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rose_in_winterPairings/Characters: Kain Highwind, plus cast
Rating: R (overall), R (this chapter)
Warnings: Spoilers. Violence and language. Occasional sexual content.
Notes: This fic belongs to the Lucis Ante Terminum arc. Chapter list is here.
Summary: Though it is possible to return home, it is rarely possible to return affairs to their previous state. Sometimes the only course of action is to move forward.
Wordcount: 5100 this chapter.
Beta:celeloriel
Kain loosened his grip on the reins once the chocobo moved past the gate out of Baron City, and the bird promptly increased his pace. He breathed deeply of the fresh spring air, and let out a small sigh of relief. He had been half-convinced that, rather than seeing him off, Cecil and Rosa would have ordered him to remain in Baron and in command of the Dragon Knights. He was relieved to have won this battle, for the time being at least, and also to be outside castle walls on such a perfect day. He had taken care to leave his most distinct arms at the castle, and bore only a simple spear such as might be purchased at any shop in Baron City, and a simple chainmail shirt. The monsters that occasionally plagued Baron's roads would not trouble him while he was astride a chocobo, and he did not think any of the citizens would be likely to attack him.
They knew him from the days when King Odin had traveled thus, bringing his two wards with him, and he had been well liked, then, if only for his fathers’ sakes.
The chocobo was a good-quality bird, sufficiently trained that he need pay only minimal attention and he would see Kain safely to his destination. He trotted along the road, leaving Kain free to consider his surroundings, and his purpose.
He was less interested in examining the areas within a few days' ride of Baron City; anyone there who felt ill-treated would be able to journey to the capital itself to have the King address their grievances directly. He was more interested in the outlying provinces, where he could compare what was said in Council to the reports of the intelligence services and the evidence of his own eyes.
Cecil and Rosa had asked him repeatedly what he thought he might find on this journey, and in truth, Kain had no specific items he wished to investigate. Yet it seemed strange to him that there had been no word of poor harvests, no requests to reassess taxes, and really no news of any kind from the outlying provinces. Even the best ruler would have small crises pop up from time to time that required intervention, and given the amount of time that the heads of the various noble Houses spent in Baron City, Kain found it difficult to believe they had been able to manage their lands so featly as to avoid all royal assistance. Nor did he believe for a moment that the various Houses would gladly spend their own money on rectifying problems when they could spend the King's.
Thus, he wondered how the citizens fared. So had he presented his case to the King and Queen of Baron, as their loyal servant. Though neither had cared for his implication that their citizens might be suffering and they knew nothing of it, they had accepted it as his stated reason for traveling.
Less altruistically, Kain had thought to go to the ruins of Palamecia, to stand where his father had been slain and look upon the ruins of the nation that had so nearly cost Baron everything. But Palamecia was a long way from Baron City, and he had not wanted to explain that part of his journey to Cecil. Cecil would have understood, of course, and that was exactly why Kain hadn't wanted to talk to him.
He found it easier by far to deal with Cecil's resentment, and his confusion, than to accept his sympathy.
His chocobo warked idly at the birds pulling a wagon toward Baron City, but showed no sign of actually going to investigate them. Kain nodded to the man on the driver's seat of the wagon, and received a cheerful wave in return. He found that his heart felt a bit lighter, out here in the open air without the constant weight of his name and title. He had not realized how heavily the castle walls had weighed on his spirit until he escaped them.
Baron City was his home, but sometimes even the generous walls of home were too confining. In truth, he had felt most free when Barbariccia took him soaring above the mountains, carrying them both on currents of air so high above the ground that he could not discern individual buildings save as dark dots on the landscape.
He found it troubling how often his thoughts turned to the Fiend of Wind.
He clucked to his chocobo, nudging him to draw a bit of extra speed. He had a long way to go before he reached the first of the towns he planned to visit, and while he enjoyed a good ride as much as anyone else, he thought it best not to linger overlong in the shadow of Baron City. There was nothing to be learned here, and taking his time was a foolish indulgence.
~*~
Three months later, he found himself approaching the last place on his list. The city of Evenel was a prosperous merchant town, being the largest city outside of Baron City or Eastern Harbour, and also having the fortune to be ideally situated at the confluence of two rivers and a point where major roads met. Unlike many of the smaller cities in Baron, where even the streets within the city lacked cobbles and turned to mud in the slightest bit of rain, Evenel boasted cobblestones in every street and extending to the limits of the city's influence, some two or three leagues in any direction. Kain passed several merchants' wagons on his way in to the city, loaded down with all manner of wares. He urged his chocobo off the road proper and drew him to a halt, taking a moment to study Evenel as he had the other cities he had visited.
Where most buildings in Baron were constructed of timber from the expansive forests, Evenel boasted brick buildings for its lesser inhabitants and fine dressed stone for the wealthy. The land north of the city had been enclosed with stone fences, and a variety of herd beasts and chocobos roamed the pens, awaiting prospective buyers. Only about half the pens seemed to be so occupied, but that was not uncommon in the height of summer; Kain knew from his studies of the tax records that most of the livestock sales would happen in the fall, when young had been weaned and people were looking to start preserving meats for the winter.
To the east and south of the city, the grassy verge of the roads gave way to fields planted with all manner of crops, from wheat and corn to the plants whose flowers and roots made dyes for cloth. The latter fields seemed to have guards, lightly armed with short swords and breastplates. Kain couldn't see around the bulk of the city to the western lands, but he presumed they would be more of the same. Evenel itself was split into four districts by the Caino and Viath Rivers, and had allowed for the tendency of rivers to flood by building its docking districts along the riverbanks and making sure that the marketplaces and residential areas sat on higher ground, well back from the threat of rising water.
Kain nudged his chocobo with his heels, and he promptly began to move forward at a brisk pace, joining a mass of similar travelers who flowed toward the city. Kain took his place in line and waited his turn.
Once inside the city, he headed for the center of the city, seeking a bridge to take him to the west side of Evenel. He saw several large, flat-bottomed ferries transporting merchants with large cargoes across the rivers; the bridges seemed reserved for passenger conveyances and such goods as could be carried on one's back. Kain paid the five-gil toll and guided his chocobo over the bridge to the western quarter of town, where the administrative aspects of the city resided.
In the cities he had visited thus far, he had learned a great deal by keeping his mouth closed and his ears open, for people talked much more freely when they did not realize that the quiet stranger in the corner was there on the King's business. He planned to use the same tactics here, to an extent--he would spend a few days wandering, listening, passing himself off as someone from a newly-established merchant conglomerate who sought business interests in the city. However, for a city that appeared so profitable, Evenel consistently complained about the heavy burden of its taxes (via the lord who ruled this territory, Peter Savarin), and and Kain had long suspected something was afoot here. Thus, once he had gathered all the practical information he could, he might very well approach the ruling Council directly with his letters of commission from the King and demand a reckoning.
~*~
A month and a half later, having left his report with the governing Council (and having arranged for a sealed copy to be sent to Cecil separately), Kain was once again atop his chocobo, and headed farther west. It was a lovely day in late summer, and Evenel was the last of the towns that Kain had planned to visit. With his duties accomplished, he turned his chocobo down the road that would lead, by way of a number of small farming and chocobo-ranching communities, to the border of Palamecia.
For most of their long history together, Baron and Palamecia had been at odds, a state expressed by the clash of armies more often than not. Mist, protected by its remote location and its inhabitants' fey magics, had possessed too little in the way of mineral wealth to make conquering it worthwhile, and Damcyan was protected by the vast mountain ranges that lay between, so instead Baron and Palamecia had fallen to warring with each other over the rich farmland that lay south of the Titan Mountains.
Those wars had shaped Baron's society, and caused the formation of the eight divisions of Baron's royal army. They had finally ended twenty-three years ago, at the Battle of River's End.
Some two hours' ride west of Evenel, Kain crossed the old border between Baron and Palamecia. In the intervening quarter-century, most of the old stone walls had been torn down and used for other things. Had he not passed the vast carven posts that marked the point on the road where Palamecia had begun, he would not have known where the border lay.
He was in no particular rush to face this particular portion of the past, so he let his chocobo maintain an easy pace. The eponymous capital city of Palamecia had been built where the Viath River emptied into a small bay that would eventually carry it to the sea. Kain knew from his studies in history that some cataclysm had struck near Palamecia some fifteen years ago, causing a significant portion of land to simply vanish under the waves. Still, the ruins of Palamecia itself remained, and Palamecia was what he sought.
At this leisurely pace, it was a two-week journey from Evenel to Palamecia. Kain took the opportunity to get to know the small farming villages, and larger trading towns, that lay along this particular route. Baron's armies had thoroughly destroyed Palamecia's at River's End, though they had suffered sorely in the process, and the citizens had been absorbed into Baron's governance. King Peter, Odin's father, had sought to make the transition as easy as possible, even inviting the remaining noble houses of Palamecia to take seats on his Council.
It seemed, now, that his generosity had paid off; Kain had seen a number of youths from the former Palamecia applying to the Dragon Knights, many of whom had been accepted. On the surface, at least, the Palamecians had made peace with Baron's rule. Unlike Mysidia, no one attempted to turn Kain into a toad for his accent, similar yet subtly different from that used in this part of the land.
He continued onward.
~*~
He knew something was wrong as soon as he reached the borders of the old capital.
Kain was no mage, and had never pretended to magical knowledge, but even one with his dulled senses for the mystic could tell that Palamecia had warped somehow. It was a feeling unlike any he had ever encountered before, including his travels on the Devil's Road and his period of residence in the Tower of Zot. There, the magic had buzzed against his skin and made its presence known, but even that had been clean compared to this.
He reined his chocobo back and picketed the bird in the wide expanse of untended field that surrounded the city; it seemed he was not the only one who found the city uncomfortable, to judge by the fact that the nearest inhabited house had been an hour's ride away. Once assured that his mount was cared for, he took up his spear, and continued on foot.
The first concrete thing he noticed was the wind. The whole morning, it had been a light, steady breeze, pleasantly cool on such a warm day. Yet here, in the ruins of Palamecia, the wind seemed chaotic. The air went from perfectly still to the gale force of Barbariccia's worst temper in the blink of an eye. Kain held up an arm to shield his face, but this was not a physical storm. He knew that magic drove it somehow, with a certainly like unto his knowledge of the colour of Rosa's eyes or the feel of Golbez's magic flaying his senses.
He tightened his grip on the spear, and continued forward.
His fanciful imagination seemed convinced that the sound of the wind resembled the sobbing of a woman bereft of all hope or joy. Even as he told himself that this was foolishness, he crossed a wide avenue that might have been used as a dividing line between districts when the city was whole, and the sound changed.
He heard Barbariccia's laughter echoing in his ears.
Would he never be free of the Fiend of Wind?
Her sly laughter, and the clattering of her claws, pursued him through the city streets. Kain told himself that he did not quicken his pace needlessly, and through sheer force of will he kept himself from turning around to check that no one followed behind him. He moved deeper into the city, growing more nervous with each step. This place was not wholesome, and he should not be here. He was unwanted.
He had come this far. He would not turn back now, not when he had come so close to his father's last battle. He would not abandon the opportunity to see the place where his father had earned the final two crimson tassels, though they had been awarded posthumously.
He set his jaw stubbornly, though there was no one to see his defiance, and moved forward.
He kept catching glimpses of movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he would turn to look, naught was there. At length he grew irritated, and struck the ground with the butt of his spear. "Your tricks do not amuse, Fiend," he shouted. "I have bested you twice; do not doubt I can do it a third time."
He felt quite foolish for talking to the empty air--after all, Golbez was quite unlikely to have resurrected his failed servants a second time--but he thought that the sound of raucous laughter faded from the wind after his outburst.
To get to the center of the city was the better part of a day's journey on foot even when the streets were empty of other travelers or conveyances to impede his progress. Still, he occasionally had to climb over fallen walls or carefully traverse shallow ditches caused by who knew what upheavals of the land. It was mid-afternoon by the time he reached the remains of Palamecia's royal palace, laid out exactly in the center of the city.
King Odin—then Prince Odin—had laid waste to the palace in the wake of his victory over Palamecia; some said he had done it in a fit of grief at his dear friend Richard Highwind's death. The farmland outside the city had remained untouched, and indeed most of the city itself had remained standing. The palace, though, had been torn down and its grounds thoroughly sown with salt.
Kain hesitated for several long minutes at the boundaries of the palace grounds--clearly demarcated, even now, by faded red banners bearing Baron's crest—before he squared his shoulders and stepped forward.
The wind went mad.
Kain instinctively flung up his hands to protect his face, feeling the wind slash at his skin like a blade. The wind howled, in a way he had never heard it before. Kain wished futilely for a moment that he had brought the Holy Lance with him, but it was too late for such regrets now. He lashed out with the spear he carried, and though he should have met only air, it felt as though he struck something solid, and it screamed. The wind abated somewhat.
Kain lowered his arm and looked upon a face he had prayed never to see again.
"Dragoon," she said, and her voice was less assured than he was accustomed to. She nearly sounded nervous.
"Fiend," he replied, setting himself into a battle stance.
She was translucent, a shimmer of golden light, though her shape was as familiar as ever. She looked down at her own hands, flexing her fingers to make her claws slide out as a cat might, and then looked back at him.
"Do you desire to fight, puppy?" she asked, and beneath the old barb he could hear her fear.
"What are you doing here, Barbariccia?"
She flinched at her name, her hands closing convulsively into fists. "You dare to question me? You, who are only human?"
"Do not play your games with me, Empress of the Winds. I asked you a question." In the Tower of Zot, he would not have dared challenge her so openly, but Golbez was not here to punish him with searing chains of magic, and he had slain her once before. He let the tip of his spear hover just above the hollow of her throat.
Barbariccia hesitated. "I am here because...." She stared off into the distance. "You killed me," she said, suddenly, accusingly.
Kain smiled mockingly, and for once, the expression was not hidden from her by his dragon helm. "You tried to kill me," he replied.
"You killed me twice!" She bared her fangs at him as though in rage, but her voice was more that of the petulant child. "You killed me, and Master Golbez resurrected me, then you killed me again and I was sent here and there is nothing here, do you hear me? Nothing!"
"Should I then have simply lain down and waited for you to slay my friends?" Kain shook his head. “You know I could not.”
She bowed her head.
Kain could scarcely believe he was talking to her again--worse, to whatever apparition was left behind when a fiend was slain--but he had never seen her slump her shoulders in this manner. She had played at demure behaviour before--most often during Rosa's period of captivity, in an effort to ape the latter's quiet elegance--but he had never seen her take a defeated stance.
"So then, what now, Empress of the Winds?" he asked mockingly. "Shall we have another fight to the death?"
Her head lifted, and in her eyes he saw something else he was unaccustomed to--the gleam of hope. "Yes," she said, almost to herself. "Yes, you could do it, end this--this--stasis." She spoke the last word as though it were something unclean, and he recalled how little she had liked being still in any way.
She floated a few inches higher, her hair whipping in the sudden breeze like a ragged golden banner, and spread her arms in invitation. "Fight me, Dragoon," she said, and her tone was once again the playful, malicious aspect he expected. "Let us dance."
"One question, first." Kain readied his spear in case she chose to answer with violence. "Why fight me a second time?"
"What?" She scowled. "Because Master Golbez wished it. Have you lost your wits?"
Kain shook his head. "I did not fight you in Babil, Barbariccia," he said. "I was on your side, then."
She hesitated, confused. Every instinct in Kain told him to strike, to take advantage of her distraction, but he could not. It was dishonourable to strike unexpectedly.
"On my side," she said softly, as though to herself. Her blue eyes were clouded. "Yes, you came crawling back to Master Golbez like the failure you are. I recall it." Her lips curved in a cruel smile, and one of her clawed hands idly caressed her own skin. "He let me apply some of your punishment."
Kain knew it for foolishness, knew there was no reason for it, but the scar on his back twinged at her words. He gritted his teeth and kept his spear at her throat. "I do not crawl now," he told her.
"You have ever reached higher than your station."
The words cut him like knives, bringing to mind images of Rosa, but he forced them away and raised his shield. "Your games of reminiscence waste my time, Fiend."
She giggled, high and sharp like the winter wind screaming against the walls of Baron Castle, and flexed her hands so her claws slid out. "Fight me, then, Dragoon," she said, "but do not think I will make this easy."
For all the time he spent with Golbez, he had truly fought her but once before, at the top of the Tower of Zot. Still, he knew her style from having watched her toy with the Magus Sisters and with whatever else caught her fancy, and he was prepared for the first strike that sought to petrify him. He lifted his shield to block the first fierce swipe of her claws, and at the same time slashed downward with his spear as he drew it back from her throat, gouging a deep line on her inner arm with the razor-sharp head.
She laughed aloud and flung her arms out to her sides as she began to spin into a vortex. Kain could feel the strength of her control over the wind pulling him toward her where she might flay his flesh from his bones, and chose instead to leap. He soared upward, out of the reach of her initial spin and calculated his height with the experience of many years' practice. The wind buffeted him more fiercely than he was accustomed to, and he found himself fighting it in a way he had never had to do before.
At the top of the arc, he turned, pointing his spear toward her and shifting his body to provide the most downward momentum. Wind screamed past him, colder and sharper by far than it should have been at this time of year, but he ignored it. He kept his eyes fixed on the exact point where his spear would pierce her whirlwind.
He struck her, felt the give of flesh and heard the sickening crack of bone, and knew his aim had been true, but even as she screamed in pain she lashed out with her arm. His shield took the brunt of the blow, but still it knocked him off balance, and he landed on his shoulder. The force of her attack was such that he skidded several feet across the stone floor, his armour shrieking in the hideous cacophony of steel on stone, before he could spring up and prepare to face her again.
His spear had gouged deep into her shoulder and sheared off most of one breast, the remainder hanging from a thin thread of flesh. Even as he circled her warily, spear at the ready, her body seemed to weave itself back together in a dazzle of golden light; she still curled that arm inward as though to protect a wound, but otherwise showed no evidence of injury.
"Is that all that you may bring to bear, Dragon Knight?" Her words were punctuated by gasping breaths, and the mockery did not quite ring true. "Such a pity; I would have thought one capable of defeating Master Golbez to be stronger."
"Your body betrays your bravado," Kain replied, and when she flinched and looked down at her shoulder, he lunged for the other side, spear outstretched. She reacted in time to try to swat the spear aside, but he still caught her side, leaving a deep furrow against her ribs.
She began to laugh.
Kain paused, uneasy, and brought his shield up for better defense. Barbariccia clutched at the wound in her side, her giggles nearly hysterical. "Ah, Dragoon," she said. "How odd that one so reliant on my bounty for his attacks, should prove to be so well-suited to kill me."
She spread her arms again as though to begin her whirlwind. Almost without his conscious direction, Kain's left arm thrust forward, his spear driving straight toward where her heart would be, had she been human.
She did not dodge.
The spear pierced her chest, and she fell backwards onto the stone, arms still outstretched. Kain could see through her, see the spread of a dark stain through her translucent golden form. One of her hands came up and touched the haft of his spear, coming away red-smeared.
She laughed. It was not quite the hideous bubbling sound that Kain had heard from others so near death, but it was chilling nonetheless. "So," she said absently, "the puppy shows his teeth."
He did not desire to respond to her goad, but curiosity was overwhelming. "Why here, Barbariccia?" he asked her.
She had begun to fade, the golden outlines becoming less distinct. "What better place," she said, and her voice was thin and breathy, "for a defeated fiend to go than the place where her element is already broken?"
Kain watched as she faded into nothingness. His spear, no longer lodged in her chest, clattered to the stone floor.
The wind stopped.
He stared absent-mindedly at the glistening red stain on the head of the lance, pondering her last words. Even he, inept at magic as he was, had been able to feel the imbalance of the elemental forces here when he entered the city. If she had been drawn here after her defeat, might her brothers have been so as well? Would he have to fight Rubicante, Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo?
His spear gave him an advantage only against Barbariccia.
He considered the problem, and resolved that he would speak to Cecil and Rosa upon his return. He alone was not strong enough to fight all four Fiends; but perhaps they could spare some time, or soldiers, to aid in defeating whatever other remnants might haunt the ruins of Palamecia.
He bent to retrieve his spear and stepped with care over the fading red stain that was, he devoutly hoped, the last remnant of the Fiend of Wind now and evermore. With the wind quieted, the courtyard was frighteningly silent. The stone columns and walls had been toppled by Baron's soldiers, and the few pieces of architecture that remained standing seemed almost to be bent over, defeated as surely as the king who had reigned here. The palace gardens--or what had been the palace gardens--were a decrepit ruin, having been thoroughly sown with salt. Kain moved forward through the tumbled mass of columns, his spear and shield at the ready. Having discovered Barbariccia here, he was taking no chances.
The path to the throne room was straightforward here, much as it was in Baron Castle. Kain advanced cautiously. Much of the castle itself remained intact; it had never been a defensible position, unlike Baron's own capital, with the Emperor of Palamecia preferring to fight his wars as far from his capital as possible. His castle had been a showplace, a taunt; the implied message was that his army was too powerful, and his own tactics too sound, to ever have to worry about an enemy actually attacking his seat of power.
He had not counted on the Dragoons.
Kain stopped just inside the throne room, and closed his eyes. In his mind, he could picture the battle arrangements that Robert Nerthic had recounted to him during his first week back in Baron. He pictured his father, tall and proud in his Dragon Knight armour, dueling the Emperor of Palamecia to the death. The treatises on the war in the Baron Castle library suggested that the Emperor had been an accomplished swordsman, but Richard Highwind had defeated him. Edward's father, King Christopher of Damcyan, had written at least three ballads of tribute memorializing Richard Highwind's last battle; Kain had them all memorized.
The treatises indicated that the formation his father had chosen was one seldom used, the Claw and the Tail. Kain could envision it clearly; the purpose was to fall back and appear as though the line was about to break so as to draw the enemy between the two groups of Dragoons. Then, the group of Dragoons on the left would strike with spear or sword while the group on the right swept inward with shields raised, using the force of their movement to drive their enemy into their companions' weapons. In his mind, he saw charts laid out on a table and a senior Dragon Knight sweeping small figurines across the surface to demonstrate the formation to recruits.
Here, then, they had crushed the Palamecian palace guard, and then his father had advanced to demand the Emperor's surrender. The Emperor had drawn steel rather than do so. Kain could envision the duel--he thought it must have been like unto the times when he and Cecil had sparred together, save with an extra edge of desperation on the Emperor's part, and of course far greater skill on his father's part than he himself possessed.
He opened his eyes, seeing the ruins of the throne room rather than the pristine state of his imagination, and sighed. There was nothing of his father here, and he had come all this way for naught.
Kain turned away, and started to make his way out of the palace complex. He had many miles to travel to reach Baron City.
Rating: R (overall), R (this chapter)
Warnings: Spoilers. Violence and language. Occasional sexual content.
Notes: This fic belongs to the Lucis Ante Terminum arc. Chapter list is here.
Summary: Though it is possible to return home, it is rarely possible to return affairs to their previous state. Sometimes the only course of action is to move forward.
Wordcount: 5100 this chapter.
Beta:
celelorielKain loosened his grip on the reins once the chocobo moved past the gate out of Baron City, and the bird promptly increased his pace. He breathed deeply of the fresh spring air, and let out a small sigh of relief. He had been half-convinced that, rather than seeing him off, Cecil and Rosa would have ordered him to remain in Baron and in command of the Dragon Knights. He was relieved to have won this battle, for the time being at least, and also to be outside castle walls on such a perfect day. He had taken care to leave his most distinct arms at the castle, and bore only a simple spear such as might be purchased at any shop in Baron City, and a simple chainmail shirt. The monsters that occasionally plagued Baron's roads would not trouble him while he was astride a chocobo, and he did not think any of the citizens would be likely to attack him.
They knew him from the days when King Odin had traveled thus, bringing his two wards with him, and he had been well liked, then, if only for his fathers’ sakes.
The chocobo was a good-quality bird, sufficiently trained that he need pay only minimal attention and he would see Kain safely to his destination. He trotted along the road, leaving Kain free to consider his surroundings, and his purpose.
He was less interested in examining the areas within a few days' ride of Baron City; anyone there who felt ill-treated would be able to journey to the capital itself to have the King address their grievances directly. He was more interested in the outlying provinces, where he could compare what was said in Council to the reports of the intelligence services and the evidence of his own eyes.
Cecil and Rosa had asked him repeatedly what he thought he might find on this journey, and in truth, Kain had no specific items he wished to investigate. Yet it seemed strange to him that there had been no word of poor harvests, no requests to reassess taxes, and really no news of any kind from the outlying provinces. Even the best ruler would have small crises pop up from time to time that required intervention, and given the amount of time that the heads of the various noble Houses spent in Baron City, Kain found it difficult to believe they had been able to manage their lands so featly as to avoid all royal assistance. Nor did he believe for a moment that the various Houses would gladly spend their own money on rectifying problems when they could spend the King's.
Thus, he wondered how the citizens fared. So had he presented his case to the King and Queen of Baron, as their loyal servant. Though neither had cared for his implication that their citizens might be suffering and they knew nothing of it, they had accepted it as his stated reason for traveling.
Less altruistically, Kain had thought to go to the ruins of Palamecia, to stand where his father had been slain and look upon the ruins of the nation that had so nearly cost Baron everything. But Palamecia was a long way from Baron City, and he had not wanted to explain that part of his journey to Cecil. Cecil would have understood, of course, and that was exactly why Kain hadn't wanted to talk to him.
He found it easier by far to deal with Cecil's resentment, and his confusion, than to accept his sympathy.
His chocobo warked idly at the birds pulling a wagon toward Baron City, but showed no sign of actually going to investigate them. Kain nodded to the man on the driver's seat of the wagon, and received a cheerful wave in return. He found that his heart felt a bit lighter, out here in the open air without the constant weight of his name and title. He had not realized how heavily the castle walls had weighed on his spirit until he escaped them.
Baron City was his home, but sometimes even the generous walls of home were too confining. In truth, he had felt most free when Barbariccia took him soaring above the mountains, carrying them both on currents of air so high above the ground that he could not discern individual buildings save as dark dots on the landscape.
He found it troubling how often his thoughts turned to the Fiend of Wind.
He clucked to his chocobo, nudging him to draw a bit of extra speed. He had a long way to go before he reached the first of the towns he planned to visit, and while he enjoyed a good ride as much as anyone else, he thought it best not to linger overlong in the shadow of Baron City. There was nothing to be learned here, and taking his time was a foolish indulgence.
~*~
Three months later, he found himself approaching the last place on his list. The city of Evenel was a prosperous merchant town, being the largest city outside of Baron City or Eastern Harbour, and also having the fortune to be ideally situated at the confluence of two rivers and a point where major roads met. Unlike many of the smaller cities in Baron, where even the streets within the city lacked cobbles and turned to mud in the slightest bit of rain, Evenel boasted cobblestones in every street and extending to the limits of the city's influence, some two or three leagues in any direction. Kain passed several merchants' wagons on his way in to the city, loaded down with all manner of wares. He urged his chocobo off the road proper and drew him to a halt, taking a moment to study Evenel as he had the other cities he had visited.
Where most buildings in Baron were constructed of timber from the expansive forests, Evenel boasted brick buildings for its lesser inhabitants and fine dressed stone for the wealthy. The land north of the city had been enclosed with stone fences, and a variety of herd beasts and chocobos roamed the pens, awaiting prospective buyers. Only about half the pens seemed to be so occupied, but that was not uncommon in the height of summer; Kain knew from his studies of the tax records that most of the livestock sales would happen in the fall, when young had been weaned and people were looking to start preserving meats for the winter.
To the east and south of the city, the grassy verge of the roads gave way to fields planted with all manner of crops, from wheat and corn to the plants whose flowers and roots made dyes for cloth. The latter fields seemed to have guards, lightly armed with short swords and breastplates. Kain couldn't see around the bulk of the city to the western lands, but he presumed they would be more of the same. Evenel itself was split into four districts by the Caino and Viath Rivers, and had allowed for the tendency of rivers to flood by building its docking districts along the riverbanks and making sure that the marketplaces and residential areas sat on higher ground, well back from the threat of rising water.
Kain nudged his chocobo with his heels, and he promptly began to move forward at a brisk pace, joining a mass of similar travelers who flowed toward the city. Kain took his place in line and waited his turn.
Once inside the city, he headed for the center of the city, seeking a bridge to take him to the west side of Evenel. He saw several large, flat-bottomed ferries transporting merchants with large cargoes across the rivers; the bridges seemed reserved for passenger conveyances and such goods as could be carried on one's back. Kain paid the five-gil toll and guided his chocobo over the bridge to the western quarter of town, where the administrative aspects of the city resided.
In the cities he had visited thus far, he had learned a great deal by keeping his mouth closed and his ears open, for people talked much more freely when they did not realize that the quiet stranger in the corner was there on the King's business. He planned to use the same tactics here, to an extent--he would spend a few days wandering, listening, passing himself off as someone from a newly-established merchant conglomerate who sought business interests in the city. However, for a city that appeared so profitable, Evenel consistently complained about the heavy burden of its taxes (via the lord who ruled this territory, Peter Savarin), and and Kain had long suspected something was afoot here. Thus, once he had gathered all the practical information he could, he might very well approach the ruling Council directly with his letters of commission from the King and demand a reckoning.
~*~
A month and a half later, having left his report with the governing Council (and having arranged for a sealed copy to be sent to Cecil separately), Kain was once again atop his chocobo, and headed farther west. It was a lovely day in late summer, and Evenel was the last of the towns that Kain had planned to visit. With his duties accomplished, he turned his chocobo down the road that would lead, by way of a number of small farming and chocobo-ranching communities, to the border of Palamecia.
For most of their long history together, Baron and Palamecia had been at odds, a state expressed by the clash of armies more often than not. Mist, protected by its remote location and its inhabitants' fey magics, had possessed too little in the way of mineral wealth to make conquering it worthwhile, and Damcyan was protected by the vast mountain ranges that lay between, so instead Baron and Palamecia had fallen to warring with each other over the rich farmland that lay south of the Titan Mountains.
Those wars had shaped Baron's society, and caused the formation of the eight divisions of Baron's royal army. They had finally ended twenty-three years ago, at the Battle of River's End.
Some two hours' ride west of Evenel, Kain crossed the old border between Baron and Palamecia. In the intervening quarter-century, most of the old stone walls had been torn down and used for other things. Had he not passed the vast carven posts that marked the point on the road where Palamecia had begun, he would not have known where the border lay.
He was in no particular rush to face this particular portion of the past, so he let his chocobo maintain an easy pace. The eponymous capital city of Palamecia had been built where the Viath River emptied into a small bay that would eventually carry it to the sea. Kain knew from his studies in history that some cataclysm had struck near Palamecia some fifteen years ago, causing a significant portion of land to simply vanish under the waves. Still, the ruins of Palamecia itself remained, and Palamecia was what he sought.
At this leisurely pace, it was a two-week journey from Evenel to Palamecia. Kain took the opportunity to get to know the small farming villages, and larger trading towns, that lay along this particular route. Baron's armies had thoroughly destroyed Palamecia's at River's End, though they had suffered sorely in the process, and the citizens had been absorbed into Baron's governance. King Peter, Odin's father, had sought to make the transition as easy as possible, even inviting the remaining noble houses of Palamecia to take seats on his Council.
It seemed, now, that his generosity had paid off; Kain had seen a number of youths from the former Palamecia applying to the Dragon Knights, many of whom had been accepted. On the surface, at least, the Palamecians had made peace with Baron's rule. Unlike Mysidia, no one attempted to turn Kain into a toad for his accent, similar yet subtly different from that used in this part of the land.
He continued onward.
~*~
He knew something was wrong as soon as he reached the borders of the old capital.
Kain was no mage, and had never pretended to magical knowledge, but even one with his dulled senses for the mystic could tell that Palamecia had warped somehow. It was a feeling unlike any he had ever encountered before, including his travels on the Devil's Road and his period of residence in the Tower of Zot. There, the magic had buzzed against his skin and made its presence known, but even that had been clean compared to this.
He reined his chocobo back and picketed the bird in the wide expanse of untended field that surrounded the city; it seemed he was not the only one who found the city uncomfortable, to judge by the fact that the nearest inhabited house had been an hour's ride away. Once assured that his mount was cared for, he took up his spear, and continued on foot.
The first concrete thing he noticed was the wind. The whole morning, it had been a light, steady breeze, pleasantly cool on such a warm day. Yet here, in the ruins of Palamecia, the wind seemed chaotic. The air went from perfectly still to the gale force of Barbariccia's worst temper in the blink of an eye. Kain held up an arm to shield his face, but this was not a physical storm. He knew that magic drove it somehow, with a certainly like unto his knowledge of the colour of Rosa's eyes or the feel of Golbez's magic flaying his senses.
He tightened his grip on the spear, and continued forward.
His fanciful imagination seemed convinced that the sound of the wind resembled the sobbing of a woman bereft of all hope or joy. Even as he told himself that this was foolishness, he crossed a wide avenue that might have been used as a dividing line between districts when the city was whole, and the sound changed.
He heard Barbariccia's laughter echoing in his ears.
Would he never be free of the Fiend of Wind?
Her sly laughter, and the clattering of her claws, pursued him through the city streets. Kain told himself that he did not quicken his pace needlessly, and through sheer force of will he kept himself from turning around to check that no one followed behind him. He moved deeper into the city, growing more nervous with each step. This place was not wholesome, and he should not be here. He was unwanted.
He had come this far. He would not turn back now, not when he had come so close to his father's last battle. He would not abandon the opportunity to see the place where his father had earned the final two crimson tassels, though they had been awarded posthumously.
He set his jaw stubbornly, though there was no one to see his defiance, and moved forward.
He kept catching glimpses of movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he would turn to look, naught was there. At length he grew irritated, and struck the ground with the butt of his spear. "Your tricks do not amuse, Fiend," he shouted. "I have bested you twice; do not doubt I can do it a third time."
He felt quite foolish for talking to the empty air--after all, Golbez was quite unlikely to have resurrected his failed servants a second time--but he thought that the sound of raucous laughter faded from the wind after his outburst.
To get to the center of the city was the better part of a day's journey on foot even when the streets were empty of other travelers or conveyances to impede his progress. Still, he occasionally had to climb over fallen walls or carefully traverse shallow ditches caused by who knew what upheavals of the land. It was mid-afternoon by the time he reached the remains of Palamecia's royal palace, laid out exactly in the center of the city.
King Odin—then Prince Odin—had laid waste to the palace in the wake of his victory over Palamecia; some said he had done it in a fit of grief at his dear friend Richard Highwind's death. The farmland outside the city had remained untouched, and indeed most of the city itself had remained standing. The palace, though, had been torn down and its grounds thoroughly sown with salt.
Kain hesitated for several long minutes at the boundaries of the palace grounds--clearly demarcated, even now, by faded red banners bearing Baron's crest—before he squared his shoulders and stepped forward.
The wind went mad.
Kain instinctively flung up his hands to protect his face, feeling the wind slash at his skin like a blade. The wind howled, in a way he had never heard it before. Kain wished futilely for a moment that he had brought the Holy Lance with him, but it was too late for such regrets now. He lashed out with the spear he carried, and though he should have met only air, it felt as though he struck something solid, and it screamed. The wind abated somewhat.
Kain lowered his arm and looked upon a face he had prayed never to see again.
"Dragoon," she said, and her voice was less assured than he was accustomed to. She nearly sounded nervous.
"Fiend," he replied, setting himself into a battle stance.
She was translucent, a shimmer of golden light, though her shape was as familiar as ever. She looked down at her own hands, flexing her fingers to make her claws slide out as a cat might, and then looked back at him.
"Do you desire to fight, puppy?" she asked, and beneath the old barb he could hear her fear.
"What are you doing here, Barbariccia?"
She flinched at her name, her hands closing convulsively into fists. "You dare to question me? You, who are only human?"
"Do not play your games with me, Empress of the Winds. I asked you a question." In the Tower of Zot, he would not have dared challenge her so openly, but Golbez was not here to punish him with searing chains of magic, and he had slain her once before. He let the tip of his spear hover just above the hollow of her throat.
Barbariccia hesitated. "I am here because...." She stared off into the distance. "You killed me," she said, suddenly, accusingly.
Kain smiled mockingly, and for once, the expression was not hidden from her by his dragon helm. "You tried to kill me," he replied.
"You killed me twice!" She bared her fangs at him as though in rage, but her voice was more that of the petulant child. "You killed me, and Master Golbez resurrected me, then you killed me again and I was sent here and there is nothing here, do you hear me? Nothing!"
"Should I then have simply lain down and waited for you to slay my friends?" Kain shook his head. “You know I could not.”
She bowed her head.
Kain could scarcely believe he was talking to her again--worse, to whatever apparition was left behind when a fiend was slain--but he had never seen her slump her shoulders in this manner. She had played at demure behaviour before--most often during Rosa's period of captivity, in an effort to ape the latter's quiet elegance--but he had never seen her take a defeated stance.
"So then, what now, Empress of the Winds?" he asked mockingly. "Shall we have another fight to the death?"
Her head lifted, and in her eyes he saw something else he was unaccustomed to--the gleam of hope. "Yes," she said, almost to herself. "Yes, you could do it, end this--this--stasis." She spoke the last word as though it were something unclean, and he recalled how little she had liked being still in any way.
She floated a few inches higher, her hair whipping in the sudden breeze like a ragged golden banner, and spread her arms in invitation. "Fight me, Dragoon," she said, and her tone was once again the playful, malicious aspect he expected. "Let us dance."
"One question, first." Kain readied his spear in case she chose to answer with violence. "Why fight me a second time?"
"What?" She scowled. "Because Master Golbez wished it. Have you lost your wits?"
Kain shook his head. "I did not fight you in Babil, Barbariccia," he said. "I was on your side, then."
She hesitated, confused. Every instinct in Kain told him to strike, to take advantage of her distraction, but he could not. It was dishonourable to strike unexpectedly.
"On my side," she said softly, as though to herself. Her blue eyes were clouded. "Yes, you came crawling back to Master Golbez like the failure you are. I recall it." Her lips curved in a cruel smile, and one of her clawed hands idly caressed her own skin. "He let me apply some of your punishment."
Kain knew it for foolishness, knew there was no reason for it, but the scar on his back twinged at her words. He gritted his teeth and kept his spear at her throat. "I do not crawl now," he told her.
"You have ever reached higher than your station."
The words cut him like knives, bringing to mind images of Rosa, but he forced them away and raised his shield. "Your games of reminiscence waste my time, Fiend."
She giggled, high and sharp like the winter wind screaming against the walls of Baron Castle, and flexed her hands so her claws slid out. "Fight me, then, Dragoon," she said, "but do not think I will make this easy."
For all the time he spent with Golbez, he had truly fought her but once before, at the top of the Tower of Zot. Still, he knew her style from having watched her toy with the Magus Sisters and with whatever else caught her fancy, and he was prepared for the first strike that sought to petrify him. He lifted his shield to block the first fierce swipe of her claws, and at the same time slashed downward with his spear as he drew it back from her throat, gouging a deep line on her inner arm with the razor-sharp head.
She laughed aloud and flung her arms out to her sides as she began to spin into a vortex. Kain could feel the strength of her control over the wind pulling him toward her where she might flay his flesh from his bones, and chose instead to leap. He soared upward, out of the reach of her initial spin and calculated his height with the experience of many years' practice. The wind buffeted him more fiercely than he was accustomed to, and he found himself fighting it in a way he had never had to do before.
At the top of the arc, he turned, pointing his spear toward her and shifting his body to provide the most downward momentum. Wind screamed past him, colder and sharper by far than it should have been at this time of year, but he ignored it. He kept his eyes fixed on the exact point where his spear would pierce her whirlwind.
He struck her, felt the give of flesh and heard the sickening crack of bone, and knew his aim had been true, but even as she screamed in pain she lashed out with her arm. His shield took the brunt of the blow, but still it knocked him off balance, and he landed on his shoulder. The force of her attack was such that he skidded several feet across the stone floor, his armour shrieking in the hideous cacophony of steel on stone, before he could spring up and prepare to face her again.
His spear had gouged deep into her shoulder and sheared off most of one breast, the remainder hanging from a thin thread of flesh. Even as he circled her warily, spear at the ready, her body seemed to weave itself back together in a dazzle of golden light; she still curled that arm inward as though to protect a wound, but otherwise showed no evidence of injury.
"Is that all that you may bring to bear, Dragon Knight?" Her words were punctuated by gasping breaths, and the mockery did not quite ring true. "Such a pity; I would have thought one capable of defeating Master Golbez to be stronger."
"Your body betrays your bravado," Kain replied, and when she flinched and looked down at her shoulder, he lunged for the other side, spear outstretched. She reacted in time to try to swat the spear aside, but he still caught her side, leaving a deep furrow against her ribs.
She began to laugh.
Kain paused, uneasy, and brought his shield up for better defense. Barbariccia clutched at the wound in her side, her giggles nearly hysterical. "Ah, Dragoon," she said. "How odd that one so reliant on my bounty for his attacks, should prove to be so well-suited to kill me."
She spread her arms again as though to begin her whirlwind. Almost without his conscious direction, Kain's left arm thrust forward, his spear driving straight toward where her heart would be, had she been human.
She did not dodge.
The spear pierced her chest, and she fell backwards onto the stone, arms still outstretched. Kain could see through her, see the spread of a dark stain through her translucent golden form. One of her hands came up and touched the haft of his spear, coming away red-smeared.
She laughed. It was not quite the hideous bubbling sound that Kain had heard from others so near death, but it was chilling nonetheless. "So," she said absently, "the puppy shows his teeth."
He did not desire to respond to her goad, but curiosity was overwhelming. "Why here, Barbariccia?" he asked her.
She had begun to fade, the golden outlines becoming less distinct. "What better place," she said, and her voice was thin and breathy, "for a defeated fiend to go than the place where her element is already broken?"
Kain watched as she faded into nothingness. His spear, no longer lodged in her chest, clattered to the stone floor.
The wind stopped.
He stared absent-mindedly at the glistening red stain on the head of the lance, pondering her last words. Even he, inept at magic as he was, had been able to feel the imbalance of the elemental forces here when he entered the city. If she had been drawn here after her defeat, might her brothers have been so as well? Would he have to fight Rubicante, Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo?
His spear gave him an advantage only against Barbariccia.
He considered the problem, and resolved that he would speak to Cecil and Rosa upon his return. He alone was not strong enough to fight all four Fiends; but perhaps they could spare some time, or soldiers, to aid in defeating whatever other remnants might haunt the ruins of Palamecia.
He bent to retrieve his spear and stepped with care over the fading red stain that was, he devoutly hoped, the last remnant of the Fiend of Wind now and evermore. With the wind quieted, the courtyard was frighteningly silent. The stone columns and walls had been toppled by Baron's soldiers, and the few pieces of architecture that remained standing seemed almost to be bent over, defeated as surely as the king who had reigned here. The palace gardens--or what had been the palace gardens--were a decrepit ruin, having been thoroughly sown with salt. Kain moved forward through the tumbled mass of columns, his spear and shield at the ready. Having discovered Barbariccia here, he was taking no chances.
The path to the throne room was straightforward here, much as it was in Baron Castle. Kain advanced cautiously. Much of the castle itself remained intact; it had never been a defensible position, unlike Baron's own capital, with the Emperor of Palamecia preferring to fight his wars as far from his capital as possible. His castle had been a showplace, a taunt; the implied message was that his army was too powerful, and his own tactics too sound, to ever have to worry about an enemy actually attacking his seat of power.
He had not counted on the Dragoons.
Kain stopped just inside the throne room, and closed his eyes. In his mind, he could picture the battle arrangements that Robert Nerthic had recounted to him during his first week back in Baron. He pictured his father, tall and proud in his Dragon Knight armour, dueling the Emperor of Palamecia to the death. The treatises on the war in the Baron Castle library suggested that the Emperor had been an accomplished swordsman, but Richard Highwind had defeated him. Edward's father, King Christopher of Damcyan, had written at least three ballads of tribute memorializing Richard Highwind's last battle; Kain had them all memorized.
The treatises indicated that the formation his father had chosen was one seldom used, the Claw and the Tail. Kain could envision it clearly; the purpose was to fall back and appear as though the line was about to break so as to draw the enemy between the two groups of Dragoons. Then, the group of Dragoons on the left would strike with spear or sword while the group on the right swept inward with shields raised, using the force of their movement to drive their enemy into their companions' weapons. In his mind, he saw charts laid out on a table and a senior Dragon Knight sweeping small figurines across the surface to demonstrate the formation to recruits.
Here, then, they had crushed the Palamecian palace guard, and then his father had advanced to demand the Emperor's surrender. The Emperor had drawn steel rather than do so. Kain could envision the duel--he thought it must have been like unto the times when he and Cecil had sparred together, save with an extra edge of desperation on the Emperor's part, and of course far greater skill on his father's part than he himself possessed.
He opened his eyes, seeing the ruins of the throne room rather than the pristine state of his imagination, and sighed. There was nothing of his father here, and he had come all this way for naught.
Kain turned away, and started to make his way out of the palace complex. He had many miles to travel to reach Baron City.