Chapter Fourteen
"You should not be sitting up!"
"Do not fight me."
"You don't have the strength!"
"I have something to do."
A sigh. "I love you well, Most High, but you are exasperating."
A weak chuckle. "You know me. Far too well."
Honda had to smile at the softly bickering voices as he gestured to the guards to allow him entrance to the pharaoh's bedchambers. But at the sight of his King, the expression vanished from his features.
Yami was pale as milk – even with his golden-skinned complexion, he was nearly colorless. The soft strands of his hair were no longer upright, but rather tangled and loose around his head in a living…fading…halo of red and gold. And the body. The lithely muscled body that was the pharaoh's pride had wasted to a painfully thin skeleton practically overnight.
Despite it all, he seemed…more focused…and infinitely more powerful now, as though he had been distilled into his truest form by the ordeal.
But as Honda watched how tenderly his mentor propped the pillows behind Yami's back so that the boy could sit upright, he saw the flame of power as a rogue flare. A flare that once spent would claim him utterly. His every posture and restless shift spoke eloquently of exhaustion; his voice was a low, husky rasp, and his eyes…
…Yami's eyes were no longer the living, glowing violet that echoed from past to present and promised a hundred thousand lives in between of the same hue. They were red. The iris glittered with more electricity than a highly polished ruby.
That sight alone disturbed Honda more than any other he had seen in these frightening days.
Those hideously fascinating eyes scanned the entrance with a sense of urgent purpose that drew the younger, taller man into the room as though drawn by a cord to Yami's bedside. The pharaoh held out a thin palm to him with the phantom of a smile left to him, and Honda dropped to his knees deferently beside the well-cushioned divan, a kiss pressed to the whitened knuckles clenched in his hands.
"You summoned me, Your Highness?" Honda inquired, not looking up. Not wanting to look up.
"I did."
"What service can I offer?"
A long, long pause. Silence wrapped the room in stifling linen wraps…as though some unseen priest prepared this precious hour for the realm of the dead.
"You have been a loyal servant and a true friend, Honda."
"Thank you, Your…"
"But I can only stay with you for a short time longer."
"…Yami…"
It was the very first time that Honda had forgotten himself. The first time that he had referred to the pharaoh by any kind of first name, let alone the one that he knew the man by in the future. But the hellish mix of present…and past…did not allow him to think.
Yami only smiled. "Do not worry, Honda. You will call that name again one day in the future. I have seen it."
"Love…?" Jounouchi asked softly, incredulous. Yami waved the glowering room-guards out into the hall, leaving the three friends alone.
The days he had spent beyond their reach had taught him much. Catapulted into the future, and forced to bear witness the catastrophic effects of the games they played—and the inevitable time in which they would play the games again.
A cycle. An endless cycle. And a curse for their irreverent touch upon the sacred.
He had foreseen that this was the last time they would share such an intimate moment for many, many years. The tortured red eyes gazed up to Jounouchi. How much he will change… Yami marveled, overcome with awe – not for the first time – by the inner strength and courage of his mate. He foresaw much more pain than this. He foresaw an even greater pain…and one that would last longer and leave deeper scars. The pharaoh was forced to look down, then, lest tears trace his cheeks.
For Jounouchi would not always be alone. This, too, he had seen. One day, as a boy already robbed of his innocence, his lover would find the remarkable soul destined to end the arc of evil that already throbbed and thrummed beneath their feet. This soul…this light…it would help his jaded beloved to recover the innocence and joy of life he had lost.
He had a vague understanding that this soul would be responsible for his own saving as well. In more ways than one.
Yami had seen the return of the sorcerer…the one they mistakenly assumed was merely a priest. But he knew now that both of them were ruled by their addiction and their lust for victory. That the beasts they controlled would kill them eventually, no matter the time or place.
Mortals were not destined nor built to bend the will of the gods.
He should have known this.
He knew that what he was about to do was a futile attempt to seal the powers away…but that one day, the bright soul he saw beside his lover would help them to finish what he made a beginning to, now.
And behind them all…was Honda. A surprisingly unremarkable boy for all the many and varied heroes around him…and remarkable for that, all in itself. A voice of reason. A strong arm to support and defend. A soul so inextricably bound to this fate that he could never escape it.
And though he would not know it then…only Honda would remember. Honda alone would find the way to free him when the Great Ones were locked away, and the pharaoh with them.
Yami had the keys. He had the power…though oh-so-briefly. Yami would safeguard the monsters for now, knowing that in the future, his defenses would be useless and the battle must be fought all over again.
He would do this; complete this thing… knowing what obscure tortures lay ahead for himself and his friends. It was a world-weary sigh that escaped Yami's weakened lungs, now.
When it was over…Honda would remember. And Honda would bring him home. He could trust in this.
Honda, unaware of all of this…was watching him, face a study of concern.
"Majesty…?"
Yami realized, faintly, that he had yet to answer Jounouchi's original inquiry, and he looked up to the taller young man's face with a beatific smile. "I know what is to come. I will forget soon…but you…" Yami turned to Honda, and his palm twisted free from the other's clutching hands to press against Honda's cheek, "you will not. You can unmake the weaving, Honda. Where the rest of us fail, you will not."
"Why?" Honda asked, not understanding, but ingrained with the belief that such a thing was impossible.
"Because you are the only one who will know how."
And the future-Honda mumbled something sleepily in the back of his mind about that being "bullshit." In reality, he only nodded, confused.
Satisfied, Yami turned his slender resources fully to focus on the task at hand.
How to catch a god.
But first…he needed to call on his original enemy.
He needed Kaiba.
"This is what we must do…"
Nimble hands felt about in the darkness of the underground arena. Though anyone this deep in the catacombs was rare, a torch might attract the attention of anyone passing above. Attracting attention was quite the last thing they wanted. Rather, what they wanted was etched on the wall, carved into the stone in deep-set relief directly opposite the door. Lights from the torches at the top of the stairwell above cast a weak light to find the mark, and only until his companion was ready would he crack the talisman his master had given him for the purpose.
His sensitive fingers at last found the razor-tipped beak of the Sun God's Guardian, chipped into the thick stone above a series of hieroglyphics that the servant could only just fathom. He was not of the caste allowed to read the sacred words. His lot was only to kneel in stuffy, airless underground passageways and paint them into the walls when the carvings were finished.
Or paint them onto his master's skin. With a satisfied grunt, he dropped, cross-legged, to the floor and drew out a pot of ochre, a camelhair brush and the talisman from around his neck. "Whenever you are ready, Your Lordship," He simpered at the dark, voice only just retaining deference.
"I have been ready for the past candle mark," came another voice, low and impatient in the dusky shadows. "There are no guards. You are wasting time with all this caution."
"I do not want you to be captured, Your Lordship."
"You don't want to lose the other half of the gold I promised for your services. Now quickly, idiot!"
He could have snapped any number of things. That his master was only going to be his master for as long as it took to gain control of the Gods' Guardians. As long as it took to get enough gold to take what remained of his village as far away from this place as he could.
But instead, he merely uttered the oath and snapped the talisman, and a brilliant beam of white light illuminated the cavernous room. The sigils of power stood out in stark relief beneath their corresponding creatures. His master knelt beside the painter, in one of the rare times that he would allow himself a remotely submissive gesture, and untied his robe, to let the fabric slip down the smooth plane of his naked back. He shook silver-bleached hair across his shoulders and leaned forward.
The painter had to admit that it was really a very nice back…
"Get on with it."
It wasn't a request.
"Yes, Your Lordship."
He dipped his brush in the pot of compounded ochre, oil, and beeswax, and proceeded to paint images of the three Gods' Guardians upon his master's back with the slurried mixture. Right now, they had no time to properly tattoo them…but once in the safety of His Lordship's quarters, they would do just that.
His Lordship already felt the stirrings of power within him…the discontented rumble of the Punisher…the sliding scales of the Saint-Dragon…the malevolent purr of the Guardian of Ra…once he was marked for all eternity with the signs of their power, he could command them without uttering the pathetic little weak-willed rhymes, the way that self-absorbed priest and his arrogant King had done. When they were one with his flesh, and not merely paintings upon his skin, he could only imagine the pleasurable sensations…Ra's dangerous, husky rumblings were already having quite a positive effect on him.
He was confident that he had the power to control the monsters without the need of dirges. After all…hadn't he slaughtered almost an entire village to create the Rod of Power?
Yes, he had. And His Lordship knew very well that his little servant, the painter, would like just as much to ram the butt-end of his paintbrush through his master's throat as tattoo the power-giving symbols on his back.
It gave the entire situation a very distinct thrill. His Lordship shuddered with anticipation at the thought of giving his obedient little servant a needle.
His eyes lidded, lulled by the warm paint brushing across his shoulder blades in slow, painstaking strokes. "Aren't you finished yet?" He growled for good measure.
The artist didn't answer. Stroke, stroke, stroke, said the paintbrush. His muscles provided the memory of technique, a fine patina of sweat sheening his skin in the airless cavern as he worked at smoothing the fine brown slurry in detailed, careful lines across his master's back. And His Lordship's shoulders did slide so beneath the skin…the play of light over rolling, dimly glistening skin was more than a bit distracting.
In another hour, the whole of the artwork was finished. Trapped in bounding boxes were the basic, stylized designs of three monsters – a vague man-shape, a rampant dragon, and a seated gryphon. The long lines of code that formed their chants of invocation were listed beneath each powerful design. All in all, it filled all of his master's right side…from the nape of his neck, across his shoulder blade, and down his ribcage to just where the curve of his buttock began. All in drying brown ochre.
The talisman dimmed and died, taking its bright light with it. The painter lifted away his brush and stowed it with the pot of ochre. "Let it dry some, or it will smear. And do not do anything…that will cause you to sweat…"
Gingerly, the master shrugged on his robes again, tying them loosely. "What exactly are you suggesting that I refrain from, my dear?"
The servant swallowed noisily, all of the hatred that had boiled up over the past two hours dissolving at the sight of his master's chest, a hot slice of which was exposed to the suddenly too-warm air. "I…"
"I suppose we had better finish the tattoo quickly, then, hadn't we?"
Servant glared at his master's navel, but he could feel the other man's amused smile. "Yes, Your Lordship."
They went.