Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [337]
But the scene that rose in Wataru’s mind was not his conversation on the wharf with Mitsuru, but his late-night talk with Kutz atop the water tower in Gasara. Even if someone is your friend, if they do wrong, you must tell them.
“No. We both came here to Vision to change our destinies. But that doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want. It doesn’t mean we can kill.”
Mitsuru slouched his shoulders as he had done so many times before: at school in the real world, on the temple grounds, whenever he met Wataru. He lifted his chin, and cast his eyes to one side. “I think we can. And I do.”
And there’s nothing more to say…
“You’re wrong.” Wataru’s voice sounded pitifully weak in his own ears. There was no way Mitsuru would be able to hear him over the noise of the destruction around them. “You can’t do this. The people here in Solebria, they’re alive. We can’t just take those lives because it suits us!”
Mitsuru whipped back around to face him. “What? Are you going to recite the code of the Highlanders for me?”
Before Wataru could respond, Mitsuru stamped his foot lightly on the golem’s shoulder. “Know what this thing is made of?”
What is he talking about now? “It’s rock, right? You made these golems with your magic.”
“Yes. They’re my puppets, fashioned from dirt and rock. But that’s not all.” Mitsuru smiled. “One other material is needed: a person. No matter how skilled the sorcerer, a single person is needed to make each golem. How did you think I got so many people? It’s quite a large number, you must admit.”
Wataru’s eyes were fixed on Mitsuru’s face. What is he saying? It’s like he doesn’t even care. Like he’s bored, sitting in the back of the classroom, listening to a teacher drone on about nothing. With considerable effort, Wataru wrenched his eyes away from Mitsuru and looked out across the city smothered in smoke and flame. There were so many golems he couldn’t begin to count them. These were all once people?
“If a person should look into the Mirror of Eternal Shadow, they become a shell—a husk without a soul. Turns out the Imperial Family was turning people into shells right and left to suit their needs. They would force them to look into the mirror and then use the mindless automatons they created as slaves to do heavy work in the hinterlands. They did the same to political prisoners and common thieves. It’s much quicker than throwing them in prison and trying to return them to society in any meaningful way.”
“Are you sure?” Wataru was stunned.
“I heard it straight from the emperor’s daughter herself, and I can’t see why she’d lie about such a thing. Still, it worked out well for me. I was surprised how readily the shells took to the process of transformation. They made fine golems.”
There were many of these shells in the Crystal Palace itself, explained Mitsuru. “You see, you need a person to make a golem, but try as you might, the souls always get in the way. No matter how hideous or bent a man may be, he still has a soul. Use one of them, and you get a golem that just won’t listen when you tell them what to do. It’s a real pain. But here, the work was all done for me. These shells have no souls, so they made the perfect materials.”
Mitsuru continued, “You say I am being cruel. But I wasn’t the one who took these people’s souls away. It was the emperor. Tell me, what do you think of that, as a Highlander? Hard to forgive, isn’t it? So what of it if the emperor’s city has to be destroyed? The whole family deserves far worse punishment, don’t they? And the people of Solebria—every citizen of this empire—share their crime. They stood by and looked on silently while the emperor did whatever he pleased, and it’s been like that for generations. Many even stepped forward and supported him. Why? Because they stood to gain from it. Or maybe they thought they were more important than the people they were crushing. These people deserve