The Book of Heroes

by Miyuki Miyabe

  Yuriko’s heart fell back down into her chest with a thunk.

  “Oh, right,” Yuriko said, figuring that the girl had come to find her and bring her back to the others. She made to leave, but Michiru was slowly walking into the reading room toward her.

  “This place,” Michiru whispered, the old books that covered the walls absorbing her voice. “It scared me when I was here last time.”

  I know, thought Yuriko. You told me.

  “Is it still scary?”

  “No, I guess not. It seems different now.” Michiru smiled at her. “Morisaki liked it here. You should’ve seen the way his eyes shone the one time we came here together. We…used to talk about books.”

  “At the library at school?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you ever go to the library in town?”

  A shadow came over Michiru’s eyes. “You mean the public library? Not very much.” Then she added in a low voice, “We didn’t want to run into anyone from school.”

  Of course, Yuriko thought. With both of them being on the committee, it wouldn’t have been strange to find them in the school library, but if someone saw them together outside of school, that would mean they were really friends and were trying to show it to everyone.

  Just the kind of attention Michiru didn’t want.

  The thought triggered something in Yuriko’s memory, and she blurted out, “Did you know that something happened in that library this last spring? One of the books burned, just by itself.”

  Yuriko knew Hiroki had done it with his magic, but she didn’t know why. Maybe she does.

  “A book burned?” Michiru looked surprised. “No, I hadn’t heard anything like that.”

  “Yeah, and the funny thing is, the name of the book was Making the Most of Household Cleaners. Who’d burn a book like that—”

  Before Yuriko had even finished speaking, Michiru’s complexion changed. In the dim reading room, her face went so pale it seemed to shine like the full moon.

  “Who told you that, Yuriko?”

  “One of the book—er, a friend at the library.”

  “Were they mad?”

  “No, more like confused.”

  Michiru put a hand to her throat and took a deep breath. Even in that dusty, dark room, her profile was beautiful.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I think Morisaki did it. For me,” she added quietly. “When all the kids were picking on me at school I got depressed, and I-I thought seriously about killing myself.”

  Yuriko straightened her posture and listened.

  “There are some kinds of household cleaners that you’re not supposed to mix together. If you do, it makes poison gas. I…I was going to mix them in the bath.”

  Finally it made sense. “And that book told you which ones? So you borrowed the book?”

  “I did, but that was just around the time that Morisaki started looking out for me.”

  She had never taken that bath. Her plans for suicide had been shelved.

  “I told Morisaki about it later. And then he told me he would get rid of that book, so I wouldn’t ever be tempted to do that sort of thing again.” Michiru covered her face with her hands and crouched there in the reading room. “And then he got rid of it, I guess.”

  Yuriko pictured the scene in her mind. Maybe Hiroki hadn’t planned on burning the book at first, but once he had the Book of Elem in his hands, and was fully under the Hero’s sway, it must have seemed like the perfect target for testing his newfound powers.

  He was protecting Michiru again, of course.

  He wouldn’t regret what he had done, even now. He’d be satisfied. His incomplete self as a nameless devout had been erased, closing the gate and protecting this world, Michiru’s world, from the ravages of the King in Yellow.

  Yuriko knelt, closing her eyes, letting herself dissolve into the silence of the room. From the bookshelves, the books watched over the girls in the slanting light from the window. Though now they might be pretending to be nothing more than pages bound in leather, Yuriko knew the truth.

  Or at least, she hoped they were watching.

  Another two weeks passed.

  It was a hot afternoon, filled with the buzzing of cicadas in the trees. Yuriko had just gotten back from swimming lessons at the pool, had eaten lunch, and was feeling very ready for a nap. Her mother had gone out to do some grocery shopping.

  The news on the television was talking about a war overseas. There were other reports of things happening in her own country—random murders, senseless atrocities. Yuriko knew what it all meant. War was coming. Another age of conflict loomed.

  But, recently, she had begun to make her own sort of peace with that. There was a lot of bad news for sure, but it wasn’t like the end of the world was at her door, ringing the doorbell just yet.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t care. The realization that there was very little she could do about it had settled on her heart, like the dust collecting on the furniture in Ichiro Minochi’s cottage.

  A feeling of powerlessness was slowly building up inside her with each passing day, and she found she didn’t mind it so much.

  The doorbell rang.

  Not now! I was just about to drift off—

  “Yes?” she called out halfheartedly, and opened the door with the safety chain still on to find a strange man smiling in at her. His broad grin showed a full set of perfect teeth. When he saw Yuriko, he nodded. Even in this heat, he wore a heavy-looking suit with a necktie wrapped tightly around his collar.

  “Yuriko Morisaki?”

  The way he said her name sounded strange. The intonation was all wrong. Wait, he’s not Japanese? The man certainly looked Japanese.

  “Sorry if I startled you.” The man grinned again and bowed. “I am an interpreter. I bring someone who wants to meet you, Yuriko.”

  “Me?” Yuriko asked, pointing at her nose.

  “Yes, you. He is waiting downstairs. He wants to meet only you.”

  And not my parents? That sounded suspicious.

  Yuriko squinted over the chain at the man. “Who is it that wants to meet only me?”

  The man replied immediately, “Actually, I’m not sure myself. But he has told me that you would know him were I to introduce him as a friend of the Man of Ash.”

  Her visitor was waiting in a strange-looking van with high suspension. The sliding door opened, and she could see him looking out at her from the back seat. She knew she should never get into a strange car with a strange man, but this time seemed like an exception. A real exception. Yuriko ran up to the van.

  The man was wearing a white shirt, with a brilliantly colored blanket draped over his knees. When he saw Yuriko run up, all out of breath, he smiled merrily.

  He has perfect teeth too.

  Those white teeth and white eyes and white shirt stood in stark contrast to the man’s dark skin.

  He was a large man, with broad shoulders. His silver hair was cropped close to his scalp above a smooth forehead.

  Yuriko spotted a wheelchair folded in the back of the van.

  He’s old. An old man.

  “This is Yuriko,” the interpreter said, running up behind her.

  The man beckoned Yuriko to sit in the seat next to him, pointing with one finger to his ear several times. He’s wearing a hearing aid.

  Yuriko got into the van and sat next to him, feeling dwarfed by the man’s size. The interpreter closed the sliding door and went around to the front to sit in the driver’s seat.

  Their eyes met. The old man smiled again, nodding to her two, three times. He began talking rapidly, not even waiting for the interpreter to get settled. Yuriko couldn’t make out a single thing he was saying.

  “He says ‘Hello,’” the interpreter translated, as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Hello!” Yuriko said back, bowing her head. “You are a friend of Ash—I mean, the Man of Ash?”

  The interpreter spoke again, and
the old man answered. She was pretty sure he wasn’t speaking English, but other than that, she had no idea what language it was.

  “Yes,” the interpreter said. “His name is Atali.”

  Atali. Yuriko had been able to make that word out in the jumble from the old man’s mouth.

  “It is his ‘wolf’ name. I am sorry I do not know what that means. Do you know?”

  Yuriko swallowed, nodding. She could feel the sweat on the palms of her hands.

  “He knows you,” the interpreter translated.

  The old man’s tone was gentler now. He looked directly at Yuriko as he talked, now in broken Japanese. “You are U-ri. Allcaste U-ri, yes?”

  Yuriko’s eyes went wide as she stared back at him. She nodded again.

  “I know of your journey. The Man of Ash told me. The other wolves call me ‘Atali Silvertooth.’”

  That’s a cool name, Yuriko thought. A wolf with silver teeth.

  “I have known the Man of Ash, Dmitri, for a very long time.”

  Dmitri. It seemed like years since she had last heard that name.

  “Dmitri does not age. But I have grown old. I am an old man.” He laughed. “I cannot fight anymore. Nor can I hunt. That is why I now retire.”

  Here the man returned to speaking his own language so he could speak more quickly. The interpreter, listening to every word and sweating profusely, nodded and occasionally asked questions. Yuriko steadied her own breath and tried to calm her wildly beating heart as she looked between the two.

  “You were very brave, U-ri,” the interpreter said, turning back to Yuriko. “That is why Atali has come to you. That is why he expects so much of—expects?” The interpreter asked a quick question to Atali, then turned back to her. “Yes, expects.”

  Yuriko nodded. “I see. But what does he expect?” Her pulse was racing faster now.

  “If you would be so inclined, Mr. Atali has something to give you. He wants you to have it.”

  With a nudge from the interpreter, Atali opened the top few buttons on his shirt, revealing an old yet still muscular chest and a pendant hanging on a chain at his neck, nestled in silver chest hair.

  Atali began to remove it, but his fingers did not move as nimbly as he would have liked, and eventually the interpreter had to lean from the driver’s seat to help him.

  “This is my mark.”

  The pendant looked small in Atali’s large black hand. It glowed a dull silver. Yuriko saw that it was shaped like a fang.

  A wolf’s fang.

  “Dmitri does not know. But I have seen it in you. You are strong. Far stronger than you know.”

  Atali’s hand tilted and the pendant chain began to slip. Yuriko quickly reached out to grab it as it fell.

  The pendant was warm to the touch. Like it was alive.

  With his other hand, the man gently grasped Yuriko’s wrist, rotating her palm upward, and placed the chain of the pendant in her hand. Atali smiled. Then he curled her fingers shut until she held the pendant tightly.

  “You are strong. You have the makings of a wolf. I retire now, but this fang I pass to you. Will you take it?”

  Atali had come a long way for this. He had crossed an ocean. But though his region might be a foreign land to Yuriko, they were both in the same Circle. And wolves roamed everywhere. They had access to all places.

  “Where are you from, Atali?”

  The man interpreted. For some reason, Atali had to think before he answered. “Homeland,” he said.

  Yuriko lifted an eyebrow. Was that a country’s name?

  The man squinted and smiled as though he had expected this reaction. He began to talk rapidly again, making the interpreter rush to keep up.

  “Homeland is not a true country’s name. It is the name of a district formed a long time ago in the Republic of South Africa. You know in my country there was a thing called apartheid? It means ‘apart-ness.’ It was discrimination against those with black skin.”

  “Yes, my brother told me all about apartheid. He saw a movie about it or something.”

  Atali nodded. “It was in those days, the white people told the black people you must live here, and those places they called bantustans, or ‘homelands.’”

  The interpreter continued, wiping at his face with a handkerchief. “A long time ago, in the Republic of South Africa, there was a story that told the white people they could do what they—what’s that? A story?” He turned back to Atali for confirmation. Atali nodded. Yuriko nodded too.

  “It was a story, yes. A popular one in those times.”

  It was a story. People at the time might have thought of it as a philosophy, or perhaps even the simple truth, but it was in fact a story.

  “That is when I became a wolf. My desire was to hunt the book that told the story that made one man hate another because of the color of his skin. There are no homelands now. There is no apartheid.”

  He smiled. “I live in Johannesburg.”

  But Atali had been born a wolf in his homeland. And he had come from there to give Yuriko his fang.

  “I have been searching for a successor for some time now.” Atali looked with large eyes at Yuriko. His pupils glinted jet black. They reminded her of somebody else’s eyes—the eyes of every brave man she had ever met.

  “You would make a good wolf. You will journey again. You want to, yes? When you are older and stronger. You will journey to bind the Hero. I know this. That is why I have come.” The old man smiled. “I am glad to have met you. You are exactly as I imagined you to be.”

  Yuriko’s vision blurred. Why am I still crying after everything I’ve been through?

  Why am I still such a little crybaby?

  But these weren’t a child’s tears.

  “You are strong. You journeyed well. Your journey was hard, but you saved your brother. You saved the Circle. You are strong.”

  The man’s heavy hand rubbed Yuriko’s head. Atali smiled. His smile was strong and gentle. “I believe in you. I think Dmitri knows this too. He waits for you. And he will wait a long time, for he will never die. He does not grow old. But you will soon be an adult.”

  Dmitri the undertaker. The Man of Ash. Ash in his black cloak. One who is close to the dead.

  He was waiting to meet Yuriko again. Waiting to walk the streets of the Haetlands with her again, where the tragic King Kirrick ruled as the Hero.

  And Aju would be there too, for sure, an aunkaui dictionary no longer.

  The silver fang glinted in Yuriko’s palm, reflecting the light in her eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  Yuriko gripped the pendant tightly.

  The mark of the wolf, in her hand.

  HAIKASORU

  THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE

  THE LORD OF THE SANDS OF TIME By Issui Ogawa

  Only the past can save the future as the cyborg O travels from the 26th century to ancient Japan and beyond. With the help of the princess Miyo and a ragtag troop of warriors from across history, O has a chance to save humanity and his own soul, but will it be at the cost of his life?

  ALL YOU NEED IS KILL By Hiroshi Sakurazaka

  It’s battle armor versus aliens when the Mimics invade Earth. Private Kiriya dies in battle only to find himself reborn every day to fight again. Time is not on Kiriya’s side, but he does have one ally: the American super-soldier known as the Full Metal Bitch.

  ZOO By Otsuichi

  A man receives a photo of his girlfriend every day in the mail...so that he can keep track of her body’s decomposition. A deathtrap that takes a week to kill its victims. Haunted parks and airplanes held in the sky by the power of belief. These are just a few of the stories by Otsuichi, Japan’s master of dark fantasy.

  USURPER OF THE SUN By Housuke Nojiri

  Schoolgirl Aki is one of the few witnesses to construction on the surface of Mercury. Soon an immense ring has been built around the sun and Earth has plunged into chaos. While the nations of the world prepare for war, Aki grows up with a thirst for knowledge and
a hunger to make first contact with the enigmatic Builders. Winner of Japan’s prestigious Seiun Award!

  BATTLE ROYALE: THE NOVEL By Koushun Takami

  The best-selling tour de force from Koushun Takami in a new edition, with an author’s afterword and bonus material.

  BRAVE STORY By Miyuki Miyabe

  The paperback edition of the Batchelder Award-winning fantasy novel by Miyuki Miyabe.

  YUKIKAZE By Chōhei Kambayashi

  Rei Fukai is a man on a mission to a strange planet that seeks to invade Earth through a transdimensional portal. His only true ally—the sentient jet fighter Yukikaze! A classic of Japanese military science fiction!

  VISIT US AT WWW.HAIKASORU.COM

  Table of Contents

  The Prayer-Song

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  HAIKASORU