The Romanticist (1)
“What is love, really?”
Merlin choked at Najin’s muttered words. She coughed hard, as if something had gone down the wrong pipe, and thumped her own chest repeatedly. Once she had forced the air back out, she let a long breath escape and fixed her eyes on him.
“Out of nowhere? Why that?”
It truly was a sudden topic. The question had been dropped without warning or context, and Merlin was more than a little flustered, yet she forced herself to look composed and only shrugged one shoulder.
“What is love… That’s a pretty philosophical question. Why do you want to know?”
“No reason. Just wondering.”
Najin looked down at the ring he held. The one Dieta had given him. Warmth always seemed to seep from it when he held it, and lately he found himself turning it over in his fingers out of habit. The Outer Land was, by nature, a cool, bleak, arid place; a person could grow hungry for human warmth there. Whenever that longing rose, the ring offered exactly the right measure of heat.
“I mean,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I got a confession. When I received this ring.”
Merlin’s face crumpled.
“You did. So?”
“I thought it was pretty damn cool.”
Unadorned, unflinching, honest. The way Dieta had faced him head-on—Najin had found that magnificent. How much courage did it take to speak your heart that plainly?
“If you think about it,” he went on.
“What? What about it?”
“Does love really give someone that kind of courage? It’s the same in all the hero tales, right? They throw everything away for the one they love, stake their lives… I just can’t relate to that part at all.”
“Y-yeah?”
“So why is that? What even is love?”
It was pure curiosity. Had someone who had actually fallen in love—or married—been present, they might have offered him a plausible answer.
“Hmm. Hmm… hmm…”
Unfortunately, the only one present was a thousand-year-old girl who had spent those thousand years with a wall between herself and romance—who had never once been in love. To that girl, the question Najin had tossed out was both baffling and deeply embarrassing. Merlin chewed her lip. What is love, he asks? What is the kid even asking? Isn’t that sort of topic mortifying? Still, he had asked, so she had to answer somehow.
“Love is… y’know. It’s bright and beautiful and noble and, uh… hmm…”
Just as people who have never dated still hold fantasies about romance, Merlin was no different. After guarding that fantasy for a full millennium, the words that tumbled from her mouth were so bashful that anyone listening might have felt secondhand shame. Sadly, no one was present to point that out.
“Anyway, that’s what it is.”
By the time she finished, her face was flaming red. Najin mulled over her words and nodded.
“Hmm. I don’t get it at all.”
So, he said,
“Shall I go ask?”
“Ask who?”
“Who else? That guy over there.”
Najin pointed toward the knight tending a flower garden—the knight who lived by romance and would die by romance. Even among the freaks who filled the Outer Land, he stood alone as the most singular oddball of all: a Romanticist.
The eccentric. Anton Quijano.
He was the man who held a clue to La Mancha, the place Najin had been searching for.
2.
A few days earlier, after seeing Blue Spear to his final rest, Najin had sought out Kirchhoff to deliver the will and the keepsake the man had left behind. When Kirchhoff saw Najin arrive carrying the blue spear, his eyes went wide, then he smiled bitterly.
“So that’s how it was.”
He murmured it to himself.
“So he went that way.”
After hearing Najin’s account, Kirchhoff pressed hard at the bridge of his nose. He looked at the blue spear Najin offered and shook his head.
“That’s something his disciple—you—ought to receive, isn’t it? I have no right to take it.”
“I already have one spear. Besides, I’ve already received something else, so it’s fine.”
“Received what?”
“The spear of Rondinel.”
Kirchhoff blinked, then burst out laughing.
“Ah. In that case, would you show me?”
Najin did. He swung the spear before Kirchhoff, and when the demonstration ended, Kirchhoff rose to his feet and applauded.
“To think the day would come when I would see that again.”
A fine tale called for fine liquor. Muttering as much, Kirchhoff brought out a treasured bottle, pulled the cork, and listened to Najin’s story while the drink flowed.
“So. He was like that to the very end.”
Kirchhoff laughed with genuine pleasure, then his gaze settled on the blue spear. Looking at the weapon Najin had brought, his eyes grew heavy and still.
“That is a spear only the purest and strongest knight of Rondinel may hold. I don’t know whether I still have the right to grasp it.”
“Isn’t it all right? You are that knight, after all.”
“Haha. Well, you’re not wrong. I’m the only knight of Rondinel left. In that case, I’ll keep it for a while.”
He exhaled a long breath.
“You said you were looking for La Mancha?”
“Yes.”
“And the reason would be to kill Quixote.”
“That’s right. And beyond that, to kill the Revelry Emperor as well.”
“Our goals align, then.”
Kirchhoff drained his cup.
“I don’t know much about La Mancha myself. But I do know one man who might.”
“Who?”
“Anton Quijano.”
The eccentric. Anton Quijano. Kirchhoff explained the man who went by that name.
“Anton Quijano is of the same house as Quixote, and he knows Quixote’s past. I tried to pry information out of him once before… Well. It failed spectacularly.”
“Failed… Why?”
“Anton is an eccentric among eccentrics. Ordinary methods of negotiation don’t work. Threats won’t open his mouth, and if you ask about Quixote he only answers with cryptic little remarks.”
But, Kirchhoff added, pointing at Najin,
“With you, who knows.”
“Why would I be any different?”
“Not a reason so much as a feeling. Instinct. I trust my instincts reasonably well. I’ll tell you where he lives—why not pay him a visit?”
A man who knew Quixote’s past and held a clue to La Mancha. Najin nodded. Wandering blind would be worse than trying this.
“Go there. You’ll see it from a distance—a field of scarlet flowers.”
Which brought them to the present.
Najin looked ahead. Before him stretched a garden of fully bloomed crimson flowers. He knew how hard it was to raise a flower garden in the Outer Land, where the sun rarely rose and the climate was pure chaos.
Someone was watering the beds. Even after Najin arrived, the man paid him no mind, making a full circuit of the garden. Only when every last plant had been watered did he turn his gaze on the youth standing idle.
“What business do you have in my garden, boy?”
“Are you Anton Quijano?”
“My name is Anton, yes. But that feels a little thin. What’s your name?”
“Najin.”
“Short. That stiff a first impression already makes me want to sigh. Introduce yourself at length, in detail—something that might actually interest me.”
Not an easy man from the first second. Najin spoke inwardly to Merlin. Shall we? It’s been a while. While Merlin, knowing exactly what he meant, let out a mental scream, Najin smirked and opened his mouth.
“At the age of eighteen I became a Sword Seeker—the youngest Sword Seeker in history, the youngest free knight, the youngest…”
He recited every one of his achievements, one by one. Only when Merlin’s shrieking rose so high it nearly cut off entirely did he finish.
“Dawn Star. Free knight Najin.”
“Now that sparks a little interest. Good. Very good!”
Anton clapped and curled the corner of his mouth upward.
“I am Anton Quijano. Others call me Anton the Romanticist, but I call myself a lover. A lover of the century, no less.”
“A lover of the century?”
“Yes. And even ‘lover of the century’ feels a bit inadequate. I’ve been chasing one woman not for a single century, but for several.”
Anton Quijano said,
“For four hundred years I have been searching for one woman. The impudent woman who stole my heart.”
3.
“You came looking for information on Quixote. I do know a few things about him, yes. He’s my uncle.”
“What?”
“Alonso Quijano. That’s the true name of the Quixote you’re after. As you can tell from the name, we share the same house.”
The Quijano family. Anton shrugged.
“My uncle was already a real piece of work when I was a child, but the meaning of that has shifted since then. His notoriety is considerable. I find it pitiful, too. Who would have thought he would become… that.”
“Then about La Mancha—”
“Of course I know.”
Before Najin could even ask whether he would share it, Anton raised a hand as if to say that was as far as the conversation would go.
“I know, but it’s not something I can hand over lightly. And I don’t particularly want to, either.”
“Why not?”
“Look, boy. We’ve known each other’s names for all of ten-odd minutes. Would you spill everything—this and that—to someone you’d met for ten minutes?”
A fair point. Najin swallowed the questions and words he had been about to throw out. Haste ruined everything. The more urgent the matter, the longer the road you should take—he reminded himself of that and spoke again.
“You’re right. And trying to get precious information without offering anything in return would be pretty shameless.”
“Now we’re talking.”
“Anton Quijano.”
“You can just call me Anton.”
“All right, Anton.”
Najin looked him straight in the eye. Outwardly the man seemed little older than himself, yet he had lived at least four hundred years. More than that, Anton was a transcendent. How many stars he carried, Najin could not say, but the presence he gave off was unmistakably that of one who had crossed the threshold.
“I propose a deal.”
“A deal—fine. But information about La Mancha is as precious to me as my own life. That isn’t a figure of speech. It truly is.”
Anton snorted.
“Boy, what do you have that could make me put something as valuable as my life into words? If you’re thinking of staking a star, forget it. I have no interest in that sort of trifle.”
Go on, then. Tell me.
“What can you give me?”
A transcendent’s razor-sharp gaze locked onto Najin. It was also a warning: offer something worthless and the fun would end here. Yet contrary to Anton’s expectation, Najin showed not the slightest flinch before the pressure of a man who had lived more than four centuries. He simply met the stare with open eyes.
Well now. Look at this one.
While Anton let out a dry laugh, Najin spoke.
“You said you were looking for someone.”
“I did.”
“You said you’ve been searching for four hundred years and still haven’t found her.”
“Sadly, yes. She’s a mischievous woman.”
“I’ll help with that.”
“…What?”
“The woman you’re looking for—I’ll find her for you. Is that enough of a price?”
Anton laughed as if he could not believe what he was hearing.
“Boy, if she were that easy to find, would I have suffered for four hundred years? Anyone can talk.”
“Did you think I’d demand payment up front? Of course it’s after the fact. I’ll find her first, then I’ll hear the information.”
Anton’s eyes narrowed.
“Confident, are we.”
“I’ve always been decent at finding people. Spent a long time dragging in debtors who’d taken the money and vanished.”
And, Najin added,
“I have a very capable guide. Someone who finds paths better than anyone.”
“A capable guide?”
“Yes. Probably the finest in human history.”
“Arrogant. If we’re talking about the finest guide in history, that would be the great mage of the Round Table, Lady Merlin. Are you claiming you know a guide who can stand beside her?”
That’s right, Merlin.
Najin held back a laugh inside and answered,
“Yes. One just as capable.”
“Hahahaha!”
Anton Quijano threw his head back and laughed as if he could no longer contain it.
“Well, overflowing confidence is better than none at all. Good. Very good. This already sounds entertaining just from the telling.”
He offered Najin his hand.
“I accept the proposal. If you find her for me, I will give you every piece of information you desire. On my honor and my name, on my soul and my flesh—I swear it.”