“Aren’t you concerned about the decline of the mists?” asked Petrus, recalling what the piglet had told them.
“Must we adapt our behavior because of that concern?” replied the hare. “We are not a warlike species, and our leaders shouldn’t be warriors.”
“The champion of the garden is a warrior?” asked Petrus, surprised.
“The best of us all,” answered their guide.
He wiped his hand across his brow.
“But the war is mainly in his mind.”
“I’m curious to see what his gardens are like,” said Paulus.
“You’ll see an example at the library,” said their guide. “And perhaps you will think that purity is not always the best ally of the heart.”
He motioned to them to go ahead, and followed them into the room.
The room extended over three thousand square feet, protected by large picture windows that looked out onto the inner gardens. Bamboo blinds could be adjusted at varying heights depending on whether one wanted to meditate on the floor, or read at the tables set up below the invisible shelves. In the center of the room, scrolls and tomes were suspended in the air, neatly stored on an immaterial frame.
“There aren’t any walls,” thought Petrus, “just windows and books.”
“And readers,” said the hare, with a smile.
And so, he understood why he had come.
Wild grasses in the snow
Two children of November
Book of Battles
MAINTAIN
The candidates’ professions of faith were disseminated throughout the entire territory of the mists one hundred days before the election, in which every elf over the age of one hundred could take part. Later, in the provinces, assemblies would be held, where the programs could be discussed. On the day of the election, Nanzen would tally the votes and the Guardian of the Pavilion would come to Katsura to announce the results.
Let us agree to call our candidates of the moment the councilor and the gardener respectively, and let us hear a few words about their vision for the future of the mists.
The councilor’s profession of faith was magnificent, for it was written in the style of the wild grasses, with a melodious turn of phrase that resonated in every heart. The hare elf of Katsura may have appeared cold and austere, but his prose and manner were warm and kindly.
I shall always maintain, he wrote at the end of his speech. More unexpected was the phrase that preceded his motto: the older our world gets, the more it is in need of poetry. When was the last time anyone had read the word poetry in a leader’s profession of faith? I will leave this question to the historians and, for the time being, look forward to this tribute to the spirit of childhood.
POWER
Inversely, the gardener’s profession of faith reflected none of the brilliance of his person. It was as devoid of heart as he seemed to have been fashioned with love, and as drearily dry as he was insolently youthful. One must be glad of this lack of subtlety in the prose, when the elf was such an expert in the conviction of his gaze and his acts, since it would cost him this election and the next one, thus demonstrating that the mists were not yet prepared to sacrifice their multi-millennial soul.
Elves are less inclined than humans to act under the influence of fear, for tradition, with them, is not opposed to progress, nor is movement opposed to stability. When the gardener wrote, I shall be the protector of the continuity of our culture against the threats of modern times, he could not hope to win over a species used to thinking in circular terms. Some even suspected that he was driven—perhaps without even being aware of it—by that force that undoes more than it maintains: a thirst for power.
However, he was right about one thing, and it would soon earn him enough partisans to build an army: the mists were declining and it was becoming ever more difficult to keep the avenues of this world together.
A DREAM SO LOFTY
1800–1870
I have come here to read, that’s the message, thought Petrus, who two days earlier would have thought it extravagant that messages could be spread throughout the world.
“I’ll take my leave of you now,” said their guide with a bow, “someone will be coming to look after you.”
The three friends stood there for a moment, but no one came, and they went over to the large picture window to admire the garden.
It was a centuries-old jewel, embellished over time by the Council’s successive gardeners, an elite respected among the mists because each