Chapter X - Kojan Desert - Jiro

“When does this f*****g desert end?” Jiro complained. They had only been walking for half a day, but the scalding heat of the Kojan Desert had taken its toll quickly. Dune after dune rolled endlessly before them. Jiro had tossed his cloak and hood up over his head but it did little to keep him cool. Their scant supplies were already on the verge of depletion, and he hadn’t slept since the night before the festival, if one could even call it sleep.

“You have not crossed this desert before?” Zukan inquired, though his voice was no less weary. Jiro had given his scarf to the former maege, which he had wrapped around his head like a turban, to protect him from the sun’s rays. “You say you are from Elowyr, so how else did you venture to the Oasis?”

“I took a ship out of Naeru,” Jiro answered. “The dam at Goldengate allows ships to sail freely between the crimson sea and the eisnor ocean. When I was summoned to Lissium, their war with the desert bandits was already underway. We couldn’t afford to waste any time.”

“Desert bandits?” Zukan looked surprised. “I recall you mentioning their ilk before, however, on my way through the desert I did not encounter a single soul.”

“Then you must have passed through the driest part. The Kojan Wo may have made the desert their home but they’re not stupid. They mostly congregate in villages closer to the shore, and since the Oasis made their peace with the people after the war, some have migrated to slightly greener grasses. Few would wander so far from shelter to face certain death out here.” Jiro turned up his canteen to take a swig, but only a drop trickled out. “Which makes them a hell of a lot smarter than us. I had assumed that an adventurer from so far west would have thought to bring more supplies. His own supplies.”

“As I have said, my coin only lasted me as far as the Oasis.” Zukan asserted.

“We had horses. Instead of ditching them at the edge of the desert, we could have sold them in Saimon in return for some preserves - and water - Or we could have just kept the horses, and when they inevitably died from heat exhaustion, as I’m sure we will soon, at least we would still have food.”

“Those horses would have fared no better out there than we, not bred for the sands. I consider it a mercy; for them. We will die from dehydration long before we die from hunger.” Zukan croaked a chuckle, obviously amused with himself.

“That’s reassuring,” Jiro groaned.

“Even in a desert, water is not hard to find… if you have magyk. I will teach you, but first we must find shelter.”

Jiro saw the truth of that statement when he looked up at the sky. The sun was beginning its descent behind a far-off range of mountains, and the temperature would soon follow it. The blistering heat would quickly become a frigid chill; there was no middle ground in the Kojan Desert.

Despite his fatigue, Jiro had been itching to use his newfound power again. Now that he had an experienced teacher to guide him, he might be able to control it better. He clenched his fingers, and the scar on his right arm tingled. “You’d better teach me how to make fire too.”

After another hour or so, the traveling duo found the shelter they sought. The ruins of a very old temple were buried in high dunes of sand, but at least one entrance was still accessible, barred off by flimsy and rotting planks of wood. It was probably once a very beautiful temple, Jiro imagined, before nature had taken its toll, with only the dome and spire poking up above the dunes. The door gave way easily enough, and the wood would make decent kindling. The steps down were still illuminated by the rapidly setting sun, so they began their descent with slight hesitation.

On the inside, most of the temple’s details were obscured by shadow. Cracked and crumbling beige ceramic plates tiled the floor, giving way to the sand beneath. Sunlight fading through the ornate but cracked stained glass dome ceiling, Zukan quickly set up the pit for their fire while he began Jiro’s first basic lesson in magyk; Zukan had already instructed him to dig a small scoop in the sand and kneel in front of it, which Jiro quizzically obeyed.

“Now, just breathe,” Zukan continued. “Focus on that, and nothing else. Let your mind become still, fall into an instinctual rhythm. Allow your soul to open. Can you hear your heartbeat? That is the myst stirring within your blood. There is myst in everyone, in everything. Myst is drawn to itself, you simply need to know how to call to it.

“Continue to focus on your breathing, but imagine your breath is the moon, pulling and tugging on the oceans. Waves crest and crash, tides roll in to devour shorelines. Hear the roar, taste the salt, feel the spray. Breathe its essence deep and become the ocean.”

“I thought I was the moon,” Jiro muttered.

“Focus on your breathing!” Zukan reprimanded.

“Isn’t there just a spell or something I can say?”

“There is power in words, yes, but we will get to that. Now breathe, and focus on it.”

Though apprehensive, Jiro obeyed, closing his eyes and keeping his breathing at a steady pace. With each inhale he envisioned a forming cloud, and each exhale with a gentle breeze. Through the silence he could hear his heart gently pounding in his ears.

After a moment, Zukan spoke up. “Once you have found your rhythm, chant this simple incantation with every exhale. Yuga akiva. You may recite the incantation aloud or in your head, it matters not, though some have found that verbal chanting can help focus the mind of a beginner.”

Jiro tried it in his head but he found that reciting the spell aloud did increase his focus, though his tongue stumbled around the foreign phrase. As asinine as the whole process seemed, he began to feel something stirring within his chest. It was almost like an adrenaline rush; he felt as if he were rising off of the ground, though he could still feel his legs tucked beneath him on the sandy tile.

He began to feel his scar tingle again, pulsating with every heartbeat. It almost felt like it was growing, creeping down his arm. And then came a familiar sensation, one he had been waiting for since the day before; Jiro’s third eye opened deep within his soul, but instead of seeing a vision of himself, he saw only water. The vision was so vivid he felt as though he were immersed in the very ocean itself, hundreds of feet below its surface. Currents ran through his fingers while hundreds of fish of every color darted all around him. He even felt a drip splash him in the face and run down his cheek, and then another.

Drips?

Jiro opened his real eyes just in time to see a geyser of water come rushing at him. He lurched back, missing the jet by inches, and fell backwards. The miniature spring petered out, filling the hole he had dug with clear, blue water, overflowing and turning sand to mud.

“H-holy s**t,” Jiro stammered. “I did it! I f*****g made water!” He eagerly reached for his empty canteen and dipped it into the pool. “I never knew magyk was so simple. I mean, you don’t have to be a master Eldyr to breathe and think about water.”

“A bold statement from a novice,” Zukan grinned. “While magyk is a learned technique, some may train their entire lives, yet never grasp it. In that same vein, many powerful maege have never trained a day of their lives. Myst is not just a material or particle; it is an entity older than man itself, and is not so easily understood. There is no denying that the maegeblood is strong in your veins, and your encounter with that bloodkin certainly allowed your soul to become a bit more, should I say… open. It is not surprising that magyk comes naturally to you.”

Jiro smirked. “So you’re basically saying that I’m the s**t.” Before Zukan could answer, he took a long gulp from his canteen, only to spit it all into the sand moments later. “Zukan, this is seawater.”

“Oh, did I forget to mention?” The former maege chuckled. “There is a second part to that spell in which you must become a pillar of salt.”

Jiro couldn’t tell if Zukan was joking or not. He scowled. “You should have told me to become a babbling brook, or a fresh spring rain.”

Zukan only laughed harder. “I am afraid magyk does not work like that, Jiro. Likely this temple simply sits atop a salt deposit. If you ever wish to understand magyk, you must stop thinking of it as a science. Magyk is not something that can be broken down into formulas and equations. It comes from somewhere deeper; deeper than any Eldyr could ever explain.”

Jiro reflected on that for a moment. The sensation of his soul opening had long past, but its memory had not. Each of the visions he had seen through his third eye had been etched sharply into his mind. Even the dream he’d dreamt the last time he’d slept still burned vividly each time he closed his eyes. I saw the bloodkin, it was more than just a dream. The power had been with him the entire time, he just needed to reach deeper.

Deeper…

The haunting memory of the night of the bloodmoon came rushing back to him. Shadowy flames covered everything in sight and lapped at his skin. The scar on his right arm tingled once more, then burned. Jiro felt a fizzling sensation at his fingertips. His arm twitched in surprise, and Jiro saw that his hand was engulfed in flame. He waved frantically trying to put it out, but he realized that it wasn’t burning him.

Without thinking, Jiro upturned his palm, and the flame curled into a hovering black wisp. He had finally summoned it of his own accord. The myst no longer controlled him, he controlled the myst. It felt as natural as breathing.

Zukan made an inaudible gasp.

Carefully, Jiro knelt next to the fire pit and touched the kindling to the shadowy wisp. The old wood only snapped for a few seconds before erupting into a hearty bonfire. The flames were not black as he expected them to be, rather their usual red and orange glow. The scent of burning cedar quickly filled the now bright chamber. The ornate hieroglyphs and pictograms that adorned the walls were even more breathtaking now that they were illuminated.

Jiro returned to standing, idly twisting his fingers around the black wisp in his palm. “I don’t know, Zukan. That seemed an awful lot like science to me.”

“You are missing the point,” Zukan huffed.

It was Jiro’s turn to chuckle. “Do you only laugh at your own jokes?”

“This is no laughing matter,” Zukan insisted. “That flame you are playing with is an advanced and extremely powerful magyk! I was pleasantly surprised to see you wielding it so deftly in your battle against the bloodkin, but that was under different circumstances! If you misuse it, you could lose your ability to use any magyk at all.”

Jiro snuffed out the flame in his mind, and the flame in his palm vanished. “Is this the same kind of magyk you were using?”

“The very same,” Zukan nodded, “though our abilities seem to stem from different roots. It is called a bloodletter, one of the few magyk techniques that are effective in combating the bloodkin. In essence, it is like taking a piece of your soul and giving it new life. It can be extremely powerful, but can be very dangerous if not used properly. It is a double-edged sword.”

“You mean like this?” With a smirk, Jiro summoned the flame once more, this time forming it into a long, slender blade of shadow.

Zukan only sighed.

“Relax, Zukan,” Jiro said, playing with the wisp a bit more before snuffing out the flame again. “I need some way to defend myself. Besides, you said it yourself. I’m a natural.”

“If hindsight has taught me anything, it is that keeping a sidearm on hand can never hurt,” Zukan lamented. “You should consider investing in a new sword; one of steel.”

Jiro suddenly felt foolish. “In the heat of the moment, leaving my sword behind seemed like a good idea. I wanted to make a statement. I have a feeling that one’s gonna come back to bite me in the a*s.” Jiro sat cross-legged in front of the fire. “What about you, Zukan. Are you planning on being a sitting duck this entire journey?”

“I would hardly expect you to defend the both of us, if push came to shove,” Zukan answered. “As I have said before, I am ill suited for combat with manmade weapons. But I would be a fool to leave myself vulnerable. Once we reach civilization again, we could both benefit from seeking out an arms dealer.”

“Shouldn’t be difficult,” Jiro shrugged. “The Free Realm is the best place to find, well, whatever you want really.”

“Not everything,” Zukan muttered under his breath.

The once maege now recovering drug addict glanced around the room again, his eyes adjusting to the relatively low light. He began to notice some of the details on the walls; the bands of strange and ancient runes that bordered the ceiling, above a series of ornate bronze squares embellished with inscriptions that continued all the way down to the floor.

Suddenly curious, Jiro grabbed a blazing stick from the fire to investigate. Though his legs ached, his itch to explore took precedence. Upon further inspection, the squares appeared to be grave markers, and behind them, likely, the contents of the grave’s owner. “This isn’t a temple,” he confirmed aloud, with strange eagerness, “we’re taking shelter inside of a mausoleum.” Immediately, Jiro grabbed hold of the edges of a headstone and began to pull.

Zukan scrunched up his brow. “Jiro, what are you doing?” He spoke as if he were revolted but not at all shocked.

“The Kojan Wo are a warrior people. As such, they tend to bury their dead with their most prized weapons.”

“A waste, to be sure, but…” Zukan turned up his nose. “A little respect for the dead, Jiro.”

“Personally, I don’t think the dead really give a f**k.” With a heave and a thud, Jiro yanked the stone casket from the wall and onto the sandy tiles, and promptly pried open the lid. The crisp scent of the fire was not enough to mask the old, musky odor that followed. To his delight, Jiro emerged with two very old but potentially durable hand-and-a-half swords, their owner no more than a pile of dusty bones. He tossed one to Zukan, who let it skitter across the floor. He shot Jiro a look of reluctance, who answered with a shrug. “You’ve gotta learn sometime. May as well start now.”

The former maege chucked with a wave of the hand. “I am far to weary to partake in any such activity right now.”

“Oh, so your hair turns white and all of a sudden you become an old man?” Jiro taunted playfully. “At least let me show you the basics, proper stances and what have you. Come on, the sun’s not even all the way set, you’ve got all night to sleep.”

“At least put the casket back where it belongs. Poor old soul.”

Jiro stuck out his tongue. “You’re no fun.”

Zukan rolled his eyes, then his neck, and stood up to fetch the blade while Jiro took about the task of un-desecrating the grave.

“Need a good shine,” Jiro said once he was finished, patting the old steel of the hand-and-a-half sword against his palm, “but they’ll do for now.”

“Now it is my turn to feel foolish,” Zukan said as he attempted to match his stance to Jiro’s. “I thought I could rely on magyk my entire life, yet my ability was stripped from me in a mere instant. And I certainly would not be the first deposed maege.”

The two continued their sparring until the sun was far beyond the horizon and the fire had dimmed to a low ember. They struck, blocked, parried, fell on their asses, laughed, shared a spliff, maybe two, until their weariness finally caught up to them, and exhaustion descended on them like a spell. They huddled up close on opposite sides of the fire,  gathered what spare garments they had and nestled deeply underneath them as they could. Even on that cracked, sandy tile floor, to Jiro, it was the best sleep he’d had in weeks.