Chapter 9
When Nezutsu awoke, the world had changed again.
The sanctuary beneath the tree was gone.
He stood now on a vast plain of silver grass that shimmered like glass under a false sun. The horizon was curved upward, bending into itself, as though the land had no end.
This was not the real world.
"You're in the Sigil Labyrinth," said Kaelith, appearing beside him as if she had always been there.
"Dream?"
"Yes. And no. This place exists between thought and memory. It is drawn from your own mind, but it touches other minds too. The deeper you walk, the more real it becomes."
Nezutsu stared ahead. The field shifted.
A gate rose from the silver plains — a towering arch covered in glowing sigils, each one pulsing with strange energy.
Beyond it: a spiraling maze made of stone and light, alive and ever-changing.
"This is where the Flame remembers," Kaelith said. "And where you might begin to understand what you truly are."
Nezutsu stepped forward. The gate opened without sound.
Inside the Labyrinth
The walls were impossible. They shifted with thought, responded to emotion. As Nezutsu walked, he saw reflections of himself in the glassy surfaces — versions of him at different ages, in different clothes, even with magic.
"What is this place trying to show me?" he whispered.
"Possibility," Kaelith answered. "But also deception. The Flame hides itself even from its bearer."
Suddenly, the walls rippled.
A scream echoed — his voice, but younger.
They turned a corner and saw a child-Nezutsu, no older than five, trapped in a cage made of molten script. Tears streamed down his face.
"Is that... me?"
"A memory sealed. One that shouldn't be here."
Nezutsu reached toward the child.
"Don't," Kaelith warned. "If you open that memory, it may consume you."
He hesitated.
"Why do I feel like everything in this world was designed to keep me from the truth?"
"Because it was."
The maze groaned.
A section of the wall collapsed, revealing a chamber lined with ancient glyphs. Floating in the center was a sword wrapped in violet chains.
"That blade... it calls to me."
Kaelith's eyes widened. "The Sword of Elaruh. It was forged from the core of a dead star. Only one bearer at a time."
"Then why do I know its name?"
He reached out. The chains unraveled.
The sword fell into his hand.
And the Labyrinth roared.
The Labyrinth's Keeper
A crack split the air.
From it emerged a towering creature cloaked in ribbons of spellscript — a giant with no face, only a mouth, and within its mouth, the sound of breaking promises.
"The Keeper," Kaelith gasped. "It protects the secrets too dangerous to remember."
Nezutsu gripped the sword.
The Keeper lunged.
He swung.
The sword did not cut.
It unmade.
Wherever the blade passed, reality ceased. The Keeper screamed — not in pain, but in confusion, like it had just discovered it could die.
Kaelith chanted a binding glyph, but the maze itself fought her spell.
"Nezutsu! Strike the heart glyph!"
A glowing rune pulsed on the Keeper's chest — shaped like an open eye.
He leapt.
The sword pierced the glyph.
Time fractured.
The Truth That Slipped Through
The maze shattered.
Nezutsu floated in a void of memory. Around him spun fragments of lost time:
A woman of silver fire whispering his true name.
A god kneeling before a child.
A voice screaming: *"Seal him before the stars fall!"
And then darkness.
When he awoke, he lay beside Kaelith in a moonlit cave.
The sword was beside him. Cold. Silent.
Kaelith watched him with wary eyes.
"You brought something back. Didn't you?"
Nezutsu looked at his hand. The mark had changed.
Now it burned blue.
"I think a piece of the truth escaped."
Far above, unseen by either of them, the Council of the Eye stared into a scrying pool.
"The Echo grows."
"Then we release the Archivist."
"But he'll remember us."
"Let him. The game has begun."
[TO BE CONTINUED...]