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Final Fantasy VI: The Sands of Time

Book 1: The Beginning

Chapter 4 - Demons Within

Part 4.6 - Fire and Ice

"Duuuune..."

"Waaaake uuuup Duuuune..."

A sweet melodious voice greeted Dune's battered senses, and brought him back into the world of light. The voice was garbled, like hearing someone speaking underwater, but still more beautiful and serene than any voice Dune had ever heard. Who could such a heavenly voice belong to?

Dune shot up from where he had regained consciousness and looked around. It seemed he was still alive, and miraculously unharmed, save a few bumps and bruises. The falls could still be heard thrashing against hard rocks in the distsance behind Dune, but all that could be seen was darkness in that direction. The river had carried Dune a good distance from the falls while he was out, and now he was lying comfortably on a mossy patch of shore next to the river. Even his hat and glasses were still intact and on his head, a feat that seemed almost as ridiculous as his bodily condition. Had someone saved him? Or was he just unbelievably lucky?

The river itself was still deep and flowing, but it was doing so lazily and without much ferocity. All the malevolence of the water had been taken out of it by the falls and now the river happily sloshed around in small whirlpools. Further down, the river continued to lose power and Dune could just make out a rock wall where the river slipped under a wide chasm and out of sight. The pipes that had followed the river were still lining its sides, and Dune could finally see their source sitting only a few yards away from him.

The structure that was the source for the multitude of steam-filled pipes looked like a larger version of the generators above the falls. It was about the size of a small house and was working hard at pulling the vital hot gases that powered Narsille from the unknown depths. There were cracks and fissures strewn all about the area and quick bursts of unrefined steam would shoot out of them like geysers at regular intervals. If Dune had to guess, it looked as if the river continued to descend into the earth until it hit a pocket of magma and turned to steam. The steam would then push through the many cracks in the earth until it bled out here. Could one single river really supply enough steam to power an entire city, though?

For now, Dune had more pressing concerns that the mysterious power source of this system. Where had Kumiro gone? And what was that voice he heard? Dune struggled to look for a furry white body lying near him in the pale glow of the sparse lighting around him, but could see nothing. Had the poor creature fallen and drowned like Dune should have? This thought was extremely unsettling to Dune, not just for the moogle's sake, but for Indie's. How would he tell the old man that he had failed to protect his trusted partner in crime and lost him to the merciless waters that flowed beneath Narsille? The heart-rending scream the moogle had made before it was lost still echoed in Dune's mind, and he shuddered. There was little time for grief, and Dune did not believe Kumiro lost just yet. He was still alive and well, and the moogle had shown itself to be more of a survivor than he. It must have made it down here in one piece as well. Dune was sure Kumiro would come bouncing along happily waving its paws soon enough.

For now Dune had a job to do. According to Kumiro, the entrance to the hall of the Order was down here somewhere, and he might as well start looking for it. Separated from his infallible moogle guide as he may be, now was not the time to just give up and sit on his haunches until he was captured. Dune got up and brushed himself off, then walked over to the massive machine that was sucking the steam from the surrounding earth like some greedy giant. The machine seemed to work without any kind of human assistance at all, at least from what Dune could tell. It mindlessly went about its unrelenting task and with perfect precision. This was fine by Dune, who cautiously walked around the machine's perimeter, looking for some sort of sign as to where to go next, as well as any unwanted company lying in wait.

After a small trek to the other side of the machine, Dune found what he was looking for. It seemed this machine had another area it was feeding power into. A complex network of large pipes and wires protruded from the back of the mechanical beast, and Dune followed them to the rock face that hid the rest of the river. Here the pipes plunged into the rock face, with a small area of space around them for the wires. Even without Kumiro's assistance, Dune could feel that this was where he needed to go. The fit would be tight, but it looked like the wires could be pushed aside and Dune could climb the pipes to...wherever it was his path was taking him.

Once again Dune found himself struggling to fit into a small passageway, and this time he was greeted by a blast of blistering heat, not a cool breeze. The hot gases flowing through the pipes made it almost impossible to crawl along them, but Dune had to manage or he would be stuck down here forever. The pipes' surface felt like crawling on a hot plate and Dune would never have made it through if he hadn't remembered the crystal still tucked in his pocket. He took hold of the crystal every once and a while and its icy touch soothed him tremendously as he made his way along the pipeline. Using the crystal in such a way made Dune feel guilty somehow, like it was a drug he needed, but it was either use the properties of the crystal to his advantage or suffer painful burns from the super-heated surface of the pipes. Dune feared the heat from the pipes was so great that his clothes might even catch fire as he pushed forward, but it seemed the crystal's influence extended itself around him like a force field and protected his entire person from the heat. Dune quickly realized that Kumiro, or anyone else for that matter, would never have been able to use this path to breach the Order's meeting place, and this made him more confident than ever that he was on the right track. It may not have been the path Alex or Kumiro had in mind when they led him down here, but Dune knew it was still the right path nonetheless. This was his path.

After a long trek through the total darkness of the pipeline, Dune could faintly make out a pulsing light ahead of him. Finally! Dune eagerly pushed forward until he had reached the end of the pipeline. He cautiously peered out of the opening where the pipes exited the wall. He was about ten feet above the ground, but he thoughtlessly jumped down anyways. He hit the ground on his feet hard, and staggered a bit before regaining his balance. It was still relatively dark, and ominously silent compared to the noisy generators he had left behind. Dune found himself in a small room that looked like a control room. There were many screens, panels and buttons flicking on and off along the walls, but nothing alive. Dune ignored all the displays and left the room as silently as he could. He was very close now, his gut instinct told him. He couldn't afford to be sloppy now that he had made it so far.

Outside the room Dune found himself in a small hallway once more, but this one had a different look to it. This one was clean and brightly lit with torches, not electric lights. The hallway was carved directly from the rock, but it looked like it was carved meticulously, not just hacked out of the earth like the mine shafts before. Strange symbols and patterns were painted onto the smoothly cut surface of the walls and floors, none of which Dune had seen before. This was disconcerting to Dune, since he was an archeologist after all, and ancient civilizations and their languages were his specialty. Yes, this new area was definitely more like a secret religious meeting ground. Dune continued to follow the path in the direction he felt he was supposed to be going, and eventually made it to a wide open space that was undoubtedly his final destination.

Dune's first thought when he entered the cathedral-sized meeting place was that the room itself was the proof Alex had promised he would find. The room was beyond any form of architecture he had seen before, and "magical" was the only word he could think of to describe it. The room itself was enormous, with a high sloping ceiling and smooth walls, all completely covered with more of the strange symbols and figures. Dune still couldn't make heads or tails of the symbols, but they all seemed to spiral out along the walls and up the ceiling, away from a central point further within the room. Great stone pillars lined the walls, with gruesome depictions of demons and angels locked in an epic struggle jutting out from them in relief form. The pillars ended in grand arches that criss-crossed the ceiling. Hanging from the middle of each of the arches was a luxuriously adorned chandelier alight with hundreds of small candles. The chandeliers flickered and swayed, casting long quivering shadows across the room in all directions. The room's floor was one vast sheet of marble, completely seamless except for a vibrant red carpet that led from where Dune stood to the center of the room.

Where the carpet stopped was a mythril statue of some titanic being that seemed to fill the entire room with its bluish glow. The statue was beyond any level of masonry Dune had seen above ground, and it looked as if the being it portrayed was ready to come alive and flay whoever entered this room without its express permission. Dune could not make out exactly what kind of entity the statue was, although it had a distinctly human shape. If one looked at it from a distance it might look like some great warrior angel, but up close it was hard to tell exactly what it was. The facial features were oddly blurred, yet clear at the same time. When looked at out of the corner of one's eye, the features seemed clear enough, but as soon as they tried to focus on any part directly, any distinguishing features vanished. It wore a flowing robe around its massive body, but wore nothing on its feet. It had two pairs of great eagle-like wings spread out to their full length, one set flowing upward, and the other downward. The statue also had two pairs of arms. In the upper two hands it wielded deadly looking scimitars, but only a book against its chest in the third, and some strange object Dune could not make out was held out in the palm of the fourth. It looked like a large sphere, and had more of the strange symbols carved into it. The being stood in a pose of thoughtful vigilance, and the more Dune looked at it the more it gave off a distinct impression of peace and nobility, not the fiery hostility Dune had first saw in it. There was no doubt in Dune's mind that this was a god of peace, not war. The central deity of the Order of the Pearl, perhaps?

The part of the room that impressed Dune the most was the central mantle at the far end of the room. It seemed every single piece of architecture bent towards this edifice, as if the room itself was praying to the structure that stood there. Dune sensed that this was what he had come here to see, and moved towards it without seeming to even realize he was in motion. The structure was pulling him towards it, filling him with an unspeakable sense of awe and dread at the same time. Whatever it was, it had as powerful a pull on Dune as the crystal did, maybe even moreso.

A small flight of wide stairs led up to a dais that would have been right where the pulpit would be if this were a traditional church. There was no pulpit here; instead there was a large raised platform with numerous red drapings covering it in complicated, but obviously purposeful, patterns and knots. The drapings seemed to act as a sort of soft resting place for the object that was emanating the strong force that was pulling the very room towards it. Nestled in the drapes like an egg was what Dune realized was the very object the god-statue had been depicted holding in its lower right hand - a large milky white pearl of unparalleled perfection and luster. The pearl's beauty hypnotized Dune into a dazed stupor, and there was no telling how long he sat there and gazed at it stupidly before pulling himself out of its grasp and studying it and its surroundings more carefully.

The pearl itself was much too large to be natural, and yet that was exactly what Dune knew it was - natural. Perhaps not borne from any living creature, but borne from nature regardless. It gave off a slow pulse that soothed Dune's nerves and lulled him into a false sense of security. The only thing that Dune sensed from this sacred jewel was a feeling of absolute peace and tranquillity. Even the continued pull of the crystal in Dune's hand was no match for the pull of this object. For the first time since Dune had held the crystal in his hands, its cold touch vanished, and Dune felt nothing at all from it. Whatever it was, not even Doom's threatening presence could stand up to it. For the time being, the whispering voice of death that haunted Dune wherever he went was silenced.

Now Dune looked past the pearl and saw something else. Coming out from the wall a few feet behind the pearl's resting place was a large jewel-encrusted pedestal with an ancient tattered scroll laid out on it. Dune once again knew this was what he was meant to find here, and with a growing sense of awe he stepped forward and examined the decaying scroll. Written on the paper were more of the unreadable symbols that Dune had seen covering the room. Unlike before, Dune suddenly found he could read these symbols, but not because he knew the language. The symbols themselves seemed to speak into his mind and tell him their secrets. What he heard in his mind's eye would echo across his thoughts for countless years to come...

"When the Balance of Eight meets its end beyond Time

The Three will be taken and paid in full for their Crime.

The Sands of Time shall never be stilled,

The Force that was drained must be refilled.

In the Mouth of Fire a fated Pact will be made,

The Vengeful Master will come to the one called Sade.

In the Desert of Death where life dares not bloom,

The Child of the Sands will meet his Doom.

Before the Eye of the storm that does not sleep,

The Elder of the Seas will sink into the Deep.

The Path of the Three will converge at the Source,

Where the Vessels of Fate will open the Door.

A Great Power will be bestowed to the chosen few,

And Chaos shall reign until the Balance is renewed.

Time will pass and the Great War for Power will rage,

Only the Splitting of Power will save the world for an age.

But The River of Time has one final Bend,

Upon the backs of the Three the world will End.

Hope cannot die and Promises may keep,

The Dreaming Awake shall return to their Sleep."

So this must be the mythic "Prophecy" he had heard about. Much of the cryptic verse that was winding its way through Dune's mind made little sense to him at first, but two lines stuck out and sent sharp pangs of realization deep into his spirit.

"The Vengeful Master will come to the one called Sade."

"The Child of the Sands will meet his Doom."

Dune could barely keep the hot soup his thoughts were becoming from driving him mad. Sade. Sade. It always seems to come back to either that dark man or Dune himself. Yes, this was the truth Dune had wanted so desperately to uncover. Right here within the words written on this scroll was Truth. More of it than you had ever wished to know, his unraveling mind screamed at him. He struggled to keep a logical stance while he contemplated the fateful words, but found it impossible. A steady stream of horrific images of death, despair and destruction beyond anything he ever thought possible bled into his mind and infected it like a disease. He let out a loud sharp laugh to vent the madness growing within him, but it did no good. As long as he stood here trapped by the Prophecy's voice he could not sense anything but the overwhelming pain that filled his mind, body, and soul. All the anguish of the planet seemed to be channeling itself from the scroll into him. If he did not get away soon, his mind would be destroyed and his spirit lost to the crushing waves of hopelessness washing over him.

Just as his mind was about to snap, a new sound reached his ears, one that was both sinister and brutally sane. Clapping. A slow, sharp clapping was coming from directly behind Dune, causing him to whirl around in a furious spin of half-crazed surprise. His wide bulging eyes stared disbelievingly at a sneering face full of sickeningly sweet calmness and false sympathy. Sade stood before him, casually applauding his struggle to keep his mind intact. His slow, patient voice echoed through the room like the soothing tones of a serpent who knows his prey has been defeated, and only wants to toy with it before striking.

"Well done, Mr. Karn! You truly have the luck of the gods to have made it here. Without your little pet, even!"

Sade reached behind his back and pulled out a white furry bundle. It was Kumiro, except he was tied and gagged, and didn't seem to be conscious. Dune just stood staring at Sade with his bulging crazed eyes, the madness within him pushing all rational thought from his reach.

"...Sade...I...you...agh!"

Sade only laughed his low, sinister laugh and continued taunting Dune, knowing he had won.

"Yes, the Voice of God is not meant for ears such as yours, infidel. Still, I must welcome you to the inner sanctum of the Holy Order of the Pearl. It is not often we have guests here. It is a forbidden place to all but the highest of our order, after all. And I'm afraid...the penalty for trespassing on such holy ground is death. The problem here is that you are already dead, Mr. Karn."

Dune heard the words Sade spoke, but could only answer in broken half-babbling phrases. The Voice was steadily tearing down wall after wall inside his mind, and soon he would not even know who he was. For now, he still clung desperately to Sade's calm voice, as mercilessly sane as it was.

"Dead? No...I...pain...too much!"

"Yes dead. Or didn't you understand the Prophecy? You are a walking dead man, and have been ever since you took that crystal into your hands. The price a mortal must pay for coming into contact with the gravity crystal is death and nothing less. You were struck dead in the Thanas Desert, Mr. Karn. I have no doubt of that. Why you are still standing before me when so many others like you have been destroyed by the crystal's poison touch is unknown, but I have an idea."

Now Sade was practically giving a speech to Dune, one he had thought a great deal about. He paced back and forth with his gloved hand thoughtfully stroking his chin every few moments. His flaming red hair followed like an aura of fire. Dune could sense the growing heat from him, but could do nothing but gawk as he struggled with his own demons. He knew what was coming, and fought hard to break free, but the Voice was too much.

"You see, I believe you are in fact still dead, technically speaking. For some reason that I cannot yet see, the crystal has chosen you as its Vessel, and your spirit is bound to it, and cannot fade until its will is carried out in full. Why someone like you should be the one to inherit such a great responsibility is equally unfathomable to me. But I care not for the whims of the Gods above, only for the one I have sworn to follow. And I believe that crystal is your lifeline, and if I were to...take it...the half life you lead now would come to an abrupt and unceremonious end. Will you try to stop me, Mr. Karn? Even now, in the state you are in? Is the crystal's pull that strong? We shall see who is the rightful Master of the crystals. Show me your power...Doom!"

As Sade spoke, he threw Kumiro aside and then tossed back his black coat to reveal a sight that would have defeated lesser men. His entire body was swathed in a gruesome suit of sharply spiked blood-red armor from neck to toe. More than that, the armor seemed alive, with the gaping maw of a blood-drenched demon across his abdomen. The demonic visage sneered cruelly at Dune, its mass of hellishly mutated fangs forcing their way up and through the demon's very face as they grew. A set of gnarled golden horns completed the picture of evil that rested on Sade's chest. This was the mouth that finished Sade's speech and now grinned at Dune with nothing but carnage on its mind. As the voice spoke, the heat that surrounded Sade turned into a visible warble in the surrounding air, and then in a blinding flash ignited and engulfed Sade in an aura of very real fire.

Now another force was pushing itself through the waves of madness engulfing Dune, one that was coldly familiar. As soon as Sade had threatened to take the crystal, the voice of Doom split through the waves of madness and spoke to Dune not in a whisper, but a manic, shrieking fury.

"He is going to take it! Do something you fool before all is lost! I am your Master and you-will-obey-ME! Now let loose my fury! Let my brethren see the face of Doom, and let it chill his fiery heart to its core! Alight on the icy winds of Cocytus NOW, my Emissary!"

The effect of this chilling outburst was like ice-cold water being dumped on Dune, and for one moment his mind was clear of the Voice, and only Doom's presence remained. Dune's vision clouded and his senses numbed once more. A terrific blast of pure ice-cold death shot out from Dune's body, engulfing him in a blue aura as magnificent as Sade's fiery red one. Dune's aura expanded rapidly and collided with Sade's, sending a shockwave throughout the hall that shook the room from the marble floor to the wildly swinging chandeliers. Both men staggered back from the blast, but Sade was the first to recover. The demon on Sade's chest spoke up once more as it regained its strength.

"So this is the power of the Emissary of Doom? Hah! You will not win me over so easily, brother! The world shall end in fire, not ice!"

Sade sprang back up as quickly as a snake making its deathblow, and rushed at Dune as he staggered back from the collision. The aura of flames increased in fury, and scorch marks could be seen forming where Sade rapidly glided across the room towards his target. Dune was no longer in control of his actions now, though, and the untold powers of Doom were now mustering their forces in his body like a frozen cannon ready to fire. With chilling grace, Dune rose up from the ground and convulsed in one violent spasm, sending out a final frigid explosion of icy hell at Sade. The cold blast struck Sade directly in his gruesomely adorned chest and for a moment all movement stopped, then Sade went shotgunning backwards, flying directly towards the god-statue like a guided missile.

"NOOOOOOO!"

Sade slammed into the statue with enough force to shatter the impossibly sturdy mythril frame. Pieces of the holy object flew across the room, and a large cloud of glittering blue-white dust billowed out from where the statue had once stood. When the dust cleared, Sade was gone. The power of Doom had been more than he expected, and for now, Dune must live. For now. The Vengeful Master was always true to his name, and would not suffer defeat at the hands of anyone as long as he could still force his Vessel to fight.

With all the fury of his dark god spent, Dune slumped down onto the ground, oblivious to the voice of his Master, and the Voice of God that had nearly driven him insane.