Chapter 14: The True King
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Cecil stared with dismay at the mangled serpentine body, lying plastered with ice before him. Dark, glossy blood oozed out of at least 15 wounds to pool in the crevices between the cobbled stones that made up the floor.
"Apparently, someone forgot that reptiles get all sluggish when they get cold," Palom said proudly, cracking his knuckles. "That imposter didn't stand a chance against my Blizzard attack." Porom whacked him again.
"The rest of us helped too, you know," she scolded.
"I can't believe that even Baigan, who seemed so loyal, could do something like this," Cecil lamented, staring at the reptilian corpse.
"What I can't believe is that someone's going to have to clean this mess up," Tellah added nonchalantly, gazing in disgust at the growing puddles of black-blue blood on the stone floor.
"I pray that our interview goes better," Cecil sighed, deciding to ignore Tellah's comment. He walked forward to the door and the others followed him.
The door opened into a long hallway with another set of wooden double doors at the end. The air was close and smelled faintly of mold. The red carpet runner on the floor looked faded and worn, either by use or time. There were cobwebs in the corners. A draft drifted in through the open door and whistled eerily through the corridor, stirring the gossamer cobwebs.
"That's rather ominous and foreboding," Yang noted.
The twins shivered. "I'd sure hate to get trapped in there," Porom whispered to her brother. He nodded in agreement.
Nonetheless, the five walked down the hallway to the other doors. Cecil pulled them open effortlessly and they all exploded into the room beyond. The throne room was wide, open space, occupied at the moment only by a dias with an ornate throne.
The throne was occupied by an old man, possibly the same age as Georgette Farrell, and just as fair. He had far more wrinkles than she, though he looked healthy and alert; his graying hair and beard still had shocks of chestnut brown here and there. When they entered, he sat staring at them as if he was paralyzed. Then he seemed to register something and rose to greet them.
"Sir Cecil; you've returned," he said. He sounded like he was trying to sound pleased, but he ended up speaking with a flat robotic monotone.
Cecil nodded in agreement, hesitating to bow until he knew for sure what was going on. "So I have," he agreed. He kept his greeting short, hoping to give the king more room to let some clue slip out. As it was, he looked displeased.
"You've become a paladin, I see," he noted, assessing Cecil's armor, or what was left of it after the waterway. He sat back down casually. "It's a shame really. Dark knights have so much more tangible power than paladins."
Cecil cocked an eyebrow. The king Odin that he knew wouldn't say something like that; he had always expressed interest in holy power and had spoken frequently about acquiring a paladin for the royal army before. Cecil was surer of it than ever before: whoever this was, it was not Odin of Baron.
"Your majesty?" he asked, trying to coax the imposter's true identity into the open.
The king laughed menacingly.
"'Your majesty'? You must be referring to that weakling I've been posing as for all these months." He grinned evilly. "I must say, playing his role has been most amusing."
Cecil growled in his throat, baring his white teeth like a mad dog. "What have you done with my king?" he demanded.
The imposter rose from the throne and advanced on them. In a voice that sounded superimposed over his real voice, he said, "You'll see him soon enough. And, while you're at it, say hi to Scarmiglione for me. He was never worthy to be an elemental lord."
In a flash, he transformed into a horrific turtle-like creature with a long forked tongue.
"Me, on the other hand, that's a different story!"
"Crap," Tellah muttered. "I knew something like this was coming!" He stopped complaining and began chanting his Blizzaga spell.
"An elemental lord?" Yang asked nervously, flipping his claws back from rest to fight position.
"We've dealt with a monster like this before," Cecil calmed, unsheathing his sword with a shink! "We can deal with this thing as well."
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Georgette was growing impatient. Something bad was going on, she could feel it, and she still hadn't found Cid. If she could find and free him, they could go help deal with the problem together. With his crazy mallets of doom and her white magic, they could very well end whatever was happening.
But first, she had to find him. And the guards had hidden him so well that they probably couldn't find him themselves.
She groaned with frustration, thinking back to all the places she had looked and all the places she hadn't.
The towers? No I've searched them all repeatedly since he vanished. The dungeon? Nah, that's the first place I looked, and I've checked every cell at least five times. The shipyard? No one's seen him there for weeks!
But then, there's always...
She didn't want to think about the castle's basement. The place had haunted her since she was a child. It was dark and creepy, full of bugs and dust and probably monsters, likely as not. And, lately, the place filled her with a sense of utter dread; a feeling of death.
But she hadn't thought to look in the basement for the missing engineer yet, mainly because of her fear of the place. Maybe he was locked there just for that reason.
She gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, and started off in the direction of the basement.
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Tellah casted another Blizzaga spell, buying some time while the twins worked their Twin Cast, and the beam of snow and ice flew at the monster. The spells they were using were impressive: Palom was cooking up an angry Blizzara while Porom contributed her newly learned Break. If it worked, it would not only do damage but petrify the monster, a one-hit KO. However, he doubted that Break would work so easily on such a powerful foe.
And besides, the monster continued to dodge his Blizzard attacks. As it evaded the beam if snow for the third time, it popped its smooth, blue head out of its shell and hissed.
"Try again, old man," it teased.
"You got it," Tellah answered, chanting his Thundaga. The twins let their Twin Cast lose on the monster, tense with anticipation. Distracted by Tellah, the thing didn't notice the spell until it was too late. The photon of snow and rock hit it full in the side, propelling it back into the wall. To avoid a lot of damage, it pulled inside its shell; however, when he reemerged, his right arm was discolored and heavy looking. Porom's Break had worked its magic.
Somewhat cheered by this hit, Tellah finished his spell and casted it quickly.
"THUNDAGA!"
The turtle-like creature pulled itself inside its shell just in time to avoid the Thundaga.
"He's quick," Tellah said, wiping sweat from his brow.
"He can't move around in his shell," Yang pointed out. "While he's stuck inside, pound the shell with magic until it breaks; without it, he's got no chance."
Cecil only seemed to half hear the idea, and then it took him a second longer to register it. They could all tell that he had added another burden to his list:
What happened to the real king, and where was he now?
The twins didn't seem to be bothered with this question. They were hard at work concocting their latest Twin Cast.
"How about a Thunder spell, coupled with your Osmose?" Palom suggested.
"It may not have any MP," Porom pointed out. "I'd like to see that Thunder—what? No, Thundara—with the Slow. He's so fast; if the Slow hits, he'll be unable to get away."
Palom beamed. "Great idea! Let's do it!" They began chanting their spells, and the big sphere of energy began to build between them once more, metallic yellow and light hazy green.
"Once we slow him down," Yang said to Cecil, "we might actually be able to get a hit in with the sword and claws."
Cecil nodded as the Twin Cast exploded on the shelled monster. Happily, the shell cracked in several places under the pressure. Tellah unleashed a new Blizzaga on it and the shell split apart in several pieces. The monster was left exposed, as vulnerable as a snail looking for a new shell. For that matter, he looked like an insect of some kind.
"Sweet!" Yang exclaimed, charging at the thing with his claws bared. Cecil followed after, his sword raised high.
The monster shrieked, raising his hands up to his face. It did little good: against Yang's sharp claws, Cecil's sword, and more meaty magic from Tellah and the twins, he had very little chance.
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Georgette walked gingerly down the dark, dusty corridor, hoping to run into Cid sometime soon. Her only light was a candle she had found before coming to the basement, and it didn't give her much light to see by. To calm her nerves, she recited her times table in her head.
2x2 is 4, 2x3 is 6, 2x4 is 8... Where can that man be?! 2x5 is 10, 2x6 is 12...
Something fell with a clang on the stone floor, making her jump with fright. The clang was followed by a bellow of pain and muttered cursing.
"Damnation! Damn wrench, I'm gonna...!"
Georgette felt her heart flutter with hope. "Cid? Is that you?"
The cursing stopped. "Georgette? What on earth are you dong down here?"
"Looking for you, you ungrateful oaf. Come on; I've got to get you out of here."
"Why?" Cid demanded, finally stepping into the candle light.
"Because Cecil's come back and he needs our help. Let's go!"
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"I say we chop we chop his head open and see what his brains look like!" Palom insisted as Cecil and Yang cleaned their blades of sticky purple blood.
"I say we don't," Cecil said firmly. "We've already made a big enough mess today as it is. It's all thanks to experience and good strategy that we beat the thing so quickly, and without any KO's."
"Aw man," Palom pouted. He trudged up the dias and plopped down in the throne defiantly.
"Once again, it seemed a little too easy," Tellah complained. "There's another shoe, just waiting to drop. Be on your toes; the three of you remembered what happened last time."
Cecil and the twins squirmed uncomfortably.
Someone banged on the door, which had fallen shut at some point during the fight.
"Hey! Hey!" someone shouted. The someone pushed the doors open and crashed into the room like a storm. He certainly looked like a storm, too: the man was huge, more muscular than Yang. His hair and beard were masses of wild tangles, so black they had a tint of blue, and he wore a pilot's cap and goggles over his eyes. Over his head, he swung a giant mallet. He was so frightening that the twins thought he was some god of war.
"Someone's getting a complementary face beating for locking me up in that sty!" the man bellowed. But he lowered his mallet and stared around confused.
"What 'n thunder happened in here?" he demanded.
"You missed all the action," Palom informed bluntly. "We beat him already."
"Beat who?" the man asked, sounding frustrated.
Cecil laughed. "Good ol' Cid."
The man stopped gazing around and stared hard at the paladin. "…Cecil?! What happened to you? You look so… shiny!"
"It's a long story," Cecil said for the fourth time since had arrived.
"Wait, wait, wait, this crazy old man is Cid?" Tellah demanded, advancing on the engineer and sizing him up. Cid was a foot higher than the sage, but he didn't seem intimidated.
Cid snorted. "I could say the same of you, you old geezer; what are you, like, three times my age?"
"Now you wait one minute, you old windbag—"
"Stop it! Stop it right now!"
The two looked down to see Porom standing impatiently between them.
"This is a total waste of time for two grown men, and I'm not going to stand for it!" she informed angrily, breathing hard.
Cid seemed to soften. "And who's this noisy little lady? Awful loud for someone so small."
Porom reddened. "I'm sorry." She cleared her throat and nodded politely. "My name is Porom, and this is my uncle, Tellah."
"And I," Palom said, standing up on the throne and striking a pose, "am the amazing Palom Faraxhae of Mysidia!"
Porom groaned. "That annoying little pill over there is my twin brother," she said.
"Porom and I are mage prodigies," Palom added, grinning.
"Please sit don't stand in chairs," Cecil requested. Palom pouted again and sank back down.
Yang came forward and bowed at the waist. "My name is Yang Fang Leiden. I am a monk from Fabul, and a friend of Cecil's; we fought together when Fabul was sacked a few weeks ago."
Cid looked Yang over, seeming impressed. "You're quite the mannerly fellow, huh?" Yang smiled in agreement.
"I take it then that Mrs. Farrell found you, then? She told us that she would look for you while we were talking with the king," Cecil reminded.
"That's right she did; she's waitin' in the front." Cid explained. "I told her to let me go first, since we all know that something fishy's been goin' on. I didn't want her to get hurt or anythin', you know."
"That's who we already beat," Palom informed, jumping down off the throne and running down the dias. "The king was really an elemental lord, and we took him out." He jerked a thumb at the monster's mangled corpse. "I still wish we could look at his brain…"
Cid's eyes grew so big that they almost showed over his goggles. "The king was a monster!?"
"No, no, no! That's not it at all," Cecil said, waving his wands rapidly, as if trying to dispel the confusion that Palom had caused. "The monster was impersonating the king, and we killed it."
"Ooooh."
"Anyways, we need your help," Yang said. "Cecil and I have been trying to get here to find you since Fabul was attacked. Has Mrs. Farrell told you anything that has happened recently?"
"Uh, no. Why? What I miss?"
"Golbez kidnapped Rosa after the battle in Fabul," Yang informed.
Cid looked like he was going to emit lightning. "He what?!" He turned to Cecil and waved his mallet at him. "How could you let that happen, you stooge?!"
"I'm sorry," was all Cecil had to say.
"Oh, you're useless when it comes to that poor girl," Cid grumbled, lowering his mallet with a thump.
"If you'd stop storming about it," Tellah said shortly, "we need an airship to find where Golbez is keeping her."
"Oh, I see," Cid said mischievously. "You're in luck; a few days after Cecil disappeared, I finished the best airship in the Red Wings: The Enterprise. I wanted to finish fast, so I could go look for this wayward kid," he added, pointing at Cecil.
"Where is it?" Cecil asked eagerly.
Cid chuckled. "The last place anyone would look. It's hidden, of course. Wouldn't want that maniac Golbez gettin' hold of it."
"So we're really going to fly on the airship now?" Porom asked, excitedly.
"This is going to be so much fun!" Palom added.
Cid laughed at their antics. "Excited much? Let's be getting' on then. Can't keep Rosa waitin' for someone to rescue her." He swung his mallet over his shoulder and headed back for the door. Something thumped into his leg and he looked down. It was Palom, punching his leg to get attention
"I don't think you're as scary as you look," the boy said stoutly. "You look really angry, with your wild hair and big hammer, but I think you're really nice. You sure seem to be; you really care about Rosa and her mom, huh."
Cid smiled. "And you're not as self-centered as you seemed to be at first; you're a pretty nice guy yourself, ain't ya?"
Palom smiled back with a childish giggle.
They walked through the doors into the hall; at the other end, Georgette waited in the doorway and waved happily to them.
As they walked into the hallway, they all felt something stir in the air; something sinister. An evil laugh echoed through the air.
"Muahahahaha! You would-be heroes haven't won yet! Join Scarmiglione and myself, in the netherworld!
The throne room doors swung shut on their own, causing everyone to jump. At the other doorway, Georgette tried to jump inside with them before she too was shut out, but moved too late; the double doors slammed in her face. Yang ran to the throne room doors and Cecil to the others, each tugging with all they had on the knobs.
"The doors locked!" Yang shouted.
"These doors too," Cecil shouted back. Someone banged hard on the doors, and he could hear Georgette's muffled voice on the other side.
"Guys! Guys, what's going on? The doors won't open!" she was shouting.
"We know," Cecil shouted back. "Try and find something to—"
He was cut off by violent trembling in the floor, and he gazed around looking for the source. With a twinge and a start of panic, he saw the walls were slowly moving closer and closer together.
"I knew it!" Tellah shouted. "I knew there was one more catch!"
"I'm going to break down the door," Yang informed, and backed up for a running start. He charged at his door, expecting to crash right through, but landed so hard on the wood that he felt his ankle and shin begin to crack. He fell on his back with a cry of pain.
"Let me try," Cid offered, raising his mallet and charging as well. He rammed the door as hard as he could, but was sent spiraling back. Unfazed, he tried again, and again, all to no avail.
"The creature isn't letting us go without a fight," Tellah informed. "He's thought of everything. We're trapped."
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Oh… My… GOODNESS! This chapter wrapped up so quickly! The battle was done and Cid was free, and I hadn't even used up 7 pages! On the story, anyway.
And you all know what this cliff-hanger means…!
Oh God… On with the preview… T_T
In the next chapter…
The doors are locked and magically fortified, and Tellah's magic can't seem to stop the compacting walls. There is one way to stop the walls, but will the twins be willing to sacrifice themselves to save their loved ones? Well, we all know the answer to that one.
The twins looked each other in the eye, communicating silently once more.
The Break spell, Palom said to his sister.
How would that do any good? Porom argued by furrowing her brow.
We could stop the walls if we cast it on ourselves, Palom explained, almost calmly.
Porom looked horrified. That would kill us!
I know, but someone has to rescue Rosa and save the world. Cecil at least has to get out of here.
But… You're right. It may be the only way.
They nodded in agreement and ran to the walls, Palom on the left and Porom on the right.
As soon as Mira gets her latest letter, she suspects the worst!
The new letter was addressed differently than the ones she had received already, folded into a neat little square with all the corners joining in the middle instead of just folded in half. And the address was written in a curling, elaborate script.
To Mrs. Mira Faraxhae, care of Yang Fang Leiden, it read.
And, just when it seemed that nothing worse could happen in Baron, Kain shows up with a delicate proposition!
Cecil bristled as Kain walked across the flimsy bridge to meet him. His once friend seemed confident and proud. He also noted that Kain was carrying a silver-coated lance with a diamond blade and wondered if he planned on using it.
"We heard that you defeated Cagnazzo, the elemental lord of water," Kain said in a businesslike tone. "You're doing quite well for yourself these days; that concerns my master."
"Feh; some master," Cecil retorted.
"Lord Golbez has a deal for you," Kain informed. "You will go to Troia, the kingdom to the North-West, and retrieve the earth crystal for us."
"And why would I do that?" Cecil demanded.
"So that Rosa will stay alive long enough for you to rescue."
Stay tuned! The Faraxhae Family Circus will return after this short break. (As short as we can hope, anyway…)
Brought to you in part by…
"Angry Moms for President Tomorrow", or "AMPT"! If you're ready for your K-12 child to be treated like an infant every day, vote yes for the AMPT project in your next mid-term election! "AMPT: We treat all kids like the spoiled brats they probably are!"