The Blood King’s Apprentice

by David Alastair Hayden

  The fetch’s eyes widened. He cocked his head to the side and silently stared at Turesobei as if he’d never seen him before.

  The Mark of the Storm Dragon had vanished from his Lu Bei’s chest and he was half as big as normal. He must’ve returned to his original, pre-Storm Dragon form. But the fire blasts…Lu Bei had never done those before.

  “What happened…to you?” Turesobei asked.

  Lu Bei frowned, started to say something, then stopped.

  Turesobei drew deep breaths and focused his mind. He could handle the pain. His physical injuries were bad but far from lethal. Blood had already stopped seeping out from his first wound. The problem was how much kenja the ghost-demons had drained from him. He was lethargic, shivering cold and weighed down with an intense sense of hopeless. One more demon strike would incapacitate him.

  The fetch continued to stare at him silently.

  “What is this place?” Turesobei asked.

  Lu Bei’s lips twitched into a frown.

  “Do you know what happened? Do you know how to get back?”

  The fetch shook his head and continued to stare.

  “What’s wrong with you?” No response. He sighed in understanding. “It’s not you, is it? The question is what’s wrong with me, right? For starters, where is my kavaru?”

  The fetch cocked his head to the other side, opened his mouth…then closed it.

  Turesobei groaned and rolled over. “You do know who I am, don’t you?”

  With his eyes narrowed, the fetch chewed at his lip then nodded.

  Turesobei tried to stand but slumped back. At least he was sitting up. He winced in pain as the cuts on his chest opened wider. The fetch slipped forward a few inches, as if to come to Turesobei’s aid, then paused and continued to hover.

  Whatever force had removed Turesobei’s kavaru must have damaged Lu Bei’s mind. He was connected to the kavaru, after all. Apparently, they were both going to be trapped here until a host of demons arrived and overpowered Lu Bei. And he was certain more demons would come, drawn by the scent of his blood.

  The fetch went suddenly erect and uttered with the greatest devotion a single word: “Master.”

  “Yes! It’s about time you….”

  The fetch wasn’t speaking to him. He wasn’t even looking down anymore. He was staring over Turesobei.

  Lu Bei bowed in midair.

  Turesobei whipped around. Then stared in awe at a man he’d never met, whom he’d never seen before, but whom he knew intimately. The man was baojendari in appearance, with a robust frame. He had deep-set, golden brown eyes, prominent cheekbones and black hair with an emerald sheen. He wore pale green robes with a sash of amber that matched…that matched the familiar amber kavaru embedded in his forehead.

  Turesobei sat speechless…awed and unmoving…before his ancestor: Chonda Lu.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Lu Bei!” Chonda Lu said in a resonant baritone. “How have we come to be here?”

  “Master,” Lu Bei said, “we teleported here by accident, though I do not know what or where here is.”

  Chonda Lu glanced down. His eyes passed over Turesobei as if he were nothing of importance. Turesobei started to speak but the words died in his throat.

  “I never told you of this place?”

  “No, Master.”

  “I guess my investigations of it were before your time. This is the Wraithspace, a reality beyond ours, a place far more dangerous than the Shadowland.”

  “More dangerous?” Lu Bei asked incredulously, voicing Turesobei’s exact thought.

  “Indeed.” Chonda Lu frowned. “I do not remember casting a teleport spell. And I would never willingly venture into the Wraithspace.” His eyes flared wide. “I died!”

  “Yes, Master. Over four centuries ago.”

  Chonda Lu took in a sharp breath and shuddered.

  “Are you okay, Master?” Lu Bei asked.

  Chonda Lu nodded. “My memories just returned.” He gazed around in confusion. “This isn’t what I had in mind when I planned my return. Why are we here?”

  “I do not know, Master.”

  “Has the time arrived?”

  Lu Bei shook his head. “The hour foretold grows near, but it is not yet upon us. You shouldn’t be here now.”

  With sharp eyes, Chonda Lu appraised Turesobei. “Who is this boy? A son of mine, perhaps? He seems familiar. I feel I should know him well.”

  Turesobei tried to reply with proper dignity, but he winced and gasped as he spoke. “My name is…Chonda Turesobei. And until a few minutes ago…I was the bearer of your…kavaru.”

  Chonda Lu knelt beside him. “Lu Bei, is it true that he bore my kavaru?”

  “Until a few moments ago, Master.”

  “I had never before…been without the kavaru…your kavaru,” Turesobei said. “I don’t remember ever having…been without it.”

  “You never should have been,” Chonda Lu said. “This isn’t the way the magic is supposed to work. If I had known a result such as this was possible….”

  Turesobei waited for Chonda Lu to finish, but he never did. He simply gazed around at the mists.

  “Master, Turesobei is injured.”

  “Oh, of course.” Chonda Lu placed a hand on Turesobei’s forehead and cast a healing spell. Warm energy currents flowed across Turesobei. He knew the signature beneath the currents perfectly. Until a few minutes ago, that signature had been his. Where was his kenja-heart now?

  With his wounds healed and much of his life force returned, Turesobei stood and bowed. “Thank you, my lord.”

  “So you performed a teleportation spell and ended up here?”

  Turesobei nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

  “How did you manage such a feat?”

  Ignoring the slight, Turesobei started to explain the Blood King’s spell, but Lu Bei interrupted him.

  “It would be best, and in the end probably faster, for you to start at the beginning, since Master lacks the proper context.”

  Turesobei quickly recounted everything that had happened so far.

  “You absorbed the energy from the Storm Dragon’s Heart?”

  “So did Lu Bei. He nearly doubled in size and could turn into a small dragon.”

  Chonda Lu boomed a laugh then waved his hand. “Go on!”

  Turesobei continued and Lu Bei frequently intervened to hurry him along or to emphasize details he thought important. Then the tale reached the lair of the Deadly Twelve. Chonda Lu was astonished to learn that Turesobei had summoned Motekeru to aid him, even if by accident. But that response paled in comparison to his reaction upon hearing the next part.

  “You defeated the Twelve Who Are Three and One?!” Chonda Lu bellowed. “And did what I could not, even with my knowledge and power. Astounding!”

  After having to recount all the details of that encounter, Turesobei summarized what followed. He wanted to be out of this place as soon as possible. Chonda Lu’s eyes widened as he learned about the Forbidden Library, the nature of the realms, Hannya and the Blood King.

  When the tale was finished, Chonda Lu shook his head, laughing and muttering, seemingly both astonished and dismayed.

  “You uncovered the deepest secrets of Okoro. Secrets I couldn’t unravel after centuries of effort. You defeated the Twelve Who Are Three and One, battled dragons and now struggle against the one who bound the power of the Council of Nine and created the realms. I am awed in your presence.”

  “What?” Turesobei asked dumbfounded. “Why?”

  “Based on everything I just said, isn’t it obvious? I never did so much in a century as you did in the span of two years and with a fraction of my power. I am truly amazed.” He turned to Lu Bei. “He is like me but so much more. How can that be?”

  Lu Bei shrugged. “I do not know, Master. All I can say is that Turesobei is quite special in his own right.”

  “I struggled with the most rudimentary forms of teleportation. So much so that I gave up on it. For yo
u to manage it is astounding.”

  “I didn’t even know I was casting a teleportation spell,” Turesobei said. “I blindly recited the characters on the scroll the Blood King gave me and directed the energies as he instructed. When I tried it the first few times, I felt only a tug of energy. But I figured out the characters on the surface of the scroll were actually three-dimensional and encompassed other characters. But even then, the only reason it worked was because I cast the spell while imagining I was you. That’s how I manage to cast the Kaiaru storm spells from your grimoire. And I can only do that because sometimes I have dreams where I experience small parts of your life. Like the battle against Vôl Ultharma.”

  Chonda Lu nodded serenely. “That makes perfect sense. And it does explain many of the impressive feats you have managed.”

  “Do you know what went wrong with my teleportation spell?”

  “I think I do,” Chonda Lu said. “First, you didn’t correctly lock in the coordinates of your destination. Otherwise you wouldn’t be stuck in the Wraithspace. Second, you failed to incorporate your entire self into the spell, so certain parts of you became disentangled during transport. Given your lack of knowledge about who you are, that was an understandable error. I strongly suspect, however, that had you reached the intended destination, the parts would have reintegrated properly regardless of your mistake.”

  “Part of me became…disentangled? You mean the kavaru, don’t you?”

  Chonda Lu nodded. He began to say something else but stopped.

  “So how is it that you are here, after being dead for centuries, if all that was removed from me was the kavaru and the strength that came with it? That doesn’t….”

  Turesobei suddenly realized exactly what it meant for the kavaru to be drawn out of him—the one with the special destiny—and for Chonda Lu himself to then consequently appear here. Answers to dozens of questions he’d long held rushed through his mind faster than he could consider them, their implications far out of his current reach. But those thoughts stopped altogether in a heartbeat when he remembered the kavaru wasn’t the only thing bound to him. Lu Bei was small here and the Mark of the Storm Dragon was gone from his chest.

  Turesobei touched his cheek. “Is there a mark here, perhaps a storm symbol?”

  Chonda Lu shook his head. “The power of the Storm Dragon has been separated from you as well.” Suddenly alert, he drew from his hip a shining sword of gold that Turesobei hadn’t noticed before. “Wraiths are closing in. Dozens of them. We must leave immediately. I have to get out of here…I have to get us out of here.”

  “There’s something worse than the wraiths to worry about,” Turesobei said. “If the kavaru and…and you…could be separated from me, then that means Naruwakiru is here somewhere.”

  Thunder boomed in the distance.

  Turesobei cringed. “I shouldn’t have said her name.”

  “Why does that worry you?” Chonda Lu asked.

  “The Storm Dragon doesn’t like me.”

  Lu Bei wrung his hands anxiously. “He’s right, master. The Storm Dragon is a wild, unhappy thing at best. Naruwakiru’s intelligence is gone, but her anger remains. And the only target that anger has is Turesobei.”

  “You haven’t tamed the dragon?” Chonda Lu asked.

  “No.”

  Thunder boomed again. This time closer.

  “How do we leave the Wraithspace?” Turesobei asked.

  Chonda Lu scratched at his chin. “Well, you cannot simply cast the spell again. The origin point has changed.”

  “And he didn’t get the destination correct anyway,” Lu Bei said.

  “So we wait for the Blood King to rescue us….”

  Chonda Lu shook his head. “Wraithspace does not overlay our world the way the Shadowland does. Wraithspace is infinite. Yet, because of its malleability, the distance between any two points in our world can be compacted, making travel almost instantaneous, even across vast distances. However, the same pathway opened twice will not likely cross through the same area of Wraithspace. Simply put, the Blood King might spend centuries searching without ever finding you.”

  A bolt of lightning struck nearby. Gray dirt exploded into the air. The concussive force knocked the wind out of Turesobei’s lungs and blasted him backward. He hit the ground hard and rolled to a stop. The Storm Dragon soared overhead then disappeared into the clouds. Turesobei picked himself up and looked for the others.

  Chonda Lu, with his golden sword held overhead, was unharmed. Lu Bei clung safely to his back. A shimmering force bubble surrounded them.

  As Turesobei closed in, the bubble faded.

  “Duck behind Master next time,” Lu Bei said. “Put him in between you and the Storm Dragon.”

  “I’ll try,” Turesobei said. “But I didn’t know the attack was coming.”

  “You didn’t feel the disturbance in the kenja currents?” Lu Bei asked.

  Turesobei shook his head. He couldn’t bear to voice the truth, that he was now as blind to the flows of kenja as any normal human would be.

  Wraiths charged in from every direction. Some fell from the sky while others rose up from the ground. Chonda Lu drew a second golden sword from out of nowhere and handed it to Turesobei. He spun around and plunged it through a wraith’s chest. The demon vanished into a puff of smoke.

  With their backs to each other they fought the wraiths. Chonda Lu was dazzlingly with his sword and an array of targeted fire spells. Lu Bei fought fiercely with his tiny claws and blazing fireballs. Turesobei just did the best he could with the weightless, magic sword he’d never wielded before.

  “Incoming!” Lu Bei shouted.

  Turesobei slashed a wraith then ducked behind Chonda Lu. The thunderbolt struck a direct hit. The force field flickered under the impact. Chonda Lu staggered back into Turesobei and nearly tripped. The wraiths surrounding them exploded into a thick mist.

  “You okay?” Lu Bei asked.

  Turesobei took a deep breath. The skin of his hands and face was blistered, as if he’d spent a whole day out under the full sun. But that was it. “I’m alright.”

  “At least the Storm Dragon did us a favor by taking out all the wraiths,” Lu Bei said.

  “More will come,” Chonda Lu said. “Unprepared as I am, I cannot fight the wraiths and block lightning blasts forever. We have to leave.”

  “How do we do that, master?”

  “Turesobei, you’ll have to use your instincts. Cast the spell of locating that which is hidden while focusing on finding yourself within the Nexus. It will be dangerous, potentially deadly if you should miss the Nexus altogether or teleport into the ground or a wall. But staying here and waiting for rescue isn’t an option.”

  “Um….”

  Chonda Lu gave him a hard look. “Except you cannot cast spells anymore, can you?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Master, Turesobei used your kavaru. So for all intents and purposes, you were the one who cast the spell. You could get us out of here.”

  “But I have never been to the Nexus. So I cannot locate myself there.”

  “Your kavaru was there, master.”

  “That’s not enough. For this to work, a direct, personal memory of the place is necessary.”

  Turesobei frowned. Neither one of them could do this alone. His memories had to work in tandem with Chonda Lu’s kavaru. They needed to form a link. No, they needed more than that. The spell was supposed to take him—all of him—somewhere. And he was so much more than he’d always thought himself to be. He might not want to face it, but he was part Turesobei and part Storm Dragon and, somehow, part Chonda Lu as well. He was the sum of all three beings. And that sum would be required to get out of this mess.

  Chonda Lu stared intently at him. “You have figured out the solution, haven’t you?”

  Hesitantly, Turesobei nodded. “I must reunite all the parts of…of myself.”

  Lu Bei glanced between them then rocked back, nodding. “Ah, yes. Of course.”
/>
  The Storm Dragon dove in again. Chonda Lu leapt in front of Turesobei and brandished his sword. The lightning bolt struck and the shield held—but only just. The impact knocked them all backward.

  Apparently having waited for this opportunity, wraiths surged out from the mists. While Chonda Lu cut them down by the dozen, Turesobei fought defensively. He couldn’t risk having one hit him and drain away his kenja again.

  A wraith dodged one of Lu Bei’s fireballs, ducked under Turesobei’s sword stroke and leapt at Chonda Lu. He plunged his sword into its belly, but before it vanished it struck him deep in the shoulder. He grunted and staggered back.

  The Storm Dragon swooped in toward them.

  “Run!” Chonda Lu shouted.

  With Lu Bei indiscriminately firing ahead to clear the way, they raced directly toward the Storm Dragon. She opened her maw wide and unleashed her electric fire. But her blast overshot them and blasted a crater into the earth, slaying the pursuing wraiths.

  As she swooped past, Chonda Lu pulled up suddenly and Turesobei crashed into him. Beating his wings ferociously, Lu Bei wheeled around back to them. And none too soon. A dozen wraiths, including a massive one three times the size of the others, stepped out of the mists ahead of them.

  Chonda Lu sliced the head off of the first wraith that charged in. “Turesobei, get it done. And quickly. We’ll protect you.”

  With a lump in his throat and a weight on his chest, Turesobei nodded. This was the only chance he would ever get to prove what he could do—who he was—without storm powers or magic, without his kavaru and Chonda Lu. Yet all he could do with the opportunity was to put everything back the way it had been, to sacrifice his own identity and ultimately his own future. The only other option was death.

  While Lu Bei and Chonda Lu fought the wraiths, Turesobei closed his eyes and focused his mind on the Storm Dragon and on the kavaru embedded in Chonda Lu’s forehead.

  The kavaru and I are linked. Chonda Lu and I share the same destiny. We are both one and the same. The Storm Dragon is within me. We are all three linked. We are all three bound to my form.

  A flash of the dragon dream…casting a spell for Grandfather Kahenan…the ever-warm, amber kavaru touching his skin….