Dreams of the Quill

A southern wind came to me…

Though Jeuni could not track the sun in the pure white sky, the landscape around him grew darker as it set. He was able to count days like this. He saw one day go by, and then another, and the three were still traveling.

As the days grew on and Jeuni’s imminent death loomed, he found himself wondering why he hadn’t just been able to dodge the beastman’s blade. If he’d dodged, he might have been able to stay in the company of the two Holders longer. The juggler discovered in the process of simple conversation that both Kihara and the one she called ‘King’ were witty and… fun… in a way he’d never thought of anyone else before. Gyurot had been fun in his jokes and inability to take anything seriously, and interacting with Gyurot had been the extent of Jeuni’s social experience for the past… oh, eight years.

The girl’s conversation was sharp and lively and never bored the juggler. She talked about all sorts of things, ranging from the culture of the western lands to scholarly things she’d read in books. Jeuni was especially interested in the books, having lived most of his life doubting Byhr’s ban on writing. He envied Kihara. He wanted books, he wanted to be a good reader. He wanted access to the knowledge of the world that Byhr had kept him from.

When conversation ran dry, as it would when Jeuni was in too much pain to speak, the beastman would talk. He told stories of the land and of the people. He seemed to know every bit of Byhryn history and he indulged Jeuni with long, rambling stories that neither shed light on the nature of Byhr nor stayed in Jeuni’s head more than five minutes after their telling. If there was any point to the stories, the juggler could not find it. But he enjoyed listening. The beastman’s storytelling voice was even more beautiful to listen to than his normal voice (if you could call such a harmony of sounds normal). Kihara seemed to appreciate the stories as well. Though she strode in front of the other two, and quickly, setting the pace of the trio, Jeuni observed her body language. Her shoulders were saying, “I want to stop walking.” Jeuni smiled as the beastman’s voice rolled over him. Kihara wanted to pay more attention to the stories than to their journey.

Jeuni wondered at times if she couldn’t choose to do just that. He wouldn’t mind dying with the beastman’s voice in his ear, if he had to die anyway.

But though Jeuni did not see the need to keep on, Kihara had told him that they were to go further south, so he followed, the beastman right behind. Jeuni did not need to let his mind wander as they walked. He could even forget his pain. Two sources of distraction—the two Holders—were right by him, and eager to ease his worries.

The two Holders and the juggler walked on like this for days as the snow gradually became thinner on the ground. The number of trees jutting out from the snowy hills decreased along with the number of hills. The land flattened out as the sky began to clear up. Jeuni found himself growing colder and colder as they continued south. The ground, previously soft with snow and dirt, was now hard, and kicked back at him every time he laid foot on it.

It was on the fourth day since Jeuni’s awakening that they came upon a giant black obelisk. It stood at least five times as tall as the beastman and the tip seemed like it might be able to reach out and pierce the sun.

“What is that thing?” asked Jeuni. The only obelisks he’d ever seen were ones two feet tall, decorations in the lobby of the Golden Swan. The three gathered around the base of the black spire and examined it together.

“I would say that it’s a ruin from some past civilization,” Kihara answered. “Does that sound right, King?” The beastman nodded. “In the past, Jeuni, there used to be entire countries that lived down here in the South.”

“How could they survive?” Jeuni asked before realizing that it was a stupid question.

Kihara giggled before replying that they couldn’t.

“Hence the ruins,” she said.

“Come to think of it, we saw some broken walls a ways back, didn’t we?” asked the juggler.

“Yep, we did. There are ruins everywhere. I agree that this particular obelisk is magnificent and stands out, but… ruins themselves aren’t anything special in the South. It’s the South. It’s one big ruin, in a sense.”

“Hmm…” Jeuni pondered the meaning of Kihara’s last statement while gazing at the obelisk. “So, does this thing have a name?”

“Why don’t you give it one?”

“Heh, then if we ever pass by here again, we’ll know where we are,” snorted the beastman. Kihara shot him a withering glare and the he smiled sheepishly. Jeuni had observed that, over the past four days, they appeared to have grown even closer than before. When he thought hard about it, he realized that they were extremely close—just as close as they had ever been. It was just that they were more open around the juggler. They were closer to him.

“But doesn’t it have a name already?”

“Maybe it had one centuries ago,” shrugged the girl, “But this white wasteland is for the taking, Jeuni. I told you, right? This land is a ruin. There’s no one is here. This obelisk belongs to no one. But we are the ones crossing this land. We are the ones who found the obelisk. It’s our place to name it, and to return to it, and to know its name when we do.”

“I’m not returning anywhere, though,” Jeuni laughed, in part at his bad joke and in part at how seriously Kihara had said that last sentence. “You name it.”

“Then, I’ll name it ‘the pessimist,’” giggled Kihara.

“He is going to die, right?” asked the beastman in a low, worried tone. Kihara stopped laughing.

“Whatever,” sighed the juggler. “Are we going further?”

“Yeah,” said the girl. “A lot further.”

“Another two days at this rate, I would say,” added the beastman.

And with that, they set off walking again. They passed by more ruins but there were no more trees. Before long, the sky had cleared up entirely. There was no snow on the ground, just packed dirt that stung when Jeuni reached out to touch it with his fingers.

When they stopped for the night of their sixth day walking, Kihara huddled against the beastman for warmth. Jeuni smiled at the sight of the small girl snuggling into the space between the beastman’s arm and chest, and then he realized that the weather must be incredibly cold for the girl to feel it. After all, it had been freezing on the first day, and she’d seemed fine—

Jeuni’s thoughts crashed to a stop.

He couldn’t feel the cold. He couldn’t feel the pain in his arm.

Jeuni didn’t say anything. He stood against the darkening sky until he was sure Kihara had fallen asleep, and then he flung off the beastman’s cloak and covered her with it. The beastman opened his mouth to object but the juggler shook his head. In silence, he sat down cross-legged, facing the two Holders. Though he knew that the ground was more frigid than the coldest winter night he’d ever cursed in his hometown, he could not feel it. He nodded off, oblivious to the elements.

The last thought he had before falling asleep was, one more week.

—

The scene Jeuni saw was as broken as the lantern that cast light on it. There was a bed—no, three beds, one of which was also broken—and there were people. Two people, lying on one of the beds. Jeuni was one of the two.

The other was crying silently.

Their lips were locked. With this realization, Jeuni gained thought.

Were he to break his lips away from the other’s, he was sure that the the room would shatter with two equally powerful screams. He wanted to yell, he wanted to cry, just like the person he held against the bed. He knew that if he removed his lips, the cries would bring in the outside and the door would open and the lantern’s light would matter no longer. With the entrance of the outside, his life would die away like the flicker of the broken lantern. He knew he couldn’t die.

He also knew that if he kept his lips where they were, he would not be able to stop.

And that would be similar to dying.

The sepia glow of the room drew him in and he pressed forward. It was supposed to be the best of feelings, but all he could sense was the pain building up inside his chest. He shed no tears. The one below him was crying for them both, rivulets streaming down her cheeks and pooling on the dirty sheets. There was no pleasure in what he was doing; there was only self-flagellation.

And what was worse, he was hurting her.

Jeuni wanted to throw up.

Jeuni wanted to vanish. He didn’t want to die—or else he would have removed his lips and pulled back and let those outside drag him to the executioner’s stand. He just wanted vanish. He wanted to disappear from the world, that those he’d hurt might gain his absence. He wanted to free the girl beneath him. He wanted to undo the irreversible damage he had caused her. But he couldn’t turn back time. He couldn’t save his mother and he couldn’t save his father. He couldn’t save her.

Yeah, Jeuni realized, even as the fact that he was pushing into the girl tore at his heart. It’s his fault. It’s all his fault. And she didn’t resist me at all. She knows it’s his fault else she wouldn’t have let me come onto her in the first place. She must know it’s his fault.

The broken lantern lay among broken wine bottles.

Jeuni was not inebriated. He wished he was. He would be in less pain. He would be less aware of her pain. Of course, it was all that man’s fault…

—

“NO!” shouted Jeuni, waking up and clawing at the dark night with the swollen fingers of his left hand. “It wasn’t dad’s fault… there’s no justification…” He dropped his arm and clutched his face with both hands, shivering as he sat in horror. Horror slowly faded away as he began laughing. “Heh. Hahaha.” He knew the truth. “Of course there’s no justification! That didn’t happen…”

And then Jeuni cracked his fingers and saw the shapes of the two Holders. The beastman was snoring quietly. Kihara sat staring at the juggler, not blinking, judging by the constant red light projected by her eyes. Jeuni lowered his hands tentatively, keeping eye contact with the girl.

“Jeuni?” she whispered, bewildered.

“Kihara?” he responded in a similarly bewildered manner. Jeuni heard muted footsteps as the twin red lights rose a couple feet into the air and then grew closer. With a soft rustling noise, Kihara knelt down and embraced him.

“Poor Jeuni…” Her lips were close to the juggler’s ear. Her voice was soft and her breath was hot.

“Kihara…?” Jeuni wondered why he could feel the temperature of the girl’s breath. Perhaps the poison had not yet spread to his neck.

“You’ve experienced something awful,” murmured Kihara, choking as if on tears, her voice full of worry and sympathy.

“It was just a bad dream!” he exclaimed, not thinking of the sleeping beastman. His thoughts were elsewhere—split half and half between his family’s home and the back of his ear.

“Shhhh.” As Kihara made his noise, the split became less and less even. Before long, Jeuni’s thoughts were concentrated on her breathing. He thought on its temperature, on its rhythm. He could not see the girl’s red eyes because she was now leaning her head on his shoulder. Her small arms reached all the way around his similarly small body. Held so, he grew drowsy once more. The breath on his neck soothed his pain and his memory and he soon drifted off to sleep once more. This time he saw no dreams.

—

Dawn came and Jeuni found himself up a few cramps. Kihara and the beastman were standing together a little ways off in seeming silence. The latter’s cloak lay folded on the ground by the juggler. Jeuni yawned and stood hesitantly, not sure what to expect his body to do. He had slept in a weird position, and his legs and neck regretted it.

“Ah, Jeuni, you’re up,” Kihara cheerfully observed. “Shall we head out?”

“I don’t think we need to,” put in the beastman.

“Why not?” asked the girl and the juggler, simultaneously.

“It’s very windy today,” stated the Second Holder, gazing southward and then closing his eyes. “It’s coming this way, the wind. It’s blowing north. I think we’re close enough to the heart of the South.”

“Windy?” asked Jeuni. “What does that have to do with anything?” True, it was a little breezy, but weren’t they trying to get to the Shaded Orchard in the middle of the wastelands? What did the breeze have to do with that? All he could see was what he had seen the day before: a blinding white sun, a bright blue sky, and frozen ground expanding in all directions.

“This is the place, evidently,” explained Kihara. “This is the tundra of the god. This is the place whence originated King and the First.”

“This place? This expanse of nothingness? Sure is some shrine for a god to live in,” scoffed the juggler. “A damn fine quarters for the highest god, I’ll say.”

“Watch your words, Jeuni.”

“If your god wanted me dead, you would have killed me long ago,” shrugged Jeuni. “I doubt he’ll be changing his mind because of a few words. And to be honest, I’ve been wondering this for a while… who is this god? Does he even exist? I don’t think I ever got a name, or the name of his cult, or whatever.”

“He exists,” snarled the beastman.

“You were right, King. He’s coming this way,” Kihara’s voice betrayed a lack of confidence.

“He? The wind’s getting stronger, but—”

“Wait for it.” The beastman’s tone was bordering on rage.

“Oh don’t talk to me like that, mincemeat,” warned Jeuni, for the first time in his memory relying on his powers to make a threat. “I’ll say what I like.”

“Jeuni,” began Kihara, a hint of pleading in her voice.

“Now, clear one thing up for me, will you, Second?” continued Jeuni, disregarding the girl. “You told me yourself that you did not select me, back when we were in the forest. But you didn’t deny that you came and found me. Is the one who selected me your god? Were you told to fetch me? Don’t tell me that this whole trip has been about coming to find your god-damned god because if that’s what I got myself poisoned to death doing, then I—”

“It’s coming,” murmured Kihara.

“It’s him, isn’t it? Your god. Well, what a joke.”

“Nothing’s funny,” growled the beastman.

“It’s like I’m some actor in some terrible play,” laughed Jeuni. “Only last I checked, actors don’t usually suffer deadly wounds.”

“If there’s to be another performance,” Kihara mused, closing her eyes.

“And how would the other actors feel?” asked the juggler, deciding that he would carry the metaphor as far as he could. He might even learn something of the Holders’ motives for once. True, they had been amicable enough over the last week, but the only information he had on their journey south was that Kihara had not sought him out actively. What did that mean, anyway?

“You don’t know how much I would give to shut you up right now, juggler.”

“Why’s he so snappish all of a sudden?” Jeuni abandoned threatening—he didn’t actually want to kill the beastman a third time, anyway—and decided to keep his tone jovial.

“King’s the kind who didn’t become a Holder by chance,” explained Kihara. “He loves the god. More than anyone should love anything.”

“Don’t you start, girl,” yelled the beastman.

“I don’t wan to start anything,” she said defensively. “Especially when he’ll be here in seconds.”

“He’s really coming, isn’t he? Your—”

Before Master Jeuni Huros could finish his though, the frozen wind blasted by and the brittle ground around him cracked. That was a cold he could feel. It was a cold to end all colds. Jeuni couldn’t move. His bones had become shards of ice. He couldn’t even talk.

And then, just as suddenly as he’d been frozen, he was thawed.

“He’s strong,” came a voice, neither that of the Second Holder nor that of the Thirty-third. “I like that. But introductions and judgments can both wait for later. First, Herald. Do you have news for me?” The voice was a whisper, but it bellowed. It was a chill rasp, yet its words had rich tone.

“Your Seventeenth is gone,” spoke the beastman, suddenly calm. “And the Thirty-third and I have each died twice since you last spoke to us.”

“Ynthon is gone?” asked the wind.

“Indeed.”

“The one who killed him?”

“Master Jeuni Huros.” The beastman’s voice betrayed none of the rage he had been throwing the juggler’s way moments before. The Master Jeuni Huros in question had nothing to say on the matter. He was too chilled. While it was true that the Holders had powers outside of what regularly passed for magic, and that these powers might be mistaken for something divine, he had no experience dealing with deities. He had been shocked enough to find takers of the infamous Covenant appearing in his life. He had never actually suspected that their beliefs and powers might be founded in more than superstition and oddity.

And it was just a blast of wind!

“This piddling miniature wizard?” the wind asked.

Wind that could talk, yes, but it was still just wind!

“Indeed,” responded the beastman.

Speaking of ‘just wind,’ would wind not have moved on? Also, how does one address the wind? The beastman and Kihara were not facing the same direction. Rather, they were simply standing there facing Jeuni as they had been before the wind’s arrival. Some god, thought Jeuni, faceless and without a location.

“Very well. So this is the so-called juggler, then. Jeuni Huros. Jeuni Huros. Hmm. A juggler.” There was a pause during which Jeuni feared he might be smote once more by the wind’s power. Instead, the wind just continued echoing his name. “Jeuni Huros. Jeuni Huros—that’s right! He’s the one I asked you to bring to me.”

“Indeed.”

“Umm… if I might say something,” Kihara said gingerly, testing the waters. Or the winds.

“Yes?”

“The orders issued King conflicted directly with the orders issued me.”

“Ah? Is that so?”

“It is,” confirmed the beastman. “You told me to bring you Master Jeuni Huros, a man I was told I would recognize by his magic footprint.”

“And you told me to find Jeuni and listen to him,” said Kihara. “You told me I would know my further orders upon meeting him, and I did.”

“And how did your further orders conflict with Herald’s?” At this, Kihara shot Jeuni a frightened glance. Jeuni smiled. He knew what her further orders had been in a flash. Or rather, he remembered them. They’d been explicit. He could read them from her face the day they first talked. They had jumped out at him from the pools of her eyes, and at the time they had inspired terror in him. Out of all his assumptions and misconceptions regarding the Holders, Kihara’s intentions were the only thing he’d had right.

“Why did she need to kill me?” Jeuni asked bluntly.

“No one said she had to,” replied the beastman hastily.

Jeuni shook his head.

“I know what she had to do and, lucky her, I’m going to die anyway. I only want to know why.”

“Why is Jeuni Huros poisoned?” asked the wind.

“The last movement conducted by the Seventeenth,” answered the beastman. “He controlled me and forced me to attack Master Jeuni Huros, who could not avoid my blow.”

“So Jeuni Huros’s impending death is completely incidental,” said the wind, summing up the situation. Though entirely truthful, the words cut the juggler. Completely incidental. So after all that—after spending more than a fortnight traveling, after skirmishing with the border guards, after fighting Ynthon, and, most importantly, after readying himself, his death was not going to be the glorious end in paradise he’d made himself look forward to. Completely incidental. It was an accident, it was unplanned. That meant that it did not matter.

“Your judgment?” asked Kihara.

“Herald’s orders stand. As for you, you know your new task.”

“There is still a conflict,” pointed out the beastman as if he knew Kihara’s new task, too.

“I want you to bring me Jeuni Huros. Alive.”

“It shall be done,” smiled the beastman.

“Jeuni Huros.” The wind addressed Jeuni and the juggler could feel it threatening to encroach upon his organs once more. Fearing the icy invasion, he responded, disregarding all of his disbelief.

“Yes?”

“You are an interesting man. I set my sights on you for two reasons. The two who accompany you represent those two reasons. Think on this for a while, and perhaps you will discover what these two reasons are. For the time being, I should like for you to cooperate with my agents.”

“And what if I say no?”

“Then you have one week to figure out which reason Herald—” That’s the beastman, Jeuni noted. “—represents, and to transform that reason into reality.”

“And if I don’t do that?”

“Then you will die in these wastes in one week, a meaningless juggler who deserted his country and people for a ridiculous fairy tale. Of course, don’t get me wrong. The choice is not entirely yours. I do believe the two beside you have their own thoughts on the matter.”

“You mention the idea of belief,” began Jeuni, but he was cut off by a warning glare from the beastman.

“Jeuni, let’s go back.” The first word came out tentatively but the others followed naturally. Kihara seemed to be doing her best to take into stride the fact that Jeuni had known her orders all along. Harder for her to deal with, it seemed, was the idea that Jeuni was not at all upset.

“I can’t make it,” he said. “I have one week.”

“Byhr can heal you,” Kihara argued. “There are clerics. They have real magic; they can mend what I cannot.”

“That doesn’t change that I can’t make it, Kihara,” responded the juggler sadly. “I suppose I’ll die a nameless nothing in this damned wasteland, because I’m not playing riddles with the wind.”

“We can go quickly with the wind’s blessing—”

“I sure as hell am not getting the blessing of your damn evil god of wastelands,” muttered Jeuni.

“I was not suggesting that you take the Covenant,” wheedled the blue-haired girl.

“I suggest that you take this god shit elsewhere,” snapped the juggler. Then his expression changed as he realized that he was taking out his frustration on Kihara, the one who had saved his life not once but three times. “I’m sorry…”

“Herald, new orders,” came the wind’s voice as Jeuni felt his body freezing over. “Knock out this whiny fool, and then resume previous duties.”

“It shall be done,” said the beastman, a glint of joy in his eyes as he stepped over to Jeuni and raised one massive fist the size of the juggler’s head. Jeuni tried to protest but could not speak. He couldn’t move to defend himself. His magic was somehow blocked and he could not evoke it to defend himself.

“You have my blessing,” said the wind, and then the beastman’s fist descended and Jeuni’s world went black.