Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [320]
“Master Mitsuru?”
Mitsuru snapped back into focus. Zophie was looking directly at him. He was afraid his attention had wandered in the middle of their discussion. “My apologies! My mind began to drift off into the clouds.”
Zophie smiled brightly. Her hairpin—an elaborate affair covered with stones of many colors and bound with a silver chain—swayed elegantly. “Do not worry on my behalf, for I know what it is that concerns you and causes your mind to wander. I know the source of this concern is my father…”
Mitsuru’s face tightened.
Zophie turned to her servants standing ready. “I must speak on a very important matter with Master Mitsuru. I will call for you when I need you,” she ordered.
The servants shuffled quietly off, leaving them alone in the Garden of Victory.
“Sending your servants away?” Mitsuru asked. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Of course, sending them away does not ensure that one of Adju Lupa’s men does not hear our every word, but I care not. For it was none other than Adju Lupa himself who suggested I speak to you on this matter, Master Mitsuru.”
Mitsuru was not surprised to hear that they might be observed. He had assumed that Sigdora’s eyes gleamed in every dark corner. But he was startled to hear the revelation that followed. “What is it that Lord Lupa said?”
Zophie bit her lip lightly, glancing in the direction of the shrub where her manservant waited. “Before I speak of that, may I ask you, Master Mitsuru, if you have divined the true nature of the man who pulls my rickshaw?”
Chapter 46
The Mirror of Eternal Shadow
The change of subject was so abrupt that for a moment Mitsuru merely stared at Lady Zophie.
“Adju Lupa told me,” she continued, amused by the shock in Mitsuru’s eyes. “He said Master Mitsuru possesses strange powers as a Traveler, and he is able to see people’s true forms. Perhaps you use your staff for this, no?” Her gaze went to the staff leaning against the armrest of Mitsuru’s brick chair.
“Truth be told, I’ve seen you use your staff on my servant here several times. Each time, you have the most curious look on your face.”
So she’s sharper than she lets on. Mitsuru returned her smile. “It is as you say. You are quite clever, m’lady.”
Zophie did not seem pleased. “Tell me, what did you see? I’m betting you didn’t see a thing. That is why you look at him so suspiciously. Am I right?”
Mitsuru nodded, wondering where she was going with this.
“Of course you saw nothing—for there is nothing there to see. Though my servant has the shape of a man, he is not a man at all. He is what we call a shell—a form without a soul. Though he follows his master’s orders faithfully, he has no will of his own. He feels no emotion, or pain. Yes, he can fall ill, and if you kill him he will die, so he has life. Yet it cannot be said that he lives.” A pity, she added under her breath.
“This is the first time I ever heard this word, shell, used in this way,” Mitsuru said. “I never heard of this sort of thing in the south.”
“No, of course you did not. Shells are found only in the north.”
“Is it some disease?”
Zophie shook her head vigorously. “No!”
Mitsuru squinted. “Then a drug perhaps, or magic? Or is this the effect of some external device?”
For the first time a look of fear came across Zophie’s expression. “Such frightful things you say!”
“It was only conjecture.”
The emperor’s daughter straightened herself in her seat, fixed her hair, and regained her composure. “When a man gazes into the Mirror of Eternal Shadow, he becomes a shell. There are some who think that the mirror itself sucks his soul away. Others believe that what he sees in the mirror is so fearful as to scare his soul straight out of his body. None, I daresay, know the truth. Still, no matter how strong or how wise a man may be, if he should so much as gaze upon the Mirror of Eternal Shadow, he will never speak again.”
Mitsuru’s mind raced furiously. As far as he could tell, Zophie was telling him the very thing that her father had kept secret. The secret