Disclaimer: I don't own DCMK
A Curse Marked Fate
18: Touch of Silver
Embarrassing, prying questions aside, the following five days were some of the best days Shinichi had had in a very long time. With everything out in the open between them, he no longer had to pretend he was a child. Better still, he didn't have to pretend he didn't know Kaito. And it was all such a relief that he found himself talking far more freely than he ever would have normally even to Ran. Then again, Kaito had always been easy to talk to. And Shinichi rather thought that he would have answered Kaito's questions even had he not made that promise to do so.
Although he would not have told Kaito about Harumina Girls High School. He began regretting sharing that story even before he'd done so. But he had promised, so share it he did.
Kaito was still bursting into fits of laughter over it the entirety of the following day as they bid farewell to their furry friends and headed up the long, stone stairs to the temple's second level.
There, they had found themselves walking up between towering walls of water and up onto the sandy shore of an island surrounded on all sides by water as far as the eye could see. The instant their feet sank into the sand, the path behind them vanished as the liquid walls collapsed like the Red Sea closing.
The island was littered with seashells of all different shapes, each more ornate and colorful than the last. They discovered that the silver seashells whispered riddles when they held them up to their ears, and they spent several entertaining hours finding silver seashells, recording their riddles, and solving them. Those riddles sent them diving deep into the waters all around the island in search of everything from shovels to sunken treasure chests filled with jewel-encrusted buckets of all different sizes. This was made much easier by the enchanted chocolates from the Banquet Committee, which turned out to provide them with the ability to breathe under water for an hour per chocolate.
Directed by the seashells, they found themselves building the most magnificent sandcastle that either of them had ever seen. It had eight turrets, each topped with a different conical shell. Its walls were adorned with other seashells in lovely shades of pink and peach, sections of coral, and eight shining pearls. The instant the last pearl was set, they had found themselves standing with an elegant, blue-haired woman dressed in creamy shades of white and gold who thanked them for building such a fine castle for her and invited them inside for tea.
It had been disorienting to walk towards the three-foot high sandcastle only to discover that it had become enormous and they were now just the right size to enter what turned out to be ornate, pink coral hallways lit by tiny pearl lamps cradled in padded white and gold clams.
They were treated to a feast served by creatures who seemed half snake, half human. After the meal, they were invited to enjoy the Sprite Queen's orchestra, but, seeing that the sand in their hourglasses was already beginning to change color once more, they declined and asked to leave.
"And where will you go?" the Sprite Queen asked, gazing down upon them from her throne with eyes the color of sunset seas.
"We need to find the Fruit of Living Silver," Kaito told her. "So that we can forge the new Harvest Bell."
"But surely that can wait," the queen replied. "You have built me such a lovely castle that I simply must show my gratitude. I have planned much music and dancing and many other entertainments. There will be feasts unlike any you have ever tasted and games more thrilling than any that a human has ever had the fortune to play. And, if you win, there are prizes that even the greatest of kings have never dreamed of owning. Does that not sound incredible?"
"It does," Shinichi admitted. "And we're really glad you like your new castle, but we really don't have the time."
She offered them riches and magic, lost treasures and ancient books. She even offered them positions in her palace or palaces of their own in her underwater kingdom, but they declined. And they declined. And they declined. Until finally, the Sprite Queen gave them a paper boat that glowed a soft silver in the evening light and told them that it would bear them wherever they needed to go.
It was as they climbed out of the sandcastle's tallest tower that they saw that the sea had risen and was still rising. It had already swallowed the entirety of the island and most of the lower reaches of the castle. As Kaito set the small boat down on the tower floor, it grew to the size of a canoe complete with a pair of silver oars inside. And by the time both boys had climbed into the craft, the water had risen over the top of their tower and was lifting them up. In a matter of moments, the entire castle had been submerged beneath the waves, and Kaito and Shinichi were sailing across a flat, silver sea in an equally silver boat towards a foggy, indistinct horizon that could have been hiding the end of the universe for all that they could make out of it.
They spent some time out there on the glimmering waters beneath the enormous, silver moon, sharing stories and taking turns keeping watch from the prow while the other dozed. Eventually, they fetched up on another sandy shore where a clearly-marked path led them up through a screen of trees into more cultivated lands. In the distance, a silver white castle the same color as the moon glowed against the brightening sky.
Figuring that that was where they had to go, the two adventurers set off. They met an old man who had thrown out his back who asked them to take him back to the Orchard House. With Kaito carrying the man on his back, they made their way to the heart of the apple orchard, where they spent several more hours helping the old man bring in the harvest and ready it for storage and shipment.
"They're going to the queen, you know," he told them. "So they've got to be perfect. But I can't do it by myself like this. I know it's a lot to ask of you youngsters, but will you help me?"
Of course they'd agreed. And so they had spent the rest of the day learning more about apples and apple-related dishes and beverages than either of them had ever thought existed. Then, with a box filled with the finest selections of apple based treats in hand, they were sent to pay their respects to the Queen.
To do so, they had to pick out the best box for the treats and decorate it properly while observing the necessary protocols for queenly gifts. This had them searching the entire orchard until they found a butterfly willing to perch on top of the gift box as a living ornament until it would be presented to the Queen.
Kaito used his extensive skills and knowledge as a magician to build some gimmicks into their gift box that Shinichi sincerely hoped would amuse the Queen rather than offend her. But then they were off again, this time to race the teams from the apricot, persimmon, peach, and orange orchards to the palace gates.
They won the cross-country race through a combination of creative thinking and spell work, but they weren't allowed through the castle gates until they'd answered three riddles and learned the gatekeeper's favorite dance routine. Then they had to play hide and seek with the castle gardeners to collect the pieces of a broken statue, which they then had to puzzle back together in order to gain entry into the castle itself, which turned out to be a complex maze complete with obstacles and booby-traps. When they finally found the throne room, they were informed by a dozen harried castle residents that the queen had gone missing.
They spent quite some time investigating her disappearance upon the request of the castle staff. They interviewed everyone from the scullery maid to the knight who served as the captain of the guard and explored the castle grounds guided by the knight captain's page.
Shinichi was entirely immersed in the investigation until they walked into the castle library, at which point he promptly forgot everything upon discovering that the place was stocked with not only every classic he could name but also all the most popular recent releases, bestsellers, and even some of those obscure new books that he'd wanted to try but which most of his friends had never even heard of before. He could happily have lived in that library for the rest of the year, but Kaito firmly steered him out of the place and towards the queen's suite (though not before committing the sight of Shinichi bouncing from shelf to shelf, all starry-eyed and bubbly, to his memory. His Shin-chan was adorable when he was all excited about literature. It had always been—and would probably always be—the only time he expressed his feelings so openly and with such unreserved joy. Such memories were ones that Kaito had learned to cherish).
By the end of their investigations, it was revealed that the queen had been disguised as the butler the entire time, and the whole charade had been a test.
She laughed when they pointed her out, and the guise of stiff, black-haired butler fell away, leaving behind an elegant woman dressed all in silk and feathers of gold. She smiled as Kaito offered her their gift box and the lovely butterfly that had been oh so very patient all this time flapped its wings, releasing a soft, sweet fragrance into the air. It took flight.
The next flap of its wings struck like a silent explosion.
A sudden wind howled out of nowhere, and the world around them blew away. Everything from the castle to the staff to the neighboring farmlands and the sea dissolved into a fragrant storm of petals.
When the petals settled, the two travelers were standing in the middle of a large, circular room centered on an equally circular pool, which, in turn, was home to a circular dais upon which a single tree grew. Three stone bridges arched over the mirror still waters, dividing the pool into perfect thirds. Kaito and Shinichi were standing at the outside end of one of these three bridges, and between them and said bridge stood the queen of the white castle. Only now they saw that she was not only the queen they had just uncovered but the Sprite Queen as well, and they wondered how they could have missed that fact before. The color of her hair and eyes were different, but that face was unmistakably the same.
"Welcome," she said. "I have observed you in your journey, and I have been pleased. You not only overcame the challenges set to you but also comported yourselves with the manners and generosity of spirit that earned your ancestors the blessings of the heavens. The energy you put forth throughout your trials—your emotions and your thoughts—have provided this sacred tree with what it needed to bear the fruit of living silver. Look for yourselves on the fruits of your labors."
She stepped aside and swept one slender arm out towards the lone tree on its island where, indeed, a single spherical fruit the size of a soccer ball hung amidst soft curls of silver leaves.
"Had your hearts and minds been weighed down by negative thoughts or selfish intentions, the fruit would have withered and become useless. So it is for every blessed fruit, for it is only the spirit of the people who give it the power to bestow Heaven's blessings upon the land. That is the secret housed within these temple walls, for this is the place where we reexamine whether the people still deserve the grace of the gods. Now come. It is time to forge the Harvest Bell."
In a swirl of gold and cream silk that fluttered in a nonexistent wind, the queen all but drifted over the bridge to stand beneath the tree. Kaito and Shinichi felt rather awkward in the wake of her grace, but they too were soon standing by the silvered tree trunk and gazing up at the fruit they had come all this way to find. The one that ripened only once every thirty years.
"You must call it down to you," the queen instructed before whistling a short tune.
Recognizing the tingle of magic in the music, Kaito repeated the tune. His whistling notes were near perfect imitations of hers, and the fruit above them quivered. Then it plucked itself from its branch and plummeted earthward.
Shinichi leapt forward with a yelp, just barely managing to catch the large fruit before it smashed into the ground. The thing was extremely heavy for its size, and he had all the air knocked out of him as he lay there on soft, silver grass and blinked up into Kaito's concerned face.
"Are you all right? Sorry, I was expecting it to float down gently. Not to, uh—"
"Just fall like a normal fruit?" Shinichi suggested.
The magician let out a rueful laugh. "That's exactly it. But it seems you're in good spirits, so all's well that ends well, right?"
"It's not over yet though. We still have to forge the bell."
"Indeed. He is correct," the queen said, smiling. "This fruit is living silver nourished by your good intentions, your hopes, your friendship, and your dedication. It will be strong and flexible. Take it to the chamber yonder." She pointed to a circular opening in the pearl white wall across from another of the three stone bridges.
"There, you will find instructions on how to forge your bell. But take heed. Nothing you learned within these chambers must ever be spoken beyond its walls. For if people were to come hoping to fake the aspects and spirits we need then the silver tree will die, and the Harvest Bell will be nothing but a cry to appearances without a heart. And that would bring no blessing at all."
Later, the two of them sat in companionable silence on the stone bench in the forge, waiting for the bell to cool so that they could remove it from its magical mold. They were both acutely aware of the fact that their little adventure was coming to an end. The thought hung over them like an overcast sky.
Absently, Kaito flicked his fingers, sending half a dozen lights dancing through the air. They bobbed and spun then blossomed into glimmering, moon-colored roses on long stems wreathed in curling leaves. The roses separated into pairs then began to dance.
Shinichi watched them, feeling a strange warmth in his chest that he couldn't quite explain.
"I guess I haven't congratulated you yet," he said, gaze never leaving the waltzing roses. "So, well, congratulations. On passing your licensing exam."
Kaito smiled. The expression had none of the cockiness or secret mirth that his smiles typically exhibited. Instead, it radiated a calm and genuine contentment tinged with just a tiny hint of regret that time could never stand still.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm glad you enjoyed my show. Aoko told me she thought I went a little overboard, but I told her there wasn't any point to taking the exam if I wasn't going to make an impression."
Shinichi laughed. "I guess you could put it that way."
"Hey, you never mentioned, who were you at the exam site to see?"
Shinichi blinked up at the taller teen then shrugged. "No one really. I just always wanted to watch the Level Seven exams. And with one of the venues this year being so close, Ran and Sonoko decided that we should all just go. Though I think Sonoko really wanted to get a look at you and the other high school applicants."
A wry smile tugged at the corners of Kaito's lips. His roses swung from a waltz into a jig. "I suppose it was just fate then, eh? That you were there, and I saw you."
"Or coincidence."
"Is that not the same thing?"
Shinichi shrugged. "If there's a difference, I don't know how you could tell. I'd say it's more a perspective than anything else. If you think an occurrence means something then it's fate. If you think it doesn't, it becomes coincidence."
"I suppose I can see your point," Kaito conceded. "And so I am correct, and it was fate." Grinning, he beckoned to the roses. All six of them performed perfect pirouettes in sync before jigging their way to Kaito's hand in single file. There, they melted into a single rose, which he used to tickle Shinichi's nose. "Come on. Admit it."
The smaller boy had to stifle a giggle which turned into a sneeze. The luminous rose immediately burst into a flurry of white petals that became white feathers before dissolving into nothingness.
"How did you do that?" Shinichi asked, watching the feathers fade. "They were illusions, but I could feel something when the petals touched my nose."
"Oh that. It's a little trick I picked up from Dad. If you add a little heat to the illusion and make sure you keep it contained so it doesn't change the air temperature beyond the image too much, you can fool the senses into thinking there's something there when there really isn't."
"That's a pretty ingenious trick."
"I thought so too," Kaito agreed. "But it takes a lot of practice to master how to manipulate and shape the different temperature fields."
"Is that your round about way of praising yourself?"
The Sky Mage laughed. "I'm just telling it like it is."
A soft chime drew their attention to the cooling bell, which had gone from a dark, leaden gray to a pale, pearly silver that bordered on white. The enchanted mold it had been cooling in dissolved into a cloud of sparkles, leaving the bell sitting suspended in the air above the work table like a small, low-hanging moon. Small in comparison anyway. The bell was every bit as tall as Shinichi was. It also had no clapper, but they figured a magical bell must have some other way to ring.
Kaito plucked the bell out of the air with both hands, hefted it, then set it on the bench where they'd been sitting earlier. "Pretty light for its size. I can wrap a few protective spells around it, and we can see if we can fit it into one of our backpacks."
"I don't think it's going to fit through the opening," Shinichi said, but he set about moving what was left of the supplies in Kaito's backpack into his own. When he was done, he held Kaito's backpack open while the magician turned the bell this way and that in an attempt to find an angle that would allow it past the mouth of the backpack into its magically expanded interior. Ten minutes later, they were forced to admit with a certain amount of rueful laughter that no amount of repositioning, stretching or pulling was going to get the bell into the pack. So instead they put everything, including Kaito's empty backpack, into Shinichi's, and the Sky Mage tucked the bell under his arm.
When they emerged from the forge, they found the queen waiting for them beneath the silver tree. As they approached, however, she began to change. Her outline blurred, and the feathers in her costume rippled and multiplied. Between one breath and the next, she had become an enormous, golden bird with iridescent, ruby red eyes.
"You have forged a fine bell," the bird trilled. "Your final task is to bear this bell safely back to your people.. Go now with my blessing."
With that, the bird spread its wings, and the temple vanished in a whirl of golden feathers that melted into sunbeams and autumn leaves. And there they were, standing on the mountainside right where the trail rose above the forest fringe.
TBC
A.N: Sorry if this felt a bit fast-forwarded. I decided that it wouldn't be very interesting to go into too much detail on the game, but it also didn't make sense to just skip it.