No Stars to Behold (2)
Merlin found herself suddenly recalling the past.
What rose before her was the day the Round Table fractured.
The memory of that day, when the Round Table shattered, swept across her vision. It was more than a thousand years gone, yet the recollection remained as vivid as something that had happened only last night. Merlin summoned the faces of the Round Table's damned traitors.
The Knight of Treason, Mordred.
The one who abandoned knighthood itself, Lancelot.
With those two, the Round Table broke. Gawain made himself a sun and burned his own body to ash. Agravain dashed his head against the table and died by his own hand. Tristan, Galahad, Kay, Percival… every knight save Bedivere chose death.
Death, or something worse than death.
And the knights of the Round Table who chose that path said this:
That their story was over. That their tale ended here. That they had grown far too weary to wait for a tomorrow that might never come.
"A long, long night is upon us," they said. "A night without end."
And Bedivere answered them.
"But someday, tomorrow will come."
"Slowly, but surely."
"Without fail, tomorrow will arrive."
Merlin of that day had not understood those words. Why Bedivere could be so certain. Why Bedivere alone had not left the Round Table. She had not known then.
"Ah."
She had not known then.
So that was what he meant.
The Merlin of now thought she understood.
No—perhaps "now" was the wrong word.
She had realized it two years ago, most likely.
It was simply that two years of travel had given her certainty. Merlin drew up her mana and looked behind her. There stood Najin, battered beyond recognition, bleeding freely, and still staggering back to his feet.
Looking at him, Merlin wore a thin smile.
She was a guide. And a guide was one who always found the path. To hold that path fast, Merlin swept her hand. Mana flashed along her fingertips.
Blue mana surged and rolled.
She could not call forth her true body. This was the heart of the Continent, a subterranean city the stars could not reach.
So what power could she wield?
That, too, was pitiful. She was fighting at an output that was not even half of her half-self—less than a quarter of her true strength. Wielding power that could not even touch Transcendence, Merlin felt as though shackles bound her entire body.
But the same was true of her opponent.
Had Mordred or Merlin been here in their true bodies rather than fragment or soul forms… a single gesture would have reduced the underground city to rubble. As it was, a sweep of the hand could scour only a few dozen meters of ground.
"How absurd."
Mordred cut through Merlin's magic and laughed. The laugh rang long and echoing.
"You mean to bring me down with that soul form of yours—one that cannot even wield Transcendence? A thousand years seem to have stolen your sight as well, Merlin."
A voice thick with contempt.
It was irritating, and it was a fact she had to concede.
"It is futile."
Her magic was carved apart. Sliced, crushed, and scattered.
Spells that should not have been so easily cut were cut with ease.
It was not solely because Mordred's swordsmanship was exceptional. What stood before Merlin now was a fragment body that had received a portion of Mordred's true self—but Merlin was not herself in full.
The soul form that had taken root in Najin's mindscape and manifested outward through it could not, of course, wield power beyond what Najin possessed. At best, it could manage strength that approached Transcendence without ever reaching it.
Of course she was being pushed back.
Means of overcoming a difference in output—skill, experience, vast knowledge—were of little use here. Because Mordred shared the same experience. Both of them were Transcendents who had lived more than a thousand years.
"All of it is futile."
Clarent flashed. The landscape was sheared on a diagonal, and wind roared through. Merlin's blue hair whipped in the gale.
Snap. Merlin flicked her fingers.
Blue water droplets rose around her body. More than thirty of them shimmered, each cradling its own spell.
"But."
Mordred ground his teeth.
"Why are you smiling?"
He stared at Merlin as though he could not comprehend it. At the sight of him, Merlin could not help but laugh. What passed through her mind was a memory of the past.
"Why."
There she was, pouring out her rage at Mordred, who had betrayed Arthur.
"Why did you betray Arthur? And after betraying her—how can you smile like that? What could possibly be so delightful?"
"How could I not be delighted, Merlin?"
"What?"
Mordred had thrown his arms wide as he spoke.
Laughing, he had cried out toward Merlin.
"Excalibur will choose a new master."
"In decades, in centuries—without fail."
"It will select the timber of a great hero."
"A true hero, different from Arthur, that mere product of an age. One who will surpass Arthur."
"Ah—that one will be the savior of Britain!"
"A true king and guide who will lead us beyond Camlann, to the end of the world we dreamed of!"
"Merlin, you blind fool with open eyes! Can you not see this radiant future?"
Watching Mordred revel and laugh and rave like that, Merlin had asked him. Why are you smiling? What on earth is so delightful?
"What could possibly delight you so? Can you not grasp this situation, Merlin? You cannot stop me."
The question she herself had once flung was now being flung back at her by Mordred, his face full of incomprehension.
"How am I supposed to keep from laughing?"
Merlin snorted.
"You prophesied it yourself. That someday Excalibur would select a new hero."
"And you claim that hero is nothing more than that brat? That the true hero chosen by the Sword of Kings is nothing more than…"
"No. You're wrong."
Mordred charged, carving through every last one of Merlin's spells. The instant his blade was about to reach her—crack—Mordred's feet froze solid. Frost crawled over his body.
Frowning, Mordred still swung his sword.
The edge came on slowly. Merlin had no means of dodging it. She did not try. Because she was not fighting alone.
KAAAAAAAAANG!
Najin burst out from beside Merlin and knocked Mordred's blade aside. Breathing hard, he let his sword hang. Feeling Najin's presence at her side, Merlin spoke to Mordred.
"You really don't know a thing, do you?"
Merlin twisted the corner of her mouth.
Mordred had prophesied that Excalibur would select a new hero. But Merlin saw it differently. It was not that Excalibur had chosen.
It was the opposite.
Najin was not one to follow destiny. Rather than walk a path laid out for him, he carved new ones. Rather than submit to the world, he raised a middle finger and smashed whatever stood in his way. It was not that drawing Excalibur had made him so—Najin had always been that kind of person.
Which is why he was the one drawn to it.
Excalibur had not chosen Najin.
Najin had chosen Excalibur.
She did not tell Mordred what she had realized. She simply answered him with the same kind of scorn Mordred had once worn toward her.
"…"
The expression vanished from Mordred's face.
He fixed Merlin with a glare.
"You've changed, Merlin."
"What are you on about, you idiot."
Merlin sneered.
"What in the world never changes?"
She fell into rhythm with Najin against Mordred. They were still being pushed back. Pushed, and pushed again—but not driven under the way they had been moments before.
Merlin guarded Najin.
Najin guarded Merlin.
Each took the attacks meant for the other, turning them aside, and together they stepped forward. Without a single word, without even exchanging a glance, the two of them filled each other's openings as perfectly as if they were one body.
They simply knew, without speaking.
Blue mana and platinum sword-light flashed again and again.
In the midst of those flaring lights, Merlin narrowed her eyes. And she smiled. Because she, sooner than anyone else, had understood.
Tick. Tik-tik…
The shell enclosing Najin—the cage that held him—was cracking. Najin's soul stood on the threshold of sublimation. And so what Merlin had to do was simple.
"Someday, without fail, tomorrow will arrive."
The long night was ending. Light that would pierce the dark was about to rise. But the sun had not yet come up, and if dawn was to arrive, a little more time was needed.
Buying that time was her role.
Dawn was drawing near.
Najin swung his sword.
He swung it, and swung it again.
At some point, the sound of blade meeting blade began to feel distant. Even as blood sprayed and bones broke and his body creaked, Najin's eyes were somehow hazy.
As though he were dreaming.
Swinging his sword in a trance, Najin looked inward. There lay the underground city of Atman. His hometown, and the place where every story had begun.
Why does my mindscape take the form of Atman?
Najin put the question to himself.
Thinking about it, it was true. Until now he had always dismissed the doubt with easy answers—because it was his hometown, because it was his starting point. He had never dug deep into why his mindscape wore the shape of an underground city.
A deep well. The first memory. The beginning.
Najin sank into the depths of his inner world. With a sensation like descending beneath water, he recalled a memory. The memory he called up was the first wish he had ever made.
"…"
In a place where no stars could be seen.
A young boy had looked up at the ceiling.
There was no sky there. Only a ceiling of stone, stretching on and on. There were no stars there. Only the dim flicker of luminescent ore set into the rock.
A false sky and false stars.
Among false things, the boy had dreamed of stars.
In his hands was the tale of King Arthur. Turning over that first story that had set his heart racing, the boy who looked up at the sky made a wish upon the stars.
Najin remembered that wish.
"An adventure like King Arthur's."
No—his younger self had reached a hand toward the sky.
"An adventure even greater than Arthur's."
Please let me have an adventure like that, the boy had prayed.
That was the first wish Najin had ever held.
Recalling a wish he had long since forgotten, Najin smiled without meaning to. Right. I did make a wish like that.
Turning the memory over, he took another step.
His left eye, blinded by blood, he kept shut. With the closed left eye he looked into himself; with the open right eye he saw reality. Taking Mordred's relentless blade, Najin steadied his breath.
Even with one eye closed, his vision widened.
This place was the underground city of Atman.
A city where no stars could be seen.
Because no stars could be seen, its people longed for them. And so they made ore-lamps. Through their sunset-colored twilight glow they remembered sunlight, and with the lamps hung in every home they fashioned constellations.
KAAAAAAAAANG!
Taking the blade, Najin was driven far back. He rolled across the ground, rose, and coughed up blood. Spitting blood, gripping his shredded shoulder, Najin smiled.
He could see the ore-lamps.
Lamps strung house after house, shining like stars.
A city full of people who dreamed of stars in a place where none could be seen.
A boy born in such a city had known neither the shape of a star nor the light of one.
He hadn't. And yet—
"Cross the line, Najin."
He came to know.
"Reach for the place you cannot reach. And to the faces of those who mutter that you should know your place—drive a fist."
Because he had seen it that day.
KAAAAAAAAANG!
Turning aside Mordred's charging blade, Najin drove out a fist. With a wet crack, his knuckles buried themselves in Mordred's face.
It did no real damage to a Transcendent.
But Mordred's eyes narrowed. That the fist had landed—that was what mattered. Hurled across the ground by the blast of wind, Najin rose faster than before.
"Look to the high places, and run."
Najin looked at Mordred.
Or perhaps he was looking beyond him.
"Climb higher than anyone. Higher still."
In the inner world he saw with his closed left eye, a certain knight was smiling at him. That knight had been the first star Najin ever saw. The man who taught him that a human life could shine like a star—his master.
The knight who chased the stars, Ivan, pointed at Najin.
Najin understood. The landscape of the underground city seated in his mindscape had been for this very moment all along.
Why is a city without stars my mindscape?
Because he had to prove something.
It's fine if no stars can be seen.
It's fine if starlight never reaches here.
Even if no one pays this place any mind.
Even if not a single star looks down upon this city.
It's still all right.
Because—
There are stars here too.
The star Ivan had shown him that day. The star that had fallen for his sake—now it was Najin's turn to hang it in the sky.
KAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!
Najin caught Mordred's charging blade. He had Merlin's help, yes—but this time something was different. Najin, who should have been driven far back and sent rolling across the ground, was pushed this time, but he did not fall.
Feet planted on the earth.
He held, sword still raised.
Every time he took a blow his wounds had multiplied—but this time they did not. Najin steadied his breath and opened his closed left eye.
There was no longer any need to look inward.
Reality itself was already his mindscape.
Around Najin, starlight bloomed like flowers.
…He had gathered enough experience.
Through Sprouting, through Blooming, and then beyond.
The flower that had risen came into Full Bloom.
In the moment Najin became certain of himself, a voice began to reach his ears. It was not Merlin's.
Draw the sword.
It was the voice Najin had heard that day, two years ago.