Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [113]
“Stand.”
When he stood, Wataru found his clothes had changed. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt of undyed silk—without collar or cuffs on the sleeves. His trousers were dark blue and baggy. His boots were sturdy and laced with leather straps. Only those resembled what Mitsuru had been wearing. Everything else was definitely a grade down, if not several grades down. Instead of a leather belt around his waist, he found something like a hempen cord had been wrapped around him several times.
“This…is my equipment?”
“That it is. Congratulations.”
“What about my weapon? Even a Novice Brave must get a weapon.”
“When you return to the surface, yes.”
The wizard put pen and clipboard away inside his robes, and then with an audible exertion, he stood up from his chair. “I will be leaving for the surface now.”
“Leaving? What about me? Is there another trial?”
The wizard scowled. “You do know that for every request, there is a price?”
“You mean like, money?”
“Not all prices are measured in coins. Sometimes you must offer something larger to receive.”
Again, Wataru felt a tremor run through the ground. It was still distant. But it was getting closer. Something big—no, huge—was coming this way.
“I’ve heard your request, and the price they ask is a game where the stakes are your life,” the wizard said simply. “Should you escape, you win. You’ll have your life, and your wishes. Should you be captured, you’ll lose. And your wishes will not be granted. But that will be the least of your worries.”
With a thunderous crash, the walls of the chamber came crumbling down in four spots. The four Wards! They had destroyed the walls with their axes, the way a child destroys a sand castle on the beach. They’re coming for me!
“There are many exits,” the wizard said, pointing around the room. Wataru noticed numerous doors lining the far walls.
“Find the exit and make your escape.”
“But how will I know which one is the right one?”
Axes raised, the four Wards charged.
“Good luck,” the wizard said with a grin. “Remember the song of the birds in the Northwood.”
Then the wizard disappeared, leaving only a thin trail of mist where he stood. The mist formed into the shape of a white bird, and was swept upward toward the darkened ceiling.
“W-wait!”
But there was no time. The four Wards were upon him. Wataru screamed and ran for one side of the room, but his legs were like jelly, and he tripped and fell. Where he had been standing moments before, the great axe of the Snow-God came crashing down, biting deep into the stone of the floor. A jagged crack shot through the floor like a lightning bolt.
“Help me!”
Wataru had always laughed at the people in movies and comic books who screamed for help when it was painfully obvious that no one would hear them, or even think of coming to their rescue. He now realized how little he knew. At times like this, you had to scream.
He struggled to his feet and lurched out of the way as another axe—this one belonging to the Dawn-God—smashed into the floor where he had fallen. Even in such dire circumstances, he could tell the statues apart by the color of the single shining eye in the middle of each statue’s forehead.
Okay, run away. But to where?
The chamber was long and rectangular, and the sides were lined with countless doors. He had no way of knowing which one of them was the exit. Do I have to open every single one in order?
Wataru ran in a panic, and the four Wards gave chase, the floor shaking under their massive feet. Where they stepped, the floor stones broke into shards and scattered everywhere. Wataru saw the destruction out of the corner of his eye and it made his hair stand on end.
Still, as he ran, he noticed something. After one of the four Wards charged and swung his axe, it took him time to change directions. Not only that, but it seemed like the one who charged set the target for the other three. Where the first statue’s axe fell, so too would follow the weapons