Silently the others followed
the chimera. At length, they came to the room where Lina had cast the Vigarthagaia
spell and returned to the original path of traveling.
As they passed through a
set of archways, the little group entered what looked to be a temple that
had fallen underground in an earthquake. As Lina and Amelia looked around,
Zelgadis stopped and made preparations for camping the evening there.
Lina wasn’t quite ready
to settle in for the night, so she took the opportunity to slip off, saying
that she wanted to make sure that the area was more or less safe. In reality,
she wanted some time away. The incident earlier and Zelgadis’ reaction…
well, to be quite honest, it scared her. She’d seen Zelgadis angry before,
but never quite that angry with her.
He was right, though. She
shouldn’t have just thrown around that much magic without thought. She
could have caused a cave-in. Reckless and stupid, Zelgadis had said. Well…
that was about right, wasn’t it?
She sat down on a ledge,
letting her feet dangle out over the next ledge and contemplated the natural
steps created by the ledges. What if they led somewhere? There seemed to
be a pattern to them…
“What are you doing?”
Lina looked up from her
contemplation of the rock steps to see Zelgadis standing there, arms folded.
He still looked irritated. She sighed and stood, looking to him. “Look,
Zel… about earlier… you’re right. I shouldn’t have cast the Vigarthagaia.
Especially when I’ve only just learned to control it.” She looked away,
back towards where the stones led. “I really… appreciate you teaching me
the earth shaman spells… but maybe… maybe I should stay away from it for
now. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, right? Maybe earth magic
is my weakness.”
“It’s not your weakness.
Vigarthagaia wasn’t the right spell to use. What you should have done was
reverse the Bogardic Elm spell,” he replied quietly.
She turned to look at him
in surprise. “Reverse the Bogardic Elm? But…” It dawned on her how she
could have done it, and she flushed, feeling like a first-level guild applicant
again. “Oh no… I guess I overdid it again, huh?”
“A little,” he conceded.
“And about earlier. I apologize for losing my temper. There are… reasons
that higher-level magic shouldn’t be used here.” Now he was looking away
from her.
“Hey,” Lina replied arily,
looking off for a moment to see Amelia standing in the archway behind Zelgadis.
“After that, I daresay I deserved it. But…” she looked back to him. “I
admit that I wasn’t sure what you were going to do. For a moment…” She
shivered. “Zel… is everything… okay?”
His jaw hardened, and she
blinked. “Zel…?”
“I’ll take first watch tonight,
Lina. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn,” he said, the tone of finality
ringing in his voice. It was clear that she wasn’t to argue with him.
She blinked again, and then
saw over his shoulder that Amelia had ventured into earshot. Ah… he
doesn’t want her to know something. But what, I wonder…? Eh… he’ll tell
me eventually. Amelia can’t hang onto him all the time. She nodded
and looked across at Amelia. “Amelia! I can’t believe that you’re leaving
Gourry in there with all the food! He won’t leave any for us!!” And with
that hastily crafted excuse, Lina darted for the other room, leaving a
baffled Amelia staring at Zelgadis.
“Um… Mister Zelgadis… are
you… hungry?” Amelia asked as Lina vanished into the room where camp had
been made.
“I’m fine, Amelia. Go get
some rest. Tomorrow will be a very long day.”
With a sigh, Amelia turned
and returned to the camp.
In the middle of the night,
Lina woke to find that Zelgadis was still on watch. Leaving her sword and
cloak behind, she tiptoed out to where he sat, and sat beside him. “So
what was it that you didn’t want Amelia to hear earlier, Zel?”
He hadn’t looked over when
she walked up, but she knew that he’d noticed her. And without looking
her way, he replied. “This set of stones leads down to another of Rezo’s
laboratories. Only… this one…” His voice trailed off.
“This one?” Lina prompted.
“This one was where he did
his research and testing. I don’t know what we’ll find in here. There are
some… things… that may yet be… alive.”
“Things?” she echoed.
“Things.” He replied solemnly.
“Not all of his experiments were successes. And not all of the failures
were fatal.”
“Oh.” Lina swallowed. “Um…
Zel… are you sure we should be here…?”
“You don’t have to be here.
But I must. I need to know…” he answered.
“To know what?” Lina asked,
looking down the steps with a shiver.
“To know what is left.”
Lina didn’t like the sound
of that at all.