Chapter 13: Name

The Emporia broke and Shiori nearly collapsed. The world moved at a dizzying speed around her.

Otonashi was unshaken and waited until she was steady.

“I can train you to speak true words this evening.”

“Why not now?” Shiori said. Tsubame was still searching for his Grimoire, and practically no time had passed during the Emporia.

Otonashi looked around. “This place is secluded. We shouldn’t be noticed.”

“You said magic is about speaking true words. What does that mean?”

Otonashi frowned. “This world isn’t Kryptopeda. Here everything simply is, or is not.”

“And Kryptopeda,” Shiori said gamely, “is a place of thought.”

“I’ve wondered what it would be like to live in this frozen, inertial world of yours. Nothing here moves or changes on its own. Nothing disappears when forgotten. Nothing appears because the land was lonely and wanted company.”

“That sounds bizarre,” Shiori said.

Otonashi admitted, “Humans started here and came to Kryptopeda which is a strange place. I suppose I am just strange.”

He raised a hand straight in front of him, palm down. He spoke a word and a pillar of sand rose up with a hiss between his first and second fingers, then it collapsed.

“Magic here is weak because real things are harder to change. Kryptopeda is thought, and thoughts are fickle, so magic there is strong.”

He spoke the same word again, but this time the spike only reached half as high. “Speaking the true name of a thing connects you to it. Your thoughts become its thoughts. Speaking a true name requires understanding. The more you know, the truer you can speak, the more powerful the magic.”

He spoke the word a third time. The third spike barely erupted few centimeters. “But when I push a thing, it pushes back. Speaking changes me. It takes time to reconnect to the true word.”

Shiori watched, fascinated. “The spell is weaker each time you use it.”

“I can speak a true word because I know the word. Each time I speak it, I lose my focus, my knowledge. I must search to regain the word in my mind. It takes time.”

“How long to recharge after using magic?” Shiori asked.

“Recharge? You mean how long to relearn the true word at my best potency?”

“Sure, that.”

Otonashi shrugged. “Minutes usually, but hours if I expend my greatest knowledge entirely. My connection to stone is deep, and I can only reorient myself to the hidden truth so quickly. The process is slower if I’m distracted, faster if focused. When you quickly read aloud words from that book in the tavern...”

“Café,” Shiori corrected with a smile.

“Sure, that,” he echoed with a smile, “it scattered my gathered knowledge. Words sprung fresh as you read and shook my connection to my own knowledge. Words aren’t exactly knowledge, but they’re close. They’re how Speakers gather power.”

“Any book? That always bothered me about Kryptopeda. Will any book work?”

Otonashi shrugged. “No. Books are rare in Kryptopeda, and dangerous. Each one was written by a Royal, because only Royal writing opens the mind to true knowledge. Perhaps for you, Princess, any book might work.”

“Anything I read might count?”

Otonashi considered this. “I’ve never met a Princess before. I’m sure the stories of your boundless potential for power are exaggerated.”

Shiori extended her hand and tried to say the word he had said. The ground didn’t move. She felt silly.

“It won’t be the same word,” he said. “Your relationship with stone is different from mine. You’re a different person. Even my word for stone changes over time.”

“How am I supposed to know the word?” Shiori sighed.

“Exactly. It comes from knowledge. When you know the truth of a thing your mind can reach into reality and command it. No true knowledge means no connection. No connection means no magic.”

It was starting to make sense to Shiori. “What does that feel like?”

Otonashi stepped forward, close to her, and she stepped back. He looked down at her. “Do you know your name?”

“What?” she asked.

“Your true name. A name that only one who truly knows you could speak.”

Shiori thought about this, then had an idea. “Maybe I don’t. What’s your true name?” It couldn’t be that easy to get Otonashi’s true name, right? That would make Motohara’s plan far more easy.

Otonashi closed his eyes. He suddenly seemed... more. He wasn’t taller, wider, or bigger. His presence simply became more immediate and undeniable.

“Your TRUE name,” Otonashi said, “is the only magic that doesn’t need to be spoken. In fact, you must never speak it. Secrets known to many divide their power until little remains. Learning someone’s true name weakens them, give you power over them.”

“I thought you said my true name would be something only someone who truly knew me could speak.” Shiori said, countering.

“True. That’s why Speakers avoid close friends and live alone. They fear betrayal or being controlled. Knowing another is dangerous. Isolation is the only safety.” A deep sadness inhabited his eyes.

Shiori closed her eyes. “Shiori!” she thought.

She opened her eyes and Otonashi shook his head. “I’d know if you’d thought your true name. There’s a sense that the person…” he hesitated.

“That they grow... more?” Shiori volunteered.

He smiled. “I can’t think of a better way to say it.”

“Why bother with this?” she asked.

“Knowing your name will affirm your existence and enhances your connection to true knowledge. It’s the easiest path to speaking true words.”

Shiori tried a dozen names or combinations: Shiori, Shiori Honjou, Honjou, Shiori-chan, Shio-chan, and more. Nothing worked.

She grew frustrated. “Sand,” she said waving her hand.

Lunch was nearly over. Tsubame had been given enough time to find his Grimoire.

“Enough for today. I should have said no one learns to speak their first true word for at least six or seven months, usually a year.”

“What?” Shiori said, panicked, “it’ll take that long to open a portal?”

Otonashi smiled awkwardly. “I want to find the mirror to speed things up.”

Shiori kicked the sand, wishing she could call it some choice names.

“One more thing, for when you learn your true name,” he said. “Write it in a small book. Don’t keep that book near you, but keep it hidden.”

“Why?” Shiori asked.

“A book like that is called a Grimoire. It empowers a Speaker. I’m not a Royal, so the only word I can write with true power is my own true name. Writing it into reality solidifies my power and connection to truth and reality.”

His face clouded with worry. “Sometimes Speakers destroy their Grimoire if they fear it will be found. They can always be remade. But to give you strength, a Grimoire cannot be kept close.”

“Why?” Shiori asked, then guessed. “Is it because the space between you and your anchor to reality, your Grimoire, is part of how it connects your mind to reality?”

Otonashi smiled. “That’s a good guess. There is plenty I don’t know about magic. My mother didn’t finish teaching me before…”

That answered Shiori’s questions about why Otonashi bothered having a Grimoire and why he didn’t just keep it safe in a pocket. A pang of fear hit her at the thought that he might have destroyed it out of paranoia.

“Would multiple Grimoires further increase your strength?” she asked.

“My mother said only the mightiest Speakers could manage it. I’ve tried, but failed.”

She tilted her head questioningly.

Otonashi was unhappy to admit weakness. “I was too weak. I felt the power, but couldn’t control it. Writing my name a second time was too hard.”

“What does that mean?”

Another shrug. “You’d have to experience it.”

Shiori tried repeating her name in her head. She tried ‘sand’ in Japanese and English. She tried dirt in Japanese but couldn’t remember it in English. Nothing worked.

“No need to be frustrated. Learning true words takes time.”

Shiori snapped at him. “How can I be a Princess, protect myself from assassin shadows, and save Motohara if I don’t even know my own name!”

Otonashi’s eyes widened.

“I can’t even command sand! Worthless, stupid sand.”

Otonashi stepped back.

Shiori ignored him and picked up handfuls of sand. “Tiny useless rocks.” She threw one handful in frustration. “I can’t even command,” she wound up to throw the second handful and felt a tremor of power leave her, “sand!” She yelled.

The word boomed. The ground shook. The sand shot forward.

A tree at the school yard’s edge was missing a section that had been sandblasted into oblivion. The tree groaned, leaned, then collapsed.

Shiori looked down in amazement and noticed the ground around her feet bore a wide circle of indecipherable writing.

“I’m beginning to think,” Otonashi whispered, “that the stories of a Princess's potential power are not exaggerated.”