Chapter Nine: Pachelbel's Cannon
Dew watched in grim satisfaction as Char's flamethrower and Flint's gashing tail savaged the thick wooden gates of Lunpa Fortress. A violet tornado was drilling back and forth along the battlements above as Waft chased down and subdued those lethal archers. Occasionally Granite's aura sparked yellow as one of the enemy Lunpans proved how slowly they caught on by firing another shot at the avenging Jupiter Djinni.
"Are you sure you don't want him out of here?" asked Fugue.
"Yes. Ian's going to see this through to the end," Dew replied, not even looking away from the progressing battle. It was a bit one-sided to count as a battle, but as soon as Ian was hit by a metal bolt from that miniature cannon, Dew lost all interest in holding back.
"What are those tube things, anyway?" asked the Mars Djinni.
"I don't know. Like blowguns that don't need to be blown, or explosive crossbows, I guess."
"Mars bows?" Fugue suggested.
"Oh, yes, we really need the Lunpans to associate you guys with the weapon that killed their leader."
"Blastbows, then."
"That's something. What are you doing here talking, anyway?"
"Remember my power? It's pretty useless to drain enemy Psynergy when you're inside a field that blocks Psynergy."
"That's not all you do," Dew insisted.
"Yeah, it is. The other fiery stuff is all Psynergy, which, like I said-"
"Play for us, Fugue," said Dew. She spoke calmly, but the words were a command. And watching the Djinn as they worked, watching the crowd in wait like a giant wolf pack, ready to be unleashed on the soldiers within, Fugue agreed.
She focused on the notes. Usually a quick, lively chord was all it took to cut the enemies' reserves down a bit, but this would be more detailed. Starting slowly, Fugue let one tone play. A red note rolled and swirled up above them, fading into the sky.
Then another, and a pair, a trill, and Fugue played the notes of power, letting music flow across the battlefield, crashing against the stone walls like a great wave. The walls didn't even twitch, of course, but in the hall beyond, some of the soldiers began to tremble.
Luff held up a wing, and behind him, in an orderly line that had taken twenty minutes just to organise so none of the Djinn felt affronted, the others stopped. They crept through the corridors unseen, mostly because the inner halls were nearly empty, but they were taking care not to walk into another battle like the one in the kitchens.
"What is it?" whispered Mold.
"Got something," Luff replied. "This looks like a major thoroughfare we're coming onto. Wide hall, very fancy decoration, suits of armor on the walls, tapestries, you name it."
"Tapestry Bomb," Shine muttered. "I do hope someone creates it, if nothing else."
"All of which means that we're probably close to the throne room- Gasp, don't start, you know there's a throne room, every castle has to have a throne room. And that's where the bad guy behind all this is going to be. It's like clockwork," Luff stated.
"Think we should charge in?" asked Forge.
"Sounds like a great way to get killed," Iron replied.
"Kid's right," Luff agreed. "We'll have to be careful, or we could get trapped, and then who knows where we'll wind up. This guy knows about Psynergy, he knows enough about Djinn that his troops knew what we were… we've got the powers of the Elements, but we won't have the element of surprise for long."
Now, one of the major problems with moving in a line is that anything said at the front has to get passed down so the people at the end know what the decisions are. In this case, the people at the end consisted of Geode, who was by now on the verge of exploding in terror.
"The hall up ahead is lined with heavily armored knights," Squall reported first. Then, after another exchange, she added "They're all carrying carpet bombs … the door is locked with clockwork that'll trap us while the bad guys come out of hiding … and we're going to charge in, even though the leader behind all this has power over a fifth element that we don't know about."
The Djinn started moving again, into the wider hall, careful not to stay in the open. After a few moments, the Venus Djinn noticed that they were suddenly outnumbered. "Where's Geode?" asked Iron.
"Squall?" Luff called after a quick glance showed only two Venus Djinn.
"How did you know it was me? You have no proof!" Squall shot back.
"Mm-hm," Luff muttered. "Mold, Iron, go get him. If he's rigid with fear, carry him along; we can use him to break down the doors." The Djinn saluted (a bit sarcastically) with their tails and marched off, and all the others turned on Squall. "As for you, what do you think you're doing at a time like this? You can't be-"
"Luff," she said quickly.
"Don't cut me off. I thought we had-"
"Sir!" she insisted, dashing forward, and then Luff was clocked soundly with the end of a pike. "Old people should not be allowed to lead," Squall grumbled as she dropped his attacker with a lightning bolt. And then she had to wonder if the power to see the future extended to Djinn too, as half the suits of armor stepped off their platforms and drew weapons.
"You want to take anything else?" asked Mist.
"Nah, this is probably good," Cannon decided.
"If we can haul it all," Quartz reminded them.
"I still say we should hitch up some sort of sleigh design," said Smog.
"That's exactly why we don't listen to you," Steel explained. "Let's go, or we'll be too late to do any good."
"This doesn't make the slightest bit of sense," Chill insisted, floating quite comfortably on the surface of the pool. The great blaze was definitely doused, there was nothing left to burn, and the whole fire-bracket was underneath a foot of water.
"Now I'm definitely going to make you pay," said Torch, darkly. She was still quite soaked. "You had me melt that rock to get some dark underworld's entire water supply up here, and it only worked for thirty seconds."
"The fire's still out," Breeze pointed out.
"Do you want me to list the number of ways that's not helpful? We need our Psynergy back. I say we drain the water and just eradicate whatever's left of this thing," Torch declared, determinedly.
"No, we're done here," Echo stated. "This just isn't the only thing that can block our powers."
"You mean we've got to soak another of these?!" asked Core, horrified.
"Nah," Whorl decided. "When we did put it out, there was a little while that we had Psynergy back."
"About as long as it would take for someone to realise what was happening and start another one of these, probably," Sour agreed. "And there aren't any people down here, so the new one must be higher up."
"At last we get to cause some damage," said Wheeze and Vine simultaneously.
"In that case…" said Coal, slowly, "I think we have a big bad guy to find. And fast."
"Very fast," Torch affirmed. Coal flashed brightly, letting his power roll over all the other Djinn, and then the dozen of them were gone in a blink and cloud of steam.
The problem with fighting a suit of armor became very clear to all the Djinn as soon as they had shaken off flashbacks to the battle with the Sentinel. Since there was no one inside, your enemy was actually a bunch of metal plates with a pointy, heavy, or sharp object in its hand that it wanted you to have, hopefully in a vulnerable spot.
"It's satisfying and all," said Shine, blasting at the thick plates of a knight until anyone inside would have had to have a ribcage two inches deep, "but when they just won't drop…"
"I know what you mean," Squall agreed, flitting about and trying not to get skewered as she slowly turned her own enemy into slag. Lightning took much longer to have any effect on these than it did on any normal foe. "They melt way too slowly."
"They're also bloody indestructible if you're not made for fighting!" Fizz yelped, sprinting down the hall with a clanking foe in pursuit. Squall risked a moment's inattention to fuse its knees solid, giving Fizz an easier time of escape.
"I don't know about that," said Spark, who was making a variety of gestures at another suit. It might not have been bright, but it certainly seemed to get the idea the Mars Djinni was trying to get across. Lance ready, the armor clanked forward, thrust, and Spark twisted aside. With a creaking sound like blowing up a metal bag and popping it, the knight buried its spearhead in an ally's back. The skewered armor spun, swinging the first one into the wall and blocking the corridor from reinforcements.
"Hey, good plan," Rime agreed. He performed a flying kick against one suit's leg, just to get attention, and then lured it in as Spark had done. He grinned, or would have if anyone knew where a Djinni's mouth is, as the lance bit firmly into stone.
The grin faded quickly when the knight drew a broadsword with its other hand, and Rime noticed that his only escape route currently had a solidly placed lance in the middle of it.
The newly freed Adepts, still weak, crept through the dungeons toward the surface with a cloud of Djinn and one very reluctant Lunpan tagging along. Bane justified the stealth by telling himself that yes, naturally they were going to get up there and wreak havoc despite their earlier defeat… just not quite yet.
"And this is Ryan," said Balm, waving to the still-jittery young soldier. "He's simultaneously on the enemy's side and helping us, meaning that he has very trustingly put his life in our hands, since he'll be sure to get a very short trial if we lose or get caught, and the remainder of his life after the trial will be within the calculating ability of the fingers on one of Gust's hands."
The Jupiter Djinn helpfully flapped up to eye height and showed off his total lack of arms.
"I've already got the idea," Ryan said glumly. "I'm not even interested in this. Adavir just said everyone gets into the army or gets out of Lunpa. Not that anyone thought we could actually escape."
"Who's Adavir?" asked Isaac, trying to see through the gloom.
"Never heard the name," Crystal admitted, and the rest of the Djinn found interesting wall patches to study. Ryan gulped and forged on ahead.
"Adavir's the one ruling Lunpa these days. He appeared months ago, took Donpa hostage to keep Dodonpa under control, and started us building the fortress. Once it was done, he put together the army. Said that there were a group of warriors out there who were planning to destroy Lunpa and he wanted to make sure we were ready to defend ourselves."
"We weren't going to do anything until he started raiding towns," Jenna insisted.
"And now what? Are you going to burn everything to the ground?" asked Ryan, defiantly.
"No," said Felix.
"Well, maybe this Adavir guy," Sheba amended. "How did he just walk in and take over an entire village, anyway?"
"I told you, he took Donpa hostage. He doesn't admit it's a hostage thing, but anyone can see it if they want to," Ryan replied.
"That's the part we're stuck on, I think," said Garet.
"How can anyone take the leader of a village of thieves hostage without fighting them all first?" asked Picard.
"He did. Can't you tell? He's got those same powers he warned us you do. Psynergy."
"I really, really hate my life," Gasp observed. Not that Luff could hear him right now, having been knocked out cold for the second time in one day, but if the old Djinni was going to be dead weight that Gasp would have to save from becoming violet paste, then he'd listen to rants, too.
"You too? We could start a club," Iron grumbled. Gasp just had to flutter above the reach of the malevolent armor, while Iron kept on having to dodge metal feet that remained heavy, even though there wasn't anything inside them.
No one noticed as the blade descended towards Rime, although Rime himself gave the edge his full attention. It was probably instinct that saved him, but he liked to think that Mercury was watching out, too. Blue seals burned in the air and spiralled onto the armor, emblazoning themselves on the wide plates. The swinging arm froze. It fell to the floor with a clang, heralding a metallic avalanche as the rest of the suit fell apart.
Eventually he remembered to start breathing again, around the point when his vision started to go black. "Wait a minute…" Rime realised. "What the Hail did I just do?" He had unleashed his Djinni power, like all the others had done so far, but it was just a Psynergy seal…
When the torso plating collapsed, a single wooden stick was revealed. Rime cleared it from the metal, and saw cloth wrapped around one end- a torch, then, but it didn't look at all burnt. The Djinni unwrapped the strip of whitish fabric curiously, as if the battle raging around him was something that only happened to other people.
A small purple crystal tumbled out. Rime knew it instantly. A fragment of Psynergy stone.
A totally new concept was slowly growing in the Mercury Djinni's mind. For the first time in centuries, he was actually the most dangerous fighter in the battle.
"Yagh!" Spark shouted as a battleaxe chopped the end of his flame-tail. "Ooh, oh, Spirits that hurts…"
Rime might have been more aptly named 'Boil' at that moment. Most of the Djinn swore he was steaming as he leapt onto a pile of twisted metal and screamed "Tremble in your boots and fall to your knees before your oblivion, mortals!"
"There's nothing in their boots, they don't have knees, and they're probably not mortal," Iron pointed out, but rather than become the first target, he put up a shield around Rime and ran for cover. He didn't get too far before discovering just how many suits of armor this enemy had collected. A new army of them were marching on the hall where Rime was now wreaking havoc.
Iron glanced back and checked how long it took for Rime to bring down a suit, and how many were still coming. The answer was a rather large 'we're going to be carpeting in about ten minutes'. They needed backup, somehow, and Iron was going to find it.
"Oh, that would be it," Garet growled, leaning back against a rough wall. "I'm really starting to dislike Adepts."
"You're an Adept. I'm an Adept. We're all Adepts," Jenna reminded him, scowling.
"You don't count," said quickly. This, like many other snap-corrections, was precisely the wrong thing to say.
"Don't count?!" she fumed, and it was only her lack of Psynergy that kept the capital off the word.
"Leave him alone, he's been half dead for hours," Ivan insisted.
"And now I'm hallucinating. The dwarf came to my defence," Garet joked.
"Okay, he's an Adept, but what about this anti-Psynergy field?" asked Felix. All the Adepts turned on Ryan, who wished he could fit between the bricks in the wall. They didn't need awesome powers to glare like champions.
"I don't really know. His core chamber is practically empty except for the torches. Actually, I've heard that he'll never let anyone put them out. Some people say they're guarded at night," Ryan volunteered.
"Inside the chamber, is he capable of Psynergy?" asked Picard.
Ryan shuddered. Yes, oh yes he was. Didn't they know? Couldn't they see why he was so scared of them? Couldn't they look through his eyes and see the memories inside his head, the roaring fires and smoke and shadows, the terror of Psynergy running wild?
"…Yes," he breathed, because anything else would have been too much to stay calm.
"Mars Adept," Mia decided. "He can use the torches to create a bubble of Psynergy inside the blocked field, and the field itself is probably from a fire somewhere else."
"That's a talent I wouldn't mind," Jenna remarked.
"You're already talented," Garet said smoothly, trying to make up lost ground.
"Come on," Isaac groaned. "Do you see me and Mia gushing like that at a time like this?"
"Of course not," Garet replied.
"But we do know you just wait until none of us are looking," Jenna added. She didn't, but when Isaac turned as red as their missing Mars Djinn, she knew she was right on.
"So, what are our chances of taking this guy?" asked Mia, looking around the group. "We've got no weaponry, no Psynergy, no Djinn, not a single thing in our favour except surprise and experience."
"Let's go," said Garet, grinning.
"Wait," said Sheba. "Bane, where are all the other Djinn? You still haven't said."
"I was starting to wonder if you'd ever get around to that. The rest of us are here, spread through the fortress, doing our parts and so forth. In fact, if Spring's done his job as well as I expect, your weapons and armor should have been found by now. If Luff's managed to get something right, we know where Adavir is, and everyone else is causing various types of chaos, which is second nature to all Djinn anyway," he finished proudly.
After a moment's silence, Picard asked, "What do you mean, second nature?"
"I'll consider that remark the foolishness of youth," Bane replied icily.
"Youth? What are you talking about? I am more than…" The Lemurian noticed that suddenly he had everyone's attention. "Never mind, my age is not important. We have to find the other Djinn or find and defeat Adavir. There are no other choices we could make now."
"He's right," Isaac agreed. "Ryan, you seem sensible, but you're also a soldier. Mix those two together and lead us where you want to go the least, because I'm sure we'll find the Djinn when we get there."
Ryan sighed and waved for them to follow him. Eventually, he couldn't help asking. "So what sort of pay scale do heroes have?"
"Sometimes they credit you with saving the world," said Felix. "Got to be careful how you go about it, though."
"Also, nothing with multiple heads is ever on your side," Jenna added. "Important tip."
"And this is for all those times when I was helpless to do anything during the battle with Valukar," Rime told another armor-minion as he sealed it and watched the parts collapse. "And this is for all the times that the other Djinn got to help in the battle with Valukar, and this-"
"I'm starting to worry about him," said Fizz.
Hail shrugged. "Arr, he be finally findin' 'is inner pirate, that are all."
"I do not have any sort of inner pirate," Fizz insisted.
"Did I say ye did? Nay, ye healer types are na made fer real piratical stuff, but I knew right off that Rime were a natural. 'E's obsessed with vengeance, which are almost as good as treasure."
"I resent that. I might not be naturally piratical, but I'd be as good at it as anyone else. Who says healers have to be one-dimensional?"
"What're ye going ter do, take lessons?" asked Hail.
A steel axe quietly introduced itself to the growing argument by cutting six inches into the floor between them, nearly hacking off Hail's tail. "Ye barnacular scum, Hail'll be havin' yer helm fer that!" she shouted, spinning and freezing its legs in place with an ice-water blast.
"Hail… there's rather a lot more of them…" said Fizz, who could see around their attacker.
"…How many are ye speakin' of?" asked Hail, who was a pirate, but couldn't always suppress her more cautious instincts.
"Um… well, do pirates have a vernacular term for a hundred?"
"Arr. That'd be 'a bleedin' army'," said Hail, slowly.
"Ah. A few bleedin' armies, possibly," Fizz reported. "How about a piratical way to retreat?"
"Never come up."
"Somehow I'm not surprised…"
"Okay, who can take armor on, they're just metal, so lightning's good, but there's nothing to shock inside, so not so good, and ice won't do more than keep them in place, I either need really fast rusting powers or someone who can bash or just melt them right down- that's the way to go, melting, gotta find more Mars Djinn, where are they, can't be too far…"
Iron chanted these thoughts and many others as he sprinted through the corridors, looking for backup to fight the growing forces of formerly decorative knights coming after them. He skidded to a halt at a crossroads, paused to pick a direction at random, but before he could move more than a step, a sound at the back of his mind caught his attention.
It wasn't really a tune, it was more like the idea of a melody that he imagined he could hear. But when Iron ran back and leapt onto a windowsill, it grew a bit louder, and he realised its source. A Djinni, it had to be. No one else could play like that. And if it was, it had to be Fugue. And Fugue's power…
"Fugue!" Iron shouted. "Fugue! You blasted Mars Djinni, listen instead of just blaring away for a second!"
"What do you want her to do?" asked Haze, who was swooping by.
"Blare louder!" Iron called back. Haze, not bothering to wonder about the eccentricities of Venus Djinn, flapped back and dove to the Djinn gathered at the gate. Fugue didn't notice until Dew bounced off her head, and then Haze delivered the message.
Uncertain at first, Fugue gathered all the power she could summon and played again. "Not going to do it," said Dew. "There has to be something missing, Fugue, you're just not going to get through like that."
"What do you expect me to do?!" Fugue demanded.
"I don't know. You're the musician," said Dew. "I'm just here to lead. I don't do much."
Fugue thought for a moment. She had played as well as she could with the powers of the Djinn, but still couldn't pierce stone, and somewhere in there her friends were counting on this. What else was there to music except playing? It was ridiculous, it was impossible-
It was obvious.
She started again.
"And this is for all the times those monsters used Psynergy attacks even after I sealed them because they were some kind of natural ability instead of actual casting!" The heaps were getting deeper. Rime was starting to hope he might manage to just barricade the hall off from more enemies, but no, they were breaking through just as fast.
"Well… there are worse deaths," said Squall. "Of course, the last time I was in a fix like this, I got through just fine, because of the whole immortality thing. How about you, Shine? You know more about death, don't you? What's it like?"
"It's precisely the sort of thing I don't want to talk about," Shine replied. Squall waited, knowing she was more patient. "…I don't actually know, of course… but what I do know wasn't so bad, I guess."
"That's good," said Forge. "I'd hate to think the end of my existence might be unpleasant."
"Does anyone else hear that?" asked Mold.
"Hear what?"
"…I'm not sure. It's sort of like… Well, there's something Djinni about it, but it sounds more like… singing…" said Mold, uncertainly. A red spark floated past him, and then a few more.
Fugue's voice, powered by her natural powers, rippled through the stone and echoed through halls, a victorious ballad without words that struck the ever-marching knights as hard as cannonfire. Music flooded them all, and -first slowly, then in groups- the suits collapsed in a clattering crescendo of metal.
"Wow," said a voice, when all was quiet again. Geode emerged from an armor dune. "And I didn't even get a chance to hit 'em. Good thing you warned us, eh Squall? You guys want me to take down that door over there? Mold? Shine? Hello?"
"Of course," said Shine, clearing his throat, "there's always the last-minute rescue. Now, who says we finish this ordeal and get back home?"
"It's about time!"
"This guy is toast."
"Hopefully no more rescues will be needed…"
"Arr!"
"Fizz, it's just not you."
"Whatever."