Starchild Crusaders

by J. J. Pavlov

  "I doubt there will be a good inn in this town, but it's better than nothing." Shrugging, I turn to Jalil and gesture for him to find us a place for the night. Not like I'm going to sleep anyway.

  The next morning, we met for our last breakfast among civilization before moving out into the vast nothingness of the Nagirah desert. It spans more than half of the Khurut Sultanate's territories and is the only reason it can compete in size with the Empire of Terminus. But unlike the empire's fertile soil, this is a land of death.

  The somewhat flat landscape turned to dunes after just a few hours of walking distance from the town. Even the last remnants of dry shrubs disappeared under the sands, and the fact of the matter soon dawned on us that we were well and truly going into a long stretch of emptiness that could become our graves if things went wrong.

  However, around the early afternoon, we already set up a camp and hide from the relentless rays beating down on us from above. Hestia and especially Jalil are suffering from the heat even though he was born in this nation and should be used to it.

  But we all underestimated what a real desert is. According to those who have traversed it, not even sandworms live here, unlike in the region we first arrived in. It's truly a place hostile to all life, no matter how hardy.

  Asoko and I are both fine, though. We're unfathomable existences not from this world, and it seems wherever we came from was even more hostile than this place. If we wanted to, we could transform our bodies into Hestia's template to fly in a straight line, not stopping until we leave this place behind. If it were only about survival, that wouldn't be a problem.

  "I'm sorry, Chloe." Hestia apologizes while slowly beating her wings to radiate heat. She told me that the Fatas Triarchy is in the far north and has a climate very similar to that of the Kingdom of Lares. I have to commend her for enduring it all this time.

  "It's alright. Maybe we should change our schedule and move only at night." I pet her hair, then turn to Jalil with this proposition.

  "Camels no walk in night." He replies while shaking his head and pointing at the animals that are standing under the glaring sun outside our tarp seemingly without a worry.

  "Then we'll have to start right before dusk and dawn, and split sleeping between the night and midday. Will it take much longer if we do that?" I don't see any other options right now. Jalil is the only one with a sense of direction in this place that appears the same wherever you look, so we'll have to go at his pace.

  "I sleep on camel back." It's a pretty nonsensical proposition, but I have to give him at least that much for trying to please me. He has to lead the way, so if he sleeps, the camel might go wherever it likes instead.

  "No, it's alright." I sigh and get up to walk outside. We've set up at the bottom of a shallow valley between two dunes, and I climb to the top to overlook our surroundings. In my previous life, I would have never gotten to see a scene of such terrifying beauty. If somebody had told me that I would find myself in the middle of a desert willingly, I would have laughed at them. But now I'm looking to traverse a route that is deadly to the unprepared.

  Looking up and glaring back at the sun, I realize the futility of my actions. I can curse as much as I want at the ball of plasma in the sky, but all it'll give me is blindness. Luckily, I can swap out anything in my body with new matter; undoing the transformation in my eye and remaking it from scratch, the white spots on my retina disappear.

  Such excellent control over my Crawling Chaos body is one of the things Maou-mama taught me. Asoko lacks that, and I've been instructing her ever since we met so that we'll really become equal in our abilities.

  One time when we were alone, Hestia asked me if I feared the possibility of being replaced by my other half. At the time, the thought had never even crossed my mind, so I doubt it did Asoko's either. But I reassured her that knowing myself, she had no reason to do so. I'm more than willing to share anything I may get from Maou-mama as a princess of the Dominion. In fact, I'm sure our mother isn't foreign to the concept of her children turning into twins through some kinds of accidents.

  Thinking such idle thoughts, I look ahead toward our destination on the other side of the endless orange sea of sand. I may not be moving as fast as I want to, but I'm doing my best, so wait for my return, Kamii.

  With our readjusted schedule, we made significant headway over the following sixteen days. As I suspected, water magic yielded less and less the further we went into the great dryness, and eventually produced less than a palmful per cast. My precautions to bring a separate supply paid off and will save the lives of Hestia and Jalil.

  Calculating by the stars above, our guide projected that we almost reached the halfway point. While it was slightly slower than planned, if we kept our pace, we would reach our destination in about twenty more days.

  However, something unforeseen always happens when one believes everything to go smoothly. For us, it was a massive sandstorm that announced itself on the horizon before noon on the seventeenth day. Our path would have taken us straight through it, but before we could decide how to proceed, it already came toward us and made the choice for us.

  The moment the wall of sand hit, it tore Hestia and Jalil off their mounts. The roaring noise drowned out my screams as I called out to them to stay where they were. Then my camel, having turned its flank into the direction of the wind due to my pulling on its reins, lost its footing on the side of the dune, and we both tumbled to the ground.

  Before I got blown too far away, I turned into my true form and stabbed my feet deep into the sand to keep my footing. But it was already too late; within seconds of the storm hitting, our group was scattered, and we lost sight of each other.

  Instead of haphazardly searching while visibility was near zero, I could only hope that the others were doing the same as I did. Thus, I spread out wings made of countless tentacles that surrounded me like a cocoon, so that I wouldn't be battered by the storm.

  The sound of the wind outside dies down several hours later, and I emerge from the cocoon like a butterfly, only to find myself buried in the sand up to my waist. The sun is beating down on the lands just like before and makes the storm that darkened the sky seem like a dream.

  I pull myself out of the dune and begin to look around. There's a small mound near me, and I run over while transforming back into my human form; if it's Jalil, I don't need him going insane at my sight.

  But when I shovel the sand away with my hands, I find the camel I was riding. It's dead, suffocated by the drift that piled up on it. My heart sinks at the thought that the others may have suffered the same fate.

  "Hestia! Jalil!" I call out to them but get no response. Knowing myself, I shouldn't worry about my other half; seeing as I was able to weather the storm without a problem, she should have as well. So reuniting with at least one person may be a good start. "Asoko!"

  Either she's still buried and doesn't hear me, or she was swept away by the storm over a fair distance. I only hope that the same is true for the other two.

  I transform the interior of my nose into that of a vularen and sniff the air for their scents. I smell nothing, meaning the storm must have really blown them far away and then taken any traces of their trail along with it. When I emerged from my cocoon, the world around me was already separated by the blue sky above and orange dunes reaching beyond the horizon. No signs of where the storm has moved on to, so I don't even know where to begin.

  There are no landmarks in sight, and the sun is almost exactly above me. We were moving toward the north-east, but I can't even tell which direction that is right now. All I can do is try to search the immediate surroundings first.

  "Pilum Gradum." I chant while stomping on the sand, trying to pull matter from as deep under the ground as I can reach, hoping that there may be bedrock somewhere hidden underneath it all.

  However, all I can muster is a pillar of sand, which loses its form right away and collapses into a formless pile. My attempt at creating a landmark to orientate my
self with has failed, and I can't really think of anything else that would allow me to find back to this place after circling through the air for a while.

  The wind continually shifts the dunes, so drawing something on the ground doesn't work either. I would have used the camel's blood for that purpose if it had been possible. And even if I can use water to shape the sand, it would dry out quickly and collapse on itself like my attempt at creating a pillar just now.

  Crossing my arms, I look around for anything I could use, but it's a fool's errand. The only thing that breaks the monotonous landscape is the half-buried camel, which is slowly being swallowed by the sand again.

  Extending my hand, I turn it into a spike that stabs into the carcass and bends into a hook on the inside. Dragging it up to the top of the dune, I place it in front of me and retract my arm. Casting a fire spell on it, I set it aflame, causing the smoke to rise toward the sky. This should last for a while.

  Spreading my wings, I fly up to a height at which I can still make out the camel's burning body before starting to circle the area with a Fata's eyes trained on anything that may be an irregularity. Their enhanced sight even allows me to see the footprints I left behind just now, as they slowly disappear in the breeze.

  Soaring through the air for a while without finding anything, I begin to grind my teeth in frustration. I can't lose Hestia in the desert. Not like this. I don't fear for Asoko's life because I know she can make it out of here in a few days if she flies in a straight line without stopping. But I can't do that when the angel girl is missing.

  The fire slowly dies down, and the smoke dissipates in the winds, so I return to my starting point after a fruitless search. This can't be how it ends, I won't accept that.

  "Where are you, Hestia!" I roar at the top of my lungs. Silence is all I get in response.

  About an hour later, the sun has moved toward one end of its path sufficiently for me to tell where east and west is again. I have the option to continue my journey alone now, but I would never leave Hestia behind to die. No way will I believe she is already dead.

  But searching aimlessly won't get me anywhere. I anchored myself into the sands, and it didn't feel like I moved at all during the storm. In other words, this is where we got separated. As far as I can remember, the winds came at us from the front and slightly right, so unless it spontaneously changed directions, it should have moved towards the west.

  I transform both my hands into vularen heads, complete with their olfactory systems, and start with the basics again. With more noses and closer to the ground, I may be able to pick up faint traces better than I did before. The scorched camel isn't helping with its stench, so I swallow its remains whole before starting my search.

  As I move in the same direction as the sun is, I try to pick up on anything that's out of the ordinary. Aside from the desert's distinct smell, there are the clothes on my body and remnants of the barbecue from earlier. I notice that my body itself doesn't seem to have any scent of its own, but I attribute that to my nature. In either case, there's still no sign of the others.

  I turn around for the first time after I started moving, to see how far I've gone from the scorch mark on the sands left by the burnt camel carcass, only to find that it has disappeared already. But that's not the only thing I notice, and I feel my jaw dropping at the sight.

  In the far off distance, there's a walled city, its form wavering in the heat rising from the ground.

  Just in case, I blink my eyes several times, then use the Fata eye template to zoom in, only to find that nothing changes about what I see. I turn around, close my eyes, and count to ten before opening them and looking back.

  The city seems to have moved closer, and I grow skeptical; that has got to be a mirage. I didn't see it from the sky earlier, which should have been impossible. Maybe the angle of the sun allows me to see it now, while it wasn't visible before.

  I glance at the position of the sun and return my eyes to the mirage, only to find that it's even closer now. The wavering air is still there, but no matter how I look at it, the walls look real. I even see movement on the walls and inside the open gates.

  Just in case, I turn away one more time and try looking again. But as if it sensed my intentions, the mirage didn't get closer this time around. Or maybe it has reached the minimum distance at which it can still be interpreted as nothing but an optical illusion, while at the same time seeming so incredibly real.

  Could this be a hallucination created by some monster that lives in this desert? Maybe nobody knows about its existence because nobody ever lives to tell the tale. I wouldn't understand why anything living would ever choose such a place to find victims, but it doesn't matter.

  It's going to choke on me.

  Chapter 61 - City Of Revelry

  Unlike actual mirages, this one doesn't move away from me at the same pace as I'm trying to move toward it. The fact that it was closer each time I turned around, except for the one time I consciously tested it out, already told me this isn't a natural phenomenon. But as I approach it, its form becomes more solid, and the wavering air ceases eventually.

  I undid the transformation of the vularen heads on my hands, but the interior of my nose is still that of one. It picks up the smells of people, food, and less pleasant things that come with humans. If I didn't know better, I'd swear this is a real city. This must be the doing of somebody or something, and I'm willing to bet a leg that it has to do with the disappearance of my companions.

  The guards standing outside the gates aren't paying any attention; instead, they play cards or roll dice while making merry. Even while I walk past them, not a single person acknowledges my existence, as if I were invisible. If this weren't a tense situation, I'd poke one of them in the ear as a test.

  When I go inside, I see that the main street leads straight toward a castle. The roads are busy with people hanging up colorful paper decorations, each and every one of them wearing outfits to match the generally festive atmosphere. It seems that whoever is in charge has prepared a welcome party for me.

  As I look around, I spot Jalil. Before I can call out to him, his sight perplexes me and causes my eyebrow to shoot up involuntarily. He's not wearing the clothes I last saw him with, donning something similar to the people around him instead. A part of me wonders whether or not I just got the wrong rat-like person with a pencil mustache, but when he speaks and laughs, his voice is exactly the same as I remember it.

  Everything points to him being brainwashed, as he's carrying a basket filled with paper flowers and distributing them to the others around him without a care in the world. It's as if he has been a part of this town for a long time and knows everybody here well, even though we only got separated a few hours ago.

  To not disturb whatever is keeping him in that state, I leave him behind and continue toward the castle. That's the most likely place for whoever is orchestrating this to be. Something tells me that Hestia is there as well, instead of being treated as a simple human being like Jalil.

  But when I reach a plaza located halfway to my destination, a parade blocks my passage. I could easily fly over it, but I don't want to draw the attention of these people, who may be controlled by the mastermind behind all this. The last thing I need is for an army of humans to descend on me. Not like it would be difficult to dispose of them, as long as they have no mages, but they could be doing it against their wills.

  "Join us!" Suddenly, Jalil's voice comes from behind me, and I spin my head around. He's holding a large jug of something that smells unmistakably of Halib Alqarfa, the alcoholic drink Ayman ordered for me in the underground slave bar.

  "What are you doing here?" Now that I've been noticed, I can drop any attempts at blending in, and speak to him directly.

  "Carnival of Chaos today. Everybody dance and drink!" Handing me the jug with a grin, he announces loudly, earning cheers and applause from the people around us. There's not a hint of fear or respect toward me in him, but he does recognize who I am. Some
thing must be controlling his thoughts to a certain extent, but not have him under its sway completely.

  "I'm honored that there's a carnival in my name." Tilting my head and replying with an innocent smile, I test the waters.

  "You joke. Carnival of Chaos for Al-Majnun." Waving me off as if I made a silly mistake, Jalil corrects me with a laugh. I join him in laughter while wracking my brain to understand this situation. That name has come up several times now, and I still don't know who or what exactly that is - only that it has the title of 'The Great Deceiver' and that Hanif and Fayza called me a shard of it.

  "Will we meet Al-Majnun?" I ask my brainwashed guide in a whisper to avoid being overheard, though I doubt anything in this city goes unnoticed by whoever runs it. He nods fervently in reply, then turns around on the spot and throws up his hands in joy.

  "Praise Al-Majnun! Come today!" He speaks with religious ardor, and the masses join him in praising the entity that seems to visit this city soon.

  Maybe this entire city is like one large livestock pen, in which humans are gathered over a long time before Al-Majnun comes down to consume them all in a great feast. That sure does sound like a Great Deceiver, when an entire city can go unnoticed for centuries while it travels the desert and pulls in travelers.

  Whatever the case, this place is bad news. I need to find Hestia fast, then take Jalil, and get out of here as quickly as possible. Considering I'm not brainwashed, Asoko should be fine as well. If she's here, I have to contact her somehow.

  "Have you seen Hestia?" I try asking just in case, but he doesn't seem to hear me anymore as he joins the reveling crowd. Now that I know this city and the people in it are real, I can use my vularen nose to find the angel girl if she's indeed here.

  Weaving my way through the mass of people in the parade, I act like I'm celebrating with them. I do have to admit that the music they're playing is quite captivating and catch myself dancing for real. Don't tell me that tune is the medium for the brainwashing effect on this city?