Chapter 65: Remnants

…

Reaching the tower's remains proved to be an interesting venture. In addition to all of the abandoned items strewn about the roads, finding the tower was not as simple as looking up at the sky anymore. Link had to stop and look at his shadow to guess which direction they were moving, a means of navigation not at all aided by the lack of a watch. About halfway through, Irleen finally lost patience and started hollering directions to them from above the buildings. She also decided to fly ahead just to make sure Link's hunch was correct. This left him mildly insulted.

Just as Link and Cale were stepping into the open plaza around what remained of the tower, Irleen descended from circling the tower. "Hey, guys," she said just before her boots crunched hard on the gravel-covered ground. Cale leaned back in surprise, although Irleen hardly had the momentum to slide into him. "Uhf!" she grunted as she doubled over.

"You okay?" Link asked.

"Agh!" Irleen cried out as she suddenly snapped back to her full height, her hands pressed on her lower back. "Sorry about that. I didn't think I was so out of practice."

"Ostensibly, the result of two yeahs of being a fairy," Cale said.

"Yeah, but that's not the worst of it," Irleen told him as she swung one arm in circles, her feathers still extended.

"What's the wohst of it?" Cale asked with a leery tone, already sensing the oncoming punchline.

"I lost two years of height, so I can't call Link short like everyone else," she replied as she switched arms.

Link leveled an irritated glare on her. "Did you see Janni or not?" he asked.

Irleen pursed her lips before dismissing the joke's poor reception. "She's on the roof—kinda… on the roof," she quickly corrected. "Uh… what-whatever floor is now the… the roof."

Link leaned to one side as if to look around the side of the tower's remains. "How far up could that be?" Irleen only shrugged in response. "Okay, let's go on up then."

"I think I'll walk with you," Irleen said. "She saw me circling and made this gesture like she was trying to swat at me."

Link, Cale, and Irleen had to step over the remains of the portico, which had collapsed down the sides of the tower rather than tip and fall as the rest of the tower had. This included having to watch out for large bricks that littered the first few steps into the tower, which Cale learned the hard way when he almost twisted his ankle stepping on one. With the portico gone, the sun was able to provide more light and visibility than the first time Link had explored. Of course, he suspected some things had changed. For one, very little plaster had remained on the walls, instead forming a small pile at the base of the walls. And there was a difference in the air; the open wall must have let the mugginess escape because the air inside was almost as cool and dry as if they were still standing outside.

The main chamber was a mess. The large, metal dish that had been hanging on the ceiling had fallen and broken part of the marble in the middle of the room. The paintings lay face-down on the floor or propped against the walls with their anchors hanging loose above them. The collapse of the outer wall had also torn a smaller fraction of this chamber's wall and even collapsed part of the mezzanine on top of the staircase to their right. A beam of sunlight revealed the stairs on the opposite side of the mezzanine from the trio.

Irleen stepped forward and set her hand on the dish where it was low enough for her to reach. "What is it?" Link asked.

"Huh?" Irleen replied, looking over her shoulder at him. "Oh, this? I'm… not really sure."

"It… isn't alive, is it?"

Irleen shook her head. "No, it's just metal. I'm just a little surprised; I've never known my people to make a large, metal structure like this before."

Cale stepped up beside her and wiped his hand along the surface, letting his fingertips fit into the grooves. "Its rathah ohganic styling cehtainly seems to be of Sorian origin," he said.

"Gillam said that the materials in the tower and the outer walkway were different," Link said. "Does that mean that the Sorians actually built this tower?"

"It cannot have been easy," Cale commented.

"They would have never built anything like this," Irleen said. "Not willingly."

Link sighed and started for the stairs on the left side. "C'mon, you two," he told him. "Janni probably knows we're here."

Cale and Irleen trailed behind Link as he ascended to the mezzanine. He stopped near the top of the steps and glanced around as Cale and Irleen moved to pass behind him toward the next flight of stairs. The portraits here had also fallen to the floor, including the one behind which Link had found the Dreamweaver's shield. He could see the cavity behind the portrait from here.

Then he remembered something. "Hey, Irleen," he said.

"Yeah?" Irleen answered, stopping behind him.

"You know the whole Sorian thing right?" he asked. "The one where people paint over all the portraits in someone's home just to spite them?"

"You mean that petty, old-age crap?" Irleen replied with an irritated tone. "Yeah, I know about it, but nobody does that anymore. This is probably the first time I've actually seen it."

"What color would they use?"

Irleen blinked at the back of his head for a moment, confused by the question. "What color?" she repeated.

"Is there a specific color people would use?" The tone of the conversation caused Cale to stop and turn around to listen.

"Uh… I don't think there's one specific color. Um…" Irleen paused to think. "I… would guess that it would be dull colors. Black, dark blue… grey, like what we're seeing around here…"

"What about purple?"

Irleen's expression of confusion returned. "Purple, I wouldn't really think so. Call it a 'trope' or whatever, but purple to the Sorians usually represents something like shame or regret. Why this sudden interest in colors?"

Link started around the mezzanine toward the portrait in front of the shield's cavity, causing Cale and Irleen to follow him. "When I was in the dream last…" He paused as he carefully lifted a painting set against the railing and leaned it against the wall. "… That portrait was the only one that wasn't slashed apart. And it was completely purple. All of the other portraits had different splotches of color on them, but this one was completely one color."

"You're not really suggesting that the Dreamweaver was hinting something to you, right?" Irleen asked. "Last time I heard, he wasn't in the mood anymore."

"Well, it was before I knocked the tower over," Link explained. He stopped in front of the painting and examined the frame. "Before he got sick of me and crushed me with a fist made of brick."

"Given ouh adventuahs of late," Cale commented, "I'm ratheh suhprised to heah myself say that such events cannot so easily astound me."

Link crouched in front of the painting upon noticing that there was a corner protruding from the bottom of frame. He pinched the corner between his fingers and lifted it slightly. "There's glass under this," he commented.

Irleen shrugged. "Not too uncommon," she said. "Some people put glass over important things like family portra—…" She paused as her thoughts began running faster. "No way…"

Link started pulling the paint. He thought it was going to be a single sheet until he tore it. Fortunately, where Link had torn it left the paint easier to grasp, and Link moved a little slower to pull the rest of the paint off in a single mass. Link then had to shift to the side to let what little light there was behind him illuminate the portrait.

"Oh, my…" Cale uttered.

"This place is a fountain of ironies…" Irleen commented.

The portrait was a pair of Sorians. The larger, adult Sorian was dark-skinned with jet-black plumage covering his head. By contrast, he wore a robe of brilliant blue trimmed in different shades of purple, including a zigzag embroidery pattern on either side of the front opening. Though his eyes were small, the artist had captured the brilliant amber color Link was familiar with. As if further proof was needed, sitting on the Sorian man's lap, only a child but still quite easily recognized by her blood-tipped coloring and large eyes, was Janni. The two held hands, the man giving a soft, gentle smile while Janni showed off her teeth in a large grin. Link felt a pang of regret punch him in the chest.

"Could this… could this really be…?" Cale tried to ask.

"The Dreamweaver," Link said for him. He dropped the rest of the paint layer to the floor. "A hundred years ago."

"It's incredible," Irleen breathed in awe. "Janni must only be seven or eight in this painting. She's barely aged at all."

"And the Dreamweaver aged himself so bad he couldn't even breathe," Link said. "It would've answered… so many questions if we'd found this first."

"But… would that have made killing him any easiah?" Cale asked.

Link swallowed hard. "Probably not," he admitted.

Irleen leaned forward to look at the sorrowful expression on Link's face. "Do you need a moment?" she asked.

Link took in a breath to steel himself. "No," he said. He turned and started walking back toward the stairs. "C'mon, let's go find Janni."

Cale waited until Link was out of earshot before whispering, "A tragedy. They look so happy."

"That's probably what bothers him the most," Irleen replied.

They quickened their pace to catch up to Link and ascended to the next floor together. Unlike below, this floor covered the whole width of the tower. There was no sign of decoration, the floor and ceiling being solid slabs of stone while the walls were bare blocks. Here, the gash in the wall was much larger, almost a whole quarter of the wall. They simply crossed the floor without a word.

The next floor caused them to stop in surprise.

They emerged into a room covered in toys. It had probably been full at one point, but the tower's collapse had left large bricks and chunks of debris on the far side of the room. Well, to call it a "room" implied that it was still enclosed. The roof was completely gone, and only a small fraction of the wall still stood behind the stairs. Fallen bookshelves, a few dolls, a child-sized table with matching chairs… some items Link was not sure of, but it seemed obvious that the items in this room belonged to a child.

She may have outgrown them, but the trio had the impression that their owner was standing in the middle of the wrecked room.

Janni took in a breath and turned her attention from the stuffed bird at her feet to look at them. She opened her arms and asked, "So, what do you think?"

"S-sorry," Link replied. "I guess… knocking down the tower wrecked some of your stuff."

"None of this really belongs here, does it," Irleen said. "Your dad must've moved it here when the other Sorians built the tower."

"Yeah," Janni agreed, the word hollow.

"You know you were the only thing keeping him sane," Link said. "He… must've hoped you could go back to your life once he released you."

"I've been wondering about that," Janni told him, her eyes wandering to the table set. "I'd forgotten all of the signs I saw that night you encountered your shadow in the technoworks. I couldn't believe he would so easily harm me. Maybe my first instinct was right; someone else was in control of that dream."

"Or… he knew I'd try to save you if you were in danger," Link suggested. "It's like you said; he had everything planned from the beginning."

"Captain," Cale spoke up. "We do have cahgo space on-boahd. Should you decide we can take some of these items with us."

Link glanced around at the objects, trying to take into account the space they would need versus the empty space on the Island Symphony. "Yeah, I think we can fit this stuff aboard," he said. "What do you think, Janni?"

However, Janni shook her head. "I don't think so," she told him. "It's a nice thought, Link, but it's really kinda pointless. I don't remember any of this stuff."

The revelation caused all three to become silent with shock, their wide eyes locked onto her. They watched as she gave the thought a casual smile and a shrug of her left shoulder, as if to simply brush it off. Her expression became neutral for a moment as she glanced around again. When she looked back at them, they all caught the twitch in her lower lip. She raised her arms and slid her fingers under her plumage so that she could grab her head. She tried to grin again, but it quickly turned into a look of anguish before she collapsed to her knees.

"I don't REMEMBER anything!" she suddenly shrieked before falling forward onto her elbows. She immediately broke down crying and wailing, her voice not in the least muffled by the floor. "I don't re-e-emember anything…!" Her next outburst was incoherent sobbing. Then she screamed, "Why can't I remember?!"

Link, Irleen, and Cale were paralyzed by their shock, forced by their own bodies to listen to Janni break down.