The Brightening Dawn (2)
Bedivere. Of course it was a name Najin knew. After all, he was an avid reader of the Arthurian epics, wasn't he? As Najin recalled it, Bedivere had appeared from the earliest chapters of the heroic tales and stayed through to the very end.
The first Knight of the Round Table.
The knight who had served Arthur more faithfully than anyone.
Recalling the stories of Bedivere, Najin nodded. He had always expected they would meet someday.
"Come to think of it, I pulled Excalibur and never once went to the Round Table. I'm curious, actually. Every time the Round Table came up in the epics, I always wondered what the thing even looked like."
Arthur and the Twelve Knights.
The Round Table, composed of thirteen seats in all, was always described as having thirteen constellations carved into it. The table, engraved with the stars of the Knights of the Round Table, was said to have shone forever.
"Hmm."
Merlin made a complicated face as she listened.
"It used to be like that… but it's different now. You probably shouldn't get your hopes up too high."
"Pardon?"
"Well, seeing it will be faster. Shall we go now?"
Merlin, who had somehow found a tree branch, began drawing a magic formula on the ground. The moment it was complete, she tapped the earth lightly with her toes.
"We're ready, Bedivere."
Bedivere's constellation, floating in the sky above, cast its light upon Najin and Merlin. Platinum starlight filled the magic formula, and Najin felt something pull at him.
A flash!
Light blazed, and Najin's vision went dark. When he opened his eyes, he stood in a dim space. Adapting quickly to the gloom, he blinked and looked around.
It was a dark, silent, lonely place.
Broken weapons and armor, snapped and torn banners, were planted haphazardly all around. When he turned his gaze to the center of the space… shattered fragments of stone stood driven into the floor like a grave mound.
"I told you it wasn't exactly something to get excited about."
Splish. The sound of water.
Water resembling a pitch-black night sea lapped across the floor of the space. Someone stepped through it with a soft splash and brushed Najin's shoulder.
"It's been two years since I've seen things with this body, hasn't it?"
Merlin grinned, head tilted slightly.
She looked the same as always, and yet something was different. The usual slapdash quality about her seemed thinner. There was the faintest air of seasoned presence about her.
"Is that… your true body?"
"Mm. My true body has always remained at the Round Table."
Merlin's true form.
A Great Constellation with eleven stars flicked her fingers before Najin's eyes. Blue starlight surged like waves in the wake of her hand.
"Well? Feels different, right? Don't I look amazing?"
"Ah… yes."
"What is that lukewarm reaction supposed to mean?"
Merlin jabbed him in the side a few times in play, then let out a short breath and snapped her fingers. One of the stone fragments planted in the center of the space began to shine.
A fragment glowing with a blue star.
That light brightened the space a little, and only then did Najin understand what those stone graves were.
"Don't tell me those are…"
"Yes."
Merlin nodded.
"It's the Round Table. The Round Table that was shattered a thousand years ago."
From the betrayal of Mordred, the Knight of Treason, the Knights of the Round Table had fractured, and the table itself had broken. Najin had heard that story from Merlin before, but he had never imagined the Round Table had literally been smashed rather than merely as a metaphor.
Najin looked at the broken Round Table.
Once it must have shone brilliantly, once the shining ones had held their seats… but now the Round Table had lost its light, split apart, and stood driven into the ground like a tomb.
Splish.
A shabby space for remembering past glory.
Splish.
And yet, even so—
"Ah. You've come."
Someone was still guarding that Round Table.
Ripple.
A voice came from somewhere, and with it a gentle wave stirred. Looking toward the sound, Najin saw a knight standing there.
"Successor of the King."
The knight was missing one arm. The one-armed knight carried a single spear on his back, and Najin recognized it at a glance. The legendary weapon said to be too heavy for a hundred knights charging together to lift: the Hundred-Man Spear.
The knight of the Round Table with the greatest monstrous strength.
The spear that was the very symbol of one-armed Bedivere.
The knight who bore that spear laid a hand on the stone fragment before him. Ten stars carved into the stone flared, and the Round Table brightened a little more.
"My name is Bedivere, first knight of the Round Table."
The knight who had guarded the Round Table for a thousand years raised a salute toward Najin.
"It is an honor to meet you, Sir Bedivere."
Najin returned the salute with every ounce of respect he could muster. Merlin muttered under her breath, eyes half-lidded—He never once saluted me like that…—but Najin let it go in one ear and out the other.
"I am Najin. A free knight, captain of the Golden Horn Knights, and currently serving as a Pillar of the Empire."
"Ah, yes. I have heard the rumors well enough."
Bedivere nodded.
"Every youngest-ever record smashed one after another, and in the blink of an eye eight stars… no, nine by now. How could I have failed to hear of the supernova who became a constellation of nine stars? I have the Holy Blood Church's deity pass along newspapers and news for me."
He pointed to a corner of the Round Table.
There lay piles of things the faithful of the Holy Blood Church had offered to their deity and which had been passed back through the Martyr of the Bramble—mostly newspapers published in the Empire.
Najin smiled wryly at a few of the articles.
"Truly, what stories to make the heart race. I was a little—no, a great deal—jealous of Lady Merlin. If only I too could have shared in those adventures."
"Ah, if Sir Bedivere of the Hundred-Man Spear had been with us, it would certainly have made for a merry adventure."
At the words Hundred-Man Spear, Bedivere's eyes widened slightly.
"You know of me?"
"Who wouldn't know Sir Bedivere? The knight of the Round Table with the greatest monstrous strength—the one who swings with one hand a spear a hundred knights cannot lift. Ah, if it wouldn't be rude, might I ask you to tell me in detail the tale of how you brought down the Giant King?"
No matter how many accounts one searched, they all boiled down to a single sentence: Sir Bedivere defeated the Giant King.
At Najin's words, the corner of Bedivere's mouth twitched.
Every Knight of the Round Table was a great figure, of course, but usually the ones who monopolized attention were Gawain of the Sunblade, Lancelot the strongest knight, or Galahad the most perfect. Few people knew Bedivere's stories in any detail.
Already, Bedivere's inner score for Najin was climbing sharply.
"Of course. But first…"
Bedivere looked Najin straight in the eye.
"Successor of the King—the Sword of Selection."
Instead of answering, Najin closed his hand on empty air. With a wash of platinum starlight, Excalibur was drawn forth.
Thirteen stars along the blade's outer edge.
Nine stars engraved at its heart—a holy sword of stars.
Bedivere gazed in silence at the Excalibur in Najin's hand. It was a different shape from the Excalibur he had known. Naturally, the stories carved into the sword were different as well.
…Arthur's story was finished.
The Excalibur he had known was no longer there. And yet Bedivere still felt fragments of the past within it. What formed the outer frame of the present Excalibur was the story Arthur had built, and the stars of the Round Table.
Najin's Excalibur clearly held Bedivere's star as well. Bedivere smiled bitterly.
"To think I would live to see Excalibur shine again. Yes… that was the light. A light I have missed."
Starlight rippling in platinum.
Starlight that called the past to mind.
"I summoned you here not only to greet the successor of the King… but because there are two things I must tell you."
Bedivere pointed at the Excalibur Najin held.
"Najin—how much do you know of Excalibur?"
"That it is a sword that cuts down immortal beings, that several functions are released each time a star is gained. Ah—and that regenerative power increases."
"Yes, that is correct. But I am not speaking of such 'functional elements.' Something else exists within Excalibur."
Bedivere said,
"I myself do not know the sword in full detail. But long ago, His Majesty spoke thus."
Arthur, the one who completed Excalibur and the first in human history to take it in hand, had said:
"Excalibur has one role. I was selected by this sword as the one to fulfill that role. It was not I who chose the sword—the sword chose me…"
And so it was the Sword of Selection.
"We do not know what that role is. To the very last, His Majesty remained silent."
Do you, by any chance, know that role?
Faced with the question, Najin fell silent. He felt a sense of wrongness. He and King Arthur had drawn the same sword, yet somehow their starting points felt different.
"There is a place where that clue may be found."
A clue? Najin looked at Bedivere.
Bedivere slowly turned his gaze toward Merlin. After watching her for a moment, he seemed to steel himself and spoke again to Najin.
"Do you know of a place called the Eternal City?"
Merlin's shoulders gave a short, involuntary twitch. Without a word, Najin took her hand. The tremor in her eyes settled, if only a little.
"I know it. Everything, including how it came to be."
"What? No—how could you…"
"I had the chance to speak with the Merlin of a thousand years ago."
He deliberately left unsaid the fact that he himself had interfered in the city's birth. Bedivere's eyes widened in brief surprise, then he continued his explanation.
"Then the telling becomes simpler. The master of that city—of that sanctuary—knows the role of Excalibur. She realized that role and came to resent the King; that is what she told me."
For a moment the Merlin of the past—screaming in despair—flashed through Najin's mind. She had realized something, and through that realization she had obtained the Star of Termination.
"You will need to hear the story from that one. Only by learning the truth of the past can we move on to what comes 'next.' So I beg you…"
Bedivere offered Najin a bitter smile.
"Please bring us the truth."
That was the first matter concerning Excalibur.
When asked what the second was, Bedivere pointed to the shattered Round Table. At the high seat of the Round Table—no longer fulfilling its original purpose—a place had been prepared for Najin.
"The second concerns the Round Table."
"The Round Table?"
"Yes. The Round Table no longer exerts its original power. Because the constellations that compose it were stolen by a single being."
Thirteen seats.
Yet only two still shone. Apart from the constellations of Bedivere and Merlin, all the rest were silent.
"Aside from Galahad and Lancelot, Mordred holds every star of the Round Table. On the day he carried out his betrayal, Mordred seized the stars of the Knights of the Round Table."
The day of treason a thousand years ago.
Mordred had torn the stars from his comrades with his own hands. He had dug up the corpses of seven knights—Gawain, Percival, Tristan, Kay, Agravain, Gareth, Palamedes—and taken their stars.
"Five Knights of the Round Table still live."
The strongest knight, Lancelot.
The most perfect knight, Galahad.
The most loyal knight, Bedivere.
The knight who betrayed the King, Mordred.
The one who guides the King, Merlin.
"You will need to gather the stars of the Round Table once more. Each of those stars has its own role—and is it not time at last to let Kamran know?"
That the Round Table has returned.
Bedivere sank to one knee before Najin.
"Successor of the King."
And—
"Our new King."
He pointed to the high seat of the Round Table.
"To the next that was cut short."
Najin lightly touched the stone set at the high seat. The moment his hand made contact, his own constellation was carved into the rock that already bore Arthur's star.
Crack.
In that instant, with the sound of stone crumbling, a notch cut into the rock caught Najin's eye.
A groove engraved at the very center of the Round Table.
Najin thrust Excalibur into it. With a solid click, Excalibur and the fragment of the Round Table locked together. In that moment, starlight spilling from Excalibur sank into the table.
Platinum starlight flooded the darkened space.
At the sight of the place brightened by Excalibur's light, Bedivere's eyes went wide. Merlin too stared at Najin with eyes wide open. A tiny flame of light rose over the Round Table that had lain locked in darkness for a thousand years.
In that moment the constellations of the Round Table began slowly to move. Stars that for long ages had remained fixed in place, doing nothing but suppressing Kamran, stirred into motion.
As if a story that had stopped were being written once more.