The Missing Worlds - Castle In the Air III
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: This story is set in the uncertain period after Piffle World, but before Recourt; in other words, in the same never-neverland that the second season of the anime mostly took place in. This means that Fai has not yet learned to whistle, Syaoran is still the original Syaoran, and nobody knows anything about Kurogane's childhood.
Summary: The travelers end up taking that tour of the castle after all.
Author's Notes: Because I am brilliant, when I published the last chapter - Castle In The Air II - I accidentally left out several paragraphs. They have now been re-added to the previous chapter. You may want to re-read the chapter, starting with the beginning of the breakfast scene; otherwise, certain things in this chapter may seem to come out of the blue, so to speak.
"Wizard Fane," Syaoran said into the uncertainly hovering silence. "I - I'm sorry, but we can't give you Mokona."
"You said you would give me," Fane said, still smiling. "You said you would give me anything I want."
"Yes - but -" Sakura stuttered slightly, her distress tripping over into words. "Mokona isn't a thing to be given away. Mokona is a person!"
"Mokona is a magical creation," Fane said, "the same as any of my friends. I promise you I will treat her kindly. She will be very happy here."
"I don't think you understand," Syaoran said. He was beginning to recover somewhat from the shock of the unexpected request, although his tone was still warily uncertain. "Mokona was lent to us - not given, by the Time-Space Witch. She doesn't belong to us to give away as payment."
"And besides," Sakura added in, clutching Mokona protectively close. The little white creature was looking distinctly worried. "We need Mokona. Without her, we won't be able to leave!"
"Oh, is that so?" Fane said. He sounded distinctly unconcerned. "What a terrible shame that would be."
"But we have to leave!" Syaoran exclaimed. "We have to keep on journeying to find Princess Sakura's feathers!"
"But you already have the feather," Fane said, indicating the cloak that Sakura still wore.
"The feather in this world," Mokona piped in helpfully. "There are still lots of feathers in many, many other worlds!"
There was a subtle pause, and the temperature in the dining room seemed to drop noticeably, like a cold night wind had blown off the desert. "Other worlds?" Fane said at last.
"Yeah," Kurogane spoke up for the first time. He was watching Fane with narrowed eyes. "You didn't think we came from this world, did you?"
"But - you said you were travelers," Fane said. His face was shocked, and his voice was edged with panic. "Does that mean - you don't come from outside? I thought - because you traveled here from other places, that meant - there were people in other countries - "
He seemed far more upset by this revelation than Sakura had anticipated - more so than anyone else they'd met in their journey. Was it really that strange an idea to a wizard as powerful as Fane obviously was, that there could exist other worlds and other people?
"You should already know all about people in other countries in this world," Kurogane said. "Since you claimed that you were a traveler yourself. Tell us again, Wizard Fane, what was the name of the country you said you were from?"
"I -" Fane stuttered a stop, looking lost and helpless. He held his hands out to the side, and his mouth opened, then closed. "I don't -"
"You didn't travel here from another land," Kurogane said, and his voice was strangely soft. For all that, it seemed to fill the entire dining hall. "I bet you've never left this valley in your entire life. You've been here all along. The whole time."
A beat. Sakura's breath caught in her throat, and her face seemed to prickle. He couldn't mean -
"It was you who killed the people in the valley," Syaoran breathed, realization dawning.
"No!" Fane screamed, and the shout of denial rang in the vaulted ceiling of the dining chamber like the peal of a bell. No, no, no. "I did not, I did not! It was time that killed them, time killed them all! I killed no one. I killed no one!"
"What do you mean?" Sakura cried out in bewilderment. She didn't want to believe this, but she didn't know what else to think. "How could time have killed them?"
Fane's eyes searched out her face and locked on, wide and blue and as bright as mirror glass. They were the same blue as her Fai's, maybe a little darker, but that wasn't what made the difference: when Fai looked at people he saw them, bright and warm and laughing and accepting.
This man - this Fai - had turned his eyes into mirrors, to shut everything out so that he saw nothing except what he wanted to see. He had made everything around him bright and shining and beautiful, so that he wouldn't have to look at the truth of the world around him. Madness, there was madness in those eyes, Sakura realized, and had been there all along, although she hadn't known what she was seeing before now.
"I was," Fane said, and he had to stop to swallow, to lick his lips before he could go on. "I was the Grand Wizard to the Queen. Oh yes, that I was. Good Queen Matalina, fairest of them all, long live the queen - the queen - she wanted me to make a spell for her, you see. A spell that would keep her and her court of nobles young and beautiful forever. Yes, beautiful forever. That was what she wanted. That was what she asked.
"I thought… I found a spell that would do it. I tested it first, tested it on me, and it worked just like the grimoire said it should. All I had to do was turn it inside out, cast it on everyone else. In the throne room, yes, in front of the whole court. She would live but never age, never die, stay young and beautiful forever and ever. That was what should have happened. That was what should have happened…"
"But what happened?" Sakura whispered in horror. "The spell…"
"Backfired," Kurogane cut in. "You lost control of it."
"Yes," Fane whispered. "Oh, yes."
"And the spell killed everyone?" Syaoran's expression was torn between horror and pity.
"Yes. No!" Fane shook his head violently, hands clutching at the dark gold strands on either side of his head. "No, it didn't! Not my spell. It put them to sleep, that was all, it put everyone to sleep. Everyone, everyone in the court, in the castle, in the village below, even me. Everyone went to sleep, and slept for years and years and years… but only I woke up."
For a moment there was only silence in the bright-lit room, broken only by the tick of the ornate grandfather clock. None of the travelers moved or spoke, none of them knowing what to say. Sakura only realized when she went to take a breath that she was crying, tears pouring out of her eyes and dropping off her cheeks. She gulped a sob, and tried to stifle it.
"Everything was so quiet," Fane said, his gaze and his voice distant. "Everyone had just stopped just where they were standing. Lain down like they were going to take a nap in the middle of the day, and… They were bones. Just bones. Time had crept up on them while they slept, a hundred years of time, and there was nothing left but bones. Even the youngest, even the littlest child had grown old in that hundred years, and old age took them away in their sleep. Everyone but me."
That was why she hadn't sensed any ghosts, Sakura realized. None of the people in the village… or the castle… had seen it coming. They'd all just fallen asleep, and peacefully slept the rest of their lives away…
"So I… I took them away, to the green hillside, where they sleep forever." He blinked and shook his head, then looked at them desperately. "But it wasn't me who killed them, don't you see? It was a hundred years of time. A hundred years! Even the youngest babe would be long gone by now. Even if I had done nothing, even if I had never lived, they would all be dead by now anyway! Don't you see? They all lived so long ago! Only I remain, lost out of my proper time, to see to the proper burials, and the funerals for each and every one… it took me a long time, a very, very long time, but there was nothing else I could do…"
"You poor fool," Kurogane said, and his voice was almost… compassionate. "You just don't get it, do you? Even if those people would have been dead, the town would have still been alive! All their children, and their children's children, would still be there in the town today. Instead, it's just you. Do you even know how far your spell went? Do you even know if anyone else is alive in this entire world? Or is it just you, all alone?"
For a moment Fane looked at him blankly, searchingly, as though Kurogane were speaking a language that Mokona couldn't translate.
Then he smiled.
The friendly, happy expression seemed to snap back over his face like a mask, like a pair of doors being closed behind his blue eyes. "But I'm not alone," he said, smiling brightly. "Because you're here. I have my lovely guests, and I'm sure that you're going to be very happy here."
He took a step forward, his hands held out in front of him, and boots scraped loudly over tile as Kurogane backed away. Syaoran grabbed Sakura's arm, pulling her behind him, as Kurogane drew his sword.
"No," he growled. "We're leaving, right away. Mokona, we've got what we came here for, now get us out of here!"
In her arms, Mokona shifted and inhaled, mouth opening wide. Sakura knew the process, knew it from a dozen worlds previous, and so she knew right away that something was wrong.
"Mokona?" she said, her voice more frightened than she would have liked.
"It won't come out!" the little creature said stridently. "The magic circle won't come out! There's too much magic here, it's stopping the circle from forming!"
"Of course," Fane said, walking towards them with a knowing smile. "We can't have our guests just running off so soon, can we? That would be rude. Oh, yes. It would be very rude."
Kurogane's breath hissed between his teeth. "Run," he said, and took several steps back along the marble-tiled floor. He turned his head partway, still keeping his eyes on Fane and his sword in his hand, and barked at them, "Run!"
They ran. The sound of Fane's laughter followed them, bouncing off the mirrored walls of the hallway behind them.
They pounded down the hallways of the floating castle, Sakura already gasping for breath. All of the corridors, lined with mirrors and velvet curtains, looked identical to her - she had no idea where they were going, and only hoped that Kurogane and Syaoran did.
Around them the walls and floor seemed to tremble, backed by a distant dull roaring as if of an earthquake - but they were a thousand feet in the air, how could there be an earthquake? "What's happening?" Sakura panted.
"Don't know," Syaoran said, almost equally out of breath. "He's doing something -"
"Save your breath for running," Kurogane snarled at them, and turned into the next cross-corridor so fast that he actually ripped up part of the carpet in his passage. "This way!"
A distant chattering sounded from the hallways far behind them, and in front of them too; and then seemingly out of nowhere poured a flood of glittering, jewel-colored winged creatures. They were Fane's magical servants, the ones who had greeted them only last night - but now their voices shrieked with fury and hate, and their claws glittered ruby and diamond as they dove in to slash and tear.
Each of the creatures was small, but there were dozens of them, and they moved so fast they were almost impossible to hit. Sakura screamed involuntarily as one of them dived at her eyes; she instinctively threw her arms up to shield her face, and felt multiple thumps of impact as their talons struck the edge of her glowing cloak and slid off. Sakura dared to peek between her hands and saw Kurogane and Syaoran swinging wildly, attempting to beat back the horde of beautiful birds.
She saw movement behind them and shouted - "Kurogane, Syaoran, behind you!" Charging down the corridors at a fast lope were the waist-high goat-men who had waited on them at dinner last night. Now their almost-human faces were twisted with fury, and each of them gripped a cruel looking meat cleaver or kitchen knife.
"Don't stop! Keep running!" Kurogane shouted, swinging forward in a great blow that sent three of the goat-men to slam against the wall and tumble to the floor - one of them toppling to the floor in two pieces. The creatures did not bleed, which ought to have made Sakura feel better but didn't.
They stumbled into a beautiful wide hall, lit with crystal chandeliers, and at last Sakura recognized where they were - the entrance hall where they had come into the castle yesterday. But where the grand, gilt-paneled double doors had stood at the end of the hall, now there was only another blank wall of shining mirrors.
"I thought this was where the door was?" Syaoran said breathlessly. He ran up to feel along the bank of mirrors at the end of the hall, as though searching for a hidden entrance.
"It was," Kurogane snarled. "It looks like that crazy wizard can do more than tricks with mirrors."
"How do we get out, then?" Sakura cried out. Something about what Kurogane had said tickled uneasily in her memories. Tricks with mirrors…
"Find another door," Syaoran said tensely. "Or a window, or something we can use to get out of here."
Movement flickered out of the corner of her eye, something darker and denser than the brilliant butterfly wings or murderous hatchet-wielding fauns. She turned her head to stare, and Sakura turned her head to confusedly track it; but now Kurogane and Syaoran were moving again, running back the way they had come, and Sakura had no choice but to follow.
"In here!" Kurogane called out, kicking down one of the doors. It was the large bedchamber where they had spent the night, its cozy familiarity turned to horror now in this glass labyrinth. They quickly rushed to barricade the door with the heavy oak furniture. Completely winded from their terrified dash through the hallway, Sakura thumped to a seat on the floor as she caught her breath.
"Are you all right, Princess?" Syaoran asked. It seemed unfair that he should be the one to ask her that; his face and arms were bleeding from half a dozen little jagged rips inflicted by the flying creatures. But Sakura didn't have the breath to object, so she just nodded.
"Mokona, can you get us out from here?" Syaoran said tensely.
"No! The castle walls have too much magic. Mokona can't get past them!" the little creature said.
"The very minute that changes, I want you to transport us," Syaoran said. "Don't wait for one of us to ask. Just do it right away."
Mokona nodded miserably.
"Guard the door," Kurogane ordered Syaoran. "I'll get one of these windows open."
Syaoran nodded and turned his attention to the portal, while Kurogane began surveying the windows, looking for the best way out. Finally regaining her breath, Sakura looked around her. Something was bothering her, and she couldn't think what.
A flicker of movement drew her eye, and Sakura stared for a moment in blank incomprehension at the mirrored walls. It took her a moment to make the connection, what was wrong. Syaoran hadn't drawn his sword yet, concentrating on his more-reliable styles of heavy kicks and blows to fight off his enemies.
But the Syaoran in the mirror had.
"Kurogane-san…?" she said uneasily, watching all of their reflections pace down the hallway beside them. The Kurogane in the mirror turned his head to look right at her. But Kurogane hadn't.
"What is it?" Kurogane said, sounding distracted. "Damn it, these windows look on the courtyard. Fat lot of good that does us with all these damn birds flying around -"
"The mirrors," Sakura said, her throat going tight. Despite the panic creeping up on her, she didn't dare look away from the mirror. She somehow knew that if she looked away, even for an instant, they would move.
Kurogane turned to look, and then swore horribly as he scrambled towards her. "Kid! Draw your sword and defend yourself, now!" he shouted, just as Syaoran yelled out, "Kurogane-san! The mirrors!"
Because in this mirror box, they didn't each have just one reflection, Sakura realized. They had three.
The reflections emerged from the mirror with a glimmering ripple of glass, and charged across the room towards them. The mirrored Syaorans and Kuroganes had swords, but even the mirror Sakura had picked up a long-handled dagger somewhere. They moved in eerie silence, not even their footsteps making a noise on the thick plush carpet.
Syaoran and Sakura were hard pressed, fighting furiously to keep from being overwhelmed. The reflections didn't seem to have anything like their amount of skill, but they were outnumbered, and they came in headlong without the slightest regard for safety or even survival. Broken glass shards littered the floor, crunching underfoot and threatening to slice through the soles of boots and feet.
Kurogane's sword took the head off one of his reflections; it flew bloodlessly through the air and rolled to a stop at Sakura's sleep, the lips moving silently for several seconds before it dissolved into a shower of shattered glass. Sakura backed away, Mokona held tight in her arms, and didn't even realize that her back was to a mirror until a voice spoke nearly in her ear.
"You must pardon my rudeness, oh yes, you must," Fane said. "I've been a terrible host. Would you care for some refreshments?"
Sakura screamed and spun around, just as Fane himself emerged from the mirror beside her. He looked perfectly calm and composed, not a blond hair out of place in his braid and his blue and silver clothes neatly unruffled. He held in his hands the open box of golden apples, and extended it out towards her with a smile of open welcome. "You really must try these apples," he said. "Because I figured out what I did wrong, you see. Oh yes, I did."
"Get back!" Kurogane bellowed, and it was unclear whether he was talking to Syaoran or Sakura, or Fane. "I'm warning you -"
The wizard ignored him, walking forward with a calm unhurried stroll. "In order to cast the spell for immortality outside of yourself, you have to use some other object as an anchor," Fane went on, as though continuing a pleasant dinner conversation. "That's exactly what I did. One bite of these apples, and you will stay young forever. You will never age, and you will never die, and you will never stop loving me. I made sure of it, oh yes. Won't you try one? They really are delicious, you know."
Kurogane turned and lunged; Sakura flinched and jerked her hands towards her face in an instinctive attempt to cover her eyes as his sword slid neatly hilt-deep into Fane's chest. There was a splintering noise, and a spiderweb of cracks spread outwards from the wound in Fane's chest, spreading across his shoulders and arms and up over his smiling face.
"You'll stay here forever," Fane said, ignoring the sword that pierced him from front to back. "You'll be ever so happy here. I am! The weather is always perfect, the food is delicious, and in this lovely castle so high above the ground, nothing can reach you at all. I made sure of it! Whatever you're afraid of, whatever you're running from, it can never reach you here. Stay here with me and live happily ever after."
"Are you watching this, wizard? Are you listening to me now?" Kurogane snarled. "You killed everyone who would ever have loved you, whether you want to admit it or not! You can't force any of us to stay with you, and you can't force anyone to love what you've become, not with all the magic that's left in this world!"
Fane's smile disappeared in shock, and his lips parted. The cracks spread further, and Sakura realized with a blurred blink that this was just another reflection of Fane, not the wizard himself.
Then his mouth opened, and he laughed. The sound bounced and echoed from mirror to mirror as the simulacrum crumbled into pieces, and Kurogane pulled his sword free. A broad sweep of the sword was followed by a shattering roar of a dragon blast, and glass tinkled and crashed in a cacophony around them as every mirror in the room shattered under the force of the blow.
"Come on!" he roared, and Sakura and Syaoran stumbled along in his wake as broken glass pattered down all around them. The laughter still echoed through the hallways, and Sakura sobbed as she tried to raise her hands to her ears to block it out.
"Princess!" Syaoran was at her side in an instant. "What's wrong?"
Sakura shook her head, unable to stop the tears rolling down her face. "That laugh," she said, not knowing how to explain what she felt, the terrible pain and grief all held back by a crackling veneer of insanity. "It's what he does instead of screaming."
Kurogane's sword swept out again as they came to a new hallway, shattering every mirror within range before they could be made to disgorge more enemies. Razor-sharp shards flew in a deadly hail around them; they bounced and slid harmlessly off the unnatural protection of the feather-cloak, so Sakura was unhurt, but what about Kurogane and Syaoran?
"Where are we going?" Sakura cried out as they stumbled on, through an endless see of broken, shattered glass.
"There's an exterior wall this way," Syaoran said, pointing down a side corridor. Blood dripped from his wrist and from his fingers where they clutched his sword; but none of the mirror-creatures had bled. "But there's no door!"
"There will be," Kurogane promised.
Another hallway of shattered mirrors, and then they came to a stop in front of a long, blank wall - windows at regular intervals showed brilliant blue sky outside. The beautiful birds screamed in fury as their intention was made plain, and the reflections in the mirrored wall - an endless series of reflections, from the two walls of mirrors held opposite each other - began to turn towards them.
"Get down!" Kurogane warned them, and the air around him burned as he drew back his sword.
His warning was mostly useless; there was nowhere to hide in this small, enclosed corridor. The force of the blast roared over them and then bounced against the wall back towards them again. The mirrors and curtains and gilt paneling all vanished in a white-hot fury of rage, and then the stones of the wall themselves gave way with a roar. The air filled with razor-sharp shards of glass and burning chips or rocks, and without thinking Sakura flung herself at Syaoran, wrapping her arms around his shoulder and bowing her head to cover them both with the enchanted cloak.
After a long moment the explosion finally died away, although the noise of sliding rock and pattering glass continued, and Sakura cautiously raised her head. Syaoran looked at her with his eyes wide and amazed, and Sakura suddenly felt foolish. He reached up and touched her face with one hand, and his fingers left a smudge of sticky warmth along his jaw.
"Thank you, princess," he whispered. There was no time to say anything more.
Kurogane lowered his arms; he must have had some way of shielding himself from the backlash of his explosion, because he seemed intact, although grim. "There's our door," he said.
Syaoran and Sakura stumbled forward, then Sakura jerked to a stop with a breathless gasp as she saw what lay on the other side of the hole in the wall.
This side of the castle was right up against the edge of the floating island. There was no more than two or three feet of rock ledge before the ground abruptly dropped away. A vast ocean of air unrolled beyond the gap, low-hanging clouds floating under their feet as the lifeless green velvet land unrolled beneath them.
"We can't go out there, we'll fall!" Mokona cried out, looking out over the gap.
"We can't stay here, either," Syaoran said, looking nervously up the corridor.
Something was happening to the broken glass up and down the corridor. Not a single mirror had survived the cataclysm, but some pieces remained that were larger than others. The broken panes of glass were rattling, trembling as they began to move across the ruined corridor towards each other. In each fragment of mirror they caught a glimpse of someone on the other side looking out, a flash of blue velvet and golden hair.
"Don't -" Fane's voice echoed through the hallway, bouncing weirdly back from one place to another. "Don't go -"
Even as they watched two of the pieces of broken mirror joined together, and the image appeared in the glass of an open palm splayed against the glass. "Don't - leave - meeeeee -"
"Mokona!" Sakura cried, clutching the small, oh so magical creature close to her. "Can you do it?"
"Yes!" Mokona answered, its ears quivering in anxiety. "Yes, Mokona will try!"
"Then let's go!" Kurogane shouted, as the shards of glass began to move ever faster.
They jumped.
It was a long way down to the ground below; more than enough time for Mokona to inhale, to reach up in Sakura's arms and open her mouth wide. More than enough time for the glittering magical lines to appear around them, even as the air and the clouds rushed past them.
More than enough time for them to look up, as the sky and the ground began to warp around them with the dimension-bending magic, to see a young man in blue velvet and a long blond braid lean out of the shattered wall after them, eyes and mouth wide in an endless scream.
~end of Castle in the Air.
~to be continued...