The First Kaiaru (34 page)

“I can deal with disorienting. But what we just went through, I don’t ever want to feel that again.”

“I am afraid you will feel it once more, when our spirit forms return to our bodies in the Nexus.”

Turesobei had figured as much, but he would rather have found that out the hard way.

“Now, let us discover our origins,” Lord Gyoroe said with excitement.

S
uccessive waves of dizziness and nausea, so unbearable that he was hardly aware of anything else, rolled over Turesobei. He tried to gain control by regulating his breathing, but that didn’t work. Apparently, he couldn’t achieve a meditative state in this spirit form. Of course, that made sense given that he was already meditating in order to project his astral form.

Finally, he remembered what it was like in Awasa’s mind, and how she managed to block out the constant presence of the Warlock’s anger. Mimicking her mental techniques as best as he could, he pushed the time stream sensations causing his vertigo to the back of his mind.

Now he could clearly see what was going on around him.

With entire decades passing in the blink of an eye, the landscape changed rapidly around them. Towering trees shrank to saplings. Rivers flowed backward, dried up into mere trickles, then flowed again. The earth quaked and lay silent. People came and went, with farms and villages, towns and small cities disappearing and popping up.

Faster and faster, they retreated through time, until it was all a blur. But then suddenly, they slowed. The progression of centuries per second became months and then weeks. Blocking out the vertigo became harder, and he could feel kenja being drawn from his body back in the Nexus.

They came to a standstill in the midst of a wondrous city that was easily twice the size of Batsa, the massive capital of Turesobei’s homeland. Spiraling towers kissed the clouds. Roofs tiled in a stunning array of colors washed through the city like dazzling waves. Narrow, cobbled streets serpentined through a chaos of lavish fountains, open markets, private houses, and apartment towers. At the far end of the city poured a waterfall Turesobei knew all too well. And perched atop that cliff gleamed a grand palace of marble and gold, straddling the river like the thousands of slender bridges throughout the city.

Bronze-skinned people dressed in belted robes of silk bustled about the jam-packed streets, talking and haggling and rushing about on various errands. In appearance, they resembled neither the zaboko nor the k’chasans and only slightly resembled the baojendari. They had sturdy frames, dark eyes, and deep brown hair. And all of them had birthmarks like the one Turesobei had on his forehead, marks showing they descended from a Kaiaru ancestor. Those few who were armed carried weapons of fine steel, defying Turesobei’s expectations of ancient people wielding more primitive technology.

A man pushed a cart toward Turesobei. He darted aside, only to have three small girls run straight through his ghostly form. He cringed and shivered, but not because they had actually affected him in any way.

“I will admit,” Lord Gyoroe said with a chuckle, “that the first time someone walked through me, I too found it disconcerting.”

“Where are we?”

“We are standing in the city of Korooka, at the height of its power and grandeur, twelve thousand years before you were born.”

“I can’t believe a city this big was here. I didn’t see a single ruin in the realms. What happened to it?”

“War broke out between the Kaia and their Eirsenda neighbors to the east. The war lasted for centuries, and by the time the Kaia finally won, they could hardly call themselves victors. The city was in decline, its wealth and manpower spent, its infrastructure ruined. Not long after, a series of earthquakes and volcanic explosions destroyed what remained.”

“All these people you call the Kaia, they were descended directly from the Kaiaru?”

“All people, save the alien Eirsenda whom you know as the Keepers, are descended from the Kaiaru. Did you not know that?”

Stunned, Turesobei shook his head. “If—if that were true, then anyone could wield a kavaru.”

“At this time, that would have been the case, but doing so would have resulted in a death sentence. In this great age, Kaiaru were always reborn into new hosts.”

A Kaiaru with green-tinted skin and a pale topaz kavaru strolled by, accompanied by two bodyguards and a dozen servants. In the street, people stepped aside to allow him passage.

“You say this place is twelve thousand years old,” Turesobei said, “but I thought the Kaiaru, like Chonda Lu, were only three thousand years old or so. That is what our histories say, and that is what Lu Bei and Aikonshi told me.”

“Your companions did not lie to you, and Chonda Lu did not intentionally mislead them. His memories only went back three thousand years, yet Chonda Lu is here in Korooka. You would know him by his kavaru, but you would not recognize the man.”

Turesobei had always felt connected to something ancient while wearing the stone, but only three thousand years ancient, not fifteen or more.

His eyes wide, Gyoroe spun around, taking in the city’s glamor. “None of my kavaru have memories of this place, and yet they were all here, at the height of the Kaia civilization, belonging to members of the ruling Kaiaru Senate. Here, white steel and dark steel were forged daily. Spells were inscribed upon bronze plates, and magics of incredible power were common.”

Lord Gyoroe sighed. “But it was too much power in one place. All that magic weakened this land, leading to the earthquakes and volcanoes that wiped it from history.”

“If being reborn is what damages a Kaiaru’s memory, then how come Chonda Lu, who had never been reborn, could only remember three thousand years back?”

“Chonda Lu most likely had many rebirths over the last fifteen thousand years,” Lord Gyoroe said. “But even if he had not, his memory would not stretch any farther back than the Dawning.”

“The what?”

“The Dawning. An astronomical event that elevated then disrupted energy patterns all across our planet. That is when spirits and demons and monsters first arose, created by the minds of mere humans, born of their dreams and nightmares. For some reason, this disruption erased the memories of all the Kaiaru.”

Turesobei's mind reeled at the idea that ordinary people had created spirits and monsters unintentionally.

“My first foray into the past took me three thousand years back, to a time I thought would be close to our origin point. What I discovered instead was the Dawning. You can imagine how disappointed I was. I had not even come close to our true beginnings.”

Turesobei admired the gleaming metropolis. “So this—all of this—is the golden age of the Kaiaru that you wish to recreate?”

Lord Gyoroe nodded. “You see now how important my work is.”

Turesobei dared to ask a fundamental question that had long been burning in his mind. “What if seeing the origin doesn’t unlock the secrets you need to recreate the Kaiaru race?”

Gyoroe’s gray eyes locked onto Turesobei, and he stared uncomprehendingly at him for some time. Then, he began to talk again, as if he had never heard Turesobei’s question. Apparently, this was another one of those points where the Blood King’s madness kicked in.

“Even the Kaiaru of this age have only vague memories of their first century. I have observed their scholars pouring over their oldest texts and debating our origins.”

As Turesobei examined the throngs of people walking along the busy street beside the river, he spotted a dozen Kaiaru. “How many Kaiaru were there?”

“According to the scholars of this day, ten thousand two hundred and twenty-three. But they have a legend that there were two more, of much greater power than all the others, but who had been forgotten.”

Over ten thousand…. Until he had seen the kavaru vault, Turesobei had always thought that maybe only a thousand Kaiaru had ever lived. The idea of bringing that many of them back to life sickened him.

“It is time to move on,” Lord Gyoroe said. “I have rested long enough. We have at least three thousand years to go, and I have only ever made it nine hundred years past this point. When I tell you to access your storm energy, do so immediately.”

Turesobei nodded with a sigh. He would have preferred to spend a few days exploring Korooka.

As they ghosted backward, the city shrank around them. When their progress stalled a few centuries later, Korooka was a smaller city.

“Now!” Lord Gyoroe ordered.

Having already expended much of his internal kenja, Turesobei tapped into the
Mark of the Storm Dragon
and opened the channel as wide as he could without risking losing control. For a short while, they zoomed back several more centuries, but then their progress slowed again.

Turesobei strained to put more into it. “I'm doing…all…that…I can.”

Lord Gyoroe nodded. “It is enough for now. Do not push any further. If you pass out, you will put the whole endeavor at risk.”

“What now?” Turesobei panted. “How do we move farther forward…I mean backward?”

“So far, I have primarily drawn power from you, the heart stones, and Hannya. Now it is time for me to invest my own power.”

Gyoroe spoke a word, and they raced back several more centuries, but then came suddenly to a standstill. He hunched over, breathing deep, with sweat pouring off his brow.

The city was gone. In its place stood what resembled a frontier outpost composed of crude timber houses with thatched roofs. Dressed in primitive clothes, the people here appeared to come from a wide array of different races. It was strange to see so many different eye and hair colors among so few people. All of them bore lineage birthmarks, and some had as many as six different marks at once.

Nearly a quarter of the people were Kaiaru, but there was something wrong with them. With distant expressions, they ambled about as if they were sleepwalking, or perhaps under a spell of confusion.

“Why do the Kaiaru all appear drugged?”

“This is the confusion the scholars of Korooka spoke of. The haze of years none of them could remember. We are close now. If I can just manage to invest a little more kenja, I think we can make it. When we start moving, give it everything you can without passing out.”

Gyoroe focused his energies, and again they moved backward a few more years, perhaps nearly a decade. Turesobei had recovered enough that he could give a significant boost.

For a moment, he considered holding back. If Gyoroe failed to achieve this objective, then maybe he would give up…maybe he would let them go. Then Turesobei thought better of it. More than likely, Gyoroe would keep trying until the stones ran out of power, and along the way, Turesobei would probably be punished for the failure. The Blood King did not seem like the kind of person to accept blame.

Turesobei again gave all that he could give. They accelerated for a few more moments, then stopped completely. They stood in the midst of a crude village, much smaller than the outpost, and the Kaiaru who wandered about seemed even more confused than before. Their children with their many birthmarks led them about as if they were mentally damaged. They seemed entirely unable to take care of themselves.

Exhausted, Gyoroe fell to his knees and cried out. “No!” He held his head in his hands and sobbed. “I came so far, only to be tormented with the truth just out of reach.”

Turesobei shifted uncomfortably beside the despondent Gyoroe, unsure of what he should do.

Lord Gyoroe took a deep breath. “I will have to rethink the ritual.” Then he added, darkly, “And find some way to gather more energy.”

Turesobei didn’t like the sound of that. The Blood King’s chief method of gaining power had always been through some form of sacrifice.

Steeling his nerves, Turesobei started to declare that he would never allow any of his friends to be sacrificed, when suddenly, a surge of tremendous power flowed into them. Power not from Gyoroe nor Turesobei nor Hannya nor even the heart stones. Where this power came from, Turesobei didn’t have the slightest clue. And judging by the surprised look on Gyoroe’s face, neither did he.

Backward they sped…decades racing by…then, though Turesobei sensed that they had power enough to keep going, they stopped once more.