Beauty and the Beast — 6
Polaris and I left Victoria's house.
"Now we're going to the place Victoria's parents sent their letter from."
"That's over there?"
Polaris pointed at the enormous mass of water swelling up like a mountain on the eastern side of Berne City. In the morning sun it looked like a gigantic hat made of water, hanging in the air. Its brim swayed gently overhead, quiet as a shoreline, and from that I could gauge just how vast the hat really was.
"Yes. The letter Victoria's parents sent came from eastern Berne City."
I said so, and gave her the address of the house. Even after hearing it, Polaris wore the look of someone to whom an address meant very little.
"You think you can find it with that?"
"Yes. I know how to read an address."
Layer the memories I took along with their warmth, and the geography of Berne City is nearly perfect. So I set off without hesitating.
That said, light showed strangely in a few of the houses — not lamplight, but the kind I take for a soul. In other words, there were people. Not in the empty houses. In the ones whose doors and windows had been boarded shut. I was walking on, thinking that there were people like that too, when Polaris drew close and whispered.
"Belle. We're being followed."
"If they don't touch us, leave them be."
I can see through Polaris's eyes, so I had already noticed someone coming after us. One of them was a person I had seen inside a house a little earlier. The curious part was that they followed at a distance from one another. What business could they have with a child like this?
Expecting that I would gain warmth if they did something, I headed northeast along the well-paved road. Watching those who trailed us, it was as if territories existed: one person would follow for a stretch and vanish, and another would take their place.
Hmm. Surveillance, maybe? For that, they came after us with a bluntness that was enough to grate on Polaris. And if we ran, I had the feeling they would chase. The alleys where our pursuers waited were exactly the sort of place one might duck into without thinking while fleeing. Step into one not knowing anyone was there, and you would meet them at once.
Ah. Were they sounding us out?
For one thing, the upper ranks of Berne City's hierarchy are thick with Harvesters. Inside the city, mana is being forcibly twisted into something strange, so even people who were usually healthy are flagging. Once an energy source called mana exists, it would be odd for a body not to use it, wouldn't it? Most living things in this city use mana, more or less. So with mana sealed off, they shouldn't be able to bring much strength to bear.
Oh. Then was Polaris in danger too?
I studied her face. She was in a bad mood, but that was displeasure, not the look of a body in pain. Through the sensations of her body there was nothing uncomfortable beyond her clothes fitting a little tight. In other words, there would be no danger.
"Polaris. Just in case, why don't you threaten them? What if you threw a stone?"
"Mmm... I think that would be a bad method. Magic would be enough to drive them off, but the mana right now is so sticky it turns my stomach. I don't want to use it."
Polaris frowned as she refused. The sense of feeling mana is a sense I truly do not have, so I hadn't known. From memory I can roughly tell what kind of sensation it is, but when I watch Harvesters all at once, I don't feel that sensation at all, even if they cast the same spell.
If a stomach hurts, I know the hurt itself. I have even felt, watching all at once, the pleasure of making a child and the pain of bearing one. Where the sensations were abnormal, I have experienced the pleasure of a brain melting under illicit drugs. I have burned to death as well. Perhaps because I am not a person, none of those experiences touch my personality. Watch only one and I couldn't say, but when there are too many, sensation is nothing but noise. The suffering of those whose nerves were utterly ruined looked, from a distance, like clowns blowing themselves up by their own doing — something to laugh at until you couldn't breathe. But setting that aside.
"I see. So they aren't coming closer because they've seen the color of my head, and of your hair."
"Hair color?"
"Among the people who gave themselves to me, those who awakened psychic powers can use them even without mana."
At my words, Polaris looked up at the sky. The sea was sloshing upside down, as if gravity pointed upward. The level of the sea covering the sky was climbing, and though it was still morning, everything beneath it lay in deep dark. In other words, power reached even this region where magic could not be used. Polaris understood how strong the Harvesters were in this place.
"So that's why they're only sizing us up. Ugh, I feel sick... Belle, doesn't that kind of thing bother you?"
It was the exact same feeling as disgust toward a stalker. That.
Me?
First, there was no gaze from their side directed at me, so they were not Harvesters. Which meant prospective Harvesters, or warmth pouches.
"No. I have no reason to dislike it."
If they meant to come and offer up their warmth of their own accord, why would I go to the trouble?
"Your heart is far too generous."
No animal dislikes prey that crawls into its mouth on its own. In that sense, calling it a generous heart is strange, but I would let it stand. It wasn't that I couldn't understand. I was also deliberately wearing the sheepskin of a good person. Rather, I was glad Polaris was mistaken about me in precisely the way I wanted.
While we went on like that, the once-straight road began to twist, and we entered a district where the buildings were all of a kind. And then the gazes vanished instead. The lanes wound, and three-story buildings packed tight as chicken coops crowded in on every side. I had thought the moment had come — a fitting place for an ambush — and they were simply gone.
"What is this place..."
Polaris murmured it. Identical buildings lined both sides of roads laid down with no particular order. Most of them, though, were no better than ruins. More than half had burned black, as if a great fire had passed through, and only the frames remained. Between those ruins, the foul stench of rotting corpses drifted on the air.
"Victoria's parents are in a place like this...?"
North of Berne City is the river. West is the sea. So a blockade of the city could only come from the east and the south. The south, however, climbs slowly and then drops away in an artificial cliff, which makes coming and going difficult. There is a passage leading south, of course, but that only means that if you seize that one place, the only way left is to climb down a cliff of several dozen meters. The shelling was fired along a line from the east, or from the far bank of the river. Which is to say, the east was a battlefield. And because the fighting is not yet over, no one is gathering the dead or pulling out the wounded. Beasts and insects seethe here. It is a dangerous place, and no one can say when plague will break out.
"Let's find Victoria quickly. We might be needed."
As if she had already pictured one ending, Polaris looked straight at me as she spoke. I nodded that I understood, and walked toward where Victoria was.
Ah — speaking of Victoria, one thing. The Purple Twilight Society now in Berne City, Harvesters included, had somehow reasoned its way to this: if Victoria made a wreck of the east, they would come in behind her and dispose of both the army that had struck Berne City and Victoria herself.
The logic was strange. Victoria was an enemy, and the soldiers were enemies too. And yet they said Victoria would take care of the soldiers. In words they called her a pawn of the royal house — but then the soldiers would be on the same side as Victoria, wouldn't they? They interpreted things however it suited them, and thought about the profit they could take from it.
Mm. Perfectly ordinary. You see it especially often in the stock market.
I walked on, watching carefully ahead. To keep going like this while we were being encircled from the front was dangerous. The one small mercy was that so few of the roads ran straight, and the buildings hid the whole view. Besides, though noon was nearly here, down below it was dark as evening. Sunlight falling straight from above no longer reached the ground. It could not arrive. There was simply too much water. So even at midday, we could walk a little more safely.
And Victoria, the one we were looking for — what was she doing? She had gone inside the houses and was advancing by cutting across from building to building. Even at Daegon's forward base, she had moved by hiding as a rule. After she obtained a weapon that killed instantly, she still did not walk about in the open; she struck in secret from behind. Being who she was, it was not strange that she would sneak through a situation like this. If anything, with most eyes drawn upward, it was the rational choice. She probably wasn't forcing a path with power because the address lay somewhere nearby. One misstep and her parents could be hurt, so she seemed to be moving with care.
But Victoria soon stopped. Ahead of the line the army had drawn, there was nothing but collapsed ruins. No more buildings to pass through. I watched, wondering what she would do now, and her gaze climbed to the sky.
Then an enormous droplet — tok.
Crash!
Water fell from about the height of a five-story building. But whether because it was only a droplet, or because what fell was not compressed water, the soldiers scrambling this way and that did not look badly hurt. If she meant to break the blocking line, wouldn't she need a stronger blow?
Tok.
Tok, tok.
Hm?
Droplets were falling. I looked up, and they were coming down not only here but little by little from every side. Some were small as rain. Some were masses of water the size of a person. Was she short on power after all? Was it her control?
I caught Polaris's hand in a hurry and walked quickly toward Victoria. A large droplet makes a great noise when it strikes the ground. We could run. It was still a long way from here, but one wrong step and we might be swept under. If that water poured down, I might be fine. Polaris would die.
"Where are we going!"
"To Victoria!"
Polaris followed with a hardened face. She seemed to understand what it meant. The army that had drawn the line and waited there was fleeing in a panic as well. If the water poured now, they would all die too. Was that what she wanted?
Oh?
Victoria was smiling. Watching the soldiers throw everything aside and run, she smiled as if it were all according to plan.
Ah. Of course. If there were signs that water that enormous was about to fall, anyone would flee first. Had she driven them off with the show of it? She really was clever.
I made sure that Polaris, gripping my hand and keeping up with everything she had, still had stamina to spare, and then I ran as hard as I could. We, too, would do better to use this opening and cross the line.
So I ran. I ran hard.