Romanticist (2)
Najin had always had a flair for finding people. It wasn’t empty bragging when he told Anton Quixano how confident he was about that kind of work.
Ever since he was old enough to think straight and carry a blade in hand, his very first job had been tracking people down. He had hunted the guy who stole the money, the traitor, the one who went to ground—and made them pay.
True, all of it had played out inside the limited stage of the Underground City, but people were people wherever you went.
‘Man, a postman’s outfit would be perfect right now.’
Najin smacked his lips. Thinking back on those underground days reminded him of the uniform he never forgot to wear on a job. Just as knights suit up in armor and chefs put on a hat and apron, Najin used to shoulder a postman’s satchel and pull his cap low before starting work.
With nothing better, he loosened the collar of his Free Knight garb and cleared his throat a few tis. “So… who exactly is it you want found?” Step one: Collect information. “Tell everything—appearance, hideouts, anything. Start with what you know, first off.”
“You’re surprisingly professional at this.” Anton folded his arms and let out a small laugh. “I’m after a woman who vanished about four hundred years ago. Precisely four hundred twenty-seven years, seven months, and twenty-one days.”
“What was she to you?”
“Sothing hot. One-sided in so ways, though, she poked a hole in my heart. I was the one with the hole, mind you. She was one fiery woman.”
“So… enemies?”
“What a nasty way to put it! I told you, it was passionate. She played hard to get at first, but after I confessed a few dozen tis, she said yes.”
“How many confessions are we talking?”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Not really. I’m just curious.”
“Honesty, hmm. Let’s see, more than fifty, but fewer than a hundred.”
Najin’s face twisted. “At that point, she probably accepted just to get rid of you.”
“My feelings got through. That’s all.”
“Anyway, so you were lovers?”
“More or less. She did leave the very next morning, after one blazing night together. I stake my honor and manly pride on saying she did not leave because the night disappointed her. For both of us, it was the best night ever.” Anton stroked his finely trimd beard and let out a long breath. “External factors made her leave.”
“External factors?”
“I’d say public opinion, but neither of us cared about that. In this case, the obstacle was her parent: a real tigress of a mother-in-law.”
A mother-in-law? Parental opposition? Najin’s expression grew even stranger. He felt he had read sothing like that before, probably in one of the romance novels Dieta had quietly slipped between the books she’d lent him.
“Y-You read that? Why was it even there?”
“Uh, it was just… in the stack.”
“I—I an, I didn’t pick that one myself, okay? I told the staff to bring books, and they must have grabbed that too?”
The image of Dieta babbling with her face beet-red flickered across Najin’s mind.
“Anton, aren’t you a Transcendent?”
“Sure am.”
“And the lady?”
“She was a Transcendent, too. Had to be, to punch a hole in my heart.”
“Do parents normally ddle in Transcendents’ love lives? Was the mother a Transcendent as well?”
“Oh, she’s a Transcendent all right. The strongest one in the world, in fact.”
What was he talking about? Najin tilted his head. “The strongest in the world? taphorically? Parents get strong for their kids and all that…”
“No taphor. Literal fact. I doubt there’s any maternal love between those two.”
“Just who are we talking about?”
“A witch.”
The word “witch” sent a chill racing up Najin’s spine through no will of his own—it was rlin’s feelings leaking through their link. The wizard had several raw nerves, and witches were one of them. She exhaled slowly and boxed the emotion away. Or tried to, anyway.
Anton’s next words blew that attempt to pieces.
“The Witch of Camlann.”
Thump—Najin’s heart pounded. The emotions pouring from rlin were too strong.
Unaware, Anton shrugged. “All witches follow a single unwritten law.” He clicked his tongue. “Never get involved with a human. My lover broke that law, so the Witch of Camlann, mother of all witches, you might say, rained down divine punishnt. Bloody nuisance, too.”
Anton Quixano called himself a romanticist and the lover of the age, but the world had another na for him…
“Ah, I forgot to ntion this. The woman I love is a witch—Lapis, the Witch of Distrust.”
The knight who loved a witch—the fool who broke a taboo because love blinded him.
“She was one hell of a firecracker.”
One of only three such idiots in human history stroked his beard and laughed.
Najin’s face knotted with conflicting feelings.
Dating a witch? The witches he knew spent their lives dreaming up sensational ways to burn humans. Their whole species existed solely to kill people, didn’t they?
“What, does that sound strange?”
“It feels rude to say, but yes. Very strange.”
“I get it. I thought the sa before I t her. A witch? Just a pyromaniac who feels ecstasy burning humans, right? Not entirely wrong, either. I still think that, to be honest.” Anton snickered. “I didn’t fall in love with a witch. That label just ca along for the ride. I didn’t love Lapis because she was a witch—I loved her, and it just so happened she was one.”
“So you didn’t know she was a witch when you t?”
“No, I knew from the first eting.”
Najin’s silence said everything.
“Listen, boy. That’s how love works. Truly love soone, and every other detail becos secondary. That’s what Lapis was to .”
It didn’t quite convince him, but the story would stall otherwise, so Najin nodded. “Any other clues?”
“Plenty. It’s not like I spent four hundred years tending a flower garden.” Anton drew a short breath. “The Quelll Gorge. Lake Galid. The Osgal Ruins. The Great Horin Forest. Weibell Falls. Daunon Canyon. The Stars’ Graveyard. The Battlefield of Stars. The Bedad Grand Ruins…” Countless nas of valleys, ruins, and canyons poured out. After several dozen minutes of listing places, Anton added, “Those are everywhere I’ve combed through these four centuries.”
Najin raised an eyebrow. That didn’t help.
“I’ve checked every plausible spot and found no trace. She’s definitely sowhere in the Outland, but I’m out of leads.”
“At that point—” Najin was about to say, ‘Isn’t she dead?’.
Anton cut him off. “She’s alive. That’s certain. My heart is still beating. Don’t you dare say she’s dead in front of .” His gaze was razor-sharp, almost icy. He relaxed and cracked a roguish grin. “Anyway, that’s the deal. Honestly, I don’t expect much from you. If I couldn’t find her in four centuries of ransacking the Outland, then you’re hardly going to succeed.”
“We’ll only know once we try.”
“Confidence… I like it. Fine. Here’s a hint: she always used to say this.” Murmuring, Anton began to sing, “Oh, Anton. Anton, lower than a mutt. If I ever leave you soday, odds are it’ll be because I’m tired of you. Because I’m a woman whose heart is wider than the sea, if you co looking for , I might be interested one more ti. Since your sense for reading the room is worse than a flea’s, let spell it out: I like watching the sun, especially from soplace very high up. Got that? If you got it, nod before I bite those lips of yours.”
“Hmm.” Definitely fiery. First, Najin extracted the useful parts of Anton’s song and organized them. “So the clues are: a place with a clear view of the sun, and at a great height.”
“Exactly.”
“On the main continent, there are countless such places, but in the Outland, that really narrows it down.” In the Outland, places where you could actually see the sun were rare. The location was limited, but that still was not enough.
Inwardly, Najin spoke to rlin. ‘Got anything, rlin?’
– I do. Lots. So much I’m not sure where to start.
She didn’t sound pleased.
– Do you know my nickna?
‘The Great Archmage?’
– Not that one.
‘Arthur’s guide.’
– Try again.
rlin sighed.
– The Witch-Slayer. The one who’s killed more witches than anyone in history. Between those I killed outright and those I left half-crippled, the number is in the triple digits.
Imperial history glazed over the matter with a single line: “The Archmage rlin despised witches and demons and purged them.” rlin unpacked everything compressed into that sentence.
– There was a ti I smashed their circles, burned them alive, drowned them, chopped them up, and tried every way to wipe out the witch-breed… I learned a lot about witches then. I do rember that ‘Witch of Distrust’ he ntioned.
With a face like she’d bitten into a bug, rlin grumbled,
– Don’t rember her na, but that’s probably her. Ask him whether that Lapis has a long scar across her chest.
“That Lapis. Does she have a long scar on her chest?”
Anton’s eyes went wide. “How do you know that? Did you et her? Wait… then you saw my woman’s chest… Should I rejoice at the lead or rage that another man saw her chest?”
“I never actually saw it, so you can stop agonizing.”
“Oh, thank goodness.”
Najin relayed the answer to rlin, and she nodded.
– Then that’s her. I have t that witch. Long story, but she’s one I let live.
‘Really?’
– I hate to admit it—really hate it—but I do have a way to find her.
‘What?’ Najin’s eyes widened. When he had told Anton he had an excellent guide, he hadn’t expected much from rlin. ‘At most she’d just…’ Anton was a man from four centuries past. Najin figured the wizard would only consult her encyclopedic mory of those tis.
– You’re thinking sothing quite rude right now.
‘I was just realizing again how great you are, rlin.’
– Really?
‘The Great Archmage. The most capable guide in history. Always showing the way…’
rlin would die of embarrassnt when Najin recited his own achievents, but she felt no sha at all when hers were praised.
– Heh-heh.
Laughing, chin tilted as if to say keep going, she finally nodded, arms folded.
– Fine, then. Since I’m the Great Archmage and the most talented guide, I’ll show the way, just keep up!
“You’re serious?”
“That’s what I want to ask my guide. Are you serious right now?”
“Where is this guide of yours?”
“Inside .”
“Are you insane?”
rlin pointed the way.
Najin, who had been striding off grandly saying, “Just follow ,” had no choice but to stop. He and Anton stood still, staring ahead.
“You want us to cross that?” Anton pointed. A vast lake—or really, a sea—spread before them. That sea churned with whirlpools. Lightning flashed—astonishingly—from the water up into the sky. Jagged reefs stabbed upward like awls only to sink back beneath the waves…
Oooooooh!
Deep-sea beasts large enough to swallow a castle whole flaunted their size as they cruised across the surface. Watching them, Najin looked to rlin. rlin tilted her head, all innocence, eting his gaze.
– What?
‘We have to cross this?’
– Yup. Seems to be on the far side.
Najin followed the line of rlin’s finger. She was pointing beyond the sea.
“Good grief.”
‘Bloody hell.’
He smacked his own forehead with a thud.
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