Chapter 18: Scroll’s Bad Idea
I woke up the next morning famous for something new.
I should be used to this by now. I’m not. You don’t get used to opening your eyes to a city that knows a thing about you that you don’t know yourself. But there it was — the moment I stepped outside for water — the looks, the buzz, the bard already halfway through a new verse near the well, and the words drifting up from every side, bright and thrilled:
"The demon-slayer’s entering the Tournament!"
"He accepted! He’s going to the capital!"
"Of course he is. A man like that, hide from the greatest stage in the world? Never."
I stood very still in the doorway with my empty water bucket.
"Scroll," I said.
"Good morning, talent!" it said, far too brightly.
"Scroll. What did you do."
"I want you to stay calm—"
"What did you do."
The gold letters bloomed in the morning air, gentle, almost sheepish, the numbers already climbing:
✦ DING. ✦
Legend published: "The demon-slayer Lin Bo has accepted the call of the Tournament of Ten Thousand Reputations, and journeys to the capital to test his might before all the world."
Reach: continental and rising fast.
Belief: 88%... 94%...
(This is going to be the biggest thing we have ever done. — Scroll)
I sat down on my own doorstep. I had to.
"You entered me," I said. "In the tournament. While I was asleep."
"Technically," said Scroll, "I didn’t enter you. I just published that you’d accepted. And then—" it had the grace, at least, to sound a little nervous "—a great many people believed it. Very quickly. And, well. You know how it goes. By the time you woke up, it was — it was sort of true. The capital has your name on the rolls. The whole continent expects you. It’s all very official now." A pause. "Officially you accepted with great humility, by the way. You said, and I’m quoting the legend, ’I go not for glory, but because the people asked.’ It tested beautifully."
"I never said that!"
"No, but you would have, eventually, you’re very humble, I was just ahead of it—"
"Take it back."
"I can’t, talent. You know I can’t. It’s the same as always — the more you deny it now, the more they’ll believe you’re being modest about it. You try to pull out, and tomorrow the legend will say ’so fearless was the demon-slayer that he downplayed even his own entry.’" It actually sounded apologetic, under the excitement. "You’re going. I’m sorry. You’ve been going since about an hour before you woke up."
I put my face in my hands. The trap was perfect, the way all of these traps are perfect, sprung with my own denials as the spring.
"Why," I said. Not even angry, just tired, so tired. "You apologized about the noodle shop. You understood. And then you turn around and shove me onto the biggest stage in the world, in front of the people who want to end me — the Empire, Scroll, they’ll be there, won’t they, watching for the exact ’ghost’ you are — why would you do this?"
And here is where it stopped being funny, just for a moment.
Because Scroll was quiet, that old quiet, and when it spoke again the bright salesman voice was gone. Underneath was something I’d only caught glimpses of before — something old, and tired, and afraid.
"Because we have to get bigger, talent," it said softly. "I know you don’t want to hear it. I know you want the noodles and the six tables and the quiet. But you saw the mark on that black card. You saw what Yun Shu wouldn’t look at, up at the top of the sky." A long pause. "There are things in this world that erase people. Completely. And the only thing — the only thing — that has ever kept a name safe from being erased is being too big, too loud, too believed to wipe away." Its voice dropped lower. "Small things get forgotten, Lin Bo. Quiet men get erased and no one ever knows they were there. I won’t—" it stopped. Started again. "I’m not going to let that happen to you. Not again."
Not again.
The two words hung there in the morning air, and Scroll seemed to hear itself say them, and snapped shut around them like a book, and would not say another word about it, no matter how I pushed.
I sat on my doorstep for a long time.
When I finally went inside, Yun Shu was already there — she has a key now, somehow, I never gave her a key — reading the new legend off her instruments with a grim, white expression.
"You’re entered," she said. "It’s locked. I checked. The capital, the Records, all of it." She set the instrument down. "Lin Bo. I need you to understand what this means. The Tournament is the single largest concentration of belief on the continent. Ten million people, all watching, all believing, all at once. For your ghost — whatever it is — that’s not a stage. That’s a feast. It’s going to do things in that arena it’s never had room to do before." Her jaw tightened.
"And the Empire of a Thousand Verses sponsors the Tournament. Owns half of it. They’ll have a thousand eyes on every competitor, and they’re already looking for exactly the anomaly you are. You’ll be standing in the brightest light in the world, doing the impossible, right in front of the people who erase the impossible." She looked at me, and there was real fear in it, the same fear she’d shown at the black card.
"I told you not to let anyone find out about your ghost. And now you’re walking it onto center stage."
"I didn’t choose this," I said quietly.
"I know." And she did know — that was the thing, she believed me now, all the way. "But it doesn’t matter who chose it. You’re going. So we’d better—" she stopped, and I watched her do the thing she does, the visible click of a professional deciding to stop panicking and start working "—we’d better get you ready. Forty days. If you’re going to stand in that light, you can’t go in as a clerk who got lucky." She almost smiled, grim and tired. "We’re going to have to figure out what you actually are. Before ten million people figure it out first."
Down the lane, I could already hear it spreading — my name, the tournament, the capital, the journey, the legend getting bigger by the hour, completely beyond my reach.
And on my shoulder, Scroll said nothing at all, still curled tight around those two small terrible words it hadn’t meant to say.
Not again.
I really, really wanted to know who came before me.
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer.
