Okay, I have a new e-mail address if anyone needs me, and I'll put it up in my profile - hopefully it'll show. Again, if you sent me something and never heard back, it's because Hotmail is evil, and I'm really sorry.

Yay suspense! Last chance to break before the cliff!

Klutz82 - I don't think a lot of things would get done without Gourry. ;) And it's getting closer! Well, something's getting closer at least...
Gerao-A - But of course? Where would the story be without suspense? I like building it and I'll keep doing it this time. ;) And it is getting much much closer...
Kristall - Thank you for reading and I'm so glad you like it and the darkness. I won't say anything about what will happen to Amelia but I do hope you really will like it. Hope you like this chapter too!

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Part XII- To The Furthest Verge

"Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day."

- Macbeth

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Lina didn't know what time it was. It was probably very, very late -late enough that it could be called early. But inside the small cabin that creaked and moaned in the north winds, time was non-existent.

She could tell that neither of her companions were asleep. Having traveled with Gourry for more than four years, and now sharing a bed with him, she knew the little signs that indicated his consciousness- a sigh here, a shift in his arm around her that was too calculated to have been an accident of sleep. As for Zel...well, she was pretty sure he hadn't slept in days. Due to the fact that Dhitney had to work the slow process of carefully navigating the increasingly frequent floating ice blocks, the trip had taken two weeks. The sorceress was getting scared for her friend's sanity. It was more than obvious he was beginning to fall apart.

Well, enough was enough. She sat up, Gourry's arm sliding off her.

"If none of us can sleep, let's not try to fake it."

She cast a small light spell, illuminating Gourry as he slowly sat up next to her, and revealing Zel curled up in a corner, arms folded across his chest.

"And if we're not going to sleep," the chimera asked. "What will we do instead?"

"Plan our attack?"Lina suggested. "Consider what we're dealing with, at the very least?"

"But we don't know what we're dealing with."Gourry said, then quickly added "Well, we don't know much at least. Er...that's what it seems like to me."

Lina sighed, and leaned against the cabin wall.

"No, we don't really know. Except that there are two priests we'll probably have to deal with, and then... perhaps Amelia herself."

"Amelia is-"

"I don't want to hear it." the sorceress quickly cut off her friend. "We have no proof. And I can't believe that you would just disregard what Xellos said about her becoming Dynast's general."

"Let's think about this, Lina. How many times has Xellos led us astray?"

"And then let's think about how many times he's taken us right where we wanted to go. I know you don't trust him, Zel, and I don't like to either, but we don't have much of a choice."

"What he said doesn't make sense to me. Especially not knowing what I know."

Lina sighed raggedly, and probably would have chewed out him out once more, had Gourry not taken the opportunity to inject before she spoke.

"It doesn't make sense to me either, Zel. But I can't believe that she's dead, and I can't let you believe it. Because if you do, then what's the point in even being here? You've said it yourself- if she's dead, why bother?"

Zel winced and turned away.

"That was..."

"I don't care what it was. The point is that what you think you know or don't know, whether you'd rather kick Xellos than trust him, for Amelia's sake, we have to take his word for it."

"He's right." Lina seconded her fiancee.

There was silence, and then Zel said "I know he's right. But it's hard to agree when you feel what I'm feeling right now."

"Maybe it would help if you told us how you're feeling."

"I have told you!"he looked back at them with cold eyes. "I told you I feel like she's died inside of me! And she keeps dying each day, because as every day goes by I remember something less about her." he rested his hands in his lap and looked at them. "I feel that everything that's happened is my fault and there won't be a chance to really remedy that." his right hand clenched into a fist. "I feel like there were things I should have let myself realize a long time ago, and because I didn't..." he trailed off, unwilling to finish his sentence.

Lina and Gourry shared a look, and then the red-head crawled over to the chimera, kneeling at his side.

"There's nothing you can do about that now. It's in the past, and you can't change that. But you can change the way the future turns out. Figure it out."

Zel met her eyes, then moved beyond them to Gourry, who nodded.

"I'm working on that." he spoke quietly.

"Whatever you're working on," Dhitney's voice cut through the room as the hatch opened and she stuck her head down. "Drop it and come up here now. You have to see this."

"Are we there?" Zel's voice seemed to shake a little.

"We're...just come up and see."

The three companions quickly rushed around, picking up their warm clothing and pulling it on, then joining the boatswoman on the deck in moments.

"The ice shelf." she pointed forward.

It took a moment for their eyes to focus in the darkness, but when it became clear, not a one of them could prevent a gasp.

So much ice.

It seemed to rise up out of the ocean, a monster with huge claws that strained to tear at the sky roiling with clouds. The ice was shadowed and dark and it continued on... as far as they strained to look ahead, those jagged peaks of frozen water were there, until the night finally consumed them.

"I've never seen it for myself."Dhitney hissed. "I've only heard stories. They were nothing like this..."

"It's amazing."Lina breathed.

"It's horrible. It's a land of death. I hate to see you go out on there."

"We have no choice." Gourry stated firmly. "There's someone we have to get."

"If you must, I guess." Dhitney sighed. "Can you wait until it's light?"

"We don't have that kind of time." Zel felt the words heavy in his throat. His heart was pounding- she was here, somewhere. Something had happened, she had changed and who knew what to...but still, she was here. Out on that ice... and would they find her?

"How well can you navigate the ice in the dark?" Lina inquired.

"I... If you could give me one of your light spells, I could probably do it without too much trouble..."

"Then let's get to it. We can't wait for morning, or a clearer sky. It's time."

Leaving them to work at the navigation, Zel left the deck and moved to the bow of the ship. The initial jerk of movement made him stumble a little, but he braced himself against the railing, staring straight out.

If there was ever a perfect time to figure things out, that time was now. And he was going to do it. He had to.

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"They're here."

"I know it, Master."

"And you know what I want you to do?"

"As surely as I know my name."

"You understand that I may have to pull a few strings here and there. You might not get to kill him yet."

An uncomfortable shifting.

"I know. I hate that, but I understand, and will obey."

Cold laughter.

"Don't worry. If everything works out, you will kill him eventually. I'll give you that. Just be patient. It won't be long."

"Thank you, Master."

Behind them, two people quickly glanced at each other, and one hand closed around another.

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Dhitney had given them five days.

Five days to do it and come back, or else she would leave without them.

It seemed like a cruel thing to do- abandoning them to the elements and certain death that lay in wait here- but Zel knew it was perfectly fair. Dhitney did have her own life and ship to worry about. That she had even taken them here was a great testimony to her character.

But he did wish they had more time.

And he'd always imagined hell would be warmer than this. He'd never longed for sweltering heat so much in his life.

As soon as the ship had come within a thousand feet of the ice shelf, Dhitney had let down the anchor and, carrying Gourry between them, Lina and Zel had used levitation to take themselves up the rise and set themselves down in snow that was at least three feet deep. Slogging through it was not a real option, and so they'd combined their forces into a larger Ray-wing bubble, and were speeding themselves across the snow as best they could. Gourry had fallen asleep, wrapped in his cloak, and Zel couldn't blame him. The sky was still dark, and although they'd been at it for hours, the snow seemed endless.

"How far do you think we have to go?" Lina whispered.

"I have no idea."

"Sooner or later, we'll have to stop and make camp. We need to rest and refuel ourselves after this."

"Give it another hour." Zel kept his eyes on the scenery in front of them, making sure to dodge any obstacles that came into their path. He wasn't willing to stop yet. Had he been alone, nothing would have stopped him from going all the way in one long push. Still, he knew that Lina's idea was better, and more logical; it was merely the loss of time that it required that he didn't want to deal with.

"I'm game for that." she replied. "I'd like to see if we can get closer too. It'll make things a lot easier."

And as she said that, the ground seemed to fall away beneath them. Both of them noticed and looked up, simultaneously bringing the bubble to a screeching halt.

"L...sama..."Zel breathed.

It seemed they'd been flying over some sort of plateau, and now had reached the end where it gave way to a massive plane of ice. And ahead of them, floating above the it like some gigantic, evil god-knew-what, was the black, spiked castle of the Supreme King.

If the mountains of ice had clawed at the sky, this monstrous creation speared through it, burying its shadowed spires in the dark clouds. It radiated horror and mayhem, something that seemed to disturb the sleeping swordsman, who awoke with a start and joined them in staring terrified at the fortress.

"Is that..." He didn't need to finish; he knew the answer. They all knew.

"R-retreat." Lina's voice was forced. "We're going back and making camp away from this."

Zel didn't even respond before quickly turning them back around, taking them back up onto the plateau. Glimpsing a spot where an ice mountain provided a small overhang, he pointed it out, and they guided the spell there. Once beneath it, they set up their small tent in record time and didn't speak until they were all inside and another heat spell had been cast over them.

"I never thought it would look like that."Gourry's voice was hushed.

"It's enormous." Lina seconded. "And I'll bet the inside is a complete maze."

"Wonderful." Zel sighed.

"Look, we're not going to think about that yet. The first thing we do is find a way in, and then we go from there. And I don't know about the two of you," the small sorceress looked at the two men. "But I am not going to go in there without a little bit of food and sleep. We're here, we can take a moment. It won't do us any good if we go charging in there right now."

"I agree." Gourry said. "Let's take a few hours off and just stay here."

Relunctantly, Zel nodded and pulled out his bedroll. As if he would be able to sleep when they were this close. Considering that thought, he cleared his throat.

"If we're going to sleep, we should put someone on watch. I'd be glad to." His companions took a moment to regard him. "What?"

"How do we know you aren't going to go running off in there alone?"

"Lina, I gave you my word back in Ferpeg. We'll go together. You sleep, and I'll watch."

"Fine. I'll do it second and Gourry can go third." she yawned, snuggling deep into her bedroll and closing her eyes.

Her lover followed suit almost immediately, and once they were asleep, Zel quietly opened the tent flap and looked out over the snow. The outline of the castle was dimly visible against the dark sky, and that alone was enough to send more shivers down his spine.

Alive or dead, Amelia was in there.

Letting the flap fall down again, he sighed and took hold of the hilt of his sword. He had no intention of waking up his friends, absolutely certain that sleep was an impossibility for him at this point. Not when they were this close. Not now.

Closing his eyes for an instant, he tried to call up the last vestiges of his memories of her...and very nearly choked when the blurry image his mind supplied him with was not his friend in her white traveling outfit... No, she seemed to be wearing something blue.

Blue? She had never worn anything blue. Not that he could remember, at least.

So this is it, he thought glumly. I've finally lost it.

Folding his other hand around the sword hilt, he unsheathed it and stabbed it into the ground in front of himself, resting his forehead against the place where his hands came together on the double guard.

When he finally stirred from that position, it was a long time later, and only to find Lina glaring at him, her mouthing forming the word "Jerk" which came fuzzily into his ears.

"Thanks for waking us up."she scowled a little. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty. Dark or not, it's time to go."

That one word brought consciousness crashing upon him, and he sat up straight before following the sorceress from the tent. Gourry was already outside, adjusting his cloak more closely around his body. Taking a deep breath, Zel looked up at the sky and took one step towards the Dark Lord's lair.

"Let's do it."