FINAL FANTASY: POINT OF INTERSECTION
BOOK 1: THE APPROACHING STORM
CHAPTER 13
My profuse apologies for the long delay on this latest chapter. But before we
go into it there are a few pronunciations you guys should be aware of:
Ghalein: [guh - LAY - in]
[i]Ne'uime[/i]: [nay - OO - may]
[i]Ja'sathra[/i]: [yah - SAH - thrah]
DISCLAIMER: Certain scenes within this chapter contain mature themes and suggestive content. Reader discretion is advised.
Rinoa slowly opened her eyes, but it was still as black as pitch all around her. The only indication that she was finally awake was the dank, musty odor that hung in the air, along with faint traces of some fouler stench whose probable source the young woman really didn't want to think about. She lay on something hard and unyielding and slightly damp. It felt like a stone floor.
Her body ached all over, a dull throb deep in her bones that would not leave. She remembered something grabbing her with what felt like invisible hands, so strong they might have been made of iron, and throwing her again and again at the unyielding metal wall of the communications tower. With the memory of each painful impact, Rinoa winced inwardly and gently put a hand to her sore ribs and shoulder as they continued to throb with each breath that escaped her lips.
Suddenly she became aware that a part of herself was missing, a subtle warmth in her blood that she noticed now only in its absence. No, not absence, because she could still feel it, faintly, just on the edge of perception, but it was still there. It had merely been suppressed, that was all. Her power, the legacy of the sorceress, had been effectively muted.
The cold metal band she felt around her left wrist answered the unspoken question of how.
Ironic, she thought, that her unique magic should be suppressed by the very device she had once sought to imprison a different sorceress with in the same way. Rinoa knew exactly what it was that had been fitted onto her arm, of course. She had carried one once herself, before she had become a sorceress, in a hastily conceived plan to subdue the tyrant that had once taken control of her native city. The young woman had never expected to wear an Odine bangle herself, but she couldn't deny the reality of the device wrapped around her lower arm or her inability to call upon her sorceress powers.
Such was the bangle's purpose, after all.
Though she knew it was useless, Rinoa reached with her other hand and grasped at the bangle to try and find the catch that kept it in place. No sooner had she touched the metal, however, than a sudden, brief shock of powerful electrical energy exploded into her grasping fingers. She yanked her hand away, gasping at the sharp pain, and sucked ruefully at her singed digits. So much for that option. The bangle had been designed to keep the wearer from simply taking it off, after all. Any contact with the outer surface of the device for longer than a few seconds would result in a much stronger, perhaps even lethal, shock to any sorceress touching the bangle.
Rinoa sighed in resignation and crawled slowly on her hands and knees along the floor until she reached a stone or concrete wall just a few feet away. Apparently she was in some kind of prison or cell, though how she had gotten here she did not know. But whoever or whatever had rendered her unconscious must have brought her here somehow, for some reason, and Rinoa intended to find out why. She had to find out what had become of her friends, too. The last she had seen of them, they had been lying unconscious on the floor of the tower's entry chamber. Those strange Galbadian troops had ambushed them, and only Rinoa's sorceress powers had enabled her to hold out for as long as she did.
Yet something had overcome her, something much more powerful than she was.
At the thought of that terrible presence, Rinoa shivered in spite of herself. She had caught a glimpse of cold, feral eyes glittering in the dark, but little more. Yet the sensations of malice, of cunning, emanating from that unseen figure chilled her to the bone even now. Who was it that had overpowered her so easily, and why? Rinoa swallowed heavily, not quite sure she wanted to find out the answers, yet in her gut knowing that she would, soon enough.
Leaning tiredly with her back against the wall, the young sorceress tried to figure out how she had gotten into this mess in the first place, although she had a fairly good idea where it might have begun. For months now, she had insisted on training to become a SeeD just like her other friends, much to Squall's discomfiture. She had tried several times to explain it to him, but somehow she and her husband had always ended up arguing instead. Why couldn't he understand? What was his problem?
For about six months now, Rinoa had been the SeeD commander's wife and had watched so many times as he had gone off on some mission or other and left her behind. Those lonely nights, when she lay alone in bed wondering if he would return, had always gnawed relentlessly at her inside. Squall had always insisted on taking the most dangerous missions, preferring to handle them himself instead of sending a detachment of less experienced SeeDs to deal with them.
Rinoa wanted to be out there with him, fighting by his side, but because she wasn't a SeeD, she couldn't. She no longer had the excuse of being his client to use to order him around, although being his wife should have been more than enough, at least in her mind. The only opportunity she'd had lately to use her fighting and magic skills had been during her workout sessions in the training center with Quistis and Selphie and sometimes Xu as well.
Eventually she had gotten so sick of being left behind at home like a good little wife that she had gone to Headmaster Cid and Headmistress Edea, who had privately advised Squall that it would be in his and Rinoa's best interest to allow her to begin training as a SeeD. He had [i]not[/i] been happy about it and had let Rinoa know that quite clearly once they had returned to the privacy of their own quarters. It was one of the few times the young sorceress could remember she and her husband ever shouting at one another. Squall had subsequently stormed out and spent the night at Zell's.
I'm gonna be a SeeD, Squall, whether you like it or not!
That was the last thing she'd said to him on his way out, although now she was beginning to regret those angry words. Over the next few months, as her accelerated training had progressed, Rinoa had felt a distance slowly growing between herself and Squall. It had begun on the night that he had walked out, the night that she had finally gotten what she wanted. The chance to become a SeeD, to put some meaning, some excitement, back into her life.
But at what cost?
"So, you are awake, little sorceress," a soft, cold voice suddenly whispered, its chill tones cutting through the stillness like a scythe.
Rinoa gasped, startled, and looked around, but she could see nothing except the impenetrable blackness of her unlit prison. The slivers of cold fear that worked their way up her spine, however, told her well enough who spoke. More out of a desire to keep her sudden fear from overpowering her than to really confirm what she already knew, Rinoa swallowed heavily, moistening her dry mouth, and called out to the sinister figure she knew hid somewhere in the blackness.
Her voice trembled a little when she finally managed to speak. "W-Who are you?"
"You know who I am," the voice answered in its measured, sinuous rhythm.
Suddenly, Rinoa became aware of eyes looking back at her from the shadows. Two eyes, their chill, oddly pink irises seeming to bore straight into her soul, silently observed her, and the young sorceress' will faltered under their pitiless and unyielding scrutiny. She looked away, her blood turning to ice in her veins, and with a shiver wondered just how long her captor might have been watching her here in the dark.
"A long time, Rinoa," the whispered voice answered her unspoken question. "A very long time. Three hours, to be precise."
The young woman stared incredulously. Had he just read her mind? Frantically she tried to suppress her skittish thoughts, her musings of Squall and of her imprisonment and the fate of her companions and a thousand other stray thoughts, grabbing her temples with her hands and shaking her head vehemently in protest. A frightened moan escaped her lips. What good was it, anyway, if he really could read her mind? Wouldn't he know exactly what she was doing?
And what had he been watching her for? Why had he only chosen to reveal himself now?
Rinoa shivered as she thought of those eyes looking at her in the dark, probing her perhaps for weaknesses, for those long hours before she had finally awoken. Those eyes had no doubt seen her futile attempt to remove the slim golden bangle that had effectively crippled her, and she wondered if her captor had been amused at that useless struggle to escape.
Looking once more at the eyes hovering in the dark, the raven-haired young woman realized that she could make out the faint outline of a human form shrouded in thick ebony robes, and that those cold, cunning eyes stared out at her from within the depths of a wide hood. The man's face, however, remained cloaked in shadows, and Rinoa suddenly wasn't sure if she really wanted to see it.
"Where am I?" she wondered aloud, glancing around her into the gloom of her cell. "Where… where have you taken me?"
The eyes continued to scrutinize her. "You will find out soon enough, little sorceress, when I choose to make it known to you."
Rinoa swallowed, dreading the answer to her next question. "A-And my friends? What did you do to them? Where are they?"
"They are dead," the whispered voice intoned softly. "There were no survivors in Dollet, SeeD or otherwise. I have seen to that."
Her eyes widening, the young woman leaned weakly against the wall, doubling over and struggling to breathe as the full meaning of her captor's statement hit her like a fist slamming hard into her gut. She clenched her fists tightly, her nails gouging painfully into the skin of her palms as she vehemently shook her head in utter denial.
"No!" Rinoa shouted angrily. "That's not true! It can't be!"
The eyes drew a little closer, and Rinoa shrank back under their penetrating gaze. "You know it is, Rinoa. And you know why."
Of course she knew. Slumping dejectedly as she at last understood the sickening truth, Rinoa sighed bitterly. She was the most well-known sorceress in the world, and despite her inexperience, the most powerful as well. It had never even occurred to her that there might still be people out there who would seek to use that power for their own ends. She had hoped such madness was finally over with after the defeat of Ultimecia, but…
Rinoa shivered, hating herself for her shortsightedness. How many people had paid for it? Maybe Squall was right, she reluctantly admitted. Maybe she shouldn't have tried to become a SeeD. Many of her friends and companions, as well as who knew how many innocent people, might still have been alive but for her own stubbornness. The young sorceress grimaced, suddenly nauseous as she truly began to comprehend the enormity of what had happened and her own responsibility for it.
"What do you want from me?" she murmured. "What did you bring me here for?"
Her captor didn't answer at first, but instead slowly drew back his hood with a soft rustling of cloth. In the murky dimness, Rinoa was at last able to make out his features. The first thing she noticed was his bald scalp, utterly devoid of even a single hair. His skin was chalky white without a trace of color, and those strangely disturbing pink eyes gazed cunningly at her from beneath hairless brows.
"You ask many questions, little sorceress. Are you truly prepared to learn the answers? Or will such knowledge instead drive you mad?"
Rinoa could find no words to say to him. Instead, she let out a startled gasp, unable to keep from staring at his colorless face. She had never seen an albino before, and the sight disturbed her more than a little. She struggled to rein in her straying thoughts lest her captor somehow discerned them, but she might as well have tried to stop her heart from beating.
"My appearance startles you," the man whispered, his white lips just barely edging upward into a faint, sardonic smile.
Suddenly, as she kept looking at him, Rinoa realized that she knew him. Or rather, knew of him. "You're Josef Deling's bloodhound, aren't you? His new advisor? I've heard rumors about you…"
"Doubtless they are exaggerated," he replied dismissively, "yet not entirely without some small measure of truth, I suppose. I am, as you have surmised, currently in President Deling's service."
"What does he want with me?" Rinoa wondered.
The albino leaned closer. "Your death. By means of a public execution."
"What?" she nearly shrieked, the color draining from her face. "Why would he do that? He's been supportive of Garden and SeeD ever since he took over Galbadia at the end of the war! Why… why would he want to kill me?"
"A facade, my lady. He is more like his late brother than you know. Who do you think it was that ordered the seizure of the Dollet tower in the first place, knowing SeeD forces would undoubtedly come and that you would be with them? Among other things, he desires the extermination of all sorceresses, beginning with you."
Rinoa's heart sank as she understood the truth of her captor's words. "When will it happen?"
"You are to be executed in two weeks at the Grand Plaza in front of Deling City's presidential palace," he explained. His eyes suddenly narrowed, however, and his cunning smile deepened ever so slightly. "Or so it will be believed."
"What do you mean?" the young sorceress asked apprehensively.
The strange man slowly reached out and touched his fingertips to Rinoa's cheek. She shuddered at the cold sensation of his skin against hers, yet in spite of herself, a strange heat suddenly flared within her. Knowing it for what it was, she fought to suppress it, disgusted that she should feel such a thing. Time seemed to slow as she fought inside herself, but the heat would not go away.
His eyes gripped hers intently, the smile gone. "You are far too useful to be thrown away at the whim of a madman, little sorceress. I have other things in mind for you… for us…"
"Won't you be going against your master, then?" Rinoa questioned.
Her captor's expression suddenly hardened. "I serve but one Master, my lady, and it is not Deling."
The young woman frowned in uneasy puzzlement. "If it's not him, then… then who is it?"
"Pray you do not live to find out," he replied coldly.
An icy sliver of fear worked its way slowly up Rinoa's spine as she pondered the albino's words. He himself was frightening enough, a presence both disturbing and yet strangely entrancing to her as well, though she could not explain why. She tried to remember Squall, to see his familiar and comforting features, but the image dissolved from her mind in the wake of the heat she felt within her at her captor's soft touch. Rinoa shuddered, but whether it was from that strangely inflamed sense of desire or from her own self-loathing in response to it, she could not say.
"Who… who are you…?" she whispered, her lips trembling with each syllable.
The hardness had passed from her captor's face, though he still wore that sense of cold, calculating menace like a cloak about his shoulders. He let his fingertips slide ever so slowly across her cheek, his eyes locked on hers, and the heat within her suddenly grew more fervent. Why was she feeling like this in the first place? In that part of her mind that was still rational, Rinoa frantically tried to understand what was happening to her and why, but could find no answers.
His voice was a soft, cold caress to her ears. "I am known as Ghalein, my lady. And I have been waiting a long, long time for you…"
"For… for me…?" she stammered uncertainly.
Suddenly he pulled away, and Rinoa shivered as the heat inside her began to fade. Although she was relieved that the disturbing sensations seemed to have passed, a part of her still longed for them to return. Ashamed, she struggled to bring forth in her mind every image of Squall she could possibly think of, but they disappeared all too soon, overwhelmed by the powerful memory of that sensual heat that had seemed to simmer just beneath her skin.
"However," he continued, ignoring her question, "you are not yet ready."
Slowly backing away from her, Ghalein motioned with his arm, and on the far side of the room, a door slowly creaked open, the groaning of its hinges unnaturally loud in the stillness. Rinoa could see the dim illumination of electric lamps set in the concrete walls outside her cell, and by the style of the construction she deduced that she was somewhere in the labyrinthine maze of sewers that sprawled beneath Deling City like the web of some monstrous, terribly bloated arachnid.
Through the door lumbered about half a dozen men, their tall, muscled forms laced with old scars and clothed in drab garments of brown and gray. Stubble covered their jaws, and the lustful, hungry gazes that swept over her told Rinoa well enough what they intended. One of the brutes, his unkempt brown hair hanging down to his broad shoulders, leered at her. Rinoa shuddered.
Ghalein quietly addressed the men. "Do as you wish with her, so long as she lives. Find me when you have sated yourselves, and you will receive your payment."
"No!" Rinoa's eyes widened, and her face paled. "You can't do this! Please!"
Trembling, she wobbled to her feet and backed as far away from the approaching men as she could, her heart thudding loudly within her ribs. Before long, however, her back thudded against the rear wall of the cell, and she could go no further. As her tormentors began to close in from all sides, Rinoa noticed Ghalein melting back into the shadows, his cold, pink eyes locked on hers.
He faded from sight without a word.
"Come 'ere, missy," the long-haired man drawled, grinning eagerly, "and let's have some fun, yeah?"
The crude remark abruptly jolted Rinoa from her thoughts and back to the nightmarish situation she had been cruelly thrust into. Without her magic to aid her, she was practically defenseless, but she swallowed heavily, clenched her fists tightly, readying herself for the one chance she would have to get the hell out of this godforsaken place and away from these terrible men.
They had left the doorway wide open.
As soon as the first man reached for her, Rinoa's leg shot out in a swift, hard kick to his crotch. The long-haired brute immediately doubled over, clutching his groin in both hands, and howled in pain just as she had known he would. Not wasting a moment, the desperate sorceress raced madly toward the open door, barely managing to dodge the grasping hands of the other men as they tried to catch her. She was almost there, just a few more yards…
The door slammed shut before her seemingly of its own accord, however, and Rinoa's momentum carried her into it before she could stop. The sudden impact knocked the wind out of her, and she stumbled backward a few steps, catching her breath in ragged gasps as what little light there had been fled from the room, plunging it in murky shadows.
Her fingers desperately feeling along in the dark for the door, Rinoa came across the metal handle and yanked furiously on it. The door refused even to budge, however, held fast by some spell she knew her captor must have put on it. Her blood suddenly running cold, Rinoa realized with a sinking feeling that this was exactly what he had intended in the first place, dangling a little hope before her only to snatch it cruelly away at the last instant.
Rough, brutally strong hands suddenly grabbed her arms and shoulders, and with a startled shriek she was abruptly thrown against the wall. Rinoa barely had time to gasp in pain as those horrible men closed in on her. The sound of ripping fabric filled her ears as the brutes began to savagely tear her clothes from her body in spite of her constant struggling. She tried desperately to wriggle free of their iron grip, but then a fist abruptly flew out of nowhere and smashed her in the face.
Rinoa slumped weakly against the wall as her head began to spin woozily, and her cheek and jaw ached horribly from the blow. She looked up to see the long-haired man grinning savagely back at her mere inches away. His breath smelled of alcohol and other, more foul things, and a mere whiff of it was enough to make Rinoa nauseous. He squeezed her breast painfully tight in one hand and in a single, swift motion, he slit open with a knife the front of her tattered uniform.
"Now the fun begins, missy," the long-haired man grinned lustfully.
As he pulled her down to the floor in spite of her attempts to resist him, Rinoa began to scream. She continued to do so as he ripped away what remained of her clothing, and as the other men held her writhing form down, he forcefully yanked her legs apart and reached for the buckle of his own pants. Soon he was atop her, and in those horrible moments Rinoa was thankful at least that in the murky blackness she could only barely see his face and those of the other men awaiting their turns.
Her terrified screams echoed through the darkness for hours
Ellone jerked awake from the nightmare with a startled scream.
The cold enveloped her, flowed through her blood and bones like it always did when the nightmares came. She shivered uncontrollably and winced as spasms of pain shot through her injured body. As the icy chill flowed through her veins like some fell spirit seeking to devour her from within, she found herself in a sitting position, her arms crossed beneath her breasts as she continued to tremble with the unearthly cold. The still unhealed lacerations on her arms burned fiercely, and her broken wrist ached even as she gently cradled it with her other hand.
Storms approach. Shadows grow long. The Seal weakens.
The voices, those maddening whispered voices she had hoped never to hear again, once more filled her mind with their unearthly chanting like a chorus of the damned. What were they, and why did they keep troubling her? Ellone clutched herself tightly as her body shook with the cold that coursed through her body and the chill voices flitting maddeningly through her mind like a host of tormented spirits inextricably bound to her subconscious.
He is coming.
A strong yet gentle hand placed upon her shoulder tugged Ellone from her dark thoughts, and she glanced up to see Vincent's reassuring, if typically inscrutable, countenance looking back at her in concern. He must have heard her scream and come in while she was shivering and lost in the fragments of her dreams, she realized. Though the voices began to fade, she still trembled with the unearthly chill her nightmare had left behind.
"Ellone," Vincent inquired softly, "what troubles you?"
She took a breath to try and calm herself, but the icy cold in her veins would not leave. "It… it was a nightmare, j-just… just a bad dream. I'm so c-cold, though… it… it always… always f-feels like this… when the dreams c-come… like I'm f-freezing inside…"
"I will see what may be done to warm you," he replied.
Crossing over to the far side of the bed, Vincent took an iron poker from beside the hearth and used it to stir the embers of the fire. Adding a few more logs to the flames, he watched for a moment as the orange tongues of heat flickered and grew, feeding hungrily on the fresh wood. Satisfied, Vincent turned back to Ellone and carefully wrapped the blankets close about her shoulders.
She suddenly felt herself picked up, blankets and all, as Vincent gently took her in his arms and laid her gingerly in front of the fireplace upon one of the thick hand-woven rugs that adorned the hardwood floor of the room. At last, a little warmth began to slowly seep back into her body, although the unnatural cold still filled her body with its icy touch.
"Is that better?" Vincent asked.
Elle managed a weak smile in spite of her shivering. "A little, but… I'm still… so cold…"
After a moment, she became aware that Vincent had sat down beside her, his back against the side of the bed. Ellone felt his arms reach hesitantly around her and draw her near to him, bringing her in front him and closer to the warmth of the fire. Heat began to flow into her again, both from the fire and from Vincent's body behind her, and her trembling gradually began to ease.
For a long while, neither of them spoke, and Ellone contented herself with just resting her head against Vincent's chest and letting the heat of his body fill her again as it had done during their frantic ride here last night when he had held her close on the chocobo for that very purpose. She didn't mind the close contact with him, really. It was, she thought, rather nice.
Elle glanced warmly up at him. "Thank you, Vincent. That really was sweet of you."
"I… only did what I thought necessary," he replied, a bit uncomfortably.
"Well, either way, I'm grateful. Those dreams scare me so much, but I can't even remember them hardly at all… and the cold is always there when I wake up…"
At the memory of those nightmares, Ellone shuddered inwardly and let her gaze lose itself somewhere in the flickering orange flames in the hearth. What were these dreams she kept having, and why did they trouble her so? She sensed that the answers could be important, but whatever they might be, she had no clue save for the whispered words of those terrible voices.
Vincent's arms tightened protectively about her waist. "How long have these visions troubled you?"
"I don't know, a week or so, maybe," she replied. "It's been hard to get any real sleep since then, you know? Every time I try, the dreams come back, sooner or later."
"Do you remember anything of them?"
She shook her head. "Not much, I'm afraid. Just bits and pieces, that's all. Fire and darkness, storms and shadows, but what they all mean, I don't know."
"Perhaps there is a link between them and your pursuer," Vincent pondered.
Ellone shivered at the memory of that terrifying cloaked figure, the emptiness of its masked, eyeless face. Twin blades, forged of cold steel and hellish fury, their slightly curved edges glittering in the dimness of the Trabia snowfields. She remembered now that one of the swords had been a bit longer than the other, but both their hilts had been adorned with emblems of death and darkness, skulls and winged horrors too hideous to name. Yet names came to her now, words in a tongue she did not know but whispered as fluently as though she'd always known it.
"Ne'uime… Ja'sathra…" she murmured softly.
"What did you just say?" Vincent asked, frowning in puzzlement.
Elle blinked, wondering the same thing. "I… I don't know… how I know it, but… that cloaked figure… his two swords that he cut me with, they had names. Ne'uime… and Ja'sathra…"
He stirred behind her. "What do they mean?"
"Pain… Suffering…" she whispered, "that's what they mean. Pain was… the longer one, Suffering the shorter, I remember…"
A sudden image flashed in her mind, the hunter's twin blades descending upon her in a rapid blur of motion. Her arm and abdomen burned with remembered pain as she saw again the haunting emptiness of the cloaked figure's eyeless sockets, the expressionless steel mask with her own fear-stricken face caught in its distorted reflection.
"Are you alright?" Vincent asked.
Ellone buried her cheek in his shoulder. "Just… bad memories, that's all. That thing… I'm afraid it'll come after me again…"
"I will not let it harm you, Ellone. That is what I am here for."
"Are you sure?" she wondered, gazing up at him.
He nodded, his tone softening ever so slightly. "I promise."
Sighing in relief, Elle felt her fear abate somewhat as her fatigue at last caught up with her. The heat from the fire and from Vincent must be making her drowsy, she thought, and her lids began to grow heavy. Soon it was all she could do to keep them open, and though she knew she should rest for what was left of the night, she didn't want this moment to end just yet.
Leaning so close against him, Elle could hear his heart beating softly within his chest, and the sound reassured her with its steady, unchanging rhythm. She let it lull her onward into dreamless slumber, her eyelids drooping until they at last slid shut. Tomorrow she would start limping around out of bed, taking the first real steps toward her recovery, but for now she simply slept and had no dreams.