Jack supposed he could have hidden in Lord Redden's rooms all day – his presence made the servants nervous. Whenever he passed one in the hall, they avoided his gaze and kept as far from him as possible. It wasn't anything he hadn't experienced before. And Lord Redden had amassed himself quite a diverse library over the two decades he had lived in the castle: books of mythology, white mage philosophy, all of the standard texts on magical theory that Jack had studied during his own apprenticeship.
But one thing Lord Redden's rooms lacked was a decent window. The book he had lent Jack the night before, a thick tome on the prophecy of the Warriors of Light was written in a small, delicate hand, as if the writer had needed to cram as much information as possible onto each page. Judging by the book's thickness, it had been necessary. Jack had been at it all morning, his progress hampered by the complexity of the subject, but he was highly motivated.
No one had disturbed him, a fact which he credited to his excellent location: the window on the landing of the grand staircase that curled around the side of the castle's ballroom. There wasn't much traffic in the ballroom in the middle of the day, so it was quiet there. The window stretched from floor to ceiling, with long curtains hanging down either side, and looked out on a deserted courtyard. The floor wasn't the most comfortable seat, and it lacked the dignity he felt a black mage should project to the world, but the curtains hid him almost completely if he leaned back against the window frame. Only his long legs betrayed him, stretched out at the moment, though he pulled his knees up whenever he heard someone walk by, the better to remain unseen.
He did so again now, at the sound of approaching voices. Someone was passing through the ballroom. Two someones, by the sound of it: a man and a woman. He ignored them, focusing on the book in front of him, but then he heard the man mention the Warriors of Light. It was Kane, he realized, though he didn't recognize the woman's voice.
"The council is being unreasonable," she said. "They've been scrying through the night. Every sign they have tells them you have to leave on the next full moon, but they've done nothing about it!"
"Can you blame them? Where would we go? Sarah, we're apprentices! What are we supposed to do about quakes and storms? What am I supposed to do?"
The princess, then. Jack knew from the hearing yesterday that Kane had grown up in the palace. Judging by his tone, they knew each other well.
"Whatever it is, you can't do it here!"
The princess grew quiet after that last outburst. Jack had to listen carefully to pick up what she said next. "Where have you been, Kane? I haven't seen you in a month. You said you'd visit."
Kane sighed. "I tried. There just wasn't time. You know how Garland feels about me. He's kept me busy."
"Garland." The princess spat the name, her voice dripping scorn. "Garland was so angry that you four were declared Warriors of Light that he's left the castle. No one knows where he is. Father's furious. They were supposed to go hunting together, you know, before all of this happened."
"But what did your father say when you confronted him about imprisoning us here?" Kane's voice faded as he finished the question. Jack twitched the curtain aside and saw the young guardsman disappearing down a hall with the princess on his arm.
He sat back against the window frame. Imprisoned? Now that was disturbing. He hadn't tried to leave the palace, so he didn't know if it was true. Would they stop him if he tried to walk out the front gate? He looked at the book again, read the same page over twice, then gave up. His focus was lost. Perhaps he would wander down to the gate and ask the guards posted there a few questions.
As he stood to go, he heard footsteps approaching the stairs and stilled himself behind the curtain. Whoever it was deserved a chance to pass without seeing him. But then there were more footsteps, larger ones, and the first person stopped.
A voice rang out, sharp and angry. "Where do you think you're going?" That was Father Todd. Jack recognized the voice from the throne room yesterday, and from the hearings that followed.
A small, quiet voice answered him, so quiet that Jack strained to hear it. "I was returning to the princess's rooms, Father." That was Lena.
"And where exactly have you been?" Todd asked, louder this time.
"I went with Lord Orin to-"
Todd interrupted her, yelling now. "Were you not ordered to stay in the castle? Do you have any idea of the trouble you caused? How many guards have wasted the afternoon looking for you?"
Jack wouldn't stand for it. The white mage had defended him against this man yesterday - he would do her the same courtesy. He stepped out from behind the curtain, straining to keep his voice controlled and level as he said, "That's enough."
At the base of the stairs, Todd jumped in surprise. Lena, on the bottom step with her back to him, didn't even turn around. Perhaps she had sensed him on the landing – he had heard soul readers could do such things – or perhaps she was more afraid of the monster in front of her than the one that lurked behind. He was struck by how small she was: even with the step, she still only came up even with Todd's nose. Jack came down the stairs, stopping at the step above Lena's, towering over both her and the pompous high priest.
"This is none of your concern, mage," Todd said, but already he had adopted a more moderate tone. He met Jack's gaze and held it.
Jack smiled at the man's boldness, but if there was one thing Jack prided himself on, it was his ability to stare down a bully. "You were yelling at a lady, sir," he said, unblinking.
He was satisfied to see Todd break eye contact with him first. "She left the castle this morning, disobeying a direct order from the council."
Jack arched an eyebrow at him. So it was true. "Are we your prisoners?" he asked, keeping his tone cold and emotionless.
"N-no," Todd stuttered. Sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead. "The order is for your own protection!"
He's afraid of me, Jack thought. Time to press the advantage. He opened himself to the aether, gathered power and held it, enough that the air crackled around him, enough that his eyes glowed. In fact, it was hardly any power at all, but to someone who wasn't a black mage, it looked impressive. He looked at Todd with his glowing eyes and asked, "Do you think I can't protect myself?"
Todd's voice became shrill with fear. "Black magic is forbidden within the city!"
"I haven't cast anything," Jack said, stepping down beside Lena on the bottom step. "Yet." He looked down at her – she didn't even come up to his shoulders – but she barely turned her head to him, tilting only her eyes his way. There is every possibility, he thought, that I've terrified her too. He remembered what he'd seen of Kane leading the princess down the hall and in a flash of inspiration, turned and offered Lena his arm. "Can I escort you to your room, my lady?"
Her eyes fell to the offered arm. Jack had just enough time to think how embarrassing it would be if she didn't take it, but then she slipped her delicate hand into the crook of his elbow. He saw her throw one last defiant glance at Father Todd behind them as he led her away.
Before they'd reached the landing, Todd stomped loudly out of the ballroom. Lena let out a deep breath and said, "Thank you," though her voice shook slightly.
Afraid of me? He chuckled. Oh well. You can't win them all. "You'll have to lead the way, my lady. I confess, I don't actually know where your room is."
She nodded, still seeming fearful, but she did not release his arm until they'd reached her door.
"Scry all you like," Lord Redden said, slamming his fist into the table top. "You've received the same result three times now. It isn't going to change."
"But we can't send the orbs away!" said Lumen Cordat, one of the twelve members of the mage council. "They could be the key to ending the quakes."
"The power to end the quakes is not with the orbs!" Redden repeated for the hundredth time. He'd read Lukhan's prophecy of the Warriors of Light so often, he felt he could almost quote it. "It's with the bearers!" Many in the room voiced agreement at this, but not all, not even half.
The mage council, the governing body of men and women that advised the king on matters of magic and prophecy, was divided. While many believed in letting the prophecy run its course, others, the vocal majority, believed they needed to control it. The prophesied Warriors of Light had turned out not to be experienced warriors after all, but inexperienced children. Surely, they required the guiding hand of the mage council to see their destinies fulfilled.
The "guiding hand" of the council couldn't even keep up with one trembling white mage, who had somehow eluded their grasps this morning. The boy, Thadius, was also unaccounted for, but no one on the council seemed to care. Of course, Thadius wasn't a soul reader. Redden suspected the council's plan for the day had been to lock Lena in a room and have her read the souls of every suspected member of the Penumbra Brotherhood one by one.
When the princess had burst in demanding to know why the Warriors of Light were being detained in the castle like common criminals, and had let slip that the soul reader had, in fact, slipped past the guards on the princess's direction, the council had been thrown into an uproar. The king had ordered them out of the council chamber so he could speak to his daughter privately, though everyone – possibly the whole kingdom – heard them shouting at each other through the closed chamber door. The girl and her father were both notoriously strong-headed. The princess's smug expression when she left and the king's dour mood since left no doubt in anyone's mind who had won that argument. But while the king had reversed the order to keep the Warriors of Light safely within the castle, no progress had been made on the discussion of how they should proceed.
The problem, Redden considered – not for the first time – was that the Warriors of prophecy were not all like Kane. If the four of them had all been strapping young lads with swords on their backs, king and council would have sent them away with an honor guard and patiently waited for the quakes to stop. But a young boy with no family? A soul reader, too valuable to send away?
A black mage? Redden knew that as far as the council was concerned it didn't matter that the soul reader had spoken for him. Attacks from the Brotherhood had grown more common in the past ten years. Every black mage, particularly those from outside the city, was a suspected spy for those vile insurgents.
The meeting had lost all pretense of order. Council members stood in twos and threes arguing with each other. Redden worked his way around the table to where King Cascius, his closest friend, sat in his ornate chair, pinching the bridge of his nose as though the light pained his eyes. He knelt beside his king and waited.
"I can't let her go, Redden. You know that. I've been without a soul reader for too long. The Brotherhood's reach would never have spread so far if I had had this girl ten years ago – gods! Even two years ago."
"But the prophecy requires her to go, your majesty."
Cascius sighed and looked about to say something, when the council chamber door slammed open, as it had when the princess had come in earlier, but this time it was Father Todd, the high priest, shaken and sweating.
"I've found her," Todd said, throwing himself into an empty chair, breathing heavily. "She's back in the castle."
"Thank the gods for that! Lock her in, this time!" Lumen said, prompting murmurs of agreement.
Redden glared at the councilman. "Need I say again that she is a Warrior of Light, not an errant dog?"
Slouched in his chair, Father Todd sneered. "She was in the company of that black mage."
"Who is also a Warrior of Light!" he snapped back, cutting off the next wave of murmurs before it could begin.
A figure came to the door that Father Todd had left open. Orin bowed in greeting, his wrinkled face split by a wide grin. "I beg your pardon, my king," he said. "I had other matters to attend to this morning."
"Where have you been, man? We've been at it since dawn!" said Cascius.
"My errand took me out into the city." The monk found an empty chair on the edge of the room and sat gracefully, back straight, as if he himself was sitting on a throne, attended by the rapt mage council. "My king, I have good news. The spirits of the people are high. On every street, your subjects believe that the prophecy is coming true. They say the Warriors of Light will save them from the calamities. The common people have hope again."
Silence gripped the council chamber. Not even a whisper disturbed it. Redden glanced about the room, but every eye was fixed upon the king. Redden looked to Cascius, who stared at the paper-strewn table in front of him. Finally, the king said, "They leave in two days."
Father Todd protested, "But, your majesty, the soul reader!"
Cascius cut him off with a raised hand. "We've done without one until now. We'll survive without one awhile longer." The king pushed back from the table. Chairs scraped as the men and women of the council stood. Cascius nodded to Redden before addressing a clerk near the door. "See to the preparations."
Redden watched the king, his friend, leave the room, shoulders slumped, head bowed, as though the crown were dragging him down.
Lord Redden's armchair was perhaps the most comfortable Jack had ever experienced. It was evening now, and curled up in the chair near the cold hearth, he made do with a single lantern as he struggled through the tiny writing in that blasted book. Even his master's handwriting was better than this! And for his troubles, he felt like he'd learned nothing. The book was full of unsubstantiated theories and speculations. He sighed over yet another poorly labeled diagram.
"Put it away, friend. Come and eat with me," Kane said from the table, where a servant had lately deposited a tray. There was a pitcher of wine as well, and Jack was sorely tempted, but he was uncomfortable removing his scarf in the presence of others, which made eating or drinking difficult.
"No, thank you," he said. "I grabbed something from the kitchens earlier." That was technically true; no need to mention that "earlier" had been before first chime.
The guardsman shrugged, taking him at his word, and tucked in.
Jack sighed, hungry enough to be distracted by the food. It had been difficult to keep his mind on the book these past few hours. After the confrontation with Father Todd, Jack had escorted Lena to Princess Sarah's own chambers, where the chamber maids naturally assumed he was the cause of her apparent distress and stood glaring at him in the hall until he'd vacated the wing.
He'd gone directly to one of the palace gates after that, where he'd terrified a green recruit of a guardsman with a number of uncomfortable questions as regarded what he, the guard, was willing to do, for example, to hold a black mage within the castle walls. From that little interview, he had learned that while the king had indeed ordered the guards to keep the Warriors of Light inside the castle, the order had later been rescinded. He was, in fact, free to come and go as he pleased.
From there, Jack had found his way to the empty courtyard he'd seen from the window in the ballroom staircase. He'd sat near the marble fountain in the courtyard's center and made what little headway he could on that damnable book while the afternoon light held.
He had bumped into Kane as they both walked back to Redden's rooms. The guardsman seemed to be in better spirits than he had the evening before – Jack assumed it was because the company had been better. He remembered the way Kane had looked walking down the hall with the princess on his arm, then remembered how small and warm Lena's hand had been on his sleeve. He quickly forced the images away.
The effort to clear his mind brought him back to how hungry he was. Gods, but whatever Kane was eating over there smelled good, and he ate it with enthusiasm. He was reconsidering his stance on eating in front of the guardsman – after all, Kane had already seen his uncovered face. How bad could it be? – when there was a knock at the door.
Kane answered it, revealing a liveried servant with a large bundle, about the size of a pillow, and seemingly of similar weight. "I have a parcel here for master Jack," the servant said.
Jack joined Kane in the doorway. "From whom?" he asked.
"From the princess, sir." He handed Jack the package, bowed, and left.
Kane regarded Jack through narrowed eyes. "Why would the princess send something to you?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. We haven't even been introduced yet," said Jack. He took the package inside, to the table, and found a letter tucked underneath.
In a spiky script, it read, "Lena tells me you came to her rescue against that tyrant Todd. Please accept this token of my gratitude." It was unsigned.
"This surely isn't the handwriting of a princess," he said, passing the note to Kane.
"It is," Kane said, reading it quickly. "First, you open the package, then you tell me what happened with Todd."
"Fair enough," Jack said.
He folded back the paper wrapping, revealing rich, black cloth. As he held it up, he realized what it was: a black mage's robe, cut in the traditional style, but finer than anything he'd ever seen. Collar, hems, and sleeves were resplendent with embroidery, a pattern of birds in a deep blue that blended into the black backdrop with a shimmer. When he shook out the robe, a bit of cloth of the same blue as the embroidery fluttered to the floor.
Kane picked it up. "She's included a matching scarf," he said, examining it.
Jack looked from the pristine robe to his own travel-worn leather coat. The coat was serviceable for a man who lived his life on the road. The other was decidedly not. "What will I ever do with this?" he asked.
Kane winced. "Did no one tell you?"
"You're the only one in this castle who speaks to me," Jack pointed out.
"Ah, yes," Kane said. "Well, it seems the king has announced there's to be a ball tomorrow in honor of the Warriors of Light."
Jack blinked in surprise. "And I'm expected to attend this ball?"
"Most definitely," said Kane.
"I'm going to need some of that wine."
Author's Note: Jack was the easiest character to name. You have stories like "Jack and the beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer" and all the "Jack Tales" in American folklore, always about a young man who wins the day by being cleverer than other people. It's the perfect name for a bookish mage who spends most of his time thinking.
Of course, in the game, he's an adorable squatty thing with a silly hat, a long robe, and sleeves for days. All you can see of him are his glowy little eyes. He was the cutest character ever (until Square invented moogles) and as a kid playing FF1 for the first time, I fell in love with him instantly. Translating the lovable character sprite into a real person took some compromise. I kept the hat, the covered face, and the glowing eyes, but, by God, the robe had to go. They tell you to write what you want to read, and I'd rather read about mister tall, dark, and mysterious in his long leather coat over here.