He Who Forgot (2)
After jotting in the diary for a while, the man snapped it shut with a quiet tap and left it resting on his knees, drawing in a long breath as though bracing himself for sothing.
“Then… Najin?” He looked at Najin and forced a smile of both fear and regret. “I shall see you tomorrow.”
The instant he said it, the final grain of sand in the hourglass slid down with a faint hiss. The upper bulb emptied, and his body went slack. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he did not so much as twitch. He wasn’t dead. A faint breathing could still be heard. It looked like sleep, yet even when Najin shook his shoulder, the man showed no sign of waking.
‘Sothing’s off.’
– Indeed.
By nature, a Transcendent needed no sleep, least of all there in the Outland. Najin was the sa. After living that way for nearly twenty years, he slept only from habit, and even if he skipped an entire month, his body would not suffer.
‘And when I do sleep, an hour or two is plenty…’
That was more than enough to clear fatigue. In a land crawling with dangers, spending long hours asleep was akin to suicide, so one naturally slept less.
Yet the man before him had fallen into a slumber like the dead.
Najin wandered the desert while the man slept and did not awaken until the sun was rising. In the grey of dawn, his eyelids slowly lifted. Eyes so vacant they bordered on hollow, he looked down at the diary in his hands to see two lines written on the cover.
– Turn the hourglass.
– Read pages 1-10 of the diary.
He flipped the hourglass. After the sand began its slow descent, he leafed through the diary one page at a ti. Having finished page 10, he raised his head to Najin. “Do you know ?”
“We spoke briefly last night.”
“I see. Did yesterday’s leave a ssage?”
“He said to open page 781.”
“Seven-eight-one…” muttering the number, the man turned to the page and gave a nod. “Najin. Is that your na?”
“Yes.”
“It says here I am to begin by presenting what is written on page 1. It seems I wished to converse with you.” He handed the diary to Najin.
rlin, seeing that Najin could not read the ancient script, obligingly interpreted.
– I lose my mories every day.
– The ti allotted to lasts from sunrise to sunset. A turn of the hourglass. When the sand runs out, I fall asleep.
– When I wake, I shall rember nothing. Though I write this diary to leave words for myself, the future ‘’ feels like a stranger.
– Even so, I hope…
– that each day will be worthwhile.
Najin’s eyes narrowed. “You an you forget everything each day?”
“Yes. The only mories I keep are how to read and write, and that I must address all people with respect.”
“Respect?”
“Because—I appear to believe—there is nothing in this world that deserves to be called lowly. That is the sole mory I possess.” His face showed no expression as he spoke. After asking Najin to wait a mont, he swiftly read through the diary. His features shifted bit by bit.
“I understand.” When so ti had passed, he closed the book and let out a long breath. “It says I was a knight of Londinel. My epithet was ‘Azure Hydrangea,’ though in earlier days, they called the ‘Azure Spear.’” Though it was his own story, he spoke of it as if it concerned another. “Pleased to et you, Najin.”
Grains of sand whispered down the hourglass. Seeing it, the Azure Spear smiled. “As I said, I lose every mory with each new day. I do not know who I am, nor what I spoke about with you yesterday, but…” He stretched out his hand for a shake. “Allow to introduce myself for the first ti. I am the Azure Spear, Knight of Londinel.”
“Najin. Free Knight Najin.” For Najin, it was their second introduction; for the Azure Spear, the first.
“I have a daily routine that must be kept—commands my forr self left again and again. Will you wait a mont?” That routine was simple: stand in the heart of the desert and swing the spear. He might have lost all mories, but while the spear moved, he did not look like a man who had forgotten anything.
Angle, motion, breath, footwork… Every piece was nigh-perfect—movents even Najin could not easily imitate.
“Did you not say you lose your mories?”
“I do. Each and every day.”
“To my eye, your technique doesn’t look forgotten at all. There isn’t an ounce of waste. You hardly seem to be a man gripping a spear for the first ti.”
“Haha, thank you for saying so, but…” The Azure Spear gave an awkward laugh. “This differs from knowing the forms precisely and recalling them. It feels closer to instinct. The mont I take the spear in hand, I sohow sense how to swing it.”
The mind forgot, but the body rembered. Just as one never forgot how to breathe or stretch a leg to walk, he could not forget how to wield the spear—actions engraved through endless repetition.
Unfurling those actions one by one, he seed to grope for mories that were no longer there. Probing a past that did not exist, he said, “The diary notes that I was a Knight of Londinel, the only one who still knows the ancient spear art that bore the kingdom’s long history. It says that this spear art must not be lost.”
Najin listened in silence.
“Through the tip of my spear, Londinel breathes. The history of a nation hangs upon my spearpoint. If I do not rember, it will vanish. Therefore, I must rember.”
Najin had heard such things sowhere before.
“So I must repeat it again and again, so it is not forgotten, so my body may hold the mory fast.”
Right, he had heard almost the sa from Kirchhoff, the Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom.
“At the point of my blade, Londinel lives and breathes.”
“I am proof that Londinel truly existed.”
Kirchhoff had said that as he swung his sword, trying to prove through steel that Londinel had once been real.
Recalling it, Najin asked carefully, “Do you know Kirchhoff?”
“Yes, it is in the diary. Sir Kirchhoff the False Knight, and yet truer than any knight. Few records remain, but it seems that I held him in high regard.”
“Then Londinel…”
“I know that Londinel fell and that it was erased from history. The diary records that as well.” The Azure Spear exhaled a long breath. “It appears that my forr self, possessed of sound mory and mind, made a decision.”
When Najin asked what decision, he answered, “To devote everything to Londinel. If I could leave even a single line about the land where I was born and raised, I deed life itself a price worth paying. The result is what you see now.” He smiled as he said it. “Seeing that you rember Londinel and know of Sir Kirchhoff, I judge that my choice had worth. I am glad.”
“Do you not regret that choice?”
“Regret? I cannot say. I cannot sympathize with what my forr self felt.”
“Then do you bear no resentnt?”
“That also I do not know. From the entries between pages 100 and 600, it seems I did resent myself.” He opened the book. There, letters had been scrawled so violently the paper was nearly torn, the characters twisted beyond even rlin’s sure reading.
“Perhaps, in those days, I did regret and resent my fate.” He gave a bitter smile. “But the of now feels nothing. Having lost all mory, I can neither resent nor regret. I do not know how. Still, I do wonder.”
“Wonder about what?”
“Whether what I preserved was truly worth so much, and whether my life was worth so little that I could cast it aside.” He could no longer tell what it was he had thrown away. “I must have had a life too.”
The Azure Spear swung his weapon. “There must have been things I treasured, people I cherished, belongings I held dear, mories I never wanted to forget, surely so.” The spear cleaved the air, raising wind that scattered sand. Beneath the blazing desert sun, he swung ceaselessly. “Yet I discarded it all. The of now thinks all that my forr self abandoned was precious.”
He gave a small, rueful laugh. “Though, of course, I do not know what any of it was.”
Najin watched the Azure Spear’s dance of steel and pondered. If a man lost every mory each day, could he still be called the sa person the next day?
‘I’ve t plenty who had lost certain mories.’
The Outland held many such souls. The Forgotten, who no longer knew what they once were, had not lost everything, only scattered fragnts.
Helt Knight was one of those. In the slow drift toward becoming a Forgotten One, Helt Knight had shed mory after mory—his na, his order, even his sword—and at last nearly himself, though Najin had prevented that.
What stood before him might have been one of the endings awaiting Helt Knight: a man who had forgotten all.
To Najin, it seed no different from dying each day and being born anew.
The Azure Spear died every day, and was born again every day. The span granted him lasted only until the sand in the glass ran out—from sunrise to sunset. He spent most of those hours swinging the spear.
In Najin’s eyes, that was…
‘A keepsake. A testant.’
It was the legacy and the will the Azure Spear left behind. When death approached, humans strove to leave sothing—proof they lived, giving their life aning.
“Huff, huff—ha!” Drawing harsh breaths, sweat pouring, the Azure Spear swung under the pitiless sun. Each ti a fist of sand fell from the hourglass, his pupils trembled, as if in fear—fear of death. As though to fight that fear, he brandished the spear.
In the sand, he carved the spear’s path with desperate vigor—marks that would be buried by wind co morning.
‘A man who loses his mories each day…’
The Azure Spear was a mayfly. There was a saying that warriors speak through their chosen weapon. If so, the Azure Spear’s act of swinging his weapon was little different from leaving behind a will that he had ‘lived this day.’
The spear dance was a testant; the diary, a written last will. Thus, he lived one day and died again. Najin thought he understood why the Star of Requiem had pointed him toward the Azure Spear and where the man’s funeral march should lead.
The sun set. The last grain slipped away.
“Then… Azure Spear?” After conversing a while longer, Najin said to him, “I shall see you tomorrow.”
Clutching the Star of Requiem, he rose to his feet.
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