"Sassen?"
Kyri asked.
"Uh-huh...
and I wasn't supposed to go, because... 'cause I'm too little still.... But I
really wanted to go watch so I could learn how to be a good hunter just like my
papa and my big brother Corl.... So I followed
them."
"
Mmm-hmmm..." Kyri mumbled
sympathetically. She managed to find out later than a 'sassen'
was a sort of hunting party, but she was confused for now.
"When they
saw me, my papa yelled at me for being bad, and he told Corl
to take me home.... Just when we got to the top of the hill next to town,
Corl turned around and told me to run." She started to
sob again. "He told me to hurry and run as fast as I could... and don't
stop for anything until I got to a big trail in the plains.... I... I ran as
much as I could, and, and I fell down lots... and I don't want to run
anymore."
"Oh, you
were real close to that trail," Kyri said
softly. "Why did your brother tell you to run?"
"I
dunno...."
"Oh....
What did he do after he told you to run?"
"I don't
remember.... I think he hurried to restring his bow.... I had to run
though."
"Hmm...."
Kyri sensed that Aikel was
about to speak and glanced in his direction.
He was silent a
short moment before asking, "To get to your town, you had to go up a hill,
and then down it?"
"Uh-huh,"
Gelrini nodded.
"When your
brother was taking you back, were you able to see the town before he told you
to run?"
"No, I
don't think so...."
"Do you
think he was able to see it?"
Gelrini
stopped to recollect.
"I think so. He was at the very top of the hill and I was behind
him...."
"Hmmm..."
Aikel turned and sent his vision off into the
distance.
Kyri
wiped the tears from
Gelrini's face again. She looked at Aikel
for several seconds; she saw reflections of smoke, flames, and blood in his
eyes and knew what he must be thinking.
"I don't
know what to do..." Gelrini murmured. "I
want to go home...."
"We're not
very far from a town," Kyri said. "It's not
your town, but you can get something warm to eat there, I'm sure. Wouldn't that
be nice?"
"Uh-uh..."
Gelrini answered, starting to cry again. "I want
to go home."
Kyri's
face saddened. After a
moment of hesitation, she looked up toward Aikel. He
looked at Gelrini and sighed. He glanced at
Yousei and Himeki to make sure
they wouldn't object, and he said, "Let's go.... Let's take her
home."
Pegasus gave Unicorn a meaningful look before
averting his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, only to close it again.
Pegasus asked quietly, "What good is the whole if you've forsaken the
part?"
After a moment,
Unicorn answered in a nearly inaudible voice, "This decision is not ours
alone to make.... I will follow without hindering."
Pegasus looked
at Aikel and saw him fingering the empty space in one
of his medallions and staring at the western wall as if he were observing
something far beyond it.
"Mama..."
Kyri mumbled.
Aikel
shuddered. "Let's
go...."
There was a small island out in the center of the
ocean that had only a relatively thin spire of rock below it to keep it in
place. There were a few diagonal rock formations coming more or less from the
sides of the island and reaching the ground like twisting deformed spider legs.
A city was built
around the temple. The buildings in the center were oldest, as the town grew
away from the temple. With the exception of what seemed like farmhouses, the
city had yet to expand beyond the rough circle formed by the island's spider
legs. The whole thing was in a wide valley of medium deepness. What little
sunlight managed to come down through all that water was blocked by the
island's shadow. The city's main light source was piskari--meaning
"fish-light," a collective term for three or so species of
light-emitting fish.
There were
glowing plants as well: something like glowing
seaweed, another something that seemed like clover with glowing blossoms, and a
third something that was more or less a normal plant save that it had a glowing
fruit attached to its center with something stringy. With the possible
exception of the last variety, they didn't emit much light on their own. They
were used when dim light was needed, and it was believed that the
piskari fish
would glow more brightly if these plants were their main diet.
Most of the
piskari roamed
the city as they pleased, but there were many porous glass balls, each
containing a pair of the fish, securely tied to posts or buildings in regular
intervals in case something such as a shark or sea lion--the latter of which
was commonly domesticated--should frighten the wild ones into hiding.
Pegasus,
Unicorn, Aikel, Kyri, and
Yousei were following Gyozoki down
the winding path toward the center of the city. Only Gyozoki
and Pegasus were actually swimming; the others moved their fastest walking on
the sand.
The tall
oddly-shaped buildings and their surreal lights seemed to loom overhead.
Merfolk occasionally looked at them with interest as they
passed. The island above looked like it would start sinking and crush the city
at any moment. Aikel kept instinctively holding his
breath, because it felt like he would be inhaling the water. He felt somewhat
sick, as well as very frustrated. He stomped too much as he walked, and his
feet had to be dragged out of the sand. After waving away a billion annoy
piskari that came
uncomfortably close to his face, he growled and swung at the billion-and-first.
He smacked it with his palm, which sent it flying a few feet through the water.
After it regained control of its own motion, it swam away like every shark in
the ocean was at its tail, and a few of its companions followed at a slower but
faster-than-average pace.
One of the four
gates surrounding the temple stood open, and there was a cluster of people
holding small piskari-filled
nets.
"Why do
they have walls if people can just swim over them?" Aikel
asked Pegasus quietly.
"It's a
reminder that entry is forbidden--usually."
Gyozoki
seemed hesitant about
entering, but once she found that the sand just beyond the gate was safe to
step on, she hurried toward the cluster of people.
She fired off
questions to the circle of stately-clad women, but they were talking among
themselves and ignored her. There was a boy swimming in place nearby and
holding a net of piskari
for the sorceresses. Gyozoki grabbed his shoulders
and shook him until he answered her questions. He answered quickly and
frantically--Pegasus informed the others that he was saying something like
"I don't know." As male merfolk are almost
as lowly as the land-dweller slaves, it'd be odd for this servant to know where
a particular woman was.
Gyozoki
shoved him away and all but
threw a temper tantrum. She stopped abruptly and listened to something the
sorceresses were saying. She turned pale.
"
Matra wa
ni le fanum!" she
cried at Aikel. She pointed frantically at the
temple.
"Her mother
is in there?" Aikel asked, turning his gaze
toward it. It now looked more menacing than beautiful.
"Yeah..."
said Pegasus. He glanced at Unicorn, but she was only looking at the temple.
Kyri fidgeted. Yousei didn't look
like she was paying attention. Pegasus said, "It's now or never...."
"It's
now," Aikel said quietly. He looked around at
the others to see if anyone would protest, but he knew they wouldn't.
Gyozoki
lead them to the door--the
entrance of a short arch-shaped tunnel that curved up and became circular.
Aikel was the first to swim up when it became vertical. All
the medicines and magic they had shoved into him affected his buoyancy and he
was able to stop where he wanted without floating upwards. He swam in place and
reached tentatively upward. His fingertips broke through the surface and were
chilled by the cool air.
"Air?"
Pegasus asked. Aikel nodded. "The magic stuff
that Belcis gave you will stop working once you start
inhaling air, and you won't have its effects when you get back in the water.
Make sure you exhale before you go
up." He looked down at Yousei,
Kyri, and Unicorn to make sure they heard. "
Gyozoki has some more of it for when we leave."
"Can
mermaids breathe air?" Aikel asked.
"Only the
adults," said Pegasus. "The ones that have real tails. She'll have to
stay down here."
Aikel
nodded, shoved the water
out of his lungs, and pushed himself upwards.
The temple had
only one large round room, it seemed. The shiny light-blue walls curved up to a
shaft in the center of the ceiling. A long path only about six feet wide
stretched from the entry tunnel to the opposite side of the room, where it met
with the crescent-shaped path area against that semicircle of the wall. This
floor, which was made of irregular blue and green tiles and purple grout, was
the only dry flooring around, but fountains on the far wall spilled streams of
water onto the crescent-shaped mass. It ran between the tiles and into the
water.
The area near
the tunnel was apparently made so that entrants could either climb up onto the
dry path or enter one of the bodies of water that were on each side. The depth
of the water couldn't be determined.
A frighteningly
life-like statue of some huge serpent stood where here the path met with the
other side of the room. It was coiled up at the bottom, but the front end of
its body was raised as if it were about to strike something on the path. Its
scales were either dull silver or bright purple depending on the angle of the
light. Water spilled out from its mouth, crashing against the gently glowing
blue orb that it held between its fangs on the way.
The orb was the
first thing Aikel spotted, and it would have been so
even if the green-haired mermaid in the water near the statue had not been
pointing at it. Another mermaid, who was dressed the same way as the
sorceresses outside, was halfway up the statue. She was grabbing the spikes
that ran along the serpent's spine and pulling herself up, moving in a very
slug-like manner.
She started to
tumble off, and the green-haired woman cringed, but the sorceress's tail split
down the center with a sickening sound. She wiggled around, trying to shove at
the loose folds of scaled skin and still keep what grip she still had on the
statue. The skin formed back around the two halves of her tail, and as she
kicked and wiggled, the muscles and bones contorted and twisted until she used
her legs to pull herself back up onto the statue. She climbed a bit more until
the serpent's head was above her. She kept both knees and one hand on the
statue and reached toward the orb in the serpent's mouth.
Aikel
tried to shout at her, but
it came out as a hoarse cough. The orb's glow flared up as her fingers closed
around it. Aikel struggled onto the pathway as the
water surged. The green-haired mermaid screamed as a blue blur arched out of
the water near her. There was a flash of red as the blur passed in front of the
statue. As it splashed into the water on the other side of the path, the
sorceress collided with the floor below the statue. Her blood splattered across
the tile, and the orb flew out of her hand, bouncing along the floor and
rolling into the water.
Aikel
was at her side in a few
seconds. His sword was drawn and he stood waiting for the blue creature to show
itself again. Pegasus had turned into a wolf and was right behind. He yelled at
the shocked green-haired mermaid in her language before turning to shout at
Unicorn. He and Unicorn stood still at the mermaid's side as
Yousei readied her spear and stood by Aikel.
"I think I
can heal her..." Kyri said, kneeling to inspect
the gashes on the mermaid's side.
"There's no
time...!" Pegasus said as he stood straight up and kept standing until he
had tripled his height. He stomped one hoof, tossed his mane, and gave the
wings on his ankles a flap. Kyri blinked at him in
surprise. She turned to Unicorn, who was also a dainty white horse.
"Put her on
my back," Unicorn told her just as a snarl came from the other direction.
The blue
creature was mermaid-like. Her upper body was covered in medium-blue fur, and
long drenched dark purple hair fell down her back and in front of her furred
cat-like ears. Her feline face had bared fangs and purple hatred-filled eyes.
Yousei's spear stabbed the air in front of her, and she
swiped her claws at it. She glared at Unicorn, who galloped toward the exit as
fast as Kyri could keep up while mermaid blood
dripped over her white fur, and the green-haired mermaid who followed behind.
The cat-like mermaid dove out of sight.
Aikel
looked around for her
before heading in the direction of Unicorn and Kyri.
He wondered why the creature would be concerned the escaping woman when the Sea
Orb was safe below the water, and he skidded to a stop as it occurred to him
that she wasn't concerned. He had
realized just in time; he spotted a blue shape below the water. She jumped from
the water, slashed at him, landed near the opposite side of the path, and
rolled into the water. He had been more prepared than she'd expected and had
suffered only a slice across his cheek, but he'd felt his sword slice hit
nothing by air.
"
Tsuna!" Pegasus shouted at her; that was her name it
seemed.
Her attack
pattern was repetitive: fly from the water, attack, and land in the water on
the other side, or simply rise up slice at the legs of anyone standing too
close to the edge. She must have arched over the path a dozen times by the time
Kyri and Unicorn returned without the bloody
passenger, and when she leapt for Aikel again, he was
saved by his foot slipping on the floor's smooth wet tiles. Kyri
tried to see if he was okay, but she slipped and fell forward.
"The floor
is too wet," Pegasus told Aikel. "If you don't
know how to ride a horse, learn fast." Aikel
grabbed his mane and climbed onto his back. Yousei
and Kyri clung to Unicorn to keep their balance.
Tsuna reached up and slashed. Aikel
swung his sword. The gash in Tsuna's arm left a cloud
of blood in the water behind her.
She came up from
the other side, and she aimed for Aikel. Pegasus
reared back as she passed. She was knocked to the floor, and she slithered into
the water.
The pause before
her next attack was long, and each second felt like a minute.
Aikel twitched at every irregular splash made by the
fountains.
Tsuna
lunged. She came from the
water near Pegasus and jumped at
him instead of past him. He neighed in pain and tried to take flight as her
claws tore into his ribs. Aikel swung at her, but
only Yousei's spear made a wound.
Pegasus hovered
too far over the water, and Tsuna got between him and
the path. She jumped up. She dug her claws into his neck and held him until she
could grab Aikel's cape. She released Pegasus and
dropped into the water. Aikel followed with a yelp.
When he plunged
into the water, he was blinded by the surrounding swarm of small bubbles.
Something cold and sharp hit his chest and knocked him downward. Ice magic.
Tsuna cast the spell again before she reached him. He swung
his sword and missed. She clawed and ripped into his leg. Her other hand formed
gashes in his chest.
She aimed for
his neck. Puddles got in her way, and he got a bloody forehead instead. His
lungs burned, but so did all his wounds. He fought his way upward.
The blood in the
water blinded him; he couldn't see the surface. He was about to give up when
his hand struck something thin and hard. He grabbed it with both hands and was
wrenched out of the water. He managed to keep his hold on Unicorn's horn until she
could fling him onto the floor where he felt Kyri
kneel beside him.
He felt
Tsuna's shadow overhead and heard Kyri
screamed. She hunched over him, but Tsuna shrieked in
pain. He saw her land right beside him. She tried to roll away and was trampled
by a shower of sharp hooves.
He felt
Kyri's warm palms press against his shredded flesh, but
everything was so dark anyway that he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes.
"
Seyeney...! Daichiyari!" he
heard.
It felt like
hours later, but Kyri was pushed away from him with
another scream. He rolled in her direction, tried to focus on the blue mass in
his vision, and used his last bit of strength to swing his sword.