(First of all, I just gotta say: HAPPY
BIRTHDAY LIZZIE!!!!!! (belated? ;P) And thanks very much for really really
liking my fanficcy....*smiles* If only other peeps were so nice as you....oh
well. At least you're readin' it, right? You're so nice! Anyway, sorry for
missin your brithday. It's not a dumb excuse! If ya woulda told me earlier, I
would have had it up on your birthday! Well....)
This
particular chapter is dedicated to Lizzie! *sings 'Happy Birthday' and dances
in a circle* Whooo hooooo!
Anyway,
just cause it's dedicated to the b-day girl, doesn't mean you others cannae
read it, right? Well, enjoy!!!
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"Sergundra"
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By:
Laura M. Ulian
2002-03-08
Dedicated to: Lizzie (Happy B-Day again!)
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"You
have a visitor."
It
was simply that. No swearing, cursing, sneering, or leering. The guard's face
was a little twisted, and her words sounded beyond disgusted, but she left the
bandit's presence almost immediatly, when he message was through. The quiet
clanking of her shiny, polished, and rain-wet armour echoed through the
corridor, until it stopped altogether. Amarant grunted, and pulled himself to
his feet. A visitor. The only one he could even half-expect to visit him, was
Lani (in some disguise or another) Perhaps it was Velra, back for more taunts
and torture.
Maybe
it was Dagger, or Zidane. Zidane? Really, did he care that much? Whoever it
was, the odds were probably 1 to about.....oh, say 10,000 that they were a
well-wisher. Amarant braced himself for whomever the guard returned with, and
found himself actually worrying about what would happen next. If it were Lani
-- he'd have a chance to escape. If it were Dagger, maybe Zidane -- he'd had a
chance to explain. If it were....Velra, he have a chance to growl back at her.
Funny thing was, he didn't feel up to any growling at the moment.
A
soft scraping of metal against metal jerked him back to his senses. Blinking,
he peered through the bars of his cell to see two figures emerging from the
darkness. His mind seemed to blank completely, when the soaked, hunched figure
at the guard's right-hand was no more than four, four and a half feet tall.
Something else, perhaps a piece of common sense, prevented him from swearing
openly. Not even Lani could diguise herself that well, to have shrunk more than
a foot in height.
"I
am required to monitor your discussion, if it is what you wish," said the
guard, as both she and the cloaked visitor halted before his cell door. Her
tone was bored, rehearsed. It was evident that she would rather be outside in
the rain, then sharing the company of a would-be killer.
"No,"
the visitor's reply was soft, and feminine. "You can go outside again.
I'll be OK."
Amarant
squinted at the puny figure. Something about the way she said 'I'll be OK', was
all too familiar for comfort. Was it really Lani under that cloak after all?
Clearly
restraining from rolling her eyes, the guard saluted the 'noble' girl, and set
off down the corridor without looking back. Amarant didn't watch her leave. He
was busy staring penetratingly at the 'visitor' he was beginning to have doubts
about being a real 'visitor'.
"Lani
if it's you under that cloak--" he began, slowly unclenching his
compressed teeth.
"No,"
said the figure again, and with one more glance in the direction the guard had
taken, she pulled her disguise over her head. Amarant almost fell over in
shock. Cora blinked and shook her wet hair from her face, "Who's
Lani?"
"What...."
he growled. "You."
Cora
grinned, "You don't seem all too happy to see me, Mr. Amarant."
"What
the hell are you doing here?" he demanded, not in the least aware, or even
caring that he was speaking to a eleven-year-old brat.
"Well,
I was thinking of helping you escape," Cora smirked and tapped her fingers
against the iron bars. "But I don't think a dinner knife is gonna cut this
as well as I thought."
"Escape,"
Amarant's voice was flooded with skepticism. "You really think you can get
me outta here with a blunt knife used for carving raw meat? Tell me you're
kidding."
Cora
broke into a sweet smile, "Of course I'm kidding," she practically
purred. "That's why I swiped these from Mistress Maryweather over
there." The girl unhooked something from around her wrist and held it up
for the monk to see. Amarant blinked back his faulty surprise.
Cora
jingled the keyring in her hand, tossed it, and snatched it from the air,
"I might be a noble's daughter, but when I challenged you, I really meant
it. And c'mon, I'm twelve years old....I'm not gonna go and trying something as
stupid as carving your cell door away. Reason one: There's a guard down the
hall with ears trained for this kind of thing. Two: It would take me well past
visiting hours to create a hole large enough four YOUR head to fit
through."
It
was aimed well, and it stung. Amarant shook his head, and muttered a curse to
the girl's ancestors, her parents, and her heritage, "Where did someone
like you learn to steal like that?"
The
girl feigned shock, "Why, Mr. Amarant, I'm surprised! How vulgar to call
something as low as 'stealing'. It's more of... of a loan."
"That's
what they all say," he grumbled, but had to admit that he liked her
attitude. It sort of reminded him of a little Lani.
"And
you just might want these," said the girl. She took something out of her
pack (in which she had also hidden beneath her cloak) and tossed them through
the bars. They clattered onto the floor. It was his Cat's Claws.
"You're
nothing but a little thief," Amarant commented, in disbelief. He crouched
to pick his weapons up, and no words passed between either of them as he
strapped them to his fists. "Hmm, now I'll have some fun getting out of
here. I'm gonna ask you one more time -- where the hell does a little noble
girl learn this kind of trickery?"
"My
mother taught me," Cora explained, growing quite serious again. Satisfied
that he was now armed, she fumbled with three brass keys between her fingers.
Her eyes clouded with bitter confusion, as she read the inscription on first
one, "My real mother, anyway, before she died. Now, let's
see....monto...sermin...allyamorris?" She lifted her eyes for a brief
moment, to give Amarant a puzzling glance. "What is this.....latin?"
Amarant
grunted, "It's searmon, a language taught to the Gahgnir," he
explained, half-heartedly. "Give it here."
Almost
reluctantly, Cora passed the keys through the bars. Amarant held them in one
large hand, and peered at the inscription with a look of dull fascination,
"Haven't read this crap in ages.....First....Cell.....Keyholder. 'Freedom
for number one'." The bandit sighed, and looked back at the girl.
"What cell number is this?"
"Hmmm...."
Cora thought aloud, and glanced at the number imprinted on the stone above,
"There's no number, but....sevria....hundo....malin?"
"What
is this....a Gahgnir prison?" said Amarant, rolling his eyes. "It
means 'Little silver one'. Use this," he ordered, handing the entire
keyring to her with a noticable, silver-coated key separated well from the
others. "Hell knows why I have a cell that stands out. Probably the only
one without a bed."
"Ummmm.....there's
something else," said Cora, pursing her lips. Her head craned to read the
words associated with the cell number, "Antalmalion....forgonis...sel...camma...entrocitran....cal-calmrena....sito....."
She shook her head, and scratched the back of her neck. "The rest is too
faded..."
Amarant
wasn't listening. He stared, "Entocitran calmrena....you're sure."
Cora
looked from writing, to bandit, and frowned, "Yes," she said slowly.
"Why?"
Amarant
shook his head, "It's probably an old rumor..." he said, mostly to
himself. "Will you unlock the door, or do I have to do that myself as
well?"
Cora
smirked, and jammed the silver key into the lock. It fit, but surprisingly, she
did not turn it, "First," she said, grinning. "Tell me what it
means."
Amarant
had the urge there and then to strangle the girl through the bars, "It
means," he said, through gritted teeth. "'Humble dwelling to the
atlanion menace when' and according to you, the rest is unreadable. Turn the
key. Now."
Satisfied,
but rather shaken, Cora nodded her head. With a soft click, the cell door
jolted and swung open. Cora stood back to let Amarant through, and grinned up
at him with wide eyes, "Well, that didn't seem too har-"
She
never recieved the chance to finish her sentence. Approximately four inches
from her head, the wall burst open in an eruption of rocks and scales. A great
cloud of dust rose into the air, keeeping whatever had broken the stone
corridor in two from sight. But before Cora leapt away and covered her face
with her hands, she swore that she saw the glint of a snakish body drop to the
ground. A pitched hiss hung in the air, filling the girl's mind with a terrible
image. Amarant had vanished from sight, enveloped with the heavy cloud, but
somehow she could hear him growling a few words in the freakish language she
had no mind to comprehend. The searmon words stung her ears worse than the
horrifying sound of the attacker's threatening clamour. Cora yelped as she felt
something silky brush her hand, and scrambled backwards on her hands and feet,
pressing herself into an untouched stretch of wall.
Suddenly,
a rush of fresh,cool air struck her in the face. The gritty air lifted
slightly, seeping as a current through the gaping hole-in-the-wall. The scene
that Cora faced, as she peered fearfully at the spot where the bandit prisoner
had been standing, felt like a clammy hand gripping her heart. Amarant
struggled with one arm to cut the demon serpent's throat, while pinning his
other, in which was encoiled with the lower half of the snake's body, against
the bars of his former cell. Abruptly, the fiendish monster, with an ugly face
twisted into a snarl too hard to forget, jerked his tail, which sent the
battling monk flying roughly into the wall opposite of the girl. Cora screamed,
but Amarant was quick to get to his feet -- clearly injured but unaware . He
lifted his good arm just in time to fend off the serpent's fangs as they
descended upon him. There was a horrible shriek as the giant snake experienced
a taste of it's own blood, when Amarant's weapons cut a sizable gash along it's
gums. It roared, and in utter fury, dove for the monk's throat again, jaws
agape for the kill.
Unfourtunately
for the monster, it's opponent was slightly less dumb-witted than it's last
victim. Cora winced as the serpent's head struck nothing but solid stone, where
the bandit had once stood. A sickening crack of splintering bone adhered it's
scream of agony. The girl turned her eyes away at the same moment Amarant's
free fist, complete with exposed claws drove upon the base of the suffering
creature's neck. There was no more noise, save for the slightly laboured
breathing of the dibilitated, dazed victor. However, victory was a slight part
of the battle's conclusion. He dropped to the ground, wall supporting his
crippled back.
"Amarant!"
Cora cired, forgetting her sweet, sarcastic innocence. Almost at once, she was
across the corridor and kneeling beside him. Amarant merely sat, arms limply
upon the floor. He lifted his head slightly to acknowledge her, but his face
was fixed with a scowl.
"Not....not
a rumor,"' he breathed. He tried to say something more, but his words were
muted by a severing pain below his left shoulder blade. He swore openly,
ignoring Cora altogether.
"That
was....it was the atlanion?" the girl inquired, awestruck.
"But....how did it..."
"Obviously,"
spat the monk, his eyes closed in silent agony. "It's purpose is....was to
prevent any prisoner from escaping alive."
"Oh..."
Cora could not think of anything more to say. Then a realization struck her,
"Is it broken?"
"My back....or my dignity?"
Cora
would have grinned at his attempt to be scornful, but her insides still shook
too greatly from the experience, "Your back, silly."
"Not
broken," he confirmed, swallowing his urge to scream, "Just
permanantly crippled, that's all. Wouldn't expect...." he winced,
unvolunarily, "....that you know any kind of white magic?"
"You
bet your sorry ass I do," Cora snapped, sounding rather like him, more
than she did herself. "Stop acting as if I'm helpless, and
everything!"
"I
just slayed a fifty-foot long serpent with the ability to crush six humans at
once," said Amarant, hiding the skepticism from his voice. "And you
cowered against a wall."
"I
take it you want to sit here until the guards return," Cora
quipped, shifting herself, as if to get up. "It doesn't matter to me. I
mean, I'm just your little niece to them. And considering you don't have
a niece, they'll have a pretty hard time tracking me down, won't they? I'll
just leave, without a trace for them to follow. Good luck."
"You're
my what?" he spat bitterly, as the girl picked herself up and brushed the
dirt from her breeches. "What did you tell them?"
"That
you were my uncle. Oh, I'm sorry, does that bother you?" said Cora.
"It doesn't matter. I did, after all bring you the keys--"
"Albeit the wrong ones," he
muttered.
Cora pretended she
didn't hear that, "And your stupid weapons, in which both of us would have
been dead without. In both ways, this is both of our faults. I mean, you must
have translated the inscription wrong in the first place."
"No, the
insciption was correct," Amarant growled, not daring to flinch for the
sake of his injured back. "You simply didn't give me the full sentence.
This is ridiculous. I'm quarreling with an eleven-year-old."
"A
very angry little eleven-year-old that doesn't like to be mocked,"
retorted Cora. "But hey, I'll leave you to await your happy fourtune. Oh,
and by the way, the penalty -- despite what ANYONE says -- for an attempted
escape while expecting exile is always an execution. Don't worry, I'll make
sure they bury you somewhere pretty."
"Dammit,
Cora," said Amarant, lifting his head even higher, trying to determine if
she was serious or not. "When you're finished deriding, perhaps you'd make
yourself useful...."
Finally
deciding that it was no use to stall any longer, "Well, I suppose it would
be the human thing to do...." she mumbled, crouching on one knee. She
carelessly waved one hand, and muttered something famliarly like,
"Cura."
Almost
instantly, Amarant felt a cool tingling sensation mixed with a sharp pain as
his spine set itself and did the work of months worth of healing. As abruptly
as it had begun, it vanished, and every amount of pain he'd been suffering had
dispersed without a trace. He stared at the girl with a blank look of stale
surprise, "I suppose your mother taught you that as well," he said.
"Only
half-true," said Cora, pretending to find interest in scratching the back
of her thumbnail. "My adoptive mother did. She's a white mage, like Queen
Dagger."
Amarant
nodded absently, secretly grateful that he could do so without feeling a
splitting agony tear at his nerves. Without another words, he lifted himself to
his feet, impulsively hunching slightly as he felt the muscles in his back
stiffen at the effort. He ignored them, ".....Thanks," he growled,
almost ungratefully.
"We're
even," she implied. "You saved me from that....that serpent thing,
after all."
Amarant
smirked, but inside, his conscience was scolding him. He knew that if he'd
never given her the silver key, then it wouldn't have triggered the fiendish
decoy in the first place. Then again, it was also apparent that it had been
neither's fault, for they couldn't have known without the full warning. A faded
sign of caution wasn't too unusual of a cause of death. It happened rather often,
and even though he knew this, he hastily decided it best if he didn't share it
with the girl, "Right."
"So?"
she wanted to know. "What do we do now?"
Whatever
reason she though she would be accompanying him, he hadn't the slightest
intuition. But he decided to let it pass, "There's no 'we', Cora," he
said. "I'm not being mean, so don't start," he added briskly, seeing
her eyes widen offensively.
"In
the word's of my step-aunt," she declared, crossing her arms, "'Well,
I never!'"
"Unfourtunately,"
he muttered, looking towards the far end of the prison corridor, "You're
spunky sense of humour won't help me any on this little trip I'm about to make.
Besides, Amses is gonna need you at home."
Cora
snorted unpleasantly, "Home? My home is in Linblum, big guy."
Amarant
felt the slightest bit of discomfort at being called something as vexing as
'big guy', but he showed no sign of it, "Sight-seeing. Should've seen it.
Fine, wherever you live, that's where you have to go. But I appreciate the help.
Really. Thanks."
Cora
was much too brilliant for her age, to let him pass that off as a real excuse
to exclude her from his master plan. However she felt about it, though, she
knew there was no way to change his mind. "Well," she said,
matter-of-factly. "I see."
Amarant
shrugged. What she felt was no problem of his. She had, after all, done this
without his asking. He knew that there wasn't going to be much time left before
the guard returned. He glanced from the dead serpent, or half-serpent anyway,
back to the scowling face of the eleven-year-old. "You'd better get outta
here. You're a noble -- they don't expect someone of your status to do
something as stupid as stealing, commiting an act of treachery, and then
getting away with it. I'll escape as soon as the guard sees me. That way, I'm
assuming she'll know that I'm not one to mess with."
Cora
grinned, "Wait a minute. My status? Stealing? Are you accusing me of
something?"
Amarant
gritted his teeth, "If you don't run, I'll give you something to run
from."
Cora,
despite herself, giggled, "Fine. G'bye Amarant! I hope you find that Lani
person you're looking for!"
Amarant
stood, gazing indignantly after the gir's retreating back. And at the same
moment she disappeared into the shadows of the corridor, he heard a
not-too-unfamliar voice behind him shout in exasperation. He turned to face the
jail guard's wrath, as she charged towards him. In spite of his way of
thinking, Amarant grinned at the pending battle. He counted away the seconds before
he knew he'd have to retreat. Just a glimpse of a fleeing prisoner should bring
fear to their minds.
No
matter the price the innocents would pay.
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(Well,
I hope you don't mind me saying, but I'm rather shocked at this piece of
writing. It's not so bad as the others after all. I think I'll give it a fancy
heading and all. Yeah.....sounds like fun. I hope you liked it, and Lizzie,
keep in mind that if I ever become famous.....you're the first dedication I've
ever done before! *falls over* Hehehe, I like that. I'm gonna use that more
often. *falls over again* Anyway....R&R if you lie! (or don't like. I don't
mind critics as long as they don't rub in their so WONDERFUL talent and compare
it to my own..........eh, just for the heck of it *falls over*))