“You don’t even know what I was going to ask about.”
“The girls’ conversation. It’s obvious what’s on your mind, master.”
“Well, what do you think about them sharing me and becoming friends or…maybe more?”
“I doubt my thoughts on the situation would be any help. It's not my area of expertise.”
“You’re probably right. I don’t think even girls understand girls.”
“I'm sure you're right, master. Are we going inside now?”
“No. I definitely can’t sleep now.”
“You could practice spells.”
“I’m tired of studying.”
“Tea?”
“Is that your answer to everything?”
“Yes.”
Turesobei chuckled. “Go with what you know, huh?”
“That’s what Master always said.”
Turesobei glanced around then shrugged. “I guess I’ll wander around until I….”
Pinpricks danced across his skin. He shivered. “Did you feel that?”
“Feel what, master?”
Something like a voice whispered through his mind, though it spoke no words.
“I’m betting you didn’t hear that, either.”
Frowning with concern, Lu Bei shook his head.
The wordless voice whispered again, and this time he recognized the source: the Autumn Gate. But why was it calling to him?
A few times he’d sensed a near-sentience when working with the gates. Sometimes he felt a hint of connection, especially with the Autumn Gate, but it hadn’t been anything as powerful or direct as this. He hurried toward the gate platform.
“Master, is there something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
Hoping he was about to discover some sort of advantage he could use against the Blood King at last, he raced up the steps and slid to a halt on the platform. A deep hum reverberated within all the stone arches, but the Autumn Gate was the loudest and the only one that directly called to him. He stepped up and placed his hand on the stone. It was warm to the touch.
Suddenly he found himself in another place, another time. The experience was familiar. It was almost exactly like one of the dreams where he relived a portion of Chonda Lu’s life. Only this time, he wasn’t Chonda Lu. He was himself. Except…he wasn’t exactly. At some fundamental level that he couldn’t explain, he was different. For a moment, a thought itched deep in his mind…he had learned something about himself in the Wraithspace, something incredibly important…but he couldn’t pin it down and the thought disappeared.
Dressed in heavy crimson armor, with Yomifano in one hand and a bronze spell strip in the other, Turesobei stood in the shadow of the Monolith of Sooku, where the Chonda Clan had first made their home in Okoro. He had visited this place before setting out to fight the Deadly Twelve. The Monolith and Tower only stood now because he had brought them both back using a spell Lu Bei had taught him.
A dirt road threaded a serpentine path through the forested plain below. Along it marched a fearsome army, fifty thousand strong. The menacing beat of the approaching war drums filled the air. Spear points gleamed. Denekon huffed. Brash sergeants in black plate armor shouted orders. Banners snapped in the wind.
At the head of this column rode a bulky figure resplendent in armor of emerald and gold. Branching dragon antlers crowned his black helm. And in the center of that dread helm glowed a power more terrible than the entire army that marched behind him: a white ring of power encircling the burning emerald kavaru of Nazyraga, Lord of Monsters. Embedded on the figure’s cheek glimmered a topaz kavaru. Only months ago, he had been Sakisa, the Kaiaru Emperor of Tagana. Now, having bound the terrible power of Nazyraga into himself, he was far more than that.
Behind Turesobei a pitifully small army of three hundred Chonda warriors stirred nervously and beyond them stood seven hundred women, children and elderly men armed with pikes, knives and hunting bows. Today would likely be their last. There was nowhere to run and no quarter would be given by the enemy.
The Storm Dragon snaked through the thunderclouds above. Turesobei sighed. Its power combined with his wasn’t enough to stop Emperor Sakisa. They had tried once already, at great cost. He turned to those closest to him: Awasa and Iniru, Aikonshi and Hakamoro. He looked down to an onyx ring on his hand. His thoughts drifted to Kurine, Motekeru and Enashoma. A deep sadness filled him.
Lu Bei flew up to him. “Everything is ready, master.”
“Do you think we can win?”
The fetch shrugged. “You’ve had the odds stacked against you many times before, master, and every time you survived, somehow.”
“Everyone fails eventually.”
“Then fail valiantly, master. Bloody their noses, if that’s the best we can do.”
“Do you think Zaiporo got the message through to Mekazi? I would like to know that if we fail, our deaths will not be in vain.”
“I don’t know, master. But Zaiporo is more than capable of reaching Keshuno.”
“I can’t believe I came back here for this.”
Lu Bei handed him a packet of tea. “It took me two millennia, but I have at last assembled my perfect blend of tea.”
“For me?”
Tears sparkled in Lu Bei’s eyes. “For her.”
Turesobei smiled and placed the packet in his spell pouch. “For her.”
Awasa shouted, “Archers forward!”
Seventy archers, spelled longbows in hand, marched to the mesa’s edge and nocked their arrows. The Imperial Legions stopped just out of range. Emperor Sakisa chanted. The white ring on his helm glowed as bright as the noonday sun. Howls pierced the forest and a dark rage spread through the legions, increasing their strength and resiliency.
“It has been my pleasure to serve you all these centuries, master.”
“I would not have made it this long without you, Lu Bei.”
The fetch nodded. “It is time, master.”
“There’s still another way.” He twirled the bronze spell strip between his fingers. “I can still unleash Him upon the world. One evil to counter another.”
A hand touched his shoulder. He looked into the eyes of a girl he once loved, a girl who could no longer love him.
“It’s not worth it,” Iniru said.
Awasa nodded behind her. “You cannot defeat evil with evil.”
“Then we die,” he said.
“No one here is afraid to die,” Aikonshi said, “except you.”
“Then we give our lives for what’s good and right in this world, hoping our deaths will accomplish something meaningful?”
“To leave the world a better place is all any of us can ask for in the end, master.”
A streak of lightning reflected off the bronze surface of the spell strip. The doom of the Chonda had come, and the fate of all Okoro hung in the balance. With a grim smile, he made his decision.
* * *
Turesobei gasped and returned to himself, standing on the gate platform with a hand touching the now-hot Autumn Gate. He fell to his knees, awash with emotion.
“Are you okay, master?” Lu Bei asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He nodded numbly.
“You stood there catatonic for several minutes. I couldn’t rouse you, so I called out for help.” He glanced around. “Not that it did any good, since no one showed up.”
“I had…I had a vision…like a dream of Chonda Lu from the kavaru, only I was awake this time and….” He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t the past. It was the future. And I’m not sure if I was me or…or someone else.”
Lu Bei flinched, as if shocked by lightning, but didn’t say anything.
“Iniru, Awasa, Aikonshi and Hakamoro were there with me. The others…I think something terrible must have happened. We stood with the last of the Chonda, on the Sooku Plateau. And Emperor Sakisa led his legions against us. I don’t know why. And I held a bronze spell strip in my hand. I had a terrible
decision to make. I could use it and unleash a great evil to counter Sakisa or we could all die, hopefully not in vain.”
Lu Bei slumped to the ground, shaking. “Master….”
Turesobei locked his eyes on him. “You know something about this?”
Lu Bei looked away. “I don’t, master.”
“Swear it.”
“I can’t do that.”
“So you do know something?”
“I know many things, master. This…this is simply not something I can discuss with you.”
“Why? Because I won’t be able to remember it? Because I will pass out?”
Lu Bei shook his head. “Because I cannot speak of it at all, not to anyone.”
“What I saw, was it my special destiny?!”
“In…in some part, master.”
“How could I see it tonight?” he asked.
Lu Bei shrugged. “I don’t even know why you rushed up here, master.”
“The arches were humming and the Autumn Gate called out to me. I touched it and—”
From out of nowhere, Gyoroe appeared beside them. “You connected with the gate and it showed you a possible future.” With narrowed, yellow eyes he studied Lu Bei. “Perhaps the future the fetch fears, perhaps merely a similar one.”
“So this future I saw, it won’t necessarily happen?”
“What you saw was only one possible future out of thousands, maybe millions. Most likely it was a future Chonda Lu once saw, a future long trapped within the kavaru, and released upon you tonight by the Autumn Gate. If so, I would not put much stock into it. Chonda Lu was not gifted with a knack for prophecy, and many things have happened since he last walked free among us.”
“If you say so….”
“Do not let prophecies distract you. The future is ever changing.”
Turesobei nodded. “I’m already forgetting it anyway.”
Gyoroe smiled, his eyes turning emerald. “Bonding with the gate in that way, while highly unusual, is a good sign. You are certainly ready to carry on my work.”
In the blink of an eye, Gyoroe disappeared.
The details of the vision were fast fading from Turesobei’s memory. He had to hold onto something from it. But what? His mind raced, but in the end, all he could lock into his memory was lightning reflected on the bronze spell strip and Emperor Sakisa’s terrifying helm.
Lu Bei fluttered up to him and placed his tiny hands on Turesobei’s. “Master, I’m sorry I can’t tell you why your vision frightened me so. I would if I could, but—”
“It’s okay. I understand. You don’t have a choice.”
Turesobei stared at the gates. Trapped in the Blood King’s schemes and always drawn toward a destiny he couldn’t understand, with the lives of his friends and people hanging in the balance, and the weight of the world on his shoulders….
He understood the lack of choice all too well.
But as frightening as the vision had been, the sense of doom it had given him was hard to hold onto. Sure, in less than two days they would start a series of missions that would likely claim the life of at least one of them. But maybe it was all worth it….
If he had stayed home like he was supposed to, Iniru would’ve died in the Lair of the Deadly Twelve. He would never have grown close to Zaiporo, or closer to Enashoma. Awasa would still be her old petulant self. And he wouldn’t even know Kurine.
No. No matter how bad it might be, he couldn't regret it. His great and terrible destiny was going to come for him no matter what. And if Iniru and Kurine really could become friends, then the future—however short it might be—was brighter than he’d ever dared hope.
Afterword
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Also by David Alastair Hayden
Storm Phase
The Storm Dragon’s Heart
The Maker’s Brush
Lair of the Deadly Twelve
The Forbidden Library
The Blood King’s Apprentice
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The Arthur Paladin Chronicles
The Shadowed Manse
The Warlock’s Gambit
The Blood King’s Apprentice Page 38