Chapter 1: Tell Me More ----------------------- The world before the fall... A soft but cloudy sky above an endless field of yellowing grass, devoid of trees, flowers, animals...It was a depressing picture. Lovely is the light of dawn... Dawn. Was it dawn? A gray haze hung in the sky. Mist drifted through the air, nearly silent in its passing. Perhaps it _was_ dawn... Noble is the heart of man. Yes, the warrior lying on the ground had a noble heart. But _all_ of mankind...? King Cyan Garamonde of Doma heaved a sigh as he returned to consciousness. His eyes half-open, he slowly sat up. His hand fell at his side. "Sky Render!" he exclaimed. His fingers clasped nothing in his sheath; the blade was gone, and so was his armor. This discovery was enough to fully awaken Cyan. He jumped to his feet and took in his surroundings. The barren land stretched out all around him. "Keyla!" he called out. "Keyla! Captain Brillare! Keyla?" In desperation, he added, "Butz! Butz Klauser!" He waited. Nothing; not even so much as the echo of his own voice. Cyan took his backpack off the ground. He didn't recall that he had been wearing it. But it wasn't of any use. The entire bag was empty. "I'm certain I kept something in here," he grumbled. On closer examination, he discovered that it wasn't his backpack; just similar. He took it as a sign that there were people nearby, and slung it over his shoulder. "Where am I?" he asked the clouds. Though not usually one to talk to himself, Cyan found any noise a comfort in the quiet void. "This does _not_ look like South Figaro," he muttered, then shook his head. "Of course it doesn't! What did I even say that for? I shan't allow myself to lose my sanity as well as my belongings!" He began to trek across the field. There seemed to be a familiar scent in the air, and the ground, as well, slowly became recognizable. He knelt down to sift through a handful of dirt. "Doman soil," he declared thankfully. He was back home...somehow. But what had happened in South Figaro? How had he ended up here? Coming up over the horizon, Cyan sighted a small hut. "Who would live out here?" He headed towards it. As he came nearer, the smell of cooking meat became stronger in the air. It reminded him of how starved he was. At last he made it to the hut. The door was open halfway, and part of a wall had a huge burning hole in it, but he politely knocked despite it all. Since birth, he had been taught to be a gentleman; to bow and kiss the ladies' hands when he was introduced, to keep his elbows off the table, to name people in the most respectful manner, and above all, to speak like a gentleman. That was what had caused him the most trouble in the past few years. Too many of those he had teamed up with in the war against Kefka were not impressed by his manner of speech; rather, they thought it was a great joke. He still heard the mocking words of one mischievous delinquent echo in his mind: "Thou! Thou!" Cyan had come to learn to decide from the beginning whether or not new people he met would choose him as an object of ridicule because he said "Thou art," instead of "You are." "Door's open, idiot! What are ya, blind or som'thin?" Cyan immediately chose to dispose of the "thou"s. He stepped inside carefully. The interior was in a state of disarray. Tables lay in pieces, chairs rested upside down, and soot coated the carpet. The two occupants stood up to stare at him. One was a woman, probably in her early thirties, with a dirty, battered face and dark, angry eyes. Cyan was instantly startled by her hair, a thick, spiky mass of a rainbow of colors, with sticks and twigs poking out here and there. The other, a man, looked younger than his companion, with blond hair that brought to mind Sabin with a bad haircut. He had a cleaner face, and was somewhat muscular, although Cyan suspected the woman could beat him in a fist fight with no trouble. Both wore ragged clothes and tattered boots, and gave off a faint but noticeable stench. The fireplace was as black as the carpet, which was where the meat was roasting. The woman glared. "The fireplace is busted. So we dumped the logs on the carpet. Who cares about it, anyway?" After receiving an odd look from Cyan, she continued. "Ain't our house. We found it abandoned when we got here two days ago. Figure some soldiers blew a hole there and made off with the sap who lived here..." "Eh." Cyan couldn't think of how to respond, and then asked, "May I introduce myself?" "Ya might as well. Don't look like a thief to me, with that fancy garb. Ya smell too clean, besides. I'm Mehnka Biffen, and this dork is my brother Jeff." Cyan made a sweeping bow. "I am King Cyan Garamonde of Doma." He began to reach for Mehnka's hand, but decided that would be a serious mistake. "King?" the "dork" spoke up incredulously. "Well...you look the part. But I thought you all deserted Doma. I mean, how else would the Emp--" "They did, idiot," Mehnka snapped, cutting him off. "Well." She turned to Cyan. "Don't expect us ta bow and scrape and call ya 'your highness' cause we ain't gonna. We're just a couple of travelers from Zozo, and we didn't come all this way to give anyone respect." Zozo. Cyan instinctively put a hand to his sword, then remembered he didn't have it anymore. But the name of the town had quickly conjured up the image of drunken liars slumped in the street, hideous monsters lurking in the shadows, and tall, crumbling buildings, all pattered on interminably by a dreary, dismal shower. But recalling his manners, he eased up and said, "Do not worry. I don't expect any extra respect--" "Try saying _that_ five times fast," Jeff murmurred. "--nor do I ask for it. I am hopelessly lost. Only a half-hour ago I was in South Figaro with my people, preparing for the assault against King Edgar. Then I was fighting a group of demons who attacked us... After their defeat, my friend Butz disappeared into the portal they had been issued from, and then..." *-*-*-* "TYPHON!" As Butz's mighty call faded away, the portal sealed and disappeared. "He's...gone..." Keyla whispered. Cyan stared in disbelief. "He deserted us... He took the Espers with him!" Keyla and Cyan stared at the empty air where the portal had been, and acted as though they had been betrayed. But inside, they both felt that Butz's first duty had always been to his friends and family. Butz had seen faces he knew, and if he intended to rescue his old acquaintances, they determined they shouldn't intervene. It was too late for intervention anyway. At last Keyla spoke up. "Well. It's dark..." "Yes," Cyan mumbled. "We need rest..." Abruptly, the ground beneath them began to shake. The spasms of the earth knocked both to the ground. It cracked and shifted until a deep pit opened up. Cyan and Keyla struggled to find their footing. It was futile, for a wind began to suck them downwards. Keyla looked around in shock, clinging to a thick group of exposed tree roots. "Why isn't there anyone else out here?!?" Cyan, grasping the edge of a newly formed cliff, called out to the houses and barracks he could see from where they struggled, at the limits of the town. No one seemed to hear. The ground continued to crumble into the growing canyon. The tree Keyla now clung to broke away and fell, and she landed harshly in a violent whirlpool forming at the canyon's bottom. In moments, Cyan was at her side. "How are we going to get out of this one?!" she cried. Cyan coughed as the tree came closer and closer to the center of the whirlpool. "We can't swim against this current! And we have no rope--if we could climb onto those chunks of rocks and jump to the edge--that's all I can think of!" The two thrashed through the water and tried to reach a large grouping of cracked boulders that had fallen from above. They dragged themselves onto the rocks, which shook and spun from the water's force. But the instability only sent Keyla further towards the center. Cyan grabbed a tree branch and sent it out her way. She pulled herself through the raging water and clasped his arms. "How did this happen?" she choked out. "The demons? Did we miss one?" "I hardly think that's possible!" With his help, she pulled her drenched body from the current. "And South Figaro doesn't usually have earthquakes--not to say that this is your run-of-the-mill earthquake!" "Some other force?" A large clod of packed sediment crashed into the spiralling rapids, hurling both of them almost directly into the center. The turmoil caused such noise that they could barely hear each other. Finding her hand, Cyan yelled, "But no time to speculate!" "No time... No time to survive!" Keyla shrieked. In a tornado of propelled liquid, the king and the captain were pulled down, and the world, shaking and throbbing around them, faded into darkness. *-*-*-* "And somehow, I awoke here," Cyan finished, wondering if the water had taken his sword and armor. "I have to return to South Figaro, find Keyla, and continue to ready my people for the attack on Edgar and Figaro." "Edgar?" Menhka said. "Sorry, bub, but you're a little late if ya wanted vengeance, or whatever. Because Eddie's long gone." "Gone?" "Dead," Jeff put in. "King Edgar is dead." "Dead," Cyan repeated. 'Is it true? Edgar has been killed... in my absence? But then... they come from Zozo. They could be lying.' "How do you know this?" "Nikeah. A soldier there told us," Jeff said. "We left Zozo a long time ago," Mehnka explained. "When Kefka was killed we heard that there was some good junk in what was left of his tower. So we headed there. Didn't find much, though. Guess it all had already been purged. Crossed over the land to this settlement near that creepy Cultists' Tower. Got ourselves a boat, floated up to Nikeah. It was taken over already, and they were gonna capture us or som'thin." "They changed their minds," Jeff told him. "They said, 'Oh, they're just a couple of thieves. Who cares about them?'" "But we _aren't_ just a couple-a thieves. Boy, the things we got 'em ta tell us! Huh! They've been fried for sure!" "Who is _they_?" Cyan asked. "Er, that is, who _are_ they?" "The Imperial troopers. Duh." "What?! But the Empire fell apart! It doesn't exist anymore." Mehnka shook her head. "I dunno how long ya were lying out in the fields, bub. I'm talking about the _new_ Empire." "NEW Empire?!" Cyan exclaimed. "Who is the leader?" "Akfek. Sascha too, really. Geez, I thought kings were supposed ta get around more," Mehnka chided. "Yeah," Jeff agreed. "Especially since they took over Doma, too. You ought to know that much!" "Doma too?!" Cyan suddenly felt furious. Anger welled up inside him; hatred toward Akfek and Sascha... 'Akfek...' Cyan gasped. 'Akfek is Kefka spelled backwards!' "Ya got a throat problem?" Mehnka asked warily. "No, no... They took over Doma?!" "We said that already! Take a breather, will ya? Cool off." Cyan listened to Mehnka's advice and breathed in deeply, calming down as he exhaled. He realized that he must have been unconscious for a very long time. Either that, or news of Edgar's death and the second rise of the Empire had completely eluded South Figaro. But he found that to be very unlikely. With an inward groan, he accepted that Mehnka and Jeff were his only hope of finding out the truth. 'How awkward...my only hope for truth, two citizens of Zozo.' He picked a chair up from the corner and turned it over. He placed it by the carpet fire and sat on it. Mehnka and Jeff sat back down on their stools. "Now," he began, "please tell me more."