Chapter 3

A letter to you from where I"ve been holed up

In this bucolic agrarian compound

One step ahead, just ahead

Of the government bloodhounds.

Moxy Fruvous: Michigan Militia

The signs were that Seifer was approaching a settlement. There were faint indentations in the snow that looked too well-trodden to be any kind of monster tracks, and some of the tree stumps that poked up from the frosty blanket of the ground had been cut with an axe. As he rounded the ridge he'd been following he saw what looked to be log roofs and smoke drifting up from the skeleton winter canopy in the far distance.

Seifer had only seen five people since starting out two months ago; all of them Galbadian soldiers. Two of them had almost shot him. He'd killed all five of them.

A dog barked, the sounds carrying sharply in the still and freezing air. Seifer stopped, his hand slipping under his coat to the knife concealed there, but as he waited and the sounds got no closer he relaxed slightly and continued on. The game trail he was following north looked like it went right past the nearest cabin, a moss covered roof poking out from the trees at least a mile from the rest of the village. The sensible thing would be to take a wide path around the cabin through the woods, continue on his way, pick up some more food later when he could, and keep going until sunset. He could light a small fire with dry wood so it wouldn"t smoke too much and roast a squirrel. He'd hope for no more snow so the dogs and trackers behind him wouldn't be able to find his trail. The foothills were starting to slope upwards to the high distant ridge of the northern Trabian mountains. All Seifer had to do was time it just right, pray he'd be able to sneak through the troops that were (if they had any brains) stationed there to cut him off and then he"d be safe, at least until the snows melted and the blizzards stopped. By then he could be miles away, even cut back through the mountain passes as soon as the March snows melted. It wasn't much of a plan, and doubtless would have earned him zero marks from Quistis Trepe, but so far it was all he had. All except one squirrel and his weapons and half a backpack of survival gear that was way too lightweight for this climate. A room would be nice, he thought. Somewhere to sleep and dry out his clothes and rest there for the night. There was blood on the snow at his feet. Most of it was probably his.

He was halfway down the ridge before he realised what he was doing and slid to a stop.

This is stupid, he silently told himself. You're going to get caught.

His mind mentally flicked a finger at him.

Seifer tried to rationalise his decision to himself. Hopefully the owner wouldn't be there. He could break into the cabin somehow and just stay there for the night. No one would ever know he'd been there. Hopefully.

With this thought fixed firmly in his mind he continued quietly down the slope and through the trees to the edge of the clearing. He stopped behind a large treetrunk, drew aside some branches and froze as he heard the sound of movement. His breath clouded in the cold air.

The cabin was small and dilapidated. Three of its four walls were completely covered by a huge log pile neatly stacked in a geometric pattern. More wood was heaped against the wall of a half-buried storage cellar slightly in front of the house. A man walked round the corner of the cabin, whistling tunelessly but cheerfully. He hauled a basket half-full of a pile of logs which made a faint crackling sound as he dragged it though the frosty grass.

Fuck, Seifer thought. He hated the man instantly. What the hell did he need to chop more wood for, anyway? Why couldn't he just have been out? Was it too much to ask?

He mentally snarled at himself to shut up. Damn. All this silence was getting to him.

But if he was worried about going crazy, then he probably wasn't mad yet.

Seifer watched from the cover of the pines. Should he go, or run? His scar ached and burned in the cold, pulling at chapped, wind-burned skin until he thought he would scream. Without taking his eyes from the man in the clearing, he scooped up a handful of snow and held it to his face. He watched the man pick up an axe from the icy grass. When it came down to it, what did he have left to lose? Just his arms and legs and mind and vital signs and everything you ever knew and whatever was left of his pride?

The man took a firmer hold of the axe and peered distrustfully towards the trees. He looked to be about fifty or so, maybe younger. He was old but weathered, like a twisted piece of wood left out in the rain.

"Vasily? That you?"

Seifer's stomach rumbled in reply. Damn. It had been so long since he'd had something proper to eat. Come to think about it, when was the last time he'd talked to someone? Really talked? Maybe the old man would have food….shelter, information, dry clothes.

They're just three days behind me, he thought, and it hurts to breathe. I'm so tired. Dying would be easier than this. Hyne knows I can't take much more.

He stepped forwards. The paranoid part of his mind screamed and dragged its heels.

Gennady squinted into the dense cover of the trees as he hefted the axe. "Vasily?" he called again. It was far too early in the season for snow lions. Thegame and monsters near the cabins had been hunted out for weeks.

He watched someone walk out from between the trees. "Welcome," he called. "My name's Gennady." He tried hard to keep the surprise from his voice as he saw the stranger's face. Judging from the way the man's expression didn't change, he succeeded.

What the hell was Seifer Almasy doing out here?

Gen had heard rumours of activity down in Marduk and in the lower forests, but that was miles away. One thing was for sure, this could only lead to trouble. And he sure as hell didn't mean for it to be for him.

He arranged his features into a rather forced smile, trying to remember where in Hyne's name he"d put his ex-service revolver. The man in front of him stayed quiet, lingering on the edge of the trees as if uncertain of his reception. Gen tried again, shouting. "Can I help? Are you hurt?"

Seifer shook his head. When he spoke his voice was rough and sounded unused. "I"ve. ..been travelling…I wondered if you had any food? If I could stay the night? " He coughed and spat. "I….was hiking. I got separated. I haven"t been able to find any of my friends."

Gennady looked suitably worried by the transparent lie. "Do you want to call anyone? The nearest phone's some way away." It ws a lie, but Seifer didn't need to know that.

"No…I"m supposed to be meeting them not far from here. I got into a fight. With monsters. I-I can pay."

Gen's face betrayed only slight worry. "Don't worry. Sure, come in. It's not much, but you're welcome for just one night."

Seifer watched warily to make sure the old man had put the axe down. He flexed his wrists and checked the knife concealed in each sleeve, just in case. "Thanks," he said as he followed the man towards the door. He was younger than he"d first appeared, about forty, but tanned and leathered and with the kind of wiry old-man-muscles you got from doing physical work all your life. Well, Seifer thought, it can't be any picnic living out here.

I should know.

The house was bigger than it looked from the outside, all warm log walls with a roaring open fire. It smelt of woodsmoke. A mad miscellany of random objects was strewn around the walls and benches. A rifle was pegged in pride of place on the wall. A snow lion's stuffed head hung beside it. Tanned deer pelts hung over the fireplace. Traps hung from the ceiling. There was probably a stuffed alligator in there somewhere, but Seifer couldn't be sure among all the clutter.

The man saw him looking, and shrugged. "Hunting's "bout the only way to keep yourself going round here. Keeps the draughts out, too, the more stuff you got. Sorry-I didn"t catch your name. I'm Gennady. Gennady Ayers. You can call me Gen. Have a seat. And you can put your bag down."

Seifer felt a flicker of panic. "I'm…Dave. David Matthews." He lowered his rucksack down to the floor, wincing a little as the movement pulled on the injured muscles of his arm. He shoved the bag behind his chair. He didn't think the guy was going to go through his things, but he'd been wrong before. Not that he had much stuff to take, of course. If this man lured travellers in to steal all their worldly goods he was going to be disappointed. Unless, of course, he really was in need of a couple of tarps, a wet sleeping bag and a dead squirrel.

Gen nodded. "Pleased to meet you. But you said you had a fight?"

Seifer nodded "Yeah. I….managed to get away, though. It was slow. If you"ve got a first-aid kit?"

"Sure. You"ll have to take off that coat though. Do you do this kind of thing often? You"ve got that scar."

Seifer frowned. He reached up to touch his face and realized that the cold had inflamed his old scar tissue. He tried to sound casual. "That? No. It was from a bar fight. A while ago. I forget about it." He flicked the knives, which had made a brief appearance under the table, back into his coat sleeves and shrugged his coat off. He was painfully aware that his clothes beneath were filthy. The heat on his back from the fire felt good, though. It was the first time he"d been properly warm for weeks.

"Looks like you"ve really been through it," said Gen.

Seifer managed a brief, rueful smile. "Yeah. It was at night. We panicked. Got split up. I fell a ways." Think student, he thought. Think someone who doesn"t know how to fight and who thought it"d be a good idea to go for a little hike in the middle of a forest full of monsters. David Matthews. A kind of college student name, with a little flat in the city, a couple of big-titted bimbo girlfriends on the go at once and a bunch of jock friends. Didn't sound so bad, at the moment.

The slash down his sleeve had neatly ripped his heavy leather coat and frayed the edges of the couple of jumpers and layers of shirts he'd taken to wearing underneath to keep the cold out. Trails of bloodstained yarn frayed from the edges of the cut. Surprisingly, underneath, the wound wasn't that bad, just a shallow slice with clean edges. "Got any bandages?"

"Sure. That doesn't look so bad. Thought you were going to be missing an arm under all those layers." Gennady laid an open first-aid box and a bowl of water down at his elbow. He gave Seifer a strange look that might have been pity or worry or scorn or nothing at all. "Want a drink?"

"Hyne, yeah," Seifer said. "That would be great." He resisted the temptation to ask for vodka. By the time Seifer had finished cleaning the cut and wrapping the bandage around his upper arm Gen was back with a steaming mug of something that smelled like black coffee and a small bottle of clear liquid.

"Coffee. And a little something else. For medicinal purposes only, of course." He winked. "I distill it myself." He sat down across the table from Seifer and splashed a more than generous helping into Seifer"s cup.

Seifer took a swallow of the coffee. It was thick, unsweetened and black, just the way he liked it. The spirit burned bittersweet fire all the way down to his stomach, warming him from the inside out. Good booze.

"You can stay here tonight, of course. You're welcome. Unless you want to stay longer, get yourself cleaned up?"

"Thanks, but no. I have to meet up with my friends tomorrow. Sure I can find the bad luck I got lost. I"ll be fine." He gave a big, fake smile, starting to relax from the alcohol and warmth, thinking that maybe this was going to work out, that it had been a good idea to come. "Just need to get a shower and a shave when I get back. Term starts soon, ya know."

Gen smiled. "You"re welcome. Call it a good old fashioned gesture of hospitality. Oh, I almost forgot. "He walked over to a cupboard in the corner and started pulling things out onto the table. He finally grunted, flicked a small brown bottle out of the cabinet and towards Seifer, who caught it with his left hand. "Painkillers. For the arm. It looks sore"

Seifer began to protest, but thought better of it. David Matthews wouldn"t turn down medicine. Hyne, he was probably thanking his lucky stars he got out of the big scary woods all right. Probabaly hadn"t been in more than a bar fight in his life. "Thanks" He shook the little white pills onto the table and took three, washing them down with more coffee. Maybe it was his imagination, but the pain began to recede almost straight away. He let a long breath out and began to relax. "You don"t know how glad I am I found this place. Just what is it you do, anyway?"

Gen smiled. " Oh, I hunt a bit. Trap mostly. You'd be surprised how much they'd pay for pelts out there in the city. We're really pretty self-sufficient. You'll have seen the other houses. We live together for protection -and company, but it can get lonely out here, seeing the same faces all the time. There's not a lot around. Maybe one of the others can give you a lift back? "

Seifer jerked awake. "You have cars?" Cars meant roads, and roads meant access, and access meant soldiers. But he hadn"t noticed any, and he hadn"t been arrested yet, which was always a good thing.

Gen laughed. "Hyne, no. There"s no roads out here. But a couple of the other villagers have ponies. Sledges. We know all the trails. It's our job. Where was it you said you were meeting your friends, anyway?"

"On one of the paths. Don't know the name. Just the way. It's just a bit further north." Seifer's voice sounded slightly slurred, even to him. He set down his mug. He couldn't afford to get too drunk. Who knew what he might come out with? That stuff had been strong, though. Too strong. He was starting to get tired. His eyelids ached. It was so warm.

Gennady looked at him quizzically. "You can rest, if you like. Have you come far? We"ll eat in a bit."

Seifer rested his head on his folded arms. "A fair way." He tried to fight the drowsiness. He knew he needed to ask more questions, needed to make sure it was safe. "Is there anyone else….in the village? Strangers ?"

Gennady"s voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away "Just you. What's the matter? We haven"t heard from your friends."

"S'all right. Nothin'.."

Seifer slept.

Gennady waited for a few minutes just to make sure he was asleep and then got up, trying to move the chair back as little as possible. He crept across the room, feet quiet on the bare planks, and pulled out his old pistol from its place above the fire.

He levelled the gun at Seifer, slumped onto the table, and gave his shoulder a cautious shake. Nothing happened. Just in case Gen searched through the deep recesses of his cupboards to find an old pair of his ex-SeeD handcuffs-well, you never knew what they'd come in useful for-and locked them round Seifer's wrists.

He'd discovered the trick by chance a few winters ago when he'd had a bad headache. The home-brewed spirit he brewed in the shed behind his cabin was fine on its own, but take painkillers as well and it knocked you out completely.

Gen considered his options. He bent, kicked the bag out from under the table to the corner of the room for later examination and pulled the legs out from under the chair in one smooth movement. Seifer collapsed to the floor bonelessly. Gen rifled through his clothes. To his surprise he found nothing until he pulled Seifer's coat from the chair. He flicked the knives out from under the coat collar and sleeves and held one up to the light, running his finger along it appraisingly.

"Not bad," he said, glancing swiftly at Seifer. The knight was oblivious, flat on his back on the floor and snoring softly. He searched further and pulled out a gun and a couple of clips of ammunition, carefully saved and wrapped in waxed paper, from a pocket of the coat. Gen flipped his own gun onto the table top and sighted along the barrel of the new one. It was a typical Saturday Night Special, cheap and nasty but not a bad weight. It hadn't been fired many times recently from what he could tell. The caliber of bullets was decent for hunting. A little heavy for travel, but all right.

Gennady placed the weapons on top of the pack for later appraisal and looked down at the man on the floor. He'd only seen Seifer Almasy a few times before the troubles, and hadn't paid him much attention. His job wasn"t to instruct new SeeDs, just to test new inventions and better methods of survival dreamed up by the Garden scientists. Thankfully he'd retired from his position a few weeks before the mission to Timber which had started all the stuff off.. A lucky coincidence, he'd thought at the time.

From what he could remember the guy didnt look that different, a bit thinner, perhaps, a lot dirtier, and without his trademark coat and gunblade. There was something …tired about him that there hadn't been before.

It took no genius to work out exactly what he might be doing in this lonely part of the backwoods.

Rumours of Galbadian troop movements in the foothills had been persisting for weeks, and Gen had the sneaking suspicion that he knew just what they'd been looking for.

He considered where to put Seifer. He decided against keeping him in the house. Thhere was too much of a risk that someone might hear something or come in uninvited to borrow a cup of sugar and then Gen'd have some serious explaining to do. The root cellar was the only place, really. Good fortune it had been leaking lately. Gen had had to store his food with Ella in the village this season. He'd planned to clean it out and refloor it, but events had overtaken him.

He unlaced Seifer's steel-capped boots and set them neatly against the wall. They'd seen better days, just like their owner, but they"d still hurt like a bitch if you caught one between your legs. They were also heavy. Gennady was a big man, but he knew it'd tax him to haul Seifer to the wood shelter.

Leaving Seifer on the floor (he wasn't about to be waking up any time soon with that dose and anyway, the guy looked like he could do with a rest) Gen walked through the yard to check the cellar. There was a heavy bar on the outside that could be locked to keep animals out and pissed-off mercenary cadets in. A small puddle of frozen water decorated the middle of the floor. He decided that it should be all right until he could get a message out to Garden.

He hauled a bucket full of water and set it into the corner of the cellar. When he returned to the cabin Seifer still hadn't moved.

Gennady grabbed his feet and dragged him across the floor and down the steps, wincing a little as Seifer's head smacked down the short flight of front stairs like hollow punctuation. He puffed and shifted his grip as he trudged across the yard; Seifer's cuffed arms trailing behind him in the mud. Kicking the door open, he dumped Seifer in a corner of the room and retreated, returning to the cabin where he lifted Seifer"s coat from the chair back and took it out too. The weather forecast predicted more snow, and a frozen Seifer would be no use to anyone, except as a rather large novelty ice-cube.

He closed the door, hauled up the bar up and slotted it into place, panting.

"Dammit, I'm getting old."

Gen retraced his steps to the cabin. He carefully rolled a cigarette and sat at the table smoking as the shadows lengthened around him in the dusty room.

Nothing for it.

Rummaging through the piles of junk, he surfaced finally with a small SeeD issue standard com device he"d liberated from the stores some time before he left. Batteries, batteries, batteries…huh. Ten minutes later, batteries had been found and tested and put in the wrong way and upside down and back to front and finally the whole thing was working.

He twiddled with some of the knobs, getting meaningless static for a while. bzzzp…..rock fm timeless clas….bzzp….this is swordsfis….bzzp….Gardener"s Question time with….

Some time later he tuned into the frequency he was searching for.

"Ex-Commander Cid, please. Yes, I"ll hold. No, it really is imperative that I speak with him. No, not Squall. Him. Now. Tell him it"s Gennady Ayers from …way back. He'll remember me."

There was a slight pause. He cleared his throat.

"Hello, Cid. Hey. It's Gen here. Your old survival advisor? Yeah, it's been a while. How's Edea? Yeah, I heard a bit about that. Anyway, I'm glad she's okay. In fact, I'm calling to talk about that. Sort of. Yeah. You could say I have a slight problem. I seem to have Seifer Almasy locked in my root cellar. I'd very much appreciate any kind of help. I think."

A longer pause. The phone buzzed. Someone, somewhere, was getting very excited about the news.

"Yes, I've heard rumours of Galbadian movement too. Yes, I appreciate that this is classified information. Sure. I'm sure it's him. I was there right up until just before all the trouble started. What? Yes. Blond hair, scar. Tall."

More noises from the phone. "Twenty four hours? Yes, I understand. I"m sure…I'll be ready. Take care. I"ll keep in touch."

Gennady replaced the com into a desk drawer. He reached across the scarred slab table, pulled the bottle of homebewed spirit towards him, poured a slug and knocked it back in one shot.

When he"d retired from Garden he"d never though something like this might happen. But they"d needed him and his experience back home, and it had been good to settle down and lead a normal life, just as much as any ex-SeeD ever could, after they'd gone out into the world and fought, touched magic for the first time and done things most people would never dream of.

Some time during the night he went out into the yard and checked the lock again. There was no sound from within the cellar. The door was securely locked.

Gen just had to wait.

In the cellar, Seifer dreamed.

The images slipped through his mind like cinefilm.

Focus, and freeze frame in on the look on Edea's face as she put her pale hand on his face and drew a thin line with her long, immaculately lacquered nail. There was blood; lacing its way down his cheek and dripping from his chin slowly onto the cool marble floor in little red rosettes of pain.

Focus. The feeling he'd got as he swept though the streets at the right hand of his sorceress, his goddess with the fair skin and yellow eyes and the dreams held in her hand. Like he could live forever. The wind swept across his hair and the words of magic flamed in his mind.

Focus. Time compression, long agonising frozen-in-amber moments of timeless falling, knowing there was nothing underneath the freezing darkness except a world of nothing but greys, and wishing there was just so there would be an end. Always further to fall, always more blood to shed, always more tears someone else cried and he didn't.

Seifer wrenched himself to wakefulness. It felt like slowly breaking the surface of a black oily sea that sucked him down and didn't want to let him go, afraid for one gut-wrenching moment that this time he wouldn"t get out, that maybe this time it was real.

Too much fucking hope, he thought furiously. Always thinking things were going to get better, maybe that all the shit in his head would be sorted out. Fucking conscience. The dreams always came back, he should know by now. No matter how far he ran.

He opened his eyes, expecting to see the night sky and maybe a moon between a black spiderweb of branches. But there was just darkness and damp earth smells and although it was not so far from many of the places he'd slept in the last two months it was way too goddamn dark.

Seifer closed his eyes, but the room was just as black. He touched his face to make sure he hadn't gone blind and swore as his other hand came up to his cheekbone like some kind of malevolent puppet. He jumped, cursed and felt cautiously along to feel a smooth unyielding metal band around both wrists. Cuffs. Damn. And unless this was all some really strange dream he was really in trouble. Again. Should have jumped out of that window in Marduk when he had the chance.

He should have known better. It was never a good idea to trust strangers you met in the woods. Hell, it had never worked even in all those fairy stories he'd read when he was a kid. Not even in all those stupid fucking books he'd checked out from the library and never returned, back when he still cared enough to think that you could make a difference with your life, that dreams came true. Sucker.

A quick search revealed nothing, no gun, no knives. Even the tiny thin daggers he kept slipped down the special pocket in the side of his trousers were gone.

That old bastard had taken his boots, too.

He got up from the floor (hard-packed and frozen icy earth, by the feel of it, so no luck there) and crept for three cautious steps across the room until his outstretched fingers grazed another wall of damp pine-smelling logs. His foot kicked something in the thick heavy darkness and he bent down and picked it up, juggling the mystery item from hand to hand. Great. A fucking carrot. He could just see threatening the guy with that when he came in. Maybe he could stick it in his back and the old guy'd believe it was a gun.

Yeah. And maybe if he got really lucky, he could tunnel out of here with his bare hands by the morning.

Seifer carefully paced the room out, five paces by five. It had a low musty ceiling that brushed his filthy hair as he walked.

He kicked a hard object halfway across the second circuit of the room and swore as it splashed freezing liquid across his socks. He knelt down and tasted it cautiously. It was water, and very cold. The man had left him something to drink. Maybe he could hold his breath and stick his face in it until he drowned or smash it to pieces and tunnel out using the planks. Yeah. He"d have more success with trying to convince the old guy a carrot was a gun.

He continued his exploration of the cell. There was nothing else except a door that was firmly locked from the outside. The metal of the lock cold enough that Seifer could feel it even though thick hide gloves. Some big heavy object pushed across it, too. It didn"t give when he charged it with his shoulder or kicked it with shoeless feet or stood running his fingers across it desperately, trying to figure at least some way out of here.

He knew where he was. He was locked in that damned sunken cellar thing.

The last time he'd been locked in like this, it had been in the disciplinary room back in Balamb .Back where all this shit started. At least this place didn"t have a couple of bored SeeD cadets on the door, or orders to "Assess your behaviour and how it contravened all major SeeD rules in a written report of no less that two thousand words, quoting Seed manual pages forty-six to one hundred–and-seventeen with listed references to appropriate texts." Fuck that. If he started listing every SeeD rule he'd broken since last summer, he'd be here months. And hopefully he wouldn't have to stay that long.

No, a little voice whispered inside his head. It shouldn't be too long at all.

The metal was so cold it burned on his skin. He pulled the cuffs of his sweater down and worked them down under the handcuffs but as soon as he moved they just rode up again.

Stupid.

Seifer wrapped his thick sheepskin jacket around himself, shivering so hard his teeth ached and his stomach muscles burned. At least the headache was going away. He lay in the silent, freezing darkness, the smell of earth and and rotten root vegetables all around him, with blood beating in his ears and his breath fast and cloudy in the still air.

Seifer didn't sleep the rest of the night.

Eventually, he ate the carrot.