Final Fantasy VIII and all related concepts are the property of Square.
Chapter III: Dust and Poison
In the beginning – most sources agree – there was the Great Hyne, who created among other things humanity, to serve as tools. Having finished the Planet and being satisfied with the work he had accomplished, he fell asleep, leaving his creation in the hands of his servants.
Unfortunately, he woke up to discover his servants had multiplied far beyond his intentions. He decided to cull the herd.
Some say that he created a great two-headed monster to use as a weapon, and sent that after the humans. Others say he went himself, burning the people away with his magic. Most agree that it was the children he attacked first. Everybody agrees that humanity decided to fight back.
However it began, Hyne lost. Humans were just too plentiful, too clever. The servants rose up and threw down the master.
To save himself, Hyne gave up a part of his body to the humans.
To some it was a treasure beyond compare, a spark of godhood held by mankind. To others it was a trick, a scrap thrown to distract the dogs while the prey escaped. Here the stories begin branching away like rivers; some sects – such as that practiced faithfully by the quickly-learning student Rayner, who when last observed was being given lessons about a gun he would never use – say that Hyne, impressed with humanity's resilience, watched and studied them from a distance and decided to help them along, to see just how far their own powers could take them. Other faiths – such as that learned by Akira, who on the other side of the planet was being interrogated rather thoroughly about a man he'd given up hope of finding again – say that Hyne escaped by blending his essence with that of the cosmos, and could now only be found in the elemental energies that made up and were created by the Moon and Planet. Still others teach that Hyne the Magician hid himself in shame and defeat, and seek fervently to hunt him down and take the power he kept from humanity. Some say that Hyne is just biding his time until he is strong enough to finish the slaughter he started.
Everybody agrees that if Hyne was found and made whole again – if Hyne's real shape was revealed – it would be the beginning of an age unlike any other, when humans would take the prize that was rightfully theirs, would be acknowledged as the equal of their god, and would rise to the stars with his power lifting them.
Plenty of theologians get excited about this, and spend a lot of time thinking about the paradise that will result when the lost part of Hyne's body is found. In their enthusiasm, they sometimes forget about the part of Hyne's body that was never lost, and its significance to the world.
What was left behind gave power to the Sorceresses.
Location: Balamb Garden
"What is…shot-casting method."
"Shaping a spell into a bolt or stream, and aiming it yourself instead of relying on a GF."
"Shape-casting."
"Range and duration extension, power enhancement, things like that. Exceptionally delicate control over the spell, basically."
"Snap-casting."
"Letting just a bit of energy from the spell loose. Creates a very small and controlled effect, but weakens the actual spell."
"Flash-casting."
"Squeezing all the power you can from a spell without using verbal commands. Extremely advanced technique, not many people have the skill to do it. Not even you, Chanda."
Instructor Alvis was bit of a perfectionist, especially when it came to firearms, but Rayner had been practicing for longer than Alvis had been teaching and Chanda's accuracy was renowned amongst the educational faculty. The pair and a group of other students Alvis had been unable to find fault with had been excused.
Now, as the sun banished the early-spring chill from the air, the two were strolling in the direction of one of the sparring areas just beyond Garden's perimeter. The day had not quite warmed up yet, and Rayner had been surprised to see Chanda wearing her usual halter top; as they walked he kept glancing at her quizzically, wondering why she didn't have goosebumps.
"Memorization."
"Learning a spell from memory. Eliminates the need to draw it, but it's more difficult than regular casting because you're using your own strength."
"Sorcery."
"Come on, Chanda, everybody knows what that is."
"Thaumaturgy, then."
"Miracle-working. Magical skills that can't be accounted for by genetics, para-magic or sorcery. No-one knows what causes it."
"Good."
This particular sparring range for advanced students was little more than a flat swath of dirt surrounded by rocks. The only visible piece of electronic equipment was a solitary metal cylinder set up discretely off to one side. The sensors Chanda and Rayner knew were dotting the area were
completely invisible.
"Got any harder questions that that?" asked Rayner as he moved to one side of the field and pulled the glove off his right hand before digging around in his PaCC for his weapon.
Chanda was inspecting the cylinder, and his question did not immediately register in her mind. "Hmm? Oh... are there any thaumaturgists at Garden?"
"What? How am I supposed to know?"
"Never mind." Chanda pressed on a small sensor and the top of the cylinder opened, revealing a small keypad and display. A mechanical voice said, "Sparring Zone A12. Input student number."
Chanda did so. The voice continued, "ID check... confirmed. Select exercise type."
As Chanda imputed information, Rayner snapped his weapon into place and powered it up. As he sighted along it down the length of the field, he gave Syldra a little mental nudge, pushing it into awareness.
Its multi-toned, lazy buzz was slightly annoyed. "Hhhheerr hhppaarrttnneerr hhiiss hhnneeww. Hhwwweee hhaarree hhffaammiilliiaarr."
It did not take Rayner as long to decipher Syldra's speech, because he was thinking something similar. Chanda and Phantom may not be as compatible as you and I yet, but that is no reason to be lax in our guard. Chanda is a better fighter than she believes.
"Hhyyoouu hhaarree hhssttrroonnggeerr."
But she is faster. And we don't know what Phantom can do yet.
"Hhhhmmmm." Conceding the point, Syldra readied itself.
The electronic voice was saying, "Exercise parameters verified. Please stand by." A hologram appeared in the air above it, a wide orange screen with a series of coloured bars extended horizontally from its centre.
Those are our stats, Rayner remembered. He stared at them, trying to figure out where Chanda was junctioning her magic, and knowing that she was doing the same for him.
Chanda took her place at the other side of the field and limbered herself up, stretching and taking her fan from her belt. Rayner waited patiently. I'm a better fighter, and anyway she can't hurt me unless she's able to cover the distance between us. She's better with magic than me, but she's not very confident, and that makes it harder for her to resist my magic. She's got a GF I'm not familiar with and she's more agile, but those are her only advantages.
Syldra may be right; I might not have too much to worry about.
"Ready to get beaten?" Chanda called across as she finished her warm-up.
"I won't be beaten."
"I've got a few new surprises up my sleeves."
"So do I." Rayner adjusted his balance and waited.
When Chanda spoke next, it was to shout at the console. "Program open. Ready!"
The electronic voice was completely indifferent. "Match set. Objective: Eliminate 75 of opponent's HP."
"Begin."
The instant the word was said Rayner was already attacking, triggering his firing mechanism and sending a stream of gold across the field; Chanda, anticipating or recognizing the attack, jumped aside, back-pedalled a step as the beam followed her, and then raced forward, gaining what precious distance she could up the field before her opponent could fire again.
She took only two steps. Rayner saw her stop just an instant before his next shot could go; the attack fired over her head as she ducked and rolled. As he moved his weapon around to catch her, she raised her fan, turning it in her hand so her fingers twisted around the bottom, and deflected the end of the shot.
The next shot she tried to jump. In the second before the stream of energy faded, Rayner adjusted his aim, and the final moments of the attack scored a hit along her side. There was too little power left in the shot to cut through her shirt, let alone burn the skin underneath, but the kinetic force of the blast was enough to knock her back a metre and undo her efforts to advance. Dust spat from beneath her as she rolled to her feet.
Rayner shot a glance at the hologram; he could not be certain, but he thought her health bar was a tiny bit smaller than it had been before. He didn't even need to land a shot on her, really; as long as he kept her at bay and she kept trying to approach, she'd run out of strength long before he did.
He kept a close eye on her as she recovered her balance. Then she grinned, waved at him, and replaced her fan in her belt.
What's she playing at?
Chanda's hands were full, she had pulled something out of her PaCC…and now she was running straight at him, one arm pulling back to throw the whatever-it-was.
Rayner shot at the ground in front of her, forcing her to swerve. He tried to aim at her to fire a more debilitating bolt, but even at the other side of the field she was ducking out of the way of his barrel as he turned it to follow her…
When Chanda first came here, Dr. Kadowaki had to test her to be certain that her precise senses were the result of genetics and not something more supernatural. If she hadn't confirmed that, everybody would have been certain Chanda was a thaumaturgist, because it would be the only plausible way she could be so completely aware of what was happening around her…
Rayner realized he was distracted as Chanda dove forward and rolled, quickly gaining another metre. He aimed, and this time she did not even try to dodge, just lobbed the object in her left hand forward as the shot went off.
The beam struck the obstacle and blasted it aside, but was deflected enough to miss her as she sidestepped, whipping whatever was in her other hand in his direction.
It flew with unerring accuracy, and Rayner reeled as a rubber ball struck him squarely in the forehead.
He fired off another shot as he caught his balance, but the blow had dizzied him and Chanda did not even need to dodge. He shook off his disorientation, and took aim again – only to be struck by a Blizzard spell.
I think that's against the rules, he thought as, his reflexes dulled by the cold, he missed his next attack.
If she wanted to raise the stakes, she'd have to deal with the consequences. Rayner had memorized a spell long ago; he took aim with his weapon and, as she dodged aside, called up that power.
"Thunder!"
The lancing bolt of electricity caught her off guard and in mid-jump; she stumbled and fell, and was unable to right herself before the next blast from his gun caught her and sent her sprawling into the dirt.
As she struggled to her feet, Rayner snuck a glance at the scoreboard. His own HP energy was depleted slightly – weariness, no doubt – but Chanda's was noticeably shorter. And now, faced with repeated failures, she would be getting flustered. Soon she would begin making more mistakes, and he would have virtually won.
Indeed, instead of moving again as she got up, she stood bent over with her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. Rayner considered dishing her another blow as punishment for not taking an engagement seriously – any instructor would do the same – but instead called out, "Giving up?"
"Not yet." Her response came haltingly.
"Then I can shoot you?"
"Give me a moment."
"Why should I?"
"Humour me."
"You'd be in trouble if you were fighting an instructor."
"So would you! Come, Phantom!"
Rayner knew what was happening as green flame spurted from beneath her feet, rising up and shaping into orbs of fire that spread out and shank into nonexistance, but it was too late to do anything about it.
She's not panting, she's chanting. I've screwed up.
"Veiling Mist!"
The air darkened as Chanda's body vanished, and tendrils of fog began drifting up from the ground, blending themselves into a dark human-shape column of vapour. Yellow lantern eyes peered into Rayner's for a moment, and then Phantom spread the murky folds of his robe and exploded outward in a cloud of spray that hit Rayner with an audible slap.
Rayner could not believe that the small impact was intended as an attack, and braced himself for a stronger blow; when nothing came, he peered through the fog looking for Chanda, first with his eyes, then with a Scan spell.
The spell pierced the mist easily, and presented him with a frozen image of her a few feet in front of him, a closed fan clenched in her fist and drawn back for a blow.
His left arm flew up and the attack was blocked with a clatter of metal; the barrel withdrew into his gun with a click as he snapped his right arm forward in a punch that hit nothing but air. He lunged forward and grabbed with his left, feeling his fingers sliding along cloth as Chanda retreated to a safe distance. He sought for her in mist fruitlessly for a moment, and was about to Scan again when he got kicked in the stomach.
The strike sent him reeling backwards, and he was still struggling for breath when another blow sent his legs out from underneath him. He braced his hands beneath him and pushed himself upwards, only realizing he should have left an arm free when a kick to the side knocked him down again.
"Thunder," he whispered as he rolled to his feet. As he gathered energy for the spell, Syldra searched through the fog for their target and, to their mutual amazement, could not find her.
Rayner rolled upright, but was still off-balance when another series of silent blows toppled him again. I'm getting owned.
Desperately, as he jumped up again he shot off a Thunder spell wildly. In a sudden flash of intuition, he spun his body completely around, and with a thrill of satisfaction felt his forearm bounce off Chanda's ankle, blocking the kick that would have downed him again.
Not wasting a moment, he latched on to Syldra's power and forced it into his arms and legs, lunging and slamming his gun-arm forward…
…into Chanda's midriff. The impact picked her off her feet and threw her backwards. The whoosh of air escaping her lungs and the thump of her hitting the ground were the first noises he had heard from her since the mist came up.
As he opened his gun's barrel again and readied a shot, a siren split the air, and the mechanical voice returned.
"Exercise complete."
The underground Shooting Range C was filled with sound, almost drowning out the snaps of guns discharging.
"Damn, damn, damn! Damn woman got the damn promotion I damn well wanted!"
Kyler knew he shouldn't – his friend's pride was fragile enough as it was – but he couldn't stop a snort of laughter at Instructor Diego Alvis' reaction to the news of their co-worker's promotion. When faced with extreme emotion, deep thought, or intense concentration, it was that man's habit to wrinkle his nose; that in turn made his enormous moustache wiggle around his face. His upper lip was now doing a credible impression of a caterpillar having a seizure.
"It's not damn funny!" The muscular man was pacing back and forth, glancing every few seconds at the students practising. A few of them were looking oddly back at him, and he lowered his voice. "Not damn funny."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry." Kyler regained his composure. "But you have to admit she deserved it."
"Humph."
"And she did need a change from teaching."
"Humph. I never found out what she damn well did teach."
"Exotic Anatomy."
"Yes, but I never found out what that is."
The banter of the two instructors was interrupted when Diego had to go and harangue one cadet who was apparently demonstrating improper form, or focus, or something else he didn't approve of. When he returned, he and Kyler stood silently for a moment, watching the students at work.
Finally, Kyler said, "As long as we're talking about Melva and her promotion…"
"Humph."
"You know the Headmaster has recommended that we transfer a group of candidates out where she is?"
"I heard. Doesn't concern me, I don't teach any damn homerooms."
"I was wondering, though, if you had any recommendations concerning who I should send."
"If you want to send anybody."
"I do. Nothing's being accomplished around here. We've hit a slump in business, and there are no chances for examination."
"Ha. You know they say the Neo-Ultimeceist cult has a damn headquarters in Centra?"
"I've heard."
"Hmm." Diego scratched his chin, and the caterpillar relapsed. "Well, Farrell's been waiting a long time, she should go. Leiden's pretty industrious, and Valentino's a crack shot…"
"I was thinking of Rayner."
Diego nodded. "He's pretty good. I think he's pretty much a shoe-in for SeeDship." He chuckled. "You'd probably end up dragging along his girlfriend too, though."
"If you mean Chanda, they're not dating. And I was already considering her."
"Not dating? Could have fooled me. And I should have guessed you'd be taking her." He shook his head. "Damn creepy, that one. Saw her in deaf-and-blind training a few weeks back. Can't sneak up on her; it's like she can feel your steps through the damn ground."
"According to Dr. Kadowaki, she probably can. You're the only one I know who thinks she's creepy, though." He looked around. "Speaking of those two, where are they?"
"Let them out early with a bunch of other crack shots. Sent 'em to the damn sparring range." He caught Kyler's wince. "Was that a mistake?"
"No." Kyler chuckled. "I'll stop by the infirmary after class to talk to them about transferring."
"Huh?"
"Oh, they probably won't be maimed or scarred. But they don't hold back against each other. One of them at least will be there."
Location: D-District Prison, Galbadia
President Vinzer Deling had not been a nice man. The people of the countries and city-states neighbouring Galbadia loathed him. His own people feared him. But people had flocked to his side, because people, especially Galbadians, enjoy being powerful and in charge.
Which may be why, when he was murdered in front of the assembled masses of Deling City and his power was usurped by the possessed Sorceress Edea, more people were happy than horrified. Deling had not been a nice man, and now the world was rid of him; in his place was a figure who promised more power then ever before.
Edea and Galbadia were, of course, both tools for Ultimecia. When she was defeated and her servants ousted, the government was left leaderless. It continued for about half a year, fuelled by momentum and belligerence, and collapsed.
As a new government grows into place, SeeD watches to see that everything moves smoothly. But even an organization as wonderful as Garden cannot reach everywhere.
The D-District Prison, the ultimate monument to Deling's cruelty, is a place it cannot reach.
Coming up the Level 3 stairs of Prison Tower 2 were a pair of guards. Their modified boots clicked softly as they walked; in contrast, the shoes of the prisoner they guided before them rang loudly against the metal floor.
Level 3 was identical to every other low-security level in the building – as low as security ever got in this place, anyway. The large circular chamber was ringed along the outside with large cells, designed to hold several prisoners at once. In the centre of the floor was a large hole; a similar one was on each level of the building, creating a central cavity that stretched from the roof into the deep sub-basements. Not for the first time, the woman the guards were escorting wondered what it would be like to stand at the top and look down into the darkness of the stories below.
Such musings were really just a way to waste time. Her guards were moving her firmly around the walkway towards a cell, one of hundreds filled with political dissidents, terrorists, rebels, judges who had made the wrong decisions, politicians who supported the wrong people, journalists who had printed the wrong kinds of articles, and people who had been heard to say the wrong kinds of things. A few guards patrolled around the levels, and an occasional orange Moomba ghosted by on some errand, its soft steps drowned out by the low drumming of distant machinery, broken every so often by the angry screech of a noiser mechanism doing its job.
The new cell was spacious, but for now she was the only one in it. Its size was the only thing that differentiated it from the high-security cell she had been removed from minutes before; it had the same stench of sweat and blood and waste and recycled air that permeated every inch of the complex, the same bluish metal coated by layers of rust, dust and grime. Everything in this place was artificial, cold metal and cheap plastic. Even the light was artificial, oozing from weak, guttering lights that only added to the foulness of the building.
The guards released the bindings around her ankles and wrists, and backed out without saying a word…unusual. Typically a prisoner could at least expect a shove. The door slid closed and locked with a click.
The woman massaged her wrists, sat against the wall, and closed her eyes.
Piercing white light lanced through her lids for an instant. She opened her eyes.
Her cell was no longer empty. Standing in front of her was a slightly tall Shumi, completely average except for his fiery-red robe and his almost human look of interest.
The two stared at each other.
Finally, the woman spoke in a voice that rasped from disuse. "Can I help you with anything?"
The Shumi nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps you can, Mary Asher."
"Uh-huh." Mary glared at him suspiciously. "You have the advantage of me."
"Of course I do." Now the Shumi grinned, flashing his painfully white teeth. His voice was unusually high and rather effeminate.
"I mean, who are you?"
The Shumi spread his hands helplessly; Mary could not help noticing the scarring on his palms. "My name? Oh, names are so difficult. Being a Shumi, I suppose you expect me to give you my hobby." The Shumi regarded her thoughtfully. "Very well – the Ultimist, I suppose you could call me. The Prime Ultimist. It may not be my true hobby, of course, but it is one close to my heart."
"What the heck does it mean?"
"Nothing you need to worry about."
"All right, then. What do you want?"
"What do you want?"
She paused for a moment. "A way out of here would be nice."
"And what makes you think I can give you that?"
Mary gestured to the metal walls around them. "I know that there's an anti-magic field in here. There's not enough energy for a decent Scan spell. But you, somehow, were able to magic your way in."
The Ultimist grinned, then reached into his robe and tossed something in her direction. "Get out yourself."
Mary looked from the Ultimist to the PaCC he had thrown her. She switched it on and called up the Items screen. Her eyes went wide. "Oh, my."
"I understand you're quite an accomplished alchemist. There should be enough supplies in there for you to engineer an escape." The Ultimist waved an arm at the door, trailing green light behind his fingers; Mary's ears popped, and the lock disengaged with a click. "And if you do, then we will discuss what you mentioned earlier, about helping me."
Corporal Stephen of the D-District Prison guards had the misfortune to be going up the stairs when an oily cloud of blue smoke began rolling down it. Startled, he looked upwards to see a woman walking down towards him.
For a terrifying instant it was like seeing the ghost of a deceased prisoner floating down the stairs. The soiled rags she was dressed in hung from a frame worn thin from lack of exercise, covered skin as pale as paper. Her face was gaunt and malnourished, and her hair might once have been blonde, but now dangled in think strands, filthy with the grime of the prison. Grey liquid dripped from her lips; her deep brown eyes were bright and alert and filled with unfeeling intelligence and burning concentration…
Dark clouds were wafting past him. Corporal Stephen was vaguely aware that he had somehow ended up on the ground, and that his lungs felt like they were filling with tickling bubbles, but he could not work up the willpower to do anything about it. He could do nothing but lie there and keep breathing, breath after breath, lungful after lungful of that thick, sickly-sweet smoke…
The thick fog rolled onwards, down around the walkway, over the barrier edging the central opening, and down to the lower levels.
Mary licked the antidote from her lips and smiled.
Behind her, the Ultimist kicked at the fallen guard. "He's still alive."
"Of course he is. There's no art in killing somebody like this." She paused to tip another vial of the antidote into her throat, coughing as it burned on the way down. "Damn, it's been too long since I've done this," she rasped. "You sure you don't want any suppressant?"
"I'm fine. No offence to your skills, Mary, but it will take a stronger hallucinogenic than this to affect me."
"That must be boring."
"One finds alternatives."
Mary tapped the buttons on a cell door, eliciting no response. She moved to another, and the doors of this one whispered open. Returning to where the Ultimist stood, reached down into the fog, and heaved the unconscious guardsman over her shoulder. Legs buckling under the weight, she carried him to the unlocked cell, where she dropped him with a grunt of effort; opening the doors again, she dragged him the last few metres inside. The door hissed closed.
When it opened again, the Ultimist was still waiting patiently. He raised what a human would have called an eyebrow when he saw Mary doing up the last buckles of the silver Galbadian breastplate. Her prisoner's outfit had been replaced by the blue G-army uniform.
"Why the change?" asked the Shumi as Mary tucked her hair into the collar.
"Quieter shoes, mainly." Mary pulled up the hood and slid the streamlined helmet over top. "They give us these big clunky things so they can hear escapees." After she fiddled with the buttons on the helmet for a moment, the four red lights on its front became noticeably redder as the optical sensors switched on. Reaching back down into the cell and producing the guard's military-issue sword, she tested its weight slightly and nodded. "Also, if anybody sees us at a distance, they may just think I'm a guard escorting a prisoner somewhere."
"Ah. Shall we continue down, then?"
"Nope. We're going up."
Sergeant Newland was glaring angrily and the panicking guards in front of him. In the bulky red uniform of an elite soldier, he certainly made an imposing figure. "How can you not know where a roomful of toxic smoke came from?"
"Uh, w-we, uh, the custodial staff, uh, says the ventilation systems might be…"
"I don't want to know what it might be! Find out what it is!"
"Y-y-y-yessir."
"Move it!"
The guard retreated gratefully, and Newland returned his gaze to the rows of control consoles edging the room. Guard stationed at them turned quickly back to what they were doing. One hesitated and looked back.
"S-sir, it's 0900 hours."
"Trigger the submergence system, then. You don't need to ask for instructions."
"Y-yessir." The man imputed a code and a deep rumbling vibration filled building.
Growling and pacing, Newman saw a new guard entering the room. When he knew he had been spotted, the new man stopped and saluted. The optics of Newland's helmet didn't pick up most of the tiny details about the newcomer, but did take note of the heat signature concealing itself in the hallway just beyond. The helmet's computer, after a confused moment, decided it was a Moomba.
I hate those giant furry screwballs.
"What are you doing up here?" he barked at the soldier.
"Sir! I've come to report on the cause of the smoke, sir!"
"What was it, then?"
"It was me, sir!"
And with that, the newcomer tossed something that hit the floor with a tinkle of glass.
Newland was drawing in a deep breath to shout when he saw a flash and heard a thump, and felt something big and hot strike him and toss him aside. He blacked out.
His vision swam back a moment later and he blearily saw the new soldier, wrapped in a cloud of sleep magic being cast by the guards stationed in the room. The figure raised a hand to its mouth, and exhaled a stream of fire that caught a soldier trying to sound an alarm.
Grunting with pain, Newland dragged himself to his knees and raised his arms, holding his hands out carefully. The computer in the mechanized appendages of his uniform recognized the movement and activated the guns in the arm. As Newland curled the fingers of one hand, they spat a barrage of bullets at the attacker.
The renegade soldier flinched in surprise as the bullets rebounded from a blue disk that flashed into view beside him.
Movement in Newland's peripheral sensors caught his attention, and he saw a red-dressed Shumi waving at him. The creature grinned and gestured, and the flash and snap of lightning were the last things Newland ever saw or heard.
"This," said Mary as she emerged into what was supposed to be sunlight, "is marvellous. It is so wonderful to be finally… out…what the hell is this?"
"The submerge sequence," said the Ultimist, shouting over the din and walking carefully as the screw-shaped tower and the two connected to it burrowed into the ground. "They burrow to keep the building cool during the day and to allow people in and out."
"No, what is this? The sand?" Mary had to put her helmet back on to protect her eyes from the thick cloud of dust being kicked up by the rotating towers. She braced herself against a guardrail to keep from toppling over as the vibrations worked their way up from beneath her.
"We're in the middle of the Dingo Desert."
"Oh, damn it."
"No, no, it's fine. I don't really care if you can get away from the complex. I was…" The Ultimist's shout projected as the vibrations slowed, the rumbling died, and the building came to a halt, all but the topmost portions of the three prison towers concealed in sand. He lowered his voice. "I was interested in seeing how skilled you were in your craft." He gave his weird, humanish smile. "You escaped so quickly, one would think you had done it before."
"I've had a lot of time to think about it. Never had the right ingredients until now." Mary stared at the Shumi, who was unbothered by the flying dust. "Now what? Now that I've satisfied your curiosity, you're going to leave me here for the guards?"
"I admit that I would like to see how you would deal with robots and things that cannot be poisoned. But no, those are not my plans for you today." The Ultimist crossed his hands in front of him. "I think you will like my proposition a good deal more."
"What proposition?"
"Not here."
Turning away from her, the Ultimist closed his eyes and pressed his hands together in front of his face. He held the position for a moment.
With a suddenness that made Mary start, he threw his arms open and spun them around, each hand connecting to an elbow with a clap. A humming noise peaked a died, and in front of them the sandy air swirled, spun, and suddenly bent…
Now the flying sand was blowing around the entrance of a tunnel, stretching back into darkness.
The Ultimist smiled at Mary's expression. "You seemed surprised."
"How the hell did you do that?"
"I know many things others do not. Come with me," he said, walking into the tunnel, "and I'll tell you some of them."
Hot dust sprayed over her as the wind picked up. The glare and the flying particles made her squint, but she could still make out the tall shape in front of her, his robe and beard waving in the breeze, his back turned toward her. He stood subserviently behind another, smaller figure, the bright light silhouetting her but not obscuring her feminine shape or long, flowing hair.
A thin cloud drifted in front of the sun, and the glare vanished. Suddenly she could see all the way to the horizon. Seven points of fire climbed slowly into the sky in the distance, trailing dark smoke.
The shadowed lady raised her arms.
The girl called Leah Ammiel woke with a start.
She sat up, stretched, yawned, and looked around blearily for a moment before figuring out she had fallen asleep at her desk.
Underneath her was The Sorceress War. Half the page was taken up by a picture of a woman, silhouetted against a rising sun, her arms raised as she conjured a beast to fight for her…perhaps it was because she had been looking at that eerily familiar image so recently that she had had the dream again.
Leah was no stranger to recurring dreams: she had a selection of them which returned haphazardly, sad and happy and frightening. She could not count the number of times she had woken up with a smile or tears on her face…
This particular dream brought with it a sense of anticipation and, this time, a hint of satisfaction, which she sat back to enjoy. God knew she had earned it. No, the language conventions of her classmates were rubbing off on her. Hyne knew; if she could not call him by name, nobody could.
She sighed as she pushed her book aside, stood and walked into her tiny bedroom and the window beside her bed. Looking out she could see the flow of people moving in and out of a lab at the outskirts of the Garden campus. She had travelled all over the world in her life, and revisited many of her former haunts in the last couple years with Instructor Merton's insistence that she build her magic stock. She could honestly say, though, that there was nowhere on God's Planet she felt quite as comfortable right now as in Balamb Garden. Headmaster Cid had really done his job well.
She had a sour taste in her mouth. Hyne's Planet.
For a moment she wondered how it would feel to be like some of those people down there who believed in a benevolent deity, a kind or loving or at least unobtrusive intelligence. Or to go the other way, to think that there was nothing to the world but dust and energy and, beyond that, the empty abyss of space…although when she thought about it, she could not imagine that atheism was a luxury afforded to many people in Garden, the home of Sorceress-fighters.
She was brooding again. Work, that was the thing: work would take her out of herself and help shave away the seconds until she found her way back to the place with the rising pillars of smoke. God knew there would be enough of it available for her, gruelling preparation right up until she entered an examination and made SeeD.
God knows. No, Hyne knows, damn it.
Notes and Trivia:
-- The reader may or may not have noticed my habit of recycling first names as last names. This is because I choose the names based of main characters based on their meaning, and have yet to find a source of information about the meanings of surnames.
-- There are some exceptions to the above. "Mary" is a nod to Typhoid Mary, a person Mary Asher would probably look up to.
-- The next chapter may be a bit slow in coming. Sorry; writer's block.