Note: Apologies for this taking so long to get to the FFML. Maison-otaku, the account I post my stories through (please mail correspondence to twoflowr@pixelscapes.com instead) was having firewall problems. Also en route will be Ultra REBOOT and its new spinoff. Remember, the web page always has up to the minute postings of drafts and final copies.
-=-
+-----------------+
| |S|L|A|Y|E|R|S| |
|S|T|A|R|B|O|A|R|D|
+--+------+-------+------------------------------+
| Four | The Ends to the Means |
+------+--------------------------------------+
A Slayers Fanfic Series by Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne
(Certain characters copyright H. Kanzaka / R. Araizumi, obviously.
If I ever even considered claiming that those were my own characters
I'd probably be thrown into a small cell where I'd be forced to eat
my own testicular fortitude to live.)
Check out the web center with fanart, *exclusive side stories* and more, at
--> http://pixelscapes.com/slayers/starboard <--
-=-
Dawn rising like crimson gold. That's the funny thing about dawn on an
island; it never looks bad. It doesn't even look mediocre. It's always
spectacular, light pouring over the waves, coming in nice and low over the
horizon... a blinding brightness that you obviously don't want to stare
directly into, but can appreciate the side effects thereof.
The young man walking along the docks certainly was appreciating the
sunlight. It felt warm against his skin, a contrast to the cool, moist air
of seawater evaporation. The wooden planks felt good beneath his feet; he'd
taken off his shoes specifically to enjoy them, to feel every sliver of wood,
even if he got a splinter or two. It was worth it.
Despite being named Bloody Dangerous Island, there was nothing dangerous
about right now unless the seagulls decided to attack. The peace of the
morning silence was deafening, ships bobbing silently, only the faint lap of
the water on wood to hint at activity. Everybody on the ships was either
asleep or in town already.
He didn't want to wake anybody on his return; it was still very early,
and the crew likely was still asleep. He climbed the rope ladder, and
hoisted himself over the side of the ship to land silently on his bare
feet... not that it mattered, since Lina was up already.
She was in her pajamas, probably just getting some fresh air before
facing the day. He paused in mid-morning stretch (the middle of the stretch,
not the middle of the morning) to nod in her direction, a general hello.
"All set to go?" Lina asked. "We're done here, so I figured we'd push
off in the morning... where were you, anyway? Looks like you've already got
a tan there."
"I was around," Zelgadis answered simply, leaning against the side of
the ship, letting the light breeze pass through his hair. "Just around. I'm
ready to go now."
[*]
The primary problem with the nature of time is that human beings are not
linear. Their minds can skip from 'I have to go get breakfast' to 'Where'd I
leave my toothbrush' to 'Why is there an extra toothbrush here' to 'Why is
there another woman in my boyfriend's bed' and 'Where's my sword?'.
Logically it flows, one to the next, but they describe different cause-and-
effect pairs across time.
In order to understand the way humans integrate and lock together in the
bizarre puzzle of history, it's impossible to follow things in a linear
fashion. Time demands this arc, which means some mysteries go unexplained.
The only way to explain them is to step outside of time, which can only be
done in memory. Memory is the escape hatch to time, the workaround, the
shortcut. The memories of various people, when plotted out and intersected,
lead to an understanding of the whole.
In short, the answer to the question 'How?' is 'Well...'
+---------------+
|Z|E|L|G|A|D|I|S|
+---------------+
It was just before lunchtime when the Lightfeather docked at Bloody
Dangerous Island.
There had been some arguing before disembarking. Amelia was upset that
nobody wanted to stay and try the Special Sailoon Style Sandwiches she wanted
to make. Phinneas was upset because after the last debacle, he'd decided to
just assume chaos and disorder follow Lina around like lost puppies. Lina
was upset because she wanted to get here earlier, but Gourry had insisted on
stopping at a small island to get sword polish. Gourry was upset because he
accidentally dropped the polish over the side when they hit a coral reef that
Amelia hadn't spotted because she was busy working on brunch while on lookout
duty and...
...and Zelgadis had totally ignored the whole mess. He didn't care
about their little quibbles, and had long since learned that it was best to
stay out of them. Lina, Gourry and Amelia got along like cats in a sack
whenever they weren't united against some common enemy; the day to day
business of questing could be more tiring than any challenges they faced.
Zelgadis was always up for the challenges. For the off-hours, he preferred
to avoid the crew. It made logical sense, after all.
Amelia would get over it. Gourry's sword looked just fine to him.
Phinneas was reluctantly helping, mentioning something about a research
library or something. The only point Zelgadis tuned in for was the critical
one.
"Gourry, Phinneas and I are heading to the cafe," Lina explained.
"Amelia... well, just don't get arrested or blow anything up. Remember, this
place isn't an anarchy."
"I understand, don't worry," Amelia said. "Honestly, Lina, I'm not some
little kid. I'm going to obey the law and be an upstanding guest of this
foreign culture! ...and sorry I stole your spoon this morning, Lina. I
swear I didn't realize I had taken it until you found it up my sleeve..."
Just as Zelgadis thought. Years of pent up childhood mischief unloading
via the subconscious. He was tempted to keep tabs on Amelia today... but he
figured after the last mess, she'd have learned her lesson. She could be a
responsible young adult under normal circumstances. At the very least, she
probably wouldn't get caught.
"Great, great," Lina said. "And Zel...?"
"I'm going to go look for a cure," Zelgadis replied. "It seems you have
things handled sufficiently. I'm not needed."
"I figured as much," Lina replied. "Okay, Phin, where exactly..."
Zelgadis tuned the group out again, and started to walk off. The docks
were very busy at this time of day, with cargo being loaded and unloaded
(usually of the magical-goods variety). An entire island of magical experts,
sorcerers, scientists and merchants... if a cure was to be found, this would
be the place.
Or would not be the place. Because he'd had so many disappointments
over the years that he had accepted never finding what he wanted. It drove
him onward, pulled at him, and he followed the call -- but knew in his heart
it was nearly hopeless. He would never give up. He would simply despair in
his--
"What kind of cure are you looking for?" a disheveled peddler asked,
pausing in wheeling by a small cart of junk and trinkets.
"Chimeric cure," Zelgadis said, not paying a lot of attention.
The peddler fished around in his cart, pulled out a small bag of powder
and puffed a small wad of it in Zelgadis's face.
It didn't even hurt. The skin simply fell away, stone chips flaking off
in under five seconds. His clothes were filled with stone fragments, which
spilled out of his pantlegs and clacked when he walked... a small pile of
rocks had formed at his feet, along with the wires that made up his chimeric
hair.
"That'll be five gold, please," the peddler said, smiling and holding
out a hand for payment.
It took nearly a full minute for this to register with Zelgadis. The
peddler kept his hand out the whole time, of course.
As a test, he pinched his arm.
His fleshy skin went 'ow' back at him. Pinching his arm normally would
result in a sound like two rocks scraping together. It was not a dream.
The arm then grasped the collar of the peddler and shook him violently.
"What did you DO!?!" Zelgadis politely asked.
"C-C-Cured you?" the peddler asked, holding up the bag of powder.
"Standard Johnson's Magical Curse Cure-All... uh... it's not high grade stuff
if you meant you wanted something really first rate, but it's enough to deal
with something as simple as a chimeric--"
"Low grade? You mean to say It's not permanent?" Zelgadis asked,
sinking feeling rising.
"What? No, no! It'll keep. I just meant it probably couldn't revert
from a more complex state, and all... uh... that dose will be five gold."
"How big of a gold piece?" Zelgadis asked, continuing to check for
loopholes.
"Err... normal sized?"
"'Five' doesn't mean 'Nine million' on this island?"
"Pretty sure five means five, sure. Fingers on the hand, see? Wouldn't
have given you the product up front if it wasn't such a piddly sum and I
didn't have such a surplus--"
"And you're not expecting me to go on a year long mission to find the
jade monkey or defeat a brass dragon or something like that?"
"It's, ah, just the five gold, really... err..."
Five gold found its way from Zelgadis's purse to the peddler's hand at a
pace rivaling only the speed of light.
He was cured.
CURED.
"I'm cured!!" he shouted out loud, turning around and darting back to
the Lightfeather. "I'm cured! Lina, Amelia, I'm cured, I'm CURED!"
Lina, who was busy debating city travel with Phinneas, looked up.
Perked an eyebrow. "Really? Wow! Hey, that's great, Zel. Terrific. Look,
we're all going to meet up at the Fork and Knife Inn for dinner if everything
goes as planned, so make sure you're--"
"I'M CURED!"
"Yes, you said that."
"...I was expecting a bigger reaction," Zelgadis said, shock allowing
honestly to flow freely.
"Sorry, I left my cheering fans and confetti on the ship," Amelia said,
a little embarrassed... but smiling wide enough to make up for the minor
problem. "I didn't think I'd need them... but I'm very happy for you,
Zelgadis-san! Hooray! Where'd you find it?"
"Yeah, seriously. It couldn't have just turned up under a rock
somewhere. You've been questing on the side, haven't you?" Lina asked,
bemused. "Anyway, it's good to hear! I'll buy you a cake tonight at dinner
to celebrate, okay? And you only have to pay for half of it!"
"This is terrific!" Zelgadis exclaimed, unable to find more poetic words
to express his joy; the dam of emotion already was bursting, as he did a
Lina-like waving of the arms and ranting. "I've been after this for years
and years, and now it's over! I don't have to look for a cure anymore! I
found one! I don't have to spend the rest of my life raiding temples or
searching libraries or going on crazy quests for... for...."
The eyebrow perked on Lina's face again. "Ah... where are you going
with this exactly, Zel?"
What WAS he saying?
He was saying it was over. The force that drove him onward in his life
was now ancient history. He no longer had to run all over the world looking
for a cure; it found him in the least assuming, cheapest way possible. He
didn't have to find it anymore. He didn't have to quest. He didn't have to
look for the Island of Mists.
He didn't have to be here, he didn't have to go on that ship and he
didn't have to travel with his friends anymore. Zelgadis had always claimed
to only travel with the others as it suited his quest for a cure; now, he
didn't have to do anything. He had nothing left to do with himself. Isn't
that what he was saying?
The headache pounded on like a raging river. He wasn't an emotional
sort of guy, preferring subtle shifts of emotion to crazed swings. The swing
was swinging, and was doing it in a very crazy manner; from uninvolvement to
hopelessness to shock to fear to panic to joy to delight to confusion to
shock again...
His friends were looking at him funny. He'd been quiet too long.
Everything wasn't right, everything was wrong.
"...I have to go think," Zelgadis said, voice not as strong as he'd
wanted it to be.
Lina nodded and turned to leave with her group; she was used to Zelgadis
running off on his own. But Amelia remained, a worried look on her face,
which he had to head off, do it quickly, so he could leave before he could
possibly go to pieces here in front of everyone...
"I have to go think by myself," he corrected. It would have to do; no
other words were coming to him. He turned and walked off, not wanting to
run, but walking quickly. Stone fragments of his old life trailed behind
him, shaken loose from his clothing with each step.
[*]
It's possible that there's something magical about alcohol. Any
building which exists for the sole purpose of selling it to people becomes
like a black hole -- a steel ball on the rubber sheet of the conscious mind.
A mind in the right frame of mood (extremes of despair or delight) naturally
gravitates towards the bar, to expand and expound on that mood.
This means that when you are in a bar, the ones who are singing and
happy and drunk are totally harmless. Even the ones who are complaining
loudly and are angry about something while drunk are harmless. The ones who
are so deep into their mood that they're sitting motionless without saying
anything are the most dangerous ones, and it's a good idea to avoid them.
Especially people who were like that without actually drinking anything.
Zelgadis hadn't ordered one drink; he just needed somewhere to sit and think,
and this bar near dockside was the closest. Or, perhaps he felt that pull...
either way, it was working great for him. Working in that he could sit and
silently run around in circles as he thought about things.
It was silly, of course. Silly and melodramatic and very unlike him.
That made it even worse, since he acknowledged how strange he was acting, and
couldn't stop from acting that way. Everything he knew about his life was
called into question now; who he was, what he was, what kept him going, what
he saw himself as...
Briefly he noticed Amelia had been nudging him. He looked over.
"Ne, ne... it's almost dinnertime," Amelia said. "We're supposed to
meet up at the inn, right?"
Dinnertime? Zelgadis glanced out the window. The sun had made a
definite arc from lunchtime to dinnertime. He just hadn't noticed.
"Are you okay?" Amelia asked.
"Yes?" Zelgadis asked, not meaning to make it a question.
"...I'll go on ahead, and you can catch up," Amelia said, smiling.
"Okay? Remember, Lina promised a cake! And I'll pay for the half she won't.
Honestly, Lina needs to learn generosity!"
And so, Amelia left and Zelgadis did not.
The best way to understand the loop he was locked into was to be a fly
on the wall of his internal dialogue. Nobody in the bar could hear his
thoughts, although on Bloody Dangerous Island that wasn't always a constant,
but they went like this:
'Now, what's the problem?' the calmer, more rational Zelgadis asked.
'The problem is that we're cured," the less rational, more disturbed
Zelgadis replied. "We got cured. Snap of the fingers, the cheapest way
possible, out of the blue. We've done this for years and years and have
never just stumbled across this, and now it's over.'
'That's a good thing, though! We did want a cure.'
'And now what? We keep saying we're a cold hearted swordsman who
doesn't care for anybody who can't help us get a cure! Now what? If that's
what we are, we pack up our stuff and go... home?'
'Need I remind that home was nonexistent after Rezo started dragging us
around the world on our eighth birthday? We don't even remember the street
address.'
'And we don't remember anything! What did we want to do in life? All I
remember is wanting to be strong, and look what mess THAT dropped us in.
We've never had a life of our own until now. Now what? The only thing we
were living for is over! I don't know if I can face that. I don't know what
else to do with our life! Be a mercenary? Settle down? Join an army? I
don't know. I'm stuck.'
'Calm down, okay? We're on a quest. That's a good thing.'
'We WERE on a quest for a cure. For a cure from the Island of Mists.
That's over. We're not on a quest anymore. We should be leaving.'
'But what about the others?'
'I thought we didn't care!'
'We just don't want to admit we care. But it's been such a facade that
we believe in it even if it's not true. Is it too late to change things?
Who are we and what do we want? I don't think I know anymore. Everything is
different. We can figure this out; we have to approach this rationally.
Now, what's the problem?'
'The problem is that we're cured...'
And so on, and so on, and so on.
This is ridiculous, Zelgadis thought on a conscious level. I am acting
foolish. I should get up, go to dinner, laugh and celebrate and get on
with... with whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing now. And I can't. I
can't move. I'm deadlocked...
Normal sounds didn't enter his ears. The comings and goings of bar
patrons weren't an issue. Somehow, he managed to hear this entrance.
Maybe it was the odd tri-step sound of the man who entered. Step step,
clunk. Step step, clunk. Foot foot, cane.
A clearing of a throat.
"I need one able bodied man for a few hours, and I'll pay in good coin!"
he announced.
And was immediately laughed at. Zelgadis didn't hear their words, but
got the meaning; the old man was known here, and nobody was interested in his
offer.
Instead of leaving, the man turned to the one person who hadn't reacted.
"How about you, man? You seem able bodied enough," he said, examining
Zelgadis head to toe.
It's true, Zelgadis thought. I am.
"Besides, doesn't look like you've got anything else to do."
It's true, Zelgadis thought. I don't.
[*]
That's how Zelgadis found himself rowing a dinky rowboat in the light of
the setting sun, the old man sitting at the bow and humming some old song
completely off key.
"It's just because of my back, you see," the man named Al explained for
the third time. "Normally I wouldn't have with makin' somebody else row for
me, but the little lady keeps complainin' if I do it myself and throw my back
out... Little to the left, man. We're straying off course."
With a brief nod, Zelgadis adjusted his rowing. He could feel the blood
pumping, his muscles stretching as he worked the oars... it was an alien
sensation. Stone flesh isn't very responsive; your body is mostly numb as
you move it around. This was like an overload of the senses. Did he feel
like this before the curse? He couldn't remember much before the curse...
"Pretty quiet."
"Yes, it is," Zelgadis replied automatically.
"I meant you," Al replied.
"Oh. Not much to say, I guess," Zelgadis said.
"More like not wantin' to say much. I saw the looks of you in the bar,
man," Al said. "Only two kinds of people in a place like that; overjoyed and
depressed. The loud and ravin' ones, eh, they're nothing special. But the
ones like you who don't have much to say are the interesting ones."
A frown started across Zelgadis's face. He didn't like where this was
going. "I don't have anything interesting to say."
"Of course. After all, you'd never let on what's goin' on in your head
to anybody, friend or total stranger," Al continued, as casual as a man
ordering coffee. "Not in this black funk. No, this is the sort of thing a
man like you prefers to stew in rather than relate to others--"
"Do you do this sort of thing a lot?" Zelgadis asked. "Invite people to
row you out to sea and then peg them with personal questions when they can't
escape without swimming?"
"That's good, that's good," Al iterated, a smile popping up somewhere
under his moustache. "Keep that fire. Keep the spirit up. Doesn't matter
if you're upset at me as long as you're admitting you're upset at something.
And to your question, let's just say if you had nothing else to do, neither
did I. I'd rather spend the night in the company of the potentially
interesting than sitting around my ship bored. So yes, I did single you out,
and yes, you can swim back if you want. If you want to leave an old man at
sea with a bad back and no way to get home. I'm guessin', mind you, you're
not that sort of fellow."
"No, I'm not. But I am the sort of fellow who will shut up and get this
job done without your bizarre probing questions."
"Fair enough," Al said, glancing at the ocean that slid by in the silent
dusk. "I'll leave you alone. Assuming, of course, that you can answer one
simple question for me."
"Yes?"
"If I hadn't come along, what would you be doing right now?"
I'd still be at the bar, Zelgadis didn't want to say. He shouldn't have
been there so long. But he didn't know what else he should have been
doing...
"Look at it this way, if it makes you feel better," Al offered. "I'm a
stranger. Once this job is over, you and I will probably never see each
other again. What can it hurt to tell me what you're too spooked to tell
anybody? At the worst, it doesn't matter one bit. At the best, maybe I can
help you a bit. It'd be the best way to pay you for helpin' me tonight, coin
or no."
"Why do you care?" Zelgadis asked, curious rather than defensive.
"Why not?" Al asked. "I try not to ask the big questions and just live
my life moment to moment. I felt like giving a damn, in this case. Now.
What's on your mind, man?"
[*]
Al wasn't rowing out towards nowhere; he had a destination in mind, a
small place called Another Island. So named because it was Another Island.
Nobody had bothered to explore it since its original naming a thousand
years ago, Al had explained when the pair disembarked from the rowboat. It
was small, it had palm trees with fairly ordinary coconuts, and that was it.
Of no practical use to practical people compared to nearby Bloody Dangerous
Island, so it sat around untouched for a long time.
Which was a shame, because Zelgadis had to admit it was a nice place to
be. Just a small patch of sand and trees, with a spectacular horizon to
horizon view of the sea and stars... bathed in moonlight, you didn't need a
lantern or a lighting spell. You didn't need a chair; the sand was soft
enough, even for his tender flesh. There was nothing to do there except sit
around, enjoy coconut milk, and sit in silence... or talk.
At first, Zelgadis had just provided the capsule summary. He had a
chimeric curse for years, and it ended today. Al seemed satisfied with this
but somehow also got to hear more, about his friends and the quest and so
on... nothing that a potential enemy could use to his advantage, since
Zelgadis was forethinking even in a quasi-midlife crisis. It still totaled
up to more than he figured he would mention.
"It sounds so silly, doesn't it?" Zelgadis asked. "I keep telling
myself that, but..."
"...but it does mean somethin', to you," Al completed. "I get the idea,
yeah."
"It's like my whole life is different now. I know it's just stone
skin... that's why Lina didn't spaz out when she saw. I couldn't believe it
then, but I understand why now; everything about her said 'Okay, so?'. My
friends never really saw me as a monster, or a cursed soul. Now I look
different, sure, but I'm the same person to them..."
"Not the same person inside, then?"
"It's hard to say," Zelgadis said. "Everything about me has been geared
towards getting a cure. Anticipating failure, watching out for people to
backstab me, ditching my friends when it looks like I'm being sidetracked...
things like that.
Al leaned back a bit, to lie down on the sand and sip coconut milk
through the reed straws he'd thoughtfully brought with him. "Mmmhmm. Right.
Gotta fill a role to achieve a life goal."
"And now what?" Zelgadis asked. "If my life is different now, what's it
going to be like? I can't tell. This is out of my control now, and I hate
being out of control... I couldn't control my own damn body, but I could
control everything else. Now it's the other way around. ...I'm even telling
you more than I ever planned to. I think I'm really losing my grip here, Al.
I NEVER lose my grip. I'm always the calm little center the group revolves
around when everything's falling apart, whether Lina wants to admit it or
not..."
"You really do care about your friends, don't you?" Al asked, back
popping as he carefully got back to his feet.
"I do," Zelgadis said. "I keep saying I don't, but... I can't help it.
I want to be strong. To not need anybody else..."
"Bah. That's not strength," Al said. "Never relying on others, never
having any friends... there's nothing strong about that. Sealing yourself
away is just another weakness."
"I guess. I don't know. Everything today has been confusing as hell,"
Zelgadis said, sighing. "So, that's the sob story. Now what? You're the
philosophy master, aren't you? Presumably you're waiting to lay down some--"
Cool white milk poured over Zelgadis's head, wetting his hair and
getting down his shirt.
"Forsooth! I baptize you to be... well, you," Al said, tossing the
empty coconut aside. "Go forth into the world and be yourself. That what
you were expectin'? Mystical enough? Look, man, it's really a lot simpler
than you think. Quit worrying about who you should and shouldn't be, what
you should and shouldn't do."
"But--"
"Don't but me. You should've already known this: life's got no easy
answers," Al said. "I don't mean to chide, but there's only one thing you
can do and that's live your life. You say you were living for a cure? Look
what happens when you live for a goal. A goal is a direction, not a bloody
destination. Otherwise, If you do get what you want, what then? You screech
to a halt like you are now. Zelgadis, go back to your friends. You care for
'em and want them to finish the quest and you know it, cure or no cure.
Figure out how your life should go as you're livin' it. Am I making sense
here or just talking out of my ass?"
Zelgadis shook some of the milk out of his hair. He didn't have to
think real long about this... wasn't this the decision he had reached
already? The rest of the noise in his head was just... noise. It took a
good dosage of reality and coconut milk to wash it away, get to the core. He
cared about his friends. He was going to continue.
"You're making sense," he reassured. "It's... not really going to be as
easy as that, though. I've been living for a goal so long I don't know how
else to live... but I'll figure it out as I go. --oh, geez, I missed dinner!
I was going to meet up with them..."
"Eh, they'll forgive you," Al said, adding a little chuckle. "You know,
if you talked with that Lina girl, she'd probably say the same as me. It's
just common sense, is all. I'm no messiah. Still, you'd have missed this
island if you didn't come. It's a sight few men have seen. People think too
practically, satisfying their needs with means to an end... no time for the
little niceties or new experiences like this. Sad, really."
"It's nice, I'll admit..." Zelgadis said. "I've never bothered to check
the scenery of these islands much during the quest."
"Definitely glad I pulled you out of that bar, then," Al said. "You see
the stars above, man? Every island you go, you see the same stars. They're
fixed. You ever need something solid, something you can say 'My life changes
constantly and I can't be sure where it's goin', but here's something that I
am sure about', you just look starboard."
"You mean up. Starboard's to the right."
"Don't sweat the details, man. Let's get rowin' back. You should be at
your ship by dawn, and your friends'll be waitin'. Like I promised, you'll
get your money and you'll never see me again."
Oddly, Zelgadis felt a pang of remorse at that. But he couldn't hang
around the island; he had a quest to continue, and a ship ready to sail by
morning. Climbing back into the rowboat with Al, he readied the oars, and
set off.
+-------------+
|T|H|E|L|A|D|Y|
+-------------+
Another explosion rocked the vessel; that was two direct hits. The
track record for the Highwater Serpent stated that the ship had never
survived three hits without severe losses.
A decision had to be made.
"Hard to starboard!!" the Lady of the Mists called, keeping a firm grip
on the railing to keep from being tossed overboard. "Take us out of the
battle!"
Kris turned to the Lady, in mild shock. "B-But your cousin, and the
White and Black--"
"Are history," the Lady replied, as the ship tilted, turning sharply
away from the sea battle. "His ships are sinking, and his crews floundering
in the water. He was a fool to challenge Vincent's superior army head on
after losing the silly little contest, so leave him to his fate."
"But the Black and White are losing ships as well! We might be able to
help win the fight for your cousin--"
"If we take one more hit, we may die," the Lady said. "I won't accept
that. There's a point where cowardice ends and logic begins, Kris. Besides,
Vinnie's not my real cousin."
"He's not?"
"It's simply a pet name," the Lady said, relaxing as the sounds of
battle grew distant, the Highwater Serpent limping away at full speed. "If
he can't stand on his own, then it's his own problem. I feel no need to
sacrifice my life, your life and the lives on this ship so his ego can be
stroked. Now, Kris -- damage report."
Getting a damage report was as easy as leaning over the railing and
eyeballing the holes in the ship. Kris did some quick mental mathematics.
"Approximately one thousand gold of damage, ma'am. That's including the
damage to the front of the ship by Lina Inverse we didn't have time to fix.
We're also down to one day's rations and the crew is getting restless..."
"So much for my cousin's financial assistance," the Lady sighed. "We
would not be IN this mess if not for Lina Inverse!... but I digress. Bloody
Dangerous is only a day's sail from here, yes? We'll have to dock there.
The shipyards aren't as good as Dark Island, but we need to drum up some
money and get the repairs done nonetheless."
"But we don't have any money stashed on Bloody Dangerous Island, ma'am."
"We'll run out of food before we get anywhere else," the Lady reminded.
She rubbed her forehead a bit, frowning at the idea of her frowns giving her
wrinkles. "We have no choice, Kris. Give the orders to set sail... I feel
SUCH a headache coming on. I'll retire to my chambers for the time being.
Please drop in with the tea after we're underway."
"My special blend, ma'am?" Kris asked, smiling slightly.
"As usual," the Lady tossed over her shoulder, already making her way to
her cabin.
Despite not being very physically imposing, it was clear that Kris's
captain's-orders-by-proxy were obeyed immediately by the crew. Adjustments
were made to the course, and the final details settled for the trip to Bloody
Dangerous island. From the crow's nest, he watched the smaller girl head to
a cabin at the front of the boat, presumably to fetch tea.
The first mate was of no importance. The captain was the key, Kyle
thought, perched like a hawk on the railing of the crow's nest. (The lookout
on duty saw right through him; Kyle didn't feel like making his presence
known, after all.) The captain, with all that tension, with all those dark
conflicting emotions of loyalty and isolation, duty and revenge...
Perfect. He lit up a cigarette, since he hadn't done so in about
fifteen minutes, and planned his opening move.
Xelloss wasn't completely full of crap. There was no way Kyle could
touch the map, so there was no way Kyle could finish the mission alone. He
would need a human to do the handling for him. A mindless puppet would be
the safest route, but without a consultant, Kyle didn't know where to go
next... what he needed was someone who already was an expert. Someone
already after the map. As an added bonus, someone already willing to fight
Xelloss's darling little bitch Lina Inverse over this.
And if she got killed in the process, there were always other humans.
Flicking the dogend cigarette off into the air, where it incinerated in
a burst of black flame, Kyle jumped from crow's nest to the water. He could
have hitched a free ride by staying onboard, but boats... boats were a silly
human thing. Not his style at all.
[*]
On Dark Island, having no money was not a hindrance to getting ship
repair. Anybody with enough muscle could get their ship repaired and
seaworthy ahead of schedule; it was customary to pay afterwards, mind you,
but it could be done on credit.
Credit was not an option at Bloody Dangerous Island. The name was based
more on the unusually high number of sorcerers and merchants of magical goods
than on criminal hijinks and chaos -- threatening a shipwright with violence
would earn you a night in the slammer, and the very concept of credit was
laughed at. There would be no way to fix the boat, pay the men or get food
without money.
The Lady gave a speech to the men before departing to go on a Quest for
Backing Funds. It centered primarily around time, and how this was a minor
problem that they would be laughing about mere days from now. Over the past
months, the Lady had supplied the group with considerable opportunities for
profit, and many victories -- the future months would be the same. Years
from now, when they were retired and rich, staying with the crew at this
moment will have proven to be the right thing to do.
"How many do you think will desert while we're away?" the Lady had
asked, as she and Kris set off down the docks and into the city.
"None, ma'am."
"None? Please, Kris, you don't have to pamper it. I believe in
realism. No pirate worth his salt would value loyalty over profit, and our
chances at profit are quite slim at the moment."
"I am being realistic, ma'am," Kris had explained. "From what I've
heard, before you joined the Serpent as captain, they had two defections a
week. We haven't had any since you came aboard. The men look up to you as a
leader, ma'am. They'll be loyal."
"...we'll see," the Lady said, not wanting to directly disagree with
Kris. "But I know I would be gone long before this point, if I were them."
The afternoon was spent searching out banks and financiers... the sort
that didn't advertise publicly. Getting money for a pirating vessel on a
fairly straight island was not a simple matter, and after four refusals,
seeming to be completely futile. The Lady's mood sank farther, darker and
darker, with each hour spent in waiting rooms, with each refusal by a
creditor.
It was with much humiliation that the Lady sold the magical amulet she
had bought not a few days ago right back to the merchant she purchased it
from. It came in handy in her fight with Lina Inverse, but now it meant a
square meal for herself and Kris, which was more important. She made a point
to ask Kris to stay outside, not wanting her to see the Lady admitting to
weakness and a need for someone to help her out... but the ruse probably
didn't work. Kris was too sharp not to know why they were making this stop
on the way to dinner.
So it was in the evening time, at the Fork and Knife Inn, that the Lady
gave up her quest for the time being and settled down for dinner in a
secluded corner booth.
For several minutes, the only sounds were the click of utensils on
plates, and the steady tick of an old windup clock on the nearby wall. Few
people were in the restaurant, which was for the best; the Lady was in no
mood to deal with strangers.
Nor was she in the mood to finish her dinner, unlike her usual ravenous
appetite. She slid the last part of her steak away, and leaned back in the
booth, to reflect.
"...ma'am?" Kris asked, immediately sensing a problem. "Your dinner?"
"The steak was overcooked," the Lady said, reaching for her purse. She
counted out several gold onto the table. "Kris, bring these back to the
ship... have the men get rooms at an inn. No sense in spending what could be
the last night as a crew in hammocks when they could get a good night's rest
in a real bed. There's only a few vacancies here, so you and I can share
one; I think there are inns near the docks that will suffice for the others."
Kris didn't go for the money right away. "Ma'am, we should save that
money..."
"It would only extend affairs one more day," the Lady said. "And if
that day is anything like this day, it will prove far too taxing. Unless a
miracle occurs... expect us to start over. We'll drydock the Serpent, work
odd jobs to raise money for repairs and set sail with a new crew someday.
Very disappointing, I realize... if you'd prefer to leave, to join another
crew..."
"Never," Kris said quickly, swiping the money off the table. "I'll make
it so immediately, ma'am."
"I wanted to see the Island of Mists," the Lady said, almost wistfully.
"That is what is truly disappointing, Kris. It was my dream to walk its
shores, and use the power to... I'm not sure what, but I always assumed I'd
know when I got there. It felt right to me. Perhaps that's gone forever,
now."
Kris slid out of the booth, secreting away the money in the infinite
recesses of her baggy shirt. She started to go, but paused. "Ma'am...
you'll make it to the Island. I know you will. And I promise to help you
realize that dream..."
"Thank you," the Lady said, not paying much attention. "Quickly, now.
The crew likely is restless."
She sat still, listening to the tick of the clock, and letting her steak
go cold. This was perhaps the lowest point in her career as a pirate... a
long run of bad luck, derailing her destiny, landing her in the gutter. The
men would leave; they had no reason to stay. But in a way, it made sense to
her, it gave her purpose to singlehandedly work to pull herself out of the
pit she was in... reliance on the self, achieving greatness. True, Kris
would probably stay around, but... she didn't need Kris, not truly need her.
Just as she always presumed.
But as presumably bright as the future was, this moment was the lull at
the bottom. A dark moment in mood and frame of mind, as she sat through
silent minutes, stewing in her own depression...
Perfect.
A shadow floated up to her.
"Got a light?" Kyle asked, tapping a fresh cigarette out from a seaweed
carton.
A flicker of a tiny fire spell sparked to life on the Lady's thumb, as
she lit the cigarette before waving it out.
"Fire spell. Tightly controlled," Kyle recognized. He paused to take a
long drag, and slid into the booth across from the Lady without invitation.
"Good form. You don't see many sorcerers around these islands, do you?
Other than THIS island, of course--"
"I don't recall giving you permission to sit there," the Lady said, not
even looking up, while turning down the temperature without need of an ice
spell.
"I was just cutting through the niceties," Kyle explained, leaning back.
"I figured someone like you would appreciate that. Two people don't have to
mess around with 'Hello', 'How are you', 'How about that weather' or even 'Do
I know you?' when there's more important things to say."
"You, sir, have caught me at a very bad night," the Lady replied,
looking directly at him for the first time. "I am not in the mood for your
little games--"
"That's my point, don't you see?" Kyle asked. "I'm not playing little
games. If I WAS, I'd be all mysterious and smiley and annoying and go out of
my way to pester you with all kinds of useless smalltalk. I'm going to pitch
you an offer, and I want you to take it seriously. First, how badly do you
want to get your ship back in the water?"
"You were eavesdropping on me?" the Lady asked... fingering the release
switch for her spring-loaded hidden pistol.
"I like to think of it as preemptive research," Kyle countered, while
fingering a small bag inside his trenchcoat. "You don't have to go for the
gun. I'm here to give you what want..."
The moneypurse nearly dented the table. It wasn't that the bag was
large; it was simply very, very heavy.
"Solid gold," Kyle said, waving a hand over the bag, and pulling it away
to indicate he had given away claim to it. "I didn't bother cutting it up
into little circular disks but I think you'll find it useful anyway. I'm not
real up on my local economics but that's got to be enough to put you behind
the wheel on your quest once more, keeping you going for weeks. Take it,
it's yours. Go ahead."
The Lady made no motions for the bag, nor did she ease up on her hidden
weapon. She showed no signs of discomfort, no nervousness; it would give her
unusual companion the edge.
"Nothing is free in this world," the Lady spoke. "Anybody with true
generosity, willing to give away such things without exchange of services is
either an idiot or weak or both. You clearly know about me, even if I don't
know about you--"
"You don't need to know about me," Kyle said. "I'm not important."
"--and you obviously want something," the Lady continued, although quite
miffed at the interruption. "If you truly believe in cutting through the
niceties, then you will of course tell me your desire?"
"All I want is for you to find the Island of Mists," Kyle said. "I'd
like to tag along with your crew, but you can say no to that as well; I'll
follow regardless. It doesn't matter to me as long as you get what you want.
Obviously I've got a vested interest in the island too, and no, I can't
promise some lack of backstabbing, except to say I find keeping secrets
childish and there's no real reason for me to turn against you when you're my
best chance at this goal. Is that direct enough?"
The tension wasn't fading, but it wasn't building any longer. There was
a plain sense of honesty here, the Lady could feel... a simple telling of
'This is how it is', no dancing around the issue, no cheap tricks. Certainly
enough room to maneuver a trick into place was present, and there were no
guarantees... but it didn't feel like one.
Something did feel wrong, however. Wrong about this man. He was being
honest; the Lady decided to have faith in that. But the man himself felt
horribly wrong in some way--
"You also should know," Kyle added, "That Lina Inverse is after the
Island of Mists too. What's more, she's already got a piece of the map that
was hidden in the Mainev amulet."
The Lady almost stood up, if not for the table in her way.
"What?!"
"You didn't know, I'm guessing," Kyle said, reading the reaction.
"According to my former consultant, only Vincent knew. Now, Lina knows.
That puts her on equal footing with you, doesn't it? You're going to need an
edge to get a leg up on her now, to get to your dream before she does. I'm
that edge. Unless you'd like to spend weeks serving beers and getting your
ass pinched by drunks trying to get your ship out of hock...?"
The hidden gun long forgotten, the Lady's fist clenched hard, leather of
her glove creaking. Lina Inverse. LINA INVERSE was after the Island of
Mists? It wasn't bad enough that Lina humiliated her, defeated her, sent her
into this spiral of poverty... now Lina had to take away her reason to live?!
Hate pounded through her veins like acid. For some reason, her
companion was smiling at this, and breathing in deeply...
It was all Kyle could do but to rub his hands in glee. The waves of
negative emotion pouring out of this human were tasty indeed; he'd gone a
long time without feeding on the impulses of emotion that Mazoku savored. He
hadn't come here specifically for dinner, and wasn't interested in the
leftover steak, but no need to kick a gift horse in the mouth.
She was vulnerable now. Silent and trembling, the ticking of the nearby
wind up clock the only sound from her side of the table, it was all over.
He'd laid it all on the table, everything except being a Mazoku (he wasn't
stupid enough to mention that), and her acceptance could only be moments
away...
Xelloss would have seen it coming just because it was impossible to see
coming. He knew the chaos that surrounded Lina Inverse, and knew that you
had to stay on your toes. Kyle, who hadn't thought very much about Lina or
her companions since starting this plan, wasn't paying attention as Amelia
and Kris ran by the window, catching the eye of the Lady.
The effect, which he did notice, was immediate. She was already in a
bad position, off kilter emotionally, and something had just triggered a
reaction...
It was a chain of thoughts, to the Lady. Images and sounds that linked
together in some flawless way she couldn't explain.
Her feelings about Lina Inverse.
A brief flash of the young woman she'd met at Dark Island running past
the window, hurrying off somewhere.
The ticking of an old clock. Steady and wooden.
The inn, the meeting, the promise, her quest...
None of it made sense. Everything was spinning out of her control,
everything was falling apart; her dream, her crew, the ship, her mind,
everything... her head reeled, her balance reeling the other direction. The
Lady had to steady herself with a firm hand on the table, getting to her
feet, unable to stay seated...
"You okay?" Kyle asked. But she didn't hear it; she was out the door,
running into the night of Bloody Dangerous Island, chasing something.
Chasing Amelia.
[*]
And it had been going so well, Kyle thought.
One minute he had the human in a great position... logically argued into
siding with him, emotionally distraught, perfect and ready for the picking.
Now, for some bizarre reason, he was flickering through the city trying to
find her after she'd plowed pell-mell into the city streets without as much
as a goodbye.
Kyle didn't pretend to understand humans. They were capable of some
really strange things; random and chaotic, hard to predict. He wasn't stupid
enough to think humans were all weak little morons, like most 'modern' Mazoku
assumed -- that little theory failed to take people like Lina into account.
But he also gave up trying to figure out what makes them after a certain
point, when it seemed to become a glorious waste of time.
All his knowledge of human behavior went into that plan, and it somehow
backfired. He didn't want to resort to crude mind control; it dulled the
emotions and kept him from guiding his subject's dark emotions in the right
direction. If this woman couldn't work with him, though, he'd have to take
measures...
He found her leaning against a cold brick wall, almost sobbing. Again,
this made no sense, but he worked with it as best he could. He flicked to a
shadow just outside the alley she was loitering in, assumed a normal walking
pace, and entered.
The Lady looked up, and immediately shut off the waterworks. She wasn't
fully back to the cold and distant creature of practicality she seemed to be,
but was trying to cover up the weakness.
"Is there something going on here I should know about?" Kyle asked,
wanting to get right to the heart of the matter. "Don't try to cover it up.
If I'm going to be honest with you, you've got to be honest with me, got it?"
"...I thought I saw someone," the Lady simplified. "Out the window.
Someone I've... seen before, although I can't remember where... her name is
Amelia."
"Oh," Kyle said, immediately losing interest. "Of course you met her
before. You've bumped into Lina's gang of misfits."
"That's not what I mean!" the Lady lashed out, with surprising ferocity.
"I've met her BEFORE all that! When I saw her in Lina's raiding party, she
seemed familiar... and at Dark Island, when I finally got a good look, I KNEW
in my heart I knew her. But I only know her name, and... and that's from...
Kris must have told me at some point..."
"So you're freaking out over some girl?" Kyle asked. "I don't get it."
"Neither do I," the Lady spoke, now fully back into the comfort of her
aloof authority figure voice, her poise of confidence. "I suppose it is of
no matter."
Kyle didn't grumble; it would've made him look bad. Whatever, he
thought-- humans were too strange to bother to comprehend. He fished the
gold cube out of his pocket, passing it over to the Lady. "Look... think
about my offer. I don't have time to waste here, and I want to get going as
soon as possible if you accept. I'll meet up with you tomorrow for your--"
The cube vanished, somewhere into the recesses of the Lady's coat.
"I accept," she said. "If Lina Inverse wants to make this personal,
then I'll use every power at my disposal to get to the Island of Mists before
her. This is my destiny. This is what I was born to accomplish. No one
will take that from me."
Thank Shaburanigdo, Kyle thought. "Good. Great. Terrific to hear.
I'll meet you at your ship--"
"You are coming with me," the Lady said, pure commanding power in her
speech. "If you wish to be part of the crew, that means you take my orders.
You'll find me a fair captain, and attentive to your ideas. Specifically...
I want to hear your plan for getting to the goal before Lina does. I want to
know your skills, your abilities, what you bring to the table that will give
me the edge you speak of. If you wish to leave immediately, that's fine;
we'll discuss this in my inn room tonight, establish the next step, and
depart in the morning. Does this agree with you?"
For a moment, Kyle was stunned. This human, this crazy little human was
leading HIM around? Barking orders and explaining how it was going to be and
setting things up in... in an organized manner that the erratic Deep Sea
Dolphin never could?
This is how she kept her crew, he thought. She handled things. The
Lady got things done and got them done hard and fast... you'd never have to
worry about a lack of direction, a weak hand at the helm with that kind of
strength. The Mazoku were creatures of absolute self confidence, a
confidence that the Lady was exhibiting right now, so strong that it almost
radiated like an aura...
"Yes ma'am," Kyle found himself saying. He was even smiling. For a
change, he wasn't going to have to pull everything together on his own to
cover for his mistress's flaws.
[*]
Except for one flaw.
As Kyle sat in a comfortable seat at the Lady's hired lodgings, watching
her refill glass after glass, something became obvious. While she had a firm
foothold in the world of command and decision making, she also had a few
human frailties. Notably, she was in the mood to have a little wine tonight.
He'd accepted just as many cups as she had, and that was probably the
real problem; there was no way the captain would let some new recruit drink
her under the table. He figured it out far too late that it was physically
impossible for him to feel tipsy and very possible for her, in her absolute
self confidence, to get completely wasted in an effort not to look bad.
Kyle did what he could to keep the ball rolling, to establish the ground
rules of their new business venture, but had a feeling he'd end up explaining
them all again the next morning. In a quiet voice, not to antagonize her
hangover to be.
"I'm good with black magic, I guess," he said, answering her question.
"I don't use magic very much. I tend to just figure out what needs to get
done to get what I need."
"Oh, I can appreshiate that," the Lady replied, waving her goblet, as
she paced the floor awkwardly. It was admirable how she tried to carry on
despite her little problem. "That'sh what I do with Krish. She helps me run
the ship by takin' care of the details I can't take care of... I put it in
motion, and it happens. Crew works out great."
"If only my employer were like that," Kyle grumbled. "I swear, my...
usual organization is the antithesis of organization. They're always
bickering and infighting, doing some downright stupid things sometimes...
it's a wonder anything gets done. Sometimes it feels like I'm the only
person around there with more than two thoughts to rub together. But it
doesn't matter... I don't mess with them, they don't mess with me. I'm not
out to make friends here."
"Exactly!" the Lady said, sitting on the bed (and thankfully not missing
it.) "Who needs that?! You gotta pull your own weight, and... and others
hold you back. Things mess up and it all bouncesh back to ya when you've got
people like that, and... and a crew's different, it should be totally
different, not the same. S'like a machine... give the order, get the
reshult... right. Like this. Like you an' me."
"The only thing we need each other for is assistance towards getting
something we both want," Kyle agreed. "Nothing more. I don't give a damn
about you and you don't give a damn about me and it's just fine that way.
Once this is over, we part ways. No harm, no foul."
"I like that, I like that. I do," the Lady said over and over. "No
need to care. No need to feel... 'cause you're gonna help me get what I
deshire. Yer magic an' knowledge and money..."
"I can make it happen, Lady. I can get you everything you desire," Kyle
said, wincing a bit at how silly it sounded, even if it was the truth. "You
know what? I respect someone who sees what they want, and goes after it. No
silly games, no pussyfooting around, just direct action. I had a partner
once who seemed to enjoy making things needlessly complex; for a human,
you're a hell of a lot more sensible than he was."
He tasted a bit more of the wine... or rather, poured it into the trans-
spatial shell that was his body. Xelloss was better at tasting things, Kyle
thought. He trained himself to appreciate human delights. It seemed like a
waste of time to him...
Eyes were looking at him, and occasionally through him when they
defocused. Kyle turned his attention from the wineglass to the Lady, who was
studying him in silence for some purpose.
"Few people understand that, you know," she said quietly. "How desire
works. It's so simple. I know what I want... I get what I want. No
compli... complications. You don't really matter. I like that. I don't... I
don't have to feel anything about you. You could leave or go or die or.. it
wouldn't matter. I'd be safe..."
Was she getting emotional? He thought. "Where are you going with this,
exactly?"
The Lady set down her wineglass.
"There's something I need," she explained.
It didn't sound bad to him. It didn't sound like anything. Human
delights were a waste of time, but he had time to waste until they could set
sail, and it didn't really matter one way or another.
[*]
Hours later, in the stuffy dark silence of the room, a frantic knock
pounded the door. It pounded again, since nobody responded to the first
call.
Feet shuffled to the door, and a drunk, hangover-setting-in Lady of the
Mists twisted the doorknob. She opened the door just a crack, leaning
heavily against the door frame, holding a sheet up for modesty.
"Ma'am! Ma'am! He was here!" Kris was ranting, going on about
something the Lady couldn't follow. The loudness of that voice was headache
inducing...
"It can wait until morning," the Lady decided. She focused a bit, and
tried to figure out what was strange about Kris tonight... "Kris, why are
your hands tangled up in an iron bar? What is that... no, nevermind. It's
late, and I need my rest. You can get another room..."
There was a rustling from inside the darkness of the room.
"Who's at the door?" Kyle asked, from shadow. He pushed the sheet back,
to see.
Kris gaped in silence.
"Nobody," the Lady of the Mists called back, closing the door.
+-----------+
|A|M|E|L|I|A|
+-----------+
The sun was starting to set over Bloody Dangerous Island, and Amelia wil
Tesla Sailoon didn't see what was so bloody dangerous about it.
She'd been having a good time here, quite to the contrary. There were a
number of terrific shops for magical goods, and she had picked up a few items
here and there -- trinkets that might prove handy in fulfilling her geas.
She even paid for most of them. (The others she tried not to think too hard
about, since stealing was bad and against the spirit of love and justice and
clearly she was just having trouble adjusting to normal after that strange
Dark Island, so it had to be excusable on some level etc etc etc...)
If there was anything worrying Amelia, it was Zelgadis. He had wandered
off on his own, which he tended to do a lot, but this felt different to
her... something was bothering him. Something big. She didn't fully
understand, but she didn't have to understand everything in order to feel
sympathy for him. There were plenty of times in her life when she had to
accept a friend's problems, even if she couldn't do anything about them...
Not that she hadn't tried. She had just visited the bar where he was
holed up for most of the day, trying to encourage him to come celebrate with
Lina and the others... but he probably wasn't going to move from that spot.
Amelia had hope that he would, but he barely reacted to her being there, and
that couldn't be good. If he still hadn't shown by the end of dinner, she'd
seek him out again. That'd work, yeah.
RUMMBLLL...
For a moment, Amelia wondered if there was a small earthquake. Then she
realized she had skipped lunch (since nobody would eat her cooking) and was
hungry enough to eat the pavement. Her stomach was simply agreeing with the
sentiment. Very well, on to brighter things; a big dinner, as only Lina knew
how to order! The Fork and Knife Inn must be good if Lina had selected it
personally...
Wait.
Amelia paused in her steps, and glanced over her shoulder... someone had
just brushed past her, but she had been too busy thinking to get a close
look. She glanced over her shoulder, to get a better...
It was that person from the Highwater Serpent's crew!
Amelia quietly crept to a nearby alley, to peek around the corner as the
girl continued to walk towards the docks, the direction Amelia had just come
from. If she was here, then so was the Lady of the Mists, who could be
gunning for Lina... and that meant the island was in trouble!
(The logic being that Lina was rarely ever in actual danger, given her
amazing magical power, but whenever she got into a fight it was bad news for
the surrounding landscape. Amelia was still naive about a few things in
life, but you either learn the ins and out of Lina's standard operating
procedures or die trying.)
The only thing to do was to follow this stranger. How impressed Lina
would be with Amelia's resourcefulness and cunning espionage! They could
learn more about their rivals, information that could help them avoid future
conflicts. Surely this was key to the quest, even if it wasn't! With
renewed enthusiasm and energy, Amelia stalked her prey.
From the rooftops.
She could have crept from shadow to shadow, hiding in alleys and so on,
but... it just didn't feel right to do that. That was the sort of thing a
criminal would do, after all, being all sneaky and menacing and creepy. A
true hero of justice would instead scale up the nearest building by climbing
the rain gutter -- Levitation might be sensed by a skilled mage, and Amelia
wouldn't underestimate her prey -- in order to leap dramatically from rooftop
to rooftop, a silent hawk circling with ever-vigilant eyes!
...it's important to understand something about Amelia.
Clearly, there are some flaws with the whole rooftop chase scene motif.
There's the effort involved, since only the most limber and acrobatic can
work up the speed required for the jumps. It'd be a lot easier to just sneak
around on the ground. It's not that Amelia is too dense to realize this; she
was perfectly aware of this paradox, but to go that route would be against
everything she strove to achieve in life... namely, to adventure with style
and drama like the heroines she admired so much in her youth. Morale is a
key component of a quest, and if she was happier engaging in feats of
derring-do than taking cheap shortcuts and blunt forward approaches, all the
better.
In an ideal world, she could carry on in this manner quite happily
without a care. The problem comes when harsh reality decides to look in her
direction, ask just what the hell she thought she was doing, and promptly
intercede on the behalf of common sense. When this happens, it gives Amelia
a firm grounding in the basics by having her fall face first into the ground,
or in this case, into the very person she was following.
Funny, Amelia thought, as she started going down instead of up, this
alley didn't look THAT wide. And then both girls collapsed into a nasty
little pile of human tragedy.
Fortunately, Amelia was used to this sort of thing and knew just how to
land to avoid crippling injury. Having a body break your fall is a great
start. It's not very pleasant for the human pillow, though.
Amelia got to her feet quickly... and a wave of guilt hit her, as she
realized she'd hurt someone. A larger wave hit when she heard the reaction
to this.
"D-Don't hurt me!" the young lady begged, thinking that was some kind of
kamikaze attack. She scrabbled backwards, leg too hurt to stand on, but
needing to get away. "I'll call out! The Lady will hear!"
"No no! It's okay, I'm one of the good guys!" Amelia said in her
defense.
"...but didn't you and Lina attack us?"
"What, at sea? You attacked us first, you know!" Amelia reminded,
waving the No-No Finger Gesture of Behavioral Correction. "Pirating is bad,
but we mean you no, um, specific harm. Really."
Kris peered at Amelia with suspicion. "Then why were you following me?"
"Oh, I was just spying on you to tell Lina where your boat was!" Amelia
said before realizing how awful that sounded. "Err... I mean... so we could
avoid you guys. Avoid trouble, I mean."
Amelia bit her lip. This could be going SO much better. What could she
do to earn her trust now? If only she had Lina's way with... well, no, if
she had Lina's way with people they'd probably be fighting by now. If only
she had Gourry's way with people! At least, people who didn't use big
words... er. If only she had Zelgadis's... no, Zel wasn't exactly
compassionate to strangers... okay. What would Gracia do? Not the Naga Lina
had described, but Gracia... oh, of course.
Just as she had done last time the two had met, she quickly applied a
healing spell to the twisted ankle.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," Amelia apologized, while applying the spell. "I
meant what I said... we're not after you guys. It's just coincidences, you
know? We're actually on a quest for the Island of Mists!"
"The..? But the Lady is on that quest too!"
Amelia cut the spell; partly because it was finished, partly out of
surprised. "You mean, you guys are...? Uh. Well, um... wow, what an
amazing coincidence!"
"I have to go now," her apparent rival said, getting back up to her
feet... and wobbling a little. "I've got to... ooh..."
"Hey, you need to rest a moment!" Amelia warned. "Healing spells take a
lot out of you. Look... truce? There's a coffee house a block back there.
You really should sit down a few minutes. I'll pay! Please?... I feel awful
about this, really. Everything got messed up. I was spying on you, and then
I fell on you, and now it looks like we're rivals but I really don't want to
be enemies with anyone, and..."
"Kristen."
"--what?"
"My name," Kris said. "My name is Kristen. Kris. Look, you healed me,
and back at Dark Island, you healed the Lady... maybe the Lady and Lina are
rivals, but if you're telling the truth about this, I think I can trust you.
The Lady probably wouldn't like me trusting an enemy, but... I'll take you up
on that offer. I don't want enemies either, and maybe if I know what's going
on, I can convince the Lady that Lina isn't after her."
"Right!" Amelia said, pep returning quickly. "Through peaceful
dialogue, we can come to a mutual understanding! Or at least keep our
friends from bashing each other's brains in. Here, raise one arm..."
Amelia slid in under the arm, to support Kris, and they did the three
legged race to the cafe.
Moments later, someone came looking for them, but they had already moved
on. So he moved on as well.
[*]
It took some careful maneuvering to get through the maze of tables,
couches, and stray chairs that had been scattered around the cafe as if
decorated by tornado. Eventually they found a cozy two seater table off to
the side, and Amelia eased Kris into a chair, before fetching menus for both
of them.
She didn't pay much attention to the decor; when one was in the company
of a guest, a good hostess pays more attention to the guest and accommodates
their needs. Her royal training demanded nothing less, and it was the polite
thing to do regardless. When the waitress came by, she let Kris order first.
"Green tea, with a pinch of honey, please," Kris ordered.
"Really?" Amelia asked. "That's the same thing I usually order... one
for me too, please. Thanks..."
"It's the Lady's favorite," Kris explained. "She has some whenever
she's having a bad day. Calms her down, lets her relax. What's Lina's
favorite blend?"
"Errr... Lina doesn't have a favorite. She'll drink anything you put in
front of her," Amelia said. "Sometimes she'll even check to make sure it's a
beverage, when she's not in a rush. So... I guess we'd better exchange some
information here?"
"I can't tell you where the ship is," Kris warned. "I trust you, but
just in case Lina gets any funny ideas. But how did you get on a quest for
the Island of Mists? Was it a whim or something? I know a lot of people
seek it out, but nobody's ever had evidence..."
"We've got a piece of a map," Amelia said. "My sister found it, and
invited me to join her on a quest to look for the island... but then she was
lost at sea. ...it's okay. It's not the first time I've had a death in the
family, but... now I'm getting depressing. Anyway, the short of it is that
Lina kind of likes the idea of an island of infinite power and money and
stuff, and I'm trying to complete my sister's dream. That's it, really."
"That sounds a bit like the Lady," Kris explained. "It's been her dream
to find the island since she was born, she told me. That's why she took on
this name... also because it sounds spooky and that's a bonus when you're a
pirate. I joined her crew a few months back, and I've been helping her find
the island ever since. We... she's got a piece of the map too."
"Really?" Amelia asked, perking up. "Maybe she and Lina can get
together and compare notes? I mean, if we're all working towards--"
"I don't think it's going to be as easy as that," Kris warned. "The
Lady... well... it's complicated. She never wants to admit she needs help
from anyone. Asking someone she's sworn revenge against for help wouldn't be
possible. She has trouble admitting she needs anyone... but I think we've
got an understanding."
"Are you two sisters?" Amelia asked, curious.
"What? No, no," Kris said, shaking her head. "We're just really
close... I'm first mate of the ship, and her top advisor. Anything she needs
to know, I can find out for her. Anything she needs, I help her get... I owe
her that. She saved my life; if I hadn't joined her, I wouldn't have been
able to escape Dark Island."
"So... you're a servant?"
Kris laughed. "No, I can leave any time I want! I'm faithful to her
but it's my own choice. She'd be lost without me, to tell the truth. I know
she can be cold sometimes and claim she doesn't need anyone but I know in her
heart she does. That's why I stay with her. Like I said... we're close.
She'd never leave me and I'd never leave her, and... um..."
"I can't say I'm THAT close to Lina," Amelia said, with a sigh. "I like
her, don't get me wrong. We're good friends. But we're partners more than
anything else; I swear, she can be so childish sometimes! It's embarrassing.
But at the same time, I look up to her kind of like... well, like I did my
big sister. A mentor and a friend... someone who cares for you. That's why
I want to keep her out of trouble, if I can! Do you think you can convince
the Lady to work with us instead of against us?"
"It sounds like we've both got an interest in keeping them from each
other's throats," Kris decided. "But they're both after the same thing,
Amelia, and from the sounds of it they'd get along like cats in a sack. How
about this... it'll take time, but maybe we can convince them slowly. So
they can adjust to the idea. We'll make a promise to try, and... well, I
don't when we'll meet up again to talk, but I'm sure we will eventually."
"It's all we can do," Amelia agreed, smiling brightly. "Okay. It's a
promise. ...you know, it's funny. Deja vu. Every time I make a big promise
like this, I'm in some kind of tavern. Maybe it's just because we're always
having big dinners, but maybe--"
Amelia vanished.
Kris blinked a few times, and peered around the table, wondering where
she went... before she found herself pulled under the table by a strong grip,
under the tablecloth.
Shhhh, Amelia whispered, pressing a finger to her lips. Something was
wrong; the young girl was pale, as if she'd seen a ghost. Reaching past
Kris, Amelia raised the tablecloth slightly, motioning for Kris to look...
...at the figure in a white robe and a crooked walking staff, who was
talking to their waitress at the door, and holding up a picture of Amelia.
Exchanging words... right before the waitress pointed to their table.
"H-Him?" Kris whispered. "The one who attacked Lina and the Lady during
that fight? Wh-what's he doing here??"
"Looking for me," Amelia said, trying not to sound as scared as Kris
was. "We've got to get out of here! Do you know this place? Is there a
back door?"
Flicking through her mental index of knowledge about the islands, Kris
searched for a way out... and nodded. "Behind the bathrooms and next to the
napkin dispenser. About... twenty feet that way."
"On three, crawl as fast as you can," Amelia said. "One, two--"
The tablecloth whipped off the table so fast that it didn't disturb the
teacups on top of it.
"RUN!" Amelia yelled.
[*]
There's a certain amount of animal instinct built into humans. When
hungry, eat. When sad, cry. When chased, run.
Amelia didn't look back once, pounding along the cobblestones of Bloody
Dangerous Island. She covered block after block, thankful that Kris's ankle
had been rested enough; she was able to keep up. Out of the cafe, past the
Fork and Knife, farther, hoping that the hunter wouldn't catch up--
She had forgotten she could just take to the air with a Raywing and
escape. But it wouldn't have mattered, because when Amelia DID look back to
check, she didn't see him. He was standing in her path instead.
Amelia collided head on, and fell back; the man didn't budge in the
slightest. She quickly waved for Kris to keep running, but unfortunately
Kris had made a judgement error to stop and make sure Amelia was okay... and
now it was too late.
This was the man who went toe to toe with Lina, Gourry and Zelgadis at
the same time. The one who handily defeated the whole group. The moment
flickered across Amelia's eyes, as she came face to face with him... for the
second time. That moment he looked at her, eyes as empty as holes, feeling
those eyes studying her in a way that felt almost hungry...
They'd only 'won' because he chose to vanish. Now he was here, and
Amelia knew she was out classed... but she wouldn't go down without a fight.
She especially wouldn't let him hurt her new friend without doing something
about it...
Dark thoughts weren't strangers to Amelia. She just never admitted to
them, always exhibiting a cheery personality. As she charged a spell,
something, anything to stop this guy, she briefly wondered if she'd see her
sister soon--
Her spell shattered with a flick of his fingers, Flow Break annihilating
the energy in her hands before it could be used. But then, in a surprise,
she found herself lulled to sleep by his magic instead of killed. Resistance
was useless; she fell into the sleep like a comfortable pillow, grateful for
it in one way, terrified in another.
[*]
Amelia didn't wake naturally. Someone woke her.
She sat bolt upright, the fear from her last thought carrying over to
the next thought. This was not the street; this was somewhere else.
Somewhere VERY different.
For some reason, she was in a church. It had all the earmarks of a
church; domed ceilings, pews (which were uncomfortable to sleep on, unless a
spell was keeping you under), stone pillars, stained glass windows, and so
on... but it clearly had seen better days. Stonework was dusty and
crumbling. The windows had suffered many cracks, moonlight streaming in
through the golden frames that used to contain colored glass. The temple was
a ruin, shell sturdy but innards falling apart...
And he was kneeling in front of her. Amelia backed up hurriedly,
pressing into a corner of the pew...
"No, no..." he spoke. "It's... everything is fine. You have nothing to
fear. I'm not a demon. I'm sorry we had to meet like this... Amelia wil
Tesla Sailoon."
"...h-how do you know my name?" Amelia asked.
The hunter pushed back his robe's hood... revealing what seemed to be a
young boy, with a very open and honest face. Pointed ears, very elflike...
but the eyes, the eyes looked perfectly normal but felt so empty... like
holes Amelia could just fall into... she looked down, to avoid that stare.
She looked at his smile instead.
"I know everything about you," he said. "You are one of the Entrusted.
My name is Mortimer. I'm glad I could speak to you before things got...
got... word, word... complicated. Please don't be afraid. I am your
protector."
Amelia quickly looked around, looking for exits... and finding none.
The windows above still had solid frames and cutouts for the glass, which
she'd have to fly up to; no way to get there quickly. The only other exit
was the main entrance, a forboding set of double doors...
Plus, there were the large men to worry about. Two of them, built in
the same way buildings are constructed; they stood like a living wall of
muscle, expressionless faces, seafarer's clothing. They weren't even
blinking.
"Oh... don't worry, they're safe," Mortimer explained, nothing Amelia's
gaze wandering. "Flesh golems. They're here to keep us safe. They run my
ship. Don't worry, I locked the doors and nobody can hurt you here. This is
a sanctuary of Ceipheed. It's not in good shape because the humans have lost
their direction, but it's still orihalcon laced. You're safe. Don't worry.
You're safe. I'm repeating myself, I'm sorry, it's been so long since I
tried to have a conversation with anybody but a shopkeeper... I'm not used to
speaking..."
"R-Right," Amelia said, playing along for now. "I'm glad I'm safe,
Mr... Mortimer? Ah. Why did you chase me and put me to sleep?"
"Because I had to keep you safe," Mortimer explained. "I didn't know
you were with Lina Inverse. I'm sorry I put you at risk the first time I met
you. But I wanted to talk with you about... about... reason? Causes?
Reason why you're doing what you're doing, Entrusted. I don't understand
this--"
"Where's Kris?" Amelia asked, getting stronger. If this guy was going
to be passive, she could afford not to be totally timid... maybe he wouldn't
like her getting upset, if he was protecting her. "What did you do to her??"
"She's over there," Mortimer said, not batting an eye at the raised
voice. He gestured... to a stone pillar, where an iron candleholder had been
emptied, with Kris's wrists locked into it instead. Fortunately for the
skittery girl, Kris was still asleep. "I made sure she's perfectly safe too.
Listen, Amelia wil Tesla Sailoon, I need to ask you questions."
"Right... okay... questions? What questions?" Amelia asked, thinking
fast. She didn't like this. It was a spooky place with a scary guy whose
stare was making her feel like she was being touched and she wanted to leave
very badly...
"Why are you seeking the island?" Mortimer asked. "We Entrusted you to
keep the map safe. You and the other four families, over a thousand years
ago. But you're helping Lina Inverse find the island. You knew the island
had to stay hidden forever, you knew the Dragons asked that of the Sailoon
family. Why? Amelia, why?"
"Oh... well, you see... we're just making sure the map pieces are safe,"
Amelia lamely countered. "You know. Part of the agreement. A thousand
years ago? Five families? That's what sister's research showed, actually...
ah. Well, listen, you really should let me go--"
"You're not a prisoner," Mortimer quickly said, leaning in closer... "I
wouldn't do that. The doors are locked to keep the rest of the humans out so
they can't hurt you."
"Right. I really appreciate that, I do. But I have to leave now,"
Amelia said, sliding out of the pew and away from him. "So, ah, as one of
the Entrusted that means you won't stop me, right?"
"I would never harm you," Mortimer emphasized, standing and walking
after her. "My duty is to protect the island and those Entrusted to keep it
from threatening the world... but Lina isn't of your family. She's not of
any of the five families. She has to be stopped. She has to be stopped.
You understand? I have to stop her. You can come with me. I can take you
home so you don't need to see this. I have to stop her and it's going to be
violent and I'm not a bad man but you don't have to see that."
"Wait, wait, what about Kris?" Amelia asked. "You said you're keeping
her safe! She must be from those families!"
"...no, she isn't," Mortimer said, pausing in his steps. "Nor is...
well, maybe... I don't know yet. Actually, I need the human Kristen to help
feed my crew. I've been at sea so long, and they need to be replenished
often... fish don't work anymore... you don't have to see that, it's okay.
I'll take you back to your home in Sailoon now. Although... if you want to
come with me, you can. I've been alone at sea so long. I don't need anyone
to help with the duty, I've never needed anyone. But I could practice my
talking. I should. The duty is all but I'm talking to myself more to make
sure I stay in practice, and the golems never talk back..."
Amelia was not dense, as has been noted. Optimistic and idealistic,
naive at times, but not dense. Under fire the brain can work doublequick,
desperation latching onto survival instinct and tag teaming to keep yourself
alive and well.
The writing was on the wall; this elf was a psychopath and was
determined to hunt them all down... all except her. When he looked at her,
she could feel he wanted her to stay, wanted it very badly. She did not want
to stay. She had to get out of here. Get out of here NOW.
Summoning up all the courage she had, all the spirit she could muster...
she threw herself at him. Wrapping her arms around his cold, cold body, and
speaking...
"I'm SO glad you're protecting me," she said. "Listen... please, I've
been very scared tonight. I need some water or I'll simply pass out. Then
we can go back to Sailoon, okay?"
"...okay," Mortimer said, a little surprised. He detangled himself.
"I'll send my golems for--"
"No, you should go yourself," Amelia suggested. "I need them here to
protect me. Please? Please? For me?"
For some reason, Mortimer was blushing slightly.
"Okay," he said dumbly, and turned to go. He blurred into shadow,
falling through the darkness cast by a pew, and vanished.
Taking a sigh of relief, Amelia flipped the key to the main doors around
from the palm of her hand to a ready position. It was easier than taking
Lina's fork, in a lot of ways. But now was the hard part.
Before the golems could react, she was across the church floor and to
the pillar where Kris was hanging around. One EXTREMELY tight Dill Brand,
and the pillar shattered into dust -- Amelia hauled Kris over one shoulder,
wrapped the Raywing spell around the both of them, and bolted for the doors.
The building had Orihalcon between the bricks of the outer walls; that's
why the glass windows had golden frames. There was no way she could have
blown the doors apart, but with a key, freedom was just a twist away.
The golems were moving now... probably to 'protect' her. But her sister
was a golem expert, and Amelia learned quite a lot from her; there was no way
the lumbering oafs could reach her. She shoved the doors of the church open,
and...
And there was Mortimer, with a glass of water.
No time to cover up. She cranked up the power of the flight spell and
took to the sky, hoping it would be enough to lose him.
Like earlier in the night, running into the darkness, not looking back,
not wanting to see if the hunter was on your trail... reverting to the same
little girl who sat in terror on stormy nights, far from the bold and stylish
dramatic heroine she wanted to be...
After a minute, she did look back.
He was gone. As simply as he had vanished at Dark Island. No
explanation given.
It didn't stop her from flying right back to the Fork and Knife inn, and
setting down on the building behind a rooftop water tower. She peered around
to make absolutely certain they hadn't been followed... then cast Flow Break
to wake up Kris.
Kris awoke with a short cry out in fear, before Amelia shhed her.
"He's gone," Amelia said. "I don't know why or how, but he's gone."
"...what happened?" Kris asked, holding up her arms. "What's this thing
doing around my wrists?"
It was a concise summary; Amelia tried not to sound shaky as she related
the night's events. She could see her own fear reflected in Kris... although
with a hint of relief, since Kris didn't have to experience it first hand.
She got to sleep through it.
"He's probably going to be after you and your crew too," Amelia warned.
"He's hunting down anybody who's after the island. That's why he attacked
Lina and the Lady at Dark Island. Look... I've got to get back to my ship
and tell Lina this. Maybe we can find a way to stop him. I'll get in touch
with you again as soon as I can. Okay?"
"Y-Yes," Kris agreed. "I'll... the Lady is in a room downstairs. I'll
hurry and go tell her what's going on. Maybe we should leave tonight?"
Amelia looked skyward... and frowned. "Maybe. I don't know. He could
have caught us, but he stopped... I still don't understand all of this..."
"I don't have to understand it to know it's bad news," Kris said,
stepping back. "I've got to go tell the Lady. I'll see you soon, I hope."
The two exchanged very brief goodbyes, and Amelia took to the sky again,
making a beeline for the Lightfeather. She'd forgotten to help Kris out of
the candleholder, in her rush; hopefully the Lady could take care of that...
Nobody was aboard the ship. other than Phinneas, who was asleep. She'd
have to stay up and wait for Lina, and tell her about this. Amelia wil Tesla
Sailoon sat in her hammock, trying to be alert, trying to be ready... until
the exhaustion of the night, the fear she'd experienced, everything piled on
too hard and she fell asleep. Strength reserves did indeed have their
limits.
It was not a sleep of pleasant dreams, and didn't end until midmorning
the next day. Until then, she dreamed she was chained to a boat, floating
endlessly for hundreds of years... a perfect isolation. No friends, no
family, needing for no one... with nothing to hear but the sounds in your own
head. She shivered despite the warm air of the night. Somehow, it felt like
it was all her fault.
+---------------+
|P|H|I|N|N|E|A|S|
+---------------+
One man's nonsense is another man's epiphany. Disparate moments in time
are useless out of context, but provide a strange sort of poetry in motion
nonetheless. Meaning can be interpreted in the void of detail; purpose can
be implied. It serves a role, regardless of the futility in its
presentation.
For Phinneas of the Lightfeather, there is one moment where past,
present and future met. It was not a redefining moment or a turning point,
but it could be considered a natural progression.
In a room where the stars were on the inside and the sky was on the
outside, he faced his maker and was able to ask the question mankind has
struggled with since the first days of the world, when it was generated from
the Sea of Chaos and given life...
"Why did ye do it?" Phinneas asked.
"Why does it matter?" she asked, resting her hands on one knee, watching
the small bird intently. Their eye levels were equal.
"It matters to me," Phinneas responded. "Bloody well matters.
Everything's got a reason to exist. Ships exist to sail, air exists to be
breathed, and so on. I don't got a reason, and that's thanks to ye. Why'd
ye do it? Why'd ye give me this damn brain and voicebox, anyway?"
"You're looking at the ends, not the means," she spoke, warmth in voice
instead of the cold distance the accusation would imply. "But I'm curious.
You have a theory already, don't you? As to why you exist."
"Should be obvious," Phinneas scoffed, fluttering his wings angrily.
"Makin' a fancy pet. Plyin' yer skills for the money and nothin' more. A
toy for my captain, har har, look at the smart parrot, it knows what it's
sayin'."
"But you aren't that now, are you, Phinneas? You haven't been that for
a long time."
"That's besides the point! That's why ye did it, didn't ye? Ye didn't
give two bits of carin' about what happened after that, about me!"
"You're right," she said, with a slight nod.
"HA! See?! I--"
"I didn't assign you a reason to exist," she continued. "That's because
I didn't feel it was my right to do that. It's true that you were made as a
custom order by the captain of the Lightfeather for a mascot, but nothing
beyond that point in time was set in stone. I made you, but the creator
isn't responsible for the creation's desires. A creation can never be alive
if it doesn't have a will of its own. Did I make you to be a toy or a pet?
No. I made you to be whatever it was you would become. So you're right; I
didn't care, I didn't have a specific purpose in mind."
Feathers flapped in the body language of rage. "That's even MORE
irresponsible!! Tossin' me to the winds?!"
"I think it's the only responsible thing I could have done," she said
quietly. "If I had forced your destiny, you wouldn't be what you are now.
Captain of your own ship. Seeking independence, seeking your reason to
exist. Finding your own desires in life and becoming what you want to be.
Can you deny that you've surpassed any limitations you've faced? That you've
carved your own future?"
The ruffling slowed. "I can't... deny, as such," Phinneas spoke. "I've
done what I wish with my life. It ain't been easy but I done it all the
same. No thanks to ye."
"That's quite alright," she said. "The only one you truly must thank is
yourself."
"So where do I go from here?" Phinneas asked. "Keep pickin' up
temporary crews, shippin' stuff and gettin' money? Over and over? Yer the
bloody philosopher, aren't ye, Alena? Give me the answer, then."
"A wise man once said there are no easy answers," she spoke. "I don't
have any such answers for you. There's only one thing you can do, and that's
to live your life. Beyond that, I leave it up to you to find your own way."
+-------+
|L|I|N|A|
+-------+
For someone who had turned the act of whining into a fine art, Lina
Inverse was quite silent on the subject of hard work... from time to time.
Nobody would ever tell it to her face, but Lina did whine a lot. If she
had to walk a few miles between towns on a hot day, she whined. If she
wasn't fed and watered regularly, she whined. If some bandit got up in her
face and laughed at her and called her a little girl, she... well, typically
she maimed him. But she would whine about it after the fact that nobody was
taking her seriously, and how she felt about this.
The important distinction between these things and the times Lina rolled
up her sleeves and got the job done was that from time to time, she just had
to roll up her sleeves and get the job done. When you're in a life or death
situation, you don't have time to bemoan your fate. When some long, annoying
task must be completed in order to avoid having your life stalled, it was
time to get cracking. Lina was a firm believer in taking care of business,
in getting things DONE... at least, when she wasn't excessively irritated.
The Lightfeather rocked gently in calm seas, sailing on into the night
towards Bloody Dangerous Island. The others were busy playing cards or
chatting or whatever -- leaving Lina alone in peace and quiet to get to work.
Definitely a non-irritating situation... although the work itself was
starting to chafe at the nerves.
This map piece to the treasure of the Island of Mists (assuming it was a
map) (assuming her theory about the pieces was correct) (assuming this was
not a mythical wild goose chase for a nonexistent treasure) (assuming the
island had some mist around it) was the problem. The slip of paper from the
Mainev amulet seemed simple enough, five elven symbols on crackly old
paper... put together with the previous words, it read:
'Island/Mists' 'Infinite Wealth' 'Infinite Power' 'Reversal of Death'
'But...' 'NonGod/NonDemon' 'Guardian' 'And' 'Control/Loose' 'Danger'
Or in a slightly dodgy translation to human words, 'The Island of Mists
holds infinite wealth and power and death has no dominion there, but it's
only accessible to humans, has a designated protector, and if uncontrolled
can cause great danger.' Basically, a 'You're in over your head, beat it or
else' warning which Lina by tradition completely ignored.
So, the actual text wasn't the problem. The problem was the magic.
Magic swirled around the paper, that Lina was sure of. It was a twisted
blend of white and black power that she'd never seen before -- something
designed as a nasty little defensive measure, but for some reason allowed her
to touch the paper without so much as a scratch. And yet, the white/black
razor wire cage around the paper wasn't actually the strangest part... it was
the magic trapped in that cage which made no sense, because it wasn't magic
while being extremely magical.
It felt like raw power. Energy flows through the world in raw, untamed
form -- energy that can be funneled by Chaos Words into spells. But this was
a different flavor of raw magic. It was magic that seemed to be preprocessed
into a new form while having remained totally untouched. It felt vaguely
like the Laguna Blade, only nothing like it. Like the edge of a Giga Slave
without actually having anything to do with specific destruction. It was...
it...
Talking about magic usually dipped heavily into the bucket of metaphors.
When that failed you had to start using paradox in liberal doses. If paradox
failed to explain things adequately, you got the old joke about inserting
'And then magic happens' into a mathematical formula before moving on to
studying something more mundane like quantum reality physics.
Lina didn't have that option. She had one live bit of the map and one
copied bit of the map, and the goal was to generate a new sliver of the map
from the copy. Without that, they were sunk; clearly the pieces of the map
were meant to work together, and with Naga's original getting burnt to a
crisp there was no other choice.
Not that she would admit it to anyone, but was completely stumped.
Lina leaned back in her chair, away from the work desk, away from the
perplexing papers. Well, Lina, this is why you asked Phinneas to head for
Bloody Dangerous Island, wasn't it? she thought. So you could talk to the
magical gurus there, see if they had any clues. Because you alone are not
enough to get the job done, as irritating as that may be...
She slumped forward, poking at the paper uselessly. The whine came
unbidden, as she felt overwhelmed with frustration.
"I could SO go for some hot chocolate about now," she mumbled.
"Something sweet to make this failure less bitter..."
The door to the cabin swung open, a cheerful Amelia wandering in.
"Lii-na!" she chimed, like some bright and sunny songbird. "I figured
you were probably getting tired in here, and could use a little pick-me-up!"
"If it's more of your Sugared Ham Delight Salad Fiesta Mix from dinner,
I'll pass," Lina warned.
The mug of hot chocolate slid into her view, as Amelia set it down in
front of her.
"We don't have any marshmallows, but this should do at least some of the
trick!" Amelia joked. "Enjoy! ...ah... Lina, why are you staring at me like
that?..."
Just a coincidence, part of Lina thought. And every time you think
'just a coincidence' nine times out of ten it's some critically important,
NON-coincidental thing that you're overlooking which will bite you in the ass
later, the majority-share of Lina thought.
As a proving experiment, she touched the Mainev map piece with one
finger before speaking.
"You sure there weren't any marshmallows?" Lina asked.
Amelia thought about it, tapping her chin with a finger. "Weeeeeelll...
actually, I did buy some while we were at Dark Island, but... I was going to
save them for a beach picnic weenie roast! Those were always fun when I was
a kid and here we are going to all these islands, and as morale officer of
the ship I figured eventually we might need our spirits lifted by--"
Not enough. "What I really could use right now," Lina said, picking her
words carefully and envisioning them firmly in her mind, "Is a blue mouthed
sea bass roasted in a light Zeifeilian wine sauce and served with a side of
brownroot pasta like they exclusively serve at the Saucy Mare Tavern in
Atlass City."
"I've got some cooking right now," Amelia said. "It'll be a few
minutes, though--"
Lina quickly lifted her finger off the map piece.
"Naah, that's fine," Lina said. "Thanks for the chocolate. I'll be up
for the food soon."
Amelia left after saying something perky Lina didn't pay attention to.
Two thoughts bounced around inside her head: One, the elven warning on the
Mainev paper. It COULD be interpreted as 'If you lose control, it would be
bad.' The other thought was that Vincent Mainev always had things go his way
if he stroked the paper when thinking of his deal...
The human mind typically has many thoughts bouncing around at the same
time. The desire for hot chocolate may be one. A stray memory of facing
down Shaburanigdo could be another.
The map, unfortunately, might not pick the tasty beverage.
Of course, the odds of this little bit of paper summoning the Demon King
were low -- Vincent would've met a horrifying end or become ruler of the
world long ago if it was capable of granting ANY wish whatsoever. Under
normal circumstances, a 'wish paper' would be an incredible temptation for
Lina Inverse... still, no matter how hard she lusted after money and power
and fame and so on, there are some things you don't casually screw around
with.
The map pieces went back in the Orihalcon amulet, sealed and safe from
the possibility of a stray thought making life VERY complicated. Good thing
we're going to the island, Lina thought. Damned if I'm going to experiment
with this thing before I learn more about it.
Good food was cooking upstairs, from the smell of it. No sense in
kicking a gift horse in the mouth. Lina slipped the amulet with both papers
back around her neck, and headed above decks.
[*]
A series of small annoyances mounted up to the point where Lina felt
perfectly justified in whining. First, Gourry insisted that they stop at a
small island settlement so he could grab some sword polish -- the Unequalizer
had taken a few scrapes in the brawl with that weird kid. Taking this side
trip tacked some extra hours onto their trip, though... and it proved to be
for naught when he dropped the polish overboard after they struck a reef.
The term 'Comedy of Errors' only applies to the audience; for the ones
experiencing those errors up front, there's not a damn funny thing about
them. But even Lina could tell when she was getting too annoyed at little
things... after some initial bickering and calling Gourry some names, she
toned it down. Kept cool. She had FAR more important things to worry
about... like the combination godsend/deathtrap hanging around her neck.
When they arrived at the island itself, Lina kept things nice and
businesslike. Cut to the heart of the matter, get things done. Zelgadis,
bored with Lina's little errand, wandered off; but that was to be expected.
She turned to face Phinneas, who would be playing guide and chaperone once
more.
"Okay, Phin, where exactly is this place and what exactly is it?" Lina
asked. "We're running a little late, and we've got to get moving."
"Look, I make no promises 'bout this bein' the best place to find
whatsit, magical experts. Okay?" Phinneas warned. "I don't know this island
that well, just a few places, few people... includin' this one. She runs a
sort of coffee bar and library near the middle of the city, and plenty of
magic-folk hang out there."
"Good drinks and thick, ancient books crammed with spells?" Lina
inferred. "Sounds like a plan! We'll meet later at the Fork and Knife Inn
that Phinneas had recommended. Gourry, you're with me, Amelia, maybe you can
head off and sight-see with Zelg... where'd he run off to?"
It wasn't that Lina was surprised at Zelgadis's absence. She was
surprised not to see him nearby. He didn't run THAT fast, and he wasn't
exactly hard to spot in a crowd... but there were no blue-green chimeras
loitering around all cool and ominously silent-like. There was some guy with
crazy hair running at her waving his arms and shouting something...
The first instinct was to launch a fireball, since raving loons are
usually not people you'd want to become intimate friends with anyway. But
her second instinct was to look a little more carefully at the loon...
Funny, how he looked like Zelgadis.
"I'm cured!!" he was shouting, over and over. "I'm cured! Lina,
Amelia, I'm cured, I'm CURED!"
Now, that was unexpected. Lina gave him a suspicious look, since you
can't be too careful these days and Zel wasn't prone to outbursts like
that... but there wasn't any denying it. Change the skin color and add a few
more lumps and you'd get the same chimera she knew by heart.
"Really? Wow! Hey, that's great, Zel," she complemented. "Terrific.
Look, we're all going to meet up at the Fork and Knife Inn for dinner if
everything goes as planned, so make sure you're--"
"I'M CURED!" he repeated.
"Yes, you said that," Lina acknowledged.
"...I was expecting a bigger reaction," Zelgadis said.
Lina kicked herself mentally. Bad Lina! Way too focused here; too busy
taking care of business to react properly to her friend's success...
Amelia didn't help matters. She fingered her pockets, but other than
some loose objects and things she'd stolen from Lina, she couldn't find her
equipment for emotionally dramatic reactions. "Sorry, I left my cheering
fans and confetti on the ship... I didn't think I'd need them... but I'm very
happy for you, Zelgadis-san! Hooray! Where'd you find it?"
"Yeah, seriously," Lina asked. "It couldn't have just turned up under a
rock somewhere. You've been questing on the side, haven't you?..." No, no.
Too businesslike again... change the tone. "Anyway, it's good to hear! I'll
buy you a cake tonight at dinner to celebrate, okay? And you only have to
pay for half of it!"
Zelgadis probably didn't hear half of that; he was soaked in liquid joy,
euphoric and slightly dazed. "This is terrific!! I've been after this for
years and years, and now it's over! I don't have to look for a cure anymore!
I found one! I don't have to spend the rest of my life raiding temples or
searching libraries or going on crazy quests for... for...."
"Ah... where are you going with this exactly, Zel?" Lina asked, curious.
And Zel went quiet. It was a bizarre downshift... sliding from bliss to
confusion to concentration to panic to surprise to... despair? Not that Lina
could tell what he was thinking, she had to observe it from the outside...
but the silence was deafening.
"...I have to go think," Zelgadis said, voice surprisingly timid.
That overloaded the Weird-O-Meter. It's best to let him work this out,
whatever is bugging him, Lina thought. Maybe it's good to stay focused on
her own problems for now... talk to Zel after dinner, when he's had time to
settle.
"...anyway," Lina continued, addressing the blonde-haired and the green-
feathered. "Let's get moving."
Gourry didn't look too sure of this. "Lina, what about--"
"He doesn't like us following him when he needs to think," Lina said,
watching him walk away out of the corner of her eye. "I'd call getting cured
something he needs to think about real hard, wouldn't you? Tonight I'll buy
him a cake and everything'll be better. Always works for me."
[*]
There's a sort of hardcore road mentality common amoung the experienced
hero types... the kind of person that can walk for ninety miles and chew road
gravel for dinner. Veterans like these all say the same thing : Size up your
surroundings as soon as you can. Of course, because they've all been eating
rocks, it comes out as a series of pained wheezes and sputterings of coughed
up blood.
Lina (who prefered to eat meats and vegetables) knew this by heart.
Moments after landing at Ordinary Island she had already devised a mental map
of the place, and some feasible theories on how to survive there (don't eat
the red yogurt). On her first stroll through Dark Island, she was very aware
of her surroundings and all the hidden, nasty people who she made sure to
glare at so they realized that they may be nasty but they weren't very well
hidden.
As she walked the streets of Bloody Dangerous Island, however, something
felt very wrong.
"What's so bloody dangerous about it?" she wondered aloud.
When she got no response, she repeated herself. Phinneas stopped
flapping along in silence, covering quickly for his lapse in hearing with a
quick response. "S'covered in magical types, that's why," he said. "Magic's
not all that common around here. Lot of folks fear the stuff."
"Yeah, but... come on!" Lina complained, gesturing to the carts and
shops they passed. All business was conducted in broad daylight, and done in
without hushed whispers or dramatic posturing... all very orderly and
uninteresting to the passer-by. "This is all so tame. Where are the
sorcerors? These guys aren't hurling around fireballs or testing out
lightning spells in public. I haven't seen ONE out of control golem tearing
the place apart since we got here! We've got bake sales in Zeifelia that are
scarier than this!"
"I dunno, Lina," Gourry commented, pausing at a display rack of amulets.
"These names are pretty spooky. I haven't even HEARD of this stuff before."
Lina rolled her eyes. "Gourry, even if you had heard of it, it would've
rolled out your ears in a trickle shortly after."
"I'm serious, this stuff is really weird!" Gourry protested, poking at
an amulet -- which failed to explode, fortunately. "Magic stuff is like
fireballs and ice shots and lightning zappers, right? What's a... trans-mog-
roo-fi-er?"
"That's simple! It's..." Lina started, before realizing she had no
idea. She backtracked a few steps, to examine the goods... and her brow
furrowed 2.4 times. "Transmogrification amplifiers? Thaumatological radial-
sensitive parabolic conductors? And what the hell is a 'quantum'? It's on
half this stuff!"
Phinneas perched neatly on Gourry's head, lacking anywhere safer to
land. "S'how I told ye, isn't it?" he asked. "Really high class magic.
They're researchers, not yer basic run-around-and-blow-stuff-up folk like ye
are, Missy Inverse. I figure anybody who can toss around words with that
many syllables, well, they can help ye better than some two bit mage anywhere
else."
"Pure research wizards," Lina grumbled. "Great. Just great. I HATE
dealing with those guys."
"What's so bad about them?" Gourry asked, since his only experience with
magic-users was of the hyperdestructive kind. "I'm kind of glad this place
is so peaceful, compared to the last island."
"Look, I'm not against cracking open a book and doing the numbers from
time to time, but making a lifestyle of it... it CHANGES people," Lina
intoned ominously. "It makes them DIFFERENT."
"Different how?" Gourry asked, not getting it.
[*]
"And what you and your ignorant little pea-brain aren't REALIZING," the
research wizard continued in whiny nasal tone, "Is that it's not possible for
Mazoku eyes to be any other color, because the eyes are impossible to change
by magic. It's all in the Halciform Intermediate Factbook, look it up."
"EVERYBODY knows that the factbook has a lot of mistranslations and
inaccuracies!" his companion rebutted. "The only real source to count on is
the Creator's Opus As Told To High Priestess Qumpark. Only a clueless first
level NEWBIE who believes in fairy tales would think that eyes can't be
changed--"
"Fairies have a very accurate and reliable compendium of histories, it
should be noted," an only slightly more dignified voice continued. "If you
want to be 100% correct on this you have to take into account the ancient
recordings in papyrus of the Mazoku War--"
"War of the Demon King's Ascension!"
"I'm sorry, but I don't accept that name because it is a modern day
convention rather than a perfect translation," he noted. "Refer to Rezo's
Third Book of Questions for confirmation. Anyway, my point is that what you
two simpletons aren't remembering is how Great Sage Alabaster's Memoirs talk
about his encounter with Phibrizo, and how the Mazoku Lord's eyes shifted
colors not once, but TWICE during the time they spent in..."
'Ding! Brain full!' Gourry's cerebral cortex said. A tiny drip of
saliva started to drool down his chin, as his mind overloaded and he lost
control of voluntary body functions... until Lina nudged him.
"What're you ordering?" she asked again, while looking over her menu.
The Cannonfire Cafe, Phinneas's final destination for the pair, wasn't
really an unpleasant place to be. Great care had been taken to decorating
the place, with padded chairs and cozy little tables, and the occasional sofa
to lounge around on... the problem came with the clientele. More concerned
with debating the logistics of energy manipulation with the shamanistic
practices than pushing their chairs in after having coffee, they could turn
the whole cafe into a maze of furniture and random beverage spills before the
breakfast rush was over.
Not only that, but the group of three research wizards sitting nearby
was slowly but surely making Lina lose control of her Fist of Rage. She
wasn't sure how much longer she could take this.
"That," she continued from an earlier topic, "Is how pure research
wizards are different. Instead of actually USING their magic, they just sit
around talking about it all day."
Gourry tuned the group out; it was mandatory for his continued survival,
since too much of that would make his lungs shut down to allocate more
processor time to crunching the big words. "I see what you mean," he said.
"Ummm... there's nothing but coffee on this menu. What's a 'Lahtey'?"
"Local drink," Phinneas said, using small words for Gourry's benefit.
"Fancy coffee with a lotta fuzz on it. Can't stand the stuff. Give me some
clean water and good seed any day and I'm a happy parrot."
"Look, Phinneas, I appreciate you helping us out but I don't think these
guys are going to be of much use," Lina warned. "If I tried to explain my
little research problem to them I could be here all day while they try to
agree on what to do about it."
Phinneas scoffed. "Give me SOME credit, Missy Inv--"
"Lina."
"Wot?"
"I'm a little sick of you calling me 'missy'," Lina said. "It's close
to 'prissy' which is close to 'bitchy' which is something you don't say
unless you want to be plucked."
"Ye want my help or not?" Phinneas asked simply. "I say missy 'cause I
don't feel I should be informal as to say 'Lina'. Yer in my crew, and I'm
yer captain and like I explain when you got on board I'm not lookin' to make
friends here. So no, I ain't tryin' to insult you. But yer gonna have to
put up with it anyway. I can find another crew, you know--"
"Hey, hey!" Gourry interrupted. "Guys, okay, okay. Misunderstanding.
Lina, he doesn't mean anything by it. Phinneas, you were saying...?"
"I was SAYIN'," Phinneas said, adding a nasty pause in between 'sayin'
and his next word, "Give me some credit. These aren't the guys I took ye to
see. ...there's someone who runs this place who I'm familiar with. Absolute
expert on magicks and definitely the right person for the job. She'll help
ye, MISSY Inverse. I don't usually go to see her if I can avoid it, but ye
wanted the best and I pride myself on doin' a good job, so... I'll go get
her. Ye two wait here, I won't be long. That okay with you, 'Lina'?"
"What's her color?" Lina asked, testing.
"Yellow," Phinneas replied, without batting an eye. He took off from
his perch on a coffee mug, and flapped off.
Gourry looked back and forth from bird to sorceress. "Color? Huh?"
"Phinneas knows more about magic than he's letting on," Lina said. "Top
level mages in the Sorceror's Guild are assigned colors. Magus the Black,
Eric the Red, Feldrick the Pale Orange and so on. If he's got a fully-
qualified colored sorceress... then I'll admit it. I owe him an apology.
We'll be getting some real help, unlike--"
"--MORON!" one of the three wizards shouted, cutting Lina off. "Don't
you get it?! The reason why the Amok Time Compendium has two conflicting
answers on separate pages to the issue of the Sea of Chaos is because of
translational error! What kind of a prat are you to think that Aldric the
Blue could possibly make a mistake?!"
"He made a mistake when theorizing the existence of the Laguna Blade,"
the calmer one said. "After all, the energy from the Lord of Nightmares
can't possibly be controlled by humans. Only high level Mazoku with a rating
of nine or more can handle it."
Must resist urge to correct idiot. Must resist urge to correct idiot.
Must resist urge to correct--
Lina turned around in her chair. "A human can do it provided they've
got boosting amulets," she said quickly, hoping to satisfy the urge.
What Lina hadn't realized was the mentality of your basic theoretical
magic debating squad. The three had truthfully been at this all morning;
bickering back and forth, at each other's throats, unable to believe each
other at their word... but when Lina interrupted, it shifted directly into
"Us vs. the Outsider".
All three wizards turned to face Lina. Six eyes into one combined stare
equaled a bit of social discomfort.
"Hey, kid," one of them called out, despite being maybe a year younger
than Lina. "I don't know what beginner's book of thaumatology YOU read, but
the possibility of amulets existing that can allow a human to access the Sea
of Chaos is--"
"What do you think these are, dime store baubles?" Lina asked, flashing
the red gems at her wrists.
"Even if it WERE possible," the calm ringleader said, "The Sea of Chaos
is completely outside of magical access. The world's in the way; it rests on
a pillar sticking out of the sea and blocks any possibility of the energy
from the Lord of Nightmares from reaching the surface. It's only common
sense, after all."
"What do you know about the Sea of Chaos?" Lina asked, incredulous.
"Did you happen to read the Claire Bible while on the can this morning after
your six Laytehs??"
Gourry sensed rising tension through the hairs on the back of his neck.
"Uh, Lina--"
"In a minute, Gourry," Lina deflected. She was on a roll here and
didn't feel like stopping just yet. "Look, pal, how you can sit there and
ramble about stuff you've only read in books and research papers and expect
people to believe you is... well, I can't believe it, for one! Do you ever
get out of your parent's basement? There's this big world out there with
lots of neat things in it that you can't possibly comprehend until you've
gotten your hands dirty, and I don't mean with printer's ink!"
"Field research is overrated," the third wheel scoffed. "There's
nothing you can't learn from book research. I say actual experience is
secondary; who needs to go and risk life and limb when everything you need to
know is right here? Leave that sort of thing to thickheaded people with
swords and crazies with a death wish. I can explore the arcane mysteries of
the infinite universe of scientific magical potential right from this cafe!
I don't AAAHGHH AAAGH PUT IT OUT PUT IT OUT AGH--"
Being a polite sneaky underhanded assailant, Lina grabbed the nearest
coffee and threw it at the guy. The fire went out, although most of the
beverage splashed onto his crotch. The other two stared in abject horror at
Lina, as if she had just turned into a six headed demon.
"You guys may POSSIBLY know more techie details about magic than I do,
but you'd be eaten alive in the real world," Lina said, disgusted. "Out
there, you don't have time to ponder the magical access routes and flow
theories that accommodate energy storage -- you either throw the fireball or
get burned. Squatting around arguing about a Mazoku's eyes won't keep you
from wetting your pants when you find out what color they are IN PERSON.
So... you guys better hope you never HAVE to leave this cafe! Consider it a
lesson in practical magic from Lina Inverse!"
"Lina the Pink!?" the two remaining wizards echoed.
They were promptly crushed by a thrown table.
"That's LINA INVERSE!!" Lina shouted, waving a fist... before realizing
they were too unconscious to hear her. Annoyed, she resumed her seat, even
if she had no table to sit at now.
"...uh..." Gourry said, not sure if it was healthy to ask, but curiosity
too overwhelming not to. "Why'd he call you Lina the--"
"I told you top sorcerers were assigned colors," Lina repeated. "I just
don't like to use mine. For obvious reasons."
"Actually, I doubt it would matter," Gourry said. "After all, your
other reputations are scary enough that nobody would hear the color and
assume you're a wuss."
Because timing is everything, Phinneas showed up shortly after that. He
barely noticed the small scale wizardly disaster, perching on a nearby chair
to address Lina.
"She'll see you now," he said, a little distant.
"Ah, goody," Lina said, getting up... and pausing. "Er, Phinneas, you
okay? You look kind of spaced out there."
"Wot? No, no, I'm fine," Phinneas lied. "Just... had a chat with her.
Look, ye probably don't need me now; I led ye where ye wanted to go... I'm
heading back to the ship. Up the Employees Only stairs to your right."
Before Lina could issue that apology she was promising, he had taken
flight. Parrots can be surprisingly quick fliers when motivated. Second
time today someone's split in an emotional huff, Lina thought. Hopefully it
wasn't her breath or anything like that.
[*]
Inside the boss's office of the Cannonfire Cafe, the universe whirled
around in silent perfection, until someone knocked at the door near Lupis
Minor.
"Come in."
Lina strolled right through the door and plunged screaming into the void
of space, never to be heard from again. Fortunately it was just a very
realistic illusion and there was a genuine hardwood floor there for her to
step onto, or that would have happened.
The optics of it did baffle her momentarily, however. Very few people
can claim they have all of creation inside their office next to the potted
plant and the desk blotter... this person could. Above her head, stars
twirled and twinkled... below her feet, FAR below her feet if her eyes could
be trusted, the world turned. In scale, she probably would have been a few
hundred miles tall...
Fifty or seventy miles taller was the one Lina had come to see. A woman
perhaps a few years older than Lina with a yellow dress, as predicted, but
also had blonde hair to match it and a few gold baubles... when you have a
good color, there's no need to stray too far from it, after all. She stood
up from behind the desk, and walked over to offer Lina a hand. "Sorry... I
guess Phinneas didn't prepare you," she said. "It can be a bit shocking if
you aren't expecting it. You're Lina Inverse, yes? And this is...?"
"...." Gourry said, white with terror as he couldn't stop looking down.
"Gourry Gabriev," Lina filled in for him. "I think it's going to take
him a moment or two more to catch up. Don't worry. Nice spell you have
going here, by the way, miss...?"
"Alena," she supplied. "It wasn't that difficult of a spell to do... I
pieced it together from some components I bought on the street. An illusion
projection ball, a map of the stars, a map of the world, a custom animation I
designed to glue it all together... things like that. Although it is rather
beautiful."
"Alena the Yellow," Lina repeated... reaching out, to touch one of the
illusionary stars. The image was actually cool to the touch, and didn't
wobble like a cheap spell would. "I haven't heard of you before... although
I probably wouldn't have, since you were outside the shield. Heh. I bet the
guys downstairs would complain; stars are red-hot, after all."
"Are they?" Alena asked, walking over to join Lina in examining the
third star of Archus Major. "Have you ever touched one?"
"Good point," Lina said, remembering the same lesson she'd just dished
out from the school of hard knocks.
"All we know is what we know from looking at them. And the interesting
part comes when we realize that magic rituals sometimes involve star-shaped
seals," Alena continued. "Does that mean the stars are made of magic? Are
they balls of flaming gas? Are they painted on the sky or are they floating
there? Are they part of the Sea of Chaos? The boys downstairs will give you
any number of answers and insist they have to be right."
You're defocusing, Lina thought. Get on the problem. Your focus has
been causing problems today, Lina thought. Just enjoy the conversation...
"So what do you think they are?" Lina asked, curious.
"I think... I don't know," Alena admitted. With a bright smile. "And
that's what makes me happy. I'll never know, so I can always think about it."
"You don't know... and that's what makes you happy? I thought Phinneas
said you were a research wizard."
"Oh, I am," Alena said. "But if I knew what a star was, it would erase
the mystery of it, and I'd no longer need to chase the idea. I don't need to
analyze something to appreciate it. I can find joy in ignorance as much as I
can in knowledge."
"I can relate," Gourry said.
"Hey, welcome back," Lina grinned. "Snapped out of it?"
"Snapped out of what?" Gourry asked, before looking down again. "....."
Lina sighed. "Alena? I think we'd better change rooms before he has an
existential crisis or something. I'd love to rap a bit more with you about
this stuff, but I've actually got a problem I need some--"
"The Island of Mists, right?"
There's a moment when you're cruising along on the sea, letting the cool
breeze hit your face as you watch the crests of ocean waves rise and fall,
not a care in the world as you're on top of matters when suddenly you notice
that what you thought was a happy dolphin swimming alongside your ship is
actually a great white shark and suddenly you're not so carefree anymore.
Lina fell into that moment without a paddle.
Not that she was charging the fireball and getting ready to take on an
onslaught of combat, but hearing someone announce that out of the blue --
especially after you've traveled with Xelloss for any length of time -- was
enough to toss the senses into sharp relief.
"How do you know about that?" Lina asked, cutting to the heart of the
matter, her light chattering mood ceasing.
"As you know, I am a research wizard," Alena reminded. "I've researched
the Island of Mists extensively. Plus, I know that Vincent Mainev had part
of the map -- few of the Entrusted know of each other, but since we have
business relations as well... hmm. I fear I know more than you do, actually.
Very well. I believe we should have a talk."
[*]
Skip back, backwards in time. One aeon. Give or take. Humans were
flourishing in a golden age -- the Dragons and Mazoku were ramping up for
another big war which would crush human civilization into the stone age.
Before everything hit the fan, however, a critically important development
was almost completely overlooked... but that's going forwards beyond the
point one must go back to, so back again we go. Once upon a time...
Once upon a time, there was a sailor named Archibald Typicos. Popular
legend declares that he discovered 50% of the world; unpopular legend claims
that it was already discovered by the people living there and Archibald
simply discovered it for the populous, civilized northeastern continent.
Then the Mazoku slapped a shield over the territory and everybody else had a
good laugh... but again, that's getting ahead of things.
Archibald Typicos was not very good at naming things. He was
responsible for the names of the islands in the Architypicos Archipelago...
Ordinary Island, Another Island, Tree Island, Dark Island. There was another
island he found which he named Mist Island because there was a lot of mist
around it.
On Mist Island, he found something either so wonderful or so terrible
that he vanished for all eternity, meaning he had gone on to a better place
or had been annihilated or something along those lines. In fact, lots of
wonderfully terrible things history has completely forgotten started
happening after man first set foot on Mist Island... so much so that the
Dragons, already busy preparing for war, dispatched a special committee to
get it out of their hair for good. After all, if the problem wasn't
immediately contained the Mazoku might notice the island, and then everybody
would have a bad day.
A lot of this could be figured out from the basic legends of the
islands. Everybody knew Archibald discovered the islands. It was pretty
obvious the island was insanely powerful and probably very dangerous and/or
very useful; if anything, the legends spoke in vague, general terms about how
great the island was, meaning it had to be capable of anything. You could
even guess that someone had used magic to hide it, since it's not THAT big of
an ocean and presumably someone would have found it by now otherwise.
The part that nobody knows outside of a few select families with
excellent oral history is HOW the island was hidden.
Alena poured the fuzzy coffee for Lina and Gourry from behind the bar,
as she explained. "The island couldn't be destroyed. Exactly why that was
the case is not known, but it meant that the Dragons had to seal it away
instead of removing it."
"The map," Lina guessed... while trying to find a good way to drink this
stuff without getting her nose messy. "It's a seal. It's not just words on
paper, it's enchanted paper. When you put all the bits together, you've got
the key."
"That's why you won't be able to proceed with that copy, I'm afraid,"
Alena continued. "But because the map is created from the same power that
drives the island, that means the map cannot be destroyed. If set on fire,
it will not burn. If torn it will not rip. You may have destroyed that
ship, but if you return... and dig quite a bit, I'm guessing... you will find
it."
"I... think I'll leave that to the tail end of the quest," Lina said.
"Nobody knows it's there but me, and that's a hell of a lot of work."
"I had no idea the family of Sailoon was one of the Entrusted, but it
does make sense. The family did reside on the islands until shortly before
the great war -- they moved back to the mainland to reunite with another
branch of the family, and to prepare for war. They must have taken the map
piece with them, but lost it in the sands of time. Your friend Naga found
it, and tried to locate the others... I'm sorry to hear of her accident,
Lina."
"I'm not sure it was an accident," Lina mumbled, a stray thought
connecting to another stray thought for a fleeting moment...
"Pardon?"
"Nothing," Lina said, losing the train of thought. "So the Mainevs were
Entrusted, but forgot exactly what they were entrusted to keep and why. Your
family was also Entrusted?"
"My family actually comes from Archibald's first mate, Charles
Christopher," Alena said, with no small hint of pride. "He disembarked
shortly before Archibald disappeared because he ran out of ink for the maps.
It was a very lucky break."
"So..." Lina said, doing the big summary in her head. "Three of the
pieces are already found. Three families Entrusted to keep them safe. We've
got one piece already, and know where another one is. That means I've only
got two questions left for you."
"I'm glad. It's almost time for the dinner rush hour," Alena said. "I
may enjoy talking about history and magical theory, but I also have some
practical matters to attend to..."
"Who's the guardian?" Lina asked. She unfolded a paper from her sleeve.
"I translated the first two pieces. Lots of power, lots of danger, the
standard stuff... but it also talks about a guardian. I've got an inkling as
to who that is, mind you..."
"...an elf with a scythe. That is who you mean, yes? I don't know very
much about him. He likely was set to task by the Dragons to protect the
island, but why he's taken to assaulting ships at random as a blood pirate,
I'm not certain. I don't know his name, and I've never seen him."
"That's fine, I think we've seen him more than enough to cover that,"
Lina grumbled. "Okay. Last question. Ready?"
"Of course."
"Are you going to give up YOUR piece of the map quietly, or do we have
to do some proving ritual that involves extreme difficulty and a high chance
of bodily harm?" Lina asked. "Because if you're going to make us jump
through a hoop, you'd better know that I jumped through a really vicious one
at the last island and I'm more likely to smash and grab this time than play
along. No offense, seriously, it's just that we've got this duty to complete
the quest and I prefer taking the direct route--"
Alena chuckled, while wiping out an empty coffee mug. "The answer to
that, Lina, is yes and no. You're free to smash and grab, as you say. If
you can get your hands on the map piece, it is yours."
"That's a relief," Lina said. "I--"
"But..."
"There's ALWAYS a but. I'm a little sick of that word."
"But I should note that getting your hands on the piece is the challenge
itself," she said, hanging up the empty mug... and undoing her yellow apron.
"Lina? Gourry? Come with me. I'll take you to what you seek."
[*]
First, a word about words.
The prefix 'hex' can have many meanings to practitioners of magic. In
its simplest form, as a singular word, a hex can be a curse or other form of
lingering-personal-effect spell. Hexes are a commonly used area of black
magic, usually by people with inferiority complexes, revenge streaks or by
the kind of kids who like to pull the wings off of flies.
Hexadecimal is a special counting system that has recently become
popularized in terms of encoding Chaos Words into magical items for later
release as true spells. It's a new practice, originating entirely out of
Bloody Dangerous Island, and allows easy compression of magical algorithms to
achieve strong effects with minimal storage. Useful for amulets, staffs, or
magic power that can turn chimeras into people. Completely obtuse and
unusable as a practical magic unless you've been studying thick, expensive
books for an upwards of ten years.
Finally, you have hexagrams, which are far easier to use. Anybody with
20/30 vision and a pointed stick can draw a suitable hexagram, which proves
an effective conduit for magical energies. (20/40 vision and you may
accidentally draw a pentagram, which could have highly comical and dangerous
results if used, at least if viewed at a safe distance by people who can say
"Wow, glad I'm not that poor guy". Such people are typically 'hacks', and
shortly after are found 'hacked' into many chunks.)
For bonus points, we can use all three versions in the same sentence:
"Frequent hex practitioners skip hexadecimal spells and simply buy rubber
mats with hexagrams on them which can be rinsed off after any animal
sacrifice."
This distinction is important to know because Bloody Dangerous Island,
like distant Sailoon, was designed as a series of recursively enclosed
hexagrams. Street layout, building placement, interior walls... everything
in the six pointed star shape, inside a star, inside a star. And in the very
center stood Lina and company. Well, ten feet away from the center; there
was a statue in the way.
Lina was well aware of the importance of this. The air almost crackled
with raw magic; the circles had focused a ridiculous amount of power into
that ugly statue, for purposes unknown. The statue stood maybe twelve feet
high, representing an old guy with a beard casually leaning on a ship's
steering wheel (swerving it off course) while enjoying a tankard of ale...
plaque reading "ARCHIBALD TYPICOS: FREEWEHEELING EXPLORER EXTRODINARE".
"Not very respectful, is it?" Lina asked.
"He would've wanted it that way," Alena said. "Do you know why I've
brought you out here, Lina Inverse?"
"Duh," Lina replied. "You don't go on as many quests as I have without
figuring out how this stuff works. You've sealed your part of the map in the
statue, using a number of fiendish magical traps being powered by the circles
to keep would-be thieves at bay. Like you said... it's free for me to take,
IF I can get my hands on it."
"He was right about you," Alena said. "You're as sharp as they come.
That's the plan, yes. I've personally sealed it inside the statue with a
complicated series of spells that only I know how to unlock. I pose this
challenge to anybody who wants my family treasure... many have tried, many
have failed. Of course, you're the only one who knows what the treasure
actually is. They just assumed anything locked up that tightly has to be
worth possessing."
Gourry took his eyes off the statue to look at Alena, confused. "He..?"
"Listen, I'm no stranger to picking magical locks," Lina warned. "You
give me enough time, I can get through this. How hard could it be?"
"The rules are simple," Alena concluded. "If you can claim the map as
your own, it's yours. I've got to get back to the cafe, but I'll try to
return later and see how you're doing. Most people give up after a few
days."
"Er. Days?" Lina asked. "Did I hear that right?"
Gourry bopped his fist into his palm lightly. "Oh, I get it. This is
easy. Alena--"
"Gourry, please, this isn't exactly your area of expertise," Lina said,
rolling her eyes. "Fine. I don't mind a little hard work. If it takes
days, it takes days! Not that it will. Gourry, you're on takeout food
detail."
"I'm not sure I can carry enough food to get you through this," Gourry
said. "I'm only one man with two arms and we both need to eat, Lina."
"Then you'll have to starve!" Lina declared. "I'm gonna solve this
puzzle or... no, I don't want to say 'or die trying' because people who say
things like that usually do. But I'm going to solve it! Alena, when you
come back, I'll be waiting right here with the map in hand!"
"That's the spirit!" Alena cheered. "Good luck!"
Feeling full of confidence, zanshin, pep, zest and hoody hoo, Lina
neatly scaled the statue like a monkey, and warmed up her strongest Flow
Break spell. "In fact, I can get this thing open right nAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Whump, went Lina. Crackle, went the electrical spell trap around the
statue's head.
"I hope I can carry enough bandages to get you through this," Gourry
pondered.
[*]
Healing spells are an acquired taste -- or more precisely, an acquired
taste in cooking. Some people like hamburger, others like finely broiled
steaks prepared in a light wine sauce. One is considerably harder to make
than the other, not because the meat's not available, but because it takes
more care and attention to detail, more specialized training and practice...
Lina had never been big on healing spells. All guild members were
expected to know one white healing spell (Recovery) but even within one spell
different people had different styles. Some could perform miniscule
surgeries using the spell, knitting bone and flesh together like sewing a
silk glove.
Or they could slap a big wad of spackle over a hole in the wall and call
it a day, which was Lina's usual attitude about healing. She didn't have the
years to spend on learning it that priestesses had (sitting around all day
reading and staying away from boys did wonders for your free time) and if a
slapdash effort would kludge over her injuries, hey, whatever worked. Right?
One freezing beam, one rapid fire flare arrow launching mechanism, a few
springloaded whirling curvy blades and numerous electrical shocks later Lina
really wished she had Amelia around. Gourry was good enough to go get some
antiseptic and gauze for her, but these burns were not helping her beautiful
complexion and someone was going to have to PAY for this. Probably Alena,
when Lina saw her next.
Alena, who came off as all nice and normal and pleasant as can do.
Alena, who had managed to devise the nastiest, most sadistic little magical
trap Lina had ever encountered. Flow after flow tangled together, so that
cutting one off triggered another, which spawned three more, making the whole
thing nested DEEPER into the trap each time you messed up... and after
countless years of people trying to hack their way into this thing, it was
built up like the rock of ages. It had taken Lina four hours just to slash
her way through the first few layers of spells, and she wasn't even a third
of the way there.
In fact, she was so busy working at the puzzle that she totally forgot
about dinner. Not about EATING -- Gourry brought a full dinner spread
(including tablecloth) before Lina had even asked, lest she start gnawing on
him in some hunger induced frenzy. But she had forgotten about the big
meeting at the Knife and Fork, and by the time she remembered and sent Gourry
back to check up on things, the place was empty.
"They probably ate and left," Gourry theorized, which was high deduction
for him.
"I hope Zelgadis is doing okay," Lina said, squatting around, never
taking her eyes off the blasted statue of Archibald Typicos. "Hopefully
Amelia caught up with him and they had a talk... she was always better at the
emotional coddling stuff than I was. Jeez, I totally blew him off this
morning! If I wasn't too busy being pissed off about this challenge I'd be
feeling like a total heel right now..."
"He'll be okay," Gourry said.
"Oh? What makes you say that? Some strange folk euphemism handed down
through the Gabriev family tree? Your amazing people skills surfacing in a
moment of rare brilliance? What, praytell?"
"Uh... I just think he'll be okay," Gourry said, confused. "It'd be bad
for him not to be okay so I'm going to think that he'll be okay. Right?
Jeez, Lina, you really are getting antsy. I'm not your enemy, okay?"
"I know, I know!" Lina groaned, flopping back to lie down on the cobbled
street, which was only marginally more comfortable than sitting on it. "It's
just... I don't deal well with frustration. Little things, little
annoyances. When things don't go my way but I know in the RIGHT universe
they would, you know? In the right universe I, Lina Inverse, sorceress
supreme would have busted that thing open hours ago! That's what's getting
me antsy."
"Right universe? Huh?"
"Things should go a certain way if the world made any sense," Lina
explained, doing hand gestures to indicate proper direction of.. whatever.
"That's how I see it. Lina Inverse doesn't get hung up over something as
piddly as this. Would the person who took out the demon king Shaburanigdo
get stuck behind a locked door? No!"
"Lina, the world doesn't always go how we want it to," Gourry said,
feeling even he was having to point out the obvious here. "Okay, so you're
stuck. Maybe that's not very 'Lina-like' but that's the case, right? You're
stuck."
"I'm stuck," Lina admitted, closing her eyes.
"Great!" Gourry cheered. "See? You can admit it. That means you've
got to ask someone for help."
"What?!"
"It's logical, right? If you don't know, you find someone who does
know," Gourry continued, trying to look sagely and cool. "You might not
thing that's very 'Lina-like' either but you want to get the statue open,
right? Don't worry so much about how things should be and just make it how
you want to be. Yeah. Hey, I'm a philosopher! Look at me, I'm a
philosopher, Lina! I should have one of those white sheet things and keep
jumping out of bathtubs yelling stuff like 'I've got it!' or 'Yahoo!' or
'Eurek--"
"Who exactly am I going to ask?" Lina wondered. "You heard Alena.
Dozens of people have tried to open this thing and they couldn't do it.
Nobody KNOWS how to open it."
Gourry bopped his fist in his hand again. "What about--"
Unfortunately, he said this just after three very familiar people
wandered into town square behind him.
"No," Lina groaned. "Gourry, TELL me you don't mean them..."
"Well, look here!" the head research wizard called out. "Hey, guys,
it's Lina the Pink. The workrate grunt who chucked a table at us! And she's
trying Alena's challenge, it seems."
"This isn't a peep show!" Lina shouted, getting to her feet, and trying
to look intimidating. "Push off!"
"You've been trying Flow Break, haven't you?" the shortest of the three
stooges asked. "That's not going to work. I tried Flow Break for hours and
it just kept getting worse, but I figured out why. Clearly if you had read
Dark Diane's Spellcut Factbook like I had, you'd know that on cut-trigger
spells you need to use infusions of opposing energy in order to neutralize
the effect!"
"I've been DOING that," Lina argued. "Then the opposing energy
detection system finds out and shoots Flare Arrows at me!"
"A secondary flow of infused ice counters the system," the calm leader
added. "Casting two spells at once is possible if they're both weak, and you
don't need much energy in order to stop an energy detection system. You'd
know that if you had read the DX Fact--"
"FINE!" Lina shouted. "If YOU were going to open this bastard up, how
would you do it? Tell me. I'm ASKING you for assistance. See, Gourry? I'm
asking for help."
"Err, that's good," Gourry said, confusion rising. And so soon after he
thought he'd had a grip on things. "But I meant--"
"The procedure is very simple," the leader spoke. "Even a third year
tyromage could handle it. First, you lay infusions to the opening layers
with opposing energy, couplied with freeze spells. To ground the electrical
traps you run a line of Chaos String between the top of the statue and the
street, then shield it with another layer of ice. Once you have those
systems disabled you use a twisted pair of needle-thin white and black magic
to carve your way into the heart of the statue, and use a modified Levitation
to pull the treasure out through the hole. Easy as 3.14!"
Drool had already started to form at the corner of Gourry's mouth, his
brain shutting down from overload.
"Simple! Fine!" Lina declared, scaling her way back onto the statue's
base once more. "Well, let's do that. But you're not getting a cut of the
treasure!"
The magic poured on hard and fast. She had total control, of course;
she'd practicing this for hours, and could now thread a Chaos String through
a needle if she had to. Opposing forces, ice infusions, string, prepare the
tunneling spears, twist them up, and push--
An explosion rocked the town square, as the statue was consumed in a
pillar of blue-green flame. A fireball shaped vaguely like Lina was hurled
across the square, smashing into the side of a building, and collapsing into
a little heap. The statue, of course, was fine.
"Lina!!" Gourry yelled, diving to her aid.
"And if you WEREN'T such a subhuman little blue-collar magical worker,"
the leader continued, "You'd have realized that this would only trigger off
the trinary backup spells. But that's what you get for being so ignorant of
accurate magical research."
Gourry turned on them, with a snarl. "You tricked her?!"
"Not our fault she was a clueless newbie," the dinky wizard joked.
"Another one bites the dust. I'd hate to have seen THAT one get the treasure
instead of one of us! Good riddance to Lina the Pink! See, guys? I told
you she wasn't all that her reputation said... she...... was?"
The group may have been able to calculate the sine wave pattern of a
Chaos String to three hundred hexadecimal places, but that didn't prepare you
much for facing down three hundred pounds of sharpened steel being waved at
you.
"You guys deliberately hurt Lina," Gourry said, voice as pointed as his
razor-sharp steel. "You did it just to prove you were smarter..."
"Ah... er... well, it's just that, err..." the previously calm leader
babbled. "You know, friendly rivalry between wizards and all, survival of
the fittest and--"
"Survival is a good thing to keep in mind," Gourry continued, advancing.
"But not as important as--!"
The light glinting off the Unequalizer could be seen for miles, as
Gourry executed a flawless thirty seven stroke combat maneuver.
Bits of the wizard's robes fell to the ground, leaving them in their
underwear, except for the guy who hadn't bothered to put any on today.
"--as thinking about what Lina would've done to you if she was able to,"
Gourry said, twirling his sword and holstering it on his back once more.
"I'm going to spare your lives. She might not have."
There was a light tinkling sound, and one of them squeezed his legs
together. "Ah, good for us! Yes! Good for us!" he chirped. "We--"
The looming, mostly fried spectre of Lina Inverse draped itself across
the shadows of the square, staring at the group with white eyes. Smoke
curled off her scorched clothing, as she lurched towards them.
"..............." Lina raged.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA," they screamed as they ran faster than most
cheetahs could.
"Lina! You're alive!" Gourry cheered. "Ah... you are alive, right?"
"...I'm alive," Lina said, after coughing a smoke ring. "Fortunately I
already had a freeze spell going. Once I figured out they were duping me, I
ramped it up as fast as I could, and it absorbed a lot of the blast. Got the
wind knocked out of me, but I was in full control all the way! It'll take a
lot more than THAT to make Lina Inverse panic!"
Her clothes crumbled to ash, settling around her like 100% cotton snow.
"WAAAAGHH!!" Lina panicked, covering herself with her arms.
"..." Gourry commented, staring openly. He quickly found a dainty
little foot planted in his face, and himself staring up at the stars instead
as Lina frantically went for the tablecloth from the takeout dinner spread.
Tying it off into a makeshift toga (and wondering if this made her a
philosopher, as Gourry thought), Lina grumbled and did her best to stop
turning red. "Those little JERKS! I swear, I'm gonna hunt them down and
make them--"
"What's going on? I heard an explosion!"
Lina turned quickly, ready to blast whoever was sneaking up on her to
kingdom come... until she saw it was only Alena. But the temptation
remained.
"What's going on is your ridiculous trap deprived me of some a very
expensive sorceress's costume and my favorite underwear!" Lina complained.
"You owe me fifteen gold for that! What drove you to make such a hideous
thing, anyway?!"
"It's not that hard of a puzzle to figure out," Alena protested. "I
don't understand why everybody has so much trouble with it. I told them all
they had to do was get their hands on the map, and--"
"I know, it's kind of obvious," Gourry said.
Lina was tempted to snap at him... but held herself back. He DID say
earlier he had it figured out, and...
"What's so obvious about it, Gourry?" Lina asked, cautiously.
"Well, she DID say she knew how to get it open," Gourry reminded.
All you have to do is decide to ask for help. That's what Gourry was
trying to tell her. Put aside pride and bloody minded determination and just
get what you want, even if it's not done the way you think it SHOULD be
done...
"Alena, can you tell me how to get the statue open?" Lina asked.
"You push the button dot on the colon in the plaque," Alena said,
pointing. "Right there."
Lina pushed the dot and a tiny door swung open, revealing a slip of
paper.
Two universes momentarily battled for supremacy. The one in which Lina
Inverse, sorceress supreme, valiantly overcame the dreaded trap and smashed
it open to fetch her booty -- how things SHOULD have been. Or, the universe
in which she pushed a little button and got the map. As easy as Zelgadis
getting a cure, as easy as things actually can be in life when you don't
frustrate yourself by assuming you're in for heavy duty dramatic action...
"In all the years people have been trying to open this, none of them
ever asked you flat out how to open it?" Lina asked, still in shock.
"No, not really," Alena said. "Most of them were very determined to get
it themselves, and I didn't want to impose..."
Lina snatched the map, stuffed it into her amulet (which had, of course,
survived the fire by being indestructible) and took a deep, deep breath.
"Thank you," she mumbled.
She should have been raging about being put through such a ridiculous
test. She should have been upset at how easy it was to win. She should have
been pissed off, but... she wasn't. She was relieved it was over, all the
frustrations were over, and the world was making a queer kind of sense to her
once again. It was over.
Lina adjusted her toga a bit, to tighten it up for the long walk back to
the docks. "Now, I am going back to the ship, getting some fresh clothes,
and going to SLEEP. Hopefully I won't lose my clothes again en route,
because I don't feel like mutilating anybody tonight. C'mon, Gourry."
"Uh, Lina," Gourry said, feeling the need to clear his throat and prove
his gentleman status, "You know, I really wasn't staring or anything back
there... I mean... nothing to see, after all! So don't worry, I didn't see
that you were wearing the fancy underwear I bought for you back at--"
"Gourry?"
"Yes?"
"Remind me to hurt you severely after I get a good night's sleep."
"...right."
And so, the heroes marched triumphantly out of the town square, having
won the treasure by divine right of conquest and so on. They couldn't walk
off into the setting sun since it was already well into early morning, but
the intention was there.
+---------------+
|E|P|I|L|O|G|U|E|
+---------------+
The very next day, after Lina's crazy little jaunt, after Amelia's brush
with fear, after Zelgadis's moonlight journey, the Lightfeather set sail from
Bloody Dangerous Island. Never to return.
With it went the Christopher family treasure. Dozens gathered in the
town square, to gaze in wonder (and grumblings, for those who had tried and
failed previously) at the open door on the Typicos statue. It was the end of
an era. Some spoke in hushed whispers of Lina Inverse, the one who tangled
with the trap, was burned horribly and still lived to make off with the
prize... they spoke in reverent tones. Some considered leaving the island to
follow in her footsteps, since it must have been all that road travel that
made her tough as a Mazoku...
Two stood in the back, wondering about the future.
"Do you think they understood?" Alena asked. "What we tried to show
them about what they seek, and about the Island of Mists? Did it work?"
The old man pulled at his beard, pondering the point... and gave up, not
concerned enough to devote a lot of thought to it. "Eh, they will sooner or
later. Mark my words. The question is, will she understand before it's TOO
late?"
"We could have stopped her," Alena suggested.
"Naaah. It's best not to get in the way of history," old man 'Al'
chuckled. "Take it from an old salt who knows a few things. We did what we
could; just let them run wherever the stars take them. Odds are they won't
bump into anybody friendly from here on out, so if they haven't learned from
the sympathetic Entrusted, they'll learn the hard way. You did good, Alena.
Thanks for helping out."
"I'd better get back to the shop," Alena sighed. "We're going to have a
lot of business today. My little quest being finally won is the talk of the
town, after all. I'll see you..?"
"I'm setting sail today, so it may be awhile," Al said, trying to work
out a kink in his back. "Got some things to see to. But I'll see you
eventually. Take care."
He turned to walk off through a less densely packed section of the
crowd... but paused a moment, to turn back, and look at the statue. The
statue of the proud and defiant explorer...
"Still bugs me how they got my nose wrong," he mumbled to himself,
before walking away.
[*]
The glass of water was still held tightly in his hands, as he soared
through the midnight darkness. He could see her just ahead, trying to get
away from him.
Dozens of thoughts jammed themselves through his brain. She tricked
him. She was confused. She was in league with Lina. They all had to die.
He had a duty. She was Entrusted. She wanted a glass of water. He had to
protect her. He had to save her from herself. She had to be taken. He
would catch up to her, and--
A shadow flicked across his eyes, blocking his path. He went from full
speed to zero speed in less than an instant.
"Now now," the shadow chided. "We've discussed this. What did I say
about Lina and her cronies?"
Mortimer tried to think. There was so much noise inside the silence of
his mind that it was difficult to recall. "You said... you said to leave
them alone. But they're disturbing the map. They're hurting the Entrusted.
I have to stop them. The duty--"
"I know, I know, it's all very confusing to you. It's okay, Mortimer.
It's okay. I'm here now. I'm your friend, like I was a thousand years ago,
and I'm going to help. Didn't I say I was going to help? Don't you trust
me?"
Eyes focused and defocused, as the elf tried to see his friend. "Yes...
yes, you did. You told me you were my friend."
"Then this all has to stop. This running and screaming and fighting and
goings on," his friend warned. "It's not going to help anything. Do your
duty. Your duty is to leave them alone. They are with the Entrusted and
that should make them untouchable. Believe me. I know what's best for you.
I am your special liason to the Dragons, am I not? I am your friend. I
opened your eyes, so long ago..."
"You are," Mortimer spoke, voice flat, eyes empty as holes in the earth.
"Years and years alone, with only the duty, the golems and the sea... you're
the only friend I've ever had."
"And the only friend you ever need," Xelloss added.
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