Thicker Than Blood
Chapter 7
Sticks and Stones
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"Who will save the war child baby?
Who controls the key?
The web we weave is thick and sordid,
Fine by me."
- The Cranberries, War Child
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Timeless
Over the ages, countless millions of beings have used countless millions of ways to communicate with the dead. Of course, all of these ways are more dangerous than mortals can imagine, but the one with the most potential for utter disaster was -- is -- crossing over into the realm of the dead; physically, mentally, spiritually, in any form. Aside from the obvious dangers -- getting stuck there, dying there, -- one must always be cautious of bringing something dead with them back into life. As I'm sure you know.
Humph. As I seem to recall, it was in fact not me, but you, my love, who left the Door open and let that creature slip through to-
To save your life, I believe. If you hadn't foolish enough to go there in the first place without my guidance, without any knowledge about the realm of the dead, without any way of protecting yourself from the creatures there... Well, we wouldn't be here, would we? You would have become one of them, and then killed me when I came to rescue you.
Touché.
Yes, well, I suppose it is all irrelevant now anyway. As I was saying, the dangers involved in any sort of dealings with the dead almost outweigh the benefits. One never knows quite what to expect over there, and the unknown has always been mankind's greatest fear... As well as the reason behind most of the disasters they have caused. All too often, men stir up things beyond their imagining just because they didn't know.
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12,003 BC
Nothing was going right, and it was all Melchior's fault. He couldn't have messed things up more if he'd done it on purpose.
Schala stood over the twisted fragments of what had once been a large chunk of refined Dreamstone piping, but was now scattered all over the room in pieces too small for even magic to repair. Larger portions were embedded in the domed marble ceiling, though they were scorched beyond recognition. Schala knelt down and picked up one of the smaller pieces, turning it over in her fingers as she stared at the big melted hunk in the center of the room -- all that remained of two year's grueling work and a good deal of the kingdom's precious Dreamstone.
She sighed heavily and stood to her feet. Enlightened were scattered around the room, salvaging what they could and tying to look busy to avoid notice of Queen Zeal, who looked to be both furious and on the edge of tears. A few of the braver Enlightened tried to coax their queen away from the Mammon Machine's remains, which were still giving off random bursts of sparks.
"Schala," Zeal murmured, allowing her people to bring her to her daughter. "How long...before you can heal this..." She spoke through tears and teeth clenched in anger.
"At least a year, Mother," Schala admitted, sighing again. They had been so close to having it finished -- a month more, maybe less, and now it would have to be begun again from scratch. They had all the equations still, thank the gods, but Dreamstone took a formidable amount of time to absorb the quantity of energy needed. The Enlightened tried to explain this to their devastated queen, leading her away.
"Melchior!" Schala called, spotting her friend lurking in a corner. He winced, but shambled over, wringing his hands. A small Nu trailed vaguely after him.
"Schala, I'm so sorry, I know how hard you've worked on this -- I've done it too -- I just never thought, I mean I -- Oh hell, I'm sorry."
"It's all right Melchior," she said in an attempt to soothe the old Guru. "I just need you to tell me what happened."
Melchior drew himself up, throwing a glare at the sleepy Nu behind him. "My team was finishing the piping systems, connecting them to the main body. Obviously, Dreamstone is much too heavy for us to lift so we were using a combination of magic and Nus -- really remarkable creatures, you know, someone should do a study -- and this little monster fell asleep helping me lift a section of pipe, dropped on me and well... I...it was an accident, you see, I lost control of my magic and well..." Melchior grimaced, gesturing at the ruined Dreamstone skeleton of the Mammon Machine.
Schala could not suppress another weary sigh. All those sleepless nights, all that time wasted on this. Such a stupid accident. No wonder Zeal was so upset. She'd probably order half the Nus in the kingdom banished to Algetty. "It's not your fault Melchior. Though I must say, that must have been one powerful spell to deal this much damage."
"Yes, and I've been thinking about that. My guess is that the Dreamstone was so saturated with power that my blast overloaded it. We've known it was sensitive, now we know how much."
Schala nodded absently. An overload, that made sense. She half-smiled. There was no way bumbling old Melchior could have exerted that much power on his own. "All right. Though I do expect you to look into a fall-safe to prevent this kind of thing in the future," she said, then added thoughtfully, "I suppose it's just as well it happened now rather than later when it will have all that energy coursing through it." She dismissed him with an impatient wave and stepped up to listen to the report from a group of technicians.
Melchior tried not to hurry away -- too conspicuous -- but the moment no one was looking he quickly fled, the Nu waddling on his heels.
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"Siris, it has got to stop."
Siris sighed, turning from a group of his warriors to look behind him. He thought for a moment some kids had played a trick on him, but then someone kicked his shin and he looked sheepishly down and saw Ivy. A thin trickle of blood dripped from her temple and her left cheek was swollen with the birth of a bruise. Battle fury was still burning in her eyes, making her breathe deeply, and her dagger was clenched tightly in her hand. Siris scanned the dimly lit tunnel behind her -- three boys, one of whom was Roderrick, lurked rather obviously at its end. These three, he knew from long experience, were part of a much larger group that included all the children in Algetty, and quite a few adults. Siris turned back to his friends.
"If you will excuse me for a moment, I have to go get bitched at." They laughed, as they were supposed to. Everyone knew who wore the sword in Siris' family, and whatever Siris chose to think it was not him.
"Hey Ivy," one of the said, "can Siris come out and play later?" He shuffled his feet, clasping his hands behind his back and making his voice sound childish. "We really want him to go hunting with us, but we'll understand if you think it's past his bedtime." Siris forced himself to smile when the others burst into laughter.
"Well, of course he can go hunting with you, Kerrigor," Ivy spoke up with false sweetness as she narrowed blue eyes at her uncle. "Just as soon as he learns not to bite the hand that changes the diaper."
The men roared with laughter again. Siris closed his eyes, counted to ten, and managed not to explode on his seven-year-old niece. Poison Ivy, the other Earthbound called her behind her back. Well, there were times when he certainly agreed with that. Like now. Siris put his hand on her shoulder, trying not to grip it too hard as he steered her forcefully down the tunnel towards their private rooms.
"All right," he snapped, shoving her around to one side of the table and sitting himself on the other. "What happened this time?"
Ivy settled herself on the wooden bench, gingerly lifting the fabric of her shirt away from her shoulder and peering closely at the dirty skin beneath. She wouldn't have cared that he'd grabbed her so hard -- hells, she deserved it -- but he'd latched on to a cut from the encounter with Bloodreaver Alpha that hadn't fully healed yet, and the wound had reopened. In truth, she was stalling for time. Ivy had not meant to charge up to him in front of his friends like that -- she was conspicuous enough without stunts like that -- but Roderrick had ambushed her again, and this time his older sister had been helping and she'd also had a dagger. Fighting children her own size was one thing, but it was quite another to face them as well as someone three times her height.
"You told me to let you know when things got too dangerous," Ivy said quietly, trying not to further enrage her uncle's temper. She heard him sigh, and the bench creaked as he lifted himself up and crossed around to her side of the table.
"Show me," he said quietly, but she quickly shook her head. There was a pause, then "That bad?"
"Yes."
He sighed.
"I didn't start it this time."
He sighed again.
"Look, I'm sorry about your friends, okay? I was still mad from the fight or I'd have known better."
"Ivy-"
"You just said to let you know, so, well, I'm letting you know." Ivy forced herself to look up at him. "It isn't safe." His eyes narrowed, furrowing his brow.
"Don't play that innocent child act with me, Ivy, I've known you too long to fall for it." Siris frowned, noticing the dagger in her hand, and tried to snatch it away but she was too fast and he had to wrench it from her grasp. "I told you not to use these damn things." He slipped it into his belt. Ivy worried him. Not just because she used daggers against children but because she knew how to use them almost better than he could, and no one had taught her.
"Siris!" Ivy surged to her feet, breathing through her teeth. "You don't know what its like! Hells, I'm just a seven year old girl, most of them are twice my size! I... I..."
Siris whirled around, recognizing the breathy dreamlike tone of voice. Ivy swayed on her feet, blue eyes unfocused and cloudy, trembling hands clutching the edge of the table for support. "S-Siris-" He ran around the table and caught his niece when she collapsed, cradling her limp body in his arms. Her breath came in soft, rhythmic gasps, shudders racking her body.
"I thought you said that damned Dream-rock shit Melchior gave you was supposed to help!" He tried, and failed, to keep the panic out of his voice.
"It...does," she breathed, blue eyes already very far away. "The dreams, not the visions." Ivy paused, her head falling against his chest. 'Uncle Siris...' Her voice in his mind was even weaker than her spoken one. '...We have to kill him.'
'Who?!' He already knew the answer, but he was desperate to keep her with him, even for just a few more seconds. These damned 'visions' of hers scared the hell out of him. They were a very frightening reminder that no matter how tough she acted, she was really just a child, something he tended to forget. There was so little he could do to protect her from something happening in her own mind.
'...Lavos...'
It was the only thing Melchior didn't -- couldn't -- know about Siris' precious little girl. She was old enough now that no question about her illustrious father's abilities being passed down would plague her, and Siris was not going to give the Guru of Life yet another reason to need to take Ivy away.
"Siris?"
Someone tugged at his sleeve and he looked up to find Kirby's innocently worried face staring at the unconscious burden in his arms.
"Is she okay? Is it another vision? I'll hold her, Melchior's here and he wants to talk to you."
"Speak of the devil," Siris couldn't help murmuring, tenderly transferring Ivy to Kirby's arms.
He found the old Guru alone in the great hall, sipping a mug of steaming tea and staring wistfully at the snowflakes drifting down in lazy spirals from the hole in the roof. The strange shape of a Nu hunched beside him, snoring gently.
"Melchior," Siris said quickly before the old man could begin whatever long-winded tale had brought him there. "Is...is there any...potion, or stone that...can prevent visions?" Whatever Melchior guessed from this odd request he gave no sign, save arching two gray bushy eyebrows. No matter what suspicions the Guru had as to Ivy, the important thing was keeping the little girl safe. And her visions were anything but safe.
"Preventing visions? Hmmm, you don't usually see that. More often one is trying to attain them. I suppose there is a way to ward them off, I'll have to look it up." The old man paused, then heaved a long heavy sigh, lifting tired eye to meet Siris'. "I have given you at least a year before Schala will be able to repair the Mammon Machine. Use it wisely, because I doubt I'll be capable of such a feat again." Melchior paused again, looking suddenly very old and weary.
"Melchior," Siris said suddenly as something occurred to him. "How were you, with what old weak-ass magic you have, able to screw Zeal's Machine so much it's gonna take a year to fix?"
Melchior dismissed him with a wave. "It was nothing. We've known forever that Dreamstone is very sensitive, and can only hold so much power before-" The Guru of Life stopped abruptly, and began to grin. "Yes, yes, you're right, that might work. If I could condense it somehow, with the right refinery techniques, we might could..." He trailed off and chuckled grimly.
His next words, spoken with such quit urgency, surprised Siris and made him wonder just how much Ivy really knew and wasn't telling him.
"We have to kill Lavos, Siris. We have to. And if the Kingdom of Zeal falls because of that...so be it."
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Rast: To the reviewer known as turtlerad17 -- you didn't leave an email, so the answers to your questions are: exactly the plot until after the events of the game, he will be Magus eventually, yes, and thank you for reviewing!
And to Rachel -- nana nana boo boo, stick your head in doo doo! Whatever you're about to guess about the Timeless people, save your breath 'cause it's gonna be wrong!