A CHRISTMAS FUGUE
STAVE IV: THE FINAL SPIRIT AND THE END OF IT
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come stood perfectly still, so frozen that Kraden wondered if it had been caught by the icy wind, or if maybe it was just a shadow in his imagination. That hopeful thought was crushed quickly when purple and amber lights -ones that he had thought were just decorations on trees- swirled together into a pair of Djinn on the figure's cloaked shoulders. Kraden was almost happy to see them, since he knew they would speak incessantly, and that would take his mind off troubles.
Naturally, they did not. On closer inspection, he guessed that they were Gasp and Bane. Just in case he didn't feel as though his life was at risk already.
"Spirit," said Kraden, "I fear you most of all, but I have learned much from your fellows. I am willing to follow you, and consider what you show me with newly opened eyes."
His speech didn't faze the thing. Bane and Gasp were stony-faced. This was expected from the former, but a soul-chilling shock from the latter. None of them moved at all.
"Why do you not speak to me?" he asked, more frantically. At last it moved, raising an arm that seemed as malleable as shadow- it appeared to stretch toward Kraden as it came up to his shoulder height, like the shade from a tree lengthening as the sun set.
The third Spirit put its hand on his shoulder, though it was hidden by folds of black fabric, and led him back toward the Psy Crystal. It was pulsing more gently now, at precisely the rhythm of Kraden's own heartbeat. When he noticed this, both rates sped up considerably.
The Crystal's glow twisted around him strangely, rays of purple light that spiralled around him until a tunnel had been woven from the strands, one that seemed to move with incredible speed, taking them to… not another place, Kraden knew. Another time. One that had not yet been.
Vale was dark. The clouds overhead were not like those of the previous Christmas Day, a cheerful white blanket, but grey behemoths that had the audacity to rain on the snow. Already the village seemed to be knee-deep in frozen Swiss cheese.
"This is outright… what's the word? When the weather follows the mood of a scene?" The hood and both Djinn glared at him. Somehow, the hood managed to glare even harder than Bane, which was scary of itself. "Well, it is. Where are we-"
"It's about time," said a low voice. Kraden spun to see three figures dashing through the snow but managing to remain entirely un-festive anyway. He guessed that this had something to do with all the things they were carrying- they were all his, and the bulging sacks weren't promising either.
"You're telling me?" said the third in the line. "I thought he'd never die."
"We'll get a good deal on some of these. I heard he invented a couple of those machines himself. Not another like 'em in the world."
"One of a kind's always good," the first agreed. "Hard to bargain when there's no one else to go to. Time fer some price-gouging!"
"Wait…" said the third. "Guys… don't you think…"
"What is it?" the second demanded, angry at the delay in their escape.
"Do you think maybe this is… like… wrong? Raiding a house and taking the possessions of-"
"Remember whose they were," the first pointed out.
"Oh. Right." He nodded. "Let's keep going, then."
"Or else he might dig his way up and follow us," the third muttered.
"I'm surprised he didn't demand to be buried with the rest of his workshop," the second joked.
"Thieves," Kraden growled, too far away to be heard and probably not quite in the same reality, either. "Thieves from Lunpa, ransacking my workshop! And what was that… about… about being buried…" Kraden trailed off.
The Ghost watched him impassively as one thought slowly built on top of another, until Kraden finally reached the only conclusion. It made his cloaked companion all the more appropriate, anyway.
"Oh," the old Alchemist said. "Oh." At last a reaction– the hood nodded, perhaps sympathetically, or perhaps just simple confirmation.
Bane didn't say "Definitely the second one." He didn't need to.
Kraden refused to believe it. It was a warning, nothing more. There was no reason to assume those Lunpan thieves had been talking about him. "I understand," he told the third Spirit, quavering but trying not to show it. "If I do not change my ways, this unfortunate man's situation might be my own. A useful lesson. Please, teach me more."
"I still can't believe it," said a voice that horrified Kraden with its familiarity.
"Believe it, Garet," said Jenna, helping him drag a large tree through the quiet streets, toward their house. The rain calmed quite a bit, possibly for fear of angering the Mars Adepts.
"It just doesn't seem possible," Garet said again.
"I don't see why not. Everyone dies sometime," Jenna told him, pragmatically.
"But him? I thought he was indestructible."
"Oh, no…" said Kraden. "Not Isaac. Please, Spirit, tell me nothing's happened to Isaac…" The figure said nothing, nor did its Djinn. Kraden watched carefully, but even Bane gave away nothing to the question of his Adept's death.
"Are you going to go to the funeral?" asked Jenna.
"You sound like you aren't planning to," Garet observed, trying to the lift the tree higher.
"I don't know if it's my place," Jenna explained.
"Oh, come on, you were as much friends with him as anyone," Garet told her.
"Why won't you speak?!" Kraden shouted at the shadowy hood. "Why do you delight in torturing me so?!" It took no notice.
"Might be worth going," Garet decided. "Free food, that sort of thing."
"Hurry up, Garet. Let's get this inside and then head up to Isaac's house," said Jenna.
Kraden fell to his knees in the crunchy wet snow. "Oh, praise the Spirits –even my untalkative companion here– he's alive! Thank… heavens… but then who's dead?" Kraden turned suspiciously on the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.
It motioned for him to stand, then pointed up the slope of Vale. Kraden started to walk that way, with the Spirit and both Djinn just behind him, when another light tunnel swirled around them. It faded away quickly, and they stood by Isaac and Mia's house. It was less decorated this year, but there were still warm lights in the windows.
"Oh, thank you, Spirit, for bringing me to this place. I need to see some goodness in this dreary and dark possibility," said Kraden. The Ghost was unmoved, and simply pointed with one long finger at the front door. Kraden approached, wondering if he might be able to pass through it this time, but instead Isaac came running around the side and opened the door. Kraden slipped in with him.
The house was quieter, too. Isaac slipped his boots off as silently as possible and crept into his own living room. "Mia?" he called. "Where are you?"
"Here," she answered, and her shoulder appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She was leaning against the frame wearily, looking like there really had been a mixup with a Wonderbird this year.
They kissed, but shortly, with more need than simple affection. "Your eyes look terrible."
"I've been cutting onions," Mia replied weakly.
"Oh."
"In bad light."
"I see."
"And the potatoes were smoking a lot."
"Most people try to boil them in water, not air."
Mia grinned a little, but she seemed to be a shell of her former self. Isaac, too; both of them looked like they were afraid at any moment the entire world would shatter around them like an icicle dropped off Jupiter Lighthouse.
"Spirit, what has happened here?" asked Kraden, not giving up on his attempts to get even a word out of his ethereal guide. That it didn't answer hardly needs to be said.
"Where are the children?" asked Isaac.
"I sent them to Dora's for the afternoon," Mia replied. Isaac nodded solemnly.
"They're alone in the house and still so melancholy…" Kraden murmured. "What could be wrong?" He thought for a moment, but the answer was explained to him quickly enough.
"I'll help you with the cooking, and then maybe we can take it down to Dora's instead. Have a nice… a nice family dinner," said Isaac, fading to a whisper at the end. "I think Carol and Nick would like that."
"Robin," Kraden realised. "Already? But he was still so young…"
"That doesn't really matter," Gasp didn't say. He didn't need to.
"Have you picked a place yet?" Mia asked softly.
"Maybe. I'd like you to see it first," Isaac replied.
"I trust you."
"I know you do. I meant I thought it would do you good to see what it looks like. At that hilltop, you can see clear from Sol Sanctum to Vault, maybe all the way to the Karagol. It's really beautiful."
"Not Robin," Kraden pleaded. "You can't…"
"I didn't," the cloaked figure didn't say.
The room faded to sheer darkness, and when Kraden opened his eyes next, he stood at what had to be that same hilltop that Isaac spoke of. There was a place marked out nearby, under a leafless tree. He was amazed at the spirit's cold heart, for taking him to this place, and at this time!
"What now? Don't you see me mourning the boy? What more is there for me to do?"
"Much," the cloak would have replied, if it had not remained silent.
Kraden watched the plot for a little while longer, until he thought his legs would give out and he would fall in the snow to remain for the rest of his life. But the Ghost came up to him, put one hand on his shoulder, and with the other gestured at the rest of the stone markers, further off. Kraden hadn't realised that he had been taken to Vale's graveyard.
"What else must I see? Is there no light in this terrible future?" But he trudged off to the stones anyway. A thought made him pause. "Spirit… is this what will be, or just a glimpse of things that may be?" This time the Ghost didn't even not say anything, and the Djinn might have been gargoyles. Kraden walked on, but turned again after only a few steps. "This must be only a possibility, why else would you show me such things?"
Not receiving the slightest indication that he had even spoken from the Ghost (it reminded Kraden of the times he had tried talking to Ivan's cat) he crept between headstones instead, looking for whatever he was supposed to see. Many carved names passed him by, but none seemed significant.
It seemed to Kraden that he heard the Spirit's firm pointing, and when he turned back he saw that it was indicating one marker with its long arm. Kraden was seized by an urge not to look at it. He innocently pointed at a different one nearby. In the clouds high above Vale, lightning flashed and rent the sky. He decided that probably meant no.
The stone was frosted with the most recent snow, though its white veil had been streaked by the rain. At last, hurried on by another blast of thunder, Kraden wiped the snow off. He wasn't surprised by the words, but they sent him to his knees, begging for it not to be true. It said KRADEN, and underneath was a sentence in one of the old languages. Perhaps, he thought, some people had thought he would like the recognition of his passion for ancient knowledge.
It was less heartening when you could actually read the words, especially the ones he wished he didn't know. Even long-lost languages can be horrendously insulting.
"It can't be!" he shouted, leaping to his feet. "I won't let this be the future! And who are you to say it shall be so, to show me this future and stand there silently as I am in torment?! Why won't you speak?!" Kraden packed and hurled a snowball at the hood, and to his moderate astonishment, he actually hit. To his more considerable astonishment, his projectile swept the hood back and revealed that there was nothing there for him to have hit.
The Ghost shrugged its cloak back, now wearing it only like a cape, revealing dark plate armor from neck to toe, massive metal that was the colour of the night sky and much more forbidding. Kraden knew this thing, this terrible shadow, he had watched as the Adepts battled it in the depths of Anemos Sanctum.
It didn't have a head to tilt, and so Kraden had to guess that it would have gone through motions to express the sentiment "Is it clear why I haven't been especially talkative? Good. Now that that's settled…" And then it took one giant step forward, reaching out with both arms and falling upon Kraden.
"No!" he shouted as a ton of shadow-iron toppled upon his frail form, cape trailing behind, and the universe went black.
When Kraden hit the ground, though, it was the floor, and he had been tackled only by his coat stand. His favourite robe completely failed to attempt to strangle, crush, or otherwise destroy him. Kraden wasn't the type, however he appeared, to question his own senses. That wasn't scientific.
Instead he leapt up and sprinted to the window, slamming it open and relieved to see that Vale was not a stormy place, but instead frozen and white, and the rising sun was chasing the clouds across the sky, leaving it open and blue.
A small boy was passing by below the windowsill. Kraden wondered for a moment if the Spirits had taken him back in time. He glanced down, thought of asking, then spun to his desk. The compass-turned-clock clearly indicated December 25th, the very day he wanted.
"Christmas Day!" Kraden shouted, attracting the boy's attention anyway. "They did it! They brought me back! Of course they can do that, they can do whatever they like!" The boy looked as though he was thinking about agreeing with the reputed lunatic, but decided better, and instead ran off. "Oh, I have so much to do, so much to do, I have to get to my workshop…" The old man paused for a moment. "Yes… yes, I have to get to my workshop…"
Thump thump thump. Isaac tried to pretend he didn't hear it at first. Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump. The knocking at the door became more insistent, and he reluctantly left Mia by the fire. Robin was resting after the morning's excitement, Nick and Carol were out in the midst of either a snow-war or baking with Dora, and he was being called to the door of all places. If it was Garet, unpleasant icy things were going to happen to him.
He opened the door and immediately slammed it shut again. Isaac turned to lean against the wall, one hand pressed to his forehead. "I've got to get a different job. Or stop going in so much. I'm starting to hallucinate."
He tried again, curious as to who had really been knocking. "Merry Christmas!" Kraden bellowed.
"It can't be you," Isaac insisted, as if he were trying to convince the old man. "You don't smile. It's a known fact. It's like the gravitational constant, or Felix burning himself when he tries to bake."
"Uncertainty, Isaac, my dear friend, uncertainty! You may know where I have been, or where I'm going, but you can't know both at once, and no one knows the second but Sol itself!"
Kraden was smiling, a smile that defied description– especially on the face of one who hadn't smiled in a decade. He was holding a basket filled with… mostly devices and potions of the sort he had never seen before, but Isaac was almost certain there was a rather turkey-like shape to it that suggested a giant roasting fowl had been entombed within.
"What in Venus' domain are those for? Kraden, I told you I'm not working today!"
Kraden just smiled all the wider. "I'm not asking you to–" he began, but that was more or less all he could manage for the next few moments.
"Too freezing right you're not asking him!" Mia declared, swooping in around the door, past her husband, and close enough to try to lift Kraden by his collar with one hand. She couldn't actually get him off the ground, but it was a terrifying position nonetheless. "I've had enough of your ordering, your crazy schemes, and your demonic concept of 'work hours'! You are not going to have anything to do with Christmas Day! And if you don't get away from our house this minute I'm going to– I don't want to hear about it!" It would be worth noting that Kraden hadn't opened his mouth to speak, he was merely desperate for breath. "What gives you the right to–"
"I have something for Robin," he rasped. Mia stopped in midsentence, and it would be wrong to say her demeanour changed entirely, but she was suddenly more curious and cautious than terrifying.
"…What?" asked Isaac, and motioned for Mia to let the Alchemist go.
Kraden breathed gratefully and indicated the basket that had fallen into the snow and sunk quite a distance. "Several things, in fact. Reinforcing bones and muscles is mostly Venus Psynergy, as humans are the emblem of earth, but with the combination of the other elements a level of…" Isaac and Mia stared at him blankly. "Oh, don't you see? It's all partial alchemy, which is the most I've ever achieved, but I have achieved it, if only I had been aware enough to see where I could put it to any use!"
"…You can help him," Isaac said eventually.
"Better than any doctor," Kraden promised. "I can't guarantee immediate success, but it won't be at all difficult, just time-consuming… oh!" He caught sight of two figures in the distance and lost his train of thought. "Isaac, take these in before they freeze, will you? I'll be back in, oh, who knows, soon, soon!"
The old man charged through the snow toward the envoys from Kalay, who were making a final pass through the village before starting the trip home. They heard Kraden's cries as he dashed through the snow, and it was an impressive dash despite the lack of horse or sleigh.
One of them pushed the other on to run faster, turned to face Kraden, and drew his sword. "Run on! I shall hold him off as long as I can!"
"What?" his companion demanded.
"If we both fall here, none will ever know our tale! Run on, and tell my family what became of me in this distant, frozen land!" the first insisted, steeling himself to resist the oncoming madman.
"…There's something wrong with you," the second Kalayan remarked, and nudged the aspiring hero aside. "Good morning, Master Kraden!"
"Good morning, good morning, and a merry Christmas to the both of you!" he declared, skidding to a powder-spraying halt.
"Christmas isn't celebrated in Kalay–" the sane one began.
"Oh, no matter, enjoy it while you're here, there's so much to go around! And I think you may find you'll be glad you stayed to take this," he said, dropping something glittery into the odd-but-brave warrior's hand.
"What is this?" he asked, raising the metal.
"A key. Made from gold," said Kraden. "The golden key to the golden cave. It's at the bottom of the slope, by the fountain, third crag from the right. Take as much as you want; even if I could use it I'd do less good than you will. And now I must go cure a sick, invalid child– good day, and merry Christmas!"
The Kalayans watched him go, practically skipping through the snow. At least it appeared he did so, as skipping becomes very difficult past a certain age. They traded glances, then turned back to watch the receding Alchemist.
"This is what Christmas does to these northerners?"
"We should see if it can be introduced to Alhafra."
"Come on, Garet!" Jenna called. "This fire won't burn forever, and to get more wood we'd have to go out into… ergh… the cold." The Mars Adept shivered and looked over the back of the sofa at Garet, who insisted on looking out all the windows every few minutes. The view never changed, always a night-blue view of Vale and the fresh-falling snow.
"Do you really think they turned down my invitation?" he asked, rhetorically.
"Isaac wouldn't be stopped by a dragon, and it's not like Mia's afraid to go out into the cold or anything. They're probably on their way right now," Jenna assured him.
"It's just not like Isaac to be late."
"If you don't come over here and sit in front of the hearty roaring fire with me you're going to be the one who's late, Garet!"
"Ho ho ho," he said darkly, sliding over the back of the furniture with only token complaint. It really was a fantastic fire she had started –rather, Char had started– and of course anything could be improved in his mind by adding Jenna. Feeling her snuggling closer in under his arm, Garet remembered the way things had looked before the long Lighthouse journey.
Isaac and Jenna had been friends all their lives, and they were practically in the perfect situation to develop a whole new relationship… and then Kratos stepped in and threw everything into chaos, and when the world had settled down, Isaac had met Mia, and Jenna was looking at the more experienced, braver, and even fractionally wiser Garet in a new light.
Serene in warmth that defied the icy season, he wondered if he had ever thanked Kraden for that particular mistake, or if the old man even knew what a change he had wrought in so many lives. What would have happened to the two of them if there had never been a quest for the Golden Sun…?
"Here–"
"Here–" "We–"
"We–" "Come–"
"A–" "Wassailing!"
"Mom, tell Carol that I get to set the time and not her!" a young voice shouted outside.
"I can sing whenever I want to!" a second familiar one countered.
"Only my children could invent two-part harmony to annoy each other," Mia remarked.
"Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green
Here we come a wandering so fair to be seen
Love and joy come to you
And to you our wassail too
And Sol bless you and send you a happy new year
And Sol send you a happy new year!"
By now Garet and Jenna were at the door, and both were relieved to see Mia and her two older children coming, all in some joyous family squabble that was sure to involve Psynergy-propelled snowballs in the very near future.
"Mia! What are you doing here with these two scoundrels?" Jenna joked.
"Hey!" Nick protested, and continued the song, because he was annoyingly clever at times. "We are not daily beggars that beg from door to door…"
"But we are neighbours' children that you have seen before!" Carol finished smoothly, and began eyeing the snowdrifts built up over the door. "I'll give you 'wassail'," she muttered. "…I don't know what wassail even is."
"Where are Isaac and Robin?" Garet asked, preferring not to let go of an idea until he was sure it wouldn't jump him the moment he turned his back.
"They're coming over the hill soon," Mia promised, looking back the way they had come. "They had some extra carrying to do. It's nice that your house is right in front of the village tree and all, but you have to admit it's a long walk from our place."
Not understanding what Robin could be helping his father with, Garet and Jenna exchanged glances –it was refreshing to see that for once she was as baffled as him– and then followed Mia's gaze to the crest of the nearby hill. A glowing light appeared first in the snowy air, and eventually they saw three figures appear.
Isaac held Kraden's giant turkey a bit awkwardly, which was already enough to excite Garet (he had never seen leftovers before in his life, but perhaps this time…) but it was nothing compared to Robin walking beside his father, arms laden with gifts for both families.
"Um… Mia… Robin…" Jenna managed, since Garet was obviously not going to be articulate any time soon. "How can… I mean, muscles… metal frame gone… legs all thing…" Perhaps she wasn't in much better straits, but there was no reasonable explanation for the fully-independent child coming their way.
Except, of course, the third man, who carried the source of the light. It wasn't a lantern, as any normal, non-Alchemist might have expected, but a Psynergy device he was quite proud of for creating in just a few hours.
One arm clutching his thickest robes close to his body, Kraden raised the silvery figurine and tapped it once on the back. The mechanical angel's wings opened and it soared off into the night, its path spiralling around the giant Christmas tree to the pinnacle. At the top, it settled into the needles and raised its arms against the wind, letting the crystal in its hands shine as bright as a tiny sun.
Kraden waved to them all, lifting the boy onto his shoulder now that his beacon of hope had taken its proper place. With lungs that were already gaining some new strength, Robin called out to those who were already at the door.
"Sol bless the master of this house, likewise the mistress too
And all the little children that 'round the table go
Love and joy come to you
And to you our wassail too
And Sol bless you and send you a happy new year
And Sol send you a happy new year!"