EL-HAZARD : MORTAL ENGINES

                        by Alan Harnum

                 Chapter Ten - Enigma Variations
           
El-Hazard is a copyright of AIC/Pioneer LDC.  This story, 
however, belongs to me, and I request that you don't publicly
post or archive it without my permission.

This copy of the story is from my centralized fanfiction archive
at http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic.  I can be reached by
e-mail at harnums@thekeep.org

* * *

     There was a certain finality in the click of the lock as
Afura closed the door, shutting out the light and conversation 
from the deck before she proceeded down into the dimly-lit cabin.
She heard Shayla crying, quietly, before she saw her.  Her friend
was sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over at the waist,
holding her head in her hands.  Sobs trembled her body, and, 
though Afura couldn't see her face yet, she was well able to
imagine what it looked like.

     "Shayla."
     
     "Go away."
     
     Wincing as her bruises protested even the simplest 
movements, Afura sat down on the bed beside Shayla.  "You know,
every time this happens, you say that."

     "And I _mean_ it."  Shayla snorted back her next sob and
punched the mattress, hard.  "Shit, Afura, you think I want
people to see me like this?"

     "No, I doubt that you do.  You should acquire the self-
control not to lose control."

     "Not everyone can be like you, you know."
     
     "Unfortunately not."
     
     Drolly said, it got a smile.
     
     "It's just so damn hard," Shayla muttered, tension beginning
to flow out of her voice and body.  Fire was right for her; burn
hot, burn quick.  "I almost forget about it for months, and then
something--a sound, even a smell--reminds me, and... and I lose
it again.  Like a kid!"  Again, she hammered at the mattress.

     Afura had been at the Muldoon seminary for four years--
almost since birth, or so they'd told her--when Shayla had come.
An orphan, although that wasn't surprising; more than half the 
children at the seminary school were.  There was no stigma to it 
there.

     Something had set both of them apart, though, and made them,
if not exactly outcasts, somehow separate from the other 
students.  Perhaps it was whatever had made the Muldoon Council
choose them as the priestesses who would tend the sacred shrine
atop the mountain that had given the sect its name.  

     Afura had been the first person Shayla spoke to after five
months of silence.  Now, with a gesture repeated more than a few
times over the years, she reached out and took one of her 
friend's hands between both of hers.

     "Ever wonder what's harder?" she asked quietly, seriously.
"Having to remember, or not having anything to remember?"

     "What's sharper, Afura," Shayla replied, "the point of a
sword, or the edge of a sword?"

     The two of them sat in silence for a while.  Shayla's hand
trembled with pleasant warmth in Afura's gentle clasp.  She was
suppressing further tears, holding them back.  

     "You know what scares me the most, Afura?"  Knowing it for
a rhetorical question, Afura did not answer.  "Some day, I'm 
going to be fighting, and I'm going to freeze, and hear my mom's 
voice saying, 'It is wrong to do harm to prevent harm', and even 
if I only freeze up for a second, someone's going to die because 
of that, someone that I care about.

     "That's why I have to love it; why I can never hesitate, no 
matter what."

     What path, without the wound that will not heal?
     
     This is what binds us indissolubly, Afura thought.  She
pictured two lines converging, braiding like rope, turning 
towards one direction only, held together by the opposition of
one strand against the other.  

     Shayla's voice, drifting into her own abyssal solitude, 
ending the brief escape of rational mind from sensual body:  "You
know those stories, from the Holy Wars, about how the Lilains 
sing hymns while they're slaughtered?  Well, it isn't true.  They
just run.  Run, and get chased down like animals, even by a gang
of bandits and raiders who they outnumber ten to one."

     All this was nothing unheard before by Afura; she suspected 
that by now, the exact words, phrasings, inflections of voice,
pacings, rhythms, had all burned themselves indelibly into 
Shayla's mind and tongue.  This part of the dialogue was a 
ceremony, as ritualized as any of the devotions they performed in
their sanctuary in honour of the distant embodiment of the divine
they called God.

     I will say, Afura thought: it takes real courage not to 
fight back.  And she did.

     You will reply: it doesn't take any courage to run.  And
Shayla did.

     Afura squeezed Shayla's hand, and brought things to an end.
There were no more tears; Shayla's eyes didn't even look too red.
She scrubbed fiercely at her face with an edge of the blanket, 
removing dried tracks of tears from dark skin.  

     Then, in a motion that--not being part of the usual ritual--
surprised Afura, she ripped her hand free and punched the cabin 
wall as hard as she could, teeth clamping tongue to prevent any
involuntary sounds of pain.

     "Shayla!"  A faint, uncomprehending note of shock.
     
     "Makoto," Shayla said, equally sad and angry.  "What's he
going to think of me now?  I bet Miz is telling him her version,
complete with her damn analysis of what it did to me.  Bitch.  
Bitch!"

     "Shayla, Miz wouldn't--"
     
     Shayla glared.  "Wouldn't she?"
     
     "Why don't you just talk to him, if you're so concerned 
about what he thinks?"

     "He'll probably ask," Shayla muttered darkly.  "He's like
that."

     "Are you ready to go back up on deck now?"
     
     "Sure."
     
     "Want me to bandage your hand first?"
     
     Shayla looked at her scraped and bleeding knuckles as if
they weren't even a part of her body.  "It's okay."

     What path, indeed?
     
* * *

     Perra stepped onto the forking roads Katsuhiko Jinnai walked
with an ease coming from both long practice and natural gift.  
She was the Lilaian Sibyl, the inheritor from her mother of a
tradition almost destroyed in the Holy Wars, and the countless
pogroms that followed over the centuries after it ended.  People
did not like what they perceived as false prophets, especially 
when the prophets told them to stop doing things they wished to
continue doing.  So it had been in the distant and undateable Age
of Prophets, and so it was now.

     After one step on Jinnai's road, she knew he was one warned
against; had known, really, since she met his eyes.  The Demon-
Waker.  Every path led to darkness: she saw him standing on a
crest of rock high above the ocean's surge, beckoning with his 
hands, and demons rose in answer to do him service; another path,
and he stood laughing upon a mountain slope as endless legions
marched below him; another, a panoramic view of the world, and a
slow cancerous blackness spreading over the continents.

     He would smash the world, and not feel regret until it was
too late.  It was a struggle not to pull back immediately from 
her silent walk beside him on these paths, to loathe and fear and
hate him; it was ever a struggle, between strong soul and sinful
flesh, and she could not do it alone.  Help me, God, she prayed
silently; this was your gift to me, let it not breed hate and
strife in me.  And, with that, she turned and went the other way,
along roads that converged rather than diverged, until she 
reached a single road without forks, and followed it back, 
glimpsing episodes along the way, three faces prominent: his 
sister (her double), a handsome dark-haired boy (he hated him,
with the twisted hate only possible among those who had once been
friends).  The third face was covered in darkness; something 
buried so deep, so painful, that she could not see it.

     But, despite what was hidden, she knew him, and, in knowing
him, lost loathing and fear and hate; they dissolved like sand
swallowed by the sea.  Verses spiralled through her head: shall
hate end by hate? nay, through love shall hate be ended; shall 
war end by war? nay, through peace shall war be ended; shall evil 
end by evil? nay, by good shall evil be ended.  My servant, I am
well pleased with you, for you have brought them out of darkness.
     
     Finished, knowing what she needed to know to make her 
decision, Perra released herself from the road, and slipped free.
But--as though in final confirmation of her choice--a vision came
to her in the instant where she drifted between Katsuhiko and
herself, clear as Jesyua seeing the spiral stairway linking 
heaven and earth and hell.  

     Seated again upon the beach, she released Katsuhiko's hands
from hers; they dropped limply to his sides.  He looked even 
paler than before, and trembled, eyes rolled back into his head
with the whites showing.  That had never happened before, when
she had done readings; Mother had never told her this could
happen.

     "Nanami," he asked, in a small voice, "do you smell smoke?"
     
     "Katsuhiko."  She reached out to touch him; in a lightning
blur, a hand intercepted hers, and seized her wrist.

     "What did you do to him, little witch?" the Bugrom Queen
snarled, the threat of a bone-breaking tightening shivering in
bare restraint within her grip.  "Answer!"

     Around them, the other Bugrom huddled in a concerned crowd,
chattering like a flock of agitated hens.  Deva glared down at
Perra, lips snarlingly twisted.  "I said, answer me.  If you have
harmed my Grand General, you will die slowly."
     
     Forcing her way through the Bugrom as much with force of 
will as with mass, Nanami stumbled into the circle.  "Let her go,
Deva."  Nearby, the only separate figure among them, Perra's 
father watched, concerned but unspeaking.

     Deva turned her angry gaze upon Nanami.  "Look at what she's 
done to your brother."

     "I don't know what--" Perra began.  
     
     Jinnai chose that time to cough theatrically, roll his eyes 
back to their proper position, shake his head a few times, and 
then begin to comb his hair.  "Ladies, please, stop the fuss.  No
need for it; I was merely overcome for a few moments.  Miss 
Perra, your power has a most remarkable effect; someone like you
would be truly useful to our cause."

     With some reluctance, Deva released her grip.  Perra drew
her hand back, and massaged her wrist.  "Actually," she said,
looking straight at Katsuhiko, smiling as she did, "I was just
thinking that."

     Jinnai blinked.  Slowly.  Then he looked around at the
gathered Bugrom.  "Give us some space."  Obediently, the hulking 
insects shuffled back; even Nanami and Deva stepped away, 
although neither looked happy.  "Now."  He leaned towards Perra
with conspiratory closeness.  "How can we mutually benefit one
another?"

     As Perra opened her mouth to speak, her father chose that
moment to stomp over.  "You are not serious, daughter.  How can
you think of going with them?"  He waved his hand in an 
encompassing gesture towards all the visitors gathered on the
beach.

     "Father," Perra said severely, trying to bring to her voice
the tones her mother had used in these situations, "I have seen a
vision, sent from God; I must go with them."  Not entirely true,
but not a lie, either; an interpretation of what she had seen, 
and was that not one role the Sibyl had to play?

     Her father opened his mouth; closed it; stepped back.  "As
God wills it, so must it be."  He paused.  "Thou art His voice.
So be it."

     She turned her attention back to Jinnai, who had been
waiting patiently, an intent expression on his face.  "My father
said there was nothing of value to you here.  I cannot agree for
certain.  In the mountains, on the peak we call Talongrey, lie
ancient ruins from the time of the Holy Wars; we have no use for
them, and avoid them.  Might what you seek be there?"

     Jinnai's thin lips curved in an almost feral smile.  "Why,
yes.  It might very well be."  He closed his eyes, and cocked his
head to one side as though listening for something.  
"Lethiaphan!"

     The name sounded like an agonized scream in Perra's head.  
Water shimmering on its blank metal face, Jinnai's servant waded
in from the shallows.  "My master."

     "Retrieve the Phantom Tribe boy from the boat and bring him 
to me," Jinnai commanded.  "Wait--how well do you operate on
land?"

     "I am not designed for it," the war machine replied 
neutrally.  "I do not function at maximum offensive capability 
when out of the water."
     
     "But you function?  You don't, I don't know, dehydrate?"
     
     "I do not function at--"
     
     "Yes, yes, I know.  Hmm... well, go and get the boy for 
now."
     
     Lethiaphan returned to the water and the boat.
     
     Deva approached, casting venomous glares at Perra as she
did.  "They might still be following us."

     Jinnai laughed.  "After the trouncing we gave them?  I doubt
that."

     "Your foe has shown persistence in the past."
     
     "If he interferes with me, I'll crush him like a bug!"  
Jinnai clenched his fist tightly to punctuate.  "No offense,
Queen Deva."

     Nanami touched Perra's shoulder.  "Can we talk for a 
minute?" she asked quietly.  

     Perra smiled, nodded, and moved away with her as Jinnai
continued to talk to Deva.  "I wanted to talk to you."

     "Okay, first of all, you're not a guy, right?"
     
     Blink.  Slowly.  "Pardon me?"
     
     Nanami, hands on her hips, walked a slow circle around her
double.  "You're a girl, right?"

     "I don't understand."
     
     "Look, I've had past experience with this.  Are you a girl?"
     
     "Yes, but--"
     
     "Okay.  Good."  Nanami dropped her voice low and stepped in
close.  "Now listen.  My brother is dangerous.  Messed up.  
Crazy.  Get what I'm saying?  He's tried to kill my... friend on
numerous occasions.  I don't know how much news you get out here,
but he was the leader of the big war between Bugrom and Roshtaria
that just took place.  You have to know about that."

     "I do.  I did a reading for your brother; I know his heart."
     
     "Then why are you so eager to come along with us?"
     
     Because he hurts inside so much.  Because I wish to heal him.
Because his paths are not yet solid, and may be changed.  Because
I have feared the Demon-Waker since I was a little girl, and now
I see that he is nothing more than a sad and frightened boy.

     "Because God so wills it."
     
     "Then you," Nanami declared slowly, "are as crazy as my 
crazy brother."

     "You're thinking of running, aren't you?"
     
     Nanami started.  "What?"
     
     Perra caught Nanami's eyes with hers.  "Your brother and the
Bugrom Queen are distracted.  The demon is gone.  I'm the only
one who seems to be paying attention to you."

     Paler with each word, Nanami reached out and grabbed Perra's
shoulders.  "What are you talking about?"

     "Your brother cares about you," Perra said quietly.  "It
comes out twisted, but he does.  He came back for you."

     "Everything Katsuhiko does comes out twisted."
     
     "Have you never thought to wonder why?"
     
     Perhaps unconsciously, Nanami's grip tightened.  "You think
you know him so well, why don't you tell me?"

     "There were things I could not see.  Three faces figured;
yours, the boy Makoto's, and another one that I couldn't see.  Do
you know who it is?  Who might have figured in your brother's 
life that much?  It could--"

     "No."  Nanami released her and stepped back, staring at her
with a kind of fearful distaste.  The curse of Sibyl: to know the
things of the heart, and to have that knowing place barriers 
between her and all others.

     "Help me to help him."  Perra clutched Nanami's sleeve.  "He
doesn't need to..."

     "Leave me alone."  As she turned away, Nanami nearly 
collided with the big red Bugrom standing close behind her.  
Letting out a small shriek, she jumped back.  The Bugrom saluted,
and gruffly gibbered.

     "That's your attendant, Nanami," called Jinnai.  "This 
island isn't like the boat; lots of places to run away to, and
it's probably filled with dangerous wildlife, too.  Aren't I a
considerate older brother?"

     "Yeah, real considerate," Nanami muttered, and stalked away
across the sand, trailed by her new attendant.  Perra watched her 
go, and thought:

     You will help me, though reluctant, because through his 
heart I have seen your heart, and twisted though the lens of his
perception is, I know that you are good.  This will not take 
place in an instant; the machinery of God moves slowly.  We shall
guide him out of the darkness and back into the light; God give 
me strength, for all his paths from here lead into cold night.  
At what end of which lies the way back?  Give me sight, God, I do 
not see perfectly as you see.  I am frail and mortal, too frail 
to be your hand.  Guide me.  Whose is the face that lies in 
shadow?

* * *

     A small, drying patch of drool coated the shellacked floor
near Nahato's lips; as the cabin door opened, he began to freshen
it.  Lethiaphan descended into the darkened cabin with slow and 
measured steps, needing no light to see.  Beside Nahato, it knelt
down.  The boy's eyes opened, and blankness stared into blankness
through the dark.  Nahato smiled in the manner of a very stupid
child, showing white teeth.  Spittle slid in scraggly ribbons 
down his cheek and jaw.  Arms bound, he could not have wiped it
away even if he had mind to do so.  

     Gently, carefully, Lethiaphan tucked the child under its 
arm, rose, and left the cabin to return to the beach, where it
deposited what it had been charged to retrieve at its master's
feet.

     Jinnai looked down at the catatonic form upon the sand, and
smiled, showing white teeth.  "Very good.  Now, come with me.  
Excuse us, Queen Deva.  Oh, Deva?  Get the supplies from the 
boat; make preparation for an overland trek.  Yes.  Yes.  Over
here.  I have come to a conclusion, my faithful servant.  Can you
guess at what it is?"

     "I can."
     
     "Hush, keep your voice down.  My sister shouldn't be aware
of the nature of this conversation; I haven't yet convinced her
of the validity of my viewpoint and my destiny, and I think she
still harbours certain loyalties to my foe, brought on, no doubt,
by her childish infatuation with him.  On to other things.
Impressive and intimidating as my show of force against their
fleet was, Makoto Mizuhara is stubbornly implacable in the way
only one worthy to be my eternal foe--at least until I put a
permanent end to him--can be.  I've concluded that he and his
friends will probably be attempting to follow us; do you
understand?"

     "Yes."
     
     "Let us hypothesize.  Suppose they were able to follow us.
Suppose they began doing so roughly an hour after we demonstrated
my superior power upon their fleet.  How long until they would
arrive here."

     "Thirty-two minutes, fifteen seconds..."
     
     "Indeed?  How do you know so precisely?"
     
     "Makoto Mizuhara has linked himself to me.  I can feel him
approaching."

     "...and why exactly did you not tell me this before.  Why?
WHY?"
     
     "You did not ask."
     
     "Idiotic machine!  Am I completely surrounded by fools?"
     
     "I am not able--"
     
     "Silence!  This is intolerable, how could you allow it to
happen?  Aren't you supposed to protect me?  Who programmed you,
complete incompetents?  Damnable machine... no, Queen Deva,
everything's fine.  I'm just discussing something with my loyal
servant here.  Go back... yes, yes, I'm fine.  No, I'm not upset.
I am _not_ raising my voice!  I simply wish a moment of private
conversation.  Thank you.  Now you listen to me, machine.  You're
going to wait here, and when Makoto comes, you're going to 
destroy him, and anyone who gets in your way while you're trying
to do it.  Destroy him _utterly_.  Do you understand your 
orders?"

     "Yes."

     "After you destroy Makoto, wait here for our return, and 
guard the boat.  Do you understand that?"

     "Yes."
     
     "Good.  In my magnanimity, I shall forgive you this lapse;
you are, after all, only a machine.  It can't really be helped;
you are that which you are--what?  All ready?  Good; yes, we're
bringing the boy along, that's why I had Lethiaphan retrieve him.
Why?  Don't ask me why, just do it.  No, Nanami, Lethiaphan won't
be coming with us--why?  It doesn't function to full capacity on
the land, you heard that; don't look at me like that.  No, I am
_not_ up to anything; such suspicion is unbecoming from a sister
to her brother.  Are you done saying goodbye to your father?  
Take your time.  Sir, don't look so concerned; I, the great 
Katsuhiko Jinnai, promise you that your daughter will be a valued 
member of my expedition, and that no harm shall come to her by my 
hand, nor shall I stand by and allow any other hands to harm her;
do not look so dubious, please.  Done?  Ready?  Away, then!"

* * *

     A man.  A man, praying.  A man, praying, on the beach.  A 
man, praying, on the beach, for his daughter.

     "Oh, God, shelter her beneath your hands, for you have
placed great burden upon her, and delivered her into the clutches
of the unrighteous.  Surely there is some greater good behind 
this, surely out of this you shall bring the triumph of 
righteousness, but keep my daughter safe.  As you will it, Lord."

     Trident, flying.  
     
     Pinned to the beach, butterflylike, in macabre display.  
Blood scrawled beneath him; no genus or identifying name.  
Blood looks black upon the sand, and gets blacker as time passes.

     Out in the ocean, standing on the waves, the sea-god waits.
     
* * * 

     Two ways to solve messy conflicts with hard-to-pinpoint
sources arising among small groups of friends:

     First method: discuss everything in a rational manner.  Pull
things out that have been kept concealed.  Reveal painful 
secrets.  Come to understand the individual views.  Lance, such 
as it is, the boil of conflict that has developed upon the mutual
skin of the group.

     Second method: pretend the conflict didn't actually happen.
     
     The second method was currently being used aboard the 
cutter.  Everyone was engaged in some singular task: Alielle in
piloting the boat, Fujisawa in sitting on the deck, each 
priestess at trying not to glance at any other priestess, Makoto
in staring out over the ocean and waiting in faint dread as
Lethiaphan grew ever closer.

     Time passed.  Makoto watched the waves, and clutched the
Power-Key like a talisman of protection.  In minutes, they would
be there.  Hesitantly, he spoke up, told them so, and by doing
broke the silence that had lain over them since Shayla and Afura
had come back up onto the deck.  There seemed little chance of
them cohering into the kind of unit they would need to be if this
plan was to work.

     But the end of silence seemed to do something; Miz walked
over to Shayla, and, humbly (for her) said she was sorry.  Shayla
said something of the same consequence.  The tension ebbed away,
just a little; the secret was still buried for some of them,
though.  

     They began to gather around the abandoned chalk sketches on
the deck again, revising and refining their plan of attack in the
brief time they had left.  The conflict buried itself further; 
they glossed it over with excuses of the imminent battle.

     When the island of Turanga became more than a ragged line on 
the overcast horizon, planning stopped, and they all waited in 
the bows.  There could be no more preparation.

     Lethiaphan came into sight, bobbing up and down some 
distance from the shore, standing atop the waves.  Upraised at
the sky, the forks of the trident glittered cruelly in the sun;
with its bladed hand, Lethiaphan pointed unerringly at the
approaching ship, but did not move.  

     "Slow the ship, Alielle," said Makoto.  Their approach
became a hesitant crawl.  "Miz, Afura."  The wind stopped 
blowing; the sea smoothed out, glass-calm, until it seemed a flat
plain.  "Now."
     
     And, as they launched themselves to the attack, Lethiaphan
began, horribly, to laugh.

* * *

     Princess Rune Venus of Roshtaria was sipping tea on her
balcony and reading a dispatch from her sister (Still occupied in
Balam.  Certain difficulties have arisen.  More details later--
Fatora.) when the entire palace shook at the sound of some distant
eruption.  Rune looked up from her tea to see a vapour trail
surging across the sky in an easterly direction, with the end of 
it hanging cloudily about the floating spectre of the Eye of God.

     Tea spread in a puddle across the table.  Rune had dropped
her cup.  "Dear me," she said quietly.  Blinked a few times, and
then called a servant to clean things up.
     
     A messenger arrived short minutes later, and informed her
that whatever it was, it had apparently emerged from the
underground vaults which lay below the Royal Library.

     The princess nodded, and frowned.  "Please send for Doctor
Schtalubaugh."

END OF CHAPTER 10