Final Fantasy VI: The Sands of Time

Book 2: The Goddess War

Chapter 11 - Red Tide

11.7 - The Demon Wives of Astarte

As Maduin stood by patiently and listened to Ole Bull go over the latest reports from Jidorik in the cramped cabin, he couldn't help but fall into a deep sadness. His former ally Draco Christophe had fallen far indeed if the reports from the Stradivari were true. How could such a noble man give rise to such a corrupt, tyrannical Esper overlord as Bahamut?

And what of Captain Bismark? Indie? Nothing. There had been sightings of the Maiden of the Sea in the ports of West Jidorik, but no sign of a giant white whale, or an old man that could control lightning. There had been brief reports of a giant serpent flying through the skies of northern East Jidorik and the Zozo mountains, however, and wherever Leviathan was, his Esper soldiers were sure to be nearby. Apparently Leviathan had made his stronghold among the barbarians of the rain-drenched Zozo mountains. And this did not sit will with Ole Bull.

At the moment, however, Maduin was growing increasingly aware of a strange atmosphere in the stuffy cabin. Here he stood, hunched over and tucked away in a corner of the Mother of Pearl, Elphis on his lap and Kumiro curled up like a cat at his feet, sleeping. And across from him were two Stradivari, Captain Delphino and Ole Bull, discussing the top secret plans and reports of their group as if he were one of them. But he was not one of them. He was not a Stradivari, and he was most definitely not a killer like them. It was eating away at him and he could not hold it in any longer.

"Why are you allowing me to hear all this?" Maduin said abruptly as the two Stradivari poured over maps of the Zozo mountain region closest to the Zwill flatlands.

The Captain did not turn her head, but merely turned her eyes on him without emotion. As usual, she said nothing and let her burly companion field Maduin's questions.

"Because we need you, Maduin," Ole Bull said matter-of-factly, as if he were expecting such a question sooner or later from the inquisitive Esper. "You are the only Esper we know of that isn't out to kill us all. We'd be fools to not do everything in our power to convince you to trust us." He glanced at Delphino and his eyes showed an unusual note of concern. "Whether we trust you or not is irrelevant. You're all the magic we've got."

"I don't like being put in this position, you know." Maduin was tired of being treated like a weapon.

"We don't like relying on outsiders, either. But the balance of this region has been put all out of whack, and it's magic that's to blame. Magic and Espers. You." Ole Bull pointed one thick finger, still bloody from their contest, at Maduin and frowned.

Maduin sighed and turned his head down to Elphis and away from the accusing finger. What else could he do? They were right. His actions and his kind were responsible for what was happening now, and he couldn't in good conscience ignore their pleas for help.

"I don't know what I should do, though," Maduin said, hushing Elphis before she could say something to Ole Bull about being mean to him. "What exactly are we up against here in Zwill? You've talked about Jidorik and Zozo, but not of what's happening here, right now."

Ole Bull looked uncomfortable and turned his ponderous vomammoth-topped head to Delphino. "Well? Do you want to tell it or me?"

But Delphino just shook her head and turned her vulture-like eyes back to the map of the Zozo mountains. "No, it's your story to tell and you know it. I'm merely a visitor."

Sighing, the giant man took a large heavily-cushioned chair from the corner of the room and slumped into it. The chair creaked, but held, apparently having been made especially for his visitations.

"Well, you're right as usual," he said after ho-ing and humming and fidgeting with the grimy hairs of his vomammoth coat. "Maduin, you said you were an archeologist. What do you know of the barbarians of Zozo? Of the Cult of the Goddess?"

What did he know? Little, almost nothing. They were a myth as far as he knew. Some lost pagan society that died off millennia ago.

I wonder how much my father knew of these people? As I travel the world, I am beginning to see just how little I know of it. Some archeologist I turned out to be. I am sorry I could not live up to the Karn name, father.

"I only know of them as an ancient lost society of mostly savages, apparently from several thousand years ago, pre-dating even the Phoenician civilization. What do they have to do with your city?" Maduin replied slowly, ashamed of his own ignorance in the very field he was supposed to be an expert in.

Ole Bull heaved and creaked in his chair, as uncomfortable as Maduin on the topic. "I am one of them," he said gruffly to the wall.

Maduin remained silent, waiting for the man to explain. It seemed he was as ashamed of knowing the cult as Maduin was of not knowing it.

After a long silence Ole Bull turned his head away from the wall and back towards Maduin. "I don't suppose you know the history of Zwill, either."

Maduin shook his head, wondering when the man would get to what he was obviously trying to put off.

At last, Ole Bull cleared his throat and said in a tone quieter and more subdued than any Maduin had heard him speak yet, "Old Zwill, the man that is, not the town, was the founder of our city. He is my ancestor, and his direct line has ruled this city for hundreds of years. I have less of a hand in ruling nowadays than my father or grandfather did, but the title of ruler is still mine by rights. And everyone here knows it, even if they don't act like it sometimes." He coughed, and spat into the corner, ignoring the Captain's grimace. Then he dove into the heart of his story.

"Old Zwill came down from the Zozo mountains some four hundred years ago, and conquered this region in the name of the Goddess Astarte, who's exiled people have called those mountains home for who knows how long."

"Astarte?" Maduin said, surprised. He remembered what Genju had told him of the Fallen Masters. "That's the name of one of the fallen gods that are here now, creating Espers and preparing for war. She's the one that gave Levi the form of Leviathan, and Indie..." he trailed off. The cold, judging eyes of Ramuh loomed up in his mind as he remembered what the Goddess had done to the once joyful and excitable man.

"Aye, I know it. Servais has told me as much. I never once believed she was actually real until now. I just assumed she was some mythical goddess my ancestors worshipped. You know how those things go. Nobody really believes them except the most fanatical followers..."

"I always believed in Altimus, and Elia too."

Ole Bull straightened like a cracked whip at the sound of Delphino's voice. Maduin, too, was surprised to hear her speak of religion. But if she planned on saying anything else, she did not. She simply remained motionless in her chair, as if she hadn't spoken at all.

"Of course," Ole Bull said, trying to get back on track. "But none of us, Old Zwill included, really believed in the Goddess. That's why he stayed here afterwards. He was the greatest warrior of the Zozo horde, sent to conquer all of the north for Astarte, but he found something here that took the fight right out of him, and he never went back up to the mountains again. He cut all ties with Zozo, named himself king of this region, and left the Goddess behind. The worship of the Goddess is expressly forbidden in Zwill, even to this day."

"What did he find here?" Maduin found himself asking.

Ole Bull smiled sadly. "He found love. You see, human sacrifice was the big thing for the Cult of the Goddess. Virgin maidens were given to the Goddess on a golden altar atop a golden pyramid to appease her and to bring about her return, as was foretold. As the conqueror, Old Zwill was expected to bring the most beautiful maiden he could find of the conquered people to the altar at the heart of the mountains. Instead, he fell for the woman and settled down to rule in his own name. The very idea of destroying his wife for some make-believe Goddess that would never return was more than he could stand. And the rest is history, as they say. Zozo couldn't stand against their own mightiest warrior, so they let him be, cursing him and his line. They swore someday the Goddess would return and seek her vengeance on him. Nobody listened to the crazy barbarians, of course. But now..."

"Has the Goddess's Herald been seen, then? Has Leviathan attacked your city?" Maduin found himself looking out the closed porthole, half-expecting to see the serpent's giant yellow eye peering in. He couldn't help but shudder at the feeling of being watched.

Ole Bull seemed genuinely shocked at the idea. "What? No! We haven't seen that old bastard Levi up here yet, thank the gods." Ole Bull glanced quickly towards the porthole, probably thinking the same thoughts as Maduin. He paled visibly.

"No," he repeated to calm himself. "But a herald of a different kind has come down to us from Zozo. A Demon Wife."

"A what?"

"The leaders of the Cult of Astarte. The Demon Wives. Old Zwill made sure we knew all about them when he wrote about the hell he had escaped from. They are women who have given themselves as self-sacrifices to the altar...and lived. Or come back from death." Now the big man shuddered, his fat rippling in waves. "I don't know the specifics, but once a woman becomes a Demon Wife, she is seen as being a direct extension of the Goddess herself, and their words are her words. I never thought she was really speaking through them. I thought it was a sham. But you have to wonder now."

Maduin found all of this fascinating despite himself. He wished there was time to study all this properly, as an archeologist. "This Demon Wife that visited here...is she an Esper?"

"I don't know," Ole Bull said, wiping sweat from his brow. "She looks human to me. Calls herself Lilith, daughter of Marilith." Ole Bull stopped and looked at Maduin closely. "I guess you don't know who Marilith is, eh?"

Maduin shook his head, but Elphis squeaked suddenly, as if she was pinched.

"A forbidden herald?" she said, surprising everyone in the room, including herself. In the stunned silence, she ducked her head and said shyly, "That's what Titan says, at least. He sounded mad. Well, madder than usual." She ducked further as the silence grew. "Sorries."

The silence continued for a second longer, then Ole Bull and Delphino laughed together, a loud cannon burst and a dry sound like crackling paper. Ole Bull smiled wide and leaned over towards the embarrassed girl, patting her on the head. "Now, now, don't you worry. If that friend of yours says anything, don't you be afraid to just yell it out, you hear?" He laughed again and turned to Delphino. "Maybe you are right about her, Delphino."

Delphino smiled, but said nothing.

"Anyways," Ole Bull continued, "whatever she may really have been, legend says Marilith was the first Demon Wife of Astarte. Apparently all Demon Wives after that called themselves daughters of Marilith. Legend has it they are granted the beauty of the Goddess herself in order to seduce men into the cult. And this one that came riding down on that thing of hers fits the bill all right. She's beautiful, Maduin. Unspeakably beautiful."

Maduin couldn't help himself. An image of Mae wavered in his mind before he could force it away. He grimaced at the painful thought, and wondered what this Lilith really looked like. As far as Maduin was concerned, Mae was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and wondered what a Goddess-touched Demon Wife might look like compared to Mae.

"I sure hope you can control your instincts, Maduin. I sure hope you're more Esper than man." Ole Bull was frowning deeply, lost in bad memories of his own. "I've lost over a hundred good men to this Lilith already. She comes down on the full moon on that crazy mount of hers, and sings to the city. Everyone hears her, even though she's a mile away on the nearest hilltop. She calls out to them, and some of them break down into tears and run off. They leave wives behind. Kids, too. They just up and run off, crying but unable to stop themselves."

"That's horrible." Maduin was disgusted at the low tactics the Goddess was using to recruit more people to her army, but he wasn't surprised. Only a trickster god would have such a slimy sneak as Levi as her Herald. How many of those men were now Espers, Maduin wondered?

"I've seen her." Ole Bull said, lost in his own reliving of the nights of Lilith's comings. "She's too beautiful to be human, man. I mean, she looks perfectly...well, perfect. She's completely naked, sitting on that hell horse of hers, and her golden hair is just flowing, even though there's no breeze. That's another thing...there's never any wind while she's here. But there's always a horrible storm before and after. Lightning like I've never seen. It's a hell of mess putting out the fires the lightning strikes cause all over the city. I think it's her horse. I think it's an Esper like you."

Maduin let the man go on. He seemed to be talking to himself almost, until he got to the part about the Esper horse. At that he was looking right at Maduin.

"I tried to fight her, Maduin. Delphino warned me it wouldn't work, but she stayed by my side anyway and used her hypnosis to keep my mind under my own control, not Lilith's. I thought if I could just get past her devilry, I could knock some sense into her."

Ole Bull shuddered again. Maduin knew the old man was not used to failing. Not used to being beat in any kind of fight. "But the horse stopped you didn't it? You couldn't stand against its magic, right?"

"You better believe it. Damn Esper tricks!" Ole Bull stopped and looked askance. "Sorry 'bout that. It just doesn't feel right, that's all. I've fought beasts as big as that horse before and overpowered them. True, it's bigger than any horse I ever saw, and was covered in armor...or perhaps that armor was part of it, now that I look at you. But that didn't matter, I tell you!" Ole Bull's voice was pleading, trying to get Maduin, and perhaps himself, to understand it wasn't a fair fight. "The horse, it just reared up on its hind legs with that woman sitting on top like the Goddess herself, and that was it! A blast of lightning rippled from the horse's main down to its front hooves and into the ground, and then I was struck dumb. Never even knew what hit me, never had a chance to counter. Don't know what happened after that. Delphino says the woman laughed and just rode off, saying she would return to take back more of what was rightfully hers. Said the next time she would take them all, and leave nothing behind but dust."

"Astarte is coming to fulfill what her followers promised four hundred years ago, isn't she? You think this is because of Old Zwill's defection?" Maduin asked, finally putting the pieces of this sad tale together.

Ole bull nodded. "I didn't want to believe it at first, but with your arrival here and everything I'm learning now, it doesn't seem there's any other way to see it. It's taken awhile, but us Harcourts are finally paying for Old Zwill's decision. You know what the funny thing is? It's only people who are related to Old Zwill himself that are being pulled away. I don't have any close living family members myself, but Old Zwill was a lively fellow by all accounts, and his first wife wasn't his only one. It's said he fathered over a hundred children himself before he died. I'd say at least a third of the population of Zwill has blood ties to the randy old bastard. Until you showed up, I thought we were doomed."

"And you want me to fight her?" Maduin knew enough now. It would be a full moon in a little more than a week, and then Lilith would come on her magic steed again. And this time, there would be an Esper waiting to greet her. But what if he proved too weak?

"Yes, I want you to fight her, Maduin. I feel like a coward telling you to do this, but this isn't a fight for a mere man like me, Stradivari or not."

"What if I fall to her power as well? I may be an Esper, but I am still a man too, with the feelings of a man. If she is as beautiful as you say, what's to stop her from putting me under whatever spell she's casting?"

"That's what Captain Delphino's here for. She arrived just before the last full moon to warn me that Leviathan had been seen in the northern seas, and after the thing with Lilith, she's stuck around to see this through." Ole Bull smiled at the Captain. "We Stradivari stick together. All of us. North or South, it doesn't matter, especially now. She was going to try and fight the bitch herself, with the Lady Blunt by her side, and maybe Servais if he showed up in time."

"But Servais brought a surprise along." Maduin said, finishing the tale. "Me."

"Yep. And now that I've seen what you can do, I think we might have a chance. You're still green, but we have a week to train you, and I guarantee I will get you looking like a proper Stradivari by then, or my name isn't Ole Bull!"

Maduin did not smile. "I am not a Stradivari, nor am I a weapon to be pointed and fired. I will not kill for you."

Ole Bull's smile faltered a bit, but Delphino's only widened, her thin lips showing sharp teeth and a sharp, red tongue. "And what do you think this Demon Wife will do when she finds you, Esper? And she will find you, make no mistake. She will hunt you down like a beast and make you join her, or die trying. Whether she is an Esper herself or not, she will make you fight, and make you kill." Delphino licked her cracked lips, unaccustomed to so much talking. "One week from now, when the tide is at its highest, you will fight and you will kill, Esper of No One. That is inevitable. The only question is who will die and who will live when the full moon rises. I intend to live."

No one said anything after Delphino's speech. It was obvious that the meeting was over, and Maduin's fate had been decided before he ever came to Zwill. He hated the Stradivari for that, and he found himself hating Delphino in particular, but could not say why. She was absolutely right, and her words were nothing more than cold, hard truth. There was no hate, no evil in them, but Maduin couldn't help the way he felt. Perhaps it was her myserious connection to Captain Bismark, perhaps the way she had handled Elphis, and agreed with the Lady Blunt about Elphis joining the Stradivari. Perhaps it was simply because she was a Stradivari, a killer.

"C'mon Elphis, let's get off this ship." Maduin managed through his seething emotions.

"But!" Elphis started, but Maduin didn't let her finish.

"Now!"

He gripped the chair too hard as he got up and splintered the backboard into pieces. Elphis jumped up and away from his accidental destruction and stepped on something beside the chair. It was the carving the Lady Blunt had been working on while she was waiting for "Lord Ham" to show himself.

Elphis didn't seem to know what it was, only being able to feel it and not see it. But she could sense its general shape. "Look at this Maydune. It feels like a little wooden man."

She handed it to him carefully, afraid he would break it like the chair. She wasn't frightened of his act of destruction. Since she had joined him, he had accidentally crushed a great many things with his unpredictable strength; but never her, never Kumiro. She trusted him even in his anger and frustration to protect her. The incident with the chair had already been forgotten, and now she was worried about the little doll.

"Don't break it Maydune." She chastised the towering Esper, sounding like a mother handing a new toy to a child. Maduin couldn't help but smile as he felt his emotions settle down. Elphis always had that effect on him.

"What is it?" Maduin asked, partly to himself, as he inspected the wooden figurine. "It looks like a man. It's actually very good. I didn't know the Lady Blunt could carve something like this. I wonder who it is?"

"Lord Dunn-Raven."

Maduin looked up at Captain Delphino, who was still sitting patiently in her chair, behind her desk.

"She really cares about him, doesn't she? More than just as one Stradivari to another." Maduin said.

"Yes. We are not allowed to love in the Stradivari. Not allowed parents, children, or lovers. Our loyalty must be to the Stradivari and nothing else. So you see, the Lady Blunt would never admit to her feelings for Dunn-Raven, even to herself, but there they are, in your hands."

"I see," was all Maduin could think of to say. Suddenly it felt wrong to be holding such a personal object.

Reading his mind, or so he thought, Delphino responded. "Keep it. As a reminder that she is human just like the rest of us. We are killers when we need to be, but we are still human beings. We are not monsters." She smiled her most gruesome smile. "Well, most of us are not monsters. If you stay with us long enough, you may meet some Stradivari that make the Lady Blunt seem positively charming." At Maduin's raised eyebrow, she added, "Fair warning."

Ole Bull couldn't help but chuckle at that, and with a groan he uncorked himself from the tight chair he had been sitting in. "Well then, on that pleasant note, I think we should be leaving, Captain. Maduin, Elphis, and Kumiro of course, if you would join me at my mansion, we can get you ready for tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?" Maduin asked, knowing full well the answer and dreading it.

"Training!" Ole Bull said gleefully, a smile not unlike Delphino's on his face now. "I have to let my hands heal for a day, but in the meantime I have some friends I'd like you to spar with. Real beasts, they are! Haha!"

Maduin grimaced as he followed Ole Bull from the room, Elphis in one hand and Kumiro in the other.

"And you will pay me back for that chair, Esper!" Delphino's cracked voice echoed from behind him, laughingly.

And outside, a faint humming noise was the only sign that Zona, Seeker of Moloch, had been watching the entire meeting through the porthole, invisible to all.

"Buzz off," Delphino said to no one, motionless as ever while she studied the maps of Zozo alone in her cabin.

Zona started in surprise, and vanished into the sky.