Chapter 215 - Black Spire (6)

The Black Spire reveals memories of the past.

A prophet's eyes look into the future.

Across a gap of a thousand years, past and future met. From the moment Merlin turned from the lake to look at Najin, the world ceased to be an illusion.

Something that had happened a thousand years ago. A past that had truly existed, not a fabrication.

It was a paradox born of the intertwining of the Mystery of Recollection and eyes that gazed into the future.

"..."

A moment that was both past and present for Najin, both future and present for Merlin. Najin was a person of the distant future, Merlin a person of the distant past, yet in this moment, both stood in the present, looking at each other.

"You..."

Merlin caught her breath.

"You're the one who drew Excalibur?"

"As you can see."

Najin indicated Excalibur in his hand. Merlin stared at him with wavering eyes, then squeezed them shut. With her eyes closed, she slowly exhaled.

"You're watching the past in the Black Spire, and I'm watching the future through the lake. Normally, we couldn't meet, and shouldn't meet, but..."

She opened her eyes again.

"One coincidence piled on another, and now you're standing before me. Perhaps it was inevitable."

"That's how it turned out."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"You..."

Merlin's lips moved hesitantly.

"How many years in the future did you come from?"

"A thousand years from now."

A thousand years. The moment that span was spoken aloud, a hollow laugh escaped Merlin's lips. She laughed in disbelief.

"A thousand years. A thousand?" she murmured. "That's so long. I can't even imagine it. You're telling me to wait all that time?"

Even as she murmured, Merlin kept looking at the lake's surface. It no longer reflected the future. But she bit down hard on her lip, as though turning over the future it had shown just moments ago.

A thousand years was far, far too long. An unimaginable span of time.

Yet a thousand years from now, she had been smiling. Laughing with such joy, such happiness.

"..."

"Listen," Merlin said.

Having glimpsed a thousand years ahead, she had grown curious about that future.

"You said your name was Najin, right?"

Merlin looked at him.

"The future I saw in the lake left out too much. I don't understand. What is this? Why am I smiling like that? What's so much fun? I just can't understand it."

Because she didn't understand.

"So," Merlin said, "tell me."

There was a faint light in her eyes. Whether it was the starlight cast by Excalibur or a light within her own eyes, he couldn't tell.

"Let me hear it. Your story."

Whatever its source, Merlin's eyes were shining.

Countless heroic tales say that wherever you stand, if you look up into the vast night sky, you will see constellations. And those constellations are the traces of heroes who raced across this land—their very lives.

"That was half right and half wrong."

"... Which part was wrong?"

"The part about seeing constellations when you look up, wherever you stand. Where I lived, you couldn't see the stars."

"There's a place like that?"

"Yes. A place called Atman, the underground city."

Najin told her.

"The people up above used to call it the landfill. A place where discarded trash was buried."

The beginning of the story. Its prologue.

"Even if you looked up, all you saw was a pitch-black ceiling. Nothing but rough, uneven rock. I'd look at the ore embedded in those rocks and think of it as stars."

"That must have been a dreary life."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? Actually, I didn't even have time to find it dreary. I was too busy surviving. But as I went on living, I found a little breathing room. And once I had that, I started to dream."

"What was your dream?"

"To see the stars."

"The stars?"

"To see what those stars in The Life of Arthur actually were, even just once. That was my dream."

Najin told his story from its very beginning.

"Arthur was just an adventurer lucky enough to be born in the right era. If he'd been born in this age, he'd have been nothing. Does that piss you off? Want to argue? Then come strike me down with divine punishment."

"..."

"Wait. Don't raise your hand. This is all foreshadowing for what comes next."

"Whew. Fine. Keep going."

"After that, with help from Offen, Ivan, and old Hogel..."

Merlin had been indifferent at first, but as the story continued, her expression began to change. Listening to Najin's account of drawing Excalibur and fleeing his pursuers left her palms sweating, and Ivan's choice drew a brief exclamation of admiration.

"Atanga would have gone absolutely mad if they'd seen that."

"Right?"

"So what happened next?"

She asked what came next, and Najin told her of the journey that followed.

"My first meeting with Merlin was the worst."

"...?"

"Think about it. She strangled me the first time we met. It's hard to have a good impression after that, isn't it?"

"No, that was your fault..."

His first meeting with Merlin.

"She chattered beside me all day, without a single break. It was... How should I put it? Remember what I told you earlier? That my circumstances made it difficult to harbor any illusions about you? This is what I meant."

"I... I did that?"

"Yes. In fact, even now, once I get back outside, she'll probably make a huge fuss and question me. What on earth did I see in there? Why won't I explain? She'll insist she has a right to know, too."

"That's a little..."

"A little?"

"A little embarrassing."

Their trip to Cambria, talking all the way.

"A lot happened in Cambria, too. It was my first experience of the outside world. Every time I did something that defied common sense, Merlin would scream at me. Was I crazy? Couldn't I act like I had some sense?"

"... Wasn't that your fault, though? Whatever your circumstances, rummaging through trash cans is a bit much. People ought to have at least a little dignity."

"Dignity doesn't put food on the table."

Their journey in Cambria.

"There were plenty of times I felt lost. I didn't know where to go or what to do. Every time, Merlin showed me the way. She'd say, 'Here's a path. Walking it is up to you. All I do is point you in a direction.'"

"Really? It seems my skills as a guide haven't rusted even after a thousand years."

"Of course, there were also more than a few times she left things out and made me suffer needlessly..."

"Was that last part really necessary?"

As the story continued, Merlin's expressions grew more varied. Sometimes she laughed in disbelief. Sometimes she looked grave. Sometimes she murmured, "I did that?" with an incredulous expression.

"And that's how we kept going. It was mostly the same. I'd do something reckless, and Merlin would sigh and scream, but in the end, she'd show me the way."

The story moved forward, and forward again.

"At some point, we hardly needed to talk anymore. I'd just glance at Merlin, and she'd sigh and look at me as if to say, 'Again?' Then she'd start explaining, with a look that said, 'Yeah, I figured as much.'"

At some point, Merlin and Najin had stopped needing lengthy conversations. A few short words, an exchanged glance, an expression—those were enough to tell what the other was thinking.

"Out of the underground city, away from Cambria, and into the Outer Lands."

Sometimes with a little exaggeration, sometimes humorously, sometimes seriously, Najin continued his story.

"And?" Merlin asked. "And what happened next?"

Like a child reading a fairy tale, like a child listening to a parent's tale of heroes, Merlin listened intently to Najin's adventures.

It was nothing extraordinary. To be honest, it was a trivial story.

To Merlin, who had already reached the end of her own story and stood at its terminus, Najin's tale was nothing remarkable. Small in scale, full of little, trivial incidents in which he had to risk his life over things of no great consequence.

A story that wasn't always impressive or beautiful, and felt unmistakably unfinished.

And yet, why was it...

"It sounds like fun," Merlin murmured with a faint smile. "Yes, it sounds like fun."

She let out a long breath.

"So that's why I smiled like that. Why I clung to you, squealing like that. I couldn't understand it when I saw the future reflected in the lake... but hearing your story, I understand."

With a long exhale, she tilted her head back. The sky she looked up at was dark. So dark that it seemed the sun could never rise. A cold, dark sky.

"The name of your star..."

Najin's star wasn't there. It would rise a thousand years in the future.

"You said it was Dawnstar, right?"

Dawnstar. A star heralding the end of night.

A star that lit the darkness and announced a new beginning.

"A thousand years until dawn comes. That's long. So long I don't think I can wait."

"Is it?"

"Yes. What would you think if someone told a person who's about to kill herself, 'A happy future will come in a thousand years, so hold on until then'?"

Merlin shrugged.

"Still," she murmured. "Still, the story goes on. It hasn't ended. It turns to the next chapter and keeps going..."

As she murmured, Merlin smiled without thinking. As though she had realized something. Stroking the star of Terminus in her hand, she turned her gaze.

"What you said you told me at the Star of Separation's grave."

Her blue eyes stared steadily at Najin.

"That it wasn't a terminus, but a turning point."

What you're waiting for isn't a terminus, but a turning point. Najin had told her that it was where Arthur's story had ended, not where his would end.

"That you were my companion. That no matter what happened, you wouldn't go on ahead of me."

Najin looked at Merlin.

The Merlin before him wasn't the one he knew so well. Not the hopeless Merlin whose thoughts he could read from her eyes and expression, but Merlin from a thousand years ago.

Reading her thoughts was difficult.

'Difficult, but...'

For some reason, in this moment, he felt he could tell what she was thinking.

"Can you promise me?"

Najin knew how to answer that question. He didn't need to say he promised or swore. He answered simply.

"Isn't that what I'm already doing?"

It was the answer Merlin most wanted to hear. Only then did she laugh. Not mockingly, not a hollow laugh of disbelief, but a truly pure laugh.

"You're right. Yes, that was a pointless question. You're already doing it."

Merlin exhaled at length. Her expression looked peaceful, as though she had cast something off with that breath. She released the lightless Excalibur she had been gripping tightly.

SPLASH

Excalibur sank beneath the lake.

Watching Excalibur sink, Merlin closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her expression was a little different.

The look of someone who had made a decision.

Rising to her feet, Merlin looked up at the sky. A thousand years until dawn. As though she had decided how to spend those thousand years.

"You're dreaming right now, aren't you?"

Merlin spoke as she walked toward some unknown destination.

"A thousand years in the future, you're dreaming of the past. But to me, this is reality. Though, honestly, dreams and reality aren't all that different to me."

Half fairy living in dreams, half human living in reality, she spoke.

"I've lived with one half in dreams and the other in reality. If either would do, I'd choose both. I've lived greedily like that. But now..."

She walked. Walked and walked.

"Now it's time to choose."

She stopped on a plain. Standing upright on that vast expanse in a corner of the Outer Lands, Merlin turned to Najin.

"I'm going to cast down my twelfth star now."

She reached toward the sky. Her fingertips pointed at the star of Terminus.

"Terminus. I'm someone who has already reached her end. I mustn't deny that. In one way or another, my story needs to end."

When Najin asked why, she answered.

"Because a full stop has to be placed before the next story can begin. To move on, I need to finish the story that came before."

To move to the next sentence, one had to place a full stop. Without it, one couldn't move on. Only by bringing the preceding story to a close could a new story begin.

"So I'm going to place a full stop."

The star of Terminus shone.

"Originally, I was going to end my story here, along with everything else. Close the book."

She smiled bitterly.

"Arthur's request or not, I didn't want to live anymore. I thought there would be no point in living any longer. So I was simply going to die."

"But," Merlin said, "I'm looking forward to traveling with you. If that future will come someday, I think I could live a little longer. Ah, though I'm not sure a thousand years can be called 'a little.' Honestly, it's rather long, isn't it?"

Murmuring those words, Merlin swept back her hair.

"I need to reach an end. I need to discard the star. But I don't want my story to end here. What should I do, then? The answer is surprisingly simple."

Merlin's body grew indistinct.

"Split myself in two."

Into the half that would live on and the half that would choose death.

"Luckily, I have a convenient dividing line."

Merlin pointed to herself with a mischievous smile.

"The me who will live in dreams."

And the other half.

"And the me who will live in reality."

Merlin's body grew indistinct. She divided herself in two. The Merlin who separated from her was the Merlin Najin knew so well. Gently laying her on the ground with her eyes closed, Merlin gave a wistful smile.

"I'm jealous."

"..."

"I'm jealous of the me who'll be with you. When she opens her eyes, she won't know anything, will she? She won't feel anger toward Arthur, disillusionment with the world, or the urge to hang herself this very moment. I'll take all of that with me."

Pure, clear water left after everything bad, murky, and filthy, every bit of sediment at the bottom, had been scooped away.

"How I envy her."

Looking at the self who would therefore be able to enjoy a new journey more wholeheartedly than anyone, who would be able to smile happily, Merlin smiled bitterly.

"Still, there's one thing. Just one thing I'll take with me."

Merlin took a clicking step toward Najin.

"The conversation we had here. The story you told me. I'll take the memories of meeting you. Knowing ahead of time would spoil the fun, wouldn't it? And..."

Bringing her face close to Najin's, Merlin smiled with a child's mischievous delight.

"I ought to have at least one memory like that, too. Wouldn't that be fair?"

"You have a point."

"Yes. Thank you for telling me your story. Thanks to you, I don't think I'll be bored."

One step.

Merlin moved away from Najin. With each step she took, the scenery began to warp. Najin knew what Merlin was about to do.

A star's grave.

Merlin was creating a star's grave. A grave in which she herself would be buried. To bury the star named Terminus—a star closer to a curse.

"..."

With clicking footsteps, Merlin walked on in silence.

Before she could go any farther, Najin spoke.

"Merlin."