Jack's breath caught when he saw the temple. It was exactly as Lord Redden had described: a many-pillared ruin of white stone jutting out of a bare patch of earth where nothing would grow. According to the legends, it had been grand once, a temple to the gods of ancient Cornelia in the time before Leifen fell, but then a demon had appeared there and devoured the four high priests in a single night, leaving the land cursed and the temple itself shrouded in a poisonous black fog.
"It isn't really poisonous," the bard had said. "That's just the common folk letting the story get away from them."
Now that he stood before it, Jack thought it was easy to see how people had come to that conclusion. The fog moved unnaturally in the predawn gloom, swirling counter to the breeze and clinging to the temple's lower stones like an impenetrable scab rather than drifting about the grounds. But up close, he could see it for what it truly was. "That's no fog," he said when Kane stopped beside him. "It's the aether here."
"Aether?" said Kane. "But we can see it! Surely we can all see it?" He glanced behind him toward the others. Orin and the boy nodded, agreeing with him. Lena only stared, face expressionless.
"Jack's right." Lord Redden explained, "The aether here doesn't flow as it should. The scholars say it's as if something is holding it in this place. That fog has been building for hundreds of years."
Jack stepped forward for a closer look, though he stopped several feet short of the thick mist. Four stone steps, their corners softened by time, lead up to a double door, one half of which hung crooked on rusty hinges. He could see the normal flow of aether going into the fog, but nothing coming out, as though it were congealing before his eyes. Kane followed him, leaning in close to ask, "You're sure this is the way? We don't have time to make mistakes." The guard's eyes flicked to the eastern horizon, which was noticeably lightening now. Sunrise was nearly upon them; after sunrise, they would be too late.
Jack nodded. "The trail leads straight to it." He'd followed the ragged edges of the teleport spell to a field north of Cornelia. From there, it had been a simple matter to follow the traces of the princess's aura that had been left behind, along with those of the other two men. That trail had met up with several others going the same direction; those were hours older and almost entirely faded, but it meant Garland wasn't alone. The various trails converged here, leading toward the ruins, but the auras stopped abruptly at the temple steps as though cut by a knife.
Kane stepped toward the ruin, determined, but Jack grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Wait," he said, eyeing the truncated aura trail. "There's some sort of barrier there."
Kane squinted at the fog-veiled stones. "I don't see anything."
Jack bit back a sarcastic reply and instead cocked an eyebrow at him. He raised his hands in front of his chest, summoning a ball of fire between them with a tiny "woosh". "Do you see this?" he asked. He hefted it once as if it was as substantial as a stone, then threw it into the fog in front of them. The fireball slammed against an invisible wall, throwing sparks in all directions as it fizzled out.
Kane lowered the hand he'd raised to shield his face. "Fine, so there's a barrier. Can we pass through it?"
"Possibly," said Jack, trying to recall what he knew of magical shields, which wasn't much. "Or it could kill anything that touches it. I'll have to do more tests."
Kane let out a frustrated breath. "How exactly do you test something like that?"
"I don't know," he said, completely unfazed by Kane's tone. "Throw something at it and see what happens, I suppose."
As he began preparing his next spell, Thad stepped up beside them, carrying one of Lord Redden's torches, peering into the fog. "Excuse me," Kane said, plucking the torch from the boy's fingers.
"Hey!" Thad protested, but Kane had already tossed the flaming branch toward the obstruction.
It stopped in midair, the black fog swirling around it, buzzing like a hornet's nest, throwing off streaks of white lightning. It went on for only a second or two, then the blackened branch landed at their feet, smoking. Thad whimpered, peeking out from behind Orin.
"Not what I meant…" Jack muttered.
"Whoa," said Lena, face pale. It was the first word she'd said since the attack in the clearing. She stepped forward cautiously, reaching for the branch, and stopped with her hand outstretched. She seemed to be staring at the charred torch. No, not that, Jack realized, but at the orb she wore tied to her wrist. It glowed blue. The fog in front her shimmered with the scant light of it, the blackness fading in that one spot.
He looked to Kane, but the guardsman was staring eastward again, at the brightening sky. Jack cuffed his shoulder to get his attention. Kane turned, annoyed at first, but then his eyes grew wide. He stepped forward, raising his sword toward the barrier, and, as Jack had suspected, the yellow jewel in the pommel seemed to push back the fog. Lena stood beside him, holding out her wrist, and the two orbs together began to hum as they had in the market square.
Jack removed his hat long enough to pull the chain of his own orb over his head. It glowed red as an ember, and he held it up beside Kane's sword. The barrier billowed in front of them.
"Now you, Shipman," Kane said.
Orin guided the boy forward, his green orb in hand, and the four of them stood side by side. The hum intensified, then crashed around them with a sound like a tolling bell. The fog roiled.
"Did it work?" Kane asked, and his voice echoed through the sudden silence.
Jack peered intently at the aether trail he'd been following. Where it had ended abruptly before, it now continued up the temple's wide steps and into the doorway beyond. "Yes," he said. "I think so."
Lord Orin stepped in beside them, knelt to pick up the former torch, and tossed it ahead once more; this time, it fell harmlessly to the ground near the bottom-most step. The old man walked after it - Lena gasped, reaching out to stop him - but he, too, was unharmed. "I believe the way is now clear," he said.
"What did we just do?" Thad asked.
Jack tried to think of a way to explain that the boy would understand. "They're connected, the orbs and this aether cloud. I don't know how or why. It could be something in the temple's history, or theirs, or it could be a coincidence. Whatever the reason, they called to each other." Both the boy and Kane stared at him, uncomprehending. He paused, searching for the right words. "Picture it like throwing a rock into a still pool. The waves we caused were enough to break the barrier."
"I don't like it," Kane said. "Why bother with a barrier that's so easily broken? How do we know this isn't a trap?"
The mage had to admit that he too found it disturbing. "It can't have been anchored well if it was so easily undone," he said, stepping forward, looking up at the building's heights. He stepped over the place where the barrier had been, and staggered, for it felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. He grunted in surprise, losing his hold on the aether. It was the same searing pain he'd felt when he tried to read the black aether in Princess Sarah's room, only far worse. If not for his staff, he would have fallen over.
Kane and Lena rushed to either side of him. "What is it?" Kane said.
"By the gods!" he hissed. He heard Lena gasp at that. Great, he thought, clenching his teeth to hold back further curses. Blaspheme in front of the white mage. Nice going. He focused on his breathing and shook his head, trying to clear it. It was several moments before he was able to speak again. "I'm fine," he said, shrugging Kane off, though Lena still hovered on his other side. "Don't trouble yourselves."
He took another steadying breath, still leaning heavily on his staff, and opened himself to the aether once more. None came. He extended his senses out to it, tried to draw it in, and felt the pain again. "I can't hold it," he said. It came out in a whisper, though he hadn't meant it to.
"What?" Kane said. "What are you talking about?"
"The aether," Jack said, louder. "I can't hold it here." He looked over his shoulder toward Lord Redden. Kane turned, following his gaze.
The bard closed his eyes, seeming to be in deep concentration, then shook his head. "I can't manage it either."
"Are you saying you can't do magic here?" Kane asked. "We came all this way to face a pack of rogue mages and you're telling me we can't use magic against them?"
Jack, recovering now, stood up to his full height again. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
Kane's shoulders slumped. "There could be an army of dark mages waiting in there. Without magic, it's suicide."
"Something tells me it won't be as one-sided as all that," Lord Orin said. They looked up to find him standing at the top of the steps, before the temple door. He pointed down at a patch of the black fog beside the steps that seemed thicker than the rest, because, of course, it wasn't fog at all but a midnight-black robe worn by a dead man.
He had been perhaps forty, blond of hair, beardless, his eyes cloudy as though he'd been dead for days, though Jack doubted that was the case. In addition to the robe, he wore the black sun pendant of the Penumbra Brotherhood. Lena knelt beside him, touching him with one glowing hand. "He's still warm," she said. "But I can't tell how he died. His body seems healthy." Lena tilted his head gently, looking intently at his eyes. "I think he was blind," she said.
"No, girl," Lord Redden said. "He was blinded. That's part of what killed him. I think the stories were right: that fog is poisonous."
"Are you kidding me?" said Thad, looking uneasily at his foggy surroundings.
"Not like that. I think he tried to draw on this rotten aether and burned to death from the soul out," Redden explained.
Aether burn. It was incredibly rare. Jack had only read a few stories that mentioned the phenomena. There'd be no physical sign of it, save where the corona burned out his sight. "He must have been the one casting the barrier," Jack guessed. Easily broken because he died before he finished it, he thought. "At least we won't have to worry about them using magic against us." He turned back to Kane as he said it, but the guardsman wasn't looking at him anymore: he was facing east, and when the rim of the sun climbed into view, he bolted toward the temple door.
The loose door fell from its crumbling hinges as Kane slammed into it. The others called after him, tried to tell him to wait, but he picked himself up again and kept running. Sunrise. They were out of time.
It was dark inside. He heard chanting, echoing through the stone corridors in a language he didn't understand. There was light far ahead of him through another doorway, a towering arch guarded by a man in a black robe. He shouted when he saw Kane, pulled a curved dagger from his belt. Kane ran straight for him, sword ready, not knowing what he would do when he reached him, but it didn't matter: Lord Orin was faster and soon pulled ahead of him, dodging the man's knife, catching his wrist and flinging him over. The man stayed down. When Kane caught up with him, Jack close on his heels, the monk said, "Keep moving."
Through the archway, Kane could see hooded figures evenly arrayed around an altar of stone. One of them stood over the altar, knife raised as he led the chanting, and on that altar was Sarah, struggling against the chains that held her down.
"Garland!" he shouted.
The name echoed through the chamber as the chanting stopped, replaced by the cultists' surprised mutters as they turned to look at him. He could hear Sarah crying now. The man at the altar lowered his hood, smiling wickedly: the former general. "Kill him," he said.
The cultists ran full-tilt toward Kane.
Jack had been right: Garland wasn't alone. He counted quickly - ten of them. Too many, he realized. "Kane!" Perhaps if they kept to the doorway, more defensible, but Kane was even now running to meet them. Slow them down, he thought.
He braced himself and drew on the aether, staggering at the wrongness of it, stagnant, rotted like some dead animal left in the sun, but he didn't need much for the simplest spell he knew, the first spell he'd ever mastered. He drew the heat from the left side of the room, covering the floor with a sheet of ice. Three of the hooded men running from that direction suddenly found their footing insecure, slipping, falling down.
He used the heat he'd drawn, added to it, transformed it into a wall of fire on his right extending the length of the dimly-lit chamber, cutting off four other men. It wouldn't stop anyone for long, but it was less aether intensive, and even that had been more than he should have attempted. His head swam, and he fought against a sudden dizziness. He'd done all he could do with magic in this place. As the last of the charging cultists closed in on them, he released his hold on the aether, forced down the bile that rose in his throat, and readied his staff.
Redden and Lena charged past him through the archway, but Thad hung back, acutely aware that he didn't know how to fight like the others did. In front of him, through the door to the central chamber, he could see them battling the hooded men, but closer still, one member of the Brotherhood lay in a heap in the floor. He'd watched Orin defeat him, throwing the man in much the same way he himself had been thrown around the armory by that Matteo boy on his first day as a Warrior of Light. The cultist was beginning to stir now, one hand coming up to rub his head as though it ached.
Thad sucker punched him in the jaw. The man fell back again. Thad waited, making sure he was down for sure. He thought, He's only going to wake up again if I leave him here, then moved closer.
He drew the sword, but not to kill. Tearing and slicing at the man's black robe, he soon had several long strips of fabric to work with and used them to tie the cultist's hands and feet together. He was a Shipman, after all, and if there's one thing you learn on a boat, it's how to tie knots.
He sat back, admiring his handiwork, one less enemy to attack them from behind. There were probably more of them in there, ready to be tied up, if a boy was clever and sneaky about it. He gathered the rest of the shredded robe - he'd cut several extra strips - but before he left, he checked the man's pockets for valuables. Because the gods could have chosen anyone as a Warrior of Light, but they had chosen a thief.
Sword drawn, Redden fought side by side with his son. He was no match for Kane, but he was good enough. His sword work was a bit rusty after years of palace living, but at least he knew what to do with one. These Brotherhood members were obviously unused to working without their magic. Most had daggers, but only a few seemed to know how to use them effectively. He wished he knew the occult significance of this place, why they would choose to conduct their ritual here where they were effectively neutered.
To his left, Jack stood at the edge of the icy patch, bludgeoning anyone who got through. The mage was holding his own with that staff of his, provided he only had to face one opponent at a time. It was something he could work on with the boy later.
On his right, Orin fought near the fire Jack had started. It was burning out now, without continuing magic to sustain it, but it had been an effective distraction for a little while. The monk made good use of it, redirecting - or sometimes, outright tossing - his own opponents into the flames. "Have you no spells for me, friend?" the old man called.
Both the fire and the icy floor only served to prove that magic was not altogether out of the question here, yet none of the cultists used it. Redden couldn't blame them; if he hadn't personally seen Jack casting, he would have said it was impossible. He had tried to call on the aether more than once, but hadn't been able to summon so much as a candle flame. Twenty years out of practice, and only a red mage besides. Black magic was no good to him here.
Luckily, black magic wasn't all he could do. He'd had plenty of white magic practice in the years since the ban. In fact, he truly excelled at a handful of white spells, the kind they didn't teach the mages at White Hall, the kind that had nothing to do with healing. "If I remembered the incantation for Vanish, would you know what to do with it?"
"I may."
Simple and direct. He'd always liked that about the monk. Redden smiled as the spell landed and Orin disappeared from view. A cultist screamed, attacked by a foe he couldn't see. It wouldn't last long, but, then again, it didn't need to.
He turned back to Kane, fighting his way toward the altar. Garland stood there still, knife upraised, as he continued to shout whatever spell he was working over the noises of the battle. Let's see, the bard thought. How did the incantation for Silence start? It, too, had a short duration, but it wouldn't take much to disrupt the spell. Ah, yes...
Lena knelt just inside the door, trying not to attract attention. The White Mage's Oath forbade fighting, but she could still heal. Jack stumbled after casting his fire spell, so she threw a Cure toward him. Another Cure went to Redden, who had taken a slash from a cultist's dagger.
She did not try to heal the hooded men. Even when she knew a man would surely die after Kane's sword laid him open, she didn't heal him. The souls of the Brotherhood members were as closed off and hardened as if they were dying already, beyond the reach of white magic.
Redden shouted a string of nonsense syllables. She knew it was Leifenish, but she didn't know the spell - a born mage didn't need incantations to make the aether work, so she'd never learned them. Whatever it was, the bard thrust a hand toward Garland, who stumbled back from the altar, dropping the ritual knife.
"Garland!" Kane shouted again, fighting his way through the cultists who stood between him and the center of the room. "Face me!"
"If you insist," Garland hissed, his voice raspy from Redden's spell. He stepped down, drawing his sword, leaving the altar unattended.
The princess! Lena tried to separate herself from the emotions of the room, needing her wits about her now as she ran toward the altar, weaving between the fighters. One of the cultists aimed a blow at her, but an unseen entity grabbed the man's wrist and threw him to the floor. She suspected that if she called up her soul sight, she would see the deep green of the monk's aura swirling effortlessly through the attackers. She did not call it, though, afraid to view the members of the Penumbra Brotherhood too closely.
The princess, frantic and crying, screamed through the rag tied over her mouth. "Shh," Lena said when she reached her, removing the gag. "Hush now. I'm going to get you out of here." She noticed the princess's wrists, bleeding where she'd tried to pull free of her chains. She used another Cure there, the last she had in her, and pulled on the bonds, but they were stuck fast. "Hold still," she said. She pulled her hammer from her belt and struck a ringing blow against the chains, to no avail.
"Let me see!"
She jumped at Thad's voice, so close all of a sudden. If he had been an enemy, she would have been done for. The boy grabbed the princess's wrist, inspected the manacle, his mouth pressed into a thin line of concentration. He emptied his pockets onto the altar, searching for something, pulling out a bundle of string, a foreign coin, some playing cards, and a gold hairpin. This last he seized, bending it on the altar's stone edge into a crooked shape.
"Did you steal that?" Lena asked, scandalized.
"Might have," said Thad, ramming it into the locking mechanism. It snapped open after only a moment's effort.
The boy climbed onto the altar, rather than running around it, to reach the other arm. Lena watched, fascinated, as he worked against the lock. "Stuck," he said, wriggling the hairpin.
The princess looked up just then, and screamed. Lena turned, saw a cultist standing over her, knife poised to strike. She raised her hands, casting the white wall of Protect, barely stopping the knife in time. But she hadn't had enough power left for a spell of that magnitude, could feel her knees buckling under her even as she saw the enemy raise his knife for another blow...
She saw Jack's staff hit the man full in the face, knocking him senseless. Lena slid to the floor beside him, her power spent, and knew no more.
Focus, Kane thought. His sword was heavy in his hands, but he fought on. He could hear the sounds of battle still raging around him - he knew he couldn't count on the others to come to his aid, busy as they were with their own fights. He focused on Garland's movements, trying to ignore how weary he felt, but it was taking every ounce of concentration he had.
Garland knew it, too, for now that his voice had recovered he was speaking to Kane, trying to distract him. Kane didn't listen at first - couldn't listen, in fact. It was as if his sword was using up all the energy his ears would have needed to function - but eventually the words penetrated. "It's your fault she's here, you know. I'd never have taken her if it weren't for you."
Garland's blade whiffed past his ear; Kane barely dodged it in time. Focus, Kane.
"Ten years! Ten years I waited for this day. The stars said it had to be this day! This day, in this place! And I would have had the king here, on our little hunting trip! Instead, you brought that soul reader to the castle. I had no choice but to flee before she found me out."
Focus. Kane slashed at Garland, but the man parried with bone-jarring force, driving him back toward Jack's magical fire, which was almost extinguished now.
"I'll kill you for that, Carmine. You and the little soul reader, just like I killed the last one."
Kane stumbled. Garland had killed Lady Aliana?
"And then the princess: a royal sacrifice worthy of the Dark Lord." The former general chuckled as he raised his sword for another attack… and the sword was shaking.
Kane's eyes narrowed as he looked at Garland more closely. The man was sweating and short of breath. It was all the young guardsman needed to see.
Kane had been up all night. But so has he, he realized. Kane had walked all the way from Cornelia. But so did he. Kane was tired, yes, but he was also a Warrior of Light. With a roar, he threw himself at his enemy once again.
The manacle sprang open at last. "Come on!" Thad said, tugging the princess after him as he slipped down from the altar. She stumbled as she came down next to Lena, unconscious on the floor beside a cultist with a bloody broken nose. Not three paces away, Jack swayed as though drunk. The mage's staff clattered to the floor as he sank to his knees. Behind him, a cultist rushed forward out of the dark, unarmed, but heading straight for him.
"Jack!" Thad cried, but suddenly the rushing cultist doubled over as though he'd been punched in the gut, then flipped through the air in a move that by now was becoming familiar to Thad. Is Orin… invisible?! he thought. It couldn't be. He was seeing things. The stress of the fight was making him hallucinate. It will be over soon, he told himself. Won't it?
He rose to an awkward crouch, peeking up over the edge of the altar. Kane was advancing! Garland had pushed him to the edge of the room, but now the red-headed guardsman was pushing back. They were heading straight towards the altar, straight towards him. I can help! Thad considered the sword he wore, but dismissed the idea immediately; he had a better one.
"Stay here!" he said to the princess. Then he climbed atop the altar once more.
Garland's eyes widened at Kane's renewed assault. With each step, the general's attacks became more desperate, his defense sloppy, giving Kane the advantage he needed to drive the man ahead of him, until they'd come to the stone altar at the room's center. Garland could go no farther.
A figure waited there, but it wasn't Sarah. With startling quickness, Shipman sprang up from a waiting crouch, aiming an attack at Garland's hand, the one he'd extended back to steady himself when his heels had backed hard against the unyielding stone.
The boy had rolled off the side of the altar before Kane could see what he'd done, but the distraction nearly cost him the fight. Garland managed to land a kick to his shin that left him wide open, reeling to catch his balance, but when the dark general raised his sword, stepping in for the kill, he was brought up short by the manacle Shipman had fastened to his wrist, chaining him to the altar. Kane found his feet again, twisted, taking his sword in both hands, and used the momentum of his potential fall to power the force of his upward strike.
He readied to strike again, but it was over. Garland screamed as his sword hit the stone floor with a clang, still gripped in the hand Kane had severed at the wrist. Kane stepped back, looking around the room. To his left, his father used the butt of his sword to knock one of the hooded cultists in the head, but he saw no other enemies still standing.
Shipman knelt beside the stone altar, trying to shake Lena awake. Kane wondered if she was dead, but Orin appeared and pushed the boy gently away, saying, "She'll be alright. Let her be. You did well, young Shipman." Jack wasn't far from them, kneeling in the floor, clutching at his head as though it ached.
"Sarah?" he called.
"I'm here," she said, rising from her hiding place on the altar's side. She was filthy, and her face was red from crying, but she was alive.
Kane had taken a step toward her when something shifted - he could feel it in the air - and he looked back to find Garland glaring at him with eyes of black fire as the man prepared a spell. He readied his sword again, but already the general had raised his shackled hand, summoning a compact ball of darkness. Kane struck, knowing he would be too late, but Jack cried out, and the spell, when it left Garland's hand, flew wide, missing Kane's face by inches.
The thrust carried him forward, unstoppable, until the sword's tip scraped against the altar stone and Garland's blood ran hot over the hilt. Kane couldn't let go, couldn't make his hand release the weapon, his body unable to leave the fight even as his mind told him he'd run the man through, so he stood face to face with his enemy until the the wicked light faded from the man's eyes at last.
Author's Note: This video game makes no sense when you get right down to it. Four total strangers with no weapons, no armor, no items, and no spells, roll up on Cornelia Castle essentially naked and the king is all, "Say, why don't you go rescue my daughter?" Like, he didn't have any more qualified (or better dressed) candidates lying around? I mean, sure, these are supposed to be the Light Warriors of prophecy and all, but come on. Do you know how many spells your baby mages can cast at level 1 in the first Final Fantasy game? Three. They get three. And I don't mean they know three different spells – I mean they can cast three times and then they're just there to look pretty.
That sort of thing works in a video game, but as a story, the characters aren't walking around with numbers above their heads telling you how many spells they can cast. I didn't want my characters to be experts on everything, but I didn't want to write about a bunch of complete noobs either. It's a balancing act trying to portray them as the young and inexperienced people they are while still letting them kick ass. However, as one of my mentors once said, "When in doubt, darling, err on the side of kicking ass."*
Also, shout out to Thad's Gold Hairpin. Hopefully, no moogles were harmed in its acquisition. FF6 fans know what I'm talking about.
*She may not have used those exact words.