Chapter 52: Rest in peace
The stairs that led upwards seemed to have no end. They were constantly walking upwards, but still no end of it could be seen. The air was musty, but that was not surprising. After all, this secret passage hadn't been used in a dog's age. In any case this didn't help them making progress faster.
"Tiroke, do you know how many steps we still have to defeat?" Genis panted; he was totally done. He had never had good stamina.
"It shouldn't be too long anymore until we reach the top," the ghost said.
"Though I'm really a little astonished that you managed these stairs in your weak condition back then," Raine told Tiroke. "You actually must've collapsed much while going upstairs."
"I think I didn't have to climb the stairs myself … I think I've been carried …" He closed his eyes. "By my brother …"
Genis moaned. "I would like to have such a brother now as well … Well, Lloyd would be alright as well …"
"Don't be such a wet, Genis!" Raine took the hand of her brother and dragged him with her.
"Ahh! Not so faaaast!" Genis complained. "I'll trip!"
Suddenly Raine stopped so that Genis would've almost bumped into her. They were standing in front of a wooden door. They had finally reached the top.
Raine turned around to the others. "Ready?"
Everybody nodded and she opened the door. Bright sunlight came out of the tower room and almost blinded them because their eyes were used to the weaker light of the Blue Candle.
In the room itself there wasn't much to see. Underneath one of the windows was a stone block that served as a bench; in the middle of the round room a table and two chairs were standing. But neither another clue nor a body could be seen.
Tiroke floated to the window above the bench. "Yes, I always sat here! From here I've seen the ocean!"
Raine looked around in the room disappointedly. "I hoped we would finally find Tiroke's body in here …"
Genis sat down on the bench. "Yeah, I thought so, too …" Then he grimaced. "Uh, it's smelling moldy here …"
"Moldy?" Kratos asked frowningly.
He and Raine exchanged a look.
"Genis, go away from there," Raine said softly.
Her brother stood up confusedly, and the two adults looked more closely at the bench. Then they suddenly lifted the upper side as if they opened a box. An unbelievable stench came towards them so that they had to cover mouth and nose with their sleeves.
One look into the now opened bench was enough to see that they had found what they had been looking for: the body of a child.
Tiroke now floated closer to the putrescent corpse. He looked at it for a while, then his eyes suddenly widened. "Yes … I remember everything again …"
"How did you die?" Lykia asked.
"I've been … murdered," the ghost answered.
"Murdered?" Genis repeated, depressed.
"Will you now be able to rest in peace?" Raine wanted to know.
Tiroke nodded. "Yes, I will. Thank you. But before I leave I have to tell you some things. First of all my name isn't Tiroke. Tiroke is the name of my brother."
"Tiroke is your brother …?" Riki asked in surprise.
It was the way Riki said this which made Raine frown. Why was she wondering so much about it? They already knew for a few hours that the ghost had had a brother, so it wasn't that surprising that the names had been mixed up … Once again Raine wondered who this girl was. She hadn't yet forgotten the matter with her house that had supposedly appeared over night. However, before she could continue thinking about it the ghost startled her out of her thoughts.
"My name is Lyuros, son of Ravoan Sage, the King of Palmacosta," the ghost explained.
"Sage? Did you say Sage?" Genis asked, surprised.
Was this … a coincidence? Was it a coincidence that Raine had been a slave in this castle of all places which had originally been in the possession of the royal family that had the same surname as herself? Or did that mean something?
"Yes, why?" Lyuros asked confusedly.
"Well, Raine and I have also the surname Sage, that's why I was so surprised," Genis replied.
"Oh, is it that so?" Lyuros suddenly smiled. "That explains some things."
"What does it explain?" Lykia wanted to know.
"Well … Their faces seem somehow familiar … They resemble the face of my brother. The eyes especially … They're the same," Lyuros said.
"Do you want to say we could descend from your brother?" Genis inquired skeptically.
"I'm sure of it."
"That's not possible!" Raine protested. "Our parents came from Tethe'alla!"
"That doesn't make it impossible. Tiroke lived more than ten thousand years ago. His descendants could've gone to Tethe'alla anytime," Kratos objected.
"No …" Raine murmured. She struggled against the prospect to be a daughter of this house in which she had suffered so much.
Riki didn't seem to be that interested in this matter. "But who murdered you, Lyuros?"
"Ah … Well, it's best if I start a little bit earlier … As you have already seen, only the name of my brother is written in the family tree. That's because my father didn't acknowledge me. He was of the opinion that somebody as weak as me can't possibly be his son … That's why it was decided by him that Tiroke was the heir although I was the older one of us two. I didn't have any problems with that, after all, the duties of a king would've strained me too much anyway. The only thing I wished for was to be acknowledged by my father … But I could do what I wanted, he still only saw Tiroke. But still I never blamed my brother. After all, he and my mother were the most important persons in my life. So I spend most time of my life in my room and the look-out where I looked out of the window the whole time, wishing I could go outside as well and admire nature like my brother did. He often told me for hours what he had seen outside and described everything in detail so that I could imagine what he had seen … But someday Tiroke changed. He got quieter, didn't go out that often anymore and burrowed himself in the books of the library.
'Why do you behave so strange lately?' I asked him one day.
He looked at me pensively, put the book he had been reading aside and looked deep into my eyes. 'I can tell you, I trust you because you're my brother,' he replied.
After that he told me a story I first didn't want to believe. He claimed a god had spoken to him and had chosen him to perform a difficult task."
"What task?" Lykia wanted to know.
Lyuros shook his head. "I can't tell you. Back then I promised my brother to tell nobody about it, and I keep this promise even now, long after my death."
"Why? After such a long time it's irrelevant anyway," Genis objected.
"Oh no. It is relevant … Because he still hasn't performed his task."
Raine looked at Lyuros frowningly. "What do you mean? That your brother is still …"
"He's still alive, yes."
The friends looked at the ghost in surprise.
"That's impossible!" Genis protested. "Nobody can live for ten thousand years!"
"It's not necessarily impossible," Raine remarked. "It should be possible with a Cruxis Crystal."
Kratos shook his head. "Apart from the fact that I'm doubting that a Cruxis Crystal lasts that long, I'm pretty sure that there weren't any Cruxis Crystals ten thousand years ago. Mithos was the first one who found them and produced them plentifully."
"My brother isn't still alive because of a Cruxis Crystal. It's magic that keeps him alive. The magic of the god who gave him his task."
"Why hasn't your brother already performed his task? Ten thousand years seem to be enough time to accomplish any task," Lykia said.
"He couldn't perform it yet because the time hadn't come yet. But soon it will have come," Lyuros explained.
A human who had already been living for ten thousand years with a task he would soon perform … Raine had suddenly an assumption. "It has something to do with the prophecy, hasn't it? Of course, everything relates to this damned prophecy … The prophecy has been written a long time ago … Say, Lyuros … Did your brother write it? Is your brother the prophet?"
'Hahaha, I knew you would someday find it out, Raine. I haven't expected any less from you,' suddenly a voice sounded in Raine's head that definitely didn't belong to Lunpor but still seemed somehow familiar.
"What the hell …?" Raine turned around confusedly but only saw the puzzled faces of her friends. "Didn't you hear that?"
"What?" Riki asked.
"Well … Nothing. It was probably only my imagination." She turned around to Lyuros again. "So, am I right or not?"
Lyuros smiled. "Yes. Tiroke wrote the prophecy. He's the prophet. After he had told me that, he also said that he would soon leave to make the first preparations. Back then he already knew that it would take a long time until the prophecy would be fulfilled. I was … depressed … I didn't know what I was supposed to do without my brother. But in the end I didn't need to worry about that. I was once again sitting in my room and looking outside the window while I wondered which landscapes my brother would still see. Tiroke was sitting beside me and reading a book again. He said that he still had to know much more to be able to perform his task." Lyuros closed his eyes, his voice got quieter. "Suddenly the door was opened and somebody came in. It was … the closest counselor of our father, Sicarius. He had a knife in his hand and walked towards Tiroke. He wanted to kill him, the heir, and then our father to get the throne for himself. He didn't need to kill me because I did neither exist in the eyes of my father nor for the world outside of the castle because the people had never learned that I existed.
Tiroke was like paralyzed and didn't move. When Sicarius wanted to stab him with the knife in the chest I jumped in front of my brother.
'Lyuros …' he whispered.
'Run away, Tiroke!' I commanded him.
'But I can't let you …'
'Get lost already! After all, you mustn't die! You have to perform a task!' I yelled at him and finally he walked away, but not without giving me a last apologetic look. Sicarius wanted to follow him, but I stopped him. The love for my brother gave me strength, strength I've never had before. I hoped that Tiroke was able to hide himself somewhere, that he got help or just fled. Eventually I collapsed. When I regained consciousness again Tiroke was again with me, looking at me with a face drowned in tears.
'Don't die, Lyuros,' he begged of me, but I felt how I gradually got weaker. But I smiled. I was happy that my brother was fine and that I had been finally of some use … That I had been able to give my brother, who had given me so much, finally something back. I died in his arms."
"How horrible …" Riki murmured, depressed.
"But how come your body is inside this thing?" Genis asked while pointing at the bench.
"Tiroke put me in there."
Raine looked at Lyuros helplessly. "Why?"
"Because he had to. When my soul left my body he arranged for me to lose my memory. A soul without memories can't go to the netherworld and becomes a ghost. After that he brought my body here which wasn't easy because he had to make sure that we weren't seen. He had to make sure that my body was never found, but it had to stay in the castle because otherwise my soul would've never gotten back its memories."
"But why did he have to do all of this?" Lykia wondered.
"Think about it. What would've happened if I had been buried and I've never haunted the third floor as a ghost?" Lyuros asked.
"The third floor would've been used like before and probably would've been changed …" Raine frowned. "And we would've probably never learned so much about the royal family and the prophet … Did Tiroke maybe know that we would come someday to help you find your body?"
Lyuros nodded. "He had seen into the future and knew that someday this exact moment would come, and thus he had no other choice than to do everything the way he eventually did. Furthermore, it isn't certain how the present would now look like if I hadn't haunted the third floor. Who knows, maybe an ancestor of Ganeo would've died, then Raine would've never come to this place and she and Genis would already be dead. Well, though my brother would've never allowed for this to happen. But you see now how important it was for me to become a ghost. If even one tiny thing had been different you wouldn't stand here now. Even the flap of a butterfly can cause a hurricane at another place. That's why it's so dangerous to change the past. You can't evaluate how much the present is influenced by it."
Riki suddenly gasped. The others turned around to her, puzzled.
"Ah, I just thought I've seen a big rat, but I must've been mistaken …" she said.
Her friends turned around again, but Raine let her gaze linger on the girl a little longer. Had it been only a coincidence that Riki had made that noise after Lyuros had told them how dangerous the changing of the past can be? Besides, he had looked at Riki at that moment. Very strange.
"So, after I became a ghost Tiroke left and let our parents and his home behind to dedicate himself fully to his task. When I disappeared they immediately pronounced me dead even though my body was never found. But after all, only the persons living in the castle or working there knew of my existence. But when Tiroke disappeared as mysteriously as me hell broke loose. Our father let people search everywhere for him, the one who found him was supposed to get a huge amount of Gald. Our father refused to take Tiroke's death into consideration. Well, it's no surprise Tiroke has never been found. It broke our mother's heart. After all, she had lost two children in a short period of time … She got ill and eventually died. Our father was now all alone, had neither wife nor heir. He got more and more often drunk, and eventually he decided to leave the castle and to be no longer a king. He left the castle in Sicarius' hands and made him a lord, not a king. Though it hadn't been what Sicarius had wanted he knew that it wouldn't change anything if he killed the king now, so he contented himself with being a lord. Our father eventually died lonely between wine bottles. The last word that came over his lips when he breathed for the last time was … 'Tiroke'." Lyuros looked embittered and at the same time endlessly sad. "Until his death he didn't acknowledge me …"
"I'm sure he'll acknowledge you when you meet him in the netherworld … Certainly he knows by now that you sacrificed your life for Tiroke," Riki tried to cheer him up.
Lyuros looked at the ground. "No. I know my father. He would only say that it had was my duty to protect Tiroke." He shook his head. "In the end I don't care anyway. I don't need the acknowledgement let alone the love of my father as long as I know that my brother and my mother love me." He smiled. "You know, my brother came here often, a long time after all of this had happened. He made sure that the books didn't fall apart, and he talked to me every time … But of course I didn't know then that he's my brother."
"Ah, so it was this man you mentioned earlier? The one who said that he was sorry for what had happened?" Riki asked.
Lyuros nodded. "Yes, that was him. He was here often the last days as well."
"I see," Kratos said. "He played the piano so that we come to the music room. And he also placed the casket on the commode."
"Yes. He helped you many times … But without him you would've never found my body anyway."
Genis was sulking a little bit. "We certainly would've managed that without him."
Lyuros shook his head. "No. It was him who made this riddle in the music room. He also underlined the part about swordplay in the Book of Talent."
"I see … But why didn't he say from the beginning where your body is?" Genis wanted to know.
"I was supposed to get my memories back bit by bit. Moreover, a little brainteaser doesn't hurt, does it? At least that's what my brother would say."
Raine looked at Kratos. "These words sound somehow familiar …"
"Hm?" The swordsman looked at her questioningly.
"Yeah, I remember! Kratos said that after I asked him why he didn't just say where the moonflowers are but wrote a mysterious instead!" Genis remarked.
Kratos shrugged. "Coincidence."
"And who was it who said that there aren't any coincidences anymore since the prophecy started being fulfilled?" Raine asked triumphantly.
„Kratos," Genis answered grinningly.
Lyuros laughed but got serious again. "There's still another reason why my brother made this riddle. The sentences … They could be important one day."
"Isn't that certain?" Lykia asked.
"No. Regarding this matter even Tiroke can't say if it's really important. He only has an assumption in this regard."
"So it probably relates to something that happens after the fulfillment of the prophecy," Kratos assumed.
"That's right. Tiroke can only tell the future until the moment the prophecy is fulfilled because after that he will have performed his task and lose this ability," Lyuros explained.
Raine frowned and turned to Kratos. "How did you know that?"
"It was only an assumption."
Raine didn't believe him. There was something in his gaze which told her that he was lying. She suddenly remembered again that he had already tried to make excuses once. Back then, shortly before they had reached Palmacosta the question who had written the prophecy and how Kratos got to know of it anyway had arisen. Well, they knew now who had written it. But Raine didn't believe that Kratos learned about the prophecy by documents – like he had told them back then. No, if you looked at it more closely … His strange behavior regarding the prophet … Was it possible that Kratos had known before that the prophet was still alive? Did he maybe know him? But if was like that, why didn't he just say it?
Raine turned to Lyuros again when he piped up anew.
"I will go now. It's time …" Lyuros smiled. "I have to thank you even if you didn't have another choice than to do what you did. Your paths are predetermined. But still … some things can still be changed. For the better, I hope."
Riki once again gasped. "Again this rat …"
Lyuros floated above his body. "Farewell. I hope I don't see you that soon again. After all, you're still too young to die." He winked. "But I'll continue to watch over you."
"Farewell, Lyuros … I hope you'll see your mother again … And I wish that your father realizes what a great son he has," Genis said sadly.
"Thank you, Genis …"
The other said their farewells as well. The ghost lied down in his body which turned to dust. The next moment a light wind blew through the room, carrying the words: "Farewell … My friends …"
Sad, isn't it? =( Poor Lyuros ...
Anyway, this is one of my favourite chapters. ^^
To be continued ...
