7 – The Eternity of Kaliarya Ignis – 4
The fear that I might have become immortal was about to drag me in the darkness at any time now. While I felt a dangerous omen, depressive days continued. Seeing me like this, Emma seemed very anxious. But maybe she felt I couldn"t say anything, so she didn"t ask and just watched over me.
“……I think it"s really a pity for your father. But there isn"t much I can tell you about.”
In order to put an end to these helpless days, I went to see the soldier who had come to inform us of father"s death. It was said that because he was the second son of a low ranked aristocrat, he didn"t need to inherit the peerage so he joined the army. However, he told me while laughing that he never had the resolve to become a soldier and it only happened because he didn"t have any other choice. He made light of it and said that even if he had to head for the frontlines, he used to think he"ll probably never lose his life. I think he was overly optimistic, but strangely I was also convinced people like him also existed. Maybe he guessed what I was thinking, but his wrinkled eyes softened. “I"m always told I don"t think about anything.” Maybe it was truly the case. Because he welcomed me, who abruptly came without a prior appointment, just based on the fact I was that man"s son. “You"ve grown up a lot,” he beckoned me in while making a somewhat nostalgic expression that was awfully impressive. Partly because I had grown up and partly because it had been several years since the last time I met him, I felt he had become older. That man who had retired from the army after being injured in the legs explained he didn"t need the help of a cane if it was just to walk a bit around, but while he said so he sat down on a chair, moving very slowly. As could be seen, he looked quite st.u.r.dy. Once sat down, he looked like the very picture of health itself. Just as I was absentmindedly observing his gesture, he sighed and said, “…That"s not good, not good. I"ve strayed from our talk.”
“The truth is, you see. There is something I never said to anyone.”
He was probably living alone, for his house became as silent as death. There seemed to be several other rooms to welcome guests like the one I had been invited to, but there was no sound at all. There was not a single shadow to be seen, and the house that was too big for someone living by himself was completely silent. Seeing me looking all around, the man laughed, “It"s a compensation.” It seemed you may be given a house if you served the country for a long time.
“Now then, about your father… no, about your dad.”
I didn"t know why he reformulated his sentence. But there might not have been any meaning behind it.
“…Ye yes.”
Not minding my awkward nod, he started to tell me there were many things he didn"t understand about father"s last moments.
“It"s said he was killed in action, but that"s not entirely true.”
“……..eh?”
This sudden confession took me by surprise and I lost my words. When I stared fixedly at his face, the man bowed his head, “I am sorry.” I couldn"t grasp what he was apologizing for and sank in silence. Then he followed by, “I am sorry for lying about him being killed in battle.”
“At that time when I informed you of your father"s death… , I, it"s not that I meant to lie to you. But, since the real cause of his death was what you"d call a state"s secret, I didn"t dare say it.”
“…”
His deep sight echoed in the silent room.
“Your father was…. he was dispatched by the country and seemed to be doing some kind of research. I didn"t know what it was about though. Even on the battlefield he carried with him a bulky stack of doc.u.ments on magic. He was clutching his pen while frowning and making a serious expression.”
“… Really…”
I heard from the people around me that father was pa.s.sionate about his research, so I felt such a thing was highly possible. It"s just that I couldn"t imagine father"s figure, still holding his pen even on the battlefield. It almost seemed like a surreal story, like the one you"d hear in a fairy-tale. That"s also how far, how distant, father"s existence seemed to me.
“I think it happened… the day before your father died. I was told he had something he wanted to talk about.”
The man blinked several times before heaving one long sigh. His gaze that had wandered to the landscape outside the window seemed to be looking at something far away. Was he recalling what happened at that time?
“I remember him saying he would step into an unknown territory and how he wanted to complete a magic no one had been able to finish until now. But for me, it was all gibberish and I didn"t understand anything. But he seemed very happy.”
He told me all that in a corner of the battlefield, quietly whispering everything into my ears, explained the man. I wonder if father trusted him a lot. Although it seemed he didn"t talk about the content of his research, it still looked like father had been quite frank with him. I think it was quite difficult to catch an expression of joy on the face of this father of mine who was so lacking in the emotion department.
“……Do you know what kind of magic your father was researching?”
His gaze had come back to the present and was peering at me. He was wearing a stern expression but his eyelashes above his almond eyes were unexpectedly long.
“…I"ve reached a conjecture. But I don"t have any evidence.”
“Is that so. So that"s why you came here.”
When I nodded, his line of sigh once again moved away from my face. Surely, he thought I came here to investigate on father"s research and that I wouldn"t ask about anything else. Then, after a little while, he broke the silence.
“When I…. I couldn"t forget the time when I informed you of your father"s death.”
His voice was calm But, it was somewhat lonely and a bit shaken. Unconsciously, I pressed down on my chest. It wasn"t like my own chest was hurting, yet I couldn"t help but do that. Because that man with winkles between his eyebrows seemed to be suffering. I might have been lured by that.
“It was my first time informing a family of someone"s death. If you"re in the army, you"ll have to experience that a couple of times. That sort of thing… I think it"s the same for everyone else, but I"m not good at it.”
“… Yes, that"s probably true.”
“Oh”
I never experienced the same things as him, but I felt I could understand what he meant. There were few people who could kept their composure while seeing someone fall into despair.
“But I thought I had to tell you myself. That was the responsibility a.s.signed to me.”
“Responsibility?”
“Yes. It was my duty as the person who had witness his death.”
My fingers twitched. I intended to be fully prepared, but it was hard to stay calm. My nervousness was surely transmitted to him as we were sitting face to face. The air flowing between the two of us became denser, as if the oxygen was s.n.a.t.c.hed away. Our breathing seemed to accelerate.
We were drawing near the thing I wanted to know the most. I vaguely thought so.
“It was raining that day. We weren"t on the battlefield, but even then, it wasn"t a place where time flew peacefully and uneventfully. When I close my eyes, I remember the fireb.a.l.l.s that came flying at us from the enemy camp. Despite the rain, the ground was still died red. It was probably due to a spell but… it was quite strange, seeing the flames swimming through the air like this.”
Well, today"s talk is not about this, he cleared his throat.
“The army"s headquarters were set up in a different place, we were camping. We spent many days outside, I guess that was the most tiring time of my life. Several persons stayed awake to keep watch while we took a nap to get rid of our tiredness. …… That"s where your father appeared.”
Then, the man quietly narrated that father had called him out and took him to a place a bit away from the campsite. In the depths of this thick and deep wood where not a single light reached, it was so dark he had to fumble around to walk. “The place he guided me to was a cave,” whispered the man. The ambiance in the room made it looks like right now, father was here, walking in front of him. I looked up at his face while rubbing my arms a.s.sailed by gooseb.u.mps. Even though he was sitting like me, his gaze was looking at something way above my head.
“As if it was floating in the dark, a strange magic square filled that cave to the brim. I didn"t know what these symbols meant, and I probably never will. When the h.e.l.l did he find the time to prepare this…”
It was beautiful, he said, letting his real thought slip. But that"s true, it was certainly like he said. Father"s magic square was like a bold and gorgeous picture. If I had seen father"s magic square from afar, then I would also have thought so. It was like how a mathematician would get entranced in mathematic formula. Magicians too, would be captivated by a completed magic square.
“He told me he wanted me to ascertain the completed magic square with my own eyes. Because he needed a witness. Someone must attest that it wasn"t a fraud. He needed all these precautions because it was such an incredible magic.”
The man cut his words here and seemed to catch his breath a bit. I saw his mainly Adam"s apple goes up and down as he swallowed.
“He said a long, long incantation. I was watching it from a little afar. Because he told me to absolutely never step on the magic formation.”
In one blink, that time when the symbols painted on the floor hurled up came back to my mind. I didn"t have the option to escape. Inside this room I had been forcibly pushed in, I trembled, yelled and screamed in terror. The door didn"t open when I cried. The spell echoing from its other side sounded just like a curse. Whenever I remember that time, my fingers tremble.
“On the other side of that strong light, I saw your father for the last time. Unconsciously, I stretched my hand toward him… I think he was also reaching out for me, perhaps.”
“Reaching out…”
“Yes. … It almost looked like, he was asking for help.”
“… Asking for….?”
As I was mindlessly throwing appropriated words in the conversation with a hoa.r.s.e voice, the man conscientiously answered every single one of them with a pained expression, as if he was looking at something pitiful.
“Surely, something outside his expectations must have occurred. That"s what I thought at that time…. That his magic, had failed….”
A silence so still that it made me thought every sound had been removed from the world fell upon us. In front of me, the lips of the man narrating the events of that day seemed to be properly moving. But my ears simply couldn"t properly catch his words. my brain was not functioning properly. That were the sensation I felt. Even though I understood the words p.r.o.nounced by this man, an awful lot of time was needed for it. The noise I made when gulping down violently resounded in my ears.
“Your father turned into sand and disappear.”
The man said that at the very last moment, their fingers touched. He said it felt like grasping a lump of sand.
“…. Somewhere… Somewhere… wasn"t he transferred somewhere…?”
I knew that my lips were s.h.i.+vering miserably. Rather, they had surely lost all colors and turned pale. When I unintentionally dropped my gaze, I saw that on my laps my hands closed in a fist were shaking to the point I couldn"t suppress it. My throat felt strangled, speaking hurt.
“That"s not it. It"s… different. The core of the matter is different. This is probably, something only the person who saw his last moments can understand, but…… Your father was… surely, at that moment… he died in front of my eyes.”
He turned into sand, crumbled, and disappeared.
As he said so, his voice became hoa.r.s.e and stopped. As if saying it was so painful it was unbearable. Then, he muttered, “I couldn"t…. save him…” Some sort of weight could be heard in his voice. I though how he must have always been agonizing over that fact. When I reflexively told him, “You"ve done nothing wrong,” he blinked several times, then he quietly bowed down his head.
“It wasn"t my first time seeing someone die in front of me. At that time, many of my comrades died…. But, not being able to bring back the decease"s memento, it only happened for your father.”
At the very least, I wanted to bring back to his house something that belonged to him, he continued, shaking his head rather exaggeratedly. Then he started to say something. But my mind was completely blank, words floated up but wouldn"t register. Did he sense my emotions, or did he not? The man who had witnessed father"s last moment suddenly rose his head and stared at my face. And he showed me a frail smile, “You resemble your father.” His expression didn"t suit his stern face. Perhaps, he missed father.
It must be his imagination that I look like father. Our eyes and hairs were of the same color, but our features were completely different. Nevertheless, somewhere in me, he saw my father. Then, I want him to tell me. Tell me what, the father living in me is saying? Isn"t he trying to convey something to me?
Please, tell me.
What should I do?
*
*
And so, what did I do after this? … … To speak frankly, I didn"t do anything. Pretending to be calm and composed, I returned to my never changing peaceful life. I worked as a contracted magician and Emma also received request as a doll maker. We both completed our jobs, we took our meals together, laughed and talked about things that didn"t matter, and went to sleep together. From a third party"s point of vu, we looked like a common couple you could find anywhere. That was an everyday life where we were pursuing a modest happiness. I didn"t want to lose such days. I was scared, I was terrified. A very important question was hanging in my head. Despite all the alarms bells ringing in my mind, should I tell everything to Emma?
……But change made a sudden irruption one day. Regardless of my will. One day we decided to go to the park for a walk, something we hadn"t done in a while, and so we left the estate, just the two of us. It happened on a peaceful early afternoon.
The park we had headed for together was near the manor, it was a place of relaxion anyone could use regardless of social status. Therefore, it was habitually very crowed. No one minded the fact young children were screaming while making merry, on the contrary it wasn"t a problem even if they run around everywhere, it was mostly a place for families. Other than families, you could see pairs of girls and boys, probably lovers, walking around while cuddling together, or a few people who looked like friends having a joyful chat. Somehow when I observed this scenery, my mind calmed down. When I looked around, I discovered that the huge water fountain was surrounded by a beautifully arranged garden, probably trimmed by someone. No matter how long I looked at it I never grew tired of it. The seasonal flowers which were fully blooming colorfully at that time looked overwhelming. We were walking in the middle of them, side by side. We slowly wandered around the garden, intermittently talking about this and that. The sunlight was neither too strong nor too weak. The soft light that was warping us felt very pleasant. Our lightly entangled fingers nevertheless had some strength in them and it felt like they simply wouldn"t get separated.
“Rya?”
Sometimes, Emma called me for no reason. When I tilted my head, she would smile. Did she have something she wanted to say, or not? I couldn"t tell. Still, Emma"s face looked quite gentle and calm. I wonder if she also remembered about that time in the bedroom when I was feeling down. Since then, Emma seemed to have been attentively observing me. Her eyes seemed to be accompanied by a piercing sharpness. It felt a little uncomfortable. I noticed she was worried. But I had no confidence I could explain the situation I had been put in well.
Eventually, from a nearby church the sound of the bell informing it was noon rang out. “Should we take a little rest?” I agreed to her proposal and sat down on a nearby bench alongside her. From the basket Emma had taken along with her, she took out the light meal prepared by the servants. It consisted of fruits, sandwiches and drinks. As I gazed at her, she gently smiled and took a fruit. Then with her white fingers she skillfully handled the knife and peeled it. Because she was a puppeteer she was very handy. Sill, I knew she had practiced to peel fruit. Recently her favorite phrase was “I want to live in a smaller house.” Once day, let"s leave the mansion together, she said. Then, let"s live without hiring servants, just the two of us, just our family. For me who had an aristocratic rank, living like this would pose a problem of reputation and appearance and would be quite difficult. But personally, I didn"t take any pride in being a n.o.ble in the first place and I became to think that her proposal might not be bad. She was trying to learn how to cook in order to back me and support me. She went to the estate"s kitchen by her own initiative, asking the chef to teach her. If one day we"ll live together just the two of us, we"ll have to be able to do everything by ourselves. Her serious gaze was telling me of her resolve.
I was happy. I was truly, very happy, helplessly happy. That"s why, I thought that if I had to tell her everything, then now was the time. If I miss this opportunity, there won"t be a next one. Making up my mind, I opened my mouth. At that moment.
“……Rya.”
She called me with a strange voice. It sounded as if she was spatting out words in a gasp. It made me think she was suffocating.
“… Rya! Rya!!”
I heard a screaming voice just next to me. Wondering what the h.e.l.l happened I looked at Emma and noticed her lips were trembling in fear. Then, when I followed her line of sight, I also gasped.
“… This…what is this…”
I was so upset I didn"t even know if it was me who whispered these words or not. It"s strange that I did not scream.
… The fingers of my right hand were falling apart.
Emma grabbed my right elbow. Then with her other hand, she seized my falling fingers through the air. From her slender fingers, something looking like sand spilled out. It did not take me long to realize this “something” had the shape of my fingers. “No! No!... Oh G.o.d no! What the h.e.l.l is this...!” Both Emma and I were thrown in chaos. Contrary to me who was half stuck in a daze, she right away started to gather the broken pieces of me. Even though we didn"t understand very well what they were. Soon, the palm of my hand collapsed. My arm made a crumbling noise. At that time, Emma made an especially loud gasping sound, her mouth opened wide.
I thought she probably wanted to shout.
There were many people around us. No one had noticed what had happened to me. Glued together, Emma and I must have surely looked like a tacky couple. Instinctively, I pressed my left hand on her lips. She was taller than me, but maybe due to our gender, my hand was larger. One was enough to cover her mouth. Emma opened her eyes wide and looked at me. Fright, confusion and fear, various emotions were mixed in them.
“Don"t scream.”
An unreliable voice, like the voice of a young child, leaked out from my lips. Maybe she even forgot blink but her eyes had become dry. In her iris, my face was reflected.
“Please, do not scream.”
My trembling voice scattered in the calm air. Emma"s face gradually lost its colors and I found out she was quivering. Her pinched lips were moving a little as if they were writhing. Ah, no, that"s not it. The one who was shaking, was me. Even though the soft sunlight was s.h.i.+ning on us, I felt helplessly cold. I thought that maybe, blood was flowing from my lost right arm. But at the same time, I clearly understood it wasn"t the case. Even though I had abruptly lost my arm… there was no pain. Rather than pain, I wasn"t feeling anything, to an extend that could make me start to doubt if I even had a sense of pain in the first place. It wasn"t a sensation of paralysis, it felt more like I never had a right arm to begin with. It was to the point that despite having lost my right arm…… there was no sense of discomfort.
“…”
While still covering Emma"s mouth, I stared at her at a distance close enough for our eyelids to touch. By doing that, I noticed her throat was twitching. Because I was using too much force to press down her lips, she couldn"t breathe. In a panic, I distanced my hand and she inhaled some air quickly, making a wheezing sound. Still, it seemed she couldn"t quite steady her breathe. She coughed violently while pressing down her hands on her chest.
“So-sorry, Emma…!”
Seeing her about to collapse on the bench I tried to support her with my hand, but I gasped in surprise. The arm that should be here to support her was gone. Instinctively, I grasped the sleeve of my right arm with my left hand. I wasn"t conscious of it, but I did this action to confirm how much of my arm was missing. In front of Emma who was breathing in pain, my attention was distracted by my lost arm. Even though I almost choke the life out of her.
“… Why?”
I didn"t know which one of us asked that. When she finally rose her face, tears dropped down. Were there physiological tears because she had cough violently? Or were they due to her emotion overflowing? Maybe, both were right. Emma"s completely pale face distorted greatly as she whispered “Why?” “Why did you do that?” “Why did it become like this?” “Why?” “Why?” She hadn"t spoken these questions but I could hear them because her indecisive and shaking eyes were staring at me, trying to see through me. Then, with her quivering fingers, she traced the contours of my face. They were trembling so much, it was impossible to hide it. Without thinking, I tried to grab her hand. Again, I had to realize my right hand was gone.
“Where did it go…? Your right hand… where?” asked Emma while stirring up my right sleeve. But the thing that should have been here, wasn"t.
“Is it some kind of magic? Are you trying to surprise me? It"s just a prank, right?”
Tears blurred her shaking pupils. It"s just that, isn"t it? Her voice asking for my confirmation seemed to already know the answer. Her face that was staring at me was painted in the color of fear. If someone"s arm were to disappear in front of your eyes, it"d be natural to feel shaken. That"s even more the case if that person was your husband. Probably no one could remain calm.
“Rya…”
In her whispering voice, I heard confusion, fear and a pressing feeling of urgency as she implored me. Then the next moment, she vigorously stood up and tried to call for help, “So-someone…” I jumped on my feet and embraced her. My left arm warped around her waist. With little strength I managed to pull her back to the bench. I strongly, strongly hug her as she struggled with reluctance. As a replacement for my lost arm I put strength in my upper body to seal her movement even though she was as tall as me.
What kind of help does she want to seek? Who does she want to ask?
The person who had been asked for help that way, what kind of gaze will he stare at me with? To put it simply, I think he will be afraid. I could imagine how I, who didn"t lose blood despite losing an arm, will look in the eyes of others. Emma who was half collapsed stared at me at point-blank range. She had the expression of someone who had witnessed something impossible, but anyone who had seen me would probably make the same expression. After all, even I couldn"t believe what happened to me. An annoying noise was ringing behind my ear. When I tried to check what it was, I realized it was the sound of my pulse.
“……Something… do you know something?”
How much time pa.s.sed before Emma came to ask me that question?
“Hey, Rya. Why did it become like this? Do you know, something?”
She seemed to have recovered a bit and this time when she repeated her question, her tone of voice was quite different from earlier. Suddenly by accident, the remains of a fruit rolled at my feet and entered my vision. Emma or me, one of us, seemed to have crushed it under our feet. The red flesh of the fruit had scattered.
In my ears, the words of that former soldier replayed. “Your father turned into sand and disappear.”
………He turned into sand, crumbled, and disappeared.
Nota"s sadness:
I wanted to know what happens next, so I read next chapter…… this author is too horrible. I"m gonna play video games. Don"t look for me……. *Depressed*