(Updating every other Wednesday)
Chapter 138: Keeping On
I confess, I do not envy you. The life of a Machinist has never been easy. To contemplate feats that may never be replicated, like the Workers and the auracite. To strive to understand and maintain other marvels, like the self-sustaining magitek engines that powered Ydoran airships. Such engines require no fuel, for reasons the people in this room are better qualified to explain than I. But I know enough about such engines to be cautious of them. In inexperienced or overeager hands, such engines may be pushed to their breaking point. It is only with knowledge, with care, and with attention that such power may be safely used. Remember that, my friends. You are mighty engines of knowledge. Treat yourselves with the same kindness you treat the machines you study. Take the time to understand yourselves. And take the time to rest.
-Alazlam Durai, "Guest Lecture at the Machinist Academy in Goug"
They headed for Bethla Garrison, because they didn't know what else to do.
Mustadio had not slept. Ramza didn't know how he was still awake, still moving, still working, poring over the papers he'd taken from the Foundry, studying the half-completed mine and the other bits and pieces he'd managed to rescue from the ruin. He was looking for answers. Looking for hope.
But in a dead voice, he'd already given them the bad news. Everything Barich had told them was true. The trap was already set, and the enemy had a three day head start.
Ramza spent most of the day drifting in and out of consciousness. He was too weary, body and soul, to stay awake, but he was too anxious to stay asleep. He would drift into a drowsy dream, and the dream would become a nightmare (Teta, tumbling through the air, becoming a Lucavi wreathed in fire: Alma, running towards him, turning into the the rotting Alma from Limberry Palace with every step: rocks falling down around him, reducing Radia, Ovelia, and Mustadio to bloody paste), and he would jerk to groggy life once more. Every time, he saw Mustadio near him in the caravan, tinkering with the gun, or working on the engine, or studying the materials they'd taken from the Foundry. Then he would sink back into sleep.
But finally, Ramza could sleep no more. He blinked his aching eyes and lay in the rumbling caravan, staring up at the canvas ceiling and its lines of defensive runes. Pangs troubled him in his wrists, his biceps, his ankles: the knot of pain in his left thigh throbbed like a burning coal. When he turned his eyes to Mustadio, he found him idle for the first time, simply staring at the caravan's enormous engine column with a blank gaze.
"Mus?" Ramza's voice rasped through his dry throat.
Mustadio did not respond for a moment. Slowly, he pulled out a waterskin, and handed it to Ramza. Ramza sipped from it gratefully: the water was warm, and brackish, and blessedly soothing.
He lowered the waterskin, and looked back at his friend."You should rest."
Mustadio nodded. "I will."
He did not say anything else for a little while. Ramza felt himself drifting back towards sleep, and forced himself to sit up. He regretted it at once: a wave of darkness swamped the edges of his vision, and bile burned at the back of his throat. He closed his eyes, and fought not to vomit.
How long since he was this tired? Since Zeakden? Was that why he kept dreaming of Teta?
"Ramza." Mustadio was still staring at the engine. "How do you...do it?"
Ramza blinked. "Do...what?"
"Live with it."
Ramza was too tired to be shocked, but the question hit him in slow waves, like ripples against dry skin in a cold pool. He felt the nightmares around him again. Argus, and his killing arrow in Teta's neck; Argus, cursing in a pool of blood, with Ramza's sword in his back; Argus, with violet fire burning beneath his corpse skin, and apologies on his lips.
He swallowed, and took another sip from Mustadio's waterskin. "It's not the same."
"It is."
"You didn't kill him."
Mustadio shook his head. "He saved my life. Three times, he saved my life, and I-"
"Three times he pulled you out of a trap he set for you."
Mustadio shook his head. "We did not...we did not have to fight."
Ramza hesitated a moment. "No. We didn't." He swallowed again, as Gaffgarion's face flickered in his mind's eye. "But...he chose, too, Mus."
"And that...that is how you live with it?" Mustadio finally turned his blank eyes to Ramza.
Ramza hesitated. As tired as his body was, his mind felt strangely clear. "Part of it," he said, thinking of his conversation with Ovelia back at the Royal Resort, echoing Alma's chiding. "As much as I...I'm to blame...they're to blame, too. Argus...and Gaffgarion...and Wiegraf..." Each name stuck in his throat for a moment, threatening to choke him.
"But I still...chose," Ramza said. "Chose...doing what I did...even knowing it might...kill them." He shook his head. "Even...knowing it...would. Kill them."
He was glad Radia wasn't in the caravan at the moment. The last few months had eased the pain between them, but her father's shadow still hung heavy over both of them
"There were...good reasons," Ramza said softly. "Each time. For Delita. For Ovelia. For Alma." And how many of them did you save, Ramza?
"But...but to them, I'm sure..." He thought, for the first time in a long time, of the woman he'd killed at Golgollada Gallows. "I'm sure...they had good reasons, too." He paused. "Barich did, right? He did it...for Goug."
"For Goug." Mustadio's voice was a miserable whisper.
"And you?"
Mustadio managed a jerking shrug. "I...the plots of the Lucavi...the plots of the Church...it is all...all so much...bigger than Goug. And even if it was not, after everything you and Agrias and Alicia and Radia and Lavian, and...and everyone..."
He trailed off, and stared at the engine again. "But...but what if he was right, Ramza? What if...what if all I am doing is..."
It was Ramza's turn to be quiet for a moment, as he struggled to think.
"I know," Ramza said softly. "I...I doubt what we're doing, sometimes. Hell, I...I doubt...me. I doubt me a lot. Less...less with Argus, but...but Argus was only there because I saved him. Wiegraf only put a sword to Alma's neck because I brought her. It's all..."
"But I chose," Ramza said. "I chose, and they died, and I...have to live with it. I have to keep going. Not because they died. Not because...because my reason's better. Just...just because."
He felt a strange, cold warmth, like the burning of skin plunged into too-cold water. "There's no...how," Ramza realized aloud. "You just...do. Because...what other choice is there?"
Silence in the caravan, besides the rumbling of the engine.
"I will be honest, Ramza," Mustadio murmured. "That is not terribly helpful." There was the faintest trace of a smile on his face.
"I never claimed to be a helpful person," Ramza retorted.
Mustadio laughed. "You never needed to. Your every deed says so."
His laughter, and his smile, died as quickly as they'd come. But Mustadio looked a little less haunted. And after a little while, Ramza allowed himself to drift back to darkness. If there were nightmares in his sleep, he did not remember them.
He awoke again to the engine humming down to silence, and caravan shaking as it hit the ground.
"Drink," Mustadio said, shoving a waterskin into Ramza's hand.
Ramza drank obediently. The water was cooler than it had been earlier: everything felt cooler now.
"How long-" Ramza started.
"Hours," Mustadio answered. "Past midnight, at least."
Ramza blinked his weary eyes open, wincing again. Mustadio was crouched beside him, the half-completed mine under one arm. "Why are we stopped?" Ramza asked
"Engine needs time to cool," Mustadio answered. "We cannot push her much further. Besides...we need to make plans." He offered Ramza his hand. "Come on."
Ramza took a deep breath, then grabbed Mustadio's hand and allowed himself to be pulled upright. His head swam, but the dizziness was gentler than it had been hours before, and his aching legs could hold his weight. Mustadio draped Ramza's arm across his shoulder, then helped him to the lip of the caravan, where the others were waiting.
The night air was crisp and cool, and stars gleamed from their places in the black vault of the sky. Enormous silhouettes dominated the horizon—the shadows of the Zirekile Mountains. They risked no light besides the caravan's dim runes, so all Ramza could see of his friends were their shadows, arranged in a loose circle including the caravan. But everyone was awake. Everyone was alive. He took comfort where he could find it.
"Well?" Agrias' voice was an adamant rasp.
Mustadio helped Ramza sit on the lip of the caravan, then hopped down so he was standing in the middle of the circle. "It still seems hopeless."
"Why?" Alicia asked.
Mustadio was quiet for a moment. He lifted the half-completed mine beneath his arm: the metal gleamed dully in the dim light from the caravan. "These are sophisticated magitek. A single Mosfungus mushroom is placed inside-"
"Mosfungus?" Lavian's voice was thin with weakness and confusion. "That's...not the deadliest poison-"
"You felt it, did you not?" Mustadio asked. "It is not so deadly as Cuchulainn's fumes...but I think it will spread farther. Besides, the effect is cumulative, and difficult to offset. Few indeed are the antidotes, and fewer still the Healers who will know what they are looking at." He lowered the mine. "Each of these will be rigged as part of a larger network, overseen by agents of the Church. The first wave will be set off to trap the Hokuten. The second will be set off when the Nanten ride against them. The third will hit both armies, and Bethla Garrison, to boot. Since they have so many agents in both camps, they will be able to rig each network of mines to do maximum damage...and even if the armies fail to trigger them, the agents can set them off by hand." He shook his head again. "Even if we get there in time...I do not see how we stop them."
No one spoke.
"We can't stop here." Beowulf's voice was gruff.
"No," Mustadio agreed. "I will...keep thinking."
"First, you will sleep," Agrias growled.
Mustadio sighed, but didn't argue.
"I can take first watch-" Ramza started
"The hell you can," Radia snapped. "You'll keep resting if I have tie you down."
"Didn't know you were into that," Beowulf said.
Ramza did not argue further. He didn't feel like throwing up, and he could stand on his own power again. But he still felt terribly weak.
They didn't bother setting up the tents—only a few bedrolls, so those who wanted to sleep outside could do so. The short hours passed him by in a blink: soon he was sleepily rising to his feet and clambering back inside the caravan before it hummed to life, only to sleep again.
Another blink, and he was back in the waking world. Mustadio was no longer by the engine—Malak had taken over for him, with dark shadows under his eyes. Rafa sat beside him.
"You look worse than I feel," Rafa said, without looking at Ramza.
"I must look pretty bad, then," Ramza managed, with a taut smile.
The corners of Rafa's lips twitched, but she didn't quite look at him. Her eyes were fixed on Malak.
"I'm fine," Malak muttered.
"Have you slept?" she asked.
"For a few hours." Malak twisted a knob on one side of the engine and nodded in satisfaction as its humming steadied. "Mustadio needs to sleep. And if I let Melia drive again, she's liable to crash."
Ramza shook his head. They were all pushing themselves so terribly hard, and for what? Mustadio's research only underlined their helplessness. Even if they could make it to Bethla Garrison before the trap was sprung, what hope did they have of disarming it? What had they fought so hard for? What had Barich died for?
"There's a chocobo approaching!"
Ramza looked up at Melia's shout. Alicia and Lavian jerked out of their sleep closer to the front of the caravan, as Malak cut the engine. Even before the caravan had hit the ground, they were scurrying past their stacked supplies and out into the pre-dawn darkness of the Wastes.
Radia led them to the crest of a nearby dune, where Melia lay with Faris' telescope pressed to her face. Against the dark horizon, hidden in the shadows of the mountains, the dim outline of a chocobo and its rider trotted at a steady angle, ready to pass them by.
"Have they seen us?" Radia asked.
Melia shook her head. "I don't think so."
Beowulf squinted for a moment, then extended a hand for the telescope. He raised it to his eye only for a moment before lowering it again. "That's..." Beowulf shook his head. "That's Boco."
Boco? But they had left Boco with Valerie Amfra, aboard the Inquisitor's red skiff.
"Who's the rider?" Ramza asked.
"Not Val," Beowulf grunted. "Hair's too dark. I...think it's a man."
Ramza frowned. "May I?"
Beowulf handed him the telescope. Pressing it to his eye brought another wave of dizziness, but Ramza swallowed against the dryness of his throat and studied the figure. The moon had set, and the stars were beginning to dim with the coming of dawn: it was so hard to make out any details. Broad shoulders...hair tied back in a ponytail...
There was an odd flash of light: a prismatic burst of colorful radiance, like light reflecting off the spray from a waterfall. It was gone almost as quickly as it had come. But while Ramza hadn't gotten a clearer look at the figure, he remembered that light. A light like stars, illuminating the inside of a tent.
Ramza jerked his head back from the telescope. "I...I think it's Olan Durai."
A ripple through his gathered friends. "Olan?" Radia repeated. "But why-"
Ramza stood up. "Alicia, Lavian...I need light."
For a moment, no one spoke. Dim glances were exchanged. Finally, Alicia stepped forward. "Just me," she said firmly. "Lav needs the rest."
Ramza nodded, and stepped away from her. She raised her scepter to the sky, and runes flashed inside its gem tip. Steadily, the runes brightened, and light swelled from the tip of her scepter, pulsing and flickering like a building fire.
The dim shadow of the chocobo and its rider swerved towards them. Ramza headed down the hill, not looking to see who followed. His ankles felt cracked, as though they might break at any moment: the knot of pain in his left thigh still throbbed erratically. But he could stand, and move again. And his friend was riding alone across the desert, on the eve of a great battle.
The shadow grew closer. The chocobo slowed its trot to an ungainly, bobbing walk. The bird was exhausted: that was clear with every erratic step. A few yalms from Ramza, it came to a stumbling stop, and sank down on its haunches. Its rider tumbled off the bird's back and landed on all fours, panting.
"Ramza?" he whispered, and it was Olan's wry voice, now wracked with pain and cracked with thirst. "Ramza, is it...it you?"
"It's me." Ramza moved to help him up: before he got there, Agrias and Radia shouldered past him, and helped Olan to his feet.
"Let me see him-" Lavian began, somewhere behind them.
"You need rest, too, Lav." Alicia's voice brooked no argument.
"No...time." Olan shook his head as Beowulf hurried to the chocobo, running a soothing hand over the bird's neck. "No time. Help. Please...help." His voice was filled with tears. "They're...they're going to...they're going to kill my father."