[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 43] A Kingdom Built of Light
“One of you three will die soon.”
The boy’s words followed them even after they left Enhasa.
At first, Marle tried to dismiss them. He had grown up in a city inhabited by people who claimed to read dreams. Perhaps he had only repeated something he had heard, hoping to frighten strangers. Yet the more she explained it away, the more clearly she remembered his eyes. He had not wanted to frighten them. He had spoken with the indifference of someone describing an event that had already happened.
Ayla, walking in front, turned back toward the other two.
“Dark boy’s words still in head?”
“A little.”
“Death coming. Not here yet.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Means alive now.”
A laugh escaped Marle. The corner of Crono’s mouth lifted slightly as well. Ayla’s words were rough, but at least they were not like a dream or a prophecy—something no hand could grasp.
The second Skyway lay at the southern edge of the island. When its platform lowered them beneath the clouds, the warm breeze became a blizzard sharp as a blade. Inside the station below, a line of people waited for passage to the sky. They wore layers of heavy fur and carried sacks of ore and dried provisions on their backs.
At the head of the line, an old man pressed his palm against a symbol on the wall. Nothing happened.
An official in white pointed his staff at the old man’s sack.
“Is this all the tribute you bring today?”
“The western shaft collapsed. Two men are still trapped inside.”
“Then return when the rescue is complete. The Skyway’s power cannot be spent on just anyone.”
“If you could at least send medicine for the child—”
“Kajar’s medicines are made for those who possess magic.”
With a single motion of the official’s hand, the symbols on the floor went dark. The old man bowed his head and stepped out of line.
Ayla lifted his sack. Before he could even turn in surprise, she had slung it over her own shoulder.
“Where mine?”
“Ayla, we have somewhere we need to—” Marle stopped.
Crono had already turned toward the old man.
The mine lay beneath a snow-covered slope. The three waded through drifts up to their waists to reach its collapsed entrance. A young girl sat outside, wrapped in a blanket. Fever flushed her cheeks as she repeated that her father and brother were still inside.
Ice and stone had fallen together, sealing the shaft. Ayla hauled away the larger rocks while Crono cut apart smaller ones to widen the opening. Marle sent cold into the fractures—not to create more ice, but to bind the cracked moisture into a single mass and keep the roof from coming down again.
They found two men inside. One had a leg pinned beneath a boulder. The other had injured his hand trying to pull him free. Ayla braced the stone while Crono squeezed into the gap. From outside, Marle listened to the ice pillar cracking as she dragged both men by their feet.
The four of them cleared the opening just before it collapsed again.
The girl threw herself into her father’s arms. The old man tried to kneel before the three strangers, but Ayla caught him by the arm and hauled him upright.
“Hungry. You have food?”
For a moment, the old man could only stare. Then he laughed.
Their home was a low cave hollowed out between the rocks. The fire was small, and the meal consisted of roots and tough strips of dried meat. Even so, the family shared everything they had. Chewing the meat, Ayla declared that the place finally smelled as a human home should.
Marle laid a wet cloth across the little girl’s brow.
“The people above won’t even give you medicine?”
The girl’s mother answered while staring into the fire.
“They say anyone who cannot use magic is not truly a citizen of Zeal. We are only the Earthbound Ones.”
“But you send up the food they eat.”
“They give us knowledge, and we give them our hands. That is what they say.”
Her words carried less belief than the weariness of a resignation passed down for generations.
Though Crono rested against the cave wall, his fingertips remained pressed to the rock beneath him. A faint tremor traveled through the earth. It had no steady rhythm. It would slow like something breathing far away, then suddenly quicken for two beats.
Seeing his gesture, the old man lowered his voice.
“The ground has been crying often of late. Some say it began when the palace set a great machine in motion. Others say the god sleeping beneath the star is dreaming.”
“The Mammon Machine?” Marle asked.
The old man’s face hardened.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“In Enhasa.”
“The people above are careless with their words.”
He glanced toward the entrance to make certain the official could not hear, then went on.
“Melchior feared its power. Princess Schala did too. But since the Prophet came, neither of their voices reaches the Queen. There are even rumors that Melchior has disappeared.”
Marle exchanged a look with Crono. They had heard the Guru’s name in Enhasa as well—the smith who worked the Dreamstone. The same name as the old man they knew.
“You must pass through Kajar to reach the palace.” The old man traced the route for them. “Take the eastern Skyway. But do not speak as though you know the future in the Prophet’s presence. He does not care for such talk.”
“Even though he claims to see the future himself?”
At Marle’s question, the old man gave a bitter smile.
“Perhaps that is why he dislikes anyone else having one.”
They left the cave after making certain the girl’s fever had begun to ease. The old man insisted that Ayla take one of the furs meant for tribute. She did not refuse. Instead, she removed a small animal tooth from around her neck and pressed it into the girl’s palm.
“This make you strong.”
“Really?”
“If you believe Ayla.”
The three set out into the storm once more.
At the eastern Skyway, a young woman stood in place of the official they had met before. She saw the rock dust and blood on their furs but asked no questions. Only when she noticed Marle’s necklace did her manner change.
“Is that pendant a possession of the royal family?”
Marle closed her hand around the blue stone.
“My mother left it to me.”
“How strange. It resembles Princess Schala’s.”
The woman pressed them no further and opened the platform. Light carried the three of them above the clouds again.
Kajar was smaller than Enhasa, but far busier. Glass tubes and metal rings floated in every rounded chamber, while colored flames gathered and scattered at a gesture. Instead of sleeping, scholars recorded and argued without pause. In one room, they trapped light inside shards of stone. In another, they forced a plant through an entire season of growth in a single moment.
Marle approached a researcher tending a cluster of flame.
“Can anyone learn magic?”
“Anyone with the gift. Those born on the earth, however, are made of a different vessel.”
He glanced at Ayla. She pressed one finger against a metal sphere on the next table. Three researchers together had failed to deform it with magic. Beneath Ayla’s fingertip, the surface caved in.
“Vessel weak.”
The researcher closed his mouth.
Crono stopped before a map suspended at the center of the chamber. Drawn in light, it showed the floating islands, the caves on the surface, and the palace in the north. Yet another structure lay beneath the map itself: a colossal staircase descending under the sea, and a palace not yet complete.
One of the scholars explained, “The Ocean Palace. Once the Mammon Machine is moved closer to Lavos, we will be able to draw forth far more power than we do now. Weather, longevity, even dreams themselves will answer to our will.”
“And if that power wakes Lavos?” Marle asked.
“Wakes it? The thing possesses no consciousness. It is an inexhaustible source of energy.”
Crono’s hand settled on the hilt of his sword.
He remembered the sky of 1999. The earth splitting open. Pillars of fire devouring the cities. Lavos had moved like a beast roused from sleep. The people of Zeal believed they were drawing power from beneath the earth. Perhaps the reverse was true. Perhaps Lavos was feeding on the kingdom’s hunger.
A low roar sounded outside.
A black vessel rose between the clouds. Long and smooth, it was like a gigantic bird without wings, its shadow swallowing the sunlight. Blue rings beneath its hull turned, shivering the air with every revolution.
“The Blackbird,” the scholar said proudly. “A ship of the sky, designed by Belthasar himself. Dalton commands her.”
Ayla glared at the ship’s wake.
“Not bird. Still steal bird name.”
The black ship turned north. Beyond it, the palace of Zeal rose above the clouds. A cluster of towers surrounded a high central spire, and between them water and light cascaded like waterfalls.
Small crystals floated at even intervals along the road to the palace. Each one gave a clear note as the three passed. At first the tones were separate, but as the palace drew nearer, they joined into a single melody. It was so exact that it left no room for wind or footfall.
Marle found it beautiful, and yet it made her struggle to breathe. This kingdom seemed determined to leave nothing to chance—nothing that might grow wild or move of its own accord.
Ayla found a blade of grass leaning beyond the edge of the path and touched it with her toe. At once, it straightened itself within an outline of light. She withdrew her foot and did not touch it again.
“Here, even grass obey.”
Crono looked up toward the highest window of the palace. Whoever gave those commands would be waiting inside.
As the sun sank, the palace windows turned red one by one.
Within that light, Crono saw a dark figure.
Someone stood at the highest window. The distance hid the face, but the line of the shoulders and the long fall of the cloak were not unfamiliar.
Then the Blackbird swept across his view.
When the vessel had passed, the window was empty.
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