The One Who Forgot (5)
Blue Spear was the most noble knight of all.
And, as it happens, the strongest as well.
Blue Spear, Golden Spear, Crimson Spear—though the bearers of these spears never formally ranked themselves against one another, unwritten rules have a way of asserting themselves all the same.
Doesn't the Empire hold its First Pillar, the Empire's First Horn, highest among the Five Pillars? Rondinel was no different.
Blue Spear.
The spear bestowed upon the strongest, most noble knight.
Not simply given to someone of noble character, but entrusted to one who never lost that nobility through every trial. And Rondinel's last Blue Spear was a man worthy of that spear.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember him properly.
It must have been an important memory.
But I forgot it.
What I do remember is this: he addressed everyone with respect. Whether a renowned noble of Rondinel, a beggar panhandling in the street, even the lowliest of creatures—he never spoke carelessly to anyone.
Everything in this world has value.
Nothing should be called low.
Yes. Those were the words he used like a habit. I cannot recall his face. Not his name, nothing. But the words he said to me—those I remember.
Ah, how could I forget them?
Liar, fake, fraud, beggar, coward… I had been called all those things, and it was the moment I became a knight.
Surely, those words began like this:
"Kirchhoff."
"Do you know of the blue hydrangea?"
"Najin."
By nature, Blue Spear had been a mayfly—a man who lost his memory with each passing day. He lived and died by the day, not a continuous life but a severed, isolated one.
Through Najin, however, Blue Spear came to live a continuous life, however imperfect. What he had grasped yesterday, Najin carried forward to the man he would be tomorrow. And so, living from yesterday into today, from today into tomorrow, Blue Spear's life began to change.
A change in a life he had repeated for more than three hundred years.
That change drove Blue Spear to put a question to Najin. One day, Blue Spear asked him:
"Do you know of the blue hydrangea?"
What is a blue hydrangea?
The moment he heard the question, Najin's breathing faltered mid-swing. It could not have been otherwise. It was the same question Kirchhoff had once told him of.
"The blue hydrangea, you mean?"
"Yes. According to what is written in the diary, I was called 'Blue Spear,' or else 'Blue Hydrangea'… and yet no matter where I look in the diary, there is nothing written about this blue hydrangea."
"Is there anything written about Blue Spear?"
"That much is written. Blue Spear. A kind of title. It is not recorded in detail, but it says it is a rank granted to knights who have rendered meritorious service."
It was hardly a title to be set down so lightly.
In truth, Blue Spear was generally like that. He never rated himself highly. Not because he had lost his memories—even in the diary entries written before the loss, he was humble to a fault.
"Blue Spear was not a title that could be described so simply. From what I heard from Sir Kirchhoff, Blue Spear was the honor given in Rondinel to the strongest and most noble knight."
"The strongest and most noble?"
Blue Spear blinked.
"Me?"
He muttered as though he could not believe it.
"That is… remarkable. Are you saying I was someone so extraordinary?"
"It would seem so. I don't know the full story myself."
"Then what of the blue hydrangea?"
"First of all, the blue hydrangea is the national flower of Rondinel."
Najin spoke, tracing back the conversation he had shared with Kirchhoff.
"It is the flower that represents Rondinel—and, I might add, the form that Sir Kirchhoff's sword aura takes."
"Kirchhoff. That name comes up often, doesn't it?"
"He is Rondinel's last knight. Likely the only person left who remembers Rondinel as well."
"Judging by the inexplicable sense of relief I feel upon hearing the name, it seems he and I share some connection."
They did share a connection. A deep one.
But for now, instead of explaining that bond, Najin spoke of the blue hydrangea.
"Blue is the symbol of Rondinel, and the hydrangea is said to symbolize the knights who guard it. They carved hydrangeas into the order's banners. So the fact that you were called 'Blue Hydrangea' probably means…"
Najin pointed to the spear in Blue Spear's grip.
"The knight who represents Rondinel. Its most emblematic knight. Something along those lines, wouldn't you say?"
The most emblematic knight.
Blue Spear murmured the words Najin had used. The title clearly pointed to him, and yet he seemed unable to believe it.
"Hah."
He murmured, then laughed. Laughing, Blue Spear shook his head.
"I cannot be certain, having lost my memories… but I doubt I would have thought of it that way. I am not saying you are wrong. Only that I myself would not have regarded it so."
"Then how?"
"To represent someone. To be the greatest. When I hear words like that, I feel a kind of resistance. Those words imply something special, do they not?"
That was true enough—and not wrong, either.
To Najin, who tilted his head as if to ask what the problem was, Blue Spear explained.
"I do not consider myself special. I do not consider myself superior to others. Nor do I wish to be regarded as such."
Even having lost his memories, even having forgotten his past, there remained a conviction he had not released. Blue Spear held that conviction on his tongue.
"I would rather be looked down upon. I would rather be taken lightly. Not as the highest being, but as the lowest."
When Najin asked why, Blue Spear answered.
"That way, everyone can rise higher than I, can they not?"
Blue Spear smiled.
"There is no such thing as an eternally superior being. Even one who stands supreme for a time—as years pass and history turns—someone will use that person's achievements as a foothold and climb higher still."
He pointed to the sky.
"Even the star that hangs in the highest reach of that sky is no different. That star must be waiting—for someone who will tread upon it and rise higher still."
"You mean King Arthur's star?"
"I do not know who King Arthur is. But if it were me, I would feel the same."
Watching Blue Spear speak with a gentle smile and shining eyes, Najin recalled the words Blue Spear was said to have spoken to Kirchhoff.
"I am not the highest being. I am not the greatest being either. Look down on me. Take me lightly. Regard me freely as a foothold to tread upon and climb."
"Kirchhoff."
"I do not wish to be a solitary figure shining at the highest place. I wish to be a stair for successors like you to climb."
Those words he was said to have spoken more than three hundred years ago, when his memories were whole—
"I would rather be a foothold for others to leap higher than a solitary being shining forever at the highest place."
Three hundred years on, having lost every memory, the words he spoke now were astonishingly alike. A conviction that not even oblivion could break stood there before him.
At that, Najin felt something close to awe.
"Are you sure you've lost your memories? You're not lying?"
"Pardon? What are you talking about, Najin?"
"What you just said is exactly the same as the words you supposedly spoke to Sir Kirchhoff three hundred years ago. Was it written in the diary?"
Blue Spear shook his head.
"No. It is not written there. The words simply came to me just now, but…"
Having said as much, he soon laughed—a laugh that looked thoroughly pleased.
"Just now, for the first time, my past self did not feel like a stranger. Whether before I lost my memories or now, it seems I have always thought the same."
Blue Spear gripped his spear.
Night was drawing near. Watching the sand run down through the hourglass, Blue Spear no longer feared it. He drew a long breath and, for the last time that day, swung his spear.
"Please be sure to pass these words on to tomorrow's me."
And so he did.
Hearing what yesterday's self had said, Blue Spear stood in place and turned the words over, then burst into laughter just as he had the day before.
"I said that? Remarkable indeed. This is the first time. The first time my past self has felt the same as me. Then I, too, should leave a word for tomorrow's self."
He took yesterday's words and carried them to today's Blue Spear. He took the words and deeds of today's Blue Spear and carried them to tomorrow's. In this way, Najin laid a path between Blue Spear's severed days.
Whoosh!
Sometimes that path was spear technique.
"Yesterday's you asked me to pass this on—don't waste time hesitating and fretting; if something occurs to you, just ask me right away. Because of that, he only managed two of the ten questions he meant to ask."
"…I said that?"
"Yes. He said the questions floating through your head right now would be things like: what Rondinel's streets looked like, what food they sold there, what manner of speech the king of Rondinel—whom you once served—used, and so on."
Sometimes it was words, or letters.
In this way Blue Spear's life lengthened, and the words he left for tomorrow's self grew longer as well. He now spent more time reading the diary and trading questions and answers with Najin than he did swinging his spear.
But if asked whether that meant regression, Najin would have shaken his head.
"Ah—like this."
Blue Spear was advancing.
The more he understood himself, the more he heard of his past, the more he resolved his doubts, the sharper his spear became, and his technique improved day by day.
He was no longer merely swinging the spear by habits carved into his body; he understood why those movements had to be made that way. Sharing the insights he gained, Najin's own spear technique advanced at a rapid pace as well.
"This is a realization yesterday's you arrived at—release the force in this motion, and make the next one a little more concise…"
Swish, crack!
"Like this, in other words."
"Indeed! Ah, I think I understand a little. This wouldn't apply only to this motion—it could be used in the others as well. Wait a moment. So from here, like this. Aha!"
Blue Spear was Najin's teacher and, at the same time, his student. Each was the other's disciple and master. And so a day passed, and another.
"Well then, Najin?"
A farewell of who could say which number.
"I shall see you tomorrow."
With that farewell, Blue Spear closed his eyes—believing, without a shred of doubt, that tomorrow would come.
Najin did not doubt it either. Slowly but surely, walking at this pace, he was certain they would before long reach a perfect ending.
"…"
But the next morning, Najin was forced to understand.
It had been nothing more than his own delusion.
That day, upon waking, Blue Spear frowned at the diary lying beside him. As though he could not understand the letters written on its cover, he set it down again.
He did not read the diary.
He did not turn the hourglass.
He put a question to Najin, who sat before him.
"Who are you?"
Not honorifics—plain, casual speech.
"Do you know me?"
With eyes so transparent they were hollow, he looked at Najin and asked.
"There is nothing in this world that should be spoken to with condescension. Everything in the world has value."
"And so I use honorifics. For all things."
"That much, at least, I have not forgotten."
The Blue Spear who had said those things was gone.
Only a nameless man stood there, staring out over the desert with emptied eyes. Only then did Najin notice it—the cracks running through the body of the man before him.
It was Erosion.
Blue Spear, who for three hundred years had never eroded, was for some reason wearing away at a frightening speed.