Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [272]
“I don’t mean the cold, I mean how the city is built. It seems like every building is some great temple or shrine.”
“Nothing I’ve seen comes close,” Meena said. “It’s strange—and more than just because it’s all frozen. I don’t see any stores or lodges or anything that suggests people might live here at all.”
The three arrived at a small park in the center of town. Immediately they noted a pedestal surrounded by planters filled with flowers. Atop the pedestal was an abstract sculpture shaped like a globe. Wataru thought it might represent a planet or the heavens, but when he approached he saw that its surface was smooth. It looked so cold Wataru didn’t dare touch it for fear that his finger might stick. On closer inspection, Wataru saw that there was a crack running through the center of the sphere. He decided that this must be a sculpture of a gemstone—it was, in fact, shaped exactly like the ones on his sword.
But that was odd. The gemstones were there to guide Travelers, and weren’t Travelers despised and hated by believers in the Old God? It didn’t make any sense.
“What should we do, Wataru? I can’t just keep walking around aimlessly like this much longer,” Meena said, hugging her arms to her chest and rubbing her shoulders. “I’m afraid Kee Keema is going to freeze solid. Waterkin aren’t very good in the cold, you know.”
Come to think of it, lizards were cold-blooded. Put them in a cold place, and their body temperature drops. They slow down. The two turned to see Kee Keema squatting near the entrance to the park, eyes closed. He wasn’t moving.
The two ran back to him as fast as they could. Wataru slipped, barreling into his friend, and Kee Keema’s eyes blinked open.
“You okay?”
“Sorry,” Kee Keema said, his eyes turning slowly. Wataru looked and saw frost forming in the spaces between his fingers. “I just got so sleepy all of a sudden.”
“Oh no! He’ll freeze to death!”
“Let’s go back to Jozo. Kee Keema, can you stand?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, his tongue moving sluggishly in his mouth. His entire body seemed incredibly heavy. Wataru and Meena each grabbed one of his arms and began walking him back.
“I’m fine…really…” Kee Keema said, practically talking in his sleep.
Everything around them was glazed frosty blue with ice. They left no footprints as they walked across ground slick enough to skate on. The roads were laid out like squares on a checkerboard, so Wataru thought it would be easy to retrace their steps. But that was not the case. Everything looked so similar the threesome soon found they were lost. Even Jozo, the crimson firewyrm, was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, Meena let go of Kee Keema’s arm and stopped. Wataru took two or three steps before he realized. “What’s wrong, Meena?” He looked back to see her eyes opened wide and her mouth hanging open. “What is it?”
“Look at that!”
To the left of where they had been walking was a small courtyard surrounded by low hedges. Everything was glazed over with a layer of white. It was like a schoolyard the day after a big snowfall.
“Look at what?”
“Don’t you see it?”
Wataru squinted. The cold wind made his eyes tear. “I don’t see anything…” Wataru began. And then he saw it. There, in the middle of the courtyard, was a pattern formed from interlacing lines of eyes.
It’s the pattern—the one that opens the Corridor of Light!
“I wonder if that means you can use the Mirror of Truth here?”
If that was the case, then Wataru was even more confused. All of this, the sculpture, the mirror, the pattern, was connected to the Travelers. They shouldn’t have anything to do with the Old God at all, yet here was irrefutable proof that they did.
“Let’s go take a closer look,” Kee Keema said slowly. “Might find some clues.”
“But…”
“It’s okay, I won’t freeze on you yet.”
The three cut across the frozen courtyard, nearing the pattern. On closer inspection, it was definitely the pattern they had seen twice before. Wataru stood in the center, kneeling down to trace the lines of ice with his finger.
“This part here is higher than the rest.”
“You’re