The Star Sword and the Voice (2)
Who is the most famous constellation?
Ask anyone that question, and nine times out of ten the answer will be the same: the Sword of Selection, of course.
And who, then, is the constellation known as the Sword of Selection?
Most people would name King Arthur, the hero of the Arthurian chronicles. Scholars who have studied the history of the Empire would call him the founding sovereign who laid the foundations of the realm as it stands today.
Knights and seekers of the sword's path would answer differently still. The constellation Sword of Selection, they would say, is the proudest of knights, the greatest of swordsmen, and the finest of heroes.
Records of the Sword of Selection could be found in every field without exception—in the annals of the Empire, in the manuals of swordsmanship, in treatises on statecraft and kingship, upon the stelae that chronicled the wars against demons…
A name that appeared wherever one looked.
The constellation one saw first when lifting one's eyes to the night sky.
King Arthur had already stood alone in renown among the constellations, yet one event had raised his fame still higher. Centuries ago, the Sword of Selection had sent down a single trial upon the land.
The Trial of the Stars: Selection.
A trial that came once every thirteen years and lasted thirteen days.
Its subjects: all of humanity.
And its content was almost insultingly simple.
Pull the sword from the stone.
No other conditions were attached.
Countless challengers had answered the call. Peerless geniuses of the blade, seekers of the sword's path, heroes whose names filled the history books—numberless hands had reached for the sword driven into the rock.
Centuries passed.
Age after age, the sword remained unmoved.
No one.
No one had been selected by the sword.
His head felt heavy today.
Najin pressed his thumbs hard into his temples and let out a long breath. Hardly surprising—he had been sleeping poorly for days. Even now, days after he had watched the sword fall into the square, sleep still fled him at night.
The holy sword kept flickering before his eyes.
The brilliant starlight it had shed.
And that single sentence that filled his skull to overflowing.
Pull the sword.
It would not leave him. Far from fading, the one line was threatening to become two: Pull the sword, followed by the absurd claim that you can pull it.
Pull it? Him?
Even the celebrated Sword Masters could not draw that blade.
He knew the thought was baseless fantasy, yet the sentences refused to leave his mind. Two lines rooted deep. It felt as if someone had stirred the inside of his head with a stick.
"Haa…"
Najin exhaled slowly and leaned back against the bench.
He sat on a bench at the edge of the square and watched its center. The plaza that should have thronged with passersby lay as quiet as a grave, and at its heart stood the ones responsible for the silence.
Soldiers sent down from the upper city.
Clad in armor that held a chill gleam, they stood guard around the holy sword. A cloth they had thrown over it kept even a single mote of starlight from escaping.
It isn't as if looking at it wears it out…
Cheap bastards.
Najin had wandered the square hoping that, even if he could not see the holy sword itself, he might at least catch some of the starlight leaking from it. The sight left him thoroughly disappointed.
Sitting here would not grant him a view of the blade. He started to leave, then stopped mid-step. Something had caught his eye.
In a shaded corner at the square's edge, two small children sat together. On a scrap of board too meager to call a stall they had arranged a few odds and ends, and they kept glancing around. Then they froze. One child's gaze met Najin's.
Najin walked toward them.
"What are you selling?"
"Uh, well…"
He crouched in front of the makeshift stand and looked over what they had laid out—scraps of newspaper and miscellaneous junk. At his question the children pointed toward the center of the square.
"We picked up what those people threw away."
"Don't point."
Najin covered the child's outstretched finger with his palm. He would not normally be so particular, but one never knew. Cross the wrong ill-tempered soldier and a thrashing was all too possible.
"I'll take a paper, then. How much?"
"Two copper—no, three."
Najin set three coins on the boy's open palm. The boy received them carefully in both hands, glanced at the child beside him, and smiled.
Quota met, that look said.
Najin started to dig out a few more coins, then heard that unspoken voice, closed his coin pouch, and stood. He bought a simple meal from a nearby stall and set it down in front of the children.
"Eat."
"Th-thank you!"
They fell on the food as if starving. They looked it, too. Najin smiled bitterly. From the way they spoke, they lived under "parents" who set them a daily quota. He knew well that for children like these, food was better than a few coins.
Money would only be taken from them. Food already in the stomach could not be spat back out on demand.
Brings back memories.
Before he had caught Ivan's eye, he had lived exactly like them. Watching the children eat and remembering his own past, Najin suddenly frowned.
A mocking laugh had reached him.
Snickering, derisive. It came from the soldiers at the square's center. They were pointing at Najin and the children, talking loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Look at those brats—picking up our trash to sell… The kind of trash that lives in a place like this always ends up the same.
They pointed openly and spoke at full volume, yet the children did not dare meet their eyes. They pretended not to hear, pretended not to see, and kept their gazes lowered.
Humiliation and humiliation's sting lasted only a moment.
A broken arm or leg lasted a lifetime.
Najin was little different from the children. He clicked his tongue inwardly and rose to his feet.
"Be careful not to meet those men's eyes."
"Yes, Big Brother Najin!"
"What? You know my name?"
"You're really famous among us kids."
The child beamed.
"Lots of us want to be like you. They save up to buy a knife. The ones who can run fast get pulled aside by their dads and taught how to swing a sword…"
I want to be like you too, but we're slow runners so Dad says no. The child's murmured words left Najin silent.
Be like me? What for? Running around putting people in the ground isn't exactly a solid life…
He could not bring himself to say it.
Back when he had scavenged trash heaps and eaten other people's leftovers, he too had envied Ivan's men, just as these children did now.
Three meals a day and a real bed to sleep in…
Yeah. That was something worth envying.
Najin smiled wryly.
"That so."
He ruffled the child's hair and walked on. As he went he unfolded the newspaper. Its pages were filled with stories of the holy swords that had fallen into every city and of those who challenged the trial.
The Empire's Sword Master, Sir Gerd Isabalt.
Declares his intent to challenge the Trial of the Stars once more.
This will mark his fifth attempt in total.
He is scheduled to face the trial on the thirteenth and final day, in the Imperial capital of Camelot…
The story of an aging Sword Master who still sought the trial.
Seeker of the Sword, Sword Saint Caron.
Succeeds in making the holy sword in the stone tremble.
The blade shook more violently than it did thirteen years ago; talk spreads that he may draw it in the next trial…
The story of the seeker of the sword, the Sword Saint.
Executioner of the Holy Blood Church, Yuel Razian.
The moment she seized the holy sword, the hilt shook violently.
She failed to draw it, yet the hilt's thrashing as if rejecting its master is an unprecedented reaction.
The Holy Body Church has voiced strong displeasure at Yuel Razian's actions, condemning her in harsh terms: "That is no sword for a blood-mad hunting dog to lay hands upon"…
The story of the Church's killer.
Countless other challengers filled the remaining columns. Najin read the brief sketches of their backgrounds and the descriptions of the moment they tried to draw the blade, and found himself unconsciously licking his lips.
…I want to try too.
The thought rose unbidden for an instant.
Najin closed his eyes and pressed hard between his brows. The words if, maybe, perhaps tried to surface with the thought; he crushed them and swallowed them down.
Do not cross the line.
Live with what you are given.
Do not dream beyond your station.
Do not dare look upon what you cannot reach.
Ivan's warning and counsel—the words the man had repeated like a habit—Najin turned them over in his mind. Yes. Reach for what lies beyond your grasp and the end is only misery. The countless people discarded into this city were living proof of that truth.
"…"
Najin folded the newspaper.
The light that had briefly kindled in his eyes while he read had already returned to its ordinary state—cloudy, dim, indistinct… eyes that suited the subterranean city of Atman.
He looked back at the square one last time.
Still, no star was visible.
Still, the boy was nowhere to be found.
Grind.
Merlin folded her arms and ground her teeth. Her brow was deeply furrowed; the fingers drumming against her upper arm twitched with pure irritation.
"Haa…"
She let out a breath thick with annoyance.
For days now Merlin had scoured the surface with eyes wide open, hunting the insolent brat who had insulted Arthur. She possessed the far-seeing eye that could look upon any place her starlight reached.
Finding one insolent whelp should have been nothing. Punishing him should have been nothing either. She had been certain of that.
At least, she had been certain until a few days ago.
Days had passed since the day she had endured an insult hot enough to scorch the back of her neck, and still Merlin had not found the boy. She could not comprehend it. How, exactly?
Is another constellation hiding him?
No—if that were the case, discovery would have been easier, not harder. Anything concealed by starlight warped the space around it and stood out all the more.
Then does he live somewhere starlight cannot reach?
Kamran, the abyss where stars fell.
Merlin considered a few other such domains, then let out a hollow laugh. No human could live in places like those. Even the constellations hung in the night sky crumbled there.
So why could she not see him?
Had he dug a burrow and gone to ground?
If he had spent a full week underground without once showing his face, that would be impressive in its own right. Merlin heaved sigh after sigh and brushed back the hair that had slipped over her face.
"…Tsk."
She clicked her tongue.
She had a mountain of matters that demanded her attention, and here she was wasting her strength on something so pointless. Come to think of it, it was absurd that a transcendent who had lived more than a thousand years should let herself be led around by the nose by some brat's provocation.
Forget it. Just forget…
Merlin closed her eyes and drew long breaths in and out, over and over. She tried to master her anger, yet it would not obey. The reason was simple: the echo still rang in her ears—Arthur was nothing but a lucky adventurer who rode the times… and other such filth.
Words she could have let pass.
An insult she could have ignored.
Yet she could not, because she knew another tale that sounded uncomfortably like the boy's careless slight. Merlin turned over the prophecy that had long since become her reverse scale—someone's prophecy, now a thorn driven into her heart.
"Excalibur will choose a new master."
"Even if it takes decades, even if it takes centuries—it will."
"It will select the timber of a great hero."
The prophecy left by the traitor of the Round Table.
"A true hero, unlike Arthur, who was merely a hero made by his age. One who will become greater than Arthur."
"Ah—that one shall be the savior of Britain!"
"The true king and guide who will lead us beyond Kamran, to the end of the world we have dreamed of!"
"Merlin, you blind woman who only pretends to see! Can your eyes not perceive this radiant future?!"
Remembering the prophecy twisted Merlin's expression.
Parts of it overlapped strangely with the boy's words—especially the claim that Arthur had simply ridden the times well. Merlin frowned and clicked her tongue. Rode the times, my ass. As if Arthur had not clawed her way to that height through sheer hell.
"Arthur did not ride the times."
Merlin muttered under her breath.
"She made the flow of the age itself, you idiots."
For centuries no one had drawn the sword Arthur left behind. That alone proved how great a being she had been. Merlin snorted and looked down upon the surface.
The Trial of the Stars was underway in every region.
Her eyes took in the throngs of swordsmen who challenged it—and the sight of every last one of them turning away without drawing the blade.
"See?"
Merlin scoffed.
"Who's going to pull that sword?"
No one would draw it.
Therefore no one could become greater than Arthur. Therefore the traitor's prophecy and the nameless brat's mockery were both nothing but empty noise.
Having ordered her thoughts, Merlin let out a breath.
Only then did her heart feel a little lighter.