**
Part Eight: Legerdemain
**
Yuna wasn't sure how long she was kept blindfolded and secured. It was some indeterminate period of time, and there were curiously blank spots where she was sure her kidnappers had become tired of her attempts to escape and had simply cast a sleep spell upon her. She shuddered to think what the accumulation of magically induced fatigue in her body was doing to her.
She had been making her way back into Guadosalam proper when she heard her cousin scream, and it was like nothing that Yuna had heard with mortal ears before. But she had heard it in the Sending. It was the scream of a soul clinging to life in the face of its departure from this world. Yuna wondered if it was the proximity to the Farplane that brought memories of the Sendings of Sin's victims, and how their spirits had screamed thusly as they were forced by her dancing to let go, to move on, and how they regretted it.
Yuna nearly broke her ankle, she was sure, she turned so quickly.
She turned in time to see a Guado whose face she couldn't see, pulled the long, wicked knife he held upwards towards Rikku's ribs, and Yuna's heart leaped and she nearly screamed herself. She was without her magic enhancers, without the aides she had developed on the pilgrimage to help her, but she was still a powerful mage, and Yuna wasn't going to simply stand there and allow her friend to be killed.
She flung her arms wide, and called down a thunderbolt. The air darkened as Rikku toppled to the ground, and Yuna thought that she was dead. Even as the thunderbolt struck the Guado, she knew it would fail, and she cursed herself for not chosing a spell such as Flare that would have inflicted so much damage. Instead, the spell was absorbed by the armour that the Guado wore, grounded harmlessly, and she cursed, knowing she should have realised that he would be thus protected for passing through the nearby Thunder Plain. She draw in her breath and preparing to attack once more.
She did scream, then, as someone clapped a hand around her mouth and jerked her backwards, pressing a knife that was, from what she could see of it, not too dissimilar from the one the Guado was holding, to her throat.
"Osmose," murmured a husky voice in her ear, and Yuna cried out hoarsely as she felt her strength seep away into the one who held her, and she sagged in his arms.
The sound of the screaming and magic had brought the guards and other pilgrims to the Farplane running, and Yuna's assailant hauled her into a niche in the wall, hiding her from view as these newcomers charged past. Yuna knew they were all focussed on the Al-Bhed lying still as death in the middle of the pathway, her life's blood leaving her, and her assailant who was at that moment pushing his way through the crowd, brandishing his knife at anyone who came too close, and then he fled. Yuna lost sight of him before he turned the final corner of the path.
She started to struggle, and had the satisfaction of hearing a grunt of pain as he elbow connected with something vital, and then she heard that voice utter, "Sleep," in a sonorous tone, and her eyelids had drooped, until she lost consciousness entirely.
And eventually, after awakening and being forced to slumber in the same manner for however long it was, Yuna found herself being marched, blindfolded, along something whose floors were covered in thick plush carpet that muffled the sound of her own footsteps and what she thought were the footsteps of the two guards beside her. She had no way of knowing where she was, she had no idea how long it had taken to transport her to Guadosalam to wherever she was now.
There was the sound of a smooth swish of doorways, so smoothly that they had to be operated by machina. Somewhere Yevon controlled, Yuna decided. Or Al-Bhed. But it was most likely Yevon. Al-Bhed machina was functional, often loud and clunky as it operated, but Yevon's machina, aside from its weaponry, was discrete. The silence of the doors opening was proof of that.
Yuna wondered exactly why Yevon had seen fit to orchestrate her capture, then felt a smile crease her lips. Pointless to ask the question. She would soon find out. She felt a hand on her arm, roughly pushing her in a new direction, presumably through whatever door had just opened. She was manhandled to a stop, and the blindfold removed.
Yuna winced and kept her eyes closed as the light from which she had been kept assaulted them even through her lids. Only when her eyes adapted, and she felt able to deal with their painful reaction to the light, did she open her eyes a crack, and then a sliver, and then she looked about herself with half-lidded eyes.
The room was richly adorned in reds, whites and gold, though it was windowless and contained little furniture aside from a low bed, table and dresser. There were two guards, one on either side of her and warrior monks by the looks of them. One carried a machina weapon, and the other a katana.
Before her stood a woman, her skin thin and papery with age, laid over flesh no longer as firm as it once was, in robes so well tailored for her body that they bespoke her high status and rank within the Yevon church. Her hair was an icy white, bound into a plait that was tying into a neat bun at the crown of her head, and as such she was instantly recognisable.
"I know you," Yuna said, slowly, in a hoarse voice that seemed barely her own. "You were the High Priestess of Bevelle, I saw you at the meeting of the Yevon clergy."
"I am still Ismene, High Priestess of Bevelle, and I will thank you to remember that, Lady Yuna."
Yuna inclined her head gently in apology, though it was more out of the wish to keep the woman who had clearly orchestrated her capture appeased than out of politeness.
Ismene stood, walking around her, looking her up and down and Yuna felt uncomfortably akin to an animal at a farmer's fair. But she endured the scrutiny silently, glaring at the woman when she stopped before her again.
"Are you well? I trust that you were not harmed by those I sent to retreive you?"
Yuna couldn't deny, she felt rather groggy, as if she had overslept heavily, awakening suddenly from an all-too deep sleep. Not that she would admit this, so she simply shook her head. Ismene smiled thinly.
"Good, I would not have it said that Yevon are brutish."
"No," Yuna said, "It has only lied to the people for a millenium, holding a requirement that Summoners die in order to perpetuate death. But no, not brutish."
Ismene didn't look like she appreciated the sentiment. "You speak such words, Summoner, with little to no regard of the harm you cause Spira, that you cause Yevon. Foolish girl. A child who was lucky enough to strike a deathblow at the ancient enemy of the world."
"So why kidnap me?" Yuna asked, turning to follow the woman as she moved. The guards moved with her so that they remained on either side of her body. "If I am just a fortunate child, I am no threat to you, my words are just that: words alone. They are not great armies that I hold in sway, or use to conquer the world."
"Words can do remarkable harm, Summoner Yuna, I would have thought you would have realised that when you gave your speech to the people of Luca."
Yuna's mouth twisted, and though she knew it was childish in a way, she had to speak, to reassert her position, and throw Ismene's own phrasing back at her. "I am still /High/ Summoner, Priestess."
Ismene gave her a sour look in response.
"You are a traitor to Yevon, Summoner," Ismene said, distaste clear in her voice. "The people abandon us, and a thousand years of keeping Spira safe, on your say so. So we have a new task for you now, one you will accept whether you like it or not.
"A task for you, and the child you carry."
Yuna gasped, raising a hand protectively towards her stomach. "How do you know?" she demanded.
Ismene looked at her thoughtfully. "Yevon, even if it is only a shadow of its former glory, still has eyes and ears everywhere. Very little escapes our notice."
Yuna made a note to find the healer from Besaid and make her pay for having revealed such a secret, for she was the only one who could have known.
"What would Yevon want with a baby?" Yuna asked, horrified, recalling Wakka's question, as her mind struggled to comprehend things.
"Many things," Ismene smiled, the expression brittle. "The child of the High Summoner, and of the late Guado Maester. Why, to have such an infant extoling the teachings of Yevon would be wonderful for us."
Yuna stared at the Priestess with astonishment plain on her face. "But such a thing... it would take years!"
Ismene shrugged. "We are willing to wait. In the meantime, it would mean just as much, if not more for the High Summoner and Maester Seymour's wife were to support our cause."
"I will not cooperate."
Ismene's mouth twitched. "We thought as much."
"Seymour Guado, my husband or not, was a delusional man," Yuna continued, unable to bring herself to actively curse his name, even in death. "He believed that by destroying all of Spira, he would end our sorrow. I would not want to say much under the banner of his name if I were you."
The Priestess shrugged. "Well, in a way, he was right. You really don't sorrow much once you're dead."
"As one who has performed the Sending," Yuna said, a little sadly, "I know that is not so. The fiends who haunt Spira are not at peace, and refuse to find it on the Farplane. As did many of the former Maesters who once ruled your halls." She fixed Ismene with a stony gaze. "Are you also Unsent, Priestess?"
Ismene looked like she was thinking about laughing. "I accepted my own death a long time ago, High Summoner. I will not fight the call of the Farplane when my time comes." Then her expression hardened. "But my time has not yet come. So let you put aside your thoughts of Sending me."
"You cannot hold me here," Yuna said.
"And what, praytell, will you do to us? Summon an Aeon? Who shall it be? Bahamut? Valefor? Or did you perhaps inherit your late husband's Aeon, the Dark Aeon, Anima, as the rumours have said?"
"The Aeons," Yuna said quietly, "Are no more."
Ismene wrinkled her nose. "Pity," she said, "I would have liked to have seen it."
Yuna tried not to telegraph her thoughts, as what Auron had once said to her that came to mind. He had spoken the words to her as he and the other Guardians started to teach her the ways of fighting by hand after two separations where they had been unable to protect her. She had protested that she had her magic; her weapons were in her mind and woven in the ether, she said.
'You have your magic to protect you,' he had told her in response. 'But there are times when your magic will fail. And then you must be prepared.'
She silently thanked him, then turned and kicked the guard to her right in the groin.
Not having expected the attack from someone as apparently harmless as Yuna, especially in such a vulnerable area, the guard was somewhat surprised by the attack. He went down quickly, in time for Yuna to duck the swing of the weapon of his counterpart to her left. She straightened and turned in one fluid motion, pushing his weapon to deflect it off course as he whirled back towards her, kicking him in the stomach, before wrenching the machina weapon out of his hands and leaving him without any support to stop his fall to the floor.
Ismene had started to back away, and looked as if she was seriously regretting having only two guards stationed in the room. Yuna ignored the groaning guards, bringing the weapon to bear on the High Priestess.
Ismene looked from the barrel of the weapon to Yuna's face. It was obvious that Yuna was unskilled with the machina weapon, and only the vaguest idea of how to go about using it. But standing barely a foot away from the High Priestess, she didn't even need to be very accurate.
Ismene regarded her calmly. "You would kill me?"
Yuna's grip on the weapon didn't falter. "You wouldn't be the first person I've killed."
Ismene's eyes narrowed faintly, thoughtfully. "No. I suppose I wouldn't be."
Yuna heard the muttering and felt the gathering of strength before she caught sight of the warrior monk she had previously floored clenching his fist and glaring at her out of her corner of her eye.
Yuna hurriedly started running through the spell for a protective shield. It had come to the point where she no longer needed to utter the full chant of a spell in order to enact it, instead she only needed to line it up in her own mind, loosing it quickly and effectively.
The shell snapped into place around her body with a flash of fuschia light that briefly obscured all around her, but the mental effort involved in spellcasting with such low reserves had dulled her reflexes; she tried to duck out of the way of the monk's blade, but the flat of it caught her leg regardless.
He hadn't been aiming to injure her, but the impact was enough to overcome the shell with physical contact. The sleep spell spread quickly through her body, causing her limbs to grow heavy. In front of her Ismene snatched the weapon she'd been holding out of her hands with suprising strength as Yuna collapsed, insensate, on the floor, missing her guardians and her friends more than ever before.
**
"You let them take Yuna?"
Rikku glared at Wakka from where she was gingerly perched on a console seat on the bridge of the Al-Bhed airship. "Yes, Wakka. I did. I even asked if I could be stabbed so that someone could grab Yuna in the confusion."
Wakka looked like he would have continued to rail at the girl, except that Lulu gave him a glare that caused him to fall into a sullen silence.
After having lost Yuna in Guadosalam, Cid, Rikku and the airship had returned to Besaid to break the news that Yuna had been kidnapped. Apparently one of the Guado on the path to the Farplane had seen someone grab the High Summoner, but hadn't been fast enough to summon the guards to stop them.
Rikku was mostly immobilised by bandages around her midsection that were designed to keep her from moving more than anything, though there was a danger of reopening her wounds. Her body had been sealed with magic, but magic could only draw upon the body's existing resources, which had been severely depleted by the attack that had left her bleeding to death on the ground.
"The Guado weren't able to catch up to the kidnappers," Rikku said, fiddling with the end of a bandage that was peeking out underneath her top. "They don't know where they went."
Lulu's lips thinned and Wakka hung his head.
"We should never have let her come alone."
Rikku coughed loudly.
"Sorry," he said, only sounding slightly apologetic.
Rikku turned her attention back to her bandages, and was sure she had managed to hide the fact that she could feel tears beginning to build in her eyes. She had failed, both as a Guardian and a friend. She had failed as someone who had fought for her very life against the worst fiends known to Spira. She had been brought down by a single Guado with a knife, and worse, had allowed Yuna to be taken somewhere they had no knowledge of, by people who could have done anything to her.
Auron would have been ashamed of her.
"We need to find out who told the kidnappers where to find Yuna." Cid said, working through this logically from where he stood by the sphere that occupied the centre of the bridge. They had tried to use it to find Yuna, but whoever had taken from her had sent up false signals over half of the continent. It was impossible to locate Yuna alone.
It had to be someone whose reach spread far, and were organised enough to arrange things so efficiently and so quickly. There were few who met those criteria.
Rikku's lips pressed into a line. "Well it wasn't one of us. And it can't have been anyone on the airship. Any communications in and out of the ship are monitored. I checked."
Wakka shook his head. "Someone in Besaid then."
"But who? We told no one Yuna was going to Guadosalam."
Cid snorted. "Eavesdropping ain't exactly a new skill."
Lulu pursed her lips thoughtfully. "There have been many people seeking Yuna in the last weeks. It could perhaps have been any of them, coming to the hut and lurking around."
"'Cept the women woulda said something, ya? They'd see if a stranger were hanging around suspiciously. Ever since Yevon made trouble in Besaid, they're all really protective of her."
There was a silence, as the pair mulled it over under the watchful green swirled eyes of several Al-Bhed, before Lulu suddenly said,
"The healer."
Wakka look at the mage and nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yuna had to tell her she was going away, ya?"
Lulu nodded, turning it over in her mind and finding that it made sense.
Rikku straightened, frowning both in pain the motion caused her, and at her ignorance in the matter. "Healer?" She echoed. "Was Yunie sick or something?"
Lulu and Wakka exchanged a glance, one that left Lulu with the decision of whether to reveal Yuna's secrets. Lulu narrowed her eyes slightly before turning back to the girl. She had gained Yuna's permission to tell Wakka, but she could not betray her confidence, even if it was to Rikku, one of her Guardians.
"She had merely overexerted herself." Not a lie, but there was a definite omission of information. "She hadn't been eating properly."
Rikku nodded slowly, resettling herself. Lulu and Wakka exchanged another glance, which didn't go unnoticed by Cid, even if it did by his daughter.
"Better go speak to this healer," he instructed, "See if she went and blabbed to anyone, if Yuna told her she was leaving."
Lulu and Wakka, not very much inclined towards arguing with the Al-Bhed leader, stood and started to make their way to the back of the bridge. But Lulu stopped, turning back to Rikku as the girl made as if to follow. "You're staying here."
"What?" Rikku felt a lump form in her throat and tried to speak past it. "But-"
"You're injured," Lulu said, not unkindly, putting her hands on Rikku's shoulders and giving them a faint squeeze. "Stay here and recover. You cannot help us in Besaid, whereas Wakka and I know the village. Get some sleep, Rikku, we'll be back soon."
Rikku watched them go, ignored Brother's pitying looks, and removed herself from the bridge before she began to cry.
**
It was late evening, shading into the depths of night, as Lulu and Wakka walked through the main village on Besaid Island. Yuna had been taken around the middle of the day, Besaid time, and now it was hard to see, the only illumination being the stars and a few fireflies that were attracted to some of the plants of the village. Most had gone to bed, and all they could hear were their steps crunching on the soil.
"Where do we start looking?" Wakka asked in a whisper, even though if he had spoken louder he wouldn't have awoken anyone, since they were a fair distance from most huts, close to the Temple.
Lulu pointed to the Temple. "The healer's quarters are in there." Which made it the logical place to begin a search. Unfortunately, as they approached, they reached a rather insurmountable obstacle to opening the door.
It was locked.
Wakka frowned, pulled on the door to make sure it wasn't just sticking. The doors of the Temple had never been locked in the past. But there had been rumours that in some places, anti-Yevon sentiment had grown so high that they were breaking into Temples and desecrating the Sacred Symbols of the Church's authority, leaving only the statues of the Summoners who had sacrificed themselves untouched. Lulu had put it down to idle gossip, but apparently Yevon were taking it more seriously.
Lulu put a hand on his arm, shaking her head to stop him. "I think she has a windowed chamber," she said, beckoning him around the side of the Temple. "We can at least see if she's here."
It took some checking, and glancing into the rooms of several Acolytes, the High Priest, and a visiting cleric revealed nothing more than sleeping forms. Finally, they reached what Lulu thought had to be the healer's chambers, and standing on a plant pot, she was able to peer inside, and catch sight of the herbs and remedies that littered the chamber. The healer was, on the other hand, no where to be seen, and her bed was neatly made.
Lulu frowned, shaking her head as she lowered herself from standing on the pot. "She might have been called to Isalva or one of the stand-alone huts. Remember, this village is the only one to maintain a permanent healer. The rest shipped out to Kilika after Sin attacked, I think."
Wakka sighed. "So what do we do now? We don't want to go searching round Besaid at night."
Lulu nodded. While the fiends of Besaid weren't very dangerous, or particularly numerous, sometimes they used the cover of night to attack unwary travellers en masse. It was why it was always so important to maintain a watch and travel in groups if one were to pass the night in fiend-infested territories.
Wakka reached up to rub the back of his neck and Lulu didn't realise he was using the motion to hide moving closer until she heard him mutter, "Don't look now. But we're being watched."
Lulu's eyes widened, and she suppressed the instinct to glance around. "Where?"
"Behind you and to your right."
Lulu turned, trying to make the motion look casual, and, with Wakka not too far behind, started walking in that general direction, the hope being to get close enough to see who it was before they realised they had been spotted.
No such luck.
A dark shadow slipped in the spaces between huts, moving away quickly now it realised that Wakka and Lulu had noticed its presence.
"Hey!" Wakka called out.
The shadow let out a yelp, and tried to run for it, only to be halted when a lazy arm gesture from Lulu caused a fire spell to spring up in her path, illuminating her figure briefly. The two Guardians moved in quickly, blocking the female against the side of the seamstress's hut.
"You're Marta, aren't you?" Lulu said, narrowing her eyes at the girl, and didn't need the nod she received in confirmation to know who it was. "What are you doing, sneaking about at night listening to other people's conversations?"
"I heard voices!" Marta protested shakily, her eyes flickering from one to the other. "I thought it might be bandits. Some have attacked Isalva. It's why the Crusaders moved out of here the day before yesterday, remember?"
Lulu ignored the girl's excuse. "And you happened to stay around, lingering to listen, once you discovered whose voices you heard?" The girl wouldn't meet her eyes, and Lulu narrowed her eyes, the irises looking like slits of volcanic rock in her ire. "You've listened to us before, haven't you?"
Marta whimpered, and pressed herself backwards into the hut wall, doubtlessly trying to disappear.
"You told where Yuna was going!" Wakka suddenly said, loudly, and doubtlessly, Lulu thought, rousing half the village. "Who did you tell?" Marta shivered, but when Lulu raised her hand as if to call down another spell upon the girl, she seemed to reconsider her silence.
"I told the Priests," Marta admitted, her words slurred she spoke them so quickly.
The two Guardians exchanged a wordless glance.
Yevon.
"What did you tell them?" Wakka snapped, threateningly. "Huh?"
Marta quailed under the threat of imminent death, tripping over backwards as she stumbled to get away. She landed with an audible thud, but didn't pay any attention to the pain it must have caused her. "I didn't think it would do any harm!" she whispered, terrified. "I thought that the Priests would be so happy to hear of such a thing! Lady Yuna pregnant! It's a marvel."
Lulu grit her teeth, and the smell of ozone filled the air as a thunder spell dropped from above, to scorch a shrub not far from Marta's feet. The girl shrieked and scurried further away from the plant, as if doing so would protect her from further attacks. "I swear! All I said was that she was pregnant and-" Marta bit her lip.
"And?" Wakka prompted, angrily.
"I heard you talking about her going to the Farplane." Marta said, in a barely audible voice.
Wakka bent closer to the girl. "Yuna's been kidnapped, you know? They might have killed her, and it'd all be your fault!"
Marta, unable to take it any more, burst into tears, just preventing herself from collapsing onto the ground with one hand.
Lulu stood implacably above the sobbing girl, her arms folded. "Where is she, Marta?"
Marta shook her head, tears flinging themselves from her cheeks with the motion. "I don't know," she looked up, into Lulu's hard eyes, and flinched. "I swear!"
Lulu sighed and turned away, certain that the girl was telling the truth. She wasn't brave enough to lie in the face of death.
They left Marta sobbing on the ground, neither of them inclined to offer the girl any comfort, their thoughts filled with Yevon, and what they could have done with Yuna.
**
Rikku was standing at the docks, at the end of the gangway that had been extended from the airship to the jetty, awaiting their return. Lulu was gratified to note that someone had given the still-recovering girl a warm woollen wrap to protect her from the night's chill. It would not do to have her succumb to illness when she had only just been brought back from the brink of death. Lulu supposed they had been fortunate that Rikku hadn't followed them out and down to the village. Perhaps Rikku had been more seriously injured than they realised.
"We don't know where Yuna is," Lulu said, as she and Wakka drew close, "But we think that Yevon were the only ones who knew of her location. They must have taken-"
"Wait!"
It was Marta, and she was running up to them across the beach, her heeled boots sinking awkwardly into the sand and held something clutched to her chest. Lulu felt Wakka tense beside her, no doubt wondering as to the girl's motive. By the time that Marta entered range of the lights cast by the airship, it could be seen that she was clutching something that looked little more than an assortment of metal tubes.
"Here," Marta said, dully. Her eyes had lost their spark, and she looked like a girl who had just suffered a terrible blow.
She might have just caused Yuna's death, Lulu thought. As far as she was concerned, the girl had a right to feel guilty.
Marta extended her hands, and in them was held a Summoner's staff, its segments pulled apart and the fans at the head neatly twisted away. The collapsed staff was less than two feet in length, which made it much more transportable. Lulu had seen such an arrangement in Yuna's staffs, but had never been able to understand how her Summoner had been able to reforge the segments into a whole so quickly for battle.
Marta held it out, her eyes downcast. "My father is a Weaponsmith. He made this for me. It is imbued with the speed of Shiva, and eases the burden of the mage." She pressed her lips together. "Please take it for the High Summoner. For I have done such a thing that I can think of no other way I may begin to atone."
Rikku took the staff, while Wakka said, "At least you realise you did wrong."
Marta fled without looking back.
Rikku turned the staff over in her hands, looking at it and asked, "So, Yevon. Bevelle then?"
"Looks that way," said Wakka.
Lulu looked at the group. "I believe any attempt to recover Yuna from Bevelle must be made with more subtlety than our last."
"Yes," Rikku said, mournfully. "After all, we still haven't fixed the cables."
**
"... too many sleep spells... think you overdid it ..."
The voice that drifted through the strange dreams that engulfed her was familiar to Yuna, and she wanted to call out. She couldn't speak, though, her tongue felt too large for her mouth, too heavy and difficult to move. A cool sensation touched her forehead and moved down her cheek.
"... cumulative effect ... foolhardy and dangerous ..."
She wanted to tell them to be quiet, it was disturbing her sleep.
"... help her ... fulfil your task ... release you from your bond ..."
The voices faded, but the cool, soothing feeling remained, gently swiping across her brow. She wanted to thank whoever it was that was responsible, but instead fell into a deep, disturbed slumber.
- End of Part Eight
Part Eight: Legerdemain
**
Yuna wasn't sure how long she was kept blindfolded and secured. It was some indeterminate period of time, and there were curiously blank spots where she was sure her kidnappers had become tired of her attempts to escape and had simply cast a sleep spell upon her. She shuddered to think what the accumulation of magically induced fatigue in her body was doing to her.
She had been making her way back into Guadosalam proper when she heard her cousin scream, and it was like nothing that Yuna had heard with mortal ears before. But she had heard it in the Sending. It was the scream of a soul clinging to life in the face of its departure from this world. Yuna wondered if it was the proximity to the Farplane that brought memories of the Sendings of Sin's victims, and how their spirits had screamed thusly as they were forced by her dancing to let go, to move on, and how they regretted it.
Yuna nearly broke her ankle, she was sure, she turned so quickly.
She turned in time to see a Guado whose face she couldn't see, pulled the long, wicked knife he held upwards towards Rikku's ribs, and Yuna's heart leaped and she nearly screamed herself. She was without her magic enhancers, without the aides she had developed on the pilgrimage to help her, but she was still a powerful mage, and Yuna wasn't going to simply stand there and allow her friend to be killed.
She flung her arms wide, and called down a thunderbolt. The air darkened as Rikku toppled to the ground, and Yuna thought that she was dead. Even as the thunderbolt struck the Guado, she knew it would fail, and she cursed herself for not chosing a spell such as Flare that would have inflicted so much damage. Instead, the spell was absorbed by the armour that the Guado wore, grounded harmlessly, and she cursed, knowing she should have realised that he would be thus protected for passing through the nearby Thunder Plain. She draw in her breath and preparing to attack once more.
She did scream, then, as someone clapped a hand around her mouth and jerked her backwards, pressing a knife that was, from what she could see of it, not too dissimilar from the one the Guado was holding, to her throat.
"Osmose," murmured a husky voice in her ear, and Yuna cried out hoarsely as she felt her strength seep away into the one who held her, and she sagged in his arms.
The sound of the screaming and magic had brought the guards and other pilgrims to the Farplane running, and Yuna's assailant hauled her into a niche in the wall, hiding her from view as these newcomers charged past. Yuna knew they were all focussed on the Al-Bhed lying still as death in the middle of the pathway, her life's blood leaving her, and her assailant who was at that moment pushing his way through the crowd, brandishing his knife at anyone who came too close, and then he fled. Yuna lost sight of him before he turned the final corner of the path.
She started to struggle, and had the satisfaction of hearing a grunt of pain as he elbow connected with something vital, and then she heard that voice utter, "Sleep," in a sonorous tone, and her eyelids had drooped, until she lost consciousness entirely.
And eventually, after awakening and being forced to slumber in the same manner for however long it was, Yuna found herself being marched, blindfolded, along something whose floors were covered in thick plush carpet that muffled the sound of her own footsteps and what she thought were the footsteps of the two guards beside her. She had no way of knowing where she was, she had no idea how long it had taken to transport her to Guadosalam to wherever she was now.
There was the sound of a smooth swish of doorways, so smoothly that they had to be operated by machina. Somewhere Yevon controlled, Yuna decided. Or Al-Bhed. But it was most likely Yevon. Al-Bhed machina was functional, often loud and clunky as it operated, but Yevon's machina, aside from its weaponry, was discrete. The silence of the doors opening was proof of that.
Yuna wondered exactly why Yevon had seen fit to orchestrate her capture, then felt a smile crease her lips. Pointless to ask the question. She would soon find out. She felt a hand on her arm, roughly pushing her in a new direction, presumably through whatever door had just opened. She was manhandled to a stop, and the blindfold removed.
Yuna winced and kept her eyes closed as the light from which she had been kept assaulted them even through her lids. Only when her eyes adapted, and she felt able to deal with their painful reaction to the light, did she open her eyes a crack, and then a sliver, and then she looked about herself with half-lidded eyes.
The room was richly adorned in reds, whites and gold, though it was windowless and contained little furniture aside from a low bed, table and dresser. There were two guards, one on either side of her and warrior monks by the looks of them. One carried a machina weapon, and the other a katana.
Before her stood a woman, her skin thin and papery with age, laid over flesh no longer as firm as it once was, in robes so well tailored for her body that they bespoke her high status and rank within the Yevon church. Her hair was an icy white, bound into a plait that was tying into a neat bun at the crown of her head, and as such she was instantly recognisable.
"I know you," Yuna said, slowly, in a hoarse voice that seemed barely her own. "You were the High Priestess of Bevelle, I saw you at the meeting of the Yevon clergy."
"I am still Ismene, High Priestess of Bevelle, and I will thank you to remember that, Lady Yuna."
Yuna inclined her head gently in apology, though it was more out of the wish to keep the woman who had clearly orchestrated her capture appeased than out of politeness.
Ismene stood, walking around her, looking her up and down and Yuna felt uncomfortably akin to an animal at a farmer's fair. But she endured the scrutiny silently, glaring at the woman when she stopped before her again.
"Are you well? I trust that you were not harmed by those I sent to retreive you?"
Yuna couldn't deny, she felt rather groggy, as if she had overslept heavily, awakening suddenly from an all-too deep sleep. Not that she would admit this, so she simply shook her head. Ismene smiled thinly.
"Good, I would not have it said that Yevon are brutish."
"No," Yuna said, "It has only lied to the people for a millenium, holding a requirement that Summoners die in order to perpetuate death. But no, not brutish."
Ismene didn't look like she appreciated the sentiment. "You speak such words, Summoner, with little to no regard of the harm you cause Spira, that you cause Yevon. Foolish girl. A child who was lucky enough to strike a deathblow at the ancient enemy of the world."
"So why kidnap me?" Yuna asked, turning to follow the woman as she moved. The guards moved with her so that they remained on either side of her body. "If I am just a fortunate child, I am no threat to you, my words are just that: words alone. They are not great armies that I hold in sway, or use to conquer the world."
"Words can do remarkable harm, Summoner Yuna, I would have thought you would have realised that when you gave your speech to the people of Luca."
Yuna's mouth twisted, and though she knew it was childish in a way, she had to speak, to reassert her position, and throw Ismene's own phrasing back at her. "I am still /High/ Summoner, Priestess."
Ismene gave her a sour look in response.
"You are a traitor to Yevon, Summoner," Ismene said, distaste clear in her voice. "The people abandon us, and a thousand years of keeping Spira safe, on your say so. So we have a new task for you now, one you will accept whether you like it or not.
"A task for you, and the child you carry."
Yuna gasped, raising a hand protectively towards her stomach. "How do you know?" she demanded.
Ismene looked at her thoughtfully. "Yevon, even if it is only a shadow of its former glory, still has eyes and ears everywhere. Very little escapes our notice."
Yuna made a note to find the healer from Besaid and make her pay for having revealed such a secret, for she was the only one who could have known.
"What would Yevon want with a baby?" Yuna asked, horrified, recalling Wakka's question, as her mind struggled to comprehend things.
"Many things," Ismene smiled, the expression brittle. "The child of the High Summoner, and of the late Guado Maester. Why, to have such an infant extoling the teachings of Yevon would be wonderful for us."
Yuna stared at the Priestess with astonishment plain on her face. "But such a thing... it would take years!"
Ismene shrugged. "We are willing to wait. In the meantime, it would mean just as much, if not more for the High Summoner and Maester Seymour's wife were to support our cause."
"I will not cooperate."
Ismene's mouth twitched. "We thought as much."
"Seymour Guado, my husband or not, was a delusional man," Yuna continued, unable to bring herself to actively curse his name, even in death. "He believed that by destroying all of Spira, he would end our sorrow. I would not want to say much under the banner of his name if I were you."
The Priestess shrugged. "Well, in a way, he was right. You really don't sorrow much once you're dead."
"As one who has performed the Sending," Yuna said, a little sadly, "I know that is not so. The fiends who haunt Spira are not at peace, and refuse to find it on the Farplane. As did many of the former Maesters who once ruled your halls." She fixed Ismene with a stony gaze. "Are you also Unsent, Priestess?"
Ismene looked like she was thinking about laughing. "I accepted my own death a long time ago, High Summoner. I will not fight the call of the Farplane when my time comes." Then her expression hardened. "But my time has not yet come. So let you put aside your thoughts of Sending me."
"You cannot hold me here," Yuna said.
"And what, praytell, will you do to us? Summon an Aeon? Who shall it be? Bahamut? Valefor? Or did you perhaps inherit your late husband's Aeon, the Dark Aeon, Anima, as the rumours have said?"
"The Aeons," Yuna said quietly, "Are no more."
Ismene wrinkled her nose. "Pity," she said, "I would have liked to have seen it."
Yuna tried not to telegraph her thoughts, as what Auron had once said to her that came to mind. He had spoken the words to her as he and the other Guardians started to teach her the ways of fighting by hand after two separations where they had been unable to protect her. She had protested that she had her magic; her weapons were in her mind and woven in the ether, she said.
'You have your magic to protect you,' he had told her in response. 'But there are times when your magic will fail. And then you must be prepared.'
She silently thanked him, then turned and kicked the guard to her right in the groin.
Not having expected the attack from someone as apparently harmless as Yuna, especially in such a vulnerable area, the guard was somewhat surprised by the attack. He went down quickly, in time for Yuna to duck the swing of the weapon of his counterpart to her left. She straightened and turned in one fluid motion, pushing his weapon to deflect it off course as he whirled back towards her, kicking him in the stomach, before wrenching the machina weapon out of his hands and leaving him without any support to stop his fall to the floor.
Ismene had started to back away, and looked as if she was seriously regretting having only two guards stationed in the room. Yuna ignored the groaning guards, bringing the weapon to bear on the High Priestess.
Ismene looked from the barrel of the weapon to Yuna's face. It was obvious that Yuna was unskilled with the machina weapon, and only the vaguest idea of how to go about using it. But standing barely a foot away from the High Priestess, she didn't even need to be very accurate.
Ismene regarded her calmly. "You would kill me?"
Yuna's grip on the weapon didn't falter. "You wouldn't be the first person I've killed."
Ismene's eyes narrowed faintly, thoughtfully. "No. I suppose I wouldn't be."
Yuna heard the muttering and felt the gathering of strength before she caught sight of the warrior monk she had previously floored clenching his fist and glaring at her out of her corner of her eye.
Yuna hurriedly started running through the spell for a protective shield. It had come to the point where she no longer needed to utter the full chant of a spell in order to enact it, instead she only needed to line it up in her own mind, loosing it quickly and effectively.
The shell snapped into place around her body with a flash of fuschia light that briefly obscured all around her, but the mental effort involved in spellcasting with such low reserves had dulled her reflexes; she tried to duck out of the way of the monk's blade, but the flat of it caught her leg regardless.
He hadn't been aiming to injure her, but the impact was enough to overcome the shell with physical contact. The sleep spell spread quickly through her body, causing her limbs to grow heavy. In front of her Ismene snatched the weapon she'd been holding out of her hands with suprising strength as Yuna collapsed, insensate, on the floor, missing her guardians and her friends more than ever before.
**
"You let them take Yuna?"
Rikku glared at Wakka from where she was gingerly perched on a console seat on the bridge of the Al-Bhed airship. "Yes, Wakka. I did. I even asked if I could be stabbed so that someone could grab Yuna in the confusion."
Wakka looked like he would have continued to rail at the girl, except that Lulu gave him a glare that caused him to fall into a sullen silence.
After having lost Yuna in Guadosalam, Cid, Rikku and the airship had returned to Besaid to break the news that Yuna had been kidnapped. Apparently one of the Guado on the path to the Farplane had seen someone grab the High Summoner, but hadn't been fast enough to summon the guards to stop them.
Rikku was mostly immobilised by bandages around her midsection that were designed to keep her from moving more than anything, though there was a danger of reopening her wounds. Her body had been sealed with magic, but magic could only draw upon the body's existing resources, which had been severely depleted by the attack that had left her bleeding to death on the ground.
"The Guado weren't able to catch up to the kidnappers," Rikku said, fiddling with the end of a bandage that was peeking out underneath her top. "They don't know where they went."
Lulu's lips thinned and Wakka hung his head.
"We should never have let her come alone."
Rikku coughed loudly.
"Sorry," he said, only sounding slightly apologetic.
Rikku turned her attention back to her bandages, and was sure she had managed to hide the fact that she could feel tears beginning to build in her eyes. She had failed, both as a Guardian and a friend. She had failed as someone who had fought for her very life against the worst fiends known to Spira. She had been brought down by a single Guado with a knife, and worse, had allowed Yuna to be taken somewhere they had no knowledge of, by people who could have done anything to her.
Auron would have been ashamed of her.
"We need to find out who told the kidnappers where to find Yuna." Cid said, working through this logically from where he stood by the sphere that occupied the centre of the bridge. They had tried to use it to find Yuna, but whoever had taken from her had sent up false signals over half of the continent. It was impossible to locate Yuna alone.
It had to be someone whose reach spread far, and were organised enough to arrange things so efficiently and so quickly. There were few who met those criteria.
Rikku's lips pressed into a line. "Well it wasn't one of us. And it can't have been anyone on the airship. Any communications in and out of the ship are monitored. I checked."
Wakka shook his head. "Someone in Besaid then."
"But who? We told no one Yuna was going to Guadosalam."
Cid snorted. "Eavesdropping ain't exactly a new skill."
Lulu pursed her lips thoughtfully. "There have been many people seeking Yuna in the last weeks. It could perhaps have been any of them, coming to the hut and lurking around."
"'Cept the women woulda said something, ya? They'd see if a stranger were hanging around suspiciously. Ever since Yevon made trouble in Besaid, they're all really protective of her."
There was a silence, as the pair mulled it over under the watchful green swirled eyes of several Al-Bhed, before Lulu suddenly said,
"The healer."
Wakka look at the mage and nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yuna had to tell her she was going away, ya?"
Lulu nodded, turning it over in her mind and finding that it made sense.
Rikku straightened, frowning both in pain the motion caused her, and at her ignorance in the matter. "Healer?" She echoed. "Was Yunie sick or something?"
Lulu and Wakka exchanged a glance, one that left Lulu with the decision of whether to reveal Yuna's secrets. Lulu narrowed her eyes slightly before turning back to the girl. She had gained Yuna's permission to tell Wakka, but she could not betray her confidence, even if it was to Rikku, one of her Guardians.
"She had merely overexerted herself." Not a lie, but there was a definite omission of information. "She hadn't been eating properly."
Rikku nodded slowly, resettling herself. Lulu and Wakka exchanged another glance, which didn't go unnoticed by Cid, even if it did by his daughter.
"Better go speak to this healer," he instructed, "See if she went and blabbed to anyone, if Yuna told her she was leaving."
Lulu and Wakka, not very much inclined towards arguing with the Al-Bhed leader, stood and started to make their way to the back of the bridge. But Lulu stopped, turning back to Rikku as the girl made as if to follow. "You're staying here."
"What?" Rikku felt a lump form in her throat and tried to speak past it. "But-"
"You're injured," Lulu said, not unkindly, putting her hands on Rikku's shoulders and giving them a faint squeeze. "Stay here and recover. You cannot help us in Besaid, whereas Wakka and I know the village. Get some sleep, Rikku, we'll be back soon."
Rikku watched them go, ignored Brother's pitying looks, and removed herself from the bridge before she began to cry.
**
It was late evening, shading into the depths of night, as Lulu and Wakka walked through the main village on Besaid Island. Yuna had been taken around the middle of the day, Besaid time, and now it was hard to see, the only illumination being the stars and a few fireflies that were attracted to some of the plants of the village. Most had gone to bed, and all they could hear were their steps crunching on the soil.
"Where do we start looking?" Wakka asked in a whisper, even though if he had spoken louder he wouldn't have awoken anyone, since they were a fair distance from most huts, close to the Temple.
Lulu pointed to the Temple. "The healer's quarters are in there." Which made it the logical place to begin a search. Unfortunately, as they approached, they reached a rather insurmountable obstacle to opening the door.
It was locked.
Wakka frowned, pulled on the door to make sure it wasn't just sticking. The doors of the Temple had never been locked in the past. But there had been rumours that in some places, anti-Yevon sentiment had grown so high that they were breaking into Temples and desecrating the Sacred Symbols of the Church's authority, leaving only the statues of the Summoners who had sacrificed themselves untouched. Lulu had put it down to idle gossip, but apparently Yevon were taking it more seriously.
Lulu put a hand on his arm, shaking her head to stop him. "I think she has a windowed chamber," she said, beckoning him around the side of the Temple. "We can at least see if she's here."
It took some checking, and glancing into the rooms of several Acolytes, the High Priest, and a visiting cleric revealed nothing more than sleeping forms. Finally, they reached what Lulu thought had to be the healer's chambers, and standing on a plant pot, she was able to peer inside, and catch sight of the herbs and remedies that littered the chamber. The healer was, on the other hand, no where to be seen, and her bed was neatly made.
Lulu frowned, shaking her head as she lowered herself from standing on the pot. "She might have been called to Isalva or one of the stand-alone huts. Remember, this village is the only one to maintain a permanent healer. The rest shipped out to Kilika after Sin attacked, I think."
Wakka sighed. "So what do we do now? We don't want to go searching round Besaid at night."
Lulu nodded. While the fiends of Besaid weren't very dangerous, or particularly numerous, sometimes they used the cover of night to attack unwary travellers en masse. It was why it was always so important to maintain a watch and travel in groups if one were to pass the night in fiend-infested territories.
Wakka reached up to rub the back of his neck and Lulu didn't realise he was using the motion to hide moving closer until she heard him mutter, "Don't look now. But we're being watched."
Lulu's eyes widened, and she suppressed the instinct to glance around. "Where?"
"Behind you and to your right."
Lulu turned, trying to make the motion look casual, and, with Wakka not too far behind, started walking in that general direction, the hope being to get close enough to see who it was before they realised they had been spotted.
No such luck.
A dark shadow slipped in the spaces between huts, moving away quickly now it realised that Wakka and Lulu had noticed its presence.
"Hey!" Wakka called out.
The shadow let out a yelp, and tried to run for it, only to be halted when a lazy arm gesture from Lulu caused a fire spell to spring up in her path, illuminating her figure briefly. The two Guardians moved in quickly, blocking the female against the side of the seamstress's hut.
"You're Marta, aren't you?" Lulu said, narrowing her eyes at the girl, and didn't need the nod she received in confirmation to know who it was. "What are you doing, sneaking about at night listening to other people's conversations?"
"I heard voices!" Marta protested shakily, her eyes flickering from one to the other. "I thought it might be bandits. Some have attacked Isalva. It's why the Crusaders moved out of here the day before yesterday, remember?"
Lulu ignored the girl's excuse. "And you happened to stay around, lingering to listen, once you discovered whose voices you heard?" The girl wouldn't meet her eyes, and Lulu narrowed her eyes, the irises looking like slits of volcanic rock in her ire. "You've listened to us before, haven't you?"
Marta whimpered, and pressed herself backwards into the hut wall, doubtlessly trying to disappear.
"You told where Yuna was going!" Wakka suddenly said, loudly, and doubtlessly, Lulu thought, rousing half the village. "Who did you tell?" Marta shivered, but when Lulu raised her hand as if to call down another spell upon the girl, she seemed to reconsider her silence.
"I told the Priests," Marta admitted, her words slurred she spoke them so quickly.
The two Guardians exchanged a wordless glance.
Yevon.
"What did you tell them?" Wakka snapped, threateningly. "Huh?"
Marta quailed under the threat of imminent death, tripping over backwards as she stumbled to get away. She landed with an audible thud, but didn't pay any attention to the pain it must have caused her. "I didn't think it would do any harm!" she whispered, terrified. "I thought that the Priests would be so happy to hear of such a thing! Lady Yuna pregnant! It's a marvel."
Lulu grit her teeth, and the smell of ozone filled the air as a thunder spell dropped from above, to scorch a shrub not far from Marta's feet. The girl shrieked and scurried further away from the plant, as if doing so would protect her from further attacks. "I swear! All I said was that she was pregnant and-" Marta bit her lip.
"And?" Wakka prompted, angrily.
"I heard you talking about her going to the Farplane." Marta said, in a barely audible voice.
Wakka bent closer to the girl. "Yuna's been kidnapped, you know? They might have killed her, and it'd all be your fault!"
Marta, unable to take it any more, burst into tears, just preventing herself from collapsing onto the ground with one hand.
Lulu stood implacably above the sobbing girl, her arms folded. "Where is she, Marta?"
Marta shook her head, tears flinging themselves from her cheeks with the motion. "I don't know," she looked up, into Lulu's hard eyes, and flinched. "I swear!"
Lulu sighed and turned away, certain that the girl was telling the truth. She wasn't brave enough to lie in the face of death.
They left Marta sobbing on the ground, neither of them inclined to offer the girl any comfort, their thoughts filled with Yevon, and what they could have done with Yuna.
**
Rikku was standing at the docks, at the end of the gangway that had been extended from the airship to the jetty, awaiting their return. Lulu was gratified to note that someone had given the still-recovering girl a warm woollen wrap to protect her from the night's chill. It would not do to have her succumb to illness when she had only just been brought back from the brink of death. Lulu supposed they had been fortunate that Rikku hadn't followed them out and down to the village. Perhaps Rikku had been more seriously injured than they realised.
"We don't know where Yuna is," Lulu said, as she and Wakka drew close, "But we think that Yevon were the only ones who knew of her location. They must have taken-"
"Wait!"
It was Marta, and she was running up to them across the beach, her heeled boots sinking awkwardly into the sand and held something clutched to her chest. Lulu felt Wakka tense beside her, no doubt wondering as to the girl's motive. By the time that Marta entered range of the lights cast by the airship, it could be seen that she was clutching something that looked little more than an assortment of metal tubes.
"Here," Marta said, dully. Her eyes had lost their spark, and she looked like a girl who had just suffered a terrible blow.
She might have just caused Yuna's death, Lulu thought. As far as she was concerned, the girl had a right to feel guilty.
Marta extended her hands, and in them was held a Summoner's staff, its segments pulled apart and the fans at the head neatly twisted away. The collapsed staff was less than two feet in length, which made it much more transportable. Lulu had seen such an arrangement in Yuna's staffs, but had never been able to understand how her Summoner had been able to reforge the segments into a whole so quickly for battle.
Marta held it out, her eyes downcast. "My father is a Weaponsmith. He made this for me. It is imbued with the speed of Shiva, and eases the burden of the mage." She pressed her lips together. "Please take it for the High Summoner. For I have done such a thing that I can think of no other way I may begin to atone."
Rikku took the staff, while Wakka said, "At least you realise you did wrong."
Marta fled without looking back.
Rikku turned the staff over in her hands, looking at it and asked, "So, Yevon. Bevelle then?"
"Looks that way," said Wakka.
Lulu looked at the group. "I believe any attempt to recover Yuna from Bevelle must be made with more subtlety than our last."
"Yes," Rikku said, mournfully. "After all, we still haven't fixed the cables."
**
"... too many sleep spells... think you overdid it ..."
The voice that drifted through the strange dreams that engulfed her was familiar to Yuna, and she wanted to call out. She couldn't speak, though, her tongue felt too large for her mouth, too heavy and difficult to move. A cool sensation touched her forehead and moved down her cheek.
"... cumulative effect ... foolhardy and dangerous ..."
She wanted to tell them to be quiet, it was disturbing her sleep.
"... help her ... fulfil your task ... release you from your bond ..."
The voices faded, but the cool, soothing feeling remained, gently swiping across her brow. She wanted to thank whoever it was that was responsible, but instead fell into a deep, disturbed slumber.
- End of Part Eight