Jester or Knight? (3)
They lived happily ever after.
That single line that crowns the end of fairy tales and heroic epics is a lie and a deception. The protagonist of a fairy tale who achieved great deeds might well live a long life. But if you asked whether they were happy… Bernstein would shake his head at the question.
They cannot be happy. Never.
From the moment one is banished to the Outer Land past the age of one hundred and fifty, that life can never be beautiful or happy. This place is hell.
Did you live those hundred and fifty years on the Continent in happiness? Did that happiness feel as though it would last forever? Set foot in the Outer Land and look at the ground you stand on. Buried there are the stars that once stepped onto this soil thinking the same thoughts as you—only to fall in the end. Do you think you will be any different? You are the same. The same end waits for you and nothing more.
He knew. He knew it well.
And yet… Bernstein and countless other heroes still dreamed of a beautiful end.
That their final moments would be beautiful. That they would mean something. That even if they fell, they might fall with style. They knew how extravagant that wish was, and still they could never let it go.
"A man's greed has no end to begin with."
Bernstein sneered. He muttered the words with a laugh aimed at no one but himself. By the time that laughter faded, he had made his decision—the one he had postponed for a hundred and fifty years.
Thud.
He swung his sword and carved out his own heart. As the Helmet Knight's eyes flew wide, Bernstein set the excised heart ablaze with sword aura. The flames greedily devoured the star that had nested inside it.
"Even now I get greedy. The greed of wanting my name written at the end of your story. Truth is, I've carried that greed for more than two hundred years. The same greed every knight who admires a hero has… the greed to appear alongside him in the hero's tale."
Bernstein drove his sword into the Helmet Knight's heart. It was not a blade meant to kill. It was the opposite—a blade meant to save him. Into the Helmet Knight's dying flame Bernstein poured his own fire.
In that instant the Helmet Knight felt a long thirst finally quenched. Starlight surged through his body. Wounds closed. Flesh filled out the withered arm. While the Helmet Knight stared, Bernstein gave a short laugh.
"A master must always look impressive in front of his disciple. That is the way of a teacher. Looking like I can barely walk wouldn't cut a very fine figure, would it?"
Bernstein transferred every last scrap of starlight to the Helmet Knight, keeping only a single handful for himself. His body began to erode at a terrifying rate, yet his eyes remained clear.
"So this is the feeling you lived with for a hundred and fifty years? Remarkable. Truly the hero of the Empire. An imperial hero ought to be at least this much."
"Bernstein, you…"
"Well, my stars are all but eroded, so I won't be much help—but I should at least be able to exchange a final greeting with my disciple."
Bernstein shoved the Helmet Knight away. Taking Quixote's spear in the Helmet Knight's place, he said,
"Go. Quickly."
He did not look back.
Without another glance he fixed his gaze straight ahead. There the jester came charging. Toward the clown who meant to turn this story into a farce, Bernstein raised his sword.
"Come, jester!"
Sword blazing with sunlight, he shouted.
Recalling the glorious days of a hundred and fifty years past, Bernstein announced his name.
"I, Bernstein Vanmore, knight of the Empire and sword of the imperial house, will face you."
2.
The Helmet Knight set foot inside the Forbidden Territory. Passing through the opaque barrier, he was greeted by the graves of his comrades—and by the battlefield where he had once won glorious victory.
And there, his disciple waited.
Najin sat perched on a rock, staring hard at the Helmet Knight.
There was much he wanted to say, yet Najin said nothing. He spoke only with his eyes. At that gaze the Helmet Knight gave a bitter smile.
"The day's grown dark. We need a fire."
Just as on the day they first met, the Helmet Knight settled opposite Najin and kindled a flame. Crack—the campfire flared to life. Across the dancing fire he opened his mouth.
"Najin."
"Yes."
"Will you listen to what I say from now on without a word?"
Najin nodded in silence. The Helmet Knight spoke while looking not at Najin but at the fire.
"A hundred and fifty years ago I made a deal with the Revelry Emperor. More precisely, it was a wager."
Crack—the campfire popped.
"On the day I knocked half the Revelry Emperor's stars from the sky and lost all of mine, I could have struggled further. If I had, I might have taken one or two more of her stars. But I felt no meaning in it. She would only revive anyway—what point was there in the act?"
There was no god here, no priest to hear confession, yet he was making one all the same. No—not quite a sacrament. He might confess his sins, but he showed no desire for forgiveness.
"Just as that disillusionment set in, the Revelry Emperor offered me a deal. If I withdrew, she would not make my comrades into jesters. She would leave quietly. She probably simply did not want any more damage. Whatever her reasons, the terms were good."
There existed a way to grant the dead rest.
The Helmet Knight could have given them an honorable funeral so they might die with dignity. But if they became the Revelry Emperor's jesters? That could never be undone.
They would dance for eternity. They would become puppets that insulted, mocked, and ridiculed others. The Helmet Knight could not bear for his comrades to meet such an end. He could not allow history to record them as jesters instead of knights.
"I knelt before the Revelry Emperor and accepted the deal. At the time I believed it was the best choice."
So the Helmet Knight accepted the proposal.
"But every deal carries a price."
He lifted his head.
"The Revelry Emperor could have endured the loss, killed me, and turned everyone there into jesters. And she is a demon who is never satisfied until she has taken everything she wants. Such a demon would never simply release her prey."
He pointed to himself.
"There was a condition attached to that deal. The moment the bargain was struck, the Revelry Emperor laid a wager on my end."
The end.
"She said: at the final moment I will ask you."
At the final moment I will ask you all.
Quoting the words of King Arthur, the demon had laughed.
"Are you a jester, or a knight?"
Najin's face twisted.
He understood what it meant.
"If I die as a knight, the deal remains unbroken. But the moment I end my life as a jester—as one of the dead—the deal is void. The Revelry Emperor immediately gains the right to set foot in the Forbidden Territory and will turn every soul buried in this land into her jester."
That demon possessed the power to do it.
"I accepted the wager. I believed I could endure. Arrogant. It was an unbearably arrogant choice."
"…"
"The Revelry Emperor laid the Curse of Oblivion upon me. She laid the Curse of Incineration. She stacked dozens of curses one atop another. As a result the world no longer knows me, and even I have forgotten myself. So I can never gain a new star."
No matter what feats he achieved, he could not obtain a star. Only the eroded stars remained, gnawing at his flesh.
"If I do not covet other stars, my soul erodes and I become one of the dead. Without taking another's star I cannot live. But can that truly be called living? What value is there in a life without honor or pride?"
A worthless life.
The Helmet Knight found no value in his own.
"I wanted to die. Better to become one of the dead than to live like that…"
Yet he could not even die.
The moment he met death he would become a fallen star, a dead star. That would mean the Revelry Emperor's victory, and every one of his comrades becoming jesters.
He had to live. He had no choice but to live.
"I had to live, yet a vicious disillusionment took hold. Me, a hero, forced to live like that? I had spent my entire life guarding honor and pride—treasures I valued more than life itself—and now I was to abandon them all and live that way? Impossible. It was simply impossible."
So he endured.
He said,
"I endured ten years, fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty. I tried to endure. And while doing so I realized—this was a wager I could never win from the start."
Crack—embers leapt.
The fire, its fuel spent, began to die.
"I do not regard crows and hunters as knights. So the moment I take another's heart I cease to be a knight, and the Revelry Emperor wins. But if I endure as a knight? I become one of the dead in the end. Either way, only defeat awaited me."
He smiled bitterly.
"Enduring like that, I reached my limit. So I swallowed the corpses of already-dead beasts and ate the scraps of the dead that others had hunted, convincing myself that because I had not hunted them myself it was somehow acceptable. But from that moment on I could no longer call myself a knight."
Because he could not face his own actions with a clear conscience.
An excessively high ideal of chivalry, the sheer weight he placed on the word knight, had shackled the Helmet Knight's ankles. That was why he had always told Najin:
Do not think too rigidly.
Leave room for gaps.
Otherwise life only becomes exhausting.
"When I met you I was already at my limit."
The Helmet Knight pointed at Najin.
"So I seriously considered redefining the meaning of the word knight inside myself and devouring your heart to keep living. Had I not endured a hundred and fifty years? Had I not done my utmost? Could anyone truly blame me? I was ready to close my eyes and stop my ears…"
Tick—
The last ember leapt up. Just as the campfire was about to die, Najin fed it new wood.
"You stubborn little bastard."
The flames rose again.
Strong, and brilliant.
"You wouldn't let me. Right there you made me a knight again. You forced me to remember the glorious days. You made certain I could not run."
There was no resentment in the voice.
Laughter colored the Helmet Knight's words.
"You proved that the lingering attachment I had cast aside, the end I once longed for, could still be shown. You made me dream again the dream I had abandoned long ago."
He had drunk a fierce liquor.
He had dreamed a pleasant dream.
"Now it is time to wake from that dream."
Time to sober up and rise.
Time to return from dream to reality.
"I wandered for a hundred and fifty years. That time did not grant me enlightenment, but it has allowed me to decide."
He rose to his feet.
"Now I can give my answer."
It was time to pay the price for that magnificent liquor.
3.
Bernstein Vanmore had admired a hero.
He had admired the hero who saved the Empire, and growing up on those stories he became a knight. The Helmet Knight would never know how overjoyed Bernstein had been the day he became the imperial sword and stood at the side of the hero he so admired.
Recalling the past, Bernstein smiled.
Reality was this hard, yet why did the past remain so beautiful? Even as the spear pierced him and blood poured from his entire body, he could still smile.
"Why do you laugh? What is so amusing?"
"You told me to laugh earlier—why does my laughter sour your mood so much, jester?"
Quixote's brow furrowed.
Bernstein's smile was one Quixote could never wear. A light, unburdened smile. If there are people who yearn for what they lack, there are also those who come to hate it. Quixote was the latter.
He drove his spear harder. The weapon tore Bernstein's arm free, yet Bernstein still did not stop smiling.
…He had lived admiring a hero.
He could never become the hero, but he had managed to have his own story written into the tale the hero was composing. That fact satisfied Bernstein. Not everyone can be the lead, and Bernstein had never wanted to steal the Helmet Knight's place and become the star himself.
He had admired him, envied him—
Above all, the man had been Bernstein's idol.
A supporting role that made the lead shine. A presence that made the idol shine. That was enough. But when the idol no longer shone, Bernstein lost his purpose. He resented the man and hated him. And so he wandered for a hundred and fifty years.
At the end of all that wandering he found his answer.
Crunch!
Bones shattered and Bernstein rolled across the ground. He closed his eyes. What he saw with closed eyes was his mindscape. Gazing into that mindscape he staggered to his feet.
In Bernstein's mindscape stood the Helmet Knight.
The hero he had admired was there.
Bernstein now knew that the man had never once abandoned being a knight.
"Yes. You were a hero. You never gave up. Not for a single moment…"
He looked at his own eroding flesh.
It hurt. That man had endured this pain for a hundred and fifty years? Truly worthy of respect. Yes. That is the hero of the Empire. The man I admired.
"At last I remember the name."
Bernstein smiled lightly. After long years he could once again admire his idol. He realized the man still shone. In the mindscape that had lost its sun, the sun rose again.
He attained enlightenment.
Sprouting. Blooming. Full Bloom.
Beyond the three steps a wall still stood, yet even that wall could not bar Bernstein's path. A hundred and fifty years of wandering had already become sufficient experience. Having found his answer at the end of that wandering, he shattered the wall and stepped forward.
Bernstein opened his eyes.
At the end of his life he touched transcendence.
Having burned every one of his stars and resolved to end his life here, Bernstein's blade was sharper than ever. He swung the sword at empty air, yet the aura reached Quixote dozens of meters away. Quixote's eyes flew wide.
Bernstein swung again.
He swung and swung.
A blazing sun scorched the wasteland. Sunlight sword aura barred the jester's path. While swinging he murmured—not to the clown before him, but toward the Forbidden Territory beyond, where the Helmet Knight was preparing his own end.
"Shine until the last. Meet your end as a hero…"
He swung the Sun Sword. He unleashed the swordsmanship created by Sir Gawain of the Round Table. Of course Bernstein's Sun Sword could neither blaze as fiercely as Gawain's, nor incinerate enemies, nor create a sun over the Outer Land.
The light born of Bernstein's Sun Sword was faint.
Yet it was more than enough to illuminate the single step ahead.
Had Gawain himself stood in this place, he would have spared no praise for Bernstein. For the sword was that beautiful. At the end of his life Bernstein could be beautiful.
Shaaaaa!
Sunlight sword aura scoured the earth again and again, yet the end still approached. The Knight of Revelry burst through the flames. His body, however, was far from whole. Face melting from the fire, Quixote screamed.
It was a remarkable feat, yet Bernstein neither marveled nor even paid it attention. Right now he was simply remembering something from not long ago.
Ah. I never managed to apologize.
He had promised that if every word proved true he would apologize—yet he had never delivered the apology.
There is no death free of regret. Everyone carries at least one small lingering attachment to the grave. Feeling a faint sense of incompleteness, Bernstein smiled.
Because in his final moment he had been able to remain a knight.
"Am I a jester, or a knight?"
The Helmet Knight asked himself the question. The answer was one only he could give. The reply he had postponed for a hundred and fifty years left his lips.
"A knight."
At the final moment, he chose to be a knight.