Chapter Nine
Was that a dream? I don't get it. I should be dead, right? Then again, I thought I was dead before when I ate concrete.
Concrete?
His mind couldn't fathom the word, grown foggy and distant about the edges.
Whatever. It wasn't important now.
They were all so worried about me…
What was I doing in a hospital bed? Does that mean I'm still alive? Am I in a coma? Is Egypt a dream? But it's too real to be one.
This doesn't make any sense. Somebody please wake me up…to…er…wherever.
Thankfully, the black velvet void he'd been floating in dissipated, painting the insides of his eyelids a comforting red and thus ending the inner monologue. The clamor of friends' voices had long since died away, replaced by a single new and damnably familiar tenor.
"It has been quite some time since a warrior evaded my Swordsman for longer than a few minutes. As I recall, the last time you challenged him, you were herded about like a goat."
Honda's eyes flickered open.
Where am I?
Blue morning sky. Aching muscles and fatigue. Sweat. Sand in places he didn't want to think about. Then, with a flash of desperation, he remembered.
Right.
"No goat that I know of may heft a sword, Most Exalted. As your Swordsman is magic, and my pupil and I are mortal, that is hardly a fair blow."
Jounouchi's voice had a decided edge to it as he responded to the other's deeper tones. A rich chuckle was the only response.
"Calm yourself, my love. I am hardly taking you to task for it, am I?"
'Love'?
The words wrenched a full-body twitch of shock from Honda, and the teenager sat bolt upright, gaze shifting uneasily from his mentor to the stranger, and back again as he tried to sort it out.
Come on, think. In this dream, everybody you've met is someone you already know. So…if Jounouchi is… Honda chanced a wary glance upward to study the newcomer's face…
Then he must be…
Large, slanted eyes – of a dark color that glinted violet in the strengthening sunlight of morning. A man of small stature, but with the athletic build and square jaw of his old friend. He was resplendent in another dazzlingly white kilt, and sandals similar to Honda's own make, and his skin was the same rich, sun-burnished tawny as the other two men in the stadium.
And there the resemblance stopped.
In addition to the clothing, the young man bore a circlet of gold about his hair as a sign of his station, along with a magnificent jewel-encrusted gold collar that fell in a waterfall of plates across his chest. Gold and amethyst studs glittered at his ears, while his wrists and biceps glowed with elegantly hammered cuffs and armclasps.
But…Yami's no older than the rest of us! He can't be a pharaoh…he's just a teenager!
And yet, Yami it truly was. In spite of the inexplicable jump in time, the pharaoh's hair was the same – the high and brightly-colored three-point confection that he wore with the dignity of a royal headdress. Which somehow wasn't at all surprising…if someone as ancient and powerful as the spirit of the Puzzle chose to keep most of his shape…who could order him otherwise?
But this is a dream. Of course he's going to look the same. Though that doesn't really explain Jou. Or anyone else I've seen so far…
As one, the two teenagers standing over him caught his guarded glances, and arched an eyebrow apiece. His opponent was nowhere to be seen – and for that matter, why the hell wasn't he dead? Frantically, Honda patted down his side where the sword had pierced. The flesh was whole and unbroken, though he flinched to touch it. Had the other guy just grazed him, after all?
Without further recourse, Yami extended his hands to the youth to draw him to his feet. The Honda within – who held memories of a warrioress-Mai and a murdered tribe of nomads – quailed fearfully at standing eye-to-eye with the pharaoh; shook with terror to touch those fine, golden palms. For once, he gave the inner instinct due credit, and accepted the aid with hesitation. After all, Honda reasoned, if this Yami was anything like the one Honda remembered, he was a man who would sacrifice anything and everything for a single purpose.
He respected and cared deeply for the ancient spirit…but at the same time…feared him.
Pleasedontkillmepleasedontkillmepleasedontki-
"Well done, soldier," Yami praised.
How long had he been holding his breath? Honda's noisy exhalation of relief received a frown from Jounouchi, and an amused chuckle from Yami…or whatever his name was in this place…
"Thank you." What else could he say?
Yami didn't acknowledge the clumsy attempt at gratitude, as he turned a little to nod toward a carved-stone bas relief tablet at one end of the arena, tall as a man and etched with the uncanny likeness of Honda's previous opponent. Even now, members of the pharaoh's house guard were busily lifting the statuary to remove it from the walled field.
The outlandish gear the carved man wore resonated with an old memory…a memory of battle…strange clothes and dangerous giants that loomed overhead…
Odd. Why didn't I notice it before? Oh…right. I was too busy getting my butt kicked by the big guy.
He had no more time to wonder, as Yami commanded his attention once again.
"The warrior that you faced is not of this realm. He is one of my unseen guardians…I allowed him far enough onto this plane to be tangible, but not to really damage you." The pharaoh explained evenly, as though every bit of it made logical and perfect sense.
Honda swallowed noisily and managed a nod. So magic and realms and planes of existence were here, too?
Well, that explains the magically disappearing swordsman. They come up with more and more original ways to give me new bruises.
Some of his anxiety transmitted itself to his companions, and Yami squeezed the hands he held briefly before releasing them. "Even if you cannot understand, there is no reason to fear. As of today, these creatures will never be turned upon you again – as long as you are a loyal servant of the gods and a guardian of the throne."
"He passed?" Jounouchi asked, incredulous. Yami favored him with a smile and an affirmative nod.
"He will join you as one of my elite guard. You have trained him well, my love, in this short time that I have given you for the purpose."
"Thank you, Most Exalted," Jounouchi replied, and Honda swallowed a smile at the other man's twisting of the term into an affectionate nickname. He remembered with a tang of sorrow that in the future – or wherever his body lay – Jounouchi and Yami had been separated by the same forces that brought the Flame Swordsman to battle with Honda.
"Tell me your name, soldier," Yami requested, breaking the reticent teen out of his thoughts once again.
"Honda," He answered, without thinking. Jounouchi gave him a mildly irritated look, before hastening to explain.
"I told him that it is an odd name, even for his people…and gave him a more fitting one…but he apparently will have none of it." The other warrior's tone had the bite of steel at Honda's apparent disrespect, but Yami raised a hand for silence.
"He is free to take any name he wishes. 'Honda,' it is."
Did Yami's eyes flash with something other than amusement? It had seemed for a scant second as though there was recognition there…a connection of the name to a face that the pharaoh remembered.
They looked at one another for a long moment, saying nothing. And then…smiled…
The brief flash was gone almost as soon as it came.
They led him off without another word, and Honda followed the appropriate two steps behind and to the right of Yami's side, while Jounouchi took the left. This position seemed just as right as the bond between the pharaoh and his bodyguard – as though protecting the smaller teenager from danger was a part of his life from the moment of his very existence.
Time passed, stretching from weeks to months in what seemed mere eyeblinks. The memories of his old life…or future life…faded to ghosts and phantoms, as they surely would while he still lived in a harsh present of sand and heat and danger.
And danger there was, first and foremost. Assassins were everywhere. He'd flushed out a trip-wire and a poison dart only just last week from Yami's dueling arena, though the perpetrator had yet to be named. Only a few days ago, Jounouchi had to see the palace cooks about replacing a food-taster lost to poison at banquet. And all along the way were psychedels and radicals, spies, upstarts, bounty hunters and cold-blooded hired killers with a thirst for Yami's blood.
The most subtle, however, were the elite – wealthy countrymen with unplumbed depths of patience. Those who knew of Yami's addiction, and would take the throne when at last he fell.
They waited with the eager anticipation of hyenas about a lion's kill.
Sad times had fallen on them all. Honda and Jounouchi's charge was obsessed with the game. He was the lotus-eater, lost in dreams and fantasies of future deeds. He dreamed of horrendous creatures far beyond any grasp of fevered imagination. He dreamed of what power these creatures could bring to Egypt, and how they could be used to protect the sandlocked kingdom's borders from marauders; protect its people from bandits and the armies of land-hungry fellow rulers. According to what little Honda could glean from Jounouchi, the pharaoh had been this way for years…only just now was the divine entertainment twisting out of anyone's control.
Only now had the God Monsters been unlocked from their ageless boundaries. Only now were they at the beck and call of the Duelists who possessed the sigils and incantations of their summoning.
Yami controlled the Saint Dragon now. And slowly, the incredible power held by the great red, writhing beast ate away at his mind. It was rumored that the Guardian of Ra had already driven its 'owner' insane, and that those who summoned the Saint Dragon and The Divine Punisher would be next.
One day the pharaoh would fail in his dangerous dance with the Shadow Realm and its creatures. And it seemed as though that time were now.
Honda knew the stranger before he spoke; before one of the last tatters of his memory surfaced. The narrowing of Jounouchi's eyes spoke plainly enough, as did the calculating way that Yami regarded his prospective opponent.
He could only watch in helpless anger as his pharaoh accepted the challenge to duel a priest from the outer vestiges of the wasteland. Only a powerful man could survive the harsh conditions there, and the youth who approached the throne a week ago certainly seemed in fine fettle. He was impeccably dressed in blue linens and beset with gold. His stature, while slim, was physically imposing even from his place below the royal dais.
Kaiba.
"I am innocent of the charges unjustly laid upon me," the priest demanded in smooth, velvet tones that made the hair on Honda's neck bristle, "The accusations that keep me in exile must be lifted at once."
"You have been accused of coercing the followers of Thoth – the god of your priesthood – to give their lives in appeasement of the Shadow Games." Yami replied, leaning forward to fix his hostile petitioner with an unblinking gaze, "Do you deny it? Choose your words carefully, I caution you."
"No, I do not deny it." Honda and Jounouchi's hands went for their blades as Kaiba stalked closer to the throne, expression unreadable except for the anger blazing from his pair of startlingly blue eyes. "But would you also deny sacrificing the lives of Ra's worshippers to appease your own creatures?"
A ripple of consternation murmured its way through the onlookers. Jounouchi stepped forward, fists clenched at his sides. "You will not approach!"
Kaiba shot the guard a look of loathing and dismissal, and turned passionate eyes upon the pharaoh once more. "Would you have your guards slit my throat to quiet me? Would you hide from your people the fact that you have no more control over your minions than any other mortal man? Admit, Pharaoh, that you have killed more innocents to feed your Saint-Dragon than I have ever sacrificed for all the creatures that I summon!"
"No, I…"
"Admit that it controls you! Admit that it calls to you…urges you to challenge more and more impossible opponents…"
"Silence! Not another word!" Yami was on his feet now, every fiber quivering with rage the equal of his accuser's ire.
"That you let it feed as it wishes in return for its power! If there is blood upon my hands, there is blood upon yours!"
Silence dropped across the listening ears with the same ultimate, heavy and muffling thud of a dead man striking the ground. Hundreds of dark and fearful eyes pinned the pharaoh and the priest where they stood, while a deafening hush filled the great auditorium.
"I do not need to murder innocents to control my beasts." Yami's quiet reply came at last.
"Then prove it! Play the Shadow Game with me, on your own!"
Over Yami's head, Honda and Jounouchi exchanged fearful glances. Both knew the falsehood of their beloved leader's words. He must feed the Saint-Dragon human souls…offer it the prize of his opponent's servants and his own to bend it to his will. For so long, he had been able to justify the deed…he was doing it for the future, he said.
Was it true? If not, then Jounouchi and Honda's hands were just as bloodstained as their pharaoh's. And Honda could read the searing pain of real truth in Jounouchi's eyes as he looked down at last to the small teenager that he guarded with his life.
With his heart.
The child-pharaoh, grown beyond his years by the reins of power he held, and twisted by the tiny promise of hope behind the terrible price of commanding beasts of the Shadow Realm.
Please, Yami. For your sake, and for his…don't do this… Honda begged silently.
The answer fell like an axe.
"I accept."
The roar of the crowd was only seconded by the cries beyond the palace walls, as guards sounded the alarm.
Their heads snapped up in tandem at the sound.
Honda shoved past Kaiba on his way down the dais – taking an iota of sadistic pleasure in the graceless backstep the priest took to avoid losing his balance. He galloped to the end of the hall, where a wide-eyed, terrified messenger delivered the news just moments before hundreds of voices atop the walls echoed it from every corner of the palace.
"Rogues! Rogues attacking the city! Desert rogues!"