(Thanks for your patience, folks. Should have the next update by 1/24/24, potentially followed by a short hiatus. Happy New Year1)
Chapter 151: The Weight of a Name: Zalbaag
There is a theology (bordering on heresy) that is quite popular in Goug. It posits that God is essentially a craftsmen, and the universe in which they live a machine of tremendous sophistication. There are rumors of Machinists who claim that understanding the machinery of the universe might give them the power to rival God. But the Hokuten Healer from whom Zalbaag had heard the theory some years ago had a different view on the subject. He said it was not so much revelation as analogy. Any person of faith understood that God had created the world, and the people who lived in it, with a purpose in mind. A person should try to understand that world, and their place in it. Threads in some cosmic tapestry, children in some divine family, parts in some great machine...it was all the same thing, when you got down to it. All ways of searching for the purpose God had given them.
Zalbaag had agreed. After all, he had spent his whole life trying to understand his purpose. What God intended of him. What he was supposed to do. He was beginning to think he had never come close. That perhaps he never would. More and more these days, he felt lost. Even now, leading Boco by his reins from Igros proper, taking a winding road to the pastoral meadows where Gallione's finest lay in their eternal rest, he felt as though he was wading through muck and murk, in some unknown place, for some unknown purpose.
"We're out of the city?" Ramza asked.
Zalbaag nodded, then remembered the bandages swaddling his brother's face, and shot him a guilty look. "Yes. Sorry. When we get closer, we can see about uncovering you."
Ramza shrugged. "It's one way to get us through." He laughed shortly. "It's been so long since I've been able to go into a city without hiding."
There was something in the wry amusement of his voice that hurt Zalbaag. But then, it seemed like everything about Ramza hurt him now. Seeing what he'd been put through. Seeing the man he'd become, in spite of it.
Zalbaag Beoulve felt lost, and Ramza Beoulve was the reason why. Not the only reason, no—these days the reasons were as thick as stars in the sky. There was the plot of the Church, so much larger than Zalbaag wanted to believe. There were the plots of Dycedarg Beoulve, his brilliant brother—plots Zalbaag had lived with all his life, and that seemed to grow crueler with every passing year. There was the simple, brutal reality of war with the Nanten—war against an army whose soldiers and commanders he had once called comrades. And there were the ghosts that lingered in that war. The ghost of his father, in Count Orlandeau. The ghost of Argus Thadolfas, in the Marquis Elmdor. The ghost of Teta, in Delita Heiral.
And yet...every one of those reasons for his confusion also led back to Ramza. The brother who warned him of the plots of the Church, before they were revealed to him. The brother who railed against Dycedarg's cruelty, before Zalbaag could see it for himself. The brother who had slain Argus in the snows of Zeakden, for the crime of killing Teta. Who had faced Zalbaag with sword in hand, when Teta had died.
No. Be honest with yourself. When you killed Teta.
Zalbaag left the wide Ydoran road behind, heading up the rolling hills. The wrought-iron gates of the cemetery were visible. He saw no people moving within.
"Let's get those bandages off," Zalbaag grunted, helping Ramza down from his place atop Boco.
"How long since you went to visit him?" Ramza asked.
Zalbaag shook his head. "I...I don't think I've been since...since the funeral."
"Neither have I," Ramza said softly. "Though, to be fair...I don't spend quite as much time in Igros as you."
Zalbaag actually laughed. "Yes, I spend all my days lazing about my hometown." He finished unwrapping Ramza's bandages. "The Knight-Commander of the Hokuten is a famously easy position. Especially during wartime."
"I always suspected," Ramza said. "How else could you afford to patronize a bar?"
Zalbaag grimaced. "It was the reason I had to patronize a bar," he replied. "I needed a place I could go. And as soon as I was stuck in Lesalia..."
"You hate it there, don't you?"
Zalbaag nodded. Ramza had begun pulling on his gear—the runed gloves and glowing gauntlets,, adjusting the long katana on his back, the bow and quiver.
"You don't want to leave some of that on the chocobo?" Zalbaag asked
Ramza shrugged. "If the last few years have taught me anything, it's better to be prepared." He smiled—a sad, cynical smile, filled with weariness. Again, Zalbaag felt his vision struggling to reconcile the man in front of him with the boy he'd known, so long ago. The boy he'd been so ready to hate.
His father's womanizing was no secret to Zalbaag—after his mother had passed, there were always rumors of one woman or another, an affair with a Fovoham Countess or the bastard daughter of a Zeltennia Baron. The rumors of the woman in Gallione—the wealthy widow of a long-dead merchant—had bothered him a little more, though Zalbaag could not have explained why.
But then word had come that Reina Lugria had born him a son.
Zalbaag had found out after Dycedarg, and only because Dycedarg had been in such a rage as Zalbaag had never seen him, before or since. He had stormed about the Manor, shouting at staff and servants and Hokuten guards, the crumpled letter clenched in one fist. Zalbaag, fresh from his tutors and his training, had finally managed to wrangle the letter from him, and stared in disbelief.
He shared Dycedarg's anger. He shared his hurt. He couldn't believe that his father had hidden this from them. And yet, there had been another feeling, in all the anger and hurt and fear. There had been a little excitement. He was the youngest Beoulve no more.
It would be another ten years before Zalbaag would get to meet his little brother—and the little sister who had been born so soon after. Ramza and Alma, 10 and 9, nearly-identical, distinguished only by the different clothes they wore and the different lengths of their so-similar hair. So small, Zalbaag had thought, as they had stepped out of his father's chocobo-drawn carriage. Small, and haunted. He saw the loss in their eyes, and recognized it. He had seen it in his father's eyes, then and 17 years before. He had even seen it in Dycedarg's eyes. And he knew he had seen it in his own eyes, staring back at him from the mirror.
17 years then. 27 years now. 27 years since he'd last heard his mother's wheezing whisper, begging him to keep singing "O Saint Keep Us Safe." Singing it as his voice shook, as he clutched at her hand. Singing it as he felt her hand go limp, and her breathing stop.
Choking Plague had taken his mother—his regal, musical, beautiful mother, who had given him his love for the Church and the Saint it served. Choking Plague had taken Ramza and Alma's mother, too. They might not share mothers, but they shared that loss. So Zalbaag had knelt before them, and offered each of them his hand, and smiled as best as he was able.
He was old enough now to see how his mother's loss had shaped him—how he had clung closer to the faith she had taught him because of it. After all, God's children could find a place in the hereafter through the benediction of the Saint. They had to follow his teachings, and atone for the sin that had warranted his Judgment upon them. He wondered now if he had tied the Saint's Judgment to his mother's death—someone taken before their time, in pain and loss and fear, in spite of all their faith.
He knew Dycedarg did not share his faith—scorned it, in fact. They had argued viciously about it, when Dycedarg had been back for Saint's Day from his first year at Gariland, splitting his time between its many schools. "We should have outgrown it long ago," he insisted.
"How can you say that?" Zalbaag had hated the trembling in his voice. A Beoulve should not cry so easily.
"What does the Church do, but take our gil, and bend common sense with mad delusion?"
"You sound like a blasphemer," Zalbaag whispered.
Dycedarg laughed shortly. "Call the Inquisition, then."
Zalbaag, all of 7, had thought about it. He had heard sermons about how the sins of Germonique lived on into the present—men who thought themselves wiser than God, who might question ordained truth and so bring fresh Judgment upon all their heads. But even at 7, he had understood what a serious charge he would be making. So instead, he had written his father.
He had to wait nearly a year to hear his father's answer: the Ordallians had seized the opportunity presented by the Romandan invasion, and the plague it had brought to Ivalice. The armies of Ivalice had been driven back to Zelmonia. But when the front had stabilized, his father returned. And late one night, after feasting and talking and sparring and joking, Dycedarg had excused himself to take a message from Prince Larg, and Zalbaag had taken the opportunity to ask his father about his letter.
His father smiled at him, green eyes twinkling. "It really worried you, didn't it?"
"It's blasphemy, father."
"And what if it is?"
Zalbaag's jaw dropped. "Father!"
"The Church may be an instrument of god, but it is made of men, and men are fallible." His father shrugged. "Blasphemy is a word invented by powerful men who don't want some questions asked."
Zalbaag was speechless.
"I don't want to excuse your brother's words," his father continued. "But it is his deeds that matter. What matter if he mocks the Church, if he is just, and serves the people faithfully?"
Zalbaag shook his head, still unable to gather his thoughts. His father was wrong. The Church was the only hope for hopeless, fallible men. Were his father and brother both blasphemers and heretics?
His father's eyes ceased their twinkling. His green eyes softened. "Oh, Zal, I'm sorry. You have your mother's heart. And her faith, too." He closed his eyes. "I miss her."
Then why do you spend your time with that whore in the city?
Zalbaag would not have dared to speak the question aloud—he wouldn't even have known what it meant, he had only overheard the phrase "whore in the city" spoken in passing by Dycedarg to Prince Larg—but it gnawed at him. His father—his beautiful, capable, ever-absent father. He hadn't been here, when Mother had...
His father opened his eyes again, and took Zal's hand in his. Zal felt the callouses on his fingers, the subtle strength of his grip. His whirling thoughts quieted.
"You are struggling with an adult problem, older than Saint Ajora," his father said. "Whatever God intended for our world...we lost our way long ago. This war...and so much else besides..." His father sighed. "It's...so hard to find the right thing to do, Zal. It's all a...a quagmire. Do you know that word?"
"Like a swamp?" Zal asked.
"Exactly right." His father squeezed his hand. "All the good and bad in the world, the white and the black, it all gets mixed together, so you can barely tell what's what. So you try to find your way to the white, and try not to step into anything too black on the way. That's what it means, to try to be a righteous man in an unrighteous world. For your brother, that means wading through it, studying even the blackest pools, so he can lead others around them. For me..." He laughed shortly. "For me...I suppose it's always meant finding something to fight. Something I can hold back, to give others time to find their own ways." He squeezed Zal's hand. "You'll find yours too, Zal. And I'll be proud of you, whatever path you choose to walk."
Zalbaag thought about what his father said for a long time thereafter. As he helped his father pack his bags three days later, he finally had the courage to say, "I think you're wrong."
His father looked up. "Oh?"
Zal nodded. "It matters. What the Church teaches. It shows us how to be...better." He took a deep breath. "So I will...make my own way. Through the...quagmire." He pronounced the word carefully, afraid to mess it up when he'd thought about it for so long. "And show other people how to walk like I do."
His father had beamed at him: Zalbaag had felt the intensity of that smile like sunlight on a summer's day. "That seems a worthy path, Zalbaag Beoulve." And his father had kissed him on the forehead.
He had walked his father out. He had waved him goodbye. A Hokuten caravan laden with officer's packs followed behind him, as his tall, white-feathered chocobo paced easily down the wide road that led away from the Beoulve Manor. His father always cut such an imposing figure—his sky-blue cloak fluttering behind him, his silvering hair gleaming in the sun. But at that moment, Zalbaag thought he might be able to match his father. Might cut just such a fine figure. If he stuck to his path, and showed the world what it meant to be a Godly man.
When had he left his path? How many years ago? He wasn't sure exactly when. But he knew by the time he had faced Ramza at Zeakden, he had lost any grip he had on the thin threads of white in the world of grey. He had been lost for a long, long time.
His thoughts drifted, forwards and backwards, as he and Ramza circled the graveyard. The Beoulve plot was farther down: Balbane's tomb held place of prominence among the graves and mausoleums of the Beoulve family. They could just make out the marble angel, sword thrust towards the sky, that marked it from its place on the hilltop.
"All we've ever done," Zalbaag murmured, staring at that angel. "We did in his shadow."
Ramza almost smiled. "Alma said much the same."
"She's a smart girl."
"She's a smart woman," Ramza corrected him.
Zalbaag laughed. "Right you are." He looked back at his little brother, and was struck again by the look of him. The bow strung upon his back, around the quiver with its bundled arrows: the long katana fixed behind him, the gauntlets upon his hands. A throwing knife was secured to one belt, and his patchwork armor gleamed with odd runes. But in the strength of his back, and in the way his eyes were fixed on the distant angel, Zalbaag saw something more than a dangerous soldier. He saw a man like his father, who seemed to know exactly where he was going.
He shouldn't be surprised, that the scared sad boy he'd once met outside the Beoulve Manor had become this fine man. Zalbaag had once thought himself no different. The 22 year-old soldier who had knelt in front of Ramza and Alma Beoulve had not been the same as the 8 year-old boy who had contemplated reporting his brother for blasphemy. That man had been through his years at the Academy: had finished first in his class, and for his achievements, had been granted the honor of serving his father on the frontlines. Zalbaag Beoulve had been to war.
It was war that melted away what remained of the scared, uncertain boy. When he saw whole units of men reduced to blackened husks and bloody paste upon the Zelmonian plains by Ordallian mages; when he parried the attacks of desperate men in the thick of a burning Limberry cornfield, the air so thick with smoke he could barely breathe, much less fight; when a wedge of Ordallian cavalry speared deep into the Hokuten battlelines, threatening to collapse their whole front along the borders of Zeltennia, Limbbery, and Ordallia, and men died screaming underfoot and gurgling from spear wounds; then he understood what his father had told him, about the world of grey.
But in the world of grey, Zalbaag found his strength. As waves of crashing fire smashed down from the Ordallians, Zalbaag leapt into their path, and answered with hhis own Mage Knight's blast, and bought time for the survivors to retreat across the field; as his eyes watered and his throat burned, he fought in that cornfield, cut down three men as he searched for survivors from the small scouting party that had been caught in the trap; as he shouted, "With me!" and plunged into the flank of the Ordallian cavalry without looking back to see who followed him, cutting the legs out from under a shrieking chocobo and then unleashing such a blast of Mage Knight's fury that flung three full-grown birds and their shouting riders into the air.
Again and again, he proved himself worthy of the name Beoulve. He was recognized for his deeds. His facing the Ordallian mages earned him his first honest command, without his father's supervision. His second earned him the loyalty of his men, knowing how far he would go to save them. And his third earned him honest promotion as a Colonel of the Hokuten.
All those things brought him honest joy, in the face of war's horrors. But the most joyful thing of all was that he was a soldier, fighting alongside his father. Getting to see not just the distant hero he'd always admired, but the man himself.
His father was funny, no matter how dire the circumstances: he would crack jokes over corpses, or while Healers patched a burn on his arm. From his father's example, Zalbaag learned it was not enough simply to excel; you also had to be human.
He was just a little selfish: when his father was on leave, nothing short of an emergency would call him back from his ease, whether it was drinking with an old friend or flirting with a window who ran a tavern several malms behind the battelines. From this, Zalbaag learned to make time for himself as well: it was how he'd come to patronize the Mage's Mystery, among other places, so he would always have a place that was thoroughly his to rest at the end of a weary day.
And he was thoughtful: when someone asked his father an earnest question, he took it seriously. That lesson Zalbaag had learned a long time ago. A leader's place was not to force others to walk his path, but to help them find their own paths. Like the Saint: to shepherd a flock, you keep them safe from harm, and pick a destination, and watch over the paths they take to get there.
Zalbaag got to know his father better. And knowing him did not, even slightly, decrease his awe of him. His father walked through the world of grey, but his every step seemed lined in white. And every day that passed, Zalbaag grew more determined to match his proud example.
So Zalbaag threw himself into danger, to prove himself as worthy as his father. So his star rose, even higher than his name should have allowed. Until he won his title, and command of the Hokuten, at the battle of Duguera Pass.
Plague still troubled Ivalice—the wave that had taken Ramza and Alma's mother had taken so many, including the parents of poor Delita and Teta. Such plague did not seem to trouble the Ordallians: no matter how many victories the armies of Ivalice won, they could simply not afford the losses that the Ordallians could. Month by grinding month, they were driven back. Zelmonia, wrested from Ordallian occupation nearly fifty years ago, was in Ordallian hands again.
And then: his father fell ill.
Balbanes—towering, indefatigable Balbanes, the Finest Knight Beneath Heaven—was laid up in the Beoulve Manor. King Ondoria, but newly crowned, gave confused orders: Ivalice's armies fumbled for command. And into that confusion, the Ordallians sprang like panthers upon a flock of chocobo chicks. A wave of soldiers crashed into Limberry, sweeping away Haruten, Natnen, and Limberrian divisions alike. Two great armies laid siege to Zeltennia, and blockaded Bethla Garrison. Eastern Ivalice drowned under the Ordallian tide.
The Hokuten were needed. The Hokuten were rudderless. Dycedarg and Larg were ensconced with Ondoria and Louveria, trying desperately to find some way out of the crisis. Zalbaag, now a general, waited for his orders in Lesalia.
Only for his door to burst open, as a panicked messenger brought word of disaster.
Zalbaag would later learn that the attacks on Zeltennia and Bethla Garrison had been feints: a show of force to pen the Haurten and the Nanten. The Ordallians were not so foolish as to try and maintain a siege in deeply hostile territory, when fresh armies were free to hammer them over and over again. The two armies had converged and marched in one mighty column, straight for Lesalia. They intended to finish the war that Ivalice had started nearly fifty tears before: they intended to sack the capitol, and exterminate the royal line.
The bulk of the Hokuten were too far away to make it in time: their scouting parties had been slaughtered or put to rout by the advancing Ordallians, leaving this sole, desperate messenger, and his message of disaster. There were only a hundred men of any quality to hand. Without waiting for orders, Zalbaag had led them all into Duguera Pass.
"That's why you did it, isn't it?" Zalbaag had asked Cid.
The two Knight-Commanders were sitting across from one another in Daravon's kitchen, a near-empty bottle of wine between them. Drinking with Cid, as his father had before him. Zalbaag needed this, as he needed...
Needed so much. Things he didn't have words for yet.
Cid nodded. There was a sad smile on his grizzled face. "We do not easily forget the lessons of our youth. You fought your greatest victory at Duguera. I knew you would answer the challenge, if I offered it."
"And pull my forces from the south."
Cid shrugged, and his smile grew a little more earnest. "Well. If there was any many who could challenge the Gallant Knight, surely it would be the Thunder God."
His title stung. It had always hung uneasily on his shoulders—ever since he had won it, along with his command of the Hokuten, tainted by the shadow of his father's illness. But the last few years, it seemed more and more an insult, or a lie.
"Are you alright?" Cid asked.
Zalbaag shook his head. "How could I be?"
Cid nodded. "Quite right." He took another sip from his wine. "Your father's death was tragedy enough. If it is a murder..."
But could it be a murder? Could Dycedarg really have killed their father?
Dycedarg's relationship with their father had always been more contentious than Zalbaag's. Perhaps it was because Dyce, unlike Zal, had always seemed firmly on his own path. From Zalbaag's earliest memories, his bright and brilliant brother had been a force to be reckoned with. He had been outstripping his fellow students in every class he'd ever taken; he had soon outstripped most of the tutors in Igros. When he had enrolled in Gariland, he had taken the path only the most gifted students ever took as a student-at-large, free to partake of Gariland's myriad academies and universities as he needed. And long before that, on his tenth birthday, he had saved Bestrald Larg's life from the poison that would have killed him. Even as a child, his brilliance had helped determine the fate of Ivalice.
His influence and reputation only grew, as the years passed. He gained ever more trust and authority from the Larg family. Because his father was so often away, Dycedarg assumed more and more control over their family's lands and duties in Igros proper. By the time Zalbaag had left for the Gariland Military Academy, his brother had been something like the Duke of Igros, and something like the Chancellor of Gallione—and, once Louveria had married Ondoria, chancellor of all Ivalice.
Zalbaag had followed in his father's footsteps. Dycedarg had striven to be his complement. He was not exactly his equal—how could anyone equal Balbanes Beoulve?—but he had always seemed more like his peer. They would talk of business even on Dycedarg's rare breaks away from Gariland—quarreling about increasing the rents here or the taxes there. They had fought over Ramza and Alma, both at their birth and when his father insisted on naturalizing them. And as the war had gotten worse, their fights had increased, in frequency and severity.
Zalbaag remembered one particularly bitter row during a rare ceasefire. The Beoulves, Teta, and Delita had spent the day at the old Beoulve Estate in Lesalia, teaching the young ones how to blow grass flutes. Zalbaag had allowed himself to relax for the first time in months, drinking too much and laughing at how young Alma, Ramza, Delita, and Teta had looked. Had he really been that young once himself?
And after he had sparred with Ramza and Delita at their insistence (and left them both battered and winded in the orchards), he had headed inside, only to hear his father and Dycedarg, shouting so loudly that it rattled an old painting hanging on the wall. By the time he had come into the dining room, they had simply been glaring at each other
"What kind of world do we live in now?" Dyce asked, and stormed out of the room, not even looking at Zalbaag.
Balbanes stared after him. Real terror intruded on Zalbaag's heart then—terror at how the shadows hung in the lines of his father's face, and in the slump of his shoulder. He had spent years now coming to understand just how incredible his father truly was. In that terrible moment, he saw how mortal he was, too.
"Father?" Zalbaag's voice had a childish tremor he could not control.
His father sat heavily back in his chair. His lips twitched in a failed attempt to smile. "It's alright, Zal."
"It didn't sound alright."
His father shrugged. Slowly, Zal approached him. He hesitated, then placed his hand upon his father's shoulder. His father drew a shuddering breath, and wrapped his calloused hand around Zal's. "Ah, it is hard." Zal was shocked to hear tears in his father's voice. "So hard...I cannot blame your brother for..."
"For what?" Zalbaag asked.
His father closed his eyes. "I told you, a long time ago...we all find our own ways to live in this world of grey. But it gets...it gets harder, every day. This war..." He opened his eyes, and there were tears running down his cheeks. "It is hard for everyone. But I think...I think it's even harder for your brother. He sees...so much. Too much, maybe. How wrong the world is. How the black pools spread. How...how you might stop them, if..."
"Father..." Zalbaag placed his other hand on his father's other shoulder and knelt in front of him, not knowing what else to do.
His father tried to smile again. He did a little better this time, and reached up to cup the side of Zalbaag's face with his free hand. "I am...not as a bright as your brother." He squeezed Zalbaag's hand. "As I am not so good as you."
"Father, that's not-"
"It is the pleasure of a parent to see their children grow to surpass them," his father said. "Your courage, your faith, your brother's genius...he will be a better minister than I ever was. I ask too much of him. As I ask too much of you." He squeezed Zalbaag's hand again, and closed his crying eyes. "I won't be here forever, Zal. Trust what your brother sees. But be prepared to rein him in. Intellect is no substitute for morality. Just ask the Ydorans."
Zalbaag had looked at his father's tear-strewn face, and felt the trembling in the hand upon his hand and the hand upon his face. His heart ached in his chest. "I'll try, Father."
"I know you will."
Had his father known that illness would take him soon? Had his father known the heavy burden that would fall, not just to his sons, but to all Ivalice? Within months, the Ordallian offensive had begun, as Balbanes Beoulve had suffered in his sickbed. And Zalbaag Beoulve had marched into Duguera Pass, conscious of the heavy weight of his father's example, conscious that disaster threatened the kingdom had fought so hard for, conscious that the odds were against him and determined to win all the same.
So he had met the Ordallian march into Duguera Pass. The air was choked with the scent of blood and the smoke left by mages' flames and bolts: arrows rained down on Hokuten and Ordallian alike, as the forces they'd sent to scale the cliffs peppered each other as best they could from their precarious positions. Too often, men would come tumbling down from the cliffs, as they lost their footing. One man came down a scant yalm from Zalbaag with a sickening wet crack: his blood and viscera spattered against Zalbaag's face.
Ilm by grudging ilm, yalm by grudging yalm, Zalbaag and his men were driven back. Lesalia would fall. Ivalice would fall with it. His father's illness would signal doom for all Ivalice, because his sons were not equal to the burden of their father.
And so, with his wrists aching with the strain of the long fighting, with his eyes watering and his throat burning, Zalbaag had called up ever onze of magic he had left, and smashed his sword into the cliff walls. The explosion of his Bursting Blade smashed up a geyser of rock, left his legs trembling beneath him, but he could not afford to stop fighting, he could not afford to fail.
"Fall back!" he bellowed, swinging again, and with every swing of his sword, with every detonation of his magic, more rock and debris cluttered the pass, smashing men to paste beneath their tumbling weight. Still the Ordallians and their chocobos fought to reach him: still, Zalbaag rained ruin upon their heads. He would die here, if need be. To save his father's kingdom. To save his kingdom.
And then he had heard the cheers from behind him, and the roar of hundreds of voices raised as one. He had seen the terror in the eyes of the Ordallians still fighting through the pass, and their panicked shouts as they scrambled for cover. And he had turned, slowly, to see the might of the Hokuten army that had marched to his aid, with his white-faced brother riding at their head.
So Zalbaag had earned both his title—the Gallant Knight—and the command that had once been his father's. So he had learned that, shoulder to shoulder with his brother, they could bear the weight of their father's legacy. Zalbaag would lead from the front. Dycedarg would work from behind. That way, they might make it through the world of grey, as a Beoulve should. That way, they would not stray from the righteous path.
Foolish. So foolish. If Dycedarg had poisoned their father, there had never been any hope of saving him. All Zalbaag had allowed himself to do was sink deeper and deeper into the darkness, while pretending he was doing his father proud.
So he finished his wine, and blinked back tears, and watched his father's old friend sitting across from him. The man seemed stronger than he had when Zalbaag had last seen him, when they had made false offers of peace in the name of bloodthirsty would-be kings.
"Knight-Commander-" Zalbaag began.
Cid shook his head with a sad smile. "Not anymore." He raised his glass. "Just another soldier of peace, joining your brother's cause."
His brother, yes. Ramza, so shy, so soft-spoken, so unsure. Zalbaag had felt compelled to protect him from the first. Neither Ramza nor Alma had been born to the Beoulve name: the weight of it settled differently on both of them. Alma toyed with it, teased it, refused to let it weigh her down too much. On Ramza, it seemed oppressive. His every thought, his every deed, was layered with doubt, because he was not sure if it was what a Beoulve should do.
How could Zalbaag have failed to love such a brother? A brother who felt the weight of their shared name even more than Zalbaag himself? Taking care of Dycedarg was his father's charge: no one had to charge Zalbaag to look after Ramza. He wanted to lead by example, as his father had led by example. He wanted to inspire Ramza to bear their shared burden as he did.
He did not know if he had succeeded. But the man in front of him had crossed the length and breadth of Ivalice, on his own secret mission. He had borne false accusations of heresy: he claimed to have faced the Lucavi of legend, who had once troubled even the Saint. But even without demon-slaying to his name, he had far outstripped Zalbaag's own accomplishments. Zalbaag had earned his title for holding back one part of one army: Ramza Beoulve and held back two.
How was it possible? How could the shy boy he remembered be the same man he saw now?
Are you the same boy you were, when you asked your father about Dycedarg's blasphemy?
Yes. He was. He had always been that boy. The boy so frightened of a confusing, dangerous world that he had clung to stories of God and stories of duty and stories of heroes to keep fighting. He had to believe he served a higher purpose. He had to believe that God had put him here for a reason. He had to believe that the child was gone, reforged into the soldier who they called the Gallant Knight.
But he was just a scared child, trying to fill his father's shoes. Playing at the general he thought his father was. Pretending to be a proper Beoulve.
"Cid," Zalbaag managed, over his choking doubts. "You...you should be...you should be coming with us. You deserve to be there."
The sadness in Cid's smile deepened. Somehow that was not at odds with the more earnest, more honest light in his face. The contrast between the sadness and the contentment seemed to heighten one another, leaving him as beatific as a sculpture of the Saint.
"Deserve has nothing to do with it," Cid murmured. "This is the reality before us. It is risky enough just taking Ramza. Add me to the mix..." He shook his head, and his smile turned wistful. "But I would like to. Bad enough I had to miss the funeral..."
"I was grateful to you," Zalbaag said. "Watching over the border, so we could...see him buried."
Cid shrugged. "A man should be with his family, when he's laid to rest." He sipped at his wine. "I hope I am so lucky."
Laid to rest. Such nice words, for such a grim reality. When Zalbaag had swept in, fresh from the victories in the east and the renewed peace talks, he had been shocked at his father's withered state. He had tried to play the general...but even then, his facade had begun to crack. The anger and the terror deepened with every passing day.
And the burial had been worse, somehow. Seeing his father's shrouded body laid into its marble tomb, with the angel in his likeness placed atop it. Alma, weeping into Teta's arms. Teta and Delita, staring straight ahead, with the hollow-eyed look that Zalbaag had seen in too many faces through the losses of his life. And Ramza, looking like Zalbaag felt. Looking lost, and trying to pretend otherwise.
Here they were again. Nearly at the tomb. No one moved out on the rolling hills. The summer heat was mild, the wind gentle. Worn gravestones leaned here and there upon the grass: tombs and mausoleums held place of prominence on other nearby hills. They had reached the stairs that would lead them up to their father's corpse. Up towards answers.
"Ramza."
Ramza stopped, and turned to face him. Zalbaag bent over, and plucked two blades of grass from besides the worn stone steps. "Do you remember...when you learned to..."
Ramza smiled. "I remember." He plucked the offered blade of grass from Zalbaag's hand. Together, they placed their blades of grass to their lips, and blew. Ramza's high, thin call wove through Zalbaag's deeper buzz, like a cricket's chirp cutting through a frog's croak. But Zalbaag heard something else in the high note, something fiercer: like a hawk's cry, as it plunges through the sky.
Zalbaag lowered the blade of grass. "Ramza. I'm...I'm so sorry."
From the corner of Zalbaag's eye, he saw Ramza's head snap towards him. He could not bring himself to meet his gaze.
"I...I'd tried so hard to...to fill the hole Father left behind. And I...I fell short. All the time. Without Dycedarg, I would have..." He shook his head. "I didn't always...agree with what he did. But he saw so much more than me, and then...then the Corps..."
The fear that had filled him when his father fell ill...the heavy dread that filled him at his father's grave...something like them, and something worse than them, had come to him when he saw his bloody brother lying in the halls of Beoulve Manor, with enemy soldiers thick around him. The terror he'd felt at that moment had been blinding, deafening, freezing, scorching. He thought he would shatter, if he felt it too long.
So he had used his oldest soldier's skill, and turned his terror into rage. He had flung himself into the teeth of his foes, cutting them to ribbons, loosing magic to smash them aside and sear the flesh from their bones. He had saved Dycedarg. He had saved Alma.
But he had not saved Teta. Teta had ridden off in their clutches. Teta, smart and softspoken as her brother, who had looked after Alma as Zalbaag could not, who had been so wry and funny and careful...
Who Zalbaag had killed.
He had not meant to kill her. But if he was honest with himself, he had not meant to save her, either. He had marched the Hokuten to war, alongside the troops from Limberry, to crush the rebellion that had so long plagued Gallione. . He had clung to the rage that was his only escape from terror. He had ordered his soldiers in bold and terrible attacks: he had led the charges himself. He had slaughtered his way through the rebels who had hurt his brother. He had spoken noble words of justice and service, and loosed himself in unholy vengeance upon his foes.
And when victory was in his grasp—when the Corps was nearly exterminated—the man who had nearly killed Dycedarg appeared before him, with Teta in his grasp.
"I...they hurt Dyce," His voice was thin. "I...I thought...if I left them go, I would..."
Teta, with a sword to her throat. His brother's would-be killer. If he agreed, he would fail his father. If he didn't, Teta would...
And then...Ramza and Delita had emerged from the snow. His brother's assailant had turned his eyes, just for a moment. And Zalbaag...Zalbaag had given the order.
"I didn't...I didn't mean for Argus to..." He closed his eyes. "But...but I didn't...I didn't give her a chance."
He had two younger brothers. Two younger sister. He had failed them all, one by one. And when he was left alone, with only his awful burdens to weigh upon him, and no chance to turn his terror to rage; when Delita had drawn his sword on Argus; when Ramza had drawn his sword on Zalbaag...
Zalbaag had given them those swords. The two boys still needed fathers. And when they needed them most, Zalbaag had given the order that killed their sister.
"I'm sorry, Ramza. I...I should have looked out for you...for Delita...for Alma...for Teta. You all deserved so much...so much better than..." He sank to his knees. The blade of grass dropped from his numb fingers.
Than me.
Two strong arms closed around him, and pulled him into a strong chest. A hand closed around the back of his head, and pulled him close. Zalbaag lifted his own arms back, to embrace his brother.
"You let me down, Zal," Ramza whispered, and the words felt like a knife shoved into Zalbaag's guts. He clung tighter to his brother, and fought against a sob. "I looked up to you. You and Dyce, you...you loomed as large as Father, in my eyes."
Zalbaag shook his head into his brother's chest. That wasn't possible: Zalbaag had never been able to measure up to Balbanes Beoulve. He had been a poor substitute all his life.
"You could have saved her." Ramza's own embrace tightened, as though he was trying to crush Zalbaag. "You could have...you..." A sob broke his words. He clung tighter to his brother.
"But you...you came to us, when you...when you needed us. You trusted us, to save the Marquis. And...and Zal, you..." His hands closed on the side of his brother's face, and gently lifted him up. Zalbaag opened tear eyes, and looked into his brother's face. The same odd mixture of sadness and contentment filled Ramza as it had Cid. "When I was...when I was so young, and so scared, you...you made me think...it would all be okay."
He pulled his brother close again. "I won't forgive you," Ramza whispered into his ear. "But I still love you. And I'm...I'm so glad you're my brother."
They held each other, sobbing, at the foot of their father's mausoleum. The wind sighed gently around them, stirring the long grass.
Zalbaag had stood up from the table, and bowed deeply to Cidolfas Orlandeau. He had turned to leave the kitchen, to catch a little sleep before they departed for Igros the next day. Before he had gotten very far, Cid's voice reached him: "Zalbaag Beoulve."
Zalbaag looked over his shoulder. Cid was sitting at the table with his eyes firmly shut. His cheeks were wet with tears.
"Don't forget your sword," he said. "Don't forget your words."
But what Justice had Zalbaag brought to the world these last few years? What Service had he offered to the needy? He had led his men into battle against his fellow Ivalicians: he had hurt and betrayed the people he was supposed to care for. There were so many Tetas behind him. Some he had let die through his inaction; others, he had killed himself.
Ramza and Zalbaag helped each other to their feet. With arms slung around each other's shoulders, they headed up the stone steps. Before they reached the top of the stairs, Zalbaag stopped them both, and looked back at Ramza.
"Do you remember...the day he died?"
Ramza nodded. His eyes were still red.
"The swords were ours," Zalbaag said. "The words were yours." He squeezed his brother's shoulders. "Everything I've spent my life trying to be...I think you are."
Ramza blinked as fresh tears flowed down his cheeks. But the trembling smile on his face was the same as the smile of the scared boy who Zalbaag had embraced over ten years ago. Maybe that was the great secret of the world: that we never stop being the people we were before. We just build better upon the foundation we have. The foundation God left us. Perhaps the purpose Zalbaag had looked for all his life was just that simple: to make the best of what you have. Your nature, and your name.
The white marble tomb lay pristine upon the hilltop, with the angel and its upthrust sword standing guard above.
Ramza eyed the tomb for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Stand back."
Zalbaag obeyed at once. His brother laid aside many of his weapons, then positioned himself against the foot of the tomb, opposite the angel. He stood, in poised concentration, for a moment or two. Then there was a flash of light and a sense of surging magic, not unlike the Bursting Blade. Zalbaag stifled an urge to cry out as stone ground against stone, hidden by the burst of light.
The light faded. Ramza stood back from the tomb. He had slid its great top loose, cracking it in several places in the process. Fresh tears in Zalbaag's eyes. They could not even let their father rest in peace.
And then the smell.
Zalbaag was no stranger to corpses—the ones left to bloat on the battlefield, or the ones laid to careful rest in royal ceremonies, masked in spices and wine, or even the dry, dusty emptiness of royal and noble crypts. He had seen his share of death, across his 32 years. But this smell was new to him. It was too...wet. Too moldy. Too fresh. There was death in that thick, moist nausea, but there was life, too—a terrible, teeming, sickening life.
And worse than that: it was familiar. Zalbaag had smelled something like it, when the bombs had gone off on the March to Bethla Garrison, and the cloying poison had come sweeping down upon them.
He knew what he was going to see, even before he approached the tomb. He stood, shoulder to shoulder with his brother, and stared down at what should have been the desiccated remains of his father, hidden by a silken shroud. Instead, he saw a tomb riotous with the green, fuzzy caps of the Mosfungus mushroom, growing over and upon each other in furious, frenzied life.
When he saw those caps, the sadness in him went flat, and cold, and deadly. He had felt something like this years before, when he had marched to destroy the Death Corps. But as terrible as that frosty fury had been, this ice cold rage was worse: shattering in its agonized intensity. He felt his mind beginning to break with the strain of it. It surely would break, if he did not find an outlet for his rage.
He started towards the Beoulve Manor. Ramza was in step beside him, returning his weapons to their proper places with almost mechanical precision. In his green eyes, Zalbaag saw the same sharp grief. The need for vengeance. The need for justice.
They started at a walk. Then they began to stride. Within ten paces, they were sprinting. Sprinting home, after all these years. Sprinting towards their brother, who had killed their father.