Chapter XIII
Rapture on the Mountaintop
"You? You're alive? Or, whatever you call it?" - John Philip Sorea
He first sensed weightlessness. Then cold, though not unpleasant: wind whipped at his body as if he had transformed into a loose curtain. When his vision cleared, he found himself floating, gazing down at the cracked desert around the canyon. Cosmo city itself clung to the crags like a red lichen, crawling up cliffs and seeping into the canyon's tributaries. John wheeled and darted through the air. When he tried to look at his body, accepting for the moment his new gift of flight, he found his form wispy. Translucent. Wow. Quite the potent go-juice Aeris had given him. He once had some old friends who would "groove" a sip of that. As, he suspected, would Larry and the Darryls.
He looked down again to find he had lost altitude. Though the town still looked a blur, he spotted the Highwind parked in its berth; it swarmed with workers who scrambled like ants on a candy bar. He drifted again. Heading south, he skimmed above the cracks and crags until the land dropped away on three sides, leaving red peaks amidst tangles of brush. The higher slopes nearby grew with scraggly conifers mixed with a patchwork of meadows. Glancing to his right, looking across a gulf he spotted a dark green hump of forest perched on a rocky plateau. He wondered about that little hill but distracted himself with the ground rushing up to meet him.
To his surprise, he touched down in a soft, three point landing, his left hand thrusting forward to parry the oncoming mountain. Good thing he couldn't sprain his ethereal wrist.
He stood up. He felt sandy soil beneath his bare feet, smelled pine needles and wood smoke, felt a cool breeze and warm sun on his bare arms. He drew his bathrobe around him, though his translucent form hadn't burned from the rays. Not that he ever felt a sunburn until too late, but the few minutes he had already spent skydiving should have turned him redder than a tomato.
"My hallucination," he said aloud. "I'm still back in that tent. Or dead. Either way, I might as well enjoy it." He lifted his hand against the sunlight. Eerie how the light filtered through it.
He walked to a pebbled path. Rounded pebbles like river rocks covered it, not jagged shards that sought the tender arches of his feet. The path led gently up a conical hill. "Great day for a hike. I'm game."
The hillside curved to the left as his trail meandered upward. John walked with a dreamy bounce in his step. One misstep might send him blundering into the valley and he did not trust his erstwhile ability to fly. His thoughts drifted. Though his body felt no pain, his mind swam in a flu fever dream. However, each time he caught a glimpse of the strange green hill across the way, he felt his spirit center itself, his body drop back to earth. So his walk became a jerky moon-waddle, his mind leaving orbit if he watched the path and plummeting back after he fixed his eyes on his distant talisman. He stumbled over rocks and the odd log, only to bounce up again as if the the mountain had a hidden layer of rubber.
The path leveled near the top but curved away from his green talisman so far that he had to walk backwards to stay in contact with the ground. Predictably, he stepped in a chuck hole and sprawled across the grass in a spidery heap.
Picking sharp gravel out of his cheeks - so much for river rocks - he pulled himself to his knees. He glanced toward his distant touchstone only to find it obscured behind a thorny bush. Feeling himself leave the ground, he cried out and scrabbled for purchase. Gravity realized its oversight, slamming him back to ground on his stomach. He lay panting, watching a beetle creep by before his eyes. He felt himself drool.
"Pathetic," a tense voice, possibly his, said.
John lifted his head but saw only the glare of sunlight. With a breath he tried again. He pulled himself to a crawl, held onto a loose root, rose to a crouch and crept up the slope, not daring to move more than one limb at a time. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted his mysterious green hill. Finally. He stared at it for half a minute, ordering his world to stop spinning.
"Look what the cat dragged in."
Not his voice. A woman. He clambered back onto the path and looked up again, squinting against the sun.
"Holy hell!"
His shock nearly flung him off the mountain. A quick grab for a vine stopped his free fall, though with another face-plant into the dirt. He lay still, berating himself for forgetting the basics of walking.
"Oh cripes."
He shook his head, holding onto his pink root. Pink? Sure. Why not. Gravity became spongy again. He knew he could flap his arms and fly. But he would land on ragged rocks somewhere below.
"I'm not falling for it," John said, trying not to laugh at his bad joke. Hand over hand, he resumed his holy quest. The summit.
He found a smoldering campfire, though not for lack of wood. Plenty of it sat in a rick here, ready to burn if the mountaintop wind ever let it truly light.
Around the campfire stood four wooden poles. Above, two beams crisscrossed at right angles, and from these dangled dozens of slender twines. From these twines hung, somehow, a body. John let his gaze center itself, his mouth hanging open. The body of a woman in rags swung gently in the breeze. John guessed her age at thirty-five; her wavy black hair draped over her upraised shoulders but her hair could not hide the metal skewers attaching her to the twines. Bloody pins gleamed from her back, sides, and stretched arms.
John stared, speechless. His eyes drifted downward. As if suspending her by metal spits had not gone far enough, her captors had driven skewers had through her buttocks and legs, from which hung heavy weights like cow skulls. John grabbed one of the support poles and forced himself to look at the woman's face. Damn, he had seen her before. He had followed a younger version of her in that shower vision. How many years had passed for her since then? Her face looked way too serene given the exquisite pain she must have endured before she died.
John shook his head and dropped his gaze to the ground. "Ghastly."
"So, you, are my savior?"
"What?" His looked back up. "You're, alive? Seriously?"
Granted, he had seen her open eyes but, hell. She freaking looked dead.
"The Planet, won't let me die. It wants to punish me for my failures."
"Whoa." He kept his eyes riveted to hers. All the better not to look a the rest of her. "The Planet did this? Have I found someone with a bigger guilt complex than my own?" John wished he had more with him than a bathrobe. A knife, for instance, to cut those nasty cords. Even just cut down those weights. Who had done this to her?
The wind picked up. The scaffold creaked. Her body drifted, evincing a grimace of pain from both of them.
"It sent you to torment me. Very well. Spin me."
"What?"
"Go on. Don't draw it out. Grab my legs and give me a good spin. Get it over with."
"Whatever for?"
"To watch me suffer! That is why you came here, right?"
"No. Why would you think - "
"Don't go weak on me. Do what you have to do."
"You, want me to torture you?"
"Don't sweat it. The pain relieves the boredom."
John, flummoxed, glanced around, anywhere but at the woman.
"What else is there?" she asked. "What do I have left but the pain?"
John shrugged. "The view is spectacular. The weather is pleasant too."
She paused. "I see. You do, psychic torture. Tell me how all my friends, my family, have all died. Spare no details."
"Look. I'm, I'm not here to cause pain. I'll, try to find, something to cut those ropes."
"You mustn't. The Planet wills me to suffer."
"Garbage."
"Why am I here? Why haven't I died?"
"Are you sure you haven't?"
"I failed."
John looked back at her. "You do have a point there. Given, you know."
"You're a Jenova, aren't you? That's it. The Planet sent me the ultimate enemy, to taunt, to tease."
"Did a Jenova do this to you?"
She gave a harsh chuckle. "Shinra and their obsessions. Guess again."
"Sephiroth?"
"Nope, he's dead as a door knocker. I hope."
"I've never met a live door knocker." John pointed at the green hump, now floating emerald green in the sunlight. "What is that place?"
"The Ancient Forest."
"Ah. Do Ancients live there?"
"Don't be absurd. Nothing lives there but giant frogs and bugs."
Somehow John had expected more.
"I'm the only Ancient on these hills now," the woman said.
"You are a Cetra, then."
"What's left of them. You should know. You are that albino boy I saw in those bloody woods."
John shrugged. "All I did was try to take a shower."
"Yet you still wear the symbol of the six sacred directions."
"Huh?"
His hands went to his neck where he felt the chain. From beneath his robe, he lifted the green and silver medallion. Holding it up, he watched it turn in the breeze. "Six directions, huh?"
"Think about it."
John thought it odd to discuss mysticism given her condition, but she did admit to boredom. He looked at his amulet, saw the silver X atop its center post, the design over the jade. Yes, it did point in six directions, including the post. Beyond that, it meant little - wait. He looked up at the wooden crossbeams. From his angle, they also formed an X. Insight came to him.
"A matter of perspective," he said. "North, east, south, west. Up and down. Three dimensions."
"Very good," she said. "The four winds, Planet, and Spirit." She paused. "That amulet was mine once. I guess you came to mock my faith. Don't bother. Just spin me and leave."
"What is your name?" John released the amulet and walked around the scaffold, shifting his anchoring grasp from one pillar to another.
The woman stayed silent until he completed his circuit. "Zinnia," she finally said.
"Pretty name. And a pretty flower."
"Come one. Out with the insults."
"Where I come from, 'pretty name' is considered a compliment. Now, tell me a way I can release you from this hellish setup."
"False hope. The cruelest torture of all."
"I guess I have to puzzle this one out too." He cast about for something to cut the strands of twine. A pair of sharp rocks maybe.
"You truly wish to help me?"
"Yes." Ah. A roundish stone broken in half, both halves sported ragged edges. He moved closer.
"Would you be willing to take my place up here?"
"Not a chance. I'll help you, but nothing stupid like that." John braced his feet under a chunk of firewood, careful not to touch an ember. He lifted the nearest cow's skull and balanced it on his knee. Zinnia moaned as her body shifted.
"Sorry about that." John noticed his own body now felt perfectly solid, his balance sure. Had coming so close to Zinnia done it? He lifted his pair of rocks, wrapped the slack cord around one of them, and used the other to abrade the twine.
"Would you be willing to put your mind in my body, so I could put my mind in your body?"
"Give me a break." He scrabbled away at the stubborn cord. "Not that you don't have a great body - it's just, in poor condition." Scrub, scrub, scrub. "Tell me, who do this to you?"
"Carmine."
"Never heard of her. Why did she do this?"
"I offered myself to her."
John stopped rubbing. "You what?"
"To save the village."
"Ah." He resumed his work. "So she strung you up here and then burned your village anyway. I'd never have seen that one coming."
"I failed my people." Her voice grew snippy.
"Was your village in the Ancient Forest?"
"No, stupid. It was right over that hillside. Notice any smoke?"
John threw down his rocks. "What is this string made of, iron?"
"Silly Jenova boy. You can't cut through - "
"I can't cut through what isn't here."
"What?"
"I'll bet your people escaped. Most of them, anyway." John unwound his other rock and discarded it. Gently, he lay the cow skull on top of the wood pile where its cords would remain slack. He shuffled around to do the same to three other weights with long enough cords. Zinnia sighed with the slight relief.
Still, she said, "You lie. You plan to pull out a child's skull and wave it in my face."
"Dear, all I have on me is a bathrobe. The worst thing I could do is flash you. Which I've already done, if you recall."
"How can you say my people survived?"
"You must have bought them enough time. If your people had died here, this hill would be covered with flowers, not rocks. I've seen that elsewhere." Shudder. "More to the point, their ghosts would swarm me along with yours, all pissed off because a Jenova, a Crisis from the Sky or some such, dared to walk among them. The only ghost I see here is you." He stared into Zinnia's eyes. "Well, me too, but I'm pretty sure my body is lying drugged out in a tent down in Cosmo Canyon. That, is why, the sun doesn't burn my skin. As for you, I bet you died years ago. A long, miserable death, yes, but no reason to hang around up there. And no, I'm not going to spin you around so you can feel more pain. If you wanted to, you could hop down and join your companions in the Promised Land or any number of places more pleasant than this. Am I right or am I right?"
Zinnia started at him. Finally, she said, "Cosmo Canyon? It's still there?"
"Sure. Assuming I'm in my present and not in my future or past."
"But the Gi. Carmine showed them a way through the caves so they would lay waste and kill everyone. I had gone on ahead to warn the canyon."
"Relax. Bugenhagen told me about the attack. Nanaki's father Seto held them off, though he died in the attempt."
"Seto. An honorable warrior. I met him once." Zinnia bowed her head.
"Nanaki didn't know about his father until Bugenhagen showed him. He thought his father had run away like a coward."
"Are you a coward, Jenova?"
"I'm John Philip Sorea. And, no. Though I have more faults than an earthquake zone, I don't believe cowardice is among them."
"Then I ask," Zinnia shuddered, making the dangling cords tremble, "that you help me. The only way I know how."
"Ask away." John pretended to look nonchalant.
"Would you be willing, to share your body with me? As in, two minds in one?" Zinnia trembled again.
"Do you have any idea what you would be getting into?" He looked at the cruel spikes thrust through her body. "Though you do appear short on options. Very well. How do we go about this?"
Zinnia's face fell. "I, was hoping, you would know how to do it. Jenova."
"Me? But how could I - " John looked down and saw a white Persian cat scrubbing against his leg. "What? How did you get here?"
"Meow?" Fluffy said.
"Who is that?" Zinnia asked.
"This? This is a demon who came to torment you."
Fluffy grinned, stretching to sharpen her claws on a scaffold pole.
John stood, feeling helpless. Inspiration hadn't come. He faced Zinnia, keeping his eye contact. Oh, back in the days, when he could solve all of life's problems by playing a ukulele.
His foot bumped something. He looked down.
"No way." He frowned at the tiny guitar. Polished and gleaming, it stood propped against one of the poles. "No way."
"Meow?" said Fluffy, returning to her scratching.
Realization threatened to eat through John's skull. He reached for Zinnia, fingertips trembling as they came into contact with her skin. Gently he curled his hand around her ankle. Her foot felt cold. When he looked up, her whole body had gone rigid, her skin faded from brown to gray, her face contorted in final agony. Body burnt by the sun and scorched from the ineffective fire below, her skin stretched tight and shiny where the skewers had pulled at her flesh, where rivulets of blood had dried to black down her body. He clamped his eyes shut in disgust.
"Meow?" Fluffy looked up at him with a 'you dumb-ass' look.
"I blew it again." He made his way to the ukulele but found it gone. He kicked the pole instead.
"Ow!"
"Meow." Fluffy stuck a consoling claw into his bare calf. John hobbled a few steps and sat down hard, chin in his cupped hands. "Just a dumb old Jenova. That's me." He focused his eyes on the distant green hemisphere, the Ancient Forest. He stared, as if pure force of will would send him to the Promised Land.
When next he opened his eyes he saw sunlight fighting its way through the upper flaps of his tent. He lay limp, feeling as if someone had nailed his chest to the ground. Outside, the midday bustle of Cosmo Canyon filtered through. The barking of dogs, the clanking of pots, the chuckling of Hiro as he carried another drunk out of his tavern. Slowly, painfully, John turned his head. A wet nose mashed into his cheek before the white ball of fluff slid from his field of vision. John almost sneezed. Then he spotted the ukulele propped against the center tent pole. It gleamed as if from an inner light.
Too weak to reach for it or even move his hand, John began to mouth the words, even if no sound came out. "Ukulele Lady, born in forest shady, won't you come and play with me? Ukulele Lady, gentle as a baby, don't you run away from me."
"Looks like I might be your savior." The voice, not entirely inside his head, snapped his attention to a form of pink mist that hovered over him, stretching tendrils of fingers to caress his forehead.
"You? You're alive? Or, whatever you call it?"
"Remember your promise?"
"I was afraid I had killed you."
Zinnia's shade chuckled. "I couldn't merge with you up there, silly. Your body is here."
"Ah, yes. You now how it is with bodies. Never around when you need one."
Zinnia leaned in closer as if to receive a kiss. John relaxed. Not that he could move if he wanted to. He tried to blank his mind but ended up thinking of Aeris, her mixture of sadness and wonder when the two of them had first glimpsed the Forgotten Capital.
"I'm not sure how to do this," Zinnia said.
"That makes two of us."
"I only know, if I don't do something, I might dissipate."
"Don't do that. Try to hold your form while I think."
The scented warmth of her color began to fill him like a mug of spiced cider.
The tent flap opened and Marlene stepped in. "Oh, there you are, silly kitty. I brought John a present - " She froze, eyes and mouth wide. The last thing John heard while wholly himself was her high pitched scream.