The Witch of Distrust, Lapis (2)
Anton climbed the stairs.
He stepped forward, and upward. With every step his half-heart hammered harder. Was it because the other half he had lost more than four hundred years ago was drawing near, or because the thought of finally meeting her set him alight?
His heart raced for the former reason.
Anton chose to believe it was the latter.
Breath ragged, he ascended the spiral stair. As a transcendent he could have flown up these steps in a blink, but the long trials of the tower had wrung dry both spirit and flesh.
“Thank you, navigator.”
“Didn’t you just call me an oarsman, Captain?”
“Oarsman and navigator both.”
Anton gave a dry chuckle. Gratitude warmed him toward the youth who braced him. Calling himself the finest guide had not been an empty boast after all.
“At last.”
He reached the top.
“At last we have come this far.”
Before him stood a heavy iron door—the entrance to the highest floor of the Black Spire.
Anton Quijano drew a steadying breath. He fussed with his collar and cleared his throat with an unnecessary ahem.
“What are you doing?”
“Listen. This is a reunion after four full centuries. A proper man wants to show a lady only his finest face. Walking in looking this ragged feels wrong, don’t you think?”
Then he let out a short “Ah.”
“Or perhaps this ragged look will score points. Proof I came through hell itself to find you, no?”
“As you like.”
Najin shrugged as though the man were hopeless; Anton laughed with him. In truth the excuses only masked the knot of nerves tightening in his chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump…
He laid a hand over his pounding heart and exhaled long and slow. How would she be waiting? What expression would she wear? She might be disappointed. She might scold him for taking so long. She might even weep or rage.
Picturing every face of Lapis, Anton finally broke into a smile.
Any face of hers was lovely.
He simply wanted to see her a moment sooner. Hope outweighed dread. He took one more step, then—
Thump.
He rapped lightly on the iron door and pushed it open, remembering the day he had first sought her out, remembering the little cabin they had shared.
Please don’t banish me as an unwelcome guest this time.
The door swung wide with a dull groan.
Beyond it, Anton’s heart—already racing for reunion—began to race for an entirely different reason.
Grrrrrrr.
The instant the door opened, bestial cries echoed. The chamber beyond swarmed with monsters. Not ordinary beasts, but things twisted further by Kamran’s taint. Scores of them whipped their heads toward the man who had dared open the door.
“Oh, damn.”
Anton groaned.
“Not easy even at the last, is it?”
The throng of Kamran’s twisted spawn.
He sighed, drew the staff from his coat, and let it hang. The hand that held it shook—not from fear, but because he no longer possessed the strength to grip it properly.
Mind and body both had reached their limit. The trials had burned through too much of him. Even creatures he would normally scatter like chaff now looked formidable. Still he gathered his breath to fight—
Tak.
Najin stepped in front of him, spear in one hand, sword in the other.
Kamran’s twisted things.
Outer Land beasts warped a second time by Kamran’s influence. Though this place was not Kamran itself but the Outer Land, the tower raised by Kamran’s witch still teemed with such abominations.
-Not easy foes. Their counters are tricky.
Merlin’s voice brushed Najin’s mind as he tightened his grip on the spear.
-Which means if you know the counters, they’re manageable.
Spear in one hand, sword in the other.
-What will you do?
What else.
One step forward.
Najin answered with motion instead of words.
“…Navigator?”
Anton blinked at his back. Najin drew a long breath, centered himself, and pulled mana up in a single surge.
“It’s a reunion after four hundred years.”
The beasts had already locked onto them.
“Those things are a little too low-class to soil a four-hundred-year reunion. Get covered in their blood and the stink would be unbearable. That won’t do, will it?”
Najin gave a crooked smile.
“Go.”
He raised both weapons toward the charging pack.
“I’ll row the boat for you.”
You take the path you must.
“Your destination isn’t here, is it?”
The tip of his spear pointed beyond the swarm—to a single birdcage large enough to hold a person. That cage was the end of the road Anton had walked for four centuries.
“…Ha.”
Anton laughed.
“All right. I’m counting on you, oarsman.”
The moment he nodded, Najin kicked off the stone. He closed the distance on the nearest beast and narrowed his eyes.
…Until now.
From the subterranean city of Atman across the Continent and into the Outer Land, Najin had always been the protagonist. Every story had turned around him. Yet in this single moment he felt no need for that to be true.
A knight who had searched four hundred years for his witch.
A witch who had waited four hundred years for her knight.
In their tale Najin was only a supporting player—and the knowledge brought him no regret. He remembered all those who had willingly taken supporting roles for him, and he smiled.
Supporting role.
Those who aid the leads, make them shine, and open the road they must walk. For the two about to step onto their stage, Najin chose gladly to be the supporting cast.
Kwaang!
He stamped.
Twin eyes flicked, cataloguing every weakness—where to cut, where to thrust, how to move. By the time the stones kicked up by his foot had risen a handspan, the judgment was finished.
All that remained was motion.
Najin slid between the beasts like water. None of them could follow with their eyes, much less understand, the arcs of spear and sword that passed among them.
Then his foot struck the floor again with a solid thud.
Chwaaaaaaaaaak!
Bodies split. They came apart, dismantled. Belated starlight erupted and burned them. The motion never paused. Najin’s free-knight coat flared as he flowed on without rest.
The Cross-Star spear flashed; the longsword flashed; beasts fell in heaps. He carved a path through endlessly regenerating flesh, cutting and cutting again.
A spin.
When the flow was roughly established he tossed the sword skyward, seized the spear in both hands, and imitated transcendence. The technique he borrowed belonged to the knight once called the Blue Spear of the Forgotten Nation.
Blue Hydrangea.
He thrust the spear forward like a grasping hand, then wrenched it back. The current tangled at its tip came with it. Beasts scattered across the chamber were dragged helplessly toward him.
He could not scatter petals as beautiful as the Blue Spear’s, yet with the beasts’ own blood Najin made a flower bloom.
And so a path opened—
a straight road to the birdcage.
Along that road Anton Quijano began to run.
Anton Quijano ran.
As he had for four hundred years, as he always had, he ran with eyes fixed on a single destination. The only difference now was that the destination filled his sight.
The birdcage that held the witch.
A cage forged to punish the witch who had broken the taboo of loving a human. Inside waited the one he had sought so long. He forced failing legs to keep moving.
“Ugh!”
He staggered, nearly tangled himself, planted the staff, and barely kept his balance. The familiar grain of the wood under his palm made him smile without meaning to.
Yes. This, too, is because of you, Lapis.
“Why do you do that, Lapis?”
“Hmm? Ah… it’s nothing. Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Nothing? You tremble every time you see this. Do you hate swords?”
“I’m telling you it’s really nothing. I just… don’t much like sharp things.”
At first you would not tell me. When I kept asking you finally sighed and gave in. Childhood memories of being carved by skewers and blades had left you loathing anything sharp.
“Anton. What’s that?”
“What else? My new weapon.”
“Weapon? That’s a staff.”
“Well, yes.”
“Didn’t you always use a sword?”
“Isn’t it about how you use it? Once you’re near Sword Master, no need to be picky.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Ridiculous. Honestly.”
So I set the sword aside and took up the staff—a blunt length of wood without a single edge. Whenever I flourished it and made a ridiculous bow you laughed as though nothing in the world could be more delightful.
A knight’s dignity could never outweigh a single handful of laughter.
Only then did I understand the words my uncle had once muttered. Yes—if you would smile for me, I could remake myself however you needed.
My speech. My expressions. My clothes. My tastes. Even the smallest gesture and posture. Wherever one looked, your traces remained, Lapis. I changed for you alone. To the foolish man who had burned his life to slaughter every witch, you gave life itself.
“Hey, Anton.”
Lapis.
“Be sure to find me.”
You were everything.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Anton raised both arms. He swung the staff gripped in both hands with every last scrap of strength left in him—straight at the final cage that barred his way.
Kwaaaaaang!
The cage crumpled under the roar. Iron bars shattered and flew. Gasping, Anton stepped through the opening he had made.
There she was.
Shackles on wrists and ankles. The witch locked inside.
The Witch of Distrust, Lapis.
She sat perched on the railing of the spire’s only window—so small that only a handful of sunlight ever entered—and stared outward. Her eyes were empty.
Emptied eyes. Eyes that had forgotten life.
Yet—
“Lapis.”
When Anton spoke her name, a thin thread of light returned to those eyes. She turned. She looked not at the sky beyond the window but at the man standing before her. The moment her gaze found him…
“Ah.”
A soft sound escaped her. Vitality flooded back into Lapis’s eyes; the void filled with light. For four hundred years she had waited here, dreaming of this reunion, rehearsing a thousand times what she would say and how she would look—
yet in this moment she could speak no word at all.
Anton was the same.
Awkward silence hung between them until he broke it first.
“Lapis.”
He drew a single flower from inside his coat.
“Hey, Anton.”
“What is it, Lapis?”
“Could you bring me a red rose someday?”
“A rose?”
“Yes. Not just any rose—a red one. I’ve only ever seen a red rose once, and it was so beautiful.”
“Isn’t that a common flower?”
“Common for humans like you! Not for me. The moment you bring a rose into the Outer Land it loses its color. It turns white instead of red.”
What he held out was a rose.
“So next time we meet…”
A rose coaxed into bloom in the Outer Land after years of research.
“Bring me a red rose.”
A rose that had not surrendered its color—still holding its deep crimson.
“Next time I come, I’ll bring one. I promise.”
A flower prepared for her alone.
“I kept my promise.”
He offered the bloom and smiled—the smile he had practiced a hundred times before a mirror.