EL-HAZARD : MORTAL ENGINES

                        by Alan Harnum

              Chapter One - Das Nachtwanderlied

El-Hazard is a copyright of AIC/Pioneer LDC.  This story, 
however, belongs to me, and I request that you don't publicly
post or archive it without my permission.  

This story take places after the first series of OVAs, and can, 
I suppose, be considered a sort of alt-uni because of this, as it
ignores for the purposes of its story any of the events of the
second OVAs or the TV series.

Any commentary, as usual, is very appreciated.

* * *

          ...Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and
          not everything in them is brought to pass for
          mankind.  For fleeting dreams have two gates:
          one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory.  
          Those which pass through the one of sawn 
          ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which 
          come to nought, but those which issue from 
          the one of polished horn bring true results 
          when a mortal sees them...
                            -Homer

* * *

     Night breeze blows through long grass.  Patterns slowly 
form; lines that follow the passage of the winds, circles that 
dot the fields, tiny bends in the blades that form complex 
figures invisible to the human eye.  The breeze changes.  The
patterns are erased.

     A girl lay dreaming, in a small room in a small cottage.
Moonlight spilled in the window, and coloured the rough,
unpainted oak of the plain bed and plainer dresser in cold hues.

     She woke with a single, sharp scream.  Footsteps hurried
anxiously down the hallway beyond the closed door; not running,
merely moving quickly. 

     The door cracked, then opened.  A man with a candle was
framed in it.  His face is worried, but not afraid; this is
something that happens too often to be frightening any longer.
     
     "More dreams?"
     
     "Yes, Father."
     
     He sat down on the bed.  It creaked, gently, beneath his
weight.  The mattress was thin and hard.

     "It is a great gift from God."
     
     The girl ran her fingers through her damp and tangled hair,
and tried futilely to put some order to it.  She said nothing, so 
he spoke again.  "What did you see?"

     Dully, she answered.  "I saw an angel in white, ascending 
from hell to earth, from earth to heaven, until she gazed into 
the face of God."

     Gently, he drew a breath.  The candle flickered, and the
shadows swept around the walls.  "What did it look like?"

     "What?"
     
     "His face."
     
     "Too bright to look upon.  I had to turn my eyes away, lest
I be blinded."     
     
     They sat in silence for a moment.  Then, awkwardly, he put
his free hand on her shoulder.  "It was a great and wonderful
dream."

     "Yes."
     
     "Do you want me to leave the candle?"
     
     "No.  I'm all right without it."
     
     The bed creaked again.  The door closed.  Footsteps, then
silence.  This time, sleep was dreamless and peaceful.

* * *

     The celebrations were still going on nearly a day later
throughout the kingdom of Roshtaria and its allied countries, as
the leaders of the alliance and their citizens celebrated what
was then seen as the final defeat of the Bugrom Empire.  Few
among them knew just how close they had themselves come to being
destroyed by the unleashed might of the Eye of God.  Spirits were
high, wine flowed like water, and the immense kitchens of the 
Royal Palace in Floristica had been kept in continual bustle
since the celebrations began, turning out candied sweets and
delicately-seasoned platters of meat with veritable cornucopias 
of vegetables on the side.  

     Despite this, Nanami was bored.
     
     "Try some of this," Fujisawa-sensei slurred, pouring a
glistening alcoholic beverage the colour of a sunset into her
cup from a fluted glass bottle.  The beverage smelled like a not 
entirely pleasant mix of plums and cherry blossoms, and Nanami 
eyed it dubiously.

     Fujisawa hiccuped, and grinned drunkenly at her.  "It's
de-licious.  I won't tell anyone you're under age."

     "She isn't, here," Miz pronounced.  "We don't have 
age-of-majority laws!"  Then, she proceeded to giggle as if it
were the funniest thing anyone had ever said.  While she hadn't
consumed _quite_ as much as Fujisawa--Nanami suspected that no 
one at the celebrations had done that--she was still obviously
drunk and had been hanging off Fujisawa-sensei's arm all night.  
He, for that matter, didn't seem to mind, and had even allowed 
her to give him a kiss on the cheek at one point, after she'd 
related her own interpretation of the incredibly heroic and vital 
role he'd played in the battle against the Bugrom.

     Nanami hoped that her teacher didn't do anything stupid
tonight.  People did that sort of thing when they drunk.  Which
was one of the reasons she wasn't.  Still, to be polite, she
sipped the foul-tasting liquor, and fought the urge to spit it
back into her cup to allow herself to swallow it.  It dropped
down her throat and into her stomach like a piece of heated lead
shot.  A rather pleasing warmth began to spread throughout her
body.  "Not bad," she said.  It wasn't entirely a lie--it tasted
awful, but it felt good.

     "Be careful," Afura said from where she sat across the low
table, consuming plate after plate of food with tiny, delicate
motions of her cutlery.  "It's very strong, and you don't seem to
be the type to be used to hard liquor."

     Nanami turned a dubious gaze on the cool priestess.  Who 
had, if she'd been watching correctly, consumed nearly as much as
Miz without showing any effects whatsoever.  "How would you know
what I'm used to?"

     Afura shrugged, and speared what looked like an olive of a
dark yellow colour with a silver fork no longer than her index
finger.  "You just don't seem the type."  She popped it into her
mouth, chewed, and swallowed.  "Unlike, say, Shayla."
     
     Shayla raised her head, which had been up to that point
lying face down on the table.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

     Afura ate what appeared to have once been some sort of 
small, soft-shelled crustacean, before someone had decided to
pickle it and powder it with sugar.  "Come, now.  You're the
drunkest one here."

     "I am NOT!" Shayla said.  She stood up, sat down again,
tried to stand, and then contented herself with lying down on the
ground on her back.  This forced the servants carrying food and 
drink to step over her as well as the half-dozen other celebrants 
who had passed out around the long table.

     "You are," Afura corrected, and sipped her wine.
     
     Nanami looked around the table.  "Hey.  Where's Makoto?"
     
     "Dunno," Fujisawa answered.  "He said he was going to the...
washroom, I guess.  Actually..." He scratched his head and burped
softly.  "...he didn't really say.  Just kinda left."

     On her back, Shayla let out a long sigh and closed her eyes.
"Maybe he's thinking about..."

     Even though she didn't complete the sentence, and didn't say
the name, they all knew what name it would have been.  Makoto's
participation in the celebrations had been half-hearted at best,
the most emotion he'd shown being the smile and wave he'd given 
to the crowd when the three 'saviours from Earth', as they'd come
to be called, had been given the Royal Order of Floristica.  

     Nanami unconsciously touched the golden chain of the small
medal she'd received in the ceremony.  Of the three of them, she
deserved it the least.  Fujisawa-sensei was brave even without
his super-strength, and Makoto had practically become their
leader by the end, but the only thing she'd done was be lucky
enough to be able to see through the Phantom Tribe's illusions.

     "Poor kid," Fujisawa murmured, breaking the silence.  His
head drooped until his chin nearly touched his chest.  Next to
him, Miz sighed and took his sudden melancholy as an excuse to
move closer, until she was almost sitting in his lap.

     "Don't be sad, Masamichi," she soothed.  "After all, he was
sent here by her.  Which means they will meet again some day.  I
think."  She sniffled.  "Maybe."  Quite suddenly, she began to 
cry.  "Oh, it's so sad!  Don't ever leave me, Masamichi!"

     Fujisawa-sensei let out a soft, gentle snore.
     
     Across the table, Afura sighed and rolled her eyes.  Nanami
stood up.  Her legs were slightly wobbly, but she felt fine
otherwise.  "I'm going to go find Makoto."

     "I'm coming too!" Shayla declared, but made no effort to
rise.     
     
     "No," Afura said, "you're not."
     
     "Am too!" Shayla said, still making no effort to move.  The
arguing voices followed Nanami as she left the revelry of the 
banquet hall.  She passed beneath a vine-twined archway, close to
the dais where a dozen musicians played unfamiliar stringed
instruments and oddly-shaped flutes.  The music was atonal, and 
deeply, heart-rendingly sad.

     Makoto would be in the gardens, in all likelihood.  It was
the sort of place someone would go to be alone.  The gardens of
the Royal Palace were enormous, however.  It might take her a
while to find him.  Well... it wasn't as if she didn't have the
time.

     The gardens of the palace were very different at night from
the day, as the diurnal flowers closed their bright petals and
slept to await the sunrise, and the night-blooming flowers opened
silkily in cool colours of black and purple and silver.  New
perfumes filled the tree-lined avenues between the beds and the
fountains, and the tiny blossoms of the vines that writhed around 
the archways brushed against each other in the wind.  Nanami 
could hear vague laughter and the sound of voices from the
balconies of the apartments that overlooked the garden.  In the
distance, over the city of Floristica itself, an occasional
firework would go off in a shower of colours.

     As she'd expected, the gardens were nearly deserted, and the
only people she met up close were a trio of tipsy nobles, two 
women and a man, walking arm in arm.  They offered her a pull 
from the flask they shared between them, but she rejected it politely and made
her way down one of the spiralling pathways that led inwards 
like the motions of a whirlpool towards a splashing fountain.  
Hearing a familiar giggle, she peeked over a hedge.  "Alielle?  
Have you seen..."

     "Find you _own_ lover, commoner!  We've only just started!" 
     
     Blushing furiously and stammering apologies, Nanami hurried
away.  The spiral path twisted inward and slowly dipped, until 
she was at a secluded fountain protected by wall upon wall of
tall hedges.  Against her expectations, however, there was no one
there.  Merely the fountain itself, an ornately-decorated marble
column rising from a shallow basin.  At the top, the column split
into four angels.  Each held an object from which water poured:  
a ring, a flask, a trumpet, a bowl.  

     Nanami sat down on the lip of the basin and stared at her
reflection in the water.  Seeing Alielle and Fatora in such a...
comprising position had hammered home to her how lonely she was
here.  She missed her friends and her parents, she missed going
to school... she even missed her brother, at least for when he'd
simply been an annoying nosy creep instead of a power-hungry 
warmongering psychopath.

     And she'd missed her chance with Makoto, of course.  Back 
home, when they'd been in school together, they might have had
something.  Even here, before Ifurita.  But now he was hers, now
and forever.  How could she ever compete with someone who wasn't
even here any longer, who was only a memory to be idealized?

     The answer was simple, of course.  She couldn't.
     
     "Hey Nanami.  What are you doing here?"
     
     The reflection of Makoto's face swam beside hers in the
basin of the fountain.  He had come up behind her without 
making a sound.  Ifurita's Power-Key was in his hands now, as it
always was.  

     "Actually," she began, "I was looking..."
     
     Makoto was smiling, but he wasn't happy.  He sat down beside
her on the fountain basin with a sigh, and laid the Power-Key
across his knees.  "What were you looking for?"
     
     "Just for a place to think."
     
     "Oh.  I'm sorry.  Want me to leave you alone, then?"
     
     He began to rise.  She touched his arm to stop him.  "No,
stay... umm... only if you want to, that is.  I'm not going to
force you."

     He sat back down again.  "Something wrong?"
     
     She shook her head.
     
     A touch of something, nearly humour, entered his eyes.  He
laid the Power-Key down on the tiles around the fountain with a
soft metallic clink, and turned the full intensity of his gaze on
her.  "Come on, Nanami.  You can tell me."

     She'd read about men whose eyes you could fall into, in 
books, and realized now that there were some it was true for.  It
wasn't intelligence--her brother had intelligent eyes too, but
they were small and cold as stones.  There was so much depth in
Makoto's eyes; it made her feel like he genuinely did care about
what was wrong.  And he did; that somehow made it all the worse.
     
     So she lied, or told what was at best a half-truth.  "I miss
home, Makoto."

     "Hey, so do I."  He reached down and trailed his fingers in
the water, breaking the image of their faces.  "I miss my mom and
my dad.  I bet they're worried about me.  Heck, by now the police
are probably looking for all of us."

     "I never even thought of that," Nanami said.  "They're not
going to find us, though."

     Makoto made a helpless gesture with his hands.  "Maybe time
passes differently here.  Maybe we've only been gone for a few
hours back home.  Or even a few minutes."

     "Maybe."
     
     "Do you want to go home, Nanami?"
     
     She shifted uncomfortably and looked away from him, not
wanting to have to see his eyes.  "Yeah.  I do.  There isn't
really anything to keep me here."

     "All the friends we've made?"
     
     "They aren't really my friends, Makoto."
     
     "Sure they are!  Alielle, Shayla, Miz, Rune..."
     
     "Makoto, those are your friends.  Well, except maybe 
Alielle, but you know how she is."

     Makoto laughed.  He hadn't laughed since Ifurita had gone
into the Eye of God.  "I don't know why, Nanami," he said.  "But 
talking to you makes me feel better.  Thanks."

     He reached down and picked up the Power-Key.  "You know I've
been trying to reach her?  Ifurita, that is.  I thought that I
could communicate with her using the Power-Key Staff, like I did
when I showed her how to shut down the Eye... but I can't reach
her.  She's too far away.  Or maybe I'm just not strong enough to
speak to her through the dimensional wall.  I really want to 
speak to her, Nanami.  I want to tell her she's not alone."

     "Makoto..."
     
     His eyes were closed.  He ran a trembling hand down the cold
metal shaft of the Power-Key, and looked as if he wanted to cry.
"Yes?"
     
     "Why do you... why do you feel this way about her?"
     
     "Because I saw her soul, Nanami," he said gently, as if in
explanation, as if he knew her heart and the real reasons why she
was asking him.  "Once you do that, I don't think you can help 
but love someone."

     He rose, and walked away, holding the Power-Key in one hand,
occasionally touching the butt of it to the ground as though it
were a cane to bear his weight.  Nanami watched him go in 
silence.  When she was finally sure that she would not meet him 
again on the spiralling paths, she left the fountain.

* * *

     Masamichi Fujisawa was drunk, but was rapidly becoming 
sober.  Too rapidly, in his opinion; it was making him realize 
just how inappropriate it was for him to be stumbling down the 
dim corridors towards his apartment in the palace, arm-in-arm 
with Miz.  Low flames burned in the bulbous glass lamps that
lined the corridor, drawing the flush of her cheeks higher to the
surface and making her eyes sparkle.  

     "Thank you for taking this walk with me, Masamichi," she
said.  With a sigh, she took a tighter grip on his arm and rested
her head against his shoulder.  "I always feel so safe with you."

     Quite frankly, he couldn't remember agreeing to take a walk
with her.  There was a large blank spot between a cupful of 
digestive liqueur vaguely flavoured with blueberries and his 
current situation.  "Umm... Miz?"

     "Yes, Masamichi?"
     
     "How long have we been walking?"
     
     Miz giggled and swayed slightly, and might have taken an
impromptu seat in the corridor had she not been holding on to his
arm.  "Not long.  You said you had a special stash of wine in 
your room that we could share."

     "I did?"
     
     "Of course, silly."
     
     I guess I did, Fujisawa thought vaguely.  Now that he was
sobering up--without, he was pleased to note, any hangover 
in-between--he wasn't sure what had possessed him to do that.
Miz's interest was flattering, and she was a beautiful girl, 
but... 

     "This is your apartment, right?"
     
     "Yeah."
     
     "It's very late, isn't it?"
     
     "Uh-huh.  You know what they say, early to bed..."
     
     Miz slipped her arm out of his and turned to face him.  
Nervously, he backed away from her, until he hit the wall behind
him.  Putting an arm to either side of his body, Miz stood on 
her tip-toes so that her face was only inches from his.

     "You want to kiss me now?" she asked.
     
     "Uhh..."
     
     She leaned closer, until the soft shape of her body pressed
against his chest.  "We never really got a chance to talk about
what we're going to do, did we?"
     
     "Do?"
     
     "About the wedding."
     
     As any intelligent man would have done in the situation, 
Fujisawa suffered a combination of mild amnesia and mental
paralysis.  "Wedding?"

     Miz looked up at him dubiously, a spark of annoyance growing
behind the inebriation of her gaze.  "You _do_ still want to get
married, don't you?"

     Actually, if he recalled correctly, he had never actually
formally agreed to get married to her in the first place.  But 
Miz, at least, was under the impression that he had.  "Why don't
we talk about it inside?"  Far too quickly, he was dry as a 
stone, and badly needed a drink.

     They stumbled into the room together.  Well, Miz stumbled,
and he made sure she didn't fall.  Like most of the nicer
apartments in the palace, this one was high-ceilinged and 
spacious, with a large canopied bed and furniture in the ornate,
flowery style that seemed to dominate in Roshtaria.  In one 
corner, a creeping vine had long ago overgrown its lacquered 
basin and made a slow ascent up the wall, until one entire side 
of the room was covered by it.  During the night, the flowers 
bloomed in tiny bright spots of blood red and vibrant blue.  Fold 
upon fold of gauzy silk curtains served to divide the room from 
the balcony beyond that overlooked the garden; those were pulled
back now, letting in the vague sounds of the continued 
celebration and the perfumed scents of the gardens, and allowing 
them to see the stars dotting the night sky.

     "So," Miz said, half-sitting, half-falling onto the bed,
"Where's this private stash you were promising me?"  She laughed,
and lay back to stare up at the canopy.  "I'm thirsty."

     Fujisawa slowly began to sort through the waist-high, 
single-doored cabinet in which he'd hidden his stash of liquor; 
this consisted of several bottles which he'd managed to purloin
from the kitchens over the time of his stay in the palace, and a
pair of rather battered copper cups which had probably at one
time been quite nice.  He pushed aside the billowy pants and
shirts that had been given to him to wear, and came to sit on the
edge of the bed with the best bottle of wine and the two cups.
Miz sat up and yawned, then belched softly.  "Excuse me."

     "Excused," Fujisawa replied, moving over slightly so as to
place the cups on the bedside table.  "Miz, are you sure you 
should drink more?  You don't want to get sick."

     Miz shook her head.  The motion nearly caused her to have to
lie down again.  "I won't get sick.  I'm perfectly fine."
     
     Fujisawa repressed a sigh and poured a half-cup for her, and
a full one for himself.  Their fingers touched as he passed it to
her; Miz let the contact remain for a second longer than she had
to, and then pulled away with a smile.  He sipped his wine 
glumly; it tasted like water to him, with none of the pleasant
alcoholic buzz it should have had.  
     
     Miz drained her cup in one gulp, and handed it back to him.
"More."

     "Miz..."
     
     "Please?"
     
     He shifted an inch further down the bed, and turned to pour
her another cup.  When he looked back, she was lying down again,
eyes closed and snoring softly.

     "Miz?"
     
     She didn't even move.  Fujisawa drained the cup he'd poured
for her, drained the last of his, and stood up.  He put the wine
and the cups away, adjusted the pillows under Miz's head so that
she was more comfortable, and went to sleep in the hallway.  
     
* * *
     
     "And so the glory of the noble Bugrom Empire WILL rise from 
this unwarranted defeat!  Like the phoenix, we shall come forth 
again with fire from the coldness of our ashes.  And our enemies 
shall fall before us like wheat before the scythe!  I shall lead 
you, and this time, no Eye of God, not even God himself, will 
stop us!"

     A rousing cheer came from the survivors of the Bugrom 
Empire.  Had there been more than six of them in the isolated 
pass deep within the Holy Mountains, it might have been more
rousing to Katsuhiko Jinnai.  Deva contributed a light clapping,
which helped a little.  With a frown, the Grand General of the
Bugrom sat down beside the Queen on her portable dais, and stared
into the light of the fire that Groucho had so thoughtfully 
built.

     "You did say there are more than these six left, didn't 
you?" he asked after a moment.

     Deva nodded and smiled grimly.  "Many of them escaped the
ravages of the Eye of God, but they are scattered.  I am calling
them, to gather them, but it will take some time."

     Jinnai pulled a comb from his pocket and ran it through his
hair a few times.  "What we need is another secret weapon.  One
that lousy Mizuhara can't take away from me."

     "No."
     
     Slowly, he put the comb away and eyed Deva with an edge of 
anger to his gaze.  "Pardon me, Queen Deva?"

     "You awakened Ifurita and look what happened.  I will not
condone any search for another such weapon."

     He half-rose, to one knee, and leaned over her.  "Am I not
the Grand General of the Bugrom?"

     "You are," Deva replied.  "But I am the Queen."
     
     There was a slightly tremulous note to her voice, however,
and he seized on it.  "Am I not the messenger sent by God to lead
the Bugrom to victory?  Who are you to question me, Deva?  God
sent me to the Bugrom; do you question God?"

     "No, but..."
     
     "Makoto is a worm in my path.  I shall tread him into the
dirt.  The Bugrom have lost this battle, yes, but it shall be as
a crucible!  They shall emerge hardened and stronger!"

     "Jinnai..."
     
     "Do you not trust me, Deva?"
     
     The Bugrom Queen was silent for a moment, and then nodded.
"Yes.  Yes, I trust you.  Forgive me for my doubt."

     "Forgiven," he said.  "I am nothing if not magnanimous."
     
     "I think it is as you say, Katsuhiko Jinnai," Deva said.
"God has sent you to try me and my people, that we might emerge
stronger and fit to rule this world.  At long last, there will be
justice for the Bugrom."

     Jinnai yawned.  "Justice?"
     
     "For a Grand General, you have heard so little of our 
history."  Deva smiled, and stroked his cheek with one hand.  "I
must work to correct this as soon as possible."

     "Whatever," he muttered, and sank down to the cool, 
slightly-yielding surface of the dais with his head pillowed on 
his hands.  For a while, he stared up at the unfamiliar stars of
El-Hazard, and thus fell into dreams.  They were remarkably lucid
this night, with none of the hazy sense of unreality that his 
dreams usually brought.

     He dreamt that he flew on the back of a great bird, the
details of which he could see nothing of but for its vast wings.
They flew at first over a small continent split in two by a vast
river, but rose higher, until they were so high that he watched
the world slowly spinning upon its axis.  Like Earth, it was a
blue world, wreathed in clouds.  Most of it was water, but there
were the green patches of a half-dozen continents upon it.  

     "Of course," he said to himself, in the dream.  "It's only
one continent in the whole world.  And a small one, at that.  I
should have realized my ambitions were too minor; that was why I
failed.  Only from great dreams are great victories won!"

     The bird raked its wings back, and plunged towards the sea, 
and Jinnai laughed all the way as he rode it down beneath the 
surging waves.

* * *

     Lord Gallus was dying.  Or, if he was not dying, he was not
getting any better.  Ifurita's blast had only clipped the barest
edge of his heart in its passage through his body, and had
miraculously missed his lungs, but it had been enough.  All that
kept him alive now were the machines of the Phantom Tribe.  A
half-dozen tubes led in and out of his body, and twice as many
electrodes served to monitor him so that the doctors could make 
the minute corrections required to keep him alive.  The machines
themselves ranged from a spherical construction of crystal that
sprouted several monitors and keyboards to a small pillar topped
by an interlocking series of humming, vibrating steel rings.

     Nahato sat by the bed and toyed with his knife as he watched
them work.  Anger lay hard upon his heart; there had been no
vengeance for his people, and Lord Gallus was close to death.  
Nothing had been gained from their schemes.  

     Like all the dwellings of the Phantom Tribe, this one lay
deep beneath the surface of the earth.  He had carried Lord
Gallus here himself, sneaking away from the Eye of God while
cloaked in illusion, trying futilely to stem the flow of blood
from the wound.  It was, the doctors said, a miracle that Gallus
had lived long enough to be treated.

     Nahato watched the flickering of the lights upon the
machines, and the slow coursings of fluids from the tubes.  Every
half-minute or so, Gallus would let out a dry, rattling breath,
and the machines would beep louder and with more frequency.
Sound carried well down in the caverns, and so Nahato heard the
footsteps and the tapping of the staff upon the stones long 
before the tall, hooded figure entered the chamber.

     Scowling, Nahato rose from his seat and stepped between 
Gallus's bed and the figure.  "You were not asked to come here, 
Lemulla."

     Lemulla pulled down her hood, exposing a bony, emaciated
face framed by a wispy cloud of white hair.   "I come wherever 
and whenever I am needed, Prince Nahato.  The Lord of Deeper
Shadows guides me."

     He fixed the old priestess with a cold glare.  How _dare_
she come here uninvited?  "You're not welcome here, and neither 
is your Lord of Deeper Shadows.  Go back to your temples and 
your chanting, Lemulla.  Lord Gallus would want nothing to do 
with it."

     "It would be best for now if we were able to work on him in
peace," one of the doctors said pointedly, making a minute 
adjustment to the dials of one of the smaller machines.  

     Lemulla bowed her head as though in thought and caressed the
round gray stone atop her metal staff.  "I shall return at a 
better time, then."

     Before Nahato could snap something back, she pulled her hood
back up and left the caverns.  Letting out an angry mutter, he
walked over to the bedside and looked down at Gallus's still
form.

     "How long until he recovers?"
     
     "Prince Nahato, we do not know if he will even--"
     
     "How long?"
     
     The doctor paused and examined the readings of the machines
nervously.  "We're doing all we can."

     Gently, Nahato took one limp hand in both of his, and 
pressed his lips against it.  "My lord," he whispered softly,
vowing that he would not weep before these common scientists, "I
will avenge you.  I swear."

* * *

     Ifurita floated through a sunless sea, falling like an angel
lost from heaven within the boundless interstices and endless 
cold between the worlds.  Ragged by the wind was she, alone as a
white-winged gull crying out over the swirlings of the ocean.
Drifted like a spar she did, corpselike, last resort against the 
frozen darkness of the blackspace sea to fall into a state of 
hibernation, to shut down all but the bare necessities, and thus
to endure, to live and wait and hope for release, as the 
mechanisms that drove her slowly wound themselves down into 
oblivion.

     Gently as a leaf that drifts to earth from the highest 
branches of a tree she fell, endlessly, eternally, knowing 
without knowing how that she would meet her love again, for oh so
brief a moment after ten thousand years of solitude, and then
what, she did not know, for his memories did not include the fate
of her futureself, of what she would become.

     Through the endless nights, she would dream only of him.
Her hope, her life, her love.  The memories he had given her 
would carry her, against all doubts; they would meet again.

     Ahead, away, a light.  Sensors wake, bring forth the life,
the sight, the self.  The end of the journey, so little time?  
What then was this, no memory of Earth was this, thus so cold 
and barren the world that she has come to?  But wait, no world is 
this, a mere pocket carved out within the blackspace between the 
worlds, an existence where ought there to be no existence?  
Wrong, wrong!

     Makoto woke up with a sharp scream, clutching the Power-Key
to his chest.  His pillow and sheets were soaked with sweat, and
seemed almost a second skin so tightly did they cling to his 
body.  His hands ached from gripping Ifurita's staff, which he 
was certain he had left leaning against one post of the bed when
he retired.
     
     "Ifurita..." he whispered.  He cradled the staff in the his
arms and bowed his head.  The metal was cool and nearly 
comforting, and he felt the same vague sense of... something that
he always did when touching one of the ancient devices of 
El-Hazard.  On the recording device in Schtalubaugh's workshop, 
the sense had merely been one of a switch that he could push up 
or down without his hands.  Ifurita and her staff were infinitely
more complex than that.  If he closed his eyes, he could almost
visualize them: webs of light and electrons woven through
infinitely empty space, spinning orbs of hard data separated from
another by the vast abysms of free memory, arrangements of 
artificial switches and paths more complex than the structure of 
a DNA molecule that created her personality, her feelings, her 
thoughts, her soul...

     Makoto pulled back with a stifled sob.  He could still feel
her, the memory of her contained in the staff, which was a part 
of her, as much a part of her as an arm or a leg.  They were one
and the same; he should be able to reach her, had been able to
reach her and guide to her to the core of the Eye of God, show
her what she had to do to shut up down.  And the Eye of God was 
to Ifurita what Ifurita was to that simple recording device;
further, even.  He didn't even know _how_ he had known what she
had to do to shut it down, he simply had, and he had felt her
scream as she was wrenched out of this world, had heard her go on
screaming until her voice finally faded from his mind.

     There should have been tears.  He grieved so hard that they
should have been falling down his face as freely as rain; but
there was nothing.  No tears were going to come.  Whatever 
nightmare had woken him was fading rapidly.  And it could only 
have been a nightmare... he could not bear to think that it was 
not.  Some vast darkness, and Ifurita falling through it, but 
then she was caught, by something even darker...

     His hands clenched around the Power-Key Staff, so hard that
he felt as though the metal would twist and bend in his hands.

     "I will find you, Ifurita," he said softly, to the empty
room.  "I swear."

     He placed the Power-Key beside the bed again, lay back down
beneath the sheets, and failed until the sunrise to go back to 
sleep.

* * *

     Lemulla knelt on the smooth stones of the Chapel of the
Downward Flames, and touched her forehead to the bordering ebony
tiles of the great steel altar.  The flames truly did burn
downward here, in the great golden lamps upon the walls of the
Chapel; some mechanism, mystical or scientific, made them flicker
and dance while suspended upside down.  Once a great natural
cavern beneath the earth, the Chapel had been remodelled and
modified over hundreds of years until it appeared smooth and 
artificial as if made by human hands.  

     The centrepiece was the Great Altar itself, half as tall as 
a man and thrice that in width.  It was bare of decoration and 
smooth as a mirror, an austere monolith surrounded by the 
glittering shine of golden artifacts and bejewelled statues.  The 
Phantom Tribe had culled many treasures from the earth to craft 
their devotional articles, but the Great Altar had been left 
free--had resisted, in fact--any such adornments.  

     "Lord of Deeper Shadows, I cry my woes unto thee," she
murmured.  The rare woods and incenses, rarer still so far 
beneath the earth, burned upon the altar and filled the Chapel 
with pungent smoke.  "My people are long gone astray from thee,
and have given themselves to doubt and materialism.  Forgive us,
and keep alive our dreams of return to the homeland."

     Rising but continuing to pray, she inserted her staff of
office into the shallow niche atop the altar.  The metal flowed
and opened, and the staff sank down within the altar until only
half of its length remained.  "Smite our enemies with thy dark
hand, gather us into thy shadows with thy darker hand."

     Once, twice, three times she turned it, one hand upon the 
shaft and one atop the orb.  With each turn, tiny sparks of black
lightning danced about her and the staff and the altar, joining
three as one before the god.  As always when she communed with
the god, she was alone in the Cathedral; the only one who would
ever see this would be her successor.

     "Speak to me, oh Lord, tell me thy will."
     
     The air droned with a whispering of many voices, and the
space around her and the altar was bathed in a coruscation of
black lightning that made every hair on her body stand straight
on end.  And from the grey stone of the staff, at the centre of
which a black pulse could now be seen beating like the slow 
rhythms of a heart, the voice and visions of the god came unto
her.

Author's Notes:

Another step for me here; after two years of writing nothing but
Ranma fanfics, I'm finally branching off.  I've always liked
El-Hazard for the Arabian Nights flavour, the memorable 
characters, and its ability to convey the feeling of an epic 
storyline in a very short time.  I have not, however, had 
sufficient ideas up until now with which to write a fanfic.

I also hesitated because I haven't seen anything beyond the first
OVAs.  Finally, however, I had a story idea that I liked a lot,
and I simply decided to go for it.  I thank Andrew Huang, Matt
Lewis and Sean Gaffney for advice and prereading; all three of
them are more well-versed in El-Hazard than I am.

Expect the second chapter of this... sometime.  Once I finish 
WUE, I will be dedicating more of my time to this project.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm leaving for Otakon on 
Wednesday morning, so won't be able to respond to any 
commentary received after then for some time.  This doesn't mean
not to send it, BTW.  :)