CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE ESPER
A space in the hard-packed snow and four marshals (two from each side) were appointed for the contest which was to take place between godlike Edgar and glorious Leo. Terra of the flame-colored hair watched both men approach each other. Her heart was heavy, and she prayed that both men might come away unhurt, though each was to fight until the other was dead. Somewhere in the distance she heard the mechanical whine of machines moving, and a sense of foreboding grew in her heart.
King Edgar of the red armor took his shining shield, his great sword girt to his side, and a throwing spear in his hand, stepped into the circle, gave a great war cry which put great heart-fear into all that heard it, and cast his spear. It struck the perfect center of General Leo's shield, in the midpoint of the handle in the iron scepter embossment. The spearhead did not pass through but was bent back by the triple-folded bronze. The force of the throw would have made another man give way, but the strong calf of Leo as he stood with one leg braced back did not suffer him to be moved.
Next mighty Leo, general and king of many southern lands, and the Emperor's mightiest warrior, balanced his far-shadowing spear, and giving a great cry which quaked the heart of every man, threw. Hardly had his cry reached the ears of the men before the sound of his spear striking the perfect center of Edgar's shield—a sound like a thunderclap—was heard, so mightily had it been thrown. Leo's spear, however, did not penetrate the invincible shield of the Kings of Figaro, but the spearhead was bent back in the place where the shield told of the wars of the Magi, which took place thousands of years ago and laid waste to the whole of Middan Erd. But the force of the cast made Edgar take two steps backward, and thereafter his shield-arm sagged low, which made beautiful Terra fear for his very life. For now they put away their throwing spears and went at each other furiously with their swords. They exchanged many sad strokes. Ten times Leo the god-like's sword fell in strength upon the shield of King Edgar, and ten times he raised it to take the blow, though at all other times it hung low on his injured arm.
Terra could hardly bear to look, always fearing that the next stroke would fall upon Edgar's head and pierce the shining helm. But King Edgar fought on, repelling the dire onslaught of mighty Leo. So great was the king's endurance that it became the matter of song, and the tale of his ox-strength was told to Figaroan children in the years that followed these sad events. Indeed, far from waning under Leo's sword, as the dire combat wore on, Edgar's strength waxed huge even as Leo's was spent. At last, when Edgar's strokes became equal in number to those of his enemy, General Leo took a step backward. Terra and all the Returners who had despaired of their king gasped in astonishment, and cheered. Then Leo took a second step backward. Soon it was all he could do to fend off man-slaughtering Edgar's onslaught, and truly then Edgar seemed more than mortal.
Finally Edgar's sword fell and struck General Leo in the hip in the place where the plates meet. His strong sword cut through the chainmail covering and opened a wide gash in his leg, which spurted blood onto the snow. With a cry of pain, Leo fell to the ground, his thigh's strength leaving him. Edgar raised his sword for a final stroke, and surely Leo would have lost his life, but he was not to fill out his destiny under the king's sword.
Terra, who had in spite of herself had been moving closer to the combat, cried out and ran past the marshals with a speed that no mortal, not even Locke, could match. And now all were witness to a great wonder, for Terra caught the blade in her hand as it fell to claim the imperialist's life. So mighty was the stroke that the sword—with a great shattering clang—broke in two, leaving half the blade in Terra's hand and the hilt in Edgar's. All remained motionless. The fire cooled in Terra's eyes and her hair settled about her. All stood amazed (even Celes) at the stroke that should have cut her asunder.
Terra herself, with the great surge of power, felt the Dreaded One leap forward inside her, so that one more such exertion of Terra's power would bring Her upon her, to her everlasting undoing.
They had not long to stand astonished, however, for a sickening boom was heard, followed by a deafening explosion which sent up a geyser of snow and death. It had fallen among the seated Returners, but so great had been the blast that some of the imperials had been killed as well.
And now I must relate the saddest tale that has ever been told or remembered in the history of the world. My heart has no strength left to tell it, unless He Who gives men breath carry me through it as He carried those who suffered the thing itself.
There came upon the Returners and Narshans the vile coward, Kefka, with his magitek tanks, full of bloodlust and eager like a lion who has once tasted the flesh of men and thereafter hunts only men—an abomination, since flesh was created to serve spirit, and not spirit to serve flesh. Just so, all-devouring Kefka came on, bringing with him the sad destruction.
The stricken General Leo waved to Kefka to call off his doom-dealing engines, but merciless Hatred had possessed him, and like a demon Kefka sent his magitek tanks among them all. Until the Returners turned and ran up the plateau towards the summit, almost as many imperialists were slaughtered as Returners.
Huge and raptor-like, the false bird-gods ran bobbing among the fleeing Narshans, trampling them underfoot with their taloned feet and crushing them into the earth. Then when the tanks had run past them, they turned and ran through them again, staining the sad mountain with bloody guts and entrails, until they had turned the whole plane into a wine press of human flesh.
Terra, Banon, Edgar, and the others ran towards the peak, and as they flew the light—which had been fading before—grew.
At last the heart within Banon could stand no longer to see the evil carnage wrought upon his men. Turning back, he found a huge tank charging and ran to meet it. Giving a war cry so great that it sounded like a hundred men had cried out in one voice, he ran with all his might at the machine. At the last moment he hefted his huge ax above his head and struck it. The sound rang out across the plain, if indeed it was not heard over the whole earth. Never had a mortal struck a mightier blow. If Terra's eyes had not deceived her—and indeed it was as clear as day in the strange light—the death-engine gave back, and the invincible machine fell to one knee.
But now the magitek tank rose and, extending a metal arm with a blade at the end of it, smote off Banon's head. His huge lifeless trunk fell to the ground, and his great spirit rose out of the eruption of blood into the sad, soul-strewn air.
Terra screamed, and divine wrath sprang into her heart. Then Terra raised her hand against the murderous machines. The earth shook violently and the stars disappeared from the heavens, and all was encompassed in eerie blue light. The storm clouds above grew and flashed in matchless anger, and forked lightning shore away the night. Then, with her hand extended in furious wrath against the magitek tanks, great earth-shaking bolts of lightning fell upon the machines—first one, then another, and then the last, until all three were blown apart and utterly destroyed by esperial fire.
And then it happened. She Whom Terra had so dreaded to meet arrived. She was standing in the doorway of her mind. Terra had only to turn around—and be unmade. The slightest movement, physical or emotional, would end all. She was still, and all was still. The very snow had ceased to fall, and hung suspended in the air. Somehow she was yet sensible that her friends were with her—Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and Celes—though she had not turned her head to see them. When she did, moving ever so slowly, she found their faces illumined by the strange light, and awe and terror was in them. But they were not looking at her. They were looking behind her.
Terra turned around. And there before her was the Esper. As she had dreamed of it so many times before, there it was, frozen inside a great mass of ice that shone like a prism, its wings outspread and its eyes alight with divine fire. And the fire was growing.
What caused Terra to do this has never been told, but if she had not spoken, all might have been annihilated.
Terra, unflinching, looked straight into the Esper's eyes and cried out: "WHO AM I?"
A thunderous voice replied from the icebound Esper, "Atrytoné."
And then it was as if a veil had lifted, and Terra shone forth like the sun, beautiful and terrifying to look upon. She had the appearance of lightning, as if light had been growing, building underneath the veil of her humanity the whole time, only now bursting forth. Her body was brilliant white, clothed in light, and her eyes shone like violet jewels. Her hair waved like fire—neither flame nor hair—white with tongues of purple.
Terra the goddess was lifted a little way above their heads with arms outstretched. Her unveiled beauty evoked in Edgar not lust but fear and reverence—it drove all other thoughts from his mind and left him broken and empty and clean. Without noticing it, Locke and the others had fallen to their knees in fear and trembling. Some had even begun to cry. With a sudden realization, Locke felt that he was not worthy to look upon such a good and beautiful thing. Here was Goodness itself, but it did not make him feel safe and happy as he might have expected, but afraid and guilty, knowing he was not good. This is what it was to look upon the goddess.
While Locke remained kneeling and silent, listening to the violet-streaked white light pouring out of the goddess like the roar of a distant waterfall with a faint strain of ethereal song which filled him with great sorrow and great joy at the same time; while he remained kneeling thus, the goddess seemed to take pity on him. She glided down towards him and without word or touch forced him to look her in the eyes. What he saw there, in those violet eyes, was not the wrath that Locke deserved, but wells of infinite love and mercy. She touched his lips with two fingers; they burned like live coals, but somehow he did not cry out, and when she had lifted them again he was left unburned. Locke felt waves of joy and gratitude welling up inside him.
But suddenly everything changed. Terra's humanity, not a mere veil but as much her nature as the goddess, returned. Locke saw in her eyes the moment Terra came back. She looked at her kneeling friends, at the dead men on the plane, and finally at her transfigured self. And then from the floodgates of her heart a torrential scream broke forth like a hurricane. The cry was cosmic. A blast of wind hit Locke full in the face. Terra's scream made the mountains shudder and send back her cry with undiminished force. Locke could not separate her scream from his own, her grief from his. All he knew was that he had suddenly been seized by a despair and loneliness so great that it threatened to crush him or drive him mad. He was on his knees, clutching his bleeding ears. The last thing he knew before darkness overtook him was the scream fading into the distance as Terra shot away into the sky like a comet to the west.
