Regarding the First Horn (1)
The Imperial First Horn, Gerd.
The first pillar that upheld the Empire, and one of its Sword Masters—his exact age had never been recorded. Countless documents had been lost to the fires set by the rebels during the Dawn War.
The rough estimate placed him somewhere between one hundred eighty and two hundred ten years old.
Yet that very guess only deepened the confusion among the court historians. Was it not the natural order of the world that a body past one hundred fifty years would begin to erode, forcing its owner to depart for the Outer Land? There were, of course, a few exceptional beings who defied that rule, but they could never serve as ordinary examples.
Yuel Razian had simplified herself. By erasing her memories and emotions and defining herself through a set of clear, unadorned principles of action, she had sidestepped the erosion of her soul.
The Lighthouse Keeper of the Holy Light Church remained motionless. For long ages he had not moved. By refusing to move he had stepped outside the flow of time, enduring erosion by drinking in the faith offered by his flock.
And what, then, was Gerd?
The two before him were already closer to something other than human; their peculiar natures made them useless as examples. Gerd, however, was still human—a pure human, unlike either of them.
What allowed him to endure?
Only speculation flourished. Many scholars suggested some connection to Gerd’s aging, yet every theory remained nothing more than conjecture; none could claim the truth.
A man who had endured nearly two hundred years—or longer—within the Empire. A swordsman who had risen to Sword Master at a strangely late age compared to the brilliance he had shown as a Sword Seeker. An old man who, even after reaching a transcendent realm, had never rejuvenated.
Everything about him was suspicious.
Yet the value Gerd pursued had never once changed since the day he first learned the sword. Born and raised in an age of chaos when traitors swarmed the land, he had remained loyal to a single ideal.
“For the Empire.”
The Imperial First Horn, the first pillar that supported the Empire. True to that name, Gerd protected the Empire.
The leader of the rebels is dead. Without their center they will scatter. I’d love to wipe them all out myself, but I don’t have the time.
Yet no one knew the truth.
So you do it.
It’s your turn next.
What he sought to protect was not the Empire itself.
The Empire I defended—now it’s your turn to defend it.
The “Empire” of which Gerd spoke was not a simple empire. A single line of words always clung to the name he uttered.
“For the Empire that He protected.”
Gerd kept a promise.
He was simply keeping a promise he would never forget.
The tower of the Imperial First Horn, Gerd, was silent.
The tower of Yeonghwi-gak Sifria, the Empire’s fourth pillar, teemed with the mages who followed her. The other towers were little different. The pillars of the Empire stood second only to the Emperor himself—powers even the Emperor did not lightly touch.
Beneath such powers, followers naturally gathered, and noise was inevitable.
Yet Gerd’s tower was silent.
It was almost desolate. Climbing toward the highest floor, Najin thought as much. Too quiet. It felt as though Gerd alone lived within these walls.
Gerd. The old Sword Master.
Najin called up what he knew of the man. Information on the old man was easy enough to find in any imperial history. After all, he had lived nearly two hundred years as both soldier and knight of the Empire.
Every major event bore Gerd’s name: the subjugation of the black mage Kephalon, the hunting of a fallen star that had tried to cross the boundary of the Outer Land, the uprising of the black mages, the Dawn War itself. His life was the history of the Empire.
Thud.
Najin reached the summit of the tower.
At the top, a vast grassland stretched beneath a ceiling of blue sky. He had never set foot here before, yet the plain looked familiar to his eyes.
Once, during a spar with Gerd, he had seen this very grassland. Soft grass whispered underfoot as Najin walked forward.
“You’re here.”
An old man stood in the center of the plain. He turned his gaze from the Empire below and looked at Najin. Dry eyes that held no emotion. They resembled Yuel’s, yet differed in a decisive way.
Where Yuel’s eyes were hollow because she had erased every feeling, Gerd’s eyes were like a parched desert—worn down until nothing remained but arid flatness. Still, when they settled on Najin, a faint spark of interest appeared. Gerd’s expression loosened, if only slightly.
“The Empire has been in an uproar over you. Youngest Sword Seeker, and four stars at that age. An achievement worth the stir, I suppose.”
“I never intended it, but that’s how it turned out.”
“Great deeds are usually like that. Almost never accomplished because someone set out to accomplish them. Live consistently, and they simply happen of their own accord.”
A boulder rested on the grass. Gerd sat upon it and jerked his chin toward the opposite side, inviting Najin to sit. Facing each other across the pair of stones, Najin felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
A campfire between them would complete the picture.
“What brings you here?”
Once Najin had taken his seat, Gerd asked the question.
“You hold the right to demand one thing of me—anything. A right you won in our duel that day. I assume you came to my tower to claim it. Am I correct?”
“Depending on how our conversation goes, I might use it. But that isn’t why I’m here.”
Gerd narrowed his eyes with a soft “Ho.”
“Conversation as the goal, then. You have something you must say to me?”
“I do.”
“The time of the Imperial First Horn is precious. A private audience with me is more precious still. Compared to the right you already hold it is not precious, yet neither is it light.”
Gerd gave a small nod.
“Speak. If your words lack that much value, I will take the interest and goodwill I hold for you as payment.”
He did not look particularly expectant. An old man who had stood at the Empire’s pinnacle for so many years had experienced truly countless things. Whatever tale emerged, he would feel no great surprise.
Dry eyes. A withered human. The arid old man was a poor conversational partner. Whatever Najin said, he would answer with a mere “Mm” and a nod. Yet Najin knew the one subject that would seize the old man’s attention in an instant.
“The First Horn.”
Najin cast the topic into the air.
“I came to speak of the First Horn.”
“The First Horn?”
Gerd’s eyes narrowed further. They seemed to weigh what the boy before him meant, to grasp the true intent of the words.
“What do you mean by that? That you came to discuss me? The Empire’s first pillar?”
“No. Not the pillar.”
A slight interest. Moisture seeping into a dry desert. Merely drawing that much from Gerd would have been an achievement worthy of any imperial orator’s admiration, yet Najin had no intention of settling for so little.
“I came to speak of the Empire’s first horn.”
Najin went straight to the heart of the matter.
“The previous Imperial First Horn, Alderan Basaglia. There is something I must discuss with you concerning him.”
Alderan Basaglia.
The instant Najin spoke the name—
Slash.
For a single moment Najin saw the illusion of his own head flying from his shoulders. In the past he would have reflexively stepped back and drawn his sword in an ugly display. Now he did not so much as twitch. It was only an illusion.
The atmosphere had sharpened in a heartbeat. The pressure Gerd radiated had simply painted that future before Najin’s eyes.
Najin met Gerd’s gaze without flinching. Gerd’s eyes remained narrowed as he opened his mouth. A voice as sharp as the sword he carried rang out.
“I warn you.”
Gerd fixed Najin with a hard stare.
“If you spoke that name merely to raise some trivial matter, or simply to catch my interest… then you will have to spend the right you hold merely to leave this place alive.”
The previous Imperial First Horn, Alderan Basaglia. Many knew the name because Gerd himself had carved it into the Empire’s histories. Many fools, too, had spoken it hoping to draw Gerd’s attention.
There was no need to recount what had befallen those fools. To Gerd, Alderan Basaglia was both reverse scale and sacred ground—a domain that must never be touched, never invaded.
“Think carefully before you open your mouth.”
To that warning Najin gave no reply. He did not even speak. He simply rose from his seat.
Najin drew the sword at his hip.
Gerd’s eyes narrowed another fraction. Najin was pointing the blade not at Gerd but into empty air. Unable to fathom what the boy intended, Gerd watched him with a questioning gaze.
And then Najin swung.
Step by strong step he advanced, unfolding the swordsmanship he had learned.
Whoosh.
Najin was no orator. Still less a politician. He possessed no talent for persuading or coaxing anyone with words. Najin was, first and last, a swordsman.
Whoom.
Just as an orator persuaded with a silver tongue, just as a novelist moved hearts with sentences, just as a court historian recorded history with the brush in his hand—so a swordsman spoke with the sword.
The blade Najin now wielded was the Imperial Sword.
The foundation of Imperial swordsmanship.
Any knight or swordsman of the Empire who saw it would answer without hesitation, “That is Imperial swordsmanship”—a model of the form.
Yet there was one man.
One man alone who would recognize the sword Najin swung.
He would perceive the gap that lay between Imperial swordsmanship and Najin’s own. He would notice the raw, sharp edge woven into the blade—something that did not exist in Imperial swordsmanship.
Gerd’s narrowed eyes slowly widened.
In all the Empire, only Gerd knew that swordsmanship. The original form of Imperial swordsmanship. A style that survived solely in Gerd’s memory. Gerd himself had refined it, polished it, and forged it into the Imperial style, believing that beautiful sword must never be forgotten.
A swordsmanship lost a hundred fifty years ago.
The style Gerd had imperfectly restored.
The sword of the previous Imperial First Horn—the Triumphant Sword.
It was being recreated at the tip of a boy’s blade. Gerd’s eyes were no longer merely wide; they were flung open. Rain poured upon a dry desert. The heart of an old man who had long ago been worn down until he had lost all interest now hammered violently in his chest.
And then—boom!
Najin stamped the earth.
Planting his feet hard, he raised his sword high toward the sky. In that instant Gerd could not help rising to his feet. The memory he treasured deepest of all was unfolding before his eyes.
The First Horn.
Najin had said it earlier. He had come to discuss the First Horn. That had been no lie. Najin was showing Gerd the First Horn. You will recognize it. And you will know what comes next.
Sure enough, Gerd had abandoned even his dignity. Eyes wide, he stared at Najin. Those eyes were no longer dry, no longer parched.
Najin answered that expectation.
The First Horn—Triumph.
Najin brought the sword down.
He used no sword-aura. He did not wring every drop of strength from his body. Partly it was simple common sense—he could not unleash a technique of that power in the heart of the Empire—but also because, in his present condition, he could not fully perform the Triumphant Sword.
Yet the form itself was perfect.
Crack.
A single line was carved into the grassland.
Upon the tower of the Imperial First Horn, Najin left a sword scar.
Ordinarily, damaging a pillar of the Empire was a crime of the highest order—one for which summary execution by the pillar’s own hand would leave no room for complaint. Yet the Empire’s first pillar, the man who should have demanded that accounting, remained silent.
He looked at the scar Najin had left.
Then he looked at Najin.
Even the mere recreation of the form had reopened his wounds; Najin pressed hard on his shoulder as he met Gerd’s gaze. Then he smiled at the old man.
“Did I not tell you?”
Gerd’s eyes were trembling. For more than a hundred years they had never wavered, no matter what event he faced. The Empire’s first pillar was shaking now.
“I came to discuss the First Horn.”