XI. The Coming of the North Wind (2)
XI. The Coming of the North Wind (2)
After several encounters with the demon, Keldric had become certain of one thing.
"Why have you called me this time?"
[ Your memory seems jumbled. I have never called you, and I have told you over and over that I lack the power to do so. ]
One certainty was that the demon did not seem to be causing these dreams.
He had realized it rather late. The demon had no reason to keep summoning him.
Besides, it did nothing particularly demonic. Bluntly put, all it did was laze around this damp cave.
[ Did you not, just now, harbor an insolent thought? ]
"You must be imagining it."
Still, a demon was a demon. It had enough power to act the part.
Keldric gave the wolf a sour look. Having even fragments of his thoughts read was unpleasant.
The wolf remained silent for a while, standing before Keldric as its glossy black fur repeatedly puffed up and settled.
How long did the silence last?
[ ...You, warrior. ]
The wolf opened its mouth. Its tongue peeked between its long jaws, wreathed in sulfurous flame, and the sour stench seared Keldric's nose.
[ Have you found something again this time? ]
"What do you mean, found something?"
[ Something like the disc. ]
The disc Jacober and Jamash had possessed. The thought of it told Keldric roughly what the demon suspected.
"Am I brought here every time I find something like that?"
[ Hasty certainty often begets folly, but where no other path can be chosen, even a thorny road must be walked. ]
In plain terms, nothing else could explain what was happening.
Keldric rubbed his chin and thought. Come to think of it, every time he had been brought into the demon's domain, something related to the demon had been involved.
The first time had been when he encountered a monster controlled by the demon before him; the second came immediately after finding Jacober and Jamash's disc.
Strictly speaking, their first meeting had occurred in a dream on the day he entered Spitzenberg.
But he had not met the demon in his actual first dream, so he excluded it.
Seen that way, the demon's theory was not entirely wrong.
[ You have much on your mind, young warrior. ]
The demon quietly urged him to answer. Hot flames mingled with its faint breath.
Keldric waved away the sparks leaping before him and answered.
"Fine. Even if you are right..."
[ Hm? ]
"Then why was I brought here now? I haven't come into contact with anything like that recently."
Even if the demon was telling the truth, there was no reason for Keldric to be here now.
He kept the disc hidden in his baggage and checked it occasionally, but that could not be the cause; there had been times when he touched it without meeting the demon.
The disc might be a medium, but it was no all-purpose artifact that produced gold or silver on command.
[ If it is not the disc... ]
The wolf approached. Keldric watched without tension or interest.
It came close enough for its fur to brush him, tickling the back of his neck.
[ By chance, have you not met yet another foolish apostate this time? ]
"...Ah."
Keldric had been absently feeling the black fur. Only then did his eyes widen.
The wizard in Baron Gofrit's army had borne the same emblem on his forehead as Jacober and Jamash.
The demon's suggestion sounded plausible. But there was still no explanation for why contact with something related to it dragged him here.
"What exactly is that Flame Emblem?"
Keldric asked with open irritation. Not knowing something made him uneasy.
Without knowledge, he could not predict. Without prediction, he could not respond.
The Flame Emblem was exactly that kind of unknown: he knew neither what power it held nor who worshipped it.
Keldric remained deeply wary of the destructive explosion Jamash had unleashed when he self-destructed.
No matter how strong he was, if caught in an explosion like that, Keldric would die without being able to do a thing.
[ It is what the apostates who wander the desert worship. ]
"I do not understand what that means."
[ There is no need to think deeply on it, young warrior. ]
The wolf circled him slowly, its snake-like tail swaying.
When it reappeared behind Keldric, it had taken the form of the female warrior he had seen before.
"In every age and every place, a people who lose their faith and wander eventually confront a dark truth."
"..."
"They learned what should never be known and came to worship what should never be worshipped..."
The demon, now shaped as a woman, curled one corner of her mouth. Gold ornaments gleamed against her white teeth.
"Should they not grasp the one rope left to them?"
They had been driven to the edge of a cliff.
The demon's final murmur lingered like an echo. Keldric clicked his tongue uneasily.
'What the hell is she talking about?'
He had not understood a single word. Even for an incomprehensible demon, this was excessive.
He still had no idea who the apostates wandering the desert were or what 'that which must not be known' meant.
Keldric's thoughts became even more tangled. He had come to remove one problem and gained another.
"Can you not speak a little more plainly?"
"Oh, warrior. Have you no intention of using that head so full of wisdom?"
"Are you mocking me?"
The demon silently extended a slender finger toward Keldric's forehead.
Keldric slapped it away without thinking.
'Smack!' echoed through the cave, followed by the demon's low, eerie laughter.
"Hehehe... At least your caution is peerless. I do not dislike it."
"What were you trying to do?"
"If words are difficult to understand, then another method should make you comprehend."
"If you try anything..."
"I will do no such thing. Do not worry."
The demon extended her finger again with a seductive smile.
Still uneasy, Keldric cautiously touched his forehead to her fingertip.
Warmth touched his brow, and a pointed nail gently scratched it—
"What..."
Something flashed through Keldric's mind.
The acrid smell of sulfur, crimson hellfire, a city burning within it, and countless robed figures.
The desperate screams from the flames and the incomprehensible words chanted by the robed figures still seemed to brush his ears.
It lasted only an instant, but Keldric experienced it as vividly as if he had stood amid the disaster.
[ Do you understand now? ]
When Keldric slowly opened his eyes, the demon was once again a wolf.
Despite the demon's question, Keldric had understood nothing.
He tried to recall the group of robed figures.
The vision had felt like lived experience, yet it slipped away when he tried to remember it.
Only one detail remained.
Every robed figure had borne a golden Flame Emblem.
It was painfully familiar.
"That vision...?"
[ Since the ancestor of all peoples was born, four thousand one hundred sixteen years have passed and the sun has set one million five hundred two thousand three hundred forty times. ]
Flame burst from the wolf's muzzle. Dust touched by it turned to stone powder and showered down.
Keldric sensed something ominous. His throat slowly tightened.
[ For forty days the rain fell, and for forty years they wandered the whole land, and for forty days they had nothing to eat. ]
The demon's whisper carried an unholy breath, as if spoken directly beside his ear.
Keldric frowned at the sticky, unpleasant sensation.
[ When the sun and moon have set, and at last, even the Oneness is cast down, the stars will hold sway—for the Morning Star has gathered all peoples. Their number was exactly seventy. ]
"..."
[ Thereafter, the seventy were sent forth, and twelve remained as disciples, yet one among them apostatized and, in his folly, was cast to wander the wilderness all his life. At the end of his self-torment, the idol of all the lowly he encountered gave him a fire to burn the peoples. ]
Fire. It flickered before Keldric's eyes again.
A fire capable of burning everything devoured the city.
The robed figures sang a ridiculous, rhythmless song to the accompaniment of screams.
[ Therefore, the apostates follow the fire and wander the desert. ]
"Fire..."
[ Valiant warrior, you were born with the fate of extinguishing that fire. ]
The oppressive tension vanished in an instant.
Keldric regarded the demon with deep suspicion as it returned to the guise of a docile wolf.
[ Well? Do you understand now? ]
"I still don't understand."
[ ... ]
The demon gave him a sidelong glare, silently scolding him.
Keldric scratched the back of his neck, suddenly awkward.
He had listened because the demon had gone to such lengths to explain, but this was something a priest should have heard instead.
The demon, snorting flame-tinged breaths from its nostrils, spoke curtly.
[ The point is that those apostates were once scholars who pursued truth. ]
"Does that mean... they were a school of magic?"
[ Now we understand each other. Yes. They once revered and gathered around the House of Wisdom. ]
"Which school were they from?"
The wolf gave a phlegmy chuckle without answering, the sound echoing through the cave.
The sulfur smell faded. The demon's form gradually blurred.
Keldric recognized the signs of waking.
[ Is there not a scholar traveling with you? ]
"...Alisa?"
[ Wise, but buried in hatred. She should know. Yet it would be best not to ask rashly. ]
"What do you mean..."
[ Valiant warrior. For now, remember only this. ]
The time to defy fate was not far off.
The words he had heard before echoed hollowly as his consciousness faded.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
The northern wind blew without fail at dawn.
When its white-frosted breath swept across the camp, the sleepers had no choice but to wake.
Keldric was the very last among them.
Waking from the dream, Keldric found the others already tearing bread apart and stuffing it into their mouths.
Only the highborn had the privilege of hot barley porridge with their bread.
"Sir Keldric, here... have breakfast."
Helga approached, carrying a bowl of barley porridge and some bread.
Keldric sat blankly after accepting it. Alisa came over with her own bread and sat beside him.
"Sir Keldric. Did you sleep well last night?"
"..."
"Yesterday, um... thank you. Thanks to you, I slept comfortably... Sir Keldric?"
Come to think of it, had Alisa ever seen the Flame Emblem herself?
As far as Keldric knew, she hadn't.
When Jacober tried to self-destruct, she had been too distracted by nearly wetting herself.
When Keldric killed the wizard in Gofrit's army, Alisa had buried her face in his back and missed it.
'She will know well. But it would be best not to ask her rashly.'
The demon's words returned to him. Keldric looked at Alisa uneasily.
Come to think of it, Alisa also used fire.
Alisa traveled with Keldric to find a certain wizard.
She was reluctant to discuss that wizard.
Alisa's house had fallen.
Normally, rebuilding her house should have been her first priority.
But Alisa had not done that.
"Sir Keldric. Is something the matter?"
"No. It is nothing. Let us eat."
For now, Keldric decided to bury his unproven suspicions.
They would probably have to ride hard again today. He did not want to waste mental energy.
But he could not ignore it forever.
'Someday...'
Keldric readily put it off. If he could not resolve the discomfort now, forgetting it for a while was easier.
After they ate, something unfamiliar rode the north wind from beyond the mountains.
Keldric looked uneasily at the cold snowflake that landed on his palm.
"We'd better hurry."
Spring was drawing to an end. Summer was approaching.
The north had no hot summer. Instead, it had savage blizzards.
The season of violent north winds was approaching.