The Thief
Chapter 7
Disclaimer: Noooot miiiine. Oooook? Sooo dooon't suuuue meeee!
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Kura woke up the next morning in a very bad mood and took extra care to chew with his mouth open at breakfast until Kaiba winced and looked away. Kura smirked and then proceeded to talk while chewing with his mouth open, spraying Malik with particles of food until the other boy gave him a portion of his own breakfast.
They saw no one on the trail the whole day and other that Kura's moodiness, the walk up the woodsy mountain was tiring but pleasant, and the only break in the peaceful silence was Kura's complaining.
"This is boring. Why does boring make me so tired?"
"Shut up."
"I just wanted-ouch! Hey, okay, okay! I get the point!"
By the time they stopped for the evening, Kura was bored of sulking and took to doing anything he could to tick off Kaiba. It was amusing to watch the magus loose his temper and then regain it when he remembered that Kura was too far below him to be worthy of contempt.
"How can we make up for that day we lost?" Kaiba said to Odion as he threw another piece of wood on the fire, determined to ignore Kura this time.
"You should have bought a cart for the first part of the trip," Kura said loudly. And then, holding out his plate, "Can I have more?"
Kaiba looked at Kura's half empty plate. "You haven't finished what you have and you are asking for seconds?" he asked incredulously.
"You should have brought more food," Kura replied, spraying bits of food everywhere, including into the fire which made it crackle like fire snaps. Malik, having learned from that morning, sat far away from Kura.
"You can talk," Malik snapped, holding his food close to him incase Kura decided to attack. "You don't have to carry it."
"Yeah," Kura agreed, "I'm worn out just dragging myself up these mountains." He yawned and lay down on his bedding. Then he turned over a few times, restless. "Why didn't you bring something more comfortable to sleep on?"
Kaiba was seriously thinking of simply strangling the thief, the stone be damned, when Ryou spoke up, saving the thief's hide.
"Would you tell us more about the old gods of Eddis?" Ryou asked softy and Kura opened his eyes to wink at Ryou, knowing that the boy had changed the magus's focus on purpose.
"I thought your father didn't want you to fill your head with that stuff," Malik said, draped upside down on a large rock. How that could be comfortable, Kura didn't know.
"He just doesn't want people to believe it," Ryou said, his face dropping with the mention of his father. "I don't think he'd mind to it in an academic interest."
"You don't?" Malik laughed, nearly falling off the rock and onto his head. "I thought academic interest was exactly what he objected to. After all, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he threaten to throw you into a river tied to a sack of encyclopedias?"
Ryou blushed and Kura knew that Malik hadn't been wrong and Ryou's blush was as good as a verbal answer. But when Kaiba, Malik, and even Odion laughed, Kura scowled darkly.
"Stop picking on him," Kura said, rolling over. "He's probably a whole lot smarter than you." Ryou gave him a grateful smile and then turned back to Kaiba expectantly.
"Very well," Kaiba said as he made himself comfortable. He thought of a moment and the fire cast dancing shadows across his face. "I know just where to start," Kaiba said at last.
With nothing else to do and not feeling like tormenting Malik at the moment, Kura lay back and listened.
Earth's Creation
And the Birth
Of the gods
In the beginning, Earth was alone. She desired a companion and so made the sun. But Ra always left her alone at night and so Earth made the moon, Isis. But this goddess sometimes forgot the Earth entirely and Earth became lonely again. So Earth created the Sky and he wrapped himself around her and promised to always be her companion. And Earth was happy.
The Earth and The Sky's first children were gods and goddesses of the mountain ranges, and Horus was the oldest and most powerful. Their other children were the oceans middle sea and their youngest offspring were the great rivers Selket, Seshmu, and Ptah.
One day The Sky informed Earth that he wished to know what he looked like, so Earth made a thousand goddesses to hold up mirrors for The Sky, and they were the lakes.
The Sky loved to look at himself in the lakes, for he was very beautiful. "You are very dull," The Sky told Earth carelessly. "The only pretty thing about you is the lakes."
Hurt, Earth tried to beautify herself with forests, and trees, and flowers of every bright color. But The Sky only saw the lakes and they bore him children that were the smaller rivers and streams.
Seeing this, Earth because jealous. She made the trees grow up around the lakes to hide them from The Sky's view. At this, The Sky became angry and, taking soil and snow from The Earth, he mixed it together and created humans. So, while we come from The Earth, it is The Sky who created us.
But The Sky had been impatient when he created people and did not do as good a job that Earth would have done. Man came out small and weak and without any gifts of the gods. They could not clear the trees like The Sky had wanted.
Earth confronted The Sky about the humans and he was ashamed. He confessed that he had created them because he wanted to see the lakes. Earth told The Sky that she had just wanted him to talk to her. The Sky promised that he would only look at the lakes sometimes and Earth promised to only hide some of the lakes.
And Earth took pity on the humans and gave them gifts of fire, seeds, and animals to raise and eat. But the people were ungrateful and only thanked The Sky for having made them.
Earth became angry and shook with her fury, causing the people's houses to fall down and their animals to run away. The people realized their mistake and from then on there were some people who thanked Earth for her gifts and some who thanked The Sky for their creation.
When Kaiba finished his story the group around the fire remained quiet. Out in the middle of the woods of Eddis, the story seemed more powerful.
"Do the people of Eddis really believe that?" Ryou finally asked, breaking the silence and setting everyone back at ease. The magic that the moment had held over them had disappeared with his words.
At Ryou's ridicules question, Kura couldn't keep back his laugh and the group turned to him. "Oh come on, Ryou," he said, shaking his head. "Of course they don't believe it. It's religion. In Sounis they like to hold feast days so they pretend that there's a god that wants the sacrificial pieces of a cow so they can eat the rest. It's an excuse to have a party and kill a cow."
"You sound like you're an expert on this topic, Kura," Kaiba said, "What do you know about it?"
Kura sat up and scooted closer to the fire before he answered. "My mother was from the mountain country," he said, "It's the same there. Everyone likes to hear the old stories, but that doesn't mean they expect a god to show up at their door for dinner."
"Is that so?" Kaiba said, and Kura wasn't sure if he was being sincere or humoring him.
But Kura's tongue was running away from him. "Yes," he said, "And you made a lot of mistakes with your story. You aren't even pronouncing the name of the country right. The people of the mountain call it Eeddis, not Eddis. And then you left out the part where Earth's tears turn the oceans to salt when The Sky ignores her."
"Did I?"
"Yes," Kura rattled on, "My mother told me the stories when I was little. I know them all and I know that the people call their country Eeddis."
"Kura," Kaiba said, holding up a hand to stop Kura's endless flow of words, "Eeddis is the old pronunciation that was used before the invaders came. We've changed the pronunciation of many of our words since the invaders, but the Eddisian pronunciations haven't changed. Eddis is how it's pronounced now, whatever the people of that country say."
"It's their country," Kura grumbled. "They should know the right name for it."
"It's not that Eeddis is the wrong name, Kura," Kaiba said, wondering why he was even trying to reason with the little urchin, "It's just an old way of saying the same word. The rest of the civilized world has moved on." Kaiba shook his head. "As for the story, I must admit that I always find it interesting to hear different versions of folktales, Kura, but you mustn't think that your mother's are true to the original ones.
"Excuse me?" Kura hissed, his hair fluffing out like a very irate gutter cat, fleas and all. "And why is that?"
"I've studied the stories for many years and I'm sure that I have the most accurate versions. Often in cases of emigrants like your mother, they can't remember the whole story and so they make things up and then forget that it was ever different. It was inevitable that these myths that were created by great story tellers became debased in the hands of common people."
"My mother never debased anything in her life," Kura snapped hotly, his teeth grinding together.
"Oh, don't be so offended," Kaiba said, waving away Kura's words. "I'm sure she never meant to, but your mother was uneducated. Such people rarely understand the things they discuss day by day. She probably didn't even know that your name, Kura, comes from the longer name Bakura."
"Of course she knew," Kura insisted, his eyes glowing from the fire light. "You don't know anything about my mother, you never knew her."
"I know enough about her," Kaiba said coldly. "She fell from a fourth-story window of Baron Pegasus's villa and died when you were ten years old."
Kura froze cold and all that could be heard was his irregular breathing. He had forgotten what was written in his criminal record. Even a simple pickpocket could have his entire life story found written in tiny handwriting on a huge collection of paper sheets in the prison's record room.
Kaiba saw that he had cut the thief deep and kept going, finally able to give back some of what Kura had dished out all day. "Maybe I'm wrong," he said, folding his hands calmly. "Maybe Kura is a family name. The title of King's Thief is a hereditary one now in Eddis, and if my memory serves me correctly the current Thief is named Bakura. Perhaps you're related. A cousin to someone exalted."
Kura felt himself turn red to the very tips of his hairline and Kaiba snickered, joined a second later by Malik. Ryou gave him a sympathetic look, knowing what it was like to be on the receiving end on endless teasing, and Odion almost didn't even seem to be paying attention to their conversation.
"Bakura," Kura fairly sputtered, "Is the name of the god of thieves. All of us in this profession are named after him." With that, Kura jumped up and retreated back to his makeshift bed and lay down, burying his bright face into the cloak. He had to admit, Kaiba had gotten the best of him. Everyone else seemed to agree.
~~~~~~~~~
Kaiba was as smug as a cat that had just eaten the canary and blamed it on the dog the next day. It made Kura sick just to look at him. After breakfast, made by Odion, everything was packed up and they continued their march up the mountain.
It was noon by the time the reached the crest of the mountain and looked down the other side of the mountain ridge.
"Everything looks so small," Ryou commented, keeping one hand firmly tangled in a low growing bush as he looked down. He paled and shook his head. "It's a long way down."
"Have a problem with heights?" Kura asked Ryou, poking him in the stomach. Then he looked down the steep slope. "Oh hell no," Kura said, taking a step back.
"What is it now?" Kaiba demanded, anxious to get moving down the mountain. He turned just in time to see Kura plunk himself down in the dirt and cross his arms across his scrawny chest.
"I'm not going down that thing until I've had lunch," Kura announced loudly. "I have no intention of dying on an empty stomach." He knew that he was being flip, but he was quite serious.
"You've got to be joking!" Kaiba hissed, his hands clenching into fists.
But Kura just turned up his nose. "If you want me to go down that death trap, I want food, or you'll have to carry me."
"We will do no such thing!" Kaiba shouted, his face turning a furious shade of red. There was no way he was going to bend to the will of one idiotic, adolescent, petty thief. He motioned Odion over. "Get him up," he snapped.
Kura clenched his teeth and dug his fingers into the grass, preparing to make it as difficult as he could for Odion to even get him to stand, when a shadow fell over his face. Surprised, Kura looked up to see Ryou standing in front of him, his arms spread out, stopping Odion's advance.
"Um," Ryou started, blushing, "I'm kinda hungry too. Maybe it would be a good idea to eat first." He lowered his arms and fidgeted under Kaiba's glare. "You know, so we'll all be at full strength and all that, um…"
"Fine," Kaiba said, cutting off Ryou's increasingly hard to decipher speech. At least this way it seemed like he wasn't giving into the thief. It would have been too dangerous, really, for someone to carry him down the mountain. So they would have lunch.
But Kaiba didn't even wait for Kura to swallow his last bite before he began directing everyone down the mountain. Kura wanted to go last, but Kaiba flatly refused. He want second last then, with Odion behind him.
The way down was as difficult as Kura had thought it would be. Sharp bits of shale accidentally kicked down by Odion behind him rolled past and continued their way down. Poor Kaiba at the front had to worry about everyone's rocks and Kura kicked a few down on purpose just for him but stopped when he saw Ryou get hit in the back of the head with one of the rocks dislodged by Odion.
Kura's heart leapt up to his throat when he saw Ryou stumbled after the rock hit him and slide a few feet down the mountain's face, unable to stop his momentum until he finally dug his feet into the rocks and came to a shuddering halt.
"Ryou's hurt!" Kura called needlessly. Everyone had seen what had happened. Kura tried to stop moving so that more rocks wouldn't hit his small look-a-like, but he began to slip when he stopped and had to keep going.
Ryou moaned and curled closer into himself, more rocks clattering down the mountain with his movement.
"You have to get up, Ryou," Kaiba called, not able to stop moving. "There's no where safe for us all to stop here."
"Come on, Ryou," Kura called down. "Get up. If you don't, I'm eating your food tonight."
Ryou laughed softly at that and then slowly, his arms shaking with the strain, he pulled himself to his feet and continued down the slope.
It wasn't until they were all at the place where the land evened out again that they could check Ryou.
Odion went over to the small boy the second his feet touched the flat ground and examined his head.
"It's all right," Ryou said to Odion, though he still looked too pale for Kura's comfort. "It's not bleeding."
Kura pushed Odion out of the way to see for himself. With careful gentleness, he parted Ryou's long hair to get a better look at where the rock had hit. Sure enough there was a nice bump on Ryou's head, but it didn't seem serious. "You'll be fine," Kura said, patting Ryou on the head like he was some pet kitten rather than a young boy.
"I am sorry," Odion said, drawing back to Ryou's side as Kura left it. He seemed very serious in his apology for something he couldn't have prevented. "Do you need to rest for awhile?" he asked.
Kura's ears perked up at this. "We could have a second lunch," he suggested, earning a glare from Kaiba.
"Absolutely not!" Kaiba snapped, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. "We're moving now."
"I'm fine," Ryou agreed, taking his pack from Malik. "Don't worry about it."
Kura followed Kaiba and looked out at the path set before them. It was little more than a goat path, and very overrun with grass and weeds. When he commented on that, Kaiba just shrugged.
"There are easier ways to get down to Attolia," Kaiba admitted, "But this one allows us to pass undetected."
"I sure hope so," Kura muttered. The last thing he wanted was to be caught strolling through Eddis with the King's Magus from Sounis.
A couple of miles later, Kaiba began questioning his students again. Malik did very well at the beginning, answering most of the questions but then Ryou began answering a few and Malik's mood soured until Kaiba sent Ryou to walk in the back so he could question Malik alone.
Kura turned his ears back and was surprised to hear Ryou and Odion chatting behind him like old friends. Odion wanted to know what had ticked Malik off so bad.
"Identifying mountain ranges," Ryou answered. "He doesn't like that sort of thing, so he doesn't pay attention. But still, he knows a lot more than me."
"You'll catch up," Odion assured him.
Ryou shrugged and sighed. "I suppose, if my father let's me stay."
"And why wouldn't he?" Odion asked curiously.
"You know father," Ryou said with a heavy sigh and sad shake of his head. "If he finds out that I want to stay, he'll take me away." Ryou ran a tired hand through his hair and winced when his hand hit the bump on his head. "Sometimes I wonder if he even cares."
Odion put his hand on Ryou's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Of course he does," Odion said softly. "He just doesn't know how to show you. He thinks that if he can toughen you up, then he's done his job in raising you. He doesn't realize that you like to learn."
Ryou smiled a little at this and then looked up at the trees over his head. "Do you know where we are going?" he asked at last.
Odion nodded. "Attolia," he said. Then he added, "Your father sent me with you to keep an eye on you."
Ryou blinked and then laughed. "No, really," he said, "Why are you with us?"
"Just as I said," Odion replied calmly, but Ryou shook his head.
"I bet the magus needed someone reliable and father said that he couldn't have you without me. Another training exercise of his."
Kura bet he was right. That was the only way it made sense that the magus would have two high class children with him. He needed Odion and Odion came with Ryou. Kaiba couldn't take his younger apprentice without taking his older one and so Malik had to come too.
Kura just hoped that having the two boys with them didn't mess up any of the plan.
~TBC
Author's Note: Yes, I love the book, but I would recommend waiting to read it until my story is over so everything isn't given away. Then, after that, you should read the book!