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mikkenekoTitle: The Heralds of the White God chapter 16 - The Earth Moves
Rating: M
Warnings: None this chapter.
Summary: In which Kurogane has a revelation about his traveling companions, and Sakura calls Fei Wong Reed on his bullshit.
Author's Notes: I referenced it briefly in previous chapters, but just to make it clear, Sakura can tell accurately and reliably when someone is lying to her. Consequently, ALL of Fei Wong Reed's statements after "So be it," are literally and factually true (or at least, in the case of opinion statements, something he truly believes.) Also: Credit goes to eijentu for the inspiration for the grosses makeout scene ever (that doesn't involve zombies.)
They made the final climb to the high desert plain before dawn.
Kurogane had traveled plenty in his lifetime - more than almost any of his countrymen, for sure - and had seen plenty of different types of landscapes. Forests, grasslands, marshes, mountains - none of them bothered him. He'd even adapted to the hot drylands below pretty well once they'd gotten the right type of gear from the Dragons.
But this desert landscape, buried in endlessly shifting dunes of sand, was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It hardly seemed like a real place at all; it was more like something out of a nightmare. The whole place seemed soft, unformed somehow - the great sand hills shifted even as he looked at them, their edges eroding in the constant wind that blew fine-ground particles into his face through cracks in his armor.
It was much harder to even walk in this stuff than Kurogane would have expected. Each step was an ordeal, as his boots sank deep into the ground and threatened his balance as he struggled to pull it free again. It was as bad as walking through deep mud - worse, as the sand filtered its way into his boots and rubbed sharply against his feet with each increasingly heavy step. Kurogane was exhausted before an hour had passed, but they had no choice to keep pushing onwards, fighting against the enveloping sand and winds.
No one who entered this desert had ever returned.
Kurogane was not normally one to waste time and energy bitching about the indifferent elements, nor to ascribe human qualities to inanimate objects. But within a few hours of climbing up onto the desert plain he was beginning to hate it with a dull, passionate intensity. And he was sure that it hated him just as much.
Only the camels seemed relatively unperturbed by the landscape. But then again they were built for it, their wide-belled feet supporting those knobby knees; Kurogane caught Syaoran leaning his weight increasingly on the black one as the morning wore on, and wished the dog-horse-things were tall enough for him to do the same. Syaoran weighed less than he did, but he also had smaller feet to spread out over the sand, so it was about an even wash.
Walking through the sand dunes was like being encased in a bowl. As soon as they crested one sandy hill and stumbled slipping down the other side, they lost sight of everything that might have been behind them, and the only thing that could be seen in front of them was another line of the shifting dunes. There were no landmarks; the only things the travelers had to guide them were the sharp black shadows that the sun overhead made under their feet, and the compass that guided them steadily eastward.
The grueling trek had a numbing effect on the body and brain, inviting a sort of half-asleep stupor as they trudged on step by step into the desert. Kurogane fought against it with every ounce of his discipline. He couldn't let himself forget that somewhere in this desert they would find the dark sorcerer's most dangerous defenses, whatever great demons or monsters he set in this unreal terrain to guide the last approaches to his lair.
No one who entered this desert had ever returned. Kurogane intended that they be the first.
Hours slipped by them, though, with no sign of any danger. Kurogane kept all his senses on high alert, but he could sense neither the burning taint of demonic energy nor even the normal, quieter life-energy of animals. Not even the background hum of plants. Only once before in his life had he passed through a country so empty - the dead zone surrounding the lair of the Master of Demons.
At length, Kurogane's sun-wearied eyes spotted a break in the shifting horizon. He raised his head and squinted towards it, trying to focus past the glaring sunlight and shimmering heat waves rising off the sand. Much to his disappointment, it wasn't a grand castle or citadel that would mark the end of their journey - just a rock of a slightly darker color, cresting above the waves of sand. But at least it was a landmark.
"Hey," he called out to Syaoran, his voice raw and parched from the long morning's silence. Syaoran looked up at him, blinking uncertainly. "Let's head over to that rock and set up camp. It'll give us the high ground, let us see whatever's coming."
"Okay," Syaoran agreed, his voice as scratchy and tired as Kurogane's. They altered their course slightly to the south - not by much, it was almost on their route - and pushed forward.
Another hour crept by, as endless as the blowing wind. They trudged over one sand dune and the next, but the distant rocky hill proved strangely elusive. It dipped below the horizon as they descended a sand dune, but didn't reappear when they crested the next hill.
Kurogane frowned and pulled to a halt, the black camel snorting indignantly as he shaded his eyes and scanned the horizon. There was his landmark, off to the left of the way they were going. "We've turned too far to the south," he told Syaoran.
"What?" Syaoran looked up at him in surprise. "How is that possible?"
"It's easy to get turned around here, I guess," Kurogane said, and the thought sent an uneasy chill down the back of his sweat-soaked neck. "Go a little to the left."
They set off again, and yet the distant hill of rock didn't seem to come any closer. The wind picked up slightly, peeling sheets of sand from the tops of the dunes and dashing them along the slopes. Sight of the distant hill wavered and blurred in Kurogane's vision behind the blowing sand, then vanished. Confused, Kurogane looked around, and spotted it far off to his right. He pulled to a half.
"Turned around again," he explained to his ward as Syaoran looked at him, confused. "At this rate we'll be going almost straight north."
"Sensei, that can't be right," Syaoran exclaimed. "According to the compass, we're facing due east."
"What?" Kurogane stared around, then turned to look behind him. Their trail was plain in the sand, leading up the gradual slope of the last hill - but it showed a wide, wandering bent, threatening to circle on itself in the shade of the last hill. Already the blowing wind was beginning to erode their footsteps, making backtracking impossible. "Unbelievable," he muttered.
He turned back to Syaoran. "Forget the hill," he said, tersely. "Just keep going due east. No more side-trips."
They had barely set off again when Syaoran let out a cry of despair. "Sensei, look!" he yelled out, as he stared unbelievingly into the compass in his hand.
Even as Kurogane looked, the needle of the compass swung slowly from its steady northward path, wobbling momentarily eastward before rotating firmly to the west. For a moment the compass needle pointed directly at the afternoon sun.
And then the sun itself began to slide across the sky.
"Magic," Syaoran whispered, his voice strangled as the blood drained out of his face. Kurogane could have screamed a curse to the heavens, but he choked back on the cry. Magic! How could he not have anticipated this?
Their enemy was a warlock, one who warped time and space to his whim. Of course there would be no demons, no monsters guarding his citadel. Why would he need them? All he had to do was surround himself with a desert that bent space and direction and the laws of reality itself - a wall-less labyrinth where any pour soul who set foot there would be doomed to wander fruitlessly in circles until they died of thirst.
No one who entered this desert had ever returned. And now Kurogane understood why.
There was no way out. They couldn't even follow their own trail backwards - it ended after a few hundred yards, erased by the remorseless winds. Without landmarks, without anchors, in this blank sandy hell where even the sun and the sky were not constant, they would be trapped here forever.
Kurogane felt an unaccustomed panic creep up on him, as he contemplated the horror around them. Anger, he'd always drawn on anger in battle, bent it to fuel his determination and drive his sword. But here there were no demons, no sorcerers, no enemies to fight at all - only the implacable, impersonal tides of the sand and the wind. He felt as though he were already being buried, sliding into a smooth catchless pit of soft white sand that would bury him, cover him, smother him, patiently wear away the flesh to his bones.
He couldn't fight this. He couldn't fight.
"Sensei," his student was saying, and the low intent tone of his voice managed to pierce through the haze of Kurogane's helpless horror. "I have an idea. Follow me."
"What?" Kurogane managed to choke out. Syaoran grabbed Kurogane's gauntleted hand and guided it firmly to his own shoulder. "Hold on," the boy instructed him.
And then he closed his eyes, and began to walk forward.
For the first dozen steps Kurogane stumbled after him in a kind of stupor, bewildered by Syaoran's incomprehensible actions. Then Syaoran suddenly turned sharply to the right and kept going; Kurogane found himself jerked after him, the camels snorting indignantly behind as they were towed on their leashes.
Another dozen steps, and then Syaoran turned to the right again. "Kid, what are you -" Kurogane began.
"Trust me," Syaoran said, and Kurogane shut his mouth.
The minutes and steps crept by as the strange procession blundered forward; Syaoran leading with his eyes closed, Kurogane following with one hand on his shoulder, towing the camels behind them. Every few minutes Syaoran would suddenly change direction, sometimes sharply, sometimes imperceptibly. Once he stopped and turned them nearly completely around before he set off again.
But Kurogane saw, as he cranked his head uncomfortably over his shoulder, that their trail of footsteps had become straight again. Somehow, despite all the twists and turns, they were finally making a steady progress eastward. And when he turned around to look ahead of them again, the dark-colored rock that he'd spotted earlier had grown closer.
The desert did not like being resisted. The wind picked up to a howl, throwing sand so heavily that Kurogane's could see nothing but blowing, churning clouds of dust between the high peaks of the sand dunes. The dunes themselves shifted around them - far faster than the wind could carry them, they seemed to melt and subside in one place, only to rise up suddenly in another.
When the sun itself split in the sky, the bright heavenly orbs suddenly casting a multitude of shadows in every direction under their feet, Kurogane too closed his eyes. It was that or go mad.
By the time they reached the rock outcropping it was already dusk. Or so Kurogane assumed - he had lost track of time hours ago. All the sun-images had sunk below the horizon except one, and that one let out only a pale, wan imitation of true sunlight. The wind had risen to a howl and the speed of the flinging sand was beginning to get dangerous, so they set up camp in the slightly-more-sheltered lee of the the weathered sandstone cliff.
Syaoran pitched their tent the way the Dragons of the Desert had taught him, stakes driven deep into the sand and the canvas edges pulled tight against the wind. The sandstorm outside filled the small space with a constant rushing noise, as though they had set up camp under a waterfall. They brought the camels inside with them, which annoyed Kurogane quite a lot, but not enough to distract him from the real question.
"All right, kid," he said, as he lit the glass-cased lantern and set it on a patch of level ground. They couldn't risk a fire, but he wasn't willing to just sit here in the dark. "What the hell was going on out there?"
Under the pall of exhaustion brought on by the grueling day's travel, Syaoran looked triumphant. "I told you before, Sensei," he said. "I always knew this was the right way to find Princess Sakura."
"You said you had a feeling," Kurogane shot his own words back at him. "That's not the same as walking around with your eyes closed like a festival stuntman."
Syaoran flushed, though it was hard to make out in the dim light. "It's hard to explain," he said defensively. "I didn't think you'd believe me."
"Try," Kurogane said.
Syaoran rubbed his hands over his wind-chapped face, then leaned over to pull at their saddlebags. The camels snorted, the pale one stirring in the small space, but they were just as exhausted as the humans from the day's trek and seemed content just to settle down to rest. Syaoran pulled out some traveling food from the bottom of his pack - dried fruit strips and bread - and offered some to Kurogane, who took it wordlessly.
"At first it was like - just an impulse," Syaoran said around a chewy mouthful. "As though someone were tugging at me with a string, always pointing eastward. But the further we got from Ceres - well, the closer we got to where Sakura is, I suppose - it got stronger and stronger. It got the point where I could almost see it out of the corner of my eye - like I was seeing an echo with this eye," he said, reaching up to tap the left side of his face, the eye that had always been silvery and blind for as long as Kurogane had known him.
"I can close my eyes -" he did so now, and a soft, wondering smile spread over his face. "And I can see it so clearly now, like a cord that stretches from my heart off into the distance. It always points to the east, and as long as I follow that path I won't ever get lost. I could follow it over the edge of the world into Hell, and it would always lead me the right way."
Kurogane stared at his student. Syaoran seemed perfectly calm, unaware of the magnitude of the bombshell he had just dropped. "You -" He stopped, his voice grinding to a halt; he had to cough and swallow his bite of bread, washing it with a precious mouthful of water, before he could speak. "What exactly do you think that is?" he said in an almost normal tone, only slightly strangled.
Syaoran looked surprised that Kurogane needed to ask. "It's obvious, isn't it?" he said. "It's the string of fate, the one that connects star-crossed lovers. Just like all the stories talk about. When two people are destined to meet and fall in love, a red thread appears to tie their souls together. Sakura and I were meant to meet, and I was meant to be able to follow her so I could rescue her. It's destiny."
Syaoran kept on rambling on about soulmates and fate and reincarnation, but his words kept fading in and out of Kurogane's ears as the implications of Syaoran's unexpected little talent spun out before him.
Up until now, Kurogane had gone along with this mad trip purely on faith - not faith in Syaoran, but faith in Fai. Fai had asked him to follow Syaoran and keep him safe and even though Kurogane hadn't understood why, he'd agreed. Oh, there had been other things - the monsters, the stories of the Dragons of the Desert seemed to support Syaoran's assertion that the evil sorcerer's lair was out here in the high desert somewhere, but Kurogane had written that off to pure lucky coincidence. He'd followed Syaoran up a mountain, down a forest, through battle with monsters and bandits and the endless sucking desert heat, but he had not for one minute believed that Syaoran really knew where he was going.
And now, it seemed, he had known all along.
Most incredibly, how had Fai known? Because Fai must have known, Kurogane saw that now; all that bullshit he'd spouted back at the castle about love being a special kind of magic that would draw them together was just that, bullshit. But Fai had known, when he'd sent Kurogane off on this wild goose chase with him, that Syaoran would be able to find his way through the wizard's deadly labyrinth. And he hadn't wanted Kurogane to know that he knew.
Why?
And Fai wasn't the only one, Kurogane realized suddenly. He remembered now the odd way that all of the wizards of Ceres - not just Fai - had reacted when Syaoran appeared in the shattered throne room after Sakura's kidnapping. At the time he had been too distracted and overwhelmed by the madness of King Ashura and his murderous spree to take much notice of it; but the more he thought back on it, it was odd.
Hostility he could have expected, given Syaoran's tactlessness at the time - even frank outrage at the boy's nerve. But they'd acted like they wereafraid of him, even then - the way they pulled back from him, the way they had all suddenly deferred when he declared his mad intention to dash off after their missing princess. The shocked, fearful tone of voice when they spoke in their own language so that neither Syaoran nor Kurogane could understand. The way that Fai had been careful to make sure that Syaoran could not read his lips.
Don't tell Syaoran about me, Fai had asked him. Begged him. Don't let him know I'm here at all.
Why not? What did Fai know about Syaoran that Kurogane did not? Kurogane had known the boy for years, by all the gods; he'd practically raised him. Syaoran was his student. Syaoran couldn't possibly have any connection to wizards or princesses or any of this mess; he'd never even been to Ruval before he'd come there with Kurogane…
I kept remembering images of the years I spent in Clow, Syaoran had said, smiling across the crackling fire. When the portal opened into Sakura's room, the air had that same smell. There's no way to describe it - you'd just know it if you'd been there.
Why did Syaoran know what the sorcerer's homeland smelled like?
And then it was like something shifted in Kurogane's mind, like a line of stone blocks which had lain jumbled and inert for years in his head suddenly turned themselves to line up perfectly with a click he could almost hear. Like they formed a pathway in his mind, one that carried him inexorably along from one stepping stone to the next.
These are the Eyes of Ko, said the bear-furred soldier, anger and hostility frost-hard in his eyes. When they glow, an enemy bearing hostile magics approaches.
This is what happened before! Syaoran hissed, pulling at his sleeve. This is exactly what happened when I came here before!
Because Syaoran had gone to Ceres before. Once before. The time that his father had died.
My father didn't do anything wrong! Syaoran shouted passionately over the dinner table, he hadn't done anything at all, but they still arrested him and they killed him because some wizard said he was a spy! He wasn't!
As far as I could determine, he was just an ordinary man, Fai whispered, in the darkness of the stone tunnel, a years-old regret for an innocent man he had been forced to condemn. But something set off the border wards, without question. And Kurogane had wondered then, as he wondered now: Why would Fujitaka tell Syaoran to run, then let himself be captured and executed for magic he didn't possess?
At the time it had seemed so obvious to Kurogane; he couldn't think why it had never occurred to Fai - or to Ashura. Fujitaka was protecting his son, of course. But that was impossible. Kurogane knew Syaoran, had known him for years. There was not an ounce of guile or deceit in his soul, and he possessed not a scrap of magic himself. It was absurd to think that he could have been reporting or passing along information to some far-off wizard that at the time they didn't even know existed…
It is the simplest charm in the world, the Master of Demons said with a smile, holding out a plain pair of glasses. What one pair sees, the other pair sees. And once it is set in place, it is virtually undetectable.
For a while, it seemed like everyone was telling me you were coming, he'd said.
Don't look for me, Fai had said. Don't let him see me.
And Kurogane felt now the same horror he'd felt then, when he'd realized that all their weaknesses had been stripped bare, their smallest movements revealed to Kyle Rondart. He felt cold, as raw as though the sandstorm outside was raging inside his mind, scouring his thoughts to bleeding numbness.
Someone has been trying to get a spy inside our court for years, Fai said. Someone is searching for her, and it would be a disaster if he ever found her. Sakura must never be seen, must never be found.
Princess Sakura had been kept a secret from her birth. The Wizards of Ceres had gone to immense lengths to hide her, to keep her away from prying eyes and set up walls and wards around their castle that no enemy sight could pierce and find her. And yet within days of Kurogane and Syaoran arriving at Ruval Palace, it had all come crashing down. How could he not have seen it before? No wonder the other Wizards had looked at him with such fear and disgust.
Syaoran was a spy for their Enemy.
And he had been all along.
As before, Sakura had no warning when reality ripped itself open behind her. She saw only a peculiar light, a yellow-green halo - which was so like the energies of the well below that she didn't at first realize it was different - before a sudden force yanked her irresistibly backwards.
The stone cavern and the brilliant deadly pool of souls vanished abruptly into the dark fog; Sakura stumbled, staggering and blinking, trying to find her footing on a suddenly carpeted floor. By the shape of the walls and ceiling, the style of the furniture and decorations, she was able to identify it as a room somewhere in the citadel - but a room she'd never been in before.
"You stupid little girl!" a familiar voice thundered from behind her. Sakura gasped and whirled around to see Fei Wong Reed standing there, arm outstretched over the last sparkling wisps of the fading portal. "How dare you disobey, when you'd been clearly told to never go to the underground chambers? You could have ruined everything in one careless moment, you little fool!"
In his dark robe, with his dark hair streaked with white and a furious expression, Fei Wong Reed looked less like a mountain than a thundercloud. He seemed to tower over her, seething with barely restrained power and fury that threatened to leak out in every direction in little flashes of lightning. At any other time, Sakura would have been terrified, humiliated to tears at his displeasure. Now, though, she found such thoughts and feelings were strangely distant to her. Strangely numb. It all came second to the horror of the deep chamber underground full of light, and what she had discovered there.
"They're people…" she breathed out, slowly raising her head to look Fei Wong Reed in the eyes. "They're people down there, and they're trapped! They're scared and hurting and, and, how could you do this to them? To anyone? How could you? What gives you the right!"
Fei Wong Reed's fury was abruptly quenched, or at least contained by a sudden uneasy wariness. "My dear princess," he rumbled. "You misunderstand. This is needless. It is natural that you would be moved by such an upsetting sight, but I assure you it was none of my doing. The font of power we gave the name the Crucible of Souls has always existed; it is the natural fate of the souls of our world before they pass on to their next life. It was here many years before I discovered it and built my cathedral here. I merely harnessed its power…"
Sakura felt a sharp tingling in her head, reaching up to press her hands underneath her ears as though she could soothe the feeling away. She recognized the sensation, with a deep sickening uneasiness; it was how she had always known, somehow, when someone was telling her an untruth. "You're lying," she whispered, horrified. Fei Wong Reed had never lied to her before.
He tried to speak again, and Sakura cut him off with an upward shriek, clamping her hands over her ears to block out his words. "You're lying!" she screamed at him, tears streaking her face. She was crying and screaming like a little girl in a tantrum, and she knew it, but she couldn't stop herself. "You're lying, you tricked me! You're a horrible, cruel person and I don't want to help you any more! I want to go home! I want to go home!"
Fei Wong Reed had gone very still, shocked into silence by her hysterical outburst. Sakura gulped back a sob and lowered her hands, struggling to get herself under control. "Don't you dare lie to me again," she said, fiercely and sullenly.
"Indeed," the man rumbled, and there was a faint, almost self-deprecating smile on his face that didn't seem like the Fei Wong Reed she knew at all. "It was my own errors; I should have known that particular talent would make you sensitive to untruths. So be it, then."
Sakura eyed him warily, feeling for balance in this strange conversation. She'd expected to be scolded, at the least, for her indiscretion in sneaking away and barging into an area she'd been expressly forbidden to venture. But somehow she seemed to have knocked Fei Wong Reed back on the defensive. "I want to go home," she said experimentally, defiantly. "I don't want to help you any more, not if you're going to be using those poor people. It's wrong and I won't do it any more!"
"But, my dear girl," Fei Wong Reed said, and it seemed that he'd regained his usual iron self-control. "Where would you go?"
Sakura stared at him, confused, and Fei Wong Reed turned his back on her. He raised his arms, the heavy sleeves of his robe falling like dark curtains across the room, and the wall of the chamber beyond him began to flicker and glow.
She hadn't spared the attention to look about her before, but she did now; the tall, broad stone wall of the chamber was traced with runes and patterns that were very familiar to her. It was the stone chair embedded into the floor of the chamber, facing the wall - very much like throne - that triggered the association; this was a viewing portal, not unlike the one she used to search through the worlds for the White God.
But instead of one large stone ring full of a deep and fathomless light of magic, this portal was filled with rings within rings, lines looping about themselves as endlessly as a labyrinth. Images began to fill the dark stone surface - not one just image but a dozen, flickering over each other. Each of the smaller portals seemed like a window into a different world - no, Sakura realized with a jolt, all the same world. They looked out onto landscapes wooded and barren, marsh or rocky, lonely or peopled - but they were pictures from this world, no others.
This must be how he observes what's going on in the world, Sakura thought, momentarily fascinated into forgetting her anger. Through those 'seeing eyes' that Xing Hua told me about. Are these all the servants of the Heralds? She saw a quick succession of landscapes; a rolling hillscape from above, a churning sea of water. A doorframe in the Nihon style, sliding sideways to open; a dark, sandy interior, lit only by lamplight shining on plain canvas walls.
"I did not wish to burden you with this knowledge," Fei Wong Reed spoke, distracting her from the parade of images. "I feared it would only distress you and distract you from your task. The truth is that Eden is the last sanctuary left in this world. Beyond our borders, all is chaos and disaster. Princess of Ceres, you no longer have a home to go back to."
"What?" Sakura gasped. A chill seemed to jolt through her, cutting through the heat of her righteous anger. "What, what do you mean by that?"
"Look," Fei Wong Reed said.
The image resolved into one she recognized at last: the Windhome mountains, the Ruval valley cradling the palace where she had been raised. But something was wrong - the contours were all different. The white ice of the snow-capped glacier poured down into the valley like icing oozing down the side of a cake. The castle was engulfed, the town completely buried by ice. Only the castle remained above its glistening blue-white surface, seeming bereft and alone. "But, but, how can this happen?" Sakura exclaimed, upset and confused. "I've only been away for a few weeks! Is this some vision of the future? Fai-niisan and the others… they'd never let this happen!"
"It is a vision of the true now," Fei Wong Reed replied. "Your father contracted a terrible illness, one that drove him mad. In his delirium he struck out in a mad fury, and killed all of the great noblemen who surrounded him. The Wizards of Ceres themselves were also struck down. Without their protective magics, there was nothing to halt the advance of the glaciers."
"No," Sakura whispered.
The vision of the ice-tombed valley seemed to wheel and recede; other images crowded for its place. Flashes of the Windhome Mountains from lower angles, further down the valleys; the glacier had indeed crept like a cancer far below the snow line. Sakura caught a remote, clear vision of a line of ragged refugees, women and children carrying heavy burdens on their back, trundling down a mountain path. Behind them crawled a caravan of mule-hauled wagons, seeming barely to move faster than the deadly, inexorable pace of the ice.
"They are leaderless and scattered," Fei Wong Reed said. "Even if you were to go to them, princess, they could not support you. And you could not help them by becoming one more refugee among many."
Once again the images of Ceres - the shambles of Ceres - flickered and receded. In their place flashed a bewildering, terrible parade of visions. A town of Nihon-style peasant huts was drenched and battered by a ferocious storm; muddy floodwaters flowed ominously up the street, rising by inches even before their eyes. A force of water-darkened men and women labored frantically to build a barricade of sandbags and wooden beams; even as they watched, a sudden rush of water surged against the meager barricade and punched a hole through it. Dark brown water covered the whole scene, blinding them. Sakura gave a small shriek of fear, covering her face as though the water would come swirling through the portal to consume her.
"Open your eyes, girl," Fei Wong Reed snapped. "You cannot make this reality go away by hiding from it. The very earth itself rises against the kingdoms of man."
Sakura made herself look. Other images followed, each more terrible than the last. Dark-skinned people ran from their strange-looking houses into the streets and desperately made for the water's edge, screaming and crying as they looked over their shoulders behind them. A dark, terrible cloud followed them, rising up to blot out the sun; faster than a horse could run it followed, and it enveloped them, pinning them up against the edge of the waterfront and covering all in a layer of smothering ash. In other places, houses and streets dropped into bottomless pits as cracks ripped open the earth. In other places, terrible fires raged endlessly…
With difficulty Sakura tore her eyes away from the horrific parade of apocalyptic visions. Fei Wong Reed was right; the whole world was convulsing from disaster. "Did you know?" Sakura demanded, whirling about to pin Fei Wong Reed with her gaze. "Did you know all this was going to happen?"
Fei Wong Reed inclined his head in a grave nod. "Among the servants of the White God, we have several seers," he said, "not unlike your Wizard Tsukishiro in Ceres. They foresaw many events, including your birth and the time your powers would come to maturity. We knew it was imperative to bring you to safety and sanctuary, before any of these visions could come to pass."
"Why aren't you doing anything?" Sakura cried out, feelings of resentment and betrayal stirring past the shock and horror. "What did you gather all that power for, if not to help people?"
Fei Wong Reed looked exasperated and angry. "The currents of sky and sea, the movement and formation of the earth, these were never my gift of magic," he said. "My talent lay only in studying and manipulating the boundaries of space and time, to observe and perhaps bridge a path to other worlds. Saving the world is precisely what I am trying to do, you stupid little girl, in the only way that it can be saved now!
"Not all the wizards of Ceres, Nihon, or every other country working together could put to order the chaos that has spilled out over this world - even if they could bear to put aside their petty hatreds and work together. But the White God can bring peace and unity of purpose, and bring magic to enough people's souls to allow them to push back the devastation. And only you, Sakura, can bring the White God to save us."
"But…" Sakura was reduced to a whisper, grasping around her for shreds of reason. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know what was right any more. "But… it's not right, all those people… they're in so much pain…"
"Sakura." Fei Wong Reed fixed with a heavy gaze, stern and judging and… with just a little hint of compassion showing through, pity and contempt for her youth and weakness. "There is no force that can bring them back to life now; the dead are dead beyond reclaim. I do not repent what I have done, because I did it to bring about a greater good than can ever be imagined. Their suffering, while regrettable, is necessary to save the lives of countless others.
"But you, Sakura - will you let all their deaths be in vain? Will you let all their sacrifice go to waste in this final hour?"
The words hung there, heavy in the chamber air. Behind Fei Wong Reed, the horrific visions still flickered and flowed across the wall behind him. Fei Wong Reed was not lying. She knew that, as certainly as she had detected his falsehood before. Every word he spoke was the truth.
"You have to promise to let them go," Sakura said at last, her voice wavering and broken. "After this is all done, and - and the White God is here, you have to promise to let them all out. So they can go on and be born again, or whatever."
Fei Wong Reed balked. "I do not see - " he began.
"Promise," Sakura said fiercely. "Or else I won't help you any more." She raised her chin defiantly; her lower lip was trembling, so she bit down with her teeth to still it.
Fei Wong Reed stared at her, measuring; whatever dark thoughts went on behind the iron-hard grey of his eyes, she could not guess them. "Very well," he said quietly. "When our purpose here is done, and the God comes unto this world, you have my promise that the spirits of the Crucible will be at peace."
Sakura took a deep breath. That was good enough, wasn't it? That had to be good enough, Fei Wong Reed had to keep his promise. This was the only way she could help them now. "All right," she said.
Kurogane stood abruptly; the sudden movement startled Syaoran out of his rambling, lovestruck soliloquy. "Sensei?" the boy asked uncertainly. "Is something wrong?"
There was just no way to answer that without sounding ludicrous, or without drawing Souhi to strike Syaoran down - and that was something he could never do. Confused and frustrated, Kurogane mumbled "Need some fresh air," and headed for the tent flap.
Fortunately the worst of the sandstorm had passed over them already; although the wind still moaned across the dunes and scratched against the heavy canvas tent, it no longer threatened to blind him or flay the skin from his flesh. "Be careful," he heard Syaoran call out behind him as the tent flap fell. "Don't go far! Remember, the landscape might shift on you!"
Kurogane ground his teeth together in frustration; he was trapped, well and truly trapped. Even if he could have brought himself to attack his own student, he would have been cutting off his only means of guidance or escape. He couldn't even leave Syaoran, abandon him to his fate in the desert, without condemning himself at the same time. The two of them were well and truly yoked together now, and the only way out was forward.
And Kurogane knew who had yoked him. He strode a few paces away from the tent - not out of sight, but well out of hearing - and stood a moment, breath panting harshly through pinched nostrils. "Mage," he snarled, keeping his voice to little more than a savage undertone. "I know you're out there, mage! Don't play games with me."
Slowly, a pale shape appeared in the churning, sandy darkness at the corner of his eye. Only a little lantern light escaped the tent flap, and no moonlight penetrated the obscuring dust clouds overhead; but Kurogane's night vision was very good. He didn't need to turn to face Fai to know he was there.
"You knew," Kurogane grated, barely able to get the words out past the tight fury clenching his chest. "You knew he was a spy."
"Yes," Fai admitted. His voice was so soft, it seemed to blend in with the steadily blowing wind around them.
"And you hid it from me." Kurogane turned around, facing Fai at last. The other man was a pale blur in the desert darkness. "This was what you didn't want me to know. Why you refused to feed from me for so long."
"You couldn't know, Kuro-sama," Fai tried to explain himself. "It would have ruined everything."
"And so you tricked me," Kurogane spat. "Packed me off on this foolish snipe hunt, babysitting a traitor -"
"Treason requires intent, Kuro-sama," Fai interrupted. "In that at least, I believe the boy to be innocent. He has no more knowledge of his true nature than you did before tonight."
"But you knew!" Kurogane challenged hotly.
Fai nodded grimly. "As soon as I set eyes on Syaoran, I realized who and what he was. Any of us would have recognized that there wassomething odd about him - specifically, about his left eye - but I had something… of an advantage." He smiled bitterly, his lips twisting up on only one side of his face. "Magic has affinity for its own kind, you know; and I recognized the spell on Syaoran's eye because it was very similar to one that was used on me, last fall."
Seishirou, Kurogane realized with a jolt of horror. He remembered the strangely precise pattern of half-healed scalpel cuts in the ruined socket of Fai's eye. What had Seishirou been trying to do?
"When I saw him, he also saw me," Fai continued his explanation. "The warlock controlling the spell realized that he'd been found out and he set off his ambush immediately, before I had time to act on my discovery. He sent a spell through to Ashura to drive him mad - and while everyone was distracted, he reached through space and snatched Sakura out of her bedroom. And so… all of this."
"That doesn't explain why!" Kurogane exclaimed, his frustration tipping to the boiling point. "Why all this façade! Why set this up, this whole trip, this… everything? What did you need that kid for so desperately that you went to such trouble to clear the way for him? And send me along to make sure he got this far?"
"Because," Fai said sharply, the tilt of his head and the set of his body belying intense aggravation. "He was the only one who could get this far, Kuro-sama. The only one."
"Ridiculous," Kurogane scoffed. "You're saying one stupid bewitched kid blundering after dreams and visions could do better than your entire cadre of wizards back in Ceres?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying, Kurogane!" Fai snapped at him.
Kurogane stared at him, momentarily stunned into silence. Fai turned away, only the pale white hood of his cloak shining through the darkness.
"Two nights ago," and there was a frightening catch in Fai's voice, like it was all he could do to keep his voice from breaking, "the combined forces of the miko of Nihon and the wizards of Ceres launched a joint attack on our enemy."
"The lights!" Kurogane remembered the strange flashes in the sky, camping out in the desert two nights ago. "But what…"
"They failed," Fai said flatly. "He was waiting for them, and he's had hundreds of years to get ready. The magical circle was smashed, their power broken. It will take them years to recover, if they ever do. They will not have the chance to try again."
That stopped Kurogane cold. It was hard to wrench his thinking around, reorder his mind to these new priorities. The wizards of Ceres - the grand magicians that had so easily defeated Nihon on the battlefield - had failed? The miko - "Tomoyo!" Kurogane said, suppressed panic making his voice rough. "What happened to her? Is she all right?"
Fai was silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he said finally, and Kurogane could tell from the tone of voice that he did know, or at least had some good ideas, but didn't want to share them. "But that isn't important right now, Kuro-sama. You can't go back to her now. You must concentrate on the task at hand. Tomoyo… may yet live, it is not certain, but if the warlock is not stopped, it is certain that she will die. And the rest of the world with her."
Kurogane had nothing to say to that. In the face of losing Tomoyo - the princess he had sworn service to all his adult life - there was nothing he could say. Because he knew Fai was right, and he would have hated him for it if not for the pain and grief buried in Fai's voice.
"We knew we might fail," Fai said in a low voice, grim and exhausted. "In fact, we were almost certain of it. The only one who would have any chance at all of finding him in time would be one of his own people - someone who had a magical connection to him, one that would guide them past his magical defenses. So we sent Syaoran out, let him go to find the princess - and incidentally, his own master. You followed him. And I followed you."
"Was that what this spell was about, then?" Kurogane asked, flexing his hand for emphasis. "So you could track me in the wilderness?"
Fai snorted, a sound oddly like Kurogane's usual exasperation. "No, for two reasons," he said. "For a start, it would have been incredibly dangerous - any spell that I could use to track you, every other wizard in the area could also track. Besides, it would have been completely redundant - ever since I fed on your blood, I can find you wherever you are."
"But that means…" This was the realization that Kurogane had been struggling not to face, because of the hopeless dread it brought. "If he can see everything through Syaoran's eyes… then he knows we're coming."
"Yes," Fai admitted.
"Then how -" Kurogane began angrily, but Fai cut him off.
"He knows you are coming," Fai emphasized. "And he's done nothing to try and stop you. Why should he? The boy is one of his own people, and what has he to fear from one lone warrior?
"Our enemy is a warlock of immense age and power, and he's been practicing his craft for hundreds of years now. His magic is so powerful that he regards mere physical strength as completely inconsequential. We hoped - we couldn't be sure, but we thought that he would disregard you completely, since you have no magic. You would be no threat to him, and he would ignore you."
"So what's the good of any of this, then?" Kurogane demanded, angry and still hurt, inside, that Fai had not trusted him. "If the kid and I are the only ones who can reach him, and neither of us acn fight him! What was the point of this journey in the first place?"
Fai smiled, wan and ghostly. "You'll have me," he said. "Why do you think it was so vital that Syaoran not see me? I made a point of letting him know back in Ceres that I was staying in Ruval, that I would not accompany you on your journey. So long as Syaoran does not see me, our enemy won't either. With any luck, I'll be able to take him completely by surprise."
Kurogane nodded slowly, calming. It felt good to have a plan, good to know that Fai was at his back. Which reminded him - "That rock," he said. "The spring that broke out of the ground, two nights ago. That was you, wasn't it?"
Fai nodded.
"Thanks," Kurogane noted, and Fai's breath puffed out in a tense laugh.
"You're not… angry?" Fai looked up at him, hope and wariness warring in his expression. "That I - hid the truth from you?"
Kurogane snorted. "Hell yes, I'm angry," he said, his voice flint-sharp and hard. "You didn't trust me. You thought it would be easier to keep me in the dark than to bother to explain things to me. It's going to be a while before I forgive you for this."
Fai's face drained white, and he bowed his head.
"But I still love you," Kurogane continued. "And I don't have time to waste sulking right now. We could all die tomorrow; and if we don't, we're going to have our hands full saving the world."
He held out his hand. "Come here," he said.
Hesitantly, Fai came to him, his hands alighting on Kurogane's arm like the bird he had transformed himself into. Kurogane pulled him in bruisingly tight, and took one selfish moment to revel in the pleasure of having Fai in his arms. He could feel the rapid beating of Fai's heart, smell his hair and skin, and Fai was pushing himself too hard again. "You know what to do," he said gruffly. "Don't give me grief over this."
Fai wavered anyway. "Don't you think Syaoran will suspect…?" he asked hesitantly. "If you come back in with blood all over your shirt, or a bite on your neck…"
Kurogane paused a moment, thinking. Fai had a point - and after all the lengths Fai had gone to conceal his presence from Syaoran, it would be such a waste to give up the game now. And even if Syaoran didn't guess the truth, the thing watching from his eyes might.
So instead Kurogane shifted Fai in his arms until they were face to face, close enough that he could feel wisps of Fai's hair brushing his cheeks. Kurogane took a deep breath, clenched his teeth and bit down, hard, on his own tongue. Pain and the bright red taste of metal filled his mouth, and he heard Fai gasp. There was no way he could fail to smell it, as close as he was.
Kurogane tightened his arms around Fai's shoulders - not that he seemed to be trying to pull away - and pressed his lips against Fai's. Fai opened his mouth willingly, hungrily, and let the blood flow from Kurogane's mouth to his. It felt strange, very strange, to taste Fai's lips and the sharp hot tang of the blood at once, to feel the pleasure of Fai's tongue brushing against his mixed with the savage pain of the self-inflicted wound.
And the blood bond stirred, reasserting itself as Fai drank from him. Kurogane welcomed it, the pain ebbing away as Fai's hunger and gratitude and eager satiation washed over him.
I'm so sorry, Fai's voice whispered in his mind, stripped of all pretense. I'm so sorry I lied to you. But you are such a good man, you can't condone any evil. And your heart is too honest. I couldn't make you live a lie for weeks while you traveled with him. Better for me to be the liar.
The first pulses of blood slowed, and Kurogane broke the kiss, pulling back just a few inches. "Don't take too much," he muttered thickly; the blood still pooled in his mouth and made it hard to speak. "I need to be strong tomorrow." Whatever would happen in the coming battle, it promised to be grim.
"I have no fear of that," Fai whispered. Kurogane felt Fai's eyelashes brush against his cheek as he leaned up for another kiss, drinking the crimson flood off Kurogane's tongue. It really was a small wound, in the grand scheme of things, for all that it hurt all out of proportion to its size. Fai released again, lips parting for a breath. "Kuro-sama is always strong."
~to be continued...
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Date: 2012-03-20 10:12 pm (UTC)And damn yes.. sandy desert dunes of the underworld! When Kurogane actually expected monsters to spring out at him, I was thinking "what EVER could still be ALIVE out there in that death trap, duh?" and there it was a few paragraphs later. Well, he's thirsty and toasted so he's still a bit slow on the uptake but he figured it out! And Syaoran, too! It's actually a bit pitiful how he believe's the desert gods made the springs come back up and he can find Sakura because they're star crossed lovers. Poor guy, even when you aren't writing it in so many words you're trolling him! xDDD
And a tongue-bite-suck-kiss! How lucky he doesn't have to speak too much, but at least the throbbing is gonna remind him of Fai when he can't see him. Too bad that make up sex is a big no-go in the sandy pits of hell. But then again, Fai's a wizard-vampire not needing gear, water, shelter or rest apparently...maybe he could make it possible. Kurogane 'accidentally' knocks Syaoran out and goes off to have sex on the cliff? Hm, all the possibilities! The climax is near! Eh, the one of the story. Sakura will at least get to LISTEN to Fai and without Sakura FWR can't call the big bad evil, hopefully. His plans will be foiled, Syaoran heartbroken if he learns the truth, somebody could DIE! But hey, Syaoran would be reunited with his mom (though I'm still only 80% sure, she actually IS his mother, you could have set us up) Although I'm not too sure whether she stays with FWR because he blackmailed her into it, or because she feels it's her duty or she sincerely believes he's trying to save the world~
Well, I have faith, not in Fai or Syaoran really, not all that much into Kurogane either, sorry, but in the almighty author's intention to LEAVE ALL MAIN CHARACTERS ALIVE TO GET THEIR HAPPY ENDING! Yes. That includes Tomoyo and most of the wizards, by the way. They failed, but they aren't dead yet? Right? *big wobbly wet eyes* Eriol was a brat, but a cute, feisty brat you would like to stick around!
Ashura should be properly chastised and survive as well, allowing Sakura to go on international help missions with Syaoran or something.. but eh, I'm getting distracted.
Mainly, I just wanted to say: YAY UPDATE! I WAS WAITING FOR THIS! *_* I'm all gooey on the inside because Fai is finally back in the picture! And if we count the last chapter as a sort of conclusion to all with possible smexy scenes, that means three more chapters for the main action! Soooo exciting!
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Date: 2012-03-22 02:58 am (UTC)It's that one. XD A very severe case of Exact Words. You'll notice that at no point in the conversation does he deny that the disasters are his fault, nor does he say that he COULDN'T fix it himself. Of course it doesn't occur to Sakura to ask him directly, but... seven hundred years gives you a lot of practice at logic-chopping.
But hey, Syaoran would be reunited with his mom...
*looks up at ceiling, whistling innocently* Oh yeah, reunited. Yeah. We'll get another spotlight on Xing Hua next chapter, and we'll learn more of her motivations there.
I have faith... in the almighty author's intention to LEAVE ALL MAIN CHARACTERS ALIVE TO GET THEIR HAPPY ENDING!
Well uh... I can tell you for sure that some characters will definitely survive. Fai and Kurogane will survive, of course. Yukito and Tomoyo made it out of the failed magical attack alive, although not all of the others did (honestly, I just haven't decided yet who to kill off, since most of the rest of them are minor characters of no real importance to the plot.) And Ashura... technically survives.
Anyway, glad you enjoyed this chapter! Finally, the real action begins... just as I take another month-long hiatus from Wizards to write on the Olympics instead. *oops*
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Date: 2012-03-21 09:55 am (UTC)This is still so wonderful, Mikke! (KUROFAI REUNION SQUEE!) I'm starting to feel very worried for Syaoran and Sakura, not to mention what will happen to Kurogane and Fai once they face off with FWR. ;__;
KEEP WRITING! DO NOT STOP! <333
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Date: 2012-03-22 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-21 03:27 pm (UTC)Though, eww, KuroFai as zombies. Leaving rotting skin all over the carpet. Maggots crawling out of their ears. Tonguing each other's brains. EWW.
MIKKE, WHY WOULD YOU EVEN THINK OF THESE THINGS! D:
(P.S.: LOVED THE CHAPTER. Left a proper review on ffnet. Just here for the trolling. >:D)
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Date: 2012-03-22 02:57 am (UTC)...Well, until NOW, I'd say I definitely WASN'T!
*scrubs brain* Ow.
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Date: 2012-03-22 02:43 pm (UTC)/hands you the brainbleach
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Date: 2012-03-22 12:13 am (UTC)ASDFGHJKL:LKJHGFD IT MUST BE CHRISTMAS!!!
/joy to the world
Oh god. Oh god. OH SYAORAN. ;____________________; you poor woobie evil spy you, and Kuro-tan feeling so betrayed ;________; Also, HOORAY FOR SAKURA GROWING A BACKBONE and as always, vampire makeouts are the best makeouts.
(Eeeeeew Bottan, why would you imagine that, now it's in my head and won't go away ;_______;)
Mikke, I love you. ♥
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Date: 2012-03-22 02:32 pm (UTC)MIKKE SAID IT, OKAY. ZOMBIES~, ZOMBIES IN LOOOOVE~! :D Anyway, I don't think there is enough of a bloodflow to make out./hands you all her brainbleach
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Date: 2012-03-23 03:48 am (UTC)Sakura's always had a backbone, as witnessed by her sneaking around spying on her dad back home XD She's just... very trusting. And easily led.
Bottan is evil, trufax. =P
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Date: 2012-03-24 06:37 am (UTC)Yay, I finally caught up!That said, wow for Kurogane to piece together everything like that and feel betrayed...but then
"It's going to be a while before I forgive you for this."
Fai's face drained white, and he bowed his head.
"But I still love you," Kurogane continued. "And I don't have time to waste sulking right now. We could all die tomorrow; and if we don't, we're going to have our hands full saving the world."
I just love how his strength, his love for Fai, and his firm belief that they'll get through what they set out to do was so firmly entrenched in that exchange; and the blood-drinking/make out scene that ensued. (Hmm...I wasn't really grossed out by it - I was expecting much worse, actually!) All in all, the last scene was beautiful- so full of dread, yet with Kurogane's strength there's hope as well.
Seems like the focus is heavily on Syaoran and Sakura now; but my eyes are waiting for what Xing Hua secretly has in store as well...
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Date: 2012-03-29 04:20 am (UTC)As for Xing Hua... we'll see her a little more in the next chapter, and again before the end. I really wanted to give her a cool role to play, so I hope people will like what I came up with.