Cascade
Chapter Four: Revolution, Revelation, Restoration
The words on the ceiling weren't dripping, which both knights presumed they should be thankful for, but the other side of the matter was that the blood – if it wasn't blood, then it was far too much like it for Amelia's tastes – had been there long enough to dry, or at least congeal. Its sickly scent wafted down in the recently-disturbed air like a shower of blech. This would make another set of clothes for the fire.
"How is it even possible that no one has noticed this up to now?" Franz asked with skin-crawling exasperation. The words were having an especially bad effect on him – how many times had Rob repeated that phrase in the hours as Franz held him down and waited for help? So he busied himself with the scattered papers instead, stacking them together and stuffing them into a pocket of his satchel.
"In case you haven't noticed, the Grado Military have a few blind spots, thanks to being the biggest army on the continent since the first death of the Demon King. One of them is that not every problem is supposed to be solved by three hundred heavily-armed men storming, conquering, and burning whatever's left to the ground," Amelia remarked. "Though I think King Ephraim's probably putting a stop to that kind of thing. …Are you all right?"
"Oh, yeah," said Franz, reasonably convincing. It's just that every time I look at you now I realise that no matter what you're eventually going to die, and we're not exactly in the safest line of work. "I think there's something nagging at me, like some clue that's screaming at us to be noticed."
"I know what you mean. Anything in that report?" Amelia suggested.
"Nope. They came in, there was no one here, but there was a big nasty sigil carved into the back of an armchair. With typical Grado brilliance, it says they took the chair back to the keep."
"I really hope the next house isn't like this one," she muttered, looking the address up. "The next closest is three blocks away; let's get moving. We can always come back later, right?"
"Right," Franz agreed. As she moved for the door, he darted ahead, opened it first, and slipped out into the not-so-sunny street – clouds were gathering again, and Amelia was giving him a strange look. "I'll take the lead, hey?" The Look didn't change. "Well, it's not like I'd trust anyone else to watch our backs."
"Sure," she agreed, and Franz started for the next address, his eyes sweeping the street for potential threats. Amelia glanced once and declared it safely acrobat-free; she was much more concerned with the fragile state of her 'rival's mind. He's being something again.
Being the flexible type, Ephraim had admitted that he could get his pacing done anywhere, not just the throne room. So the king stalked up and down aisles of ancient books, the problems of making an empire run properly fitting and locking together in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle with farms and average rainfall. Trying not to be creeped out too much by his aimless prowling, Ewan and Saleh searched tome after tome for something that would give them answers.
Even having the right questions would be a step up.
"Master?" Ewan asked, staggering up to the table with another tower of books.
"Mm?" Saleh intoned.
"What's with the hole in the library ceiling? I looked, and it just kind of keeps on going up."
"That's the belltower," said Saleh, not looking away from his book; possibly in case it tried to bear him down – the tome lay open three feet wide and looked like one of the more predatory volumes.
"But it goes up the centre of the entire tower, and I thought the king's chambers were at the top. Isn't that kind of inconvenient? Like… really loud at three in the morning?" the little mage continued.
"It's not a clocktower, it's a warning system," said Saleh. "If the monarch is attacked in his – or, as has happened occasionally, her – chambers, they can ring the bell and summon all the castle attendants in the entire central keep. I'm not sure why they didn't simply construct collapsible support struts in the corners instead. A simple trick of engineering could have the entire tower folding down to ground level in just a matter of moments, where help would be readily available."
"…Wouldn't everyone who wasn't on the top floor be crushed?"
"Not at all! Sliding walls mechanisms and properly-positioned catapults–"
"I think I liked the waffle fixation better…" Ewan muttered.
Fortunately, Saleh cut himself off at that moment. "Oh, this does look interesting. A combination of rites of invocation, a locus of migration, and marks of spirit that–"
And the sage was in turn cut off again, this time by a scream. It was incredibly loud, echoing around the sadistically-acoustic library until it seemed as though they were surrounded by dozens of terrified voices – all of them female and echoing down the belltower column.
"Tana!" Ephraim yelped from among the shelves, and charged away to the nearest stairs. He didn't notice if the mages followed him, probably didn't even notice the steps flying by four at a time under his feet. The only things on the king's mind were the distance, closing too slowly, between him and the queen, and the desperate shriek for help. So terrified, so enraged, that it hadn't even sounded like Tana…
After climbing stairs for the lifespan of a galaxy, he reached the top level, charged down the hall with Saleh and Ewan dozens of paces behind, and – wham – the door burst open on its own, and an avenging shieldmaiden in a bathrobe stood before him.
"You and me, buster," said Tana, glaring at Ephraim. "We are going to have words."
"You're all right!" the king gasped in relief, and tried to embrace her, but the queen was having none of that.
"Of course I'm all right, Ephraim! I've got every possible need attended to except being allowed to do anything that will keep me from getting bored out of my mind, and now the teacups are exploding and the maid's gone berserk and here you come to save the day again! I don't know if I'm irritated that you're being smothering or that you hired a psychotic royal attendant or that you won't let me thrash the psychotic attendant on my own, but one way or another you are in serious trouble!" Tana fumed.
There was a moment of silence while the universe tried to sort this out and Ephraim fumbled for a response. At last he spoke. "I'm so glad we're already married. It makes it much less likely that you're going to leave me to go to Rausten and become a cleric."
Tana cracked half a smile at this, which let Ephraim know that he wasn't going to be executed today, but before he could ask what any of the commotion could have been about, more of it arrived up the stairs. Ewan in particular skidded to a halt and gaped, reducing the overall level of tact in the area by half, as usual.
"Whoa! Tana, you're–" he began
"Choose your last words carefully, Pyrobrat," she warned him. (Far from being an insult, this was the nickname he had earned among the commanders of Ephraim's army after a memorably scorchful incident involving the Jehanna salt plains, six revenants, and a firework soaked in lamp oil.)
"I think 'pregnant' would probably fit nicely, although 'the size of a general in siege armor' would be equally accurate, if less efficiently descriptive," said Saleh. Tana glared at the sage, then her husband, who mouthed the words 'Don't mind him – crazy' with an accompanying hand signal.
"Fine, yes, you're right, but that doesn't mean anything and I still need to speak with His Majesty here," Tana stated, pulling the robe closed over the bulge in her dress.
"Can you go over the screaming business first?" Ephraim asked. "What exploded? And where's this berserk maid?"
"Lying over there," said Tana, leading the way into the main room. "She attacked me with that serrated breadknife, not that it made for much of a weapon." Immediately Saleh crossed the room to look over this latest unexpected attacker.
"It might have sufficed for carving a sigil," the sage mused. "Or she may have thought you were concealing a large croissant…"
Ephraim looked over the scene, strewn as it was with the blankets Tana had gratefully tossed aside and the remains of several teacups. There weren't any good weapons available. "I don't understand… how did you knock her out?"
"I hit her with a rug." The king stared, making Tana feel something further was expected. "…Rolled up."
Of the things that could possibly be up, Amelia decided, that I'm dealing with Franz narrows down the options. Could be related to: (1) Renais, royalty and knights thereof, (2) Grado, military and reconstruction thereof, (3) Forde and his many eccentricities, (4) me – probably subcategories there I don't want to get into, and let's not forget (5) missing lunch because he was busy almost getting murdered. Kitchen was serving aloo gobi today. Boy goes mad for curry sometimes.be Amelia decided,
"House number five," Franz announced. "Windows blocked like all the others, which is making me think all we have to do to find whoever's behind this is look for the guy who really needs some fresh air and sunlight. …Is something wrong?" he asked, indicating that a minor god of irony probably did follow the two of them around all the time. "You just got a weird look on your face."
"The inside of my head sounds like a reconnaissance document and it's starting to creep me out," Amelia replied. "Don't worry about it. We've got bigger issues at hand."
"No kidding," Franz muttered.
"I'm talking about this whole sigil-cult-thing, whatever it is," she said, meaningfully.
"So was I," he insisted.
Amelia flashed a brief grin. "You're a terrible liar," she remarked, and slipped past him to knock at the door. It swung wide with the first rap, unlocked and unlatched, and just as dark inside as the last four houses. From within, the thick curtains glowed vaguely, blocking the last of the afternoon's sunlight. Also like the last houses, this one was undamaged, with no papers strewn about or bloody declarations scrawled across the walls.
"I'm not lying just because I'm thinking about more than one thing at a time," Franz pointed out.
That's #2 off the list, since this is already Grado we're trying to protect, and #3 was already unlikely, since Forde's having a great time out here. Haven't heard bad news from Renais lately – that's #1 gone – meaning he either really wants a samosa or it's about me again…
"Except for the first place, none of these houses have had a single thing wrong with them. Is it really worth combing for evidence again? And why is that feeling that we're missing something getting stronger all the time?" He sighed and sat down at the base of a bookcase, rubbing one temple.
"All right, I give up. I'll go for the direct approach: what's bothering you? Really bothering you, Franz. You do… I mean, you do know that it's safe to talk to me." Amelia leaned against the wall on the other side of the room, arms crossed in what she had been told could be a very imposing stance.
"Of course I do," Franz confirmed instantly. His mind silently added Except about you.
"So what is it? I'm running out of guesses. It wasn't almost getting killed again," she stated.
"No," said the paladin.
"I knew that from the start," Amelia remarked. It was just an offhand remark, an aside. It lodged itself into Franz's thoughts like a flung dagger.
"…You weren't worried?" he asked.
"Well, I didn't really get a chance," said the recruit, surprised by this question. "The first I heard about it was when Ewan showed up shouting for Saleh, and then the two of them practically had you patched up before I had even got that bloodish stuff off from that mask."
"The what?" Franz asked, almost sharply.
"Oh right, you were, uh, busy. It wasn't pleasant; I'll tell you more when we've got time."
"I don't think we've got anything pressing going on right now."
Amelia shrugged. "All right. Around noon I got roped into once of those street performances near the old amphitheatre. Apparently at least one of them was in on this… order or conspiracy, or whatever it is, because the mask they gave me had that sigil on it. Hadn't seen the thing before, so I put it on, it talked in my head about death and legacies for a while, and then it tried to suffocate me. Ewan blew it off; I don't know how. I guess he's got a knack for breaking things. Lucky for me he was there."
Silently, Franz recalled that he would have been there if she hadn't rushed out so quickly that morning. "Yeah, I'm glad too."
"It kind of bled on me, and Ewan wouldn't shut up about how it looked or smelled, so I cleaned up and then hurried over to see what had happened to you. Like I said, not much time to worry."
Great, thought Franz. So I'm practically imploding with concern for her and she's barely noticing that I've been held hostage by a possible cultist murderer in my own room for hours. That's just – the ingratitude – how could she –
"You're not telling me what's bothering you," Amelia reminded him.
"Hey – I know what wasn't in those reports," said Franz, jumping to his feet. "They had the chair and mentioned some disarray, but there wasn't anything about scattered pages of maniacal ranting or messages on the walls. Not a word. We've got some slacker knights, but I don't think anyone could be that short-sighted."
"That's true. …So someone would have to have written all those things after the first search," said Amelia.
"And that means they could go back, or even still have been there while we were looking."
"I think we run now," Amelia recommended. They did, out into the sunset-lit street, the sky looking injured and enraged in the thickening clouds. The first block went by in silence, before Amelia dared point out again that Franz had dodged the question for the second time.
"Let it wait 'til later; people without magical air supplies probably should probably save it for the things that are important," said Franz.
"This is importa– hold on, magical? Is this about Ewan?" Amelia sighed in relief that it wasn't something worse. As well as their abilities had complemented each other, something had always kept those two from getting along. That she was friend – or something – to both of them had to be awkward.
"…Sort of," Franz admitted.
"All right. If you say it can wait, then it can wait," she relented.
"What? Now it's okay, oh-it's-just-Ewan, and you're willing to let go?"
"I was just scared that it was something – I don't know, something serious."
The clouds, which had closed over the sun as they ran and coated all of Grado in greyish twilight, let loose a sudden blast of thunder that sounded like an explosion being torn in half and thrown down the stairs. It was ominous enough that Amelia almost tripped, wondering if one of those irony gods that Forde was always going on about had decided to make its presence known.
"Serious?" Franz repeated as they rounded the last corner. You get to tell me what's serious, now?
"Yes. I'm not trying to pry, Franz." Amelia nodded at the boarded house, the empty streets around them. "Might want to get your sword out. Just in case."
"Absolutely, Knight-Sergeant," said the paladin. Amelia paused, not sure what to ask to figure out everything he meant with those words. Franz just nodded at the door, his sword already out and gleaming, and so Amelia opened it, one hand ready to draw her lance from its armor-holster.
"…Doesn't look like anything," said Amelia, stepping into the gloom within. Franz almost relaxed; they hadn't barely avoided a trap of any kind this afternoon, and no one had been lying in wait… And then he heard muffled words from Amelia and she came backing out of the door twice as fast, followed by a broadsword that put its wielder a safe several feet away.
The man was nothing remarkable, not anyone Franz even vaguely recognised. He supposed this was more support for the theory that most atrocities were committed by fairly ordinary people. Nevertheless, Franz was able to aim a good amount of fury at the man within the first few seconds of meeting in him; waving sharp objects at Amelia was not an acceptable hobby.
"I thought you'd be back sooner or later," said the stranger. "Don't worry, this is just a bit of insurance for myself. I'm not interested in fighting either of you."
"I'm not interested in fighting you either," said Franz. "Beating you senseless is another matter."
"Why won't you listen to any of us?" he demanded. "You must realise by now that we're right."
"Skip it," Amelia advised him. "I've already heard the story from Franz."
"Mm. Do you hear that?" the man asked, pointing up, nowhere in particular. The knights listened more carefully, and heard faint tapping sounds against stone… but it hadn't begun raining. They looked down the street in both directions and saw the source – sources, rather, dozens of them. From either side came a wall of marching grey-black ghouls. Skeletons. Armed skeletons. Lots of them.
"All right, so you have a small army of the undead," said Franz. "Summoned?"
"Convinced," said the stranger.
"You must be a hell of a salesman," Amelia remarked.
"Anything must be better than turning to dust in the ground, mustn't it? They'll feel better once we can restore their old, flesh-and-blood forms…"
"Those are people?" Franz realised, with a lurch. The two skeleton formations had come to a halt fifty feet apart, with Franz and Amelia in the middle. They were plainly there to barricade the street, and they were irritatingly good at it.
"They were, and now they are again, thanks to us. It's all been staring you in the face; I'm amazed you haven't caught on yet. The enemy of death," said the stranger.
"They look pretty dead to me," said Amelia, a slight shake in her voice. "Trust me, as a soldier, I'm pretty much an expert on this sort of thing."
"Think about opposites and you'll understand soon enough. Only you're both so resistant to the idea, refusing to let the mark take its course. I'm beginning to think we should just kill you and start fresh, so to speak."
Both Franz and Amelia had nothing to say to that, though they shifted to be more back-to-back, each facing down a small battalion of the walking dead. Perhaps feeling that more was expected of them, the clouds began to rain, quickly turning the cobblestones slick and gleaming.
"I'd recommend against rushing inside any of these houses around you; you'll find the people living in there aren't feeling welcoming tonight. Don't stress yourselves too much. After all, it'll just be like going to sleep…" said the stranger, as he made his way toward the skeleton barrier to the west.
"Only you don't wake up," Franz reminded him.
The man paused and flashed a grin over his shoulder. "You might find that things have changed, there." The skeletons parted to let him through, and quickly closed the gap again. The rain-blurred air was tense, as imminent combat always made it.
"Any secrets you feel like declaring before we get too busy?" Amelia asked, trying to sound light.
"Don't know. You'd have to tell me if they were anything serious," Franz replied.
"What?"
Inside Franz's head, his thoughts railed against him. That's it? You're facing hideous odds and that's the sort of thing you want to be saying to Amelia? Smooth and cool as flipping ice, you are. "…I'm sorry."
"It's going to take a little more explanation than that," Amelia bit out. The skeletons had rallied by now, and came at them in a staggered charge, weapons waving and jaws clattering, otherwise perfectly silent. Amelia smote the first one with the heavy spike of her lance, smashing a good deal of it, but as the others closed in and she began to parry their attacks, the weapon became less effective.
"What else do you want me to say? You already heard – it's about Ewan and… and you not really caring. That's all there is," said Franz, trying to put the hammering flat of his blade to work wherever possible.
"Not caring? And what about Ewan, if he's bothering you so much?" Amelia demanded. "Switch!" Franz turned and bent, letting Amelia roll back-to-back over him and slam her lance down on another foe as he literally disarmed another just above the elbows.
"It's like you're just not interested sometimes – like I'm there and you're happy, but then you go off somewhere else and I'm left behind… like there's nothing here that's special to you. Like I'm just anyone else," said Franz, parrying an axe blow so that it lodged in the ribcage of another ancient skeleton.
"I don't know why you'd feel like that," said Amelia, silently interrogating herself for any time that she had ever felt Franz was ordinary, right back to the first time he came charging up to her out of a cloud of dust in Port Kiris.
"It's how you act," said Franz. "I don't know what's going on in your head."
"Well thank you Lieutenant-Commander Obvious!" Amelia growled as she deflected an unexpected thrust away from her face – of course, having it land in her shoulder was only so much of an improvement. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm sort of busy most days!"
"I'm just saying that's where Ewan comes in," said Franz, already bleeding from a pair of long, shallow wounds down one leg. "I mean, you drop me for him, and then – then the whole day is just Ewan, Ewan, more Ewan, magical Ewan."
"You were kind of busy yourself," said Amelia. "And I didn't drop you for him, I was just out there and he happened to go by."
"Real convenient for him," Franz observed.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Amelia asked, knocking aside a lance much like her own and taking advantage of the clear space to body-check the nearest skeleton, who slipped on the wet stones and spread a ripple of tumbling through the slowly thinning crowd.
"You're too smart not to have noticed by now!"
"Oh, all right, so he thinks I'm cute or whatever, but that's no reason to assume sinister plans," she insisted.
"I know it isn't," said Franz, batting aside far too many oncoming swords at once. "I mean, it's not like I don't want you–"
"…What?" Amelia demanded. With a great sweep she knocked the oncoming skeletons back and then turned to Franz, her face set and eyes deadly serious.
"Um…" said Franz, his jaw shaking only partly from the cold rain. "What I mean…"
"Oh, I think I know very well what you mean," Amelia growled, smashing down the first skeleton to come at her from behind. Most of those she had knocked back were keeping their distance, not sure what to make of it when their opponent turned her back on the battle, and it was confusing Franz's foes enough that they were backing off slightly as well. "I think I can figure out what want means pretty fast."
"That wasn't – I wasn't thinking about what I was saying," said Franz, taking advantage of the fewer foes to try to get breath properly back in his lungs. "I would never try – I mean, even if you wanted to I wouldn't – and I would never try to pressure you–"
Amelia put her lance through another skeleton's skull impatiently. "As much as this sounds important, I'd really like to know what this is all about, Franz. What could ever make you think anything like any of that?" He didn't answer, focusing instead on cleaving apart one more attacker. "I love you."
With that he stopped, not seeming to know if he wanted to meet Amelia's gaze or not. Even the undead looked like this wasn't the battle they had expected, walking in. "…You've never said that before."
There was a silence, curiously full of the sounds of storm and combat. "…You know, I didn't know that?" said Amelia. What about the – no, not then. And the – that time when– "You're right."
"I know."
"I love you," she said again. "…Does that change anything?"
Franz thought for a moment. "Well, it – down!" Amelia dropped at his warning, giving Franz a clear space to bisect the skeleton that had finally come up behind her, and then she was rising again like a righteous firework, smashing apart one of the walking dead in a single long sweep. Franz duelled another one carrying a giant maul, Amelia letting just enough of them past her for the paladin to parry his enemy's blows into eradicating the skeletons. Another four lay broken by the time the maul-wielder realised it was doing more harm than good, at which point the tip of Franz's blade slid in under its chin and levered its head off its shoulders like a bottle-cap.
And then, after that and much more like it, the creatures were nothing but wreckage around them, and in the centre stood the Sword and the Shield, neither willing to let the other out of their arms. They said nothing for a long time, still trying to catch up with a few of the most intense minutes of their life. Eventually Franz asked: "Do you know the story about the bird in the hall?"
"Don't think so," said Amelia. She was focused on the slow massage of the rain on her shoulders.
"It's supposed to be a metaphor for life. A bird flies through a window, out of the night and into a huge hall where people are celebrating, and it has just a few moments in the light and the music before it flies out again into the night, whatever that might be," he explained.
"In other words, life is short. Are you trying to talk me into–"
"No. But when I think about you, when I imagine how easy it would be to lose you, I think about what it would be like to be the bird and know that you've got your moments of glory, but then screw up somehow and have all the lights go out. What it would be like to keep on living, knowing what you could have had and somehow lost."
"I'm not as easy to lose as you seem to think," said Amelia. "…Oh, jeez, I'm sorry. I was assuming you meant me."
"Of course I mean you. I love you." He closed his eyes and held her tighter again.
"Franz, ordinarily I'd be able to pick up on something like this, but it's hard to tell in the rain, so… are you crying?"
The paladin's eyes snapped open, but they weren't focused on her or anything else except the inside of his own head. "I've got it. …We have to get back to the castle. Oh, those idiots. I've got it!"