Another chapter finally here! I'm sorry for neglecting this story for so long…

Part 6

After having bought a few healing magnus at Diadem, we left for Duhr. Gibari, Kalas, and Savyna all did their best to ignore me. They even went so far as to stay as far away from me as possible—which was just as well. I had no desire to speak to them anyway, not when they hated me so. Quite frankly, I didn't want to be anywhere near them either. Wait…what was I saying? They were my friends, and I still liked them even when they despised me.

I have suspected ever since Opu Village that my friends' hostility towards me had something to do with the awakening of the wicked god. Surely it was because of his darkness that they behaved so. But then why did it not affect Xelha? It even affected me—I had snapped more than my fair share of times at my friends—but not her. Why?

"Lyude?" a voice said, interrupting my contemplations. It was Xelha. "Lyude, we're here. Let's go find Mizuti."

I simply nodded and climbed down off of the dragon. The sky was dark here as well, but that was how the sky in Duhr always was—or at least had been. Did that cloud that once hung over it vanish when the other islands sank back down to earth? Then the darkness of the god must have spread here as well, although it was difficult to tell. The swirling, tumultuous clouds above looked just as they had the first time I had been here.

I could only hope that if the darkness had spread here, Mizuti had not been affected. I did not know what I would do if I found that another of my friends despised me.

"Don't worry, Lyude," said Xelha, as if she had read my mind. "Mizuti will not have changed…not like the others have." She looked ahead at Gibari, Savyna and Kalas, eyeing them disapprovingly. "You know," she added, "they've begun saying mean things to each other as well. Right now, they even refuse to speak to one another."

Indeed. I noticed they walked as far apart as possible, trying to pretend the others—myself included—were not there. "But do they still speak to you? Do they still like you?" I wondered.

"No, they refuse to speak to me as well. They have said nothing hurtful to me, but nevertheless, they will not talk to me. They seem to resent me, at the moment, as much as they resent you," Xelha answered.

"Strange," I muttered. "Well, if Mizuti is indeed herself, perhaps she will know the answer?"

Xelha smiled. "She is the "Great" Mizuti."

"So she is," I smile back. "So she is."


The wind gusted fiercely atop Zozma Tower, whipping our hair about our faces. Mizuti's parents had told us earlier that we would find her here and so we had climbed our way up to the top as we had done in what seemed like ages ago. And there she was, just as they said she'd be, staring up at the sky with her back to us. At the sound of our footsteps, she turned around. "Ah" she said, "the Great Mizuti's friends have returned. What be you needing?"

"We need you, Mizuti," Xelha said.

"Yeah, like I need a hole in my head, "Kalas mumbled.

No one seemed to hear him.

"Yes," Mizuti answered Xelha. "The Great Mizuti be waiting long for you here. Minutes. Hours. Days."

My eyebrows went up. "Days? How did you know we were going to come and look for you?"

"The Great Mizuti knows many things."

Somewhere behind me, Gibari grunted, "Heh. Then maybe you know why Red over here realeased a wicked god and dragged all of us into this mess."

"It not be his fault if he released the god."

I sighed to myself in relief. It seemed Xelha was right. Mizuti still thought well of me.

Kalas rolled his eyes and folded his arms. "Oh, then whose fault is it, hmm?"

"Kalas! You know what happened!" Xelha reproached. "Skeed and Vallye forced him to!"

But I could have refused to help them, I thought.

Mizuti said nothing for a moment. I couldn't tell if she was shocked or angry. "Lyude's siblings made him do it? They be cruel. Unkind. Despicable!"

"But Lyude could have said no to them, "Savyna pointed out as if she had known what I was thinking. "It was his fault."

"No! It wasn't!" I shouted. "I—"

"Could have stopped them?" Savyna replied coolly. "Then why didn't you?"

"I…I don't know." My hair blew into my face, whipped back, and then flew once more into my eyes as the wind kept shifting direction.

Apparently, through the few glimpses of my face she had between wind gusts, Mizuti saw the pain in my eyes, for she said, "The Great Mizuti wishes to talk to Lyude alone."

"Maybe we should ditch 'em," Kalas whispered to Xelha. As they walked off, I could hear her loudly reprimanding him above the wind.

"Now," Mizuti began, once they had gone, "tell the Great Mizuti what happened.

I told her. I told her everything and as I did, the pain of that memory haunted me. It felt as if I was reliving the whole thing again as I related it to her.

"Ah," Mizuti replied when I had finally finished, "that be a terrible thing that your siblings did to you, but the Great Mizuti does not think it be your fault."

"But why were they so forceful to me? I know they had never loved me, but never were they so hateful towards me as they were that day."

"The Great Mizuti cannot be sure."

The Great Mizuti does not know as much as she professes, I thought bitterly to myself. No! Why was I thinking such things?

"Great Mizuti, do you know why the others are behaving so strangely? Even I have started to behave like them. My thoughts of them are often angry and resentful as of late. Why, Great Mizuti? Do you know?"

Mizuti hovered in place for a moment as if trying to remember something, her clog-adorned feet dangling in the air. "Yes," she finally answered. "The Great Mizuti knows that he darkness be causing Lyude and the others to be mean to each other."

As I had suspected. "But then why has it not seemed to affect Xelha? She is the only one that does not insult, belittle, and ignore everyone else. If she snaps at one of us, it is simply because we had started attacking one another."

"It is because she does not think mean things of anyone else."

"What?"

"This darkness, it be making people say all the bad things they have ever thought of others. Lyude's friends be annoyed with him before and with each other, but they never be speaking these things, not until the wicked god be released. Lyude be thinking badly of his friends sometimes, too. So he also be saying these things. Now all of you be speaking your true feelings—the hateful ones, at least. The darkness suppresses all good thoughts of other people. Except for Xelha. She not be thinking anything bad of us. She never be irritated by us."

"But she yells at the others for being so mean to me. Does that not mean she is annoyed with them? Then why doesn't she behave as they do?"

"It be because she still likes them even if they be mean. She knows they cannot help what they say. As long as the darkness be covering the world, they will be like that."

This was going t be a difficult journey indeed if that were true. I dreaded to think of what would happen during the fight with the wicked god if we were to angry at one another to work together.

TBC…