Kigaru's Adventures: The Loss of a Friend
By Kigaru Misei
Blades whistled passed her head, cutting the wind. Compressed mounds of air crushed the solid dirt ground as she stumbled backwards, catching her footing. The floating masks before her grinned, purple robes whipping about their ethereal figures. Curved blades slid from their empty hand sockets, sunlight glinting off their bloodied edges. She squinted, edging backwards more, her tanned hand gripping hard around her Wand of Black Fire, knuckles turning white from the lose of blood. The tip of the magical device shifted from black, to evergreen, to crimson, to a murky tan, then back again. She felt the energies gathering around the tip of the wand, words of power invoking their cause as she whispered them aloud, her body moving to the sway of the energy. She called the power to her, channeled it within her thin being. When she was finished, a spinning ball of liquid white fire sped towards the robed figures swaying towards her on the gusts of wind that swam passed.
"Aisubeki, come on!" a deep echo stumbled down the hill to her ears. The mage flicked her head to the side, emerald bulbs watching the bulky man standing with both pale hands cupped to his mouth. The gray fur of a long dead animal clung to his mass, muscles pulling the underlying skin, stretching it to fit his shape. "Get the hell out of there!" She watched him defiantly, gaze eventually flicking to the man at the top of the dirt hill, a suit of gold clasped to his body, sunlight providing the shimmer he needed for intimidation. He was unmoving, unwavering, his stance, his structure unsettling. The whip of a blade caused her to look away as it nicked her arm. A gentle stream of red coated the inside of her fur covered armor.
"Just get out of here. I'll hold them off!," her crystalline voice called back as she sent another spinning ball of flames towards the coming tide of purple robes. They didn't budge.
Breath was lost to his lungs. He collapsed to his knees, hands resting to the sides, breathing erratic, troubled. A howl of ethereal pain called into the air. Belthezar gave enough energy to smile. She had killed one.
"Leave her." The cold, dead sound floated down from above. Belthezar looks from the dirt ground, eyes dancing up the length of the golden sollerets, golden leggings, golden girth, golden breastplate, until they met with two crystal blue eyes encased in a golden helmet, light glimmering all around the body. He had to shield his eyes from the intense glare.
"What?," Belthezar swallowed from both exhaustion and dehydration.
"Leave her." Energy returned to his limbs, energy from anger and an intense troubled hatred. Belthezar shot to his feet, a growl echoing cleanly from his throat, fists clenched, eyes flared.
"What did you just say? Leave her? Belzedar, are you mad? Have you lost it? You tell me to leave her as if she means nothing?," Belthezar grabbed the edge of Belzedar's neck piece, bringing his face close, veins beating feverishly in his neck and head, eyes surrounded by flames. "I will not lose her. She is my vassal. She is my friend. She is my love." The armor clad man stood unmoving.
"She will be dead in time. Leave her. Save yourself. Or you can stay, if you are that intent on losing your soul. I will not fall like you," stale air hung between the two. The fur covered mage released the edge of the neck piece, stepping away with the heated glare still burned onto his face. Belzedar spun the crystal staff he held, watching from behind the prism of light it cast. "Goodbye Belthezar. If you do survive, then contact me through your crystal. If not, then I am sorry. I only hope that they do not get you as well." Words touched the dirt laden air, light flickered in a symphony of rainbows, and then he was gone.
A shriek of pain tumbled over the hill. Belthezar turned, looking over into the bowl shaped valley. His eyes scanned, seeing the purple robed beings standing still. He continued to scan until he saw her body laying face down, legs and arms contorted in different directions. Blood ran from her mouth, her midnight black hair cast over her face, chest heaving for breath.
"Aisubeki!" Belthezar started down the hill, catching himself before he tumbled. A lone purple robe strayed from the crowd and he stopped. It's face turned to him, the mask reflecting light. It grinned. Grinned differently. Grinned as if the face moved. Red eyes burned within. Burned for him. Belthezar gripped his Wand of Black Fire tightly, his knuckles turning white from how tightly he held it. His thoughts scattered, words of power lost to him. The purple robe looked back at the woman on the ground, her breathing slow, erratic. It swayed as it floated on the breeze, finally reaching her, a pale, spotless arm falling away from the robe. Its hand gripped Aisubeki's neck, lifting her, letting her arms and legs dangle downwards. A hideous insane laughter fell from its body, orange orbs of light fluttering about Aisubeki's limp body. It gripped hard, the light intensifying until Belthezar had to cover his eyes or risk going blind. Aisubeki screamed at the top of her lungs, orange light exploding from her mouth and eyes, filtering into the purple robed figure that held her. Then it let go, letting her slip to the ground, quieting her breath.
"No! Aisubeki!," Belthezar's voice and energy returned. He stumbled down the hill, rolling head over feet as he came to the bottom, darting across the valley to the limp woman, blood splattered across her face. The purple robe drifted away, back to its group. Belthezar's eyes glared at them. They drifted away, slowly, laughter echoing against the dirt ground surrounding the valley.
"No… Aisubeki… please don't be… god, please don't be," he knelt down, propping her up, holding her in his arms. He felt for his communication crystal tucked away under his fur covered armor and pulled it out. His glowed a deep mystical blue. Hers did not. It didn't glow. Light was forever gone. He peered into the crystal, focusing on her happy smiling face but nothing appeared. He heard no voice. He heard nothing but the wind moving fast, starting to howl against the base of the valley. And tears fell from his eyes on her cold face. He closed her screaming mouth, closed her scared eyes and held her. Held her and cried. His love was forever gone. And he knew it.
*****
"I found out about it about a day later. Belthezar broke the news to me when I was in Yanshi cleaning up the house we both occupied," she adjusted the band on her wrist. It had black studded gems on it, black and white in color. Her emerald green eyes simply watched her wrist, fiery red hair cast across her face. "Belzedar was no where to be found and there was no way to talk to him, even through the communication crystals. He had used some type of magic to keep himself hidden from us." Kigaru looked up, moving a strand of her hair off of her face. She pressed her crimson lips together and blinked. Light reflected cleanly off of her ocean colored eyes and she looked to the woman who was listening.
"And you had the funeral?," there was a honey sweet sound that came from the dark woman. She pulled the string on her oak yumi tightly, flicking it to make sure it was the tightness she needed.
"Yes, the day after. A funeral pyre near Asheron's Isle. Belthezar and I both made a speech, as well as Robin," Kigaru adjusted her white hoary mattekar robe. It had golden trim on the sleeves, collar, and down the length of it. The fur was like silk, yet more delicate.
"And that's what started you in your training?," the woman put her yumi aside, searching for the quiver of arrows she carried. She pulled on the leather strap, yanking them from under the bed, counting them when she was finished.
"Yes… Almost immediately too." Kigaru drifted to the single window in the hut she occupied. Children ran along the streets, screaming and playing. A group of women stood in the center of town near the big lone rock while teenage boys sat on top of it pointing at the neatly gathered clouds in the sky. "I started my training under Shinji Takashi here in town. He was my mentor for almost a year. Then I went off on my own, to find my own way." She looked back into the dim lit hut. The woman busily whittled away at a shaft, eventually attaching an arrow-head to the end. "Feina?" The woman looked up.
"Hm?," Feina's black eyes watched Kigaru's pale face.
"Are you even listening to me?," Kigaru turned completely around, putting her hands on her hips, a frown touching her face. The woman nodded and waved a hand in continuance.
"Yes, yes… go on."
"Well, like I was saying earlier… before Aisubeki was killed, a year before she was killed, we were in Seita, back on Ispar…"
*****
Aisubeki Wabei was three years my elder but she was still my friend. I had met her and her sister, Mitaso Wabei, during a festival a year prior to us coming to Dereth. We had all been dancing and even though Mitaso, who was three years her elder, danced with us, she was rather mean about it. So I never really paid attention to Mitaso. At the time, before we came to Dereth, I was eighteen or nineteen, just a happy little Sho girl living in Seita. Seita was a fishing village in the northern parts of the Victorial Falls Kingdom. My father was a fisher man, my mother a seamstress. Even though I was an only child, my mother never tried to force me into behaving like a little girl, as was the custom. Instead, she cherished me as I was, which was simply her little Kigaru.
No one in our village knew about Dereth or even about the portals. The news never reached us. In fact, we were so far north that any news of the outside world usually reached us very late. In fact, there was a war two years before I came to Dereth and we had only heard about it a month before we fell through. Whether our seclusion was a good thing or bad thing, I'll never really know. I do know, however, that the war never affected us, which was a good thing. So, to find a portal, for Aisubeki and I, was a marvelous thing.
It was a warm spring day when her and I went out into the forest behind our village. We frequented the area quite a bit because there were always new discoveries to be made. At the time, even though she was twenty-two or twenty-three and I was twenty, we still enjoyed taking walks into the forest. It was a beautiful place with birds chirping happily and squirrels and chipmunks chattering. The scents from the forest are even like most of the beautiful forests that occupy Dereth. We took our normal route through the forest until we came to a spot where a rock covered a cave entrance. Aisubeki, being the inquisitive type she was, decided we should try to move the rock and explore the cave. I didn't have a problem with that so we did it. Inside, after we had gone as far as we could go, we found the portal. We looked into it and saw a village with people who lived happily. It looked so much like Seita. A little too much like Seita. If I had known what lay at the other end of the portal, that it was another world, I would have never gone through. But we didn't know. We didn't know it wasn't Seita. We didn't know that it was another world. And being the explorers and questioners we were, we went through. And when we emerged, we were a little more than surprised. We were scared. The portal closed behind us. Closed and sealed off. A few people looked at us, shrugged, then continued on their way. One man did approach us though. His skin was ebony, his eyes jet black. He watched us for a time, a little smile touching his face. White hair cascaded down around his shoulders, a goatee and mustache heavily covering his chin and upper lip. He was quite handsome and I can remember my heart jumping as he walked over to us from under a hut.
"Good day ladies. I couldn't help but notice that the portal you stumbled from was gray in color." The man bowed low as he addressed us. He wore a crimson robe with blue trimming along the collar and sleeves. A staff sheath was strapped across his back, pulled tightly against his figure. I looked around briefly, my eyes finally returning to look at him. Aisubeki was the one who addressed him. I felt odd in this place.
"Hello… where… is this place?," her voice was hesitant losing its honey like texture.
"Well, since you came from the gray portal, I know that you have no clue where you are. You are now in the world of Leafcull… at least that's what we've been calling it. This is the island of Dereth, more specifically, Middle Osteth, the village of Yanshi. The gray portal you came through signified that you come from the world of Ispar. From where in Ispar do you come?" My heart skipped a beat. We were on a different world. That portal had taken us to a different world, one in which Sho villages, or at least Sho names, were used. But the man before me wasn't Sho and I knew it. Aisubeki felt the same as me and gripped my hand with hers.
"A different… world? Dereth? Yanshi? Middle Osteth?," Aisubeki's little eyes looked to me. Her face was pale, far more pale than it usually was. This man, who we eventually came to know as Alfarif, related the tale of the Olthoi and the struggle of the Isparians to us. He told us about the settling of Osteth by the three groups of people, all of which I never even knew existed on Ispar, hailing from an isolated fishing village. The entire time, I listened with both fascination and fear. When he was finally done, Alfarif smiled and offered his services to us as a tour guide and just for any general help we would need. We gladly took it.
*****
Feina strapped a leather breastplate to her chest, pulling tightly on the metal hooks that head it together. A pair of emerald eyes watched her for a time, finally looking away, scoping the village in one swift gaze. Children ran down the street, one tripping and falling. He yelped in pain, inspected the cut, then stood up, brushing himself off, and continued down the street with his friends. The Sho woman smiled, moving a strand of her fiery hair away from her eyes.
"So Alfarif taught Aisubeki magic?," Feina's little whisper came to Kigaru's ears and she looked over for a brief moment, finally looking away. Her pale hands smoothed the robe she wore, blinking, mind touching on the thoughts she had.
"Yes, he did, in fact. She was always gifted with her mind and he told me that after he took her on as a student. He offered me the same but I declined," she glanced to Feina to see if she was paying attention. The Gharun'dim archer was kneeling, pulling her leather greaves onto her shins. "No, Alfarif became something else to me for a time." Feina looked up from her work with a dark little smile on her face. Her eyes glistened in the bright sun.
"Your lover?" She was blunt.
Kigaru cleared her throat and started to walk slowly down the cobblestone street, watching the people at the market shouting about their wares. A few hungry adventurers were standing next to the fish cart trying to haggle a fair price from the man who ran it. His stout body and round face suggested he wasn't lowering the price another pyreal. Smiling, Kigaru continued walking, Feina keeping in stride with her, an excited smile on her face.
"So he was your lover for a time huh?" Kigaru stopped and looked to Feina.
"Yes, him and I shared some things… he filled me with child but I lost it," the Sho woman looked to the grass off of the path.
"What…?" Feina blinked, mouth hanging open. She adjusted the yumi she carried over her shoulder.
"Well, you heard me. He filled me with child but I lost it, all right? I didn't mean to. But it happened accidentally." Kigaru looked away again, staring at a blue crystal hovering ominously over a strange erected structure. She blinked and stared. A lifestone. Light glinted off of the crystal's sides, casting rays of light towards her. It shimmered just like her communication crystal, which she gripped with her fingers, the golden clasp keeping it around her neck.
"I'm sorry Kigaru… I didn't mean to sound like…" A hand touched Feina's shoulder and she blinked. Kigaru smiled at her, a warm, thin lipped smile, a smile of friendship. She understood and Feina nodded smiling back.
Thumping came from the lifestone, thumping as if a loud drum was being beaten. Kigaru swallowed. Swallowed hard. The thumping was like her chest, the heart in her chest. Feina blinked in disbelief, raising a little finger, pointing over Kigaru's shoulder.
"Kigaru… look…" The Sho woman turned slowly to see a little red object hovering in the air. Hovering and pulsating. Tentacles grew from its top, spiraling around each other, up and down in the air, red and blue, pulsating with the little object. Light spun around the object and the tentacles, clasping together, white jets coming from the light, fastening around the object and tentacles. Balloon shaped objects grew from the light, inflating to full size, taking in air, letting a little out in a steady rythmn. The white jets, now growing darker in color from the crimson coloration that the tentacles fed into it, grew to the ground, then up into the air, forming a skull, a skull that clattered with breath. Two small balloons came to the sockets, water rushing over them, coating them with their texture, as the blue orbs stared out at the two women. Skin knit together on the face, forming lips and a nose, muscle wrapping together in a bloody mess, flexing and moving. It continued until the man finally came together, taking in a deep, drawn breath of life. He collapsed to the ground, nearly naked, nothing but a pair of silver greaves and a black steel kote on his body. His breathing was erratic, struggled. He looked up at the two, blinking as he did.
"Help me…," his voice was shaky. Kigaru moved to his side and helped him to his feet, where he stumbled slightly trying to regain his balance.
"Where did you die honey?," her voice was silk to his ears and he leaned against her strong body for support. She held him in her arms, steadying him.
"Near the tower of the Advocates of Cragstone," his reply was winded. Feina still stared on in disbelief, words escaping her thin frame.
"There's a portal to Shoushi near here. Take that portal and hike to Hebian-To. There's a portal to Cragstone from there honey. I would go and help you if I could, but I must stay. There are things here I need to do today. I'm sorry." He nodded against her shoulder and regained his legs. He gave her a hug, then turned to make his way to his destination. Kigaru watched for a moment, then looked back to Feina, who still stared in disbelief.
"So that's what happens when you die and come to the lifestone hm?" Feina nodded.
"That's disgusting…," her voice was small, timid. Kigaru gave an absent minded shrug and started to walk again. Feina followed closely behind, gripping her yumi with her free hand, the other held to her chest, feeling her heart beat.
"Disgusting, maybe, but if it wasn't for that, I think we all would be dead a hundred times over." Feina nodded to the response. "So where was I in my story?"
"Alfarif was your lover for a time and filled you with child but you lost it…," the archer rubbed her dark neck with her free hand. Thirst was taking its toll. She reached for a water flask she carried at her side, taking a deep swig as from the bottle.