The Black Spire (6)
The Black Spire shows memories of the past.
The prophet’s eyes look into the future.
Spanning the gulf of a thousand years, past and future touched. From the instant Merlin, who had been gazing at the lake, turned her head to look at Najin, the world ceased to be an illusion.
What had happened a thousand years ago.
A past that had truly existed, not a lie.
It was a contradiction born when the Mystery of Recollection intertwined with eyes that beheld the future.
“······.”
For Najin it was past and present; for Merlin it was future and present. Najin was a man from the distant future, Merlin a woman from the distant past, yet in this very moment both stood with their feet planted in the present, looking at each other.
“You······.”
Merlin swallowed her breath.
“You pulled out Excalibur?”
“As you can see.”
Najin pointed to the Excalibur in his hand. Merlin stared at him with trembling eyes, then squeezed them tightly shut. Eyes closed, she slowly let out a breath.
“You’re seeing the past inside the Black Spire, and I’m seeing the future through the lake. So originally we shouldn’t be able to meet—shouldn’t meet at all······.”
She opened her eyes again.
“But coincidence piled on coincidence—or perhaps it was inevitable—and now you’re standing right in front of me.”
“That’s how it turned out.”
“May I ask one thing?”
“As many as you like.”
“You.”
Merlin’s lips moved.
“How many years into the future did you come from?”
“A thousand years later.”
A thousand years. The moment those words left his mouth, a hollow laugh slipped from Merlin’s lips. She laughed as if it were absurd.
“A thousand years. A thousand years?”
She muttered.
“That’s long. An unimaginable stretch of time. You’re telling me to wait that long?”
Even as she muttered, Merlin kept glancing at the surface of the lake. No future was reflected on the water any longer. Yet as if chewing over the future that had been shown there only moments before, she bit down hard on her lip.
A thousand years was far too long.
A span of time beyond imagining.
But the her of a thousand years later had been smiling. Smiling so joyfully, so happily.
“······.”
Merlin.
“Hey.”
Having glimpsed a thousand years ahead, she found herself curious about that future.
“You said Najin, right?”
Merlin looked at him.
“The future I saw in the lake was so abbreviated I don’t really get it. What’s this? Why am I smiling like that? What’s so enjoyable? I just can’t understand.”
Because she didn’t know.
So Merlin said,
“Tell me.”
Her eyes were shining, if only a little.
Whether it was the starlight wrought by Excalibur or simply her own eyes gleaming, it was impossible to tell.
“Tell me your story.”
Either way, Merlin’s eyes were shining.
Countless heroic tales say the same thing.
No matter where you stand, if you look up at that vast night sky you will see the constellations. And those constellations are the traces left by heroes who once raced across this land—the sum of their lives.
“Half right, half wrong.”
“···Which part is wrong?”
“The part that says ‘no matter where you stand, if you look up you’ll see the constellations.’ Where I lived, you couldn’t see the stars.”
“There are places like that?”
“There is. A subterranean city called Atman.”
Najin began his story.
“The people from up above used to call it the landfill. A place where discarded trash was buried.”
The starting point of the tale—the prologue.
“Look up and all you see is a pitch-black ceiling. Nothing but rough stone. I used to stare at the ore embedded in those rocks and pretend those were stars.”
“Sounds like a dull life.”
“Doesn’t it? Though honestly I never had time to feel bored. I was too busy surviving. Still, as time went on I found a little breathing room, and once I had breathing room I started to dream.”
“What was the dream?”
“To see the stars.”
“Stars?”
“To see, even once, whatever those stars were that appear in the Arthurian chronicles. That was my dream.”
From the very beginning of his story, Najin spoke.
“Arthur was nothing but a lucky upstart who rode the right era. If she’d been born in this age she would have been nobody. Jealous? Want to argue? Then come down here and try smiting me.”
“······.”
“Hold on—don’t raise your hand. That’s all foreshadowing for what comes next.”
“Haa… fine. Keep going.”
“After that, with help from Oppen, Ivan, and old man Hogel······.”
At first Merlin had listened with indifference, but as the story continued her expression began to change. When she heard of Najin drawing Excalibur and fleeing his pursuers she clenched her fists so hard her palms grew damp; when she heard of Ivan’s choice she let out a short breath of admiration.
“If Atanga had seen that, he really would have lost his mind.”
“Right?”
“So what happened next?”
She asked for the next part, and Najin told her of the journey that followed.
“My first meeting with Merlin was the worst.”
“······?”
“Come on, think about it. Getting choked the moment we met doesn’t exactly leave a good impression, does it?”
“No, that was your fault······.”
The first meeting with Merlin.
“She chattered nonstop right beside me all day long without a single break, and it was… how should I put it. Remember what I said to you earlier? That it’s hard to keep any illusions about you under the circumstances? That’s exactly what I meant.”
“I… I did that?”
“Yes. In fact, the moment we step back outside I’m sure you’ll start fussing and demand to know what I saw in there. Why I didn’t explain. That you have a right to know too.”
“That’s… a bit.”
“A bit?”
“A bit embarrassing.”
The days of chattering on the road to Cambria.
“Plenty happened in Cambria as well. It was my first time in the outside world, after all. Every time I did something that defied common sense, Merlin would scream. Are you insane? Act like a normal person for once.”
“······Wasn’t that on you? Digging through trash bins is still a bit much. People have a minimum of dignity.”
“Dignity doesn’t put food on the table.”
The journey through Cambria.
“There were times I completely lost my bearings. No idea where to go or what to do. Every time, Merlin would show me the path. There’s a road this way. Walking it is your job. I only point the direction.”
“Is that so? Even after a thousand years my guiding skills haven’t rusted.”
“Of course, she also left out explanations more than once or twice and made me suffer needlessly······.”
“Did you really need that last part?”
As the story went on, Merlin’s face grew more and more vivid. Sometimes she laughed in disbelief; sometimes her expression turned grave; sometimes she muttered “I did that?” with a look of utter incredulity.
“And so.”
The story.
“Kept moving forward. It was mostly the same pattern. I’d do something reckless, Merlin would sigh and scream and still end up teaching me the way.”
Forward, always forward again.
“At some point we didn’t even need much conversation. I’d just glance at Merlin and she’d sigh and look at me with a face that said ‘Again?’ Then she’d start explaining with a face that said ‘Yeah, I figured you’d do that.’”
From a certain point onward, long conversations between Merlin and Najin became unnecessary. A few short words, a shared glance, an expression—each already knew what the other was thinking.
“Out of the subterranean city, leaving Cambria, into the Outer Land.”
Sometimes with exaggeration.
Sometimes playfully.
Sometimes with complete seriousness, Najin continued the tale.
“So?”
So, Merlin asked.
“So what happened after that?”
Like a child listening to a fairy tale.
Like a child hanging on every word of a hero story told by a parent, Merlin listened to the adventure Najin recounted.
It was nothing special.
Honestly, it was a trivial story.
From the standpoint of Merlin, who already stood at the end of her own story—at the final destination—the tale Najin told was unremarkable. Small in scale, the kind of story where you had to stake your life on things that barely mattered, little and ordinary.
Not entirely cool, not entirely beautiful, a story that reeked of incompleteness.
And yet, for some reason—
“You look happy.”
Merlin murmured with a faint smile.
“Yeah. You look happy.”
She let out a long breath.
“So that’s why I was smiling like that. Why I was shrieking and clinging to you. When I saw the future on the lake I didn’t understand······ but listening to your story, I get it now.”
She exhaled deeply and tipped her head back. The sky she looked at was dark. So dark it seemed the sun would never rise. A cold, black sky.
“That name of your star.”
Najin’s star was not there.
Najin’s star would rise a thousand years in the future.
“You called it the Dawn Star, didn’t you?”
The Dawn Star—the star that announces the night is over.
The star that banishes darkness and heralds a new beginning.
“A thousand years until the dawn comes. Long. So long I don’t think I can wait.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. If you told someone who’s thinking of dying right now, ‘A happy future is waiting a thousand years from now, so just hang on until then,’ what do you think they’d feel?”
Merlin shrugged.
“Still.”
Still, she murmured.
“The story is continuing. It isn’t over; it’s turning the page to the next chapter and going on······.”
As she muttered that, Merlin suddenly smiled, as if she had realized something. She caressed the Star of Termination in her hand and shifted her gaze.
“What you said to me at the Tomb of the Glass Star.”
Her blue eyes fixed steadily on Najin.
“That it wasn’t a final destination but a turning point.”
What you are waiting for is not the end but a turning point. The place where Arthur’s story ended is not the place where my story ends—that was what Najin had told her.
“That I am your companion. That no matter what happens you will never walk ahead of me.”
Najin looked at Merlin.
The Merlin before him was not the Merlin he knew so well. Not the open, transparent Merlin whose every thought could be read from her eyes and expression alone, but the Merlin of a thousand years past.
Reading her was difficult.
Difficult… and yet.
For some reason, in this single moment he felt he could tell exactly what she was thinking.
“Can you promise me that?”
Najin already knew how to answer. There was no need for words like “I promise” or “I swear.” He simply said,
“Aren’t I already doing that?”
That was the answer Merlin had most wanted to hear. Only then did she smile. Not a scoff, not a hollow laugh of disbelief, but a pure, genuine smile that bloomed across her face.
“I see. Yes—what a useless question. You’re already doing it.”
Merlin let out a long breath. As if she had released something with that breath, her expression grew peaceful. She opened her hand and let go of the dimmed Excalibur she had been gripping so tightly. With a soft splash, Excalibur sank beneath the surface of the lake.
Watching the sword settle into the depths, Merlin closed her eyes. When she opened them again her expression had changed, just a little.
The face of someone who had made a decision.
Rising to her feet, Merlin looked up at the sky. As if she had decided how she would spend the thousand years until the dawn arrived.
“You’re dreaming right now, aren’t you?”
Walking toward some place without a name, Merlin spoke.
“A thousand years in the future, you’re dreaming of the past. But for me this is reality. Honestly, dream or reality doesn’t make much difference to me.”
Half fairy who lived in dreams, half human who lived in reality, she continued.
“I’ve always lived with one foot in dreams and one foot in reality. If neither side mattered more, I chose both—like a greedy child. That’s how I’ve lived, but······.”
She walked.
Walked and walked again.
“Now it’s time to choose.”
The place she stopped was a plain.
Standing in the middle of a wide plain tucked into one corner of the Outer Land, Merlin turned to Najin.
“From this moment I am going to cast down my twelfth star.”
She stretched a hand toward the sky.
What her fingertip pointed to was the Star of Termination.
“Termination. I am already a being who has met her end. I must not deny that. One way or another, my story needs to reach its close.”
When Najin asked why, she answered.
“Because a period has to be placed before the next story can begin. To move forward, the previous tale must first be finished.”
To pass on to the next sentence you must place a period. Without a period you cannot move on. Only by tying off the earlier story can a “new story” begin.
“So I will place that period.”
The Star of Termination shone.
“Originally I was going to end the whole story right here, along with everything else. I was going to close the book.”
She smiled bitterly.
“Arthur’s request or not, I didn’t want to keep living. I thought living any longer would be meaningless. So I was just going to die.”
But, Merlin said,
“A journey with you sounds promising. If a future like that is waiting someday, I think I could stand to live a little longer. Though I’m not sure a thousand years counts as ‘a little.’”
Honestly it’s pretty long, right?
Muttering that, Merlin brushed her hair back.
“I still have to make an ending. I have to abandon the star. But I don’t want to finish my story here. So what should I do? The answer is surprisingly simple.”
Merlin’s body grew hazy.
“I split myself in two.”
One side that will live, one side that will choose death.
Luckily I already have a convenient dividing line. Merlin pointed at herself with a mischievous smile.
“The me who will live inside dreams.”
And the other—
“The me who will live in reality.”
Merlin’s form blurred. She divided herself. The Merlin who separated from her was the Merlin Najin knew so well. Gently laying the closed-eyed girl on the ground, Merlin wore a distant smile.
“I’m envious.”
“······.”
“I envy the me who will be with you. When she opens her eyes she won’t know anything, will she? No rage toward Arthur, no disgust at the world, no suicidal urge to hang herself this very moment. I’ll take all of that with me.”
All the foul, muddy dregs that had settled at the bottom were skimmed away, leaving only pure, transparent water.
“How enviable.”
Looking at the self who would be able to enjoy a new journey more sincerely than anyone, who would be able to smile with real happiness, Merlin smiled bitterly.
“Still, just one thing. Just this one thing I want to keep for myself.”
Click. Merlin took a step closer to Najin.
“The conversation we shared here. The story you told me. The memory of meeting you—I’ll take that. It would be no fun if she already knew, right? And······.”
Leaning her face in close, Merlin grinned with the mischievous delight of a child.
“I should have at least one memory like that too. Wouldn’t that be fair?”
“That makes sense.”
“Right. Thank you for telling me your story. Because of you, I don’t think I’ll be bored.”
One step.
Merlin moved away from Najin. With every step she took, the landscape began to warp. Najin already knew what she intended to do.
A Tomb of Stars.
Merlin was creating a Tomb of Stars. The very tomb in which she herself would be buried. To bury the star named Termination—a star closer to a curse than anything else.
“······.”
Click. Merlin walked on in silence.
Before she could go any farther, Najin spoke.
“Merlin.”
Merlin turned to look at him.
As always, no long conversation was needed.
“See you again.”
Just those few words.
Merlin’s eyes widened; she lowered her head, bit her lip hard, and finally raised her face to meet Najin’s gaze once more.
“Yeah.”
Merlin smiled brightly.
“I’ll be waiting in the future a thousand years from now.”