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mikkenekoTitle: The Heralds of the White God chapter 15 - Into the Fire
Rating: M
Warnings: None this chapter.
Summary: In which Kurogane has an encounter with a camel, and Sakura malingers due to voices.
Author's Notes: I'm playing fast and loose with time and distance again. With only two people to provide for, two camels ought to be able to carry enough water for weeks. And indeed, logically their journey through the desert should be one of weeks, not days. But I think my audience would start to get bored with that, and it stretches the limits of credibility how long I can have Sakura delay her destiny.
Syaoran stood in the early desert dawn and breathed in, reveling in the sensation of clean, cold air that seemed to crackle in his throat and lungs. He had missed this - for years he had missed this in the warmer, muggier country of Nihon. There was nothing there quite so invigorating as the smell of the dry desert in the early morning before the sun came up and began to heat the world.
Nihon didn't have sunrises like this, either - mornings there tended to be misty or foggy, obscuring the sun until it had risen well above the horizon. Here, the coming of dawn was heralded by a stunning lightshow in the eastern sky - dark blue gave way to pale blue, to violet and peach and pink like a rainbow in reverse, until it solidified at last to the true, brilliant gold of the sun's rays.
Syaoran kept on glancing up at the eastern horizon even as his hands worked, packing their gear - both new and old - into their saddlebags and traveling packs. Syaoran checked and re-checked their new desert gear, going over each item and impressing to mind its purpose: pale cloaks to reflect the sun's heat, canvas tents to shield them from the worst of the noonday sun and from the danger of sandstorms. Long, narrow, flanged tent spikes to anchor the tents. Casks of water, packages of salted food. The sun's heat would strip them of both water and salt; they'd need to be careful to maintain both, or fall victim to sunstroke. Maps. Compass. Swords…
They had traded away virtually all the gear they'd brought with them except for their weapons. After all, Kurogane suspected that the giant invisible spiders had been warped by magic coming from the desert in the east; the gods only knew what they would find when they traveled there. Even the Dragons didn't know; only the suicidally foolhardy ventured into the high desert plains, and none of them had ever returned.
They had everything they needed - or at least, everything they could get. Now all Syaoran needed was for his teacher to wake up. Syaoran had been somewhat surprised to waken in the pre-dawn hours and find him slumbering heavily in a bundle of thick blankets against the chill. He hadn't seen Kurogane sleep so soundly since they'd left Ruval; every night on the trail he had slept sitting up, hands resting lightly on his swords, ready to spring into action at the slightest hint of danger. It made Syaoran wonder what had changed, in the last few days, to let Kurogane sleep trustingly in the camp of the desert bandits.
Whatever it was, Syaoran couldn't share in it; he hadn't slept well, and had been up again as soon as the sky began to lighten. Yesterday they'd finally, finally completed negotiations with the desert bandits to exchange their gear and mounts for desert supplies; working out the details of the trade had dragged on through the afternoon almost into night. Syaoran had been ready to start off right then, but Kurogane had declared it senseless to leave with so little daylight left to travel.
Syaoran had agreed, but reluctantly; and now that it was light again, he longed to be on the move again. His feet itched to be on the move again, his soul burned to return to the pursuit of his lost princess. Sakura, Sakura. He swore he could see her face outlined above the rising sun. The red-gold of the sunrise made him think of her hair; the pale green of the sky where night shaded into morning reminded him painfully of her eyes. When would he have a chance to see her again? Would he be in time to save her from whatever terrible fate awaited her?
Others in the camp were beginning to stir as the sky lightened, and the crisp cold of the pre-dawn air softened with the coming heat of the day. At last Syaoran's mentor appeared out of the central tent, stumbling and squinting slightly in the growing light. The desert nomads shied apprehensively away from Kurogane's stony glare, but Syaoran was used to it - at least in their house in Edo, when Kurogane wasn't keeping himself on a hair-trigger alertness during the night, his master had never been very good at mornings. That grim-set scowl and squinting glare were really nothing more than Kurogane's grogginess when forced to face the world at too early an hour.
Kurogane stood for a moment on the open ground, stretching his cramped muscles, then blew out a breath. He wasn't wearing his armor - another unusual gesture of trust - but the cold air didn't seem to bother him. He ran one hand through his hair, which was mashed flat on one side from sleep, and turned around, scanning the surroundings. When his gaze reached Syaoran, he paused.
"What the hell is that?" he asked, his voice only slightly blurred. Syaoran glanced over his shoulder briefly; it wasn't too hard to guess what his mentor was talking about.
"These are camels, Sensei," Syaoran replied. "They're desert animals - the nomads use them as beasts of burden."
"Okay," Kurogane said slowly, walking in a circle around Syaoran and the two beasts. "I guess a better question is, why the hell are my bags on that thing?"
"We're going to be taking these two with us," Syaoran said, reaching out to pat the closest camel on the neck. It snorted, shaggy skin twitching, and he hastily pulled his hand back before it could get bitten. "The Dragons agreed to give us camels for our journey into the desert as part of the supplies. Weren't you paying any attention last night?"
"No way," Kurogane said, his scowl deepening. "They barely come up to my chest. I'm supposed to ride these scrawny things?"
"You don't ride them, Sensei," Syaoran said patiently. "They're for carrying the gear and supplies. They store their own water, so they can go for weeks without needing a drink. We won't be able to spare any water for our mounts once we're out in the high desert."
Kurogane took a moment to digest this. "What about those goat-things?" he said plaintively.
Syaoran shook his head. "We can't take them with us," he said. "They're bred for mountain climates; the heat is too much for them, and they'd drink too much water. Besides, we agreed to give them to the bandits in exchange for Soel and Larg. Camels aren't cheap, you know. The Dragons will be able to make better use of them; they range up along the mountainside sometimes."
Kurogane grumbled something about this being the worst horse trade he'd ever made. "What and large?" he said.
"Soel," Syaoran said, pointing to the taller of the camels. The bigger one was a dark brown, and the smaller one a pale buff; they both had large brown eyes, shaggy fur covering their humps, and cynical expressions. "And the other one is Larg. That's what the Dragons named them - it's Vedan for 'little' and 'big.' "
Kurogane shook his head in disgust. "Can't believe we're going to give up a pair of perfectly good mounts to go wandering out into the desert with these mangy crosses between a dog and a - HEY!" he yelped.
The big man had moved too close to the two animals in his inspection, and the smaller pale camel had taken the opportunity to stretch out its neck and sink its strong, flat teeth into his pants leg. A brief scuffle ensued, and Kurogane retreated with a small tear in the fabric of his pants leg and a much bigger one in his dignity. "That fucking thing tried to eat me!" Kurogane swore. "I'm going to carve it up for dinner!"
"You can't do that, Sensei!" Syaoran exclaimed in a shocked tone. "We need these animals to carry our supplies out in the desert! Besides, that's just how they show affection."
"The hell it is," Kurogane growled, eyeing the pale camel with a dark look. "Seems to me they'd also make for good emergency rations, in a pinch."
Perhaps in reaction to Kurogane's fishy glower and threatening tone - camels were smart beasts, after all - the camel brayed a snort of disapproval, and then spat expertly into Kurogane's face.
Kurogane stood stock still for a moment, and Syaoran tried heroically to suppress his fits of laughter. "She really - must - like you, Sensei," he gasped, in between spasms.
The bigger man turned slowly away, shaking his head. "I can't deal with this," he said. "I'm going back to bed."
"Sensei! Wait!" Syaoran yelped, scrambling after him. "But, but we have to get started as soon as possible! We can't waste the light!"
Later that day, as they trudged across the desert landscape with their new companions in tow, Syaoran found himself wondering how he could have ever thought he could waste the light. There was more of it than he could have ever wanted, more of it than he'd ever dreamed; it beat down on his head like a hammer, poured in his eyes in a stinging flood. Even when he closed his eyes, bright silver and green blobs danced in his vision, shimmering off the dun-colored ground in waves. Syaoran found himself staring most of the time at Larg's dark-furred back, just to have something to look at that wasn't so bright.
He saw now the wisdom of the desert nomads' headcovers, which wrapped around the head and face and left barely room around the eyes for them to see out of. Without it, they no doubt would have gone blind within a few hours. As it was, even the narrowed, shaded view of the world was enough to pick out their way; they marked their direction by the position of the sun, the readings of the compass, and the sharp black shadows cast by the rocky landmarks of their path.
The desert nomads, despite avoiding the region as much as possible, had actually given them a fairly good description of their terrain ahead. The drylands continued for several days' walk to the east, with water sources becoming harder to find the further they traveled. At the end of the drylands, the rock and gravel would give way to shifting white dunes of sand, the high desert - and here the desert nomads' stories ended, because none who had ventured into that sea of sand had ever returned.
The land was mostly level, but not completely flat; the subtle roll of the terrain under their feet was hardly remarked as they trekked up one shallow incline and down the next. It was noticeable mostly in the way that the landmarks - irregular clumps of rock that thrust up from the landscape every few miles - would appear and disappear under the horizon.
Even the ever-present grass - dull green-grey or a dusty tan like the stone - was becoming sparser and sparser as they continued. Flat, bare stretches of rock occasionally topped an incline, but mostly the camels' feet crunched over gravel and loess worn out of the stones by centuries of blowing wind. In some places a fine sand skittered over the ground, rising as high as their booted ankles before falling away in a crystalline puff of wind.
They stopped for a few hours near noon, setting up the tent and taking shelter in its shade. Syaoran and Kurogane doled out portions of water and food, following the advice that the old desert nomads had given the travelers before they departed. Kurogane took the larger portions, which made sense, but surprised Syaoran when he realized - thinking back on it - that Kurogane had always wordlessly given Syaoran the larger portion before, instead. It was touching and embarrassing all at once, but Syaoran was glad he'd stopped; they had to ration their supplies carefully if they were going to cross the desert, and Kurogane's bigger body needed more.
Once the sun had passed on from overhead somewhat, they struck the tent and moved on. Despite the rest, Syaoran quickly found himself becoming fatigued to the point of exhaustion. The long empty distances they'd already covered - climbing the precarious slope of the mountains, fighting through the underbrush on the wooded slopes, crossing the hills of the savannah - barely seemed like a warm-up exercise to him now, although he was able to appreciate how much it had strengthened his endurance.
Miles and hours blended together in an endless, trudging parade of putting one foot in front of the other. Through the long hours of the afternoon trek Syaoran wished endlessly that they could stop and make camp, put up the tent and rest in its shade; only his dogged determination to find his princess kept him stoically moving forward.
When evening finally arrived and the oppressive heat eased away, it gave them both a second wind; they kept on going long after the last glimmer of the sun had vanished below the horizon, as the light faded from the sky and the stars came out in brilliant multitudes. They kept going as long as they could in order to make up for the time lost by the noon rest; but when the land was completely shrouded in darkness and they could no longer see any hint of their landmarks, Kurogane called a halt. They couldn't afford to lose their way in the dark; if they became lost in the desert, they could wander fruitlessly until they died of thirst.
Kurogane made a fire - out of habit more than anything else, Syaoran thought, since their food didn't need to be cooked. Still, the familiar light and cheerful warmth were comforting, and the two of them sat outside of their tent before the fire long after they had eaten their evening meal. Syaoran found himself staring once more at the stars to the east, thinking longingly of his missing princess. His gaze felt drawn repeatedly towards the east, not only for the view of the rising sun, but because that was their destination. How could they feel so close, and yet be so far?
A flicker in the sky, like a distant fire, caught Syaoran's eyes, and he blinked. "What was that?" he said, breaking the silence.
"What?" Kurogane turned towards him. His mentor hadn't been looking at the sky; he'd been focusing on the land around them, keeping his senses open for a night attack.
"I thought I saw…" Syaoran trailed off uncertainly. Another light flickered across the dark sky, and Syaoran jumped to his feet. "There!"
Kurogane frowned at the sky. "The hell is that?" he muttered.
"A meteor shower…?" Syaoran said, staring fascinated upwards. "It's not like the ones my father told me about, though…" A meteor - or a meteor shower - ought to flicker across his eyes in quick white streaks almost too fast to follow. These lights lingered in the sky for several seconds, and Syaoran thought he could discern colors in them - not just white, but yellow-green and red-orange.
"There," Kurogane said suddenly, and Syaoran twisted his neck to see what his mentor was pointing at. The first lights had appeared in the east, but another series of flashes were coming alight to the south-west, in the direction of the sunken sun. "D'you suppose it's the same thing?"
"I don't know," Syaoran said. "Sometimes in the far north you get lights - auroras - that hang in the sky, but we're much too far south for that…"
The lights didn't fade away; more and more of them rose, to the southwest and to the east, rising high into the sky. They looked almost like fireworks, if any fireworks could be so vast as to span the vault of the heavens over such a great distance. There were no noises, of course, just lights - and all of Syaoran's learning was at a loss to explain what it might be. "I guess it's some kind of desert phenomenon," he said at last, but that felt no more useful than saying he had no idea at all.
After about a quarter of an hour, Kurogane let out a breath and rolled to his feet. "Lights or no lights, we need to get some sleep," he said. "Whatever it is, we can't do anything about it now."
"I guess," Syaoran said reluctantly. He was fascinated and entranced, not only by the beauty of the lights but by the mystery. The scholar that was his father's son itched to document it, the directions and intensity and duration, and to search in the literature to find some kind of cause. It went against the grain to leave a mystery so unsolved; but Kurogane was right, there was no way they could learn any more tonight.
The next day was very much like the first. Days spent plodding over the rock and gravel, nights spent traveling long after dusk before setting camp. The mysterious lights did not reoccur, and after an hour or so of halting speculation, they gave up wondering what could have caused them.
Kurogane had never been the most talkative of traveling companions, but in the barren, oven-like heat of the desert air they both lapsed into taciturn silence. They spoke only to confer over the maps or debate over a nearby landmark; the directions given to them by the Dragons of the Desert were supposed to lead them to a well or a water hole several day's walk eastward. They'd need to refresh their water supply there before they crossed into the high desert, or else they'd never make it.
Syaoran had become so numb to the details of the terrain they traveled, he didn't understand at first why Kurogane called a sudden halt and jumped aside, manhandling his complaining camel away from the lumpy hillock they'd been climbing over. He watched in confusion as Kurogane scuffled around in the dry dust for a few minutes, kicking aside some rocks and dead grass and brushing fine sand off the rock below.
But it wasn't stone, he realized with a small shock. There was something… odd about the hard surface under Kurogane's hand. "Sensei?" he hazarded.
Kurogane grunted satisfaction, then took a step back. "I thought so," he said. "Come look at this."
"What am I looking at?" Syaoran asked, even as he came to his mentor's side. Then the answer came to him with a gasp; the 'hill' they'd been traveling over wasn't a hill at all. It was the crumbled, desiccated remains of one of the giant spiders they'd fought in the lowlands west of here; the 'grass' he'd ignored was the bristling hair that drooped from the monster's legs and head.
"It's… dead, right?" he said hesitantly, although it seemed quite dead. Dust and sand had blown over it, outlining and obscuring its shape at the same time. "It's… even bigger than the last one…"
"Stone dead," Kurogane said, then glanced up and around, frowning. "If the magic that did this to them came from the east, then the closer we get to the source of the magic, the bigger they're likely to get."
Syaoran frowned unconscious agreement. "But didn't you say that where there's something to eat, there's things that eat them?" he said. "Doesn't that go the other way around, too? If there's something around, there has to be something that feeds them?"
"There'd have to be," Kurogane agreed.
"But there's no cows," Syaoran pointed out. "So what do they eat?"
Kurogane didn't answer, but gathered the reins of his camel and set off again.
For the rest of the day, though, he kept his eyes open to the lumps and protrusions scattered across the sandy desert floor. He saw no more dead spider carcasses, but he did see bones, scattered like trash across the barren landscape. Some seemed familiar to Syaoran, and some not familiar at all.
They passed through one field like a graveyard, a whole herd's worth of cow carcasses picked clean by the sun and wind. It felt eerie, as much for the silence and absence of any scavengers as by the white bones and empty skulls of the skeletons. And later on, off to the south, they approached a gleaming white set of bones half-buried in a hill. Syaoran had paid it no mind at first, assuming it to be another cow, but he did a double-take as they slowly approached it from the distance and the size became apparent. It had only appeared small when it was far away; by the time they actually passed it, the fallen ribcage spanned a gulf half again the size of a house.
Syaoran tried hard not to think of what sort of a creature could leave behind bones like these; tried even harder not to think what could have killed it.
There were other things to worry about instead. Strangely, Syaoran wasn't too troubled by the thought of what awaited them at the citadel. Maybe he was just too out of his depth to be afraid; while he knew in the abstract that the mysterious kidnapper was a dark and evil wizard, and that wizards were dangerous enough even when they weren't dark and evil, he didn't really have a frame of reference to fit that into. He wasn't a wizard, he knew nothing of magic - not even the tame, domestic magics of the Nihon priesthood. He didn't know what to expect - he didn't even know where to begin, and so he mostly just didn't let it bother him.
Finding Sakura again, that was the important part. Somehow he just knew that once he reached the wizard's stronghold, once he laid eyes on her again, then everything else would just work itself out all right.
Besides, they still had a long way to go before they even got to that point. A more serious concern was going to be water. Syaoran and Kurogane were rationing their water supply carefully - following the desert nomads' explicit instructions on how much to drink and when, and not a drop more, no matter how their thirst cried out for it. But the plain fact was that the water supply would be the measure of how far they could travel. Soel and Larg could only carry so much weight, and any extra they tried to carry themselves would just exhaust them all the sooner.
The Dragons had provided them with explicit directions to springs and deep wells in the dry desert. They came across the first site early on the third day - it was unmistakable, a dip in the landscape like a shallow pan, its bottom lined by thick scrub surrounding the pool of water at its lowest point.
But the vegetation was dry, brittle and dead, and the pool had dried to a hard mud crust at its center. Kurogane made no attempt to hide his agitation; "First they foist these damn defective horse-dogs off on us," he said, sharing an evil look with Larg. "Then they send us to a dud watering hole! Are you sure this is the right place?"
"I'm sure," Syaoran said. They had followed the directions carefully, and the shape of the dell looked exactly as the others had described to him. "They haven't come out this way in years, Sensei. They had no reason to, and they were afraid of the wizard. It probably just dried out naturally."
"Natural," Kurogane snorted. "As if any place can be called 'natural' that spawns ten foot high invisible spiders…"
Syaoran listened to his teacher's familiar griping, and heard the real tension and concern underneath it. Because if the desert nomads' knowledge of the terrain was so outdated, then this might not be the only wellspring which had run dry in the intervening years.
On the other hand, it might be just this one surface pool that had dried up; the other, deeper wellsprings might be perfectly fine. They weren't actually running low on water; they had several days' worth left still. They'd only hoped to top off their casks at this spring as a precaution, but they had plenty to last them to the next watering hole.
He took a deep breath. "We go on," he said. He projected as much confidence into his voice as he could, but he could hardly believe his own audacity. He half-expected his teacher to tell him he was being stupid, to turn them around on the spot and head back towards civilization.
Kurogane was silent for a long moment, and when he did speak at last his voice was quiet. "It's your journey, kid," he said, his voice deep and reserved. "It's your call."
The second wellspring, miles on, wasn't dry - but it was tainted, some strange effluvium that seemed to darken the pool below even though the spring as it trickled over the rock seemed perfectly clear. There was a smell to it that was hard to define, that set every hair on Syaoran's neck on end; the camels wouldn't even go near it, let alone drink, and that was what finally decided them to move on without stopping.
They reached the third wellspring at the end of the sixth day, an hour after dusk, as their water supplies were running low in the cask. It was distinctively marked - as their directions had promised - by a sharp granite pillar thrusting into the sky, like a tree with no branches. The little island of harder rock sat apart from the softer, crumbling gravel and sand of the desert surrounding it, and the wellspring sank deeply into the granite outcropping. On the eastern horizon, the setting sun reflected off a line of gleaming white hills that towered above the desert floor; the sand dunes, the high desert plain.
The third wellspring was also dry.
Kurogane and Syaoran didn't speak - there wasn't much to say, although Syaoran felt a sick tension clogging his throat. They would have to turn back - they had no choice, there was no possible way they could cross the high desert with the water they had. The remainder of their supply probably wouldn't even last them the journey back, retracing their steps across the dusty bone-strewn plain. After they ran out of water, they would have only their own bodies' reserves to draw on in the final leg of the journey; it might be enough.
Or it might not, in which case they'd die before they ever reached the far side of the desert.
Dry-mouthed and sick, Syaoran tried to wrap his mind around the idea that they might not get out of this alive. This was his fault; he'd been the one to drag his mentor out here, insist they keep going even after the first wellspring had been dry. Maybe he should insist that Kurogane take all the water, in order to get back; the only thing that held him back was he wasn't sure Kurogane would accept it. Knowing his mentor, Kurogane was just as likely to try to press the rest of their supplies on him, instead.
The strange thing was, even now, Syaoran didn't want to turn back. He felt guilty and afraid, but mostly he just felt frustrated. To have come so far, only to be turned back at the last moment - it was unbearable. Sakura was out there, across the desert just a bare handful of miles away; when he closed his eyes he could almost see the connection stretching between them, taut and shimmering with the weight of destiny. He couldn't turn his back on her; he might as well try to walk off without his own feet.
They made camp; they had little choice in the matter, since it was too dark to travel in any case. They spoke little, and ate and drank even more sparingly than usual, though the painful dryness of his throat and tissues made Syaoran dizzy.
As he crawled into his bedroll, shivering, Syaoran squeezed his eyes closed and tried to think of something to pray to. He hadn't been raised in the Shinto religion that was native to Japan, but if his father had believed in a god - one of the many gods he'd studied in his travel - Syaoran couldn't remember anything about it. Nihon believed that the land had a thousand god-spirits, that each animal and element had one, and often each place had one that was sacred to it. Did this desert have its own kami? If so, was it evil like the sorcerer himself, or did it hate the dark forces that invaded its land as much as Syaoran did? Did this land long for the removal of the infection that had burrowed its way in deep over time?
Help us, he sent out his thought in an unformed prayer, to no one in particular. To someone. Anyone. We have to get rid of him. We need water. For the princess' sake, for the world's sake, we have to fight him. But we can't fight him if we can't cross the desert and we can't cross it without water. Can't you help us? Can't you…?
Eventually, he dropped off to sleep.
In the middle of the night came a sharp crack, and a rumble that shook Syaoran groggily from his sleep. Kurogane was already up, sword in his hands as he crouched by the flap of the tent. "What is it?" Syaoran said groggily, voice raspy with sand and sleep. "Thunderstorm?" He'd never heard of a thunderstorm this far out in the desert, but he couldn't squelch the fleeting flicker of hope…
"No," Kurogane said, poking his head out of the tent. The air was dry as ever, the stars shone brilliantly down from overhead. Syaoran heard a noise; a clattering of rock, a pattering of sand and gravel falling to rest, and…
"An earthquake?" Syaoran asked, pushing himself up and groping for his weapon. What he hoped to do with a wooden sword against an earthquake he had no idea, but he had to do something.
Kurogane didn't answer; he pushed his way out of the tent, the flap falling back in the darkness. Syaoran scrambled after him, and without the muffling of the cloth the new sound resolved to his ears.
It was the rushing of water.
"Sensei!" Syaoran said excitedly. The sound was coming from the rock pillar, and Syaoran dashed off in that direction before coming to a stunned halt.
The bright stars and half-moon gave barely enough light to see by, but the pale sand and gravel of the desert helped reflect and amplify it. The tall granite pillar had split as though struck by lightning. The base of the pillar was lost in dark stone and shadows, but the sound of flowing, bubbling water - combined with the smell of it, once remarked, never forgotten - was unmistakable.
"I can't believe it!" Syaoran exclaimed, lurching forward to stick his hand - somewhat recklessly - into the shadowed stream. The shock of cold water was a delight on his hand, and he cupped his hands to bring a mouthful to his lips. There was no dangerous aura, no smell of corrosion - the water tasted sweet and pure. "The well came back, just when we needed it! There must have been an earthquake, enough to split the rock and let the stream find the surface again. Can you believe the luck?"
"It's pretty hard to believe," Kurogane said, his voice quiet and hard to decipher. He was staring out into the endless shadows of the desert night, as if expecting enemies or demons to spring to life and drive them away from the new spring.
Syaoran was ecstatic, all his guilt and frustration and fear washed away like the splitting of the stone. "It can't be a coincidence, Sensei," he said firmly. "We can't stop now, we can't turn back - this is a sign that we're meant to be doing this, that our journey has to happen. Someone must be looking out for us!"
"You're right," Kurogane said after a long moment, sheathing his sword and turning back towards Syaoran and the spring. His face was completely shadowed, but his voice was thoughtful. "Someone is looking out for us."
Below.
Sakura glanced around, surprised by the sudden word. It sounded like a woman's voice, like someone had just spoken into her ear.
"Did you say something, Xing Hua?" she asked. The older woman was brushing her hair again; she seemed to take some pleasure from the soothing repetitive action, and would often offer to brush Sakura's hair for her even before she asked.
"Hmm? No, Mistress, I didn't," Xing Hua said respectfully. She hesitated a moment - the brush faltered on its way through her hair - before both voice and brush resumed. "Perhaps it was… another of your little hallucinations? Master Reed did say to pay them no mind…"
"No," Sakura said, and was surprised at how true that seemed when she said it. The visions - although they'd sometimes included sound and voices - had never come quite like this. They appeared and disappeared in fast, sometimes incoherently garbled snippets, and they never took any mind of her at all - like true echoes, they were only repetitions of things that had come before. After the conversation with Fei Wong Reed over breakfast, Sakura had redoubled her efforts to shut them out, and slowly they had faded away until they were no more than background noise while she focused her mind on other tasks.
Below.
But this was different. There had been no searing visions, no warping of reality. It simply felt like someone had spoken a word into her ear, directed at her, not to shades of long-gone strangers.
"Xing Hua, what's underneath the citadel?" Sakura asked. She glanced into the mirror as she did, watching the change of expression on Xing Hua's face as she said it.
Xing Hua hesitated, worry and indecision flickering over her features, even though her steady hands didn't falter this time. "What a thing to ask, child," she said. "It's really nothing important, or anything you need to know about."
"Mister Reed told me about it, the first time I used the throne," Sakura said quickly. "He said that it was drawing power from something underground. I guess I just wondered what kind of amazing thing could produce all that power."
"The master told you about that?" Xing Hua hesitated for a moment, wavering on the edge between circumspection and honesty. "Well… I suppose it's all right, then. Yes, child, there are caves and caverns underneath Eden. Most of them are empty and not worth attention, but some of them we enlarged and converted for other uses. In one such cavern the great crucible resides, the focus of much of the Master's art."
"But what is this crucible thing?" Sakura wanted to know. "Mister Reed mentioned it, but he didn't explain what it is. If it's related to what I'm doing to find the White God, don't I need to know what it is and how it works?"
"If you needed to know, the Master would have told you," Xing Hua said firmly. "But truly, Sakura, there is no point in asking me. Such things are far beyond my meager understanding of magic."
"Oh," Sakura said.
Below.
"Well, is there anything else there?" Sakura wanted to know. "In those other caverns you talked about."
"Some are used as storage," Xing Hua answered. "Mostly of foodstuffs and other necessities."
"Dungeons?" Sakura asked with interest.
"Of course not!" Xing Hua reacted with shock, drawing back and looking down at Sakura with surprised outrage. "There are no dungeons in Eden! Why would we have such things here?"
"Well, there were dungeons back in the castle at Ceres," Sakura explained. "I used to play in them when they were empty. I just thought every place would have them."
"I see," Xing Hua said, calming down. "Well, we do not. I promise you that, princess. We are here to help save the people of the world. Why would we confine them against their will?"
"Oh," Sakura said, unable to conceal her slight disappointment. So, whatever the voice was, it wasn't coming from some prisoner held beneath the earth.
Find us.
"I'd really like to see these caves, though," Sakura added wistfully. "They sound so exciting. And I'd like to see this great crucible thing. I've seen so many wonderful things since I came here, I'd just like to see the thing that makes it all possible."
"Absolutely not," Xing Hua said, regaining some firmness. She set the brush down on the table and picked up a short length of white ribbon, beginning to tie Sakura's hair back out of her face. "The Master would never approve of such a thing. It would be far too dangerous for you, and you might disturb the Master's great workings and cause all sorts of trouble." She paused, and the hands in Sakura's hair turned her head to look at Xing Hua square in the face. "You are not to go near those caverns, understood?"
"All right," Sakura said.
And that was it. Sakura stopped trying to argue about it, and Xing Hua, relieved, went back to plaiting her hair.
One thing Sakura had learned, long ago, was that the sort of people that made rules declaring where little girls couldn't go weren't generally interested in hearing arguments from little girls about why they should be allowed to go there. Passionate hysterics or wheedling logic were equally useless once they'd made up their mind.
But what Sakura had learned was that once she'd made up her mind, there was very little to actually stop her from going where she pleased. Adults might disapprove and lecture sternly after the fact, but as long as she didn't make a big production out of where she was going to alert them, there was nothing they could do about it. It was usually better to ask forgiveness than permission; and even if not, at least you'd accomplished your goal in the meanwhile.
She would need to get rid of her attendants, though. That was no minor task - ever since she'd come to this stronghold there had always been at least one female attendant on hand, sometimes others hovering in the background, and guards posted out of any room she was in. This caution had never struck Sakura as particularly odd; she'd lived her life as a princess, and servants and guards had always been part of her mental landscape.
That meant, though, that she also had a long experience in ducking said attendants when she wanted to be alone.
Sakura coughed, voice rasping in her throat as she raised a hand reflectively to cover it. Xing Hua and the other attendant - whose name Sakura couldn't quite remember, Hina something? - glanced over her, but didn't comment. Neither did she.
She kept coughing, though, with increasing frequency over the next hour. At last Xing Hua put down the garment she'd been folding and came over to her, feeling her forehead with concern. "Lady Sakura, are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," Sakura admitted, her voice slightly scratchy from all the coughing she'd been doing. "I don't have a headache… well, not really..."
Xing Hua and the other woman exchanged concerned glances. "You can't become sick," Xing Hua exclaimed. "Not now, of all times, when we're so close…"
"I'm cold," Sakura said, letting just a hint of a whine into her voice. "Can I have some hot tea? With lemon and chamomile?"
Xing Hua hesitated in the act of turning to the door. "I know we have lemon," she said doubtfully, "but I'm not sure about the other…"
Sakura made big, hopeful eyes at her. "Fai-niisan always said chamomile was best for preventing colds," she said. "Can't you find some, Xing Hua? If you love me?"
An unaccustomed flush crept up in Xing Hua's fair skin. "I will try, Mistress," she said in a rush, before curtseying and hurrying out of the room.
That left just one. Sakura allowed the other attendant to herd her into bed, but made a show of shivering and chattering her teeth as the woman drew up the blanket. "Can I have another blanket, please?" she said.
The woman wavered, obviously unwilling to leave her alone. "You should not be unattended, my lady," she said. "Especially now, if you're getting sick…"
"I'm just going to lie down for a while," Sakura said. "I want to rest and get better as quickly as I can, so that I can get back to finding the White God for Mister Reed and everyone."
It was a cheap trick, but effective. She didn't know this servant as well as Xing Hua; she wasn't even positive of her name (Was it Hinata? Or was it Hinoto?) But all of the servants here shared one interest; they wanted to help Fei Wong Reed accomplish his dream of summoning the White God into the world, and would do anything to help that goal. This woman was no exception. "Lie still," she told Sakura, and hurried out of the room in search of a second blanket.
As soon as she was gone, Sakura grinned and sat up, tossing the blanket aside and swinging her feet to the floor. She counted to ten, then snuck over to the door and peeked out; there was a guard in the corridor, but he was looking the other way after the departing servant. It was easy for Sakura to sneak past him, her soft-shod feet making no noise on the stone tiles.
Below.
In the end it wasn't particularly hard to find the stairwells leading down. Sakura hadn't expected it to be; after all, this was Fei Wong Reed's home, the stronghold of the Heralds. There was no reason for hidden doorways or secret passages, since no one had any reason to believe that unfriendly or suspicious eyes would come sneaking around.
After weeks spent in the chapel, Sakura was familiar with most of the rooms and corridors in the great stone complex. But there was one hallway she'd never been in before - one that her attendants always guided her away from, even though she'd seen Mister Reed walking down in that direction more than once.
It was empty now, which was a relief to Sakura as she set off to explore. She walked carefully down the stone hallway, frequently putting her ear to the wall or her hand to the floor and listening. There was a subtle change of vibration in the stone, a feeling of hollow emptiness when there was space behind it. The hallway branched, and the echoing feeling of empty space led off below the branch. Sakura followed.
At the end of the short branching hallway was a tall set of heavy double doors, heavy wood painted black and set with elaborate silver runes on the panels and the arch. Sakura couldn't read these runes; they tingled like magic, but they weren't any of the rune-words she'd learned in Ceres. Still, the portal had a feeling of heavy weight, of solemnity and power, that infused Sakura with a mixture of apprehension and awe.
The door was not locked or barred. Sakura pushed it open, and found a curving stone stairway leading down.
It was a long way down. Much longer than Sakura had anticipated. Sakura was used to scampering easily up and down stone stairways, but this stone tunnel curved around and around and down for so long that her calves began to protest the treatment. She cringed to think of what the climb back up was going to be like. Sakura estimated that she had climbed down as far as the highest tower in Ruval was from the ground, and the stairway showed no sign of stopping yet.
Still, her curiosity - and the persistent whispering - drew her onwards. Exploring the underground tunnels made her feel oddly homesick, reminding her of her adventures in the palace of Ruval with Syaoran. She wondered how they had carved out all this from solid rock; the stone walls were perfectly smooth and didn't look at all like natural caverns. Magic must have been involved, but Sakura knew better than most that magic didn't just instantly grant wishes with no effort. This stairway had taken a long, long time and a lot of work to make.
There was a strange feeling growing in the air of the tunnel. At first she thought the air was growing warmer and warmer, but she wasn't sweating. Then she thought instead it was growing sharply colder, but she wasn't shivering. There was a smell in the air that was no smell at all, an electric feeling like walking over a thick hearth rug in the winter; but instead of snapping out in a bright shock when she touched the wall, the feeling just built and built until every hair wanted to stand on end. Sakura took deep gulps of air, and even the breath in her lungs seemed to fizz and burn.
At last the curving stairway flattened out into a dark tunnel. A strange, almost subliminal roaring seemed to fill the air, like the sound of thunder or a crowd in the distance. Light glowed from somewhere up ahead, and Sakura followed it; all of a sudden the ceiling and the ground both seemed to open up ahead of her, and Sakura gasped aloud.
Here.
Her voiceless breath echoed in the vaulted chamber ahead of her. This must have been the natural caverns Xing Hua had told her about; even with magic, no man could possibly have excavated such a space out of solid stone. But whatever shape and texture the original cave possessed had been smoothed away, the walls and ceiling rising in grand curves to meet in an arch high overhead. The walls themselves were incised with runes, so thickly that it looked almost like embroidery even though each individual rune was almost as tall as Sakura. The network of runes glowed a dim red-orange, but that was not the source of the light.
The tunnel had opened up to a wide ledge, almost like a balcony, surrounding a vast space in the center of the cavern. A low stone wall bordered the ledge, forming a lip to protect against slips. The walkway circled the width of the cavern, and Sakura saw other dark mouths opening at intervals on the far side. Her stairway was obviously not the only way to get down to this place.
At other places the walkway extended in ledges like stone towards the center of the cavern, but Sakura found she had absolutely no desire to get any closer. In the very center of the cave, shooting up from the vast gulf below to the pinnacle where all the arches met, hung a beam of light. Where it met the stone above it was funneled into layered rings of stone and disappeared into the ceiling, and Sakura understood suddenly that this chamber lay directly below the throne where she searched the worlds for the White God.
Which meant that this must be… the crucible that Fei Wong Reed had spoken of. Fascinated, Sakura crept forward until she could see over the low stone railing; the wave of energy that poured over the railing seemed to want to lift her from her feet.
Below her, the cavernous gulf stretched away to unknown depths; the dark stone of the cavern floor was buried well out of sight. Instead, the golden pillar stretched upwards from a heaving sea of light. It was difficult for Sakura to guess how wide or deep it was; even as she looked at it she got the eye-hurting sense that the laws of the natural world didn't quite work the right way here, as though the world itself bent under the weight of the pool. It seemed at once both a liquid and a spirit, spiraling one way around the center in a great maelstrom and yet the opposite way at the same time. She could not tell what color the light was; it seemed gold and silver and white and black all at once, like the substance itself and the light that radiated from it were two completely different shades.
The one thing she could feel without question, though, was the power that rolled off it in waves. There was again that feeling of hot/cold that she had felt in the tunnel, but magnified many times. Fei Wong Reed had been right to call it volatile - and dangerous. Even standing hundreds of feet above the surface of the strange well, she could feel the fizzing, cold-burning sense of magic churning agitatedly in the air. It was contained, but only barely; the massive stone walls and vivid rune-wards could mark its limitations, but they could not tame its raw, unfettered power.
She saw now the wisdom for the railings, and could almost wish they were a hundred feet thick; any careless stone or unfortunate being to fall into that pit would be vaporized by the sheer intensity of its energy long before it reached the surface. For the first time, Sakura truly comprehended the scale of power needed to pierce beyond the boundaries of the world and seek contact with other dimensions; coming face to face the sheer scope of the power source that Fei Wong Reed had harnessed was truly humbling. Neither Sakura nor any of the wizards she had known could have dreamed of such an accomplishment, or pretended to such ambition.
And yet…
Below.
There was something….
Find us.
About the well…
Here.
That kept drawing her attention…
Daughter.
Sakura leaned heavily on the stone parapet, staring down into the conflagration below. The voice had led her here. The voice had called out to her from below…
In the mass of fettered energy, the howling hurricane of power, shapes flickered and disappeared. Voices called out, not the clear concise whispers of before, but a faint, indistinguishable cacophony of a hundred different voices crying in a hundred different languages. Faces, bodies, hands, forming and then dispersing into the seething light. Each one accompanied by an image, however brief, a memory of fear or pain or terror of wrenching loss. She'd seen them before, not knowing what she saw, when she'd drawn upon this power while sitting on the throne far above.
Impurities, Fei Wong Reed had told her. Residue of source of the power you are channeling.
The moments of their death.
She'd found the seat of Fei Wong Reed's power. And it was Hell.
~to be continued...
Omake:
Generally, Mysterious Mental Whispers Are Not A Good Thing
Have you had the dream again? the voice whispered in Sakura's mind. A black goat with seven eyes that watches from the outside. There is no escape. Not in this life. Not in the next.
Sakura gargled, eyes rolling back in her head as foam flecked her lips. "Mar'kowa tallol ye'tarin," she sputtered, hands clawing the air. "We are nothing! Tulall par'okoth. Far'al, ka'kar. The void devours!"
no subject
Date: 2012-03-10 12:29 am (UTC)DAY MADE.
Ahaha, camels. Of course it's trying to eat you, Kuro-pin. Seriously though, I love the description of the desert- there's this barren beauty in your words, and you can pretty much feel the heat rolling off the rock and dried scrub as they walk.
Not going to lie, I started to panic when water source after water source dried up, and even though I was hoping for a sudden rainstorm, I liked what happened with the pillar and the stream surging forth much better. ♥
Also, Sakura, you cunning little thing. Hehehehe, little girls are far better at manipulation than you ever thought they would be FWR; best be prepared...
...and also, now I am super creeped out by the realisation at what was powering the throne. *shudders* Not cool. Not cool, FWR, and I've seriously got goosebumps from it right now.
PFFT OMAKE :DDDDDDDDDD
Sakura: *does best impressing of possessed girlchild from every horror and exorcist movie ever* IT COMES. IT COMES!
Syaoran: ... I don't think I want you any more.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-11 08:07 am (UTC)Yeaaaah, Sakura duped those poor women pretty easily -- but I figure, she's been so obedient and docile up till now, they got complacent. XD
And you think being trapped in the desert without water is a problem NOW. Ah hah hah hah hah.
Syaoran: ... I don't think I want you any more.
;-; Poor Sakura!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-10 12:38 pm (UTC)The red-gold of the sunrise made him think of her hair; the pale green of the sky where night shaded into morning reminded him painfully of her eyes.
I just loved this line. Syaoran seeing reflections of Sakura in the desert. Your imagery is beautiful, as ever.
DO NOT STOP WRITING! <333
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 06:39 am (UTC)I AM GLAD THAT YOU LOVE THIS ENOUGH TO BE WITH THE ALLCAPS :D AND THANK YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PROOFREADING IT!
this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-10 02:23 pm (UTC)And the desert gods listened to Syaoran's plea for water? Hmm.... Kurogane's thoughtful face somehow makes me think it might have been something different. But who knows.
Syaoran's unsatisfied curiousity regarding the lights in the sky is another thing I'm a bit unsure about. The whole desert seems to be too alive for something so utterly dead. And I felt hot and sandy just reading about their journey.
Oh yeah, and Soel and Larg are DARLING. Even though I agree with Kuro-daddy, they're better from a distance. He had to give away the precious beasts Fai entrusted to him and I understand his hang ups. v_v And such a sweet moment when Syaoran realized Kuro-daddy gave him the bigger portions and never complained about his decisions, reckless as they may have been! Yes boy, appreciate your giant side kick and all his awesomeness at recognizing invisible spider corpses!
And his experience at slaying evil wizards. Because frankly Syao.moron your plan to get Sakura back sucks. xDDD
So all in all Syaoran's plea to the gods makes rock crack and weep water and Sakura's posessed by the weeping voices in her head. Perfect scenario for a heroic rescue.
Hopefully the next chapter will be soon! Because you just re-awakened all these cravings and they demand immediate satisfaction. T_T
Re: this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-12 07:03 am (UTC)Ahah, it was something different. It won't be a mystery for long, don't worry. But if Syaoran wants to imagine that it was his soulful plea to the gods that blessed his journey with a miracle, who am I to discourage him?
Syaoran is definitely lucky to have Kurogane along. He'd never have made it this far without him. And I think Kurogane's grumbling over the camels was more that he doesn't like the camels, than that he really is hung up over losing the kozelorug... he's never been one to get too sentimental over horses, and if they survive they can always send someone from Ceres to buy them back.
Hopefully the next chapter will be soon!
YOU ARE IN LUCK! I'm working on the next chapter even as we speak. XD Normally I tend to flit about between projects, just so that I have a sense of forward progress on them. I was actually planning to work on Pirates next, but since I had such a clear sense of what needed to be in chapter 16 (since most of it was SUPPOSED to be in THIS chapter, before it got stupidly long) that I decided to just go ahead and write the next chapter right away. Hopefully by the end of the week?
Re: this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-13 08:05 am (UTC)But now you REALLY have to deliver you know? xD But then again, as long as you're writing at all, I'm a very happy reader. *not checking back daily at all*
Kurogane usually is lucky with his horses, in "Wizards"
they found them again and got their provisions back. The kozelorug will find their way back, too! (I just have a soft spot for hairy mountain-goat-horses)
*off to dry my hair and see whether the library is still closed because of this stupid bomb threat*
Re: this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-13 08:14 am (UTC)I'm actually sitting here even as we speak, banging my head against the word document. I know exactly what I want to do with the chapter, but before I can get there, I have to find some way to try to make ANOTHER 1,000 words of desert trek seem interesting.
*sigh*
P.S.: omg bomb threat? D:
P.P.S: that icon is perfect for hair-drying-ness.
Re: this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-13 08:57 am (UTC)Desert trek is especially difficult, because there really isn't much but sand and thirst. Maybe some fata morganas, some sand traps and hollows, where one wrong step sucks you in... you could change to an outside perspective, or switch to Soel and Larg's perspective? Either way, I don't think it'll be too bad. Because the point of a desert is that there's no change, no hope, nothing on the horizon but always the same sandy dunes and more heat to the point where you don't know time or distance anymore and question if you really are moving or just imagining it in your mind... So don't bang your precious head too hard against anything, please! 1000 words of repititive sand walking aren't that bad. Especially if we imagine a sweaty Kurogane along with that~
*offers apples and chocolate pancakes*
P.S. Yep, apparently everybody got send home and every single university faculty got shut down for the time being. They had helicopters and stuff.... I NEED THE FRIGGIN LIBRARY BACK! The uni buildings are all over the city and there are a few dozen of them. So far nothing exploded and I'm 98% sure it's just a dumb threat from some exam student who snapped from too much stress.
P.P.S. I LOVE that icon, so thanks! <3
Re: this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-13 09:04 am (UTC)Re: this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-13 09:49 am (UTC)And you have no idea how appropriate your description of the hopeless unchanging desert is for this chapter. XD
I am really glad nothing came of that bomb scare. But especially glad that everyone is safe! If some dumb student snapped from the stress of exams, he could easily have snapped to the extent of doing something really stupid. Well... assuming he was a chemistry student, anyway. :S
Re: this was intended as a short OMG UPDATE :D comment
Date: 2012-03-13 10:09 am (UTC)Nothing wrong with using existing outlines to design a world! CLAMP did the same and you still manage to make them somewhat unique to your story setting. But now I see the resemblance, yes. A felhunter? >D
Ahahaha, I always thought those looked like an accident in the graphic design department that was to good to erase, but I can see it, yeah. xD
My flatmate is a chemistry student and assured me that they learned enough that after the second semester they're all able to blow up a building wing or two. So yes, you aren't the only one suspecting those poor chem students. We were speculating about just that... xDDD (My second guess is that he/she wanted a way to cancel his/her exam that day. It's tempting.)
I love deserts. Looking at them, building traps for them in some RPGs and using them as a way to drive people insane. <3 So all the more I'm looking forward to my treat at the end of the week!
I'm getting back to OpenOffice not for fanfiction but my seminar paper, but I feel your struggle to find the right words. Ganbatte! =)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-11 04:43 am (UTC)I think I didn't quite realize how much I missed this until IT WAS RIGHT HERE AND BEAUTIFUL. <3<3<3
I love how Kurogane fights with Mokona in every incarnation.
He's really lucky the camel is too big to hide in his clothes...And the spitting in his face was too good for words. No one does Kuro-abuse quite like the Mokonas...Is Fai still following them? Is that where the water came from, or is that something scarier? /is confus, but probably won't be later on~
This whole ~thing~ in the basement is fucking terrifying. HELLO NIGHTMARES, IT'S BEEN AWHILE SINCE YOU VISITED ME. Now I have to know what she's going to do. /shuffles you off to write, sticks an IV of tea in your arm. CHOP CHOP <3
no subject
Date: 2012-03-11 08:04 am (UTC)OH MY GOD AMANDA. HAVE THE VOICES STARTED SPEAKING IN YOUR HEAD TOO. QUICK, DRINK THIS CLEANSING DRAUGHT BEFORE THEY START TRYING TO COME OUT THROUGH YOUR SKULL.
...
Mar'kowa tallol ye'tarin. It knows, it knows!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 06:40 am (UTC)