A Different Kind of Despair (16 page)

13: For Formosa

Purilo, as it turned out, was a tiny and
decidedly vicious little man. He balked and bellowed as his guests
swelled to the hundreds. He waved a golden middle finger in the air
and ranted for a full hour upon their arrival.

In the end, it was all just a show to get
his hands on coveted research notes, as it seemed he was more than
equipped to deal with the sudden influx of refugees. The
necromancers grumbled as they set to work transcribing years of
knowledge onto stacks of parchment, with younger children making a
fuss of Purilo's inventions scattered about the section of the
caverns he called home.

Jiki had me dressed in traditional Hikari
garb, clothing she had painstakingly acquired after years of
effort. While the designs were dated, I was glad at their
familiarity. I could still smell the sunshine upon their colored
thread.

I shied away from the people as they fought
for Marvin's attention. His mother was a well respected leader
whose actions resulted in their escape from Nethermountain. As the
son of such a person, and the Inheritor, is was only natural that
their sights fell on him.

I watched him flounder under this sudden
responsibility. If rumor held true then Marvin did more to avoid
any and everyone from his time in Nethermountain. He was more
elusive than a shadow in the thick of night, and now it was costing
him dearly.

Will, a force of intimidation if there ever
was one, kept the eager in line with a cutthroat glare. He and
Marvin had a unique sort of relationship. While I wouldn't call
them friends, there seemed to be a reluctant mutual understanding
at play. They were necessary evils to one another, evils that, for
whatever reason, had to coexist.

Jiki finished braiding my damp hair, pinning
it to the base of my neck in a spiraling bun. She glanced at the
kauna on my thighs.

"S-so Formosa is dead."

I didn't deny it.

"You must hurry, Miraj." Her voice ran with
an undercurrent of gravity. "You no longer have the luxury of
time."

I made a face at her foreboding, standing up
to meet her gaze.

"What are you going on about this time?"

"Your bond with Koronos has not s-saved you.
It has only s-staved off your death for a later date. We are not
meant to hold more than one s-soul in our bodies, Miraj."

I glared into empty space, speaking to
Koronos. "You couldn't have mentioned this before?"

Death could either be immediate or delayed.
Why bother arguing semantics?

I shook my head with a frown.

"So what am I supposed to do, Jiki?" I asked
the drowned woman. "It seems we're short of everything these
days."

"Formosa told you to s-seek out the Ice
Empress."

"The Ice Empress?" asked Marvin.

He, Leo and Will came up to me. By the grave
looks I could tell they heard about my circumstances.

"She's all the rage in the East," said Leo.
"You know how the High Cities are all autonomous? Somehow she has
claims to most of them. Rumor has it she wiped out an entire army
overnight."

"And how exactly can she help Miraj?" he
asked pointedly.

"Because s-she's a Ghostwalker."

"Ghostwalker," Will scoffed. "I can't help
but notice that the word seems to pop up everywhere we go these
days."

"What exactly is a Ghostwalker?" I wondered,
having heard the word myself. "The Crone said that Inval was a
Ghostwalker too."

Jiki swept a hand through her damp locks of
hair. It seemed this wasn't a pleasant topic.

"I'm not well versed in the particulars,"
she admitted. "Those you will have to learn from the Ice Empress
herself. What I c-can tell you is that Ghostwalkers also have more
than one s-soul within them. The Ice Empress is the first to find a
way to s-survive with her condition."

"And you think," Will furthered, "that she
can help Miraj do the same."

"Formosa thought of it first," Jiki
confessed. "S-she only told me to instruct you if Miraj did indeed
fuse with Koronos."

Our eyes fell as a group.

Despite her cold and unrelenting demeanor,
Formosa was every bit a Shaman Mother her Tribe could be proud of.
It was wrong of me to assume she had abandoned our ways to the laws
of necromancers. She had simply found a manner to coexist while
being true to both sides of her heritage.

Just as I needed to do with mine.

"Jiki," I said. "Did her kauna transfer to
me because she didn't have a daughter?"

"Formosa did have a daughter." I lifted my
head, alarmed. "A daughter-in-law. The totem marked her s-son as
your husband, so it provided the necessary c-channel to transfer.
And, failing that, the kauna would go to the nearest female
descendant of Ayasha."

"Has this ever happened before?"

"No."

"Then how do you know for sure?"

"Formosa and I c-could guess, based on the
Lost Verse."

At our quizzical glances, Jiki turned
around. She led us through Purilo's caverns, to a rock formation
somewhere on the surface. The only reason I knew that was because I
saw streams of sunlight coming from cracks in the ceiling.

Engraved on the far wall was a poem I knew
by heart… but then I examined it closer. It was too long. There was
another stanza.

Marvin read the story aloud.

"
Before the Beginning, there
were two sisters

Control and Chaos were theirs to
give

Neith, the Weaver of Mortal
Fate

And Ayasha, of those Free to
Live
-"

Sisters? There was nothing in Tribal lore
about Ayasha having a sister. I searched Jiki's face for answers,
but she provided none as Marvin continued to read.

"
The Weaver's ambition knew no bounds

So she wove a plot as she did
best

And tricked Ayasha in a
bet

To place their rivalry to
rest

Human became the second sister,
her spirit bound to mortal make

And as mortals fell in
Neith's jurisdiction, the Weaver wove her mortal
fate-
"

I gasped.

"
In
fourths her soul was siphoned off

To her offspring they would
take

For in the Beginning, there was
Ayasha

And from Her womb sprang daughters four

Kurai of the Shadow
Font

Hikari, Child of Light

Akatsuki of the Morning Sun
and

Shinya of the Night

Kurai conquered the northern
slopes, thick with serpents as they lay

Hikari danced upon the plains to
better bask in the noonday

Akatsuki sought solace in the
sands, and shifted swiftly upon their dunes

And then there was the
daughter fourth, who found Her home beneath the
moon
."

We stood there, mulling over the text now that
it altered the meaning of everything I'd been taught. I looked to
Jiki, wondering why she didn't show me this back when she gave me
my kauna.

She must've understood my silent inquiry, for
she answered it a moment later.

"This was the lore I was taught as a c-child,
hundreds of years ago, when the Weaver's name was s-still a whisper
on the s-sands. The Shinya were among the necromancers by the hour
of my death. I s-shared this knowledge with them, and they have
guarded it ever s-since. I was to tell you nothing unless Formosa's
prediction c-came to pass. As it has, now you know."

I opened and closed my mouth to her
explanation. If Marvin was unaware of all of this then I could only
guess the reality before us.

"Formosa was last of the Shinya, wasn't
she?"

"The C-Crone devised an accident
in which to s-slaughter them twenty-eight years ago. As Formosa was
thick with c-child at the time, she was away, s-safe from the
c-carnage."

Marvin's expression sagged.

"It was not immediately apparent,"
Jiki went on, "that Marvin was Inval's reincarnation. Not until his
phobia was c-created, unusual and identical to Inval's own. Formosa
s-sought to hide Marvin, pulling him from lessons. Making excuses.
Becoming more terrifying than death c-could ever be to her
s-son."

"She used to be so proud of Marvin
before the accident," Leo commented. "So that's why she changed.
She wanted to throw the Crone off his scent."

Jiki nodded to his reasoning.

"S-sadly, once Marvin opened
Diana's coffin, a coffin s-sealed to all but Inval himself, he was
outted. Nothing was truly c-coincidence. I did not have your armor
ready by c-chance," she said, eyeing Marvin and Leo. "Formosa knew
s-spirits. S-she knew me, and through me, s-she knew Diana. S-she
already guessed you would c-come through Krisenburg. S-she asked
that I watch you while you were here."

Will huffed, "Clever old bird."

"C-clever, wise," Jiki added. She looked at
me. "You are S-Shaman to two Tribes. Shinya and Hikari. Night and
Light. I don't think it was c-coincidence that you took to Koronos
as well as you have, Miraj. There is darkness within you, and it
s-speaks to the darkness in devils. But remember that you are also
a Child of Light. No matter how great the temptation of shadow,
never forget that in you is the s-strength to resist it. Live for
Suna. Live for Formosa. Live for Ayasha."

"For Ayasha," I intoned.

Jiki slipped through the cracks in the earth.
I took a deep breath, feeling at peace for the first time that I
could recall.

"Leo, Will. I'll be needing your
help with something." My tone was authoritative, but respectful, a
tone I'd been trying to emulate from my mother all my life; an act
I've failed time and again till now.

With curt nods in my direction, the Doll and
my Kurai cousin started out of the room.

I left Marvin alone so he could
stare at the Lost Verse of our history. He needed time to gather
his thoughts. If ever he wished to share them then I'd be there to
listen, but now was not that time.

Will set about fetching a series of candles.
Leo helped spread the word among the necromancers at my side.
Together he helped me place names to their many pale faces, and
they finally saw the human behind my demonic skin.

Hours passed, and the day eventually turned to
night. Marvin emerged from his solitude to look upon an empty
hall.

I stood at the center, waiting for
him.

"Miraj?" he asked. "Where is
everyone?"

"Waiting for you," I replied. "Take my hand,
Marvin. Let's go outside."

"Outside?" The surprise was evident. And while
I'd expected it, it still made me smile. Necromancers were a
notoriously cloistered bunch. Many had never been to the
surface.

We made our way through one of the exits,
emerging at an oasis. The sound of insects buzzed softly in the
background. Many of these pallid children were seeing the stars for
the very first time.

Everyone held a candle out before
them, even Purilo, who had the courtesy to hide his gilded insult
in his long sleeves. Marvin opened and closed his mouth. He
couldn't find the words, but fortunately for him, he didn't have
to.

"You do not know me," I began. "I am a
stranger among your numbers. A foreigner who, until recently,
thought she knew your ways and judged you unfairly as a result of
my ignorance."

They blinked at the unexpected
apology, clearly finding nothing wrong with their ways or the fact
that others thought wrongly of them. It brought a smile to my face,
that there existed such a group who truly could care less about the
world so long as they were allowed their place within
it.

"But everyone here knew Formosa of House
Thanos."

I watched as their expressions grew somber, as
though someone had snuffed out the light in their hearts. Murmurs
fell to a stiff silence. Fidgeting gave way to heavy
stillness.

"I did not know her as well as I
would have liked," I confessed to the group. "But I owe her much.
The man I love, and whom I now have the pleasure of calling my
husband, as a start." Everyone looked at Marvin. "It's thanks to
him that my ignorance regarding necromancers was dispelled. He came
to my Tribe, the Hikari, knowing nothing, but wishing to learn. We
showed him that barbarians were not barbaric at all. He taught me
that necromancers were not madmen, but misunderstood intellectuals.
People whose practice was not born of malice, but of the noble
desire to save lives."