The Book of Heroes (17 page)

The pair of wheels rumbled on. She could hear the slapping of innumerable bare feet upon the ground. The creaking of limbs as they pushed against the heavy spokes. There was the smell of sweat and of the earth and the cool night air.

They’re doing penance.

Another thought I never would have had before a day ago.

“You
are
human, right?” she managed to ask. “You work in shifts, and rest, eat, and drink, right? So how can you do all this? Why do you have to do this? Isn’t it hard on you?”

The Archdevout turned to look directly into her eyes. His eyes looked softer now, and not just on account of the weathered lines and wrinkles around them. He shook his head. “We are no longer human as you think of it.”

No longer human? But you look human. Then what’s different? Is this another word game?
Yuriko bit her lip.

“It is true. We rest, and we eat—though we have no physical need to do so. It would be easy enough for us to go without, and yet, by going through the motions of our former selves, it helps us retain some vestige of our humanity.”

“But how can you go without food or sleep?”

The Archdevout smiled consolingly at Yuriko. “Because our forms as you see them are borrowed things—temporary vessels.”

Then he spread his arms, letting the sleeves of his black robes flutter in the night air. The fabric of his long sleeves clung to the bony arms. Yuri thought it looked like laundry caught in the branches of a withered tree.

“When we were human like yourself, we each had our own individual appearance. Yet these we lost when we became the nameless devout. Rather, we abandoned our individuality in every way. Now we are one and we are many. We are many and we are one.

“Yet it is true that when one loses one’s self, one is also likely to lose one’s sense of duty. So it is with men. That is why we sleep, and eat, and rest: to remind ourselves of our past humanity and maintain some vestige of it within. This is how we perform our roles and do penance for our sins.”

Doing penance for sins.
That reminded Yuriko of something she had heard soon after her arrival in the nameless land. “The inculpated,” she whispered. Hadn’t one of the nameless devout said that? “An inculpated means a sinner?”

The Archdevout and the young nameless devout behind her nodded their heads in unison.

“Why are you sinners?” She took a step toward the Archdevout. “What sin did you commit?” Another step.

The Archdevout stepped back and turned to face the mass of nameless devout pushing at the great wheels. “These wheels are called the Great Wheels of Inculpation. They send out the stories and receive them back, maintaining the flow of narratives. You see,
allcaste,
the stories are our punishment.”

But that’s ridiculous!
“But stories are fun. They’re beautiful. They make people happy!”

The Archdevout turned back around, fixing Yuriko with his eyes. “And yet it is also stories that gave birth to the King in Yellow.”

Yuriko was shaking. It was cold. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“Let me ask. What are stories,
allcaste
?” The Archdevout answered before she could. “They are lies.”

Yuriko stood there, shivering, next to the line of nameless devout pushing, the great wheels turning.

“It is the creation of things which do not exist. And the telling of these things. The lies become record, from which memories are born. But they are still lies.”

So making up a world and telling about it was a lie. And putting together the pieces of old records to tell a story about things that happened a long time ago—like in a history book—that was lying too.

“Yet without these lies, men could not live. Their world could not stand. Stories are vital to your kind. They need these lies to be who they are. Yet lies are lies, and to lie is a sin.”

And when there is a sin, someone has to do penance for it.

“By turning the Great Wheels of Inculpation we provide the lies that the world of men seek. We work always, that the flow never be interrupted. It is both penance for our sins and the creation of new sin. So, as you see, our task is great,” the Archdevout added with a sigh. “This is the task set before man as well. Those of us who have become the nameless devout are guilty of committing the sin of storytelling when we were men ourselves. That is why we now serve to bear the burden of story’s sin for all those who live in the Circle.”

The young devout standing with them stepped forward quickly and grabbed Yuriko by the arm. It wasn’t an act of aggression. He was catching her because he had seen her legs begin to buckle.

“I’m sorry. Thank you.”

Yuriko straightened herself out, making sure that her feet were firmly planted beneath her. The young nameless devout gently released her arm.

His hand had been warm—it the warm hand of a person.

Yuriko felt a tightness in her chest. “It’s not fair,” she said, her voice choked with tears. “Why do you have to be the ones to do this? If telling stories is a sin, aren’t we all guilty?”

A broad smile spread across the Archdevout’s wrinkled face. “You are kind. A kindness such as only children possess. Thus may only children visit the nameless land.” There were others as well who bore the guilt of telling stories in the Circle, the Archdevout told her. “I’m sure you will encounter them in your search for your brother.”

“You mean people who make stories? Like authors or historians?”

“Not only these people. And not all of them are even aware of their own sin. The wolves too are among their number. And those who hate the King in Yellow and gather up dangerous copies in order to protect the Circle are inculpated. All of them do penance for their sins in their own way.”

Yuriko didn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand. Even while her head strained for comprehension, her heart pushed it away. “But what about all the good that’s in stories?”

“Yes, there is much good in stories. They fill the Circle with light. But,” he went on, “it is not so here. Not in the nameless land. Because this is the origin of all stories, the origin of lies.”

“So why didn’t all of you stay in the Circle like the rest, doing penance for your stories there? Like the wolves? Why did you have to become the nameless devout?”

Yuriko felt her own questions getting narrower. She was retreating into specifics. Or maybe she was going forward, searching willy-nilly for comprehension, wherever that might be found.

“What bad thing did you do when you were people to become the nameless devout?” Yuriko asked. She was as fearful as she was curious.
What sort of people could have done something to deserve
this
?

The Archdevout thought for a while, his heavy eyelids closed, until Yuriko actually thought he had fallen asleep standing up. A considerable amount of time passed.

What is he doing? Why isn’t he answering me?
Yuriko’s fear doubled inside her. She trembled.

Then, finally, the Archdevout opened his eyes. His soft gaze fell on Yuriko’s face. “If I tell you now, my words will not reach your heart. Yet I will offer them to you, all the same.” He spread his arms. “We are the remains of those men who sought, in their lives, to live a story. We are guilty of the great sin of living lies and trying to make those lies real. That is why we lost ourselves and became the one that is many and the many that are one—the nameless devout in our black robes, living here in this nameless land.”

They tried to live a story?

Now an even sharper need pierced Yuriko’s chest: a question that demanded an answer. “When will you be forgiven?”

“Who would forgive men of the sin of living a lie? The gods? The gods are themselves no more than a story made by men, and lies cannot forgive lies, let alone absolve us of them.”

“You mean you’re all stuck here forever? For eternity?”

“There is no time in this land. An eternity is like moment, and a moment like an eternity. We are only here
now
. There is no
then
.”

Yuriko shrank back, but the Archdevout’s thin hand gently reached out and grasped hers. “Come this way. I will show you the wheels from a higher vantage point.”

The Archdevout led Yuriko by the hand, their feet swishing through the dew-laden grass. Though she had thought the plateau where the wheels turned to be the top of the Threshing Hill, she found that it rose even further beyond. They walked upward, moving against the wind. A stiff night breeze brushed Yuriko’s face, tossing her hair this way and that. The glyph on her forehead was glowing softly. The creaking of the great wheels grew slightly more distant.

She looked back to see, below her, the throng of black robes whirling, rustling as they moved around. From this height, she could no longer hear the footsteps and ragged breathing of the nameless devout. Though she could still feel the heavy creaking of the wheels in her feet, the sound did not reach her ears.

What she could hear was the creaking of the pillars at the center of each great wheel as their spokes rotated around them.

Yuriko’s eyes opened a little wider.

The sound was pretty. It was high in pitch; a light, clear sound—like the ringing of tiny bells or the lilting refrain of a child’s song.

Next to her, the Archdevout smiled wryly at the surprise in her eyes. “Yes. You are hearing the song of the heart-pillars. The right we call the Pillar of Heaven, the left we call the Pillar of Earth.”

Yuriko realized that she and the Archdevout were standing alone atop the mound overlooking the plateau. The young nameless devout that had joined them on their first ascent had stayed down by the wheels where they left him. He wasn’t even looking in Yuriko’s direction. He had his back to them, standing as still as one of the torch posts.

“Is it the invocation?”

“No, it is not. The invocation is not so full of joy as that. It does not soothe the heart as their songs do.”

“The Pillar of Heaven, which sends out the stories, offers joy with its song, while the Pillar of Earth, which winds the stories back in, offers solace,” the Archdevout explained. “Both are invaluable functions of stories.”

At the same time, the Archdevout told her, these two songs bore a wish: that the stories they sent out might bring as much joy into the Circle as possible. They also praised the stories that returned for fulfilling their roles in the Circle, and wished for them peace.

“Your brother is in one of the stories sent by these wheels now.”

Along with the Hero, the King in Yellow.

“Now that the Hero is in the Circle, there will soon be a modulation in the songs of the Pillars of Heaven and Earth.”

“You mean the songs will change? How?”

The Archdevout’s reply surprised her. “They will grow stronger.”

Released into the Circle, the Hero would seek energy for more stories. Naturally, this would increase the amount of story energy used. The more energy used, the higher and louder the song of the heart-pillars would become.

“If the Hero is not bound, and the heart-pillars are allowed to sing higher, and many stories are returned here, then in very little time, the Great Wheels will become much more than we nameless devout can handle.” The surging flow of the stories, the Archdevout explained, could gain wills of their own. They would fly from the wheel to join the Hero. Soon, the Hero would begin to tug at the right wheel—the Pillar of Heaven—causing it to move whether the nameless devout pushed it or not. In time, it would spin so fast that the devout could not keep up.

“We would trip, fall to the ground, and be hit by the spinning spokes. The spokes would crush our bones, and we would return to nothing.”

Meanwhile, the rotation of the Pillar of Earth would slow. This was because the Hero would use up all the stories within the confines of the Circle. A story devoured by the Hero would not return to the nameless land.

“No matter how hard the nameless devout pushed, eventually, the Pillar of Earth would not move.”

And that, the Archdevout told her, would be the end of her Circle.

“The moment before the Circle stopped, the Pillar of Earth would shriek, singing its song louder than any song heard before. This cry is a message to those who live in the Circle that their world is ending. Some have likened it to the sounding of the angels’ trumpets.”

In the end, once the Great Wheel of Earth had stopped spinning, the free-spinning Great Wheel of Heaven would also slow, eventually joining it in stillness. When that happened, those nameless devout who had not already been returned to nothing would be left alone here in this land.

“Where they would wait for the next Circle to be born.”

“What about the Hero?” Yuriko asked.

“The Hero has already descended into the Circle. Should the Circle end, the Hero will end with it.”

“And the Hall of All Books?”

“It shall remain,” the Archdevout told her. As he spoke, his eyes flickered in the direction of the hall. Yuriko followed his eyes out into the void of night.

The great silhouette of the hall was lost in the darkness. Only tiny points of light from the windows were dimly visible in the distance.

“While we waited for the next Circle to be born, we would go into the Hall of All Books and take from there every last one of the carven books—they represent all the stories of the lost Circle—and we would destroy them, leaving the hall empty, awaiting the arrival of new stories whenever they might come.” So would her civilization disappear, and another civilization be born, the Archdevout explained. “That is the history of this nameless land where time does not exist.”

But then—

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you wish,” the Archdevout replied. “You are free to follow your heart.”

She could return to the Circle, the Archdevout explained, and watch the Hero at work and be destroyed together with her world. Of course, that destruction would take time. It might not even come within her lifetime. It was more than likely that Yuriko could live out the rest of her days in relative peace.