Roland and his companions stepped back through the veil of light. Back to Fujitoshi, and the Kuraoka shrine. There, people were continuing to recover, and without any immediate urgency here, Roland’s eyes were drawn upwards.
Smoke was rising from the city.
“Athos,” Tsubasa said, fury making her voice tremble. “He bombed the city. All to keep anyone from coming to interrupt his…” She let out a wordless, angry yell, and then started forward. “Come on. Let’s see if we can help.”
They hurried through the shrine, and as they descended the main stair back to the city proper, it was easier to see what damage had been done. Towards the city center, two large plumes of black, choking smoke rose into the sky from fiery ruin. Each of the buildings that burned were still standing — one a tall skyscraper, with the explosion having taken out part of the ground floor, and the other a sprawling market, which burned from its center — but the fires burned, the smoke still rose, and people were rushing from all over the city to help. Fire trucks were already hooked up to water sources, battling the flames with jets of water. Even from a distance Roland could tell a great many people were being put on stretchers and sent away to hospitals.
“Muirrach, you’ve got the twins,” Tsubasa said, starting off at a run. “Roland, let’s help!”
Roland could hardly keep pace with Tsubasa if she ran at full speed — she was faster than he’d ever believed a person could be — but he didn’t have to run on his own power. Vi sang an exultant song within him, and Roland responded in kind, calling upon her power to speed his steps and fuel his lungs, keeping him right alongside Tsubasa.
“Knew you could do it,” she said, flashing a smile at him. It was a short smile, though, her expression quickly turning grim again, her gaze intense with urgency.
They had several city blocks to go, but the time passed quickly, silently, both of them going as fast as they could, desperate to lengthen each stride, quicken each step. All around them, the streets were in a panic. People were running both towards and away from the catastrophe, and emergency vehicles kept zooming past, sirens blaring.
The panic and chaos took a turn, though, the more people noticed Roland and Tsubasa. Many gaped in slack-jawed awe at Tsubasa and the Summoner beside her, who walked on the air, nearly flying — and Tsubasa kept pace, just as fast.
They turned a corner, and disaster loomed before them. The fire hoses weren’t having much, if any, impact on the flames, which continued to roar with a vicious fury, belching forth smoke that, even a hundred yards away and upwind of the fumes, caused Roland and Tsubasa to start coughing. Roland felt a tightness in his chest — and then it eased, as Vi worked to purify the air within him.
This shouldn’t just be for me.
Roland stepped forward. He sang, and gestured with his arms, and the power of Viatos, Fantasian of the Wind, flew forth to purify the airs. The smoke thinned and began to disperse, carried upwards and dissipated in a safe area of the sky, where no one had to breathe the noxious fumes.
But the fires still burned, and no fire hose would quell their rage. “I’ll see what I can do to get people out,” Tsubasa said. She smiled at him, and this one lasted longer. “You got this.”
She ran ahead, and Roland took a step forward, transitioning his song from Vi’s to Shureen, from soaring triumph to serene tranquility. Waters came from the air, born out of the magic of a Fantasian and nothing else, and didn’t jet into the flames but instead fell forth as a soothing rain. This rain wasn’t just to put out the fires, but to fall upon the people, granting healing and comfort. To fall upon the buildings and grounds, blessing these places with protection and hope.
It took time. It wasn’t as swift as the elimination of smoke and fumes. The fires were stubborn, wrathful flames, fighting with every last breath for survival. All around Roland, medical officers and other first responders worked tirelessly to save as many people as they could. Roland kept his focus forward, on winning this battle, ending the flames.
The flames could fight. But they could not last. Bit by bit, they lost ground. They lost the will to fight back. The rains fell, the fires faded.
The day was saved.
At least, as saved as it could be. Roland kept Shureen’s power going, kept the rains falling, even after the fires were done. He walked into the rubble, where the fires had burned hottest, and looked with anguish upon the sight of three bodies. No more life was left in those shriveled, burned-up corpses. Nor could they be recognized, even by those who loved them, who knew them best. Not anymore.
The rains fell, offering what comfort they could to the departed.
As Roland was still trying to process what he was seeing, what he’d failed to prevent — he heard a sound. Like a thumping, a drumbeat against stone. But no, this wasn’t music.
This was a cry for help.
Roland ran further into the wreckage, and spied a slab of concrete against a wall, with clear signs of destruction, an open cavity, beneath it. He rushed to the edge of the concrete and grasped it, tried to haul it free. But even if his physical strength weren’t so meager, this would still take the strength of a hundred men to lift.
But Roland was abuzz with the songs of his Fantasians, with a Summoner’s power. He called upon Kirin, and the calm, gentle Fantasian of the earth and growing things but also rock and stone reached out, and moved the stone aside. Deep within a broken crevice, one young woman, bathed in dust and soot and ash, tears running tracks down her face, gazed up at Roland with fervent terror. Terror that suddenly turned to hope, and an aching relief that suddenly, when she’d lost all hope…
She was saved.
Roland reached down, took her hand, and helped her up. She was bleeding, but the cuts weren’t deep or numerous. She could walk, but Roland let her put her arm over his shoulders to make it easier.
Together, they walked out of the wreckage, onto the street, to the medical personnel waiting. Tsubasa was with them, too, and she joined Roland as doctors came to aid the woman. But as they started to take her away, she turned to Roland and said something in Kisetsugo, her voice full of gratitude. Roland didn’t know the language, and struggled with a response.
It must have shown on his face. The woman took a moment, composed herself, and said in a heavy accent, “Thank you.”
Roland started to reply in his own language, but then stopped himself. He whispered to Tsubasa, “How can I respond?” He didn’t know this woman’s language, didn’t know what to say, how to meet her on this bridge she’d formed.
Tsubasa whispered a word to him, and Roland processed it for a moment before looking the woman in the eye and saying to her, “Douitashimashite.”
He wanted to say “Thank you.” Thank you for holding on a little longer. Thank you for living.
But it was so much to try and convey across this language barrier. Instead, he received the woman’s eager added thanks, and watched her as she was taken away to be cared for.
There were murmurs from the crowd, including a repeated word: “Shoukanshi.” Roland tried to ignore the eyes on him, and turned towards the wreckage and ruin once more. The flames were extinguished, the smoke dispersed. But there were still people in need.
He and Tsubasa worked together, Roland calling on Kirin as a sensor, casting out a resonance to locate anyone still alive, still trapped, still in need. Tsubasa and other medical personnel rushed where Roland guided, and as a team they found one person, then another. A family. A couple. Three children. An old woman and her dog. One by one, group by group, they found those that needed to be found. They found more life than death.
The gentle rain continued to fall, cleansing the land.
After hours uncounted, they finally found everyone there was to be found. Wet and filthy with soot and dirt and dust, exhausted from the efforts, Roland and Tsubasa took a step back, and let the moment sink in. Roland hummed a melody, and Shureen slowly brought the cleansing rain to an end.
People were staring, whispering in hushed tones. That word kept coming up: “Shoukanshi.”
“We do what we can,” Tsubasa said, softly, for Roland’s ears alone.
The place was still wrecked. It would take months to repair and renovate the shop and the skyscraper’s first floor. People were being taken to hospitals, yes, but what condition were they in? How long would recovery take?
How many wouldn’t recover?
Roland nodded. There were no words to capture the complex reality of the moment. But Tsubasa seemed to recognize that, too.
They’d done what they could. Together, they walked away.
It was a long walk back to the Kuraoka shrine compared to the breakneck sprint to the disaster. But it wasn’t until the steps were in sight, and Muirrach and the twins sitting and having tea, that Roland finally broke the long silence.
“Shoukanshi,” he said. “What does that word mean?”
“Summoner,” Tsubasa said. “We all know about the Path of the Eight, about the Fantasians. But to see a person wielding their power… I don’t think you realize how awe-inspiring that is. You’re like a legend come to life.”
Roland didn’t know how to respond to that. He respected the weight of the Fantasians’ power, knew the burden of responsibility that he carried. But he also knew that the power he put on display was meager in comparison to what the Fantasians could conjure up for themselves apart from him.
“Doubts don’t suit you, Summoner,” sang Jurall in his heart. “You knew from the start the nature of this relationship. Have you not grown? Will you not grow further still? Despair will only end in self-destruction.”
Roland chuckled, and Tsubasa glanced a question at him. “Just a reminder,” he said, “put characteristically bluntly. I think Jurall might be annoyed that we haven’t had an opportunity to show his power recently.” As Jurall began to argue, and the other Fantasians told him to pipe down, Roland added, “But he makes a good point. As do you.”
“We all need a bit of a cheer-up after…” Tsubasa trailed off, words once again failing. There was too much. Athos taking Lairah. The twins’ parents gone before they could give any answers. Lacie’s impossible power, dominating even a Dragon. The damage wrought upon a city for no other purpose than the whim of a wicked man… lives lost for what?
“Lives were saved,” Shureen sang gently, her lyrics soothing Roland’s heart.
“Are you two okay?” Erika asked, running up to them. “You’re soaked! And filthy. And you look exhausted.”
“We’re all right,” Roland said. “The crisis is over. Now…”
They all looked at each other. Roland, Tsubasa, Erika, Enrique, and Muirrach. Roland saw in all of their eyes what he felt in his own heart.
They were all so tired. To even mention the journey ahead seemed too daunting, too heavy a weight. Must the road still extend out before them? Could they still not see the end?
Roland let out a heavy sigh. “We have to keep going,” he said at length. All eyes turned to him. “At the very least, we need to get on the road towards Aula Fantasia. We can try for the Ferries, or we could make for the Windward Express.”
“Windward Express?” Enrique asked, his eyes lighting up slightly at the name of a train.
“It’s not ideal,” Roland said, “but it would get us close. It’s a train that, well…”
“Has a mind of its own,” Tsubasa said, rolling her eyes. “Goes where the wind takes it, basically. But this time of year, the winds carry it north.”
“The Ferries sound like a stronger bet,” Muirrach said. “Even though we may have to resign ourselves to the Fifth Ferry.”
“Either way,” Roland said, managing a smile, “we have to reach our mode of transportation. Once we have — we can rest. The travel is lengthy. It’ll give us a chance to process things, to breathe, to —”
“To clean yourselves up,” Erika said, looking pointedly at Roland and Tsubasa.
Tsubasa chuckled. “Fair enough,” she said. “We can get back to Wonderia — and close to where we need to be — pretty easily, though. I’ll just ask great-uncle for a key. I know just the one. Plus…” She looked up the stairs towards the shrine, her cheer fading. “I want to see how he’s doing.”
Together, they went back up to the shrine. All the way up the stairs, Erika held Tsubasa’s hand.
At the entrance, they met a guard who let them pass, knowing Tsubasa. Through the halls of the estate they walked, finding their way to an open door, where the scent of blood lingered, no longer fresh but not yet old.
Inside, what must normally be the master’s room was now an infirmary. A dozen men on cots, wrapped in bandages, recovered from their wounds. And at the far end, nursed by an older woman, lay the elder Kuraoka, the head of the shrine. His open wounds were closed, but bruising remained. Blood had been lost. And pain was not so swiftly extinguished.
Tsubasa asked the others to remain at the door, and headed to her great-uncle alone. She knelt by his side, and spoke softly to him. Roland saw the old man’s lips move and heard the faint whisper of weary speech.
It was a brief exchange, and Tsubasa ended by grasping her great-uncle’s hand, her eyes urging him on to heal, to recover, to live.
And then she left him, and rejoined Roland, Muirrach, and the twins. She led the way from the infirmary, down a hall, to another room, this one blocked by an intricate puzzle of a door. A mechanism of concentric rings, a dozen of them and bronze, inlaid with symbols, locked the heavy door. Tsubasa rotated the rings, aligning symbols in a pattern Roland didn’t understand, and would struggle to remember if he tried.
But when she was done, there was a tolling of a chime from within. The door slid open.
Inside the door was a small room, a warm alcove in which was an array of metal posts, from which hung ornate brass keys. Tsubasa took one, stepped back, and the door slid shut. The puzzle rings rotated back to their original positions.
Erika took Tsubasa’s hand, and together they led the way out a different door of the estate. This side exit led to a garden with four wisteria trees in full bloom, their boughs arched towards the center, shading a single, solitary door, not connected to a wall or building.
Tsubasa put the key in the lock, turned. With a click, a soft tone sounded within, like that of a small handbell. Tsubasa opened the door, and one by one, they walked through the veil of light.
Back to Wonderia.
What Roland first noticed was sound. Always sound — for there was always a song in Wonderia, if one had the ear to hear it. And the song that welcomed him back was one of his favorites.
The song of rain.
Light faded, and he found himself under the solid canopy of a weathered stone gazebo. Engraved in the ceiling, the outlines of a musical score, faded from age and neglect, could still faintly be seen.
And beyond, a rugged stone path led towards a the top of a cliff face, and wound its way down the rock. Out beyond the cliffs a green country could be seen rolling down towards a vast lake — and beyond that lake, the hints of a white shore could be faintly made out on the horizon. The view would have been magnificent in a sunrise or sunset, under clear skies or even partial clouds. Under a steady rainfall and a blanket of grey overhead, with barely a breeze to stir the air, the view was something different entirely.
It was peaceful. Calm. Great and wide, yes, so big a view of the world it made one feel small, and yet…
It did not overwhelm. Roland felt a part of this place. A part of the rain. A part of the green, and the lake, and the distant shore.
“Ferry house is down there,” Tsubasa said, pointing out and down to a three-story log cabin, with a wide pier beyond stretching out onto the lake. She ran her fingers along the collar of her jacket, and then flipped it up — and a hood came out, which she pulled over her head. “Sorry. Didn’t know it’d be raining. But it’s not too long of a walk. And a warm rain always feels nice.”
“I’ve got just the thing,” Muirrach said, reaching into his bag and pulling out an umbrella, which he handed to the twins. Muirrach stepped out into the rain without covering his head, and breathed a sigh of joy as the water washed his face. He held out a webbed hand to the falling rain, and a smile touched his lips.
“Ooh, don’t open that indoors,” Tsubasa said, as Erika was about to unfurl the umbrella. “Lady Luck’s got a thing about indoor umbrellas. For some reason. As if anyone can understand what goes on in her head…” She walked out with the twins, who unfurled a wide burgundy umbrella in the rain, its spacious cover enough for them both to share.
Roland was last to step out into the rain. He didn’t raise his coat’s hood, but let the rain soak his hair, soak his skin. Raindrops glistened on the surface of his waterproof coat, clung there like living things with minds of their own, hanging on to Roland, finding a place, for the moment, with him.
Roland ruffled his wet hair with his hands, and then finally raised his hood. He took the lead with Tsubasa, starting down the cliff road, winding back and forth down the wall of stone, to the green country below, and down the hills to the Ferry house. A Ferry could be sighted out on the lake, slowly cutting its way across the still water towards the house. But it was not here yet, and so the travelers climbed the steps to the house, entered the door, and found a place of rest in the warm parlor. Fires burned in the hearth, and a cozy meal of creamy soup and warm, crisp bread was just what they needed.
The cold of Fujitoshi had not been a physical thing. It had not been the weather or the climate. It had sunken into their bones, carved itself into their hearts.
Here, with a warm meal, and warm fires, and warm company, the cold finally began to loosen its grip.
“They’re gone,” Erika said in a tiny voice. “We had them, for just a moment, and now…” She stared at her hands, as if she could still feel the warmth of her parents’ all-too-brief embrace.
“But they’re safe,” Roland said. “You can take heart in that. And we understand at least a little of what they are trying to do. They’ve separated themselves from the physical world — aside from their brief returns — in order to protect an aspect of Songbird from Athos and Reunion.”
Athos. The name sent a chill down Roland’s spine, now that he’d contended with the man in the owl mask. The darkness he’d conjured upon Roland, and then turned to his Fantasians, stealing their voice… Roland had never feared the dark.
But then he’d fought Athos.
“And you have an aspect of Songbird with you, now awakened,” Muirrach said. “There is hope in her, and answers yet to come.”
“What do we do?” Tsubasa asked. All eyes turned to her, to the soft, trembling despair in her voice. She looked up at them, no smile on her lips, no brightness in her eyes. Tsubasa as none of them had seen her before.
“Lacie could kill a Dragon if she wanted,” she continued. “She’s too powerful for anyone to stop. And my Teacher… he…” She blinked rapidly, and wiped at her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. What we can do. I know we go to Aula Fantasia. We follow the Path of the Eight. But how much hope is really there? We’re dealing with powers beyond Fantasians or Summoners. It’s too much.”
“It seems that way,” Roland said. And it wasn’t an empty platitude, but a truth spoken from the same fear, and awe, that Tsubasa carried. Fear and awe that could only come from witnessing what they had, the power of a god in the hands of a child. A Dragon brought to earth with the snap of her fingers.
“I don’t know if we can ever stop Lacie,” Roland continued. “If we can ever truly mend this world’s broken heart. But if there is any power that can turn the tide, it resides in Elysia. So we do what we can, right now. We move towards Elysia, with every step. We trust in the wish that awaits us.” He sighed, feeling the weight of impossibility. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just don’t know what we can do. But I don’t want to stand still. To be paralyzed by fear. I did that once before. Never again.”
Even as he said it, he wanted to. He wanted to retreat from his mission, from the people he knew, like he had when his Teacher had been killed. He spoke the words not out of conviction, but because spoken aloud they told the deeper truth.
He couldn’t keep to this path alone. He couldn’t avoid his worst tendencies alone. He needed help.
They all did.
As if in response, a whistle sounded from outside, and it was announced that the Fifth Ferry had arrived and was ready for boarding.
An invitation. Roland looked around the table, at his fellow travelers, his friends, these people he’d endured so much with.
Each of them looked back at him. Similarly weary, similarly worn. Similarly frightened.
But one by one, they stood, and headed out the door. Down the pier, to the Ferry that waited for them. Up the ramp, onto the ship. Willing to go wherever it would take them.
North. Towards Aula Fantasia. Towards the future, which seemed like the sky overhead, blanketed in grey, soaked with rain.
But it was a future. It was a hope, however faint it might be.
They settled into their seats, out of the rain. The ferry tooted its whistle, and left the pier. Left the shore.
There was no turning back anymore. But that’s how they wanted it. How they needed it; sailing across the calm waters, carried by the ship when their legs were unwilling to keep pushing them forward.
And they rested.
Roland and Tsubasa found baths and washed the dirt and grime from Fujitoshi away. With Muirrach and the twins they gathered in the ship’s grand lounge, where the twins slept on a couch, and Muirrach dozed in a chair, and Roland and Tsubasa sat with each other, awake at first. But they started to doze off. Tsubasa rested her head on Roland’s shoulder, and he leaned his head to rest on hers.
Sleep came. To the gentle rocking of the ship, the tender song of the rain.
——
“You will learn, fledgling, the futility of your defiance.”
Lairah sits alone in the dark. There is no light, no shape, no shadow. When she reaches for a wall, when she tries to walk, she finds nothing. As if she is moving, but goes nowhere. There are no walls, no ceilings, to this prison. Even the floor beneath her feet is something she can’t be sure is there, is real.
There is no light. Nor sound — no whisper of breath, no scuff of footsteps, no hum of normal life, normal existence.
Lairah sits alone in the silence. A silence she cannot penetrate — and she has tried. She’s spoken, sang, screamed, raged against the dark, against the silence.
What comes back to her is nothing. Startling emptiness, infinite.
Lairah sits. Alone. For there is no one here but herself. No jailer for her prison. No guards to watch her cell. No fellow prisoners in the same hall. She is a caged bird, a doused candle, a stifled song.
Futility fills the space around her.
But it does not touch the space within.
Her heart still burns. Burns with the scalding pain of betrayal, by one who had mentored her so long, taught her so much, been the father she’d always longed for, so much better than her actual father.
Burns with the fear of the dark, of the silence, of the isolation.
Burns with defiance. Rage she shall, against this endless dark.
In the fire, she finds clarity. Those she trusted, those she joined hands with, have lied to her. They have treated her like a child, a fledgling, though she has always known how to fly. She has soared and looked down at those who believe they can mock her, believe they can fly higher.
Reunion was a lie. And rotting at the center of that falsehood is the owl. Athos. He has his own purposes, his own designs on Songbird, on New Elysia, on Reunion, on his people.
If there are answers to be had, they won’t be found here, alone in the dark. They won’t be found chasing after Alfred and Isadora, or Erika and Enrique.
No. If Lairah is to find answers, she must escape this cage. She must fly free once more, soar back to where everything went wrong.
Back to New Elysia.