Chapter 9 — The Last Story
The pyre of the Knot of Tales was slowly dying, still casting up a few red and black flames like embers of stars. The original page was nothing but a memory, burned in the impossible heat. Yet, Naïma did not feel victorious. Something still weighed heavily, an invisible pressure in the air.
Junon whimpered. She was staring at the cavern ceiling. Cracks were opening in it, leaking not water… but words. Liquid, white syllables dripping onto the floor like a rain of glass.
“Ra… sha… no… kal…”
Louvel, terrified, shrank back against a wall.
“It’s impossible… the page is dead…”
Abel closed his eyes, as if he had been waiting for this moment forever.
“The tongue didn’t need the page. It had already spread. The page was just a seed. Now, the tree wants to grow.”
Naïma swore under her breath.
“So what? We did all this for nothing?”
The cracks widened. Shapes began to descend, translucent silhouettes, like ghosts of men and women whose faces dissolved into shifting letters. They advanced in a procession, arms outstretched, reciting the new tongue in a single voice.
“RA — SHA — NO — KAL!”
The cavern vibrated. The flames snuffed out at once.
The mice pricked up their whiskers, panicked. One of them screamed:
“It’s taking form! It’s finally manifesting!”
And in the center of the room, where the pyre had burned, a colossal form emerged. No longer the distant mass of hexagons of the Mother-History, but something more intimate and monstrous: a human silhouette, immense, but made of shifting sentences. Every muscle was a line of text, every bone a punctuation mark, every gaze a frozen word.
Naïma stepped back, choking.
“It’s… the tongue.”
Louvel sobbed.
“It wants a mouth to speak. A story to anchor itself.”
The silhouette reached a hand toward him. Already its lips were moving, ready to offer its voice.
“NO!” shouted Naïma. She leapt forward, weapon raised. But firing would have been useless.
Then Abel stepped in.
He stood straight, his slate-gray coat gleaming with the light of the extinguished flames, the suitcase still in his hand. The creature of words stopped, as if intrigued.
Naïma cried:
“Abel, what the hell are you doing?!”
He turned to her, and for the first time, his mask fell away.
“My name is not Abel. That’s the label I wear when I travel. In truth, I am what you call… a story guardian.”
Naïma blinked.
“A what?”
“Every world, every era has someone who watches over its stories, so they don’t devour each other. I am neither an author nor a hero. I am the guardian of the border. And this tongue…” He pointed to the word-creature. “…was born from my failure. I failed to close the Book in time. It escaped, and it found Louvel to feed on.”
Louvel groaned.
“You used me…”
Abel shook his head.
“No. You were chosen against your will. Like me.”
The creature roared, its words exploding like bombs. Fragments of sentences flew through the air, striking the walls, leaving glowing scars.
“It’s too late,” Abel whispered. “It wants a final story. The last one. And it has chosen me.”
Naïma shook her head, furious.
“Then we silence it! All together!”
The mice brandished their pocket watches and instruments. Louvel, trembling, finally opened his mouth, but this time not to recite what the tongue dictated… but what he himself wanted to say.
“Once upon a time, in a city of snow, there were men, a woman, a dog, and mice. They were not powerful, not chosen, not prophets. But they decided that no tongue, however new, would steal their voices.”
The creature wavered. Its words blurred, as if stained with ink.
Abel opened his suitcase one last time. The Book of Beginnings glowed, its pages ready to ignite.
“Naïma!” he cried. “It’s up to you to finish this story. I can no longer do it.”
She stared at him, her heart pounding.
“Why me?!”
He smiled.
“Because you are the only one who never wanted to be a story. And that’s what makes you real.”
Naïma stepped forward, Junon at her side, barking as if to drown out the creature’s chant. She cried out in a voice that echoed through the cavern:
“This tongue will not have the last word! Not here, not in my city! It is not a story, it is just a parasite. And like all parasites, it dies when the host rejects it!”
She tore a blank page from the Book and brandished it like a weapon. The flames of the Knot surged forth again, engulfing the void between her and the creature.
The word-silhouette screamed, its sentences shattering into a thousand shards. Louvel, the mice, and Abel joined their voices.
“Once upon a time… there was an end.”
The creature exploded in a blinding light. The syllables dissipated, sucked into the primordial fire.
When the brightness faded, nothing remained but a smell of burnt paper and melted snow. The Knot of Tales settled, its flames becoming mere embers.
Abel approached, his face tired but serene.
“You saved your city. But I…” He placed a hand on his chest. His outline was becoming fuzzy, as if he were dissolving.
“A guardian disappears when his failure is repaired.”
Naïma rushed forward.
“Wait! We still need you!”
He gently shook his head.
“You have everything you need, Captain. A voice. A dog. And a storyteller who finally knows how to say no.”
Louvel was sobbing. The mice bowed their heads in silence.
Abel held out the suitcase to Naïma.
“The Book is yours, now. Protect it. And remember: it’s not the stories that matter… but those who tell them.”
Then he vanished, like a line erased from a manuscript.
Naïma stood alone, the Book heavy in her hands, her heart still pounding from the fight. Around her, Louvel and the mice were collecting themselves, Junon resting her head against her leg.
And somewhere, far above the cavern, the clock of Val-d’Enbas finally struck the correct hour.
