Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [312]
Wataru looked silently at Meena, then up into Kee Keema’s broad face. The waterkin nodded. “I don’t know what you two’ve been talking about, but I agree with what the little missus says.”
“Everything all patched up?” Kutz asked. “Then let’s go. You came at just the right time—I couldn’t stand hiding in that cellar a second longer. I was just about to come storming out of there. Did you see the look on Boris’s face? Priceless!”
Wataru smiled. Meena and Kutz—two incredible women. He hunched over, clinging to Jozo’s wings as the cool wind whipped over them and they rose higher into the skies over Gasara.
Chapter 45
The Imperial Capital of Solebria
Mitsuru looked up at the sky.
The Crystal Palace, seat of the Northern Empire’s power, was in the very center of the Imperial Capital of Solebria. Over a span of two hundred years, the city had grown out along boulevards radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the palace, swelling to become home to more than one million people.
The towering central keep of the Crystal Palace, made of a milky-white stone resembling marble, had guest rooms near the residence of the emperor himself. Mitsuru now stood on the terrace near the top floor, looking down on the city. It was, in a way, like looking at the very history of the Northern Empire. The construction of the city of Solebria reflected with uncanny accuracy the class structure that ordered the daily lives of people in the north. In the center, surrounding the palace, stood the looming offices of the government. Beyond them lay the lavish arcade teeming with shoppers that formed the merchant district. Even further out were the homes of the citydwellers, all standing in their approved plots, gaily decorated with the requisite markers of wealth and individual taste.
But the farther one strayed from the center of town, the shabbier things became. There was a deep moat between the city center and the outer ring of town, forming a rift, a natural line of separation that was clear to see from Mitsuru’s vantage point.
The capital city of Solebria was, in essence, a castle town. The city walls, much expanded and strengthened over the years, were always a remarkable sight to the merchants who visited from the southern continent. But beyond these walls and the single gate that led to the bustling Merchants Corridor, visitors never saw anything else of the city. That even here, within the city, there existed not one but two Solebrias, was hidden from their eyes. One of these Solebrias belonged to the rich, the other to the poor. The oppressors and the oppressed. Those who were served and those who served.
Farther still from the Crystal Palace, to the northeast, lay the prison where outlaws and criminals were held. This was an area abhorred by the geomancers of the north, their divinations honed by years of coping with the harsh climate of the northern continent.
Behind the prison edifice stood another gate that led outside the city walls. Many people considered this the gate of no return. The road leading to the northeast from this gate was referred to as the Captives Road, and the location of the forced labor camp at its end wasn’t marked on any official maps of the Empire. No one knew exactly how large it was, or how many souls it held.
Those who survived the camp knew they were guilty of only one crime: they were beastkin. They knew this, but they could not speak it out loud. The only power they had was the power to forget. The blank spot on the map was one way. If one could forget something that had existed, it never did.
Still, truth has a way of finding the chinks in even the strongest armor. Even if people are silent, buildings speak. The land speaks—and there are some who write down what they hear. On this, his tenth day in the Imperial Capital, Mitsuru already had an excellent grasp of the Empire’s history and the true conditions of life here. Much of his understanding came from the documents he found in the archives of the Crystal Palace itself.