Disclaimer: I don't own Cronotrigger, but Maria is mine. Although she doesn't have a name until around chapter three.
A/N: Please R&R! And no flames please, but I do appreciate constructive criticism. If you don't like Magus/Lucca pairings, don't read it. Actually, there are other pairings that I prefer myself, but this story sort of demanded a Magus/Lucca pairing. Anyways, read and (hopefully) enjoy:)
Prologue: The Madman on the Mountaintop
"A night bright with stars…
whose ghost is this whispering:
shall I light the lamp?"
--Etsujin
A man stood on a tall, icy peak overlooking the blue-gray sea. His pale blue hair rippled behind him in the chill wind; it was unadorned except for some strips of beaded leather wrapped into it. The man's red eyes gazed outward stonily, bleakly, as though for the thousandth time. A voice, the memory of a voice, echoed in the man's head.
"Schala, promise you'll never leave."
Soft laughter. "I promise, little brother. Tell you what, if I ever do, keep a light burning for me, and I'll come back. I promise, Janus. No matter what, if you keep a light burning, I'll see it, and I'll come back."
"Will you, Schala?" the man whispered, the man no longer known as Janus but Magus. "Will you return?" He turned away from the sea and to the spectators who were grouped in a little ring a few feet away, huddling together for warmth. "All right," Magus said, his voice colder than the howling wind. "The first ring of stones will be placed where you are standing. I will help lay the foundation. Let's begin!"
The people obeyed silently. Stone after stone was brought up from the quarry, as morning faded to afternoon, and afternoon to evening. As the darkness set in, Magus looked around at his helpers. "You may go," he announced dispassionately. Most of the works began to trickle away immediately, but one of them, a girl of about eighteen, hung back. "Um…Sir Magus," she ventured. He turned his blood-red eyes on her and she quailed. "I just wondered if you'd be coming down with us."
"No," he answered.
"But it's so cold--"
"I said, 'no'." The utter scorn in his voice was enough the girl go hot and cold all over. She flushed red and backed away. "S-sorry," she mumbled and turned and went pelting after the others who had just left. Magus didn't spare her a glance. He moved into the ring of stones which had been laid that day, which afforded scant protection against the cruel wind. He raised a hand and muttered, "Flammate." A rose of fire blossomed in his hand; he set it on the snow and made a brief widening gesture. The rose broadened into a column of flame that melted the snow for several yards back. Magus could, at that point, have safely gone to sleep, for his power would have kept the flames in check, even in his sleep, but instead he turned his impassive face toward the sea and watched the restless waves.
There were tales told in the last village below, tales of the madman on the mountaintop. He paid the villagers well, so they did as he instructed, but his gold did not keep tongues from wagging, nor did he appear to care whether he was the subject of gossip or not. There were many different stories in the village about who he was, where he had come from, and what he was building and why, high up on the snowy cliff. He was clearly one of the former Enlightened Ones--his blue hair and the leather braided into it belied that. But everything else about him was open to surmise.
There were some who said he was a great magician, cast out before the fall of Zeal, who had wandered across the frozen wasteland and helped engineer the catastrophe that befell the city of the Enlightened Ones. They said he was building a tower where he would shut himself up forever in disgust at the human race.
Then there were others, who maintained he was not a man at all, but an angel who had been cast out of heaven for his crimes, and who was now building a stairway to bring himself as close to his former home as he could.
And then, there were the stories told among the former Enlightened Ones themselves. There were whispers about the mysterious Prophet who had appeared in Zeal before its fall. And a wise few remembered the little Prince, Janus, who had disappeared and was presumed to have perished. If he had not perished, they said, if he had lived out his life somewhere else altogether…another dimension, a place where time passed more quickly--and he had returned, then what? But even they could not fathom why he should be building something on top of a cliff which faced the sea, something which resembled a tower more and more as the days wore on.
The winter lasted for a long time, nearly two years, as the dust from the shattered cloud-cities of Zeal slowly cleared. As the light from the sun began to filter down, unhindered, to the surface of the earth, the snow began finally to melt, and some hardy flowers began to poke their heads out. The tower on the cliff was at length completed; it was a tall, tapering, white building, with a top room that was made of glass--a lighthouse. The talk in the village about it began to die down; they rarely thought of the taciturn sorcerer who appeared only to buy food and supplies every three months. In fact, life went on its merry way, for everyone except Magus, who spent his days with his memories and his nights with his searches, his lamp, and his hopes. For a year, his solitary routine did not change, and in some things, he seemed a man frozen in a day of time, a cycle he was unable to break.