Chapter 20

 

            Zelgadis stepped through the door, closing it behind him, and turned to view the room before him. It felt as though he had suddenly, by stepping through that door, gone backward seven years. The rational part of him argued that it wasn’t possible, that he knew that this room had been destroyed in the rebirth of the Dark Lord Shabranigdo. Yet, undeniably, he was within the room, the warmth from the fire in the fireplace filling him with memories, and he walked over to look into the fire and think.

            “You have made it at last, Zelgadis.”

            He spun to see Rezo standing there, eyes closed, staff in hand. But before he could react, Rezo held up a belaying hand. “Wait, Zelgadis. Here, in this place and at this point, I am not controlled by Shabranigdo.”

            Zelgadis glared at the image of the man. “You’re dead, Rezo. You died when Lina Inverse destroyed Shabranigdo.”

            Rezo nodded. “Indeed. However, I also exist within this spell. Once the spell has reached its natural conclusion, I will be completely gone from the world. And it is this very spell that I must explain to you.”

            Zelgadis shook his head, leaning against the mantle of the fireplace, allowing the heat to distract him briefly. But at Rezo’s words, he sighed. “What you did to me, Rezo…”

            “What I did was try to grant you the chance to reclaim yourself, Zelgadis,” Rezo replied softly. “It was never my intention that you pay the price that I was born unwilling to pay. Had I known what would have happened, would I have taken you from the village? I cannot know. As for here and now… I wish to offer my apologies.”

            The youth waved his free hand across the room. “Funny way to do that, Rezo. Is all of this… truly necessary? This false surrounding? This memory of a place better left forgotten?”

            Rezo regarded Zelgadis for a moment, and then shook his head. “It is not, but the truth of the spell is far sharper than you think it may be. Where you stand is within no space or time. It exists purely within your own mind, heart, and soul. Within this place of Self is the power and the choice to forever alter your life.”

            Zelgadis eyed Rezo untrustingly, moving away from the fireplace. “What do you mean, Rezo? Stop talking to me in riddles.”

            “Forgive me, Zelgadis. I am but a Priest, and that is not a riddle.” Rezo lifted his staff, bringing it down with the clang that had always made Zelgadis cringe when he was younger. It still made his stomach twist, even now when he knew that Rezo was dead and uncontrolled by Shabanigdo.

            The room rippled, the illusion fading in a circular sweep out from the staff, revealing a vast expanse of nothingness. They stood on what seemed to be a rocky outcropping which had a set of stone stairs that led up to a door in the middle of absolute nowhere. Zelgadis eyed it suspiciously for a moment. "Do you really expect me to fall for that, Rezo?"

            The sightless priest sighed, looking with his other-sight to the youth before him. "That is the doorway back to yourself. It is, in essence, the very end of the spell."

            Zelgadis folded his arms, skeptical. "Why should I believe that?"

            "You must only believe yourself, Zelgadis. I never intended for you to become my enemy. I was a priest; called to the service of Cepheid... by what right or knowledge did I have to raise you? You were the last of my family... the family that I had abandoned in anger and frustration. Perhaps it was that anger and shame of abandoning them which allowed Shabranigdo to gain such power over me. I regret now what I had done, the severing my family ties because I could not see. I made many mistakes, but I would have liked to think that taking you as my own was not one of those errors."

            Zelgadis scowled, a heated retort flying to his lips. "You had a damned strange way of showing it, Rezo. Xolf and Rodimus had more to do with my raising than you did. You were always somewhere trying to recover your eyes, doing research with Eris."

            Rezo turned away. "Yes, and I regret that as well. There is so much that I wish to say, but heated words and weak explanations will never complete the spell."

            The chimera almost argued the point, but he was keenly aware that he must soon be running out of time in the Astral Plane... and without Lina, he wasn't certain he could get back. "Fine."

            Rezo gestured with the staff, and suddenly, the three other selves were standing there. The stone golem, the human, the Mazoku. "Each of these is you. These are the three distilled that form you as you are now. What each has to offer is what you are in whole. Your human self... I regret to say, has not the power of the family blood. Your mother was not an inherently magical being... however, to a point, you were. Even as a human, you had the restorative powers of a cleric. But, that was all you had. Had you been raised in the town, perhaps you would have exceeded my own abilities as a Priest of Cepheid. But you would never have been able to manage a sword."

            Zelgadis considered. He'd never been ill... he remembered that. Even when he was human, other kids would get sick, and he would feel his magic reaching out from within to keep him well. But that was the only time his magic answered him. How many times had he tried to master the simplest fireball? Sometimes, if he had been concentrating particularly hard on it, he could summon the tiniest puff of smoke, but never the fire.

            "The plague that killed our family had no chance with you. But that was the extent of your abilities, Zelgadis. I wonder if you would have been happy with the fact that you could only cast healing magics?"

            The chimera saw himself, a human Priest wandering the world, curing and healing. "I would have done what was needed," he admitted grudgingly.

            "But you would always be giving yourself. After a while... one grows tired of forever giving." Rezo shook his head. "The stone golem allows your strength and resistance to injury. The Mazoku is the source of your current power."

            "I still don't see what this has to do with my cure," Zelgadis said, sighing and shaking his head. So far, Rezo had only explained what each element that formed him was good for.

            "Your cure is before you, Zelgadis. You have the chance to choose right here, right now. What will you become when you walk through that door? For when you walk through that door, you will become what you truly wish yourself to be. Completely Human? It is entirely up to you. But you needed to know the truth of each aspect. The cure lies within you, Zelgadis. You must choose for yourself what you will become."

            Zelgadis glared at Rezo. "Why should I believe you? After all this time? Why should I believe?"

            Rezo smiled faintly. "That, again, is up to you." He looked up and over, towards the door. "Your time grows short, Zelgadis. My time is finished. I wish that it were not so, and that I had more time to spend with you. Instead, all that I can do is grant you now the knowledge..."

            The Red Priest raised his staff. Zelgadis cringed, fully expecting that horrible clang one last time, but instead, Rezo vanished into mist, leaving Zelgadis to look at the counterparts in silence.

            Something suddenly embraced Zelgadis, and a light shot up all around him that was so bright he had to close his eyes. For a moment, for a brilliant breath-taking and soul-aching moment, Zelgadis felt Rezo’s soul touch his, felt the gentle love, and the intense shame at what had been done. For a fiery instant, Zelgadis saw precisely the life that he would have been called towards, and the knowledge so filled him that he opened his eyes and looked at his counterparts, he stepped forward and extended his hand towards one of them.

            Touching, turning, opening the door.

            His choice was made.

            He stepped through.