Hero, Commoner, Nation (1)
The cross that had been driven into the tower’s highest floor like a gravestone.
The instant Galahad seized it, the entire tower shuddered. As if it had rooted itself into the structure, the cross that had been so firmly embedded began to come free.
The Cross Shield.
It was not a blade meant to cut an opponent down. It was a shield meant to turn aside an enemy’s assault and protect what must be protected. The Cross Shield was Galahad’s only armament, and at the same time the weapon that stood as his very emblem.
An unbreakable shield.
He does not yield. He does not break. Simple—and because it is simple, Galahad is strong. Turning over that line from the Chronicle of Arthur in his mind, Najin set his stance.
“Najin.”
“Galahad.”
They named each other. Their gazes collided in the air. Through the fractures in the shattered iron mask, Najin met Galahad’s eyes.
A deep, grinding tremor rolled through the tower. With that violent quake the shield came free at last. Galahad took the Cross Shield he had drawn and lifted one foot.
He stamped it down.
The moment Galahad’s boot struck the floor, the vibrations that had been shaking the entire tower subsided. As if some vast weight had pressed everything flat, the rumbling vanished, and silence took its place.
In that silence Najin raised his sword.
In that stillness Galahad raised his shield.
There was nothing left to say. The moment he released the breath he had drawn, Najin lunged at Galahad. As he drove his blade toward the former strongest knight of the Round Table, Najin’s eyes were colder and more settled than they had ever been.
Galahad. The most perfect knight.
I know your story well. I know what you accomplished, the feats you carved into history. There is no way I would not know how just and ideal a knight you are.
And that is exactly why I have to ask.
Why the man called the most perfect knight chose this. Why you joined something so far removed from ideals and perfection—I have to know.
Because.
The Free Knight’s coat flared behind him.
I am a Free Knight.
A Free Knight is one who questions knights. What is a knight? Seeking the answer to that question is the virtue a Free Knight must carry.
If you bear the name of the most perfect knight—
He swung Excalibur. The sword, shining platinum-gold, put the question to Galahad. The blade that stood for the greatest of knights crashed down upon the shield of the most perfect one.
Answer me.
Scenes flashed through Najin’s mind—every one of them bound to Merlin.
The bleak look that crossed her face whenever she spoke of the Round Table. The anxiety and depression that had clung to her for a time after she used the magic called Narak. The sight of her back as she stifled her sobs night after night. They passed one after another.
Why.
And last of all—
Why didn’t you say anything? We’re companions. We were companions. You decide everything alone—no explanation, no consultation, nothing—and that’s the end of it?
The Black Spire.
What was I to all of you?
The face of the fairy Merlin who, in despair there, chose her own death. The empty laugh and the hand she stretched toward the sky. They brushed past Najin’s eyes.
His grip tightened on Excalibur.
If you will not answer—
I will hold you to account in her place.
That, at least, is the courtesy owed my companion.
A ringing crash split the air. The instant Excalibur met the Cross Shield, a sharp note came first; after it followed the heavy, resonant boom of the vibrating shield.
A deep, spreading peal.
It sounded for all the world like a bell.
From the summit of the tower, the tolling of a bell began to roll outward.
The place where the memories of commoners had gathered.
Wandering through it, Yuel spoke to herself—to the other self within her who was seeing the same scenery and hearing the same sounds.
“It looks familiar.”
…
“Are you listening?”
I am listening.
Yuel looked out over the city. The place reflected in her eyes felt somehow known. It was supposed to be a gathering of ordinary human memories, yet even here there was a leader. Someone had divided the land into districts and laid down rules for the domain.
And the way those districts were cut.
The rules that held this city together.
They were all too familiar to Yuel—not to the Executioner of the Church, but to Yuel the Lord of the Ruined City.
It’s the Ruined City.
Lord Yuel spoke the words shortly. She let out a sigh as if she had expected it. She had thought, after all, that it might be.
Keep moving.
She worked her way through the domain, breaking past several obstacles, meeting the conditions it demanded, and pressing steadily toward its heart.
And at the absolute center—at the place that formed the core of the space—Yuel stopped. A plaza opened before her. Behind it stood a lord’s castle that looked very much like a courthouse.
Both of them fell silent.
If anything differed from their memories, it was this: no blood ran through the plaza, and the faces of the citizens moving through it were bright. They laughed and chattered and traded small talk.
A city where everyone smiled in happiness.
And in that place, only one person could not smile. A woman sat on a plaza bench, staring blankly out over the city. She wore long, cascading snow-white hair, crimson eyes, and the uniform a lord would wear.
Their eyes met.
The reflections of each other in their pupils were the same. Only the air they carried differed; in appearance there was no difference at all.
“A pleasure to meet you.”
Yuel Razian, Executioner of the Church, raised a hand in greeting. The lord who had been staring at her fished inside the breast of her uniform, drew out a cigarette, and set it between her lips.
Then she tapped another free and held it out to Yuel Razian.
“Going to smoke?”
“Yes. I won’t refuse.”
Yuel Razian sat down beside her. Side by side on the bench, she took the cigarette the lord had offered. A hiss as the lord lit it; a long pull of breath.
Then a slow exhale.
Two threads of smoke rose into the air.
“Your name.”
“Yuel Razian.”
“What does Razian mean? A family name?”
“No. It’s a baptismal name given to the Church’s Executioners. Though I suppose it isn’t so different from a family name. Officially it guarantees a status equal to a duke’s.”
“What is a Church Executioner.”
“Primarily we execute criminals involved with demons. Even when the matter has nothing to do with demons, it is also a seat that holds sole authority to punish those who break the law.”
The lord’s face remained empty of expression. With hollow eyes that held no feeling, she watched the rising smoke.
“So you kill people, is that what you’re saying?”
“That would be it.”
“No wonder the stench of blood is so thick.”
The lord’s face twisted.
“Nothing’s changed, I see. Well, where would human nature go? After killing a hundred and seventy thousand people, there’s no way you could live an ordinary life.”
Yuel Razian looked at the woman sitting beside her.
She, too, was Yuel.
The Yuel of a history where Najin never intervened. The Yuel who, in the original history, contracted with the Star of Oblivion and erased herself, was sitting right there.
The Yuel who had been watching from within slowly rose.
It would be better if I handle the conversation.
In this domain, that seems best.
No—only for a moment. What needs to be proven in this domain isn’t me. It’s you.
They agreed, and they switched. Her bracelet chimed softly, and the other Yuel’s consciousness surfaced.
“Hoo.”
Even the way she drew on the cigarette had changed. Long and deep, as if packing her lungs full, she pulled and then let the smoke go.
“Not bad. Maybe because it’s a space made of memories, but it’s a little disappointing that it doesn’t scorch the throat… still, not bad.”
Her speech changed. Her bearing changed. At the sudden shift into another person entirely, the lord’s brow furrowed.
“Wipe that look off your face. Don’t make that shitty expression.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Your eyes broken? Can’t you tell just by looking?”
The Lord of the Ruined City pointed with the cigarette between her fingers at the Lord of the landfill city sitting beside her.
“It’s you.”
A deep peal of the bell rolled through the entire sanctuary. The Lord of the Ruined City smiled.
“Well, looks like… we’ve got some things to talk about.”
The place where the memories of a nation had gathered.
From the moment Kirchhoff set foot there, his heart began to stir. It could not have been otherwise. The first thing he faced was the lofty walls that had been the pride of Rondinel.
Not walls crumbled and broken.
The walls of Rondinel, standing whole and unbroken.
In silence Kirchhoff walked on. As he drew near the walls, a gatekeeper stood watch. The instant the man’s eyes met Kirchhoff’s, they flew wide and he snapped a crisp salute.
“Sir Kirchhoff!”
Is something the matter? Are you out on patrol? The gatekeeper’s eyes sparkled as he asked—eyes full of admiration and longing. At the sight of a man who recognized him, Kirchhoff swallowed hard.
He did not know what to say.
In the end he only smiled without a word and patted the gatekeeper’s shoulder twice. As if that alone were an immense honor, the wide-eyed man bowed his head.
“Opening the gate!”
The gatekeeper opened the gate. With a heavy rumble it swung wide, and what appeared beyond it was—
Rondinel.
Rondinel, destroyed three hundred years ago, stood there. Not the scenery of its fall, but Rondinel before the constellations invaded. The streets thronged with citizens, children ran laughing, and vendors called their wares along the roads.
Kirchhoff held his breath.
For a long while he simply stood there, dazed.
Only after a long time did he force his reluctant feet to move.
When he stopped at a street stall, the owner who recognized him laughed with open delight—“If it isn’t the hero of Rondinel!”—and pressed snacks into his hands. When Kirchhoff reached for money, the man shook his head. How could I take coin from our hero?
Kirchhoff walked.
Laughing children looked up at him with shining eyes. When he bent and stroked their heads they beamed like flowers opening and rushed off in excitement to brag to parents and friends.
He walked.
Knights in the middle of drills halted at his appearance. Rank-and-file knights sucked in their breath; even their instructor’s eyes flew wide as he saluted.
Among them was one of Kirchhoff’s juniors.
Looking at the man whose form he had once corrected, Kirchhoff’s expression turned bittersweet—because the man’s end, melting away into paint as a jester, flashed through his mind. Kirchhoff said to him, “Thank you.”
As if he did not know what for, the man blinked and saluted.
He walked, and walked again.
Kirchhoff wandered his homeland without destination. He saw Rondinel preserved at its most beautiful hour. Here every one of them lived and breathed.
They were not fakes.
They were not illusions that merely recreated history.
They held memories. They lived and breathed. In the domain of oblivion, Rondinel existed in its complete form. Kirchhoff felt a tangle of complicated emotion.
Walking, walking, walking still—Kirchhoff stopped.
Where he stopped, she was. She always, at this hour, would slip outside to enjoy a stroll. Sure enough, she was there even now.
The knights would try to stop her, saying it was dangerous, that she must take an escort, and she would screech that if they came along it would only be a nuisance—a tomboy of a lady.
A girl who, because she had been forced to the throne at far too young an age, had known loneliness and solitude.
Yuria, the last queen of Rondinel.
She was humming as she strolled through the garden. Kirchhoff, unable to bring himself to approach, stood frozen at the entrance.
“Honestly.”
But as always—
“You treat me as far too much of a child, Sir. What are you staring at like that? A reunion after a full three hundred years. Don’t tell me you’re not even glad to see me.”
She had sensed his presence with uncanny accuracy. The woman walking the garden turned her head. With the same look as always, she wore the same smile as always.
“Has it been long, Sir Kirchhoff?”
No—she corrected herself.
“It’s been a while. Kirchhoff.”