"Welcome to Atlas City." Hal smiled sardonically. "We'll be here for a week so each of you gets to spend two days guarding the goods. Other than that, you're free to wander wherever you like, but stay out of trouble. In Atlas City, trouble generally means the Sorcerer's Guild, so stay away from Guild members. Any questions? Good. Now, who wants the first shift?"
Zelgadis spoke up at once. "I'll take the first and last shifts. I have business outside the city which may take me awhile."
Amelia stared at him in surprise. Then her eyebrows pulled together. "I'll take those shifts too."
Zelgadis did not look pleased.
"What business do you have outside the city?" Amelia asked, swinging her heels against the side of the wagon she was sitting on.
The two stuck on guard duty were eating sandwiches and apples bought from a nearby food vendor while the rest of the caravanners were enjoying a roast beef dinner at Nyo-Heron's, one of the star attractions of the city.
Zelgadis frowned irritably. "Personal business."
"You aren't planning to make any shady deals with power-hungry megalomaniacs, are you?" As much as she wanted to trust Zelgadis, he had done that sort of thing on more than one occasion.
"No. You can come with me if you like, but it probably won't interest you. It's just...personal business. It doesn't involve punishing any evildoers."
Her smile made it clear that his half-hearted attempt at reverse-psychology had failed.
Amelia followed Zelgadis toward the town. It looked pretty much like any other small town of the region. The modest houses were dwarfed by the thick forest looming behind them, but they looked cozy and well maintained.
To Amelia's surprise, Zelgadis turned off the road onto a side path just before they entered the town. The path led past a thicket, through an orchard and around several herb patches and flower beds. Finally they came in sight of the cottage at the end of the path. It was white with a freshly thatched roof and brightly-colored curtains in the windows.
A girl who had been weeding one of the flowerbeds looked up in surprise. Then she jumped to her feet and ran toward them yelling, "Zel! Zel! I can't believe it! Where have you been?" Her voice was soft and melodious even while shrieking with delight,. She threw her arms around the startled young man and held on as if she never meant to let go.
Zelgadis forced her away from him to arm's length and stared at her. The girl was very pretty. She had burgundy-red hair and bright, brown eyes. She was probably only in her early teens but she was already as tall as Zelgadis. Zelgadis looked her up and down and up again. "Roz? You've...grown."
"That's what happens when you vanish for three years without even sending a letter," the girl replied reproachfully, burrowing back into his arms. This time Zelgadis returned the hug with equal enthusiasm. Amelia started to turn green with envy.
The cottage door opened and a young man leaned out. "What's all this noise about? Rosy, who is that you've caught?"
"It's Zel!" she shouted back.
"Zel?" the man repeated.
Moments later, he grabbed Zelgadis from the girl's arms and slapped him enthusiastically on the back. Zelgadis returned the greeting, grinning.
The man was in his mid-to-late twenties with a tall, thin but muscular body. His wild, black hair was mostly pulled back into a ponytail. He had the bearing of a fighter although he was dressed like an ordinary farmer.
"I didn't expect to see you," Zelgadis said. "Shouldn't you be out adventuring somewhere?"
"I joined a mercenary troop. We're taking a break between jobs right now. What about you? What have you been doing all this time?"
"I..." Zelgadis began, but was cut off by another person throwing her arms around him.
"Zelgadis, welcome home," the woman said. Her light brown hair was streaked with grey and her face was lined, but she retained much of the prettiness of her youth. "I'm glad you finally decided to honor us with your company." She released Zelgadis and walked over to Amelia. "Please introduce us to your friend."
"Oh, sorry." Zelgadis remembered his manners. "This is Amelia. Amelia, this is my mother." He indicated the fair-haired woman, who bowed. Amelia bowed back.
"This is my sister Rozlin."
"Hi," Rozlin said, waving.
"And this is my brother, Arturos."
The young man named bowed deeply, "Charmed."
Now that she knew they were related, Amelia could see that there was a strong family resemblance between the four.
"Where's our father?" Zelgadis asked, looking around.
"In his lab, of course," Rozlin answered. "Now, come in and tell us where you've been for the last three years." Her mother and brother nodded in agreement.
Arturos put an affectionate but firm arm around his brother's shoulders and guided him toward the house. Rozlin followed, almost dancing with excitement and wiping her hands on her apron. Mrs. Greywords smiled at Amelia. "Please come in, Amelia-san. Any friend of my son is welcome in my house."
Once they were settled in the parlor, Mrs. Greywords began. "Let's see. The last time I saw you, my son, was a spring evening three and a half years ago. It was raining, as I recall, but you wouldn't come in. You were obsessed with training yourself to use that new sword of yours. You still have it, I see. The next morning you were gone and there was a note on the table saying, and I quote, 'I have gone to work for Rezo. Goodbye, Zelgadis.' We were understandably rather upset. What possessed you to leave in the middle of the night to work for Rezo, of all people? You didn't even take any food or spare clothing with you. Zelgadis, dear, where have you been?"
Zelgadis shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Rezo hired me to help him find an artifact. I found it. It killed him. After that I traveled on my own for awhile. I happened to be passing through Atlas City today, so I came by to visit. That's all."
"No, it isn't!" Amelia sprang to her feet. Zelgadis winced. "You didn't mention how you saved the world from Shabranigdo and Kopii Rezo and Chaos Dragon Gaav and Hellmaster Phibrizzo and Dark Star."
"I didn't actually kill most of those," Zelgadis protested weakly.
"You helped! And what about..."
"Wait a minute," Arturos interrupted sternly, holding up his hands, "Kopii Rezo? Shabranigdo? PHIBRIZZO? You aren't trying to claim that you're the one who broke the Mazoku seal, are you?"
"No, I wasn't trying to," Zelgadis muttered.
"A few years ago Dad said that Shabranigdo had been resurrected. Everybody laughed at him, except us of course," Rozlin said. "Do you know anything about that?"
"Yes," Zelgadis admitted reluctantly. With Amelia and his mother both watching him like hawks, he couldn't get away with lying.
"And?" Rozlin prompted.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"That still doesn't explain why you left so suddenly." Zel's mother gave him a piercing look. "Or why it took you this long to come back."
Zelgadis stared silently at the floor.
"It wouldn't have anything to do with Rezo turning you into a chimera, would it?"
Zel's head snapped up. "How did you know that?"
"Zel, dear, your name and face were on wanted posters all over Atlas City two years ago. It wasn't that hard to work it out."
"I had forgotten about those," Zelgadis admitted ruefully.
"You didn't have to stay away so long. We love you. We would still love you even as a chimera. We could have helped you search for a cure."
Zelgadis stared at the floor again.
His mother looked at him tenderly and then quickly changed the subject, "By the way, who posted a reward for you, and did you ever go see him about it?"
"Yes."
Roz leaned forward excitedly, her dark red braid falling over her shoulder. "Were you in Sairaag when it exploded?"
"Of course he wasn't," Arturos scolded her, "No one survived the explosion."
"We did," Amelia corrected him, "both times, and we punished the evildoers who destroyed the city!"
"Wow, really?" Rozlin exclaimed. "Tell me all about it!"
With the help of Amelia's frequent interjections, the Greywords family eventually managed to pry the more-or-less complete story of his travels out of Zelgadis. It included parts that even Amelia hadn't known about.
Suddenly Mrs. Greywords stood up. "Oh my, it's almost dinner time!"
"Is it?" Arturos sprang to his feet too. "I have to go tell Mirai that I can't eat dinner with her family tonight."
"Mirai?" Zel repeated, but Arturos was already out of earshot. "As in 'that little brat Mirai'?"
"They're dating," Rozlin explained primly.
"Things really have changed." Zelgadis ran thoughtful fingers through his hair.
"You have no idea." Rozlin grinned maliciously. The she laughed at Zel's apprehensive expression. "No, they haven't really. Most things are just the same as they always were, boooring. Don't you just love small towns?"
"Hush, Rozlin. You're going to Seyruun next year, so stop complaining. And come set the table for me."
"You're going to Seyruun?" Zelgadis repeated, feeling increasingly out of touch.
His mother dumped a dish into his hands. "She's going to be a shrine maiden in one of the major temples. She's already learned all the white magic I can teach her, so it's the logical next step."
"I'm going to be a healer," Rozlin announced proudly.
Zel automatically put the dish on the table and went to the kitchen for another one. Amelia followed him.
"I'm a Seyruunese shrine maiden," she told Rozlin as she placed the salad on the table.
"Really? Which temple?"
"Sort of all of them, but I spend the most time in the central temple of Cephied."
"The one at the center of the city, at the heart of the hexagram formed by the streets?"
"Yes, that one. Which one are you going to?"
The girls chatted happily about the comparative merits of the various temples of Seyruun until every last dish and utensil was in its proper place. Then Rozlin went to tell her father that dinner was ready. Zel had offered to do it, but his mother told him sternly that, if he did, dinner would be cold by the time he got back. His father would insist on telling him about every project he had worked on since Zel's departure.
"Mirai's family said that they will excuse me for one night, but they want to see you first thing tomorrow morning, Zel," Arturos reported, sitting down at the table.
Mr. Greywords stepped into the room from the opposite direction. He looked like a taller, older, less fierce version of Zelgadis. His dark hair was streaked with grey but, except for its expression of calm wisdom, his face was deceptively youthful. He wore plain, dark-grey, scholarly robes.
He nodded to his younger son. "Good evening, Zelgadis." Then he turned to Amelia, "And you must be Amelia. Welcome."
Zelgadis nodded back. "Good evening, Father."
Between the excellent food and exchanging stories, dinner was over all too quickly.
"So, Zel, did you learn any new tricks during your travels?" Arturos asked meaningfully after the dishes had been cleared away.
"Would you like to find out?" Zelgadis replied in the same pseudo-casual tone.
Arturos smiled fiercely. "I would love to."
Zel's smile was creepily identical. "Good."
Mrs. Greywords sighed. "No offensive magic near the house..."
"...and if we hurt your flowerbeds, you'll hurt us. Yes, we know, Mother." Arturos grinned. "Hearing you say that makes me feel twelve years old again. Ready, Zel?"
Zelgadis nodded and the two vanished out the door, grabbing their swords from the umbrella rack on the way out.
"Isn't that just like them, to run off and fight when there are still dishes that need washing?" Mrs. Greywords sighed with fond motherly annoyance.
"I had forgotten how much they did that." Rozlin agreed.
"At least I still have you." Mrs. Greywords smiled at her daughter.
"Aw, Mom, I wanted to talk more with Amelia."
"I'll help with the dishes too," Amelia volunteered. She struck a heroic pose. "It's only fair for me to share in household chores while sharing your house."
"Yay!" Rozlin headed toward the kitchen without another complaint.
"I'm surprised to hear that you're dating Mirai now." Zel said as the two young men walked along the familiar path leading into the forest. "I thought she was just an annoying little girl who followed you around. You hated her."
Arturos pinkened. "I know, but...You'll understand when you see her tomorrow. Zel, did you know that annoying little girls can grow into beautiful, wise young women?"
Zel shook his head.
"Me neither, but they can."
They entered a soft, green clearing just inside the forest. The ground was covered with a mixture of leaf mould, verdant moss and even a few patches of grass. A half-decayed log was crumbling into soil in the center of the clearing. Very small bushes and baby trees were starting to grow up in the empty spaces.
Zelgadis stopped at the edge of the clearing. The place called up so many conflicting emotions in his heart that he wasn't sure what he felt. The last time he had been in this clearing he had walked out a chimera. He had seen it in his nightmares a hundred times since then, but it didn't feel like a place of nightmare. He had played here as a child. Looking around, he could almost see himself and his siblings acting out their elaborate games of make-believe, playing hide-and-seek, fighting. This was where he had trained. His muscles remembered every weary swing of ax and sword. The ghosts of his past lives seemed to hang in the air
"Wow, this place has really become overgrown!" Arturos observed. "We'll have to trample it back into shape, won't we?"
Zel nodded and drew his sword. "Shall we stick to just swords for now?"
"Mother would kill us if we used magic." Arturos moved into an en guarde position.
"I think you'll find I've improved since you last saw me."
"So have I."
For a long moment the brothers just stood there watching each other tensely. Somewhere a dog howled. A breeze rustled through the leaves. The fight began in a flurry of motion.
If there had been spectators to the match, they would have been impressed. Both swordsmen were masters of their trade. At first, they seemed to be evenly matched, but it soon became clear that Arturos had the advantage. Zel was very good, but there were flaws in his technique. Arturos never faltered for a moment.
Soon Arturos had Zel pinned to a tree with a sword resting against his throat. Zel knocked the blade aside and rolled out of the way. When he rose again, the sword was still at his throat.
Arturos grinned savagely. "I believe I win."
Zel scowled and nodded. "Rematch."
"Sure."
Arturos easily won all of the next five matches. "Shall we call it a night?" he asked, not unkindly.
Zel hesitated for a long moment and then nodded curtly, sheathing his sword. What made his defeat even more bitter was that he was panting while Arturos wasn't winded at all.
"You have improved since our last match," Arturos said as they walked back to the house. "Maybe one of these years you'll actually beat me." He ruffled Zel's hair in a smug, older-brotherly way. Zel flinched.
Rozlin looked up as her brothers' swords clattered back into the umbrella rack. "That was quick. How did it go?"
Zel slumped into a chair. "I don't want to talk about it."
"You weren't that bad. You just need a good opponent to beat you into shape. And a lighter sword. I told you when you got it that that sword is too heavy for you."
"I like this sword. I just need to train until I'm strong enough to use it properly."
"Zel, I don't know how to tell you this, but your natural physique is rather light-weight. You would do better to depend on speed rather than strength."
Zel's temper snapped. "If I was still a chimera, you would..." He froze, appalled at what he had been about to say.
"I would have lost that match? Then you should have come home sooner. Of course, I probably wouldn't have been here, but I'm sure you could have beaten any of the neighborhood children."
Zelgadis didn't hear the taunts. He was rapidly sinking into one of his trademark depressions. How could he have wished, even for an instant, to be a chimera again?
Amelia watched helplessly. She knew better than to try to comfort him when he was like this.
Rozlin dropped into Zel's lap and threw her arms around his neck. "Cheer up, Zel-chan! Don't look so sad." Zelgadis stiffened, but then his arms slowly crept around his sister.
Amelia turned green with envy. She wondered if she would ever have another chance to hug her long-lost sibling.
Zel spoke around Rozlin's shoulder. "I trained very hard after you left home. I had promised myself that I would set out to seek my fortune as soon as I was strong enough to wield my sword easily. I was almost strong enough when Rezo came." ("He was," Rozlin confirmed.) "I can make myself that strong again."
"Or you could just get a lighter sword."
The brothers glared at each other around their sister's body.
"Has life in a mercenary band has affected your personality, or were you always this much of a jerk? Whoever told you that you were witty was wrong."
"Lighten up, Zel. If you still can't take honest criticism, you've got a lot of growing up left to do."
Amelia was about to leap into the argument, but the lady of the house fortunately chose that moment to make her entrance. The level of tension in the room dropped immediately and dramatically.
"Good evening," Mrs. Greywords said, showing no sign that she had noticed the fight. "I was about to go up to bed when I realized that I don't know where our newcomers are sleeping. Zel, would you prefer to sleep in your old room or the guest room?"
Zel blushed. The guestroom had a double bed. "My old room is fine," he said hurriedly. "Amelia can have the guestroom."
"I'm glad that's cleared up. Rozlin, it's bedtime. The rest of you are adults now, so I won't tell you when to go to bed. Just don't stay up too late."
The 'adults' took the hint. They followed immediately.
"Good night, Zel," Arturos whispered from the other side of the room. "It's good to have you back."
"Good night, Arturos." Zel tucked his familiar quilt more firmly under his chin. I missed you too, he added silently.
Zelgadis woke in sunlight. He looked around, too comfortable to move. His older brother was still asleep, loose strands of dark hair falling across his face. Arturos' side of the room was clean and unadorned to the point of starkness, as it had been ever since he stopped leaving his toys on the floor.
Zelgadis sat up and stretched. His quilt was one that his aunt had made. It had an interesting geometric pattern in shades of blue and green. There was a picture pinned to the wall over his bed. It was a self-portrait he had done when he was fourteen. No one else would sit still long enough for him to get every hair and eyelash right.
There was a small bookcase at the foot of the bed. Zel crawled out of bed and knelt in front of it. The lower shelf held the small but precious collection of books that belonged to Zel alone, not his family. Six of them were on shamanism. Three were military histories: one on the war of Monster's Fall and the others on more recent conflicts. Two were more general histories. There was a thin book on alchemy, which the bookseller had practically given him since no one else had ever shown any interest in it. The thick book beside it was a copy of an explorer's journal, full of careful pictures of sea creatures and notes on their behaviors. There were also two language-to-language dictionaries for help deciphering the more obscure magical texts.
The upper shelf served as a display rack for the best of the little figures Zel had carved out of wood and stone over the years. They were all rather rough and amateurish, especially the earlier ones, but he had been proud of them. He stroked the lopsided ears of the fox with an affectionate finger and turned the miniature knight slightly so that he faced more perfectly straight ahead.
The battered wooden wardrobe still held his old clothes. Zelgadis held them up against himself but they were too small now. He had grown several inches since he was last here, not all of them up.
The room felt dusty with old memories. He had once loved every object in this half of the room. Some, like the books, he had loved passionately. Others, like the clothes, he had liked simply because they were useful and they were his. Now he felt as detached from them all as a snake from a shed skin. There was nothing here that belonged to the person he was now except the clothing hung over the bedpost and the boots next to them. He felt indifferent toward this room, but at the same time strangely tender. The spirit of the boy he had once been still lived in this room, even though years of pain and hardship had expunged that boy from Zelgadis himself. This room was a relic of his lost innocence, but it was not his home anymore.
Zelgadis reached under the bed. He pulled out a dust-covered, distinctively shaped case. He brushed some of the dust off and opened it. The guitar inside seemed to glow in the early morning sunlight. He ran his fingers lovingly along the neck, silently fingering a few chords, but the decayed strings crumbled at his touch. He sighed. Maybe his mother would have a spare set. He shut the case again.
The next object he pulled out was a brightly painted chest. He blew the dust off the lid, trying not to cough. It was a toy box. Each of the Greywords children had his or her own toy box because a common toy box had led to too many fights over who had touched whose toys and who owned which item.
Zel pulled out the toys one by one. There was a toy sword, a chess set (a cheap one with wooden pieces and a foldable board that their parents had given Arturos and Zel to keep them from scratching up the valuable marble set downstairs), a stuffed blue dragon with tooth scars in its tail, building blocks, and, at the bottom of the chest, two miniature sorcerer's robes (one white, one black) and a small army of blue-uniformed lead soldiers (Arturos' army had worn red).
Zelgadis looked under the bed again but all that was left under there was a pair of too-small slippers and a large colony of dust bunnies.
"Are you going to play with those toys?"
Zel twisted around. Arturos was propped up on one elbow, watching him with an amused smile.
"No, I was just looking to see what's still here." Zel quickly started stuffing the toys back into the chest.
Author's Note: Do you remember the author's note at the end of chapter 7 where I overanalyzed the relationship between Rezo and Zelgadis? Do you remember that I wrote, "more on that later"? I did. You can go back and check. You probably thought I just left that hanging there and forgot all about it. Well, I didn't! I just didn't bother to mention that "later" meant nine chapters later. The time has come.
I don't think Rezo raised Zelgadis. As I pointed out in the author's note for chapter 7, Zelgadis doesn't even know whether Rezo is his grandfather or his great-grandfather. Their relationship seems purely professional. The hostility is all, "You turned me into a monster!" on one side and, "You traitorous minion!" on the other. "Bad parent/ungrateful child," doesn't come into it. Besides, why would Rezo go out in the pouring rain to offer Zel power if he could have done it over the breakfast table?
If not Rezo, then who did raise Zelgadis? I think we should at least consider the possibility that Zel has a completely normal family (if you can use the word 'normal' to describe Greywords). It is even possible that he did not suffer abuse and neglect as a child. What a horribly angst-free thought! Of course, that would mean that we can't blame his awful personality on his family (except on Rezo for ruining his good looks).
Considering Zel's approach to other people, I think he's most likely an only child, but I couldn't resist giving him siblings. Rozlin is, among other things, an explanation of why Slyphiel brings out his protective streak and why Lina caught him completely by surprise. Arturos is there to nurture his competitive drive. His parents helped shape his general approach to life. Of course, they are also full characters in their own right and it wouldn't be any fun if I told you all the thoughts behind them. I know that Zelgadis seems somewhat out of place in such a happy family setting, but being a chimera for three years would have changed him a bit. And the family isn't quite pure sweetness and light. Can you picture Zel growing up in such a family? Do you like them? Hate them? Think they are exactly like your family?
The next chapter is a straight continuation of this one. I thought a twenty-page chapter would be a bit excessive so I split it in half.