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Nov. 1st, 2008 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_goldenpathTitle: Trials of Salvation
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Pairings/characters: Yamishipping (YnM x YnY x YnB), Peachshipping (Yuugi x Anzu)
Genre: fantasy
Warnings: a little for (implied) violence and sexual situations, shounen-ai, and some foul language.
Summary: Yuugi Mutou from the forests of Domino, sets out on a journey to retrieve the cure for his sick grandfather, fallen prey to a curse. According to the legends, three wizards are in possession of the cure; the Golden Wizard of the Mountains, the Dark Wizard of the Caves, and the Thief Wizard of the Tower, the very same wizards who are responsible for the curse. With all three locked away, it’s a race against time for Yuugi and his friends, Jounouchi, Otogi, Honda and Anzu to reach them and trust them, for the sake of the salvation and survival of the entire world.
Author’s note: blah blah, artistic license, blah blah, characters do not belong to me, blah blah copyright Takahashi Kazuki, feedback greatly appreciated.
Extra author’s note: Characters refer to Yami no Malik as ‘Marik’ for the flow of the story. As there’s no notion of a Pharaoh in this fantasy world, characters refer to Yami no Yuugi as ‘Atemu-janu’, with ‘janu’ being the respectable title of a master wizard in this world.
This is an excerpt from my NaNoWriMo 2008 novel, so un-betaed and un-edited!
Key: ----- = scene change
-----------------------------
Several eons ago
The monotonous sound of a pestle grinding ingredients together in a mortar was the only noise to break the silence. Dark brown leaves were crushed with the heavy weight of the pestle, moistened by the juices of the smooshed berries. Long, slender and tan fingers added a whiff of spices to the strange mix, and continued turning and pushing the pestle, all around in the mortar, to turn the ingredients into a paste.
“Atemu-janu,” a nagging voice sounded suddenly from the left, “Atemu-janu, what are you doing?”
He ignored him. Crimson red eyes focused on the work in his hands and added some more of the berries, followed by a pebble-sized concentrated ball of another mysterious ingredient. It sizzled as soon as its shell was broken by the weight of the pestle, and added liquid to the paste, smoothening it out. The golden rings on his fingers clicked against the rim of the stone mortar as he turned the object around, constantly working the pestle until he was satisfied. Putting the pestle down on the wooden tabletop, he picked up the mortar and looked into it, scrutinizing the contents. He was so occupied by staring into the dark running paste that he didn’t notice that the pestle was surprisingly gently lifted up from its resting place by another tan skinned hand.
However, his outward concentration wasn’t as intense as he made it out to be.
“Marik-jashu, I told you not to lick off the pestle,” he said, voice low and stern. He didn’t look into the direction of the other, who sat in the corner in a relaxed manner, long legs stretched out on the floor, purple cape covering half of his body.
“I’m not licking it,” the other denied indignantly, even though he was holding the pestle shimmering with more than just the fluids it had grinded together just a few moments ago.
“I told you not to lick it because you never know what I’ve been preparing,” the wizard at the table said, though not looking into the other’s direction, “and you could get seriously sick from it.”
“I love it when you’re so serious,” Marik grinned and flicked out his insanely long tongue, wrapping it around the pestle and licking it off once again. “Mmm, berries.”
“You’re a very lucky jashu for not dying on the spot. You don’t even know what I’m preparing.”
Marik shrugged and threw the pestle down on the floor again. “Everything you prepare taste good, Atemu-janu. Just like yourself…”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He got up from the floor and was so fast at Atemu’s side that he had to blink; he hadn’t seen the other move. Marik wrapped his arms around Atemu and laced his fingers together, gathering the wizard in an extremely tight hug. He coughed.
“I really should make you taste yourself one of these days, then you would know what I mean.” He bit in Atemu’s ear, just above the large earring. Atemu knew better than to squirm or yelp in front of Marik; showing that he was in pain was the other’s excitement, and you’d never know how it would go from there. Besides, he was about to try out a new potion, and that had his priority right now.
“Marik, I need to work,” he said.
“You always need to work.”
“If you worked, you would become a janu too,” Atemu said, not disdainfully. Marik reacted to voice intonations as well; a little too much disdain, annoyance or irritation or he would fly off the handle, just like a small kid throwing a rather vicious temper tantrum. Marik shrugged again. He wasn’t interested in much, except if it had to do with pain. He liked pain, both experiencing himself or inflicting upon others. Atemu wasn’t so sure what kind of hold he had over the other; Marik seemed to behave around him, for whatever reason. Was it because he was the only janu of the three of them?
The three of them. Bakura-jashva had to be around here somewhere, if Marik was here with Atemu in his room. As a janu, the highest in wizard ranks, Atemu had first rights on whatever facilities, and he had chosen the largest room in the house. It was a perfectly square room, and he had used it to its fullest potential by covering the walls with his extensive library, filled with the most extensive books and works on magic in the world. In the middle of the room, in front of the huge window, he had placed the giant desk, covered with ingredients, work sheets, some more books, and all kinds of objects he needed for his work. As many other wizards, Atemu was interested in potions and how to create or to improve them. He was willing to experiment with them and take the steps necessary to go out of his ways to improve them. There weren’t enough potions with healing capacities, for example. He longed to find that potion that would bring people back from the brink of death, to battle those rough fevers sweeping the lands ever so often…
Bakura came in second, even though his jashva rank wasn’t second to Atemu’s janu one. He was simply a wizard, but he had the baffling power to manipulate the shadows. He wasn’t interested in potions, he was interested in pretty objects made out of gold or jewels. Atemu didn’t know what fascinated Bakura so much about the objects, but he thought it was more about the adrenaline and intensity of stealing the objects instead of possessing them. Atemu was usually the one to give the items back to their rightful owners; Bakura never commented on it, he just went out to steal from someone else. It was a problem, but as long as nobody made a big deal out of it and Atemu could return everything, it was a ‘dead’ problem… everyone was just silent about it. In reality, and Atemu was the first one to realize it, everyone was just afraid of his strange shadow powers.
Marik came in third, but a jashu was nothing more than an apprentice-wizard. Still, and Atemu had already detected these powers, he had control over darkness. Rough, uncontrollable darkness in the hands of someone who was more than unfitting to have any kind of power over them. Even a janu like him couldn’t control the darkness, and a childlike person like Marik, as unstable as any kind of potion, had. This was a serious problem, and the only reason why people didn’t stone him to death was that he barely came outside. Marik liked darkness, so he stayed inside and had called the basement his home. None of the other wizards in the house ever came down in the basement.
Wizardry was common in the world of Najpa. There were all kinds of wizards, ranging from your average fortune-teller to the ones that could really work miracles. Safe for the realm of the dead, wizards had power over everything else in the world; there was a different wizard for everything. Each one of them had a price, and one was more approachable than the other, but none of them were the stereotypical reclusive wizard wearing ankle-length swirling robes or a hat, and carrying a staff. It could very well be that your neighbor was a wizard; besides, the name ‘wizard’ was often acknowledged too fast to anyone proving to dispose over the faintest powers. That’s why nation-wide it was decided that the profession of wizard held several steps and ranks, and that everyone rising above the rank of jashu, apprentice-wizard, needed to find themselves at least a jashva to get proper training.
A jashva was an apprentice to a janu, though a jashva had learned more of course and had better control over his powers than a jashu, who was just starting out. Many people didn’t get farther than being a jashu; as long as they had control over their powers, they hold on to that title as if they were a janu themselves. A janu was the highest rank one could reach, but magic powers only could get so far… there were very little janu, and Atemu was known for even rising above the rank of janu.. for which they didn’t even have a name.
He could summon Gods.
Atemu had never given his power that much thought. He was born with it, and his parents had abandoned him; he hadn’t known about his power until it manifested itself spontaneously. At the moment he learned about them, he learned also about the truth; that the people he called his father and mother weren’t his real parents and that he was from the unknown lands in the South. Atemu had never given his typical tan skin color much thought either. Everyone lived outside, colored by the sun; to a kid, a difference in color wasn’t that much of a problem. That adults rather avoided him was something he didn’t mind all that much; he was a loner from the get-go.
As soon as his powers had established, Atemu had set out to learn and sought out teachers, but aside from the more usual things, no one could teach him anything about controlling the Gods he summoned, and how to exactly control the summoning. It had been lonely years, until he had met Bakura; a surprisingly pale young man who jumped from the shadows at him, reaching for the gold he was wearing. He was immediately stomped on by a God and trampled to death if Atemu hadn’t picked up on the latent power in the young man.
Marik simply showed up at their doorstep one day and told them that he had heard that they knew how to deal with strange powers. He had stepped inside the house and had never left it since. As many wizards simply dealt with mundane powers as fortune telling, weather forecasting, blessing marriages and newborns, ‘strange powers’ as controlling the darkness was really far from their capacities. What better to lump all the ‘strange ones’ together in one house? The population could keep an eye on them and treat them with some sort of respect, and they left them alone.
“I don’t feel like working.”
“You never feel like working.”
Marik nuzzled his neck. “You work too hard.”
“I want to…”
He took the mortar from Atemu’s hands and stared into it. “Black goo. Yum!”
“I’m searching for a cure,” Atemu tried to wiggle himself free, “the fever that currently sweeps the nation.”
“Bah, you always want to help,” Marik said disparagingly and put the bowl back on the table again, out of Atemu’s reach.
“Marik! I need to continue, otherwise the ingredients will spoil! Do you know how hard it is to find those berries?”
“Only because you go searching for them yourself. Bakura can always steal them.”
“I obey the law,” Atemu protested. Marik’s grip was too tight, he couldn’t get himself free. Worse, the other moved his arm down a little, his hand starting to reach for…
“That’s why you’re so delicious,” Marik whispered into his ear. “Nothing turns me on more than doing dirty things to a law-abiding, uptight, goody-two shoes like you.”
“Marik!” Atemu yelped, and realized he could kiss his potion goodbye, as he was pulled to the floor.
---------------------------------
Bakura was unfazed by the noise coming from upstairs. Atemu-janu’s study, or work room as he called it himself, the thief thought to himself. Marik was taking too much leeway; he had to remind the other that Atemu-janu wasn’t exclusively for himself. The thief grimaced as he opened his hand, revealing a ball of gold. It shone brightly to him, and his grimace subsided into a grin. The item had the same distinctive mark on it as the other ones he had stolen recently; some kind of eye on the front. He had managed to locate (and steal) four of them already, and one of these days he was going to consult Atemu’s extensive library to see if he could find more information on it. To think that this town was holding so many nice things to steal!
He had chosen for the first floor of the house. The ground floor was for their kitchen, a storage room, a living room and their shared bedroom. Bakura’s room wasn’t as large as Atemu’s and certainly didn’t hold any books. It used to be just as large, but the previous occupants had spliced it into two, turning it into a study and an extra bedroom. It didn’t matter much to Bakura; he had put some furniture into it, sparsely, and a separate bedroom was a good advantage if you wanted to spend a night alone instead of sharing a bed with the others. Not that it happened often, but it was an option; and Bakura liked options. He often was out until late in the night, and by then, Atemu and Marik were occupying the entire bed and not all the time he felt like squeezing in. Often Bakura would step into bed with the other two and leave in the middle of the night. Just what or when he was feeling like it.
A loud thud made him look up, even though he couldn’t see through the ceiling. If he hurried up, he could watch them together; it was always fun to watch the two of them rolling over the floor. Poor Atemu-janu didn’t stand a chance against Marik when it came to physical strength; when would he think of summoning a God to get the other off of him? Bakura knew why Atemu wouldn’t, or wasn’t going to, summon a God - as perfectly well-behaved and composed the janu looked on the outside, the much dirty and rough he liked it in the inside, and Marik was all but happy to comply.
Atemu-janu was pretty, and he didn’t even use a spell to hold up his beauty. A lot of spells were so basic that every jashu could learn it; a spell to find water, to change one’s appearance (though it depended on the strength of your power how well you manage to pull that off), to walk faster, to lift heavy objects without lifting up a finger. He didn’t use any kind of spell to maintain that flawless, smooth, tan skin of his, and those strange, piercing crimson red eyes were natural, just as his hair - golden bangs framing his face, but the rest was black as the darkest night, ending in the same crimson red as his eyes at the tips. Nobody had ever asked him where he got his gold or his funds to buy this massive house from, even though it was common knowledge that he lived the first years of his life in poverty.
Bakura went to the beautifully crafted chest in the farthest corner of his room. The chest had been a gift from Atemu and Marik together for a birthday; Bakura never cared for festivities or holidays, but he had been pleasantly - and genuinely - surprised that the other two had thought about him and went through the trouble of getting him something… and what a ‘something’ it was! The chest was made from enchanted wood, which meant it was resistant to any fire damage, or any other damaged sustained by human force - an axe, a sword, a blow. It was fortified at its corners with metal, crafted by the Darkness itself; Marik’s contribution, and Bakura was grateful for it. Even if the wood was damage resistant, that didn’t specifically magic resistant; that’s where the Dark metal came in. Anyone with magic powers touching the wood out of malicious purpose would get a warning, a small shock; if they insisted on opening the chest, a creature from the Dark would appear and devour them. There were very little jashva who had the knowledge of fending off dark creatures; whatever was stored in this chest, it would be safe. Atemu’s contribution would be the chest itself, the enchantment in the wood; it was as strong as the force of the Gods he was able to summon. The wood had been varnished a beautiful dark red color, the same color as Atemu’s eyes when he was satisfied and a little drowzy. Bakura grinned to himself. He knew of every nuance of red of Atemu’s eyes.
Of course he had no trouble opening the chest. Its lid already popped open as soon as he approached it; the chest welcomed him, almost as a friend. Marik had the hinges crafted to be purposedly aligned to Bakura’s presence; only he, not even Marik himself, could approach the chest without any sort of trouble. It revealed its content; some precious jewelry, and the items of course. Items, not items.. in the course of time Bakura had started to think of them with a capital ‘I’, as they were important to him. Strange, such strange objects, that made him obsess over them. It was hard to deny, how much in love he was with those Items. There was a Darkness in them that compelled him, forced him, drove him to seek out as many of these Items as possible. He had no idea how many there were, and what their purpose was; but with the golden marble added to them, his total was four. Bakura reached for the other Items in the chest. He just wanted to hold them. The Item that made most sense to him was the scales; he’d seen Atemu use a similar one to weigh his precious ingredients; but the janu’s scales didn’t show that trademark eye on the top. The necklace with the very same eye should be around a female’s neck, as beautiful and slender as it was, and the.. whatever other thing it was, didn’t sport the eye, but unmistakably bore the same mark of the creator. It looked like a key or some sort, Bakura couldn’t make heads or tails out of it; but it had lied close to where he had found the necklace, and he simply had taken it with him.
He knew that Atemu always gave the things he’d stolen back to their proper owners. Stealing was something in his blood, and he wasn’t ashamed of it, not at all. Not many trinkets were really valuable and it was the sport of the stealing, the hunting - whenever a farmer or merchant knocked on the door to get their possession back, he allowed Atemu to deal with it. Bakura didn’t even bother to hide the stolen things, he put them in plain sight in his room, so Atemu could take it and give it back. But not the Items. Not the golden, beautiful, strange, appealing Items. It was even more strange that no one had come to reclaim even, even though Bakura had taken the Items from people’s homes. There had been no indignant wizard - and yes, he had stolen the Items from the homes of his fellow wizards - standing on the doorstep, demanding his Item to be returned. Strange, very strange.
He noticed that the noises above him had stopped. Soon, Marik would come down hollering the stairs to bug him, that was for sure. Atemu needed more time to recover, depending on what Marik had done to him. Sometimes he resembled a playful young puppy, a puppy with the force of a whole pack nonetheless, and sometimes he was just outright brutal. Where his strength came from, no one knew - Bakura was no match for him either in phsyical combat. It was a sore consolation that he outranked Marik in the field of magic powers; his control over the shadows was a fortunate and a handy one, and he could easily escape by jumping into a shadow, if he didn’t want to interact with the other. Quickly closing the chest, Bakura straightened himself. He could already hear Marik coming down the stairs, but surprisingly enough, the apprentice-wizard didn’t come barging through his door. The only reason why Marik would continue descending was to go to the kitchen; Bakura’s grin turned smug.
Leaving his quarters, Bakura followed Marik into the kitchen. It was nice to live in such wealth and to have a well-equiped kitchen like this; Bakura had spend many of his years in poverty, even though he was reluctant to disclose any kind of information about his youth. He had jumped at Atemu in his arrogant belief that he was going to rob another moronic bypasser who had the audacity to adorn himself in gold in the shadier parts in town, without verifying first if the man had been a wizard - which he was. Never would Bakura forget the humiliation when a God, appearing out of nowhere, had grabbed him at the ankles and kept him dangling in mid-air, and the shadows failed to rescue him that day - mostly because he couldn’t dissolve into them as he was held upside-down.
Jumping at the janu, because summoning Gods was only someone a janu or above janu rank could do, turned out to be the smartest thing Bakura had ever done. Gone were his days of poverty, of begging for and stealing craps of food, of fabric, of anything that he could trade for a place to sleep or something decent to eat. Atemu-janu, as he had started to call him, uncomfortable by calling him with his first name and the expression quickly adopted by Marik who arrived later, disposed over a large house.. which was topped by the current house they lived in. Who else in this town had a floor all to his own? The house had also a basement, a large attic and a gigantic garden, where they tried to grow ingredients for potions - so mundane, but Atemu insisted on a garden. Well, one should never bite off the hand that fed you, so Bakura took up garden chores less reluctantly than Marik whenever Atemu asked for it.
He found Marik at the sink, gurgling with water. He couldn’t help it, he laughed.
“Been licking off the pestle again, right?”
“Yes,” Marik answered intelligebly at the same moment he realized he was rinsing his mouth, and he spit the water into the sink again. “Yes,” he repeated.
For whatever reason, Marik was the only one to wear a cape. A purple one at that, completely neutral, no pattern on it. It wasn’t uncommon for wizards to wear capes, especially whenever there was a festivity or official meeting, and most wizards liked to show their profession, but it wasn’t something daily either. Anyone in the town would laugh at you if you crossed the street in obvious robes and hats. It wasn’t necessary to discern oneself that much from society, but it was well-known that wizards and sorcerers were keen to ‘dress up’ whenever there was a reason for it. Most of the robes were conspicuous and striking, with embroidery and wildly adorned patterns; but the cape that hung around Marik’s shoulders was just plain purple. For someone never leaving the house, wearing a cape was just silly, and unbecoming for an apprentice-wizard, someone on the lowest rung of the wizard’s ladder. However, Atemu condoned it, and so did Bakura by default; if the janu was all right with it, so was he.
“What was it this time?”
“Atemu-janu is trying to make a healing potion,” Marik spoke disdainfully. He saw the beauty in pain, not the miracle in healing. “Stupid stupid.”
“Good healing potions make a lot of money,” Bakura reminded him. Marik seemed to think there was no limit to Atemu’s funds; but the truth was that conjured money, or any other means of payment that was constructed by wizardry, was frowned upon. Wizards were paid in gold, gifts or goods; they were free to state their own price. Anyone using their powers to construct money was generally laughed at. In this society, everyone worked, not lazed off. It was true that Atemu was never seen selling his services, not that the general public came asking for it. When he was consulted, it was always the top of the wizards’ society; and Bakura had no idea if they paid for his advise either. He didn’t see why Atemu couldn’t be selling his potions. The more of a reputation of good-working potions a wizard had, the more money he could make off of it.
Marik looked sour, then pursed his lips.
“What have you been up to, Bakura-jashva?”
“Nothing much,” Bakura said lightly.
“Did you just arrive home? I didn’t see you in Atemu-janu’s room,” the other said, his voice almost in a child-like curious pitch.
“I just got home, yes. Did you make a mess?”
“What? Out of him or out of his room?”
“You’re hopeless.” The fact that Marik walked in and out of every room in the house made Bakura the more glad that he had a chest no one but him could access. Marik wasn’t snooping around, he never touched a thing that wasn’t his or went looking into drawers or cabinets, he announced his arrival as loud as possible; still, it was a comforting thought that absolutely no one could get his hands on the Items he’d been gathering. Marik opened a large box on the counter top and helped himself to some gingerbread. He offered some to Bakura too, but he declined. He wasn’t that hungry.
“It’s almost lunch time,” he pointed out.
“Whatever,” Marik answered with his mouth full. He was bad at keeping schedules and daily structure anyway. Some time ago, Bakura could hardly recall it, Atemu had tried to keep everyone, including himself, to a roster of chores but it hadn’t worked out well. He ended up hiring help for the cleaning and cooking; except for the gardening, nobody helped really out in the household any more. That was better for everyone involved, and Bakura was glad; it left him much more leeway to do his bidding, especially at night.
“Do you ever think you can become a janu?”
Marik’s question caught him off-guard. Most jashu dreamt of becoming jashva or higher; there were many different ranks and specializations in wizardy. Janu was a rank not many achieved; but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a secret dream of many. Bakura drummed with his fingers on the countertop. He never gave it much thought.
“I don’t think my powers lend to that kind of level,” he carefully choose his words.
“But you managed to master your powers, right, Bakura-jashva?”
“Yes I did. I doubt there’s much more to it, though. I think jashva is the highest rank I can reach.”
“It would be wonderful if we could all be janu,” Marik said, almost dreamily.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Bakura shot at him, “you can’t even brew a potion, nor effect a spell.”
Marik narrowed his eyes and the thief knew he had taken it too far. The other’s potential was what made him a jashu; control over darkness was a magical power, no matter how you looked at it. But aside from that potential, there was nothing magical about Marik, or it had to be his strange, hypnotic pupil-less eyes. Bakura raised his hands up in defense. Marik’s control was fickle and dangerous; he turned a leaf in the span of a minute, and even though most time it was unintentional, words and especially voice intonations seemed to provoke Marik faster than the speed of light.
“You can be a jashva in your art of controlling the darkness, though,” he quickly added. Gauging Marik’s reaction, he tried to keep his breathing as even as possible, ready to jump into a summoned shadow if need be - but there was no need, as Marik seemed to relax, his eyes turning back to their usual state; blank.
------------------------------------
After his escape from a possible beating from the darkness, Bakura made his way up, to Atemu’s rooms. To appease Marik, he had taken a piece of gingerbread after all and munching on it, he went up the stairs, leaving the other in the kitchen. He could hear him rummaging through the pots and pans from here.
It was dead silent when he approached the room and he opened the door, immediately locating Atemu at the large table again, grinding ingredients together. He was muttering something under his breath; he probably didn’t know how appealing and wonderful he looked when he frowned and pursed his lips like that in righteous indignation. Marik had made a mess out of his hair, the strands even wilder than before sticking into every direction, defying gravity as usual. Bakura could sneak up on him using his usual thief skills, but he didn’t want to surprise the other. Atemu probably had more than enough of surprises for one day, considering what Marik had done to him.
“Atemu-janu,” he said.
The wizard looked up and into Bakura’s direction. He gave him a warm smile.
“Bakura, good to see you. I didn’t hear you come home!”
No one did, and he wanted to keep it that way.
“Atemu-janu, may I have permission to browse your library?”
“But of course Bakura, you don’t need to ask.”
He didn’t even know himself why he was so polite around Atemu. Bakura wasn’t raised with politeness, he usually spat on any kind of God or authority, and he laughed at anyone insisting on being referred to with a title. He barely, if ever, asked for something, he simply took or grabbed or did what he wanted to do, and if anyone was upset about it, tough luck to be them. However, for some reason, he was extremely polite around the other - not in bed - even if he didn’t know why himself. Maybe to counterbalance Marik’s general curt, blunt rudeness.
Traipsing towards the library, Bakura tried to determine for himself what kind of books he was going to need. Atemu had taught him how to read, and he tried to teach it to Marik too, if the jashu wasn’t stubborn, annoying or aggressive. Where Bakura had grown up, there was no room or time to teach children how to read, not even how to survive. You learned the hard way, and Bakura had learned the hardest way of them all. Gold couldn’t compensate for it, no matter how much he stole. Not even the Items he had stolen made up for the hardships he had endured in life. But gold was pretty, and the Items were even prettier; hopefully he could find something about them.
“Anything you’re looking for in particular?” Atemu called from his desk.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Pairings/characters: Yamishipping (YnM x YnY x YnB), Peachshipping (Yuugi x Anzu)
Genre: fantasy
Warnings: a little for (implied) violence and sexual situations, shounen-ai, and some foul language.
Summary: Yuugi Mutou from the forests of Domino, sets out on a journey to retrieve the cure for his sick grandfather, fallen prey to a curse. According to the legends, three wizards are in possession of the cure; the Golden Wizard of the Mountains, the Dark Wizard of the Caves, and the Thief Wizard of the Tower, the very same wizards who are responsible for the curse. With all three locked away, it’s a race against time for Yuugi and his friends, Jounouchi, Otogi, Honda and Anzu to reach them and trust them, for the sake of the salvation and survival of the entire world.
Author’s note: blah blah, artistic license, blah blah, characters do not belong to me, blah blah copyright Takahashi Kazuki, feedback greatly appreciated.
Extra author’s note: Characters refer to Yami no Malik as ‘Marik’ for the flow of the story. As there’s no notion of a Pharaoh in this fantasy world, characters refer to Yami no Yuugi as ‘Atemu-janu’, with ‘janu’ being the respectable title of a master wizard in this world.
This is an excerpt from my NaNoWriMo 2008 novel, so un-betaed and un-edited!
Key: ----- = scene change
-----------------------------
Several eons ago
The monotonous sound of a pestle grinding ingredients together in a mortar was the only noise to break the silence. Dark brown leaves were crushed with the heavy weight of the pestle, moistened by the juices of the smooshed berries. Long, slender and tan fingers added a whiff of spices to the strange mix, and continued turning and pushing the pestle, all around in the mortar, to turn the ingredients into a paste.
“Atemu-janu,” a nagging voice sounded suddenly from the left, “Atemu-janu, what are you doing?”
He ignored him. Crimson red eyes focused on the work in his hands and added some more of the berries, followed by a pebble-sized concentrated ball of another mysterious ingredient. It sizzled as soon as its shell was broken by the weight of the pestle, and added liquid to the paste, smoothening it out. The golden rings on his fingers clicked against the rim of the stone mortar as he turned the object around, constantly working the pestle until he was satisfied. Putting the pestle down on the wooden tabletop, he picked up the mortar and looked into it, scrutinizing the contents. He was so occupied by staring into the dark running paste that he didn’t notice that the pestle was surprisingly gently lifted up from its resting place by another tan skinned hand.
However, his outward concentration wasn’t as intense as he made it out to be.
“Marik-jashu, I told you not to lick off the pestle,” he said, voice low and stern. He didn’t look into the direction of the other, who sat in the corner in a relaxed manner, long legs stretched out on the floor, purple cape covering half of his body.
“I’m not licking it,” the other denied indignantly, even though he was holding the pestle shimmering with more than just the fluids it had grinded together just a few moments ago.
“I told you not to lick it because you never know what I’ve been preparing,” the wizard at the table said, though not looking into the other’s direction, “and you could get seriously sick from it.”
“I love it when you’re so serious,” Marik grinned and flicked out his insanely long tongue, wrapping it around the pestle and licking it off once again. “Mmm, berries.”
“You’re a very lucky jashu for not dying on the spot. You don’t even know what I’m preparing.”
Marik shrugged and threw the pestle down on the floor again. “Everything you prepare taste good, Atemu-janu. Just like yourself…”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He got up from the floor and was so fast at Atemu’s side that he had to blink; he hadn’t seen the other move. Marik wrapped his arms around Atemu and laced his fingers together, gathering the wizard in an extremely tight hug. He coughed.
“I really should make you taste yourself one of these days, then you would know what I mean.” He bit in Atemu’s ear, just above the large earring. Atemu knew better than to squirm or yelp in front of Marik; showing that he was in pain was the other’s excitement, and you’d never know how it would go from there. Besides, he was about to try out a new potion, and that had his priority right now.
“Marik, I need to work,” he said.
“You always need to work.”
“If you worked, you would become a janu too,” Atemu said, not disdainfully. Marik reacted to voice intonations as well; a little too much disdain, annoyance or irritation or he would fly off the handle, just like a small kid throwing a rather vicious temper tantrum. Marik shrugged again. He wasn’t interested in much, except if it had to do with pain. He liked pain, both experiencing himself or inflicting upon others. Atemu wasn’t so sure what kind of hold he had over the other; Marik seemed to behave around him, for whatever reason. Was it because he was the only janu of the three of them?
The three of them. Bakura-jashva had to be around here somewhere, if Marik was here with Atemu in his room. As a janu, the highest in wizard ranks, Atemu had first rights on whatever facilities, and he had chosen the largest room in the house. It was a perfectly square room, and he had used it to its fullest potential by covering the walls with his extensive library, filled with the most extensive books and works on magic in the world. In the middle of the room, in front of the huge window, he had placed the giant desk, covered with ingredients, work sheets, some more books, and all kinds of objects he needed for his work. As many other wizards, Atemu was interested in potions and how to create or to improve them. He was willing to experiment with them and take the steps necessary to go out of his ways to improve them. There weren’t enough potions with healing capacities, for example. He longed to find that potion that would bring people back from the brink of death, to battle those rough fevers sweeping the lands ever so often…
Bakura came in second, even though his jashva rank wasn’t second to Atemu’s janu one. He was simply a wizard, but he had the baffling power to manipulate the shadows. He wasn’t interested in potions, he was interested in pretty objects made out of gold or jewels. Atemu didn’t know what fascinated Bakura so much about the objects, but he thought it was more about the adrenaline and intensity of stealing the objects instead of possessing them. Atemu was usually the one to give the items back to their rightful owners; Bakura never commented on it, he just went out to steal from someone else. It was a problem, but as long as nobody made a big deal out of it and Atemu could return everything, it was a ‘dead’ problem… everyone was just silent about it. In reality, and Atemu was the first one to realize it, everyone was just afraid of his strange shadow powers.
Marik came in third, but a jashu was nothing more than an apprentice-wizard. Still, and Atemu had already detected these powers, he had control over darkness. Rough, uncontrollable darkness in the hands of someone who was more than unfitting to have any kind of power over them. Even a janu like him couldn’t control the darkness, and a childlike person like Marik, as unstable as any kind of potion, had. This was a serious problem, and the only reason why people didn’t stone him to death was that he barely came outside. Marik liked darkness, so he stayed inside and had called the basement his home. None of the other wizards in the house ever came down in the basement.
Wizardry was common in the world of Najpa. There were all kinds of wizards, ranging from your average fortune-teller to the ones that could really work miracles. Safe for the realm of the dead, wizards had power over everything else in the world; there was a different wizard for everything. Each one of them had a price, and one was more approachable than the other, but none of them were the stereotypical reclusive wizard wearing ankle-length swirling robes or a hat, and carrying a staff. It could very well be that your neighbor was a wizard; besides, the name ‘wizard’ was often acknowledged too fast to anyone proving to dispose over the faintest powers. That’s why nation-wide it was decided that the profession of wizard held several steps and ranks, and that everyone rising above the rank of jashu, apprentice-wizard, needed to find themselves at least a jashva to get proper training.
A jashva was an apprentice to a janu, though a jashva had learned more of course and had better control over his powers than a jashu, who was just starting out. Many people didn’t get farther than being a jashu; as long as they had control over their powers, they hold on to that title as if they were a janu themselves. A janu was the highest rank one could reach, but magic powers only could get so far… there were very little janu, and Atemu was known for even rising above the rank of janu.. for which they didn’t even have a name.
He could summon Gods.
Atemu had never given his power that much thought. He was born with it, and his parents had abandoned him; he hadn’t known about his power until it manifested itself spontaneously. At the moment he learned about them, he learned also about the truth; that the people he called his father and mother weren’t his real parents and that he was from the unknown lands in the South. Atemu had never given his typical tan skin color much thought either. Everyone lived outside, colored by the sun; to a kid, a difference in color wasn’t that much of a problem. That adults rather avoided him was something he didn’t mind all that much; he was a loner from the get-go.
As soon as his powers had established, Atemu had set out to learn and sought out teachers, but aside from the more usual things, no one could teach him anything about controlling the Gods he summoned, and how to exactly control the summoning. It had been lonely years, until he had met Bakura; a surprisingly pale young man who jumped from the shadows at him, reaching for the gold he was wearing. He was immediately stomped on by a God and trampled to death if Atemu hadn’t picked up on the latent power in the young man.
Marik simply showed up at their doorstep one day and told them that he had heard that they knew how to deal with strange powers. He had stepped inside the house and had never left it since. As many wizards simply dealt with mundane powers as fortune telling, weather forecasting, blessing marriages and newborns, ‘strange powers’ as controlling the darkness was really far from their capacities. What better to lump all the ‘strange ones’ together in one house? The population could keep an eye on them and treat them with some sort of respect, and they left them alone.
“I don’t feel like working.”
“You never feel like working.”
Marik nuzzled his neck. “You work too hard.”
“I want to…”
He took the mortar from Atemu’s hands and stared into it. “Black goo. Yum!”
“I’m searching for a cure,” Atemu tried to wiggle himself free, “the fever that currently sweeps the nation.”
“Bah, you always want to help,” Marik said disparagingly and put the bowl back on the table again, out of Atemu’s reach.
“Marik! I need to continue, otherwise the ingredients will spoil! Do you know how hard it is to find those berries?”
“Only because you go searching for them yourself. Bakura can always steal them.”
“I obey the law,” Atemu protested. Marik’s grip was too tight, he couldn’t get himself free. Worse, the other moved his arm down a little, his hand starting to reach for…
“That’s why you’re so delicious,” Marik whispered into his ear. “Nothing turns me on more than doing dirty things to a law-abiding, uptight, goody-two shoes like you.”
“Marik!” Atemu yelped, and realized he could kiss his potion goodbye, as he was pulled to the floor.
---------------------------------
Bakura was unfazed by the noise coming from upstairs. Atemu-janu’s study, or work room as he called it himself, the thief thought to himself. Marik was taking too much leeway; he had to remind the other that Atemu-janu wasn’t exclusively for himself. The thief grimaced as he opened his hand, revealing a ball of gold. It shone brightly to him, and his grimace subsided into a grin. The item had the same distinctive mark on it as the other ones he had stolen recently; some kind of eye on the front. He had managed to locate (and steal) four of them already, and one of these days he was going to consult Atemu’s extensive library to see if he could find more information on it. To think that this town was holding so many nice things to steal!
He had chosen for the first floor of the house. The ground floor was for their kitchen, a storage room, a living room and their shared bedroom. Bakura’s room wasn’t as large as Atemu’s and certainly didn’t hold any books. It used to be just as large, but the previous occupants had spliced it into two, turning it into a study and an extra bedroom. It didn’t matter much to Bakura; he had put some furniture into it, sparsely, and a separate bedroom was a good advantage if you wanted to spend a night alone instead of sharing a bed with the others. Not that it happened often, but it was an option; and Bakura liked options. He often was out until late in the night, and by then, Atemu and Marik were occupying the entire bed and not all the time he felt like squeezing in. Often Bakura would step into bed with the other two and leave in the middle of the night. Just what or when he was feeling like it.
A loud thud made him look up, even though he couldn’t see through the ceiling. If he hurried up, he could watch them together; it was always fun to watch the two of them rolling over the floor. Poor Atemu-janu didn’t stand a chance against Marik when it came to physical strength; when would he think of summoning a God to get the other off of him? Bakura knew why Atemu wouldn’t, or wasn’t going to, summon a God - as perfectly well-behaved and composed the janu looked on the outside, the much dirty and rough he liked it in the inside, and Marik was all but happy to comply.
Atemu-janu was pretty, and he didn’t even use a spell to hold up his beauty. A lot of spells were so basic that every jashu could learn it; a spell to find water, to change one’s appearance (though it depended on the strength of your power how well you manage to pull that off), to walk faster, to lift heavy objects without lifting up a finger. He didn’t use any kind of spell to maintain that flawless, smooth, tan skin of his, and those strange, piercing crimson red eyes were natural, just as his hair - golden bangs framing his face, but the rest was black as the darkest night, ending in the same crimson red as his eyes at the tips. Nobody had ever asked him where he got his gold or his funds to buy this massive house from, even though it was common knowledge that he lived the first years of his life in poverty.
Bakura went to the beautifully crafted chest in the farthest corner of his room. The chest had been a gift from Atemu and Marik together for a birthday; Bakura never cared for festivities or holidays, but he had been pleasantly - and genuinely - surprised that the other two had thought about him and went through the trouble of getting him something… and what a ‘something’ it was! The chest was made from enchanted wood, which meant it was resistant to any fire damage, or any other damaged sustained by human force - an axe, a sword, a blow. It was fortified at its corners with metal, crafted by the Darkness itself; Marik’s contribution, and Bakura was grateful for it. Even if the wood was damage resistant, that didn’t specifically magic resistant; that’s where the Dark metal came in. Anyone with magic powers touching the wood out of malicious purpose would get a warning, a small shock; if they insisted on opening the chest, a creature from the Dark would appear and devour them. There were very little jashva who had the knowledge of fending off dark creatures; whatever was stored in this chest, it would be safe. Atemu’s contribution would be the chest itself, the enchantment in the wood; it was as strong as the force of the Gods he was able to summon. The wood had been varnished a beautiful dark red color, the same color as Atemu’s eyes when he was satisfied and a little drowzy. Bakura grinned to himself. He knew of every nuance of red of Atemu’s eyes.
Of course he had no trouble opening the chest. Its lid already popped open as soon as he approached it; the chest welcomed him, almost as a friend. Marik had the hinges crafted to be purposedly aligned to Bakura’s presence; only he, not even Marik himself, could approach the chest without any sort of trouble. It revealed its content; some precious jewelry, and the items of course. Items, not items.. in the course of time Bakura had started to think of them with a capital ‘I’, as they were important to him. Strange, such strange objects, that made him obsess over them. It was hard to deny, how much in love he was with those Items. There was a Darkness in them that compelled him, forced him, drove him to seek out as many of these Items as possible. He had no idea how many there were, and what their purpose was; but with the golden marble added to them, his total was four. Bakura reached for the other Items in the chest. He just wanted to hold them. The Item that made most sense to him was the scales; he’d seen Atemu use a similar one to weigh his precious ingredients; but the janu’s scales didn’t show that trademark eye on the top. The necklace with the very same eye should be around a female’s neck, as beautiful and slender as it was, and the.. whatever other thing it was, didn’t sport the eye, but unmistakably bore the same mark of the creator. It looked like a key or some sort, Bakura couldn’t make heads or tails out of it; but it had lied close to where he had found the necklace, and he simply had taken it with him.
He knew that Atemu always gave the things he’d stolen back to their proper owners. Stealing was something in his blood, and he wasn’t ashamed of it, not at all. Not many trinkets were really valuable and it was the sport of the stealing, the hunting - whenever a farmer or merchant knocked on the door to get their possession back, he allowed Atemu to deal with it. Bakura didn’t even bother to hide the stolen things, he put them in plain sight in his room, so Atemu could take it and give it back. But not the Items. Not the golden, beautiful, strange, appealing Items. It was even more strange that no one had come to reclaim even, even though Bakura had taken the Items from people’s homes. There had been no indignant wizard - and yes, he had stolen the Items from the homes of his fellow wizards - standing on the doorstep, demanding his Item to be returned. Strange, very strange.
He noticed that the noises above him had stopped. Soon, Marik would come down hollering the stairs to bug him, that was for sure. Atemu needed more time to recover, depending on what Marik had done to him. Sometimes he resembled a playful young puppy, a puppy with the force of a whole pack nonetheless, and sometimes he was just outright brutal. Where his strength came from, no one knew - Bakura was no match for him either in phsyical combat. It was a sore consolation that he outranked Marik in the field of magic powers; his control over the shadows was a fortunate and a handy one, and he could easily escape by jumping into a shadow, if he didn’t want to interact with the other. Quickly closing the chest, Bakura straightened himself. He could already hear Marik coming down the stairs, but surprisingly enough, the apprentice-wizard didn’t come barging through his door. The only reason why Marik would continue descending was to go to the kitchen; Bakura’s grin turned smug.
Leaving his quarters, Bakura followed Marik into the kitchen. It was nice to live in such wealth and to have a well-equiped kitchen like this; Bakura had spend many of his years in poverty, even though he was reluctant to disclose any kind of information about his youth. He had jumped at Atemu in his arrogant belief that he was going to rob another moronic bypasser who had the audacity to adorn himself in gold in the shadier parts in town, without verifying first if the man had been a wizard - which he was. Never would Bakura forget the humiliation when a God, appearing out of nowhere, had grabbed him at the ankles and kept him dangling in mid-air, and the shadows failed to rescue him that day - mostly because he couldn’t dissolve into them as he was held upside-down.
Jumping at the janu, because summoning Gods was only someone a janu or above janu rank could do, turned out to be the smartest thing Bakura had ever done. Gone were his days of poverty, of begging for and stealing craps of food, of fabric, of anything that he could trade for a place to sleep or something decent to eat. Atemu-janu, as he had started to call him, uncomfortable by calling him with his first name and the expression quickly adopted by Marik who arrived later, disposed over a large house.. which was topped by the current house they lived in. Who else in this town had a floor all to his own? The house had also a basement, a large attic and a gigantic garden, where they tried to grow ingredients for potions - so mundane, but Atemu insisted on a garden. Well, one should never bite off the hand that fed you, so Bakura took up garden chores less reluctantly than Marik whenever Atemu asked for it.
He found Marik at the sink, gurgling with water. He couldn’t help it, he laughed.
“Been licking off the pestle again, right?”
“Yes,” Marik answered intelligebly at the same moment he realized he was rinsing his mouth, and he spit the water into the sink again. “Yes,” he repeated.
For whatever reason, Marik was the only one to wear a cape. A purple one at that, completely neutral, no pattern on it. It wasn’t uncommon for wizards to wear capes, especially whenever there was a festivity or official meeting, and most wizards liked to show their profession, but it wasn’t something daily either. Anyone in the town would laugh at you if you crossed the street in obvious robes and hats. It wasn’t necessary to discern oneself that much from society, but it was well-known that wizards and sorcerers were keen to ‘dress up’ whenever there was a reason for it. Most of the robes were conspicuous and striking, with embroidery and wildly adorned patterns; but the cape that hung around Marik’s shoulders was just plain purple. For someone never leaving the house, wearing a cape was just silly, and unbecoming for an apprentice-wizard, someone on the lowest rung of the wizard’s ladder. However, Atemu condoned it, and so did Bakura by default; if the janu was all right with it, so was he.
“What was it this time?”
“Atemu-janu is trying to make a healing potion,” Marik spoke disdainfully. He saw the beauty in pain, not the miracle in healing. “Stupid stupid.”
“Good healing potions make a lot of money,” Bakura reminded him. Marik seemed to think there was no limit to Atemu’s funds; but the truth was that conjured money, or any other means of payment that was constructed by wizardry, was frowned upon. Wizards were paid in gold, gifts or goods; they were free to state their own price. Anyone using their powers to construct money was generally laughed at. In this society, everyone worked, not lazed off. It was true that Atemu was never seen selling his services, not that the general public came asking for it. When he was consulted, it was always the top of the wizards’ society; and Bakura had no idea if they paid for his advise either. He didn’t see why Atemu couldn’t be selling his potions. The more of a reputation of good-working potions a wizard had, the more money he could make off of it.
Marik looked sour, then pursed his lips.
“What have you been up to, Bakura-jashva?”
“Nothing much,” Bakura said lightly.
“Did you just arrive home? I didn’t see you in Atemu-janu’s room,” the other said, his voice almost in a child-like curious pitch.
“I just got home, yes. Did you make a mess?”
“What? Out of him or out of his room?”
“You’re hopeless.” The fact that Marik walked in and out of every room in the house made Bakura the more glad that he had a chest no one but him could access. Marik wasn’t snooping around, he never touched a thing that wasn’t his or went looking into drawers or cabinets, he announced his arrival as loud as possible; still, it was a comforting thought that absolutely no one could get his hands on the Items he’d been gathering. Marik opened a large box on the counter top and helped himself to some gingerbread. He offered some to Bakura too, but he declined. He wasn’t that hungry.
“It’s almost lunch time,” he pointed out.
“Whatever,” Marik answered with his mouth full. He was bad at keeping schedules and daily structure anyway. Some time ago, Bakura could hardly recall it, Atemu had tried to keep everyone, including himself, to a roster of chores but it hadn’t worked out well. He ended up hiring help for the cleaning and cooking; except for the gardening, nobody helped really out in the household any more. That was better for everyone involved, and Bakura was glad; it left him much more leeway to do his bidding, especially at night.
“Do you ever think you can become a janu?”
Marik’s question caught him off-guard. Most jashu dreamt of becoming jashva or higher; there were many different ranks and specializations in wizardy. Janu was a rank not many achieved; but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a secret dream of many. Bakura drummed with his fingers on the countertop. He never gave it much thought.
“I don’t think my powers lend to that kind of level,” he carefully choose his words.
“But you managed to master your powers, right, Bakura-jashva?”
“Yes I did. I doubt there’s much more to it, though. I think jashva is the highest rank I can reach.”
“It would be wonderful if we could all be janu,” Marik said, almost dreamily.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Bakura shot at him, “you can’t even brew a potion, nor effect a spell.”
Marik narrowed his eyes and the thief knew he had taken it too far. The other’s potential was what made him a jashu; control over darkness was a magical power, no matter how you looked at it. But aside from that potential, there was nothing magical about Marik, or it had to be his strange, hypnotic pupil-less eyes. Bakura raised his hands up in defense. Marik’s control was fickle and dangerous; he turned a leaf in the span of a minute, and even though most time it was unintentional, words and especially voice intonations seemed to provoke Marik faster than the speed of light.
“You can be a jashva in your art of controlling the darkness, though,” he quickly added. Gauging Marik’s reaction, he tried to keep his breathing as even as possible, ready to jump into a summoned shadow if need be - but there was no need, as Marik seemed to relax, his eyes turning back to their usual state; blank.
------------------------------------
After his escape from a possible beating from the darkness, Bakura made his way up, to Atemu’s rooms. To appease Marik, he had taken a piece of gingerbread after all and munching on it, he went up the stairs, leaving the other in the kitchen. He could hear him rummaging through the pots and pans from here.
It was dead silent when he approached the room and he opened the door, immediately locating Atemu at the large table again, grinding ingredients together. He was muttering something under his breath; he probably didn’t know how appealing and wonderful he looked when he frowned and pursed his lips like that in righteous indignation. Marik had made a mess out of his hair, the strands even wilder than before sticking into every direction, defying gravity as usual. Bakura could sneak up on him using his usual thief skills, but he didn’t want to surprise the other. Atemu probably had more than enough of surprises for one day, considering what Marik had done to him.
“Atemu-janu,” he said.
The wizard looked up and into Bakura’s direction. He gave him a warm smile.
“Bakura, good to see you. I didn’t hear you come home!”
No one did, and he wanted to keep it that way.
“Atemu-janu, may I have permission to browse your library?”
“But of course Bakura, you don’t need to ask.”
He didn’t even know himself why he was so polite around Atemu. Bakura wasn’t raised with politeness, he usually spat on any kind of God or authority, and he laughed at anyone insisting on being referred to with a title. He barely, if ever, asked for something, he simply took or grabbed or did what he wanted to do, and if anyone was upset about it, tough luck to be them. However, for some reason, he was extremely polite around the other - not in bed - even if he didn’t know why himself. Maybe to counterbalance Marik’s general curt, blunt rudeness.
Traipsing towards the library, Bakura tried to determine for himself what kind of books he was going to need. Atemu had taught him how to read, and he tried to teach it to Marik too, if the jashu wasn’t stubborn, annoying or aggressive. Where Bakura had grown up, there was no room or time to teach children how to read, not even how to survive. You learned the hard way, and Bakura had learned the hardest way of them all. Gold couldn’t compensate for it, no matter how much he stole. Not even the Items he had stolen made up for the hardships he had endured in life. But gold was pretty, and the Items were even prettier; hopefully he could find something about them.
“Anything you’re looking for in particular?” Atemu called from his desk.
