Chapter 30: Storming the Tower
The instructions Klaus gave them (via Fancy Mel) were explicit. Rod and Duke were to visit the Raging Mountains to obtain Wyalf's two cannon orbs. In the meantime, Mint would go through the Cursed Crossways to unseal the former Tower of Maya. Rod would then follow in his vehicle so that they could obtain the final two cannon orbs and install them. Once that was done, Mint and Rod would be off to rescue Rue.
At the Raging Mountains, past the outer gates and into the main building, they would come across Wylaf's dragon guardian. Rod held the Black Tornado—a huge hammer, one of the first weapons he ever forged at his garage in Carona—in both hands at the ready. Duke was nowhere in sight. Blast it, Duke, hurry up with whatever you're doing, Rod thought as he carefully stepped forward to avoid any traps that Wylaf might have set. Rue and Mint didn't encounter any traps the last time, but there was no point in taking chances. He was almost to the inner room with the dragon now.
It was big, it was huge, it was scary yadda yadda, he'd heard it all before. And it had apparently heard them coming a mile away. "INTRUDERS! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS DISTURBANCE!"
Rod raised the huge hammer to strike. Hurry up, Duke! The dragon was a lot bigger than he expected from what Klaus had told them (Wylaf must've been busy since Rue and Mint's last visit), and if Mint's stories were anything to go by, this dragon wasn't going down without a fight.
"YOU INSIGNIFICANT MORTA—WHAT THE DEVIL IS THAT??!"
For once, Rod was too stupefied to move. A huge, inane, plastic-and-yellow-spandex star mascot flew through the air to land right on top of the dragon's head.
"YEEEAAAAGGHH!!"
He didn't know who had screamed. He didn't know what the heck Duke had done with his star costume—it was bouncing up and down and spinning on itself right on top of the dragon. He didn't know why the dragon wasn't fighting back. But he sure as heck knew why he was gaping at the utter stupidity of it all. He forced his mouth closed with a snap.
Suddenly, Duke bounced off the dragon's head towards the side of the room, and eventually came to a stop. They heard a fizz, and the dragon split crosswise at the neck to reveal a cockpit with a man inside. "You… you…" Wylaf sputtered as he attempted to move away from his two attackers. He almost fell over his own two feet in haste coupled with too-obvious anger and acute frustration as he jumped out of the cockpit. When Rod and Duke made no move towards him, he pulled out a plastic bazooka from behind his seat.
"Woah! Don't shoot!" Duke shouted, at the same time Rod said, "It's okay, it's okay, we're Rue's friends!" Rod waved his hands in an effort to placate the scientist. "We need your help to rescue him."
Wylaf lowered the bazooka. "Oh. Why didn't say so earlier?" Rod slouched in exasperation. Duke just stood there, unmoving in his costume. Wylaf went on, "So, what brings you here?"
Rod went straight to the point. "Cannon Orbs. I hear you have two of them." At the mention of cannon robs, Wylaf raised an eyebrow at him.
"Ah, you're the young man known as the Blade Star, aren't you? I hear …stories," he said with a wink. Rod nodded. Wylaf motioned for them to wait as he went through a doorway behind the unmoving dragon. After a while, he returned carrying the orbs and handed them to Rod. "I thought you'd come by sooner or later, though I admit I didn't expect him," he said, motioning towards Starlight Duke. "So, you're flying to the Tower of Maya, eh? Well, get off with you, this is no time for chit-chat!"
"Thanks, doc," Rod tipped his hat at the professor, and closed the compound doors behind him and Duke as they left.
"Augustus, you have strange friends," Wylaf thought aloud. And then the irony of the statement hit him, and he burst into laughter.
In the Tower of Maya, it was time for another one of several tests with the magick-sensitive machines. Located at one of the larger labs, two metal cylinders with glass doors rose ceiling high, with an observation gallery two floors up. Rue was there of course, as the test subject, and for the first time Maya was there too. They finally let her out under Rue's protection. Valen trusted his son's word that they wouldn't try to escape or to sabotage any critical systems. She leaned against the second-floor railing, her face impassive as she watched.
Rue smiled at her reassuringly, waving once to keep her spirits up, before going inside the machines. Ever since he discovered her presence in the orbiting Tower, he had been trying to get them to release her from house arrest and allow her to return home. He had even cajoled Ruecian into helping him. But Valen had been adamant so far.
Maya didn't want to be there when the psyche-transplant operation took place. Then again, there was a small part of her that wanted to stay with Rue until the end, whatever the outcome was. She gritted her teeth, but managed to keep an outward appearance of calm. For Rue's sake. Offhand, she wondered what would happen to her and to East Heaven when the whole thing was over. And then almost kicked herself when she realized what she was thinking. She still held on to the faint hope that something would go wrong with Valen's plans, and that the operation with him and Rue wouldn't take place at all.
There were still people below the Tower who knew about Valen's plans. People free to act, people who could act. Maybe they could do something. All she could do now was to wait, and take whatever chance that would present itself.
It wasn't called the Cursed Crossways for nothing.
So, it's another dream sequence, eh? Bring it on… Mint sniffed irritably. It would be different now that she was awake and fully aware.
If the halls of Valen's compounds seemed devoid of time, then it had all been dumped there in the underground tunnels, in the areas where strong magick lurked in untamed chaos. They were like …scars… in the universe's psychic weave, twisted and unnatural, and Mint could sense the imminent disturbances along the tunnel walls, slowly and steadily becoming stronger with each step she moved forward. In one hand she held a dead electronic lamp—the strength of the wayward magicks seemed to render the very laws of physics askew—but she could see in the tunnels without it. She wasn't sure if it were her eyes or her mind that actually saw the way, but it didn't really matter.
They were called Aeons in the many legends of Carona. There were countless versions of the legends, so many that even Klaus could not name them all, each slightly different from the other. But the Aeons were described the same way in all of them. Mythical beings standing taller than humans, wingless, with huge orbed eyes that glowed with mystic energies, they possessed the power to bend the weft and warp of space-time itself at command.
Like all legends, the myths of Carona had probably been based on truth. The Scions of East Heaven were legends in their own right, children of magick and guardians of the sacred ruins, with strength that lay in the wielding of the elements. The Aeons must have been psyche-strong as well, with their strength in the life force of beings. Their magicks must have been so powerful to have been held in such awe, to have been preserved in myth, to have marked their existence such as they did in the Carona and Gamul ruins, and for her to be able to sense them even after all this time. She could feel the ghosts of their presence, or rather, her psyche could. They were gone, no longer of this earth she was sure, just as she was sure they had once existed. But were they human, the answer could not be found in the psychic stains they had left in the underground tunnels.
The magick that surrounded her now was very different from her mother's, but it was familiar, like her mother's dreams were. She had sensed it but once before, and this time she was sure. His. When Rue had dreamed again in two years.
It was exactly the same as Rue's dreams, only stronger. The dark emptiness and the silent, psychic screams of countless emotions that would drive any ordinary human insane. It was everywhere in these tunnels, the blackness and the despair…
She didn't belong here. She was an outsider, unwanted, and she felt the chaotic energies repelling hers. But her magick was strong. It protected her. She could see, and Mint looked, like a child peeking into her mother's dresser to uncover an older woman's secrets. Looking from the outside, they weren't such random emotions at all. It was as if each of the many disjointed voices—no, they weren't voices—as if each spirit were a thread, interweaving to form some metaphysical tapestry, severed from the passage of the ages… A tapestry of wills… Wills that had suddenly been cut off from reality and then frozen… as if… as if something had tried to eliminate them before their time and failed to do so completely…
And in the middle of the tapestry was an all too familiar thread—the thread of his presence. The mark of his passing was faint and almost insignificant, but she could sense it nevertheless. Rue was psyche-strong in his own right. With his thread was a mark—some sort of psychic DNA—just as the scions of East Heaven were bequeathed with the wine-red aura that oftentimes manifested in their eyes. The psychic mark of a chroma child manifested as white hair. But this mark was different and purely incorporeal—not even Valen or Ruecian had it—a spiritual brand, a sign that one had been touched by cryptic tendrils of a destiny that should have died and faded in the mists of time…
The mark of an Aeon.
No! She shook her head, as if to deny the voices. The thought came out of nowhere, as if the tunnels' very walls had whispered it into her mind. Rue… an Aeon? But that's impossible… the Aeons were only a myth… they never truly existed, at least, not in the way that the legends tell… But the psychic energies couldn't lie. Could they? They were easy, very easy to misinterpret…
It was only the place. It was only a test, a test that the Ancients made… to keep the weak ones at bay… what were the Ancients hiding here? They were dead, dead, dead… three thousand years gone…
She was almost past the tunnels. She stepped forward, and then the screaming in her mind subsided. She could still feel the voices, but not so much now, and she knew the worst was over. She had made it. She fell on her knees, out of breath in spite of walking all the way. Her head was aching. She raised one hand in an attempt to illumine her path with magic, but discovered she had no energy left to cast that simplest of spells.
She had just walked through a niche of the Void itself and she didn't even know.
"Maya! Maya, are you alright?" She opened her eyes to see coal-black ones looking back at her, fraught with concern. With a start, she realized she was on the floor, and that Rue was shaking her awake.
"What happened?" she asked, surprised to hear the feebleness in her own voice.
"I was about to ask you the same thing." Rue replied somberly. "You just… fell." Gently, he helped her up. She wobbled, her grip tight on his arm, but she managed to stand on her own. She was still a little dizzy, and she shook her head in an attempt to clear it.
She looked around, awareness returning. The machines were still powered on, but the technicians had already begun to shut them down. She remembered they were almost done with the day's tests, and Rue had wanted to lengthen his trial, always just a bit more, just to make sure that the circuits could withstand an extended magick flow. She must've blacked out then, for she didn't remember seeing Rue step out of the machines. Strange, she remembered blacking out, but there had been no sign at all to warn her. The only time this had happened before was when her sister fell off a tree and knocked herself unconscious, and because of the siblings' spirit link, Maya had all of a sudden fainted too… and now, mere moments ago she felt…
She realized that Rue was still standing beside her, waiting for an explanation. Blushing a little under his gaze, she told him, "It's nothing, Rue. I'm fine." Rue frowned at her. Before she had fainted, he was certain he heard her shout his name. "It's nothing," she insisted, her voice firm. It was a lie, but Rue seemed to accept her answer for now. She couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth—that she had felt her sister's agonized cry, that it was Mint's psyche who had called out for him. "I guess my body's having trouble adjusting," she excused.
"All the more reason I should get you out of here," Rue immersed himself in thought. After a while, he turned towards her, his voice soft. "Tonight, Maya."
Maya's eyes widened. "You can't be serious?" she whispered.
His frown never went away. "Valen owes me that much." Valen, he said, not father. Maya kept her face impassive, not letting on that she had noticed the slip. Rue never complained, and he would never let any untoward weakness show, but she suspected that the testing drained him each time, maybe even pained him. But Rue was always so obstinate during the tests that she couldn't bring herself to ask.
She swallowed nervously. "Alright. What are you going to do?"
Suddenly Rue smiled, although it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm going to ask him."
Ever since the testing had started in earnest, and at Valen's own insistence, Rue no longer bothered with formalities when seeing his father. Three loud knocks at the office door, and, finding it unlocked, he and Maya went inside.
Valen looked up from the papers on his desk. "What do you want?" His tone showed just the slightest hint of irritation, as was his wont. Rue paid it no mind, although he was respectful enough when he spoke.
"Father, there's a favor I must ask you." Think of it as a final wish, he thought sadly. On the way up to Valen's office, he had almost convinced himself that his father would agree.
Before he could say more, Valen already answered him. "No, I will not release the Princess Maya under any circumstances."
Rue stopped short. "But father, you don't have any reason to keep her here."
"I don't have any more reason to let her go either."
Good point. Deep down, he wasn't really surprised. Is there no way I can convince him to… A faint hope suddenly glimmered in his eyes. "Father, you like bets." It wasn't a question. Klaus, thank you.
Valen raised an eyebrow at him, and a slight smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "What did you have in mind?"
"Remember your old mind game with Augustus…" it felt strange to call the professor that, but he didn't hesitate, "if he figures out your 'code', you will stop building your machines. It's too late for that now, but if I solve this code, will you let Maya go?"
There was no hiding the amusement in Valen's voice now. "You truly are my son. Very well," he said, although his doubt at the boy's abilities was evident in his expression. "You have only one chance."
Rue managed to match his father's tone, and he spoke for Maya's benefit as well. "It was an old bet between old friends, for one to decipher a code that could be anything. Klaus had reason to suspect that the key could be found in the underground labyrinth maps. Or maybe one or more of the Carona ruins. It could have been part of a chorma child's genome. The aura pattern of an East Heaven Scion. The secrets of the mechavehicle circuits. Perhaps it was that certain magickal signature that integrates the psyche with the physical, magick with mechanical. They all carried equal weight, and as far as I know, Klaus had never been able to figure out which one.
"But it was deceptive. The sheer complexity, and the fact that they were all of them important in some sense without you having to deliberately plant anything, should have been a clue in itself. There is no code, and there has never been one," Rue concluded.
It was some time before Valen answered. When he did, he actually smiled. "You are correct." The smile actually widened into a grin. "You're a fool to think that I'd let you off anyway. But I'm not completely heartless. I will give you thirty minutes to get your princess off this Tower before I raise the alarm." He briefly glanced at the chronometer on his desk. "Your time starts now."
The silence was starting to get on Rod's nerves, and the gateway hadn't budged a millimeter. He was about to bang on the defunct steel gateway of the foundations of the Tower of Maya for the nth time that hour when, just as he raised his fist, the doors slid open. "It's about time," he began, and stopped short upon seeing the other redhead. Even in the dim light, she was too pale. "Mint, are you alright?!"
"I'm fine," Mint insisted. It was amazing what a couple of hours sleeping on the rocky ground of the underground tunnels could do to replenish one's stamina. "I'm glad to see you're on time. You got the orbs?" Rod nodded. "Two more, then." She went over to the terminal she had been typing on and entered the commands to open the outer gates all the way.
Rod walked back to the Pulsar Inferno Typhoon Omega and jumped into the driver's seat. He powered on the vehicle and maneuvered it to enter the compound. Mint jumped into the passenger seat behind him as he passed, pausing to let her in. They would install all five Cannon Orbs inside the base. And then they'd fly straight to the Tower of Maya in orbit.
They ran. There was a small hangar in the lower floors of the Tower of Maya, where Valen kept a number of small ships for emergencies. With luck, Maya could commandeer one of them to enable her to return home.
Suddenly there was a buzzing at the back of the East Heaven princess's mind, and one that had nothing whatsoever to do with spirit links. She had overheard it about her sister, these psychic premonitions—very rarely did she herself have them, only twice that she could remember in her lifetime. "Wait, Rue."
Rue stopped running and turned around to face her. With brisk steps she led the way into a small side corridor, Rue following silently. At the end of the hallway were three small doors, all locked and sealed, and she turned to the left one. Rue looked at her questioningly, "What is it, Maya?" Maya pointed at the door controls, indicating Rue to open it.
"There's …something inside. I don't know what, but it's important somehow." Rue nodded, and typed in a few passcodes. In a moment the door was open. Maya shivered. The room inside was cold. Cold, and she didn't mean the temperature.
Being extra careful, Maya stepped inside. It was a small storeroom, piled high on one side with crates and wooden boxes that seemed quite out of place in their modern day and age, but aside from that there was nothing special she could discern about them. On the opposite side of room was a row of computer terminals, most of them powered down with only the odd screen blinking with unfamiliar data. The other two walls were clean and unfurnished. But the buzzing in her mind was insistent, and her feet seemed to move of its own accord. In the farthest corner of the room she found it, a glass cylinder reaching up to the ceiling, its outside damp with condensed moisture. She could barely make out a figure inside. She walked towards it, squinting to see better.
Her jaw dropped in shock. Quickly she closed her mouth, but just as quickly did silent tears sting her eyes as hatred welled up inside her—hatred at Valen and Aeon Industries. It was another chroma child, with the same baneful blue gem gleaming dully on his forehead. His eyes were closed inside the glass cylinder that kept him in stasis. His shoulder-length hair did not quite fall right along the sides of his face, until Maya realized that the cylinder was completely filled with a viscous, greenish-gray liquid. He couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve years old from the way he looked, but somehow, she felt he was older than that. How long had he been in this life capsule?
With a start she realized that it was a life capsule, but one unlike she had ever seen before. She doubted that Valen had another like it, although she couldn't be sure. She turned sharply to Rue, "How do we get him out of this thing?!" Rue was already fiddling with the nearby consoles.
The inner doorway was locked. Mint jumped down from the Pinto, Rod following her moments later, and was first to reach the terminal by the inner gateway. She started typing in an attempt to open the gates.
"Rue taught me a couple of things…" Mint said as Rod stepped to stand beside her. She didn't see him flinch involuntarily at the mention of their friend's name. She clicked a few more keys and tried a couple of passcodes. After a time, they heard a soft click followed by a metallic clang, and the doors began to open.
Mint was about to turn back towards the Pinto, when she noticed the screen blink twice. "What the—?!!"
Rod asked, concerned, "What is it?"
"Someone else is trying to hack in… it's showing up on my display." She clicked several more keys to no effect—the computer display kept moving of its own accord. Oddly enough, the screen was showing her old backup files. The photo of a chroma child showed up next. He didn't have an Aeon Shard, but he wasn't Prima. Telltale white hair, and his irises were a deep red. The chroma child of my dreams.
Mint read the data aloud as it scrolled up the screen. "Ruenis Gallagher. Father deceased, no photo available. Mother died during experimentation…" The screen turned up to display a very pretty woman in her late twenties. Except for the raven hair, she looked exactly like an older Mint, down to expressiveness of her wine-red eyes. "Lucine Gallagher. Her middle name is Brie?!"
Rod nodded, involuntarily taking a few steps backwards. He seemed stunned, and when next he spoke his voice was breaking. "Belle's older sister. So, she's dead after all. I—I wonder if Belle knows…" He dejectedly held one hand over his eyes—try as he might he couldn't hold back the sudden tears. "Does it surprise you, Mint? I was fourteen when I fell in love with a woman twice my age."
Mint walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his chest, hesitating just a tiny fraction of a second before she did so. Rod returned the embrace, holding her so tight she couldn't breathe, harder even than when they first met after waking up from chroma poisoning, and she could swear he was holding her tight enough to bruise. She forced down a groan. He was that strong. "It was my fault, Mint," he rasped. "I should have… I should have stopped Lucine from going into that… that… I couldn't…" he trailed off, unable to speak any more. Mint asked no questions. In the past they had talked—could talk—about almost anything and everything, but with astonishment she realized that she knew absolutely nothing about Rod's relationship with Lucine.
How long they remained like that, Mint didn't know, but she let him cry holding her. When he finally released her, his face was hard. "Time to go," he managed to say. "Rue's waiting for us."
Fiddling with the life capsule's controls wasn't getting them anywhere. No matter how he tried, he couldn't get around the system fail-safe without Valen's personal passcodes. Maya was growing impatient. Earlier, Rue had found and read aloud the data on Ruenis Gallagher, but that didn't help them free him. Already she was sorely tempted to find a crowbar and use it to bash open the capsule, or even break the glass with her bare hands.
Rue was apparently sharing the same ideas. With an uncharacteristic curse, he picked up the Arc Edge and unceremoniously struck the weapon against life capsule's glass.
CRAASH!! The fluid spilled through huge cracks, and Rue barely had time to get away before thousands of broken shards sprayed outward as the capsule shattered. The chroma child bodily fell forward, and Maya scrambled to catch him. Kneeling down on the wet floor amidst scattered glass, she gently straightened his limp body and laid his head on her lap. Before Rue could blink, Maya's hands glowed with the power and she forcibly pulled out Ruenis' Aeon shard.
"MAYA!" Rue shouted. He urgently grabbed her wrist, only to snap his hand back as if burned. It tingled with Maya's magick. "You tear off his shard and he will die!!"
She shook her head frustratedly, even as one-handed she threw away the blue lump of the Aeon shard, the bloodied silvery-green filaments dangling from it like silky hair. "Three days ago, the data file said, when they placed this accursed …thing," she almost spat in contempt, "on his forehead and chucked him into this capsule. It hasn't had time to bore itself to him yet." Rue started to protest, but she cut him off. "I could sense it, Rue! I made sure the tendrils were safe to remove before I pulled it out! You think I wouldn't know about these things?! I'm an East Heaven spirit-healer!" At that moment, she sounded almost as indignant as her sister.
Ruenis was bleeding severely, and she quickly placed both hands over the wound as if she was plugging a leak. A faint pink glow surrounded her hands and the wound, growing stronger by the moment until it began to pulse strongly with psychic energy. He won't die. He won't. I swear I won't let him die. No one deserves that pain, the black dreams of the Aeon shard!
"Maya. Maya, that's enough!" Rue had to bodily pull her up into a sitting position. Without realizing it, she had almost fallen forward over Ruenis's body while healing him. "You can't do any more for him if you wind up killing yourself!"
Maya wearily blinked rusty-red eyes. What are you talking about? I'm fine, Rue, and Ruenis needs my Healing… she had opened her mouth to say those words, but her voice was gone. A small part of her mind told her that Rue was right, and that she had almost used up all of her life energy in the healing. If Rue hadn't stopped her right then… She vaguely realized that he was still talking to her.
"Maya! Don't you faint on me now!!" He shook her roughly, and anger was plain on his face. "I can't carry both of you out of here, and once we reach the hangar you're going to have to take him on your own!" Twice more, Maya opened her mouth to reply, but no words would come out. Uneasily, she nodded her agreement as earnestly as she can, to show that she was still capable of getting herself and Ruenis out of the Tower. The anger on Rue's face was gently replaced by a deep sadness. Sadness, and something else—tenderness? caring?—but whatever it was, she knew it wasn't meant for her.
Rue took off his outer shirt and put it on Ruenis. The shirt was big enough that it would cover until Ruenis' thighs on standing. The wound on Ruenis' forehead had significantly gotten smaller, no longer life-threatening although it still bled profusely—Maya didn't have the strength to close it completely. Rue untied the white bandanna that kept his own Aeon shard hidden and used it to bind the wound. It would have to do for now. He helped her stand up, the two of them supporting an unconscious Ruenis on each side. Rue helped Maya slide one shoulder under Ruenis' arm.
After taking only a few steps towards the door, Rue stopped short. Maya turned towards him, an unspoken question in her eyes. Rue shook his head at her.
Ruecian. Ruecian was coming. Somehow, he just knew. "I… I don't think I can come with you any further." From his expression, Maya knew that no matter what she did she couldn't change his mind. Rue took off his ever-present cap and, seeing that both of Maya's hands were full, instead tied it to her belt. "Please, give it to Mint. Tell her that… no, just tell her it's something to remember me by."
Maya didn't understand, but knowing that questions or arguments were futile now and that they were cramped for time, she simply nodded. When she left through the doorway, and later eventually reached the hangar, she was supporting Ruenis by herself.
Author's Notes
10 August, 2003. When all else fails, brute force works. In more ways than four.
More Errata. Right after I posted the previous chapter, I went on to read some of the newly-updated ToF fics and found out a few things. Primus, Anti-R already used the name 'Marion'. It's coincidence that I used the same name for Mint and Maya's father—I wanted something that began with an 'M'—so I guess I'm changing his name to 'Mathias' or something. Secundus, one of the latest fics is JinxBox's 'Weaver's Tapestry', no doubt a play on 'Threads of Fate'. It is coincidence as well that I used the word 'tapestry' in this chapter. Tapestries in Medieval times were used not only for decoration but also to tell stories, hence the analogy. And (speaking for my defense), if you'll notice, the first chapter of Carona High is subtitled Two Tales are Set to the Loom. =P
Special Thanks to Without Morals for giving me the idea of Wylaf controlling the dragon from the inside. I had doubts about putting in that 'comic' scene at the start, afraid that it would divert the story's theme. But I don't like it when the fic gets too serious, and I've writ nothing but 'serious' for the past… six chapters? Ugh. Don't think too much about Rue being an Aeon, because he isn't. Well, actually he sort of is, but it isn't important to the Carona High series.
I know, I know, most people who read this are anxious for me to finish the story, but I'm certain not as much as I! Published 08 August 2002, this story is already over a year old, and would you believe that that's two weeks short of how long the ending chapter has been waiting in the backshelf for me to upload it?!! Anyway, I do my best. Please be patient a while longer. ^_^.
P.S. Yet another self-indulgent rant. Reviews. Are. Nice. Be kind. Review. Thank you.