Chapter 283 - Late Revelation

After the sun set in the physical world Nilya found his way through the shadowed valley to the base of the mountain.

The opening of a cave was waiting for him there, a giant maw in the jagged rock leading into the dark, fathomless mountain depths. The starlight above gained strength as night fell, illuminating the path in a silver glow.

Strangely, despite trekking through the valley for the whole day he did not feel tired. His body felt light and energetic, and mentally the journey had been peaceful and without trouble.

Find the ruler of this world. Retrieve a hollow ember and escape. He trusted in his master and in the ethereal spirit that was guiding him to send him in the right direction. This also eased a lot of the stress off his mind.

He stood at the entrance for only a moment, taking a deep breath as he gathered his mental strength to enter the darkness.

~

In the physical world Somm led the way on foot, with Nilya on his back and the reins of the ox in his left hand. Yuzu followed closely behind. They had left the wagon on the road, taking a detour off the main path to find shelter for the night.

Thick, viscous water sloshed around Yuzu’s calves as they waded through the swamp. The soft loamy mud sucked at her feet each time she lifted her foot up for the next step. Stringy black weeds floated in the water, tangling around her limbs as she moved forward.

“We are here.”

The light from the guru-chi’s lantern dangled off his walking staff, illuminating the place that they had come to.

Crumbled rock foundations peeked out of the stagnant water, outlining the shape of buildings and rooms that no longer existed. These rock perimeters were once used to anchor the roots for the living buildings that were grown by the Fuha natives, but those buildings had long since rotted into the swamp.

They walked further into the ruins, sometimes walking through the “buildings” themselves, stepping over the foundations where they were low enough, or meandering around the “rooms” between the doorways. Aside from the foundations and a few crumbling walls there were no other remnants of human settlement. Any items had either long been scavenged or rotted away from time.

Ruins like these existed throughout Fuha, remnants of a country that once spanned the southern half of the continent, a land mass larger than both Kumin and Huan combined. They were the decaying skeleton of a kingdom that once celebrated and nurtured the energies of life, its flesh and blood already long decomposed.

Yuzu looked across the ruins with a solemn expression. Here, like everywhere else in Fuha the tapestry of fate was thin and frayed. There was no one around, even the wildlife was sparse and fragile.

The pouch of fourteen gold coins was tightly bound to her body underneath her clothes. She thought about the incredible amount of wealth that she now held— more wealth than a poverty-stricken Fuha village would see in their entire lifetime, yet wealth that was ironically useless in this desolate, empty environment.

After some time the ground swelled upward and Yuzu finally felt solid ground under her feet again. Muddy water ran off her legs, which had thankfully remained dry under the layered leathers and furs that had been tied with cord in the Fuha manner. 

The petrified exterior of a half-collapsed building greeted them. This small section of the town had not yet sunk completely into the swamp, and the living walls still had a few yellowed leaves on their twisted, old branches.

Somm seemed familiar with this place, leading the way confidently as he walked onward past several more buildings, before choosing one that was notable in that it was more “overgrown” than the rest of the barren, dilapidated ruins.

The building’s interior was barren, the moonlight shone through the bare branches that still formed a skeleton of a roof. Somm lay Nilya down on the ground and cast a meaningful glance at Yuzu, though he held his tongue on asking whether there was any progress towards Nilya’s return.

Sitting beside Nilya, Yuzu extended her awareness into his string once more.

~

Through Nilya’s string the image of a twisting subterranean cave bloomed in Yuzu’s mind. 

A pale light shone from a stone in Nilya’s hand, providing illumination in the darkness. The stone wasn’t special, it was simply a conduit for Nilya to channel his spirituality into, causing it to light up. It was a technique taught to him by Somm, a simple candidate-level power that his pathway granted him.

He had been descending into the cave for some time now, deep enough that Yuzu herself had no landmarks which she could use to orient herself. His silver string extended forward and back through the cave, but the limitations of her connection to the pocket world only allowed her to see directly around him. At best she could see that there was nothing around the next corner waiting for him.

Nilya was alone in the cave.

There were no strings around him, and as far as Yuzu could tell he would continue to be alone as he descended.

An uneasy feeling gnawed at her mind as he spiralled down into the depths of the mountain. 

Somewhere in this mountain, the ruler of the space was waiting for her.

She had not shared this information with Nilya, she had only urged him forward. If she were in Nilya’s shoes and she knew that there was an entity inside the mountain pulling the strings of fate, she absolutely would not venture inside. Her own sense of survival prohibited it!

In a sense, then, Nilya was a sacrificial lamb, being sent into the depths of the unknown to see what was down there. Yuzu could see the past the next corner of the cave, but if there were mortal danger two corners away, she would only be able to give a small amount of warning.

Nilya was down in the darkness braving the danger while Yuzu was safe in the physical world, watching from afar. Though she was doing everything she could to support him, she couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.

Sorry, Nilya. Yuzu apologized to him in her mind. Your guardian “angel” is only human, after all.

As she concentrated on the strings, the guru-chi tied up the ox and laid out his belongings on the floor, preparing a place for his own rest. Once finished he sat across from her, his eyes full of intention.

“The ruler of the space… Have you found it yet?” He asked.

“Soon.” She replied, “Nilya is close now.”

Somm nodded, unraveling the twine on a tightly wrapped package. The thin leather was wrapped many times around a dense dark block of alcohol-preserved berries and grains. He broke off a corner of the ration, pulling down the bandages around his mouth to stuff the strong smelling food. 

He took his time to gather his thoughts, “That is good. He’s climbed back up to the cliffside ruins, then.”

“The ruins.” Yuzu repeated without inflection. A jolt of apprehension shot through Yuzu’s heart as her eyes darkened.

 “That is where it lives. In the depths of those halls.” Somm’s tone grew grim as he missed the tension in Yuzu’s voice, “In the old days, that is where we sent the oji-kaptya, the candidates which we felt did not have enough potential. Do you know our tongue? The meaning of the word kaptya?”

The hairs on the back of Yuzu’s neck bristled with aggravation. She couldn’t believe that the guru-chi knew more information about the ruler of the pocket world yet had not bothered to share it during the entire day. Even under the interrogation of fate cycling this topic had never come up!

The guru-chi was none the wiser to her internal reaction as she didn’t break her calm, concentrated expression. He took the lack of response as an invitation to continue, evidently comfortable enough with her now to share this information, or perhaps it was idle thoughts to break the silence over his meal.

“Oji means prince, but not just any prince, one that is treasured by the King. Before the oji passes the Trial of Requirement, they are oji-sen, candidates.” Somm muttered, “After the trial, they become oji, and we the guru-chi, the keepers of the flame, are their guides.

“But how could every oji-sen that we take in have the potential to become an oji?” He chuckled darkly, “There are many oji-sen that we can tell are not worthy, even from early on. But they had already taken the catalyst, they had already received the training. What to do with those failures?

“Amongst ourselves, we guru-chi gave these unworthy oji-sen a special title, Oji-kaptya. And for the oji-kaptya, we told them the rules of the Trial, but we added one additional detail. It wasn’t an instruction, or guidance, just something we let an idea slip. We planted a seed in their minds— That to succeed at the trial, they needed to go deep into the cliffside ruins.”

“You see, in our tongue, kaptya means sacrifice.”