Chapter 12
The Sorceress' Powers
(Rinoa)
Adel sits cross-legged by a small, dying fire. The low embers do little to combat the growing cold, the mounting darkness, but there is no more wood left to strengthen the fire. The rest of her companions have already given in to slumber, their soft sighs and snores drifting through the night. She cannot see any of them, but she knows where they are by the sounds they make.
She looks up, wishing for the moon and stars to keep her company through the night. But the sky is black and empty. No moon, no stars, no companions, and the fire—her only comfort—is slowly fading.
Adel reaches into the darkness by her side and draws out a travel-stained blanket. She wraps herself in its itchy warmth and lies on her side, her eyes fixed on the last few red embers before her. She tries to watch the fire until it dies, but sleep claims her first.
Adel's dusty, cold world fell away, and transitioned to the hard floor of Dr. Odine's computer lab. Rinoa opened her eyes, staring at the flat ceiling above her. Nearby, Ellone kneeled on a cushion taken from a chair in another room. Ellone opened her eyes and watched as Rinoa sat up, rubbing her forehead.
"That was no good," Rinoa said. "She just sat by a fire. Nothing else happened."
Ellone nodded and said, "I know. Do you think we should try going further back in the past, or closer to the present?"
Rinoa thought about it for a moment. "Hmm… Closer to the present, I think. I wanna see how she became a sorceress, and how she got to Esthar."
(And why she became a monster…)
Ellone nodded. "I'll try my best. Lay down."
Rinoa stretched out on the floor, her head propped up by a technician's lab coat. The two women were alone in the room. All around them, machinery hummed, electrical circuits snapped and popped, and computer screens spit out endless streams of data. Whatever experiments the computers were calculating didn't require anyone's supervision, so Odine and his team had left the computers alone to do their work.
Off to the side, Rinoa could see Ellone closing her eyes and concentrating. A second or two later, an intense wave of exhaustion swept over Rinoa. She suddenly felt as though she hadn't slept for days. Her eyes itched, demanding to be shut. Her head ached, and a piercing drone lit up the inside of her skull, blocking out all thought. She winced, but the pain persisted. When Rinoa thought she could no longer bear the whining shriek in her ears, it stopped, and the computer room was gone, the floor was gone, and the lab coat under her head was gone.
Power.
That is the first sensation Rinoa is aware of. The power runs through Adel's body, thicker than blood. With it, Rinoa feels as though she could tear apart a mountain with her hands, drag the moon from the sky with a thought, and crush every living thing on the planet. She is invincible, omnipotent, eternal.
When the shock of newfound strength wears off, Rinoa is able to gather her wits and focus on Adel's other sensations. Rinoa does not recognize the wide, empty room, but she identifies the décor as being distinctly Estharian. Adel's clawed fingers are digging ruts into the armrests of her elaborate throne. She inhales, slowly, luxuriously. To her, it feels as though she is not merely drawing breath, but sucking the life force out of the world. With every intake of air, she absorbs vitality from the planet, using its energy to feed her staggering power. She is the new god of reality, and every resource—the air, the water, the people—exists for her glory alone.
Before her is a legion of Esthar soldiers, clad in identical uniforms, kneeling, heads bowed. Shivering. Terrified. They make themselves small, so as to not draw her gaze. They keep themselves silent, so as to not inspire her wrath.
Adel's exact thoughts are a mystery to Rinoa, but she can feel bits and pieces of Adel's emotions. It is intoxicating, being Adel. The sense of being utterly untouchable. The concept of fear has been wiped from Adel's mind, for there is nothing in the world that can threaten her. With no pain to shy away from, no imminent death to humble her, no sickness to slow her, Adel is free from the bonds of mortality and can live and consume and destroy as she pleases.
Rinoa is startled to find herself enjoying this. To simply sit in the room as Adel, confident, powerful, feared. Adel does not need to prove her strength to others; it is a given fact of the universe, like gravity. She does not share Rinoa's uncertainties, her doubts, and she laughs at lesser sorceresses like Rinoa and her frailties.
(No… This isn't me. I'm not like her.)
Rinoa distances herself from Adel's mind, from that well of addictive power, building a wall between herself and the mad tyrant. She remembers who she is. Unlike Adel, Rinoa respects and fears her power as a sorceress. She is not arrogant enough to take pleasure in her strength. She does not use her power to harm others.
She—
The power departed from Rinoa's body, leaving her cold and tired. After feeling the rush of Adel's strength, her own body felt as though she was made of glass, ready to be shattered. As the sensations of the computer lab returned to her, she exhaled in both relief and disappointment. It was sad to lose that feeling of strength. Sad, but necessary.
(I will never be like that. I'll never be another Adel.)
"Sorry, Rinoa," Ellone said. She shook her head. "That's too recent. It's hard for me to focus, because I didn't really know Adel that well. But I'll get it eventually, don't worry."
"It's okay," Rinoa said. She didn't open her eyes, instead taking the time to mentally prepare herself for her next trip into Adel's past.
"I'll try a little further back this time," Ellone said.
Rinoa waited for the whining drone of Ellone's power to return—and it did, washing over her like a swarm of buzzing insects, swallowing her in darkness and depositing her in the past.
Power.
Once again, power. Glorious, undeniable power.
(Too recent. We're gonna have to try again.)
But that thought occurs before Rinoa has taken stock of Adel's other senses. Adel has the same power she had while sitting upon the throne of Esthar, but she is not in Esthar. She is once more in the brown, barren fields of the Centra continent. Again, she is riding in a cart, drawn by a ragged, near-death chocobo.
The caravan of others, in their dusty tunics and elaborate jewelry are nowhere around. The woman called "Mother" is gone. The man Durand, and all the others, gone as well. There is only Adel, the cart, the chocobo, and the ever-nearing mountain range ahead.
Adel doesn't notice her fingers clutching the sides of the cart, but Rinoa does. Rinoa sees, and is frightened. Adel's fingers have turned blue, and her nails black. They are elongated, and sharp like daggers. But the hands, the palms, are still pale, fleshy, and human. Adel has not yet become the monster that Rinoa will eventually meet in person, but she is changing into her. The sickness of mind and body is enveloping her, corrupting her. Adel can feel the rot growing in her heart, and she welcomes it.
The chocobo's steps begin to falter as it struggles to drag the cart up a hill. It stumbles to one knee, squawking in pain, and is slow to recover. Too slow. Adel narrows her eyes and watches the animal's suffering. She feels no sympathy for its misery, only contempt for its weakness. She chose the bird to bring her to her destination. She spared its life so that it may serve her, and it is failing in its task, its reason for being. And Adel no longer needs to suffer the failure of others.
The chocobo stumbles again, but this time cannot save itself. With a whistling cry, the beast collapses on its chest, still strapped to the cart by a worn leather harness and a wooden yoke. The cart dips forward as the chocobo falls, nearly pitching Adel up over the front beam. She catches herself in time, and is overcome by rage.
She looks at the chocobo on the ground before her. Its chest heaves for air, its dirty feathers fall off in clumps, revealing patches of splotchy, discolored skin. The chocobo is dying.
Fury beyond fury blocks all of Adel's thoughts. She nimbly leaps from the cart and walks around the fluffy mass of the chocobo, moving towards its head. Wind escapes the bird's nostrils in short blasts, stirring up little clouds of dust on the ground. With every breath, the chocobo wheezes, a deathly rattle shaking its chest.
Adel turns to face the chocobo and the cart. They are both useless to her now. In the back of her mind, she remembers the cold nights in the fields, watching the night fires fade to nothing. She remembers the helplessness of knowing that the dark and the cold are coming, and the feeling of being unable to keep the fire alight long enough to combat them.
But those days are over. Now, there will always be fire if Adel wills it.
Adel raises her hand. If the bird and the cart cannot serve her, then they will burn.
Ellone sat on the cushion, her hands on her lap, saying nothing. Rinoa opened her eyes, sightlessly observing the dull gray ceiling, trying to push the memory out of her mind. Trying to understand how the seemingly innocent little girl from long ago became the monster that Rinoa and Ellone just witnessed.
(I don't understand.)
(How could someone have so much hate?)
"I…" Ellone said. She sighed, gathered herself, and tried again. "I think we're close. I think she was heading to Esthar. If I go a little closer to the present, we can learn more about how she got here. If… if you're okay, that is."
"I'm okay," Rinoa said. She tried to smile, but the attempt was feeble, unconvincing.
(I'm not okay.)
(But I still need to know more.)
Rinoa turned her head and looked into Ellone's eyes. Ellone was visibly trying to control herself. It was one thing to be told about an act of cruelty. It was still another to witness an act of cruelty. But they had both done more than merely witness. They'd physically experienced the act, feeling the power as Adel summoned her magic to destroy her chocobo and her cart. Felt both her hatred and her pleasure as she watched it all burn. The memory of it was bright in her mind, sickening her.
But through it all, Rinoa had noticed an important detail. Adel had so much power, far beyond what Rinoa currently possessed. Rinoa was a sorceress too, no more or less than Adel. She felt the rush of her magic coursing in her body, even as she sat idly on the floor of the computer lab. But it was absolutely nothing compared to Adel's.
(So what's the difference? Why did Adel have all that power, and I don't?)
Dr. Odine had proven earlier that sorceress powers don't compound upon each other, so the theory that maybe Adel had gathered her strength by absorbing other sorceresses was false. There had to be another answer, and Rinoa suspected that it was hidden in Adel's past.
(And what made her skin change color?)
"I wanna go further back," Rinoa said. "I don't really care how Adel got to Esthar anymore. I wanna see how she became a sorceress. That's the important thing, I think."
Ellone nodded, and Rinoa closed her eyes. She couldn't tell if Ellone was getting faster at forming the connection, or if Rinoa was just becoming more accustomed to the feeling, but it seemed only a few seconds before the darkness took her, and she was once more a bystander in Adel's mind.
No power. Not this time.
Rinoa is relieved. Pleasurable as the power is, it is also terrifying. Like a hurricane, it is both horrifying and oddly beautiful. The lack of power shows that they have gone far enough back in time, and are drawing closer to the truth.
Adel's hands—human hands—are picking splotchy red-and-green berries from a scrubby bush. A few paces away, other children are also picking berries, filling small stone bowls with the tiny fruits. Adel scowls at the other children, scowls at the berries. She reaches into the bush, the thorns and brambles clawing at her hands, but callouses have built up over the years, protecting her from minor scrapes and cuts. Though the work isn't as painful as it used to be, Adel still hates it as much as she always did.
She picks a few more berries and drops them into her bowl. The bowl is nearly full now. Adel turns away from the bush and approaches an older woman with long black hair, streaked with silver. She wears many necklaces, all dusty and travel-worn. Her warm, kind eyes harden when she sees Adel. An edge of contempt creeps into Adel's mind.
"I'm done," Adel says, flatly. She holds up her bowl. The woman looks down at Adel's offering and frowns.
"You are not done, child," she says. She gives Adel a light swat on the head. "I said to fill that bowl all the way. That means you are not done until you cannot possibly fit another berry in the bowl. Go back, Adel."
Grumbling, Adel turns around and heads back to the bush. Another child, much younger, scampers gleefully to the woman and holds up her bowl. Laughing as if it's all a game.
"All done!" she says with a childish lisp. The woman smiles and nods. The warmth she denied Adel returns to her face.
"Very good. You may go play now."
Cheering, the girl hands her bowl to the woman and joins a circle of other children who are playing some game using sticks and rocks and circles scratched in the dirt. Adel envies them, not because she wishes to be playing with them, but because she is tired of working. She wants to be finished, so she can leave the others and go wandering out in the fields. She wants to be alone.
"No playing until your chores are done, Adel," the berry woman says. Adel grumbles again and turns to the bush.
In her heart, she hopes they all choke to death on the berries.
Little memories like this came and went for Ellone and Rinoa as they teased their way closer and closer to the day when Adel became a sorceress. Mostly, the memories they view are of traveling. Endlessly, endlessly traveling. In each point in time, the brown fields never change, and the mountains in the distance never seem to get any closer.
In the beginning, Rinoa believed that these nomads had a set destination in mind; that eventually she and Ellone would stumble across the time when Adel actually arrived at an important location. But they never did. These people traveled constantly, only stopping to rest and gather their meager food from the unforgiving landscape.
(Not the kind of life I'd want.)
An hour, maybe two, passed in this manner, as Rinoa and Ellone explored more of Adel's past. Though much of the memories were dull and repetitive, they slowly began to understand the person that Adel used to be. They felt her frustration, her desire to break free from her life. They witnessed the growing resentment she harbored for her tribe, and how that resentment eventually turned to hate.
Rinoa understood this all, but she doesn't forgive any of it. Adel's life was hard, harder than it should have been. But it was not an excuse to become a tyrant.
(Nothing could excuse what she did.)
Another memory of the carts.
Adel is sitting next to the man that Rinoa knows is Durand—though she still hasn't learned what Durand's relationship is with Adel. Father? Brother? She can only guess. Their ragged, weary chocobo pulls them onward towards the mountains. It's not the same chocobo that Adel will later burn alive in a fit of rage, but it is similar.
Adel is now a teenager, her long, spindly arms and legs hanging off the edge of the cart as it bumps along the uneven ground. Her dark red hair falls over her face, but she doesn't bother to move it aside. Her anger is now constant—burning steadily in her chest even when nothing is happening. Adel no longer needs an excuse to be furious: it is her natural state of mind.
A span of endless, rolling brown fields pass, and Rinoa is ready to leave this time period and try a later point in history, when a familiar structure appears on the horizon. At first, Rinoa cannot remember where she recalls it from, then she realizes that it is an older version of the Centra Ruins that she, Squall, and the others will later explore during their trip to the Centra Continent.
But in this time, the ruins are not "ruins" at all, but relatively new. A massive, thin tower emerges from the ground, as if some giant shoved a stone pencil into the earth. Four slanted pillars descend from the top of the tower—like the edges of a pyramid—and four more rise from the bottom. The pillars meet in the middle, forming a diamond shape around the tower.
(Ellone… stick with this one. I think this is important.)
Ellone doesn't reply, but she keeps the connection strong, allowing the memory to play out a little longer.
Durand looks at the tower.
"We're almost there," he says to Adel. "Are you ready?"
Adel nods. Beneath her placid expression, years of pent-up anger consume her mind. She knows what the others expect of her, and what they want her to do when she reaches the tower. But she has plans of her own, and she is almost trembling with excitement. Soon she will be free. Soon she will escape these dusty peasants and live the life that she wants.
Soon, she will burn whatever stands in her way.
It is then that Rinoa feels a tremor of power pass through Adel's body like an electric charge. The feeling is fleeting, but unmistakable. In this time, in this memory, Adel is a sorceress. More importantly, she is a sorceress, but she does not yet have the godlike power she will inherit later in life. Her energy is familiar, more akin to what flows in Rinoa's body.
(That means…)
As the army of carts and chocobos draw nearer to the tower, Rinoa sorts out the clues. Adel is a sorceress, but her power is incomplete. That means that she is soon to acquire that strength. Which means…
(There's a way to make a sorceress even stronger. And it might have to do with the Centra Ruins.)
Suddenly the trip to Esthar and all the time spent combing through Adel's past has significance. Rinoa is not merely learning the history of a tyrant, she is learning about sorceresses, and about herself. If there is a way for sorceresses to become more powerful, then such knowledge would have a grave impact on the world. It might explain Ultimecia, and the source of her power as well.
Rinoa feels as anxious as Adel, but for different reasons. The tower looms nearer.
Durand and Adel's cart draws up to the foot of the tower. Around the base is a wide, neglected garden, choked with weeds and wildflowers. A staircase, seemingly supported by nothing at all, extends from the tower down to the ground. An archway stands at the foot of these steps, and beside the archway is a sign with the words, "My Blue Heaven."
(Whatever that means…)
"We're here," Durand says. "It is time."
Adel doesn't need to be instructed further. She leaps from the cart and hits the ground, never taking her eyes off the tower. Others are approaching as well, stopping their carts and tying their chocobos to the ruins. Adel waits for them to gather, but her patience is fraying. She crosses her arms and taps her foot.
At last, the old woman from Rinoa's first vision approaches. The woman the others call, "Mother." As before, she wears an elaborate robe, unlike the ragged tunics of the rest of the tribe. She smiles at Adel and nods. Adel nods back. The old woman seems to have become shorter, but Rinoa realizes that it is just Adel who has grown taller. Adel is now at least as old as Rinoa in this memory, if not older.
"Come along," the old woman says. "It is time to begin the ritual."
Adel nods again, this time showing her enthusiasm. Others see her excitement and smile in approval. They believe that she is eager to fulfill her destiny as a sorceress. But she knows she is going to carve her own destiny soon. One entirely different from the one they intend for her.
The old woman leads the procession up the stairs. Adel follows a step behind her, and the rest of the tribe follow after Adel. Rainbow beams of energy form handrails on either side of the staircase, lighting up as the they approach, then fading when they leave.
After several flights of twisting stairs, there is a wide, empty courtyard, suspended far above the earth, with nothing supporting it below. At the center of the courtyard is a fountain, dry for decades, with ruined statues in the middle. The old woman leads the procession around this fountain and across the courtyard, to another set of stairs leading to still greater heights.
Rinoa knows this tower, from having visited it herself. Once they are further inside, the tribe has to complete a small puzzle in order to unlock the tower's secrets. Several fit young men are summoned by the old woman, and sent ahead to unlock the way and recover keys needed to advance. These keys turn out to be a pair of red stones and a numeric passcode. They hand the stones to Mother, and whisper the code in her ear.
The procession reaches a landing in the midst of a long spiraling staircase, where there is a platform leading to a sealed doorway. Near the door is a black gargoyle, its face frozen in a snarl. The old woman puts the red stones into the gargoyle's empty eye sockets and enters the code into a rusty keypad at the bottom of the statue. The code is accepted, and the door shudders open. The woman leads the group inside. By now, Adel is bursting with excitement, her fingers fidgeting, her heart hammering.
Inside is a massive, domed room. An iron throne, too large to be used by even the tallest person who ever lived, stands in the middle of the circular room. Steel pipes and ancient wires lead to and from the throne, disappearing into the floor. A number of control rest on either side of the doorway. These machines have no meaning to Rinoa, but the tribe knows their uses, and gets to work bringing the ancient technology to life.
The old woman turns to Adel. "Sit on the throne."
Gladly, Adel obeys, stepping around the woman and approaching the throne, grinning at how appropriate a throne is for her and her ambitions. Now that the long-awaited moment is here, she hesitates, drawing it out. Savoring it. She approaches the throne step by step, taking in its details. She touches one hand on the seat, which stands nearly at her chest. The seat is cold and hard, coated with a layer of dust. Adel rubs the dust between her fingers, then wipes it off on her tunic.
Then, finally, she can wait no more. She pulls herself up onto the chair and spins around, sitting upon it. The armrests are too high for her to reach and her feet dangle well above the ground, but that doesn't matter. Already, she feels like a goddess, and the tribal people who have gathered around her feel like servants.
The machinery around Adel begins to stir, and the ritual begins. The old woman steps forward, facing Adel, but standing a distance from the throne.
"For centuries, the Centra drew from the power of Hyne's Fount," the woman says, speaking loudly so that all can hear. "They gave its power to their sorceresses, and trusted them to lead with strength and wisdom. Today, we revive that ancient custom, and draw from the Fount again. Our days of roaming are over, and the Centra shall live and rule once more!"
(What's Hyne's Fount?)
The tribe cheers, ready to see an end to their harsh, difficult lives. Adel smiles as well, but for reasons known only to her.
"Start the ritual," the old woman says.
A tribesman to Adel's left enters a code into a panel, and the throne room is filled with light. The sudden illumination forces the tribe to shut their eyes, but Adel forces herself to watch. She wants to see every moment. See… and remember.
Machinery deep within the tower rumbles to life, shaking the tower to its foundation. The light grows brighter and brighter. Adel squints, resisting the urge to shut her eyes, but finally she is overcome. She closes her eyes and covers them with both hands, but the impossible light shines through, blinding her even with her eyes shut and covered.
And then… the power. Power fresh to Adel, but familiar to Rinoa and Ellone. The power comes from the base of the structure and up through the pipes, through the circuitry, into the throne, and into Adel.
The rumbling and shaking of the tower are now insignificant. The blinding light is nothing. There is only that endless energy, filling Adel beyond comprehension, then filling her beyond even that. It as if the world itself has been hollowed out and emptied into Adel. There is so much more than Adel expected, and more keeps coming.
Rinoa is overwhelmed by sensation, desperate for the ritual to end, but Adel does not share her feelings. She wants more, and more, and more. She has power beyond what she could ever possibly use, power enough to maybe destroy the world, and yet she greedily takes everything she is given.
Finally, the ritual stops. The rumbling ceases, the light fades. Rinoa is relieved, and Adel is disappointed. But her disappointment lasts only a moment. She has now everything she wants and more. The power within her demands to be used, and she has no desire to withhold her strength.
"Now we—" the old woman starts to say. But Adel has had enough of her speeches. She has heard enough about the rebirth of the Centra, and Adel's "destiny" and her "purpose." She is tired of listening to the crone ramble on about such meaningless tripe. And now, Adel never needs hear her again.
With a thought, she silences the old woman by crushing her throat.
It is a simple gesture. Adel merely raises her hand, clenches her fist, and the old woman's neck snaps like a chicken's, without Adel leaving her throne. The sound is satisfying. Adel unclenches her fingers, and the old woman collapses to the floor like an unwanted doll. Adel's only regret is that she cannot kill the hag a second time.
She smiles.
There is a moment where the others in the tribe stand frozen in shock, fear, and outrage. But it is only a moment. That is all that Adel allows them to have.
Since first becoming a sorceress, she has made fires with her mind. She has twisted the wind, made water from earth, and split open rocks merely by wishing for it. But she is new to her sorceress abilities, and has never known the power she has now.
Previously, when she raised her hand, she could summon a gust of wind. If she put enough effort into it, she could knock people down or overturn carts. Now, when she calls the wind, she brings a tornado. Air rushes in through the open windows in a deafening burst. She brings the air to her, letting it spin around and around, then away from her in all directions. The resulting blast throws men, women, and children against the stone walls. Some die on impact, others collapse to the ground and writhe in pain, screaming.
Next, Adel summons her favorite element: fire. It sweeps through the throne room in a rush, causing the machines to spit sparks and then break, causing the humans to spit ashes and then perish.
When everything is burned, she sends away the fire and hops down from her throne. She has used more power in the past few seconds than she has ever wielded in her life, and she had still barely even touched the wealth of potential destruction that lay within her. She crosses the throne room, stepping over charred corpses. Smiling all the while. From outside, she can hear screams as a few survivors desperately flee down the stairs of the tower, running for their lives.
Adel steps out of the throne room, out into the cloudless sunlight, and calls forth lightning from the sky.
"That's enough!" Ellone said. Instantly, the vision of the past disappeared, leaving Rinoa cold and gasping on the floor of the computer room. She was exhausted, sweating, and slightly nauseated from witnessing the horror Adel had unleashed on her tribe. Whatever tiny amount of pity Rinoa had managed to build up during her trips into Adel's past had been completely obliterated by that single memory of brutality.
Back in Garden, Edea had told Rinoa to always think of other sorceresses as people, not as monsters. Even "evil" sorceresses were still humans, people who had made poor choices in life. But what Rinoa had seen was not simply a poor choice. It wasn't an accident, or a mistake. With all of her being, Adel hated her tribe mates, so she obtained incredible power and then released it upon her people, reveling in their terror and helplessness as she slaughtered them.
(That's not human. That's evil.)
(Maybe other sorceresses can be forgiven, but not Adel.)
(Adel was a monster.)
To help blot out the memory, she focused on the most interesting detail she'd learned from Adel's past: Hyne's Fount. Whatever it was, it had the power to take a fairly ordinary sorceress like Adel and elevate her to the status of a goddess. With the power of Hyne's Fount, Adel had been able to kill her entire tribe, conquer Esthar, and nearly overwhelm the entire world. Surely Rinoa had stumbled upon some massive discovery in Adel's past.
But doubts worried her mind. The memory of Adel in the Centra Ruins was old, possibly decades old. Also, the old woman in the memory seemed to know a great deal about what Hyne's Fount was. It was possible—maybe even likely—that Hyne's Fount was old news in the world. Rinoa imagined herself rushing to talk to Squall and Odine, to share what she'd learned about Hyne's Fount, only to have them both dismiss her, claiming to already know everything about it. To feel—once again—unneeded, unhelpful.
That thought, the fear of looking foolish in front of others, made Rinoa hesitate. She wanted to feel excited about her newfound knowledge, but she tamped her emotions down, to avoid disappointment.
(I should ask Ellone…)
Rinoa opened her eyes and turned her head. Ellone's sat on the chair cushion, her expression distant. She stared at a far corner of the room, her hands in her lap, tugging idly at the white fabric of her dress.
"Have you…" Rinoa said. "Have you ever heard of Hyne's Fount before?"
Ellone paused and thought about it, then shook her head, silently.
"I think…" Rinoa said. She lifted herself into a sitting position. "I think we should tell the others about it. Anyway, I'm done looking into Adel's past. How about you?"
"Yeah…" Ellone said softly. "I'm done. Let's go."
Ellone stood up and extended a friendly hand to help Rinoa back to her feet. Rinoa didn't think she would need the assistance, but when she started to put her legs under her, she found them to be numb and unresponsive, as if she'd cut off the circulation for too long. After a failed attempt to stand on her own, Rinoa gratefully accepted Ellone's hand and allowed herself to be lifted to her feet. Once standing, the blood flowed to her extremities again and she recovered her balance.
The pair headed out of the computer room, leaving the soft hum of Esthar's greatest processors behind, and stepped into the hallway. In the hall was another one of the omnipresent circular lifts—the only way back down to the first floor. Rinoa did not understand why O Lab was designed like it was, but then again, she didn't understand much at all about Esthar construction. To her it seemed like the Esthar people deliberately built their city to be unusual, just for the sake of being different from the rest of the world.
Ellone and Rinoa sat down on the circular lift and waited for it to activate. A swirl of light encircled them. The elevator hovered a step above the ground, emitting a soft whine, before smoothly floating down the narrow, featureless hallway.
Rinoa was simultaneously bursting with things to say and speechless at the same time. She felt energized by her experiences, while also horrified by them. She turned to face Ellone, wanting to ask her questions and get a sense of where Ellone stood, but the other girl was silent, distant. Rinoa started to ask a question, her mouth opening to frame the words, but Ellone didn't respond.
Rinoa sighed and wondered to herself if Ellone was unusually sensitive to violence. But then again, Rinoa thought, maybe she was the one who was being insensitive, and Ellone was the one with the normal, rational response. After all, they both just witnessed a massacre, and Rinoa—while unquestionably angry and disgusted by it—had already managed to process the information and move on. The things she'd experienced in the past few weeks as she traveled the world had hardened her. She hadn't noticed the change as it happened, but sitting there next to Ellone, it was obvious to see how different Rinoa had become since leaving Timber and the Forest Owls.
(Am I… going numb?)
That thought terrified Rinoa more than anything. Becoming numb led to indifference. Indifference led to inaction. She knew that she was never going to become a murderous tyrant like Adel or Ultimecia, but if she shut off her feelings, distanced herself from the pain of others, then she would become something almost as bad: a bystander. A person who knows the horrors of the world, yet chooses to do nothing to stop them.
(I won't.)
(I can't stand by and do nothing.)
The elevator reached the end of the hall, flying over the edge of the second floor and hovering high above the first floor. The platform sent down a pillar of light, sensing to see if there were any people or obstacles below it. When it was sure the way was clear, it dropped down to the first floor and landed on the ground with barely more than a thump. Ellone and Rinoa stepped off and headed to the laboratories.
Nothing much had changed in the time since Rinoa and Ellone had left the room. Dr. Odine was still shuffling around his lab, with his awkward gait and his even more awkward clothes, ordering around his technicians and examining endless streams of data. Rinoa found Squall quickly. He was standing next to a computer while a technician was pointing at a series of charts on the screen, apparently explaining their significance to him. Squall nodded thoughtfully. Laguna was nowhere to be seen, probably called away on government business.
Rinoa also saw another person, standing off to the side with his arms crossed. He wore a white lab coat similar the other aides, but the design of the coat and the arrangement of the buttons was different. He had cropped blonde hair, small glasses, and a stern expression on his face that implied that this was a man who rarely smiled. Rinoa felt that he was familiar, somehow, but couldn't remember from where.
(Maybe all Esthar techs just look the same to me.)
Squall noticed the two come in. He straightened up and addressed them. "That was fast."
Rinoa shrugged. "A couple hours, maybe."
Squall narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. A couple of the nearby aides who'd heard the conversation looked up curiously at Rinoa. The stern-looking man off to the side adjusted his glasses and looked at her quizzically. She felt her face grow warm.
(Did I say something dumb?)
She looked to Ellone for validation, but Ellone still seemed lost in her thoughts.
"… Rinoa." Squall said. "How long do you think you two were gone?"
Now a few more aides were glancing up from their work, watching the exchange play out. Her confusion and the increased pressure added by the staring eyes all around her made her mind go blank.
"I… um…" Rinoa said. She didn't know how to answer—or how Squall wanted her to answer—so she spoke the truth. Or, at least, what she believed to be true. "It had to be an hour or two, right?"
Ellone broke her silence. She looked at Rinoa, then at Squall. "Yes. At least an hour."
"It's been fifteen minutes," Squall said. "You can check the clocks if you don't believe me."
(… What?)
The information was more disorienting than anything else. She felt like she'd closed her eyes for a few moments and woken up hours later, only in reverse. She glanced at a clock on the wall and, true to Squall's word, only fifteen or twenty minutes had gone by since the two had left the room.
"That's… weird," Rinoa said. She turned to Ellone. "What happened?"
Ellone shook her head. Worry lines creased her face. "I'm sorry. I don't know. Usually a minute spent in the past is a minute in real time. With all the trips we took into the past it should… it should have…"
She didn't finish the thought. Rinoa turned and saw that Dr. Odine had become interested in the conversation as well. He rubbed his pointed chin and pursed his lips.
"Yes… very curious," Dr. Odine said. "Ellone!" He jabbed a finger at her. "Get in ze machine! We must do new readings. Perhaps your connection power has changed? Maybe ze Lunatic Pandora is involved? We must know!"
Ellone shook her head frantically, as if Dr. Odine was asking her to be flayed alive. Rinoa could see that Ellone was in no mood to have any more tests run on her. She pitied the girl, and regretted dragging her along into Adel's past.
(If I could have done it without her, I would have.)
"No. Not today," Ellone said. "I… really can't do any more tests right now."
Dr. Odine hopped in anger, shaking a fist at Ellone. "You stand in ze way of science!"
"Tomorrow, Doctor," Ellone said, with a respectful bow. "Tomorrow. I promise."
Dr. Odine grumbled and rolled his eyes. But after a moment, he relented and returned to his studies. Squall continued to scrutinize both Ellone and Rinoa, clearly turning some thought over and over in his mind, making Rinoa feel like she'd done something wrong.
It was then that the stern-looking aide in the unusual coat stepped forward. He crossed the room, moving around desks and experiments to get close to the two women. He stood close to Rinoa—uncomfortably close—and adjusted his glasses.
"So did you two learn anything interesting in Adel's past?" he asked.
For a moment, Rinoa considered not saying anything. By that time, she'd all but convinced herself that Hyne's Fount was old news that wouldn't surprise anyone. More than anything, she didn't want to look foolish, especially not in front of Squall.
(But… I don't wanna be a bystander.)
Squall moved away from the experiment he was observing and joined Rinoa, protectively using his body to provide a buffer between Rinoa and the bespectacled aide.
Encouraged by Squall's nearness, Rinoa took a deep breath. Addressing everyone in the room, but mostly Dr. Odine, she asked, "So… has anyone ever heard of Hyne's Fount?"
There was a pause. Machinery hummed, and a nearby printer softly spat out sheets of paper onto a pile. But the scientists themselves made no sounds. Squall narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, and the aide next to her raised his eyebrows in amused surprise. All of Dr. Odine's underlings eventually turned and looked to the famous doctor, waiting for his response. Odine shook his head and ignored her.
Rinoa gritted her teeth.
(Dumb question or not, I'm still gonna get an answer.)
"Well? Have you?" Rinoa asked, raising her voice a little. "Anyone?"
"Bah!" Dr. Odine said. He didn't look at Rinoa, instead focusing on a series of test tubes on a table before him. "Is nonsense tale for babies! Tired mothers tell their children about Hyne's Fount to make them sleep at night. Is junk! Do not disturb ze great Odine with this talk."
And he said no more.
Rinoa had thought she would be embarrassed, being dismissed by the esteemed Dr. Odine, but the first emotion that came to her was not shame, but righteous indignation. She had expected him to say that it was old news, or irrelevant, or to simply ignore her. But she had not been prepared for him to deny its existence entirely. Hyne's Fount was no fairy tale; she had seen it with her own eyes.
(Well, not technically my own eyes, but close enough.)
"We've seen it," Rinoa said. "It's real!" She spun around and looked at Ellone. "Show him, Ellone. Send him to that moment. Prove that it's real, and not just some made-up story for kids."
"Stay out of Odine's head!" the doctor said, spinning around and pointing an threatening finger at Ellone. Ellone winced and looked away. Odine returned to his test tubes, once more forgetting about the girls.
Rinoa grunted in anger. Dr. Odine and the rest of the lab techs resumed their work, completely forgetting Rinoa's question. Only Squall and the stern-looking man still paid them any attention, standing a couple paces away and watching them. She had a feeling that the aide might know something, but something about the man worried Rinoa, and she didn't want to talk to him until she absolutely had to.
(Squall might know.)
She turned to him. "Have you ever heard of Hyne's Fount?"
Squall didn't have to think too long about it. With him, he'd either studied the subject in school and had it instantly ready to recite to the nearest teacher, or he hadn't studied it and didn't know. In either case, he rarely had to waste much time thinking about answers. He shook his head. "No. Why? What did you see?"
Rinoa gave a quick sidelong glance to the stern man. He wasn't standing any closer to her than Squall was, but she still felt crowded by his presence. She took an unconscious step to the side, towards Squall, before she told the story of what she and Ellone had witnessed. Ellone spoke up only at rare intervals, agreeing with Rinoa's statements and adding a little bit of extra description at times, but otherwise leaving the explanation to her.
When she was done, she looked at Squall, then at the stern man. She was glad to see both were lost in thought. Squall looked at the floor, rubbing his chin, while the stern man tented his fingers and gazed upward at the ceiling.
(If they need to think about it, then that means that it's important.)
The stern-looking man was the first to speak. He met Rinoa's gaze, a hint of a smile in his eyes, but nowhere else on his face. "And you are absolutely sure that they called it Hyne's Fount?" he asked. His voice was nasally, and he spoke in an odd accent Rinoa couldn't place. "You didn't mishear them?"
"Yeah," Rinoa said. Ellone agreed.
"I see," the man said. "It seems my trip to O Lab was worthwhile after all."
Rinoa found herself to be annoyed at the man's familiar treatment of her, the way he stood right beside her, speaking as if they were all old friends. She wanted him to go away, stop talking to her, stop breathing her air.
"I'm sorry, but who are you?" she asked, not hiding her distaste for him.
"This is Piet, remember?" Squall said. "He was… oh, right. Sorry. He was on the moon base with us. But you probably don't remember any of that, do you?"
Rinoa shook her head.
"I remember you though," Piet said. "I remember you breaking Adel's seal, and nearly killing us all." Rinoa started to object, but he silenced her with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Don't worry, the situation has been explained to me. I know it wasn't really you who did that. Still, that base was my home and I'm a little bitter to see it—and my life's work—all destroyed in an instant."
(Bite me.)
Piet didn't waste any more time complaining about the past. He looked at Squall and Rinoa. "Anyway," he said. "I came down here when I heard that you two were back in Esthar. At first, I only had a couple of general questions for the two of you, but when Squall said you were digging into Adel's past, I became intrigued. And now that you're bringing up Hyne's Fount, I am very intrigued. Very intrigued indeed."
Frustrated by his vague teasing, Rinoa asked, "What is Hyne's Fount? Will someone at least tell me that much?"
Piet shot a quick glance over his shoulder. Dr. Odine and the rest of the lab techs were busy with their work, and paid no attention to the group huddled at the entrance. Still he lowered his voice when he addressed her and the others. "This is a… hostile environment to speak about such matters. Let's find somewhere else, shall we?"
(A hostile environment?)
With a wave of his hand, he gestured for the group to exit Odine's laboratory and head outside. They moved in a confused cluster, stepping out the doorway and into the hall. When they were outside of the lab, the door automatically slid shut behind them. Rinoa, Squall, and Ellone stopped immediately outside the door, eager to get answers from the lunar scientist, but he motioned for them to continue further.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Odine has some sort of monitoring equipment set up in the hall here," Piet said. "Best go someplace where we are less likely to be overheard. And anyway, after my years on the lunar base, I prefer gazing at wide, open areas when I'm thinking. Not tiny, cramped hallways. Call it a touch of claustrophobia, if you will."
(Is this guy serious?)
Rinoa, Squall, Ellone, and Piet continued down the hall and exited O Lab entirely, finding themselves once more in the blue glass streets of Esthar. The downtown area loomed in the distance, dominated by the absolutely enormous Presidential Palace. A tangle of streets sprawled all around. Cars, people, and transporters flicked about through the city.
Piet took a deep breath and exhaled when he got outside. Then he prompted the others to stop.
"One moment," Piet said. "I need to clear the stench of Odine from my lungs."
Squall ignored his comment and launched into questions immediately. "Why can't we talk in O Lab?"
"Hyne's Fount is a bit of a personal subject for the good doctor," Piet said. "About… say… two decades ago, maybe more, he made his mark on Esthar society by definitively disproving its existence."
Rinoa was taken aback. "But… what… then…"
(I saw it! I know I did!)
(We were there!)
She looked to Piet and Squall, trying to convince them that she wasn't crazy or lying. She was about to try to get Ellone to back her up, corroborate her story, when Piet cut her off.
"Let me finish," Piet said. He folded his hands behind his back. "It's quite a story, and I think you should hear the whole tale. Several decades ago, Esthar technology was approaching a ceiling. We had all these designs for new developments, and even new plans for the city itself, but we lacked the resources to realize any of these lofty ideas. Specifically, we lacked the energy to fuel and maintain the technologies we were inventing. So, in desperation, the Esthar government chased down any lead they could find, in their hopes of solving this energy crisis and preventing Esthar from stagnating.
"One of their crazier plans involved Hyne's Fount. It's an old fairy tale, like Odine said, about a legendary supply of infinite energy stored somewhere near the core of the earth. The legends vary, but they all agree on that basic principle. Though it was a long shot, the Esthar government offered a reward to anyone who could prove or disprove the existence of Hyne's Fount.
"Odine—then a young, unknown scientist—earned his reputation by disproving it, with an overwhelming amount of research and data. This discovery—or lack of a discovery, as it were—launched Odine into prominence in the scientific community. From there he easily secured more funding and grants from the government, which he used to emulate Centra technology and solve the energy crisis, thus establishing himself as one of the greatest scientists of our time. Seeing as how he has—almost literally—built his entire career around Hyne's Fount, you can see why he'd be rather sensitive about it."
Squall nodded. Rinoa was about to say something, when Squall offered a follow-up question. "So then why are we even discussing this? Odine proved it doesn't exist."
Rinoa scowled at him for not taking her word for it, but he wasn't looking at her. His attention was focused on the scientist. She pouted in frustration.
(Fine then. Don't believe me.)
Piet looked at him. "Because I believe he's wrong about the Fount. In fact, I believe he's wrong about a great many things. Well, perhaps that's too harsh of me. The man is occasionally brilliant, and this city wouldn't exist without his discoveries. But I am saying he has his flaws."
"So is Hyne's Fount real?" Rinoa asked, hopefully.
"I believe so," Piet said. "In fact, after your story, I'm almost completely convinced it is. You see, Odine's study of the existence of Hyne's Fount coincides with another major event in Esthar's history. Care to hazard a guess as to what the other event is?"
"Adel's arrival in Esthar," Squall said, almost immediately.
Piet nodded and smiled. Even his smile was severe and unfriendly. "Exactly. That was the missing piece in the evidence chain. If Hyne's Fount really does exist, then Odine should have found it, after the extensive research he did into the subject. But somehow he didn't, and I could never figure out why. All his research is sound, so it's not an obvious error on his part. But now, thanks to you, I have a hypothesis: Odine couldn't find it, not because it doesn't exist, but because it wasn't there at the time. Adel had just recently depleted it. All the energy of Hyne's Fount was coursing through her body, which gave her the abnormal power she possessed. Meanwhile, Odine was searching the planet for a power that Adel had taken for herself. It's no wonder he never found it."
Rinoa paused to think about it for a moment. But Squall pressed on for more answers.
"Why are you so sure that Hyne's Fount is real?" Squall asked. "I mean, before Rinoa told you her story. Why did you think Odine was wrong to begin with? You must have had a good reason."
Piet was quick with a reply. "Because of the Lunar Cry," he said. "Monsters carry energy with them. Not only in their physical bodies, but in the para-magic they contain. You've of course noticed that all monsters have magic within them, correct? Where do you think that energy goes when they die? That it just disappears? Of course not. The leading theory—proposed by Odine, and accepted by most everyone—is that the energy is absorbed into the earth, helping grow trees, fuel earthquakes and volcanoes, and is gradually expended over the course of decades or centuries by the natural processes of the planet.
"However, the numbers don't match up. The energy released by a single Lunar Cry is far more than the world uses in natural processes. I've always believed that the excess energy does not get absorbed into the planet, but instead collects together in a mass called 'Hyne's Fount.' Of course, this has made Odine and myself into less than friends, but I refuse to back down. And now, finally, I may be vindicated for my tenacity."
Squall's brow was fiercely creased, in a way even Rinoa was not accustomed to seeing. She'd spent a great deal of time watching him think, but this was beyond anything she'd seen before.
(He's thinking so hard he's going to explode.)
"Wait…" Squall said. He relaxed his brow and looked at Piet. "If you're right… then Hyne's Fount is primed again. We just had a Lunar Cry, and Esthar's military has been killing those monsters by the thousands. So there should be evidence of the Fount's existence again, right?"
Piet snapped his fingers and grinned. "I like you. I like you a lot. Yes, I'm afraid it's good news and bad news. Good news, we can finally prove the existence of Hyne's Fount, and knock old man Odine down a peg."
(You're not so young yourself.)
"But the bad news," Piet said, "If we're right, then that means we're sitting on a time bomb, waiting for someone to set it off. Anyone with the right tools can access the largest collection of pure energy known to humanity. And that's a bit frightening, wouldn't you agree? But first, like any good scientists, we need evidence. We can't just go running through the streets and screaming about Hyne's Fount. We'd be locked up as lunatics. So I need your help."
The others looked at each other, warily. Rinoa didn't know how the others were feeling, but she wasn't eager to lend aid to this man. Although he seemed to be telling the truth, he struck Rinoa as one of those types of people who told the truth only when the truth suited their goals. Rinoa didn't think Piet would have any problems with stabbing them in the back later on, or telling them half-truths to gain their trust. Rinoa had felt the power of Hyne's Fount and seen the impossible amounts of havoc that it could wreck. There was no way she would just hand that power over to someone she'd only met a few minutes ago.
"I understand if you don't trust me," Piet said, apparently sensing her thoughts. "But I am quite literally the only person in the world who is willing and able to prove that Hyne's Fount exists, and spread this information around. Esthar loves their scientists, and if one of us says we have a discovery, then all eyes are on us in a second. You'll need me to not only find the Fount, but to make sure it's used properly."
Piet eyed the group intensely. "The only way to prevent another Adel is to first understand what we're dealing with. If we can harness Hyne's Fount, not only can we keep it out of dangerous hands, but we may even be able to turn it for the good of the world. Energy, by itself, is morally neutral; it only does what it is told. And wouldn't you rather be the ones telling it what to do, than someone else?"
(I don't want to harness its power.)
Sometimes, the worst things in the world were done with the best intentions. Even if Piet was being sincere in his desire to use the Fount for the betterment of humanity, it was too easy—too tempting—to allow their morals to slip. To use the power against people. To hurt, maybe to kill.
But Piet did have a point. Ignoring the Fount entirely would not make it go away. Someone, somewhere, would stumble upon its power, and then they would be entirely at that person's mercy. If they were to have any hope of using the Fount wisely, then they would have to be the first to tap into it.
(This is why I hate arguing with smart people: I always lose.)
Rinoa sighed.
She looked to Squall. He nodded at her, solemnly. She looked to Ellone. Ellone didn't respond right away, but when she saw that Squall had nodded, she nodded as well.
(That's three votes. We have a winner.)
"Fine…" Rinoa said. "What do you need us to do?"