Chapter Thirty-Eight: A Call to Arms and a History of Man and Mist

'Kupo, as you can see, kupo,'

Nono announced in crisp voice as he addressed the humes (and one helgas and one Viera) in the room from the top of the table (which could comfortably seat four). To punctuate his words Nono raised the wooden ruler in his hand and slapped it, sharply, against the easel that stood beside the table upon which the Moogle had previously drawn an extraordinarily complex diagram.

'There is a nexus point in Nalbina in the form of the crystal. We used this, kupo, as the gateway outlet and the six waystones were calibrated using Master Balthier's thaumatic essence to his unique frequency within the Mist channels running from crystal to crystal, kupo.'

Ashe supposed, as she took in the blank and glassy looks on the faces of her allies and friends around the room, that she really should have attempted to rein Balthier (under the guise of Nono and his incomprehensible explanations) in long before now but she hadn't had the heart to do so.

Of all the people in the room only Nono and Balthier understood what the Moogle was talking about and even Fran looked a trifle bemused. In the last forty minutes Balthier could have broken in at any time to summarise and explain how precisely Nono and his companion Moogles had managed to liberate him from his crystal prison but instead he had tucked in to his second portion of porridge and tried to hide his amusement at their expense around every mouthful.

'Kupo we realised months ago, kupo, that without the travelling stone we would not be able to locate Master Balthier's Mist essence. We were most discouraged, kupo, to discover that the travelling stone was withheld from us, kupo.'

Nono shot a reproachful look towards the Gran Kiltias Marana who sat quietly on a dining chair brought in (along with the table Nono perched on) to accommodate the large number of guests now crowding into Balthier's bedchamber. She, like Balthier, was also smiling though Ashe was not sure if she was even listening to what the Moogle said.

Balthier looked up from contemplating of his second bowl of porridge at this statement, 'How now, what's this? Why didn't you have access to the stone?'

All eyes latched to Balthier, now he had deigned to talk. Fran shifted minutely in her stance leaning against the wall by the fireplace close to Balthier's chair.

'It was your wish that the waystone be taken to Marana; in your hand the instruction to do so was written within your cache.'

Balthier's brows bunched and he turned to scowl at Marana, 'That wasn't my will. I have no recollection of writing any such note.'

Marana turned her blind, milky eyes to Balthier and smiled beatifically, she too had a bowl of porridge in her hands, having decided that she wanted to try some when she saw Balthier eating. In fact in all her time in Nalbina Marana had done little else but eat.

For a long moment Balthier held that blind, opaque gaze and then turned away, 'Bah, I am beginning to wonder if there is any being that has not spent time mucking about with my subconscious in the last decade.'

'Wait,' Vaan interjected, 'Now I'm really confused.' he paused and reconsidered, 'I mean it's great that you aren't dead, Balthier, but what is going on?'

Balthier glanced at him and airily waved his hand, 'To cut a long, complicated, story short, I was, up until a few short hours before my temporary demise within the Pharos, completely unaware of Venat's…..presence…for lack of a better word, inside my mind.' Balthier fixed his gaze on the serene Marana, 'However when I worked with Marana to get rid of Mishman, I allowed her grace,' and this was said with a curl of the lip, 'to enter my sub-conscious.'

'Wherein she discovered the Occuria's presence?' Larsa asked keenly sitting forward so his elbows rested on his knees (not the posture of an emperor but no one was standing on their dignity right now).

'But,' Larsa's keen gaze regarded Marana, 'Why then did you not inform anyone of Balthier's….affliction….until four years later when the situation was already dire.'

Balthier snorted derisively, finishing his porridge and regarding the empty bowl a little distractedly (he was under doctor's orders to eat only a little, albeit at regular intervals until he regained his strength). 'The question is its own master.'

'Yes.' Marana agreed happily, though who she was agreeing with was difficult to judge.

'The Occuria could not make contact; Balthier's mind was closed and the Corrupt one was jealous of its dwelling and guarded the realm of subconscious from Occuria invasion.'

Vaan was not the only one frowning but he was the only one brave enough to admit to his befuddlement.

'Huh? So you're saying that Venat couldn't take over Balthier because he already had an Esper in his brain?'

Vaan shook his head, glancing warily over to Balthier for a moment, 'Why would Mateus even want to protect Balthier…..I mean its not like it's the friendliest Esper around, right?'

Balthier's lips twitched a little in wry amusement, 'Ah, but then, I'm not the friendliest Hume either.'

He drawled sardonically, then, when he received a number of suspicious looks (and Ashe had to resist the temptation to smack him across the head in admonishment) Balthier deigned to elaborate further.

'Vaan if you had the choice of living out eternity in a small piece of rock or living inside the head of a hume, with the prospect of being summoned now and again, what would you chose, hmm?'

Vaan seemed to think about this for a moment, 'Oh, right, when you put it like that it does make sense.' He subsided.

Ashe, perched on the chair arm at Balthier's shoulder frowned a little at her knight for his constant interruptions and the fact that there were so many questions readily available to confuse the issue.

'All Espers want the chance to walk Ivalice again. That is the reason they allow themselves to be bound, even temporarily, to flesh and blood beings. I have a similar pact with Belias, who I have not returned to his sigil stone.'

'While this is a worthwhile discussion for another time,' Larsa interjected politely clearly thinking along similar lines to Ashe, 'Perhaps we could focus again on what Marana did, and more specifically chose not to do, once she discovered Venat's presence in Balthier's mind?'

Balthier chuckled darkly and turned his head away towards the unlit fireplace and Ashe merely sighed. Everyone else simply looked to Marana.

'A doorway to dreams I did open for the heretic, the undying seeker of deaths embrace. To the sleeping mind of Cidolfus' son I granted the way so that Venat's will be done.'

'What?'

The collective gasp was loud and caustic to the ears but Balthier merely chuckled again.

'Indeed here you are ready to interrogate me, or accuse me of duplicity and treachery,' he glanced sharply at Al-Cid and Larsa, 'and all along the puppet-master was in your midst.'

Balthier arched his eyebrows and let that subtle rebuke sink in before murmuring ironically, 'Don't all rush to tender your apologies, hm?' his tone dripped benign contempt.

Basch looked ready to say something in retort but thought better of it because, as acerbic as he was being, Balthier was pale, wane and breathing with audible difficulty. Basch would hold his tongue as honour dictated that to rebuke a sick man who had nearly lost life, wife, and children was beneath him.

Penelo, who had been sitting by Marana, drew back and stared uncomprehendingly at the Helgas, 'Why would you do that? Why would you side with the Occuria?'

'Because it is not a matter of sides,' Marana said with unusual brevity and succinctness.

Balthier cleared his throat and fished out a handkerchief to wipe his lips. Ashe watched him closely and saw, before he crumpled the handkerchief in his fist, flecks of bright scarlet blood on the white cotton.

'On that at least we can agree.' He muttered tilting his head back against the chair back and closing his eyes. Ashe reached out to stroke his hair from his brow and check his temperature.

'Then you know, eh? Know you what de Occuria want?'

Al-Cid, who had remained quiet for very similar reasons to Basch; a healthy Balthier had more than earned his ill-will but the man before him was fighting hard enough to breathe and Al-Cid would not abuse his friendship with Ashe in such a way (Fran and Dr B'Nellin having explained Balthier's condition and likely prognosis to them all).

Balthier opened his eyes and looked over at Al-Cid, 'Know what they want?' a caustic smile touched his lips but all he did was close his eyes again. It seemed that he might not answer. Then he did in slow, deeply fatigued voice.

'Venat wanted to die; she was tired of an existence that was fundamentally pointless. She was branded a heretic for being, essentially, suicidal but she was never, truly, a traitor to her kind.'

'But she sided with my brother and your father against her brethren,' Larsa looked aggrieved and anxious, as he often did when the spectre of his dead brother was raised, 'how was that not an act of treachery?'

'Because whether Vayne won or I did,' Ashe murmured, sweeping her hand over Balthier's brow as he sank back into the chair and gratefully allowed her to take over narrative duties, 'The Occuria still gained the – acknowledgement – that they desired. Ivalice, and more specifically humes, once again knew the name Occuria where once we had all but forgotten the true nature of our 'gods'.'

'Surely they wanted more than that?' Basch interjected and Balthier smiled wanly eyes still closed.

'It is a shame that nervous little friend of yours is not here, Vaan.' Balthier murmured wafting his hand in the air as he struggled to recall the person's name, 'The little mage; tendency to stutter, wears a lot of green.'

'Kytes?'

'Hmm, yes, thank you, Kytes.' Balthier forced himself to sit up and pay full attention to the situation opening his eyes and looking at each man and woman in turn. 'He would prove to be a useful impartial witness to all this. He is a self-taught expert in Mist, after all.'

Balthier cleared his throat painfully once more and bit back a groan as he addressed the confused and vaguely hostile ring of people watching him keenly. He shook his head ruefully, too tired to be annoyed by their treatment of him.

'Either I or Marana can give you answers, but neither one of us is a credible source. I'm possibly mentally unsound and her grace has made an art form out of lunacy.'

Marana continued to smile sublimely and inclined her head gracefully as if Balthier paid her a compliment. Something passed between them, the understanding of co-conspirators.

Balthier smiled slyly and glanced at Larsa, 'A little bird told me that Archades has developed airships that can swim and pass through Mist currents, is that right?'

Larsa met Balthier's inquiring gaze steadily, 'You are well informed.'

Balthier's sly smile deepened, 'Oh, always.'

He coughed and winced as a sharp pain jabbed through his chest. Ashe turned to him, anxious to do something to assist him and Fran shifted noticeably away from the wall.

Balthier waved them both off, though he caught up Ashe's hand and curled his own fingers through hers. He looked pointedly at Larsa and Al-Cid respectively as he spoke briskly.

'I can tell you that Gerun will not move to recapture or kill me; instead the Occuria will be waiting to see if I'll fulfil Venat's objective and send you, all of you, to the Pharos. The Occuria are tired of shadows, for the shadows don't reach as far anymore; they want to lay their cards on the table.'

Marana giggled, 'And in so doing the pot is stolen for the stakes are of a different sort. The gambler cannot gamble the pot when the game can be neither won nor lost. The game is no game but played all along it has been.'

For a moment silence reigned, as it always did after one of Marana's inexplicable pronouncements, and then, naively hopeful, all gazes shifted to Balthier for a more succinct explanation. Balthier grinned like a couerl with cream, clearly relishing the opportunity to confound them all further.

'Hm, as to that, we'll have to see; I have a trick or two up my sleeve. The Occuria don't know what they play for and their hand is nowhere near as strong as they think.'

Balthier rejoined, matching Marana's impenetrable predictions word for word and causing everyone in the room (Ashe included) to stare at him askance.

He shrugged unrepentant, 'I have had an Occuria with a penchant for poetry twittering away in my dreams for years.' He gave them a dirty look, 'You should all be bloody thankful I'm not talking in rhyming couplets.'

There was very little that could be said in response to that; though Ashe frowned a little and Fran's ears twitched (however in her case that was a sign of amusement).

'To Pharos the humes must go and learn the truth of their negligence; a new direction for Ivalice is this turning.' Marana continued, fixing her blind gaze on Balthier, 'Knowledge must be acquired by those who seek it themselves not given by those who are over-burdened with such unwanted gifts of insight.'

Balthier sighed, 'I'll not have it for long, one way or the other.'

He murmured softly examining the soft tan of his jacket sleeve for any real or imagined smuts of dirt. Ashe felt just the barest shiver of alarm at that ambiguous statement and Balthier, sensing her unease, looked up and flashed her a slight smile, squeezing her hand.

'The airships that swim must launch and the Pharos her ancient secrets to reveal. There are no sides and there is no war; the children of the gods of clay hammer upon the grounded aerie of their ignorant parents. There is no worse a scourge than that of a child scorned.'

After staring at Marana for a handful of beats all eyes swivelled to Balthier once more; Balthier actually rolled his eyes growing impatient with this entire situation.

'You will not believe a word I say.' He pointed out impatiently, 'We all know my capacity for truth is questionable and now, of course, you all think me a lunatic invalid.'

Fran shifted away from the wall and rested her hand atop the back of the wing chair, 'If you speak I will heed you; as I ever have.' She added.

Balthier tilted his head to look up at her and smiled, 'Well of course Fran; you shall be in on my plans, as always.'

He glanced sharply at the others, 'The rest of you can hang as far as I am concerned. The outcome of this Turning is inevitable; your consent is not needed, nor your enlightenment required.' He snapped, sounding alarmingly like his father in his imperiousness.

'Balthier,' Ashe met his eyes with hard gaze. She understood, after a fashion, what he meant but she did not appreciate her husband undoing years of careful diplomacy and international co-operation in a fit of pique.

Marana bounced up from her perch beside Penelo and moved over to the chair. To Ashe's displeasure the Helgas perched on the opposite chair arm to her.

'Ivalice has turned from old battle lines to new horizons. The promises of yesterday are today's reality. Occuria, once gods of shadow, would now ascend to mere mortality. The children of the gods of clay would know what it is to live.'

Marana intoned while scuffing her feet across the carpeted floor as they dangled down from the chair arm.

Balthier nodded, the only one in the room who understood what the Helgas was talking about.

'The Occuria were never our gods; we are theirs. Hume magick, the fragments of consciousness accumulated from thousands of years of humes casting magick, created the Occuria.'

Before anyone could react Marana spoke again; sky pirate and prophetess working in a unity of prophecy.

'This is fact and not debate; there is no war, merely the longing of shades for sun. To deny is to invite disaster and to accept is to make Ivalice anew.'

'To the Occuria humes are the gods with feet of clay; the gods who die when the Occuria remain eternal.'

Balthier studied each person in the room in turn, 'They are the Undying but, in truth, they have never known what it is to live. They want what we have and like any unhappy children, they'll tear down their parents to gain such bounty.'

'That is not possible.'

It was Basch who spoke up into the silence so thick it hung heavy upon their heads, oppressive and potentially explosive. Balthier shook his head and Marana continued to smile; just as they had said, the truth they shared was not accepted by their audience.

Larsa glanced from Basch and then to his allies arrayed around the room before looking back to Balthier and Marana.

'How do we know that the fleet will not be captured as Balthier was, should we enter the Pharos? For that matter we do not even though what we are to find there.'

Balthier smiled but closed his eyes and slumped in his chair. Ashe once more spoke as Balthier threaded his fingers through hers in an uncharacteristic act of public affection.

'It isn't what is found there but what we shall put there.' Ashe explained impatiently. This was not a time for words but action and it infuriated her that her allies saw this not.

'The Pharos and Giruvegan are the hubs wherein the Occuria control the Mist faults. If we can take the Pharos from their control we diminish the threat they pose.'

'And turn it against them.' Balthier added dryly, 'I have the accumulated knowledge of an Occuria in my mind. I know how to control the Mist faults,' he paused for a single beat eyes still closed, 'or to fashion a weapon that can cut the Mist arteries completely.'

He opened his eyes and looked triumphantly at each person in the room once again, forcing his meaning into all of them, 'The Occuria's greatest weapon is now ours.'

Balthier sneered derisively as another thought struck him, 'Gerun should have drowned me and had done. Had he never imprisoned me in those Crystals he could have won.'

Larsa, Basch and Al-Cid exchanged glances; each man reacting to the news that they finally had the means to fight back, but still wary.

'The Occuria will know.' Basch said leadenly, 'You said yourself that they were waiting for us to siege the Pharos. They will be waiting to ambush us and we shall not have the chance to gain foothold at the base of their power.'

'No,' Ashe spoke up, 'Gerun will not harm you because while you are in the Pharos learning all that humes have forgotten, Balthier and I will be in Giruvegan, in person. We shall travel there through the crystals.'

'Highness,' Basch was on his feet, and Vaan was only a beat behind him. 'It is too great a risk; you play straight into the Occuria's hands.'

Vaan nodded vigorously, 'He's right, Ashe.'

Ashe stared both men down calmly and neither dared speak up against her; slowly they both resumed their seats.

'Regardless of what they have done to others, Gerun and his Occuria have use for me, and likewise for Venat's vassal.'

She glanced down at Balthier, whose brow was slick with a light dew of sweat and who appeared to have fallen asleep. 'They will not kill us and we can wager our co-operation for your safety.'

Ashe looked from one face to the other around the room, 'However it may seem, Balthier and Marana are right, this is not a war. We are not trying to vanquish an enemy but broker new co-operation with a race of Ivalice that wants a share in the shaping of tomorrow. This does not have to end in bloodshed or death.'

'No, indeed,' Balthier agreed voice barely a thread, but it still carried throughout the room laced with a dark irony, 'this is not a war; just the end of life as we have known it.'

Hours later and umpteen rounds of questions, veiled allegations, and recriminations bandied about until he wasn't the only one with a sore throat, and Balthier was alone in his bedchamber watching the sun set over the craggy hills of the Highwaste, bleeding through the sky.

The children would be coming shortly and Ashe was corralling the skeletal serving staff of the keep into order to prepare a nice family meal for them all. Dr B'Nellin had left a short while ago and Balthier was feeling pleasantly free of discomfiture. He expected Fran would also be along presently. He did not take his mild gaze from the window as he spoke to the empty air of the chamber.

'You may as well make yourself known while we have privacy.'

The atmosphere in the cosy circular tower room dropped by a handful of degrees and Balthier pulled his jacket more firmly around him. In the reflection of the window glass he watched the visage of Mateus the Corrupt materialise from frozen molecules in the air. Frost flakes coalesced in the frigidity to form an iced trident and then melted into ether once more.

Balthier's breath fogged the air as the temperature plummeted further and the sentient ice sculpture at his back underwent a secondary metamorphosis. A man in his late fifties with tawny salt and pepper hair and a thick set body his son would never inherit emerged from the gleaming facets of ice.

'This is all getting rather convoluted, you know.' Balthier pointed out mildly as he finally turned from the window and returned to his big, wing back chair sinking into it gratefully.

'An Occuria occupying the form of an Esper while pretending to be my deceased father and existing as an extension of my consciousness. Yes, appallingly convoluted.'

The ice sculpture moved as the temperature rose slightly to tolerable levels and the figment, which no longer looked translucent as an ice floe, came and sat down in the comfortable (but less grand) chair facing his own by the unlit fireplace.

'A man must make the best of any circumstance, son.' The figment told him and then, while polishing his half-moon spectacles on his sleeve, looked up at Balthier quizzically, 'You lied to your beloved and her allies when you stated that I had passed out of existence.'

Balthier, who was not, in truth feeling too pleased with himself in his deception, shrugged diffidently.

'It was for the best all round. Ashe would not be pleased to discover our…..arrangement…..and Larsa, Basch, and Al-Cid would stop at nothing to see you and I forcibly parted; I doubt either of us would enjoy that procedure.'

'Indeed,' the figment of Cid demurred, looking pleased with something or other as he gazed meditatively at the cold fireplace, 'They would not listen to you if they knew of our agreement. They would use the anti-mist engine to eradicate my essence from your being; we would both die.'

Balthier, on alert for any suggestion of company arriving, nodded his head impatiently.

'Quite; which is why I am lying to Ashe again.'

He added darkly. The pragmatist in him knew that no marriage could ever survive full disclosure but the man who loved his wife wished it didn't have to be this way.

The figment of Cid, otherwise known as Venat, who now inhabited the 'body' - for lack of a more accurate term – of the Esper Mateus, glanced keenly at Balthier. His eyes, like ice chips, glittered gleefully.

'Gerun will expect an attempt on the Pharos; he will expect that you, or Raithwall's heir, will breach Giruvegan. How will you prevent his triumph when he has long played the conductor to this old, old song? Even I, who have long opposed Gerun, have always found myself his pawn.'

Balthier smiled slyly and leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other as he brushed a hand over his right sleeve. 'You forget, Venat, a pawn can become a queen and it is not the conductor, but the musicians, who control the dance.'

'You have a plan, son of Cid?'

Venat, wearing Cidolfus' face, leaned forward in his chair and a cold breath of chill rose from the phantom illusion. Balthier refused to shiver as his fingers slipped under the fold of his cuff and pulled free the Quidion of Betrayal from within his sleeve.

Balthier chuckled lightly as he flipped the coin between his long fingers, 'A gambler always has an ace up his sleeve.'

He flipped the coin on his thumb and watched it catch the dying rays of the murky sunset before it spiralled, end over end, back down into the waiting palm of Venat; instantly gaining a veneer of frost from Mateus perpetual chill. Venat, in Cid's guise, smiled with deep and dark satisfaction and the son of Cidolfus knew his own smile was a perfect replica.

'If you want to destroy someone, Venat,' Balthier murmured softly, so low that no one beyond the door of the chamber would be able to hear, 'the first thing you must do is give your enemy everything he wants.'

Venat was still smiling Cid's smile, 'So you will allow your friends and allies to walk into a trap; you will allow them to become Gerun's prisoners?'

Balthier shrugged, 'Very few of them are friends of mine.' He pointed out stiffly, 'And in any regard they do not trust me, so they will be wary and ready for treachery. They are more than able to defend themselves against Gerun's minions, in any respect.'

'Do you try to convince me, or yourself?' Venat asked amused. Balthier frowned and then swiftly erased the signs of his obvious discomfort. He leaned over and plucked the frozen Quidion from Venat's hand slipping it back into the fold of his jacket cuff.

'All I need is for Gerun to make his move and the only way to move the mountain is to go to the mountain. I have everything in hand. No one needs be harmed if Larsa plays his cards as I expect him too, and Marana will ensure he does.'

'And then you will destroy Gerun once and for all?' Venat leaned forward and for a moment the façade of Cid faltered in a ripple of Mist like the lights in a glacier.

Balthier smiled – his father's smile -and shrugged looking towards the door as the first hint of movement up the turnpike stair (the click of Fran's heels) alerted him to company. Instantly Venat began to dissolve into Mist and snow flakes.

You are your father's son in truth; well did I choose you. Venat whispered as she slipped smoothly back into the depths of his darkest thoughts.

'Oh, no.' Balthier murmured through closed lips, 'My father cannot hold a candle to me.'

The door to the chamber opened and Fran entered the room, frowning as her delicate senses registered how cold it was inside. She looked at him quizzically and Balthier grinned expansively.

'Ah, Fran, good of you to come; I was growing so bored up here with no one to speak too I was contemplating conversing with myself.'

As Fran came forward and bent to light the kindling in the fireplace for his comfort and health Balthier was very conscious of the weight of the Quidion Betrayal in his sleeve cuff. Nevertheless, even when Ashe and the children poured into the room scarce minutes later, his open, engaging smile did not so much as falter.

A/N: sigh…..the trouble with epics is that they get very long and very turgid…..I apologise for the last handful of chapters but now the exposition is out of the way we can get to the explosions and the show down…..finally! ;)