7

  Huho mi Nizu

  A pain that was as familiar as it was unwelcome lanced over Kivaan’s ribs and he got a mouthful of nivaan needles when he awoke with a scream. Despite the incoherency of being newly awakened, he recognised the terrible sensation of having an injury seared closed. The weight of his failure fell about him as he regained his wits, and he began to struggle to his feet without thinking.

  “Be still,” snapped a woman with no patience or humour. “You would survive the night only to kill yourself with reckless action?”

  Kivaan forced himself to settle, as offended by the insinuation that he was reckless as he understood the merit of her words. He allowed himself a moment to collect his thoughts.

  “The princess,” he rasped into the forest floor, staring out into the haze of dawn. The black-barked trees were still everywhere, while the vaho mi riou grew prolifically in thickets small and large wherever it pleased. There was no fire, and he realised that his saviour had seared his wound with spellcraft.

  “I could not save both her and you,” was the woman’s emotionless reply.

  Kivaan groaned his frustrations aloud. “Then the choice should have been her!” he growled bitterly. “Who are you that you do not know this?”

  “Mind your tone, boy,” returned that same toneless voice. “My choices are my own, and you have no comprehension of what I know.”

  “Who are you?” Kivaan repeated, defeated. Is this the meaning of my dream? Will my hands ever be clean of her blood?

  “That is not for you to know,” the woman said infuriatingly. “You must regain your strength and resolve for the coming hunt. Or do you intend to wallow here until you have dug yourself a snug little grave in the wilderness?”

  “And what do you know of me?” Kivaan demanded irritably. His back still felt alight with the flame of his healing, and even moving his arms stretched the skin of his back and fanned it into a blaze. He knew moving anytime soon was not wise, regardless of how his fussy saviour felt on the matter.

  “I know far more than you think, Zoru mi Kivaan. You have chased the way of the blade until you were practically unmatched, yet now you understand that all of your accomplishments are meaningless against the true enemy. You have grown dangerously fatalistic in the grief of your own actions, although I cannot fault you on that account. I was as you are not so long ago.”

  “Fatalistic?” murmured Kivaan, made uncomfortable by hearing precise words put to his general outlook on life.

  “It is easy to adhere strictly to Eres Zoru when you dearly want to die and atone for your choices,” the woman continued in a compassionate voice. “It is far harder to adhere to a creed of self-sacrifice and chivalry when you are required to live.”

  “The princess,” Kivaan stated again, now with some more calm in his shoulders, “what has become of her?”

  “I have not left your side since dealing with the Infected,” the woman said, rustling about in a bag or something similar. She was out of Kivaan’s line of sight, and given that he had assumed she may wish anonymity, he made no efforts to catch a glimpse of her.

  “Have I been asleep for long?” he asked, dreading the answer.

  “I kept you unconscious in a charm while I did the worst of the work,” the woman confirmed. “It has only been the one night. I have mended and bolstered you to the best of my abilities, but my expertise lies in other disciplines than healing. My sister would have had you on your feet by this time. Even so … time is of the essence. You will have to rise sooner than I would like you to. You will have to fight through considerable pain.”

  “I will do what I must,” Kivaan affirmed, shifting his shoulders experimentally and embracing the wave of fire that washed over his back. A thought occurred to him. “Please do not think me ungrateful …”

  “You wish to know why I did not intervene earlier.”

  “Please.”

  The woman sighed. “It cannot be helped. There are things you must be made privy to.”

  Kivaan heard the faint shifting of her feet upon the natural mat of nivaan needles and she walked slowly into his field of vision. It took him a moment to understand where his sudden confusion came from, but suddenly he recognised the face he had not seen since he was a child. The face of one branded faithless and traitorous by The Cult, and hunted across all of the Realms, wherever so much as a sniff or a hint of her was to be found.

  The Adulteress! Sister of my mother! I do not even remember her name, and indeed, it may have changed by now. What is the meaning of this?

  “Who do you remember me as, dear nephew?” asked the woman with a slow smile. Her hair was like midnight and unbound, falling to her waist in a perfectly maintained veil of darkness. The expression on her face was both serious and coy, as if she had secrets, but longed to tell them to those found worthy.

  "... I must dote on you at least this much."

  AI-rendering of original hand-drawn concept by T. Sharp.

  “I do not understand,” Kivaan confessed, unable to think of anything else to say in that moment. “What …”

  “What do you believe of me?”

  “I would have had thoughts on that before I turned from the service of Raashim and left his city under cover of darkness,” Kivaan slowly realised. “I do not know what they say of me now that I am gone. I have no way of knowing if anything said about you is true.”

  “A surprising answer,” she murmured. “I will not deny that I have committed atrocities in the name of The Cult … and even in my own misguided attempts to direct our Realm towards a better future. I have been … chastised … since then. The name Madari will suit for now.”

  “Why do you tell me this?” asked Kivaan, testing his mobility once again. Will I have to fight her? Surely not … why save me and heal me? Why does she choose a name filled with despair?

  Stolen story; please report.

  “In case you fall under the illusion that I have been badly treated and am a great champion of justice smeared with accusations of villainy. Everything that has been done to me, I have brought upon myself … something I feel as if you are not a stranger to.”

  Ever so slowly, Kivaan pushed himself up into a sitting position.

  “I understand,” he murmured. She was right. He certainly did understand a burning need to not be seen as some righteous paragon. His current drive to do the right thing was fuelled by the torment of his past actions.

  “I am meddling once again,” she revealed, her voice still flat and factual. “You may hate me for it if you wish, although I hope you will not for your own sake. I have saved you alone to force you into the role you always should have pursued. I will leave here once I have taught you how to use the Blade of Jiaduni. You will massacre the Infected that you previously could barely fight to a standstill. They have no answer before his power. His blade penetrates all spiritual defences.”

  “The Fiends,” Kivaan acknowledged. “I know my faults full well. What is left but for me to either retrieve the princess – if she still lives – or fall in the attempt?”

  “That is certainly part of your path forward,” agreed Madari reservedly, as if she could not be happy about that. “But your path will certainly end in both your and her death if you do not come to terms with the nature of The Fiends.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Put your life in the hands of Jiaduni and draw your sword in his name. Set your eyes upon his back and follow without growing weary.”

  “I did as much when we snatched the princess from the hands of the invaders,” Kivaan protested. “I …”

  “Then why do you still keep your enemies at a distance and fight using your own ability? Did I not just say you were to draw your sword in Jiaduni’s name? Is a sword a spear? Is your own spiritual strength – however tempered and skilled it might be – in any way comparable to that of the Creator of the Realms?”

  Kivaan fell silent, understanding his near-fatal mistake. “I put my trust in Jiaduni’s Way, but did not look for him to aid me in any meaningful way,” he confessed and realised at the same time. “I tried to fight the Agents in my own strength.” Kivaan looked up at Madari. His aunt. “You are saying I should fight with the blade of another?”

  “I am,” she said, a little smile twisting her lips.

  “My skill with the sword is far below my skill with the spear,” Kivaan frowned. “Is its strength truly that much greater?”

  “The point is not that it is greater,” corrected Madari, “although it is. The point is that it is your only answer against the power of the Fiends. The Blade of Jiaduni is infinitely more powerful than any can comprehend.”

  “How could one such as I wield a weapon so powerful?”

  “It is given to any who devote themselves to the cause of Jiaduni. It will look different in every hand, but I am confident that in yours, it will be a blade. You place too much importance in keeping your distance and closing others off from you. You must learn to walk closer to your fellows, and struggle intimately with your enemies. How else will they understand that it is not themselves you battle, but what is within them?”

  Kivaan stared down at his hands. “It cannot be that easy,” he murmured.

  “It is,” Madari insisted in her toneless way. “And it is not. I think you will find that letting others in and sharing your struggles with them will not be easy … for you. Neither will fighting close enough to your enemy to see their fears and aspirations in their eyes, and hear their ragged pants for breath. You are still merely thinking about this from the perspective of power and prowess. You do not understand that this will make you deeply uncomfortable, and the Fiends will fight you with devious and terrible tactics because they cannot defeat you face-to-face.”

  “What can they do to me if you claim they cannot stand against me?”

  The woman cocked her head to one side. “Is your cousin well? Have you heard anything of my daughter?”

  Kivaan glared at her. “Do not bring her into this,” he commanded. “What games are you playing?”

  “None,” snapped his aunt. “Is she well?”

  “How could I know?” Kivaan demanded. “I have been travelling the wilds by night for the past two full moons so I would not be discovered by the Cult! I have heard nothing from my family since I passed the Trials.”

  “She has fled into the arms of the Cult,” said Madari with both sadness and the clinically factual manner Kivaan had come to expect from her. “She followed you there, and now the High Bride has poisoned her ears.”

  Kivaan’s heart fell, and it felt as if it had disappeared into the depths of some ravine. Will my need to challenge myself never stop bearing these vile fruits? he wondered helplessly. What am I to do?

  “I do not tell you this to divide your attention,” Madari pressed on, pulling him out of his thoughts. “I have sent someone to her already. Someone who will be a far more suitable witness to her than her older cousin exercising his authority and rank to drag her home. I tell you this to give you a hint as to what the Fiends will do. You must be man enough to understand that everyone makes their own choices. My daughter was not dragged away against her will. A delectable fruit was dangled in front of her eyes, and against the guidance of those in her life, she grasped for it. Now she must endure the consequences of that action. You have your own struggles ahead of you, nephew. You must not shy away from them.”

  Kivaan pushed himself to his knees, his back burning in protest.

  “I am sorry for my part in this,” he murmured. “In failing myself, I failed her as well.”

  “There are enough things to apologise for in life without taking on the mistakes of others as well,” Madari said with some comfort. “Now come. Stand up like a warrior and show me your blade.”

  With one final push, Kivaan made it to his feet, hissing through gritted teeth as his back felt like it would split down the middle. He gave himself a moment to blink back the stars that over-took his vision before placing a fist in an open hand, as he would for summoning his own weapon. With a long exhalation, he steeled himself for the task to come.

  Jiaduni, how do I ask for this priceless gift? Such as I am, I give to you. Let me be your instrument. Use me to show your enemies that you are mighty. Use me …

  Sparks exploded about Kivaan and lit up the small clearing like midday when a blade as bright as the sun itself was dragged out of nothing and into the world. There was a weight to it unlike anything he had ever experienced in a spiritual blade, and it continued to crackle and shiver with power even after he had finished drawing it. Kivaan stared at the single-edged hand-and-a-half blade now nestled in his grip. Its spiritual potency rippled up and down his arms to such a degree that he never could have deluded himself into believing that this was his own power. The understanding of his own insufficiency was enough to ground him in a stunned awe of the weapon he had been gifted with.

  “You will do mighty things for Jiaduni if you can stay the course when the journey becomes darkest,” Madari nodded, seeming almost smug. “Now the infected will have no answers before the blade you wield. And now I am out of time. I must leave you to your trial, my nephew. My path takes me to my daughter’s side, who must be forced to see the path she has chosen through new eyes. I have faith that you will not falter.” Madari pointed towards the horizon, directly through a gap between two foothills of the Edge of the Blade spur. The moon was hanging low on the horizon, perfectly situated between the two foothills. It was as if Madari was commanding Kivaan to journey to the moon itself. “Make haste towards that pass,” she said earnestly. “Your friend survived the attack in better shape than you and took it upon himself to track the one who took Tsuzumiyu. You will find him in that direction. May Jiaduni go with you.”

  Kivaan bowed stiffly, his back still burning dully with each movement of his limbs or waist.

  “Thank you for your aid,” he said. “If I can repay you one day, you have only to say the word.”

  “There is no repayment necessary,” Madari smiled fondly. “You are the son of my little sister, therefore I must dote on you at least this much. And it was not my gift to you, but Jiaduni’s. Remember what I said. Do not take your eyes off Jiaduni’s back. Cling to him at all times as a drowning man would cling to driftwood in The Black Sea. Go. I must rest a moment before I leave. But you do not have time on your side.”

  Kivaan straightened with a grimace and nodded firmly.

  “I go. Once again, you have my thanks.”

  He sheathed the blade and the clearing fell once again into the murky, pre-dawn gloom that seemed all the more oppressive because of how bright the blade had been. Then he took his first steps in direct hostility of the true enemy, and set off towards the mountains in search of those who required his blade.

  Huho mi nizu: translates to ‘belief’s burden’; we would more likely say it as ‘the burden of belief’.

  Vaho mi riou: translates into ‘hunter’s snare’.

  Madari: translates to ‘seize/trip the tainted day’. It is a name as equally frank about the shortcomings of its owner as it is hopeful of one day subverting its perceived destiny.