[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 42] The City Where Dreams Rest
The man in white did not wait for an answer.
“Enhasa is open to all. Dreams make no distinction of blood.”
The city he indicated had neither walls nor gates. White stone paths crossed the lawns and wound among rounded buildings. Whenever the wind blew, flowers along the roadside chimed with a sound as clear as bells, while tiny lights swam like fish through channels of water suspended in the sky.
Marle began by studying the man’s clothes. He wore only a single layer of thin fabric, yet showed no sign of feeling the cold. He carried neither staff nor weapon.
“Where are we?”
“In Enhasa, the City of Dreams.”
“That’s the name of the city. What kingdom is this?”
The man blinked as though the question made no sense.
“Is there a kingdom other than Zeal?”
Marle closed her mouth before asking anything more. They could not reveal the age from which they had come. Crono gave the slightest shake of his head.
Ayla went close enough to smell the man. When he took a step back, she said, “No smell of blood. No smell of dirt.”
“Ayla.”
“This man not hunt.”
He did not take offense. If anything, he looked at Ayla as though she were an interesting animal.
“The Earthbound Ones do the hunting. We think, dream, and study magic.”
The name Earthbound Ones tightened Marle’s expression. The man failed to notice. He merely gestured farther into the city.
“You are wounded. Rest at the northern spring. You need not even remain awake. After a pleasant dream, your bodies will feel lighter as well.”
He resumed his walk, apparently unconcerned whether they followed.
No one hurried in Enhasa. People reclined on low couches with their eyes closed. Others remained awake, reading words of light spread across the air. Children shaped small clouds with their fingertips, turning them into birds and fish. Every marvel seemed as natural to them as breathing.
When a cloud-fish passed in front of Ayla’s face, she snatched at it. Her fingers went through the light, and the fish flicked its tail as it escaped.
“Not food.”
“Good thing. That child might have cried if you’d caught it.”
“Child can make more.”
Fruit and bread had been laid out on low tables beside the road. No owner watched over them, and no one collected payment. Ayla chose a red fruit, sniffed it, and took the smallest bite. It was intensely sweet, yet had neither seeds nor fiber. Once it dissolved on her tongue, nothing remained.
“This not grow on tree.”
Marle broke a loaf in half. The middle was soft and warm, but its crust held none of the charred scent of baking. A young man seated across from them smiled at her inspection.
“Meals became an inconvenience long ago. Magic can shape all the taste and strength the body requires.”
“Do the people below eat this too?”
“The people below?”
“The ones you said hunt on the ground.”
Rather than choose an answer, the young man raised a cup made of light.
“What comes from the earth is better suited to their constitutions.”
Ayla set the rest of the fruit down.
“Belly still empty.”
The young man laughed as though it were a joke. Marle did not. In a city overflowing with everything, the only forbidden act seemed to be thinking of those who went without.
She was about to force a smile when she noticed Crono’s pace slowing. Now that the warmth had eased the tension in his body, the pain in his side seemed sharper. She pulled his arm across her shoulders.
Crono tried to draw away, insisting without words that he was all right.
“We made a promise. No more hiding it.”
At that, he stopped resisting and let her bear some of his weight.
The northern spring stood in the center of a roofless chamber. Its water did not rise from the ground, but hung in a sphere in midair. When Marle put her hand into it, warm ripples ran up her arm. She found clean cloth and changed Crono’s bandage. The wound was not deep, but its edges were swollen.
Ayla thrust her calf into the water with little ceremony, then looked around. Everyone else in the chamber was asleep. Smiles rested on their faces, and now and then their lips moved.
“Everyone sleep. Who watches?”
“Watches for what?”
A woman on a nearby couch answered without opening her eyes.
“There is nothing here to steal and nothing to fear. Her Majesty has promised us prosperity without end.”
“Nothing without end.”
The woman laughed at Ayla’s reply.
“No wonder your dreams are so troubled, if that is how you think.”
She fell silent again.
A translucent landscape blossomed above her couch. It appeared to be her dream. Green trees grew across the thawed earth, while the floating islands rose higher and joined to form a colossal crown. At its center stood a faceless queen. She lifted one hand, and no one grew old. The children never grew up.
At first, it looked like a scene of peace. Yet the leaves did not stir when the wind blew, and the smiling people remained fixed in place. It was a world from which time had vanished.
Marle stepped away from the couch. At the edge of the dream, a black thorn emerged and twined around the root of a tree. The woman shifted in her sleep, and the vision burst like foam.
“It was such a lovely dream,” she murmured, still without opening her eyes.
Ayla answered, “Dream that not move same as dead.”
Marle cupped some spring water in her hands and smelled it. There was nothing obviously wrong with the water itself, but behind a trace of sweetness lingered the taste of metal. The blue stone of her pendant trembled faintly whenever she brought it near.
Crono pointed to the bottom of the spring. Beneath the water, a narrow thread of light was pulsing. It was the same light they had seen beneath the island.
“It must run through the whole city,” Marle whispered. “They’re drawing something up from below.”
“Stealing earth’s strength,” Ayla said.
They left the spring before they were fully rested.
At the city’s center stood a hall filled with books. Shelves curved around the walls, and several volumes lay open on pedestals. Whenever anyone approached, the pages turned by themselves and conjured droplets of water or blossoms of flame.
Marle stopped before a book from which water was rising. She could not read the script, but she understood the pictures: a long conduit descending beneath the sea, a machine waiting at its end, and deep within the earth, a spined shape crouched in darkness.
She caught the page before it could turn.
The image of light scattered between her fingers.
“What is this?”
An old man reading nearby looked up.
“An early plan for the Ocean Palace. Quite old. We have far more elegant means of drawing up magical power now.”
“Drawing it from where?”
“From the gift bestowed by the star.”
He said it as though stating the obvious.
“Lavos?”
The name escaped Marle before she could stop it.
The air in the hall changed. Several sleepers opened their eyes, and the old man’s smile vanished for an instant.
“How does one of the Earthbound know that name?”
Crono moved half a step in front of Marle. Ayla watched the old man’s hands. He carried no weapon, but a faint glow was gathering at his fingertips.
Marle quickly pointed to the illustration.
“I read it here.”
The old man’s gaze moved from her to the book and back. A bell rang somewhere behind them, and the glow at his fingertips faded.
“You would be wise not to speak that name lightly outside the palace. It is the power Her Majesty has chosen, but not everyone cares to hear it spoken.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Melchior worries too much, and the princess has a tender heart. Since the Prophet came, however, Her Majesty’s resolve has only grown firmer.”
“The Prophet?”
“He appeared not long ago, a man who sees through the veil of the future. With his guidance, every ill omen can be avoided.”
The claim that someone knew the future brought a different look to Crono’s eyes.
The old man returned to his book, clearly unwilling to say more.
The three crossed the hall. Near the exit, a black cat padded in front of Ayla’s feet. She crouched by instinct, but the cat did not flee. With its tail held high, it walked to a boy standing in a shadowed corner.
Unlike everyone else, the boy wore dark clothing. His pale face and blue hair stood out even in the gloom. He spoke to no one, merely stroking the cat’s back in slow, even passes.
Marle sat down in front of him.
“Is that cat your friend?”
The boy gave no answer. The cat sniffed Marle’s hand, then pressed itself against his side again.
“We’re trying to reach the palace. Do you know the way?”
“Why?”
The first word he spoke was low and weary for one so young.
“We need to ask the princess and the Prophet some questions.”
The boy’s hand stopped.
“Stay away from my sister.”
“The princess is your sister?”
Instead of answering, the boy looked up at Crono. His gaze did not rest on Crono’s face. It passed over the bandage at his side, the sheath, and his fingertips in turn, before moving on to Marle and Ayla.
His were the eyes of someone counting the invisible things that followed behind them.
The cat gave a low cry.
The boy gathered it into his arms and rose.
“Go back.”
“We can’t,” Marle said.
Neither surprise nor pity appeared on his face.
“Then you’re too late.”
As he passed Crono, he stopped once more without meeting his eyes.
“One of you three will die soon.”
Long after the boy had left the hall, the black cat’s cry seemed to linger.
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