(Starting Part 6. Some heavy personal stuff going on, so publishing may be a bit sporadic. I'll try and stick to a once-every-two-weeks schedule)

Chapter 132: To End All Wars

For long nights after Alma heard the Marquis' terrible scream, she nursed the look of shock on Vormav's face. It gave her hope, when the nights felt hopeless: it soothed her fears, when she was nearly terrified. Whatever Vormav was, and whatever he was planning, he was not omniscient, he was not invincible, he was not immortal. Ramza had killed Cardinal Delacroix, and Ramza had killed Marquis Elmdor, and Ramza could kill Vormav, too.

Ramza could. Alma could not.

The fact of her own weakness no longer shocked her: now it sat like a stone in her gut, an anchor that muted all her emotions, hope most of all.

She was never left alone. Either Cletienne or Vormav was always near-at-hand, while the other attended to whatever mysterious business kept them both occupied in Midnight's Deep. They were always happy to let her roam the nearby hillsides, though they kept her well back from the cliff that looked out over the churning sea to the lighthouse of Midnight's Deep.

Once, just for the hell of it, she decided to see how far she could get with Cletienne watching her. The earth in front of her exploded into black-brick arms, and a burly shape of black-soil skin hauled her back to the cottage, where Cletienne watched her with arched eyebrows.

She never tried with Vormav. She remembered the Maelstrom.

She awoke one morning to find a new man sitting at the kitchen table, sipping at a glass of water. He had an aquiline profile, somber eyes beneath a thin scattering of red hair. She stared at him while he sipped.

"You're new," she said.

"Only to you." He took another sip from his glass.

"You know who I am?"

He smiled thinly. "You are what we've been searching for."

A flash of annoyance. "So I've been told."

Neither of them spoke for a little while. He sipped at his glass. She stared at him.

"So...who are you?" Alma asked, when her annoyance had cooled and she decided that playing disinterested wasn't worth her time.

"Templar Loffrey Wodring."

"One of Vormav's Templars."

"Knight-Commander Tengille leads all Templars."

"Spare me." Alma shook her head. "You a Lucavi?"

Loffrey shook his head. "Not yet, at least."

Alma scoffed. "That's exactly what Cletienne said."

"Oh, what a stinging barb." Loffrey placed a hand on his chest. "Comparing me to that insufferable Archmage."

Alma almost smiled. She preferred Cletienne's company to Vormav's, but the man was so damn smug.

"In-fighting in the ranks?" Alma asked.

"Annoyance in the ranks."

"Not the same thing?"

Loffrey cocked his head. "I suppose it depends upon the degree of annoyance."

Alma laughed. She found she was enjoying Loffrey's company. Of her captors thus far, Loffrey was currently only second to Rafa.

A little worrying that I've been a captive long enough to start ranking captors.

"Why are you here?" Alma asked.

"To make a report to Vormav," Loffrey answered.

"And that report is...?"

A strange smile on Loffrey's gaunt face. "I prefer not to waste time where possible, Lady Beoulve. So I will refrain from making the report until he returns." He paused, then added, "Barring his express command, I am willing to let you listen when we make it."

It was Alma's turn to arch her eyebrows. "Not concerned with letting your prisoner know your plans?"

"If you are no longer our prisoner, I suspect we will have far more to worry about than whatever plans you know."

There it was again. First, the firmness of her prison bars—that none of her captors were the least bit concerned that she might somehow escape them. Second, her hopelessness—her captors were right to doubt her, they were so much more powerful than she was that she could make no contest of her own captivity. And third of all, dread and terror—that mysterious purpose they held for her. That purpose that involved the power of the Lucavi, and the Maelstrom...and something else entirely.

"I don't understand why you're willing to work with the Lucavi," she said.

Loffrey shrugged. "Not even the Lucavi are always willing to work with the Lucavi."

Alma frowned. "What?"

"You must have noticed that their personalities differ by now." Loffrey ticked off names on his fingers. "You met Elmdor, Vormav, Wiegraf-"

"Wiegraf was a Lucavi?"

Loffrey paused, and frowned for a moment. "Oh. Only after you met him." He took another sip from his glass. "Your brother killed him at Riovanes."

A glow of hope and pride in her chest. She had been horrified when she saw Ramza draw his knife across the Templar's throat. She was not horrified now. Her brother, the demon slayer. Cuchulainn, Wiegraf, the Marquis...he was even better than she hoped.

"You admire him."

Alma jerked upright. Loffrey was studying her, his head cocked to one side.

"He's doing a fine job killing you," Alma replied.

Loffrey shrugged. "Yes. He's quite a dangerous fellow."

Alma studied him a moment in turn. "You've...met him?"

Before he could answer, a key turned in the lock, and the heavy door swung open. Vormav entered the cottage, looking more human than usual. His eyes cast about until he found the Templar, already rising to meet him.

"Loffrey." Vormav clasped the other man about the wrist with unexpected warmth. "It's been too long."

"Thank you, Hashmalum." Loffrey smiled, and his face was warmer than Alma had seen it so far. "It is good to see you again."

They broke their grip and took seats opposite one another on the table. Neither looked towards Alma.

"I'm fresh from the Wastes," Loffrey said.

"You must be exhausted," Vormav answered.

Loffrey shrugged noncommittally. "The Foundry is running at full tilt. They succeeded in making the prototype."

Vormav's bushy eyebrows arched. "Did they?"

"You're surprised?"

"Even the Special Weapons Department never got it working."

Loffrey shrugged again. "Templar Fendsor is an able machinist, and he understood his assignment. He did not try to rig a bomb for offensive deployment, but as a defensive mechanism, like a mine. Then he had his real stroke of genius."

"Do tell."

"Every mine is part of a network of triggers. When one detonates, they all detonate. And if we stagger their locations correctly..." Loffrey's smile turned bloodthirsty. "We'll cover the Pass and the fortress. No one will survive."

Vormav's answering smile was wide and hungry: Alma could see echoes of the lion demon in it. "It will be enough."

"Enough for what?" Alma asked.

Vormav and Loffrey glanced towards her—Vormav's eyes were dismissive, but Loffrey's were thoughtful. "Enough to wipe out the Hokuten and the Nanten both," Loffrey said.

Alma gaped at him. "You...why would you...?"

"You should know by now, Alma Beoulve," Vormav answered, and looked back at Loffrey. "Would you mind taking a room in town? Try and fail to keep a low profile?"

Loffrey nodded. "What's our cover story?"

"To the public, we're agents of the Church investigating Midnight's Deep."

"And to the Church?"

"Chasing rumors of a Zodiac Stone."

Loffrey nodded. "I'll return in the morning."

They clasped arms again. Loffrey strode outside, and Vormav began preparing a meal in the kitchen. Alma glared after them both. What did he mean, she should know by now? That he wasn't going to tell her anything? No, that seemed wrong somehow...did he mean she should be able to piece it together, all on her own?

So she thought, as Vormav worked in the kitchen. When he emerged, it was with two plates, and a vegetable-heavy sandwich on each one. He set them down on opposite sides of the table. Wordlessly, she sat down, and took a bite. It was frustratingly good—there was some kind of dry meat in the middle, set off nicely with crisp lettuce and tomato, and while the bread was a little stale, Vormav had added some sweet sauce to soften it, and the sweetness blended neatly with the other flavors. Sh ate ravenously.

Neither of them spoke, as they ate. Alma was still thinking about what he'd said—just now, and three weeks ago, and at Limberry Palace.

"No more bloodshed," she said, as she brushed crumbs from her chin.

Vormav arched his eyebrows. "Do you feel like talking, Alma Beoulve?"

Alma laughed, "Do you?"

Vormav considered her a moment. "You speak of my goals?" Alma nodded, and Vormav nodded in turn. "Then yes. An end to bloodshed. An end to war."

Alma blinked at him. "How...how is that possible?"

"You should be able to piece it together."

Alma shook her head. "Killing the Hokuten and the Nanten might stop this war. It won't stop all wars."

Vormav mirrored her, shaking his head. "You see so little."

A flash of anger. It must have showed in her eyes: Vormav aimed a thin, cold smile at her. "You have been inside the Maelstrom, child."

Alma stared at him. Her skin felt tight and cold, and icy fingers squeezed her heart. Too well she remembered that nightmarish place into which Vormav had plunged her: a world of foreign thoughts and foreign memories, a tumult of churning agony tinged in crimson. Awful as Vormav's true face was—the lion with the mane like sunlight—the Maelstrom was more awful still.

"So what?" Alma asked, and hated how her voice trembled.

Vormav arched his bushy silvered eyebrows, but said nothing else. Alma glared at him as her thoughts raced.

"You're going to...use it, somehow?" Alma asked.

"No," Vormav replied. "That is not my place."

Alma shook her head. This was getting her nowhere. But she could still not bring herself to get up from the table. She was already trapped here. At least she could find out.

So. Think about what he'd said. An end to bloodshed, and when she asked how it was possible, he mentioned the Maelstrom, but denied that he would use. Which meant...

"Someone...else?" Alma asked.

"Hm?" Vormav did not look at her.

"Someone else," Alma repeated. "Someone else will use the..." She couldn't bring herself to finish. Her head was too full of the two nightmares she'd endured, flayed and filled with foreign thought.

Vormav nodded. "Yes."

"How?"

Vormav cocked his head. "Not who?"

Alma shook her head. "I already know who."

"Do you?"

"Me."

Vormav arched his eyebrows again. Alma stared steadily at him.

"You were set to kill me," she said, as the silence stretched. "Until I used the Virgo Stone. You're not going to make me a Lucavi. You're going to make me..." Her voice started to tremble, as the implications washed over. If she was right, the Maelstrom would boil through her veins, and then...

What?

Vormav smiled. "You are sharp, Alma Beoulve." He nodded. "Yes. You will be the one to host Ultima."

The word seemed to have a power all its own: it boiled in the air between them. Echoes of the Maelstrom and its nightmares seemed to hang in its every syllable.

Alma swallowed against the dryness in her throat before she spoke again. "But Ultima is...not a Lucavi?"

Vormav cocked his head to the side, considering her. "No," he said at last. "No, I would say not. They are as far apart from we Lucavi as we Lucavi are from ordinary men."

Alma managed a cold smile. "For beings so far above us, Ramza's doing a fine job killing you."

Vormav shrugged. "A man can die to a spider's bite, but it is not spiders who rule the world." He thought for a moment, and smiled again. It was an unpleasant smile, lazy with predatory power: again, she saw the lion demon that lurked beneath his skin. "I rather like this metaphor. Rare indeed is the spider that bests a man. If a man falls to a spider bite, it is the man who made the mistake. Too soft, too kind, too clumsy."

"All your fellow Lucavi?" Alma asked. "Too soft, too kind, too clumsy?"

Vormav nodded. "Cuchulainn always had a bad habit of playing with his food, and Zalera was showing too much of Elmdor." His brow furrowed. "This Belias had potential, but too little time to realize it." He shrugged again. "Their time will come again."

Alma watched the man in front of her. As she had in Limberry Palace, she felt the awful weight of time and power, pressing down upon her. This demon in the skin of a man, who spoke so casually of centuries and so dismissively of death...and he was only one among her powerful captors.

"Lucavi don't die?" she asked.

He laughed. "Not like humans do."

"Why?"

He reached inside his armor, and pulled out the golden Leo Stone. It burned in his hand, nearly as bright as Virgo had burned in hers. In the merry yellow light, his face warmed: he seemed a softer man than he had a moment ago.

But he was still her enemy. He was still the man who had killed Izlude. She would ask him questions, and learn what she could, for the day when she could finally free herself.

His flint eyes flickered up from the Stone in his hand. She met his gaze.

"All magic comes from the soul," he said. "But even with training, most souls cannot do much without help. You were skilled enough with your ring, and Cletienne tells me you made good use of his staff-" An odd twists in Vormav's mouth, as though he couldn't decide whether to smile or grimace. "-but you could not manage as much now, could you?"

Alma nodded slowly. Vormav held up the Stone in his hand. Its light quieted, so it was more like a shimmering liquid swirling in its crystalline depths. "Auracite is a tool of power like no other. The Ydorans mastered many magics, but none served them so well as the auracite. Its power imparts an imitation of life upon Workers: it ignited the flames that let airships ply the skies." He considered a moment longer, then looked up at her. "And it is the heart of a Lucavi."

Silence hung between them. Alma glanced between the Stone and Vormav. "The heart?"

Vormav nodded. "The power of the Stones is more immense than you can imagine." He set the Stone down on the table between them, and looked up. "If you jumped right now, you would not rise very high. That is gravity: a pull generated by the earth beneath your feet." He paused, then cocked a finger. "But birds can fly. So can dragons. So can airships. There are ways to twist the rules." He paused, then looked back down at the Stone. "But not forever. Nothing that flies in the sky can live there. It must return to earth."

Alma thought about this for a moment, staring at the Stone. Then she looked back up at Vormav. "The Lucavi...live in the Stone...and then live again through..." She gestured at him.

Vormav nodded again. "The power of the Stone lets us fly, higher than any. But we must return to earth eventually. That is death, to a Lucavi."

Still, her mind worked furiously. "So...so inside the Stone..." She thought of the Maelstrom, and its screaming souls. She pushed the thought away, along with the fear. She was starting to understand. "Every soul who's ever...been a Lucavi..."

Vormav nodded once more. The faintest smile on his face again, the echoes of the lion demon in its savage curve. "Even if every soul we were forged of was of the most ordinary stock, the power of a hundred souls would be formidable indeed. Add to that the power of the Stone..."

The weight pressed down on her again: the weight of time, and the weight of power. Like staring up at a towering mountain, and knowing how small you are beside it. Vormav was right: the Lucavi were so far apart from men. A hundred souls...

An abyss opened beneath her thoughts. Jagged frost filled her veins.

"And the Maelstrom..." Alma's voice was weak.

Vormav nodded one final time, and the smile on his face was wide and savage. "The souls of Ivalice's dead, united under Ultima's will. You will host our Bloody Angel." He leaned forwards, and the Stone burned bright in front of him, and light and darkness burned inside it, and inside him. She saw the shadow of the lion over him.

"An end to war," he said. "Because our god will not allow it."