Chapter 24 A Vision of Death
Falling. Pulled backward. Crashing into the ground straight as a board, looking up at the sky. Standing at the edge of the water, feeling the sand underneath your feet being washed away by the waves—that’s what it feels like. Falling, falling, falling…
But Wataru didn’t fall.
He watched himself split into two.
A translucent Wataru stepped out of his body, like a soul leaving its earthly shell. The soul-Wataru stepped out on the muddy lake, turned and looked back, and smiled knowingly.
Wataru didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He was paralyzed, unable to move a single finger.
It was the mud.
The mud that splashed against his cheek—its poison has begun to work on me. That’s why I’m paralyzed. And the Wataru standing in front of me, that’s an illusion, a phantom. The poison is making me see things.
The phantom took a step toward Yacom. Then, smoothly, it drew the Brave’s Sword.
Yacom was sitting in the mud, face twisted with fear. He was shouting something at it.
The ghostly Wataru raised his sword. Yacom covered his face with his own wounded arm. He began screaming for his life.
—No. I wouldn’t do that.
The sword shone in the phantom’s hands, its edge gleaming.
I don’t want to kill Yacom I don’t want to kill Dad I don’t hate Dad this isn’t my dad this isn’t me—
Then the Brave’s Sword swung down.
One stroke, two. Yacom screamed, crawling away on all fours. The blade stuck into his back. In vain, he tried to wrest the sword away from the Wataru apparition. The sharp edge cut into his palm.
Yacom was covered in mud, his face streaked with his own blood. He trembled in fear and could barely move—yet still he tried to escape. The phantom grabbed him by the collar, and put the sword to his neck.
No!
The Brave’s Sword broke flesh and blood shot out like a fountain, splashing on the phantom’s shirt. Yacom groped desperately for some salvation, but none came. His arm dropped back down to the ground and did not move again.
The specter drew the sword from Yacom’s body. He gave it an expert flick, and blood sprayed from the blade. Casually, the sword was resheathed, and Wataru’s supernatural twin gave the corpse a swift kick in the side.
With another kick, Yacom’s body rolled deeper into the shallows. The lake water seeped into Yacom’s clothes, and finally, the weight dragged him down toward the bottom of the swamp.
The dorsal fin of a kalon broke the water’s surface. Wataru stood paralyzed as before, frozen to his core with fear. The kalon traced a wide arc around the spot where the corpse sank. A tailfin like a great scythe lifted from the water and slapped at the surface of the lake. The great fish disappeared into the watery depths, leaving an evil silvery afterimage on Wataru’s retinas.
The boy’s phantom was observing him, a kind smile on his face. Wataru wanted to shake his head, but he couldn’t move. He wanted to shout, What have you done? but he had no voice.
Still smiling, the apparition turned his back and began to walk away. Wataru found himself following. Even though his legs couldn’t move, even though he couldn’t walk, he was following. It was almost as if Wataru were the ghost, immaterial, floating through the air.
Where are we going? Wataru’s doppelgänger walked steadily forward. His feet squished down in the muck of the swamp, and his head bowed.
Eventually, Lili Yannu’s hut came into view. The phantom Wataru walked toward it. He opened the door without knocking or hesitating. Then he stepped inside.
The woman dressed in black was sitting silently in her chair. She held her hands over her face, beneath a large cowl.
Wataru stood next to her, and Lili looked up. Tears streaked her face.
“Ah,” she gasped. “You have killed him.”
The avenging specter drew his Brave’s Sword and smiled.
“I helped you, yet you killed the man I love,” Lili said, reaching out and clinging to the hem of his robe. “Why? Why did you kill my Yacom? What evil did he—did we do? We were only in love. We had finally found our true love. Why did you cut him down a like a common criminal? Why did you sink him in the lake, and leave him for the kalon to eat?”
Wataru’s phantom image readied his sword. “You are evil,” he said. Still smiling, he drove his sword through Lili Yannu’s chest. She slumped from the chair without a word onto the floor—a lifeless pile of black cloth.
Sheathing his sword, the apparition stepped closer to Wataru. Suddenly, his head snapped upright, as though waking from a daydream, and his entire body tensed with the shock of suddenly being whole again.
He found himself standing outside Lili Yannu’s hut. The door was shut tightly. Wataru was out of breath, as if he had been running at full speed. He was drenched in sweat.
It was all a nightmare.
I was seeing things. None of this really happened. If I just reach out my hand and open the door, Lili Yannu will be sitting there in that chair, knitting baby clothes out of black wool. She’s not dead. She’s not dead because I didn’t kill her.
It was the easiest thing in the world to check. All he had to do was knock on the door. Hello, is anyone home? She would open the door, and he would smile.
Well, what are you waiting for? Do it.
—I can’t.
Though he didn’t consciously think to do so, Wataru’s legs moved him away from the door.
I can’t do it. I can’t.
Back to the lakeshore. There, where I helped Jozo out of the water, my udai will still be standing, waiting for me. I’ll mount up, and go back to Tearsheaven. I’ll have the doctor take a look at me. The lake water hit my cheek. I need an antidote. Then I’ll change into a dry shirt, and go see how Sara is doing.
The door to Lili Yannu’s hut suddenly opened. Through a gap of maybe four inches came a tiny hand. Followed by an arm, then a face.
It was an infant. It was naked, with chubby round arms and legs. Its face looked like a cherub from some painting, except that its eyes were closed.
Something about it was wrong. Something was strange. This wasn’t an ordinary child. Its skin…
Its skin was gray. The color of stone. A child made of stone.
The stone-baby stepped clear of the door and turned to Wataru, its eyes still tightly shut. Wataru realized with a start that the child was blind. Then the baby opened its mouth and spoke, not with the voice of a child, but with the heavy, gravelly voice of an old man.
“Killer,” it said. “Killer without blood. Killer without tears.”
Wataru’s hair stood on end. His legs began to shake.
“When you took their lives, you took mine as well. Never will my eyes know the light of day, never will my mouth know my mother’s breast, never will my ears know her soft lullaby, never will my feet know the feel of the earth beneath them.”
Wataru stepped back, slowly shaking his head. “It wasn’t me.” His voice came in trembling fits and starts. “I didn’t kill them.”
“Your excuses are empty,” said the baby, pointing a chubby finger in accusation. “What will become of your tainted soul? What will become of my sorrow? My body is stone, my tears are dry.”
Wataru screamed. “I didn’t kill them!”
The baby’s mouth twisted into a hideous scowl. “I will take your sword, stab your body, and carve your soul from it. Your flesh will rot, your bones left bare to the wind upon the frozen ground, singing hollow curses for a hundred nights and a hundred dawns. You will never know the peace of death, and your soul will wander, forever burning in the hellfires of sin, deep within the chaotic abyss!”
Then the baby came at Wataru with unbelievable speed, crawling on its arms and legs. Wataru turned and ran.
No matter how far or how fast he ran, when he looked over his shoulder, there the stone-baby was, speeding after him. Wataru tripped and clawed his way back to his feet. And when he looked back over his shoulder again, for an instant he saw people in the air above the child’s face. Yacom, Lili Yannu, Satami were there. So was his father, and his mother. And Rikako, and countless others. Everyone who had ever hated or cursed someone was there. Everyone who had ever wounded another, or kicked another when he was down…
And there, in the crowd, he saw his own face.
Wataru ran. He ran past his udai, standing stiffly by the water’s edge. He ran past Yacom’s cart, filled with glass jars of swamp water. He ran and ran, and as he ran, he noticed the dorsal fin of a kalon cutting through the surface of the lake, keeping pace with him.
It knows there’s prey to be had. It’s waiting for the stone-baby to catch me, knock me to the ground, and throw me in the water. Wataru ran and ran on, tears of fright streaming down his face, his breath harsh and ragged in his throat.
Before long, a white mist began to creep through the swamp around him. The ground under his feet, the black water of the swamp—all were soon covered in a gauzy white veil. Wataru ran, swimming through the thickening mist. He looked over his shoulder and could no longer see the baby behind him.
I can’t stop now. I have to run.
Yet his feet were slowing. His knees bent, and buckled down to the ground. He couldn’t stand.
No. No! I have to run.
Wataru felt his soul inside him, quivering with fright, screaming for help. It was the last thing he heard before blacking out. Darkness crept under the blanket of the white mist. Soon blankness filled everything, and Wataru lay there, face down, utterly drained. He was asleep.
Croak… Croak…
From somewhere came the sound of a frog.
Crrrrroak. Wataru… Crrrrroak…
What’s a frog doing in a place like this?
Crrrroak. Wataru? Can you hear me?
The voice was sweet. He had heard it many times before. I know who that is.
Crrrroak. Don’t worry. You saw what happened. You did the right thing. You did what you had to do.
Sometimes ending a life is the right thing to do. The people you killed were evil, Wataru. You were right…
“No!” Wataru shouted. “I didn’t kill them!”
He cupped a hand over his mouth, gasping for breath. He was shaking uncontrollably. Where am I? What is this place? Where’s that stone-baby?
“You okay?” came a voice from right beside him. Wataru shouted again. He tried to run but only fell, rolling off something and onto a hard floor.
“Oy, oy, calm down there. You’ve had quite the nightmare. But you are awake now. You’re safe.”
Wataru opened his eyes to see a pair of concerned dark eyes staring back at him.