The Boy in the City of the Dead

by Kanata Yanagino

  “Have a look.”

  I peered inside. There was the richly sweet smell of forest grapes, and at the same time, my nose was filled by a second, very distinctive smell. I could see bubbles rising in the liquid inside.

  “Okay, listen, Will. What I did was, I got this pot to boiling temperature, and I put in the juice of pressed forest grapes...”

  “You’re making alcohol?”

  “Oh, you do know!”

  “So the reason you’re looking for a beehive—”

  “Yup. We’re gonna shove honey in here and sweeten it up.”

  If a certain type of fungus gets into a liquid containing sugar, it starts breaking the sugar down and producing alcohol. Of course, the more sugar you add, the higher the alcohol concentration, and the harder the drink.

  “A man’s gotta be able to handle his booze,” he said.

  “Are you sure Mary won’t get angry?”

  “Come on. She doesn’t need to know, right? It’ll be our secret!” His will-o’-the-wisps were twinkling, and he looked like he was really having fun. It was too hard to turn him down.

  I was on board without much convincing, and the two of us ran through the forest looking for a bees’ nest. We laughed loudly together as we smoked it out. It was no trouble to get the honey, and we added it to the jar.

  I tried some bee larvae on Blood’s suggestion. They were surprisingly tasty. It hit me how much rougher and less fussy I’d become, compared to my previous life.

  We left it for a number of days, and after checking that it had properly fermented and become alcohol, we sat in secret opposite each other and enjoyed a drink together. Having said that, Blood had no throat or tongue, of course. No sooner had he poured it into his mouth than it was dripping onto the ground.

  “Oh, that’s good. That’s damn good,” he said with relish. I was sure he couldn’t taste it, and couldn’t get drunk, either. Yet Blood looked like he was loving it, and seemed to be having a lot of fun.

  “Yeah.” This drink, shared with Blood, tasted wonderful to me as well.

  With nothing much to snack on, we poured cup after cup, and got drunk while gazing at the moon. It wasn’t long before a really nice, light, floaty feeling filled my head, and we were laughing like idiots at the smallest little jokes. We got more and more excitable, and when it got to the point where we were acting like a pair of total drunkards...

  “You wanna show me you’ve got guts?” Blood slurred.

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s go peep on Mary getting undressed.”

  “Ooh, gutsy!”

  “I am gutsy, aren’t I?”

  “Hahaha!” We both laughed our heads off. How did this end up happening?

  Obviously, I knew in my head that this was not something we should be doing. I feel sure that even as dulled as my brain was, it was still correctly asking me, What’s even fun about this in the first place?!

  “Ahahahah!”

  “Ahahahah!”

  It’s just that it was pointless asking that question to a drunk.

  We moved quickly. The temple’s corridors were wobbling. No, wait, that was me.

  We judged our timing, and swiftly moved to the door of Mary’s room. I could hear the rustle of fabric. Blood and I peeked through the gap, and saw that Mary was just taking off her loose robe.

  Blood and I both were capable of moving around very quietly and expertly when we wanted to. Peeping on someone was easy for us... or would have been when we were sober.

  “Ah—”

  “You—idiot!”

  I wobbled, staggered, and brought us both crashing to the ground.

  Mary shrieked. “Wh-Who’s there?!”

  We tried to run, but weren’t fast enough. She was able to find something close at hand to wear, and in no time at all, she had put it on, darted out, and caught us both.

  “Will?! Blood?! What in the world—ugh, you reek of alcohol!”

  I rarely saw Mary this flustered.

  “Um, I... this isn’t...!”

  “Heheh, thought we’d take a li’l peek at you getting changed.”

  “Wh—Wh—Wh—?!”

  If she’d been alive, her face would surely have gone bright red. The way Mary was losing her composure in embarrassment was actually adorable, and I felt my heart leap for just a moment.

  “What are you two doing?!”

  A red handprint was left on my cheek. As for the main culprit, Blood, Mary socked him so hard that his skull spun in circles. Then she got on top of him, pinned him down, and punched him repeatedly.

  Not only had we gotten completely plastered, we’d peeped on a lady in a state of undress. The punishment fit the crime. Frankly, we’d gotten off lightly.

  And when I woke up the following morning, for some reason, I’d had a wet dream. Yes, for the first time.

  My voice was breaking around this time, so it wasn’t surprising, but to think my awakening to sex was Mary getting undressed. My awakening to sex was Mary getting undressed. And to make matters worse, Blood found out, and he doubled over laughing while pointing a finger at me. I kicked him.

  And, as I washed my soiled loincloth, I made him swear to me that we’d take this secret with us to the grave.

  No more booze. Seriously, no more.

  ◆

  Focusing on my “episodes” with Blood and Gus may give you the impression that I was a mischief maker of the highest order. But I was basically a good kid. I... thought I was, anyway. Probably. Most likely.

  “Mary, I weeded the field. Also, I put the washing out.”

  “Thank you, Will.”

  “Also, I dusted the gods’ statues and laid down some flowers.”

  “Oh, my goodness.”

  As proof, recently, I’d gotten to the point where I wasn’t just helping Mary with the chores, I was beating her to them. Surprisingly, that was much more difficult than it sounded. I couldn’t wait around for directions. I had to have a total grasp of her procedure, think about what was needed, and carry it out before she could.

  Mary was quick. She told me that the trick to not letting chores get on top of you was to take care of things immediately the moment you noticed them. The cleaning tools and the farm tools were kept within easy reach at all times, and if she noticed a little bit of dust or a weed, she dealt with it then and there, and got it out of the way.

  To do things before she could, I had to constantly be on the lookout, and I couldn’t let myself get lazy, either. Always thinking about reducing Mary’s workload as I went about my business taught me more, in a way, than even the lessons being given to me by Blood and Gus. At least in terms of how it impacted my regular life, it was far more important than strengthening my muscles.

  If I’d at least done some housework in my previous life, I could have been slightly less of a burden on my family. Now that I was living in this world, I never wanted to make the same mistakes again.

  “Thank you very much, Will. Well, now I have some time on my hands. I know, why don’t I cut your hair today?”

  “Ah, good idea.”

  My hair had grown quite long without me really noticing it. When was the last time Mary cut it for me?

  She was good at haircutting. Gus, incidentally, never once offered, and the one time I asked Blood to do it could be summed up with the word “appalling.”

  “Okay, ready. Thanks, Mary.”

  My voice had finally stopped changing recently. I’d grown much taller, and my shoulders had gotten broader, too. I’d overtaken both Mary and Gus in height, and although I still couldn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with Blood, the difference in our physiques had narrowed quite a bit. I could practice unarmed combat with him now.

  It was a refreshingly cool autumn morning. Mary chopped away at my hair, showing no hesitation with the well-sharpened scissors.

  “I can see your Adam’s apple sticking out now. You might start growing a beard soon.”

  “Yeah. Maybe I’ll get Blood to teach me how to
use a razor. I wonder if he remembers.”

  Mary let out a little laugh. “I wonder. I expect he hasn’t used one for a long time.”

  Electric razors were so common in my previous world. I wondered how many young people had ever shaved their beards with a straight razor. I couldn’t do it either, of course. I’d have to learn.

  Then again, cutting yourself with a razor looked painful. If the customs of the outside world would allow it, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let it grow...

  “Come to think of it, what did Blood’s face look like?”

  Gus looked like he always had. Mary was just sapped of moisture, and still had her abundant blonde hair and her gentle eyes, so her, I could at least imagine. Blood was the most difficult.

  Mary stopped snipping and looked into the distance wistfully.

  “Blood looked quite different from you. I’m sure you can tell from his skeletal structure. His arms and neck were thick, and he had broad shoulders. He had a wild face... an indomitable face, full of confidence. His hair trailed in the wind like a lion’s mane. He had sharp, piercing eyes. Perhaps he looked a bit too tough to call good-looking?”

  I imagined burly muscles overlaid on Blood’s familiar skeleton. I stretched skin over them, and added hair. A piercing stare, wild and brawny, a lion of a man.

  “Whoa, I can see him.”

  “You can, can’t you? He was pretty cool,” Mary laughed, a little shyly. Maybe they really did have something together.

  I couldn’t really tell, because neither of them would ever relax their self-restraint as adults in front of me. Even with my previous life’s memories, I obviously didn’t know much about the subtleties of this kind of thing.

  Mary resumed snipping, and once again pieces of my hair started falling to the floor.

  Her hands were moving as though this was second nature to her. From time to time, she would peer at me from different angles to check how it was looking.

  “All done,” she said after a while, and showed me a hand mirror.

  A young man with a clean-cut and cheerful countenance looked back at me from inside the mirror. He had slightly messy chestnut-brown hair, and I got an impression of meekness from his deep blue-green eyes. From just his face he’d look like a pampered rich kid, but with the muscular body, he was more like a young warrior from a good family instead.

  Marie chuckled. “I think you’re pretty good-looking, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think so. I’d have preferred a face like Blood’s.” This world seemed to be dangerous, so I thought a strong-looking, intimidating face with presence would probably be more useful. And on a more personal level, I just wanted to be like him. “It’s a bit of a shame we don’t look much alike.”

  “Two Bloods might be one too many,” Marie said, laughing. “But I think you really are looking a lot more grown—oh, yes.”

  “Hm?”

  “It’s going to be time for your adulthood rite soon, remember,” she said, as she removed the cloth from my neck and brushed up the hair on the floor. “You need to think hard about your guardian deity, and decide on your oath.”

  Crap. I’d totally forgotten.

  ◆

  This world had many gods. Major gods, minor gods—all different, and all respected by someone.

  Every individual person had their own “guardian deity,” the god that person had the most faith in. I was told that until a child became an adult, he was considered to be under the protection of his parents’ guardian deities. The adulthood rite was about parting with that protection: determining your own guardian deity, making an oath, and wishing for protection yourself.

  And it was held that people should live and die in a manner with which their own guardian deity would be pleased. It sounds restrictive, but it was apparently possible to perform the rite again at a later time to change your guardian deity, if your attitude or circumstances changed.

  Also, it was normal for people to worship other gods than their guardian deity when the situation called for it. For instance, just about everyone would make an offering to Whirl, the god of wind, before setting out on a journey. It didn’t seem to be a very strict type of polytheism.

  Their perspective on life and death was based around reincarnation.

  When a person died, they would be summoned beyond this dimension, to the place of the gods they believed in, where they would be judged on their actions in life. If the god received them favorably, repose would be given in the pleasant fields. If not, penitence would be demanded in the wilderness of suffering. And after a certain period, they would be reborn again. After countless such rebirths, after the soul had been refined to the highest degree, that person would ascend the ladder to godhood. The highest of heroes and saints would surpass the dimension of humans, and become gods.

  I found this hard to understand in concrete terms. In the polytheistic worlds of Japan and ancient Rome, truly exceptional individuals were worshipped after their deaths as gods. Was the goal to become something like that?

  The temple’s hall was magnificent as usual. So much time had passed since I first awoke here on that day. Through the course of growing up and learning about this world, I’d come to know the names of each and every one of the gods depicted in these statues. These were the most famous of the gods, who had existed in this world since long ago.

  The imposing man with an air of gravitas, in the prime of life, bearing a sword in the shape of lightning in his right hand, and a set of scales in the other—

  This was the god of justice and lightning, Volt. He was the leader of the virtuous gods. God of gods and guardian of humans, he commanded the blessed rains, as well as the lightning that was his divine judgment. Many put their faith in him, from the ruling classes to the common people. His brother, the evil god Illtreat, had command over tyranny, and the two of them often fought fierce battles.

  The woman with the loving smile, who was holding a baby in her arms, and standing in front of a background of rice plants growing out of the earth—

  Mater the Earth-Mother. She was the god to whom Mary showed devotion, and governed the gifts of the earth and the raising of children. She was also said to be wife to Volt. Blessings made to her commonly related to farming and child-rearing, and people in rural areas in particular put deep faith in her, along with Volt.

  The moustachioed man of short, beefy stature, with roaring flames at his back, hands gripping a hammer and tongs—

  This was the god of fire and technology, Blaze. He was also said to be the forefather of the dwarves, and I often saw reliefs of him in the dwarven city underground. In addition to receiving the devotion of craftsmen, he was seemingly also popular with warriors, just as Volt was, for his advocacy of the merits of a fiery temper and ceaseless training. Incidentally, Blood had taken Blaze as his guardian deity.

  The young person smiling amiably, holding a glass of wine and a number of gold coins, and surrounded by what seemed to be pictographs representing the blowing wind—

  The god of wind and exchange, Whirl. Progenitor of the halflings, a bright and cheery race of little people, Whirl was a trickster with command over commerce, exchange, freedom, good luck, and other such things, and had the devotion of merchants, gamblers, and travelers. Small shrines dedicated to Whirl could often be found at the roadside.

  The fine young woman clad in thin cloth, submerged up to her waist in a clear stream, holding a bow in one hand, and reaching out with her other to what might have been a fairy—

  The god of water and greenery, Rhea Silvia. She was a capricious goddess, who was also said to be the foremother of the elves. She ruled over the seas, the rivers, the forests, and all their blessings, and also had domain over hunting and elementals. Hunters, fishermen, lumberjacks—many of her followers had occupations with ties to nature. The view of her as a capricious god may have arisen from her connection with natural disasters. Incidentally, although I had never seen them, elementals and fairies existed in this world, too, and there w
as a special, specific system of mystical techniques for borrowing their power.

  The one-eyed old man who radiated intelligence, standing in front of some kind of inscription, holding a cane and an open book in his hands—

  This was the god that Gus had once talked to me about who had created our letters. The god of knowledge, Enlight. He was a god who had many followers among intellectuals. It was said that his single eye perceived what could be seen, while his missing eye perceived what could not. Gus’s guardian deity was in fact not Enlight, god of knowledge, but Whirl, god of wind. According to Gus, “It is far better to travel with money than to be surrounded by books in an ivory tower.”

  These six gods were the ones worshipped in a particularly large number of regions. The legends said that these gods had a Ragnarok-style battle with the evil gods, which ended in mutual defeat, and now both sides were healing their wounds beyond this dimension. However, I’d also been told that from time to time, they would send something called an Echo into this world, like a body split off from their own, to help guide people. These Echoes of the gods, both good and bad, made sporadic appearances in the epics I had been told through story and poetry.

  The scale of everything I’d been told was on another level. I was planning to live a normal life. I doubted that I’d ever have anything to do with any of that stuff. As these thoughts went through my mind, I took a look at the sculpture with the lantern that had once inexplicably fascinated me.

  The god of unknown gender, standing in front of no background, with a long-handled lantern in their hand. The child of the god of lightning, Volt, and the Earth-Mother, Mater. The god of the flame, whose domain was the endless cycle of transmigration. Gracefeel.

  Gracefeel was a god resembling the Grim Reaper, with control over souls and reincarnation. They were said to appear before the souls of the dead, and show them the way with their lantern, guiding them to the fields of the gods, and to the next life. Little had been told about Gracefeel. Their gender was unknown, their appearance undescribed. They were extremely reticent, even for a god. They rarely offered revelations, and the unique arts they bestowed through benediction were scarcely useful.