o o o
Schala of Zeal made her way down the grand staircase of the Ocean Palace, accompanied by the Prophet. The brainchild of Belthasar did not disappoint, in quality or in grandeur. Made of obsidian, marble, and steel, it shone with light and magic in the depths of the sea. Above her, a transparent dome of spelled sapphire glass gave a view out into the ocean, illuminated by a soft, omnipresent glow emitted by the dome itself. She saw few creatures out there. This deep, most of them fled from the light and heat of the dome. She looked up into the abyss. There were rock formations and, somewhere in the distance, a sheer cliff that she thought was associated with a continental shelf. Beyond those, nothing. At this depth, blackness swallowed all.
Humanity had conquered the sky and made homes there, and now it had done the same in the ocean. For better or worse.
What does it matter, Schala thought bitterly, that nearly eight hundred lives were lost in the construction of this place?
Belthasar would have cared, but he no longer ran the project. Dalton, placed in charge after the heavy engineering was done, did not care. Like most of the Enlightened, he thought of the Earthbound as something less than human. Lately, it seemed as if he thought of the other Enlightened as something less than human, too. She wondered if he was tainted by Lavos, like her mother. She wouldn't have put it past him to try to use the Mammon Machine without permission…or protection. He was powerful, but his power tended to run wild.
"Your thoughts, Schala?" the Prophet asked.
"Belthasar has outdone himself again. As usual. A shame he isn't here to see it. Where is he?"
"He is here to see it, in a sense. After imprisoning Melchior, the Queen decided the other two must have been involved as well. They are being held in some of the lower chambers."
"Your fault, then. You're the one that told her Melchior would turn on her."
"Yes."
"You should at least show a little shame."
"I am not ashamed. The full connection of the Mammon Machine to Lavos is necessary. He would have interfered."
"Except he's still going to, so why did you bother denouncing him in the first place, Prophet?"
"What?" he asked, his tone confused.
What? Her thoughts echoed his.
"What do you mean?"
He doesn't know.
"Schala?"
The Prophet doesn't know. He doesn't know what happened down there, at the Earthbound Village. He doesn't know that the Guru of Life is free! That he has allies!
"Schala? Explain yourself."
She felt suddenly angry. "Explain yourself," she said. "You who know all that will happen, how do you not know what I mean?"
The Prophet seemed taken aback. He eyed her darkly.
"Gaspar told me once that there are some things you cannot predict. Well, predict this, Prophet: what will Melchior do?"
He was silent long enough for it to become uncomfortable. Finally, he turned away, left the landing, and continued down the stairs.
"I don't know what he will do. But now I know he's free, or will be. Thank you."
Schala flushed.
"What do you plan to do about it? I can stop you if I have to."
"No." His tone was matter-of-fact. "You can't. But do not worry. The staff have been asked to watch for him. They won't be able to stop him, but Melchior will not be willing to kill them merely to save time. He could reach us, but not soon enough. Once the Machine is connected, it will not matter."
"Then you, like Mother, serve Lavos."
He turned without warning and slapped her. She stumbled and sat back on the stairs, eyes wide. She looked at him. He looked back. He seemed just as stunned as she was.
"I'm sorry," he said at last. For the first time since she had met him, he sounded genuinely regretful. He extended a hand to help her up. She ignored it, and got to her feet on her own.
"Believe it or not, I don't mean you, or them, any harm," he said.
"I don't believe it," she said. "And that is the second time I've been struck recently. Being the crown princess does not seem to count for much in these times."
"Second time?"
"Yes. Dalton was less than polite when he came to retrieve me. To me or to Melchior."
"I see. I will have…words with him once we're done." His voice was stone.
"If you wish."
o o o
Many floors further up, a small group of people arrived through the Skyway that linked the Ocean Palace to Zeal proper. None of them was Melchior. But they knew him well, even though he hardly knew them at all.
They were six, and they were varied. A walking machine, in the form of man, of the sort that Belthasar would become acquainted with many centuries hence. A woman, nearly as well-muscled as a man, dressed in furs. A young lady with thick glasses and an array of tools hanging from a wide belt. A creature with the features of a frog but the size of a man, with a longsword strapped to his back.
Leading them, a boy and a girl (or a man and a woman, depending on where one drew the line). The girl was a princess with the soul of a swashbuckler. The boy was a commoner with the soul of a prince.
At his right hip, the boy carried Melchior's dreams.
The frog-man checked the door as they arrived, looking for threats, finding none. The group conferred quietly. Like the Prophet, they had come for the Mammon Machine. Unlike the Prophet, they had not come to see it used; they had come to destroy it. From the future and the past, they came.
They left the Skyway's room. Descended the stairs. Down into the Palace. Down into the depths.
o o o
Masa and Mune were speaking with Masa and Mune, and what a bizarre conversation it was. The time-track of their weapon went something like this: born as a dagger in Zeal, transformed into a sword, ten thousand years of silence, a succession of human owners, a breaking, a meeting with Melchior in the future, a reforging, a traveling through time again and again, and finally an arrival back in Zeal. After having gone so far and returned again, they met themselves. The frog-man's blade and the dagger the boy carried were the same weapon, but their owners did not know this.
The twins noticed. They spoke to each other in spirit, not wanting to share their private conversation with their human carriers.
"Hello, me!" Mune said brightly.
"Hello, me!" he said in return.
"Seen old man Melchior lately?"
"Oh, sure, but he's a bit older now. A few thousand years or so."
"You know, this is fascinating," future-Masa said. "I don't remember this meeting at all."
"Shame," past-Masa said. "I was hoping you could tell us how it's going to go."
"Nope, no clue. Things have already been changed pretty dramatically. When we were you, old man Melchior brought us down here. That was a long time ago."
"Well, how did it go that time?"
"It could have gone worse. Maybe."
"Hey," Mune said, "I wonder what would happen if we got these humans to cross our blades?"
"Well, assuming the world didn't explode, we would beat you up for trying such a stupid thing."
"Uh, which one of you?"
"I don't know. I'm starting to lose track of which of us is who. Or who of us is which. Isn't time travel fun?"
"Hey, I like it!"
"Time out. Looks like they need us for a few minutes."
The intruders – for intruders they were – held one good advantage over the human guards: they were not expected. The primitive woman (her name was Ayla; the future-twins knew this, the past-twins did not) was a natural sneak, and she took them down one by one as the party descended. Masa and Mune mostly ignored this. If humans wanted to beat each other up, that was not really any business of theirs.
The guards were not the only defenders, however. Magic constructs in various forms were concealed in nooks along the corridors. The Queen was, after all, quite paranoid. How many mages had she set to creating these guardians? The twins did not know. Unlike the human guards, the golems and elementals were ever-watchful, and they knew right away that these six were unexpected.
Masa and Mune – the future pair – felt their owner draw them from the scabbard on his back. They shifted mental gears, prepared to fight. The edge on the Masamune's blade was just for show; its true strength came from them. Their owner swung them, and they penetrated. Melchior had done his work well; the elemental magic of these creatures was food and drink to them. They sucked it up like a vampire sucking blood. The other humans fought around them, but the twins did not notice. Melchior had made them into weapons, and they fought as weapons would, a tool to the hand.
Then it was over. Their froggish owner attempted to wipe the blood off the sword before putting it away, then realized that these creatures did not bleed. He shrugged and sheathed them.
"He could at least brush the faerie dust off," Mune complained.
"He can't see the faerie dust. Also there is no such thing as faerie dust. You just made that up."
"Of interest," past-Masa said, "our new friends can use magic. But they are not Enlightened Ones."
"Oh, they're mostly from way, way, way after the Enlightened Ones ceased to be a people. I'm not complaining. They have no finesse at all, but they're quite powerful. They took down one of Dalton's best constructs. He was not happy."
"I like them already."
"Me too."
o o o
He had been known by three names. As a boy he was Janus, magic-less Prince of the Enlightened, and was a target of the sort of careful condescension given to people one dislikes but shouldn't. By birth he was fit to be a king; by talent he was fit to be Earthbound. And never mind that he was not really talentless at all, but a mage without equal who could have killed them with a breath. He kept his power to himself, showed it to few, used it little, and was therefore friendless – or at least he felt himself to be. He owned a cat. He liked the cat.
As a man he was Magus, lord of the Mystics, and he led them to battle in the middle ages of the Guardia Kingdom. He had no quarrel with that kingdom, but he had no care for it either. The war was a useful tool.
As a lost soul in Time, he was the Prophet. Returned to Zeal, his knowledge of the past let him predict the future…to an extent. That which he had changed, or had had no part in to begin with, was beyond his knowledge. He was living his life over again, in a way, but as an adult instead of a child, and as an adult he had the capacity to change things.
As an adult, Janus waited. In his original timeline, Lavos had undone his mother, probably killed his sister, and obliterated the land he called home.
This isn't my timeline, he thought, this is a new one. You'll be here soon, Lavos, when these imbeciles get the Mammon Machine running again. But this time, there is one here who is ready for you.
Something dark and foreboding whispered in his mind. As a child it had terrified him. As a man he was coldly indifferent to it. Now he looked forward to it. He'd been waiting.
"The black wind begins to blow…" he said to himself, and smiled.
A crane lifted the Mammon Machine into place on its altar. Nobody called it an altar, of course, but Janus thought of it that way. Nobody said it was a place to worship Lavos, but he didn't see much of a difference.
The Mammon Machine's form was vaguely humanoid, shaped like a suit of armor. The shape was Melchior's decision; it was inspired by the work of ancient metalsmiths from the pre-Zeal age. The majority of it looked like a giant breastplate, surfaced in gold, studded with emerald and great spikes of gold and brass. The spikes were entirely decorative, but the emeralds were functional. The three Gurus had jointly created them. They channeled magic in some way Janus didn't understand, pumped it away from the Machine's Dreamstone heart. Where a human's arms would have been, the Machine had two smooth, slightly spiraled appendages. These emitted the magic it absorbed from Lavos. Below the chest, the resemblance to armor was lost and its shape tapered to a point.
The Machine's heart was buried deep inside, but its glow escaped through a pair of seams in the workmanship. That glow framed an orifice, perhaps six inches across, covered with the same sapphire glass used in the Ocean Palace dome. Through this gap the heart itself was visible. It was the color of a real heart, and it pulsed with life.
Above him, Janus felt some of Zeal's magic constructs fail and die.
"It seems we're no longer alone," he said to Queen Zeal. "Perhaps you should alert your guards."
She hissed at his words. "Who dares?"
"I'd guess our escaped captives." He was beginning to regret helping them escape. Schala had asked him to let them go. How could he say no? Now he thought he must be paying for his mercy. Those stupid peasants had been a thorn in his heel far too often. They had no idea what they were doing. No idea what they were interfering with. Why were they so damn persistent?
"Dalton!" she said, "Where are you? Take care of them!"
"You left him to watch the Skyway."
"Shut up, I know that," she said. "Don't get above yourself, Prophet."
Janus seethed silently. How dearly he wanted to destroy this monstrosity wearing his mother's face. He wanted to consume it in an inferno and listen to its screams. Instead he said nothing. It was not time yet. Soon.
"Whatever," the Queen said, "I'll send some of the guards up myself. Schala, when the Mammon Machine is ready, turn it on."
Schala was silent.
"Schala?" she said, a dangerous edge in her voice, "did you hear me?"
"Yes, mother."
Yes, you will do it, or yes, you heard her? Janus thought. It didn't really matter. His sister had never been able to refuse their mother to her face. That was twenty years ago to him, but none to her. He had changed, but she had not.
Queen Zeal left to find the guard captain. Janus smirked, concealing it with his hood. Fools. Zeal had not known an enemy in centuries. They called themselves guards but they didn't know how to fight, or how to keep their heads in one. They would go to "take care of the intruders", and they would be slaughtered. Those they faced were as children in the practice of magic, but they were familiar with its use as a weapon – Janus knew that from personal experience – and the Enlightened Ones were not. They all believed in the ideal of Zeal, the idea that they were top of the world and none could stand against them. Never mind that no one had tried. You couldn't forge a sword without heating it.
He shook off the bitterness. He'd been heated, and forged. But he had better things to do than help his people. He didn't give a damn about his people. He looked over at Schala, silent, her eyes down and her face wan. He gave a damn about her.
Keeping her out of harm's way would be difficult. Janus hoped that Gaspar was somewhere nearby. Of the three Gurus, Janus judged Gaspar the most likely to prioritize Schala's rescue. Belthasar was too erratic, too active, and Janus knew that Melchior had his own mission. He'd chosen to warn Gaspar in advance because he felt that Gaspar could probably be trusted.
Probably. There were more dice in the cup than Janus was comfortable with. Too many things that could go wrong.
The crane settled the Mammon Machine into place. Schala sighed as it was pulled away, and looked behind her, after her mother. Then she raised her hands, palms out, and started to chant. The pendant at her neck gave off a green and orange glow.
Janus, watching her work, was struck by a thought. As a child he had hidden in a corner and watched, wanting to help his sister work but not knowing how. Was that child here again? He turned around, scanned the room. Trying to sense his own magic would be useless, of course. But he knew what he'd done to conceal his emerging powers as a child, and he knew what he had not done. He looked for a place where the magic that powered the Ocean Palace felt…muted. Because it was filtered through someone who didn't want to be found.
He had to look twice to find himself, but he did.
What a strange experience, he thought, to look into my own eyes.
Those eyes looked out from behind a large decorative urn, and they stared back, unflinching. Janus was proud. He knew how dark his eyes had become. How uncomfortable they made people. He checked that there was no one watching, then gave a slight salute to his childhood self.
"You will do well, boy," he said, too quietly to hear.
Confused, the boy went looking for another place to hide. Janus let him. No need to interfere too much.
The Machine's heart began to come to life, pulsing with Lavos's energy. A glow that matched Schala's pendant escaped through channels and gaps until the whole statue seemed tattooed with red-gold fire. In the distance, Janus could sense Queen Zeal returning. It was time.
o o o
The child Janus fled the room. He did not understand how the Prophet could sense him, nor why the Prophet seemed to vaguely approve of his presence. It made Janus uncomfortable. He headed for the elevators instead of the main staircase, and heard his mother's voice approaching, berating a befuddled guard captain. He hid behind a vase and let them pass. She couldn't sense him. Or maybe she could and just didn't care.
Janus had come to the Ocean Palace with Melchior, but he didn't care for the old man's supervision and had slipped away shortly after they arrived. He could hear the black wind in his ears, steady and inevitable. Once upon a time he could foresee death by listening to that wind, noting who was nearby when it blew. It was a strange talent, and one his sister shared, though not so strongly. This time it was different. The wind had been whispering at him for days, and instead of waxing and waning with the presence of the doomed, it just…hung there. He couldn't get away from it. What was going on? What was going to happen?
Janus was still a child. It did not occur to him that if the wind was everywhere, that meant death was going to be everywhere.
When his mother and her lackey were well out of sight, Janus continued on. He took the elevator up a few floors and headed for the Skyway, still far above. A few of the Palace staff saw him and gave small bows as he passed, but he ignored them. Eventually the halls were empty of all save the occasional guards and constructs. Everyone who was not obligated to be elsewhere wanted to be down below. They knew the Mammon Machine would be reconnected today. They wanted to bask in its new power.
He heard an ethereal scream and a crackling sound and stopped dead. Oh, crap. He looked around for a hiding spot. There were a sequence of statues representing early rulers of Zeal in recesses along the wall. He squirmed in behind one of them and waited.
Janus heard footsteps, and quite a few of them. He peeked around the statue and tried to get a look.
He'd seen these people before.
The frog-man raised a hand and the others stopped. Now they were all in view. In the lead was a familiar face. The one for whom the black wind blew. Now it didn't just blow; it screamed, and Janus could practically see the air twist into demented shapes around him, shapes only Janus could see. This man was going to die, and his death was going to matter.
Janus staggered back behind the statue and tried not to cry out. From out of sight came a voice with a strange accent:
"We are not alone. See those footprints, in the dust. Few travel here, but one has. Look."
Oh, shit. Janus wasn't supposed to swear, or so Schala kept telling him. But he knew most of the words. He could almost feel their eyes on his hiding-spot.
"Oh, leave whoever it is be, Frog." This voice was feminine. "If they're smart enough to stay out of our way then I'm not going to pick a fight with them."
"As you wish, milady."
"Whoever you are, you should probably get out of the Palace! It's going to be dangerous here!"
Janus sagged against the statue as they were leaving. He was not doing a good job of hiding today. He crawled out from behind the statue after they left, breathing hard. He was afraid.
He looked one way, towards the Skyway. He looked back the other way, after the intruders. Curiosity or fear? He was a child. Curiosity always won out over fear.
He followed them.
o o o
Janus the Prophet watched his sister work. Their mother stood before the Mammon Machine, hands extended, palms pressed against it. Her face was a mesmerized nightmare. She let go.
"Schala," she said, "open the conduit as far as it will go. Power the Machine up to its limit."
She hesitated, but Janus knew she would comply. Not a prediction about her character; a memory of the event.
"Yes, mother," she said, her voice resigned. She continued her chant. The tone of it changed subtly, became more measured and forceful. He could feel Lavos's power emanate from the Machine, immense energy channeled into carefully controlled waves. Janus was impressed. The Gurus had done their jobs well, to control such a flow. Schala impressed him, too. Few could compete with him in magical prowess, but he would be hard pressed to duplicate her efforts here. The magic was visible as a warping in the air, like heat above a fire.
"This is incredible," Queen Zeal said, "I can feel the pulse of it. Eternal life, ever beyond our reach…but no more. No more."
The Machine flickered, the light reaching out from its heart cycling through the colors of the rainbow and into ranges that had no name, ranges that were felt rather than seen. It sparked, small bursts of power coming from orifices in its surface. Schala cried out unintelligibly and fell to her knees.
Janus reached out involuntarily, then stopped. Schala would survive. He had seen this before, too. He could not show his hand yet.
"Mother!" she shouted. Her mother was glued to the Machine, its light shining through her hands until they were all but transparent. One of the staff tried to pull her away. She shook him away.
"Do not stop!" her mother commanded, not even bothering to look over her shoulder. "It is almost enough! We will live forever in glory!"
With help from one of the Queen's aides, Schala got to her feet and resumed her spell. Her pendant shone like a miniature sun, matching the Machine's pulses. It was no longer a matter of obedience, but a matter of survival. There was so much magic in the room that she had to control it or die. Janus readied himself. Only minutes now.
There was a commotion at the entrance. He had not seen that before. He turned.
Them.
Once upon a time, he had fought a Guardia knight named Cyrus and his companion, Glenn. Once upon a time, he had killed the knight and turned Glenn into a giant frog. Not because he had to. Just for sport; he'd always had a nasty streak. Now that damned frog and his new friends kept showing up everywhere Janus turned.
I will not let you stop me! I will not let you stop me!
He gathered his power, swearing inside. He could not afford to waste his strength on these upstarts.
"Schala!" one of them shouted, a blonde girl dressed in white. "We're here to save you! Come on!"
Schala looked up and broke off her chant. "You?" she said, her face stunned. Of course. All she knew of them was that she had asked them to rescue Melchior. They were tenacious; they had probably succeeded. Schala would know about it, but Janus wouldn't. Janus the Prophet did not remember it, because in his timeline, it had never happened. Were they even here for him? Maybe not, after all. What the hell was going on?
"Help!" Schala shouted, and half-ran, half-fell away from her post. The girl caught her and helped her stand.
The chamber groaned. Lavos was stirring beneath them. Waking up. Rising. Angry at those that would live like tiny parasites on another, greater parasite. Janus backed away from the others. Perhaps this was to his advantage after all. Let them get his sister out, if that's what they wanted. Strange to entrust her to his enemies, but they were likely better guardians than most here, and he wouldn't need to split his attention between her safety and his own vengeance.
"Schala," Queen Zeal said, still not looking up, "What are you doing? Why did you stop? I need you here!"
One of the intruders pulled a knife, and raised it. He ran towards the Queen.
o o o
Here we go, Mune.
Ready, Big Brother!
o o o
They swung down, passed by the Queen, aimed at the Mammon Machine's heart. The dagger parted metal and stone, burying itself nearly to the hilt in that glowing monstrosity. The Machine bled magic, and the dagger drank deep. The Mammon Machine was a Gate of its own, connecting Queen Zeal's perverted ambition to Lavos's unimaginable power. It was a conduit; it moved magic from point A to point B. Point A was Lavos. Point B was Zeal, or should have been. But the dagger broke the conduit, stole away the flow.
In the bowels of the earth below them, far beyond the realm of any living creature, Lavos began to move. The twins went to meet it, passing through the Gate. As the physical dagger cut the Mammon Machine, so too did their spirits cut Lavos itself, with all the fury of a raped and vengeful world.
Lavos shrieked, its rise checked. It lashed back at them instinctively, wounding the twins in turn. Their pain was silent, for they knew something Lavos did not: how to bear suffering.
Strike at us, and the blade we have become, they thought at it in unison. We do not fear you.
Lavos's power exploded outward, into the Machine, into the twins, black with malice…and they endured, and smiled. Its power flooded into Melchior's knife. The knife absorbed the magic, and it grew, inch by inch, until it wasn't even really a knife anymore, but a sword. It shone, brighter than the Sun Stone, as bright as the sun itself. It sparkled like a diamond.
The dream was awake; the Masamune had been born.
Lavos continued to hammer at them, seemingly endlessly. Eventually, the shining blade cracked. It was a tiny crack, too small for the human eye to see, but enough that they, and it, were no longer quite whole.
They pressed on. We do not fear you, they thought again, and even when hurt the magic they struck with would have awed Zeal's best mages. They felt Lavos draw back. It endured this second attack better, but it seemed disturbed that they had not faltered.
The twins relaxed, exhausted and injured, but satisfied. They could feel Lavos's body writhe, feel what little spirit it contained bleed freely. They were hurt. Lavos was hurt. But they'd come out ahead, and that would have to do. The next time, it would be weaker and they would be stronger, even if it took them both thousands of years to recover from this day.
Lavos was unwilling to wait. Hurt, frustrated, and furious, it resumed its rise up through the crust of the earth.
At this, Masa and Mune were perturbed.
o o o
Melchior was arguing with a guard, an utterly confused man. The guard had orders to keep Melchior out. He seemed terribly embarrassed to be obstructing a Guru.
Melchior felt it. Suddenly the conversation seemed much less pressing.
o o o
Belthasar was under house arrest, confined in his personal chambers inside the Palace. He was assembling an invisibility device out of whatever was on hand, because it would be fun and useful. He would need to get out eventually, after all.
Belthasar felt it, and broke his attention off his nearly-complete project. Unheard of.
o o o
Gaspar was working. He had mostly forgotten his own arrest. He stared at the small stone egg on his desk.
Gaspar felt it. He looked up. Oh, no. Too late.
o o o
Janus watched as the Mammon Machine sparked and flared. Its eyes darkened and their glow shrank. Lightning rippled across its surface. The Masamune's wielder was forced to let go of its hilt, but it didn't matter; the damage was done, and more than done. The power flowing through the Mammon Machine was no longer stable. Cracks appeared. Its light darkened from orange-gold to red, and it was enfolded in a strange aura of deep black and blue. It was a Gate. Lavos's Gate.
It grew. It enveloped Queen Zeal, but she didn't seem to care. The boy with the knife fell in next. Schala followed. Zeal's personal retinue were all fleeing, but the intruders stood their ground, and were swallowed up. Janus was last. Somewhere on the other side of that gate, Lavos was climbing to the surface. Janus walked in to meet him.
The black and blue haze of the timestream surrounded him briefly. There was a discontinuity, and he found himself in a great open space, a sky of colorless chaos above, a surface of shining blue beneath his feet. More than a hundred yards away there was nothing.
And before him – before them all – was Lavos.
It was mammoth. It was shaped vaguely like an armored tortoise, if a tortoise had a face made of nightmares and a shell ridged with death. Its head alone stood taller than a man. Its back was forested with spine-like protrusions, too huge to cut or pierce. Giant centipede legs splayed out to the sides that might once have been used for locomotion, or might have been vestigial. It did not seem to use them; it seemed to lever its massive bulk around purely on muscle strength and momentum.
Lavos's head lazily blinked open and closed, revealing a single, giant retina. It seemed…satisfied. The air was hot and pulsing with magic. The tips of its spines glowed red, but the glow was fading. Before it, inert on the silver-blue surface, the six intruders all lay fallen. Who knew what sort of magic Lavos had brought to bear to bring them down? Janus knew they were not inconsiderable in strength. A couple of them were groaning in pain. Perhaps the others were also still alive. Perhaps.
Whatever power Lavos had expended on them, it would not have to use against him. Good. He stepped forward, casting his cloak aside to free his hands.
"I've been waiting for you, Lavos."
It blinked its single eye back open. Could it hear him?
"I swore to destroy you long ago. Now it is time to fulfill that vow. Fear me, Lavos. Fear me, and die."
From behind him, his mother's voice: "And just what do you think you can do, false Prophet? You are no more than a snack to him." Janus turned around. His mother stood there, watching him. Between them, Schala faced her.
Schala held her hands to each side, barring her mother's path. "Mother, please stop," she said. Her voice was despairing. "This power can only end in ruin."
"Get out of my way. Lavos's power lives in all of us. You will be a part of it one day, just as I am. We will live forever. Oppose me in this and I will destroy you, too."
Schala, aghast, stared back at her. Zeal grimaced and lashed out, power lancing from her fingertips. The blow threw Schala twenty feet. Zeal did not so much as glance at her daughter's fallen form; instead she waved a hand and levitated herself up on to the ridge of Lavos's shell, just behind its head. Her face was a sickening mix of rage and rapture. Janus could feel her magic, dark, poisoned, and terribly powerful. Was she tapping Lavos, or was Lavos tapping her?
"Come, Prophet," she said. "Feel the power of Lavos."
Lavos's eye narrowed, looking at him. Through some orifice he could not see, it howled, not with rage or fear but with the sort of unadulterated sense of threat that might come from a tiger or a bear. Janus gathered in his magic, as much as he could summon, perhaps more than any other mage that ever lived. He knew his own strength. He was ready. The attack came. But it was a strange one, not a striking-out but a pulling-in. It wasn't trying to kill him; it was trying to drink of his own power. His knees buckled with the strain and he felt his hands instinctively break the fall.
I will not be beaten. I survived the darkness to destroy you, Lavos.
As a child he had learned to hold his magic in, create a shield that would keep what was inside from escaping outside. As an adult he had learned to invert that shield, so that what was outside, stayed outside. He used that now, not nullifying the attack but deflecting it. He threw it off to one side, breathed in, and stood. Bowed but unbroken.
He ran forward, raising his hand. Out of the air he fashioned a great scythe, haft the color of hellfire, blade incandescent, made of Janus's magic and Janus's fury. He poured all the power he could summon into that scythe. Lavos's eye widened as he approached, then closed. Did it feel threatened? It should. It was no small feat to make something physical out of pure magic, but this weapon was more than physical. It would go through stone as easily as water. As air.
He swung the scythe in a high arc and drove it down through Lavos's head. The shock of impact left his arm numb, but it penetrated Lavos's armor and it penetrated Lavos's magic. Did it break into that strange eye? Janus was not sure. Nor did he care. It only needed to make a hole. He poured fire and darkness down the length of it, through the hole, everything he had, everything he knew. The scythe was not his weapon. His weapon was hate.
Lavos howled in pain, but no more. Janus could feel its spirit moving. It should not have been able to move. Not with that much force projected into its brainpan.
What the hell?
Lavos struck back, and Janus had dedicated so much to his attack that he had nothing left to defend himself. A great fist of magic struck him, and he felt it in his mind as well as his body. He tumbled across the strange silver-blue ground, slid and came to a halt, ears ringing. He looked around, tried to get his bearings. Schala was nearby, the others some way off. Zeal still stood on Lavos's collarbone. She was talking, but he couldn't hear. His head swam. The world around them seemed to echo, and he understood somehow that they were still in the Gate, that it was becoming less stable, less hospitable.
"Schala," he said. She was something he understood, in a world that had somehow gone horribly wrong.
One of the others, the boy with the red hair and Melchior's knife, struggled to his feet. Janus watched, bemused. He checked his friends, saw that they still breathed. Zeal watched indulgently. The boy walked over and looked down at Schala, his eyes searching. Janus still didn't understand why he cared.
"Crono," Schala said, "Run. You can't hope to defeat it."
Well, at least now he knew the boy's name.
Queen Zeal seemed to agree with Schala, and shouted down at them: "Why don't you do as Schala says, and run away, yelping in terror? Isn't your life precious to you?" She laughed mockingly. As if any of them were in any condition to run, or had anywhere to run to. Janus knew that better than any here; those who fled to the islands of Zeal would find no safety.
Crono's eyes bore a look that was equal parts determination and resignation. He turned away, approached Lavos. He drew a sword. It wasn't a magic sword, or no more magical than most weapons one could find in Zeal. Certainly nothing like Melchior's masterpiece. It was just a sword.
If I can't take that thing, boy, there's no way in hell you can, Janus thought, and not with a weapon like that. But he'd seen it in the boy's eyes: Crono knew that perfectly well. There was just nothing else to do.
Lavos's eye blinked back open. The retina was a deeper, almost bloody red, the pupil a brighter and sicker blue. The flesh was swollen and seared, and blackened bubbles pocked its surface. It looked like a bloody whirlwind. Janus felt some satisfaction at that. Let it suffer.
Crono walked right up to the eye and raised his sword. Lavos didn't bother waiting. A bolt of power ten feet across spat forth from the eye, struck Crono, passed through him. His body began to slowly lose its form, flesh peeling away in layers. It looked excruciatingly painful, but Janus was quite sure the poor fool was already dead.
Schala sobbed beside him, and lashed around her with magic. It was unfocused and wild, totally unlike her usual feel. Somehow she grabbed on to the edge of the Gate. It was already weakened; she yanked on it wildly. It began to fold in on itself, collapsing. The Gate closed like Lavos's lidless eye, and the strange blue world around them sluiced away. Janus howled silently into the abyss of the Gate, alone in his mind. He had walked the path of Hell all his life. He had bent time itself to his will. And still he had failed. Still he had failed. With his failure, the Kingdom of Zeal and all who were in it were doomed. All the thousands he did not care for, and the one alone that he did.
o o o
The ground cracked as Lavos's physical form approached the surface. A great rift yawned open, an abyss stretching nearly down to the earth's mantle. Charred and molten rock burst out. Boulders hundreds of feet across hung suspended in the air like so many snowflakes. The Beast rose from the pit. It was tired. It had suffered wounds. The Mammon Machine's conduit had sapped its strength for Zeal's use. The violent breaking of that conduit had left it hurting. Janus's assault had caused it pain. Nothing had ever caused it pain before. Clearly these creatures, the tiny insignificant bacteria daring to lay claim to its world, clearly they were a threat. Lavos, like any other predator, had a preferred way of dealing with threats.
Far above, the most dangerous of the humans, the ones that had harmed it, lived among floating islands. It did not need to be able to see through the eternal storm to know they were there. Lavos focused. It was still strong. The tips of its spines glowed white.
o o o
Lavos struck with beams as bright as the noonday sun. They pierced the islands as if harpooning whales. Dreamers in Enhasa died in their beds. Researchers from Kajar died mid-experiment. Functionaries at Zeal Palace looked up from forms to see their companions turned to ash – if they were lucky enough not to be ash themselves. Within minutes, there was mass panic everywhere. There were no leaders to give orders. The royal family were all at the Ocean Palace. So were the Gurus. Dalton had vanished. Anyone else of any authority was far outmatched by the circumstances. The people of Zeal were not helpless, but they were not used to being threatened. A few, those that kept their heads among the chaos, worked spells to shield themselves. It wasn't enough to take a direct hit, but enough that falling masonry could be shrugged off.
Masonry was not the only thing to fall. The great lattices of spellwork that kept the islands floating began to tear and break apart beneath Lavos's assault. Islands bucked and spun in the air, and the barriers that guarded their edges failed. People fell. Homes parted ways with both their foundations and their owners. Entire districts fell from the sky like slow meteors, the residents desperately fleeing from the coasts, working what magic they could to, if not stop the fall, at least keep it stable. Some succeeded. Some didn't. Most died either way.
The great main continent fell into the sea, spreading a tidal wave that would eventually reshape the globe. It sank slowly. Enhasa was long gone. The ruins of Kajar disappeared. Survivors fled in anything that would float, racing the rising waterline. Magic engineers made boats from rock and other unintuitive materials. They were few. Fewer still would reach anything resembling a shore. The Skyway, amazingly, still worked. Others escaped that way.
Behind them all, Zeal Palace, once the pinnacle of the physical and intellectual world, disappeared beneath the waves.
