[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 55] The Empty Throne's Watchman
Lucca kept her glasses on inside the Skyway's light. She was trying to distinguish what happened outside them from the afterimages in her eyes. The ground vanished beneath her feet and returned almost at once. Warm air touched her first, followed by the smell of damp soil and grass.
She stepped out of the circle and stopped.
Trees grew on the land she had been looking up at from below. Through their branches she could see the distant edge of another continent. Nothing stood beneath it—no pillars, no walls. She stared longer than she had on first traveling through time aboard the Epoch. The wish to understand stirred before caution did.
Marle waited beside her.
“Different when you see it yourself, isn't it?”
Lucca started to take a sheet of paper from her pocket, then put it back.
“Very.”
A tiny insect rested on a flower beside the path. It was difficult to believe she had been looking at the same sun from the snowfield only a short time ago. Even maintaining this warmth must take power. Did the person sleeping beneath that tree think every day about where it came from? Lucca left the question unasked and followed her friends.
Marle and Crono took turns checking the way. They had to descend once, then use another Skyway to draw nearer to the palace. Distances looked different above the clouds. Lucca did not insist on leading simply because she carried the map. Instead, she checked that the circles of light remained active behind them.
On the road to the palace, they met three people carrying bundles. The strangers saw the dirt on their shoes and stepped aside. When Marle asked about the palace, the woman in the middle glanced back toward it.
“They've all gone below. An important day, apparently.”
She did not sound as though she were sharing good news. The man beside her shifted his bundle to the other arm. Lucca could not tell whether they had collected personal belongings while the guards were away or were waiting to be called back.
“Were you told to stay here?” she asked.
The woman pressed her lips together, then shook her head.
“No one told us anything.”
Marle made room for them. Crono drew his scabbard closer to his body so they could pass. The three went down the road with scarcely a farewell. A small teacup handle protruded from one of the bundles.
It was warmer still inside the palace. Light lay in narrow, straight bands between the columns. The carvings and murals astonished Lucca almost more than the unfamiliar technology. People had built stone walls on floating land, then covered them in designs with no practical use. She understood wanting to make such things. It made the empty corridors stranger.
A distant rustle of clothing brought Crono's hand up. They stopped beside a column. An older servant emerged from a room and froze at the sight of them. Marle showed him her open palm.
“We've come for Schala.”
He seemed to recognize her. He glanced at the pendant, then her face again, and pointed toward the audience chamber.
“Lord Dalton is there.”
“And Schala?”
“She's already been taken down to the Ocean Palace.”
Lucca looked at Crono. He nodded. Marle asked the servant to keep clear. He did not try to stop them. He started to close a nearby door, hesitated, then quietly told someone inside to come out.
The markings before the audience chamber were unlike any lock Lucca had seen. Marle raised the pendant, and light traveled along the lines. The fitted doors parted. Lucca took in their thickness and the edges without hinges. There was no time to make notes.
Dalton sat on the raised seat inside.
The Queen's throne was too large for him. He had been leaning against one armrest, but straightened as they entered. Pleasure and irritation crossed his face in turn. Lucca surveyed the chamber: a long floor, thick columns on either side, shallow steps leading to the throne. A small circle of flowing light shone behind Dalton. This time, no one stood between him and the three of them.
“So you came after all.”
He descended the steps.
“If only that Prophet were as industrious. He gets to go inside, and I'm left guarding a door.”
Crono let him finish, then stepped forward.
“Move.”
Dalton's chin lifted a fraction. Lucca placed her bag behind a nearby column, where she could still see it. Marle moved out to the right. Dalton watched each of them in turn and opened his hand.
A black iron sphere flew at Crono.
Crono twisted aside. It brushed past his clothes and vanished near the floor, yet his shoulders dipped. Lucca had heard no impact. He did not examine his blade for a mark, but reset his feet.
Dalton formed another sphere immediately. This one came at Lucca. She moved behind the column, but as the dark force passed her side, her strength seemed to drain away all at once. She bent her knees to brace herself, then looked up. It was unlike a blow against bone. The column bore no crack either.
“Keep apart!”
Marle reached toward her, and a quiet warmth returned. Lucca breathed out slowly and looked at Dalton. His hand was already aimed at Crono. It was strange that he had not targeted the one doing the healing. He seemed intent on weakening whichever opponent he could strike most quickly and reliably.
This time Crono did not go straight at him. He crossed diagonally beneath the steps, drawing Dalton's arm around. The instant the black sphere left his hand, Crono sprang aside, changed his footing, and drove inward. Dalton snatched his arm back as the sword split his sleeve.
He retreated, swallowing a curse. Lucca sent fire into the opening. She kept it narrow, closing off the space beside his shoulder. Before Dalton could choose another way, Marle's arrow struck the steps on his opposite side. As he shifted his feet again, Crono closed in.
The hilt struck Dalton's wrist. Darkness gathering at his fingertips scattered. Crono withdrew down the steps instead of waiting there for another attack. Dalton, who had been trying to drive the three apart, now stood between them.
Lucca looked at Marle. Rather than draw another arrow, she gathered cold around Dalton's ankles. The floor whitened, and he lifted a foot. Crono moved the other way. Dalton followed him with his eyes, then turned his whole body.
“Three against one. Hardly fair.”
Lucca did not smile. She remembered what he had said with the children beside the fire. She stepped out from the column and moved a little closer. Dalton thrust his hand toward her at once.
The sphere passed close to her thigh. Knowing what the draining force felt like did not make it easy to evade. Lucca caught herself with one hand on the floor. When Marle moved to heal her again, she shook her head.
“Crono first.”
He stood directly before Dalton. He would need his strength for the next move. While Marle's warmth reached him, Lucca felt the cold floor beneath her palm. She did not wait for her body to recover on its own. She brought one knee up. The hand she needed for fire still obeyed her.
A little ease entered Dalton's expression. He thought he had put one of them out of the fight. Lucca raised her hand the moment he looked away. Fire skimmed the side of the steps and caught his coat. He twisted in surprise, and Marle's cold wrapped around his ankle.
Crono took the stairs two at a time. He did not make a sweeping cut at Dalton's head. Watching the direction in which the man stumbled, he used the flat of the blade to turn his outstretched arm aside. As Dalton lost his balance, Crono drove a shoulder into his chest and forced him back to the throne. Dalton reached for support. The sword point stopped beneath his throat.
“The way through.”
Dalton lowered his eyes and opened his hands. Lucca got up and went to Marle. His mouth was too tightly set for her to believe it was over. A low, peculiar sound rose in his throat as he bent forward.
“Get back!”
As Lucca shouted, Dalton lifted his face. A foul blast burst from his mouth in all directions. Crono covered his face with his arm and leaped down the steps. Lucca and Marle turned away. Pressure and a stomach-churning stench swept over them together. Lucca held her breath and caught the column. The attack was brief, but it stopped all three of them.
Dalton used the moment to plunge into the circle behind him.
“Not now—not when I'm so close!”
The light swallowed him. Crono followed him up two steps, but by the time he reached out, even the man's trailing coat had vanished. He stopped before the light and turned to the others.
Lucca stayed on her feet beside the column. She rinsed her mouth with water and passed it to Marle, who took a swallow before sharing a little healing among the three of them. The strength lost to the spheres returned. As Lucca walked over to shoulder her bag, Crono pulled the arrow from the steps.
“This one's gone.”
He showed Marle the split head. She took it and left it beside the wall. Five remained. Instead of lamenting it, she settled the quiver on her shoulder.
Lucca approached the transport device. Its light had not faded. A wave traveled through shallow grooves in the floor, brightening and dimming at steady intervals. She did not take out the Gate Key. She had no wish to apply a familiar tool to something that might work on an entirely different principle.
“It's open?” Marle asked.
“For now.”
Lucca answered from outside the circle's edge. She could not see what waited on the other side. Schala's description and the fact that Dalton had just passed through were all they had to go on. She told them exactly that.
Crono checked the fastening on the Ruby Knife. Lucca watched it for a moment. Could she place the means of stopping one of her machines in someone else's hands, without adequate drawings, without even being able to promise what would happen?
“What are you thinking about?” Marle asked.
“Melchior.”
Lucca pulled the bag strap higher on her shoulder.
“What it must feel like, sending someone to break something you made.”
Marle looked at the empty throne, then back at her.
“We can ask him when we get back.”
Lucca nodded. She was not done thinking about it, but she could move.
Crono entered the circle first. Marle stood beside him, and Lucca joined them. Light spread beneath their shoes. The throne and columns stretched and disappeared. At the last moment, Lucca looked up. Every figure painted on the ceiling had its arms raised toward the sky.
When her feet found the floor again, the air was heavy.
A low vibration traveled through the soles of her shoes. Something moved inside the walls. There was light, but no sunlight. Lucca turned to check that the circle on which they had arrived still shone.
Then she looked ahead.
A small figure stood at the far end of a corridor. No taller than a child, it lifted its head as though it had been waiting for them. Crono's hand fell away from his sword hilt. Marle's eyes widened too.
Lucca held her questions. The little being seemed about to tell them why a face they recognized was here beneath the sea.
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