As we exit the temple, instead of happening upon the insides of another temple that leads to the top of a pyramid, we instead seem to be leaving tunnels along the western face of a mountain range. Outward, a sort of muddy gravel and dirt path seems to head west, bordered on the north and south by steep foothills. We’re in a bit of a canyon. Despite the acid rain, somewhere from several hundred meters to half a mile away I’m able to spy the edges of what appears to be a field of corn. The stalks look like bean vines are growing up them, probably co-planted. They’ve likely adapted, as they show no signs of wilting, despite the evidence that it has been drizzling for at least several hours, as the dirt-trodden partially gravel path is quite muddy by this point.
The acid rain seems like a natural phenomenon, and usual occurrence in these lands, and despite it only mildly stinging when hit by a few droplets at a time, I wouldn’t want to be flying through clouds of the stuff. I can’t even see the peaks of the mountains through the dense cloud-cover. Scaling them through essentially acidified air would be horrendous.
All six of us meander for a moment, milling about the mountainside, unsure of what to do. We wander back and forth from the entrance, out along the dirt path a ways within this sort of canyon.
Lil seems mostly unfazed by the acid rain, until they stick their tongue out to try to catch droplets. I call out to warn Lil a moment too late. Apparently their scales couldn’t feel it, but now their tongue stings like heck. Similarly with my beloved otter family, their fur is mostly hydrophobic or oleophobic due to some natural oils or something, but seeing my skin welt, and Lil’s tongue sting, Lu and Te know not to let their eyes or tongue be hit by the droplets. Lucky seems completely unharmed, and splashes in puddles happily as he bounds along after Lil. It’s almost like Lucky is used to these conditions, as if he’d been here before.
Speaking of, Lucky bounds back to me, and bowls me over into the mud. It stings about as much as I’d expect a more concentrated dose of the acidic water to feel like. Still, I can’t fault the big lug, he doesn’t seem to realize that it’s dangerous to us. I hug him around his neck and he drags me out of the mud before taking back off, running between me and Lil repeatedly with leaps and bounds. He’s honestly acting exactly like a dog I knew once back on Earth.
Wait, what? Earth? I run to catch up to Luni, “Lu, why do I suddenly remember the name of Earth? Like, more than just the word for dirt, I’m certain it’s a planet, a planet that had at least one happy dog. Why do I think I know a dog from Earth?”
Luni’s eyes sparkle, but her response is carefully measured, “I’m not quite sure why, is there anything else that comes to mind at the moment?”
I frown while shaking my head, to which Luni pouts in response. She asked us if we got our memories back, but I’m fairly certain this isn’t Earth. Why does she seem excited that I suddenly recall Earth of all things? My broken, buggy memories do seem to correlate to what I can recall of Earth. Still no people or places, but the general topography, ecology, climate, technology levels of various regions. I know a lot of entry-level stuff about Earth. Why? The more I think about it, the more I know I can also tell definitively that this place is not on Earth somehow.
There appears to be a hale, a domicile, out near the cornfield. I didn’t notice it at first, but my attention is drawn to it now that someone is walking this way from it. She suddenly drops her wicker basket as her gaze finds us milling about the temple entrance. This elderly, slightly hunched woman virtually sprints our direction. I’d really rather not be in trouble for trespassing right after dying and finding myself in a new land, so I motion for my party to bow or curtsy. Lil huffs and rolls their eyes, but complies when they realize Mat is also acting huffy. They don’t want to share anything in common with Mat right now, and it’s understandable.
I may have misjudged the distance, or the woman’s eyesight and mine are strong, and despite being elderly, she’s incredibly quick on her feet. She arrives in short order as we walk her direction to meet her partway, occasionally waving and bowing. Her flesh is darkly tanned, a tad leathery, her hands are calloused, and they bear hints of clay. Her frizzy gray hair is held in a tight, but unkempt bun with chopsticks, or some similar cylindrical wood or reeds. Her dark woolen robe, worn off of one shoulder, is adorned with only a simple cloth cord as a sash about her waist that helps keep it suspended on her hips, preventing it from dragging in the mud.
She calls out, "First of firsts, praise be to the first, never has someone left Noirdivinhoz ma kai before, let alone several someones who hadn't even entered ma uka in the first place."
Ma uka and ma kai sound like words for direction, towards and away from something. Hm, noir means dark or black, and divinhoz seems like a cognate for divine house. House of dark divinity? Temple of dark devotion? Something along those lines. It seems to be a word comprised of French and Germanic syllables, oddly enough. Wait, France, Germany? I rattle my brainpan to try to shake free from the distraction of etymology, to focus on the here and now.
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I call back, “We beg your pardon, we didn’t intend to intrude or trespass. We sort of, well, arrived, unexpectedly.”
She chuckles, her gaze centered on Lil for a long moment. She turns to me and says, “I’ll bet you did malihini. No other explanation for it than the magic of our lands becoming wilder.”
A voice screams out, “There! was! No! magic!”
I look around for the source of the voice, but no one else seems to have even heard it. The voice might be right, I mean, at least in the lands in my dreams, the ones that Aces fought their way through, nothing seemed especially magical. It seemed like a dreary European dark ages civilization. Wait, European? I know more places from Earth, at least in an overall geographical scale. And an era of its history.
She had been continuing while I was distracted, “Yes, Noirdivinhoz is loosely a secret, but its purpose, though not its location or name, is known to quite a few. We Aasimovians don’t mind others knowing that if one should seek a true death, one should seek to find a secret temple in Aasimovia ma uka.”
I balk, blinking rapidly several times as my jaw hangs low, “Ex, excuse me? A true death? The, the um, person on the floor. Did you kill them?”
She smiles disarmingly my way, “Of course not, no such thing. Simply those that pass within Noirdivinhoz are certain their souls will move on, to the great hereafter, or join the spirits, whatever truly comes next. It is the one place in all of Rayileklia that one can be absolutely assured of that.”
I query, “So, this land, or this country is Aasimovia? This world is known as Rayileklia?” When she nods at my questioning of the world’s name, I continue, “There’s reason to believe that elsewhere, a soul might not pass on properly?”
Her response contains unfamiliar language, “For Aasimovian kama’aina, perhaps not. Elsewhere, rumors abound of a certain emperor’s lands being rife with people who’ve had their essence, their light, their very souls taken from them, before they could die.”
Even though the language seemed unfamiliar, for some reason, I know that kama’aina is Hawaiian for something like child of the land. Similar to Tuatha de being Irish to sort of denote people or tribe of a certain land or a generation of peoples. Wait, Irish? Hawaiian? Wait wait, double wait, go back a tick. A certain emperor?
I gulp down a knot that catches in my throat, nearly preventing me from asking, “That, that wouldn’t be, glp, someone known as the Celestial Emperor, would it?”
She nods, “Kaumaha little braddah. Sad, but true. Are you truly malihini? To all of Rayileklia?”
Lil, Lu, Te and I all react with shock. Most of us know about my dreams about Aces at this point. Aces was hired to slay the Celestial Emperor. Aces’ mission failed. I’m almost sure of it. They came here to die because they didn’t want their soul stolen. I’m not sure if it worked or not. The soul disappeared shortly after we arrived here. The soul that Luni says somehow contains our world, with our family on it. Whatever purpose the Celestial Emperor has for souls, it can’t be good if he’s stealing them, and I don’t want to know what happens to our world if he uses up that soul. There’s also the fact that in my discombobulation during coming to Rayileklia, I was so confused that I thought Aces’ body was my own. Perhaps because my dreams of them were always in the first person perspective of them. I wonder if anyone called Aces just Ace? Oh, I was asked a question.
I pause, trying to figure out how to reply, “I’m sorry, I don’t know for certain what malihini means. Does that mean, um, not from around here? Because yes, we’re not from around here.”
She strokes her chin a moment, my companions have been following along, and are starting to get antsy. They know approximately what my thought processes about this are going to be. We might have to pick up where Aces left off.
She suddenly throws her hands in the air, causing several of us to jump into defensive stances, “Ay, I have not introduced myself. I am Daffodil, Daffodil Tarquin, keeper of Noirdivinhoz. Your skin is welting, most can withstand at least a few hours outdoors before such. Does the painful rain not drizzle ceaselessly for all time where you come from?”
I shake my head in response, so she continues, “E komo mai E ‘ai Kakou. If you’re not used to it, let’s get into my hale. It’s still fronds and thatch, I’m slowly working my bricks, bit by bit I make enough adobe bricks, soon I will build a home. For now, just enough for an imu. If you travel Aasimovia, or more of Rayileklia, your skin will toughen up, you’ll get used to it.”
I’m struggling to keep up with her linguistic use, much of which mirrors Hawaii of Earth, though some of it is off from the few phrases I can dig out of my memories. She said something like welcome, and let’s eat. Her house has an oven she built out of adobe bricks in the ground. She begins trundling quickly away, expecting us to follow. Mat yells out for her however.
Mat asks, “Look, there’s, there’s things about this situation. I just want somewhere I can be alone, permanently. Is there some place wet that’s uninhabited that I could go?”
She pauses briefly, “Truly? Southwest, ma kai, past Autumn Brook, south off the shore. There should be islands, islands that none will visit. If you could safely sail the seas, you could go much further south. No one settles the Untamed Lands. Few voyages even return intact.”
Mat takes off at a sprint, vaguely yelling, “Good, fine, goodbye!” To no one in particular. No one reacts to stop him. He was promised his freedom after helping to save our family, his own family, from a situation that he partially caused while under evil influence. He’ll probably be fine, he’s more sea otter than river otter, he was more used to fishing and swimming than the life we built on land. The rest of my family took to land quite happily though, even Teuila, who spent nearly all her time exercising by swimming against a river current. Lil looks mildly infuriated at Mat fleeing, or escaping as it might be considered.