by Eric Vall
Chapter Eleven
All my minions whipped their heads in my direction at the woman’s words and stared at me with confused expressions. Isolda’s descendant watched me with bleary eyes, and I couldn’t help but fall into the depths of their cornflower blue. I was torn. I wanted to look into her glowing face for hours, but I also didn’t want to look at her at all.
“She knows you?” Rana asked as she scrunched up her nose.
I didn’t answer her question, but Heijing gave us some insight as the Qianlong came around and stood in front of the feeble woman.
“There is a spiritual tie between Master and this woman,” the dragon spoke softly as she laid a tiny hand against Isolda’s descendent’s forehead. “Something in the past that strings them together through time and space.”
I’d thought I’d put away all my emotions tied to Isolda, but here they were, washing over me in waves. I felt pain and longing each time her eyes met mine, and I stifled all of it down as I spoke firmly to Carmedy.
“Give her some of the Azoth, she’s delirious from her time trapped in that room,” I commanded to the alchemist, and then I turned back toward the woman laying on the cold, granite floor. “We’ll get this figured out, but first, what is your name?”
“Filla,” the exhausted woman whispered as she laid her head back on the hard ground. “My name is Filla.”
“Alright Filla, we’re gonna get you all fixed in a jiffy,” Carmedy smiled sweetly as her paws moved even faster as she pulled out the decanter of Azoth and popped out the cork. “Here, drink this. You’ll feel better, and then we can start to work on your bruises and other stuff.”
The alchemist stopped her mixing and thrust the silver bottle into Filla’s face. The pale, bruised woman glanced at it warily then tipped her head back as she drank. Slowly, the Azoth took effect, and we watched as a rosy color flushed to her cheeks. Her wheat-colored hair took on more color and shined in the light filtering through the broken ceiling, and the delirious sheen disappeared from her blue eyes. Filla breathed in deeply and placed a pale hand over her thumping heart as she calmed herself. With all the internal injuries healed, she was even more stunning, and Annalise and Carmedy helped her up into a sitting position.
I knelt beside Filla and leaned closer as I hooked a finger under her chin. I saw now that there were some differences in her facial structure, and she wasn’t an exact copy of Isolda, but the resemblance between the two was still striking.
Filla watched me with cautious eyes but was calm enough to muster the strength to speak in a calmer tone than before.
“Your name is Kazama?” she asked in a strong, smooth voice that reminded me of the soft babbling of a river.
“It is, I am the god of the Underworld,” I nodded as I dropped my curled fingers from her chin and gestured toward the woman surrounding us. “And these are my women. This is Annalise, the High Queen of Tamarisch and my first wife.”
“Hello, wonderful to meet you.” The brunette smiled as she bowed her head respectfully.
“This is Carmedy, the skilled alchemist,” I grinned as I gestured to the kneeling feline, and Carmedy giggled. “You should thank her for healing you, not many receive that treatment. Most get blasted with potions or concoctions.”
“O-oh, thank you, Miss Carmedy.” Filla stuttered as her round cheeks flushed even redder.
“No prob! Anything for a new friend,” the alchemist stated as she went back to mixing the healing potions on the floor. “Unless you’re an enemy, like Master said! Then I’d have to blast your ass into oblivion with a wicked potion!”
“This is Rana, our rough and tumble swordswoman with a penchant for thievery when the time arises,” I stated as I brought the fox forward, and the redhead grinned back.
“But we don’t fault her for that, in fact, it’s one of her best attributes,” Annalise stated through a grin as she supported Filla’s arm.
“Hey! Not nice! I’ve never stolen anything from any of you!” the redhead protested as she glowered goodnaturedly down at the high queen and then turned toward the downed woman. “Hiya! Nice to meet you! I don’t steal unless it’s necessary and most of all of that is in the past, so there’s no need to worry!”
“Most of it.” Morrigan snickered under her breath, and it earned her a snort from the fox.
“This is Morrigan, an expert in dark magic. Next is Haruhi, our beloved sage with infinite knowledge, and finally, Heijing, the last living Qianlong.” I said as I pointed out each of them to Filla and the blonde stared at each of them in wonder as she took in all the information.
“So, the High Queen, the alchemist, the redhead swordswoman, the dark mage, a sage, and a dragon…” Filla questioned as her cornflower blue eyes rested on me. “And a god.”
“You are correct.” I nodded as Carmedy thrust a bowl of orange liquid under Isolda’s descendant’s chin.
Heijing aimed her blue eyes at Filla, and the smaller, blonde woman shrank into herself under the Qianlong’s intimidating gaze. The dragon scrutinized the woman for a long time before her thin lips opened, and she spoke in a cold tone.
“Now you know who we are, but who are you?” Heijing questioned in her emotionless voice. “How do you know our Master? It is clear you have some connection to him.”
“It seems that you already know,” Filla stated as she looked at me then to Annalise. “There is recognition in your faces, I see it though you are trying to hide it. The rest of you don’t know who I am, I am the descendant of a woman named Isolda. Some of my family believes I am the re-embodiment of her, but that is merely a superstition because of how similar I look to her portraits.”
“You do look eerily similar to her,” Heijing confirmed as she stared down at the blonde.
“I know you in a way that cannot be described,” Filla stated as she turned back toward me. “You are a man that I have never met in my life but have seen many times before. You visit my dreams and appear in visions that I receive. I know you from a standpoint that no one else does. You are an entity that has stayed with me since childhood, I feel as if I know you…As if you are an old friend reappearing out of nowhere, but it can’t be because we are strangers to each other.”
“Visions?” I asked curiously as I tilted my head.
“At first I thought they were nothing more than strange dreams,” Filla whispered as she dropped her chin low to her chest as she thought. “But meeting you now, it seems that things are not as they seem. All these visions and scraps of time must have been Isolda’s memories, of you and the life you shared together. I never believed that I was her, or that she had a deeper connection to me other than being the matriarch of my family but now, I’m not so sure. There were not just dreams or visions, these were distant memories she... I shared with you.”
Every word that slipped from Filla’s lips was true, and I felt my heart ache as she reached out for me.
“What did the Holy Order want from you?” I asked to take the conversation in a different direction.
I didn’t want to face what Filla said right now. It was too much all at once, this woman saw and felt all the things that Isolda did during our time together? It almost seemed impossible, but I could tell that what she said was nothing but the truth.
“They knew my connection to you and to Isolda,” the blonde explained as she sat up even straighter. “They took me from my home in the dead of night, knowing that if you knew who I was, you would come for me no matter the distance or obstacles standing in the way. I am glad that you found me when you did because their plan was truly heinous…They wanted to lure you out into the open, but they didn’t expect you to come at the head of an army. Once you were here, they would disarm you and take you prisoner and then…they would sacrifice me to the gods. The gods took Isolda from you so long ago and then they would symbolically take her away for the second time through me while you watched.”
I wasn’t surprised by this. I knew that the Holy Order planned to do something with her, but I h
adn’t known they planned to do something as disgusting as this. Filla was right, we got here at exactly the right time. The mages had hoped that they’d weaken me by this, but all it got them was an untimely death.
“Do you know any more about the Holy Order’s involvement with the gods?” I asked in a deep, serious voice as I stared down at her.
“No, they never spoke about the gods around me except for a few times in passing,” Filla stated as she folded her hands in her lap. “They left me alone most of the time or would leave me with a guard, but no, I never heard about what they were doing with the gods.”
I nodded and rose to my feet as I glanced at the small pile of things my minions found in the other rooms. There were a few scrolls, a ramshackle pile of old books and the instruments that Morrigan found. I felt a calling to the maps and knew that once I looked at them, I’d have a better idea of what the mages were doing.
“Are you healed enough to walk?” I inquired as I looked over Filla’s pale flesh. “If you are too weak, we can help you or I can carry you again.”
“N-no, I’m fine,” Filla muttered as her cheeks flushed red again. “I can walk on my own, thank you. I feel much better thanks to all of you!”
“Carmedy, will you take her to the medical tents?” I asked as I looked down at the petite alchemist. “She may be healed, but she still needs to rest. We don’t know how long she’s been tied up in that room for.”
“Sure!” Carmedy cried as she stood to her feet then offered Filla a paw. “Come on! I’ll show you the way!”
“Oh, thank you.” The blonde nodded as she took the offered paw and slowly stood to her feet.
Filla wobbled for a moment then regained her balance as the feline looped her arm through hers. Carmedy led the blonde from the dais, and every few seconds, Filla would glance back at me in awe. I stood with the rest of my minions and watched them go.
“So that’s what Isolda looked like,” Rana breathed as she placed her paws firmly on her hips. “Man, you sure like the lookers, don’t you, Master?”
I barked out a laugh as the redhead patted my shoulder, and then I turned toward the pile of things. I crossed to it and knelt down as I began to rifle through it. My women sat down on the floor around me in a circle and began looking through the things they’d found. My eyes landed on a thick scroll of weathered paper, and it called out to me. I wrapped a gloved hand around it, moved some of the other objects out of the way, and unfurled it.
My brows furrowed as I took in the segmented map of all the continents, some of them we’d visited and some of them we hadn’t. Directly in the middle of the hand-drawn paper was Galencia with tiny red arrows streaking across the bodies of water to other countries. Three of the landmasses were circled in blood-red ink: Tamarisch, Tintagal, and Valasara. None of the arrows pointed to these places, but it was clear they were on whatever agenda the mages had planned out.
“Hey, my map kind of looks like yours,” Rana muttered as she scooted closer to me and held up her own map.
The one the redhead held was laid out exactly like mine, but instead of red lines pointing to different places, hers had green. Small red dots littered each country, and each dot had a name written underneath. A few of the red dots were crossed out with slashes of black ink while some remained untouched. My eyes widened as I read off some of the names under the scratched out dots.
“Cethin, Liebe, Euron…” I whispered softly.
“T-those are the names of some of the god’s we’ve killed,” Rana cried as she ran a paw over the crumpled paper and found a small island in the middle of a large body of water. “Here, look! It has the Dáma’s name here too!”
“So, this is what they were doing...” I stated as I glanced back at my own map and realized what the Holy Order was doing for my father and the other gods.
“This map is much smaller, but I think it was plotted out where all the sacred items were,” Annalise told us as she rolled out her own map and pointed to the different places where we’d found the objects.
“What does this mean?” Morrigan asked in her cold, emotionless voice.
“I think it is very clear to us, isn’t it, Master?” Heijing uttered as she lifted a single instrument into the air and examined the runes carved into its side.
“I have a few guesses, but I’m more interested in what you think is happening,” Haruhi said as she snapped a book closed, adjusted her glasses, and looked to me.
“As Heijing said, it’s pretty clear what the gods wanted them to do and what they were doing,” I stated as I leaned back on my heels. “They were keeping track of our progress for quite a long time it seems. A lot of these dungeons crossed out date back all the way from the time you released me from my dungeon. This isn’t a plan set into motion all at once, they knew the exact time I left my prison and all the other events that came after. Even here, on your map, there are small dates. Those are the dates that I married Annalise, Morrigan, and Carmedy.”
“They’ve been watching us this entire time…” Annalise whispered in horror as her eyes widened.
“More importantly, this is our biggest clue,” I told them as I laid out my map in front of them.
“But it’s just a bunch of squiggly lines,” Rana muttered as she stroked her chin. “What could they possibly mean?”
“For one, Tamarisch, Tintagal, and Valasara are our largest strongholds,” I stated as I tapped the three countries. “They are the only three places without arrows. The Holy Order knew not to try to take them but look at the rest of the lines. They stretch all over the entire globe.”
“The Holy Order wanted to get all of them under their control,” Morrigan whispered as she leaned forward and tapped the capital of Galencia.
“They wanted to do a Dark Shadow spell…” Haruhi breathed as she flipped feverishly through a black-bound book. “They wanted to get each person under their control, convert them to the Holy Order, and then send their souls to the gods.”
The sage slammed the book down in front of all of us, and we peered down at the pages. The volume looked to be a journal or diary of some sort, and I quickly scanned the handwritten page. What the librarian said was true, it was outlined in another man’s sloppy cursive. The gods had instructed them to indoctrinate each person they came into contact with, convince them that their cause was the only one to follow, and sacrifice their lives to the higher beings.
I gritted my teeth as my hands curled into fists. I knew my father wanted all mortals on earth dead, and it shouldn’t have surprised me, but from the way this man wrote, he fully believed in Chirus’ cause. All the words here, singing praise to my father were all false. My father didn’t respect or care for mortals, he simply lied to them to get them to kill each other in the name of worship.
“I should’ve known,” I stated as I sat back and rested my hands in my lap. “I should’ve known he would resort to such a lazy, diabolical thing. He can’t even do it on his own, he had to get the help of the Holy Order to convince the others to worship him. He is weak and insolent, and it disgusts me to know that the Holy Order knew and trusted him this entire time.”
“He’ll pay,” Rana growled as her paws tightened.
“They all will.” Haruhi agreed as her hazel eyes flitted to me.
“We also have something they want.” Annalise grinned, and a determined fire blazed in her eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Morrigan inquired with a tilt of her head.
I grinned back at the high queen as I glanced over at Rana. We had something coveted not only by the Holy Order but the gods too. This was something that would give us an edge in the battle against them.
“The sacred items,” I smirked as I looked pointedly at the redhead and tapped the swordswoman’s map. “The weapon that Tuzakeur and the Holy Order wanted. It’s in our hands, waiting to be activated.”
Rana didn’t speak as her baby-blue eyes widened and her supple lips dropped open. The fox’s paws slipped into her pack as she rummag
ed around, and I reached into my void pocket. My hands found the first wooden box easily, and I ran my fingers over the grain of its surface. The object inside sang to life as I pulled it free and then reached back in for the second box. I lay them both on top of the maps and waited for Rana.
The fox first pulled out a long chain with a golden amulet on the end, I recognized it as the one she’d found in the depths of my dungeon and smiled softly at the memory. Rana was wary of me then, barely addressed me or looked in my direction. Over time, the fox had warmed up to me, and I made her one of my minions shortly after. It warmed my heart the way she almost saved herself for me, she’d been a tough one to crack, but the payoff was sweeter than anything I ever imagined.
Rana glanced at the amulet, smiled, and then placed it beside the boxes as she dug even deeper. This time she pulled out two things, a necklace with a ring dangling on the end and a small, emerald beetle brooch. The fox looked them over for a minute then placed them in the middle of the map with the others. The fox grabbed the last item from her pack, the long metal rod encrusted with jewels given to the fox from the Qianlong.
Heijing’s icy blue eyes fell on the item, and a phantom of a smile crossed her thin lips. The dragon gave the sacred item to us so easily and then pledged her life to us.
I flipped open the two boxes we’d found in Otia’s dungeon and revealed the two mezzaluna shaped blades. The jewels pressed into the gold metal flashed and glinted in the light, and godly power thrummed from each piece laid out before us. Rana breathed in deeply as her paws unclasped the necklace from around her neck, but she stopped for a moment and watched the sapphire swing from the silver chain.
The Tichádáma had given the Eye of Alipsis to Rana moments before the goddess passed on into the spirit realm. The jewelry was something important to the fox, each of my women loved and admired the goddess and had been deeply hurt when she died before our eyes.
