Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [241]
Then, miraculously, something small and hard slid into his fingers just as he was about to run out of sleeve. Romy’s legs dangled. The movement threatened to rip her out of his grasp entirely. Her boots touched the wall, skidding downward.
“Let go!” she gasped. “Let me go or you’ll fall too!”
That small, hard thing turned out to be the button of her sleeve. It had slid right into the cleft between two of his fingers. I can grab onto this. I can pull her up.
There was a light popping noise, and the button came loose in his hand. The thread had snapped.
Romy’s hair billowed in slow motion. She began to fall. In shock they looked at each other, one above, one below. Wataru’s feet began to straighten. His ankles were giving. Still upside down, he began to slide down the wall of the building.
Suddenly, he felt strong arms around his waist, pulling him upward. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something red, shooting like an arrow. The shooting red Star.
“Romy!”
As Wataru slid now in reverse, he saw a karulakin, wings tucked tight to its body, plummeting down after the falling student starseer, catching her just before she hit the ground. Then he was up and through the window.
The floor was covered with books. Wataru landed with the spine of a particularly thick volume digging into his back.
“He made it!” Captain Ronmel shouted, leaning out the window. Wataru could hear people cheering and whistling from below.
As he got up from the floor, the captain turned and smiled at him. “We meet again.”
“Y-yes,” Wataru stammered, his voice still weak from his brush with death. “You…were the one who pulled me in?”
There were several people in the room now, weaving through the heaps of books scattered across the floor. Some of them wore the armor of the Knights of Stengel.
“You saved yourself. I’m surprised you managed to hang on so long.”
“You caught me in the nick of time.”
“Yes, well, it took me a while to get to the window. This place was like an avalanche of paper. I had to claw my way out.”
“What is everybody doing on the floor?”
“Searching for Dr. Baksan.”
Shortly, they heard a voice from somewhere beneath the books. “Over here! I said over here!”
Wherever he was, the starseer sounded unharmed, if a bit grumpy.
“Wataru!”
Wataru looked up to see Meena running through the door—until she was stopped by one of the Knights. “Careful,” he warned her. “You might step on Dr. Baksan.”
“No problem!” Meena said. She leaped into the air, bounced off one of the walls, and landed on a patch of bare floor right next to Wataru’s side. “I was watching you from below. I thought you were done for!”
“So did I.”
“Are you okay?”
Researchers finally managed to excavate Dr. Baksan. One of the Knights picked him up and cradled him in his arms like a child.
“Ooh, Traveler, you made it!”
“Yes, and Romy as well.”
“Excellent, excellent!” the starseer walked toward him, slipping on books as he came, and took Wataru’s hand. “My son, you’ve saved Romy’s life!”
“That beastkin man…”
The starseer looked up at Captain Ronmel. “You came here in pursuit of the beastkin, Gyu Titus?”
Captain Ronmel straightened himself and gave a curt bow. “Indeed. I apologize that you had to be involved in this affair.”
“And this Gyu Titus…was a prisoner?”
“Yes.”
“I had heard of a rumor—particularly vile—circulating through our facilities of detention, that prisoners would be offered up as the first for sacrifice. Little did I dream that it would go so far as to spur a prison-break!”
“We were lax in our security.” The captain’s eyes showed the strain of being responsible for the safety of the people in a land gripped by chaos. That’s why he looks so haggard.
“We didn’t run into any major disturbances on our way here—but I gather it’s worse in some parts?” Wataru asked.
Captain Ronmel nodded. “I fear you Highlanders will be summoned to an emergency meeting shortly. Perhaps that is what brought that karulakin here today. Lucky for the student.”
Meena gave Wataru a worried look, but Wataru’s