The Closed City (1)
A tomb before which lay a bloodstained codex of law.
Najin stopped in front of the grave. Yuel, who had been walking behind him, came to a halt as well. The moment her eyes fell upon the tomb that stood before them, her pupils narrowed.
"Najin, what is this…?"
"I plan to go in."
"Excuse me?"
Yuel blinked. She repeated the question as if she couldn't make sense of what she'd heard.
"If I've understood correctly, my past is connected to the Star of Oblivion. The Star of Oblivion appeared here because I saw its true form in the past, did it not?"
She pointed at the sky. An eye still rolled about overhead. Najin answered briefly, "Probably," and Yuel only grew more confused.
"And yet you mean to enter my past? Forgive me, Najin, but I have no choice but to question your judgment. Have you gone mad?"
Yuel was not speaking out of reproach; she was genuinely questioning his sanity. She circled around him, checking his condition.
"Has the Revelry Emperor toyed with you? No—your gaze is normal, so the odds of that are low…"
Muttering to herself, Yuel drew the sheathed sword from her waist. Since ancient times, a thrashing had been the best cure for those under hypnosis, and she seemed to be seriously considering beating some sense into him.
In short: Are you in your right mind right now?
It wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear from the continent's foremost lunatic, but Najin roughly understood what she was getting at. He let out a short breath and spoke.
"You're saying that entering that tomb now would only further provoke the Star of Oblivion and make the situation worse. Is that it?"
"Correct."
"I don't think so."
Najin held up two fingers.
"There are two strange things about our current situation. Think about it—doesn't it strike you as odd?"
"Strange? In what way?"
"First, that."
He pointed at the Star of Oblivion, its eyeball rolling about in the sky. It looked as if it were surveilling the entire Imperial army, yet something was off.
"It's been about an hour since that eye appeared, and even after seeing you, it hasn't moved. As if it still hasn't made a decision."
Kirchhoff had said that the Star of Oblivion had begun its invasion a mere dozen seconds after the eye appeared. Yet an hour had passed, and the invasion had not begun.
"It still isn't certain. Or, for some reason, it's hesitating to descend."
"That… is true."
"And second."
Najin wiggled his second finger.
"You said you wandered through your past in this tomb, yet you only remember the very end, correct?"
Yuel slowly nodded.
"Yes. Only the memory of confronting the Star of Oblivion's true form at the dream's end remains clear. I can't recall the other scenes. All I feel is a vague dread."
"Why show you only that part?"
"…What?"
"It has the power to show you the past you forgot, and the strength to reveal the Star of Oblivion's true form—so why show only that portion?"
Najin pointed at the tomb.
"If it wanted to give the Star of Oblivion certainty, it could simply burn the whole of your past into your mind from beginning to end… So why only the ending? The answer is simple. There must be a reason it has to be that way."
That was the Revelry Emperor's gambit. Something was hidden inside. And whatever was hidden was information that must never see the light of day. That was Najin's conclusion.
"So we're going to dig into it ourselves instead."
The lesson Najin had learned after being toyed with on the Revelry Emperor's stage more than once was this: never dance to her tune.
And more than anything—
A tomb of stars, someone's life or memory.
Stepping into such a domain was a field in which Najin was every bit as confident as the Revelry Emperor herself. He had done it time and again, and those achievements were carved into his stars.
"If there's truly a memory that shouldn't be seen, I'll block it in advance. If the problem is that you saw the Star of Oblivion's true form in there, then I'll cover your eyes."
Dalso and the Star of Dirge shone.
"I can't stand to watch the clown's script with my eyes open, so I'll rewrite it myself."
Najin held out his hand to Yuel. Looking at the hand extended toward her, Yuel's lips moved.
"…It's a gamble. An uncertain and irrational judgment."
"Looks that way."
"But."
Yuel slowly nodded.
"But yes. The situation is already plummeting toward the worst. If a fall is inevitable, there's no reason not to throw a gamble. Either way, my life is in danger—that much is fact."
She reached out and took the hand Najin offered. Her pure white, slender fingers closed around his.
"I'll bet on you."
Hand in hand with Yuel, Najin took a step toward the tomb. The grave that held her past sought to swallow only Yuel—as if it were a stage permitted solely to her.
A flash.
But the Star of Dalso that Najin possessed assigned him a role. Just as it had in La Mancha, just as it had on the stage of the Star of Contempt, the Star of Dalso transformed Najin from spectator into actor.
It had not originally been a star of such power.
But now the Star of Dalso was steeped in the life of the Star of Chatter, of Don Quixote. Strengthened by the narrative of the Star of Chatter that had intervened in others' stories and rewritten their lives, the Star of Dalso shoved Najin forward from behind.
A fine actor never shies from the stage.
The tomb swallowed Yuel and Najin.
As he was engulfed by the star tomb, Najin's gaze fell upon a certain codex of law resting upon the grave. Every tomb bore an object that symbolized or represented the life within.
Then what did a bloodstained codex mean?
What kind of life must one have lived for a law book stained with blood to become the symbol of that life?
With that question, Najin was swallowed by the light.
Najin blinked.
He had experienced many star tombs, yet the moment of entry never grew any easier. The very flow of the air and the rules of the world itself felt overturned.
A few deep breaths.
To adapt to the transformed environment, Najin steadied his breathing and opened and closed his eyes several times. Next came surveying the surroundings. Opening his eyes, Najin looked about.
"…"
And then he blinked again.
As he took in his surroundings, Najin blinked several more times. It was not because his vision was blurred. It was simply that the landscape entering his eyes stirred a strange sense of déjà vu.
This is…
Looking up, there was no sky. Only pitch-black darkness veiled the heavens. Beneath a sky that admitted not a single ray of light, a city had been built. Only the dim lamps hanging from every house illuminated the streets.
This… is Atman.
It was a landscape that recalled the underground city of Atman.
Had he somehow entered his own stage instead of Yuel's? That was the thought crossing Najin's mind when—
—No. Strictly speaking, it's a little different.
Merlin whispered in his ear. Having been assigned no role, she hovered at his side as an illusion.
—It looks somewhat different from the underground city in your mindscape. The architectural style and the city's layout are similar, but there are no ore lamps… and what's hanging from each house is just an ordinary lantern.
Listening to her and looking more carefully, it was true. It resembled the underground city, yet the decisive details differed. There was no passage leading to the upper districts, and where such a passage ought to have been stood only a building that evoked a courthouse.
This was not a landscape reflecting Najin's mindscape.
Yuel's past simply took this form.
Najin looked up at the sky without a word. Indeed, the sky here was not a ceiling studded with ore lamps like the underground city.
There truly was a sky.
A sky that rippled in black like a night sea. The difference from the sky outside was that not a single star was visible. From that sky, Najin felt an ominous unease.
"…"
As he gazed upward, the sound of footsteps reached him from somewhere.
Click, click—the measured footfalls approached with a steady rhythm, heading this way with the certainty of someone thoroughly familiar with the maze-like tangle of alleyways.
Thud.
At last someone stopped before Najin. A woman with snow-white hair and crimson eyes. She held a lamp in one hand, and the wavering flame stretched her shadow long across the ground. Others accompanied her, but Najin's eyes locked on the woman at the front.
Because she was Yuel Razian.
This was surely her appearance from the past.
She looked little different from the Yuel in Najin's memory. Eyes that betrayed no emotion. A face that was expressionless by default, with changes of expression exceedingly rare…
"Tsk."
Exceedingly rare…?
"Didn't you clearly say it was on a monthly cycle? It's been less than ten days and a new prisoner has appeared. What the hell, does this goddamn city just run however the fuck it wants? What's the point of recording the cycle?"
"W-well, my lord…"
"Forget it. It's not as if it's the first or second time."
She handed something to the attendant who appeared to be her retainer and waved a dismissive hand. Then, brows furrowed, she swept her hair back.
"Haa…"
She sighed and pressed her temples hard. The face of Yuel that Najin remembered—a face that had never once crumpled—was twisting severely.
She looked thoroughly foul-tempered.
To put it rather vulgarly: she looked pissed as hell.
"Fine, whatever. It's not the first or second time."
Click. Yuel approached Najin and held out her hand—to Najin, who was perched atop a pile of refuse. As if telling him to take it and stand.
"Welcome to the Closed City. Truth be told, I don't welcome you at all—but since we're both stuck in this shithole of a city, we might as well be open with each other."
Taking her hand, Najin rose to his feet.
"I'm Yuel."
She introduced herself.
"Lord of the Closed City."
What is the Closed City?
"I don't really know either. One day, the hundred and seventy thousand residents of this place simply fell into this city without warning. It's been about five years for me. I fell at sixteen; I'm twenty-one now. This city has two major characteristics."
Characteristics?
"First, that at regular intervals a 'new sacrificial lamb' drops in. People like you, in other words. And second, that you can never leave this city. The latter was personally proven by old man Verdick, who endured seventy-eight years here before he died."
What is a city lord?
"Simple."
Yuel stopped walking and turned to face Najin.
Her eyes met his squarely.
"No matter how much of a shithole this city is, people still live here. And if people are to live like people, there must be law."
A steadfast gaze.
"Humans need law. If there's anything that makes humans better than animals, it's that they restrain their desires in accordance with the laws and social norms given to them."
In other words, she said flatly.
"Without law, humans are no different from beasts. Worse, even—they'll devour their own kind if left to themselves. This place is hell enough already. There's no need to make it more so, is there?"
She shrugged.
"That's why the lord exists. To make the laws, to administer them, and to neatly sever the heads of those who muddy the waters and put them on display. Truthfully, it's closer to a judge than a lord."
"An important role. I take it you did similar work outside?"
"No? I was a mathematician. I was holed up in a lab wrestling with unsolved problems when I got dragged here out of nowhere. Ah, just thinking about it pisses me off. I was almost done solving it…"
Yuel's face crumpled, and she sighed.
"Ah, and one more thing."
As if something had just occurred to her, she spoke shortly.
"I don't know what you were outside, but in here you'll have to live according to the law."
Otherwise, she said, pointing somewhere.
"If you don't want to end up like that."
In the center of the plaza, severed heads hung on display.