The Book of Heroes (24 page)

The books in Ichiro Minochi’s reading room were all one or two thousand years old, reckoned in human years. Of course, the physical books themselves were much newer than that, though they had been carefully copied from much older originals.

Compared to them, most modern books
were
really infants. Some of them had barely even been born. And, it turned out, her great-uncle had collected some of those too.

“Minochi did a little light reading on the side. He wasn’t totally cut off from the modern world, you know,” Aju said.

“But I didn’t hear anything like an infant’s voice in the reading room.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. The owner kept all of the younger books in a different room. And most infants can’t talk yet, besides. They can’t even glow properly yet.”

Aju’s red eyes winked again. “Oh? Oh…” he said, then a moment later, “Right, thanks.” He looked back up at U-ri. “The Sage found the perfect book!”

The book was very new, first printed five years ago. There had been an incident much like the one Hiroki was involved in at a middle school out in the countryside somewhere. A ninth grader had stabbed a classmate with a knife, seriously injuring him. Except in this case, the teachers had grabbed him immediately after—and he had a motive. The police found out that the victim had been teasing the suspect about his grades.

“This author, a lady by the name of Shinako Ito, wrote a book about the boy. See? Maybe she’d come here to write about your brother, seeing as how the cases are so similar. We can call ahead and see if she actually did come or not, and if it sounds like she didn’t, that’s our ticket in.”

Sky, who had been standing in the corner doing an admirable impression of a statue until now, spoke quietly. “An author?”

“Yeah. Someone who writes things,” U-ri explained.

“A nonfiction author, according to her profile,” Aju added.

Sky blanched. “A person who writes books? But that is a weaver.”

“That’s right. We call them authors here. I guess they’re called weavers in the nameless land ’cause they weave stories,” U-ri added, even as she remembered something else she had been told. “Maybe you think of them as sinners, but this one’s a nonfiction author, Sky. They write about things that actually happened. They aren’t just making things up. I don’t think that counts as the sin of storytelling.”

Sky slowly shook his head. “Any tale that is told is a story, Lady U-ri.”

“But she’s not making it up—” U-ri began, then stopped herself. Hadn’t the Archdevout said that history was just another kind of story? Even though it was supposed to be a record of things that had actually happened, it was still a story.

“If you’ll allow me,” Aju cut in. “Not all stories are woven from the imagination. Anything that can be told is a story, the same as any other. And before there was paper and writing people maintained their records and their stories and their histories by telling them to each other.”

“But when they did invent paper, they wrote all those stories down in books and scrolls, right?” U-ri said. “As long as someone remembered it.”

“That’s true, but they didn’t write down every story they heard.” Aju’s nose twitched.

U-ri smiled.
Here I am discussing the history of writing with a mouse.

“There are lots of stories that continued to be told only by word of mouth, and were never put onto paper,” Aju continued. “We call those stories ‘unattached.’”

U-ri raised an eyebrow. “But if they weren’t written down, wouldn’t they disappear eventually? We’re talking about a really long time ago, right?”

Aju poked his cold little nose into U-ri’s cheek. “That’s just it. Once told in the Circle, a story doesn’t just disappear. Even if no one knows about it, it’s still there, flowing this way and that.”

Unwritten in letters, unimagined in pictures, banished from memory, but still there.

“That’s why we say they’re unattached. They’re separate from everything and every place, just sort of drifting in the air. Of course, the unattached stories still end up getting pulled back by the Great Wheels for storage in the Hall of All Books. Then, eventually, the Great Wheels send them back out again. Funny thing is, some stories might get sent back into the Circle two or three times, and yet every time they remain unattached. Even if they happen into the Circle during a time when the methods for recording them are in place.”

There were just some stories that were difficult to put into letters, Aju explained.

U-ri tapped Aju’s head with her finger. “That’s all very interesting, but aren’t you getting off topic? Let’s do some magic or whatever and go talk to the police.”

“Oh, right, right!”

Aju recited the spell, and U-ri repeated the words after him. Sky stood as before, wrapped in his black robes, his pale face drawn.

U-ri found this very unsettling.
What’s he so afraid of? If he is really scared, I wish he would just tell me why. Then I might be able to do something about it. And besides, isn’t he supposed to be helping me?

When she finished reciting the spell, a bright glow passed from her toes all the way up to her head.

“There you go!”

U-ri spread her arms apart. She looked down. She was still herself, in the same dusty old vestments of protection.

“I don’t think it worked.”

“You doubt my skill? Look in the mirror.”

U-ri opened the closet door and stood in front of the mirror that hung on the back wall.

She was looking at a thirty-something woman with long hair. She was wearing a light blue jacket, perfect for early summer, and white pants. No jewelry. The woman’s hair had been neatly twisted into a single knot on her head.

“That’s how you look to everyone around you.”

U-ri put her hands on her hips. “Impressive!”

Aju taught her the magic words that would make her change to and from her new form. Remove the transformation, and U-ri would once again be invisible. Useful for times when there were places she couldn’t go, even in disguise—or when she didn’t want anyone to see her for any reason.

U-ri uttered the magic word and slipped out of the apartment without Yoshiko noticing. In a corner of the hallway outside her door, she transformed into Shinako Ito and began to walk toward the neighborhood library. She had some research to do before anything else.

She was walking down the street, listening to her shoes click on the sidewalk, when she realized she was carrying a large bag over one shoulder. It was heavy too. She stopped at a light and looked inside to find a notepad, a digital voice recorder, a pen case, some business cards, a wallet, and even a cell phone.

“Does all this come with the transformation?”

“Sure. No investigative writer worth their salt walks around empty-handed,” Aju squeaked from her pocket. “The bag’s a copy of the real thing, so even if Shinako herself saw that, she’d think it was hers.”

Yuriko opened the cell phone. The display showed it was getting a signal. “Wait, if I use this, will it charge her account?”

“I wonder. It is magical, after all, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I doubt the phone companies charge for magical phone use.”

Even still, U-ri made a mental note to avoid using it too much. It felt wrong.

The library was a familiar place for Yuriko Morisaki. She came here to get books with Kana all the time, and sometimes they would do their homework together in the study section. She went in and passed by the reception counter, so nervous she could barely walk straight. But the librarian at the desk didn’t even glance in her direction.

That was unusual. Normally, when kids came in to use the library, the librarian would always say hello or good afternoon. Some of the kids wouldn’t answer, but Yuriko and Kana had always made a point of saying hello back.

I guess because I look like an adult now, they don’t bother saying anything.

Feeling emboldened, U-ri walked up to the counter and asked where the newspapers were kept. The female librarian politely indicated a corner of the room.

Hardly anyone used the library in the middle of the day like this. Even the study room was mostly empty. U-ri picked out one of the newspapers from the rack and sat down to read it.

Because the victims were both in middle school, all of the newspapers had withheld their names. To U-ri’s disappointment, she found that most of the articles about the incident repeated the police reports almost verbatim, and added little else. She found only one newspaper that had gone any further and done a full investigative report of Hiroki’s school.

The headline read
INCIDENT AT KIBOGAOKA MIDDLE SCHOOL
. It was the school where Yuriko would be going when she graduated from elementary school.
If I graduate.

The newspaper had come to the school three or four times, asking if there had been any bullying involved—always a hot topic—but the school had denied it every time. “None of our teachers received any reports of the kind,” the principal was on record as saying. And neither Boy A (Hiroki) or his guardians (Mom and Dad) had ever spoken to anyone at the school about it.

The school had maintained a constant line that there was no bullying—but, it turned out, they could offer no proof. They just hadn’t heard of any bullying. Which is why, after the third or fourth article, the school began backing off from their position.

Sitting there in a thirty-year-old’s body, U-ri thought she understood.
What else could it have been? There must have been bullying.
But it still didn’t make any sense to Yuriko Morisaki. This wasn’t a Boy A, this was Hiroki. Good in school, good at sports—Yuriko’s perfect brother.

The tiny newsprint stung her vision. U-ri pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. When her hand brushed her cheek it felt dry.
So that’s what thirty-year-old skin feels like.

U-ri realized that while transformed, she had access to her new body’s knowledge and experiences. But her heart was still her own. She was an
allcaste
now, not Yuriko. So she was no longer a teary-eyed grade schooler, but her heart was young all the same. The newsprint hadn’t been stinging her eyes. It was stinging her heart.

Whatever the details were, Hiroki’s daily life at school hadn’t been as spotlessly bright as it might’ve seemed to his little sister. There had to be some reason why Hiroki allowed himself to be tempted by the King in Yellow. U-ri had been telling herself all along that Hiroki’s interest in the King had been a mere curiosity that, by an evil turn of luck, had run him straight up against the Hero and its incredible power. Now she understood that she had been wrong.

As the Hero searches for the vessel, so does the vessel call out to the Hero—to the King in Yellow
. What had Hiroki wanted so badly? What did he wish for so much that he could only find it in the King in Yellow?

“You okay, U-ri?” Aju whispered to her from under her collar. U-ri wrapped her hand gently around his furry body. “I’m okay. What about Sky?”

She looked around and saw him standing near the entrance to the study area. He was facing away from her, his head cocked as though he were listening to something. He turned around first this way, then that. He looked very busy.

Oh,
U-ri realized,
he’s talking to the books.

“Aju, are the books here saying something—”

Aju snorted a little snort. “They’ve been yakking it up since we walked in the place. Maybe you should talk to them a bit, U-ri.”

U-ri hastily put away the newspaper. Hiding herself behind a bookcase, she uttered the magic word again. The moment she did so, a tidal wave of voices slammed into her from all sides.

“
Allcaste, allcaste
!”

“Um, I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself sooner,” U-ri said, raising her voice to push back against the noise. “My name’s U-ri.”

“Lady U-ri!” One voice, that of a female-seeming book, rang out above the rest. “We thank you for visiting us. Please excuse the others. This is the first time anyone with knowledge of the nameless land has set foot inside this library—let alone an
allcaste
. I’m afraid we’re all rather excited.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“Yes, I do. I am connected to the nameless land. I know of the escape.”

Hiroki came here a lot too. The books might know him.
“The boy who became the last vessel is my brother. His name is Hiroki Morisaki. If you know anything about him, where he might be, please tell me.”

“I am sorry, Lady U-ri,” the female voice said, trembling. “There are many of us here, yes, but most are infants. They do not even know that the Hero is free. Even I only know of these things through knowledge gleaned from my elders.”

Of course the books in public libraries wouldn’t be that old.

“With the Book of Elem in his hands, your brother had no need for the likes of us. I doubt he visited here at all after its power came into his possession. And before he had the book, well, he would’ve just been one of many young boys who come here to read from our pages.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought enough about it.”

“No, it is not your fault. And there is something I
can
tell you.” The voice paused. “Two months ago, we books sensed the presence of the Book of Elem here, in our town.”

That would have been right around when Hiroki snuck the book out of Ichiro Minochi’s cottage.

“Even the youngest among us can sense it when such dangerous power is near.”

The Book of Elem had come close, but never came inside their library. Even still, the books had spent many days trembling in the fear that it might.

“Then, one day, one of us was burned.”

“One of the books burned? There was a fire in the library?”

“Yes, but no mortal flame,” the female voice said quietly. “Magefire burned that book.”

A single book on one of the library shelves had caught fire in the middle of the night, charring to a crisp in seconds. When one of the librarians found it in the morning and tried to take the book off the shelf, it crumbled, leaving a pile of ash.