The Faraway Paladin, volume 1: The Boy in the City of the Dead.
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Final Chapter.
A refreshing wind blew past.
It was dawn, and a thin morning mist hung in the air at the foot of the hill. A city of stone was spread out below us, built up to the edge of a vast lake. It felt medieval, or even older. I could see tall towers and an aqueduct built with a series of beautiful arches.
All of it was aged and in ruins.
Many of the buildings’ roofs had collapsed, and the plaster on the walls had fallen off, leaving the buildings in a state of pitiful disrepair. Grass grew through gaps in the streets’ stone paving, and green vines and moss clung to the buildings. The city was decaying away among the greenery, as though it were enjoying a quiet doze after all of the activity that must once have taken place here.
The morning sun shone softly over it all.
It was here, on this hill overlooking the city, that I decided to make Mary and Blood’s graves. I had so many memories of this temple hill, where you could look over the lake and the city in ruins. That was why I’d decided to bury them here.
I looked over their graves in silence.
I wanted to return here one day. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see Mary or Blood again. I knew they’d returned to samsara. But I thought I’d at least like to come to these graves and tell them how I’d grown.
I wanted to show them my friends and my family, as had once been my dream. To come back as an adult, the kind of adult they could look at and be reassured, knowing that their child was living a proper life.
“So we’ll be apart for a little while.” I put my hands together, and prayed in silence for a while. Then, I told the two graves that I’d be on my way.
“All done?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “So, um…” There was no good way to say this. “Gus… Why aren’t you dead?”
“That’s a fine question to ask an old man in his last years! My grandson wants me dead! Demonspawn!”
“Demonspawn?! Oh, come on, that hurts! I was only thinking about your hoard of treasures and how it’ll all be mine when you die!”
“Aha! The demonspawn confesses!”
We were just fooling around. A lot of circumstances had put distance between us, so this was the first time in a very long while that I’d been able to fool around with Gus like this.
“Heh heh heh,” I cackled, doing my most exaggerated impression of a conniving swindler. “I’m just offering to give a use to dead money that’s sitting there doing nothing. Whaddaya say, old man?”
“Hmm, a fine point. Take it, then.”
“Uh…?”
Gus’s face had suddenly returned to being completely serious, and he pushed a number of bags on me. I looked inside them.
Countless gold and silver coins shone with reflected morning sunlight. There were precious jewels, rings, bracelets, buttons, brooches, pins, and cape fasteners. Even ribbons and sashes with gold and silver thread woven into them.
Huh. Cool. A fortune.
“HOLY GOD!” I almost dropped them all in shock, but managed to desperately hold on to them.
“Did you expect less from my fortune? I’ll lend it to you at no interest. Make it grow. I did teach you how,” Gus said, and grinned.
“B-But… this is… this is…”
“Money that sits there not changing hands is, as you say, dead. I’m not fond of stagnant money. You said it, I believe. Live and die as it should be. Money is the same,” Gus shrugged. “Make money work for you. Until it’s done its job, make sure it changes hands and doesn’t sit stagnant.”
That was probably an attitude that Gus prided himself upon.
“I can’t be there to see it happen anymore, you see.”
“Gus…” I bowed my head to him, and gratefully took the treasure. I prepared myself to say goodbye. This would probably be the last thing I’d ever—
“That said, I won’t be going anywhere for at least another ten years.”
What?
“Well… I mean… You understand… There is the issue of the High King’s seal needing to be protected. If the demons break it, we’re done for.” Gus gave me a serious look. “So last night, your god came down with a revelation for me, and we had a little discussion. I received permission to loiter here in this city for the next decade or so, until the god of undeath regains his strength.”
My mouth flapped like a fish. How had he arranged this?! What was Gracefeel thinking?! I saw the need, but… really?!
“I seem to have become something akin to a Herald of Gracefeel’s now.”
Upon closer inspection, the sense of “impurity” I’d always had from Gus was weaker now. He even felt more like a saintly spirit. But then couldn’t—
“They told me they didn’t want that,” Gus said, as if he’d read my thoughts. “If they were given another decade, they’d become greedy. They’d start clinging to life. After staying one decade, why not another? And another? At least until you died. You see? They knew they’d start thinking that way. That’s why they chose to move on. They were putting on a brave face, but in their hearts, they were bawling just like you.”
Hearing that left me without words. They refused to cheat until the last, despite knowing all the while that there was a way.
“One old codger is more than enough for this greed-inducing position,” Gus shrugged.
I did agree that Gus could probably handle it. He’d carry out his duty as the protector of the seal with ease, and when the tenth year came and it was time for him to go, he would depart this world without a single word of complaint. I was sure of it. Grandpa Gus always was rock ’n’ roll.
“What do we do about the seal after the ten years are up?”
“Apparently, you have ten years to think of something.” Passing the buck entirely, huh. Thanks, god. “She tells me that faith in her has dwindled quite a bit out there. She used up considerable strength just intervening in our troubles.”
“Huh?”
“It seems that the future of the god of the flame is another thing resting upon your efforts.”
I hadn’t even left yet, and I felt like more and more baggage, both tangible and intangible, was being piled on top of me. So this was what a “rough fate” felt like!
“In any event, I’m sure you’ll be needing money. Go on, just take it already.”
“Yeah. It looks like I’ve got a lot to do. Thanks a lot.” I stuffed treasure into various places on my person, and went over my gear again as a final double-check.
Heavy clothing both top and bottom. Leather gloves, rugged boots. A big backpack with lots of pockets. Belt pouches. One spare pair of boots. Blanket, cooking pan, food with a long shelf life, waterskin, survival knife, hatchet, fountain pen, parchment, rope, one change of clothes, and a thick canvas for camping. Then there were the more minor items: a little firewater to use in place of smelling salts; needles, thread, and cloth of various sizes; a small clump of rock salt. All of these were important.
For armor, I was wearing the mithril mail that one of the corpses of those deceased heroes had been wearing in my fight against the god of undeath. The good thing about this was that it was extremely light. It was strong, and yet it hardly felt like I was wearing armor at all. I put one more layer over the top of the mail in order to hide it.
Then, I put on a hooded cloak, and did it up at the front with one of the cloak fasteners that Gus had given me. I had sewn a talisman with the Word of Guardianship between the layers of cloth comprising the hood, providing my head with some level of protection.
I’d now been marked by the god of undeath, so it was vital to strike a good balance between the weight of my baggage and the strength of my equipment. I started thinking about my old computer games and how useful it would be to have a bag that could hold infinite items. Unfortunately, I had nothing so convenient, so I’d just have to do my best without one.
And finally, my weapons. My spear, Pale Moon; my one-handed sword, Overeater; and my circular shield.
I tied a beautiful ribbon around the base of Pale Moon’s blade to personalize it a bit. It was a lower-rank blade than Overeater, but all the same, it was the very first thing I’d ever won in battle, it was useful, and I had a fondness for it.
Overeater, however, was a different story. Despite it playing such an important role in my battle against the god of undeath, I wrapped it in old cloth and handle leather. I felt sort of bad about it, but just as Blood had said, this blade was too strong, its effect too vicious. It was a dangerous object, not to be pulled out, even if I wanted to. It wasn’t the kind of thing to use as my main weapon. It was a last resort.
For a while, I considered whether I should take the shield at all, but it had proven modestly useful a number of times, and imagining myself without it scared me. Shields weren’t very exciting, but there was a big difference between having one and not. To try to make it less cumbersome, I’d attached a belt to it so I could easily carry it over my shoulder, but it looked like it was going to add quite a lot of weight.
I’d had this traveling kit ready and organized for a long time. I fell silent for a while, remembering how much Mary and Blood had helped me prepare it.
“Will.” Gus’s voice roused me from my moment of melancholy. “If you’re heading out into the world, you’re probably going to need a surname. The name ‘William’ was given to you by them, so I was thinking that your surname could come from me. What do you say?”
“Hm? It’s rare to hear you say something like that, Gus. Sure, if you want.” I had no particular reason to refuse, so I accepted, thinking of it as his final parting gift.
“Then I believe I will borrow from a custom used by certain tribes of elves and halflings.”
Huh? Elves and halflings? Why?
“The custom in these tribes is that one’s surname is determined by the names of one’s mother and father,” Gus said, with a solemn expression. “Maryblood. You are William Maryblood.”
I chewed the word over. “Maryblood.” William Maryblood. It felt good. Like it was tailor-made for me.
“Take their names with you as you go. I’ve wandered the world enough, after all. Now it’s time you enjoyed it. Just you and your parents.” The man called the Wandering Sage shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah. Thank you. I like it a lot, that surname.”
I finished my final checks. I wrapped my pouch belt around me, hung my sword from it, loaded my backpack and other baggage onto my back, slung my shield over my shoulder, and took my spear into my hand. I was pretty strong, physically speaking, but the amount I was carrying was more than enough to make me feel the weight.
“Okay. Take care of yourself, Gus. I’ll be back again.”
“Mm.”
I exchanged a short goodbye with Gus, headed down the hill—and then, I turned around and yelled back to him, grinning and waving. “I’ll add in a ‘G’ for my middle name!”
“Idiot! My name begins with an ‘A’! Did my lessons teach you nothing, you halfwit?!” I could hear Gus laughing back.
“You’ll always be Gus to me! Grandpa Augustus is basically a tongue-twister!” I called back to him, cackling loudly.
“Hmph. What a hopeless grandson! All right then. Goodbye to you, William G. Maryblood!”
“Goodbye, Gus! I’ll see you again someday—count on it!” We waved to each other.
Then I fixed my gaze straight ahead and started forward, never glancing back. There were traces of an old street that had once run alongside the river, leading away from the lake beside the city. I decided to go down and follow it to the north. Bathed in the radiance of the morning sun, I headed for the outside world.
The Faraway Paladin 1: The Boy in the City of the Dead.
— Finis —
Diamond. diamond. diamond.
