| 15: Signs and Portents The sirocco winds of the Praerequez Wastes blew in from the northern Bay of Esperimente, tousling the hair of Lady Protector Vanana Loe. She looked to the north, walking alone in the desert near the town of Musiforme, trying to get a break from the horrors of the age. The eternal night that had settled on Columnia seemed a perfect reflection of her mood. She looked to the north, to the mountains, beyond which lay the bay and the border with Pendinmortica. Or Esperimentia, if the rebels under St. Markhos got their way. Recently, in what was already being called the Saintswar, Tanc descended from glory, from moshing at the right hand of St. Markhos in the Tota Regues Leiv. Together with a host of "returned" Vocamancers slain during the Ander-Brethed insurgency, they had declared independence from Pendinmortica, leading the southern district of the land (renamed Esperimentia) and had received military aid from Proiectica. In return, St. Apollos, St. Traia and St. Wuvh had called upon an elder god known only as Atlantewreck to utterly destroy Proiectica by flood. As the land sunk into the sea by the force of dread magics, the people evacuated and landed on the shores of Pendinmortica, ready to fight to the death and beyond in the name of St. Ander. Even the reclusive Paralilium, in a tenuous alliance with the Columnian Empire, was being sucked into the conflict on the side of Pendinmortica. Vanana looked on the north, and realized that things couldn't be much worse. The entire world was embroiled in wars and uprisings, and the winning side seemed to be the other side. The tyrant pantheon of Pendinmortua, the exiled Eterniu, come to power in Paralilium by coup and held there by Columnian puppetstrings, and of course the evil presence of Formicus of Sioux, desecrating the most holy place of the Four. She sighed there, not bothering to walk any farther, and just sitting down in the desert, looking north. She couldn't bear to look south, towards the only town in the hands of the Underground, because it was also the same direction of the city of Columnia. Where Chronos was. Neither he nor any other part of TF9 hadn't reported in for two weeks, and what was left of Section 51 confirmed that the Stellemort was ready for flight within the week. She closed her eyes, and the corners of her eyes glimmered with wetness in the starlight. "Four keep safe Chronos from the enemy," she whispered. "Four hear my vesper, all glory to the Four." She then took out a sealed envelope, whispered a spell, and it vanished into thin air, its particles streaming southward. *** Two weeks later, Chronos was finally alone in solitary. All the others had just disappeared. Task Force Nine was seemingly gone, either separated or killed. They had brutalized him, the interrogators, in their search for what he knew. They had beat him within an inch of his life, tortured him to the brink of insanity, and that was only the beginning. He knew they didn't expect him to break with the beatings, with the torture. His magics were strong enough to help him ward off the pain. No, what they DID do was shatter his reality. He was interrogated like this every three hours, never getting enough rest, barely getting enough food to keep him alive, and his mind was slipping. He had no sense of life outside of Earthbound-not even of life outside of the path between solitary and Truth Acquisition Room B-8. He, possessing the nomenclature for an ancient god of time, had lost all sense of that very concept. It was then that they went to work. He was busted out by the Underground days, weeks, or hours ago. He wasn't certain. It started with a girl with a "6" on her hand fighting off guards, accompanied by a troop of soldiers wearing the uniforms of the old Theocracy. His mind identified them in the thought process Theocracy = Underground Army = good, and he followed them wearily. "Come on, we're getting you the fornicking hell outta here!" the girl shouted. Soldiers died from their bullets, and rebels were dying too, and this girl with her carrot-red hair was beseeching Chronos to stop wasting time. He could barely move, and she recognized that, so she had one of the rebels fireman carry him out. Looking at the man's namebadge (it read Krypton, or uotdyrK in the upside-down groggy world of Chronos), he was unaware of where he ventured. Finally, he heard what sounded like an echo of a ding of an elevator bell, miles and miles and miles away from his ears, and some part of his brain registered that they were moving upwards. Soon, the stale, controlled air of Earthbound gave way to the fresh-yet-polluted air of the outside. He felt himself stuffed into the passenger seat of a truck, and pushed into the middle between the girl and one of the Underground soldiers. "Are you okay?" the girl asked, taking off and merging into the city traffic. "Unnnh..." moaned Chronos. "Wha... happened?" "This is a top-priority mission assigned by Lady Protector Vanana Loe. You see, Section 51 has been destroyed in its entirety-Formicus' Imperial Magic Brigade has ruthlessly hunted down and eliminated every last agent in the city, and the majority of Vanana's government was destroyed in a terrible raid commenced with the launch of the Stellemort. Some horrible weapon they called an atom bomb-only Vanana and General Nosferatu were away when it struck." "...so...?" wondered Chronos, trying (and failing) to absorb it all. "So the huntdown and the bombing destroyed Section 51, even our files, and there's only one person in the entire Underground Army that knows anything about it, that can help us with the names and possible locations of these agents so we can recover their bodies and what information they had on them before the Empire can make more inroads into our intelligence. This is absolutely VITAL to the rebel cause that you tell us." Chronos looked lazily at her then, tried to look into her eyes with his floppy energy-drained self propped up on a rebel shoulder, and tried to see her eyes. He couldn't-she was staring ahead at the dark, crowded road. "How will we fight back? They destroyed Section 51." "Vanana will find a way, I'm sure of it," the girl proclaimed with no small amount of bravado. "She always does. So we'll get you to our emergency headquarters, get you all rested up, and then you can start helping us save Columnia once more with your information." "Are you going to pass on Vanana's message?" "Oh right, the letter," the girl said. She gave him a letter, and he slowly ripped it open, taking out the contents and reading them. "It... by Kyrios..." murmured Chronos. "This can't be real." The girl then turned around, a look of surprise in her eyes. Then a light dawned in Chronos'. "Were there any messages from Task Force Nine?" inquired Chronos. "Did they manage to sneak Angelique to safety?" "Yes, they instructed us to tell you that she's in a safehouse in Chestira Ward." He looked at her, trying to establish memory, process what she just said, but something told him that something was odd. "This can't be right," he said. "Another illusion, another play... how much did they pay you for your soul, girl?" The girl's jaw set, he found the rebel putting him in a sleeper hold, and he awoke in the cell. *** "It was intercepted," she realized, sitting there in the desert. The magic had gone wrong, instead of going to Chronos the letter had been intercepted by someone else-probably Formicus' Empire. She gulped then, and she looked down at her stark military clothing. She knew she had to do this, that there was no other option to save Columnia in an age where elder gods sunk continents and saints made war against saints. She removed her military uniform, revealing the traditional garb of the high priestess of the Four. It was patched up in places, having been damaged in the war, and the day that empire came she had abandoned it for the camouflage. But now she took it up, and took out a sceptre hidden in the seam of her camouflage pants, and used it to trace a circle in the desert sands. She cut a cross in the circle, and inscribed the names of the four in ancient Columnian runes. She then began chanting: "Oh glory of the blessed land Your once bright light now dull Your wisdom might and righteous flame Is now but lore in tomes Robh of Voke call out your reign Cale of Base saturate your radiance Noe of Axe play once more Lest of Beat pound your passion to holy ears Your sundered land cold and slain Would have you vengeful of our blood To walk upon your land again Tota on Columnia, the Four do come! The skies turned blacker than even the perpetual night. |