Desert Dreams

KoG II ~ Desert Dreams
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outsiders say that the sand drives men mad. Those of us born to this desert land have always scoffed at such claims. The grit of the desert is in our souls, so if mad it makes us, mad we must be born.

Were we a race of madmen? Did the Shadow Game but show us the truth of our nature?

I wonder, as I walk the long corridors of the Puzzle's making, and remember.

~~~~~

"Duel with me, my Prince," Seto said, late one afternoon.

It had been a long day already, starting with the dawn as I stood by my father's side, witness to life as Pharaoh. I had no greater desire than to soak in a bathing pool while the sun set and the calm of night embraced the city. But this was Seto asking, not some minor noble eager for a thrill. In the complex dance of our friendship, such a small thing as a duel had the weight of a treaty.

"Alright," I agreed, setting aside thoughts of sun-warmed water. "Where?"

"Some small distance outside the city."

I turned to him with an inquiring look, but he only smiled thinly, his gaze bright and intent.

"It will be safer that way," he added.

Safer for whom? I wondered.

Acquiring a chariot and driver and slipping out of the city took far longer than I had hoped. Finally, though, we passed beyond the mud-brick houses and walls of the city and out into the fringe lands where the sand ever encroached upon the irrigated fields. Here we found an isolated patch of level ground and marked out our dueling field.

Perhaps it was foolish of me to agree to his duel, tired as I was, for the Shadow Game required much concentration and strength of will. It was no simple matter of laying stones or other tokens in place of monsters we named. Dueling meant opening the doors between worlds, summoning shadows of monsters to fight in our world. The trick of it had been discovered, not surprisingly, by the Priests, guardians of the doors between worlds. Their fascination with numbers, mathematics, and the arcane had led them to create a system by which they believed it safe to summon and control such forces. A system Pharaoh should have forbidden, perhaps, but he chose to turn a blind eye to the sport of priests and nobles.

"Your move," Seto said, drawing my attention back to the game at hand. He had won the first move with a toss of the dice, and had called some creature in defence, keeping its face hidden from me. A wise, but cautious, opening move.

The sun was setting, off to my right. The outline of the door behind which his monster hid was gold and flickering red light. I had the sudden feeling that this would be a short duel indeed.

Following some deep instinct, I summoned the Dark Magician. His robed form glimmered with violet light as he emerged onto the field. Looking up, I saw Seto smile, his eyes flickering to the monster on his side of the field. There was no point in waiting, I decided.

"Dark Magician, Dark Magic Attack!" I cried. My mage lowered his staff, and a bolt of black-violet light shot towards the door.

A great explosion forced me back a step. Surprised by the strength of it, I shielded my face with one hand and waited for the dust and sand to clear. The shape that emerged from it made my heart thunder in my chest.

"Your Dark Magician is strong," Seto said quietly. "But not strong enough to defeat the Blue-eyes White Dragon!"

Speechless, I stared at the great white dragon looming over us. Three times as tall as Seto, it had a wing-span easily three or four times its height. It was a thing of legend, a duelist's dream. Such power as it would take to summon this creature....

"Seto..." I began. "How have you done this?"

He laughed, and it was a harsh, unpleasant sound. "Beware the Shadow Game, my Prince," he snarled, his earlier warning suddenly laden with new meaning. "Blue-eyes White Dragon -- Attack!"

Rearing back on its hind feet, the dragon drew a great roaring breath. Stretching out its neck, it blew a stream of ice-fire dragon-breath over my mage. The air crackled with ice and the Dark Magician froze in place, shattering with a thin, shrill scream. But the dragon breath didn't stop. It spilled inexorably forward, washing over me as well.

Diamonds of pain danced over my skin until darkness swallowed me.


A three-quarters moon hung heavy in the sky above me when I finally opened my eyes again. The ground beneath me was cool, the air chill. Desert nights are cold, and harsh as sunlight in the day.

"Seto," I whispered through parched lips. The skin on my face felt dry and tight; too small and hot. Like a sunburn.

"I'm here," he answered quietly, kneeling beside me. Sliding his hand behind my head, he helped me up enough to drink from the flask he held.

"What have you done?" I asked, when I had voice enough again.

His strange blue eyes had a mild look of regret as he gazed down at me. "I have found the true power of the Shadow Game."

I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the earth tilt beneath me. Everything had changed. If the power of the Game could harm the *duelist*.... "What will you do with it?"

He shifted restlessly beside me and I opened my eyes again. "Seto --"

"What would you have me do?" he countered, his words veiling a nameless threat.

The darkness was pulling at him, the power of the Shadow Realm calling to him. Power was something he had precious little of in this world. He was an orphan child of foreigners, and though he had been adopted by a childless noble house, his place in society was tenuous at best. Some days it seemed that only my friendship gave him any status at all.

It was a hard life for one so ambitious as Seto.

Perhaps his noble parents should have sent him to the priests. His skill with numbers and the arcane would have made him a fine mage. But the priests likely would not have taken him, would not have revealed their secrets to one so obviously born an outsider.

I did not want to lose him. Not this way.

"It must be stopped... sealed away," I said quietly, watching him.

A storm passed through the doors of his soul, darkening his eyes. He gave me no answer that night.

~*~*~*~

"Grandpa... you've been to Egypt," Yugi began hesitantly.

"Why, yes, Yugi. I have. It's a beautiful land. That's where I met Rebecca's grandfather, remember?"

Yugi nodded, his hands closing around his puzzle. "And your Blue-eyes...."

"Yes," Grandpa said. His hands stopped, holding the cloth over the glass display case he had been cleaning. "A pity about that."

Yugi knows it's more than a pity, but his grandpa doesn't want him to feel guilty about it. "And my puzzle," he said quietly, a few moments later.

"Yes, indeed, Yugi. Is that what's on your mind?" Grandpa returned to polishing the glass cases, removing the finger and sometimes nose prints left by enthusiastic customers.

Folding his arms and laying them on the counter, Yugi sighed and rested his cheek on his forearm. "Grandpa... do you think I should go to Egypt? I want to know more about my puzzle... and the history of Duel Monsters."

"Well, Yugi, I don't know that that's a wise idea. You do have school and everything."

Which was the answer he'd been expecting. That or 'you're young yet, Yugi, wait a while.' "Yeah," he agreed reluctantly.

"Maybe you should sleep on it. Think about it for a while."

That was the last thing Yugi wanted to do, given how he'd been chewing on the idea for a week now. He sighed, pushing himself up off the counter.

"Sometimes," Grandpa said, "The answers have to come to you. You can't try to find them or they just slip away."

"And sometimes," I answer, slipping past Yugi momentarily. "You wait too long and the answers pass you by anyway."


"Why did you say that?" Yugi exclaims quietly, as we climb the stairs to the apartment above the game shop.

He is angry, but not wanting to show it. Not wanting to offend me, I realize with some surprise. "Because it is the truth," I answer, speaking softly but aloud, as he did.

"You shouldn't do that, Spirit. Grandpa knows I wouldn't talk back to him like that." Opening the door to his room, he shrugs off his backpack, throwing it down beside the door. His hands close around the Puzzle, and for a moment he considers taking it off.

Such thoughts cannot be hidden from me, nor mine from him, when we share this space. And it hurts, in a small way, that he has gone back to calling me Spirit, rather than Yami. It is a sign, I think, of the distance he wants between us at the moment. Retreating into the background, I stay close enough that we can still talk but far enough that he is alone in his body. I am sorry, Yugi. It was unfair of me.

With an exasperated sigh, he flops down onto the bed. Rolling onto his back, he stares up at the ceiling. His hands are still locked around the Puzzle. "I just want to understand," he says, somewhat plaintively.

As do I, Yugi. As do I.

There is a long silence then, as I leave him to his thoughts, and he to mine. It would be rude of me to eavesdrop. I'm not sure he's having coherent thoughts any more than I am, anyway.

"I have homework to do," Yugi says finally.

Nodding, I leave him to it and return to the lonely halls of my prison.

~*~*~*~

The corridors of the Puzzle are dim and grey tonight. Restlessly, I pace the stone passages, climbing and descending random stairs. Reality twists, turns, settles into something that bears more resemblance to a drawing I saw in one of Yugi's textbooks than anything that could ever truly exist. Pausing on an upside-down staircase above a wide stone plaza, I sigh. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts here tonight.

And with that thought, the halls twist around me, blur momentarily, and resolve themselves into the courtyard of the Pharoah's palace on a sun-lit afternoon. The beauty of it takes my breath away. The soft golden glow of sun on marble. The brilliant painted colors of the heiroglyphs and wall paintings. The soft splash of water in a fountain.

Yugi's world fades away, becomes a distant dream, as I walk forward into the sun.

The past is not always cruel. The Puzzle can be kind.