FicWad

b>/Book Two: Cat and Mouse /

The figure walked through the corridors, slow, unhurried footsteps echoing through the silence. Every now and then the darkness was punctured by the red-tinged glow of the lamps hanging upon the wall, but the figure moved without hesitation, coming at last upon a wide chamber door. A pale hand lifted, and the door opened.

The chamber was lit by the fires burning from hundreds of braziers. A cold mist crept against the walls and twined around the foot of an altar in the middle of the chamber, around which crimson tongues of flame gathered in a worshipful circle. The mist writhed as the figure walked toward the altar and stood gazing silently upon it.

A body lay there, pallid and thin. Only the shallow rise and fall of its chest indicated that life still burned within the wasted shell. The figure slashed his hand through the air, and the sick green aura surrounding the body became visible. He smiled. The spell of binding still held, and it will still hold when the barriers were released, and the figure finally claimed what was rightfully his.

It had very nearly slipped from his fingers once, and what should have been his most glorious triumph had nearly turned into a disastrous defeat. A vicious battle had ensued between master and slave, but in the end he had prevailed. Through sheer force of will he drew the rivers of magic running deep under the earth to him, and he cast the creature into a dungeon, and there it waited for his command. No other sorcerer in all the streams of time could ever hope to do what he had done.

Ah, but he paid dearly for that victory. He did not intend to make the same mistake again.

The time had come. After two hundred years, the Twelve Houses had once again come together underneath one sky, and the magic in the earth churned restlessly, eager to be set loose upon his enemies. The world outside his borders had already begun to feel the sting from his lash. The creature he enslaved continued to fight him, but the Goddess had seen fit to deliver unto his hands a tremendous source of power, a worthy sacrifice whose blood would bind the creature to him for all eternity. That ragged, spitting boy from beyond the sea was destined to become his most formidable weapon.

He turned and swept away. Firelight glinted on silvery hair, and cold gray eyes glittered in anticipation.

Soon, he thought. /Very soon/.

- - *

The silence was broken by a painful groan, and with an effort Kyo pushed himself upright from his prone position on the floor. He leaned against the wall, swallowing against the nausea that always seemed to accompany his waking moments, and blinked gritty eyes open.

He didn't know why he bothered. The scene never changed. Cold stone walls, a filthy floor with a small heap of rotting straw in one corner, a tiny slit of a window that offered a tantalizing view of the star-strewn sky, the metal door with a rectangular gap where his supper would be pushed through. The battered metal pan on the tray was empty; maybe that gibbering woman who brought him his meals had finally found the courage to drown herself in her tepid gruel, although he doubted it. Then again, he didn't give a damn if she did.

He reached out for the bit of rock jutting out of the wall, feeling for the notches he had scratched there with his nails, and later with the pan, to mark the days since he'd been imprisoned. There were too many notches there, far too many. Ever since his capture, he'd woken up only to night after unending night, and he soon lost track of the time. As he moved, he became conscious of the iron bands encircling his neck and wrists, and rage-sickening, burning, relentless rage-surged from the depths of his soul. He both welcomed the rage and despised it. Rage meant he was still alive and imprisoned in this hellhole, while his companions had already found freedom in death. Still, rage was better than the despair that was slowly eating away at his mind, and he clung to his anger in a desperate attempt to keep from going completely insane.

Sleeping or waking, his entire existence had become a nightmare. In the darkness of his cell, he lived through the horrible events leading to his capture again and again. The journey northward through the murky forest, the horde of hell-spawned demons that poured out of the earth, the dying screams of his companions as they were torn from gut to gullet right before his eyes. He fought back with all his strength, but the demons overpowered him and brought him here to this dungeon...and then the nightmare would begin anew.

Child of sorrow, the demons had called him as they surrounded him and slaughtered his companions. Their harsh voices taunted him now, spinning a web of hopelessness around him. Child of sorrow. Your life is worth nothing. Your death will mean nothing. Give in to the call of our master. No one will look for you. No one will remember you. They will all forget.

The first nights of his imprisonment, he had thrashed and roared and clawed and flung himself against the door of his cell, trying to stamp out the truth in their words. Then one night the demons returned, bound him in chains and dragged him into a great hall. A boy his age stood there, clothed all in white. Silvery hair framed an astonishingly handsome face, and gray eyes glittered like shards of ice. The boy smiled. "Why all this resistance, child of sorrow? You are welcome here in my tower. Your companions, however, were not."

Fury and hatred nearly blinded Kyo, and with a yell he surged forward, only to be yanked back by his chains. The boy sneered. "How weak and pathetic you are. No wonder my servants had such an easy time with you. Your companions put up a far better fight, just before they died like the vermin that they are."

"What do you want from me?" Kyo snarled.

"Want? You have nothing I could possibly want," the boy replied contemptuously as he circled him. "You, however, want something I can give you: your freedom. So just to show you how gracious I am, I will make a deal with you." The boy eyed him measuringly, a small smile playing on his lips. "I have heard about you, Kyo of the Ashari. You are said to be a skilled fighter. Defeat me, and I shall release you. If you do not by the time the Twelfth House of Heaven has fallen into alignment, then your soul shall be mine for all eternity."

The chains fell away. With a roar, Kyo charged, but the boy merely danced around his frenzied attacks, laughing mockingly. The battle raged all over the hall, and Kyo punched and twisted and kicked with all the strength and skill he could muster, but the boy was too fast, gliding through his blows like the wind. Then in the blink of an eye the boy vanished, only to reappear right in front of Kyo. A single powerful kick, and Kyo went flying backward across the hall. With his swiftly darkening vision, he saw the boy bend over him and lay a hand on his forehead.

"My gift to you," the boy uttered. The world tilted abruptly and pain flooded his entire being, then he knew no more.

When he came to, he was back in his cell. His head pounded mercilessly, and his body felt as if it had been put together all wrong. He attempted to move, and was overcome by a bout of retching. When he finally leaned back, exhausted, he found his mind crammed with a hundred vague memories that weren't there the night before. Memories of running through a forest in a blind panic, of prowling around in the underbrush and stalking some small, furry creature, of clawing his way up a tree and curling up in a sunny spot for a nap and lapping water at the edge of a lake. Memories that could not possibly be his own. Memories that filled him with a cold, numbing terror.

The refuge of insanity grew more and more seductive with each passing night, and Kyo fought against its lure the only way he knew how. With all-consuming rage and a burning hatred for the being who had brought him so low.

A demon-boy with the face of an angel.

Yuki.