Of Those Valiant and Ridiculous (5)
"A pleasure. I am Don Quixote."
"Don Quixote? Now there's an unusual name."
Rocinante exchanged introductions and a handshake with Don Quixote. Their eyes drifted naturally toward Najin. By order, it was his turn to give his name.
"……"
Najin did not answer at once. His expression stiffened as he looked at Rocinante. He knew that name.
Charge forth, Rocinante!
On the day he had faced the Star of Contempt, that constellation had spurred a donkey-like demonic beast and shouted those very words. The name given to that hideous mount had been Rocinante.
"Is there something on my face?"
"No. I was just thinking for a moment."
Najin let out a short breath and spoke.
"I am Sancho, Sir Don Quixote's squire."
"Calling him merely a squire hardly does him justice. Sancho is my closest friend. We have been adventuring together for decades already."
The introductions were finished. Negotiations had always fallen to Sancho, so Najin steadied his breathing.
"You said you were a guide?"
"An adventurer as well, to be precise. An adventurer who explores the Outer Land in search of Mysteries."
"How do you know where we are going well enough to volunteer as our guide?"
"I overheard the two of you talking earlier."
Rocinante stroked his beard as he spoke.
"You said you were looking for heaven. A heaven somewhere in the Outer Land. Forgive the eavesdropping, but the story rather piqued my interest."
He tapped the table with a finger.
"Where is heaven, really? Heaven has always been a word for an ideal. Utopia—literally, a place that exists nowhere."
Rocinante's eyes narrowed.
"People searching for a place that exists nowhere. And crawling all the way into the Outer Land to do it, no less."
"If you mean to mock us—"
"Come now! Why is the young fellow so impatient? A man ought to hear another out to the end."
Had it been Sancho, he might have added that he was not particularly young. Najin said nothing of the sort. He truly was young, and even by Sancho's years he still counted as young in the Outer Land.
"I am searching for a place that exists nowhere myself. A sort of kinship, you might say. So—will you let me join your journey?"
Najin looked to Don Quixote.
Don Quixote nodded.
"In adventure tales, two is too few and four is too many. Three is just right. Rocinante, was it? I look forward to working with you."
"Refreshingly straightforward—quite the man. How about a drink to celebrate becoming companions?"
"Not a bad suggestion."
Wooden cups clinked together. They drained the foaming beer in a single draught, then rose from their seats.
"Come to think of it, Rocinante."
"Hm? Something you wish to ask me?"
"You said you were wandering in search of a Mystery that vanished tens of thousands of years ago. What exactly is that Mystery? Is it the same Mystery I know?"
Before they set out in earnest, Najin spoke with Rocinante for a while. A few questions still lingered.
"What is the Mystery you have in mind?"
"You know—the kind sealed inside Masterpieces……"
"Ah, so that is what you meant. Those are Mysteries as well, true enough. But the Mystery I seek is somewhat different."
"Different?"
"Yes. Put simply, it is a miracle of God."
At the word God, Najin tilted his head.
"Were you affiliated with a Church?"
"If you mean the Sacred Body, Sacred Blood, and Sacred Radiance—no. I have never belonged to any of those false Churches."
Rocinante chuckled low in his throat.
"These days, when someone puts 'god' in a name? Ten out of ten assume it means the stars of the night sky. They think of the three Churches' main deities. But those are no gods. Nothing but false pretenders."
It was the sort of remark that would have made any Church official swell with righteous fury and cry blasphemy.
"The god I speak of is one who existed long before the age of King Arthur—before even the Witch of the Abyss or the Primordial Star appeared."
"You mean the creation myths?"
"Something like that. Beings that, as the world advanced, were naturally reclassified as 'fiction.' The god I believe in is one such imaginary existence."
He lifted his staff.
"In the beginning, people believed in gods. Even without some being flashing its stars in the sky above and flaunting its presence, even without working miracles, they believed—more fervently than they do now."
He was no old man. His legs were sound. He did not look like some low-tier mage who needed a staff for support. Yet Rocinante held one all the same.
"That is what faith is. Everything that passes for faith today is false."
"Why is that?"
"Because they expect a price."
Rocinante planted his staff against the ground.
"What price is there in believing? How can a man who prays for reward be pure? Faith comes from purity, and it is a love that asks for nothing in return."
One hand on his staff, the other thumping his own chest, Rocinante laughed.
"God is not up there in the sky. God is in my heart. So I am a pilgrim walking a path of hardship to prove my faith, and an adventurer seeking to prove the miracles of God."
And so, Rocinante said—
"Traveling with the two of you will be a pilgrimage as well. As a priest, how could I turn my back on those searching for heaven?"
"For someone like that, you still demanded a price, didn't you?"
"Even the Lord would overlook a single cup of wine—provided He knows the taste of a good cold beer."
Thock. Rocinante rapped the ground with his staff and strode ahead. Thus the journey in search of a place that existed nowhere—utopia—began. Of course, the addition of a guide did not suddenly part the way with some miracle of clear paths.
Where to go. Which direction. How to proceed.
As if deciding that direction were precisely a guide's duty, Rocinante put a question to Don Quixote.
"Sir Don Quixote—what is your reason for seeking heaven? You must have one of your own."
At that, Don Quixote drew out the funerary urn.
"Because I must take them there."
"To bury the dead?"
"Not only that. I am Quixote. The ingenious gentleman of Quijano, Don Quixote. The people of Quijano fief loved my adventure tales. They always cheered for my quests, and they were the dear readers who first read and heard those stories."
The voice of the man who called himself Don Quixote lacked the old certainty. As if he could not quite be sure this was the right path. Even so, Don Quixote spoke on.
"I must tell my readers the story through to the end. Is that not the duty of a writer and a storyteller?"
Don Quixote stroked the urn.
"And Don Quixote's tale must meet a happy ending—joyful, cheerful, one that lets everyone close the book with a smile."
Like the novel of the Knights of La Mancha once had.
"So I will take them to La Mancha—the heaven that lies somewhere in the Outer Land, the final destination of the story. To an ending every one of them can accept."
The heaven Don Quixote spoke of was no mere ideal. The terminus of a story, a conclusion everyone could accept—that was the place he called La Mancha.
"In that case—"
In that case, Rocinante said—
"Simply arriving at the destination would be meaningless. The road itself must hold meaning. As you say, a merry adventure must unfold along the way."
He stroked his beard.
"I believe I know which road we ought to take."
Then he showed a grin like a mischievous child's.
Rocinante stepped forward with vigorous purpose.
Rocinante led at the front, Don Quixote followed, and Najin walked last of all. Trailing behind the two of them, Najin thought:
So this is the adventure that took place more than four hundred years ago.
He had heard a rough version from Anton Quijano. That his uncle, Alonso Quijano, had not always been so mad; that for all his ridiculousness, he had never been a man who made mockery his trade.
Najin looked at Don Quixote.
Anton had been right. The Don Quixote Najin had observed was no one who mocked or sneered at others. He was simply a dreamer who cried that the world lacked laughter and wished for it to grow brighter.
But—
Najin knew.
That man becomes the Star of Contempt.
The figure of Quixote, the Star of Contempt.
The hideous demonic beast he rode—Rocinante.
The grotesque lance in his hand—Sancho.
Laugh! Laugh and laugh again! Until the world itself is swept away! The only thing of value in this world is laughter!
The image of the Star of Contempt charging forward with that cry would not leave Najin's mind. What had he seen and endured at the end of this journey, to change so completely? Najin could not know.
"Merlin."
Yes.
Najin asked her.
"If I change the ending of the story here in the Graveyard of Stars—does that affect reality as well?"
Making something 'never have happened' here does not make it never have happened in reality. This place is nothing more than a stage reconstructed from the memories of the stars.
But, Merlin added—
It might have some small effect on those whose fates are bound to this dream.
She understood what he wanted to say and what he was thinking. Understanding it, Merlin offered brief counsel instead of a long speech.
It will not be easy. Far harder than you think.
"I know."
This is a stage with severe constraints. If you act too far outside the flow of the story, there is no telling how the stage itself might change.
It might strip him of the role he had been given and cast him out of the stage entirely. Merlin laid out that possibility. Najin fell silent. That, certainly, could not be allowed.
This was a chance he had barely managed to create.
If he let it slip, there was no knowing when the next would come. It was right to treat this as the only chance. Najin reminded himself of his purpose once more.
Find the Revelry Emperor's weakness somewhere in this place. And find a way to take down Quixote.
There had to be a reason the Revelry Emperor wanted this place hidden—a reason she had spread her domain so thoroughly here. As he walked, a single question brushed through Najin's mind. It was, perhaps, the most obvious question of all.
This is a Graveyard of Stars.
La Mancha was a Graveyard of Stars. And in a Graveyard of Stars there was, of course, a central constellation around which the stage unfolded.
The center of the story is—
Najin looked at Don Quixote.
Don Quixote.
Every tale, every spotlight pointed to none other than Don Quixote. He was the protagonist of this Graveyard of Stars. That meant this place ought to be Don Quixote's tomb.
But……
The Star of Contempt is still alive. Perfectly fine.
Merlin, reading his thoughts, spoke.
I can tell now that we are inside.
"Tell what?"
This place—it is not a tomb made from a single constellation. Of course not. A single constellation could never create a tomb of this scale. Not unless it were a constellation of my caliber, that is.
What did that mean, Najin asked.
Merlin pointed at the sky.
At her fingertip, more than several dozen stars were embedded in the heavens. Najin cocked his head at the sight. Was it not perfectly natural for stars to hang in the night sky of the Outer Land?
Natural enough—if this were not a Graveyard of Stars.
Ah, Najin breathed a short sound of realization.
When he had entered the Glass Star's tomb, the only light shining in that sky had been the Glass Star itself.
Then the stars gleaming here—
A tomb built from dozens of stars.
Merlin said.
That is the true nature of La Mancha.
Not a tomb where a single constellation lay buried.
Not even a Graveyard of Stars in the ordinary sense.
A graveyard of stars—dozens of them interred together.
That was the true face of La Mancha.