They found their new employment three days further south.
A caravan was being attacked by bandits. Amelia immediately climbed on top of one of the wagons to tell the bandits what she thought of their evil ways. Zelgadis picked off several of the bandits with flare arrows while they were distracted. The flare arrows were much weaker than usual and tired him surprisingly quickly, but they were effective. A half-dozen singed bandits lay sprawled on the ground before the rest spotted him. Zelgadis drew his sword.
Zel's form was terrible. He had to use both hands to control the sword that he used to wield effortlessly with one. His blows were too weak, his timing was off, and there were huge holes in his defense. The bandit he was fighting managed to slash open his arm. It was humiliating, not to mention painful. If Amelia and the caravan guards hadn't taken care of the rest of the bandits, Zelgadis would have been in trouble. He couldn't believe it. How could he possibly be a worse swordsman than a bandit?
"Victory!" Amelia exclaimed, making a cute 'v' sign with her fingers. Then she noticed the way Zelgadis was clutching his arm. She leapt off the wagon and rushed over to him. "Zelgadis-sama! Are you hurt?" She was casting Recovery almost before he uncovered the wound.
Zel wanted to protest that he could do it himself but the unaccustomed pain was making it hard for him to concentrate. "I hadn't realized how dependent I had become on chimeric strength, speed and invulnerability," he ruefully admitted.
"I'm sure you'll get your skill back with practice," Amelia replied sympathetically, "You just have to get used to being human again."
Zelgadis nodded.
One of the members of the caravan approached them. He looked like any of the others but, judging from his air of authority, he was probably the leader. "I'm Hallas Letzu, the owner of this caravan. I would like to thank you. Things were looking bad for us before you showed up."
"Stomping out injustice wherever we find it is our pleasure," Amelia assured him. Then she caught Zelgadis' look. "Mine, anyway," she amended.
"Let me be blunt," the merchant continued, "Is there any chance I can hire you? I know you mages don't like to be tied down to a caravan, but I'll pay well."
Zelgadis glanced over at Amelia. "Give us a minute to discuss your offer."
The man walked just out of earshot.
"We could use the money," Amelia admitted. Zel's new equipment had been expensive, although neither of them begrudged the cost.
Zelgadis nodded. "This would be a good opportunity for me to fix my sword work too. Some of those caravan guards aren't too bad."
"These people need our help."
"We're going in that direction anyway."
A thoughtful pause. "So we take the job?"
"Yes," Zelgadis called to the caravan owner, "We accept your offer."
"Excellent! I'm paying my men six silver a day. Would you take twelve each? It's three weeks to Sairaag and after that we're heading toward Seyruun by way of all the smaller cities in between."
Amelia and Zelgadis exchanged glances. It wasn't much money by the standards they were used to, but it was good pay for caravan guards. Zelgadis replied for them, "That sounds fine."
"Excellent, excellent! You can start by helping us get the wagons reloaded so we can get out of here before those bandits recover."
Besides Zelgadis and Amelia, there were six caravan members, who all introduced themselves as soon as the carts were moving again. Hal (as the caravan owner insisted they call him), Geoff, Seymor and Akio were all swordsmen. Yosh was an archer and Tuck used a staff. With the exception of Yosh, who was still very young and excitable, they were all quiet, professional men who gave off a sense of calm competence. Hal and Geoff had grey streaks in their hair. In addition to guarding the caravan from bandits, they were also responsible for taking care of the carthorses, loading and unloading the carts, and doing any other work that might be required. It was a small caravan.
The caravan members were inclined to be friendly even before Amelia and Zel healed all their injuries. Afterward, they unanimously agreed that the mages were worth every silver piece they were being paid and more.
As soon as he finished supper that night, Zelgadis went off to practice swordstrokes. Amelia was washing her dishes in the stream. The caravan master had lent his newest employees the dishes after he discovered, to his great surprise, that they didn't have any of their own.
"What do you think of them?" Hal asked his comrades.
"I like them," Yosh piped up. He already had a crush on Amelia.
"I'm not sure what to think," Geoff said, "They look like starry-eyed kids setting out to seek their fortune, but I'm not sure that's what they are."
"Of course they're neophytes," Akio said. "Those clothes are brand new. Zel's armor didn't have a scratch on it before this morning."
"They're both young enough to be fresh out of their hometown, fifteen maybe." Seymor added, "Zel acted like he'd never been in a real fight before and Amy is almost as bad. She must have gotten those speeches out of a bedtime story. They're good fighters, mind you, talented. They just need a little real world experience to teach them what's what."
Geoff shook his head slowly. "Maybe you're right, but I have a feeling there's more to it than that. Amy's no neophyte, no matter how she dresses, and I don't think Zel is either. I was watching him during the battle since I was too badly injured to keep fighting. The mistakes he made weren't the mistakes of inexperience, unless he was very poorly trained indeed. He only looks sixteen or seventeen but his eyes are twice that old. There's some tragedy in that boy's past, and some secrets too. I think he may surprise us all."
Zelgadis did surprise them. He spent every rest stop doing sword drills. He often practiced his swings even while walking beside the rumbling wagons. He got the others to join him for intensive practice sessions in the evenings so that he could test himself against a partner. After sword practice, he would often take Amelia into the forest with him and practice his attack spells on the trees and bushes. Yosh would have been jealous except that the near-constant sounds of explosions made it clear that all they were doing was magic. He had spied on them one night just to make sure.
Zel seemed driven by the need to improve, and improve he did. Within a week it was clear to everyone that Zelgadis was no neophyte. He was a master swordsman and a very powerful sorcerer who, for some reason, was terribly out of practice.
More questions were raised the first night Zelgadis and Amelia took their turn at making supper.
Yosh was on his way back to the campsite when Amelia ran up to him.
"Yosh-san," she cried, "Give me some of your hair."
"Wha-what?" he stammered. "Wh-why?"
"So that our comrades will not have to go hungry!" she proclaimed. "I'm going to catch fish for dinner but my hair is too short to make a good fishing line."
"Oh. Okay."
"Great!"
Amelia carefully plucked a strand of hair from his head. She tied one end of it to a stick and the other to a piece of bent wire.
It was the sorriest excuse for a fishing rod that Yosh had ever seen. "Do you think you'll actually catch any fish with that?" he asked, trying not to sound as doubtful as he felt.
Amelia grinned conspiratorially. "Watch." She impaled a caterpillar from a nearby bush on the hook and flung it out into the water. Then she began to croon, "Here, fishy, fishy."
To Yosh's utter amazement, she got a bite almost immediately. She yanked the fish out of the water with a wild swing of her fishing rod. Yosh grabbed it and managed, with some difficulty, to disentangle the hook from its mouth.
"You're using a spell, aren't you?" he said in an awestruck tone while still wrestling with the thrashing fish.
"Yep." Amelia flung her line back into the water.
"Did you make it up yourself?"
Amelia shook her head. "A friend taught it to me."
"Zelgadis?"
"No, someone we used to travel with, who ate more than anyone else I've ever met."
"Did you travel together long?"
"Yes, we traveled all over the world, and even to the New World!"
Yosh's eyes widened. How long had Amelia and Zelgadis been on the road?
Five fish later, Yosh finally got up enough courage to ask a question that had been on his mind for days. "Amelia..."
"Mm?"
"Zelgadis...is he..."
"Is he what?"
"...is he...your...boyfriend?"
"Oh!" Amelia looked down at her gloved hands wrapped around the fishing pole. "No," she said rather sadly, "he isn't. Why do you ask?"
"Uh, no reason," Yosh grinned.
"Oh." Amelia pulled in another fish.
The news of Amelia and Zelgadis' former travels caused much comment, but not as much as what happened the next morning. That incident caused so much comment because the caravanners never stopped teasing Zel about it.
"You need a shave," Hal told Zelgadis bluntly that morning.
Zelgadis raised a hand to his chin and, to his surprise, found that Hal was right. Facial hair had been the last thing on his mind. He had only just barely started to shave before his transformation - his family tended to mature late in that regard - and he certainly hadn't needed to shave while he was made of stone. The hair must have started growing again sometime in the last week.
"Do you have a razor I could borrow? I...lost mine," he requested.
Hal looked at him with amusement, "Sure. Here." He dug into his pouch and pulled out a worn but well-sharpened straight razor. "Need any help?"
"No, I can handle it," Zelgadis replied coldly. He walked over to the nearby stream. Now how did this go again? He splashed cold water on his face and carefully started scraping.
Fifteen minutes later he expressionlessly handed the razor back to Hal. He thought he had done a fairly good job, although he was very thankful he could hide his mistakes with Recovery spells.
"You've never shaved before, have you?" Akio asked with a grin.
"Yes I have!"
"You missed a few spots."
Damn.
"And don't think we didn't notice you healing yourself."
Zelgadis stayed silent.
"How old are you, son?"
"Twenty-one."
The men laughed, but kindly. They had all been fifteen once.
"Whenever you want to borrow my razor again, just ask. I can give you some pointers too."
Zelgadis walked off into the woods cursing and incinerating thorn bushes. How humiliating! He hoped Amelia hadn't been watching.
She hadn't, but she soon heard all about it. Then, two days later, she told Zelgadis that of course he had the right to look however he wanted, but she thought he looked better clean-shaven. Zel cringed.
As soon as they got to the next town, Zel bought himself a razor, a set of dishes and a shaving mirror.
"What do you all plan to do when you retire?" Seymor asked to break the silence that had fallen around the campfire. They were passing through one of the many stretches of highway without any inns large enough to hold the caravan.
"I suppose I'll probably go back to my family's farm," Tuck answered. "They can always use an extra pair of hands."
"I don't know whether I can afford to retire," Akio said morosely. "As most of you know, I lost all my money a few years ago. It will take me years to save up enough to retire."
"Especially since money slips through your fingers like water," Seymor laughed.
Amelia was much more sympathetic, "What happened? How did you lose all your money?"
"Lina Inverse."
"Lina Inverse?" Zelgadis and Amelia repeated in shocked chorus.
"Yeah, have you heard of her?"
"Yes," Zelgadis said tersely.
"Who hasn't?" Seymor added, "Lina Inverse, the tiny little girl who kills bandits for sport."
"What did you do to make Lina-san angry with you?" Amelia asked suspiciously.
"I used to be a bandit when I was younger and more foolish. She annihilated my gang. After that, I decided that banditry was too dangerous so I became the honest mercenary you all know and love."
"You were a bandit?" Amelia leapt to her feet. "You preyed upon innocent travelers like a mangy wolf lurking in the shadows? Akio-san, I am disappointed in you!"
Zelgadis leaned over toward Akio. "If you want to live, say, 'I have renounced my evil ways. Please don't hurt me.' Better yet, scream it."
Akio grinned at the joke. Then he took a good look at Amelia. She was towering over him with the flames of the campfire reflected in her eyes. Those eyes held no mercy. The sight stirred up vivid memories in the ex-bandit's heart of the terrifying Lina Inverse and her equally terrifying partner.
"I thought you were a good person, but I was deceived. Villain who hides an evil heart under a smiling face, prepare to..."
"I have renounced my evil ways; please don't hurt me!" Akio screamed.
Amelia hesitated.
"I'm an honest mercenary now. I'll never be a bandit again. I swear it! Please don't hurt me, Amelia-san!"
The fires in Amelia's eyes went out. She smiled happily. "Lina-san is so good at teaching villains the error of their ways! I hope I can be more like her someday." She sat down next to Zelgadis again. Six pairs of eyes stared at her in shock. Zelgadis just sipped his soup and tried to keep a straight face.
Geoff quickly switched back to a more innocuous subject. "I don't know if I'll retire. All my friends are mercenaries or in related professions. I have no family left. If I do retire, I'll probably find a quiet little cottage in a quiet little town somewhere and spend the rest of my life telling the local children tall tales about my adventures."
"You'd be good at it," Yosh said with a smile, still casting nervous glances at Amelia.
"How about you Hal?" Seymor prompted.
"I don't see any need to ever retire. I might switch to a more stationary job within the family business though, something that lets me sleep with a roof over my head every night."
The men grinned in agreement.
"I'm going to slay one of those monsters that has half a kingdom and a princess' hand in marriage as a reward," Yosh announced. "Then I'll be set for life."
"I don't think any such monsters exist outside of fairytales, lad," Hal told him kindly.
"I know, but I can dream, can't I?"
"I think it's a beautiful dream, Yosh-san!" Amelia exclaimed with stars in her eyes. "I want to do that too!"
"You want half a kingdom and a princess' hand in marriage?" Zelgadis asked mock-innocently.
"No, of course not. You know I never ask for a reward."
"What are you going to do when you retire, Zel?" Geoff asked.
"I honestly haven't thought about it."
"Amy?"
"I will fight for justice until the day I die."
"But you are going home soon, right?" Zelgadis prompted.
Amelia did not look happy at that reminder. "Unfortunately, the fight for justice cannot always be fought with magic and weapons. Now that Zelgadis-san and I have finished our quest, I have to go home and help my Daddy again."
"She's his heir so she has to learn the family business," Zelgadis explained. Amelia gave him a funny look but left it at that.
A drop of water struck Zel's cheek.
"Alright, Seymor," Akio grinned almost normally. It had taken him this long to regather his nerves after Amelia's attack. "You're the one who started this. I know you're dying to tell us. What are you going to do when you retire?"
Seymor glowed with self-conscious happiness. "There's this girl, Thyrria - you've probably heard me mention her before. Well, we want to have our own inn. We're working to get the money for it now. She's working as a waitress, and I'm...well, you know. "
A raindrop hissed in the fire.
"We've got it all planned out. We'll have four long tables and two, more private, round tables in the back. Our specialty will be chicken stew and Zefilian wine. I've got a friend in Zefilia who promised me he'd give me a special deal on his wine."
Akio and Hal looked up as they were splattered with water.
"We're going to have a chicken drumstick and a bunch of grapes on our sign, the drumstick in front with the grapes sort of in the background. Hand me a stick and I'll sketch it for you."
"Hey, it's starting to rain!" Yosh exclaimed.
Seymor scowled in disappointment.
"We'll sleep under the wagons tonight. We're on flat ground so the water shouldn't run under them," the caravan master decided.
Everyone scrambled for the wagons. Zelgadis, Amelia and Yosh ended up under the last wagon in line. Zel picked it because it was the closest. Amelia followed him out of habit. Yosh was not about to let them spend the night alone together.
The air under the wagon was perfectly fresh but it felt stuffy because of the wagon bed looming mere inches above their faces. It was crowded too. The wagon was wide enough to shelter three people, but only barely. Amelia had hard, warm bodies pressed against hers on both sides. Fortunately, they were both people she liked. Outside their small patch of shelter it started to rain in earnest.
"Does this happen very often?" Zel asked with irritation.
"No, not very often," Yosh replied. "This is only the third time we've had to sleep under the wagons in a month."
"Is that all?" Zelgadis sounded more than a little sarcastic.
Amelia turned to look at him, her face indistinct in the darkness. "It's better than sleeping in the rain."
Zelgadis remembered the beginning of the trip when she had fallen sick. He shut his mouth.
After awhile Amelia said, "Good night, Zelgadis-san. Good night, Yosh-san," and appeared to go instantly to sleep. Zelgadis and Yosh threw sardonic glances at her and then pretended to go to sleep too.
Real sleep escaped Zelgadis for quite awhile. He was not used to being this close to another person, especially not when he was in human form. Amelia was so close to him that he could smell her. She smelled of smoke and sunlight and unwashed human. She was so close that he could feel her breathe. Every time she inhaled, her arm pressed into his side. If he moved at all, he would disturb her.
He realized that hunger wasn't the only appetite that had returned to his body along with humanity. Unfamiliar sensations were uncurling in his belly. He explored them, delighting in their newness. He felt an odd yearning hunger mixed with a wave of tenderness toward the friend sleeping so innocently beside him. It was a strange feeling, but not at all unpleasant. So, this was lust. Interesting. His curiosity satisfied, he ignored it.
Eventually, he did fall asleep, lulled by the sound of the rain.
Rain poured down all around him. It hissed in the leaves of the trees above. It bounced against the ground, causing tiny splashes in the puddles that had already formed. It trickled down Zel's back and dripped from his soaked hair. The thick lock over his right eye slapped wetly against his cheek with every swing of his too-heavy sword.
His body ached with weariness and cold. His muscles were so tired that it was an effort just to lift the sword, let alone swing it. Nevertheless, he kept each blow perfectly controlled, perfectly on target. Or tried. The blade bit into the log in front of him again. He had let the sword drop too low, again. The boy swore under his breath. He was so close, but the needed perfection remained frustratingly out of reach. If only he was stronger...
As if in response to his thought, a faint jangling sounded among the trees. The boy paused in the act of freeing his sword from the log and lifted his head like an animal sniffing the air for danger. The jangling sounded again, louder, closer. It was a familiar sound, but unexpected and out of place. Zel yanked his sword out of the log and held it up aggressively in front of him.
A man stepped out into the clearing. He was tall. Despite the rain, his hair and priestly robes were flawlessly ordered. The staff he held in one hand fell silent as he stopped moving. For a long moment the man and the boy watched each other in tacit acknowledgement.
"Zelgadis," the man said at last.
"Rezo," the boy returned flatly. "What are you doing here?" He did not lower his sword. The red priest was not a threat, but Zel wanted to make it clear that he was not welcome.
"I came to offer you the strength you have always craved."
The boy watched him warily.
"I am searching for the Philosopher's Stone. If you agree to help me, I will give you all the strength you have ever desired."
"What exactly are you offering me?"
"I need a commander to direct my search. I need someone clever like you. Unfortunately, my servants will not obey a commander as young and weak as you are now. I need you to be as strong as you are smart. I will give you superhuman strength, enhanced magical abilities, keener senses and near invulnerability, as well as all the gold, magic and men you need to pursue the search. Do you accept?" The priest was blind but he could still see the hunger in the boy's eyes.
Zel hesitated. The offer was too good to be true. "You can really make me that strong?"
The priest smiled benevolently. "You will be transformed beyond recognition."
The boy hesitated a moment longer, but he had no reason not to trust his ancestor. He nodded.
Rezo looked delighted. He raised his staff and started chanting.
And then the pain began. Zel had never experienced such agony. It felt like his body was being ripped apart from the inside out. Even before he watched his hands harden into stone claws, even before he saw the dark lumps pop out all over his body, he knew that he had just made the worst mistake of his life. His sword hit the ground unnoticed as he screamed and screamed and screamed.
Amelia was woken up by the sound of moans. Without fully surfacing from unconsciousness, she reached over and hugged Zelgadis. His skin was damp with sweat and invading raindrops.
"Shh, it's alright. I'm here," she began her soothing mantra. She made out the word 'monster' among the moans. Ah, that dream. "You are not! You're wonderful just the way you are." A memory reached her sleep-addled brain. "You're human now. Human." She stroked his cheek, neck and hair over and over again. It seemed to calm him. "Everything's alright," she mumbled sleepily, "You're cured. Justice triumphed. I love you." She was already fast asleep again.
Yosh stared into the darkness, unsure what to make of what he had just heard.
A ray of sunlight managed to find its way under the cart and stab Zelgadis in the eye. He rolled his head away but the sunbeam was persistent. He tried to cover his eyes with his arm but something had it pinned to the ground. Perhaps the same thing that was weighting down his chest? He cautiously opened one eye and then the other. Amelia was sprawled half on top of him, softly drooling on his shoulder. Zelgadis rolled his eyes upwards (at the wheel next to his head). He needed some coffee.
Zelgadis accidentally woke Amelia while trying to disentangle himself, and she in turn managed to kick Yosh on her way out from under the wagon. All three stumbled out into the morning sunlight, blinking groggily. The rain had stopped sometime during the night. It looked like it would be a beautiful day.
Author's Note: The caravan guards are a tribute to all the merchants and mercenaries in Slayers who exist only to be rescued from bandits by the heroes, or to get fireballed when Lina's the one breaking the law. Consider this my fanfare to the common man.
The caravaners will be the first my-characters in this story to stick around for more than one chapter. I hope you like them, but I promise not to forget that people read fanfiction for the original-series-characters. This is Zelgadis and Amelia's story and it's going to stay that way.
On the other hand, Yosh is pretty cute, and he's much nicer than Zelgadis. Don't you think he'd be a good match for Amelia? (ducks flames while giggling evilly)