The Book of Heroes (10 page)

But the books listened to every word.

“My brother doesn’t fight with his friends like that. He would never stab someone,” Yuriko told them. Now it was her turn to protect her brother. “Aju told me my brother had been possessed by an evil book. The book he took from this room…the Book of Elem, was it? That’s the evil book’s name, right? It can possess people, right? The book is this Hero you all talk about, isn’t it? The book made him hurt his friends, and made him kill a boy even though he didn’t want to.”

I saw the Hero. I saw his shape, even if I couldn’t see his face. His funny pointy crown and his tattered cape. And my brother, bowing his head to the floor in front of him.

“The Hero was standing in front of him, like he was proud. He tricked my brother, I know it. There’s no way he would do what he did otherwise. No way. No way!”

Yuriko was out of breath, and her story was finished, even though there was so much more she could say, so much more she could tell them.

“This girl,” Aju said when she had fallen silent, “wants to help her brother. She wants to go find him.”

The books began to blink faster, their light waxing and waning.

“I told her it was impossible, reckless. Of course, I didn’t yet know what I know now.”

About
it
being free.

About Hiroki becoming the Summoner.

“Now that this has come to pass, someone must go recapture the Hero. Is this girl not qualified?” Aju asked the books.

The room was silent. There was only a faint glow and more blinking. For the longest time, no one (that is, no book) said a word. Yuriko was tense at first, but she had almost grown bored by the time the weighty voice from the top shelf broke the silence.

“If we are to speak only of qualifications, then you are most likely correct. But, Aju, do you truly believe it proper to further burden this young child who has already suffered so much?”

Yuriko found the book that was talking, a large tome that winked with a deep green light. She was able to spot it easily because when it talked, the light from the other books dimmed, as though they were holding their breath.

“It’s not about whether it’s proper or not,” Aju insisted. “She’s saying she wants to go look for her brother. She’s begging to go.”

“Only because she does not know how hard a path it is to walk.”

“You can handle it, can’t you, little miss?” Aju asked her. “You don’t care how hard it is as long as you don’t have to go back to your life the way it was, right?”

Aju told the other books how the students picked on Yuriko at school. “Which is why you decided to go look for your brother, right?”

It was true that was what she had told Aju before, but now, in this bewildering place, hearing all the books talking and faced with the prospect of even more hardship, Yuriko’s resolve was shaken. She was ready for some difficulties, sure. But how much could she take?

“Will it be that hard to find him?” she asked.

“Don’t tell me you’ve lost your nerve already!” Aju wailed. “Or…have you not made up your mind yet?”

“No, I made up my mind. But…”

More than anything else, it was the words she had just heard that bothered her.
The end is coming.
That sounded hundreds of times more important than a missing middle school student, even if that student was her brother. She couldn’t just pretend she hadn’t heard it.

“Be quiet a moment, Aju,” the dark green book commanded. “Child. Tell us your name.”

“Yuriko. It’s Yuriko,” she answered, looking up at the dark green glimmer high on the shelf.

“Yuriko, you may call me the Sage.” The book’s voice was raspy, like an old man’s. “I was friends with the master of this house.”

“With my great-uncle? With Mr. Minochi?”

“That’s right. There are many here who have sat upon this shelf far longer than I, but none were as close to him as I was.” Then the Sage asked what had become of Minochi.

“You mean you don’t know?”

“It has been a long time since he left us. Too long for one of his regular trips. You must tell me. Has Minochi died? He has died, hasn’t he?”

Yuriko nodded. She told the books about the used bookstore in Paris and the heart attack.

“It is as I feared, then.”

“But,” Yuriko said, “I’ve been here to this cottage since then. And so have my aunts and uncles. Did no one talk about Mr. Minochi dying?”

“I did notice the people visiting. They were surprised to find us all here, I recall. But they spoke little of Minochi, and as he was not one with many connections in this world I thought perhaps he was merely feigning death for the sake of solitude somewhere. And yet now I hear he has truly died.” Yuriko detected genuine sadness in the Sage’s voice. “Minochi and I had a falling out. I believe that is why he departed to Paris.”

So people and books can fight with each other.
Yuriko supposed that was possible with books like the ones here.

“I could not fulfill Minochi’s wish. It was an impossible wish to begin with. Over the years I was here, I tried to explain this to Minochi, to convince him, but he did not accept my reasoning. He grew angry with me, denying what I had to say. He went on that trip to find another sage to replace me.”

Yuriko wondered what kind of wish her great-uncle—a rich hermit who collected old books—might have had.

“Minochi searched for a way to raise the dead.”

Even despite her amazement at everything that had happened up to this point, Yuriko found herself surprised anew.

“The dead! Who?”

“A woman who was important to him. The only person who ever was. She died a long time ago.”

Ichiro Minochi had lived a solitary life. But there had been a woman.
I wonder if he truly loved her?
“And he bought all these books, just searching for that?”

“Yes, he did. He believed that if he could only collect all the knowledge there is in this world, he would find a way to raise the dead.”

Yuriko looked over the countless blinking lights there in the dark room. It
was
a tremendous collection of knowledge.

“I told Minochi his efforts were in vain. There is no book possessing a technique by which one can raise the dead. Certainly not the way for which he searched. I urged him to choose a different story, but he would not listen.”

Yuriko raised an eyebrow at the word
story
. Even to a young girl, the way the book had used the word seemed strange. Didn’t he mean
way
, or
path
, or even
spell
?

“Story?”

She meant it as a question, but the Sage did not explain himself. His light wavered slightly. “Yuriko,” the Sage said. “Compared to me, Aju is as young as you. I can appreciate why he seeks to support you, but he is inexperienced and has brought you here without giving you sufficient knowledge.”

“That’s not true,” Aju said. “And I’m no youth, so don’t treat me as if I were.”

Apparently, books could also fight amongst themselves.

“Still, it is clear you have confused this child Yuriko.”

Aju sighed but said nothing.

“Mr. Sage, please don’t be angry with Aju. He was there for me when I needed him. He let me know that I wasn’t all alone.” Yuriko didn’t know what she would’ve done after getting picked on at school if the red book hadn’t talked to her.

“Then I will scold him no further,” the old book said gently.

“Thanks,” Yuriko whispered, and she smiled. Then she remembered she was speaking to someone very old and wise, and she said, “I mean, thank you very much, sir.”

“Yuriko. Before we speak of anything else, there is something which you must decide.” She had a choice, the book explained. She could either wake up her parents now and go home, or stay here and listen to what the book had to say.

“Of course, you may listen to me, then depart after that if you wish. But it will be a tale long in the telling. I’m afraid you will worry for your parents. This house is cold.”

It was true. Yuriko was shivering herself. If she left her parents out there sleeping, they might freeze to death.

“Can’t you cast a spell to make it warmer?” she asked.

“It is not impossible,” the Sage said, a hint of laughter in his voice. “Do I take it from your question that you do not intend to leave us now?”

Yuriko nodded. She would stay.

“You are a strong-minded child,” the book said. She wasn’t sure whether that was meant as a compliment or not. “Are you afraid of being picked on at school? Is being picked on so frightening?”

“Well, yes…But it’s more than that. Mr. Sage, I’m curious,” Yuriko said. “I mean, it’s amazing just being able to
talk
to a book, and I’ve learned so much from Aju already. But I feel like I’ve only heard a tiny part of the whole story.”

Then she thought she heard the Sage sigh.

“Curiosity? Yes, the desire for knowledge. You have your brother’s eyes.”

Yuriko’s heart tightened, then it leaped.
I’m like my brother?

The Sage called to one of the other books, which replied in turn by singing another song—a spell to warm the cottage. This song was slightly longer than the one for sleep and with a different melody entirely.

Moments later, Yuriko felt warm air rising from the floor.
The book’s magic. Real magic!

Not wanting to let on how amazing she found all of this, all Yuriko said to the books was a polite “Thank you, that’s great,” and she sat back down on the stepladder.

“First,” the Sage said, “I will speak of the Hero. Of all the stories in your Circle,” the Sage explained to Yuriko, “the most beautiful and treasured is the story called ‘The Hero.’”

“That sounds more like the heroes I’ve read about,” Yuriko said.

“But the Hero is no person, Yuriko. It is a
story
.”

“But—”

“Consider a person’s life,” the Sage continued over her objection. “No matter what great deeds they might accomplish, they are merely creating a reality, nothing more. Only when we have thoughts, and the telling of thoughts, and those thoughts become stories is the Hero first born. What we think, we tell, and are told—all are stories. But the Hero is the story that is the source of all the greatest deeds. The heroes who exist in your Circle all spring from this original story. They are like copies. The story called ‘The Hero’ came first.

“When people in the world do something great or upstanding, they are called heroes,” the Sage went on, “and when their stories are told over the years, it means a copy of the Hero has been created. Because these copies of the Hero are themselves stories, they in turn feed the strength of the original story.

“Now, stories run in a cycle. As history progresses, all manner of heroes are born and their great deeds are told of, and told of again, increasing the Hero’s power. In this way, a more beautiful, more noble story is formed, larger and stronger with each retelling.”

“Well, what’s so bad about that?” Yuriko interjected. “Wouldn’t a bigger source of the Hero make better copies? Wouldn’t there be even more heroes in the world then?”

“If that were all of it, it truly would be a wonderful thing,” the Sage agreed. “Yet,” he continued, his tone darkening, “if a beautiful, noble story shines very brightly, then the shadow it casts must also be very deep. This shadow too is the Hero. Like a coin, a story must have a front and back, right and wrong. Light and darkness always exist together, and there is no one who might separate them. It is impossible.”

If the light is strong, the shadow is deep.

“In the original story of the Hero, there is darkness and evil in equal measure to light and good. Both sides grow together in a contest that continues to this day. This,” the Sage said with a sigh, “also holds true for the copies produced by the source. The heroes of your Circle are ever a combination of light and dark. And if the dark side of the source should deepen, so too does the dark side of the copies deepen and grow stronger. The light leads to all that is good, and the darkness presides over all that is evil.”

The Sage winked slowly once, looking down at Yuriko. “Now,” the book asked her, “what do you think happens when the darkness grows stronger? What do your thoughts tell you?”

Yuriko spent a while listening to her thoughts. “I think,” she said after a moment, “that more bad things must happen.”

“Correct,” the Sage replied. “In this Circle, there are many strong shining lights, and just as many dark, stagnant pools of malevolence. It is overflowing with both.”

Which was why the original story, “The Hero,” had been placed under lock and key.

“Stop the source, and you stop the cycle. While you cannot sweep away the light and the dark that already exist in this Circle, you can prevent them from further increasing.”

So they had stopped the great cycle, keeping it small, and hopefully, more manageable.

“Like turning off the faucet so no more water comes out?” Yuriko ventured. “And then you just use what you already have, in a bucket or whatever, over and over again?”

To Yuriko’s surprise, the Sage laughed. An old man’s dry chuckle. “That is a most interesting comparison. I believe you have understood me well.”

Yuriko felt like she had just scored a hundred on a test. “But,” she addressed the Sage, “there’s something I don’t get. What’s this Circle you keep talking about?”

Aju had used the word too. She had already figured out that it meant the world and everything in it, but she couldn’t understand why they had to call it a special word, and something told her that was important to know. “Why don’t you just call it ‘the world’?”

“Because the world is not a Circle. Because the world is only what it is, and nothing more.”

Yuriko frowned.
I’m not sure that made a bit of sense.

“This world in which you live was here before the world of men was born,” the Sage continued, heedless. “And this world is more than just the world of men. It is the skies, and the earth, and all living things. Everything around you is part of this world. Not so a Circle. A Circle is born of words. It only begins to exist the moment men first attempt to understand the natural world around them. It is power, it is a desire, it is hope, wishes, and prayer. It is all of these things.”