Disclaimer: I know, from traipsing through every store, mall, and boutique in the Greater Toronto Area, that nobody has Gundam pilots for sale. I even offered to pay retail instead of the supposed sale price, but they still said no. Therefore, I cannot possibly own these magnificent examples of manhood, or the chicks they hang out with. Do not sue me. I have no money except that miniscule amount reserved for presents.
~~~~~~~~~~Episode Seventy-Five: The Outpost
"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." ~Demosthenes, "Third Olynthiac"March 10th, 1903
The travellers boarded a train before sunrise, in the coastal city of Kenitra, and a firey orb rose above the plains and the mountains and the deserts as the rattling juggernaut sped towards Marrakesh. The trio was surprisingly calm, even while faced with the most terrible of all unknowns. Jeffrhyss would be waiting for them, along with the rest of his evil contemporaries. Anything could happen.
Some smart business decisions in Kenitra meant that they could afford a private compartment for the three of them, rather than being separated across a vast sea of cheap seats in the other cars. The compartment even came with a few enchanting perks, such as thick velvet curtains to keep out the sun, and a little games table in between the two bench seats. While Trowa stalked the corridor to stretch his lanky legs, Heero and Lucrezia sat opposite each other, half-heartedly studying the chessboard before them. Lucrezia was presently contemplating her next move, and Heero gazed out the window, only barely paying attention to the game.
He was facing backwards, and watched the scruffy landscape fall away from him at a speed that was somehow much too fast and agonizingly slow at the same time. The memory of his last day in England was a troubling one, and key parts of it were replaying in his mind, over and over...
~~~~~~~~~~~Two adventurers and three suitcases stood in the foyer of Bridlewood, poised to vanish for what could become a long time. They were leaving two days early, and expected to make the meeting on time if they kept a steady pace. All of their traditional European clothes were left in their rooms, and in their stead, Quatre had made them all light-coloured robes and casual pantsuits, in fabrics more suited to desert travel. He was awfully supportive of their journey, and never once revealed his crushing disappointment at not being able to go.
Before Heero could join the others, Duo pulled him aside near the top of the stairs at the second floor landing, where no one else was around. "Hey..."
Heero waited patiently for him to say something else, but the chef was suddenly mute, his eyes darting between Heero and the floor, and his hands crammed into his denims' pockets to hide their nervous twitching. "What is it?"
Duo had been trying to say what it was all week, but the words just wouldn't squirt out no matter how hard he squeezed. This was his last chance to tell Heero something very important before he left, and he wasn't doing a very good job of it. "Heero...I..." The temperature seemed to rise about 30 degrees, and he backed out of his statement with a shy smile. "Come back safe, okay?"
Without even the smallest safety check for onlookers, they shared a spontaneous hug. "I guarantee it," Heero reassured him, rubbing his back comfortingly, but with his chin resting snugly on the other boy's shoulder, Duo frowned. He had failed at the one and only task he had assigned himself, and felt a little cowardly because of it.
The pair marched downstairs, and once the travellers had said their goodbyes, they were off. No one at the manor would lay eyes on them again for at least a week, and some of them took it harder than others.
~~~~~~~~~~As Heero continued to stare out the window, daydreaming, he wondered what it was that Duo almost said, but didn't. It wasn't that difficult to tell that the boy had changed his mind about something, but figuring out what that something was would be very difficult indeed.
More disturbing than that was the very physical turn their relationship had taken, or rather, Heero's internalised reaction to it. On some level, he genuinely enjoyed the closeness, something so far removed from anything else he had experienced before, but on another level, he asked himself one of those pesky 'what if' questions, and it all began to fall apart. In the last few weeks leading up to the present, whenever Duo touched him, held him, kissed him, doubt was creeping in. Not doubt about Duo, but about himself.
If I go back home and it all feels different, I don't know what either of us will do. Why did I have to question myself on that one measely point? Now our whole friendship seems uncertain...but maybe if I can just put it out of my mind, long enough to let him shape me into whatever he wants, then I won't have to think about it again...the possibility that I'm only 'with' him because--
"Your move," Lucrezia said, a little forcefully. It was the second time she had said it, as the first declaration hadn't yanked Heero's attention away from the window. This time, though, it worked.
"Hn?" he grunted before glancing back down at the chessboard. "...oh." He leaned forward, gave the pieces some thought, and moved a bishop without much ceremony.
Lucrezia stared at him. "That was pathetic."
"Why?"
"Before you did that, I would've had you in ten moves. Now I'll beat you in three."
Heero squinted, almost angrily. "What?"
Lucrezia sighed and turned the board sideways, proceeding to explain exactly how and when she would capture the black queen and have the king cornered in an embarassingly short number of moves. After recognizing the gravity of his mistake, Heero slouched back into the padded bench and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. He hadn't really been concentrating on the game at all. Lucrezia leaned forward briefly and patted his knee before sitting back with a smirk. "Awww...don't feel bad. You were doomed the minute you took the pieces out of the box anyway."
"Don't worry," Heero growled back with a slight grin. "Next time, I'll make you work for it."
Before Lucrezia could snap off an appropriate challenge for a reply, the train's great, booming whistle blew, signalling...something. A moment or two later, Trowa opened the narrow, wood-panelled door to their compartment and poked his head inside. "Everyone's rearranging themselves. I think we're almost there."
Sure enough, a tall stone wall and a few small mud brick buildings flew past the window at a distance as the train gradually headed into Marrakesh. Soon, the buildings became larger, more numerous, and closer together as they flew into the city centre. The droning sounds of thousands upon thousands of people going about their daily business drowned out the sound of the train itself. The bare, stark scent of open desert was replaced with a mixed aroma, of curry and spices, of camels and goats, and of open flames being used to cook all manner of exotic delicacies. Long before the train pulled into the station and ground to a halt, a lively Arabic chatter swarmed around everyone's ears, creating pleasant background noise.
With their custom-made clothes, the trio blended in rather well. Drawing a canvas-like cloth over her head and across her face, Lucrezia pulled both hands into her ground-length garment and seemed to disappear except for her eyes, the only feature that was visible. Heero and Trowa had similar off-white robes, but with the added features of hooded cloaks overtop and pocketed trousers underneath. Thin ropes of dusty tan tied their matching tunics closed, bound their pant legs to their worn leather boots to keep out the sand, and lashed various items such as waterskins and money pouches to their belts. Heero especially appreciated the way the flowing ensemble hid his holster and gun.
Exiting the train was an adventure in itself. Heero led with one suitcase dangling and one elbow extended, having to push a swath through the jostling crowd as it oozed out onto the platform like molasses. Lucrezia walked in the middle, keeping her eyes glued to the hem of Heero's cloak as Quatre had advised, and Trowa brought up the rear, carrying a suitcase in each hand. His relatively light-coloured hair clearly marked him as a tourist, while Heero didn't seem to get stared at nearly as much. They were practically sling-shot into a bustling marketplace filled with bargaining merchants, musicians, beggars, and clusters of old men talking about all the problems in the world over cups of steaming hot tea. It seemed just like London in many ways, just with a different veneer.
Finally reaching a plot of unpopulated dirt in the market square, the trio stopped to regroup and review their instructions. "The voice after Byron's message was very clear about where we're supposed to go," Heero began, looking at both the written directions and a map. "Which way is southwest?"
Without missing a beat, Trowa extracted a compass from his robes and held it level with the ground, slowly turning to face southwest. "That way," he declared.
The next hurdle was the actual distance they had to cover. It would be several hours' worth of walking, and procuring something with wheels would be their best bet. On the plus side, a large portion of the local populous spoke French, so Heero didn't expect that communication would be a problem. What did turn out to be a problem was that nobody had any vehicles for hire. No carts, no barrows, and there certainly wasn't a proper carriage within hundreds of miles. Every operable mode of transport had already been hired out to any of the hundreds of other 'tourists' that had arrived on that specific week. Desperation led Heero to look at livestock instead.
Trowa and Lucrezia watched from a distance as Heero tried to negotiate with a bearded merchant for the use of his camel. Having already burned the better part of an hour searching for a donkey cart or something comparable, they were willing to take what they could get.
"If we started walking right now," Lucrezia conjectured in a cloth-muffled voice, "would we make it there before dark?"
Trowa shrugged, still observing the haggling process. He was too far away to hear what was being said, not that he would have understood it anyway, but when Heero held up two fingers while trying to explain that he needed the camel for two days, the merchant called to his equally-bearded assistant, who brought over a second camel. At that point, Heero waved his hands in frustration and started over, to the merchant's confusion. "Maybe," said Trowa, "but at this rate, I wouldn't bet on it."
Finally, a deal appeared to have been struck, and Heero nodded tiredly as he handed some coins over to the merchant, who handed over the camel's reins as he wished the silly tourist well. Knowing even less about camels than he did about horses, Heero regarded the beast strangely and gave the reins an experimental tug. To his surprise, the animal took step forward. Pleased with himself at last, he guided the beast over to where the rest of his tribe stood waiting. "Meet the new valet," he quipped.
Trowa immediately started walking a slow, full circle around the camel, while Lucrezia actually took a step backwards. "How long did you get it for?" she asked with uncertainty.
Frazzled, Heero coiled the rope around one hand and pulled tight. "I'm not totally sure, but I think I may have bought him outright."
"Her," Trowa called from behind the camel's behind.
"Ask me if I care!" Heero snapped back.
Lucrezia squinted and made a disbelieving face beneath her veil. "How did you manage to buy a Rent-A-Camel?"
Heero immediately pointed an angry and accusatory finger at the majority of the city behind him. "That is not the kind of French you learn out of a textbook! Besides, at the price he was asking, we couldn't have afforded more than one, so it's going to have to do."
Trowa re-emerged on Heero's left and seemed to approve of his purchase. "You'd probably get charged more for a female anyway, in case you wanted to breed them," he suggested. "She might even be pregnant."
A momentary look of horror washed over Heero's face, followed by justifiable exasperation. He stuck a finger squarely in the centre of Trowa's chest. "If we have to stop in the middle of the desert and drop a calf in the sand, that's your job."
"Gladly!" Trowa chirped.
Shaking his head with a gruff and unintelligible grunt, Heero led his enlarged troupe to another corner of the market, where they bought some rope, with which they lashed their three suitcases to the camel's back and sides, after several tries. As they manoeuvred into the southwest corner of the city, buying extra food and water along the way, it came time to put the animal to its true test. Heero stopped the camel with a tug of the rope, looked ahead past the city walls at the distance they had to cover by nightfall, looked at Lucrezia, and tilted his head towards the camel. "Alright, get on."
Lucrezia blinked, then glared. There was indeed room on the camel's back for one person, but she didn't see why it had to be her. "Why me?"
"I've seen you trip over those clothes four times already, and we haven't even left the city limits yet," Heero stated, "and even if I wasn't trying to be gentlemanly about it, I would think it'd be more ladylike to ride the rest of the way."
"He's right, you know," Trowa chimed in, joining the others in wiping copious amounts of sweat off his brow. "It's not even noon yet and it must be eighty degrees out here, and we'll be out in the open sun for hours. The calendar may say it's winter, but we're still at risk for heat exhaustion, and--"
"And being a lady of leisure, I'm so delicate that I couldn't handle it," Lucrezia finished spitefully. "I'm surprised at the pair of you."
"Think about that four-hour cultural debriefing Quatre gave us last week," Heero reminded her after a brief think. "The locals might very well expect to see you up there, not walking alongside us, and we'd do well not to draw attention to ourselves."
The whole of Lucrezia's form sighed from the veil down. Suddenly, the camel was staring at her, as if feeling hurt and rejected, even though she knew such a thing was impossible. ".....fine...so how do I get on it?"
Much debate and deliberation was expended on that subject. They finally walked the camel behind a building where they were less likely to draw stares and laughter, and with Heero giving her a step up on one side and Trowa waiting to grab her flailing arms on the other side, they helped her amble on top of the beast, where she eventually regained her balance with helpful prods to either leg. After putting her fallen veil back into place, falling forward onto the camel's neck, sitting up and replacing the veil yet again, she promptly told the boys that she didn't care how ladylike she looked, and there was no way in hell she was going to ride that thing sidesaddle. They agreed.
The time had come to leave the city they had known so briefly. Perhaps some other day, when they didn't have the fate of the world resting on their shoulders, there would be ample opportunity to explore the charming town, but not just yet.
**********Quatre felt sure that he had prepared his friends for just about every cross-cultural eventuality they were likely to encounter, and still he felt empty and worried when they left. The worried feeling persisted through idle days and sleepless nights, until he guessed that he was probably feeling useless, and that was somehow translating into worry. Chores around the house and garden weren't as satisfying as they should have been; he felt he had to accomplish something of mega-importance before he could rest. The only task that came to mind, however, was the persistent plague that was Dorothy Catalonia, and the personal value he placed on her co-operation.
After trying and failing dozens of times, there was no reason to think that day would be any different, but without thinking, Quatre found himself sitting down at the Chippendale table yet again, contemplating the telephone with growing pessimism. I've got nothing left to offer anymore...not even the money I would have given her before we needed it for travel expenses. I'm wasting my time on Dorothy...I have been all along. Who knows what might have happened to my family while I've been frittering away my time? ...today won't be the day either, I can feel it.
In spite of his doubts, an electric impulse raced from his brain down to his arm, telling it to pick up the earpiece to the telephone and give Dorothy one last try, but before the impulse even reached its destination, the telephone rang, giving Quatre a terrible shock. No one else was nearby to take the call, so he hesitantly picked up the earpiece in the middle of the second ring. "...hello?"
The voice on the other end was patched through and immediately began crying into the phone. "Oh, I'm so glad it's you!" It was Dorothy's voice.
Quatre's brain nearly blew a fuse. "What are you doing, calling he--"
"No time for that!" Dorothy whispered harshly in a tear-ridden tone. "I didn't know who else to call! Oh, it's just awful!"
"What is?"
"The things that go on in this house!" the girl sniffled. "I used to think I could handle it, but it's gotten much worse! I can only talk now because Treize is out of the house and it's safe now, but he could be back anytime! Please, help me!!"
Quatre's stomach was twisting in knots now. She sounded serious. "Alright...calm down and tell me what's going on."
"No, I don't dare speak of it over the telephone, someone might be listening! Bad enough that they're always standing over my shoulder whenever I talk to you, this is the first time they've left me alone since--"
"If it's that bad, why don't you call the police?"
"I tried that!! And Treize hid the evidence so it just looked like I was out of my mind! They bawled me out for wasting police time and they left! I've got no one else to turn to now!" Whatever was happening seemed bad enough to make her choke on her own tears, and she began blubbering so badly that she could no longer hear when Quatre called her name.
He held the earpiece away from his face and stared at it, the piercing sounds of her sobbing tearing holes in his sympathetic heart. Convincing though it sounded, he wasn't quite sure. ...help Dorothy? After all the evil she's done? Only days earlier, he wouldn't have given it proper consideration, but things had changed since then. Maybe I'm being offered a chance to do good...to atone... If it lessened his punishment in the afterlife, it was worth it. He put the earpiece back up to his ear and leaned forward. "Dorothy?"
The girl's pathetic snivelling slowed and stopped, and she whimpered out a "Hm?" noise.
Quatre took a deep breath and held it. "What do you need me to do?"
There was a strange silence on the other end of the line. ".......come to the house, alone, by the side door next to the woodshed. You know where that is?"
The gardener nodded, slowly. "I can find it."
"I wish I could come to you, but it's too dangerous! You have to see what's happening to understand it, and I need someone to believe me! Please hurry!!" With that, the line went dead.
It all seemed settled. Putting the telephone back together, Quatre had an icky feeling in the pit of his belly, but dismissed it as nerves. It wouldn't be easy, being helpful and nice to someone so vile, but it was potentially just what he needed. He thought a little bit more about how unpleasant Dorothy's problem must have been if she had already tried the local authorities, and wished that Heero was around for consultation. He always knew what to do in a harmful situation.
Then, it struck Quatre that he was wasting time thinking instead of doing. He nearly tripped over the chair while launching himself out of it, and ran towards the kitchen for his coat. Then he stopped, thinking he'd better let someone know where he was going, and did a u-turn, heading for the the butler's pantry instead. A third thought reminded him sharply that the butler was in another country, and he performed a second, equally-brilliant about-face and ran back to the kitchen to find Duo, the second-in-command.
He couldn't find him. Quatre's choices were limited; he wasn't sure if he could afford the time it would take to search the whole house, so he decided to split the difference and leave a note. He was just shuffling through the junk drawer for something to write with when Hilde wandered in. "Hey! Who was that on the telephone?" she asked brightly, zipping straight to the cupboard for a snack.
Quatre's mouth went slightly dry, but he managed to look up. "Um...just somebody selling something...I told them we didn't want any of...whatever it was."
"Mm, don't tell Duo, he'll think you've passed up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"Heh..." One short, nervous laugh later, Quatre gave up the idea of a note. "Hilde...could you give Duo a message for me?"
"Sure! You going out for the afternoon?"
The boy froze for a moment. All his dealings with Dorothy were meant to be a secret; there was no point in making them known until he had some positive results to report. On the other hand, he didn't want to lie to anyone either. There had to be a reasonable balance. "Tell him...tell him I've got to leave the house for awhile. I don't want anyone to worry about me, but it's sort of a secret, and I'm not sure when I'll be back."
Hilde replaced the lid of the cookie jar and took a bite of whatever she had fished out of it. "Sounds serious," she mumbled.
"It is, a bit," Quatre replied. "But it's nothing to be concerned about! I'll be home as soon as I can, and I don't want anyone fretting over me in the meantime, okay?"
"Whatever you say," the housemaid giggled, patting his arm. "I gotta go, I'm in the middle of a bridge game. Dress warm!" She hopped back up the stairs, disappeared, and that was that.
Quatre spent a few seconds gazing at the stairs, then grabbed his coat and ran.
**********Fortune smiled slightly on the trio as they crossed into the desert. Some cloud cover rolled in over the mountains and the temperature dropped just enough to make the long walk a comfortable one. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as comfortable for Lucrezia atop the camel. A horse, she would have been used to, but instead of the familiar back-and-forth motion she was expecting, the camel's gait rolled her from side to side, making it a challenge to keep from falling off. She finally gained some stability by reaching backwards with both feet and hooking them tightly around the ropes holding the suitcases aloft. It was tiring, but it worked.
Heero and Trowa were much too busy navigating to notice. The directions to the meeting place seemed concrete enough on paper, but used many natural landmarks as guides along the way, and it wasn't as though they had brightly painted signs on them. The difference between clumps of bushes, stands of trees, this rock or that rock could have thrown them miles in the wrong direction.
The route seemed to take them away from the little villages scribbled onto the fourth-hand map, some of which might have relocated by then anyway, so they didn't encounter a single soul apart from themselves for a long time. Then, out of the distance at an angle veering off towards the mountains came a dot, then a blob, then a mass of men on horseback, more than two, but less than six. They couldn't have come from the meeting place, but upon spotting the travellers on the horizon, they altered course to intercept. Heero and Trowa conversed quickly over whether or not the group might be a threat, but then Quatre had told them that they could be easily met by traders or nomads no matter how far from the beaten path they strayed. They decided to stop and see what the men wanted.
Four men in total drew their horses up beside the trio, and two of them dismounted right away, presenting themselves with rapid-fire greetings. They were dressed similarly to the boys, but their garments showed much more wear and tear. They also had a minimum of a moustache each, and two had beards. One of the dismounted men pulled up the sleeves of his robe to reveal dozens of strands of beads, which he held out before the boys, rattling off prices in Arabic and hoping for a good haggle. The other opened a pouch full of miscellaneous trinkets and took a large bundle of leather goods off his horse's pack, showing what fine merchandise he had to sell. They were both chattering at once, getting right up in the boys' faces, and Lucrezia was having a good chuckle at their expense, until she saw the other two on horseback, looking in her direction and whispering amongst themselves. Then she started to worry.
"No...no, really...we don't want..." Trowa had both hands in the air and was trying to discourage the leather-vendor, but without much success. "Heero, how do we tell them to go away?"
Heero was actually having a good look at what was for sale. "Didn't Quatre teach you how to say anything?"
"I know how to say 'Hello', 'Goodbye', 'Where's the toilet', and that's it," Trowa shot back. "I'm serious! Tell them to scram!"
"Just a minute," Heero said, waving the boy off. "I promised Duo I'd bring him back a souvenir." The beads and baubles were nice, but the men also had a fine variety of leather belts with fancy patterns and shiny brass buckles. Heero picked out one he thought would look good with Duo's denims, and tried haggling for it in his fractured French.
Meanwhile, the two mounted men were still talking back and forth, gazing around Lucrezia and stroking their beards in thought. She squirmed. "Uh...guys?"
"Don't even bother, he's going to be awhile," Trowa told her without really stopping to listen to her tone of voice.
In only a few moments, however, Heero and the lead trader had come to an agreement over the belt, and the transaction was completed, but the traders weren't done talking yet. The two on horseback chattered to the men on the ground, and all four of them looked in Lucrezia's direction. Heero and Trowa followed their gaze in confusion, and then the lead trader started back into French, gathering up a large handful of beads and the pouch of trinkets and pointing at the woman with them. They appeared to be making an offer on Heero's merchandise.
"Guys," Lucrezia said, a little louder.
Heero squinted at the unusual turn the conversation had taken. "I think they'll have to do better than that," he remarked to Trowa, and the two of them exchanged a quick whisper.
Again, the man made his offer, adding another handful of beads at witnessing Heero's reluctance. Desperate to be heard, Lucrezia reached out as far as she dared to try and catch Heero by the scruff of the neck, but couldn't reach, and nearly tipped over from the effort. "What's he saying!?"
Trowa just looked like he didn't want to be involved and squeezed over to the side, and Heero tried to tell the men 'no', but the offer kept getting better and better. They added a pouch of coins to the deal.
Lucrezia all but tried to jump off the camel and run, but her feet were firmly entangled in the ropes. "Heero!" she hollered angrily.
"Quiet! I'm negotiating!"
"...if I could kick you, I would."
Heero honestly did tell the men they were wasting their breath, several times, but it got stickier when one of the men on horseback yelled out in heavily-accented English, "I throw in many goats! And field to put them in!"
Heero looked up at Lucrezia again. She hated the way he seemed to be considering the deal, and just to tease her further, he beckoned Trowa over and crossed his arms thoughtfully. "What do you think?"
Trowa pretended to mull it over. "I'd hold out for sheep. We could get a good price for the wool, I'll bet."
Atop the camel, the woman fumed. "When I get ahold of you two--"
Heero cut her off in mid-protest, turning back to the traders and suggesting a price so high that they could never have dreamed of meeting it. After that, they appeared to lose interest, and the meeting more or less dissolved, but before the men could gallop away, Heero showed them the map and pointed out the route they were taking, asking if they knew anything about it. They gladly described a bit of a shortcut that would shave almost an hour off their journey. Heero thanked them, and they rode off happy to have made a sale.
Once they were gone, Lucrezia yanked off her head scarf so she could yell at the boys properly. "What is the matter with you!?" she screeched.
Heero found pockets somewhere in his layered clothes, sank both hands into them, and shrugged innocently. "I didn't think you'd be interested in my little business transactions," he said, and at the pinnacle of her frustration, he decided to be nice and let her in on the big secret, smirking shamelessly. "Besides...they didn't want you. They wanted Lord Peacecraft's Italian luggage."
The boys took a few steps away from the camel, snickering to each other. Lucrezia reached to her left, snapped open one of the fine imported cases, grabbed a rolled-up pair of somebody's socks, and whipped them at Heero's head, where they connected with a well-aimed 'thunk'. There were chuckles and whatnot, and a rare display of Heero having an honest laugh on his own time. He and Trowa had never made an effort to get to know each other outside work, but this trip was actually helping, even if it was a little bit at Lucrezia's expense.
Once they all settled down, the trio followed the shortcut laid out by the traders, and instead of arriving after dark, the sun was still dancing on the horizon as they scaled what would be the last hill. By then, they were tired and travel-weary, dragging themselves up the dusty slope peppered with scrub brush with heavy, plodding steps. Heero was the first one to reach the summit, and he stopped at the top, staring. Trowa tugged on the camel's rope, practically dragging her up the hills, and at the top, he paused also. The camel stopped short of the summit, but Lucrezia was sitting high enough to see what the boys were seeing, and they all gaped at what lay before them.
The ground fell away from the hill into a broad, sweeping valley, surrounded on all sides by more hills of varying heights, sheltered from wind and weather. In the centre of the valley, made out of great stones that showed hundreds of years of defiance against the elements, was a hulking citadel, fortified and well-guarded. Handfuls of men patrolled the perimeter, some lighting torches along the rock walls as the structure fell deeper into shadow. The greater ado was inside the fortress, where firelight seeped out of hand-carved windows, and where the buzz of a thousand voices rose up above the sands and drifted up to the travellers invitingly.
Scattered around the rim of the containing hills were ramps and steps that allowed people, animals, and carts in and out of the valley, and Heero led the way to the nearest of these, continually glancing back at the glowing citadel, bathed in the final moments of red sunlight from the midline upwards. The trio carefully made their way down the curved ramp and hiked up to the first entrance that they came across, and were only casually stopped by the guards. Heero gave them the password from Byron's record, and they were let in without any fuss at all, not even the simple task of asking their names. The trio counted themselves lucky and ventured inwards, while at the gate, one guard whispered to another, who left to deliver a message to someone about the latecomers.
The interior of the citadel was a cause for infinite awe. Hundreds of travellers from all over the world, representing four of the five members of the Cinq Association, had gathered in the miniature enclosed city, setting up campsites anywhere they could and settling in for their evening meal. Dozens of languages were spoken, hundreds of views exchanged, and Heero would have found the gathering fascinating if not for one key detail--these people were agents.
They were approached by a dark-skinned man wearing colourful garments with beaded embroidery, carrying a book and a pencil. Following procedure, he asked the boys the same question over and over in rotating languages until he hit on the right one. "What delegation are you, please?"
Heero had only seconds to think. Everyone else was there for a reason, and had been properly briefed on what to expect and what answers to give, but he took a wild guess at interpretation and blurted out "Jeffrhyss" before he could think about whether or not it was a good idea.
"Through the square, east wall, blue section," the man said, pointing through a gaping archway with his pencil and moving on, adding three tick marks to the tally for blue section's head count. The trio shrugged at each other and moved on.
It soon became impractical to be dragging the camel around, so Lucrezia dismounted rather ungracefully and removed her veil, as there were a number of other unveiled women lingering around. Trowa took the reins and looked for a suitable place to tether the animal, while the others looked around 'blue section.' "They don't seem to be very well organized," Lucrezia remarked, glancing at the simple coloured handkerchiefs on poles sticking up out of the ground that marked off the various camps.
"That's because most of these people have been to one of these meetings before," Heero supplied. "Any new agents would have to be accompanied by older ones to learn the procedure, but the majority know their way around, no matter where the meeting is held."
Lucrezia blinked at the floor, then at Heero. "Is this your first?"
Heero nodded, looking away.
"So, basically, we just watch what everyone else does?"
"Basically."
There would have to be an announcement, or an audible signal, some sort of non-lingual call for the meeting to begin, but neither of them knew what it would be. When Trowa returned, Heero left them for awhile to wander on his own. There were no guards inside the fortress, no way to stop someone from one camp from wandering around the others. He took a good long stroll around the facility and saw details that suggested it was more than just a castle in the sand. There were tapestries and emblems on the walls, and in several of the rooms, discoloured patches of floor indicated where tables and chairs had stood until recently. The whole place was laid out like a private residence for a local millionaire, complete with its own water source, private gardens in a central courtyard, and even small corridors fit for servants. It reminded him of Bridlewood, which opened up the possibility that the citadel had been rented from the owner just long enough to hold the fiscal meeting. This method offered all of the creature comforts and none of the permanence that could lead to a police raid. It was somewhat ingenious.
Then, while he was still half-mired in his reverie, a flash of gold caught Heero's eye, in the gaps of an ordinary-looking crowd. It wasn't just a blur of colour, it was familiar. He knew it well. Ducking back and forth between travellers zig-zagging across the open square, he tried to get closer, to see what it was, but the golden blur did not reappear. It had been like strands of silk, swaying as a single unit, possibly a woman's crown of hair, but since he couldn't find it again, and since there were more pressing problems at hand, Heero dismissed it as a fluke of having so many people from around the world in one place.
**********It was pouring with rain the entire time Quatre was running from street to street on his way to Lady Une's. He had a few coins in his pocket that would have gotten him a cab, but they were even scarcer in the rain than they were at any other time in that neighbourhood, so he decided he was further ahead just to hoof it. By the time he reached the right avenue, he was drenched straight through, and oddly enough, the rain slowed to a light drizzle just as he was approaching the house. There was no visible activity in any of the windows, and no lights appeared to be on, inside or out. The front gate was open, and he crept easily past it, still keeping an eye on the house in case a servant leapt out to shoo him away. Nobody stopped him from tip-toeing around to the side of the house, where the woodshed perched near the back of the imposing building. The promised door was right there, propped open with an empty cigarette box. Quatre edged it open with a squeak and slipped inside.
He found himself in an area reserved for servants, naturally, as someone of his lowly status would hardly have been let in through the front door under any circumstances. He didn't have long to wait before gentle footsteps crept close from around the corner, and a platinum blonde head poked out of the dark, quivering. "I wasn't sure if you'd actually come," the girl whispered nervously.
Quatre wondered the same thing as he wrung out patches of his clothing on the mat. "Well...I'm here now. Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
Dorothy, stepped away a bit, towards the interior of the mansion, and looked back over her shoulder coyly. "It would be simpler to show you." More than a little preoccupied with not dripping all over the floors and carpets, Quatre left his shoes near the door and followed Dorothy at a distance. She was walking very quickly, and it was actually difficult to keep up as she wove up and down the marbled halls to a long, spiralling staircase. "Up here," she whispered. "Most of the servants have the day off today, the rest are in the games room at the other end of the house."
The staircase was like nothing at Bridlewood, and it made Quatre a little nervous. It was located in the middle of a tiled hall with six doors leading to other areas of the house, and swirled upwards at a very tight radius. There was only room for one person to ascend or descend at a time, and it hardly looked like it could support more than two people anyway. The whole thing was made of decorative iron in patterns of swans and leaves that gave it a light, airy appearance. It also squeaked and creaked with every step Quatre took, and his eyes became riveted to the floor as he seemed to feel the whole structure lean towards the side on which he stood. Somehow, Dorothy was able to pad lightly up the staircase without making a sound, and she was already waiting for him at the top.
"Come on!" she hissed, leaning over the top railing.
Quatre looked up, looked down, felt dizzy, but kept going. Something was itching at the back of his mind, trying anxiously to tell him that he wasn't being very smart, but the immediate concern for whether or not the staircase was safe blocked out everything else. When he made it to the top, Dorothy had moved further away again, as if she was deliberately trying not to get too close. Suspicious, Quatre stopped to do an emotional spot-check, but he truly felt Dorothy's fear. There was nothing concrete to make him doubt that the danger was real.
The climb wasn't finished; Dorothy led him up two more smaller staircases, each seeming narrower and more precarious than the one before. When their ascent finally levelled off, they were in the attic, which was separated into a hallway with servants' quarters, or so it appeared. Quatre's mind raced, wondering what could be so horrible about an old, dusty attic. Could there be rats? A shrine to someone's dead wife? A disfigured child being isolated from the world? A centre for widespread blackmail of public officials? A torture chamber? There was no way to know except to look, and as soon as he assessed how dangerous it actually was, then he would decide whether to calm the girl down and tell her she was overreacting, or bring the police back and demand that they investigate.
Dorothy padded down the hall, stopping at the very end where a narrow wooden door with cracked, peeling paint marked the end of the trail. "It's in here," she whispered, turning the knob and giving the door a little push. It swung inwards with a lonely creak, revealing little other than dreadful darkness. "I can't stand to be in the same room with it anymore," she added, standing behind him and giving him a little prod to the shoulder. "...go on."
Through the door, there was faint blue-grey light from a tiny window, being pelted with rain. There didn't appear to be much in the room, only some furniture and a dark corner which could have concealed something frightening if one used one's imagination. By now, Quatre was awfully curious as to what the horrible, unspeakable evil could be, and he took a few steps into the room, glancing carefully around. When he was halfway to the window, he did start to sense something was amiss, but there weren't enough clues to decide what it was. Then, he felt a twinge behind his right ear and tilted his head as if listening to a frequency only he could hear. Dorothy wasn't alone.
The facade of fear vanished, and a second presence joined the Baroness in a devious, silent chuckle of the mind. Quatre spun around and launched himself at the door, but it was too late. An arm yanked at the doorknob and slammed the wooden slab closed with a thunderous bang, followed quickly by the delicate clink of a key in the lock. "No!!" he hollered as he crashed into the door and struggled to reopen it.
Two feminine giggles seeped through the wall. "I don't know who else to turn to! Please hurry!" Dorothy mocked.
"Brilliant acting, my dear!" the second voice congratulated. It was undoubtedly Lady Une.
"Why are you doing this!?" Quatre yelped, panicking and clawing at the edge of the door.
"Because you never once offered us anything we could actually use," Dorothy sneered.
"But now that we have you," Une added cattily, "we have a playing piece that could win us the tontine, if we make sure you're the last one standing. You'll make a lovely wedding present for my darling Treize when he returns!"
"Bye bye, now! Dinner's at eight!"
The girls giggled once more and left. Quatre slid down the surface of the door, crumbling to the rug with a blank look as he was forced to contemplate several new realities. One was that his mysterious sixth sense was not infallible. Dorothy had tricked him on every level possible, whether she knew of them or not. Another was that he hadn't told anyone at the manor where he was going, or when he would be back, only that they shouldn't worry about him. If only he'd told Hilde that he intended to be home for dinner, then she and Duo would know something was wrong by the end of the day, but now...it could be days, or even weeks, before they knew he was in trouble, and even then they wouldn't know where to start looking. He squeezed his eyes shut, though he wanted very badly to just sit there and cry. Now he was a prisoner of war, the secret kind of war that had no battleground, had no borders, but was never short of casualities.
**********The message from Byron had included a specific time at which the meeting was supposed to begin. By Trowa's estimation from looking at the sky, standing in the citadel's courtyard, that time had come and gone. The travellers were all asking why the meeting had been delayed, but nobody had any clear answers, and still, neither Jeffrhyss nor any of his high-level contemporaries had showed their faces. The lower-level agents were scrambling for explanations that didn't exist.
Heero, Trowa and Lucrezia had isolated themselves somewhat, keeping to an unpopulated corner that might once have contained a heavy armoire, judging by the brown skidmarks on the scrubbed stone floor. They sat down on a suitcase apiece and propped themselves up against the wall, watching people scurry to and fro. Lucrezia picked at one of her longish fingernails and mumbled her thoughts out loud, for a lack of anything better to do. "I don't think they've ever done this before. I mean, not with this many people. I think the numbers grew out of proportion because everyone wants to see who'll replace Giorgenson."
"A valid theory," said Heero.
"...do you think he's really dead?"
Duo had asked the same question shortly before Heero left, and he didn't have an answer then either. Knowing the mild attachment Duo felt towards the kindly old man made it difficult to admit that Cinq wouldn't be going through all this trouble if he wasn't really gone. It seemed that Lucrezia felt the same way. "There's no way to tell," he bluffed.
"If he's alive," Trowa interjected, "I hope he's having a good laugh at us all, sitting out here in the middle of nowhere like a tribe of idiots."
Heero smirked briefly, then looked serious again as progress appeared to be made before his eyes. The native African in the colourful clothes had a group of agents congregated around him, and was doling out a message in different languages, as before. The trio got up, grabbed their luggage and went to join the crowd, and before long, the English interpretation came ringing through. "The meeting is delayed," the man said in his musical accent, holding up his book and pencil as if they could protect him from the anger of the crowd. "Master Okada has not yet arrived, and is not expected for several days. You will all be given quarters here, and there is ample food and water for all." Then he said the same speech in German.
Everyone who heard it and understood it sighed physically and turned away, plodding off into their own corners to confer with their superiors; the trio were no different, except they had no superiors to report to. They were all apparently stuck there for the duration, however long and dull it turned out to be. "What should we do now?" sighed Lucrezia.
Heero made a grim visual sweep of the crowded hall and judged that some of the hopefuls waiting to make their entry bids to the Association were crowding the poor messenger, demanding an exact time of arrival so they could get on with their presentations. Among them, paying no attention to anyone else in the room and therefore not noticing Heero's stare, was none other than the imposing figure of Count Khushrenada. Heero glared and led his team away. "We stay out of sight and sleep in shifts."
~~~~~~~~~~
Next, in Episode Seventy-Six: When all the chess pieces are moved into place, the Cinq Association readies itself to evaluate candidates to take over Giorgenson's position. Heero and the others watch carefully from the shadows, but won't stay there for long when they see who's really in the running.
How's everybody doing? =^_^= I'm doing better, as evidenced by the remarkable happenstance of actually getting this episode out on time! Now get this. Episode 76 will be out (oh boy, what am I getting myself into?) this Saturday! =@_@= Well, come on, I can't leave them out there in the desert for too long, they'll get mega-bored. :P You can bet I'm gonna be writing like the wind between now and then, and I really hope I can make it.