The Grace of God

Chapter Four

IT WAS THE IMPACT itself that shocked Celes most. There was no sense of the cosmic about it, nothing earth-shattering; just a solid heavy thump that might have come from any stumbling fall. She had been bracing herself for far worse. Perhaps it was that expectation that knocked the wind out of her. For a minute she could only lie there, catching her breath.

The ground beneath her was the same hard, smooth steel. For a second, the sinking thought occurred to her that they might not have gone anywhere at all - that they might, like her hairpin, have merely fallen through the other side of the wall. Then she felt tiny prickles of cold on the back of her neck. She raised her head. It was snowing again.

Celes pushed herself upright. She was in a narrow alley littered with glass bottles and damp, filthy scraps of paper. What looked to be a warehouse, or a factory, lined one side, its roof a clutter of pipe-like chimneys. Behind her, where the glowing wall should have been, was a tall, rectangular building of its exact shape and height. A regular pattern of windows checked its facade; soot-darkened icicles hung from its eaves and dripped water onto the alley below. It neither glowed, nor pulsed, nor flickered. It was, in short, perfectly unremarkable. Nothing about it suggested that it might have been some otherworldly portal.

"Oh, I didn't like that."

Celes was startled into remembering she hadn't made her journey alone. Next to her, Locke was stirring, his voice muffled.

"I didn't like that at all," he continued, holding his head. "Next time we get to land on pillows."

She took his hand and helped him up. He smiled at her crookedly as he brushed the snow from his shoulders, but she avoided his gaze.

Meanwhile Edgar was helping a slightly unsteady Terra upright. Her eyes were ashine, her cheeks flushed, as if she had a slight fever. She brushed a strand of hair away from her face, and Celes could see three small bruises on her wrist.

Locke saw them, too. His brow furrowed slightly. "Are you okay, kid?"

"Yes," Terra replied, admirably steady now. "I'm just - a little tired, I think."

"I imagine you're a bit out of practice when it comes to magic," Edgar said. "Rest for a little while. In the meantime, we'll try to figure out where we are."

But Celes already knew.

She should have realized it as soon as she'd heard the report from Albrook. Looking back, there had perhaps been some vague, unconscious disquiet after those words, which now came back to her too clearly - light from the doorway, Setzer's arms crossed, "the ground turning to metal" - but she hadn't thought to connect them to anything. It had just seemed like another freak occurrence in a long list of impossibilities. And in the Wastes, all had been too dim and too strange for her to study anything very closely, for her recognize the distinctive color to the ground: the same sepia-tinted steel that made up the buildings here, the same uniform material bonded to everything in sight.

Cheap to produce, she remembered. Strong and durable. Easy to clean, never rusted.

"Celes," said Edgar. He was watching her carefully. "What is it?"

She didn't answer.

There was a rumbling in the distance. Edgar was asking her another question, but Celes didn't hear him. Slowly, as if in a dream, she walked to the end of the alley and tilted her head back. Snowflakes fell into her eyes, but she could still see, far away, the midmorning passenger train curving around the massive, monolith-like walls of the Vector Imperial Palace.

For a minute, as the train's deep reverberating engine muffled any other sound, Celes could almost let herself imagine she was seeing some fantastic illusion, a glamour constructed by the most skillful of sorcerers. But when the metal ground beneath her feet stopped vibrating, and the train passed, and she was still in Vector -

"Impossible."

It was Edgar who'd said it. He was trying to sound calm, but his voice trembled. "It was - everything was destroyed -"

"It's a world of impossibilities," Terra said, stonily. At some point she had walked forward, Celes realized, and was now standing next to her, her hands in tight fists at her sides. "Of differences."

"But I thought that meant - I had been expecting different countries, different people! How can this -"

"Shh," hissed Locke suddenly, pulling him back.

Two women walked past, bundled up in mufflers and holding umbrellas. One looked at them strangely and whispered something to her friend. With quick, wary glance, they quickened their pace and hurried past.

"It's too dangerous here," Locke said quietly, when the women were gone. "Anyone can see us."

"Do you think they knew who we were?" asked Terra.

"Who knows. But four people hanging around in a back alley looks suspicious no matter what world you're in. We need to get out of here."

For once there was no disagreement.

"It looks like we're on the West Edge," said Celes. "It's only a mile or so till the Periphery. This way."

The city was eerily quiet as the four of them followed along the curving Grand Boulevard. It was bigger than the Vector Celes had known: richer, somehow. She glanced over her shoulder every so often to make sure the others were still following, and was stricken by the backdrop of steel towers, rising higher and more thickly grouped than she could have ever imagined.

After half an hour, it was clear Celes had been mistaken. By her estimation, they should have reached the city outskirts by now, but the buildings, while not as imposing as the skyscrapers in Vector proper, seemed to go on without end. They were new-looking; possibly munitions factories; possibly something else. Celes didn't recognize any of them.

"Okay, this is getting silly," said Locke. "Can you give me a boost, Celes?"

He was gesturing to a drainpipe. She cupped her palms, and caught a quick flash of his snow-dusted hair as he stepped on and up and climbed, light-footed, to the roof with a lithe and speedy technique Celes had always admired but never quite been able to figure out.

Locke visored one had over his eyes as he squinted into the distance. "Bloody hell."

"What is it?" Edgar called up to him, keeping his voice as low as he could.

" I can't even - I should be able to see Albrook's windmills from here. But there's nothing. Only more Vector."

"I wonder if it ever ends," muttered Edgar.

"Come down, Locke," said Celes.

She was trying to think, but it wasn't working very well. She felt constricted, claustrophobic. Vector itself seemed to be suffocating her, its metallic smell invading her nose and throat.

Locke landed with a soft snow-muffled thump.

"Right," he said. "So scratch getting out of the city. We'll just find somewhere to hide here."

"Somewhere to hide." Edgar laughed humorlessly. "Have you been paying attention? It's Vector, Locke. There is nowhere to hide."

"Then we break in someplace."

"I doubt even you could manage that."

"Listen," Celes spoke up, controlling herself. "If this Vector is anything like the one we knew, there will be soldiers patrolling every major street and avenue. Breaking into a building would be like asking to be arrested."

"Then what should we do?" Locke asked. "We can't very well stay here."

"No, we can't. Locke, do you remember when we came to rescue the Espers?"

"Yes. Of course. Why?"

"There was that woman - the Returner sympathizer. She let us have dinner with her."

"I remember that," said Edgar. "Her house was more like a shop."

"It was a shop," said Celes. "Or near enough. It was a very old building - it had been used for candle-making before the city was electrified. No one bothered to tear it down afterwards."

"You're thinking we should try there," said Locke. "I'm agreeing with you."

"Wait," said Edgar. "Before that, I want to ... find out more about this place. I just, I can't accept this is Vector. Really Vector."

"None of us want to," Terra spoke up. "But all the streets we passed - I was - I'm familiar with them."

She didn't go on.

Celes squared her shoulders. 'Right," she said, voice crisp. "We'll split into two groups, and meet back here in three hours. One will investigate the shed and see if it'll be suitable, and the other will find out as much about this place as possible. The politics, who's in charge. Any wars taking place. Where the Returners are. Any mention of an unusually strong change in magic in the last four years -"

She didn't get to finish, for just then Locke spoke up.

"Sorry for interrupting." He didn't look very sorry. He looked more as though he were trying not to smile. "But how do you want to go about doing this?"

Celes had been taken off-guard. "Well, we ... any number of ways, really. We can ask any passerby, if they look knowledgeable enough. Or we could simply eavesdrop. Or, um..."

She trailed off.

"I think maybe you should leave the snooping around to me. It's my specialty, after all," said Locke.

"If you want. But one of us will go with you."

He shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea. No offense, but you're all a little too conspicuous. So you guys go check out the old lady's candle house or whatever it is, and I'll do some info hunting and meet you there."

"But we don't even know if the place will still be there," she said, more loudly than she meant to. The idea of splitting up in such a place...

"If that's the case, I'll come back here. Three hours, right?"

"Much as I hate to say it," Edgar spoke up, "it probably would be best if only one of us goes. It will look less suspicious."

Celes folded her arms.

"Hey," Locke said. "Don't worry. I'm a pro, remember? I'll be fine."

She looked at him. Finally she said, "Three hours?"

"On my honor."

Celes sighed. "Well, I guess I won't be able to persuade you against it. Three hours, then. We'll be waiting for you."

"Be careful, Locke," Terra said.

"I will walk on cat feet," he promised, a hand to his heart. "See you soon."

He gave them a little salute as they parted ways.


"Celes. I beg of you, stop pacing. You're going to make me break this."

Edgar was trying to repair an ancient, dusty paraffin lamp they had found, one long and precarious crack in its glass mantle. While they had found a few half-empty bottles of kerosene in one of the cabinets, there had been no wick to speak of, and Terra had nobly sacrificed her violet cotton sash to the cause. Edgar had cut it into strips using a tiny, multi-bladed knife he had procured from somewhere, and now he was trying, very carefully, to insert the twisted fabric into the lamp's chimney.

"He's late," Celes replied shortly.

The old chandler store had clearly been long abandoned when they'd found it. Its windows were boarded up, and an old, tattered mimeograph was posted to the door that may have once said "CONDEMNED" but that now only warned " ON EM D." Edgar and Terra had kept watch while Celes discreetly tore off the notice and pried open the door with her sword.

It had smelled strongly of tallow and mildew, not a pleasant combination, but not unbearable. And there was even some semblance of furniture, all covered in dusty white dropcloths: some chairs and stools, and a huge table drizzled with old wax drippings.

Most importantly, it was dry. The snow had turned to rain as the afternoon lengthened, and now, as evening fell, it beat on the old metal roof in a way that felt almost cozy.

"Only by ten minutes," Edgar said, tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth as he fiddled with the lamp. "Okay. That should do it, hopefully. Terra, if you could...?"

Terra placed one finger against the makeshift wick, and with a small white flash it smoldered and sparked to life.

"Success!" said Edgar. "All it needed was the touch of a beautiful woman. But then again, don't we all."

"I think I have ample reason to be concerned, Edgar," Celes said, ignoring this last comment. "We're not exactly in South Figaro." But she reluctantly joined them at the table.

"He probably just got distracted by some shiny pebbles," Edgar replied with a dismissive wave.

Just then there was a rattling at the door. Edgar stood up first. He checked the peephole, then unlatched and opened the door to reveal a soaking-wet Locke with an equally soaked bundle of papers in one hand and a sack in the other.

"No one saw me," he said brusquely, by way of greeting. He stomped the water off his boots and stepped inside. "Not that it would matter much, anyway. Nice place."

"And hello to you too," said Edgar.

"What do you mean, it wouldn't matter much?" asked Celes, taking the papers and carefully trying to peel the top piece away from the rest.

"Well, apparently, the Returners aren't too popular in this neck of the woods," replied Locke, who was wringing out his bandanna over the washbasin. "In fact, you might say we're pretty much extinct."

Celes managed to extract a thin, water-transparent leaf of paper from the bundle. She held it up to the lamplight. The combination of water and age gave it the color of weak tea.

"This is a newspaper page," she said.

"Read it."

She gave him a curious look, then squinted to make out the lettering. "Dated... six years ago. 'Jidoor, Monday. The once-affluent cultural center of the Eastern peninsula has been rocked by several incidents of insurrection in the past year, but the worst came last night, when rising tensions between the radical guerilla group called the "Returners" and local Imperial authorities finally erupted in violence. The organization incited a widescale revolt at approximately ten P.M. The looting and rioting lasted well into the night. When the smoke finally settled, three Imperial troops had been killed, and dozens more had been injured.'"

Celes furrowed her brow and read on. "'Thankfully, these casualties were not in vain. Among the revolutionary fatalities were several leaders of the Returners, including a "Locke" Cole, a radical-minded mercenary whom many think to be the mastermind behind last summer's Artisan's Rebellion.'"

There was a pause.

"You're dead," said Terra softly.

"Yes, as a doornail," said Locke, who did not seem overly bothered by the news.

"Where did you find these?" asked Edgar, who was sitting with Terra at the table, peeling papers apart and laying them flat.

"Oh, you know, the usual places," Locke said. He took a dropcloth, sniffed at it with a grimace, and rubbed at his wet hair. "Historical conservatory, library. Filched a few from private collections. I took the liberty of picking us up some grub, too," he said, tossing the sack onto the table.

"Locke," said Edgar warningly. "You did not steal food."

"No, I did not. I bought it. Thanks for treating us, by the way, Edgar." He threw him the red velvet purse, which sounded substantially emptier than before.

His mouth agape, Edgar felt his pockets. "Wh - how did you even manage that?"

Locke only bit into an apple and grinned.

"We will be discussing this later. Thoroughly," said Edgar, with a glare. He turned back and scanned a front-page headline. "Looks like you're still around, Celes."

"Yeah, you're quite the celebrity," said Locke. "Highest-ranking general, Secretary of Magitek Studies, governor of four cities... or was it five?" With the cloth draped absently around his shoulders, Locke pulled up a stool to the table and rifled through the papers. "Maybe it was four."

"I'm still an officer of the Empire?" asked Celes. She still stood, holding Locke's death notice, though she was staring through it. The letters all seemed to blur into each other.

"Mm hmm," said Locke. "Ah, here it is. Let's see - oh, I'm sorry, governor of three cities and second heir to the throne."

"Behind Kefka, I'm sure," muttered Edgar.

"Ah, but there. There is the most beautiful thing," said Locke, wearing a wide grin. "A 'Mr. Kefka Palazzo,' the first Magitek test subject, died at age six. They published a little news brief about it - ten years later, of course. In fact, it was part of a story about how your transfusion was going so well, Celes. Where is that one?" He began scanning the papers again.

Terra, meanwhile, had noticed Celes's unusual silence. She unobtrusively pushed back her chair and met her at the window.

"Is anything wrong, Celes?" she asked, keeping her voice conversational. "You haven't said much."

Celes smoothed the paper she held before she spoke. "It's just - so bizarre, that's all. This - " she gestured to the paper - "the situation we're in... everything. The way things might have been."

"It does take some getting used to," said Terra. "Being able to see outcomes that could have occurred. How we might have turned out."

Celes felt herself tense slightly.

"I think it would behoove us," Terra continued slowly, "to keep in mind that, no matter how things might seem, this world isn't ours. The people here are not us." She smiled faintly. "Otherwise things could get a bit confusing, I think."

"Forget about the transfusion," Edgar was telling Locke. "What about Terra and me?"

"Right, um," said Locke. He put the newsletter he was holding down and stared up at the ceiling. "Edgar, you and Sabin died in your teens of a mysterious plague - of the Imperial poison variety, I'll bet. In any case, both South Figaro and the castle are part of the Empire here, so it worked out well for them. How lucky."

"Just how much of the world is part of the Empire here, Locke?" Celes asked.

"Uh, I'd say about, oh, all of it," he answered. He began reading off an official-looking document. "Figaro, Doma, Jidoor, Kohlingen, Mobliz, Narshe... even Zozo. And of course the entire Southern continent, which isn't even divided up into cities anymore. It's all Vector. The only country not mentioned is Thamasa, and I'll bet that's because no one knows it exists yet."

"And if Thamasa's smart, it'll keep it that way," said Edgar, an edge to his words. "Sabin and me gone in one shot. How honorable."

Terra stood by the dark windows. "And me?"

They turned to Locke, who shook his head softly. "There, I turned up short. There's no record of you, or anyone resembling you, for as far as I looked back. To be truthful, you could be alive or dead here."

"Probably," said Celes slowly, "probably you are still somewhere in Vector, or were here when you - passed away. If Narshe is under Imperial rule, I doubt it's still a mining town."

"It's not," Locke said from the table. "It never was, here. It's really nothing more than a northern base. All of the mining is done to the mountains to the east."

"Which would mean that Tritoch was never discovered," said Celes, "and you were never sent there to communicate with it, Terra."

"But she might have transformed anyway," said Edgar. "We can't assume anything here."

"No," said Celes. "We can't. Terra and I, at least, will have to stay out of sight as much as possible."

"Yes," said Terra. She blinked and shook her head slightly, as if coming out of a daze. "There are only three sunsets left."

"Too right you are," Edgar agreed. "Locke, did you find anything about what we're looking for?"

Locke leaned back from the table. "Not a thing. If anything they seem to be farther behind in magical technology than we were. Magitek armor was mentioned in a scientific journal once as 'theoretical,' I think, but that's about it."

"If they had discovered something truly powerful, they would have taken pains to keep it a secret from the general public," Celes said. "But whatever it is - I'm sure that it's here, in the city somewhere."

She couldn't explain why, exactly, she was so certain. It was a tiny niggling sensation in the back of her mind, as though she had almost remembered something only to lose her train of thought at the last second. It was maddening, and persistent. Something was here that should not have been.

"Strange as it sounds, I'm sure of it too," Edgar remarked. "Maybe it's because of the trail Strago was talking about."

"It's here," said Terra, for whom it did not seem to be in doubt. "And I think I know where it most likely is."

Celes found herself nodding vaguely. "The Magitek Research Facility."

"Is that even still around?" said Edgar. "I thought they had no real Magitek here to speak of."

"Nope," Locke replied, "it's still around. Underfunded, maybe, and unloved, but definitely still around."

"The Emperor would never abandon his pet project," said Terra darkly.

"Then that," said Celes," is where we have to go. Tomorrow."

There was a long pause.

"Well, I don't think we should use up our light if we don't have to," said Edgar. "And I know I, for one, have had a very long day. What say we turn in?"

After a brief squabble in which Edgar insisted he and Locke should sleep on the bare floor - much to Locke's dismay - they agreed to pile all the cloaks and dropcloths in one corner to make one large, almost comfortable communal mattress. ("Actually I like this idea much better," said Edgar. Locke boxed his ears.)

Celes ignored them as she turned off the lamp.

Sleep did not, as she had expected, come easily that night. Sometime after the midnight train, she turned over to see two eyes shining in the moonlight. Terra was staring up at the ceiling.

"Terra?" Celes whispered.

Terra glanced over. She didn't seem overly surprised to find Celes was still awake.

"Just thinking," she murmured. "I guess I'm finding things confusing, too."

Celes didn't reply.

"It's strange," Terra went on. She seemed to be talking as much to herself as to Celes. "I would have thought, before today, that I'm a completely different person than I was when I… lived here. But today, when we saw the Palace, it was as if those five years had never happened. I felt as scared as I did the first time I came back."

"You are a different person, Terra."

"Oh, I know that. And once I remembered that, and believed it, I felt a little better."

Celes wished she could say the same.

"Sometimes, I think, you need to believe in something to make it true," Terra said, looking back at Celes. She smiled briefly.

"I…" Celes smoothed the surface of her makeshift pillow. "Yes, maybe."

She didn't even sound convincing to herself.

"You should sleep, Terra," she said abruptly. "We need to be rested for tomorrow."

"Yes. You're right. Good night, Celes."

"Good night."

Celes turned back over, but it would be a long time before she closed her eyes.


*The first night*