A.N: Almost there. We're almost there! I'm making handwavy gestures and ignoring certain limitations of furycrafting to make things happen!
Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or the Codex Alera.
Arthur looked around at his sleeping team. All seemed well, everything was accounted for and-
There was a resounding thump that shook the room.
A man on a horse was trying to set Yusuf's coach on fire. Even in the pouring rain, the flame was bright and strong!
The horseman had wreathed his sword in fire and was taking a few swings at Yusuf's coach, and then a couple more at the chemist's bowed head.
Yusuf yelled and tried to maneuver his coach out of the way. But the horses had caught the scent of burning, the scent of fire, and fought against the chemist's control.
They began to run faster, the fear getting to the poor, over-worked animals.
Yusuf immediately began to curse.
"Of all the times to need earthcrafting," Yusuf was saying. "Of all the times to need stupid, stupid earthcrafting!"
Because without earthcrafting, he'd never be able to soothe the horses and get them under his control.
And they were going faster than was safe. They were going faster than was safe as they were approaching the next turn. After that there would be an incline in the road. He'd memorized the maze and knew that if he took this particular road, he'd have to time it exactly or end up missing his turn and get trapped in a dead-end.
Yusuf would have to think fast.
After removing his scarlet half cape and dropping it on the floor, Arthur secured the PASIV by closing the lid.
Then he double-checked his weapon. If he was using a gun (and he really did miss his gun) he'd have taken this moment to reassure himself that it was loaded and functional. Now that he was using a gladius all he had to do was firmly grasp the hilt of the sword and call on his metalcrafting. Through the crafting he could tell that the sword was in perfect shape- that it had been crafted with care and skill, so it shouldn't break or shatter if he were to meet another in battle.
He took a moment to pull the sword from its scabbard and then just as quickly, used his metalcrafting to slip it back in without stabbing himself in the thigh, without missing the scabbard at all. He took a deep breath for calm and composure and then opened the door.
Once he was in the hall, Arthur locked the door up tight, not wanting any curious security projections to stumble upon his sleeping team.
No, Arthur walked down the hall towards the stairs, ready to draw the security projections away from this level.
But the door to the staircase had begun to open- surrounded by so much stone, Arthur wouldn't be able to reliably call on his aircrafting for speed to evade what would clearly be an enemy projection. As the door opened and revealed a legionare, Arthur made it a point to not make eye contact and took the right turn that would lead away from the stairs.
Unfortunately, the legionare followed after the point man. It would look like Arthur would have to make good on his last words to Eames. He was going to lead them all on a merry chase.
He immediately called on his earthcrafting, drawing power from the stone floors so he could begin to race down the hall, gaining endurance and strength from his contact with the ground.
The legionare cursed and did the same, but not before Arthur had taken the lead.
After a moment, Yusuf dreamed up the perfect weapon. A wooden stave appeared in his hand.
Yusuf allowed the horseman with the fiery sword to come closer as he called on his woodfury. The wooden stave began to bend itself back, bending almost in half. Once the horseman was within striking distance, Yusuf released the crafting on the stave.
With an explosive amount of force, the stave bent back into its proper shape, but not before it slammed into the horseman.
The force of the blow nearly took the man off his horse; it stunned him and made him drop his gladius. Yusuf used this opportunity to unseat him, sending the poor bastard falling to the ground as his horse continued to run.
Arthur was running at a good rate, using his crafting to stay aware of the number of legionares pursuing him. He still had the original pursuer gaining on him, and a now second that had followed after the first.
Arthur ducked around the corner, hoping to draw his weapon and get rid of at least one of them.
But as Arthur got one hand on the hilt of his gladius, the legionare appeared around the corner and tried to stop Arthur from drawing the weapon. The point man grit his teeth as the legionare grabbed his sword arm and forced the blade up and away from his body as he dragged Arthur back into the hall where the second legionare could see him.
That legionare was already calling on his crafting, reaching out with one hand to direct his attack. With his earthcrafting, the legionare was forcing the stone floor to rise up, shifting like a wave that would travel the length of the hall until it broke. On Arthur.
Another horseman, this one armed with a bow, drew and fired on Yusuf's coach.
The man knocked open windows, shattered glass, and narrowly avoided hitting anyone in the coach. It appeared that the man was going to rectify that as he drew another arrow from the quiver he wore on one shoulder.
But Yusuf caught sight of him. Returning his attention on the road, the chemist waved one hand and called on his woodcrafting; it forced the arrow to jump out of the bowman's hand before coiling around his arm like a snake. The arrow positively slithered up the man's arm until it reached the poor fool's neck.
With another flexing of his power, Yusuf forced the arrow to constrict around the man's throat, cutting off his air. But still, the man clung on, having dropped his bow to try and rip the arrow from its place around his neck.
Not taking his eyes off the road, Yusuf spotted another coach speeding along, ready to cut him off and box him in so the pursuing projections could disable him, rip apart his coach, and then kill his sleeping passengers.
Timing it exactly, Yusuf suddenly reigned in his horses, the coach coming to a stop as the rain poured over the streets of Alera Imperia.
The man on the horse, still trying to remove the arrow, didn't stop in time to avoid the oncoming coach- he was knocked from his horse and nearly took the coach driver with him!
But only nearly.
Yusuf called to his horses, urging them to move once again, gaining speed and taking another sharp turn.
The gravity shifts were a blessing in disguise.
Initially thrown to the ground with his attacker, Arthur was able to push the man away as the second shift hit; the second legionare was forced to break his original crafting to drive his fingers through the stone walls in order to keep from falling. And the first legionare was thrown down the adjoining hall, screaming as he fell.
Arthur was left to cling to the wall like the remaining projection, regaining his balance and standing next to a furylamp which still burned within its fixture.
Yusuf had reached the incline- he was getting closer to the bridge! But another coach had slammed into his.
Seeing no other options, Yusuf let go of the reins and used his woodcrafting to break the axles and poles keeping the horses attached and in line with his coach.
He was glad he did; the other coach slammed into his again, forcing his off the side of the road where it began to tumble down the side.
The chemist screamed and pressed himself against the PASIV lashed to the driver's seat, hoping to protect it from the fall.
The coach began to roll.
The hallway was beginning to turn.
Arthur had already gotten to his feet, standing next to the furylamps mounted on the walls.
As the legionare clung to the wall, slipping down as he couldn't fight against the shift in gravity or maintain his hold, Arthur began to run!
He called on his earth fury for strength, using his aircrafting just a bit for what limited speed and agility he could manage in what amounted to a box of stone. He avoided tripping on the furylamps, running at an angle to keep up with the way the hall was spinning.
He dealt with the stuttering of his earthcrafting when he had to run across the wooden doorways and avoid tripping over doorknobs, feeling his strength rush back into him once he landed on the stone floor again, scrambling to get to the legionare before the projection could reach for a weapon or call on his own crafting again.
They made contact and Arthur used his furycrafted strength to punch the projection in the face, forcing the gladius the projection had managed to draw from his scabbard falling to the ground, useless to either as it slid away from both and hit the wall.
Arthur threw the legionare, allowing their shifting environment do some of the work, making the man slam into the wall hard as gravity shifted through another turn. Arthur allowed himself a half-second to mentally curse over what Yusuf was running into one dream level away.
They wrestled. They fought their way down the wall. Then as they fought on the ceiling, Arthur kicked the legionare using his furycrafted strength! Forced to spring and jump to keep aligned with the spinning hall, Arthur and the legionare came together and fought for the gladius only to fall headlong into one of the doors that lead to a room for rent in the pleasure house.
Their combined weight forced them through, breaking the door open and letting them fall into the vacant room.
Complementary stationary flying around them, Arthur landed atop the legionare, pressing the armored man against the stone wall with crushing force.
Feeling the legionare's frantic crafting, Arthur removed his fingers from the stone wall before the stone could rise up and fold over them, effectively restraining him.
He changed his hold, grabbing the legionare by his armor and punching him in the face once more.
If Arthur had thought that the spinning hallway was a nuisance, he was learning that the spinning room was worse. It was smaller, but full of heavy objects that appeared to have been lashed or bolted to the floor to prevent theft. It didn't mean that they weren't dangerous, though. Getting thrown against a dresser with enough force to break his back, Arthur was able to draw on just a little windcrafting, just a little, to cushion his fall. Nothing more, though.
I want to fly, I want to fly, I want to fly, Arthur thought hard, grunting as he was grabbed and thrown against the wall by the legionare. They tumbled and fell and fought!
Then Arthur's metalcrafting positively screamed as the gladius went slipping by on the floor.
He lunged for it, slapping at it with his fingers, unmindful of the cuts he'd get from the sharp blade…and he missed!
Together, he and the legionare were scaling the wall above the bed's headboard, falling as the room turned, making it so Arthur landed on the mattress with the legionare trying to pin him in place and beat him senseless. The point man got one foot against the legionare's lorica and kicked him, pushing him up and away so the man would be forced to fly into the ceiling as the gravity shifted again. Sensing where the gladius had landed somewhere on the floor, Arthur twisted and tumbled off of the bed, aiming for the wall where the gladius would be sliding with the latest turn.
He rolled when he hit the floor, laying flat on his stomach and reaching for the gladius as it slid his way.
Once he had his hand on the weapon, he focused on it with his metalcrafting, honing the blade and making it diamond hard and plenty sharp.
The legionare spotted his stolen weapon in Arthur's hand and jumped as the room continued to spin. The legionare hit the ground and reached for Arthur just as the point man forced the gladius through the projection's lorica, slicing through the layers of steel as if they were cobwebs. The legionare arched with the powerful blow and the blade slipped neatly through his armored back, lethal and bloody.
The projection spasmed and thrashed but soon went still, laying half on top of the point man that breathed heavily and waited for the projection's death rattle.
As soon as he heard it, Arthur removed the blade and got to his feet. He stole the dead projection's blade and cleaned the blood off of it with the bedspread.
The room was silent and still; for now there would be no more shifts in gravity.
Hopefully.
Arthur quickly sheathed his stolen gladius and exited the room.
The coach, reinforced by Yusuf's woodcrafting during the fall, came to a complete stop at the bottom of the slope, leaving them safely on an empty road that would still get them to the bridge.
After checking that the PASIV was okay, Yusuf finally began to laugh about the ridiculous, tumbling fall. He just wanted to laugh because he'd come out of it alive!
He was tempted to open the curtain and speak to the dreaming passengers, something like, Did you see that?
Surviving this was possibly one of the most badass things he'd ever done…
From his spot on the driver's seat, Yusuf could see where the horses stood on the road he had just fallen from. They appeared to be unharmed, even whickering at the sight of him so far down below.
Sighing, Yusuf climbed down from the driver's seat and grasped his stave, a useful improvised weapon.
He paused only long enough to gather what looked to be grass from the roadside, sprinkling it on the coach's roof as well as in a circle around it. Then, he called on his woodcrafting, creating a camouflage similar to what was done on their warehouse roof. Now he'd kill for some of Arthur's crummy, half-dead plants and trees!
But this would have to do as he tried to wrangle the horses and repaired the damages to their rigging.
"Can you give us a better view, Eames?"
The forger, still in heavy Legion armor, stomped his way through the snow and made it to Cobb's side.
"I told you it's not my strong suit," Eames said. "My aircrafting is nothing next to Arthur's."
"I'm not asking you to fly down there, I just want a sightcrafting."
"W-what's t-that?" Ariadne asked. She wearing a set of flying leathers layered with steel to give her some protection, while not inhibiting her ability to move or run. Even though this was a dream, she didn't need to be hindered by such heavy armor.
It didn't change the fact that she felt like she was freezing, heavy cloak be damned. She stomped around, hoping to get her blood to circulate better in this environment.
"A competent aircrafter can use their fury to craft something of a lens to bend the light and magnify their view." Eames shrugged. "And I'm not the most competent aircrafter. If I were better at it, I'd include it on my CV."
"Arthur," Ariadne said, proud that her teeth didn't chatter and gift the point man's name with a couple more vowels. "Arthur said that you were paired together to strengthen your crafting."
Before Eames could answer, Cobb interrupted them. "I know for a fact that Arthur was able to walk you through a basic sightcrafting."
Resigned, Eames held up his hands, framing an empty section of air half a foot or so from his body. At first, nothing happened. Then, brow furrowed, Eames called to his hesitant, weak little wind fury, asking it to bend the light.
There was a flicker, a shine, and then from the space between Eames's hands was a magnified view of the Legion camp down below.
Ariadne moved aside so Cobb could look through the crafting, directing the forger to move his hands to pan around, looking for obstacles or enemies.
"What do you see," she asked.
"A fully functional Legion camp," Cobb answered before speaking to the forger. "Eames, this is your dream."
The forger nodded, not commenting on how he could have possibly forgotten, and instead answered, "I expect that you'd like me to distract them?"
"It's High Lord Browning's first Legion," Cobb said. "As a High Lord, he'd have two more Legions at his disposal to protect his city or engage a larger enemy with the help of another High Lord. We don't know how far away those two Legions are, so be on your guard."
Cobb looked to be doing the math. "One Legion has ten cohorts so we're looking at over five thousand legionares."
Fischer coughed, looking uncomfortable in his Legion armor. "It's more likely that there's five thousand one hundred and two legionares, Sir Charles."
Eames sighed. "That's great. I get to shake up a hornets' nest that possibly has over five thousand angry legionares inside it."
When Fischer looked over at him, eyebrow raised, Eames refused to correct himself. "Sorry, adding the one hundred and two extra legionares doesn't improve my outlook, Your Highness. I like to keep it simple."
Before an argument could be started on top of the snowy outcropping they were scouting the Legion camp from, Cobb moved on from talk of the number of legionares they would be faced with to the plan of attack.
He turned to Eames. "I need you to draw the guards along the wall and those posted at the gates away from their positions. Do you understand?"
Eames removed his helmet and brushed a bead of sweat off his brow. "Who guides the Princeps in?"
Cobb immediately shook his head and adjusted his own gear, double checking the strap under his chin that kept his helmet in place, adjusting the angle of his sword so it would slide smoothly from the scabbard.
"No, not me. If I know the route, everything could be compromised."
Ariadne raised her hand, stepping forwards to volunteer, still shivering from the cold. "I designed the place."
Once again, Cobb shook his head. It was clear that he didn't trust himself alone and was appointing her as his unofficial guardian. Ariadne supposed she had asked for it after what she'd said on the first level, explaining that she was only helping him because the others didn't know what they'd gotten themselves into.
"I could do it," Saito said.
Dressed for the cold but not armed for battle, the discipline collar visible above the neckline of his shirt and the heavy cloak he wore, Saito volunteered without hesitation.
Cobb nodded and turned to Eames, ordering him to brief Saito on the route into the Legion camp and instructing Fischer to go with Saito.
"All right," Fischer said, "but what about you?"
Cobb said, "You will infiltrate the hospital at the center of the Legion camp. The windows on the upper level are big enough that I can cover you from the south tower on the Legion wall. Do you see it?"
"Yeah, I see it. But you're not coming in?"
The look on Fischer's face practically screamed that he wanted a little hand-holding. Cobb wouldn't do that- he couldn't do that. If he could also slip in another suggestion to Fischer's subconscious mind after he'd incepted him with I will split up my father's empire and I will free Saito, Cobb was tempted to add in, I will go to a therapist.
"In order to find out the truth about your father you're going to need to break into Lord Browning's mind on your own," Cobb advised. That was good; it reinforced the pertinent themes of Fischer's life up till now. Fischer needed to prove to himself, and now (from Fischer's point of view) to Cobb, that he was capable of doing this. That he could take power for himself and no longer linger in his father's shadow…
Fischer finally nodded his agreement. He made some final adjustments to his own weapon and helmet and moved to Saito's side.
Ariadne had begun to shiver again, cursing silently to herself. "Don't tell me we're going to walk through the snow."
Cobb shook his head.
"We're gonna ski?"
Eames chuckled, but he shook his head, too.
"While I agree that it would be excellent fun, I have something better in mind. A crafter with as much earthcrafting as you will appreciate it."
Ariadne refused to hug herself for warmth. If Eames could take the cold, if Cobb could take the cold, hell, if Saito could take the cold, so could she!
"Can't earthcraft through so much snow and ice, it's too hard for A'tuin. I can't draw strength and I can't run…well, maybe a little but I'd probably break my neck."
Eames smiled for her. "No need to go to Limbo just yet. You'll feel better soon- it's not your fault that your crafting won't allow you to retain your warmth. With me, I can use my water fury to make my blood flow steadily throughout my body or reduce the sensation of cold from the snow so I can stay warm. With Cobb, he can use a basic firecrafting."
Ariadne wondered if she could get away with hugging Cobb and leeching some heat, or if she'd accidentally freeze to the man's armor.
Cobb must have caught the look on her face as she considered it. "It's an internalized crafting. I'm actually controlling how much heat leaves my body, so you wouldn't catch very much."
She sighed and turned to Eames once again.
"Tell me how I'm going to feel better."
Eames grinned. "You're going to be out of the snow for the most part."
Then he put two fingers to his mouth and whistled.
Five horses, already saddled and bright-eyed, approached through the snow towards them, likely dreamed up by Eames as a means of transportation.
"Any earthcrafter worth their salt can command a horse. I've got earthcrafting, Fischer's got earthcrafting, Cobb has earthcrafting, and so do you. You'll be able to gain strength through the horse and it's contact with the ground, traveling will be faster than on foot, and you'll be able to save your energy for greater efforts later."
As he spoke, the others approached their mounts, taking a moment to familiarize themselves with the dreamed up beasts before getting into the saddle.
Saito mounted in a smooth motion that spoke of having previous experience riding a horse, maybe. But he spent a moment afterwards coughing up blood and spitting onto the snowy ground. Eames shared a brief, worried look with him, but Saito waved him away.
Ariadne mounted her horse, finding the saddle as comfortable as it was likely to be, even in a dream. She stayed with Cobb as Eames rode off; they watched as Saito led Fischer away, calling over his shoulder as his horse began to trot.
"Come on, Princeps Robert!"
Yusuf had found the horses and made the repairs to his coach, breaking the crafting which hid the coach from view and hopped up onto the driver's seat once more.
It didn't take him long to reach the bridge, a hulking wooden structure that he could feel the thrumming of several craftings that protected it from elemental damage and strengthened the beams and deck. As the horses pulled the coach onto the bridge, Yusuf reached out with his woodcrafting and tested the structure.
And there it was, further ahead.
Crafted into the design, lurking like a virus, were the flaws that Ariadne had built into the bridge.
Areas that would succumb to pressure, a spot that where the wood would shatter at the touch of Yusuf's woodcrafting. He'd be able to drive the coach off the bridge and into the water.
But as he made it onto the bridge, he noticed something strange. He stopped his coach and looked over his shoulder to watch as several men were diving out of the coach that had followed him onto the bridge. It had also come to a complete stop, too.
Once the men hit the deck they immediately dropped to their knees to press their hands against the planks, eyes closed, murmuring softly to their furies.
Yusuf couldn't tell for sure what they were saying, but when he felt the deck begin to shudder, he was worried that the words might have included the command of rise.
Working together, these woodcrafters forced the deck to rise up, as the furies built within this bridge might do if a boat with a tall-mast were to attempt to travel down the waterway and go underneath the bridge. Yusuf knew that in real life this could be accomplished with towers and cantilevers or hydraulic jacks; that those bridges were called vertical-lift bridges.
But he experienced a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realized how high up they were going. That there was no ship passing underneath the bridge and that the projections had only used the feature to trap him up there…
Unable to run from the men in the coach, Yusuf cursed as the woodcrafters got to their feet and drew their weapons- woodcrafters of their skill would have to be excellent archers capable of making their arrows fly faster, making their bows bend back further.
Each shot would be true and lethal and Yusuf could only divert the path of so many arrows.
As the woodcrafters drew back on their bows, ready to send a volley his way, Yusuf did the only thing he could think of.
He cursed.
Eames had never ridden a horse in his life, but he figured that when dreaming, experience didn't matter much. It was all about imagination.
He'd seen movies that featured people riding horses, he'd read books where the heroes rode horses. It was all about one's state of mind.
Though he did admit that he would have been amazing on skis. Like James Bond or something. Shaking his head at the silly thought, Eames got back to work. He had a hornets' nest to shake-up!
He manifested his bow, the arrow already in his hand. He focused on the sharp arrowhead and pulled a metalcrafting trick he'd practiced once or twice with Arthur. Firecrafters aren't the only ones who can make stuff burn, Eames thought as he made the arrowhead catch flame, becoming a bright, destructive, and very distracting nuisance for whomever he shot it at!
Seated on his horse, which stood on a tree-lined, snowy spot roughly a mile away from the Legion camp, Eames drew on his bow.
Calling on his woodcrafting, Eames took a deep breath and began to strengthen the wooden bow, allowing himself to pull the string further back. He chose the perfect spot for the flaming arrow.
Then he released it.
The arrow positively zoomed upwards and away, appearing well within the sight of any guards at the gate or on the Legion wall.
It was like a falling star, catching the attention of several armed legionares, as it landed on the wall.
The reaction was an explosion of activity.
Legionares spilled from the gates like angry ants, a couple launching themselves from the wall and calling windstreams, taking to the air to spot their threat.
After another moment, he could hear horns being blown, centurions calling their cohorts together, and finally, the drumming of hooves as the cavalry was called. They must have figured they'd cover more ground on horseback, rather than marching their way through the snow.
Eames smiled to himself and smoothly slipped the bow over his shoulder.
"Let's give our young Princeps a good start," Eames was saying to his horse, calling on his earthcrafting, and riding away from the cover of the trees.
He might have been able to hide himself a little longer with his woodcrafting, but he wouldn't want to risk running into their woodcrafters.
Those legionares wouldn't be squeamish- they'd command their furies to slip into the trees and the urge boughs and branches to become grasping, clenching hands with sharp nailed fingers.
If they got the chance they'd use their crafting to first restrain him, and then rip him and his horse into bloody bits and pieces.
Eames increased the pace, urging the horse to run faster and get them as far away from the trees as possible.
I really would have preferred skis, Eames thought.
"Sod it!" The chemist yelled as he slipped off the driver's bench. The archers released their craftings and let the arrows fly!
As he ran to the coach doors, Yusuf screamed to his woodfury and waved his hand, out and away, forcing the arrows to alter their path just slightly.
There were several near misses; a line of arrows punched through the body of the coach, following Yusuf as he ran, the last of which nearly pinked his arm and attached him to the coach by his shirt, much like a bug on a board. He ripped his shirt away from the arrow, revealing a long and bloody wound where the arrow grazed him before sinking into the wooden door the chemist was trying to open.
He managed it, slamming it closed before the archers could reload.
But they would. They'd do it! And they'd shoot his horses. And he'd never manage the kick without the blasted horses!
He slowed his breathing and pressed his hand against one of the walls of the coach, trying to strengthen the wooden body before doing what he had to.
Before, during the planning stages, there had been an argument over how they would manage the musical countdowns if they were going to attempt to make the dreams historically accurate. It was hard. Eames had joked that maybe they could actually just sing the song to whoever they were trying to warn.
Arthur hadn't been impressed by Eames's argument of: "But you've woken me up like that!"
Yusuf hadn't been impressed, either. He wasn't much of a singer, so he'd probably have to say them. And because of his habit of trying to be quiet around other dreamers, Yusuf would end up unintentionally whispering. There was something a little too personal about it. Whispering the words to a French song in his point man's ear didn't appeal to the chemist at all.
So, the singing (or whispering) of Non, Je Ne Regrette was removed as a solution to the problem. Instead, they went with what they usually did, rationalizing that Fischer would be asleep anyway and wouldn't notice it if they used an electronic device with headphones to play the song that timed the kicks.
Hidden and safe within a secret compartment, Yusuf removed the device and headphones, carefully climbing around his sleeping team so he could reach Arthur.
Yusuf placed the headphones on the point man's head, adjusting them so that the earpieces fit properly, then laid the device against Arthur chest.
He then checked on Saito. The man was still and quiet, dreaming as deep as the others were, but his tunic was wet with fresh blood. Yusuf touched the client's shoulder, wishing that he had a little watercrafting so he could sense what was happening. But he didn't need watercrafting to tell him that the infection was spreading and getting worse. He could tell that from the smell alone.
Yusuf went back to the front of the coach and picked up the music player he'd left sitting on Arthur's chest. He pressed a few buttons and said, "I hope you're ready."
Arthur was running down the stairs, trying to reach the fourth floor. Suddenly, the staircase was filled with the echoes of music, much louder than the sound of his own footsteps.
He stopped and looked upwards, unable to stop himself from looking above. He knew that the sound wasn't generated in his dream; it wasn't a few floors up. It was coming from the first level. Yusuf was warning him about the kick.
But it was way too early.
"No," Arthur said to himself, still looking back the way he'd come. "It's too soon."
Cobb had stopped several times during their ride to use his firecrafting to melt the snow.
Ariadne learned why when she heard a familiar voice coming from the latest of these sort of slushy pools of water. Cobb got off his horse and moved closer to this pool, kneeling down and looking within it.
There wasn't much to see. There wasn't enough liquid for Eames's water fury to manifest or create a liquid statue of their forger. But his voice was coming through clearly.
"Cobb, do you hear that?" Eames was saying softly. "I first noticed it about twenty minutes ago. I thought it was the wind up here."
But it was clearly music. Cobb said as much to Eames.
Their conversation was brief; they had to move fast because the music signaled Yusuf's impending kick.
Yusuf was ten seconds away from driving them off the bridge, giving Arthur only three minutes to drop them on his level.
"That gives us sixty minutes," Ariadne added in. If they had time, Cobb might have complimented her on her quick math skills.
But they only had an hour.
That left Cobb needing to ask an important question.
"Can they make it in an hour?" Cobb asked, obviously referencing Fischer and Saito.
Ariadne thought about it. "The hospital is at the center of the Legion camp. They'll have to get through or over the Legion wall and bypass the tents housing legionares and centurions."
Cobb shook his head. They needed a more direct route. Something to get Fischer into the Legion camp faster.
"They need a new route."
Ariadne didn't know what to tell him. "It's designed as a labyrinth."
From the frosty pool Cobb had created, the twangs of fired arrows arose. Eames had left the line open.
"Eames?"
There was the sound of a gladius being drawn, the clash of weapons, and then after a few breaths of strained silence, Eames answered.
"I'm here! I can't hold this position for very long. The bleeding bodies of legionares are a dead giveaway that something's wrong."
"There must be access routes that cut through the maze," Cobb was saying to Ariadne.
"Ah, that's probably not a good idea, Cobb."
"I'm not asking for your opinion, Eames."
Cobb waited. Ironically, so did Eames.
Eames pressed his hand against the snow, continuing to will it into a more liquid form, speaking to the furies within and urging them into motion, forcing the atoms within the frozen water to move and shift. Watercrafting the ice to slush, and the slush to enough water for a watercrafted message was rather tedious work.
He felt more than heard another person approach him while his back was turned, focused on maintaining the pool so he could continue to speak to Cobb.
With a flick of his wrist, Eames sent his water fury lurking within the snow to shift a nearby snow bank at this intruder like a wave. There was the sizzling hiss of melting snow as the intruder carrying a flaming sword (judging from the sound and the amount of steam produced) was buried deep under the snow.
This wouldn't hold him for long, Eames knew. He could already sense the legionare beginning to call on his firecrafting; warming his body and preparing to launch himself from the snow by surrounding himself with an aura of flames.
The snow Eames would be able to manipulate with his crafting would become steam, leaving him little he could work with. He sighed. If he could get close enough and surprise him, he might be able to force him to sleep.
But he was still waiting for an answer on Cobb's end.
"Did Eames add in any features?" Eames heard Cobb ask Ariadne. He took his hand away from the pool and divided his attention between it and the legionare who had seared the earth and melted the snow around him in a circle about three feet wide.
The legionare looked very pleased with himself. The snow that had been stuck to his armor was now dripping off in rivulets water.
Both men drew their weapons, but Eames stopped to smile at his opponent. From behind him he could still hear Ariadne's voice from the pool. She was mentioning the addition he'd requested, his shortcut. He was surprised that Cobb hadn't thought of it himself.
Arthur made it back to the fourth floor and spotted a couple of legionares waiting at the door to the room Arthur had carefully prepped for the kick.
"Hey!" Arthur shouted to them, startling them and forcing them to split up. One followed Arthur as he began to run back the way he came, back to the stairs.
Yusuf had exited the coach, spotting the woodcrafters already reloading. Knowing that he didn't have enough time to fight them all, Yusuf jumped into the driver's seat and prepared to force the coach over the side of the bridge.
Eames asked for a tunnel.
It would take him underground, beneath the Legion walls and through the camp. It ended just beneath the fortress of a hospital.
He could see how it would save Fischer and Saito time. And with Fischer's earthcrafting he'd be able to manage the tunnel and manipulating the walls of the fortress. Earthcrafting was literally the key.
Not having the time for another drawn out battle, Eames flicked one wrist and called his fury from the snow- he bade her to collect herself in the melting water from the legionare's armor and then launch herself at the man's face.
This surprised the legionare enough that he dropped his sword and did what many did in response to such an attack; he clawed at his face, hoping to get the thin sheet of water off of his mouth, away from his nose.
Eames let the man sink to his knees and continue to suffocate, squeezing the hilt of his own sword to shield himself from the riot emotions screaming from the legionare.
He called on his metalcrafting and returned his attention to Cobb's voice as it rose from the pool.
The cold and logical space of mind his metalcrafting offered him allowed him to ignore his victim's pain while listening to his own name being called from the pool.
"Yes?" He said, certain that his voice sounded faraway and unconcerned, a strange effect of a good metalcrafting. "Can you open a line to Saito and Fischer so Ariadne could explain the shortcut?"
He hummed to himself, thinking of the distance, the difficulty in finding still, unfrozen water. He stretched his watercrafting senses and noticed for the first time the he felt…different.
Well, not different. Maybe the right word was aware? There was something about being this far down in the dream that made him feel stronger…but if he understood the idea correctly, Yusuf's chemical had the effect of compounding certain aspects of the dreams- time, being one. Maybe their furycraft was another?
Eames focused and found them. Scaling down the side of a rock face, closer to the Legion camp…
With the Legion camp protected on all sides by rocky terrain, their only choice had been to abandon the horses and climb. The tempting earthcrafted path had been covered with legionare projections that neither would be able to fight…well, at least not successfully.
Saito struggled, using rope and what remained of his strength, getting himself down the cliff by sheer force of will.
Fischer climbed steadily downwards a few paces away from him, keeping an eye and sometimes advising him to use different handholds or stronger sections of rock. No doubt, he could tell which would hold their weight, calling on his earthcrafting for the strength and endurance to make such a climb.
They were mostly silent, keeping their attention on the steady descent, though Saito knew that the young Princeps turned his head more than once to look at him, his attention caught by the glinting of the discipline collar Saito wore even in the dream.
He could take this collar off of me, Saito thought as he climbed down. Or he could decide not to. Then he had an even more worrisome thought- that he might not survive his wound, that he would die and drop to Limbo.
Saito grit his teeth and pushed the thought away, ignoring the burning of his chest, the pain that never left, or the way he could taste blood in his mouth, sharp and metallic.
He coughed, sick of trying to stop himself. Saito coughed and choked, not trying cough against his shoulder.
Saito coughed against the snow, leaving a bright spattering of red against the white.
And then, it began to speak to him.
"Hello?" It was hard to hear this voice. It sounded so far away. The snow, or what little of it was there against this particular area, shifted and changed, appearing to melt. As it melted the voice became clearer. "Are you there?"
Fischer was staring at it, mouthing: bloodspeaking?
Saito shook his head and cleared his throat, wincing in pain. This was a watercrafting, that much Saito was sure of. "Hello?" Saito answered.
There was a faraway sigh of relief. "This is Eames, I'm going to get you in contact with Ariadne. She'll give you a new route to get into the Legion camp and the hospital."
There was silence, until finally they heard the architect's voice instead.
"Saito?"
The client nodded, not questing this development or use of furycrafting. "Go ahead."
Eames held the crafting, thinking of how strange it was to listen in as Ariadne gave them the exact directions for his shortcut. He had to stay focused on them. Eames chanced a look over his shoulder and spotted the still and silent body of the legionare. One less thing to worry about, Eames rationalized.
Yusuf snapped the horses' reins and waved one hand as the arrows were fired. Several hit the coach, but none hit him or the horses. They were scared enough by the tension, by the fighting, that all it would take for them to go wild and lose their heads would be an arrow wound.
Arthur ran to the door to the stairs, once again. He threw open the door and ran down the stairs, the legionare making it through the door as Arthur ran. Standing at the top of the stairs, the legionare thrust his hand forward, forcing a powerful gust of wind to shove Arthur further down the stairs, almost throwing him face first against the wall!
But Arthur looked up, narrowed his eyes, grabbed the railings with both hands and jumped.
He raced up the stairs and appeared just behind the confused legionare, grabbing him by the back of his neck and leaning him forwards, allowing gravity to tug at his heavy armor.
"I think that you want to jump," Arthur was saying as he leaned the legionare closer to the edge. There weren't stairs leading down anymore.
The legionare's answer was clearly a big, fat, frightened no.
"All windcrafters can feel it you know? L'appel du vide," Arthur explained, saying the last bit in flawless French. "It's used to describe this instinctive urge to jump from high places."
Arthur leaned in and said, "Paradox."
Then he shoved the legionare into the void his Penrose Steps had created, letting the man fall several flights down with a scream and a thud!
Yusuf got the coach moving, picking up speed as he approached the damaged section of the bridge- he called on his woodcrafting, focusing on the damage, making it worse, making it weaker, as he forced the horses to run right into it.
That section of the bridge broke; the railing becoming nothing but firewood that rained down around the falling coach, sprinkling down to the water so far below.
Yusuf once more let the horses go, releasing the reins, undoing all the repairs he had done to the axles and poles keeping the horses attached to the coach.
He didn't want to hurt the horses- when they hit the water, maybe they'd be able to swim away and not drown once the coach sank to the bottom of the river…
Yusuf once again tried to protect the PASIV with his body, hung on, and tried to stay alive.
Arthur, who had been running down the hall, trying to get to the room where his team still slept, was suddenly thrown through the air as gravity shifted and then disappeared.
Eames could hear it. Well, with his watercrafting senses extended so wide, he could also technically feel it, too. They had just had an avalanche. A big one.
Before the avalanche could snow both of them in, Fischer and Saito did the smart thing.
They cut their ropes and dropped down, down, down.
They tumbled and fell down the mountainside, the wave of snow racing after them.
Now they were at the bottom. They were winded, sore, and dumbstruck by the disaster that missed them so narrowly.
"What was that?" Ariadne asked, out of breath and still trying to soothe her mount. She used her earthcrafting to calm the beast and then forced herself to remain calm. Because even though she asked, she was pretty sure she knew what had happened.
"The kick," Cobb answered.
From the little melted pool of watery slush, Cobb could hear Eames yelling for him.
"Cobb! Cobb, did we miss it?"
"Yeah, we missed it," Cobb answered.
Fischer and Saito were just sorting themselves out after the fall.
Saito listened to Fischer's griping over dreaming up beaches. Saito's chest throbbed after the falling and rolling.
He could only manage to nod heavily at the man's complaints. He wasn't sure who to blame the snow on; would he blame Yusuf, because of the rain on the first level? Or Mr. Eames because he was the dreamer of this one? Or, even Fischer himself because this was the environment they found as they went deeper into his subconscious?
Saito wisely said nothing.
Cobb continued to listen for Eames's voice, still kneeling close to what amounted to a slushy puddle.
"Well, what the hell do we do now?"
Cobb stood and reached for his horse's reins, pulling the startled beast closer, using his own earthcrafting to calm it. "We have to finish the job before the next kick," Cobb said as he mounted his horse.
"What next kick?"
"When the coach hits the water!"
Arthur was floating in zero-gravity. Glad to have taken off his cape, the point man playing singulare called on the smallest, gentlest windstream he could manage in the stone hall. Spot was barely visible when surrounded with this much stone, and at any other time, it would make what they were doing impossible.
One couldn't fly without a strong manifested wind fury. But if he could draw on the air in this hall, Arthur could push himself along and move faster than he would by constantly rebounding off of solid objects or pulling himself through the air using doorframes.
Flying passably, Arthur made it to room 528, unlocked the door and spotted all of his team mates floating around, attached to the closed PASIV case by their IV lines.
"How do I drop you without gravity?" Arthur said, thinking of the failure his original kick would be. He'd missed Yusuf's kick and now the coach was in free fall.
This would call for some quick planning. He needed to improvise a kick in an environment that had no gravity. He needed to create the sensation of falling in an environment without gravity.
He stopped what he was doing, no longer pushing himself along with the help of his fury. The idea struck him as funny in its simplicity.
Arthur smiled to himself. He knew what he needed to find. He had actually spotted it when he had chanced a look into the bar, seen the areas where the dancers would entertain the legionares while they ate and drank.
But he'd need to change his appearance first. He'd need the help of some of the legionares, especially those who made the grade of Knights Aeris.
Arthur floated towards a mirror that had floated off of its hook on the wall. He righted its position and forced it back onto the wall so that his hands would remain free.
He looked at his reflection and called on his water fury.
The little butterfly manifested for him, fluttering about before landing on his armored shoulder.
"Okay, dear," Arthur was saying to his fury. "I know this isn't our strong suit, but we've practiced this, just in case. Do you remember?"
The little fury didn't speak. She couldn't. But through their bond, Arthur was able to feel her agreement, her trust and deep affection for him.
"It'll be a good story to tell Mr. Eames," Arthur was saying in his own voice, not yet having forced a change. No, he'd do the easy part first.
It was always easier to watercraft the surface.
He ran his hands over his hair, making it a little longer than Legion regulation and a lighter shade of brunette, lighter than his own appeared. He blinked his eyes and they shifted from brown to blue.
He and the man he intended to mimic were of the same height, but Arthur still took that extra one quarter inch off of his height. He pressed his hands against his face, shaping it like clay- he sharpened his cheekbones, strengthened his jawline.
After a moment spent smoothing back his hair again and fixing a few flaws on his new face, Arthur ran his hands down his chest, flexed his arms, shifted his feet (even though he wouldn't be doing much walking) to get a feel for the changes he'd made to his body. He was still lean, maybe not as strong as before, but this would work. He'd call all the strength he needed from the earth. He still wore armor but it was of better quality and fit his new station.
Because he wasn't Arthur the singulare anymore. He was the Princeps.
Now he really looked the part. Now he had to sound the part, as well.
He pressed one long fingered hand against his throat and made an adjustment with his watercrafting; a fairly minor tweaking of his vocal cords, a slight shifting in timbre and pitch. He needed to test it out to be sure.
He gestured once for his little water fury to hide herself from view.
Clearing his throat, he looked at his new reflection and said in a different voice (one that he'd practiced and tried on after listening and listening to the audio from Fischer's interviews).
"Hello, I'm Princeps Robert," the new doppelganger said with a smile. "I will split up my father's empire."
Once he was certain that he had gotten the details right, Arthur as the Princeps floated towards the open door and yelled for his guards.