Vegnagun.

What in the Fayth's name is that?

I have heard no reference to such a word before. Not in the records I have studied, both in the libraries open to the Lustrum and those that are not. The word does sound Bevelle-born, but not in a fashion that has been at all common for the several hundred years, at least. Does it reference a priest? A dungeon? Perhaps a construction, or a fiend, one that was working with the blonde demon that the Squad encountered while at the Den.

A construction.

I remember.

Embarrassing to repeat the word, stamp my ignorance in stone even further. I hold my tongue. Trema can already guess that I am uncertain. Silence stretches on between the both of us; with no other option available, I shift my weight on my feet and wait for the Founder to elaborate.

He does eventually, after watching my face with all the attention of a Mi'ihen mousehawk.

"Vegnagun is a machina weapon." For once, the pause on the part of the Founder is not fleshed out by a humming of his throat. "There are more words for what it is, what its nature involves, but it is a tool of destruction. It can be turned to nothing else. Regrettable, that it cannot be adapted to be brought into the present," Trema continues, voicing a ponderous sigh that I suspect is not sincere, "but it, too, is a memory that should be erased. No good can come of it so long as the hearts of Spira's people remain willing to destroy one another."

A machina. Yes. My eyes close; the past plays out on the darkened canvas of my lids, and I see the constructed beast once more in my mind. At first, I had thought the creature to be a fiend. The scale was too vast to be otherwise, too immense despite the tubing fed into the plated skull, the ribbed bands bundled together to feed various fluids into mechanical parts. The only comparable structures would be things like the infamous Al Bhed airship.

But it moved. Like an animal, reacted to whatever vision we had been a part of as if it was alive. It operated without a visible handler. No airship could do that. No airship should.

A living machina. Was that even possible?

"It is... inconvenient for knowledge of Vegnagun to be so easily handed out by a fiend, much like a man passing sweetcakes to children on festival days." Trema's offense at the concept is a gentleman's scorn; he speaks politely of the breaches of his personal taste. "Regrettably... the Squad was unable to entirely succeed with its appointed task. Very little information was recorded. The fiend was not fully banished. Such a disappointment."

I ignore the slight against the deceased Teams. Leaping to their defense will help no one, least of all them. "Was that... thing actually inside the Den?" I taste the word of Vegnagun again in my mind; I do not dare voice it myself yet. The idea of something that big physically burrowing around is nothing short of astounding. How could it have fit? "Where is it now?"

"And if I told you such a thing?" Trema's eyes are sharp upon me. I am no field-mouse for him to hunt, but there are no doubts in me that he considers me just as small. "What would you do with, hm, a weapon that vast? Would you try to destroy it? Take vengeance for your fallen, mm... comrades?"

Humming again. The verbal tic of the Founder has returned; I ignore it, listen to the words despite the way the sounds lull my nerves to docility. "No."

"No?"

Now my brain and my mouth are operating in smooth tandem. None of this touches my voice. That can remain uncertain, stumble as if I were an acolyte far more honest than the both of us know I really am. "I just... wanted to know. I wanted to understand. At first it was because I didn't know why Yevon wanted to kill us for it, but if we were meant for death all along then... why? What is this Vegnagun? What was so important that even the knowledge of it is worth... worth killing, worth destroying whole Teams of people without us even being told the real reasons for our deaths?"

In the process of speaking this, my composure moves from indifferent to disbelieving. I know I cannot expect anything less from Yevon. Realistically, there is no reason for me to feel betrayed; I know this, and yet that does nothing to quell the despair still lingering in my heart.

Reminder of the Den did enough to open wounds that have never fully healed.

Fiend-scars never do, some superstitions claim.

I do not count on Yevon for fairness. Not ever since I was old enough to have Bevelle's games branded in my blood have I ever had the illusion that the temples were anything but honest, but this revelation strikes a place in me I thought had been trained out of idealism.

It is because of the Squad that I learned to finally see. So many ways, I had been blind before. Now I cannot close my eyes to the same duplicities I knew existed before, knew were there all along and yet didn't bother me until now. I cannot return to the past.

No matter how much I wish I could.

Recognition of this motivates my next words to Trema. "What is Vegnagun? You said that there was more to the story than that. If it is... was, whichever it is, but if it is a machina, who built it? Why is it still a threat? Why can it not be dismantled? Is Bevelle retaining it for a reason?"

Conversation turns full center. Trema may have explained to me parts of this earlier, but none of it comes together; I cannot string the whole situation into a form that I can use, let alone understand entirely.

"Vegnagun is a memory," the Founder repeats dolefully. "A relic of the past that we cannot escape. That is all you need to know."

"I'm afraid you'll understand that isn't enough."

Heaviness floods the room. The air of Trema's study is already thick with must and grief, lit by the stories of other people's lives in crate-bound spheres. Now it trebles its weight to press down upon my shoulders and neck. Either my own blood is thickening in my veins in an attempt to save me from misspeaking further, or there is spellcraft at work.

Bones sing pain in my arm. They whisper recognition to me; this is the same energy gathering that Trema used upon me once already. This time, I do not know if he will spare me for later.

A year's work could not retract the polite retort I have laid out for Trema, as if I were the one in command, and he my subordinate. Damn.

"Is this what you want, Baralai?" Withered fingers curl and uncurl upon the orb the Founder displays on his desk, stroking the smooth surface like a musician. "To be free of your questions, so that you will not linger after death in search for your answer... mm, refusing even the help of a Sending?" Menace comes sleeker than it should in an old man's voice. "Why, if that is the case... informing you would certainly serve to keep you from lingering as an Unsent once you finally pass away. Is that all it would take to solve your mystery? Most do not die so easily, Baralai." Trema's hand curls around the sphere. Red light melts the edges of his knuckles, fuses them translucent in the record's glow. "I dare say you might not even need a Summoner. You should be pleased."

By rights, I could be frightened by this. Pleasant words from the Founder's voice deem me dead and Sent already; others might be, in my place, but there is an emptiness in my soul that resounds with three syllables meaning Crimson Squad. The numbness is insulative. I let it fill me, and in that silence I can better concentrate on what to do.

I take a careful step away from the door. Unaware, I have been leaning against it long enough that the imprints of the carved Fayth have embedded their outlines into my palms. "My life is not so simple as that, my lord." Please do not kill me. "There is someone else who knows about this machina weapon, someone who is not of the priests. He is looking for it even as we speak."

Now I am standing in the middle of the study, in the center of the tattooed rug which stretches its embroidered patterns around me like a ritual. I do not glance down. "When I first returned to Bevelle, it was because I wanted to know about what had happened in the Squad, but also because I knew I had to secure that information away. I have no desire to use this... Vegnagun as a weapon, but I can make no guarantees about him. He has already tried to kill his own friends once in order to preserve his search. I assure you, that will be the least of his methods."

Trema's interest is caught. I can see it in how he lifts his head an inch, like a fish having been caressed by the hook. The invisible pressure of the air eases. "Oh? And who, mm... who was this?"

"You can guess." Now I am the one staring back at Trema, looking hard at his eyes with no vulnerability in my own. "It was Nooj."

Silence. Finally, a single noise from the Founder. "Ah."

Bevelle duplicity remains well within my instincts. Having found my emotional center once more and banished the feelings of the Squad, I find such senses work for me as obediently as ever. My deliverance of the Deathseeker's name is an offering of information to Trema. Nooj still retains a price on his head; no longer in gil, but in the currency of politics.

Much like my willingness to deal with Seymour in the same manner, there is no guilt here. I have already seen how Nooj is more than eager to betray me first.

The Founder sits back in his chair with a sigh.

I take the preemptive opportunity, speak first. "I know Nooj. I also know just how capable he is in infiltrating a person's trust. He was willing to murder those who put their faith in him once already, and I have no doubts that he will do this again."

A dry chuckle rises from the Founder. "And would you like me to believe that I should... ah, trust you," and those two words are placed as delicately as game pieces on a jeweled board, "more than I should Mi'ihen's Deathseeker? You, who have already falsified your position within the Lustrum? Oh, I know you have no business here, mm, Baralai," Trema adds, turning the advantage back towards him as deftly as a master. "None of the priests have yet dared risk claiming you as their own. They are too afraid to investigate. On my part... I have been waiting to see, mm, when you will expose your hand."

Fire flares in my arm once more as Trema says that last word; this, too, is only memory, a leftover echo of what happened between us the last we met. I tell myself this. Discipline forces my hand to stop aching. I tell myself this, and then I repeat it twice for good measure.

If Trema notices my wincing, he does not let it alter his satisfaction.

"And now you have, Baralai. So, tell me... why should I trust you any more than, mm, the Deathseeker? Are you vying for his title by being so daring in the heart of Bevelle itself? Do you think you can yet overcome death, to be so frivolous with your life?"

I resist the change in position from attacker to defense. I will have my victory. "No. It's up to you which one of us you believe more, but I have a better idea of Nooj's behavior and how he tends to plan. Also," and this statement is entirely too calm for its own good, "you have more of a secure hold upon me than you do Nooj. You can count on that."

Trema knows of the reason I speak. His eyes betray him this time; they flick down to the Crimson Sphere in his grasp. Then they move back to me. Just in time to keep me from entirely hiding the small smile.

He is more experienced than I am. His expression remains steady, unchanged, for all that his ancient's voice turns wry in slant mockery. "Using your past as incentive to keep you in line? That is hardly, mm, a solid basis to build a working relationship on, Baralai."

"That was what you used to bring me here." Now the weight of the room has returned to normal. I square my shoulders. "Didn't I come?"

Never planning for this day would have proven me a fool. I have built numerous courses of action in the event that a priest would find evidence upon me and so try to twist my loyalties to their hand; having the Founder himself involved was not a case I estimated for, but it is not impossible to surmount. Bevelle speaks in this language best.

Blackmail. We all know its cant, just as well as we know that betrayals are sure to follow in any such partnership.

Trema is aware of this as well. If he keeps me in such a manner, it will only be a matter of time before I find a way to unseat him. Unless he kills me first, sells me to another; the only question will be when, not if.

"Was that the truth of why you answered my summons, Baralai?" Staccato patter of fingertips. The Founder is drumming his fingers on the desk, having moved his hand away from the Crimson Sphere. His voice is slow. Thoughtful. "Are you that chained to your past? You must have learned nothing from what I have been telling you. Spira's secrets should be forgotten. Those who cling to their memories," and here he waves imperiously to the sphere, then to the room itself with all its boxes and tomes, "will only be dragged down by them, ever chasing the dead. Why, just look at how long it took us to defeat Sin. In the end, it was the one Summoner who chose to escape the ways of the past who freed us. She was the one who finally realized the way to break the cycle. If not for her... we would, mm, still be languishing in our own self-imposed chains, unable to see the future clearly from the biases of our past."

Rare to find a priest who decries Yevon so neatly, considering the habits of tradition. Even more rare to discover that Trema is in such a camp. "Was that how Lady Yuna won?"

"She knew the path to power." His hand returns to the orb, rolls over it. Unbidden, I recall the voices of my Team to me. Gippal sitting on the rail of the ship, laughing. Nooj, hitting him with a cane. I only once saw the sphere that Trema took from me, the images exposing themselves across the meeting hall, but the experience was mine to replay any time I wished.

Gippal talking about the Maesters. Thoughts about what we would do after the Squad. Nooj, plotting and planning for advance tactics once we made land.

Paine telling me I haven't changed at all.

I am torn between watching the Founder for miniscule changes in his facial muscles, and looking back down at the Crimson Sphere as it glimmers on the desk. Light simmers in those ruddy depths. Paine's eyes do the same thing at sunset; realizing I am thinking of her again, I wrest my full attention back to Trema. "Do you mean I shouldn't care about the sphere anymore?"

An easy question to say. My stomach lurches after I phrase it.

Such an idea causes the Founder no end of amusement. "You mm, seem to think that New Yevon is the same as the old, Baralai. That we are operating on the same standards. Unsurprising." Trema coughs a laugh up through his nose. "You would do well to study the example of the Lady Yuna. She knew that only a person willing to abandon everything can achieve anything. The other priests... hm, they do not realize this. But they will. I plan to have them discover this, in time. New Yevon will succeed even if tradition itself balks. Do not let yourself be dragged down with it."

Treason is a word marked out of the Bevelle dictionary. Other priests have planned the same or worse, and rarely has it been a surprise to the more cynical. I would be foolish to assume that I have been allowed in Trema's confidence so neatly; for all I know, this line of conversation could similarly be bait.

Unfortunately, the Founder's vocal patterns have returned to winding themselves like a cord around bannerpoles; I sort through the directions he twists, finally resorting to an attempt to bring the conversation back towards me. "The Lady Yuna chose to leave her faith, my lord. Haven't I done the same already? If she kept her Guardians by her side, then what is the harm in me retaining a sphere?"

"You want it back because it is a threat." Slicing through the oblique feint of my words, Trema's maudlin ramblings sharpen themselves back to acuity. "Will you risk your future because you cannot release your own sentimentalism, Baralai? Or do you want your freedom from it, forever?"

Implications again that I will not have the sphere returned. I fight down the gritting of my teeth. For all the vague lessons that Trema seems intent on testing me against, I do not think I care about passing his exam. We have both talked ourselves in circles. The rotations seem narrower each time; if I am truly trapped, I would rather an idea of the conditions so I can begin research on ways to break them.

Silence measures itself out between us like grains of sand on an alchemist's scale. Finally, Trema realizes I will say nothing, can say nothing. There is no option that I can see other than to agree to his possession of the Crimson Sphere or to request it back. All the bargains in the world cannot change that.

A long-suffering exhalation from the Founder sounds like so many dead twigs stirred in a storm. Trema might pass himself off as a patient tutor, but I have remained obtuse. "Power, Baralai. Power will come to those who are able to free themselves. Watch."

All this time and Trema has continued to pet the Crimson Sphere. I am surprised he has not left sweat-trails on the orb by now, rubbing his palm over the surface in meditative action. Now he stills his hand. Focuses on the ruby record; the trigger for playback is just below his thumb, but Trema does not move to press it.

I am not sure what he means to do, but I think I do not like it already.

With expression intent, the Founder closes his grasp. I expect to see his knuckles whiten on the impenetrable surface of the sphere. Instead, the gnarled fingers pass through the surface of the crystal as neatly as if inserting themselves into a container of jelly, congealed pyreflies within beginning to ooze out through the puncture wounds.

They spill out like the broken yolk of a rainbow egg. Color leaks from the puddles to shine across the room. Trema levers his wrist down, forcing his palm further into the heart of the orb until he is touching the center of the spidering light that crawls over the record from within.

I am watching Trema stick his entire hand into a sphere.

Then I realize he has just thrust his fingers into the record of my private memories, and I think about being sick.

Pyreflies stream out in banners from the wounded orb, dancing in spark-madness across the enclosure of the room. They ripple around me where I stand on the circle-stamped rug; in the flashes of their light, I see the story imprinted upon them played one last time. The ocean laps itself across the study floor. Nooj's cane makes rhythmical thumps upon salt-soaked wood. Gippal is looking at me, laughing, his voice mixing with Paine's as the figures take translucent life and repeat their tale in a single, dying flare.

Nooj vanishes first. Gippal next, melting away with the ship as it dissolves. I think I call out their names, but cannot distinguish my voice from the one on playback. Gippal fades away. Then there is only the recorder of our Team left, leather in the night, hair short and bangs stiffened so that they will not get in the way of her work.

She looks at me. She says something, something I cannot hear because I am reaching out my hand to try and grab her, keep her from leaving too.

I shove my fingers into her stomach and Paine disappears.

The pyreflies are gone. Not even the shell of the sphere remains in Trema's hand; the Founder's fingers make an empty circle upon the desk. Gravity has implanted rocks in my gut. I cannot have witnessed what I thought I did. Spheres are supposed to last forever, even if the quality of their images decrease. A person cannot just place their fist inside one.

Never have I seen one so casually destroyed.

The Founder is talking through my stunned haze. Eventually I remember that he, too, is real, and not some spirit-hallucination brought on by broken feedback loops. "Do you see your chance for freedom now, Baralai?"

"Yes." I hear my own voice answering, a dry-lipped whisper of dread. I do not know why I answer Trema. All I can think of is the sight of pyreflies dispersing out of the shards of what was once my past.

Gone. Just like that. Vanishing into nothingness, never to be recovered again.

Trema's voice is a patient litany. "Will you follow the path of Lady Yuna, and choose to leave your history behind?"

Memories dissolving into thin air, or dead bodies on the breeze. I cannot think.

"Yes."

"Good." Trema's voice is as satisfied as paper pages rubbed together, turned by scholars. His tongue must be as dry as a table of contents.

Suddenly the study is cramped again, the air hot as an oversized coffin. Stuffy. I break myself out of my own trance by force. Take a step back, remember that the door is no longer directly behind me.

To my credit, I do not stumble. Much.

"You are not yet ready to learn the nature of the beast you seek, Baralai. That might yet change with time. Indeed," the Founder continues, musing his words out like a drowsy poet, "with time. We shall see upon this. Until then, however, we must find something to do with you."

There is no answer I can give, even if this was my place in all formality to speak. Convenient that it is not. I do not trust myself to do more than replay the last few minutes in my mind, watch the sphere crumble apart and put itself back together once more in rewind.

"I have no acolyte to, mm... task. As I understand it, you have no priest currently assigning you. This will change." Trema takes my shock well in stride, and advantage to place orders upon me while I cannot protest. "After all, who else should I count upon to keep a Lustrum like you in line, other than myself? Now go." Flat dismissal. "I will have your assignments sent to you."

The twisting forms of the Fayth touch my fingers as I backpedal automatically, fumble behind me for the door, and then shove it open hastily. I throw it closed as soon as I have exited. Safety consists of a barrier of wood between myself and the Founder. Why does it not feel like enough?

Rampart air embraces me when I stumble out onto the balcony walkway and begin the slow descent around the tower. The winter is brisk, restorative. In the time it took for Trema to speak with me, the clouds have already congealed, thick and white in a slate grey sky; a blizzard storm might be on the way at this rate, one that would leave the priests scuttling between halls and weigh the lifts down heavy.

Panic goads me. The emotion is an afterthought, a slow beast waking to nip at my heels now that I am no longer under the spell of the Founder. I need to get away. I want to flee the tower as soon as I am able. One knee is protesting from its previous spill onto the stones, and then I am slipping again, grabbing for the balcony rail to steady myself.

Rather than try to pitch myself headlong down the stairs, I lean against the railing for support. Breathe. Attempt to recover my wits, what little I have left. It comes as no surprise that the Founder would know the truth of the Crimson Squad, but never did I think I would have the answer to my search presented in such a fashion.

The Founder has set the lure of my quest before me. Now he waits to see if I will reach out to take it, so that he can snap my hand off at the wrist.

Vegnagun. Spheres. Offers of work that the other priests would certainly not question. Records destroyed so casually, so permanently, in a manner that keeps them from ever being used against me again; the temptation of such a way out of the trap of my past is enough to dizzy me. No one would question what I do if the Founder himself was known to be my priest, and I his Lustrum aide.

Trema has dangled the keys to all the locks before my nose, and I want to snatch them from his grasp.

But what price?

Am I a creature owned, as surely as Gella? Will I, too, be unable to walk to my full stride, wrapped in the vestments my priest desires? Am I truly prepared to face down Nooj if the opportunity presents itself?

And where is Paine?

Trema's voice worms its way into my thoughts, whispering of the past and of power. I look down over the temples. I think of red on snow.