Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [215]
“So it’s a matter of chance?”
“Pretty much.”
When the Blood Star first appeared in the northern sky, it would be like a beacon, shining with a bright white light. But once the Goddess began selecting the sacrifice, it would glow blood red until the Lord of the Underworld carried the chosen one into the abyss. When the making of the barrier was complete, the star would again glow white, and then fade by the next dawn, not to reappear for another thousand years.
“We call the time that the Blood Star glows Red Halnera—it means the ‘time of sacrifice’ in the ancient ankha tongue.”
“Halnera,” Wataru repeated. When the Goddess chooses her sacrifice. “But if the Goddess was the one who started this whole thing, why did she have to make it work that way? It seems unnecessarily cruel.”
If she were powerful enough to create all of Vision, it seemed to Wataru she should be able to protect her creation from the chaos herself without having to sacrifice a person to do the job.
“You think so?” Shin said, blinking sadly.
“Of course!”
“Yes. It is a question that has plagued the starseers for many long years. What does the Goddess want of us? Why must she test us in this way? Is she not torturing us, forcing us to endure hardship at her whim?”
A Goddess playing whimsically with her creations. It wasn’t so hard to imagine.
“This is also one of the tenets of the belief in the Old God. They claim that the Goddess does not love the people of Vision, that if she did love us she would never require this horrible sacrifice, not even once in a thousand years.”
She did not love the people of Vision, they claimed, because she did not create Vision. She merely stole what the Old God created.
“Thus, whenever Halnera comes, there is a surge of support for the belief in the Old God. The followers come together and they pray. They pray that the Old God will hear them, and come down once again to Vision, and drive away the evil Goddess once and for all. This is the great rectification of which they dream.”
When Shin put it that way, Wataru found himself becoming confused. So the ankha extremists had at least one good reason for their denial of the Goddess. Wataru saw how it would make sense that people would turn to the Old God. “Shin, is what you’ve told me a well-known fact in Vision? Or is it knowledge held only by the starseers?”
Shin Suxin rubbed his weary eyes. “It was known only in a few circles until recently.”
“Until recently?”
“When it came time for the Blood Star to appear again, the starseers held many conventions at the National Observatory in Sasaya. Then there was a debate with the United Southern Nations government. They’ve only just now come to a decision—I received my copy from a darbaba driver yesterday.”
Shin stood from his chair and opened the topmost drawer of his desk. He pulled out a tightly rolled scroll. “This is their promulgation. They decided that knowledge of Halnera should be told to all people in the south.”
The Highlanders would be busy indeed.
“There are many millions of people living in Vision,” Shin said quietly, standing at the window, looking up at the night sky. “Only one of them will be chosen as the sacrifice. Many think that there will be little reaction when people hear of Halnera. The chances of any one person being chosen are quite low, you see.”
“But if you got chosen, it would be you, and only you!” Wataru said, a little louder than he had intended. “There’s no odds anymore once you’re it. What if you were the one chosen, Shin? Think about that!”
“Indeed…”
From the window came the soft hooting of a night bird. The night was otherwise quiet. But somewhere, high in that silent sky, the Blood Star was waiting.
“Do you think it would have been better not to teach people about Halnera? If they did not know, there would be no need to fear. One day, in some city or town, a person would simply disappear—their family