Chapter Ten: Dark Magicite, skeletal soldiers and the things that bind men's souls

'I'm just saying if Raithwall left it with the Kiltias maybe it's not supposed to be used by anyone.'

Ashe turned sharply to pin Vaan with a haughty glare, ' I am a descendent of the Dynast King charged to save the Kingdom Raithwall founded, of course I should wield the Sword of Kings.'

' Well, why'd he give it to the Gran Kiltias then and not leave it in his tomb? A sword would've been way more useful than the Dawn Shard.'

Ashe opened her mouth, closed it, swept snow dampened hair from her face and tried to come up with an answer.

'Perhaps the Dynast King thought to keep his treasures separate for security's sake?' Basch waded into the discussion in his mistress's defence.

' Huh?'

Penelo spoke up, eager and bright despite the freezing cold of the Silverfloe. 'You mean like in case thieves got into the Tomb and stole everything there before Ashe could get to it?'

' It is only a suggestion.' Basch nodded.

' I'm sure you are right Basch.' Ashe spoke with renewed confidence, ' Raithwall was a good and clever king.'

' Huh, I guess.'

Vaan had already lost interest in the discussion, attention drifting elsewhere, ' Hey Balthier, what'cha doing?'

' Give a guess, Vaan.' Balthier mumbled clearly distracted. Fran sat on a rock by his side, impassive as ever.

' Uhhh, well it kinda looks like you're doing something with that pile of bones.'

'Balthier! What, by all the Gods, are you doing?'

Ashe strode forward to where Balthier was crouched in the snow carefully examining each of the scattered bones left behind by one of the skeletal Knights they had dispatched.

Fran got to her feet, shaking her hair from her face and behind her back.

' We should move on, the Stilshrine should not be far now.'

Not looking up Balthier exclaimed, ' Ahh, there it is.'

With a little bit of careful finger work Balthier managed to pry the skull from the body of the skeleton and pried open the teeth to free the Dark Magicite resting between its jaws.

Ashe was staring at him with something close to disgust on her face, ' Do you have no shame, Pirate, that you would defile the dead for such trifles as that?'

Balthier, studying the dark magicite in his palm barely acknowledged her, ' It would appear I do not, Princess.'

Ashe blinked at him, if she had expected him to be shamed or embarrassed to be caught looting the bones of long dead revenants then she was destined to be sorely disappointed, he had been Pirate far too long for any such qualms.

Vaan looked from the Princess to Balthier, clearly trying to decide whether to be outraged or to ask Balthier for tips, he did after all, want to be a Sky Pirate.

' How'd you know to look in its mouth?'

'Hmm?' Balthier, on the tail end of a seven hour trek through icy fjords with precious little food and only three hours sleep the previous night was not at his best.

' The magicite is always placed on the condemned man's tongue before they are buried and left to rot.' He shrugged, breaking into a yawn.

' Huh?'

Fran took up the story, ' In the time of the Dynast King Geomages would use the power of the dark magicite to compel the dead of the battlefield to rise again to defend the king.'

'Not just the war dead.' Balthier added.

Fran nodded, ' No, it was true that in times of war deserters and those with no wish to fight and die for another man's glory would be put to death and condemned to fight for all eternity, spirits bound to their bones without rest, in punishment.'

Penelo shivered, looking down at the scattered bones, and not just from the howling icy wind.

' So these skeletons were all soldiers once? They had families and friends, just like us?'

Fran nodded, ' The only way to free their tortured souls from servitude is to remove the magicite, then their souls are free to rest in peace.'

Ashe looked to Balthier, 'Is this why you would remove the magicite, you feel pity for these fallen souls?'

Balthier, too weary to maintain much of his usual facade simply looked at the Princess, ' No one should be forced to fight against their will, Princess, a man's soul belongs to no one bar himself.'

Ashe frowned, ' I do not argue that, but surely a man's duty is to take up arms to defend king and country?'

Balthier laughed, he couldn't help it, ' Spoken like a true monarch, Princess.'

He started walking in the vague direction that the Stilshrine of Miriam was supposed to be in. Fran, nose twitching from the cold, fell into step beside him.

It was she who had first told him about the skeletons and the dark magicite, she who had never questioned why he was so moved to take away those stones whenever he found them. Fran understood freedom, after all.

' A true monarch? What is that supposed to mean?' Ashe had come up alongside, her expression animated with indignant anger.

'Should I take some insult from your words Balthier?'

Behind her Basch was looking at Balthier rather oddly, a mixture of disapproval and warning. Vaan and Penelo simply watched with keen interest.

' Princess, I am but a humble pirate, why should my words offer you any insult?'

'Humble? You are one of the least humble men I have ever met.' Ashe shot back.

The party had stopped moving and stood clustered together for warmth as Ashe and Balthier locked eyes and battled wills.

' Princess we should not tarry here, night draws in.' Basch attempted to interject.

Ashe shook her head, ' No I would know what you meant, Balthier, do you think me some kind of tyrant?'

Cocking his head to the side Balthier smirked, he could see Fran shake her head slightly in reproof. He knew he was behaving badly, failing in his role as gentleman.

Yet standing here in the cold and ice and snow, trailing after Nethicite and Dynast swords and other things of no interest to any self respecting pirate, he could not help it. Balthier would not allow himself to be so irked, but Ffamran would, and his inner self was close to the surface today.

Despite this it was Balthier who replied with cocky nonchalance.

' Princess I fail to see how you could construe such an allegation from one innocent statement. I have never called you tyrant.'

Ashe blushed slightly, but would not be deterred, ' It was implicit by your tone. You seem to hold monarchy in low regard.'

' I am a sky pirate, Princess.'

Ashe shook her head and looked down upon her booted feet, Balthier noted for the first time that her feet turned in, pigeon footed.

It was surprising that her tutors at the palace had not corrected this habit when she was a child, hardly fitting for royalty to be so imperfect.

' I do this not for myself but for my country and for those who have died trying to defend Dalmasca. I am no tyrant.'

Ashe sounded quite unlike herself her voice not filled with passionate steel but with a timbre of grief and remorse that softened it.

Realising that he was in danger of revealing too much of himself and perhaps of treating the Lady Ashe unfairly also, Balthier dropped into a courtly bow, averting his eyes from the Princess' piercing regard.

' As you say, Lady Ashe.'

The party did not speak again as they travelled onwards finally arriving at the tranquil, silent Stilshrine long after darkness had fallen.

It was a combination of guilt and lasting restlessness that motivated Balthier to take first watch as they made camp by the entrance to the Stilshrine. Insisting to Fran that he was fine had been a chore, but her own weariness lent him the victory this once.

Balthier had drifted off into a state of mindless readiness, Betelgeuse resting on his lap as he sat looking down on the waters of the Stilshrine's twin channels.

It was natural, automatic, therefore that he had the gun up and aimed towards the slight rustling noise, finger beginning to pull back the hammer on the trigger, when his groggy mind recognised Vaan.

' Wow.' Vaan breathed as Balthier lowered the weapon, hiding how much of a scare Vaan had just given him.

'How'd you manage to have the gun pointed so fast? I didn't make any noise.'

Instead of pointing out that yes, in fact, Vaan had made noise, or else Balthier would never have detected him, he instead decided to re-direct the conversation.

' Did you want something, Vaan?'

' Umm, yeah, actually I wanted to talk to you.'

Oh, joy. Balthier bit back the instinctive response, reminding himself that he actually liked the impetuous, none too bright, but good hearted boy.

' About?'

Vaan dropped down gracelessly beside Balthier, all gangly limbed.

' About what you said to Ashe, about how you didn't think people ought to fight just because their kings want them too.'

Balthier sighed, 'I never said that.'

'Yeah, I know, but,' Vaan stopped to swipe a hand under his nose, as was his custom, ' we all knew that's what you meant. That's why Ashe got mad.'

Having nothing to say to that and resenting Vaan for the strange quirk that allowed him moments of surprising perceptiveness, Balthier ignored the observation and swerved the conversation back on the boy.

' You wanted to ask me something?'

'Yeah.'

Vaan fiddled with his armour, tugging on leather straps and tapping fingers on greaves. It didn't seem he was in such a hurry to ask his question after all. Balthier, who well knew patience was not a virtue he possessed in any quantity, broke first.

' This is about your brother isn't it?'

Vaan blinked, surprise writ large across his girlish, undeveloped features, ' Umm, yeah. How'd you know?'

'Lucky guess.'

Said in a voice dry as dust. What else was it going to be about but the worshipped and two years dead older brother?

Rubbing fiercely at his nose Vaan's words were hurried and muffled by his hand. ' Do you think Reks was wrong, leaving to fight in Nalbina?'

Why? Balthier wondered. What had he done that fate had foisted this punishment on him? Playing agony aunt to a seventeen year old boy?

' I don't think anything about it, Vaan. I never knew your brother.'

But the boy continued talking as if he hadn't heard Balthier.

' Because, see, I think I do. Blame him, I mean. I thought I hated Basch, or that Judge, the one who really killed Reks, but I don't because if Reks hadn't gone off to fight, he never would have died in Nalbina, because he wouldn't have been there. Right?'

Balthier took a moment to wade through the boys ramblings and had barely untangled the sense, such as it was, behind the words when Vaan began again.

' I get why Reks wanted to fight. I do. I mean I wouldn't be here now if I didn't get it. But it's not the point is it? Our parents were already dead and he just left me. I mean what was I supposed to do if he died, huh?'

Balthier blinked, resisting the urge to say 'huh?', much as Vaan liked to do. ' Exactly what you did do, for your brother did die.'

' That's it! That's what I'm trying to say. Reks just left without thinking about it, because he said he had to fight for Dalmasca, but when he died I didn't know what to do. The same with Penelo and her brothers. If it hadn't been for Migelo...'

Balthier waited. Clearly Vaan didn't so much want someone to tell him what to do, just someone to talk too. He probably wouldn't care if I stopped listening, Balthier thought wryly, it's the chance to say it that counts.

Vaan was staring wide eyed, Balthier was uncomfortably aware of the fact that the boy's eyes were wet and tried his best to ignore the fact, out into a middle distance.

' I've been thinking and it's like what I told Ashe back at the Garif village. I need to find answers for myself. And I think I've got my answer. Reks was wrong. If it was me and I had people who depended on me, I'd stay with them. So they wouldn't be alone.'

Balthier was thankful the boy was too deep in his own revelatory introspection to notice him flinch at his words. People who depended on him? He had that once, though the circumstances had been different, he had left though, hadn't he? He had run.

' So what do you think?' Vaan turned to him suddenly.

'About?'

Vaan gave him a slightly dubious look, ' About what I said. Do you think Reks was wrong?'

Balthier closed his eyes and shook his head. So much about talking to Vaan was like this. A dance, two steps forward to one step back. Still at least some progress was made each time, Balthier considered dryly.

' As I said Vaan, I don't think about it at all. I didn't know you or your brother then and it makes not the slightest difference anyway. What's done is done.'

'But...?' Vaan looked momentarily stricken and Balthier supposed that what he had just said could be conceived as rather harsh. He really was no good at this comforting small talk. It wasn't like Fran needed much of a shoulder to cry on, was it?

Balthier pulled himself to his feet, if the boy was up he could finish the watch, the effort to keep his eyes open was giving Balthier a headache.

' Vaan, if I told you that I thought your brother was exactly right to run off and fight a pointless war, have the poor taste to become complicit in a conspiracy to kill the king and bring down Dalmasca, what would you say?'

' I'd say you were wrong.' Vaan had gotten to his feet also.

' Right and if I said that I thought you were right about your brother does that make you feel any better? Does it change anything?'

Vaan put his hands behind his neck, bony elbows sticking out at right angles. He pondered this question for an interminably long moment. 'No, not really.'

Balthier tugged on a sleeve distractedly, 'Well then. Goodnight Vaan.'

Without further adieu he turned nonchalantly on his heel and strolled towards the bed roll calling out to him sweetly, his head a lead weight bobbing on his shoulders.

'Hey! But I'm not even supposed to be on watch.'

' You are now.'

With his back to the boy, Vaan couldn't see the smirk that lit Balthier's features. It was unlikely Vaan would try and confide in him again now.

Introspection not being a favoured past-time for Balthier, even if he was merely a spectator this time; after all he had acquired far too many skeletons over the last six years to risk stirring up old ghosts.

Balthier closed his eyes as his head hit the travel pillow and fell immediately and deeply into dark and labyrinthine dreams. When he awoke, just after dawn the next day, the echo of his father's voice rang in his ears.