Slayers belongs to Kadokawa Shoten.
Faces: Finale!
Chapter Nine
Beginnings and Ends
Filia yawned as the sun peaked through the flaps of her tent. Crawling out the front of the pink tent, she stood up and stretched, yawning again. She took a look around, and finding no one else awake yet, walked to the nearby stream for a drink. Kneeling next to the cold water's flow, she cupped some of the liquid in her hands and drank.
"You're up early."
Turning, she saw the young dragon, Birdy, sitting on a rock not far away. She smiled at the Black Dragon. "So are you."
Birdy shrugged. "Or late. Whatever." She looked down at Filia for a moment. "Um...You never did say why you were out here with that weird Purple Dragon. I don't want to sound harsh or noth'n, but I think it's time you came clean. Where are the two of you going?"
Filia thought for a moment. It was only fair. "WolfPack Island," she said simply.
Birdy looked at her in shock. "Really? Why?"
The Golden Dragon sighed. "The Mazoku kidnapped my sister. I'm going to get her back."
Filia expected many different responses to that, but none of them were the one Birdy offered now.
"Take me with you!"
She blinked in surprise. "What?!"
"You're just the break I've been looking for!" Birdy cried. "A chance to go in there and really stick it to the Mazoku!"
Filia stared at her, just stared. "Why?" she whispered.
"Because someone has to do it!" Birdy replied. "No one back home realizes it! That the only way to keep the Mazoku at bay is to show them we can fight! The old timers say we should hide and not provoke 'em! Even the old vets like Mira! It was all we could do to get this little band to go after my cousin!"
The dragon priestess took a breath. "Birdy, listen to me. You don't want that. I've seen what the Mazoku can do. A thousand years ago, we were strong enough to survive a war with them. It's not like that anymore."
"So what are we supposed to do, huh?!" Birdy shot back. "Hide in caves and hope they don't find us!? What the hell did all those dragons die for then?!"
Filia's eyes flashed angrily. She had seen enough carnage in her life to last two lifetimes, and she hated seeing people seeking it out so eagerly. "You wanna know why?" she asked. "They died so that you would turn around..go home...raise fat dragon babies and live a good long life! THAT is what they died for!"
Birdy sniffed. "You just don't get it."
"And I hope you never do," Filia retorted. She turned and took another drink of water, signaling an end to the discussion.
"Hey, by the way," Birdy began, looking for a less abrasive topic. "What's with your hair?"
Filia looked up at her and blinked. "My hair?"
"Yeah. You dye it or something?"
Flilia only blinked. Turning, she looked down at her reflection in the water. Her hand went to a single lock of her hair on the right side of her head.
It was purple.
The group continued south that day, though they avoided the ancient dragon highways at Xellos' recommendation. To Filia it almost didn't seem real. With the exception of Mira, the other dragons seemed to treat the march like a camping trip, talking and joking as they walked. Thinking back on her discussion with Birdy, this disturbed Filia. Dragon youth really was naïve to the dangers they would face.
Xellos said very little that day, and it wasn't until the troop stopped for lunch that she had an opportunity to speak to him. She watched him walk away from the campsite, into the trees, and she followed after him.
//Xellos?// she called out to him.
//Over here, Filia chan.//
She followed the feel of the send and found him leaning against a boulder nearby. Directly across from him was the headless remains of a dragon statue, crushed and defaced by time.
"Xellos?" she said quietly. "What's wrong?"
He smiled at her. "Nothing, Filia chan. I'm right as rain."
"No you're not," she said with a soothing smile. "You're troubled. I can feel it." She rested a hand on this shoulder. "Tell me why."
He looked into her eyes, and she tried to read them like she would a piece of scripture. And like a piece of scripture, it was incredibly difficult to decipher. Finally, his eyes gave in.
"I'm feeling something," he told her. "Something I've never felt before." He paused. "It's rather unpleasant."
"What is it?" she asked.
He shook his head. "It's nothing I can describe in words."
She reached out and touched his forehead, letting his essence and thoughts flow into her. "Oh, Xellos," she whispered. "It's guilt."
"I see," he said, turning. "Our relationship gets more and more interesting, does it not?"
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly. She new that after a thousand years of doing the bidding of Xelas, for Xellos to suddenly feel guilty about something could turn into severe emotional distress. Though she knew that he had done frighteningly evil things in his life, she also realized that for him, they were perfectly normal. This could be the beginning of a scary transition for him.
"Talk?" he asked. "How will that help?"
"It lets you air things out," she told him weakly. "If you share the burden, there's less for you to shoulder alone."
"It's my burden to bear," he whispered.
"Tell me."
He thought for several moments, then began. "You've heard us talk about Dralladan," he said. "But you've never heard of it."
"No," she confirmed.
"Before the last war, Dralladan was one of the great dragon citadels of the south." He didn't turn to her, just continued with his story. "It was so heavily fortified that to attack it from without was suicide, even for the Mazoku. And it was right across the channel from Wolfpack Island."
"I see," she said.
"Her Majesty was prepared to take the citadel in an all out assault, even knowing how much that would weaken our forces. And with the Flare Dragon still alive and the Water Dragon King united with him, we needed all the Mazoku we could get. It was not a battle she wanted to fight."
"So what happened?" Filia asked.
Xellos actually chuckled. "It was then that a young Mazoku officer, newly created, put forth a plan. Tunnel under the Wolves' Channel and come up into Dralladan from below. Her Majesty approved the plan, but ordered the young Mazoku to lead it. This way if it failed, he'd be killed by his own mistake." He paused. "But...to her surprise...and his own...the plan was an unprecedented success. The dragons were taken completely by surprise." His voice lowered to a whisper. "The slaughter lasted three weeks. After the initial shock wore off, the dragons tried to resist, but all of their defenses faced outward, and they were ill prepared for an attack from within."
Filia swallowed in fear at the thought. What might it have been like to suddenly find hordes of Mazoku running rampant through the Temple of the Fire Dragon King, her own home?
"They tried hiding, but we were thorough. None escaped," he finished. He straightened his shoulders. "Of course, Her Majesty was ecstatic. It was the first major victory Wolfpack Island had won for the war. In gratitude for his overwhelming achievement.." He broke off.
"What?" Filia asked quietly.
"In gratitude," he began again, "Her Majesty appointed the young Mazoku her General Priest."
Filia's breath caught in her throat. "That was a long time ago," she said finally. "It was a different time, and you were a different person."
"It was my proudest moment," he told her, turning to her. "And now, I look inside myself for that pride, and all I feel is this...this.."
"Guilt," she identified.
"Yes," he admitted. "Guilt."
Filia took a breath. "Xellos," she began, "I know I'm young, and that I don't know everything, but I do know something Lina once told me. She said, 'If you're not going to save the world or do SOMETHING, then you might as well lie down and die..But that won't make anything RIGHT!'"
He looked at her as if for the first time.
"It's what you do NOW that makes a difference," she told him. "You chose this route because of that tunnel, didn't you? It's still there, isn't it?"
He nodded.
"Then there's hope."
"Perhaps," he said. "Even so, the closer we get to Dralladan, the more a shadow has grown over my mind. We may find this route blocked to us."
Xellos spent most of the next march digesting what Filia had told him, rolling it around in his mind. As a Mazoku, it was difficult for him to conceptualize remorse for things he did under Xelas' command. And yet here he was, feeling it.
So enthralled in the thought, he didn't notice Mira trot up alongside him. "You appear troubled, Mister Zelgadis."
Xellos smiled. "Just thinking to myself."
"Dralladan worries you," she said.
"It should worry you as well," he told her. "You need not go. You shouldn't go."
"It's not that easy," she told him. She looked at him long and hard. "You now why, better than anyone here, I'd imagine."
"How so?"
"Do you know how I got this, Mister Zelgadis?" She pointed at her eyepatch. Xellos shook his head. "During the war, the Golden Dragons attacked Wolfpack Island. It was a failure, and we were the closest clan to them that could help." She smiled. "I remember the words of my best friend, Wilca.."
Mira put her back to the wall and slumped down, holding her human knees to her chest as she continued to pant in fright. That's what the enemy was as much as anything. Fright. And they had more than succeeded in frightening her. Her first engagement with the Mazoku had resulted in six of her friends dying among another hundred she only counted as acquaintances.
But she made it. She survived. Thank Cepheid, she survived.
That thought managed to calm her somewhat.
Until Wilca flew down from her eyrie and took a human form. "Listen up!" she called to the exhausted black dragons. "A Golden Dragon clan to the south just got the wind shredded out from under it near WolfPack Island. They're in full retreat and trying to move their wounded away from there. The Mazoku are advancing."
Mira swallowed. She knew what was coming.
"I know you're all tired, but we need to go and help. Grab what supplies you can. We fly in five minutes." The exhausted dragons, dead on their feet already, began to get ready. As she passed, Mira grabbed Wilca's arm.
"Mira?" she asked. "Are you okay?"
Mira looked at her friend with shattered eyes. "Please..Please don't make me go back out there."
She expected anger or revulsion at her cowardice, but instead, Wilca rested a hand on her shoulder and looked at her with sympathy. "I know you're scared," she said softly. "We all are. But remember why we're doing it." Mira looked at her in puzzlement.
"I'll leave it to you," her friend said and walked off.
The Black Dragon stared at the ground for several minutes, listening as the others made their preparations.
"Those too wounded or exhausted to transform ride on the backs of those who can!" she heard Wilca order. Looking up, she could see Wilca looking at her, offering her a smile. "Let's go!"
The Black Dragons of her clan prepared to go, hustling and bustling around. Mira listened as she heard two healers nearby talk.
"We're never going to see them again, are we?" one healer said.
Instead of the encouragement that was expected, the other healer offered the truth.
"No."
"Let's fly!"
That's when Mira realized it. Grabbing her short sword off the table and grabbing water bag, she ran off after them.
"Wait! Wait for me!"
"You're coming?" Wilca asked.
"I'm coming!"
"Get on!"
"Wilca did not survive the rearguard action, and I lost my eye in the fighting," Mira told him. "But I don't regret the decision I made that day." She looked up at Xellos, who said nothing. "When I agreed to come on this expedition, some of the other dragons asked me. 'Why go on a fool's errand, Mira? Why do it? Do you LIKE fighting?' And there was nothing I could say to them. I had nothing to say."
Xellos looked at her in newfound respect.
"They wouldn't understand, Mister Zelgadis. Not what Wilca knew. It's about the people you're with. Not politics or land or religion. It's the bond that holds you and the dragon beside you together. It's about the here and now."
"Thank you, Miss Mira," Xellos said quietly. "Believe it or not, that helps."
"We have to be there for one another, ne?" she asked. "The younger generation doesn't realize what it is they're asking for and wouldn't understand how we feel."
"Do you ever regret the things you've done?"
Mira thought on it for several moments. "Were it anyone else, I'd say yes," she told him honestly. "But they're Mazoku. I feel no pity for them."
"I see."
Filia sighed and said for the fourth time. "Yes, I dyed it. Do you like it?" It almost came out monotone. Sethra, taken aback by the response, only blinked and said she liked it. It wasn't that Filia were angry, just that Sethra was the fourth person to ask her about the streak of purple in her hair, and she was getting tired of explaining it, even if that explanation was a lie.
As the dragon priestess walked off to talk with Will and Birdy, Filia absently rubbed the lock of purple hair between her fingers. The only person who hadn't seemed to notice it was Xellos. She wondered if it was something that occurred naturally and resolved to ask him about it later.
The group had stopped for a short break. Birdy had pulled a flute from her bag and began to play a fast, happy tune. Filia went down to the river to refill her water bottle. She blinked in surprise when she found Mira there.
"Ah. Miss Filia," the dragon soldier greeted her.
"Miss Mira. I'm sorry, I didn't know you wanted to be alone."
"No, not at all," Mira replied. "I'd like to talk to you, if I may."
"Of course." Filia stepped closer. The shore of this part of the river was narrow. Trees and growth grew on either side of them, leaving only a ten foot strip of sand and rock for them to get water. "What can I do for you?"
"Mister Zelgadis seems like a very nice dragon," Mira told her conversationally.
"Oh. Well, yes, he is, I suppose," Filia answered, unsure as to where the conversation was going.
"There is a lot of pain in his eyes, though," Mira continued. "His life must have been long and hard."
"Indeed," the dragon priestess agreed. It was the truth and couldn't hurt to tell her.
"His wife must be a strong woman, ne?"
Filia paused. "He's not married...yet..." she said lamely.
"Oh," Mira said simply.
Fire leapt into Filia as she realized what it was Mira was trying to get from her. A red haze began to come down over her eyes.
Mira turned and knelt next to the water, washing her face. "It just seems that we have so much in common, he and I, and since you're his friend, I thought you might know whether or not he'd.." She didn't finish. It was at that point that Filia pushed her into the river.
The dragon soldier, taken by surprise, floundered in the stream. As she did, Filia picked up a large rock about the size of her head and lifted it above her, preparing to bring it down on her new rival's skull.
Suddenly, there was a flash of darkness.
As Mira found her footing and stood up, she saw a rock hit the ground nearby, but nothing else.
Filia struggled in his grip, trying to tear herself away and finish what she started, even though they were now nearly a mile away.
"Let me go, Xellos!" she hissed. "Let me go! I"ll kill her!"
Xellos, his face expressionless, held her fast as she continued to struggle like a mad woman. Her strength was amazing. It was if she were deranged, and Xellos knew that that was probably part of it.
She screamed and clawed at his eyes. "YOU BASTARD!" she screamed in his face. "YOU'RE SEEING THAT DRAGON BITCH BEHIND MY BACK, AREN'T YOU!? AREN'T YOU!? ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!"
He managed to keep her hands from his face and turned her around so that her back was to him. Wrapping one arm around her body to secure her arms, he reached around with the other and began to softly stroke her cheek with his finger.
"Shhhhhh," he cooed. "Shhhhhh."
Filia was still shaking in rage, but the sound of his voice caused her breathing to slow. The fire in her eyes began to fade. She continued breathing deeply for several moments. Then, suddenly, her breaths became sobs.
"Oh, Cepheid," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Xellos."
He released her, and she turned suddenly and embraced him. "I'm so sorry!"
"It's all right," he whispered. "It is."
She looked up at him. "You stopped me," she said. "Why? I thought Mazoku didn't care."
He looked down at her. "Because I won't have you feel what I have been these past few days."
The dragon broke down and began to cry.
"More and more interesting, indeed," he whispered, holding her.
The wall was nothing short of a mountain that ran sideways. It stretched out forever in either direction and was high enough to reach into the low- floating clouds.
"No sweat!" Will announced. "We'll just fly over!"
Mira seemed to consider this. She hadn't spoken a word to Filia since she and Xellos had returned. Filia had told her she had heard Xellos call her and left and that she must have just tripped and fallen into the water. She could tell, though, that Mira suspected.
"Too high profile," Mira finally said. "There has to be a way to get in without alerting every Mazoku watcher on the continent."
"There is the tunnel on this side of the wall," Xellos explained. "It was made for humans who sometimes traded with the dragons of Dralladan. We just have to find it."
Finding it proved to be easier than they expected. It only took an hour of marching eastward before they came upon the high gates of Dralladan.
"They're still open," Birdy noted. "Let's go!"
"Just a second, young lady," Sethra said, catching the younger dragon by the back of her collar. "Let an adult go first."
Xellos stepped forward, and the jewel of his staff began to glow. The others cast lighting spells of their own and followed. The tunnel was fairly clean, but obviously ancient and in disrepair. It stretched straight onward for a mile. It didn't take long for evidence of their quarry to present itself.
"'Drazah was here,'" Birdy read the graffiti from the wall. Next to the sign was a crudely-drawn picture of a dragon sticking his tongue out.
"Very cosmopolitan!" Xellos remarked with a smile.
Birdy sweatdropped. "Well..um.."
"Let's keep moving," Mira ordered.
Sethra, who was in the back, stopped suddenly and turned around.
"Miss Sethra?" Will asked. "You okay?"
"I...I just thought I heard something."
"Like what?"
Sethra held her lighting spell out, but the darkness seemed to laugh at it. "Like...Like something scratching the walls."
"Please, Miss Sethra!" Taloon begged. "This place is creepy enough as it is!" His cape fluttered behind him anxiously.
"Let's go," Mira ordered again.
The group marched through the tunnel for an hour. Xellos led the way with Mira and Filia just behind him.
"Looks like there's a turn up ahead," Mira noted.
Xellos marched forward. "There appears to be a little more light..."
They turned the corner and Filia gasped.
"My friends, the ancient dragon citadel of Dralladan."
"It's beautiful," Filia whispered.
It was indeed beautiful. In the ancient times the dragons took great care with their architecture and their eyries, and Dralladan was considered one of the greatest. The entire city was set in the walls of an inverted bowl dug into the mountains. Above them the sky could be seen through a large hole, the dragon's entrance to Dralladan. Waterfalls fed by mountain streams and springs poured down from five equidistant points around the inside of the bowl, feeding a lake in the center of the city.
They walked around this lake, which must have been nearly three miles across, to the eyries on the other side, mammoth dwellings designed for dragons to live within comfortably.
"Even the Temple of the Fire Dragon King was not this extravagant," Filia whispered, touching some of the stonework. The face on a dragon statue disintegrated beneath her fingers. Suddenly feeling as if she had committed a great sin, Filia pulled away.
"Drazah and the others would have made their camp somewhere around here," Birdy told them.
"Perhaps we should split up," Taloon suggested.
"Perhaps we shouldn't," Mira snapped. Taking a breath, she spoke again. "All right. Sethra, you and Taloon check the east. Birdy, Will and I will check west. Filia and Zelgadis will check the south."
This agreement made, the group split up and went their separate ways. Filia was still looking around in awe of the city. She had heard of the greatness of ancient dragon cities, but would never have believed them to be so true.
Before long, the two found themselves in a tall, ornate building, standing tall against the cliff face. Filia recognized it immediately. She had, after all, grown up in one.
They were in a cathedral.
The ceiling seemed miles above them, and the walls were adorned with artwork featuring a dragon wreathed in flame.
"Cepheid," Filia whispered.
"Yes," Xellos said quietly. "The dragons of Dralladan venerated him directly."
Filia walked toward the front of the cathedral, past several dragon-sized pews and stopped just short of the pulpit.
In the floor directly in front of her, was a large, dark hole.
Sethra turned her head and blinked as she felt something touch her shoulder. Seeing what it was, she turned quickly and put her hands on her hips, giving the owner of the appendage an acidic look.
"And just what do you think you're doing with that tail, Mister?!" she demanded.
"Oh, come on, Sethra," Taloon cooed. "I just thought you could use a little assurance. You know, feel the presence of another dragon to assure you that you're not alone." He grinned.
Sethra's face turned red and her cheeks puffed out. "You, Sir," she began, "Are just trying to take advantage of a serious situation, and I must say, it is HARDLY appropriate!"
"My," Taloon said with a grin, resting his back against a nearby pillar. The two were investigating a wide and open building that appeared to be a government facility of some kind, possibly a treasury given the amount of statuary and artwork devoted to gold. "You Golden Dragons are SO uptight about the littlest things. It's not like having a little fun would be a BAD thing."
"Hmmph!" Sethra replied. "Your jocularity in such a time speaks volumes about your character, young sir," she told him her arms over her chest. "Firstly, I am a priestess of the Water Dragon King, and have NO interest in the kind of vulgar things you are suggesting with your foolishly displayed innuendo. Secondly, I AM a Golden Dragon, and it would HARDLY be appropriate for me to carouse, fling or gallivant with a RED Dragon!" She punctuated this tirade with a "Hmmph!"
Taloon blinked at her. "Do you always do that?" he asked.
"Do what?"
"Talk in complete sentences."
"Hmmph!" she replied. "It's no crime to be well read!"
"My point exactly!" Taloon agreed. "So why don't we go into the next room and I'll read you some more..."
"OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOH!" Sethra cried in frustration and turned on her heel, walking away.
"It'll be fun!" Taloon called after her.
No response.
"Prude," Taloon remarked under his breath.
That's when he heard Sethra scream.
Not just scream.
Wail in terror.
Drawing his sword, Taloon rushed after her.
Filia looked up as she heard it. "That's Miss Sethra!" she cried.
Xellos disappeared in a flash of darkness and homed in on the dragon priestess' astral essence. It wasn't hard to make out as it was very close in nature to Filia's. A second later, he was appearing next to the woman.
Sethra, crying uncontrollably, turned and flung herself into Xellos' arms. Taloon rushed into the room a second later.
"What is it?! What's going on?!" Taloon demanded.
Sethra, still crying, pointed behind her.
Taloon gasped. Xellos just stared.
Suspended by a thick web from the ceiling, were eleven, dragon-sized web sacks. The one closest to them was thinner than the others and showed the decaying face of a golden dragon.
Mira's knife cut through the sticky substance concealing the face of the dead dragon, and she sighed.
"Aynyan," she whispered. Turning away, she addressed Taloon in a weary voice. "Taloon, cut them down." The Red Dragon drew his broadsword and began cutting the dead reptiles down.
"They're part of Drazah's group, all right," Mira told Xellos in a whisper. The others watched from not far away, wondering why Xellos was getting special attention. Filia's hands were fists as she watched.
"What could do this to a dragon?" Mira asked him. "Nothing I've ever seen."
"Dralladan is being guarded," Xellos told her. "You should leave."
"There are only eleven bodies here," she told him. "Twenty-six set out with Drazah."
"Then either they're dead or they wish they were," Xellos whispered harshly.
As they spoke, Birdy had wandered outside. "Hey! Come take a look at this!"
The others soon joined her and found her pointing up at the sky. "You see it?"
Filia blinked as her eyes caught sight of it. A glint of gold in the sky. "Another dragon?" she asked.
"One way to find out," Birdy said. Her hands went to her chest, and a purple glow surrounded her as she grew into her dragon form. With a flap of her wings, she took off.
Xellos' hand went to his head, and he fell to one knee with a grimace.
"Zelgadis?" Mira asked.
Xellos grit his teeth as the astral scream began to fade in his mind. It had happened just as Birdy transformed...
"Oh no.." he breathed.
Birdy flapped her wings as she climbed. The glint she had seen was definitely a Golden Dragon. She could see its wings now, yet they weren't flapping. It was just sitting there in the sky just at the point where the walls of Dralladan leveled off, forming the entrance to the citadel.
"Hey! Hey you!" she called out.
The Golden Dragon didn't answer.
"Hey! Are you okay?" she tried again.
She flew closer and gasped as she made out the face on the dragon.
It was dead, its tongue hanging out of its mouth and its eyes sunk back into its head.
"What the..." Just as she was coming parallel to the dead dragon, something jerked her to a stop. "Hey!" She struggled, but found herself becoming more immobilized. Looking to her right, she saw light glinting off a tiny tendril connected to her wings.
She was in a spider's web.
"HELP!"
"Zelgadis, what is it?!" Filia asked.
Then, several things happened at once.
"HELP!"
They looked up as Birdy's cry came down to them.
"Birdy!" Will cried.
"Taloon, go up there and find out what's going on," Mira ordered. "The rest of you..."
Suddenly there was a shriek, a long, drawn out verbalization of hate and rage to be exact.
All their heads turned toward the source. The tunnel from where they had come into Dralladan was now alive, swarming with black objects that they could barely make out. They moved along the walls, pouring from the entrance.
"We've got a problem," Mira whispered.
"We've got a big damn problem!" Taloon agreed.
"Wha..What are they?" Filia whispered in fear.
Xellos moved to the front and held out his staff. "Watchers," he growled. "Everyone! Start fires with whatever you can find! We've only got a few minutes before they get here!"
Mira turned to the red dragon again. "Get Birdy down!" Taloon nodded and transformed. Once again, Xellos heard the shriek in his thoughts. The watchers knew what a dragon felt like as it transformed through the astral plane.
Filia watched in fear as the dark shapes skittered around the lake towards them. She could make them out more clearly now. They were about the size of a human, only horizontal and had eight legs apiece. They were moving incredibly quick.
"We should transform!" Will suggested quickly.
"No," Xellos remarked, his voice edged. "That's the mistake your friends made. They're too quick and agile for a large, cumbersome dragon such as yourselv..ourselves..to fight."
"So what do we do?!" Will cried.
Xellos didn't answer.
//Xellos,// Filia thought at him. //I'm scared.//
Filia gulped fearfully as she heard Xellos' response in her head.
//Me too.//
"Taloon! Be careful! There's a web across the chasm!"
Taloon stopped just short of Birdy and looked closely, finding the gossamer strands holding the dragon in place.
"Get me out of this!" Birdy demanded.
"Okay, hang on," he said. "I gotta figure this out."
The spiders were moving closer now, two hundred yards away.
Filia pulled her mace and stood next to Xellos, who held his staff before him. Mira stood on Xellos' left and raised her hands. A bow of golden light started to coalesce in her hands. Will drew his sword and licked his lips.
One hundred yards.
Mira drew her arm back. "Deimos.."
Fifty yards.
The jewel in Xellos' staff began to glow.
Twenty-five yards.
"ARROW!" Mira cried, releasing a shaft of light at the creatures. It landed just in front of the pack and exploded, launching chunks of black legs and gore into the air.
Xellos fired a bolt of black energy, and Sethra, Filia and Will released streams of laser breath. Dark clouds of debris shot into the sky, and the spiders still advanced. One of them shrieked and launched itself at Filia. The golden dragon screamed and swung her mace with two hands, launching the demon beast into orbit.
The others switched to their hand weapons as the spiders crashed into them like a tide. Filia turned and ducked as one of them hissed and spit at her. The stream of venom struck her mace as she flattened it. Looking at her weapon, she saw tendrils of smoke waft into the air. She silently thanked the Fire Dragon King for not letting the liquid touch her.
Taloon approached the web slowly and licked his lips. He reached out with a finger and touched one strand. Then, pulling back sharply, he hissed. The web was so sticky it had pulled off some of the scales on his finger. He gulped and looked up at Birdy.
"What?" she asked.
He bit his lip and grabbed hold of the web tendril that ran across her face. "Birdy," he said quietly. "Grit your teeth and hold on. This is going to hurt."
Birdy paled and nodded.
They heard a scream above them, but couldn't pause to think on it. They were all pressed against the wall of the cathedral now to keep the spiders from sneaking up behind them.
"We can't keep this up," Mira told them, launching another Deimos Arrow.
"Will," Xellos said, "Inside there's a hole. Get down it."
Will nodded and sheathed his sword, running for the entrance. With only fifteen feet to go, a spider jumped in front of him. He skidded to a halt, his arms flailing as he tried to keep his balance.
The spider hissed and shot a spray of venom at him. It struck his right arm, coating it and pinning it to the cathedral wall. Will screamed as the fluid began to melt through his sleeve into his arm.
"Will!" Filia cried. The golden dragon ran forward and flattened the insect before turning and grabbing hold of the younger dragon, pulling him by the shirt to free him from the wall. Will continued to scream. Sethra ran up to them and started pulling as well. "Help!" Filia called.
Xellos turned and saw their plight. "Cover me," he told Mira, who nodded and fired off another arrow. He disappeared and reappeared next to Filia and Will.
"Do something!" she begged him, still pulling. Will screamed as blood began to dribble from the cocoon sheathing his arm. The venom was melting through his skin and muscle.
Xellos, seeing this, acted quickly. He reached down and pulled Will's sword free.
"What are you doing?" Filia whispered.
Without a word, Xellos swung the weapon and cut through Will's upper arm. The boy screamed and fell to the ground. Filia and Sethra looked at him in horror.
"Get him inside!" Xellos ordered.
The dragon priestesses picked the boy up and helped him hobble inside.
Mira looked up briefly as Taloon, Birdy's unmoving human form in his bloody hands, landed next to her. He quickly transformed again. "What happened to her?" Mira asked.
"She's just out cold from the pain," he told her quickly.
"Get her inside," Mira ordered. As Taloon carried the girl in his arms, Mira fired off two more shots and ran after them.
Xellos was waiting near the door. "Quickly," he hissed. "Go!" As Mira entered, he threw the door shut. The group rushed to the hole in the center of the cathedral as something heavy slammed against the door.
Taloon found the hole and skidded to a stop. "Down there?!" he asked.
Rather than answer him, Mira pushed him into the hole. "Zelgadis?!" she asked.
"Go," he told her, his staff glowing again. As the dragon jumped down the fissure in the floor, Xellos pointed his staff at the ceiling and fired. At that moment, the door caved in and the spiders surged forward. Xellos disappeared just as the ceiling fell in on them.
Filia tended to the young dragon's wound and was just finishing a healing spell to stop the bleeding when Taloon landed next to her.
"Birdy's hurt!" he said quickly, setting the dragon girl down. Sethra knelt next to her and began to chant a healing spell.
Mira hit the ground next to them a second later. They all heard a horrible rumbling sound just as Xellos appeared next to them.
Then the entire world was thrown into darkness.
The darkness retreated from the red glow of Xellos' staff, illuminating frightened faces with a harsh red tint. Will was out cold on the ground, the stump of his arm now healed over. Sethra and Filia were now working on Birdy, who was just starting to come around.
"It appears you're now trapped on our road," Xellos told them.
"Road?" Taloon asked.
"Anschad Allium," Xellos told him. "The Trickster's Tunnel."
"Named after Xellos, the General Priest," Mira said quietly, dusting herself off. "The Mazoku who engineered the tunnel."
"We know who he is," Sethra bit out. "Foul creature will rot in Hell for all eternity for what he's done to the Ryuuzoku."
Filia looked quickly to Xellos and saw a flash of pain cross his face. Finally, he simply said, "Yes, I imagine he will." He started down the tunnel. "Be careful," he said. "It would be foolish to assume Xelas didn't place another Watcher down here."
As Taloon picked up Will and carried him, Sethra knelt to help Birdy up. She gasped quietly as she saw the bloody scar running across the girl's face from where the web pulled off skin and scales.
The young dragon slapped her hand away and stood up. "I don't need your help," she spat. "Let's just go."
"How long is this tunnel?" Taloon asked as they walked. Will wasn't a large dragon, but big enough to make the Red Dragon reluctant to carry him too far.
"Two days," Xellos told him. "Don't transform either," he warned. "That's how the Watchers in Dralladan spotted us."
Frightened, hungry and thirsty, they continued on.
The cavern was wide enough for the group to walk abreast if they chose, and high enough for them to transform if it weren't so dangerous to do so. Every so often, the cavern would open into larger, natural caves, complete with stalactites and stalagmites. Eight hours into their march, they came upon a cavern like this, only water was dripping from the stalactites.
"We must be under the Wolves' Channel," Birdy mentioned.
Sethra blinked as a drop of water landed on her shoulder. She turned to look at it and smiled openly. "Look!" she called. The drop of water on her dress glowed a faint blue. "Cepheid's Water! A good omen!"
"There must be a pool of it in the rocks above us," Birdy deduced. She readied a spell. "Let's open up the ceiling and get some! It'll keep the Mazoku away!"
Filia jumped in front of the girl so fast, Birdy nearly had a heart attack. "No!" the blonde cried quickly.
"Why not?" Birdy asked.
"You'll...You'll bring the ocean down on top of us!" Filia said quickly.
"Filia's right," Mira said. "Set out canteens to collect some if you like, but I don't want to drown here. Not even in Cepheid's Water."
"Oh," Birdy relented, taking out her canteen.
Filia sighed in relief and looked at Xellos. The water would have melted away his astral form if the dragon had flooded the cavern.
Xellos, however, wasn't even paying attention. His gaze was fixed on the tunnel ahead.
"What are you waiting for?" he whispered.
Their camp was cold and dark, but they slept. Amid the drops and trickles of Cepheid's Water, it was easy to imagine that any noise was a Mazoku Watcher, slowly sneaking up on them. Filia awoke in the middle of this darkness and stood up, unable to sleep. She heard movement nearby and held out her hand.
"Lighting," she whispered. A small ball of light, no bigger than a marble, appeared in her hand, casting a soft glow on their camp.
Everyone was up already.
"Guess y'all can't sleep either, huh?" Birdy asked with a halfhearted chuckle.
"Well, if we're not going to sleep, I guess we should eat," Sethra decided, taking out her pack. "Never know when we'll get another chance."
"I just want out of here," Will complained in a whisper.
"Where's Zelgadis?" Taloon asked.
Filia looked around, but could see no sign of him.
"I think he went ahead to explore," Mira offered.
Filia stood up quietly and walked down the tunnel. She could still hear the voices of the others as she walked, despite their efforts to remain quiet.
"Where's she going?" Taloon asked.
"After Zelgadis, I guess," Will supplied.
"They're fucking," Birdy announced.
"Birdianna!" Sethra snapped. "Language!"
"Well, it's true!" Birdy hissed back.
"I'm willing to bet it is," Mira affirmed.
"Miss Mira!" Sethra lectured. "It's highly inappropriate to spread such rumors without proof!"
Filia heard Mira chuckle. "Let's just say that Miss Filia and I had a little failure to communicate."
Filia saw a light up ahead and whispered to it. "Xellos?" She waited for a reply but got none. "Are you here?"
"Over here," she heard.
She followed the voice into a cavern. "What are you doing here?"
"Why are you whispering?" he asked.
She whispered again. "It just feels quiet. Like the kind of place to whisper."
He nodded and gestured out to the cavern before them. His staff grew brighter, illuminating the entire mammoth cave.
Filia gasped at it. It was a giant geode. Stalactites and stalagmites of white crystal were spread out before them, reflecting and refracting the light from Xellos' staff. The flat surfaces reflected light like mirrors, and Filia suddenly found herself surrounded by images of herself and Xellos.
"It's beautiful," she remarked.
He nodded. "I saw it last time I was here, but thought nothing of it."
She sat down next to him and looked out at it. Reaching down, she took his hand in hers. "It's a very nice place," she declared.
Xellos smiled. "Is it?"
"It is," she announced again, throwing some of her old haughty air into it. She giggled. "You always take me to the nicest places."
He laughed openly at this. "Well, I TRIED to take you to the Atlas Museum of Art, but you wouldn't have any of it."
Smiling softly, she shook her head. "I should have gone. Made the effort to get to know you better."
"It wouldn't have made a difference."
"Maybe not." She looked over at him. His face was lined with worry. "You don't think our odds are very good, huh?"
He looked back at her and squeezed her hand. "No matter what happens, Filia chan," he whispered. "I'm getting you out of this cave."
She smiled back at him and took a breath. "I know." Looking back at the geode, she asked, "What shall we do afterwards? After it's all over?"
"I don't know," he said. "Stay out of Metallium's way and find a quiet place to live."
"I guess we really won't be accepted anywhere we go," Filia commented. "There will always be someone to hate us."
"I don't care about them," he told her. "What you think is all that matters."
"Xellos, will you do something for me?"
"Of course."
"Kiss me."
Xellos paused. "Kiss you?"
She nodded and turned, placing her hands on his chest.
"Er..well..You see, Filia chan..I really haven't ever actually..."
Before he finished, her lips were locked on his and her hands were pushing him backward onto the floor. The thousand pairs of lovers reflected in the crystals around them did likewise, echoing everything but the feelings that went into the act.
Filia released her hold on him for a moment, and Xellos arched an eyebrow at her. "Where did you learn to do that?" he asked with a suspicious smile.
The dragon blushed and turned her head.
"I KNEW you were a bad girl at that shrine," he declared.
"It was just one kiss!" Filia defended. "We were young and were just..experimenting a bit," she finished lamely.
"Anyone I should be jealous of?" he asked.
Filia's smile fell a bit. "No," she said quietly. "He was one of the dragons Erulogos and Sirius killed at the Ancient Dragon temple." She felt his fingers brush a few of her own purple hairs from her eyes. "We were just friends."
Xellos continued caressing her hair. "You look good in purple," he whispered, changing the subject.
"I've been meaning to ask," she said. "What does it mean?"
He grinned. "It means I'm corrupting you, Filia chan!"
She huffed and turned her nose up. "You are not!"
Tendrils of darkness emerged from his fingers, caressing her cheek. "Aren't I?"
"No," she whispered, nuzzling her cheek closer to his hand. Light met dark and began to meld. "Not at all."
The light intensified as they began to mate again, reflecting and refracting against the crystals around them, filling the cavern with their own light. Their astral essences merged together and became one...
And farther down the tunnel, something felt this change in the astral plane..
And awoke.
Filia stretched a bit and yawned as her strength began to return. They couldn't stay here all night. The others would worry.
She snuggled next to Xellos. "Let them worry," she whispered.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on breathing, a simple task devoid of thought or concern. Perhaps it was because she wasn't concerned with other things at the moment, but it was at that moment that she felt something wake up.
The dragon sat straight up and cried out in surprise. Her head turned from side to side, searching for it. Her gaze turned downward and then inward.
And she felt it.
"Xellos!" she whispered urgently, reaching out and pushing him. "Xellos! Wake up!"
"Yes, Filia chan?" the tired reply came.
She stared inside herself with her mind, watching it. It seemed to raise its awareness a bit, then yawned and went back to sleep.
Her breathing quickened. "Xellos!" she whispered again, afraid of waking it up again. "Xellos! I think.. I mean... I.. Xellos, I... Xellos, it... Xellos, what... XELLOS!"
"Of course you are, Filia chan," he remarked casually. "What did you think this was all about? Fun and games?"
She looked at him in shock. "But... I mean.. I couldn't be.. Already?" she asked in amazement.
"Go back to sleep, Filia chan," he urged. "It'll still be there in the morning."
"But I..HOW CAN YOU BE SO CASUAL ABOUT THIS?!"
He rolled over and smiled at her. "Because now I don't have to worry about it anymore." He yawned. "I was beginning to worry. I was starting to think I'd never knock you up."
"'KNOCK ME UP?!'" she demanded. She grabbed him around the throat and began throttling him, his head knocking against the ground. "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME, AND YOU'RE REFERRING TO IT AS 'KNOCKING ME UP?!'"
He held his hands up in mock fright and laughed. "Okay! Okay, Filia chan! I'm happy too!"
"Hmmph! You'd better be!" she chastised him.
"Now go back to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow."
Filia swallowed back her joy and laid back down on the cave floor, but didn't sleep.
The change in the astral plane that triggered its awakening had subsided, but it knew which direction to go. Like a machine it moved down the tunnel towards the main channel. Nothing was supposed to be down here, which meant that it was either a dragon or a Mazoku from a rival Dark Lord.
Either way, it would never again see the light of day.
Xellos could feel Filia still brimming with pride and joy next to him, but forced himself to put it out of his mind. He was happy about it, of course, but had been too weak to really show Filia. Their last mating had taken a lot out of him, but it had been worth investing the majority of his strength if it meant conception. Time was running out, and he knew it. He could feel it.
If things worked out well, and everything went right, he might...just might... be able to save one of them or the other.
But not both.
Xelas wasn't stupid. She would have found some way to choke off the Trickster's Tunnel. Not just leave it to those spider creatures. There was a Watcher down here. He'd guarantee it. And even if they got past the Watcher, they would have to make their way through Wolfpack Island. Xelas would almost certainly decide to intervene herself. If she did..
Xelas Metallium wasn't Gaav or even Phibrizzo. She could be more dangerous than both combined, and she had proved it. After all, eliminating both Gaav and Phibrizzo had been her plan, her manipulation. And none of them had ever seen it. The ability to manipulate others so flawlessly was one of the greatest traits she had passed onto him. Her organizational skills, the ability to sift through information, recognize threats and her political savvy all went to Callisto.
And Xellos would not be able to stand against her. He knew that. He wasn't Lina Inverse. He didn't have the backing of the Lord of Nightmares.
But he didn't have to worry so much now.
It was done.
Filia was practically on cloud nine as she buttoned her cape. She wasn't sure if it was Peak playing with her mind or the simple euphoria that might accompany a young bride's pride in bearing her first child, but she decided to just go with it.
Although she knew it wasn't the "right" way to feel, her euphoria left her feeling a bit guilty. She hadn't felt this proud or giddy when she agreed to take charge of little Val. Then again, she wasn't personally carrying Val, and as much as she loved her adopted egg, he hadn't been the product of her and her mate's..love? Was that the right word to use?
In her case, it was, so she decided once again to just go with it.
She stopped as she heard something.
"Xellos?" she queried.
He was by her side in a second. "I hear it too."
"It sounds like.."
Xellos grabbed her arm and started back towards the cave where the others had encamped. "Like a thousand feet coming this way!" he finished for her.
When they arrived, the dragons were quickly breaking camp.
"No time for that!" Xellos told them. "They'll be here any second!"
"Shit," Birdy hissed, tossing down her pack and drawing her short sword.
They all drew their weapons and faced the tunnel from which the sound was coming. The foot falls were the familiar click-click of the same spider creatures they had encountered in Dralladan. Will was breathing quickly and shallowly, his sword in his left hand, his skin pale. His last encounter with these creatures had cost him too much.
Mira nocked a Deimos Arrow and held it ready. Sethra, carrying no weapons of her own, stood behind them and waited to cast a healing spell on the first person to be injured.
The spiders spewed from the tunnel so quickly, there was no time to attack. They were just suddenly there, on the floor in front of them, on the walls beside them, on the ceiling above them, on the floor behind them..
And continuing down the tunnel...
They weren't attacking. They were running. Running as if their lives depended on it.
"What the hell?" Birdy asked.
"Where are they going?" Sethra asked.
"I'm more concerned about what's chasing them," Mira said quietly.
At that moment, Xellos screamed and fell to one knee, his hands on his ears as if trying to block out a loud roar. But he couldn't block it out. Just like the spiders that were so attuned to changes in the astral plane, Xellos, a creature of the astral plane, could feel it in his very being. A mind-shattering screech that pierced his very essence.
"Xe..Zelgadis?!" Filia asked quickly, kneeling next to him.
The screech faded, and Xellos looked up and down the dark tunnel. Whatever it was, it was there, and it was frightening enough to drive those creatures away in terror.
"I'll be right back," he said, his voice deadpan. In a flash of darkness, he disappeared. The dragons stared at the spot he had been standing in.
"What's going on?" Sethra whispered.
"I don't know," Filia whispered fearfully in return.
Xellos reappeared on the astral plane on the exact same spot he had been standing on in the real world. The astral plane existed on top of the real world, so locations there coincided with locations on the flat, spinning rock where he spent most of his time. The only difference was the terrain. While he had been standing in a cave the moment before, on the astral plane it was a flat plateau.
And he could see what it was.
He now understood why the spiders had run. Anything that large in the astral plane would practically scream as it moved, disturbing the astral plane around it.
It hissed and barked at him in his own language, a sentry's challenge.
Xellos smiled and raised his staff. He would not be cowed by any Mazoku, no matter how large. He replied to it.
"I am Xellos Ul Copt!" he announced. "Servant of the Lord of Nightmares and mate to the last Fire Dragon!"
The Mazoku laughed at him, a existence-rattling shriek of amusement. It lumbered forward.
"He's been gone too long," Will announced. "We should bail."
"He'll be back," Filia assured him quickly. "He'll be back."
As if mentioning that were a magic spell, Xellos suddenly appeared and fell to the floor.
"Zelgadis!" Mira cried. The other dragons rushed to him.
Xellos was looking down the tunnel, his eyes haunted. "Ruby Eye be merciful," he whispered. "It's a ShadowGuard."
"A what?" Taloon asked.
Xellos stood up slowly. He could feel it on the edge of perception, recovering from the wounds he had managed to inflict on it. "One of the four bodyguards of the Ruby Eye. Xelas has somehow pushed one into her service."
"What do we do?!" Sethra asked shakily.
He turned to her and addressed the blonde directly. "Miss Sethra," he said softly. "We run as fast as we possibly can."
It took only moments to tend to the slight wounds the rogue Mazoku had given it. It was enough time, however, for them to start running. It laughed at the attempt. Didn't the Mazoku recognize who he was? Did he not realize that he was one of the Four? One of the Mazoku that had engaged the Water Dragon King during the last battle with Cepheid? One of the Four that had thrown themselves at the Flare Dragon in the last ditch effort to save their master?
Did he not realize that he would NEVER give up?
In the astral world, he smiled. In the real world, he allowed a small part of himself to become physical, taking the shape of a shadow in human form.
If the Mazoku wished to be chased, then he would be chased.
With only Xellos' light to guide them, the group of dragons ran. The tunnel was not very agreeable, however, and they were often forced to climb over obstacles or crawl through tiny cracks in the stone wall to keep going. The entire time, Xellos urged them on. Filia felt frightened. Anything that could make Xellos scared had to be a threat on the scale of Dark Star or Shabranigdo.
She was so enthralled in her fear, that she didn't see the web until she ran straight into it.
Unlike the web that had snared Birdy, this web wasn't sticky. As a result, Filia just hit it and bounced right off. Standing up again, she stared at it. The tendrils glowed a faint green. She took hold of them and pushed, but the web wouldn't budge.
And it was stretching across their path.
"Zelgadis!" she called back.
Birdy, meanwhile, was hacking at it with her sword, but the tendrils wouldn't be sliced. Xellos pushed himself to the front and examined the obstruction.
"Stand back," he ordered. Channeling power into his staff, he suddenly thrust the red jewel into the center of the web. Lightning crackled throughout the tendrils for several seconds until finally, the web disappeared.
Almost immediately, however, the webbing began to stretch out from the walls and reform the web.
"Go! Go!" Xellos cried, helping the others through the small gap. He managed to leap through just as the webbing reached the center, reforming the web as if nothing had ever happened to it.
"Keep moving!" Mira called out, practically dragging Sethra behind her as she ran.
Xellos, the last to leave, watched as a shadowy figure stepped right through the webbing behind them and move towards them.
"We can't run forever," Mira noted as Xellos caught up with her.
"The exit isn't far ahead," the priest told her.
"Then what?" Mira asked. "That thing chases us across open ground?"
Xellos said nothing.
The tunnel opened into a cavern immersed in a thick fog. Stalagmites jutted out of the ground like tree trunks, and were as big around as any oak Filia had ever seen.
"We're almost there," Xellos told them. "Keep moving forward."
A shriek echoed behind them.
"GO!"
Running through the cavern, Filia soon noticed that the mist wasn't a fog at all, but steam. They must be near a hot spring. Glowing blue water dripped off stalactites, and Xellos deftly avoided coming into contact with it. There must have been a Cepheid's Water spring just above them.
Will, who ran ahead of her, cried out as he fell. The tunnel had suddenly ended in a six-foot depression and then continued onward. The dragons hopped down and ran to the other end of the dip, climbing up over the short cliff.
As they reached the other side of the cavern, the ShadowGuard screamed at them again. They couldn't see it through the mist, but they could tell it was close. Looking backward, Birdy ran into another web and bounced off it.
"Web!" she announced.
"This should be the last one," Xellos told them, preparing his staff. "The exit should be just down this tunnel." With that, he thrust his staff into the web and watched it disintegrate. The others ran forward. Only Filia stood still.
"Xellos," she began, "Will that thing stop chasing us when we're out of the tunnel?"
"Of course not, Filia chan," he said. Then, without another word, he grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her through the opening in the web. Filia squeaked as her butt hit the cave floor. She gasped and jumped up again, rushing back toward Xellos as the green webbing coalesced between them.
"Xellos?" she asked, noticing that he was making no move to get through the web. "XELLOS?!"
Mira, who had started back toward them, stopped in her tracks. "Xellos?" she whispered.
Filia grabbed the webbing with both hands and tore at it. "XELLOS! What are you doing?! Come on!"
Xellos turned to her and put his hand on the webbing, touching her fingers. Then he whispered three words.
"I love you."
Filia's heart stopped beating. Before words could come to her, Xellos turned and raised his staff with his left hand. In his right, a ball of energy had formed. He walked slowly into the fog.
"XELLOS! STOP! COME BACK! XELLOS!"
Xellos peered into the fog, searching with his eyes for the ShadowGuard. It had suddenly gone silent. The priest dimmed the light on his staff to avoid being a beacon for it.
Suddenly, a shadow on the stalagmite to his left leapt from the wall and grabbed his staff arm, wrenching the rod from his grasp and throwing it across the cavern. Xellos' right arm snapped up and fired two energy bolts into the Mazoku at point-blank range. The creature shrugged off the shots and wrapped its form around Xellos' shoulders. Picking him up like a rag doll, the shadowy arms slammed Xellos into a stalagmite then again into the far wall. Pulling him back, it pressed him up against another stalagmite and pinned him there.
A trickle of Cepheid's Water flowed down the trunk of the stalagmite. A third arm formed from the ShadowGuard's body and took hold of the back of Xellos' head, pressing his cheek into the blue fluid. Xellos heard a hiss and screamed as a part of his astral essence melted away. He placed his hand against the rock and fired a bolt of darkness into it.
The stalagmite exploded into a million razor-sharp fragments and launched the two demons apart from one another. Xellos, thrown to the floor by the explosion, touched his face and found tendrils of darkness waving lazily where his right cheek used to be.
The ShadowGuard took a humanoid form behind him and reached out with both hands. His hands melted together and formed a long, black lance. As Xellos rose to his feet and turned, the ShadowGuard whipped the dull end around and caught him in the face with it. Turning quickly, he delivered another blow to the chin, knocking Xellos back onto the floor near the depression they had crossed earlier.
The Watcher leapt after him, raising the lance over his head, he brought it down like a club onto the priest. The dark shaft hit his chest like a steel baton three times before the ShadowGuard bent down, grabbed him by the front of the robe and threw him into the depression.
The Watcher was too quick for him. Xellos knew it. He couldn't transport through the astral plane because the majority of the ShadowGuard was there, waiting for him to do exactly that. Either way, he was outclassed. He felt the ShadowGuard hit the ground next to him and reached up, firing several volleys of energy into the fog around him. The shadowy form emerged, and he fired. Energy bolts tore into the Mazoku, knocking away pieces of itself. But those pieces reformed in seconds.
The shadow's arm wrapped around his throat and flung him against the wall of the depression. It then reached out and wrapped around a stalagmite the size of a tree trunk. Tearing out the edifice by the roots was no more difficult for the Watcher than pulling a weed. With a passing thought, it swung the stalagmite at Xellos, knocking him to the other side of the depression. Then, with another swing, Xellos was flying out of the depression. Like the other stalagmite, this one was coated with blue Cepheid's Water, and the place where it had struck Xellos burned like fire.
Xellos crawled on his hands and knees as the ShadowGuard leapt from the depression and started toward him. The priest came to a large stalactite that pointed down into a shallow pool of Cepheid's Water. The point of the rocky cone dripped liquid fire.
Looking down into the pool, Xellos saw his staff. If he could get that, there was still a chance to turn it around. He braced himself and thrust his right hand into the pool.
Fire engulfed his very essence as the water began to eat away at his arm. He screamed, but could feel his fingers wrap around the staff. His little finger disintegrated as the water continued to consume his astral form. Still screaming, the priest pulled the staff from the water and rolled over onto his back. His right arm was black and skeletal-looking, but the staff was undamaged.
The ShadowGuard rushed toward him.
Xellos pointed his staff.
Then the Watcher swung his lance around and sliced through Xellos' decaying arm at the elbow. He screamed and watched as the arm disintegrated and the staff fell to the ground. Before he could reach it with his other hand, the tip of the Watcher's lance buried itself into his chest.
Xellos screamed until there was no more breath left in him. The ShadowGuard looked down at him. Xellos' eyes stared upward at the shadowy figure..and up a little higher.
The stalactite dripped.
Xellos reached up with his left hand. The Watcher ignored him for a moment, then said a single word.
"Weak." It's voice was quiet and gravelly.
Xellos swallowed and channeled the last of his power through his left hand. With a grimace he fired.
The bolt didn't come near hitting the Watcher's head, but it struck the base of the stalactite dead on and exploded. Stone flew everywhere. The Watcher looked up quickly to find ten thousand gallons of Cepheid's Water rushing down at him from the spring above them.
Xellos felt the water strike and engulf him. He heard the Watcher scream. He closed his eyes, but his eyelids soon melted away, revealing the world again for a slight second before his eyes too were gone. He opened his mouth to scream, and the water rushed into his mouth and down his throat, consuming him from the inside out. The water ate him, consumed him like acid. It was like a pack of Xelas' wolves tearing ravenously into him and eating him. The pain soon evaporated, however, as more and more of his essence melted away. There was no longer enough of him to even detect pain, and in seconds there would be no more of him period.
He quickly wondered what his child might look like.
Then the current washed what was left of Xellos Ul Copt away.
Filia was hysterical as she tried tearing at the web with her bare hands. A Chaotic Disintegrate spell hadn't even fazed it, and she couldn't teleport through it. It was blocking off the route even through the astral plane. Finally, she had sunk her fingers into it and tore at with hysterical madness.
The others tried grabbing her arms, trying to drag her away, but her hold on the web was secure. It would take more than a few dragons to pull Filia away.
It would take a flood.
Which was precisely what hit them a second later as the Cepheid's Water from Xellos' last attack smashed through the web and hit them, carrying them all with the current. Filia struggled to hang onto the web as the water rose above her head, but within moments, flesh, bone and tendon gave out, and the dragon was sucked down the tunnel by the current.
The dragons shot out of the mouth of the tunnel like bullets from a gun, daylight meeting them as they struck the ground and rolled through the mud as they gasped for breath and moaned in pain.
The second Filia hit the ground, she was crawling on her hands and knees back toward the tunnel's entrance. She tried standing, but slipped in the mud and fell on her face. Since she couldn't stand, she crawled. Mud covered every inch of her as she continued on.
"Xellos! XELLOS!"
Birdy, Taloon and Mira grabbed her and pulled, shouting at her to stop, that it was too dangerous, but she didn't even hear them. She could see their lips moving, feel them pulling on her, but it didn't really register. There was only one thing she was painfully aware of.
She couldn't sense him anymore. She couldn't feel him anywhere.
Sethra and Will joined the others a second later, and Filia, screaming in grief and pain, felt herself being pushed into the mud. She screamed as loud as she could, hoping maybe that he would hear her and appear, but he didn't. She reached out with her hands and tried pulling herself toward the cave. Her fingers bled and her muscles ached, but the dragons held her fast.
With one final gasp, her body collapsed, refusing to move another inch no matter how much she protested. She screamed as tears fell from her eyes and mixed with the mud below her.
"Don't leave me," she sobbed quietly. "Don't leave me. Please, Cepheid, don't take him away from me. Please, please, don't take him from me, please.."
Cepheid, however, wasn't taking prayers that day.
Faces: Finale!
Chapter Nine
Beginnings and Ends
Filia yawned as the sun peaked through the flaps of her tent. Crawling out the front of the pink tent, she stood up and stretched, yawning again. She took a look around, and finding no one else awake yet, walked to the nearby stream for a drink. Kneeling next to the cold water's flow, she cupped some of the liquid in her hands and drank.
"You're up early."
Turning, she saw the young dragon, Birdy, sitting on a rock not far away. She smiled at the Black Dragon. "So are you."
Birdy shrugged. "Or late. Whatever." She looked down at Filia for a moment. "Um...You never did say why you were out here with that weird Purple Dragon. I don't want to sound harsh or noth'n, but I think it's time you came clean. Where are the two of you going?"
Filia thought for a moment. It was only fair. "WolfPack Island," she said simply.
Birdy looked at her in shock. "Really? Why?"
The Golden Dragon sighed. "The Mazoku kidnapped my sister. I'm going to get her back."
Filia expected many different responses to that, but none of them were the one Birdy offered now.
"Take me with you!"
She blinked in surprise. "What?!"
"You're just the break I've been looking for!" Birdy cried. "A chance to go in there and really stick it to the Mazoku!"
Filia stared at her, just stared. "Why?" she whispered.
"Because someone has to do it!" Birdy replied. "No one back home realizes it! That the only way to keep the Mazoku at bay is to show them we can fight! The old timers say we should hide and not provoke 'em! Even the old vets like Mira! It was all we could do to get this little band to go after my cousin!"
The dragon priestess took a breath. "Birdy, listen to me. You don't want that. I've seen what the Mazoku can do. A thousand years ago, we were strong enough to survive a war with them. It's not like that anymore."
"So what are we supposed to do, huh?!" Birdy shot back. "Hide in caves and hope they don't find us!? What the hell did all those dragons die for then?!"
Filia's eyes flashed angrily. She had seen enough carnage in her life to last two lifetimes, and she hated seeing people seeking it out so eagerly. "You wanna know why?" she asked. "They died so that you would turn around..go home...raise fat dragon babies and live a good long life! THAT is what they died for!"
Birdy sniffed. "You just don't get it."
"And I hope you never do," Filia retorted. She turned and took another drink of water, signaling an end to the discussion.
"Hey, by the way," Birdy began, looking for a less abrasive topic. "What's with your hair?"
Filia looked up at her and blinked. "My hair?"
"Yeah. You dye it or something?"
Flilia only blinked. Turning, she looked down at her reflection in the water. Her hand went to a single lock of her hair on the right side of her head.
It was purple.
The group continued south that day, though they avoided the ancient dragon highways at Xellos' recommendation. To Filia it almost didn't seem real. With the exception of Mira, the other dragons seemed to treat the march like a camping trip, talking and joking as they walked. Thinking back on her discussion with Birdy, this disturbed Filia. Dragon youth really was naïve to the dangers they would face.
Xellos said very little that day, and it wasn't until the troop stopped for lunch that she had an opportunity to speak to him. She watched him walk away from the campsite, into the trees, and she followed after him.
//Xellos?// she called out to him.
//Over here, Filia chan.//
She followed the feel of the send and found him leaning against a boulder nearby. Directly across from him was the headless remains of a dragon statue, crushed and defaced by time.
"Xellos?" she said quietly. "What's wrong?"
He smiled at her. "Nothing, Filia chan. I'm right as rain."
"No you're not," she said with a soothing smile. "You're troubled. I can feel it." She rested a hand on this shoulder. "Tell me why."
He looked into her eyes, and she tried to read them like she would a piece of scripture. And like a piece of scripture, it was incredibly difficult to decipher. Finally, his eyes gave in.
"I'm feeling something," he told her. "Something I've never felt before." He paused. "It's rather unpleasant."
"What is it?" she asked.
He shook his head. "It's nothing I can describe in words."
She reached out and touched his forehead, letting his essence and thoughts flow into her. "Oh, Xellos," she whispered. "It's guilt."
"I see," he said, turning. "Our relationship gets more and more interesting, does it not?"
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly. She new that after a thousand years of doing the bidding of Xelas, for Xellos to suddenly feel guilty about something could turn into severe emotional distress. Though she knew that he had done frighteningly evil things in his life, she also realized that for him, they were perfectly normal. This could be the beginning of a scary transition for him.
"Talk?" he asked. "How will that help?"
"It lets you air things out," she told him weakly. "If you share the burden, there's less for you to shoulder alone."
"It's my burden to bear," he whispered.
"Tell me."
He thought for several moments, then began. "You've heard us talk about Dralladan," he said. "But you've never heard of it."
"No," she confirmed.
"Before the last war, Dralladan was one of the great dragon citadels of the south." He didn't turn to her, just continued with his story. "It was so heavily fortified that to attack it from without was suicide, even for the Mazoku. And it was right across the channel from Wolfpack Island."
"I see," she said.
"Her Majesty was prepared to take the citadel in an all out assault, even knowing how much that would weaken our forces. And with the Flare Dragon still alive and the Water Dragon King united with him, we needed all the Mazoku we could get. It was not a battle she wanted to fight."
"So what happened?" Filia asked.
Xellos actually chuckled. "It was then that a young Mazoku officer, newly created, put forth a plan. Tunnel under the Wolves' Channel and come up into Dralladan from below. Her Majesty approved the plan, but ordered the young Mazoku to lead it. This way if it failed, he'd be killed by his own mistake." He paused. "But...to her surprise...and his own...the plan was an unprecedented success. The dragons were taken completely by surprise." His voice lowered to a whisper. "The slaughter lasted three weeks. After the initial shock wore off, the dragons tried to resist, but all of their defenses faced outward, and they were ill prepared for an attack from within."
Filia swallowed in fear at the thought. What might it have been like to suddenly find hordes of Mazoku running rampant through the Temple of the Fire Dragon King, her own home?
"They tried hiding, but we were thorough. None escaped," he finished. He straightened his shoulders. "Of course, Her Majesty was ecstatic. It was the first major victory Wolfpack Island had won for the war. In gratitude for his overwhelming achievement.." He broke off.
"What?" Filia asked quietly.
"In gratitude," he began again, "Her Majesty appointed the young Mazoku her General Priest."
Filia's breath caught in her throat. "That was a long time ago," she said finally. "It was a different time, and you were a different person."
"It was my proudest moment," he told her, turning to her. "And now, I look inside myself for that pride, and all I feel is this...this.."
"Guilt," she identified.
"Yes," he admitted. "Guilt."
Filia took a breath. "Xellos," she began, "I know I'm young, and that I don't know everything, but I do know something Lina once told me. She said, 'If you're not going to save the world or do SOMETHING, then you might as well lie down and die..But that won't make anything RIGHT!'"
He looked at her as if for the first time.
"It's what you do NOW that makes a difference," she told him. "You chose this route because of that tunnel, didn't you? It's still there, isn't it?"
He nodded.
"Then there's hope."
"Perhaps," he said. "Even so, the closer we get to Dralladan, the more a shadow has grown over my mind. We may find this route blocked to us."
Xellos spent most of the next march digesting what Filia had told him, rolling it around in his mind. As a Mazoku, it was difficult for him to conceptualize remorse for things he did under Xelas' command. And yet here he was, feeling it.
So enthralled in the thought, he didn't notice Mira trot up alongside him. "You appear troubled, Mister Zelgadis."
Xellos smiled. "Just thinking to myself."
"Dralladan worries you," she said.
"It should worry you as well," he told her. "You need not go. You shouldn't go."
"It's not that easy," she told him. She looked at him long and hard. "You now why, better than anyone here, I'd imagine."
"How so?"
"Do you know how I got this, Mister Zelgadis?" She pointed at her eyepatch. Xellos shook his head. "During the war, the Golden Dragons attacked Wolfpack Island. It was a failure, and we were the closest clan to them that could help." She smiled. "I remember the words of my best friend, Wilca.."
Mira put her back to the wall and slumped down, holding her human knees to her chest as she continued to pant in fright. That's what the enemy was as much as anything. Fright. And they had more than succeeded in frightening her. Her first engagement with the Mazoku had resulted in six of her friends dying among another hundred she only counted as acquaintances.
But she made it. She survived. Thank Cepheid, she survived.
That thought managed to calm her somewhat.
Until Wilca flew down from her eyrie and took a human form. "Listen up!" she called to the exhausted black dragons. "A Golden Dragon clan to the south just got the wind shredded out from under it near WolfPack Island. They're in full retreat and trying to move their wounded away from there. The Mazoku are advancing."
Mira swallowed. She knew what was coming.
"I know you're all tired, but we need to go and help. Grab what supplies you can. We fly in five minutes." The exhausted dragons, dead on their feet already, began to get ready. As she passed, Mira grabbed Wilca's arm.
"Mira?" she asked. "Are you okay?"
Mira looked at her friend with shattered eyes. "Please..Please don't make me go back out there."
She expected anger or revulsion at her cowardice, but instead, Wilca rested a hand on her shoulder and looked at her with sympathy. "I know you're scared," she said softly. "We all are. But remember why we're doing it." Mira looked at her in puzzlement.
"I'll leave it to you," her friend said and walked off.
The Black Dragon stared at the ground for several minutes, listening as the others made their preparations.
"Those too wounded or exhausted to transform ride on the backs of those who can!" she heard Wilca order. Looking up, she could see Wilca looking at her, offering her a smile. "Let's go!"
The Black Dragons of her clan prepared to go, hustling and bustling around. Mira listened as she heard two healers nearby talk.
"We're never going to see them again, are we?" one healer said.
Instead of the encouragement that was expected, the other healer offered the truth.
"No."
"Let's fly!"
That's when Mira realized it. Grabbing her short sword off the table and grabbing water bag, she ran off after them.
"Wait! Wait for me!"
"You're coming?" Wilca asked.
"I'm coming!"
"Get on!"
"Wilca did not survive the rearguard action, and I lost my eye in the fighting," Mira told him. "But I don't regret the decision I made that day." She looked up at Xellos, who said nothing. "When I agreed to come on this expedition, some of the other dragons asked me. 'Why go on a fool's errand, Mira? Why do it? Do you LIKE fighting?' And there was nothing I could say to them. I had nothing to say."
Xellos looked at her in newfound respect.
"They wouldn't understand, Mister Zelgadis. Not what Wilca knew. It's about the people you're with. Not politics or land or religion. It's the bond that holds you and the dragon beside you together. It's about the here and now."
"Thank you, Miss Mira," Xellos said quietly. "Believe it or not, that helps."
"We have to be there for one another, ne?" she asked. "The younger generation doesn't realize what it is they're asking for and wouldn't understand how we feel."
"Do you ever regret the things you've done?"
Mira thought on it for several moments. "Were it anyone else, I'd say yes," she told him honestly. "But they're Mazoku. I feel no pity for them."
"I see."
Filia sighed and said for the fourth time. "Yes, I dyed it. Do you like it?" It almost came out monotone. Sethra, taken aback by the response, only blinked and said she liked it. It wasn't that Filia were angry, just that Sethra was the fourth person to ask her about the streak of purple in her hair, and she was getting tired of explaining it, even if that explanation was a lie.
As the dragon priestess walked off to talk with Will and Birdy, Filia absently rubbed the lock of purple hair between her fingers. The only person who hadn't seemed to notice it was Xellos. She wondered if it was something that occurred naturally and resolved to ask him about it later.
The group had stopped for a short break. Birdy had pulled a flute from her bag and began to play a fast, happy tune. Filia went down to the river to refill her water bottle. She blinked in surprise when she found Mira there.
"Ah. Miss Filia," the dragon soldier greeted her.
"Miss Mira. I'm sorry, I didn't know you wanted to be alone."
"No, not at all," Mira replied. "I'd like to talk to you, if I may."
"Of course." Filia stepped closer. The shore of this part of the river was narrow. Trees and growth grew on either side of them, leaving only a ten foot strip of sand and rock for them to get water. "What can I do for you?"
"Mister Zelgadis seems like a very nice dragon," Mira told her conversationally.
"Oh. Well, yes, he is, I suppose," Filia answered, unsure as to where the conversation was going.
"There is a lot of pain in his eyes, though," Mira continued. "His life must have been long and hard."
"Indeed," the dragon priestess agreed. It was the truth and couldn't hurt to tell her.
"His wife must be a strong woman, ne?"
Filia paused. "He's not married...yet..." she said lamely.
"Oh," Mira said simply.
Fire leapt into Filia as she realized what it was Mira was trying to get from her. A red haze began to come down over her eyes.
Mira turned and knelt next to the water, washing her face. "It just seems that we have so much in common, he and I, and since you're his friend, I thought you might know whether or not he'd.." She didn't finish. It was at that point that Filia pushed her into the river.
The dragon soldier, taken by surprise, floundered in the stream. As she did, Filia picked up a large rock about the size of her head and lifted it above her, preparing to bring it down on her new rival's skull.
Suddenly, there was a flash of darkness.
As Mira found her footing and stood up, she saw a rock hit the ground nearby, but nothing else.
Filia struggled in his grip, trying to tear herself away and finish what she started, even though they were now nearly a mile away.
"Let me go, Xellos!" she hissed. "Let me go! I"ll kill her!"
Xellos, his face expressionless, held her fast as she continued to struggle like a mad woman. Her strength was amazing. It was if she were deranged, and Xellos knew that that was probably part of it.
She screamed and clawed at his eyes. "YOU BASTARD!" she screamed in his face. "YOU'RE SEEING THAT DRAGON BITCH BEHIND MY BACK, AREN'T YOU!? AREN'T YOU!? ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!"
He managed to keep her hands from his face and turned her around so that her back was to him. Wrapping one arm around her body to secure her arms, he reached around with the other and began to softly stroke her cheek with his finger.
"Shhhhhh," he cooed. "Shhhhhh."
Filia was still shaking in rage, but the sound of his voice caused her breathing to slow. The fire in her eyes began to fade. She continued breathing deeply for several moments. Then, suddenly, her breaths became sobs.
"Oh, Cepheid," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Xellos."
He released her, and she turned suddenly and embraced him. "I'm so sorry!"
"It's all right," he whispered. "It is."
She looked up at him. "You stopped me," she said. "Why? I thought Mazoku didn't care."
He looked down at her. "Because I won't have you feel what I have been these past few days."
The dragon broke down and began to cry.
"More and more interesting, indeed," he whispered, holding her.
The wall was nothing short of a mountain that ran sideways. It stretched out forever in either direction and was high enough to reach into the low- floating clouds.
"No sweat!" Will announced. "We'll just fly over!"
Mira seemed to consider this. She hadn't spoken a word to Filia since she and Xellos had returned. Filia had told her she had heard Xellos call her and left and that she must have just tripped and fallen into the water. She could tell, though, that Mira suspected.
"Too high profile," Mira finally said. "There has to be a way to get in without alerting every Mazoku watcher on the continent."
"There is the tunnel on this side of the wall," Xellos explained. "It was made for humans who sometimes traded with the dragons of Dralladan. We just have to find it."
Finding it proved to be easier than they expected. It only took an hour of marching eastward before they came upon the high gates of Dralladan.
"They're still open," Birdy noted. "Let's go!"
"Just a second, young lady," Sethra said, catching the younger dragon by the back of her collar. "Let an adult go first."
Xellos stepped forward, and the jewel of his staff began to glow. The others cast lighting spells of their own and followed. The tunnel was fairly clean, but obviously ancient and in disrepair. It stretched straight onward for a mile. It didn't take long for evidence of their quarry to present itself.
"'Drazah was here,'" Birdy read the graffiti from the wall. Next to the sign was a crudely-drawn picture of a dragon sticking his tongue out.
"Very cosmopolitan!" Xellos remarked with a smile.
Birdy sweatdropped. "Well..um.."
"Let's keep moving," Mira ordered.
Sethra, who was in the back, stopped suddenly and turned around.
"Miss Sethra?" Will asked. "You okay?"
"I...I just thought I heard something."
"Like what?"
Sethra held her lighting spell out, but the darkness seemed to laugh at it. "Like...Like something scratching the walls."
"Please, Miss Sethra!" Taloon begged. "This place is creepy enough as it is!" His cape fluttered behind him anxiously.
"Let's go," Mira ordered again.
The group marched through the tunnel for an hour. Xellos led the way with Mira and Filia just behind him.
"Looks like there's a turn up ahead," Mira noted.
Xellos marched forward. "There appears to be a little more light..."
They turned the corner and Filia gasped.
"My friends, the ancient dragon citadel of Dralladan."
"It's beautiful," Filia whispered.
It was indeed beautiful. In the ancient times the dragons took great care with their architecture and their eyries, and Dralladan was considered one of the greatest. The entire city was set in the walls of an inverted bowl dug into the mountains. Above them the sky could be seen through a large hole, the dragon's entrance to Dralladan. Waterfalls fed by mountain streams and springs poured down from five equidistant points around the inside of the bowl, feeding a lake in the center of the city.
They walked around this lake, which must have been nearly three miles across, to the eyries on the other side, mammoth dwellings designed for dragons to live within comfortably.
"Even the Temple of the Fire Dragon King was not this extravagant," Filia whispered, touching some of the stonework. The face on a dragon statue disintegrated beneath her fingers. Suddenly feeling as if she had committed a great sin, Filia pulled away.
"Drazah and the others would have made their camp somewhere around here," Birdy told them.
"Perhaps we should split up," Taloon suggested.
"Perhaps we shouldn't," Mira snapped. Taking a breath, she spoke again. "All right. Sethra, you and Taloon check the east. Birdy, Will and I will check west. Filia and Zelgadis will check the south."
This agreement made, the group split up and went their separate ways. Filia was still looking around in awe of the city. She had heard of the greatness of ancient dragon cities, but would never have believed them to be so true.
Before long, the two found themselves in a tall, ornate building, standing tall against the cliff face. Filia recognized it immediately. She had, after all, grown up in one.
They were in a cathedral.
The ceiling seemed miles above them, and the walls were adorned with artwork featuring a dragon wreathed in flame.
"Cepheid," Filia whispered.
"Yes," Xellos said quietly. "The dragons of Dralladan venerated him directly."
Filia walked toward the front of the cathedral, past several dragon-sized pews and stopped just short of the pulpit.
In the floor directly in front of her, was a large, dark hole.
Sethra turned her head and blinked as she felt something touch her shoulder. Seeing what it was, she turned quickly and put her hands on her hips, giving the owner of the appendage an acidic look.
"And just what do you think you're doing with that tail, Mister?!" she demanded.
"Oh, come on, Sethra," Taloon cooed. "I just thought you could use a little assurance. You know, feel the presence of another dragon to assure you that you're not alone." He grinned.
Sethra's face turned red and her cheeks puffed out. "You, Sir," she began, "Are just trying to take advantage of a serious situation, and I must say, it is HARDLY appropriate!"
"My," Taloon said with a grin, resting his back against a nearby pillar. The two were investigating a wide and open building that appeared to be a government facility of some kind, possibly a treasury given the amount of statuary and artwork devoted to gold. "You Golden Dragons are SO uptight about the littlest things. It's not like having a little fun would be a BAD thing."
"Hmmph!" Sethra replied. "Your jocularity in such a time speaks volumes about your character, young sir," she told him her arms over her chest. "Firstly, I am a priestess of the Water Dragon King, and have NO interest in the kind of vulgar things you are suggesting with your foolishly displayed innuendo. Secondly, I AM a Golden Dragon, and it would HARDLY be appropriate for me to carouse, fling or gallivant with a RED Dragon!" She punctuated this tirade with a "Hmmph!"
Taloon blinked at her. "Do you always do that?" he asked.
"Do what?"
"Talk in complete sentences."
"Hmmph!" she replied. "It's no crime to be well read!"
"My point exactly!" Taloon agreed. "So why don't we go into the next room and I'll read you some more..."
"OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOH!" Sethra cried in frustration and turned on her heel, walking away.
"It'll be fun!" Taloon called after her.
No response.
"Prude," Taloon remarked under his breath.
That's when he heard Sethra scream.
Not just scream.
Wail in terror.
Drawing his sword, Taloon rushed after her.
Filia looked up as she heard it. "That's Miss Sethra!" she cried.
Xellos disappeared in a flash of darkness and homed in on the dragon priestess' astral essence. It wasn't hard to make out as it was very close in nature to Filia's. A second later, he was appearing next to the woman.
Sethra, crying uncontrollably, turned and flung herself into Xellos' arms. Taloon rushed into the room a second later.
"What is it?! What's going on?!" Taloon demanded.
Sethra, still crying, pointed behind her.
Taloon gasped. Xellos just stared.
Suspended by a thick web from the ceiling, were eleven, dragon-sized web sacks. The one closest to them was thinner than the others and showed the decaying face of a golden dragon.
Mira's knife cut through the sticky substance concealing the face of the dead dragon, and she sighed.
"Aynyan," she whispered. Turning away, she addressed Taloon in a weary voice. "Taloon, cut them down." The Red Dragon drew his broadsword and began cutting the dead reptiles down.
"They're part of Drazah's group, all right," Mira told Xellos in a whisper. The others watched from not far away, wondering why Xellos was getting special attention. Filia's hands were fists as she watched.
"What could do this to a dragon?" Mira asked him. "Nothing I've ever seen."
"Dralladan is being guarded," Xellos told her. "You should leave."
"There are only eleven bodies here," she told him. "Twenty-six set out with Drazah."
"Then either they're dead or they wish they were," Xellos whispered harshly.
As they spoke, Birdy had wandered outside. "Hey! Come take a look at this!"
The others soon joined her and found her pointing up at the sky. "You see it?"
Filia blinked as her eyes caught sight of it. A glint of gold in the sky. "Another dragon?" she asked.
"One way to find out," Birdy said. Her hands went to her chest, and a purple glow surrounded her as she grew into her dragon form. With a flap of her wings, she took off.
Xellos' hand went to his head, and he fell to one knee with a grimace.
"Zelgadis?" Mira asked.
Xellos grit his teeth as the astral scream began to fade in his mind. It had happened just as Birdy transformed...
"Oh no.." he breathed.
Birdy flapped her wings as she climbed. The glint she had seen was definitely a Golden Dragon. She could see its wings now, yet they weren't flapping. It was just sitting there in the sky just at the point where the walls of Dralladan leveled off, forming the entrance to the citadel.
"Hey! Hey you!" she called out.
The Golden Dragon didn't answer.
"Hey! Are you okay?" she tried again.
She flew closer and gasped as she made out the face on the dragon.
It was dead, its tongue hanging out of its mouth and its eyes sunk back into its head.
"What the..." Just as she was coming parallel to the dead dragon, something jerked her to a stop. "Hey!" She struggled, but found herself becoming more immobilized. Looking to her right, she saw light glinting off a tiny tendril connected to her wings.
She was in a spider's web.
"HELP!"
"Zelgadis, what is it?!" Filia asked.
Then, several things happened at once.
"HELP!"
They looked up as Birdy's cry came down to them.
"Birdy!" Will cried.
"Taloon, go up there and find out what's going on," Mira ordered. "The rest of you..."
Suddenly there was a shriek, a long, drawn out verbalization of hate and rage to be exact.
All their heads turned toward the source. The tunnel from where they had come into Dralladan was now alive, swarming with black objects that they could barely make out. They moved along the walls, pouring from the entrance.
"We've got a problem," Mira whispered.
"We've got a big damn problem!" Taloon agreed.
"Wha..What are they?" Filia whispered in fear.
Xellos moved to the front and held out his staff. "Watchers," he growled. "Everyone! Start fires with whatever you can find! We've only got a few minutes before they get here!"
Mira turned to the red dragon again. "Get Birdy down!" Taloon nodded and transformed. Once again, Xellos heard the shriek in his thoughts. The watchers knew what a dragon felt like as it transformed through the astral plane.
Filia watched in fear as the dark shapes skittered around the lake towards them. She could make them out more clearly now. They were about the size of a human, only horizontal and had eight legs apiece. They were moving incredibly quick.
"We should transform!" Will suggested quickly.
"No," Xellos remarked, his voice edged. "That's the mistake your friends made. They're too quick and agile for a large, cumbersome dragon such as yourselv..ourselves..to fight."
"So what do we do?!" Will cried.
Xellos didn't answer.
//Xellos,// Filia thought at him. //I'm scared.//
Filia gulped fearfully as she heard Xellos' response in her head.
//Me too.//
"Taloon! Be careful! There's a web across the chasm!"
Taloon stopped just short of Birdy and looked closely, finding the gossamer strands holding the dragon in place.
"Get me out of this!" Birdy demanded.
"Okay, hang on," he said. "I gotta figure this out."
The spiders were moving closer now, two hundred yards away.
Filia pulled her mace and stood next to Xellos, who held his staff before him. Mira stood on Xellos' left and raised her hands. A bow of golden light started to coalesce in her hands. Will drew his sword and licked his lips.
One hundred yards.
Mira drew her arm back. "Deimos.."
Fifty yards.
The jewel in Xellos' staff began to glow.
Twenty-five yards.
"ARROW!" Mira cried, releasing a shaft of light at the creatures. It landed just in front of the pack and exploded, launching chunks of black legs and gore into the air.
Xellos fired a bolt of black energy, and Sethra, Filia and Will released streams of laser breath. Dark clouds of debris shot into the sky, and the spiders still advanced. One of them shrieked and launched itself at Filia. The golden dragon screamed and swung her mace with two hands, launching the demon beast into orbit.
The others switched to their hand weapons as the spiders crashed into them like a tide. Filia turned and ducked as one of them hissed and spit at her. The stream of venom struck her mace as she flattened it. Looking at her weapon, she saw tendrils of smoke waft into the air. She silently thanked the Fire Dragon King for not letting the liquid touch her.
Taloon approached the web slowly and licked his lips. He reached out with a finger and touched one strand. Then, pulling back sharply, he hissed. The web was so sticky it had pulled off some of the scales on his finger. He gulped and looked up at Birdy.
"What?" she asked.
He bit his lip and grabbed hold of the web tendril that ran across her face. "Birdy," he said quietly. "Grit your teeth and hold on. This is going to hurt."
Birdy paled and nodded.
They heard a scream above them, but couldn't pause to think on it. They were all pressed against the wall of the cathedral now to keep the spiders from sneaking up behind them.
"We can't keep this up," Mira told them, launching another Deimos Arrow.
"Will," Xellos said, "Inside there's a hole. Get down it."
Will nodded and sheathed his sword, running for the entrance. With only fifteen feet to go, a spider jumped in front of him. He skidded to a halt, his arms flailing as he tried to keep his balance.
The spider hissed and shot a spray of venom at him. It struck his right arm, coating it and pinning it to the cathedral wall. Will screamed as the fluid began to melt through his sleeve into his arm.
"Will!" Filia cried. The golden dragon ran forward and flattened the insect before turning and grabbing hold of the younger dragon, pulling him by the shirt to free him from the wall. Will continued to scream. Sethra ran up to them and started pulling as well. "Help!" Filia called.
Xellos turned and saw their plight. "Cover me," he told Mira, who nodded and fired off another arrow. He disappeared and reappeared next to Filia and Will.
"Do something!" she begged him, still pulling. Will screamed as blood began to dribble from the cocoon sheathing his arm. The venom was melting through his skin and muscle.
Xellos, seeing this, acted quickly. He reached down and pulled Will's sword free.
"What are you doing?" Filia whispered.
Without a word, Xellos swung the weapon and cut through Will's upper arm. The boy screamed and fell to the ground. Filia and Sethra looked at him in horror.
"Get him inside!" Xellos ordered.
The dragon priestesses picked the boy up and helped him hobble inside.
Mira looked up briefly as Taloon, Birdy's unmoving human form in his bloody hands, landed next to her. He quickly transformed again. "What happened to her?" Mira asked.
"She's just out cold from the pain," he told her quickly.
"Get her inside," Mira ordered. As Taloon carried the girl in his arms, Mira fired off two more shots and ran after them.
Xellos was waiting near the door. "Quickly," he hissed. "Go!" As Mira entered, he threw the door shut. The group rushed to the hole in the center of the cathedral as something heavy slammed against the door.
Taloon found the hole and skidded to a stop. "Down there?!" he asked.
Rather than answer him, Mira pushed him into the hole. "Zelgadis?!" she asked.
"Go," he told her, his staff glowing again. As the dragon jumped down the fissure in the floor, Xellos pointed his staff at the ceiling and fired. At that moment, the door caved in and the spiders surged forward. Xellos disappeared just as the ceiling fell in on them.
Filia tended to the young dragon's wound and was just finishing a healing spell to stop the bleeding when Taloon landed next to her.
"Birdy's hurt!" he said quickly, setting the dragon girl down. Sethra knelt next to her and began to chant a healing spell.
Mira hit the ground next to them a second later. They all heard a horrible rumbling sound just as Xellos appeared next to them.
Then the entire world was thrown into darkness.
The darkness retreated from the red glow of Xellos' staff, illuminating frightened faces with a harsh red tint. Will was out cold on the ground, the stump of his arm now healed over. Sethra and Filia were now working on Birdy, who was just starting to come around.
"It appears you're now trapped on our road," Xellos told them.
"Road?" Taloon asked.
"Anschad Allium," Xellos told him. "The Trickster's Tunnel."
"Named after Xellos, the General Priest," Mira said quietly, dusting herself off. "The Mazoku who engineered the tunnel."
"We know who he is," Sethra bit out. "Foul creature will rot in Hell for all eternity for what he's done to the Ryuuzoku."
Filia looked quickly to Xellos and saw a flash of pain cross his face. Finally, he simply said, "Yes, I imagine he will." He started down the tunnel. "Be careful," he said. "It would be foolish to assume Xelas didn't place another Watcher down here."
As Taloon picked up Will and carried him, Sethra knelt to help Birdy up. She gasped quietly as she saw the bloody scar running across the girl's face from where the web pulled off skin and scales.
The young dragon slapped her hand away and stood up. "I don't need your help," she spat. "Let's just go."
"How long is this tunnel?" Taloon asked as they walked. Will wasn't a large dragon, but big enough to make the Red Dragon reluctant to carry him too far.
"Two days," Xellos told him. "Don't transform either," he warned. "That's how the Watchers in Dralladan spotted us."
Frightened, hungry and thirsty, they continued on.
The cavern was wide enough for the group to walk abreast if they chose, and high enough for them to transform if it weren't so dangerous to do so. Every so often, the cavern would open into larger, natural caves, complete with stalactites and stalagmites. Eight hours into their march, they came upon a cavern like this, only water was dripping from the stalactites.
"We must be under the Wolves' Channel," Birdy mentioned.
Sethra blinked as a drop of water landed on her shoulder. She turned to look at it and smiled openly. "Look!" she called. The drop of water on her dress glowed a faint blue. "Cepheid's Water! A good omen!"
"There must be a pool of it in the rocks above us," Birdy deduced. She readied a spell. "Let's open up the ceiling and get some! It'll keep the Mazoku away!"
Filia jumped in front of the girl so fast, Birdy nearly had a heart attack. "No!" the blonde cried quickly.
"Why not?" Birdy asked.
"You'll...You'll bring the ocean down on top of us!" Filia said quickly.
"Filia's right," Mira said. "Set out canteens to collect some if you like, but I don't want to drown here. Not even in Cepheid's Water."
"Oh," Birdy relented, taking out her canteen.
Filia sighed in relief and looked at Xellos. The water would have melted away his astral form if the dragon had flooded the cavern.
Xellos, however, wasn't even paying attention. His gaze was fixed on the tunnel ahead.
"What are you waiting for?" he whispered.
Their camp was cold and dark, but they slept. Amid the drops and trickles of Cepheid's Water, it was easy to imagine that any noise was a Mazoku Watcher, slowly sneaking up on them. Filia awoke in the middle of this darkness and stood up, unable to sleep. She heard movement nearby and held out her hand.
"Lighting," she whispered. A small ball of light, no bigger than a marble, appeared in her hand, casting a soft glow on their camp.
Everyone was up already.
"Guess y'all can't sleep either, huh?" Birdy asked with a halfhearted chuckle.
"Well, if we're not going to sleep, I guess we should eat," Sethra decided, taking out her pack. "Never know when we'll get another chance."
"I just want out of here," Will complained in a whisper.
"Where's Zelgadis?" Taloon asked.
Filia looked around, but could see no sign of him.
"I think he went ahead to explore," Mira offered.
Filia stood up quietly and walked down the tunnel. She could still hear the voices of the others as she walked, despite their efforts to remain quiet.
"Where's she going?" Taloon asked.
"After Zelgadis, I guess," Will supplied.
"They're fucking," Birdy announced.
"Birdianna!" Sethra snapped. "Language!"
"Well, it's true!" Birdy hissed back.
"I'm willing to bet it is," Mira affirmed.
"Miss Mira!" Sethra lectured. "It's highly inappropriate to spread such rumors without proof!"
Filia heard Mira chuckle. "Let's just say that Miss Filia and I had a little failure to communicate."
Filia saw a light up ahead and whispered to it. "Xellos?" She waited for a reply but got none. "Are you here?"
"Over here," she heard.
She followed the voice into a cavern. "What are you doing here?"
"Why are you whispering?" he asked.
She whispered again. "It just feels quiet. Like the kind of place to whisper."
He nodded and gestured out to the cavern before them. His staff grew brighter, illuminating the entire mammoth cave.
Filia gasped at it. It was a giant geode. Stalactites and stalagmites of white crystal were spread out before them, reflecting and refracting the light from Xellos' staff. The flat surfaces reflected light like mirrors, and Filia suddenly found herself surrounded by images of herself and Xellos.
"It's beautiful," she remarked.
He nodded. "I saw it last time I was here, but thought nothing of it."
She sat down next to him and looked out at it. Reaching down, she took his hand in hers. "It's a very nice place," she declared.
Xellos smiled. "Is it?"
"It is," she announced again, throwing some of her old haughty air into it. She giggled. "You always take me to the nicest places."
He laughed openly at this. "Well, I TRIED to take you to the Atlas Museum of Art, but you wouldn't have any of it."
Smiling softly, she shook her head. "I should have gone. Made the effort to get to know you better."
"It wouldn't have made a difference."
"Maybe not." She looked over at him. His face was lined with worry. "You don't think our odds are very good, huh?"
He looked back at her and squeezed her hand. "No matter what happens, Filia chan," he whispered. "I'm getting you out of this cave."
She smiled back at him and took a breath. "I know." Looking back at the geode, she asked, "What shall we do afterwards? After it's all over?"
"I don't know," he said. "Stay out of Metallium's way and find a quiet place to live."
"I guess we really won't be accepted anywhere we go," Filia commented. "There will always be someone to hate us."
"I don't care about them," he told her. "What you think is all that matters."
"Xellos, will you do something for me?"
"Of course."
"Kiss me."
Xellos paused. "Kiss you?"
She nodded and turned, placing her hands on his chest.
"Er..well..You see, Filia chan..I really haven't ever actually..."
Before he finished, her lips were locked on his and her hands were pushing him backward onto the floor. The thousand pairs of lovers reflected in the crystals around them did likewise, echoing everything but the feelings that went into the act.
Filia released her hold on him for a moment, and Xellos arched an eyebrow at her. "Where did you learn to do that?" he asked with a suspicious smile.
The dragon blushed and turned her head.
"I KNEW you were a bad girl at that shrine," he declared.
"It was just one kiss!" Filia defended. "We were young and were just..experimenting a bit," she finished lamely.
"Anyone I should be jealous of?" he asked.
Filia's smile fell a bit. "No," she said quietly. "He was one of the dragons Erulogos and Sirius killed at the Ancient Dragon temple." She felt his fingers brush a few of her own purple hairs from her eyes. "We were just friends."
Xellos continued caressing her hair. "You look good in purple," he whispered, changing the subject.
"I've been meaning to ask," she said. "What does it mean?"
He grinned. "It means I'm corrupting you, Filia chan!"
She huffed and turned her nose up. "You are not!"
Tendrils of darkness emerged from his fingers, caressing her cheek. "Aren't I?"
"No," she whispered, nuzzling her cheek closer to his hand. Light met dark and began to meld. "Not at all."
The light intensified as they began to mate again, reflecting and refracting against the crystals around them, filling the cavern with their own light. Their astral essences merged together and became one...
And farther down the tunnel, something felt this change in the astral plane..
And awoke.
Filia stretched a bit and yawned as her strength began to return. They couldn't stay here all night. The others would worry.
She snuggled next to Xellos. "Let them worry," she whispered.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on breathing, a simple task devoid of thought or concern. Perhaps it was because she wasn't concerned with other things at the moment, but it was at that moment that she felt something wake up.
The dragon sat straight up and cried out in surprise. Her head turned from side to side, searching for it. Her gaze turned downward and then inward.
And she felt it.
"Xellos!" she whispered urgently, reaching out and pushing him. "Xellos! Wake up!"
"Yes, Filia chan?" the tired reply came.
She stared inside herself with her mind, watching it. It seemed to raise its awareness a bit, then yawned and went back to sleep.
Her breathing quickened. "Xellos!" she whispered again, afraid of waking it up again. "Xellos! I think.. I mean... I.. Xellos, I... Xellos, it... Xellos, what... XELLOS!"
"Of course you are, Filia chan," he remarked casually. "What did you think this was all about? Fun and games?"
She looked at him in shock. "But... I mean.. I couldn't be.. Already?" she asked in amazement.
"Go back to sleep, Filia chan," he urged. "It'll still be there in the morning."
"But I..HOW CAN YOU BE SO CASUAL ABOUT THIS?!"
He rolled over and smiled at her. "Because now I don't have to worry about it anymore." He yawned. "I was beginning to worry. I was starting to think I'd never knock you up."
"'KNOCK ME UP?!'" she demanded. She grabbed him around the throat and began throttling him, his head knocking against the ground. "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME, AND YOU'RE REFERRING TO IT AS 'KNOCKING ME UP?!'"
He held his hands up in mock fright and laughed. "Okay! Okay, Filia chan! I'm happy too!"
"Hmmph! You'd better be!" she chastised him.
"Now go back to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow."
Filia swallowed back her joy and laid back down on the cave floor, but didn't sleep.
The change in the astral plane that triggered its awakening had subsided, but it knew which direction to go. Like a machine it moved down the tunnel towards the main channel. Nothing was supposed to be down here, which meant that it was either a dragon or a Mazoku from a rival Dark Lord.
Either way, it would never again see the light of day.
Xellos could feel Filia still brimming with pride and joy next to him, but forced himself to put it out of his mind. He was happy about it, of course, but had been too weak to really show Filia. Their last mating had taken a lot out of him, but it had been worth investing the majority of his strength if it meant conception. Time was running out, and he knew it. He could feel it.
If things worked out well, and everything went right, he might...just might... be able to save one of them or the other.
But not both.
Xelas wasn't stupid. She would have found some way to choke off the Trickster's Tunnel. Not just leave it to those spider creatures. There was a Watcher down here. He'd guarantee it. And even if they got past the Watcher, they would have to make their way through Wolfpack Island. Xelas would almost certainly decide to intervene herself. If she did..
Xelas Metallium wasn't Gaav or even Phibrizzo. She could be more dangerous than both combined, and she had proved it. After all, eliminating both Gaav and Phibrizzo had been her plan, her manipulation. And none of them had ever seen it. The ability to manipulate others so flawlessly was one of the greatest traits she had passed onto him. Her organizational skills, the ability to sift through information, recognize threats and her political savvy all went to Callisto.
And Xellos would not be able to stand against her. He knew that. He wasn't Lina Inverse. He didn't have the backing of the Lord of Nightmares.
But he didn't have to worry so much now.
It was done.
Filia was practically on cloud nine as she buttoned her cape. She wasn't sure if it was Peak playing with her mind or the simple euphoria that might accompany a young bride's pride in bearing her first child, but she decided to just go with it.
Although she knew it wasn't the "right" way to feel, her euphoria left her feeling a bit guilty. She hadn't felt this proud or giddy when she agreed to take charge of little Val. Then again, she wasn't personally carrying Val, and as much as she loved her adopted egg, he hadn't been the product of her and her mate's..love? Was that the right word to use?
In her case, it was, so she decided once again to just go with it.
She stopped as she heard something.
"Xellos?" she queried.
He was by her side in a second. "I hear it too."
"It sounds like.."
Xellos grabbed her arm and started back towards the cave where the others had encamped. "Like a thousand feet coming this way!" he finished for her.
When they arrived, the dragons were quickly breaking camp.
"No time for that!" Xellos told them. "They'll be here any second!"
"Shit," Birdy hissed, tossing down her pack and drawing her short sword.
They all drew their weapons and faced the tunnel from which the sound was coming. The foot falls were the familiar click-click of the same spider creatures they had encountered in Dralladan. Will was breathing quickly and shallowly, his sword in his left hand, his skin pale. His last encounter with these creatures had cost him too much.
Mira nocked a Deimos Arrow and held it ready. Sethra, carrying no weapons of her own, stood behind them and waited to cast a healing spell on the first person to be injured.
The spiders spewed from the tunnel so quickly, there was no time to attack. They were just suddenly there, on the floor in front of them, on the walls beside them, on the ceiling above them, on the floor behind them..
And continuing down the tunnel...
They weren't attacking. They were running. Running as if their lives depended on it.
"What the hell?" Birdy asked.
"Where are they going?" Sethra asked.
"I'm more concerned about what's chasing them," Mira said quietly.
At that moment, Xellos screamed and fell to one knee, his hands on his ears as if trying to block out a loud roar. But he couldn't block it out. Just like the spiders that were so attuned to changes in the astral plane, Xellos, a creature of the astral plane, could feel it in his very being. A mind-shattering screech that pierced his very essence.
"Xe..Zelgadis?!" Filia asked quickly, kneeling next to him.
The screech faded, and Xellos looked up and down the dark tunnel. Whatever it was, it was there, and it was frightening enough to drive those creatures away in terror.
"I'll be right back," he said, his voice deadpan. In a flash of darkness, he disappeared. The dragons stared at the spot he had been standing in.
"What's going on?" Sethra whispered.
"I don't know," Filia whispered fearfully in return.
Xellos reappeared on the astral plane on the exact same spot he had been standing on in the real world. The astral plane existed on top of the real world, so locations there coincided with locations on the flat, spinning rock where he spent most of his time. The only difference was the terrain. While he had been standing in a cave the moment before, on the astral plane it was a flat plateau.
And he could see what it was.
He now understood why the spiders had run. Anything that large in the astral plane would practically scream as it moved, disturbing the astral plane around it.
It hissed and barked at him in his own language, a sentry's challenge.
Xellos smiled and raised his staff. He would not be cowed by any Mazoku, no matter how large. He replied to it.
"I am Xellos Ul Copt!" he announced. "Servant of the Lord of Nightmares and mate to the last Fire Dragon!"
The Mazoku laughed at him, a existence-rattling shriek of amusement. It lumbered forward.
"He's been gone too long," Will announced. "We should bail."
"He'll be back," Filia assured him quickly. "He'll be back."
As if mentioning that were a magic spell, Xellos suddenly appeared and fell to the floor.
"Zelgadis!" Mira cried. The other dragons rushed to him.
Xellos was looking down the tunnel, his eyes haunted. "Ruby Eye be merciful," he whispered. "It's a ShadowGuard."
"A what?" Taloon asked.
Xellos stood up slowly. He could feel it on the edge of perception, recovering from the wounds he had managed to inflict on it. "One of the four bodyguards of the Ruby Eye. Xelas has somehow pushed one into her service."
"What do we do?!" Sethra asked shakily.
He turned to her and addressed the blonde directly. "Miss Sethra," he said softly. "We run as fast as we possibly can."
It took only moments to tend to the slight wounds the rogue Mazoku had given it. It was enough time, however, for them to start running. It laughed at the attempt. Didn't the Mazoku recognize who he was? Did he not realize that he was one of the Four? One of the Mazoku that had engaged the Water Dragon King during the last battle with Cepheid? One of the Four that had thrown themselves at the Flare Dragon in the last ditch effort to save their master?
Did he not realize that he would NEVER give up?
In the astral world, he smiled. In the real world, he allowed a small part of himself to become physical, taking the shape of a shadow in human form.
If the Mazoku wished to be chased, then he would be chased.
With only Xellos' light to guide them, the group of dragons ran. The tunnel was not very agreeable, however, and they were often forced to climb over obstacles or crawl through tiny cracks in the stone wall to keep going. The entire time, Xellos urged them on. Filia felt frightened. Anything that could make Xellos scared had to be a threat on the scale of Dark Star or Shabranigdo.
She was so enthralled in her fear, that she didn't see the web until she ran straight into it.
Unlike the web that had snared Birdy, this web wasn't sticky. As a result, Filia just hit it and bounced right off. Standing up again, she stared at it. The tendrils glowed a faint green. She took hold of them and pushed, but the web wouldn't budge.
And it was stretching across their path.
"Zelgadis!" she called back.
Birdy, meanwhile, was hacking at it with her sword, but the tendrils wouldn't be sliced. Xellos pushed himself to the front and examined the obstruction.
"Stand back," he ordered. Channeling power into his staff, he suddenly thrust the red jewel into the center of the web. Lightning crackled throughout the tendrils for several seconds until finally, the web disappeared.
Almost immediately, however, the webbing began to stretch out from the walls and reform the web.
"Go! Go!" Xellos cried, helping the others through the small gap. He managed to leap through just as the webbing reached the center, reforming the web as if nothing had ever happened to it.
"Keep moving!" Mira called out, practically dragging Sethra behind her as she ran.
Xellos, the last to leave, watched as a shadowy figure stepped right through the webbing behind them and move towards them.
"We can't run forever," Mira noted as Xellos caught up with her.
"The exit isn't far ahead," the priest told her.
"Then what?" Mira asked. "That thing chases us across open ground?"
Xellos said nothing.
The tunnel opened into a cavern immersed in a thick fog. Stalagmites jutted out of the ground like tree trunks, and were as big around as any oak Filia had ever seen.
"We're almost there," Xellos told them. "Keep moving forward."
A shriek echoed behind them.
"GO!"
Running through the cavern, Filia soon noticed that the mist wasn't a fog at all, but steam. They must be near a hot spring. Glowing blue water dripped off stalactites, and Xellos deftly avoided coming into contact with it. There must have been a Cepheid's Water spring just above them.
Will, who ran ahead of her, cried out as he fell. The tunnel had suddenly ended in a six-foot depression and then continued onward. The dragons hopped down and ran to the other end of the dip, climbing up over the short cliff.
As they reached the other side of the cavern, the ShadowGuard screamed at them again. They couldn't see it through the mist, but they could tell it was close. Looking backward, Birdy ran into another web and bounced off it.
"Web!" she announced.
"This should be the last one," Xellos told them, preparing his staff. "The exit should be just down this tunnel." With that, he thrust his staff into the web and watched it disintegrate. The others ran forward. Only Filia stood still.
"Xellos," she began, "Will that thing stop chasing us when we're out of the tunnel?"
"Of course not, Filia chan," he said. Then, without another word, he grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her through the opening in the web. Filia squeaked as her butt hit the cave floor. She gasped and jumped up again, rushing back toward Xellos as the green webbing coalesced between them.
"Xellos?" she asked, noticing that he was making no move to get through the web. "XELLOS?!"
Mira, who had started back toward them, stopped in her tracks. "Xellos?" she whispered.
Filia grabbed the webbing with both hands and tore at it. "XELLOS! What are you doing?! Come on!"
Xellos turned to her and put his hand on the webbing, touching her fingers. Then he whispered three words.
"I love you."
Filia's heart stopped beating. Before words could come to her, Xellos turned and raised his staff with his left hand. In his right, a ball of energy had formed. He walked slowly into the fog.
"XELLOS! STOP! COME BACK! XELLOS!"
Xellos peered into the fog, searching with his eyes for the ShadowGuard. It had suddenly gone silent. The priest dimmed the light on his staff to avoid being a beacon for it.
Suddenly, a shadow on the stalagmite to his left leapt from the wall and grabbed his staff arm, wrenching the rod from his grasp and throwing it across the cavern. Xellos' right arm snapped up and fired two energy bolts into the Mazoku at point-blank range. The creature shrugged off the shots and wrapped its form around Xellos' shoulders. Picking him up like a rag doll, the shadowy arms slammed Xellos into a stalagmite then again into the far wall. Pulling him back, it pressed him up against another stalagmite and pinned him there.
A trickle of Cepheid's Water flowed down the trunk of the stalagmite. A third arm formed from the ShadowGuard's body and took hold of the back of Xellos' head, pressing his cheek into the blue fluid. Xellos heard a hiss and screamed as a part of his astral essence melted away. He placed his hand against the rock and fired a bolt of darkness into it.
The stalagmite exploded into a million razor-sharp fragments and launched the two demons apart from one another. Xellos, thrown to the floor by the explosion, touched his face and found tendrils of darkness waving lazily where his right cheek used to be.
The ShadowGuard took a humanoid form behind him and reached out with both hands. His hands melted together and formed a long, black lance. As Xellos rose to his feet and turned, the ShadowGuard whipped the dull end around and caught him in the face with it. Turning quickly, he delivered another blow to the chin, knocking Xellos back onto the floor near the depression they had crossed earlier.
The Watcher leapt after him, raising the lance over his head, he brought it down like a club onto the priest. The dark shaft hit his chest like a steel baton three times before the ShadowGuard bent down, grabbed him by the front of the robe and threw him into the depression.
The Watcher was too quick for him. Xellos knew it. He couldn't transport through the astral plane because the majority of the ShadowGuard was there, waiting for him to do exactly that. Either way, he was outclassed. He felt the ShadowGuard hit the ground next to him and reached up, firing several volleys of energy into the fog around him. The shadowy form emerged, and he fired. Energy bolts tore into the Mazoku, knocking away pieces of itself. But those pieces reformed in seconds.
The shadow's arm wrapped around his throat and flung him against the wall of the depression. It then reached out and wrapped around a stalagmite the size of a tree trunk. Tearing out the edifice by the roots was no more difficult for the Watcher than pulling a weed. With a passing thought, it swung the stalagmite at Xellos, knocking him to the other side of the depression. Then, with another swing, Xellos was flying out of the depression. Like the other stalagmite, this one was coated with blue Cepheid's Water, and the place where it had struck Xellos burned like fire.
Xellos crawled on his hands and knees as the ShadowGuard leapt from the depression and started toward him. The priest came to a large stalactite that pointed down into a shallow pool of Cepheid's Water. The point of the rocky cone dripped liquid fire.
Looking down into the pool, Xellos saw his staff. If he could get that, there was still a chance to turn it around. He braced himself and thrust his right hand into the pool.
Fire engulfed his very essence as the water began to eat away at his arm. He screamed, but could feel his fingers wrap around the staff. His little finger disintegrated as the water continued to consume his astral form. Still screaming, the priest pulled the staff from the water and rolled over onto his back. His right arm was black and skeletal-looking, but the staff was undamaged.
The ShadowGuard rushed toward him.
Xellos pointed his staff.
Then the Watcher swung his lance around and sliced through Xellos' decaying arm at the elbow. He screamed and watched as the arm disintegrated and the staff fell to the ground. Before he could reach it with his other hand, the tip of the Watcher's lance buried itself into his chest.
Xellos screamed until there was no more breath left in him. The ShadowGuard looked down at him. Xellos' eyes stared upward at the shadowy figure..and up a little higher.
The stalactite dripped.
Xellos reached up with his left hand. The Watcher ignored him for a moment, then said a single word.
"Weak." It's voice was quiet and gravelly.
Xellos swallowed and channeled the last of his power through his left hand. With a grimace he fired.
The bolt didn't come near hitting the Watcher's head, but it struck the base of the stalactite dead on and exploded. Stone flew everywhere. The Watcher looked up quickly to find ten thousand gallons of Cepheid's Water rushing down at him from the spring above them.
Xellos felt the water strike and engulf him. He heard the Watcher scream. He closed his eyes, but his eyelids soon melted away, revealing the world again for a slight second before his eyes too were gone. He opened his mouth to scream, and the water rushed into his mouth and down his throat, consuming him from the inside out. The water ate him, consumed him like acid. It was like a pack of Xelas' wolves tearing ravenously into him and eating him. The pain soon evaporated, however, as more and more of his essence melted away. There was no longer enough of him to even detect pain, and in seconds there would be no more of him period.
He quickly wondered what his child might look like.
Then the current washed what was left of Xellos Ul Copt away.
Filia was hysterical as she tried tearing at the web with her bare hands. A Chaotic Disintegrate spell hadn't even fazed it, and she couldn't teleport through it. It was blocking off the route even through the astral plane. Finally, she had sunk her fingers into it and tore at with hysterical madness.
The others tried grabbing her arms, trying to drag her away, but her hold on the web was secure. It would take more than a few dragons to pull Filia away.
It would take a flood.
Which was precisely what hit them a second later as the Cepheid's Water from Xellos' last attack smashed through the web and hit them, carrying them all with the current. Filia struggled to hang onto the web as the water rose above her head, but within moments, flesh, bone and tendon gave out, and the dragon was sucked down the tunnel by the current.
The dragons shot out of the mouth of the tunnel like bullets from a gun, daylight meeting them as they struck the ground and rolled through the mud as they gasped for breath and moaned in pain.
The second Filia hit the ground, she was crawling on her hands and knees back toward the tunnel's entrance. She tried standing, but slipped in the mud and fell on her face. Since she couldn't stand, she crawled. Mud covered every inch of her as she continued on.
"Xellos! XELLOS!"
Birdy, Taloon and Mira grabbed her and pulled, shouting at her to stop, that it was too dangerous, but she didn't even hear them. She could see their lips moving, feel them pulling on her, but it didn't really register. There was only one thing she was painfully aware of.
She couldn't sense him anymore. She couldn't feel him anywhere.
Sethra and Will joined the others a second later, and Filia, screaming in grief and pain, felt herself being pushed into the mud. She screamed as loud as she could, hoping maybe that he would hear her and appear, but he didn't. She reached out with her hands and tried pulling herself toward the cave. Her fingers bled and her muscles ached, but the dragons held her fast.
With one final gasp, her body collapsed, refusing to move another inch no matter how much she protested. She screamed as tears fell from her eyes and mixed with the mud below her.
"Don't leave me," she sobbed quietly. "Don't leave me. Please, Cepheid, don't take him away from me. Please, please, don't take him from me, please.."
Cepheid, however, wasn't taking prayers that day.
