War priest the complete.., p.105
War Priest: The Complete Series, page 105
Something dawned on Arik, and as it did he felt this strange wave of exhaustion. He looked ahead at Istvan, and wished the man would stop for a moment so he could catch his breath.
Istvan stopped.
“Tayaura…”
“Yes, disciple?”
“Call me Arik.”
“Yes, Arik?”
Arik felt a flutter in his chest. Still holding one of her hands, he looked back to Istvan. Sit down, he thought.
Istvan sat on the ground.
Arik’s voice got caught in his throat for a moment as he returned his focus to Tayaura, who continued to stare at him curiously as a strand of her hair lightly twisted in the wind. “I-I think I know what the charm does,” he finally said, barely able to get the words out.
“What?” both Tayaura and Meosa asked. Since Meosa wasn’t privy to Arik’s thoughts, he couldn’t have possibly known that he had been commanding Istvan.
“I’m going to tell Istvan to stand on one leg. Watch.” Arik dropped Tayaura’s hand and tapped on his temple. “I’m going to say it, and I’m going to think it. I think it works both ways.”
The two turned just as Istvan got back to his feet and stood on one leg.
“Now, I want him to jump on one leg. Jump on one leg, Istvan.”
Istvan jumped, nearly lost his balance, yet held strong, the northern man still facing forward.
Tayaura’s eyes went wide. “The demon charm lets you control people? That’s what it does, isn’t it?”
“I think that’s why we were holding hands just a second ago, and why you called me by my real name rather than disciple. I don’t think you ever called me Arik before. I’m almost certain of it.”
“Then it truly is a Chimauric tool.” Tayaura turned away from him. She stared up at the expansive desert sky for a moment and finally nodded. After a long pause, she turned back to him, a dead serious look on her face. “This would be the ultimate illusionist’s tool, one that allows you to control other people through your thoughts. We will need to test it. We will need to test its distance.”
“And my words,” Arik said. “I can control them that way as well.”
“Does it work on the kami?”
Meosa materialized into existence beside Arik. The water spirit slouched a bit, as if he were nervous about something. “I don’t know if I like being part of this experiment, but go on, disciple. Order me to do something that I wouldn’t normally do.”
Compliment Tayaura, Arik thought. Once Meosa didn’t do anything, he whispered these words as well. “Compliment Tayaura.”
“Do what now?” Meosa laughed bitterly, water misting the air around him. “That will be the day, disciple.”
Go over to Istvan.
He tried speaking these words, but this command didn’t work either. “I don’t think it works on you,” Arik told the kami.
The northern man finally turned back to them, a confused look on his face: “What are you all talking about over there?”
Tayaura squeezed Arik’s wrist before he could answer Istvan. “We need to keep this between us. Until we understand it better.” Her voice grew louder. “We were just talking about my father. We’ll catch up.”
“But—”
“Disciple, Arik, you need to trust me on this. Do you trust me?” Arik nodded, and for a split second, he wondered who was actually in charge here, who was the one that was able to control others. It seemed that Tayaura could merely mention something and he would follow her command. “One more thing.”
“Yes?” he asked.
“You don’t need to do anything like will me to like you. I already like you, Arik. If you don’t know that already, you should know it by now. It should be obvious.”
“Do what? This just got interesting,” Meosa whispered in Arik’s ear.
“You like me?” Arik asked.
“I do, and I mean that. You and I have something, and if you aren’t careful with this charm, you may disrupt it. So be careful.” Tayaura squeezed his wrist one more time and let go. “Keep the charm’s effects between us. For now.”
Part Two
.Chapter One.
“What runs out first? Time or good health? The decision isn’t always yours.”
–Master Nongrat Eldegai in his book A Healing Mind, Third Edition, Ezochi Revivaura Books, Year 1336, Page 214.
The days seem to blur together as they traveled across the desert toward Tenrikyo. Making it stranger was the way they traveled at night, Arik, Tayaura, and Istvan resting during the hottest time in the desert. Before they would start on their journeys, the three would spar, which gave a slight boost to the first couple of hours of their nightly walks, yet often came coupled with a tinge of exhaustion toward the end of their nightly journey. Through Tayaura, Arik continued to work on transferring wounds at a range. There was still plenty of room for improvement. They also discovered that the demon charm didn’t have a very big radius, just about ten feet.
Yet Arik was able to control anything within its reach aside from kami. They had yet to find a yokai to test it on.
A caravan would have been an easier way to cross the desert, but Arik was a wanted man in the Crimson Realm. He knew it was best that they stay off the beaten path. Still, they didn’t stray far from the main road that connected Mogra to Tenrikyo, the trio always trying to be far enough away that they wouldn’t be spotted.
At Tayaura’s direction, Arik only wore the Demon Charm of Katano on occasion.
When doing so, he would force Istvan to do subtle things, tests of sorts. It was never too extreme, yet Arik did see from what he was able to command that the sky was truly the limit with the demon charm. Experimenting on the northern man went against his basic instinct, who he was at the core. Arik didn’t like keeping it a secret from him, but it was important to know what the charm would do, especially as he figured out how they would wield that going forward.
As Arik had already learned about the items that Coro Pache used, they all came with disadvantages. The Mask of the Fallen had an evil, chaotic nature to it. The Whispering Sword, while Arik had gotten control over it, could be unwieldy, and in certain scenarios it was too butcherous. He also noticed something else. The exhaustion he felt when wearing the necklace wasn’t something curable through Revivaura. The only way to stop it was to actually take the piece off and place it back in its box. During the late mornings, while Istvan slept, Arik and Tayaura would privately discuss the object.
In the wrong hands, the demon charm would be disastrous for the three realms of Taomoni.
Arik found it interesting that Tayaura herself wouldn’t handle the object. He had offered to let her wear it, to see what it was capable of, but she had declined, almost as if she didn’t trust herself. This, coupled with what the Demon Charm of Katano could actually do, made him wonder about Coro Pache. What had the War Priest actually used it for? Was it to augment his powers due to the fact that he didn’t have any Chimauric abilities? Was it to simply control people on the battlefield, turning them against one another? Was it something else?
The War Priest had come from the Crimson Realm. The legendary Crimsonian had learned to heal, to use Revivaura. Chimaura, at least according to what was written about him, would have still been a mystery to the man.
This was also something Tayaura and Arik discussed along with Meosa. What did the kami know about Coro Pache’s usage of the charm? Meosa couldn’t remember a time when he had heard about Coro Pache wearing it or using it. But as Arik had already discovered, the piece was well hidden beneath his robes, leading him to believe that the War Priest could have worn it secretly. It could have even been the first powerful object that Coro Pache came across. There was no telling.
An idea came to Arik that next morning, while he was working on wound transfer with Tayaura. They had tested this over the last several nights, and had found that Arik was able to transfer a wound at a distance of about one or two feet in front of him. Now, all he needed to do was push his power even further, extending the injury alongside the Revivaura that emanated from the air all around his person.
Arik stopped, and shook his head.
“What is it?” Tayaura asked. “Are you feeling some strain?”
Arik looked toward their camp, where Istvan was already asleep, his head propped up by a rock, the northern man oblivious as always.
“I thought of something and I just… I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s possible, or something we should even consider.”
“What did you think of?”
“We’ve used the soul gem to summon your father, and it worked. How is it working? I know that we can never truly understand the answer to that, sheer Yokaura, but this thought sparked a new idea. If the soul gem works to call your father, would it work to summon Coro Pache?”
Tayaura’s eyes went wide. “You are suggesting that we summon the War Priest?”
“We have three of his objects and the soul gem. I don’t know. I’m not an itako, but it could work, and we could ask him questions about the demon charm. I want to know how he used it. Don’t you want to know? Do you think he would answer?”
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t,” said Meosa, his response surprising Arik. “If anything, he would probably wonder what has happened since his death. I sure did.”
“Maybe you could talk to him, then.”
“Me? Talk to Coro Pache?” Meosa scoffed at the disciple’s suggestion. “No, I think that would be a bad idea, your worst idea yet. I think it would be worth a try for you two, however. You could ask him what he used the demon charm for, and you can tell him what is happening now, and get his take on the situation. Who knows? Maybe he will buy into your conspiracies,” Meosa told Tayaura.
“They aren’t conspiracies if they turn out to be true, kami.”
Meosa snorted, a fine mist hitting the air. “They are the very definition of conspiracy, shinobi-ess. And have you thought of this? What do you plan to do next? After you help rescue the disciple’s sister, do you plan to head to the Jade Realm and sort all of this out yourself? The Onyx Realm after? Don’t you two realize yet that there’s nothing that we are going to be able to do to prevent the people that run this place from trampling over everything that others have strived to maintain?” Meosa turned to Arik. “I know I may sound pessimistic here, but if your former healing teacher was working with your government, this would then change the narrative completely. It would be the Onyx Realm who secretly provoked the Crimson Realm to invade it so they could attack in return. You would be the enemy, just as your realm was in Coro Pache’s lifetime.”
“It’s complicated, I know.”
“It is beyond complicated, my boy. It is why I don’t know if we should get involved after the conclusion of all of this. Perhaps the best way forward is to get your sister, and move on to the Jade Realm, you know, start this school that you are planning to start. Let the war that is to come or the fallout that is to follow happen without you. Or train the people that will later fight in it. I suppose then the only problem is when they come knocking at your door. But you are prepared, the two of you are strong and you will have me.” Meosa playfully flexed his bicep. “Let them come.”
“I agree with your idea of reaching out to Coro Pache, disciple,” Tayaura told Arik, the illusionist moving the conversation along as she always did. “There is no telling what we could learn. We’ll do it tomorrow morning. We’ll contact the War Priest. In the day that follows, we should reach Tenrikyo and begin our final campaign.”
****
Arik and his companions prepared to leave in the early evening. A breeze had started up, one that Arik was initially suspicious of considering their last encounter with Enenra. He remembered what happened, how he’d nearly killed the wind kami. This put him on edge, Arik well-aware that the solution would be to go for the Mask of the Fallen and finish what he’d started. Was she following him? When would they encounter the air kami again?
It didn’t matter; he would be ready.
Late into the night, they traveled near the edge of a crumbling cliff when Tayaura spotted a caravan in the distance. As casually as ever, the illusionist let Istvan go ahead, Arik doing the same.
“Kami,” she whispered.
Arik understood what this meant; she wanted to talk to Meosa privately, to discuss something. Meosa would later relay to him what she had said. They had already done this a couple days back, a way for them to communicate without Istvan knowing.
To allow Tayaura to speak privately with Meosa, Arik caught up with the northern man and struck up a conversation. “How goes it?”
“Nothing to report,” Istvan said as he shifted beneath the weight of the hammer on his back. “I slept better last night—or should I say last day?—than I normally do, which is a first for me. I don’t like sleeping during the day. Maybe exhaustion is finally catching up and I’ve reached the point of delirium where I’m no longer useful. Or maybe I’m actually a night bird, as they say up north.”
“Night bird. I haven’t heard that one in a while. It’s not so bad, though. Eventually, your body just stops fighting,” Arik told him.
“That’s the aspect I don’t like about it. I would prefer to be in control of my sleep schedule, not the other way around. But traveling like this, or should I say, operating like this, reminds me of what little control I actually have. There seem to be so many things we have little control over in this world, and it reminds me of that. But maybe the sleep deprivation is affecting my thoughts. Any updates on the charm? Are you noticing anything new about it?”
Arik shook his head. “I wish I could tell you.” He only realized as these words left his mouth that he truly meant this, even if it was destined to be a throwaway comment. Realizing he might have let too much slip, Arik clarified his previous statement: “I wish the charm was doing something that I would be able to share with the group, but it is not. Sadly, it is not.” He had to look away from Istvan. Arik hated lying to the man.
“Maybe it was useless after all. Maybe it was put in the biography just to throw future readers off. I wouldn’t put it past someone like the War Priest, someone who knew and understood the legend he had created. It would make everything more of an unknown. Just a thought.”
“Maybe.”
Meosa’s voice appeared at the back of Arik’s head: “Disciple, Tayaura thinks that we should get some clothing from the caravan below. We’re going to use the charm to order them to give it to us. Because of this, we will need our dear northern friend here to stay behind. That means that this will need to be sold to him as an illusionist operation, one that he is obviously too clumsy to take part in. She is about to do that now. Let her do the talking. Don’t mess this up, her words.”
I could tell him this as well, Arik thought, but he didn’t say anything as Tayaura came forward and announced her intentions.
“Clothing for what?” Istvan asked. It was clear in his eyes he truly didn’t understand what the illusionist was hinting at. He scratched the back of his bald head as he looked at Tayaura. “We have clothing.”
“Disguises. Did you think we were just going to walk into Tenrikyo looking like we do now?” Tayaura motioned to Arik and then back to herself. “Dusty, smelly, in ragged robes, and without some kind of disguise, nor any way to make disguises? Is that what you thought? Unless it is your intention to rely on things we can find around us, like the blood of an animal, or something. That’s always a possibility. But something tells me you aren’t interested in smearing blood across your face as part of a disguise, are you? No? We need disguises.”
“Hey, no need to rub it in. I get it, I get it,” Istvan said. “Disguises. Illusionistic-thinking. Heh. That didn’t even cross my mind. I figured we’d head right in and demand to meet with the priest. Kidding.”
“This is why you are going to stay here,” Tayaura told him. “We will go down there together. Disciple, Arik, put on your mask.” Tayaura reached for her kitsune mask, which she had looped around her belt. She fixed the piece over her face. “We’re going to rob them.”
“Ah, and there you have it, this is why she wanted me to tell you not to say anything, my boy,” Meosa whispered to Arik. “How would you have responded if she just announced that we were going to rob someone? You wouldn’t have agreed, would you? No, no. I don’t think you would have been as keen. Nod if I am right. You know I’m right.”
Rather than say anything, Arik placed the Mask of the Fallen over his face, ready to be done with it. He didn’t like the idea of robbing anyone, but he’d known Tayaura long enough to know that she carefully considered their options. If this was the best way forward, and it would get them into Tenrikyo in a timely manner, then so be it.
Soon, Meosa was lifting Tayaura and the disciple over the edge of the cliff, which wasn’t very high, but high enough that he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to jump or try to scale the bottom on his own. Once they reached the ground, the kami continued to control their movement, racing the two forward. He slowed once they were closer to the caravan.
“Disciple, the necklace,” Tayaura said as they took their normal pace.
Arik removed it from its box. With a deep breath in he placed it over his neck, and reminded himself before doing so that almost anything he thought would actually happen, with some very real limitations. He couldn’t make someone actually fly, but he could command them to attempt it and jump off a roof in the process. In this way, it was the power of a god.
