The First Kaiaru (33 page)

A
s Turesobei knelt in the Inner Sanctum, Lord Gyoroe said, “Get it right, and you will never have to repeat that experience.”

Turesobei spent several minutes trying to focus his mind and calm his emotions, but it was no use. After what Lord Gyoroe had made him do, there was no way he could get himself in the right frame of mind for magical study. Everything inside of him was still reeling.

But if he didn’t do something….

To his mind came the image of Awasa thrashing on the ground…tears streaming from her eyes…moans peeling from her lips. That would happen again, over and over. And eventually, if that didn’t work the Blood King would devise something nastier.

He might even kill someone. He didn’t need the whole team anymore. A jolt of terror raced through Turesobei. That would undoubtably be the next step in teaching him sacrifice. He wouldn’t have to choose someone to be tortured. He’d have to choose someone to die.

In a fit of desperate abandon, Turesobei telepathically and incoherently screamed his rage at both the active heart stones he had acquired from the realms and the passive ones that had always resided in the Nexus. Since the Autumn stones had always seemed more sympathetic to him, he instinctively targeted them.

Normally, all the stones ignored him. This time, however, the passive cylinder for Autumn responded. It wasn’t a deep connection. It was merely the psychic equivalent of bowing to one another upon meeting. But even that startled Turesobei so much that he unintentionally broke off the connection.

Lord Gyoroe raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”

Turesobei shook his head. “I almost had it.”

“Try again.”

Maintaining his angry frustration, he attempted to connect to just the active stone…but got nothing. Next he attempted just the passive cylinder. A response came through, a very weak one, and he couldn’t manage anything deeper. Finally Turesobei tried to connect with the heart stones of the Spring Realm. Only the passive cylinder responded, and the connection faded out after a few moments.

He sank back, catching his breath, and considered how the passive stones had responded to him while the active stones had not.

“Did you use the same kind of sacrifice for each cylinder in a pair?”

“I did not,” Lord Gyoroe replied. “The cylinders with passive polarity were created by sacrificing willing followers. The active heart stones were created through forced blood sacrifices. Does that help you in some way?”

“It might,” Turesobei responded curtly. He couldn’t look at the Blood King. He was still too angry for that. “Right now, only the passive cylinders are responding to me.”

“I do not see why it would matter, but I am pleased that you are finally having some success.”

Why would the passive stones respond to him now when they wouldn’t just hours ago? What had changed? It wasn’t his effort, and it certainly wasn’t his focus, which was still shaken.

“Master, when you say the passive stones were created through the sacrifice of willing followers, did you select them or did they volunteer?”

“I did not need all of the many who volunteered, so I selected those I deemed most appropriate.”

Turesobei nodded. That explained it. Those stones had been created in a manner that was similar to Turesobei selecting Awasa, although the intentions were obviously different.

Turesobei took a deep breath. While trying to suppress the revulsion he still felt about selecting Awasa, Turesobei thought about their last battle in the Fire Realm. What if all of his friends had volunteered to dive down into the lava pool on what was certain to be a suicide mission? And then, what if he had chosen one of them?

Pretending he was the kind of person who could make such a choice, he imagined nominating them, one by one, to dive down into the lava pool, until the mission was completed, even though he knew the attempt would kill them. It wasn’t easy to imagine his friends and lovers dying that way, but he tried hard to do so, and without thinking of it as nothing more than simple murder.

Before he could even attempt to reach out to the Autumn stones, the passive one unexpectedly opened up to him. A deep telepathic bond easily, and disturbingly, formed between him and the Autumn heart stone.

And though he knew it couldn’t have a mind of its own, he would’ve sworn there was an alien consciousness buried deep within that passive cylinder.

Turesobei steeled his courage. Now he had to take that connection deeper and truly bond with the stone. It was no different than connecting telepathically to Awasa or Hannya—at least, that’s what he tried to convince himself.

He opened his mind to the passive Autumn heart stone and sent a trickle of his own kenja toward it.

A
lmost instantly, his consciousness expanded…beyond the room…then beyond the Nexus itself. While his tiny, fragile body remained kneeling on the floor of the Inner Sanctum, his mind floated free, adrift in the time stream, looking down upon
all
the realms, not just Autumn.

Connections swiftly formed between himself and the other passive stones. With each new connection, his mind journeyed through the corresponding realm. Hours passed…days…weeks, maybe even months, as he became a storm raging across the Summer Realm…a panther prowling through the Realm of Forests, stalking its prey…a drift of snow blowing across the Ancient Cold and Deep…a quake shaking the mountains of the Fire Realm…a brisk wind rattling rust-colored leaves from the trees of the Land Ever Dying…a green shoot bursting from the rich soil of the Spring Realm…a geyser projecting steam up into the sky of the Realm of Clouds…and a languid wave caressing a rocky coastline in the Sea Realm.

The power coursing through him was intoxicating, and he had no desire to be free of it. He was content to live out his entire life, perhaps all eternity, in this state.

A hand touched his shoulder, yanking his consciousness back into his body—in the present—in the Nexus.

Turesobei cried out as every nerve in his body was alight with energy. He gasped for breath, staring at the Blood King.

“How…how much time…has passed?”

“An hour, perhaps two.”

“That's all?!”

“Indeed, it is.”

“But…that can’t be. I could feel days passing as nothing more than heartbeats.”

“Amazing, is it not?” Lord Gyoroe said, grinning. “Remember, perception is always a complex matter. Just because you consciously experience the passage of time, that does not mean time has actually passed for you here.”

Numbly, Turesobei nodded in agreement as he tried to make sense of it all.

The Blood King’s eyes shifted from emerald to orange. “I knew you simply needed proper motivation.” Then they changed to palest blue. “Go have some dinner and rest. Tomorrow morning, we will seek out our origins.”

“Wait, don't you need me to connect with all of the heart stones?”

“Connecting with the passive stones is sufficient. Besides, I do not think you have it in you to take on the active ones.”

“I still don't understand how this helps.”

“I have explained this several times now. Either you do not believe me, or you simply cannot understand.”

“I paid attention, master. But I want to be certain I understand. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

Lord Gyoroe’s eyes shifted to emeralds as he lectured. “I need more than massive amounts of kenja to assure my success. I need your willpower and consciousness with me as I ghost backward in time to observe our origins. Not only will that make it so that you can provide a critical boost of energy exactly when it is most needed, but having the strength of two minds along on the journey should amplify the distance we can ghost back through time. Plus, it will increase the clarity of what we see.”

“And Hannya cannot perform that role because she is not good at teleporting like I am.”

“Correct. But her role is no less important to our success. She will sustain our bodies, provide additional energy, and anchor us to the present.”

Turesobei didn’t want to consider what would happen if Hannya capriciously decided to stop anchoring them halfway through the attempt. He looked back to the heart stones, and a spark of fear flickered through him.

“I'm not sure I'll be able to do this again tomorrow. Can we make the attempt now—while I'm confident I can do my part?”

Lord Gyoroe nodded appreciatively. “Very well. Give me half an hour to prepare.”

H
annya entered the Inner Sanctum, snapping Turesobei out of the meditative state he’d entered, a state he’d chosen because it kept him from thinking about the alien heart stones or Awasa being tortured. Lord Gyoroe still hadn’t returned.

“I am impressed,” she said. “You have accomplished in several months what should have taken you
years
. Though I think it would have been safer if you had taken your time, you are just as impatient as Lord Gyoroe.”

“All of this is your fault,” he said seething. “The risks I’ve taken with magic…Iniru dying…Zaiporo dying and losing a hand…Awasa getting tortured…
all
of us getting tortured…. It didn’t have to be this way.”

“You knew the risks before coming here.”

“Yes, but you betrayed us. You woke him.”

“Do you still honestly believe that Lord Gyoroe would not have awoken on his own the first time you tried
and failed
to open one of the gates? We have been over this before. There was no other way, and you know it. The problem is that you are unhappy with the decision you made in coming here.”

Turesobei opened his mouth, but he didn’t have a good response.

“Besides, this is the only way for all of us—you, me, and my beloved Lord Gyoroe—to get what we want.”

“After he betrayed you like he did, what could you possibly want from him?”

“Atonement, for starters.”

The Blood King strolled pompously into the room, ending their conversation. He wore burgundy robes trimmed in gold, and from his neck hung a strange, metal amulet with jagged edges. It looked as if it had been torn from a larger piece. There were no markings on the amulet, and Turesobei did not sense any power coming from it.

Lord Gyoroe’s blue-white eyes flared with passion. “Now we will ghost back through time together. And at last, I shall see the birth of the Kaiaru.”

Lu Bei, who had remained silent throughout the prior heart stone session, made a crude gesture, but Lord Gyoroe merely smiled at him in response.

“Maybe it would be better if you stayed in book form,” Turesobei said.

“The fetch can do as he wishes,” Gyoroe said.

“I can?” Lu Bei blurted out.

“Within reason,” Gyoroe replied. “After all, you are one of the reasons Turesobei is perfect for this. You will help anchor him, and thus me, to our present world. In fact, I believe your connection to Turesobei and your recording abilities may boost our powers of observation as we move deeper into the past.”

Lu Bei huffed. “Well…that’s just fantastic.”

In one hand, Lord Gyoroe held a long coil of thick copper wire, and in the other, three copper circlets. “Both of you, kneel before me.”

Hannya knelt, and Gyoroe placed one of the circlets on her head. Crimson runes lit up in sequence along the copper band. He then touched one end of the wire to Hannya’s circlet. The wire instantly fused to it. Then he unfurled the coil. Six feet from the end, the wire forked, forming two smaller strands.

“What's all this for?”

“Look carefully at the wire,” Lord Gyoroe said.

Turesobei held it up and examined it closely. Runes were engraved down the entire length of the wire. He could hardly fathom the skill and precision it would take to engrave such tiny markings.

“The circlets and the wires will link the three of us together.” Lord Gyoroe saw the obvious worry on Turesobei’s face. “It does not form a permanent binding. Have no fear of that. I no more wish to be bound to you than you to me.”

He placed the second circlet on Turesobei’s head. Again the runes lit up crimson, and the cold metal turned warm. There was a slight tug at his internal kenja, but he felt nothing else. Lord Gyoroe connected one of the forked wires to Turesobei’s circlet, then he placed the last circlet on his own head and attached the other fork of the wire to it.

With that done, he spoke a command, and three ornate patterns appeared on the floor of the Inner Sanctum. One was almost identical, save for a few symbols, to a protective circle a wizard would use during a demon summoning.

Turesobei studied the other two, oddly familiar patterns for a few moments, then realized what they were. “These are summoning pentagrams, only the runes have been reversed.”

“Very observant,” Lord Gyoroe said. “We are essentially summoning ourselves into the past. However, if you look closely, you will see that each of the runes has multiple dimensions. In that way, they are similar to the teleportation spells.”

Turesobei chose not to examine them closely. He didn’t want the runes messing with his head. It was hard enough to deal with the heart stones and ignore the time stream outside the dome. Besides, it didn’t seem as if understanding these runes would help him in any way.

Hannya knelt in the grounding circle, while Turesobei and Gyoroe knelt in the center of the reverse-summoning pentagrams. Lord Gyoroe spoke a command, and all the tiny runes along the copper wire flashed a multitude of colors. Turesobei experienced a few moments of dizziness as his head flushed with energy, but then it subsided. If he was connected to Gyoroe and Hannya, he couldn’t feel it.

“Apprentice, bond with the stones as you did before, then direct your internal kenja through the wire using the same manipulations you would use when casting a teleportation spell. Direct the energy first toward Hannya and link with her. Then direct the energy toward me.”

Suppressing his revulsion, Turesobei opened his mind to the passive heart stone of the Nexus. When it didn’t respond, he almost panicked, knowing how angry Lord Gyoroe would be if he failed, but he held himself together.

Repeating the procedure he had used before, Turesobei imagined, in graphic detail, asking all his companions to sacrifice themselves in the Fire Realm, in order to achieve victory. Then he tried again to connect to the heart stones. This time, all the passive heart stones responded.

For a moment, his consciousness was pulled toward each of the realms, as it had been before, but something blocked him and kept him rooted to his body—perhaps the circlet or some other magic Lord Gyoroe was using.

Turesobei directed his internal kenja toward Hannya. Because he had talked with her telepathically before, the connection came easily. Their minds touched enough to allow basic communication, and he was glad he didn’t need to go any deeper. He reached out for Gyoroe. He attempted to make a connection…but failed. The Blood King’s mind was a jumbled mess of tangled energies from his many different personalities.

“Choose one identity to focus on,” Lord Gyoroe said.

That was the first time Turesobei had ever heard the Blood King refer to his multiple personalities. Turesobei took a deep breath and thought of the kind Gyoroe with the emerald eyes, the one who enjoyed teaching him. The link formed. And he felt even less connected to Gyoroe than he did to Hannya, which was a huge relief.

“First, you need to enter your ghost form,” said a deep, somewhat familiar voice, both aloud and in his mind.

“
Like with an astral projection
?” Turesobei asked, telepathically.

“
Indeed
,” replied the voice that had to belong to Lord Gyoroe. “
You need only to project yourself into this room. Be careful not to stray into one of the realms. Bringing you back here would be a waste of time and energy.
”

All of Turesobei’s knowledge of astral projection focused on entering the Shadowland. But the same techniques should apply here, too. He assumed he just needed to concentrate on his connection to the heart stones, instead of on the Shadowland.

He followed the ritual and felt his consciousness leave his body. Though they tugged at him, Turesobei managed to avoid entering any of the realms. Unfortunately, he found himself in a sort of hazy nowhere, and he didn’t know how to get out of it.

As his heart began to race, Turesobei tried to take deep breaths to stay calm. “
All I see around me is…an empty grayness…I don’t know where I am.
”

“
Do not panic. You are not far away. Follow my voice
.”

Turesobei focused on Lord Gyoroe’s voice as it called to him repeatedly, but he still couldn’t escape the grayness he was trapped in. Finally, it occurred to him that like with so many other things, the
spell of locating that which is hidden
would probably do the trick.

While focusing on the voice, he opened up the energy pathways for casting the spell. Instantly, Turesobei appeared in the Inner Sanctum as a ghostly form, standing over his physical body.

Another ghostly presence lingered nearby.

“Are you ready to begin now?

Turesobei spun and faced a man unlike any he had ever seen before. This man…this Lord Gyoroe…was tall and ruggedly built, with dark brown skin and black hair that hung down his back in thick braids. He wore a long-sleeved shirt made of a strange, silvery material, like a blend between cloth and steel, and tight-fitting pants of a similar but darker fabric. His handsome, soft-featured face did not resemble the Gyoroe that Turesobei was accustomed to seeing. But his sullen, gray eyes were, unfortunately, very familiar.

Turesobei did not want to travel anywhere with the gray-eyed version of the Blood King. However, he didn’t seem as angry as normal. In fact, he had sounded reasonable, so much so that Turesobei hadn’t recognized the gray-eyed one’s voice, which apparently had a different tone to it when he wasn’t morose.

None of the Blood King’s nine kavaru were visible on this ghostly form, which wasn’t surprising, given this was the tenth personality. Instinctually, Turesobei realized the being before him was neither Kaiaru nor human, though he had no idea why he thought that or what the man could be. Regardless, this must have been the one who somehow slipped through Chonda Lu’s defenses to steal the kavaru that had belonged to the Council of Nine.

“You seem unsure of me,” Lord Gyoroe said.

“Well…normally, when you have gray eyes, you glare at me and hardly speak.”

“Ah,” Lord Gyoroe said. “The personalities within the nine kavaru overpower this one. That is why you rarely see me, and that is why when you do, I am so sullen. It is only here that I can freely be myself.”

Turesobei started to speak, but Lord Gyoroe held up a hand. “Do not ask who or what I am. Even if I wanted to speak of it, we have no time for such matters.”

That was unfortunate, because Turesobei had a lot of questions, and it was information that could be important to defeating him.

“So what now?”

“First, we will ghost back in time to the oldest realm I created. This will only require a little energy, and it will be our starting point.”

“How do we do that? I mean, is there something I’m supposed to do?”

“Because you are linked to me, you do not have to do anything. I will guide us to where we need to go. However, it will make things easier for both of us if you relax and follow my lead willingly, without question.”

When they ghosted into the Fire Realm, a pit of molten rock stretched out for leagues in every direction—right below their feet. Turesobei gasped and pawed at his spell strip pouch. But then he realized that he and Gyoroe were safely hovering in the air, exactly where the ground should have been. And their forms were, in fact, ghostly. They were not physically present in this place. Obviously. Otherwise, Lord Gyoroe would not have needed Turesobei to retrieve the heart stones.

“I must say, destroying an entire area to prevent someone from taking a heart stone makes for an impressive trap,” Gyoroe said. “Naturally, I expected no less from Moshinga. And I am truly impressed that you made it out of here.”

Turesobei didn’t want to think about how close to death they’d come in this realm. “Master, in this form, can we travel across the world faster than walking?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because we might have to travel a long way to find the place where the Kaiaru started.”

“This location in Zangaiden is more important than simply being the world’s most powerful intersection of ley lines. This
is
where the Kaiaru began.”

“Oh.” Turesobei chewed at his lip. “So those two things are probably connected, huh?”

“One would think so,” Lord Gyoroe said.

Turesobei frowned. “Wait. If you don’t know how the Kaiaru came to be, then how do you know this is the origin point?”

A strange, almost confused look washed across Gyoroe’s face. “I know this because…” he shook his head, as if clearing his mind “…it is a long story. We need to move on.”

That response was more than a little odd. “Um…okay.”

“We will now shift from this realm to the true world in the same time and place.”

“How far have we gone into the past?”

“Nearly four thousand years, but that is nothing. We will be going much further back. Now, I must warn you. Ghosting into the true world will be painfully disorienting.”

“Like looking outside the dome at the time stream?”

“Like
being
outside the dome.”

Turesobei took a deep breath and braced himself. “I’m ready.”

As soon as those words left his mouth, an indescribable force struck him, physically and mentally. It felt as if he had cast a dozen spells back to back, while being spun around like a top and punched repeatedly in the gut.

When the world appeared, solid and real around them, Turesobei fell to his knees, dizzy and gasping for air. His body might be ghostly, but the sensations he felt were all too real, presumably because his physical body back in the Inner Sanctum was experiencing them. After a few minutes, the streams of intense pain running through his body faded.

He looked around. Below him was solid rock, and the location looked almost identical to the Fire Realm when he had first arrived there, before they had attempted to take the heart stone from Moshinga. While he had expected that the world around them would appear ghostly as well, that was not the case. It was as vibrant as it would have been if they had actually traveled there. Of course, they were still insubstantial apparitions.

“Ghosting back in time from this point will not be as painful,” Gyoroe said. “You may, however, find it more disorienting.”