“Time marcheth on; nay, mayhap we are the travelers.” Bee’s voice, usually full of cheer, now took on a deep and mournful quality, the words carrying clearly through the night air. “The veritably strong, even the ingenious sage and holy maiden—they too perish alike with the turns of the moon, ’til nary a thing save for ash and a name endures...”
The sounds of the strings echoed through the air.
They had survived.
“Wherefore let the melody play strong, praying meanwhile that their deeds be everlasting, their heroic names echo down the ages.”
The sound of her voice was creating an indescribable sense of excitement inside me.
They had survived.
“Tonight I speak of the Killing of the Wyvern, but one of the many deeds of the Three Heroes...” Bee smiled at me. “Everyone, if I may have your silence and attention.”
They had survived! Their names, even now, still survived!
In the small, dusty, and poorly lit shrine, the rebec’s melody echoed out with the crackling of the campfire.
After her prologue, Bee spoke masterfully about the heroes that would feature in the story. I was in a trance, almost as if I was floating on air. I felt such pride, such happiness... I had such fond memories of those days.
“The first, a child born in the south, in a remote settlement of savages. As he raised his first cry, a star fell from Leo, so it is told. The child grew and grew strong, and departed for parts unknown with his demonblade tempered by a shooting star. Known as the Lion, Star Sword, the Hired Blade, the Gods’ Gift to Warfare... this man was Blood, the War Ogre. His path was the course of a raging blood storm, and his shouts of victory boomed forth like the roars of a lion.”
My heart was dancing. Damn you, Blood, you didn’t speak about yourself at all. So that was the history behind that sword...
“In the islands of Middle-Sea was an infant with a gift: a natural affinity with Words. Bandits attacked his homeland; thereupon he confounded them with fog, and repelled them. The wise men of the time invited that child prodigy to their place of education. He leaped up the ranks thereof, two at a time. Yet soon he stood down from his position, and spake his immortal words: ‘There is no truth in academia.’ The Wild Wanderer, the Unrecognized Great Mind, the Torrent, the Culture Connoisseur—these are the names of Gus, the Wandering Sage. His true name unknown to the world, who knows now the depths of his mind and heart?”
No one knew the name Augustus? Come to think of it, Gus had said that some sorcerers, being users of the Words, thought that names were Words of power themselves, and so concealed their own, and went by only a nickname or an initial. I guessed that the reason he’d so readily told me his real name was that he’d stopped being cautious about it after he died.
“Whence hailed the woman? Perchance a shamanic noblewoman of our own land; perchance the princess of a land afar. Or it may have been that a constellation of fresh-verdure spirits coalesced and formed her sparkling eyes of emerald, and the resplendency of the heavens solidified and became her flowing, golden hair. Whencesoever she arose, how can we doubt that in such a divine form dwelt the soul of a goddess? The Saint of the South, the Unmercenary Maiden Martyr, the Bringer of Blessings, the Dainty Flower... Mary, known also as Mater’s Daughter. Her white and merciful hands, to which even fierce beasts bowed their heads, were the brilliant light that pierced through the darkness.”
It seemed that Mary’s history was unknown, and she was speculated as being of noble birth. I had to agree that her dignified style brought that kind of thing to mind, but if Mary had said to me, “Oh, it’s nothing like that. I was born in a poor little hamlet!” I’d easily have been able to see that, too.
After all, Mary loved puttering around in the garden, sowing flower seeds. And once spring came, even the garden beside that temple would burgeon with blossoms...
“Long past now are those bygone days...”
Their voices, their faces, their words—they filled the inside of my mind, and I felt tears starting to come to my eyes.
“Ahh, memories and feelings as numerous as the stars: if thou hast no way home, I can but play thee loud, and carry thee on the blowing winds...”
The tale began.
Blood had apparently once been a wandering sword for hire. The Union Age was mostly a time of peace, but even then, there had been a lot of fighting in outlying areas like this, against goblins, beasts, and other humans. Blood was one of those ruffians full of fight, earning his money by risking his life sticking his neck into all kinds of conflicts.
Come to think of it, I remembered him once giving me a suspiciously detailed lecture on the secrets to staying out of trouble when selling your sword skills. That must have referred to this.
And one day, a certain incident led Blood to meet Gus, and they resolved that problem together. The barbaric swordsman learned of the way of the wise man, and learned to rein in his wild nature and add the sharpness of intelligence to his blade—or so Bee’s story went. But if they were the same back then as when I had known them, I could see Gus as the admittedly intelligent loose cannon, and Blood as the one with a surprising amount of common sense who followed after him, astounded by but used to the wizard’s antics.
Their free-roaming journey continued, and one day, Mary entered the picture. Where that happened and what brought them together were apparently shrouded in mystery, but it was known that Mary established herself within the party as a surprising source of strength and decisiveness—yeah, I could imagine that—and the three, their abilities and personalities now balanced, built up a name for themselves as heroes of the hinterlands.
With that introduction out of the way, Bee began her recital of the story proper, saying that it was just one of their many deeds. It had occurred near some remote villages, and there had been a monster in the nearby mountains: a wyvern.
Wyverns were winged demidragons capable of flight, although if I remembered Gus’s lectures correctly, it was the subject of academic debate whether to categorize them as demidragons or beasts. Although wyverns breathed fire like dragons, they had no front legs and were smaller, weaker, and more simpleminded.
Even so, they were still a significant threat. Hunting a wyvern required a reasonably sized, trained team to attack its nest. It was extremely difficult to secure a victory on flat land against a wyvern when it had absolute control over the sky.
It was also said that some rare wyverns could speak the language of dragons. These wyverns served the dragons, and lizardmen exalted them. As for the wyvern in these mountains, it was one like a beast: it had low intelligence and was unable to talk.
From time to time, when the wyvern got hungry, it would attack the villages, destroy the barns, and carry off the beasts of burden.
The people of the villages discussed the problem together, and decided to offer up one person a year as a sacrifice for the wyvern. In remote regions such as these, work animals’ lives were often more valuable than people’s.
The one chosen that year was a beautiful half-elf girl from a nearby village. Her elven side came from her grandparents; the parents she was born to were both human. Naturally, the father suspected the mother of being unfaithful, and there were considerable arguments between them.
As she grew up, the girl herself became a source of discord due to her beauty. Some fought over her, while others looked at her with jealousy and envy and treated her as an outcast. The resulting strife led people to keep their distance, and from there, it was inevitable that she would be the one chosen to be sacrificed.