A/N: This chapter deserved a preface. It has been almost a full two years since I've posted anything for this story. And woooo boy…oh dear. Please excuse me while I figure out where in the world I left off and try to pick up the pieces. If you notice the writing style suddenly and utterly changing, and if I don't remember what happened in the first six chapters…I literally have not looked at this in two years.
Chapter Seven
The repairs to the room had taken weeks. Girl had learned more in those weeks about the Doctor and his projects than she had in the months she'd been trapped in the tower altogether. It was hard, intricate work, but she was surprised to find him willing to involve her in the process. Before, he'd only deigned to allow her to touch the most simple materials, and now she was familiar with most of the nuts and bolts of his creation—if not its true function.
The repairs that they had managed were basic at best. Some parts were destroyed beyond hope, and the Doctor informed her with some perturbation that it would take several weeks, possibly months, before more supplies were brought to his lab. Where he was getting those supplies from, she'd given up on asking.
He had promised to help her find a way out of the tower, but that was only after this project had been completed. From the look of things, it was going to be some time before anything was accomplished at all. In the meantime, Girl employed herself in thinking of solutions on her own. There were already a few things she'd noticed by being allowed into this new workspace—the cavernous room with high arched columns. There were pipes that crisscrossed between the ceiling beams, funneling water to different parts of the tower like veins in a body.
Water.
She'd never felt its presence as much as she had in the last several weeks, ever since she'd commanded the element and doused the flames from the accident. She had used the water many times for washing and drinking, but she hadn't realized it arrived in the pipes that she saw now, and she hadn't been so keenly aware of it until now. The pipes gave her something to think about. The water had to come from somewhere…
The Doctor brought her back to the present with an all-too-familiar bossiness. "Bring a hammer over to this side and start making yourself useful. To think I made a bargain with such a lazy assistant," the Doctor sniveled impatiently.
Girl stopped looking at the ceiling and returned her attention to the job in front of her. The Doctor was half buried within another part of the machine he was repairing, holding out his hand on occasion for tools. She'd run out of things he'd permitted her to do hours ago and could now only stand idly at his side waiting until he required her.
When she had handed him the hammer he requested, she resumed looking around the room. There were still stains on the walls where the water she had summoned had washed soot and ash against them. She had been so busy the last few weeks that experimenting with this new power had gone to the bottom of her priorities, but not out of her thoughts. Her abilities were multiplying; slowly, but they were multiplying. So she had some skill with a blade, that much she'd figured out, and she could sense and summon water, but what had she done when she'd escaped being devoured by that "cat"?
She hadn't mentioned any of her abilities to the Doctor, and the Doctor hadn't asked, even though it was clear that he wanted to.
Instead, they buried themselves in work, hurriedly trying to reclaim order out of the chaos of the lab so that more of the serious work could commence.
"That's all for today," the Doctor wheezed, pulling himself out from under a large piece of metal plating. "I have to find the schematics before I can continue. I don't need you for that."
True, she was impatient for the machine to be finished, but she had also become bored now that most of the work could only be completed by the Doctor himself and she had no concept of the finished product. "Tomorrow, then," she answered, happily taking her leave.
She walked slowly out of the room, keeping track of the direction of the pipes, trying to predict where they would lead. The pipes gave her some hope. Maybe they connected to the mainland and she could follow them home…just maybe.
She returned to her slab which now had a blanket, rough though it was, and let her thoughts wander. She tried to empty her mind of everything else and focus on the flow of the water in the pipes above her in the ceiling. She couldn't actually see them, but she knew they were there, and ever since she had doused the flames after the explosion, she had sensed water around her everywhere. It was like a floodgate had opened in her mind and she was reunited with a sense she'd forgotten she had. Where was the water going…
The pipes ran to the east side of the room, along the far wall, and down a level. Girl walked over to the wall and laid a hand against it, still able to feel the water as it swept past. It was cold, swift, and flowing down farther and farther. She wanted to go with it, become a part of its stream, but the wall stood in her way as a physical barrier.
She opened her eyes, sighing. Now, about controlling water…she had been trying to make signs with her hands like she'd done before, but no matter how she moved her fingers, nothing happened, not even a single drop of water. She stared at her fingers as if they had betrayed her, wondering what else was necessary. She had begun to think that perhaps, how most of her abilities had surfaced, it required a certain element of danger. And so, for the past several days while the Doctor hadn't been paying attention, she had returned to parts of the lab she had previously explored and taken more supplies, phials, nets, and even dragged a few small cages with her to prepare for a foray back into the tower. She had also discovered most fortuitously where he kept healing salves and potions after insisting on curing him after he had received a head wound in the explosion. He had led her straight to his medicinal cabinet and now she had a healthy supply of potions and bandages as well.
Her room was beginning to look like a cluttered closet, but only from one side, because she kept most of her loot where the Doctor couldn't easily see it.
One of these days she was going to go exploring through the tower and find out if there were any ways to cross the chasm between here and the land. Where was the base? It had to hit land somewhere…
She let go of her extended senses, and sighed. She was tired of living in this place, on the uncomfortable glass-like surface of her slab, and the cold metal of everything around her. She longed for dirt that she barely remembered. The lights above her reminded her of the honeycombs of a beehive, another distant memory. There were colors and smells in the corners of her mind, and she ached for them again. Soon. Soon she was going to go exploring again. It had been almost half a year, she reckoned, time to get acquainted with some of the surroundings, and she had supplies to spare. She had a few of her memories back, if only she could figure out how to make whatever magical abilities she had work for her at her own choosing.
She jumped back onto her slab, laying down and trying to find a position that was bearable. She stared at her reflection in the wall's mirror wishing time moved faster, that the Doctor wasn't so secretive, and that she really knew what he was building. It was an irritating cycle of thoughts, leaving her anxious while she waited for sleep.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
The following day yielded more of the same tedium, and Girl soon found herself wanting to be anywhere but at the Doctor's side. Finally, by the middle of the day, she asked to be excused so she could attempt to map out the corridors. She had a few ideas she wanted to try. It might have been the result of some strange death wish, but she felt that this time she was going to remember.
The Doctor had seemed surprised when she asked to leave, but finally relented; bumbling off into some mountain of broken odds and ends. Blissfully, she was left to her own devices.
She couldn't explain what had come over her as she left the work room—she felt the urge to fight, to run amok in the tower. Perhaps it was the feeling of being caged that had driven her to this kind of madness. Maybe this was how it had started for the Doctor some long time past. All she knew was that she had to stay active, anything to keep up her motivation. She returned to her room briefly to stuff a sack with potions and salves, and retrieve her blade in its leather sheath.
Afterwards, she set off. Out of the familiar rooms and doors, and out again into the dark hallways that snaked up and down and around. She needed to find something that would jog her memory, a battle that would force her to access lost memory. Into the darkness she plunged, pausing to listen for signs of life. The sheath banged against her hip, comfortably situated.
"Come on," she muttered eagerly, hoping for something to challenge her.
Shadows shifted as lights blinked on at her passing and flickered off again as she pressed on. She knew this level fairly well, and knew that not far ahead there were three directions she could choose. The left hallway led to the stairway that led downwards into the territory of the cats; the center led to the power panel the Doctor had asked her to fix months ago; but the right? She had yet to explore that route, and determined, she set off in that direction. Maybe this path rose upwards?
Intrigued, she took off with a quicker step. She'd decided to put aside fear and rely on her resolve; but as darkness reigned for longer and longer stretches, her doubts began to return.
The hallway continued on, and she tried to push away her apprehension at the darkness. She began to take slower, more deliberate steps so that she could hear noises beyond her own footsteps. There was only a distant thrum of mechanicals.
Where are they? She wondered.
Stymied, she focused her thoughts instead on the presence of water. Water in pipes. Water flowing through the structure. It took her a few minutes, but eventually she was able to sense its presence, coming from a source several levels up. She began walking faster again, determined. Eventually she reached a staircase that led upwards. She climbed the stairs only to discover the door at the next landing was shut. It looked similar to those in the lab, doors that would slide. She gripped the depression in the door's surface and pulled hard. The door creaked open, whatever mechanism that had once allowed it to slide with ease having worn down. The room on the other side of the door was completely dark. Now this was ominous. Was there no power in this section of the tower?
She waited a moment, her eyes adjusting to the dark, and took a step past the door into this new maze of corridors. How she wished she could see in the dark. Even though she was fully standing in the corridor, the ceiling prisms hadn't reacted to her presence and turned on. She made herself very still and considered what to do. If she couldn't see, no amount of bravery in the world was going to save her from whatever was lurking in the dark.
She walked a few more feet into the room and stood at the edge of the light emitted from the staircase. She was about to return to the lab and try a different route, when the light began to shrink around her. Was the door closing? No, how could it without making a sound?
Instead, the light from the staircase had turned off automatically. She was now left in complete darkness. She couldn't help the panic that flooded her all of a sudden, nor could she dismiss the noises that were starting to rise up around her. The sounds of heavy feet. The deep breaths and grunts of…what?
Could they see her even though she couldn't see them? The thudding of feet became louder and closer. Girl became more aware that they were probably looking for what had caused the light to appear a few minutes earlier. Wouldn't she have done the same in their position?
Despite herself, she began to fidget her fingers not knowing what she was doing. Disappear, that's what she wanted to do. She wanted to blend in with the dark and not be found. She wanted to be invisible and invincible at the same time. All at once she felt an unusual strength fill her limbs and it seemed as though she was changing form. When she began to feel the sensation of skin prickling, like a strange second skin, somehow she knew what she had done.
The room was no longer dark, but a strange muted gray. She could see large shapes looming at the edges of a wide corridor that split into many directions. She was close to the ground and stood on four legs, just as she had one time previously when she'd come face to face with the feline creature in the lower halls. This time she was the feline, and she was prepared. In fact, she reveled in the cleverness of her disguise. It was comfortable, light, lean, and most of all, dangerous.
Her sharp eyes looked again on the creatures that surrounded her. For now they were benign, and they paid her little attention, but would they stay that way? They were enormous, humanoid in shape, and one carried in a meaty fist, a large wooden club. Girl watched them warily and waited until they decided this new open door was uninteresting, and began to walk away.
When the hallway was hers alone, she stood undecided. Go back the way she'd come and retreat to safety, or continue on and test the limits of her feline form to see just what she was capable of.
Magic. She was actually using magic. The thought thrilled her. How she had done it, she hadn't figured out, but she could probably do it again, if she needed to. That was a start, anyway.
She decided to continue her journey through the tower in an upwards fashion. At least in this form, she could see in the gloom of the unknown corridors. Otherwise, her human eyes would fail her.
There was a decided air of neglect in this section of the tower, like humanity hadn't dared to interfere with it in several ages. There was a more organic feel to the floor beneath her feet, a near consciousness…she padded silently across cracked tile and beneath sleeping lights to see what other oddities she could find. She detected the enormous imitations of men huddling in corners and in crannies in the walls, often engaged in some inane activity, for they ignored her completely. Perhaps they were familiar with the cats—or were they couerls—that made residence in halls several levels below. She didn't question it much, only relieved that she passed unmolested.
She chose a simple route, one that she could easily re-trace, and followed a long, winding flight of stairs up what seemed to be the tower's exterior wall. Her senses were still honed to the presence of water, and that sense guided her higher still in the tower.
As she reached the top landing of the stairs, the gray environment lightened to one of blinding white. Sun. Sun! Girl raced on her four legs up to the top of the stairs and stood transfixed in what seemed a junction of sorts. The tower's exterior had become a wide open skeleton, and the room that spanned the entire level was a maze of diagonally placed pillars. She stood stock still for a moment and then she heard water dripping. She wove in and out of the pillars, and kept one ear constantly honed to the water's sound. Near the center of the space, she halted and saw a strange structure.
The vapors in the air swirled around two large vents. Water sung to her like chimes, each droplet on the air a distinct note. She watched as the clouds entered the vents and condensed on the surface, funneling into a reservoir below. Clouds, she thought dismally. The tower was sustaining itself from the sky. There were no tunnels, bridges, or ducts for the water; there was only air and the chasm between her and the world.
She stood in this columnal space and tried to find some point of reference in the distance. Nothing looked familiar, but the green on the mountain slopes was brilliant in her feline eyes. What amazed her most was a slightly sulfuric tang in the air from the depths below. When it mixed with the air from the mountains, it caused the misty clouds.
The joy of fresh air was an odd blessing, mixed with the disappointment of not being able to find a way off the tower even after coming so far.
She wandered around aimlessly and noticed that there was a narrow walkway leading to another part of the tower. She stepped onto it and looked up. The height of the tower above her was dizzying. How tall was this tower?
She approached the closed door at the end of the walkway and pushed the button with a paw to open it. It didn't open, but that didn't bother her in the slightest. She flexed her paws and extended her claws. The seals of the doors were firm, but not impossible to breach. She pulled at the door until she felt her claws would come off, and finally the door slid open with a swoosh of air.
She stepped through gingerly, adjusting to yet another light change. The rush of air coming in from behind raised her fur against the grain, and she clenched her jaw in response.
This new part of the tower was dark but not impossible to see for her eyes.
There were many bends and twists and several creatures that slithered and slunk away.
She walked with purpose, feeling powerful in her disguise.
She'd always enjoyed taking the appearance of someone else, be it her friends or even, on occasion, their cherished pets. There was something deviously clever about that kind of acting and it was a wonderful prank if done correctly; at least until her father had scolded her—told her such a gift wasn't to be used in such a way.
Girl's steps faltered, her mind racing. Where had that memory come from? She could almost see faces and names and her mind spun faster.
Why?
Why was it that the farther she journeyed from the lab, the more she remembered? This had happened before, and almost predictably, she was the same distance away as before.
She quickened her pace. If it was true, if she just needed to climb higher, what else would she remember?
With eager steps she kept going, padded feet sprinting over a grated walkway. She had no way of realizing that what she'd stepped onto at the other end of the walkway was a teleportation device—until she'd been whisked away.
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Lugae paced back and forth in his personal quarters. He had found the schematics hours ago, but the construction of the machine was not what worried him. He could get the skystone to work easily enough, it was keeping the mad girl in his keeping at unawares that bothered him. He'd been given the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to study someone born into magic. The ninjas had some silly name for it that didn't suit it at all-ninjutsu—a magic that was different from other kinds. Theirs was not learned like the mages, but inherited. He would have been happier with a summoner, perhaps, but Girl was just fine for now.
Anyway, his source had assured him that this girl had gifts worth exploring, and he couldn't disagree.
Already, she'd unlocked some of her abilities, but her memories were also awakening and soon he feared she would realize who she was and what he was really building. He couldn't let that happen.
He'd had a chance to create many new and terrible things for Golbez's army but what if the ninjas could be turned? What if he could find a weakness in their magic—find a way to bend them into fiends? They were, after all, a half-step between humans and fiends anyway with their in-born talents.
"Your progress is slow," a low feminine voice interrupted his thoughts.
Lugae jumped, dropping the schematics, and spun to face a vision of menace, beauty, and luxurious golden hair.
"Barbarricia," he squawked out.
The Archfiends were wonderful creations. Golbez's generals for the war to come. Here in his presence, the Archfiend of Air was singularly exotic. She wasn't beautiful in the sense of mortal women, but like some wild beast. Untamed, unpredictable-terrifying. It was rare for one of the Archfiends to seek him out directly, and this visit raised the hair on his arms.
Barbarriccia narrowed cat-like eyes and strode languidly forward. She cupped his chin in her hand and a jolt ran through his body.
"Our master is not pleased," she hissed, looking down at him.
"I've been working—I have!" he stammered.
She stared at him intently, irises like daggers, then finally pulled away.
"I saw the machine," she said, walking toward the door. "It was in pieces."
"The skystone overloaded. I can make repairs and solve the problem once I acquire a new skystone," he assured her.
"Another skystone?" she snapped, affording him a glance over her shoulder. "How many must we procure for you before you produce results?"
"I'm only one person!" he retorted shrilly.
The Fiend's mouth curved into a smile as she tilted her head back, like she was taking the scent of something. After a moment, her curved fangs showed past her lips.
"Only one person?" she inquired. "Curious, I thought I smelled another human here."
Lugae became flustered. "Test subject."
"Test subject?" Barbariccia asked with a crooked brow. "And where is that test subject now?"
"How should I know!" he spat. "I prefer she keeps herself entertained until I can find time to deal with her."
"She?" the Fiend teased. "And how would she do that? Wandering the tower halls?"
Lugae sensed a trap in the Fiend's words. "She gathers things for me."
Barbariccia mused. "And what happens when she finds one of the tower's buttresses that go into the mountains? What if she escapes?"
"She'd never be able to figure out how to reach one of them, and if she did, there's nothing on the other side but sheer cliffs."
"Has she seen the machine?"
Lugae paused. "Only pieces of it," he answered carefully.
"Golbez does not have time for failure or foolery. This girl is a danger to us. If she escapes, she could spread word of us and endanger all we've worked for."
"Her memory has been altered," Lugae said proudly. "She probably wouldn't remember a thing."
"Probably is not a guarantee. She must be dealt with. Where has she gone?"
"I couldn't even tell you," Lugae answered, feeling defeated, and not pleased at the prospect of having to find another test subject after he'd spent so much time getting used to this one.
The Archfiend suddenly made a face, contorted with dislike, and Lugae worried she might release her anger upon him.
"Someone has just passed my wards," she snarled, turning accusing eyes on him. "This is what happens when you let one of your pets explore with impunity," she snapped.
"But your lair is in the upper reaches!" he protested. "It's impossible for her to have traveled that far and survived!"
"Apparently not!" the Fiend of Wind growled, twirling herself into a frenzy of wind that upset the order of everything in the room.
Lugae adjusted his skewed spectacles and stared at the empty space where the Fiend had just been.
"The upper reaches!" he hooted to himself.
The Girl had proven herself far more interesting once again. It would be a shame for Barbariccia to kill her, now that she'd shown so much promise. He found himself secretly wishing the girl had enough gumption to survive. He wanted the chance to find out just what else was she capable of.
A/N:
Upon pulling this out of the "hiatus" folder, I've noticed that there are sections that need some heavy editing…and sections that just became too ridiculously redundant I wanted to cry. It might just be me noticing these things, but I started this chapter off and thought…I feel like I've started another chapter in exactly the same way…
To balance this, I decided to mix things up a little towards the middle. It was getting too stale, needed a little more paprika…or Barbariccia.
This story won't be nearly as in-depth as the other long novelizations, and I will be liberally skipping some time in between chapters, not the day-to-day-to-day.
Next chapter will have some more drama in it…and possibly explosions.
Also, I do have a two page outline for this whole thing so…there is a plan, I promise!
Thanks for those of you who endured the long wait. I'll try not to disappoint you with too many more long waits as I go about wrapping this thing up.
~Myth