13th October, 1137

  Suiming

  “So it is set then, you lads off to Havel, don’t worry about language barriers, lots of folk there speak Euthian, having fun while looking for Canvas, and I, here, rolling my bottoms into the remnant zone,” Suiming said as he checked his equipment by the living room’s door. Acryl was awake when Suiming woke up. Not because he slept early, but because he couldn’t fall asleep. Acryl nodded as he closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep.

  Gotta find a way to help Acryl, if you can’t save them all, save one

  Ferr had handed him the map and the key last night. Scribbles and annotations were all over the map, some acronyms he figured to be some kind of inside joke, and the rest were clear. A ruin not too far off from the city’s edge, presumably from the time period when Auderheimian territory started to form a large population. Suiming never had a concrete answer on why the remnant tide doesn’t absorb those more recently inhabited cities, only the crooked ancient stone walls, abandoned halls, temples, and shrines. Even when it swallows smaller villages, it returns after the tide ceases. It was the abyss humanity built upon, it was the mystery accepted as the answer. Suiming guessed that it probably has its own sentience…like a gigantic beast, or fungi spreading its tissues across the land.

  He borrowed Seren’s sword again; Suiming liked the weight distribution of it, and the fact that it could light fire was useful to him. Feeling its weight hanging on his belt, he glided his finger along the hilt and stopped at the pommel. After adjusting the strap on his shoulder, Suiming realized something. He looked out the window, the thin layer of white curtain didn’t block much light, and through it he saw the rising sun. Its rays passed through the morning sky, pure white and blemishless. Gazing at it, Suiming found calmness; the buzzing and waviness from the arcane items were gone, and the constant inner monologue had stopped. Aust the Treisaulian word appeared in his head.

  “Gosh, it’s gorgeous,” he muttered, reminiscing about the times when solar telescopes weren’t invented and astronomers had to observe the sun at sunrise or sunset. He stepped toward the door. His pulse was calm, Suiming could feel it, but there was something churning in him. Something yearning to look into the road behind instead of ahead. He swallowed and unlocked the door.

  Leaving the apartment, he closed the door carefully, making sure that it did not squeak, then he locked it. He trotted down the stairs, passing welcome mats and decorated doors. His fingers tapped on the handrail as he counted the beat of his footsteps. As he walked to the ground level, hand on the stainless, polished, and shining handrail, he saw a figure in his eye’s corner. That figure loomed there, between the falling bicycles and the brand-new stroller. Suiming tried to calm his breath. My mind is playing tricks on me, my mind’s playing tricks on me. It can’t be the First Mephisto, it can’t be.

  “A question. An answer, look in the mirror, dear, and what shall you see?” the figure spoke, almost whispering. His voice could not be mistaken, that eerie, gassy tone. Almost like his words never stopped echoing.

  “My question is, what in hell are you doing in my head? And the answer to your question is that I see a handsome lad in it,” Suiming said, turning to the figure. He was dressed in the same robe as the last time. Hand holding a knife that still had blood on it.

  “If I could explain that you were the emanation of Nameless, then what are you now? My hallucination?” He persuaded as he walked toward the figure. Before he could approach him, the figure walked through the bicycle, the metal frame moved through his body like walking through mist.

  “You have grown more ignorant over these years, darling, not everything is caused by that reality-bending girl.”

  “Right, right, ‘the answer is not ahead of me’, get a load of this lad, you are dead, long dead,” Suiming said, walking back to the door, pushing it open.

  “Hmph, wouldn’t you like a company on the road?” the figure said, tilting his head as he smiled. His lips curved mechanically, skin tight and almost wax-like.

  “I am hallucinating, aren’t I? You weren’t this nice before. Maybe that failed experiment did something to your brain.”

  “Could be, psychology and neuroscience weren’t rediscovered when I was around, or you are receiving a divine message,” the figure said, his body dragged behind Suiming. Suiming walked down the street, and the figure followed him like a shadow.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Hah, you are a funny lad, quite a lonely one too,” Suiming said, picking up a flower from the ground. He turned in his hand, observing the vibrant yellow center and the white petals.

  “Aren’t we both witty and lonely?”

  “More lonely than witty for ya,” Suiming said, putting down the flower on a stone wall.

  “But, the First Mephisto, I am going to ask you a few questions, you are used to them, no?”

  The figure stayed silent.

  “Right, right, you called me ignorant, but why do you believe that you have all the answers? Why do you think that your talent is the one deserved to be honored with the name so important to Yel?”

  “Do you know why you failed? It is because you only answered, but you never asked. You never asked,” Suiming said, taking a turn to the station, his train to the outskirts was after half an hour. After that, he could walk to the remnants tide. The figure of the First Mephisto did not answer him, but Suiming knew his stare. Stinging, judging, and egotistic. It scratched the back of his neck in an unfriendly manner.

  “Hah! The First Mephisto, what a mouthful title! In my four thousand years of wandering this godless earth, I’ve never seen someone like you. You never managed to save them, but neither did I,” Suiming proclaimed, his hand open, as if to embrace the sky itself.

  “All these years I’ve come to prove you wrong, and the moment I stepped out of Euth is when I realized your thoughts fall apart. You lack love, you lack curiosity, all you have is the dread that you don’t know why you exist, but most importantly, you lack kindness.”

  “Then won’t you try to guess what I am?” the figure spoke, voice whispering into Suiming’s ear.

  “I’m having suspicion, now what’s your game? Hm? Realm-arts creation, but no casting, Existence’s whispers, but I’m not going mad, now, now, what are you?” Suiming muttered, walking through a park, and the morning dew wet his shoes as he crossed the lawn. Disturbing the crows and breaking the silence. Cold, crisp morning air filled his lungs, accompanied by the leaves’ crunch under his feet.

  “Deduction method, you are not taking an exam,” the figure said as he walked by Suiming’s right. Suiming couldn’t see the figure’s face, only a fraction of the black robe appeared in his eye.

  “But it ain’t wrong,” Suiming answered, going outside the park. As he walked, he turned to the right, spinning on his feet as if dancing, and as he spun, he noticed something. Something he was so used to that he had forgotten. Looking at the First Mephisto, Suiming blinked. Closing one eye and then the other. As he closed his left eye, nothing had changed. The morning light still shone, the trees still swaying, so was the figure. Then he closed his right eye- the eye with the monocles. The sunlight reflected in the windows, the shadows dragged long and thin, but the figure was gone. He couldn’t see the clear working behind it, but it was without a doubt who the culprit was.

  “Bravo, nice trick,” Suiming said, opening his closed eye. The figure of the First Mephisto melted down into paint, dark purple and blues slithered down as if they were wax. The way its face melted away was the same as Fosfor’s projection sparkled and bloomed in its phosphorescent flame.

  “Now, my answer is…Barricade projection, Canvas, you may speak now,” Suiming said, taking off his monocle. From the corner of the crosswalk, Canvas walked out. He wore a new white jacket, price tag peeking out from the collar. Despite his new look, his trousers were stained with dried-up paint, his eyes ragged, and his stubble unshaven.

  “Why are you a Barricade?” Suiming asked, putting the monocle back.

  “You are halfway through the equation. I’m not going to spoil the answer for you.”

  “Remember the prophecy?” Canvas said.

  “When the stars are right, when the tide is stopped, when all life dreams the same dream, it shall arise. When candles burn out and stars turn dark, He shall be crowned,” Suiming answered, words slipping out of his mouth smoothly.

  “I’m afraid that we don’t have much time left…and as I understood, ‘He shall be crowned’, is a mistranslation, the correct one would be ‘they shall be crowned’,” Canvas said as he took out a palm-sized sketchbook from his pocket. Opening it, he tore off a page. The white paper, filled with sketches, glided through the air and fell into Suiming’s hand like a feather.

  “What is this?” Suiming said, stretching the sketch in his hand. It was a bust of him. Made with a soft pencil and sharp edge, eyes accented and full of depth. Aside from the mastery of the medium, what drew Suiming’s attention was the crown. That crown of withering flowers carved into white marble, sitting on his head like a halo. The expression of the sketch was not one of joy or pride, but confusion. His eyes in the sketch stared into nothingness, eyebrows furrowing as his hand brushed the crown.

  “…What are you trying to show me?” Suiming said, his voice slightly trembled.

  “You must have seen many kinds of art. Many kinds of beauty, Suiming, you’ve asked yourself: ‘What is art?’, right?”

  “Yeah? Art is the attempt to turn fleeting beauty and rhapsody into eternity.”

  “…Interesting, interesting. Your definition is rather…narrow, but a unique one nevertheless.”

  Canvas turned around, back facing Suiming, as he noticed that Canvas’s posture, despite looking straight and healthy, felt like that of an old man. While he walked into the distance, waving his hand, Suiming said:

  “Don’t you wonder how Acryl’s doing?”

  “I know how he’s doing, and I believe in him. He is not a coward.”