The Book of Heroes

by Miyuki Miyabe

  “What is that?”

  The Archdevout looked up, squinting into the flurry of torch sparks. “This is our task, allcaste.”

  Atop the Threshing Hill, Yuriko saw a scene that staggered the imagination. The top of the hill was a wide plateau thronged with black-robed nameless devout.

  They were moving, undulating. Countless black robes turned in dark circles under the dark sky. When the dark circles moved, the ground shivered. She could feel it in her gut and in her bones. The sound seemed to vibrate up from her kneecaps, passing through her entire body before shooting out into space from the top of her head.

  The nameless devout were turning a pair of giant wheels lying flat on either side of the plateau. They were enormous. Yuriko immediately thought of the Tokyo Dome. Her father was a Yomiuri Giants fan, and he took the family to the ball games a couple times a year. They’d watch games in the dome, eat hot dogs and ice cream, and cheer along with the other fans through tiny megaphones they sold in the stands. Once you were inside the dome, you hardly noticed its size—but Yuriko remembered being impressed when she saw it from the walkway outside, or when she saw the great arc of the dome from the train window on the way there. She often wondered how people had managed to make such a giant building.

  The Tokyo Dome is big, but these wheels are even bigger!

  On closer examination, Yuriko noticed that the giant wheels had no rims. A pillar about the size of a small building stood in the center of each, and from there radiated incredibly long spokes—too many for her to count. The nameless devout stood along each spoke, pushing them to turn the wheels.

  For some reason, the wheel on the right and wheel on the left were turning in opposite directions. The left appeared to be going clockwise, while the right went counterclockwise. Where the two wheels met, the spokes seemed so close together that the sleeves of the nameless devout’s robes brushed against one another as they passed.

  The invocation had stopped somewhere along their journey up the hill. The devout pushed in silence, their only accompaniment the rumbling in the ground and the creaking of the two giant wheels. The nameless devout pushed with their hoods back, heads bent low, arms extended ahead of them to grip the spokes.

  The torches she had seen them carrying had been placed into simple stands set into the ground, tracing two larger circles of light around the dark circles of the wheels.

  As Yuriko stood there, dumbfounded, first one nameless devout then another broke from their positions at the spokes, retrieved torches from the stands, and began to walk toward the path leading down the hill. Nameless devout from the procession that had come here with Yuriko stepped into their places, setting their torches in the empty holders. It was a changing of the shift, yet the wheels never stopped their turning. There was no break in their work.

  Before Yuriko had fully realized what was going on, the departing monks had formed a full procession heading down the hill behind her. She heard their song rise again, snippets of verse reaching her ears over the relentless creaking of the wheels.

  “What’s this all for?” Yuriko asked, her voice dry with shock. Next to her, the Archdevout stood silently watching the rotation of the wheels. Yuriko tried raising her voice. “What are they doing? Are they creating power for something?”

  The Archdevout pulled back his hood, turned to Yuriko, and bowed. “Allcaste, these are the Great Wheels of Inculpation.”

  The Great Wheels, Yuriko whispered to herself, though she could not even hear her own voice through the rumbling.

  The Archdevout’s black eyes reflected tiny pinpricks of light from the torches floating in a sea of darkness. “The right wheel sends stories out into the Circle, while the left wheel receives those stories that have lost their power. All stories leave from here, and to here return. It is our duty to ensure that the motion of the Great Wheels never ceases.”

  The Archdevout lowered his head once again. He was not bowing to Yuriko, but to the wheels.

  “But where are the stories?”

  From what he was telling her, she half expected the stories to pass through the spokes like thread on a spinning wheel.

  “Stories cannot be seen by the human eye—not as they are,” the Archdevout added with a smile. Oddly enough, Yuriko had no trouble hearing him, calm and quiet though he was, over the noise of the wheels. “It is only those people living within the Circle who can give form to the stories sent from here. It is the power of humans that brings the stories toward a true existence. All we do is maintain the flow.”

  Yuriko couldn’t believe it. The picture books she had loved when she was little, the things she and her classmates thrilled over now—schoolgirl romance manga, the blockbuster movies her family went to see—all the stories that had touched her life came flooding back to her. Her head was full of them. The characters she had fallen in love with reading late into the night. Those great lines that had brought tears to her eyes. The fantastic CG scenes that came back to visit her dreams.

  And all of them, every single last one, began here, at the source, these two wheels that creaked as they turned. And the countless nameless devout kept it going. They kept the flow of the stories constant, their bald heads glistening with sweat, the black hem of their robes bound tight to their calves as they silently pushed the spokes. Each with the same face, the same pointed chins, in their simple clothes and bare feet slapping against the ground.

  How could something as beautiful, fun, and lively as a story have its origin here?

  “No way…” Yuriko breathed, her lips curling into a lopsided smile. “No way. I don’t believe it. This is some sort of joke, isn’t it? You’re playing a game with me?” Stories were fun. They were beautiful things. Things of value. “People make stories themselves! We create them, imagine them, write them! I can’t believe they come from this!”

  Yuriko’s shouts were lost in the grinding of the wheels. Only the sparks of the torch flames seemed to react to her at all by dancing even higher into the night sky.

  The Archdevout cupped his aged hand lightly on Yuriko’s shoulder. “You may recall that I told you some of the allcastes choose to leave this land after witnessing the nameless devout at our task. They all said the same thing that you say now.”

  Yuriko could feel the Archdevout’s gaunt hand on her shoulder. A wizened little old man.

  “Will you leave us too? If you wish to, no one will stop you.”

  It was a serious question. Should she go forward or go back? A difficult choice offered in gentle words.

  The question was easy to answer. This is ridiculous. I’m out of here. I’m going home! All she had to do was shout that and it would be over. The Archdevout wouldn’t stop her. But something inside Yuriko wouldn’t let her do it. She couldn’t just turn away. A voice from deep in her belly told her not to jump to conclusions, and above all else, not to turn her eyes away from what she saw here.

  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 y
ou 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 li
ght, 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.