Chapter XIX: The Rare Red Rock
The journey from Porre back to the portal in the explorer's lodge had been long and uneventful. But after going through the portal, they found they were not back in their own time – but in "The End of Time." (Well, it wasn't really the end of time, but it was a convenient name, so Chrono always referred to it as such.)
Again, the scene before them was nothing but inky blackness, and the platform slowly painted itself into existence. "Let's not stay here long," Lucca said.
"Right. Let's find our own time and find Melchior," Chrono finished.
"You!" a voice boomed, startling all of them. It was the creature, Spekkio, standing at the gate, still looking as cuddly and weak as he had the last time they saw him. "Look at me! Would you look at me! No, no, no, you're doing it all wrong!" The others just looked at each other, not sure of what Spekkio was trying to get them to understand. "Do I look strong to you?" Chrono shook his head. "I see. If I look strong, you are strong. If I look weak, you are weak. How long will it take you to learn?" With that, Spekkio left them.
What on earth was that? Chrono thought as they leapt into the pillar of light.
They were back in Lucca's shed. "We must have returned only moments after we left," Lucca mused. "The shed is still standing. I intended it to be burned down, along with the Telepod. You know, to cover our tracks. We would just disappear."
"Well, it's a good thing we're here then," Chrono said. "We're going to need the Telepod again soon."
"Pardon me, Miss Lucca," Robo interjected. "But there is no way to tell how much time has passed since we left for the past. The fire could have died of its own accord, or someone else could have come in and extinguished it."
"Right," Lucca nodded, mulling it over. "Let's not say hello to anyone. We're here to see Melchior." And she leaned close to Chrono and added, "If this is another dead end I will see that you never live this down."
The trip to Melchior's was not too complicated. Nadia arranged to purchase four tickets for a ship to Medina (it turned out Melchior was living there at the time), and they just stayed below deck and didn't bother anyone. Medina was the same as they remembered: the Mystics didn't like the humans, but since they walked with purpose, unaccompanied by a Mystic overlord, they were assumed to be tourists or freedmen and were not hassled. The Mystics, however, would not cooperate when Chrono asked for the location of Melchior's residence. "We don't serve humans," was the usual reply. So it took a long time just to find one Mystic who would answer their questions.
Melchior lived outside the city. His house sat on a neat cobblestone path a few miles away, near the edge of a small pine grove. From afar they saw gray clouds billowing out of a chimney. The only thing missing was an old man sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch.
Chrono approached the door and knocked. "Come in," came a muffled reply. Upon entering the home, he blinked a few times in the low light. Melchior was sitting by a fire, a book in his hands. The old man had the shades pulled, reading only by the glow of the fire. Once he saw Chrono and the others, he quickly closed the book and stood up. "Ah, I expected I would see you sometime. I guess now is as good a time as any." He opened the shades and light flooded into the room. "What is it you want?"
Lucca stepped forward. She held the pieces of the Masamune, wrapped loosely in cloth. In a fantastic display, she spun open the cloth and the two pieces fell onto Melchior's table. The old man's eyes widened in surprise. "Where did you get that?"
"That's not important right now," Chrono replied. "We want to know why your name is on the sword."
Melchior waited a long time before responding. "I am a weaponsmith, you know."
"That is impossible," Robo said. "You are a mere mortal. This sword was forged thousands of years ago."
"True, true. It is a mystery, is it not?"
Lucca butted it, incredulous. "Wait a minute, are you saying that you forged the Masamune?"
"No. But I do want to know how you managed to find it after all these years?"
"First, you tell us how to fix it."
"Have you tried a weaponsmith?"
"You're a weaponsmith."
Melchior sighed. "True. But I cannot fix your sword."
Lucca looked like she was going to start yelling, so Chrono cut her off. "Why not?"
"This sword was not made my any materials known anymore. It was forged long ago out of Dreamstone. Unfortunately, Dreamstone was rare, and does not exist anymore. I cannot fix your sword, and no one else can. Only if there were Dreamstone still on this earth could you have any chance of repairing it."
"Okay." Chrono thought for a moment. "Hey, Melchior – when was the last time Dreamstone did exist on the earth?"
"Why do you ask?"
The party returned to the End of Time. It's getting to be tiring, going from when to when, Chrono thought gaily as he approached the lamppost where the old man stood.
"Ah, so you are looking for Dreamstone," the old man said.
"Wait, how did you know?" Nadia piped up. The others shushed her.
"I watch. There isn't much else to do here."
"Never mind that," Chrono said. "Just tell us where to find it. We're in a bit of a hurry."
"Hurry? What for? You think time just marches on, don't you. I'm afraid you're mistaken. It is we who are traveling through time, blissfully unaware and unable to stop it. We march forward through portraits of a moment. The moments exist forever, but we cannot go back to look at them – except, somehow, when we can. When I was taken here from my home. When you first stumbled onto that portal a year ago. You and I were snatched up out of our routine and granted the privilege of looking back to a moment.
"As for Dreamstone? It was destroyed long before any of you were born. Long before the Masamune was even found. You may go to the pillar, and mayhap you will be allowed to go there. I have seen that as well..."
Chrono just nodded. The old man was still as crazy as before, but if he said they could go back, then they could go back.
"Wait." It was Lucca. "I have some questions."
"I am listening."
"So we're traveling through time. Aren't you aware of how extremely fragile time is? How come we haven't changed anything? You've heard, of course, that one butterfly beating his wings in Choras can cause a windstorm in Guardia."
"Nonsense, but continue."
"What if we accidentally kill our ancestors? We wouldn't be born! But if we weren't born, then we wouldn't go back to kill our ancestors. And if we didn't kill them, we were born, and we would go back and do it again. Wouldn't we cause a paradox? How have we not done that yet with all the damage we have done?"
"It is simple. You have hypothesized something similar yourself."
"You mean how time travelers are somehow protected."
"Yes."
"Then how? What law protects us, if you know so much?"
"Ah. You are still thinking of time as a snapshot of everything. But it is only a place where everything happens. The time is a portrait, but the people are not."
"Now you're talking nonsense."
"You aren't protected as a matter of any law. You are being protected. The very nature of your being able to time travel means you are no longer a part of the portrait. You are above it – you can change anything you like. To the rest of the world, it will be as if your changed universe were the only one that ever occurred. But to you, you will remember the old and the new because you have painted over the original portrait and made your own version."
"I thought time was a dimension," Lucca said, folding her arms across her chest.
"But it is."
Lucca nodded, but Chrono knew she didn't buy it. They turned to go.
"Wait, before you go... don't think you can just go around painting whatever portrait you wish. It is the highest arrogance to think you can make a better portrait than the original painter."
They returned to the pillar. As they gazed into it, the picture changed. Now they saw a cliff top, surrounded by nothing but forest. Not a sign of civilization existed. "That," came the old man's disembodied voice, "is the era of Dreamstone. The beginning of the world. That is when you must go."
"The beginning," Lucca mused. "What, millions of years ago?"
"Not quite," the voice replied. "Only a short amount of time in comparison. I will leave you now. Do what you must do."
"Here goes," Chrono said, leaping into the pillar. The others followed right behind him.
Immediately they found themselves looking down on treetops, an image that stretched for miles. Wait – tree tops?
Chrono looked straight down. This portal was suspended in midair, over the edge of a steep drop. The fall didn't look lethal, but it would be painful. In the moment before gravity took over, he saw their trajectory, bouncing off the rocks and bushes on the way down to the bottom. And it was painful. At the bottom, Nadia took care to relieve their wounds.
A sudden sound quieted them. Chrono looked around to find that they were not alone in these woods. At least a dozen pairs of eyes met them on all sides. They were surrounded by creatures – strange creatures he had never seen before. The creatures were built with somewhat humanoid proportions, but looked more like someone had crossed the traits of a human with that of a reptile. Some had green skin, others had red or purple, and all were scaly. All stood erect, on two legs, with two human-like arms. They wore clothes – simple rags, really. But it was the eyes that scared Chrono. Large, yellow globes stared him up and down, as if sizing him up. Behind the eyes lay an obvious intelligence. These things may have been creatures, but certainly they could think and possess at least basic sentience.
What are you? their eyes first read. Then, Are you food?
One pounced at Chrono. In a flash, Robo stood in the way, and the creature fell to the ground, stunned. The other creatures, though, took their cue and began to attack.
The magic had become so second-nature to Chrono and the others at this point that they didn't even realize they had started using it. He fired little bolts of lightning at the creatures, Lucca set them aflame, and Nadia stood by to heal. Chrono couldn't help but chuckle at the thought that they had become some sort of wizard army, something he would have thought downright stupid only a year ago. Now, the thought of wizards and strange creatures was normal. This battle was normal. It was normal to be charring the bodies of unknown creatures which may have been no devils, but only creatures surprised and reacting out of fear, not hate.
The thought went through Chrono's brain and left his head in an instant, and the remaining creatures were running for cover before he knew it. "Well that was interesting," Lucca huffed. "Come on, let's go."
"And let us go quickly," Robo added. "We have no idea if they are going to fetch reinforcements."
They had no time to ponder the idea. Before they had taken a step, they were met by dozens more pairs of eyes, peering out from the bushes. An ambush! Chrono knew this time things would not be so easy – magic was tiring, as if it were powered by lifeblood, and he was likely to drop from exhaustion after dealing with so many of them.
The creatures attacked again, this time more prepared. Some had primitive weapons, such as spears and rocks. Chrono resumed his magical volley, but it seemed for every creature he killed, another took its place. He was quickly losing energy. He was slowly being pushed back, until he bumped into Lucca and Nadia, who stood back to back, fighting to stay standing, fighting the weariness. Robo alone remained vigilant, but he could not keep his friends protected forever all on his own.
Just as everything looked hopeless (and what coincidental timing, Chrono thought) the creatures were distracted by a sound behind them. In the blink of an eye two of them were flying through the air above Chrono, flailing all the way. Where they had been now stood a new attacker. The creatures turned their attention toward this new threat, and more of them flew through the air as if they weighed no more than paper dolls. Between this new attacker and Chrono and his friends initial attacks, the creatures were easily routed. Those that remained alive ran off into the forest, leaving an array of scaly bodies, charred and beaten.
Chrono then looked to the stranger in shock – a human girl. She couldn't have been more than thirteen. Her long blonde hair stuck in slick, messy curls to her face, or stuck out in every which way. Her deep blue eyes flashed with anger, with pride, and with a generous amount of insanity. But what interested (and unnerved) Chrono the most was her choice in clothing. More specifically, she wore almost none. Except for a small loincloth, she was naked. Chrono felt his stomach leap in surprise, and he averted his eyes, looking anywhere but at her.
He could even hear his mother's voice in his head. "Chrono, we do not look at women like that. Women are people, not objects, and you would be wise to respect their privacy." He felt like he was ten again, when he had walked by the neighbor's window and saw one of the neighbor girls undressing there. The same feeling had come upon him then, too – his stomach had turned and he felt his heart rate quicken, while a voice nagged in the back of his head, telling him to go home immediately and never think of it ever again.
"Strange. This woman seems to be missing key articles of clothing." Robo, of course. Only he remained calm. "At least, according to your standards."
"Oh, is that what's going on?" Nadia hissed.
Chrono stayed where he stood, hoping the girl would just go away. But suddenly she was running right up to him, her head only as high up as his chest, and she was staring right in his face. He gulped and suppressed feelings of anxiety. The whole thing would have been so much easier if only Nadia and Lucca weren't also there, drilling holes in him and the girl with their eyes. But through it all the girl showed no sign that she was even aware that her clothing was very improper to all of them.
The strange girl blurted out a string of incomprehensible chatter. Chrono looked to the others, who just shook their heads. They couldn't make sense of the words either. Robo also drew a blank. "This language is too old," he said. "Nothing matches any language in my database."
"I – we – don't understand you," Chrono began, shaking his head very slowly from side to side.
The girl just looked at him and cocked her head. She said some more unintelligible words which ran together so that Chrono couldn't figure out where one ended and the next one began.
Chrono tried again, only slower. "We don't speak your language."
"Oh, now she'll understand," Lucca said. "Talking slower totally makes you more intelligible." Chrono didn't mind her attitude. He could tell she was just as unnerved as he was.
Just then the girl spoke some more. They still had trouble making out the words exactly, but it sounded something like "Key voj tay. Odd jaw mega nev eat."
Chrono just pointed to himself. "Chrono," he said. "I am Chrono."
"K-k-Krono," she repeated. "Ah Yam. Ayam." Suddenly it was as if someone had flipped a switch in her brain. "Oooooooh! I am!" she exulted slowly. "I am! I am! You am... Chrono. I am... Ayla. You... speak... stars."
The others just looked at each other. "Did she mean we speak words?" Chrono asked.
"Beats me," Lucca responded. "Just be glad our language exists here."
"Thought our sense of decency certainly doesn't," Nadia quipped.
"You..." Ayla continued. "You... jiojio... you come! Come! I... come... you... Ioka faloo." Without another word, she took off running into the bushes, running on all fours like a wild cat. The others just looked at each other.
"What's a faloo?" they asked with their eyes.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Chrono said finally, and they followed the strange girl into the forest.
A/N: A few things.
1. My absence. I have been working, because I have to, well, eat. For all you who favorited this story and are hungry for updates, remember that no matter what, I will return here - I love writing this story, so even if the wait seems forever, patience will pay off.
2. The language. This is the second change I made that I knew someone else had done first. I maintain that I thought of it before I read it in Gibson18's story, though I cannot prove that. I just felt I needed to credit Gibson with it because this is no real original idea. It just makes sense that the common language wouldn't be around yet.
3. Ayla. So far, my interp is different than the game - so just hold on, purists. Any changes you notice are there to try to avert a time paradox the video game does not address, and I know where I'm going with it.
That is all.