Chapter 50 The Parting
Solebria had collapsed into a smoldering sea of rubble, swallowing thousands of innocent citizens. Those who were lucky enough to find themselves alive trickled from the city like blood dripping from a wound.
In the middle of it all, the Crystal Palace sat quietly.
A single column of light shot from the highest spire toward the vault of the sky above. It left the scarred and broken land below and reached for the heavens. Wataru instinctively knew that the light revealed the path to the Tower of Destiny—the destination of all Travelers in possession of all five gemstones.
Wrapped in his black robes, Mitsuru was flying up the column of light. No one could stop him now. No one could block his course.
Down below, survivors watched until the tiny black figure was sucked up into the blue and disappeared.
At that same moment, the wind died. The great cyclone that had ravaged the palace faded until there was nothing more than a gentle breeze.
The golems trembled ever so slightly before coming to a halt. Their magical switches had been turned off. In the midst of the dust and wreckage, the golems stood silently.
Then, as if by decree, they turned to dust, crumbling like sand castles swept away by the ocean’s tide.
Here, one dropped to its knees. A head crumbled, flowing down over its shoulders. A fist evaporated. One by one, the golems disintegrated without a sound or cry, mingling with the wreckage of the city. Soon there was no trace of them at all.
Nothing else moved in the city save the persistent flames. Yet these too faded. The great blazes soon lost their strength, reduced to nothing more than severed tongues of fire searching for nourishment.
Or perhaps it was merely intermission. Those who remained felt the ground tremble beneath their feet. Something was rising from deep below in fits of violent energy—there was a crashing sound of a thousand hoof-beats.
The Crystal Palace once again blazed with a light inspired by the rock it took its name from. The castle began a bizarre transformation. The four square wings collapsed. The main arch sagged. Towers leaned. Terraces warped.
It was collapsing in the most unconventional manner. The entire structure shrank to a single point—that point being the emperor’s throne. The shining milky-white rock of the castle was folding into itself, being sucked into a singularity. A thousand mouthlike windows gave off a soundless scream, then they, too, were swallowed.
In the space of only a few seconds, the entire Crystal Palace had disappeared.
In its place, a mist black as night began spreading. It swirled as though it were made of a thousand tiny black birds. In mere moments, it took over the space left by the castle.
The black mist then spread out, forming two wings, rising into the sky. The wings beat slowly, lifting what had slept within the ground higher and higher.
The Mirror of Eternal Shadow.
It hung in the sky like an inverted sun, raining darkness down on the wreckage of the city below. The surface of the mirror shimmered with the joy at its release from eternal bondage. Then, it began to spit a flood of darkness into the sky.
Far away in the National Observatory at Lourdes, Dr. Baksan sat with his spectacles perched upon his nose, poring over the pages of a thick manuscript. He stood on his specially crafted wooden boots, surrounded by the chatter of students busy at their work. A tiny feathered pen moved in his hand, annotating a passage of particular interest—
The doctor’s eyes opened wide. The color drained from his face.
“Is something wrong?” Romy asked from nearby.
Dr. Baksan’s little mouth was gaping. His eyes swam, looking out the window. “No…” he muttered. Before Romy could catch him, he toppled off his high boots and fell crashing to the floor.
The Spectacle Machine circus troupe had arrived in Gasara several days earlier and set about preparing for their first show. The city was still under the command of the Knights of Stengel. High Chief Gil had been arrested, and the branch stripped of its power. The Knights closely monitored and controlled all movement, not just in and out of the town but within the town itself. People were restless and worried. Troupe leader Bubuho aimed to mend that with the most uplifting performance he could muster, given his limited time and resources. Thus he was engaged in instructing Puck and the other acrobats in the intricacies of a new routine when one of the circus workers ran up. “Bubuho! Granny wants you to come right away!” he said breathlessly.
Bubuho frowned and made his way over to Granny’s tent. When he stuck his head in through the curtains hanging over the entrance, he found her seated, staring with narrowed eyes at a crystal ball sitting atop a velvet cushion.
“Something wrong?”
The old woman looked up. “The seal has been broken,” she said simply. The faint radiance of the ball shone in her eyes. Her voice was trembling. “The Mirror of Eternal Shadow…the demonkin come!”
Meanwhile, on the Isle of Dragon, the wyrmking stared up at the sky through the Stinging Mist. He saw in the swirling of the fog a sign that no one but he could read.
A shudder of fear and then determination coursed through his ancient body. “Dragons!” said the wyrmking, slowly rising. “The seal has been broken. The Mirror of Eternal Shadow has appeared upon the land. War is upon us. Let us lend our wings of steel to the Goddess, let us rise as defenders of Vision!”
The island, the sea, and even the mist shook as the dragons’ howls of rage coalesced into a single oath.
We will rise. We will defend.
Where…are we?
Wataru’s cheek was pressed to the ground. He could smell dust.
His eyes opened. The ground he was on was smooth and level. His hands lay before his eyes, covered with grime. His right fist still tightly gripped the hilt of the Brave’s Sword.
Wataru twisted his legs around and sat up on his knees. The girl in the white dress was lying beside him on the floor. She was sprawled face down, like a broken doll. One of her shoes had fallen off. The fine silk of her dress was filthy.
Mitsuru had flown out of the mirror hall in the Crystal Palace. Wataru knelt, the world spinning around him, then slumped back down to the floor. He shook his head and tried to stand again.
He could see the city walls of Solebria far in the distance. How far were we thrown? He looked around. A sparse forest surrounded them. The grass was dry, and bare ground poked through in places. Rocks lay scattered here and there, as if they too had been thrown from the city.
It’s cold. The wind on the north continent was hard and icy. Yet at least it was a natural wind.
What happened to the Crystal Palace? And Mitsuru? What happened while I was unconscious?
Kutz was nowhere to be seen. Where did she get tossed to?
The girl in the white dress moaned with pain, and her arms twitched. Wataru hobbled over and helped her rise. “Are you okay?”
The girl’s eyes opened drowsily, and after some effort, she managed to focus on Wataru’s face. “Where am I?”
“Near Solebria. We’re in a forest—I don’t see a road.”
At the last moment, Mitsuru had told them to escape. Escape from what?
“The mirror.”
Wataru looked back toward Solebria and swallowed. An inky black mist was swirling in the air over the city.
The dragons were above flying. Actually, they were fighting—they were fighting that mist. As he watched, the fog wrapped around one, sending the winged beast plummeting toward the ground.
Forgetting all else, Wataru began to run toward the city. Lifting his Brave’s Sword up, he fired a magebullet into the sky. “Jozo! Jozo! Where are you?”
After he had fired several more shots, he spotted a red speck low in the sky. Jozo. He’s coming this way—look how fast he’s flying. Directly behind him, a lump of the black mist had broken off from the rest and was giving chase.
“Jozo! Over here!” Wataru ran as fast as he could, waving his arms and shouting, but the next moment he stopped, speechless. He could now see the mist behind Jozo more clearly.
Wings. The mist has black wings. It’s not a mist—it’s a swarm! Each of the creatures in the swarm was as large as a man. They had sharp talons on their hands and feet, and emaciated bodies. Their skin was the color of night.
Demonkin!
“Wataru!” Jozo shot through the air straight toward him. He came down, flying so low he was only a few feet off the ground. “Get on! Get on! Quick!”
Wataru leaped and landed squarely on Jozo’s back. Jozo wobbled in the air with the added weight, his leg nearly brushing the ground.
“The girl! Get the girl!”
The girl in the white dress was still standing where he had left her. Wataru reached out and grabbed her.
He had succeeded in getting half of her up onto Jozo’s back when one of the demonkin following them lunged, clutching at her leg with a spiky claw. Slung over the dragon’s back, Wataru found himself suddenly face-to-face with the demonkin.
It was a skeleton of bones, black to the marrow. Two holes glared out from above a grinning face. Where there should have been lips gleamed a row of long white fangs. No flesh covered the bones on its hands. It flapped its wings and made a sound like the screeching of twisted metal. Then the thing yanked at Zophie’s leg, trying to pull her off the dragon. Turning her head to look at the demonkin for the first time, she screamed.
Wataru sat up on the dragon’s back, clutching the girl with one hand while swinging his sword with the other. He aimed it at the thin, filthy hide that covered the demonkin’s prominent ribs, thrusting the point in as deep as it would go.
With a grunt, the demonkin let go of Zophie’s leg. Wataru was able to pull her all the way up onto Jozo’s back this time. He took another slash at the voracious creature.
“Fly up! Shake them off!”
Jozo picked up speed, but the two stubbornly clutched the stump of his tail. Wataru slashed them away with his sword and fired a magebullet at the crowd swarming through the air after them. The bolt of light hit, scattering demonkin in every direction. They had gained a lead, as small as it was.
“Jozo, fire!”
Flame gushed right beside Wataru’s face. Bull’s-eye. The demonkin were hit square. They fell to the ground, trailing black smoke. Half of the swarm faltered in its flight, and a few of them began to fly away.
“Where’s everyone, Jozo?”
“Meena and Kee Keema are with the pillars,” he answered between gasping breaths. “I was too tired to carry them much longer. What are we going to do?”
The dragons were still in the air above Solebria. Wataru wondered what had happened to the one he saw fall.
Jozo was clearly exhausted. Blood streamed from cuts all over his body. His eyes swam in tears. He lurched as he flew, his flight path meandering like a snake, occasionally gaining altitude only to drop back down.
The girl in the white dress was rigid with fear. She moved her mouth but no voice came out.
“Take this girl to the forest,” Wataru said pointing to a thick stand of trees ahead of them to the right. “You can hide from the demonkin in there. Stay out of sight until I come get you with the others, okay?”
“O-okay. But what will you do?”
“I’ll be fine. Now, fly and hide!”
Wataru held the sword in both hands and prayed. Take me to Meena. Take me to the dragon she’s riding on!
The warp worked. When the world snapped into focus around him again, he was sitting on the back of one of the seven pillars. The dragon was wearing a crown like a rooster’s crest atop its head. Meena was holding on to the dragon’s neck, but when she saw Wataru she sprang up and jumped through the air to him.
“Meena, are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine, I’m fine!” She was pale and covered in soot. “Look at it, Wataru, just look at it!”
He looked up to see the mirror being lofted into the air on a pair of giant dark wings. It was a black portal out of which the demonkin armies came streaming, a spring of evil that would never dry up. They blotted out the sky over Solebria, flying to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west. They would soon cover all of Vision.
The leader of the dragons was bravely flying toward the mirror. He breathed balls of flame and beat the air with his wings. He valiantly knocked away all demonkin that dared come too close. Yet there was no hope against such overwhelming numbers.
“We’ll never make it to the mirror like this!”
“Yet we must try—just one breath—I must try!” the dragon’s head whipped around, tearing a demonkin off its neck and tossing it into empty sky.
“We must run for now. We can’t win against these numbers. We have to protect the people below from the demonkin, tell them to run into the forest. That’s where we’ll hide!”
“Never!” the dragon roared, spitting jet after jet of flame at the retreating demonkin. Wataru stood on his back, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Everyone, to the forest! Retreat! We’ll be destroyed out here!”
“Wataru!” shouted Kee Keema atop a nearby dragon. He held his great axe high above his head. Though his face brightened at seeing his friend again, he had never sounded so disheartened. Behind him several of the wounded from Solebria hung on the dragon’s back. The dragon protected them as they clung cowering to its scales, and Kee Keema, howling with rage, cut down the demonkin that came swarming in like insects. “Vermin! I’ll send you all back where you came from!”
“To the forest! Get everyone into the forest!”
“Right!”
Enough demonkin now filled the sky to block out sight of anything else. Wataru flew on, occasionally shouting out Kutz’s name. He watched the back of each dragon that peeled away from the onrushing black cloud, yet could find her nowhere.
Wataru’s eyes swam with fear and anxiety, and he began to worry if perhaps he had already seen her and just not realized it. Calm down. I have to calm down. Wataru fended off a tangled cloud of demonkin with a few wellaimed magebullets while Meena gave the dragon directions.
Then, amid the rubble on the ground below, Wataru saw Kutz. She was brandishing her whip, standing guard over two Solebrians. One was lying on the ground, the other hunched over in a ball. They were children.
“Kutz! Up here!”
As they flew by, Wataru fired a few magebullets at the demonkin attacking them. Kutz was dancing on the fallen remains of houses, her whip slashing to all sides, knocking wings and grinning skulls off any demonkin foolish enough to come too close.
Wataru had the dragon fly low and hover next to Kutz’s position. He jumped down to the ground. Behind him, Meena deftly wrapped her tail around the dragon’s wing, swinging down to scoop one of the children up off the ground. Then she repeated the process with the next. “Got ’em!”
Wataru turned back to Kutz. “Hurry!”
“Just a few more of these to clean up!” Kutz shouted, sending her whip keening through the air to strike the demonkin directly in front of her. Her right eye was completely closed now, and her left arm seemed to be moving awkwardly. In fact, she could hardly move it at all. It must have been broken before when Mitsuru’s magic had thrown her across the mirror hall.
“Leave them to me! You have to get on the dragon!” Wataru shouted, grabbing the back of Kutz’s vest.
“What are you doing?!”
“Get on!”
The Brave’s Sword slashed through a demonkin that flew at them with bared fangs. The dragon spat fire, clearing a path.
Kutz held her whip clenched between her teeth. Her left hand was useless, but she managed to lift herself up onto the dragon’s back with only her right. Wataru slashed at demonkin after demonkin, his body drenched in cold sweat.
“Hang on, Kutz. Hang on!” Meena grabbed her arm, when one of the children began to scream. Two demonkin had snuck up from the rear and were climbing onto the dragon’s back, their faces leering above its dully reflective scales.
“Meena, behind you!” Kutz shouted, and the whip fell from her mouth. She stood on the dragon’s back, launching herself at the demonkin with her bare hands. A swift kick knocked one of them off. Immediately, she turned and began to grapple with the other. Though she managed to push it back, its fangs flashed, and the foul creature bit deep into her neck. There was a spray of startlingly bright blood.
“Get your teeth off me!” screamed Kutz in a rage. She reached for the demonkin’s throat with her right hand. Meena kicked at the demonkin’s torso and clawed at its face. Kutz was knocked off balance and fell, and the demonkin came down on top of her.
“In your dreams!” Kutz shouted, twisting the demonkin’s neck with her right hand. She successfully wrenched the head from the body. The decapitated corpse slid off the dragon’s back. Wataru fired a volley of magebullets into the swarm of approaching demonkin, then leaped on top of the dragon. “Fly!”
The dragon lifted into the air. Meena held tightly to the crying children. Wataru crawled over to Kutz, still lying on her back.
She was still grasping the demonkin’s head she had torn off. She took a second to examine it. “Handsome one, aren’t you,” she spat before tossing it aside. “No one kisses my neck on the first date and gets away with it.”
Despite her jests, the cut on Kutz’s neck was gushing blood. Wataru took off his shirt, bunching it up, and held it to the wound. The soiled cotton garment rapidly soaked up the blood. “I’m fine,” she muttered. “Don’t look at me like that.”
She was still smiling when she passed out.
The seven pillars were now reduced to five. Jozo lay on his side, sleeping quietly, save for the occasional pained snore.
Several of the refugees from Solebria were hiding in the forest with them. How many had they saved? Wataru counted only a dozen or two, no more. Maybe some escaped to other places.
A metropolis of one million people reduced to this in merely half a day. It boggled the mind. None among the survivors were unharmed. Some were in such pain it hurt them even to sit up, so they lay on their backs, blank eyes turned toward the sky and unresponsive to questions. Wataru saw a child consoling another child who was crying.
They couldn’t treat the wounds properly—they didn’t even have medicine. The dragons, too, were covered with injuries. Heads lowered, they rested their wings and closed their eyes.
Dusk was already turning into night. The only source of light came from a slender crescent moon that hung like a thread in the sky. Inside the forest was like the bottom of the sea. All was quiet under a heavy current of sadness that slowed their movements and dulled their thoughts.
The coniferous trees of this northern forest bristled with thick needles, standing close to one another against the cold. The forest was not as colorful or as varied as the forests of the south. Yet now, it seemed that the trees were reaching out their branches as far as they could, covering Wataru and the others from sight. They hid those who had escaped under their boughs, and turned silent faces to the sky as though nothing were out of the ordinary in the space between their roots and canopy.
Now and then, they would hear the sounds of demonkin wings beating through the air above the trees. But these were only sporadic, and the attacks had ceased completely. Wataru wondered whether the demonkin could move at night. Did they even need rest? Or would they blend into the darkness, awaiting the chance to strike?
“Once we’ve rested and regained our strength, we will head back to our island,” the dragons announced to Wataru. “The wyrmking is sure to have sensed the broken seal and will be preparing for war. Some of our kin may be coming this way even now.”
“Regardless,” said another, “we cannot hope to face them with the few we have here.”
Meena and Kee Keema wandered among the injured, talking to them. Meena returned to report that she had found one with some knowledge of the local area. “He says there is a spring nearby, and if we pass through the woods to the west, there will be a rocky hill, where there is a cave large enough to hide us. I wonder if we can’t get everyone to the cave before dawn?”
If they were going to move at all, it was best that they did it now during the lull in attacks. This might even be the only chance for the people in the woods here to survive another day.
“Right,” Kee Keema said. “We’ll take them to the cave, then we’ll return to the Isle of Dragon. Then we need to get back to the south. They need to know as soon as possible, so they can get ready to fight the demonkin.”
Wataru nodded, but inside he worried whether they would be in time. Worse, even if they were in time to warn the south, what could they hope to do? Even if they were to gather all the Highlanders and all the Knights of Stengel in the south, would they be able to stand against the demonkin hordes?
It’s over—the words waited behind his trembling lips. I couldn’t stop Mitsuru from breaking the seal on the Mirror of Eternal Shadow. I failed.
Mitsuru had won. This time, there would be no coming back.
“Excuse me…” a hesitant voice called out. Wataru looked up to see a short elderly man looking at him. His clothes were in tatters, and his hair was half singed off his head.
“What?”
“Your friend over there…” he looked back at a mound of grass a short distance away. Kutz was sleeping in the weeds. “She says she wants to talk to you.”
Wataru put a hand on the tree and managed to stand up. He wobbled, and the old man caught his arm, steadying him.
“Th-thank you.”
“Can you walk?”
Wataru couldn’t begin to count the cuts and bruises he had endured that day. His left ankle throbbed like it was sprained, though he couldn’t remember twisting it.
The old man lowered his voice. “I’m no doctor, but I was a medic with the Imperial Army in my youth. I know what a dying man looks like.”
Wataru looked into the old man’s eyes.
“Your friend, she’s not doing well. I’m afraid if we don’t get her help…”
Wataru pulled at the man’s elbow, and they stopped. The man patted Wataru’s arm lightly, but said nothing.
“Isn’t there something you can do? If there’s any way we can save…”
“The wound is deep, and she’s lost a lot of blood. We can’t do much about that. I believe she’s aware of the situation herself.”
That’s why she wanted to see me.
Part of Wataru didn’t want to face it. He didn’t want to know. He walked slowly, dragging his feet. Yet he walked, and soon he could see Kutz lying in the shadow of a low thicket. Someone had thrown a shirt over her. The wound at her neck was wrapped with strips of cloth. An old woman sat by her side, gently patting her arm.
“My wife,” the old man told him. “That we both made it this far is thanks to you.”
Kutz’s face was paler than the moon. Wataru walked softly over, taking her hand in his own.
“You okay?” she asked, her voice the same as always—perhaps a little weaker.
“Yeah. I managed to make it without getting hurt too bad.” He tried to smile. “You too. That’s a nasty bite you got, but you’re looking good.”
Kutz chuckled deep in her throat. “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that. I’ve been hurt before, but never like this.” She spoke calmly, quietly. Kutz was never quiet. Even when she was sitting in her chair back at the branch in Gasara, the blood always seemed to be boiling just under her skin. That’s who she was. Not this quiet person lying here in the grass.
“Don’t give up so easy,” Wataru said, trying to sound tough. “Rest tonight and you’ll be fine. We’ll go back to the Isle of Dragon and get you some proper medicine. Okay? Just got to hold on a little longer.”
Kutz released her grip on Wataru’s fingers and lifted her hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered softly. “I asked the impossible of you, brought you all this way, and it was all for nothing.”
“It’s not your fault, Kutz.” Wataru said, but his voice quivered, and his eyes burned.
“And look at me. Here I am leaving before you…I can hardly ask for forgiveness, can I…”
“Don’t say that!”
Kutz smiled and looked at Wataru. She gently brushed his cheek.
Wataru heard footsteps coming across the grass. He looked over his shoulder, thinking it was Meena, and saw instead the girl in the white dress. She was standing, clutching herself with both arms.
“The emperor died, didn’t he?” Kutz asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes.”
“Can’t really call it a success, though. Lost my whip too.”
Wataru felt Kutz’s hand on his cheek, her fingers—so soft. He had never realized how gentle, how delicate her hands were.
“I’m afraid I may have made a terrible mistake. Not just this time, but so many times before.”
Wataru wanted to tell her, “No, that’s not right,” but his mouth remained closed. She wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to someone else only she could see. Her good eye wasn’t focused on him. She was already back home, in the south, the familiar sound of the busy Gasara streets ringing in her ears.
“You’re the chief, Kutz. You’re my chief,” Wataru said, putting his hand over hers. “You’re a great Highlander. You were always faithful to your duty, and you did what was best to protect Vision.”
She smiled up at him. “Thanks.”
Wataru saw his own face reflected in her eyes. “Wataru. You…you have to make it. Don’t die.”
Wataru nodded. A tear ran down his cheek.
“Your journey…it’s not over. It’s nowhere close to being over. Don’t even think about giving up.”
Her last words were barely more than a breath. Wataru had to lean close to hear. The old man knelt down next to his wife and looked down at the fallen Highlander. “We are Solebrians. You saved us. Can you hear me?”
Kutz moved her head almost imperceptibly, looking in his direction.
“You will go meet with the Goddess now. Until the day you are reborn, you will become a light shining over Vision.”
Kutz closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then whispered in a hoarse voice. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“Before you leave this land, would you like to give a prayer of atonement? We can help you.”
Kutz nodded. Her lips moved, forming the word “please,” but no voice could be heard.
The old man held one of Kutz’s hands. His other hand he put upon his own chest. Beside him, his wife put her hand to her chest as well. She gently stroked Kutz’s forehead with the other.
“We are the children of the Goddess. We leave the dust of the earth, and rise to you.” The gentle words of a prayer flowed from the old man’s mouth. “Light most pure, source and mother of all, lead us now. Light the darkness at the feet of this traveler who now comes to join you. Wash away her sins, and ready a place for her soul in the heavens.”
The old woman brushed Kutz’s waving hair.
“Little child, child of the land. Do you repent your trespasses in the Goddess’s eyes?”
Kutz, eyes closed, nodded ever so slightly.
“Do you repent your sins as a child of man, the conflict, the anger, the empty struggle, the foolish ignorance?”
Kutz nodded again.
“Do you repent the lies, your own greed, your failure to accept the glory that the Goddess has given unto the children of man?”
Kutz nodded yes a third time. The old man replied with a silent nod of his own. “Here then your penance is done, your sins upon the land wiped clean as you were at birth. Be at peace, child of man, for you will surely be called into that eternal light’s embrace. Vesna esta holicia. Though a child of man knows time, life itself is eternal.”
A single tear welled in the corner of Kutz’s eye. Then it trickled up her forehead, falling into her black hair.
At once, the strength went out of her hand that Wataru still held to his cheek.
Wearing a faint smile and looking at peace, despite her many wounds, Kutz died.
The old couple were crying too. The woman stroked Kutz’s forehead again and again. Wataru joined their whispered prayer.
Sleep, child of man. Sleep.