xOxOxO
Zelgadis and Lina didn't have a map to the bass crab hoard and didn't need one. A growing number of gigantic molted shell pieces, jutting up from the snowy shore like sculptures, marked the way. Hours passed before they spotted their first live crab, which Lina lashed apart with a Balus Rod.
Since Zelgadis was in charge, they'd come prepared for a change. He'd packed spears and bows just in case. They'd relayed their plans to Gourry and Pokota, who promised to meet up with them later in the day. The only snag was how they kept stopping to debate Xellos and the ring.
As frequently happened when Zelgadis and Lina argued for too long, they'd ended up on opposite sides: Lina decided she didn't like the deal, while Zelgadis argued it was worth it to have Xellos on the hook for answers, provided they asked the right questions. Outwitting Xellos was never a possibility, but you could sometimes use his influence to your advantage.
"Well, we've got it just in case," Lina said, showing off a ring she'd braided together with a small lock of her hair. "Not like I couldn't make more, obviously. Wish I could see my sister's face when I tell her the mazoku want this hair. And she says I don't use enough conditioner!"
Further down the beach they were accosted by more crabs waving and snapping their pincers. Zelgadis all but tore his sword off his belt in anticipation, and the words "Astral Vine" were past his lips before he remembered saying them. Battle-thirst aroused his senses, sharpened his focus.
Two crabs charged at him, but Zelgadis was ready. When their powerful major claws thrust forward he ran forward, into their line of attack, and cut upwards to sever one of their minor claws instead; he knew now that the minor claws were more dangerous. As the one crab screeched and thrashed, the other scuttled back. Oh, no you don't. "Elmekia Flame!" he shouted, casting it straight into its wide abdomen. The pillar of flame tore it to pieces.
"Be careful," he warned Lina, who chanted a Flare Lance. "These things have some magical defenses."
"Defenses shmefences. I'm looking for treasure." She sent the lance sailing far overhead and into a depression in the ground, where it melted the surrounding ice. "If we see them all running to protect something then we'll be getting close, right?"
"Don't send them all straight at us!"
"Oh, please. They won't—"
A seismic wave ran along the beach, shaking the snow under their feet and cracking apart whole sheets of ice. Zelgadis felt hundreds of pointed limbs surging towards them, scrambling from beneath the surface.
"Aheh," Lina coughed. "Well…"
Something brown and green and moving fast caught Zelgadis's attention. He swung out with his fist to stop it as it raced by and wound up decking Kaunan. The man somersaulted across the ice before hitting his head on a crab shell. He dropped aside, howling, but clung to the straps of a leather bag secured across his back.
"Wh…what the…"
Zelgadis approached and pointed the tip of his blade at the man's chin. "Explain yourself," he demanded.
"Explain what?" Kaunan retorted, with the confidence of someone accustomed to this position. He grimaced at Zelgadis's sword. "I was around, got a hot tip, so what?"
"Why are you here? What were you doing at the ice temple?"
He would never get an answer. They were both flung aside by hundreds of enormous rampaging bass crabs that surged forward like gushing blood. Zelgadis cast a Windy Shield to protect himself from the countless limbs as they clattered past.
At least they're not attacking us anymore. As the crabs thundered past, the ground sloped down, caving inwards. Zelgadis spotted Lina Levitating overhead. "Lina!" he called.
She gave him a thumbs-up. "You got it!" she said, and dropped down beside him. "Bephis Bring!"
Snow and ice erupted above them in glittering plumes as they fell. They tumbled down a long round hole until they rolled to a stop in a dismal, empty tunnel. Lina and Zelgadis cast Lighting together. Their spells combined outlined more of a dismal, empty tunnel in the snow.
"Bephis Bring?" Zelgadis complained. "You could've caused a cave-in!"
"Nah. If their treasure is really down here, it'll be well protected." She stood and wiped off her cloak. "C'mon, let's go."
The tunnel burrowed down at a steep angle through solid ice and stone. When a crab skittered out to confront them, Zelgadis realized Lina was leading the way. He elbowed her aside to cast Astral Vine and take the first strike.
"Wow, rude."
"I'm sure you'll have plenty of others," he said, jumping atop the massive front claw and seizing the minor claw in a death grip he'd learned from Prince Phil. He severed the smaller claw and drove the sword down the ridge between its eyestalks. It broke apart into twitching fragments.
"H-hello?" said someone, soft and tearful. "Hello?!"
Lina pushed her Lighting spell further down the length of the tunnel, illuminating a thin yellow-colored fish-person and two smaller ones beside it. Their boneless knees knocked together in fear.
"C-can you help us?" the fish-person said timidly. "Please don't leave us behind!"
"We're getting you out of here," Zelgadis replied. "Lina, take them back to the surface."
"Since when am I the babysitter?!" She pushed at Zelgadis, and he resisted. They ended up walking shoulder-to-shoulder towards the fish-people, which instinctively ran to Lina. "This is too much."
"It's so cold down here," the smallest fish-person wept into her side. "They made us sleep on a big pile of emeralds—"
"Emeralds?" Lina repeated, and Zelgadis could see her protest evaporate. "That's the worst thing I ever heard! Go show Auntie Lina where those nasty crabs made you sleep."
The fish-people led them further along the tunnel, which began to curve upwards again. At one point the path forked in two, angled far apart. "The crabs keep us here," said the yellow fish-prisoner, taking Lina down towards the left. "Another man was just down here, but he picked up all the round rocks and ran when the earthquake started…"
Zelgadis paused. His Lighting spell did little to brighten the other path. Whatever was down there was somehow stronger, absorbing the light. "Lina," he said, not looking back as he turned to follow it, "I'm taking the other way."
"Uh-huh," she said, just as inattentive. She had emeralds on the brain.
He walked along, with each step more aware that he would regret this. Don't go this way, said a new presence in his mind. There's nothing good here. There's so much needless suffering.
Good, he thought, trying to shut it out. Needless suffering is what I do.
His Lighting spell dimmed and shrank until it was the size of a fist, but it was just enough to reveal a sprawling chamber at the tunnel's end. Thousands of glowing blue baubles were hoarded together in a gleaming pile thick with mist. An ancient bass crab, covered in bony white nubs, sat heaving atop the pile.
These aren't the treasures you seek, the old crab thought at him. It was the presence already in his head.
A bauble rolled by his foot, smelling of tears and runny mucus; someone's lost heartache. "Yes, they are," Zelgadis said aloud. To his relief, the creature understood.
These are poisons and sicknesses. We take them away.
He wanted to cast an Elmekia Lance and be done with it, but somehow Zelgadis knew that wasn't the right thing to do. "These aren't poisons, these are pieces of souls," he said, glad Lina wasn't here to laugh at him. "You can't tell, but you've been changed by the mist. You're hurting people."
Its eyes wobbled. At last it responded, just as any ancient being would when confronted with the possibility that its way of life was causing harm.
You're lying!
It hurled itself forward, faster than anything that size and age ought to be able to move, and Zelgadis had to parry before he could cast Astral Vine.
"Elmekia Flame!" His spell would have been a direct hit, but the old crab used its major claw to bat it aside as though it were a simple projectile, then swung back again to strike him. Zelgadis tripped backwards on top of the baubles. They shattered around him and floated up into the air as wispy blue flames.
All those useless emotions, aren't they poisons too? Don't you want to be rid of things that pain you?
"I don't," Zelgadis said, praying he meant it. This time he had enough time to cast Astral Vine, and the brilliant red beam helped him see. He got in a hit on one of the spindly legs and sliced off its tip. The crab made a loud chittering cry in its throat and shifted around to balance the excess momentum of its massive body.
"Goz Vu Row!"
The shadow rippled across the ground, breaking and freeing more fragments as it rushed towards its target. Black binding waves seized the crab around its whole body and dissolved its limbs. As the crab writhed, struggling to free itself, Zelgadis hurled his sword upwards. It sliced through the minor claw in a gruesome crunch of crusty, ossified shells.
To get up and out of here, and to bring all these pieces back where they belong… For the first time in his life he was beginning to feel good about the way things were going, even as the crab's giant pincers bore down on him with lethal force.
"Dill Brand!"
xOxOxO
Rodimus blew out the candle. The smell of smoke drifted in the air.
"Shut their eyes," he said.
Zelgadis looked at the blade he held, the empty hands of the man on the floor, and the other man clutching an amulet of protection. They lay motionless, crossed by three short, bloody lines. It had all happened so fast.
Rezo said they were a threat.
"I…" he stammered.
"Shut their eyes," Rodimus said again, and with trembling hands Zelgadis knelt to gently lower the dead men's eyelids. It didn't help much. Their faces were still contorted with shock, their bodies warm.
Rezo said they were a threat…
"Now grab a mop." He nodded towards the corner.
Zelgadis seemed to float outside himself as he followed Rodimus's orders. The older man wrapped the bodies in long linens. Zolf stood watch at the entrance to the little cottage, humming a bawdy tune.
"You did well." Rodimus grunted. "Keep it clean, give them dignity."
Outside the summer air was tranquil. Fireflies danced and blinked on the grass. Indoors, death came and went without comment. In the moonlight the blood was a desperate shining red, as if the blood itself was the life that he'd cut away.
Rezo said…
xOxOxO
The royals of Seyruun were not hypocrites. Everything they said and did, they wanted everyone to know. And so it was with Amelia, who reached out with pats and taps that were demonstrative, never performative; her touch exOpressed you're so great in language the whole world could see. Over and over Zelgadis would rebuff her, I'm not, stop that, yanking his arm away like her attitude might spread all over his clothes and infect him with happy thoughts. Turns out it was infectious (he discovered too late) and almost no one was immune. Amelia spread humanity via osmosis: in Zelgadis she saw someone deserving kindness, so others could, too.
And the moment when he'd decided those touches weren't so bad was the exact moment he'd begun to feel them—not in a normal, tactile way, but his budding anticipation combined with a heightened sensitivity to heat and smell and presence, created something that felt more than one-third human…
(and sometimes Zelgadis would overhear a whispered conversation about why a beautiful young woman was with someone like him, and he'd hear colorful theories that sent so much boiling blood straight to his ears that he feared his hair would catch fire—but if that's what they thought, he wasn't about to correct them—)
xOxOxO
It was one of the precious few memories he had of his parents, and it was barely even that. It was just their voices from the next room. Zelgadis, chastised for some nebulous wrongdoing, sat with his back to his bedroom door.
He's got his blood, his mother had said. Those were the only words he could recall in her voice. How nice it would've been to hear her calling to him, singing to him, anything besides those four words full of fear and dread.
His father had made some kind of humorless laugh, like a bark. Well, hell, so do I. But he's got ours, too, doesn't he?
xOxOxO
Zelgadis had never moved faster than in that moment, when he needed to leap fifty yards from the ground to the peak where Amelia stood. He'd yelled as he did it, never mind that yelling wastes valuable energy, because for a split second sheer terror had outweighed his common sense.
Gaav's blade hadn't struck him, not really. It had just glanced his back. Yet it still slashed through his inhuman muscles, stopping only because the sheer force of the strike (itself the mildest of movements, like Gaav couldn't be bothered to finish it) sent him barreling into the mountains. The pain detonated inside him in a burst so intense it transcended feeling, melted into shock.
He was dying. Amelia remained alive and unharmed and so warm against his chest. Even as his blood drained away he made sure to cradle her head from the exploding rocks.
He was dying. His brain flashed back to a sunny morning on the road to Atlas City, when he'd parted ways with Lina and Gourry. Zelgadis hadn't wanted to go anyway, what with the authorities in Atlas City being all too aware of Rezo's mercenaries, but moreover he could tell his esteem for Lina was starting to go beyond her incredible power. Better leave now before this turns ugly, he'd thought. Months later, when he'd met up with Lina and Gourry again, he'd learned what had really made her so attractive: the idea that the world might have so many people who would accept him as he was.
One of the last things he sensed was the steady thrum of Amelia's racing heart. He was dying, and the point of living had never been more clear.
It was worth it, he decided as the world disappeared.
xOxOxO
—he could imagine every detail, down to the vase full of irises beside her on the sideboard, where she sat perched in that dazzling white and golden gown.
In this fantasy he trailed insistent kisses down her neck and outlined her bow-shaped collarbone with his teeth. She clasped her legs around him, drawing him closer. Her every pleading breath lifted her ample breasts against his face; he closed his eyes just for a moment, let the scent of lily-of-the-valley and mandarin blossoms overwhelm his reason.
Drunk on desire, on being desired, he let his fingertips dance over the bodice strings. Her whimpers were so luscious he wanted to revel in them, but he forced himself to pull away. The sudden influx of air between them was as bracing as ice water.
With one hand—maybe human, maybe not; he had lately let himself approach the exhilarating notion that he didn't have to be—he traced the length of her leg from the tip of her silver heeled shoes, moving delicately upwards over her stockings, along her powerful thighs, all the way into those spilling skirts. He pulled her to the table's edge, urgently grinding his hips against her, choking off a gasp when she rocked back onto him (to be known, desired!). She bit into his shoulder to clamp down on the cry that would have exposed them both—
xOxOxO
The term "blow demon" was a misnomer. They weren't demonic at all, and they were more irritating than dangerous. They ran away instantly at the sight of larger creatures. You could spend all your life nexOt to a cave of blow demons and never see one. For all their magical capacity, blow demons were best known for cowardice.
Golems, on the other hand, weren't even living things. Contrary to popular belief, it didn't take a great amount of magic talent to summon one; anyone who could recite a chant could make a basic golem from rocks and clay. The real skill required to wield powerful golems was charisma, the ability to hold crude intellects under your sway. No wonder Rezo had been a master.
Zelgadis thought often about them, the fearful and fleeing blow demons and the brutish golems that lived to obey. Sometimes late at night the notions reeled around in a whirlwind, driving him to horrible corners he would never dare to contemplate in the safety of daylight.
What if he couldn't be cured because there was nothing to cure? What if Rezo had merely given him a body to match what he already was?
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"Hey."
Zelgadis opened his eyes to aimless gray clouds.
"Hey, Zel. You okay?"
He rolled over to one side. He was stretched out on a rocky beach, lying against the ice and gritty snow. Lina squatted over him, and he could see the bottoms of Gourry's dark boots alongside the bare feet of fish-people. There was Pokota too, looking disappointed.
"How ya feelin'?" Lina asked.
How did he feel? What had happened? He'd…
…oh…
Grumbling, Zelgadis rolled back again and rested an arm over his eyes. Somehow this small sign of weary surrender told Lina everything she needed to know. "All right!" she said triumphantly, giving him a gleeful swat. "Zel's back, you guys!"
Pokota booed.
"Now wait for it, any second he's gonna thank me for saving his life and getting him outta there. Any second now…"
Right then Lina's enthusiasm was more than Zelgadis could stand. He tuned her out, trying to drive the bitter cold from his hands and feet. Somewhere between the crab's burrow and the shore he seemed to have gained a hundred pounds.
"...and I think we're gonna give Xellos this," Lina was saying as she showed off the ring.
"You made that?" Gourry said. "It looks like a little kid made it."
"All right, all right, so I'm not the crafter of the year! Geez, I'd like to see you try!"
…Xellos?…Wait a minute…
The events of the past few days took on a new and sobering cast. A horrible revelation turned Zelgadis's insides to dust. "Xellos," he groaned, sitting up and putting his head in his hands. He felt even heavier. "It was Xellos."
"Huh? What is it?"
"Lina," Zelgadis said as he swallowed down bile, "Xellos wanted a red hair ring."
"What? I know—"
"No." He gave her a doleful look from between his fingers. "The hot tip Kaunan got about treasure, the priest that taught him about the stones and the lost magic in the first place. It's Xellos. And when we were about to find out, Xellos wanted a red herring."
Lina's bright eyes went wide and she sputtered with fury. "W-wait a second! That whole thing was just a distraction? He wanted us to waste time fighting so that Kaunan could steal the stones before we got there?!"
"Now, now, Lina-san." Xellos appeared beside her and plucked the ring from her grasp. The sight of him made Zelgadis indescribably nauseated all over again, and so he stared back into his hands. "Not just that. You've also given me a very valuable magic talisman."
"Whoa, whoa! What about my questions?!"
"Don't you worry. We'll meet again very soon, and in what I suspect will be far more delightful circumstances. But it's not polite to interrogate someone who's just had a lovely meal. Goodbye, Lina-san…our encounters are always so rewarding, don't you think?"
Xellos left them alone with the frozen ocean. Zelgadis wished he'd been buried with the crabs.
"This is your fault!" Lina accused, kicking snow in Zelgadis's direction. "You never should've suggested giving it to him!"
"My fault?!" he snapped, but couldn't manage any argument beyond an incoherent howl of frustration. He sank back into the snow as Lina stomped her feet and swore.
"You two are the dumbest smart people I know," Pokota said.
xOxOxO
Amelia had an addendum for the Seyruun World Factbook: Yalain was breathtaking. Even in port, which was bustling and grubby as ports always were, the mountains with their silvery clouds beckoned them into a primitive fairytale, the sort that had shapeshifting swans and enchanted cottages on giant fowl's legs. She was so enthralled that she didn't mind when they arrived without a proper reception. Their only greeting came from an apologetic servant of the duke's, who informed them their sleighs were late.
It was an inauspicious start. As an individual, Amelia didn't care, but the crown of Seyruun demanded a certain standard of treatment. She had sent pigeons to the duke of Yalain informing them of her imminent arrival. Was it an accident, or was it a clear sign of just how little the duke respected Seyruun? She sighed. Traveling was so much nicer when your head wasn't full of politics.
"...but that gives us some time to see Yalain!" she exOplained to her companions. Filia and Sylphiel, equally captivated by the winter wonderland, were happy to oblige. Meanwhile, beastmen weren't native to Yalain, and Jillas was just as happy to get away from all the horrified stares. The four of them had barely made it outside the port village when they were stopped by a shrill cry like a cracked handbell.
"Is that…Jillas? Filia?!"
Amelia whipped around. "Lina-san!"
Pure joy overcame her at the sight of her friends approaching from a road to the south. Amelia saw Lina's bright red hair first, sticking out from under the hood of a mossy green cloak, and she ran to embrace her in a Seyruun-strength squeeze.
"Oh, Lina-san, you're all safe! I'm so glad!"
"What the heck are you doing here, huh?" Lina pulled back and grinned. Even through all her winter gear she still smelled of garlic. "Wow, look at you, the snow queen!"
"Snow crown princess," Amelia corrected. Traveling in her official capacity meant she had to look the part. Sylphiel had selected the long ermine fur cloak and matching muff, and under her hood she wore an ostentatious diamond tiara that declared Seyruun's prosperity. Her ears were freezing, but being princess wasn't always a comfortable job. "I'm here to rescue all of you! Where's the delegation?"
Lina's grin disappeared and Amelia felt her heart stop. She turned to Gourry, who had flinched, while Zelgadis's face was hidden behind a mask (he must like that, Amelia thought). "Say, Amelia," Lina said, "there's a really high spot up the road with a great view of Yalain. Wanna see?"
Even with her sudden sense of dread, Amelia could never refuse a really high spot. As they climbed Lina told a rambling story about rebels, magic machines, and explosions that didn't at all address how they'd wound up separated from the people they were supposed to protect. It only strengthened Amelia's resolve to reach the duke as soon as possible.
From the rocky outcropping Yalain appeared as a dreamlike vista on an icy lake, just as fantastical as the mountains promised. Amelia's eyes were drawn to a small isle, where two tall spires pointed up defiantly from a destroyed cathedral. Surrounding piles of debris and muddy snow radiated into the lake.
"Lina-san," Amelia asked, choosing her words with care, "were you involved in that?"
Lina huffed. "No, I mean…it's not…look, define 'involved'."
Amelia sighed again and tried not to think about how much trickier her job had become. She walked closer to the edge and looked out over the mountainside villages, the duke's shadowy castle, the ruins of the temple, the ever-present mist. How can people live someplace so mysterious and beautiful and not use magic? This was the most magical place she'd ever seen.
The falling snow veered sideways in a piercing cold gale and Amelia's footing slipped, but before she could start chanting Levitation she stopped in midair. Amelia blinked down into the valley far below.
Confused by this impromptu dangling, she glanced over her shoulder. Zelgadis held the back of her cloak in one hand. Amelia stepped back onto the solid ground with as much royal gravitas as she could muster. "Thank you, Zelgadis-san."
He didn't reply. She reached up to the side of his face to touch his balaclava, and was surprised when he pulled it down. His exOpression was unreadable; there was something searching in it, something hesitant, and something very tired.
"The people here haven't ever seen chimeras," Zelgadis mumbled.
"Well, they're about to," she informed him, indicating that they would be very lucky to make his acquaintance.
Back at the harbor several horse-drawn sleighs had arrived at last. The opulent sleighs, on grand iron runners and drawn by horses with braided manes, could fit three people comfortably or four who were willing to squish.
Amelia ignored a servant's waiting hand and stepped into one sleigh. She felt a tinge of disappointment as Zelgadis tossed his satchel onto the other, but then he sat down beside her, followed by Gourry and Lina. Filia, Sylphiel, and Jillas took the other.
"Hey!" yelped Pokota, worming out of the bag. "Why am I—" He poked up, saw Filia and Sylphiel, and reconsidered his protest. Jillas made the standard wordless sound of bewilderment that people usually made when first seeing Pokota. With everyone in place, the sleigh drivers set off across the lake.
"You're so lucky, Amelia!" said Lina, from the opposite side of the sleigh. Without enough space to sit properly she'd settled on putting one of her legs over Gourry, halfway in his lap. "When we first got here the ice wasn't thick enough for this. Even if it was, nobody's getting us a big fancy cushioned sleigh. Maybe I oughta start coming along on your official travel!"
"Absolutely not," Zelgadis said. Lina stuck her tongue out at him.
"Oh, that's right." Amelia took one hand out of her muff long enough to withdraw an envelope she'd stashed in her cloak. "Zelgadis-san, this letter came to the palace from Zoana, addressed to you. Do you…?"
Zelgadis snatched it out of her hands. "Oh. Right. Um, thanks." He cleared his throat and folded his arms tightly over his chest.
"Speaking of letters, I also got one from the foreign minister," Amelia said. "He said your ship was attacked by monsters! What happened?"
Lina cackled and picked at her teeth, pleased as ever to be impolite amidst upper-class trappings. "We got attacked, all right. A whole bunch of crabs that steal angst attacked the boat and tried to get everybody. But Zel has so much angst they didn't need anybody else's. They just stole all his memories and ran. Don't worry, we got 'em back, though!"
"That is not what happened," Zelgadis objected.
"They stole your memories?!" cried Amelia, aghast and heartbroken. "That's so horrible! That must have been so frightening."
They'd developed this little process over the years. Zelgadis would share something ("Zolf taught me to slit throats", he'd said once), with no ability to process or even recognize any of his emotions around it. Amelia, who felt everything for everybody, would prompt him: that's so unjust, she'd say, or you must have been so sad. He might say well, yes or it was closer to… and through trial and error they fumbled their way towards understanding his feelings.
"They didn't steal memories," he said, keeping his gaze on the castle ahead. "I remembered everything. What I lost was…context. Dreams. Meaning. Things I had decided were important. I had my memories, but didn't have any sense of why they mattered."
"But that's just as terrible!" Amelia gasped. "We're the ones who give meaning to things. It's part of…of being an organic life form, with consciousness and synapses!"
Zelgadis gave her a puzzled look. "I guess that's right," he said, bemused but not disagreeing.
"Xellos-san told me that," she exOplained.
He bristled. "Well, don't listen to him."
Amelia wondered about what kinds of meaning Zelgadis gave to a life that had been so strange and painful. For all his emotional helplessness, there were also times when Zelgadis felt so deeply that the best response was no words at all, to just be with him so he knew he wasn't alone. Maybe that was what this situation called for.
The sleigh steered hard into a turn and Amelia leaned into Zelgadis's side, letting her head and shoulder press against him. It was enough to stay like that, to let him just borrow a bit of human contact, so she was completely unprepared to feel the side of his face rest against her head.
What?! She wanted to look up, but moving a muscle would mean jeopardizing this perfect moment, and so she tried to memorize every single sensation so that no monster could ever take it from her: the lashing wind on her numb face, the smell of fresh cut trees, how the jagged stones on his jawline might be scratching the tiara through her hood and she couldn't have cared less.
It was just…a lot, he seemed to say, from that same mental place where they could communicate battle tactics at a glance. And in that same place Amelia said I know.
"Yeah, these monsters are experts in messing with your head," Lina said, and both Amelia and Zelgadis sat up. Amelia's perfect moment had lasted all of four seconds. "It's all because of the mist coming from that broken shrine. I don't think we can stop it until the shrine is repaired."
"But we can't repair the shrine without the gems," Gourry added.
"Which Xellos is keeping from us," Zelgadis said.
Amelia tried to remember the convoluted story from Lina, with limited success. "And you said he's helping the relics dealer? I wonder if that man brought that gem to Calliope."
"Of course he did. He and Xellos are spreading powerful lost magic that ruins everything it touches, including whole countries, and now the mist is corrupting the natural world too. It's got to be a mazoku plot."
"I dunno," Lina said, adjusting her leg over Gourry's thighs. "According to Dramitts the mist is coming from another plane. If he's right, I don't think mazoku would do that on purpose. You know how obsessed they are with rules and order. They're like a fancy royal social club, but with more killing."
"Wait, did you say Dramitts-san?" Amelia asked.
"Oh, well…"
Zelgadis took it upon himself to recount their adventure with the fish-people, and Amelia couldn't help but feel jealous of all the heroic exploits she'd missed. But as Zelgadis summarized, she began to think that there was plenty of excitement left.
"...so we've got to fight the monsters, including the creatures from another plane. But it won't end until we fixO the shrine, which also means we have to stop Ortolan and his machine. Beyond him, there's the duke and all the people here who hate sorcerers. Both sides are hostile to us for different reasons."
Amelia nodded. "And we have to avoid starting a civil war."
"Right."
She stood up just before the sleighs came to a stop, fixing her gaze on the castle and its sinister array of ramparts, turrets, and towers that all seemed to point straight at her. Powerful distrust had been mixed in with its clay and mortar.
"Are you worried?" Zelgadis asked.
It was proper protocol for royalty to exit first, of course, but that was too much to expect from her friends. She looked over at Lina and Gourry, out of the sleigh and talking about pickled sardines. The duke's waiting servants could barely hide their horror at Jillas and Pokota. Sylphiel and Filia rose with the sophistication of strangers from a much more serious place.
Amelia turned back to Zelgadis, still at her side. She knew he was wary of the situation. But he trusted her judgment and would always have her back.
"I'm not."