Chapter 1
Long ago...what is now called the War of the Magi reduced the world to a scorched wasteland, and Magic simply ceased to exist.
A thousand years have passed... Iron, gunpowder and steam engines have been rediscovered, and high technology reigns. But there are those who would enslave the world by reviving the dread destructive power known as "Magic".
Can it be that those in power are on the verge of repeating a senseless and deadly mistake?
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The cold wind surged through the valley below, its keening wail grating on the ears, its icy edge piercing to the bone, the lights of Narshe twinkling like cold stars, and whipped up the icy cliff face and over the jutting overhang the three hulking figures occupied. The clouds were streaked away by the wind's might, the light of the moon falling on the huge figures, destroying their humanity, revealing vaguely man-shaped machines of cold steel and hot steam, bi-pedal monstrosities built in man's image, the machines that attempted to shape the world in man's image. Within the seat of a machine stirred a true man, in full Imperial uniform of dark brown leather and painted chest carapace, the rounded helmet like a bell with the face cut out of it. The uniform marked him as medium rank as far as normal soldiers went, though now he and his partner had the right to the red uniforms of Cavalry, another move up the ladder of rank now that they had been chosen for this mission.
Biggs shivered. The thick leather seemed like thin silk in these environs. It never got this cold in the Capital, never close to this cold. The uniform he had complained made him too hot when he had first joined the Imperial Army in Vector now seemed like nowhere near enough protection. He wriggled lower in the Magitek Armor's seat, attempting to use the lip around the mech's cockpit as a wall against the frigid gusts, but it still seeped into his skin. He looked over at the Armor that had come to rest on his left where they could observe the mining town below. He firmly refused to look to his right. The only thing he could see was Wedge's outline and a bright point of light at the helmet's face opening, the end of Wedge's cigarrette as he puffed on it. It probably makes him feel warmer, thought Biggs ruefully, but he had never taken up smoking himself. He turned back to the view below them in the valley. "There's the town..." he said, somewhat loudly to carry over the wail of the wind.
Wedge's figure shifted slightly as he replied to Biggs. "Hard to believe an Esper's been found intact there, a thousand years after the War of the Magi..."
"Think it's still alive?"
"Probably...judging from the urgency of our orders."
"And this woman," said Biggs, forcing himself to look to his right at the other Armor, at the cockpit who's driver was strangely silent, "this...sorceress. Why is she here?" He shivered, and this time not from the cold. "I heard she fried fifty of our Magitek Armored soldiers in under three minutes!" His eyes went back to Wedge's silheouette, his mouth suddenly dry.
"Not to worry. The Slave Crown on her head robs her of all conscious thought. She'll follow orders," replied Wedge.
Biggs shook his head. She's so quiet, so hopefully it's working, but if something happens to it and it stops functioning...Biggs shivered again, thoughts of searing flame in his mind's eye, burning him to a cinder in seconds. Even the Magitek Armor's Fire Beam seemed more natural, as strange at that seemed. At least the fire seemed to come from somewhere, blazing out of the Armor's cannons from its Magitek-infused energy cells, not coalescing out of thin air as it did with Magitek Knights. Even having seen General Leo do it countless times in combat, and even once the Emperor himself, its suddenness still unnerved him...and this woman was supposedly no patient of Professor Cid's treatments that allowed humans to use the power. That made it even worse.
"We'll approach from the east," said Wedge. "Move out!" Biggs manipulated the Armor's levers, operating the giant legs, turning the machine and lumbering after Wedge, smoke rolling from the twin pipes behind his head that poked up over the Armor's "shoulders", the machine's pincered arms moving back and forth in a grotesque human pantomime as the numerous gears propelled him forward into the dark night, across the snowy plains. He kept his eyes forward, stuanchly ignoring the silent woman driving her mech beside his, following Wedge as obediently as a child. Biggs had a sudden feeling of doom, an apprehension making the hair on his neck and arms stand up and his nerves sing. That woman would be the death of them in the end, he felt sure, and the power she wielded would be the death of many more. We will regret chaining her, he thought. Many will regret it.
The guards, dressed in fur-lined clothes and hats of white to blend in with the snowy landscape of their mountain home, fur ponchos around their shoulders, their faces shielded from the wind by woolen cloth wrapped around their heads that covered their noses and mouths, stirred at their post, seated on wooden crates, a single lantern flickering despondently near them at Narshe's single entrance, an arch in the wall that could be closed with the mere flick of a switch to drop an iron porticullis. A sound had risen over the wind's wailing, a roar and the hum of an engine, and screeching of metal joints, approaching the town. The designated leader arose quickly, gripping his buckler and drawing his sword with his other hand, signaling to two of his subordinates to do the same and another to run to the lever that would set the chain unwinding to drop the porticullis that would defend most of the valley town. The school was outside of the wall, at the mouth of the valley, but it was certainly unoccupied at this hour, even by the most studious and late-working of teachers. He peered through the gateway into the night. He could see the school's eastern wall to the right, and a few steaming gears to the left, a coal-run steam engine still puffing away at this hour to keep some of the town's water pipes from freezing up with the heat it produced.
The sound still approached, getting louder, and the guard muttered, still peering into the night. The moon had gone back behind the clouds, making it dark as pitch except for a few yards, enhanced somewhat by the white snow but still blinding. He shook his head. He wouldn't even have had to guard Narshe a few years ago, when the Empire was just a distant rumor, the southern continent's problem, certainly not theirs. So far away it had seemed, and now the Empire was in their backyard, breathing down their necks from Figaro, who had made itself a vassal to Gestahl and his cronies early enough to avoid any harsh treatment. King Edgar had even maintained most of his power, only paying tribute to Gestahl and allowing free passage through his domain, and occupation wasn't foreseen in the future. Narshe was a mining town, full of miners, not warriors, without anywhere near the weaponry that Figaro had to dissuade the Empire from open warfare, a gift of Edgar's mechanical prowess, and yet Narshe had at least managed to hold itself firmly neutral in the war because of the coal trade, and the protectiveness of its position in the mountain valley.
But now they had caught the Emperor's eye, he was sure, since they had found that...thing...in the new mine shaft. He knew the Elder and the Council had been foolish to mention it at the last thinly veiled threat the Empire had sent with its diplomat, thinking to use it as a bargaining chip against the Empire, even as a threat against them, as if Narshe had the tools to drain energy from the beast and infuse it into soldiers. The guard shook his head again. Just refusing to hand it over to the Empire, to deny them more power, was an affront to Gestahl. He wished he had never heard of the word "Esper" or "Magic", even in the fairy tales he had heard as a child. No, not fairy tales, it would seem. The past had come back to haunt the present.
The sound was close now, it was just beyond his vision. He held his hand up, and the man at the porticullis' lever tensed. He was sure this was his worst fear had come to realization. The roar was right in front of them, now, and fast approaching. A voice suddenly broke through the night, shouting over the wind, a commanding tone, "Let's put her on point. No sense in taking any risks. Forward!"
The night suddenly brightened, moonlight breaking through the clouds again, to illuminate the massive and shining forms of Magitek Armor bearing down on them, heading for the arch, the lead one occupied by a beautiful young woman, no more than twenty, if that, her eyes glossed over, somehow unseeing even while she was clearly guiding her machine expertly, set in a face that lacked any visible emotion, a burnished chest-plate of armor modified for a woman over clothing dyed a dark purple, a strange circlet of dark metal around her head, and two other mechs side by side behind her, occupied by Imperial dogs in uniform. The guard blinked, his hand still raised in the air. Was her hair...green?
He pushed such impossible thoughts aside, and lowered his hand in a quick cutting gesture. The man at the lever pulled, and the porticullis slammed down, between them and the advancing Armor. It won't stop them for long, thought the guard, sadly. His thoughts wandered over his family, of the wife who would be a widow, his two daughters who would be childless after this night. Narshe didn't stand a chance against three Magitek Armors.
"Imperial Magitek armor! Not even Narshe's safe anymore!" said one of the other men, he and one of his fellows swifly nocking arrow to bow. They raised and pulled, but the harsh wind made their well-aimed shots count for naught. One thunked into the seat back of the soldier in the right mech, the other clanged off of the front of the other soldier's machine. Neither had shot at the woman. Who would, thought the lead guard, though as the cannon inlayed into the woman's Magitek Armor's chest manuevered into position to fire and a glow appeared, deep down the barrel like a train coming out of a tunnel, he knew they were fools for not killing her. But still he knew he would have done the same. The stream of explosive heat and flame exploded from the cannon, slamming into the gate and surging between the bars, turning it white hot as the steel behemoth crashed through it, hopelessly shattering it. The guard and his fellows died, burnt and torn asunder by the blast.
Alarms rang through the town, electric lights turned on in several houses, lanterns were lit, guards ran through the streets. Wedge looked down at the simple map he had been given, drawn with ink and added to by the various diplomats who had been sent to the town. The valley was decently straight, slanting northeast, curving more east as it went deeper into the mountains before opening up into a wider area nestled in their depths, though that was where the map ended as the town ended at the mines and the mines ended at the snow field. The new mine shaft was directly ahead along this main street, and it had been more than sufficiently widened for their Magitek Armor to get inside, owing to the Esper they had found there, encased in ice.
Some more guards stood in their way ahead, arrayed across the street to block their path, wolf-dogs at leash, some training arrows on them. "Narshe's freedom depends on us!" shouted their leader.
Wedge manipulated his mech's cannon, and charged it as their arrows loosed. One clanged off of his armor, another off of his helmet, and then he pulled his cannon's trigger. He had initiated a "Bolt Beam", as the Imperial soldiers called it, and a sharp bolt of lightning surged from the cannon into the guard's ranks, the electricity jumping from one to another as they writhed. They fell to the ground, smoking, dogs as well, completely still. Wedge smiled. You couldn't beat Imperial technology.
They were almost to the tunnel entrance; it was just ahead, bored into the mountain side. Numerous other entrances and exits dotted the cliff wall, but he knew that was the one they were after. They passed into a narrower passage, a wooden bridge overhead crossing from bank to bank barely clearing the top of his Armor's pipestacks. Suddenly guards rappelled down the cliff face on either side behind them, and more jumped out from where they had been leaning against the walls. Two of the guards in front of them held chains in their hands that they yanked on, and the snow drifts ahead surged upwards revealing hulking behemoths who had been sleeping comfortably before their masters had yanked their leashes to rouse them. Wedge stopped moving forward, startled. He had heard of these strange elephants, like the one's that occupied the Veldt to the east across the sea on another continent, but these were covered in thick, wooly hair. He quickly composed himself, however, and initiated another blast as the guards had the mammoths charge at them, and the hulking beasts were lost in a sea of flame, along with their handlers. He glanced to his side, but Biggs had already managed to turn himself about, and had initiated his cannon as well, though to shoot an icy blast of energy at the guards behind them rather than fire. They died just as well, however, merely frozen in eternal effigy instead of incinerated. Wedge continued forward, pushing past the blackened carcasses of the giant beasts and entered the mines, the woman beside him and Biggs covering their rear. "According to our source, the frozen Esper was found in a new mine shaft...Maybe this one..."
The mine shaft was so large they didn't have much trouble manuevering their Magitek Armor at all, and the shouts of pursuit from town were quite distant. They came to a widened area, and Wedge expected to find their prize, only to find a closed gate blocking their way.
"I'll handle this. Stand back!" said Biggs, and he deftly manuevered his Armor so it was facing away from the gate, and then shifted into reverse and accelerated quickly, crashing into the gate and knocking it down with a loud wrenching sound. The tunnel echoed, and soot fell from the ceiling, but there was no cave-in, much to Wedge's relief. Narshe miners knew how to dig, he'd give them that much.
Two guards ran from the passage, spreading out to either side of the ruined gate. "We won't hand over the Esper!" cried one, and the other yelled back into the tunnel, "Whelk! Get them!" The woman fired on them, and they died, screaming, in flames. Wedge was about to give the order for them to continue when a strange sound came from the entrance to the Esper's cavern, a slimy rustling, as a monstrous shape slid into the room. Wedge was taken aback at the sight of a giant snail, ooze dripping from its slippery brown body, a beautiful giant shell upon it's back, which shined with a strangely iridescent shimmer, like wet tile. Wedge couldn't believe the people of Narshe had actually trained such bestial monsters to do their bidding, but now it made sense that they could mine without fear of these beasts that had occupied the caves when Narshe was first built, having made them into pets and companions. Its eyestalks fell upon them, and it made a mewling roar, and closed on Wedge's Armor, slamming into him. The thing had such force the mech actually rocked. Biggs turned his mech and fired at it, and it quickly slid its head back into its strange shell.
The lightning Biggs had fired struck the shell and rebounded and reflected in a billion directions, slamming into the walls and ceilings and knocking rocks down all around them. Wedge was about to fire at it himself, but Biggs yelled out, "Hold it! Think back to our briefing!"
"What about it!" shouted back Wedge, as the thing's head popped back out and it came at him again.
"Do you recall hearing about a monster that eats lightning..."
"...and stores it in its shell!" cried Wedge, quickly slamming the lever controls and dodging the giant snail. It oozed past him, but turned to attack him again.
"Right! So whatever you do, don't attack its shell!" yelled Biggs.
"Alright already!" replied Wedge loudly. As the snail surged at him, he pressed forward on the levers to charge at it and then manipulated other controls with his feet, raising the pincered arms and grabbing the thing with them as they crashed into each other, one pincer firmly around it's slimy body and another jabbed deep into its flash. It's blood oozed over the arm as it snarled in his face, it's saliva covering Wedge. "Now, Biggs!" he yelled, and Biggs fired a bolt at it, and it hit its body dead center as it stretched in a vain attempt to go inside its shell. It was ripped in half as it sizzled, the sheer force of the lightning tearing it, and its body fell to the floor, ooze everywhere, the beautiful shell falling over a bit on its side from its upright position. Wedge quickly threw down what he was holding in his Armor's hands, the now lifeless eyes on their stalks disturbing him even more than when they had been alive. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then signaled to Biggs and the woman to follow him. "Time to get what we came for and get out of this town," he said, and Biggs smiled back. He's a good soldier, Wedge thought. I'll have to have him commended when we get back.
He moved into narrow passage, and then it opened out into a large cavern, stalactites and stalagmites all around, and ahead, elevated slightly on carved rock to focus attention upon it, was the Esper. They came to a stop before it.
Wedge's eyes widened, and Biggs gasped. The creature was encased in ice, and it was both majestic and frightfully disturbing at once. It seemed to be a bird, though a feathered serpent was perhaps more apt, fabulously colored plumage of green and red and yellow, like the parrots he had seen in Vector's pet shops, its body long and graceful and curled beneath it in the ice, a snake's body, though with four taloned legs, like the dragons in the stories, and it was much larger than a man, about the size of their Magitek Armor. The lanterns in the mines glinted on the ice, and the eyes of the beast...they weren't an animal's eyes. They had an intelligience in them, though they were clouded over, the beast sleeping, entombed in crystalline splendor.
Beside him the woman said nothing, but he noticed, looking at her, that some sort of light had come back into her eyes, some consciousness. She moved her Armor closer to the Esper, peering forward intently at it. "Hey! What's the matter? Do you know something we don't?"
The girl remained silent at his questioning, only staring at the Esper intently. Suddenly Wedge noticed a sort of glow growing in the ice around the Esper, a glow that didn't come from the lanterns. It grew brighter and brighter, pulsing in an intermittant pattern. He was awestruck by it. He didn't know what to do. It was almost hypnotic. A glow seemed to appear around the woman, now, pulsing in the same manner, pulsing in the same rhythm. He began to feel afraid, suddenly.
"Hey, where's that light coming from!" said Wedge, his voice wavering. Suddenly Wedge felt a huge pain in his chest, it coursed up and down his arms, it felt like he was coming apart, like someone was trying to draw and quarter him. He screamed, long and loud. He could hear every bolt and nut in the Magitek Armor coming apart, straining, he could hear the engine revving uncontrollably. The Magitek-infused power cells were humming, and suddenly glowed, pulsing in time with the Esper and the woman. He screamed again, and then there was a bright flash, and then only darkness.
To Biggs, who was staring at this ghastly scene with mounting terror, there was a huge flash that dazzled his eyes, and when he could see again, Wedge and the entire Magitek Armor he had been riding in had seemed to just simply disappear, every bit of them. "Hey! Wedge! Where are you! Wha--What's happening!" Suddenly Biggs felt like he was on fire. His joints felt like they were rending, his bones cracking. His Armor shook and hummed, the Magitek-infused energy cells glowed, pulsed in time with the beat of the Esper and Woman. I knew this would be the end, I knew it, he thought, as he screamed aloud. Then there was a bright flash, and then only darkness.
The woman was unaware of these events, unaware of the bright flash and dissappearance of the soldiers and the Magitek Armor. Her entire focus was on the creature. She felt as if...she knew the creature, as if it and her were the same, as if they were brethren. She was aware of the pulsing glow, and she felt it, in time with her heartbeat. She knew it was in time with the creature's hearbeat, as well. She slowly disengaged the harness that held her in the Magitek Armor, and clambered out of the seat, holding onto the narrow rungs welded to the side of the machine's "chest", jumped down, approached the creature, unaware of the Armor behind her's sudden humming, the energy cells glowing and pulsing, the sudden blinding flash as it disappeared. Her entire focus was on the creature. She reached out towards it, touched the ice with her fingers, felt her green hair slowly rising from her shoulders, felt energy flowing through her from the creature, like a shock, and then everything was spinning. She stumbled a few steps away from the creature, aware that the glow was dying, and then she fell to the cavern floor, her eyes closing as she sunk into unconsciousness.