Lina stared. Somewhere in
the back of her head, a small voice began ranting about the impossibility
of it all, and then she forcibly reminded herself that when dealing with
the remnants of Rezo’s magic, almost anything was possible.
She was looking at the prime
example of it: one very irritated, very human Zelgadis.
She watched the human look
at chimera look at human look at her. Raising both hands, she turned so
that she could see them both. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I only
killed the dragon.”
The human smirked. “I’m
perfectly aware of that, Lina.”
Amelia looked back and forth,
finally venturing nervously: “Mister… Zelgadis?”
Both human and chimera turned
to look at her, though only the human offered a verbal reply. “Yes, Amelia?”
It proved entirely too much
for Amelia, and the princess promptly burst into tears. “I don’t know which
you is you!”
The human sighed, and the
chimera deflated slightly. Sylphiel figured it out at once. “They’re both
Zelgadis, Amelia! One is just an extension of the other…”
Gourry scratched his head.
“I don’t get it. If that’s Zelgadis… who is this?” He pointed to the chimera,
who joined the human in staring disbelievingly at him.
Lina reached for something
to smack Gourry with, grabbing the first thing that came near her hand,
and scored the hit. Only then did she look at what she had used.
It was a brown shoe with
no special traits, only slightly scuffed. Her expression shifted from irritation
to disbelief as it dawned on her that she’d grabbed it from above her…
she turned and looked upwards to see a very startled Xellos… minus a shoe.
Amelia’s muffled tears turned into muffled laughter as those looking at
the Mazoku noticed his sock. It was black, with yellow dots of what looked
like smiley faces on it. Lina smiled dangerously, drifting up towards Xellos,
shoe in hand. “Xellos…” She started to snicker, “your socks… have smiley
faces on them…”
Xellos snatched his shoe
back from Lina, hastily putting it back on his foot. “So what if they do,
Lina? I happen to like them. I walk around flattening happiness wherever
I go.”
It took the group several
minutes to recover while the smiling Mazoku enjoyed his joke.
“So Zel…” Lina started as
she chewed on some waybread at their hastily-made camp. “What do you think?
Is one of you a copy?”
The human looked at the
chimera. The chimera looked at the human. Lina decided that it was entirely
too spooky.
The human shook his head.
“I don’t know. The other copies that we encountered… To be honest, we didn’t
really study any of them. And the copy of Rezo was perfectly capable of
functioning without a controlling element, unlike…” For lack of a better
reference, he simply looked at the chimera, who looked back at him.
Eris frowned, leaning forwards
as Lina sipped from her waterskin. “Are you controlling him, Zelgadis?”
The human nodded. “To an
extent, yes. It’s disorienting, but I can see from both… viewpoints. I
can’t make him talk… but I can influence what he does.”
Eris pursed her lips. “You
aren’t going to like this, but switch back, if you can. Just for a moment.
I need to see if you can control the human from the chimera.”
For a moment, it looked
as if the human would object, but with a resigned sigh, he closed his eyes.
Lina noticed that the chimera’s eyes closed at the same time as well.
Quite suddenly, the human
fell backwards, hitting his head on the rock that he was sitting in front
of, and the chimera opened his eyes, looked over with irritation, and remarked
quite clearly: “That’s going to hurt, you realize.”
Lina reflexively looked
at the human who looked for all the world like he was asleep. “It’s nothing
that a healing spell won’t fix…” She reached out with the spell in her
hand, casting it, then shivering.
“What’s wrong, Lina?” Sylphiel
asked.
Lina shook her head. “I
felt the magic heal… but there was no sense of awareness.”
Eris looked to the chimera.
“Can you wake him?”
The chimera stared at the
human for a time, and then shook his head. “No. This body has the advantage
of demon and golem. That,” he said, indicating the human body, “does not.”
Eris nodded. “You can switch
back if you want. I don’t think this is a simple case of copy.”
The chimera blinked, and
the human sat up with a grunt and looked at Eris. “What do you think this
is then?” The human asked.
Eris frowned. “That is
disconcerting, Zelgadis. I think probably Rezo lied to you, and somehow
Astrally translated you into the form he created with the demon and the
golem. I’m going to have to think about this some more, and find the library
and read some of his studies again. But why don’t we rest for the night,
and start looking again in the morning?”
Lina nodded. “Yeah, Zel.
In that body, you’re human. You may not be aware of how tired you really
are.”
Everyone got their bedrolls
out, and as watches were split out, Zelgadis noted that he wasn’t included.
But before he could gather enough energy to remark upon it, he was fast
asleep.