Robertdogwood@aol.com
Final Fantasy IX characters and locations from said game are owned by SquareSoft.
Original Plot and characters Copyright Robertdogwood@aol.com
PG-13
Chapter Three
Garnet lay asleep in the darkness, as the group of burly men pushed the naked Private Bernadette, whose hands were tied behind her back and her mouth gagged, into the bedroom closet.
After reading Zidane's note, Garnet had sobbed hysterically for well over an hour. Beatrix had entered the young Queen's bedroom without permission twice in an attempt to sooth the weeping Garnet, but to no avail. Finally Beatrix, fearing for the Queen's physical well being, summoned the court physician who administered a sedative and Garnet fell into an uneasy drugged sleep.
Consequently she never awakened, as the five invaders very systemically destroyed practically everything in the royal bedroom, before simply carrying the slumbering Queen out of the palace and placing her in a waiting coach. Pulling the curtains over the windows, they signaled the driver and he whipped the horses and away they went into the night.
As Zidane ran down the stairs to the palace front doors he nearly ran smack into Amarant, who had just trudged up in his plodding manner.
Startled, Amarant exclaimed, "Zidane?!"
Running down the front steps Zidane shouted over his left shoulder, "Come on!"
Amarant slowly turned and began trudging back down the steps. "Where's Garnet?" he asked.
"I'll tell you in the carriage. Now come on!" Zidane demanded.
Thankfully the carriage hadn't left yet, Zidane told the carriage driver it was worth an extra thirty pieces of gold if he could reach the airship before it took off. As soon as Amarant pulled himself into the carriage, the driver began whipping the horses and they took off in a dead sprint.
As they literally flew low through the streets of Alexandria, Zidane explained to Amarant what had happened.
"Kidnapped?!" Amarant repeated, in a skeptical voice. "Where were her guards?"
After Zidane described what had happened to Private Bernadette, Amarant grinned ruthessly. "I'd paid money to see that. I had a run-in with her once."
Amarant sat back in his coach seat and speculated, "So, let me guess. You think it's your fault because you weren't there to save her?"
Zidane nodded silently.
"It's so comforting to know that some things never change," Amarant replied. "If you'd been there, they would have killed you in your sleep and still kidnapped Garnet, but you wouldn't be here to search for her."
Although Zidane's expression never changed, a certain light of comprehension entered his eyes and caused Amarant to know he had struck paydirt.
"Oh, by the way, before I forget, take this," Amarant said attempting to return to Zidane the big roll of paper money.
Waving it off, Zidane explained, "Keep it, there's plenty more where they came from."
"Are you certain? There's a small fortune here."
Zidane nodded. "As Royal Prince, I can enter any bank in this country and take money from the Queen's account. They have to honor it. I could bankrupt this country if I wanted to, but money and treasure no longer matter a damn to me."
Amarant said simply, "You've changed, Zidane."
As the carriage rumbled up to the airship, it nearly rolled as the driver had to swerve to avoid hitting it, because the horses were still feeling their full head. As the driver began to finally exhibit some control over the strong steeds, Zidane flipped Amarant a bag of gold coins. "Give the driver a hundred. I've got to commission that airship before the pilot takes off.
Zidane leaped from the still moving carriage and quickly clamored up the ladder to the airship.
Fifteen minutes later, they were in the air. Zidane and Amarant were sitting in the passenger lounge talking.
Amarant wondered, "Where are we going and why? And what's that you have clutched in your hand?"
Zidane held out an ordinary looking door key. "I found this after rooting around in the trash."
Amarant scrunched his face. "You were going through trash looking for that. Why? Is it valuable in some way?"
Zidane answered, "Not trash, but trash on the floor."
Amarant sardonically said, "Ah, yes. I understand now. Not trash, but trash on the floor. What are you talking about, Zidane? And make it snappy before I decide to throttle you."
Zidane went on to explain to Amarant about the condition he discovered the bedroom in.
"Why do you suppose they did that?" Amarant asked.
"They were either looking for something that they didn't find or they were attempting to cover up any clues they might have left behind that could have led to them."
"Why do you think they didn't find what they were looking for?" Armand asked, completely mystified concerning what Zidane was talking about.
"Because," Zidane explained, "the mess didn't stop like it would have if they had found something - it went completely around the room."
Amarant nodded carefully, thinking Zidane had gone completely out of his mind.
Upon Amarant's further questioning, Zidane explained he'd recognized the key as being from the hotel in Lindblum and they were headed there in order to check it out.
Amarant stretched his legs out full length and informed Zidane he was going to sleep and advised Zidane to do the same, as they had both been up all night.
"And I have a feeling," Amarant explained, "that we're gonna need our wits about us the deeper we get into this."
Back in Alexandria the two most powerful politicians in the parliament sat huddled in the corner of the executive dining room. In what might be surprising to some, neither of these highly influential statesmen were associated with the Lord's party, which represented the richest peers in the country; but in actuality were a small percentage of the voting members of the government.
Outside of the Queen, the two most influential politcal figures in Alexandria were Jesse Helot, who headed the party that represented the less fortunate citizens and Karl Handsome, who was of the Burgher party or the middle class. When Parliament was in session these two men were sworn enemies of each other, but out of session they were often as thick as thieves. It remained to be seen if that turned out to be an apt expression.
Karl Handsome, whose six foot, well figured body, and good looks topped off by a head of wavy brown hair made his surname an apt one, was speaking. "Let me see if I got this right. You're telling me Queen Garnet was kidnapped or at least she's missing and no one knows where she is?"
Jesse Helot, who not unsurprisingly resembled his poorer constituents, but in actuality did everything in his power to enhance his appearance in that direction, answered, "Yes! That's actually what I'm saying. And I believe she was kidnapped, early this morning."
"By who?! And for what purpose?!" exclaimed Karl.
Helot responded, appearing rather crafty looking, "Well, as far as by who." He then looked at Representative Handsome in askance.
"Me?!" he remonstrated. "Why would I do that?"
Oh, come now, don't play me for a fool," Jesse replied. "You would do it in order to seize power."
Karl declared, while stroking his chin thoughtfully with his right hand, "Yes, that could happen. But how would I hold this power? I have no backing right now, no private army."
"I know," Representative Helot agreed. "That's why I don't think you're behind it and I'm not behind it for the same reason. But someone is behind it and we need to discover who before they successfully take over running this country in a dictatorship and we'll be left out in the cold."
Handsome declared, "And if we can't stop it, then we join it in order to insure our place in the new government."
"Now you're thinking," Jesse complimented, while he smiled at his new partner in crime.
It took Steiner over an hour to locate the carriage that had taken Zidane and Amarant to the air ship. Luckily enough, he had remembered the cab identification number, but then he had to wait until the carriage returned for the day before he could speak with the driver. And then he couldn't get the driver to cooperate with him until he had ponied up some money as an out and out bribe. He just didn't understand anymore what the world was coming to and he wasn't a rich man either. Didn't other people understand that?
After he had paid the carriage driver his 'gratituty,' the man suddenly remembered overhearing Zidane say they were going to Lindblum.
Lindblum! Steiner thought. How am I going to get to Lindblum and how long is that going to take?
Steiner turned slowly and began to trudge slowly back into the main part of Alexandria.
Not readily knowing what to do at this point, since there was no such position as vice-queen to take over for the Queen when she was absent, Beatrix sat in the throne room waiting for some of the people she had summoned to arrive. Of course even Beatrix didn't have the audacity to sit on the Queen's throne, but there were other chairs in the room almost as ornate. For once the buxom General wished she lived in a country that had a Prime Minister, but historically none of the Alexandrian monarchs were ever interested in sharing even the slightest portion of their political power.
When a knock came upon the huge doors to the throne room, Beatrix gestured for one of the guards to open it. The guard pulled open the door and conferred for a moment with one of the guards that was out in the hall. She turned back to Beatrix and explained, "General, there appears to be some sort of black mage out here. What do you want us to do with him?"
Beatrix leaped up from her chair. "Send him in, you idiot! It's Vivi."
And sure enough when the door was pulled open enough to allow him to enter, Vivi waddled into the room.
Beatrix exclaimed, "So happy to see you again, Vivi. How are you?"
Vivi adjusted his hat with both hands with the hat ending up exactly where it had been to start with.
"I'm good. I happen to be visiting in Alexandria and I heard about Garnet. Has she been found yet?"
"No," Beatrix admitted. "And the longer she's gone, the more I worry - about the Queen's safety and what's going to happen to our government if we don't find her immediately."
"What about Zidane? Isn't he doing anything about it?"
The beautiful woman replied, "Zidane has run off, nobody knows where and I'm concerned about his sanity."
"Oh no!" the black mage exclaimed, highly upset. Vivi looked upon Zidane, not only as a friend but also, as his personal hero.
"I've sent Adelbert after him, but I haven't heard anything yet from either one of them."
Vivi suggested, "You know, I think Freya and Fratley are in town. Do you want me to go search and if they are, send them here to talk to you?"
"Yes, that would be wonderful, Vivi. Thank you so much," Beatrix gushed, while offering the small black mage a large smile.
Vivi smiled in return, nodded, and reached up with both of his hands and adjusted his hat putting it back where it was in the first place. He waddled through the room and back down the hall.
Beatrix sank back into her chair. Maybe things are starting to look up, she thought.
Garnet woke up suddenly with a start of fear. Sitting up quickly, she glanced around the room and didn't recognize one thing as belonging to her and Zidane.
Where am I? she thought, thoroughly confused.
It didn't help that Garnet didn't remember falling asleep in the first place. She also didn't remember the doctor coming and giving her a sedative. She did, however, remember every word of Zidane's letter and wondered where it was. She also didn't remember putting this nightgown on, but did recognize it as one of her own.
The beautiful young woman arose from the bed and moved across the room to the door. Locked? Well, no surprise there. The young Queen had quickly assimilated the idea that she had been kidnapped by somebody. Despite that many young women her age would have panicked by this time, Garnet was able to remain calm. She had been in worse situations than this and come out okay.
Glancing around the room, she noticed that it would be hardly be called a cell or viewed as something punitive. Moving toward the two front windows that were framed by beautiful lace curtains, she observed there were bars to prevent her from escaping through them and outside shutters that were presently closed to prevent her from discovering where she was. There was very attractive flower patterned wall paper on the walls and two attractive looking comfortable easy chairs, beside a writing table which held paper to write on and feather pens to write with. She'd have to remember those pens, which could be used as a possible weapon at some point.
Moving to the walk-in closet, she threw the door open and discovered there was absolutely nothing in it. Opening the bureauy drawers provided an identical result. Garnet sat in one of the easy chairs and attempted to think who was enough of an enemy to have her abducted or who would prosper enought with her absent to make it worthwhile to risk having her kidnapped. The young Queen was unable to readily think of anybody who fit this criteria.
Garnet realized her only hope would lay in her effecting her own escape. Looking around the room again, she realized her only physical tools were the lace curtains and her bed linens. Maybe there's some part of the bed that I can use, the dark-haired young woman thought.
She arose to her feet from the chair and quickly stripped the bed totally of its linen. Garnet ended up with a pillowcase, a bed spread, a blanket, top sheet, and a bottom sheet laying in a pile on the floor.
Not much in a way of help, the dark-haired young woman thought disappointedly.
Dragging the top mattress completely off the box springs was quite a chore for the young Queen whose list of duties did not include physical labor, but it was nothing when compared with how difficult it was for her to get the box spring off the bed frame and onto its side.
When she had finally completed the initial task, she was literally gasping for breath, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst thing to the fastidious Garnet was her perspiration was pouring off her in what seemed to be buckets. And not only that, but moving the mattress and box spring around had caused extremely minute particles of dust and dirt to fly around the room and a good deal had stuck to the young Queen. As the final straw, someone had dressed the lovely young woman in her flannel nightgown so she would never have the opportunity of cooling down wearing that heavy piece of apparel.
All of this led Garnet to make a decision against her better judgment, which was to momentarily remove her flannel night gown until she could cool off a little and get some of the dust and dirt wiped off also.
The beautiful young woman bent over and grasped the bottom of her floor length flannel night gown and pulled it all the way up her body and over her head. She padded totally nude across the room and very carefully lay the nightgown fanned out so it could dry quicker across one of the easy chairs. Garnet then returned to the pile of bed linen that lay on the floor and picked up the pillow case.
The long haired beauty then proceeded to wipe all the perspiration, dust and dirt off her body and then threw the pillow case back on the floor. The young Queen then made a close inspection of the bed frame itself and finally decided to attempt to completely loosen one of the large springs in hopes of being able to use it as a weapon.
It took her most of fifteen minutes, but she was relentless in her goal and the young woman was finally able to wrest the desired spring from the bottom of the bed frame. It was a fairly large corkscrew spring with what appeared as a very sharp end and might make an effective weapon if used in the right way. She then went over to the windows and took the lace curtains down. Garnet reached up and brought down the curtain rod and hefted it by taking a couple of healthy swings with it. This might do, the young beauty thought to herself.
Feeling a little chilly now and having wiped all the dust and dirt off her body, Garent had just decided that she needed to don her only piece of attire when she heard a sound that sent her adrenaline rushing madly through her body. Someone had just put a key in the lock of the door and was pushing it open!