Ye Olde Disclaimere Ande Introductione
First off, let's not forget the important stuff. You know, the stuff to cover my own backside. None of this is mine. The characters of Aric, Emilio, Ellisia, Lhynn, Kaia, Galamoth, Merlya and a handfull of miscellaneous extras are my own creations, but as they themselves exist in the Slayers world I cannot truly even claim credit for them. Such is the life of a fic'er who likes to tell his stories from an original perspective.
With that done, on to the Introductione.
Well, here it is. My third attempt at submitting something to . Though this notion is actually older than both of my other two together. First and foremost, I should probably warn that this…is not a Slayers fic in the sense that many would consider. It isn't a romantic interlude between a popular couple (or even an unlikely couple) from the Slayers canon cast. Nor is it a full-fledged story centered around a canon romantic involvement. Nor for that matter, a full-fledged story not centered around a canon romantic involvement. There's a particular reason this story is called only "Ruby-Eye" and not "Slayers Ruby-Eye" or suchlike.
Slayers is the story of Lina Inverse. Bandit-basher. Treasure-taker. Dragon-spooker and the Enemy of All who Live. Other people generally tend to get involved, because that's what happens when heroes and anti-heroes are concerned.
But this is not her story.
This isn't even the story of her children or children's children, or any of those other next-generation ideas.
This is the story of an entirely different group of adventurous misfits, with their own set of trials and legends to make. While they may periodically intersect with the thread that is Lina Inverse's career-after all, as tangled as said thread is, such a thing is almost inevitable-they are quite firmly set upon their own thread.
This is the story of a young sorcerer with red eyes, a half-breed out to prove herself, and a devil's bargain.
It doesn't have the most noble or exciting or even terribly original of beginnings…but then, legends have to start somewhere, don't they?
I only hope you good people will enjoy reading this yarn as much as I enjoy spinning it.
Oh, yes, of course…I almost forgot. And for all you people who have some problem with my handling of canon matters, violations of rules and/or creative license? As always, bite me. n.n This is fanfiction, and I am in no way saying it conforms 100 (or even 50) with the generally accepted rules and whatnot. Enjoy it, or offer constructive criticism, or don't read and go find something you do want to. Nobody's twisting your arm to read this stuff.
And to those people willing to take things with a grain of salt and enjoy things, or simply tell me how I can make this the best work I can possibly offer? I thank you for your time and advice. The tale begins on a fairly unremarkable road in the wilderness, a simple passage route from one town to the next, not particularly special in any sense of the word…
"C'mon now, we ain't got all day, boyo."
The voice belong to a rather roughshod figure, the sort that seemed to carry a faint miasma about their person vaguely reminiscent of raw sewage. Scarred and dirt-caked visage, ratty clothing, and a pair of rather sharp-looking daggers-each held point-down in one hand-identify this figure as the truly stereotypical "thief" figure, an image he was at the moment delighting in taking full advantage of. His companion, another tried-and-true stereotype of muscular man-mountain, large of girth and heavy of battleaxe, stood just behind the shorter, thinner man with a kind of glaze in his eyes that implied no conscious thought save waiting for the command: "Tiny, kill." or words to that effect.
Needless to say, the person to whom they were speaking was not amused. Okay, that's putting it nicely. He had been walking all day. His already dust-caked cloak was torn from a bramble he had inadvertently snagged it in earlier today. The resulting fall, when he had tripped as the snag came un-snagged had caused his money-pouch to drop, effectively spilling its contents and forcing him to spend a good ten minutes picking up the contents from the dirt (he'd probably left a good quarter of his cash buried in the sand somewhere that he'd been unable to find) and now whenever he finally got to an inn he'd have to sift all that dirt out. On top of all that, now these guys wanted to steal the rest? He wouldn't have reacted terribly well to that even on a good day and this day thus far was quite distant from anything "good" already.
"Anytime you're ready, sonny," the thin, scar-faced man went on, walking one dagger impatiently over the backs of his knuckles, "Come on, I know you don't wanna know what it feels like to swallow supper with a nice little slit in yer neck, now do ya?"
Aric Winterbourne lifted one hand, sheathed in a tattered and patched brown leather glove that had seen many better days, and raked his fingers through his unruly head of short, deep blue hair, narrowing his strikingly crimson-irised eyes. Under normal conditions, he would have let this pass with a grain of salt. A Dill Brand at most. However, these were not "normal conditions".
Lifting his two gloved hands in front of him, palms down and fingers half-curled into claw-like gestures, he began to murmur quietly, his voice slowly rising in inflection and a faint echo building behind his tone.
"You who goes through both Air and Earth,
Gentle flow, floating Water
Gather to my hands and be my power!"
During the course of the incantation, lightning-like tendrils of blue-colored Magical energy had snaked out from his fingertips, forming a complex vein-like pattern between his fingers and the ground that flickered and wavered like strands of spider-silk catching the light. Upon speaking the last word, he raised his blood-red gaze to the two before him and cried out with all the frustration that had built up thus far today, "Demona Crystal!" The Mana dancing in the air about his hands exploded-in the ethereal sense that only a fellow magic-user could feel-toward the two in front of him, the blue strands of light flaring up before vanishing in a white flash of light. When the light cleared, a four-foot-wide chunk of ground between Aric and his assailants had been rent asunder by the horizontal column of ice that he had created, and the two would-be bandits were both encased in a titantic chunk of transparent ice...ice so solid that it would take weeks to melt, unless some benevolent fire-wielder happened to come along and free them.
Dusting off his hands, he "hmphed" a bit as he walked past, the fringes of his cloak falling to enshroud him from the neck down again and his gaze dropping back to the road before him. He still had a lot of walking to do...
- - -
Chapter One
Orsoil...was a quiet hovel of a town. A farming-community for the most part, though it did have a small magic-shop. Typical place to pick up such little novelties as four-sided triangle diagrams for spell-charting and maps of the inside of a Dragon's stomach. You know. Vital tools to any traveling sorcerer's success.
However, this strays far from the point of our story, for Aric Winterbourne is not the sort to dally in magical novelty-shops. More specifically, he was reclining this evening in the bed of the inn he had conveniently stumbled upon, after sifting the sand out of his sadly depleted bag of coinage. He sighed quietly, his hands folded behind his head-now un-gloved with the fingers interwoven through the unruly azure hair at the back of his head-on the pillow and his legs stretched out. Wriggling the toes of his now unencumbered feet, he cast a glance toward the doorway next to which his boots rested, frowning. His cloak was, at the moment, being mended at the village tailor's, and he would probably have to buy new gloves. He wondered idly if maybe he should go back and thaw those two so-called bandits he'd left on the road with a well-placed and overcharged fireball, take their ill-gotten gains off their hands for them, but at the moment he didn't feel like trudging through the woods and fields again just to find a pair of hoodlums who might have already been rescued by some unfortunate sap.
Besides, he still had a good bit of money remaining...more than he had expected, in fact. He'd been half afraid that most of the weight in his money-pouch had consisted of the dirt scooped up with the money, but he had quite thankfully been proven mistaken. Time to kick back, relax, and get some well-earned shut-eye.
...or not.
"It's been a long day," Aric said quietly without opening aneye, "And if you take one step closer, your day is gonna get a whole lot shorter."
The presence in the room halted where it was, a good several paces from the bed. "Is that so?" The voice was almost condescending.
"I dunno what your kind wants with me, Mazoku," Aric went on, his tone suggestive of nothing more than discussing the weather, quirking one brow as azure as his hair, an eyelid twitching just on the verge of cracking. "But you should know I can pin you to the wall with an Elmekia Lance right now before you could blink."
"It's always so exasperating dealing with human sorcerers," the Demon-Race creature standing halfway across the room went on, his own voice equally pleasant, "Always that sense of superiority."
"You've got about until the time I finish this senten-"
The Mazoku in question took his cue. "I have a proposition to make."
"Not quite good enough..." One hand moved from where it rested behind his head, his palm pointed in the direction of the speaker.
"Please, please, let us not be hasty!" Cracking one eyelid, Aric caught the silhouette from the corner of his eye raising its hands with palm toward him in an "I surrender" gesture. "Hold a moment, my boy!"
Aric held a moment.
"You've not even heard what I plan to offer..."
"Not interested."
"A ridiculous sum of money?"
"Not int-money?"
He couldn't see the expression on the silhouette's face, but he could have sworn he could feel the sly smile spreading. "...still not interested."
"Oh? Hmm...how about money and power?"
The other eye opened. "Explain..."
"Ah, it seems I have your attention at last."
"I can still hurl that Elmekia Lance anytime, you know." Aric's fingers twitched ever so slightly, superficial tendrils of invisible power writhing in the air at his fingertips.
"Very well, very well. I want you to find someone."
"Find someone...? Doesn't seem so bad..."
"Now, what's your price? A thousand? Ten thousand?"
Aric felt a small, amused smirk creep its way onto his face. "Keep adding zeroes..."
"Very well. One hundred thousand in gold, and the magic artifact in question-which, coincidentally, you can find in the very labyrinth to which I will be guiding you."
Aric narrowed his eyes, turning his head toward the shadow on the other side of the room. "All right. Consider it done. Do I get to know who's hiring me?"
"Galamoth..." was the only answer, as the silhouette faded into the deeper shadows behind it.
"H-Hey wait! Wait a second!" Aric threw himself to a seated pose and tugged on those invisible strands of power, unleashing a small Bram Blazer that hammered harmlessly into the wall where the Mazoku had been. Too late...he was gone.
"...didn't even tell me where the hell I'm supposed to be going..."Aric muttered, then sighed and eased himself down to the bed again.
Aric tugged a bit at the base of one of his new gloves, pulling the fingers more snugly into place, as he waited with as much patience as possible for the tailor to retrieve his cloak from the back. The man had promised him that the repair job should be so flawless he wouldn't be able to tell it was damaged in the first place. For the other's sake, Aric hoped it held true to the tailor's word.
His head was still swirling with the vague promises of power and wealth that had been offered to him. Of course, Mazoku were demons from the darkest corners of metaphysical space-their word was worth about as much as a wooden penny-but they had been known to exchange such glamorous prizes for tasks on occasion, and finding someone sounded innocent enough. He had just taken to whistling quietly and lightly tapping the toe of one boot on the hardwood floor, when the quiet sound of a throat being cleared caught him off-guard. "Wh-Wha-!" He coughed quietly into a gloved fist, clearing his throat, as he regained his composure and turned back to the counter.
"Ehrm...thanks," he mumbled, lifting the newly-mended white cloak up for inspection. Nodding a bit in approval and flourishing it around behind him to drape it about his shoulders. Fastening the front of the collar, he adjusted the fringes of it around himself. That should be everything. Maybe next he'd stop by the Magic-sho-ah, who was he kidding?
He had enough time to step out of the shop-having paid in advance the day before for the mending-and turn a corner on the cobblestone roadway, when he heard it. That same cool, smooth voice from the previous evening.
"Well, well, well, you look like you're all dressed up with nowhere to go, my friend..."
"You..." Aric murmured, steadfastly refusing to glance in that direction. "You never told me where I'm supposed to go."
"Oh yes, I did forget that little detail, didn't I?" The amusement in Galamoth's voice was unmistakable, almost driving Aric into Elmekia-lancing him on the spot.
"Yes," he said, forcing some semblance of pleasantness into his own voice. "Yes, you did."
"So sorry about that, old boy, it won't happen again." Aric turned to fix Galamoth with a glare, but once again all that was visible was a black outline."Who is it you're wanting me to find, and why?"
"Now, now, that's hardly any of your business, now is it? Yours is not to wonder why…yours is but to do and become filthy stinking rich and insanely powerful. In one fell swoop."
That, Aric couldn't very well argue with. "So where to, then, Galamoth?"
"Close your eyes, my boy," was the simple answer. Aric narrowed them instead, at first, but finally did as he was told.
"Now...open them."
Again, Aric opened his blood-red eyes. "Wh-!" was the most intelligent remark he could make on his surroundings.
"Come now, it isn't so bad. A little dank and musty on the inside, maybe, but..."
The subject in question was what looked to be the remnants of a dilapidated temple of sorts. Judging from the icons and other such decorations carved into the surface of the oddly sky-bluish, marble-like surface of the entrance-all of which resembled, as closely as Aric could make out, winged lizards or snakes with unrealistic proportions or features-the designer had been gifted with an unhealthy imagination, or a fascination with dragons. Surrounding the structure on all sides, walling off the sizeable clearing in which it lay, was an almost solid wall of maddeningly thick forest.
"Okay...tell me again exactly why it is you can't go in here, yourself?" Aric turned to face the Mazoku in question, but Galamoth was nowhere in sight. "Dammit..."
That left precious few options. There was no way he was going to forge his way through all that forest. He wouldn't even know which way to go...! Besides, if he could find whoever that Galamoth character had been looking for-the problem with that being, he had no idea who he was looking for.
Again, he wasn't left with much alternative. With an exasperated sigh, he lifted his hands to straighten the clasp of his cloak, wearily shook his head, and started walking into that dank maw.
The instant he set foot across the threshold, he realized-with a sharp intake of breath that was the only thing stifling a vile curse-just exactly why that thrice-cursed Mazoku hadn't been willing to come in here. This place...something was wrong. He couldn't feel that intangible power surrounding the fibers of his very being any longer, that raw Mana in the air. Somehow this place, either by artificial means or fluke of nature, was utterly void of Magic, cut off from the Astral plane from which Magic was spawned.
Not only did that render most if not all of his own Magic utterly useless, but Mazoku were utterly unable to function in any location without a link to the Astral Plane. Only relatively powerful Mazoku were even able to manifest themselves willingly in the Material realm, and even then they resided primarily in the Astral Plane. Mazoku were roughly the Astral equivalent of...demons, perhaps would be the closest word, if not almost exact. They thrived on the suffering, hatred, and other negative emotions of other creatures, particularly humans...and they were creatures so utterly dependent on their own egos that should one become belittled, it could even so far as physically damage the Mazoku in question.
So...that explained a few things. But...who the hell would be dumb enough to come in here, anyway. What kind of Magic Artifact could be-wait, stupid question. How better to guard a Magic artifact from mages than to booby-trap a lair where magic didn't work? It made sense, in a typically devious fashion... Of course, that didn't mean that he had to like it.
About an hour, a dozen narrowly-escaped pitfalls and contracting walls and spiked balls, and a frustration-induced migraine later, Aric finally allowed his crimson eyes to narrow in satisfaction. Somewhere in the near distance-any oxymoron not withstanding-too far in the shadows ahead for him to really make out (damn the dim torchlight) was a figure. If it wasn't the person Galamoth wanted? Too damn bad, Aric was dragging whoever it was back out of here, and to hell with all magical treasure left in here. It wasn't bloody worth this much trouble!
The room both he and the other "intruder" stood in was a great, high-ceilinged hallway, perhaps once a Great Hall or some such. To either side of the much-distanced walls was a row of support-columns that traversed the length of the corridor. Of course, naturally, each row was missing part of two or three columns, and they were chipped and rugged enough with age to provide ideal hand-and-footholds for climbing.
But he needed a suitable spot to get the jump on them...after all, if a Mazoku wanted them it seemed highly unlikely that they would actually be willing to go along with him. He peered to either side for a moment, then grinned slowly. Ahhh...perfect. Gloved hands rubbing together, he cackled wickedly-but softly, for a full and satisfying cackle would have strongly defeated the purpose of an espionage-style attack.
Naturally, the Master of Stealth had absolutely no trouble sneaking his way behind one of them, zipping mostly silently from one to another, until he finally found himself behind one that was close enough to serve his purpose.
Again, he employed his masterful sense of furtiveness, clambering to the top of the half-broken pillar with a minimum of shuffling would with all luck be disregarded as imagination or large skulking beast, whichever came first.
"Heh heh..." he grinned wickedly, "Never see it comin'..." He managed to stifle a snicker, shifting his position and waiting for an opportune time to "drop in" on his quarry.
"Little closer..." he murmured under his breath, creeping toward the edge of the column, "C'mon...little more to the left...tha-at's it.……Perfect!" he hissed, creeping just a bit further. The silhouette had moved just close enough for him to pinpoint a landing.
"Gotcha!" he exulted, diving down from the top of the damaged column and onto the figure in a diving tackle.
Then...something went wrong. Aric quite suddenly found himself in a remarkably uncomfortable position: pressed face-first into the side of one of the columns that lined the walls, his uncanny sense of balance also notifying him that he was upside down...and that his face and front hurt like unholy hell from slamming with such force into the column. That...wasn't part of the plan.
Slowly, he felt himself sliding down the side of the column, the top of his head contacting the marble floor below with a thankfully not-too-painful thunk, before he dropped down to land flat on his back.
"A-Alright, listen, pal," he said, dragging himself to his feet with the aid of one hand on the side of the column behind him, the other pushing up against the floor, "I dunno who the hell you think you are, but-Whoa."
It goes without saying, "whoa" was not what Aric Winterbourne had originally intended to follow up his conjunction with. It also goes without saying, that the reason he so abruptly changed his mind was because of the sight that met his eyes once he lifted them from the marble floor and to his chosen target.
What was not quite so obvious was the fact that the subject in question was hardly what he had been expecting to find so deep in the middle of an utterly magic-void ruin, sought after by a Mazoku willing to shower him in riches and power, nor one who looked quite able to send him flying across the room.
What his gaze met when he lifted his eyes was a girl.