ACT II: Desperation
Sienne Square, Sienne, Begnion…
"Excuse me!" Rhys yelled. "Excuse me! Oof, oh, pardon me, madam…excuse me! Does anyone know an elderly fortune teller that lives around here?"
He sighed and bent over to rest, quite out of breath. He had been scouring Sienne Square for over two hours, asking everyone he met if they knew the old crone that Mia had described to him.
Of course, it was a rather lacking description to begin with. Though Mia had no doubt described the fortune-teller in elaborate detail during her lengthy recollection, Rhys had been ignoring her for much of it. Now, he strained his memory to remember details…but all he could remember was something about apples. It just figured that he would remember the most useless part of the description. (His application for priesthood had noted that his luck was exceptionally low.) He would have cursed himself for not paying attention to the entire thing, but he figured that even the Goddess Ashera would forgive him if she was consistently verbally assaulted by Mia.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his heavy robes (why was he wearing them again?) and scanned the square again, resigning himself to failure if he did not find someone that looked like they knew something. He decided that the best way to survey the scene was to climb onto the statue of Ashera. He climbed up and looked around the entire square, but didn't see anything.
He was just about to give up when he felt a tug from behind on his robes. He turned around and looked down to see an elderly woman looking up at him from under a black hood and smiling.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I couldn't help but notice you wandering around the square…"
"Oh, really? I'm rather surprised that you recognized me amongst all these people. I mean, it's not like there aren't any other Priests in the square," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he glanced around. Around half of the square's current inhabitants were robed in white.
"Well, none of them were standing on a statue," she said sweetly. Then, under her breath, she muttered, "and not every priest looks as darned sexy as you do."
"Pardon me, what's that you said? I didn't catch it, there's way too many other people talking around here."
"Nothing, nothing," she whispered and smiled toothily—that is, as toothily as one could smile with five teeth. "Now, I believe you were shouting something about an elderly fortune-teller, yes?"
"Yeah," Rhys said, giving the old woman the once-over and eyeing her suspiciously. "…You aren't her, are you?"
She cackled mischeviously and slapped Rhys on the back, sending him stumbling into a bench. "Good joke, hot stuff."
Rhys got up and whirled around faster than your average weak priest, certain he had heard something extremely peculiar come out of the old lady's mouth. "Did you just call me 'hot stuff'?"
"Did I?" she said, and cackled innocently. "Oh, don't mind it sweetie, it's just a thing old people say to young, studly gentlemen such as yourself."
Rhys was getting more and more creeped out by the conversation—not to mention his acid reflux was flaring up—so he decided to get to the point. "Erm, so, do you know this fortune-teller, or are you just going to hit on me?"
"Of course I'm going to hit on—er, I mean, of course I know her!" she stammered, then crossed her arms defiantly. "I believe the woman you are looking for has a strange affection for apples."
Rhys gave her a strange look and asked, "Apples?"
She shook her head, but didn't reply. So Rhys waited for her to answer.
…and waited.
…and waited.
…and waited.
Finally, the woman threw up her arms and said, "What do you think I am, a gossip ATM machine? Go find her!"
"Wh-wha-what? What are you talking—"
"Go!" she yelled, and shoved him into the crowd. As soon as he was carried away in the flow of traffic, the lady drew an apple out of her robes, polished it on her sleeve, and viewed her reflection on its shiny surface. She stroked it lovingly and whispered. "I give it two hours, my precious. And that's a conservative estimate. She cackled with glee and made her way back to her apple and tarot stand—just feet away from the statue—whispering "Now tell me, my dear apple…who is the fairest one of all?"
…
Two hours later, Rhys collapsed on a bench beside the statue at which he had begun his ridiculous journey. He was sweaty, dirty, tired, and quite angry. The last shopkeeper he had spoken to had been rather rude to him, insinuating that Rhys was either blind as a bat or he had been born yesterday—or possibly both. Rhys would have asked why, but his acid reflux prevented him from speaking at the time. Finally, after berating him for several more minutes—a verbal abusing that concluded with some very racy "yo mama" jokes—the man told him to go back to the square and look for an apple vendor, just feet away from the Ashera statue.
And that was how—two hours later—Rhys was back where he had started. In fact, he was sitting on the very same bench he had fallen back on during his confrontation with the old woman—who, incidentally, had given him the information that had started the whole goose chase.
Suddenly, a peculiar though crossed his mind. What if the woman was actually…but no, she had said she wasn't…but honestly, did she look like a very trustworthy woman?
He tried to remember where she had come from when he met her. He climbed the statue again, then turned around and looked around. He scanned the background, only to find…
Despite the holy vows he had taken, he nearly let out a terrible string of curses. There, before his eyes—just feet from where he had been standing—was "CrAzY mAtilDa'S TarOt and aPPlE StaNd", a name declared on a sign engraved with a dancing apple. Rhys clutched his chest in agony. He really needed his stomach medication…before his chest exploded in rage.
The old crone had fooled him. He had been outwitted by a senile senior citizen with an obsession for apples.
Seething in anger—again, not a very priestly emotion—he strode through the thinning crowd and stepped into the old crone's store.
Like most other stores on the square, this one had a tented front room that was connected to the building behind it. The tented room, which he was currently standing in, was absolutely filled with apples. Crates upon crates upon crates of apples of all colors and sizes were strewn about the front part of the building in no particular order, making the front part of the tent seem like a maze.
Peering over a crate piled to the top with yellow apples, he saw two openings in the back of the tent, leading to the main building. One was embroidered with the same symbol as the sign outside. The other was not dissimilar to his friend Soren's arcane tattoo, yet was still peculiar.
In all the mess, he didn't have the slightest clue which place the old crone might have gone off to, he decided it would be best to try a shock tactic.
"Hey, lady!" he shouted loudly.
A clatter suddenly flitted through the curtain with the arcane symbol, followed by the sound of breaking glass and a string of curses. Rhys heard the old crone mutter an apology, then excuse herself for the moment. Within seconds, she poked her head out the curtain and bellowed, "Who the hell just yelled for me? Where are you? Come out and show yourself!"
Rhys stepped out from behind a particularly tall pile of crates and quipped, "Oh, hello madam, I didn't see you there."
Wild eyed, her gray hair tousled and staticky, she turned on Rhys and started to say, "Why you—", but stopped.
She stepped casually through the curtains, smoothed her robes, and attempted to rearrange her hair. "I'm sorry," she said sweetly, "but I don't believe we've met…have we?"
"As a matter of fact, we did. It was about two hours ago, when I was standing at the statue in the square and you came up to me and sent me on a wild goose chase to find a fortune-teller with an obsession for apples…a woman who, it turns out, is none other than…YOU!" By the end of his rant, Rhys' face was red with consternation and frustration.
Glancing backward, she turned to the priest and hissed, "Look, okay, about that…" she wrung her hands and bowed her head, then continued, "I…I…I just…needed some time to prepare for your arrival! Yes, that's it!"
Rhys glared at her doubtfully. "It takes you two hours to shuffle a deck of tarot cards?"
"Well, erm, you see, erm…I, well…" she stammered, but she was suddenly cut off by a gruff cry from behind the curtain.
"Well, lady? Will he be mine, or will he be mine?"
Rhys was suddenly confused. Not only did the outburst from behind the curtain make no sense at all, but the voice seemed suspiciously familiar…
"Excuse me," she murmured rather loudly, as if she wanted the man behind the curtain to hear it, "but I have another customer to take care of. Have an apple while you wait, hmm?" With a sound suspiciously like a maniacal chuckle, she disappeared through the curtains, leaving Rhys in the company of several inanimate crates of apples—not very conversational, apples.
The priest sighed and picked one up—a nice, shiny, round one with a long stem. Deciding that he would entertain himself somehow, he tossed the apple in the air, only to be startled by a clattering sound that seemed to come from within the apple.
Now thoroughly curious—though his acid reflux was insisting that he shouldn't be—he looked at the apple a little closer. At first, he saw nothing, but then he noticed what appeared to be a seam in the skin of the apple.
His curiosity now insatiable, he hit the apple on the side of the crate, approximating the location of the seam. To his amazement, the apple split clean open, allowing a blue-white crystal the size of a large pebble to drop to the floor.
He picked up the strange crystal and shifted it, looked at it, held it up to his nose—and promptly dropped it. It smelled awful…like the herb-laced water that Mist used to clean the barracks in Crimea.
Suddenly he became aware of a scent, ambient in the air of the tent. Now that he recognized it, it was the same smell as that of the crystal substance.
Using his superior nose—his olfactory sense sharpened by years of sniffing the ritual wine at the Temple and guessing the vintage—he made his way to the other cordoned-off doorway—the one with the dancing apple symbol on it. Rhys now found this symbol more than a little suspicious, but he couldn't see why. Checking the other curtain furtively to make sure that the old crone wasn't coming for him, he dove through the curtains.
What he saw amazed him. By the light of several candles, he saw an elaborate alchemy lab. Glass phials sat atop iron racks, which were in turn elevated above the candles—apparently a heat source.
Cautiously, he stepped over to the table to survey the device. As he leaned on the table to better survey the contraption, his hand brushed past a piece of parchment. He picked it up and unfurled it, revealing a diagram with writing. Though he couldn't understand what it said, he could nevertheless read it:
Pseudoephedrine + Clorox + heat meth $$$$$$!
He shrugged and set the slip of paper back on the table, then turned to face the door—or at least, the direction of the door.
As he came around, he found himself staring eye-to-bloodshot eye with the old crone. "What are you doing in here!" she shrieked.
"Are you standing on a chair?" Rhys asked nonchalantly. "Because you were a few feet shorter than me just a few minutes ago—"
"Don't change the subject!" she yelled, and slapped Rhys across the face. "What have you seen? Tell me! Now!"
Quite certain that he should argue with a deranged geriatric who was holding him by the collar, Rhys answered, "Nothing much. I saw your equation thingymabob, but I couldn't understand it."
"Why are you here in the first place? I told you to wait out there!"
"Yes, yes, I know. You also suggested I have an apple, which I did, but it contained a crystal, which normal apples don't have, I'm assuming the crystal was this 'meth' the equation speaks of?"
"And if it is?" the old crone's voice was cool now, icy and calculating.
"Then maybe I could get a free reading?" he suggested cheerily.
"Now why on earth would I do that? Am I supposed to congratulate you for breaking and entering or something?"
"No," he said casually. "You'll give me a free reading because you are performing alchemy in here, and I believe alchemy has been banned in Begnion at the request of the Church of Ashera, no?"
The lady considered this for a moment, then said, "I think we have a deal, Mr. Priest. Though I must say, I would never have expected a priest like you to perpetrate a blackmailing scheme."
"Please," Rhys said with an easy smile, as though the previous conversation had never happened, "call me Rhys."
The old crone gave him a strange look, then said smoothly, "Alright then, Brother Rhys…shall we?" He nodded, and she led him back through the curtains.
Just as they were entering the main area of the tent, Rhys caught a glimpse of a green-haired person wearing purple leaving the tent. He could have sworn it was Stefan, the extremely odd swordmaster from the Army. But that would mean…
"Excuse me," he inquired quickly as they entered the other section of the building, "but who just left the tent?"
"I'm sorry, muffincake, but client privacy is my highest priority." Rhys thought her voice sounded suspiciously loud. She nodded apologetically and took her seat in front of a crystal ball and a deck of extremely large and unusual cards, motioning for him to take the seat opposite her. He did so.
As he wiggled around in his wooden chair, attempting to get comfortable and finding no way to do so, she made him even more uneasy by asking him, "So…what does a handsome priest like yourself want with an old crone like me?"
Rhys felt the bile rise in his throat. He was growing increasingly unnerved with the woman's pet names, but he somehow managed to answer her. "Well, actually, I was wondering if you could perhaps tell me something about another person's fortune…but since I see that client privacy is so important to you, perhaps I've been barking up the wrong apple tree."
"Nonsense, dearie," she said with a maniacal laugh and a flourish of her hands. "I can talk about other people's fortunes all I want, as long as they aren't on the premises. How else would I have become the gossip queen of Begnion, hmm?"
Actually, Rhys could think of plenty of reasons for why she was the town gossipmonger, but most of them involved illegal activities that made his stomach curdle at the mere thought, so he declined to mention them. Instead, he asked, "Do you remember my friend Mia's reading?"
She frowned, and her brow crinkled into a sea of mottled mountains as she attempted to remember. "Mia, Mia…hmmm….Sorry, sonny boy, but you'll have to give me a few more details. Lots of people come through this here shop, and you can't possibly expect little old me to remember them all by name, can you?"
Judging from the thick layer of dust that lay on the superfluous crystal ball in the center of the table, Rhys suspected that the truth was really far more sinister—the old crone had a bad memory. Sighing, he described Mia in some semblance of detail. "Purple hair, purple eyes, has a penchant for orange clothing…really, really hyper?"
Suddenly the witch's eyes widened in recognition. "Oh, yes! Now I remember her. Wonderful girl. She had tea with me, too, and we sat and talked for the longest time…"
"So I heard," Rhys muttered under his breath.
"What's that, honey buns?" She said, eyeing him suspiciously. "My hearing isn't the best, but it sounded like you insulted me."
"Nonsense," he scoffed. "I just want to have my fortune read."
She eyed him even more suspiciously—were that possible. "You did say you were a priest, didn't you? I did hear that much correctly at least, yes? Because, if I did…you are aware that the church of Ashera frowns upon the art of tarot, aren't you?"
Rhys sighed exasperatedly. "Yes, for the love of the goddess, I know! Now look here, granny. I walked all the way here from the palace and searched for hours on end for this place. I've endured your sly jabs and pet names for longer than I care to endure. All I want is to have my darn fortune read so I can prove to Mia that we aren't meant to be together, is that too much to ask?"
She smiled toothily—or as toothily as one could with five teeth. "I understand now, dearie." She winked at him slyly and picked up the deck of cards. "Now, in the unpronounceable name of the dark god Johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt, I bid these cards tell of this handsome priest's future!"
Though he was rather certain that the word "handsome" was seldom used in magical incantations—and that the dark god's name was not at all unpronounceable, as she had pronounced it clearly (but that was beside the point, he chastised himself—Rhys found himself enthralled by the whole ceremony. The witch shuffled the cards above her head, below her head, beside her ear, below the table, and everywhere in her presence, all the while muttering some random mumbo-jumbo that sounded something like "pleeeeeeeeeasesaysomethingaccuratesothisloserdoesn'tthinkimafaaaaaaaaaake". At length, she ceased her babbling and laid ten cards out in the shape of a pyramid. She closed her eyes, placed her hands on the top card, and murmured something else, then opened her eyes. "Are you ready to travel the mysterious roads of time and see your future laid before your eyes?"
"Are you aware that that phrase rhymes?" Rhys quipped rather uncharacteristically.
She stood up and slapped him. "Just answer the question!"
"Alright, alright, alright already! Fine, I'm ready to…wait, I forget it all, how did it go?"
"Oh, never mind!" the old crone cried. Then quietly, she whispered, "Well, let's get on with it, then."
He nodded. She flipped over the first card.
"Hmm, the perfect rose, eh?" she chuckled. "It is the symbol of love. So you have love in your future."
So far, Rhys thought, this fortune was not going well.
She flipped over the next two cards. "The maiden and the sword. Well, that's simple enough! Your true love is a young woman—drat!—who wields a sword"
Rhys clutched his stomach nervously.
The next three cards were turned over. "The raven, the hero, and…the pumpkin?" She looked up at him quizzically.
"What?"
"Do you have any idea why the pumpkin would show up beside the raven and under the maiden?"
"No. Why, should I? You're the fortune teller, for Goddess' sake!"
The old crone chuckled slyly. "Oh, don't worry, cutie pie, I know exactly why it is so. I just wanted to see if you had figured it out for yourself."
He gulped, but said nothing. An idea had, in fact, crossed his mind, but it was far too terrible to vocalize.
She sighed. "Your maiden has dark hair, as referenced by the raven. Black or purple, I should imagine—from your description, I say purple—and the pumpkin says she has a—what was your word for it?—a penchant for orange. Also, as the raven tells, she likes to talk, and she could be rather flighty."
Rhys buried his face in his hands.
"But wait," she cried. "There's more!" Touching the 'hero' card with a bony finger, she intoned, "You must do something for her, a heroic deed, if you will," she said as she moved her finger to the 'sword', "a deed that involves a sword."
At those words, Rhys nearly fell off his chair. Letting out a strangled cry of anguish, he threw his hands into the air and cried, "Goddess, why! Why me!" Then he brought his hands back down to his stomach, which was burning with overactive acid.
She 'tsked' at him pitifully. "Oh, I'm so sorry dearie. I didn't know you were allergic to the truth." She reached into her robes. "Care for an apple?"
Rhys shook his head profusely. "No…thanks. Water?"
It was her turn to shake her head. "No, but I do have apple juice. Could I get you a cup?"
He looked at her crazily. What was it with the woman and apples?
After a short time, he cleared his throat and bid her to continue. She flipped over the last four cards. "The poison apple, the commander, the mask, and the Gemini…"
Rhys expected her to launch into a nonsensical explanation of the hidden meaning of the cards, but was disappointed. Instead of talking, she sat in silence, staring at the final row, then looking at the full pyramid.
"Did you read the fortune wrong?" Rhys asked hopefully. "Because if you did, I'll still pay you. Actually, I might pay you double."
Strangely, she didn't answer. She just sat and stared at the cards for the longest time, unblinking. Then, in an abrupt fashion that caused Rhys to fall backward in his chair, she exploded in a fit of maniacal cackles.
Groaning, Rhys sat up and rubbed the back of his head, which was throbbing from the impact. "What was that for? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
"Y-you…wouldn't have…gotten a…heart attack…dearie," she managed to say between fits of laughter. "It isn't…in the…cards!" She roared with laughter again, causing an already skittish Rhys to jump.
Now holding his head in a vain effort to control an ensuing headache, he yelled, "Well, what do the cards say will happen?"
At first, the old crone was laughing far too hard to answer the question. After a while, though—by which time Rhys was sure the neighbors were calling for medical help—she managed to regain her composure. Her eyes leveled at Rhys and she stared at him intently, as if she had some divine message for him. And then she cracked up again.
"Ashera's name," Rhys breathed incredulously. "What on earth is with the woman?"
The witch continued to cackle.
At last realizing that going to the old crone in the first place was a mistake, Rhys got up and began walking deliberate toward the door.
"Wait…wait up, priest boy!" The witch said, taking controlled, heavy breaths. "I can't tell you what the cards say, that…that would spoil the fun. But I can give you a gift."
"I'm not interested in a gift, but thanks anyway."
"Nonsense, sweetcakes, I insist. You'll need it, trust me on this one."
He glared at her, telling her with his eyes that there was no way he as going to trust her, not even when hell froze over.
"Wait there," she said, and walked to the back of the room.
Though he wasn't sure why he was doing it, he stood still and watched to old crone rummage through what appeared to be a gigantic trunk. She was bent over so far that her upper body wasn't even visible, obscured by her hunchback. Every now and again, she'd say something like "No, that's not it", or, "Ooh, I forgot that was in there", and odds and ends would come flying out of the trunk, over her head and directly toward Rhys. He suddenly found himself dodging many interesting items, such as a large gray wig, a nurse costume, so pieces of leather that might have passed—in some seedier sections of town—for clothing, chain mail, a whip, a riding crop, and a pair of wooden handcuffs with goose down glued to them.
"Aha!" Suddenly, she stood up and walked back over to Rhys with her hands behind her back, hiding whatever she had in them from view.
"You sure have some interesting, er, costumes in there," Rhys murmured.
"Oh," the old crone whispered. "Yes, well…erm…I'm, er, part of a…a theater troupe! Yes, that's it! I'm in a theater troupe!"
Not entirely convinced that she herself was convinced that she was in a theater troupe—and rather sickened by the thought of a bunch of geriatrics putting on any sort of production in such costumes—Rhys changed the subject. "So, what was it that you wanted to give me?"
"Oh, right. Well, I was feeling sorry that I couldn't tell you all of your future because the laughing was foreshadowing it and telling you would have given it away, so I decided to give you a gift that will help you fulfill your destiny!" With that, she brought her hands in front of her body to reveal…a sword.
"Ack! Get it away from me!" Rhys had skittered backward, trying to find a wall, and had instead fallen through the curtained doorway.
The old crone laughed, then helped him up. "Don't worry, pumpkin, it's not dangerous. Heck, it's not even sharp. It's made of plastic, light as a feather. This way, you can train as a swordsman with your beloved and you can be a swordsman just like she wants, only you don't really have to be, which is what you want, so your relationship will be built on lies, but…listen to me, I sound like that Dr. Phil kook! Go now, go and meet your destiny! Find your true love!
"B-b-but what about the fee?"
"Don't worry, I lifted your purse back there and extracted the fee—among other expenses. Now go!" She shoved him out the door and into the crowd, watching as he was swept away by the ebb and flow of traffic. Feeling sentimental, she called after him, "Come back and watch a performance sometime!"
She stood there for a few moments, until a voice from the shadows whispered "Psst, lady. I'd like to buy some apples."
Without looking for a voice, she answered, "Regular or special?"
(DIVIDER!)
A/N (again): Okay, well, sorry about the length, but with a three-act story it kinda just happened. Now do you see why it took me so long to update? On another note, if you stuck it out and read to the end of this chapter, you might as well review it. You could at least have the common courtesy to do that. Especially if you were one of those clamoring for a new chapter! Okay, my ranting is done. My fingers are tired.