Back to Torn. And sorry for the late submission. The site wasn't letting me upload like I wanted.
Chapter 34: The Palace of Spargus
They received two Wastelander vehicles, and then they set out in the direction of Spargus. Torn volunteered to drive the vehicle with an unconscious Jak, beaten into this state by Sig when the man's dark side had gotten loose, for the safety of the others who rode in the vehicle to his side, in case Jak woke up and his dark side got the best of him again. To his relief, Jak did not awaken during their entire drive. Torn was in no mood to speak to anyone right now.
After what had happened to Haven City, he needed to be left alone to his thoughts. It was these thoughts and the cold wind whipping at his face that were the only things keeping him awake at this late hour. Jak had damaged the robot. He had seen it with his own eyes, and for some foolish reason, he thought that would give them a reprieve from the machine. With a damaged robot and no factory with which to create their monsters, he had felt a fleeting hope that this war could be won. It was stupid, and he let his guard down, and look where it got them.
The city he had grown up in and had defended over and over again from all the scum who wished to do it harm, from outside and within, was lost to them now, just a contaminated wasteland that would poison any who remained in its walls for too long. Even if they won this war, how could they ever hope to pull the city out of that mess? It was not fit to live in, and he wasn't certain it ever would be again.
Not that there was currently anything that could be done about it anyway. Right now, they just had to focus on ending this war. Gol and Maia's forces had been weakened, but as long as those two still lived, they couldn't rest. Not until those two were dead could they turn their attention back to their tainted home. All that mattered right now was winning this war, and that was exactly what Torn was going to do, even if it took everything he had.
At the same time, if Haven City was truly lost, lost for good, all those deaths would have been in vain. Not just in this war and the previous one against Errol's forces, but the lives that were lost during his time in the Underground. He had led those people to their deaths, all for the purpose of freeing the city's people from the Baron's despotic rule. What did it matter if they were free if Haven fell several years later? No, he wouldn't let their deaths be for nothing. And if he could help it, he wouldn't let many more die for his cause, either. Eventually a time came when enough was enough, and this was that time.
Once they arrived in Spargus, after an exhausting drive involving them avoiding Wastelanders and Freedom League soldiers battling the dark creatures, Torn carried a still sleeping Jak to his new lodgings, the knowledge that the people of Haven City would need a place to stay being sent ahead of them by Sig via his radio to the few that remained in the city in the Wasteland. As expected, Keira and the ottsels chose to stay with Jak, and after some awkward goodbyes everyone was too exhausted to put any feeling into, Torn left to meet up with Ashelin at the palace, their new shelter, per Sig's instructions.
His shoes crunched on the dry, hard sand as he walked down the silent streets of Spargus, the city nearly empty, as most of its citizens had gone off to assist Haven City in its fight against the monsters. Torn still couldn't quite understand why the Wastelanders, a people that had never been too fond of Haven City, with the same sentiments felt towards them in return, would risk their lives for them. Of course, Sig had told them to do it, but they seemed a lot more willing than Torn would have expected, nonetheless.
Without their assistance, Haven surely wouldn't have stood as long as it had. Perhaps their enemies wouldn't have had to take things so far in order to defeat them, but with Ashelin and him having no intention on surrendering, the city may very well have been leveled in the end anyway, with all of its citizens wiped out. It wasn't out of stubbornness that they refused to even consider giving up, but because it was the very reason that people gave in that evil was allowed to take root, just as it was with the case of Baron Praxis.
So few had fought back, and that was why the Baron was able to take complete control over the city, his reign masked as it was with his promise that he was doing it for their own good, to protect them from the Metal Head threat, that only became worse due to his own inability to deal with it. No matter what he said, his real motives should have been made clear when he filled the city streets with soldiers that would just as soon beat the innocent as the guilty. That was why Torn had stepped down from his place as a Krimzon Guard Commander, to fight back when no one else would.
That was why Ashelin and he had decided right when this most recent war started that there would be no backing down. Haven City would not be put under the control of a corrupt power ever again. Its people knew all too well what being under the iron fist of such a ruler was like, being choked of life like they were within that very fist, squeezing them until there was nothing left. It was a fate just as bad as war, except people died more slowly and the ones that died were civilians, not the soldiers. Well, as bad as what had befallen Haven City, he couldn't say they had failed in that respect. The city was not under anyone's control now, not theirs, but not their enemies', either. There was no one left there that they could rule over. No one.
Torn arrived at the palace, just as cold inside as out, as the buildings of the Wasteland were meant to stay cool on the inside to combat the extreme heat of the daytime, which was even worse than the chill of night. It was a relatively humble building for a palace, all things considered. While it was large, the rooms within spacious, it was sparsely decorated, the main furnishings consisting of large, but simple, pottery, some home to potted palms, along with bronze containers for housing flames. Walls of stucco and stone, lined with torches. And great stone pillars supporting high ceilings. No gold or silver or precious gems. The most extravagant thing, in fact, was likely the channel of water that ran a loop along the walls of the entire hall, supplied by waterfalls that streamed down on either side of the entryway, not a large amount to cause a racket, but enough to leave the walls shimmering as if they had a rippling layer of glass upon them. In the desert, water was power, and this palace was proof of that.
He strode forward and over a small bridge over the channel of water that stood in his path, pushing open one side of a grand set of double doors, heavy, even for him, to reveal a massive hallway lined with pillars with square bases. Not bothering to close the door behind him, he made his way down the passageway, only to stop at the intersection of another hallway that crisscrossed it. He swore. How was he supposed to find his way around this place? It looked as if it would be nearly as much of a maze as that temple out in the Wasteland was.
The man chose a direction at random, left, wandering off down that way, much of the hallway kept from his vision by the gentle curve it made to the right. Such enormous buildings were always pointless, just as the Baron's palace was. So much space for so few people, always with a layout that rarely made sense. He had hardly slept in days. Like he really needed this nonsense right now.
After far too much time had gone by for Torn's liking and he had decided with some certainty to break the noses of all the descendants of those who had designed this place, he heard a far off click, like the sound of a door closing. It had come from behind him, and he backtracked to the hallway he believed it had come down, heading in that direction with some increase in speed. But, after even more time had passed, going down one hallway after another, upstairs and downstairs, and the only rooms he found being storage closets and a library and courtyards opening out on gardens of stone and palms and water, his swearing becoming even more vile with each new room he encountered, Torn started to wonder if his faster pace only served to lead him astray quicker than ever. And then he ran into Ashelin.
He hadn't seen her as he turned the corner, and she stumbled, a swear of her own rolling off her tongue before spinning around to find the one responsible for nearly knocking her down. The fire in her eyes only barely died down at seeing who it was.
"You're still wandering around?" she asked, blinking a weariness from her eyes that tried and failed to hide behind her attempts at maintaining a dignified expression.
"Seeing as we're even talking right now, it looks like you are, too." He tried, as well, to conceal how tired he was. While he had felt relatively alert during his trek down these ridiculously confusing hallways, stopping had made his limbs heavy again, and he blinked at her in much the same manner as she had at him, raising a hand to simultaneously massage a forehead that was beginning to feel a headache coming on and to hide his eyes while he gave them a quick rest.
"I didn't think I'd be able to get to sleep just yet, so I decided to take a quick walk to clear my head."
"Hmm." How could he find out where the bedrooms were without letting her know he still hadn't located them?
Ashelin studied his face as he tried to look awake, something he didn't have to maintain for long, her eyes losing their sharpness as a yawn escaped from her mouth, a hand going to her face, too late to hide her show of weakness. He blinked feverishly, holding back a yawn of his own.
She groaned before going right out with a question, laced with a lethargy that was getting the best of her. "So, can you not find your room?"
Torn stiffened. Was it that obvious? "Have you?"
"I found mine a half hour ago. They're just down that way." She pointed, and he looked back to see a hallway he had just passed by. He actually would have gone down it if he hadn't turned down this one, and he realized too late that looking back only confirmed that he hadn't been able to find the bedrooms, after all.
"We will get Haven City back. You know that, don't you?"
He turned back to her, her face solemn, expression softened by weariness. Torn couldn't help but gaze into her eyes, a bright green like gems, even if this wasn't the time for it. Now wouldn't be the time, either, to make mention of how her eyes could capture him sometimes, even if he had been the kind of man to make such comments. There were always more important matters to attend to. At least, those were the only times he found himself thinking such thoughts, when there was a chance one of them could be lost and he would never see those eyes again.
"I hope so," he said.
They had worked far too hard for the city to lose it now. They had risked their lives for Haven City far too many times to let it stay lost to them forever, but every time the city was in danger, every time they faced death for the sake of their city and its people, he wondered if this would be the time Ashelin wouldn't live through the fight. Not that she was weak, but he couldn't help but ask himself these things late at night when he lay awake, with nothing but war and death on his mind. She was the Governess now, as well, which only made her more of a target for their enemies, who would be anxious to take out the one person all of Haven looked up to. He knew one person's safety was not more important than that of an entire city's, and she would have it no other way, but he couldn't keep such doubts from worming their way into his mind, only to haunt him later for having even considered such a thing.
Ashelin gave a slight nod, more to herself than to him, then took a step forward, her face moving towards his, or at least, he thought it did, for as soon as this movement began, it stopped, and she put a hand on his shoulder. "Go to bed. The fight continues tomorrow." And then her touch was gone, and she was walking by him, and he listened to her footsteps move away into the distance, and he finally turned just before she was lost around the curve of the hallway he had missed.
Unable to suppress it any longer, Torn yawned. He was in dire need of sleep. It was probably nearly morning by now, and then they'd be back to the same old actions of planning their next moves, choosing who would be sent to their deaths, and shaping events that may win this war or seal the fate of Spargus, just as their past actions had allowed Haven City to be doomed. Countless struggles must have made his reflexes slow, that they could have allowed such a thing to happen. But, whether or not they could reclaim Haven City, if the place wasn't already beyond saving, they needed to do all they could to defend Spargus. They owed it to the Wastelanders for fighting alongside them. Even if the people of the desert hadn't come to their aid, they would have no choice but to help protect this place. No one wanted to see their home destroyed, whether they be city dwellers or desert dwellers. The more he thought of it, the more he saw that the Wastelanders probably had more in common with the citizens of Haven City than they had differences. But, enough of that. By now, Torn's eyes were burning and his head was throbbing with a headache, as if his body was punishing him for going without sleep for so long.
Finally with a clear direction in mind, the man began to make his way down the hallway Ashelin had gone and found, after a short walk, doors lining the left wall. He swung his arms in exasperation, an exaggerated motion, in his current exhausted state. How had he missed these?
He moved to the first door, dragging his feet, jiggling the doorknob and receiving an "I'm in here!" in response. Grumbling more at his delay in finding rest than anything, he went to the next door, finding it unlocked. He went in and closed it and was a decent distance into the dark room before he realized he had forgotten to lock the door. Forget it. If anyone came in, they'd regret it. He'd personally see to that.
With only a faint moonlight streaming through a curtained window for light, he bumped into something solid and pressed the top of it with one hand, fingers splayed. It gave to the touch. Whether it was a couch or a bed, he didn't care. He dropped onto it, finding no backing to bump into, confirmed it was a bed, and drifted off to sleep before he could think any more.
Sleep tight, Torn. And please review.