With the heads claimed and the kills prepared for the glorious feast that would honor the new M’Ktoah tomorrow, Viktohn ordered his students back home. When Dimitri tried to take his place at the back of the progression, Bone and Venli pushed him up the line. Pikal frowned as he made way for Dimitri to stand in front of him, right behind Féca. Dimitri hid his elation of the new ranking, lest they call him out as being nothing more than a weak Hume. He could not wait to get home to tell his mother of all that happened this day. She would be so proud of her son, and have her full ranking and status as a Dákun Daju assassin restored.
The group of hunters made their way home, traveling swiftly as the late evening sky betrayed a growing storm. Dimitri sniffed the air, loving the scent that signaled the coming rain. Something else tainted the smell. He inhaled again, long and slow, and detected a faint hint of blood and smoke. Panic gripped his heart and he rushed forward, ignoring the calls of his fellow M’Ktoah. He hollered back to them, warning them of the threat carried on the wind. They did not hesitate to chase after him.
In mere moments they were upon the bridge that ran over the Thundering Falls, sprinting towards the heart of their burning city. Corpses of Dákun Daju and Hume alike littered the walkways, and blood slickened the old stones. Ferocious fighting could still be heard in a few sections of the city, and Viktohn freed the M’Ktoah to spill the blood of those who dared attack their brothers and sisters. Dimitri raced over the bridges as fast as he could, heading towards his home in hopes of finding his mother. He was still several meters away when the soft call of his name stopped him dead in his tracks. He found his mother in a pile of rubble, run through by a Hume’s blade and barely clinging to life. It was then that she told him of his birthright and gave him the diary of his father. He vowed to avenge her, and, as she slipped from the world forever, told her that he was now a M’Ktoah. She was dead with her honor once again intact. She had smiled.
◆◆◆
Slowly, the memory of the day that had changed his life forever melted away and Dimitri returned to himself. Tears stung at his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. His hands had turned to fists at his sides, clenched so hard his nails pierced skin and droplets of blood broke upon the emerald grass where he stood.
He sighed to dispel the last remnants of the memory, and slowly shifted his crimson gaze upwards. The Pekkuli-Orsahn Mountains rose high above the fruit-heavy whisker palms on the distant shore. The lovely visage created a living, breathing curtain that shrouded the dead and barren desert that lay to the northeast. Though the mountain slopes were thick with the emerald green foliage of the subtropical climate, their sheer height meant that their caps remained dusted with snow. That perpetual source of moisture ran like wild rivers down the southern sides, pooling in the lowlands at the feet of the mountains thus forming the bay. Almost no water was drawn northward, and no one had even been able to discover why. Perhaps that was why the Ancients named the mountains ‘strange ones’ and cursed the desert hidden behind their peaks. Dimitri suddenly wondered if the desert was the hiding place of his dragons.
It couldn’t be that simple, could it? A frown broke across his lips.
“You have that look again, Dimitri.” Said a voice as soft as a kiss of wind.
He smiled inwardly, loving her voice, and looked sidelong at her. She sat just meters away, perched upon a boulder nestled amidst the waters of the bay. Due to the balmy, late-summer heat, much of her armor had been removed, revealing tawny skin marred with old scars and a blood red spider tattoo that graced the side of her hip – her Dákun Daju assassin guild mark. He traced her taught muscles with his gaze as she bent over her swords to clean and sharpen them.
“What look, Godilai?”
She looked up from her work; her icy cyan eyes locking upon his crimson ones. The way she looked at him, he could tell she was reading his being all the way to his inner core. That gaze of hers affected him in ways he could never have imagined. It was so intense and so chilling that he shivered, and was ultimately forced to look away. Had she been the gloating kind, he was sure she would have smirked in victory before chastising him for being a weak Hume-aju.
“You were wondering if the dragons we seek were hidden right in front of you.”
He scoffed. “Am I that transparent?”
“To me, yes.”
Silence fell like a curtain between them. Then the gentle scrape of Godilai’s honing stone against her blade began again. He watched her work as if with interest, but his mind filled with questions. The most troubling of which played at the forefront of his mind: how she could read him so easily? In fact, over the course of the last few weeks, it was as if she could read his mind. She knew precisely when he wanted to make or break camp, when he was hungry or thirsty, and what he was going to say before he said it. It had become almost like a game to him, to see if she could guess what he was going to do next. But something about her intricate knowledge of him worried him.
Finally, he dared to ask, “So you spend a lot of time watching me?”
“It is not a compliment.” She said coldly. “I am an assassin. I merely watch to learn. What I learn, I utilize against my targets.”
He suddenly found himself frowning at her. “But I am not your target.”
“You could be.”
His heart skipped a beat as icy cold fear gripped him, but he made sure to betray no emotion lest she see. Troubled thoughts raced through his mind as he pondered her words carefully. How could someone have out-bidded me? I promised her satisfaction against the Humes she so despises as well as a place at my side as High Queen. No one on the whole of Ithnez could have beaten that! Unless…
Godilai sighed. “You are yet safe, Dimitri.”
“What?” Though he tried to hide it, he could still hear the distress in his voice, and he cursed himself for being weak.
She stood, sheathed her swords. “I said you are safe.” She leapt down from the boulder with such ease and grace it could easily have been mistaken for flight. “No one has made a purchase of my skills against you.”
Dimitri silently thanked the Gods.
“Pox and the ugly Hume come.”
“About time.” He softly muttered.
It was there, in the vale and beside the Mirror amidst wildflowers and dragon eggs, that Djurdak asked for my hand in marriage. I was stunned to a tearful silence, and all I could do was nod. He chuckled as he took me in his arms and kissed me.
– FROM “THE DIARY OF AMOREZ” BY AMOREZ RENOAN
Dimitri watched as a petite, charcoal-haired, Hume girl in a black dress made her way towards him. Her face was stoic mask; a blank canvas for even a ghost of an emotion. Even her soft green eyes seemed distant and lifeless. She was pale of skin with great muscle tone, and moved over the uneven earth with grace and poise. She would have made a fantastic Dákun Daju. But hidden beneath that Hume-like exterior beat the heart of the Feykin, Piper Onyx – Pox. And, as she drew nearer, the magic veil melted away to reveal her true self. Her hair turned to silver; her eyes violet. Even the simple Hume dress transformed, turning back into her favored, Feykin smock. Great wings, as black as coal, swept back with a thunderous flutter. They came to rest in such a way to frame her small form with the pearlescent feathers. She was a deadly beauty, and one that could have been mistaken for a goddess of the night.
An arm’s length away from the Shadow Keeper, she stopped. Dimitri waited with baited breath for her to reveal her findings. She was about to speak when a loud curse caused her to pause. She sighed in frustration and sent a venomous look over her shoulder. Dimitri followed her gaze, spotting Vincent meters away. The bulbous and aged Judge had stumbled over the uneven ground and fallen. Now he lay sprawled in the mud, struggling to right himself, but only succeeding in digging himself further into a hole.
Pox muttered a string of nasty insults in Kinös Elda, which made Dimitri smirk, and turned her back on the old Hume. “A villager told me of a long-abandoned house on the far edge of town.
”
“Oh?” Dimitri’s attention returned to Pox. “And what is the significance of this old house?”
“There is a story that in ages long past, a volcanic eruption rocked Nemlex one early morn.”
“That is odd.” Said Dimitri. “There aren’t any volcanoes amongst the Strange Ones.”
Pox nodded.
Vincent cried out for help.
The Feykin whipped around, a spell on her lips and her hand poised to execute the magic. A look of sheer terror crossed Vincent’s red and muddy face. Pox hissed two words of Kinös Elda, and the old Judge was launched skywards. Pox shifted her weight to the other foot, pirouetting to face Dimitri again, and bringing her hand down in a rapid but fluid motion. Vincent screamed as the magic forced him deep into the waters of the bay.
“I hope he drowns.” Muttered Godilai.
Pox exhaled a calming breath, then continued her tale. “When the villagers went out to investigate the cause of the eruption, all they found was the charred remnants of a house that had belonged to a woman known only as Azreom. No remains of the woman or her belongings were ever found, and no one has ever been able to explain the strange eruption.”
“Sounds a good a place as any to begin our search.” Dimitri looked to Godilai. “What do you think?”
The assassin dipped her head in the smallest of nods. “Let’s go.”
Dimitri looked back to Pox. “Lead the way.”
◆◆◆
Dimitri looked around in silent wonder. Remnants of blackened lumber and shards of hand-crafted bricks lay strewn about the ground. A thick layer of ash had long ago turned to fertile soil, and life sprang forth anew. Vines, wildflowers, and other untamed vegetation clung to every surface, splitting wood and cracking stone. It was hard to believe that a house had ever existed here. Had it not been for the stone fireplace, which stood like a gravestone to watch over the silent remains, Dimitri and his team would have walked right passed, oblivious to its presence.
“Do you see anything peculiar here?” Godilai asked as she looked around.
Dimitri nodded. “The debris pattern suggests that an explosion came from below, and it was strong. It sent these heavy rafter beams sky high, which is why they’re only charred instead of ash like the rest of the house.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“So,” Dimitri kicked at the young soil, “we’re looking for a fissure buried beneath the rubble.”
“I’ll take a look from the air,” said Pox. Without waiting for a response, she leapt into the sky and flapped her wings hard to boost herself higher and higher. Then she leveled out to hover several meters over the gravestone fireplace.
With Pox already occupied on the task, Dimitri ordered Vincent to go around the opposite side of the house and begin the search over there. He and Godilai would rummage around at this end. Before Vincent had gone three steps, Pox called from overhead. She dove at the ground, and landed heavily in the middle of the remains. Dimitri and Godilai joined her in moments, and Vincent scuttled over the heaps of overgrown debris as fast as he could in hopes of to catching up. Pox used a spell to shove aside one of the foliage-leaden beams, revealing a deep void in the earth.
She smiled. “Found it.”
Dimitri thanked her. Then, with a glance at Godilai and an apprehensive breath, he dropped into the gaping maw. His crimson eyes adjusted to the shadows quickly, revealing a marvelous, undersea tunnel. Varying shades of blue shimmered and swayed all around them. Fish of all kinds and colors danced and darted just out of hand’s reach. He could almost touch them if not for the clear, crystal walls that held the water at bay.
With a quick glance back at the other three members of his team, he finally began the trek through the winding tunnel. The slightest sound echoed off the moist walls. Light from the two suns overhead pierced through the water and refracted off the jewels and coins that packed the corners of the tunnel, accumulating into a mirage of dancing lights. It was beautiful.
But Dimitri had not come to admire the place. He was here solely to find the next key, for all twelve were required to unlock the route to the Dragons’ Gate. Once he had found them and the gate, he could unleash the Shadow Dragons and finally take his revenge upon the people of Ithnez.
With a heavy sigh, he pushed his sloppy, ebony bangs out of his eyes and continued down the tunnel, wary of any traps that might have been left by its creator. Behind him, the old and fat Judge, Vincent, wheezed as he tried to keep pace with Dimitri. Pox, the young Feykin Mage who had been proselytized by Dimitri’s trickery, mumbled something inaudibly. Dimitri figured she was casting spells to protect the team. Smart girl.
And bringing up the rear of the team was the beautiful and deadly Godilai, a talented Dákun Daju Assassin. She had spent the last month brooding over the death of her clansmen, Luna. Dimitri could tell she was eager to exact her revenge on Xyleena, the one ultimately responsible for Luna’s murder. But it would have to wait. The keys were more important at this point.
Pox’s quiet mumbling suddenly stopped with a gasp. Dimitri froze and instinctively grasped the hilt of his dual sword. He waited, silently, for anything to jump out at him from the swirling blue mist emanating from the room ahead. When nothing happened, he gestured for Pox to precede him. She quietly cast a spell, forming a lighted ball in the air and throwing it into the room ahead.
“It’s clear.” Pox whispered minutes later, when the glow of her light orb faded away. She waved for Dimitri and the others to follow her. One cautiously slow step at a time, the young Feykin entered the room and was washed in the shimmering, cerulean light. “Wow.”
Dimitri rushed forward, eager to see what lay beyond. The room was round and unlit except by the filtered sunlight. A great, crystalline pillar stood at either side of the room. Both were scoured from top to bottom with ancient runes. And a skeleton rested on the floor beside each.
Dimitri quickly spotted the two black marble dragon statues. One statue stood guard beside a wall of gently swirling, sapphire water. The other statue stood opposite, watching over a dull grey and smoldering pit. When he was satisfied that no enemies were present, Dimitri scoffed and set about collecting the keys from the two statues.
“These are Dákun Daju remains.” Godilai whispered quietly as she knelt beside one of the skeletons. “Why would they be in a place like this?”
“It looks like this Kkorian character you hired really did come through for us.” Vincent said between pants. “‘...Beneath Dragon Bay....’ Ingenious!”
“This place is teeming with magic.” Pox whispered as she gently touched her fingers to the water wall. She shivered at the contact and watched as ripples danced over the surface. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Here, Pox.” Dimitri handed her a scrap of parchment with the keys written on it. “Translate those for me.”
Pox nodded and studied the runes Dimitri had copied from the two statues. “‘...Above a small world...’ ‘...Dusted and grey...’”
Dimitri quickly removed his father’s diary from the bag on his belt and scribed the translations into the pages. “So the clues we have so far read: ‘The greatest secret lies; Just beyond human eyes; On an isle moving by day; Above a small world dusted and grey’. Any ideas on what in the names of the Five Souls these keys are talking about?”
“This might seem a bit strange, but it sounds as if the clues are pointing to another planet.” Vincent shrugged at his own idea.
“As far as anyone knows, Bedeb is the only other habitable planet in the Rishai System. No one on Ithnez has been there since it was abandoned by the Feykin in AR 79, 491 years ago.”
“Who said it had to be a habitable planet, Pox?” Vincent wiggled his bushy eyebrows at her. The young Feykin scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“The abandonment of Bedeb happened only thirty-four years before Amorez was born. It might have been possible to warp safely back to the pla...”
“Bedeb isn’t grey, Dimitri.” Muttered Go
dilai. Dimitri sighed and looked at her over his shoulder. “Look up at Bedeb in the night sky. Beyond the double rings, you can see blue oceans, green and brown continents, and white clouds and ice. Nothing is grey and dusty.”
“Maybe the isle the keys are talking about is dusted and grey.” Suggested Pox. Godilai rolled her cool, cyan eyes.
“Believe what you want to. We probably won’t know exactly what these keys are pointing to until we obtain the other six.”
“Agreed.” Dimitri sighed. “Of course that plan would proceed much faster if we could actually steal Dragon Diary from that brat, Xyleena.”
“Speaking of the brat, Dimitri,” Vincent smirked and pointed his thumb to the wall of water. “Since this place looks untouched, I think we may have beaten her and her team here. What do you want to do about that?”
Dimitri was quiet as he thought things over. He sighed and glanced sideways at Godilai. “How do you see another ambush working out for us?”
“Given the outcomes of the previous attempts, dismally.” She answered crossly. “Why?”
“Because that is what we’re going to do.” Dimitri sneered. “Pox, I need you to mask our scent so Xyleena’s Demon friend doesn’t smell us. Also, if you could set up some kind anti-magic ward, that would be great. Vincent, go with Pox as back-up in case Xyleena is close. Godilai, you and I will set up the trap in here to catch the brat’s team.”
“You really think your idea is going to work this time?” Godilai sighed and watched as Pox and Vincent left to start their tasks.
Culmination Page 2
