Chapter Five: The Announcement (half)
And at the end of those three years, the populace of Ookami City gathered in the square before the palace. On the palace balcony, first King Gorlimac, then Queen Mary, and finally Rezo appeared. The Red Priest took two steps forward, raised his arms, and addressed the crowd.
"My people, I have at last chosen a bride -- a lady who was once a commoner, like yourselves." He paused for a moment. "But I believe you will not find her... common... now."
The royal trumpeters blazoned a fanfare, and --
"Was it 'Hail to the Victors' or 'Tanabata'?" Gourry asked.
"Huh?" everyone else intelligently answered.
"Most of them are cousins or friends or friends of cousins," the blond clarified, "and they only know how to play 'Tanabata' and 'Hail to the Victors.' Well, that is, they were trying to learn 'Little Goldie, the Super Goldfish' when I left, so maybe they can play three pieces of music now."
"Uh... Gourry-san, these are the Royal Trumpeters of Ookami, not of Mipross. They know how to play real fanfares."
The royal trumpeters blazoned a fanfare, and a figure appeared in the arch of a smaller door of one of the palace's side wings, a Lighting spell bathing her in radiance.
Lala was gowned in shimmering white, and her hair was pulled back from her face with ropes of pearls. As she slowly walked forward, the crowd parting before her, she seemed an embodiment of fairy tales come to life.
"Was Lala doing the Lighting spell?" Sylphiel asked.
"No, somebody else was. Lala didn't know any magic."
The crowd was silent, unable even to ooh or ahh as this thionite dream approached them.
But one person in the crowd was not overcome by her presence.
One person was not lost in admiration.
In the shadow of the church --
In the darkness of an arch --
Behind a pillar, the maroon-clad one stood --
Watching --
Waiting.
"Um, Amelia?"
"Yes, Gourry-san?"
"What's a thionite dream?"
"I don't really know... it's something my mother used to say about things that were particularly nice, especially beautiful people -- she'd call them 'seven-sector callouts,' too."
"Hey, my grandmother used to refer to beautiful girls as seven-sector callouts, too! She said it mean that they were among the most beautiful women of seven kingdoms."
"Really, Gourry-san? I always wondered about that... "
"The story?" Lina reminded them.
However, Lala was not happy. Although she was engaged to Rezo, she did not like him.
"It's called 'good taste,' " Zelgadis muttered.
Despite Rezo's assurances that she would grow fond of him, Lala's only happiness came from her daily rides. She put her hair up in the style called 'lop-eared rabbit' and rode for as far and fast as she might.
"Lop-eared rabbit?" Zelgadis raised an eyebrow.
"Mother used to do my hair and Oneechan's like that sometimes, and I wore it like that for years until I got it cut so it'd be easier to take care of," Amelia explained. "That's why I did Gourry-san's hair like that when we were being Lulu, Lili, and Lala."
On the particular day in question, Lala was in fact pondering whether it were wrong to marry someone without liking them, and, if so, if it were too late to do anything about it. As she saw it, the answers were firstly, no, and secondly, yes.
It wasn't exactly wrong to marry someone without liking them; it just wasn't right, either. If everyone in all the worlds did it, that wouldn't be so great, since everyone would be kind of grunting at everyone else as time went by. But not everyone did, so THAT was all right.
The answer to the second problem was even easier: she'd given her word to marry Rezo, so of course she was going to. She certainly wasn't about to dishonor her ancestors and her cousins and her sisters and her aunts by going back on her promises, after all. And she could always have said "no" when he asked; although what would she have done then? Raised cabbages?
Everyone had told her, ever since she pledged to marry Rezo, that she was probably the most beautiful woman in the world. Now she was going to be the richest and most powerful as well.
"Don't expect too much from life," Lala told herself seriously as she began to turn Horse around, hand gliding across the skirt of her usual impractical pink gown. "Learn to be satisfied with what you have."
And just then she was waved down by three people, out where no people could be expected to be. All three of them had black, black hair. The first one wore her hair long; she was very tall and had a full-breasted, wasp-waisted figure, well revealed by her battle bikini, which had been designed on the 'visual suspense' principle.
Lina winced.
"What's the 'visual suspense' principle?" Zelgadis asked.
"That's 'will she or won't she fall out of her clothes?'" Gourry told him. "They never do, but you keep hoping."
Lina whacked him.
The second was a short girl with short hair and a more modest figure, enshrouded in sensible off-white tunic and trews. The third was a little kid with a page-boy cut and a ratty violet tunic, and it was he who spoke to Lala.
"Shitsurei desu ga, oneechan... " he said, face angelically sweet.
Lala reined Horse in. "What is it?"
"We are poor lost traveling performers. Is there a town nearby?"
Lala blinked. "There is nothing. Not for miles."
His face twisted, becoming almost terrifyingly cruel. "Then there will be no one to hear you scream."
Lala, frightened, was about to turn Horse to flee when the tall woman cast a sleep spell.
"Ugh."
"What is it, Zelgadis-san?" Amelia asked.
"I just had a bad Hellmaster flashback."
Lina rolled her eyes. "There's another kind?"
"Anoh, Lina... should I know who Hellmaster is?"
"G -- Gourry-sama! He was the Demon Lord who killed Flagoon and revived Sairaag for his own purposes and controlled the dead -- he looked like a child -- "
"He kidnapped you and hypnotized you and nearly killed everyone and I cast the Giga Slave against him and nearly got swallowed up by L. O. N. and -- "
"OH! That bratty little kid, right before the big black thing and the crystal stair! I remember him!"
"What crystal stair, Gourry-sama?"
"Wasn't there a crystal stair?"
"I don't think so," Zelgadis said.
"Well, it seems like there ought to have been..."
"No, no," Amelia said. "The boy was my mother's little brother Philodim Brezirao Ragnarokkthrasir -- we never met him because Mother really, really hated him, but she told us that if we ever were stupid enough to go work for him she'd disown us."
"She actually threatened to disown you if you chose to work for her brother?" Sylphiel asked, shocked.
"That and that the pay scale wasn't that good and that the retirement plan stank."
"Well, then," was Lina's comment.
"That's what Oneechan said."
"So what happened next?" Gourry asked.
At the river, which was right nearby, the tall woman manhandled Lala into a boat while the little boy held Horse with one hand and tore some cloth with the other.
"What's that you're ripping?" the girl, whose name was Amelia, asked.
"Actually," Amelia interrupted herself, "Mother used my full name all through the story, and Oneechan's full name, because that's how she always referred to us. She even called Daddy by his full name, except when she was being very affectionate and shortened it to Philionel."
"Your mother was very formal, wasn't she, Amelia?" Lina asked.
"I suppose so. Except maybe when she was swearing -- she had a vocabulary worse than any sailor. I never really thought about it. She was just -- Mother."
"It's fabric from the uniform of an army officer of Yamainu," Philodim, the Maha'asura, said.
"Anoh... what's Yamainu?"
"The country across the channel! The sworn enemy of Ookami!" he snapped, finishing his tearing and artistically arranging the shreds underneath Lala's saddle. "Hyaa!" He slapped Horse, sending it bolting for its stable.
"When Rezo finds the fabric on her horse," Philodim continued, "he will suspect that the Yamainujin have abducted his love. His suspicions will be totally confirmed when he finds her body on the Yamainu frontier."
"Wait a moment!" Amelia said. "No one said anything about killing anyone."
"We were hired to start a war, neechan," Philodim rolled his eyes. "It's an ancient line of work with a long and glorious tradition."
"I just don't think it's just, killing an innocent woman."
Regrettably, all four of her listeners cracked up.
"Think?" Philodim gasped. "I didn't hire you to think, you cow-handed would-be Magical Emi!"
"I agree with Amelia," the sorceress Gracia said, coming to the rear of the boat. "It's just not right."
"Oh, the lush has spoken," the little boy sneered. "Well, remember this. Never forget this! When I found you, you were so slobbering drunk, you couldn't even buy brandy!" He whirled on Amelia. "And you! Friendless! Brainless! Helpless! Hopeless! Do you want to go back to where you two were? Unemployed? In the DESERT OF DESTRUCTION?"
The two young women looked at each other in helpless anger before setting about making the boat ready -- pulling up its sail, that sort of thing.
As Gracia shoved the three-people-laden boat off and hopped aboard -- a task delegated to her because she had the longest legs -- she turned to Amelia and said soothingly, "You know that we'll do what we... must."
"Though what he -- " Amelia pointed to Philodim -- "wants is seldom... just." She began to straighten.
"It might be," Gracia said dubiously, "that he means no... harm."
"He's very, very short on... charm!" The smaller girl's face broke into a wide smile.
"Are there any rocks ahead?" the boy called from his position in the low middle of the boat, watching over Lala.
"If there are, we'll all be dead!" Amelia called back gaily.
"Stop that rhyming now! I mean it!"
"Anybody like a peanut?"
"AAARGHH!"
"Um..." Gourry said, scratching the back of his head. "Amelia, what was with all that rhyming stuff?"
"When I was young, I couldn't get enough," the princess of Sailoon assured him. She then clapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry.
"Seriously, though, when I was little I thought rhymes were the neatest thing ever invented, and I'd spit out a rhyme to anything anyone said and drive them up the wall and back again."
"I can see how that would happen," Zelgadis said dryly.
"Mother said I must get it from her side of the family," Amelia said proudly.
"When did you stop?" Sylphiel asked curiously.
"Oh, Aunt Ethel asked me what rhymed with 'orange.'"
"What does?" Gourry asked.
Amelia looked blank. "I have no clue. Do any of you know?"
"Borage?" Lina offered half-heartedly.
"No... that doesn't have any 'n' sound." The dark-haired girl paused. "What is borage, anyway?"
"Beats me."
"I think it's something you launder with."
"You're thinking of borax, Zelgadis-san," Sylphiel corrected.
"So what happened next?" Lina asked.
The boat was well out to sea when Lala woke up.
"No matter what you may think," she told them with as much dignity as it is possible to have when slumped against the side of a small wooden boat feeling queasy, "my fiance will catch you all. And when he does, he will see you all hanged."
"Silly!" Philodim giggled with a child's mirth. "Of all the necks on this boat, the one you ought to be worried about is your own!" He laughed some more, rolling until he noticed Gracia (in the stern of the boat) peering out behind them.
"What are you doing?" the boy mastermind demanded.
"I, the Serpent Enchantress," Gracia proclaimed, tossing her long hair, "am making sure that no one follows us."
The boy snorted. "Inconceivable!"
"Are you quite sure that no one is following us?"
"Look," Philodim said, irritated (and it is seldom the better part of valor to irritate my mother's brother Philodim), "it is absolutely inconceivable that anyone could be following us! No one in Yamainu knows we're out here, and no one in Ookami could have gotten here so fast!" He paused for a moment. "Out of curiosity, why do you ask?"
"Oh... no reason. I just happened to look behind us, and something is there."
"WHAT?"
Philodim and Amelia rushed to the stern, leaning out to see the dark sail against the black sky.
"It's probably a local fisherman," Philodim said dismissively, "out for a midnight cruise... through... wani-infested waters."
"They must be terribly brave," Amelia sighed as a cloud passed over the moon.
There was a loud splash.
The three kidnappers spun to barely see Lala swimming vigorously if not skillfully away from the boat, hampered somewhat by her frilly pink riding gown.
"Go in!" Philodim yelped. "Go after her!"
"The Serpent Enchantress," Gracia informed him, "does not swim."
"The Serpent sorceress sure floats well, though," Lina muttered.
"What was that, Lina-san?"
"Nothing of consequence, Amelia."
Amelia shrugged. "I only dog paddle."
"OOOOOH!" Philodim was hopping in his rage, on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum befitting the age he preferred to appear to be. "Go left! Left! Your other left!"
Lina made a face. "Now I'M having a Hellmaster flashback."
"Hellmaster was the bratty little kid, right?" Gourry said, in the tone of a schoolboy who really has memorized it this time, honest!
"Yes, Gourry," Lina said in the particular longsuffering voice indicating that although she was making an exception this one time, she didn't intend to go on suffering. (She'd perfected it dealing with him.)
"Gee, his parents must have hated him. Giving him a name like Hellmaster and all... "
There was liberal bedizenage of sweat around the table.
"... if I'd been him, I'd've changed my name to Shion or Fred or Meriadoc or Shann Lantee or Takamura Taishi or Hoshino Tetsurou or Pazu or Asterix or something normal like that."
This produced a long moment of silence, which Sylphiel finally broke.
"They certainly have interesting names where you come from, Gourry-sama."
"Yes, we do, don't we? My cousin Gally actually named one of her twins Rikkitikkitavi."
"What did she name the other one?" Zelgadis wondered.
"Oh, she decided to use one of the old family names and call him Tomservo."
Zelgadis looked as if he were sorry he'd asked.
As Lala struck out in the direction which she was almost positively maybe possibly nearly sure was that of the land, she heard a strange and ghastly sound like that of a thousand women discovering that a thousand male kinsmen had left the privy seats up AGAIN.
"Do you know what that sound is, Denka?" Philodim called from the boat. "Those are the Raging Wani!"
Lala slowed down, doing her best not to splash.
"They always get louder just before they attack," the boy continued with ghoulish cheerfulness.
The sound -- not scream nor roar nor groan, but some hideous combination of all three -- seemed to be louder than it had been.
"Do you know what happens to the wani when they sense blood in the water? They go mad. No one but their Doyenne has any hope of controlling their rage. They rip, and shred, and chew, and devour.
"Now we're safe in the boat. There isn't any blood in the water now, so you're relatively safe, but there's a knife in my hand, Denka, and if you don't come back I'll cut the sisters' arms and I'll cut their legs and I'll catch the blood in a cup and I'll fling it as far as I can and the wani can sense blood for klicks -- you won't be so lovely for long."
Lala stopped swimming and started treading water.
"If you swim back now, I promise that you will feel no pain. I doubt you'll get such an offer from the wani."
Something large... moved past her... in the water.
Lala barely even remembered to breathe. She was dreadfully ashamed of herself, but there it was; she wished she could see for a moment whether the wani were still nearby or whether it had gone away, and if the Maha'asura's companions really would let him cut them.
Gracia made a strangled sound.
"He just cut Oneechan's arm, ohimesama," Amelia called out, voice revolted. "He's catching the blood now. It's covered all the bottom -- eep!"
Was that another one?
"He, uh, just cut me," Amelia said. "The cup's getting full."
"Amelia, will you knock it off about the blood?" Gracia squealed. "There's a reason I'm not looking!"
Another wani moved, far too near Lala and far too fast. She had a scattered impression of smooth hide and teeth.
"My arm is back to throw," the boy called gleefully. "Call out your location or not -- the choice is yours."
Lala resolved not to make a sound.
"Abayo!"
There was the splash of liquid on liquid.
The cry of the wani filled her ears.
And then there was movement before her and something shot up out of the water right in front of her, and all Lala could see was the pale light glinting off of rows and rows of teeth marching down into its gullet --
"She does not get eaten by the wani at this time," Amelia interrupted herself.
"What?" Zelgadis blinked.
"The wani doesn't get her," the princess of Sailoon clarified. "That's what Mother used to say to reassure us when we got scared, the way you were doing."
"I wasn't scared!" Zelgadis and Lina indignantly denied.
"I might have been a little nervous," Gourry offered, "but that's not the same as scared."
Sylphiel's "No, of course not" came out at the same time as Amelia's "That's just what Oneechan always used to say.
"Because," Amelia continued, "I can stop if you want me to."
"No, no," everyone raggedly chorused. "Go on."
"Do you know what that sound is, Denka?" Philodim called from the boat. "Those are the Raging Wani!"
"You already did that part," Lina noted critically.
"Oh. So I did. Excuse me." Amelia thought for a moment. "Okay, she was in the water, the wani was coming after her, she was scared, the wani started to charge her, and then -- "
Odd, Lala relected in a moment of calm; the moonlight was actually sort of pretty glinting off those horrid teeth, even if they were about to rend her flesh. At least she got to see the moon once more before she died.
Two voices called "Levitation!"
She was unceremoniously hoisted in the air and levitated over to the boat.
"Put her down!" Philodim ordered the sisters, waving a hand at the lower deck of the boat. He stalked over to Lala as soon as she dropped the last few feet, mocking smile on his face. "I suppose you think you're brave, Denka?"
"Only," Lala replied as chillingly as she could, "compared to some."
This was a bit of a conversation-stopper.
"Keep her warm," Gracia said, tossing a bit of sacking to the smaller girl before casting a healing spell on herself.
"Don't catch cold," Amelia told the blonde, wrapping the sacking around the taller woman, whose pink dress looked bloody in the wet and the moonlight.
"Does it matter?" Lala asked. "You're going to be killing me tomorrow."
"Oh, he'll do the actual work," Amelia said, waving a hand at the boy. "We'll just hold you. Besides, killing or no killing, you're wet and cold and OUGHT to be warmed up. Murder and assassination is no reason not to observe common courtesy, Mother always said."
"Did she really?" Lina asked.
"Of course," Amelia said. "There are plenty of good reasons to be rude too, after all. Besides, she got sort of deadly polite to the people she really hated right before she did something nasty and probably permanent. Like with my step-aunt Zoharrine and the bell tower."
"Hold your stupid tongue," Philodim growled.
"I don't think she's so stupid," Lala said. "Just because she's loud and naive."
The boy rolled his eyes. "Look who's talking."
Gracia hiccuped.
"Besides, the reason people think she's so stupid is because she IS so stupid. Her naivete has nothing to do with it."
"Well, I don't think YOU'RE so smart either," Lala said thoughtfully. "All that throwing blood into the water. That's not the sort of plan brilliant generals come up with."
"It worked, didn't it? You're back, aren't you? Once humans are sufficiently frightened, they scream."
"But I didn't scream. The moon came out."
Philodim hit her.
Amelia started to move toward him, but her sister jumped down and thoughtfully grabbed her, clapping a hand over her mouth.
"She would have screamed," the boy grumbled, marching back to the stern of the boat and the rudder. "She was about to cry out. My plan was ideal, just the way all my plans are ideal. It was the moon's bad timing that spoiled it for me."
Conversation in the boat was sparse until the next morning.
"This is starting to sound more like the one my grandfather told me," Sylphiel said so quietly that only the two men next to her could hear her. "But... "
"What's that, Sylphiel?"
"Never mind, Gourry-sama."
"There is someone following us!" Amelia said excitedly as the sun began to rise. "Look!"
The sail behind them was revealed to belong to a small but very trim one-man skiff, obviously built for speed -- indeed, she had caught nearly up to them.
"Whoever he is," Philodim exulted viciously, "he's too late! See?" He waved one hand at the shore not five yards away, and on top of it -- "The Cliffs of Insanity!" They loomed up four or five thousand feet high, impossibly sheer.
"Quick!" the Maha'asura ordered the sisters. "Move the... the thing! And the other thing! MOVE IT!"
In less time than it takes to tell about it, the boat had been trimmed, divested of its four passengers, and shoved off.
"Only the Sailoon princesses are strong enough to go up our way," the nasty little boy gloated. "He'll have to sail around for hours before he finds a way up!"
Lala, passively resisting,was chivvied into the middle of the group. The sisters linked arms and cast a Raywing bubble.
Lala looked up, looked down, and promptly closed her eyes.
"Four thousand is more than twelve hundred, right?" Gourry asked.
"Much more," Lina assured him. "These cliffs would be about as high as the Kataart Mountains, only straight up."
"I think the Kataarts get up to ten thousand," Sylphiel contradicted mildly.
"Twelve," Zelgadis corrected. "At least in the middle. And there are some peaks that are even higher."
"That's above sea level," Lina argued. "They're about five thousand above the plain, and that's what Gourry would envision anyway -- right, Gourry?"
"Uh, sure," the swordsman said blankly. "Well, I don't blame Lala for closing her eyes."
Sylphiel blinked.
"Gourry's acrophobic," Lina, Zelgadis, and Amelia explained in unison.
"No, no, I'm just fine with spiders..."
The bubble ascended the cliff at a slow, steady pace. Below them, the skiff drew near, and a slim figure in maroon hopped out.
"What's maroon again?"
"It's sort of a very dark red, Gourry-sama."
"Oh, you mean crimson. Why didn't Amelia say so?"
The mysterious person was wearing crimson trews and a matching loose tunic with a skull and crossed bones on it, as well as a dark blue cape with a matching hood and half-mask, with a white scarf bound over the lower part of the face. The cloaked figure barely wasted a moment looking up before casting another Raywing spell.
Amelia looked down. "He's gaining on us."
"Inconceivable!" Philodim gasped. He stared for a moment before glaring at the sisters. "Go faster! Faster!"
"I thought we were going faster," Amelia protested indignantly as the bubble sped up very slightly -- still far behind the pace set by the person in crimson and cobalt blue.
"You were supposed to be these prodigies! This great, legendary THING! And yet he gains!"
"Well, I, the great Gracia -- with the aid of my talented little sister, of course -- am lifting four people, and he's got only himself."
Philodim made a noise like the Raging Wani.
The blob and speck -- as they would have appeared to an observer in one of the boats -- rose ever higher, the pursuing speck drawing nearer and nearer.
"As soon as we get to the top," the boy commanded, "cast your golem spell while the rest of us get the Princess away."
"I thought you told Oneechan never to cast the golem spell again until she got the bugs worked out of it?" Amelia wondered.
"Never mind that now! Shut up!"
"Amelia, dear, what Philodim means is that you should button your lip."
"What golem spell?" Sylphiel asked.
"I don't know. Vu Vraimer isn't that hard... Lina-san, why are you making that face?"
"No reason. Go on."
And then they were at the top, and Philodim and Amelia manhandled the near-petrified Lala away from the edge as Gracia raised her arms, carefully holding them so that the spikes of her epaulets went to either side of her cheeks, and cast the spell that would raise a stone golem from the very rocks of the earth to do her bidding.
The golem's mighty head rose up, and then its powerful neck.
And then its puny body, seemingly far too frail to hold up the weight of that massive head.
Which, as a matter of fact, it did not do.
The golem tumbled out and down... and down... and down, until it struck the skiffs in the cove and smashed them to kindling.
As Lala was currently flomped on a rock and showed every sign of not willingly moving for the next half-hour, the two Sailoon princesses walked to the edge and looked over.
A tiny blue-clad figure clung to the rock face, the faint shimmer of a protective shield about it.
"He's got very good arms," Amelia observed.
"He didn't fall?" Philodim had joined them. "Inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word," Gracia noted. "I do not think it means what you seem to think it does."
"Having made a great study of death and dying," the boy continued, paying no attention to the sorceress, "as an expert, I happen to know that he can't possibly hold on for long. It may interest you to know that he will be dead long before he hits the water; the fall will do it, not the crash."
"Shouldn't we be going soon? I thought you said we were in a hurry."
"Oh, we are. But I can't miss a death like this. If he tries to fly up, he'll have to drop the shield, which means you can drop another golem on his head, and he knows that. What can he do but hang there?"
At that moment, the blue-clad figure began to climb. Not easily, of course. And not quickly. But definitely moving upwards.
"Inconceivable!" the boy breathed.
"STOP SAYING THAT WORD!" Gracia shrieked at him.
Philodim shot her a vicious glare before sighing theatrically. "Look, since I have the keenest mind that has ever been turned to destructive pursuits, you may take what I say as fact. And the fact is that this person in blue is NOT following us. The logical explanation is that he is merely a common sailor who dabbles in mountain climbing as a hobby and happens to be going the same way we were at the same time. But whoever he is, he's seen us with the Princess and must therefore die. Amelia and I will take Denka here and head for the frontier. You stay here and see him finished off. If he falls, fine. If not, magic."
"Come on, it's all flat," the younger girl reassured the trembling blonde. "Well, sort of flat. Mostly flat. Hardly ever any cliffs."
"I'm going to do him with shamanic practices," Gracia remarked as the other three took off.
Philodim spun around. "Neechan, you KNOW what a hurry we're in!"
"Shamanism has plenty of quick, decisive spells," Zelgadis pointed out.
"Yes, but there used to be practically no teachers of it in Sailoon," Amelia informed him. "Mother and Aunt Ethel and Aunt Opabinia worked to get it sort of accepted, but even now the Ladies' Quilting Circle and Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Terrorist Society is the only place you can be sure of getting a good grounding in shamanic practices."
"The what?" Sylphiel and Zelgadis said. Lina just rolled her eyes, posture giving the general impression that nothing the Saileese got up to would surprise her any more.
"The Ladies' Quilting Circle and Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Terrorist Society. Mother and Aunt Opabinia set it up, and Aunt Opabinia and Aunt Ethel got elected its consuls for the eighth time last year. I think Aunt Ethel's thinking of dropping out of the running and backing Frederica -- that's her eldest daughter -- next election, though.
"Anyway, before the Society, it was... lots of people know white magic, and if you look hard enough you can find someone to teach you black magic -- Mother was teaching shamanism and black magic to Oneechan and me, but I forgot most of the latter, except for Livy Grade."
"LIVY GRADE?" Lina and Sylphiel exclaimed in unison.
"That's one of the rarest spells in black magic!" Sylphiel managed.
"Do you know how hard I had to look for that spell?" Lina demanded.
"What does it do?" Gourry said.
"It gets rid of damaging evidence for certain nasty habits," Zelgadis said, mouth twisted.
"It turns all your garbage into dust," Amelia said. "Unless it was made of rock or metal or something. It's very useful for camping."
"I use it every morning when we're on the road," Lina said.
"It's the only way I can be satisfied," Gracia said. "If I use black magic, it'll be over too quickly. OHOHOHOHOHO!"
The entire population of the inn's common room winced.
"Don't DO that, Amelia," Gourry said. "You sounded like Melphina."
"He means 'like Martina,' " Zelgadis corrected, "and it's very unnerving."
"Actually, it's supposed to sound like my Great-Aunt Margarethine," Amelia told them. "She had the scariest laugh, and Oneechan used to try to imitate her."
"Was she any relation to Martina?" Zelgadis asked. "Lina, is something wrong?"
"No, no, of course not," Lina said, shaking. "So was she, Amelia?"
"Not directly," Amelia said, "but my Great-Great-Aunt Demetria went off and married the king of Xoana... so I guess that makes Martina my third cousin or third cousin once removed or something. Ih."
"Well, that's distant enough that you can pretend you're not related," Lina told her cheerily.
"Maybe in the metropolitan areas," Zelgadis said dubiously.
"Does that really count as distant in the Seven Kingdoms?" Gourry asked, eyes round.
"Fine!" Philodim snarled, turning to go. "Have it your way!"
And he left with the two girls, leaving Gracia alone with her thoughts.
These not being very good company, she soon wandered to the edge of the precipice and looked at the figure in cobalt. "Slow going?"
"I don't mean to be rude," the cliff-hanger called back in a light voice, "but this is not as easy as it looks. I don't need distractions."
"Oh."
Gracia wandered around the top for a bit more, then looked over again. "Could you possibly speed things up?"
"Look, if you're in such a hurry you could lower a rope or a tree branch or refrain from more spells so I could lift myself or something."
"I could do that," Gracia called back. "I don't like using too many spells in a row anyway. But I'm not sure if you'd accept my promise, since I am only waiting around to kill you."
"That does put a damper on our relationship," the blue-clad figure agreed.
"I could give you my word as a member of the Sailoon Royal Family... "
The cloaked figure shot her a look that, even with the mask and scarf, was unmistakeable. "Are you kidding?" The back half of the word was nearly swallowed in the reach for another hold. "I've met Sailoon princes!"
Zelgadis, Lina, and Sylphiel cracked up.
"Hey!" Amelia said indignantly. "We've been TRYING to change that reputation -- at least Daddy and Uncle Christopher and h -- and most of his children and I have, and some of the collective aunts (which includes great-aunts), and Grandpa was before he was treacherously assassinated and Daddy took up the cause, and Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa did an awful lot before he died and she had her stroke."
"Your great-grandmother would be Queen Lucita to'el ulNadia Sailoon, right?" Zelgadis asked. "What happened to her?"
"She got old and had a stroke and made Daddy prince regent right after he met Mother and before they got married," Amelia explained, "and then she had some more and some other things went wrong, and she's being cared for by the Sisters of the Golden Horn, where my Great-Aunt Aspasia retired to become abbess. Well, first she retired there, and then they made her the abbess because she was the best organizer they'd had for years.
"Great-Grandma doesn't really know anyone anymore; when I visit, sometimes she thinks I'm Great-Aunt Carolande, and sometimes she thinks I'm Aunt Katharinvictamaris."
"Amelia, you cannot have had an Aunt Katharinvictamaris," Lina said firmly.
"Yes, I could, because I did," Amelia said equally firmly. "She came in between Uncle Christopher and Uncle Randy, and she was bitten to death by a snake when she was fifteen."
"How many times did it bite her?" Gourry asked curiously.
"I don't know," Amelia said blankly. "I'll have to ask Daddy. And just because there are a few bad apples like Uncle Randy and Great-Uncle Schteindorf and my first cousin once removed Margizelle and a couple of others is no reason for people to assume that the entire Sailoon Royal Family is like them!"
"Maybe the figure in maroon had only ever met the bad apples," Sylphiel offered.
"Is there any way you'll trust me?" Gracia called.
"Nothing comes to mind." The small figure managed to climb another few feet in near-total silence.
"I swear on the name of the Warden of the Marches of the West, you will reach the top alive."
The blue-clad one looked up at Gracia for a moment. "Raywing!"
"Why would swearing on your mother's name be especially believable?" Zelgadis asked, as Sylphiel muttered "I still say that title sounds familiar."
"Mother had a very long and complicated name," Amelia shrugged, "and she pitched a fit if you got any of it wrong -- she finally agreed to let them shorten it to Ennosigaia for official stuff and such to save time, but only under protest. Daddy always called her 'Lady.'"
"Hey, that sounds like the lady I worked for one summer," Gourry said. "Her name was Gilbereth -- or maybe Galadbereth -- or was it Galenbereth -- gee, it's a good thing she's not here, because she'd be getting really mad right now."
"This was an elf?" Sylphiel asked. "Those names all sound elvish."
"No, they'd just called her whatever-it-was and she liked her Ellindarin name so much she'd kept it."
"What's Ellindarin?" Amelia asked.
"That's what elves speak," Lina and Gourry explained in unison.
"It's called that because they're the Ellindar," Gourry continued proudly.
"It means 'Star-singers' in their language," Lina clarified.
"They love stars," Gourry finished.
"Thanks," the person in blue and red said, landing onto the clifftop and dropping into a combat stance.
"No, no," Gracia shook her head, "we'll wait until you're rested."
"Thanks again."
"Oh, by the way... you don't by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?"
The hooded figure stared at her for a moment before wriggling all five gloved right-hand fingers and sitting down to pull off a boot. "Do you always begin conversations that way?"
All that stretching, however, had made one thing abundantly clear.
"Oh, you're a woman," Gracia said.
"Of course I'm a woman, you spandex-plated roller coaster! What would make you think that I wasn't?"
"Mou... " Gracia muttered. "Between the mask and the loose tunic, you couldn't do a better job of keeping people guessing what you were if you tried."
"I suppose so," the woman in crimson conceded. "What was all that with the fingers, anyway?"
"My mother was slaughtered by a six-fingered man."
The wind whistled as it blew across the plateau.
"How did it happen?" the woman in cobalt asked sympathetically.
"The man was trying to kill my father and uncle," Gracia told her, staring into the distance. "He thought that he could be named our guardian. My mother was talking with me in the hallway then, and she attacked him.
"Without a word, the six-fingered man stabbed her through the heart."
"That's pretty much the way Mother really did die," Amelia interrupted herself, "except it was a plot of Cousin Margizelle's, and Mother used this really nasty spell to take out all of her killers except one -- I think because Oneechan came in just then and attacked him, and Mother didn't want to hurt her. Oneechan killed him, anyway. And whomever in the plot they didn't get, Daddy and Uncle Christopher and Aunt Ethel and Great-Aunt Carolande tried and executed. Great-Aunt Aspasia said that it was amazing how many friends my mother turned out to have once she was killed, and Great-Aunt Margarethine said that it was probably the best public-relations move she could have made."
Sylphiel and Zelgadis winced.
"I loved my mother," Gracia continued in the same remote tone, "so naturally I challenged her murderer to a duel.
"I failed."
She might almost have been discussing the weather, such was the unnatural evenness of her tone.
"The six-fingered man left me alive. But he gave me... this."
She reached up and slipped off her golden tiara to reveal a long, white, ugly scar across her forehead, near the hairline, before replacing it.
"For ten long years I studied and trained, so that the next time I meet him, I will not fail.
"I will say, 'Hello. My name is Gracia the Serpent. You killed my mother. Prepare to die.'"
"Very melodramatic," the woman in crimson commented.
"Yes, isn't it?"
"Um... I have a question," Gourry said.
"What is it?" Amelia smiled encouragingly.
"Crimson. Cobalt. Blue. Red. What color is the woman in the hood wearing?" He paused for a moment. "What's cobalt, anyway?"
"Cobalt," Amelia said, "is the sort of blue that Lina's cape is."
"Just like crimson's a kind of red," Sylphiel said.
"As for the rest -- look, Gourry, am I wearing blue or pink?"
Gourry looked at Lina. "Aren't you sort of wearing both?"
"Exactly. So you could call me 'the woman in blue' or 'the woman in cobalt' or 'the woman in -- ugh -- pink.'"
"Don't you mean 'the girl in blue'?"
Lina elbowed him.
"Only the shorter woman is wearing crimson instead of pink," Amelia finished.
"I used to have a pair of crimson trews," Lina said reflectively. "They got holes in the seat, though, so I cut them up for pouches." She looked more thoughtful for a moment. "I think I even still have some of those pouches."
"But it's been several years," Gracia continued, "and I am starting to lose confidence. I just work for Philodim to pay the bills and take care of my sister.
"Well, shall we begin?"
And the two women leapt to the attack, matching and countering spells.
A shamanic sorceress, Gracia thought. This will make it interesting. "You are using Flare Arrow against me, ne," she said rhetorically.
"I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain," the woman in crimson said mildly.
"Naturally, you must expect me to counterattack with -- FREEZE ARROW!"
"Naturally. But I find that -- FIREBALL! -- tends to cancel out Freeze Arrow, don't you?"
"Unless the enemy has studied her -- FREEZE BLEED! Which I have."
The battle continued for some minutes.
"DILL BRAND!"
"MEGA BRAND!"
"I admit it," Gracia smiled. "You are better than I am!"
"Then why are you smiling?"
"Because I know something you don't know! OHOHOHO!"
The woman in cobalt winced. "And what's that?"
"I am not a shamanic sorceress! VALIS ROD!"
And the tide of the duel sorcerous turned in the favor of the taller woman. A nearby slightly higher piece of cliff crumbled. Two small trees blew up.
"You are amazing," the hooded woman said.
"I ought to be, after a dozen years."
"ELMEKIA LANCE!"
Gracia almost insultingly leapt aside and slapped back a Zelas Gort. The resulting torrent of decidedly confused jellyfish left the cloaked woman perched on the very edge of the cliff. She spread her hands.
"You can't see that I'm smiling under this silk scarf, but I tell you for your information that I am smiling now."
"WHY?"
"I'm not a shamanic sorceress either. GARV FLARE!"
"It's GAAV Flare," Lina corrected.
"Mother said that it was Garv Flare when they came up with the spell, so she was going to call it Garv Flare and if her younger brother the moron didn't like it he could lump it."
"Philodim?" Zelgadis wondered.
"No, Uncle Philodim Brezirao Ragnarokkthrasir was her little brother the jerk. Mother said that her legitimate family, aside from her father -- whose multiple personalities get into the most interesting conversations -- consisted of the moron and the jerk and the bitch and the creep, and that they made Daddy's relatives look like the Seven Holy Sages of Ceiphied."
"No wonder she didn't like talking about them," Zelgadis said.
"But wasn't Rezo one of the Seven Holy Sages... "
"No, he was one of the Five Great Sages. Different group."
Meanwhile, Sylphiel was explaining to Lina (and, by extension, Gourry) "Words change over time. Greater Beast Zelas-Metallum was called Xelas Metallum -- or Xelas Metallium in the Shivan Codex -- back in the days of the Kouma War, and Maryuuoh Gaav is mentioned in the records as Jaakuryuuoh or Akumaryuuoh Garv."
"Why do they change?" Lina asked.
"People garble things over time, and the version that's remembered tends to be the one that's easier to say," Sylphiel said. "There was a pre-Kouma War manuscript in the archives at the Maldeen Colleges that suggested that he might have been known then as Jaakuma-Ryuuoh Gaariv, Chaos-born Dragonlord; it was in among reports of Dynastarch Graurisherrya."
"You studied at Maldeen?"
"For two seasons -- I was in my third when I heard the rumors about what Hellmaster had done to Sairaag. I'd thought of studying there before, but Sairaag had always seemed adequate until... "
Gourry was still puzzling over the last exchange. "Is it like the way everyone calls my cousin Vandariselle 'Vandy' unless they're really mad at her?"
"Close enough," Lina said, cutting off a longer explanation from Sylphiel.
Amelia cleared her throat impatiently.
And now the combat mystical truly became a thing of legend. Rock boiled and steamed. The ground quivered. A spring rose twenty miles away and poured its force over the side of the Cliffs of Insanity.
"Who are you?" Gracia gasped.
"No one of consequence."
"I must know."
"Get used to disappointment."
"DYNAST BRASS!"
"DYNAST BRASS!"
And then Gracia summoned up most of the last of her power, throwing it into one final spell. Even as she was releasing the Dolph Strash, however, her shorter opponent was moving her arms and chanting an incantation that Gracia had never heard before.
"Tasogare yori mo kuraki mono, chi no nagare yori -- "
The entire population of the table surged up as one and tackled Amelia, knocking her flat.
"Words OR motions, but not both!" Lina yelped. "And don't point it at US!"
"But Mother did that -- " Amelia protested.
"And why were you pestering me to teach it to you last year, if you already KNEW it?"
Amelia's mouth formed an O of surprise. "You mean THAT'S the Dragon Slave? But Mother said the whole thing with these motions -- " she sat up and demonstrated with her arms, keeping her mouth shut throughout -- "and nothing ever happened."
"Maybe she wasn't that good at black magic! Maybe she cast Flipside before she told the story! Does it MATTER?"
"What's Flipside?"
"It's a shamanic magic spell that keeps any spell you cast from having an effect," Zelgadis told Gourry, "except for the spell that turns it off. They use it now and then in teaching."
"Amelia, just THINK sometimes, okay?" Lina finished her rant.
"Pots and kettles..." Zelgadis muttered.
"Right," Gourry said, "it's not very good to blow up the inn when it's this wet and nasty out. Actually, blowing up inns isn't very good at ANY time, but it's even worse when it's raining like this, even if the rain would put the fire out sooner."
"Precisely," Sylphiel agreed, retaking her seat.
Everyone else sat back down, too.
"Waiter!" Lina called. "Drinks all around!"
"Anyway," Amelia continued while the waiter bustled about in the back, "the blue-clad one cast the Dragon Slave, and... "
A large portion of the clifftop abruptly vanished without much of a trace.
Gracia, black from head to toe and covered with abrasions, fell abruptly to her knees. "Kill me quickly," she said quietly, all her customary confidence lost.
"I would as soon destroy an orihalcon statue as an artist like yourself," the woman in crimson said. "But since I can't have you following me, either... " She cast a quick sleep spell. Gracia crumpled.
The woman in red walked over and straightened the Serpent Enchantress' limbs. "Sleep well," she told the scantily-clad woman, tying her hair to a tree, "and dream of deaf men."
And then she ran in the direction which she had observed footprints to lead to when she first mounted the cliff.
"I think this is where the next chapter begins," Amelia said. "No, wait, it doesn't. This chapter goes on and on."
The land on top of the Cliffs of Insanity consisted of gently rolling hills, the occasional bluff, and a few deep ravines intersecting them, cutting far down to eventually intersect with the cliffs as hanging valleys or even now and then as steep routes from the top to the bottom (or the other way around). Little groves of trees or bushes dotted the landscape here and there.
Three people were at the moment perched on top of one of the said bluffs.
"Inconceivable!" Philodim gasped, watching the figure running, cape streaming behind her, from the top of the bluff overlooking the next leg of the path. "I'll take the Princess. Finish him! Finish him! Your way!"
"Anoh, Philodim-sama... what way's my way?"
The boy rolled his eyes and said, in the tone of a patient sufferer that will often be adopted by those speaking to the young man who will become one of the most famous wielders of the Golun Nova, "Wait there with a big rock. The moment his head comes in view, HIT IT WITH THE ROCK!"
He grabbed the shellshocked Lala by the hand and half-dragged her off, leaving Amelia to think.
"My way isn't very sportsmanlike."
"Golun Nova?" Sylphiel asked.
Amelia shrugged.
"That's what Hellmaster called the Sword of Light," Zelgadis recalled.
"Oh, THAT tone of voice," Lina said. "We're all familiar with that tone of voice."
The woman in red was passing underneath that same bluff when a shrill voice split the air.
"For love, justice, and Daddy, the magical girl Sparkle Ami! FLYING ROCK OF FAIR PLAY!"
Equally regrettably, her four listeners cracked up again.
"Sparkle... Ami?" Lina choked.
"There's more about that later," Amelia said. "Mother always said she'd tell me about it after I turned fourteen, but, as you know... "
She jumped as a rock shot down, smote the ground yards and yards from her position, bounced, and rolled away. Then she looked up, half-drawing the sword that hung at her belt.
"That was on purpose," the younger girl said from above, holding another rock. "I didn't have to miss."
"I believe you," the woman in cobalt said. "So what happens now?"
"We face each other as Ceiphied intended," the girl said perkily. "No tricks. No weapons."
"You mean," the woman in crimson said, "you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized women?"
"Exactly!"
"Very well. I accept." She unbuckled her sword belt, letting it and the sword fall to the ground.
The girl leapt down from the bluff, fell flat on her face, and passed out.
"Why did I know that was going to happen?" Zelgadis asked.
"Because we've been traveling with Amelia for nearly a year now, and she always does that," Gourry told him helpfully.
"It was a rhetorical question."
"What's a retourniquet question?"
"A question you don't want anyone to answer," Lina said.
"Why'd he ask it, then?"
"Sheesh," the hooded woman said, picking up her sword belt and refastening it around her waist. "I do not envy you the headache you'll have when you come to. Two of you in such short notice... wonder if you're related."
"Yes, they're sisters."
"GOURRY!" Lina elbowed him again.
The cloaked woman ran on.
Far behind her, a number of mounted people 'stood' by at the edge of the Dragon Slave crater while Rezo dismounted and held his hands out, the better to sense the traces of what had happened.
"There was," he said slowly, "a mighty duel. The loser went off that way -- " he pointed -- "and the victor followed some others that way." He mounted and started on the latter course.
"What about the loser?" Count Schteindorf asked.
"The loser is nothing. Only the Princess matters."
"Isn't Gracia a princess, too?"
"Gourry," Lina rolled her eyes, "how's Rezo going to know that?"
"You think this could be a trap, then?"
"I always think everything could be a trap; which is why I'm still alive."
"New chapter yet?" Lina asked. "That would be a great place to end one."
"No."