Two Halves: chapter 35A Chapter by aaaachapter 35, :3Zeckle collapsed onto one of the
boxes, she was breathing hard from the strain of the last few minutes. Nicolas
glanced around the room, which appeared to be just a small storage cell. A few
bags of goods, some barrels, and boxes were the only things in the room.
Nicolas sat down on one of the crates and looked to Bestalel who was picking
charred bits of cloth from what used to be his sleeve. “Where are we?” Asked Nicolas. He
ran his fingers through his hair as the fatigue began to set it. The only one
who did not appear to be winded was Bestalel. His breathing hadn’t even changed
from normal, and Nicolas expected that his body was wired for far more than
offensive power. “A storage room under Jenzi city.
I have used this as a safe house once before, and the people above should still
know me,“ answered Bestalel as he walked towards the small wooden door set into
one of the walls. He knocked on it hard and the reverberations echoed around
the room. “Get up, both of you. The people above will let us rest in their
house, so you don’t have to keep sitting on those boxes.” Nicolas got up warily, already aware
that a cramp was coming on in his left leg. Zeckle sighed loudly and lifted
herself up as well, and as she did her heavy scale armor changed to normal clothes,
and the crossbow dissolved into black essence. Nicolas ran his hand along one of
the walls, it appeared to be made from some kind of natural stone. The entire
room was cool, and there were no windows so he assumed that they were
underground. As he examined the wall a series of footsteps sounded from outside
and the door opened. Nicolas turned around to look through the door, and a
young woman was standing in it. Her dark skin contrasted the light stone of the
walls, and she was wearing what looked to be a homespun linen dress. “Who are yo"“ she began, but
suddenly realization struck her and her face brightened,” Bestalel is it really
you? How did you get here? And who are these two?” she waved her hand back at
Nicolas and Zeckle. “I will explain once we are in the
main house. It is good to see you Telly, but we are in dire need of a place to
rest for a short time.” said Bestalel to which she nodded slowly and turned up
the stairs. Bestalel looked back at Nicolas and Zeckle and indicated for them
to follow. The walls were lined with light strips as they climbed the
staircase; they passed several more wooden doors. The few that were revealed
odd rooms beyond. Some were dormitories lined with beds, while others were more
storage rooms, and a few looked to be large cafeterias. No one else was around, not a single
person was in any of the room as they climbed the steps. Then suddenly they stopped, and
Telly waked through one of the doors. It was not one of the storage rooms from
before, but an enormous cathedral that lay beyond. The entire structure looked like
it was carved from a single colossal geode. They were standing at the wide end
and it slowly got narrower till it reached the opposite wall. Every wall was a
dark grayish blue crystal, and while the floors and walls were rubbed smooth the
ceiling still shot out in jagged spikes. One the walls were alcoves lining the
way from where they stood to the alter at the far end. In every one there was a
larger than life carving of a woman, each depicted in robes and in different
states of revelation. All either clasping their hands in prayer or lifting
their arms up towards the sky. Each were carved from the very same crystal that
the hall had been made of, and it looked as if they hadn’t been put into the
alcove, but instead the alcoves had been carved out around them. Each alcove
was filled with hundreds of small candles burning merrily in their holders. The alter was magnificent. The
largest statue of all was there, and instead of being a prophet it depicted the
god Kinsara. Her eyes were covered in a blindfold, but her six arms were
outstretched in all direction forming the points of a hexagon around her. She
sat in a meditating position, and in each of her outstretched palms was an
enormous candle. The statue must have been twenty feet tall, and each candle
stretched three feet of melted wax and burnt wick. Steams of molten tallow
steamed from her hands and connected to the floor in columns of vicious
material. Now Nicolas knew why there had
been no one in any of the other rooms. In front of the alter stood hundreds of
people, every voice raised in song. They were all women, and their high pitch
shook the very crystal of the walls, and the echoes doubled in on themselves
creating a melody that is not normally able to be achieved. Nicolas marveled at the beauty of
the scene, and as he stared open mouthed someone put their hand on his
shoulder. It was Bestalel. He motioned for Nicolas to follow him, and Nicolas
reluctantly obliged. Tearing his eyes away from the wonder of the scene beyond.
He was pulled into a room off to the side, whose door was noticeably thicker
than the one below. Once he got inside the large door was shut behind them and
a good deal of the music beyond was cut off. All that remained was a muffled
melody bleeding through the wall. Telly was sitting at a desk on the
far side of the simple room. She was quietly humming to herself, to the tune of
the music beyond. Bestalel sat in one of the hard wooden chairs in front of the
desk, and Zeckle was leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. Nicolas sat
next to Bestalel and waited for a moment, and when nobody spoke he did. “Where exactly are we?” “You are inside the Sisterhood of
Kinsara’s Will. They are a religious order based near Jenzi city. This is
Telly, who is an old friend of mine. She helped me escape Salex before, when I
used to be one of their soldiers.” His eyes softened as he looked at her, and
she smiled back at him. “What brings you here Bestalel.
Why are you in my Sisterhood? We do not allow men here, and last time you were
only allowed due to the order signed by the High Father himself.” The two
stared each other down for a moment, and then burst out laughing. It was odd to
hear Bestalel laugh; it was laud and deep, but didn’t seem to quite fit right
with her person. Nicolas was staring at Bestalel gapping. “The High Father? You’ve met the
High Father of Kintera? Why? How? I thought he died during the Blaze war,”
stammered Nicolas, near incoherency. “I am a disciple of Kintera,
Nicolas. The High Father is who set me on the right path two years ago when I
stopped being a Salex soldier. He is probably not the High Father you knew, a
new one was appointed after the Blaze War, about six years ago to be exact.
Kintera is whom I prayed to before we left on our journey long ago. He had
surely protected us.” Bestalel’s eyes glowed with an intensity while was
talking of Kintera what Nicolas did not thing possible. When he was a child
because he had entered the Academy of Cloudtop he had never been educated in
religion. Religion was for others, not the magi. They had always been taught
that a god had a lot of followers, so he could never possibly protect everyone.
Instead they had to learn to protect themselves. Though he had known of the
High Father, who was the leader of one of the several schools of teaching. He
was the prophet of Kintera, the brother of the goddess Kinsara. “Anyway, I have come here to ask a
favor of you Telly.” said Bestalel, his seriousness returning. “Oh, and what is that?” “We need transportation. We need
to make it to Gen city, and later Cloudtop. We are raising an army Telly. We
are going to destroy Salex. Once and for all.” Said Bestalel proudly. “What? How can you possibly do
that? You would need to break through the Mile High Walls. You can’t just get
an army into their city on a wing and a prayer. You need to break though the
strongest magical barrier in existence, and I can’t help you! Not again!” She
looked at him as if pleading; her eyes had started to moisten at the last few
words. “We are going to seek the Cloud
Walkers. If we can convince them to join our side we might be able to break
through the wall.” answered Bestalel, in a attempt to calm her. Nicolas had
heard about the Cloud Walkers during his time in Cloudtop. They were an order
of engineers and pilots that had mastered the ore inside of Cloudtop Mountain,
and had trained their members to be able to pilot the crafts they had
constructed. Each one of their planes had a small nugget of the ore inside
them. When exposed to a magical field the ore would produce a membrane that the
planes could ride one. Literally surfing the powerful magic waves that swept
across Earth-2. They had refused the call to arms
at the beginning of the Blaze War. No one knew why, but for their decision
their order was banished by the council of Cloudtop. They and their families
had left the city and never returned. Rumor had it though that they had built
an enormous flying barge to live on and train future members of the order. “Ha! The Cloud Walkers. They
didn’t help in the Blaze War, why should they help now! Besides, how will you
even find them?” “That is why we need seek the High
Father. He knows where they are. Nearly the entire order was devout followers
of Kintera, and would not have abandoned their faith once they left Cloudtop.
He will know where they are. “ Replied Bestalel. “Fine, it seems as if you have it
all figured out,” she said her voice dripping with sarcasm,” I will be able to
sneak you two out of the city, and get you transport to Gen, but you are on
your own from there.” “Thank you,” said Bestalel, and he
sounded as if he meant it,” Though I will need a room for my friend here. He
has had a temporary body-mod and will need to revert and expel the nanites
before we leave. Lest they short circuit” Nicolas had nearly forgotten. If he was to exit the city before
getting rid of the nanites it could quite possibly prove deadly for him. The
small robots inside his body were maintaining the more cosmetic changes he had;
their final task was to revert him to his original appearance before leaving
his system. If he had left the city before
getting rid of them they would all shut off simultaneously. The enormous
magical field that surrounded Earth-2 was a hundred times stronger than Earth-1.
Electrical equipment that wasn’t properly shielded would immediately cease to
function, and proper shielding cost thousands of dollars for the simplest of
tools. That is why Earth-1 had never suffered devastating losses in the Blaze
War. After Earth-2 opened a gate way they were only able to expand a shield for
maybe a few hundred feet around them that they could use equipment in. On their
home turf Earth-2 magi would win, but once they tried to fight Earth-1 soldiers
on theirs they would be massacred easily. That was why the Mile High Walls
were built. It was the largest magical barrier in existence. It shielded the
entire city from the magical currents that criss-crossed Earth-2. It was the
largest Earth-1 city on Earth-2, though there were several others dotting the
planet, none measured up to Jenzi. The Mile High Walls had been called a wonder
of the magical world. “That can wait. Would you join us
for the service, though I believe it is almost over. I will give a room to your
friend for his reversal, and afterwards I will organize the transportation to
Gen. I believe there is a station some fifty miles from the city that has a
regular transport to there. You might be lucky and be here in time for a
transport. I will look into it.” She got up from behind her desk and walked
over to the door. After she opened it the music that had been suppressed
suddenly returned to full volume. Nicolas got up and followed her and Bestalel,
with Zeckle following behind him. She showed Bestalel and Zeckle down onto the
back of the cathedral floor, where the singing was still going on, but when
Nicolas tried to follow she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out into
hallway. “I will get a room prepared for
you, we have several empty ones that you could use.” said Telly in a voice
barely over a whisper. “Though I need to ask something. Who are you, and who is
that other woman.” Her eyes blazed with a deep suspicion. She trusted Bestalel,
not Nicolas, and it showed. “I am not really sure how to say
this, but I am the Alchemist, and the women is my clan guardian. There is no
way I can prove this to you, so you are just going to have to trust me. I am Gregorian
Chenran Voltaire Flamel, call me Nicolas.” As he finished her eyes did not lose
their suspicious gaze. She still did not trust him, but did not seem to be
outwardly hostile any longer. She nodded and brought him down the stairs until
they reached a door, which she opened. Inside was nothing but a simple bed; it
was much smaller than the enormous dormitories from below, and appeared to be
vacant. He entered and sat down on the bed; Telly stood by the door and starred
at him. “If it wouldn’t be to much
trouble, can I have a bucket or something? The nanites have to come out somehow
and they expel via the throat.” She turned to leave, and looked back for a long
moment. Then left, leaving Nicolas alone in the room. He sat there staring at
the wall for a moment, then said. “Override code: 00001. Unit
termination.” The nanites inside him have a few bots monitoring his vocal
cords, waiting for this order to come. Immediately they reacted, and pain
started to shoot up Nicolas’s legs. He hadn’t been prepared for the pain to be
this intense, and was waiting for the machines built in sedation to kick in.
For nearly a minute he writhed in agony until the sedation took effect, and
afterwards he was only dimly aware of the world around him. He vaguely recalled
Telly coming in and leaving a bucket by the foot of his bed, but nothing else.
At around five minutes after his sedation he fell into a deep sleep. Several hours later he woke up;
his mind was still swimming in a half drunken stupor from all the sedatives. He
sat up in bed, and held his head for a moment as he winced in pain. Then looked
at the hair that was obscuring his eyes. It was brown. Unfortunately his
celebrating at the nanites success was short lived as a sudden wracking pain
gripped his stomach. He looked next to the bed to see a bucket was sitting
there. He picked it up just as the nanites activated his gag reflex. He threw up dark grey bile into
the bucket. His mouth tasted like metal afterwards as he spit into the
container. After he had put down the bucket he tried to get up shakily. His
legs ached like mad from returning to their original height. After a moment he
couldn’t take the pain and collapsed onto the bed. For nearly ten minutes he
sat there gritting his teeth as he tried to get up, and over and over again he
fell back onto the bed. He wished this could have been
done in a clinic, but that luxury was lost to them now. Their faces would be
plastered all over city as Salex attempted to locate them. They wouldn’t be
able to go into a public place without falling into Salex custody. After a few
more attempts at standing he gave up, and relented to merely laying in the bed.
He let his thoughts turn back towards the fiasco at the ICO. They had lost their demon’s sack
in the fray. Which meant that all the equipment was gone as well. Most of it
didn’t matter, and could be procured again off the black market. What really
mattered was his Grimoire, it was unique, one of a kind. Graduates of the
academy were given one filled with standard spells, but only about half of the
pages had writing on them. A magi was supposed to fill in the rest as they went
along with incantations and potions they had developed themselves. He had done
extensive writing in there, and had detailed the creating of several potions
unique to him. He sat there for a while and
thought about the recipes, and realized he could only recall about half of them
from memory. If he didn’t reclaim his Grimoire they would be lost. He was angry
at the possibility of his research being gone forever, but sacrifices must be
made for the rebellion. The door creaked open as he sat there, and as he sat up
he saw Bestalel in the doorway. “I see the process was a success.
It is good to have you awake. I have brought you medicine to relieve the pain
so that you can recover quickly. Telly had already sent word out to the station
that had a transport to Gen. We are waiting for word back. We will most likely
have a return message by the time you wake up.” He walked over holding a gel
pad in his hand. Nicolas stopped him before he could administer it. “Bestalel, one thing before you do
that. Our luggage, it had my Grimoire in it. Is there any chance of getting
that back?” He knew that it was impossible, but thought that he might as well
ask anyway. “Your Grimoire? I have it with
me,” Nicolas’s face exploded in a look of surprise,” It was one of the items I
took with me.” Now that Nicolas thought about he remembered that there had been
a small black case the size of his Grimoire in the pile of equipment that
Bestalel had stored in the lining of his coat. “But when did you take it?” asked
Nicolas, hardly able to believe that it might be true. “In the morning after you had
gotten ready. I thought in case we were in an emergency and were separated from
the rest of the equipment it would be the most valuable item to you. “ “Thanks, you can’t know how
important that imagine how much that book means to me.” stammered Nicolas as
Bestalel reached into one of his pockets and took out the black casing. Nicolas
took it and unzipped the plastic waterproof sack that held his book. “You can
give me the stuff now.” Bestalel bent over and pressed the
gel pad onto Nicolas’s neck. It released a steady stream of painkillers into
Nicolas’s blood stream, and as Bestalel left Nicolas leafed through his
Grimoire to the last page, where Abigail had written a letter to him. It was the last thing she had ever
written to him, and he hadn’t even known of its existence until after he had
left for Earth-1. He starred at it lovingly as he read it. Hello Nicolas. I’m sad that you
have to go now, but we all know it’s necessary. You always fought for what you
believed in, and even though you have to leave now to keep us safe we are still
going to fighting for you. I will remember you always, me
and everyone else in the forces. I’m going to miss you. I remember the first
day we met each other, you had snuck out of your dorm at the Academy, and I was
out with my friends in Cloudtop. You never looked at any of my friends, just
me. You kept sneaking out, just to see me. You were always like that. Never
caring what other people thought and just doing what your heart told you. I am going to miss you more
than you can ever imagine, and even though we can still talk to each other with
your typewriters it just won’t be the same. Love you always, Abigail He loved reading the message, but
always got teary eyed when he did. He wiped a solitary tear from his cheek at
he sat back. He was thankful now though. He was going to see her again after
ten years. Nicolas lay back on the bed and finally appreciated the crisp white
sheets. Before he had hardly a minute to look around the room, but now he took
in the room. They were underground, the whole complex looked to be. The light
brown stone was cool to the touch as Nicolas reached out to brush it. He closed
his eyes and let sleep wash over him, and instead of the troubled sleep from
before Nicolas was at ease. © 2010 aaaaAuthor's Note
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