Brave Story (75 page)

The starseers were of many ages and races, but all of them wore coats with tubed sleeves like Shin Suxin’s, making them easy to spot. There appeared to be different ranks among them, as well, each with its own costume. By far the most elaborate of the garments Wataru saw among the starseers was worn by an ankha woman about his mother’s age. She had on a rich purple coat with golden embroidery on the sleeves and hem. Her odd, conical hat was adorned with the same five-star pattern as that on the hilt of the Brave’s Sword.

They had been traveling along the mountain road through mixed forest for half a day when they saw it.

“Look, there!” Kee Keema leaned forward in his seat, pointing ahead of them. “See that rounded roof? That’s the National Observatory!”

It was already evening. The dome sparkled majestically against a pinktinged sky. It looked exactly like a planetarium from Wataru’s world. There was a half-transparent dome, with a large window cut out from it—probably, for some sort of telescope. Judging from the size, it must have been ten or twenty times larger than the one he had used in Shin Suxin’s house.

They finally left the forest and arrived at a place where they could see the National Observatory and all the town spread around it. The town looked as though it had been carved from the side of the mountain. A brick wall surrounded the whole of it. More than half the buildings were fashioned of the same indigenous material. Everything looked old. Some of the houses had broken windows and crumbling bricks. It was clear where the focus in the town lay: most of their money had gone to building the majestic observatory.

“The starseers come here to study and live. All of the buildings on the outside of town are their apartments.”

Men and women in those same tube-sleeved shirts were walking around everywhere. A darbaba cart, burdened with a mound of packages, was stopped by the town gate, and one of the gatemen was helping the driver unload his goods—all heavy-looking wooden crates. “Most likely books,” Kee Keema ventured. “Starseers spend the nights taking observations, so they tend to sleep during the day. That’s why the apartments in town are made with more floors beneath the ground than above it.”

Indeed, the buildings along the inside of the town wall were barely taller than the wall itself—only a single story high. Surprisingly enough, many of the roofs and the top of the wall were crowded with Highlanders on patrol. Wataru could see the bright crimson of their firewyrm bands clearly from the road.

“I wonder what they’re up to?” Meena wondered out loud. “Has there been trouble here?”

After the darbaba cart had been driven away, Wataru and the others approached the small guardhouse by the gate. The doors to the gate were made of thick iron bars, with a sturdy-looking bar drawn across them. The gateman was a beastkin with long, pointy ears.

“Oh? Highlanders, are you? Here to relieve some of the watch, perhaps?”

The gateman wore a breastplate of boiled leather, and a short sword hung from his waist. When he spoke it was with the crisp, no-nonsense tone of a soldier.

“Actually, we’ve come to speak with Dr. Baksan at the observatory. We were sent by the starseer, Shin Suxin.”

Wataru felt guilty using Shin Suxin’s name like that, but he didn’t see any other way of getting in to meet with the—no doubt very busy—Dr. Baksan.

“Ah, right. I’ll write you up a writ of passage. One moment.”

One of the Highlanders was watching them from atop the wall. She was of a race Wataru hadn’t seen before. Shape-wise she looked exactly like an ankha, except her skin was a shade of vibrant green that reminded him of new leaves in the spring. In her right hand was a bow, and on her back was slung a quiver full of arrows. She wore simple leather pads on her chest and shoulders, but her arms and legs were otherwise bare. She didn’t seem to have a hair on her body, and her head was gleaming and smooth. Wataru thought she was beautiful.

Their eyes met, and she began walking slowly toward the gate. She smiled, revealing pure white teeth. “Where you from?”

“Gasara.”

“You’ve come a long way then!”

“They’re here to see Dr. Baksan,” the gateman explained. “Here, your writ.”

The writ was a piece of paper about the size of a postcard. A map had been drawn on the back.

“Dr. Baksan’s study is on the top floor of the observatory.”

“Thanks.”

“You might have an easy time talking to Dr. Baksan, little one,” the woman said, chuckling.

“Huh? Why is that?”

“Go see him and you’ll understand.”

“I was wondering,” Meena said suddenly, “why all the security?”

“Can’t you see?” the green-skinned Highlander said, pointing down the road behind them. A large crowd of people had gathered. Behind them, they saw more people streaming out of the forest.

“It’s been like this ever since the messengers came. They all want to know who will be chosen as a sacrifice, and how to avoid being chosen. They think the starseers will tell them something. As if we knew something they didn’t.”

“We don’t like them loitering outside the walls, so we’ve told them to keep their distance,” the gateman said. “Go around to the back, you’ll see their campgrounds. It wouldn’t be a problem if they kept to themselves, but some of them get a little hot under the collar, demanding to be let into the observatory and meet with a high starseer. We’ve had some vandalism too. Thus the security.”

“I’m afraid their kind will only increase as the Blood Star waxes in the sky,” the green-skinned highlander said, looking down at the crowd. “This place, along with all government buildings, has been designated for level one security until Halnera ends. So they sent us out here…”

The woman stopped right in the middle of her sentence and burst into motion, swift as a gazelle, running down the top of the wall.

“Look!” Meena pointed.

A terribly emaciated man was climbing the wall, his hands clinging to the cracks between the bricks. The green-skinned Highlander ran until she was in firing range, then she stopped and lifted her bow. “You there! Stop! Off the wall! Comply or I’ll shoot!”

Another Highlander on patrol came running from the opposite side. He was carrying a spear. Meekly, the man jumped down from the wall and stepped back.

No wonder you need security,” Kee Keema grumbled.

“I just want to get inside!” the skinny man shouted up at the Highlanders. “I don’t mean anyone any harm.”

“No one without permission may enter the observatory.”

“So where do I get permission then?”

“This is a government facility. The public isn’t allowed inside.”

“That’s not fair!” the man said, scowling. “I see how it works. You government folks are sitting pretty up there. What do you care about us? You won’t get chosen for the sacrifice. Put yourself in our shoes! This is life and death for us down here. You can’t blame me for wanting to talk to the starseers and find out how I can avoid getting chosen, can you?”

A small crowd had gathered around the man, murmuring their approval.

“Even the high starseers cannot know the Goddess’s intent before it is made plain to all of us. Go home. Pray and wait,” one of the Highlanders called down to them.

“Go home and wait to die, you mean.”

“You’d best enter while the getting is good,” the gateman whispered to Wataru, unlocking the gate. “I need to close this up quick.”

The three went through, and the gate swung closed behind them with a clang. The crowd heard the sound and pressed closer. Pushing aside the gateman, they clung to the iron bars and stuck their faces through.

“Let us in too!”

“Why do they get special treatment? It’s not fair!”

Wedged between the iron bars, the faces of the crowd looked even sadder, more helpless, more pitiful. Wataru wondered how he looked from the other side. The whole situation was depressing.

“Let’s hurry up and get to this Baksan fellow’s place,” Kee Keema said, urging them on. He looked gloomy—a rare state for the usually jovial waterkin. “Seeing people who have lost their faith like this makes me ill.”

Meena was silent. Wataru, too, held his tongue, as they began to walk and follow the map.

Inside the building, the corridors were like a maze. There were tiny rooms everywhere, and even some places where they had to go through rooms to get to the next hall. They knew they had to go up, but they couldn’t find the stairs.

There was a surprising number of people in the building. Most of them were starseers, with those familiar tube-sleeved shirts, but there were many other younger people dressed in regular workmen’s clothes. Wataru had imagined they would find the starseers gathered in rooms, hotly debating esoteric facts about the universe. Instead, he found most of them sitting at desks making speculations, or examining thick books, or copying down passages from scrolls. In the hall, he ran into one particular starseer with his hands full of books. No sooner had Wataru apologized and picked up the books, than he ran into another. To make matters worse, most of the starseers seemed to have their heads in the clouds, and try as they might, they couldn’t get a straight answer as to where the stairs to the top floor were located.

“I have a feeling this place wasn’t quite so tall to begin with,” Kee Keema said, breaking a sweat. “It looks like they built on top of a pre-existing building, and then did it again. There’s probably no one stair that goes all the way up.”

They found one staircase and then began their search for another one. Still, they were making progress. After ascending a few staircases, Wataru could look out a random window and see how high they were from the ground. After a while, they could see the campground in the forest behind the town.

“According to our map, this should be the floor,” Wataru said, catching his breath. They had come up ten or eleven flights of stairs. There were fewer people and the hallway was empty. It was quiet.

“I think it’s here, at the end of this hall,” he said, pointing, when the door in front of them opened. A female starseer wearing a red shirt came hurrying out. Her arms, of course, were filled with books.

“Is Dr. Baksan in?” Wataru asked loudly. The woman shuffled past them, mumbling some formula to herself, and went down the stairs without even looking in his direction.

“Guess we’ll have to go see for ourselves,” Wataru said, stepping up to the door and knocking.

“Unnecessary!” a loud voice called from inside. It was a man’s voice, filled with a strange high-pitched tension. The three looked at each other.

“Maybe he’s saying that it’s okay to go in without knocking?” Meena suggested.

Wataru slowly thrust his head into the room to see a veritable mountain of books and scrolls. And not just one mountain—he counted at least five separate stacks. Two walls of the room were actually large windows. The room was filled with sunlight, so bright Wataru had to squint.

“Is Dr. Baksan in?”

A cloud of dust rose from between two of the piles of books toward the back of the room.

“Unnecessary!” the voice said again.

“Um, we’ve come here to see Dr. Baksan.”

More dust rose. “Then come over here! I’m not there, that’s for sure.”

So it was Dr. Baksan. Wataru stepped inside the room. “Excuse me, but where are you, sir?”

“Here!” came the voice, accompanied by another cloud of dust, this time in a slightly different place than before. The three split up and began moving between the piles of books, looking for the source of the voice.

He seemed to be nowhere. Kee Keema craned his neck. “I don’t see him.”

“Excuse me, but where are you, sir?”

“I said I’m here!” shouted a voice from Wataru’s feet. He sounded angry.

“Here?”

Someone was tugging on the laces of Wataru’s boot. Wataru glanced down and yelped. By reflex, he jumped back, colliding with a nearby stack of books.

“Oy! Watch out!”

The sound of the books tipping over was followed immediately by a scream from Kee Keema. He was quickly buried beneath a mound of books.

Chapter 30
The Lecture

“Such rudeness!”
Dr. Baksan scowled, raising a tiny fist and driving it against Wataru’s shin. “You could take all the gold, all the crystals, all the jewels the Goddess ever made and you still wouldn’t be able to buy the books in this room! Do you understand? Watch where you’re stepping!”

Wataru moved quickly to an empty spot on the floor, and knelt. Only when he had done this was he finally at eye level with Dr. Baksan.

Baksan, he discovered, was a very, very short person. He only came up to Wataru’s waist. He was wearing a tube-sleeved shirt of rich purple cloth, inlaid with many strands of gold thread, and the cylindrical hat on his head was embroidered with that familiar star pattern.

He was also very, very old. Bushy white hair reached down to his shoulders and his eyebrows were so long and wispy the ends reached down to his chest. The whiskers on his chin curled downward, reaching to the tips of his fingers. Indeed, apart from the pink nose jutting out from the center of his face, everything else was covered in white hair.

“Dr. Baksan?” Wataru asked.