(Updating every two weeks through May)

Chapter 114: Daunted

Alma Beoulve was in Hell again.

She had fought, when Vormav reached for her the second time. Held tight in Celia and Lettie's iron grip, she had fought like a feral cat, twisting and clawing and hissing and spitting. As night had settled over Limberry Palace, and Vormav had strode towards her, she had flailed with all her strength, and gathered all her magic-

And none of it had been enough. She had not bucked her captors. And when Vormav laid his hand upon her, palm upon her forehead and fingers in hair, all her snapping, biting, and cursing, had not been enough.

"The dress," Vormav said, absently. "We'll need as complete a picture as we can for Ramza Beoulve. Perhaps he might see a trace of her in it."

Celia and Lettie tore at the dress. The moment she was naked, nightmare darkness and golden light burned together in Vormav, hollowed him out and pulled him into his depths with whirlpool force...and pulled her along with him.

Hell. The same shrieking noise, threatening to drown her. Bursts of fragmented memory, of foreign feeling and strange, bodiless pain. The shock of it drove every thought from her but terror, and she clung to the hateful sun that had brought her into the crimson-taintedmaelstrom, just as she had once clung to a wild chocobo plunging over the hills outside Igros.

But only for a moment. In the memory of an old man wheezing to his death from Choking Plague, as her mother had once wheezed, she found her anger again.

They had kept her imprisoned, and released her only to torment her. They had kidnapped her as bait for her brother, only to strip her naked and whisk her away. Now they plunged her back into hell, and expected her to be so cowed that she did not fight back?

She willed, and her will had force, it had power and focus and clarity, she gathered scarlet light to her like she would gather magic, nd in the maelstrom of shrieking thoughts the golden sun suddenly spun back towards her.

Careful, girl.

Heat, light, and force engulfed her, as though she were being drowned in flames. But worse than of those was the alien will that squeezed down on her, so she splintered like a twig in a powerful grasp.

Everything went black.

How long she drifted in the darkness, she wasn't sure. She had a body again, but she only knew it because it felt like a leaden weight, heavier even then her eyelids. Voices reached aching ears, reverberated across a head that pounded as though hungover.

"-cleared most of the upper floors, there's no sign of him," said a young, nasally voice. It aggravated the pounding migraine in her temples.

"I told you he would be farther down." Alma went stiff as a board at Vormav's voice.

"The wards there are old, and very strong."

"Too much for you?"

"Please," the younger voice scoffed. "But it takes time and preparation.."

"For you, perhaps. Watch her."

There was the sound of a door opening and closing. Alma remained where where was laying for a few more minutes, as someone moved somewhere else in the room. Part of it was caution: she didn't know what new captivity she'd find when she opened her eyes, and wanted to take a moment to gather what information she could. Part of it was pain: that hungover feeling, except the migraine went deeper than her temples, almost to her skull.

"You can stop pretending to be asleep."

Alma's heart stuttered in her chest. The nasal voice sounded amused. "Most of us aren't bad at reading magic fields, and the difference between waking and sleeping is obvious if you know what you're looking for. I was gonna make tea, if you want any."

Alma managed to slit her eyes. She was in some kind of cottage—most of it one enormous room, with only little suggestions of walls to delineate the difference between spaces. Just in front of her was a little dinning room, with a kitchenette tucked off to one side. The man with the nasal voice was leaning against the kitchenette wall, a satin red tunic tucked into well-worn trousers. Leaning against the wall beside him, within easy reach, was a staff so thickly inscribed with runes that it seemed to shine and sparkle and move like the ocean under bright sunlight.

"Who are you?" Alma asked, propping herself up the plush bed where was was laying (and wincing as the pounding in her head intensified with movement).

"Me?" The man smiled. "No one of consequence. Just a humble mage in service to the Templars." His voice was insufferably smug. "Cletienne Duroi."

He bowed. Alma stared at him. His smile flickered.

"Cletienne Duroi," he repeated. "The first man to field more than one Summon in battle since the days of the Ydorans. The first man to claim the title of Archmage since the death of Elidibus. That Cletienne Duroi."

Alma frowned. "I...think I heard you mentioned at a party, once..."

"Once!" Cletienne scoffed. He had snatched his staff off the wall and stalked past the dining room table towards her. "The man whose name will eclipse Elidibus! The man who will reignite the sun of Ydoran ingenuity, and inspire a new golden age! Once!" He scowled. "Wasting too much time on nothing assignments like this..."

"Guarding me's a nothing assignment?" Alma asked, as a plan formed in her mind.

"Oh, yes. Here." Absently, he tossed her his rune-laden staff. Alma was so startled that she almost dropped it. Even as she fumbled to keep it in her hands, she felt its power thrumming in her hand. Excitement burned at the base of her heart: with this-!

"Now, I've heard you've some talent with spells yourself," Cletienne said, close to the foot of the bed. "Hit me with your best-"

Alma was already swinging the staff. Offensive spells were not commonly taught at Igros Prepatory Academy, but she'd learned enough from Simon to be dangerous. Turn the old defensive ward to offense, a shout of light and force that could knock a man off his feet, but with the staff in her hand she could do more than, she felt her power reverberate into the staff and magnify within it, she thought she could knock the damn building down.

Light exploded from her, burst towards Cletienne like a comet. He held up one hand, and the smug look on his face vanished as the force of it hit him: he skidded backwards, the light flexing around him, she felt him pulling at it and trying to unweave her spell but she was already swinging again, another burst of bright force, she'd tear this building down and escape, she'd tear down all these rotten bastards-!

But when she swung her staff again, she saw that the light around Cletienne had not faded. It had condensed, cooled, swirled into a delicate, cat-like shape in front of him, and when her next spell tore loose from her staff the vulpine figure was already leaping towards her, the light within it swelling and shifting into a crimson point at the crest of its head. It caught the light, turned it back on her, wrapped it tight around her: the force of the rebound ripped the staff from her hand, and knocked her off the bed.

"Better than I expected!" Cletienne said cheerfully, as he plucked his staff from the ground and hurried to help her up. "I can see how you broke Zalmour's spell!"

Alma let him pull her to her feet and put her back to bed. She let him bustle around the kitchen, and mutely accepted the mug of tea he brought her a few minutes later. Her eyes flickered to the staff that lay just outside the kitchenette...and the fox-like creature made of wispy light, sitting at casual attention just in front of it.

That staff had power like nothing she'd ever held in her hand before. The spell she'd unleashed with it, rough and unready as she had been, had been the strongest she'd ever cast. And it had amounted to nothing.

"What..." She started, gesturing vaguely towards the four-legged creature.

"Carbuncle," Cletienne said, sitting down at the dining room table and sipping at his own tea. "I suppose you understand your position now?"

"Yes." Alma didn't want to nod, lest she make her migraine worse. Any thought of defiance was a mere ember down: she was so hopelessly outmatched.

Cletienne nodded, and snapped his fingers. The figure of light dissolved, and the light drifted mist-like back to Cletienne, shimmering through his skin. He leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh.

"What...was it?" Alma asked.

"A Summon," Cletienne replied. "A spell, given special shape and form, that can fight like a living thing." Another insufferable smile. "I can't blame you for being unfamiliar. It was mostly considered a dead art...until I brought it back to life."

There was a very small part of Alma that wanted to ask more questions. Magic had always fascinated her: she played with every scrap of it she was taught at the Preparatory Academy, pushed Simon to teach her spells known only to Inquisitors. She was not bad with a sword, as Agrias had told her...but she had not been trained the way she needed to be trained, if she wanted to be a legend like her father. Magic promised freedom, and power, and opportunity. And Alma was good at it.

But not good enough. Never good enough. Razma could face heroes, villains, and demons. Alma couldn't.

So a small part of her wanted to ask Cletienne more about this lost, powerful art he wielded with such aplomb. But the rest of her was too exhausted, too broken, to do anything but stare, and drink her tea.

She sipped at the cup in her hand, and barely tasted it. Cletienne watched her. His brow furrowed—first in annoyance, but then that passed, and something else took its place. He looked out the window, then back to her. "Are you up for a walk?"

Alma shrugged. Once, the hope of escape would have occurred to her. But every time she started to hope, that hope was crushed.

When they had finished their tea, Cletienne picked up his staff, and pushed open the heavy wooden doors. Alma followed automatically. She felt stretched and thin, as though she'd just recovered from a long illness and wasn't quite herself yet. Everything she saw seemed dim and distant, as though her mind were much farther away from her body than normal.

The little stone house she stepped out from was nestled between rolling green hills, baking warm beneath golden afternoon sun. Somewhere nearby Alma could hear the ocean muttering to itself in long, slow waves. "This way!" Cletienne called over his shoulder, leaning on his staff as he soldiered up a nearby hill. The little voice in Alma's head wondered if she should run: she ignored it, and trudged along behind him.

But the sight at the top of the hill cleaved through defiance and indifference alike. The ocean shimmered beyond the jagged cliffs in front of her, gleaming and glittering in the bright sunlight. Far to the south rose a towering lighthouse, with a dim flame flickering at its apex. Alma frowned: the lighthouse looked familiar.

"That's..." She started, thinking back to a detour she'd bribed her escort to make on her way from Orbonne to Igros. "That's Midnight's Deep."

"You know it?" Cletienne looked pleased.

"Elidibus' tomb, right?"

"Among other things."

Alma cocked her head at Cletienne. "Other things?"

Cletienne gestured back to the house. "This whole place used to be an Ydoran outpost. Obliterated during the Fall. But parts of it survived. The cottage uses the old plumbing system. Midnight's Deep was built over something else."

Alma had never heard this, just like she'd never heard of Summons. But her usual fascination with magic felt oppressive now. Everything she learned would be another reminder of how absolute her captivity was. How long since Orbonne now? How long had she spent in someone else's clutches?

All your life.

"Something else?" she prompted, to escape her claustrophobic thoughts.

"Labyrinthos." Cletienne pronounced the word with evident relish. "An Ydoran project, to see if they could create a natural world entirely on their own terms. As far as we can tell, they succeeded...though obviously the project took some damage, during the Judgment."

Alma frowned. "What do you mean...natural world?"

Cletienne gestured around them. "Earth, made fertile by magic. A sea, driven by the same." He pointed towards the sun high in the sky. "Even an artificial sun."

Alma shook her head. "That's impossible." But even as she said it, she wondered. As Vormav had told her, teleportation was not as impossible as she'd imagined. Who knew what wonders the Ydorans might have achieved?

"Not impossible," Cletienne breathed. "But difficult, oh yes. Even for the Ydorans."

Alma looked up at the sun, and was reminded of Vormav's terrible form. She looked away, swallowing against the dryness of her throat. "Why would they do that?"

"Two reasons." Cletienne ticked off his fingers. "The first is military, of course. Imagine a fortress that could never fall, because it could grow its own crops, provide its own water...a truly impregnable fortress, stronger even than Bethla Garrison."

Alma nodded, and looked back at Cletienne. "What's the second?"

"Utterly fantastical," Cletienne said, grinning. "There were Ydorans who dreamed of building airships that might fly higher than the sky, and reach the distant stars..." He pointed upwards. "...and they figured they would need a way to provide for those who might make such an impossible voyage."

Alma could not bring herself to look at the sky again. Her heart and mind shrunk back from what Cletienne was saying. She felt small enough beside Cletienne and Vormav. How much smaller could she be, thinking of what others had accomplished, and dreamed of?

"Think how far we've fallen," Cletienne sighed, staring up into the blue sky. "Where one empire plied the skies, we plod along the ground. We live on table scraps among the ruins, and think ourselves lucky." His voice had changed, somewhere between witsful and outraged. "We must do better."

"And that's why you work with demons?" Alma asked.

Cletienne shrugged. "Call the Lucavi what you will. But they make the impossible more possible than it's been in my lifetime. They can restore this world to glory, and more."

"You haven't seen what I've seen," Alma whispered.

"Do you mean Hashmalum?" Cletienne asked. "Or the Maelstrom?"

A distant flicker of surprise, as they looked out over the hills to Midnight's Deep. She looked briefly at Cletienne, whose smug smile had returned.

"Are you one of them?" she asked.

Cletienne shook his head. "Not yet, at any rate. Vormav seems to think I lack the proper character for it." He shrugged. "Not sure I need to be anymore powerful than I am, anyways."

No, perhaps not. All her strength, amplified by that staff in his hand, and he'd bent it to his will with barely any effort. All that without even being a Lucavi.

When he led her back to the cottage, she didn't complain. She only took one brief look over her shoulder, at the towering lighthouse, and the secret wonders buried beneath. The whole world felt like that to her now: even the most impressive spectacles concealed daunting depth and breadth.

It was a few hours later when the door to the cottage pushed open, and Vormav strode inside. His armor was dented in one place, and there was dust in his greying hair. Alma flinched from her place at the table, her hand clutching at the knife Cletienne had given to cut the dried meat.

"Any luck?" Cletienne asked, grinning up at Vormav from his place on the sunken couch.

"Some," Vormav replied, as he unbuckled his armor and laid it beside the door. "The first ward is an old Ydoran security spell. I can break that easy enough. But somehow it's been interwoven with the second. Try to break either spell, and you risk..."

He trailed off. Cletienne was smiling that smug smile. Vormav arched his bushy eyebrows. "You knew."

"Me?" Cletienne put a hand to his chest in faux-disbelief. "What could I possibly know, compared to your daunting command of the Ydorans arts?"

Vormav glowered at him. "You wasted my time-"

"Don't," Cletienne scoffed. "I told you that I could bring down the spell, and that it would take time and preparation. You were the one who ran off before I could explain why."

Stormy anger crossed Vormav's face for a moment...then dissipated. His nostrils flared. "Quite right," he admitted. "I allowed my pride to get the better of me. Apologies, Cletienne."

Cletienne shrugged. "I honestly hoped you might fare better than I." He paused, and smiled. "But the second ward...you saw how it was woven, yes?"

"It's his," Vormav agreed.

"I thought so." He clapped his hands together. "Ah, this is terribly exciting." He stood up. "I have supplies coming into town. Should be what we need to get through the ward."

He bowed to Alma and Vormav both, and left the cottage. Vormav stared after him, his lips pursed thoughtfully.

"You seem to have accepted your captivity," Vormav remarked, without looking back at her.

Alma shrugged. "I can't even get past him. Don't think I've got much chance of getting past you."

"Mmm." He looked back at her. "Are you hungry?"

She gestured with her knife at the meat in front of her. "He already fed me."

"Thirsty, then?" He looked briefly around the cottage. "I believe there's a bottle of whiskey somewhere around here."

"You drink?" she asked.

"While I'm in human form, I have human limits." Vormav paused. "Well. More human limits, at any rate."

"I'd prefer not to drink with the man who attacked me," Alma said softly.

"Suit yourself." Vormav reached below a table in the salon, and pulled out a dark glass bottle. He strode past Alma to the kitchenette to look for a glass.

"Your brother spent some time here, you know."

Alma started. "What?"

Vormav found a glass, and returned to the table. "This was Geoffrey Gaffgarion's cottage. Your brother came here to recover, after Zeakden." He poured himself a generous measure of golden whiskey from the dark glass bottle.

That silenced her for a moment. She remembered Teta, and felt her heart clench in her chest. Ramza, Delita, Reis, and Beowulf had marched off to war, to rescue their kidnapped friend from the clutches of the Death Corp. Only Beowulf and Reis had returned, and she hadn't even known that much for months. How long she'd waited for any word of what had become of them.

She missed them. Teta. Delita. Reis. Ramza.

Alma shook her head against her pain "So...what are we doing here?"

"It's convenient for our purposes." He took a seat across from her, glass in hand. "There's something we need in Midnight's Deep."

"A Zodiac Stone."

The corners of his mouth twitched up in the suggestion of a smile. "Exactly right."

"To make another Lucavi?" she asked. "Like you intend to do to me?"

"And who says we intend to make a Lucavi out of you?" Vormav replied.

She glared at him. "You and the Marquis-"

"I assure you, neither of us mentioned anything about making you a Lucavi." Vormav sipped at his drink. "Messam wanted to see if you would join our cause." He made a short grunt, almost a chuckle. "I knew better. You're too much like your brother."

No she wasn't. Ramza had already killed one of these things, and fought his way out of more dangers than she could imagine. Alma couldn't fight anyone.

"And you're nothing like your son," Alma said softly, remembering Izlude as she'd last seen him alive: bold and determined and sure, trusting her with the Virgo Stone as he raced back into danger.

Vormav shrugged. "It seems not."

Alma looked at her craggy-faced captor, and remember the lion-headed monster hiding beneath his skin. She remembered the blood dripping from his hand, and Izlude's pulped skull. She clutched at the edge of the table, reached for her magic-

And the anger went out of her again, remembering how easily she had been bested, and overpowered, and overwhelmed. Over and over and over.

"What do you want?" she whispered.

"A better world," Vormav replied, and took another sip from his drink.

"And that's why you killed your son?"

Vormav gave another almost-laugh. "You think wielding his death like a cudgel will hurt me?" he asked. "You think a man who could kill his own son would be hurt by you reminding him of what he did?" He set his glass back down on the table. "I am not the first man to lose a son to an unworthy world. He is not even the first son I've lost to an unworthy cause. My aim—our aim—is build a world where no such sacrifices will ever be necessary again."

"As if that justifies what you've done," Alma spat.

"I'm not justifying anything," Vormav said. "I am a commander, fighting a war. In war, sacrifices must be made."

"Even Izlude?"

Vormav shrugged. "Most armies execute deserters and traitors."

Alma felt a flash of her old anger. "He loved you."

"And when the moment came, he struck at me." Vormav shrugged again. "So I struck him down. I intend to win this war, Alma Beoulve. Whatever the cost."

"What war?" Alma sneered. "The War of the Lions."

This time, Vormav actually laughed. It was a bleak, strange sound, like rocks grinding against one another: Alma almost cringed to hear it. "Hardly." He tapped the edge of his glass, and looked at her directly for the first time in their short conversation. Those flint-grey eyes showed no hint of emotion...but deep in that grey, Alma saw a flicker of the lion demon's gold. "My war will end all wars."

Alma stared at him. Her weary mind flickered back to the conversation at Limberry, before the dead servant had entered the room. The Marquis, speaking eloquently about what a Lucavi was: not a demon possessing some poor human, but a great blessing, enhancing the host and tying them together with myriad souls. He had wanted her to join his cause. This cause? This war to end all wars?

"If your cause was so noble, you would not have to hide it," Alma whispered.

Vormav shook his head. "The minds of men are too constrained by their experiences. They do not accept solutions that fall beyond their ken. Hell, even if they can understand such solutions, they fear them. Fear what doom they may spell, for the world they know." He gestured around them. "War consumes Ivalice, because one man cannot imagine a world beyond the nobility, and another cannot imagine relinquishing his family's claim to the throne. Perhaps half a million dead for their cause alone. Leaving aside every other vainglorious fool who has stained the land with blood these past millennia." He paused, lifted his eyes back to Alma. "Your own brothers have played no small part in that bloodshed."

Dycedarg, manipulating the war for his own ends. Zalbaag, who had given the order that ended Teta's life. Even Ramza, driving his knife into the Templar's throat outside of Orbonne. So much death.

"Still less than yours," Alma managed, though her voice trembled.

Vormav shrugged once more. "I knew my path was thick with blood. At least I have the consolation of knowing there will be no more bloodshed, when it is done."

Alma stared at the man for a long time. How could he do such monstrous things, and still seem so utterly serene?

"How?" she asked.

"Hm?"

"How," she said again. "How are you going to put an end to bloodshed?"

Vormav considered her a moment. His finger drummed on the edge of the glass again.

"I am not like the Marquis," he said. "I have no interest in converting you to my cause."

"You've been pretty talkative so far."

Vormav shrugged again. "One way or another, we will be spending the next few weeks together. I see no reason to be impolite."

The next few weeks. Alma felt that same sense of daunting scale, this time at time instead of space. Trapped, and there was nothing she could do to-

Someone screamed.

The scream was loud and terrible: it reminded her of the sounds of battle in the Beoulve Manor, when the Death Corps soldiers had come raiding. She had heard the screams of dying men before. But this scream was worse than that, louder and layered with voices, it seemed both far away and very close, it rang so loud and so deep she almost felt it in her head-

And she did feel it in her head, felt the screams and saw them, too, vibrations against the scars in her psyche left through her two nightmare plunges into hell, a scream like a vibration felt through water, and in the heat of that terrible scream she was pulled back towards hell, pulled back from her body so that vast crimson darkness loomed before her, the maelstrom of screaming souls, but this time there was no time for pain or terror because it wasn't just foreign memories, foreign thoughts, and foreign wills, this time there was something blazing in the distance, the scream given flame and form, a violet sun blazing in the scarlet-tinted darkness.

"AJORA!"

The desperation in that scream pulled tight at the hellish swirl around it, cast fragmented souls into sharp relief. Alma was surprised to find she knew the voice. It was the Marquis' voice, it was the Marquis' soul, she recognized it like she recognized the golden flame in Vormav, the same amethyst shadow that he had worn in front of her during their dinner.

It was the Marquis, and he was dying.

"SAVE...ME...!"

And with one final, terrible flicker, the violet star went out.

The red-shrouded hell fell away from her: she fell as though from a great height, and slammed back home into her mortal body. She trembled in her seat, felt bile in her throat. But she couldn't stop herself from smiling. And her smile only widened as she saw the disbelief on Vormav's face.

Disbelief, and just a hint of fear.

"I suppose you're right," Alma said. "My brother's more than a match for a monster like you."

Maybe Alma couldn't free herself. But that didn't mean she had no hope. Not while Ramza still lived.