[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 47] The Mark Beneath the Dust
Lucca drew two symbols on a sheet of paper.
The one on the left came from a sketch she had made in a dome in the future. The one on the right was the door of Zeal Palace, which Marle was helping her reconstruct from memory. They had spread the paper over the tool bag. When a gap between the paving stones made a line waver, Lucca turned the sheet, and Marle pointed with a fingernail to the unfinished lower curve.
“That part was a little longer.”
Lucca corrected the line. Now the two designs differed only in how much time had worn them away.
Across the brazier, Gaspar rose. He had offered Ayla his chair, but she preferred to sit on the ground beside the fire. Robo laid a hide beneath her leg. When he noticed her wince each time she bent her calf, he moved a bundle under her foot and adjusted its height.
“No one there knew how to make anything like this.”
Lucca turned the drawings toward Gaspar.
“But there's an identical one in a palace built long before it. Either someone passed the knowledge down, or the doors themselves survived all that time.”
“If there is a door, someone must have made it,” Gaspar said.
Lucca looked at him.
“Could you be a little more specific today?”
The old man smoothed the edge of the paper.
“There is a small dome to the south, in the future. A man lived there who spent a long time wishing to return to his own age. If you now have something that will open the door, you should pay it a visit.”
“Did he find a way home?” Marle asked.
Gaspar did not answer immediately. A log split in the brazier and collapsed to one side. Ayla turned it so the flame could catch again.
“You had better see for yourselves what he left.”
Lucca wanted to press him, but she looked back at the two drawings. The old man was not the only place she could look for answers.
Marle tested the new bandage around her arm. It hurt less than it had the night before. Restoring her strength had not erased the burn, and Crono still reached for his side before getting to his feet. Lucca checked that his bandage knots were not too tight before he put on his coat.
“I'm coming this time.”
Marle nodded. They needed her pendant and her knowledge of the doors in the future, and they needed Lucca to examine whatever machinery they found. Crono fastened his sword at his waist. When Ayla started to rise, he glanced at her calf.
She raised a palm to stop him.
“Not coming. Leg heals first.”
At Marle's look of surprise, she stretched the leg out on the hide.
“See that big thing again, Ayla won't fall this time.”
Suppressing a smile, Frog sat beside her. He laid the Masamune within reach but did not draw it. Marle considered asking him about the Prophet, then thought better of it. For now, Frog too had chosen to wait rather than demand an answer.
Robo added the terrain of the southern ruins to the paper. He explained that, where the surface road was broken, the sewers should lead them to the dome beneath the mountain. The records were old, however. He could not say whether the passage was still intact.
“When you return, please tell me what has changed.”
Lucca folded the map.
“Then we'll have one we've actually walked.”
They entered the light leading to Arris Dome. Marle glanced back once more. Ayla sat warming herself, her head slightly bowed, with Frog and Robo on either side of her. The thought that they were leaving people behind gave way to another: they had somewhere to return to.
The air of the future was as dry as ever.
As the pillar's light cleared, rusted seams in a metal roof and dust-coated lamps came into view. They passed through a low corridor toward the inhabited part of the dome. Familiar smells reached Marle: warmed metal, damp cloth, bowls that had been empty too long. Everything she had tried to make the queen hear was still here.
A child knelt beside the wall. In front of him stood an old container filled with soil, a small shoot rising from it. Rather than pouring water, he squeezed a wet rag tightly and let it fall one drop at a time.
Marle sat beside him.
“It's growing.”
The child did not hide the pot. Instead, he moved the arm that had been blocking its light.
“It was this big yesterday.”
“Perhaps tomorrow it'll be different.”
She looked more closely. Near the soil, a tiny new leaf lay folded against the stem. When she pointed, the child bent right down. For a little while, they watched it without speaking.
An old man of the dome approached. The first thing he told them was that he had no food to offer. Crono took out some of the dried meat they had brought from prehistory and set it down. Before reaching for it, the old man wiped his palms on his clothes.
Lucca opened the map.
“We're trying to reach the dome to the south. We heard someone lived there.”
A crooked finger touched the mark below the mountain.
“Keeper's Dome, you mean. There used to be an old fellow there. I couldn't tell you whether he still keeps a light on. Not many go that way.”
He scored a fingernail across the broken section of the surface road. Just as Robo had thought. The sewers were the only route left. From a container beside him, the old man drew a handful of slender metal arrows. Their points were blunt, but the shafts were straight.
“Left by people who used to hunt. Better than carrying an empty quiver, I should think.”
Marle checked their length and weight, then fitted one to her bow. It was heavier than she was used to. She chose four and slipped them into her quiver, returning the rest for someone else to use.
Outside the dome, the wind covered nothing the way a blizzard did. It drove dust into the broken road, the exposed reinforcing rods, even the insides of overturned vehicles. Crono looked up for a while. He tried to picture the floating islands looking down on this place, but could see only gray cloud.
The sewer entrance lay in the flank of a low hill. Lifting the cover released a breath of cold, damp air. Lucca lit a small lamp and shone it down. Several ladder rungs were missing, but the frame still reached the bottom.
They lowered the bags first. Crono descended a step at a time without twisting his side. Marle took her weight on her right hand to spare her left arm. Lucca came down last, wedging a stone beneath the cover instead of closing it completely, in case they had to come back this way.
Water moved very slowly below. Each drop from the ceiling brought an answering sound somewhere in the dark. When Lucca stopped walking, the sound stopped too. Marle drew an arrow. Its thin metal vanes, fitted in place of feathers, felt cold against her fingers.
A strip of dry cloth was tied to the railing at a junction. It looked like a marker left by someone who came this way for water. Crono started toward it, then glanced back. Two small eyes rose from the water on the left and vanished.
“Lower the lamp.”
Lucca brought the light close to the floor. A long shadow stretched beyond the narrow passage. Something with many legs was moving there, its limbs feeling along the walls at uneven intervals.
Marle steadied her breath and aimed. The first arrow flew lower than she expected. It struck the creature's shell instead of its head and glanced off into the water. She raised her shoulder slightly. Before she could nock another, Lucca tapped her arm with the back of her hand.
“Wait. Let it come into the narrow part.”
A sharp scraping came from the end of the passage. Small creatures scattered through the water, and a much larger body rose behind them. Spines on its broad shell brushed the ceiling. Only then did Crono realize that the shadow Lucca had seen belonged to a single creature.
Pushing against the walls with its legs, it closed the distance in a rush. Crono stepped forward, and long pincers opened on either side of him. He caught one against his sword. When the other curled around him, he stepped back, but its hooked tip snagged his coat.
He was wrenched out of the passage. His sword point struck the railing in a burst of sparks. The pincer tightened around his chest and waist. He breathed out and could not breathe in again. As it crushed his wounded side, lamplight and reflected water blurred together before his eyes.
Marle loosed her second arrow. This time she did not aim for the shell. The shaft buried itself in the thin joint inside the open pincer, and its grip slackened for an instant. Lucca thrust out a palm and sent a short tongue of flame into the gap.
The heated claw opened. Crono dropped across the railing. Marle caught his coat and pulled him onto the walkway. He could not even cough, only open his mouth. She set down her bow and rested a hand on his chest. Cool moisture gathered beneath her palm. His breathing slowly returned, though his face remained ashen.
Lucca stood in front of them. Whenever the creature lowered its head, she kindled fire near it; when it drew back, she let the flame die. She did not have the strength to keep burning it. Watching which wall it braced its legs against, she retreated a step at a time.
Crono caught Marle's wrist. There was too little strength in his hand for her to take it as reassurance. Instead, she followed his gaze. The creature's two foremost legs straddled a low drain. As it dragged its heavy body toward them, each foot found the same gap in turn.
Marle nodded and pressed her hand to the floor. The shallow water froze around the drain and the tips of its legs. Lucca moved the lamp to the right. Expecting fire, the creature twisted away, then tried to wrench its trapped feet free. Its underside lifted into view.
Crono stood. He did not charge. Holding the railing, he found his balance, then took a close, two-handed grip on the sword. As the creature broke the ice and pitched forward, he drove the blade into the path of its descending weight.
The long body writhed. Lucca caught Crono around the waist and pulled him back. Front legs scraped the floor just ahead of his feet. The creature smashed through the railing and fell into the channel below. Water surged up over the lamp. While Lucca shielded its light, Crono and Marle pressed against the wall and waited for the thrashing to subside.
This time, no one suggested setting off at once.
Crono sat against the wall to recover his breath. Lucca lifted his wet coat and checked the bandages. The wound had not reopened, but dark red bruising was spreading where the pincer had squeezed him. Marle counted her two remaining arrows and picked up the bow she had dropped beside the channel.
“I thought I'd get it with the first shot.”
She was looking at the place where the arrow had glanced away.
Lucca wiped the lamp's glass.
“Different weight. Different distance.”
Marle nodded, remembering the feel in her wrist when she had corrected her aim for the second shot. As Crono began to rise, she held out her arm. This time he took it at once.
At the ladder leading to the surface, Lucca unfolded the map. On the damp paper she marked the junctions they had passed and the broken railing. The map she would show Robo was a little different now.
Outside, it was darker than when they had entered. The mountain cast a long shadow over the dome. Something white clung to its peak, like snow, though the way it blew in the wind reminded Marle of ash. She had no wish to go closer and find out.
Keeper's Dome was smaller than the others. When they pushed the outer door, its hinges gave a tired creak. Inside were a bed, a low desk, and tools of different sizes. Someone's coat hung over the back of a chair. A tool lay at the edge of the desk, its metal worn bright only where a hand would hold it.
Lucca reached toward it, then stopped.
“Hello?”
No one answered. A round blue creature stood beside the wall. It resembled the Nu Marle had seen in Zeal Palace. Its eyes were open, but it had not moved as they entered.
Behind it, Marle saw the black door.
Lucca did not need to take out the drawing. The lines showing through the dust matched what they remembered. Marle raised her necklace, stepping close so she would not have to lift her left arm too high. Light from the blue stone slowly filled the worn grooves.
The door took a long time to open.
The air that emerged carried almost no dust. A small light came on near the floor in the darkness. Behind it, a second and a third shone farther down the passage. Crono set a foot on the threshold, then looked back.
Marle lowered the pendant to her chest. She remembered the child's face as he bent over the new leaf. There was more in this age that still lived.
She joined the others and walked toward the first light.
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