Chapter VIII - Lissium - Jiro

The city of Lissium was eerily silent as Jiro walked her streets, but he had expected that. In fact, he even welcomed it. It would only make his job easier, and Lissium had never been known for being mute. Even in the dead of night she was not this quiet.

Jiro looked down at his swinging arm where the wound had been inflicted to find that it was now no more than a paper-thin scar. He wriggled and clenched his fingers; he could almost see runes where they had illuminated on his skin just moments ago. He drew in a deep breath and felt the myst pulsate through his veins. His soul fluttered, like a second heartbeat, and the tips of his fingers tingled.

“So this is what it feels like to be a maege…” Jiro murmured, clenching and unclenching a fist. Despite all that had transpired, the notion was still having trouble sinking in. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that the old tales were true, let alone that he was one of them. He had always wanted to believe that magyk was not dead, alive and well in some far off, uncharted region, but his own skepticisms had gotten in the way. The truth had been around him the entire time, but who could blame him for not seeing it? After countless centuries of religious repression, and little proof against them, history had been rewritten with nobody to speak for it.

He channeled some more myst through his soul, summoning a tendril from the thin cloud of withdrawing myst, but he could not get his third eye to open again. Somehow, in the heat of the moment, he had known exactly what to do; every move he had made, every command he had spoken to every particle of krima, every spell he had conjured flowed out of him like pure instinct. But now it seemed that the knowledge had retreated to deep corner of his mind like a fading amnesia; the harder he concentrated the more the memory decayed.

Zukan can teach me how to use it again, he reassured himself. Not only that, but who could ask for a better tour guide through the west than a westerner himself? Jiro had always wondered what lie in lands beyond, and now the world was his oyster. As much as it pained him to leave, the opportunity had been too good to pass up. It’s almost as if Orville had known what would happen all along… he reflected. It was all thanks to the Seventh Duche, after all; his meddling with the shadowtome had conjured the spell that summoned the bloodkin, which in turn brought Zukan to the city, and his passing even freed Jiro from any responsibility that would keep him in Lissium. But at what cost…?

Jiro shook the thought from his head. There’s no use lamenting things you have no control over, Delphi would have told him. Even as the voice inside his head, she was right. Delphi is always right. But this one thing he did have control over, and it weighed heavily on his heart. As much as he wanted to flee with her and live out the rest of their days in the Free Realm, he knew an opportunity like this would never present itself again, and he could not take Delphi with him.

He found her sleeping in the middle of Cobble Street, not two blocks from her apartment. She was snoring lightly, and a young boy was clutched in her arms protectively. The sight made him want to laugh and cry at the same time, but he did neither. Why am I not surprised. Delphi always had a big heart for children, and would never allow herself to stand idly by and watch harm befall one, even if it meant her own safety. Fortunately she appeared to be unharmed, save for a visible crack that ran the length of one of the lenses of her glasses. Jiro slung the both of them over either shoulder and made for the cluster of apartments he had called home for years.

The chill of the morning air lingered in the room, so Jiro lit a small fire in the brazier. He situated the slumbering boy on the sofa, then tucked Delphi into her bed with the heaviest sheets he could find. The cold desert nights never failed to give her a chill; even in the peak of summer she was not without her coat. More often than not, Jiro would wake, shivering, to find that Delphi had yanked all of the covers over to her side of the bed. It did not bother Jiro, he preferred to sleep in the cold.

Jiro gathered some clothes, preserves, a carton of Old Myddenese and other necessities into a satchel that he tied around his waist, under his cloak. He quickly hunted down a quill and parchment and scribbled a few lines, then left the note on Delphi’s dresser beneath her wooden box of rolled sweetleaf. He pushed back her hair to plant a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’ll find you,” he whispered, and with that he was gone.

Outside the door he allowed himself a few tears, but he knew he could not linger for long. The sky was already beginning to lighten, pink then orange then yellow then blue; the deep reds of yesterday’s sunrise had long fled. When he emerged into the streets, the first signs of life could be heard. A dog barked, sniffing at the countless motionless bodies. A horse whinnied and clopped around franticly, trying to shake the dead weight of the slumbering rider from its saddle. A woman wailed over the corpse of a man caked with dried blood. A bolt of panic seized through his chest when he heard the clatter of a knight’s armor. I don’t have much time left…

Jiro quickened his pace, cutting across Silt Street to Stone Street. If any Cardinal Blades had decided to awaken, the Church at the square was the last place he wanted to be. More slumbering townspeople stirred as he made for the gate, but few did more than stumble or moan. Some he even recognized from around the city. They don’t seem to know where they are, Jiro observed.

In the distance, he heard a faint cry for help, which increased in volume the closer he got to Stone Street. He soon found the body belonging to the voice; a bearded man was pinned beneath a mound of fallen horses and their steel-clad riders. “Help, somebody, I beg of you!” His pleas were strained by the immense weight on his chest, and his arm was twisted beneath him in a peculiar fashion. Though pressed for time, Jiro quickly went to assist, pulling body after body off of the pile until the man could breathe again. He heaved at the destrier, dragging it by the reins, and the man wriggled loose. Jiro offered him a hand and he got to his feet, brushing himself off and wincing when he bent his elbow.

“Young man with the krima-colored hair, I could thank you every day for a thousand years and it still would not be enough.” The man bowed deeply, finding his floppy hat in the process and placing it back on his head when he rose. “You have my eternal, undying gratitude,” he said with a grin.

Jiro recognized him instantly. “You’re the peddler I bought from last night!”

The peddler shushed him but confirmed all the same. “Ah, I must apologize, I am afraid I cannot recall our meeting. I would certainly not forget the face of a man with hair so fiery red as belongs to you. I do not ordinarily partake of my own product, but last night must have been quite the celebration to make me forsake my vows. I must confess, I do not remember a thing. But I hope you enjoyed your trip all the same.”

“You don’t remember anything at all? The bloodmoon, the festival, not even the attack?” Jiro inquired. Is the myst really that poisonous?

“The attack…” The peddler’s eyes went wide with realization. “Oh… oh my, yes. How could I forget? Young man, you have saved my life once more. I must away, and quickly, before those knights remember as well.”

“Wait…” Jiro held out a hand. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “As it just so happens, I did enjoy my trip,” he lied. “I think I’d like to go on another one.”

“Curse it, my courtesies must have fled with my memory. Of course, of course, help yourself to whatever you like, and think nothing of payment. It is the very least I can offer in return for my continued longevity.”

It did not take long for Jiro to make his decision. By the time the riddling peddler scuffed away, he had stuffed his pouch with a bale of sweetleaf, a narrow glass pipe, several vials of psybocil, amory dust, starpowder, and a sheet of lyserg tabs. If nothing else, it would make his long journey that much more interesting. It’s what Delphi would have wanted me to do.

Zukan was awaiting him patiently outside the gates, as promised. He was sitting atop a wooden wagon hitched to two horses, smoking a cigarette.

“Let me guess. That’s not your wagon?” Jiro asked rhetorically.

“Neither are they my horses,” Zukan chuckled. “I found them at a stable nearby. Animals are usually the first to awaken from myst-induced slumber. It will be less conspicuous if we appear to be traders returning from the bloodmoon festival, at least until we leave the Oasis.” He took a puff of his cigarette. “I was beginning to think you were not going to come.”

“I had to make a last minute transaction.”

Zukan sniffed at the air. “A very important transaction, no doubt. I will forgive your tardiness, so long as you remember to share,” he winked. “Did you, perchance, happen upon any blue crystalquick?”

“What? No!” Jiro scoffed. “Do I look like some kind of junkie to you?”

“Fair enough,” Zukan snorted a laugh as he shrugged.

Jiro rolled his eyes. “Are we leaving or not?”

Zukan patted at the seat’s cushion and Jiro hopped up, slinging his satchel into the carriage behind them. Zukan whipped at the reins and the horses responded, plodding down the dusty gravel road.

“Your hair is white now,” Jiro broke the silence as they rode.

“Is it?” Zukan laughed. “I had not taken the time to notice, and I had not thought to locate a mirror.”

“Do all maege have red hair, like mine?” Jiro asked. “Is that how you were able to single me out earlier?”

“Yes, and the fact that you were the only waking person in a slumbering city,” Zukan chuckled once more. He seemed to have a penchant for amusing himself. “But indeed, that is typically the case. White is the natural hair color of my people, but it has a tendency to redden as more myst is channeled and magyk is conjured. Many powerful maege families pass the trait down through blood, but as I am no longer a maege, it only seems appropriate that the color of my hair has taken leave with my power.”

Jiro sat in contemplative silence for a moment before speaking again. “I never knew my mother. My father didn’t speak much of her either. It was somewhat of an off-limits topic in my household. But there was one story he told me once. He was off leading a war campaign somewhere in Persus when he and his troops encountered a massive encampment of Bronzelords. Tens and thousands of them, more than he had ever seen in one place before. He set up camp for the evening, and was planning a strategy for a morning ambush when a mysterious woman in flowing robes presented herself to his war council. She claimed to be from the far west, beyond the Grand Barrier, and she told my father that she had drank the devil’s root and foreseen his victory in a vision. But in order for the prophecy to come true, he had to give his firstborn son the name of a maege, and that son would be destined for greatness.

“That next morning, despite the odds against them, my father crushed the Bronzelords, and lifted the siege on the fortress city of Thonos, claiming it for Elowyr. And when he and his army sailed back into Daphos, he was cradling an infant with fiery red hair in his arms.” Jiro paused to spark a cigarette. “My father told me that the prophecy would be fulfilled when I came into his throne, and when I was fourteen, he passed away. By all rights, the throne was mine, but I panicked. I was so young, I wasn’t prepared to rule a country. So I fled. I sought refuge in the Free Realm where I took on mercenary work until I was able to support myself. I can’t help but wonder if the prophecy was true, but now I guess I’ll never know.

“So, I guess what I’m asking is… do you think my mother could be… you know, one of you? One of us?”

“There is no denying that your blood runs thick with the west, Jiro,” Zukan responded. “And as to your name, it is quite western indeed, but it is a name I have not heard in many, many years. It is an ancient name, one that lost its meaning millennia ago. I have no doubt that you will discover more about yourself on this journey than you ever would have if you had stayed, but regarding the prophecy, I believe you would do better for forget it. Make your own destiny, and the prophecy will fulfill itself.”

“You’re right, Zukan,” Jiro nodded. “Thank you.”

Zukan grinned. “Think nothing of it. Now, enough of this heavy conversation. That sweet stink from your satchel is strong enough to make me sneeze.”

For the first time since meeting the man, Jiro laughed. “Are you trying to get blazed, Zukan?”

“My hair is not getting any redder, and neither are my eyes.”

Without another word, Jiro reached into his bag behind them and produced a thin leaf of paper and a glistening nugget of the sweetleaf. He crushed and sprinkled the dried grass into the fold of the paper and deftly rolled it up with a twist. Jiro struck a match, lit the tip, drew in a deep lungful of thick white smoke, then gave it to the wind. He felt his entire body relax.

“Damn,” Jiro coughed, eyes watering. “This is some dank bud.”

“I have smoked better,” Zukan casually puffed at the joint. “But this is not bad for eastern sweetleaf. If you think that Kombuchan dreamleaf is good, just wait until we are even farther west than that. I have smoked an herb so vibrantly violet that my face went numb.”

Jiro huffed a laugh, taking another hit from the roll of sweetleaf. The rising sun that crept up behind them cast long shadows in front of them, beckoning them to an unknown land beyond the sunset.

“I can’t wait,” Jiro exhaled.