Title: The Wizards of Ceres, chapter 9
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: R in later chapters. This chapter, PG-13 for language.
Summary: The countries of Ceres and Nihon are on the brink of war again, but Kurogane Demon-Queller has more important things to think about; like protecting the borders of his country from the dark and hungry beasts that roam the wilderness. At least, he did, until his path crossed with the King of Ceres' latest gamble to win this war...
Author's notes: I have unfortunately come to the end of the part of the story that I wrote during NaNoWriMo. What this means is that I will no longer be able to guarantee that I can post a new chapter every week. I will try my best to update on a regular schedule, but sometimes real life just does not allow. Sorry! :(
The rain returned the next morning, alternating between a fine mist and a light drizzle that nevertheless managed to bend the few remaining leaves and branches with as much water as a heavy downpour could have managed. Despite the weather, at least some semblance of normal routine returned to their journey north; while the easy banter and casual warmth of their earlier relationship was gone, they were no longer poised on a trigger point towards each other. Fai returned to gathering and cooking their meals, which they shared, under Kurogane's strict supervision. As for himself... while still slept with his hand on his sword, he no longer felt the need to have Fai in sight at every moment.
The rain finally broke just as they reached the foot of the mountains, the air becoming chill and dry although clouds still covered the weak winter sun. One morning they woke to find their campsite heavily frosted over; and Fai insisted that they take the time to thoroughly dry their clothes before re-donning them and continuing on. The temperature began to drop noticeably as they climbed, and Kurogane began to understand the wisdom of dry clothes.
The mountains began to loom up on either side of them now, pushing them further towards the east, where the wards of Nihon were veering from their northwards course. The ground grew steeper and rougher as they approached the series of long valleys and passes the marked the Ceres-Nihon border. At last the neutral no-mans-land of the uncharted wilderness turned from steep and treacherous into completely impassable, as the foothills gave way to true mountains.
"We'll have to leave the horses here," Fai said, breaking the silence for the first time in hours, and swung down off his horse. His voice was trying to come out flat and emotionless, but betrayed a slight unsteady waver. "Unless we want to walk right through the fighting, all the trails we'll need to take from here are too steep for them."
"We can't just leave them here!" Kurogane exclaimed.
"We can't take them with us," Fai said, still not looking at Kurogane. "Take whatever gear you think you can carry while rock-climbing, but blankets and warm clothes are the important part. It's only going to get colder from here." He leaned down, staring into the horse's eyes with their faces almost touching; Bella stamped uneasily and snorted, and Fai sighed as he straightened up, his hand resting on the side of her neck.
He still didn't look at Kurogane as he resentfully dismounted and went through his bags, trying to narrow his belongings down to only what he could carry. "They'll be all right," he said, still in that same flat tone. "Bella will find her way down to warmer territory and food, as long as your horse goes with her, they'll survive."
"Great, but what about us?" Kurogane grumbled, but Fai only shrugged slightly, and did not rise to the bait.
"You should probably leave your armor," Fai said in a neutral tone. He had already unbuckled most of his, and wrapped himself in a heavy, fur-lined coat. While not the white-and-blue garment that he'd been wearing when Kurogane first met him, it nonetheless gave him an alien look, one that Kurogane wasn't used to.
"No." Kurogane's denial brooked no argument.
Fai looked at him, then away, and shrugged again. "Have it your way, but it's going to make climbing difficult."
They went off again on foot, and as little as Kurogane liked it, he had to admit that Fai was right; the paths they took were more like chimneys carved into the rock face that a man could, just barely, find hand and footholds for to climb from one relatively level stretch of ground to the next. The air became noticeably colder as they ascended, and Kurogane found himself shivering; despite the thick padding under his armor, the wind whipping along the stone passages dug into the metal of his armor and leeched away all heat.
After what seemed like an eternity, and with several heart-stopping moments where Kurogane's clumsy gauntleted hands could find no purchase, they reached the top of the file, and for a moment stood on level ground while the valley stretched away below them. Kurogane was breathing hard from the climb, a type of exertion he wasn't used to, but when he raised his head and looked up his breath seemed to catch in his throat.
Below them, Ceres filled a series of broad climbing valleys; the rough mountain walls funneled together towards the north as the valley floor rose. As the elevation climbed, the broad flat fields that Kurogane was accustomed to seeing in Nihon were replaced by a gradation of stone-structured terraces, like some giant had built a stairway into the mountainside itself. The gap twisted away in the distance towards the higher, rockier passes, beyond which, according to the geography lessons Kurogane remembered, lay Ruval itself.
But it was the mountains that dominated the scene. Kurogane had never seen real mountains before, had never really comprehended the sheer mass of stones, towering up and up and filling the distance. And capping the mountain peaks like a crown was an immense wall of ice, glittering like jewels where the sunlight fell and lurking blue-green in the shadows between the stone walls like the depths of the oceans themselves, somehow elevated to the mountaintops.
From this distance the crown of the ice looked flat as a pancake, fathoms deep over the valleys and thinner over the ridges, where some peaks broke through like the prows of sailing ships. It was still miles away, but Kurogane swore he could feel the cold breath of the ice like a slap to the face.
He abruptly became aware of Fai standing next to him, saying something, his tone still stiff and formal. "Kurogane, I don't suppose you -- What are you doing?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"What is that thing?" Kurogane's whisper was hoarse with disbelief and awe.
He felt more than saw Fai turn to follow his gaze, but he definitely heard the puff of breath that the mage let out when his eyes met the glacier. "The Necklace of Windhome."
"What?"
"It was named by an explorer who came here, over a thousand years ago. He thought it was beautiful and so he called it that, because it looked like sapphires, strung out like jewelry over the neck of the mountains. Of course," he added in a bitter tone, "it was much higher up then, or he might have called it something different."
"Higher?" Kurogane could not stop staring at the gleaming mass of ice. "You mean, it moves? How can a mountain of ice move?"
Fai shrugged. "How does it move? How does a river move, when it's not alive? How does a tree grow, when it can't move from one spot? It just does, Kurogane. There's a technical explanation if you want one, but we don't have time for it right now. Just take my word for it," he said with a bitter laugh, "it moves."
"It's... beautiful," Kurogane said in a subdued voice.
"Yes, it is," Fai said bleakly. "And deadly."
"Deadly?" Kurogane tore his eyes away from the glacier to stare at Fai in disbelief. "How?"
Fai turned his back on the sight of the glacier, and started walking away; Kurogane had to hurry to keep up with him. "I told you, didn't I, that there are some people born with the talent of precognition? Well, there are some of those among the wizards of Ceres, as well. A hundred years from now the ice will fill the valley, covering everything. It will part and flow around the peak of the castle itself, leaving it stranded by itself among the shining blue ice, like a castle floating in the sky."
"The necklace of Windhome will choke us, Kurogane." He glanced at Kurogane and shrugged, like there was nothing to be done. "If I don't die in this war, I'll probably still be alive to see it happen."
That attitude of resignation, of defeat grated on Kurogane. "You're a wizard, aren't you?" he demanded. "Can't you do something about it?"
Fai blinked at Kurogane, as though the thought had never occurred to him before. "Wizards..." He blew out his breath, running one hand through his hair as though trying to think of how to put it so that a warrior would understand. "Wizards have some power over the natural world, yes, but we're still only men. Not one wizard, nor a dozen, nor a hundred working all together for a hundred years would have the power to turn back a force of nature on this scale. It was a glacier like this one that carved these valleys out of solid stone a million years ago. Could you level a mountain by hand, using a teaspoon? That's the amount of force it would take to stop a glacier in its path."
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Kurogane just couldn't accept that so easily. Natural disasters were inevitable, he knew; Nihon lived in fear of earthquakes, and of the terrible storms that came out of the west that could flatten a whole village. But such dangers were transient, and when they had passed, you could pick up the pieces and begin again. Kurogane couldn't even imagine a disaster so complete that there would be no going on, afterwards.
"Oh, there is." Fai's smile twisted. "We can win."
They came out of one series of ravines to find themselves abruptly facing empty air; the valley stretched away below them, but ahead and to the right the steeply climbing landscape turned the first corner that lead up into the mountain kingdom of Ceres.
They still had met no other people, but the signs of human activity could not be ignored; they had both seen the columns of oily back smoke stretching heavenwards, although neither of them had commented on it. Now they saw the scenes of devastation unfold out before them, and a new chill that had nothing to do with the weather settled between them.
Kurogane had never been to the border between Nihon and Ceres before; as a child he had never traveled far from his home province of Suwa, and after it had been destroyed he spent all his time either training in Edo, or patrolling in the wilderness to the west and to the south. But he had no trouble picking out the strange, alien style of Ceres buildings, nor identifying the Nihon border itself, marked by the warded walls -- lower and cruder, to his eye, than the ones in the south; the border had shifted back and forth enough times that the walls kept having to be rebuilt.
And now it was shifting again. The Nihon army had pushed out beyond the walls, and most of the broad lower valley of Ceres was in smoking ruins. He could almost track their progress chronologically by the bands of devastation that overtook each broad stone terrace; those closest to the walls were wasted and silent, but further north activity and fires still seethed. The towns and buildings seemed to be still standing, although blackened and emptied, but the fields beyond them were charred out ruins. And further north still, almost obscured from sight by the unsteady terrain, the violent roil of an active front.
"They've torched the harvest," Fai said from beside him, and his voice was ragged with more emotion than Kurogane had ever heard from him before. "They --" He began to move forward like a sleepwalker, before he came to himself with a start.
Guilt pricked at Kurogane, along with a driving frustration. "What did you expect would happen?" he demanded. "First article in the books of war, to deprive your enemy of the resources they need to continue fighting. Of course they fired the fields."
Fai shot him a look of almost pure loathing, before he jerked around and started walking to the north. Growling under his breath, Kurogane started after him; he was not about to let Fai run off on him now. Even when Fai had turned on him it had never been like this before; never been us against them, never been Ceres against Nihon. He'd thought they were beyond all that.
"The more fools you, then," Fai said without turning to face Kurogane, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. "Because now there will be no end to this war until we've taken all our old lands back, and broken Edo, as well."
"You think we're going to just let that happen?" Kurogane snarled, and increased his pace until he was level with Fai, reached out to grab the man's arm. "Maybe you don't like it, but don't forget, it was Ceres who started that war! What did you expect the reaction would be, when you attacked without provocation? Those people down there are fighting for their homes and families, fighting for their land!"
"Their land?" Fai whirled to face him, and Kurogane nearly let go of his arm in shock; despite having seen Fai in a hundred moods over the past few weeks, this was the first time he'd seen Fai's features distorted by fury. "Land that was stolen from us! What are the homes and the families of squatters, when the rightful owners have been pushed out or killed?"
"That was over a hundred years ago!" Kurogane growled in exasperation, wishing he could reach out and shake some sense into Fai. "Are you listening to yourself? You sound like a green recruit filled with your country's propaganda! I thought you were the one who didn't want war. Well, there can never be peace as long as you keep clinging to old injuries, or valuing your stupid pride in a few square miles of worthless land!"
"Worthless land?" Fai's eyes flashed blue fire, and he shoved Kurogane away from him with unexpected force. "What can a rich man say about the worth of a single loaf of bread, to a poor man who has nothing? Those few square miles of 'worthless' land made up three-quarters of our arable farmlands!"
"Look, I understand that --"
"You understand nothing!" Fai hissed. "Without this --" his hand swept out across the panorama below, "We're reduced to whatever food we can grow in three cold months in the rocks of the high passes! You, who've lived in the summerlands all your life, what do you understandfarming in the mountains, in poor thin soil that gets poorer and thinner every year, in short summer months that grow shorter and shorter as the glacier creeps down the mountains? You, son of nobility, who've never gone a day without a meal, what do you understand about winter in Ceres, where a father must look at his two children and decide which of them he will feed until spring?"
Kurogane fell back, momentarily stunned, silenced not so much by Fai's words as by the pain and rage that drove them, more anguish and fury than he'd ever heard from the pale man before.
Fai turned away, and took a few short, jerky steps towards the precipice. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again it was more controlled. "Twenty years ago, one of of every ten Ceres citizens starved to death during the winter," he said at last, reciting statistics in a voice of false calm. "Last winter, it was one in five. In a few more years, there will be nothing left of us at all. You say that your people are fighting for their families, fighting for their lives? Well, so are we. And King Ashura will do whatever he needs to do to save the lives of our people."
Kurogane scoffed. "And I suppose Ashura is doing all this out of the goodness of his heart, right? The fact that this is going to increase his wealth and glory -- not to mention the acreage of the kingdom he rules twice over -- that doesn't factor into his decisions at all, does it?"
Fai jerked back as though he'd been stung. "Don't you dare talk about Ashura like that --" he said fiercely. "You have no idea, you have no right to act as though you know what he's thinking or planning!"
"I may not have ever met this Ashura of yours, but I know how kings and emperors play this game," Kurogane shot back, thinking of Kendappa, of her father whom he'd only read about in histories, of their grandmother; cunning, ruthless conquistadors that they'd all been, to expand Nihon to its current state of wealth and prestige. "So those foothills are yours -- do you imagine that Ashura will go that far and just stop? He'll keep pushing, he'll want more, he'll secure more and more land -- for the 'security of the borders,' or whatever. He'll neverstop, not until he's made all the empire of Nihon his own, or until all your countrymen are dead."
That one struck a nerve, he could tell by the sudden flash of uncertainty over Fai's face. "He would never --"
"I know you have a brain in that fluffy head of yours somewhere -- do you ever use it, or do you just believe whatever you've been told?" Kurogane demanded, somewhat cruelly. "There will always be a reason for war. That's how this game is played. Amaterasu will never let go of this land, no matter how much right you think you have to it -- she can't afford to look so weak in front of her generals. Once you start down this path, of taking what you want by iron and blood -- or by magic -- there will be no end to it."
"And how else do you propose that we get what we need?" Fai snapped back. "Since you seem to think that enough food to live on is a luxury that we can do without --"
"Trade," Kurogane said promptly. "So maybe you don't have farmland, but you have something else that's just as valuable -- you have wealth of your own. Everyone knows about the mines of Ceres, the iron deposits and silver veins in the higher reaches."
It had been for the iron, not for the admittedly marginal farmland of the foothills, that Nihon had made its push against Ceres a hundred years ago. There were no major metal deposits in all of the broad lands that Nihon had conquered, and they were forced to rely on sand ore gleaned from the rivers that flowed from the mountains for their few, insanely expensive pieces of steelwork. The two swords were marks of nobility precisely because they were so rare and expensive; most of the steel that Nihon produced went to forge those precious weapons.
"If there's one thing that Nihon needs, it's iron -- not just iron, but coal, too, and the steel that only Ceres can produce. Just one of these --" and Kurogane reached out and grabbed Fai's arm again, this time knocking his fist against the burnished, blue-tinted steel. " --could buy enough grain to feed a family for a year. So why don't you trade for what you need, as equals, instead of trying to take it by force?"
Fai stared at him in astonishment for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed, although the sound didn't have much humor in it. Kurogane wasn't feeling very humorous about it, either. "What's so funny?" he growled.
"Nothing," Fai gasped, and subdued his outburst to a chuckle. "Just the -- the idea that it would be you to come up with such a thing, the great warrior, demon-slayer, standing here and talking about trade agreements as a way to end the war."
Kurogane was not amused. "I'm a practical man," he growled. "I look for logical solutions to problems, and I don't have the time to put up with other people's illusions and stupidities. It's not my fault that other people don't bother to step back and see things clearly."
"That's so." The last of the laughter died, and Fai stepped forward into his personal space, his lips drawn back over his teeth in a way that only superficially resembled a smile. "See this clearly, then. Ceres and Nihon could never be equals in such a relationship. How could they, when Nihon could demand any price they choose, and we would have to pay it? All you would have to do is refuse to trade unless we met your price; Nihon could go a year without iron, but Ceres could not go a year without food.
"Within a few years we would be little more than slaves, bartering away our independence for bare survival. And once we had put our finest metals, our best weapons in the hands of the Nihon imperialist army, how long would it be before we were made slaves in truth?"
Kurogane wanted to argue with that, but considering his country's land-hungry expansion over the past generations, he knew he wouldn't have much ground to stand on. Instead he said only, "Then don't act like you're backed into a corner and have no alternatives, when you're too proud to even consider any."
"I don't think a warrior of Nihon is in any position to lecture us about pride, Fai spat. "Or -- why is it that you're expending all this effort, to hold onto a little patch of 'worthless' land?"
"You can't win this war!" Kurogane shouted, frustration overcoming his attempts at calm reasoning. He sweeping gesture to include the destruction below. "All this happened in, what, a week? At this rate, there will be nothing left of you by the end of the month! Does Ceres even have an army left any more? Open your eyes; we've already won!"
"Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you would consider wanton destruction the same as victory," Fai said, with a curl of his lip. He turned away, jerking the hood of his cloak up over his head. "This war isn't over yet."
The winding, hidden mountain track was one Fai had followed many times on his sojourns out of the country, when he wanted to pass through southern Ceres and around the Nihon border undetected. It was the same one he had followed when he had gone on the ill-fated scouting mission with Captain Kurotsunagi and his men, and it was the one that he and Kurogane followed now.
His familiarity helped; the track roughly paralleled the valley below, but was several hundred feet further up, and it passed through many winding dips and gullies that put the main valley out of sight. Kurogane followed close behind him without complaint, although Fai could tell he was at best an amateur mountaineer; but Fai knew when to warn him about a particularly tricky slope, or when a rock face that looked deceptively sturdy wasn't. At least, Fai thought, Kurogane had finally consented to get rid of his gloves.
They were drawing nearer to the first pass now, and Fai could see the concentration of black-armored Nihon soldiers growing thicker and darker up ahead. The sight worried him; there was no way they could pass that many soldiers unseen, but no other way to get up into the mountains. The clandestine path they were on had helped him get in and out of Ceres secretly before, but they were deep into Ceres now, and this had been part of friendly territory for time unknown. It was never meant to take them all the way to Ruval.
As he'd feared, the trail petered out only a few miles further on, winding down down a series of scrubbed gullies to meet the broader valley floor. They were very close to the pass, and straight in front of them the mountain wall began to bulge out in a high, sheer-faced cliff, beginning to close the walls of the valley against them.
In the shadow of that cliff, tucked up against the rounded walls running by the main road, had been a little village, hardly more than a cluster of houses surrounded by ranching pastures. It, too, had trails of smoke rising from it, and some of the thatching on the stone buildings were still on fire.
Fai and Kurogane crouched out of sight on the last turn of the path, and watched as a pair of bored-looking Nihon soldiers made a slow circuit on the ground below them, obviously scouts or perimeter patrols separated from the main army.
Kurogane leaned over and whispered to Fai; his warm breath gusted against Fai's ear in a way that made him shiver convulsively. "What do we do now?" Kurogane whispered.
It was almost an exact mirror of the question that Fai had asked of Kurogane on the day they were ambushed by bandits, and a corner of Fai's mouth turned up in a smile at the memory. "We could always kill them," he quipped back.
Kurogane glared at him, not amused, and his return whisper was harsh. "I didn't come up here to kill soldiers, and I'm sure as hell not going to start with the ones on my own side! But we can't just walk past them, either."
"No, I guess not," Fai sighed, and raised his head a little higher for a better look. Although he could see more figures moving, a ways off through the haze, none of them seemed to be heading in their direction, or even looking their way.
Offensive magic against Nihon soldiers was close enough to his mandate that Fai was pretty sure he could do it, even as he could feel the presence of the geas, stifling his power and slurring the words on his tongue. He waited a few minutes longer, almost until the soldiers would come within sight of them where they crouched, then used a sturdy stick to draw the symbols in the dust of the path, whispering the key words to activate the spell. A few seconds later, the two soldiers slumped and toppled over.
He stood up and began moving out from behind the cover, stepping over the fallen bodies as he headed towards the village. Behind him, he heard Kurogane scrape against the rock as he stood, but then the other man paused, staring down at the two soldiers. "Will they be all right?" Kurogane asked, sounding oddly subdued.
"It's just a sleep spell," Fai answered. "They'll be fine as long as they wake up before they freeze to death." Personally, Fai gave them about fifty-fifty odds on that, but he wasn't going to say so; nothing he could do would change things for them either way.
They headed towards the main road, but were forced to duck and hide repeatedly as their paths crossed with other soldiers. Fai used his sleep spell twice more, although that became increasingly dangerous the further they went; if the unconscious soldiers were discovered too soon it would almost be as bad as being found themselves. They were forced to duck into a burnt-out building to avoid the next patrolling pair, and argued in whispers.
"We're not going to get anywhere at this rate," Kurogane said furiously. "Why can't you just put them all to sleep at once, instead of doing it in ones and twos?"
Fai rubbed his eyes; he almost preferred the days when Kurogane disdained to use magic at all, instead of pestering him about it at every turn. Although this felt more like a challenge, or a dare, than an honest request for help. "Kurogane, the first day after we met, you fought and killed two demons at the same time. Could you have fought against ten thousand? Because that's how many soldiers are between us and -- "
Kurogane's head snapped around, fast enough to make Fai lose his train of thought; his hand went in a flash to the hilt of his sword, although he didn't draw it, at least not yet. "Did you hear that?" Kurogane growled, so softly that Fai could barely make out the words.
Fai shook his head, and refrained from commenting that he could hardly be expected to hear much with Kurogane arguing with him all the time; Kurogane had, obviously. "What is it?" he hissed back.
"The guards out there aren't just patrolling. They're looking for something," Kurogane said quietly. "And it's here."
Fai stared into the shadows of the building; although smoke-blackened and char-carpeted, empty of people or living goods, the walls were still intact and enough of the second floor remained to provide shelter from the weather. He started to draw the figures for the sleep-spell in the ashes, then changed his mind; why sit here and speculate?
Instead, he whispered the words for a knowing spell, the most basic of wizard eyes. Kurogane started when an unseen something took off in a whir from between Fai's hands, but he ignored the man's demands for an explanation as he closed his eyes and followed the magic, searching for whatever it was that had drawn the soldiers here.
Oh. He let the spell fade and opened his eyes, got up and walked towards the back of the building. The stone wall turned towards what had once been a small kitchen, with a corner walled off for storage; with no windows, it was almost completely dark. Fai leaned against the stone lintel, keeping his hands carefully in the open, and called softly, "It's all right. You can come out; we won't hurt you."
A long moment of breath-held silence, perhaps to see if Fai was just bluffing; but he stayed where he was, ignoring Kurogane's hissed questions, just waiting. At last, a shuffle in the darkness of the pantry resolved itself into a flash of white, and then another; two pale faces, peeking hesitantly out into the light. Two children.
"Wh-what do you want?" a voice called out hesitantly; high, young, and unsure. Fai thought it was a boy, but couldn't be positive.
Another voice, sharper and more impatient, rose and overrode the unsure one. "You aren't soldiers, are you? From Nihon?"
"Do I look like I'm from Nihon?" Fai smiled brightly and lifted his hands to show that they were empty, combed his hair away from the side of his face to show the color. "And no, I'm not a soldier, either."
Suspicion colored the unseen voice. "But you aren't from the village, either. Who are you and what do you want?"
Fai chose to overlook the first question, for now, and instead just said, "We're trying to get up to Ceres. We were hoping to make it before the pass was blocked, but... well. What about you? Do you want to come with us to Ceres, too?"
"Why would we want to go there, dumbass?" The voice was tinged with scorn. "Nihon soldiers are just gonna burn it down, too."
The friendly smile froze on Fai's face, as he tried to come up with some response to this. Just then, the scrape of a foot over cinders sounded, and Kurogane's voice rumbled impatiently from his elbow, "Who the hell are you talking to back here?"
There was a gasp from the ruined kitchen, and a sudden scuffling noise. "You lied! You said you weren't with the s-soldiers!" said the first voice, the frightened one.
Fai glanced over at Kurogane, saw the frustrated set of his teeth as he shot back in a low voice, "I'm not with them. If I were, why the hell would I be hiding from them? And if you keep yelling like you just did, they're going to come here and find all of us."
"Kurogane," Fai hissed, elbowing the other man in the side without regard to his armor. "Don't frighten them!"
"All right," the suspicious voice said, somewhat to Fai's surprise. "If you aren't soldiers, then you can just go away and leave us alone."
"Like hell we're just going to leave," Kurogane said. "Now you two are going to come out where we can see you and we'll talk. Or am I going to have to come in there after you?"
Fai sighed. "You really need to work on your diplomatic manner, you know."
The two men backed away from the doorway to give the strangers some space; after a long moment, some shuffling and furious whispers resolved themselves into two small figures crawling a little sullenly out of the dark space into the light.
The uncertain voice belonged to a boy, thin and with mousy hair and small eyes; he couldn't be more than ten or eleven. The owner of the sharp voice was a girl a little older, almost as old as Princess Sakura, and Fai's heart twinged at the resemblance. Both of the children were dirty and ragged, their faces sharp with hunger; the boy fearful, the girl sullen.
"What are your names?" Fai asked gently, crouching down in front of them so that he wouldn't loom. Kurogane refused to move with him, and was doing enough looming for the both of them.
After a moment the boy shuffled his feet and said, "I'm Masayoshi, and this -- this is Chunyan."
"Stupid, don't just tell them everything!" Chunyan smacked the boy on the head, scowling, then wheeled towards Kurogane. "This guy is definitely from Nihon, and with all that armor you have to be some kind of soldier! So what are you, a deserter or something?"
"No," Kurogane growled, and Fai heard in his voice that he didn't have a lot of patience for this line of questioning. "Why I'm here is my own business. What I want to know is, where the hell are your parents?"
That question prompted a cold silence. Masayoshi looked ready to burst into tears, water already welling in his eyes, and Chunyan simply scowled more fiercely than ever. Fai was already expecting her to say that their parents had been killed by Nihon soldiers, but he wasn't expecting her to say, in a wooden voice, "They left."
It suddenly clicked in Fai's head what had seemed... off, about the children. Masayoshi had jet-black hair and sallow skin under the dirt, but his eyes were small, round, and hazel-brown. Chunyan, while her hair was almost as dark and fell straight as a knife, had the fair skin common to the northlands -- but her eyes were like Kurogane's. And, in realizing that, he suddenly understood why they were alone.
"They just ran off and left you by yourself?" Kurogane demanded. "What the hell kind of people have kids, in Ceres?"
"The people from Nihon would kill them both on sight," Fai bit off. "Is that really supposed to be any better?"
"Still, how could they just run off and leave her to take care of her brother --"
"They're not brother and sister, Kurogane," Fai corrected him wearily. "They just... have the same heritage."
"You mean --" Kurogane broke off as he stared at them.
"He means we're half-breeds," Chunyan tossed her hair out of her face and glared up at Kurogane, daring him to make something of it. "And they didn't want to take a couple of half-breeds with them when they ran off to Ceres, that's all. But I don't care. They're going to get killed wherever they go, so what?"
"How?" Kurogane asked.
Fai looked away, and said quietly, "If you go back a decade, Ceres and Nihon were as peaceful as they ever are, and things are different out on the borderland. Regardless of the stances of their capitals, to the people actually living out here, there would be trade, commerce... meetings and partings, love affairs and marriages." At least he hoped that there had been love affairs and marriages; there were other, less pleasant ways to get half-breed children, although most children of rape didn't live past infancy. "It's only in the past few years then that things have really gone downhill."
"It's none of your business, anyway," Chunyan said sullenly. Masayoshi was staring at the floor, but his right hand was wrapped tightly around Chunyan's left, and Fai noticed that despite her cynical words, she was clinging back to him just as hard. "If you're not soldiers, then you should just go away and leave us alone already."
Fai swallowed, and leaned forward. "We need to get to Ceres," he said, looking the girl steadily in the eye. "Do you or Masayoshi know of any way that we can get there, without going through the pass where all the soldiers are?"
The two children exchanged glances; Fai waited patiently. Finally, Chunyan gave a little toss of her head, and Masayoshi said hesitantly, "There's -- there's the old tunnel."
"A tunnel?" Fai's mouth suddenly went dry, and his heart began to thump painfully in his chest.
Masayoshi nodded. "We used to play there, when I was a kid. Me and my big sis --" He stopped abruptly, closed his mouth and looked at the floor again.
"It used to be an iron mine," Chunyan put in. "Ages and ages ago. It's why this town was built here. After a while, they stopped finding anything in the mine, but by that time they'd made tunnels all through the cliffside. They connected to the pass up at the top to make it easier to ship stuff up there. It's been abandoned for ages, though."
"Where do we find this tunnel?" Kurogane demanded, and Masayoshi gave him a fearful sideways look, ducking his head.
"On the other side of m-the house on the other side of the blacksmith," he said. "There's a path... The soldiers found the entrance, but they don't know how deep it goes."
Kurogane and Fai exchanged a look. "That's our route, then," Kurogane muttered. "Can you show us?"
The children were reluctant to leave their hiding place, but it was clear that Chunyan wanted them gone, no longer in danger of attracting unwanted attention. She led them out through the back of the ruined house, into narrow little lanes between the backs of houses, choked with dead overgrown weeds. Ducking soldiers the whole way, they passed out of the back of the village and up a curving, gravel-lined path between stunted pines.
Chunyan stopped when the last of the houses was out of sight, and pointed ahead. "There," she said, keeping her voice almost to a whisper. "It's at the end of this path. I don't know if there any soldiers there now, but we aren't going any closer. Now go away."
Fai chewed his lip, then took a deep breath and went for the plunge. "You could come with us, you know," he said. "We're trying to get up to Ceres, up to the palace city. I -- I have friends there. They could take you in, take care of you. Maybe we could even find your parents --"
"No," Chunyan said, her face stony and her voice cold. "It won't be safe up there. Not for long. The soldiers will come and burn everything, just like they did here. And -- and besides, I don't want to see those people again."
"Chunyan..." Masayoshi said in a small voice. She looked at him, and tried to smile for the first time since they'd met her; it looked tired and fake plastered to her dirty face.
She tugged Masayoshi a little closer, then lifted her chin to them defiantly. "We'll be fine," she said, her voice strong and challenging again. "We'll be fine as long as we're together."
"You can't stay here," Fai argued desperately.
"Give it up," Kurogane said, and Fai shot him a glare. Kurogane just shrugged. "We can't force them to come with us; it's not like we could drag them without making noise. If they've lasted this long here, they'll have as good a chance on their own as they will with us."
Fai looked back at them, and his shoulders slumped in defeat as he nodded. But there had to be something he could do for them; they were countrymen of Ceres too, the country he was sworn to protect.
"Give them some of our food, Kurogane," Fai ordered, not turning his head to look up at the bigger man.
He didn't need to see him to sense the outrage his question prompted, though. "Are you out of your mind? We need that --"
"Give it to them," Fai said, and his voice cracked on the command. Kurogane was quiet for a long moment, apparently sensing that Fai was on the ragged edge and would not be argued with.
There was movement behind him; finally, he dared to look, saw Kurogane digging through their bags. "They can have some of it," Kurogane said, a slight edge of resentment in his voice. He handed the package of food over to Chunyan, who snatched it and glared at him ungratefully. "But I'm not going to give them all of it, no matter what you say, wizard; it's not all yours to decide, you know."
Fai looked down at the floor, wrapped his arms around his torso; he realized he was shaking. "Whatever you say," he muttered.
He heard a gasp in front of him, and saw both of the children staring at him. Masayoshi was half hiding behind the older girl, who was glaring at him in a mix of shock and outrage. "That's what you are!" she exclaimed, pointing at him with one shaking finger. "You're one of those wizards! That's how you found us!"
They were backing away from him, clutching the food and staring at him with wide eyes, as though he had suddenly become a snake that was about to strike. He raised his hands as if in supplication, taking a step towards them. "Wait, you don't have to --"
"You're not going to eat us!" Chunyan said in rising tones, then turned and bolted, dragging Masayoshi behind her. They dodged around the corner of the path, and then disappeared in astonishing silence into the brush under the trees. Within a matter of moments Fai could no longer make out which way they'd gone.
Instead, he whirled to glare at Kurogane. "What did you have to say that for?"
Kurogane looked shocked by the children's' sudden flight, but covered it with bluster as usual. "How was I supposed to know they'd react like that?" he snarled. "They're your people, aren't they? What do wizards do in Ceres that has little kids be afraid of them?"
"Nothing!" Fai shouted, too upset by the denouement to remember to keep his voice down. "Just old superstitions -- especially down near the border, where they mingle with backwards ideas from Nihon, and --"
"Who's there?" a voice called from further down the path, and Kurogane and Fai shot each other looks of fury and chagrin, before whirling to face the soldier as he rounded the corner to come face-to-face with them. Kurogane had his sword out in an instant, causing the man to skid to a stop; and Fai said the words that caused him to slump into sleep before he could call for help.
"This isn't the time for this," Kurogane growled, re-sheathing his sword. "We have to get out of here now, and that damn tunnel is the only way."
"Fine," Fai said, and pushed back on the nervous tremor that wanted to creep into his voice.
The tunnel. The old mine. Even standing still, a hundred paces from the timber-framed mine opening, the tunnel seemed to grow larger, creeping across the distance between them like it wanted to swallow them. Fai stood staring at it, rooted to place as soon as it had come into view underneath the trees; he could already feel the cold air of the rock walls all around him...
"Hey," Kurogane whispered loudly, turning to look at him from a few yards further down. "What are you doing? Come on -- they'll be after us soon."
Fai shook his head and swallowed hard, unable to take his eyes away from the patch of darkness that pulsed in his vision. He could feel his heart like a trip-hammer in his chest; already it felt like it was going to burst, and he hadn't even entered the tunnel yet. What was he going to do once they got inside, and the last of the daylight faded, and there was nothing but tons of cold rock pressing down on every side --
"Come on!" Kurogane came back a few steps and took hold of his arm, tugging him along the path. "If all that shouting a moment ago isn't already bringing them here, pretty soon they're going to find that trail of bodies we left behind, and that's going to lead them right here. We've got to get into the tunnels, where we can lose them, or at least get a head start up into the pass --" he broke off, getting a good look at Fai's expression. "What's wrong with you?"
"I can't do it," Fai said, his mouth and throat so dry that it barely came out as a whisper. "I can't go in there."
Kurogane stared at him. "Why the hell not? This is the only way to get past the army, which you didn't want to fight, and no matter how long it's abandoned, it should be --" he stopped again, and his expression melted into resignation tinged with dismay. "Oh, hell. You're one of those people who's afraid of small spaces, aren't you?"
Fai wanted to laugh, but there was no way his chest was going to unlock enough to allow that. Afraid of small spaces -- well, that was one way to describe the problem. His tongue felt too thick for any further speech, so he settled for a tight, jerky nod.
He heard Kurogane swear, felt the man leave his side for a few minutes, but he couldn't quite see what he was doing. He couldn't stop staring at the entrance to the mine; it lay like an animal in wait, ready to pounce, to devour... it would swallow him whole, and he'd never ever see the sun again...
He heard a sharp noise and then a sizzle behind him, but it was the sudden gust of smoke that broke his reverie enough to turn his head. Kurogane had created a torch, out of leafless branches and supplies from his bag, and he was just finishing a second one. He stood up and came back over to Fai, gripping his arm again. His expression was resolute, but there was a look in his eyes that Fai couldn't quite understand. "Listen to me," he said quietly, and held the torch in front of them. "You just follow me, and keep your eyes on this. If I lead you in there, you have my word that I'll take you out again, and it won't be dark as long as we still have the torches."
"I can't," Fai whispered again. It wasn't that he didn't want to, or that he was afraid; he just couldn't make himself move towards that smothering darkness.
Kurogane's bare hand slid down Fai's arm to engulf his hand; it felt searingly hot against Fai's cold skin, and the pressure of his grip was not quite enough to be painful. "You have to," Kurogane said simply. "We've got to move forward. Standing still is death."
Kurogane turned and walked towards the mouth of the tunnel, and Fai had no choice but to follow him.
As they passed under the first set of timber bracing, they heard shouting from the village below them. Kurogane's grip tightened convulsively on Fai's hand, and yanked him forward into the darkness.
After that, things seemed to get strange and disjointed, like in a nightmare. He was vaguely aware of flickering torchlight playing over dark earth walls, that gradually gave way to stone. Aware of Kurogane turning this way and that, swinging the light into different tunnel entrances. Most of the side tunnels dwindled quickly into crawl spaces, dead-ending into glittering rock walls; but some of them seemed almost as high and well-shored as their own.
The side passages lit up like beacons in the dark, fading away again as Kurogane moved onwards. He was cursing nonstop under his breath, now.
"The brat said that these tunnels connect up top, somehow," he muttered. "But how the fuck are we supposed to know which one goes upwards?"
"Tracks," Fai heard himself say, much to his surprise; his voice felt like it was coming from a thousand miles away. Kurogane swung around to look him full in the face, and the torch illuminated his astonished expression. "What?"
He blinked himself back into focus; the world seemed to stop moving as the light held still, although he was careful not to turn his head to the side, looking steadily into Kurogane's face. "They were moving ore to the other end of the tunnel at the top of the mine," he said. "So the main tunnel will be the one that has tracks and pulleys, for moving all that heavy material upwards."
Kurogane turned his head, his red eyes narrowing as he studied the floor of the tunnel, running off into the darkness. He nodded sharply in satisfaction. "This way, then," he said, and pulled Fai off once more.
Fai let him lead. He was dimly aware of more bends, more side tunnels, and then a lurching in his legs as the path they followed abruptly took on a grade. But at the same time, the world seemed to want to fade out at the edges, past the boundaries of Kurogane's torch. There was cold past the darkness, cold and a dark that went on forever, and in the cold and the dark voices were whispering to him.
Fai tried not to listen to him; he wanted to put his hands over his ears as he stumbled onwards, so he wouldn't have to listen. But Kurogane was still gripping his hand tightly, and he couldn't get his hand loose to do that. It didn't matter, anyway; even he'd been struck deaf he'd still hear them, the whispers. Hissing, hissing whispers.
He didn't listen to them, he didn't listen, but he still knew what they were saying. Cursed, the voices whispered to him. Echoing sibilantly out of the side tunnels, like the abandoned mine had been infested with a thousand cold-blooded snakes. Curssed.
The tunnels seemed to go on forever. After a time, they stopped seeing side passages; only the wood-and-metal track under their feet went steadily on, climbing upwards into the dark before abruptly switching back on itself and climbing the other direction. He was panting harshly, breath rasping in his chest; for once, he could hear Kurogane's breathing and knew the other man wasn't much better off. Sweat kept streaming down his face, the back of his neck; in the clammy cold air of the mine it only soaked his clothing through, chilling him further. The bubble of light that defined reality seemed to be getting dimmer, and narrower, the further they went.
Abruptly, Kurogane stopped, and Fai jerked to a halt next to him. He stared at the other man stupidly, trying to figure out what was going on. "What is it?" he finally managed, the words feeling like rasps in his throat.
"Torch is dying," Kurogane grunted. A cold wash of horror shot through Fai's body, and he stiffened up; Kurogane must have felt his hand clutch convulsively, because he glanced over at Fai's face. "Don't worry," he said firmly. "That's why I brought a second one."
Lighting the second torch from the first was a two-handed job, and Fai stood there like a wooden dummy, arm stiffly outstretched, while Kurogane shuffled the two, until he finally managed to get the second torch alight. For a moment the light doubled, and Fai felt his thoughts come into sharp clarity; his face flushed hot, and he dropped his hand, ashamed at the way he'd been behaving. But there were still the voices, just outside the edge of awareness. Cursed.
"How far up do you think we've come?" Fai said, sounding almost normal; but there was nothing he could do to stop the edge of fear from creeping in.
Kurogane glanced at him, and said nothing for a moment; finally he answered, "I can't tell distances, underground. I'm sure we're going the right way, though."
Fai knew they were; there would be no reason for this track to keep on rising unless it were to connect with the fabled upper end of the tunnel. But that didn't tell him how close they were to their goal. "Let's keep going, then," he said. "Before the other torch burns out, too."
A short nod, and Kurogane started moving, too; he didn't offer his hand this time, but Fai followed anyway, pulled along by the light like an animal on a tether. It wasn't like he could have stayed behind, after all. Demon, demon.... cursed.
When the burst of cold air hit Fai in the face like a blow, chilling the sweat on the back of his neck instantly, he thought at first he'd imagined it; but Kurogane also paused, pulling the torch down to shelter it. "Did you feel that, wizard?" Kurogane said, suppressed excitement in his voice. "A draft -- we have to be close to the upper end of the tunnel, if the air is moving this far down. It can't be much further now!"
They pushed ahead eagerly, and Fai was almost able to focus normally, with the promise of light and freedom just ahead. Up another switchback, and another; still no sign of daylight yet, although perhaps they had been in here long enough for night to fall. Fai didn't care, as long as they could be away from the cold stone walls, and the dark.
He was concentrating so hard on not hearing the voices that he almost didn't hear the new noise at first, like a humming in his bones. It was another switchback before it grew too intense to ignore, like the buzz of conversation in another room, or the sound of an orchestra tuning up from behind a heavy curtain. He knew that sound, he was sure, but he just couldn't place it...
Kurogane looked back at him as he slowed, trying to identify the noise without the distraction of both their footfalls. Kurogane looked back at him. "Come on, just a little further," he said impatiently, "we can rest at the top."
"Don't you hear it?" Fai said, puzzled, turning his head from side to side. He still couldn't hear it clearly, but he could pinpoint its direction now; it was coming from ahead of them, and above.
"Hear what?"
A noise that only he could hear -- let it never be said that Fai couldn't learn from his mistakes. He gasped for breath and held it, and put his hands up to his ears, blocking out Kurogane's impatient questions as he closed his eyes, focusing all his senses on that elusive sound...
Familiar, yes, it should be familiar, the sound of magic, of a dozen familiar minds working in chorus. Blending together, joining forces, as they reached deep into the stones with their power, preparing --
"They're bringing down the pass!" he gasped, as his eyes flew open and his hands sprang away from his ears, reaching precariously for balance. "We have to get out of here, now!"
"What? What's going on, wizard?!" For the first time, Kurogane was talking to his back as he lunged forward, gathering is flagging strength, pounding up the track into the darkness. The irrational, mesmerizing fear of the darkness could barely touch him now; not with the all-too-real dread of what was about to happen.
At least Kurogane followed. Fai did his best to explain, in between gasps for breath, as they both sprinted up the steep grades. "Wards on the mountainside -- years old --" he panted. "At the narrowest point -- steepest -- enough power will bring the whole thing down. Other wizards -- with the army -- "
"They're going to cause an avalanche?" Kurogane said, finally catching on. Fai nodded, grimly.
"Only way to stop the army -- bring the whole pass down on their heads. We aren't -- safe here --"
"Shit," Kurogane swore, and grabbing Fai's arm, he put on a new burst of speed.
They pounded around yet another switchback, and suddenly the floor under their feet leveled out; they were in a long, high gallery, with the feeling of space around them that the torchlight couldn't quite illuminate. The tracks ran on, straight and confident, and at the far distant end of the tunnel there was a glimmer of silver light.
"There!" Kurogane shouted, but Fai didn't have the breath to speak. The humming sound was rising to a crescendo, and he could hardly hear over it anyway.
Kurogane pulled them both forward, but it was too late, Fai knew it. A soundless flash of light played over his eyes, and then a noise that even Kurogane could hear started to grow from above them. The growling sound of rock cracking, breaking... slowly at first, then rising in a tumultuous roar as half of the mountainside came away.
Dirt and pebbles were starting to hail around them, making the footing slippery and unsteady, but Fai knew it was not going to stop there. He stared up at the ceiling, feeling the masses of rock above them beginning to shift and give way, and he knew they were not going to make it to the end of the tunnel in time.
Words formed on his tongue, tumbled out of his mouth, unheard in the tumult; he wanted to stop, to draw the circle on the ground, but Kurogane kept yanking him off balance, pulling him forward. He could feel the cloying fog of the geas on his mind, pressing down on his magic, stumbling the words on his lips. This wasn't the task he'd been appointed for; this wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. He was supposed to kill Kurogane, not save him.
The light at the end of the tunnel vanished in a roar, and Fai yanked his arm out of Kurogane's grip and skidded to a stop, raising his arms above his head just as the rest of the world went out like a candle flame.
~to be continued...