War (3)
The winds of war swept across the Continent.
Four nations surrounding the Empire had issued sudden declarations of war. There had been an assault aimed at the Emperor himself, assassins who had penetrated all the way into the Imperial Palace, and even an explosion that tore through the very heart of Camelot, capital of the Empire.
What in the world is happening?
In a single stroke, the Imperial citizenry had been plunged into chaos. It was not merely that an age of peace had stretched on for so long. History itself could count on one hand the times the Empire had ever suffered an invasion by another nation.
In a thousand years of history, at most four times.
And if one excluded the cases where internal strife—quarrels among heirs—had dragged foreign powers into the fray, the number of times the Empire had truly been attacked by another nation dwindled to a single solitary instance.
It could hardly have been otherwise.
The Empire styled itself the guardian of humanity, and in truth it never stinted on the investment required to uphold that claim. A thousand years ago, when humanity stood on the brink of extinction, King Arthur had rallied the remnants of the race and founded the Empire—humanity’s first nation. Every other state on the Continent was nothing more than a splinter broken off from that original whole.
Humanity’s first nation.
And the bulwark that shielded humanity still.
The Empire was the mightiest power on earth. It had forged countless knights, drawn transcendents into its service, and seated them upon the seats known as the Pillars of the Empire. At any given time the Empire possessed no fewer than five transcendents.
Even Londinel, which had once blazed as a great power before vanishing into the footnotes of history, had commanded only four. Against that measure, an Empire that in every age held five or more transcendents was a superpower among superpowers.
An existence none dared to covet.
A place that could be violated neither by force of arms nor by force of justification.
And yet four nations had suddenly declared war upon that very Empire. The Imperial people could only reel in bewilderment. The peoples of those four nations were little different; they had simply been conscripted because their rulers had cried out for war.
“This is a war that cannot last.”
Eldwin Pendragon, Emperor of the Empire, rested his chin upon his hand and spoke.
“They have no just cause. This is a war they have lit on a whim. The longer it stretches, the more the disadvantage falls upon them.”
He snorted.
“Does merely swinging a blade make one a wielder of power? The more power a man holds, the less he may allow himself to be drunk upon it. The common folk are not complete fools. Even if they were, once a war drags on they inevitably begin to ask themselves, ‘Why are we fighting this war at all?’”
The cause those nations had raised was the absurd claim that the Revelry Emperor was the true king of humanity. No war could endure for long beneath so flimsy a banner.
“They will collapse from within.”
That was why the enemy had chosen a short, decisive campaign. They had to shatter the Empire before those doubts could swell. The strategists therefore insisted that if the Empire simply bought time and endured, victory would be theirs.
Eldwin’s thoughts ran differently.
Before he was Emperor of the Empire, he was a scion of House Pendragon. The ancestors of Pendragon had sworn an oath before King Arthur herself.
To safeguard humanity.
And to slaughter every demon.
Eldwin had not the slightest intention of leaving unmolested the beasts who, toyed with by a demon, had turned their blades upon the Empire. Nor did he entertain even a flicker of the thought that he should cower before a demon-raised host and settle into a defensive posture.
“Look to the sky.”
Eldwin pointed upward.
In the very center of the sky above Camelot, capital of the Empire, the heavens themselves were split. And from that rift shone the Star of King Arthur. Beneath the light of that star stood the five Pillars of the Empire.
“Look upon the pillars that uphold the Empire.”
With the same hand that had indicated the sky, Eldwin gestured toward the pillars.
The Second Pillar had fallen.
The Third Pillar had turned traitor.
Yet three pillars still stood firm. Eldwin’s gaze passed over the Fifth Pillar and the Fourth, then rose to the highest tower of all.
The Tower of the Empire’s First Horn.
In the sky above it blazed the eight stars that man possessed. The Emperor’s lips curved. The Empire’s sharpest sword was returning home.
“The Empire stands unbroken.”
Word arrived.
“Knights of Briton—advance.”
The Empire shifted to the offensive.
Rather than bar the gates of its walls, knights clad in artifacts, mages of the magic towers, the knightly orders sworn to the Empire, and every mercenary company under its banner—every scrap of the Empire’s strength—began to march.
And around the same hour, glad tidings arrived as well.
The vanguard of Xantium, advancing upon the Empire, had been annihilated by a single man. At the news the Emperor threw back his head and laughed.
Gerd, First Horn of the Empire.
The Empire’s sword was coming home.
On the road that led toward the subterranean city, Najin turned Gerd’s words over in his mind. When Najin had declared that he meant to head for Atman, Gerd had issued a warning.
Avoid direct combat.
Concentrate on gathering intelligence.
The mission entrusted to Najin was to ascertain the movements of the Holy Light Church—not to hunt down whatever constellation might be lurking in the underground city, nor to strike at the Lighthouse Keeper. Najin was well aware of that fact.
Obviously.
An unidentified constellation of nine stars.
And the Lighthouse Keeper—a constellation of six stars, yet a transcendent who, if he so chose, could stand against the entire Empire alone.
Facing either of them was already a near-impossible task for Najin; facing both was out of the question. Though he had claimed victory against transcendents several times before, those triumphs had been little more than strokes of fortune.
Advantage of affinity. Aid from another transcendent. Power drawn in from outside.
Only by employing every one of those factors had victory become possible.
No matter how far Najin soared or how hard he strained, he did not yet possess the raw force to confront a transcendent alone.
Lucky for you. If you’d said you planned to fight a transcendent, I was ready to drag you back by the collar.
I’m not quite that far gone yet.
This was the Continent, not the Outer Land. Even if he found himself in the most extreme of circumstances, he could not call upon Merlin’s help. Her descent was possible only within the Outer Land.
Najin drew a long breath.
When he lifted his head and looked ahead, the main cathedral of the Holy Light Church came into view in the distance. A city built atop the subterranean city. Even from afar one could see the soaring spire that rose from the very center of that upper city.
The lighthouse.
The dwelling of Eurypylos, the Lighthouse Keeper. Pure white light poured from that place and enveloped the entire city—a barrier that severed inside from outside, isolating all within.
Looks just like a Forbidden Territory.
Najin’s eyes narrowed as he regarded the barrier a transcendent had woven. If he wished, he could force his way through it. But that would only draw far too many eyes.
I’m supposed to slip in and gather intelligence. Doing that would make the whole exercise pointless.
Yet Najin already knew a way to enter the city without so much as brushing against that barrier.
“….”
Silently he lowered his gaze. Where his eyes fell, a river flowed toward the city. Staring at that blue ribbon of water, Najin could not help but laugh.
Come to think of it… this is the place.
The first ground he had set foot upon after escaping the subterranean city.
The very first place where Najin had ever seen the night sky.
And the first place I met Merlin, too.
That’s right.
Strictly speaking it was a little awkward to call it the “first” time anymore, but at any rate this was also where he had first met “human Merlin.” Recalling the past, Najin walked on.
Two years.
Two years had passed since the day he had followed the waterway out of the subterranean city. To some that span might be nothing; to Najin it had been longer than any other stretch of time in his life.
Escape by following the water.
Once you go down, you can’t come back.
So don’t look back—just run.
The image of Oppen shoving him forward, the image of Ivan barring the entrance to buy him every second of the time he himself had been robbed of—those figures flickered before Najin’s eyes.
You both said I would never be able to return.
And they had been right. The raging current was difficult even for a Sword Expert to swim against. Even if one somehow forced a way upstream to the river’s source, a colossal waterfall waited there. Climbing that sheer cliff was an impossibility.
An impossibility for a Sword Expert.
But not for the Najin of today.
Najin leapt into the river. He swam against the fierce current. To a man who had once parted even oncoming waves, this stretch of water was no obstacle at all.
The place he had fled two years ago, swept along by the current.
Back then he had not even been able to swim properly; the torrent had simply carried him, and he had been unable to open his eyes, capable only of drifting. Now Najin swam with his eyes open, against the flow, retracing the path he had once taken, heading toward his own beginning.
…Starlight did not reach the subterranean city.
Naturally. No barrier raised by an outside constellation could ever enclose Atman.
In the subterranean city of Atman, even morning wore the colors of sunset.
What lit the mornings of a place where the sun never rose was not sunlight but ore lamps that burned mineral fuel, and those lamps always glowed with the hue of dusk.
A city steeped in sunset light.
Paradoxically, a city the sun never touched was forever dyed in the very colors the sun itself created. The people of the subterranean city remembered the sun through that perpetual evening glow.
“Never stops looking like absolute shit.”
Of course, that sentiment did not apply to this particular man.
Lilac—one of the few taverns left in the subterranean city.
Until two years ago a man named Trixie had owned the place; after a certain incident the ownership had changed hands.
Carbin, master of Lilac.
He clutched his throbbing head and sighed. Nursing a hangover, Carbin rinsed his throat with cold water. Had he drunk too much last night? The question rose unbidden—and then he snorted with laughter.
As if there had ever been a day he hadn’t drunk. What was he acting surprised about now?
Ever since that day two years ago, Carbin had been permanently half-drunk. He had little choice. Atman was a hell so complete that a man could not survive it sober.
It had always been a hell, of course.
But after that day two years ago the subterranean city had become a place no human being could reasonably live. The three strongmen who had at least imposed a bare minimum of “order” upon a lawless den of discarded criminals had all died; the result was only natural.
One-eyed Ivan.
Trap-spider Horce.
Druggy Hakan.
The deaths of the rulers of each district, the power vacuum that followed, the watchers who had come down from the upper city, and the holy knights of the Church who forever prowled the underground—Atman, already choking on foul air, had grown even more stifling.
So stifling that a man could not live without drink.
With languid eyes fixed on the ceiling, Carbin recalled that day two years past. The starlight that had erupted from the center of the city, the brilliant radiance that had shot into the heights until it threatened to blind every watching eye. Remembering that light, Carbin gave a thin smile.
In that instant every soul in the city had thrown open a window and looked outside. Not even the holy knights’ shouts, not even the beatings of those high-and-mighty bastards from above, had made them bow their heads.
Carbin had been no different.
Twenty years had passed since he had fallen into this city, yet he still yearned for starlight. Everyone here did. People always longed for what they had lost.
“Fuck.”
Muttering the curse, Carbin fetched an armful of cheap liquor from the storeroom. Yeah—this was a shit place to live sober. He was just cracking a bottle when—
Knock, knock.
Someone rapped on the tavern door. At the sound Carbin’s brow furrowed. What kind of lunatic was this? Didn’t they know the place had been closed for ages, that he only ever opened for the rare highborn who came down from above?
Those damned Church types wouldn’t come knocking this early in the morning. More to the point, they never knocked at all. They simply shoved the door open and walked in.
So Carbin ignored the knocking. The rapping only grew louder. At last he rose, strode across the floor in irritation, wrenched the door open, and shouted—
“Who the hell is it?!”
And the man who opened the door—
“Hey, you little shit, this place has been closed for—”
—never finished the sentence.
Because he had recognized the face of the youth standing before him, the one with a postman’s cap pulled low over his eyes.
“It’s been a while,” the youth said, tipping the brim of his cap up just a fraction.
“Carbin.”
There was not a soul in the subterranean city of Atman who did not know that face—not two years ago, and not now.
Ivan’s right hand. The organization’s collector. The executioner who wore a postman’s disguise.
In other words: Ivan’s hunting dog.
But two years later, the people of the subterranean city remembered the boy who had become a young man by another name entirely.
The master of Excalibur.
The only human who had ever drawn Excalibur—and the only human who had ever escaped the subterranean city alive.