Heart of Darkness

Chapter 20

Jedah looked at Lina for a moment, his calm light blue eyes scanning her angry red ones. “What do you want to know, Lina? Where do I begin to explain the path that has led us to this place? There is no easy beginning… unless you wish to fall all the way back to the moment the Sea of Chaos gave birth to the Four Worlds?”

Lina folded her arms across her chest and smirked at Jedah. “Which you weren’t around for, right? Never mind, that was rhetorical. Are you really related to Zelgadis?”

If there was anyone in the Four Worlds more capricious than Xellos, it was Jedah. Delightfully aware of how uneasy the Trickster Priest was becoming, the son of Zelas simply grinned his brightest boyish grin at the purple haired panic inducer and nodded to Lina. “I’m very much akin to Zelgadis, Lina. Moreso than Rezo.” Jedah really hoped he wouldn’t have to explain it all. It could get… well, tricky. “I’m not a brother to him by birth, Lina. But I’m his brother never-the-less.”

Lina considered this. All of her life, she’d been the younger sister, the one whose middle name had been Trouble. Well, not really, but Lina regarded her middle name as a Family Secret and wasn’t about to advertise it to the world. In fact, outside of her family, only Zelgadis knew that she had one, let alone what it was.

“Beatrice,” Xellos remarked, the name so completely out of the blue that Jedah just looked at him. Perhaps it was lucky for them both that Lina had started talking at the same time.

“Okay, Jedah. If I take this at face value, as far as faces go around here, and you know where Zelgadis is, then why can’t we just go get him? You’re all-powerful, the son of Greater Beast, what is stopping you from going and getting him? Hell, with that, if the two of you are so damned similar, why hasn’t he come back to me?” There was an edge in that, the soft hint of tears echoing in the silences between the words.

Damn his father for his compassion. Jedah sighed and spread his arms wide, hands open, palms up. “I can’t, Lina. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s not about the power to do so. It’s about an ancient law that cannot be breached. One Mazoku cannot directly interfere with the actions of another. It’s a law that is older than Xellos, older than even I am.”

Lina glared at both of them. “Where is he, Jedah? Who has Zelgadis? Tell me!” Her voice was torn with anger, pain, and tears unshed.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” Jedah said quietly. He wasn’t prepared for Lina to fly at him, to pummel his shoulder with her fist in sorrowful rage. Nor did he expect her to cling to him with her other hand, tears falling down her cheeks.

“I’m not Mazoku. I can go get him,” Lina sobbed into Jedah’s shoulder. “Just tell me how. Take me close enough and I’ll go get him. Whatever it takes.”

“It will take a lot, Lina. You don’t understand what’s at risk for all of us. I told you about Ambervale, but I didn’t tell you about afterwards.” Jedah replied calmly while he gently but firmly pried himself free of her grip and looked to her steadily.

“Afterwards?” Lina echoed, blinking at Jedah. She wanted to sit, so she stepped away from Jedah, moving across to a small pedestal and sat on it, tucking her feet up beside it. It seemed that the more Jedah talked, the heavier reality got.

It didn’t help that Xellos was looking at Jedah in open concern. Jedah wouldn’t just outright tell it all… would he? There were a great many things that he knew about the pair who claimed brotherhood… after all, he had been there for it.

“To put it simply, Lina, Zelgadis lost control. After Ambervale, he rambled, he raved, he was incoherent with grief.” Jedah said, walking over to her and seating himself on the floor. He idly traced a glyph on the floor, watching the glow from his contact fade as he lifted his finger. “But when the anger kicked in…” he shook his head. “He almost destroyed us both.”

He hung there in mid-air, half corporeal, half Astral, close to completely exhausted. Zelgadis was nearly tireless, relentless in his attacks, combinations of magics that even Jedah would have thought twice about before trying. But enough was enough. He hadn’t wanted to take this path, hadn’t wanted to force Zelgadis back, but Jedah just couldn’t fight the three combined wills within the Chimera. Not like this. He’d have to wait until the will of the Dark Lord was subdued. Rezo still had too much control over Zelgadis.

Jedah forced his thoughts into Zelgadis’ mind, forced the chimera to a halt and used all of his might to break the tenuous ties between the three. Human. Mazoku. Golem. It would hurt Zelgadis terribly, but it was the only way to save them both. To protect him, he brought forth the Golem’s physical aspects, suppressing the Mazoku as much as he could, and allowing the Human mind to exert control. It was the best that he could do.

“Yes, Lina. I’m the one that broke him.” Jedah finished with a sigh, not willing to look to her. “Shabranigdo’s will was too strong, linked into him as it was through Rezo’s control. So I broke him with all the violence I could, and took him as my older injured brother that needed my care.”

Lina could hear the sadness in Jedah’s voice, incongruous with the harshness of his words. Xellos had ceased looking uncomfortable, and now looked as if he was trying to come up with an excuse to escape. “And you knew all this time, Xellos.”

The Trickster Priest attempted to look innocent, but in the face of both Lina and Jedah, he relented. “Didn’t you ever wonder why Zelgadis dislikes me? He knew who I was when you first met me. Oh, he didn’t know who I was… but we’d met.”

Before Lina could ask anything else, Amelia's voice called from outside. ""Lina! Jedah! We have food!"

"Just one more thing, Jedah," Lina said, looking to him. "What's between you and Xellos anyway? I mean, I figure that you're equally, if not more, powerful than he is..." Lina watched the look that passed from Xellos to Jedah. It spoke volumes without a single sound. "But he holds the rank. Who is he to you?"

"Oh... him?" Jedah said lazily as he stretched his arms and walked towards the exit that led to the hallway up to the beach. "He was a Cephied Priest that I seduced, stripped of all will, and handed back a Mazoku Pact." And with that, Jedah Metallium Greywords walked out of the chamber, leaving an openmouthed Lina and a very understandably violet-faced Xellos.