Chapter Seven
Saito had walked with Louise towards an inn, hoping to find a couple of free seats so they could talk. Cog had casually suggested, hinting he was listening to the conversation through his nanites, about an inn along the main avenue. He wouldn't be there, since he said he would be busy compiling something with the help of someone. Louise followed Saito, sniffing slightly, she didn't even have a tissue, but when they stopped in front of the inn, Saito took one out of his pocket at his heart level. "Here: no need to have a runny nose when you can avoid it" he muttered, lending it to Louise.
Inside a man with a really strange dress came to meet them. A pair of black moustaches and a dancing attitude, it cheerfully brought the two to a table and left them there to talk while he went to address other patrons. "Why do you have that mantle?" Louise asked "It's not possible for you to have…" Saito raised a hand, signaling her to stop speaking. "I am a Chevalier entitled by her majesty, the queen. Going against the decision of the queen is treason." He replied sternly, but smiled soon after "That aside, what have you been doing till now? Everything is fine at the academy?" Louise was taken aback by Saito's sense of calmness and security. He wasn't going to go back with her to the academy, probably. This thought was making her wear a sad expression.
"I don't know. I didn't attend much till now: I was a bit sick" she said, averting Saito's gaze. "I see. That's not good at all" the chevalier replied nodding. "Well, seems like my contact is here" he muttered then, nodding to someone who had just entered the inn. It was Guiche. Red rose in his hand, he was accompanied by Montmorency. "Hiraga Saito! Hero of the battlefield and savior of Tristain! All you got was a Chevalier title, yet my friend you shine like a noble! I can actually imagine you flying right and left, hitting and shooting down enemies" Guiche produced himself in a flamboyant re-interpretation of how the battlefield went, while Saito meekly laughed it off…to avoid chopping his head off.
"Louise! Finally! It's been three weeks! You were always shut in your room sobbing and crying…" "I was not!" "Fine then, you were simply skipping" Montmorency sat down next to Guiche, who sat next to Saito to speak better with him. Wine was then brought by Skarron-san, at least, that was the name the inn keeper called himself...albeit with extremely different and vague adjectives. Nobody noticed that Montmorency, in the midst of things, placed something inside of the cups. "You're always talking about war!" Louise snapped angrily. She was meant to speak with Saito alone! Find a way to bring him back with her! Angrily, she grabbed the first drink available. The one intended for Guiche.
Later that night, Cog sighed. The scene he was looking at was the following: on one side, there was Saito, who was trying to move along the road back to where the Dragon's raiment was, on the other, there was Louise who was actually clinging to him, crying her heart out, wanting to stay with him because she loved him very so. "Cog, please, do something. She just lashed out one second, and the other she was forcibly trying to kiss me!" Saito exclaimed. "Why are you so against that? Isn't she cute by your standards?" "This and that are different! She's clearly out of her mind" "Fine" Cog muttered, appearing out of the shadows he was.
"Please I'll change. Marry me and I'll change, kiss me and I'll change. I love you. I love you" Louise kept on replying, tears on her eyes. "Her brainwaves are off the charts, I'd say she's gotten something to alter her mind all right. Love potions? She drank anything before going *all out*?" Cog was slightly amused. "There was wine on the table…I was talking with Guiche and Montmorency…" realization dawned on Saito's head. "I'm killing that blond, dumb, girl." "Calm down boy! Don't get too eager to kill someone" Cog replied.
Minutes later they were in front of the room that Montmorency had rented. "You want the honor?" Cog asked Saito, pointing at the door. "Yes, please" then he started knocking hard on the door. "Montmorency! It's me, Saito." When the door opened, after a minute, Montmorency saw Saito, holding a Louise who had been wrapped up with meters upon meters of rope. "This is your doing, isn't it?" he sneered, throwing the rope-Louise-worm on her bed. "I don't know what you're talking about" "I don't care: what I want is the antidote" "Well, I can prepare the potion, but it requires a really costly reagent that I don't have with me…" "Where is it?" "It's the tear of a water spirit" "Where is it?" "Ragdorian Lake! But the water spirit won't give it to you!" "Then I'll have to force him" with those last words, Saito left the room.
"You think you can manage this feat alone?" Cog queried Saito, a smile on his face. "I don't know: but I'm not going to keep that girl clinging to me forever. I' m sure she's going to at least thank me for not having abused of her situation" Saito replied as he walked towards the stables out of the city. "We have nothing to do at the present, right?" "Actually I can take care of that: asking around how people feel about the war is easy enough. I'll do it while you move towards the lake. Just be careful boy. Remember to ask for direction if you get lost!" Cog teased him while waving a goodbye at the city's gates "Didn't remember my mother had black claws" "Oh stop it you or I'll knit you a sweater. Get moving boy!"
Saito bought a horse with some of the money he had, and then began galloping towards the lake. At the first night of rest, someone reached him by horse: it was Guiche. "My friend! Let me come with you! I fear for my senses if Montmorency tries the love potion again!" "You know where Ragdorian Lake is?" "Yes!" "Welcome aboard".
The lake was beautiful, when they reached it days later. Light was refracted on its surface, glimmering and shining like a diamond. Yet it was also flooding the town and was already aiming at the mountain's eagle nests. "Is it meant to be like this?" Saito asked a farmer who shook his head "No sir. It's just happened. Two years ago." "You mean it has been two years since it started flooding? No one did anything?" "No sir, nobles are busier in court than here" "Don't worry…I'll take care of it, or my name isn't Hiraga Saito, Chevalier of her highness, the queen" "Thank you my lord! Thank you!" "And don't forget Guiche de Gramont! I'm helping him too!"
Near the lake's coast Guiche muttered something about "How the hell are we going to speak with a water spirit". "Guiche, try using a Valkyrie to enter the water" Saito proposed "On to it" with a flick of his wand a Valkyrie stood up, made two careful steps into the water, and was smashed down by the appearance of an enormous mass of water. "There he is." Saito commented simply, as Guiche instead began trembling. "Who are you?" the water spirit asked after a while, assuming semblance of a humanoid girly form. "We are here for a tear from you. Name a price, and we will pay it" the water spirit pondered on that for a minute "attackers come at night. Stop them and it will be yours"
The attackers actually did come, and when Saito moved to intercept them, he got met with a barrage of ice and fire magic. Derflinger absorbed the fire magic while Saito dodged the icicles, "GUICHE! NOW" he yelled, and Guiche's Valkyrie sprung up from behind the two, lances in hand. "Saito? Is that you?" a familiar voice called to him while he was charging. This was enough to make him stop actually, to realize who the owner of the voices where. Kirche and Tabitha explained their reasons, and Saito listened nodding. "This makes it easier then. I'll get the tear if you stop attacking, and then I'll ask what the problem is with the flood".
The water spirit spoke of the Ring of Andvari, of how it was stolen, of how it could bring the dead back albeit with a fake life and with no free will. Saito promised to look for it and in exchange, the water spirit began retracting itself. Leaving behind a tear for Saito to use. During the travelling back Kirche asked Saito "I like men who know how to make their own wealth, did I ever tell you that?" "Please, I have no interest in petty flirts" Saito replied coldly, and the rest of the trip was spent in an eerily silence. When they got back to the inn, Cog wasn't there, but chaos was erupting never the less.
A young man, dressed in leather armor, blackened by coal or maybe a dye of some sort, with black, short hair and a black mantle of sort, the Chevalier mantle, yet black, was standing there, looking with his dark brown eyes at the crying figure of a pink haired girl, who was crying her heart out with a mug of ale, the girl was flicking her wand to the right and to the left, clearly drunk. "Why did he leave me!" she was crying. Montmorency was in a corner, visibly shaken. "What is happening?" Saito got silently closer to her to ask "Louise, she convinced me to free her and when she realized she couldn't reach you, she started going mad and drinking" "Who's the man?" Saito asked her, but a familiar voice echoed in his ears through the nanites. "Make a guess" the fact that the man himself had said those same words, made Saito open his eyes in surprise. "Cog!"
It all had started the day after Saito had departed for the lake actually. Cog had simply been listening to petty talk, his Ai on the other hand had kept warning him about how this was not at all keeping neutrality, if he were to speak to the queen, and effectively helping her, he would have been charged with Treason by the intergalactic empire. "This is not normal" the Ai had pouted –I'm just having fun- "Treason isn't having fun. Its treason" –It's yet to be treason- "Sophism"
As he was there, when Louise barged out trying to escape and reach Saito, he found himself being flung over the side of the wall, the outer wall of the building next door, because Louise explosion actually tore down a hole. Hadn't it been for the nanites, he would have actually been gravely wounded. "What was that?" he muttered as he managed to get back on his feet, gasping. Louise was there, next to the hole, looking at him with anger "This is your entire fault! I KNOW IT!" readying herself for another wand. "Nanites malfunction, core nanites in preservation mode" "DAMN IT" Cog muttered jumping to the side, while the wall behind him exploded.
"Power nanites function decreased to twenty-five percent of functionality. Engage Hibernation mode" the Ai replied again. "Have fun he said!" Cog snarled as he turned a corner, his speed drastically dropping because the unnecessary nanites where becoming simply dead weight on him. "Merge function initiated" "Not now! OVERWRITE! I SAY OVERWRITE!" "Overwrite function ignored. Self-preservation mode engaged" Cog dashed into another nearby alley, as explosions roared behind him, it reminded him of his trench days, when artillery strikes made of overheated plasma were flying all around him. He managed to fling himself against a wooden door, and bash forcefully inside when the nanites began merging mode.
Merging mode was simple, the nanites would merge with the skin of its owner in order to not disperse once power would be cut off, they would also provide a basic protection, but at the same time would weigh the user, since they would no longer disperse the gravity pull on the ground, but on the individual's feet. Obviously normally it wouldn't hurt, but Cog's nanites had lost their anesthetics supply on Truan 8… So Cog managed to throw himself on the floor, behind a table, when a thousand and more needles pierced his entire body, entering his skin and arranging themselves. It hurt like hell. He gritted his teethes in wait, until it was finally over.
He emerged from there, his helmet, torn asunder by the first blast, maybe, was no longer working, removing it, he pressed a button on its side, and it folded down until it became a simple, black and round sphere. Pocketing it, he carefully walked out of the house he had barged in, to come face to face with Louise "You! Have you seen a demon?" "No, I haven't" he replied keeping his cool. "Good. Why are you dressed like that?" under the nanites suit the only thing Cog had was his military grade uniform. It was made of thin Kevlar threads, and knitted together at high pressures to ensure the best of safeties and movement.
"It's because I'm from another country" "Oh. Rub?" "Yes, Rub" he had no idea what or where Rub was, but without nanites, if that girl flicked her wand again he would turn to ashes, he didn't trust the Kevlar vest that much. "I know someone too who came from someplace else" she muttered "oh really? Want to talk about it?" "I don't know…I should be looking for the demon, he stole my Saito away" "Your Saito? How about we speak more about your Saito somewhere better than a dark alley?" "Nice idea! I like you! But I love Saito more, you know" "Yes, yes" sighing with relief, Cog brought her all the way back to the inn, the thought of speaking about Saito actually calmed that girl down so much that she paid the repairs without flinching.
The girl seemed able to speak about Saito for hours, and hours. Every time she finished saying something, she'd start again. Cog actually ordered alcoholics the first time in hope she'd at least drink herself to sleep. Instead, as a drunk, she started pouting and getting angry about things. Sleep powder soon followed, with the help of the blond girl named Montmorency, who even thanked the nice black haired guy who had managed to calm the girl down. Without his demonic resemblance however, he couldn't fully use his status of chevalier. So, late at night, he walked towards the royal palace. He no longer could use the nanites camouflaging ability, but he hadn't earned his title and his rank because he had been using top notch equipment. You had to earn it.
The guards heard a cry coming from the side of a building, one of them went to look, and the other, distracted while watching his colleague's back didn't hear the metal knuckle which impacted against the back of his head. Down he went like a potato bag. "Easy" Cog muttered, as he grabbed the guard's keys and armor, donning it as fast as he could before entering the palace, helm on his head he would be unrecognizable. Nobody stopped him while he walked the corridors; the trick to avoid military level inspections is to seem to be in a justified hurry. Carrying a blank, yet rolled up and closed, piece of paper in hand, he would seem no different from a messenger who had to deliver a message fast.
Henrietta heard knocks at the door late that night. "Who is it?" "Messenger with an urgent message for her majesty the Queen" she would never get used to the title, yet the voice sounded a bit familiar. Going to the door to open it, she actually gasped at the sight of her two bodyguards lying on the floor; "They're fine, a bit roughed, but fine never the less" the guard in front of her spoke removing his helm. This had nearly become a ritual.
Henrietta looked at the face, that face which had left her filled with doubts and more. That was the same face Philip the Great had, her late father, and King had. The day when he had first removed his helmet, and shown his true face, Henrietta had fainted, for a good quarter of hour. Afterwards, she had tried to pry any information from the men, but had not succeeded in the slightest. "What brings you here now? More question on the deceased?" she asked, bitterly. "Can I come in? We have to talk" "Will you answer some of my questions?" "A question for a favor. I have little favors to ask, so you'll get that many questions" "If I refuse a favor I get one less question, right? Fine then, come in and speak" she muttered, curiosity was stronger than precaution.
He entered her room, the new one was that of the late king, it was simple yet had something which immediately caught Cog's eyes. "What are your favors?" she asked him after closing the door behind her. "I need you to rewrite the Chevalier permit to myself. Your friend, Louise, blew off half a building, me included, and actually turned to dust the permit" "You mean, with another name? *Cog* isn't your name is it?" "Careful, is that the question you wish answered?" "No, fine. I'll leave the name blank, fill It with what you want" "Good, secondly, you should have a spare set of leather armor somewhere in your castle: I'll take that to avoid drawing suspicion" "Fine then. That makes two favors: Anything else?" "Can I smash this table?" Cog asked pointing at the favorite table of her father. "No. That was the favorite table of my father" "I think he held it dear for another reason. May I smash it? I'll let you see what's inside" Henrietta closed her fists strongly. Biting her lower lips, what was in there? Would it explain father's mysterious death? Or not? Would it just be Cog's madness? It still would count as one more favors…one more question.
"Fine" with those words Henrietta nodded and Cog smashed the table; as pieces of wood scattered everywhere something else rolled out of it, a small, black sphere, hidden within an empty frame of the wooden table. Cog delicately grabbed it and brought it towards Henrietta, who was puzzled. "This is a Chronos. It's the neurological concentrate of memories a member of the military of the Intergalactic Empire of the Dystopia always has on him. It registers everything that one of us sees or hears, and has a small battery that can last century without recharge." He commented. "So…it's father's diary?" "Yes, one question done. You still have two."
Cog had gone back to the inn, and had spent time speaking with various visitors and Louise, for the most part to avoid her from fighting someone or destroying something; when Saito strolled in, Louise was already half drunk and hadn't managed to see him. Montmorency brewed the potion, and then delivered it to Louise, saying it would make Saito fall in love with her. After drinking it, she suddenly stopped moving.
"I hope it's working" Cog commented as Saito got closer to him "Yes sir, we are so sorry for this inconvenience" Guiche said together with Montmorency, not realizing who he was, Saito on the other hand did, so he repressed a grin as he saw Louise blushing furiously, and then muttering, still half drunk "it. It wasn't me. I'm…sorry." "No harm done" Cog replied. "I am sure that after a good night of rest you'll find yourself in a better shape" If not with a horrible hangover.
Those words held true. As Cog represented himself to the others, Guiche erupted into a "I knew it!" all over, while Saito simply shook hands with Cog. "So, how is your part of the job going?" Saito asked him "Everything is going fine…I hope it keeps being like that" with those words hanging in the air, a guard entered the inn as fast as he could "WE ARE CARRYING AN INVESTIGATION! THE QUEEN HAS DISAPPEARED!". "Spoke too soon" Cog muttered.
