Brave Story (112 page)

But those words could merely have been wishful thinking—a pep talk to keep him from descending into total despair.

Wataru looked up at the night sky. A thin, translucent cloud passed like a net across the crescent moon.

And there was the Blood Star, still shining red. It hadn’t disappeared. That meant Halnera wasn’t yet finished. The sacrifice hadn’t been chosen.

What is she waiting for? Why prolong the cruelty?

“Who’s there?” Meena suddenly said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

Wataru and Kee Keema both whirled around, their weapons at the ready. A thin, twisted tree grew not ten paces behind them. The edge of a white dress peeked out from behind its trunk, fluttering in the cold night air.

“It’s her,” Wataru said, lowering Kee Keema’s axe with one hand, and calling out. “What are you doing here?”

The girl fearfully looked out from behind her hiding place, her hands pressed to her mouth. Wataru ran over to her. “Why did you leave the forest?”

“You go to the capital, no?”

The girl was shivering terribly. Her dress was too thin to protect her from the cold. Her teeth were chattering. “Please, take me with you. There might be someone left—someone from the palace.”

Wataru hesitated a moment, then took off his jacket and gave it to her. He would have put it on her himself, but she was taller by a head.

“We were just going as far as the city walls. If it doesn’t look like we can go inside, we’ll have to stop there.”

“That is good enough.” Still trembling, the girl drew Wataru’s jacket over her shoulders.

Though it had been the gentlemanly thing to do, Wataru was now feeling cold wearing just a shirt in the chilly air. “Didn’t you hear what everyone was saying back in the forest? The Crystal Palace is gone. They say it was sucked into the Mirror of Eternal Shadow. I don’t imagine anyone in the castle survived.”

The girl’s cheeks were pale with cold and fear. But when Wataru turned to rejoin Kee Keema and Meena, she followed him.

Now they were four. Meena walked in the rear, staring at the girl in the white dress. “Are you from the castle?” she asked as they walked.

The girl hunched her shoulders and didn’t answer.

“That’s a nice dress you’re wearing. Nobility, are you?”

The girl still said nothing. Perhaps she could hear the barely concealed thorns in Meena’s question.

“Well, you must be of high birth, at least. Tell me: when the capital was being torn to pieces, where was the emperor’s army? Where are they now? Aren’t they even going to try to help their own people?”

Before Wataru could say anything, Kee Keema cut in. “When those golem monsters were tearing the city apart, I saw several groups of Knights come down from the castle. They didn’t stand a chance against those things. They were crushed. If any of the troops were left behind in the castle, well, I suppose when the mirror came out…”

Meena was bristling. “Then what about the rest of the army? And what about Sigdora—those special forces? Where were they? What are they doing? You know, don’t you?”

From what he had seen in the mirror hall, Wataru could guess who the girl in the white dress truly was. She was none other than the daughter of Emperor Gama Agrilius VII. She was a princess.

And she looked exactly like Mitsuru’s aunt back in the real world.

As Wataru had met people that were the spitting image of his father and Rikako, so had Mitsuru met ghosts from the real world too. Wataru still didn’t understand the meaning of what Mitsuru had said to her just before he left for the tower.
What did he mean, the tilted scales of fortune?
And that cheating man and woman he had met in the Swamp of Grief were doing the same thing as his father and Rikako were, and justifying it with the same twisted logic. Yet he had never thought of any of them as being particularly fortunate or unfortunate.
Who had Mitsuru met in his Vision,
Wataru wondered.
What did they remind him of? What did they make him think about?

“Sigdora isn’t an army,” the princess said in a voice barely more than a whisper. “There’s nothing they could do at a time like…”

“They’re useless, then?” Meena said quickly, cutting her off. She turned up her nose in disdain.

The emperor’s daughter stayed as much in Kee Keema’s shadow as she could. Her lips trembled and her body seemed to shrink. “I fear that the palace guards are all gone, if what you say is true. The Imperial Army’s elites, led by General Adja, were sadly missing from Solebria at the time the seal was broken. They may be rushing toward the city even now. If they have encountered the demonkin along the way, I expect they are already in battle somewhere out there on the road.”

“So you mean to tell me they’re out there fighting for the people?” Meena said, pursing her lips with distaste. “Even though Solebria is destroyed? Even though the emperor is gone? Who will take charge of the North? Who will lead the armies now?”

If blood lineage had anything to do with it, the responsibility for the army would fall to Lady Zophie herself. Perhaps that was why she was so desperate to locate Crystal Palace survivors.

“Give it a rest, Meena,” Kee Keema gently scolded. “I know how you feel, but now’s not the time.”

“Give what a rest? I’m just asking her some questions.”

“So give the questions a rest, all right? Talk too loud and you’ll bring the demonkin down on us.”

The remains of the city walls stood before them. The location of the gates were further to the east of where they were now, but they would be easy to find if they decided to follow the main road. Still, none of them savored the idea of walking out on a road or any other open place.

“Maybe we could climb over? Nah…let’s just walk around until we find a place with easy access.”

This time Wataru took the lead, with Kee Keema bringing up the rear. Lady Zophie cowered behind Wataru’s shoulder, walking as close to him as she could without actually bumping into him. Wataru could feel Meena’s eyes burning into the small of his back.

“You remember that old couple that prayed for Kutz back there?” Meena said suddenly. Kee Keema and Wataru were busy searching through the wreckage and listening for any sign of people. It seemed that Meena had entirely forgotten their purpose for coming here. Her face was frozen in a scowl, her eyes glaring at the girl’s slender back. “They said that about ten years ago their children left for the south, taking their grandchildren with them. They were looking for a way to escape. That’s why they said those prayers to the Goddess. It didn’t make sense for believers in the Old God to be asking the Goddess for forgiveness.

“Just like my family,” she added in a small voice. “For the people living in the Northern Empire life was hard, even for those who were lucky enough to be in the rich capital. The only people living any kind of good life were the royal family and those surrounding them. Everyone else struggled to make it through every day. And now that the seal on the mirror has been broken, not only the North but all of Vision is in danger. What good did the emperor ever do? None! I bet even now he’s run off somewhere, worried more about saving his own hide than helping his country.”

This was more than Zophie could stand. She whirled around to face Meena. “My father is dead!”

“Father?” Kee Keema’s eyes opened wide. “Then you’re…”

“Zophie, the daughter of Gama Agrilius VII,” she said, standing tall and looking straight into their eyes. “I am the successor to the throne. Now that my father is gone, it falls to me to defend the country and move our armies.”

Meena stood dumbfounded. But she quickly recovered, a belligerent gleam in her eyes. “Then what in the Goddess’s name are you doing here?! Shouldn’t you be off somewhere leading?”

Wataru stepped between the two. “Stop this.”

“Stop what?!”

“It’s not like you, Meena, to talk this way.”

The fire went out of Meena’s eyes as though doused with water.

“She might be the empress-in-waiting,” said Kee Keema, “but how is she supposed to do anything all alone like this, huh?” Meena turned her back to him, whipping her tail around so fast it slapped into Wataru’s side.

Kee Keema looked up at the wavy top of the wall. “How far do we plan to walk tonight? I still think it’s too dangerous to go inside.”

“It would be nice if we could climb up somewhere—get a view of the city.”

“We won’t be getting up the wall here. Too high. There must be a place where it’s fallen down a bit.”

They began walking along the wall again. After a while, they heard a faint noise, like a person weeping. They all stopped and perked up their ears. After a moment they realized it was only the whistling of the wind.

“Still, that’s an odd sound. I wonder what it’s blowing through. Maybe something up there?” Kee Keema pointed up ahead to a place where rubble had spilled out through the city wall. Burned beams jutted out of the wreckage like leftover fish bones after a meal. “Maybe we can climb up on those?” Kee Keema walked over and tested one with his foot, but it crumbled almost immediately. Though it looked solid, it was like trying to climb a hill of sand.

“That’s funny…” If these were the remains of a house or some building, they should be a bit more solid, Wataru thought.
And what’s with all the sand and rock?

Then it hit him.
It’s a golem.
This mountain of rubble was the remains of a giant golem.

Mitsuru’s words rose fresh in his mind. Each golem required materials: sand, rock, and a person. The stone giants that wreaked havoc in the city were themselves more sacrifices to Mitsuru’s cause.

“Wataru,” Meena said, grabbing his sleeve. “Do you see something glimmering in there?”

Wataru looked in the direction she was pointing, and there, in between the lumps of sand and earth, he could see a tiny shining light.

Could it be? But how…

Still uncertain, Wataru put a hand on the hilt of his sword. The light flared brighter, shining on his face.

There was no mistaking it. Wataru calmly drew his Brave’s Sword and held it up before his eyes.

The spirit in the gemstone spoke to him.

—Alone I waited a long time in my prison for you to come, Traveler.

A pure curtain of light began to spread before Wataru’s eyes. The curtain opened, and the figure of a tall man stepped through, wearing long-sleeved robes of platinum, and a veil of the same color over his hair.

The fourth gemstone.
Even now, when all seemed lost, and Wataru himself was nearing the depths of despair, the gemstones still hadn’t given up hope on him.

—I am the one who honors what is true in people, the spirit of mutual grace and friendship. Though many of flesh and blood lived here in this northern land, they had long forgotten to honor life. They had long forgotten the true path. I was buried in the frozen earth, embraced by stone, and made to sleep.

Wataru knelt on one knee before the spirit and lifted his eyes.

—Do not waste your life in vain, or take life in vain. Where there is faith, there is also kindness and forgiveness, and where there is forgiveness, there will you find true balance—the most coveted prize of all. It is easy to stray, misled by one’s own greed, or by easy pleasure. Men are weak, and many step off the path never knowing it. It is nothing but a gentle lie to say that most will find heaven when they die. Traveler, by your faith, forgive those who stand in your way. Yet, if they should seek to betray truth, then wield justice to bring their journey to its rightful end.

The fourth gemstone came down, like an angel descending from on high, and found its place in the hilt of Wataru’s sword. The Brave’s Sword glimmered once, sending a wave of energy coursing through Wataru’s body.

“D-did you see that, Wataru?!” Kee Keema gasped, then quickly knelt on the ground and bowed his head low. “It’s a sign, a sign from the gemstones!”

Then he leaped to his feet, picking up Wataru in his arms and lifting him high over his head. “Did you see it? Did you see it? The Goddess is still waiting for you! Your journey isn’t over yet, not by a long shot!”

Wataru’s eyes swirled with the sudden motion.
How can he have so much strength after today?
“Okay, okay! I saw it, Kee Keema! I saw it! Now let me down!”

Kee Keema didn’t cry when he heard about the death of Kutz. But now tears streamed down his face.

“You’re a Traveler too?” Lady Zophie said, almost staggering in surprise.

“Yes. Mitsuru and I—we come from the same place in the real world. We were friends.”

“Then you, too, will follow Mitsuru to the Tower of Destiny?”

Wataru’s momentary elation quickly cooled. He still lacked the final gemstone. His Brave’s Sword was not yet complete. Mitsuru had already found his—the Gem of Darkness—in the mirror room of the Crystal Palace. If his was there, then where could Wataru’s be hiding? Did he even have enough time left to find it?

The wind whistled through the wreckage once again.

Meena’s ears shot up. “What’s that sound?

Fweeew…

“That’s not the wind! That’s something calling…”