Starchild Crusaders

by J. J. Pavlov

  "Is it over?" Asoko asks cautiously and looks around.

  "Oi, don't ask that!" I retort, and her eyes widen at the realization that she might have jinxed it with that clichéd question. In fiction, every time somebody asks whether or not an attack was enough to end it, it turns out to have been entirely ineffective.

  "It would appear that we can never see eye to eye, Miss Kuroe." From all around us, Al-Majnun's voice resounds like an echo without an origin. "That is why I will no longer force you to stay. You have done enough damage to my paradise as is."

  "I can't believe that I'm the one saying this but... how can you call this paradise? You force people into an empty life filled with only joy." I look around and reply with a denial of his ideal. "Without hardships, people can't appreciate happiness!"

  "That is a very mature outlook on life, Miss Kuroe." The Perverter of Order states with an impressed undertone in his disembodied voice. "And that is why all my subjects can appreciate what I'm giving them. Is that not the case for the three of you, too?"

  I open my mouth and then close it again; he's right, so I can't reject his argument. Everybody else in this town must have led harsh lives and are now living in peace, even if it's under a mind-altering spell.

  "But brainwashing them is still evil!" I shout up at the voice, only to receive tongue-clicking in response.

  "Not brainwashing - mentally liberating. When you see the world as I do, no more sadness will hold you prisoner." That reasoning doesn't fly with me, as I've heard that kind of line often enough. People in this world may not have had many experiences with it, but modern mass media reports on such things frequently enough.

  "Spoken like a true cult leader." I brush off his sugarcoating.

  "Be that as it may, you can't deny that you had fun while it lasted." But my accusation doesn't seem to faze him, and he even sounds gleeful in his assessment. "You have chosen reality. Return to it as you will."

  The castle begins to crumble all around us, and to our horror, the people, as well as the furniture and the food on the trays, turn into sand. Were Asoko and I eating sand all this time? We should be fine, even if that were true, but what about Hestia?

  "Don't worry. I'm a trickster, not the devil. The things you ate won't disappear." Reassuring me with a fading voice, Al-Majnun alleviates my concerns even though I didn't say them out loud. "I even left you a gift. Maybe you will come back one day and understand what it is that I'm doing here."

  "I doubt I will." I grumble under my breath while watching the castle around us disappear.

  "Goodbye then, Miss Kuroe." With this farewell, his echo disappears alongside the entire city, which fades into the desert. Once again, we're surrounded by the dunes of the Nagirah, as if everything was just an illusion.

  As I look around, I spot a figure not far from us; I had already completely forgotten about his existence, but he's instrumental in continuing our journey.

  "Medha haddatha?" He exclaims in confusion. It's Jalil, crawling on all fours and looking around as if searching for whatever - or whomever - he was holding before the illusion was dispelled. Is he the gift the Great Deceiver left us?

  "Over here, Jalil." I wave at him, and he looks up with bloodshot eyes. When he spots me, his expression shifts to one of terror, and he scrambles to get away from me with all the energy he can muster. I look down at myself and realize that I'm still in my true form; luckily, I'm far enough away, or his human mind would most likely have been destroyed at my sight.

  "What's that?" Hestia asks in a wondrous tone, and I turn to look where she's pointing. Not far from us, the dunes flatten out into more of a rocky desert with small hills and some buttes.

  "Hey, Jalil!" I transform back into my human form and call out to our guide, who's still trying to climb a dune and get away from us. When he hears my voice, he stops and turns his head slowly. "Come over here and tell us what this is."

  "W-what you mean?" He hesitates a little but then decides that following me leaves him with a higher chance of survival than trying to haphazardly escape through the biggest desert in the world. And my threat to kill him if he ever runs away still stands.

  It takes him a bit to climb up to us, but none of us try to help him. He hasn't noticed it yet, but his dangly bits are hanging out, and it's not something we want to see or get close to. I'll tell him when he's close enough, though I hope he realizes himself so that I don't have to say the words or even point at the things in question.

  Fortunately, he does notice and hastily adjusts his clothes before he reaches us. When he does and looks across the landscape, his eyes widen in lack of comprehension. Taking out the map from the small satchel he's still wearing even after everything that happened, he checks it for the obvious landmarks before us. Then he looks around once again and glances in the general direction of the low-hanging sun before opening his mouth in disbelief.

  "We through Nagirah. One day, border of Khurut." He points in the direction of the buttes, though his gesture is aiming at something still beyond them. "How?"

  "Guess we have Al-Majnun to thank." I don't want to admit it, but he seems to have helped us out for some reason. After everything that happened between us, I have no idea why he would do that, but I won't look a gift camel in its mouth.

  Speaking of camels, we lost ours in the sandstorm so we'll have to travel the rest of the journey on foot. At least it's not nearly as far as it would have been if we hadn't been taken into the mirage city, Mallabun Al-Majnun - apparently translated to 'playground of Al-Majnun' - and spat back out here.

  "We made it?" Asoko asks with disbelief in her voice.

  "Is this real?" Hestia, who was affected by Al-Majnun's hypnosis the deepest, has the most reason to question reality. But the heat of the setting sun and the dryness of the air is completely unlike inside the city.

  "How does it feel?" I ask her and glance down at her bare feet.

  "It's hot." She replies but doesn't try to tiptoe and avoid burning her soles. It's better to stay standing until it cools down under one's feet.

  "Then this is real." I state with a grin, then look around at our belongings scattered about our vicinity. "Let's collect our stuff and get going. I want to get over there before nightfall."

  Over there refers to the nearest butte, which will be a much better place to rest than the open desert. And I can't wait for a change of scenery, as our surroundings have been nothing but sand, sand, and more sand for the past seventeen days. I'm not counting the five days in the city of deception.

  "We did it." I mutter to myself and look down at my scarred arm. I'm getting closer to returning to your side, Kamii.

  Chapter 64 - End Of The Line

  Twenty-four days is how long our trip through the Nagirah desert took. Due to Al-Majnun's unexpected help, it was shortened by over a week, and we came out near the place we were aiming for. Even with excellent navigational skills, that wasn't guaranteed, but the Great Deceiver made it possible.

  In the evening of the day after being expelled from the mirage city, we reach the last sultanate settlement before the border to the Mineva Republic. It's called Kherak and located in an old river valley, where the rocky desert abruptly transitions into fertile lands with shrubs and even trees. The surroundings are still arid, so this is an oasis rather than a different climate.

  Its proximity to another nation with a different culture is evident in the town's architecture. All the buildings we've seen in the Khurut Sultanate so far were made from clay or sandstone and had smooth edges that may or may not have been the result of abrasion over long periods of time. Their roofs were also always flat.

  In this border town, houses are less boxy and have slanted roofs covered in orange ceramic tiles. The clothing is also somewhat different, with women occasionally wearing baggy pants and even having weapons at their hips. This is a first in all of the sultanate so far; aside from members of the royal guard, women seem to be forbidden from arming themselves.

  Hestia's wings are
hidden once again so that we don't attract too much attention. But the fact that I have her on a leash seems to garner many disapproving looks. Jalil explains that the Mineva Republic phased out slavery a long time ago, and it seems to have spilled across the border.

  "I offered to cover her as clothes." Asoko comments with this dig at my declining said offer.

  "Because I don't want you all over her." I should have ignored my other half's thinly veiled attempt at getting to me, but still feel the need to retort. Knowing me, she can't suppress her curiosity and lust for Hestia. "Not like we'll stay here for long."

  "No time for rest?" The dark-skinned me asks with a sideways glance at our guide. He's been through so much with us and looks quite haggard since the run-in with the Perverter of Order. Maybe he didn't get much rest there, letting his appetite and libido run free unchecked for too long.

  "We don't need any. Isn't that so, Hestia?" I ask the angel girl, and she nods with a smile. The reason I'm not addressing the only human among us, the one that is the one who needs a break, is simple: He won't be accompanying us beyond this place. In the streets, I could hear some people talk in an accent-laden Imperian. They must be merchants or even immigrants from the republic, but regardless of what they are, it means that we don't need an interpreter anymore.

  I have Jalil find us an inn as a last courtesy to his work that got us this far, even though I could ask the locals myself. Kherak is pretty small, but as a border city, it has many accommodations used by merchants passing through. I pick a homely-seeming one and ask for dinner, during which I'll tell our guide that this is where our ways will part.

  "You couldn't bring yourself to say it?" Asoko sits down on her bed and asks with a frown. "Even though you didn't exactly treat him nicely."

  "I know. But we've been together for such a long time that he grew on me." I admit reluctantly. Nothing much has changed about him being a mildly disgusting creature, but I did learn things that turned him into more than just a crook in my eyes.

  "Don't tell me you actually like him?" The smirk my other half is wearing on her face irks me, but I don't fall for that obvious hook.

  "We'll leave early in the morning, so get some sleep." I ignore her and address Hestia. She has been quiet for most of the day, so the experiences in Mallabun Al-Majnun must have taken their toll on her as well. Only Asoko and I are fine, but we can't be used as a measure for normalcy.

  The fallen angel complies immediately and lies down in her bed, but my other half continues to stare at me with unabated glee. I walk over to her bed and push her down with a straight face, causing her cheeks to flush red.

  "W-wha?! Y-you want to do it now?" She stutters, and I hear Hestia gasp behind me. The fact that she's not saying a word tells me she wouldn't mind watching us.

  "Shut up." I mutter and approach my other half's lips with my own. Her eyes swim all over the place, nervous about being on the receiving end like this for once. When I'm so close that I can feel her breath brush against my skin, I look into her eyes intently. "Give me all your money."

  "Huh?" Asoko and Hestia make at the same time.

  The sun rises on a new day of toiling as the slave of a demonic being in human skin. It has been so long since Jalil left his faraway home and job in Almadinad that he doesn't even remember when he last spoke to a person he knew by name.

  He considered his life forfeit the day he met this monster with a thousand faces. Even if there were moments he thought things were looking better for him during their journey together, not once did he bear the hope to return to the city he was born and raised in.

  A big part of him was terrified by her threat that she would hunt him down if he ever ran away, but a tiny sliver of his being still held onto her promise of riches when he has fulfilled his duty to her. Only that he didn't know if she would honor it; did she even remember it?

  But when Jalil looks at the small table by his bedside, he sees a folded sheet of paper with Imperian runes on it. He snaps his head around and peers through the room, but finds himself alone. But there's no question about who left this here sometime during the night without waking him, and for what reason.

  He opens the letter and looks inside to find just a single line of text as well as a word at the bottom. While he may be able to speak broken Imperian, he can't read it; he will have to find somebody who can translate it for him in Kherak. But its content is unmistakably an announcement that they will part ways here. That demon wouldn't have used such a roundabout way if it was about anything else, and even this surprises him; he thought she would leave without a word of farewell.

  Lying back down, he considers the possibility that this may be just overthinking on his part. Any moment now, she could be knocking on his door and asking for him to interpret for her again. Lifting a hand to his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose, he turns his head to the window.

  That's when Jalil finally spots it. On the windowsill sits a pile of leather purses just like the ones the patrons of the store he worked in opened whenever they gave him a tip. Jumping up with round eyes, he runs over to check their content.

  A quick count reveals nearly five hundred dhahaba. It's a respectable fortune, enough to last him a lifetime if spent wisely. The fact that this is here confirms his suspicions; the demon has freed him from his duty and left Kherak to continue her journey.

  Jalil falls to his knees and looks out the window with tears in his eyes. With this, he can return to Almadinad and open his own store. He no longer has to work as a slave would for anyone ever again. Banging his head on the wooden floor, he loudly thanks the gods for letting him survive this ordeal. Then he raises his voice to praise the demon named Chaos for keeping a promise he felt no assurance in all this time.

  He would never forget her for as long as he lives.

  I turn around one last time to look back at Kherak. The sun disc has separated from the horizon now, and it's usually the time we wake up to continue on our journey. Since I didn't feel like talking to Jalil in person, I left a letter and his reward in his room. Then I woke Hestia and Asoko earlier than usual to depart the city before he could confront me about it. By now, he must have found it though, and I had the thought that he may be chasing after us.

  "Did he really steal your heart?" My other half quips, and I ram an elbow into her side which causes her to trip and run face-first into a thorny bush. "Aaah! My eyes!!!"

  "Don't act like it hurts." I hop over her while she rolls across the floor, holding her face, and she immediately stops with a pout.

  "Can't even appreciate some lightheartedness these days, huh?" Getting back up and dusting herself off, she rolls her eyes. She's right about that; now that we're no longer slowed down by needing a human interpreter, we can earnestly return to traveling across the lands as quickly as possible.

  "We're far enough from the city. From here on, we'll fly." Saying while transforming the corresponding parts into Hestia's template to grow wings, I point into the distance. It's the general direction of the next city, according to a map of the region I appropriated last night while the others were asleep. "I want to reach Kalava today, so we have to cross those mountains by nightfall."

  The Al-Amanik mountain range half a day's walk away from Kherak marks the border between the Khurut Sultanate and the Mineva Republic. In the republic's language, it's called Amanikon and has been a natural barrier that has always prevented many war-minded leaders on both sides from attacking their neighboring nation. It's not that they're impossible to traverse, but armies would be set upon by the giants living there, which otherwise leave travelers in small caravans alone.

  I would have loved to see one of those giants, but that can wait until I'm reunited with Kamii. If I'm so inclined, I can then travel the world with her and visit places without having the feeling of being pressed for time. Even though it's no longer a matter of returning as quickly as I can, now that we've been gone for two moons.

  We take to the skies and fly faster than I could have ru
n in a vularen body. The landscape under us passes by quickly, and we reach the foot of the Amanikon mountain range before the sun approaches its zenith. Calculating the distance between Kherak and the mountains, I can approximate our cruise speed to something around sixty kilometers per hour. That's flying horizontally and without even flapping our wings.

  "Tell me again why we didn't travel like this from the start?" Asoko asks while overtaking me and performing a barrel roll. She drops out of the air but catches herself a few dozen meters later, then soars back up to hear my answer with an eyebrow raised. It wasn't a rhetorical question, it seems.

  "None of us wanted to carry Jalil." We went over this even before setting out for the Nagirah desert, but now that we're experiencing the convenience of flight, she just had to bring it up again.

  "Why did we even need him?" Flying left and right like an excited child, my other half continues her line of inquiries.

  "Because none of us know how to navigate using the stars. And unlike here, the desert doesn't have any permanent landmarks." We also talked about all the reasons for and against traveling with Jalil. At the time, the decision was to let him guide us until we didn't need an interpreter anymore.

  "We could have easily flown in a straight line until we reached the other side." And that's a hat-trick. Three points that I thought we had put to rest already.

  "And risk getting lost? While we may be fine for who knows how long, what about Hestia?" I suppress the urge to point at her during my argument, but the fallen angel still flinches at the tone I mention her in.

  "So I was slowing you down. You should just cast me aside if that ever happens again." She says with a downcast gaze, and I feel bad even though that's not how I meant it.

  "You know I would never do that." Increasing my altitude to get above her, I embrace Hestia from behind and whisper into her ear. The only reason I dare to do such an aerial maneuver is that we're both gliding without beating our wings, so there's no danger of getting entangled.