Heart of Darkness
Chapter 27
It was a
heavy silence that no-one seemed willing to dare break, but at length, it was
Gourry who did so. “Finding him won't be hard, he ought to leave an Astral print as big as the city of
Lina still wasn't comfortable with Gourry's random bouts of intelligence, but she had to admit he had a point. “Unless he's shielding himself – which is entirely possible, Gourry. If he's truly on the path we fear, then he may have taken steps to keep us from being able to find him. Remember; Zel is well seated in Shamanistic Magics, and even before all of this he could shield his presence from me if he wanted to.”
Jedah didn't mention that it was a matter of course that he shielded his presence from people. It helped with the illusion that he was nothing more than a tagalong little brother along for the ride.
“How will you stop him, Lina?” Amelia asked, glad for something to draw attention away from the now-dangerous subject of Jedah the Mazoku. Anything but that harsh reality that had smacked her upside the face, no matter how breathtakingly beautiful Jedah had been.
Lina sighed and shook her head slowly. “I... I don't know, Amelia. I've gotten through to him before; I have to believe that I can do it again. Zelgadis and I were connected by a spell once, I know him better than I ought to... so there should be some way that I can reach him.”
Everyone could hear the edge of desperation in Lina's voice, the absolute need to believe that there was something that she could do, some way to triumph over the seemingly insurmountable odds of overcoming Zelgadis, if he truly was taking the path that Xellos had indicated. Come to that... where was the powerful pest with purple tendencies?
“Where's Xellos, Jedah?” Lina asked, ignoring the surprise from Sylphiel and Gourry that Jedah would know. Subconsciously, she noted that neither Amelia nor Naga seemed surprised, but she'd get to that later. One thing at a time, and the immediate concern was the revelation of Zelgadis falling to the seduction of power.
“He's assessing the situation, Lina. I'm sure that he'll let us know when there's something important. In the meantime, we need to decide what we do. If we take what Xellos was told as truth, though we have to consider the source being Kessary and Cassandra, then we may well have bigger issues than simply Zelgadis. Kessary and Cassandra are subordinates of Deep Sea Dolphin, and having them on our hands as well could be very, very bad.” Jedah replied, looking less like the younger brother, and more akin to someone in charge. His hair was that short soft violet again, those eyes showing nothing of the hypnotic power they could hold. For all intents, he looked just as normal as the rest of them. If any of them could be considered normal. He just held himself as if he were older and in charge. Which, for the moment, he was.
Sylphiel took a look around the room, and with a knowing air of understanding, turned to Gourry. “Gourry dear, we should probably go gather up everything that we’ve dropped.” Gourry was amicably clueless enough to go along with.
Amelia understood the situation better than Sylphiel and agreed that they ought to bid a polite retreat. Naga, on the other hand, was recalcitrant. While Jedah answered Lina's question, the elder sister whispered to younger. “You saw, didn't you?”
“Yeah, I did,” Amelia replied, dismayed to be back in that conversation. “That's why I screamed.” She really didn’t want to discuss it, really didn’t want to have to come face-to-face with the thought that Jedah… was… yes. She grabbed Naga by the wrist and dragged her older sister along as they followed Sylphiel and Gourry out of the room.
Lina shook her head. She didn’t like this, didn’t like the situation and sure as Hell didn’t like what Xellos had shared. “What proof do we have, Jedah? What solid evidence is there that shows that we may have lost him to Shabranigdo?”
“We don’t.” Jedah replied quietly. “All we have is the word of Xellos, who was told by Kessary. We have nothing solid, but we can’t risk it being true. That much power drawn to Shabranigdo… it would be as devastating to the world as Dark Star would have been.” Oh, Jedah knew all about that, knew the power that could have been ripped though the Four Worlds, but for the determination of the tiny little redhead before him. It was one of the many reasons he respected her.
Lina nodded thoughtfully as she glanced around the room. “We have to figure this out. We have to find a way to get to him, Jedah. There has to be a way.” Sylphiel was trying to pick things up, but she’d dropped more than a few, and now Gourry was moving to help as Amelia and Naga looked worriedly to Lina and Jedah. Mistaking the cause for worry, Lina managed a fragile little smile to both princesses and turned back to Jedah. “And we have to protect them.”
“Zelgadis is looking for you, Jedah.” Xellos' voice filtered through the cavern, sending an already jumpy Amelia into the air.
“I know,” Jedah replied as he watched Amelia leap and land, facing the Trickster Priest who was just outside of the shadows. “And if there's one thing that I can't allow to happen, it's him find all of us together. Lina, forgive me, but I have to keep you safe. I promised.”
“Oh, I'm afraid that it's a bit too late for that, Jedah.” The voice that spoke from the shadows behind Xellos was soft, velvet with power. Even without the cringing of the closed-eyed wonder, Lina would have known it anywhere.
Long, slow steps brought the speaker out of the shadows, a tall figure cloaked in black with eyes as cold and hard as blue diamond.
Zelgadis had found them.