Archive of Our Own ^beta

Desperado
By Pairaka

“It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzling fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the side. It’s more interesting and doesn’t take so long.” 
* * *

Prologue

“Stupid words…if they’re said with the right passion and the gods are feeling bored, sometimes the universe will re-form itself around words like that. Words have always had the power to change the world.
Be careful what you [say]. You never know who will be listening.”

It was hot. And dry. And dusty. 

While the first two things didn’t really have much effect on the traveler in the beige tunic, beige pants, beige cloak, the dust did. In fact, it was so dusty that even his skin and his hair were colored the same beige as his clothing. One large walking beige-colored Chimera, that’s me, Zelgadis Greywers thought as he trudged into the town’s outskirts. It was little more than a single street with storefronts and boardwalks lining the dusty and cracked earth that formed the lane. He trudged up to the watering trough, slung his pack down on the ground, pulled his cloak off his head, bent over, and scooped several large handfuls of water up and over his head. The water rushed off and back into trough carrying the dust with it. 

No longer beige-colored, he straightened and looked around the town, taking in the details that he had missed upon his initial inspection: A general store, livery, town hall which doubled as a sheriff’s office, few more stores, some houses set back off the street, and the saloon. He was closest to the last and could hear it was already busy inside even though it was the middle of the day. There were three porch-sitters outside, two discussing the daily paper and the other, clothed in black and wearing a black hat, was leaning back and snoozing with his hat pulled down low over his eyes. 

Sighing, Zelgadis looked down the road. He should really just keep going; he had a long walk ahead of him if he wanted to get to Stolat before midsummer. It was a month’s walk away. Through more of this hot, dry, dusty, beige-colored desert. And for what? 

For a tip to what might possibly turn out to be his cure.

But then again, it would probably be like so many other tips before: A dead end. 

And what would that get him?

Another month of walking.

Another lonely month of walking and getting nowhere. 

Another wasted month of his life…

“Shit.” He reached down and picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder. “Stolat isn’t going anywhere.” It had all become almost too much in the last few months. So many false leads…It was enough to make even him about ready to give up. 

But not quite.

Sighing, he turned and mounted the steps into the saloon, muttering as he went, “Why does my life suck so much, anyway? Damn Rezo…” He pushed open the swinging half-doors with a little more force than needed and they banged against the inner walls loudly. The crowd inside fell silent and looked up at him as he stepped into the dark interior. “Anyone playing poker?” he asked as he scanned the crowd. 

A hand was raised in the corner. “Here.”

“Need another player?” he said with a glare at the rest of the crowd as he headed towards the table.

“We can always use another player,” the first speaker said, scooting his chair over to make room for the newcomer.

Zelgadis dropped his pack on the floor, grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table while reaching into his money wallet. Tossing a handful of coins onto the table, he pulled the chair around and sat. “Deal me in,” he said. 

* * *

On the porch outside, the two sitters discussing the recent news got up and wandered off to another part of the town. The third, however, leaned his chair slowly forward until all four legs were resting on the rough-hewn boards. He pushed the brim of his hat up as he turned and looked into the saloon after the blue-skinned man. Black hair braided with red and blue beads fell over his shoulders as he twisted around, and golden eyes seemed to pierce the murky darkness inside. They fixated on the back of the Chimera’s head and just…stared a moment. A sly grin twisted his handsome mouth upwards as he seemed to look through the newcomer and see into all the shadowy places. 

“Why does your life suck, indeed,” he said softly. Leaning back in his chair, he picked up the guitar that was propped against the wall next to him and started strumming. “Let’s find out just why.” He closed his golden eyes and started picking out a tune on his guitar, humming it as he did so. “Let’s learn what story your song has to tell.”

* * *

Part 1

He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn’t play for the money he wins
He doesn’t play for respect

“Call.”

Cobalt eyes looked into grey-green as the cards were laid down. 

“Full house, kings high.”

“Ah, damn,” the other man said, throwing his cards face down in disgust. “I can’t believe this. I thought for sure you were bluffing.”

“That should teach you to play poker with someone with a face of stone,” another of the players said jokingly. 

The winner’s eyes snapped around to the speaker. “I’d watch my tongue if I were you, Janson,” he said in a quiet voice that was more deadly than any shout could ever be.

Janson held up his hands in surrender. “No offense,” he said. “Just joking. You don’t have to take it personal-like,” he said in the strange drawl that was common in this section of the world. “You gotta admit, though, that stone face of your gives you a decided advantage over us. You don’t give anything away.” 

“I don’t have to admit anything of the kind,” the winner said coldly. “Now if you’re going to play, play. Otherwise, shut up.” His eyes were flinty. His voice was calm but not threatening. He never threatened; he just made grim promises.

“Nope,” said another of the three men playing poker with the Chimera. “You’ve cleaned me out. Time for me to be gitting back to my ranch and finding a way to explain to the missus how I lost her milk money.” He stood up, swinging his leg over the chair and reached for the wide-brimmed hat the men out here habitually wore. The other two murmured similar replies and also left, calling good-byes to other patrons on their way out the saloon doors. 

Zelgadis watched them leave, almost sorry to see them go, so much so that he got an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Sighing, he wondered when this turn of events had come about. When did he, the Ultimate Loner, come to crave the company of others, much less frequent seedy saloons and play cards with anyone willing?

He looked at the winning hand spread out in front of him, lying atop a small collection of coins, mostly silver, a few copper and one or two gold. It wasn’t as if he really needed the money, though it did come in handy way out here in lands that were sparsely populated. And there were certainly other ways he could have gotten it rather than just wandering into a town saloon and finding the poker game that was certainly being played. It never bothered him when he lost, either; money won gambling was a pipe-dream anyway: Easy come, easy go. He still had other methods of bartering that had nothing to do with money.

His attention turned to the cards themselves. Perhaps because he was in a melancholy mood, they seemed to take on a greater significance than simply the spread of a winning hand. “Ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath, pushing them away and looking out the grime-encrusted window at the dusty street outside. But he couldn’t shake the feeling.

As he watched the goings-on in the street outside, his mind drifted back to when he had first learned to play poker. It had been Rodimus and Zolf who had taught the young disciple of Rezo’s, just one of the many things they’d taught him. Young and unacquainted with the game, he had been easy pickings for them at first, and they made a regular habit of relieving him of what little money he had. Until, that is, he learned that the game was based on probabilities and patterns and not chance. It was then that they learned he had a quick mind and excellent memory and could figure the probabilities in his head. And that he had a perfect poker face. And then they started loosing their money. Although, when Dilgear arrived on the scene, he was someone they could all fleece. 

Unconsciously, Zelgadis clenched his hand on the table. He hadn’t thought of either Rodimus or Zolf for quite a while; it was too painful. For a long time, they’d been the nearest things he could call ‘friends.’ Rodimus had been a good mentor, teaching him swordplay, and Zolf…Well, Zolf had been good company even if he had been a trifle…unstable. He’d learned a lot from the man and had been deeply affected when Shabranigdu had destroyed the two of them. Though he’d never let anyone else see the pain. 

As for Dilgear…Briefly he wondered whatever had become of Dilgear. The last he’d seen of him was when Rodimus and Zolf had dispatched the werewolf/troll chimera and yet he knew that hadn’t been the end of the pin-headed lackey of Rezo’s. 

Immediately, his mouth twisted at the thought of his grandfather. Why couldn’t that man just let him live in peace? He stared at his clenched hand on the table. No. There would be no peace until he found a way to be human again. As long as he had this…monstrosity of a body, he would never be able to rest.

* * *

He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of a probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance

The cards drew his attention again, like a toothache that demands attention even though a probing tongue produces nothing but pain. Looking at the table and the cards spread in front of him, he noted how one of the cards had slid across the slick surface of the others so it crossed the other four: The Queen of Diamonds. 

Zelgadis reached forward and pulled the queen off the other four and spread them out. Two Queens and two Kings. As he pulled the cards towards him, he spread them apart and looked at them closer. They were actually the King and Queen of Spades and the King and Queen of Hearts. The Queen of Diamonds was the odd card out here. 

Picking them up, he looked past their obvious meanings as just playing cards. The suits were older than the current playing deck, he knew, and had been used for telling fortunes, each card with its own special significance. He had no idea what those meanings might have been; he’d always considered such things a bunch of superstitious hooey. Real divination had nothing to cards. But now…As he studied them, they seemed to take on a deeper, more personal meaning in his mind.

He picked out the black king: The King of Spades. In the old deck, spades had originally been Swords, he mused. Unwittingly, his mind immediately conjured the image of the best swordsman he knew, and the only man he called friend, Gourry Gabriev. The tall blonde swordsman had uncanny reflexes, speed and strength; balancing a coin on his sword, he could slice it in two perfect halves. He also had a kind heart and unswerving loyalty to his friends. Too bad he was less than the brightest star in the sky.

Setting that one down, he picked out its mate: The Queen of Spades. Even though she was more skilled in magic than swordplay, Lina’s face came to mind as he studied the card. Lina was the master of Black Magic, perhaps the best on the planet. She’d grown beyond Black Magic and harnessed Nightmare Magic—channeling the Lord of Nightmares herself. And the Ragna Blade was Lina’s most powerful spell now that she’d sealed the Giga Slave away, so perhaps it was fitting that she be represented by Spades. Besides that, she and Gourry were inseparable. 

He smiled a sardonic half-smile as he laid the Queen on top of the King and looked at the pair of them. He wondered if they’d finally admitted to each other what everyone else was painfully aware of. It’d been several months since they’d all parted ways after defeating Dark Star. Had they gone back to the lands inside the Barrier? Or had they chosen to stay and wander around the new lands, looking for bandits who had never heard of Lina Inverse the Bandit Killer? Zelgadis sighed; why was it suddenly so important to him?

Mouth twisting, he slammed the cards down and folded his arms over his chest as he slouched in his chair. What was wrong with him? he thought angrily to himself. He shouldn’t be here wasting time in a saloon playing card games when he should be out searching for his cure. 

His cure. He made a sound of disgust and signaled the girl at the bar for another cup of coffee. He picked up the now cold remains of his last mug and drained the rest of it, grimacing at the bitter taste it left in his mouth. Just as his never-ending quest for his cure had come to be a bitter taste in his soul, but one that he could no more do without than the beverage. And yet, like the money won gambling, his cure seemed no more than yet another pipe-dream. Lead after lead had dried-up, petered-out, evaporated, gone bye-bye within his grasp. Would he spend the rest of his life chasing this will-o-the-wisp until there was nothing left of his life? Yes, he thought. He couldn’t stop until he found it. He had to become human again. There was no question about of that. He had…reasons.

As he sat there, pondering these questions, the swinging doors opened and a cloaked man entered. Zelgadis barely looked up as he passed, instead remaining absorbed in his own thoughts, noting only that someone had entered and had taken a seat at the end of the bar and unslung something that he carried over his back. 

He looked at the cards again, as if expecting to find some answers to his questions there. He picked up the Queen of Diamonds again and looked at her. Whoever had inked this deck had given her green eyes to remind the player that this Queen was often associated with the Green-Eyed Lady Whose Name is Never Spoken. Zelgadis’ mouth twitched in contempt. Superstitious lot, thinking that simply by speaking aloud a concept called “luck,” they could jinx themselves by bringing her attention to bare upon you. 

Laying the Queen of Diamonds down to the side, he sipped his coffee and examined the last two cards: The King and Queen of Hearts. Now if Lina and Gourry were the King and Queen of Spades, then it was obvious that Amelia was the Queen of Hearts. The spunky little Princess would not only be a Queen one day, but had enough heart to hold the world. A “just and true” heart as she’d put it on so many occasions. Zelgadis’ lips turned upwards in a wry, slightly sad smile as he thought of Seyruun’s Princess. Even for all her ranting about truth and justice, she was a good kid. The world needed more people like her. It would drive him batty, having to listen to them all go on for hours about justice, but the world would certainly be a little less dark than what it was. And that would most certainly be worth the price.

Amelia’s card was laid on the top of the others representing his friends. Three of four companions represented; one card left. But the last card was one he would hardly have chosen to represent himself. There’s no way he would ever describe himself as the King of Hearts. His heart was hard and cold and as monstrous as the rest of him. That was the problem with trying to find answers in something as ridiculous as a winning hand of poker: The answer was only half right.

He tossed the card onto the table with a sound of disgust and leaned back in his chair. What’s the matter with me, he wondered. Trying to find answers in a handful of cards? What answers did he need other than his cure so he could be human again? He needed to get out of here, clear his head of these silly notions. There were no answers in the cards; none for him, at any rate. He had work to do. 

Even as he was thinking this, something tickled the back of his mind. Zelgadis leaned forward to scrape his meager winnings together, his mind stopped thinking about the cards long enough to register the fact that someone was playing a guitar nearby. Leaving the coins for a moment, he sat back and looked around. It was the stranger who had come in just a few moments ago while he’d been deep in thought. The man was seated in a chair near the cold fireplace and was strumming idly on a guitar across his lap. Mesmerized, Zelgadis watched his fingers dance across the strings and produce the soft, sad notes of a tune that twisted his mind. He played the final chords and his fingers became still.

Zelgadis felt as if something inside him had gone missing as the last notes faded away; something important that he needed to get back. Dumping his winnings into his purse, he launched himself out of the chair and wove through the unoccupied tables to the player. “What was that you were just playing?” he demanded of the man as he got close. He pulled a chair out and turned it around to sit on it backwards and stared intently at the man.
The other man looked up from his guitar, startled, only to be faced with a blue-skinned chimera. “Uh, what?” he asked, golden eyes dull and distant. “What did you say?”

“I asked you what that song you were playing was called?”

“I don’t know,” the stranger said. “I wasn’t playing anything, just letting my fingers do what they wanted. I wasn’t really paying attention…” He trailed off as if trying to remember. 

“No,” Zelgadis insisted. “You were playing some tune. Play it again.”

The other man looked at him strangely. “I swear to you; I wasn’t playing anything.” His golden eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

Zelgadis backed away under the other man’s gaze. “No reason.” He hefted himself out of the chair and was about to turn and walk away when he paused suddenly. “Your guitar. Will you sell it to me?”

“What? Are you kidding?” The man grabbed the neck of his guitar protectively and sat up straight. “This guitar is my livelihood!”

“What if I gave you…” Zelgadis reached into his purse and scooped out everything he had just won and scattered it on the table next to the man. It was a healthy sum to which he added another handful of gold coins. 

The busker’s eyes bugged. “You’re kidding me! All that for a guitar?”

“Yes. All of it.”

The other man eyed the money for several seconds. Swallowing, he reached forward and spread out the pile, counting the number of gold pieces Zelgadis had thrown on top of the silver and copper pieces. “There’s three times as much as what my guitar is worth here. I can’t possibly take all that for it.”

“Take it. Just give me the guitar.”

The busker took another look at the old but still serviceable guitar: The worn sounding box, the broken tuning peg, cracked bridge, chipped finish…He’d been meaning to get a new one, but had never been able to bring himself to part with this one. And yet…His conscience refused to let him sell it for that price.

“It’s not worth that much. Surely you could travel to Gehn and get a new one for half what you’re offering me.”

Zelgadis shook his head. “I’m not headed to Gehn; I’m going east around the desert. I’d like to have the guitar with me to keep me company.” He pushed the money towards the other man. “Take it.”

He shook his head setting his black braids to swinging. “All right. If you want it, it’s yours.” He handed it to Zelgadis and reached down and picked up the oiled felt covering. “She’s a little old, but she’s got a good sound to her. Just be careful with the tuning peg. It slips.”

The Chimera nodded and laid the guitar in the case and did up the catches. “Thanks.” With that he went back to his chair to collect his cloak and sword, put them on, slung the guitar and his pack over his shoulder and left the saloon without a backwards glance. 

* * *

The wind sighed through the canyon walls as Zelgadis wandered along the path that wound its way snake-like along the base of the sheer walls. It skirted the tumbled rocks that lay at the feet of the cliffs, some as large as houses, weaving in and out from underneath impossible overhangs. The wind picked up the fine dust and twisted it into small dust devils, alternately pursuing and fleeing from him across the barren landscape. The wind also brought the aromatic scent of sage, the sweet tang of cedar and juniper, and the rich scent of wet earth that was a sure sign of water. It was the last that interested him the most; he was nearly out of water and needed more. The next town was over two days’ walk away by his reckoning and he had only enough to last him another few hours. 

He rounded the shoulder of a large butte and found himself in a picturesque little setting: The butte was split into a deep canyon where a small stream ran through it to collect in a mirror-like pool just under the entrance to the canyon. Low, scrubby cedars sprouted along the bank and his arrival disturbed several of the large lizards indigenous to the area. 

Crouching down, Zelgadis carefully put his guitar down then slid down the rocks worn smooth by centuries monsoonal rains to the shelf that projected out over the water. Once on it, he knelt by the water and put his hand into it. It felt cool and refreshing; he’d been walking in the hot sun for several days. Cupping his hands, he brought a handful of the clear, cool water to his face and sniffed carefully. It smelled perfectly harmless and he’d seen the lizards drinking from it. Deciding it was safe, he sipped at it, then repeated the gesture, this time drinking deeply from his cupped hands. 

Several more scoops satisfied his thirst and then he filled his canteens. Before he filled the one he was wearing at his belt, he unscrewed the lid and carefully removed the pink ribbon to which a blue jewel was attached. Unaware of it, the Chimera’s expression softened as he gently laid the bracelet aside then filled the canteen. Replacing the bracelet over the neck, he secured the lid and clipped it back to his belt. His fingers lingered on the round jewel with the hexagram floating deep inside, and he actually smiled wistfully for a moment.

A scraping noise behind distracted him: The sound of claws scraping on stone. He whipped around and found himself staring into the red eyes of a nightmare. A large creature that looked like the result from a mating between a bird and a snake reared on the top of the rise behind him. The snake-like part of it was as thick around as his arm and from the number of coils looped up, it was probably nearly ten feet long. Two small feet sprouted from the body near the “neck,” which was now reared back and staring intently at him. A long, thin tongue flicked in and out from a wickedly carved beak; he could see the sun glint on the edges and guessed they were probably sharp enough to shear through bone. Thick venom dripped from the edges. A leathery crest sprouted from the back of its head lending it even more of an avian appearance.

Quickly, he looked away from the eyes, yet he felt himself going cold at the mere glance he’d caught of them. Damn, he thought to himself. A basilisk. He’d heard of them but never actually seen one. From the descriptions he’d heard, this was a pretty big one, too. Magical beasts, they could freeze with their stare. 

As he thought this, the basilisk lowered itself to the ground and slithered down the rock. He reached down and stuffed the second canteen into his pack and looked behind him. The water was deepest here; probably about six feet or so if he judged it correctly. It would just have to be, wouldn’t it? 

The sound of scales on rock drew his attention back to the monster behind him. It was sliding down the rock with definite ideas of making a meal of him. While he was certain he would probably not agree with the thing’s stomach, he didn’t want to find out. The only escape was across the water. 

Slowly he straightened until he was standing on the ledge. The basilisk stopped and reared back, hissing at him and spreading its crest. Careful to avoid looking into the thing’s eyes, Zelgadis held up his hand. “Fireball,” he said softly, directing a surge of power through his hand and into the air to combust it. The fireball shot forward and enveloped the creature. And Zelgadis stared in disbelief as the flames dissipated before they could touch it.

The flames enraged the basilisk. Raising itself on its coils, it towered over Zelgadis. Still in shock, he backpedaled a step before he realized he had nowhere to go. His boot slipped on the wet slickrock and he plunged into the water. Striking out furiously with arms and legs, he fought to get to where the water was shallower.

He felt something wrap around his arm and pull him up. Something that froze his stony flesh and burned painfully at the same time. Kicking his way to the surface, he put his feet down and felt something solid underneath them. Standing, he grabbed at the loops of the basilisk’s body coiled around his arm. The thing was cold; so unnaturally cold it burned his hand where he grabbed it. 

The basilisk brought its head around and snapped at him. He jerked backwards, knocking himself off his feet in the process and into the water. His pack was gone and the thing’s coils were tight around him, moving from his arm down around his waist, freezing him. His teeth were chattering and he grabbed the thing around the neck and held it at arm’s length. The cruel beak snapped repeatedly at him, coming closer and closer to him as his arms shook with pain. His stomach turned at the stench of the thing’s breath, fetid like rotting meat and worse. 

His grip on it was slipping as his fingers stiffened. Gritting his teeth, he fought to get a better purchase, but it slipped out of his grasp. Zelgadis saw a flash only moments before the evilly hooked beak clamped down where his neck met his shoulder. His scream echoed around the canyon walls as it ground the sharp edges into his stony skin, not even seeming to notice that he was made of stone and not flesh. 

The pain galvanized him into action. Grabbing the leathery crest, he pulled on it until the basilisk let go of his shoulder with a screech of rage. The flashing beak snapped mere inches from his face, but he grabbed the creature’s neck and bent it back on itself. Teeth bared in a snarl, the Chimera used all his demon strength to push it back. Grabbing the neck with his other hand under the first one, he twisted. Bones snapped under his crushing grip and the thing thrashed. He squeezed harder and it went limp. Shaking with more than just cold, he gave the creature’s neck another twist, ripping its head from its body.

For several moments, all he could do was sit there waist-deep in water and panting. His hands were stiff and sore where they were still locked around the basilisk’s neck. Seeping coldness from its coils wrapped around him made him shiver. Gagging from the smell of the blood that darkened his hands, he lifted his hand to cast the head away from him. He froze; if he threw the head into the water, the thing’s venom would poison the spring. Instead he tossed it onto the rocks nearby. Shrugging off the coils of the snake-like body, he found the thing had managed to lodge its talons into his arm. Grunting, he yanked them out then hissed with the pain. Standing, he gathered up the coils and with a mighty heave, he threw them over to join the head. 

Wearily, he leaned over and rested his hands on his knees. As he watched, blood ran down his left hand and dripped into the water. He went to his knees and put his hand to his shoulder and hissed with the pain: The basilisk’s beak had left two deep gashes in his skin which were bleeding profusely. The blood flowed from between his fingers and the flesh around the wounds burned. Quickly, he cast a healing spell but could only concentrate long enough to get them closed and the bleeding stopped. 

“Have to get out of the water,” he muttered to himself, going cold with shock. Zelgadis looked around for his pack and found it floating nearby. Leaning out, he was suddenly overcome with dizziness and fell forward. He only just caught himself before he pitched headfirst into the water, jarring his wounded shoulder and arm in the process. He gasped and bit off a cry, but managed to snag the strap to his pack and pull it towards him. Lurching to his feet, he sloshed out of the water and up the slickrock. He slipped as his wet boots could find no purchase on the stone and fell heavily to his knees, jarring his wounded shoulder. Biting off a scream, Zelgadis knelt there a moment, teeth buried deep in his lip from the pain. When the bright lights had stopped flashing in front of his eyes, he crawled up the embankment and tumbled over the edge and into the sunlight. 

* * *

When he came to, Zelgadis found himself lying in a heap in the dust. His head was pounding and felt stuffed with cotton wool and there was a loud buzzing in his ears. Pushing himself up, he fell back as pain lanced up his arm. He tried again, this time being more careful about what he was supporting himself on, he lifted himself and felt his shoulder, pulling back the tattered ruins of his tunic to inspect the damage. Through he had healed the wounds, the skin around the fresh scars was an angry purplish-red and the flesh hot and puffy to his gently probing fingers. He grimaced again; he should be immune to most types of venom. Quickly, he cast another healing spell to try and stop the spread. The pain and the discoloration faded under the healing energy and he let out a sigh of relief. 

That taken care of, he wrinkled his nose at the stench of old blood that clung to him. His tunic was stiff with it and the smell was attracting a horde of flies which was the source of the buzzing that had awakened him. It was also attracting the attention of several buzzards that had found the basilisk’s corpse and were fighting over it, emitting raucous cries just over the ridge. One was sitting on the rise above him and eyeing him as if wondering if he would make a good meal or not. 

Jumpy from the fight with the basilisk, Zelgadis swallowed against a painfully dry throat. Not taking his eyes from the buzzard, he reached for his pack and pulled it towards him. As it dragged through the dust, there was a flash of movement from beneath it as something struck his hand. Striking out instinctively, the Chimera caught the snake around the neck and only barely stopped himself from dispatching it with a squeeze of his hand. Grimacing, he held the sand-colored snake out at arm’s length while it coiled around his arm as it tried to free itself. With a sound of disgust, he threw the snake away from him and staggered to his feet. Looking down at his hand, he saw the broken fangs where they’d dislodged in his skin. Quickly, he brushed them off and picked up his pack. 

He had to get away from here quickly: Basilisks lived in family groups and where there was one, there would be others. He didn’t relish the thought of meeting another of those creatures while wounded. Pulling the hood of his cloak over his head for what protection from the sun it provided, he was about to head off into the desert when he remembered something. Turning, he stumbled back towards the spring and around to where he’d originally descended to the waterline and skidded to a halt. Smiling in spite of his pain, he picked up his guitar and slung it over his uninjured shoulder, settled it against his pack, then turned and made his way on down the trail.

* * *

I know that the spades are swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that’s not the shape of my heart

The sun set in a blaze of glory, turning the sky vivid shades of crimson, jade, gold and finally fading to a deep cobalt. The lone traveler that sat huddled in his blanket near a meager fire was in no condition to appreciate the glorious display going on overhead. He sat hunched over with the blanket clutched tightly about his shoulders and his hands cupped around a tin cup full of weak tea. He was shaking so hard the tea sloshed around the cup as he tried to sip it. 
Managing to get a little into his mouth, he swallowed only to have his stomach protest. Grimacing, he set the cup aside and wished he could stomach some coffee, but he knew he just didn’t feel like making it right now. Besides, he didn’t have that much water left. 

Zelgadis licked his dry lips and leaned forward so that his arms were resting on his knees and his forehead on his arms. Water. He needed to find some water, and find it soon. The problem was that he had no idea where he was. He’d been walking and must have gone into a daze because one minute he was on the trail and the next he was in the middle of a salt flat with no idea how he’d gotten there. He’d tried to follow his footsteps back to the trail, but the ever-present wind had eradicated them almost before he’d removed his foot from them. So here he was, camped in the shelter of a rock without a clue as to which way the next town lay. 

To top it off, his shoulder and arm were killing him. The basilisk venom was affecting him more than he cared to admit; his flesh was hot to the touch and he was burning up with fever. But it shouldn’t affect him like this, he thought to himself, clenching his hands as he fought against the pain. He was supposed to be immune to such things. 

He sighed and shivered some more. “Great, Zelgadis,” he muttered into his arms. “Now what are you going to do?”

“Perhaps I could be of help?”

The Chimera jumped so high that he actually came off the rock he was sitting on. The blanket slid to the ground as he reached for his sword, fumbling to get it out of the scabbard as his fever dulled his reflexes. He froze as he spotted the speaker. “Who are you?” he asked, so surprised that he forgot to be indignant at having been surprised. 

“A friend,” the man said from where he sat. He couldn’t have been much taller than Zelgadis himself. His hair was black and pulled into two braids on either side of his face. Brilliant eyes the color of amber looked at the Chimera out of a fair-skinned face that was good-looking even if it wasn’t handsome. His black buckskins had red feathers picked out along the sleeves and collar. He set the bag he carried over his shoulder on the ground carefully and held out his hand. “People call me Coyote,” he said by way of introduction pronouncing it with only two syllables. He gestured to the sword. “You can put that away; I’m very harmless.”

Zelgadis glared at him, wondering why he found Coyote’s face familiar. “That’s what they all say,” he muttered but sheathed his sword and pulled the blanket around his shoulders again. The night had grown cold and the fire was small and he was shivering again. 

Coyote leaned forward. “No, really. I really am harmless. Are you all right?” He put his hand on Zelgadis’ shoulder—the left one. 

Hissing in pain, Zelgadis jerked back and slid off the rock that was his seat. “Don’t!” he said, twisting away. The blanket and his cloak fell away to reveal the faded bloodstains and rents in the fabric. 

Shaking his head, Coyote reached out to pull away the blanket. “You’re hurt. Let me see.”

Wincing, Zelgadis tried to push him away. “It’s just a scratch—”

The stranger was not being put off. “A scratch, my ass! That’s a basilisk bite! A big one! Damn, where’d you find such a big sucker?” Ignoring Zelgadis’ protests, he ripped the fabric away to expose the festering wound. 

“Near a water hole…Somewhere nearby. I got lost.” Realizing that Coyote wasn’t going to be put off, he stopped struggling and leaned back against the rock. 

“That was a dumb thing to do. Should have stayed near the water.” Coyote pulled a knife out of his belt and held it in the fire.

Zelgadis shook his head. “Couldn’t. What if there had been more around?”

“You killed it, right?”

The Shaman nodded.

“Basilisks won’t go near the scent of their own dead. You should have stayed there by the water instead of wandering around the desert going gods only know where. You would have been safe there.” He turned the knife over in the flames then held it up and blew on it. 

There was no answer to that. “Oh,” he said lamely. He watched Coyote through squinted eyes. “What are you doing?”

“The wounds are festering. Healing them without getting the venom out was almost as stupid as leaving the water.” He squatted near the Chimera and put a hand on his neck. “This is going to hurt.”

Shaking his head, Zelgadis raised his own hand, trying to push the stranger off. “Won’t work,” he managed to get out. His head had started swimming moments ago and it was hard to focus.

“Trust me. I know what I’m doing. You just lie back and let Coyote help you.” The other man leaned forward and touched the hot blade to Zelgadis’ shoulder.

The pain lanced through the Chimera with such suddenness he screamed and clutched Coyote’s arm. Somehow, the knife was slicing through his skin as if he were made of flesh and not stone. Immediately, however, the pain of the infected wound lessened considerably. He could feel the hot blood and fluid flow down his body even as Coyote ripped what was left of Zelgadis’ tunic off and mopped it up. 

“Gah,” he managed to get out as he turned his head and wrinkled his nose against the stench. “What’s that smell?”

“Basilisk venom,” Coyote said, throwing the fabric into the fire and poking it with a stick to get it to catch. “You’re lucky; if you’d been flesh and blood, you’d be dead.” The stranger reached into his pack and pulled out a small leather bundle. Opening it, he dumped the contents into Zelgadis’ empty cup and dumped a bit of water from his water bag into it. He set the cup near the fire to heat then turned his attention to the Chimera again. Squatting down, he used a clean cloth and some water to clean the wound. “So, your name is Zelgadis?” he asked in a conversational tone.

Head snapping around, Zelgadis looked into the stranger’s golden eyes. “How did you know that?”

“Easy, easy. I heard you talking to yourself as I walked up, that’s all.” He threw the now blood-soaked cloth into the fire just as he had the other one.

The tension left Zelgadis’ body. “Oh, I see. Yes, of course.” He leaned back and shut his eyes. “Yes, I’m Zelgadis.”

“Nice to meet you, Zelgadis,” Coyote said. “Wish it could be under different circumstances, but I’m always glad to help where I’m needed.”

Zelgadis forced his eyes open and looked at his visitor. “How did you do that?” he asked. “I’m made of stone; ordinary blades can’t cut me.”

Coyote gave him a crooked smile as he picked up the softly steaming mug. He used a stick to stir it, sniffed, then pulled out another cloth. “It’s not an ordinary blade. It’s enchanted. Comes in handy out here in the wilds where you find all sorts of beings. Most that would rather kill you than look at you.” He poured the now dripping concoction out of the cup and onto the cloth he held.

The Chimera forced a wry smile. “Tell me about it.” He winced as Coyote pressed the cloth to the wound in his shoulder.

“Easy, easy. This will dull the pain and help it heal. Don’t want to use healing spells with basilisk venom because it needs to be drawn out of the body before you can start to heal.”

Nodding, Zelgadis leaned his head back against the rock. “Gotcha. I’ll remember that next time.” 

“Pray there won’t be a next time. You were lucky to get away alive from a basilisk.” Coyote wrapped a bandage around Zelgadis’ shoulder to hold the poultice in place then pulled the other man’s cloak and blanket tight around him.

“There.”

The Shaman was silent a moment then muttered, “Thanks. I don’t know how to repay you.”

“I don’t need any payment. Do you mind letting me share your fire tonight?” He sat back and flashed Zelgadis a brilliant smile. 

Zelgadis leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “No,” he said simply. 

“No you don’t mind or no I can’t share your fire?”

Taking a deep breath, the Chimera shook his head. “No, I don’t mind. I can’t exactly turn you away, now can I?” he muttered.

“You could.”

Drawing back in shock, Zelgadis opened his eyes and stared at Coyote. “But I wouldn’t. You just helped me.”

The other man shrugged. “You needed help and I gave it. I couldn’t exactly let you die, now could I?” He gave Zelgadis a wink.

Leaving Zelgadis to wonder about that comment, he pulled a long thin tube out of his pack and carefully pried off the end. Inside was a flute wrapped in soft furs which he unwrapped carefully and rubbed with the bit of fur. “Do you mind if I play?” he asked.

“What?” Zelgadis murmured, startled out of the light doze he’d fallen into as he watched the black-haired man. “Oh. No, go right ahead.” He waved his hand for Coyote to proceed. 

Coyote nodded and put the flute in his mouth. He waited a moment, then started to play. Almost immediately, Zelgadis was drawn into the melody as the notes blended and echoed off the soaring stones. The melody was simple, and yet elegant in its simplicity, and filled the Chimera’s heart with a strange sort of longing. A longing for what, he couldn’t say, but he felt…empty. Grimacing, he looked away from his impromptu guest, trying to shut out the sound of that haunting melody. It was no use, though; those piercing notes ripped through him and into his soul. Maybe it was the fact that he was weakened and feeling ill, or maybe he’d just spent too much time wandering in the desert under the hot sun, but he felt overcome with sadness.

And then, softly, the notes faded away into silence, leaving the desert feeling more empty than it had before. Opening his eyes and looking over at Coyote, he opened his mouth to speak and found himself unable to do so. Clearing his throat, he tried again and succeeded this time. “What was that?”

Looking up from his flute, Coyote raised his eyebrows and looked at him strangely. “That? Oh, just a little tune I wrote. Like it?”

“I…” He swallowed and nodded. “Yes. I do.”

“I see you’ve got a guitar. Do you play?”

Zelgadis looked down at the guitar wrapped in felt. “A little.”

“Feel up to playing something for me? I collect songs, you see. Little hobby of mine.”

Staring at the instrument a moment, he sat up and nodded. “I think so.” He pulled the guitar close and undid the straps that held it safe within it’s felt coverings. Pulling it out, he rested it across his lap and slowly strummed the strings. He winced at the out-of-tune string and twisted the broken peg to tune it. Finally satisfied with it, he started picking out the notes for the tune he’d been composing while searching for the one he’d thought he’d heard in that saloon. The notes blended together in disharmonious discord as his fingers stumbled across the strings. He laid his hand flat on them, stilling their voices then tried again. 

This time, his hand was steady and sure. He plucked the strings as he played the simple melody. Originally, he’d intended for it to be melancholy and bittersweet, but instead it was turning into something…joyful? From him? He shook his head as he worked through the chords. The guitar may be worn, but it had a sweet tone to it that he found he liked, and it gave his work a sweetness he would never have credited himself for composing. 

He finally came to the end and let the chords die away into silence. He continued to stare at the guitar in wonderment; this was the first time he’d played it all the way through and he found he liked it. Zelgadis smiled softly to himself as he thought about it.

“You must really love her,” a voice said and disturbed his reverie. 

Zelgadis’ head snapped up and caught Coyote’s golden eyes with his own cold cobalt ones. “What do you mean by that?” he snapped.

“A man doesn’t compose something like that without some sort of inspiration. You were thinking of a woman when you wrote it.” The man’s voice was extremely self-assured and confident that he knew what he was talking about. 
Frowning, Zelgadis set the guitar in the felt and shook his head. “No. I wasn’t thinking of anyone. It’s just something that came to me one day.”

“I don’t think so. It sounds like a song for a woman.”

“Just shut up and mind your own business, okay?” Zelgadis raised his eyes to glare at the impertinent stranger. 

“If you say so. How would you like a song?”

Pausing in the act of repacking the guitar, Zelgadis looked up at him. “What?”

“I think I have a song for you. If you’ll lend me your guitar, I’ll play it for you.”

Still bristling from the other man’s comment, he looked up and gave the other man a hard, cold look. Then, shrugging, he handed the instrument to him. “I don’t see why not.”

Coyote took the guitar and strummed the strings gently. He nodded and patted the sounding box. “This is a good guitar. She’s got a nice voice.” He tuned it slightly then started strumming. He played a few experimental chords to get the feel for the guitar. Zelgadis leaned back and let the sound of the quiet notes play tag in his mind. Then, one word, softly sung in a clear, light voice jerked him up by his pointed ears and made him pay attention.

Desperado

The chords of the melody fell into a pattern he recognized: The tune that he’d heard and had been searching for, the one that the busker had claimed not to even know he’d been playing…He sat up and paid closer attention, wanting to hear the song.

Why don’t you come to your senses? 
You’ve been out riding fences, for so long now

Zelgadis sat there, in shock, listening to the black-haired stranger as he sang. The words did not feel as if they’d been rehearsed or even planned; they had a spontaneous feel to them they couldn’t possibly possess. He shook his head; no, they couldn’t be. They had to be—His thoughts slipped away as Coyote looked up and gold eyes held blue and the other man sang the words to him as if he were speaking them directly to his soul, bypassing his ears altogether.

Oh you’re a hard one 
But I know that you got your reasons 
These things that are pleasing you 
Can hurt you somehow 

His mind was reeling. How…? How could this stranger know so much about him? He tried to drag his eyes away from the other’s hold but found he couldn’t. His mouth worked as he tried to force words out of a mouth suddenly too dry to speak and a tongue gone numb. 

“Wh-who are you?” he demanded in a harsh whisper that accused as much as it demanded an answer. 

Coyote shook his head, setting his braids to swinging lightly. In the moonlight Zelgadis noticed there were blue and red beads woven into the black plaits. Why he should notice that, he wondered, even as the next lines grabbed his attention again. 

Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy 
She’ll beat you if she’s able 
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet 

His insides went as cold as when he’d found himself staring into that basilisk’s eyes. How could this man have known the imagery he’d been using to describe his friends and his quest for his cure? Impossible!! And yet…yet…it was if this other man saw straight through him and pulled out everything he kept hidden in the shadows, yanked them out, painfully when necessary, and them laid them bare on the ground before him for all the world to see. 

And it seems to me some fine things 
Have been laid upon your table 
But you only want the ones 
That you can’t get 

Hot anger welled up inside of him, melting the frozen shock. He sat up, wincing against the pain the sudden movement caused his shoulder. “How dare you?!” he shouted, voice harsh. At least that’s what he meant to say; he found the words strangled in his throat and dead on his tongue before they could form. And Coyote’s eyes continued to bore into him, pulling things out of his soul that he didn’t want to see! No!! Zelgadis turned away, away from those eyes which burned with the light of the sun and burned into his soul. His hands clenched helplessly on his knees as he grimaced and shook his head in mute denial.

Relentlessly, Coyote continued singing, reaching further and further, peeling away layers of stone that had been built up so carefully over the years as if they were no more than paper. Helpless to stop it, Zelgadis was forced to listen to the softly sung words as they echoed and re-echoed off the rocks and into his wounded soul.

Desperado 
Oh, you ain’t getting no younger 
And your pain and your hunger 
They’re driving you home

He scoffed at that, a sharp, harsh bark of laughter with no mirth in it whatsoever. Home? He had no home. Only emptiness and pain that drove him from place to place, unable to rest or find refuge. In the silence of his mind, Zelgadis kept up a running commentary in countertime to the softly sung lyrics. 

And freedom, oh and freedom 
Well, that’s just some people talking 
Your prison is walking through this world all alone 

Prison! His prison was this body he had forced upon him! It kept him alone and separate! Fated never to be a part of the world, but doomed always to wander its outskirts like a pariah! The pain in his heart was nearly unbearable now; his teeth were bared as if he were fighting the basilisk again. And prison it would remain until he could find the key that would release him: A way to turn his body back into a human’s!

Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time? 
The sky won’t snow, and the sun won’t shine 
It’s hard to tell the night time, from the day 
And you’re losing all your highs and lows 
Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes 
Away

Feeling…He stared down at his hands, clenched into fists on his knees. The feeling had gone away a long time ago. He wanted to shout, to rage that losing that feeling was exactly the reason he wanted so desperately to be human again! He wanted to feel, to feel the wind on his face, the sun on his skin, the feel of her hand in his—

Startled, Zelgadis looked up at his nighttime visitor. How was he doing this? How could this stranger know everything he was feeling? Had felt? Zelgadis bit back what might have been a sob from someone else; from him it was a gasp of pain. 

Desperado 
Why don’t you come to your senses 
Come down from your fences 
And open the gate?

What gate? How? 

It may be raining 
But there’s a rainbow above you 
You better let somebody love you 
Let somebody love you
You better let somebody love you 
Before it’s too late.

Too late…It was already too late for him? Wasn’t…it?

The last notes of the song faded away as the final barbs buried themselves deep into his soul, leaving him feeling weak and helpless, a feeling he hated. Wrenching himself around, he fixed Coyote with a sharp, lethal glare. “What are you?” he demanded, voice raw with pent-up emotion. 

The other man shrugged. “No one. Coyote.” He looked at the guitar and reluctantly handed it back to the Chimera. “A man, like you.”

Zelgadis took it as if it had suddenly come alive in his hand and tried to bite him. Which in a way it had. “You are no simple man,” he grated, transferring his glare back to Coyote. “No one could have done that."

Looking at him curiously, Coyote shrugged. “Did what? I just sang a song.”

“It wasn’t just a song!”

“But you’re wrong. It was. What you got out of it was entirely your doing.” He smiled at the Chimera.

Snarling, Zelgadis shook his head. “I don’t know who or what you are, but I don’t like mind games!” He finished packing up his guitar and pulled the blanket over his shoulders. “I’m grateful for what you’ve done, and I don’t mind you sharing the fire, but leave me alone,” he growled, bordering on rudeness. He went over to his bedroll, kicked it out and laid down on it, back to the other man. 

Unseen by Zelgadis, Coyote shrugged. Then a sly smile played over his lips as he reached into his bag and pulled out another leather bag, pulled at the drawstring, and dumped out some fine white powder into his hand. He threw it into the fire where it flared silently. The soft, pungent scent of sage and cedar wafted around the camp as soft tendrils of smoke wrapped their ghostly fingers around the still form of the Chimera.

Sniffing, Zelgadis lifted his head and looked over his shoulder. “What’s that smell?”

“Nothing. It will help you sleep,” Coyote with a smile. 

“Who said I needed help sleeping?”

“I know you will. That venom on top of a fever is bound to do some strange things to your mind,” Coyote said enigmatically. “Rest now. Coyote will keep watch.”

The Chimera was about to protest, but suddenly found himself overcome with fatigue. His eyelids were heavy and try as he might, he could not resist their downward journey.

Finally, overcome with exhaustion, both physical and emotional, Zelgadis slipped into sleep.

* * *

Part 2

He may play the jack of diamonds
He may lay the queen of spades
He may conceal a king in his hand
While the memory of it fades

The darkness and silence were familiar, at least, and he cursed as he stood there, waiting for what he knew came next.

There it was: The red light, dripping, cloying like blood, and the sound of staff rings. The sound was eerie in this darkness that lived and breathed. For the silence wasn’t really silence at all; if he listened carefully he could hear small noises that lingered just on the edge of hearing, chattering away in their dark, demonic voices and yet not there at all. It never failed to frighten him.

Zelgadis saw the red light boiling out of the darkness like blood from a fresh wound and the noises were forgotten. The mass grew stubby protuberances, pseudopods that resembled a horrible parody of a man. His mouth twisted as it reached out towards him and the horror that they would touch him flashed through him as it always did. And, though he knew it was impossible, he tried to step back, away from those questing tentacles. 

His foot twisted as he was actually able to move away, avoid being ensnared by that living blood. Horror filled him as he caught himself. This wasn’t right! he screamed in his mind. This wasn’t how the nightmare was supposed to go! He could move! The bloody pseudopods reached for him but he backed away again, and they fell lifeless to the ground. As he watched, stunned with horror and amazement, they shrank back into the robes of the man facing him. 

The Chimera looked up and into the pale features of his grandfather. They were the same and a form of twisted relief washed through him. This was familiar; this was what he expected—

His heart nearly stopped as his brain processed the information his eyes sent it: The evil grin that Rezo wore in his nightmares was gone. Instead, his face was marked by some strong emotion that twisted those handsome features into a mask of pain. But that wasn’t what amazed him most; that was the fact that Rezo’s eyes were open!

Trembling, Zelgadis nearly sank to his knees. The only time he had ever seen Rezo’s eyes open was right after Lina had defeated Shabranigdu and they’d caught a brief glimpse of the Red Priest as his soul was departing. Then his eyes had been open and clear and violet and finally at peace and free of pain. 

These eyes were neither clear, at peace or free of pain. They were clouded, thunderstorm dark, and tears flowed down his pale cheeks: Bright red tears of blood.

Zelgadis, the apparition said quietly, reaching out to him with his left hand, the one that did not hold his staff. Zelgadis, he repeated. Listen to me.

It was too much for the young Chimera. Zelgadis stumbled backwards as he tried to get away, had to get away. He was comfortable with his old nightmare! He knew what to expect! This—The uncertainty unnerved him, frightened him beyond measure. He turned and ran like a frightened animal, not knowing where he was running, but knowing only that he had to get away!

He ran until he could run no more. Out of breath and nearly sobbing with terror, he stumbled to a halt and dropped to his hands and knees. Head hanging down so that his hair nearly brushed the ground, he fought to catch his breath. Something wet splashed onto his hand and he opened his eyes and looked down. There was a spot of moisture on his half-fingered glove. “What?” he murmured and reached up with his other hand and felt his cheeks. They were wet. Wet with tears. 

Angrily, he scrubbed at his face. No, it couldn’t be. It was from the exertion. He hadn’t shed a tear over anything or anyone since the day Rezo had cursed him. He wasn’t about to start now. 

Sitting back on his heels, he looked around and wondered if he was still dreaming. He was in some sort of formal garden—it had to be a dream because the hedges around him were black. There was very little color anywhere, save for himself. “Feh,” he muttered and climbed to his feet. There were hedges all around him save for one direction. Either he’d run in from that direction or the hedges had sprung up around him while he hadn’t been looking. Since that was the only way to go, he started off in that direction. 

After getting lost twice, he finally found the exit to the hedge maze. As he stepped out from between the two hedgerows, what he saw made him freeze and stare around. “This is a dream?” he muttered to himself. Shaking his head, he shrank back against the hedge as he tried to absorb his surroundings. “If it is, it certainly isn’t one of mine!”

And indeed, he had never had a dream like this before: The hedgerows around him were black and leached of color, but the area they delineated was far from colorless! In fact, there were so many colors his eyes hurt! Swirls of red, green, blue, purple, yellow, orange and every color in between that had ever existed in nature or not—and one of an electric purply-green shade that he was sure existed nowhere except this demented place—crowded upon one another and fought for supremacy, only to be usurped by another color as it came along and climbed the political power ladder. 

It was a party. A party unlike any others he had seen, not even in that ridiculous attraction that Filia had ensnared him and Lina in not so long ago. There the participants had been dolls, statically animated by a hidden controller. Here…the party-goers were made of color, sometimes two or three. 

That was only part of the parti-colored quilt of motion, sound and color that made his head dance and eyes hurt. The sounds of several different bands, all playing a different tune, assaulted his sensitive ears and rang in his head painfully. And the colorful people moved constantly to these conflicting melodies. 

To top that off, the place had that slightly skewed feeling common in dreams. Perspective was all off, making some things appear closer than others while the landscape tilted unnaturally in others, lending the scene yet another facet of just plain weird.

“Has to be a dream. Fever dream—” He broke off and his eyes went wide. “That shit Coyote put in the fire! That bastard! He’s a dead man,” he muttered, his tone making that a grim promise.

Cautiously, he started forward, carefully stepping around a small knot of party-goers, noting as he did so that they were dressed in red and black and had little insignia on their costumes: Red hearts and diamonds; black spades and clubs. He got a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach at that, but brushed it away.

He wandered around the party, wondering what else his fevered mind was going to produce. He mustn’t be that bad off if he could recognize the fact that this was a dream. He just wished he could wake up from it. Sighing, Zelgadis had to admit that weird as this was, it was far better than having to suffer through his old nightmare yet again. He just hoped this one didn’t get any weirder—

“Zel!”

Absolutely nothing could have startled him more than to hear that voice calling his name. The Chimera whipped around and scanned the crowd in something resembling a panic. Why, he didn’t know, but it set the hair on the back of his neck to standing at attention. Then he spotted her—and did a double-take that would have given another person whiplash.

Her bright crimson hair spilled over the formal black dress she wore and a crown trimmed in black velvet and ermine sat atop her head. Unwittingly, he had started for the dais where she was, heading for something familiar in all this weirdness. 

She waved again, enthusiastically using her whole arm. Her face was lit up as she watched him push through the crowd towards her. It was then that she turned to the tall man sitting next to her and grabbed his arm and jerked it out from under his cheek, where he was using his fist to prop up his head while he dozed. “Look, Gourry! It’s Zel! LOOK, DAMMIT!”

The tall blonde swordsman, also clothed in black and wearing a black crown on top of his golden hair, slipped and nearly fell out of the chair…No chair, Zelgadis noted as he got closer, but a throne. He looked the pair over as he approached them; what were Lina and Gourry doing dressed as a king and queen? And sitting in thrones? And, more importantly, what were they doing in his dream?

“Huh?” Gourry said sleepily, turning his head this way and that. “Look where, Lina?”

“THERE!” she screeched and pointed at Zelgadis, who was standing right in front of them. Gourry looked down at the Chimera and recognition played across his features. 

“Ah! Zelgadis! Nice to see you! You decided to come to the party, too?”

“Considering that this is my dream, I guess it would have been rude of me not to attend.” He gave them a wry smile and lifted his hand. “And considering that this is a dream, you’re both not really here, so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, would it?”

“Ah, Zel, don’t be a hard butt!” Lina said. “This is a great party! Look! Just look at all the colors! And the food!!” She pointed towards the long buffet. 

Zelgadis mounted the two steps that formed the dais that the thrones were set upon. “Now I know this is a dream. If it were real, you wouldn’t be sitting here while the food was over there.” 

She stuck her tongue out at him. “We were waiting for you! It would have been rude to start the banquet without the Guest of Honor, now wouldn’t it?” 

“Guest of Honor? What do you mean?” He looked from the sorceress to the swordsman and back. 

“It’s a celebration, Zelgadis!” Gourry said. “For you!”

“What for?” he asked suspiciously.

“Do you need a reason? It’s just for, that’s all!” Lina jumped up and dragged him down the row of chairs to just past Gourry where an empty throne crouched like a waiting predator. He tried to pull away but Lina forced him down into it, fished underneath and pulled out a crown like the one Gourry was wearing, only in red, and plonked it down on his head. “There. Now we can eat!” She happily skipped back to her chair and sat down.

“Don’t mind Lina-san, Zelgadis-san,” another feminine voice said to his left. He started and turned to look at her—and wondered why he hadn’t noticed her before. She was wearing the same type of gown that Lina was wearing, only hers was in red. She was Elegance Incarnate in that dress: It hugged her shapely curves and the neckline plunged low onto her breasts and the white ermine trimming hugged her milky white shoulders in a way that was definitely…

Definitely what? he asked himself. When he refused to answer, instead looking away from the Princess, that damned voice in his head demanded again, Definitely what?

“I don’t know!” he shouted, startling those around him. 

“Zelgadis-san?” Amelia asked, tilting her head to the side and looking at him curiously. “You don’t know what?”

He startled and looked up into her face, having to force his eyes upwards away from interesting parts of her revealed by her gown. “What? Oh, nothing…nothing. It was nothing.” He wondered at her beauty, the concern she held in her eyes for him, the way her hair played along her neck, the funny little cowlicks that even now refused to lay flat, but stuck up from underneath the brim of her crown—

That crown…He sat up straight and looked at it: White ermine trimmed the rim of it. Two golden bands rose out of the trimming to cross in the center and encase the plush red velvet inside. A single red heart adorned the peak of the crown. 

Gripping the arms of his throne, Zelgadis whipped around and looked at Lina and Gourry. Their crowns were adorned with spades, and there were little spades embroidered on their clothing in black silk thread. He looked back at Amelia and noticed her gown was embroidered with hearts. 

Raising a cautious hand, he lifted the crown off his head and lowered it so that he could examine it. He let out a pent up breath as he saw there was no symbol on his crown…

He leaned back in the throne and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was just too much of a coincidence. What now? 

A hand shook him. “Come on, Zel,” Gourry said. “Time for the banquet to start.”

“Come on!” Lina shouted when he didn’t respond quickly enough and grabbed his other arm. Between the two of them, they hauled Zelgadis out of the throne and over to the table where the food was piled high. Lina left Zelgadis and went to stand beside a chair. As Gourry went to pull out his own chair, she glared at him so hard even Zelgadis could feel the heat coming off her.

“Ahem,” she said as if clearing her throat. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Gourry?”

The blonde looked up at her as he sank down into his chair. “I don’t think so, Lina. Did I?” 

“My chair?” she said pointedly, glare intensifying.

Zelgadis couldn’t help but grin as he stepped around the table to pull out the chair for Amelia. She took a step back and looked at him in surprise, but recovered herself quickly. “Thank you, Zelgadis-san,” she said formally as she curtsied before gathering her skirt and sitting in the chair. 

“You’re welcome, Princess,” he said just as formally, though a half-grin softened his words. As he turned back to his chair, Gourry still hadn’t figured out what Lina was waiting for. Lina was watching him and Amelia then rounded angrily on the unfortunate swordsman. 

“Gourry! You jellyfish! You were supposed to do what Zel just did for Amelia!” She jerked out her chair and slumped down in it hard.

“Well, why didn’t you say so? I thought you could do that on your own, though.” He got out of his chair and reached for hers.

“Haven’t you ever heard of manners, idiot?!” she shouted, jerking her chair forward out of his reach. “Never mind. I’ll do it myself.” 

“Okay, if that’s the way you feel about it.” Gourry shrugged and returned to his seat; Zelgadis had to turn away to hide a wry grin. Amelia was trying to hide her own knowing grin, and their eyes met. For one brief moment, they shared a moment of quiet amusement at their friends’ antics, only…As he looked into her blue eyes, he saw something there that puzzled him and his smile fled from his face as he tried to fathom it. Her smile, too, departed for parts unknown as her eyes darkened and clouded. As she looked away, he wondered what had caused that, and felt a pang of loss within himself. 

He looked away, not wanting to embarrass her further, only to find himself looking at Lina, who was pointedly not looking at Gourry. The beleaguered swordsman had one elbow propped on the arm of his chair and was using his fist to rest his cheek against it while he sulked under Lina’s inattention. Irritably, she snapped at Zelgadis, “What are you looking at?”

“I believe I’m looking at you, Lina,” he said, voice as smooth as marble and just as cool. She flushed angrily but there was no one to direct her anger at (Amelia was looking away and not at anyone in particular), Lina slouched down in her seat.

“What are we waiting for?” Zelgadis asked, suddenly aware that no one, not even the usually incorrigible duo across the table, had made a move towards the food piled before them. Not only that, it was just then that he realized the table was pentagonally shaped, with five places set, and five chairs. The empty chair, set between himself and Lina, seemed suddenly all too…imposing, crouching like a dark beast between the sorceress and the Chimera.

“We’re waiting for the last guest,” Amelia said quietly. “She’s coming, right now.”

Zelgadis turned to stare at her and saw her staring off into the distance over his left shoulder. He twisted around to see what she was looking at—and froze in disbelief. 

* * *

I know that the spades are swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that’s not the shape of my heart

As She came to sit at the table, pulling out Her own chair and seating Herself, all he could do was stare. He knew She was dressed in a gown similar to both Amelia and Lina’s, but, like Amelia’s, Hers was a bloody crimson. These details were all noted in passing, however; he couldn’t really make out Her features save for one: the color of Her eyes. They were green; green as new grass; green as emeralds; green as the ocean where the water was warm and salt above and cold and fresh below. 

There was one other detail that registered on is brain: Her gown and crown were adorned with diamonds. As he tore his eyes away from the Queen of Diamonds sitting next to him, he looked around the little circle of friends—and one odd guest out—his winning hand. Queens of Spades, Diamonds and Hearts. Kings of Spades and…

But his crown was unmarked and he was wearing his regular clothing. Which King was he? And yet, his crown was red, giving him only two choices. In the game, the other King had been the King of Hearts, but how could someone with a heart of stone rule such things? That left only the King of Diamonds. 

Angrily, Zelgadis reached up and pulled off the crown. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, looking around the table. All four of the others were staring at him, as if waiting for something. For him to do something.

“What do you mean, Zelgadis-san?” 

He rounded on Amelia, who had spoken. “You know perfectly well what I mean!” he shouted, forgetting for a moment that this was a dream. 

She looked up at him with hurt eyes. “But I don’t know what you mean. I wouldn’t have asked if I did.”

“Stop playing games with me!” he shouted, thumping his fisted hands on the table in front of him. The impact jolted the food piled upon the table in front of him. It jingled with a clear, crystalline sound.

Wait a minute, he thought to himself. Food doesn’t jingle. He looked down and found that the food had been replaced by a pile of gold. The coins, disturbed by his abuse, slid around his hands and cascaded off the edge like a golden rain. 

“What—?” he gasped, stepping back and pushing his chair back at the same time. “What’s going on?” he demanded again, looking at Lina and Gourry. 

“There’s nothing going on, Zel,” Gourry said, looking at him steadily out of his summertime blue eyes. Zelgadis looked at the swordsman, and found that seeing Gourry dressed in black was an eerie sight. Against that non-color, his golden hair and clear blue eyes made for a startling contrast. Leaning forward, Gourry rested an elbow on the table and waved a hand over the mounded gold. “It’s just a bunch of treasure; all you could want.” More coins slid off the mounded pile, as if stirred by that slight wave, to reveal the golden hilt of Zelgadis’ sword, and several musty old spellbooks that he recognized as his own. Books written in his own hand, containing spells that he had slaved over to master. Books long forgotten but represented hours, years, decades of diligent work to master. “Your sword, your power. Wealth. All very fine things, don’t you agree? And you have them all.”

Lina leaned forward and Zelgadis ripped his eyes from Gourry’s to meet her bleeding stare. “But you aren’t satisfied with just these, are you, Zelgadis? You want more.” 

He went cold. “And is that so bad? To want more? You’re always reaching for more, Lina. You can’t even admit to yourself that you’re in love with Gourry, not even when the rest of the world can see it plain as day!”

This dream-Lina didn’t bat an eye. “Admitting that I want him and wanting something I can’t get are two different things, Zelgadis Greywers. He’s one of the fine things I’ve been given in my life and I’m more than aware of that. Besides, what makes you think I won’t or haven’t admitted it? Why do you think I stay with him?” She paused to let that sink in before she continued. “It isn’t the wanting more that’s bad; it’s wanting what you can’t get or have. And not wanting what you do have.”

He stared at her then lowered his head and screwed his eyes shut. “I am not having this conversation,” he said. “Lina Inverse, Dragon Spooker, giving me advice on how to run my life.”

“No, she’s just a dream,” Amelia said quietly. “We’re all just dreams. Your dreams.”

He turned his glare on her. “My dreams? Then go away!” She gazed back at him, with those beautiful blue eyes…Eyes that reached into his soul. Eyes he could lose himself in…

“We won’t do that.” Gourry’s voice dragged his attention away from Amelia, though something inside him cried out in pain against it. “We care about you, Zel. We want to see you happy.”

“You can do that best by going away!” he shouted, bringing his fists down onto the table again. The motion set the pile of coins to slithering and sliding as if alive and they poured over the side, taking the sword and books with them, until there was nothing left. 

“You see,” Gourry continued on, looking sadly at the now empty table. “Gone. All of it. You want what you can’t get, so you lose everything.”

He felt the blood leave his face as cold anger welled up inside of him. “What do you mean by that, Gourry? Who was it that followed Lina around like a dog for two years before he admitted that he liked her?” he said in that cold, hard voice he reserved for when he was his angriest. “And what did it take for you to tell her that you needed her? Lina had to be taken by the Lord of Nightmares, that’s what! I call that wanting what you can’t get. Is there any difference between you and me?” He paused and unsatisfied with the wounding he just given the swordsman, he had to twist the knife even further. “Besides the fact that your IQ is about that of said dog?” 

Gourry’s blue eyes went dark and his brows creased in pain at Zelgadis’ harsh words. His face flushed in anger and he opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything Lina jumped to the swordsman’s defense. “That’s not fair, Zelgadis, and you know it.” Her eyes were hard as rubies. “You know we’re right, don’t you?”

“And just how the hell do you figure that?” he spat.

“Because you’ve resorted to abuse.”

That drew Zelgadis up short. “Why can’t you all just leave me alone?” he asked again. “Just leave me alone!”

“You should know very well that we’re not going leave you alone. Someone has to save you from yourself.” Lina glared daggers at him.

He rounded on her to shout something, but a motion from the green-eyed Queen of Diamonds stopped the words cold in his throat. “Don’t listen to them, Zelgadis,” She said, leaning forward and taking his arm. The blood rushed to his face as he looked at Her and even though nothing but the green of Her eyes registered on his brain, he knew She was smiling at him. “They just don’t understand. What’s the one thing you want most?” She asked smoothly.

The Chimera had to force his brain to work. The woman holding his arm affected him on a very basic level; something akin to lust burned within him. “I want to be human again,” he said in a tightly controlled voice. “I want to be normal, not some kind of freak.”

“Human,” Lina said, interrupting him and pulling him out of himself. He ripped his eyes from the Lady’s green ones to glare once again into those eyes of hard, crystallized blood. “You don’t know the meaning of the word. You have convinced yourself that you’re a monster and you’re turning into one. You search for a cure and yet you search in all the wrong places.”

The green-eyed Queen of Diamonds stood and pulled him closer, pressing Herself close to his side. “How can you know that?” She asked Lina. “How can you even begin to understand the anguish that he’s suffered? The anguish he only wants to put an end to by returning himself to normal?”

“I know,” a soft voice came from behind Zelgadis and the Lady. She’d been so quiet up until now, that Zelgadis had forgotten she was there. Turning, he looked down at Amelia where she sat, regal-looking and beautiful in her chair. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair until her knuckles turned white and her face was pale. “I understand.”

The Lady chuckled. “And how can you possibly know what it is he suffers, little girl? Go home and play at being a hero and leave matters of the world to those who are better able to deal with them.”

Amelia glared up at the other woman. She pushed herself up and stood tall and proud. “I know. I’ve suffered both loss and betrayal in my life, as well! I lost my mother to an assassin! My sister ran away because of it! It was expected that I would inherit the throne; my opinion on the matter was never consulted. So in a sense, I was turned into something without regard for my feelings or thoughts on the matter.”

“Ah, so you were,” the Lady crooned. “No wonder you’re the little Justice freak you are; you’re just another kind of monster. Isn’t she, Zelgadis?” 

Zelgadis looked deeply into Amelia’s eyes and saw something there he’d never seen before. Or was it the fact that he’d never bothered to look or refused to recognize it. The Princess of Seyruun had suffered at the hands of her family in ways similar to his own. But still…

“Is that what you think, too, Zelgadis-san?” she asked, her voice tightly controlled. The pain and hurt in her eyes was plain to see.

“Of course he does!” The Lady said with much amusement. “Can’t you tell? Why do you think he left you in Seyruun, all alone, Princess? Because he didn’t want to be bothered with an immature, annoying little Justice freak. He doesn’t want another monster when he could have me.” She put her hand on his chest and leaned into him. “I’m his cure, something he lusts for until there’s no room for anything else. Haven’t you realized that by now? Nothing, nothing else matters except me.” 

Those blue eyes darkened to black and there was a double-gasp behind him from Lina and Gourry. Dumbly, shocked beyond belief, he tried to force himself to say something—anything! “No…no! That’s not how it is at all!” he was finally able to get out. 

Amelia, however, wasn’t listening. She pushed back her chair and walked up to the Lady. Blue eyes looked into green, and Zelgadis unconsciously stepped backwards. Now that they were together, Amelia glowing with righteous indignation and the Lady shining brightly, he could see that Amelia’s beauty outshone the Lady’s with no question. The Lady’s allure was the dazzle-glitter of card game winnings and about as substantial as a will o’ the wisp. And just as deadly. But, Her beauty was addictive, possessive. Always just out of reach, always promising rewards next time—next time will be the big payoff. And he was caught in her snare and couldn’t help himself. Worse still, he refused to admit it to even himself.

“You’re poison to him,” the Princess said in a soft, low voice. “You’ve poisoned his soul and are slowly turning what’s left of him into the monster he so wants to escape. I just wish he could see that as plainly as I do.” And she raised her hand, quickly and with a speed borne of righteous anger, she slapped the Lady across the face with her open palm.

“Amelia!” he shouted as the Lady staggered back. He reached out and caught Her elbows and lowered Her into the chair. “What was that for?”

She turned her hard angry eyes on him. “I should slap you as well, Zelgadis Greywers,” she said in a dangerous voice. 

“Why?” he demanded. 

“For letting her make you her slave.” 

“I’m no one’s slave!” he snarled at her. 

“You’re her slave!” she shouted back at him. “Not only are you a slave to her, but you indentured yourself to her willingly! You accused Gourry-san of following Lina-san around like a dog, and yet who is it that chases her—” she pointed at the Lady sitting next to Zelgadis “—skirttails all over the world, on the slightest whim, only to be disappointed again and again when nothing comes of her whispered promises! At least Lina-san and Gourry-san have their friendship and company! You…” She stood back and looked at him in disgust. “You have nothing to show for your devotion save years of wasted effort. And to think I once thought I could love you.” She whirled away to hide her suddenly shining eyes. 

Her words stung him to the core. And his normal reaction to pain was anger. Hot, seething anger welled up inside him; anger at her for what she’d said, for saying it out loud, and for most of all, being right about it. He glared at the back of her head, fists clenching at his side while visions of striking her played in the dark recesses of his mind. Guilt that he would even consider that course of action fueled the anger and the need to strike out overwhelmed him. Raising his fist, he roared wordlessly as he brought it down on the five-sided table with enough force to shatter it. The crown that he had discarded earlier went rolling out of the destruction and off the dais and into the crowd. 

The place was suddenly silent as a graveyard save for a little yelp Amelia, then she, too, was quiet as she turned and stared at Zelgadis as if he’d suddenly grown another head. He hadn’t noticed the constant din in the background until it came to a screeching halt. The party-goers stopped and stared at him. Then as one, they looked to the crown that had fallen amongst their midst. 

Lina and Gourry stood and stared at him in horror; the swordsman reached out and pulled Amelia away from Zelgadis and into his arms. She buried her face in his chest and he held her close while glaring at Zelgadis. “Dammit, Zel. Look what you’ve done,” he said in a hard voice. “What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into me?” he panted. “What’s gotten into all of you?!” He clenched his fists and glared at the swordsman, wondering why he was so angry with the other man for holding Amelia. He shook his head to try and clear it of the anger currently twisting his insides into knots. “I don’t need this or you or anyone. I don’t need saving from myself; I don’t need anyone babysitting me and telling me what I should or should not want or should or should not do with my life!” He saw Amelia’s shoulders flinch and opened his mouth to say something else equally acidic and venomous to her, but a voice behind him made him stop. 

“You know, you’ll never accomplish anything yelling at yourself like that.”

The Chimera jerked as though someone had hit him with a Mono Bolt. He whirled around and stared in slack-jawed disbelief at the man coming up the steps of the dais towards the little group. 
“You! What are you doing here?” he demanded.

The black-haired young man came to a stop next to Zelgadis. It was only then that the Chimera noticed that he was holding the crown in his hands. “I came to see what was causing you so much pain, Zelgadis.” He looked around at the little group. They looked back in silence. “Seems you’re carrying around a lot of emotional baggage, my friend.”

Zelgadis blinked and took a step back. His anger still hadn’t dissipated. “This is all your doing, isn’t it?” he shouted.

Coyote shook his head. “I have nothing to do with this; it’s all your doing.”

“How can that be?” he demanded. “I didn’t ask for this!”

“That’s something you have yet to understand: Very rarely does asking have anything to do with what you get.”

The Chimera simply stared at him then turned away and pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right, all right. Just…stop this. I don’t want any more.”

“That’s another thing you’ve got to learn: Wanting something doesn’t necessarily mean you can get it. And I can’t stop this because I told you, I didn’t do it; you did.”

“I wish you’d stop speaking in riddles, you know that?” Zelgadis glared at him. “What do you mean you didn’t do this? You’re the one that put that stuff in the fire.”

Coyote shook his head. “That was only to help you sleep. This is all of your own making.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’ve never had a dream like this before.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t start having them now. Seems to me that it’s high time you did.” Before Zelgadis could respond to that, Coyote held up the crown. “Seems to me you’ve got to make a choice.”

“What?” Zelgadis looked at him in confusion. This was all getting to be too much and he couldn’t keep up with the shifts in the conversation any more.

“A choice. You’ve come to a place where you can no longer continue on as you’ve been. Continue your present path and you will lose what you value most. Chose another, chose to take some of those fine things that have been offered you, and you will find your humanity.” He held out the crown to him. “Which will it be? Hearts or Diamonds?”

“That’s the biggest load of nonsense I’ve ever heard.”

“Come now, Zelgadis,” the Queen of Diamonds said from next to him. “Surely you want to pick me? After all, you’ve been courting me for so long now.” She stood and took his arm. “And I am what you want, you know it.”

He looked down at Her, staring into Her seductive green eyes and felt his defenses melting away. Three sharp gasps stabbed at him and he looked up—and directly into Amelia’s hard eyes. The hurt in her blue eyes twisted his heart and he pulled away from the Queen of Hearts though She clung to him like a leech. “Amelia, I—” he said quickly, hands out and pleading with her. But before he could say anything else, the Lady hanging on his arm pulled him around and towards the steps down from the dais.

“Forget her, Zelgadis,” She said as he tried to pull away only to find himself unable to rip himself out of Her strong grip. “Can she give you what you want most? No. Choose me, be my slave, and I’ll do anything you ask.” 

He stared down at Her in horror, realization finally starting to sink in. She clung to him while behind him Coyote tossed the crown into the wreckage of the table Zelgadis had ruined. “Better make that choice, Zelgadis,” he said approaching Amelia and holding out his arms to her. Gourry released the little Princess as the black-haired man took her hand and pulled her into his arms. It was only then that Zelgadis realized that Coyote was dressed in red with hearts embroidered on his clothing. He didn’t wear a crown like Gourry did, but rather a sort of cap—the Jack of Hearts, Zelgadis finally realized. “Make the right choice, before it’s too late. Before it’s too late.” 

“Get your hands off her!” Zelgadis shouted, finally pushing the Lady angrily away and running towards the two of them. Coyote led Amelia off the dais and into the crowd which opened up then closed behind them, cutting them off from Zelgadis’ pursuit. 

He rushed the crowd’s edge, thinking he could push easily through them and reach Amelia’s side. He had to get her away from Coyote! He had to let her know things weren’t as she thought they were! Try as he might to slip through the throng of masked dancers, the closer they seemed to press together. They blocked him at every turn, pushing him farther and farther away from his objective. It closed in around him, moving against him and buffeting him away from his goal. Frustrated, he tore at the party-goers. They fell back from him in terror, but there were always more where they came from, always keeping him from Amelia. Whenever the dancers shifted, he could get glimpses of her, dancing close within Coyote’s arms, her head resting on his chest. Tears glittered on her cheeks and lay on his ruffled shirt like diamonds.

Close to tears himself, Zelgadis angrily shoved aside a knot of dancers in his attempt to get to the Princess. Paradoxically, they pushed back—sending him staggering into an empty area on the outskirts of the masque ball. He barely avoided getting brained by the shovel that Lina wielded with vicious precision.

“Hey!” he shouted, ducking and throwing up an arm to shield his head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Oops!” she said with a giggle, lowering the shovel. “Sorry.”

He gaped at her and the tall swordsman standing behind her, also with a shovel held over his shoulder. They were both still wearing their royal costumes.

“What are you two—” he started to ask then thought better of it as he looked downward and saw a small croquet course set up. The wickets were formed by long-legged, long-necked pink birds and the balls were colored glass balls of red and blue. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” He turned his back on the two of them and their ridiculous game. Trust those two to be caught up in something totally random and unrelated to the current goings-on, caught up in their own little world with whatever had top billing at the moment. He surveyed the fringes of the dancers, their grotesque masks flashing by in first quick then slow procession. They laughed at him, mocked his attempts to see past the defensive barrier they erected around the Princess and her dance partner. 

“C’mon, Zel,” Lina said, walking up and clapping him on the shoulder. “Come play a round with us.”

He shrugged her off, rounding on her and facing her down angrily. “No, Lina! This isn’t the time for games! I have more important things to do!” He turned back to the crowd, advancing purposefully on them, raising his hands to cast a spell, any spell, to clear them out of his way.

A small hand on his arm pulled him around. He glowered down at the small sorceress. “What do you want?” he shouted.

“Look, Zel. The Lady is playing with us. Don’t you want to play?” Lina’s ruby eyes were hard and cold as he stared into them. “You love chasing after Her and now here She is. Waiting for you.” She gestured and Zelgadis followed that gesture.

There stood the Queen of Diamonds, leaning on a shovel and smirking at him. “Come play, Zelgadis. Perhaps this simple game will lead to your cure.”

He spared Her no more than a glance. “No. I have more important things to do.” He headed back to the edge of the ball, and with a roar, physically shoved the dancers aside. Screaming, they fell back before him, opening up a path towards the center where Amelia danced with—

Zelgadis froze. Amelia wasn’t dancing with Coyote, but one of the masked dancers. Even as he watched, that partner passed her to another, and another, and another…The dark-haired girl was weeping openly as she was handed back and forth, spun about like a piece of flotsam set adrift on the surface of a storm-troubled ocean, like so much baggage to be passed back and forth without a thought as to her feelings on the matter. The music increased its tempo and she was tossed about helplessly, her head lolling back and forth like a doll’s.

 
* * *

Part 3

And if I told you that I loved you
You’d maybe think there’s something wrong
I’m not a man of too many faces
The mask I wear is one

Rage and shame that Amelia should be treated in such a manner sprang up inside him. Pushing his way through the crowd, he reached out and snagged her hands away from the next hopeful partner, pulling the girl into his arms, using them as a shield to keep away all the others who saw only the Princess and not the girl she was underneath. The girl he’d seen face Mazoku and Dark Lords with an inner strength that very few people knew she possessed. The girl who he’d worked with so many times it felt natural and was something he came to look forward to and enjoy. The girl he’d seen die—twice—and come back to life. He stopped dead in his tracks and refused to move, keeping her close to his body, knowing that for once this freakish body of his could do what he most wanted to do at the moment: Protect her. 

“It’s all right, Amelia,” he whispered, covering her hair with his hand and tucking her head underneath his chin. Lightly he stroked her hair as he held her to him. “I won’t let them hurt you any more.” He felt her arms go around his waist and something inside him melted at her touch.

“So you’ve made your decision?”

Zelgadis looked up at Coyote, who approached as the surging crowd around them dispersed, leaving him and Amelia, Coyote, and Lina and Gourry behind him standing in a loose group. To the side and away from them all stood the Queen of Diamonds.

“What decision?”

“The one we were talking about,” Coyote said, holding up the red crown. “Have you chosen Hearts over Diamonds?”

“I—” He paused. How could he make a decision like that? What kind of decision were they wanting him to make, anyway? Couldn’t they understand that he had to choose Diamonds so that he would have the option of choosing Hearts later? In his arms Amelia stiffened. The Chimera looked down at her as she dropped her arms, slid them between the two of them and pushed away.

Puzzled, he looked into her stony eyes as she backed away from him, an accusing look on her face. “Amelia, please…” he started, holding out a hand to her. “Please, try to understand…”

Before he could any go further, she shook her head, then stepped backwards into darkness. Startled, Zelgadis whirled around wildly, searching the darkness. While he’d been captivated by Amelia’s suddenly cold eyes, the scenery had disappeared and so had the representations of his friends. He stood alone in a cone of light that shone down on him from above. Silence as thick and deafening as thunder engulfed him. 

“What’s going on here?” he shouted, but that blanketing silence murdered his words and laid them to rest in shallow graves.

“Order!!” a voice bellowed out of the darkness. Another spotlight came on, illuminating a large, rather hirsute man dressed in black and red motley. Zelgadis groaned at the site of him. Things just kept getting weirder and he didn’t need this right now…

“Order in the court!” Phil shouted again, raising the staff he held and bringing it down three times. “The Royal Court of Justice is now in order! All rise for her Royal Honor, Princess Amelia Wil Tesla de Seyruun!” Behind him, more spotlights came on, illuminating a double row of chairs. Seated upon the chairs were some of the masked party-goers, namely those who’d been dancing with Amelia before Zelgadis had put a stop to that. Their masks, grotesque earlier, bordered on horrific now as they’d been painted half-black, half-white. 

As a body they rose and began chanting, “Here comes the Judge! Here comes the Judge! Ev’rybody knows that here comes the Judge!” They continued chanting as more lights came on, illuminating a raised stand and Amelia as she walked towards it. She avoided looking at either the party-goers, her father or Zelgadis as she climbed the steps and took her seat on the stand. Lifting the gavel she brought it down hard on the desk in front of her. “Silence!” she shouted. The jury immediately ceased their chanting and sat down. 

She turned her attention to Zelgadis. The Chimera found himself quaking under that intense gaze; never had he seen Amelia so cold and distant. “What’s going on here, Amelia?” he shouted, stepping forward. 

Phil moved forward, lowering his staff in front of Zelgadis. “The Defendant will remain silent until he is given permission by the Court to speak.”

“Defendant? What—?”

BANG! Amelia’s gavel smashed down on the desk. “What part of silent do you not understand, Zelgadis Greywers?” Without giving him time to answer, she looked at her father. “Call the first case!”

Phil banged his staff. “The People vs Zelgadis Greywers.”

“Wait a minute!” Zelgadis shouted. “I demand to know what’s going on here!”

“Out of order!” Amelia’s shout was punctuated by another bang from her gavel. “The Prosecutor will read the charges!”

Out of the darkness stepped a figure that Zelgadis had hoped never to see again. “My Honor, the Defendant is accused of becoming the very thing he seeks to cure about himself. That he has lost every shred of the humanity that he claims to cling to and is no more than a freak. A demon. A monster.” Amethyst eyes regarded him from underneath a fringe of purple hair. 

“Damn you!” Zelgadis shouted. “It’s not true! I am not a monster!”

“How can you be so sure?” Xellos asked, stepping forward and circling him like a vulture. “You’re cold, hard and unloving. You reject your friends and embrace the very things that makes you a freak. You hate. You hate yourself and your friends. You deny that you have feelings, instead preferring to be thought of as ‘cold and heartless.’” The grin that Xellos gave him when he’d come around to face him again was feral. “Much like a Mazoku, don’t you think?”

Zelgadis took a step backwards, putting some distance between himself and the purple-haired priest. “You disgust me,” he said in a low growl.

“And you amuse me,” Xellos said. Turning with a swirl of his cloak, the Mazoku approached the bench, and bowed extravagantly to Amelia. “So you see, Your Honor, the Defendant stopped being human long ago.”

“Now just wait a minute!” Zelgadis blurted out.

Amelia struck the bench with her gavel. “Silence! How does the Jury find the Defendant?”

Everyone looked towards the white-and-black masked jury, including Zelgadis. As he watched agape, they started another chant: “Guilty, guilty, guilty…” Quiet at first, but it grew in volume by the final pronouncement.

“Now just wait a damned minute!!” Zelgadis shouted again. “What kind of trial is this? WHY am I on trial anyway? Amelia, are you just going to accept this?”

“SILENCE!” Amelia shouted with another strike of her gavel. Her eyes were cold and hard as stone. She turned to Xellos. “Do you have witnesses?”

Bowing yet again, Xellos held out an elegantly gloved hand. “Right here, Your Honor.” Straightening, he called, “Bring out the Character Witnesses!”

From the other side of the bench, another light appeared. Inside was a figure. Zelgadis gaped at her. “Lina?”

She looked at him sadly. “Sorry, Zel,” Lina said. She was still in her Queen of Swords ensemble and looked very eerie dressed all in black. Her crimson hair fairly bled into the darkness.

“Lina Inverse, Bandit Killer,” Xellos said. “How would you describe the Defendant?”

“He leaves in the middle of the night. He refuses to let us help him when it’s inconvenient to him. He won’t listen to anyone.” She paused then piped up again. “Oh, and he threw me into a tree.”

Xellos looked at Zelgadis. “You threw her into a tree? And you say you’re not a monster!” He applauded the Chimera.

“Stop it! I did it to distract Rezo! I did it to save the two of us! I didn’t mean for her to hit the tree—I was going to try and catch her, but—” He looked downward. “The tree had other ideas.”

“You claim to have done this to save the two of you from your dearly departed grandfather. And yet, you only did that to find out where she had hidden the statue containing the piece of the Philosopher’s Stone with which you intended to destroy your grandfather?”

“All right, so I didn’t save her with the best of intentions. Still, I did save her, right?”

“Beside the point.” Xellos quickly dismissed Zelgadis’ comment and plunged along. “Next Witness: Gourry Gabriev.”

A second cone of light appeared to illuminate the swordsman. Unlike Lina, he was no longer wearing his King of Swords costume from earlier. Instead—Zelgadis looked at his friend in puzzlement. Gourry was dressed all in black, save for a startling white vee formed by a black vest over a starched white shirt. A black frock coat that came to his knees covered black trousers that he wore over his boots instead of stuffed into them as he habitually wore them. Around his neck he wore a thin, black string tie and a black top hat covered his golden hair. What surprised him most, though, was the sword strapped around his waist and under the long frock coat. The Chimera recognized that triple pronged hilt: It was the Sword of Light. Which had gone back with Serius to the Overworld. So what was it doing in his dream? He shuddered; did it matter? It was all just a freaky dream anyway. Still…there was something slightly morbid about seeing Gourry dressed like this but he couldn’t quite fathom out the reason why.

“Tell me, Gourry,” Xellos was saying in a smooth, amiable voice. “What is your impression of Zelgadis here?”

“Oh, I dunno,” the tall blonde said. “He’s not so bad, I guess. Except, like Lina said, he’s always trying to sneak off and leave us behind when we just want to help.” He gave Zelgadis a curious look. “Did you really throw Lina into a tree?”

Exasperated, Zelgadis threw up his hands. “Yes! I threw Lina into a tree! I admit it! There? Happy now?” He rounded on Xellos. “Is that what this is all about?”

Amelia smacked her gavel against the bench. “You will refrain from such outbursts in my court!” she shouted. Lowering it in his direction, she said, “One more outburst like that and I’ll have you slapped in irons for contempt of court! Mr Prosecutor?

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“Do you have any other witnesses or arguments?”

“No, Your Honor. The Prosecution rests.”

“Very well. How does the jury find the Defendant?”

Again the jury started its ominous chant: “Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

The gavel came smashing down on the bench—this time silence followed. Everyone turned to Amelia and waited expectantly. Even Zelgadis found himself holding his breath while he waited to see what would happen next. 

Amelia rose and descended from the bench, came around and walked up to Zelgadis. Even though he had to look down at her, he found himself intimidated by her demeanor. “Do you have anything to say before I pass judgment?” she said in a low, even voice.

“Amelia—”

“Nope, sorry! Too late.” She turned around and looked at the jury. “Your final verdict?”

The jury slowly rose from their seats, starting that same chant as if they possessed only one word in their combined vocabulary. “Guilty, guilty, guilty…” Leaned forward, they all raised their fists and shook them in time with the chant. “Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

“No!” he shouted. He took a step towards Amelia, reaching for her. “Stop this!”

She whirled around before he could touch her and drew away. “You heard the verdict, Zelgadis Greywers,” Xellos said, interposing himself between the Princess and Zelgadis. “What is your sentence, Your Honor?”

Amelia stared at Zelgadis, meeting his eyes with a cool detachment. “Off with his head.”

Dumbfounded, Zelgadis could only stare at her in complete disbelief. His mouth worked silently before he managed to get out, “What?”

“OFF WITH HIS HEAD!” 

Her shout rang through the darkness and echoed eerily back and forth, repeating that same dread statement over and over. Behind Amelia, the masked jury stepped down out of the box and began advancing towards the two of them. Staring at them over Amelia’s head, Zelgadis felt the familiar burn of betrayal inside his chest. Turning blazing eyes on Amelia, he struggled with the pain that threatened to strangle him. “Why, Amelia? Why?”

She shook her head. “Isn’t this how you want us to act, Zelgadis-san? Treating you as the cold, heartless person that you are? Well, you’ve got your wish. You want us to persecute you for your ‘freakish’ looks, we’ll damn well do the best job we can do. Time to carry out the sentence. Mr Executioner?”

“Yes, Your Honor?”

Zelgadis’ eyes snapped to the tall blonde who had stepped up behind the tiny princess. “Gourry…” he whispered, not believing what his eyes were showing him. The swordsman’s face was a mask and his eyes hard with distaste. 

“If you please,” Amelia said, stepping to the side and out of the way. Zelgadis took a step backwards as the other man reached to his hip and drew his sword. Only the hilt came away in his hand; the steel blade remained ensconced within the scabbard. He held it out, gripping it with both hands, just as the Chimera had seen him do on numerous occasions. 

Fear gripped his insides as he watched Gourry. That weapon—the only thing in this world that could wound him—in those hands. Hands belonging to the best swordsman in the world—were a nightmare combination separate from any dream. Taking another step back, back away from the swordsman, he held out his own hands. “Gourry, come on. What are you doing?” The swordsman advanced, leaning forward with his weight on the balls of his feet. Zelgadis knew from personal experience the other man could turn either way in a blink of an eye. “I’m your friend.”

Gourry shook his head, setting that long golden hair of his to swinging dramatically. “No, Zel,” he said. “You’re no one’s friend. You’ve betrayed us—”

“Betrayed you?” the Chimera gasped in disbelief. Anger surged up and he gripped his own sword, though he knew his skills and sword were useless against this man’s. “You’re the ones that have betrayed me! I thought you were my friends!”

“We were. We tried to be. You pushed us away once too often.”

Snarling, Zelgadis yanked his sword out of the scabbard. “I always knew it would come to this,” he rasped out, looking from Gourry to Amelia to Lina who had come up to stand on Amelia’s other side. “I trusted you and look what it’s gotten me.” Eyes flicking back to the black-clad swordsman, he held his sword out at the ready, crouching into a guard position. “I’m not as good a swordsman as you, but you’ll find it a bit harder than you think to take me.” He raised his arms and prepared to leap forward and strike at the swordsman—

Hands grabbed him and pulled his arms down. “What the—” he shouted and turned to see the masked jurors gathered around him, pressing in on him. They pried his sword from his fingers and it fell useless to the ground as they forced him to his knees. Though he fought against them, his strength seemed to seep from his muscles, leached out by the hands that gripped him, leaving him weak and defenseless. He roared his defiance and yet was unable to break their hold on him. 

Weeping with frustration, Zelgadis watched helpless as Gourry stepped forward. He caught those steely blue eyes with his own and held them. They remained cold as the swordsman lifted the hilt of his sword and spoke softly. “Light come forth.” They were barely audible in the silence and yet Zelgadis heard them perfectly. 

The Chimera’s eyes snapped to the sword hilt. The familiar blazing blade formed of pure energy shot out and took shape. The bright, incandescent light lit up the darkness and blinded him to everything else save the sword and the man holding it. 

“Gourry!” he pleaded, struggling uselessly against those hands that gripped him mercilessly. “Listen to me!”

“No, Zelgadis,” the other man said, lifting the sword in both hands. “The sentence has been passed and it’s my duty to carry it out.” Even as he spoke, the hilt of the Sword of Light lengthened, twisting and snaking out into a tall, straight pole nearly as tall as Gourry himself. The light blade changed shape, too, thickening, curving and twisting until it came out at right angles to the misshapen hilt. Gourry lifted the transformed sword in both hands, swinging it in a loose circle, the now curved blade painting an arc of light upon the darkness before he brought it to a rest, butt down and close to his foot and handle held at an angle. The blade curved downward to a wicked point while the edge glowed blue. Zelgadis could do nothing but stare in disbelief up at the man he’d once thought to call ‘friend.’ “I’m sorry, Zelgadis,” Gourry said, once again raising the scythe and gripping it with both hands in front of himself while he stood with his feet planted apart. He nodded to the men holding Zelgadis.

Hands forced his head forward and down while others pulled his arms behind him. He struggled, desperate to get away, to get free. Two black boots stepped into his field of vision: Gourry’s boots. The blazing blade of the scythe swished mere inches away from his face as Gourry swung it around again. Panic gripped the Chimera and his struggles increased. He had to break free! He had to get away!

And yet, he failed to throw them off. They held him still as the Executioner stepped closer. Zelgadis could hear the humming of the scythe as it traveled upwards again. His insides went cold as he could hear it slicing through the very air. At the zenith of its pass, it paused a moment before the swordsman brought it down in a great swinging arc—he knew without seeing straight for his neck. He could feel it! 

With a roar dredged from the very depths of his soul, all his pain, terror and despair given voice, he shoved himself backwards out of the scythe’s path. His masked captors fell off him in surprise and he was free. Yet he had only a second before that blazing scythe cleaved the air so close that he felt the heat of the blade on his face. Something brushed his hand. Looking down, he saw that the scythe had sliced through some of his hair. 

Scrambling backwards, Zelgadis managed to get to his feet under him and stand facing the vengeful Angel of Death, standing tall and dark and made of nightmares as he held the blazing scythe in sure, strong hands. The length of his hair lay over his black coat like a golden halo, and those blue eyes burned. Raising the scythe, he took a step forward. “This will be a lot easier if you don’t fight, Zelgadis,” he said, though he sounded pained. 

“I am not going to stand here and let you kill me, Gourry Gabriev!” Zelgadis shouted at the swordsman.

“You have no choice, Zel,” Gourry said, swinging the scythe again.

 “Like hell I don’t,” Zelgadis panted, backing away from the swordsman. The jurors had scattered, leaving him isolated. He looked around wildly as he sought escape. “This is a fucking dream, gods damn it! That’s all!”

"A dream, yes, but that doesn’t make it any less real,” a voice said from beside him. 

Zelgadis whirled to face his tormentor. “You’re really starting to annoy me, Coyote,” he snarled then twisted out of the way to avoid Gourry’s next slash with his scythe. “This is nothing but a dream. Gourry doesn’t even have the Sword of Light any more!” 

“Then what are you so worried about?” Coyote said from where he was leaning against a wall, arms folded across his chest. “If it’s just a dream, you don’t have to worry if your friend here kills you, do you?” He nodded to Gourry, who wheeled the scythe, his hands sure and comfortable on the handle just as they were on a hilt of a sword. 

Zelgadis backed away from Coyote, from the maddened swordsman and from the two women who stood there impassively watching. His eyes found Amelia’s and the contempt he saw there made him cry out physically. Whirling away from those eyes he fled into the darkness not knowing which way he was going, only knowing that he had to get away from Gourry, away from Coyote and most of all away from the horrible thing that looked at him through Amelia’s eyes. 

He ran like he’d never run before, using all his demon speed. The darkness blurred on either side but he was not paying attention to it. As long as he put as much distance as possible between himself and those horrible parodies of the people he called his friends. This was a dream, they were not real, this was a dream, he kept repeating over and over to himself like a mantra as he ran. They were not real! She was not real! 

Finally his strength gave out and he stumbled and fell to the ground. Crouched on all fours, he hung his head and let the sobs wrack his body. Blind with rage, he struck the ground with balled fists, putting all his strength behind the blows. How dare they? How dare they?! Over and over he beat upon the defenseless ground, letting all his pent-up frustrations spill over.

Eventually, his rage and anger dissipated, leaving him empty and cold. “How could they?” he asked of the darkness, not expecting an answer. 

Scrubbing at his face, Zelgadis pushed himself to his feet to trudge on into the darkness. He had no idea where he was going or even why he was bothering if this was all just a dream. It shouldn’t matter what he did. He supposed he could just sit there and wait for it to end, but that wasn’t his way. He had to do something.

* * *

Those who speak know nothing
And find out to their cost
Like those who curse their luck in too many places
And those who fear are lost

Time had no meaning in this dark world of dreams and how long he trudged along he didn’t know. The only thing he did know was that he was incredibly relieved when he spotted something in the distance. Picking up his pace, he hurried towards the bright spot ahead. 

As he approached, he could make out several rectangular panels hanging in the darkness with no visible means of support. The closer he got, the more curious he became. Only when he arrived in their midst could he not believe his eyes. They were mirrors, at least a dozen of them, distorted and bent, throwing back false images of himself. 

The air shifted behind him and he whirled around to find the mirrors had formed a ring around him. No matter which way he turned, he was confronted by a distorted image of himself. Some were rippled, others curved to give him the appearance of being grotesquely fat or thin, tall or short.

Disgusted, he averted his eyes. He didn’t need more reminders that his appearance was less than perfect. Head down, he headed for the opening between two of the mirrors. A rush of air was all the warning received before the nearest mirror came flying around to block his path. Throwing himself to the side, he narrowly escaped being brained. 

He regained his footing and backed away and tried again—and again the circle of mirrors shifted to block his escape. Dodging them, he tried to slip under them, but they simply dropped to the ground and cut off his escape that way, too. 

“I’m not getting any happier,” he muttered under his breath as he tried dodging through another opening. No good; the mirrors simply shifted again and kept him corralled. Raising his hands, Zelgadis took another tack: He brought his balled fists down on the surface of the rippled mirror that had just kept him from escaping the ring of mirrors. 

Surprisingly, it shattered under his blow. Thrown somewhat off-balance, Zelgadis could do more than stare in disbelief. He hadn’t expected the mirror to shatter quite so easily. However, the remaining mirrors shifted to fill the gap and another slid into place in front of him. 

He had the answer, however. He raised his fists and brought them down on the new mirror, smashing it into glittering pieces just like the first one. Before they had even stopped tinkling on the ground at his feet, he was smashing through the next one that blocked his path. And more silvered glass fell, splintered, to the ground. 

Finally there were only two mirrors left. As one slid in front of him to block him, Zelgadis raised his hands to smash it, but something stopped him. He looked closely at he mirror in disbelief. This mirror was not distorted as the other ones were, but instead threw back a perfect reflection of himself. Only…

The Chimera took an unsteady step back, away from the apparition in the mirror. Instead of mimicking his movements, the reflection gazed at him levelly out of deep blue eyes. Only, the face out of which those eyes looked was not blue-skinned or covered with rocks. It was human!

Shock kept his feet rooted to the ground for several moments as he stared at the reflection of himself as a human. Then, with great trepidation, he reached out towards the mirror and the reflection. Could it be…? His fingers touched the glass and he laid his hand upon it flat, fingers splayed. He nearly wept as he gazed into those eyes, those human eyes. 

As he ran his hand along the surface of the glass, there was a slight change in the reflection’s expression. The cold expression warmed and the lips curled upwards in a smile. Zelgadis smiled in return, his breath catching in his throat. Could this be his cure? The purpose of this horrible, horrible dream? To help him find his cure? It had to be. But then…if it was, what was it? What was his cure? How did he become human again? 

He opened his mouth to ask that of his reflection but stopped cold as those eyes turned red and burned from within. The smile widened and the lips pulled back to reveal a mouth full of sharp fangs. They, in turn, parted and a long, thin tongue flickered out and towards Zelgadis. 

Horror and shock made him take a step back before he realized the thing could not touch him. He stood there, shaken to his core as he stared at the reflection straining to get at him through the glass. “No…” he whispered, shaking his head in denial of what he saw. “NO!” He brought his fists up and down on the glass, shattering that hideous reflection of himself looking like a human but a monster inwardly. 

Before those shards had a chance to come to a rest, the last mirror swung into his path. He almost struck this one down without even looking at it, but a shouted word caused him to halt. Staring at the mirror, he saw a perfect reflection of himself—as the Chimera that he loathed—holding out its hands and pleading with him. 

“Wait!” it said. 

“Why should I?” Zelgadis growled, lowering his fists but not unclenching them. 

“Because if you destroy me, you destroy your last chance of survival.”

“And what makes you so certain of that? Just who are you?”

“Don’t you recognize me? I’m you.” 

Zelgadis shook his head. “No. You’re not me. You’re a reflection.”

“I’m what you can become,” the reflection said. “We were all reflections of what you could become. You’ve got several different paths in front of you, Zelgadis. We’re the results.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “This is just a dream.”

“Isn’t there some truth to dreams?”

“Not enough that I’m willing to believe them.” He raised his fists.

“Stop! You can’t do this!”

“I can and I will.” 

“You’ll destroy any chance you have of becoming human again!”

“I don’t believe you!” And he brought his fists down on the glass, shattering that reflection. 

The darkness behind the mirror boiled blood red, like blood pouring forth from an open wound. Zelgadis fell backwards with a scream as the blood reached out for him and grabbed his arms and legs. The bloody appendages grasped him firmly and dragged him forward into their midst. The blood surrounded him, forcing its way into his mouth, choking off his screams and sobbing pleas for help…Thrashing, the young man ripped with all his strength at the bloody bonds that held him. His fingers passed through them, and yet the rents healed immediately. With strength born of desperation, he ripped at them, shredding the blood-colored robes that pulled him closer and closer to the central nexus.

Everything went quiet and the bloody robes dropped lifeless from his hands and legs. Zelgadis lay breathless in a twisted pile of rent crimson fabric. A slippered foot stepped into his field of vision and he raised his head and looked up and up and up—

“Are you beginning to understand, Zelgadis?” the tall priest asked. Tears of blood streaked his face and those storm dark eyes regarded him sadly. 

“Understand what?” Zelgadis demanded of his grandfather. “That you turned me into a monster?”

“No. That you’re turning yourself into a monster.”

“Damn you! How dare you say that to me!” He scrambled to his feet and stared at the man who had been his grandfather. The bloody robes clung to him and twisted around his feet. “You’re the one that turned me into a monster! You ruined my life!”

Rezo bowed his head as a flash of pain twisted his features. “It’s true. I cannot deny turning your body into stone, but I had nothing to do with turning you into a monster. You’ve done that all by yourself with no help from me.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?!” Zelgadis shouted. “What kind of fucking nonsense are you trying to babble at me now? I haven’t turned myself into anything! I just want to be human again!”

“There’s more to being human than just having a human body, Zelgadis,” Rezo said, raising his head and fixing his grandson with a sorrowful look. “You lose more and more of that everyday that you deny that you have human needs and emotions. Look at yourself.” Rezo gestured at Zelgadis’ hands.

The Chimera looked downwards, holding out his hands. Where he thought Rezo’s clinging red robes had entrapped him, he saw instead that he was gripping them tightly until the fabric strained under his touch. With a guilty start, he dropped them and they slithered away from him. 

“You see? You cling to the illusion that I was the one solely responsible for your transformation. It’s true that I gave you reason enough to hate me and what your body became, but you gave yourself reason to hate yourself and the rest of humanity. Even now, you cling to the illusion that you are innocent of everything that has made you the way you are.” The tall priest stepped forward and put his hand on Zelgadis’ shoulder. The Chimera tried to jerk backwards, away from his grandfather, but the dream image would not be shaken so easily. His hand on Zelgadis’ shoulder was like a weight that kept him immobile. Unable to move, Zelgadis could only stare up at his grandfather, the man he’d hated for so many years—hated what had become of the man he’d loved for so many more.

“The girl,” the tall priest said suddenly. “If anyone has reason and cause enough to become bitter and twisted, it’s the Princess of Seyruun. Much more so than you.”

Reflexively, the Chimera tried to yank himself away from Rezo’s presence. “And just how do you figure that? She wasn’t turned into a freak of nature!”

“No, perhaps not. But she’s lost more members of her family to intrigue and deceit in the name of power than you’ve ever known. Her mother was slaughtered; her sister abandoned her; one uncle tried to kill both her and her father; a cousin tried to do the same with help of two Mazoku. And yet she is still able to love. And loves well. Can you not see how your hate is destroying you?”

Forced to listen to Rezo’s words, Zelgadis slowly felt understanding dawn. What he couldn’t understand coming from Amelia’s likeness, he found understanding through the words the one man he hated more than himself. Amelia had turned her pain into a drive to right the injustice she found where ever she went; he’d turned his own into a hatred of the world at large. She was kind and loving, if a bit flaky at times, but that was part of her charm. Something he’d grown to enjoy and cherish about her character. Something he’d grown to…

“But,” he said, finally looking up into Rezo’s violet eyes and for the first time in years seeing the man and not the monster Zelgadis had created in his grandfather’s image. “I have to be human again, don’t you understand? Doesn’t anyone understand? I can’t ask her to love me when I look like this!” He ripped off his half-fingered gloves and held up his hands, fingers clenched claw-like. “I’m made of stone!”

Rezo shook his head. “Zelgadis, she can’t wait for you forever. She’s the Princess of Seyruun, in line to inherit the throne after her grandfather and her father finally depart this life. She’ll be Queen one day. She cannot wait for you to find something that might not exist.” He dropped his hand from his grandson’s shoulder and stepped back.

Faced with that shocking revelation, Zelgadis stumbled backwards a pace and dropped to his knees. “Amelia,” he said softly, realizing suddenly that he’d not thought about her position as Heir before. And how it affected them both.

He looked up at Rezo. “I—”

There was no one there. Startled, the shaman looked around and found the darkness had lightened to reveal a dark, featureless plain. Out to all sides it extended, flat as a gameboard and just as barren. A cold grey light came from nowhere to provide just enough light to see just how barren.

Zelgadis pushed himself up and continued staring off into the horizon. He turned and twisted, searching for any landmark at all. Something to break that inhospitable expanse. Anything. 

A light wind tugged at his cloak and brought the sound of a tolling iron bell to his sharp ears. Turning again, he found himself looking down on the walled city of Seyruun. His mind rebelled at that: He should not be able to look down on the city when they were both on the same flat plain! And yet, impossible or no, here he was looking down into the Capital City of White Magic and seeing the walls and arches that formed the familiar six-pointed of protection. A red light shone down on the city making it appear as if the white-walled city was awash with blood. 

The bell tolled again, sonorous and mournful and full despair. A feeling of dread gripped him in the very pit of his stomach and he knew, he just knew something horrible was happening in the city below him. He took a step towards the walled city, then reeled slightly as the distorted dream perspective shifted so that he was no longer looking down into walls, but rather they shot skyward, sealing the city off from him. The red glow stretched overhead, lowering menacingly over the impossibly high walls. The light dripped down the sides of the walls in a gory waterfall. 

Recovering his sense of balance, Zelgadis began walking first slowly, then briskly towards the city. While it seemed only a short distance away, he got no closer. The sense of urgency prodded him into a run, into which he poured all his demon speed. 

He ran and ran and ran towards those featureless walls and still seemed to get nowhere. He ran until he was out of breath and nearly stumbling with fatigue before he finally made it to the city walls. Only…

There was no way in. 

Panic gripped him as the tolling bell sounded again, and again. Each peal shook the walls and he could feel the resonance as he laid his hands on the white stone. The stones on the ground at his feet shook with the force. 

Pushing away from the wall, he struck off to one side and ran, looking for a way in. He had to get in somehow! And yet, the gates that led into the real city of Seyruun were non-existent here. 
So he ran. And ran and ran. And still the bell kept tolling, mocking him, drawing further and further into a state of panic as he simply could not find a way in!

Screaming from the depths of his soul, Zelgadis rushed at the wall and struck it with his balled fists. Behind it, he put all the frustration, confusion and anger that he’d been feeling since this dream started and pounded upon the wall. And pounded and pounded and pounded. 

The wall cracked with a sound like thunder. He smashed at it again, forcing the crack further up the wall. The red sky above flashed in time with the thunder as he beat upon the same spot. The jagged line of the crack sped upwards with each blow until it reached the top. 

Zelgadis pulled back at the brilliant flash of light that seared his eyes. Snarling in pain, he hid his eyes as the light flooded the plain in all directions. He could feel the heat on his back as he fell to his knees, covering his eyes with his arm and still it pierced through his eyelids to stab painfully at his brain. 

After what seemed an eternity, the light faded. After the incredible heat, he found himself shivering with chill. Carefully, he raised his head and looked around. The plain was as featureless and barren as before save now the red light covered the entire plain. 

Something wet fell on his hand. Zelgadis looked down and found a spot of water on his hand. As he watched, another fell. Looking up, he felt more drops on his face; rain. Cold rain. It turned to ice even as he watched. 

Pushing himself up, Zelgadis looked up at the wall and the crack he’d made. It was only a small crack, but it was a crack all the same. Raising his hands over his head and linking his fingers together, he brought his fists down on the same spot he’d been working on before. There must be some way to increase the crack, to break the wall and gain entrance!

The rain started falling in sheets, so cold and heavy that soon his clothes were soaked. His teeth rattled in his head as he shivered while they froze on him. His cloak barked his shins and he stopped to rip it from around his neck. It fell with a clatter to the ground below and shattered into fragments.

Staring horrified at it, Zelgadis did not notice the first drops of red that appeared in the cold, freezing rain. When he tried to move, turn back to his attack on the wall, he found his clothing frozen on his frame. He couldn’t move!! Struggle as he might, he could not break the ice that encased him. 

More and more of the sheeting rain turned red while he struggled. It fell, hissing, in great sheets that steamed where it hit the ice. Some fell on his face and he screamed in pain as it scorched him. Soon the red rain drenched the plain in thick, boiling blood. The coppery scent made him retch and his stomach lurch. And most of all, it burned. Every inch of him was afire. The pain was so bad that when his clothing finally melted and he could move again, he sank to his knees and huddled in on himself as the blood kept falling, falling… 

“Please,” he whimpered, hiding his head in his arms. “Please let this end!” The red blood poured down harder, scorching him, burning the tender flesh of his hands—

Stunned, he sat up and looked at his hands. He had not put his gloves back on when he’d ripped them off earlier, so he could see all of them, not just his fingers. He just stared at them in disbelief. Scrubbing at the blood that covered them, he could find no pebbly stones, and they were…brown, not blue. The brown of a suntan, not the blue of rock. 

Slowly, he raised his hands to his face and touched it, feeling for the familiar stones that were part of his features. His chin and jaw. Above and below his eyes. 

Nothing. They were gone. He pushed back his hair, noting that it was soft and fine, though wet with the falling blood, feeling for his ears and finding them rounded and flexible, not elongated and pointed.

Again he brought his hands down and stared at them. He was human. Somehow, he’d become human. Joy filled him as the realization sank in. He was human!!

The pain of the falling blood rain forgotten, he scrambled to his feet, and faced the wall. Raising his fists, he brought them down with all his might upon the stone—

And pulled back, screaming in pain. Cradling his hands against him, he fell backwards as the world went white around him and he threatened to lose consciousness. He fought that, though, pulling himself back from the edge of fainting by sheer willpower. He’d better be more careful from now on; he was human and didn’t have his chimeric strength any more. He could be hurt. 

But he had to get into the city. Carefully lowering his hands, he looked up at the wall. The bloody rain had stained the walls red and now it was tarnishing to black as he watched. The once pristine, white walls of Seyruun were tainted and fouled with gore. 

A loud crack snapped his attention back to the wall directly in front of himself. The crack he’d made steamed. The blood rain ran down into it and ate away the stones of the wall. More cracks appeared, running like quicksilver over the bloodied stones and forming the shape of an archway. Inside the vining cracks, the stones crumbled, turning to dust and running in red rivers down and away as the red torrent continued unabated. 

The archway slowly dissolved, revealing a high iron gate behind the stone. Zelgadis jumped up and rushed forward, clambering over the stones that shifted like sand under him as he reached for the bars. He grabbed them and found the gates locked. Howling with frustration, he shook them. Then they, too, dissolved under his touch, and the way into the city was open.

Scrambling down the other side of the still shifting and liquefying stones, Zelgadis hit the cobbled street running. He fixed his eyes on the shape of the Palace at the center of the city and ran like he’d never run before.

Only to come to a stumbling halt when he was less than halfway up the main avenue from the gate into the city to the Palace. He landed heavily on hands and knees only to cry out in pain as the wet cobbles scuffed his knees and the heels of his hands. Tears of pain sprang to his eyes and ran down his cheeks to drip in rusty droplets on his already gore-covered slacks. Forcing himself upwards, he plowed ahead towards his destination. 

When he finally arrived at the Palace, Zelgadis burst through the archway into the courtyard and drew up short. The place was deserted. As a matter of fact, the whole city was deserted, he just now realized. It was eerie and the flesh between his shoulder blades crawled. A hesitant step brought him closer to the entrance to the Palace. He hurried towards the doors only to pull up short. He looked up at them and something told him what he was looking for would not be found behind them, or in this building. No…He turned and scanned the courtyard. If not here, then where?

A small arched gateway off to one side, standing open and inviting pulled his attention. Leaving the steps, he flew to it and through it. Down the gently curving paved path, his boots clicking loudly on the slate flagstones. Unknowing of the cause or reason for the sudden sense of urgency; all he knew was that he had to find something, someone, before it was too late. And it was drawing near, that deadline, looming menacingly behind him.

He rounded a corner and came skidding to a halt outside the main doors to Ceified’s Temple. They stood open and the tolling, mourning iron bell was louder here. So very loud. Its peals shook the building. Directly overhead, for the Temple was at the exact center of the city, red clouds boiled upwards and outwards. He shook his head, no, denying what he saw. Gathering his courage, he sprinted into the temple. 

The red darkness outside did not extend into the hallowed sanctuary of the Dragon God. Instead, the darkness was clean and contained nothing that was not there had there been a light to chase the shadows away. He raced through the corridor that led through the rows upon rows of pews, towards the great statue of the God Himself, looming over the altar. The altar—

He drew up short as he saw the little knot of people standing there in front of the alter, blocking it from his view. Three people: Lina Inverse, Gourry Gabriev and Philionel el de Seyruun. The latter was still dressed in his motley from the travesty of a trial. The big man was on his knees, head bowed into his hands and the iron bells on his peaked cap tolling in time with his sobs. 

“Lina!” Zelgadis shouted as he approached. His heart skipped a beat as she and Gourry both turned and he found they, too, were still costumed. His eyes flickered to Gourry; the tall blonde swordsman held the elongated handle of the scythe the Sword of Light had become. The other man’s features were sad and full of remorse. He looked around and noted someone missing.

“Where’s Amelia?”

“How dare you show up here?” Lina demanded quietly. Zelgadis’ eyes snapped to her ruby ones but before he could demand an explanation, she carried on. “Look at you!” she said, pointing at him.

He looked down at himself and found he was covered with blood. His hands were caked with it, his clothes soaked with it. Putting a hand to his forehead, he discovered his hair was matted and sticky with it. 

“Lina’s right, Zel,” Gourry said quietly. “You really have some nerve showing up now of all times.”

“Now, just wait a minute!” Zelgadis started to say, but an outburst from Phil silenced him.

“My dear, dear Amelia!” Phil murmured into his hands. 

Zelgadis’ whole being snapped to attention at Phil’s words. Ignoring the hostile looks from Lina and Gourry, Zelgadis cautiously approached the scion of Seyruun. The big man, normally so full of life and enthusiasm, had shrunk in on himself. Huddled as he was on his knees, jester hat trailing the floor and the iron bells tolling as he sobbed, Zelgadis could hardly believe this was the same man. He seemed smaller, vulnerable, broken. Any other time, Phil dressed as a jester would have been ludicrous and comical, but now, Zelgadis felt only pity for the man, and a deep dread of whatever it was that had reduced the Prince to this state.

“What about Amelia?” he asked softly, both wanting and not wanting to know the answer.

Phil looked up at the Chimera-turned-human-again. As he recognized the man Zelgadis had become, his face hardened. “You,” he rasped out. “How dare you show your face here?” He jumped to his feet to launch himself at Zelgadis, only to stumble and fall to his knees again and hung his head. “You should have let her love you. It was all she wanted; was that so much to ask?”

“What are you saying?” Zelgadis demanded, confused. Phil said nothing, but only put his face in his hands and sobbed louder.

“Yes, Zel,” said a voice from behind him. He whipped around to see Lina there, looking regal and refined in her costume as the Queen of Swords. “You should have let her love you. What was so wrong with that?”

“But—” he started to say.

A movement beside him and a blue glow stopped him short. Looking up, he found Gourry standing there, gripping the glowing scythe tightly in both hands. While he was still dressed in the austere black suit, a hooded cloak open in the front had been added. The hood had been pulled up over his head and covered his golden hair. Between his unruly bangs and the hood, his face was shadowed. But his eyes…his blue eyes seemed to glow in those shadows and Zelgadis shivered.

“You should have let her love you, Zel” he said in a voice like steel. He put a hand on the shorter man’s shoulder and gripped it. For the first time, Zelgadis had a true appreciation for the strength in those hands—and could clearly feel the incongruous gentleness in them as well.

Releasing him, Gourry stepped forward past his friend and towards the alter. Zelgadis twisted around to watch him—and felt his heart stop. There, beyond Gourry, was a glass box the size and shape of a casket set upon the altar. White roses nearly hid it from view, but he could see something laid out inside it. The tall swordsman hefted his scythe as he approached the box.

Terror gripped the shaman and he leapt forward. He caught Gourry’s arm and rage and panic leant him the strength to haul the taller, heavier, stronger man around and shove him backwards. The swordsman stumbled, bumping Lina aside but Zelgadis didn’t care. Turning his back on them all, he climbed the steps to the alter and looked down at the glass casket.

His heart stopped again and his breath froze in his lungs as he looked into that box. He couldn’t think past the horror that gripped him. For lying there, laid out in her costume as the Queen of Hearts and her midnight dark hair spilling over the white pillow like a shadow, was Amelia. Her large eyes were closed and her shapely hands folded across her abdomen.

“No…” he whispered in a dead voice. He dropped to his knees on the low ledge around the casket and leaned forward to place his hands upon the glass above her face. “No, Amelia,” he whispered again, his voice halting and broken. His mind refused to accept what his eyes were showing him. All his searching, everything he’d suffered only to finally be able to come home to her and find her…

Shaking his head vigorously, he refused to even think the word. She couldn’t be—Zelgadis ran his hands over the glass of her casket, leaving streaks of red where he touched it. There had to be some way to open this thing, some catch so he could get her out of there. He searched and searched but there was no visible means to open the casket. Damn it, there had to be a way to get her out of there!

Balling his hands into fists, he gave up his frantic search and instead just beat his fists upon the lid itself. “Amelia!” he shouted, not noticing the tears that washed tracks in the red-brown crust that covered his cheeks to drip upon her coffin. “Amelia!” he shouted again, his heart beating frantically and painfully against his ribs. “AMELIA!!” 

He brought his hands down hard on the glass lid with all the force of his scream behind them, all the strength his human form could muster, with all the pain and heartache he was feeling. The glass shattered under his rage as much as the blow; sharp shards scattered like shrapnel.

Brushing aside the shards, unmindful of the way they sliced into his vulnerable flesh and blood dripped onto Amelia’s dress and skin. Grabbing up her limp form, he dragged her out of the casket and into his arms. He cradled her against him as he dropped to his knees and rocked gently back and forth, as if he were comforting a child. “Wake up, Amelia. Please wake up,” he crooned over and over, unwilling to believe she was dead. How could someone so full of life and love just die? “No, Amelia. Come back to me. I never ever got the chance to…” His tears fell upon the dark shadows of her hair.

“Zel…gadis…san…” came a small voice. His heart leapt and he held her out, looking into her face for any sign of life. They’d been mistaken, he thought wildly. She wasn’t really dead; she just looked like she was dead. Yes, they had been mistaken!

“Amelia?” Cradling her in the crook of one arm, he touched her face with trembling fingers to wipe away a streak of his blood that had fallen on her cheek. “I’m right here, Amelia. Please—wake up.”

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open, the only sign of life about her. His initial joy, however, was quickly dashed as he looked into those eyes. Where they’d once been bright and shining and full of life, now they were dead and dull and empty. A film had formed over them, giving them a grotesque appearance. Worst of all, however, was that they were transparent as glass spheres. 

His mind reeled at the sight of those eyes. Shaking his head, he whispered, “No…Gods, no…” over and over again.

A blue glimmer reflected off those glass orbs where her eyes should have been and a footstep behind him made him twist around, Amelia’s body still cradled tightly against him. Gourry stood there holding the shimmering scythe aloft. The shadows of his hood made his handsome face appear skull-like in the incandescent glow of the scythe blade. His blue eyes burned like gas-flames in the depths of his hood.

“I’M SORRY, ZEL,” he said, his voice suddenly taking on a hollow, sepulchral tone. “I WISH YOU HADN’T MADE ME DO THIS. IF ONLY YOU HAD COME SOONER. BUT NOW IT’S TOO LATE.”

All Zelgadis could do was stare up at the golden-haired Death that loomed over him. He couldn’t move or even blink as that flashing blade came swooping down towards him. Not even when he saw the green-eyed Queen of Diamonds step out of the shadows and into his line of vision. He heard her laugh, high-pitched and ugly, before that too-bright blade exploded to fill his vision with a painful, glaring white light.

* * *

I know that the spades are swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that’s not the shape of my heart

Bright light pierced his eyes as Zelgadis sat straight up with a scream. “Amelia!” 

It took him a few moments to realize he was not in the chapel in Seyruun, but in the middle of nowhere in a desert gods knew how far from that city. The sun was already well overhead and peeking over the edge of the rock overhang beneath which he’d made his camp. 

His heart finally stopped racing and his breathing became less labored. “Just a dream” he whispered to himself. And yet, while he said it, he knew there was something more to it than that. The final images haunted him still with their clarity and terrifying imagery. His conversation with Rezo, the frenzied attempt to get into Seyruun, the storm, becoming human again—

He thrust his hands out in front of him and stared at them. They were the same as they had been every day since that day Rezo had so callously turned him into a Chimera. He put trembling fingers to his face, feeling and outlining the smooth rocks on his chin and jaw, and passed a hand through his fine, still hair. If he were still a Chimera, there was no way the dream could be true—

Or could it? a voice seemed to say. A familiar voice yet one he had never heard before the previous night.

Twisting around, Zelgadis searched the little camp for Coyote. Of the golden-eyed man with the black braids there was no sign. In fact, there was nothing to show he’d ever been more than a figure of Zelgadis’ fevered imagination—save for the partially charred remains of his tunic in the now cold fire ring and a sweet smelling poultice on his shoulder. Sitting back, the Chimera peeled away the cloth from the wound on his shoulder. It was dark with dried blood, but the medicine that Coyote had put on it had seemed to work for his shoulder no longer throbbed and his fever had broken. 

Was it just a dream? that voice asked again. How can you be so sure?

Tossing aside the cloth, Zelgadis grabbed his pack and rummaged through it for his spare tunic. Dragging it out, he pulled it on and pulled on his boots. Gathering up the rest of his possessions, he carelessly stuffed them into his pack, for once not caring about packing them neatly. He found his gloves, pulled them on, then belted his tunic and draped his cloak around his shoulders.

Standing, he slung his sword around his waist, adjusted the hang of it, and bent to pick up his canteen. 

Looking at it, he found the amulet that Amelia had worn around her wrist. The one that she’d given him when he’d made his decision not to return right away to Seyruun. He’d carried it on his canteen so he could see it frequently, but now, he felt he needed it closer. Unscrewing the lid, he quickly slipped the ribbon from around the neck of the canteen and around his wrist, tucking the jewel up under his sleeve. The weight of it was simple, constant reminder of her. Something he’d need on the journey back.

Finally, he hefted his pack and guitar over his shoulder, and struck off into the desert—heading north and east towards Seyruun.

* * *

Part 4

Take this man who comes to you
Take me to your side
I throw away my soulless days
I need you in my life

“Giddap!!” 

Zelgadis groaned and rolled over, pulling the pillow tighter around his head and the covers over it to block out the sound. His head was throbbing and he just wanted to go back to sleep. Go away, he urged them silently.

The clatter of the iron-shod hooves over cobblestones and the lusty shouts of the driver urging them on soon receded to the point where he could ignore them. Heaving a sigh of relief, he settled further into the mattress. Just a bit longer then he’d need to get up and get ready to catch the coach to Gehn. From there, he could book passage to either the Coastal States or Ralteague. And from there to Seyruun…

His eyes snapped open and he stared at the patch of sunlight painted on the wall opposite the window. The coach…The coach that left an hour after dawn…

Scrambling upward, he rushed to the window and flung it open. Leaning out so far he nearly fell, he craned his neck to see the dust trail the indicated that the coach he’d hoped to be on was leaving. Without him. 

“SHIT!!” he shouted, slamming his fist down on the window sill and wincing when he heard it crack. The next coach didn’t arrive until next week. He couldn’t wait around that long. 

Turning around, he went back to his bed and dropped onto the edge to put his head in his hands. Why did this have to happen to him? It had taken him two weeks just to get this far. The basilisk venom had severely weakened him and he found he couldn’t travel as far in a day as he had previous to his run-in with the creature. He really hadn’t wanted to walk to Gehn, but now…Unless he wanted to wait another week for the next coach, and set back his arrival in Seyruun that much, he had to walk. He wanted to get to Seyruun as fast as possible. And horses were rare out here and what ones were available for sale were priced exorbitantly. And he’d need his money for the boat…

Lifting his head, he looked at the guitar standing next to the chair by the door. He could always do a little busking or find a card game…

No, he told himself. The memories of his dream were too fresh, too raw. He didn’t need to get distracted by things like that. Or take the time. He’d just have to walk, like he’d done every other time he’d needed to go someplace. His feet were free.

Standing up, he caught up his clothes and went to go wash up and get dressed and get started. If he was lucky, it wouldn’t take much more than four or five days to get to Gehn. No better time to get started than the present. 

* * *

When the road finally crested the hill and ran through the archway into the city, Zelgadis could have wept with relief. It had taken him much longer to reach the port city than he’d anticipated. He’d been held up in one of the smaller towns to the south during some monsoonal-strength downpours that had washed out the roads. He’d passed the coach which he’d missed, only to discover that they’d broken an axle and were having to wait for the next coach to pass. So he wouldn’t have been any better off if he had caught that coach. 

So here he was, standing at the edge of Gehn, the port city on the coast of the continent south of the Barrier Kingdoms, and staring down the main avenue at the busy market. Zelgadis pulled his hood up over his head out of habit not and from any real desire to hide. He was tired, and feeling irritable and weak and thought it would just be better to try and avoid as much attention as possible. Hefting his pack and guitar over his shoulder, he struck off through the main marketplace. 

It didn’t take him long to find the street he was looking for and turn down it’s clean, cobbled length to enter a wealthy section of the merchants’ sector. And even less time after that to spot the wooden sign with a mace and a vase painted on it. The Chimera approached the door slowly, hesitantly, almost reluctantly. 

As it opened with a jangle of a bell, he wondered if this was the right thing to do. She probably had problems enough of her own and didn’t need him coming to share his. But even as he hesitated on the threshold thinking of perhaps disappearing before he could be seen, a voice came through the door to the inner room in the shop, preceding its owner by a few seconds. 

“I’m sorry, but we’re closed right now—”

The blonde woman pulled aside the doorway curtain and froze in shock as she looked right at him. “Zelgadis-san? Is that you?” She came forward, hand outstretched. “Come in! Come in!” Her joy at seeing an old friend so unexpectedly turned into confusion and concern as his appearance registered on her: He was visibly sagging, face pale and with two high spots of color on his cheeks that wasn’t normal and his eyes were…haunted. “What…What’s wrong, Zelgadis-san?” she asked, clearly trying not to expect the worst but doing so anyway. “Has something happened?”

He shook his head and let the door close behind him. “No. Yes. To me.” He paused, feeling awkward. “Do you…Filia, do you mind if I stay here for a day or so? Until I can find a ship to take me back to the Barrier Kingdoms?”

“Of course not!” The Golden Dragon took his arm gently and led him into the back of the shop and into the kitchen. “You can stay here as long as you like, Zelgadis-san. Here, let me take your things.” She held out her hands to take his pack and guitar. Gratefully, he surrendered them to her, removed his sword and stood it by the wall and sank into a chair. He stared at the tabletop while he heard Filia bustling around the kitchen—making tea, no doubt. 

“How about a nice, hot cup of tea?” she asked. 

He couldn’t resist smiling. Filia’s panacea was a nice, hot cup of tea. And while he would have preferred coffee, he didn’t object. “Yes, thanks, Filia.”

She put the cup of steaming tea in front of him, along with a pot of honey and a pitcher of cream. “Or would you like lemon?” she asked, pushing aside her golden bangs. 

“No, this is fine,” he said, picking up the cup and blowing on it slightly to cool it. She pulled out a chair and sat opposite him, putting a bit of honey and adding some cream to her own tea and watching him carefully as he sipped the beverage. 

“Zelgadis-san?” she asked after a moment.

“Hmm?” he answered, his thoughts still far away.

“It’s not that it isn’t nice to see you, but it is a bit of a surprise. Is there something else I can do for you, perhaps? Something you need?”

He swallowed hard against the sudden lump of fear he found strangling him. “Filia, you haven’t happened to have heard from…the others, would you have?”

“You mean Lina-san?”

“Uh…no. Yes. I mean, any of them…” he answered, hedging.

“I got a letter from Lina-san not so long ago. She and Gourry-san were somewhere south of here, I think. Headed back towards Seyruun after they finished cleaning up the local bandits.” She wrinkled her nose in good-natured distaste.

Zelgadis set his cup down on the table and played his fingers over the rim in a rare nervous gesture while looking into it instead of at the former Shrine Maiden across from him. “How about…Amelia?”

She shook her head. “Not recently. Got a letter from her several months ago.” Filia looked at him curiously, taking in the haggard appearance and the shadowed eyes—not missing the way he avoided looking at her, something quite unusual for the cold-hearted swordsman/sorcerer who could outstare a snake. “Is everything…” She paused and started over. “You said something had happened to you. Can I help in anyway?”

He didn’t answer right away; in fact, he took so long answering Filia thought maybe he wasn’t going to answer her at all. Then, hesitantly, and in a voice so full of personal pain and confusion she felt her own throat tighten as he looked up at her and said, “Can you tell me about dreams, Filia?”

“I…” Taken aback somewhat, she nodded. “Most dreams are just gibberish, Zelgadis-san. Our memories stirred up and played back in random order; anxieties creating random images.”

“But there are others? That can be significant?”

Again, she nodded. “That’s true. Some very intense or vivid dreams can be a personal prophecy or revelation. They can come from outside of us or a part of our soul that will no longer be ignored.” 

“And can you, as a former Shrine Maiden of the Fire Dragon King, interpret them?”

“Yes, it’s part of my powers.” She looked at him, wanting to comfort him in some way. He looked so upset, which in itself was upsetting. In the short time she’d known him, she knew that he was very conscientious of and careful to maintain his outward composure.. “Do you…Do you have a dream you want to tell me about?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

She set her cup down and stood. “Come with me,” she said. The Chimera followed her into a room off the kitchen and into a comfortable sitting room. Filia gestured, asking him to take a seat.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said as she did the same. Choosing an overstuffed chair, he sat and leaned back. Placing his hands on the arms, he leaned his head back against the chair back.

“So, Zelgadis-san, tell me about your dream.”

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and haltingly at first, then with growing confidence, he told her about his dream.

* * *

Filia sat in silence as he finished his account. She had not had much experience with dream interpretation, however, she knew that this was a true prophecy. Never had she heard of such strong and powerful images being dreamt. She didn’t understand all of them, even, for some of them were obviously intensely personal symbols specific to and meaningful only to Zelgadis. 

“Well?” he asked.

She pressed her lips together and held up a hand. “A moment, please, Zelgadis-san.” Sitting back, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her powers. When her mind was clear, the answer came through clear and loud. “It means you should stop looking for this cure and get yourself back to Seyruun as fast as earthly possible.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Irritably, he said, “I figured that. Why do you think I’m looking for a boat back to the Barrier Kingdoms? Tell me something I don’t know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled something out which he then started playing with. “What about the other stuff? This Coyote person? That weird party? My friends putting me on trial? The mirrors? The blood rain? Everything.”

Filia watched him smoothing the glass ball attached to the pink ribbon for a moment before realizing it was one of Amelia’s bracelets. Taking a deep breath, she started:

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the answers you need, Zelgadis-san. Your dream is indeed a prophecy dream; I can see that. However, the imagery is too intensely personal and specific to your own circumstances; I have no frame of reference with which to interpret them. I can only offer my personal opinion: You need Amelia. Go to her.”

Zelgadis’ lips thinned into a hard line. “That’s all you have to say?” His voice was hard.

Sighing, she nodded. “I’m sorry if it’s not what you want to hear, but there were some things that were very clear: You care about her. You want to go to her; why do you fight it so much?” 

It looked as if he weren’t going to answer her, and the silence stretched out thin before them—Filia watching him playing with Amelia’s bracelet and Zelgadis staring into space as if lost in his own little world. She had just opened her mouth to apologize for her comment when he put the bracelet back in his pocket and looked at her. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know any more.”

“Then maybe you should stop fighting it?”

He stood. “I don’t know that, either.” 

The Dragon maiden rose and extended a hand towards him. That was when she noticed him shaking. “Zelgadis-san?” 

Holding up a hand to stay her concern, he shook his head. “I’m fine. Just…weak. I was attacked by a basilisk a few weeks ago and still haven’t recovered my strength.”

Horror froze her. “A basilisk? You—It didn’t bite you, did it?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And this was before you had your dream?” she demanded.

Confused he nodded again, feeling particularly thick.

“You’ve got to get to Seyruun right away, then.” Suddenly, she was very business-like. “I know some people at the harbor who will help get you passage on a ship and get you as close to Seyruun as possible.”

“Why? Filia, why does it matter?”

She turned and faced him. “Because, Zelgadis-san, taken in small quantities, basilisk venom can increase latent prescience abilities.”

The Chimera drew back, shocked. “How small?”

“Extremely diluted. One drop can be diluted to make a dozen doses. The amount you must have received from that bite was probably enough to keep an apothecary supplied for several lifetimes. Men have died imbibing much less than that. Or been driven mad.” She took his arm and led him back into the kitchen and up the stairs. “You should be in bed recovering, but you can’t afford that luxury. No wonder your dream was so strong and vivid.” 

“You mean, Amelia might—” For once, he could not find a way to voice his horror.

“Don’t start that,” Filia snapped, leading him into the guest bedroom. “Unless you had presenscient abilities beforehand, I doubt you’ve suddenly contracted them.” Filia paused on her way back to the door. “You didn’t, did you?”

He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

Filia nodded. “It probably just helped to increase the strength of the dream and bring your own personal demons out to play. But still, there’s no use taking a chance, is there.” She turned back to the door. “You rest. I’ll have Jiras bring up your things and I’ll go make the arrangements for you.” With that she shut the door and left him. She hurried down the stairs calling for Jiras and Grabos, leaving instructions for the former to take Zelgadis’ things up to him and nearly dragging the latter out of the shop by his ear as she headed towards the docks to make arrangements.

* * *

Zelgadis sank onto the bed suddenly breathless. The dragon maiden could certainly be taxing when one’s defenses were down. Now that she was gone, he let go of the tight control he’d kept on himself and slumped sideways onto the pillows. 

Just telling her about his dream had been draining on his already diminished reserves. Even though he knew he should be up and about helping arrange his travel plans, he couldn’t bring himself to stir from the bed. It was nice to finally be someplace safe, where he could relax his guard. The last few weeks had taken a greater toll on him than he wanted to admit, both mentally, physically and emotionally. Now he could relax…

It was with a grateful sigh that he pulled his legs up, curled up on the bed and drifted off to sleep. For once, his dreams were quiet and not full of disturbing images, either from his old nightmare, or the new one that had taken its place.

* * *

A high, lonely cry echoed over the liquid sound of the ship plowing through the low waves and the snapping of the sails in the wind. On the deck of the ship, sitting with his back against the foremast out of the way of the sailors who worked to keep the ship on course, was a Chimera. His normally blue-colored skin was tinged with green and he sat with his head leaning back against the mast, knees up and hands hanging limply as he rested his arms on his knees.

Zelgadis didn’t even bother to look up at the gull that paced the ship as it raced north along the coast of the continent. Instead he concentrated on his stomach and keeping the contents down. He couldn’t understand this; he’d been on ships before and never got seasick. And yet this time he’d been bedridden for the first three days of the voyage, three days of pure hell that had left him weaker than before. He should be regaining his strength, not losing more and more of it every day, and yet here he was, doing just that. No matter how much he slept, he couldn’t shake the fatigue. Nor could he shake the malaise that had haunted him ever since his dream. Or the thought that something was happening in Seyruun and he needed to be there.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he grimaced. To top everything off, he was getting a headache, too. Perfect. Just what he needed. Four more days of sailing if they had a good wind. More if they ran into bad weather. Please, Ceiphied, don’t let the weather turn bad, he prayed.

The fresh air, however, seemed to be having a positive effect on his gastronomic difficulties. Heaving a sigh of relief, he picked up the leather-bound book he’d put down beside him. It fell open to a page marked with a pencil on which he’d written out a few lines of verse. Reading over them, and despite his fatigue and upset stomach, he liked what he’d managed to pound out:
Take this man who comes to you

Take me to your side

He nodded and smiled a wan smile. Yes, and it worked. He liked it. Nodding, he hummed the next few bars of the song he’d composed and started scribbling out the next lines. 
Above him, the gull cried again, sounding a little less lonely this time.

* * *

In the doorway of my heart
The presence of you shines
So put your face to my window
Trust what you see inside

Gehn to Atlas City on Lyzeille’s coast. A week. The overland journey from Atlas to Talmoord near the border of Lyzeille and Ralteague. Another week. From Talmoord, it’s a two week journey to Seyruun’s capital city on foot—a week by coach. Allowing for delays and stops and other emergencies, it took Zelgadis roughly a month to get from Gehn to Seyruun.

And here he stood, at last, on the hill that overlooked the white-walled city below. The coach had been forced to stop at a village within half a day’s walk to the city because of a lame horse so he’d opted to continue on rather than wait for a replacement to arrive. 

Midsummer Night. 

He looked down on the city below, fairly glowing in the late summer evening. Seyruun was far enough north that the nights didn’t fall completely until late and the mornings came early. The sky behind him to the west was still pale and by his internal clock, it was nearly ten. 

The city itself was lit up with torches and lamps from well outside the walls, all the way to the center. Even from this distance, he could make out the Palace. He wondered if there was some sort of special celebration going on for Midsummer or if there it was something else entirely. Hefting his pack on his shoulder, he started off down the road. If the city was up and celebrating, there was a good chance he could still get into the Palace and see Amelia. The desire and need to see her, make sure she was really all right, had not left him nor diminished in strength during his journey. However, he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say when he did see her. Unconsciously, he brushed the wrist on which he wore her bracelet against his leg, something he’d gotten into the habit of doing lately, and wondered what he would do if everything turned out to be fine and the dream was all just that…a horrible dream.

He didn’t even want to think about what he would do if it was more than a dream…

The road leading into the city was lit up by lamps placed upon poles and a tent city had sprung up around the walls to either side. Even this late, there were still people milling about, dancing, eating, laughing, drinking. All sorts and forms of merriment could be seen. Cautiously, the Chimera skirted most of the activity and slipped through the gates of the city with as little attention drawn to himself as possible. 

Once inside the city proper, the festive atmosphere intensified, as if concentrated by the walls. Colorful streamers, buntings and flowers decorated the roadway, and at every crossroads a banner with a likeness of Amelia had been hung. He stopped under the first one he came to and just stared at it: She wore a low-cut dress and her hair was a bit longer than he’d last seen it and curled onto her shoulders. A tiara sat among her dark locks, and her eyes…He just stared at them. She looked very happy. 

So…His dream had been wrong. There was nothing happening here. It’d been…a false dream all along. Amelia was in no danger. So where had that crazy dream come from and what the hell had it meant?

“Welcome, stranger!” a loud voice sounded near his ear. He winced and covered his pointed ear and turned to glare at the offender. “Come for the celebration? Here!” The tall man shoved a tankard of ale into his hand and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Zelgadis called. “I’ve just arrived here. What’s going on?”

The man looked shocked. “You mean you don’t know? Why tonight’s the Princess’ eighteenth birthday!”

Zelgadis stared at the man, shocked. “Her birthday?”

“Yes! And in honor of that, Prince Philionel has provided the entire city with free food and drink. So drink up! Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you’ll have to pay for it.”

“Thanks,” Zelgadis said absently, raising the tankard to his lips. Well, if anything else, he could surprise her by showing up and claiming to have come back for her birthday. It would save him the awkwardness of having to explain why he’d come rushing back or even mentioning his dream. 

Before he could take a sip of the ale, the man who’d given it to him slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Stick around. At midnight, the Princess announces who she’s chosen to be her Consort. That’s when the party really starts.” He turned and melted back into the crowd.

Zelgadis nearly dropped the tankard as he spun around to look for the other man. He scanned the crowd, but he couldn’t find him. Instead, he grabbed another passerby, a tall swordsman with dark hair, wearing the uniform of one of the City Guards. “Excuse me,” he said. “Is it true that Ame—the Princess is announcing her engagement tonight?”

The Guard looked at him and nodded. “Yes. At midnight.” He looked Zelgadis up and down and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him. “Why?”

The Chimera simply shoved the tankard into the Guard’s hands and pushed by him. “I’ve got to get to the Palace,” he said and proceeded to push his way down the avenue. 

The Guard shook his head. “Oh, no, you don’t.” He shoved the tankard into the hands of another passerby and hared off after Zelgadis. Pulling a whistle from his lapel, he blew a shrill note that would bring others of the Guard rushing to his aid.

Paying no attention to the whistle, Zelgadis forced his way through the crowds only one goal in mind: To get to the Palace and get inside before midnight. What he was going to do, he didn’t know, but he had to get there before…Before midnight. 

It wasn’t until he felt hands on his arms, pulling him around, that he realized that there was a disturbance around him. The crowd had thinned and he was surrounded by Guards. They all had their swords out. The one he’d spoken to moments earlier waved his sword threateningly in Zelgadis’ direction. “All right, who are you and why do you have to get to the Palace so badly?” he demanded.

Zelgadis drew himself up and held up his hands. “Look…My name is Zelgadis Greywers. I’m a friend of Amelia’s. I’ve just come to see her, that’s all.”

The Guard nodded. “Yeah, sure you’re a friend of hers. And I’m his Highness, Prince Philionel. I don’t know what your game is, but you can forget getting into the Palace tonight. It’s restricted access. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow when we can verify your identity. So if you’ll just come along with me…” He straightened, lowered his sword and held out his hand.

“No. Tomorrow it will be too late. I have to see her tonight. Just go tell her I’m here and you’ll see that I’m right.” Dread amplified his heartbeat in his chest.

“I told you, not tonight. What’s so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow, anyway?”

This was nuts. Zelgadis ran his hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. He didn’t recognize this guard; he must have joined after he was here last. “Look, will you just go ask?” 

The Guard shook his head. “I have my orders. No one is to go into the Palace who isn’t already in there. If you don’t come quietly, I’ll be forced to arrest you.”

“Arrest me? On what charge? Damn it, never mind!” He stared at the Guard, then going from a standstill to a run in a blink of an eye, he flew past him, using his demon speed to put as much distance between them as possible.

It wasn’t as much as he would have liked. He was forced to slow down still a good ways from the Palace gate. He could hear the pounding footsteps and shrill whistles as the Guards pursued him down the avenue. 

Think, Zelgadis, think, he shouted at himself. The ruckus behind him had alerted the Guards at the gate and they were pounding towards him. Only…They didn’t know he was the one the others were after, right? Pulling up his hood, he turned to the side and joined a crowd of partiers who looked curiously on. Doing his best to appear inconspicuous, he watched the second group of Guards run past. 

When they’d gone by, Zelgadis slipped out of the crowd and headed towards the Palace. The avenue crossed the river here and then split into a wide street that circled the Palace walls. Once across the bridge, he turned to the right, heading south along the walls. 

Eventually, he came to a barred gate in the wall that let into the gardens inside the walls. Finding a bit of shadow in which to hide, he used his supernatural hearing to listen for signs of anyone on the other side of the wall and for the Guards. The whistles and shouts had receded as they no doubt were spreading out through the city to look for him. But it never hurt to be too careful.

Taking one last look around, he stepped out of the shadow and up to the wall. The moonlight illuminated this area of the walls well—too well, for just as he stepped out, a Guard came running around the corner.

“Shit,” Zelgadis muttered as the whistle sounded shrill in his ears. “Levitation!” he said by way of a follow-up and felt his power gather around him and lift him into the air. The Guard fell backwards and stared at him, then turned and ran in the direction of the main gate. “Why can’t things ever be easy?” he asked no one in particular as he glided over the wall then over, settling lightly in the shadow of some trees. Dropping his pack and guitar here, he gripped his sword and made his way carefully through the garden to the Palace itself.

He found the party by following the sounds of laughter and the blazing lights. The doors to the ballroom were thrown wide and the party spilled out onto the carefully kept grounds that surrounded the low terrace outside. Hanging lanterns were set out to provide light and small table gave the party-goers a place to sit and enjoy themselves and the refreshments. Skulking along the edges of shadow, Zelgadis experienced a dizzying sense of non-reality as he watched the people moving about: They were all dressed in either red or black and bore embroidered insignia upon their clothes. As a group passed near him, he could make out hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds.

A chill went through him and he had to force himself to be still in the shadows though he felt his hands shaking as they gripped the trunk of the tree behind which he hid. What the hell…? he thought to himself. “This is not real…This is not real…” he muttered over and over, and yet even after pounding a fist into the tree, he knew it was real. 

Carefully, he stepped out of his hiding place and moved closer towards the stairs to the terrace. Falling into step behind a group who were headed back into the ballroom, he strode purposefully into the room. The best way to hide is to make yourself look like you belong where you don’t. Once inside, he angled over towards the wall and a tall potted tree where he could observe without being observed himself.

As he watched the swirling movement of color and the shifting crowd on the ballroom floor, dancing to the music provided by a quartet of musicians in the gallery above, he felt a strange sense of disorientation greater than that he’d experienced outside. The press of people was greater here and his already frayed nerves were bombarded by raw sounds and sights. The fatigue which had been temporarily displaced by adrenaline descended like a fog upon him. It didn’t help that he finally noticed that the party-goers were masked, just as they had been in his dream. 

He leaned against the tree and scanned the crowd, searching for dark, purple-black hair and wide blue eyes. He spotted Phil across the room looking overly enthusiastic and jolly in his costume as the King of Clubs. That, at least, was a relief. He didn’t know if he could have handled seeing Phil in motley again.

Then he spotted her: The crowd on the floor swung to a stop as the music ended and turned towards the gallery to applaud the musicians. It parted and there she stood, looking breathless and fairly glowing and smiling and—

Zelgadis’ heart stopped. She was dressed as the Queen of Hearts. And as he watched the Jack of Hearts, a tall man with long black hair braided with red and blue beads, approached her and took her hand as the musicians started up again. She flashed him a smile and moved in close so they could dance. As the crowd surged around the two of them, the man turned and Zelgadis looked straight into Coyote’s golden eyes.

* * *

What are these hands for
If I can’t bring you fallen rain
What are these eyes for 
If I can’t see the moon 
Watch over you

“You look absolutely lovely tonight, Your Highness,” the tall man with black braids said as he caught her hands and pulled her into the pattern of the next dance.

“Thank you…uh…” she murmured, searching for a name to go with the face. Amelia couldn’t remember either. 

“You can call me Coyote,” he said with a smile as he swept her around the dance floor.

“Coyote-san,” she repeated, adding the polite honorific and inclining her head slightly.

He smiled down at her, his golden eyes sparkling. “No. Just Coyote.”

Amelia returned the smile and nodded. “All right, Coyote.” Her smile faded a bit and she became distracted. As they danced, she looked furtively around the room as they danced. 

“Looking for someone?” he asked finally as she craned her neck to try and see over the crowds.

Startling, she snapped her attention back to her partner. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she gasped, aware that she’d been rude to him. “Uh…no. No,” she repeated, her voice soft and resigned. Glancing up at the tall clock at the end of the hallway, she saw that there was less than an hour until midnight. She’d been so sure—

The Princess bit her lip as she realized that she hadn’t been sure; she’d merely been hoping. Hoping that someone would be here tonight. That he would have been here long ago.

But how could he have known? Amelia hadn’t known that the Council was going to insist she pick a suitor this soon. Sighing, she turned her attention back to Coyote and the dance. 

“Ah, now you’re here,” he said, giving her a half smile. “I was wondering where you’d gone.” 

Shaking her head again, she gave him a half-grin. “I really am very sorry, Coyote-s—Coyote. It’s just that I was hoping someone would be here, but I’m afraid he…He’s not coming.” 

Coyote spun her around and smiled enigmatically down at her. “Well, don’t give up hope yet, Princess. You never know. People can surprise you.” His eyes flickered downwards to take in the way the dress she wore accented her figure and his enigmatic smile turned…Amelia couldn’t find the words to describe it. It frightened her and yet at the same time, a little thrill ran up and down her spine. “I must say, red looks very nice on you.”

Now she blushed. “Thank you again.” There was something familiar about him, and yet Amelia couldn’t put her finger on it. He was definitely very attractive, his pale skin a startling contrast to his dark hair. His long braids lay over the lapels of his frockcoat and she noticed that there were red and blue beads worked into them. She stared at them, curious, for several moments. 

“So, tell me, Princess, this person you’re waiting for. What’s he like?”

Amelia looked up into his golden eyes and blinked. “I…” How did she describe him? “He’s quiet, very serious, and withdrawn,” she began, thinking back to the time they’d spent traveling together. “He hurts a lot inside, you see, that’s why he’s quiet and serious all the time.” She turned over more memories and smiled without realizing it. “But when he can forget that for a while, he’s got a wonderful smile that is worth all the teeth that had to be pulled to get it. He…He likes to think of himself as hard and cold, but he’s only that on the surface. On the inside, he’s protective of his friends, loyal and…” She paused a moment before continuing on. “Considerate in unlikely ways and places, I’d have to say.” She looked up to find Coyote looking down at her with a strange smile on his face. Not the one he’d just given her, not even enigmatic, but…hopeful? 

“You must really like him,” he said as he swung her around the dance floor again. “This hard, cold, yet protective man of yours.”

Amelia blushed again and looked away from his knowing eyes. “Yes,” she replied. 

“Does he feel the same about you?”

She blinked and stared at his cravat pin; it was in the shape of a howling coyote. “I…I’m not sure how he feels. I’d like to think he does, but—”

“But he’s not here; if he did, he would be. So that must mean—”

“No. It doesn’t mean that,” she snapped. “He just didn’t know about this. I didn’t know about this. It’s something the Council is forcing me to do because they want no question as to the succession to the throne, understand?” She glared up at him. 

“I understand,” Coyote said smoothly, seemingly not offended by her sharp words. “So if he were to show up now…What would you do?”

Biting her lip, she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

They continued dancing for a few more moments, then Coyote pulled her closer to him, closing the gap between the two of them. Amelia gasped, and tried to pull away, but he was too strong. And yet, she felt strangely pleased by his attentions. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart skipped a beat. “Amelia,” he whispered softly to her as he held her close. “Your friend is a fool not to come rushing back here and claim you for his own. If I had a woman like you, I would let nothing stand between the two of us.”

Something hot and bright flashed through her, stabbing at her like a sword charged with a Mono Bolt. She’d been called a woman by men before, but never had the meaning of the word been driven home as it had with Coyote’s statement. She felt herself flush as he held her against his hard, firm body, and the blood seemed to rush from her brain to leave her dizzy and disoriented.

“I…” She tried to push away, but his arms, though not insistent, were strong and comforting, reminding her of another set of arms that had held her on occasion. And she couldn’t break away.
He swept her around and around as the dance continued. Leaning close to her, he whispered again, “I am a collector, Amelia. I collect songs. I would love to sing your song, but I’m afraid that right doesn’t belong to me.”

“W-what? What do you mean?” she stammered, confused by this sudden shift in the conversation. “What song?”

“Your song. I did hear it, though,” he replied. “Once in the desert. A man I met there was writing it and played it for me. He hadn’t finished it yet, so I don’t know it.”

Fighting against the confusion that attacked her from several fronts, Amelia pushed against him. “What man? Where?”

Coyote smiled a smile that a man gives only to a woman. “Just a man. In the desert. We shared a campfire.” He pulled her up and laid his cheek along hers so that his lips were close to her ear.

Frightened by what her body was feeling, Amelia gasped and wanted to struggle, but couldn’t find the strength to pull away. “Would you like to hear his song?” he asked, his hands moving along her waist and over the gentle flare of her hips. “I can give you that.”

Dumbly, she nodded, letting her eyes close as they danced on oblivious to the other dancers. She could smell something sweet clinging to him, in his hair: The scent of sweet herbs and cedar and sage. They filled her nostrils and made her dizzy as they conjured up images of the moon riding high over the desert. “Please,” she whispered. Hesitantly, she put her arms around his chest and held him. 

He sang to her in a voice like cool water on a hot day. It didn’t matter that they were dancing in a sea of dancers and the band was playing something else entirely. All Amelia could hear was his voice, singing low and mournfully into her ear. All she could see was the moonlit desert behind her eyelids. All she could feel were his arms around her, holding her, and the strange new sensations that threatened to burn her up from the inside.

And his song went like this: Desperado…

The words blended until each individual word had no meaning, instead merging with one another and taking on a deeper purpose as part of the whole. She saw a lone man walking through the desert at night, a cloak blowing gently in the night wind. A pack was slung over one shoulder and a guitar case the other. Moonlight glinted on metallic hair, shifting in the same wind that plucked at his cloak. Moonlight kissed the smooth stones that were as much a part of his features as his eyes, nose, and mouth were. Which in no way diminished the beauty that she saw there.

She smiled as she saw him come towards her, happy and frightened at the same time. His eyes were as intense as always, perhaps even more so than usual. He dropped his pack and the guitar and opened his arms and took her into them. That same white-hot knife stabbed through her as he pulled her up against him. Amelia gasped as he stared into her eyes with a power that threatened to drown her. And then he was leaning down, bringing his lips closer and closer to hers. She closed her eyes and waited for him, but the contact never came. For just before they would have touched, a voice said, “…it’s too late.”

Amelia’s eyes flew open to find herself still in Coyote’s arms and his clear voice echoing in her mind. Her eyes went wide with terror as she pushed away from him and whirled around to stare at the clock at the end of the ballroom. Less than twenty minutes remained before midnight. And he was not here. 

“No,” she whispered, shaking with the feelings that Coyote’s touch and song had aroused within her. 

“What was that, Your Highness?” someone said next to her. 

She whirled around, Coyote’s name on her lips, but stumbled when she found him gone. The one that had spoken to her was a prince from Dills, short, brown-haired, and mildly good-looking in a mousy kind of way. “I…I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” she said, gathering her skirts and looking around wildly. She had to get out of here. She couldn’t breathe. “Excuse me, but I need some air. Thank you.” Flashing him a quick, weak smile, she picked up her skirts and pushed through the suffocating crowd. Why were there so many people here? 

Finally, she made it through the crowd and to the doors to the balcony. Rushing through them, she hurried down the steps and into the darkened gardens before anyone could follow her, ignoring the sound of someone calling her name behind her. Doubling back in the dark, she found the gate that led around to the Temple, ducked through and rushed along the carefully groomed path there. The summer air was cool in comparison to that in the crowded ballroom and her own heated flush. Shivering, she dropped her skirts and slowed to a walk as she found herself on the steps to Ceiphied’s Temple. On impulse, she climbed them and entered the Temple. She needed time and someplace quiet to think. If she couldn’t find it here, she wouldn’t find it anywhere.

* * *

What are these arms for 
If I can’t hold you through the night
What does this heart beat for 
If I can’t lay by your side
You must know
I was made for you

Zelgadis straightened from where he’d slumped against the wall. Seeing Coyote had produced a vertigo in him that had slammed him up against the wall and threatened to steal his breath from his lungs. What was the man doing here?!

Recovering himself, he took a deep breath and scanned the crowd for any signs of Amelia and Coyote. However, since the music had begun, the crowd had surged and changed, shifting like waves on the ocean. “Damn,” he muttered, wishing Coyote were as tall as Gourry so he could spot the man in the crowd. 

There. Towards the far end of the room, the two of them were dancing. Amelia looked distracted, as if she weren’t really dancing with Coyote at all. The Chimera was about to exit his hiding place to go after them when he spotted the uniform of one of the Guards. Muttering to himself, he drew himself further back into the shadows to watch until the Guard had passed. 

While he waited, he could see Amelia and Coyote talking. He ignored Coyote and concentrated on Amelia’s face: In the months since he’d last seen her, she seemed to have lost the little girl look about her. Dressed in that low-cut gown of red velvet, she looked every bit a regal young woman. 

Sighing, he leaned his forehead against the tree that provided his cover. A Queen. And what was he? A Chimera with skin formed of stone. A homeless wanderer. A killer. 

A monster.

“No,” he whispered. “I am not a monster.” If nothing else came of his dream, he would take Rezo’s words away with him: He would not become a monster inside to match his…He censored his own thoughts to “altered appearance outside.”

He opened his eyes to follow Amelia’s progress around the dance floor. He found himself wanting to see her, to revel in his discovery of her as a woman and delight in the confidence with which she carried herself, a self-assured, out-going person who loved her friends well and with all her heart. 

Only to find that someone else was regarding the Princess as that—and more. 

Anger, bright and dark, hot and cold all at the same time flared inside him. How dare he? Zelgadis snarled. His vision went red as he watched Coyote put his arms around Amelia’s waist and pull her close. His body tensed as he readied himself to lunge out of his hiding place. There was no need to hide! He was a welcome visitor here! He wore Amelia’s bracelet as an open invitation on his wrist; she was right there, for Ceiphied’s sake! 

And yet…something stopped him. The crowd surged and they disappeared from his view again. Pausing, he waited for the press of people to shift again, to reveal the two of them. This time he would go to them and put a stop to Coyote’s inappropriate attentions to the little Princess. 

The musicians drew the number they were playing to a close and fell silent. The crowd stopped and turned to applaud. Searching desperately for Amelia, he couldn’t see her anywhere. Then he spotted Coyote across the room—alone. Quitting his hiding place, he headed for the black-haired man, ready to commit murder if he’d hurt Amelia in any way.

He never made it. As he stepped into the crowd, someone pushed past him without seeing. It took him several moments to realize that it had been Amelia. Turning to stare at her disappearing back, he wondered what had affected her so badly that she hadn’t even noticed he was there. He spun around to seek out Coyote in the crowd, but a moment of searching revealed that the other man had disappeared again. 

“Amelia!” he shouted as he twisted and raced after her into the gardens. Just as he reached the head of the stairs, he saw her dart out of the darkened hedges and through the gate that led to the Temple. Racing down the steps, he hared after her. 

The night took on a surreal quality as he trotted along the raked path to Ceiphied’s Temple. Already off-balance by the more than passing resemblance to the events in his dream, following this path to the Temple had his heart thundering with dread. 

“Oh, come on, Zelgadis,” he muttered under his breath as he made the final turning and came to the steps that led up to the Temple doors. They stood open as if someone had just recently pulled them open and gone inside. “It’s not as if you’re going to find her lying dead in there,” he added as he climbed the low flight of wide steps up to the doors. “Right?” he repeated to himself, as if seeking reassurance. Unable to provide it, he put his hand on the door and pushed it open and stepped into the quiet darkness within.

* * *

Amelia reached up and pulled the crown off her head and dropped it absently on a pew as she proceeded up the aisle towards the alter. She was still breathing hard and feeling flushed from her encounter with Coyote. Pressing her fingers against her cheeks, she sank down onto her knees on the low alter steps, letting her red skirts spill around her on the white marble. What had happened? What had Coyote done to her? 

Shaking her head, she realized it wasn’t so much Coyote’s attentions that had affected her, though her reaction to him was disturbing enough. It was her vision of Zelgadis in the desert and him approaching her that had left her truly breathless.

“Why isn’t he here?” she asked the darkness in front of her. Something wet slid down one cheek. “What am I going to do if he never comes?” Feeling helpless, she put her head down on her folded arms and let the confused emotions she was feeling right now come out as she sobbed quietly in the dark.

* * *

Part 5

I’ll meet you by the wisdom tree
And I’ll hold you so close
Come on out of the wilderness
Let love free you from your ghosts

Reality seemed to twist in on itself as Zelgadis entered Ceiphied’s Temple. It was too much like his dream: The sense of peace overlaid with quiet dread, the shadows that clung to the columns despite the lit candles in their racks that lined the walls on either side, and the larger candles that dripped wax around the great statue of the Dragon God himself. Except there was no one here. 

He heaved a sigh of relief at that and moved further into the temple, along the aisle that lead to the alter. Halfway there, his sharp ears picked up a muffled sob. The light of the candles around the alter illuminated a spill of red velvet on the steps—

Time screeched to a whining halt as everything inside Zelgadis seemed to seize up and die at that moment. Space shifted and suddenly he could see that broken figure lying on the steps much more clearly, and yet a remembered vision of a glass casket set upon the alter superimposed itself upon both his memory and vision. Shaking his head in mute denial, his mouth worked. “No,” he managed to get out finally, a harsh rasp as he stood frozen to the spot. “It can’t be…”

He took a hesitant step forward. The figure shifted and he saw a spill of purple-black hair against the marble steps. 

That galvanized him into action. “NO!” he shouted, launching himself forward. Not again! he added silently. He couldn’t go through that again. Reaching the prone figure, he pulled her up into his arms and held her tightly against his chest. “No, this isn’t real. You’re alive, you’re alive. You have to be alive,” he repeated over and over as a litany while he rocked her. Back and forth, to and fro, his hands tangling in her hair and stroking her cheek and neck while his head was bent over hers and he bared his sharp teeth with the intensity of his emotions.

Slowly, something penetrated the dark haze that gripped him. His name. Someone was calling his name from nearby. It finally dawned on him that the girl he was holding was pushing against him. 

“Zelgadis-san!” she said again as his arms went limp. She pushed herself up and sat back to look into his face. Shock ripped through him as he looked into her face, her lovely face, and those large blue eyes—

Quicker than a striking snake, his hands shot out and grabbed her face and tilted it up so he could see into those eyes. Eyes that while a little wild with surprise were alive and clear and bluer than the midnight sky. 

“You’re alive,” he whispered, relief replacing the grief that had drained away. He smiled a halting smile as that knowledge forced itself into his brain. “You’re alive!” 

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Yes, Zelgadis-san,” she said quietly, not sure what to think. 

“You’re alive!” Grinning like a maniac, he pulled her face up and kissed her full on the mouth.

Amelia’s eyes went wide in shock and for a moment they stared at each other over their joined lips. Something electric and new flashed like lightning through them both, jolting them apart.

Confused and shaken, they stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Amelia felt her breath coming in short shallow gasps as she saw something in Zelgadis’ eyes that was nothing like what she usually saw there. Then she had no more time to think as he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up again, kissing her. This time, her eyes slid closed as his lips covered hers and his arms went around her to hold her tight. I told you he would come, a voice in her head whispered. 

She felt so small and fragile in his arms, and yet she fit there so perfectly, he thought as he kissed her. Turning his head, he covered her lips with his and pushed his tongue against hers, forcing them open so he could run his tongue along the inside of her lip theninto her mouth and against her own questing tongue. She did not resist him, but instead welcomed him. He felt her shift in his lap and her arms go around his neck. She noted in passing that his lips were firm, but like the rest of him, warm and pliable. He kissed her harder, deepening it in response to the sudden, dark urges he felt welling up inside him. He ran his fingers through her dark hair, gathering the silky locks and bunching them up at the nape of her neck. 

Time stood still as he kissed her and she returned the kiss, giving as good as she got. When they finally parted, he was breathing heavily, as if he’d just very far and very fast. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, and her lips already turning red and swollen from the attentions he’d been giving them. Smiling lazily and burying her fingers in his collar at the back of his neck, she said softly, “Welcome to Seyruun, Zelgadis-san.”

He snorted and gave her a crooked grin. “Do you greet all your visitors like this?”

Arching an eyebrow, she regarded him as levelly as she could. “Who kissed whom, Zelgadis-san?” 

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I take that as a no?”

“Considering you’re the first, you may,” she said. “It was certainly a wonderful way to say hello, however.”

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “Not bad.” His expression suddenly turned serious and he looked upwards as if realizing where they were. “Uh, Amelia,” he said. “Is there someplace where we can go and talk? Someplace where we won’t be disturbed?”

She smiled and nodded. “We can go to my apartment. We won’t be disturbed there.” Nodding, he gathered her into his arms and stood, lifting her effortlessly. Glancing one last time up at the statue of the Dragon God, he turned and left the Temple. 

Outside, there seemed to be some sort of disturbance on the grounds. Not wanting to meet up with anyone, Zelgadis cast a Ray Wing and lifted them over the Palace and to the doorway that led from the gardens to Amelia’s bedroom per her directions. Landing lightly, he stepped through the open doors shrouded by white roses and into the moonlit bedroom. Setting the small girl on her feet, he looked down at her and smiled at her while touching her cheek and looking into her eyes. Those lovely, jewel-like eyes that drank in his soul and offered it back up to him again, eyes in which he wanted to drown. 

“Come sit with me, Zelgadis-san,” she said softly, taking his hand and tugging him towards a couch. He followed her but as he sank down next to her, it became apparent that it was inappropriate for him to be there, in the Princess’ private apartment. 

“I need to go, Amelia,” he said softly, still holding her hand in his.

Her eyes clouded and her face fell. “So soon? You just got here! Will you be back?” The questions tumbled out over one another. 

Shaking his head, he smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t mean leave Seyruun. I meant…here. Your bedroom. I shouldn’t be here. But I’m not going anywhere.” He stood to go. 

Amelia scrambled up after him. “Zelgadis-san,” she whispered. “Please stay with me.”

The Chimera stopped and turned to look at her. Her eyes were large and pleading and her hand outstretched towards him. 

“Amelia,” he said, his voice becoming thick with emotion. “I c—” He bit off that last word. He started again. “If I stay, I won’t be able to—I mean, I may—I won’t—” He fell silent as his words became a nonsensical jumble. “I want to stay,” he said finally.

She smiled up at him. “Then stay.”

He shook his head. “Amelia, it would be inappropriate for me to stay here with you. You’re a Princess, I’m a—”

“Please don’t call yourself a freak, Zelgadis-san,” she said with steel in her voice. “You’re not a freak. I’ve told you that before.”

He shook his head as he grinned and laid a palm on her cheek. “I wasn’t going to.”

“Oh,” she said, taken aback. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. I deserved that. What I was going to say was you’re a Princess. I’m…I’m a commoner. How can I ask you do to something like this?” Why did she have to be a Princess? he wanted to scream. Why couldn’t she just be a—

“I’m also a woman,” she said in reply to his unspoken question. “And I’m standing in front of a man and asking him to spend the night with her.”

Zelgadis felt as if his heart was going to break. “Amelia…” he breathed. “Do you know what you’re saying? What—what will happen if I stay?”

She nodded and stepped closer to him. “I do. I want it, too.”

“Amelia.” Her name was a breathy whisper. “I…I can’t ask this of you. I’m not human!”

Her eyebrows angled downward. “I asked you not to do that, Zelgadis-san. You are human!”

He took a step closer to her and took her hand, opened her fingers and laid her palm upon his face, upon the glassy stones that decorated it. “This is what I meant, Amelia. I may appear human, but my body is…it’s different from other men’s. I have skin that is the texture and consistency of stone. My hair is stiff like wire. My strength is frightening. I could hurt you!” 

The girl’s fingers curled around his cheek and caressed the stones there. “I’m willing to take the risk, Zelgadis-san,” she said quietly. 

Her touch sent electric shivers through him and there was nothing he wanted to do more than to catch her up in his arms and carry her to the bed and—

Grimacing, he closed his eyes and looked away from her. “Damn Rezo and his eyes,” he grated harshly. “If it hadn’t been for him—”

“If it hadn’t been for Rezo,” she interrupted firmly, “we would never have met.”

Her words struck him to the very core. Looking back at her in shock, he let some of his anger spill over towards her. “Just how do you figure that?” he demanded, dropping her hand.

Undaunted, she smiled at him. “Tell me, Zelgadis-san, if Rezo hadn’t done this to you, do you think you would have met Lina and Gourry? Where would you have been when your grandfather tried to resurrect Shabranigdu? Would we have met? Look at it this way: If it hadn’t been for Rezo, all our lives would have been very different.”

He stared at her, unable to say anything as her words echoed in his mind. “I—I never thought of it that way before,” he said slowly, reluctant to grant his grandfather even that much consideration on his part.

“No, I know you haven’t,” Amelia said softly but without rancor. “But it’s true.” She took his hand and pulled him back towards the couch and down next to her. “I wish I could have met him,” she said softly. “Met the man who was your grandfather, not the monster he became. I owe him a great deal.”

“They were the same man, Amelia,” he said, dark anger in his voice. “And you owe him nothing.”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t believe that. Tell me, why do you hate him so much?”

“Why? Why do I hate him? Look at me, Amelia!” he nearly shouted. “Look what he did to me!” He thrust his hands out in front of him. Even as he stared at his hands, he knew that wasn’t the true reason. “He—Great Ceiphied, Amelia,” he gasped, his voice breaking. “I loved him and this is what he did to me…” He stared at his hands, the clenched and clawed fingers, as the truth struck home. “I loved him, Amelia,” he repeated softly. “Why did he have to go away? Why did he have to be the one that Shabranigdu took—” His voice broke and he put his face in his hands and his shoulders shook as dry, rasping sobs racked his body. 

Amelia took him by the arm and led him back to the sofa where he sank upon it. She sat on her knees next to him and put her arms around him, holding him tightly as his grief threatened to overwhelm him. He turned to put his arms around her waist, burying his face against her breast while she cradled his head like a mother would her child. It was disturbing to see Zelgadis displaying such strong emotion, yet it cheered her somewhat that he trusted her enough to let her see him like this, and to even accept the comfort she offered. She wondered if he’d ever been able or desired to mourn his grandfather before this; probably not. Perhaps now he’d be able to get on with his life, she mused as she rocked him and stroked his hair just as he had done to her a few minutes earlier. The Princess leaned her cheek against his hair, careful to avoid the prickly ends, and crooned softly to him as she comforted him as best she could.

Eventually, the Chimera grew quiet in her arms and Amelia became slowly aware of the weight of his cheek pressing against the expanse of skin exposed by the low-cut neckline of her gown. Memories came back to her of the feelings stirred by Coyote holding her, her vision of Zelgadis in the desert, and finally Zelgadis grabbing her up and kissing her in the Temple. Memories that made her flush. She closed her eyes and heaved a heavy sigh, not realizing exactly what that would do to the parts of her body directly under his cheek. Afterwards, when she did realize what she’d done, she froze and blushed.

Zelgadis stirred and pushed himself up, turning his head and staring at the soft flesh that had pillowed his cheek. Tearing his eyes away from her décolletage to meet her own, he stared into them. They remained like that a moment in a frozen tableau: Zelgadis with one hand braced on the cushion next to Amelia and the other on the back of the couch, gazing hungrily into her eyes, and Amelia on her knees and blushing hotly. Their faces were close together, so it took just the barest shift in his position to bring his face even closer. Turning his head slightly, he touched his lips to hers; it was the barest whisper of a touch, but it was enough to send waves of electricity through him. He felt Amelia’s breath catch in her throat and he pulled back a little. Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifted his hand from the cushion next to her, he laid it gently, lightly upon her chest. 

She gasped at his touch which served to press her flesh into closer contact with his hand. Leaning forward again, Zelgadis caught her lips with his, pulling at them, tugging, with each tug becoming harder and more passionate. He pushed against her, forcing his tongue into her mouth, to explore the warm recesses inside. She was like warm, sweet wine: Intoxicating and soothing at the same time. He could lose himself in her and found himself wanting to do so. Pushing forward, he forced her onto her back, kneeling over her as she straightened her legs as best she could while they were caught in the full skirts of her costume. He felt her hands on his arms, grasping his shoulders as he deepened their kiss. As if by its own accord, his hand on her chest moved downward and around to cup her breast, finding its shape and conforming itself to her. Her gasp was his reward as he squeezed gently. 

He left off kissing her lips and moved lower, finding her jawline and trailing his tongue along it to her chin and under it. Zelgadis felt awkward, having no experience with what she might find pleasurable, but did what she seemed to like. And if her quickened breathing and soft cries were any guide, she was enjoying this very much.

Kissing her neck, he worked downwards, adding his teeth to scrape very lightly along her skin and alternating his kisses with light nips. She succeeded in freeing one leg and he felt it go around his waist as she attempted to pull him down. “Zelgadis-san,” she breathed, head flung back and neck arched delicately under him. In the moonlight, he could see her pulse there, and not so much hear her heartbeat as feel it pounding wildly against her ribcage. Growing bolder, he moved further downward, onto that expanse of soft flesh. Oh, how he wanted to rip her clothes off and expose more of her. He wanted to see and explore every inch of her body with his hands and fingers and tongue and lips…

All the while, a voice was screaming at him to reconsider what he was doing: She was the Crown Princess of Seyruun, for Ceiphied’s sake! How could he even consider laying his hands upon her, let alone think to lie with her? And yet, he wanted her and the Dragon God willing, he would have her. 

With a jolt, he pulled back and looked down at her. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, confusion furrowing her brow. “Zelgadis-san?” she asked, reaching up and touching her fingers to her cheek. When she drew them away, they were wet. She turned them so that he could see the tears on them. Leaning down, he kissed her fingers, tasting the salt on her skin. 

His desire went beyond mere want. Wanting was all very good; at least in wanting her, he was not chasing something he could never have. She was one of the fine things he’d been given, he knew that now. And all he’d ever had to do was to reach out and take her. 

But it was more than that. Simple want was not enough. He needed her to find his humanity again. 

He needed her so that he could learn to love again.

He needed her.

Still staring down at her, he shifted and leaned against the back of the sofa so he could raise his hand to cup her cheek. “Amelia,” he whispered in a broken voice. “I—” 

“Zelgadis-san,” she said softly. “Please. I want this.”

Shaking his head, he leaned down and touched his lips to hers. “That’s not what was going to say,” he whispered. “You couldn’t stop me now if you wanted. What I wanted to say was—” But he just couldn’t get the words out; what he was feeling was too big for words. Instead, he shook his head and hauled himself up, then dragged her into his arms. Carrying her light weight across the room to the bed, he laid her upon it. She scooted backwards to make room for him as he climbed onto the tall bed to kneel over her. 

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, how much he wanted her, how much he needed her. He kept thinking it over and over in his head, but couldn’t seem to get the words out. His throat seized up every time he tried to say them. I love you, Amelia. Four simple words, that’s all. Why couldn’t he say them? He leaned down and put his mouth close to her ear and tried again, but managed only to mouth them breathlessly while his lips moved against her smooth, milk-white skin.

Squeezing his eyes closed in frustration, he sought out her mouth and kissed her with bruising force. She deserved to be told; he knew she wanted to be told! He wanted to tell her! So why couldn’t he say them?

Lowering himself, he put his arms around her and held her close as he kissed her. She conformed herself to his body, pressing against him suggestively and putting her own arms around his chest. His hands moved between the two of them and pulled at the laces of her bodice, jerking them lose and pulling the fabric aside. When it was lose enough, he pushed the sleeve off her shoulder and tugged it off her arm. Releasing her lips, he bent his head and kissed her neck where her shoulder joined it. Her skin was soft and hot under his lips, tasting a bit like salt from the light sheen of sweat there. He rolled back and worked at the other sleeve, eventually just ripping the material when he realized he was going to have to sit up to get it off her.

“Zelgadis-san!” she protested with a squeak as he decided that was the quickest way to disrobe her. His hands caught at the yards and yards of material and the seams did not stand a chance against his demon strength. “What are you doing?”

“It was in the way,” he said simply. 

“But my costume!” She looked mournfully at the rent fabric as he jerked it out from under her and tossed it onto the floor.

“You weren’t planning on wearing it again, were you?” Her slip and crinoline met the same fate and she winced.

“Well, I could have!” 

“No,” he said finally. “No offense to you, Amelia, but I didn’t like it.” The Chimera rolled over onto her and buried his face in her neck. 

“Zelgadis-san!” she cried, bringing her legs together and trying to cover herself with her hands. He caught at her wrist and pulled her hand away gently. 

“Amelia,” he whispered, kissing away her protests while he twined his fingers with hers. “Let me see you.”

She flushed yet again, and he noted how prettily she did it; her face and neck turned a delicate rose color. Hesitantly, she lowered her other hand. She was clothed only in her underthings: A strapless, boned corset that cupped her breasts and pushed them up to increase her cleavage while accenting the curves on her already shapely body. Attached to the corset by thin straps, white silk stockings encased her legs. She still wore her white, heeled shoes. The sight of her clothed only in her underthings and looking up at him in innocent apprehension made him ache for her.

As he finished his visual inspection of her, the Chimera looked into the Princess’ eyes and gently took her chin in his hand. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he breathed softly. Suddenly, the words that he could not say before, he found the strength to say them now. Leaning in close, he put his mouth near her ear and whispered: “I love you, Amelia.”

Her silence was broken by gasping sob. He pushed himself up and looked down at her with concern in his eyes. “Amelia?”

She pulled her hand out of his and put his hand on his face and pulled him down and covered his lips with hers. “Zelgadis-san,” she whispered when she pulled back, her lips brushing his as she moved them.

“Amelia,” he repeated. “Why are you crying?” Tears stained her cheeks and rolled off onto her pillow. He put his palm on her cheek and used his thumb to brush them away.

She shook her head. “I’m crying because I’m happy, because you’re here with me, finally. And because I love you.” And she smiled at him. 

* * *

Kneel down in the blue light
Let your hair fall down around 
Blow out all your candles tonight
And I believe you will see
I was made for you

Amelia pressed her fingers against his lips. He kissed them before pulling them down and lowering his lips to hers to kiss her again quickly before moving lower to kiss her neck. This time he moved down across her chest and the soft flesh of her breast where it was exposed by her corset. He suckled at her flesh, using his tongue to trace intricate patterns on her soft skin. She sucked in her breath between her teeth and he felt her fingers on his cheek. Putting his hand on her hip, he brought it up, cupping her breast again through the fabric of her corset. When he reached the cup that held her breast secure, he slipped his fingers inside and folded it back, baring her. Gently holding her flesh in his hand, he found the peak of her breast with his mouth and covered it.

A sharp exclamation was his reward as she shifted under him, arching her back and pressing her breast even closer to him. He twirled his tongue around her nipple, finding it firm and already standing at attention. Lightly he teased it, sucking the hardened flesh into his mouth and tugging lightly on her breast, then opening his mouth wide and sucking as much of her ample breast into his mouth as he could. 

His sharp ears caught the soft moans and breathy sighs she was making as she squirmed under him. She brought her legs together and twisted to the side as he suckled at her breast. Reaching up and catching the hand that she had entangled in his hair, he brought it down and cupped her hand around her own breast and held her fingers firmly in place until she stopped trying to pull it away. That done, he took his own hand and grabbed the knee closest to him and pulled her over, wedging his hand between her legs and pushing the other one down. Before she could close them again, he moved his hand to where her legs joined her torso and laid it on the top of her thigh, close to her body. Only for a moment, then he grew bolder, and moved his hand to cover the gentle mound formed by the joining of her legs with her body, just as he bared down gently upon her nipple with his teeth.

“Ah!” she shouted, involuntarily opening her legs wider and raising her hips to press against his hand. He could feel her heat through the fine silk that covered her and pressed his fingers in harder, rubbing them against her, wanting more. His questing fingers found the edges of the garment and slipped under it. Her heat was greater underneath, trapped by the light fabric, and he found himself panting as he sought out her secrets hidden within. 

Abruptly, he pulled his hand out from between her legs and pushed himself up, releasing her breast. She looked up at him, disoriented by his sudden movements. “Please don’t stop, Zelgadis-san,” she pleaded, still holding her breast.

“Shh…” he whispered. He sat up and pulled her with him so they were sitting on their knees facing one another. Amelia swayed lightly and grasped his tunic to stop herself falling over. He caught her hands, pried them off his tunic and put them to the waistband of his trousers. “Help me, Amelia,” he said, putting the laces into her numb fingers. 

Eyes wide, she nodded and began fumbling with them. He dropped his hands to his belt and slowly unbuckled it, tossing it over the side of the bed when loose. His cloak was next and he watched her the whole time he was disrobing himself. His cloak slid from his shoulders and onto the floor with a slight hiss of fabric and then he pulled off his half-gloves and tossed them aside. She had the laces loose as he lowered his hands to the hem of his tunic. With a quick jerk, it was over his head and on the floor with the rest of his clothing before she could blink.

They knelt in front of one another like this, Amelia’s nervousness and inexperience finally catching up with her. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen Zelgadis without his shirt, she had dozens of times, but now she was kneeling in front of him in her underclothes, one breast exposed and still damp from his kisses, an inferno burning in her loins and she had her hands on the waistband of his trousers. Biting her lower lip, she tugged at them, easing them off his slim hips and down. He remained kneeling there, hands on her shoulders and playing with bits of her hair as the butterflies in her stomach threatened to fly up her throat and out her mouth. It hadn’t been quite so apparent through his trousers, but his undershorts did very little to conceal his hardened manhood there. Swallowing against those fluttering wings in the back of her throat, she pulled them down and over him, forcing the fabric down to his knees. 

He shifted so that he was sitting and kicked off his boots. Avoiding looking at him, Amelia quickly shucked his trousers off and let them fall to the floor. Before she could move, he grabbed her shoulders, climbed back onto his knees, and hauled her up and kissed her. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, grabbing and sucking gently on her tongue and using his own to plumb the unchartered and unmapped depths of her mouth, the knowledge that he was the first to do so driving him wild. 

Taking her hands, he laid them flat on his chest. “This is me, Amelia,” he said softly against her lips.

“I’ve seen you before, Zelgadis-san,” she said, able to muffle the nervous tremor in her voice against his neck.

Her lips sent shivers up and down his spine. “I know.” He pushed them downward, across his abdomen and lower. Amelia’s eyes went wide when he felt him wrap her fingers around his erection. “This you haven’t seen.” 

Swallowing hard, Amelia tightened her hold on him and let him guide her. He moved her hands in a back and forth motion upon him which she picked up and continued as he loosened his hold and let go. It was his turn to hiss as she worked him, exploring him with her fingers. He was incredibly hard, but very smooth and slick, and there were none of the small glassy stones here. Neither was there any hair growing between his legs. She curled her fingers around him, feeling his width and length. She squeezed him slightly; he may be made out of stone, but there was still some give to his flesh. Just very little. The butterflies started up their storm in her stomach, this time with a vengeance. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about everything she’d heard about “first times.” She wouldn’t let that or anything else ruin her time with Zelgadis. She would have this, damn it, and she would have it tonight!

Heart in his mouth, he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Gods, Amelia,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I want to make love to you. Please, are you certain you want this? I could hurt you, or we might not be able to do this at all.”

She leaned back and looked into his eyes. “We’ll manage. I want you to make love to me, and I want to make love to you. I have no doubt about that in my mind.”

Reaching downward, Zelgadis pulled her hands away from him and put his hands on her shoulders to gently push her back onto the bed. Looming over her, he knelt between her legs, hooking his hands under her knees to lift her legs and spread them. Amelia watched him a mixture of nervousness and anticipation in her eyes. Reaching down, he grabbed the thin fabric that kept her hidden from him and twisted, parting the fabric cleanly. Tossing it aside, he placed his other hand upon her again, this time feeling the dark curls that covered her. His questing fingers combed through them as he sought for what he wanted more than anything now. 

When he found what he was after, Amelia gave a sharp gasp followed by a low moaning sigh as he stroked her. Finding her opening, he slipped a finger inside, watching her face to see her reaction. 

She threw her head back and let out a soft, keening cry as he pressed himself into her. She opened her legs further and lifted her hips, granting him better access and to encourage him. “Oh…” she said in a breathy whisper.

“Does that feel good, Amelia?” he asked, leaning forward and putting his hand on her exposed breast. He pulled his finger out again, giving it a slight twist as he did so, then twisted it back inside her. 

“Yes,” she breathed. “Very.” 

He smiled and stepped up his pace. “You like it?”

“Yes!” she cried, drawing out the last consonant into a hiss. She lowered her hand and put it on his a moment before pulling it away. 

Grabbing her hand, he put it back. “No,” he said. “Show me. Show me what you like.” He leaned down and nuzzled her neck. “I want to know what gets you turned on the most, Amelia.”

And she did. A little hesitantly at first, she used her hand to guide his face to her breast, and kept using the other one to guide the pace at which he stroked her womanflesh. Soon he was suckling like mad while she grasped a handful of his stiff hair in one hand and had the other between her legs, stroking her own sensitive center while he worked first one, then two, then three fingers in and out of her. All the while she whispered his name over and over. Finally her voice rose to a screech as she planted her feet on the bed and lifted her hips while pressing his hand hard against herself with his fingers buried deep inside her. 

Zelgadis pulled back from suckling her breast to watch her, noting in passing her perfume that was a mixture of sweat and musk and sex. Most fascinating was the way her womanhood throbbed and pulsed around his fingers. She looked beautiful as she was caught up in the throes of her climax; it was one of the most amazing things he’d every seen. He shifted so he was lying atop her, brought his manhood up and pulled his fingers out of her just enough to smooth some of her moisture onto himself. Then holding her open with two fingers, he pressed the tip in under them, pulled them quickly out and with a quick thrust, pushed himself in.

Her soft sighs of pleasure turned into a sharp shriek of pain. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks as she clutched his shoulders, driving her fingers into his hard muscles. She caught her lip in her teeth and panted with the pain of the tearing of her maidenhead, and sharp gasping sobs wracked her. Feeling the pinprick of tears behind his eyes, Zelgadis buried his fingers in her hair, leaned down and kissed away her tears. “Amelia,” he murmured over and over as he tried to kiss away the pain he had caused her.
It could only have been a few minutes, but it felt an eternity before her sobs lessened and finally stopped. Looking down at her anxiously, he waited until she spoke.

“Amelia,” he finally whispered. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, eyes still tightly closed and fists still clenched on his shoulders. “I—I think so,” she managed to get out. Her skin shimmered with the soft sheen of pain sweat.

He kissed her eyes. “Should I stop?” he asked. He’d known this would hurt her, but hadn’t known it would be this bad. He ached inside for the pain he’d caused her, wondering if perhaps it was made worse because of his transformed body.

“No!” Her eyes flew open and she caught and pinned him with her eyes. “Don’t you dare!” Amelia slipped her arms around his chest and link her hands while she raised her legs and locked them around his waist, causing her to hiss with pain again. “You started this; you’re going to finish it. Do you understand me?”

Unable to control himself, he grinned at her fierceness. Nodding, he said, “Yes, Your Highness. Is that a royal command?”

Her eyes darkened and her brow furrowed. “Please, Zelgadis-san,” she whispered, that fierceness draining from her and leaving another kind of pain in its place. “Don’t do that.”

The Chimera didn’t know what to make of her sudden shift in mood, but for once he didn’t stop to ponder it. “I’m sorry, Amelia,” he whispered and kissed her. As he lowered himself, he moved his hips a fraction, pulling himself out of her—

And froze again as she stiffened and whined in pain. “Hold on,” she said through bared teeth. “Lift up a bit, please, Zelgadis-san?”

He did as she asked, as much as he could without moving inside her. Curiously, he watched as she slipped a hand between them and said the words to a healing spell. The power she summoned faltered as she stumbled over the words and it winked out.

“Uh, Zelgadis-san,” she said. “Would you…?” She nodded downwards, towards where they were joined. 

Smiling, he nodded and quickly recited the spell. He applied it to her torn skin, feeling the tingle of the power flow through him as the spell knit her flesh back together. He grinned wryly at that thought; doing it this way shaped her to match him. The thought…pleased him in some vaguely possessive male fashion. Resting his weight on his forearms, he shifted and pressed more of his length into her—

Amelia’s face contorted, and she grasped the bedspread above her head and arched her back. “AH!” she gasped, new tears of pain streaking down her face. 

Jerking back and out of her, Zelgadis sat up on his knees and pulled her with him. She slumped forward into his arms as he held her against him. “What is it, Amelia? What’s wrong? Didn’t the healing spell work?”

She shook her head, clinging to him. “No, it’s not that. It was just…very uncomfortable.” Inhaling with a gasping sob, she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “It…burned.”

He rubbed his face in her hair. “Shh, Amelia,” he whispered, holding her slim body against his. “It’ll be all right. I probably just need to get you a little more…excited, that’s all.” He smiled wanly against her hair and hoped and prayed that was all that was wrong…

The dark-haired girl pushed against him and looked into his eyes. “Do you really think so?” she asked.

He nodded and wiped her tears away. “I’m sure of it.” Giving her a reassuring smile, he took hold of her chin and touched his lips to hers. Soon he was kissing her passionately and lovingly. He gathered her hair up and bunched it together at the back of her head, tilting it back so he could kiss her lovely neck. Her hands pushed under his hair and stroked the back of his neck then pulled around and found his ears. As she touched them, a sharp shudder racked his body; just the simple touch was enough to send more blood to places already saturated and engorged. He wanted nothing more than to take her right now, but knew he had to go slowly with her. It would not be a good start to anything they might have together if he were to misuse her in any way. Neither would his conscience let him do such a thing.

So, instead, he made his desire apparent through his fierce exploration of her body with his mouth and hands. He tongued and suckled at her breasts while supporting her with his hands as she bent backwards and moaned softly. Her fingers continued their not-so-gentle exploration of his ears as he laid her back on the bed and slipped his hand between her legs. Slipping his fingers inside her, he could feel the heat and moistness there and hoped it would be enough. Kneeling over her, he simulated with his fingers what he wanted to do to her with his manhood. 

He stroked her for a few minutes, eliciting gasping cries of pleasure from her, and lightly kissed her lips. When she was hot and slick and moving in time with him, he leaned down and whispered, “Ready to try again?” 

Amelia nodded, her eyes tightly shut as she spread her legs further apart to let him in. 

Kissing her one last time, he lowered himself again and guided himself into position. Pulling his fingers out, he slipped his manhood inside her hot, wet womanflesh, and pressed in gently but firmly, careful to see what her reaction would be. 

This time she welcomed him with a sigh of pleasure. She opened her eyes and looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes while she draped her arms over his shoulders. “That’s better,” she whispered. Encouraged, he slid even further into her. Suddenly, she sucked in her breath .

“What is it?”

“It’s…It’s nothing, Zelgadis-san.”

“No, Amelia,” he said firmly. “If I’m hurting you, tell me.”

And she stiffened again as he tried to go in as far as he could. “It doesn’t burn any more, but now…” She gave him a distressed look. “It hurts when you push in too far.” Tears sparkled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Zelgadis-san.”

“Amelia, Amelia,” he crooned, rolling to the side and pulling her with him. “Don’t. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is—”

“Stop that,” he snapped. “If it’s any one’s fault, it’s mine.”

“No!” she hissed, looking up at him. “It’s not your fault, either! Don’t say that!”

He brushed a lock of sweat-dampened hair out of her face. “All right. It’s nobody’s fault, so we won’t waste time with self-recrimination, okay? We’ll get through this.” He spoke with more confidence than he felt; he was certain that it was his transformed body, but if they’d managed to get this far, then it was just a matter of finding the right position. At least he hoped that’s all it was. He was floundering here; having no personal experience when it came to women, everything he knew came from the few stories that Zolf and Rodimus had shared during some drunken evenings around a campfire and he was sure half of those had been exaggerated. He rolled over onto his back, pulling her with him and settling her so that she was kneeling over him. 

“Zelgadis-san!” she exclaimed, rendered breathless with the sudden change in venue. “What—?” 

“If it hurts with me on top, then we try the other way around. It’s as simple as that,” he explained, reaching up and cupping her breasts as they rode above the top of her corset. Zelgadis caught her nipples between his fingers and squeezed them, tugging lightly. 

She smiled and leaned forward to rest her hands on his chest, which brought her generous breasts closer to him. He put his hands over them and squeezed, kneading them gently. As he did this, Amelia squirmed her hips on him, moving along his length in an irregular rhythm. His breathing quickened and he shut his eyes to enjoy the wonderful feelings her riding him produced. It was like nothing else he’d felt; nothing could compare to it. Her heat, her movements, her weight… 

So it came as a surprise when she pulled herself off him and collapsed on his chest. Zelgadis startled and his eyes flew open as he felt and heard her muffled sobs. Sitting up, he put his arms around her and cradled her. “Amelia,” he said softly, confused. “Still hurt?”

She nodded, curling her fists on his chest. “I…It just hurts. No matter what I do, it’s just too uncomfortable.” She started to cry harder, turning her face into his chest. “I…we wanted this so badly and… Why can’t I do this? What’s wrong with me, Zelgadis-san?”

He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away from him, forcing her to look up at him. “Stop it!” he barked. “I don’t ever want to hear you talk that way again! Ever again! Do you understand me?” Without thinking, he gave her a little shake. 

The small girl stared at him, her eyes wide and full of surprise and a trace of fear. Mutely, she nodded. “Y-yes, Zelgadis-san…”

Realizing what he was doing, he pulled her back to him and wrapped his arms around her. “There’s nothing wrong with you. This is your first time. It’s my first time. It will just take a little while to…get used to each other, that’s all.” He hoped and prayed that’s all it was. 

“But how much time?” she asked quietly. 

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll take as much time as we need.” Zelgadis swallowed and kissed the top of her head. “Tell me, exactly what hurts?”

She wiped her eyes and nose on the back of her hand. “I, well…When you try to go too far. It’s okay up to a point, but then…You push against things…inside.” He could feel her blushing even though he couldn’t see her. “That’s what hurts.” 

He nodded and gave the situation some thought as he gently stroked her hair. His heart was about to break for doing this to her; what kind of a man was he? He was causing her nothing but pain! How much more was he going to cause her before he came to his senses and stopped? Take his freakish looks and body where he could not hurt her any more?

Even as he thought these things, though, he knew he was wrong. If he stopped and left now, she would take it as a rejection and he would not do that to her. Not when she was the only thing he wanted; not when she was the most important thing to him at this moment. She had not rejected him; he would be committing an unforgivable sin if he were to reject her. No. There had to be a way. The pressure in his loins demanded he find a way.

The pressure in his heart demanded that he find a way.

* * *

What are these hands for…
What are these arms for
If I can’t hold you through the night
What does this heart beat for
If I can’t lay by your side
You must know 
I was made for you

Slipping his hands down over her waist, he sought the straps that held up her stockings. His deft fingers found the clips and unhooked them then pushed her stockings down her legs, pushing them and her shoes off her feet. That done, he found the laces to her corset and loosened them. He wanted to feel her skin, her warmth…

All through this, Amelia sat quietly. She’d tried to help at first, but he’d pushed her hands away and whispered, “Let me,” so she let him finish undressing her. And then he was moving his hands across her suddenly chilled skin, across her flat stomach, over the gentle flare of her hips and up her back to tease her hair. He latched his mouth on her neck and devoured her with aching slowness and tenderness. He laid her gently on her back on the bed and moved downward, leaving a trail of warm kisses between her breasts to her navel. She tried to reciprocate, but he pushed her gently down. So she satisfied herself with combing her fingers through his hair and stroking his ears.

When her breath was coming fast and hard and her heart was beating like a bird trying to escape the cage formed by her ribs, he stretched out beside her and gently pushed her onto her side, facing away from him. Curious, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Zelgadis-san?”

“Shh…Just trust me, okay?” he whispered into her ear as he nuzzled it while pulling her back to conform to his body. He transferred his kisses to the curve of her neck and shoulder and to the back of her neck. She shuddered as he put an arm around her waist and pulled her against him; she could feel his member prodding her in the small of her back: Hot, throbbing and insistent. In fact, he was hot all over, like a stone left by the fire. 

“I do,” she whispered, putting a hand on his arm as he moved his hand down between her legs. “With my life.” She arched her neck back as he bared down with his teeth while he stroked her between her legs. He wedged his other hand under her and held her tightly against him, cupping one strong hand over her breast. She could feel herself getting excited again and lifted one leg to let him explore further. Reaching backwards, she covered his face with her hand. He turned his head and kissed her palm, tickling it with his tongue. 

He couldn’t wait any more. He wanted her and he wanted her now. If he didn’t release the pressure in his loins soon, he was going to burst and it was not going to be a pretty sight. Gently, he let the hand wedged between her legs slip up along her inner thigh, pulling her leg up and over his hip. She gasped at the sudden inrush of cool, night air against heated flesh and the sudden feeling of vulnerability it brought to her. It was both frightening and thrilling at the same time. Amelia felt her heart skip a beat as her lover shifted himself so that his arousal slipped through her legs and laid hot and rigid against her swollen and hungry flesh. Zelgadis inched his hand back down to where they would soon be joined, opened her with his fingers, and guided himself slowly into her. 

Amelia thought she was going to pass out from the feel of him inside her. There was no resistance to his entry into her and he didn’t hit anything inside that made her want to jump out of her skin in pain. There was just the long, wonderful slide into ecstasy. The way it should be. He moved his hand up to her knee and held her leg steady as he started moving, slowly at first, then stepping up the pace when she did not protest. 

And protest she did not. Instead a soft moan of pleasure, made all the richer for finally, finally being able to enjoy what they’d come here to do tonight, rose in her throat like a force all its own. She arched her back against him, driving her hips backwards into his body, head turning and seeking his mouth. He met her and they shared a kiss of liquid gold as he moved inside her. 

When they pulled apart, Amelia gasping for air and he gasping from the exertion, it was to find themselves closer than ever. The Chimera buried his face in her neck, latching onto her flesh with a hunger, a desire that was driving him mad. Amelia cried out in pleasure at both his mouth on her neck and his hand between her legs, caressing, stroking, petting her as he thrust into her. 

Amelia could barely breathe and forced herself back and back; it didn’t hurt as much now to take him in deeper. She angled her hips backwards, pushing harder against him, wanting to take in as much of him as she could. She wanted to be as close as possible, wanted him as close as possible. She reached backwards and wound her arm around his neck and held on as tightly as she could while her body threatened to go to pieces on her. Her other hand plucked restlessly at the arm around her waist. She needed him, the man she’d loved for so long now, the one she respected and called her friend. The one she’d tried so hard to convince that he was not a monster or freakish looking. The one to which she’d opened her heart because he needed her.

Zelgadis was in no way prepared for what was happening to him. Nothing could have prepared him for the closeness he felt for this small girl, the Princess who had had courage and strength enough to drag him kicking and screaming out of his shadows and into her light. After all this time, his fears, their false starts and subsequent frustrations, everything that had conspired against them was forgotten, burned away by the fire in his blood. Burned away until there was nothing left of him save what she took from him and gave back, renewed, and he was a better person for it. He loved her because he needed her. To help him find his humanity again. But more than that, he loved her because she needed him. 

That realization broke down his final barriers and he gave himself to her, heart and soul. 

Time stopped and the only thing they were aware of was each other. The world could have ended and they would have kept right on doing what they were doing. There was nothing left of Zelgadis Greywers or Amelia Wil Tesla de Seyruun. There was nothing except the two halves of the whole, each needing the other to make themselves complete. Their voices mingled as the mounting pressure inside Amelia became too much for her to bear and her body broke into a thousand points of light. Zelgadis’ cry harmonized with hers as his own body dissolved into a patch of shifting shadows. Together, the light and shadow mingled, mixing, twisting together in a storm of passion, neither consuming the other but instead feeding the other with their strengths so that together they formed something greater than the sum of their parts. They poised balanced upon the pinnacle of their joining, the shadows protecting the light and the light lifting the shadows higher and giving them purpose. Together they danced into the heavens where they played tag among the stars. 

* * *

Part 6

“What do you mean you can’t find her?” 

Commander Vymes of the Seyruun Royal Guard cringed as Crown Prince Philionel bellowed at the top of his lungs. The windows, just now starting to glow with the early summer dawn, rattled in their casements. Even Vymes, who knew the Prince well and thought himself inured to his liege’s vocal range and temperament, found himself cringing.

“Sir,” Vymes said, stepping forward. “We’ve searched the city high and low. No one has seen the Princess since she ran out of the ballroom last night. And other than the lone man trying to gain entrance to the Palace last night, there has been no suspicious activities. It’s as if she’s simply disappeared.”

Phil glowered at Vymes, crouching behind his desk like a bear lying in wait for an unsuspecting victim.

Vymes began to sweat. “Tell me, Commander Vymes, how is it that one small, young ordinary woman can simply disappear into thin air? She’s got to be here somewhere!”

“Brother,” Christopher interjected on the Commander’s behalf. “While Princess Amelia can certainly be described as small and young, that does not make her ordinary. She’s a skilled sorceress, capable of taking care of herself, and she has disappeared on several occasions, if I may refresh your memory.”

The Prince turned his smoldering glower on his brother. “Amelia would not go haring off on such an important day, Christopher. She knows her duties too well to do that.” He turned his attention back to Vymes, who snapped to attention after the brief respite. “This stranger who was seen trying to get into the Palace last night, what do you make of him?”

Vymes shook his head. “I’m not certain, Highness. He was just one man, though obviously he was a magic user as one of my men saw him use magic to get over the Palace walls.”

“All it took was one man to kill my wife,” Philionel said in a voice colder than ice. 

Vymes blanched at his faux pas and started sweating harder. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I did not mean—”

Phil waved him down. “I know you did not, Commander. Still, the question remains: Where has my daughter gone?” He stood up. “You’ve searched everywhere?” he asked again, like a worried parent asking all the obvious questions of an errant child even when already given the answers several times over.

“Yes, Highness.” 

“The city? The stables? The marketplace?”

“All have been searched. We’ve been watching the gates since just after this mysterious person managed to get into the Palace, and no one matching his description has left by any of them. 

“What about the Palace itself? Have you searched it?”

“Yes sir. We’ve been through the Palace several times. We’ve found nothing.”

“Her apartment?”

“That was the first place we looked, Highness.”

Bursting with exasperation, Philionel slapped his hands upon the top of his desk, sending the books, pens and scattered pencils flying. “Well, search them again! She’s got to be here somewhere! Search the whole city again if you need to, but whatever you do, don’t let me see your face until you’ve found her, Vymes!”

The Commander sketched a quick salute and nearly tripped over his feet as he scrambled to get out of the direct line of Philionel’s anger, Christopher following close on his heels. Once they were gone the big Prince sank into his chair and put his head in his hands. What could have happened to his beloved daughter? Who was this mysterious man who had snuck into the Palace last night? If he had anything to do with Amelia’s disappearance and if he’d hurt her in any way…He swore to himself that he would personally murder the one responsible. 

He turned and looked out at the brightening dawn. It had only been a few short hours and yet he was worried sick. Deciding that sitting here was not doing him any good, he pushed up and out of his chair and elected to take a quick walk around the Palace. Maybe he would find something the Guards had overlooked. If nothing else, it would help pass the time until Vymes reported back with news of her whereabouts.

* * *

Amelia woke slowly as the first rays of morning streamed in through the doors that let out onto the gardens. She tried to move and felt an unfamiliar weight draped over her. Looking down, she found a blue hand resting squarely on her breast. Memories of the previous night returned and she smiled happily to herself. Twisting under his arm, she turned to him and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Good morning, Zelgadis-san,” she murmured with a happy smile.

He grimaced and squinted at her. “Is it morning already?” he muttered, pulling her closer to him.

She nodded, turning on her side and snuggling up against him. His hand on her back sent chills up her spine. She’d thought she’d been dreaming again, dreaming that Zelgadis was here with her and to wake up and have proof that it hadn’t been a dream after all, but had finally come true…She couldn’t think of anything that could spoil her mood right now. “I’m afraid so,” she said softly as he tucked her up underneath him then let his hand roam down to her hip and lower. He lifted himself and lowered his face to hers, kissing her softly. 

“I don’t suppose you have any coffee, do you?” he asked with a half-smile.

Amelia rolled her eyes. “You and your coffee. Is that all you can think about right now?”

Looking into her midnight blue eyes through his own heavily-lidded ones, his half-smile took on hungry over-tones. “No, as a matter of fact, there’s something else I’m thinking about right now.” He leaned forward and caught her lips again, slipping his hand under her bottom at the same time and pulling her hips hard up against his. 

Gasping, she pulled away from him slightly. “Zelgadis-san!” she scolded. “Stop that!” But her expression and her soft, happy laughter belied her words as she snaked one arm around his neck and and put her other hand on his where it pulled at her hips. She smiled at him and stretched up to kiss him as he leaned down to touch his lips to hers…

* * *

Philionel let his feet carry him through the halls of the Palace without direction or purpose. Where could Amelia have gone? What could have happened to her? Pain lanced through his chest as he contemplated all the things that might have happened. Even an optimist like himself couldn’t help but worry. After all, there had been so much intrigue in the Palace regarding his family. First his dear Gracia targeted by an assassin, and his dear wife murdered in such a messy manner in front of their daughter. He’d been forced to let Gracia leave to protect her sanity. Then Randy’s attempt on him some years ago; Amelia had been drawn into that nasty business as well. And Alfred and the two Mazoku who had deceived him…

Sighing, he stopped and looked up. With a start of surprise, he found himself outside the door to Amelia’s apartment. Shaking himself out of his funk, he reached for the doorknob. The door was unlocked and he pushed open the door and stepped into the sitting room of her apartment. It was quiet and dark, quite unlike it normally would have been. Amelia usually rose with the sun and was full of energy, ready and raring to start the new day. 

The empty room brought home the pain he was feeling at her disappearance. Granted, it had only been for a few hours, but after having lost his wife, a daughter, a brother and a nephew all to court intrigue, she and his brother Christopher were all he had left.

He wandered around the sitting room, gently touching the little things that made it Amelia’s: Small trinkets he had picked up for her on his travels, things she had collected on her own fantastic adventures. A small grouping of iconographs of her friends filled one small table. Picking one up at random, he examined it closely: The sorceress Lina Inverse and her companion, the swordsman Gabriev, the small girl leaning against the tall man and grinning madly. He set that one down and picked up one of Lina, Gourry and Amelia. He smiled as he ran his hands over the painted surface. 

Eyes misting up, he set the iconograph back down and picked up another one. This one was of Amelia and the Chimeric Shaman, Zelgadis. He smiled sadly; he knew how much Amelia had wanted him here for her birthday celebration. Perhaps if he had been here, it would have made all this unpleasantness with the Council unnecessary.

A soft sound startled the Prince and his head jerked up and around. There were voices coming from nearby. Setting the iconograph back on the table, Phil listened carefully for more, hoping to determine whether or not he’d imagined them—

No. There they came again. Two voices: One deep and the other lighter. They were coming from the bedroom. Crossing the room quickly, he saw the door was standing slightly ajar. Just as he was about to lay his hand upon it, he heard very distinctly Amelia’s voice. 

Slamming the door open, Philionel dashed into the room. “Amelia!” he shouted. “Here you are! I’ve been worr—”

The sight that met his eyes was something for which nothing could have prepared him. He froze as the two people in Amelia’s bed sat straight up.

“Daddy!” Amelia shouted, clutching the sheet up around her breasts, but not before he got a good enough glimpse to let him know that she was nude under it. Phil’s vision turned red as he raised his baleful glare to the man who dared touch his little girl. 

“YOU!” he roared. The Chimera nearly shot backwards out of the bed, dragging the light coverlet with him to cover his midsection. “How dare you?!” Phil rounded the bed, roaring like an enraged bull; the wooden poster bed frame creaked where he gripped the footboard and shoved the whole bed aside and out of his way in his haste to reach the other man, spilling Amelia onto the floor in the process. The protesting screech it made as he dragged it across the wooden floor mixed with Amelia’s shriek as she landed unceremoniously on her backside. 

Zelgadis scrambled backwards across the floor until he came up against the wall. “Wait! Your Highness, please wait! Let me explain—” His blue skin was drained and chalky looking with shock and his eyes were wide with fright as he tried to evade the larger man and failing.

The Crown Prince of Seyruun reached down and grabbed the shaman’s shoulder, hauling him upwards and thrusting him up against the wall.

“How are you going to explain defiling and using my daughter for your own pleasure?” he demanded. “I trusted you with our lives and our honor, and this is how you repay me?” He thrust his face into Zelgadis’ and nearly roared in his rage. His huge hands were clamped around the other man’s neck as he held him pinned up against the wall; Zelgadis’ feet dangled several inches off the floor. “You will pay for this betrayal and you’ll pay dearly! Do you hear me?” He wanted blood and by Ceiphied he was going to get it! He increased the pressure on the Chimera’s neck as he drove his powerful thumbs into the sensitive spot beneath the point of the man’s jaw. 

Unable to speak because of the pressure on his throat, Zelgadis’ mouth opened in a silent screech of pain. He clawed at the bigger man’s hands, but could find no purchase. Slowly the world started to darken before his eyes while the pain in his neck increased steadily…

Panicking, Amelia swore softly to herself; why hadn’t she thought about this? Grabbing the first thing that came to hand, she shook out Zelgadis’ tunic and yanked it on over her head. It came to her knees and covered her completely. Good. Yanking the sleeves up her arms, she scrambled up and jumped over the bed. “Daddy! Stop!” she shouted at him as she tackled him. There was no other way to deal with him when he was like this; he would be oblivious to anything else. “Let him go!” She hurled her small weight at him, hoping to bring him down and release Zelgadis first. Then she’d try talking some sense in to him. 

It was like a mouse trying to deter a bull moose. Momentarily diverted from his quest for the Chimera’s blood, he looked at her and shook her off and sent her stumbling backwards to trip and land again on her backside. “Stay out of this, Amelia!” he shouted, holding Zelgadis up one-handed and lowering an accusing finger at her. “I’ll deal with you after I finish with him!” 

“No!” She tackled him again, this time putting all her power behind her attack and aiming for the back of his knees. Her father staggered under her attack and his hold on Zelgadis slipped enough for the Chimera to pry his attacker’s fingers from around his throat. He fell gasping to the floor and scrambled backwards out of Phil’s reach. He grabbed up the fallen coverlet and managed to wrap it around his waist.

Recovering himself, Philionel whirled and targeted the man who had shamed his daughter. Zelgadis’ eyes bugged as he saw the big man wind his fist back and gather his not inconsiderable physical power for a killing blow. Zelgadis knew the frightening power Phil could summon at will. He’d seen him dispatch low-level Mazoku with nothing more than his fists; there was no uncertainty in his mind that Phil could deliver real physical damage to even his stone body. Crabwalking backwards, trying not to lose the coverlet and what remained of his modesty at the same time, he tried to evade the Prince’s relentless advance. And yet, when Phil took a step forward, fist cocked and flames burning around the scion of Seyruun, he could feel Death’s cold breath on his neck. 

“STOP!” A small form leapt between Zelgadis and Philionel, feet planted and arms spread to protect the downed Chimera. Zelgadis could feel the force waves coming off her; it was enough to bring Philionel to a screeching halt. 

“Get out of my way, Amelia,” he growled, reaching for her. “Let me handle this.”

“No!” she shouted. “You’re not thinking straight! Leave him be!”

“I said move, Amelia! It is my duty to see the man who has dishonored my daughter punished!”

Exasperated beyond words, Amelia put her hands on her hips and glared at her father. “For Mother’s sake, listen to me!”

Silence fell heavily over the room as Philionel froze and stared at her. Rubbing his neck, Zelgadis looked from one to the other in mute confusion. “What did you say?” Amelia’s father finally managed to rasp out.

Panting, the little Princess fixed her father with a sharp look. “If you ever loved my mother, you will stop this.”

“Why, Amelia?” he demanded. “Why are you evoking her memory? To torture me?” There were tears glistening in his eyes as he stared down at his daughter. Zelgadis could feel the electric current in the air between those two strong wills as they battled.

“Because, Da—Father, I love him.” The tension increased tenfold. “I love him!”

Phil shook his head. “Amelia, you’re too young to understand what you’re saying—”

“No! I’m not a little girl any more, Father. I’m a woman now; I’m old enough to know my own mind. And what I do know is that I love Zelgadis and I will not let you hurt him.” She was no longer shouting; instead her steady, determined voice carried more power and authority than anything she could have shouted.

The Prince stared at his daughter for several tense seconds before he flinched and looked away. His eyes sought out Zelgadis’ over her shoulder and he glared at the Chimera for another handful of seconds before drawing himself up. 

“Very well. You are indeed old enough to know your own mind, Amelia. However, your recent behavior does little to support that claim. While you and Zelgadis have been sharing a lover’s tryst, I’ve had the Guards turning the city inside out looking for you. Did you forget about the announcement that was to be made last night?”

Amelia winced. “Oh, the announce—Daddy, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot.”

Philionel nodded. “So it’s ‘Daddy’ again, is it?” His voice was bitter as he continued glaring down at his daughter even when she bit her lip and looked contrite. “I’ll deal with you later. Then I’ve got to try and find a way to sooth the ruffled feathers of several hopeful suitors. Right now, I want you—” he pointed at Zelgadis “—in my office in fifteen minutes. Be late at your own risk.” With that, he turned on his heel and marched purposefully out of the room. 

Amelia and Zelgadis remained where they were until they heard the outer door to Amelia’s apartment slam shut. That sound released them; Amelia turned and dropped to her knees in front of her lover, reaching out to him. “Are you all right, Zelgadis-san?” she asked quietly as she touched his throat. To her amazement, there were dark bruises forming on his throat. 

He nodded and caught her hand. “I’m fine, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so frightened in all my life.” He shook his head and put his hand on her cheek. “How about you, Amelia? Are you all right?”

She nodded and hung her head. “I’m sorry about this, Zelgadis-san. I should have realized—”

The Chimera reached out and put his hand under her chin and brought her face up. “Don’t Amelia,” he said softly. “What happened…happened. We both should have been more careful. But now that it has happened, we’ll deal with it. Together.”

She smiled and covered his hand with her own. “Okay. You’d better hurry. You shouldn’t keep Daddy waiting.” The little Princess tried to pull away and was held captive by his hand. 

“I won’t be late if I kiss you one more time.” Which he did. 

They pulled apart only reluctantly. Zelgadis stood, pulling Amelia up with him and letting the coverlet fall from around his waist. “I’d best be getting dressed,” he said.

She nodded and quickly pulled his tunic off and handed it to him. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her and he couldn’t resist running his hand over her smooth hip and pulling her towards him. For a moment they stood together, skin against skin, before they reluctantly moved apart. Zelgadis took his tunic from her and he turned to gather up the rest of his clothing. Amelia hurried behind the screen to get dressed, overcome with a sudden bout with modesty. 

Once dressed, together they went to face Phil’s wrath.

* * *

“Come,” was the barked reply to Zelgadis’ hesitant knock on the door to Philionel’s office. With a steady hand, the Chimera pushed open the door and let himself and an anxious Amelia into said office. 

Phil was standing facing away from them and looking out the great windows behind his desk. His hands were clasped firmly behind his back and he stood that way for several minutes while Amelia fidgeted. Zelgadis put his hand on her shoulder to get her to stop before he started getting fidgety himself. The Princess looked up at him with wide eyes, and resolutely put her hands behind her back and turned to face her father (or rather his back) with a raised chin and a defiant eye. Sneaking a sideways look at Zelgadis, he gave her a slight grin and a nod. 

There was no time for anything else as Phil turned from the window, pulled out his chair and sat down. He looked from one to the other and back again, giving each a hard, cold stare while saying nothing. Zelgadis could feel Amelia shaking as she stood next to him. This was probably the first time she’d ever displeased her father to such a degree, he mused. 

“Amelia,” Phil finally barked. Zelgadis felt her jump at the sound of his voice. 

“Yes, Daddy?” she asked quietly.

“Leave.”

“Wha--?” Open-mouthed with shock, she gaped at her father. Recovering and shaking her head, she drew herself up and held her fists clenched at her sides. “No. Whatever you have to say to Zelgadis-san, Daddy, you can say it to me.”

“No, Amelia,” Phil repeated, his voice as emotionless as ever. “I said leave.”

“Amelia,” Zelgadis said, putting his hand lightly on her arm. “Do as he says.”

Confusion clouded her bright eyes. “But, Zelgadis-san—” she started to say.

“I said LEAVE!” Philionel shouted, coming out of his chair to lean on his desk and loom over the two of them even with the desk separating them. 

The girl jumped and darted behind Zelgadis. He turned and took her hand. “Go on, Amelia. Your father isn’t going to kill me; he’s a civilized man.”

“But, Zelgadis-san—”

“Please, Amelia, just go.” He gave her a shove towards the door. 

She stumbled but recovered herself. Giving him one more pleading look, she looked like she was about to protest again. Philionel shoved back the chair and rounded the desk towards her. Giving a soft yelp, she hurried out the door and pulled it shut behind her with a hollow click. 

The Prince stood at the corner of his desk glaring at the door for a second before he turned his attention to the man who stood in front of him. Going back to sit in his chair, he pulled it close and leaned his elbows on the desk. Fixing Zelgadis with a baleful glare, he seemed to be daring the young man to break the silence first. 

Zelgadis stared back with his practiced “cool as a stone” gaze that had served him so well in the past. If nothing else, it did a good job of hiding the fact that if he could sweat he’d be doing a good job of it right now. But he would not be intimidated by Philionel right now.

Realizing that trying to outstare the stone himself was not going to work, the Prince leaned back in his chair. “You realize that I could have you put to death for what you’ve done, don’t you?” Without looking at it, he picked up a quill and started toying with it on the desk blotter. 

Nodding, Zelgadis acknowledged this fact. “Yes, I do. But you won’t.” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as shaky to Phil as it did to his ears. 

Philionel stopped playing with the quill. “And just how do you know that?” he demanded.

“With all due respect, Your Highness, if you were going to do that, you would have done it by now.”

“What’s to say that I won’t still do it?”

Deciding to throw caution to the wind, Zelgadis gambled with his life and Amelia’s. “Because you know what that would do to Amelia.”

Phil’s eyes went round and his face flushed with anger. Leaning forward, he braced one arm on the desk. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to her?”

Taken somewhat aback, Zelgadis’ calm exterior finally seemed to crack. “I—What I’ve done to her?”

Nodding, Phil waved his other hand. “You come breezing in here after no one has heard from you for months and without so much as a by your leave you hop into my daughter’s bed. She may welcome you now, but may very well end up regretting that decision when you’ve decided it’s time to go off seeking this cure of yours. Have you thought about the consequences of your actions?”

“I—of course, I have,” Zelgadis stammered, realizing that he’d been so intent on just getting to Seyruun, he hadn’t given any real thought to what came after. Last night had just been the culmination of a month of hard travel while being driven by the uncertainty of his dream as to Amelia’s well-being. The night had been an emotional catharsis from which he’d not had sufficient time to process and adjust to the new emotions unearthed by the experience.

“Have you really? Then tell me something, what am I supposed to do if Amelia turns out to be carrying your child and you’ve left her again?” 

Zelgadis felt as if he’d been punched. “That would never happen!” he insisted.

“Wouldn’t it now?” Phil leaned forward. “And are you certain of that?”

Swallowing, the younger man realized he was not. “N-no, sir,” he said softly. “I’m not.”

“Do you realize the scandal that would occur if that were to happen? No, you don’t; not now, not when you were letting yourself be ruled by your glands.” Philionel sighed and closed his eyes and put his hands in his face. “Look, Zelgadis, I’m quite aware of how much my daughter cares about you.” He glanced up at the Chimera then covered his face again. “After what I saw this morning, I know more than I care to.” Taking a deep breath, he sat up straight and motioned for Zelgadis to sit. As the Chimera complied, he continued. “The point is, I understand, but what you’ve got to understand is I’ve got to keep Amelia’s best interests at heart. But not only that, I’ve got to keep what’s best for Seyruun in mind as well.”

Swallowing, Zelgadis stared at his hands as he clasped them between his knees. “And what’s that, Your Highness? An arranged marriage? An alliance of state?” Damn, he thought. After all the trouble he’d gone through to get here, was he going to turn out to be ‘not in her best interest?’

“No.” 

Zelgadis looked up sharply. “But what about—the announcement she was going to make last night?”

“I was never the one behind that; it was the Council that was pushing her into that. Amelia and I had discussed the situation beforehand and she was going to politely but firmly insist that she couldn’t possibly make a decision like that without some more time.”

Sitting up straight, the Chimera stared at the Prince. “You mean—she wasn’t going to have to pick a suitor?”

“Great Ceiphied, no!” Philionel cried, genuinely taken aback. “This is my kingdom; do you think that I would permit such an injustice as forcing my own daughter into an arranged marriage if she did not approve? When I brought her mother from a small village here to Seyruun to be my wife? No, the Council does not bully me!”

Relief washed over Zelgadis and left him feeling weak. If he hadn’t already been sitting down, he would have been unable to continue standing. “Then…Why?” he demanded. “Why the pretense?”

“To put the Council off for a while, that’s why. I could no more force Amelia into an arranged marriage than I would have settled for one myself. I knew she was waiting for someone.” Phil gave Zelgadis a pointed look.

Zelgadis swallowed hard and looked at his hands. He remained silent, struggling with these new feelings and revelations long enough that Philionel’s pointed stare turned into a glower. “Well?” he asked. “Just what are your intentions towards my daughter?”

“I would like to…” The Chimera hesitated as he gathered his thoughts. This is what he wanted; he was tired of chasing the Queen of Diamonds when the Queen of Hearts was standing next to him ready and willing to have him. “I choose Hearts,” he muttered under his breath.

“Pardon me?” Phil demanded as he leaned forward.

Clearing his throat, Zelgadis sat up straight and looked the Crown Prince in the eye. “I’d like to ask for Amelia’s hand in marriage,” he said formally. As he said the words, he knew they were right; he knew it from the warmth he felt in his chest. At last, it just felt right.

For a moment, the big man didn’t speak. He leaned back in his chair and propped his chin in his hand and regarded the Chimera levelly. “Unfortunately, I cannot give you that.” Zelgadis felt his heart stop with those words and nearly didn’t hear the rest of what the other man was saying. “Only Amelia can tell you whether she’ll have you or not.” His face, which had been so grim up until now, finally cracked into a smile and his eyes twinkled. “I can, however, give you my blessing.” His countenance turned serious again. “Provided, of course, you assure me that you’re not going to go wandering off at the first whim.”

Smiling his characteristic half-smile, Zelgadis shook his head. “No, I think I’m going to be staying in Seyruun for a long time, Your Highness.”

Phil leaned back and and steepled his fingers in front of his face. “In that case, young man, we have certain…matters to discuss. Matters of discretion. I believe you know what I’m talking about?” The bit man raised a bushy eyebrow at Zelgadis knowingly.

Swallowing hard, Zelgadis braced himself for the lecture he knew was forthcoming. Sighing inside, he realized he only had himself to blame. 

* * *

We’ll walk upon the hill
So high above the city
And count the rooftops down below
Lay on the grass
Dream out loud 
Catch runaway trains
Dance in the rain 
Someday you’ll take my name

Zelgadis pushed open the door and exited Philionel’s office with a lighter heart than he’d had going in. That didn’t diminish the sudden attack of nerves he was feeling at the prospect of having to ask Amelia what he’d just asked her father, however, but at least he knew he wasn’t going to be sent to the executioner’s block. Because no matter what he’d said to Phil, there’d always been that possibility. A very real, unpleasant possibility.

He found Amelia sitting on a bench in the hall staring out the window at the courtyard below. She looked up as she heard the door open and when she saw it was him, she leapt off the bench and flew into his arms. 

“Zelgadis-san, don’t worry about anything Daddy might have said. He didn’t mean it, any of it.” Her words tumbled out over one another. 

Taking her by the shoulders, Zelgadis held her at arm’s length. “Wait, wait, wait, Amelia!” he exclaimed. “Slow down! I can barely understand you.”

She stopped and stood there, staring up at him, her eyes large and intent. “Please, Zelgadis-san,” she said. “I understand you can’t stay, but I’d like to go with you—”

“Wait, hold on a minute,” he said firmly, gently squeezing her shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Amelia nodded. “I know. I was talking about later. When you find more clues to your cure—” Her voice was unsteady as she looked into his eyes. 

Shock ran through him; she was really expecting him to leave her again. Just as Phil had. What kind of a monster was he that they would think he would use Amelia and leave her?

The kind that he’d made himself out to be. 

His sudden self-revelation and the subsequent revulsion he felt must have shown on his face for Amelia’s brows creased. “Zelgadis-san? What is it?”

“Amelia,” he said finally. “I told you last night, I’m not going anywhere. Not now, not ever.” He paused and licked suddenly dry lips. “I came to Seyruun to be with you, because you asked me to, and because…because I wanted to be where you were.” He tried to get out the question he’d just asked her father, but found that asking her was altogether different from asking her father. Doubts and fears he’d carried with him for too long to be banished in just a few hours surfaced again to play havoc with his nerves. “I—I want…” He couldn’t form the words he wanted to say.

She looked a little confused. “But…What about your cure?”

Exasperated, Zelgadis dropped his hands from her shoulders and gestured wildly. “Forget about my damn cure, Amelia!” he shouted. “It’s not what’s important to me any more!” 

Amelia drew back a little, her eyes large and frightened and…hopeful. “You mean—”

He huffed. If he couldn’t say the words, maybe there was another way…He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Come with me, Amelia,” he said, turning and dragging her along behind him. She stumbled as he nearly flew towards the stairs and down them, then through the ballroom and out the doors and into the gardens. But he did not relent. Not as he hurried through the manicured lawns and the trimmed hedges towards the area where he’d come over the wall the night before. “Where is it? I know I left them here—” He searched behind several trees along the wall.

“What? Zelgadis-san, what are you looking for?”

“My things. I put them down—ah, here they are!” He finally let go of her as he ducked behind a tree and brought out his pack and guitar. 

“Why are your things here?” the Princess asked, looking curiously at him. The pack and the guitar case’s oiled surface were covered with droplets of early morning due which he shook off before shouldering them. 

“I left them here to be safe after I flew over the wall.” He took her hand and led her through the gardens. 

Amelia still looked confused. “I don’t understand, Zelgadis-san, why didn’t you just come to the main gate and ask to be let in? Your name was on the list to be admitted.”

The Chimera shook his head. “I wish I’d known that last night,” he said with a wry smile. “Would have saved me a lot of trouble. However, it appears that the City Guards were not as acquainted with the guest list as the Guards at the gate. They took exception to my wanting to come to the Palace and were going to arrest me.”

Her brows drew down. “How awful! I’m sorry, Zelgadis-san.”

He squeezed her hand as he led her back through the Palace. “It wasn’t your fault. Uh, Amelia, is there some place I can put this?” He gestured towards his pack. 

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “This way.” She led him through the Palace to the apartment that he had used on his previous stay in Seyruun. “Here,” she said, gesturing as she opened the door. “This is yours for as long as you want it.”

He nodded and made his way into the bedroom and dumped his pack on the bed, but kept his guitar with him. Returning to the main sitting room where Amelia had stopped, he took her hand and pulled her close to him. “Come on,” he whispered, lacing his fingers through hers. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Amelia gave him a brilliant smile. “Okay.” He kissed her quickly and had to forcibly remind himself of what he needed—what he wanted to tell her. Pulling away, he led her out of the apartment and the Palace itself, and together, hand in hand, he led her purposefully through the city. 

The marketplace was busy even at this early hour, and most of the people knew Amelia on sight. As Zelgadis led her through the main avenue, she couldn’t help but notice that people were glancing her way and making soft comments on the fact that she was walking hand in hand with a man. She wondered what Zelgadis was thinking and glanced up at his face.

Knowing he didn’t like to be stared or pointed at, she knew this must be hard on him. To her surprise, however, he was looking down at her and he smiled as her eyes met his. His fingers tightened around hers and her heart skipped a beat. Unable to resist, she sped up, adding a little skip to her step and pulled him along after her. 

Zelgadis found her good humor infectious and ran after her. Together they pounded through the market, scattering early morning shoppers here and there like so many stray chickens. Amelia pulled her hand from his and raced on ahead, tossing her hair and a challenge over her shoulder. The Chimera lowered his head and gripped his guitar tightly and put on a burst of demonic speed, passed her and came to a stop by the next corner. He was leaning against the signpost when she trotted up and stopped dead. “What took you so long?” he asked nonchalantly as she just stared at him.

“That’s cheating, Zelgadis-san!” she exclaimed, panting. 

“How is it cheating?” he demanded, reaching out and catching her hand again, pulling her along towards the city gates that stood only a few feet away now. The guards snapped to attention and saluted as Amelia passed. Already word had reached them that Amelia had not been missing at all, but instead had been taken ill during the reception (Phil’s quickly concocted cover story to head off the scandal)—and that the blue-skinned Chimera was a royal guest and to be treated as one of the Royal Family. 

Then they were out of the city and on the main road that led to Seyruun. They had to fight their way through some of the incoming traffic, but once they got away from the gates, it wasn’t so bad. 

“Where are we going?” Amelia asked as she walked beside him. 

He shrugged. “I don’t know.” Looking around, he spotted a hill with a small copse of trees growing on the summit. “Up there.” He headed off the road and up the hill, heading for the shade of the trees. 

Once they’d reached the top, Zelgadis found a nice spot that overlooked the White Magic Capital laid out below them. They were high enough that they could see the rooftops. He stood there a moment, picking out the area that had been ruined by Lina’s magically enhanced Dragon Slave she’d used to destroy the floating island that Kanzel had trapped them on. It was nearly unrecognizable from the surrounding city by now, but if one knew where to look, it could be found. 

Tearing his thoughts away from that time, he turned to the little Princess standing beside him. It had never fully struck him that this city was hers. Not just in the sense that it was where she was from, but the fact that she would most likely rule it one day had just never…sunk in. And now what he was going to do…

He looked down at the grass still wet with dew, and scuffed his boot back and forth a moment. “Here’s a good place,” he said, and untied the laces to his cloak and spread it out on the grass. “Sit.” He suited words to actions and sat on his cloak and leaned against the tree and set his guitar down beside him. 

Amelia sank down next to him, sitting cross-legged close to him, but not touching him. She, too, was looking down at the city and her eyes were distant in thought. The city held no interest for him now; instead he watched her as she surveyed her city, her eyes large and bright, hair blowing gently in the early morning breeze. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Amelia,” he asked softly.

She turned her head and pushed her dark hair out of her face. “I’m thinking…That I’m happy you’re here. I’ve missed you these past months, Zelgadis-san.” Her smile was shy but she did not look away but gazed steadily into his eyes.

His return smile was rueful. “I’ve missed you, too,” was all he could say. But it was enough for Amelia, whose smile brightened until it rivaled the sun.

Faced with such pure joy, he grew nervous again. To cover it, he pulled his guitar close and unpacked the instrument. He positioned his fingers on the neck and strummed a few chords, wincing as the loose peg made some of the notes sour. “I really need to get a new tuning peg,” he said with a grimace as he twisted it. When the string was tightened to his satisfaction, he nodded. “There.” He played a soft, sad melody and nodded. “Perfect.”

“That’s lovely,” Amelia breathed. She knew that Zelgadis played the guitar, but he’d only done so for other people on very rare occasions. She hadn’t learned about his talent until quite recently, in fact. Now that he was sitting here playing for her—she felt a thrill of excitement stab through her. 

He bowed his head and continued idly strumming his fingers across the strings. Another melody, one not quite so melancholy, began to form. Amelia’s breath caught in her throat as she listened; there was a quiet joy in the melody that seemed to shine in Zelgadis’ face as he played. There was something familiar about it, too, and yet she knew she’d never heard it before. But the feeling would not go away.

Together they sat there on the hilltop, Zelgadis playing softly and Amelia listening attentively. The Chimera finally reached the end and the last notes seemed to hang sparkling in the slanting sunshine. The Princess let out a soft sigh and smiled. She was about to say something about how beautiful it was when Zelgadis started picking out the notes again. His face became stern and serious as if something was troubling him. Amelia felt something clench in her chest; she wished she could do something to take away all his pain…

“Amelia,” he said softly, startling her. “While I was journeying…” He paused and swallowed, wondering how much to tell her. Just the important things; the rest would come later. It wouldn’t do to get distracted by the details right now. “Something happened that made me stop and examine where I was headed in my life.” He strummed the strings absently as he spoke.

“What happened, Zelgadis-san?” she asked, curious.

He shook his head. “What happened is not important right now. Right now what is important is that I had a lot of time to think about that question and the one about what was important to me. It was not an easy thing for me to realize that I…That I…” he trailed off and took a deep breath. “To realize some things about myself.” He glanced up at her and found her looking at him with the same compassion and wonder with which she’d always regarded him. 

Clearing his throat he looked back down at his fingers as they moved over the guitar strings. He took a deep breath. “One night in the desert I shared my campfire with another wanderer. He was a…strange man and he sang me a song. My song, he said, and it made me think of things I didn’t want to think about, but I had no choice. What I learned was that…” That you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, he thought. Shaking his head, the words remained unsaid. “Damn it all,” he finally muttered after several silent minutes. “Just listen, okay? I…I wrote this for you.”

Amelia watched him as he bent over the guitar, carefully picking out the melody he’d just played. When he added his light, tenor voice to the melody, she gaped at him; she’d had no idea that Zelgadis could sing! And then the words penetrated her shock and she finally heard them:

Take this man who comes to you
Take me to your side
I throw away my soulless days
I need you in my life…
 
As he sang, he poured everything he was feeling and could not say to her into the words of the song, how he felt empty and barren without her; how he needed her to make himself whole again. How much he loved her. How much he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. As he reached the third verse, he realized how unconsciously he’d chosen a spot like the one in his song:

We’ll walk upon the hill
So high above the city
And count the rooftops down below
Lay on the grass
Dream out loud 
Catch runaway trains
Dance in the rain 

Until this point, he’d been concentrating on the strings and the words, but as he sang the next few lines, he slowly raised his head until on the last line he was looking her straight in the eye:

Someday you’ll take my name…

He found his fingers stumbling over the strings and his voice faltering as Amelia’s eyes grew wide and her mouth formed an ‘O’ of surprise. He had only a moment’s notice to quickly shift the guitar out of the way before she was on him, arms tight around his neck and face buried in his tunic. “Zelgadis-san!” she exclaimed as his arms went around her and held her tightly. He could feel her small body trembling under his hands.

“Amelia! What is it, Amelia?” he asked softly, smoothing her hair and patting her back. 

She pulled away finally, shaking her head and wiping her eyes. “I—nothing. Everything. Oh, Zelgadis-san…” She looked up at him and touched his face. “Did you…did you mean what you said?”

He smoothed her hair back out of her face. “Of course I meant it, Amelia. I need you.” Now that he’d spoken them, everything he was feeling seemed to come pouring out. “I’ve never needed anyone—anything—like I need you.” He put his hands on either side of her face. “This is why I came back, for you. Because I need you in my life.” Pulling her face close, he kissed her. 

They were both breathless when they pulled apart. Still holding her face, he stared into her eyes. “Say yes, Amelia!” he grated, demanding the answer he wanted from her. “Tell me you’re mine!”

“Yes, Zelgadis-san!” she answered, nodding as well as she could with his hands holding her face. “I’m yours. Forever.”

He smiled and let his hands slip down to her neck. “Now tell me I’m yours…” he whispered.

“You’re mine,” she repeated, pulling herself close to him. “You’re all mine.” Their lips touched and they kissed as they sat on the hill overlooking the city. 

* * *

A week later, Amelia led Zelgadis through the Palace and out into the gardens. They walked hand in hand along the manicured paths towards a small alcove formed by the hedges, a willow tree and the wall that surrounded the Palace grounds. A fountain played and burbled to itself in the afternoon sunlight, sending rainbows arcing along the wall and a tall, thin column of white marble that was nearly hidden by the willow. 

The Princess stepped forward and lifted the willow fronds to reveal the column: It was about a foot square on a side and four feet high and set on a single block of matching white marble. Elegant in its simplicity, it seemed to sleep under the cool green of the willow’s drooping branches. A single word was carved on the front surface.

“It’s right here, Zelgadis-san,” she said, pushing the fronds back and tucking them behind the column. Stepping away, she looked back at the Chimera, who had not come any farther than the other side of the fountain. “Just as you asked.”

He nodded and swallowed hard. “Thanks, Amelia.”

“I…I’ll go wait on the bench around the bend, okay?” Her dark eyes were sympathetic and yet understanding that this was something he had to do alone. Gently touching his arm as she came around the fountain, she moved past him and then he was alone. 

He stared at the column and struggled with the emotions evoked by what it represented. Gathering his courage, he stepped around the fountain and came up in front of the column and knelt. He gazed steadily at the four letters carved into the otherwise pristine surface of the stone; four letters that formed a name. A name he both reviled and worshiped, hated and loved. Reaching out, he placed his hand, fingers splayed, over those four letters. 

Clearing his throat, he opened his mouth to say something and yet nothing came out. He tried again. “I…I thought you might like this spot, Grandfather,” he said finally, his voice pitched low. “I know you always liked the sound of running water…”

Zelgadis lowered his hand and clenched it by his side and squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s time I laid you to rest, don’t you think? You’ve haunted me for long enough. It’s time I got on with the rest of my life. Time I left behind the ghosts of my past and looked towards my future. And I suppose I should thank you for what you’ve done, because if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have Amelia now.” His smile was sardonic. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that, though, because the man that brought that about isn’t the same man I’m talking to…Maybe someday,” he whispered. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to come here and say that, but not today. Not today.”

He looked up at the column again and spoke in a stronger voice. “But I suppose that will come in time.” He rose and dusted off his trousers. “Good-bye, Grandfather. I might stop by again…Just to see how you’re doing.” He reached forward and pulled the willow fronds back over the column and stepped back. “Rest well, Rezo,” he said softly before turning his back on the little memorial and the past it represented. He rounded the corner and held out his hands to the woman who was his future, and arm in arm they walked back to the Palace, leaving at least one ghost behind them. 

What are these hands for…
What are these arms for
If I can’t hold you through the night
What does this heart beat for
If I can’t lay by your side
You must know 
I was made for you

* * *

Epilogue

The marketplace in Seyruun is busy from before the sun is turning the eastern sky pearly grey to well after nightfall, especially during the summer months. Just about anything you want you can get in the marketplace in the White Magic Capital. 

It was nearly dusk when Amelia and Zelgadis walked through the marketplace back towards the Palace after a long day of meandering around the city, the diminutive Princess and her stern, ever-present escort. They were walking close enough that people had no doubts that the Princes had finally found a suitor even though it had not been officially announced yet. Aside from the fact that the two were seen everywhere together, they had that certain air about them. The way the Princess smiled at him and the way he would grin back at her, a grin that was meant for her and only her. 

They passed a small knot of people gathered around a man dressed in black with a black hat on the ground in front of him. He held a guitar across his lap and was lightly strumming the strings and singing something low and mournful. Zelgadis gave him only a quick glance as they passed, more intent on getting back to the Palace and out of the crowd. So it wasn’t until he’d passed the busker that he caught the faint tune that Coyote had sung to him in the desert.

His head snapped around as if he’d struck. He searched the crowd for the busker, backtracking to search for him. He was nowhere to be found, though; it was as if he’d simply vanished into the air. Even the small knot of people around him had thinned so there was nothing to prove that he’d ever been anything but figment of Zelgadis’ imagination. And yet he’d heard the tune…

“Zelgadis-san?” Amelia called from down the street. She turned to come back towards him when he held up his hand and started towards her. “Is something wrong?”

Shaking his head, he gestured to indicate they should head on back. “No. Just thought I heard something. It turned out to be my imagination.”

Amelia looked up at him curiously but didn’t say anything else. With one more glance backwards, Zelgadis followed along after her. 

From the shadows of the alley nearby, a man with black hair worn in long braids worked with blue and red beads turned his golden eyes to follow Zelgadis and Amelia as they walked back towards the Palace. He grinned to himself and pushed against the wall. Stepping out of the shadows, he put his hat on, slung his guitar over his shoulder, and strode through the crowds towards the city gates. His work here was done; he’d learned both the Chimera’s and the young Princess’ songs. Amazingly enough, the Chimera had learned from his song. Not many people had the courage or strength to turn their lives around like that; then again, there were not many people like this Chimera. 

Now, however, there were more songs for him to learn. Many more songs. Maybe he would catch up these friends of Zelgadis’ that had been in his dream. What were their names? Oh, yes. Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev. 

Whistling softly to himself, Coyote passed silently underneath the gates and disappeared into the thickening darkness. The only thing left to signify that he had ever been there was the scent of sweet herbs, cedar and sage, a flash of golden eyes, and a whispered word: Desperado…

Finis

 
Quotes from the prologue are from Soul Music by Terry Pratchett.

Shape Of My Heart, Sting
Desperado, The Eagles
I Was Made For You, Martin Page