Chapter Text
I’m not sure how long I was out. I don’t think it was long, minutes perhaps. Kefka was gone. A few people in the town square, down where the meeting had been, were getting to their feet and helping the fallen. I didn’t dare approach them. I crawled behind the twisted wreckage of my Guardian and hid there for a moment, catching my breath and checking my wounds. They didn’t seem bad, at least at first, but when I got to my feet I nearly fell over with sudden dizziness.
It took me three attempts to stand properly, and I couldn’t walk straight. I lurched away from the square, trying to keep behind cover. It was easy enough. Several buildings had burned themselves out by now, and the wreckage served. After a mile or so the dizziness became too strong and I had to stop. I sat down on the cobblestones and tried to think.
First: I wasn’t personally in that much danger. With my helmet on no one could tell me apart from any other Imperial soldier. I wouldn’t be recognized as one of Kefka’s accomplices.
Second: Exception to first, any Imperial present would know me on sight, and my (now destroyed) suit was distinctive enough that I would never be able to claim I wasn’t party to the crime. We had fired on our own men and that was that.
Third: The only way I had off the island was the ship that had brought us here.
Conclusion: If I was going to make it home alive and without arrest, I had to beat the delegation back to the ship and convince them to launch immediately.
Which I couldn’t possibly do. I was alone, the Magitek suit I had ridden in on was gone, and I had no alternative mount, which meant I had to walk. It was at least fifty miles to the ship. Days, in the wilderness, alone, on foot. It was not going to happen. So getting home meant surrendering and hoping for the best.
Well, fine. I struggled back to my feet and retraced my steps. It took twice as long to return; the dizzy feeling was getting more and more pronounced. Just walking was difficult. I probably had a concussion. Maybe worse. I mentally shied away from the idea that the injury might be permanent.
By the time I got back to the town square it was past noon. Celes and a few of the locals were trying to put out the fires with magic. They had been at least partially successful. The dead had been laid out, off to one side. There were fewer corpses than I had expected. But then, I hadn’t been trying to kill anyone, really. Rosker wasn’t shooting to kill when he attacked. Soverin never even fired a shot. Only Kefka had real lethal intent, and he didn’t care about anyone except the Espers.
And he had killed Leo. Not because he had to, I think. Just because he felt like it.
Even the fire witch never did anything like that, was the crazy thought in my head. It made no sense. She killed fifty, Kefka killed three. Leo wouldn’t have weighed his own death any more than anyone else’s. But I wasn’t Leo, and it seemed worse to me. And I doubted the fire witch had acted on a whim.
I staggered towards the Imperial group, exaggerating somewhat for effect. I drew glances from the Returners but nothing more. One of the privates came out to meet me, and I approached him with something resembling dread. I tried to remind myself that I hadn’t personally assaulted any of my comrades. The private saw my insignia, started to salute, then stopped.
“Oh. You.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Who’s the ranking officer left? Other than me, I mean.”
“Lieutenant Iolen,” he said. He did not add “sir.”
“Lead me to him, please.”
“As you wish.”
He didn’t offer me a shoulder to lean on, and I had to stumble behind him. I fell once. He didn’t help me up either.
The lieutenant was taking a report from one of the sergeants when we arrived. He was facing away, and only noticed us when the man’s voice trailed off.
Iolen frowned, noted the sergeant was looking over his shoulder, and turned. His eyebrows raised.
“Well, this is a surprise,” he said. “The other two are dead. And if you don’t have a really good explanation, really fast, I’m going to have you executed for treason and not a man here will oppose it. General Leo is gone. So are three other good people. Last I checked we were here to talk, not fight. And not to kill our own.”
“Can we step aside to talk about this?” I asked.
He frowned. “Fine. But we’re staying in sight. Sergeant, dismissed for now.” The sergeant saluted, and Iolen and I walked off about a hundred paces. “That’s far enough. Talk.”
“I had higher orders,” I said quietly.
“Like hell. I was there when Leo gave the order, and he’s a general. Unless you took Kefka’s orders over his, in which case you’re a fool and a traitor. He doesn’t have rank anymore and everyone knows it, and even if he did you’d still be a fool.”
“I had higher orders,” I repeated, with a bit more emphasis and a meaningful look.
This time Iolen got it. “There’s only one man who outranks Leo, and that’s the Emperor. You’re telling me he wanted Leo dead?”
“No, he wanted Leo alive,” I said, angry myself. “Look, we were supposed to take down the Returners and the Espers all at once. Kefka was the hidden ace. Leo was never told because you can’t accidentally give away something you don’t know. So we were told to take Kefka’s orders once we got here. But then Kefka went totally off the handle and, well, this.” I gestured vaguely. “I told him this would happen. I told him.”
“Told who? Kefka?” Iolen sneered. “You’re an idiot if you think he would care.”
“Not him. Emperor Gestahl.”
“Oh.”
We were both silent for a while.
“All right,” Iolen said at last. “Whatever. You know I can’t take your word on that because anyone who could confirm it is dead or off to who knows where, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But if I killed you and you’re telling the truth, I’ll probably catch hell for it later.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Whatever. Follow me back.”
I did. He found another sergeant (not the same man) and grabbed two other soldiers.
“Major,” he said. “I’m placing you under arrest on suspicion of treason. These three will relieve you of your equipment.”
I sighed, at last feeling like I might live through this. I didn’t have much. I handed over my dagger and helmet without complaint, and stripped off my body armor. When I was done, I felt naked. But I was alive, and it seemed I would make it home after all.
“One more thing,” he said, when I was done.
“Yes, sir.”
Without warning, he drove a fist into my face. It knocked me clean over backwards, and I hit my head on the cobblestones again. I groaned and covered my face with a hand, expecting another blow. I felt blood.
“He’s to be guarded until we board the ship back to Albrook,” Iolen said to the sergeant. He sounded satisfied. “See to it.”
There was a brief military funeral for Leo before we left town. I was not permitted to attend, for obvious reasons. The Returners held their own funeral afterwards, which seemed an odd thing to me. I suppose Leo had friends even among his enemies. He was that kind of man.
The Returners did not travel back with us. An airship, of all things, picked them up. That was an impressive sight. I’d heard such things existed, of course, but apparently our adversaries had very wealthy friends.
It was just as well. Without Leo to keep us in check, a fight may well have broken out, and that was the last thing any of us needed. I was the closest target for revenge, but Iolen had his head on straight. He made it clear I was heading for a tribunal and that freelance justice would not be tolerated. If not for that I might have gone over the side the first night.
Despite the atmosphere, the voyage back to Albrook was surprisingly uneventful. At first I felt relieved. The weight of conspiracy was off my shoulders. The disaster I feared had already happened. I was under arrest, of course, but Iolen never bothered to have me put in chains. There was certainly no chance of escape from a ship at sea.
The winds were with us. The journey was shorter. I would be exonerated, once I got home. I could see Laurel again.
Nevertheless I had a feeling of gathering dread, even as we disembarked at Albrook. Something was wrong. On the surface, my thoughts were “what if the emperor isn’t here, to exonerate me? Well, I would probably hang. Laurel would end a widow, and a disgraced one at that. The thought set my stomach roiling.
But that wasn’t what was really bothering me. There was something else. Something worse. Kefka had been far more powerful than I had ever been led to believe. Gestahl had said that, once his own powers were complete, it wouldn’t matter.
What if he was wrong?
“You look like you’re going to an execution,” Iolen said to me on the dock side as the last of his soldiers stepped onto the pier.
“I feel like I’m going to an execution,” I said.
“Maybe you are. I suppose that will be for your tribunal to decide.” He picked out three soldiers and had them surround and escort me. “We’re going to head straight to the Citadel to report. I don’t want to be responsible for you any longer than I have to, so let’s be quick about it. And let’s not make a spectacle for the civilians, either.”
Vector is not very far from Albrook, and four days later we marched in, weary but not too badly so. The city seemed to have recovered somewhat since the Esper attack. The bodies had long been cleared from the streets. Buildings that had not been too badly damaged were patched up, windows boarded or replaced. Many that were beyond repair had been leveled to prepare for reconstruction. There was no longer a sense of omnipresent fear, as there had been in the days after the battle. Above the city, unchanging, the Imperial Citadel stood.
“We’re almost home,” Iolen said to his troop, as we joined the main road. It drew a wan cheer. “Look like proper soldiers, all of you.” We formed into two columns. I was still near the front, and I had no doubt that the man behind me had a dagger sharpened just for me. Iolen was a good soldier; he never gave me enough room to escape, even had I intended to. I marched with the rest.
We were halfway to the Citadel when the ground began to shake. At first just enough to make me stumble.
“Earthquake?” someone said, perplexed.
“In Vector?” someone else responded. “I’ve lived here all my life. We don’t get earthquakes.”
The second groundshock was stronger. I lost my footing and went down hard; two others did the same. Confusion spread. We were on a market street, and I could see merchants leaving their shops to see what was going on. Or perhaps just to get outside.
“What on earth…?”
There was silence for about a minute.
The third groundshock left no one standing. It was like some titanic underground god was swimming through the bedrock. The noise left my ears ringing. I couldn’t even attempt to regain my feet. All I could think about was trying, very very hard, not to let the ground reach up and punch me in the head.
It went on, and on, and on. People were screaming everywhere. Just up the street, a passerby on a chocobo was thrown and lay motionless, unconscious or dead, tossed about the by earth’s gyrations like a child’s doll. The chocobo itself ran on in a panic. Its gait was lurching and drunken, and it made it about twenty feet before crashing headlong into a wall. I’m sure it broke its own neck. Moments later, the building it had run into gave up and collapsed, one of the walls falling down on the corpse.
I looked at that shattered building and thought: Laurel.
I started crawling for the nearest alleyway. I had to get out of sight, get away from my captors, get home. Did anyone even notice? I doubt it. I heard shouts, of course, but that told me nothing. No one shouted my name. I’m sure they had other things to worry about, like getting murdered by roadworks.
I made it around the corner and crawled down the alley, then up to the next street. I found that I could move a considerable distance in the precious few moments when the ground was still, as long as I didn’t worry too much about how badly I would get hurt when it moved again. And I did get hurt. I’m not sure how many bruises I had after the first thousand feet. Probably too many.
That thousand feet took an eternity. The next thousand went faster. The earthquake had settled into longer periods of silence followed by sudden, wrenching motion. It was still too dangerous to walk, and I kept to the middle of the street as best I could. By the time I had gone a mile, nearly an hour had passed. The tremors were less frequent and less violent. I could walk again, probably. I couldn’t run.
I ran anyway, with one eye over my shoulder for pursuit. None came. They probably hadn’t even seen me go. If they asked witnesses, it probably went something like “Have you seen a man matching this description?”
“No, sir, my face was in the dirt.”
It took an hour to reach my home. It was small, nondescript, a bit tight for two people. The only thing marking it out was a rather nice flower bed we used to keep just outside the front door. Emphasis on “used to.” When I arrived, it was a ruin. The rear half of the roof had collapsed and our flower garden was now decorated with window glass.
“Laurel!” I shouted as I approached. “Where are you?”
No response. My heart, already beating far too quickly after running for so long, felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. My mind started making up reasons she wasn’t answering. Maybe she had gone out for food. Maybe she was visiting a friend. Maybe she wasn’t there.
But maybe she was under what was left of our roof.
I climbed the front stoop and tried the door. It was locked. I scrabbled in my pocket for the key, couldn’t find it, raised one foot and slammed my boot against the latch. It burst open. Somewhere drifting in my head was the thought that if I could break in that easily, I should probably do something about the door’s security.
“Laurel!” I shouted again, as I entered. The entryway was untouched aside from the remains of broken windows. The kitchen dishes were casualties, but the kitchen was otherwise undamaged. I didn’t see her. The main hallway was blocked by a collapsed chunk of the roof. I climbed over it and made my way towards the back, still shouting.
At last, I got a response, a barely audible “I hear you, I’m here!” and I recognized her voice. The vice around my heart eased up somewhat. It was coming from the sitting room.
“I’m under here,” she said as I entered, her voice thin, but relieved. “Help me.”
She must have been sitting in the corner when the earthquake started. A piece of the broken roof had caved in over there, and I could see her feet and one of her arms sticking out of the wreckage. The rest of her was buried. No wonder I couldn’t hear her from outside.
I started hauling pieces of debris off. Her face came into view first, and under any other circumstances I would have been horrified. Blood ran from her scalp and down her face, more of it than could be healthy. But her eyes were open and clear.
“Can’t breathe right,” she said tightly.
“What?”
“Heavy.”
The biggest piece was holding her chest down, and it was too much for me to safely move on my own. “I’m going for help. I’ll be right back,” I said. She smiled back at me.
Two of our neighbors returned with me, and together the rest of the work went quickly. Laurel gasped and coughed as she came free, breathing deep. Nothing seemed broken, but she had cuts in several places. I got some first aid supplies from the kitchen and started working on her wounds. I’m not a medic, but everybody in the army learns something about first aid. It was, thankfully, enough.
I finally kissed her, when I was done. “Gods. For a moment I thought I’d lost you.”
“I thought you were the one who was supposed to get hurt all the time,” she said. She looked at the mess sadly. “I guess I’m lucky to be alive. What happened? Vector doesn’t get earthquakes.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Look. I need to go report in. I’m, uh, not supposed to be here.”
“Oh, I don’t think they’re going to punish you for saving your wife.”
“That’s not what I mean. I can’t really tell you, but…well, things didn’t go well at Crescent Island. At all. I need to go report. I might not be back for a while.”
“I’m going with you. And don’t try to tell me to stay here, this might be our home but the rest of it could come down any time. In fact we should probably go outside.”
In the end I let her come. Truth be told, I felt better keeping her in sight. We made for the Citadel, and mentally I prayed that I could, somehow, talk my way in to see Gestahl before I got arrested again.
“Out of the question,” the Emperor’s secretary said flatly. I faced him in the Emperor’s antechamber. Laurel was with me, but she sat quietly against the inside wall. The outside wall was a single great glass window, affording a spectacular view of the city.
“Sir,” I said, with as much respect as I could manage, “I must see him, one way or another. He personally gave me a mission before I left for Crescent Island, I have vital information from that mission, and I have no one else I dare report to.” It was true, in a sense. I was here to clear my own name, of course, but Gestahl also needed to know that Kefka had murdered general Leo against orders. If I could get Kefka executed instead of merely jailed, this time….
“I will convey your request at the earliest opportunity, but the Emperor is a busy man, and even if he wishes to see you, it will likely be several weeks.”
“I don’t have several weeks!” Depending on how the tribunal viewed my escape, days might be too long.
“Major, I’m going to have to ask you to go. You cannot see Emperor Gestahl today, and that is—”
“What is that?” Laurel cut him off in a strangled voice that immediately got our attention.
I looked at her. “Dear, what’s wrong?” She pointed out the window. I turned. So did the secretary.
The window faced eastward, to allow in the morning sun. Below us, Vector. Beyond that, farms and fields, roads leading out into the distance. Beyond that, the Eastern Mountains, stretching most of the way across the horizon.
And rising above those mountains was something. At first I thought I was looking at a tremendously ugly airship that, for whatever reason, had chosen to fly low over the city. That was silly. My second thought was that’s an island. Flying. And that’s what it looked like. A mass of dirt and bedrock, in the sky, hovering.
I didn’t get the scale right until I noticed that the lowermost sections of it were obstructed by the mountains. It was behind the mountains, as in further away. In my field of vision, it was half as wide as that entire mountain range. And, being beyond them, it had to be even larger than it appeared.
Not an island. An entire continent.
“It’s rising,” I said, quietly. “Of course. That earthquake.” It clicked. The easternmost regions of our continent, mountainous and mostly uninhabited, were separated from civilization by a deep strait that cut all the way across. This thing in the sky was about the right shape. It must have been torn free from its roots of stone by some unimaginable magic. Here, almost a thousand miles away, we felt it as an earthquake.
I was bemused. Awed. In our pride we lay hands on power, and reshape the world, I thought with uncharacteristic poetry. But in what image?
Something else clicked, too. “He’s out there, isn’t he?” I asked the Emperor’s secretary. “On that thing.”
He frowned at me, then sighed. “I believe so. He left nearly a week ago for the Esper’s Gate. It’s out that way.”
“Was Kefka with him?”
His face went flat. “The Emperor’s business is his own, not yours.”
“Was Kefka with him?” I roared, leaning over his desk, a hand going for my sword before I realized it wasn’t there. He scrambled back from me. Laurel shrank against the wall. “Answer me, or I swear I’ll kill you right here!” I moved around the desk after him.
“All right, all right,” he said. “Kefka was supposed to meet him on the way. He can’t come in the city right now, he’s still officially a fugitive.”
“You idiot,” I said. “Is there any way to get a message up there, somehow?”
“What is it that is so bloody important?” he said, exasperated.
“Kefka stabbed us in the back at Crescent Island! He killed his direct subordinates, almost killed me, and murdered General Leo directly against orders! Orders that nobody knows about because Kefka’s publicly disgraced, only I guess you already know Gestahl is still working with him so who cares? The Emperor cannot wait any longer to deal with him, or he’s going to be next and we’ll have an Empire of Kefka the Insane!”
He gaped at my outburst. So did Laurel. I couldn’t take the frustration any longer; I reached out and decked him. He hit the floor and stared up at me, trying to guard his face with his hands.
“Send a carrier pigeon, or one of those new flying magitek suits, or jump out of that window and flap your stupid arms if you have to! But get a message up there!”
I stormed out, almost slamming the door in Laurel’s face as she tried to follow me. The hallway was empty. Actually, most of the Imperial Citadel was empty; it seemed the staff had concluded the same thing as Laurel earlier, that it was safer to be outside.
Laurel kept close, not speaking. I’m sure she was scared, but she held up well enough. I headed for the barracks. I had two things left to do and then I was done with this. First I went to the armory and got myself a sword, dagger, and a spare set of clothes. Any more would stick out. By the time I got to Command, I had calmed down. I was met there by a colonel named Murozis. I had met him before on several occasions, and I knew him indirectly as well. He had a reputation as calm and competent, and the rumor was that he would be promoted to general soon. He wasn’t as well-liked as Leo, but he was well-respected.
“Yes?” he said as I entered the offices.
“I need to send a message,” I said. “Up to the floating continent. And someone above me has to give the order, because I don’t have the authority.”
He blinked. “You need to what?”
“I need one of the new air squadron magitek suits to carry a message, up there. To Emperor Gestahl.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know he’s up there? Never mind. I can’t do as you ask.”
“You know, I just went through this with his secretary, and he ended up on the floor. I’m in a very bad mood and right now I don’t care if you outrank me.”
Murozis raised an eyebrow. “A threat, major?”
“I’m already facing a tribunal that will probably execute me. Try me.”
“What’s the message?” Murozis asked. His expression was quizzical.
I spoke in a monotone: “It should read, ‘Kefka turned on Leo and killed him at the island. He is totally insane now and I expect him to try and do the same to you very soon. Fair warning.’”
That got his attention. “Major, are you serious?”
“I am.”
“I see. What’s this about a tribunal?”
“I was working with Kefka on Gestahl’s orders when he went nuts. Yes, I know he’s supposed to be out of favor. Strange circumstances. But I can’t prove any of it, and I can’t prove that I wasn’t complicit, and there’s an entire squad’s worth of witnesses that will say I was. Gestahl knows enough of the details to pardon me, but he isn’t here and I’ll hang before he gets back.”
“You don’t intend to wait to be arrested, I take it.”
“Actually I was already arrested once. I got away.”
“I ought to re-arrest you now, then. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t try it.” He frowned darkly. “I believe you, for what it’s worth. You don’t seem like a liar, you have an exemplary record — yes, I’ve seen it — and we all know Kefka’s a nut. But you misinterpreted me; the reason I can’t send an airsuit is because they’re not here. The whole squadron was dispatched to the east two days ago, on the Emperor’s orders. I assume he wanted them to intercept anyone trying to approach that thing up there. I wish he had told us what he had in mind.”
“Me, too,” I said bitterly. “What about a pigeon?”
“A pigeon wouldn’t know where to go.”
“Options?”
“I’ll get some help and see. There might be prototypes or unfinished mechs at the Magitek Factory that could make it up there even if they can’t fight. Or we could try to find and signal the existing squadron. That would take longer but it might be all we can do.”
I found myself breathing easier. The colonel’s reputation wasn’t undeserved, it seemed. Those were both good ideas.
“As for you, you’ve delivered your message. Now, who arrested you?”
“Lieutenant Iolen.”
“Another good officer. Excellent. I’ll take him aside later. Now, I am ordering you to get out of Vector for two weeks.”
“What?”
“So that you’re not technically AWOL. You can’t be brought to trial if you’re not here.”
“Ah. Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll put it in writing before you go.” He gestured to Laurel. “Your wife, I assume. Will she be going with you?”
“No,” I said. “Yes,” she said over me, scowling.
Murozis chuckled. “I’ll write you a requisition order for two chocobos then. You can argue about it on the way to the stables.”
“Never mind,” I sighed. “She’ll win that fight. Do you even know how to ride, dear?”
“Not very well, but I’ll manage,” she said sweetly.
We headed out the north end of town a few hours later. It was late in the day, but I wasn’t going to stay any longer than I had to. I had done my duty. Now I just wanted to get away from Vector. We were heading towards Tzen, but I didn’t intend to go all the way there. Too many bad memories. There were several smaller villages along the way. We could pick one about a week out, stay for a few days, and then come back.
The Returner camp straddled the road between us and the wilderness. When they had come to make their attack, they landed at Tzen and approached from the north. That attack had never happened, of course. The Espers got here first. Well, I suppose they got what was coming to them in the end, if not the way I would have wanted.
I just hoped nobody in the camp had been told the truce was off. I’d forgotten about the camp, but I didn’t want to ride back across the city again just to leave in another direction. We approached at a fast pace, but not so fast as to cause alarm. They had a checkpoint set up across the road. A guard greeted us. He was an older man, and his uniform appeared to have been patched out of whatever was on hand, but he behaved professionally enough.
“We’re not here to make trouble, just traveling,” I said after we gave our names, and I my rank. “I’m on leave, and we have family in Tzen.” It seemed a thin excuse; who gets leave with a hostile army camped on the capital’s doorstep? But the guard didn’t seem to care much. One man and his wife were no threat, and it seemed the truce still held for now. He waved us through. Passing through the camp took about an hour. By the time we came out the other end, it was nearly sunset.
We pressed on anyway, until full dark, before making camp. It was a new thing for Laurel. She was a native of Vector, and I don’t think she had slept on the ground in her whole life. She seemed to find the experience exciting. I just wanted to get to a village with an inn, myself. As a soldier I’ve had enough outdoor nights for two lifetimes.
A day passed. Two days. We spent a night in a tent, in the rain. That killed a bit of Laurel’s enthusiasm. I listened to the thunder and wondered if my message had ever reached Gestahl, and what he and Kefka were doing now.
There was a village shortly before the end of the valley leading north from Vector, and we stayed at the inn there on the third night. It was a relief to both of us by then. Beyond that was the wide open plain stretching from the mountains all the way to Tzen. The road was nearly empty, and the ride would, if anything, be rather pleasant from here onward. But for the first time as the valley opened onto the plain I could clearly see the Floating Continent. It was out to the east, no longer obscured at all by the mountains. It leered at us from the horizon, and I shivered. Best not to think too hard about it. What would be, would be, and it was no use worrying about something I could no longer affect.
We rode onward. Within an hour it was fully in view. It had drifted further north, and looked different than the last time I had seen it. I slowed my chocobo to a stop.
Laurel pulled up beside me. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Look at that.” I pointed. It seemed to be listing to one side, like an unbalanced sailing ship. Something about its appearance filled me with dread.
Then, as we watched, a visible chunk of it, who knows how large, tore free and began to fall. My stomach tightened. Something that huge, striking the ocean, would produce a tsunami such as the world had never seen. I mentally judged the distance from us to the shore. Hopefully it was far enough.
The falling rock shelf was followed by another. We watched, mesmerized. The first piece fell below the horizon, out of sight, but I knew that somewhere out there it had hit the water.
The wind was picking up, too.
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” I said, pointing at the Continent. “But I don’t want to be anywhere near it. This road runs too near the coast. Let’s turn west.” So we did. My chocobo whined as we left the road. I wondered if it sensed something I couldn’t. I kept looking over my shoulder as we rode, at the Continent.
I was almost expecting the first tremors when they hit. Laurel’s chocobo took it in stride. Mine, carrying a fair bit more weight, stumbled but didn’t fall.
“Dismount!” I said. Laurel obeyed without asking why, and I was grateful for it. The quake did not fade away, as the one in Vector had. The ground shook lightly, but continuously.
Which way to go? We were away from the coast, at least. Were we better off on high ground? No, I thought. We turned northwest; I was aiming to get as far from the coast as possible, and as far from everything else, deeper into the plains. Open ground. There was nothing to fall on us there. Like mountains.
To the east, the Floating Continent had broken in half, with the two pieces drifting away from each other. A few independent chunks remained in between.
Beneath us, the ground suddenly wrenched. Laurel stumbled into me and we both fell down, her on top. We clung to the earth like a mother, but it must have been a poor one, for it beat us long and hard. And it screamed. It screamed forever, with a sound poets could never describe and saints could never bear.
Eventually, eventually, the ground’s assault faded enough that I could let go of Laurel and sit up. She rolled to one side. She was still conscious, I thought, but dazed. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. I looked for the sun and found it. I looked south. The mountains weren’t there.
Bewildered, I looked around. There were hills to the west. A body of water east of us, but it was an inland lake and the other side was visible. North and south, plains. Far to the north, nearly out of sight, another body of water. The ocean? I couldn’t tell. I finally found what I was looking for to the southeast, but the mountain range was narrow, as if I was looking at it end-on.
Where was I? I hadn’t moved.
Had everything else moved? How was that possible?
“Are we alive?” Laurel asked, confused.
“That might be a good questio—”
A sudden bang cut me off. I looked towards it and found myself facing those strange southeastern mountains again. They were there. But they looked smaller.
Another bang, and the ground lurched. This time I saw it. The mountains sank downward like nails struck by a god’s hammer. Again, again. One peak shattered before my eyes, an avalanche pouring into the growing trench at their base.
“Oh my God,” Laurel said.
I turned. The Floating Continent, too, had shattered. Shards of it fell from the sky in a cloud. But in the center, a great pillar remained. It moved steadily towards us and off to the south, as if with purpose.
“Oh my God,” Laurel said again.
It was Kefka, I thought, as the world continued to go mad around me. Gestahl would never have done this. Rule the world, perhaps, as that was fitting. But not destroy it, not warp it into some unrecognizable thing. Which meant Gestahl was probably dead. And Kefka was alive, up there, perched over the world, looking down as he had over me and my companions on the night we attacked Thamasa. Like a dark god, he was watching, satisfied, laughing.
He won, after all. He won.