After over a year of nothing, I'm back! Sorry for the wait, especially to any of those readers still with me…
Title-change too, at least tentatively…
Summary: We see just a bit more of the Sibyls, I do some actual foreshadowing, and there is ANGST! Enjoy…
Disclaimer: No. Still don't own it, will never own it…sigh.
Author's notes: WAH! THE FORMATTING! IT IS GONE! See if I ever come back after a year again...all my pretty stars and squiggles...gone...all gone...
Red and Blue
Chapter 4
The tombs were cold, and the desert even worse, at night. During the earlier hours directly after sunset, it wasn't as bad – the heat the sand had stored during the day radiated back, slightly modulating temperatures even as they began to drop. Past midnight, this source of heat had been completely exhausted. Without some other way of keeping warm, it was quite possible to fall asleep and never wake up, at night.
It was always late at night that the tomb robbers worked.
And there was fire.
There had not been an official Tournament in quite some time, as there had not been true occasion for it. The last one had taken place about a year before the Crown Prince had been born and he had never seen the shadow creatures that took place in those Tournaments. Their powers and natures were whispered of reverently, but they were only whispers. The Pharaoh did not do anything either to stem the rumors that had spread since the last Tournament; verification was never given. So the rumors died, at least on the surface.
Yami's father spoke to him about them now.
They were riding out of the city, towards the large pyramids in the distance. The two of them weren't alone; they were, of course, surrounded on all sides by the honor guard. Not counting the guards, there were several other extra people on the trip. The (honorary) Lady Isis Ishtar, the son of the Weaponsmaster, Honda Hiroto, and the son of the Captain of the Guard, Katsuya Jounouchi (known simply as 'Jou' by his closer friends), were along at the request of the Crown Prince. That is, the latter two were his friends and had been invited; the former, the Lady Isis, now sitting demurely on her mount, had somewhat unexpectedly put her foot down about allowing the Crown Prince out of her sight, and rather than risk incurring her wrath, the entire entourage had deemed it wiser to simply allow her to come along. The Pharaoh had obliged willingly, displaying an awe of her that seemed rather out of keeping with the differences in their rank. After all, he was the Pharaoh; she was only a questionably titled girl, at the most about four or five years older than his own son.
But she was a Sibyl and everyone knew (in fact, many in that escort had even personally witnessed) that they could do extraordinary things. Who knew what she might take into her head to do to them if she didn't get her way?
In fact, far from being a liability on this journey, she could be an asset.
She'd hidden her smile politely and kept her eyes seemingly on the road in front of them, as if she were entranced by something she found there. In actuality, her eyes were closed, and she was listening, not looking.
Yami's father had sketched a quick narrative on the history of the Tournaments, which dated back quite a long time, almost to the founding of the Kingdom. This particular section was general knowledge – everyone seemed to know what led up to the events, but nothing about the events themselves.
The first Tournament had been an attempt to unite the warring tribes that had settled in the area that would become the Kingdom under a single ruler. In current times, ambitious families who wished to ascend to power used it as a means to challenge the current status quo. Hand-to-hand combat, at least in the beginning, was the major component of the Tournaments. However, some time after, the Sibyls had revealed a major secret of the land in which they had settled. The land was at a crossroads of power that could connect to another realm in which there were actual spirits and creatures that, if they could be tamed, might be an asset in those ritualized battles.
The winning family at that next Tournament – Yami's family – had been the ruling family ever since. This was due mostly to the fact that, for some inexplicable reason, the members of their family traditionally had an extremely strong ability to access that other realm.
Isis smiled when the Pharaoh mentioned that, shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation. Her head was tilted slightly towards them and her hands lay motionless on the reins. Her mount was automatically following the procession, though it kept turning back to look at her mournfully, as if unsure that Isis, her rider, really wanted her to follow everyone else. They were still barely out of the city, luckily; if there had been very much open space around them, Isis' mount would probably have escaped and gotten lost. No one was particularly worried that Isis herself would get lost.
During the course of the conversation, Isis found herself filling in the gaps. As one of the Sibyls, she had a slight advantage over mere rulers and Pharaohs in the matter of history; the Sibyls kept meticulous records of everything that happened, often written down by various viewers to ensure impartiality. The first ruler had indeed managed to unite the warring tribes by means of the Tournaments, allowing one person – that was himself, and by extension, his family – to assert unquestionable and unarguable supremacy over all the other tribes that had settled in this one part of the land. This was due at least in part to the methods he employed during the Tournament.
Isis giggled silently. The man had cheated. After all, it wasn't all that difficult to win at hand-to-hand combat when all your opponents were crippled by things like dysentery or ulcers, the result of some rather tastefully and specially seasoned food. It was rather hard to be a good host in those days.
But there was no real point in revealing this to anyone; he would continue, after all, being the ultimate hero of the Kingdom, their savior, and their first Pharaoh.
The years after that first tournament had involved the Sibyls slowly integrating themselves into the lives of the people. They traveled extensively, working to heal the sick, predict the weather, teach children and act as advisors. In short, they made themselves useful. They would need (and had already done things that required it) the shield of gratitude for long service coupled with little reward in order to explain and cover up many of the more questionable actions of the Sibyls, every single time they were called upon to accomplish the purpose that had been laid upon them -
For the Sibyls had the unenviable duty of overseeing the souls that would change the world.
The Soul room did not look particularly remarkable. It was a simple cave, with shelves carved directly into its stone sides; within the Shrouded Mountain, there were many far more impressive rooms, such as the high, vaulted mess hall or the domed library. Those were places for rest and leisurely study; the Soul room was the place for work.
It was, in fact, the absolute center of the lives of the Sibyl, though quite a few of them had lived their entire lives without once setting foot into it. In it was their duty, their goal, and their ambition. In it had lain the future, and futures, of the Kingdom.
The room wasn't crowded and it hadn't been for some time. It was, in fact, almost completely empty.
Amaryllis sat on the stone floor, alone. She tugged her dark purple cloak closer – the Soul room was colder than any other room in the entire complex and the light cloth and loose weave didn't do any more than take the slightest edge off the chill.
She remembered with a memory not her own. A memory of what the room had been like before, filled from end to end with the glittering souls of humanity, all lined up on the shelves, each in its own place. Of great Workings being done on the raw unfinished souls, of times when the entire awareness of the Sibyls were bent upon one single, pivotal soul, altering it just so, changing situations just a little bit here, ensuring that events would unfold as they were meant to.
People often equated Fate to a weaver, working with the many, multi-colored threads of life, spinning, dying, measuring…and cutting.
The Sibyls did not weave. They were the ones who maintained, who changed older threads for new ones, who renewed color, who kept the entire web from fraying and breaking apart.
Some of the Sibyls had wanted, still wanted, to be weavers.
Amaryllis drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. She was not exactly young, but she felt burdened by many more years than should have been her fair share. She had been there, when that most important Working had shattered, and then been delayed. She had been the one who had to visit the Queen Mother, and tell her what would happen.
She had been the one who had…killed…
She shook her head violently, as if the movement would shake the thoughts from where they had lodged themselves in her brain.
It didn't exactly help that so many of the other Sibyls had, well, drifted. Briale hadn't even attempted to be subtle about her aims. She didn't have to be; many Sibyls had long expressed the opinion that they should be the ones in charge, not the nebulous power of Fate. The fact that, at this point, they were merely caretakers rather than administrators rankled many of them.
This had happened before, Amaryllis knew, still resting on the floor. And the effects of that particular rebellion had come to fruition here, in this time.
Because the result of it was that last Working, the one that the previous incarnation of Isis Ishtar, companion and adopted elder sister of the still-young Crown Prince, had apparently "ruined" and been murdered for.
And it was her fault.
In the deep, all-pervading quiet of the dark Soul room, Amaryllis cried.
Owari
Endnotes: Just let me mess with people's minds some more…
Review, please?