Dreams of the Quill

HC: Book One, Crystals of Mana - Chapter Twenty-eight

by Flak

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Twenty-eight

The Joker looked back over his shoulder as Gem waved to Mana one last time. The Guardian Heir stood radiant upon the hill, his hair shining red-gold in the midday sun. The Joker lingered as Gem turned and passed him and headed onto the airship, looking up at Mana as though waiting for some signal. Mana did nothing, however, and after a few moments the Joker turned and followed Gem, gray robes puffing out and swirling with a gust of wind.

Mana felt his heart sink as the airship soared off into the east.

“We setting off?” asked the Thief, flicking his horse’s reins and causing it to prance back and forth anxiously.

“A spectacular idea,” replied Julien, nudging his horse to head down the hill. Mana and the Thief followed him and then the three changed their bearings slightly northward.

The ground was firm and the going easy and, as there was no challenge in directing their horses, the company soon found themselves with nothing to do but make conversation.

“Where exactly is our destination?” asked Mana after half an hour or so had passed.

“A place called Quake Falls,” Julien replied instantly. A pause, and then he added, “the Joker told me.”

“And how do we find this place?”

“… a map, obviously,” replied the Thief, a touch of frustration in his voice.

“And we have a map?” Mana inquired.

“I do,” Julien answered, producing a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. “We came pretty much due east from Mist, so south of here is the forest and north of here are the frozen wastes. Somewhere in between—and a bit on the north end, and further east—should be a large lake and, by this lake, a waterfall.”

“So we’re headed northeast?”

“Exactly,” answered Julien.

“All clear, Milord?” demanded the Thief. Mana pouted at the Thief’s attack, but said nothing. “Lord Tryn, how far do you figure it is?”

“We should be camping on the shores of the lake tonight.”

“That soon?” Mana asked, surprised.

“Lord Tryn, is your cousin a natural-born idiot?” the Thief asked, no longer able to contain his frustration. Julien didn’t reply immediately. “Or do they not teach nobles anything in Central Libra? If we made it to Gaia from Mist in such short order—a little more than half a day—of course we will make it less than that distance in less than that time!”

“Mark,” the young lord of Tryn warned, “mind who you’re talking to.”

“It’s alright, Jul,” the Guardian Heir said sadly. “I don’t want friends treating me differently because of my title.”

“Friends,” snorted the Thief, after having rapidly calculated which order—Julien’s or Mana’s—took precedence. Conveniently for him, the Guardian Heir was second only to the Guardian Lord.

Julien sighed.

“No, Mark, I wasn’t taught much at the Mana Palace. I was brought up to live in the palace my whole life, never to interfere with others, and to keep to myself, such that my magic would affect as few people as possible. The chapel tutors weren’t exactly jumping to show me about the world.”

“Oh woe is you,” the Thief replied sarcastically, “poor little prince, sooo troubled by how well he was shielded from the harsh world!”

“Mark…” began Mana, and then he shook his head before continuing. “I just didn’t know the world was so small.”

The Thief had no clever retort. Plenty he could think of, none he could actually make. He was speechless.

“It’s a small world indeed,” agreed Julien, not looking back at the two behind him. “I’ve seen every corner of it, Mana. You can do a comfortable circle around it in four weeks.”

“Four weeks?” asked Mana incredulously.

“Four weeks,” replied Julien.

“Four weeks,” confirmed the Thief. “I’ve done it myself, as well. But you know, Milord, for such a small world there are a lot of people and a lot of those people live in squalor, in contrast to your rich palace home.”

“Are you just trying to make him feel guilty for a regime he was born into?” Julien asked, a hint of anger in his voice.

“Yes,” put the Thief once he gave it a thought and realized that that was exactly what he was trying to do.

“And what about me?” asked Julien testily. “I am Lord Tryn.”

“But you’ve—” the Thief snapped his mouth shut when Julien turned and shot him a scathing look. Hesitantly, he glanced over at Mana, then back at Julien’s rageful eyes. “Well, you should feel guilty too, Milord.”

Mana was puzzled by the exchange, but chose not to pursue it any further.

“I have a question, Mark,” he began, a few minutes later. “How did you and Luke come to be partners?”

“Ah, the plight of the poor man,” the Thief sniffed dramatically before continuing, “sometimes, in order to survive, humans need to depend on each other.”

“Luke isn’t a human.”

“Humans, Light-whatevers, it’s all the same. We’re all living beings.” The Thief looked down at his horse’s mane as he said this and then absentmindedly played with one strand of hair.

Mana pulled back on his reins and his mount came to a gradual stop. The Thief and Julien continued onward for a few seconds before they realized he’d paused and turned to face him.

“Something wrong, Mana?” Julien asked.

“I’m… confused.”

“Hah, he’s confused!”

“Shut up,” ordered Julien. “Mana, what about?”

“Mark… you can accept demons as fellow living things, but my magic upsets you?”

Julien turned from Mana to the Thief, just as interested as his cousin in the man’s explanation.

“Listen up, Milord. The only division I see is that between the nobility and the poor. People with powers… with your so-called Jikkuu ‘magic,’ or with the Roof-runner’s ability, whatever… exist only to perpetuate an elite class and oppress people without those powers—”

“Demons exist to destroy humanity,” Julien observed, cutting in. The Thief paid him no heed.

“—and to profit from it. It’s not a matter of the supernatural or not the supernatural. Entities, I know that there’s crap out there. And I know that there are demons and that there is Jikkuu. That power is out there, I know. But people who exploit that power… lordlings, like you, Milord, and the Roof-runner. And your father, who tried to make your powers political. You and everything else that the Mana Palace has spawned. You are the ones that destroy the lives of the poor, after being the ones who created the poor.

“At some point, we decide we’re through with being toyed with.

“Ancestors of mine—plainsmen from the south of Libra—once were party to a plot known as the ‘Deposition of Gem.’” The Thief smiled as recognition dawned on Mana. “That’s right, Milord. You’ve heard stories bemoaning the decline in power experienced by the Mana line after The Purge? That was the entire point of The Purge! My ancestors conspired with Lont al’Kondo to kill the Guardian Lord and have Lont—a man with no magic—set on the Mana Throne. The idea of the thing was to narrow the gap between the nobility and the impoverished.

“So we had Gem al’Kondo framed and ousted and we set Lont on the throne and, most unfortunately, he changed. He did his best to keep some power in the hands of his family and the exiled Gem took on the role of exile perfectly, which made Lont look all the more righteous to the rest of the nobility. Where resistance on Gem’s part was expected, none was found. Even in fleeing the palace and accepting the blame of his father’s death, that man kept the Libran Alliance’s power structure strong!”

The Thief paused, breathless, and Mana managed to slide in a question.

“Wait, Mark—you’re a Marauder, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am,” he said, and began trying to explain: “Like I said, sometimes, humans need to—”

“Not that,” Mana shook his head, “but weren’t the Marauders formed by this Gem al’Kondo you hate so much?”

Julien burst out laughing.

“Got you there,” he chuckled, sniffing back tears of mirth.

“The organization has changed,” shrugged the Thief.

“So basically, Mana,” Julien said, hiccuping slightly, “this Thief fellow hates and fears your magic because people with that power are the symbol of an institution his grandpa tried to do away with. It’s a blood feud, nothing more, nothing less.”

“I… see,” replied Mana.

“But there’s a problem with what you’re saying, Mark. By your logic, you should hate Gem the Roof-runner, yet as he was leaving you expressed your respect for him.” Julien turned and continued riding north after pointing this out, saying over his shoulder that they needed to get going.

“I was impressed by his resilience in dealing with the Underworld,” said the Thief quickly, spurring his mount to catch up with Julien. “That’s all.”

“So you do hate him?” asked Mana cautiously.

“I can’t think of any better emotion to feel toward him.”

“But he’s not at all like me—he grew up in an Eldran village in the south, he grew up impoverished!”

“Background matters less than actions.”

“What has he done to upset you?”

The Thief didn’t answer.

“You previously expressed disgust in Gem’s forging—”

“Actually, can we stop this?” Julien asked wearily. “Let’s get to Quake and take care of the Crystal and then head to our next destination, whatever it is. I don’t want to hear this pointless back and forth.”

Mana fell silent, Julien’s irritation eating at him. The Thief smiled smugly.

The terrain became rough again, hills rolling out across the Gaian plains. By the time the sun was setting, the going had become treacherous. Shadows stretched from the top of one hill to the bottom of the next, cloaking half the land in darkness.

“Are we going to make camp?” Mana asked once the sun had set completely.

“We’re close, let’s press on,” Julien said. “Give us a light.”

Mana grumbled a little about how he was tired, but obliged, weaving a patch of the night sky over his head into a floating chandelier of flames.

“We are going in the right direction, yes?” asked the Thief.

“Can’t you hear that?” Julien asked, pointing forward, beyond the next hill—a hill larger than any of the ones they’d encounter during the day. The Thief cocked his head and then nodded.

“Gushing water.”

“Really?” asked Mana. “I can’t hear anything.” That wasn’t entirely true. He could hear a dull buzzing in the background.

“You still have the Aqua Crystal with you, right, Mana?” Julien asked.

“Yeah,” the Guardian Heir replied. “I didn’t get a chance to have Gem make an accessory out of it because we left Mist in such a hurry, but I’ve got it.” Mana fished in his robe’s pocket, producing the tiny blue jewel. “Right here.”

They began climbing the hill.

“Why?” asked Mana.

“No reason.”

They crested the hill and came to a stop on the ridge. Julien motioned for Mana to cast his light further ahead. There, at the foot of the hill, reflecting the aerial flames Mana had conjured, was a body of water. With a few flicks of his wrist, Mana sent his fire wandering, hovering over the surface of what was apparently a lake, mapping out its contour.

“This the place?” the Thief asked.

“Yes,” was the Lord of Tryn’s curt reply.

“Found it,” reported Mana, pointing to the other side of the lake, where his flames illuminated a huge waterfall. “That’s Quake Falls.”

“Can you feel a Crystal around here?” Julien asked.

“I’ll try to sense it.” Mana closed his eyes and reached out, searching for the feeling of power he associated with Jikkuu and the Crystals. His search ended abruptly when the Aqua Crystal in his pocket overpowered any other traces of magic in the area. “The one I’m carrying is too strong… I can’t tell if there’s another one out there.”

“Here, hand Aqua to me, then,” Julien said, reaching out. Mana, without a second thought, placed the Aqua Crystal in his cousin’s open hand.

“It’s still too close; I can’t feel anything else,” Mana declared.

“Don’t worry, kiddo, it’ll be far away from you soon enough.” Julien caused his horse to rear back and then turned and rode ten yards away down the ridge.

“Wait, what?” blurted a confused Mana. His lights, still hovering by the waterfall across the lake, cast little illumination on Julien’s face, but he could swear he saw a smile he’d never seen before.

“Lord Tryn, what are you—” began the Thief, but he was cut off as Julien howled into the night,

“Kieku!”

In a flash of gray light, the old man appeared, standing by the young lord’s horse.

“Did you retrieve the Quake Crystal yet?” Julien asked.

“Yes,” replied Kieku. “It was in the caverns beneath the waterfall, just as we’d predicted, and it wasn’t at all guarded.”

“Good. I have the Aqua, so that puts us at nine out of twelve. Shall we be off?”

“With no explanation at all?” Kieku asked, disappointment sounding in his voice. “That’s not very fun.”

“You want Chaos, I want the throne. What’s there to explain?” Julien asked bitterly.

“What’s going on?” Mana was bewildered. Julien and Kieku were talking like they were partners.

“Oh, but we could tell your darling cousin all about how you’ve been playing him!” said Kieku, delighting in the thought. “We could tell him about how you’ve been working with me from the beginning… or about how you’ve always hated him from being a spoiled royal brat… or about how you’re the Marauder Lord, perhaps…”

“Marauder… Lord…?” Mana mouthed.

“None of that is too interesting,” reprimanded Julien, impatiently fumbling with his horse’s reins. “If you don’t want to hop on and ride back with me, I’m going ahead on my own.”

“Lord Tryn!” exclaimed the Thief. “What is this treachery?!”

“Treachery?” questioned Julien. “Oh, I suppose it is that, yes. But you don’t mind, right, Mister My-Ancestors-Were-Integral-To-The-Deposition-Of-Gem-al’Kondo?”

“Wha—” the Thief stopped mid-word, not sure what he was going to say in protest.

“Jul…” began Mana. It was the scene in UnderMist all over again, the empty room with the revolutionary dabbler who was actually an Underworld Link. Mana had trusted Ay and Ay had betrayed him.

“Lanto is dead,” grinned Kieku. “My condolences for the loss of your father, Milord.”

“Father!” Mana cried out, choking back the sudden desire to break down in tears. He gritted his teeth and muttered, “murderer.”

“Well, that’s good, at least,” raged the Thief. Then he spoke, resolute: “Julien! The Marauders do not ride for you any longer. My ancestors abandoned safety for social change; they did not abandon their friends or family for profit. I don’t know all your reasons, but I gather you’re usurping the Mana Throne. I suppose it’s your pat on the back from Kieku. Don’t think for a moment that you’re actually going to rule! He’ll control—”

“Is there no way to shut this fool up?” Julien asked.

“There are plenty,” smiled Kieku, waving a hand above his head and weaving a gag of thickened air in the Thief’s mouth. He then patted the haft of Julien’s runespear. “If you would like to silence him permanently, you have the means.”

“There is no need to kill him,” shrugged Julien. “So long as he shuts up.”

“Anyway, Milord,” continued the aging mage, turning back to Mana, “word has it that you had a bit of an accident on your little journey ’round the world. An airship crash, to be exact. Your body wasn’t found—what was left of it is probably at the bottom of Vise Lake. What was found was a sword, which your very own beloved father Lanto—on his deathbed—took the trouble to identify as yours.”

Mana couldn’t find words to respond with, only an inner burst of unexplainable energy. He put his hand on the hilt of the sword Gem had made him, ready to disregard all the warnings, ready to cast aside its cloth wrappings, ready to unsheathe it. Ready to destroy.

“Whoa there, baby,” Julien laughed, “not so fast! You know what happened the last time you used that sword?”

Mana didn’t reply, maintaining a strong grip on the cloth-wrapped hilt.

“Of course you don’t. You blanked out and we told you that you fell and hit your head. I’ll tell you what happened, Mana. You almost tore through Bane’s fabric and destroyed the world.”

“Words are useless at this point, Guardian Lord,” Kieku said to Julien. “He’s going to fight me if we stay here longer. You acquired the Aqua Crystal and came to meet me, is that not what we had planned? Mission accomplished. Let’s return to the Mana Palace and plan our next move.”

“Sounds good. Let us be off.” Kieku clambered onto the back of Julien’s mount and the two began riding south, blending into the dark of night.

“Jul!” Mana called after his cousin. The sound of hoofbeats ceased. “What is this about being the Marauder Lord, Jul? Jul… the Marauders destroyed Arsi’s village and killed his father.”

“Who’s that?” Julien asked, gently, as if he actually wanted to know.

“A human being just like you, Jul. A person just as important.”

“There will be no more poverty in my Libra,” Julien replied. The Thief clenched his fists.

“That doesn’t mean anything!” yelled the Marauder, relieved of his magical gag. The sound of hoofbeats returned and then faded into the distance. “Damn it, Lord Tryn… damn you, damn you and your secrets… damn you and your ‘don’t tell Mana!’… damn you and your two-faced aspirations… damn you, Julien al’Donaan Tryn!”

Mana bit his lip to resist admonishing the Thief.

“You’re not going to follow them?” asked the Thief.

“What good would that do?” asked Mana, relinquishing his grasp on his sword and slumping forward in his saddle. Gem had left. Julien had left. There was no one around except the Thief. It was all over.

“Likely none,” admitted the Thief, “we’ve been had.”

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Part 1: Gem Chapter SelectPrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter Fourteen Part 2: Mist Chapter SelectInterludeChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-oneChapter Twenty-twoChapter PoniesChapter Twenty-threeChapter Twenty-fourChapter Twenty-fiveChapter Twenty-six Part 3: Julien Chapter SelectChapter Twenty-sevenChapter Twenty-eight

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