The Book of Heroes

by Miyuki Miyabe

  A simple wooden bed sat flush to the wall on the right. On it, she saw a thin pillow with a white cover, and next to that, a folded blanket the color of camel’s hair. A desk and chair about the same size as the ones they used in her classroom back home sat at the foot of the bed. Atop the desk sat a lamp small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. A white wick, its lower end suspended in translucent oil, stuck out of it.

  “Make yourself at home.”

  The young nameless devout bowed once, then left. He left the door open behind him, however, making her think that he would be back. Yuriko sat down on the chair and waited.

  The monk soon returned. He was carrying a tray in both hands and another blanket draped over one of his arms. “Please eat,” he said, placing the tray on Yuriko’s desk. The tray held a white dish with a piece of white bread next to a glass of water.

  “Thank you,” she said, and the monk bowed silently in reply. Every time he bowed, he would straighten his back first, placing his feet together. Very formal.

  “Should you need anything, please ring.” The monk indicated a bell shaped like an upside-down lily on the tray next to the cup of water.

  Yuriko looked closer at the monk’s hand and noticed with a start that it was criss-crossed with scars. His fingernails were chipped and split in places.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t just sit around here,” Yuriko began. “I have to—”

  “First you must rest,” the young monk interrupted her, placing the blanket he carried at the foot of her bed. “The rooms here are chilly. Use this blanket should you need it.”

  This time, it seemed like the monk was leaving her for good. He put a hand on the door and was straightening himself to bow again, when Yuriko stood. “The books here are all fake too, aren’t they?”

  She had noticed it the moment she stepped into the room. Every book on the wall across from the bed were sculptures, like the ones she had seen in the long curving hallway. With one small difference: these were made from wood, not stone.

  “If this place is the Hall of All Books, then why are all the books fake?”

  The young nameless devout stared back at Yuriko, unblinking, his thick brows lifting over jet black eyes. “They are not fake,” he replied. She was able to hear him clearly, though his voice was little more than a whisper. “These are what you might call emblems—or perhaps, remains.”

  Emblems? Remains? Neither of those words seemed particularly appropriate for books.

  “The Hall of All Books is both the origin and the final resting place of every story. So you see, it does not matter what form the books take here. All that matters is what they hold.”

  While Yuriko was thinking about this, the monk bowed. Uh-oh, he’s leaving! Suddenly, Yuriko didn’t want to be left alone in this place. Quickly, she asked him the first question that came to mind. “But don’t you read them?”

  All librarians read books. They were experts. She expected most of them took the job because they liked books. Why would the nameless devout be any different?

  The young monk tilted his head, thinking. His gentle expression did not change. “No, we do not read books,” he said. Then, as if to prevent Yuriko from asking yet another question, he quickly added, “We are, in a way, like books themselves, so there is no need for us to read them.”

  This was confusing, and Yuriko made to ask another question when the nameless devout patted the air with his hands lightly, as if to say there would be time for that later. “Rest now, allcaste, for you are far more weary than you think.”

  “But I—”

  “Once you’ve rested and regained your strength, you’ll have plenty of time to think on what you must do and the path you must take. The Archdevout will wait until you are ready.”

  “The Archdevout?”

  The monk smiled faintly. “The old nameless devout you met earlier. You may call him that. We seek to make it easier for you to speak with us—who are many and who are one.”

  So they’re keeping one of the nameless devout looking old and calling him by a special name for my sake. Even if there are a thousand of them, or ten thousand, they all have the same face.

  Yuriko wondered what that felt like. What would it be like if all my classmates had my face? No, it was more than just looking alike—they would all actually be the same person. They would all do the same things, talk the same way, think the same thoughts. There would never be any fights or bullying. They would never disagree.

  It sounded nice, easy.

  But how would I know which was the real “me” if everyone was me?

  Yuriko pondered how she might ask the nameless devout about that when he stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him. Yuriko was alone.

  Suddenly she yawned. Maybe I’ll lie down, she thought, when her stomach rumbled so loudly the sound echoed off the ceiling. Yuriko laughed.

  She ate the bread and drank the water. The sounds of her own chewing and swallowing were unnaturally loud in her ears. Then she started to feel lonely, like she might cry, so she swallowed her sobs down with the bread.

  The bread and the water were both unexpectedly tasty. She finished them in a few moments, and a wave of drowsiness hit her. She kicked off her shoes, flopped down on the bed, and managed to pull the blanket over her before curling up and falling asleep.

  It was a deep sleep without dreams.

  She had no idea how long she slept, but when she awoke, the room was much darker. Someone had lit the lamp on her desk. Yuriko lay there awhile beneath the blanket, watching the lamp’s tiny flame flicker in the darkness. The flame cast a warm circle of light on the desk. The wall of books across the room looked dark and solid in the lamplight.

  Even though she was now completely awake, she felt like she was dreaming. It didn’t matter where she was or what she was doing. Somehow the feeling of it being out of her hands was a comfort to her.

  Maybe I’ll just sleep here forever. It felt like something she might actually be able to get away with here in the nameless land. In time, she would lose her name too, and her identity. She’d become another nameless part of the place.

  It was like a strong desire had suddenly materialized inside her. I want to become nothing.

  Then an edge of the darkness moved near the door, just outside the circle of light cast by her tiny oil wick lamp.

  Yuriko shot up in bed. She could hear footsteps pattering away.

  Somebody had been outside her chamber.

  Sliding off the bed, she tiptoed over to the door to find it had been left open a crack.

  Were the nameless devout spying on me? No, why would they do that? Then she thought that maybe it was the one who came to light her lamp.

  They might have run away when they saw me waking up, so as not to frighten me. That seemed far more likely than a peeping Tom.

  She rubbed her eyes and gradually realized there was another source of light in the small room. She looked up. The light was coming from the triangular window near the ceiling. The light fell on the floor where it wavered slightly. It seemed to Yuriko that the light was coming from not one source, but many at once.

  It’s coming from outside the building.

  Yuriko quickly drew on her shoes. She stood, and noticing a chill in the air, she took one of the blankets and wrapped it around her shoulders like a shawl. Then she slipped out through the door into the hall.

  Small candles burned in sconces set at intervals down the long hallway. By each pool of light, she searched for a door that would lead out, checking both sides as she walked.

  She intended to follow the route she had taken when the nameless devout first brought her here, but it soon became apparent that she had taken a wrong turn. Yuriko went around a familiar-looking corner only to find a life-size bronze statue that she was certain she hadn’t seen on her way in. She leapt back in surprise, clapping her hand over her mouth to keep from shouting.

  The statue itself wasn’t particularly scary. It was the figure of a monk much
like the nameless devout, wearing robes and carrying a book in one arm. His eyes were lowered, his head bowed as though praying. Still, in the flickering light of the candles, what was probably intended to be a work of art ended up looking like some pop-up bogeyman in a haunted house. Yuriko blushed, ashamed at her own lack of nerve.

  Calm yourself. She looked around and found several other statues nearby. She was in more of a small chamber than a hallway now. The ceiling was vaulted, and the candles here were set much higher up on the walls. Double doors stood in the wall to the left, slightly larger than the single door to her room, and reinforced with the same iron frame. That must be the main entrance. The doors were open slightly, and a sliver of light spilled in from outside.

  Yuriko put both hands to the door and slowly pushed. The door opened smoothly outward, and light spilled in from the widening crack.

  “Whoa!”

  It’s the Milky Way!

  Except it was below her.

  Thousands of points of light were flowing by like a river below, quietly, solemnly. She squinted and saw that each point of light was the torch held in the hand of a nameless devout. It was a procession. She was standing above them, somehow, looking down.

  She could now hear their bare feet slapping against the hard-packed ground, even from her distant perch. Each of the devout wore a hood over his head, their darkened forms blending with the darkness around them. In the wavering torchlight she caught a glimpse of a narrow shoulder here, a thin back there.

  Where could they all be going?

  “We go to fulfill our duty,” a voice said from below. The Archdevout, a torch in his hand, was coming up toward her. One of the nameless monks—the young-faced devout with dark brows that had shown her to the lodge—followed close behind him.

  For the first time, Yuriko realized she was on a veranda of some sort, up on the second or third floor. The Archdevout and the young monk with him were climbing a flight of exterior stairs. Yuriko decided to give up trying to figure out the layout of the place. Everything in the nameless land was too convoluted, it seemed.

  “So they’re going to work?”

  The Archdevout reached the veranda and stood next to Yuriko. The young monk stepped behind her and opened the doors wide.

  “They’re going to work even though it’s so dark out?”

  “It is the changing of the shift.”

  So it’s like a factory?

  “What kind of work do they do?”

  Sorting books, maybe? Or maybe they make the fake books to put on the walls? She supposed there would be maintenance to do on the buildings, and cleaning too. But why did they need so many of them, and why are they heading away from the buildings?

  The Archdevout held his candle off to the side so that the light would not hit Yuriko directly in the face. Even in the dark of night, she could see the thin wisp of smoke rising from the candle flame. The burning wick made a faint sizzling noise.

  “Well then,” the Archdevout said with a smile, “will you come watch us at our labors?”

  It seemed a plain enough invitation, but Yuriko sensed something else in his tone. It was as if watching them work would require no small effort on her part, and the Archdevout wanted to know if she was truly ready.

  Yuriko looked at him more closely, marveling at how he seemed more like a little old man than any little old man she had seen in her entire life. He was a champion among little old men.

  Of course he seems that way, she thought. That’s what I was expecting, after all. But now, in the light of the candle, she noticed something else. There was a severity in the Archdevout’s eyes. She certainly hadn’t ever met an old man back home with eyes like his. She’d never met another person with eyes like his, period.

  Yuriko felt her back straighten. Her improvised shawl pulled taut around her shoulders. “Is it all right if I watch?”

  The Archdevout nodded. The eyes of the young devout with him were pointed firmly at the ground.

  “When you see, you’ll understand why this land exists.”

  Well, then I have to see it, don’t I? “Every allcaste sees you at your labors, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” the Archdevout replied, then fell silent. Yuriko heard the sizzling of the wick. “Though there are some,” he continued, “who after seeing what you are about to witness, leave our land and never return.”

  Yuriko’s heart shuddered in her chest. “Is…it scary?”

  “Well now,” the Archdevout said, smiling gently. “That depends on what you find fearful, what you find joyous, and what is in your heart. These things are yours alone.”

  While they were speaking, the Milky Way of torches had passed them by and was now receding into the distance. The tail end of the procession was even with the balcony now, and the head of the line had already gone through the central gardens. The devout appeared to be heading toward the single large gate she had seen earlier that day.

  And what lies beyond that?

  “I’ll go. Please show me.”

  Without a word, the Archdevout turned and went down the stairs. The young monk waved a hand indicating she should follow. She did so, trying to keep her knees from buckling beneath her as she went down the steps.

  Now she could hear a song echoing from the ranks of the nameless devout ahead. It started quietly, like a whisper, but soon swelled louder.

  “That song—”

  It was the same song the three nameless devout who had come to greet her had been singing.

  “That’s the invocation, right?”

  “You are correct.”

  When they had caught up with the procession, the Archdevout and the young devout with her both joined in the chorus. Yuriko passed through the large gate, enveloped in their echoing voices, and with the nameless devout she left the Hall of All Books.

  There were no stars in the nighttime sky. The line between the gray-black of the sky and the jet-black of the land was the only indication of her surroundings. The wind blew, carrying with it the scent of grass. The night dew wet her shoes. There was no road to speak of—certainly nothing paved. They were stepping on the grass, cutting along a natural course through the same rolling dunes she had seen upon her arrival. The grass was bent down where they walked—pushed into the ground by the passage of countless bare feet.

  The wind tugged at the torches of the nameless devout walking in front of her, sending sparks up into the sky. One spark whirled high, then fell back down, making a sharp pinprick of pain where it landed square on Yuriko’s forehead. She lifted her hand and rubbed, noticing the pale light of the magic circle on her forehead reflecting off her fingers.

  She glanced at the Archdevout walking next to her. He didn’t seem to notice it was glowing, or perhaps he didn’t care. Maybe they’re used to seeing people like me. Yuriko wondered how many allcastes had come to the nameless land.

  Eventually, the path began to climb, a steady rise though not steep.

  “This is a path we use often,” the Archdevout began, leaning toward Yuriko. “It leads to the Threshing Hill where we perform our labors.

  “Of course,” he went on, “nothing in the nameless land has a true name. One of your kind—an allcaste who visited here—named the hill when he departed, having fulfilled his task.”

  The nameless devout had been calling it that ever since, he told her. Yuriko detected something like reverence toward this allcaste in the Archdevout’s voice.

  “He was a boy only a few years older than you, with golden hair.”

  Not Japanese, then. “Why did he come here?”

  “Like you, he was searching for someone close to him.”

  And he fulfilled his task. “So it went well? He was able to find who he was looking for?”

  Someone from his family, his girlfriend maybe—someone taken by the King in Yellow.

  “Yes,” the Archdevout replied simply.

  Yuriko found herself a little short of breath from the walking, but the Archdevout and the other devou
t with her never slackened their pace or seemed to breathe any harder than normal.

  Yuriko considered this story of the golden-haired boy who had named the Threshing Hill. It was a bit like giving your blessing to a place, Yuriko thought—to give a name to something that had no name. The boy had given this hill his blessing. A moment later, the thought struck Yuriko as incredibly odd, coming from her. It wasn’t the sort of thing she ever would’ve thought about before. Why, it’s like I’m a little more grown-up all of a sudden. What if, when this mark got pressed into my forehead, I became another version of myself—a better version?

  The Archdevout spoke again, his voice as calm and steady as his pace. “The allcaste I spoke of said that the view from this hill was much like a place where he had grown up. All it lacked, he said, was a river flowing by it and a waterwheel and millhouse.”

  A millhouse? Yuriko didn’t think they even had those anymore. Maybe the golden-haired boy came here a long time ago? Yuriko tried to think when they would have last had millhouses. A hundred years? Two hundred?

  I wonder if I’ll get to name something here. She could find her brother, and the two of them could leave the nameless land together. But just before she left, she would give the land her blessing. That, she thought, would be a fine thing to do. As she walked along through the dark, the dew clinging to her feet, Yuriko felt her determination grow. Her hands clenched into little fists. Next to her, the Archdevout remained silent. She wanted him to say something like “good luck,” or “I pray for your success.” She had turned to him to tell him about her plan when she felt the ground tremble slightly beneath her feet.

  An earthquake? No—it didn’t feel like that. But the ground was trembling. Maybe it had been trembling from a while before, but she just hadn’t noticed it. She looked at the Archdevout, but he seemed not to have noticed anything unusual. Ahead of her, the processions of nameless devout were still singing their invocation, their pace unchanging.

  As they continued climbing the hill, Yuriko noticed a faint squeaking noise that seemed to match the vibrations she could feel beneath her feet. Something large was moving on top of the hill, hidden in the darkness ahead of them. That’s what’s making that noise, Yuriko finally realized.