The corridor of the Moon’s Gorge wound along the outer wall of the Scriptuary.
It was a passage open to the sky. High above, the raw, sand-colored rock face loomed, its surface glazed with a thin layer of frost. The cobblestones beneath their feet were ancient, with slender blades of grass pushing through the gaps in the mortar.
Koyoi pressed his hand against the wall. It was only stone: biting cold. Unlike the inner walls of the Scriptuary, there was no 'presence of Names' here.
It was just rock.
As soon as that thought crossed his mind, Asahi stopped.
"Wait."
Asahi’s voice was low.
With his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he glared at the wall. Rather, he was not just staring at it. He was listening.
"It’s resonating."
"What is?" Koyoi asked.
Asahi didn’t answer. He drew the sword. Its blade was chipped from when he struck the ice wall in the depths of Shimizato.
That blade was trembling.
A faint vibration traveled through the hilt and into the palm of Asahi’s hand. The tip shook hardest around the chipped edge.
Asahi brought the sword closer to the wall.
The vibration surged. A silent resonance was occurring between the steel and the stone.
"Kuon," Asahi called out.
Kuon had already turned up his prosthetic eye. A pale blue light struck the chipped blade, causing minute patterns to surface upon the metal.
"...Traces of the forging," Kuon said, his voice tightening. "There are fragments of 'records' left within the iron of this sword. They were mixed in during the smelting process."
Asahi looked down at his weapon. "Mixed in?"
"Not intentionally. The ore used to forge this sword contained records from the very beginning. It’s the same vein of stone used for the foundation of the Scriptuary."
Kuon opened his catalog, illuminating the pages with his blue light. He was cross-referencing the composition with the ore data he had recorded in the depths of Shimizato.
"It’s a match. The material for this blade was taken from the same mountain as the stones that form the base of the structure."
Asahi stared at the sword in silence. The chipped edge. The half-rusted guard. The grip-wrap he had replaced himself.
It was a sword that had nearly snapped a dozen times, and one he had repaired just as often.
"...I got it from the old man," Asahi muttered. "He was a mountain smith. Can’t remember his name. But when he handed it over, he only said one thing."
"What was it?" Koyoi asked.
"—'Never forget the place you return to.'"
The sword’s vibration was now bleeding into the depths of the wall. A low, heavy thrum echoed back from within the stone, as if something deep inside were answering.
Koyoi placed his hand over his drawstring pouch. Inside the fabric, the Droplet was beginning to grow warm. Its pulse quickened, as if in sympathy with the sword's resonance.
"The pouch is warm..."
"The Droplet is reacting too," Kuon noted, turning his prosthetic eye toward the bag. "The sword and the Droplet are moving at the same frequency. The wall is carrying the resonance."
Asahi did not sheathe his sword. He began to walk along the wall, holding the blade horizontally, using its vibrations as a dowsing rod.
He moved toward the source of the strongest tremors.
At a corner of the corridor, Asahi stopped. There was a section of the wall where the stone was a different color—a dark, bluish hue compared to the surrounding rock.
In front of that stone, the blade shivered most violently.
Kuon cast his blue light upon it. Characters began to surface on the blue stone’s face. It was an ancient script, written in the same hand as the records they had seen in the deepest part of the Scriptuary.
"...These mark a hidden gate," Kuon read aloud. "The location of a back entrance leading into the interior of the Scriptuary is carved right here."
Asahi looked at his sword. The vibration of the blade was beginning to fade, as if it had finished relaying what it needed to say.
"It wasn't a weapon, was it?" Asahi said, almost to himself. "It was a key. From the very start."
Koyoi pressed the pouch against his chest. Through the cloth, the warmth of the Droplet reached all the way to his heart.
A wind from the Moon’s Gorge drifted between the three of them. It was a cold wind, but it carried the faint, distinct scent of earth. It was the smell of the mountains—the same distant peaks where the sword had been forged.