The stairway leading upward was steep and narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. There were no handrails on either side—bare and dark—as if a single slip could send someone plunging downward. Looking down, one could only see the faint, flickering glow of streetlamps, revealing the crisscrossing gaps of the pitch-black streets below. The gaps seemed bottomless, with only dense, dark mist flowing through them like a river.
Sassel followed Astolfo, who was dashing up the stairs in a blur. He himself couldn't move too fast, because Jeanne was clutching tightly onto his tail from behind.
He bent down slowly—there was a straight corridor overhead, leaving only half a person's height of space—and crawled into the gap between streets. It was uncomfortable crouching and walking in this narrow passage, and the further they went, the lower the ceiling became. Honestly, Sassel was tempted to just fly through it, but the hand gripping his tail was so firm that he could only think about it without acting.
After a while, he finally crawled out of the shrinking gap. Without ceremony, he planted his hand on Jeanne's head to straighten himself up. The occasional sound of bells now seemed closer, but the surroundings were still dark, damp, and filled with a moist chill. Only a faint light flickering in the distance offered a sliver of relief.
"Could you move your hand off my head?" Jeanne asked flatly. Perhaps because she was still gripping the black sorcerer's tail, she refrained from speaking too harshly.
"Ah," Sassel snapped out of it. "Maybe because you're so short, I didn't notice you had stood up."
"...Are you explaining, or trying to provoke me?" Her expression twisted slightly.
"Do you care so much about your height, farm girl?"
Jeanne took a step forward.
"Me? Of course I don't care. My father was a small-time farmer, my mother was uneducated. When I was little, all I knew was herding sheep. Who would care about things like height?"
"Then why are you getting angry?" Sassel asked.
"Oh, instinct," she said coolly. "Whenever you open your mouth, I can feel you trying to provoke me."
"I'm not that familiar with you," he added casually. "Do you run your inquisitions this recklessly too?"
"Recklessly? Me?" Jeanne's voice gradually rose. "Go ask the confession records of the courts I supervised. Go ask Saint Rovato Square, where I burned heretics. Go ask the sinners I beheaded on the widow's scaffold! I've never heard of anyone daring to question me!"
"The people who went to the scaffold lost their heads. Are you planning to lie on her corpse and make a child to answer me?"
"What do you know?!" Jeanne glared at him. "I could make her pregnant!"
"You're very funny."
Her expression grew even darker.
"Black... Sassel... tch, it feels so stifling being forced to call your name."
"Relax your tone a little—you're still clutching my tail."
"A lifeline should be gripped tightly. What if I slip and fall?" Jeanne said.
"Are you afraid of heights?"
"Me? Of course not. I just don't want to die in some ridiculous place—a judge slipping and falling to her death—and inside a dream no less. That would be too absurd."
"Beautifully said. But I feel like your personality is already ruined. You're practically in love with my tail. Have you considered marrying it? Could you get my tail pregnant too, just like you claim you could with the scaffold?"
"..."
Jeanne glared at him furiously; being stared at like that was uncomfortable, even for Sassel.
Just then, a voice came from the top of the stairs:
"I found the door into the bell tower, Mr. Sassel!"
They both turned to look. Astolfo was waving at them from the archway at the stair's end.
At the same time, on the other side of the city—
The rain fell.
If a city was old enough—so old that even the era of its birth was forgotten—and left to desolation without anyone to maintain it, then its buildings and streets would decay until they gleamed with grime, the walls shedding layer upon layer of peeling skin, soaked with the residue of passing centuries. The dream city of Zobeid was such an ancient place.
Naskar knelt on the upper levels of the city, facing a broken street, with newly laid road stretching behind him. His expression was blank, his face dull, and he moved forward little by little on his knees.
He was the only one here.
In this damp, sprawling darkness, the rain drizzled into puddles. Occasionally, a gust of cold wind would blow through the cracks between the tangled streets, lifting up white mist; then, as the wind died down, the silence grew heavier. Distant thunder rumbled like muffled drumbeats rising from the earth, oppressive and heavy.
From time to time, a flash of pale lightning would split the darkness—and in that instant, the shadow from his dream would flicker into view...
Her eyes were cold and clear, like ice. Her hair was ashen white, her smile delicate yet elusive, her voice soft and melodic, laced with a strange chant-like cadence. She wore a black silk gown with pleats, a red ribbon and shawl embroidered with wavy patterns wrapped around her shoulders. Slender doll-like joints extended from her white sleeves, speckled with a few drops of blood. She looked lonely and serene, like a pale water lily slumbering in a desolate graveyard under the moonlight.
The vision disappeared with the lightning, leaving no trace behind. Amid the pouring rain, his sigh sounded like a stifled sob, echoing faintly off the damp walls before fading away.
This is my life, he thought. This is my life.
Naskar lowered his head, wishing he could forget… But how could he?
Slowly, inch by inch, he continued laying and mending the broken streets. The disheveled man knelt there, hunching his back over the wet stones. Below him stretched the crisscrossing streets like interwoven tree branches, their gaps yawning black and bottomless like an abyss. Above him loomed layer upon layer of sinister buildings, blending into Zobeid's seemingly eternal night. Through the gaps, one could faintly glimpse the low-hanging dark clouds. Ahead of him was a drop of dozens of meters, where freshly laid stones were slowly sealing the gap. Behind him was an endless supply of stone and mud, as if an invisible hand were feeding him materials, urging him onward.
Such absurdity. Such madness.
Miss Maria, my beloved dream, he thought, what have you done to me? Can I still find a trace of you here?
He sank into his memories. Mechanically, stiffly, he paved the streets according to the visions from his dreams. He built the dream city—this city where he had lost all trace of the woman from his dream—trying to create walls and spaces that could trap her forever.
With a heart full of anguished devotion, he gazed at the overlapping streets of Zobeid, resting his hand against a limestone pillar—cold, rigid, giving no hint that it had just moments ago been a heap of shattered rubble and mud. In silent reverence, he prayed:
O great being who granted me this power, O Moon Goddess, I shall build this city until I find her—until the very end of time.
"Tedeum laudamus."
He murmured, his voice desolate and distant, a fading song whispered into the rain.
"Tedeum laudamus."