The Shadow's Incantation

Hope felt his thoughts seize up, and even his movements were affected. When he heard the bird calls, he immediately wanted to stop, but because his thoughts were blocked, the command to stop failed to reach his body. In a daze, he took two more steps before coming to a halt.

The shadow... still hadn't appeared...

At this distance, the Night Hawk's calls weren't very clear, but the Curse of Darkness had already begun to interfere with his thinking. It just wasn't very noticeable yet.

One step forward... Hope thought.

He took one step forward, then immediately stopped. After waiting a second, he took another step. He continued like this, walking forward one step at a time, with a pause between each.

He was doing this to roughly test how loud the Night Hawk's calls would be when the shadow appeared.

By his thirtieth step, the Night Hawk's calls had become very clear, the most noticeable among all the sounds made by creatures on this summer night.

When he counted to sixty-two, the feathers on his back went from warm to scorching. His vision blurred for an instant, and the shadow was already floating at the edge of his sight.

Hope had mentally prepared himself. He didn't panic when he saw the shadow, but quietly observed it instead.

The canopy blocked most of the moonlight. It wasn't quite dark enough to be unable to see his hand in front of his face, but Hope's eyesight was poor to begin with. Now he needed to pick up a branch to feel his way along the path.

But he wasn't using his eyesight to see the shadow, so he simply closed his eyes to avoid being distracted by anything else.

The shadow had only a vague human shape. It stood at the edge of Hope's vision, yet gave the impression of being two or three meters away from him.

It was perhaps only 1.6 to 1.7 meters tall, and rather thin. It had no discernible features on its face. Its hands looked as though they were wearing mittens, with only the thumbs separated, and it had no toes.

Perhaps because the Night Hawk's calls still weren't loud enough, its whole body looked faint, as if it might dissipate at any moment.

"Can you understand me?" Hope asked.

Based on Hope's earlier theory about Uncertainty—that it couldn't be activated while a sapient being was looking at him—he could conclude that the shadow wasn't intelligent.

But there was another possibility: perhaps the shadow couldn't see.

After Hope asked, the shadow remained motionless, like a sticker stuck to his field of vision.

Hope hesitated for a moment, opened his eyes, and carefully observed his surroundings. He crouched to look at the uneven path beneath his feet and the weeds covering it, then took another step forward.

I hope... those Night Hawks... don't fly away, Hope thought.

Just as before, he counted as he walked, pausing after each step.

When he counted to twenty again, Hope realized he might have gone in the wrong direction. The calls hadn't grown any louder.

He found his bearings again and eventually left the path, entering thicker weeds and underbrush. He had to use the stick in his hand to probe ahead with every step, so he wouldn't fall or tumble into a hole.

One... two... thirty...

Hope stopped. The Night Hawk flock... is... nearby.

The black figure had gradually grown more solid. It was still crude as a human shape, but no longer as blurry as before.

Hope closed his eyes and observed calmly. He saw the crack that served as the shadow's "mouth" split open again.

He had already begun picturing the place he'd memorized earlier, ready to use Uncertainty to teleport back as soon as the shadow recited its incantation.

But after opening the crack, the shadow did nothing and made no sound.

Because... it doesn't have the Steel Pen...

"Can you understand me?" Hope asked for the second time.

The shadow remained motionless.

Hope waited another three seconds. When the shadow still didn't move, he used Uncertainty to return to the place he'd memorized earlier. He stayed there only briefly, then activated Uncertainty a second time. After waiting a little longer, he arrived beside the cellar where the Great Night Hawk was buried.

The Night Hawk's calls made it take longer to picture a location, but even so, the whole process took no more than five seconds.

The instant Hope escaped the Night Hawk's calls, the shadow faded from its solid form and vanished in the blink of an eye.

This exploration hadn't done much to help him understand the shadow, but Hope had no intention of giving up.

He went to the roof of Old Williams's house and felt around on the concrete slab. At last, he found the Steel Pen he'd thrown down in a corner.

The silver pen was as pristine as ever. Hope found the part where he remembered the symbols glowing and drifting away: a section of the barrel near the end of the pen.

Hope brought his eye close. That part of the barrel wasn't pure silver; a few gold lines decorated its silvery surface.

But the gold lines didn't form any strange symbols. They simply divided the silver surface into irregular patches.

Hope removed the cap, then detached the nib and the lever-fill mechanism inside it, leaving only the silver barrel.

He found an old newspaper, wrapped the barrel in it, and put it in his pocket.

Then he activated Uncertainty and arrived at his transfer point: the uneven path overgrown with weeds.

As the Night Hawk's calls rang out, Hope's thoughts seized up, and the black figure appeared in his vision again.

"Can you understand me?" Hope asked for the third time.

The shadow still didn't respond.

Hope took the bundle of newspaper out of his pocket.

"Do you recognize this?"

Hope unfolded the newspaper to reveal the silver Steel Pen barrel inside.

At the same time, he turned around and held the barrel-bearing hand beside his ear, taking the stance of someone about to throw an object. He was ready to hurl the barrel at any moment.

Once the barrel was exposed, the shadow finally changed. Just like the day before, it opened the crack in its head.

Strange, awkward, incomprehensible notes burst forth.

All the sounds around them grew muffled and low.

Hope, prepared for this, took out his pocket watch.

Twelve minutes and seven seconds past midnight.

One.

Hope counted silently, keeping his eyes on the watch while devoting part of his attention to observing the shadow from the corner of his eye.

It was no longer trapped in his field of vision, but aside from reciting the incantation, it made no movements.

"Can you understand me?" Hope asked for the fourth time, waving his hand as he did.

The incantation continued. The black figure didn't move.

Two.

Hope soon understood why all sounds other than the incantation had become muffled and low.

Hope gently tossed the Steel Pen barrel into the air. It rose only a few centimeters above his palm, but both its ascent and descent were noticeably slower.

Even the breeze that had constantly stirred through the woods had become barely perceptible.

Three.

When Hope counted to three, the pocket watch finally ticked.

Twelve minutes and thirteen seconds past midnight.

At that moment, though the Night Hawk's calls were still audible, the shadow turned translucent and then disappeared.

All the sounds became clear again.

He could feel the breeze once more.

Hope tossed the Steel Pen barrel into the air. Its rise and fall were completely normal.

The second hand of the pocket watch ticked again.

Hope understood. The shadow's incantation slowed down time, by about threefold.

But the incantation had no effect on Hope. That was why he could feel everything around him slowing down... Or, from another perspective, the shadow's incantation sped up time, and because it had been cast on Hope, he had lost two seconds of his life.

Hope closed his eyes and checked his numbers. He found that the mana value had returned to zero.