The Earth Cave, Twenty-four Years Ago
The dead waited until Redden's group was past the first cavern, and then they closed in - from ahead, from behind, moving in out of every dark crevice and corner. Cid led the charge against them, his sword flashing in the light of the torches and lanterns and the flame of Redden's spellblade. The flaming sword cast enough light that Redden was able to see the faces of the creatures he ran through, faces he had known when they were living men.
When he'd fought his way clear and he stood in the next chamber with those who could still stand, struggling to catch his breath, he said, "Those were Argus's troops."
Cid nodded, his own breathing less labored than Redden's but still heavy. The air in the cave was stagnant, like trying to breath through old, dry paper.
"An ambush," someone said in the darkness. "Hiding until we got past them? It was an ambush!"
"They've never done that before," said Arthur. "They always charge like mindless animals as soon as they catch sight of us."
"They are mindless animals," Cid said. "Something's controlling them."
Redden nodded, still gulping for air. His brother hadn't trained to use the aether like he had, but Redden knew Cid could feel it.
"But what do we do?" one of the men asked. "If it's a trap-"
"There's only one thing we can do," Cid said, pointing ahead with his sword. "We press on. Right, brother?"
Redden nodded. Then, because the men didn't seem convinced, he stood up straighter and said, "Yes. We can do this. We have to."
A shriek echoed through the stone walls, shrill and piercing. Several of the men covered their ears. When the sound faded, another rose behind, a snapping and clicking that whispered through the still air like a swarm of cockroaches fleeing into the night. Not roaches, Redden knew, but corpses, the movement of bone on bone without the warmth of flesh to aid it.
"Where's it coming from?" Arthur said, backing close to Redden. "Are they ahead? Or behind?"
"Both," Redden said.
"Redden, start the ritual," Cid said, crouching in a defensive stance as he faced the depths of the cave.
"We're not deep enough!"
"We won't get any deeper tonight! Something's changed!" He shouted to the men, "Form up! Protect Redden! Arthur, stay with him."
"Yes, sir!"
"Cid-" Redden began, filled with doubt all over again now that the task was at hand.
Cid shook his head. "Now, brother. Now!"
As if it were a signal, the dead surged forward, screaming.
Redden closed his eyes, focusing on the aether. He could feel the living auras of the men who fought beside him, but he could also feel the spells that moved the dead, unsubtle fists hammering against the lifestream of the world. He tried to shut them out, tried to shut it all out, and focus on the ritual.
White magic needed no circles, no herbs. It needed only the living aether, the reserves a mage carried inside. It needed will, and it needed words. He knew the incantation forwards and backwards, this spell Bram had invented but hadn't named. He focused on himself, he took a deep breath, and when he exhaled, the first words of the incantation flowed from his lips.
The screaming intensified. Redden could feel the dead moving with renewed purpose.
"Keep them back!" Cid shouted, and they did. The men closed ranks, forming a wall, shoulder to shoulder, with Redden and Arthur in the center of it.
For a time, there was only the aether, the work of moving it with his thoughts and the force of the words. There was no time now, as there had often been in the past, to regret his inability to see it. The sounds of battle faded around him as he concentrated. He finished the incantation and began it again, shaping the aether to his will, building another sort of wall, a barrier that wasn't Protect but that protected and shielded against the evils magic could commit. He formed the first tentative layers and pushed them outward. The creatures screamed again, backing away from it.
"It's working!" someone shouted. "It's work-"
The shout ended on a wet, pained gurgle.
Redden fell to one knee, reeling. He had never felt someone die before. He'd seen it - more often in the past year than he could count - but never when he'd been focused on the aether like this. The man's soul shattered like a lamp releasing the heat of its too-hot flame out into the world.
Redden held the spell, but barely. He restarted the incantation, unable to remember where he'd left off. He'd only managed the first line when another man died. The shock of it hit Redden like he'd stepped out in a strong, cold wind - he could neither breathe nor speak.
Arthur stepped from him, joining the fight, filling the gap one of the men had left behind, but Redden focused on the spell, reciting the incantation in his head until he could recover his voice. He clung to his sword, letting the focus spells aid him as he knelt there against the cold stone floor. He could feel the dead slamming against his weak barrier, could hear his companions beating them back.
And then… He could feel it: the spell was nearly complete. He'd done it. The barrier began to form up. One more recitation, that was all he needed. His voice found new strength. He focused his will.
A few more of his men fell. He felt their absence. There were none to his left, where the barrier was weakest. There were more of the creatures now. He felt them too. They were flocking toward that weakness, the place where the cave was deepest and darkest.
He felt the one who made it past, the snarling creature that was the embodiment of everything the White Oath stood against.
Time seemed to stand still. There was a moment - it couldn't have been more than a moment but in the nightmares that followed in the years to come, Redden would relive that one moment over slow, agonizing hours - a moment when he had to choose: to stop the ritual and raise his sword, or to keep casting and die there.
In that moment, he knew what it meant to be a son of Titan. Whether he truly was one or not didn't matter anymore. The ritual had to be completed. There was no other way. He shouted the incantation, opening his eyes to watch the creature coming for him, close enough that he recognized Argus, and Redden knew he was going to die.
But then Cid roared into view, tackling the creature, knocking it directly into the waiting arms of the others who'd been too weak to breach the barrier. The barrier didn't stop the living, however; Cid went right through it. The beasts closed in around him.
"No!" Redden screamed, all thoughts of Bram's spell forgotten. He reached for the raw aether, not the white magic offered by his own reserves, but the primal, destructive possibilities of black magic - fire and ice and lightning - and as his senses searched the aether, he could feel his brother's aura being pulled deeper and deeper into the cave.
"No!" he screamed again. He threw himself forward, toward the darkness, but Arthur's hands grabbed him, pulling him back. He threw his spells ahead of him, watched in horror as they broke against his own barrier like water thrown against a window. The creatures snarling on the other side flinched back from it but were unharmed.
He tried once again to run, readying spells to cast on the other side of the barrier, but more hands held him now. He could still feel Cid's aura down there.
And then, with crushing finality, he couldn't. His brother was gone.
Redden howled, throwing every spell he could name - and a few he couldn't, raw, instinctual - into the dark.
"Get him out of here before he breaks it himself!" someone shouted.
The hands pulled him back. He struggled against them, screaming all the while.
Melmond Harbor, Present Day
Thad heard the lapping of water outside, felt the gentle rocking, and woke in a panic thinking he was back on his father's ship. He realized quickly that he was mistaken. He wasn't in his father's hold, but belowdecks on the Sahagin Prince. He recalled, but dimly, falling asleep on the deck beside Oscar, remembered the captain waking him long enough to send him to his little hammock. He could hear other of the crew nearby, their sleepy breathing and their snores, Maxell talking in his sleep. It was morning, early, still dark. Thad called up his aether sight to chase the darkness away.
It would be dawn soon. He didn't know how he knew, but something in the aether told him so. There was still so much about being a black mage that Thad didn't know. He would have to ask Jack about it when he woke up. Thad looked toward the corner of the ship where Jack's hammock was, but that corner was dark - no bright spot of aether showed Jack sleeping there. Jack always did get up early.
Thad focused on his aether sight, made the transition from seeing the aether to reading it so that he could track the mage down, but where he should have seen the remains of Jack's blue aura, there was nothing. The mage had not slept there.
Perhaps he had gone to the hold? Jack often went there to be alone. Thad got up, quickly and quietly, reading the aether all the while. Biggs was up already, in the galley making breakfast, and the captain had come this way, but Jack hadn't even been belowdecks.
Did he leave me here? Thad wondered, offended. It was bad enough that Kane was always calling him a kid, saying he was too little for anything exciting, but Jack had never behaved that way. With some embarrassment, Thad wondered if was it because he'd been crying last night. Perhaps the mage now thought him too little after all?
He was grumbling when he reached the deck and found all traces of Jack's aura had faded into the aether. Thad hadn't really believed it until then. He didn't even wake me up to say goodbye! Thad thought. He stomped toward the gangplank.
"Where you off to, Shipman?" someone called. Thad looked toward the voice and saw Gabbiani standing in the open doorway to the captain's cabin, smoking a pipe. The smoke wasn't visible in the weak dawn light but the glow was, as was the way the heat of the little bowl affected the aether, making it shimmer and swirl in a way that was almost smoke-like.
"Back to the manor," Thad said. "Orin will be waiting for me."
The captain shook his head. "He'll wait a bit longer, I'm sure. Come in and talk."
"What for?" Thad asked. "Am I in trouble?"
"You got a reason to be in trouble?" Gabbiani said, chuckling.
Thad couldn't think of one, but he still looked toward the dock. I could run for it, he thought. But why? The crew weren't his enemy. And it wasn't as if the friends he'd be running toward treated him any better than a helpless toddler. He turned and walked toward the cabin. The captain held the door for him, then followed him in.
He motioned Thad toward a chair at the table near the big window then took the larger chair across from him, straightening a huge stack of papers and moving it to the side. At his elbow, he had a tray that held a teapot and a wide-bottomed crystal decanter. He poured two cups of tea, splashing them both with the decanter's contents and offering one to Thad. Thad's splash of that other ingredient was considerably less generous than the captain's had been, but still it pleased him. He could count on the pirates not to treat him differently just because he was small. The captain sat back in his chair, sipping his own tea and regarding Thad critically. "Jack told me what Bayard said. He seemed worried about you."
Thad grimaced, and not just because he'd tasted the "tea". "So worried that he left without me?"
Gabbiani nodded. "I told him to."
Thad took another sip, trying to hold his anger. It was easier to be angry at Jack than to think about Bayard's words. The second sip tasted worse.
"I never knew Josiah," the captain said. "Heard of him. Word of luck like his gets around. Did you ever hear the tale of how he bluffed his way past a blockade of raiders with only a single-"
"A single ship," Thad finished with him. He nodded.
Gabbiani chuckled, motioning with his hands as if he could just picture that ship on the horizon. "Came out under a flag of truce. One cutter against twelve man-o-war. Had the whole lot of them convinced he had twenty ships waiting 'round the far side of that island."
Thad nodded again. He knew the story well. He'd heard it, as it were, from the source.
"Every pirate alive wishes he'd been part of that crew," Gabbiani said, raising his teacup in a little toast before downing it in one gulp against all tea-drinking etiquette.
Thad raised his own cup and had a big drink. The liquid was disturbingly lukewarm, though it seemed warmer going down. He shuddered.
Gabbiani said, "You'll stay for breakfast."
Thad shook his head.
"Weren't a request," Gabbiani said. "This town's cursed, Shipman. There's things that happen when it's dark. You'll stay here til sunup and at least an hour more. I want you to see where you're going."
"I know the way!" Thad protested. "It's not that far!"
"You'll take Gus and Maxell along."
"I'm not a baby!" Thad snapped. He stood and headed for the door.
The captain spoke quickly. "Right, and you're not a big, strapping lad yet either. I'm just looking out for you, is all. I owe you that!"
Thad stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He turned back. "Owe me? Why?"
The captain poured himself more tea, poured rather more whiskey on top of that, and stirred it with a stubby finger. "I didn't know your grandad, Shipman, but I did know your dad."
There it was again, that fear he'd felt on waking. Strange, Thad thought, that he still felt it so strongly, as though the years and distance between him and his father amounted to nothing.
"Scared of him?" the captain said, watching him. "Lots of folks were scared of Red Charlie. Even other pirates. I wouldn't have wanted to make an enemy of him."
"I don't want to hear."
"I knew how he treated you."
Thad shook his head, trying not to cry. "Stop."
"We all knew, Shipman. It wasn't a secret. Anyone in Safe Port could have stood up to him for it. But we didn't. When word spread that Josiah Shipman out of Pravoka had given Chuck the beating we should have done, taken you away…" He downed his tea and refilled his cup with straight whiskey. "We didn't protect you back then, little Shipman; let me make it up to you now."
Thad nodded. He didn't say anything; he would have cried if he'd opened his mouth. I could leave anyway, he thought. The manor's a straight shot through the business district… But he didn't. He told himself he chose to stay. Not because he was a child who needed protecting, not because he was afraid. It was his own choice. His feet carried him belowdecks, down to the dark and creaking hold, and he clung to his aether sight and told himself he wasn't afraid. He was a Warrior of Light!
He sat alone in the dark and focused with every ounce of his being on not crying. He wouldn't cry. Children cried, and he wasn't a child. He would show them. He would show all of them.
The aether rang, a sound like a child whistling shrilly in the corner. Jack woke with a moan, unable to focus well enough to block it out. He squinted against the dim sunlight that streamed through the open window. He tried to roll over, but that put pressure on his bladder. He needed to pee, but didn't want to get up. Instead, he covered his eyes with one arm, which was better but not as comfortable as he would have liked.
He'd just tuned out the aether noise when a lilting voice said, "Rough night?"
Lena. Lena was in his room. Wait… He tried to sit up, but his head pounded riotously. He clutched at it, moaning again as he fell back against the pillow. He thought he might faint, or vomit. His mouth tasted like wadded cotton. He very much needed to pee.
Lena tsked. "You know, there are a number of religions that advise against strong drink for this very reason."
Jack whimpered. "And I'll join one, my lady. Provided I survive this."
Without getting up, he turned his head, looking toward the sound of her voice, and there she was: not just in his room, but sitting on his bed, perched in the corner against the wall, with her knees pulled up. She was wrapped in the sheet, and what she might be wearing under that sheet was a question that Jack both desperately needed answered and also needed not to think about if he wanted to leave any room in his mind for other important questions. "What are you doing here?" That was one of them.
"You're in the wrong room," she said, quite without any emotion at all.
Oh gods! he thought. He looked down at himself, checking that he was dressed, worried how much of his scars she might have seen. He was fully covered, clear down to his boots, except that his scarf was gone.
He couldn't remember how he'd come there. He tried to think back on it, tried to piece the events of last night together. He remembered the wine, and most of the walk back to the manor - or, he thought he did - and then someone had brought him upstairs, and Lena had been there…
He had a vague, dream-like memory of holding her close and whispering his true feelings to her…
Oh, gods…
"D-did I s-say anything… overly forward?"
"I'm not sure," Lena said in that flat, emotionless voice again. "You only spoke Leifenish the whole time."
Thank the gods, he thought. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
"What does 'dagona' mean anyway?"
"Chusgino," he hissed.
"No, I know that word," she said chidingly. "Lord Redden told you not to use that word. But you called me 'dagona'. I thought it was only a name from an old story, but I'm guessing it means something?"
Dearest. He moaned again.
The aether whistling commenced, louder than before. Jack sat up, and the room swirled. He lurched toward the door through heroic effort and fumbled with the lock, noticing then that the stuffed fingers of his left glove had gone crooked in the night. He crammed the hand into his opposite armpit, but then he couldn't manage the latch one-handed. Trying to hold his arm so that Lena wouldn't see, he turned to the other door, the one to the next room, his room, thanking the gods when it wasn't locked as well and opened on the first try. "I have to go," he said, stepping through it. That's it, he thought. That's all I have in me.
But then Lena said, "Please do. I need to get dressed," and the question of the sheet rose in his mind again. He forced the thought away, forced himself to close the door, summoning up one last heroic effort to keep from turning back.
Redden watched the first drops of rain hit the office window, the speckles they left in the dirt of the training yard outside, then turned back to the men at the table, an emergency meeting of Melmond's Lords' Council. "We've set the cathedral guardhouse to search the area, but there's plenty of lower town to cover," he said, fighting off the urge to yawn as he gave his report. He had not yet had a chance to sleep, though it was already dawn. "If you were to tell the townspeople there's a rogue mage loose in the city, send criers to circulate a description-"
"Out of the question!" Lord Talbot snapped. "Why, we'd have a mob! Every man who vaguely fit that description would be beaten to death in the streets!"
Redden sighed, too tired to deal with this stupidity.
"Yes, but surely there wouldn't be that many casualties, considering Redden's just explained that the description includes a badly broken nose," said Lord Ipsen, rolling his eyes. When Redden had been young and impulsive, he hadn't liked the stern, no-nonsense master treasurer, but now he found the old man's cynicism rather refreshing. "Besides, there's no need to mention that this dangerous criminal we're hunting is a mage!"
"There's no need to mention him at all," said Pollendina. "You say he Teleported out? Teleport is an aether intensive spell. The state he was in, injured? It was likely a last ditch effort. He can't have gone far. Surely, the guards will find him."
"And what would you know about spells?" Lord Hornwood asked under his breath, but not so quietly that he wouldn't be heard.
The secretary cut him a glare that said if he knew any spells, he would have used them by now. "They're mentioned extensively in these things called books, Reginald. Maybe you've heard of them?"
"Enough, gentlemen!" Arthur hissed, putting just enough emphasis on the second word to show he meant it sarcastically. "And sit down, Redden! Stop sulking in the corner."
Redden stepped from the window. His first impulse was to go to the bench by the door where he and his brother had sat through so many meetings like this in the past, but he remembered, before he'd taken a second step, the empty seat at the table. Lord Quincey was not in town, preoccupied with affairs in the Reach where the summer planting had to be organized around the spread of the Rot.
None of the Lords' Council seemed to care when Redden sat among them. They continued to argue among themselves, and Redden found himself tuning them out as he had often done when he was younger, sitting in on Westen's meetings for form's sake but unable to contribute to them. He tried to focus, belatedly remembering he had opted to stand because he'd feared he would nod off if he sat. The padded leather chair suddenly seemed as warm and inviting a place as his bed in the guest quarters.
Some time later, Arthur stood. "Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all. If you would excuse me, Lord Pollendina and I have paperwork to see to."
Redden shook his head rapidly to combat the drowsiness. He stood and followed the still-bickering lords out the door, trying vainly to recall what their decision had been regarding the search for the mage. He stopped when Arthur called out, "Redden." For a moment, when he turned back, the man who stood at the table appeared to Redden's eyes as the boy he'd known years ago, that earnest and open face, but when he spoke, Arthur's voice still had that sharpness brought on by years of disappointment. "Get some sleep. We can't have a son of Titan walking around looking half dead. It's bad for morale."
Pollendina smirked, an expression that said he believed in the prophecy as much as Arthur did, as much as Redden did - that is to say, not at all.
Redden nodded, too tired to let the words get to him.
In the hall, Lord Talbot was waiting for him. "Ah, Lord Carmine, I wonder if I might have a word?"
"Can it wait?" Redden said.
"I'm not sure it should. Only it's rather a delicate matter… It's, well, it's somewhat scandalous. It's your son, you see."
My son… Redden nodded. He was on firmer ground now; many a conversation with his dear friend Cascius had begun like this. "What's he done this time?"
"Publicly cavorting with servants! Really, Redden! It's quite indecent!"
Redden's mind worked furiously, trying to keep up. Cavorting? Kane would never… Oh, wait… "Are you, perchance, talking about… Jack and Lena? You know she's his betrothed, right?"
"Yes, well… However that may be, my contacts in the city say they were seen together yesterday at a certain whorehouse. A whorehouse, Redden! No matter how you may feel about your position here, the Carmines are one of the high families! This behavior is unacceptable! When a son of nobility - even a bastard son! - acts with such disregard to common decency-"
Redden sighed, holding up a hand to indicate that he needed a moment. Jack at a whorehouse? Jack and Lena? Jack? The thought didn't seem to fit in his head no matter how he turned it. He took a deep breath. "Start at the beginning, please."
He had a good mad going by the time he found Jack. The boy was in the front hallway, talking to Gilbert, the manservant. "It's yellow. About this big," Jack said, holding his hands out. "I know it isn't much, but it has sentimental value. If you could please keep an eye out for it?" He wore a green scarf that must have been new - Redden had never seen it on him before - but his shirt clearly wasn't, as the wrinkles on his back showed he had slept in it. Redden waited at the foot of the stairs.
Gilbert nodded, glancing toward Redden, and when Jack turned to see what he was looking at, the manservant made good his escape. Redden waited until Gilbert was well on his way before he grabbed Jack by the back of his rumpled shirt and shoved him toward the parlor, slamming the door behind them so hard that it bounced open again. Redden didn't bother to shut it properly; he was already too busy yelling by then.
He started with, "A whorehouse?"
Jack blushed so fiercely the tips of his ears looked like they were on fire. "W-wait!" he stuttered. "It-it wasn't-"
"It wasn't a whorehouse?"
"N-no! I mean, well, it was! But we didn't- We weren't-" He took a shuddering breath, pinched the bridge of his nose, and muttered, "Ramuh, strike me down."
"Forget Ramuh, young man. If the next words out of your mouth aren't the beginnings of an explanation, I will strike you down myself."
"We weren't there for… that," Jack said, his voice low and strained with humiliation. "Orin found someone with the night plague there. He took Lena to see her. I only went to keep her safe."
Redden didn't respond, only glared. It was a trick that worked well with Kane when Redden knew he was guilty of something. It seemed to work just as well against Jack. The mage squirmed under that gaze, and finally broke.
"Oh, gods! You don't believe me! Ask Orin! He'll tell you!"
Redden saw everything he needed to see in the boy's nervousness. "I believe you," he said.
Jack, visibly relieved, flopped onto one of the parlor's couches. "I swear to you, Redden! Nothing happened!"
Redden sighed and sat in the couch across from him. "But you can't tell me you weren't thinking about it." The boy said nothing, which in itself said much. "Look, you're only setting yourself up to be hurt here. I know we talked about this and we agreed to disagree, but she's still a soul reader…"
"I've told you, she feels," Jack began.
"That's irrelevant," Redden said. "Say she does have feelings of her own, what then? She still feels yours too. Don't you see, Jack? If she returns your advances, you can never be sure how much of it truly came from her."
Jack stared at the floor, though his hand drifted up to his face, fiddling with the edge of his scarf below his cheekbone. "There won't be any advances," he said, sounding sad now. "I can't. You're right, Redden. I did think about it, but I can't." He sat forward on the couch, letting his head hang low. "It's not her feelings you have to worry about. It's mine. My problem with the aether... It's not random. The aether responds to my emotions. You saw it once in Elfheim… I was angry…"
Redden remembered it, a sudden cold that had filled the room, but that had been mild. "I seem to recall you easily regained control then."
Jack shrugged. "That was more than a month ago. A month before that, it wouldn't have happened. It's been getting worse, moreso around Lena. Whatever I might be feeling for her, I can't let myself feel it. I want to, I even thought I might try, but… I… I kissed her yesterday, and it… Let's just say that for the sake of that brothel it's lucky my powers manifest as ice rather than fire."
His other hand fidgeted with the hilt of the sword he wore, the focus object Redden had lent him. Redden wondered if Jack was struggling with the aether even now. "And when you're not with her, how's your control? We can't risk these people knowing what you are."
"I manage. There's a trick I learned from a battle mage to suppress my emotions…"
"I know of it," Redden said. He heard footsteps in the hall and only then remembered the door wasn't closed all the way. The conversation had long since drifted into territory they didn't want anyone eavesdropping on. He stood, crossing the room, and had just glimpsed Lena through the crack in the door, her hand outstretched to push it open.
Behind him, Jack sighed. "But even that doesn't work when Lena's around. Truthfully, I can scarcely tolerate her company for more than an hour."
Redden saw Lena's eyes widen. He glanced back, but Jack hadn't noticed her, wallowing in self-pity as he was. By the time Redden faced the door again, she was gone. It's for the best, he thought. A soul reader is hardly a suitable companion for him. For anyone. It's better this way. Still, Redden almost felt bad for him; Jack sounded so miserable. And the boy's lack of control was worrying. Well, there was one exercise he knew that could help with that at least. He shut the parlor door and locked it. "This battle mage… Did he happen to teach you the spellblade technique?"
Jack shook his head. "I was too young when he left."
Redden nodded. "No time like the present."
After Thad helped Biggs prepare breakfast, he sat on the deck with Oscar. Worryingly, the ochu seemed slower than usual, eating only a few bites of the bacon Thad offered him before seeming to lose interest. "Come on, boy. You've got to eat," Thad said.
The cantankerous plant growled, pinching its toothy mouth shut and pulling as far from the bacon as its pot would allow. It gave the distinct impression of turning its nose up at the offered morsel, despite the fact that it had no nose.
"What's with you lately?" Thad asked, worried. It seemed unlike the ochu to be ambivalent about food. Thad wondered if it was because of the weather. The day was overcast, the sun completely obscured by clouds. Plants needed lots of sunlight, didn't they? Thad looked up at the sky. Well, there was no help for it today. He sighed, loosening the ties at the front of his shirt.
The air was actually cooler than it had been in the past few days, though still quite warm, far from pleasant with no hint of a breeze. The rain had started and stopped several times already, a weak drizzle contributing to a relentless mugginess that seemed almost palpable. Thad sat back, nibbling on the bacon strip and watching the seagulls flock around the fishing boats farther down the pier.
A noise on the dock caught his attention, a name: Bayard. Thad stood in a crouch just high enough to peek over the ship's railing and saw the suspicious captain speaking with some of his men. He seemed to be on his way back to the Strahl from somewhere. Thad watched the man board the ornate vessel and disappear into the cabin. Oscar snuffled at him, one thorny tentacle going for his pockets until Thad passed over the last of his bacon. The ochu munched it happily, but Thad kept his eyes on the other ship, waiting to see if Bayard would emerge again, wondering what the man was doing.
He was coming out of that building when Jack and I found him, Thad remembered, a building the navy captain had locked behind him. The building wasn't far from here.
Thad looked around. Gabbiani was still in the captain's cabin. Maxell and Hawthorn were on the quarterdeck, playing cards. Maxell was supposed to be watching him, Thad knew, but the big sailor wasn't watching him very carefully, in the way that all adults with no children of their own assume that any child old enough to walk and talk is capable of watching themselves. He was right, more or less: Thad watched himself all the way down the gangplank and up the dock.
He stopped at the registrar's table, showing the man there the identification paper he'd started keeping in his pocket after the third time someone had asked him about it and he hadn't had it on him. The paper was wrinkled and creased, but the man at the table - not the same man who'd been working the day they arrived, but one equally old - read it quickly and waved Thad through.
He walked briskly through the harbor crowds. No one glanced his way; it had always amazed Thad how little notice people took of him when he walked casually and confidently as if he had places to be. He did have places to be, but now that he thought about it, he wasn't entirely sure where those places were. He and Jack had been going the other direction when they ran into Bayard the day before.
Once more, he brought up his aether sight, pleased at how quickly it came to him - he was getting better at it all the time - then concentrated on reading it. The criss-crossing aether trails were beautifully distracting, the sensation he got from them, of not quite seeing, not quite touching, still so new and unusual that his mind couldn't take it all in. He focused on one of the trails, a soft burgundy color. He knew, though again he didn't know how he knew, that it belonged to Patch Bayard.
He followed the aura trail, found that it did indeed lead right to the place he remembered, a shipping office. The burgundy aura was all over the door, showing that the captain had been here recently and often. Thad tried the door and found it locked. It was a simple lock, but the street wasn't empty, too many potential witnesses. Casually, as though the door didn't interest him at all, he wandered past it, around the edge of the building, behind it, looking in windows as he went, but inside there were only offices. It was always offices...
There was someone in there. He felt it before he saw it, the aura in a room at the back. The windows on this side of the building were high and tiny to provide the illusion of privacy in the middle of the busy harbor district, but there was a crate nearby Thad was able to stand on, and the rough wooden wall had plenty of handholds.
When he'd hoisted himself up, he saw that the room with the person in it was not an office at all but a bedroom. These sort of office buildings often had small rooms at the back that could be used as living quarters by businessmen who didn't have families and liked keeping their overhead expenses low. The old man in the bed didn't look like a businessman. He was bald, thin, pale as death, and his aura gave off a sickly glow. He was sleeping, but Thad could tell even from the window that he struggled with each breath.
As he watched, the door to the room opened as someone else arrived. Thad ducked lower to avoid being seen, but the other person was focused on the old man. Thad realized the newcomer was none other than Lord Pollendina, the thin, dark-haired secretary. Pollendina laid a gentle hand on the old man's forehead, checking for fever, then settled into a thickly cushioned chair beside the bed and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He picked up a book from the bedside table and began reading aloud as if the old man could hear him, reminding Thad of the way he himself had read to Prince Aryon back in Elfheim. The secretary blinked a few times and rubbed his puffy, red eyes, then took a drink from a water glass on the night table and went on reading.
The tenderness of it embarrassed Thad. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. Perhaps he had hoped to discover something incriminating, some evidence that Bayard was involved in nefarious deeds, but Thad couldn't think of anything criminal about caring for a sick old man. From the looks of things, he was very well cared for. It was clear the secretary had been there often: it was a thick book, and he'd worked through most of it.
Thad dropped to the crate and jumped back down to the ground. Oh, well. He'd satisfied his own curiosity if nothing else. He was debating whether he would go back to the ship or straight to the manor when he noticed the figure in the alley with him, blocking his exit, a dirty man in a black robe.
"It's you…" the man said, smiling crookedly under a bruised and crooked nose. He reached up to brush his greasy hair out of his eyes; his hand and his face were covered in blood. "The boy from before, the little black mage…"
Thad backed away, but the man stepped forward.
The man chuckled. "Did you know that's what you are? Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you."
Thad's shoulders hit the wall behind him. He felt his hands shaking and tried to steady himself. He had to run. He had to be ready to run.
The man kept moving unsteadily forward. He was filthy, covered in some slimy gunk that stank worse than shit. Thad gagged as the man drew closer. "Don't be afraid," the man said again. "There's someone you need to meet." The man reached for him.
Thad bolted sideways, slamming into him, trying to create an opening for himself in the narrow alley, but to no avail. The man grabbed Thad roughly by the back of his shirt. "That's no way to behave," he said right into Thad's ear.
Thad tried to protest, but he felt his collar choking him. Then his feet left the ground, a sensation of falling, of flying, of being thrown. He'd felt this before. Teleport! he realized. The man had Teleported him.
The aether whirled around him, stilled again. He felt his ears pop, his stomach drop. He gagged, both from the sensation and from the smell of the man, so close, but he didn't throw up as he had that time with Jack. He couldn't throw up. He had to run.
He looked around. Buildings. Another alley. They were still in the city. He could hear more people ahead of him, a street there. He struggled, but the man held his shirt. "Steady now," the greasy man said. "We're not done yet."
"Yes, we are!" Thad cried. The man held his shirt, but his hands were free. He could feel the aether moving as he reached for his sword, could feel the next Teleport starting as he drew it. The world dropped out from under him again, flying, falling. He held his sword, struggled to swing it when it felt like forces beyond his control would rip it from his hands. He stabbed wildly at the figure behind him.
The greasy man cried out, and the whirling aether slammed to a halt. Thad fell hard. People gasped. He still gripped his sword, and when he pulled it free it shone wet and red. The man cried out again.
They were on a busy street. Thad recognized it. He was near the west gate. People were screaming, running away. "Help me!" he cried, but no one stopped. He skittered to his feet. The greasy man reached for him again, and Thad felt the aether move, but he kicked the man in the face, right in his injured nose, and kept running. "Someone help me!" he called, running as fast as he had ever run, making straight for the west gate guardhouse. When he burst through the door, screaming, sword in hand, the guards there leaped up, drawing their own weapons. "Help me!" he cried again. "Please, someone help me!"
"Stand down!" a man barked. "It's Lord Orin's boy!"
"Is that blood?" another said.
"What's happened?"
"Black mage!" Thad cried. "There's a black mage!"
He was shoved aside as guards poured out the door. Only one remained behind, pressing him gently into a chair, pulling at his bloody sword. "You're alright, lad. We've got you. You're alright. You can let go."
He nodded, but he couldn't make his hand work. The guard had to pry his fingers loose. He blacked out the second the hilt left his hand.
It was nearly midday by the time Kane and the others walked through the lower town toward the guardhouse where Gabriel's investigation team was stationed. Gabriel had wanted to go at dawn, first thing, before a fresh batch of guards showed up to keep an eye on them, but Harvey had been slow to rouse and slower still getting ready.
"Gods above and below!" Gabriel snarled, almost fidgeting with the apparent effort of slowing his steps as they passed through a sparsely crowded market. "Must you walk slowly as well? At this rate, the commander will be out for lunch by the time we arrive!"
Harvey, who had been swift enough at sneaking out of the Quincey townhouse without alerting their guards, as quick as the Quincey brothers themselves, pretended to pout. "But Gabriel, it would be a crime to hurry on a day like this!"
Logan nodded. "This weather is perfect. It's more like spring than summer."
Kane frowned. Though the day was the coolest he had experienced during his stay in Melmond so far, he wouldn't go so far as to say it was perfect. Stifling, perhaps. Humid. Oppressive. Gray and wet with clouds obscuring the sun. It wasn't raining at the moment, but Kane was soaked anyway; sweat clung to his skin without going anywhere, leaving him sticky and irritable.
Gabriel's irritability matched his own, though for other reasons. "I thought you had to get to work?" the sergeant said to Logan.
"And I will," the older Quincey replied evenly. "I just wanted to see this through first." As they left the market behind, the thin crowd, surprisingly, grew no thinner. Even when they came to a residential area, they still had to weave around children playing in the streets, old men gossiping on their porches, and a number of Melmond guards walking the streets in pairs and looking suspiciously at every person they passed. Logan scowled up at the rundown wood and plaster buildings. "How much farther is this place?"
"Not far," Gabriel said, unhelpfully.
"You've never been to the cathedral guardhouse before?" Kane asked.
"No," Logan scoffed. "Why would I have? I almost never come to town in the first place. It would hardly be fitting my station to spend my time in the lower town when I do."
"Just what are you trying to say?" Gabriel growled. A guard glanced their way at the sound of his raised voice but seemed to dismiss them when he saw Gabriel's uniform.
"Don't start that again," Harvey said, pushing Gabriel ahead of him so that he was between the brothers. "Worse than children, you two. It's up one more street and left at the corner, Logan, where that red-tiled roof is."
"How could you possibly know that?" said Gabriel. "When have you ever been here?"
"You mean he didn't come here with you?" said his brother.
"Of course not! What kind of idiot drags the future Lord of Melmond along to the lower town, Logan?"
"Gentlemen!" Harvey said, sighing overdramatically. "I do have other idiot friends capable of dragging me into disreputable places besides the two of you! It just so happens one of them used to live around here. You remember Moore, don't you? The gardener? I visited his flat a few times."
Logan muttered, "Gods, he really is friends with everyone," but Gabriel grew quiet.
The quiet made it easier to hear the noises ahead. They turned the corner and there was the guardhouse ahead of them, surrounded by a great crowd. Common folk clustered here and there around the building, some angry and yelling, a few seeming only curious, and most of the rest looking frightened. Guards came and went through the heavy wooden doors, some in uniforms like Gabriel's and others in the gray-trimmed affairs that the Avenue Inspectors wore. "What are they doing here?" Gabriel grumbled.
"Maybe Malcolm called them in as reinforcements?" Harvey said, for the guards were clearly outnumbered.
"Kill him!" someone shouted, and another, "Let's see him dead!"
"How can anyone know they're safe with them mages mucking about?" said another voice.
"For the last time," an Avenue Inspector shouted above the din, addressing the restless throng. "The mage has been captured! You're in no danger! Return to your homes, before the rain comes pissing on us!" As if on cue, a few scant raindrops flecked the ground as the drizzle started up again.
"A mage?" Kane said, immediately worried for Jack.
Gabriel grabbed a Melmond guard passing by at that moment. "Geoffrey! What in Titan's name is going on?"
The guard seemed startled but recovered quickly. The silver insignia pin on his collar indicated he was also a sergeant, and he addressed Gabriel with the familiarity as befitted someone of equal rank. "Gabriel? What are you doing here? I thought Leiden had pulled you for duty at the house?"
"He did. I just came to see the commander about something. But what's going on?"
"You haven't heard yet?" the other sergeant said. "Word is, the Brotherhood tried another one of their murders last night, but the son of Titan was there and stopped the ritual!"
Kane gasped, worried anew. Father?
Gabriel looked at him, shaking his head for quiet, then looked back at Geoffrey. "Was Lord Carmine alright?"
"Sure," the other guard went on, "but there were five men dead at the end of it, only one of them ours. One of the dark mages escaped and we've been looking for him all morning, but a runner from the west gate says they've caught him."
"Thanks, Geoffrey." Gabriel turned to the others. "Come on."
"You'll never get to him!" Geoffrey called. "Commander's swamped with this mess. Half the Lords' Council's been through here already. You'd be better off waiting for another time." He gave a casual salute, then turned and slipped into the crowd, off on whatever errand he'd started on. Some of the mob had already peeled off and wandered away, but most were still milling around.
Gabriel watched the other sergeant go then looked at the busy guardhouse door. "Alright," he said to three of them. "You lot wait out here."
"In the rain?" Kane said, grimacing.
"Yes," said Gabriel, though he shrugged apologetically. "I'll move faster on my own, and if I can't get to the commander, I might at least be able to snag the unsolved case files from the outer farms. That will give us a place to start."
Logan nodded. "Go."
Gabriel pushed through the crowd and went inside.
A fat raindrop hit Kane's face, the first and only indication he had that the sky was about to open up and pour on them.
"Gods damn it," Logan muttered.
"Over here," Harvey said, pulling them into the doorway of the nearest house as the rain picked up speed. "It won't last long! These summer rains never do."
A quarter hour passed. That same inspector came out to yell at the people again, and more seemed to take him seriously the second time, perhaps because of the weather. They wandered off in twos and threes, the curious and the frightened first. The angry ones waited stubbornly, becoming more bedraggled with every moment of the pouring rain.
Neither Kane nor his two companions said anything as they waited. Even in the shelter of the doorway, Kane was drenched. The drops seemed to come from everywhere, more like a wet fog than rain. The sky was one solid sheet of cloud from horizon to horizon, a white, sunless wall more depressing than darkness with its twinkling stars could ever have been.
Kane wondered at the last of the protesters, who remained in the middle of the street under no cover at all. Even the guards remained inside now, no longer moving in and out of the guardhouse doors on their various errands. Kane watched as one of the Avenue Inspectors stuck his head out the door and barked an order to one of the two guards posted outside. The door guard nodded and ran up the street, passing a drunk in a wine-stained shirt. The drunk reached out to him and stumbled, but the guard ran on without noticing.
"What's taking so long?" Logan asked. "I haven't got all day!"
"You could always go on to work," Harvey said. "Save the serious talk for another occasion?"
"Not a chance," Logan grumbled.
Kane only half listened. He was watching the drunkard stumble up the street, wondering if he should go and help the man along, when he saw the woman in the red dress. It was as if the rain had poured her into being. He would swear she hadn't been there a moment ago - he was sure he would have noticed her. Though she was clearly not a young woman, she was beautiful, tall and stately, with long, dark hair hanging damply past her waist. She walked gracefully past the drunk, whose wide eyes turned adoringly to follow her. Her red dress, though shabby and torn in places, clung wetly to every curve of her body.
There was a commotion from the crowd as some kind of fight broke out. Kane looked that way just as the last guard posted on the guardhouse door rushed in to intervene.
"Did you see that?" Logan asked. "Was he drunk?"
"Bit early in the day for drink, isn't it?" said Harvey.
Logan shrugged. "That's never stopped Victor before."
"What happened?" Kane asked.
"Oh, that man came in from over there and attacked that other fellow," Harvey said, pointing.
"Completely unprovoked, I think," said Logan. "He must have been drinking. He was unsteady on his feet."
"Huh, that's odd," said Kane, pointing the other way. "There was another drunkard over…" He trailed off. There was no one up the street. Both the other drunk and the woman in the red dress were gone.
The commotion in the crowd rose. Kane turned back, but he couldn't see anything through the mass of people. A man began to scream, "Get him off! Get him off!" Other people cried out in fear. The guard who had run into the fight drew his sword, but even before he raised it up, a spray of red cut through the rain. The man stopped screaming, but other people screamed in his stead. Some ran.
"Bloody hell!" Logan whispered.
"What was that?" Harvey asked. "Did he… Did he just kill-"
A moan sounded from up the street. Kane turned and saw the first drunk again, closer. Where had he come from? Something wasn't right. What Kane had taken for wine stains from a distance looked suspiciously like blood stains up close. The man's wide, unseeing eyes, were white and cloudy. Dead eyes.
It can't be, Kane thought. His father had told him about the south cape, about how the dead there didn't stay dead, but in retelling the events of his youth, Lord Redden had emphasized one point over all: the seals kept the roving dead imprisoned within the cave. Kane clung to that point now. They can't be here, he told himself. It's not possible.
But then those dead eyes turned to look at him and the creature - a young man once - opened its mouth and snarled like a rabid dog.
"Watch out!" Kane said, drawing his sword, shoving Harvey behind him just as the creature charged. It reached for his throat, heedless of his weapon and clumsy in its single-minded attack. Kane cut it down easily, his blade tearing diagonally through the thing's midsection as easily as carving a roast.
Harvey yelped in surprise. "Ye gods! You've killed him!"
"He was already dead!" Kane said. The thing at his feet, which definitely should have been dead now considering Kane had almost cut it completely in half, snarled at Harvey, pulling itself forward with its arms but leaving its lower body behind. Harvey yelped once more as Kane sliced downward, severing its neck. His blade came out clean. There was no blood at all, despite the severity of the wounds. "See?"
"H-how?" Harvey sputtered.
Another scream. Kane looked toward where the crowd had been. Only the lone guard remained now, facing off against the other creature while its first victim lay unmoving in the street. Kane watched as the unfortunate guard stuck his sword clear through his unnatural opponent and the dead man, unslowed by the blade, kept coming, bearing the screaming guard to the ground.
"No time! Come on!" Kane said as he rushed forward.
A hand reached for him out of the rain. He just had time to see another pair of milky, dead eyes in a snarling face before Logan's sword flashed into view, breaking the dead man's head like an egg. Logan nodded to Kane, and the two of them hurried onward with Harvey close behind.
Kane reached the creature first, kicking it off of the struggling guardsman. The movement knocked the guard's sword loose; it squelched into the mud nearby. Logan swung at the creature as it fell, the arc of his sword flinging raindrops, but though his cut laid the thing open from shoulder to hip, it only growled and feebly reached out for him. Logan skipped free of its grasp, shouting as he brought his sword up and down again repeatedly in a panicked frenzy. It took multiple hits before the creature stopped moving.
Harvey knelt on the muddy ground beside the guard. "Are you alright?" he asked. "Let me see."
The guard held his hand over a wound in his shoulder; blood soaked his uniform around it. "You're… you're Lord Leiden!"
"Yes, hello," Harvey said casually, as though he were greeting the guardsman at a summer party rather than crouched in the mud during a rainstorm. "Now let's see that gash."
The wounded guard nodded and gave in.
The rain eased back down to a trickle. In the comparative quiet, Kane heard screaming from other streets. There was a low sound that might have been thunder, but it made the hair on the back of Kane's neck stand on end and he knew it was the piteous moaning of more of those creatures. "Something's coming!" he said.
"Harvey, get inside!" said Logan.
"This man is hurt!" Harvey said. "He's lost a lot of blood!"
Logan cursed, stooping to help the injured guardsman to his feet. He and Harvey held him between them.
There was a shuffling from behind them. A figure stumbled towards them, moaning, arms outstretched. There was blood on its hands. Kane readied his sword, putting himself between the creature and his companions, but then he became aware of more movement off to his left. Surrounded! he thought, trying to angle himself so that he could see both creatures at once.
But the second figure wasn't one of the creatures. It was the woman in the red dress. "Get away from here!" Kane called. "It isn't safe!" He turned back toward the snarling creature, dodging its clumsy lunge at him. He punched it, splitting his knuckles open on its bared teeth. It fell backward from the force of that blow. It shrieked in anger, struggling to rise again from the muddy, rain-slick streets. Kane put his sword through one of its murderous eyes.
He turned to catch up with his friends, but they hadn't moved, not one step from where they'd been before. The woman in the red dress was still there as well, and Harvey and Logan stood staring at her as though transfixed. The guard they held between them was limp and ashen-faced, his head lolling to the side.
"My son," the woman said.
Kane froze. That voice seemed to enter his head without passing through his ears. It had been a quiet voice, but it hurt as much as a shout to his eardrum. It blocked out all other sound - the diminishing rain, the screaming from the next street over - until there was nothing but that voice.
"Where is my son?" she said, and the voice buzzed against the inside of Kane's skull.
Her skin was pale, her hair dark. She was unbearably beautiful. She was terrifying. She wasn't one of the creatures, Kane knew, but something worse. He couldn't name this cold feeling, this bone-deep instinct that told him here was a predator, but he felt it, and he felt it keenly. He tried to bring his sword around, to slice the woman down, but he couldn't move, couldn't so much as blink.
She stepped toward Logan, and the big man stared slack-jawed at her. She ran her hand through his tawny hair, down the side of his broad face, and he stood as unresponsive as though he'd turned to stone. The woman looked at him as though she had trouble seeing him, as though she were nearly blind, but then her eyes narrowed in anger. "You are not my son," she said. She backhanded him, and he flew sideways as though he were a child's toy tossed aside rather than a grown man. He hit the ground hard and didn't rise.
"No!" Harvey called, his concern for his friend overcoming whatever spell the woman had put on him. He reached for Logan, but with his other arm he now held the unconscious guard on his own and it was clearly too much for him. He struggled against the weight, but he wouldn't drop the man and run. Kane tried to go to him, but he still couldn't move.
"Son?" she said, and Kane could hear the hope in that word even through the harsh resonance of the woman's voice. "Are you… my son?"
Harvey shook his head, but weakly, as though he moved with difficulty. Kane could see the moment the woman's powers took hold and left him unable to move again. His grip on the unconscious soldier slackened; the man slumped to the ground and fell over.
"My son," the woman said, opening her arms, pulling Harvey into a loving embrace. She opened her mouth impossibly wide, and when she did, Kane saw that her teeth were the fangs of a wild beast, pointed and sharp and nightmarishly long. Harvey was powerless. The woman - the monster! - would tear out his throat while Kane watched.
No! he thought. I can't let this happen! He tried to move again, tried to raise his sword. If he could only raise his sword, that would be enough! He focused on that, that one thing, willing his blade to move. The woman lowered her head to Harvey's neck. No! Kane thought defiantly. No! No! No! And then that one word broke free, forcing itself between his stiff lips, from a throat that ached, until he growled, "No!" just loud enough that those terrible dark eyes turned to look at him.
The woman regarded him curiously, her head cocked, as though she were trying to recall something, something she had known a long time ago. She let Harvey go, and the blond lordling fell in a heap at her feet. She stepped toward Kane, looking him up and down. He could feel his heart pounding in terror, the urge to fight or to flee surging through him, but he could no more move than he could fly. He focused on his sword; he could feel it in his hand, could feel his grip on the hilt. Had his hand moved, or had he only imagined it?
The woman was closer now. Those eyes, those dark eyes, glowed with aether, but those teeth… Kane couldn't stop looking at those teeth. They made her lisp just a little as she said, "It's you… Sssson… of… Titaaannnn…"
The rain stopped. The last drops of it fell from Kane's hair into his eyelashes and he blinked them away. He could blink. He could blink! He focused on his hand, on his sword, felt his muscles tense and twitch. Move! he told himself. Move, damn it!
"Harvey?" Gabriel's voice called. "Harvey!" Kane heard the sound of running feet.
The woman's head whipped around. The moment she broke her gaze, Kane was free. He swung, putting everything he had into the strike, certain that if he missed he would never get another. His sword whiffed through empty air; the woman had turned to smoke. She reappeared instantly, facing Kane, baring those horrible teeth and hissing like a snake, only to disappear again immediately as Gabriel's sword sliced through the air where she stood.
The smoke billowed and shifted, reforming several feet away. The woman hissed in anger and defiance.
"What in hell is that?" Gabriel demanded, as more guardsmen poured from the guardhouse. They gathered beside the sergeant, beside Kane, facing down the snarling woman who no longer appeared beautiful with her too-wide mouth and too-sharp teeth.
The woman roared, a primal, guttural sound…
And then the clouds parted just enough that the sun shone through.
The roar became a scream. The woman became smoke again, melting into the shadows of the dilapidated buildings. For a time, Kane thought he could still see her, a darker patch of shadow fleeing from the light, but then she was gone. The shadows were merely shadows, and all that was left of the woman was the echo of her scream. It lasted far longer than it should have.
Author's Note: 3/2/18 - The new Dissidia Final Fantasy is great. I think… I don't know for sure. I'm actually terrible at fighting games. I've always been terrible at fighting games, going all the way back to when I was playing them in arcades and there were true financial consequences for failure. I put quarter after quarter into Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat and Tekken; I never improved. And yet… Dissidia! It has "Final Fantasy" in the title! The videos on SE's YouTube channel looked so pretty! How could I say no?
I'm struggling through it, but it's not exactly a hardship. The various Final Fantasy characters are some of my favorite fictional people. I fell in love with the oldest ones when they were nothing more than pixelated boxes, based on their stories alone. Now, with Dissidia, they look like real people! With voices! They're. All. So. Pretty.
Except Kefka. He's creepy af.