10. Legends: Hope
"What do you mean we can't go with you?" Bud pouted. "Don't you trust us?"
Ariesa sighed. She remembered herself at their age, and she would have been just as pouty about being left behind. But they were her responsibility, and she wasn't sure what came next...
"I do trust you," she told Bud gently. "That's why I'm letting the two of you go home alone, instead of bringing you there." Behind them, Lisa, ever the more practical twin, was packing supplies for her and her brother. She looked up long enough to roll her eyes at Ariesa with a jerk of her head over to her brother, the meaning clear.
Bud was not appeased. "It's just because it's out of your way to go home."
"Then it works out for us both, doesn't it?" Ariesa said brightly. Lisa stifled a giggle, and Bud's complaining descended into mere grumbles which Ariesa could dismiss as white noise.
"All done," Lisa announced soon enough, and they started out together until they reached the turnoff; north would follow the lake back to Domina and home, and east led up into the mountains. Lisa looked up the path to the east.
"I hope you catch up with them in Gato," she said, and Ariesa did not respond, lost in her own worries.
--
"Elazul," Pearl suddenly interrupted the silence in which they had been walking together. "Isn't that..."
He followed her pointing finger, and sure enough, she was right. It was Ariesa.
The Jumi cursed himself silently. He could have steered her away from here, and he would have, had he had any idea she might come here. The girl was a decent fighter, but how could she know what she was involving herself in? No one but Jumi could really understand what it was like to be Jumi.
He confided his worries briefly to Pearl, who nodded gravely as she listened, then responded in that calming way of hers that always kept him centered. "It could be anything, Elazul. Maybe she's just here on an errand?"
"Only one way to find out," he said, and strode forward to clasp her shoulder.
She wheeled around instinctively, hand on sword, but recognition kicked in quickly. "Elazul!" she cried, in the tone of someone who had just found what she was looking for.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, a bit gruffer than intended. Pearl sidled up to him, her smile a little warmer.
Ariesa's smile fell, however. "I've just come from Polpota," she told them. "There's some things you should know."
The mention of Polpota was enough for Elazul to start looking for a more private place to have the discussion. They stepped out onto one of the cliff protrusions, far enough away from the town's houses that even the winds would not carry their words.
The story spilled out of her, and Elazul's expression grew grim. One more hope of finding other Jumi dashed. "Who was Sappho?" asked Ariesa as she finished the story.
Elazul remembered a somewhat rough-edged but dignified Jumi of Sapphire, someone who was all a young boy could really count on for answers to who, and what, he was. A guardian, whose knight had been lost some time before, when the Empire stole Elazul's race from him before he even had a chance to get to know it. But he could not allow himself to express all that, not to her, not when he only had barely begun to know her. "Someone I knew," he replied, and Ariesa seemed to accept that.
She returned to a more cheerful mood soon enough. "I was worried I wouldn't find you here!" she exclaimed with an enthusiasm that surprised Elazul; he had thought her somewhat uptight when he had met her in Domina. Something, subtly, had changed, if only it was being away from her hometown. "I thought you'd be gone by now for sure."
"It's my fault," Pearl said guiltily. "We only got here a couple days ago. I slowed him down. I always do."
Elazul had never seen things with Pearl that way, but he was tongue-tied trying to find something reassuring to say to his guardian, and suddenly very grateful when Ariesa saved him the trouble. "I'm sure it's fine, Pearl. Well, now that we're all here, may I offer my help?"
Elazul suppressed an urge to shake his head. She was so wonderfully dedicated, and so absolutely naive. "We've heard only hints of a Jumi, but now I am more worried about the jewel hunter. I can only assume she's heard the same rumors we have, and that means she'll probably come here next… In this town, there's one place where one can hope to find some answers - the Temple of Healing."
"I've always wanted to see that," Ariesa mused. "They say it's the home of the Goddess – I don't really believe in the Goddess, but it's still something to see, right?" Elazul nodded, granting permission with that bare motion of his head, and wondering what he had gotten himself into.
--
Pearl had readily agreed to Elazul's suggestion to let the two of them go ahead, and to meet them at the temple. It wasn't that Elazul wanted to leave her behind, not at all, that was obvious to Ariesa – more that some anxiety of Elazul was driving him forward, the more so after the story she had told from Polpota, and she figured he wanted his guardian kept out of whatever worried him.
Ariesa climbed the steep, treacherous pathways behind her semi-familiar companion, keeping her eyes focused on his retreating back. The wind howled from the valley below, strangely soothing in its melody, but underneath, part of it almost seemed to be... crying, sadness mixed in with joy.
So entranced was she with Jinn's song that she almost didn't notice when Elazul stopped in his tracks in the presence of another man in the road.
"Who goes there?" asked the stranger, a man with hair the color of flame and expression that flashed to match. He stood proudly, his entire demeanor speaking a challenge.
Elazul return his look pointedly. "I'm Elazul," he replied simply. "And you are?"
"Rubens, fire-keeper for the temple," the man answered equally plainly.
"What does a fire-keeper do?" Ariesa wondered out loud, wondering as soon as she said it if it made her sound stupid.
Rubens, fortunately, didn't seem offended by her ignorance. "The same two torches have burnt in this temple for hundreds of years, my lady, since Gato was founded," he told her. "They symbolize our hope."
"Hope…" Elazul murmured, and Ariesa flashed back to a conversation they had held in the Mekiv Caverns. Hope. Perhaps not enough to go around.
"The fairies keep them burning, with their power, and I'm the one who speaks to them to keep it so. We call it faeries' light. Is that what you have come here for?" Rubens interjected.
"Fairies?" Elazul looked around in puzzlement. "Here? I thought they were all gone from the world after the wars."
"Not in the town so much, but around, by the waterfall. Down by the lake. In the jungle. Wherever they find someplace they feel comfortable with. You might be able to see them yourself…" Rubens looked at Elazul, as if considering something.
That caused Elazul to start, more surprise than Ariesa had seen him show before. Hesitantly, she stepped in. "I am Ariesa," she began simply, "and we are here to see the priestess of the temple. If that is hope, then so be it."
Rubens turned that peculiar fiery gaze on her, and Ariesa was surprised to gaze into eyes as red as his hair.
"I cannot promise you healing of the body, but we do our best to provide healing of the soul." Rubens' eyes narrowed. "There's a rumor going around about a thief, someone bragging that they were going to put out the temple's flame," Rubens told them. "Be careful in the temple, and act respectfully. We take such threats rather seriously around here." And with that, he returned his gaze to sweep across the valley beyond, a clearly dismissive gesture.
Elazul looked as if he wanted to ask more, but Ariesa tugged him along with her insistently. He swallowed, and took one last look at Rubens.
As they passed under the archway, he leaned to whisper to her. "I think he's a Jumi."
Ariesa was taken aback. "How could you tell?"
"There was a famous Jumi, long ago, of the highest stratum of knights, the Lucidia, named Rubens... I tried to get close enough to tell for sure. There's a resonance, between the cores, you see, if only you get close enough..."
"Intriguing," Ariesa murmured, thinking of Elazul dragging her through the Mekiv Caverns towards Pearl, he heading for her as straight as an arrow. "You never met him?"
Elazul paused as if she had said something embarrassing. "I am… well… I've been told that I might be the youngest of the Jumi." His last words came out in a rush. "So… I haven't met a lot of others."
"The youngest?" Ariesa started at that, wondering what exactly that meant, but Elazul said no more.
Her thoughts were distracted by the sight of the building perched on the edge of the cliff… the Gato Temple of Healing.
Like all other structures in Gato, it was carved out of rock, but this somehow had been chiseled into a rock formation teetering on the very edge of a high cliff, as if only the permission of Gnome allowed it to remain standing. Winds whistled below, and Ariesa looked down to see clouds. This lonesome structure stood there, silently, as it had for hundreds of years, one of the last shrines to the Goddess since the Empire had, over centuries, crushed Her priesthood as heretics.
It hushed them both as they passed into the coolness of the stone interior. Rainbows skittered across the floor from the stained glass windows high above them that some brave soul had managed to put in. Even their own footsteps seemed to disrupt the peacefulness of the temple's calm.
"Where do we go next?" Elazul wondered in an unusually quiet tone.
"I'm not sure... maybe we can ask?" Ariesa replied, but before them several of the nuns knelt at the altar of the main room they had entered, obviously absorbed in meditation or prayer. Ariesa could not bring herself to interrupt them. Elazul seemed to feel the same, motioning her towards a door at the side of the room. Together they made a quiet exit to leave the nuns absorbed in their worship.
They emerged into the back hallways of the temple, where fortunately they found nuns more practically absorbed in the days' business, and only too happy to give them information.
"The abbess is meditating right now," one told her. "You won't be able to see her until later this afternoon."
"Dammit!" Elazul cursed, having at least the respect to wait until they were out of earshot.
Ariesa gave her semi-friend a gently withering look. "Well, perhaps we could take advantage of the situation and enjoy the scenery. There's plenty of time to take a walk around."
Elazul only shrugged. Ariesa smiled a little smugly. On that man, that was as close to enthusiasm as she could hope for.
--
Elazul didn't feel like saying much. With them effectively kept out of the temple, he instinctively found himself drifting back to Pearl, feeling her pull just a little to the west of the temple. Ariesa accompanied him, and they found themselves heading towards the Mekiv waterfall.
"This is the one that spills into the caverns?" he asked her.
"The same," she replied. "Can't you feel it?"
It wasn't the waterfall that he was feeling; though he thought he might be able to if he really wanted to try. But what he was feeling was the small woman now visible, sitting by a small pool where the waterfall stopped only to crash down over the edge once again. She looked into the water dreamily, a look only made her prettier, accentuating her delicate demeanor.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, realizing too late the harsh tone he had put into his voice. He always realized it too late when he spoke that way, and now he could feel Ariesa's eyes on him, uncomfortably disapproving.
Pearl was used to it, and didn't even look up. "Talking to fairies," she replied simply.
"Fairies?" He remembered what Rubens said. "You can see them? I don't see any here. I thought they didn't show themselves to people."
"They don't, unless you're Jumi," Pearl told him seriously. "They're attracted to our cores, to the Mana inside them. They miss Mana as much as any of us, maybe more so."
"Oh." Elazul replied, looking around questioningly. "So where are they?"
"They won't come out while she's here." Pearl waved one hand towards Ariesa. "It's alright though, we were done talking."
"What did they say?" Elazul sat on the rocks by her, Ariesa following his example a few feet away.
Pearl shivered slightly. "They are…" she paused. "They are rather hateful towards human beings right now. I don't really know why, exactly…"
"Maybe they're worried about someone coming after the temple flames?" Ariesa interjected. "Like Rubens told us?"
"Maybe," conceded Elazul. He looked into the rushing water, but there was nothing to see.
Ariesa swiveled her head around, gazing at the town visible some distance away. "This place feels… nice," she said. "Like they put a lot of hope into building it."
"It's the religious center," Elazul replied. "They'd almost have to."
"But she's right, Elazul, it's more than that," Pearl told him. "There's… something more here, otherwise the fairies wouldn't come here."
Elazul paused to wonder what he was hoping for himself. He looked at his guardian, and she gave him one of her shy smiles back. She took his right hand gently in both of hers, and he couldn't help but smile back.
--
Elazul kept looking back without realizing it at the temple door, where this time they had firmly walked her to. Knowing where his guardian was seemed to be a great weight off Elazul's back, lightening the mood as they stumbled awkwardly once again down the steep, windy path that had led up to the temple, until the city they had bypassed earlier opened up below them once again. The city of Gato was a terraced structure built into the cliffs itself, like the Temple almost one with the stone from which it had been born. Hot sun burned the ancient cliffs, but somehow, she did not mind, not with the breezes popping up to cool her. Even Elazul, after a while, seemed to have trouble being grumpy.
They walked together in a friendly comfortable silence, until voices reached her ear.
"Isn't that Rubens?" she asked, the first words either had spoken in an hour.
"Shhh," Elazul admonished her. "I feel like there's something more going on here than meets the eye."
Stealthily they crept along the rocky path towards the voices that became ever more clear.
"You gave up so easily, and came to hide here?" asked an incredulous woman's voice. "You're not worried about your petrified sweetheart?" Ariesa stuck her head around a rock to see a nun talking to Rubens, who was himself perched at the top of the cliff with that same hard-as-stone he had given earlier look directed roughly southeast.
"The Jumi are gone. It's best we all die out. Nothing good can come of it."
"I knew it!" hissed Elazul, and Ariesa idly wondered when he was able to sneak so close to her. She was suddenly very conscious of his presence, his body disconcertingly close to her.
The nun approached Rubens boldly. "Life is like this town... cutting through rock to make pathways, pathways that lead us to the top... But you're no longer stone, you've gone soft, too soft to protect anyone. Only the strong survive. Sometimes, you need to hurt others to protect your precious ones. It's the way of Mana. Don't you agree, Sir Knight?" she finished, her head turning towards their hiding place.
"Busted," Ariesa whispered with a half-smile. Elazul only gave up the pretense of secrecy and stepped out brazenly.
"How did you know?" he demanded of the nondescript nun.
Her face was not visible, but her eyes narrowed in a way that gave Ariesa chills despite the sun's warmth as she stepped out of hiding herself. "What do you think?"
Rubens only looked quizzically at Elazul. "A Knight, then. I knew I recognized you as Jumi. What are you doing here?"
"You weren't exactly forthcoming about yourself." Elazul pulled himself up straight, and Ariesa realized in fact how young he was, relatively. "I'm looking for the others."
"And then what?" Rubens replied, in a half-mocking tone.
"Live together again. Return the race to what it once was. Help each other. Isn't that the natural thing to do?" Elazul replied.
Rubens only shook his head with a hint of scorn. "Lapis Knight, you are so young and you have no idea what you are talking about. You don't know what it was like, why the city of the Jumi went to ruins. A traitor among us, everything I believed in shattered, everything the Jumi were supposed to stand for."
"If you don't believe in the Jumi, what do you believe in?" Elazul replied hotly. "So that's it? We're what, walking jewelry, not human beings? You have faith in no one?"
"No one," Rubens agreed. "Had enough? I gave up everything to come here, and I left the Jumi behind long ago."
The nun had remained silent in this exchange. "The young one's right, you know. We can't get to the top without a flame of hope in our hearts."
"Are you mocking me?" Rubens stuttered. "That's what they used to call me, so many years ago. The flame of hope. That hope died."
"I see," she replied. "So that is what happened to the Flame of Hope. The world is full of the sparkle of life, of Mana, and your sparkle is lost, you clod. A disgrace to the Jumi themselves. Stones that lose their sparkle shall be punished!"
The nun was on Rubens in a flash, and Elazul dove forward as one with Ariesa, but the nun only hissed, "Stop right there!" Ariesa saw the knife she pulled glint in the sun, and to her left, she saw Elazul freeze, and agonized look on his face.
Rubens struggled in her grasp, but the nun had some uncanny strength, and he could not escape her grip. The older Jumi twisted, but the woman holding him only laughed, and the knife tore through his stomach. Blood seeped out of the wound, showing red against the skin revealed by the rip in Rubens' clothes, only to spread and blend in with the red of the coat, distinguishable only as it stained the white accents. Elazul gasped in horror as Rubens slumped, one hand reaching for his abdomen.
The wound should have been deadly, but somehow Rubens was still breathing, even as the woman let him go and he slumped forward to his knees. Another breath, and his entire body fell to the ground, and the Flame of Hope lay there crumpled, a bleeding shell.
Elazul moved barely an inch, but the woman leaned over her prey, brandishing her knife to drive the point home. "One step closer.." she said, lowering her weapon to just below the collarbone. Elazul inhaled sharply, and Ariesa remembered that was the location of the core. The life of a Jumi.
The nun leaned further over him, to look straight down into his face. "Are you so fatalistic now? Now, that you face death so closely?
"Sandra. The jewel hunter." Rubens forced out the words. Ariesa's stomach dropped.
Sandra laughed. "One and the same. Do you want to live? It hurts, doesn't it, Knight of the Lucidia? Then make it go away. Cry for me. Cry, and beg for your life. If you can do that, your life might be worth saving."
The first real fear showed in Rubens' eyes. Ariesa wanted to cry out, but there was no one to help, no one who could arrive in time, and Sandra was too close to Rubens for she and Elazul to reach him.
Elazul tried anyway, lunging in a flash, but Sandra was quicker.
"The flame of hope is mine," she said, laughing. A quick flick, and Rubens screamed as Sandra rose with a brilliant red jewel in her hand.
Elazul yanked Ariesa back abruptly. "It's too late… you witch!" He burned with rage, staring at the Jumi prostrate on the ground.
Sandra took advantage of his hesitancy to tear off her veil, revealing the same red hair Ariesa had seen in the Mekiv Caverns and Polpota. "Don't look so angry, Lapis Knight. It's only a piece of rock."
"We aren't pieces of rocks! That's a life in your hand!" Elazul shouted. Ariesa extracted herself from his grasp and slipped neatly into position, gauging the distance between herself and Sandra. If they couldn't get the core back, all was lost for Rubens. "I'll make you regret this!"
Sandra only chuckled, and as Ariesa dove for her, she jumped out of the way with inhuman agility, to land on a stone shelf above. "I'm looking forward to that, Elazul. I'll remind you of it, right before I take your own core." A flash of light, some unknown magic, and she was gone, with Rubens' life source in her hand.
"Dammit!" Elazul cursed, but Ariesa was already kneeling by Rubens' prone body, taking the hand of the dying Jumi in her own. Rubens did indeed seem to have lost sparkle; was that how a Jumi died? Not going at once, just slowly fading away?
Elazul rushed over and bowed his head respectfully, and Rubens waved a hand weakly towards the younger man. "Elazul... don't tell anyone you are a Jumi... they'll hunt you for your core... tell Diana that I wished I had the courage to save us both…" Rubens' body began to dissolve in a mass of red sparks, and in a matter of seconds, nothing remained of the man.
Ariesa felt suddenly empty inside. Elazul only looked murderous.
There they were, the two of them, kneeling in the dirt with no sound but the wind remaining to keep them company. Ariesa didn't know what to say or do, if she should reach a hand out to this man she barely knew. Uncertain, she merely remained still.
Finally, Elazul spoke. "Ariesa... don't tell Pearl about this. It won't make her feel better."
"I wish I could forget myself," she replied.
After a long pause, she asked tentatively, "Who is Diana?"
Elazul did not look up to meet her eyes. "Another of the Lucidia… she was a guardian, and our leader… I think Rubens was her knight, some time ago… The Lucidia were our founders, our leaders."
"So Rubens…"
"Is very old. Was," Elazul corrected himself. Ariesa plopped back and crossed her legs, leaving Elazul on hands and knees in the dirt with his own grief.
"Hello?" a novel female voice spoke.
Ariesa suddenly felt extremely self-conscious and leaped back to her feet, dusting herself off. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Elazul doing the same. A Neko stepped around the corner, accompanied by a cohort of nuns. "I'm Daena," the cat-lady told them, "a defender of the temple."
Ariesa did not know what to say. "Rubens..."
"I know," Daena replied sadly. "We heard too late. A woman who matched the thief's description was sighted fleeing here a short while ago. One of the nuns said she saw Rubens heading this way, going to talk to fairies or something, and... well, it's not hard to put it all together." Daena paused. "We were guarding the temple itself, we told Rubens not to worry about the flames, we figured it was another crazy mage trying to steal some Mana or something, somehow… we were thinking too literally when we heard someone was going to put out the temple's flame… and now…" Daena could not bring herself to finish.
"I'm sorry," was all Ariesa could think of to say.
Daena only nodded. "I will have the sad duty of informing Abbess Matilda. But I am sure she will want to hear the story from the two of you. If you will follow me?" she inquired politely, and turned, tail swishing.
"Wait a minute." Daena paused as Ariesa spoke. "You… you were in Domina, not so long ago, weren't you?"
Daena nodded. "I was. I was going…" She stopped. "Well, I was going to see about a great many things, but… well, there are things you will learn soon enough. If you please?" Ariesa and Elazul followed her and the nuns back down the slope morosely, forming a small, silent procession, down to the Temple of Healing.
--
Pearl met them at the entrance of the Temple. "I was so worried about you, when they said there was a thief spotted in town!" Her voice lowered. "Elazul, was it…"
Elazul nodded yes to her unspoken question. "You should have been more worried for yourself," he chided.
"I've been safe in here, the entire time. There can't possibly be a safer place than the Temple of Healing. Everyone has been quite welcoming."
"Well..." Ariesa nudged Elazul slightly at the impatient switch of Daena's tail. "I supposed all's well now. Next time, I won't leave you behind, though."
"That's fine, but right now, is it okay if I wait for you here?" Pearl asked, and Elazul gave his reluctant nod only after a look from Daena. "I've already chatted with the abbess. I think too many visitors would be tiring on her."
Pearl disappeared into one of the many side rooms of the convent, as Daena led them to a pair of large, delicately worked silver doors, pulling a key from her belt. "The abbess requires absolute silence for her meditation," she explained, "but… she knows if I enter without a summons, it's for a good reason." A small grin crossed Daena's face. "She's known me long enough."
Ariesa wondered how long, really, that was, at her first sight of the abbess. An ancient, wrinkled woman lay on a bed that was only truly a stone slab, with a curve carved into it to provide some semblance of comfort. The high-ceilinged chamber was as silent as a tomb, save for the crackling of two torches on either side.
The torches Rubens kept, she thought sadly.
To her surprise, Elazul knelt reverently by the altar, making the sign of the tree against his chest. Somehow, Ariesa could not bring herself to do the same, and was relieved when Daena only nodded forward as well.
The ancient woman did not open her eyes as she spoke. "Jumi," she began. "You have lost another of your kind."
"How did you know, Matilda?" blurted out Diana. "I only learned myself less than an hour ago."
Matilda did open her eyes then, to reveal a bright hazel that belied her age. "Rubens has been here for several decades; he could hardly hide from me who he was. Nor could he hide it when he was taken away. I knew the second she pulled the core from his chest. But I would like to hear more."
Elazul stood then, and related the story, with occasional additions by Ariesa. Matilda listened to their story attentively. "No accident. A hunter, then; we've been hearing the rumors here for weeks, and other news from elsewhere, the same story over and over. So it seems someone wants to hunt the Jumi to extinction."
"And that's why I must find the rest," Elazul replied. "Before it's too late."
Matilda raised her head weakly to regard him. "Would you care for healing?"
Elazul paused awkwardly, unsure of how to respond. "Abbess, I don't think you could give any healing that would help me."
"I suppose so, lapis knight," Matilda replied. "May the Goddess be with you."
Elazul turned to Ariesa, but suddenly both seemed unsure how to wish each other goodbye. She squeezed his hand as she met his gaze. "I'll see you back in Domina?" She did not ask when.
Elazul nodded, then morosely turned to go in that abrupt way of his, leaving Ariesa alone once again in the Temple of Gato.
"And do you wish healing, young woman?" Matilda addressed her. "What is your name?"
"Ariesa," she replied, "and I do."
Matilda pulled herself to ant upright position, shaking slightly, and Daena instinctively reached behind the abbess's back to support her. "You do… but you don't know yet what you need to be healed from," she said. "You haven't seen enough, haven't experienced enough, haven't made choices you could regret… so, nothing is there yet for me to heal."
Ariesa felt almost a bit insulted, but swallowed her pride. "What do I do about it?"
Matilda smiled slightly at her response. "Perhaps there is something else I can give you that would help us both. I have a favor to ask."
"What is it?" Ariesa responded a bit warily. The asking was a formality; she did not think she could turn down the High Priestess of Gato.
"Mana is being disrupted everywhere. The Elementals used to dominate our world, and whole days belonged to them. Now, they are lucky to have pockets of influence in small parts of the world… Did you know there used to be seven days in the week?"
"No, I didn't," Ariesa answered truthfully.
"The seventh was the day of the Goddess herself, when she brought balance back to the world… but no longer. The elements run wild, unchecked, and out of balance. I fear… something is going on with the fairies as well. There is much chaos in our world today. Will you go to the Mindas Jungle and try to find out what has been bothering them?"
"I will," Ariesa replied, wondering how she knew such things and what faeries had to do with anything. Useless beings since the wars. It was a simple enough request, and she felt like she owed something to this woman, like she had some responsibility for Rubens' death. "But why the jungle?"
"It's the closest place to the land of the Fairies."
"I'll go with her," popped up Daena.
"You wish this, Daena?" Matilda sighed. "I had hoped to keep you close…"
"I do," Daena said, in a tone that indicated her decision was made. "Something is happening, and I can't just sit by."
"Then go, the two of you," Matilda replied. "Go with the blessings of the Goddess."