Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [108]
“I said no running!” screamed the wizard, charging in. Panting, Wataru flew across the hut and out the front door.
What am I supposed to do? How did I get into this mess?
Mitsuru had told him to go to the Watcher first. If this grouchy wizard wasn’t the Watcher, Wataru couldn’t think of who it might be. He was the one who he had first seen standing by the Porta Nectere, after all. Why is he chasing me? It didn’t make any sense.
Wataru thought as he ran, looking for a hiding place, when suddenly he realized he was no longer being chased. Huh? Maybe his pursuer had tired at last.
Wataru turned around and looked at the village. Something was slightly different about it, but he couldn’t quite pin down what it was. It was like one of those find-the-mistake puzzles.
The chimney. The white smoke coming from the chimney.
When he first arrived at the village, smoke had been rising from the first hut. Now the smoke was rising from the furthest one—the one he’d just run through.
It occurred to him that, though the wizard had chased him into that particular house, he hadn’t seen him come out.
Walking cautiously across the soft grass, Wataru approached the front door of the farthest hut. He put his ear to the wood. Nothing.
Wait…is that someone humming?
“Um…excuse me, is anybody home?”
The humming stopped. Soft footfalls approached the door.
The door opened, and the wizard from before stuck out his head. He didn’t seem angry at all. “Well now,” he said, spreading his arms. “Perhaps you might be the new visitor Mitsuru has told me about?” His voice was kind and gentle. “What’s going on here?”
“Um, Mister…” Wataru began. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”
The old man opened his eyes wide. “Me, mad? At you?” But he lowered his arms and peered at the space between his hands, as though he were looking for something. “Why would I be angry with you?”
“Why—but just now—you sure you aren’t angry?” Wataru pointed at the first hut. “When I met you over there, you were grumpy from the first minute. You said I was wasting words, and you were going to hit me with your cane!”
The wizard inserted a long slender finger into one nostril. “Me? I did that?”
He’s gone senile.
“You did,” Wataru said, rather forcefully. He feared he was being toyed with.
But then it occurred to him that perhaps this was a sort of test—a trial for new Travelers to Vision. You had to placate the Watcher to pass. If that was the case, Wataru better play it serious. “Um, I am a Traveler here, actually,” he said, pulling out the pendant. “Mitsuru Ashikawa, he gave me this. He told me to show this to the Watcher in Vision, and he would prepare me for my journey. Are you the Watcher?”
The old wizard thrust his hands into the folds of his robes and brought out a comically large device resembling a telescope. Then, yanking Wataru’s hand closer, he examined the pendant through the scope.
“Hrm, yes,” he said. “You are the second Traveler. What is your name?”
“Wataru Mitani.”
“Too long. Here, your name will be Wataru. It’s an odd enough name, and no one should be mistaking you for anyone else as it is.”
Wataru nodded, not wanting to make a fuss and risk raising the old man’s ire again.
“Well, come in, come in,” the wizard said, pushing open the door and waving Wataru inside. “Sit on that chair by the table. I’ll get the map.”
Wataru did as he was told, sitting at the simple table. His heart thumped in his chest.
The old wizard shut the door and shuffled over to a little bookshelf in the back of the room, from which he pulled out several books. To Wataru’s surprise, he then tossed the books aside and thrust his hand into the empty space where they had been.
“Here it is,” he said, pulling out what appeared to be a long scroll. It looked exactly like an item, the merchant’s map, he remembered from Saga II—even down to the slightly yellowed edges.
In the game, the merchant’s map wasn’t a complete map of the Kingdom of Juma. As its name suggested, it was a map used by