5-May-2002
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 Fourteen - Rites of Passage (cont)
Part 36
There was maybe a detail here and there off. A wall not quite as distant as he'd imagined it, or a rearranging of the flat thin mattressed bunks, but the resemblance to the mental picture that his brother's writings had inspired was uncanny almost to the point of frightening. Between the three of them, it had always been that the fewest of words were needed to convey a mental picture.
Kaerin walked the length of the room in a slow circuit. The blue lights from the gas lamps he'd lit cast an almost melancholy air to the room. Somehow it fit his mood. Third desk and bunk from the far wall. It wasn't hard to find exactly, just startlingly lived-in seeming. No one had touched the room, not since....
There were still rumples in some of the sheets where a quick call to duty, to leave for the floating fortress, had left little time for the precision that Chesta mentioned that their Captain was so keen on. They had never returned here to fix the slight errors. The drawers to the desk, his brother didn't have the mementos that the other boys seemed to see fit to gather and hide, just paper, ink, blotting strips and sand.
Some were written on, half finished letters, punctuated by scribblings of technical drawings. With a sigh, Kaerin picked up the sheaf, and was thumbing through the small-lettered words there, when the door to the room hissed open, announcing a second presence.
Without turning around the Third Knight shook his head, "I've already sent word that my debt is cleared. I will not change my mind on this."
"I'm not from Adelphos." A voice, quiet to the point of unnerving spoke up. Kaerin stiffened and shoved the papered back into the desk, closing it soundly. He turned and straightened.
The man in front of him was wearing plain clothes, a simple bland caravat and leggings. It didn't in anyway dispel the immediate feeling that there should have been layers of black fabric covering that gangly form. Granted this one didn't seem as bad as some he'd had described to him.
The habitually polite look on the young Knight's face disappeared into a thunderstorm. "I have nothing to do with your kind," he snapped, smoothing out his uniform brusquely.
"You might wish to," the sorcerer said, eyeing the boy with deliberate scrutiny. He lingered in the doorway, preventing easy exit. "I am not here in any association with those who bear your anger. I wish to enlist your help in contacting those who may prevent a rather.... unfortunate happenstance."
Kaerin paused, the tone at which it was said brought back that feeling of urgency he'd had in Fanelia. It didn't sit well with him, to stand in the presence of one of Them under any circumstance, but.... Wrapping his hand around the hilt of his sword he said, "Like what?"
Kauru smiled.
Allen walked slowly through the corridors of the fortress, his mind on things other than where he was. There was no real reason to rush back to the Crusade, though that would likely be his destination... he'd also been toying with the idea of wandering in the direction of the former quarters of the sorcerers. It wasn't hard to figure out what part of the fortress that was, between the major structural repairs being done, and the clearly marked entrances. They had a strangely sterile ostentation that all but shouted the nature of what lay beyond, or what once had.
Pausing a short distance away, leaning in the shadow of another doorway, Allen pondered a foray, fingers gently stroking the hilt of his sword absently.
"I wouldn't, if you're thinking about it," a tired voice spoke up from behind him, within the room whose entrance he'd leaned against. "Even without them there, it's still a viper's pit."
Allen did not show any visible signs of having been surprised, though he was inwardly startled. He looked back over his shoulder, eyes seeking the now familiar figure of the other Heavenly Knight. "Morbid fascination," Allen said, shrugging slightly. "Ten years... part of me wants to see... to know... what she saw."
The room behind him was little more than an antechamber, a connection to another hallway. Kaerin stepped out of it and to the side of Allen. Now more clearly visible, it didn't look like the normally composed man had the slightest rest last night. "I could likely describe it, but I don't have the heart for it," he said.
Allen looked into the other man's eyes. "What is it that bound them together? Your brother was a Dragonslayer... but there's more to it. Something more to... him," he said, not bringing up the Captain's name but thinking it clearly.
"A common past, and a singular empathy." Kaerin leaned against the wall opposite Allen, looking past him to the closed off hallway beyond. "Every single one of the Dragonslayers were subjects. Dilandau trained quite a few groups, but he only kept the Dragonslayers close. He took each of them away from the sorcerers, brought them back to health and made them untouchable."
Allen's eyes widened. He stared at Kaerin, clearly stunned by this revelation. There was a moment if disbelief, but it melted away with remarkable speed, as he tried to put the picture of his sister's eyes next to those of the boy. And Kaerin's tone and expression left no room for the thought of prevarication.
The swordsman's jaw clenched and he closed his eyes for a moment, withdrawing into himself. When his eyes opened, there was another level of self-recrimination in the blue depths, and something more. A growing understanding.
"It's the oldest trick in the book," he muttered, "One of my own favorites, in fact."
Kaerin's gaze returned to Allen, the question in it circled by a suddenly sharper edge. "Trick?" he asked.
Allen actually smiled slightly. "Let them see what they want to see. I never registered such a depth in the boy. I wasn't looking for it."
"Probably didn't want anyone to," Kaerin said, posture loosening a bit. "In Pallas, the best way to remove yourself from politics is to appear not to be worth gossiping about."
"Or to be worth gossiping about... rather than watching seriously," Allen said with a very self-mocking smile.
Kaerin bobbed his head in agreement. He was silent a moment before his jaw clenched and relaxed, with a deep breath he looks back at Allen. "One of them approached me last night. He say's he's working independently," the mistrust for 'them' was thick in the younger Knight's voice.
Allen's gaze sharpened to sword-edge. "One of 'them'?" he said, his glance flickering to the hallway and back. His eyebrows drew together. "I understood they were dead or incarcerated... all but..." His scowl deepened. "And you did... what?"
"I *wish* I'd finished drawing," Kaerin said with a wry half smile. "It would have saved me a lot of worry. He started talking about the 'others' doing something foolish, but wouldn't tell me anything. He wanted me to tell someone who could do something about it to meet him. Arrogant bastard said he'd make it worth your time," the last was with a dark look. He paused. "I don't know what. Whether you go or not, just be careful not to be alone, even if you decide just to ignore it."
Kaerin finished; during the curt report he'd watched the other steadily, obviously looking for something intently.
Allen's eyes narrowed at the additional information. His hand, which had clenched in his sword hilt a bit before, went back to stroking it gently.
"Someone... did he specify any particular someone? Was this a random approach or a targeted offer?" he asked.
"I don't think it was random.... just calculated." Kaerin said, running his hand through his hair in a nervous reflex. "He never said who, but I can not approach the Captain with this." He said, the idea of entrusting it to Van, just wouldn't sit with him, it left only one person to bring the matter to. "You aren't easy to find, you know."
The corner of Allen's mouth twitched slightly. "No, I'd suppose not," he said, though whether to the first comment or the second wasn't immediately obvious. His face shuttered for a moment. Then he looked at Kaerin. "Let's see what he wants," he said, watching the other Knight.
Kaerin nodded, a mixture of things passing through his eyes before turning and leading the way down a parallel corridor to the sorcerers' wing. The stretch was almost completely black, dotted only at far too sparse intervals by dim blue lamps, the only guide to navigation in the dark. Searching for a moment in the muted halflight, it took Kaerin a moment to find the doorway at the far end of the hall. Opening it led to a disorienting flood of pure sunlight. As their eyes adjusted, a simple hidden garden lay beyond. Something that had to have been carefully cultivated in the arid country.
Allen shaded his eyes with a hand, surveying the surprising terrain with an eye sharp for possible traps, and enemies.
The small scrap of land seemed simple enough. It was protected by high walls on all sides and seemingly no point for observation. Both the seclusion and the unexpected and ironic proximity to the sorcerers' wing was probably why the occupant of the room had yet to be caught despite being thick in what could be considered enemy territory.
The thin man stood at their entrance. "Greetings Lords Schezar. I was hoping that it would be you that the young one would fetch," the tone of voice the man used left no indication that there was any hope involved. The confidence was almost overwhelming. "I am the Fourth Mage. You may call me Kauru."
Allen's expression was set in a cool mask. Only Kaerin could see a slight working of jaw muscles as they unclenched to speak.
"I'll call you dead if you waste my time. Give me a reason not to turn you over to Adelphos... rapidly," Allen said.
The sorcerer smiled, as if death was the least likely of his concerns. He sighed. "Your line was never strong on patience. Very well. My colleagues are embarking on something I believe to be less than sane. I would like political asylum. In return, I am willing to undo what has been done, and prevent what will be." He crossed his arms over your chest. "Either of you may kill me if you like. I'd suspect both have reason. But not only would you do me a mercy, but you'd never know exactly what is going on."
Allen's lip curled slightly. "Riddles. Prevent what may be... vague but general. What the other devils are planning, I guess. But undo what has been done? Even magic can't change the past. Be plainer or be dead."
"If technology can alter what will be, it takes only a reversal to tilt what has been," the sorcerer explained with an amused patience. "As blunt as I will be, it would be of a benefit to relieve num... the one known as Dilandau from service. Serena, I believe, was her name?" Kauru waved it aside with one longfingered hand. "But that is but a side point, if you wish the main one, I will have a promise of immunity, in whichever country you have been given power, ambassador."
Allen froze to stillness, the only movement so subtle even Kaerin might miss it - a slight tremble of the fingers resting on sword hilt.
The Knight beside Allen had gone nearly arctic. He watched both intensely from the side. Unable to influence, he simply waited, eyes dark and breath caught somewhere below the throat.
Allen was still for several heartbeats. Then his hand twitched almost convulsively, and he spoke through stiff lips.
"Make your own way to my ship, and don't be seen. I won't jeopardize my crew's safety being seen with you," he said. "Make it there and you'll have all the immunity," he mouthed the word like acid, "You desire."
The sorcerer bowed, tucking one arm across his waste before standing and backing directly into the wall. The surface rippled once and he was gone.
Allen waited no longer, turning to leave the garden with barely suppressed energy.
Moving faster than he'd done even when fighting for what he believed was his life against the swordsman, Kaerin pulled at Allen's shoulder using the swordsman's fast momentum to turn him. A fist fluidly followed the movement striking for the solar plexus.
As good as the swordsman's reflexes were, he couldn't completely dodge the blow and took it off-center, breath exploding from him in a grunt of pain. Instead of returning the blow, he wrapped his fingers around Kaerin's wrist, pinning it with a hold of pure steel. His eyes met the other Knight's, showing something wide open with a depth of turmoil than seemed to go down into forever. "Not... here..." he managed, never letting his gaze drop.
The signs of betrayal and rage behind the Knight's eyes didn't lessen at all, though the face and posture of the boy smoothed immediately. "Fine," Kaerin replied, the single word more pleasant sounding than it had a right to be.
Breathing hard, and not loosening his grip on the other Knight's wrist in the slightest, Allen straightened, grimacing, and pulled Kaerin through the portal out of the garden and into the corridor. He retraced their steps to the doorway he'd been leaning in and went inside the room beyond, pushing the door shut, and then released his grip on Kaerin's wrist, leaving it mildly bruised. Before the younger man could speak, Allen dropped onto a bench and placed a hand over his face. That hand, one of the three most skilled in Gaea, shook for a moment with an uncontrollable tremor before the blond knight mastered himself.
"Even at the point of your sword again," Kaerin began, tone brittle, "I'd have not told you today what I did, if I hadn't had trust in you." The Knight's eyes flashed. "I hope what was said to him had some politics within it."
Allen let his hand fall, showing a faint trace of moisture at the corner of one blue eye. He looked at Kaerin directly. "No politics at all. I simply lied. If he shows up, he'll never make it out of the hold of the Crusade."
The brown haired swordsman stepped back after a moment, until his back was against the wall, and slid down it, folding to the floor in an obvious conflict of relief and regret. After a moment, he looked up, "I'm sorry," he said simply, in a quiet tone.
Allen looked back, his expression showing a deep weariness. "For what?"
"For not drawing my blade last night. I could have had a good night's rest then." He shook his head. "I had.... a thought... that would be his offer. I'd hoped...."
"What did you hope, Kaerin?" the swordsman asked in a voice devoid of emotion.
The other shook his head, a self depreciating smile across his face. "Who knows. I certainly don't. Maybe for it all to go away, for a chance to take a different road. Stupid wishes."
Allen gazed back, his look turning inward for a moment. "Would you like to hear a Schezar family secret?" he said, almost idly.
Kaerin returned the regard, and after what seemed to be a moment's consideration, nodded slightly.
Allen's eyes drifted slightly from the other knight's face. "Serena had a twin. Boy. Stillborn. Buried in the graveplot that later held my mother. No marker until she died. It was forbidden to be mentioned in the house by my father. He swore that mention of it would kill Mother. Serena... never knew."
Tucking his chin against his chest, Kaerin's face wrinkled slight in concentration, as he worked out the significance, and why he was being told. Looking up with a troubled expression he asked, "So you think that...."
"I think nothing. But I... I won't let that... piece of dung kill my little brother a second time..." Allen said, closing his eyes. A last small drop of moisture leaked from somewhere. His voice was under control but there was a quality to it that suggested he wasn't thinking logically, just... in the grip of something larger than the immediate events.
A faint thought wondered briefly if the Knight Schezar was simply relating this brother with Dilandau, before he decided it wasn't important. Whatever the truth was, the words were as good as adoption anyway, and the truth itself might never be his business. Lifting his head, he chased several thoughts before settling on voicing one. "Once you have the bastard, what are we doing with it?" Kaerin asked, glancing at the closed door that lead back to the sorcerer's wing.
Allen swiped his hand absently over his face and sat up, wincing with a slight smile. Taking a breath, he spoke, his tone detached. "Making it talk," he said.
The area that Dilandau had apparently chosen for the meal was not the lazy buffet Van was used to for early meals, nor the more expected military style mess halls. It seemed to be a nearly deserted officer's quarters. What could have easily housed a hundred with much room to spare, had a couple dozen men and women at best, scattered to far points or taking their meals with small clusters of other officers of similar rank. Those there were either startlingly young, or in the case of the more solitary diners, held the scars distinctive to the last battle.
With only a disapproving sweep of red eyes, the Dragonslayer captain chose a table in a deep corner.
The chairs themselves were metal and set heavily on the floor, the table, to Van, seemed to be made of some strange synthetic wood, instead of the real article. Hardly anyone seemed to mark their arrival, but a waitress ducked into a side room immediately, and returned with two meals, ready made and slightly lukewarm.
Van looked around curiously, sitting at relative ease. He paid a minimum of attention to the food in front of him, eating absently. He watched the youngest soldiers in their uniforms, hardly aware that many of them were the same age as he or at most a year younger. He felt so much older than the smooth unmarked faces he saw.
The other boy had followed Van's gaze with a slight scowl. "It's dead," he said, burying a fork into his meal, the tone was one of a sort of hesitating acceptance. "The country. It will take years.... probably not in my lifetime. I don't see why he needs me." It was hard to tell whether the short monolog was directed to himself or to Van, but the last was added with a fair share of frustration.
Van glanced over at the albino. In spite of his own deep need not to have the other boy stay here, he replied quietly, "Maybe he needs you so it won't take so many years."
The Captain glanced at Van and shrugged. "I still don't see how. My skills are only good for destroying something." He smirked. "There's enough of that."
Van looked back steadily. "Maybe. Maybe you have skills you don't know yet."
"Rather optimistic of you," he replied.
Van turned and looked off. "Not really," he said quietly. He glanced back once. "You were shaped to fit a niche. Now the machine is broken. But you are not just what the shape was." He ducked his head, unable to put the thought into words any better. Folken could have done it, he thought.
Unexpectedly, that drew a laugh from the albino. "Maybe. But that just leaves me less savory questions." He shrugged. Picking at his own meal methodically, he paused, hand hovering in mid motion. "So what have you been doing in the past year," he said, managing to seem to imply another question, 'how do you do it?'
"Building," Van said. "Clearing rubble. Building walls. Filling graves. Tending sick children with no parents." He glanced up for a moment through the thick dark hair. "Learning from... dragons." He caught the unspoken question and groped for an answer. "Doing what each day put before me... that's all."
Dilandau's eyes and smirk caught into a bit of dark humor. "Well, at least I've managed to keep your attention."
Van looked up, gazing into those garnet eyes silently. Yes. Yes.
A non-committal noise, and a slight flash of discomfort passed over the expressive face before the captain turned back to his own meal. He wasn't sure exactly was he was looking for.
Van dropped his own gaze quickly, conscious of having revealed himself a little too nakedly. It was so wearying to try and remember how to behave, to try and preserve some semblance of his identity. He pushed the mostly empty plate away and leaned back in his chair, gazing out into the room without seeing anything. He closed his eyes and reached for a memory of Serena's eyes, gazing into his without reservation. The image comforted him even while it caused an inner voice to question him in severe tones what exactly he was doing with his life lately.
In the increasing stretch of silence between the two, a slow sense of irritation built and fueled until it reached a pitch, boiling from inactivity. "I HATE waiting," Dilandau said, in a slight explosion of low temper.
Van looked over, and something caught his eye. He reached out and pushed the other boy's plate a few inches, revealing a folded piece of vellum under the metal disk.
A silver eyebrow rose, the previous mood slipping away easily. Plucking up the sheet from under the plate, he looked it over cautiously, barely the tip must have been visible, to have been caught at the odd angle. Unfolding the small sheet, the message was a study in poor handwriting, written in the overly large lettering of someone just learning the written word.
The message itself was simple, asking in hasty words for a meeting, and stating more than once that the messenger came from a friendly source. Turning it over once almost idly, he passed it across the table. "I'm still trying to understand the luck that follows you," he stated.
The remark didn't make any particular kind of sense to Van, so he ignored it, looking at the note. He refolded it and passed it back. "We should go."
"Better than this," the other agreed, standing quickly. The folded note curled and crumpled into a ball in the other's hand.
Van mirrored the other boy's actions, pacing him to the door. He notice just before they left that a few heads turned, watching the two so different, yet so similar, and threw an instinctively warning scowl at the room at large as he left, unconscious of how possessive the gesture seemed.
The hallways that passed became increasingly more and more familiar. At some point along the way, the paper message met a brief but brilliant demise in a low blue gas lamp, tossed there carelessly in one of the more deserted hallways. The narrow steel and concrete eventually opened up to the main hallway and the bustle it always seemed to contain. Though this day it seemed more focused along the rubble left from earlier and the closed off wing adjacent to the massive entryway.
At the edge of the hallway, close to the main front entrance, a small figure waited, shifting from one foot to the other. It was a boy, barely eight or nine, too young to conscript as soldiery but not too young to put to work in a serving capacity. He spotted the two young men and ducked back behind a group of others, waiting for them to come closer.
As Dilandau strode past, he hissed, "Capt'n!"
At the soft voice, he didn't so much stop at found a good spot along the indented wall, conveniently out of immediate view. The movement was almost in a casual fashion, eyes looking quickly towards Van, before spotting the source at last.
The boy slipped close, blending into the shadows and cover with the skill of a veteran reconnaissance scout. He pulled a rag from his pocket and knelt down, making to give the Dragonslayer Captain's boots a quick polish.
"Message from yer man, Capt'n," the boy muttered softly, looking up with wide eyes, shaded by a fringe of brown hair.
The nod and expectant glance given to the boy was effectively hid from others' eyes in the hallway by the Captain leaning against the wall, arms folding over his chest with feigned impatience for what could be conceived as a mundane task to be over with.
The boy looked down at his busy hands for a moment, his brows creasing slightly in concentration. When he spoke, his voice had a quality to it that almost mimicked an older person's speech. " 'Tell him the snakes have been in the city sewers, but they're leaving. They hiss about taking the power spot. He'll understand.' " The boy moved to the other boot, and spoke again. " 'I stay on the trail until he gets there.' "
"Very good," Dilandau said, with lidded eyes, under a pretense of inspecting the work done minutely.
The boy looked up and grinned impishly, touching his forelock. "M' pleasure Capt'n," he said. There was a quality of admiration or hero-worship to the youngster's voice, and something faintly familiar about his face.
Regarding the boy with a mixture of curiosity and a twinge of something else, Dilandau stepped aside with a brief nod to the child. The expression that had been in the other's voice was too close to his Dragonslayers for his immediate comfort.
As the thought crossed his mind, the familiarity crystallized. He remembered another face, clever and intelligent, and the same touch of reckless courage. He remembered the older boy coming to him, asking with quiet desperation for his help in keeping a young brother from the hands of the sorcerers.
The thought had made him pause, over his shoulder he asked "Labariel?"
The younger, who had all but ducked away, looked back with a sudden flash of joy, quickly shuttered down to another impish grin. "Just Barrie, now, sir," he said, managing to indicate his apparel - that of a very junior member of the fortress's serving class. His mouth quirked and he executed a courtly, and somewhat impudent obeisance before turning to slip into the foot traffic passing around them.
/Runs in the family,/ Dilandau thought with a smirk, leaving his own spot to rejoin Van. Meeting cinnamon eyes he said simply, "Freid it is, after all." As much as he would in the presence of so many ears.
Van blinked, staring at him curiously, but he answered with a brief nod. "How? Melef or airship?"
The Captain's face twisted with indecision of it. Melef would alert not only their target, but countries that would most undoubtedly be hostile. Airship, given the option was safer, but.... With a deepset scowl he bit off the word, "Airship."
Van tilted his head, slightly surprised at the answer. He shrugged. Looking at the other, he said, "After nightfall...?"
Dilandau nodded, some delays were forgone. Simply leaving would have more repercussions with Adelphos than the far more tolerant Folken. Then there was making the request itself to Allen.
As if reading the other boy's mind, Van said, "He'll agree."
"I know," Dilandau answered. "It's the idea of a debt that I'd rather not have."
Van listened and then simply nodded his understanding. He didn't think of trying to argue with the concept of the debt. Just as he would in that situation, he knew the other boy would do as he must to complete his objective.
With every appearance of gathering himself up, Dilandau angled towards the double doors leading outside to the courtyard, and to the airship moored not far beyond.
THE END OF PART 36!