Chapter 14

The instant that they opened the door, both Lina and Zelgadis regretted it. The residue of dark and warped magic permeated the room like a living, breathing thing. Zelgadis slammed the door shut, turning to lean heavily against the iron and look at Lina.

Lina swallowed hard, fighting the urge to be ill as her stomach twisted from the raw sensation of the magic. “Ugh…” She managed. “What was that…?”

“My guess is that’s the remaining magic of the Mazoku that used to live here,” Zelgadis replied, equally disturbed.

There’s no way I’ll get Amelia down here to clean this up… Something occurred to her and she shivered violently. “Zel… this means… any black magic I use in here… would call on that first…”

“Then you’ll have to avoid using any black magic. There’s no telling what damage your dragon slave could do by pulling on that magic,” Zelgadis said, looking at Lina calmly now.

Lina nodded slowly. “Let’s go back upstairs and try to figure out where that room is… without having to enter it, if possible. Maybe it’s a basement room of another building.”

“Why? Lina, I think we ought to just let this place stay as it is. We don’t belong in here, why stir up trouble when neither of us are in any shape to deal with it?”

His objection startled her, and she looked to him. “But Zel… what about a potential cure…? I mean, this is older than the Claire Bible!”

He shook his head. “No, Lina. We’re both caught up in Rezo’s spell. What if we were in the middle of a fight with something in here and the spell decided to pull us away?”

Lina opened her mouth to argue the point, but the fierceness in his eyes backed her down. She nodded, defeated. “Fine. We’ll work out that spell first, and then maybe we can come back here and look.”

Gourry was sitting quietly, enjoying the relative peace of the early evening, but Amelia was up and pacing again. They’d been gone now for several hours, and Amelia had run the gamut of emotions, only to wind back up where she had started.

There was a rustle of cloaks, and both Lina and Zelgadis alighted nearby.

Both Amelia and Gourry turned to see them, and stared. To say that both of their friends looked like hell was putting it mildly. Gourry stood, surprised, and Amelia ran to support Lina because it looked to her like the redheaded sorceress was about to fall over.

“Miss Lina, Mister Zelgadis! What happened down there?” Amelia asked in dismay as she reached Lina’s side.

Lina lifted her hand. “We just look a lot worse than we feel, Amelia.” She shifted her weight, applying a slight pressure to Zelgadis. Lying through her teeth, she continued brightly. “I’m hungry, and there’s no food down there. So… I thought we could go back to town, clean up, and get some food.”

Gourry grinned. “Sounds good to me! You two look like you’ve been in some old catacomb or something.”

Lina looked down at herself, noticing how dusty and dirty she was. “I’m not sure what it was, Gourry. But it left its mark, and I need a bath!” Nudging the chimera beside her, she grinned. “So do you, Zel.” There was a particularly dusty area on his cheek where, Lina realized with a jolt, she had touched him.

Zelgadis, having long learned by now, was playing his part stoically and perfectly. He folded his arms and started walking towards the city nearby. “Sure. Suddenly it’s Pick on the Chimera Day.”

Stifling a grin, Lina turned around to watch him. “Aw, come on, Zel…”

Amelia put her hands on her hips and frowned at his back. “But she’s telling the truth, Mister Zelgadis.”

He didn’t stop, so the others took off after him.

Lina settled into the warm water with a sigh. Oh… that feels good. I hadn’t realized how tired I was… Zel was right. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the wall and silently thanked him.

A shadow fell across her, and she opened her eyes to see Amelia standing beside the water, as if debating whether or not she ought to get in. “What’s wrong, Amelia? The water’s nice, and I showered first. Come on in.”

The petite princess sat at the edge of the bath, slipping her legs in first. She was obviously preoccupied, and Lina wondered for a moment before Amelia gave in and sighed. “Miss Lina… is everything working out for you and Mister Zelgadis? I don’t want to sound pushy, but he really deserves to be happy, and…”

Lina sat up, looking at Amelia. “Amelia… you’re such an incredibly sweet person, did you know that?”

Amelia blinked, eyes growing wide. Lina’d never said anything like that before. “Um… me? But I thought… I mean, I know I annoy you a lot of times…”

Lina grinned. “Amelia, everyone annoys me a lot of times. That’s… who I am.”

Amelia gave Lina a long look. “Are you sure you’re okay, Miss Lina? You didn’t get possessed or anything in that city, did you?”

Lina shook her head. “No, we didn’t really find anything that was useful yet…” She paused. “Amelia… you remember the other night… when you cast the Astral Transference spell?”

Amelia nodded, slipping into the water completely. “Yeah… what happened?”

Lina sighed, looking off across the water. “Well… Rezo cast some sort of spell on Zelgadis.”

“Another one? Poor Mister Zelgadis!”

Lina shook her head. “No, Amelia. This time, he was trying to help. You see… it was really Shabranigdo that cast the curse on Zelgadis. And while Rezo wasn’t strong enough to counter the spell, he could cast a spell that would subtly allow Zelgadis over time to overcome it with time.”

Amelia frowned. “But I don’t understand…”

Lina sighed. “When Rezo went into seclusion so long ago… Shabranigdo took over. The whole time we fought him… he was Shabranigdo, not Rezo. Rezo’s soul was trapped within his body by Shabranigdo. When I cast the Giga Slave on him, Rezo’s soul was freed and helped me destroy the Dark Lord.”

“Oh… poor Rezo…” Amelia whispered.

Lina nodded. “And so he did what he could to protect Zelgadis. But the spell’s backfired and now both Zelgadis and I are caught in it.”

“Caught in it? What do you mean, Miss Lina?” Amelia asked, looking with concern to the redheaded sorceress.

“The spell was only intended to show Zelgadis the way to break the curse. However, Rezo didn’t anticipate that Shabranigdo would leave a little of his own power in Zelgadis.”

Amelia gasped in horror. “Mister Zelgadis… is Shabranigdo?”

Lina facefaulted. “No, Amelia… do you remember when Zelgadis was controlled by Rezo and turned against us?”

The princess thought for a moment. “Yeah… I do.”

“Well, that was really a infinitely small part of Shabranigdo. And because the Dark Lord isn’t completely destroyed, it still has power within Zelgadis,” Lina said. “And that’s what caused Rezo’s spell to backfire.”

Amelia considered, but didn’t say anything.

“As it is now, I’m the one that the spell seems to have transferred to… and when it takes effect, I get taken off into the Astral Plane and swallowed into a lot of chaos. Somewhere is the key to solving this… but I haven’t found it yet. I’m sure it has something to do with what Rezo told me,” Lina mused.

“What did Rezo tell you, Miss Lina?” Amelia asked. “Maybe if we both work on it…”

“Rezo told me that he couldn’t counter Shabranigdo’s curse on Zelgadis… but that he could give Zel the keys to undoing it. And that those keys became a part of Zelgadis himself. But what they are… or how to activate them… I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Amelia sighed. “That’s not a lot to work with, Miss Lina.”

Lina grimaced. “Tell me about it! The only advantage I see is that somehow, this spell has linked me with Zel. I’ve seen a lot of things about his past… and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, or a bad thing. I mean, we all know how he likes his privacy… and here I’ve been granted all this personal history about him…”

Amelia sighed, thinking how lucky Lina was. “As long as you don’t misuse it… and you don’t hold it over him…”

Lina looked at Amelia. “Amelia, I like him. He’s a good friend. There’s no way I’d intentionally hurt him like that!”

Amelia smiled. “Good.”

Lina leaned back into the water, and the two girls settled into a companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts.