Chapter Six – Shadows of the Past
Yami's strongest shielding magic, now augmented by the power of his Gloomblade, wasn't enough to protect Yugi from the mystical wanderlust as one side of the Pendant of Pharaoh started to glow again. This time it pointed north, toward the Dragon Lands. Yugi shivered at the thought. He knew that only the most hardy of humans lived near the Dragon Lands, for the mighty beasts were not only commonly seen in the skies overhead, but also raided livestock for food.
Even though Yugi asked, Yami wasn't forthcoming with information about the Dragon Lands, or the lord that ruled there – Seto, the Lord of Ice and Dragons. Yami said only that there had been a history between them, and nothing more.
The next day, they started down the steep hill from the Citadel of Shadows. Something nagged at Yugi, in the back of his mind, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Yami had assured him that his power over Shadows was just as strong outside the Citadel as within, and that he could summon a legion of Shadows at a moment's notice if needed. Until then, there was no need for them to travel in a great company of guards. Yami said it was to prevent them from calling notice to themselves, but Yugi wondered if it was more that Yami wanted more time alone with him. There was such a delicious sort of energy between them, that Yugi decided he was just fine traveling alone with the Shadow Lord.
Unfortunately, at the base of the hill, those delightful thoughts were dashed.
"My lord Yami." The Purple Knight bowed low toward his lord, then knelt before him.
"What do you want?" Yami's voice was cold and forbidding.
"You are setting out from the Citadel. I will accompany you," the guardian replied simply.
Yami glared at his bowed head for a long moment. "Very well."
Yugi was a bit surprised at how easily Yami gave in. Admittedly, his experiences had been brief, and he hoped that he would have more time, a lot of it, to get to know the Shadow Lord better, but he didn't think Yami liked not getting his way. Sure, Yami hadn't actually changed Yugi into Shadow, which he'd stated he wanted to, but that was only because he thought he had to to save him. Yami's heart had never been behind that decision.
But this... The prickling of his skin whenever Yami was near enough – he knew Yami felt that, too. He knew that Yami wanted to be alone with him, away from the benign but ever-watchful eyes of his Shadows in the Citadel. That Yami had given up so easily meant that...
Well, he didn't know what it meant. On the one hand, Yugi was a bit disappointed that he wasn't going to be alone with Yami a bit longer, but on the other... Perhaps it was best. He could concentrate on what was happening, and pay better attention to it if he weren't distracted. For the first time, Yugi thought that perhaps when this adventure was over, he'd like to do other than just go back home. Maybe, if they survived it, he'd go back to the Citadel of Shadows, instead. That is, if what he thought Yami was feeling was the same as what he was. Since he wasn't sure exactly what he was feeling, the thought only confused him.
Yugi looked up from his ponderings to find the Purple Knight had regained his feet, and his towering, vaguely menacing presence. The cool touch of the knight's gauntlet on his face was gentle, though, as the knight turned Yugi's still-wounded cheek toward the light. The scrape along his cheek had stopped hurting, unless he happened to touch it, and Yugi hadn't looked in any mirrors, so he'd forgotten about it.
"Ever dramatic, my lord is," the Purple Knight said. "Couldn't just take a sample of blood from your finger. Here." Something was smoothed over Yugi's face. Something that made him hiss involuntarily when the scrape was touched, but something that immediately eased the pain.
"What...?" Yugi asked. His hand flew up to touch his cheek. It felt as smooth as it had before Yami had scratched it open.
"A magical healing balm I had left from when I was still human," the Purple Knight replied. "I kept it in case any travelers to my place ever needed it."
"When you were still – human?" Yugi asked softly as the knight turned away.
"Let's go," Yami suggested, with an impatient note in his voice. "We've got a lot of ground to cover."
Yami and his knight wound up in front, as Yugi's shorter legs prevented him from keeping pace easily. Any time he was among three or more people walking together, he wound up trailing behind. It had been happening all his life, so he was used to following others with longer legs and faster strides. Fortunately, the forest they entered slowed his companions down somewhat, so he didn't have to embarrass himself by calling out for them to ease up the pace a little, and let him catch up.
Yugi found himself even more confused as they continued walking. His memory replayed the events of yesterday's encounter between these two, and he simply couldn't square them with how Yami behaved toward the Purple Knight, now. Yami had been mean, insulting even, when the Purple Knight had escorted Yugi to the Citadel. He'd even thrown the knight down the hill with his power over shadows. Now, the two walked side by side. Granted, there was no easy conversation flowing between them, but they hardly seemed to share any sort of animosity with each other. To Yugi's eyes, there was almost an easy sort of familiarity between them, more like that of friends than anything else. Trailing behind them, Yugi worried at the puzzle their behavior presented.
"Hello, there!" Indigo eyes appeared in the shade between the roots of a massive tree.
"Uhm...?" Yugi glanced nervously to where his companions were still in sight ahead of him – just barely.
"Oh, I'm nothing to be worried about. See? I'm in the shadows," the voice accompanying the eyes was quick to reassure. Yugi narrowed his eyes at the thing. The creature was implying that it was Yami's without actually stating it. Distrustful of the coyness, Yugi played along.
"Oh, one of the Shadows, then. Why are you here?" He kept walking, to at least keep Yami and the Purple Knight in his sight. The all-but-invisible creature in the brush kept pace.
"Hmm, to keep you company. They are off in their own world, and don't realize how much you have to struggle to keep up with them. It gets kinda lonely, doesn't it?" There was that. It was nice to have someone to talk to. But... "I'll just stay here, out of the way, in the shade of the trees. Promise. I won't be any bother at all. Aren't you a bit curious about those two?"
Yugi didn't say anything, but his side-long look betrayed him. The creature hiding in the trees laughed.
"Well, those two are the best of friends. Even now, thousands of years after they last traveled the lands looking for adventure, as you do now, their friendship is legendary."
"Really? I've never heard of it," Yugi said.
"Legendary among some of us. They were – maybe twenty years old when they were adventurers. They weren't geased to wander as you are, but wander they did, saving people, defeating creatures – all the sort of stuff that heroes do." Yugi thought he could detect a faint note of disdain in the hidden creature's voice.
"What happened to change that?" Yugi asked.
"No one is sure, except perhaps those two, but Yami got it into his head that he was going to challenge the Citadel of Shadows and vie for its power. His friend cautioned against it, but Yami was insistent. Again, no one knows the details but for the two who experienced it, but, Yami did become the Lord of Shadows and his friend – his best friend – emerged as a fusion of man and Shadow. More monster than man, now, this poor unfortunate was banished from his friend's sight and yet guards him with the same care and devotion he held when he was still human. Not a particularly nice story of friendship, is it?" Yugi could clearly hear the mocking sneer in the voice, now.
"And a highly speculative and incomplete view of it," a new voice added. Startled, Yugi looked up, and then up again to find the Purple Knight looming over him. So engrossed had he become in the story he'd stopped walking in the same direction as the others, and wandered toward the shade under the trees.
"What is it?" Yami called. He'd stayed ahead and kept talking as a distraction while the Purple Knight doubled back to see what had detained Yugi.
"One of the Chaos Dragon's Shades, my lord," the Purple Knight replied.
"Aww, I've been found out. Time for me to dash. I'll see you again, Hero, very soon. I must report to my lord. We are watching you, Hero Yugi. Every step, every gesture, every word – where there are Shadows, there are also Shades – and just as Lord Yami is the Lord of Shadows, my Lord Chaos is the Lord of Shades!"
The Purple Knight darted forward, amazingly swift and graceful for someone of his massive size, but the Shade had already gone. He turned, and gathered Yugi with a single word. "Come."
Yami looked at the lengthening shadows, then his faintly glowing red eyes fixed on Yugi. "You are getting tired."
Yugi shrugged, not wanting to admit it. He wanted out of this forest of shifting shadows and hidden monsters. He wanted desperately to know the truth of what the Shade had been speaking of, but the air from both Yami and the Purple Knight was forbidding.
"We should tell him the full truth of what happened, instead of leaving him vulnerable with that web of half-truths the Shade wove for him," the Purple Knight suggested softly.
Yami glanced impatiently at his Guardian Knight. He sighed deeply. "You are right. Let us get out of the trees, first. I don't want to be attacked while we sleep, tonight."
A short time later, Yami's eyes smiled and his mystic gestures became more dramatic once he realized he had Yugi's rapt attention. The tent his magic called into being was massive. Everon appeared next, in the midst of a veritable army of Shadows, and nodded arrogantly in Yugi's direction before commanding the others to follow and set up a guard perimeter around the Shadow Camp. Yami gestured again, and the flap of the tent obligingly opened spilling soft light into the gathering natural darkness of night.
"Enter," Yami commanded Yugi quietly. "It's a safe haven to rest through the night."
Yugi was hard pressed to not exclaim aloud at the interior of the shadow-tent. The shadows making up the fabric of the tent were the texture of comforting velvet rather than the frightening inky darkness he'd been half expecting. What appeared for all the world like an overstuffed chair beckoned his tired body and before he'd realized it, he sank into its cloud-like depths. He sighed deeply as the shadow-stuff absorbed the aches from his muscles.
Yami laughed at Yugi's reaction. Yugi sat up in alarm, frightened that perhaps he'd claimed the chair Yami intended for himself. Yami waved a negligent hand his way before invoking a matching chair of shadows for himself. At the entrance, the Purple Knight bowed deeply toward his lord and turned to oversee the protection of the camp.
"Wait," Yami commanded. "Enter. Everon will see to our security." The Purple Knight still hesitated. "Please," Yami added simply. The Purple Knight bowed again, entered, and permitted the door-flap to fall closed behind him. "Do you need anything?" This was addressed to Yugi. "Food? Drink?"
Yugi shook his head. He was too tired to be interested in either. Truth to tell, he'd almost like nothing more than to sink deeper into the plushness of the chair and sleep for a week, but he sensed that Yami might be ready to talk.
Yami's gaze fell on the flickering flame in one of the sconces his magic contrived to hang on walls of silken shadows. "I was young, and brash. As we did in those days, as some still do to this day, I went to the Water Sage for him to read my destiny. He was troubled, and tried to avoid telling it to me, but I insisted I had a right to know. He finally told me that I would become one of the Lords of this world, by the power of blood. I had no idea what that meant at the time. Since I was a swordsman of some skill, I thought perhaps I could vie to become the Lord of Warriors. I didn't realize then that the blood to be spilled to secure my power was not my own."
The Purple Knight dared to interrupt. "My lord Yami and I met as fellow warriors trying to find our place and make our mark upon the world. It was only natural for both of us to adventure together. I was not surprised to find out my friend possessed such a grand destiny."
Yami snorted. "'Grand destiny'? Being the Lord of Shadows means that there isn't anything I can really touch or hold on to." Matching actions to words, Yami's hand brushed against Yugi's. When Yugi didn't pull his hand from the touch, Yami dared to clasp it more firmly. That simple action, how tentative the touch, asking, instead of demanding, dropped the last puzzle piece of Yami into place in Yugi's mind. Yami wasn't some despot holed up in his citadel drunk on his own power. His seeming harshness was only that – seeming. He had banished the Purple Knight and treated him poorly for a reason – a reason Yugi suspected he had figured out. But, he wanted to hear the whole story, if Yami was ready to share.
"What happened – to give you the power of the Shadows?"
"It sounds so innocuous, when you say it like that. The power of Shadows became mine – no, I claimed it, by paying a terrible price. A price that I pay to this day..." Yugi held very still, not sure if Yami would share more of the story, or retreat into a shell of silence.
"He needs to know, my lord," the Purple Knight said softly.
"I know, but – even after all this time, it is still not easy to speak of," Yami replied, just as softly. Squaring his shoulders, gazing stonily off into the distance, he continued. "We adventured, my friend and I, doing heroic deeds. At first I thought my strength at arms would make me a natural to become the Lord of Warriors. I was..."
"We were not up to the task of defeating the Warrior Lord, which is how one proves one's worthiness to vie for the power," the Purple Knight interjected.
"Indeed." A grin flashed across Yami's face. "Though, it was a glorious fight!"
"It surely was."
"During our adventures, we had learned a thing or two about dragons, saving various damsels in distress, as well as an oppressed village or two – and so I thought perhaps that was the power that I could claim – based on the Water Sage's reading."
"Unfortunately, being good at defeating dragons doesn't make one good at governing them – which is what the Dragon Lord does," the Purple Knight said.
"I couldn't even get past the border. Dragons love diplomacy, and attacking the first one we saw ended that particular dream. So, we traveled to the Shadow Lands, fought our way through Cold Shadows into the citadel, through the citadel, and into the Chamber of the Well of Shadows. Brash, stupid, arrogant..."
"But realizing that as the Lord of Shadows was dead..." the Purple Knight interrupted.
"Dead?" Yugi asked.
"We found him on his throne. There was no mark of violence upon his body, and he didn't appear to be that old, but he was dead."
"I think..." Yami began in a low voice. "I think he got tired of it all, battling the Cold Shadows night after night. I think – he let them take him."
Yugi shivered at that. He'd been touched, just the once, by a Cold Shadow before Kuriboh pulled it off of him. He didn't want to imagine what giving up and dying to that clammy touch must have felt like. To choose that sort of death – the former Lord of Shadows must have been desperate, or in a deep despair to tolerate that – much less desire it.
"My lord Yami realized that the Lord of Shadows must have very recently died. The Cold Shadows were still trying to break mystical wards he'd left in place to confine them to the Citadel. We fought our way through them, and all the way to the mouth of the Well..."
"And then – my mind was captured by the Well, Yugi, just like yours was. It gave me visions of myself as the Lord of Shadows, able to do whatever I wanted with the absolute power it wanted to give me. All I had to do was enter, and the power would be mine. All I had to do was submit to it, and it would grant me limitless power. All I had to do..."
"...was sacrifice your soul. I could not permit that to happen."
"I know. And, I am grateful that you acted." Yami turned toward the Purple Knight and stared up into his visor for a long moment. He turned back to Yugi. "My friend would not permit me to sacrifice myself to the Well. I have no memory of it, but I was raving aloud. He rushed me, struggling to pull me from the Well, while shouting to try to bring me back to myself..."
"Nothing worked," the Purple Knight continued. "My lord Yami couldn't hear me and I couldn't pull him away. I knew he would rather die, if he were in his own mind, than to be controlled by another, and so I stopped fighting to pull him away from the Well, and used all my strength to push us both in."
Yugi's breath caught in his lungs.
"It propelled us through the Well, into the Shadow Realm. There, the Well's compulsion on my mind faltered, and I could sense the power that the former Lord of Shadows held. I was able to reach for it, grab a hold of it, and claim it. While I was struggling to do that, the Cold Shadows of the Well were trying to claim me. My friend... My friend protected me, by placing himself between me and those evil Shadows. They – they pulled him apart." Yami dropped his head.
Yugi didn't gasp, but his soul seemed to thud to a stop and he looked up at the Purple Knight then back at Lord Yami. "But, why...?"
"He had delayed the Well's Shadows long enough. I had mastered the power left for me in the Shadow Realm, and become the new Lord of Shadows. I lashed out with that power, beating the Cold Shadows off my friend and destroying them. His blood..." Yami closed his eyes.
"With his new power, my Lord Yami was able to evoke the Shadow creature living in my blood, and fuse my soul with it, reforming me into his Guardian Knight. Since then, I have guarded him in this form, to the extent that he allows."
"Why... Why does he have to guard you from the bottom of the hill? Why isn't he permitted in the Citadel?" Yugi whispered. Yami abruptly turned away.
"We should sleep. We have a lot of walking to do in the morning." He turned, his form melted into the shadows cast by the light from the shadow-sconce, and disappeared.
"Where did he go?" Yugi asked.
The Purple Knight seemed to gaze into the distance for a moment. "The Citadel. Not to worry. I will remain here to guard you." The Purple Knight bowed, and departed through the slit in the fabric wall far in a manner more conventional than his lord's.
Yugi puttered about in the room that suddenly seemed huge with just him in it. He thought about what he'd learned. He thought about the young men, more or less his own age, traveling about trying to find their place in the world. His heart ached a little in sympathy for the tragic story. He wondered what had taken place to make Yami behave so poorly toward the friend who had been there so steadfastly when he needed it most. He doubted Yami would speak of it willingly again, so what he heard was most likely all he would ever learn of that chapter in Yami's life. He wondered if he would figure in any of the future chapters of the Lord of Shadows. And then he realized an important thing. He had never learned the best friend's name. That more than anything seemed highly unfair to him. That friend, who still saw himself as Yami's best friend had lost everything, his life, his shape, his name – and had made protecting Yami the most important thing in this new existence. That Yami banished him from the castle, and refused to call him by name was an injustice that Yugi didn't understand.
– – – – –
Author's note –
Next chapter teaser – Discussions of Chaos