Chapter Text
***
In the world of finalities, in which reason rules, his love was and is, an impossibility. The knight of faith realizes this fully as well. Hence the only thing which can save him is recourse to the absurd, and this recourse he has through his faith. That is, he clearly recognizes the impossibility, and in the same moment he believes the absurd…
***
Zelgadis’s spiral into despair hadn’t lasted long. He didn’t have time for that, and he was an expert in shoving his emotions aside to accomplish a task. Moreover, those spirals didn’t last as long as they used to. It was still a reflex, maybe it always would be, but he didn’t have to be in its thrall anymore. He saddled up Viator yet again. Despair would have to wait, along with all the low chatter about stones and cures (Healing? Cures? The next person who said the word cure was going to end up on the wrong end of a Dug Haut).
No one had tried to talk him out of it. Then again, it usually fell to him to talk the others out of their terrible ideas. But no one had done anything to discourage his suicide mission, not even timid Sylphiel. They had all agreed to accompany him back to the temple, or as close as Lina could get to the barrier. Gourry had almost smirked as he heard the story; yes, one of their dearest friends had been obliterated into total cosmic nothingness, but jumping into another world to stop a bad guy was just such a typical Amelia thing to do. A part of Zelgadis that was neither distraught nor intensely focused had to admit it was funny.
Zelgadis was still thinking about philosophy as he led the way, because concepts like death and space tended to go in that direction. The absurd is never an issue for you, is it? he asked a clearly defined figment of his imagination. Knowing it couldn’t answer made it easier to unburden himself in the fierce, blustering snows. He was riding against the wind, driving so hard that his blown-back hair stayed in place. Lina screamed at him to slow down. He went faster, paying no heed to the ice that crept in eager fingertips down his collar.
I didn’t do things like this before I met you. Not that I don’t think they’re ridiculous…
You believed in me when I didn’t give you any reason to, so I couldn’t let you down.
You made me something more than I was.
Of all the transformations he’d experienced, that one was the second-most unexpected. It had been almost as dramatic and shocking as the first.
You made me a knight.
It had been so strange. He still could not believe there had been a room full of strangers there for him, to see him, to applaud him as a person worthy of merit. Zelgadis still wrestled with the idea that he deserved anything good, much less honorable. No matter what he did for Rezo, he had never been able to prove himself worthy; for Phil, he already had.
What would you do, if you were here?
He remembered years ago, lifetimes ago, sitting cross-legged in a musty sewer and explaining why they wouldn’t succeed against Copy Rezo and the Zanaffar. Their weapons and spells were useless, and their best hope was unconscious beneath the boughs of Flagoon. There was simply nothing more they could do.
But then you said… Well, ‘said’ wasn’t really the word. ‘Bellowed’ was more like it. Zelgadis could still hear the prince’s furious voice echoing down the tunnels. The man was larger than a black bear, with biceps as wide around as Zelgadis’s thighs, and his voice shook the ruins. Zelgadis had almost fallen into Gourry’s lap.
“What happens if you give up so easily?! So spells don’t work! So the Sword of Light doesn’t work! That’s not the problem!”
Phil had suddenly been inches from Zelgadis’s face. As so often happened when he feared for his life, Zelgadis was distracted. Who was this? He had to be some minor figure among Seyruun’s many murderous royals—nobody of any import would be allowed to charge off and punch monsters—but how could someone so gigantic and hairy and hideous be the father of tiny, squishy Amelia? And how could anything so huge move so fast?
“If you don’t give up, you’ll eventually find a solution!”
Zelgadis could only ridicule him, because what sort of lunatic thought an enemy as strong as Rezo’s clone could be beaten by fancy poses and the power of positive thinking? That type of preposterous delusion, that gross misunderstanding of what they were up against, had doomed Zolf and Rodimus. But Phil had been right. There wasn’t a solution, until there was.
He remembered Phil’s braying laughter and his voice that rang in the ends of his ears as he ran off. “That’s how young men should act!”
If you were here now, you’d say…
Amelia is gone, thought Zelgadis’s rational brain, sending the notion out to fend for itself in Yalain’s brutal snow and ice. Something in him was unconcerned with the idea. It was not quite denial, but rather a peculiar certainty that his knowledge was incomplete: Amelia is gone was only the first part of a longer phrase. Amelia is gone, yes, but I’m going to get her sounded right. So did I’m going to fix it. Amelia is gone but it’s not the end, because I won’t let it be. He liked the sentiment if not the grammar. He could worry about that later, assuming he was alive.
His hands were going numb in their gloves. It had to be some advanced frostbite, the kind that ended in amputations if you were lucky, but there was no time to tend to that. Right now he had finally started to understand that movement, strange beyond comparison, of the knight who embraced the impossible—that knight of faith who turned to the absurd, who looked at all the pitiless finalities of the world and said And still I believe…
***
Purple and black turned to a dappled grayish white, and all of nothing became unspeakably cold as they glided down.
“Stop, stop!” Filia cried, grabbing Xellos’s staff. “I can sense the others! We’re almost there!”
Amelia couldn’t see much of anything beyond moonlight reflecting over the lake. It was late, likely nighttime, and they were still outside the holy barrier, but she could make out shapes moving through a torrent of snow. She was so overcome with excitement she gripped Xellos’s arm tightly with both hands, never mind that it felt like holding on to the wailing damned. The wailing damned had nothing on the ecstasy of friends, love, the planet I call home. “Let’s please go faster, Xellos-san!” she pleaded. “I bet they’re worried about us!”
“Oh, they are,” Xellos assured her. “Why, they’re petrified. And a certain someone is full of such delectable misery, although there’s a rather uncharacteristic enthusiasm in there…”
She didn’t need any further details to know which of her friends was described by “uncharacteristic enthusiasm”. “Xellos-san!” Amelia chided. “Leave Zelgadis-san alone. Why do you insist on tormenting him?”
“I do no such thing. That’s the whole point, don’t you see?” He tapped his index finger to the apple of his cheek, cluing her in on this little secret for them to share. “He provides so much nourishment for so little effort.”
Amelia had no argument. If you wanted to feed off an expansive buffet of negative energy, Zelgadis was as dependable a source as you could ask for, and Xellos was most content when he didn’t have to work. All living things ought to be grateful that Xellos was not as powerful as he was lazy.
“Hey! Hey, you guys! Look up!” shouted a high-pitched, grating voice that struck fear in the hearts of scoundrels and sous chefs around the world. They were now hovering directly overhead, so close that Amelia could identify the figures moving over the ice on fleet horseback and the reddish-brown ember of Lina’s waving hair. Or was it? Since when does Lina-san not lead the way?
“Lina-san!" Amelia half-shouted, half-sang. “Lina-san! We’re back!”
“You are,” Xellos said and, perhaps not appreciative of her shrill voice in his ear, dropped her.
Amelia plummeted down with her arms and legs spread wide, unafraid. She’d fallen further than this with only minimal injuries. “Levitation—”
“And I believe you’ll be needing this, too,” Xellos added. Amelia couldn’t see what he did, but she felt the thunk of something cold hitting her in the back and fumbled her spell. For an instant she hovered in the air, like a floating feather, then plunged down to the ice. When she glanced up she saw the last stone gleaming atop her ruffled skirts. Where did he get that? Of course there was no sense in asking. She could hear Filia and Xellos land more gracefully behind her.
There was a chorus of “Amelia!”s that was equal parts startled and amazed, and Lina said “ooh, what’s that?”
Amelia was grabbed by a pair of brawny arms and squashed into a messy, breathless embrace. There was Pokota, nuzzling her neck and shoulder. Filia’s dainty arms were threaded between someone else’s. Gourry, indiscriminate in his happiness, had for a second grabbed Xellos close too; the latter choked and disappeared. Lina joined in, jamming herself between Pokota and Gourry so her face was nestled against Amelia’s. Amelia remembered the days when she had to stand on her toes to do the same thing.
She glanced over at the one person who stubbornly refused to be part of their collective joy. Zelgadis stood beside Viator without saying a word. She extended one arm to invite him in, but he turned away. Amelia didn’t mind—she knew he couldn’t be forced into anything—and melted back into the hug for a little longer. All she needed was to be enveloped in the love of her friends.
“Thanks for the stone,” Lina grinned. “Say, where did you go, anyway? What’s with the pretty princess getup? Why were you with Xellos?”
“C’mon, Lina,” Gourry said quietly. “Can’t it wait?”
“All right, all right…” But she gave Amelia a jab in the ribs. “Don’t just run off next time, okay? You really scared some people with that disappearing act.”
Amelia was too busy soaking in bliss to ask what she meant. Like Gourry said, questions could wait. Lina’s idea of showing affection was blowing up the enemies of the people she loved; to hug her, to be hugged by her, was a rare privilege. “I’m sorry I scared you, Lina-san.”
“Oh, please! I wasn’t scared,” she said, a little too stubborn. “We couldn’t find Filia either so I figured you guys were off doing some…I dunno, some holy shrine maiden-y things where you forgot to invite Sylphiel.”
“Everyone always forgets,” Sylphiel whispered.
Amelia’s nose hairs had started to freeze together. The others must have been finished too. “Everybody’s in one piece, right?” Lina asked, pulling back and wiping her hands together: enough of that, the gesture said. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got one more spell to cast before we blow this joint.”
They shuffled back to the winded and shivering horses. Amelia walked to Viator’s side, newly apprehensive. Zelgadis still stood there without moving or speaking. She could sense his familiar defensive aura, colder than the frozen lake and sharper than knives. Danger, danger, stay far away was the message he projected, but Amelia heard handle with care.
“Zelgadis-san,” she ventured. His left eyelid flickered but he did not reply. “Everything’s okay,” she tried again. “Lord Ortolan is gone. We got the stone.”
“ ‘Everything’s okay’?” Zelgadis repeated. Looking closer Amelia could see he was moving, in little tics under his skin. His muscles were grouped in a standard human structure, but the muscles themselves were small and tightly layered like a serpent’s. She felt them when she healed him, and she saw them move in tiny ripples along his face and neck when he was agitated. Right now the whole right underside of his jaw throbbed.
“The stone,” Amelia reminded him. “To fix the shrine and heal the beasts, and save Yalain…” Why was he just staring like that? Did he not hear her? She reached for something with some kind of positive connotation.
“There could be a cure…”
His pupils contracted to pinpricks, and the throbbing in his jaw became a wave. Amelia realized she’d given a terrible answer. But, she thought, watching his chest rise and fall with alarming intensity, at least more of him is moving…
Whatever invisible obstacle that had stopped him earlier was gone. “A cure?!” Zelgadis roared, arms outstretched and fists clenched, blazing with wrath. “Who cares about a cure?!”
“I do! We all do!” Amelia shouted back, now a little heated herself. All she’d meant was to give him a tidbit of hope after so much miserable fighting, and he’d crushed it underfoot. Couldn’t he at least wait until we were inside and warm to pick a fight? “Zelgadis-san, we’ve got to keep believing in good things! No matter what happens, you can’t ever give up! Not on the world, not on other people, not on your cure!”
“Stupid—”
She gasped, he seethed. Zelgadis wasn’t done. His voice shook and burst out of him, a roiling anger ready to blow. “I threw it away for you! And I’ll do it every time!”
At first Amelia didn’t hear it. All she heard was threw it away and didn’t understand what he meant. Then she remembered the end of their fight with Ortolan at the temple, when Zelgadis had thrust the stone at her and screamed for her to leave. She hadn’t comprehended just how much he’d been prepared to give up at that moment. And then, despite the distractions of icy spittle on her face, she heard what he said.
Oh.
New feeling stirred in her numb feet. It wasn’t at all how she imagined those words would sound (and she had imagined them, with varying levels of detail and clothing, for years now). But the more she thought about it, the more she decided it was exactly right. How else could it have been except yelled, clumsy, and inconvenient? It was better than anything that went with a flying white Pegasus or a light blue parasol. Her heart shook in her breast all the same.
Zelgadis was still panting, but he could tell something had changed; Amelia could only imagine what was playing out over her face. Then the realization hit him, abrupt and overwhelming as a downpour. His terror-stricken eyes conveyed Did I—
You did, she confirmed.
This time he really did stop moving, and the world stopped alongside him. Amelia knew what was about to happen and did not interfere. When Zelgadis made his telltale gurgling sound she winced and prepared for impact.
“There he goes,” Lina observed, as he passed out and fell over backward into the snow. Zelgadis always took too much pride in his supposed total physical control and self-discipline. Whenever the world made a mockery of these notions he would give out altogether: a groan, a gurgle, and then a blackout. It was as though he would rather be comatose than lighten up.
“After that I vote we leave him here,” Pokota said. Filia made some comment under her breath about the virtues of monastic life.
Amelia cast Raywing, lifting herself and Zelgadis’s limp body over Viator. She rolled him over the front and sat sidesaddle behind him. “Everything’s fine,” she said, leaning over him to grab the reins. “Let’s go.”
They set out in a quiet, ponderous procession hardly above walking speed. Amelia could tell all her friends were as tired and ragged as the poor horses. Lina cast a small Lighting spell for a little extra warmth, and like so many of Lina’s ideas, everyone knew that it was a good one. Soon dozens of small glowing baubles hovered in the air around them.
Amelia looked up into dense clouds, shrouding the luminous full moon. Ordinarily she liked a clear, starlit sky, but she’d seen enough stars for one day, and nothing could have made the world more perfect than it already was.
Life is wonderful.
An unconscious stone chimera lay slumped in front of her like a ridiculous sack of rocks. Further ahead Gourry was nodding off, rousing himself with the occasional throaty snore. This wasn’t Seyruun but this, here, was home.
Life is wonderful. Living is marvelous. The world was overflowing with light and joy. And she’d thought that before she left to Death Fog’s plane. Now all those pretty words and happy thoughts felt ten sizes too small. Love wasn’t about words, it was an action, a state of being, and it was everywhere.
Love is teaching your daughter to break boulders with her bare hands so that nothing else can break her. Love is the desire to protect someone that would wrestle you for a porkchop. Love is sacrificing everything you are for your countrymen because their blood is your blood and their bodies are your body. Love is sacrificing everything you are for strangers, because all nations have beautiful skies and beautiful dreams worth protecting. Love is believing in a future not dictated by past horrors, to reach within the ashes of hell and nourish new life in a pottery shop. Love is. Love is.
Amelia felt a light dampness on her cheeks and told herself it was falling snow. She thought of her father, whose steadfast love she had felt from across the ocean, even across the planes. Gracia must feel it too, she thought, and didn’t dwell on it. To let Gracia go her own way: that, too, was love.
As they traveled south the storm receded into a few trace flakes. Some of them fell onto the Lighting spells and sizzled into mist. By the time Amelia saw a stirring over Viator’s side she felt a little more composed, and was grateful for it. She dropped the reins so that Zelgadis could take them instead.
Zelgadis grunted as he sat up. Amelia caught his eye as he looked around and tried a wary smile, which he returned with a glare so poisonous it curdled her gut. He swung his leg around so that he was sitting properly on Viator, his back to her. She could tell he intended to keep it as a formidable wall between them. The moonlight filtering through the clouds felt harsh and unnatural.
But why was he so mad? With all that had happened, Amelia hadn’t yet had a chance to consider things from his point of view, but when she did she burned with shame. She remembered her paralyzing horror when Lina faked her own death to fool Kanzel, and the way gentle, even-tempered Gourry had reacted to the ruse. And Lina-san knew what she was doing. I didn’t have a plan. I don’t even know how long I was gone.
“Um, Zelgadis-san…” she began.
His “What?” fell like a meat cleaver.
“I’m sorry.”
“Good,” he muttered, and that was the end of it. Amelia cringed. She stared down into the creases of his cape and waited for them to build up glistening fringes of ice before she tried again.
“I didn’t mean to…” Wrong start. Her intent wouldn’t have made him any less wounded. “I couldn’t stand the thought of Lord Ortolan hurting anyone else after everything he did. I had to bring him to justice. For Yalain, and…and for all the innocent creatures in the other world.”
“You did it by yourself.” His right hand was twitching over his left hip, a reflexive gesture that meant he wanted to reach for his sword. It might have been charming had it not meant he was feeling so very vulnerable—and, she reminded herself, had it not been all her fault. “Do you think you don’t need anyone else’s help? Never mind the entire country you’re responsible for. What would’ve happened to them?”
Zelgadis was correct, as usual, but right now the worst part was how much his scolding tone sounded like her father’s. Amelia gently reached around his side to touch his twitching hand. He yanked it away, leaving her to wonder just how much she’d ruined with her thoughtlessness. The silence between them felt louder than anything he could have shouted.
“It could have been years,” he said, more pained than angry. Amelia lowered her head. Zelgadis swallowed; she felt it, carried over Viator’s broad back.
“It could have been forever.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You weren’t.”
Yet the severity had disappeared. It wasn’t forgiveness, just fatigue, the recognition that it was too much effort to keep fighting. She had heard that same tone in much lesser degrees like when Lina bullied them into petty crime and cross-dressing. Amelia wrung her hands in her lap and stared at the floating lights around them.
“I guess I’ve always thought we wouldn’t be apart for very long,” she admitted.
Something between his shoulders moved and she didn’t know what it meant. Amelia wanted so desperately to say something else, but she had come up against the limit of what words could fix. She was content to stay quiet all the way back to the fish-people’s village, to the stables outside the inn. The tranquil night was punctured by sudden sounds: loud popping, shrill whistles, the cracking rip of gunpowder. The cloudy northwest skies lit up with blooming red and blue flares.
“Jillas’s signal!” Pokota cried. “That means the fighting’s over! I forgot about him!”
“Don’t worry about that. Jillas-san has to go his own way every now and again,” Filia said, full of maternal pride. “And when he starts something he never quits.”
Even as Amelia admired his determination, she hoped Jillas would quit before someone declared him the new leader of Yalain. But the very thought of an end to the fighting filled her with relief. “Look, Zelgadis-san!” she said. “Finally, we get to see fireworks!”
“ 'Finally’? What about the fireworks for Phil’s coronation?”
“Oh, that’s right…” She pursed her lips. “Well, I didn’t really see those.”
Zelgadis whipped around, full of fresh anger. “What do you mean, you didn’t see them?!” he demanded.
Since when does he care about fireworks? “I was dancing with Gourry-san,” she explained.
“You what?!”
Talking had proven enough trouble for one day, so Amelia turned back to enjoy the show. She could just see the outline of the duke’s castle under overlapping flashes of red and blue.
After a pause Zelgadis jumped off Viator and tied the horse to a post. She thought he might stalk off and find a door to slam, but he returned to Viator’s side. He had some pity for her, or at least for her feet squeezed into those delicate jeweled heels that were never meant to venture beyond dance floors. Zelgadis grabbed at the skirts over her shins and she slid down. On any other occasion she might have said oops, thank you!, but now even a casual touch was enough to send joy and need pulsing through her, and that last bit of princessly reserve gave way like a soup cracker in a jet stream. As she tumbled down she wrapped both arms around his shoulders and kissed him.
***
For all his elaborate fantasies, Zelgadis hadn’t once considered that it would hit like a supercharged Visfarank to the face, but that was his own fault, wasn’t it?
***
Amelia was relieved he didn’t drop her. He had jolted with shock; one hand gripped the layers of skirts around her knees, holding her off the ground, while the other fumbled at the small of her back, but he didn’t let her go. He was as rough and cool as unhewn marble, and the sharp edges of his wiry hair dug into her forehead (it amused her that he kept his hair longer than hers). Every unwieldy sensation made her want to sing. A Zelgadis that was not awkward in his intimacy would not have been Zelgadis at all.
She could sense the self-doubt beating through his touch and tightened her arms around him. You can’t scare me, Amelia thought, doing her best to emphasize this point. For so many years Zelgadis had tried to shield her from all the awful things in the world that could hurt her, and she knew he had considered himself among those things. She couldn’t stand that. Being alive hurt, being alive wasn’t safe, didn’t he know that by now?
Something in him must have, because when he kissed her back it was as fierce as it was clumsy. It blamed and accused her, it surrendered himself as a jagged mess that she happily embraced. Zelgadis’s hand on her back pressed her closer, against his sinewy arms and the rocks that jutted out from his chest, and for the first time Amelia understood what it meant when the heroes in all those dramatic novels did something ardently…
“Arrgh!”
And now Amelia fell hard, landing face-first in muddy slush. She was still better off than Lina, whose cape had been pulled hard over her face and tied into a hasty knot. In her confusion Lina whirled around and smacked headfirst into a stable post.
“Wow, Lina!” Gourry said loudly, eyes wide, hands planted on both hips. “Bad case of cape ghosts!”
“ ‘Cape ghosts’ ?!”
“Oh yes, they’re everywhere!” added Sylphiel, holding a flailing Pokota in her cape. “I saw them, they—”
“Whaddya mean you saw a ghost?!” Lina finally tore the cape off, all but shredding it between her hands, and whirled around to level everyone with a furious glare. “ ‘Cape ghost’ my ass! I don't know what the hell's gotten into you guys but you’d better pray that I’ve forgiven you once we’re done burying this treasure!” She marched into the inn, grousing to herself about how this godforsaken place was making people crazy.
Amelia beamed at Gourry, who just shrugged and shook his head. “Cape ghosts, huh?” he said.
To Amelia’s surprise they were greeted at the inn by the shaman Dramitts, now dressed as some sort of mermaid monarch, and Seyruun’s foreign minister (“Your Highness, I’ve survived working for your family for twenty-five years,” the latter said grimly. “It’s going to take more than a little war to kill me.”).
As sometimes happened, after being so tired for so long they found themselves in the throes of new adrenaline. There were too many stories to compare and too many questions to ask. Most importantly, the innkeeper had baked more cookies, and there was a robust fire burning away at the hearth to accompany their hot coffee.
While everyone wanted to know what had happened to Amelia outside their world, she just wanted to listen and take heart in the sounds of voices she feared were gone forever. So she marveled over Zelgadis, Pokota, and Jillas’s daring deeds; listened at the edge of her seat as Gourry, and Sylphiel recounted their dramatic monster showdown at the shrine; and gasped when she heard what had befallen the treacherous Kaunan.
For her part, Lina only offered snarky comments between interruptions. She’d been immediately accosted by the shaman Dramitts, who demanded a full restitution of the fish-people’s money. Lina was willing to oblige, as long as she was permitted to keep the rest of Kaunan’s fortune. Unfortunately, Lina moved quicker than Amelia could explain international law around spoils of war. The rest of them could only watch in more frustration than disbelief as she sorted out emeralds from other priceless relics Kaunan had acquired. The latter she took out to the stables, burying them in the mud. Apparently after losing all her savings in two explosions she wasn’t taking any more chances.
“...it’s strange,” Zelgadis was saying. “Not that I was fully conscious, but I could have sworn I saw a woman at the temple after you left.”
“A woman?” Amelia asked.
“Yes…she was tall and…” He bit his lip. “Uh, distinctive,” he said, without elaborating. “Her laugh—”
“Who cares? No one cares, Zel,” Lina interjected, coming back to grab another armful of treasure for burial. “Say, Amelia, isn’t it your turn?”
“Well…” Amelia told her friends about the battles with the Ortolan-crab and the space through the rifts, omitting the parts with Xellos as she’d promised. She had a sense Zelgadis wasn’t convinced, and snuck him a look that meant I’ll tell you later. Filia insisted Xellos hadn’t been up to anything important: she, too, could keep secrets in her own fashion. “Oh, well, you know Xellos,” she said, packing those two syllables with a remarkable sum of disgust. “He didn’t want any healers getting mixed up in his chaos. He certainly wouldn’t have minded if we all died out there.”
“Probably the same reason why he had to keep me outside the barrier,” Lina said, nodding. “He knows I would have spoiled all his plans…but then he brought the stone back…what changed? Did he guess I had a backup plan anyway?”
“Maybe it’s not that complicated, Lina,” said Gourry. “Maybe not everything is about you.”
Lina furrowed her brow as she entertained the idea. “That doesn’t sound right at all,” she decided.
There were administrative concerns, too. Jillas was about to become a figure of extreme national significance if he wasn’t already. Seyruun’s foreign minister had been in touch with Seyruun’s delegation, which per Amelia’s instructions had sailed a short distance south and would return to Yalain in the coming days. “We may yet have some business left to settle,” the minister sighed. “But we should defer to Yalain’s leaders and the neighboring countries. Perhaps we should send one person from outside Seyruun, some distinguished investigator who isn’t afraid of a complicated task…”
“I’m not worried about it,” said Amelia, confident that somewhere Wizer was tightening his cravat.
The possession of a new fortune strengthened Lina’s second wind. “Look, we’re here and we’re awake, and it’s not midnight yet. How about we put that stone in the shrine and see if the spell works? The sooner we’re done here, the sooner we can get home with this treasure.”
“Yes, let’s!” said Sylphiel, who could be assertive where white magic and matters of holy sanctity were concerned. “If we put the stone in the shrine it might at least stop the monster attacks.”
“Great, then it’s settled,” said Lina, as if her suggestion hadn’t settled it. “Everybody clean up and meet back here in a half-hour. But I’ll tell you right now, the first step to successfully casting that spell is leaving the rest of the cookies for me.”
Amelia discovered the ‘clean up’ part would be difficult. Not only did she not have any other clothes, but her splendid golden gown and royal trappings weren’t meant to be easily removed. Xellos had replicated every last detail, down to the dozens of pins that held her tiara in place (after pulling out twenty and seeing no signs of her hair getting any looser, Amelia gave up). When she heard a knock on the door of her cluttered little room she hoped it might be Filia or Sylphiel with their uncanny motherly instincts. It wasn’t.
“Oh! Zelgadis-san.”
“Hey.”
She held open the door for him and watched as he strode past. Zelgadis stood at the window, his arms folded and expression blank. Puzzled, Amelia shut the door again and waited for some kind of explanation. After several seconds she wondered if he was waiting on her.
“Is this about…?”
“What happens after this?” he asked, without looking at her.
“Well, we won’t leave without a solid plan in place for the people of Yalain. Or without getting that octopus in garum sauce.” Amelia walked over to the sideboard and tried to steady herself with one hand, reaching down to grab her shoe with the other. Layers of exquisite embroidered skirts thwarted her. She groaned: and this was after the designers had modified the dress to be more comfortable.
“But who’s going to look after them? The duke could order reprisals on the people he thinks opposed him. And the monster attacks could continue.”
“I’m not worried about the monsters anymore.” Amelia thought that was a natural segue to telling him what had really happened with Xellos, but he didn’t seem interested in hearing it. Zelgadis paced to the door, back to the window, then the door again. His boots resounded on the worn wood floors.
“The fighting is over. But that’s only the beginning, isn’t it?”
“That’s true,” Amelia acknowledged, and sat down on a frail, frumpy sofa against the wall. She wasn’t used to Zelgadis taking an active interest in administration. For all his sound judgment and leadership skills, he preferred to leave the paperwork to her. She was, however, accustomed to the way he brooded and assumed the worst.
Amelia tried reaching her shoe from another angle, to no avail. A quick Bram Fang was a tempting solution, but she had no other boots or clothes to wear. She gave a little impotent kick. Despite her best efforts nothing would be coming off.
Zelgadis sat down brusquely beside her, ignoring the sofa as it squeaked. “This place could fall apart like Calliope, or Sairaag. What happens when we leave?”
“It’s no use,” Amelia said, both to Zelgadis and her stubborn shoes. “There’s no sense in thinking about how things could go wrong. Tomorrow morning we’ll wake up and do our best the way we always do.” She looked back at the sideboard, where the water clock pointed toward the coming hour. “We have twenty minutes before we have to go back out in the snow. Can’t you try something besides worrying and gloom?”
She discovered very quickly that he could.
***
They entered the shrine with a new cause for optimism. There were no monsters anywhere to be found, despite Lina, Gourry, and Sylphiel’s swearing there had been hundreds the day before. For the first time their footsteps and mumbled conversations echoed around the cavernous walls. The mist seeping from the altar had disappeared, and in its absence the shrine was even more immense and dark. Zelgadis wondered if the missing mist had anything to do with Amelia’s assertion that she was no longer worried about the monsters. He’d meant to ask about that, but more pressing things had come up. Either way he wasn’t concerned. There would be plenty of time to catch up on the long voyage back to Seyruun.
He was ready to be back in Seyruun, although not quite ready to acknowledge that out loud. He had always known he wasn’t Lina, who needed novelty as much as oxygen; he traveled because his circ*mstances compelled it. But he hadn’t known how much comfort lay in familiar things. An exotic land full of mysterious charms was no match for your own bed.
Maybe it was because he’d built a life that he didn’t feel the need to run from. Maybe it was just another part of getting older. The places he’d slept lately certainly hadn’t done his back any favors.
Eleven stones had been fitted into place atop the cracked altar, with one last rounded groove left. Lina pulled the remaining stone out of her pocket and gave its surface a hasty polish. She held it up for everyone’s appraisal. “All right, this is it. Anybody want to give a speech?”
“I could—” Amelia started. Zelgadis shushed her.
“Right, then. Here goes!” Lina jammed the stone down, shoving it in place, and the grievous desecration of an ancient holy artifact was rectified. Other than a faint click nothing happened. She looked disappointed. “Kinda anticlimactic after all that work.”
“No giant leeches this time, though,” Gourry pointed out.
“Well of course nothing happened yet,” said Filia, coming forward to take charge. “We’ve got to cast the healing spell. Let’s go, Sylphiel-san…”
Zelgadis had every intention of watching from the sidelines—“because if it’s anything like the last one, it’s going to be hilarious,” Lina said—but this one was going to be a team effort. Someone had to chant and dance, and another person had to sustain the spell in their arms, and then there was something about anchoring the magic to the altar with four hands.
“Enjoy your dance. Hope it doesn’t have as many running leaps as the last one,” said Lina with a snicker.
“Lina-san, that’s not nice!” Amelia scolded. She was full of sympathy for anyone who had to endure an embarrassing ritual. “Don’t you remember when we…?”
“Of course I do!” said Lina, who wanted everyone else to suffer the way she had. “Look, don’t feel bad for them. They don’t have to wear costumes.”
Amidst some shivering and shuffling around, they settled on a division of labor. Filia, as the only one proficient in dragon language, would be responsible for the chanting. Sylphiel would contain and amplify the spell; she hesitated, but the others reminded her she could handle a Dragon Slave. Pokota offered to anchor it. “I’ve got four hands already,” he said, interlacing the ends of his ear-hands and stretching them out like he had knuckles to pop.
“I’ll help, too,” Zelgadis said, not least because he knew that Amelia would volunteer if he didn’t. He was shocked and gratified that no one made an anchor joke.
The ritual was less holy magic and more pagan shamanism, a mishmash of curious practices too mortifying to be concealed even by the dead of night. Throughout the spell point Filia had to hold arms against her body like fins and flap while squatting. If something like this had been Zelgadis’s cure he might not have tried it. At least the stockings and makeup he’d had to wear in Femille was flattering, or so he’d been told.
After a few rehearsals they were more or less ready for the spell. It started with a “ritual ululation”, which in no way prepared them for Filia’s banshee-like screeching (that was still better than that unspeakable laugh from the strange woman, or goddess, or whatever she had been).
Zelgadis glanced over at his friends on either side of him. They watched Sylphiel and Filia at a safe distance from the altar. Lina was trying to get a laugh out of Gourry, who did his best to keep a straight face, while Amelia stood with Pokota nestled up against her tiara. Nothing could be more natural than this, all of them meddling with profound powers they didn’t understand.
He remembered how natural it felt when he’d met them in the harbor on that fateful sunny morning. He’d gone out of his way to avoid Amelia then, not wanting to wake the Thing in his chest that Phibrizzo had so conspicuously provoked. But ten minutes later they were casting spells together before they’d said hello. He’d barked orders at Lina and Gourry. He’d ignored Phil and all the royal guards as he carried Amelia under one arm and chucked life preservers with the other. That was normal.
Can’t you try something besides worrying and gloom? Well, maybe. Zelgadis could try staying present for a change. He could try to cherish these times where they were all together, watching their friends embarrass themselves in front of ancient gods. That was normal too.
“It’s like a mating ritual for aggressive worms.”
“Shh, Lina.”
“I’m just saying, if I ever do anything like that, you have my permission to kill me.”
“If you ever do anything like that, don’t worry.”
Filia made another squalling sound and this time it triggered a new light that radiated from the altar stones. The light flourished and drew together like knitted yarn. Sylphiel guided the light in her hands, forming it into a wide, rippling wave. It hummed under her touch.
“Hey, that’s our cue, right?” Pokota said. “Say, Amelia, do I get a kiss for luck?”
“You don’t need luck, Pokota-san, but all right.” Amelia pulled him down and placed a regal kiss atop his fuzzy forehead. He gave a happy wriggle, then flew off to the altar alongside Sylphiel. Zelgadis followed after him.
“No kiss for Zel, huh?” Lina smirked.
“I’ll live.”
Sylphiel continued to manipulate the magic as it swelled and soared toward the ceiling. The spell grew tense along the tips of her fingers, humming louder, threatening to break out of control. Glinting drops of sweat beaded along her brow and she closed her eyes to focus.
“You’re doing great, Sylphiel,” Zelgadis said. It sounded patronizing, but he empathized with that need for validation. He held up both arms as he’d been coached and discovered he could already feel the heft of the spell, a gathering storm of holy energy that warmed his palms. The altar stones glowed so bright he could no longer look at them.
“Yeah, you are!” Pokota said. “Okay, Zelgadis. You ready?”
“Sure.” He could count on one hand the number of times Pokota had called him ‘Zelgadis’ without hostility or sarcasm. For the first two months of their relationship he’d almost always been ‘that rock over there’. “Rezo Club,” he muttered under his breath.
“Huh?”
The humming transformed into a glorious major chord, three separate tones sounding together. Holy magic now all but enveloped the shrine, wrapping around pillars and twirling up to the highest parts of the graven walls.
Pokota and Zelgadis exchanged knowing looks. As the spell charged toward them, ready to envelop them in its power, they held their arms tensed—then together thrust them down at the altar, absorbing the magic at its source.
“Hey, Zel!” Lina yelled. “Hold on—”
“Zelgadis-san!”
The world around him dissolved in a broiling sea of light. He was engulfed, burning to death, yet Zelgadis was more annoyed than afraid. He didn’t know if he might be transported to another dimension with only Pokota for company. Was any worldwide peace or magical cure worth that? Amelia had better appreciate that kind of sacrifice, he thought.
It occurred to him then—because why not now, as every part of him was tormented with divine fire?—that cure was not an accurate description for what he wanted. It was an easy word, but not the right one. It wasn’t even the right concept, because he wasn’t looking for a cure. To be cured would mean to be healed of some deficiency, and he was not deficient. He was different in a way he sometimes regretted, and often longed to alter. Wasn’t everyone?
He couldn’t go back to his old body any more than Pokota could. His years of being a chimera couldn’t be erased, and moreover, he didn’t want them to be. He wasn’t looking for a cure, just a change. Was it a change into something impossible? Well, maybe. But ‘impossible’ wasn’t as large a word as he once believed.
What a shame that it’d taken him so long. The Hellmaster’s Jar could at least have told him he’d made a basic category mistake. But that was fitting for Rezo, withholding the things his grandson so desperately needed all the way to the end. Well, if Zelgadis were better at ontological nuances he might have followed Rezo into the priesthood instead of picking up a sword.
The holy magic as it burned reminded Zelgadis of the woman at the temple, whose power had also wrestled with the confines of his physical and spiritual being. Blue lightning arced through his teeth and numbed his tongue. He gripped the altar as tightly as he could, letting the white light boil through him. Some inscrutable daft impulse led him to wonder whether Pokota might be melting.
An earthquake in miniature tossed Zelgadis up off his feet and the magic was ripped from him, like a hooked fish torn off the line, or a reluctant anchor being flung upward by a rampaging lake dragon. He crashed back to the indifferent ground and decided he’d earned the right to stay there for a bit.
“Zelgadis-san! Pokota-san!”
“What happened? The spell, did it work?”
“Well, nobody’s dead.”
“Look, look! The crack on the altar is gone!”
“So what? We didn’t do all this work for rock repair.”
“It is called the Shrine of Restoration…”
Zelgadis stretched out one arm and unexpectedly grabbed a fistful of starchy fabric. He squinted up into Amelia’s big blue eyes, which encouraged him to look a little more. The spell had disappeared. Amelia sat crouched beside him, looking like a sparkling mushroom cap amidst the broad skirts of her billowing gown. Farther away Gourry was trying to calm Lina, who ranted about wasting their time. Pokota lay tail-up on the altar and moaned about his singed ears. He seemed to be angling for more attention from the healers than his condition warranted.
“Are you okay, Zelgadis-san?” Amelia asked.
“This was stupid,” he said, folding an arm over his eyes. He wasn’t mad about it because this, too, was normal. Even the back pain was par for the course, throbbing in familiar ways around his old scars. He was tired of everything.
“I know.”
***
E P I L O G U E
***
Sunrise came late to Yalain. In the dead of winter the daylight lasted all of six hours, so briefly that Amelia had sometimes been surprised to see the sun at all.
Against her will she was becoming accustomed to it. This morning she was determined to watch it rise, to see the promise of a new day for Yalain and all its people. She told the foreign minister in no uncertain terms that she’d earned this break. To her surprise, he’d agreed.
Amelia waited to watch the coming sun in the comforts of a plain white shift, borrowed from Filia, that went down past her toes. (“Don’t you dare complain it’s too long, Amelia-san,” she had said. “I’ve never found sleeves that fit me in all my life.”)
One advantage of Yalain’s seemingly endless nights was the opportunity to catch up on sleep. Amelia had been able to feel the exhaustion in her mind as well as her body; she’d had peculiar vivid dreams of a distinctive woman sneaking into the stables to steal Lina’s ill-gotten goods. Still, she slept plenty, and had lingered in bed a little longer before coming downstairs for bergamot tea. Well-rested, well-tempered, and with no painful corset or heels to stifle her: Amelia couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt so at ease. She was already thinking of a letter home to her father, recounting all their exciting adventures. You’ll never guess what happened…
The cozy aroma of cinnamon and toasted almonds wafting from the kitchen area encouraged her to relax. Sylphiel was helping with breakfast, which so far included pastries, porridge, and the thickest, chewy pillows of rye bread. Lina and Gourry were up early, preparing for their next adventure. They looked relaxed too. Lina’s hair was mussed in a confident sort of way, as it often did when she’d been slaying bandits in her sleep. Gourry was still trying to understand everything that had happened over the past two days.
“...and Xellos was playing us and Kaunan against each other, and using those stones to do it?” Gourry said. “I guess everything makes sense, then.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Lina, sipping her coffee.
“Well, some things make sense.”
“I wouldn’t go that far either.”
Outside the eastern horizon had turned an alluring light pink. It reminded Amelia of one of her favorite old gowns, inspired by the water lillies in the palace’s artificial ponds. She smiled and sat back again.
Not everyone shared her serene happiness. Filia stood at a distance with both hands clasped over her head, looking agitated. “Xellos is almost dead,” she declared, in a tone that suggested she was not exactly upset about this development so much as she resented it being her problem. “He’s suffering just knowing that this level of joy exists. According to him the positive feelings in this inn could, and I quote, ‘break a Hellmaster in half’.”
“Gee, it’s too bad we never have that level of power when we need it,” Gourry said.
Lina grumbled something about Xellos and convenient excuses. “He must’ve missed whatever yahoo was bawling their eyes out this morning. If those were happy tears they sure were melodramatic.”
“Oh, was that crying? I thought it was a sneezing fit.”
“I thought someone was trying to play a harmonica,” Sylphiel said.
Amelia had also thought the sound was more musical than mournful. The inn’s meager walls were thin enough that they had all heard it, but not thin enough to tell more than that. No one would have said anything regardless. When you traveled in a group, privacy was more precious than diamonds. Even compassionate Amelia had learned that unfamiliar noises were best left alone.
“He’s retching in my ears,” Filia moaned, clutching her headpiece. “Anyways, I’ve got to hate him back to health. The last time he was in dire straits all his degenerate associates showed up at the shop, thinking his condition was my fault, and I had to entertain them. Do you know what those repugnant creatures think tea is supposed to taste like?”
The mazoku’s taste in tea would remain a mystery, as they were interrupted by frenzied stomping down the stairs. “Lina Inverse!” someone shouted, so loud it shook the crooked old paintings on the walls level again. Lina spat out coffee in her lap. “Li-na Inverse!”
An ungainly man sprinted toward the dining table, making a beeline for Lina. He grabbed the top of her head and flung it into the table with gusto. “Ha!” he said. “Wow, that feels good! Let’s do it some more!”
“Hey! Hey!”
Gourry buttered his toast without saying anything. Sworn protector aside, he knew there was no shortage of people around the world with very good reasons for slamming Lina’s face into a table. He preferred to wait and gauge attackers before he intervened.
This particular attacker didn’t look like much of a threat. He was a skinny younger man, around Amelia’s age, with wild eyes and black hair that tumbled down around his shoulders. He had a lopsided, lunatic grin, underscored by the whimsical patterned curtains wrapped haphazardly around his otherwise naked form. There was something unusual about his hands and the span of his palms; they seemed wider than normal and too flat.
“All right, that’s enough,” Gourry said, but only after Lina’s head was almost pushed into his porridge. “What’s this about?”
Gourry’s word was all it took. The man let Lina go. “I’ve been wanting to do that for three years now!” he said cheerfully, full of manic glee. “Worth it!”
“Who the hell are you, you creepy little twerp?!” Lina growled, under a faceful of smushed honey cake. She jumped over the table and lunged at him, grabbing his impromptu toga. As she pulled him close with her left hand she prepared a Dragon Slave-sized right hook with the other. But the curtains stretched and tore in her grip. “Eeeugh!”
There was wincing, cringing, and shocked inhales as the curtains gave way. Amelia covered her eyes right as the fabric fell. Was one peaceful morning really so much to ask? she thought. Then she heard Gourry say “Huh.”
“ ‘Huh’? Don’t you mean ‘you look awesome’? How can you not feast your eyes on this epic buffet of manhood? First look is free, ladies!”
“None of us are looking at an insane naked man at the breakfast table!” Filia shrieked.
“I dunno, Filia,” Gourry said. He didn’t sound horrified or disgusted, not that he ever did. If anything he sounded a little bit curious. There was some rustling that Amelia did her best not to hear. “Maybe make an exception for this one.”
“Gourry-san! I’ll do no such thing!”
But Amelia was not Filia, and her faith in Gourry was stronger than her fear. She moved her hands around so that she could take a tentative peek through her fingers at the man’s grinning face. When Amelia dared to look a little lower she saw the skinny shoulders, a few stray chest hairs, and then the scars. His torso was covered in dozens of short, angled scars in crisscrossing rows, forming a long overlapping line from his stomach up to his neck. It looked like—
Lina’s punching arm wavered. “P-Pokota?”
“You know it, flatty!” he said, flexing both his puny biceps for effect. “Is that badass or what?”
Amelia dropped both hands, and while she was glad that he’d tied the curtains around his waist, she was too stunned to see him well. She was too stunned to see anything well at all.
“You look great,” said Gourry, whose only concern was for his breakfast. “But different, right? How’d it happen?”
“How the heck would I know? I woke up like this. Obviously this is how I was always supposed to look and it just took the universe a while to get it together. At first I thought it was one of those weird ego dreams but I’ll tell you, those dreams don’t end like—”
“Uh, well, congrats anyway!”
“Don’t congratulate him!” Lina cried, indignant. “There’s nothing to congratulate! No one asked for this!”
Their voices turned to distant noise in Amelia’s ears. She was across the room before she remembered getting up, she tripped over the too-long shift dress, she stumbled and fell without feeling it. The inn became as tense as a held breath.
She had felt something like this anticipation before, years ago when she’d prepared to face off against Martina’s notorious mercenary. Later, in a faraway seaside town, the locals had enlisted her to fight a rampaging demon that destroyed sacred temples. Both times she’d felt that specific battle-dread, that fear of the unknown. Once again she couldn’t guess what awaited her. There could be no preparing for that which would be truly new.
A heavy footfall caught her fluttering heart in her throat. While Lina and Pokota wrestled and lobbed spells behind her Amelia was frozen, half-standing, half-gaping. The world collapsed into a tunnel, a bounded line with two points: Amelia was one, and at the other, a seeming infinity away, was the figure coming down the stairs.
***
The End
