Chapter 17:
The sorceress's chamber is dim after the bright hallway. Instead of a room, she finds herself in a large, windowless rectangle. Across from her, sheer curtains hang in front of a throne-like chair. The black top of the sorceresses head is just visible over the top. Rinoa clears her throat, holding the bangle and her wrist behind her back. (Hyne, please let this work).
"Excuse me...I…I'm...thedaughterofGalbadiaArmy'sGeneralCaraway." (What happened to my competence at lying to the guards?) the sorceress doesn't move. (Is she…sleeping?) I...thought I'd...come pay my respects…I've brought a small gift…please…"
The sorceress sighs audibly. She rises from the chair and raises an arm over her head. Her fingers are long, black, skinless claws connected to her sleeves. She flicks a wrist, and Rinoa freezes with one hand on her blaster edge, the other holding the bangle defensively in front of her. The sorceress stretches gently, crossing her arms over her body, and then turns and glides over to Rinoa. The strings of beads and jewels on her head dress swing gently. She is as Rinoa remembers her from the T.V. station, wearing the same black dress and headdress. It occurs to Rinoa that she's been wearing the same clothes for…how long now? Weeks?
The sorceress plucks the bangle from Rinoa's frozen fingers. She gives it a cursory look, tosses it to one side. Rinoa turns her eyes to watch it skitter across the floor. It taps the wall, echoes around the room. Edea leans in towards Rinoa; who looks up slowly to meet her gaze. Her eyes are light, light brown. (Golden…) Her skin is white, tinged with green, her make-up cracking. Rinoa stares with growing dread at the tiny raised veins on skin creeping from her temples.
"Sylaas's daughter. Come with me." (A Centurian accent…)
She turns abruptly and walks away, the fringe of her black dress swishing, dusting the floor. To Rinoa's amazement, her inert muscles warm with movement and she walks, floats across the floor like a bizarre puppet, suspended from her elbows, and the top of her head. The sorceress crosses to the end of the room and presses her palms on an elaborately carved wooden relief in the wall. It turns to silver liquid and she passes through it. Rinoa's invisible puppeteer guides her in pursuit. The silver liquid is warm and rubbery, the cold night air on the speaking platform shocking.
The crowd below roars. The platform is at least 30 feet wide, surrounded by a tall rail, and empty except for president Deling, retreating from a wooden podium with a single microphone. Rinoa's boots fall unsteadily on the linoleum floor. Standing to one side, Deling straightens his tie and gives Rinoa curious sideways glances. It occurs to Rinoa to shove him over the railing, but her head is forced towards the sorceress, and her limbs won't move towards him. (I'm not usually such a violent person…I don't understand…)
The unseen strings guiding Rinoa's limbs slacken. She dangles by the pull on her head, the rest of her body swaying like a rag doll's. The clear night is ringing with the sound of cheering, shouting. Main Street stretches endlessly out in front of city hall, blockaded several blocks down by army vehicles. Across it, spectators are using the roofs of the cars parked along Ruby Light Avenue as vantage points. A few have dragged lawn chairs onto the sidewalks. The sorceress approaches the podium, rests her arms gracefully on its sides. She began speaking in her alto, Centurian voice,
"…Lowlifes."
The crowd explodes with cheering. Is the sorceress already such a popular public figure? (What kind of joke is she making? She didn't even crack a smile.)
"Shameless filthy wretches."
(That's going too far. Who is this?)
"How you celebrate my ascension with such joy. Hailing the very one whom you have condemned for generations. Have you no shame?"
(What is she saying? And why are they still cheering? What is she going to do with me?) Rinoa sways helplessly in front of this black tower of power and charisma and (madness! She's gone mad…)
"What happened to the evil, ruthless sorceress from your fantasies? The cold-blooded tyrant that slaughtered men and destroyed nations?"
The crowd quiets, waiting for the answer. Rinoa's neck is aching from the strain of supporting the rest of her body. The string is pulling her higher, until only her toes touch the ground. (What have I done? Let me leave; someone come get me. Someone come…)
"She stands before your very eyes to become your new ruler."
Cold, deep laughter, echoes off the surrounding buildings, sweeps into the basin below the platform. It penetrates Rinoa's skin and vibrates in her sternum.
"A new era has just begun. This is reality. No one can help you now. Sit back and enjoy the show."
With I final, suspicious glace back at Rinoa, Deling approaches the podium. He takes Edea's hand in his and raises it above his head, like the referee of a boxing match presenting the winner.
(Didn't they hear what she said?)
The pair turn to the left, then to the right, soaking up applause and cheering from all sides. Deling puts an arm around Edea's shoulders, which are about at the level of his head, and flashes a smile. Edea remains stony faced. She returns to the microphone.
"Rest assured, you fools. Your time will come. This is only the beginning. Let us start a new reign of terror. I will let you live a fantasy beyond your imagination." Ignoring the renewed uproar from the crowd, Edea spins away from the platform and glides away, her hips lilting from side to side. Deling trots after her, brushing imaginary dust from his jacket. The string on Rinoa's head breaks, and she collapses to her knees, waiting for the strength to come back into her legs. Her whole body shakes.
(I'm alive. What did she want with me?) It occurs to Rinoa that only she could hear the sorceress's morose speech. (I'm the one going mad?) She stands unsteadily, peers over the railing at the cheering crowd. (I can't get down that way.) She turns and follows the sorceress and Deling.
The silver liquid door has turned back into a relief sculpture. Now the only entrance into the building is a wide, white, tiled hallway to her left. The sorceress's voice and Delings echo from inside the hall.
"Edea, you were brilliant. They loved you. Here are the papers."
"Did you know, Vinzer, that in Galbaldia's history she has never had a female president?"
Rinoa steals into the hallway entrance, supporting her weight on one of the white walls. White light shines down in her eyes, making her squint to see the figures ahead, one gray, one black.
"Edea I don't underst-"
"Yes, Vinzer, well that's hardly a revelation."
The curvy, black silhouette turns to the square, gray one. Crouching, Rinoa presses herself against the wall, wills herself to sink into it.
"I-"
"All you understand, Vinzer, is power and money, corruption and peccadillo; how to increase your share of the former two by means of the latter."
Vinzer doesn't answer. Rinoa wonders if Edea silenced him as she did the guard.
"You lack subtlety. In fact, you lack ambition. All you know is this political wasteland, where not even your countrymen see you as you should be. A God among men. Among women."
Black presses toward on gray, presses him to the opposite wall. Where are all the soldiers?
"You have served your purpose Vinzer." The gray figure slumps to his knees. The sorceress steps back, lets the body fall forward. She turns abruptly to Rinoa. Advances on her. Loath to be frozen and controlled again, Rinoa stays still.
"Let us end this ceremony with a sacrifice."
The sorceress reaches a black claw towards her; Rinoa shrinks away and shields her face with an arm. Edea forces her thumb to her face, presses it against her cheek. Though she feels no pain, Rinoa can feel warm blood trickling from the sorceress's finger, splattering on her bare shoulder.
Quistis: Selphie and Zell took their places at the two control panels for central arc's gates, and I mine at the main controls inside the top of the arc itself almost an hour before the speeches even began. I had plenty of time, sitting in a tiny room with a window overlooking city hall and the mob below it, to reflect on the events of the past week or so.
After Seifer ran away from Garden, my whole world was shaken up. Actually, it probably started when I lost my instructor's license. I tried talking to Squall about it. Somewhere in a dark, repressed corner of my mind I imagined he might sympathize, console me, and maybe make love to me in an empty dormitory, my position as his instructor no longer an issue. I was hurt, if not at all surprised when he brushed me off.
I'd assumed Squall was interested in the girl we'd seen around garden – "Ellone" according to the headmaster – Cid's sister's cousin once removed or something along those lines, though I'd never known Squall to take an interest in any particular girl before. I saw Ellone once in a while on campus, always alone, coming back from the library with an armful of books or running on a treadmill in the gym. She usually carried a green shawl.
And then a few days of chaos – following Seifer to Timber, taking Rinoa from Timber to G-Garden, and now, being sent to Deling City. That's the part that really didn't add up – why Garden would assign three novice SeeDs and myself to escort Rinoa home, and assassinate the sorceress while we were there, like picking up the dry cleaning.
It's true that SeeDs are taught never to question their mission. But we do. When one overpowers and kills people, destroy families, change the flow of historical events, anyone with awareness or intelligence or empathy always has to wonder why. And SeeDs are educated, if not always intelligent. We are taught from childhood to think critically, to use our resources, to problem solve…to notice detail. Rings of coffee on the dashboard of the control panel in that tiny, dank, room. Dirt on the glass of the window. A pale imprint on the wall where there had been a piece of furniture. I wonder how they'd gotten it out, or gotten it there in the first place, the top of central arc being 3000 feet off the ground. I'd had to climb an enclosed ladder on one side and walk across the top of it.
Maybe that's why I noticed Rinoa so much. And analyzed her. I felt much older than she, and obliged to look after her. I can see how one could dislike her – immature, obstinate, often single-minded, and born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. But Squall didn't, and I didn't either, despite having to watch them dance together, being left to play referee between Zell and Irvine the previous day, and hearing repeated accounts of Rinoa's incredible speed at learning to cast and prodigious compatibility with her avatar, from Squall. Silent, withdrawn Squall, so excited over the discovery of these talents in a civilian.
I killed time with a copy of Deling City in the New Millennium, an effusive, long-winded history recommended by the general for my personal enrichment:
Deling City, the first "fabricated capital", was designed by President Casimir Deling, father of the current president Vinzer Deling, to resemble the cultured, architecturally artistic cities of his childhood in the Galbaldian northern peninsula. Despite the grandeur of its renowned central arc, the beauty of the city temple, and the quaint shops and restaurants along Main Street, the city falls short of the effortless beauty of 20th century Dollet, Curiel, and Hana Lumina.
The seat of conservative power in the Republic of Galbaldia is the site of blah blah blah…
Boring. I put the book away. The crowd outside had become so thick that it spilled over the metal barriers set up to clear space for the parade. Despite the squalid state of the control room, I felt sort of privileged to have such an excellent view. I could see the speaking platform below, before the backdrop of the legs of holographic jugglers and clowns.
President Deling came out to enthusiastic cheers from the crowd, raised his arms in acknowledgement. I thought that Deling city really must be the seat of conservative power in the Republic; most of Galbaldia hated Deling's guts, even those that supported Casimir Deling. How could Rinoa have become such a passionate liberal growing up here? Garden is a politically neutral organization, and like leaves of a tree, most SeeDs are as well, or at least we appear so in professional situations. But we still understand the significance of politics as it relates to our jobs, and privately, have our own views.
Deling isn't a rambler; he's an experienced, if not popular, public persona. His speech was short and to-the-point: Behind every successful leader is a loyal second-in-command. The noise from the crowd escalated into a frenzy in response, shouting at the news cameras and jostling to get in front of photographers, knowing that tomorrow, these pictures would be on the front page of every paper in the Republic.
Although Edea's appointment as vice president after Donovan was not entirely unexpected, most political analysts didn't think Deling would have the guts. Edea gave a short acceptance speech about the Galbaldian ideals of peace, prosperity, and equality, and exited in the midst of fanatical applause. Another figure on the speaking platform (a bodyguard?) stayed after the president and sorceress had gone, leaning over the edge of the rail, and then followed the sorceress into the building. I turned away from the window.
I remember wondering where Squall was, if he was standing among the crowd, waiting for the parade to leave. Or maybe he hadn't even left Carraway's house yet. Was Rinoa there too?
I didn't notice, except in retrospect, that the noise level below had increased. The walls rumbled. Now the cheering had turned to screaming. I dove under the control panel and fished out my cellphone, planning to call the general and report the earthquake, but the building started shaking, more and more violently, and I couldn't dial the numbers. I wondered how secure the central arc was, considered looking it up in Deling City in the New Millennium. I wondered momentarily if I might die, and if I did whether or not Squall would cry. Then the lights flickered, the shaking stopped, and the room was as it had been.
A thin stream of blood is still flowing freely from a painless, half-moon shaped cut in Rinoa's forehead. It runs down the bridge of her nose and neck, and collects in the hollow of her collarbone. Though the sight of blood frightens her, Rinoa is more collected than she was when the president's body double attacked her. (Maybe I'm getting braver?) She fumbles with the latch of her items pouch, barely aware of screaming outside, finds a topical blood clotting cream and smears it on her forehead with sweaty fingers. Louder screaming, and shouting. Closing the items pouch as she stands, supporting herself on the wall. Then more a loud crash from outside, on the speaking platform, and the floor bounces. She drops the pouch and runs.
The room spins. (Got up too fast…) Behind her the sounds of huge feet slapping on the tile and inhuman hissing echo around the white hall. She turns, stumbles back a few steps, and falls to her knees.