Wendel was peaceful, in the early
morning, before everything had opened and people filled the bright streets.
All of the doors were closed and the shutters on the windows were closed,
save the tavern and the shops. No denizens walked the streets.
Ikuza moved through the empty town like
a ghost, and he would have been even more graceful but for Yuki, who was
still using him as a crutch. Mizumi-Hi trailed behind them, occasionally
pausing to brush the dirt and grass stains off of her fine dress.
It was to no avail; her dress was stained beyond recovery.
"Do you think the Priest of Light is awake, this early?" she asked.
"Yes." Yuki said, inclining her head.
A gateway mad of trees rose before the three travelers, magnificent, an arch of intertwining branches. Two soldier-monks in white robes stood in the shadows of the massive trees, and let them pass without a word. In front of them rose the Temple of Light, a solid building of stone, with many windows and balconies. Vines curled up the lower walls.
It was not as huge or as grand as Mizumi had been expecting, and Ikuza was startled by its relative plainness. For all the windows and intricate archways, it could have been a castle. He had half-expected a palace of light, an antithesis to the Underworld's fortresses of darkness. Yuki knew what it looked like– Kevin had told her, many times.
They climbed the steps and entered. A carpet, old and well-worn, led past another door, and from there into an chamber, lit by the rising sun through stained glass. Ikuza flinched before he stepped in– entering this holy place was making him uneasy, and he suspected that if he stayed here too long he would be sick.
He whispered this to Yuki, who shrugged. "If you feel nauseated, then leave." she whispered back. He nodded and helped her across the threshold.
A small table, covered in white cloth, was the only furniture in the room. Behind the table stood a little blond-haired girl, with elfin ears and large blue eyes. She was drowning in stately bishop's robes, which clashed with her short stature and youngness. Behind her was a tall man with long silver hair, in white robes, and behind him was an ivory statue of the Mana Goddess, framed in the light from the window.
The two made an dignified procession.
"Hi!" the girl chirped.
"Tell me that's not the Priest of Light." Mizumi hissed into Yuki's ear, with an edge of desperation in her voice, and grabbed Yuki's arm. "That girl's not more than twelve!" Yuki pulled her arm away.
"I'm thirty-two!" the girl said, annoyed, and then glared at Ikuza, who was staring at her with thinly veiled disbelief. Mizumi covered her mouth and laughed hysterically, if rather muffled. Or she might have been crying– it was hard to tell.
"Lady Carlie," Yuki said, trying to mend the situation, "my name is Yuki."
Carlie scratched her head, thinking. Yuki started to continue but was cut off. "Yuki... Kevin's little sister?" Carlie said, in her bubbly-light voice.
"Yes. Ikuza and I–"
"Ikuza?" Carlie asked.
Yuki nodded towards Ikuza, was was still supporting her in stead of her bad leg. "We have a problem."
"Usually people do!" Carlie said, brightly. "That's why they come to me, and ask stupid questions." The man standing behind her shot her a warning glance.
Yuki tried to swallow her growing annoyance. "Are you going to listen to me?"
The man behind Carlie put his hand on her shoulder. "Please, go on." he said. Carlie nodded, standing still, her hands buried in her flowing robes.
Ikuza stepped up, in front of Yuki, and bowed deeply to Carlie. He was trembling slightly with nervousness, and the strain of being in a place so adverse to what he was. "Yuki wishes to tell you of this." He drew the silver flute out of his shirt and held it in front of Carlie. His eyes reflected the light oddly, becoming a darker shade of red instead of shining bright crimson.
Carlie blinked. "Heath... what is it?"
"I don't know..." Heath was looking at Ikuza oddly, like he could see who he was and where he had come from.
"It's the last resting place of the spirit, Shade." Ikuza said, softly, and played a short melody on the flute. It was chilling, and while he played the room darkened, like an eclipse of the still-rising sun. The musty smell of gravedust filled the room. When Ikuza finished, the room had cleared, and Shade was hovering behind him, clutching his cat-slit eye in his claws and regarding each person in the room in turn with it. His unblinking gaze lingered on Carlie longest of all.
"Carlie!" Shade said, in a whispery, cold voice. "The other spirits have all extinguished. I am the last one, and if this home of mine is destroyed I too will fade, and then all Mana will be lost."
Mizumi looked frightened, and she backed away from Shade, a hand around her necklace. "No..." she whispered. No one but Yuki heard her. "That's not true!"
Yuki glanced at her, startled at her reaction.
Carlie looked sad, her clear blue eyes welling up with tears. She rubbed her face with a sleeve. Heath spoke for her. "You have a powerful item, Ikuza. What are you going to do with it?"
Ikuza jerked the flute over his head and held it out to Heath. Shade's tail twitched. "I don't want this. I offer it to you."
"I cannot take it from you, Ikuza." Heath said.
"It belongs to you, Ikuza." Shade said, his whispery voice filling the chamber.
Ikuza went to his knees, holding the flute above his head and shivering with some emotion Yuki couldn't name. Fear, perhaps, or exhaustion. "No... he's always in my head, watching me! I don't want this! I want to be left alone!" He was in tears, fighting them back and losing. "It's this flute's fault that I had to leave, that I can't go back home! Why must I keep it?!"
Shade looked down on him, his unblinking eye boring into Ikuza's back.
Yuki knelt by him, and stroked his hair as she would a child's.
Laughter filled the chamber, cruel laughter. "I'll take it, then." The voice was sweet, like honey, but mocking in its sweetness.
Mizumi shrieked and fled behind Ikuza, still clutching her amber necklace in her right hand. Shade glanced over at the wall and vanished.
Standing against the wall was a young man, not older than seventeen or eighteen, with beautiful golden hair that framed a face that truly belonged on a statue or in a painting, not on a living person. He was wearing a crimson robe, and over it, a crimson cape. It clashed with his bright green eyes.
He was striking.
Carlie was staring at him like he was a ghost, or a demon come to haunt her. "You're dead!" she accused.
He laughed again. "Obviously not." He stepped forward, as he moved, the golden bangles on his arms chimed together.
"You should be older." Carlie said, sounding miffed, and crossed her arms petulantly.
"I've spent the last twelve years dead. Why should I be older than I am?"
Carlie looked shocked, as did Heath. Yuki and Ikuza were simply confused, still crouched between the young man and Mizumi.
"Resurrection magic." Heath said, finally. The man laughed again.
Mizumi was muttering a plea under her breath, desperately.
"I've come," Koren said, "to collect my bride, and the necklace she stole when she ran."
Mizumi whimpered, sounding like a kicked dog.
"It's not becoming of a Dragon princess to mewl," Koren snarled, and strode across the room, around Yuki and Ikuza like they didn't exist. He grabbed Mizumi by the collar of her dress, and lifted her off the ground to look him eye to eye.
Mizumi chose the only way of escape
she could think of, and reverted to her true form. The room was suddenly
filled with thirty feet of slashing silver dragon. Ikuza stood quickly
and dragged Yuki behind the altar-table.
Koren jumped backwards, and threw
up a shield of dazzling light with a quick gesture. Misumi's thrashing
tail knocked the candles off the table. Carlie put the fire out by
stamping on them with a fury.
"You're coming with me!" Koren flung out his hand, and glowing orange strands wrapped themselves around Mizumi, binding her.
"No! No no no no no!" Mizumi writhed, thirty feet of wings and scales ripping up the carpet and walls, and roared. The necklace that she was still wearing flashed, and the bonds around her dissolved, uncurling into the air.
Koren swore. Mizumi roared again, and rose up, wings extended, scraping her crested head across the ceiling. Stone chips showered the room.
Koren gestured again, murmuring words under his breath, and his shield vanished, and suddenly he was a dragon as well, golden and red to Mizumi's silver and blue. He snarled, and charged Mizumi, claws sparking off of the floor and walls.
Carlie looked increasingly angry at every scratch dealt to the chamber. Heath was busy maintaining another shield of magic around Yuki, Ikuza, Carlie, himself, and the room immediately surrounding them, including the statue and the window.
Everything else was quickly being shredded by the two fighting dragons.
"How come Koren's a dragon to?"
Carlie asked Heath.
"The only reason I can think of
is that when he was resurrected, the Dragon Emperor saw fit to make him
of the Dragon Clan."
Mizumi-dragon was thrown into the barrier, and Heath winced with the strain of maintaining it.
"I think," Yuki said quietly to Ikuza, "that if we were to leave, now would be a good time."
"Do something quickly, Carlie." Heath said, his voice strained.
"Oh!" Carlie glanced at Yuki, startled. "You're hurt! Waitasecond, Heath!" She chanted something, too fast to follow, and threw out her hands. Then she flounced over to Yuki and unwrapped the bandages around her leg.
There was no wound, just a small white scar among white fur.
"There! All better!" Carlie said, pleased.
Koren-dragon shattered the entrance door with his tail, trying to pin Mizumi to the ground.
"Get out!" Carlie yelled. Koren stopped dead. Mizumi retreated into a corner of the room, head down, fangs bared. She was bleeding, some scales torn out of her hide, although not as much as Koren was.
Koren swivelled his head around and glared at Carlie with slit-pupil green dragon eyes. "Excuse me?"
"Go fight outside! You're wrecking my room!" Carlie crossed her arms again and tapped her foot impatiently.
Koren laughed, his laugh made all
the more frightening because of the draconic rumble that pervaded it.
"You're ordering a dragon to leave?"
"Yeah. Go away."
"No."
Carlie made a quick gesture with her hand and Koren was gone. There was a loud whoosh as air rushed to fill the space where he had been, sending red carpet scraps fluttering in the air. Mizumi glanced at Carlie.
"Where did you send him?" Her voice was lower then when she was human, a guttural rumble.
Carlie shrugged. "Really far away."
Yuki sighed in relief. Ikuza stood, silently, and headed for the door, his flute in his hand.
"I think you had better explain yourself." Heath said, after he dispelled the shield. "You as well, vampire. Come back."
Ikuza turned around slowly.
"I don't..."
Heath crossed the room quickly,
and stood face-to-face with Ikuza. He was a head shorter then the quiet
vampire. "I don't want to hear excuses. Where did you
get the flute?"
"I took it..." Ikuza avoided Heath's gaze. "...from my brother, after he died..."
"Who was your brother?"
"Jagan..." Ikuza said, very softly.
"I see." Heath said. "Does being in this room affect you?"
"It's making me ill..." Ikuza
put the flute-necklace on again, and hid the flute in his shirt.
"I can't stay in here any longer..." He turned and ran outside, as
graceful as a fleeing shadow. Heath sighed, and shook his head.
In the corner, Carlie was helping
Mizumi up. She was healed, but her dress was in tatters, and she
was wide-eyed and shaking from fear and exhaustion.
"You can't let him take me," Mizumi told Carlie, her voice quavery. "You won't, right?"
Carlie nodded. "You're okay here, okay?"
Mizumi swallowed and clutched at Carlie. "You don't understand, you're just a little girl! How can you understand?! My father's just marrying me off to him so that I produce a heir to the Dragon empire, he doesn't care about me, and Koren's always so cold." She covered her face with her hands and started to cry.
Carlie glanced at Heath, not sure exactly what she should do, and settled for patting Mizumi on the head gently and saying "It's okay!"
Yuki stood next to Heath, and watched the door Ikuza had fled out of. "Where did he go?"
"He'll be back," Heath said, an indirect answer to her question. "It's safer here than anywhere else, and he won't leave you here alone."
Heath was right– Ikuza came back at sunset, and sat next to Yuki at the dinner banquet silently and never took any food offered to him. Mizumi didn't show up, and when Yuki asked Carlie said cheerfully that Mizumi was sleeping.
They passed the night in Wendel.
