(Thank you for your patience. Chapters to come as I am able)

Chapter 166: The Archmage

"THAT WAS MY FIGHT, TENGILLE!"

From his place sprawled on his back at Elidibus' feet, pinned to the earth by the staff impaled through his broad chest, the lion-headed Lucavi stared steadily up at Elidibus. "To remain would have been to risk our mission."

"Your mission," Elidibus hissed. "Not mine." He adjusted the unconscious Alma Beoulve, slung over one shoulder as though she were a sack of grain. The air around him crackled faintly. "The only reason I am here is because you promised me a worthy hunt." He twisted the staff with a fresh crackle of force: Hashmalum did not react. "Why should I remain if you take me from my prey?"

From his place to one side, Cletienne watched his fellow Archmage, his own ornate staff held in a white-knuckled grip. Saint Above, but Elidibus was strong: even restrained as he was, his power was visible in the cracklings around him, in a mirage shimmer about his form that distorted his outline and made him and Alma appear as though they floated beneath clear water.

And that was only what the eyes saw. To Cletienne's magical senses, that power felt like the rumbling of mighty engines beneath the deck of a ship: a bone-deep hum you could feel below you, crescendoing towards some unknown purpose at is vibrations filled your veins.

Another wonder, in a world full of them. And more wonders still, when they succeeded at their mission. But they could not succeed without Hashmalum.

"And you believe you would have such worthy prey, had we remained?" Cletienne asked.

Elidibus turned slightly to glare at him. "He was right in front of me! And you yourself said his allies were sailing in on the Invincible!"

"And between Ramza's allies and ourselves, we had turned Mullonde into a blazing beacon," Cletienne said. "How long before the Templars rallied to interfere with us?" He nodded towards Hashmalum. "He took us away for our mission. We can only command the Templars while they count us among their number, and the longer we remained, the more we risked being exposed. But if we were exposed, you would have no chance to fight the Beoulve boy and his allies. Your hunt, and our mission, both wasted."

Elidibus cocked his head slightly. The swirling in the air around him seemed to be quieting. "Besides, Ramza only sweetened the pot for you, no?" Cletienne asked. "He's a consolation prize...compared to Ultima." He turned his head to Hashmalum. "I cannot imagine you would have taken us away if you did not find the answers you were looking for."

The lion demon turned its head slightly. Its stone eyes met his. "You imagine aright." He turned his gaze back to Elidibus. "Marcel gave me answers enough. The door to Ultima lies within Mullonde. It requires every Stone to be opened."

From his quiet place on a nearby slope, the wreck of Barich Fendsor turned his remaining eye to Hashmalum. "And so at last you move against Daravon."

Hashmalum nodded, looking at Barich. "They would not have risked sailing the Stones into Mullonde. They would have left them somewhere safe."

"You speak as though I'm going to let you go," sneered Elidibus.

"Aren't you?" Hashmalum asked. He didn't look at Elidibus.

Elidibus was still glaring down at Hashmalum, but Cletienne was already relaxing. The swirling magic around him was quieting, and Cletienne could sense the power fading, like engines whining down towards silence. Finally, Elidibus yanked his staff out of the earth and out of the Lucavi's chest, and turned away from him with a scowl.

As soon as the staff no longer pinned him, Hashmalum's form flashed with gold, his outlines dissolving into inky darkness. Golden light and black shadow roiled and condensed, until the figure sprawled on the grass was not a demon but a man, with a craggy face, greying brown hair, and flint eyes. That was the man who had found Cletienne's rising star, and brought him into his orbit. That was the man who had seen the hunger at the heart of Cletienne's being, and offered to satisfy it.

Vormav sat up, massaging the place on his chest where he had been impaled in his demon form. Then he stood. "Take a few hours to rest. I'll head into the city and rouse the Templar garrison."

Loffrey frowned at him. "I'm not sure that's wise, Hashmalum. Someone's going to look at the reports later and realize you were in two places at once."

"Perhaps," Hashmalum said. "Perhaps not. But we are past the point of caring."

"Send Cletienne," Loffrey said. "His whereabouts are unaccounted for."

"He does not have the authority we require." Vormav started up a nearby hill. "Every remaining Templar must be roused, and messengers sent to the Hokuten and the Nanten. We must tie the hands of all his possible allies. We must keep him from Gariland. We must keep him from Orbonne." He glanced back at them over his shoulder. "Wait until sunset, then head north. We'll strike in the dark."

He went over the hilltop and was out of sight.

"Doesn't have the authority we require," Cletienne muttered. "Who would ignore the Templar Archmage?"

"Multiple people in your immediate vicinity," Loffrey said dryly.

Cletienne glared at him, then looked over to Barich. The malformed metal figure was slumped over, supporting himself on all four of his misshapen metal limbs. He looked like some artist's mad metal interpretation of what a Fabulian gorilla looked like.

"What's the trouble?" Cletienne asked.

Barich closed his organic eye. "Reconciling...disparate parts. Mechanical...and magitek."

"May I...?"

Barich nodded. Cletienne closed his eyes and began tracing his staff along Barich's body. It was not a new problem: since they'd found Barich beneath the Foundry, keeping himself alive with parts from the slowly-failing Workers who'd protected him when the place had collapsed, it had been touch-and-go keeping him alive, much less in motion. Vormav had managed to finish their work—fresh fire from the Leo Stone had brought Barich's scavenged parts to life the same way the fire of the Cancer Stone had resurrected the other Workers—but Cletienne suspected that was part of the problem. Each Stone was different. Each Worker was different, And now metal, flesh, and magic were held in uneasy tension within Barich's patchwork form.

How many such tensions were at play in Ivalice, even now? People who dreamed of a united nation, strong for its own sake. People who dreamed only of their own great throne, sitting atop the tower of Ivalice. People who were content to scrabble in the dirt for scraps.

And you, Cletienne Duroi? What tensions do you feel now, soothing the uneasy powers inside a not-quite-working piece of machine-made-man? What tensions do you feel, you kidnapper, you murderer, you traitor?

Cletienne did what he could to ease the strains within Barich's misshapen form—dim this flame, stoke this one, cast some simple healing magics to hold the remaining flesh together. Even those simple magics took their toll: he felt his arms and legs quivering with exhaustion. So many spells cast today, so many Eidolons built, loosed, and maintained.

Wondrous, wondrous, wondrous. He had assailed Mullonde, the shining treasure of Ivalice, as though he were a Lucavi himself. His Eidolons had blazed destructive trails through hallowed halls and laid Templars to waste. There was guilt there, yes: some of those men and women had been his comrades, even if only in passing. But far more than guilt, there was pride.

The Khamja and the Templars had long prided themselves on being the best of the best. Both had been laid to ruin by Cletienne. So what did that make him?

Wondrous. But he had always been wondrous. Now it was just a matter of sharing that wonder, and sharing that glory. Now it was just a matter of building Ivalice anew.

"Hashmalum says even the Ydorans couldn't do what you've done," Cletienne said, pausing his work on Barich to catch his breath.

"Couldn't...or shouldn't?" Barich's voice echoed strangely, as though his words were bouncing through an empty suit of armor.

"'Should we?' was not a question that much occurred to the Empire," Loffrey put in. He was lying on the grass on a nearby slope, his eyes closed. Elidibus had stretched out the unconscious Alma Beoulve not far from him.

"Perhaps...not morally," Barich said. "But practically?" He straightened himself out as best he could, with his arms and legs all different sizes. "A Worker...obeys. It is not...creative. But it does not...need to be. What is gained...by putting the mind of a man...in such a body?" He tried to shrug: it came across more as a flinch. "Nothing...the Ydorans...did not already...possess."

Cletienne shook his head. "They were not so limited."

"They were as limited as all other men," Loffrey said. "All their knowledge did not change that."

Cletienne grimaced at the Time Mage. Loffrey Wodring, as much a relic of the Ydorans as Hashmalum, as Labyrinthos, as Ultima. Loffrey Wodring, frustratingly recalcitrant with all his knowledge, just as Hashmalum was. And now he spoke of Ydoran limitations. As thought every moment of their quest had not shown him how limitless they were. The Lucavi, Labyrinthos, Ultima itself: Ydoran ingenuity would have made gods of men.

So hard to break the shackles imposed on them. He saw those shackles even on his comrades. Didn't Barich and Loffrey see that their resentments, their hesitations, were born of those shackles, those limitations? Didn't they see the power and opportunity in their very beings, if they had but the courage to shatter the shackles that bound them?

Perhaps they did not. Perhaps they could not. Even Hashmalum wanted something different than Cletienne. All of them were here on their own missions. All of them were here for the hope that only Ultima could promise them.

He tore his eyes away from Loffrey and looked around. "Where are we?"

"The Outpost." Elidibus had moved farther up the hill, stopping at the crest to look north.

"What Outpost?" Cletienne asked.

Elidibus snorted. "You didn't attend the Military Academy, I take it." He waved Cletienne up the hill: Cletienne staggered after him. He was nearly as tired as he had been when he and Alma had braved Labyrinthos alone. He had labored, hard and long, today, and yesterday, and many years before.

What choice had he? The orphan babe whose grandfather had simply disappeared one day, his mother dead from Choking Plague that had taken King Denamda, and his father lost in campaign against the Ordallians? All facts he'd learned later, of course: his first memories were of the Gainsborough orphanage, not of his family.

But the nameless child had not stayed at the Gainsborough orphanage for long. The orphanages of Ivalice were rich recruiting grounds in those days, with so many unwanted children to fill the ranks of the good, the bad, and the desperate. But when the nameless child, scared of the grim eyes of the men who had come searching, had raised a wall of fire to ward them off, he had attracted other attention: the Templars, eager for an Archmage of their own.

It was they who had given them the name, Cletienne, plucked straight from the Gospel According to Balias. It was they who had funded his training, first among the Templar barracks and then in Gariland proper. Twenty years since the orphanage. Twenty years since he'd started on the road that led him to and from Gariland, as student, as traitor, as consort to Lucavi.

"No," Cletienne said shortly, in answer to Elidibus' question. "But it's about the only place in Gariland I didn't attend."

He stumbled to a stop atop the hill, standing next to Elidibus. Perhaps half-a-malm to the north, stood a small, rough military encampment: stone barracks guarded by two wooden watch-towers, a short stretch of wooden chocobo stables, a covered latrine and a parade ground of beaten dirt.

"The Outpost," Elidibus said. "The Military Academy uses it to practice field maneuvers. March to here, march from here, arrange two classes to oppose one another..." He shrugged. "12 malms from Gariland, and with the Academy closed, it's probably empty. Makes as good a landmark as any."

Practicing marching. Practicing maneuvers. It galled him, even now. Nearly a thousand years ago, men had dreamed on a much grander scale. And instead of resurrecting those dreams, rebuilding on those ruins, they wasted so much time clawing and scrabbling with one another. How many barracks in Ivalice? How many men fighting like rude savages to buy their chieftains a chance at greater glory?

Cletienne frowned down at the Outpost. "12 malms," he muttered, rather than giving voice to his other thoughts. "And even farther from the Daravon Estate, I wager. Why did Vormav not bring us somewhere closer?"

"Traveling the Maelstrom is not like traveling the folded space of Pandemonium," Elidibus said. "You need your destination decided before you embark...and even then, it's tricky business."

Cletienne glanced at Elidibus with interest. Hashmalum had only briefly talked about this art that let him travel to one side of Ivalice on a whim. "How so?

"It's the problem of the Ant and the Flea."

Cletienne thought for a moment. He assumed it was an analogy. "Could you elaborate?"

Elidibus smiled faintly. "Put an ant and a flea on a piece of paper, and set a goal for them to reach."

Cletienne understood at once. "The ant begins to crawl, its movement constrained in two dimensions. But the flea jumps ahead."

Elidibus nodded. "From the ant's perspective, the flea disappears, then reappears far ahead, as though by teleportation. But from the flea's perspective, the flea only jumped, and landed. Its velocity was greater, in two dimensions and three...but the effort it expends to make the jump is greater than the ant understands, because it's moving through three dimensions instead of two." He glanced at Cletienne then. "What else?"

Cletienne thought a moment longer. The efforts of the day were beginning to become impossible to ignore: he felt his thoughts crawling through the mud of his exhaustion, much like the plodding ant in Elidibus' analogy. "From the perspective of the ant," he mumbled. "The flea is moving as it wills. But from the perspective of the flea, it has to choose its destination before it jumps. It isn't flying. It can't correct its course."

Elidibus' smile widened. "Exactly right." He tapped his chest. "The Ydorans understood magic as coming from a separate dimension. Our souls are vectors to this dimension: the souls of the Lucavi reside there, anchored on the power of the Stones. And Project Ultima is a Lucavi with the souls of whole nations. Because of its scale, it can be used to move through our dimension, as the third dimension can be used to move through the second. But like the flea, the Lucavi cannot move through this dimension as they will. They cannot fly through it as a bird flies through the sky. They can only pick a destination, and leap."

Cletienne nodded in turn. "So Vormav...has to know where he's jumping...before he jumps."

"He has memories of the Outpost, but not of the Daravon Estate." Elidibus laughed. "Besides...he also does not want to pick a destination where we are likely to be observed. My understanding is that our coming and going makes quite a sight."

Cletienne nodded once more. He had only seen Vormav make the leap a few times, but it had left its impression. As hard as the passage through the Maelstrom was (that relentless pressure of foreign souls and foreign memories, that sense of drowning and burning and blinding all at once), watching it from the outside was somehow worse. When you were within it, it felt like a nightmare: terrifying and agonizing, but easy to dismiss in the sober light of day. But when you saw it from the outside, you saw (and felt!) that strange, sickly darkness, and that red light that burned its way past your eyes, into your soul. The nightmare became a part of your waking world.

Such a horror. Such a wonder.

"When Ultima is reborn-" Cletienne began.

"If-" Elidibus interrupted.

Cletienne ignored him. "-will it still be possible to travel through the Maelstrom?"

Elidibus considered for a moment. "That's an interesting question," he admitted. "The net across Ivalice will presumably remain, even if the power is focused on the person of Ultima. In theory...in theory, yes. But if Ultima was conscious, it might be able to deny passage..."

"Or...or he might aid us," Cletienne said. "Make it so ordinary humans could be moved without the help of a Lucavi...like a human hand lifting the paper, and carrying the ant upon it from one place to another."

Elidibus snorted. "You think Ultima will help you?"

"Why not?" Cletienne asked. "Hashmalum thinks so."

"Hashmalum is seeking a particular solution to a particular problem," Elidibus said. "He doesn't care if Ultima helps you or not."

"But I help him, because I want to see the world restored," Cletienne said. "Just like you help him, for the prey he promises you."

"And then he takes that prey from me." There was venom in Elidibus' voice.

Another brief silence. Cletienne's eyelids fluttered. Soon, he would let himself sleep. Soon, but not yet. Too many restless glimpses of too many wondrous things. The nightmare scouring of the Maelstrom...the mingled horror and admiration for what had become of Barich, and what Elidibus could do. And if they could go a little further, seize the Stones and bring Ajora back...!

But they were not unopposed. There was the matter of Ramza Beoulve.

"What makes the Beoulve boy such worthy prey?" Cletienne asked.

"You mean, besides all the Lucavi he's killed?" Elidibus asked. There was still venom in his voice, mixed with longing.

"You could kill a Lucavi," Cletienne said. "So could I."

"Could you now?" Elidibus asked, leering.

Cletienne nodded (fresh waves of exhaustion surging in time with the motion of his head). They were powerful creatures—his few glimpses of Zalera's marching dead and of Belias' flames had left an impression, and he felt confident there were depths to Hashmalum's power he'd yet to witness despite their long association—but none of their abilities were impossible to match. He was far more envious of their knowledge than their power—first-hand access to the brilliance of all their constituent souls, without even getting into the possibilities of the lifetimes of learning each had accumulated in their time as a host to Lucavi.

Knowledge, that was the thing—the lever that could move the world. Knowledge, and for all the Ydorans' many sins they had been the greatest collectors of knowledge in human history. So much of that knowledge had burned in the Fall. And there were so few souls in Ivalice with the will to restore that knowledge, reclaim it, build upon it.

There was a time when Clietenne had thought he was all alone, longing for a lost world. But that was a time before Hashmalum, and the hope of Ultima.

"Perhaps you could," Elidibus admitted. "I know I could, and you are not such a disgrace to the title of Archmage."

"Thanks," Cletienne mumbled.

Elidibus looked down at the Outpost again. Cletienne yawned. His legs felt weak beneath him.

"Can you cast a Soulflare?"

A brief burst of panic and embarrassment: Cletienne managed to smile. "A Flare, a Holy Light?" Cletienne asked. "It was casting such a spell that drew Hashmalum's attention unto me."

He did not mention that the spell in question had destroyed an old tower in Lionel, and left him bedridden for days.

"I should not be surprised," Elidibus said. "But it is a rare soul indeed who can cast such a Flare." He gestured vaguely with his staff. "If our souls are vectors to another dimension—one of magic—then the Flare is proof that one can pull more magic from that plane than almost any other, willing that great surge of magic into a beam of pure annhilation. Hence why there are vanishingly few souls who can do it: Lucavi and Dragoners and the rare Archmage."

Cletienne smiled wanly at Elidibus. He could barely see the old sorcerer through the darkness encroaching on his vision. Still, he hadn't known Dragoners could cast Flares. Now he was even more glad he'd visited Bremodnt, all those months ago.

"Barich found me, before he found you," Elidibus continued, as Cletienne's held swayed. "At his word, I hunted for the intruding Beoulve boy. I descended upon him, in wrath and ruin. I unleashed my Flare upon him." Elidibus turned away from the Outpost, to look at Cletienne. "And the bastard Beoulve drank it in, and healed his wounds, and hurled it back upon me."

Cletienne blinked. "He...what?"

"He caught my spell," Elidibus whispered. "He absorbed it as a Vampire Knight might do. But one of the strengths of a Flare is that it should not be possible for any Vampire Knight to drink it entirely without destroying themselves. Weaken it, disrupt it, strengthen themselves from the dregs, all possible...but he did more than that. He acted like a conduit for my spell, skimming off the top to heal himself, untangling it, transfiguring the remnants into a new spell."

"And you should have seen the look in his eyes!" Elidibus smile was all teeth. "He was surprised to see me...but he was not unready for me." He looked away from Cletienne again and out to the horizon, as though he were searching for the Beoulve boy. "I have faced so many enemies, in my seventy years upon this earth. But I have never faced a man who could breathe my magic like air, and turn it back upon me."

And through his guilt, his satisfaction, and his overwhelming exhaustion, Cletienne felt a twinge of doubt. Ramza Beoulve had thwarted their plans many times now, but Cletienne had never thought he might stop them entirely. But now he had Elidibus' exaltation to contend with. And even if he could dismiss Elidibus...there was a reason Hashmalum had fled from the Beoulve boy. Yes, the Invincible sailing into Mullonde had been a danger, and the promise of the unguarded Daravon Estate worth acting upon...but it might have been better to slay him where he stood.

Had Hashmalum fled because he feared what the boy might do if they stayed? Had he fled because he was not sure, even all together, that they could kill him?

At that thought, Cletienne straightened for a moment, and his hands ran up and down the length of his wonderful staff. The wood was old, and carefully inscribed: the Ydorans had constructed runic structures like those of a magic ring, foundations within the wood to amplify other carvings upon its surface. The lever with which he moved the world.

But it was not the only lever in this world. The world did not move only to his will. And if powers like Elidibus and Hashmalum saw something to fear in Ramza Beoulve, Cletienne would act accordingly. He would rest, and prepare himself for the difficult days ahead.

Cletienne slowly lowered himself to the ground. "You'll keep watch?"

Elidibus shot him a wry look. "You trust me that far?"

"Our purposes may be different, but our cause is the same." Cletienne yawned. "You will not turn upon us until your hunt is over."

Elidibus was quiet for a moment. Cletienne laid back in the grass, and closed his eyes.

"Young Archmage."

Cletienne did not bother opening his eyes. "Yes?"

"What makes you think the world after Ultima will be any better than the world before him?"

Cletienne smiled sleepily. "I never said it would be."

"No?" Elidibus asked. "The world restored...those are your words."

"Restored, yes." Cletienne yawned again. "So I suppose it depends on what you mean by ;better'." Sleep was deliciously close now: he felt his words stirring echoes of dreams. "A sword restored may be a better sword...but a better sword can kill far more men."

"And that's what you want?"

"What I want?" Cletienne's smile widened: it felt like laughter in his cheeks. "What I want is to stop clinging to rusted, broken blades, because we've forgotten how to forge our swords anew. I want to stoke fires great enough to cook feasts and warm castles, not huddle over embers and fear nearby shadows. I don't want to visit anymore grand Ydoran ruins. I want to build such marvels that even the Ydorans would envy them. That's what I mean by restored."

As he spoke, he could almost see the things that he imagined: laboratories like Pandemonium, menageries like the Deep, Lucavi like Hashmalum as university lecturers, imparting their vast knowledge to men who did not fear them as demons just because they did not understand them. He could see a world where a living god forged by the hands of men could cure your ailments, smite your enemies, and carry you from Gallione to Limberry in an instant.

Dangerous, yes. The Ydorans had been guilty of terrible crimes, even before they had built Ultima upon the backs of Ivalice's dead. That was the nature of power: it was neither good nor bad of itself. It all depended on how it was used.

And in his short life, Cletienne had already seen how little true power there was in Ivalice. He could rise to the very heights of Ivalician society, reign as mage-king, and it would not be enough. But Ultima remained. Ajora remained. A Saint who could deliver Ivalice from the damnation of weakness and ignorance in which they'd festered these past centuries. With Ultima's power, they could build a world where every prayer was answered.

"Give me lever big enough..." Cletienne murmured, sleep finally slurring his words.

Ramza Beoulve was dangerous, but no more so than them. They would beat him, as they had beaten all other challengers. In Ultima, they would find a lever big enough to move all the world.

The dreams of that glorious new Ivalice were becoming more real than the waking world. It was only dimly and distantly that he heard that Cletienne heard Elidibus' final words.

"Duroi...that's an Ordallian name."

"Yes." Cletienne wasn't even sure he'd spoken.

"But you're an orphan, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And there's no Duroi Orphanage..."

"No."

"You named yourself Duroi."

Yes. Cletienne had been the name given to him, by the Templars who had armed him and trained him and sought to hone him into one of their tools. But Cletienne had chosen the name Duroi, to tell all Ivalice that his ambition was greater than the arbitrary obfuscation of nations, languages, and borders. Du Roi, of Kings. Not because Cletienne wanted to claim a throne, but because Cletienne knew: his will would move the world.

Let Ramza Beoulve and his allies come to challenge them. They could not stop the new world from being born. Cletienne Duroi would not allow it.