[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 48] A Seat for the Journey Home
The first light hovered below head height.
As Crono approached, an old man's voice began to speak. It sounded as though someone were calling from the far end of the corridor, yet every pause for breath had been preserved as clearly as the words. Lucca stopped reaching toward the light and listened.
The speaker named himself Belthasar, a guru of the Kingdom of Zeal.
Marle looked at Crono. The man who had built the Blackbird. She remembered the scholar in Kajar gesturing as he spoke that name. Before she could ask a question, she was already moving toward the second light.
The old man said he had been cast into an age he had never chosen. A body accustomed to the kingdom in the sky had struggled to endure these cold ruins. While searching for a way home, he had heard more machinery than human voices. His account broke off for a moment.
Lucca examined the wall beneath the light. Small, hand-fitted components sat in a row. They had not begun life as parts of the same device. Thin scraps of metal filled the gaps between mismatched brackets, and wire had been wound several times around a connection that had worn away.
“He built it with what he could find here.”
She spoke very softly. The man whose voice they heard could not hear hers.
The third light spoke of Lavos. Long ago, the creature had burrowed into the earth and lived by drawing strength from the planet. The power used in Zeal had been a portion of that strength. From surviving records and his own observations, the old man had learned that the destruction of this age had been no accident.
Marle remembered the queen's words, the face with which she had dismissed whatever mistakes the people of another age might have made. Belthasar had come from the same kingdom, yet he had remained among the ruins, trying to understand what had happened. The parts lining this corridor must have come, piece by piece, from the places he had searched.
Footsteps sounded behind them.
The blue Nu was crossing the threshold. Its small feet met the floor at even intervals. Marle watched its hands. With each step, the short arms swung to exactly the same height.
It walked past them. Crono made room, and it continued without stopping until it stood beside the fourth light.
Here the old man's voice was a little slower. The work he had begun to take himself home was almost finished, he said. But he no longer believed his body would last until its completion.
Marle thought of the coat on the chair in the outer room. It had been left as though someone would return to slip it over his shoulders.
In the final recording, Belthasar spoke of his hope that someone would reach this place. He did not know when, or who they might be, but anyone who could open the door might also be able to use what he had left. His words quickened, as if he were hurrying to finish his instructions. Then came another long pause.
Lucca waited for the silence to end.
No more words came.
The Nu opened its mouth.
“Have you heard everything?”
Its voice was different from the one preserved in the corridor, but a similar, long-settled weariness lingered at the end of each phrase.
“Where is Belthasar?” Marle asked.
She thought she knew the answer. Still, she felt she needed to hear it spoken aloud.
“His body no longer moves. He placed the necessary memories and work sequences inside me.”
Lucca crouched to meet the Nu's eyes. A little metal showed through a seam in its side. It was a machine made in the likeness of a living Nu. She did not reach out to touch it.
“You carried on his work?”
“There was still work to finish.”
The Nu turned and made its way toward the dark end of the corridor. Marle followed, then paused beside one of the lights. As she passed close to it, the old man's words began again from the beginning.
She stepped away. The voice faded.
The sealed door at the end was larger than the first. When Marle held up her pendant, two seams opened in its black surface. Lamps came on beyond it, one after another, revealing a broad chamber. Metal frameworks hung beneath the high ceiling. Movable platforms and thick cables lay across the floor.
A ship stood in the center.
Marle thought of the Blackbird before realizing how much smaller this was. Its long, solid hull narrowed smoothly at the front, with rounded engines mounted behind. A clear canopy enclosed the space for its passengers. Amid the dome's aging machinery, this alone gleamed untouched by dust.
Lucca approached and stopped. New machines usually made her talk. Now she only crouched to see beneath the hull, then moved a few steps sideways for another view.
Crono came closer too, without touching the craft. A small workbench beside it held unused parts and a pair of spectacles. One arm of the spectacles had been repaired with wire. He slid them farther from the edge so they would not fall.
“It is a vessel for crossing time,” the Nu said.
Marle looked up at the transparent canopy.
“Even if the Gate is sealed?”
“It does not travel through Gates.”
Lucca lifted her head from beneath an engine. This time she did not ask all her questions at once. Looking from the hull to its floor mountings, she chose something she could begin to understand.
“Is it ready to travel?”
“The final inspection is complete. It requires an operator.”
The Nu pulled a handle on the wall. With a low scrape, a platform bearing the seats slid forward. There were three. Marle counted them, then looked around for somewhere else a passenger might sit. There was nowhere.
“So it takes three.”
“There are currently three passengers.”
Lucca breathed out lightly at the answer. Almost a laugh, though she was too tired to quite manage one.
“Robo would call that an accurate response.”
Marle touched a seat back. Unworn fabric covered its firm frame. Whom had Belthasar meant to find when he got home? She held the armrest of the empty seat for a moment.
Beside the platform, Lucca turned to the Nu.
“May I check it first? I don't want to touch the wrong thing once we're inside.”
A short arm pointed upward. Lucca climbed onto the footplate, bent to look inside, and examined the catches at the back. The illuminated devices were working. Nothing obstructed the fittings where the seats and canopy locked into place. She did not force open any components she could not identify. After a while she climbed down and pushed up her glasses.
“I can't claim to understand how it works.”
Crono waited.
“But it hasn't been left here broken. Someone's kept looking after it.”
Her gaze went to the Nu. The small creature was studying a mark on the wall. It seemed to remain still while following an instruction to wait.
They took their places side by side: Crono in the middle, Marle on the left, Lucca on the right. The seats reclined more deeply than they had expected. With their legs stretched forward, they felt secure. Crono adjusted the strap where it pressed against his wounded side. Marle rested her hands in her lap to keep her left arm from straying outside.
The platform rose slowly.
The hull they had been looking up at seemed to descend around them. Three clicks sounded as the seats engaged. Lucca listened to each one. When the last came a little late, she looked down, and the Nu pressed the locking mechanism once more.
It climbed onto the high step beside the craft and pointed a short finger at the round gauge in front of them.
“Select the desired era. Set the pointer, then press the central lever.”
Several ages were marked around the dial. Lucca followed the letters and numbers, reading them out to Marle. A.D. 1000, A.D. 600, A.D. 2300. Farther around was Ayla's age. And there was a mark for 12,000 B.C.
Marle's finger stopped there.
“Where Schala is.”
Lucca looked at her.
“We could try somewhere familiar first. Make sure it works.”
Marle tucked the necklace inside her collar. After sending them away alive, Schala had probably returned to the Ocean Palace. They had no way of knowing how much time had passed. Marle had learned in the throne room that haste alone could not solve anything, but neither could they go on waiting beside this ship.
“Let's go back and find the people on the ground first. We won't head straight up.”
Crono nodded. He could barely hold his sword well enough for a long fight as it was. They could start by finding people who knew where Melchior was imprisoned and what was happening at the palace.
Lucca took paper from her bag. She wrote down the operating instructions and their chosen era, then tucked the sheet beside her seat where she could read it during the journey.
“One thing at a time.”
The Nu was inspecting the rim of the canopy when its head suddenly drooped. They waited. Crono looked up, his hand still on the lever. The Nu did not move.
Marle spoke gently.
“Excuse me.”
Its eyes opened.
“Continuing the explanation.”
Lucca could not quite suppress a laugh. It sounded unexpectedly loud in the quiet hangar. The Nu paid no attention. It pointed to a small indicator beside the gauge. They must wait for the light to steady before departing, and keep their hands inside while the canopy closed.
“The vessel is named Epoch.”
Marle said the name aloud once. The Nu nodded. She could not tell whether that response was part of the sequence Belthasar had left behind, or whether it had understood this new voice speaking to it.
Lucca had one last question.
“Can it fly too?”
“It has no flight capability. This vessel crosses time.”
Lucca nodded and took her hand from the controls. She looked again at the platform on the floor and the hull around them.
The Nu climbed down.
Crono moved the pointer slowly. When it reached 12,000 B.C., a low hum sounded within the panel. Marle gripped the edge of her seat. The pulse she had heard before the Mammon Machine came back to her, tightening her hands. But this vibration lacked the uneven tremor of the power that had been draining Schala.
Lucca checked the indicator.
“Not yet.”
Crono's hand stopped. The little light blinked twice, then settled into a steady glow.
“Now.”
He pressed the lever.
The clear canopy lowered. Beyond its curved surface, the Nu looked a little smaller. Marle wondered whether it would return to its master's empty chair.
Light spread from the engines behind them. The walls of the hangar seemed to remain still while the distance stretched. Before she felt any forward motion, the workbench, the Nu, and the sealed door drew out into fine lines. Marle let her breath out slowly.
Light streamed past both sides of the craft.
Her body did not seem to scatter as it did when she crossed a Gate. There was a footrest beneath her soles. If she reached out, she could touch Crono's sleeve. Lucca watched the gauge, her eyes wide. When Crono started to move a hand toward her, she shook her head, warning him to keep it on the lever.
Marle drew her hand back into her lap.
The vibration eased. The world flashed white, then deepened to gray. Snow began to cling to the far side of the canopy.
For a while, none of them moved.
Lucca checked the instructions on her paper against the darkened gauge and breathed out. When Crono released the controls, the canopy opened. Cold air entered. Marle knew its smell. Neither ash nor rust: air so clean and sharp that it stung inside her nose.
A frozen plain stretched before them.
Epoch rested beside a low ridge of rock. When they climbed out, the snow came above their ankles. Crono looked back to make sure the craft had not vanished. Fine snow was already settling on its rounded hull. The ship that could take them home was still there.
Marle looked up. For an instant the light beyond the clouds grew pale, then was hidden again. Zeal was somewhere above them. A kingdom that had not yet fallen.
Lucca folded away the lowered footplate and marked the craft's position on the map, adding a small sketch of the ridge. Crono chose a stone tall enough to remain visible above the snow and set it upright nearby.
They walked with the wind at their backs. They reached the skyway they had seen in the distance, but its entrance was closed. No light came on when Marle touched it. Apparently the Prophet had barred more than the Gate in the cave. She began to take out her pendant, then stopped. Neither Lucca nor Crono suggested forcing their way in.
They changed course to follow signs of people. A bundle of tied furs had left two tracks through the snow. They were recent. Following them before the wind could erase them, the travelers found a low entrance beneath a slope.
Firelight glimmered within. Marle stooped, hesitating over what name to call. She did not know who lived here. Instead, she knocked against the timber by the door with the back of her hand.
After a moment, footsteps approached. A woman wrapped in fur opened a narrow gap. She looked at their legs and hands before their faces. Once she had made sure none of them was bleeding afresh, she asked someone inside to make room.
“Brush the snow off before you come in. It's a small fire. Wet clothes will take a long time to dry.”
Marle bowed her head. Crono brushed the snow from her shoulders, and Lucca tapped the wet toes of her boots against the threshold. The woman did not ask why they could not move faster.
Space had been cleared for the three of them. Marle held her hands toward the fire, then spread her fingers a little. She remembered what she had said to Schala. Stay alive. Now that she was back, she had to find what came after those words.
She looked at the woman across the fire.
“Who should we ask about the way to the Mountain of Woe?”
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