DISCLAIMER: I'm only borrowing these characters.
A/N: This was written from a prompt on the '31 Days' Livejournal community: "What child? There was no child."
"It's like the children dissolved. They just disappeared." -Trevor Henning
"What is happening to Zaibach?" -General Adelphos Gein, Red Copper Army
I.
The Colonel's office was a small, stuffy, dark affair, lit weakly by the blue flame of a gas candle and the dwindling sunlight. Major Adelphos Gein's moustache twitched as he regarded the single piece of paper in front of him.
"This is the report you filed, isn't it?"
Adelphos wasn't sure what, exactly, was making him nervous. It was either the simplicity of the report, the lack of response that had followed, or the way Colonel Zodia had opened the folder and was regarding him now. Perhaps a combination of all three.
"It is," he answered. Zodia's hand slid the folder back across the desk.
"Your Captain…" Zodia plucked the sheet of paper from the folder, "…reported kidnappings of children near your local area. That's correct?"
"It is." If he'd been a lesser man, Adelphos would have shifted in his seat, but he kept his eyes focused straight. "Sir, if I may."
"Mm."
"I understand the Emperor doesn't always have the time for the outer villages, but—"
"Major." The folder snapped shut quietly.
"Sir."
Zodia wasn't looking at the report anymore. He sat with hands folded on top of his desk. "The man that was seen carrying what appeared to be a child had a spade-shaped pin on his left shoulder, didn't he?"
Adelphos looked briefly at the closed folder. "Yes."
"Well, there you have it," Zodia shrugged.
"Sir?"
"I suspect news travels slowly to those outer regions. The Madoushi are a recently-formed group. Personal Sorcerers to the Emperor." Zodia leaned back in his chair; folded an ankle over his knee. "Their symbol is a spade," he added, almost as though it were an afterthought.
Adelphos took a moment to consider this. "Is it possible these could be imposters? A man could carry out an awful lot under the pretext of empire support."
"I would suggest, Major, that you don't look further into this issue." Zodia scooped the folder up off his desk—a single piece of paper in a single folder. 'It will be easily lost,' Adelphos thought. "Do I make myself clear?"
"Sir."
He was dismissed.
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The grey, smoke-stained front wall of the temple seemed squashed between the buildings that crowded around it. As he stepped toward it, Adelphos felt as though he were stepping back in time. However, the crunch of rubble underfoot and the smell of oil in the air reminded him well of where and when he was.
A women sat on the steps leading up to the temple. Her hair was greying and there was a little wisp of a child in her arms. As Adelphos passed she held out a spotted hand and spoke in one of the outer prefecture dialects. He fished in his coat's inner pocket for a coin. The child looked up at him with wide, grey eyes.
"Blessings on your little one," he mumbled as the coin fell to the woman's palm. Silently, he added an extra prayer of his own.
II.
They were there at his promotion ceremony, lined up against the walls with their dark cloaks melding into the shadows. They would seem to whisper, but whenever Adelphos looked, they didn't seem to be moving. Their faces all looked alike to him: pale from lack of sunlight, hooded eyes, a leathery frown. A few of them wore glasses. He figured that must be how they tell each other apart.
They were watching him. Of course, everyone was watching him, but it was them he worried most about. They watched him because he knew. He couldn't have risen as high as he had and not known.
Of course he didn't subscribe to the silly, common superstition that Sorcerers could read minds. Of course not. But if they knew how he had once wished to uncover them… Or if they knew how he hated them.
"Congratulations, Major-General." Zodia shook his hand with a crinkle of his eyes; Adelphos had always taken that expression to be Zodia's attempt at smiling. "Welcome to the pack."
"Thank you, Zodia." Not 'Sir.' Not anymore.
"Grace of the Gods be with you." Zodia gave Adelphos' hand another terse shake. "You know, if you still believe in that kind of thing."
"And with you." A smile and a good-natured laugh, and Adelphos was left to stand alone with his new-appointed glory, waiting for the next congratulations.
"General Adelphos." It was one of them; Adelphos could tell from the rasp in the voice even before he turned. The Sorcerer's robe swirled around him, clasped with a spade-shaped pin at the left shoulder. The glare off his glasses blocked the view of his eyes. A pale hand poked out of the robes. "The Madoushi offer our best wishes for your continued career."
"Yes." He managed a smile and a small handshake, but even as he did he knew he wouldn't get out of it that easily.
"We understand that one of the fortresses under your fleet will be the Vione." The Sorcerer's head moved a little and the glare flared for a moment.
'Listen you little weasel, I don't like this 'we' business. I don't like how you're closer to the Emperor than any of us can ever hope to be. I don't like what you do. And I don't like that prententious frown on your face, so turn around and walk away before I wipe it off for you'. "That's correct."
"We have taken the liberty of scheduling a meeting for you and someone we think you should see and speak with. By order of the Emperor, of course."
"Of course." 'After you suggested it, most likely.' "I will honor any acquaintences Emperor Dornkirk wishes me to make." He may or may not have put special emphasis on the Emperor's name.
"Tomorrow evening, then," the Sorcerer rasped, then turned and joined his comrades in the shadows.
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When they opened the door to the room, it didn't take long for Adelphos to do the math. The boy couldn't be much older than 10 or 11.
'Good Gods.'
"Do not worry, General." One Sorcerer stayed by Adelphos' side while the other two went to remove the shackles at the boy's wrists and ankles. "He is quite harmless."
'It's not him I'm worried about, you toad.' The boy's skin shone even paler than the Sorcerers', and the red sores from the shackles stood out all the more for it. He remained asleep as the chains were removed, white, feathery hair falling over a palid forehead and peaceful, closed eyes. One of the Sorcerers took a syringe from the folds of his robe in one hand, and the boy's arm in the other.
The boy's eyes opened, and they were redder than his wrists. Adelphos thought at first that they were irritated; some side-effect of the myriad drugs coursing through his young veins—but when he looked a second time, he saw that the irises themselves flashed a bright crimson when the light hit them in a particular way. Otherwise they were a pale blue, almost silver, like the surface of a mirror.
"Go on," rasped a Sorcerer. "You may speak."
Adelphos took another moment to size up the boy before speaking. Those unusual eyes were looking straight ahead, seemingly focused on the empty air. A Sorcerer's hands rested on each bony shoulder. Adelphos wondered whether the boy would even hear him. "What is your name, boy?"
"Dilandau Albatou." His voice matched his look: weary and far-away.
"Do you know who I am?"
"No." The Sorcerer at Dilandau's side leaned over and whispered into his ear. Dilandau didn't blink, only kept speaking in that monotone voice. "General Adelphos Gein, Red Copper Army."
Why had they wanted him to speak with this child? It couldn't be they were just gloating over some accomplishment. If there was anything the Madoushi were not, it was show-offs. "Are you going to be a soldier?" Adelphos asked.
"Yes."
"Well, you'd better be a damn good soldier then." 'To justify all of this.' "If you're going to serve under me."
"I'll take orders from you?" It seemed to be the first original thought Dilandau had had since waking up. His eyes flashed red again as they twitched up to look Adelphos almost straight in the eye.
"If you're going to be in Red Copper, you will." Adelphos nodded. "And you'll call me 'Sir.'"
"Yes, sir."
Adelphos let silence fall then, in lieu of questions he dared not ask. A glint of spectacles at his side told him the Sorcerer was turning toward him. "What you are looking at, General, is a crucial piece that will play in the war our glorious Emperor is planning to wage. Surely you can appreciate that."
He had been wrong. They were showing off. But only to him—an extremely select audience. How did they expect him to feel? Privileged? Proud?
"Did you hear that, Dilandau? You're a crucial piece." He didn't know what made him say it, and for a moment he half-expected the Sorcerers to attack—'As if they could,' he thought with an inner laugh, 'Skin and bones that they are.' "Excuse me." He turned on his heel and made for the door.
The Sorcerer followed him.
"You should understand we expect you to keep an eye on him." In the light of the hallway, the Sorcerer looked like a ghost. "Of course one of our own will be stationed on the Vione, but as his direct superior, you will also be expected to watch him."
Adelphos chose to attack the most obvious flaw in that statement first. "You're shoe-horning a green boy like that right into the rank of Colonel?"
"Captain. But under a special assignment. Once he's fully trained, of course."
"Emperor Dornkirk's orders, right?"
The Sorcerer almost smiled. "As a matter of fact…"
"Right." They might have the Emperor in their pocket, but no one had ordered him to stay. For the second time, Adelphos turned and left.
III.
"Would you have some wine, sir?"
"Thank you." Adelphos took the goblet from the tray, which was held by a blonde boy in blue uniform. He took a sip—rather sweet for his taste, but wine was wine. "So is this what you and the Emperor have been doing with my reccommendations?" he asked with a quirk of the eyebrows. "Training a task force of waiters?"
Dilandau's eyebrows did a little jump of their own. He wasn't sitting in his chair so much as draping himself in it; back bent, legs akimbo, one arm flung over the side. "I figured since I was entertaining a general, I might as well give him a proper welcome."
"I'd also think you could give him proper posture." Adelphos took another sip of wine to punctuate the statement. Dilandau almost looked sheepish as he adjusted himself in his seat. Rumors of the Dragonslayers' captain's temper were already spread throughout the fleet, yet when a superior was around… 'Perhaps they really did make the perfect soldier,' Adelphos mused, though not happily. 'If that is indeed what they were trying to do. And even if they weren't, I will.' "That's better. I just wanted to wish you congratulations on a successful dragon hunt."
Those mirror-eyes lit up with a reflection of the blue flame between them. "Thank you, sir. It was… amazing." In that moment, he could have been any other 13-year-old boy, talking about some back-alley adventure with his friends.
But any hope of a life like that was long gone. "You know we're preparing for a war."
"Yeah. Yes. Yes sir, I do." The look of wonderment vanished fast and Dilandau gave a tight little smile. There was a strange quirk in his eyes, too. 'He's looking forward to the war. Well, I shouldn't blame him. It's probably all he's ever had to look forward to.'
"A war to bring an end to wars." The next sip of wine almost made him sick, it was so sweet. He put the cup down at last. "That's the plan, you know."
"Really?" Dilandau raised his own glass.
"Mm." Adelphos licked his lips; they felt dry. "They create us… so they can destroy us."
When he looked at Dilandau again, the boy had frozen. He looked as though he'd just been punched in the gut. The wine glass was shaking. "W…what are you saying?"
'Oh dear.' If he said anything more, anything that could jeapordize… whatever it was Dilandau was for… "Just that you should never wax philosophical with your inferiors." Adelphos took a quick swallow of wine, so he wouldn't have to taste it. "It never works."
IV.
The battlefield is a smoking pit: fire and blood, the twisted metal of fallen 'melefs and the smell of rotting flesh. Basram's ultimate weapon annihilated the countryside for miles around, but the war extended even beyond the radias of the bomb. Men and women of every country on Gaea lie soulless now, slowly decaying in the sun.
Through the wreckage, Adelphos wanders. His armor is dented, his sword bloody. A small red line adorns his left cheek.
He knows Zaibach is broken. The others will try to band together, try to create something like Dornkirk had dreamed of. But it won't ever be the same. The war has ended nothing, except for the Empire.
Near the base of a hill, the sight of a bright red guymelef catches his eye. The machine is badly damaged, and the cockpit is gaping open. Adelphos imagines it filled with blood, nearly covering the pale corpse of the boy—though given the 'melef's color it would be hard to tell from this distance. Filled with a morbid curiosity, he approaches, and climbs up the wreckage to look inside.
But the cockpit is empty. There's no blood. No body.
There's no one.