"Until The Fall" - 48/48

[rissy_james]

Title: Until The Fall
Author: Rissy James
Characters: DG, Cain, Azkadellia, Jeb, Glitch, Raw, Tutor, the Queen, Ahamo, and some old & new OCs
Pairing: Established Cain/DG; established Jeb/Az
Rating: M
Summary: Sequel to " Of Light". After an annual of living in the O.Z., DG sets out to complete the task given to her by the Gale. Soon, she must learn that there is always more to everything than first meets the eye.
Extras: Cast Page on livejournal.com


Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to anyone and everyone on ff(dot)net and LJ that commented or reviewed on this story or "Of Light". You know what that means? You leave me one when you've finished, and this chapter is dedicated to you.

Chapter Forty Eight

He did not like being made to wait.

His men liked it less. The human soldiers said nothing, the slaves shifted about with their eyes down as always. It was the men from the Outlands, whose skin was as rough and dark as his own, that spoke out against him. The barren hallways of the complex were rife with their bitter griping.

He killed the first of his soldiers to disagree with him outright, the burning black eyes dying slowly as they reflected his rage. After that, his men fell silent, but their eyes did not quiet.

More scouts were sent out; his reach extended to the very darkest corners of the Outer Zone. His scouts watched the Queen's army idly watching the Lady Catt; the old witch remained locked down in her crumbling forest fortress. His scouts watched the shining city as the Queen rode out to meet her enemy.

The final confrontation happened as the suns were rising. The reports that came to him were mixed, but all seemed to agree on one vital point. The blast of magic that had expanded from the heart of the forest, waves of light that knocked the humans' legs right out from underneath of them... all agreed. The resonance of power, tinted emerald in the clear morning light, had defeated the witch of Pastor's time.

The Slipper princess was victorious.

There was no word of his Emerald, not the faintest trace of news on the breeze that had fed his curiosity and impatience so steadily. Only the tiniest nugget of information was given to him by the most unlikely source. The human soldier, Zero, returned to the base; haggard and weary and dragging behind him a disbelieving raven-haired beauty, his wife. It was he that confirmed the Emerald had gone into the forest. Whether it had come out again, he wasn't able to say. The fool had fled at his first opportunity, imagining the royal army of the Outer Zone nipping at his heels. Preposterous; so concerned over the events in the Black Forest, Azkadellia's forces found their jail cells overflowing with prisoners. Movement in the outer realms, on the border went unnoticed; Zero had run from nothing but his own cowardice.

Days passed. Weeks. Long overdue in his own domains, the Commander stayed anchored to the base buried beneath the shifting sands of the great desert. He retracted his scouts, but for one. One, who continued to visit Central City and keep an eye on the youngest Gale.

Waiting for news to return consumed him, and when tidings came, he was overtaken with rage. She celebrated her marriage while the Emerald rested... where? Where was his Emerald?

He stalked the corridors, lights flickering above his head as the ancient generator roared on and on. Even for his toughened hide, it was cold underneath the arid desert.

"You might send her a reminder," one of his men cautiously suggested. "Her refusal to follow through with her agreement -"

"What know you of the agreement?" the Commander barked. The human soldier paled, cringed down into his collar.

While the desert remained a vast, unaltered plain of wind and heat, the seasons had begun to change in the Outer Zone. The cold spell had loosened its icy grip on the countryside, but winter was fast approaching nonetheless. The trees had turned their brilliant colours, then faded to brown, curled and dried and fell to the ground. The rising of the suns brought mornings painted with brittle frost. Snow threatened, but the gods of land and sky held winter at bay.

During the earliest part of the winter, he made the journey upstairs; miles of mountain passageway cut through rock as cold and quiet as he'd ever seen. He shielded his eyes from the blinding light of the twin suns, his senses assaulted, his lungs seared by the clear mountain air.

The girl would come. Something deep inside of him knew this as fact as he stood under her sky. The girl would come to him. Patience was rewarded; brute force failed against such delicate, magical creatures as good witches. He'd learned his lesson hard and well.

Two days later, the first word came in that a military unit was camped on the shores of Lake Lillay.

The Commander allowed himself a smile, a cruel imitation of the satisfaction he felt.

The good and innocent could be predictable. However, he wasn't going to be led astray by faith in this trait; he knew his adversary well enough to stay on his guard, and gain the upper hand as soon as possible.

"Send out an escort to lead them."

DG was fast learning that happy endings are not so easily made.

The journey into the mountains exhausted both her mind and her body, and she was sure that her budding pregnancy had little to do with it. The endurance of her spirit seemed to have reached its unfathomable limit, a dark and lonely place where no hope or light of optimism could break through. The days were spent riding, with little talking - and no laughter - to break the monotony of the rough-hewn forest landscape. She'd seen a thousand trees or more in the past few months, from the night she'd escaped Central City with Cain, her sister's heartbreak driving her toward a goal that she had no inkling of how to reach.

Her only focus now was the stone. Locked away in a plain, pine box and buried in her saddlebag, it waited to be delivered into hands that desired to hold it more than she desired to be rid of it. Cracked down the center, a cursed jewel of unspeakable value. Worthless to her.

Secretly, she hoped to hand the box over and be done with it. She wished never to lay eyes on the Emerald again.

The nights on the road were bitterly cold. The first, spent on the shores of Lake Lillay, was one of the longest DG could ever remember. Hours after she'd excused herself from the fireside, she lay awake in her tent, listening to the soldiers speak in low voices. Outlanders, they whispered. Had any of them ever really imagined such men to exist? Skin of stone, eyes and souls as black as the depths of the mountains from which they were born, fully grown and lethal. Rumours, legends.

It was Cain that put an end to the idle talk.

"You'll all get your eyeful before this mission is over," he said, his voice ringing clear in the still air. "Just don't let 'em catch you gawkin' or it might well be the last thing you do."

Wyatt insisted on being the first watch that night. She was still awake when he came to the tent, his body cold and his fingers stiff as he curled against her, burrowing his hands under her shirt to warm them against her stomach. She turned to him, seeking solace in his embrace, or perhaps only the reassurance of his presence. The gentle brush of his lips against hers left her hollow and unfulfilled.

Her anxiety grew as the stress of the journey mounted. A second day passed, miles of forest road put behind them, the Brick Route a distant memory yet only a day gone. Another sleepless night, a tremble in her hands that even the firmest of Wyatt's touches couldn't still. When finally he gave up and sighed deeply, he turned her hand over, palm up, showing to them both the shiny pink scar that served as both reminder and warning. Her skin tingled in the winter chill, held aloft over the combined warmth of their bodies trapped under heavy blankets.

"I didn't think we'd make it this far," she admitted to the silence. Cain didn't reply - she wasn't sure if he knew how to - and with the words out of her mouth and the weight off her conscience, she managed to find a niche of calm within herself, and slept.

A third day; the road was unfamiliar even to those who had travelled it once before. All those weeks ago, the Commander's men had utilized the darkness to transport their prisoners after the confrontation with the Lady Catt in the forest; that ill-fated day DG had almost destroyed everything simply by wandering off when she wasn't supposed to. The story of her life.

Now, the road was quiet. There had been no snow, no rain; the dirt was hard-packed and gave up little to those who searched for signs of passage. Had others come this way recently? It was hard - nigh impossible - to say. It left Wyatt in a bitter mood, and the other men were soon to fall into the same swell of bleak uncertainty.

Their pace slowed as the road narrowed and grew gradually steeper, rocky outcrops turning their straight and narrow into twists and turns. The trees grew close, the leaves had fallen and covered the road; it gave DG a better perspective on the vastness of the wilderness they plunged heedlessly into. The temperature dropped steadily as the light began to shift and weaken. It was close to first sunset when a bend in the road brought them face to face with two outlanders, armed and waiting patiently in the middle of their route.

"Our commander has been expecting you. You are to come with us, Your Highness." The gruff bark made DG shudder. "You will be returned here when your business at the complex is complete."

Since crossing over from Kansas, every step she had taken was one made with the hope of reaching an end, and it was with this belief that DG was able to gather up her courage and climb down out of her saddle.

Wyatt hissed in protest, muttering her name like he expected her to listen. While she heard every word he said, it was the most she could give him. There was no listening to anyone or anything but her heart. She'd take a lecture later. Hell, she'd be glad when the time for lectures came, because it would mean that the time for action had finally drawn to a close.

The pine box was easy to find in the saddlebag, and she watched the dark eyes of the two outlander soldiers shine greedily. Oh, they would know what was contained within; a coveted treasure of ages past, as much of a legend to the Commander's men as outlanders themselves were to hers.

Before she could take a step away from her horse, Wyatt was at her side, a hand on her arm.

"Deeg, what -"

"Let's do this, shall we?" she said, taking a deep breath.

Confusion crossed his face, and before he could open his mouth to argue the fact - to tell her that diving in blind was where all her problems started every time - she had offered him up a heartbreakingly hopeful smile, and had begun to call out orders.

Three days. The Commander made her wait for three days.

Cain and Hass had accompanied her on the long hike higher into the mountains, stumbling in the darkness behind the Commander's men, who navigated the rocky terrain as easily as Glitch could navigate a ballroom floor. An inescapable maw of a crevice in a sheer, towering cliff-face swallowed them up, and they were escorted roughly down miles upon miles of narrow, dripping tunnel. Soon, craggy rock walls had turned into cold cement, and the slippery stone beneath her feet was replaced with metal grating. Their footsteps clanged and echoed and announced their presence. DG was prepared for the separation when it came, and the Commander's soldiers gleaned no pleasure out of wrenching her away from her companions. No, she went willingly, quietly, the Emerald's coffer gripped tightly in her hands.

A small room, a different room. To her, all was the same underground, despite the differences in size and formation. Every hallway was long and echoing, lengths of pipe running along the tops of the walls, hard and unforgiving cement underneath her feet.

Guards stood outside her door; it stayed locked and there was no window. Virtually a prisoner, there was little she could do but sit and wait. She'd done it all before, and she would have yawned with boredom if anxiety hadn't keep attitude at bay so completely. That she was locked in didn't concern her as much as it should, but after a year and a half in the Outer Zone, encountering prison cells and coffins and vast underground networks, she hardly batted an eyelash.

She was being forced to wait, and he wanted it known. She sat willingly... for the first day. By the second, her determination to get it over with was grappling hard with her promise to herself (and to Wyatt) to do it right (and safely). More relied on her good behaviour than just being rid of the Emerald and escaping back to the light of the suns. The reminder came knocking on her door on the third morning, bearing a tray and shaking his head.

"You cause quite a stir wherever you go, don't ya, Kiddo?" the old man said, giving her a thorough, disapproving look. "He's getting a mite impatient for that little bit of shiny you brought with you."

DG thought of the dark, ruined stone. Not so shiny now, she thought. She frowned at Jowan, saying nothing. She wouldn't argue the logic of an outlander with someone who knew their ways better than she. DG understood the price she was paying for making the Commander wait all those weeks. News of Catticalisa's defeat had no doubt reached him faster than it had her own mother and father at the Northern palace.

It made her wonder - and she was admittedly frightened of the answer - why he'd waited without a word. After kidnapping her mother and sister an annual before to take the stone by force, why was he willing to endure her nonsense now? Was he really so assured of her?

"When will I see him?" she asked.

Jowan shrugged his sagging shoulders; exhaustion greyed his face, dimmed his eyes. That spark of determination deep inside of her, the one she'd been trying to keep under control these long, long days of interim, flared brighter. Burned hotter.

Even if she could do nothing, she needed to try.

"Don't expect it'll be much longer," was Jowan's evasive reply.

In the end, the Commander didn't send for her, no. He came to her that night; cornered her in the room he'd chosen for that exact purpose. She was alone with him, as she'd never intended to be. Through every hellish envisioning of this very moment, both Cain and Corporal Hass had been at her back. If her breath caught when he slipped into her room, she tried her very best to hide it.

"Princess," he said; his lips curled into a smirk that threatened at any moment to break into a leering grin. "I trust you're comfortable here. This place is a far cry from Central City."

"I wasn't aware that you cared," DG said uneasily.

The Commander shook his head. "A little skittish, aren't you? One might think you were scared."

DG raised her chin. She wouldn't be; she refused to be scared. The drumming of her heart and the reluctance of her lungs to function properly betrayed that confidence, but she stood her ground, if only to herself.

"You're here for the Emerald," she said.

"Among other things."

There it was again, the hitch to her breath as she was caught unaware. She opened her mouth to speak, other things? But the Commander held up one coarse-skinned hand and stopped her before she could say a word.

"True to your word, Your Highness, you released Zero after he had fulfilled his obligation to you," he said. "It would have been no skin off your back to leave the man locked up as you were in Catticalisa's dungeon."

DG thought back to the cold, crumbling cells beneath the tangled roots and poppy fields of the Black Forest. Zee's approval. The jumble of confused emotions on Jeb's face as she'd gone out of her way to help Zero escape. The pain in Wyatt's eyes when she told him what she'd willingly done.

"A promise is a promise," she recited, feeling sickened and shameful and defiant all at once. "Zero is the one who got us through the forest and past the shield. It wouldn't have been very grateful of me if I'd left him there to rot."

The Commander's smugness was unnerving. "Oh, the royal army wouldn't have let him rot. The gallows are more than fitting for one so traitorous. Unless you're a Daughter of Light, of course; then, forgiveness is assured."

DG said nothing. Azkadellia walked free while the men under the Sorceress' command during the Possession were rusting in the tower prison. Those who had surrendered after the Eclipse and those who had joined the Lady Catt after the fall of the Sorceress, locked side by side and all doomed to the same fate.

"No one needs to die," DG said firmly. "Even a scumbag like Zero deserves a chance to make it right."

Everyone does. I do... I am, she thought with a surge of renewal.

The Commander raised an eyebrow in interest. "You delay the execution of the hag's men."

She nodded. "Yes. Not my sister, or her generals. Me."

"Your compassion is misplaced and most unbecoming," he said with a shake of his head, and a gravelly chuckle like a flint strike erupting from deep in his throat.

"It's not compassion," she said. He looked at her suspiciously, his black eyes boring deep into her; she resisted the urge to cringe back, and continued as if he didn't intimidate the hell out of her. "It's just good diplomacy."

She saw it, the spark of curiosity in his eyes that died as quickly as it had flared. "Good diplomacy," he repeated. He clasped his hands behind his back expectantly; he stood close enough that she had to raise her chin to meet his eyes, square her shoulders bravely though she was smaller, weaker, and infinitely more fragile. A lion and a mouse.

DG chewed her lip as she took a moment to consider her... enemy? Ally?

Here goes nothing, she thought. Twisters and cliffs and towers and witches and Papay and mercenaries and bound spirits... what could she do, what could she ever do but take a deep breath, close her eyes, and hope to hell she landed on her feet. Here goes everything. Again.

"Seasoned soldiers," she said. "Able-bodied, strong. Most of them aren't the smartest, but I doubt that brains are one of your prerequisites."

Dark eyes narrowed in her direction. "What are you on about, girl?"

Encouraged, she went on, knowing that were she to anger him, he could easily overpower her; her magic would be a mere afterthought were he to lash out. "Dorothy Gale banished Outlanders from the Outer Zone when she took the throne," DG said, walking slowly to the rickety bureau stuffed into the corner of the small room. Sitting atop the scarred surface was the box. Inside the box, on a bed of velvet and lace, the Emerald rested dormant and unneeded. She tapped the top of the box while the Commander cleared his throat, a loud scraping-sound that made her heart jump.

"A dismissible order," he said. "The Gales of the Outer Zone never did pay much attention to what was going on beneath their peoples' feet. A lack of insight that most of the human kingdoms share."

"The families in the outer realms paid enough attention," she said calmly, picking up the plain pine box. The top had been sanded smooth and the wood was sharply redolent of the forest. "The families of the people you took."

The Commander showed no emotion at her heavy words; she'd expected none, but the emptiness between them resonated with her own shame.

"I want those citizens returned to their homes," she said; to her own ears she sounded firm, even though her heart was beating a frantic rhythm that threatened to undo her. Across the room, the Commander straightened - if it were indeed possible, considering his rigid, uncompromising stance and impressive height.

"You know not what you ask," he said through clenched teeth. "I am no jailer; you would give me your enemies to - to what, exactly, did you have in mind, Princess? Put aprons on them? Toss them down a mine shaft? Have them fight for me?"

DG felt something inside falter; perhaps it was her courage, or her confidence. She took a deep breath. "You fight no one. You stay neutral in the politics of men. None of the human kingdoms have anything that you value, but for their use as a workforce! I'm offering you just that!"

"It is not enough!" he snapped, fury sparking in his eyes.

She drew in another shaky breath. She pictured her mother in her mind as she closed her eyes and tried to collect herself. Her grip tightened on the wooden box in her hands, she could feel its edges digging into her skin, a friction that burned. Her feet carried her of their own volition, and she found herself before the Commander, at arm's length and raising her eyes to meet his as he stared down at her with a ferocity that threatened to turn her to stone. She braced herself, and held out the box to him.

"It is enough."

The Commander watched her, cynicism heavy on his rugged face. With a possessive hand, he reached out and took the box from her, holding in one massive hand what she'd held in two. He flipped the clasp with his thumb and opened the lid. DG pursed her lips together, letting her hands fall to her sides as the Emerald of the Eclipse passed away from Gale responsibility, a huge weight lifted with so simple a gesture. It should've been harder, but it wasn't. In fact, she was hard pressed to keep herself from smiling as the Commander pulled out the stone and held it up in front of his face.

"It doesn't look like much," DG all but whispered, thinking of the words the Sorceress had spoken through her sister's beautiful lips, moments before she'd banished DG to a coffin and certain, lonely, frightful death.

"Such an insignificant thing," the Commander muttered, seemingly mesmerized by the light reflected off the scratched surface of the Emerald.

DG couldn't help the smirk that twisted her lips. "Hey, I went to a lot of trouble to make it that way."

The Commander's face hardened, the spell of the Emerald broken as he closed his fist around it. "Yes, and for reasons I've yet to completely understand."

Her eyes skipped away from his. "I don't think the reasons matter much any more," she said. "What matters now is setting things right. I can't do that without your agreement."

"And if I refuse, or manipulate your terms?" he demanded. "Would you be so willing to set things right if I were to release all their lives in exchange for only yours? Would you stay to save them?"

DG's eyes widened. She hoped to hell it was a hypothetical question; even as it was, she couldn't bring herself to answer, and she looked down at the floor. If that was her choice, then she'd be unable to help anyone. "My terms stand as they are," she said quietly. "The exchange of the Longcoats held in the tower prison for the people of Ozian descent that you stole from their homes."

He scoffed. "Strangers to you. Generations of strangers, most of whom never knew that their country was torn by war and prophecy for fifteen annuals. Unaware that the land died, and that Gale dynasty nearly perished along with it."

"Let them go," she said, clinging tenuously to her resolve. She wouldn't be dissuaded by guilt. It was guilt that drove her forward. "Please free them."

Her words seemed to fall into the silence he put between them, and she waited for them to shatter, unheeded. Instead, she heard a hollow thud as the pine box hit the floor; he'd dropped it, and in the instant it took for her to open her eyes, the Commander had taken a step toward her. He put his free hand, rough and heavy, on her shoulder; in the other, he still fisted the Emerald tight. His hand was cold, which seeped through the material of her blouse to chill her bare skin underneath. Whether it was more of an effort to stop herself from shaking, or to keep from flinching away from him, she couldn't rightly discern.

"You would sell your tower full of quislings. Give me an army."

She raised her chin. "Yes."

"Is this a flaw in all humans, to trust so readily?"

"I wouldn't call it a flaw," she said, and the tiniest smile tugged at the corner of her lips. At the sight of her, the Commander's face hardened all the more. "There will be no record of these negotiations," she said. "You won't have ambassadors to all the human kingdoms courting you with similar offers."

He removed his hand, the absence of the weight leaving her shoulder sore. "And when one comes to bid me against you?" he challenged, his eyes lashing at her cruelly.

A flash of fear ran through her at the very fine line she forced herself to tread. She knew it wouldn't all be for nothing.

"I doubt the chance will ever come along tempting enough for you to try fighting my sister and I again."

He laughed; broken and bristled, but true laughter. The sound of it, and the mock stretching of his lips, did not reach his eyes, and she felt that if she were to become frightened, now was as good a time as any. She took a step back.

"Do you accept?" she pressed.

He glared down at her, ruthless and dominant with his eyes; wholly assaulted, she clenched her fists, the only display of defiance she'd allow herself. A long moment passed; she scarcely breathed as she waited. He mumbled something almost inaudible, and her eyes flashed up to meet his, to know she'd heard him correctly.

"Aye."

A great rush of relief swept over her, putting a tremble in her knees. Her heart pounded a staccato beat. At a loss for words, she bit the inside of her lip to stop herself from babbling disjointed syllables instead of real speech. As she stared, so silent and still disbelieving, he held up the Emerald between thumb and forefinger for her to see. He didn't look at her, but instead stared hard into the depths of the stone. There were no answers written there, no knowledge or truth; how often had she looked deep into the Emerald herself, waiting to be blessed.

"You will have your prisoners transported to this base, and I will take them into my custody," he said. "When I return to the Outlands, those of Zone blood will be given their choice, their chance at this freedom you want them so desperately to have. They will know the price."

"A price which will have been paid," she said quickly.

The Commander smirked at her. "Foolish girl," he muttered, and lowered the Emerald; again, it disappeared into the mass of his solid fist, hidden by a strength that could crush her bones to dust. "May this be the last time I lay eyes on you. Your men are being held on the fifth level. Leave tonight, before I have the chance to change my mind."

He stepped aside, raising an eyebrow at her - almost as if daring her to leave. She glanced at the door, a portal to freedom and fresh air and home. Her eyes went back to the Commander, towering over her, unrelenting with his gaze. She tore herself away from worry and wonder, almost having to force herself to move her feet, take her coat in her hands. She'd brought nothing with her but the Emerald - everything else remained in the forest camp with Jeb and the other men.

She cast a long, uncertain glance over her shoulder; was he really letting her leave so easily? Any doubt she had was pushed out of her mind as the Commander straightened his arm toward her, then crossed it over his chest, fist - and Emerald - pressed over his heart. A salute, one foreign to her, but the gesture and the respect behind it was not lost on her. She gave him a bare nod; what other response was there to give?

"Princess," he said, as she hurried toward the door. "I remain in your debt. Now, go."

She nodded again, her eyes wide and her knees shaking at the forcefulness behind his order. She didn't look back again, all but ran from the room, from the Outlander, and from the Emerald that no longer required a Gale guardian.

Four months later...

Sergeant Robert Travers was meant for more than watchtower duty. The generals saw things a little differently, however, and he'd been paying since arriving back in Central City after the fiasco he'd endured escaping the shield and the Black Forest on Jeb Cain's orders.

Cain... what was it about that name that implied inordinate amounts of luck and pride? Travers had spent more than a good deal of his time in the gate-towers of Central City pondering this very fact. There didn't seem to be any sense or reason behind it. Cains simply got it done, and reaped the rewards.

Gods damn them to hell, but did they.

Travers, it seemed, was doomed to obscurity on the fringes of the city, while Jeb Cain took up the post of personal guardian to the Queen of the Outer Zone. Not that he minded; no, the risk of working for the royal family wasn't one he was about to court. Truth be told, he'd rather be staring out at the western horizon than pacing the palace corridors with Azkadellia any day. The Queen might be easy on the eyes, but he wasn't envying Jeb the high-collared uniform or the rigorous - and boring - schedule.

He was fine watching the slow flow of traffic through the western gate. He'd spent the winter freezing his ass off, but now spring was blooming and the suns were out near every day. When it was slow and quiet - and it was almost always slow and quiet - he tracked the suns progress across the clear blue sky.

But why the western watchtower? The most encompassing of his duties involved lighting the beacons every night; child's play, really. Though he shouldn't be complaining; it was because of Jeb that he hadn't been shipped out to border patrol or enforcement in the outer realms. Andrus had been more than keen to get rid of him. Jeb, however, had insisted that he needed a man he could trust in the watchtower.

Damned if he could see the importance in all of this. It still felt like punishment, cruel and extraordinarily slow. And endless stream of monotony and nothing; the same passage of travellers, wagon searches, and an infinity of standing watch.

But that day...

He was alone in the tower when he first saw it; his partner was out walking the wall. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, as had often happened after staring at the same lifeless horizon for hours. The Sorceress' tower was a black shadow that marred the landscape. It was this that his eyes had focused on - as they did dozens of times each and every day - when something out of place to the west of the tower caught his attention.

He squinted, cursed himself, and then searched around for the field glasses. Raising them to his eyes, he fiddled with the focus until everything on the western horizon came into stark clarity.

What the hell?

He put the glasses down on the stone ledge; he stared and stared until he could be sure that he wasn't imagining things. He kept his eyes on the movement in the far west, growing more and more certain as the moments passed. When his partner returned, he handed over the glasses. The boy looked through them, played with the dial, and then let out a string of cusses similar to the ones Travers himself had just emitted.

"You'd better try getting a hold of the captain," the young soldier said, still staring out at the western horizon through the heavy brass glasses. He made no move to put them down, though his jaw slowly dropped and didn't pick itself up.

Mumbling, Travers went for the receiver on the wall, and got connected to the palace switchboard. Within minutes, Captain Cain was on the other end.

"Captain, sir, I think you'd best be coming down to the west watchtower," he said.

The calm voice on the other end didn't seem the least bit intrigued; Travers had heard enough rumours about Wyatt Cain to know that there was probably very little that surprised him or aroused his curiosity.

"What is it?" he asked.

"People, sir. Looks to be about sixty bodies. Travellin' the Brick Route out of the west. They're heading straight for Central."

"We'll be right there," Captain Cain said shortly, and the line went dead.

Travers went back to the ledge. "We're really seein' this, ain't we?" he wondered aloud.

His partner moved the field glasses away from his face long enough to give Travers a wide-eyed nod. "What do ya think they're marchin' for?"

"Don't think they're marching."

In under forty-five minutes, the sleek black car pulled up onto the street beneath the tower. Travers, waiting at the top of the winding steps, watched as the captain climbed out of the back seat. Captain Cain then reached out a hand and helped the princess, her out-to-here belly more than a minor nuisance now. The captain was as impassive as Travers had ever seen him, but the princess was all smiles, greeting him at the top of the stairs as if she'd known him for annuals.

"Sir?" he asked, nodding toward the princess after she'd gone past him.

Wyatt Cain frowned. "She insisted," he said.

The two men watched as the princess walked to the railing. She took the field glasses in hand, stared out at the horizon for a few moments, and then gave an unrestrained laughed. "I don't believe it!" she said; she handed over the glasses and then turned to the captain. Travers suddenly felt as if he were invading on a truly personal moment as the princess ran to her husband and threw her arms around his neck. "I can't believe it," she said again. "It's been so long, I didn't think he'd let them go!"

The captain kissed the side of her head; Travers looked away respectfully. "You did it, Darlin'. I told you that patience would win out."

She grinned at him, and went back to the railing, hands on her stomach.

"They, sir?" Travers asked, not expecting an answer. He wasn't disappointed, as the captain ignored him.

"I put in a call to the Tower before I left," the captain said instead. "Route Patrol won't stop them; dependin' on how hard they push, could be they're here by morning."

The princess whirled around. "Did I hear you right? Morning? Send some vans to pick them up!"

Captain Cain's voice took on an odd undertone. "Most of 'em probably haven't seen the suns in annuals. Let them stretch their legs."

Travers stayed quiet, knowing by now that questions were pointless; answers had to be earned. As it stood, he was finally beginning to understand what had always been said about the Gales and their secrets. Good or bad, a witch was a witch.

In the end, it took a long time convincing the princess to go back to the palace. Much to Travers' incredulity, DG - he'd already twice made the mistake of calling her 'Your Highness' - seemed ready to camp out at the tower until the slow moving pilgrims made it to Central City. With the last of the good afternoon light, they'd all taken a last glance at the group as they'd made camp out on the plains. There were children running amongst men and women of all ages. In all, there seemed to be a few over seventy.

With the captain's permission, Travers pulled a double-shift. He'd never questioned why the tower on the west gate was the only one that reported directly to Wyatt Cain. Now, thinking on the man's last name, it shouldn't have surprised him that something like this had happened on Travers' watch. Seemed like the Cains had been expecting the exodus.

The lights of the fires in the distance could be made out with the field glasses, though to the naked eye, it was nothing but darkness in the west. He wondered if the soldiers in the tower prison watched the travellers as he did. As dawn broke over the O.Z., the first sun rising to clear skies, an armed escort was dispatched from the west gate to bring the travellers to the city.

Travers was down on the street pavement, the ironwork of the west gate stretching far above his head, when the strangers finally arrived at the city gates. Though he'd expected smiles and laughter, which seemed to follow Princess DG around, there was apprehension - even fear - on the awestruck faces of the pilgrims as they came into a huddle just shy of the shadows cast by the wall.

It was Princess DG who went forward. Captain Cain stayed a few feet behind her, ever present at her back. There was something unbreakable that lingered between the princess and the captain; though it wasn't something he felt he fully comprehended, Travers found himself admiring it nonetheless. It distracted him enough from the mass of ragged strangers until one broke away from the crowd and walked toward the princess.

He was an old man, tall but hunched; he was clothed better than most, everything about him weathered and beaten, but still strong. The princess seemed to recognize him as the two stopped to regard each other.

The old man bowed deeply to the princess; there was a grin on his face as he straightened. She waited only moments before she embraced him.

There was no cheering, no excitement. Only a buzzing murmur that grew in volume as the crowd of pilgrims was escorted through the city gate, at their head the princess, her arm looped through the old man's.

Over the weeks that followed, Travers came to know the importance - and the almost miracle - of the scene he witnessed that day under the shadow of the western gate. With the city at his back, he might not have realized it for the puzzlement he felt, but as rumours and stories of reunion began to circulate through the streets, he would eventually come to understand how great treasures could lead to greater things, how lost children of the Zone had come home, how one man had stood unfailingly behind one young woman, and how that young woman had saved the world - again.

The End


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