Shura (2)
When they stepped out of the tavern, the sky had gone dark. Faint moonlight rode the blizzard's wind, scattering in soft, glittering ripples.
Harad and his companions made for the Information Bureau's residence. The plan had been settled in advance: while Cassion looked after Shura, the evening meal would be taken with Arika at the Bureau's residence.
'In the future, the tunnel-digger defects to the Outer Realm.'
That was how it had been in his past life — intelligence gleaned from Arika's interrogation of Ios, on the day they learned that Ios was the true culprit behind the head of the Information Bureau's murder, and that the tunnel-digger had already fled to the Outer Realm.
By then, it had already been too late. With the tunnels multiplying, the number and movements of the Outer Realm mages who had slipped through were impossible to track, and Serzila was already buckling. As if to prove the point, the Outer Realm marched south the very next year.
All of it had come to pass because Elaine had neglected the tunnels — because the truth that some of them reached the Outer Realm had been grasped far too late.
But the fault was not Elaine's.
'It was mine.'
Elaine had turned her face away from the tunnels out of pity for the continental mages — a feeling born of her years beside Harad. So even if Elaine let the tunnels slip her mind, Harad could not afford the same. He should have kept his eye on them, always.
'Ios left a long trail. That was why he was caught. But the tunnel-digger was never caught.'
It wasn't simply that the man was cautious as a mole. The tunnel-digger's companion was the problem. The mage whose Origin was the Mask was perfectly concealing an already-cautious man. Even Harad, regressed as he was, did not know the tunnel-digger's true face — no, he had never laid eyes on the man at all.
'How had Ios made contact with him?'
Ios's true purpose had never been the tunnels. At the time of his infiltration, the man hadn't known of their existence; he must have learned only after settling into Serzila.
'Was there some separate means of contact? Through a broker? No. The tunnel-digger is a careful one.'
He was unlikely to meet anyone on a broker's referral alone. Had his tail been so easily seized, some broker would have caught him long ago and ground him down into a machine that did nothing but dig.
"He could be fat, or he could be thin. A man, or a woman. A baby, even, or an old crone. That's what you said, back then."
It was Arika who spoke. Cassion, freshly returned from posting the 2nd Knight Order at the tunnels, sat in as well, and Kubel eased open a small door and slipped out — Shura lay fast asleep in that little room.
"But you also said there would certainly be two of them."
"Right."
Wherever the tunnel-digger went, the mage of the Mask went with him.
"I won't ask how you know all this. Now is no time for it."
Harad knew things even the Information Bureau did not — and about Serzila Territory, no less. The suspicions Arika had nursed for years went unvoiced; no one at this table failed to grasp how dire the situation had become.
"The Outer Realm has found the tunnels and begun to cross. Yet we have neither the strength to seal them nor the time to find them all. Am I wrong?"
Arika laid the situation bare. The faces of Ellen, Kubel, and Cassion — grim enough already — turned graver still. The Outer Realm had only just discovered the tunnels, and it was self-evident that their interest would only swell as time went on.
"If we called in the Order, I suppose we could hold them back."
"Are you insane?"
Arika's face went stone-serious. In exchange for sealing the tunnels, they would no doubt demand a church in Serzila — it would hand the Order nothing less than a pretext to sink its influence into the North.
"The Order is out of the question."
The Order and the Empire were all but enemies in waiting — enemies eager to whittle down the North's strength and keep it beneath their heels.
"I'm none too eager for it either."
Harad, too, shrank from the Order's involvement. He was confident he could keep his identity hidden, but the chance to build his foundation would vanish, and he would no longer be free to flaunt his magic the way he did now. Decisively, the future would twist far out of shape — in his past life, the Order had never once set foot in the North.
"Nothing? You've turned up nothing?"
"...Nothing on the tunnel-digger."
Arika answered with her lip caught between her teeth. For the Information Bureau to have no information was a disgrace — all the more so with Ellen the one who wanted it.
"That's fine."
It was the natural outcome, if ever there was one. How could an Arika even younger than before hope to find the tunnel-digger whom the Arika of his past life had never found? There was less information now, besides.
'How on earth did Ios find the tunnel-digger?'
Harad felt, anew, just how formidable that 4th-Circle mage of the Ivory Tower had been — and so, without quite meaning to, his gaze drifted to Cassion. That fellow, too, hailed from the Outer Realm.
"Don't know."
"Didn't think you would."
"I didn't so much as know the tunnels existed until I met you."
"Some boast that is."
Harad clicked his tongue and shook his head. Cassion really ought to be classed as a knight, not a mage.
"Um... d-do we know what the tunnel-digger's purpose is?"
Quite suddenly, Kubel had raised a hand a little way into the air.
"His purpose?"
"Yes. Every animal moves by its purpose. A beast that's thirsty or starving is that much easier to hunt."
Kubel spoke like the hunter he had once been.
"Then let's dangle whatever he wants as bait."
"And even if not, surely knowing his purpose would narrow the search?"
Harad gave a slow nod.
"His purpose, hm."
Kubel's point was sound. But nothing came to mind.
'What could Ios have offered in exchange for a tunnel?'
Just then, Cassion muttered, half to himself.
"Defection?"
"If that were it, they'd have done that first thing."
In the previous life, the tunnel-digger had defected fourteen years from now.
"Goodwill? P-perhaps he wants to help the continental mages flee?"
"If that were it, the tunnel exits wouldn't be scattered all over the place."
Had the goal been aiding defection, every exit should have opened onto the 2nd Boundary — even if the tunnel-digger were continent-born with no notion of where the Outer Realm lay, that much would hold.
"What about money?"
This time it was Arika, and it was the most plausible theory yet. A tunnel's price rose and fell with where its exit opened. Granted, that would be the broker's appraisal — but when he first dug and sold a tunnel, some bargain must have been struck.
"I'll need to meet with the head of the brokers."
Arika rose to her feet. Armchair speculation only went so far.
"Do you know who it is?"
"If it's a newly dug tunnel and the one managing it — I've narrowed down the candidates."
All in that brief span of time. Harad marveled at her anew; she truly lived up to her future title as head of the Information Bureau.
"Fat or thin, man or woman, baby or crone..."
Kubel had begun to murmur, quite suddenly. His eyes rolled steadily from left to right, as though replaying the customers from his days running the tavern. Or perhaps the neighbors.
'Ah. No — not the neighbors.'
Kubel had never been on visiting terms with his neighbors. The house next door hadn't so much as known Shura existed, because Kubel was a mage.
'If anything, Shura would know more.'
Without meaning to, Shura had caught the eyes of the territory's residents. Every time Grex of the Liberation Magic Tower's Rebel Faction came calling, he prowled the streets — and no Northerner could ignore a child wandering alone.
"I know."
A small voice cut in. Shura was peeking her face out through the gap of the open door.
"I've seen him."
There was something oddly resolute in that young face.
"He looked like a man, but she was a woman. And she looked like an old woman, but he was a man."
Shura's green eyes were glinting with something. Harad doubted his own eyes. But reality was cruel.
"...Magic."
It was unmistakably mana.
Shura.
She was, above all else, a remarkably grown-up child. She had matured early; she read the moods of others and knew how to tell people apart.
It was all because of Kubel. Because her father was a mage, Shura had had to grow up fast — she couldn't be open and honest like other children her age, and she had to master the art of living hidden. Endlessly she had to stay alert, worrying that someone, someday, might see through her father's disguise.
...It had been a misjudgment. She couldn't afford honesty; she'd needed to hide even better than she had. She should have been mindful of others far beyond what she had imagined.
Which was to say, Shura was several times more grown-up than even she had given herself credit for.
Though she had been born a mage, Shura had kept that truth from Kubel. The thought had likely taken root from the moment the world first came into focus for her — for timid Kubel would have lived sleeping and waking in fear that his own magic might be discovered. And Shura had never wanted to pile another burden onto his back.
"...Good heavens."
Wasn't the Kubel before their eyes proof of exactly that? At the sight of mana stirring in his daughter's eyes, Kubel could not bring himself to look at her. No correlation between Origin and inheritance had ever been proven — but there was no parent who did not think about it. And Kubel knew better than anyone what the life of a continental mage was like.
Arika and Cassion, who had shared the occasional dinner at their table, found themselves speechless. Ellen's eyes had gone wide. Her mouth and Kubel's opened at the same instant — a sigh, unmistakably, to anyone watching.
"No wonder she always seemed so sharp."
Harad cut the sigh short. He smiled, soft and easy.
"So you were a genius all along, Shura."
At Harad's smile, Shura gave a full-body shiver.
"...Is it okay?"
"Why wouldn't it be? I'm a mage, and so is your father."
"But you're demons."
"Who is? Me? Your father?"
Shura shook her head.
"Then there isn't a single demon in the world, is there?"
Harad jabbed Ellen and Kubel in the ribs, then leveled a glare at Cassion and Arika. The two of them smiled awkwardly.
"...It's not a bad thing, is it?"
Kubel had despaired over being a mage himself, and Shura had grown up watching that despair. That was why she had hidden it — for fear her father would break all over again.
"You don't... hate me for it?"
Shura's small frame trembled as she forced the words out. For all her maturity, she was only ten years old.
"How could it be bad? And who could hate you for it?"
At some point Harad had crossed the room; now he crouched before her and gently stroked her hair.
"It isn't bad — it's special. We're not put off, just surprised. That's fair, isn't it? You did only tell us the secret today."
"...Yes."
Shura nodded, careful and small. Her gaze flicked briefly toward Cassion — the catalyst, it seemed, had been that man.
"Everyone has secrets, Shura. Yours is only a little more special than most."
The Outer Realm was the land of the outer gods, and mages were demons who worshipped them — so preached the Order. Harad knew better than anyone what preposterous nonsense that was. There were no gods in the Outer Realm. Mages were simply born.
"Your father had to hide — not because he is a bad man, but because the world is a fool."
...
"Well, truthfully, the world doesn't matter all that much. It will feel unfair, I know. But if you can hold your head high, what does any of it matter?"
Harad turned his head, following Shura's gaze to the four people seated there.
"No one is idle enough to watch the whole world. Everyone is busy enough just minding the people around them. I'm the same, and so are those four over there. You'll be the same too someday, Shura."
Shura nodded. The eyes that had shimmered with mana were shining with tears now.
"Do you think your father could ever hate you?"
Shura shook her head.
"And Ellen, who loves your father's cooking more than anyone alive? Does she look like someone who hates you?"
Ellen smiled as brightly as she could manage.
"...No."
"Then your world, right around you, is just as it has always been."
The hand stroking her hair slid down to her back, and Harad patted it, slow and steady.
"The fact that you're a mage changes nothing. We will love you all the same."
Shura didn't answer. She neither nodded nor shook her head.
"I know — there are others around you, too. Friends from the alley, the people of the Inner Castle. And that circle will only widen with time."
...
"You understand, of course — but you must not tell. Not yet."
Shura's small fingers closed tight around the hem of her shirt and pulled it down. Her head drooped.
"So wait just a little while longer."
Tears fell from her deeply bowed face. Only then did Harad speak.
"I happen to be a man with time to spare. Not the whole world, perhaps — but the North, I can keep watch over."
"...?"
"Before long, the North will grow wise — wise enough to accept mages. I intend to make it so."
Shura lifted her head.
"When that day comes, you can go around telling everyone."
Harad met her eyes then, smiling softly as he smoothed her hair.
"No — you ought to boast about it, in fact. That you are special. That much, at least, is my plan."
...
"Can you wait for me until then?"
Harad held out his hand.
"...Yes."
A darling little hand settled atop his. It was ever so small — a weight he would have to carry in her place.
Hnk!
Then, without warning, came the sound of someone loudly blowing their nose.
"You were a good man after all, you know that?"
Cassion was sobbing.