Something rough. Covered with a slimy sort of plant. No, a sort of moss.
A tree. He'd found a living tree, if the smooth bark and strange, silky leaves meant anything.
Beneath his knees were knobby protuberances.
Roots, no doubt.
It didn't make any sense, and for a moment, he thought he'd gone mad.
No tree could grow where sunlight didn't pierce. The lands of The Nothingness couldn't hold life – not life that wasn't somehow full of terrifying evil.
But Rakesh didn't have the luxury of time to analyze. He rushed around the tree, feeling frantically with his fingertips – grimacing against the pain in his lopped-off appendage – until he found a wide groove in the bark, a dip in the wide, massive roots at his feet. With a relieved cry, he curled himself up within the roots, his body weak with exhaustion.
Once there, he waited. The bright, glowing thing didn't reappear.
Slowly, his heart calmed. Still, he startled at every sound, jerking out of his half-sleeping murky thoughts. Every crack in the stillness convinced him of some new terror – but nothing happened.
A strange cycle of half-dreams commenced until his awareness of himself and the world blurred into something fuzzy. He slid into sleep, unable to fight off the waves of exhaustion.
A crack in the distance startled him back to reality. He jerked, then cried out. The dried scars on his back tore as he moved. Tears filled his eyes at the sting that resulted, but he swallowed them back.
The cracking sound didn't repeat itself.
"Not now," he murmured, just to hear something. The sound of his own voice gave him comfort.
There was no way to know how long he'd dozed. Perhaps hours, if the strange, groggy feeling of his mind meant anything. Despite his rampant fear, something burned a little brighter inside of him. Though small, his respite had restored to him a modicum of strength.
But the very idea of living in this hellish place all by himself sent terror streaking through him all over again. He had to get out of here – to find some form of life outside of himself. The idea that this could be the rest of his existence, this scrabbling from one tree to another, catching sleep where he could, praying for water, slowly succumbing to death in this hellish darkness, nearly overwhelmed him.
"Jiro," he murmured. "I must find Jiro."
Taking courage, he straightened, one muscle at a time. Shuffling forward, he let his toes feel out the next step. He swung his hands around him as he moved forward, for protection.
Vague, grayish shapes occasionally appeared in his vision. The darkness, while intense, wasn't complete in all areas now. The air thinned a little as he moved, giving him pockets free from the damp, heavy texture and opening his vision to the silhouette of dead trees, the eerie living ones with limp leaves like hanging strands of silk, and the occasional sharp bush with spikes.
"Jiro?" he called under his breath at first. "Where are you? Jiro?"
When nothing came after him with the intent to kill, Rakesh grew emboldened.
Perhaps nothing at all existed in The Nothingness. No toothy creatures ready for their next meal. No evil spirits seeking the body of another.
"Jiro?" he said. "Jiro, I am here. Find me. Call out. Bring me to you. We need not wander in The Nothingness alone. JIRO?"
He carefully scrambled over fallen trees. High boulders. Mossy embankments that may have once held water.
Jiro didn't respond. Rakesh's cries grew more frantic. His strength waned.
"Jiro!"
Would he be sentenced to a lonely, terrifying death? After all he'd endured, would this be his ending?
The temptation to collapse, to give into the clear truth – no one could live out here, much less in his condition – nearly overwhelmed him.
The spark of him that refused to give up pressed him forward.
He couldn't give in now. If he had to die, he'd die trying. Fighting. Struggling against whatever force would keep him from . . . from her.
With dogged determination, he gritted his teeth and stumbled on. A few steps later, he dropped to his knees after stumbling over a rock. Rakesh drew in a long breath and glanced back.
It was no rock.
A scream ripped out of his throat.
Jiro lay dead on the ground, his skin a ghostly, terrifying pallor. Crimson dots flecked his forearm, as if someone had punctured it. Drips of blood littered the ground around him, dotting his clothes and neck.
Rakesh scrambled to his feet, still screaming. The silence seemed to absorb the sound, drawing it into itself, as if The Nothingness took power from the agony of others.
Rakesh rushed back, concealing himself behind a boulder so Jiro’s corpse would be out of sight for the moment.
Rakesh panted heavily as he tried to calm himself.
But…what kind of creature would do such a thing? It seemed as if . . . as if all of Jiro’s blood had been…removed from his body.
Had he been in any pain? If so, why hadn't he made a sound?
Perhaps that was the way of the lands of The Nothingness. Forbidden creatures attacking in the never-ending night. The end of life so terrifying and strange it could hardly be imagined.
Rakesh wrapped his arms around his knees and tried to force the terrible thought of what could have destroyed Jiro out of his mind.
He couldn't let his mind imagine. He couldn't dream up impossible ideas and wander down forbidden paths.
"Concentrate, Rakesh," he murmured into his knees, pressing his forehead to their bony edges. "Think about what to do next. Not Jiro. Not the pain. Not the strange, eerie darkness. What to do next?"
Through the silence came a sound off in the distance.
Chanting.
No. It couldn't be.
He straightened into the strange fog that creeping into the area and congregating around Jiro's discarded body as if it meant to absorb him.
Rakesh drew in a sharp breath. The scent of the fog – a musty, bitter tang – filled his lungs.
Still, the chanting continued.
Rakesh staggered to his feet again and moved toward the sound, scrabbling through trees, dirt, bushes, and anything that slipped into his path. Help, he screamed in his mind because he didn't have the power to do it with his voice. Please help me!
The chanting strengthened, growing louder and louder.
Nearly weeping with relief, Rakesh stumbled through a crowded copse of dead trees to find an ambient, strange glow. Thick, gray rock walls hid some source of light inside a cave.
There was a cave with . . . something inside.
The fog had seemed to follow Rakesh, trailing him like a gossamer drape. He stared dumbly at the rock walls for several minutes. Should he go inside?
The chanting burrowed into his mind with terrifying force.
Chanting meant people. People likely meant aid – a chance to survive the dark lands of The Nothingness.
Or, it meant something far more nefarious.
What if the creature – or people – who killed Jiro waited inside?
A fresh course of pain surged through his back. Though his finger had been removed, it ached as if he still possessed the appendage. His thirst was so intense it was nearly overpowering.
Live or die, he had to go inside.
The light seemed to beckon to him as he stumbled inside, passing through the exterior cave wall.
Ancient runic paintings filled an inside wall. A short passageway broke into an open, sprawling hall that soared into the depths of darkness above. He sucked in a sharp breath, letting his fingers trail along the strange markings on the wall.
What was this place?
Rakesh shuffled along beside the wall, searching for signs of dripping water, a lake, an underground river. Some source to quench his insatiable thirst.
Always, in the background, rang the undeniable chants of ringing voices, although he didn't recognize the specific words. The chanting continued with disturbing clarity now that he'd moved along. It seemed to call to him even f
aster now, burrowing deep into his bones.
The strange hypnosis blurred with the deep darkness his body longed for.
Sleep. Rest. No more running, exhausted, from the strange darkness.
Light illuminated one particular corner. Rakesh crept up to it and slowly peered around the edge of the wall. He blinked, forcing his eyes to acclimate to the light coming from within, then recoiled with a buried shriek of terror. Panting, he closed his eyes, then forced them open again and looked back around the corner, confirming everything he'd wished he hadn't seen.
Four men in black robes formed a circle. Around them danced blood-shades in the air, swirling around them with a deep curtain of vapor. The men reached out, pulling the vapor into their bodies. The chants intensified.
Rakesh tried to look away, but his body wouldn't response. He remained stuck, staring as a new darkness, illuminating in a strange way, slid through the four robed men. It infused their faces. Sped through their eyes. For a moment, evil seemed to permeate the air.
Rakesh's fingertips dug into the stone.
Surely he was imagining this. He couldn't be seeing such things – it wasn't possible.
Yet…something dark resided here. Something ethereal and terrifying and horrid.
Perhaps he was hallucinating. His mind was whirling with impossible visions because death was about to take him.
Something cold and rigid pressed into Rakesh's shoulder from behind. All the whirring thoughts in his head cleared as if someone had pulled a drain stopper out. He lost control of his muscles, and fell into the beckoning darkness.
Ryo
Ryo’s chest was so constricted, he couldn’t breathe.
He tried to wiggle his fingers and free himself of the suffocating heaviness, but his fingers slid through something slippery. There was a coppery scent tainting the air; he wanted to gag, but the effort would take too much of his energy.
He remained there for a while, filling the in-between haze with thoughts: Was he alive? He must be: Pain radiated up and down his side. Was he dead? No. Death couldn’t smell so foul. Feel so . . . heavy.
Slowly, he returned to consciousness.
The distant murmur of voices swam through his thick ears, eventually clearing them. He couldn’t make out the words, but the low intonations send a shiver of fear through him.
The ache in his side grew, and he groaned. His right arm moved slightly just as the voices disappeared.
Something heavy thudded close by to him.
A strange darkness filled his mind.
Ryo opened his eyes one at a time. He was staring into total darkness, with his face squished against something firm and cool. A tile….the floor. Despite the pain rippling through his right side, he tried to push up with his arms, but they were weak…so weak.
Something was on top of him.
He grunted when a trickle of moisture dropped onto the back of his neck. Unable to move the strange weight off him, he turned, rolling onto his side.
Something fell onto his cheek with a smack. He bit back a scream.
A bloody hand.
Ryo clawed his way to freedom, shoving two bodies off of him. He broke free of the pressing weight, and fell onto his back into a pool of something.
Blood.
Memories filled his mind. Just snatches of memory. Slowly, ever so slowly, he pieced them together.
“Now is our chance for greatness,” Ryo said, knocking his elbow into a fellow Karu. “Finally, all our training means something. Emperor Saemon will defeat Azuma.”
“We will be victorious,” his friend agreed with a grin.
The strange sensation filling Ryo’s body – an odd weakness and awkwardness – seemed to lighten for a moment upon hearing these words.
The Emperor would defeat Azuma and they would win this bloody battle, Ryo thought with glee.
As soon as the Karu fanned through the room, flanking the Emperor, the battle intensified. Each Hiwan soldier fought with even more gusto.
In between dodging blows from Ameya and Nari clan members, Ryo willed his sword arm to be stronger. His steps to be more certain.
I am Karu, he thought, forcing strength into his limbs. I have trained for years. I will protect the Emperor. I will be indomitable.
But his muscles wouldn’t listen.
Members of the Karu fell like dying flies, dropping with nearly every blow they struck. They stumbled and tripped, falling hard onto the cold tile floor.
What was wrong with them all?
Ryo growled in frustration, swinging his sword high to fight off an Ameya. The very next instant, a startled, strangled cry next to him drew his attention.
A Nari soldier had shoved his blade into the belly of an Ameya. Next to him, another Nari did the same to an Ameya. A Nari sliced open the neck of a stunned Ameya soldier standing only a few paces away.
“Betrayal!” one Ameya screamed. “The Nari have betrayed us!”
The vicious Nari were bloodthirsty: They advanced with guttural bellows, hacking at anyone who wasn't their own.
Then an abrupt burst of light blinded Ryo; he could not see, and pain rushed through his ribs.
He fell to the tile floor.
Ryo shook his head, bringing himself out of the reverie.
Another memory moved through him, but it was something he had only heard from a great distance…the voice of Azuma, speaking to a Hiwan lieutenant after the battle was won.
“I did everything to protect him against the Ameyas. They did this to us. Can’t you see? They are subtle and sneaky. They’ve betrayed all of us and killed the Emperor. My people have died trying to stop them.”
Ryo sucked in a sharp breath. Lies. The Nari clan were the true enemies here.
He grimaced when a fresh wave of pain ripped through him. Blood soaked his armor and tunic on his right side. He felt lightheaded.
“No,” he muttered. “I must fight. I must tell . . . someone.”
Bolstered by the sound of his own voice, Ryo rocked onto his hands and knees. He began to crawl across the tile floor, blindly feeling ahead of him and struggling over fallen bodies. Tears clogged his throat with every movement.
He wanted to rest. He wanted freedom from this pain and the horrible memories.
He also wanted the truth to be told – and if he didn't, who would?
Spurred on by his determination, he forced himself onward. Over bodies.
He thought of his sister Reiko. She must be safe, and she would care for him.
Ryo pushed through the puddles of blood until a flicker of light caught his gaze. He reached up, his hand brushing wood.
Doors. The doors.
Mustering all of his strength, he swatted blindly for the handles and grabbed onto one. He pulled himself to his feet. His stomach clenched in pain. Blood gushed out of his side, trickled down his thigh.
He forced strength into his legs, willing them to bear his weight. Sweaty and disoriented, he leaned against the door, resting his forehead on it until the sensations passed.
Once he could draw a shallow breath, he pulled the door open a sliver.
No one was in the hall.
Ryo slipped out of the throne room, and rushed down the hall to a set of floor-length curtains. He hid himself within them, leaning his head back and groaning silently.
His wound throbbed. He bent his right arm, and applied pressure to it with his hand to ebb the flowing of his blood.
Once he was completely certain no one was moving through the hall, Ryo drew in another painful breath and slipped out of the curtains. The hall lay empty, so he moved as fast as he dared to the very end, slipping into an abandoned room filled with brooms and wooden buckets. Here he paused, waiting a full five minutes to gain strength.
“Reiko,” he whispered, picturing her lovely face in the little house she had inherited from their parents. There lay safety. “Reiko.”
One painful moment at a time, Ryo made his way through the palace. One time the presence of a servant took him
by surprise, but she was so occupied with staring at her bloody hands that she failed to notice him as she passed.
Near the back hall, he passed Lim, a young recruit who had just entered the military academy, on the floor. Ryo had been a mentor to him, and he felt like he had been punched in the gut when he spied Lim’s still face. He kept moving past, ignoring Lim and his dead body, and ignoring, deliberately, all the other faces of the people he knew.
And he knew so many of them, and all of them were dead….
By the time Ryo made it to a side exit and lurched forward into the courtyard, his entire body trembled all the way to his bones. He wanted to vomit, but he didn't have the strength.
He sat down behind a tall bush to catch his breath. The metallic smell of copper permeated the air here as well. Through the branches, he could make out another dead body, eyes glassy and staring right at him.
The man’s face appeared just like the Emperor’s had when Azuma crouched down next to Saemon and said, "The mighty Emperor has fallen."
With a shudder, Ryo kept moving.
He was the holder of the truth. He alone knew what Azuma and the Nari clan were...He had to keep going.
The city was dark and full of shadows, with the blackness occasionally interrupted by the flames of fires within collapsed buildings. He tried to avoid the bodies in the streets as he clung to the shadows, but was not always successful.
Every step away from the castle made his situation a little more real. He recalled more memories…Battle scenes. Azuma speaking after the bloodbath was over—lying again and again to those listening.
Within the hour, he stumbled into the Artisan District. There, in the distance, on the right of the road, Ryo spotted his salvation.
Reiko’s tiny house.
A cry on his lips, he staggered forward, down the cobblestone road. Blood gushed from his wound when he pushed through the fence encasing the house and banged on the door.
“Reiko!” he called out in a raspy voice. “Reiko!” But he couldn’t hold himself upright any longer, and collapsed in a heap on the front porch.
The door opened, revealing a woman with a sweet face and gentle eyes. “Ryo!” Reiko gasped. With a cry, she grabbed his left arm, and tried to tug him inside. “Help me, Ryo! Help me!! I can’t pull you.”
Faces of Betrayal Page 20