The Path of the Hound
The problem wasn’t that he could meet the Red Eyes if he wanted to. It wasn’t even that he didn’t know where it was.
Red Eyes had always been in the Shadow Forest.
The real question was whether there was any way to get there now, trapped inside the shrine.
He thought it over.
After all, the only reason he’d ever been able to meet Red Eyes in the first place had been the fragment of the goddess statue he’d obtained from Saint Charmant Monastery.
And the fact that he hadn’t been able to see it again since Red Eyes took the fragment back made the situation painfully clear.
That was right.
There was no need to go there in person.
Lawrence had always contacted the Spirit World through dreams.
He didn’t know whether one could dream in the Spirit World itself.
When he’d stayed in Dragon Valley, he hadn’t dreamed even once.
It had been the same since he arrived at the Shrine of Sorrows.
No matter how he tried to sleep, the dreams of the Spirit World never came.
But Arwen, who lived next door in the Spirit World, was different.
As the Witch of Fragrance, she might know some way.
“Arwen. There’s someone next door I’d like to meet.”
Even neighbors in the Spirit World didn’t necessarily go without dreams, did they?
If he couldn’t dream, then there had to be a way to make himself dream.
「Lawrence is in the shrine. You can’t just meet someone if you want to.」
“There’s no need to leave here. I can wander the Spirit World through dreams.”
「A dream inside a dream.」
As if hesitating over something, the writing came slowly.
「Too dangerous. You might never wake up again.」
Seeing that answer, he was certain.
So there was a way after all.
It sounded dangerous, yes, but Lawrence had already made up his mind.
「I can’t help you.」
“Arwen.”
There was still room to persuade her.
Lawrence didn’t give up.
How long did he silently stare at the raven?
In the end, Arwen was the first to raise the white flag.
「Lawrence is so stubborn.」
“I’d be grateful if you could lend me your hand.”
「Who do you want to meet?」
“The spirit of the Shadow Forest.”
If he thought about Acheron’s reaction, he couldn’t expect a cheerful answer.
「I’ll refuse.」
He had expected as much.
She turned him down flat.
“It isn’t an evil spirit. It was that spirit who helped me escape the Shadow Forest. It also taught me Shadow Spear.”
「Meaningless. A passing whim. No guarantee of safety.」
After a brief hesitation, the writing continued.
「Worst case, you could die.」
A warning that the spirit was dangerous.
The same answer Acheron would have given out of concern.
If his life itself was at risk, that was the worst possible outcome one could imagine.
「Propose an alternative. Let’s meet my sisters.」
“Your sisters…? You mean the other witches?”
「Witch’s Night. You’re qualified enough. Lawrence has been invited.」
She had certainly made that offer on the day Veles set out on his journey.
「There’ll be a sister who can teach you magic.」
That was welcome news indeed.
Come to think of it, Arwen wasn’t the only witch.
There had been more than a few witches who visited Dragon Valley.
Surely at least some of them would teach Lawrence magic suited to him.
“If I’m invited, I’d be happy to accept.”
「A wise choice. You won’t regret it.」
If she had been here, wouldn’t she have been smiling?
The gently rising script was enough to make him think so.
* * *
A week had passed since Arwen’s familiar had left.
There was still no word from her. To reach the place where her sisters lived, several preparations were needed.
It seemed her familiar would need time to carry them all.
In the meantime, Lawrence threw himself into magic practice.
There was nothing else to do in an isolated place, after all.
Fortunately, the shrine was an excellent place to train magic.
Inside his cell, he focused on the finer control of his spells.
When he climbed the tower, he concentrated on their destructive power.
He still couldn’t cast them directly at a target, of course.
Even so, sending Shadow Spear arcing into the blue sky was oddly refreshing.
「I don’t know which fool did it, but that was a stupid thing to try.」
The gravedigger mentioned what had happened in the mortuary that day.
He didn’t specifically say Lawrence had been the culprit, but judging by his tone, he seemed to have already made up his mind.
From that moment on, he began watching Lawrence.
Even while cleaning the cell, he would occasionally glance toward the mortuary.
「There’s always one. Fools who can’t accept reality and keep thrashing about trying to leave the shrine.」
It couldn’t be helped, could it?
The tower’s residents only repeated the same pattern over and over.
Lawrence had been the only outsider to arrive recently. If something unusual had happened, it was natural to suspect him first.
It was a little different from plain carelessness.
Originally, he hadn’t thought this through at all.
As soon as he recovered the key, he’d intended to escape at once.
Of course, by now he understood perfectly well how foolish that had been.
The gravedigger’s suspicious gaze gradually subsided.
Lawrence had been quietly devoting himself to magic while waiting for Arwen’s message.
How many more days passed?
While Lawrence was practicing magic in the tower, a raven caught his eye.
A small bottle was tied to its back.
It seemed to be the preparation Arwen had mentioned.
“That took longer than I expected.”
「It takes time to extract fragrance.」
For now, he went down to his cell with Arwen.
The tower top was spacious enough if he looked only at the size of the place, but the cell, where one could remain safely for long periods, was the proper place to work magic.
Following Arwen’s instructions, he prepared the incense.
He had worried it might be impossible, given how cramped the cell was.
But that was only because he’d been thinking in human terms; once everything was ready, a single raven wasn’t much of a problem at all.
「Before you step through the gap, there’s one thing I need to tell you.」
Arwen wrote the words out carefully.
「Listen as closely as you can and follow along. Otherwise, I can’t guarantee your safety.」
“So it is dangerous. Understood. Is there anything else I should watch out for?”
「Be careful around the sisters. Witch’s Night is still far off. The sisters in the Witch’s Forest right now are… a little eccentric.」
Meaning they might not be friendly?
When he’d met them in Dragon Valley, they had certainly been kind.
「Lawrence. Beloved child. Sisters very interested.」
“Excuse me?”
「You’re going to be very tired.」
“……”
Fragrant smoke billowed through the cell.
It quickly transformed into a beautiful halo of light and carved out a magic circle.
Dark light, like the night sky itself, spread along the walls.
Though no wind stirred, the door created by the circle rippled.
It resembled the golden gap Veles’s tree had once opened.
「Let’s go.」
Lawrence stepped through the door with Arwen.
* * *
Starlight traced a beautiful path through the air.
It was a space that felt as though the night sky itself had been transplanted whole.
Up or down—no matter where he looked, there was nowhere to set his feet. The moment he realized that, Lawrence began to fall beneath the night sky.
He fell and fell.
He flailed with both hands, but there was nothing to grasp in that sky where only starlight moved.
Then, in the midst of his fall, he saw a raven standing atop the night sky.
Standing?
No, he hadn’t seen wrongly.
The raven wasn’t flying.
It stood there calmly, as if there were solid ground beneath its feet.
「Focus. Not everything you see is all there is.」
The writing drifted farther away.
Something beyond the boy’s understanding was happening.
His thoughts spinning in confusion, Lawrence closed his eyes for now.
Think.
Throw away your fear.
Arwen was trying to tell him something.
Why could she stand here without falling?
When he carefully opened his eyes, there was still nothing beneath his feet.
Of course he couldn’t feel the ground under him.
A sickening sensation of falling wrapped around his whole body.
Stay calm.
This was no time to be scared out of his wits.
His thoughts raced ahead.
Lawrence had experienced something like this before.
The experience of flying through the sky—a freedom that should never belong to a wingless human being.
Remember the dream scenery Veles had shown him.
Memories of that intense freedom surfaced one after another in his mind.
How had he flown then?
He remembered. He hadn’t tried to fly.
By the time he came to himself, he was already drifting through the heavens without a destination.
Even after becoming conscious, it had been the same.
He had floated naturally through the sky, as though it had always been that way from the beginning.
Yes. There was no need to force his hand toward something he couldn’t grasp.
Lawrence had no wings, so he couldn’t fly.
The moment he accepted and acknowledged that fact, the sensation of falling vanished.
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing on the night sky.
Looking around, he saw Arwen quietly watching him.
Only the cascade of stars lighting the area made it seem as if he had fallen endlessly, but that had all been nothing more than an illusion.
“That was…?”
He had only just begun to voice the question when he realized his mistake.
Arwen had already warned him.
A path where she couldn’t guarantee his safety.
Keep your wits about you.
His mind turned cold.
Before the vast mystery of the Spirit World, the boy was like a naked child.
「Let’s hurry. It’s no good lingering here.」
Lawrence nodded.
The endless night sky was not what it seemed at first glance.
Though it looked like an empty expanse, there were paths leading upward in some places and, in others, paths leading down.
A mysterious space where common sense didn’t apply.
More than anything, the feeling of actually walking across the night sky made his heart pound.
“Where exactly are we?”
「The Path of the Hound.」
Hound?
As if reading the question forming in the boy’s eyes, the script continued without pause.
「Hounds that move freely through the gaps. Hungry hounds that never know satisfaction. If they observe you, you won’t escape their relentless pursuit.」
“If you can’t escape pursuit, what if you defeat them?”
「Meaningless. Hounds have no concept of death.」
The writing came faster now.
The rest was finished in something close to a scrawl.
「They’re immortal. Given time, they’ll come after you again.」
In other words, they wouldn’t die.
He didn’t ask how that was possible.
The very idea of discussing common sense was absurd.
“So at best, we can only buy a little time.”
「Even other hounds will gather. A vicious cycle.」
“I understand. Running away is the best option, then.”
Just like mercenary work.
It was better to avoid anything unrelated to the request whenever possible.
If you stood to lose more than you gained, there was no need to fight.
「It’s fine. The preparations are perfect. The hounds can’t see us.」
“So your preparations included not only opening the door, but also making countermeasures against the hounds?”
「A small trick. I erased our scent with incense.」
He was more than a little surprised to hear that everything had been prepared so thoroughly.
So opening the door had not been the only thing involved.
「The Path of the Hound is the essence of falsehood. It resembles the gaps of shadow. To enter without preparation would be foolish recklessness.」
“The Spirit World is always more dangerous than I expect.”
「It’s only natural that those who go farther must risk more. Don’t worry. Lawrence works hard. He won’t wander into the wrong path.」
“Thank you, Arwen.”
Her comfort lightened his heart just a little.
She was a witch who had explored these mysteries before him; her words carried a weight that bland reassurance simply couldn’t match.
How long had they been walking when Arwen, who led the way, suddenly stopped?
Her gaze fixed on a single black star.
“Is something wrong?”
「Hound.」
Lawrence fell silent.
Then the warning she’d given took shape in the star-filled sky.
What emerged from the black star slowly took on a form.
It looked like some grotesque mixture of dog and wolf.
Its body was so dried out and gaunt that bone showed through, and it wasn’t very large.
Only its eyes, glowing with a bluish light, were unnaturally huge. The pupils, twitching without rest, gave off a deeply unpleasant feeling.
At first glance, it might have seemed like nothing more than a starving Under Wolf.
Back-alley strays had looked like that, after all.
But the hound’s eyes were different.
Eyes that swept the surroundings like a spider’s were not the eyes of a loser.
They were the eyes of a predator searching for prey. Like a lion at the top of the food chain, it was desperate to find its next meal.
The hound ran and bounded across the sky in all directions, then soon lost interest and leaped into another star.
Just as it had appeared, it dissolved like ink and vanished into the stars.
「It’ll come back soon. Let’s hurry. We’re almost there.」
No further words were needed.
Lawrence nodded silently.
He didn’t know how dangerous the hound was, or how strong.
But he could feel its malice.
It was unlike any ordinary monster. Lawrence was certain that the hound’s hunger would never be sated.
It had eyes that knew no satisfaction.
Before long, the two of them stopped again.
Arwen halted before a certain star and lit incense.
The smoke, drawn into the starlight, transformed into a door.
Their figures disappeared into the sparkling doorway.
* * *
What greeted Lawrence beyond the door was a blue forest.
On either side of the neatly kept path, thickets grew thick and green.
Orderly trees welcomed the guest who had entered the forest road.
All throughout the woods, he could see small neighbors and wild animals.
They looked wary of the boy who had appeared so suddenly.
“……”
Ever since the Spider Forest incident, he’d hated forests, but this was different.
This was a forest that welcomed outsiders instead of turning them away.
「The Witch’s Forest. Do you like it?」
“Yes. It’s a truly beautiful forest.”
「Laurzara will be pleased to hear that.」
Laurzara.
Lawrence remembered the name of the sister who managed the Witch’s Forest.
As he followed the well-kept path, a gigantic tree came into view.
The tree, stretching up toward the sky, displayed an overwhelming majesty. It was so enormous that it looked as though it had passed beyond the clouds and touched the heavens themselves.
Right before that tree stood two women.