The cousin wasn’t the right Ema. The girl gave a last sputtering breath and died. Masahide closed her eyes. “May the spirits give you peace.”
A gnarled hand clutched his ankle. “Ever since the necromancer built her tower, it's brought nothing but misery,” an old woman said.
Ema knelt with the basket. “East some berries, please.”
The old woman turned away sharply and shook her head.
Masahide straightened. “What year is it?”
“It’s the year of the hornet,” Ema said.
Eight years ago. That timeframe meant this girl in Everywhen could be Ema, but he hoped not. Sure, it would mean he’d found her, but it also meant she was in pain from losing everyone.
“Can you help me, Sir?”
Masahide ducked down to her level. “How can I help you?
“Follow me?”
Ema and he left the house, walked stone beside it, and passed a stick fence into the forest. They walked for a time with only the sound of birds in the pines and the occasional buzz of an insect. On top of a knoll, a shovel lay in loose dirt.
She picked it up and stuck it in the dirt. “I can't dig the graves by myself. And I can't bring them to the graveyard.”
“No one could help you?”
“No one comes up here anymore.”
He took the shovel. “Go help who you can. I'll dig.” He didn't have to help. He was in an alternate reality, and nothing should matter, but he couldn't turn away. He knew Ema, and to see her in this situation was unbearable.
He made them shallow, but he dug through the night and made twelve graves—not enough.
When she saw it in the morning, she cried and folded up with her doll to the ground. “I don't know why you're helping me; I'm cursed, just as my Aunt Beth said before she passed. She squeezed my hand until it hurt and said I'm doing this to them.”
He tried to comfort her, “This feels real, but you’re grown up fighting for your life. Remember.” But she grabbed his hand and pulled him into a jog into the trees. Down in a low area covered in ferns, she pointed to the dark maw of a cave.
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She let go and stepped towards it, and the cave breathed out and mussed her red hair. “A voice in my head says to go in the cave.”
He knew the feeling of corrupt spirits. “Don't go in there.”
“At first, I didn't want to because it’s scary, but I don’t want to take care of everyone anymore. It says there’s a world where I don’t have to worry about anything.”
A pair of red eyes hovered in the blackness. Masahide reached for his sword but grasped air as he had none. “Step away.”
But an illusion formed in the cave. It was of Ema in a circle with other children chanting a nursery rhyme, full carts with tarps the smoke is sharp. There, her clothes were clean, and she smiled.
He knelt and spoke softly. “It’s a dream within a dream.”
She turned away, and the illusion evaporated. “I know, but that’s okay.”
“I didn’t tell you the truth before; I am a knight. I will help you. Just don’t listen to the voice. There’s a corrupt spirit attacking your mind. Stay strong.”
“You’ll stay and help? I’ve been wishing for help every day.”
All the chatter in the woods ceased, and a blanket of silence settled on them. He felt the chill cave air on his sweaty neck. The smell of trees hung thick. But he sensed nothing else as he expected some approach.
Blackbirds took flight, and their wing beats startled him. He watched them flit away, and when he looked back down, Ema was gone. He saw her disappear into the forest.
It seemed simple enough. Masahide just had to keep Ema from entering the cave, but everything he said must sound crazy to her. She was completely enveloped in this world.
All he could do was support her, so he dug for hours and brought bodies to bury. He placed mossy rocks as tombstones at the heads of the graves.
When he pulled a large man up the knoll, she appeared again. “Dad quarried stone. No one in the town was stronger than him. Why would it take someone so strong?”
“Whatever corruption permeated this place, it was probably afraid of him and wanted him gone. But you are his daughter. You can be strong, too.”
He needed to find food for the sick. Why he was genuinely helping, he didn’t know. Nothing that happened here mattered except pulling her out of this nightmare. However, he wandered the streets and looked for food along the shuttered buildings.
A man in a plague mask took something from a body and slipped it into a pocket. Then the pointed beak of the mask pointed Masahide’s way, and he straightened and walked away.
But Masahide caught up to him. “I saw that. Aren’t you supposed to be a healer?”
The muffled voice replied, “It doesn’t matter. The Duke is sending a force to neutralize the pestilence. If you know what’s best for you, leave Wythmere and return when they’re done.”
What was this place? He should have asked Hisa more about it. Everything felt real, and perhaps it was in a different sort of way. Perhaps he couldn’t find food, but he’d find a weapon.
Masahide
Level: 34
Focus: Conjuring (conduit) +2
Secondary focus: Quake, Firequake tandem attack, spirit punch
Weapons: pure sword - 35% pure
Items: Heart of the Earth