One More

With the closing of those crimson eyes, there was nothing left to answer. Kihara's corpse grew heavier atop Jeuni as his grip on the dagger hilt relaxed. Slowly, his hand made its way to his side and came to rest on the dirt floor. Unable to do anything, the juggler slipped into a state of uneasy sleep.

* * *

"Master Huros, wake up," spoke a gentle voice, a gentle prod accompanying it.

The sweetest of voices, Jeuni observed, turning over. Keeping his eyes closed, he smiled blissfully. It was a voice that he could grow accustomed to. Jeuni laughed a bitter laugh as he turned over again, Kihara's death playing over in his mind, reminding him of the fact that that gentle voice would sing no longer. The juggler considered the wake-up call an illusion until a second prod forced him to open his eyes.

"Ahh, finally awake."

There she was, kneeling over his cot, her right hand in her lap and her left index finger hovering next to Jeuni's cheek.

"Kihara?"

Jeuni blinked repeatedly, still groggy, but the girl didn't fade from the scene as his mind cleared.

"Shit! What in the..."

He jumped to his feet, staggering due to the stiffness in his legs. Aside from needing a stretch, his body felt fine. His mind did not, however—it raced, straining itself to comprehend the situation. In part unable to contain his surprise, in part trying to ask several questions at the same time, Jeuni blabbered semi-coherently.

"How are you still alive didn't I kill you Didn't I kill you No maybe still nightmare but I felt and Are you Kihara maybe evil twin no she was evil so you're good what the but no And you died how are you here right now Do I know—"

"Slow down," giggled the girl. "I couldn't follow you at all. Did you want to ask me something?"

Jeuni blinked again, rubbed his eyes, massaged his temples.

"No... no, I must have just had a bad dream."

There was no other explanation. The events in the Golden Swan, the tavern, and his shack must have all been illusions caused by his fever. Her name probably wasn't even Kihara, he reasoned. After all, she looked very much alive.

"Would it be easier for you if it were?" the girl asked, sitting back and folding both hands in her lap. She wasn't clad in the white coat Jeuni recalled her wearing on the day of their meeting, but rather in a light blue dress in the Western style, sleeveless and with a skirt reaching to just above her knees. Her hair was done up in a sleek ponytail and a telltale drop of water on her cheek spoke of recent bathing.

Jeuni levered himself into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. Or is this a dream? Right now feels real, but so did yesterday—

"There was once a great Harnecian scholar," said the girl, "who boxed himself up in a tiny shack in the middle of winter and set about the task of determining for himself what was real and what was just a dream."

"Boxed himself up in a tiny shack? Didn't he have anything better to do with his time?"

"Everyone has his own passions. He was a man obsessed with uncovering truths. You're not in the business of honesty, are you?"

Jeuni blinked again, then looked away. He could see daylight through the cracks in his shack's poorly constructed walls.

"Why not just decide for yourself what's a dream and what isn't a dream?" The girl smiled, tilting her head slightly to the side. "How about we say... say you've been asleep since you fainted in the woods, shall we?"

Jeuni automatically turned his gaze toward the pile of plate-mail in the corner.

"Whoops," the girl said, "let's revise that! You've been out cold for five days, courtesy of an extraordinarily bad batch of Western gin. The bartender sends his regards and apologies, and wants you to know that business has dwindled during your absence. As a get-well gift, your manager sent you a suit of antique snow-plains armor."

Next to the plate-mail was a bloody dagger. Jeuni continued his investigation and discovered blood dotting his cot and cloak.

"Forgot to destroy the evidence," sighed the girl. "That will make falsifying the last couple days a bit difficult, I suppose."

"I killed you." The juggler looked straight into the girl's face. Her eyes were no longer frightening. Jeuni could still see things he didn't want to see in them, but no longer was he afraid to accept what they held. He had accepted it already, and that was why that bloody dagger lay next to the pile of armor.

"Yeah." She wasn't smiling anymore.

"How the fuck are you alive, Kihara?" Even magic can't bring people back.

"This may take some explanation," said the girl softly, turning from the cot and standing. "Let's start with the short version—wounds like the one you gave me won't kill me."

"But I felt—" Jeuni shuddered as he recalled the sensation of her body twitching in his arms, growing heavier with every spasm.

"Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that death is not the end for me, then. It's certainly true that my body can be destroyed, but unless certain measures are taken I will always regenerate it. Look." Still facing the door, her back turned to the juggler, she began undoing the buttons of her top. Slowly she let it fall from her shoulders and upper back, revealing the skin that should have been pierced by Jeuni's dagger. There wasn't so much as a scar. From his own experience with wounds, Jeuni could tell immediately that it was not the work of a mender.

After shrugging back into her top and buttoning it up, Kihara turned back to face Jeuni.

"It hurt a lot, I guess," she sighed, "and I had to bring my favorite coat over to the seamstress on the other side of town, but we're both alive."

"I don't get it." Jeuni was, of course, still severely puzzled. He fell to his knees on his bed. "I don't get it at all... You died! Magic can't fix that! What the piss are you? A god?"

"Not nearly, Master Huros. I am one of the Holders of the Covenant."

Jeuni knelt upon his cot, gaping.

The Holders of the Covenant were people who had taken a vow to support a dark deity, gaining in return immortality and powers beyond any magic ordinary men could hope to use. It was said that Byhr's founders were Holders, and so Jeuni had always imagined them to be the graying men who comprised the Council. He had never imagined that such a child could be one, nor that he would ever meet one face to face. Much less that he would have his life saved—from himself—by a Holder. It was all too much to process, so he looked at Kihara dumbly and asked,

"Come again?"

"I'm a Holder of the Covenant. I’m not allowed to tell you what the contract entails—I don't understand most of it myself—but I don’t die easily. That answers your question, right?"

"You saved my life."

"A life is not something to be thrown away," Kihara replied, kneeling again. "I won't explain further."

"But—but if you were a Holder," said Jeuni, trying to suppress a grin at the thought as his mind worked out the implications, "wouldn't you be trying to kill me right about now?"

"Why would a Holder do that?" Kihara held out a finger, indicating to Jeuni that he need not respond. "Actually, I can imagine why one or two might, but they're lunatics." She shrugged. "I just don't follow your logic."

"It's okay," smiled Jeuni. "Guess you're not really one after all."

"What? But I am... Why? Because I don't want to kill you? You're not making sense, Master Huros."

"We all have things we don't want to explain."

The conversation died with both the juggler and the girl staring at each other, eyebrows raised.

But if she's not a Holder, what is she? Jeuni was dissatisfied that he could think of no better explanation for her survival than the possibility that she was a Holder. They were immortal, that was well known—unlike everything else about them. The stories diverged so wildly in content that it was clear no one knew the full truth. So, is she a Holder?

No. She couldn't be. If she's a Holder, she's with Byhr, and if she's with Byhr, she's after me.

But then HOW?

"Well, Master Huros, if I'm not a Holder then I am a fabulous actress. I did not die, and that is tomato juice staining your bed. Now, because I am a perfectly normal fourteen-year-old girl, it is very strange for me to be here in your home. I shall return to my parents' abode, and you can go back to your everyday life."

Jeuni looked up as she stood.

"Your parents live around here?"

"Of course not," she laughed.

"Oh, piss." Jeuni frowned. He didn't have the patience for jokes, especially not after enduring five whole minutes of Gyurot the previous day. "Where do they live?"

"How do they say it over in Harnecia... 'they must surely be smiling in the Shaded Orchard, now.'"

The canned wording reminded Jeuni of another story about the Shaded Orchard: some claimed it was an afterlife.

"They're dead?" he asked, dropping his eyebrows and trying to sound sympathetic.

"No need to feel sorry for me. Aren't yours?" replied Kihara, smiling.

Jeuni's eyebrows shot right back up.

"My family's doing just fine." Mother recently recovered from her illness and sent Sone over with a jar of olives... Father's been working on fixing up the shed roof since the blizzard two weeks back... "My parents and sister are living well in one of the more upscale quarters."

"I... see. Maybe you could introduce me to them sometime? Being an orphan does get lonely sometimes."

"Are you still pulling my leg?"

"Only partially."

"Well, I haven't been by the house in eight years, so it might be weird for me to drop by unexpectedly, with a kid in tow no less, but—"

"Forget it, Master Huros. I have all the company I need."

"Are you lonely or not, damn it?"

"I wouldn't want to interfere in your relationship with your parents," she said. "Besides, you have your job to attend to, and your drinking, I believe? I should really be going."

Kihara was halfway out the door when Jeuni called after her.

"Wait!"

She turned.

"What did you want from me?" he asked. "When you called me out to the woods. I know that song wasn't a dream." It's what had woken him up.

"You have it all wrong, Master Huros. You're the one who sought me out," Kihara answered. "I was originally waiting for you to calm down enough to ask you some questions about that, actually, but it seems our meeting has gone down an entirely different path."

A different path?

"We can go back to the last fork and try again, if you like." Kihara smiled sweetly. When Jeuni didn't respond immediately, she continued, "well then—as I said, I am a Holder of the Covenant."

"Really?" Jeuni was incredulous.

"Really."

"So you've pledged yourself to some evil god," said Jeuni, "and then what?"

"Like I said, I can't tell you the details of the contract, but—wait, evil, Master Huros? Just because some of the Holders have gone and done things like founding Byhr and waging war does not mean the god himself is evil."

"So Byhr was founded by Holders?"

"One, yes—"

"But then they're not all affiliated with Byhr?"

"No..."

Jeuni sighed, then stared into Kihara's eyes.

"You're a Holder of the Covenant, and you're not with Byhr, and you're not here to kill me?"

"That's right. Master Huros, that makes no sense! If I wanted you dead, would we be talking right now?"

Jeuni shook his head. Of course! She would have let me die.

"Of course not. Look, Master Huros, I already told you why I'm here! I'm here because you sought me out. I'm here because you called me here, and now I want to know some things about you."

Jeuni nodded. He was sure now that she was a Holder. She was immortal—he knew he had killed her. And he no longer had any reason to doubt it. There was only one thing still puzzling him: why would the dark god of the covenant choose a fourteen-year-old girl to do his work?

"First, how long have you been a wizard?"

"I'm not a wizard," was Jeuni's automatic reply. Kihara giggled.

"Then, what would you call yourself?"

"A drunk. A juggler. Those two, and only those two." Jeuni's voice held a forcefulness at which he himself was surprised as he heard his own words. "I'm just a juggler," he mumbled, more to himself than anyone.

"Jugglers sure are amazing these days," smiled Kihara, "to be able to kill the king." So saying, she dragged her arm heavily through the air and extended her index finger, pointing directly at the pile of armor in the corner. Her gaze—and smile—remained fixed on the juggler.

"The king?"

"A big man," Kihara replied. "Come, Master Huros, don't play dumb. You’ve only killed two people this week, and I'm one of them, so you know who I mean. A real big man, Master Huros. Lots of shaggy black hair. Sharp golden eyes. Ring any bells?" When Jeuni did not reply, Kihara continued. "Or is that why you collapsed when you saw me? Was killing him what shook your mind to the point of not eating or sleeping? That's silly, Master Huros. He doesn't hate you or anything, knowing full well that he provoked you into—"

"How do you know all this?" Jeuni asked, a hint of fear-induced anger in his voice.

"I'm a Holder," she said, her voice almost singing. "I'm special."

"Do you know the meaning of my dreams, too?"

"Which ones?"

"His blood." Jeuni gulped as he recalled the nightmares. "Forming words."

"He can show you the South," shrugged Kihara. "Isn't that what it means? Why not accept the words at face value?"

What in the piss is going on... does she really see my dreams?

"But Master Huros—that wasn't a dream."

Jeuni sighed as realized that the scene in his nightmares had eclipsed the actual event. He remembered actually seeing the streets turn red with the beastman's blood; he remembered actually seeing that blood become words.

The memory was too clear.

It was too bright, its lines too straight.

There was no fuzziness, no doubt. He knew he remembered seeing it.

And he didn't want to remember seeing it.

Jeuni didn't want to puzzle anything out. Why Kihara had died, why she had come back. Who the giant had been, why he had provoked Jeuni into a fight to the death. What Kihara's eyes had held, if it hadn't been a promise of death. How she could respond to his every thought, as though he were easy to read. Who the Holders were. What lay in the South. He didn't want to think about any of it.

Jeuni Huros grimaced as he realized what was wrong: he was far too sober.

The juggler glanced through the cracks in his wall and saw that the red light in the sky had intensified. The sun was coming close to setting, and that meant it was almost time for work. He stood and removed his cloak to examine it. The stains from Kihara's blood blended in with the preexisting bloodstains, and he deemed the garment fit for wearing.

"I'm heading out," he said.

"For the South, Master Huros?"

"Hah! Yeah right. I tried that once. I'm going to work. I'm gonna grab a bite, and then I'm gonna drink, juggle, and make quick cash. The three pillars of my lifestyle." Jeuni nodded, content. "It was nice having a visitor, I suppose, someone to talk to who isn't that blasted Gyurot. Thanks for dropping by."

"Master Huros—"

"Good-bye, Kihara."

"How can you be so nonchalant?" she asked as he walked out of the shack. "How can you leave everything behind? Are you going to pretend I was never here, that you never heard my song? Can you go back to believing in the Shaded Orchard? Can you really solve all your problems in alcohol?"

Jeuni turned around, already twenty yards away.

"Come watch me perform in the tavern sometime! Front-row seat, maybe. Usually it's dangerous—I've been known to fumble a dagger now and then—but you'll be fine, won't you? One or two knives won't faze a Holder of the Covenant, after all!"

The blue-haired girl didn't respond. Jeuni began whistling and resumed his walk to work, his thoughts trained on the hope that the bartender would entertain him with a game or two of Keys.

* * *

After a shouting match with his manager over a potential pay drop and a fairly successful performance, Jeuni found himself sitting at the bar in the tavern, staring at a row of empty shot glasses.

"Wonderful routine tonight," commented the bartender. "Perfect, in fact. You don't need any mending, do you?"

Jeuni shook his head quietly.

"Are you alright, Master Huros? You seem down."

"I'm fine," he said. "Pour me another."

"Usually the drink stirs you up," said the bartender as he popped the cork on another flagon of gin.

Jeuni sighed heavily and buried his head in his hands.

"Just pour me the shit, will you?" Why does she look at me like that?

"Manners," chided the bartender gently as he complied.

"Shut it," Jeuni grumbled before downing the shot. "More. Come on. Line'em up." He belched. His stomach churned. "Just keep'em coming..." What does she want from me?

"It might be time for me to cut you off. I know you're a heavy drinker, but you've downed twelve of these. You're practically retching."

"Yeah, you're right," gulped Jeuni, shutting his eyes tight and turning his face to the ceiling. "I've really had enough. I'll go home soon. Sorry to bother you." How is she still alive?

The bartender silently handed the juggler a glass of water.

"You're not drinking for fun tonight, are you?"

"Blast it, barkeep, you gonna keep pestering me?" The cobblestones are stained red with ink.

"I'm here for you, Master Huros."

Jeuni slumped forward onto the counter, face resting on forearms.

"I don't mean to be overbearing, sir, but honest—if you ever have something troubling you, you should talk to someone about it. You can't drown everything in alcohol, you know."

"It's always worked before," Jeuni muttered. "Every time!" He was crying. "Every damn time, I found a bottle, it gave me solace. For the war—for my family—but this—" He choked on his tears and began bawling.

The South, the South! They can show me the South!

The bartender looked over at the other customers. The crowds liked to see Jeuni embarrassed, but there was a difference between bloody embarrassments and embarrassing embarrassments. The tavern's occupants, previously partying raucously, had gone silent.

"Could hurt your career if people see you like this," the bartender said, laying a hand on Jeuni's shoulder. "We have some extra rooms in the back, do you want to lie down?"

Jeuni sat up and shook his head. Tears streaked his cheeks and pooled in his stubble. The bartender couldn't help but frown.

"Master Huros, you should really—"

"Yeah, I'll go," he said. "Sorry." An empty suit of plate-mail and a blood-stained cot...

"Don't worry about the tab," offered the bartender, "we'll take care of it some other time. Go home, get some sleep."

Jeuni nodded silently. Swaying, he stood and picked up his cloak from the neighboring stool. He wrapped it around himself at an odd angle and staggered from the tavern, shivering.

* * *

Having stopped along the way to vomit in the elder's rose bushes, Jeuni arrived back at his shack. He tumbled through the front door and rolled onto his cot, breathing hard. Moonlight illuminated his whole room, and he looked up to see Kihara sitting calmly atop the pile of blue plate-mail, clad in her white coat.

"Welcome back, Master Huros. How was your evening?"

Jeuni wiped snot and tears from his face with a corner of his cloak and sighed.

I thought she would still be here.

"There was a chance I wouldn't be."

Why?

"Why what?"

I couldn't forget, Kihara.

I couldn't forget you. Or that beast-man you call 'king.'

I couldn't forget his blood, I couldn't forget your blood.

I couldn't forget your promises.

I drank more than ever, but that dream kept coming back to me.

"I told you you can't solve everything with alcohol."

You're wise beyond your years, Kihara.

"I don't know about that."

There are a lot of things I don't remember right, Kihara, but I can't tell you that I'm not a wizard. And I can't tell you that I don't want to go south.

"I can take you there."

Please...

"You don't need to plead!"

No, I have a request—

"What is it?"

Sing for me, Kihara.

Kihara smiled down at Jeuni. "Gladly.

"A southern wind came to me
And it breathed upon me
It chilled me and I loved it for that.
Blowing back my hair, caressing me,
It froze me and I loved it for that.
Telling me its tales, its sad history…
The wind was a chronicler and I was its book
It came to me, recording in my memory
The legend of the frozen south."

"Such a beautiful song," Jeuni muttered, the romantic in him stirring once more upon hearing the lyrics. "Who taught it to you?"

"The tune has always existed in my heart, and the words in the truth," Kihara replied promptly, her smile returning after having abandoned her while she was singing. "It's said that those who know the truth in this world are the most dangerous, but I don't understand things like that."

"Heh. I guess when it comes down to it, you're still just a kid," joked Jeuni, though he had misgivings regarding how she talked. Her words, and the ways in which she spoke them, were not those of a child. Maybe she really is just wise beyond her years...

"I guess so," shrugged Kihara. "Shall we set out in the morning?"

Jeuni responded by snoring softly.

Kihara stood, removed her coat, and laid it upon the juggler.

"Sweet dreams."

===

In his dreams, Jeuni revisited his first encounter with Kihara. He wanted to see the girl's eyes again, despite his fear of what they held. He knew what he needed to do—he needed to travel south, he needed to find the answer to the question of why the girl's hair was blowing in a still forest.

He needed to answer a plea and he needed to come to terms with the truth.