Chapter 42: Finally arriving

Before them, a barren landscape extended itself far away until where hills, verging upon being mountains, could be seen. The whole land was covered in tall pine trees, and mist rose from them as they clung to the banks of the rises. Everything was grey, white or black with no discernable colour, all contributing to a general sense of depression that was added to by the place's silence and the sight of black creatures flying through the sky that danced along in a slow and mournful pattern.

Nearest to them, and along the route that Kira knew he had to take, the ground sloped in all directions to form many steep ridges and falls, like craters, that were too small to be called hills on their own. These pits and crevices could have themselves hidden an army but, somehow, Kira knew that he would be safe enough crossing them and scrambled to the peak of the first before sliding down into the central dip that it was hiding.

Nothing was inside of it, and he attacked the next one, running at the steep side and grabbing onto its ridge to pull himself up before falling into the pit. Cat followed along much more deftly, somehow managing to stay atop of the ridges. He simply ran around the circular holes and stepped onto the next one so that he never had to climb anything himself. Kira, having less dexterity, was not particularly pleased by always following behind the yokai even though he was the only one who knew where they were headed, and he resented how easy the boy made any progress look. Over the past few days, his patience had been worn thin by Cat, and he hadn't spoken to him at all in more than a whole day.

To a child, the process of pulling himself up and falling down to land softly in the centre of the next depression may have been fun, but it quickly lost its charm when you had to do it for nodes on end. This was made worse by the increasing density of trees as some were now found within these holes themselves and, more than once, Kira fell onto their hard bark and bruised himself on them when trying to get down the next ramp.

In the evening, when a whole day had been spent on this activity, Ghost said to him, "We're almost there; we'll definitely arrive tomorrow!"

"Great!" Kira exclaimed back to him with the first bit of excitement that he had shown since leaving Ostermark. He trusted Ghost, and this meant that he had almost achieved his goal and that all his suffering, at the hands of his journey and the people with him on it, had been worth it. He was now certain of getting his… his thing.

Relaying this to Cat, he was disappointed when the boy failed to show an equal amount of eagerness as he was still sceptical about what they were actually going to find. However, he could not ignore Kira entirely, and so when they settled down for the night, avoiding the centre of one of the depressions where water gathered, he offered to scout ahead to see what was there. Kira agreed and expectantly waited for his return. When he did, Kira could hardly wait for him to get dressed again in the next crater over and climb back to give him the news.

Up ahead, hidden in a large gap in the ground, perhaps in what used to be a quarry, was some sort of building, Cat told him. He hadn't got a good look at it, but apparently, it led underground and looked ancient, Marxan even. That had to be it, thought Kira, that had to be where it was, and he worked himself into such a frenzy over knowing that he was going to reach it on the following day that he momentarily hugged Cat before promptly letting him go. Cat seemed pleased that he had finally got some appreciation, but Kira was not and forced himself to calm down lest he again forget who his potential enemies were.

As expected, they arrived at their destination the following morning or rather, they almost fell into it because on the other side of what Kira thought was a normal ridge to one of the craters was a sheer drop into the quarry that contained the building. Balancing precariously on the edge of the cliff, he was able to stop for a moment and take a good look at the structure previously described by Cat.

It was set into the quarry wall, was several hundred feet across, and looked to have multiple floors, firstly because of its sheer height and secondly the tiers of overlapping balconies covering its front. It had wide, tall pillars running up from an entrance led to by a broad set of stone-grey stairs that supported a pointed roof sporting intricate images of angels and deities.

Some words also ran across the imagery, drawn to look as though they were imprinted onto a banner held by the flying angels, but Kira could not read them as he had never seen the symbols that made them up before. He couldn't even tell if Cat had been right about it looking Marxan because they didn't look like any Marxan letterings that he had encountered.

Within the gaping hole that the building had as an entrance, nothing could be seen because no lights were lit inside, and so it was filled with darkness. A similar tantalizing veil obscured his vision into the windows and passages that came out onto its balconies. Now that he had arrived, his next problem would be getting down the sheer sides of the quarry.

Poking at Kira's side, Cat almost made him lose his grip and plummet into the abyss, but he managed to stabilize himself and shot an angry look at the boy, which was quickly dispelled. "I've found a way down," Cat told him, and Kira followed him around the edge of the cliff.

Before long, they arrived at the top of a staircase that had been cut into the quarry's side and went down into it exactly under where Kira had been perched, explaining why he hadn't noticed it before. Warily following it down, they passed several places where torches would have once been holstered and, near its base, they were taken entirely within the rock, causing them to momentarily lose vision of the construct.

The rock entombing them was wet with moisture, and moss-like plants grew in its cracks but what stood out the most about it was that the steps at his feet had almost been worn away, indicating that this place had once been heavily inhabited. This was somewhat odd as, in all of his studies, he had never heard of a settlement beyond the marshlands, even going as far back as when the Marxans were in power because they seemed to have hated the place, banning any from trying to reach it.

Any worries were forgotten when they reemerged into the full light and started making their way towards their destination that now loomed before them. However, this was not what had caught their attention so much as the figure that was sitting at the base of the steps and directly in their path. Their view of the steps had only been obscured for a moment, but this person had covered the not-so-insubstantial distance from within the darkness of the archway to where they were now sitting in that time, and Cat hissed a warning to be on alert based on the creature's apparent speed.

It was tall, probably an inch more so than Kira if they stood side to side, and had a pair of ears perched on its head, much like a demi-human might, only much longer as though they belonged to the type of furless cat that Kira had seen around Illyria. However, it was not furless, and its whole body, unlike any person that Kira had previously seen, was covered in a thin layer of dark fur that seemed to shimmer between being black or dark blue depending on the light it was viewed under.

The creature also had a long and thin tail with the same thin fur so as to not be bushy like that of a fox but more similar to that of a cheetah. His eyes, Kira assumed it to be male, were dark brown with its irises seeming to fill the whole space so that little to no white could be seen there, and it was wearing a leathered uniform of sorts that left its muscled arms clear. However, what drew Kira's attention the most though was that its entire facial structure was not humanoid and seemed to better resemble that of a cat's.

Cat himself had never seen this type of animal before either, but he was obliged to reluctantly follow after Kira as they approached it, unsure what abilities it might possess. When the two had crossed more than half the distance, it stood and walked down the steps to meet with them. "You want to go inside?" it asked them in a manner that betrayed that it was not using its natural language.

"Yes," replied Kira, looking for a way around it as with Cat as a distraction, he thought that he might be able to slip on by.

"Well then, you'll have to deal with me," it continued and laid one of its hands on the hilt of a knife as long as Kira's forearm that was holstered at its side, "I'm Ark, by the way."

"What do you mean by deal with you?" Cat interjected, wanting to avoid any conflict.

"Fight me," said Ark, before obliterating any hope of the two being able to simply run past him by clicking his fingers to produce a translucent wall in front of the entrance to whatever lay below.

"Why?" and when Cat murmured this, Kira shot him an annoyed look because to him it did not matter, this thing, Ark, was now his enemy, and he started to walk around it so that he and Cat were opposite each other with it in the middle.

"Think of this as a test. What's inside there will only help certain people you see, so I have to filter out those who shouldn't enter."