Final Fantasy VI: The Sands of Time
Book 2: The Goddess War
Chapter 11 - Red Tide
11.11 - Eve of the Blood Moon
You are unbalanced.
"What?"
You will never be able to control the chaos without finding the Balance. Seek the Triad and you will be whole.
"I don't understand."
Wake up.
"Am I dreaming?"
Wake up, Esper!
"Who...?"
"Maduin! Wake up!"
His eyes were not playing tricks on him. It was night, and a red moon was hanging in the sky alongside the almost full white moon. This was the blood moon - the night before the full moon when one moon cast its shadow on the other, making one moon appear red. Tomorrow was the true full moon when both moons would be visible in their entirety, which meant tomorrow was the night Lilith would make her return and destroy Zwill. Unless Maduin was able to stop her.
When Maduin's eyes focused, he realized he was back inside Harcourt mansion, and amazingly Elphis was by his side, as was Kumiro. Ole Bull and Captain Delphino were standing around him as well. There was no sign of the Lady Blunt or Servais.
Remembering his ordeal with the Stradivari, he leaped out of the bed and prepared to fight them off. But no one was moving, and Elphis did not seem in any danger. Even Kumiro seemed safe and calm..
"What's happening? Is Elphis all right?" Maduin found himself unbelievably tired. The last thing he remembered was the Lady Blunt stabbing Elphis, while the other Stradivari watched. Then everything went blue, and cold. So cold.
"Everyone is fine," Ole Bull said.
Maduin noticed the burly man's arm was in a sling and his entire upper body was swathed in bandages. He did not look happy, but Maduin was not in a very good mood, either. Something wasn't right here. Elphis seemed fine, but one way or another, he had been tricked.
"What happened? What did you do to me? To Elphis?" Maduin matched Ole Bull's scowl frown for frown, not giving an inch. "I want answers. Now."
"Elphis is fine." Ole Bull repeated his words with the same grim look. "No thanks to you. Yes, as you probably suspect, we tricked you into thinking Elphis was in danger. Delphino made you see what you wanted to see, what you already believed. The illusion wouldn't have worked otherwise."
Maduin began to understand, but that knowledge didn't make him feel any better about the current situation. An entire day had been lost, he was exhausted, and Elphis...
"So Elphis was never in any danger at all? What about the Lady Blunt? Was that an illusion, too?"
Ole Bull's look became even grimmer. "Elphis was only in danger from you...and Lady Fey. She was not part of the plan."
"So you used me, nearly killed us all, and now we only have until tomorrow to prepare ourselves?" Maduin was not going to let the man try and blame him for their own botched ruse. He was growing weary of being used by anyone, man or god.
"Fey claims the girl was never in danger." Ole Bull looked down at Elphis, quietly listening without understanding what had really happened. "She says she knew our plan wouldn't be enough, so she took it upon herself to up the ante, so to speak. She says she was aiming for this."
The Titan magicite glimmered in Ole Bull's good hand. Maduin wasn't sure he liked the man holding such a precious object.
"This thing is harder than diamond, you know. Fey's knife didn't scratch it. I've never known any material those knives in her hands couldn't pierce. In fact, this stone broke her knife like it was one of your ice swords."
"I don't know anything about it, if that's what you're wondering. All I know is that is what an Esper turns into when it dies." Maduin sensed where this conversation was going. "That is a very special artifact, and if you are going to ask if you can have it, the answer is no."
"Suit yourself," the man grunted. He handed the magicite back to Elphis carefully. "If killing Espers is what it takes to get one of these, we'll be swimming in them soon enough. Tomorrow, either Lilith and her steed die, or we do."
"And you still want me to fight." Maduin was not asking. They wouldn't all be here if they didn't intend to use him.
"Now more than ever. I can't fight like this." Ole Bull shifted his broken arm. "I barely managed to fend off your attack. If you could control that power, we might have a chance."
"What do we do, then?"
"For starters, you've got to trust us. Like I said before, Delphino's illusion only shows you what you already believe. If you trusted us, you wouldn't have seen what you did. Servais didn't think it would work at all, but you showed how much faith you have in him, too."
"You're nothing but killers and tricksters. I'll help you because I have a stake in this, too. But I will never trust you, especially after this."
"We did what we had to do, nothing more, nothing less." Ole Bull glanced at Delphino, who stood stoically by his side without a word, as usual. "Fey is locked up now, if that makes you feel any better."
"She killed someone the other night, didn't she? That's what you've been so mad at her about." Maduin remembered Ole Bull's words when she had appeared yesterday. Something had happened, someone had died, and she was involved. Was it because of his presence here?
The giant bear of a man shrunk at Maduin's words, sighing heavily. If Elphis was Maduin's weakness, then the unpredictable Lady was his.
"Aye, she went too far that night. It's been building up for a long time, and the other night she finally crossed the line. Not that it's any of your business, but a former member of Levi's crew happened into Zwill recently, and Fey cornered him in a bar. She wanted information on Lord Dunn-Raven, and the man was less than civil to her. I think you can guess what happened next."
"Why didn't you lock her up then? Then none of this would have happened." Maduin had no sympathy for the woman, nor for the foolish member of Levi's crew that refused to give her what she wanted. If he was anything like the fiends he had seen on Levi's ship, the world was better off with him gone.
"She's smarter than you give her credit for. The man didn't sign his death warrant until he pulled a knife on her, which is exactly what she was waiting for. Self-defense, case closed. The man's reputation didn't help him either. Not one person in that bar seemed to care about what had happened. So, I confined her to her room, and considered the affair over with."
"But she didn't listen did she?" Maduin wasn't surprised.
Ole Bull waved his good hand in a sign of defeat. "When does she ever? She spread the rumor that you were here, that we had a secret weapon. Just to spite me!"
"And then she showed up on the field."
"You know the rest. What you saw of her was all reall\, unfortunately. If we didn't need her for the coming battle, I'd tie her up and send her back to Solomon for a real wake-up call. That woman needs a sterner hand than mine, especially now that she is letting her emotions sway her. That is not the Stradivari way."
Delphino cleared her throat, and Ole Bull nodded. "Enough talking. It's already blood moon eve, and you need to get out of that bed. Tomorrow, we see if any of this training has paid off. If you can do to Lilith what you did to my training ground, we should be fine."
"What I did?" Maduin did not have a clue what he had done. The only hint was the sorry condition of Ole Bull.
"Hm. No idea huh?" Ole Bull growled. "I think you need to see just what your power is capable of. I think you need a wake-up call, too. C'mon, get up."
The man veered his wounded bulk carefully out of the room, with Delphino gliding behind him like a ghost. Only Elphis and Kumiro remained with Maduin.
"What happened on the field, Elphis?" Maduin wasn't sure what Elphis had experienced out there. How much of the terror on her face was real back then, and how much was Delphino's illusion?
Elphis clutched her magicite and looked down at her bare feet. She couldn't have seen any of what happened, but she had heard everything they had said, and certainly must have felt the explosion of energy Maduin unleashed. At least that much was very real. And the Lady Blunt...there was no telling what lasting impact two near-death encounters with the woman might produce.
"You scared me, Maydune." The girl's voice was soft, with none of the usual cheer. "It felt like you blew up the whole world."
"But Ole Bull protected you?" Maduin asked cautiously. If so, he owed the man a debt, as much as he hated to admit it.
"Yeah. He grabbed me, and the Captain and...that bad lady, and covered us up real good. Like he was giving us all a big hug." She giggled despite her mood, but quickly frowned. "What happened? Everyone got quiet and left, and then, then..."
What should he tell the girl? What did he even know? "And then what?" he prodded as gently as he could.
"Blood!" Elphis gasped. "I smelled blood and that bad lady was in my face and Titan got angry and...oh! I don't know Maydune! I didn't like it."
"It's over now, Elphis." Maduin got up and lifted Elphis onto his shoulder. "Let's just go outside and make sure everything's back to normal."
But Maduin knew everything wasn't normal. Ole Bull wanted him to see something, and it didn't sound good. As he wound his way back through the endless hallways of the mansion, he was reminded of the crater he had found himself in back in Antissa. He had exploded in anger and grief back then, too. But that had been high up in the air. Who knows what kind of damage might have been done on the ground?
When he arrived outside, a shudder went through him at the sight. It was the middle of the night, and the ruddy moon was high in the sky, shedding a dull, reddish-brown glow over everything. Everything except the training grounds.
Where the training grounds once stood there was now a huge hole, coated in a thick icy frost and glowing a weird blue that clashed violently with the red moon's light. There were several people busy trying to chip the ice off and fill in the hole, but it was a task that would take several weeks to finish. The scene looked like an icy meteor had struck in the night.
Maduin was stunned. "I did this?"
"And more." Ole Bull was waiting for them by the edge of the giant crater, inspecting the damage done to his beloved field. "The only reason any of us mere humans are still standing is because I managed to deflect the attack with my own, meager as it was. The women would not have survived this blast, this wave of chaos you unleashed. I barely did."
"I'm sorry." Maduin couldn't think of anything else to say. He had sworn he wouldn't repeat his mistakes at Antissa, that he wouldn't let his powers go wild. And yet, it was so easy for the Lady Blunt to prod him! With such devastation at his fingertips, how could he ever hope to live alongside humans again? One temper tantrum, and a whole village could be leveled, hundreds killed.
"We wanted to see this, Esper. Remember that. We did what we had to do, and we got what we asked for, I suppose. Don't beat yourself up over it too much. Perhaps once this fight is over, we can work on really getting that 'Chaos Wave', as I like to call it, under control."
"Chaos Wave?" Maduin asked.
"Every good attack needs a name, you know that." Now Ole Bull smiled, wincing at the pain. "And that was one helluva attack! Gahaha! Ow."
Delphino stepped over to Ole Bull and adjusted the bandages on his sides. His laughing had caused whatever wounds were hid under them to break out again, and a large red spot was expanding from his massive gut.
"Stop bellowing like a Vomammoth, you old fool," Delphino rasped. But she was smiling her thin smile as she replaced the bandages.
Even Elphis laughed at Ole Bull's painful exuberance, but Maduin could not smile. Not at this. That blood was his blood, his fault. And it could have been so much worse. The laughing girl on his shoulder could be lying at the bottom of that hole right now, a crumpled heap.
"What is the Triad?" Maduin suddenly asked, his gloomy thoughts whirling back to the voice in his head just before he had woke. Who had it been? What had it meant?
Ole Bull stifled his laugh and shrugged. "No idea. Something magical? Where'd you hear it at?"
"Nowhere. Never mind." Maduin would have to look elsewhere for those answers. He knew one thing for sure - he was unbalanced, and a real threat to those around him. There was only one way he could fight tomorrow.
"I want to fight her alone."
Ole Bull snapped his head back from the gaping hole so fast he winced at the strain. "What? No way. This is Zwill's problem, and we will fight alongside you. Heck, I don't even want you involved unless we can't handle it ourselves. I still have one trick up my sleeves for tomorrow, thanks to Delphino."
"No." Maduin was adamant. "You've seen what Espers can do. You don't stand a chance, and you are in no condition to fight. I don't want to hurt anyone else."
"Absolutely not! I am the mayor of Zwill, and these barbarians of Astarte are my problem, my curse." Ole Bull was growing red as he marched over to Maduin. "She's coming for me, understand? She wants the line of Zwill back under the control of Zozo. Old Zwill may of started this, but I am going to finish it. I can still fight!"
At this outburst, another wound had reopened, and Ole Bull's broken arm came out of its sling. The man clutched his mangled limb and groaned at the fresh blood. "This is my fight, Esper. I will finish it," he said through clenched teeth.
As if in answer, a booming sound echoed down from behind them. Everyone glanced back at the distant black shadow of the Zozo mountains, far to the south. They were nothing but a dim outline of pitch-black rock against a red-black sky, but there was no mistaking the sound. Thunder. Rolling, unstoppable thunder, coming from the mountains.
"She's on her way." Ole Bull ignored the wounds and brushed away Delphino's bird-like administrations angrily. "Tomorrow, we all fight, or we all die. Understand?"
A flash of lightning rippled out from the mountain range, highlighting a massive thunderhead slowly spreading out from the south. Something was definitely coming, and its electric power could be felt all the way here. This was no Merkabah, like in Narsille. This was the work of a different magic altogether, that much Maduin could sense clearly as he watched the lightning show not just with his regular vision, but with the sixth magical sense his Esper eyes afforded him.
"I must fight her alone," Maduin repeated, but with less conviction. He knew there was no stopping the man from fulfilling what he thought was his destiny. "When I enter the fight, I want all of you far away, back inside the city walls."
Ole Bull started to protest again, but a hand on his shoulder silenced him. Servais was standing with them now, attracted by the coming storm on the murky horizon.
"You fight the way you think best, Maduin. But we will be there behind you to back you up. You may not trust us, but we do trust you." Servais's voice was quiet, not at all like his usual mirth. He sounded like a man ashamed. "We did what we had to do, please understand that."
Maduin looked around him, at the blasted landscape he had created, the bleeding wounds he had inflicted, the fear he had instilled. And looming in the distance, there was something just as powerful, and just as capable of death and destruction. The storm's energy was cold and heartless to his senses, and he knew this power, this false emissary of light would not hesitate to kill him, kill them all.
"We all do what we have to do." Maduin's voice was strained. He was still so tired, and angry. What was he supposed to feel? What was he supposed to do? For now, there was only one answer to the inevitable storm about to break over them.
"I will fight, because it is what I have to do. I don't like it, but I am the only one who can do something about all this. You may not realize it, but this is my fault as well. My mistakes allowed all this chaos to be set into motion, and now I must fulfill my own destiny. Understand?"
Servais, Ole Bull, and Delphino looked at him for a moment, then Delphino spoke in her gravelly, but perfectly clear voice. "We always have, Esper. It's about time you did."