Twisted Fortune - An Escaflowne Fanfiction
By Bonnejeanne and Nixers
Contact: bonnejeanne@yahoo.com and nixerchan@aol.com
Warnings: Spoilers,
Notes: Set a little over one year after Vision of Escaflowne's end.
Chapter Nine - Overnight
Part 18
It was a while later that Dilandau returned, his circlet, boots, and pants worn again. His hair was meticulously clean and in place if flattened down by water, even without the benefit of a mirror. His tunic was draped over his arm. He glanced from Van to the medical kit and discarded prescription with a smirk.
"No blood. I don't know if I'm disappointed or not," he drawled, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Van opened his eyes and looked over at the albino. Again, he looked for a moment or two longer than necessary for identification.
"Hn," he said, and closed his eyes again.
He fixed his belt and sword around his waist again, glancing from Van to the paper. "I assume that you either aren't interested or are just feeling suicidal again." An eyebrow raised. "I do figure that you can read," he commented with a twist of one corner of his lips. The long soak had taken the rancor out of his tone.
Cinnamon eyes opened again. "I can read. I was resting."
Dilandau glanced at Van out of the corner of his eye then shrugged. "By all means then," he said, picking up his armor, and pulling it over his shoulders. "Go to sleep, I'll talk to the General. If you feel worse, just yell, there will probably be someone around." Standing again, his fingers worked on the clasps and adjusted the gloves for comfort. "The bed would probably be more comfortable than the corner."
"You're leaving?" There was a barely suppressed apprehension in it.
"Adelphos isn't patient," he shrugged, thinking the panic was yet another symptom of the fever. He wasn't sure what was a true reaction from the boy anymore. He'd had time to briefly think over the past few days in the bath.
Van responded to the information by getting to his feet. He was a little steadier. He sheathed the sword and walked to the chest, pulling a plain white shirt from it and pulling over his head. He retrieved the uniform boots and pulled them on.
Dilandau crossed his arms. "You're forgetting something."
Van look at Dilandau warily.
He returned the gaze. "Unless you want to peel that tunic off again," he said.
Van regarded him for a moment. Then he pulled off the shirt and turned around.
His back looked as if it had accelerated in healing. There was still discoloration and signs of something out of the ordinary but the breaks in the skin were closed, showing thin pink marks against the tan.
Van pulled the shirt back on.
Dilandau shook his head, trying to rid himself of the sudden chill that had taken him. The tangible reminder of how right he'd been when he'd declared that his opponent wasn't human, the dragon's soul. "Fine," he repeated, and stepped back, a gesture of the hand inviting Van to go before him.
Van looked at him warily. But he moved through the door.
The albino stepped into the hall, ignoring the guard posted without, "Jajuka," he commanded, his eyes searching out the other.
The tall beastman came forward, bowing. He looked over the Fanelian king without comment.
"Will the General see us now?" Dilandau asked, working to get the formalities of the situation out of the way. As much as he'd had a conflict in the past with his commander, it would be more trouble than it was worth to forgo respect in front of the General's men guarding the doorway.
Jajuka nodded. "His standing orders are to bring you as soon as possible."
The captain smirked a bit at that but had no comment. Sparing a glance at Van, he turned and set for the foyer, and the transportation that would most likely be waiting outside.
Van met the glance without any reaction. He seemed reasonably clear headed, and it was possible that the fever had again receded as before, whether for good, or perhaps only temporarily remained to be seen.
Outside there was a somewhat smaller vehicle than the one that brought them there, with a driver and a single guard. There was room for the two boys as well as Jajuka to accompany them. The guards saluted the Captain, surreptitiously looking at the king with something between curiosity and apprehension. Word had spread.
Dilandau seemed to ignore both, though was annoyed at the unprofessional state that the troops had fallen into. He had little jurisdiction though for reprimand. The whole situation was moving past the point of frustration for him, and none of the options in front of him seemed to offer any easy relief or solution.
The trip was a short one, and they were escorted to the large, dark room Adelphos used as his office. Whereas the guards transporting them were young, younger than the Dragonslayers has been, the guards outside Adelphos' office were older men, grim looking with the scarred or set faces of veterans. They were among the few seasoned soldiers that had survived the great battle at the end of the Fortune Wars. The rest of Zaibach's small militia were of necessity kids who had been too young to be conscripted for that battle.
They recognized the Captain. Their faces were impassive, showing no surprise and no judgment. In fact they looked as if these men had already judged everything in the world and found it outside their sphere of interest.
Saluting in a precise but non-effusive way, they opened the doors. One of them stepped in front of the Fanelian king. "Your weapon."
Van's hand closed in the hilt of his sword and he scowled, stopping, but showing no inclination to surrender the blade.
Dilandau had fallen into an impassive stance, matching the guards during the trip, but his expression and eyes were showing tones of amusement. He shrugged. "I doubt they'll let you in without handing it over," he commented, not particularly favoring one situation or another.
"Fine, I'll wait here," Van muttered.
From beyond the open doors, a deep voice called in a moderate roar, "Let him through, curse it. I'm not afraid of the boy and his little prick."
The guards stiffened and then the one who was standing in Van's way moved. "Yes, sir!" they acknowledged in unison.
Dilandau snickered audibly before walking into the room. He stood at less than attention in front of the General, hand resting on his hip just above his sword. He offered the man a nod instead of a salute. "General," he said.
Adelphos walked forward and up to Dilandau, stalking like a large predator. He did not look like the same man Dilandau had known. The features were the same, the imposing stature... but his face had aged, yet somehow become more set rather than softer with it. There were small nicks and scars on his face, that had not been there before, and these marks, which could be seen on the two guards outside, gave his face a pitted appearance like weathered rock. Had Dilandau but known it, they were the marks of most of those who'd survived the energist-bomb blast, without more obviously disfiguring wounds.
But it was his eyes that had changed the most. They were sunken slightly into his face, and they burned, like dark fires at the bottom of pits to hell. It was easy to see where the rumors of madness had come from, but the look wasn't that of someone wild and unreasoning. It was haunted, and driven, with some unknown purpose.
The Captain took an involuntary half step back, not liking the reflection of himself in the General before him. He shifted slightly, the casualness of his stance not gone, but somewhat eased. He'd underestimated the change in his commander.
"You requested my presence," he stated, breaking the intense silence that had accompanied the General's advance.
Adelphos looked Dilandau over from head to toe and back.
"Still as cocky and insolent as ever," the General growled in a soft rumble. His eyes communicated a detached amusement. "What used to irritate me... I now find vaguely refreshing. But you will salute me, boy. A meaningless gesture perhaps but I'll insist on it. As a token to the rest of the Zaibach we both remember. You do remember it don't you, boy? Or have the witch-men leeched you of that as well?"
A single eyebrow rose at the "token," gesture requested. "I remember enough," he said unwilling to admit to the loss of the last battle, apparently the fall of their country. "A requiem for what is gone then," he said, giving Adelphos a military salute, speaking with careful deliberation. He had no intention of making commitments.
The pit-of-hell eyes sparked a bit at that comment, but the corner of Adelphos' mouth pulled to one side in what might have either been grim amusement or a half snarl.
"Very pretty," he said, and stalked back to his desk. He didn't sit, but looked down at a pile of charts and papers. The desk was stacked with such materials, another difference that Dilandau did not recall having seen before.
Then the General looked up and his eyes fastened on the Fanelian king, who stood with arms crossed during this exchange.
Van looked back directly, his expression serious but showing neither fear nor anger. In truth, Van was thinking that the Zaibach General reminded him of a dragon.
"King," Adelphos said. He looked the boy up and down. "You seem to be in one piece."
Van looked back. "No thanks to your sorcerers," he said quietly. "Why was I taken? More than that, why did your agents enter Fanelia and kidnap a guest of mine?"
The words were spoken in a calm tone, without the heat of an accusation. Adelphos studied the young king thoughtfully.
"You weren't taken by any orders of mine," he answered after a moment. "Though I accept responsibility for it. The wizards can't be trusted to do anything simple, without adding something from their own agenda to it."
"And my guest?"
The General's eyes flickered from Van to Dilandau and back. There was a puzzle in this, he could see it, smell it. "Ah," he answered. "That was not a kidnapping. It was an invitation, zealously delivered, perhaps. Zaibach has need of her young Captain."
Dilandau's eyes tracked both speakers, narrowed and thoughtful. He stood, uncharacteristically quiet and still while listening, he didn't miss Van's careful phrasing nor persistence about his "guest." It was a piece of what had happened during those blank spaces between his memories.
It seemed less like a situation that he'd be able to extract him from, in the tone of the General. The zealousness of the invitation was mentioned, but not apologized for, but he found himself more interested in the conversation most obviously about him, in listening than protesting the manner of it.
Van nodded. He was feeling much more aware of things around him and this general, remarkably, did not arouse in him feelings of defiance. The impression of a dragon, an old, perhaps scarred one, was distinct enough to bring forth something in Van that questioned any assumption that the man was his enemy for no other reason than their respective countries or even history. If the Fate Wars, if Folken had taught him nothing else, they had taught him to look for deeper answers.
He met the General's intense gaze and acknowledged that they both knew that the circumstances of the person they were discussing were unlike any other, and they were both carefully referring to it, or around it in a way that almost made them co-conspirators.
"Fanelia has offered him asylum and a chance for peace," Van said quietly. "If he chose to take that offer, would he be permitted to do so?"
The General's eyes narrowed. Why in the name of the Plains of Fortune would Fanelia do that?
Instead of answering, he swiveled his gaze to Dilandau. "Is that what you'd chose, boy?"
"Those who cared to give me my orders are dead," Dilandau replied. He'd managed to cover his own puzzlement at the Fanelian king before the General's full attention was on him, but he had a persistent feeling that it didn't entirely escape the large man. He turned his gaze to the General's meeting unflinchingly, a challenge in them, asking without what words what the General was prepared to offer in balance.
"And what of those who killed your country's dreams," the General returned, keeping his voice low and even. "Not all of them are dead..."
Dilandau smirked, his face hard and a little wild. "I was never asked my philosophies. Nor was these dreams a part of my training. Why now?"
"I'm not asking your philosophies, boy. I'm asking if you're prepared to walk away from a traitor unpunished." The General dropped the words like little stones into the silence.
The albino paused, seeming to abandon whatever he was going to say. "A traitor... to Zaibach?" he asked, his tone betraying curiosity, and a touch of eagerness.
Adelphos did not answer the question right away, but his eyes gleamed slightly at its tone. After a moment, he answered, but only with a slow, shallow nod.
Van had been listening to this as the conversation moved and he was left out of it. His heart had beat suddenly harder when the General had brought up 'those who killed Zaibach's dreams' and he feared to hear war rhetoric follow on its heels, but the turn this was taking was unexpected and he held himself still and quiet, attention mainly on Dilandau.
The Captain's mood seemed to shift instantly onto something bordering anger at the General's delay, seeing it as an evasion. "Don't play with me *sir*," he growled. "Tell me your orders, or dismiss me from service."
Adelphos actually smiled. "Don't bark at me, pup," he said. The smile faded into an expression somehow grimmer than the man's now-habitual scowl. He pushed something aside on his desk and revealed a button there. He pushed it, with a bare glance at Van. When he did this, there was a low vibration in answer that seemed to run through the walls, ceiling and floor. It was unnerving, but in a moment or two, it faded into a mildly irritating background hum.
"I'm about to tell you things only a handful of men in Zaibach know. The intelligence doesn't leave here," the General said.
Dilandau nodded automatically, sneaking the quickest of glances towards Van. /So, this is what Jajuka couldn't discover,/ he mused, his interest rising.
Van was wearing a rather astonished look on his face. He was trying to figure out why he hadn't been asked to leave at this point. He was beginning to have a very odd suspicion about it as well.
"Since I know of your great love for the sorcerers," Adelphos said, with grim amusement, "You'll find this of interest. There was one, his cursed name was Locious. Dornkirk found him, trained him, with the rest. He'd some promise I'm told," the General's lip curled slightly. "Before Dornkirk-sama found Folken, he was the chief among them. The one-armed man bested him in that." Again a touch of amusement, which caused Van's teeth to clench. "There was conflict between them. Dornkirk favored Folken. After some incident, Locious was to be banished from Zaibach. The Generals opposed it, he'd too much knowledge to let go. So the other wizards took him for adjustment... the story goes that it went wrong and the man died." Adelphos teeth clenched, his hand fisting. He glared at Dilandau as if the boy, or perhaps anything in front of him, was somehow to blame for what came next.
"The bastard lived. Escaped Zaibach. Ended up in... Basram."
The captain flinched slightly connecting the implications, Jajuka's story of a bomb that had wiped out all of Zaibach's troops, and his own assertions that Zaibach would be after Basram first. The name of the sorcerer had no meaning to him, except as a target, he could only assume that he was another of the nameless men, or before his time. "The energist bomb," Dilandau concluded, barely audible.
Adelphos eyes burned into Dilandau's as if barely seeing him. In fact it was almost possible to see the afterimage of the hellish bomb-blast in his eyes.
"The Bomb," the General answered. And it was clear that for Adelphos, there was now and always would be only one bomb in existence.
Van found himself reacting to the intensity coming off the General. He almost felt as if an urgency had been induced into his own chest by the nearness of it.
Dilandau frowned, his own distaste for the weapon deciding him. "There are twenty seven people that the sorcerers have now..." he let it trail off, asking as well as accepting.
Adelphos blinked, as if shuttering the hellfires in his own memory. "You want what?"
"Them free, gone, whatever." Dilandau shrugged, not caring much of the hows, as long as the results were the same. "No replacements."
Adelphos' eyes narrowed as he looked at the young captain.
"Have you a cause, boy?" he asked, the barest edge of surprise tinting his voice.
"Have you anyone else to do this task?" Dilandau replied, the barest discomfort in the question covered by the confidence in his voice. "I've heard Fanelia is nice this time of year."
The General regarded Dilandau with a slow look, indicating a bit more comprehension of the young man's internal workings that was comfortable. "How long will that last?" he growled slowly. A very slow smile pulled at his normally hardset mouth. "I've heard that Basram's been looking with some interest at that poor little country. Not sure why. But Locious had a fascination with it, I'm given to understand. Said it was the first civilized land on Gaea. Said you could still find Draconians there if you knew where to look..."
Van's eyes widened and his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword, pulling it half out before his mind caught up with his reflexes. He slammed the weapon back into the sheathe with force enough to be audible even over the soft whine.
Dilandau glanced at his companion, his attention caught by the sudden noise. Emotions mixed at the sight. It was clear that if he stayed, he would be going to Basram, but now everything in the young man spoke of defensive aggression. Repressing the urge to step toward the young man, he turned his attention back to Adelphos.
"You wouldn't allow that," he hazarded, watching the General's face. "They would have a reason, strategically for attacking Fanelia.... it would give them an advantage that you can't predict."
Adelphos looked at Dilandau, his expression grim, almost-amused, almost disgusted, and lined with deep hate for something not in the room. "Allow? Look around you, boy. I've no army - a militia. That and those spiders down in their labs.... and you want to free the weapons they're making. Wake up, Captain. Had we the time, perhaps. But it's been a long year and Basram is growing impatient for more blood, they hadn't enough on their first meal."
Dilandau couldn't argue. He'd seen the points demonstrated in their brief stays in the capitol, the rest was logic. "They won't survive, your resources are being wasted," he said, bringing to mind the papers he'd gone though. He'd not exaggerated to Van the state they would be in, in fact underplayed it. If it were stopped immediately, there were perhaps five of that group he could say with any confidence would live.
The General didn't try to argue either. He looked into Dilandau's eyes for a long moment, measuring what he saw there.
"You've got depths you hid from me, Captain," the General said, and the change of address was noticeable. He laced his fingers together for a moment. Then he nodded. "Very well then. They're freed... the moment you return. And no more."
Dilandau nodded, giving the general something more of an honest salute. Stepping back, he glanced at Van, as if just realizing the other's silence in the midst of the negotiations.
Van had managed to get control of his face, but he could not bank the intensity in his eyes. He met Dilandau's gaze directly, locking on it.
"I'm going with you."
Dilandau nodded, not blinking. He'd expected as much, and felt no inclination to argue.
Adelphos looked from one to the other with another slight, grim smile. His lidded his eyes before revealing just how much of this he'd planned for or expected.
Van turned to the General, challenging with a look, and recognized that the man wasn't going to take it up.
"I'll need to get a message to Fanelia," Van snapped, and suddenly his voice was that of a sovereign ruler, born and bred to it.
Adelphos nodded. "Be circumspect," he said. "Basram has spies everywhere. Everywhere."
Van nodded curtly. He glanced at Dilandau. "Your man... Jajuka," he said. "He can take a message, place it only in the hands I say..."
Dilandau stiffened slightly, reluctant to give up the valuable resource and dependable company of the beastman... Reminding himself of the importance of the situation and the price that was now on his compliance he nodded. "He will."
Van allowed relief to be visible in his eyes. Still not fully rid of the effects of the wizard's work, more or less alone in a formerly enemy country with only his once-rival for a trusted companion, Van was doing his best with what he'd been gifted.
Turning back to the General, Van said, still with a touch of that regal tone, "Fanelia accepts your apology for the mistake, General Adelphos."
The General inclined his head, knowing he hadn't offered any apology, but almost admiring the boy for the touch of diplomacy that seemed quite natural for the moment.
Then Adelphos pushed the button on his desk, brushing papers back over it absently. The hum stopped. He pushed another button, this one not hidden, and the doors opened and one of the guards came in and saluted.
"The Captain is to have anything he needs for his mission which is confidential and of highest priority," the General ordered. "And our guest, the King of Fanelia is to be in the Captain's charge, and not to be hindered in any way."
The guard saluted again, acknowledging the orders.
"Come back when you've seen to their needs," the General added. He and the guard exchanged a look and it was clear this man was more than simply a guard.
"An escort will not be required," Dilandau said, taking a step backwards naturally at the dismissal. "The situation will need some assessment, and I can attain myself what we will require."
The General acknowledged this with a curt nod. He saluted the Captain with only a tiny hint of grim amusement in his eyes.
Feeling the uncomfortable sensation of being exposed in some manner, Dilandau returned the gesture perfunctorily, before turning on his heels sharply, stepping past the guards without a glance backwards.
Van stayed on Dilandau's heels, his own thoughts deeply preoccupied with the revelation of this new, specific, and chilling threat to Fanelia.
After the two young men had left the General's office, along with the beastman, who had remained outside during the meeting, the guards returned, and both of them entered and closed the doors.
Adelphos looked at the two men, who had survived on board the same airship that he had when the bomb had taken four fifths of the Zaibach army. He leaned down and pressed the button on his desk, and the concealing hum could be heard, covering his next words with a cloak of privacy from any spy.
"When the boy returns, if he accomplishes his mission, and I believe he will, I've agreed to released the sorcerers'... acquisitions," he said. The two men exchanged looks. It didn't need to be said. All three men knew that this would not be acceptable to the wizards. And all three men knew what only one disgruntled wizard had been responsible for.
"When that happens, I want the sorcerers killed. All of them."
THE END OF PART 18!