belief that separated me from the ignorant world’s inability to understand. Do you see?”