Across the table, something inside her grew just a little lighter—the very thing she had carried for so long.
Since arriving in Pendralice, she had wandered from place to place, driven by nothing but a conviction no one else seemed to share.
And now, a quiet sense of relief washed over her. It wasn't Uncle Ben's knowledge that relieved her, but his acknowledgment. For the first time since opening the book, she was no longer alone in that belief. With newfound seriousness, she asked,
"Can you please tell me everything you know about them?"
Uncle Ben seemed to emerge from a sea of thoughts that had held him for only a few seconds. When he spoke at last, his voice was low but heavy with quiet reverence, as though he were recalling not his own memories, but those preserved within every weathered book that had once fallen into his hands.
"When I was a young man, I was fascinated by old books. Especially those gray areas—the things no one had ever been able to prove existed, yet no one could completely disprove either. So I began reading anything I could get my hands on, simply to feed that hungry curiosity—the dry theories of historians, the accounts of explorers who had ventured into the farthest corners of the world, and the tales of those reckless enough to chase the mirage of gold and forgotten relics."
"At first, I took them for nothing more than scattered tales. Every civilization had its own stories—beliefs they held dear and passed down from one generation to the next. But then there were those accounts..."
"Accounts that seemed to circle the same beliefs. They described them differently each time, yet beneath all those differences, there was something strangely familiar—the thread that connected them. And the more I followed it, the harder it became to dismiss as coincidence."
"Why not? After all, people can look at the same things with their own eyes and simply give them different names."
"And the same was true of that place."
"They were all, in their own way, circling it."
"In the end, I began to wonder whether they had all been searching for the same thing—the same legend."
Milo tilted his head, the word instantly stirring the childlike curiosity in his eyes.
"A legend?"
Uncle Ben nodded slowly, his eyes seemed to sink into a deep abyss.
"They believed that, near the end of the Old Wars, the last great knight of that age vanished without leaving behind so much as a grave."
"The Old Wars?" Milo repeated softly. He had never received a proper education. Knowledge of such ancient history was mostly reserved for those fortunate enough to have one.
A distant look passed through Uncle Ben's eyes, and a quiet gravity settled into his voice.
"They happened in an age long before our own."
"Wasn't that the same age as the Dark Age?" Sikakama asked. "The one filled with superstition and barbarism, before civilization spread with the help of the gods?"
"That's right. It seems you know more about religion than I would have expected." Uncle Ben said, mildly surprised.
"I heard it from a priest at a church," Sikakama added quietly.
Uncle Ben's gaze shifted toward Milo.
"It seems one of you has a curious mind after all, unlike this fool here. The government provides basic education on Sundays, with the support of the church, yet he still refuses to learn anything."
Milo immediately grumbled, crossing his arms on the table and resting his chin on them. "I told you. I didn't like the man who was assigned to us." He glanced away with a faintly annoyed expression. "Besides, you taught me the basics of reading, and that's enough."
"Learning requires discipline. But you're a distracted child. Knowing a few basics of reading is hardly enough." Uncle Ben sighed, clearly trying to keep his temper.
For a moment, Sikakama's attention drifted away from their argument.
She remembered.
She had been no older than eight.
She stood on a stone outside an old church, peering through one of its narrow windows. The building stood in a quiet place on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by darkness.
Cold air slipped through the cracks in the ancient walls.
Inside, candles flickered across the stone floor as a man dressed entirely in black stood beneath a strange statue. His voice echoed through the vast chamber as he read from an old book, his words carrying through the darkness and returning in faint echoes from the stone walls.
Her gaze wandered upward.
The statue depicted a woman seated in long, flowing robes, her head covered by a veil that fell over her shoulders. Two children rested closely against her, one on each side. Her arms extended behind them, gently encircling their backs as she held them close.
Sikakama had watched the priest many times before. Back then, she hadn't even understood what it meant to be religious; she had simply been a curious child. And on one of those occasions, she had heard him say those very words.
"Why the knight?" Sikakama asked, her thoughts returning to the subject. She wanted to know more about it.
Uncle Ben fell silent, letting the exchange with Milo come to an end. He interlaced his fingers upon the table, his pale eyes settling on Sikakama, their usual warmth giving way to a quiet seriousness.
"According to the legend, he carried with him something of immense value."
"No one ever agreed on what he left behind. Some believed it to be nothing more than a story, while others spoke of a sacred relic—one said to possess the power to alter the fate of entire kingdoms."
'A relic capable of changing the fate of entire kingdoms...' The thought alone carried a weight she could hardly comprehend. If such a thing truly existed, it was far more dangerous than she had imagined. The question left her mind before she could stop it.
"What happened to what the knight left behind?"
He gave a small shrug.
"For generations, people searched for whatever he left behind, but they never discovered where his final journey had ended."
He lowered his gaze once more to the notebook.
"For all their contradictions, the oldest accounts agreed on three descriptions of the place. One of them endured through nearly every account: it was an abandoned shrine. Others insisted it had once been a forgotten temple instead. Even its true nature remained a matter of dispute—let alone where it stood."
"But... what would a knight be doing at a shrine?"Sikakama looked up, confusion plain on her face.
"That's simply what living things do when the end draws near. An instinct that draws them back toward Mother Nature itself. Cats, for instance, will sometimes leave their homes and retreat somewhere quiet, away from everything familiar." His thumbs slowly turned against each other.
Uncle Ben smiled gently as he added, "Maybe he was no different—a man who had spent his entire life surrounded by noise and blood... choosing, at the very end, to disappear somewhere no one would follow, to a place where he could find the peace he had lost."
His smile deepened slightly, sharpening the lines of his pale features.
"There is a certain irony in it, isn't there?"
For a moment, her imagination carried her away. A man standing alone, somewhere far from everything that had defined almost his entire life. Had he truly found peace in the end?
After a moment, another question came to her. "But... why does one of the descriptions speak of a saint? If this legend is about a knight."
Uncle Ben did not answer her directly. Instead, he looked at her and asked,
"What do you mean by the word 'saint'?"
Sikakama remained silent for a few seconds, as though trying to recall something that wasn't quite there.
Milo answered almost immediately, a spark of excitement in his eyes. To him, the answer seemed obvious—something everyone knew.
"Someone who guides those who have gone astray. A holy man, revered by the people, whose life is believed to have been touched by the gods."
Uncle Ben nodded, accepting the answer.
"You're right about that. See? Even a reckless boy like you can be taught."
He paused before continuing.
"But the word 'saint' did not always mean what it means today. The title belonged to no Church. It belonged to the people. They bestowed it upon those they believed had become symbols of hope... whose lives inspired entire kingdoms. When enough people came to believe that a single soul had carried them through their darkest days... history had a habit of calling that person a saint."
Milo scratched the back of his neck.
"So..."
"...the Church didn't create the title?"
"No."
Uncle Ben shook his head.
"It merely inherited it."
Silence settled over the room.
Then Sikakama spoke quietly, piecing the fragments together.
"If people came to regard him as a saint, then the place where the knight died and the place where the last saint met their end were one and the same."
A look of quiet satisfaction crossed his face.
"Exactly."
Milo blinked several times before breaking the silence.
"Does a place like that really exist?"
Uncle Ben removed his spectacles and carefully polished the lenses with the edge of his shirt. "I honestly don't know. No one has ever found it—not once." He placed them back upon his nose and added, "That's usually how legends survive."
Milo sprang up from his chair and leaned across the table. "If the place really exists... what if the treasure is gold? Or precious jewels?"
"Not everything worth searching for is measured in gold, Milo." Uncle Ben let out a faint chuckle.
"I want to find it." The quiet voice interrupted them both.
She lifted her gaze, her expression calm, yet filled with quiet certainty.
"I want to find that place."
For several moments, Uncle Ben simply looked at her.
His eyes studied the crimson cloak draped over her shoulders, then the fragile frame beneath it.
Yet behind those clear blue eyes...
He saw something that did not belong to someone so young.
At last, he spoke.
"Tell me, child..."
"...what is your name?"
Sikakama met his gaze.
"My name is Sikakama."
"Sikakama..."
Uncle Ben repeated it gently, tasting the unfamiliar name.
"What an unusual—"
"Strange."
She finished the sentence before he could.
"I know."
Her eyes drifted down to the forgotten cup of tea resting before her.
It had long since gone cold.
Its still surface reflected her face like a small mirror.
"But that's exactly what makes it memorable."
She slowly looked up again.
Uncle Ben was smiling.
"A name comes after the person, never before. It is people who give meaning to names. One day, your name will carry only the meaning you choose to give it."
He leaned forward slightly, his eyes meeting hers as though they were speaking to each other through their gaze. Then, in a clear whisper, he said, "So tell me... are you prepared to give your name such a meaning?"
For a few seconds, only the ticking of the old clock filled the room.
Blurred memories drifted through her mind.
The worn book.
The countless nights she had read it beneath fading candlelight instead of sleeping.
The journey that had brought her all the way to Pendralice.
Then she looked into Uncle Ben's eyes, her clear blue eyes resembling the midday sky.
"No matter how long it takes."
Both Sikakama and Milo followed Uncle Ben with their eyes as he quietly rose from his chair and walked toward a tall wooden cabinet.
He searched its shelves for a few moments before carefully pulling out a large leather tube.
Holding it gently in both hands, he turned and carried it back to the table.
Neither of them took their eyes off what he was carrying.
He laid it down with great care and untied the faded leather cord.
Their eyes followed the yellowed parchment as it slowly unfurled, transforming from a tightly rolled cylinder into a broad, flat sheet.
Age had stained the parchment a deep yellow, while fine cracks traced its worn edges. Several torn sections had been carefully repaired with thin strips of old parchment.
Milo's eyes widened. Despite the map's distortions, he recognized it at once—a streetwise boy who had grown up in its alleys.
"...Is this... a map of Pendralice?"