CHAPTER EIGHT

AN ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY

Terra continued to wriggle, though feebly, terribly afraid and inwardly calling out to her friends to save her. The raider tightened his grip around her and started to back away, as Locke and Edgar stood by the fire in powerless wrath. The man kissed her on the cheek wetly. His breath was foul and his face was grimy and prickly. Locke swore at him in protest.

Just then—thank God—Terra heard a terrible squilch and the raider screamed in agony and released her. She turned around to see the man writhing on the ground, screaming and holding his hand over his eye socket. Terra's Chocobo was standing beside her with blood on its beak.

The man scrambled to his feet to flee just as a knife whistled past Terra and sunk into his forehead. The tiny blue star of his spirit left his body before it hit the ground. Suddenly disembodied, the light remained suspended in the air, as if surprised by the speed with which its body crumpled into a heap on the ground like a suit, before flitting off and fading into the sky. Nevertheless, Locke had flung himself upon the corpse in a moment and pummeled it in rage.

Horrified, Terra yelled, "Stop!" Surprisingly, the effect was instantaneous. Locke froze where he kneeled over the fallen raider. Terra pulled him off the body and embraced him. "It's okay, Locke. I'm fine." There were tears in his eyes when he pulled away.

Both Edgar and Terra stood there, at a loss for words concerning Locke's behavior. Terra found that she was crying too, though Locke was now trying to pass it off as if nothing unusual had happened. What horrors from your past continue to torment your soul, Locke? she thought.

That night Terra again dreamed of the frozen Esper, only this time there was more. She saw the faces of her fellow soldiers before they were shocked by a bright flash and reduced to ashes inside their magitek armor—their souls so suddenly naked, bereft of flesh, drifting like fireflies up into the sky. Terra woke with her heart pounding.

At breakfast, she asked about the blue lights.

"Some say they are the souls of people," said Locke, pondering with his hand on his chin and his head cocked to one side. "Others say that they only represent souls."

"What do you mean?" asked Terra.

"Well, if they are souls, then when they go out there's nothing left of them. That's the end. But if they only represent souls, then when they go out here, they go somewhere else."

"Where?"

"Who knows?" said Locke. "The Esper world, maybe. Or maybe we come back as wasps, so we can sting the Emperor on the ass."

Terra laughed and Edgar rolled his eyes. "What do you really think? Is death the end?" said Terra.

"I don't know," said Locke. "I hope death isn't the end, but only if I go somewhere I want to be. If it's lonely and dark, I think I'd rather be nowhere at all."

"What do you think, Edgar?" said Terra.

"Me? I don't know. I'm a practical man. Religion is too high for me."

"Come on, Ed," Locke teased. "Don't tell me you wouldn't want to come back as a corset or something." They had a laugh at Edgar's expense, but they got a smile out of him nonetheless.

After a moment, Terra asked, "Do animals have them?"

"No, not usually," said Locke, again assuming his thinking pose, in earnestness or jest she couldn't tell.

"What do you mean 'not usually'?" asked Edgar.

"Well...on our way to Figaro I shot a boar, and it gave up the spark."

Edgar looked curious, but Terra had suddenly lost her appetite.

They made their way by Chocobo over the desert and onto a grassy plain before a range of low mountains. "We'll have to go through the cave to the south," said Locke, as they approached on weary birds.

"A cave?"

"Yeah, no choice, kid," said Locke, grinning, "Some nasty things in there, but it's the quickest way to South Figaro."

"And Kefka is sure to take the long way around the mountains," Edgar added, "marching his troops along the south coast or going by ship to South Figaro, if indeed he's going that way. He probably thinks we were in the castle, and is searching for that, which will take him to Kohlingen far to the northwest—that is, exactly the opposite direction we're going. That would be lucky."

Terra hoped for that with all her heart. She had an unaccountable dread of meeting the man with the wicked laugh and brightly colored jester's clothing. But she had even more immediate things to dread. There were, indeed, nasty things in that long underground cave (as she was soon to learn). It was a four-hour walk in windless darkness. They dragged their frightened Chocobo by the reins and held their lamps aloft. It was an echoing, drippy, dank sort of place, with high arching ceilings and jagged rocks. There were sudden drops and bottomless chasms, and an eerie sense of watchful eyes in the shadows. Just then Terra stopped abruptly.

"I can't move my legs!" said Terra, terrified, rooted to the spot as if by some foreign will. All the muscles in her legs had contracted, and remained tight and unmovable. What was more, the numbness was creeping up her body.

"Blearies!" said Locke, knives out. And indeed, even before he had spoken, Terra saw the green glow of numberless orbs—eyes—which belonged to creatures that for the present avoided venturing out into the lamplight. Edgar's arm had frozen drawing his sword; his other was dead at his side, though he still had the use of his legs. The Chocobo were screeching loudly, but they too were paralyzed. Terra's bird had fallen to the ground, where she squawked pitifully. Locke alone seemed not to have been affected, unless his usual quickness had been sapped; for (Terra now saw) he drooped as if he were tired and his limbs heavy. Terra tried to grab her bow, but the paralysis had reached her arms, and the only part of her that she could still move was her head.

Then the attack came. With a cry, Terra's Chocobo was overwhelmed with black creatures. She had seen it happen over her shoulder. All around them tiny creatures scurried into the light. They were knee-high, limbless, and seemed to be all head. Each of them was covered in black hair and had a single green eye in the middle. They glided over the ground, and the bottommost hairs moved like the legs of a centipede.

Edgar's left hand had frozen with his lamp in it, and he was trying to frighten them off with the light and threatening to kick them with his heavy boots, while Locke sluggishly circled their little group twirling his knives with his fingers. The two men stayed close to Terra to protect her.

When the numbness reached her head, Terra's eyes began to water and her vision blurred. Her mind began to grow still and peaceful and somehow cold; it was the sensation one experiences just before one passes out.

Now the blearies were swarming, Terra could still see as she struggled to keep the monsters from clouding her vision. Edgar was kicking them, Locke stabbing and slashing with diminished speed. But the monsters kept coming. In the darkness Terra heard the horrible sound of her Chocobo's dying cries, and the ripping sounds of the blearies eating her.

Terra's fear reached fever pitch, and with a tremendous effort of will she threw off the paralysis binding her body. Her hands moved of their own accord, as when a soldier's hands remember their warcraft. Terra drew her bow and let her arrow fly into the glowing green eye of an oncoming bleary. The arrow seemed to be propelled by a greater force than her bow could produce, striking the creature like a bolt of red lightning. Instantly the bleary burst into flames. The fire spread, setting the monsters around it ablaze and forming a circle around Terra and her friends.

The circle burned as bright and high as Terra's anger. The blearies were incinerated, or else fled barking deep into the caves. But when Terra saw that her companions were oppressed by the heat, she relented and the flames died down and went out, leaving the smoking carcasses of the blearies and her lost Chocobo. It was silent and dark now except for the feeble light of the lamps, to which their eyes again had to adjust. The horrible stench of burnt flesh polluted the air.

By the dim light Terra could see her friends' astonished faces. They exchanged a look between them which confused her, for it seemed to be a knowing look, though they were still afraid. She was no less surprised by what she had done, for there was now no mistaking it, and several previously unexplained occurrences held new meaning for her.

Locke was first to say what everyone was thinking. "Magic!" he said with considerable excitement, but this exclamation left a long and uncertain silence after it. A flood of questions rushed into her head. How had she done that? Had she been born with this ability or was it learned? Was this why the Empire was so anxious to have her on their side? Yes, of course! But did the Returners know?

Terra wished someone would say something; she didn't know what to think about it herself, and she had no idea what their reactions might be.

"Somebody say something!" Terra said suddenly, quite to her own surprise. And she looked dEsperately at them for a response.

After a pause, Edgar, with an uncertain and even cautious look on his face, began to speak. "Well, my dear, this is quite a surprise. Forgive me for my silence, but you see, you have taken us by surprise. Where...if I may ask...I mean...how...if you had said something before...?" he trailed off, then looked to Locke imploringly. Though his words were steady and smooth, his eyes betrayed apprehension and unease. Locke's unreadable grin was infuriating.

"I didn't know!" said Terra apologetically, not knowing why it was suddenly so important to have their confidence. "I promise I didn't know! It just happened. I didn't know I was going to do it. Please..." She wanted to impress upon them that she had not kept any secrets; so she was casting about with her words to see if they still trusted her, or feared her, or what.

"Terra," said Locke reassuringly, "It's okay. I shouldn't have been so surprised. It's just that actually seeing you do magic is a whole different thing than just hearing about it, and—"

"WHAT!" screamed Terra. "You knew? And you didn't tell me?" She could have slapped him. Then she moved forward and the two men took a step back. At this, Terra's heart broke, and she collapsed into a kneeling position and started sobbing into her hands, feeling now more than ever alone and utterly deserted.

But Locke came and put his hand on her back. "Hey, kid, what's the matter? So you can use magic...so what? It's nothing to be ashamed of. I think it's fantastic. I always thought of you as my little red-headed firecracker—but I guess you're a cannon! Well, that's even better!"

"Easy...for you...to say," said Terra between sobs, "You're not a witch!"

Now Edgar was beside her, too. "No, my dear," he said coaxingly, and now when she looked at his face she knew he was being honest. "You're not a witch. A witch is a wicked, power-hungry woman who bargains with evil spirits to do evil things. She haunts graveyards, abducts children, performs blood rituals, and is a general menace. You, my dear, are nothing like that. It's natural for you to use magic. Why, you're no more a witch than I am when I draw my sword or build a machine."

"Then what am I?" she said.

There was no answer.