Chapter 5: Awakening

There he stood before her, motionless. In one hand he held his broadsword, while the other was raised into spell casting position. Amelia threw her arms around him, sobbing. It couldn't be…NO! Pull yourself together Amelia! a voice in her head shouted. He's not dead!

Amelia calmed down and took a step back. The voice (that sounded a lot like Lina) was right. This wouldn't help Zelgadis at all. Amelia tried to remember what she'd been taught about this sort of thing. She knew that people who'd been turned to stone died if they were left that way for too long. She felt a new wave of fear as she remembered that. What if…? No! She had to remain calm! Amelia took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes to concentrate. She stretched out with her priestess powers, trying to sense which statues were still alive and which… weren't. She felt two presences of life. One was her own, while the other was right in front of her.

Amelia sighed with relief, but she felt a pang of remorse too. He was still alive, but no one else was. At least she had a chance to save him now.

She began chanting a spell.

A bright flash of light. That was the first thing Zelgadis became aware of. Then a face swam into his line of vision. The face slowly came into focus, and he recognized who it was.

"A-amelia?" She smiled, looking relieved.

"You're alright," she sighed.

Zelgadis nodded slowly, still slightly confused. He rubbed his arm as feeling slowly returned to his limbs. "What happened?" he asked finally. "When did you get here?"

Amelia pursed her lips, looked and him, and began to explain. They sat on the floor as she told him her story.

"I see," Zelgadis said slowly once she'd finished. He wasn't sure how to respond. It hurt his pride somewhat that he'd needed someone to save him. But he still should probably thank her…

"What about you Mr. Zelgadis?" Amelia asked, interrupting his reverie. "What happened to you?"

He shrugged. "It's mostly what you guessed. I heard legends about these temples, and came here looking for more information on my cure. But the temple was mostly empty when I got here." Anger crept into his tone. "If there were any spells recorded here, tomb robbers took must have taken them long ago. Except…" he trailed off, suddenly frowning.

"Mr. Zelgadis?" Amelia gave him a quizzical look.

"There was someone else here too… I didn't get a good look at their face, but when whoever it was saw me, they cast a spell I didn't recognize. That's the last thing I remember up until now, anyway."

Amelia sprang up, clenching her fist in front of her. "Villainous fiends! Catching you off guard and attacking you without provocation!" she ranted. "I will hunt them down and make them feel the wrath of my JUSTICE!"

Zelgadis sighed. "And how exactly will you find them? You don't even know what they look like. I never got a good look at his face."

Amelia pouted. "Er, well, um…"

"Exactly."

A strange shadow on the wall caught her attention. "What's that?" Zelgadis turned and looked at where she was pointing. On the stone wall of the temple were numerous reliefs carved into the rock.

They examined the carvings, which were bizarre to say the least. The surface of the temple wall was divided irregularly into hundreds of sections. Each section contained a relief depicting a different creature.

"They look like chimeras," Amelia noted. It was true. One section depicted a cat with wings. Another showed a slug with a giant mosquito head. A third contained a creature with the torso of a human, snakes where its arms should have been, insect legs in place of human ones, and a tall, pointed cone where its head should have been. "Do you think the people who made these temples were chimera makers?"

"It's possible. Not much is known about these caves." There was silence for a few moments.

"Mr. Zelgadis, can we go now? It's cold and those reliefs are creeping me out."

Elsewhere…

It was a slow night at the inn. And by slow night, I mean a really slow night. The only ones currently occupying the building were the inn keeper and the cook. The cook had passed out on the kitchen floor long ago, clutching his now-empty bottle of whiskey like a teddy bear. The innkeeper was in danger of dozing off herself. The rational part of her mind told her to close up already, no one else was coming. It was dark out, and the snow was coming down so hard you couldn't see your own nose (don't ask). Any person in their right mind had already taken shelter.

But the innkeeper was a dogged woman when it came to her job, almost to the point where people would wonder whether or not she was in her right mind. If she had decided to close up at midnight, she would close up at midnight.

So she sat at the counter, elbows propped up on the wooden surface, head cradled in her hands, desperately struggling to keep her eyes open…

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! The innkeeper woke with start as the wall clock chimed midnight. She realized she must have fallen asleep and cursed herself quietly. "Stupid…"

She was cut off by knock on the door. Who could that be at this hour? The knock came again, louder. "I'm comin, I'm comin," she muttered. She walked over to the door, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She lifted the latch to reveal…. two snowmen standing on the threshold. The innkeeper blinked. Was this someone's idea of a joke?

It turned out not; the snowmen shook themselves and the snow fell off to reveal a pair of shivering mercenaries.

"W-w-we'd l-l-like t-to st-st-st-stay at the i-inn," the shorter one said through chattering teeth. The taller one sneezed and nodded.

"Yeah, alright, whatever," the innkeeper replied vaguely. "Come in." She led the two of them inside and over to the counter, where she pulled out the inn's registry and opened it on the counter.

"Sign 'ere," she said sleepily, and yawned. The mercenaries complied, and after giving the innkeeper a few gold coins, went up to their rooms.

If she hadn't been so tired, Lina might have taken more notice of the other names written the registry... names that she would be very familiar with…

A/N: Lina and Gourry return! Heehee. And Zelgadis finally appears. About time too.

A factoid that probably won't come up at any point in the story but I still think I should explain: The people who built the cave temple-thingies were not actually chimera-makers, as Amelia guessed. They were actually just obsessed with ways to change your form, hence the creepy reliefs. You'll see more evidence of this later on, heheheh... -grins evilly-

R&R please! -angelic look-