by Eric Vall
The smell wasn’t as overpowering as the scent the Kitsune used, but it was strong enough that I could taste it on the tip of my tongue. I glanced back at all of my women, and each of them sniffed at the air with perplexed looks. In the distance, I could hear faint, fast-paced music and the pulsing beat of the god’s power.
“What the hell is going on down there?” Rana chuckled, and I glanced back at her and watched as the fox seemed to trip over nothing then swayed as she tried to steady herself. “Whooooa!”
My eyes narrowed on the redhead’s face as she giggled in a way that wasn’t normal, and her baby-blue eyes seemed to be glazed over. Carmedy reached out an arm to steady the fox, but the alchemist also tripped and almost fell. The two women supported each other and laughed loudly as they threw their heads back.
“What’s happening?” Annalise asked as she turned to me with wide eyes, and she gave me a lopsided smirk.
My eyes met with Heijing, but her lips stayed closed in a firm line. Her icy blue eyes were wide with fear, but she understood what was going on just as I did. I reached out and spoke directly into her mind, and she listened intently to my voice.
“Don’t speak, don’t open your mouth,” I instructed her, and she nodded once.
Heijing stepped forward and corralled all of the seemingly intoxicated women together. The Qianlong huddled them behind me and moved quickly along with my hurried steps. I’d already sensed out the god and knew what he was doing to my women. It wasn’t like before when other gods took over their minds, this was different. He’d instead made them drunk as he’d done with so many others in the heavens. I knew exactly who I was dealing with, and I gripped the God Slayer in my hands.
The deity wasn’t powerful, I already knew that because I’d met him multiple times in the heavens. The music from below got louder as we approached the nexus, and my three entranced women began to jump and dance around the beating drums. We hadn’t run into any obstacles yet, and it didn’t surprise me. This god was mostly harmless even though he was one of the oldest I’d ever met, probably around the age of my father or mother. He was one of the key founders of the Holy Council in the heavens even though he was thrown from that position after he attempted to corrupt the members into drinking all day and not getting any work done.
Jovial laughter burst up from the darkness ahead of us as the music grew louder, and I gritted my teeth against the sound. I peeked over my shoulder at Heijing, but the Qianlong was too busy attending to my minions to catch my gaze. My women’s behavior was getting worse, and the poor dragon had to support both Carmedy and Rana with her arms as we trudged along. Her icy blue eyes raised and met mine for a moment, and I could tell that Heijing was frustrated.
Finally, the entrance to the nexus appeared at the end of the tunnel, and I pushed toward it. Light flashed beyond the doorway, and the music was so loud that it was almost unbearable. I passed through the smooth stone archway, and Heijing forced my other three companions in after me.
The room was filled with gold. There would be no searching for treasure in this dungeon when it was laid out here in front of us. I spotted the deity almost immediately as he lay over the armrests of a golden, jewel-encrusted throne. The young man wore a white robe that exposed much of his chiseled chest, and a wreath of grapevines adorned his unruly red curls. He held a gilt chalice in one hand and tipped it back into his mouth as he drank deeply.
One of his aquamarine eyes slid in our direction, and a sly smile spread over his lips. He shifted himself into a sitting position and rested his elbows on his knees as he looked directly into my face and grinned. Deep purple wine wet his lips and dribbled down his chin as he struggled to stand, and he stumbled closer with his ropey arms outstretched.
“Ka-za-ma! My boy!” the god boomed in a joyous, drunken voice, and I gritted my teeth.
“Dionysus,” I growled as I stepped away from him and gripped the God Slayer tighter.
His aquamarine eyes widened at the sight of my women, and the music pounding around us came to a screeching halt. He looked at me sadly, his whole body seeming to wilt before my very eyes.
“My old buddy! My old pal! You came here to kill me?” Dionysus cried and wiped imaginary tears from his eyes.
“Why else would I be here?” I snarled as I took a predatory step closer.
“I’ve been so lonesome, Kazama! Maybe my favorite son came to visit his ‘ol dad after so long!” Dionysus sobbed and clasped his hands to his nearly bare chest.
“You’re not my father, and I’m certainly not your son,” I stated in a cold tone, and the deity looked even more saddened.
“That may be true, but I treated you as if you were my own blood!” Dionysus cried dramatically as he threw himself onto his golden chair and placed a hand over his eyes. “I gave you food and water when you begged for it, I gave you the clothes off my back when you asked for it! I lay down my life for my dear son, Kazama!”
“You’ve done none of those things,” I snorted, half amused, half annoyed by his usual antics. “The only thing you’ve done is to try to sneak me a glass of wine when I was merely ten years old.”
“That may be true! But! But! But! I helped your parents through many a time, I lent them my shoulder to cry on and my bosom to seek comfort from.” Dionysus wailed as he pressed both hands to his chest and leaned back against the armrest of his throne.
“Also lies, my parents never sought out comfort from you, or anyone else, not even each other,” I stated as I took inventory of the gold surrounding us.
Dionysus didn’t answer, he only huffed loudly in protest as he grabbed a pitcher of more wine and poured himself another glass. The deity gulped it down as if it were the last drink he’d ever had, and I didn’t have to speak it aloud that it was. Heijing dropped her arms from Carmedy and Rana and came to stand at my shoulder. Her icy blue eyes were intent on the god as he wailed and cried dramatically, but no tears appeared on his face.
“Release my women, Dionysus,” I commanded as I pointed to my three women who were barely able to stand on their feet.
“They simply want to join in on my revelry,” the god pouted as he ran his aquamarine eyes over the three drunk women. “Though it seems that I am no longer in the mood for a bacchanal, you’ve spoiled this whole evening, Ka-za-ma!”
Heijing’s eyes rolled up to mine, and I could sense the growing annoyance within her. This was her first time destroying a dungeon, and both of us were ready for it to be over with.
“Kazama!” Rana cackled from behind us, and I turned with wide eyes to look in her face.
The redhead was too drunk, but she slurred the name once more. I knew that the fox wouldn’t remember the name once her head cleared but hearing it come from her mouth set me on edge. I would destroy Dionysus for saying that name so plainly in front of my minions. It didn’t matter if Heijing heard it, the Qianlong already knew my name and background, but my other three minions were unaware of those things for now.
“Enough,” I snarled through gritted teeth as I kept my eyes on the deity lounging in his elaborate chair. “Heijing.”
The Qianlong didn’t speak, and her transformation happened almost instantly, but in the dark nexus, the light shone brighter than ever before. The golden sparks floated through the air as the dragon raised her head, opened her mouth, and roared. It sounded different from ever before, it was rageful and hungry for blood.
Dionysus’s drunken, glossy eyes rolled up nonchalantly, then he realized what he was seeing and scuttled away. Nonsensical words spilled from his mouth as he tried to escape, but Heijing was too fast for him. She blocked off his path, then quick as a flash, wrapped him up within her meaty tail. She held him there then offered his struggling body to me.
I lifted the God Slayer high over my head and looked deeply into his aquamarine eyes. It was true, I knew Dionysus as a boy in the heavens, but I didn’t have a clear recollection of him as I did with my parents, or Eris, or my childhood friend Euron. He was simply a god in th
e background of my memory with very few interactions that I could remember. He was close in age with my parents, if not older, but even they spent very little time with him.
I knew he’d been thrown out of the heavens for falling in love with a human, and I could admit that he was a handsome god in his own way. It made me wonder what type of human he’d charmed into falling in love with him, and I almost wanted to ask. Isolda had summoned me by mistake, and I was overtaken by her beauty, had something similar had happened with him? I couldn’t dwell on the past, or what I had lost with the blue-eyed girl I’d met so long ago, but my heart still panged with hurt when I thought of her.
I knew it must hurt for Dionysus too, he’d lost the one he’d loved and had then been sent down to the earth by the Holy Council. They’d cast him out just as they had me and so many others who had dared to love someone other than those they were told to. I felt for him, but there was no way that I could show him any scrap of pity.
The deity screamed and thrashed against Heijing’s thick tail, but the dragon only coiled around him tighter. I pooled all of my dark energy into the God Slayer, and it thrummed under my hand. Right as I brought it down in a mighty swing, Heijing let go of the god and pulled away with a snap.
Dionysus stumbled from the movement, and my blades caught him directly in the middle of his chest. Blood sprayed into the air, and I pressed their tips deeper into his flesh. The deity groaned, and his hands grabbed at the haft at the God Slayer weakly, but I took a step forward and drove the weapon in deeper. I looked into his eyes as they lost their drunken quality and cleared for a moment.
Dionysus’s hands dropped from the God Slayer, and his right lifted into the air as if he was reaching out to someone. His face was spattered with old wine and his dribbling scarlet blood, but his eyes looked serene for just a moment. I felt as if he was looking into the face of the woman he had loved and lost. His lips twitched at the corners, and a soft smile spread over them as he struggled for breath.
“Alayna…” Dionysus whispered into the open air, and my three giggling minions went silent as the drunkenness washed away. “Do you think I will see her again?”
“After death?” I asked, and the deity nodded as tears began to form in the corners of his eyes. “I am unsure, I have never peeled back the divide between our world in the next and looked beyond.”
“I only wish to be reunited with Alayna…I only wish…” Dionysus didn’t finish as a cold, unfeeling voice cut in.
“You will see your love again,” Heijing answered, and I glanced over the deity’s shoulder to see the Qianlong in her human form once again. “I know the spirit realm well, and I can tell you if her only sin was loving you, then she resides there. I cannot speak for her soul because she may have been sent to the Underworld for all I know, but if that was her only crime, then yes, you will see her again.”
Heijing’s eyes shined with a pain that I couldn’t understand, and her thoughts were jumbled and unreadable. I would ask her about it later but now was not the time.
I pulled the God Slayer savagely back, and Dionysus slid from its end with a moist noise. The god slid to the floor in a heap, but his aquamarine eyes stared up at the ceiling blankly. His soul had left his body shortly after hearing the Qianlong’s words, and I watched as an orb lifted from his torn chest. It swirled and moved like a liquid and was the same color as the wine he’d been drinking when we arrived.
I stepped toward it, and Heijing watched with wide, interested eyes. The Qianlong had never seen this part of the ritual, and she shuffled forward, her mouth open ever so slightly as she watched, enrapt. The purple orb floated over to me and pressed itself into the middle of my chest. I breathed in deeply as the scent of wine filled my nostrils, and the sphere absorbed fully into my chest.
By this time, all three of my minion’s had sobered up and held their heads as if they were severely hungover. By the state of Rana, who held tightly to Annalise and looked as if she were about to vomit, I knew she wouldn’t remember saying my true, godly name, which relieved me.
Heijing gazed down at Dionysus’s corpse for a long while then suddenly, she bent down beside his limp form and rolled him onto his back. Her tiny hands took his, and she folded them over his blood-spattered chest. The Qianlong spoke words in a language I couldn’t understand as her hand caressed his serene face and closed his aquamarine eyes for the last time. The dragon seemed to pray over him as my women and I watched, and when she finished, she stood and stepped over his carcass.
“What were you doing?” Annalise asked in her raspy voice as her bleary eyes searched Heijing’s face.
“You may not have heard, but he asked to be reunited with his lost love,” the Qianlong answered as she reached into her pack for her own canteen and handed it to the high queen. “I was simply doing that, giving him his last rite of passage into the spirit realm.”
“I wonder if he’ll meet the Kitsune,” Rana whispered under her breath, and Heijing’s icy blue eyes swiveled to her.
“I do not know who that is, but if they reside in the spirit realm, then he just might.” The dragon nodded, then turned toward the piles and piles of gold around us. “Shall we? We need the coin for the journey ahead of us.”
Each of my minions gulped down the water Heijing had given them and followed after the tiny woman. Rana jumped at the trunks and sifted through them hastily as she pocketed anything of interest. I helped them load the items that they wanted to take with them, and when we finished, their satchels and packs were filled with coin and other golden trinkets. They weren’t overladen with them, but I could tell that they were heavy. Heijing would carry the bags in her dragon form for most of the way, then they would only have to take them to the local traders to exchange them for goods.
I helped the women carry them back up from the nexus and through the tunnels. It wasn’t a long trip but when we reached the surface. Rana gasped for air and threw her packs to the ground. The redhead fell to the ground beside them and fanned herself dramatically, and Carmedy chuckled at the fox’s antics. Annalise moved on ahead of us as she looked for a good spot to settle down for the evening, and I turned toward Heijing.
The Qianlong’s eyes were trained toward the sky, and what she said early bubbled up in my mind, about the spirit realm. I stepped closer and stood shoulder to shoulder with the tiny woman. She barely glanced at me, but when I gazed down into her eyes, I saw sadness there.
“What do you know of the spirit realm?” I asked in a low whisper, and Heijing tilted her head to the side.
“There is a way to speak to those who have passed through the curtain of death,” the Qianlong told me in a soft voice as she placed her hands in her sleeves in front of her. “Not many know of it, I don’t think Haruhi even knows of it. I believe that it was something only practiced by the dragonkin.”
“Have you done it?” I questioned as I placed a hand on her shoulder, turned her, and forced her to look into my face.
“You have to understand, Kazama, I haven’t seen my parents faces in over seven hundred years, haven’t heard their voices or felt the warmth of their touch,” Heijing stated in her cold, stoic voice that reminded me so much of Morrigan.
“So, you did? Did you find them in the spirit realm?” I questioned more feverishly with only one goal in mind.
“Of course, they were naturally drawn to my voice like moths to a fire,” Heijing muttered in a low voice as she glanced back at my women. “I was able to see them after so long, and it comforted me in my loneliness.”
“Heijing…can you show me how?” I inquired, and the Qianlong’s brows furrowed deeply as she stared into my eyes.
“Why would you like to know such a thing? Is there someone you would like to see?” Heijing asked as she lifted a tiny, delicate hand and cupped my face.
The moment her flesh touched mine, I felt as if electricity was running through my whole body. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was a dragon, but it was something I’d never felt before, and
it drew me to her even more than ever. Without even thinking, my hand reached out and cupped her tiny cheek in my own and in that moment, we were connected.
“There is someone I would like to see, someone that I loved, lost and would like to let go of after all these years,” I informed the petite Qianlong, and she stared up at me with a concerned expression. “Show me how to break the space between life and death and allow me to look beyond.”
“As you wish, Kazama,” Heijing murmured as she let her delicate hand drop from my cheek to her side, and our connection was broken immediately. “We will wait until it’s dark, and your women are asleep, then I will show you.”
The Qianlong turned away from me abruptly and only glanced back once as she moved towards Annalise. My women and I got to work setting up the massive tent they’d brought along with them, it was a long and strenuous task, but we worked together until it was done. The sun was just beginning to set as we all climbed inside, and Carmedy got to work building a low fire for dinner. Rana had gone off into the forest to catch us something for dinner, and she came back with a single rabbit and three trout from a nearby pond.
The redhead cleaned the rabbit and the fish quickly with one of her elven daggers, and Annalise came back with an armful of wild vegetables and herbs she’d found in the forest. Heijing sat beside me as the women began to cook and laugh together over the fire.
Rana set aside the cleaned rabbit fur, and the Qianlong ran her thin fingers over the soft back of it. Her icy blue eyes sparkled as she looked down at it, and the alchemist perked up at her interest.
“Do you like it?” Carmedy asked as she fluffed up the fur with her paw and looked directly into the Qianlong’s face with a smile.
“I do,” Heijing admitted as she ran a single hand over the fur. “As a child, I was forbidden to kill animals or any other creatures, our servants did that. I’ve never seen a fur displayed like this.”