After lunch, the group continued on. Wilam and Gourry took turns breaking the path. Zelgadiss offered to take a turn, but Sylphiel shot that idea down due to his recent illness, and the two other men agreed with her. He spent a lot of the trip alternately muttering and glaring and Wilam and Gourry. He tried to glare at Sylphiel, but her raised eyebrow just dared him to disagree with her.
Lina kept up a pretense of good cheer... or rather, normal behavior, but she was so tired that she didn't complain about the cold nearly enough. Amelia chatted with Xellos, who for once didn't seem to mind the bouncy princess's attitude.
Around mid-afternoon, Sylphiel took a few moments to share her fears with the one person in the group who she trusted to keep an eye on Lina.
"Gourry, have you noticed anything unusual about Lina?" Sylphiel didn't really have enough experience traveling with Lina to judge, maybe this was normal.
Gourry thought for a moment, then patted Sylphiel's hand where is rested on his arm. "She's a little quieter than usual, but it's not really anything to worry about. Lina's a more complex person than most people give her credit for. She might be loud and rash, but she cares very much about her friends. I'm sure she's just worried about Zel."
Sylphiel thought back to what she knew about Lina. "I know that she cares, no one has ever questioned that..."
"Did you know, when we had to fight that Red guy... the first one, not that other one... Well, we all talked about what we needed to do, but it was Lina that insisted we finish it. She was willing to die rather than give up when we needed her." Gourry smiled, remembering Lina's little speech and how it made him feel that he'd done the right thing becoming her protector.
Looking up at Gourry's smile, Sylphiel felt her heart sink. Gourry was probably right... he might not be the fastest thinker, but when he took the time to think things through, his thoroughness was amazing. If Lina had been that willing to do whatever was necessary for people she had only known for a few weeks, how would she respond to the death of a friend.
Sylphiel leaned into Gourry, not liking the conclusion she was coming to. "Gourry, dear... can you do something for me?"
Gourry looked down at her, and smiled, patting her hand again. "I'd do almost anything for you, Sylphiel."
Sylphiel was so concerned that she didn't even blush at this, "Will you watch Lina for me, Gourry. I'm afraid that she's going to do something as dangerous as fighting Rezo... or maybe more dangerous, since this might not be a battle that she can win."
"Is that all, Sylphiel? Of course... I do that anyway." Gourry was puzzled, but he took Sylphiel's request to heart. Sylphiel wouldn't ask unless it was important.
A few feet away, the smile stayed on Xellos's face as he continued to chat with Amelia. 'What could Lina possibly be doing that was that dangerous... I don't sense anything nearby that she can't handle, even with just a sword and her lighting spell. I'll have to keep an eye on her, just in case...'
At the head of the little column, Wilam stopped and held up his hand. The group slowed, and came to a stop behind him. Lina wavered a bit, but only Xellos noticed, everyone else was busy looking at the thin, ice-covered path ahead.
"We've got to get past this part, then the trail is easy to the way station. Do people want to stop and rest, or press on while it's still light?" Wilam pointed ahead to the slippery trail. "We will need to cross one at a time, not sure how strong that ledge still is. Magic is very difficult to perform here, due to the inhibiting nature of the rock around us, otherwise we could just levitate across."
Murmurs of 'let's press on' and 'get to our camping spot' echoed back to Wilam, who nodded, and started forward. The thin layer of snow left on the path covered a thick patch of ice, and the wind whipped past the edge of the path through the deep chasm below. Wilam moved quickly, testing the path each step of the way, then he was on the other side. He waved back at the group, keeping an eye out as each member of the group made their way across.
Sylphiel and Amelia followed Wilam, moving carefully, and only wavering a little on the slipperiest parts. A brief argument broke out as to who would go next, but Lina won it by threatening to throw Gourry to the other side if he didn't move. Xellos bounded across, leaning far out over the edge and remarking on the drop, while Gourry and Lina argued.
When he reached the far side, and was sitting next to Amelia on a little rock outcropping, Gourry started across. When he reached the other side, Lina turned to Zelgadiss, who laughed at her.
"If weight is really an issue, you should go next, Lina." Zel motioned to his body, "You'd get stuck here if I broke the ledge."
Lina looked at her friend, wishing there was some way to reassure her friend without sounding trite. She smiled sadly, then wearily stood and started across the slippery path. Either the fading light, or the slippery surface, or Lina's tiredness conspired against her. Midway across, she placed a foot wrong, and started to slide towards the edge of the path. Her frightened casting of Levitation was the last straw, and with a cry of pain, Lina Inverse, Sorcery Genius, crumpled to the ground, hanging partially over the edge of the drop.
Shocked faces and three people instinctively moving forward was probably a bad idea... an even worse idea was...
"Miss LINA!" Amelia shrieked, aghast at seeing her mentor laid low by a patch of ice. Xellos swore, and covered her mouth, but it was already too late.
All eyes turned towards the princess, terror on the faces of the few with experience in snowy mountains... all eyes, except Zelgadiss's, which remained focused on the crumpled figure in the snow. A rumbling sound echoed down the side of the mountain, seeming to drive the chimera's figure forward even faster. He was kneeling next to Lina when the crack echoed up from the chasm. Even Zelgadiss's demonic speed was no match for the combined gravity of the falling snow and crumbling rock.
The party watched helplessly as falling snow obscured the images of their friends, Lina lying pale and still, her hair spread like blood across Zelgadiss's gray-cloaked shoulder. Amelia was certain that the image would follow her forever, and lay helpless in Xellos's arms sobbing like her heart had broken.
Sylphiel and Gourry clung together, not really sure who was supporting whom. Each felt their guilt weighing them down, Gourry sure that had he only been watching, the tragedy could have been averted, Sylphiel certain that the deaths were here fault.
"If only..." She sobbed into Gourry's shoulder, holding on to him both for support, and to keep him from throwing himself into the chasm after their friends. "If only I had never mentioned the temple, if I had never mentioned the spell, if I had never tied Lina's magic to Zelgadiss's curse..."
Xellos sat up, dropping the weeping princess as Sylphiel's words registered. His rage beat against the stricken priestess like lava off a volcano.
"What. Did. You. DO?" Xellos's eyes were open, and Sylphiel had never seen hate so strong. A part of her quailed in the face of his emotion, but another part stood up against his pain. After all, his people had done so much worse to her.
"I did what I could to try to save my friend. What did YOU do? All you've done is annoy us, trick us, send us on a wild chase across the world to try to find a cure that you've probably had all this time." Sylphiel's rage was cold, clear as crystal and sharp as a knifepoint. "If you would just stop playing these stupid games, Lina and Zelgadiss would be alive."
"Ha!" Xellos shut his eyes, her rage calming him, mellowing him like a child with a bottle. "Shows what you know... you think his mother would let me continue if I kept something like that from him? Pathetic, Miss Sylphiel... trying to push your guilt off on me. I warned you... I warned you all..."
Realizing he'd said too much, Xellos waved his forefinger at the seething Priestess and laughed.
"They are still alive you know... maybe if you hurry..." Xellos faded away, his words drifting across the party like the first breeze of spring across a field. Cold, with the memory of winter's death, his words carried a tiny hint of hope to come.
Amelia lifted a tearstained face, looking at the rest of the party with painful hope in her eyes.
"But how do we save them without magic?" She asked, ignoring the tearstains as she focused on a new goal.
"Same way the rest of the world does. We use ropes, pitons, and sweat." Wilam responded, pulling supplies out of the bag he insisted on carrying, rather than storing in a pocket space.
While Wilam showed Gourry how to tie himself a harness to climb down in, Sylphiel and Amelia scouted the edge of the ledge. Wilam tried to get them to stay out of the way, but they proved too stubborn, and insisted on checking to see if they could find any sign of their missing friends.
Zelgadiss didn't stop to think about what he was doing, as soon as he saw Lina go down, he started running towards her. A little voice inside his head asked him what exactly he was doing, risking his life for the annoying sorceress, but another part of him just growled and bared it's teeth until the first part shut up.
He reached her, and almost froze there in the middle of the ledge. She looked so small, crumpled in the snow, with her bottom lip bitten through. The clinical part of his brain began comparing the blood on her face with the color of her hair on the snow... it noticed that she was uniquely suited to being unconscious and bleeding in the snow. He bent over her, and picked her up as gently as he could. She fit comfortably in his arms, the same way she had the first time he carried her while running from his own men.
Her head lay on his shoulder, but his cloak covered the rest of her... a good thing, since he could feel the cold dampness of her tunic next to his. The moisture seeped through as he drew her close. He felt the rock beneath him shudder, and knew that he would have to move more quickly than ever to get both of them out without going down the side of the mountain.
The rumble of the avalanche above him had him instinctively hunching over her, trying to protect her from the snow that enveloped them. He instinctively cast Ray-wing, not expecting it to work... but it did. Rather than floating gracefully up and out of the way, the spell simply kept them from falling, and provided some protection from the snow. The weight of the snow pressed down on the spell bubble, and should have broken it, but somehow sheer determination kept it up and protecting them.
Lina whimpered, and shuddered in his arms, drawing even closer to him and laying her forehead against his neck. With the increased contact, the spell seemed easier to maintain, and he began trying to direct them upwards, out of the crushing weight of the avalanche trying to kill them. The strain of maintaining the spell was terrible, worse even than the powerful spells he had attempted as a child trying to be a strong magician. His muscles protested, worse than the fatigue of wielding a too-heavy practice sword for hours.
He sighed tiredly into Lina's hair, the spell proving more taxing than he had imagined it would be... immediately the scent of roses filled the interior of the ray-wing bubble. Lina's breathing eased as he stopped trying to fly up through the avalanche. He looked around, and realized that there was a slight ledge just off to one side. With a last burst of effort, he moved them over to the ledge, and set the spell bubble down. The snow around them shivered a bit, but didn't collapse on them, so he sat at the edge of the spell, letting the rock wall take the job of support them against the press of snow.
After a few moments, Lina stirred and opened her eyes. She was in a dimly lit room, and appeared to be sitting on Zel's lap. She pushed against him, trying to stand up... as she leaned away, a sudden fatigue hit her, and he groaned in pain. She sank back against him, trying to maintain her distance, but unable to get up.
"Lina?" Zel's voice echoed oddly in the tiny chamber... was that pain?
"Yeah?" Lina looked around, finding even that small task exhausting.
"Don't move." Zel pushed her head back to his chest and tucked his chin back over it so that she was pressed into his neck.
Lina felt better almost immediately, so she shut her eyes and tried to figure out where they might be. Coming up blank, she asked.
"Zel?"
"Yes, Lina?" Zel sounded tired.
"Where are we?"
A soft chuckle was her only answer for a while, then "Hopefully close to the top of the avalanche... there's a lot of snow out there, and I'm not sure how long I can hold the ray-wing."
"Oh." Lina wasn't quite sure what this had to do with sitting in his lap, but was willing to wait for his explanation. When he fell silent, she tried again.
"Zel?"
"Yes, Lina?" This time he sounded almost amused.
"Why am I sitting in your lap?"
"So I don't drop you or the spell." This time he definitely sounded amused.
"I don't understand." Lina felt like she had missed something important, but wasn't really sure what.
He sighed. "I don't know why, but for some reason, the spell gets easier to maintain when I'm... touching you." He sounded embarrassed this time. "I wasn't expecting it to work in the first place... so..."
"Oh." Lina's brain scurried into activity... if Sylphiel's comments were correct, Zel's magic had been being slowly siphoned off to maintain the spell... if her magic was feeding the spell, maybe some of Zel's magic was freed up to do things like casting a ray-wing.
Lina didn't particularly want to follow that train of thought, especially when her recent headaches might return at anytime. Her brain spun in a new direction. Her eyes widened, and she pulled away from Zelgadiss, and looked up at him. Immediately her headache returned, and she shuddered a bit before leaning back into him.
"Lina?" He sounded like he was in pain.
"Yes, Zel?"
"Please... don't do that." Yup, definitely pain.
"I'm sorry," Lina tried to explain, "I just wanted to test something... didn't really expect... but..."
"Didn't really expect what?" Now he just sounded annoyed. Lina wished that she could look at him, but didn't want to risk pulling away again. She drew a deep breath, and began to explain.
"Well... you know that headache that you had... the one that was tied into your spell failing?" Lina felt him shift, and what felt like a nod, so she continued without waiting for a verbal answer, "Well... Sylphiel knows this spell... they use it in healing sometimes. When a patient is being weakened so much that they cannot heal, the priests can tie someone else's magical energy into the patient... kind of give them and external boost until their body can heal enough to continue healing on its own."
Zelgadiss drew in a shuddering breath, and his arms tightened around her involuntarily. "What did you do, Lina?"
In a small voice, Lina said, "I had her tie my magic... me... into your spell."
"It was killing you, we didn't know how else to keep the spell from making it impossible to get you to the temple before the spell failed entirely." Lina's voice trailed off.
She was suddenly unsure how Zelgadiss was going to react, he'd made comments over the years about hating being stuck in his cursed body... maybe he wouldn't be happy that they'd done something so radical. She waited for him to say something, but he remained silent. After a minute or two, she took off a glove and laid her hand against his wrist, tucking her fingers into his sleeve to maintain skin-to-skin contact. Leaning out slowly, she looked up at him.
Zelgadiss sat there, his best friend in his lap, a heavy weight of snow pressing down on a spell that shouldn't have existed, and tears glimmering in his eyes. Lina looked up at him, and felt her own eyes tearing in response. She smiled sadly at him and curled back up in his lap, confident that whatever he was feeling, it wasn't anger at her actions.
An hour later, when torchlight and excited voices broke through the layer of snow above them, they were still sitting there. Zelgadiss opened his eyes as Gourry and Wilam brushed up against the outside of the ray wing spell. He gathered up Lina, who had opened her eyes when the noise reached them, and leapt through the edge of the spell, grasping the proffered rope with his free hand. Lina clung to him, allowing him to pull them both out of the snow and into the waiting arms of their friends.
Amelia held a torch as she watched Zelgadiss climbing across the snow, Lina still held close, and felt her heart mend, even as it broke again. 'I guess it really is better this way...' she thought as she hurried forward to check on the friends whose lives she endangered with her thoughtless yell earlier in the day. She reached the group in time for Gourry to pounce on Lina, checking her split lip and berating her for worrying him like that.
Lina grimaced, and threatened to beat Gourry if he didn't put her down. He ignored her and hugged her closely as Sylphiel turned to Zelgadiss, and began demanding that he let her check him, and his failing spell, very carefully. Lina finally struggled free of Gourry, and enveloped Amelia in a hug. Since Amelia was still fighting her guilt, the hug released a damn of tears. She sobbed into Lina's shoulder and didn't even notice as Gourry tried to herd them up the path to the cabin.
It took an hour for Wilam and Gourry, once he was done hovering and apologizing, to retrieve the climbing equipment and get everything ready to resume their climb. Wilam asked if everyone was okay climbing in the dark, and reassured them that the rest of the path was much smoother than that last section. Everyone agreed that getting warm and sleeping under cover was worth the trip in the dark, and off they went.
Lina kept up a pretense of good cheer... or rather, normal behavior, but she was so tired that she didn't complain about the cold nearly enough. Amelia chatted with Xellos, who for once didn't seem to mind the bouncy princess's attitude.
Around mid-afternoon, Sylphiel took a few moments to share her fears with the one person in the group who she trusted to keep an eye on Lina.
"Gourry, have you noticed anything unusual about Lina?" Sylphiel didn't really have enough experience traveling with Lina to judge, maybe this was normal.
Gourry thought for a moment, then patted Sylphiel's hand where is rested on his arm. "She's a little quieter than usual, but it's not really anything to worry about. Lina's a more complex person than most people give her credit for. She might be loud and rash, but she cares very much about her friends. I'm sure she's just worried about Zel."
Sylphiel thought back to what she knew about Lina. "I know that she cares, no one has ever questioned that..."
"Did you know, when we had to fight that Red guy... the first one, not that other one... Well, we all talked about what we needed to do, but it was Lina that insisted we finish it. She was willing to die rather than give up when we needed her." Gourry smiled, remembering Lina's little speech and how it made him feel that he'd done the right thing becoming her protector.
Looking up at Gourry's smile, Sylphiel felt her heart sink. Gourry was probably right... he might not be the fastest thinker, but when he took the time to think things through, his thoroughness was amazing. If Lina had been that willing to do whatever was necessary for people she had only known for a few weeks, how would she respond to the death of a friend.
Sylphiel leaned into Gourry, not liking the conclusion she was coming to. "Gourry, dear... can you do something for me?"
Gourry looked down at her, and smiled, patting her hand again. "I'd do almost anything for you, Sylphiel."
Sylphiel was so concerned that she didn't even blush at this, "Will you watch Lina for me, Gourry. I'm afraid that she's going to do something as dangerous as fighting Rezo... or maybe more dangerous, since this might not be a battle that she can win."
"Is that all, Sylphiel? Of course... I do that anyway." Gourry was puzzled, but he took Sylphiel's request to heart. Sylphiel wouldn't ask unless it was important.
A few feet away, the smile stayed on Xellos's face as he continued to chat with Amelia. 'What could Lina possibly be doing that was that dangerous... I don't sense anything nearby that she can't handle, even with just a sword and her lighting spell. I'll have to keep an eye on her, just in case...'
At the head of the little column, Wilam stopped and held up his hand. The group slowed, and came to a stop behind him. Lina wavered a bit, but only Xellos noticed, everyone else was busy looking at the thin, ice-covered path ahead.
"We've got to get past this part, then the trail is easy to the way station. Do people want to stop and rest, or press on while it's still light?" Wilam pointed ahead to the slippery trail. "We will need to cross one at a time, not sure how strong that ledge still is. Magic is very difficult to perform here, due to the inhibiting nature of the rock around us, otherwise we could just levitate across."
Murmurs of 'let's press on' and 'get to our camping spot' echoed back to Wilam, who nodded, and started forward. The thin layer of snow left on the path covered a thick patch of ice, and the wind whipped past the edge of the path through the deep chasm below. Wilam moved quickly, testing the path each step of the way, then he was on the other side. He waved back at the group, keeping an eye out as each member of the group made their way across.
Sylphiel and Amelia followed Wilam, moving carefully, and only wavering a little on the slipperiest parts. A brief argument broke out as to who would go next, but Lina won it by threatening to throw Gourry to the other side if he didn't move. Xellos bounded across, leaning far out over the edge and remarking on the drop, while Gourry and Lina argued.
When he reached the far side, and was sitting next to Amelia on a little rock outcropping, Gourry started across. When he reached the other side, Lina turned to Zelgadiss, who laughed at her.
"If weight is really an issue, you should go next, Lina." Zel motioned to his body, "You'd get stuck here if I broke the ledge."
Lina looked at her friend, wishing there was some way to reassure her friend without sounding trite. She smiled sadly, then wearily stood and started across the slippery path. Either the fading light, or the slippery surface, or Lina's tiredness conspired against her. Midway across, she placed a foot wrong, and started to slide towards the edge of the path. Her frightened casting of Levitation was the last straw, and with a cry of pain, Lina Inverse, Sorcery Genius, crumpled to the ground, hanging partially over the edge of the drop.
Shocked faces and three people instinctively moving forward was probably a bad idea... an even worse idea was...
"Miss LINA!" Amelia shrieked, aghast at seeing her mentor laid low by a patch of ice. Xellos swore, and covered her mouth, but it was already too late.
All eyes turned towards the princess, terror on the faces of the few with experience in snowy mountains... all eyes, except Zelgadiss's, which remained focused on the crumpled figure in the snow. A rumbling sound echoed down the side of the mountain, seeming to drive the chimera's figure forward even faster. He was kneeling next to Lina when the crack echoed up from the chasm. Even Zelgadiss's demonic speed was no match for the combined gravity of the falling snow and crumbling rock.
The party watched helplessly as falling snow obscured the images of their friends, Lina lying pale and still, her hair spread like blood across Zelgadiss's gray-cloaked shoulder. Amelia was certain that the image would follow her forever, and lay helpless in Xellos's arms sobbing like her heart had broken.
Sylphiel and Gourry clung together, not really sure who was supporting whom. Each felt their guilt weighing them down, Gourry sure that had he only been watching, the tragedy could have been averted, Sylphiel certain that the deaths were here fault.
"If only..." She sobbed into Gourry's shoulder, holding on to him both for support, and to keep him from throwing himself into the chasm after their friends. "If only I had never mentioned the temple, if I had never mentioned the spell, if I had never tied Lina's magic to Zelgadiss's curse..."
Xellos sat up, dropping the weeping princess as Sylphiel's words registered. His rage beat against the stricken priestess like lava off a volcano.
"What. Did. You. DO?" Xellos's eyes were open, and Sylphiel had never seen hate so strong. A part of her quailed in the face of his emotion, but another part stood up against his pain. After all, his people had done so much worse to her.
"I did what I could to try to save my friend. What did YOU do? All you've done is annoy us, trick us, send us on a wild chase across the world to try to find a cure that you've probably had all this time." Sylphiel's rage was cold, clear as crystal and sharp as a knifepoint. "If you would just stop playing these stupid games, Lina and Zelgadiss would be alive."
"Ha!" Xellos shut his eyes, her rage calming him, mellowing him like a child with a bottle. "Shows what you know... you think his mother would let me continue if I kept something like that from him? Pathetic, Miss Sylphiel... trying to push your guilt off on me. I warned you... I warned you all..."
Realizing he'd said too much, Xellos waved his forefinger at the seething Priestess and laughed.
"They are still alive you know... maybe if you hurry..." Xellos faded away, his words drifting across the party like the first breeze of spring across a field. Cold, with the memory of winter's death, his words carried a tiny hint of hope to come.
Amelia lifted a tearstained face, looking at the rest of the party with painful hope in her eyes.
"But how do we save them without magic?" She asked, ignoring the tearstains as she focused on a new goal.
"Same way the rest of the world does. We use ropes, pitons, and sweat." Wilam responded, pulling supplies out of the bag he insisted on carrying, rather than storing in a pocket space.
While Wilam showed Gourry how to tie himself a harness to climb down in, Sylphiel and Amelia scouted the edge of the ledge. Wilam tried to get them to stay out of the way, but they proved too stubborn, and insisted on checking to see if they could find any sign of their missing friends.
Zelgadiss didn't stop to think about what he was doing, as soon as he saw Lina go down, he started running towards her. A little voice inside his head asked him what exactly he was doing, risking his life for the annoying sorceress, but another part of him just growled and bared it's teeth until the first part shut up.
He reached her, and almost froze there in the middle of the ledge. She looked so small, crumpled in the snow, with her bottom lip bitten through. The clinical part of his brain began comparing the blood on her face with the color of her hair on the snow... it noticed that she was uniquely suited to being unconscious and bleeding in the snow. He bent over her, and picked her up as gently as he could. She fit comfortably in his arms, the same way she had the first time he carried her while running from his own men.
Her head lay on his shoulder, but his cloak covered the rest of her... a good thing, since he could feel the cold dampness of her tunic next to his. The moisture seeped through as he drew her close. He felt the rock beneath him shudder, and knew that he would have to move more quickly than ever to get both of them out without going down the side of the mountain.
The rumble of the avalanche above him had him instinctively hunching over her, trying to protect her from the snow that enveloped them. He instinctively cast Ray-wing, not expecting it to work... but it did. Rather than floating gracefully up and out of the way, the spell simply kept them from falling, and provided some protection from the snow. The weight of the snow pressed down on the spell bubble, and should have broken it, but somehow sheer determination kept it up and protecting them.
Lina whimpered, and shuddered in his arms, drawing even closer to him and laying her forehead against his neck. With the increased contact, the spell seemed easier to maintain, and he began trying to direct them upwards, out of the crushing weight of the avalanche trying to kill them. The strain of maintaining the spell was terrible, worse even than the powerful spells he had attempted as a child trying to be a strong magician. His muscles protested, worse than the fatigue of wielding a too-heavy practice sword for hours.
He sighed tiredly into Lina's hair, the spell proving more taxing than he had imagined it would be... immediately the scent of roses filled the interior of the ray-wing bubble. Lina's breathing eased as he stopped trying to fly up through the avalanche. He looked around, and realized that there was a slight ledge just off to one side. With a last burst of effort, he moved them over to the ledge, and set the spell bubble down. The snow around them shivered a bit, but didn't collapse on them, so he sat at the edge of the spell, letting the rock wall take the job of support them against the press of snow.
After a few moments, Lina stirred and opened her eyes. She was in a dimly lit room, and appeared to be sitting on Zel's lap. She pushed against him, trying to stand up... as she leaned away, a sudden fatigue hit her, and he groaned in pain. She sank back against him, trying to maintain her distance, but unable to get up.
"Lina?" Zel's voice echoed oddly in the tiny chamber... was that pain?
"Yeah?" Lina looked around, finding even that small task exhausting.
"Don't move." Zel pushed her head back to his chest and tucked his chin back over it so that she was pressed into his neck.
Lina felt better almost immediately, so she shut her eyes and tried to figure out where they might be. Coming up blank, she asked.
"Zel?"
"Yes, Lina?" Zel sounded tired.
"Where are we?"
A soft chuckle was her only answer for a while, then "Hopefully close to the top of the avalanche... there's a lot of snow out there, and I'm not sure how long I can hold the ray-wing."
"Oh." Lina wasn't quite sure what this had to do with sitting in his lap, but was willing to wait for his explanation. When he fell silent, she tried again.
"Zel?"
"Yes, Lina?" This time he sounded almost amused.
"Why am I sitting in your lap?"
"So I don't drop you or the spell." This time he definitely sounded amused.
"I don't understand." Lina felt like she had missed something important, but wasn't really sure what.
He sighed. "I don't know why, but for some reason, the spell gets easier to maintain when I'm... touching you." He sounded embarrassed this time. "I wasn't expecting it to work in the first place... so..."
"Oh." Lina's brain scurried into activity... if Sylphiel's comments were correct, Zel's magic had been being slowly siphoned off to maintain the spell... if her magic was feeding the spell, maybe some of Zel's magic was freed up to do things like casting a ray-wing.
Lina didn't particularly want to follow that train of thought, especially when her recent headaches might return at anytime. Her brain spun in a new direction. Her eyes widened, and she pulled away from Zelgadiss, and looked up at him. Immediately her headache returned, and she shuddered a bit before leaning back into him.
"Lina?" He sounded like he was in pain.
"Yes, Zel?"
"Please... don't do that." Yup, definitely pain.
"I'm sorry," Lina tried to explain, "I just wanted to test something... didn't really expect... but..."
"Didn't really expect what?" Now he just sounded annoyed. Lina wished that she could look at him, but didn't want to risk pulling away again. She drew a deep breath, and began to explain.
"Well... you know that headache that you had... the one that was tied into your spell failing?" Lina felt him shift, and what felt like a nod, so she continued without waiting for a verbal answer, "Well... Sylphiel knows this spell... they use it in healing sometimes. When a patient is being weakened so much that they cannot heal, the priests can tie someone else's magical energy into the patient... kind of give them and external boost until their body can heal enough to continue healing on its own."
Zelgadiss drew in a shuddering breath, and his arms tightened around her involuntarily. "What did you do, Lina?"
In a small voice, Lina said, "I had her tie my magic... me... into your spell."
"It was killing you, we didn't know how else to keep the spell from making it impossible to get you to the temple before the spell failed entirely." Lina's voice trailed off.
She was suddenly unsure how Zelgadiss was going to react, he'd made comments over the years about hating being stuck in his cursed body... maybe he wouldn't be happy that they'd done something so radical. She waited for him to say something, but he remained silent. After a minute or two, she took off a glove and laid her hand against his wrist, tucking her fingers into his sleeve to maintain skin-to-skin contact. Leaning out slowly, she looked up at him.
Zelgadiss sat there, his best friend in his lap, a heavy weight of snow pressing down on a spell that shouldn't have existed, and tears glimmering in his eyes. Lina looked up at him, and felt her own eyes tearing in response. She smiled sadly at him and curled back up in his lap, confident that whatever he was feeling, it wasn't anger at her actions.
An hour later, when torchlight and excited voices broke through the layer of snow above them, they were still sitting there. Zelgadiss opened his eyes as Gourry and Wilam brushed up against the outside of the ray wing spell. He gathered up Lina, who had opened her eyes when the noise reached them, and leapt through the edge of the spell, grasping the proffered rope with his free hand. Lina clung to him, allowing him to pull them both out of the snow and into the waiting arms of their friends.
Amelia held a torch as she watched Zelgadiss climbing across the snow, Lina still held close, and felt her heart mend, even as it broke again. 'I guess it really is better this way...' she thought as she hurried forward to check on the friends whose lives she endangered with her thoughtless yell earlier in the day. She reached the group in time for Gourry to pounce on Lina, checking her split lip and berating her for worrying him like that.
Lina grimaced, and threatened to beat Gourry if he didn't put her down. He ignored her and hugged her closely as Sylphiel turned to Zelgadiss, and began demanding that he let her check him, and his failing spell, very carefully. Lina finally struggled free of Gourry, and enveloped Amelia in a hug. Since Amelia was still fighting her guilt, the hug released a damn of tears. She sobbed into Lina's shoulder and didn't even notice as Gourry tried to herd them up the path to the cabin.
It took an hour for Wilam and Gourry, once he was done hovering and apologizing, to retrieve the climbing equipment and get everything ready to resume their climb. Wilam asked if everyone was okay climbing in the dark, and reassured them that the rest of the path was much smoother than that last section. Everyone agreed that getting warm and sleeping under cover was worth the trip in the dark, and off they went.