Interlude: Someone's Dream (2)
“Galahad is a clone Lancelot created.”
When Merlin said that, Najin was neither particularly surprised nor horrified. From the moment he had asked the question, he had been halfway certain of the answer.
Because he had seen it in a dream.
He had watched Lancelot split himself in two before Arthur. Now that what he had witnessed was revealed as fact rather than some fevered delusion, Najin felt only a disquieting sense of dislocation.
“So what I saw was real, then.”
“What? You saw it? Saw what?”
“I’ve been having dreams, lately…”
Najin explained to Merlin everything he had experienced in recent days. She listened in silence, her expression growing steadily more complicated.
“So you’re saying you saw Arthur’s memories? In a dream?”
“That would appear to be the case.”
“I’d love to ask why, but even if I did, you wouldn’t be able to answer.”
“You look troubled. Have you got some idea of what’s going on?”
“I am troubled. Not because I’ve got some idea—because I’ve got none at all.”
Merlin let out a long sigh.
“This is something the entire Round Table would agree on: when it comes to anything connected to Arthur, the things that make no sense are never just one or two. ‘How does that even work?’ ‘Oh, Arthur did it?’ ‘Well, then I guess she made it work somehow…’ That was the general vibe.”
“……What?”
“You said you’d read Arthur’s chronicles more than once, right?”
“Enough times to recite them.”
“Then you already know. ‘This land has good feng shui. Let’s found a nation here.’ One day Arthur just blurts that out of nowhere, so they build Camelot’s castle there—and wouldn’t you know it, the site really is perfect.”
“Page three hundred twelve of the first edition of the Arthurian Chronicles.”
“Huh? Uh, yeah. Anyway, that kind of thing. Sometimes she’d act like she could see the future. She knew pieces of information no one could figure out how she’d obtained…”
There had been more than a few such incidents, Merlin said. Which meant that when Arthur accomplished something extraordinary, asking her why was largely pointless.
“So the fact that you’ve been peeking into Arthur’s memories doesn’t give me any particular theory either. The best guess I can offer is that Excalibur and the Round Table somehow reacted to each other.”
“Well. Something we’ll figure out in due time.”
There had to be a reason and an intent behind showing him those memories. Setting the search for that cause aside for later, Najin focused on what was immediately at hand.
“So why did Lancelot split himself? From the way you were acting, it seemed like you were trying to keep it from me.”
“I wasn’t particularly trying to hide it. It was just… a complicated mess, so I put it off rather than dump it on you right away.”
“Fair enough. You promised there would be no secrets—I don’t imagine the one who proposed the promise would go breaking it.”
Cold sweat beaded on Merlin’s brow. Najin snorted a quiet laugh and waved a hand as if to say it was fine. Everyone had things they would rather not talk about. He hadn’t meant to scold her—only to tease a little—but Merlin dropped her gaze and watched his face carefully.
“……Sorry. I really didn’t mean it that way.”
“It’s all right. Truly. So? I think it’s time I heard the explanation. Is that okay?”
Of course. Merlin nodded and opened her mouth.
“I’d better start with this. The Round Table had two goals.”
“One was to defeat the Witch of Kamran and reach the ideal land of Avalon beyond her.”
“Right. And the other…”
Merlin spoke as if the words tasted bitter.
“Was the search for the Star Relics.”
“You mean the Holy Grail?”
“Holy Grail is the most famous name, sure. In truth, the records vary. Holy Scripture, Holy Chalice, Holy Blood, Holy Radiance, Holy Body—every text calls it something different. We just lumped them all together and called them Star Relics.”
She exhaled a long breath and continued.
“In the middle of our adventures, we found similar records in the ruins and tombs of ancient nations—more than a few of them.”
“Records.”
“Yeah. Records of Star Relics created ages before our own era—tens of thousands of years ago, around the time the Witch of the Abyss is estimated to have been born.”
The Witch of the Abyss dyed the world black.
Every star that had lit the heavens fell.
An unending, eternal night descended upon the world.
Merlin spoke as if singing. She seemed to be reciting an ancient poem once carved into those ruins.
“To light the eternal night, we forged the Holy Grail. A Grail that gathered only the most brilliant things and held them. It is the ark of humanity.”
“…….”
“Finding records like that not in one place but across multiple ruins made us think it might actually exist. In places we also found traces of attempts to pour vast quantities of starlight into a single object.”
“From here on, I know the story roughly myself.”
This part, at least, Najin already knew.
“The knight who set out on the Grail Quest was Galahad.”
“Right. That’s how it’s written. To be more precise—Galahad was a knight created for the purpose of the Grail Quest.”
Merlin had said as much once before.
That Galahad was a made existence. Not a natural being, but one born for a purpose.
“To use the Grail, one must be pure, innocent, unstained, free of desire, and perfect. Every record said so. But what living person is like that? So we decided to make one.”
“……By carving out only the most perfect parts?”
“Exactly. Lancelot volunteered. After several attempts, he extracted only the perfect and beautiful among his own deeds and achievements, and from them gave birth to the knight called Galahad.”
Merlin shrugged.
“Personality-wise he had his issues, but if you just listed his accomplishments, Lancelot was close to perfect. Someone helped him with the separation—though I can’t quite remember who.”
She frowned.
“There definitely was someone. Someone who assisted with that split. Anyway—that’s the background of Galahad’s birth.”
“From the sound of it alone, it doesn’t seem especially awkward or complicated. Why haven’t you told me until now?”
“Up to this point it was fine. The problem is what came next.”
Merlin’s eyes sank low and cold.
“One day, a letter arrived from Galahad.”
Her voice sank with them.
“‘I have found the Grail.’ That single line arrived—and Galahad never returned. He simply vanished.”
“……What?”
It was different from the records Najin knew.
In those, the Grail was never found, and Galahad simply gained some vague enlightenment on the journey itself—a rather hollow tale.
“Lancelot set out at once to find him. He searched—and yet, for some reason, Lancelot returned alone.”
“…….”
“And immediately upon his return, he raised a rebellion alongside Mordred.”
Merlin smiled, drained of strength.
“In the final moment, Arthur spoke with Lancelot as he leveled his sword at me—and then left the traitors where they stood and departed for Kamran alone. Without a single word.”
A sigh escaped her lips.
“Lancelot, barring my way, said this: ‘I am no longer a knight. From the beginning, I should never have been in this place. You and I are different.’”
He trampled the trust the Round Table had placed in him.
“‘I cannot believe in you, in your king, in this entire story you have built. In your eyes, Merlin—did this whole journey have any value at all?’”
Crushing his comrades’ faith underfoot, Lancelot betrayed Arthur.
“So I believed Galahad was dead. Even if he still lived, he would be living as ‘Lancelot’—not as Galahad.”
“……But Sir Bedivere—”
“Right. Bedivere speaks of the two as separate. A difference of perspective, I suppose.”
Merlin looked at Najin.
“You already know the rest, don’t you?”
Mordred’s treason. Lancelot’s betrayal.
The fracturing of the Round Table.
And Arthur’s death—the end of the story.
“It goes without saying that I can’t look kindly on Lancelot. The same goes for Galahad. I don’t know what that Grail they claimed to have found truly was, or why they made the choices they did. Part of why I put off answering was that I simply don’t understand it.”
“……The Lancelot I saw in the memories seemed like a careful, deliberate knight.”
“Of course he was. Every knight who sat at the Round Table was someone worthy of that seat.”
Only—Merlin said.
“For some reason, by some unknown trigger, one day they simply fractured. Every one of them was, at one time, a brilliantly shining existence.”
As if recalling the past, Merlin’s face grew distant. By now Najin understood. To Merlin, the Round Table was not a place that could be defined by a single word—and neither was the time she had spent with them.
If forced to choose one word, love-and-hate would fit best.
Merlin gazed steadily at Najin.
“Don’t you become like that.”
“What?”
“I said don’t.”
She seized the sleeve of his coat and held on. Najin met the eyes of the Merlin looking up at him for a moment, then snorted a quiet laugh.
“You don’t even need to tell me. That was already the plan.”
“What?”
Najin answered flatly.
“I told you back then, didn’t I? That I’d take you all the way to Avalon. When I make a promise, I keep it. You have to live keeping your promises. I was taught that if you break one, you lose an arm or a leg.”
“What kind of nonsense is that, seriously.”
Looking thoroughly exasperated, Merlin shoved his shoulder and stood. For all her words, Najin saw the corner of her mouth twitch.
“Well then—shall we make a plan?”
She opened the window, and cool outdoor air rushed into the room. Merlin perched on the windowsill and jerked her chin at him.
“A plan for dealing with Lancelot—and the Star of Oblivion.”
“Well, well—who do we have here? The star of the Revelry Emperor subjugation campaign, the great Sir Najin, called a hero whether on the Continent or in the Outer Land?”
“I am rather great, yes.”
“Hahahaha! No more false modesty, I see. Though excessive humility can sometimes become a kind of deceit, true enough.”
At the Imperial army outpost nearest the boundary of the Outer Land, Kirchhoff had been waiting for Najin and greeted him warmly. As comrades who had risked their lives on the same battlefield so often do, he pulled Najin into a brief embrace and then shook his hand.
“Have you been well, Sir Kirchhoff?”
“Me? Nothing much to report. Killing that damned demon finally cleared about half of three hundred years’ worth of indigestion, if you know what I mean.”
These days the liquor tastes incredible. Sweet as honey. Kirchhoff laughed as he said it.
“You do look better, certainly.”
“All thanks to you, of course. So—what brings you?”
“It’s about the Star of Oblivion.”
“Ah. Of course. I thought it might be.”
Kirchhoff let out a long breath.
“They say the Star of Oblivion erases every scrap of information related to itself—but that wasn’t the only reason finding where its true body resides has been so difficult all this time.”
Najin nodded.
“Oblivion erases, and the Revelry Emperor distorts whatever information remains. Between the two of them, searching was all but impossible.”
“Exactly. But now? The Revelry Emperor has been put down, and every piece of information she polluted has returned to its proper place, yes? The distorted parts have gone back to normal as well.”
The same was true of the stories of Gerd and the Golden Horn Knights. The parts “forgotten” by Oblivion had not returned—but at least the endless distortion of that information had stopped. Recalling Gerd’s smile at that fact, Najin spoke slowly.
“We’ve mobilized the Empire’s chroniclers to search for places where information has been erased ‘unnaturally.’ We’re also cross-checking the sections that changed when the Revelry Emperor’s distortions unraveled.”
“Those chronicler lords must be having a hard time of it. Tell them the Sword Master of Rondinel sends his gratitude.”
“I will. In any case, the threads are slowly coming together. The more one tries to erase and hide something, the more traces one leaves.”
And the Revelry Emperor who had been distorting those very traces was gone. Now it was only a matter of time before the sanctuary of the Star of Oblivion was identified.
“So the fact that you’ve come to me means…”
“Failing to bring news that may lead to the subjugation of the Star of Oblivion to none other than Sir Kirchhoff would be a breach of courtesy. Would it not?”
Kirchhoff smiled bitterly.
Then he held out his hand toward Najin. They had already shaken hands in greeting, yet he looked as if he could not bear not to shake it again.
“My thanks.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“Nothing more needs saying. I’ve waited three hundred years for this moment. I have not the slightest intention of backing out now.”
The last knight of a forgotten kingdom—a nation erased by the Star of Oblivion—ran his fingers over the hilt of his sword.
“I have a duty to take revenge upon them. That is my right. A right no one can deny…”
“Lancelot will be there.”
“I know. How could I not.”
Kirchhoff laughed low in his throat.
“On that day, the one who led the charge and smashed Rondinel to pieces was none other than Lancelot. How could I forget that exalted knight of the Round Table as he cut down Rondinel’s knights and people?”
There were thorns in the words. Not the cheerful, easygoing Kirchhoff of ordinary days—this voice seethed.
“……Ah. Not the sort of thing one should say in front of a successor of the Round Table. A slip of the tongue. If it soured your mood, I apologize.”
“It’s fine. From your position, it was a fair thing to say.”
“I’m grateful for the understanding.”
And so, Kirchhoff said.
“I ask this only out of caution, but…”
His eyes narrowed.
“Because Lancelot was once a knight of the Round Table, you aren’t thinking of showing him mercy, are you?”
“…….”
“I trust you will not. That man slaughtered the people of my homeland without mercy. He is a monstrous butcher who, together with the Star of Oblivion and the Revelry Emperor, destroyed an entire nation.”
He spoke.
“No matter how great the things he once did for this world, the fact that he is a butcher now does not change. I would like you to remember at least that much.”