Chapter Three – The Purple Knight
"Stop! You have business with my Lord Yami?"
Yugi looked up to see an impressively intimidating knight, fully nine feet tall and garbed in purple armor, striding toward him. He swallowed hard and touched his Hero's Heartstone nervously. As if to reassure him, the stone throbbed warmly under his fingers once.
"Y-Yes. I'm sorry, I don't have an appointment..." Yugi craned his neck back to try to catch a glimpse of the knight's eyes through the slits in the helmet's visor. Purple fire in the shape of eyes met his gaze instead. Startled, Yugi backed away.
"I'm doomed!" he thought. "There's no way I can fight this – whatever it is – and no way I can outrun it!"
"Peace. I've no reason to attack those who seek not to threaten my lord," the knight reassured in a low voice. "Climbing up to the castle gate is arduous even for those who have long strides. You might want to rest before climbing yon hill."
The knight pointed toward where the castle loomed on top of a steep, rocky, forbidding hill. Yugi sighed. To him, with his short stature, such a hill was more like a mountain. The sun was westering already. There was no way he'd make it up to the safety of the castle tonight.
"Come. There is a place you can rest this night. It isn't much, but you will be able to sleep in safety." The knight turned and began picking his way around the boulders strewn haphazardly about. Yugi followed. He was surprised when the knight led him to a very rough shack set in the side of the hill where it curved around in a semi-circle to face the main bulk of the hill. One side was completely exposed to the elements, as it had no wall. Once Yugi had entered, he grasped the reason. The knight had an unobstructed view of the castle. Yugi wondered how the knight could stand it, as there was nothing – no place to sit, no place for a fire, no place even to curl up in a blanket and try to sleep, since the floor was covered in dirt and pebbles.
"Uh...?" Yugi wondered if he would upset the knight if he opted to try to get back to the nearest town, a few miles from the base of the hill, before full night.
"Back here." The knight touched the back wall and it swayed. Yugi only then noticed the wall-hanging that had been cunningly designed to look like the rock wall that formed the back of the cave.
"It's a small cave. It's not much, but it has a hearth and a cot in the alcove where you can sleep. Are you cold?"
Yugi wondered at the question, as it was not quite bitterly cold, but certainly biting enough to be noticeable. "Aren't you?" he asked.
"No. I feel neither heat nor cold, so I've learned to ask whenever visitors stay. I will gather wood for you. Please, enter, and make yourself at home." With that, the massive purple knight turned and sped off toward the woods just a few yards from the base of the hill.
Yugi soon found himself seated next to a warm little fire in the back of the cave. At his insistence, the Purple Knight stayed close enough to talk to. It didn't escape Yugi's notice that the Knight never let the approach to the castle on the hill out of his direct sight for more than mere moments at a time.
"You guard the path to the castle?" Yugi asked.
"The Citadel of Shadows – yes. It is the only way I am permitted to serve my lord Yami, now." Profound sorrow seemed to lace the words.
"What–what is he like?" Yugi ventured. The Purple Knight turned from gazing at the Citadel and fixed Yugi with the eerie eldritch glow of his 'eyes'.
"The power of shadows is subtle. My lord wields this power with such consummate skill that he is the most powerful of the Three Kindly Lords."
Yugi turned that statement over in his mind for a moment, then realized the knight hadn't really answered his question. Under his breath he asked again, "Yeah, but what is he like?"
The Purple Knight went very still. "Yami is like Yami. Perhaps he will once again be as he was before..." The knight shook his helmeted head. "Forgive me, I ramble. I am certain my lord Yami will see you tomorrow. You will be able to judge for yourself what he is 'like'."
Yugi opted to pin the curtain concealing the room in the back of the cave open, so he could watch his strange host over the next few hours. The Purple Knight was willing to do whatever he could to ensure Yugi's comfort. It was not until Yugi assured him he was warm enough, he had enough food for the evening, he had enough to drink, and so on – assured him several times, actually – that the knight settled down. That is, for a certain strangely active value of 'settled'.
He never stopped watching the citadel, and the pass leading up to the citadel's gates. He was polite and responded to Yugi's questions, but he never took his weird, glowing gaze from the citadel. In a way, this made things easier for Yugi.
It started simply: Yugi asked how the back of the cave didn't fill with smoke from his little fire. The knight responded that he had reamed out a chimney of sorts through the roof of the cave. That got Yugi to wondering about the knight again, that he didn't feel cold, eat anything, and evidently was going to watch the citadel the entire night.
"Don't you sleep?" Yugi blurted out. He felt bad that he was using the only bit of furniture in the place, sitting on a small wooden cot, while the knight stood.
"I have no need of sleep," the knight replied softly.
"So, you're going to watch the castle all ...?" Yugi's voice petered out.
"All night? Yes."
"Why?"
"It is my duty. I am my lord Yami's Guardian Knight." A soft and subtle dismissal of sorts laced the words. Yugi had the feeling the Purple Knight didn't want to answer any more questions. An awkward silence descended upon them.
"Though I do not sleep, sometimes my – consciousness grows weary. Watching the citadel through the quiet hours of the night seems easier than during the day. Though I still guard, the time seems to flow more swiftly, until the sun rises again. Sleep, Yugi. As I guard the citadel, I also guard you. I will be – better company – on the morrow."
"I am sorry that my curiosity..." Yugi began.
"Don't be. Your curiosity is understandable. I do not wish for you to have wrong ideas about my lord Yami before you meet him, though, that is wrong ideas sparked from my story. You should meet him, and judge what sort of person he is, for yourself. Until then, you must be weary from your travels."
Yugi was tired. The knight was right. He shouldn't worry about Lord Yami until he met him. There seemed to be a story between the Lord of Shadows and his Guardian Knight, but it wasn't Yugi's place to pry into it.
"Thank you," Yugi said. "I–I will go to sleep now."
The Purple Knight turned and regarded him for a long moment. "I will guard you as you sleep, and accompany you safely to the Citadel of Shadows tomorrow. Sleep well, and pleasant dreams."
– – – – –
Yugi dreamed of fire, ice, and shadows. He dreamed of dragons, swords, warriors garbed in armor led by powerful warlords fighting against monsters the likes of which he'd never seen or imagined before. Throughout his dream a voice wove through sometimes seeming to correspond with the images flashing before his sleeping mind's eye, other times completely at odds with those images. "Gather the lords", "...swords...", "...pain...", "...might...", "...dragons..." Yugi tossed fretfully in his sleep until a gentle touch on his shoulder woke him.
In his overwhelming yet half-asleep need for comfort, he reached out and grabbed tight. After only a moment the touch on his shoulder became a solid, reassuring embrace. It didn't matter that the embrace was of cold, unyielding metal. It was the warmth of the intent of the touch that comforted Yugi from his nightmare and supported him while he mastered his panicky night terrors.
"It hasn't been this bad before," Yugi whispered.
"You are at the foot of the Citadel of Shadows. The power of shadows is strongest here. What are nightmares other than shaped shadows sent to torment the mind?" As the knight replied he pulled back, sensing that Yugi had regained some control over his emotions. Only then did Yugi realize the towering knight had knelt by the side of his bed.
"Lord Yami?" Yugi asked. His eyes widened as he realized he was accusing the Lord of Shadows in front of that same lord's self-professed guardian.
"I doubt my lord Yami even knows about you, yet. While nightmare sendings are certainly well within his power, I do not believe this is his doing. It is not his way."
Yugi sighed. He didn't believe it either. If anything, he thought it must be the Dragon of Blackness and Chaos, but he wasn't going to let himself ponder that tonight. The power of his nightmare, even broken, was too immediate for him to think about the source while it was still full-dark outside. He turned over with the intention of settling more comfortably toward sleep. The Purple Knight gasped, and reached a trembling gauntlet toward him.
"Why would you need – my poor attempt at guarding – when you bear this about your neck?!"
It was not the geas-cursed Pendant the knight pointed toward, but the softly glowing Hero's Heartstone.
"I–I..."
"Ah. You have not yet properly bonded with it, yet. Aligned, yes, but a full bonding, not yet."
Yugi reached down and lifted the purple stone in the palm of his hand. As always, the warmth of the stone offered comfort. The warmth of the object seemed familiar, somehow, almost like the warmth behind the cool touch of the Guardian Knight's armor...
"That makes sense," the purple knight said. "We are both guardians, after all." Yugi hadn't realized he'd voiced his observation aloud. "But, the Sage's Stone is a far more capable guardian than I. Once you have bonded completely with it, no force of darkness can prevail against you. Not even nightmares."
"I don't know anything about this, except that the Water Sage was guarding it. He said only the – the Hero of legend could claim it." The Purple Knight nodded and Yugi went on. "Even though he warned me that I could be destroyed by touching it, if I wasn't the Hero, I couldn't help but reach out and touch it. The Water Sage changed the name to the Hero's Heartstone when I – claimed it. It feels warm, and has a heartbeat. Aside from that, I don't know anything. Do you know anything about this stone?"
"'Hero's Heartstone', huh? It's a good name for it. No one knows much about it, except that it is destined to help the Hero. What powers it might hold, or what abilities it might impart, no one knows. I can sense that it is a guardian, much more powerful than me. Once you have bonded with it, such things as nightmare sendings will not trouble you. Aside from that, I can not tell you anything. It is for you to discover what the Hero's Heartstone can do for you – Hero."
Yugi looked up, startled, at the accolade. The Purple Guardian's fearsome and impassive helmet met his gaze. The disconcerting purple glow of the knight's 'eyes' hadn't changed at all, and yet Yugi felt as though the knight was somehow smiling down at him. To cover the blush he could feel creeping up his neck, he turned toward the wall once more. He thought he was only breaking the awkward moment by feigning a need for sleep, but the weariness overtaking him made the action truthful.
"Good night, Purple Knight," he mumbled.
"Good night, Her—Yugi."
– – – – –
Yikes! The Purple Knight is kinda scary! Perhaps not quite what everyone was expecting.
Next chapter teaser – The Lord of Blood and Shadows
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