CHAPTER TWELVE

OLD FRIENDS AND NEW

Then she got an idea. She ran back to the woods and picked up a stick, then, leaning on it and crouching like an old beggar woman, she pulled out a cup she happened to have on her, put a couple of coins in it, and went and knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" said Locke's voice from inside, testily, without opening the door.

"Alms for the poor!" Terra rasped. "Alms for the poor!" She shook the cup; the coins jingled.

The door opened a little. Bowed as she was, Terra could only see Locke's legs and a little way into the room. She could see no one else yet. Locke was apparently making sure that she was alone.

"Come now, young man," croaked Terra again. "You can spare some change for an old woman."

"Alright, come in," said Locke, clearly annoyed. He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her in, shutting the door behind her.

"I can manage all by my lonesome, sonny!" she snapped, giving him a rap on the chin with her stick.

"Ouch!" he cried. Someone laughed—it was a woman. Terra wondered who.

"All right, old woman, don't get bent out of shape about it," said Locke.

Terra reached up and shook her cup again, in front of his face, she judged. She wondered how long she could keep this up, when the unknown woman said suddenly, alarmed, "That's not an old woman!"

Terra stood up straight and threw back her hood, and found herself face to face with the most amazed Locke she could have imagined. His hand had gone to his knife, and remained fixed there by his astonishment.

"You've certainly grown cheap since we last met!" Terra cried.

"Terra!" cried Locke.

She threw her arms around him and they both burst into joyous laughter. He picked her up and spun her around the room.

"Terra?" said another voice, an older voice. Terra let go of Locke.

"Arvis!" she cried. Arvis (a gaunt, older-seeming Arvis) had risen to his feet, with the same astonishment and joy written on his face—his beautiful face with its beautiful scars. She ran right passed the woman, to whom she yet paid no heed, except to notice that she was a young woman, and almost tackled Arvis. Now she really did cry. She cried as she had never cried before, for these were not the tears of a frightened child, but of a strong, loving heart that had at last been united to those whom it had lost.

They passed a happy hour in Locke's snug little cabin. It was the happiest hour Terra had passed in a long time, and, I'm afraid to say, it would turn out to be the last for some time to come. For already the shadow of momentous events, dire and fell, was drawing near.

Terra related to Arvis (in brief) all that had happened to her and all that she had done since she fled from his underground dwelling, some of which he had already heard from Locke, though he insisted on hearing it from her. He was alternately transfixed with wonder and horror at all the right places in her tale. Then she turned to Locke and the young woman, too, and told them of all the things that had happened from the Returners' Hideout to Narsha.

Next Arvis told his tale. "Not a moment after I sent you on your way," he said to Terra, "through the underground passages to Locke's house, the soldiers that were pursuing us caught up with me. They beat me,"—here Terra clenched her fist at the thought of them striking and kicking him, kind and frail as he was—"and took me away. You should have heard some of the names they called me, my child (I suppose I can't call you that anymore; look what a woman you've become!). Shameful how these young imperial soldiers treat their elders, but I suppose they don't know any better."

"They should know better!" said Terra.

"Anyhow, if I thought that was bad, I hadn't seen the worst of it." The pleasant way in which he spoke made it hard to believe that he had actually suffered, or recognized the injustice done to him. He spoke as if he were telling an interesting anecdote. But the feebleness which marked the new Arvis was proof that he had suffered greatly.

"When Kefka came, I knew I was in for it," Arvis continued. "If you would have told me that I'd ever get to see you again, my dear, I would've—well, I don't know what I would've done, but I wouldn't have believed you. At any rate, Kefka had me tortured." He rubbed his hands together as he spoke, and for the first time Terra noticed that he had no fingernails, or none to speak of. They were just beginning to grow back in. She dropped to her knees, took his hands in hers, and put them to her cheek. They were thin and gnarled and trembled a little (not from fear but from age).

"When Kefka realized I would never tell him where you went, he threw me into a dungeon. I didn't know where—I was a bit delirious after the torture. It was dark as pitch, even in the daytime, for there was not a crack for the smallest ray of sunshine to sneak through. I lay in chains on the cold earth for longer than I know. There was no way of reckoning the time. Sometimes I didn't know whether I was dead or alive, mad or sane. Then—years later, it seemed—I got company. A man named Pierre—"

"Pierre! He helped us in South Figaro! What happened to him?" said Terra.

"He died," said Arvis, in the same easy tone, though now tainted with sorrow. Terra's heart dropped. "From him I learned that you made it as far as South Figaro, and I counted that a boon, unlooked-for and unexpected at my time of life, being an old man who saw that his days were almost gone. I thanked the gods with all my heart for that one gleam of hope, and I would have been content to die then. But that I lived to see you again, and to see you so...so...accomplished? No, that's not the right word. I don't know what you are, my dear, but you're certainly a lot of it!"

Everyone laughed.

"How did you escape?" asked Terra.

"Well, that's just the thing: I didn't. Celes here...oh, my goodness, what a forgetful old fool I am. I haven't introduced you. Terra, this is Celes."

"Nice to meet you," said Terra, shaking her hand.

"You don't remember me, do you?" said Celes. She was a young woman, about Terra's age. She was tall and thin, with long blond hair, straight as a knife's edge. She wore a white, silk-like cloak with the hood up, and one eye was partly covered by her hair. This made her seem somewhat concealed. But upon looking at her, Terra noticed that she had beauty and gracefulness, though in her face there was a bit of a sickly or desperate look.

"No, I'm sorry. I don't remember anything," said Terra.

Celes nodded and looked away, towards Arvis again as if he should continue his tale. Terra couldn't be sure, but she got the impression that Celes didn't believe her, or that there was contempt or envy beneath her gesture. Terra might have imagined it. In any case, she felt no hostility towards her and delighted at the prospect of having a female companion for a change.

"As I was saying," Arvis continued, "Celes snuck me out with the laundry. Seems fitting that old laundry should go out with the laundry."

"Oh, you're no such thing," Terra rebuked.

Next Locke took up the tale: "Then suspicion fell on Celes. She's been a spy for us for a long time now. She sent word that it was only a matter of time before she'd be found out, so Banon sent me to get her out of Vector."

He paced back and forth as he spoke, and used his hands as much as his mouth. More than once, distracted by his pacing, Terra pulled him down into a chair; but whenever he got to an exciting part—and every part seemed to be an exciting one for him—he got up and started pacing again.

Arvis couldn't take his eyes off Terra. Every time she looked at him he seemed still to be in his first state of amazement—amazement that he should see her again, and that he should see her so changed. In his words, she was "a whole new woman." Terra smiled and laid her head on his shoulder and continued to listen to Locke's tale. Locke seemed to need no audience, or else he was an audience unto himself, so wrapped up he was in the telling. He told how he stowed away on a merchant ship that set out from South Figaro and was bound for the Southern Continent (and how uncomfortable sleeping in a barrel was), how he landed at Tzen and trekked alone along imperial roads all the way to the capital, how he contacted Returner spies in Vector and caught up with Celes, and finally how they made their escape.

"So we slipped away right under the Emperor's nose! I've never been so close to him before. I was tempted to sneak into his fortress and end this whole damn war in one blow!" He actually took out his knife and thrust it into the imaginary Emperor's heart.

Celes rolled her eyes. Throughout she seemed withdrawn, and, as if by her will, attracted little attention to herself, but for a moment her eyes rested on Terra, waiting for some kind of response. When Terra didn't offer one, her eyes turned back to Locke, and so did Terra's.

Terra wished that she could go on indefinitely sitting with Arvis and listening to Locke work himself into a frenzy, but she could feel that already the hour of solace she had been granted was up. What would come after, she had no idea. But if the greatness of the joy that she had been given was equal to the test she would soon undergo, then it would be a great one indeed, a world-rending trial, which she might never have survived had it not been for the love of her dear friends. But now indeed she felt that she would never be more ready.