Icarus's Wings (4)
The breath he exhaled turned to pure white vapor.
The frozen fortress was bitterly cold.
Najin walked toward the castle gate. With every step, frost crunched beneath his boots—crunch, crunch. The entire world had been painted pure white.
“······.”
Najin surveyed his surroundings in silence.
Everywhere Merlin’s magic had swept was frozen solid in white. Whales stood taxidermied in midair, locked inside frozen pillars of water. Waves that had once rolled and crashed hung motionless, frozen in the very shape of their surge.
Beyond them stretched the battlefield of the stars.
Stars still clashed and battered one another on the outer edges, far from the frozen sea. Their movements looked impossibly slow to Najin’s eyes. He was not special in that regard. They truly were slow.
This is the center of the stage.
Najin looked down at his feet. He stood at the entrance of the ancient fortress built upon the back of the greatest whale of all—the mother of every frozen whale beneath them.
This place is the sanctuary of the Wandering Star, the very heart of the stage the Wandering Star has unfurled. That means the flow of time itself is different here.
Merlin was right. Without question.
Najin turned his gaze forward again and walked toward the tightly shut castle gate. The fortress was enormous—large enough to call to mind the imperial palace standing in the capital of the Empire.
Crunch. Crunch.
For a long while, only the sound of boots crushing snow echoed. Silence reigned, true to the name Merlin had given her magic. That silence broke only when Najin finally threw open the castle gate.
Grrroooan······.
With a heavy, grinding roar, the iron doors swung wide. What met Najin’s eyes was a vast garden. He looked across it and fell silent.
“······.”
Corpses filled the place. Bodies locked together, spears and swords driven into one another, frozen mid-thrust—taxidermied where they stood. The garden was decorated with them. Najin studied their faces twisted in rage for a moment, then quickened his pace.
Ahead rose the towering fortress.
Najin walked toward the place where Icarus would be waiting. He did not run. He did not leap. He did not vault over anything.
Just like when I first conquered La Mancha.
The situation was similar. He had to follow the prescribed path inward. A straight road seemed almost to beckon him, and Najin walked it without deviation.
Thud.
The instant he crossed the garden and stepped inside the castle, the scenery began to change. The frozen world vanished without a trace. A blue grassland stretched all the way to the horizon.
A soft breeze stirred, scattering petals through the air.
At the heart of the warm, wind-swept plain, someone stood waiting.
The scenery had flipped. The moment Najin felt it, his eyes narrowed. The sensation was identical to the one he had known upon entering a star tomb—far more so than any constellation’s stage.
Icarus is a Forgotten Star.
Merlin continued.
And the most peculiar Forgotten Star of all. A star that forgot itself yet still refused to fall.
It was different from falling into corruption and becoming a Reverse Star. The only fate granted to a Forgotten Star that lost its self was descent—to sink into the same wretched state as the dead who merely hungered for stars. Every Forgotten Star Najin had encountered had been no different from the dead.
Kruenbel, the Horn-blowing Star, had been one such example.
Though he had once been a noble knight, Kruenbel had raged like a wild beast. He had been unable to wield the authority born of the great deeds he had piled up in life, nor any of the transcendent powers that came with a stage.
But······.
Icarus, the Wandering Star, was using them.
The stage that only a transcendent could create, the authority scattered from the story sealed within his star—every last one of them the Wandering Star employed as naturally as breathing.
The true body of the Wandering Star is one of the dead.
Merlin pointed at the ground beneath Najin’s feet.
But every memory and mindscape of the Wandering Star has been taxidermied into the place you’re standing on right now.
Taxidermied. That was the word she chose.
What the transcendents of this age call “the Wandering Star” isn’t Icarus the individual. This ancient fortress—the fortress borne upon the back of the greatest whale—is itself the Wandering Star.
This castle itself is the Wandering Star?
Yeah. More precisely, this fortress serves as a kind of memory vault for the Wandering Star.
Merlin explained.
The Wandering Star had severed his memories from the body that was becoming one of the dead and locked them inside this castle—so that even if he forgot himself, this story alone would remain unspoiled.
That was the true identity of the fortress upon which Najin now stood.
Under normal circumstances it would be utterly impossible. Building a warehouse capable of storing the memories of a constellation is something that borders on the impossible.
But······.
Right. Everyone believed it couldn’t be done—yet there was a once-in-a-generation inventor who made it possible. He stood at Icarus’s side.
Najin asked who it was.
Merlin answered briefly.
The inventor who challenged the Masterpieces—Daedalus.
It was a name Najin had heard before.
An inventor of unmatched genius who, like the Masterpieces forged in the primordial age, had researched the method of sealing Mystery into matter… and who had, against all odds, succeeded.
This fortress is a Masterpiece created by Daedalus.
A Masterpiece, Merlin said.
A castle that holds memories—and that has now become a prison locking Icarus away. A labyrinth.
The Great Labyrinth: Labyrintos.
That was the name given to this fortress.
“······.”
Najin shifted his gaze without a word. His eyes settled on a boy standing in the middle of the plain. He thought he already knew who the boy was.
Then that boy is…
Yeah.
Merlin nodded.
Icarus. More precisely, the memory of Icarus sealed inside this castle—his past self.
She let out a quiet sigh.
From here on we have to break through the Great Labyrinth using that past Icarus as our clue. Only then can we reach the topmost floor of the fortress where Icarus’s true body waits.
All that remained was to follow the plan they had already discussed. And yet, for some reason, Najin felt there might be another way.
Huh?
Thud. Najin walked straight toward the boy standing in the field. Merlin blinked.
What are you approaching him for?
You won’t be able to make contact anyway.
That was what Merlin said. It was the obvious truth. What stood there was nothing more than a reproduced past of Icarus—a memory taxidermied inside the castle.
You could see it with your eyes and hear it with your ears, but you could never touch a taxidermied object.
It should be impossible, but······.
For reasons he could not name, Najin believed he could reach him. The moment Najin drew near Icarus, light began to leak from the banner of La Mancha tied at his shoulder.
The Star Relic left behind by La Mancha.
The relic left by the knight who had turned reality into dream, and who, in his final moment, had turned dream into reality, glowed softly. Somewhere, a knight who had always taken on “the role most needed by the story,” no matter what stage arrived, smiled.
He thought he heard that voice. And he felt a hand pushing him gently from behind as well.
The moment that hand shoved him forward and he took a single step, light enveloped him.
When the wrapping radiance faded, Najin realized his clothes had changed. No longer the coat of a free knight—he now wore the worn, shabby attire of some inventor.
“You were here again, Icarus.”
His mouth moved on its own. With an exasperated sigh, Najin looked at the boy. Icarus turned and met his gaze.
They were no longer exhibit and spectator.
Najin stood in the same place as Icarus. He realized he had stepped onto the stage not as an audience member outside it, but as an actor. Then what role had been given to him?
“Ah, Daedalus!”
The instant he heard Icarus’s words, he understood.
Daedalus.
The architect of the Great Labyrinth Labyrintos.
That was the name of the role Najin had been cast to play upon this stage.
The moment Najin naturally assumed the role, Merlin’s eyes went round as she watched from outside.
Wait—what in the world······?
This was different from La Mancha. La Mancha had been possible only because it was a star tomb that possessed the special form of a stage. The place Najin now stood was no star tomb.
So how?
It was an unexpected development, yet Merlin quickly reached a judgment. This was not a bad situation. If anything, it was a good one.
I didn’t see this coming, but it isn’t bad. It’s actually simpler now.
Simpler how?
Breaking through this labyrinth. All you have to do is follow the Icarus standing in front of you.
From the moment Najin stepped onto the stage as an actor, there was no longer any need to fumble around guessing where to go. He only had to follow the story that had been given to him.
Merlin nodded and exchanged a brief glance with him.
Immediately afterward, Najin focused on his role. Information about the man named Daedalus and the boy named Icarus flowed naturally into his mind.
Just like La Mancha.
Najin organized the incoming knowledge.
Daedalus was a childhood friend who had grown up in the same neighborhood as Icarus, and the one who helped him.
“Daedalus, I’m going to fly through the sky.”
“That again?”
He was also the only person who ever truly listened to the wild, impossible stories Icarus was always spinning.
Then who was Icarus?
Najin could not answer that question right away.
“Look at the star shining so high in that sky. That’s the star of the great hero, King Arthur. Thirteen years before we were born, King Arthur saved the world. And then she became that star in the night sky!”
Like most boys, Icarus was the sort of person overflowing with dreams and childlike wonder.
“The star that shines from the highest place of all.”
A boy who heard the stories of heroes and dreamed of becoming one himself.
Icarus had been born in the age when Arthur had only just become legend, when the entire world was filled with Arthur’s tale. In that age, Icarus dreamed.
“I’m going to fly through the sky and reach that star.”
A dream of reaching the star—of reaching Arthur, who shone from the highest place of all.
It was not an especially unique dream.
Any child of Icarus’s age would have imagined it at least once, and it was the kind of dream one naturally abandoned with age. Spinning wild, impossible dreams was the privilege of children.
There were, however, a few differences.
“You want to fly? Through the sky?”
At Icarus’s side stood a genius who would one day be called a once-in-a-generation inventor—Daedalus.
“You still haven’t given up on that idea?”
“Of course not. I’m going to the sky, Daedalus.”
Ten years later, the seventeen-year-old Icarus was still dreaming that dream.
“I heard you’ve received dozens of invitations from the Magic Towers. You’re going to ignore every last one of them and set out on an adventure?”
“Hah, as if I’d live a boring life locked inside a tower with no windows, researching magic. Even if I fall, I’ll still challenge it. That vast, lofty sky!”
And Icarus himself possessed talent of staggering magnitude. The kind of talent that could reach the rank of Archmage if he only put in the effort. With that talent, Icarus never abandoned the dream of his childhood.
Talent. Bonds. And obsession.
When those three elements locked together, Icarus’s dream ceased to be merely a dream. He began developing the magic that would make it real.
“That’s not how you do it.”
“Like this?”
“No. Haa… put that down. I’ll handle it.”
Unable to watch his old friend any longer, Daedalus joined in on the foolish endeavor as well.
“If you help me, I’ll grant you the honor of being the second person to fly through the sky. Ah, but first place is mine. Even for you, I can’t yield that one, Daedalus.”
“I couldn’t care less. So what are you planning to do with this?”
“What else?”
Icarus pointed at the sky.
“We’re going to fly.”
Three years later.
When the two of them had become adults, they unveiled a single invention to the world.
And the world was turned upside down.