Title: Oak Moon
Rating: PG
Author: Pachelbel
Category: Other
Summary: Malik is in a coma, and has no intention of waking up. Until he happens across his 'spirit guide'.
Notes:
Oak Moon: The moon in the month of December. Malik's Birthday: December 23
Ishtar: is not Yami Malik. At least not in this fic. Ishtar is an Egyptian goddess.
Amon: the head of Egyptian gods; like Ra/Re (later he is known as Amon Re).
Thanks: (should read, "THANKS!") go to Chibizoo for setting this up, and most of all to my betas Borath and Llyxius for not only making sense of this story but encouraging me to enter the contest in the first place.
***
"On Such Small Hinges turn the Gates of our lives!" ~ Gordon B. Hinckley
***
The sterile smell of the hospital was nothing but a mask. Beneath the cool disinfectant-tinged air, assuming one sat long enough, it was possible to smell blood and urine, and food that was almost too healthy and bland to eat. Sponge baths, for patients who needed them, were still not thorough enough to wipe away the musky odor of fevered sweat. All of this gathered and floated around the smell of soaps and medicine.
Isis wondered how she hadn't noticed this before.
Malik's breathing was a slow "hiss and suck", due to the large machine with the unpronounceable name he was attached to. The monitor that took his pulse, as it had the past three weeks, combined with everything else--the other machines, the slow tick of pills being dropped into plastic cups, the 'scritch' of pen on paper--to create a strange, medically controlled rhapsody.
_Beep, hiss...tick...scritch..._ Hospital music. It was twisted, sad.
Isis shuddered and looked back at her younger brother. The doctors had said that it helped coma patients to hear the voices of those close to them, but she could think of nothing to say.
Oh, there were things she _wanted_ to tell him, but "What were you thinking? I told you not to go out in the rain, and if you _ever_ do this to me again, I'll hurt you!" seemed like something to say after he woke up. "I miss you" was something to say at a funeral, and Isis would not put him at risk any more than he already was. Besides, those words would be too hard to say. Amon knew they were already hard to think.
Motorcyclists who got into accidents at as high speeds as Malik had rarely lived to make it into the hospital. It was a good sign...in a tenuous, trembling way. She didn't dare to hope, lest Malik's life crumble for her foolish trust in his recovery.
She wished, again, that she could peer into his mind and coax him to follow her back to the world. As if to encourage her, her fingers hovered millimeters above his arm, almost touching...but Isis pulled back, mentally cursing herself. Perhaps it was because Malik's soft, mocha-colored skin was so like their mother's. The last time she'd touched her mother had been hours after the woman's death. The flesh had been so cold, so very cold, when all the warmth and life of her mother had been given to the squirming bundle who was named "Malik".
Isis stared hopelessly at her brother, willing there to be some sign of life. Not even a flicker behind his eyelids came to offer her comfort. Silently, she folded her hands and stared at her lap.
_Beep._ _Hiss._
***
Malik's mind was far from Japan. He was lying under the early morning heat of the desert, allowing the water of a large river to grab at his legs, right up to his knees, swirling and pressing the loose cloth of his pants against his calves and ankles. The water was sticky but temptingly warm, like ripened apricot nectar.
The sand formed a gritty bed for his bare back, but he hardly noticed. The sun, which appeared to be rising behind him, cast a peach hue to the trees and shrubs surrounding this little place.
That sun never actually rose. Or, if it did, Malik hadn't seen it move up or down at all since he'd been here. On the opposite horizon, and currently trapping Malik's attention, was a swollen, faintly glowing moon which, just as the sun was on the edge of daybreak, threatened to fall forever from sight.
He'd thought several times before, when memories of the real world encroached on the peace here, that this was an isolated haven. Not a soul could enter here unless he wished it. Precisely what he needed.
"That is the Oak Moon." A shadow fell lightly across his chest with those words.
Quickly Malik sat up, despite the pull of the river on his legs. He found a stocky, dark-haired woman standing nearby. Kohl lined her eyes as it did Malik's; a spear was held tight in her left hand, and the sun radiated around her. Her thigh-length white shift was prismatic, catching the hidden colors of white light and flushing her in sunset.
Scars marred her otherwise neutral face. One of her eye sockets was empty, but her single dark-brown stare had the bright, focused sharpness of a hawk. She looked upon Malik with an unsettling, intense expression that bordered upon hunger.
"Who are you?" He asked, uneasy in spite of the fact that he nearly towered over her.
"I am Ishtar. I am the guide of your household. You were raised to protect Amon-Re's son, Malik."
Malik frowned at her words, not entirely sure how to react.
Behind him, images and memories of Yugi and the Pharaoh hovered. Ishtar watched his thoughts and added curtly, "You failed to fulfill that destiny."
Malik's thoughts spun with inner wishes, hates, proud seconds of success, and a thousand regrets. "I chose my own destiny."
Ishtar's scarred lips twisted in an unassuming smirk. "You failed to achieve your chosen destiny as well." She waved away the image of Malik taking Yami Yugi's title of Pharaoh. It exploded as if it were fog, and Malik winced. Unsympathetic, Ishtar went on, "It is time to decide your next step."
Malik's eyes glittered with suspicion, like crushed amethysts. "Isis wants me to help her with the museum," he muttered.
Ishtar nodded slowly, watching the images around him grow bleak. "That is one option."
"As opposed to what?" Malik snapped.
"Your happiness." Her tone was flat and without conviction.
He shook his head, anger tinting his thoughts with blood. "Why do you care about my happiness? Because my family name is Ishtar? Because God...because _Ra_ sent you?" He stepped closer. "Ra isn't real. And neither are you."
Ishtar studied him in silence, her thumb rubbing at a gash in the shaft of her spear. "You aren't the first person to say so. Nor will you be the last. But we aren't together to debate the existence of deities. We are here because, whether or not you believe me to be a goddess, I can help you."
Malik didn't miss the fact that she hadn't really answered his question, so he repeated, "Why?"
"I'll show you."
The river stopped flowing and dried up to a rock-encrusted empty trail, stretching and winding to either horizon like the track of an enormous snake. The land flattened out, as if it were made of putty, and then reformed to an ancient street corner. Ishtar led the way inside one small house, waited for Malik to follow.
"This is 16th century Italy. That," she motioned to a dark-haired woman sitting patiently in front of a painter, "is the model for the 'Mona Lisa'."
Malik blinked and looked around. Ishtar waited for a moment before stepping next to Leonardo da Vinci himself. "The appeal of the finished product, in your time, is that she is as mysterious as the way she was painted. Would it continue to be so enticing if da Vinci placed her name on the back of the canvas? Or suppose the model's hair had been white. Perhaps she'd been grinning, rather than smirking?" The woman changed accordingly. She was still beautiful, but the seductive mystery that would become ingrained in the portrait was lost.
"What if she'd had poor teeth...or no teeth? What if she was sick at the time of her meeting with da Vinci?"
The finished portrait appeared at da Vinci's easel. A grotesque old woman, spittle just at the edges of her single-toothed mouth, gaped half-lidded at them. Splotches of grime or fungus mottled her age-worn face.
Ishtar allowed the house and its occupants to vanish, allowed the two portraits (one of the original Mona Lisa, and the other this new, altered version) to hang upon invisible walls around them.
Thoughtfully, she went on, "What might have been if da Vinci had been a horse trainer instead? Oh, he might have excelled in that, but what impact would that have had for the world?" Both portraits vanished like delicate cobwebs.
"More drastically...what if he'd never been born at all? He was born to a peasant girl, and sickness abounded for girls like her. Perhaps, Malik" --that harsh mahogany eye turned to him, caught his gaze and held-- "it is a miracle that _anyone_ is born as they are at all."
He knew she was prodding him. It was difficult to feel grateful for his birth, when death--or whatever state he was in now--had been so relieving.
The goddess's eye narrowed fractionally. "You don't appreciate the life you were given. Is it because you refuse to see what you've done here, or the impact others have had on you? I know--I've seen--how terrible parts of your life have been. But there is something besides pain in store for you."
Malik hesitated. He doubted this apparition could show him anything useful; he'd made his choices, he'd been dealt the consequences, and now he wasn't sure if he were living or dead. Maybe it didn't matter. Swallowing against the dry tightness in his throat, the inexplicable uneasiness he felt, Malik challenged, "Prove it."
***
"Welcome to Greece." Ishtar tilted her head up at Malik, catching the bewildered expression that he was forcing back. "Ancient Greece, at any rate. Nearly four thousand years before the date of our meeting."
Untidy olive saplings were situated around them. They were on a hill overlooking a white and dust-reddened city. Donkeys brayed nearby, begging to be untied, whilst sheep meandered around Malik and Ishtar and the donkeys as if they were stones.
Gray-green shrubs and grass clawed at Malik's clothing as Ishtar led him down to the city. Through arches, past columns, up and down streets they walked until Malik was so lost he regretted ever entering this place.
Abruptly, Ishtar stopped and motioned to a large fountain. Two men were speaking beside it, one white-robed and tall, the other squat and dressed almost worse than the slaves and peasants who had gathered to watch.
"That is Socrates. The man who defined virtue."
Malik had heard the name, but only in passing lessons his father had made him take. Egyptian history had been the focus of his studies, but even so he was curious. He stared, realizing then that the one Ishtar pointed at was the shabbily dressed, barefooted man. Socrates' neck and what could be seen of his shoulders were dark with thick hair, but otherwise he was bald and he stood restlessly on spindly bowlegs.
His voice, however, was calm and engaging, a hint of lively entertainment hidden beneath thoughtful words, though Malik couldn't understand what was said.
"He is named the 'wisest of all men'," Ishtar said wryly, "Though he insists that his philosophy is nothing more than common sense. He forces himself to be even less than 'common'. He trained Plato, as well, who became perhaps more famous because he wrote down his thoughts. Socrates never did. Another foolish choice...imagine the world if Socrates had bothered to set ink to parchment?"
Malik shrugged. "What is the world like because he didn't?"
"You'll see the changes if he hadn't been born. That ought to answer any questions."
The road they now stood on was white cobblestone; shabby homes sprawled unevenly in the valley below them.
"This is present day Athens." Ishtar didn't look at him as she spoke. "It is no longer called Athens, however. It has been through the hands of many rulers, careless leaders, dozens of religions. This place has no name to speak of...."
The buildings, the air, the ground, all of it rippled gently and became another city, as shabby as the last but the houses here were larger. Ishtar tightened her fists around her spear. "This is...or would have been...Los Angeles."
Quietly, the goddess took him to a beautiful white and gold building, taller than almost all the others.
"This," she murmured, "is the district church house. The priests live on the upper levels." She bowed to the alter at the front of the meeting room and continued, "The temples are polished and the priests become greedy off of the privilege taken from ordinary civilians."
Malik surveyed the beautiful walls. The gold and marble were etched with religious figures he didn't recognize. "Why? Why is it like _this_?"
"Without Socrates, Plato had no master. Philosophical thinking outside of religion barely has its roots because of that. Socrates was never made a martyr for independent reasoning, and a role model was lost." She sighed. "It is like this nearly everywhere. Trade is not allowed between nations, unless one is sovereign over another, and hatred quickly boils into war. More quickly than _you_ remember. Theories, inventions--when they are allowed--Asian jade, Western cotton, all of it stays on one side of the ocean or the other and most leaders are content to let it stay that way."
She blew out a few candles, startling a priest. "All traces of ancient religions have been erased. _Ishtar_ does not exist here."
Malik eyed her skeptically. If his family survived underground here, then _someone_ must believe in her still.
She watched the images of his thoughts roll behind him, and smirked. "_You_ don't exist here, either. Your ancestors were killed a few centuries back, eliminating the clan and the holders of the Lost Pharaoh's memories."
Ishtar turned away then, an inexplicably sad frown sinking her scarred lips. "A dismal existence, isn't it? Without Socrates' influence on mercy, punishment threatens to run out of hand."
The church reformed itself into a dank prison hallway. Only two men and a heavily pregnant woman occupied the rows of cells.
"Fear of 'witchcraft', among other superstitions, has slowed the progress of
medicine, but since there are no explorers it is very rare to find a new illness. So over--population is more threatening here than it is in your world." The goddess's single eye glinted as she turned her head, gesturing at the empty cages. "Add to that the fact that punishment for even simple crimes has become ridiculously harsh, and you have few people willing to share their thoughts."
Malik said nothing. The two of them watched the prisoners for well over an hour before Ishtar broke the silence again. "Mercy was a rare enough gift before, don't you agree?"
The blond flushed and wouldn't look at her. His thoughts turned to Yugi who,
despite pain and even hatred for what had been done, had eventually forgiven Malik. For friendship...for virtue...perhaps because it was so hard, Malik knew, to tend the bruises on one's heart and keep them fresh.
Malik watched the pregnant woman lose her last breath and wondered if perhaps mercy wasn't always something that had to be earned. If perhaps, every now and then, it was a gift instead of a reward.
***
The world faded, stretching a bit and then flattening back to the desert river he'd first encountered Ishtar by.
Both the sun and the moon were rising.
"Now it is your turn, Malik."
The teen blinked, turning sharply from watching the sky above. "My turn?"
Ishtar nodded. A golden scepter bearing that inescapable Eye of Horus slowly appeared in his hand. Malik looked down, shuddered at the sight. "The Rod...?"
The warrior goddess nodded again. "This time we'll see, first, what might have been if you hadn't created another personality to carry your pain."
Malik studied the Item in his quaking fist. "I still would have hated the Pharaoh."
Ishtar's smile was almost mocking. "Yes.... Well, perhaps you'll see."
"See what?"
Her answer was casually flung over her shoulder. "A world where you succeeded."
***
They were going down shadow-dampened stairs, following frightened pleas for help. The words turned to muffled screams. Every sound, every sight, every smell caused Malik to jump and his back to ache.
Ignoring this, Ishtar led him past a young Isis. The dark-haired girl was knelt by her bed in prayer, wincing and swallowing tears at every smothered cry from down the hall.
As they kept walking, Malik saw Rishid, carefully dragging a glowing blade across his own face.
Now they were almost through the final corridor.
Malik was breathing fast, shallow. It made him lightheaded but he couldn't stop....
The agony-drenched scene loomed nearer, and Malik tried to hang back. He wanted to be near Rishid, he didn't want to see the satisfaction in his father's eyes ever again; he couldn't stand to see his own ten-year old form bleeding and screaming on the floor.
But where Ishtar went, so did he, regardless of terror or anguish. He watched his own child-self sobbing and cursing and begging against the gag tied into his mouth. The gag his father had jammed against his loose baby teeth.
He saw himself lap up the pain and hatred and betrayal, swallowing it instead of shoving it away to the darkness. When his child-self could no longer handle the pain, ten-year-old Malik passed out. With a snort of laughter, his father shook his head and continued with the ritual.
Instead of crackling with the anger of the betrayed, when this Malik awoke, the child sobbed and stared at the walls. He wouldn't respond to Rishid or Isis. When his father looked in, this Malik would stiffen and choke on his own cries of pain.
"Do not be fooled," Ishtar said softly. "As you said, you would have carried hatred for the Pharaoh in any time. Except, of course, if you had been given a kinder life. It is true. This child is darkened by his feelings for Yugi's other half."
Years passed, blurred by speed and a lack of events. When Malik turned fifteen, his father died. Not a tear was shed for him, though Isis and Rishid went through the actions of mourning.
Malik packed and prepared to leave this wretched prison.
There he formed the Ghouls; his tactics were the slightest bit more straightforward. The Millennium Rod made leadership easy, but his mind turned always to ruling a much larger group.
This Malik spent three years practicing, worrying, and planning, always afraid that he was underestimating the Pharaoh. He lacked the confidence that, ironically, came with having a psychotic, barely controlled darker half.
He saw his own defeat at Yami Yugi's hands in Battle City. He saw the helpless stormy hatred that brewed; saw this world's Malik take control of Anzu; saw her plunge a knife into Yami Yugi's back.
Joey leapt in, and the other Malik grappled with him, eventually tossing him off the side of KaibaCorp's promotional blimp. His screams were consumed by the clouds and fierce winds, just as the Pharaoh's had. Yugi and Joey were dead.
"M-Malik!" Isis's voice, broken with horror and denial.
A bloodstained teenager turned to her, laughing in his victory. "Pharaoh!" He held the Rod in his fist; the Puzzle had not been fairly won and lay in pieces, scattered across the dueling arena. "I am Pharaoh!"
Ishtar's eye had closed and her head had bowed in reverence for Yugi. When she looked up again the world sped up once more, settling perhaps one or two years later. "You see, then. It is not finished yet. This Malik has begun his domination of the world, and he will succeed. Though from here on out, you'll watch."
***
There was only one way to do this. Losing the Puzzle had been a disappointment, a setback, but here at last Malik had the means to work around that loss.
He had to cut down the population.
"...Even _with_ the Rod, I can't possibly conquer the entire world _and_ keep everything under control." He was trying to explain this to Rishid, and so far he wasn't getting the reaction he wanted.
That was to say, Rishid wasn't reacting _at all_.
Malik glowered. "Aren't you listening?"
The tall man blinked. "Yes, Master Malik. But how do you propose we do such a thing? People dislike being told they can only have one child, or even no children at all. And they won't tolerate executions."
"It's simple," Malik answered easily. "I'll let the people do it for themselves." At Rishid's baffled expression--as baffled as Rishid allowed himself to look--, Malik went on gleefully, "I'll just allow them to take the law into their own hands. If someone robs another person, they're allowed to take the stolen object back, and more. Whatever they see fit, they may do."
Rishid nodded slowly. "And this will rapidly grow out of their hands."
"Now you see." Malik smiled, rubbing the winged tips of his Millennium Item. "I'll disband the justice system. We'll wait out of reach for the people to tear each other apart. When I return, I'll restore order."
"And that will make you their hero."
Nickel-tasting fear and bile-tinged repulsion at what his mirrored self was doing overwhelmed the true Malik. When he trusted himself to speak without vomiting or, perhaps worse, whimpering, he shook his head and turned to Ishtar. "That's ridiculous!"
"Is it indeed? You think his idea is faulty?" The goddess's tone was distant but honest. Her question wasn't rhetorical.
Malik felt helplessly caged, and it made him want to scream. "Yes! No matter how he came by the throne, the people are relying on him! They'll see what he's doing."
"And then what? You know full well there is little, if anything, that can be done against the Millennium Items. The Pharaoh alone holds the power to stop them."
Malik tore at his hair and paced.
Watching the chaos that people took to heart, Malik was reminded of water spraying through a leak, or maddened bulls let out of a pen...or children turned loose in an open candy store.
For one Malik it was momentous and joyful; for the other it twisted his heart and stole away any feeling of security or faith in human strength he'd kept over the years.
Again and again people turned on one another, eager to see the next exhibit of their neighbor's life and property. For four years, friends and enemies and rivals were slain by one another.
Crime dropped. So did the population; so did trust and hope.
And on a gloomy, rain-heavy day Pharaoh Malik returned at last and ordered a stop to it. Or so he'd said he would do. That dark, moist afternoon he came and took his place at the head of the government (what was left of it) and read the reports of his shrinking 'herd'.
That night, it wasn't the sky that wept, but Isis. Ishtar and the true Malik watched as her tears polished the blade of a short sword. They followed her as she moved surely and achingly down the hall and up the stairs to Pharaoh Malik's room.
"Brother," she whispered, and the slender blond murmured in his sleep. "Malik."
At that, the Pharaoh sat up, shielding his eyes from the soft glow of the hall light. "Isis?"
Her breath shook. "Yes."
"Why do you cry?" He stood, went to her, offered her a Kleenex as an afterthought.
"Because, baby brother," she whimpered, taking the offered tissue and brushing it over her face with trembling fingers. "Baby brother...I love you...."
"And I you-"
His words died in a hissing gurgle as Isis slid her dagger up under his sternum. "I love you, Malik." Her sobs blurred her vision, saved her from the final look of shock and betrayal that melted behind Malik's eyes.
She held him on her lap and cried into his hair until he was cold. When Rishid came in, she told him heavily that there would be a stop to the deaths outside. And when Malik was taken away the next morning, she stood and followed her shock-numbed feet outside to see if the citizens would take her for trial.
***
Malik and Ishtar were back at last by the riverbank. The scent of blood still clung to his memory, as did a strange ache where his false sister had sunk a blade into a man who was not him.
"Have you learned anything from this, Malik?"
He considered this for a very long time. "If....I think--I have...." But he didn't finish.
When Ishtar saw that he was lost in his thoughts again--she politely ignored the swirling mess of images behind her charge--she asked, "Are you ready to go home, or is there more you want to see?"
Malik had his toes tucked under the mud in the river. He felt it squish up over his feet and tickle under his nails. He only glanced at her and then nodded. "Isis is waiting for me, isn't she?"
A small, pleasant expression smoothed its way across Ishtar's face. "Yes."
***
A kind nurse had brought Isis coffee. The liquid was cold and hardly sipped at now, but that didn't matter so much. Ignoring the drink had given her a few scant hours of sleep.
Rubbing at her eyes and not caring that she'd smudged the kohl, she stretched out a kink in her neck and moved to clear away her drink. Until she noticed Malik's hand twitch.
"M-Malik?" Isis's voice was the first thing he registered.
"Isis...." he murmured in return, and opened his eyes at last.