The First Kaiaru (39 page)

E
nashoma sat beside Turesobei, sharing a plate of berries, while Kurine drew a bath for him. Enashoma was trying to hide it, but he could tell she was tired, too. And she reeked of magic. It was a good thing she wasn’t anywhere near the Blood King right now, or he’d know something was up. It was also a good thing he’d been distracted while Enashoma was stealing the copy of Chonda Lu’s kavaru.

Lu Bei popped back into fetch form. He started to smile at Enashoma—then sputtered a hello, his eyes wide with surprise. He gathered his composure, taking some effort to mask his expressions and control his trembling, then cleared his throat.

“Why don’t I make some tea?” He flew up to his nest. “I think I have the perfect blend for this occasion.”

At Kurine’s prompting, Turesobei recounted his journey. He focused on the great city of Korooka and the experience of moving back through time, while keeping the Kaiaru origins vague. He wasn’t sure
anyone
should ever know about what he had seen.

While brewing, Lu Bei trembled so much he sloshed tea everywhere. Three times, he had to stop and wipe off the table. As he brought a bowl to Turesobei, he spilled half the contents onto the floor.

“So sorry, master.”

Turesobei had wondered if the fetch could record what his master had seen in the distant past. Lu Bei’s nervousness answered that question. Enashoma unexpectedly bearing the extra kavaru had doubtlessly increased the tension. The fetch’s eyes met Turesobei’s. If the truth of the past had shocked Turesobei, it had clearly affected Lu Bei even more.

Frowning, Lu Bei again apologized for his clumsiness.

“Are you okay, little demon?” Kurine asked.

“Yes, mistress, I’m fine. Master’s struggles have merely fatigued me. In fact, I think I shall turn into a book now and nap for a while.”

“
Mistress
?” Enashoma asked, draining her tea bowl.

“Oh that,” Kurine said. “It’s…it’s because I bested him in a dare.”

Enashoma raised an eyebrow, glanced between Kurine and Turesobei, then pressed her lips tightly together. She stood up. “I’ll let you get your bath now, Sobei. Good night.”

After a long, quiet bath, Kurine massaged Turesobei’s sore muscles while humming a goronku lullaby. When he woke ten hours later, he bathed again. With a week of sleep, he thought he might feel rested. He considered having food brought to the room, then decided against it. He wasn’t going to avoid his companions when they seemed to have so few days left to be together.

At lunch he recounted the tale to everyone and tried to avoid talking about the origins of the Kaiaru. But they kept asking, until he responded by saying, “There were swirling energies and strange noises…shapes and forms I could not decipher. I think it’s something only a Kaiaru would understand, because it made little sense to me.”

As he stood, he placed a hand on Awasa’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She smiled and said out loud, “It was just a bit of torture. Honestly, I was glad I could help things proceed.” But what she said to him telepathically was: “
You look haunted. Was the experience in the past that bad
?”

“
The Kaiaru origin is fascinating. But what the Blood King learned was truly terrible. We cannot free him under any circumstance. The stakes are far higher than we ever imagined
.”

He hugged her tight. “I really am sorry.”

“
Is there anything I can do
?” she asked.

“
At this point? Not really. Even if you were to kill me and everyone else here, it would only delay him.
”

“
So we’re doomed
?”

“
Not quite. There’s a chance, however slight, that I might be able to stop him.
”

“
Will we survive it
?”

He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad we became such good friends, Wasa. I can’t imagine not having you in my life.”

A
fter a soothing night with Iniru, Turesobei headed off to the Inner Sanctum. He took a deep breath, then entered the Workshop. Gyoroe and Hannya were waiting in front of the door to the Inner Sanctum.

“You are late,” a violet-eyed Lord Gyoroe said.

“Sorry, master, I overslept.”

Lord Gyoroe growled and opened the door.

The truth was Turesobei had dawdled. He’d been afraid to come, afraid to face this day. It had been so hard to leave Iniru, knowing the danger today held. They entered the Inner Sanctum, and Turesobei knelt beside Hannya, across from the emerald-eyed Gyoroe. Lu Bei settled down in front of Turesobei and reverted to his diary form.

“Because of the spells the Shogakami placed upon the Nexus,” Lord Gyoroe said, “I cannot readily, even with the power at hand, do this on my own. To do it without you might take me…weeks…months…maybe even a year.” The eyes shifted to flickering violet and scarlet. “And neither of us wants that.”

“What do I need to do, master?”

The eyes returned to emerald. “Inconceivable as it might seem, it will take more effort to break free of this place than it did to go back in time. So you must first expand your connection to the heart stones. You will need either a deeper bond with the passive cylinders or a connection to both the active and passive stones. After that, we will proceed to the next step. That will only require your knowledge of how to work the gates.”

Turesobei took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes, and opened his mind.

The passive stones, hosting the souls of the Blood King’s most zealous followers, remained receptive since Turesobei knew the feeling of having to sacrifice someone who loved him in order to accomplish a greater goal. For Turesobei the goal wasn’t to attain power, but the difference apparently didn’t matter.

To switch the allegiance of a stone, he had to get the soul of every sacrificed follower within a cylinder to side with him. He had no idea what the Blood King had promised the sacrificial volunteers within the passive stones. If even one soul in a stone remained content with their decision to give their life for to the Blood King, it would ruin the attempt. And he probably only had a single chance to break the stones before Lord Gyoroe figured out what he was up to.

The unreceptive active stones contained the souls most likely to aid him, since they hadn’t volunteered. But he had no idea how to get the active cylinders themselves to interact with him. He just couldn’t understand the mindset that had constructed those stones, so he couldn’t reach out to them with the proper emotional state.

The active stones had been created through murder, solely for acquiring power. Turesobei struggled with the necessity of killing to defend his own people and their homeland. Ending another life out of greed was an entirely alien concept for him, and he could never imagine the emotions it would involve.

He groaned. Why was he always in over his head? Why did this sort of thing keep happening to—

That was it! He would deal with it the way he always handled situations where he was in over his head. He would call on Chonda Lu’s experiences.

While to his knowledge Chonda Lu had never killed anyone solely for power, he had caused great suffering in order to exact a terrible revenge on at least one enemy: Motekeru. Though he hadn’t been slain, Motekeru’s life had essentially been stripped away. And then he had been transformed into an eternal servant, suffering the whims of a cruel master—just as the souls within the stones had been bound, without their consent, to serve the Blood King for all time.

So maybe if Turesobei channeled his inner Chonda Lu the same way that he did when he cast Kaiaru spells, he could draw on the kavaru's memories.

He reached out telepathically to the stones, trying to conjure Chonda Lu’s feelings when he’d created Motekeru. To his surprise—and then horror—the kavaru brought it all to him vividly.

Dark anger seethed through him, fueled by a twisted need for vengeance. He had to make his enemy feel all the pain he felt and more—far more. Images flashed in his mind: a wizard’s workshop splattered with blood…a man with his arms and legs hacked off, the wounds cauterized…runes carved into the remaining flesh…deep brown eyes open and alert…a hot, silver blade slicing into those eyes….

Successive waves of revulsion struck Turesobei, or rather Chonda Lu. He could have killed this man like so many other enemies. Instead of a swift, merciful end, he could have tortured him for a while. But this…this went far beyond that. He had inflicted two weeks of torturous spell preparations and surgeries upon Motekeru. He could still end it. He didn’t have to go through with it.

But he believed the only hope he had of relieving the pain in his heart was by suffering that, and so much more, upon Motekeru. The satisfaction of revenge would make things right. And he would gain a powerful servant. Never again would he have to send one he loved into danger and suffer the tragic consequences of doing so.

Choking back the bile rising into his throat, Turesobei reached out to the active stones, and finally they responded to him.

“At last!” Lord Gyoroe said. “Maintain the connection while I again prepare the chain and the circlets to link us together.” Eyes bright blue, Gyoroe clapped his hands gleefully. “My long imprisonment soon shall end!”

Turesobei blocked out the sights and emotions from Chonda Lu’s past, wishing he could forget them completely.

Now he had to make contact with the souls inside, and fast.

The tricky part was that he needed to speak effectively with hundreds of different souls who had long been cut off from the world. Trapped in a formless limbo, it would be difficult for them to interact with their fellow inmates, much less an outsider.

Turesobei needed to give form and substance to their formless existence. And it would be best if he only had to speak with a single representative entity. Unfortunately, the Blood King’s haste didn’t leave Turesobei much time to conjure a specific image and voice for the bound souls. He would have to simply trust his subconscious imagination to do the job.

But he was ready for this. Grandfather Kahenan had taught him what was considered a peculiar and unlikely philosophy. “At the most basic level, spell effects, even summoned demons, are nothing more than thoughts and emotions given physical form—if not by you then by someone else.”

Considering what Turesobei had learned of the origin of magic, that was entirely accurate.

Turesobei formed a hand into the
mudra of connecting thought
. Then using as much of his inner kenja as he could risk without attracting attention, he envisioned and mentally activated the runes for
making known the unknown
and
giving form to the formless
. Finally, he telepathically projected himself toward the active heart stone of Autumn, which seemed the most receptive.

His kenja spiked, and his vision dimmed. For a few moments he couldn't see, hear, or feel anything.

Just as he edged toward panic, his senses returned, and he found himself standing on an icy plain in the Ancient Cold and Deep.