Eternally Bound: Part 7
----- Revelation -----
"Okht Thaljia…"
Demitra recognized the Elonian words the Djinn spoke, but froze upon hearing them.
"Wait… Wait… I know this. I've studied… Okht means, 'Sister' in ancient Elonian. But Thaljia?"
Ember's eyes narrowed at the Djinn. "Valandra isn't here," she said gritting her teeth.
Demitra raised an eyebrow to Ember. "Valandra? What is your meaning?"
"That was her name (or the name she gave herself anyway): 'Thaljia'. She changed it from Dejarin when she bound that thing inside her," she said bitterly, eyeing one of the Djinn's many arms and gripping her sword hilt tighter.
"Thaljia… It means 'Ice Storm.' Why?" She cast a penetrating glance at the Djinn. "Why do you label me this? You are mistaken, Djinn of the Vault. I am Demitra Naja Nyimah; Valandra… Thaljia is no longer."
"Djinn, please answer this. Was Demitra supposed to have Valandra's magic at all? Is she impure because she somehow now holds her essence? If so, does this offend your kind?" Paige was trying her best to get answers they so desperately sought. Djinn were misdirectional, to put it mildly, and she tried to leave no wiggle-room in her questioning.
Looking over each woman, the being seemed to expel a bit of his reluctance. Before his next words, one of his hands arose pointing a gnarled finger to Demitra's gloves. All the women looked upon them. "It is the impurity which lies within. Two cannot be one. Thaljia was to come; not this impurity."
"Thaljia… Valandra, my estranged sister… she…" Paige's carefulness was inturrupted as Demitra finished her sentence.
"She died," Demitra said sharply. Hearing the words, however, made her immediately regret how cold they sounded. An apologetic look was shot at Ember.
The petite woman nervously shifted her weight, tried to deflect the harshness, though her frown told a different story. An object for her aggressions, she spat at the Djinn. "It should be noted: I am not a patient woman! Stop pointing and give us some answers or you'll lose one of those pointing hands!"
"That doesn't help either, Ember. Djinn, tell us, how does Demitra lose this impurity. How can we make her pure? Can you make her pure?" Paige motioned for Ember to lower her sword, who reluctantly obeyed. "Free him, please, Demi," she asked cautiously.
A dry laugh came from the Djinn as he stood on unseen feet, released from his anchor. "I cannot. She is impure; Thaljia has transferred her binding."
"Wait… Transferred her binding? You mean she is…." Demitra stared at the frosted bracers. "She's… in them?"
Ember's red eyes sparked to life as her head began to spoke. "She's alive?"
"Ember, we don't know that yet… Demitra, what is so special about the bracers?" Paige came to stand beside the woman, inspecting the curiosity.
"And 'Two cannot be one,'" Paige finished the woman's thought.
"Weapons," the Djinn said, as he floated to the entrance of the fourth archway. He paused, gestured at it. "Thaljia was to come. She did not. You are not her; you are impure."
"I am impure due to Valandra and I both bound to the same vessel?" Demitra's voice wavered.
Paige placed her hand on the woman's shoulder, ignoring the sensation it caused. "This is important to the four of us; so let's just trust that we can solve it, together!"
The woman's optimism was infectious and Demitra nodded at her friend. In the time they had been in each other's lives, the Elonian had come to rely on the woman's judgement, and trust in it. She had no doubt Paige would not rest until the problem had been worked out.
The women ventured closer to the arch, and stepped into the room beyond.
"Oh how exciting!" Paige said, bursting with enthusiasm and eagerness. She had to take a deep breath to calm herself and forego a yelp.
"Exciting if we can fix her," Ember said coldly eyeing the Djinn as they passed.
Demitra stepped into the room behind them. It was larger than perceived, given the proximity of the adjacent room, but was almost identical to it in every way. A large opened chest was in the center of the room on a pedestal, a constant gentile snowfall upon it. Several tapestries decorated the walls, most depicting a white haired girl instantly recognizable as Valandra.
The women spread out looking at the various depictions. One showed a young girl holding the hand of Palawa Joko, walking back to the bone palace in a field of ice. Another displayed an older Valandra, fighting and defeating a Djinn, with his essence being pulled into her.
Demitra stood, mouth agape at a final tapestry. It depicted two women locked in combat, one impaling the other. Unlike the tapestry from her own vault, this one had clear depictions of their faces. It was Valandra and Ember; Ember holding the sword that was stabbed into Valandra. Demitra inadvertently gasped at the site.
Ember downed her head, somberly not wanting to look at the tapestries, ashamed at the final picture.
"This… This vault was meant for Valandra. This is what you meant when you said you were awaiting her." Paige concluded.
"Okht Taljia never came," the Djinn repeated.
"Yeah… My fault," Ember sniffled, fighting back tears. "Sorry about that."
Demitra turned to comfort her love but stopped short, staring at the tapestry which hung behind Ember. It was a scene of Valandra and Ember in a tent, engaged in a lover's dance. Demitra covered her mouth, in shock. "Ember? You… You and Valandra?" The words were barely audible.
Ember stared at the floor, embarrassed and uncomfortable. "It's… Um… how we were able to find you."
"Djinn: A question for you?" Paige stood in front of the large floating being, looking up. He stood with his arms akimbo, one outstretched as it observed the damage he had sustained. At Paige's approach, he peered down at the tiny woman. "These pictures… It tells the story of these women on the walls. My question is this: If the Djinn foresaw Valandra's death, why can Demitra not carry her legacy with her?"
"Djinn do not predict future events. There has been only one that could. We are ageless, not all knowing." The Djinn seemed to confess this reluctantly.
Demitra spun around. "Is he - the one that could see the future - Is he the one responsible for these tapestries, then?"
Then the Djinn wrapped a manifested bandage around his lipless mouth. "He was correct; we were wrong. All of us."
Paige's curiosity was piqued. "What can you tell us about him? Can we speak with him?"
"You cannot. He left the vault long ago. He was once here, beside me, but is no longer. He was right; we were not."
Demitra's eyebrow perked up. "You mean my room? This Djinn that could predict the future was in my vault?"
"Knew of him… I never met…" Suddenly Demitra's eyes grew wide. "My mentor," she said with a frosty breath. "He is the one which gave me these. These bracers… They came from my vault, Djinn?"
"They did. But they were not to be your vessel. They were handed down; as were the others." The Djinn said, as if it explained everything.
"There's… footprints here," Ember called out. She had made her way to the snow, began to inspect the area around the pedestal. "Someone else has been here." She found an unscoffed print and growled. "Asura."
"The small scavenger," the Djinn answered an unasked question.
"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no! It… It can't be her," Ember frantically compared her sword to the size of the chest. It matched perfectly. "Oh no. It… It couldn't be."
"What is it, Ember?"
"The Asura that took me. She got my sword and made a replica of it. And, this chest is the size of that, and these footprints… It's her, isn't it?" Ember was doing her best to build the picture. "That little skritt somehow found her way here and got Valandra's real sword!"
"The artifact can still be retrieved," the Djinn nonchalantly added.
"What do you mean, Djinn? Why would we retrieve this 'artifact'? What use is it to us now that Valandra is gone?" Paige earnestly asked.
"Two cannot be One," the Djinn responded.
"Two cannot… Wait. Are you saying I can become… 'pure' if we retrieve this artifact? I can transfer this to it and become pure?" Demitra held her icy bracers up.
"Two cannot be One; Artifact obtained, One can be Two."
Ember was already bound for the door, cursing and waving her arms about. "That damned little rat must have gotten a taste of the sword's power and found out it was here, then she stole Valandra's sword and claimed it as her own! I… will… kill that…" Her hair burst in flame.
"Weapons, all. To fight the immortal."
Paige tilted her head, picked at her hair a moment lost in thought. "So… There's something to fight and our weapons are the key somehow? This is quite the opaque puzzle! I…" Paige forgot herself only for a moment, then cleared her throat, in an attempt to brush away her youthful excitement. "Ahem… What I mean is we can figure that out once we get Valandra's artifact. But, how would we even find it?"
Ember vocalized her thoughts. "I mean, I can show you where her old lab was… but, uhhh…. I kinda blew it up. I might be able to track down her… associate. But sneaking up on a blind person, in this case, is really not easy."
The Djinn smirked beneath his restored wraps. "All together can reveal; only from within the realm of the Djinn, to seek the small scavenger. Humans not permitted."
Demitra's brow furrowed. "Realm of the Djinn. You mean to say we are to go where I was imprisoned?"
"How will we even get there if humans cannot enter?" Paige's hips wiggled as she shifted her weight, thinking. "Oh! Demitra is one of your kind! She could bring the weapons to the Realm of the Djinn for us!" Without prompt, Paige was already enacting her plan. She brought her torch up to Demitra's surprised face who looked at it cross-eyed. "Here! Take it!"
Demitra took a step back, then accepted the torch. As soon as Paige's hands left the handle, it immediately flickered and snuffed itself out. Ember tried next, taking the torch from Demitra. The flame remained extinguished. Ember returned the torch to Paige, which immediately caught on fire again.
"Well, that theory has been disproven," Paige frowned a bit.
All women turned to the Djinn, who seemed to grin wildly beneath the bandages. "Reality walls break upon the heaven's blood moon," he hissed.
"Great, so we just kill another god for heaven's blood?" Ember followed along as best she could.
"No; no. I don't think so. Heaven's blood moon? That's… that's coming up soon, if I have my moon phases correct. (I'd really need to double-check with the charts in my office), but yeah, I think that's going to be… soon!"
"Reality walls breach…" Demitra pondered. "When do reality walls breach?"
Paige was absolutely ecstatic, hopped up and down. "I think I got it! See, humans cannot enter the Realm of the Djinn because humans are of this realm. But, Djinn magic always has a few work arounds and tricks!"
Ember scratched her head. "Are you saying we become Djinn like Demitra?" The words were arrows that struck the woman, even though Ember hadn't meant them in such a way.
"Ember, I… I did not choose this… I…"
"No! Even better!" Paige was pacing. "We cannot enter the realm from here, right? But what if… What if we entered from an adjacent realm? What happens in a fortnight? The blood moon! And what happens when Tyria gets its first blood moon?"
Ember brushed some ash from her hair and shrugged. Demitra also looked just as perplexed, not knowing the region's customs.
Paige held her breath longer than she thought possible, but when neither woman provided a response, she exploded. "The Shadow of the Mad King! It's perfect! That's what we do!"
"Mad King's realm? What do you speak of?" Demitra was confused.
"Oh, it's… It's really a long story, but suffice-it-to-say, there's a time when the first blood moon appears and the walls between realms are thinnest. The spirit of Mad King Thorn appears and… It's when the boundaries between realities can be traversed! We can go there; if legend has it correct, it's adjacent to the Realm of the Djinn!" Paige's eyes lit up as she spoke.
Ember groaned. "Oh, I so have a bad feeling about this."
"You… You say such things often," Demitra stated.
"Well, you're naked often, but I don't point it out!" Ember said with a smirk.
Paige blushed, tried to look away from the couple, found her eyes accidently settling onto the tapestry behind them of Ember and Valandra as lovers. Her cheeks became even darker, and her heartbeat increased. "Uh… Yeah. Okay, so, do you think we can leave this place now?" This was contrary to what she wanted; she would have contently stayed in the vault to examine every detail, but it was the first thing that came to her.
Demitra stepped up to look straight up at the Djinn, her eyes steadfast. "Wait. First I must know… No riddles. Djinn, tell me, when 'One becomes Two,' with Okht Thaljia return?"
The Djinn grinned a lipless wild grin. "Two becomes One. One becomes Two. Two becomes One." The chant echoed within the room, the vault and the hallway leading to it. He held all four arms aloft, then brought them lunging forward. The floor shattered like ice, all four women fell into the pit where it once was. They barely had time to yell or scream before each landed with a thud back at the Dejarin ruins.
Ari rushed to Ember's side, assisted her in sitting up. "Captain, are you alright?"
Demitra sat in the sand, staring distantly. "What… What did he mean?"
Paige crawled a few steps over and sat by her friend. "I believe 'Two becomes One' refers to your current state. 'One becomes Two,' well, I think that's us finding Valandra's artifact and separating you two. The 'Two becomes One'? I'm… Well, I hope my theory's wrong about that one." She glanced to Ember, who was staring at the floor, deep in thought.
"Or, perhaps, it is simple riddles as Djinn love to tell?" Demitra absently ran a cold finger through the sand.
"I don't know, I actually found it fascinating! Riddles are fun!" Paige smiled like a cat.
"Unless they are about your very being," Demitra said seriously. But a look at Paige's expression made her slightly chuckle. "Well, if I ever sound so… riddled, please tell me of such."
Paige winked, "Oh, believe me, I would solve you!" She suddenly became very aware of her words and flushed.
Demitra gave her a reassuring, knowingly warm smile.
Clearing her throat, Paige stood and excused herself. "I am going to write a letter and I'll wait for you back at the teleportation crystal." She affixed her backpack, leaped off the cliff, pulling a drawstring which deployed a glider.
Demitra watched the woman glide away, heard Ember excuse Ari, then heard her love shuffling behind her. She looked up at Ember. "I… have… no… words…" she said, looking completely lost.
Ember sat down, leaned against Demitra, and rested her head on the woman's shoulder. "I… I didn't want you to see… well, any of that. What happened to her, what she and I… did. I uh… I'm so sorry, Demi."
"Did you call me Demi, Emily?" Demitra smiled her thick ruby lips at the woman coyly.
"I… I love you," Ember said softly.
Demitra put her arm around her and squeezed. "And, I have always loved you, Ember Drakenfist."
[To Be Continued...]
