Chapter Eight: Rime and Reason
Once the cell door was open, the Djinn got right down to business. It was a little unnerving for the Adepts, who were used to their partner elementals as being a force of chaos, only more random. And that was on the good days.
"Tell me everything," said Bane.
"Yeah, that won't take long," Crystal muttered sarcastically as she looked Isaac over. "You appear to have managed to not get yourself too badly killed during our separation."
"We stumbled through somehow," Isaac replied, grinning.
"How's Garet?" asked Flash. The Adept had dropped back into unconsciousness shortly after insisting he was awake. Oddly enough, the warmth of a Mars Adept jumping onto his chest and bouncing up and down a few times turned out to be precisely what he needed to wake up. But we all knew Garet was weird already.
"Wh…" Garet grunted. It might have been a question. Slowly he rose to his elbows and half-opened his eyes. "Mnh?" It was definitely a question.
"How dare you?!" Jenna barked at him.
"J'na?" he suggested. This didn't go over well either.
Jenna made a sound of exasperation and offence, then turned her back on him dramatically. "Honestly, I thought you cared about me."
"Lv yu," Garet insisted.
"Oh really? Well, maybe I was watching the wrong person, but I don't think I saw you drop your weapon and agree to go along if they didn't hurt me, did I?"
"Bg hmr," Garet tried to explain, frowning at her groggily. "Dnt gt ch'nce."
"Big hammers aside," said Ivan, "I think we need to get Picard back on his feet before we go anywhere and before he gets any worse."
"He's not looking good," Gel observed, standing at Picard's side- actually, beside his head, watching his shallow breathing and occasional twitching.
"It's like he's fighting a battle of wills with whatever poison they hit him with. I don't know too much about what makes Lemurians different from regular people, beyond the blue hair and golden eyes," said Mia, glad to be awake and sensible again, but not to see that Picard's condition hadn't improved since she fell asleep.
"I wasn't allied with Picard for long," said Balm. "I don't know how helpful I can be either."
"That leaves you, kid," said Gel.
"I'm older than you!" Fog protested.
"Funny how these things work, isn't it?"
"…What?"
"Just do it," Mia interjected, then stopped. "Wait. What are you doing?"
"That's exactly my point. I can't do a thing. We're trapped as physical forms- more so than before, I might add. I had no idea pain hurt so much," said the Djinni, shaking his head.
"There has to be something," Crystal insisted. "But I'm no good with poisons. We should have brought Salt. Even Tonic."
"Well, unless there's some sort of anti-field-of-Psynergy-un-nullifying-reverser that one of you has been keeping in your pack, I don't see what I-"
"YOU'RE INSANE!" Torch screamed as she was carried out of the deep hole in the earth by a massive torrent of water.
"You volunteered," said Chill, slightly reprimanding as she watched the elder Djinni rush by.
"I DID NOT! YOU MUTINIED!" Torch shot back as she hit the other wall.
"There's no need to be hostile," Chill insisted.
"I sure can't think of a better time!" said Torch, losing volume as her voice wore but not giving up an ounce on intensity. The floor of the room was already covered in a few inches of water, and rising rapidly. "Coal? Core? Where are you?"
"Up where it's safe," said Core, who had managed to find a small perch near the top of the wall. Coal sat beside him, watching the water rise with trepidation.
"I have to admit," said Flint, who was half submerged already, "that this isn't as bad as I expected. I mean, it's all fluid instead of that reliable rock-solid feeling, but it's still got the bublurglplah-pfff!"
"You realise that you have to breathe now, right?" said Breeze, hovering just above the Venus Djinni. Flint glared at him and swung his tail scorpion-style, launching a high wave at Breeze, who quickly discovered how hard it was to fly with wet feathers.
"Come on… come on…" Eddy mumbled, and only then did the other see that the water was about to rise high enough to flow over the edge of the massive fire-dish. Oddly, it hadn't yet hissed on contact with what had to be hot metal, but that was far from their minds as they watched the droplet tips over the lip and toward the embers, heralds of a flood…
"-can possibly do," said Fog, and suddenly the world burst into colour.
It hadn't been black-and-white before, but the mere light spectrum couldn't compare to the sight of a Djinni, couldn't possibly match the power to see the Psynergy in everything, see it flow and spread, see the water in the stone or the sand on the wind… and suddenly it was back.
"Oh sweet Spirits…" said Isaac, while Ivan and Sheba gasped with relief as their mind-link returned and the world opened up a little more. Picard twitched on the floor and made a sort of choking sound, bringing them back to reality.
"How about now?" asked Mia.
"What? We've got Psynergy back- you fix him," said Fog.
Mia raised a hand and tried to cast Psynergy, but absolutely nothing happened. "It's open to us, which must mean that Torch figured out how to get it back, but that doesn't mean we've charged any power up. And I don't want to risk any longer."
"Oh, all right. Fog allies with Picard!" Then Fog was gone, merely a swirl of blue light diving into the Lemurian, hoping that he would be able to do something once he got there.
Picard's consciousness seemed bemused by his Djinni's return. It is about time one of you came back. What is going on?
You really don't want me to explain the situation back in the land of the upright. I want to know what's going on here.
Simple enough. That arrow was poisoned, and Lemurian immune systems are different from the rest of the humans of Weyard, since our country is sealed off from most of the world's diseases. Spring water keeps us safe from some, but apparently this is a different situation.
How can I help you out? We've got Psynergy back now, you know.
Actually, I did not. And I don't really know how you can help, either. It seems to be… instinctive, almost.
Picard's mind was still untouched by the pathogen, but the rest of his system was nearly flooded by it. Fog tried doing whatever was instinctive to force it back, and found that he could make some progress, at least in a metaphysical way- he had no idea how it was working in the real world. But the poison was like a rubber wall; as soon as he let up the 'pressure', it reclaimed its lost ground.
This isn't good, Fog decided.
I suppose blasting it with Mercury Psynergy is out of the question?
That depends. I might be able to do something if you don't mind your hands freezing off as a side effect.
Why did it have to be you? Where's Spring? Picard gave a sort of mental wink after this question, to let Fog know that he wasn't serious, but it got him thinking, too. Spring, when pressed to explain how he healed anyone, sometimes compared his power to the flow of fresh water, which was why he was named Spring. The flow of the pure into the corrupted…
I have an idea. It's dangerous, though, Fog warned him. Picard just smiled resignedly.
At this moment, that only means that it fits in with everything else in my life.
Okay. Here's how it goes.
Picard was a little nervous at the suggestion, since it would either work perfectly or it would kill him. A bit of middle ground would have been reassuring. Shaking his head at that thought, or at least doing the equivalent, Picard agreed, and then watched and waited as Fog dove into the hostility beyond the wall of poison. After giving the Djinni a head start, Picard's consciousness went too, struggling as though he sailed in a stormy ocean of malignancy.
He left the protection of his untainted mind behind and instead dove into the pathogen unprotected, into the paths of his body. Psynergy was a sort of alchemy of its own, really. Some mix of the powers of the mind and an inexplicable magic, working together to achieve great things.
What Picard was really glad about right now was the mental half, because that was how he travelled now, and the ship analogy seemed more and more appropriate. He ran from place to place on the 'deck', coursing through his own nerves and taking the poison with him.
Trim the sails and arm the cannons, Picard laughed to himself. I'm hunting pirates, but I know the waters better than they do.
Everywhere he went, Picard flexed muscles in just the right way, forcing his blood to flow as he wished, dragging the poison in a way it couldn't help. It wasn't conscious, of course, but the mariner let himself imagine it was- it made its frustration all the more enjoyable.
And his destination was clear- he sailed to meet Fog, who was working now on two things- first, gathering Psynergy to try to cast Cure Poison, and second, lending strength to the Lemurian's heart. Picard dove from nerve to nerve, if here were sailing he would have been bouncing between waves, luring the poison toward its end and his only chance.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was already there. Nicely done, Fog said, and let his Psynergy loose. Picard's heart pumped faster, worrying the Adepts watching him out there, but Fog knew what he was doing. Picard's entire body had become a filter, dragging the pathogen through the paths Picard had chosen until it reached his heart, and on the other side of that blue-glowing core, the ocean was calm and clear once more.
"Where are they?" Adavir demanded. "I have rabble at the gate and everyone falls apart?"
"We've never faced an uprising before, sir," his commander pointed out.
"That is precisely why I want discipline now. See to it." The commander dashed off, and Adavir decided that the Blaze of Glory had been extinguished too long to wait for soldiers to find the problem. "Out of the hall!" he proclaimed, and the attendants practically vanished, so swiftly did they leave. When it was empty, Adavir stalked over to one of the four torches. It would be a sacrifice, but surely safer than allowing Psynergy within Lunpa.
With a wave of his arm, the torch's fires died away, and with another, they leapt to life again, this time wholly different, though it looked precisely the same. And from it, waves rolled out in all directions, waves that blocked the flow of Psynergy. It couldn't be destroyed, but it did need to flow, or else it was useless. And when one intended to make enemies of the heroes of all Weyard, making them useless was very high on one's list.
Fog crashed onto the cell's stony floor face first, having fallen out of mid-air after the Psynergy null-force swept over them. The damp, gritty rock utterly failed to be cheerful, but after his success with Picard, the Djinni nearly forgave it for hitting him.
"Got him!" Fog announced triumphantly. "The poison's gone."
"So's our Psynergy. Again," Ivan remarked. "This is just depressing. Don't get me wrong, Gust, it's good to see you, but we're in the bottom of a dungeon filled with guards and no Psynergy. We're not going to get out of this any time soon."
"I hate to admit it, but the eight of us probably can't do much against however many soldiers they've got," Isaac agreed.
"Eighty," said Scorch.
"What?" asked Sheba, as though she had misheard the Djinni.
"You said eight. However, eight humans plus seventy-two Djinn equals eighty," he said, simply.
"You guys?" Jenna realised. "No offence, but what are you going to do, demoralise them with cuttingly insightful shots at their inadequacies?"
"No," said Scorch, slowly. "I'm going to melt the armor off them and beat whatever's left into submission." Saying that, Scorch turned and rammed into the wall, releasing a fiery explosion from his body on contact with the stone.
Most of the Adepts leapt to their feet. "How on Weyard-?"
"I see we're going to have to explain things to them," said Petra, rather smugly.
With the Djinn providing backup and Ian as their leader, Dew was confident in the rallied villagers. They had already spread out enough to cover all the entrance to the fortress- at least, all the entrances that didn't tunnel right through the mountains and end a little west of Bilibin, and she just knew there would be one of those.
"I do hope you have a good plan. Otherwise I fear that this revolution is going to be literal and complete- that is, everything will end up exactly the way it started. Possibly with more bodies than before," said Ian.
"Well, there is a bit of waiting involved… Flower! Lull! Granite!" called the Mercury Djinni. "I want you three to stay alert. If fighting starts, I want a defensive aura, a peace-barrier, and immediate healing for anyone who's been hurt."
"What are we waiting for?" asked the old man. Now that they had reached the gates, his lethargy had faded. There was a sort of defiant vitality in Ian, an intent to be active even if he was limited by age.
"Personally, I'm waiting for someone to open that gate. I may not be human, and I may not be too experienced in war, but I do know better than to lay siege to a great big well-supplied castle with a bunch of villagers," said Dew.
"What you're telling me…"
"Is that I intend for this to be the first siege in history to be over by suppertime. Which would be good, because I don't much care for this whole 'hunger' idea. How do you stand it?" asked the Djinni.
"Eating suffices for most of us," Ian replied, dryly.
Spring stared in absolute shock.
"What's with him?" asked Meld.
"You've got to admit, it's an impressive hoard," said Ember.
The Djinn were gathered at the main door to the treasure room. It was mostly well-arranged, with various artefacts on shelves on the walls, weapons hanging in racks, armor on stands, and jewels carefully organised by type, but whoever had done the storing had simply broken down and let tradition have its way with the coins. They were spread, they were heaped. Glittering dunes rolled across the floor.
"Hagabalabuh," Spring gabbled.
"That some kind of Mercury Djinni expression?" asked Blitz.
"Of course not," Shade replied. "It's just babbling. Never thought Spring was one for treasure, though. Hey, Spring." Spring did not move, simply sat on the stone floor gazing straight ahead. "That's a lot of treasure, isn't it?"
"Ungk," Spring replied.
"What is it, the sapphires?" Shade suggested. Spring shook his head.
"The golden coin-desert," Smog offered. Another shake.
"The equipment that was obviously once carried by great heroes of ages long past and is now once again within our grasp?" asked Ether.
"Uh-uh," Spring squeaked.
"The part where our Psynergy came back for half a minute and we unleashed a terrible storm of elemental vengeance on the door, reducing a giant foot-thick slab of wood and metal into smoke and a few molten patches on the walls?"
"That just might have been it, Cannon," said Spring, who had found his voice.
"It was one of my better Fireballs, I thought," Ember remarked. "It's been a long time since I had any attack power, too. Speaking of which, what use is the power to recharge Psynergy when there is no Psynergy to recharge?"
"Beats me. Ask whoever's behind all this when we find him," said Steel, marching (okay, Venus Djinn waddle and everyone knows it) into the treasure room. "First, let's get our Adepts' weapons out of here and back where they belong."
"Protruding from the evil?" asked Meld.
"Whenever possible," Steel agreed.
"Something about this just doesn't seem right…" said Haze, flapping slowly among the central turrets on the fortress. He and Gale were trying to keep an eye on everything at once, and not much enjoying the effects this had on their brains. It was a bit like watching a heavily fortified anthill in which every ant had suddenly gone completely insane.
"Which part? I can't really tell who anyone is any more," Gale moaned.
"Maybe you shouldn't be flying upside down."
"What are you talking about? You're the one with your… oh. Yes, I suppose that's sky down there."
"Seriously, Gale, I see something strange," Haze insisted. "I think we should find the others, maybe even Fever."
"What on Weyard would you intentionally inflict Fever on?" asked the Djinni 'leader'.
"Look," he said, pointing with a foot at a battlement beneath them and toward the gate. "There are a bunch of Lunpan soldiers just creeping along there in front of the ramparts."
"With Mud and Sleet on the loose, I'd be creeping too."
"But they must know some of us can fly, so why stay low? The only people who can't see them at all are the villagers down there. And," Haze went on, looking closer, "they're carrying these weird… things."
"Things? Well, that is worrying," said Gale, and Haze was halfway into protesting when he realised she was serious. "Let's get down there."
A few Lunpans, less than a dozen, were indeed crawling along the tops of the walls toward the very edge of the fortress, taking care to remain out of sight as they did so. At least, out of sight as far as the villagers below were concerned. Gale followed them easily, and sent Haze to find a few more Djinn.
The 'things' were metal, and looked a bit like swords designed to be blunt on all sides. It wasn't until she got close enough to see that there were extra bits attached instead of a hilt that Gale stopped wondering why anyone would use cylindrical swords in battle.
Gale wondered what to do. She would feel bad about slaying the lot of them, especially if they weren't actually out to cause trouble. Maybe those were just white-flag tubes to announce surrender. Launching them into a fatal drop with a fierce windstream would be impolite.
Tubes. Yes, they were carrying tubes. How very odd…
"Ian," said one of the Lunpan villagers, "we were rather hoping that we might be doing something once we got here. Marching on the evil fortress is good, but we had to march all of two hundred feet, and now I'm wondering if there's even a reason for me to be hauling this thing around." He shook the eight-foot halberd meaningfully.
"Yes, yes, in good time. Dew informs me we have people on the inside," said Ian.
"Can't it tell them to hurry up?" he asked, eyeing Dew.
"Yes, I expect she could, except that they're undoubtedly already working as fast as they can."
"Which is a lot faster than any humans I've ever met," said Dew. "And much faster than you think, I suspect. Halberds are impressive, but that's got to be the most unwieldy weapon I've seen since Garet's spaghetti-rapier."
"There's someone!" shouted another villager, one who had been prudent enough to keep an eye on the battlements. Ian, Dew, and the halberd-carrier turned to scan the top of the wall, and indeed they saw a few people trying to keep out of sight behind the ramparts.
"Those them? It's about time," said the man.
"No…" said Ian. "Somehow I doubt that those are our allies."
"Taller than most Djinn, for one thing." Dew noticed the looks she was getting. "Oh, okay, all Djinn, are you happy now?"
"Dew!" Breath shouted. "They're arguing, looks like they're having difficulties with something, but I get the feeling we're about to have some trouble-"
"Oh, to hell with you all! It goes like this!" One of the crouching Lunpans leapt up, holding the metal rod up rather like a crossbow, and a sound like a compressed roll of thunder echoed off the walls of every building in the village.
Ian sighed as blood spread over his clothes. It started from a point on his chest, where the fabric seemed to have suddenly torn itself. With a weary, wistful expression, he looked at Dew on his shoulder. "So it is. I expect you to take care of them, Dew." And then, without any complaint or resistance, he collapsed and life fled his body.
Lunpa was blanketed in silence. Ian's fall was heard with all the clarity of a feather dropping beside your ear, though to Dew it was like the tongue of a great iron bell crashing to the bottom of a belltower.
Screaming replaced the silence, and by sheer reflex Lull released her power. Music and light swirled through the air, coating everything in sight. One of the strangely armed Lunpans tried to fire a second deadly bolt, but for some reason it would not launch, nor would the arrows let go of the village archers' bowstrings when they attempted to fire back.
In contrast to most of the people in the area, who were either shouting because Ian was dead, shouting because of these new weapons, or shouting because they had been limned in shimmering light that made it looks like the world was an incredibly complicated soap bubble, Dew's mind was a dead black void.
What now? She didn't know these people, they didn't trust her, and they hadn't even started to invade the castle. Why hadn't she realised how much it hinged on him? They would fall apart, countless people were going to die and it was Dew's fault for not seeing what Adavir did.
She snapped back into reality when Flower whacked her (lightly, to be fair) with her tail. "Stop that. I may not have known you as long as Tonic and Spritz, but I do know what a Mercury Djinni in despair looks like. It hasn't fallen apart yet, but if you do, everything else will follow."
Dew looked startled for a moment, a bit like someone watching a broken mirror fit itself back together and erase the fractures. Then she looked at Flower. "I suppose you'll credit that to the wisdom of the ancient mountains or some such thing."
"Rocks aren't that bright. Believe me, I've asked. Now get to work, or we'll have Fury taking charge and never live to see another moonrise," said Flower. She looked down at Ian. "I didn't know him all that well- none of us did -but I'm sad to see him go."
But Dew wasn't listening, the idea of a Mars Djinni in the lead having terrified her the rest of the way to action. "Char! Flint! The gates. I wan them gone. Granite, protect Waft, she's going after those cannon-archers up there. Breath, Fugue, find any of the other Djinn in the area. Tonic, Lull, calm everyone down I've had enough of this place and want today over with."
"Sheesh. Has Isaac been giving you lessons or something?" asked Flower.
"No," said Dew. She gave a menacing glare at a person coming over to Ian, who lay rather peacefully on the grass. When the man was driven off, the Mercury Djinni looked down at her so-temporary ally. "It's mostly in the voice."