Chapter V - Lissium - Zukan

The first settlement that Zukan encountered on his way through the Oasis did not stir when he passed through it; it was still the dead of night. The faint wisp of a tallow candle burned in the window of the village inn, but the rest of the buildings were dark.

“Saimon,” Zukan read aloud from the wooden sign at its edge, easily visible in the moonlight, “the tropical town at the edge of the desert.” Saimon was a popular retreat for residents of the Oasis, Zukan had read once, but for all its acclaim the resort was near empty. Most like everybody has made for Lissium by now. How nice it would be to have a hot spring all to himself to wash his cares away and let the steam cleanse his soul, but he did not have time for sleep. The silent thunderhead still loomed behind them, with no sign of slowing down.

In the next town they passed through, a ramshackle village at the foot of Doldon Tower, they walked by a hurried bunch of travelers who had apparently slept in and were eager to reach the red and copper city by sunup. At Thorn Vale they broke fast with a wagon of traders from Sand Arbor who offered him some plump red berries in exchange for some bread. Zukan found that he had no taste for them, so he gave them to a hungry beggar at a crossroads north of Ferrendell.

The sun was balancing on the edge of the horizon by the time the maege and his spectral familiar had caught sight of the walls of Lissium, and nearly full in the sky by the time they approached her gate. They were closed, however, with a guard at each hinge and a squad at its seam, documenting every visitor and resident alike who wished to pass beneath her bricks. A long line was forming up and over the hills of the dusty grasslands. They would permit me to enter the city, I’m sure, Zukan pondered, but they will require identification. If they did not require identification they would require coin, but someone’s name would have to be recorded in that ledger either way. Even if he used an alias, he felt it would be best that he remain a ghost, so he did just that.

Before he reached the start of the line Zukan snapped his fingers, and in an instant he had cloaked himself in shade. Without slowing his pace, he strolled leisurely down the row of hopeful visitors and straight for the gate. Not one person so much as batted an eye at the bodiless shadow.

He nimbly ducked beneath the arm of a guard drawing up papers and weaved through the rest of crew. The wooden gate creaked open to let the next person in, but only wide enough for one. Before it swung shut, Zukan dashed at the entering traveler, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him disoriented and confused in the middle of the dirt road. But they'd made it through.

Zukan shrugged off his cloak of shadow in an alleyway before merging in with the crowd. An emerald-eyed raven swooped down to perch on his shoulder.

“So, what now?” Sayaka squawked.

He reached up a finger to nuzzle the phantom bird beneath her beak. “We wait.” But even as the words left his mouth, his stomach tightened and rumbled. “But I could eat.” He was walking down Stone Street towards Baker, if the smells about him were any indication. He had never been to Lissium before, but the scent of tart spices and sweet mead and roasting meat gave him more knowledge than any map could.

At the nearest cookhouse, Zukan helped himself to four plates of rice, carrots, peas, beans and pork from the spitted carcass of a roasted swine, while a human Sayaka ate nearly twice that. I wonder where it all goes, Zukan contemplated as he shoveled the medley of foods down his gullet. Maybe the moment she swallowed it just became myst, or maybe the contents of her stomach were simply added to his. If that were the case, Zukan couldn’t tell, so he helped himself to a fifth plate.

They had brought preserves for their extensive journey, and replenished their stock in every town or city they passed through. Zukan did not have much taste for eastern food, but with week after week of dried salt beef, hard bread and dirty water, he had learned to relish any hot meal he could get. But when he untied his purse strings to pay for it, he found that their extensive journey had also left them nearly penniless.

“I’m running,” Sayaka declared.

“You are an idiot.” Zukan reached down to scoop some pebbles from the gravel floor and pressed them tight to his palm. When he unfolded his fingers the tiny rocks had been replaced with a handful of gleaming golden coins. He quietly slid them onto the wooden table and slipped through the burlap flaps of the cookhouse’s entryway before the serving woman could notice. No doubt she would find their tip more than generous.

Once they were outside, Sayaka was a bird at his shoulder again. “I wonder what she’ll think when all that gold turns back into stone in her apron,” she cawed.

“I wish you would not shift your form so freely in public,” Zukan chided. “West of the Grand Barrier you would only get strange looks, but around here they have lynched men for less.”

“If you were really concerned about getting caught you wouldn’t be using your magyk so much.”

She was right, Zukan conceded.

With a yawn, he decided upon some much needed rest. They had made good time; the thunderhead would not be over the city until sundown, and Zukan’s insomniac tendencies had drained him deeply.

The only affordable inn he could find vacant was a run down tin-roofed hovel off of Cobble Street, but who could beat two coppers for a room? “The dog will be extra,” the innkeeper informed him at the desk. Confused, Zukan glanced down to find a black pup with emerald eyes nipping at his heels. Sayaka yapped up at him and wagged her tail. He glared at her new form disapprovingly but forfeited his last remaining copper all the same. He didn’t want to use magyk for this transaction.

“You know, you do not have to take any form at all,” Zukan complained in hushed tones as he latched the thin plywood of his room’s door behind him. “You are safer inside my soul than out, and less of an inconvenience to boot.”

“But if I stay in there I won’t be able to see anything interesting!” Sayaka barked. “Besides, have you ever seen the inside of your soul? It’s cold and damp and a little bit creepy, not to mention boring.”

“You must not be looking in the right places,” Zukan chuckled.

She retreated to the depths of his anima all the same when he put his head down to sleep. Weary though he was, sleep had trouble finding him; he feared that he would wake within the burning shell of a soulless city under a bleeding moon. He eventually drifted off into a fitful dreamless sleep, but when he woke the sun was still full in the sky and far from setting. His body ached worse than it did before, but he knew he would get no more rest no matter how long he lay there.

With a little extra time on their hands, Sayaka suggested that they pay a visit to the Monolith. A glimpse of home would replenish their spirits, and maybe the gargantuan red crystal would lend Zukan some of its strength.

The smelted pipes led their way until they caught sight of the crimson spire, and from there it was a straight shot down Copper Street. Visible from nearly every corner of Lissium, you couldn’t pay for a better guide through the city. The crowd thickened as they approached the Monolith and so did the buildings; the central hub of the city was bustling with life. Zukan could not even imagine how chaotic these streets would become during the festival. Apartment buildings and business offices mingled above shops, taverns and restaurants, all circling around the immense crystal tower. He had to shoulder through the crowd to reach its base. The crystal portion of the tower ended several stories above them where it met copper. The pipes rose from the shafts of the mines deep below to swallow the spire, and a waist-high railing ran its circumference as a precaution for those who wandered too close.

Zukan leaned over it confidently and peered into the shadow of the pit. The copper snakes gave over their luster to the darkness the deeper down they slithered, only to emerge somewhere else in the city to crawl up and over a rooftop or two. He slowly lifted his gaze upward until his eyes converged on the imposing point of the crystal spire. It was even more jagged up close, and the way branches jutted out at harsh angles and sharp corners made it seem almost foreboding. The machine drew in the myst from the atmosphere and crystallized it, just like every other Monolith he had seen, where it sunk into the earth to be mined miles below them, but the sight only made to disquiet him.

“It hardly looks a Monolith at all,” Zukan frowned, inspecting its crevices. “It looks as if they have been sculpting it instead of letting it take on its own form. And tunnels of copper have replaced the base of spell-weaved runes. Any indication that this machine was built by my people has been erased entirely.”

“That may be,” Sayaka’s voice popped into his head, “but it’s the only Monolith this side of the Grand Barrier. Take it or leave it.” She had done him the courtesy of remaining invisible, but he knew it was only a matter of time before she grew restless and took on some other queer new form.

Zukan heaved a great sigh. Grotesque as it was, Sayaka had the right of it. Nothing else in Lissium reminded his even remotely of his home, and home was a long way off. In the heart of the west, Monoliths dotted the horizon like scarlet sentinels, and not a single spire shared a shape with another. Some, like in  Lissium, were surrounded by the cities they fueled. Others stood at crossroads, like a well for weary wanderers in need of a drink of water. A few even sprouted up in the wilderness, untouched by mankind for millennia, while as many others had broken down, dried up and withered millennia ago. But this one, despite the ignorance of those who maintained it, had survived thousands of years after its creators had perished.

"I wonder what it looked like before the Thulogists came to the oasis?" Zukan pondered.

There was a flash of red at his shoulder. True to form, Sayaka was a raven again, but she did not stay perched for long. With a flap of her wings she was airborne, and after a few graceful swoops, she rested on a high branch of crystal myst. With a couple of pecks, she chipped the shard loose and it came tumbling down, clinking and rattling before it came to rest at Zukan's feet.

"Maybe you should ask," she squawked down at him. Though the bird was too far away for him to hear her caw, Sayaka's voice echoed through his mind as if she were still on his shoulder.

Zukan knew the routine. He bent down and picked up the chunk of crimson crystal; he needed to use both hands to hold it but it took no more effort than lifting a balloon filled with air. The maege focused on his breathing and closed his eyes. His palms tingled where they touched the shard, and he felt it shrink in his hands. With every breath it became smaller and smaller until he was truly holding nothing but the wind. 

With that, his third eye snapped open. He was still standing in the same place, only thousands of years ago, when the Oasis was just another part of the desert. No great horned beasts had deigned to appear in this vision, but the hooded men in cloaks of midnight black had made a return. They stood in a circle in the middle of a cluster of sand dunes, surrounding a rent in the earth that glowed ghastly red. The shadow men removed their hoods to reveal their faces; their hair was fiery and the runes that covered their cheeks and foreheads matched the color of the fissure in the sand.

They fell into a rhythm with each other, lifting their hands to the sky and letting them fall again in a synchronous wave. The earth cracked and crumbled and split as the smoldering chasm widened, giving way to a horn of red crystal. A new branch jutted off at the apex of each wave, and the land surrounding it seemed to grow greener. Soon the cloaked men need not even make the motion; the crimson spire began to rise on its own, dominating the skyline. Their deed done, they threw up their hoods once more and sunk into the shadow of the growing tower, but one stayed.

This one’s features were akin to his brothers’, but his eyeballs gleamed like solid rubies. He flicked a wrist, and a mound of sand twisted into a long sheet of beaten bronze. He spun a finger in the air, commanding the plate to wrap around the base, and then gripped the neck of an invisible foe to seal it taut around the crystal. His next movements were more fluid, as if painting with the wind. Metal creaked and moaned as lines on the surface crunched and folded, forming a series of ornate runes not unlike the ones that covered the man’s skin.

Only when all of the symbols were properly inscribed did the man take his leave, but not into the shadow. He tossed his hood back up and flung his arms wide, and the Monolith began to absorb him. Every symbol on the base of the spire illuminated and the man’s runes seemed to peel right off of his skin, floating listlessly like cryptic poem written on parchment made of sky. The crystal tower continued to grow as it took him piece by piece until there was nothing left of the man but his soul, which was the last to be absorbed; the Monolith would never function properly without a soul to use as a catalyst.

Grass, flowers, and other vegetation sprouted up around Zukan’s bare feet and radiated outward from the epicenter until the vast stretch of desert surrounding him was a field of dusty green. The growing Monolith gave one last churn, and Zukan lifted his gaze skyward to find that his question had finally been answered.

The sun glinted off of the innumerable facets in the crystal as it towered above him, winding around and taking the form of a magnificent bird at the top; a cardinal. It was flawless enough to have been carved by no less than a master sculptor, yet the crystal had taken the shape on its own. It was elegant and beautiful, no doubt, but did little to ease his discomfort. There was something ominous in that bird’s gemlike eyes, seeming to peer down at him as if it had something important to say, but it kept silent.

Soon, a pale brick building rose up around the Monolith, then another, and the translucent figure of a person passed in front of him. Reality faded back unexpectedly, leaving Zukan with only the vague outline of the magyk sculpture as the jagged obelisk returned to its current form.

“Why would anybody ever want to destroy something so beautiful?” Zukan muttered, longing for the vision to return.

“When it benefits them financially,” Sayaka landed on his shoulder and ruffled her feathers. “Do you feel any better?”

“Well, my spirits certainly are not lifted, at least not in the way I wanted them to be.” Zukan chuckled, reaching into a fold in his cloak. “I feel as if I could command a mountain to move, but I am no less weary.”

From his cloak he procured a small cloth sack, sealed with a drawstring. Inside he found a tiny cluster of blue crystals sitting in a shimmering sapphire dust. Nearly gone, he sighed, but he reached into the pouch and drew out a tiny shard anyway.

“I know what you’re thinking Zukan… you don’t need that s**t.” Sayaka chirped when she noticed.

Using two fingers, Zukan pinched the crystal into a powder over the back of his hand, and then promptly hooted the dust up a nostril. His heart pounded in his ears.

“You’re going to kill yourself if you keep using that crystalquick as much as you do,” the emerald-eyed raven pecked at his forehead. “Oh yeah, and you can do drugs in public but shape shifting is too risky? You’re such a hypocrite!”

“Do not use that word too loudly around here,” Zukan mused indignantly, knowing full well that nobody else could hear her voice. “And I think you mean I am going to kill the both of us. Your soul is an extension of mine, remember?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s my main concern.”

Zukan felt as if the world was rushing at him. Blood pulsed through his eyes and his joints jittered, but the rush was gone as quickly as it came. If I take the rest of the crystals they might carry me until sundown… But then what would he do after sundown?

This would not have been a problem were he anywhere else in the world but Phaedyssia. He had stocked up on the blue drug at the Rainbow Market in Khroma, beyond the Grand Barrier, where the substance and others like it could be cultivated, sold and used freely. He had even managed to scrounge up some in Naeru when they had passed through the Free Realm, but the crystals were a pale milky blue and nowhere near as potent.

Zukan had a choice to make, so he made it quickly. He held the pouch out over the railing and let it slip through his fingers. A trail of sapphire dust glimmered behind the tumbling sack. Loose crystals clinked against copper and stone until the darkness swallowed up both sound and sight. “I think I’ll just get some coffee.”

The coffee lacked the bite he needed but it was better than nothing. The barkeep gave him a queer look when he declined cream or sugar for the dark heavy brew, but she kept his mug warm all the same. As the shadows lengthened, the crowds thickened; Zukan had been only one of two patrons in the tavern when had taken his seat at the bar, but it had packed up after only a few cups of coffee. By sundown the city was alive with music and raucous laughter and the tavern was no exception.

“How much longer do you plan on sitting here?” Sayaka the girl complained, legs swinging as they dangled over the edge of the bar stool. “The moon is almost completely red, the myst could fall at any minute. How do we know it hasn’t fallen already? Do you think that bloodkin is gonna wait around while we finish our drinks?”

“Believe it or not, Sayaka, there was a time before you were my familiar.” Zukan took a swig of coffee. “It has been a while, yes, but rest assured, this is not my first encounter. The bloodkin is in the city as we speak, but if the myst had fallen we would know full well. Atmospheric myst that dense can be very… detrimental to those who are not properly attuned to it. Yes, these people have been around the stuff their entire lives, but it has only touched their hands, not their souls. When the myst is upon us, first they will slumber, and if it lingers too long, death is inevitable.” Zukan swilled his mug. “But the myst will not fall until the bloodkin finds the one who summoned it. Only then will it strike. But sometimes a bloodkin may… lose its way.”

Sayaka cocked her head. “What are you saying?”

“Around the time that we passed by Thorn Vale, the arcane source I was sensing in the city disappeared.”

“You failed to mention that.”

“Whether or not I had a specific pinpoint on the location is irrelevant, the important part is that I knew it was coming from within Lissium. Now, imagine the bloodkin’s position. Both the creature and I were following the same magyk. Now that the source of it is gone, do you think it has any better idea of where to go than we do?”

“You’re right… but if the source were to return…”

“All hell will break loose, which just means we have to find the source before the bloodkin does.”

Zukan felt a sudden sharp pain in his chest, like the skin, muscles and bone around his heart were twisting and crunching. “And speaking of the devil… or should I say zuul.” He grabbed a crumpled scrap of paper from his pocket and smoothed it over the counter with two fingers. When it lay flat, it resembled a common Phaedyssian banknote; Zukan hoped it looked the same on both sides of the parchment but had no time to dwell on the details. He burst outside with a startled Sayaka in tow.

Little had changed about Lissium other than the volume of people and noise alike, but Zukan now looked at the city in an entirely different way than he did just moments ago. “It is back,” he panted, “and it is strong. Somebody is using magyk in this city.”

Sayaka replied by sinking into her shadow and emerging from it in a fit of feathers, wasting no time taking to the sky. Zukan was not about to chastise her for her promptness, but he was not so eager to throw caution to the wind just yet. He slinked into a shaded alley and emerged on the roof of the building an instant later. His mind’s eye could see the wavering of the myst in the air but he still had difficulty following it. The phantom raven circled around his head. “Sayaka, east,” Zukan called, and she obeyed. He let his eyes take a quick journey through his soul and out of Sayaka’s to give himself a bird’s eye view of Lissium. East and east and east she flew until the source spiked out at them. Above the royal palace, the clouds convulsed and the air trembled and sparked. “Head for the castle, I will meet you there!”

Zukan was about to return to his body when Sayaka’s call of “Zukan, wait,” stopped him in his tracks. “I think you should have a look at this.”

A bell was tolling hollowly in the distance; Sayaka had perched on the steeple of one of Lissium’s many Churches. In the yard below a theatre troupe was putting on a performance, but the players on stage were no longer acting. Throats opened wide to speak with blood, and a myriad of ironclad knights burst forth into the yard from the sanctuary. Some people fought and many more yielded, but they all suffered the same fate. The streets erupted into chaos.

The scene around him was the same when Zukan returned to his body several blocks away. A banner of knights were already in route to Baker Street, while several others headed off the major intersections and squares, subjecting residents and visitors alike to the points of their swords.

“I thought you said everybody would fall asleep when the myst fell?” Sayaka inquired as she surveyed more of the city.

“This is no myst fall…” Zukan replied in horror. “But it will not be far behind. Come back to me, Sayaka, I need my weapon.”

“Take the roofs! What do you need to fight for anyway? Your enemy is heading for the castle!”

“We will still make our way to the palace, and my enemy will make itself known in due time.” Zukan bounded from balcony to balcony until he reached the cobblestone street. “Meanwhile, I will not stand idly by and watch innocent people die senselessly.”

“Always the bleeding heart.” When Sayaka returned to him, she was a sprite again. She rested in her master’s open palm. “What weapon do you want?”

Zukan grinned. “You know which weapon I want.”

The spectral familiar twisted herself into a long, thin shadow that materialized as a rapier with a jet-black blade. The pommel was an exquisitely cut emerald, and a scrap of cloth the color of smoke wrapped around the hilt.

A woman shrieked and a man gasped; Zukan whirled to meet the dumbfounded gaze of a serving girl and the knight who had been subduing her. Her mouth hung agape but the knight’s expression quickly turned to anger; they had seen everything.

“What manner of witchcraft was that just now?” The stocky man shoved his prisoner aside and strode toward the maege. “Speak!”

Zukan taunted him with the ethereal blade. “Want to find out?”

The knight drew up his sword. “Confess your sins and swear your eternal soul to the Church of Thule.”

“Will you spare me if I do?”

“Your soul is beyond salvation,” his grunt echoed around the inside of his helm. “May the Prophets guide you.” The two-handed sword crashed downward, but too slowly for Zukan. He dashed inside of the knight’s swing and caught him in the gut; the spectral edge pierced through the armor as if it was not even there. The knight was dead before he clattered to the ground; his sword was last to fall.

“Go,” Zukan said to the serving girl, but she gave no indication that she had heard. Her mouth and eyes were locked in the same stupefied stare.

“Hey, lady!” Sayaka the sword boomed. “There’s more than just one crusader in this city and we’re not gonna save you twice. Get the hell out of here!”

Though still shocked to speechlessness, the serving girl stumbled to her feet, and with one last look of disbelief ran off screaming.

“Do you see what I mean?” Zukan groaned. “That all could have been avoided so easily.”

“No one’s gonna mind if you use a little magyk in the heat of battle,” Sayaka replied casually. “And if they don’t like it, what are they gonna do about it, kill you?”

“How uncivilized,” Zukan chuckled.

Hordes of chevaliers infested every street corner and crossroads on their way, doling out salvation, but not one of them was a match for the veteran maege. Most of their swings failed to make contact but those that did were parried easily enough. The lucky few who managed escape his detection slashed at nothing but his ghost, only to be stabbed through the spine when he reappeared behind them.

After fending off what seemed like wave after endless wave of enemies, Zukan noticed some of the knights began to fall before ever meeting his blade. Fleeing citizens stumbled and fell to the ground, and did not bother to rise. Zukan’s ears popped and an entire column of men on heavy horse skidded into a wall when crashing around a corner. The men were either crushed when their mounts gave way beneath them, or were too drained of strength to rise when they fell.

Zukan’s eyeballs throbbed and everything was red for a moment. “Sayaka, my dear,” he held the shadow blade at eye level. “This is how you know when the myst has fallen.”

Bodies fell in greater and greater numbers as they walked until all movement ceased. The closer they got to the castle the more it faded from view; the myst was growing so thick that it rendered everything in sight crimson and featureless. Zukan was even having trouble breathing, so Sayaka took the form of a soot-colored scarf to wrap around his face. Never have I breathed myst this foul in all my years, he reflected, with myst this corrupted even I may not be exempt from its influence. The pressure of it was so great that his ears popped every time he swallowed.

It was a straight path to the palace, but Zukan could not help but think that they had lost their way. I believe we walked down this way earlier, he attempted to recall, but the memory was hazy. He was still unfamiliar with Lissium’s streets, his ever-reddening vision made it impossible to tell. “Sayaka, scout ahead for me. Tell me how far it is to the castle… and if anybody is still awake.”

The scarf sprouted wings and flew off of his face. “What are you gonna do while I’m gone, hold your breath?”

“I can breathe as much of it as I want to, but it cannot take my soul unless I allow it,” he waved her off. “Fly.” The phantom fabric sprouted feathers and twisted to form the rest of the bird, and with that she was off.

The wide road was rife with motionless bodies. Zukan could not tell if they were dead or sleeping, nor whether the puddles in the street were water, blood, or something else entirely; everything was red. The myst will take many tonight, especially those who have already been wounded. He had not expected an evening without casualty, but nothing of this magnitude.

Killing in the name of gods and calling it salvation. The notion made Zukan sick to his stomach. What could drive supposedly holy men to commit such atrocities? Had the approaching myst driven them mad? Could one of their ilk be the summoner? Perhaps the leader of their cult had stumbled upon an ancient shadowtome and gone blind with power. Zukan knew little to nothing about the religion, but it all seemed far too coincidental.

He kicked at the armor of an unconscious knight as he passed by, but the sigil on the breastplate made him take a closer look. It was an enameled bird of fiery red with a magnificent crest of feathers on its head. Like the old form of this city’s Monolith, he instantly recalled its silhouette from his vision, like a prophecy.

  “We’re only a few blocks away from the castle wall,” Sayaka’s echo reported. “Gods be damned that myst is thick. I practically had to land on the parapet to get a good look.”

“Any trouble?” Zukan called back, looking around for her. “Where are you now?”

“On the northeast end of Cobble Street, and… well, no trouble. Not really. You just… you gotta see this.”

Zukan blinked into her birds-eye view and immediately took her meaning. Amidst the blood and bodies and rubble, a bewildered man in a cloak and scarf stumbled toward the palace, wildly slashing his sword at nothing.

“I think he’s tripping balls,” Sayaka quipped. “Think this could be our summoner?”

“If that was the case the bloodkin would be with him. He is faring surprisingly well in myst this thick.”

“Um, Zukan?” The raven chirped. “This might just be the myst playing tricks on my eyes, but… just look at his hair.” Although the myst had turned everything in sight an eerie shade of blood red, when Sayaka flew in closer to get a better look the difference was plain as day. “It’s the same color as yours.”

“There is no mistaking it,” Zukan breathed. “That boy has a touch of maegeblood.”