[331] A Midwinter Night (2)
Her scant clothing—she looked like she might freeze to death at any moment—was a tasty bit of eye candy for the drunken crowd.
But the woman paid no mind to their stares and kept preaching her warning.
"The end of the world is approaching. This place is dangerous. Everyone, leave the castle ruins at once."
'The end of the world? Where did that come from all of a sudden?'
Dante didn't take her seriously.
Fanatics cropped up around any long-standing ruin—people who got obsessed with some cult and threw their lives away.
The Ice Queen legend itself had been fabricated for the festival, so the claim that the place was dangerous made no sense.
The tourists seemed to think the same; there wasn't a single person listening seriously.
"If it's the end anyway, what difference does it make where we go? If we leave, where are we supposed to go? You don't expect us to go home and die in our nagging wives' arms, do you? Hahaha!"
"Now that you mention it, yeah. That'd be the worst. Miss, if you want attention, stop preaching and put on a dance or something."
The woman was used to that kind of dismissal. Expressionless, she faced them and fired back.
"I am not lying. This is a prophecy from the goddess Akeanis, who governs the melodies of time."
"Akeanis? Never heard of that religion."
"You must believe me! Soon the stirrings of the end will begin here. Everyone will die!"
"Yeah, yeah, okay. I'll believe you — come on, let's go inside and drink. Talk it over with a beer."
When a burly man grabbed her shoulder and tried to pull her toward the tavern, she shoved his hand away with both hands and cried out.
"Don't touch me with those blasphemous hands!"
"Oh ho! What a lady. Don't make a fuss—come on in. I'm no bad man."
The woman reached into the horizontal cylinder slung beneath her pack, pulled something out, and shoved it toward the man's neck.
At first glance it looked like an arrow quiver, but it was actually a thin iron spike about fifty centimeters long.
One end was pointed like an awl, and a small bell dangled from a ring at the other.
Feeling the threat of being stabbed, the big man hastily withdrew his hand and stepped back.
"Goodness, what a temper."
As things escalated, the indifferent tourists grew intrigued and drew closer.
Dante heard the men behind him trading foolish jokes.
"Crazy woman. She looks normal enough though. Hey, how about we take her for a little fun tonight?"
"Don't. Messing with that kind could get you hurt. Who knows what might happen?"
"Still, what a shame. Rare beauty, you know."
Dante studied the woman.
"Akeanis…?"
Even Dante, who was interested in spiritual matters, had never heard the name.
There were thousands of religions in the world; no one could know every deity.
The woman kept repeating the same line like a parrot.
"The end is coming. Leave the old ruins now! Otherwise you will all die. I'm telling the truth!"
"Would leaving actually solve anything?"
The crowd's attention shifted to Dante.
He was the first to take the woman seriously, so he drew even more notice.
Dante stepped forward. "If the end of the world really is coming, there has to be some way to deal with it, right? Running doesn't feel like a real solution."
The woman glanced at Dante, disappointed to find he was just a boy, then turned back to the crowd.
"I am a totemist of the Akeanis order — Totemist Liria. Tonight a spirit-summoning rite will be attempted here. If it fails, it could be dangerous. So please leave this place at once."
Dante's interest perked more at her calling herself a totemist than at being ignored.
Totemists were the ones who performed exorcism rites; the sealing circles they used had much in common with a mage's magic circles.
Because of that, Dante—who specialized in information magic—had at least skimmed the subject of exorcism.
If a mage materialized phenomena through equivalent exchange, a totemist strengthened one aspect of reality through sheer will.
They were similar but distinct.
If a fire had to be put out, a mage might create water. A totemist would strengthen water's will to suppress the will of fire.
They governed the balance of sources.
Totemists called that the Law.
It lacked the razor-like flair of spellcraft, but it could encompass broader, more far-reaching phenomena.
Still, the Law wasn't given much respect because its workings couldn't be proved logically.
Totemists—specifically the white totemists—were those who fought to extinguish the world's evils.
But good and evil were artificial distinctions humans had made since their birth.
How, then, could totemists seal away evil?
Because of that ambiguity, the public dismissed the Law as a pseudo-magic—a derivative form of magic.
"There isn't time! Before tonight ends, leave this place. Your lives are at stake!"
Liria pleaded desperately, but no one moved.
Seeing that no one would budge, Dante stepped closer again.
"Want some help?"
Liria didn't even look at him; she sighed softly.
'Kids these days,' she thought.
She'd run into boys who hit on her while she was out on exorcism duty more than once.
The job itself seemed to pique young people's curiosity.
From his appearance the boy was handsome and stylish—probably had been around. He even had an earring.
'But this time he's picked the wrong one, kiddo,' Liria thought, and glared coldly.
"This isn't something for a child like you to be meddling in. Go home. If you don't want to bring great shame on your parents, leave."
Before Dante could reply, someone in the crowd spoke up.
"Huh? Isn't that Dante? Eirhein Dante—the kingdom's top mage prodigy."
A middle-aged man who supplied magical materials knew Dante's face.
Even people who didn't work as mages but were involved in magic-related trades subscribed to journals. Hundreds of magic tools and devices were developed each year; to sell well you had to know student needs.
"Him? He doesn't look like a mage."
"No, he's still a student. But I heard his skill is something even pros don't mess with."
Mages were mysterious to ordinary people, and the title of the kingdom's best in any field drew attention.
Liria finally changed her expression and looked Dante over.
As a totemist, she understood the magic community much better than the average person; her contempt faded.
"The kingdom's top student, you say?"
Dante made a face and shrugged. "Hmm… nowadays maybe I'm number two."
The supplier remembered that a boy named Shirone had once bested Dante, but nostalgia for champions died slowly—especially for a prodigy who'd once been undefeated. Public interest lingered.
Whether Dante was first or second didn't matter to Liria. What mattered was that he had technical knowledge, and most importantly, he was the first person to treat her seriously.
Dante pointed to the third-floor tavern. "This place is a bit public. Want to go inside and have a drink?"
Liria leveled him with a suspicious look.
Even if he was talented, if he was trying to hit on her, that would be another matter.
"If you're trying to pick me up, find someone else."
"What do you mean, pick up? Why would I help if not?"
"My specialty is magic circles. You'll be handling binding circles, right? I'm curious. It could help my studies."
"Magic circles?"
If the boy's words were true, it could indeed help her work.
And if he really was the kingdom's top prospect, at least among students he should know circles better than anyone.
"All right. Let's go in. But I'm not drinking."
"Suit yourself. One beer's enough for me."
Liria finally shook the snow from her hair and followed Dante into the tavern.
"Damn… swiped by a wet-behind-the-ears kid," muttered one of the young men who had tried to pick her up.
The ruins were a date spot for lovers and a haunt for lonely singles looking for connections. The youths who'd attempted to charm Liria watched the two with envious faces.
* * *
8:00 p.m.
The old ruins were piercingly quiet.
Moonlight slicked over the ice statues.
Even the laughter from shops far away sounded reverent here.
Breaking the night's stillness, two figures nimbly leapt over a collapsed wall and entered the deserted grounds.
Dante's face was serious.
If the tavern rumors were true, the ruins were far from safe.
'She said she can see the future? Is that even possible?'
According to Liria, the head of the Akeanis order was a seventy-year-old woman named Foriter.
She'd possessed the ability to recall future scenes like déjà vu since birth.
As a child there were rumors she was mentally ill; she even suspected herself of grandiose delusions.
But how likely was it that a suddenly remembered future image would match reality by chance?
When she was eighteen she watched the village she had envisioned burn at the hands of bandits—exactly as she had imagined—and realized she could see the future.
She couldn't explain how future events rose in her mind, but she insisted it wasn't ordinary foresight.
Rather, the future came to her like an old memory—sudden and vivid.
"So that woman said a calamity would befall the ruins?"
Liria nodded, trust in her eyes.
"It's not just any disaster. She said an entity would appear that could bring about the end of the world."
"The end of the world, huh. If that's the opponent, we'd be outmatched, right?"
"No. That's why Foriter is remarkable. The future can change. We don't know what sort of calamity it is, but if we deal with it before it manifests, we're fine. You remove the egg before it hatches."
"I see. Do you have a plan?"
"We'll use spirit-conjuring to materialize its aura, then lock it into a binding circle. Its presence is already seeping into this place."
"But will it be easy? What if it's stronger than expected?"
Liria reached into the cylinder at her back, pulled out a spike, and shook her wrist so the bell at the end jingled.
"That's why they dispatched me, a totemist. This totem has an embedded cord of boxwood. If I use it to reinforce the Law, it won't move."
Liria planted a totem into the ground, stepped aside, and pulled out another.
"We were short-handed because the prophecy was sudden. There's more evil in the world than people think. Not just me—most exorcists don't get to go home; they drift across the world."
Using twenty totems, Liria drew a huge circle twenty meters across, then walked to its center.
Dante followed and asked, "I've been wondering—how do you do it? If it's a magic circle that imposes physical constraints, I can design one. But a binding circle isn't like that, right? It only reacts to evil. When something enters, how does it tell whether it's good or evil? What is evil, exactly?"