Interlude: Someone's Dream (4)
The Witch of Forgetfulness, Guinevere.
She possessed an appearance that suited the name White Ghost—Gwenhwyfar. The hair that fell to her shoulders was pure white, and her pale skin, so lightly pigmented, was so fair that from a distance it was nearly impossible to distinguish from her hair.
Her presence, her very existence, was hazy as well.
No sound of footsteps; her breathing was thin and faint. It was fine when walking right beside her, but in a crowded place, once you lost sight of her even for a moment, finding her again became nearly impossible.
"Please, just stay still for a moment."
"There's a flower over there."
"I know. I see it."
"I can't see it. Can't I look closer?"
"……"
King Arthur had assigned Lancelot the role of her watcher, but to Lancelot it felt far closer to a guardian's duty than a watcher's. He was constantly pulled about by Guinevere, who would bounce off in any direction if left alone for even a second.
"Fine. Do as you like."
While Guinevere observed the flower up close, Lancelot sighed and circled around her. He had no idea how he had ended up with such a troublesome assignment.
He was wasting time.
He could not shake that feeling.
The hours he should have spent training had been stolen by Guinevere. The time for meditation had been stolen. Even the hours set aside to reflect upon his own sins and repent had been taken by her.
"It's stuffy."
"……"
"Are you listening? It's stuffy. Can't I open the window?"
"……"
"Can't you hear me?"
Whenever he tried to meditate, Guinevere would come over and tug at his clothes or whisper right into his ear, making it utterly impossible for Lancelot to focus on his inner self.
"Please reassign the watch. I simply cannot concentrate."
"Denied."
"Your Majesty……!"
"As I see it, this is something you need. Who knows? She might even help you find your answer."
Even when he appealed to the King, she merely shook her head, leaving Lancelot ready to climb the walls. Why in the world had she given him such a bothersome role? Was this another form of punishment?
He sighed, yet Lancelot remained faithful to his duty.
Even while being dragged around by Guinevere, he never left her completely unattended. Especially whenever she tried to approach Merlin—then Lancelot truly had to put every ounce of effort into stopping her.
"You must never go near Merlin."
"Why? That girl—her hair is so pretty."
"She is someone who lost everything to your kind."
Merlin had lost everything to the witches. Family, homeland, friends—everything had burned to ash before her eyes.
"Merlin is a rational person. She will not hold you accountable for a crime you never committed simply because you share the same blood, nor will she seek revenge on you… but that is as far as it goes."
No matter how rational Merlin was, she was still human. Intellectually she might believe "one must not do such a thing," yet emotions did not always remain under reason's control.
"The only reason Merlin tolerates you right now is because King Arthur has permitted it—not because she looks kindly on you."
"……"
"So do not approach her. Even to my eyes, Merlin's anger is justified."
That she had not opposed Arthur's decision at all was already astonishing. To demand that Merlin then treat Guinevere warmly as well would have been, even in Lancelot's judgment, far too cruel a demand.
"So stay quiet. Please."
"No."
"This is driving me insane."
Dragging a hand down his face, Lancelot groaned.
Your Majesty, why have you given me this duty? Of course, there was no one to answer that groan.
"I want to see flowers."
"I understand, so wait just a little. There is work that must be handled at once……"
"Flowers. I want to see them."
"…Hah."
"Flowers."
"Fine, fine. I'll look after I come back."
And so.
"Why do you groan every night?"
"Because I have nightmares."
"What kind of nightmares?"
"Dreams where I kill people. And dreams where I kill them and feel no regret."
"Your hands are trembling."
"……"
"Shall I hold them?"
"Consolation from a witch… I'd rather decline."
Time flowed on.
"Hey, Lancelot."
"You want to see flowers? All right, let's go."
"How did you know?"
"I can tell what you're thinking just by looking at your face. That expression says you want bread for dinner."
"……!"
"Come on. I found a good shop."
It continued to flow.
2.
In the midst of that flowing time, Najin felt a sense of incongruity.
The viewpoint has changed.
The dream that had first progressed from Arthur's perspective had, at some point, shifted to Lancelot's. What he was peering into now was not Arthur's memory, but Lancelot's.
Why?
Najin soon learned the reason.
"While you were dreaming, Excalibur was glowing, you know?"
"What? What do you mean?"
"Excalibur is stuck in your mindscape, right? Light was coming from there. Not from the stars you hold, but from the Round Table's stars that have been pushed out to the sword's outer edge."
Merlin told him that Excalibur had shone while he dreamed. When he summoned the sword to check, the outer edge of the blade was indeed sparkling with unusual brilliance.
"……"
Najin gazed at the sword in silence.
What formed the outer edge of Excalibur were the stars Arthur had carved a thousand years ago. On the day Najin obtained the Star of Selection and carved his own stars into Excalibur, the original stars had been pushed outward.
One among them was shining.
As if it had something it wished to show him.
Najin returned Excalibur to his mindscape and set out. Arriving at the ancient ruins of Dulac, Lancelot's homeland, he surveyed the surroundings.
Around here, I think.
Finding the place he had seen in the dream, Najin settled himself and sat. Then he closed his eyes. He released the strength from his entire body and sank his consciousness beneath the surface of the water.
Thus Najin fell into a deep sleep.
Before long his consciousness surfaced once more—not as the Najin of reality, but into the person within the dream. When he closed his eyes and opened them again, Najin was looking upon the world through Lancelot's eyes.
"Lancelot."
There stood a witch with white hair. Every element that composed her existence was hazy, yet her crimson eyes—those of a witch—glowed with a fierce light as she looked at him.
"What shall we do today?"
A considerable amount of time had passed since he began accompanying Guinevere.
By now Lancelot had grown used to this unpredictable woman. When he looked away even briefly she would vanish, and the other Knights of the Round Table could never easily find her—yet Lancelot alone would spot her in an instant.
"What? How did you find her? I couldn't see her at all."
Even Falcon-Eye Tristan, the greatest archer of the Round Table, would lose track of Guinevere, yet Lancelot would unerringly pick her out even amid throngs of people.
"She stands out."
"That woman does?"
"Yes."
Only to your eyes, it seems.
The Knights of the Round Table said as much, yet Lancelot merely tilted his head.
"Sir Lancelot? Your expression seems a little different."
"Mine?"
"Yes. And not only your expression. Your fighting style has changed somewhat as well. How shall I put it… you no longer charge in heedless of everything; you seem to look around you more."
"……Was I always that reckless?"
"I never said it before, but yes. You did have that side to you. Not a bad thing, but it made following you rather exhausting."
At Bedivere's wry smile, Lancelot scratched the back of his neck, looking sheepish.
"I suppose spending so much time lately searching for Guinevere has broadened my field of vision."
"I think it is a good change."
"Is that… so?"
He had begun looking around him. His vision had widened. In battle he had always ended up isolated, yet at some point he had learned how to coordinate with his comrades.
"To you."
It was not only Lancelot who changed with the passage of time.
"You want me to teach you magic? Are you asking me?"
Guinevere had changed as well.
Every day Lancelot returned covered in blood. After chewing her lip for a long while, Guinevere went to find Merlin. Ignoring Lancelot's warning never to approach her, she sought Merlin out at last and made her request.
Teach me magic.
When Merlin asked why, Guinevere answered that she wanted to help Lancelot. Merlin's expression grew complicated; she sighed and said,
"…Follow me."
From that day on, Merlin taught Guinevere magic. Even if she had lost her memories, she was still a witch. As if the epithet "the race beloved by magic" had not been given lightly, Guinevere mastered magic with astonishing speed.
Of course, having Merlin as her teacher played a part.
A genius taught a genius.
That she would stand on the same battlefield as Lancelot before long was, perhaps, only natural.
"Why is a witch standing there?"
"Are you aiming magic at your own kin right now?"
Even as her own people called her a traitor, she wielded her magic with an expressionless face. Paired with Lancelot, she cut across the battlefield.
"Unbelievable."
And then, one day.
"A witch who has killed as many humans as I have, now standing on humanity's side and swinging magic to save them."
The two of them faced a certain witch. Her name was Malkuth—a witch who possessed the Mystery of Recollection. She looked at Guinevere with a gaze that mixed laughter and undisguised revulsion.
"Still cowardly erasing your memories? Still enjoying your little escapes—‘I'm someone else,' ‘I never did such a thing'? How many times is this now?"
Malkuth sneered at Guinevere.
"I wonder how long you'll last this time."
Snap. The moment she flicked her fingers, the Mystery of Recollection crashed over Guinevere and Lancelot.
And Lancelot saw.
What Guinevere had done in the past.
……One.
In her first life, Guinevere had been raised by the Witch of the Abyss. The Witch of the Abyss had sung to her of humanity's cruelty and taught her how to kill humans.
In that first life, Guinevere had been a slaughterer.
She acted as she had been taught. She killed humans and burned cities. Yet in the process she felt a sense of incongruity. They were not as she had been told.
"Please, please, at least this child……"
The sight of an old man kneeling before her, begging not for his own life but for the child's, made her feel that incongruity.
She slipped among the humans to learn about them, living as they lived—so that she might understand them, so that she might uncover the nature of the dissonance she felt.
Years passed that way.
Guinevere uncovered the true face of that incongruity, came to understand human emotion, and at the end of it all……
She despaired.
Guinevere despaired utterly.
Realizing the weight of what she had done, she groaned under a terrible guilt and regretted a past that could never be undone. Yet regret changed nothing.
She was a slaughterer and a sinner.
The blood caked upon her hands would never wash away. Looking down at her feet, she saw the blood of those she had killed pooling like a pond. At the end of despair, Guinevere raised a finger to her own temple.
She chose the easiest path.
Not atonement, but escape.
With the Mystery of Forgetfulness she erased her own memories. By forgetting everything, she drew the curtain on her first life.
……Two.
Having lost her memories, Guinevere was handed over to a certain man of power. Even in a world crumbling to ruin, there were always those who would kill as many as necessary to preserve their authority.
The power-holder used Guinevere as a tool to maintain his rule. Even without her memories she remained a formidable witch, and her power was wielded at his command.
Following a human's orders, Guinevere killed humans.
Countless years passed that way.
The fact that a witch was being used by a human drew other witches to the power-holder's domain, and they seized Guinevere. There, Malkuth laughed and showed her the past.
What will you do this time?
The brand of sinner was stamped upon Guinevere, and she was cast out by the witches as well. At the repeated mistakes of her first life and her second, Guinevere made the same choice once more.
Again.
……Three.
Binding herself with the condition that she would never kill a human, she began a new life.
……Four.
She erased, and erased, and erased again.
……Five.
Each time her memories returned, each time she recalled herself, she erased them.
……Six, seven, eight.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
And so to the thirteenth life.
In her thirteenth life, upon recalling every previous existence, Guinevere's expression collapsed. Her body convulsed; she clawed at her own face and screamed.
The witch who had always fled made the same choice yet again.
Finger pressed to her temple.
She sought once more to erase her memories, to flee into forgetting and find ease, to commit the same mistake once more.
Grip.
Yet if there was one difference from every previous life—
"Stop."
—it was that in this life, someone stood beside her who would restrain her.
3.
Lancelot, who had always watched over Guinevere, did not lose her even amid the torrent of memories. He forced his way out of the Mystery of Recollection that sought to drown him in the most horrific recollections and stood at her side.
He seized the wrist of the woman who was about to flee once more.
"Stop."
Breathing hard, Lancelot spoke.
"Running away changes nothing."
"I—I killed people……"
"I know. I saw it."
Lancelot looked straight into Guinevere's eyes.
"You killed people."
"Yes."
"And not just one or two—hundreds, thousands……"
"I saw that too."
To the groaning Guinevere, Lancelot offered a bitter smile.
"And I saw other faces as well."
"……"
"I saw you standing on humanity's side, sometimes fighting witches. I saw you receiving a knight's instruction and swinging a sword as a knight. I saw you sacrificing yourself to protect humans."
"That was—"
"If the sins of your first life cause you such agony, then you must also value the sacrifices of the lives that followed. Isn't that so?"
Lancelot exhaled a long, long breath.
"Listen carefully, Guinevere."
Then he spoke.
"Running away does not erase the sin."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Atone. Face your sin. Do not flee—regret what you have done, suffer for it, and……"
Lancelot looked down at the back of his own hand.
There, the brand of the convict unit was carved—a mark he could have erased, yet never had.
"Find something you can still do. If you have killed humans, then devote your life to saving them. That is the only true way to atone."
"……"
"No one ever taught you how to atone, it seems. How can you do what you have never learned? I am no great teacher either… but I am better than nothing."
"What… do you mean?"
Lancelot pulled Guinevere to her feet.
"I will atone with you. For I am a sinner as well."
"Why would you……"
"What, does receiving comfort from a human wound a witch's pride?"
To Guinevere, who shook her head, he smiled.
"Did you think I wouldn't know it was you who held my hand every time I thrashed through nightmares? You went to great lengths not to be noticed."
So.
"This time, I will hold yours."
So that you may properly atone.