Brave Story (14 page)

Somebody was pressing gingerly against the padlocked tarp
from the inside
. He saw a hand. Wataru’s mouth dropped open.
It’s moving
. The hand was oddly pale, not a woman’s hand. It was too wrinkled and dry. It looked like the hand of his grandfather—the one who lived in Odawara.

Slowly, the hand lifted up the sheet, widening the gap between it and its neighbor. Someone was peeking through at Wataru.

“Whoa!” Wataru’s delayed astonishment leapt from his mouth in the form of a shout. The hand withdrew, and the tarp fell shut. The padlock rattled.

Somebody’s in there!

Wataru crouched and grabbed the bottom of the sheet. It was a lot heavier than it looked, but by using both hands he was able to lift it about a foot off of the ground. He crawled under, into the building, slithering so hastily that his face touched the ground and came up smeared with muck, but he paid it no mind. He was inside.

Wataru got up on his knees, only now realizing how dark the place was. The only light came from thin beams from the streetlights sneaking in through spaces between the tarps. He could see the concrete foundation, rising steel struts, a staircase leading upward to his right—all transformed into blacker lumps of darkness in the dim light.

Wataru heard a noise off to his right. He whirled around. Above him, the staircase twisted up, turning on a landing between the first and second floors, another between the second and third floors, another between the third and fourth floors…and there the stairs ended. It looked like they had built the third landing and then just stopped. Wataru squinted in the darkness.

Someone was climbing the stairs.

Chapter 6
The Door

Wataru’s mouth gaped.
For a moment he could do nothing but stand there, blinking in disbelief.

The figure stood on the landing between the third and fourth floors, so close to the edge that one step farther would have sent it tumbling down. Its black silhouette was thin and tall, and…

That’s a hood!

It wore a long-hemmed robe and a hood covering its head. Its left hand lay on the landing banister. In its right hand was a staff, at least six feet long, with a round tip that sparkled and shone.

A wizard.

There were always two wizards in the
Eldritch Stone Saga
series—one on the player’s side and another on the enemy’s side. In
Saga I
the ally wizard was a difficult and grumpy old man. But at the same time, he was a magus of much power who had once been the master of the enemy wizard.

In contrast, the ally wizard in
Saga II
was a beautiful young woman, the doppelgänger of the enemy wizard. The two rivals remained eternally young because of a particularly devastating spell: twisting the aging process to suit her own purpose, the evil wizard had released a horrible plague on the innocent citizens of the Kingdom of Toma. The beautiful ally wizard joined the hero of the story in an effort to stop the plague, despite knowing that victory would cause her to immediately start aging—turning her into an old hag.

According to the literature,
Saga III
’s wizard was once again an old man. Afflicted by an ancient curse, he asked to join the hero’s party so that he might find a cure for it. In the preview screenshots and artwork he looked much kinder than the wizard in
Saga I
, less like dark magus and more like Santa Claus.

Though each of the wizards was very different, they always had two things in common: a long, hooded robe and a staff in one hand. This held true no matter what else they wore. For example, the beautiful wizard in
Saga II
wore a miniskirt so short you’d expect her underwear to show, but her longhooded robe was so long that it dragged on the ground. It was like a mandatory uniform.

And now, in the gloomy interior of a haunted building, standing on the landing of a half-wrought staircase that hung in midair, was someone dressed just like a wizard. What else could it be? The only problem, of course, was that wizards didn’t really exist.

“Uh…hey!” Wataru blurted. “Hey, you!”

The figure on the landing seemed to turn. The angle of its staff changed a little.

“What are you doing up there?”

Silence fell. Wataru could feel the hooded figure’s gaze upon him in the darkness. “Um, er…” He took a half-step forward. “I don’t think it’s very safe up there.”

No answer. The figure didn’t move. An ominous feeling crept over Wataru, enveloping him like steam. What if it weren’t a wizard after all, but someone who was a little wrong in the head—someone a little strange? Maybe he had just wandered in here?
Maybe I’m standing in a dark, abandoned building with a madman, and I’ve just announced my presence for all to hear.
Or maybe it was just some nice old person from the neighborhood who enjoyed dressing up like a wizard.

The figure in the hood took a step forward. Wataru broke out in a cold sweat.
An old man who likes to dress up like a wizard. Right, Wataru. Good thinking.

Wataru crouched and scrabbled at the plastic sheet to pull it back up, fumbling in his haste, when a man’s voice thundered in the air above him.

“Fear not, lad!”

Wataru froze. For several seconds, he couldn’t move a muscle. Then, slowly, fearfully he looked back up. The hooded figure remained where he had been before. The staff moved, the sphere at its tip shining in the reflected light of the streetlights that peeked in between the tarps. The voice spoke again, this time in a much gentler tone. “Where did you come from?”

It was asking him a question. The heavy tarp still clutched in both hands, Wataru’s mouth flapped open. Nothing came out but silence.

He’s speaking to me in Japanese!

“What’s your name?” the voice asked. It was definitely an old man’s voice, with a hint of gruffness, making it sound like his grandfather in Odawara, the one who smoked.

“Well? Have you no answer?”

The figure above him took another half-step. Wataru’s teeth began to clatter. “Um…um…um…”

“Ah, so your name is ‘Um,’ is it, lad?”

No, no!
Wataru shook his head, but his voice was trapped somewhere deep in his throat.

“Tell me, Um, just what is it that you are doing here?”

Wataru slowly raised his eyes to see the hooded figure leaning against the handrail of the third-floor landing. He was looking down at him, his staff held over one shoulder.

Oddly enough, he seemed somehow…friendly.

“Perhaps you heard of this place from your friends?” the figure continued, tapping his staff upon his right shoulder as he spoke. “It seems there’s been a lot of talk about this place of late.”

His words slowly percolated through Wataru’s confused and agitated mind.
Friends. Heard about it from friends. There’s been talk.

“Umm…” Wataru stuttered. The figure cut him off, laughing.

“This isn’t the audience chamber of King Midas, young Um, you need not announce your name each time you speak!”

“Umm…that’s not what I meant to say.” Just finally being able to speak one coherent word did the trick. The curse was lifted. “My name isn’t Um, it’s Wataru.”

“Wataru?” The figure seemed to be cocking his head. His hood slid to one side. “Is that so? Hrm…similar.”

Huh?
Wataru thought. “Similar to who?”

“No one,” the hooded figure immediately replied, “at least, no friend of yours.”

The figure shifted the staff to his other shoulder and leaned even more deeply onto the banister. He seemed completely at ease. It wouldn’t have surprised Wataru in the least to see him pull out a pipe from his breast pocket and take a leisurely puff.

“And so, Wataru, just why are you here?”

“Well, weren’t you…did you look out from behind this tarp just now?”

“Indeed, I did.”

“Well, I saw your hand from outside, so I came in to find out who it was.”

“I see,” the figure said casually. “And why were you here?”

“Like I said, I saw your hand, and…”

A hand slid from the robe’s sleeve. The figure raised one finger, and waved it back and forth in an admonishing gesture. “Wataru, that is not what I asked. Now listen carefully. Why were you here?”

Wataru wasn’t sure how to respond. “I told you…”

“Perhaps you just happened to be taking a walk by this building? Rather late for someone your age to be out, don’t you think?”

Wataru finally understood. “I came here because…I wanted to meet someone.”

“You wanted to
meet
someone,” the hooded figure repeated in a sing-song voice. “And just where might this someone be?”

It was a hard question to answer, even under normal circumstances, which these were certainly not. How could he begin to explain someone like Kaori Daimatsu?

“Not here, it looks like.”

“Not here, you say!”

“No. But we’ve met here before, so I…”

“Met
here
, before?”

“I know it sounds strange, but I really…”

The hooded figure cut him off again. “And just what kind of person might this someone be?”

“A…a girl. She’s a girl.”

“A girl, indeed!” the hooded figure sang again, suddenly straightening his back and planting his staff on the landing with a clang, making Wataru start. “It’s time for me to be off.”

“Uh…wait, I…”

“You seem to be in error, incidentally.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

“You should not have come here.”

“But…”

“Nor should you have met me. In fact, you didn’t.”

“Huh? But we’re talking…”

“Never mind that, I’ll roll back time for you. You were not here. You don’t remember anything.”

“Hey, w-wait!”

But the hooded figure refused to wait, or heed his pleas. Staff held in one hand, he raised his free hand to the sky. Once again, his thunderous voice filled the space inside the building.

“Chronos, great God of Time! Your faithful servant, emissary of wind, cloud and rainbow, stands in supplication!”

He’s casting a spell!
Wataru was riveted in place.

“By your will, let time be stopped, be turned back, be purified by the bubbling waters of the Fountain of Forgetfulness!”

The wizard jabbed his staff toward the heavens. “
Dan dalam ekono kros!
Hie!”

For a moment, Wataru’s sight was filled with countless silver specks of light, so bright he was forced to blink and then…

“Huh?” He was sitting on the ground, just inside the haunted building’s tarps. He scrambled to his feet and looked up, but the third-floor landing was empty. No wizards, no old men playing dress-up.

What was all that?

He blinked.

All that? Wait…I remember everything!

The old man had promised to turn back time, to erase his memories of the encounter, but he remembered it all, down to the last detail. Dizzy, Wataru held one hand up to his forehead.
I must have a fever. Or I was dreaming.
Maybe I should pinch my cheek. Here I go. Ouch! Yep, that hurt.

Wataru lifted the edge of the tarp and went back outside. He looked at his watch in the glow of the streetlights. It must be late. His mother would be furious. What would he tell…

His breath stopped. He looked at the digital display on his watch again and blinked.

08:19:32

No way.
Even if it had been a dream, some kind of strange momentary hallucination, just going under that tarp and coming back out would have taken at least thirty seconds, if not a minute.

No time had passed.

I’ll just roll back time for you
, the man had said. It was like magic. Wataru tried his best to recall the spell.
Something about Chronos, the great god of time? And his emissary…what was it? Something about wind and stuff. Rainbows, maybe. And something like “
ramu
” and “
ekono
” at the end…I should have paid more attention!

It hadn’t been a dream, or a hallucination. He hadn’t seen an old man who likes dressing up in funny costumes. He had seen an honest-to-goodness, genuine wizard.

What the heck is a
wizard
doing in an abandoned building in a Tokyo suburb?

Wataru jumped up and dove under the sheet once again. His eyes had adjusted to the glare of the streetlights, making the darkness inside the haunted building seem much thicker than before. Nonetheless, it was clear that there was nobody present except Wataru—not on the landing, not behind the steel beams, not under the stairs.

“Well, that sounds kinda interesting, I guess, but it’s a bit of a departure for the series, don’t you think?” Katchan shifted his yellow umbrella from his right shoulder to his left. A light rain was falling.

“Departure?” asked Wataru.