Chapter Seven
Zelgadis awoke the next morning to the languid composure shared by all those living on borrowed time. He had not been lying to Lina the other day when he had told her that he was going to die. It was his custom before any risky situation to convince himself that his demise was certain and imminent. He felt it allowed him to better take risks and, should it come to pass as he anticipated, well, he would be prepared. It was simply the most logical thing to do.
In actual fact, his death tomorrow was by no means certain. The Philosopher's Stone would be rendered unavailable to Rezo via conventional, legal means by today, and if he could stay far enough away and Lina could keep up a fierce enough barrage of spells to distract him, he stood a good chance of killing Rezo with a well-aimed shot with crossbow, guns, knives, or darts.
This, however, was not a thought he dwelled on, as it interfered with his pre-death preparations.
He'd already done his mourning. Frankly, there wasn't much he was going to miss. Not his family. Rezo didn't count, and he could barely remember the others. Didn't really have any friends to miss. Certainly wasn't going to regret leaving the dismal, grimy living he'd been eking out for years now.
Coffee. He would miss coffee. To a being whose senses were constantly besieged by the clamor and confusion of everyday life on a scale that only long experience prevented from being sensory overload, a liquid that could envelop most of his senses in one blessedly unified experience was precious as diamonds to a miser. He would miss running, too. Although admitting it made him clench his fists and narrow his eyes, he loved the speed the Mazoku element gave him. When Zelgadis had one of his exceedingly rare good dreams, it usually involved running endlessly over a two-dimensional white road floating mysteriously on a vast sea of the exact clarity and color of an aquamarine carefully cut and lovingly polished, fast and tireless.
And Lina. He would miss Lina. He would miss the verbal sparring and the banter. He would miss the tough-as-boot leather optimism. He would even miss the temper tantrums.
To think he had come so close to having a friend so near the end of his life. It was ironic.
But then again, to Zelgadis, everything about his life reeked of irony.
In the end, though, it didn't matter. He was going to die tomorrow, whether he liked it or not.
He was going to give Rezo a run for his money and go out with some dignity, though. He could at least ensure that much.
Zelgadis got up from the couch and headed for the window. As long as he peered out through the slit in the curtains, he should be safe from prying eyes in the street below. The morning was filled with mist, curled and creeping, coiled about lamp posts and doorways like strangling vines. Above the fog, the sky gleamed in that colorless tone that signals a day of air so heavy with moisture that your lungs feel weighted and creaking. It was cooler than it had been yesterday, though. Perhaps it would rain later.
Zelgadis was rudely shaken from his fatalistic reverie by an eardrum-perforating shriek from Lina, in the process of becoming reacquainted with her nightstand after her one-day respite from its gentle ministrations. The howling eventually died down to grumbles, and in short order Lina emerged.
"Morning, Zel."
Zelgadis grunted. It was his personal policy never to express any enthusiasm for mornings. People might come to expect cheer from him on a regular basis, and he simply could not allow that.
"Ah, don't be such a sourpuss. Come on, let's go get breakfast!"
And with the lightning rapidity characteristic of Lina at her most ravenous, the apartment was rendered entirely devoid of life.
Lina watched Zelgadis savor his coffee, hands clasped around the mug, ignoring the handle, and head bent over the over the cup's wide mouth to inhale the aroma-laden steam arising from the liquid within. Zelgadis sipped his coffee with all the appreciation and fine sensibility of a wine connoisseur, memorizing the bitter, full taste of every mouthful. For a guy whose views on life were epitomized by the words "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," Zel sure knew how to enjoy the finer things it offered.
In fact, his calm devotion to that cup of coffee was driving Lina up the walls and onto the ceiling. Tomorrow they were going to be in a fight! A big fight! Lina had entered the stage of her battle preparation characterized by reckless glee and boundless aggression toward her opponent.
Unlike Zelgadis' brutally logical psychological preparation for the upcoming confrontation, Lina's reaction to the looming reality of the fight was entirely involuntary. She couldn't help it. Whenever the stress rating on Lina's life jumped a notch, her attitude invariably swung (after the initial "oh, holy crap" stages) to the kick-your-ass-with-a-smile optimism she found herself in now.
She had noticed Zelgadis' unusual solemnity. His sarcastic complaints over her disregard for the state of his wallet had lacked their usual causticity, and the way his gaze lingered on every scene had not escaped her. She supposed it was part of his own preparation. She had learned that everyone had his or her own way of going about it. Knowing Zel, his was probably thoroughly morbid and utterly pessimistic, but hey, whatever floated his boat.
She wasn't going to let him get her down, though. Oh, no. No, today they had an alchemist to intimidate, battle plans to hash out, and the rest of the day to waste in the time-honored Inverse tradition of pre-battle hedonistic celebration, which Zel was coming along for, whether he liked it or not.
…
…
…
Well, perhaps hedonistic celebration was going a bit too far. If she worked really hard at it, maybe she could get him to demonstrate mild enthusiasm for a visit to a coffeehouse.
A smell of burnt sugar and a calamitous clatter met them at the entrance to warehouse. Both Lina and Zelgadis were greatly relieved that they wouldn't have to wait for Rathpole's arrival. Yesterday's experience had been quite enough for both of them. Silence suddenly blossomed as the door slid shut.
"Who's there?"
The faint ring of metal sliding over metal echoed in the stale air of the warehouse, and Lina and Zelgadis recalled Rathpole's nervous reach for something out of sight on the previous day.
"We have the Phoenix Tears."
Sounds of scuffling.
"…All right. Come out."
They did so, slowly, careful not to startle Rathpole, who crouched protectively in front of his fortress of arcane equipment. If possible, he looked even more scruffy and rumpled than he had yesterday. His clothes were heavily wrinkled and damp with sweat, and his thin hair seemed to have acquired the marvelous levitational powers of a medieval halo, framing his twitching features in an aureole of thistledown. It was not hard to surmise that he hadn't left the warehouse since they had last seen him.
"Show me."
Zelgadis slowly reached a hand inside his cloak and pulled out the flask, holding it up to catch the gray light tumbling in through the high, dusty windows and refract it in the metallic gold tones of a trumpet fanfare. Rathpole's dangerous tension vanished into thin air at the sight, and he scurried forward. Though he was taller than Zelgadis by at least a head, the cringing reverence with which he brought his reedy hands to the flask made him seem small and bent. Zelgadis brought the Phoenix Tears back out of range before his knobby fingers could close on it, and Rathpole gave an outraged gasp.
"What are you doing?"
"I want your word that you'll complete your part of the deal."
"The Philosopher's Stone is yours. So I solemnly swear, Shabranigdo consume me if I lie."
"When will it be ready?"
"It ought to be finished tomorrow night."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Um…say between 10:00 and midnight."
"Good. We'll be there. If Rezo shows up, you had better hope that that pistol you keep reaching for is as intimidating as you seem to think it is."
"The look on his face when you said that was priceless! How'd you know it was a pistol, anyway?"
They were walking aimlessly back in the general direction of Lina's apartment, Lina fairly bouncing in barely-contained exuberance, and Zelgadis solemnly placing one foot in front of the other with careful deliberation. Each step was one step closer to his death, and so close to his own demise, Zelgadis was determined not to waste any time at all with unintentional actions.
"Hey! You listening?"
"Hmm?"
Lina was a bit worried. His ever-present poker face always made it hard to tell what Zel was thinking, but it was worrisome that he had been so distracted as not to hear her. Zel had always before seemed hyperaware of his surroundings, eyes darting to dark corners, turning his head to the slightest of sounds.
"Zel, are you ok?"
"I'm fine," he said brusquely. "What were you saying?"
"How'd you know it was a pistol?"
"Didn't sound heavy enough for a rifle, and Rathpole doesn't look like he could use a sword."
"Oh. Damn, your hearing's good."
Zelgadis grunted. Hopefully it wouldn't stay that good for long.
"So where to now?"
He shrugged.
"Nowhere. We just have to wait. There's nothing we can do until tomorrow night. You can do whatever you want until then."
"What are you going to do?"
He shrugged again. In truth, he would probably find someplace calm and devoid of people and spend the rest of the day preparing himself for certain doom. He wasn't about to tell Lina that, though. She probably wouldn't like it, and he didn't want to spend too many of his last hours healing himself or searching for clothes without scorch marks so he could go out with some dignity.
Lina scowled. Right. That probably meant he was going to go find somewhere to mope.
"All right, Zel. I don't have anything to do either. Coffee sound good to you?"
Before Zelgadis could formulate a suitably non-inflammatory reply, Lina had grabbed his arm and they were off.
Zelgadis watched in the fastidious disgust of a purist as Lina ordered coffee with everything. I mean everything. Cream, honey, and a liberal helping of rare and expensive spices. Cinnamon, cardamom, even precious nutmeg disappeared into Lina's bottomless mug, the liquid inside now a delicate golden brown reminiscent of desert sand. Zelgadis wasn't quite sure what it was, but it sure as hell wasn't coffee anymore. Lina demanded yet another scoop of cinnamon, and Zelgadis gloomily reflected that in at least one respect, it was a good thing he was dying tomorrow. If he had to keep paying for Lina's meals he'd wind up out on the streets again in no time.
Having finally bullied the waitress into giving her enough of everything, Lina flopped back in her chair and grinned the happy smile of a crocodile who has just eaten a very fat person. Now she finally had her chance to embroil Zel in a nice, messy magical debate. This could be fun.
"So. Do you think it's possible to find a Magnus' Key for Black?"
Zelgadis blinked. He had not been expecting that. He had been expecting a rant, or some more of Lina's teasing, or even dead silence. The opening gambit to a discussion on a complex area of thaumaturgical debate had definitely not been on the list.
But what the hell. Magical theory was always interesting, and that conversation with Lina about how to find the Philosopher's Stone had been the most engrossing he'd had on the topic. It would be nice to actually enjoy a couple of his last hours.
"No. I don't think it can be done."
Lina beamed and dove headfirst into the conversation.
It was relatively easy to create original Shamanistic spells, though it still required a high level of expertise in the field. Original Black spells were another matter. No one had created an original Black spell in years. The reason for the huge variety in Shamanistic spell variants lay in the discovery of Magnus' Key.
Lei Magnus had discovered that certain key phrases (and the mental maneuvers that accompanied their utterance in a casting), when used in incantations, opened up a broad area of the natural magical spectrum to the caster's manipulations. In this sense, Magnus' Key really was a key of sorts. One could create an original Shamanistic spell without the aid of Magnus' Key, but it required a lot more thought and a lot more work. To create such a spell, the caster would have to find an independent way to tap into and draw out the natural magical power Shamanism relied on. Magnus' Key allowed for cut-and-paste magic. One simply used the Key to open the door to the necessary branch of magic and manipulated the power drawn in any way desired.
Black could not be accessed broadly and shaped in the same way because it drew directly on the power of individual Mazoku. Magic is an integral part of the being of any creature that possesses the ability to manipulate it. One's individual magic varies from person to person in much the same way as individual personalities do. Black drew on the individual magic of the Mazoku Lords, and so came pre-shaped, so to speak. The magic already knew what form it wanted to take, and it had proven extremely difficult to fashion it into anything else. To be sure, some limited success had been achieved with the power of Ruby Eye Shabranigdo and the Lords Deep Sea Dolphin and Dynast Grauscherra, but no one had been able to make the power of Greater Beast Zelas Metallium, Chaos Dragon Gaav, or Hellmaster Phibrizzo take any form but that of Zelas Brid, Gaav Flare, and Laguna Blast, respectively.
Zelgadis held that the power sources for Black magic were too idiosyncratic to possess a broad, all-purpose opening that could be exploited with a Magnus' Key. Lina countered that the powers Shamanism drew on for its spells were just as different. You couldn't really get much more diverse than fire and water and air and earth, could you? If you could have a Magnus's Key for fire-based Shamanism, why couldn't you have a Magnus' Key for Black magic drawing on Dynast Grauscherra? Zelgadis argued that while the essence of fire was fairly mindless and constant, the essence of Dynast Grauscherra very definitely had a mind of its own and was subject to change without notice. Lina replied that any entity must have at least a few basic unchanging tenets of its existence – there must be something about the essence of Dynast Grauscherra that made it the essence of Dynast Grauscherra and no one else, no matter how Dynast Grauscherra might change over time.
…And so on.
You get the picture. In no time at all, Lina and Zelgadis were engaged in a highly technical, wide-ranging discussion of magic and philosophy. What patrons hadn't immediately abandoned the coffee shop upon their arrival ('Cause let's face it: Zelgadis and Lina both look pretty disreputable. Definitely not the kind of people you want to associate with if you're a gentleman.) swiftly vacated the premises when they realized that the animated conversation between the two had high-level Black magic as its topic.
The establishment's owner paced nervously behind his counter. Those two were not the kind of customers he usually served. The cloaked one was entirely too threatening for his liking, and the girl's scandalous attire simply did not bear thinking about. And they were talking up a storm about magic – and Black magic no less, which everyone knew drew on pure evil to accomplish its nefarious purposes. And they had chased most of his regular clientele away. They might give him a bad reputation.
…But he had to admit, the cloaked one was drinking enough coffee to single-handedly make up for the momentary loss of his other customers.
He didn't know whether to call the guard or just wait and see if he could get them to drink some more.
At this moment, his dilemma was solved for him when Lina piped up.
"Hey, Zel? I'm hungry. You want to continue this somewhere where they serve food?"
The cloaked one (Zel? Odd name…) looked mournfully into his coffee cup and made as if to get up, but was halted in his progress by the proprietor scurrying up to the table.
"Ah, miss? We also serve food here. Mostly pastries and sandwiches, but…."
Just please don't leave now! A couple more cups of coffee and I'll actually cut a profit today!
"You do? What are you waiting for? Bring it on, old man!"
"Right away, miss."
Lina and Zelgadis resumed their esoteric conversation, and in short order the owner returned with a plate of tidbits. He watched in amazement as Lina wolfed it down in what appeared to be a grand total of three gigantic mouthfuls only, and hurriedly disappeared into his kitchen to prepare as much food as he could. After ferrying several plates heaped to overflowing out to the tiny table the two occupied, the proprietor simply sat back and watched in dumb astonishment as the tiny redhead steadily consumed his hard work at a pace reminiscent of wildfire. At one point in the frenzy, the cloaked man reached in and delicately rescued a small roll from the chaos. The girl stopped and stared.
"Zel! You're eating something! And here I thought you lived on air and coffee!"
Having received only an amused snort in reply, the girl rolled her eyes and both were soon again submerged in their theoretical discussion. They stayed there the rest of the day, the girl eating mountainous quantities of food and the cloaked man drinking oceanic quantities of coffee. A few would-be clients poked their heads in, but quickly turned away at the sight of the two. The proprietor was in awe of them. He would have to restock tomorrow, but what they had consumed more than made up for it. Who cared if they scared his regular clientele away? If he could just keep up with their demands, he could get rich off the two of them alone! Had the CAWUAT been present, they would surely have shaken their heads and explained to him as gently as possible that all that glitters is not gold, and that, despite the fact that the presence of Lina Inverse was profitable at the outset, the property damage and overwork more than counterbalanced it.
Finally, when the sky was taking on that golden tint that precedes a summer sunset, Lina let out an incongruously ladylike belch and patted her stomach, and Zelgadis contentedly set down his final empty mug of coffee. He dug around for a sufficiently large wad of money and laid it down on the counter, and they ambled out the door, still conversing animatedly, though by this time the topic of discussion had shifted over to the feasibility of spells combining elements of Black and Shamanism or White and Shamanism. The proprietor clutched his fistful of money and waved to them from the door, grinning madly all the while.
"Hope you enjoyed yourselves! Please come back again! But not too soon!"
Lina entered her apartment, Zelgadis following close behind her, still talking. By unspoken accord they both made for the sitting room and Lina lighted the lamps with a modified fireball. They continued to talk for a while on the diverse topics relating to ars magica, and finally reached an impasse when dark had completed its takeover of the city. They fell into a relaxed silence and simply gazed up at the ceiling in comfortable indolence.
Zelgadis was smiling, though he didn't realize it. It had been a relief to have such a lengthy, in-depth conversation. Years of having the borders of human contact defined by yes and no, fine and thanks, had worn on him. Though not talkative by nature, so few words in so many days had left him desperate for a real conversation. After a time, silence settles on a person like a heavy cape, builds up inside them inside them like a poison. If you don't find catharsis soon, you suffocate under the looping weight of your own solitary thoughts, which swoop and flutter like a flock of sparrows in a mid-air turn, flitting and disconnected.
"Hey Zel?"
"Hmm?"
"How do you know so much about this stuff?"
Zelgadis sank back down out of the clouds to gloomily reply.
"Rezo."
"Oh. Sorry. I just wondered…. My big sister, Luna…you remember, the waitress? She taught me. I believe her exact words were, 'If we must be saddled with this curse of yours, you will learn to control it to the best of your ability. If you cannot or will not control it, you are no longer welcome in this household.' Heh. I learned to control it, and then I got out of there as soon as I could so I didn't have to. Big Sis sure was thorough, though. Have to give her that. Got me all the black market texts, read up on the stuff herself so she could test me…the works. If I didn't know my stuff, she'd know it and she'd make sure I knew it and repented of my ways."
"Hmph. Rezo just gave me the key to his library and told me to come back when I thought I could survive a test."
"I think I would actually have preferred that to Luna's tutoring. Anything is better than being grilled by Luna, anything at all."
Zelgadis wasn't sure what to make of her tight voice and pale, strained expression. Lina Inverse was a force of nature. She carried with her such an air of invincibility that he was almost convinced that bullets would damage her just about as much as they would him. To see her deathly afraid of something so mundane as her older sister was perversely comforting. Underneath the invulnerability lay a human being, and it was comforting to know that a mere mortal could be so devil-may-care tough. Even if he died tomorrow, he was sure Lina would survive. She might come out bruised and limping, but come out she would and live to fight another day. Lina gave a whole new set of reasons for the possession of faith in humanity.
They both stared silently up at the glass-pale ceiling for a while, just letting lethargy play with the trailing edges of their thoughts. The streets outside were quiet but for the occasional clipping of hooves across cobblestones and creak of strained axles. Periodically a raucous shout would arise from a group of merrymakers somewhere or the cheerful babble of a group of friends would pass under the window. The city had cooled considerably with the sun's exit, and a damp breeze rolled through the streets, flapping clothes and stirring curtains. A particularly hearty gust suddenly made Lina's hair writhe and blew out one of their lamps in an abrupt stench of smoke and oil. Lina sneezed and then chuckled.
"Oh well. Guess that's that. That was fun, Zel. We'll have to do it again. Good night. Try and get some sleep, and don't brood too much."
Hmph. 'Don't brood too much.'
As if that would deter him.
Oh well. Zelgadis realized he was still smiling and hastily let his face fall back into its customary serene blankness. Perhaps, on second thought, he would avoid brooding tonight after all. He already knew he was going to die, and he didn't want to shove that conversation out of his mind just yet. It provided an unexpectedly pleasant high note on which to end his life.
AN: Er…yeah. Got a little theory-heavy in there. Sorry about that. I'm one of those people who likes that kind of thing. I was this close to being a linguistics major. And I know I'm taking terrific liberties with the Slayers magic system, but hopefully they're not inconsistent liberties. You guys seem like a remarkably nice bunch, so I'm hoping you won't lynch me over it.
Anyway, thank you for reading this, as always. And those of you who review, thanks for that, too. Warms the cockles of my heart, it does.
And, of course, many thanks to PKNight, without whom this would be mouldering away on my hard drive, un-beta'd and forlorn.