Chapter 216 - Black Spire (7)

He awoke from a deep dream.

Najin blinked to clear his blurred vision. After a few blinks, his sight finally returned. A cold, chill floor came into view. He was inside the Black Spire.

He pressed his fingers firmly against his forehead. He must have been dreaming, but he did not want to dismiss what had just happened as some fleeting illusion.

'Merlin said she had lost her memories.'

After Arthur died and she gained her twelfth star, she had experienced some incident and cut away her memories. That was what Merlin had once told Najin.

'Half right.'

And half wrong. Isn't that so?

Merlin had never said those words, yet he somehow felt as though he had heard her voice say them. Najin smiled despite himself.

'She didn't cut away her memories. She split her existence in two.'

Into her fairy self, who lived in dreams, and her human self, who lived in reality.

'All to bury the star of Terminus.'

Najin did not know exactly what the star of Terminus was. But Merlin had described it as “something close to a curse,” a star that would obstruct their journey ahead and had to be buried.

He could not yet understand it, but it was something he would have to discover. Najin steadied his breathing and turned his gaze.

"..."

Merlin was fidgeting there. She stole a glance at Najin with anxious eyes, her lips moving without forming words. As though she had many questions, but was afraid even to ask.

"Merlin."

"Y-yes?"

Najin kept his words to her brief.

"I don't think you need to be so afraid. It wasn't the sort of story you're worried about."

"How do you know what I'm worried about?"

"I mean it wasn't a brutal, horrific, messy sort of story. Quite the opposite, in fact."

Najin repeatedly opened and closed his hand.

"You were originally a prophet, weren't you? You first made your name as a prophet, not a mage."

"That was a very long time ago... but yes, I suppose so. I was famous as a prophet before I met Arthur."

Merlin seemed reluctant as she said it.

That was only natural. She had never particularly liked her future-seeing eyes, and after meeting Arthur, she had all but sealed their power away. Looking into the future had brought her grief more than once.

"Can you still use that ability?"

"No. I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I lost it. I think I lost it along with my twelfth star when I cast it down... Though now that I think about it, that is strange. Why would casting down a star cost me my future sight?"

Merlin tilted her head.

Najin smiled involuntarily at the sight. After all, he knew why she had lost her future sight.

"Wh-what? Why are you smiling?"

"I just think I know."

"Know what?"

"Never mind. Nothing."

"Hey, is that how you're going to play it? You promised back then that we wouldn't keep secrets from each other!"

"What do you mean? I haven't kept any secrets."

Najin replied with a sly, easy air.

"I already discussed all of it with the Merlin of a thousand years ago."

"Whaaat? What on earth did you see?"

As Merlin grabbed his clothes and shook them, Najin let out a long breath.

Just as he had thought, it had not been a dream.

No—even if it had been, that did not matter.

For the Merlin of the past, who had chosen to live in dreams, dreams were reality. Then for him, her companion, all of it was as good as reality too.

"I said our first meeting was the worst," Najin murmured. "I'll have to take that back."

It had not been the worst.

Quite the opposite.

"What on earth did you see? What did you talk about with me in the past? Hey, heeey...!"

"I made a promise."

"What promise?"

"That we'd see each other again."

Let's see each other again.

Those few words had carried a great deal of meaning. When Najin had spoken them, he had been looking not at the Merlin of the present, but at the Merlin of the past.

Let us meet again.

Not now, but in the future.

She had understood the meaning in his gaze and those few words. That was why Merlin had smiled at the end and answered that she would be waiting a thousand years in the future. Remembering her face as she smiled through tears, Najin murmured,

"I'll have to keep that promise."

The City of Eternity.

Now he had a reason he absolutely had to go there.

"Who are you even talking to?"

Of course, for Merlin, who could not follow what was happening, it was maddening. She thumped her chest in frustration as she spoke.

"If that's the promise, haven't you already kept it?"

Merlin stamped her feet and pointed at herself.

"I'm! Standing! Right here! In front of you!"

While Merlin shrieked, Najin let it go in one ear and out the other. As he always did.

"You need to show me some respect."

It took some time to soothe the sulking Merlin, but things were settled at last. Najin looked at the stairs leading to the top of the tower.

Beyond those stairs lay the Black Spire's highest floor.

Anton Quijano's destination, where the lover he had spent four hundred years searching for would be waiting. Yet Anton had stopped with his destination just before him.

"..."

Najin looked at Anton.

Kneeling with his head bowed, Anton was still lost in a dream. He showed no sign of awakening. Najin watched him with a troubled expression.

The farther they climbed, the more exhausted Anton became.

With each higher floor, he took longer to wake from his dreams, and even after awakening, he would stare blankly into space for a long time.

「Ah? Ah. Yes. That's right.」

「I have to climb.」

「I have to climb the tower.」

「Lapis must be waiting...」

As Anton murmured those words, his eyes lacked their usual brightness. They were clouded, hazy, dreamlike. As though drunk on wine, he was growing drunk on dreams.

"There's no way for you to help," Merlin said.

"You can't interfere with Recollection's trial from outside. He has to overcome it alone. That's what makes it so vicious."

Several hours later, Anton finally managed to wake. But that did not mean he had passed the trial.

"Ah..."

Anton groaned as he awoke.

"It was a dream after all."

He gritted his teeth and rose. But the moment he took a step, he fell into a dream again. Only after several hours did he open his eyes once more, and the instant he stepped forward, he slipped back into dreaming.

"..."

Watching him, Najin spoke.

"Wasn't there supposed to be only one trial?"

"There is only one."

Merlin looked at Anton with pity.

"It simply continues without end until he overcomes it."

"Without end?"

"Ultimately, the trial of Recollection laid over this Black Spire demands one thing: choose reality, not the dream."

Merlin pointed at Anton.

"He's trying to wake up, but he probably can't let go of the dream completely. Especially on this floor, which shows him his happiest memories."

He wanted to wake from the dream.

Yet he could not give it up.

"Unless he cuts away one side, he can't move on."

That, Merlin explained, was why Anton fell into a dream the moment he took a step, even after awakening. Najin watched him in silence.

"Lapis, Lapis!"

Anton opened his eyes with a scream and looked around, gasping for breath. Only when his gaze met Najin's did he seem to realize it had been a dream, and he smiled bitterly.

"... How many times has it been now?"

"Seven."

Anton looked behind him to check how far he had walked. Then he turned forward and gauged the distance he still had to go.

"A long way."

Weariness filled Anton's eyes. Yet he forced the corners of his mouth upward and put on a brave front.

"But not too far to reach."

One step. Hours of dreaming.

"For the past four hundred years, I did nothing but walk endlessly, not knowing where to go or where she might be."

One step. Several more hours.

"Compared to that, my destination is right before me now. I can feel her up there. There's truly not much farther to go."

TAP.

"So a trial like this..."

TAP.

"...falls far short of stopping my love."

It took him hours to advance a single step, and days to finish those words. The time Anton needed to awaken from his dreams only grew longer with each step he took.

At first it had been two or three hours, but by his tenth step it exceeded ten hours. By the time he passed twenty steps, he was wandering through dreams for an entire day.

And time in dreams did not match time in reality.

Najin had spent dozens of days with Merlin in his dream, yet only a few hours had passed in reality. He thought the same must hold for the time Anton spent in his dreams.

"..."

About halfway across the final floor, Anton finally stopped.

"Ah..."

He sank to the floor where he stood.

"Just a little..."

He groaned, cradling his face in his hands.

"Just a little. Let me rest for just a little while."

Anton's eyes were hollow with exhaustion.

Pressing his fingers firmly against their corners, he let out a long breath. His exhalation sank heavily.

"This is hard."

The Anton who murmured those words was unlike the man Najin had known until now. The ever-confident Anton, who never once complained of hardship, was gone.

"It's hard. I'm starting to have trouble telling reality from dreams. I'm even wondering whether I need to live in reality at all."

All that remained was a wretched human being.

A man who had wandered for four hundred years in pursuit of a single dream.

"I know. I know I shouldn't. But imagine it, Oarsman."

"Imagine what?"

"When I close my eyes, they unfold before me. Happy memories. Memories of our courtship. From the day I first confessed my love to her to the day she finally took my hand. No, perhaps even beyond that."

Anton groaned.

"In the dream, she's smiling. Smiling happily. Lapis, who spent her entire life hating her own life, hating the world, hating everything, until she didn't even know how to smile properly—she's smiling."

He smiled bitterly.

"When I watch that smile, I find myself wondering whether she's disappointed in me. That's what I think."

Anton's expression was dark as he spoke.

"Disappointed? Why?"

"Because I've taken too long."

"..."

"Four hundred years. Four whole centuries. She disappeared, leaving only the words, 'Find me, Anton.' She must have believed I'd find her quickly."

Four hundred years had passed since then.

"It's far too long. I've been looking away from that fact all this time, but I can't anymore."

"Are you afraid?"

"I hate to admit it, but yes. I'm afraid. I'm afraid that waiting for me all that time might have broken Lapis. That she might hate me. Resent me."

Anton raised his head and looked ahead.

He still had a long way to go. And it was a path no one could walk for him. Even his dependable Oarsman's oar could not row the waters in his stead.

The moment Najin tried to push or pull Anton along, the tower would judge it an “incorrect method.”

Ultimately, Anton had to resolve this himself.

Yet he could not readily take the next step.

"Above all, I'm afraid of myself."

He looked at his hands.

"Waking from the dreams isn't easy. It's taking longer. I'm afraid that if I keep walking like this, I'll fall into a dream for good. That I'll do something foolish and choose to live in dreams."

Anton clenched his fist tight.

"To end up like this with my destination before me. Utterly disgraceful. The lover of the century, collapsing in a place like this."

Anton tried to put on a brave front, but it was halfhearted. He was still afraid to move forward. He hesitated, unable to make up his mind.

"The Black Spire. This tower."

Najin spoke.

"As we climbed, we didn't see the witch named Lapis you were searching for anywhere."

"... No, we didn't."

"She wasn't on the floor showing the most painful memories, or the one showing the most intense memories, or the floors showing horrific, sad, or frightening memories."

Najin listed the floors Anton had crossed.

He was not trying to advise Anton. Nor was he trying to tell him what he should or should not do.

"And finally, here. She isn't on the floor showing the happiest memories either. Only the top floor remains."

"What are you trying to say?"

"It means the witch you're searching for has already climbed to the top. And even after four hundred years, she hasn't come back down."

Just facts. Najin stated objective facts, reminding Anton of something he already knew but had forgotten in his dream-drunk haze.

"You know what that means, don't you?"

"..."

"She chose reality over dreams. And even after four hundred years, that choice hasn't changed. That's what it means, doesn't it?"

Najin did not know much about the witch named Lapis.

But he could tell that she had chosen to live in reality rather than in a sweet dream. That must be what it meant for her to still be waiting at the tower's highest floor after four hundred years.

"What will you do?"

Najin asked the question.

A guide's role was to pose questions. Answering them was the responsibility of the person who would walk the path.

"..."

Anton Quijano remained silent.

With his head bowed, he ran a hand down his face. As he did so, he began to chuckle. At the end of that silence, he answered Najin's question.

"You're cruel, Guide."

"Isn't the reward sweeter the harder the road?"

"That's true."

Anton lifted his head.

"Yes. You're right, Guide."

Gripping his knees tightly, he slowly stood.