A CHRISTMAS FUGUE

[Author's Notes] Yes, the title's another Djinni pun.  Go read Unleash the Fury of the Djinn for more.  It won't take long, but in case you're one of those impatient types, this is heavily based on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, only in the Golden Sun world and heavily altered to compensate for this not being the 1800s any more.

For my other Golden Sun Christmas story, check out Twelve Lords of Venus A-Leaping, which has an awkward title but really is pretty good.

A quick note: this is not a parody.  I'm slightly too sane for that, though I'm told I make up for it with craziness.  You still won't find insanity in here, beyond Kraden's… never mind.  Oh, and don't forget that it's better to review than to give, or something like that.

STAVE I: BABI'S GHOST

                Babi was dead, to begin with.  Not at lot of people were broken up about this, to tell the truth, and were quite happy to accept it, except for those who insisted that "the evil (insert amazing variety of colourful terms here) is never going to die, that (even further selection of monikers)".

                Dead as a doornail, and while one might think that doors are fairly active, being opened and shut several times a day on average, that is the usual term.  Anyway, he was dead at last, and this you must remember, or else nothing else that follows shall seem wondrous.  Except possibly for the Psynergy, but we've all seen that before, so it doesn't really count.

                Kraden certainly knew that Babi was dead, the two had been nearly partners (though no one argued with the ruler of Tolbi more than once, and usually not for long before they started to gurgle in fright) in unlocking the secrets of Alchemy for many years, until the location of Sol Sanctum was discovered and Kraden was sent to investigate. 
                A few uneventful years had passed, followed by the most eventful year in Weyard's history, and during that time, Kraden learned that Babi was dead.  With him gone, the responsibility to study Alchemy fell entirely upon Kraden, and he had been the only one doing so for some years now. 

                O!  But a tight-fisted hand at the Psy Crystal was Kraden!  …Have you ever actually heard anyone say 'O!' in normal conversation?  It's not exactly…  Never mind.  He was, anyway.  A crazed, accidentally-destructive, obsessed, paranoid, vainly ambitious old sinner! 

                …Well, okay, not so much with the actual sinning.  You'll see.

                And so it was that once upon a time, on Christmas Eve, of all the days of the year, though how the actual holiday of Christmas might have evolved on Weyard is a question that not even an Alchemist would dare to try to guess at, that Kraden sat in his workshop, trying to mix together a natural caustic alkali with a synthesized powerful acid and make a few observations before running for cover.

                There was only one other person in the workshop, his only reliable assistant, Isaac.  It might surprise some that a Dragonslayer who had saved the world at least once would choose to spend any time afterwards in a place so small and cut-off (if occasionally exciting, especially with experiments such as this), but Isaac insisted he was ready for a few years' rest before trying to save anything else, and this seemed like a worthwhile place to work in the meantime.

                It was cold in the workshop, a bitter, savage cold that seeped in between boards and absorbed metal until it felt like Moloch had eaten Kraden's house.  Kraden insisted that any fire, the merest spark, would not only upset the balance of Mars Psynergy in the area but potentially cause a massive chain reaction explosion that could break the planet in half like a biscuit in the claw of a King Scorpion.

                Alchemy was Kraden's only love now.  He was nothing like the person he had been so many years ago.  In the days of the Lighthouse quest, some insisted he had been rather absent-minded but still benevolent.  And some were willing to believe that this might be true, but the years with all of Alchemy weighing on him had destroyed that Kraden.

                "Merry Christmas, Kraden!" and after the explosion had settled down into a desk covered in broken glass and some sort of foaming substance, Kraden looked up from the floor and saw that Garet had somehow managed to sneak in without anyone noticing.  "You too, Isaac," he added.

                "I wouldn't count on it," said Isaac wryly, tilting his head meaningfully toward Kraden, who was the same colour as a Mars Djinni.

                "YOU-" he began, but then got control back, and shoved the rage back down to be with the rest of its kind.  He had quite a colony of fury buried in his soul.  "Bah!" Kraden snapped at last, waving an arm dismissively as he stood again.  "Humbug!"

                "…Humbug?" Garet echoed, but Isaac just shrugged.  "Were you working on some kind of mechanical insect?"

                "Don't be an idiot," Kraden retorted.  "Merry Christmas indeed."

                "Christmas a humbug?!" Garet exclaimed, catching on.  "You can't mean that.  Whatever a humbug is.  I mean, it's obviously not anything good."

                "What reason do you have to be merry?  You're ignorant enough," said the old man, looking for his combination mop and broom, a tool he used more often than one might expect.

                "What reason do you have to be a spark-mouthed crab?  You're smart enough.  Though apparently not enough to get the whole 'spirit of Christmas' idea inside your head," Garet shot back.

                "Spirit of Christmas!  What good has that ever done?  What is this season but a time to reflect on a year of wasted time, fruitless searching, and rare materials that were blown up by rampaging fools?"

                "You can call me whatever you like, Kraden, Jenna's desensitized me to it.  Besides, I know she and Isaac and all the rest of you have never really meant it.  Except maybe when I kicked that sign in the Altin mines," he added.

                "A season to waste time with gift-giving and eating and drinking without anything to show for it, not a single thing learned in the world and no closer to wisdom or discovery!" Kraden went on, now carrying off a bag that shook occasionally as reactants that hadn't yet, did.  "If I had my way, every fool who went around spouting 'Merry Christmas' would be encased in fruitcake and thrown into the heart of Mount Aleph with a wreath around his neck!"

                "Probably good that you don't, then," Isaac muttered, trying to make notes on the explosion in one of Kraden's dozens of books.  He was pulled away a moment later, though, by a knock at the door, and left the room, only to come back very quickly with a couple of people dressed in the closest Kalay had ever got to understanding 'cold weather clothing'.

                "This is the only Alchemy shop in Angara, am I correct?" asked one of them.

                "Unfortunately, yes," said Kraden.

                "Excuse me, have I the pleasure of addressing a Mr Babi?" he went on.

                "Lord Babi of Tolbi has been dead for several years now."

                "My apologies.  Mr Kraden, then?"

                "You're talking to him," Isaac agreed, "but the pleasure isn't likely to last long."

                "I am the alchemist Kraden," Kraden agreed, if somewhat reluctantly.  Kalayans tended to be good suppliers for the many materials he needed for his experiments, but he didn't trust them coming into his workshop, unless they tried to ask for something back.

                "At this time of year, it is more than usually desirable that we make some provision-"

                "Get to the point!" snapped Kraden, who hated being kept from his research.

                "The city of Champa is recovering, but they have had a difficult year, and now face a winter that is completely without mercy.  So some of Lord Hammet's people have travelled to other, better-supplied towns-" said the other.

                "This isn't the point either," said Kraden, no longer snappish, but with a fresh round of warning.

                The first Kalayan seemed to understand what kind of person he was dealing with.  "We have supplied you with a considerable quantity of gold over the past few years, gold that you would seem to have done little with, and it could be put to considerable use buying those things that Champa lacks."

                "Gold!  Gold!  You want my gold?  I knew it!  I am an Alchemist, sir, and it is necessary that I study that gold to further my research.  If the Champans want help, they need not pick my pockets.  Don't give anything away-"

                "That's true enough," said Garet to the Kalayans.

                "And I ask for nothing myself."

                "That's about as true as saying I'm fond of swimming," Garet went on.

                "Besides, Alhafra is near enough by, and quite a prosperous city, I believe."

                "Alhafra?" said the second Kalayan, in the same sort of tone that most people would say 'fatal', 'dragons', or indeed 'Kraden?'  "Some would be killed outright, I am sure, some could not make the journey, and most would rather die anyway!"

                "Then let them get on with it, and perhaps their supplies will suffice for the decreased population," said Kraden.

                "You can't be serious, Kraden," said Garet.

                "Stop saying that, boy.  I know what is best for the world, and if everyone would just get out, then I would get back to doing it!"

                The Kalayans left without another word to Kraden, though he suspected they had a word with Garet in the anteroom before leaving.  Probably arranging for him to send something a back with them.

                "Honestly, Kraden, I don't see how you can ignore other people like that," said Garet when he came back.  "Especially at Christmastime."

                "Christmastime?!  What good has it ever done you, anyway?" the grizzled Alchemist demanded.

                "If you don't care, I'm not going to waste any time telling you the details.  But I promise you that they do have purpose, and meaning, and at least as much value as your studies in this frigid cottage, and if you don't mind, I think I hear Jenna and a treeful of mistletoe calling-"

                "Mistletoe grows on bushes," Isaac added, helpfully, with the dreamlike expression he got on his face whenever he thought of a particular Mercury Adept.  "I should know.  I've been carpeting the ceiling with it."

                "-so I'll invite you to dinner tomorrow with myself and Jenna-"

                "Bah!"

                "-and once I've failed at that like we all knew I would, I'll wish you a merry Christmas again, possibly just because it annoys you, possibly not, you'll never know, and be gone."

                "At last," Kraden agreed.

                "Merry Christmas, Garet."

                "You too, Isaac," said the Mars Adept, and strode out the door again.

                "He gets duller every year," Kraden grumbled.

                "Why don't you join them for dinner, anyway?  Maybe someone there could learn something," said Isaac, very carefully not saying who he hoped might gain a glimmer of understanding.

                "Why don't you get back to work?" Kraden countered.

                "Because this was our last experiment for the day.  This is the part when I go home to my family because you've run out of deadly materials to mix into lethal materials and then set on fire."

                "Oh, very well.  Be here early tomorrow, I want to get started on deconstructing those ores from Air's Rock," said Kraden.

                "Tomorrow's Christmas," Isaac protested, but in a voice that said he had seen this coming.

                "Only an hour early, then," Kraden allowed.

                "Most people get the whole day off," Isaac pointed out.

                "Most people aren't studying Alchemy for the good of the entire world."

                Isaac tried "The shipment probably won't even get here.  No one works on Christmas."

                "Oh, all right!  The whole day, and the day after we'll go out and find that Osenian caravan if it isn't here before sunrise!" Kraden snarled, abut didn't seem to get any reaction out of Isaac, who simply accepted his victory, packed up, and left, thinking clearly enough not to wish Kraden a merry Christmas.

                Outside, Isaac dashed around the workshop to the place in a cluster of trees where Picard had left a supply of Supercool shards the last time he was in Vale.  They were for quick escapes, and this was definitely a good time to use one.

                Vale was dark now, but only in reality- and even then, only just.  Light poured from windows, illuminating long patches of snow from dark blue to sparkling gold.  And if you were anyone but Kraden, you could feel the warmth of the village, too, the warmth of joy and celebration in the face of midwinter.

                Isaac stood on the massive shard and rode it down Vale's slopes.  The ground was uneven, sometimes almost flat, sometimes the kind of sheer drop that made Isaac feel like he had reached Gaia Falls (or possibly been hit by Valukar's hammer, a sensation that could only be forgotten in the burst of pain from the next hit).

                Kraden, on the other hand, made notes by candlelight for another hour before dousing the candles, locking every door twice, and marching out into the dark evening.  He used to live in his cottage, but had since then turned it into a full alchemy shop, and spent what little time he lived outside it in a small house inside the restored village of Vale.

                The cold didn't bite at Kraden, his own being was so cold it made wind shiver and snow reach for blankets, which is, if I may say so myself, quite a good allegory.  Kraden marched unstoppably through the shadows, not flinching from deepest darkness in the slightest.

                This was partly because darkness was as much a part of Alchemy as light, but also partly because Kraden, who had not even thought of Babi for a very long time, had now had his mind filled with memories of his old teacher by those two Kalayans, who had seemed to think that the lord of Tolbi had retired to Vale.  Fools.

                He came upon his house –certainly not a home, no one who was remotely like Kraden could possibly turn a wooden box with a roof into a home, though 'den', 'lair', and 'keep' were certainly in the running.  It was unadorned for the season, of course, or anything else.  The windows were shuttered, though, to keep out prying eyes and intruders, and the door was a sturdy one.

                It was nearly soundproof, and so there was a knocker on the front in case someone wished to drop off a package or, if they were eight years old, prove to their friends how brave they were before fleeing into the snow like a hare coming upon a wolf polishing its championship sprinting trophies.

                As Kraden strode to the door, a strange feeling seemed to settle over him like the fine snow falling all around.  He looked about, wondering if he had spotted a stranger lurking nearby without realising it, but seeing the surrounding area clear, he shook his head and muttered "Humbug."  A better-read person would already have seen what was coming, but Kraden only ever read old tomes anyway, and didn't know the universal significance of that word, especially more than once a day.

                When he turned back the knocker was different.  Its rounded top had bulged out, the screws had shaped themselves sockets to fit in, and the swinging handle had become a bearded jaw.  The face of Babi, ruler of Tolbi and Kraden's mentor, was in the middle of his door.

                "Kraden," it howled, and then it was just a knocker again.

                The old man would have felt better for sparks or the warping of the metal, but it was just a knocker.  No Psynergy worked faster than the eye could see.  It had only been his imagination, giving shape to shadows and a voice to the wind.

                "Bah," he grumbled, and went in.

                His evening continued normally, and he was growing in certainly that Babi's face had only been in his mind, a vast well of memories unblocked by those foolish Kalayans.  He sat in his bedroom, in a large chair by the fire, reading a Lemurian tome on the vital importance of water in Alchemy.

                A faint ringing in his ears was dismissed as the mere effects of old age at first, a problem that he intended to solve one day through the power of the Stone of Sages.  But when it grew and became more insistent, Kraden noticed that one by one, every bell in the house was starting to ring of its own accord. 

                The bells rigged to tell him if the fire was going out, if the door wasn't double-locked, if the temperature dropped below forty degrees, if… if there was someone else in the house.  (That last one had taken an exceptionally long time to create, but it's amazing what enough magnets, research on the electromagnetic radiation of brainwaves, and an incredibly strong case of bloody-mindedness could do.)

                Before he could wonder who could have snuck inside the house (what they wanted was no question, Kraden was the world's only Alchemist, and he could speak in Capitals when necessary) a new sound began, and the ringing stopped.  Instead there was the dull thump of chains dragging across his wooden floors, up the stairs and to the door- and through the door, though we all knew that would happen anyway.

                And instantly he recognised the face of Babi.  Well, it was a shock to him.

                He was transparent, as is considered stylish among ghosts, with ragged, pale clothes and chains laden around his shoulders and keeping his motions restricted.  His hair, which had been lonely enough in life, was longer now, and unkempt, something the Lord of Tolbi would never have accepted before.

                "What do you want with me?!" Kraden demanded, covering his fear with a burst of rage.

                "Much!" the spectre replied, and though it was in a voice no human should have had, it was unquestionably Babi's, if drained the life it once had.

                "Who are you?" Kraden asked anyway, almost hopefully, if the old man could hope.

                "No one."

                "Oh, very well- who were you?"

                "Hah!  Yes, that's the right one.  In life I was Babi, ruler of Tolbi, and that much you must have already guessed."

                "A scientist must make a proper test before believing anything."

                "You believe my words, then, when I say who I was?  You make no provisions for something so simple as a lie?" asked the shade.

                "I doubt your very existence, but I wanted to know if I was right in guessing who my mind was conjuring up.  I saw you on the doorknocker, too," said Kraden, dismissively.

                "That was rather a good one, wasn't it?" asked Babi.

                "Begone!  I thought you up, I can think you away.  You're not real, you're simply… simply a hallucination, perhaps brought on by stomach illness.  Yes, a bit of cheese-"

                "Oh, can we please not go through the whole blasted 'more of gravy than of grave about you' bit?  I've heard all about it from the other ghosts, honestly, everyone seems to think it up," said Babi, and for a second Kraden was certain he was listening to his old teacher berating him for blowing up a small but significant percentage of palace.

                "…Others?" asked Kraden, who had lost little in curiosity over the years.

                "Yes, yes, others, others who lack understanding of the world, the spirit, and the heart.  I was one for my entire life, and in these days… listen to me very closely, you whippersnapper, and don't touch that notebook, I see you thinking about it."

                "A real ghost, though, I've never-"

                "Kraden!"  When he had the old man's attention, the shade that had been Babi went on.  "It is required of every man, and woman, and all other peoples of every world, that the spirit within them travel abroad among their fellow men, travel far and wide, and if that spirit goes forth not in life, then it is condemned to do so in death, to wander through the world and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared, and turned to happiness!"

                "But I have!" Kraden protested.  "The quest, with Felix and Isaac and the Lighthouses-"

                "That's the trouble with you live people these days, you save one world and think that you're owed everything.  You were a good student, Kraden, but the one time -other than the unit on combustibility gradiants- that your life depends on it, you seem intent on failing.  You must continue, Kraden, and you must do good.  There is no rest, not until the very end.  That is what you ignore at every turn."

                "Alchemy-"

                "Never again!" shrieked the ghost.  "Never speak that word in my presence again, Kraden, it doomed me.  See you not this chain?"  Kraden looked closer, and saw that it was composed entirely of books and flasks and the many tools he used in his workshop, forged from iron and chained together, weighing Babi's ghost down, draining him of what spiritual strength he had as he marched ever onward to see others, to see life.

                "Your work in Alchemy made it?  But such a noble goal-"

                "For what purpose?  Even if I had succeeded, Kraden, if I had created a Stone of Sages, that would have been a minor feat indeed compared to the good I could have done in my life with all the rest of my wealth and power, and the long years the Lemurian water gave me."

                "This seems unlikely-"

                "Yours was not so short, Kraden, when you left Tolbi, but your time with the heroes of Vale did not shorten it, and you have laboured hard on it these last years.  Nothing is erased, Kraden, remember that, but at the end of your life, the good and the evil shall be weighed."  Wearily, Babi lifted one of the rusty books.  "And iron weighs a lot."

                Kraden was trembling now, hardly noticing that the fire had gone out, that he was seeing now only by the light of the ethereal shape.  He found that he believed Babi's ghost, that it was true in a way he could never prove… and that such a terrible fate did await him.  "Mercy, please, Babi, speak comfort to me."

                "Not tonight, you grizzled troll.  I came here only to tell you that you have a chance to escape this fate.  And I do not enjoy the idea of spending eternity in chains with one such as you howling nearby."

                "Oh, thank you, Lord Babi," said Kraden, shaking in relief now.

                "Thank with less speed, Kraden.  You are to be visited by three spirits."

                "One at a time?  And would their schedules allow for a few simple tests-"  Babi howl yet again, and with a wave of his arm, chains wrapped around Kraden, binding him from eye to ankles.  With his old student silenced, Babi went on.

                "You shall follow them, and listen, Kraden, and see what they have to teach you.  The first shall come tonight, when the bell tolls midnight, and you shall have this one chance to save Middle-ea… save yourself.  Look to see me no more, and remember what has passed between us."

                The chains withdrew, which disappointed Kraden, because he was sure that one of the iron covers had said The Secrets of Unlocking Alchemy That Would Really Have Saved You Time In Your Studies If You Hadn't Been Such A Snappish Old Bear So We Decided Not To Let You Learn Them.

                As Kraden watched, Babi's chains formed into endless circles that spun and rose around him like the light rings around an Adept using Psynergy, and then he was gone.  On pure instinct, Kraden glanced at the clock near his bed, which kept time surprisingly well for something that was originally supposed to be a compass.

                "Bah, humbug," said Kraden.  "Midnight?  It's midnight now.  Where are you, then, O spirit?" asked Kraden, proving that it was possible to use, just not common.  And the room erupted into brilliant white light.