Chapter Fourteen

Vaan plummets, bits of glass sparkling around his body as the ground rushes up to meet him. In the dark, the surrounding buildings darken to shades of blue and gray, except for the occasional flash of soft light glimpsed through Draklor's windows as he careens through the air.

I'm going to die. It's not the first time that thought has entered his mind, nor is it the first time he has rebelled against it. He has survived hunger, cold, sickness, and more violence than anyone has a right to, all because of his refusal to lay down and die. So as the hard kick of adrenaline gives way to determination, he calls to mind the pattern for a Float spell, drawing upon the reserve of energy inside him. All living things draw in a bit of Mist in their day-to-day lives, and after so many months working with magick, the magick comes easily to him. As soon as the spell matrix solidifies in his mind, a sense of weightlessness envelops him, and his rapid descent slows. He is still falling—falling faster than he would like—but as the wind catches his now-lighter body, his velocity goes from lethal to merely dangerous.

In the last few seconds of his impromptu drop, he performs an Aero spell, creating a cushion of air beneath him to act as a buffer against the hard cobblestones. Even so, he lands badly, and the first thing that registers is a splintering pain in his legs. The first coherent thought that passes through his mind (aside from a litany of swearwords) is that he wishes Penelo were here. She always was better at magick than him. Not only could she heal his injuries, but she probably would have prevented those injuries in the first place.

She is not here, so he is alone with the stabbing agony in his shins, alone with blood oozing from a dozen different cuts. He is alone while Balthier and Fran remained trapped in a tower of steel that touches the sky, and the idea of history repeating itself simmers bitterly in the back of his mind.

Shouts ring through the night, accompanied by the scrape of metal on metal. Though none of the guards inside Draklor followed him out the window, they've clearly decided to call in reinforcements. Vaan braces one hand against the cobblestones, trying to stand. Pain makes his vision swim. It is all he can do to stagger into the nearest alleyway, and by then he is sick with the aftereffects of the Marlboro gas, sick and dizzy and too disoriented to walk.

Have to get away, he thinks, blood oozing from his knees. He staggers several paces, falls, gets up again. All he has to do is keep moving. It should be easy; he has spent most of his life running.

Another step. He feels a little better now. His whole body hurts, but the nausea is fading. Clean air and plenty of Esuna spells—a sure remedy for Marlboro gas. He can't risk any magick here—no matter how contained the spell, he won't be able to conceal the glow from his pursuers—so clean air will have to do.

Another step. Pain is nothing new to him. Long ago, he lost count of how many beatings he'd endured. It is a well-known fact among street urchins that you either learn to survive a few beatings or you don't survive at all.

Another step. He is quite sure at least one of the bones in his left leg is cracked. He has to . . . he has to . . . He can't remember.

Another step. This time, when he falls, he retches. The taste of decay coats his tongue, but once he's done, his head is clearer. Somewhere behind him, men in suits of armor scurry about, coordinating a search effort. Ironically, the armor which marks them as guards actually hampers their ability to perceive danger. With only a narrow slit to see through, Imperial soldiers have little peripheral vision and therefore have a much more difficult time spotting their quarry. It's a flaw Vaan has been taking advantage of since the Archadians first invaded Rabanastre.

He's in too much pain to walk anymore, so he crawls, dragging his body across the cold stones, deeper into the alleyway. Several stray dogs growl as he encroaches on their territory, but he wards them off with a few jabs of his elbow. Stray dogs are like stray children—they run away when kicked, because staying means more pain.

Elsewhere, he can heard tinny voices shouting, but the noise seems distant. He's fading out now, so he curls up beside a worn-out stack of crates and covers himself with a mud-encrusted blanket which the dogs must have been using as a bed. Within moments, darkness folds around him.

His dreams come like shards of glass, too fragmented to piece together, and like glass, their edges are sharp enough to cut.

Hours later, Vaan is woken by a snuffling noise near his head. It jolts him out of unconsciousness so quickly that his first instinct is to lash out like a wild animal. When his fist hits something soft, a canine yowl echoes against the walls, followed by the scratch and scrape of claws on cobblestones.

For a moment, he is caught between disjointed nightmares and lucidity. He has slept in more alleys than he can count, shared territory with stray animals of all varieties (including a chocobo, once). So, the first time he wakes, he thinks he is in an alleyway in Rabanastre, badly beaten by whoever caught him stealing this time, and he closes his eyes, accustomed to the myriad of cuts and bruises.

He must fall asleep again, because the next time his eyes open, the sun is overhead, peering into the alley.

The quality of the light is what rouses him. By this hour of day in Rabanastre, the sun is a hateful, glaring circle in the sky, baking the city under its radiant heat. Midday in a desert country is never so breezy, the light never so weak, and the only place in Rabanastre where the air is this damp and cool is Lowtown.

Clarity is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he remembers now that he's in Archades, a far more temperate place than Rabanastre. On the other, he remembers last night, remembers abandoning Balthier and Fran in Draklor.

Cautiously, he sits up. His body rings with so many different pains that he doesn't know which to address first. The splintering pain in his legs? The stinging lacerations left by the glass fragments of the window he jumped out of? The deep, pulsing ache of his bruises?

No. Pain is secondary. First, he needs to ascertain how much danger he's still in. Vaan crawls to the mouth of the alley and peeks out. Draklor Laboratory casts a long shadow, even this close to midday, but he is farther from the distinct structure than he thought. He has only dim recollections of last night's escape. Everything after he leapt from the window is scattered, fragmented.

He sees no soldiers nearby. A good sign, but that doesn't mean they're not looking for him. By now, his description will have circulated throughout the city. Archadians value information so highly that it wouldn't surprise him to hear that news of their failed break-in has made its way back to Dalmasca already.

Regardless, he doesn't appear to be in any immediate peril; he retreats into the alley, takes stock of his injuries. His legs hurt the worst—definitely fractured—but after a night amidst piles of trash, the cuts on his arms worry him the most. He pulls a fresh handkerchief from his pocket, douses it with a bit of water from the pouch he always carries, and dabs at the lacerations, wiping away dirt and scabs until the bleeding starts anew. Some will need stitches, but for that, he will need a needle and thread, both of which he left on the Strahl. For now, he casts a few Cure spells, sealing the cuts as best as he can with his fingertips while the magick works.

The spells deplete the reservoir of energy inside him. Practiced as he is, the fact remains that there is little free-floating Mist here, where the population is so dense. It will be days before he can gather enough of it to work any powerful spells.

Knowing he cannot afford to be recognized, he pulls last night's ratty blanket over his head like a cloak, tying it at the front with a piece of string he finds on the ground nearby. Evidently, Archades has fewer street urchins than Rabanastre. If there were more homeless kids, he wouldn't find so much valuable trash in this one alley. That, or the people of Archades are supremely wasteful. Probably both, now that he thinks about it.

Completing his beggar's ensemble is a narrow pipe the length of his arm—long enough to use as a cane, if he hunches over (and he does need a cane, at least until he can find someone to heal his legs). Vaan stands, shuddering in pain, and makes his way further into the alley, keeping to the shadowed side-streets, where he is less likely to be seen. He is glad now that Balthier made a backup plan in the event of their separation. For obvious reasons, it's unsafe to return to the Strahl, so he will meet Balthier outside the cafe they visited yesterday, and then they can go find Fran over in Nilbasse.

It takes him nearly an hour to reach Trant District, and another fifteen minutes to locate the commercial sector where the cafe sits. For the first time in over twelve hours, hunger stirs in Vaan's stomach, but he ignores it. Only one day removed from his last trip to the cafe, he might be recognized, and in his beggar's garb, the staff might call the city watch regardless. Instead, he finds a spot near a street corner and leans against the side of a building, letting the hood of his makeshift cloak droop over his forehead as he feigns sleep. Really, though, he is watching the crowds near the cafe, looking for signs of the sky pirate. Balthier told him to meet him here between second and third bell. If Vaan knows one thing about the man, it's that there is not a cell anywhere in Ivalice from which he can't escape. The Nalbina dungeons were supposedly inescapable, after all, and they made it out of there in less than forty-eight hours.

A distant clock tower chimes twice. That's second bell, he thinks, relieved. Balthier will be here soon.

The minutes slip by. Vaan remains still, trying not to irritate his injuries. When the clock tower chimes out the quarter-hour, he feels the first stirrings of unease. He shunts his worries aside. Most likely, Balthier has been delayed—he is the type to take a circuitous route if he sees trouble ahead. Soon. He will be here soon.

Fifteen minutes later, the half-hour rings out. Vaan flinches, then pays for the motion when pain crackles across his body. A slight delay is hardly surprising, but half an hour? Balthier is rarely late. Rarely, but it does happen (he was late returning to the Strahl last night). But one would think with the seriousness of the situation, he would make a point of showing up on time.

The three-quarter bell rings, and the little worries Vaan has been denying suddenly seem more real, more tangible. Balthier can escape any cell, but . . . but what if he's still at the laboratory? It's been half a day since he would have been captured. Even factoring in time for the effects of the Marlboro gas to wear off, Balthier and Fran would have still woken hours ago. Plenty of time for two highly competent sky pirates to plan and execute an escape. So where are they?

Vaan spends the last fifteen minutes of the hour torn between watching the cafe and watching the clock. As the tower rings out third bell, his anxiety crystallizes into genuine fear. Balthier has many faults, but he does not break his word. If he had escaped, he would be here, but he isn't. Which means he's still at Draklor.