Chapter VII - The Booktower - Zukan

When Zukan woke he felt empty inside. A cold sweat that beaded on his brow matted his long tangle of hair, now a ghastly white instead of fiery auburn.

“Sayaka?” He called, knowing he would get no reply. The myst would not answer him either, and his soul refused to open. It is as I feared... The maege felt as if he was going to be ill, but he had little time to mourn once he realized that his own soul was yet uneaten. How can that be? Did Jiro decide to play the hero and save us all? His body was drained of energy, but he managed to prop himself up on an elbow, and came to find that his silent jape was truer than he ever could have believed.

Jiro was cloaked in a blazing aura of myst and his flesh was alive with familiar crimson runes. Tongues of black shadow flickered at his ankles. Zukan’s jaw dropped in awe. The blood of the maege has awakened within him. “It appears we were not wrong, Sayaka,” he said to no one, then cursed himself for his folly.

The myst still lingered in the air, thinner than before but still visible. On the far side of the room, the boy who had been reading from the shadowtome was now hovering in midair, suspended by a whirling vortex of myst. So the bloodkin has taken the boy’s soul for its own, but has yet to devour all of the myst. There may still be a hope, but… if only I had completed the seal. Zukan had known that he could not save Sayaka, but he ran to her all the same, jeopardizing the entire mission. For how long was she my companion, and what am I without her? Now he was just another human taking up space. It would take some getting used to.

Blazing orbs of fire rained down as quickly as the bloodkin’s vessel could conjure them. Jiro dodged each and every one with fluid precision, though one managed to singe the tip of his scarf. The possessed boy lurched, lashing out with a tangible tendril of thick red myst. Jiro did not waver. With the toss of an arm, an ephemeral wall of shadow rose to shield him, deflecting the blow. Another whipped at him; Jiro whirled clear of it and drew his sword. Shadowy wisps crept up his arm and over the blade as it swung downward, severing the ethereal tentacle before it could recoil. With a gut-wrenching bellow, the spawn eschewed a rapid wave of sound rippling through the air. Zukan cringed and covered his ears but Jiro stood resolute, unflinching. Now that it had a soul to manipulate the bloodkin would only continue to grow in strength, but Jiro batted away every affront as if he were swatting down a pesky fly.

Such power I have never seen... not even amongst mine own kin, the westerner gaped. And mere moments ago the boy had never even seen a maege before. Even the bloodkin was not so blind as to not realize that the foe it faced was formidable, keeping a cautious distance. As the pair danced their deadly waltz around each other, Zukan caught a fleeting glimpse of Jiro's face; the whites of his eyes had turned black as midnight, accented by a fearsome golden iris. But he does not know what to do with his power. The myst controls him now. Perhaps that was for the best; without Sayaka, Zukan had no magyk, and without his magyk he would not be able to conjure the seal. With power of this magnitude Jiro might even be able to vanquish the bloodkin outright without need of a seal, but would it be enough? Zukan had just witnessed what he thought was only possible in his wildest of dreams unfold before him, yet doubt still filled his heart. No, there is no other choice. It must be enough.

Another ethereal tendril snapped at Jiro, but this time he ducked inside of the blow, dashing headlong toward the bloodkin's vessel with his sword at ready. The possessed boy screeched in terror and lashed out once more. The tentacle of myst parted before Jiro's blade as he rushed onward. Out of options, the bloodkin took the boy's body skyward, but Jiro was too fast. He reached out with his free hand, missing by a hair, but the shadowy tongues of flame that engulfed him acted as an extension of his arm, ensnaring the boy’s ankle with phantom fingers. Jiro gave the thread a tug, yanking the bloodkin from the air. The possessed boy came crashing to the floor but had no time to recover; Jiro's blade was already raised above his head, point turned down and poised to strike.

"Mortis verum," the newly made maege chanted.

Zukan perked up. That magyk...

Thick wisps of myst gathered around the sword. The fierce aura that swirled around Jiro flared, and the runes on his skin began to glow brighter, like a hearth smoldering with hot coals. Jiro drove the edge downward, piercing flesh, bone, and spirit. The bloodkin's death rattle was like nails on a chalkboard, cutting through Zukan's entire being like a thousand knives. The demon left the boy's body in a gray cloud of unholy smoke, taking the vague form of a skull before dissipating into the air. 

Crimson runes faded from Jiro's flesh and the blackened flames blew out like candles in the wind. Zukan's vision returned to normal; the imposing crimson smog was clearing. Blood pooled on the floor around the boy's body where the sword was still thrust through his chest. The screeching died like a teakettle coming down from a boil, and then all was silent, save for Jiro's weeping.

The events of the last few minutes had played out like something out of a fever dream, and dragged on for what seemed like a lifetime. Zukan was stunned to speechlessness; his thoughts were a swarming clutter like a hive of angry hornets. He had to let it all soak in for a moment before fully coming to grips with reality. Body shaking, he struggled to a knee a hobbled over to where Jiro stood.

"I didn't want to kill him," Jiro told Zukan without lifting his gaze from the fresh corpse at his feet. "But something... something told me that I had no other choice... that the bloodkin had consumed him. His soul was beyond saving."

"It is true," Zukan answered his unasked question. "Bloodkin are like parasites of the soul. Once it latches on only death can release it."

Jiro turned to look at him, tears streaming down his cheeks. His eyes had returned to their usual hue of pale turquoise, now red and puffy. "And your partner..."

"The very same," Zukan choked. Sayaka was the very last thing he wanted to talk about, but he owed the boy his life. An explanation was the least he could offer. "Sayaka was my familiar... a fragment of mine own soul brought to life by the myst, and the source of my power as a maege. As I am sure you are aware by now, a maege needs myst to use magyk. The maege draws in the krima, whether it be from crystal or myst, and the soul manipulates it, generating the magyk. Now, keep in mind what I told you earlier; krima is life. When it passes through one's soul, it has a tendency to accumulate. As a direct result, the power of the maege will grow in proportion to how much magyk is generated, and sometimes even give birth to new life.

"I have been a maege for a long time, Jiro, longer than I care to admit. Sayaka spawned from my soul many years ago, and I have spent more of my life with her than without. She was like a piece of my personality incarnate, a piece that would have been long neglected had she not breathed life into it. We had never faced a bloodkin together, but she... I was too careless. And now she is gone forever.

“We were infinitely similar yet infinitely different. She was my strength, in more ways than one; without her I am truly lost." Zukan reached into the fold of his robe and produced two rolls of tobac. He offered one to Jiro, which he eagerly accepted. "But you have suffered a great loss today as well," he continued. "You knew the boy well?"

Jiro sniffled, drying his face with his scarf. "His name was Orville... he was like a brother to me. I served as a hired blade under his father during the war against the desert bandits three years ago, and I had the honor of watching him grow from a boy into a man. I have no true family to speak of, and Orville always treated me as one of his own. But he was more than that... as his father was the Sixth Duche, Orville was the Seventh. He was the lord of Lissium and ruler of the Oasis, and I was his guard."

Zukan's eyes widened. "And you let him have a shadowtome?"

"I told you, I didn't think the spells actually worked!" Jiro protested. "He had such a thirst for knowledge... he reminded me of myself when I was his age."

"Then perhaps you should remove your sword from his chest cavity. The city will not slumber forever, and when they find the boy's body, they will know it was you who slayed him."

"Let them." Jiro drew a deep lungful of smoke.

"It appears you have already made your decision.”

"You saw the knights, you heard their prayers.” Jiro exhaled a white cloud. “The Church of Thule was founded on the fear of the maege, and their faith founded Lissium. When the bloodmoon rose last night, on the night of the city’s Centennial, they must have taken it as a slight from the Prophets and sought their own form of justice. Whether they had planned to murder the Duche themselves or take him captive makes no matter, they will usurp his throne. Either way, he’s dead now, at my hand, so I no longer have any place here. The Thulogists can have their damnable city, and I’ll just be another heretic,” he spat.

“Where will you go?” Zukan inquired.

“I don’t know. I certainly can’t return to Elowyr, and Sayiif is out of the question. I guess I can always find mercenary work in the Free Realm again.” Jiro shrugged. “What about you?”

“I am a maege without magyk, where else am I to go?” Zukan chuckled. “If I am to have any hope of regaining my power, I must return to my homeland. I am going west.”

“So it’s true,” Jiro breathed a sigh of wonder. “The maege are not dead…”

Zukan chuckled again. “If you do not believe that by now, my friend, then you are truly lost. I could show you if I had a map, but no chart from these parts would suffice in the slightest.”

Jiro gasped with realization. “I have a map.” He reached inside of his cloak and rummaged around for a moment before producing a roll of yellow, weathered parchment. He knelt on the floor, away from the blood, and unfurled the scroll, letting it roll until it was completely flat.

“So little has changed in so many years,” Zukan smiled as he glanced over the ancient map. At the edge of the eastern ocean, where Phaedyssia would have been, the words Eastern Maege Empire were spelled out in the old symbols of his language. The runes continued westward, Persus, Kombucha, Khroma, Gothosso, on and on until he located the star that represented his nation. He did not need to search hard. “There, at the westernmost edge of the map, where land ends and ocean begins again. That is my home; Zephias, the magyk city where the maege reign supreme.” He flicked the ash from the tip of his cigarette. “You should come with me.”

“W-what, go west?” Jiro stammered nervously. “I can’t do that! I may be unburdened in the Oasis, specifically, but I still have… commitments.”

“Be that as it may, Jiro, you have an undeniable affinity for channeling myst. For one who has never used magyk before, you withstood the pressure of the myst with surprising aptitude. And you killed a bloodkin. Even I did not have the strength to do that.”

Jiro looked down at his hands, saying nothing.

“Let me put it to you this way,” Zukan persuaded. “You say you are a mercenary looking for work? Well, consider yourself hired. Without my magyk I would fare no better in the wilds of the west than a common man, and I am not well versed with weapons of steel. I have no gold to speak of at the moment, but coin is easily earned, and our journey will be rife with opportunity.”

“Can you teach me how to use this power?” He asked with a waver of hesitation. “How to use magyk?”

“If you provide me with patience, yes. But one man can only teach so much, and I am only trained in one school of magyk. A maege from the east would make a far better teacher. There are schools, spells and styles beyond counting, it is simply a matter of discovering which one suits you best.”

A long silence followed, but Jiro finally spoke up. “Okay,” he replied, “I’ll go with you. I just have a few things I need to take care of first.”

Zukan bowed respectfully. “Do not dawdle. The myst still lingers, for now, but with nothing to keep it down it will return to the atmosphere in due time. The city will wake and the chaos is sure to resume. I would rather not be present for it.” He walked to the open door of the booktower and beckoned Jiro with a hand. “I will be waiting outside the gates of the city. If I do not see you by sunrise, I am leaving without you.”

“One last thing,” Jiro turned his gaze back to Orville’s corpse with a sorrowful look in his eye. “In your language… how do you thank somebody?”

“In which way? There are hundreds.” Zukan chuckled that knowing chuckle. “You could always say vit parsem. Roughly translated into your tongue, it would mean peace be with you, in this life and the next.”

“Vit parsem…” Jiro repeated mournfully, dipping a quick bow before joining Zukan outside of the booktower.

With a hollow echo, the door swung shut.