Neverquest – Part 126

Characters: Kendira, Master Luna; Malkav, Adam, Blackthorn, Captain Jargon, Exthame, Fayrelin
Location: The Tower of Azure

Time: Day 5 – Dawn

“Come, child. Quickly now. You must awaken.”

Groggily, Kendira opened her eyes to the warm sunlight pouring through the window. She saw Master Luna, shuffling through the drawers on the other side of the room, and then herself in the long mirror against the wall. She must have fallen asleep some time last night because she was sprawled out on the mattress, blankets in a knot at her feet, and dressed in only an undershirt. Her lilac robe hung like a towel over the headboard of the bed and she hadn’t a clue how she had wound up here.

“What’s going on, Master?” she asked, her words garbled in the pillowcase under her cheek.

“There is somebody I wish for you to meet. But we must hurry. You have slept for far too long already.”

Rubbing the blur between her eyes, Kendira pried herself up on her elbows. “I don’t remember sleeping at all…”

“…You had a rough night, and a lot still to learn.”

And then it all came back, fast and haunting, like a nightmare in the back of her mind. The Men dying under Master Luna’s feet, the poor souls taken from this world, the cold stains of blood they left behind, echoing in their screams…

Kendira fell back against her robe, out of her breath. She could still hear them crying.

“There is something I want you to have…” Master Luna said, taking a key out of the bottom of one of the drawers. Then she dropped to her knees and unlocked a rather large hope chest by her feet. “Although I fear I must warn you now. Where we’re headed, the sun’s rays no longer touch. You will have to dress for the darkness.” Then she pulled out a robe, as black and twisted as the one she wore, and carried it over to the bed.

“This was mine,” she said, “a long time ago, when I was an apprentice like you. My master gave it to me nearly two hundred years ago.”

Carefully, she laid the robe in Kendira’s lap, letting it flow over her chest and legs like a blanket of night. Unlike Master Luna’s garments, this robe had sleeves that stretched all the way to the wrists and hung down the sides like curtains, as well as a hood that could be pulled up or down at the wearer’s discretion.

Kendira stared at it for a while, taken back. Then she ran her hands across the fabric and felt the cool silk glide through her fingertips.

“It’s beautiful…” she said at last. “But so very dark.”

Master Luna smiled. “Black is the color of absolution.”

“But that’s only for Mages who have mastered all the arcane arts. I’m still so young… Hardly more than an apprentice. I don’t deserve to wear black yet.”

“My child,” the Master said, taking her hand, “we’re entering the dawn of a new world. You will find the times change rather quickly. We must learn to adapt or be assimilated by the world around us. …So go on, my dear apprentice. All the colors are yours now. You have earned them.”

Kendira released the dress and Luna’s hand. “No, I cannot. I’m sorry. I have done nothing.”

“You believe in me, don’t you?”

“…Of course, Master. You were always there for me. You are my guide and my candle in the darkness. I’d always stand by you.”

But even then, she couldn’t forget about those Men. Those faces…

Those screams…

“Then you have done everything for me,” Luna said. “Go on. The robe is yours.” She paused. “…In time—perhaps very shortly—you will become a Master like me. Then you will understand why it must happen this way. Time is merciless to us mortals.”

Kendira lowered her eyes, letting them dance across the fibers of the dress, and wondered if the Men would ever leave her thoughts. “Thank you, Master…”

Smiling, Master Luna extended her hand.  “Come. Let’s see you in your new colors.”

Kendira tried to smile back and offered her tiny hand to her master. Together, their fingers interlocked, and Kendira was pulled to her feet. The black robe came with her, flapping in the air, shrouding her eyes, like the flag of a pirate ship…

“Arrr, checkmate, mate!” Blackthorn said as he proceeded to stab the last horse figurine with his hook. Its head came flying off and rolled across the ship deck. “Haha, I be puttin’ ye out to pasture now.”

Malkav sat on the other end of the table, looking down at a chessboard full of claw marks and broken pieces. “…Um. You just took like seventeen turns in a row.”

“Whazzat!? Ye callin’ me a cheater, boy?”

“No… I’m just not sure why every game we play consists of you destroying the pieces before I can move them.”

Blackthorn’s left eye started to twitch and he grabbed one end of the chessboard table and flung it to the side. “Oh, I see. Ye want to play one of your sissy, girly-girl games. The kind where nobody gets decapitated and raw blood don’t come pourin’ out your skin like a wave of Posedia—is that it, boy!? Ye want to wear frilly dresses and dance like ye ain’t carryin’ a big ol’ treasure chest ‘tween your legs.”

“No, really…”

But Blackthorn jumped to his feet and started tap dancing across the ship deck, holding up an imaginary hoop skirt. “Look at me—I’m a landlubber, sissy boy! I don’t like getting my skull cracked open or my pretty dress all dirty. Arrr, no! I like to use napkins and manners when I sit down to feast on an animal that’s still breathin’.”

Adam walked in from the cabin down below. “Uhhh… Am I interrupting something?”

“Arrr,” Blackthorn said, glaring at Adam. “Ye another of them sissy boys! How was your ‘shower’? Are ye ‘clean’ now?”

“Quite clean, yes. Thank you.”

Blackthorn guffawed. “‘Thank you,’ the little girl says! Har, har har. How did I get stuck with such a girly crew?”

“Blackthorn!” Fayrelin screamed from down in the cabin. “Why is my breakfast cold!?”

He jumped. “Eep! Coming, Miss Fayrelin.”

Adam stepped aside to let him through and then glanced over at Malkav. “…How did you sleep?”

“Not well. I can’t stop thinking about Siarra.”

“I’m sure she’s fine. There’s no place safer than a dungeon.”

“I suppose…”

Meanwhile, the enigmatic Exthame stood against the railing, staring endlessly into the black waters that surrounded them. He had been standing there all night, but they couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep because his eyes were hidden behind those dark shades. But he looked now, towards them, and spoke.

“I’ve been listening to you,” he said. “It sounds like you care about this Woman. Siarra.”

Malkav looked up. “I do…I think. I mean, we used to be really good friends, and then something happened… I don’t know.”

Exthame continued staring.

“I mean, it’s… Some things weren’t meant to be, right? Like a relationship between a Man and a Woman. Maybe it is all a game. Maybe it is all fantasy… You know what I mean? Maybe there’s a reason we’re different.”

Exthame’s face was like stone.

“But…even in this world, a Man can still love a Woman, right? Or vice versa. Anything is possible. We’re all descendants of human beings. And…and why won’t you say something? Why are you staring at me like that?”

Still nothing.

“Look,” Malkav said, rising to his feet, “I don’t know how I feel right now. I’m confused. You have no idea how confused I am. Here I am, sailing across a sea full of mythical creatures with a bunch of pirates I just met yesterday, trying to recover some ancient piece of a beetle that supposedly houses enough magic to defeat the most dangerous Woman ever to walk this earth. Excuse me if I’m a little unsure how I feel right now.”

Nothing.

“That’s it! I can’t take it anymore. I just don’t know how I feel about anything right now!” And he stormed away, disappearing below deck, while Exthame watched him in silence.

When he was gone, a slow grin crept up the side of Exthame’s pale lips.

Adam saw it and stepped forward. “What is it with you? Who are you? Why are you so…”

But Exthame turned back to the sea. And Adam was close enough to hear him quietly dreaming now. Had he not known any better, he could have sworn that Exthame was asleep—and had been—all night.