Symmetry
Chapter Five: Everybody Wants To Rule The World
The phrase 'sword and shield' was an old one for them, from a promise they had made while travelling with Eirika and Ephraim a year earlier. It was how they fought, a strategy that hadn't yet failed, and made decisions very easy. When the throne room door burst open, Franz's eyes immediately settled on the dark-cloaked man standing at the other end of the room, facing away from them. As the sword, the paladin narrowed his focus, shut out everything else in the great court, and ran for the stranger.
He had nothing to fear from any other foe, especially not after that unusual promotion in the armory. Amelia forced herself to ignore the dark mage; she was the shield, and anything that tried to hurt or hinder Franz in his charge was going to find their insides a bit draughty, due to their new lance-sized ventilation system. The first volunteer was a giant brigand, who tried to bisect both the young soldiers with a single, wide swing.
Franz dropped onto his back, let the blade fly overhead, rolled back up, and continued his run. Amelia, who was feeling less charitable the more she saw petrified friends scattered around the castle, leapt up, boosted herself off the giant axehead, landed briefly with one foot on each of the murderous behemoth's shoulders, and thrust down. Mercenaries came at them next; she put her extra reach to use and knocked them cold with the haft of her lance.
A surprisingly small axe-wielder blocked Franz's path; seeing that Amelia was busy keeping another five mercs off his back, the paladin spared a moment to drive his fist into the warrior's face, and was as surprised as you'd think when it didn't flinch. What did happen was that its now-crumpled faceplate fell away, revealing nothing but stormy darkness and bright yellow eyes.
It screeched at him, a sound like a pair of cats fighting inside bagpipes being played very badly.
"Hmm," Franz remarked, and sliced the phantom's head off. The shadows burst, its axe and armor crumbled to dust, and he moved on. The dark mage – apparently a summoner – finally turned as Franz approached, as though he had only just noticed the brawl erupting behind him. A firm believer in asking questions later, Franz swung his sword fiercely, and didn't care for the summoner's calm gesture, which flared black and sent his blade rocketing the other way. Franz managed to keep his grip, used the new momentum to come around the other way, and was once again waved away.
Watching the other Carcino soldiers edge away from the battlefield, Amelia smiled and concussed her last foe. "Yeah, it's about time you started running," she called as they broke ranks and fled to the door. "Not that any of you are worth the trouble, but at least you're saving us some time by–"
"Hhhhssshhhh…" Amelia realised that she hadn't looked around in several seconds, and thus had placed herself in the most traditional stupid and vulnerable position in history. The recruit spun and had the sense to bring her weapon up as soon as she recognised the dark-scaled mass of a giant Gorgon. With a twist, she intercepted both of its snakehead-hands with the lance shaft, though sheer coiled muscle sent Amelia sprawling across the floor with a deafening outburst of profanity.
Franz turned his head to check on her. "Was that you?" he asked, startled, and then leapt aside as Flux magic burst from the floor beneath his feet; the dark mage had attacked while his attention was diverted. It stayed very thoroughly diverted once he saw the beast. "…Oh. That thing is seriously huge."
The summoner – not that Franz or Amelia noticed – grasped something on a chain around his neck and growled "Kill them both. I have no time to waste." The Gorgon shrieked its agreement and rushed Amelia, but it's difficult to slither up any great force, and she held her ground this time. A brief gleam appeared in the monster's eyes as she batted at its grasping claws, and the recruit instinctively looked away. The gleam became a flash.
"No!" Franz shouted, as the curse enveloped her and…
…Nothing happened, actually.
"What?" the summoner growled. "Oh. Right. Well, so be it." He turned to face the wall again, gesturing vaguely with his arms and staring at details that did not appear to be changing in the slightest.
Amelia noticed that she hadn't been petrified, and took advantage of the Gorgon's apparent surprise to smack its jaw with her lance, but the blow bounced off. Not to be deterred, she struck at the beast's eyes, fending it off long enough to get herself out of the corner. Amelia wasn't sure what their tactics were now; the summoner seemed to have shrugged away Franz's attacks, but this Gorgon was no easier to kill, and even if they could, it wouldn't bring the dark mage's plot to an end.
"Franz – don't look," she said, joining him in the clear middle of the hall.
"Oh." He obediently shut his eyes.
"I mean at the Gorgon!" Amelia snapped, her impatience not quite drowning out her amusement. "It's got to make eye contact to Stone you."
"You're sure you're all right?" he asked.
"How do I look?" Franz tilted his head slightly as he stared at her, something Amelia put an end to when a faint smile started to form around the edges of his mouth. "Oh, stop it. We have to find a way to kill that creature."
"Higher priority!" the paladin yelped, pushing her aside and stabbing through another phantom warrior preparing to chop into Amelia. "I thought I killed that already."
"That's why they're called summoners," said Amelia. "They get to do it more than once."
"Only one at a… time… though…" Franz trailed off as the dark mage raised both hands and absentmindedly conjured a pair of the spectral soldiers. "I really, really hate it when this sort of thing happens. Villains should play by the rules."
The phantoms backed up the Gorgon on each side, as if twenty-foot unholy snake monsters need assistance. Franz forced himself not to look at the monster's eyes, which was the sort of thing you only ever got an urge to do when you knew you weren't supposed to. He focused on the throne room, empty of all but the royal seat of power and a few pillars. And the people and creatures that wanted to kill them. He was feeling distinctly low on resources.
At times like this, Seth's advice was a good thing to fall back on: Weapons in the hands of your foes are simply pointed in the wrong direction, and it is your duty to see them used to their full potential. Maybe they couldn't cut through this monster's scales, but the strength of a wraith-warrior was on a whole new scale. "Hold back," Franz murmured, as he and Amelia slowly retreated from the approaching trio. "Can't explain, just watch."
The paladin charged ahead, thankful that he was still short enough that it was easy not to meet the Gorgon's eyes. He ducked the monster's claws, blocked a swing from the phantom, ignored the opportunity to strike back, and baited it into another attack. This one was a wild horizontal slash, and Franz rolled underneath it, letting the wraith's axe smash into the Gorgon's iron-grey scales. They cracked, and a drop of sizzling coppery blood trickled through.
Briefly the Gorgon lost interest in Franz, shrieking as it smote the clumsy phantom into dusty nothingness. Clearly not paying attention, the summoner waved again, and another one rose from a magic circle, marching mechanically into battle. Amelia caught this one's attention, using her natural (and recently superpowered) agility and combat technique to draw it close, pinning herself between the Gorgon and phantom, and then getting the heck out of there while the two struck at each other.
"You come up with the best plans," she remarked to Franz as this next phantom was obliterated by a lash of the monster's tail. "Hey, maybe if we enrage it enough it'll start going after the phantoms automatically… uh-oh." A sphere of air around Amelia had gone dark, as another, darker dimension tried to infringe on this one. Rather than stick around to see the rest of the Gorgon's Demon Surge spell – a rush of absolute shadow, then pink lightning and savage winds – she rolled away and flattened herself against the floor. Franz moved to intercept yet another phantom, shredding it in just a few moments.
Demon Surge blasted the throne room's floor, sending stone shards flying in all directions, which was why Amelia had dropped flat and mostly out of the way. The safe thing to do, the smart thing, Franz knew, would have been to crouch behind his new white-and-gold shield, and let it take the shrapnel, but monsters were notoriously vulnerable immediately after casting a spell.
He charged the Gorgon, feeling hot needles of rock ping off his armor and stab searingly between its plates. He didn't have the time to think through what would happen when he jumped, although it made sense at an instinctive level. Feeling something hostile and living grab its arm, the Gorgon's natural response was to haul him the rest of the way up, where he wouldn't be able to escape petrifaction. The green paladin rose into view, and a silver point grew very large, very quickly.
Franz hit the ground badly, falling twelve feet flat onto his back, but the spattering of blood across his breastplate declared the attack worth it. The Gorgon, now minus one dark eye, shrieked in pain and attempted to carve its name – someone's name, at least, provided it had lots of 'I's and 'X's – into his chest, but his paladin armor stood up to the assault long enough for him to scramble away, fighting to refill his lungs.
"You can do the next one," he groaned, as Amelia used her lance to simultaneously help him up and take the head off a phantom.
"I intend to," she replied. "But unless you've got a cloth and polish, I'll need your oh-so-gleaming shield. I was thinking, we should be able to reflect its own Stone spell back on it, shouldn't–"
Amelia's plan was cut off sharply as an immense block of marble hit her like a battering ram. Horrified, Franz looked the other way to see the second phantom, which had used its axe and inhuman strength to carve out half of one of the room's pillars. They weren't important enough to bring the ceiling falling in, especially with just one gone, but still had the weight of sturdiness. He dashed to where the block had stopped by the wall, praying that Amelia wasn't under it.
"Come on, come on, those voices said it…" he muttered, stumbling slightly in the debris.
She was free, sprawled in the narrow space between the pillar's broken end and the sheer wall, but she was motionless and looked more like a battered puppet than a brave knight. As he watched, a drop of blood trickled out between two armor plates. On the far side of Amelia, the giant dark Gorgon slithered into view.
"Hhhsssssshhhh," it suggested. Franz took no more than half a second to think of a rebuttal, and barely more time to deliver it. He leapt ahead, bashing the creature's arm aside with his shield when it struck out at him, and began a berserk offensive that would have made Ephraim take notes. Where the phantom's axes had already cracked and broken the beast's scales, Franz made the fractures wider, drove his blade deeper.
"Where is that entrance?" the summoner muttered, demanding that the chamber reveal its secrets, apparently unaware of the battle unfolding behind him.
The Gorgon retreated in surprise, finding that Franz was still aware enough of his actions to put his strong shield to use, and wasn't bothering to look up and make himself available to petrifying eyes. He wasn't really doing it terrible harm, but that darting, shining sword was bringing the monster agony every time it cut. As Franz raised his blade for a hammering blow, the Gorgon literally turned tail and used its body as a weapon. The tail caught him under his arm and smacked the paladin across the room, where he skidded to a halt against the stairs that led to the thrones of Renais.
Franz raised his head, trying to shake away the stars obscuring his view and making the floor stay still. Unfortunately, the first anchor he could lock his gaze on was the dark grey scales of the Gorgon, slithering forward to tower over him. Franz tried to bring up his shield, but it was lying discarded, too far away for him to retrieve before the beast's next strikes. Shrieking in predatory satisfaction, the Gorgon reared up, its arms raised before the plunge.
Directly behind Franz, the wall between the twin thrones vanished with a sound like a sharp breath, and Princess Eirika lunged into view, blade first. Shining Sieglinde cut through the air like the lightning it had been forged in, drove almost as quickly through the Gorgon's scales to burn through its back. She twisted the sparking sword, turning its edge vertical, and swung upward in a long semicircle that split the now-glowing monster from its middle through its head. Silent for the first time yet, the Gorgon glowed completely white and burst like a firework.
The summoner whirled on them, first taking in the open door (with triumph), then the presence of Eirika (with amusement), and then the abysmal shortage of giant dark Gorgons in the area (with utter incredulity). "Looking for this?" the princess suggested harshly, twirling Sieglinde so that its tip left behind a radiant circle in the air.
"Actually, I was more interested in the Sacred Stone," the summoner growled.
"What? Another one of you people? Don't you know what happened to the scholars in Grado?" she demanded, stalking across the room.
"Fools who had no idea what they were attempting to control. Besides, Princess, you've made my job so much easier by destroying the material husk of Fomortiis. The Demon King's spirit is truly trapped; it can never take physical form again. It's perfect. All the secrets of the universe will be revealed to me."
Eirika glanced for a moment back at Franz, who still looked deeply dazed. There were some things princesses shouldn't be heard to say. "You want secrets? I'll reveal a secret for you. I'm about to kick your–"
"Not while I hold the high ground, so to speak," said the summoner. He snapped his fingers and the doors to the throne room –Eirika didn't remember anyone closing them – swung open, revealing his second phantom, who had been absent from battle for some time, and the stone body of Seth. "Let's consider the situation, princess. Your army is petrified. So is your brother. Your remaining allies are all days away from here. You cannot hope to hold me in this castle. You will bring the Sacred Stone to the southern border between Renais and Carcino, at the crossing of the Whisperwash."
"And trade it to you in exchange for my… general?" said Eirika, hesitating for just a moment. "You're going to be making a slow escape, with your phantoms carrying him all the way there."
"That's true," the summner agreed theatrically, as though he hadn't thought of that before now. "Let's simplify things." He slashed his hand out to the side, and in response the phantom brought its axe around in a horizontal sweep that took Seth's head off at the neck. Eirika barely stifled a scream. "Understand?" the summoner demanded. "You have until the curse ends to bring me the Stone, or else your… general" –he drew out the princess's hesitation mockingly– "will return to the realm of the living just long enough to suffer the most belated death by beheading in Magvel's history."
Eirika charged him. The summoner fled instantly, thrusting out an arm in her direction long enough to call up his second phantom, who barrelled directly into the princess and bore her to the ground. It tried to bash her with its helmet, but she grabbed the wraith by its transparent neck and was possibly going to be the first person ever to successfully strangle a ghost when someone else stabbed the creature in the back. She looked up through the dissipating smoke at Rennac, who helped her up.
"Well, this isn't going according to plan," he remarked.
Eirika laid him out with one punch.
"Ow! I said not going to plan!" the rogue repeated from the floor, rubbing his cheek.
"You treacherous snape," the princess growled.
"…You mean, 'snake'?"
"I said snape and I meant snape!"
Their impending brawl was cut short by an anguished cry that echoed off the ancient smooth walls. Franz had stumbled back to Amelia, and if possible, she looked worse. The flow of blood had continued, her face was pale, and she didn't seem to be breathing. He gripped her arm, praying that his fingers were just too numb to feel a pulse. The tips of her fingers were getting cold.
"No… no, come on, you said this wouldn't happen, you blasted voices, you said she'd never break, you can't do this, you can't let this happen!" He knelt beside her, looking almost as broken as the soldier, his head bowed. Eirika was shocked to find that she couldn't move, couldn't think of a thing to say. How had this happened? Amelia should have been out training somewhere in the marshes, Franz should have been rallying the knights out on… okay, that was an easy connection to make. They had obviously met up and come back. But now they were here, and Eirika couldn't even think as she watched the last of the youngest knight's life…
"Are you going to use this or not?" Rennac asked irritably, shaking a flask at Franz again.
"Don't trust him, he's already betrayed us!" Eirika barked out, her silence broken by righteous anger.
"Princess," the rogue snapped, "assume for a moment that I've been telling you the truth all along and lying to that dark mage we just saw the back of, will you? I'm trying to save a life." He turned back to Franz. "Now. Quickly. Look, this is L'Arachel's personal seal – do you think even I could steal something like that?" His eyes promising that lethal retribution was still an option, Franz took it. "Use it the ordinary way; this stuff makes elixirs look like fruit juice."
Carefully but quickly, Franz tried to get Amelia to drink from the flask. The liquid inside didn't seem to be anything except diamond-clear water, and nothing noteworthy happened as he poured, until the flask was half-empty, at which point the super-recruit sputtered and made a face of confused distaste.
"That is really cloyingly sweet," she stated, trying to scrape her tongue clean with her teeth. "Agh." She looked straight up to see the merchant-prince from Carcino sitting on the very piece of wreckage that had smashed her to begin with. "Oh. Hey, Rennac. What are you doing here?"
"Long story that Eirika won't believe," he said casually. "You feel at all dead?"
"No," she replied, frowning with the touch of are-you-crazy that this question deserved, "but I can't really remember how the end of that battle went. Maybe I should get a helmet–"
At which point Franz's ecstatic-disbelief-paralysis ran out and he tackled Amelia directly from his kneeling position. Eirika's eyebrows shot up at the embrace that followed, but she managed to convince herself that she this was the sort of thing she just didn't find out about when the bureaucracy broke down for a day. Obviously that put Franz on Rennac's side.
"All right," she said to the rogue. "Convince me you're not a traitor."
Rennac sighed and shifted himself, stretching out to loll on the top of the broken pillar. "Are you really going to believe me, whatever I may say? The truth is that soon after arriving home after our little monster-slaying jaunt around the continent, I got pulled into some complicated family matters. That summoner who just made off with General Seth's head is my uncle. Old Psycho Arnord."
"Considering what he just pulled, I'm not surprising you're related," Eirika muttered. "And why did you – will you two at least pretend that some shred of decorum is a possibility?"
"Sorry! Sorry, m'lady," said Franz, abruptly letting go of Amelia and climbing to his feet. She followed, grinning at the paladin's sudden embarrassment and nodding her compliance toward the princess.
"So I was dead?" Amelia asked Rennac.
"Just barely not. If there's one thing Lady L'Arachel knows how to do that doesn't involve blowing up monsters, it's the healing blessing of Saint Latona," he replied.
"Why did you choose to help him?" Eirika persisted.
Rennac sighed again; clearly he liked the image far too much. "Because it was better for you to have an agent on the inside than not. Because I convinced him to use his pet Gorgon to petrify all your soldiers instead of killing them, and because he was supposed to get here and get completely thrashed because I convinced him I didn't know where the Sacred Stone was. No one told me he could summon multiple phantoms, and that trick with Seth came out of nowhere. You'll notice that, if he hadn't had time to get a hostage, he would currently be lying… over there, I think, asking you very nicely not to thrash him any more."
"And why didn't you just warn us in advance? Would it have been that hard to get a message out?" the princess demanded.
"No, it wouldn't, once we were on the march," Rennac admitted, in the voice that they all knew meant he couldn't believe the idiocy of those around him. "And that would have led to what? A long and arduous siege with the two mightiest mercenary companies of Carcino against the Renais elites. What do you want to bet you'd have lost people by the end of that? They would take hostages from nearby villages, they would play to your weaknesses – you've got them, like all good people – and some of your friends would be dead by now, don't you think? And me."
"You think you're quite clever, don't you?" she growled.
"Yes. I think I've dealt with a potentially hideous situation without anyone dying and without my behated uncle getting his hands on the Sacred Stone. Very neat, in my opinion," said Rennac.
"Fantastic," Eirika muttered. She noticed Franz and Amelia again. "…Franz, you can stop saluting, now."
"Thank you, m'lady!" said the paladin, lowering his arm at last.
"I didn't pay much attention to military affairs back then, but I have the distinct feeling that you have a lot in common with Seth when he was fifteen," she observed.
"I'm actually almost seventeen, m'lady." Franz had calmed down enough to stop using exclamation marks for every sentence.
"Mm-hmm," said Eirika, staring at him with meaningful blankness. "All right. Let's assume for the moment that I'm going to trust you, Rennac, keeping in mind that if I feel it's necessary this trust could immediately transform into violent retribution that you would not survive intact. Is there still an army holding the castle?"
"Um… actually, Princess, we dealt with most of them," said Amelia. She distantly realised that this was only the third time she had ever spoken directly to one of the royal twins.
"You what?" asked Eirika, as if she had misheard them.
"We… pretty much thrashed the remainder of the invading forces. The ones that you – your highness, I mean, and Sir Seth – hadn't already defeated. And there are quite a lot of them outside. We locked them in the courtyard."
"How did you – never mind," Eirika cut herself off, realising it would be a long story. "Excellent work, both of you. And I mean brilliant. Rennac, can you–"
"I can handle the rest of the troops, yes," the merchant-prince agreed. "They're on contract to my family, not just my uncle. Should I send them back to Carcino?"
"You might as well – wait, no, I don't want to risk them walking off with royal treasures. Just have them stand down, and make camp on the fields outside. Blasted mercenaries, I can never tell when they're evil and when they're not. Now, what about this Whisperwash?"
"That's the river in the mountains north of here; it draws the border between Renais and Carcino. Arnord probably has yet another one of his little workshop-lairs hidden around there. He'll get another pet monster and wait to ambush you, I'm sure."
"Ambush? He said he wanted to trade; why wouldn't he want us to save Seth?" Eirika asked.
"He'd see it as a pre-emptive action. You're sure to have tricks planned for him, so a good ambush will neutralise things and give him back his excellent bargaining position," Rennac explained.
"And what did you say about pet monsters?"
"His greatest achievement so far is that amulet; it lets him dominate the usually-chaotic mind of a monster and issue it commands. I was the one who suggested a gorgon and the petrifying strategy. He was the one who imbued it with dark might and immense durability. Now, can we get going? Have we covered everything?" the rogue asked sarcastically.
"He's got Seth's head?" Franz demanded, just making the connection between the decapitated paladin statue and talk of 'saving Seth'.
"And if we don't give him the Sacred Stone within two days, the curse wears off and General Seth dies," said Rennac.
"How neat," Amelia remarked. She managed to turn them comment into a ghastly insult.
"All right," said Eirika. "I've got a plan forming. And yes, I intend to take up this Arnord freak on his trade idea, which means someone has to stay behind to explain the situation to the knights – the knights are coming back, right?"
"Affirmative, m'lady! Passed your orders on to Sergeant Faval!" Franz reported. Amelia forcibly stopped him from saluting again.
"Faval really liked you, didn't he?" she asked, quietly.
"Top of the class in orienteering," he replied with a grin.
"Then someone will have to tell them where I'm going, search those mercenaries to make sure they're not thieving, and send them back on their way to Carcino," Eirika stated.
"I'm going to help rescue General Seth," Franz volunteered-insisted.
"I'm going too," Amelia seconded.
"You'll need my advice," Rennac added.
"Well, there's no way I'm staying," the princess said. "And everyone else is petrified for another day at the least."
Rennac shuffled his feet, looking uncomfortable. Eirika took a moment to enjoy the sight before insisting he give it up. "Well… not everyone, exactly…"
"My brother is always grumpy right after he wakes up, Rennac," said Franz, helping Amelia load the majority of Seth's granite body into the cart. "Don't take it personally."
"Forde wasn't asleep, you miniature war hero, he was locked in a closet," said the rogue, clutching his head and wishing strongly for a ice pack. "I don't see what he's complaining about, myself; it was that or turn him to stone, too."
"Paladin pride," said Amelia, securing the Seth-statue with rope. "You could bend horseshoes around it. And unless I misunderstood the bit where he had you writhing on the floor, shouting at him not to dislocate your shoulders, you did knock him out with a single punch."
"I'm not sure this is a good plan," said Rennac, trying to change the subject.
"Right, but Eirika's the princess of Renais and you're a professional layabout, so hush up and climb aboard," the soldier ordered him.
"You know, I saved your life," he reminded her, taking a seat beside Seth.
"Oh, we're grateful," said Amelia. She noticed Franz's expression. "Well, I'm grateful. Franz may build a small shrine to you in the dungeons or something."
Princess Eirika entered the now-mercenary-free courtyard with iron determination in her step. "Right. I've instated Forde as temporary steward of Renais, for which I have no doubt Kyle will never fully forgive me. The Stone is with me" –she patted a side-satchel of the kind Franz made for many Renais soldiers– "and we have less than two days to find and give Arnord the smiting he's earned. Let's go."
"Um… horses?" Rennac suggested, sarcastically nodding at the cart's empty harness.
Eirika glared at him and raised her Lunar Bracelet, which gleamed silver and summoned a white horse from a blur of light. It was the avatar of the bracelet's power, hers to call on as a Great Lord, and would not be tired by a mere thirty-hour charge across wild country and mountain paths. Rennac shrugged and clambered the rest of the way onto the carriage's roof, possibly trying to put more distance between himself and the supernatural horse.
The sun was setting as they rolled out of Renais, turning immediately north to the first of the mountain ranges. With Eirika at the front, directing their path, the inside of the carriage was left to Amelia, Franz, and Seth, who was even quieter than usual, for obvious reasons. They settled into the corner and tried to find the jarring bouncing of the wheels over rocks soothing.
"I'm exhausted," Franz murmured, his arm around her, "but I don't think there's any chance of… mm… sleep… after all that…" Amelia laughed, not loudly enough to disturb the paladin's instantaneous drop into unconsciousness. Paladin pride indeed. If it weren't for the princess's plans, Franz would probably try to carry Seth to the border himself…
In the clattering darkness, she snored.