An angel's smile is what you sell
You promise me heaven then put me through hell
—You Give Love a Bad Name Bon Jovi
Lina picked herself up off the cold stone floor of the balcony and headed back into the castle. She tried very hard not to look at that crazy sky or the endless wall. Keeping her eyes resolutely on the entrance to the tunnel that would take her back into the room with the table, she walked through it and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
She entered the room and pushed shut the doors behind her. Rubbing her hands against her arms, she shivered. It was cold in here. Supposing it was too much to ask Xellos for a cloak or a more practical change of clothing, she looked around for something she might be able to use to keep herself warm. There were always the drapes, she thought as she fingered them. Or the runner from the table. She could at least wrap it around her shoulders.
Wandering into the room, Lina spotted a door on the right hand wall, a door she hadn’t noticed before. Either hadn’t noticed or it hadn’t been there before—considering how the doors to this room had formed right before her eyes, she suspected it hadn’t been there until just moments ago. Lina approached it and opened it with caution.
Inside, she found a settee piled high with pillows and a deep red throw over the back. She caught it up gratefully and threw it around her shoulders. Feeling better for this, she looked around. There was nothing else in the room. As she looked at the settee, she realized how tired she was. And she didn’t want to sleep on the hard, cold floor, so she sank down on it gratefully. Just for a few minutes, she told herself as she laid back against the pillows. Just for a few minutes…
* * *
She woke to darkness. The room in which the settee had been was gone. The floor and walls were gone and replaced with featureless darkness. Sitting up, she looked around her for anything in this black, featureless plane.
Nothing.
This is getting monotonous, Lina thought to herself. There was nothing but darkness here; she knew because she’d been running through it for what seemed like days. "Can’t you try something different?" she shouted into the darkness.
Her words were swallowed up by the velvet darkness. It pressed in on her, threatening to choke her. She beat at it with her hands and it fell back.
"It’s going to take more than that to frighten me!" she shouted, jumping up and turning ‘round and ‘round. "Come out where I can see you!"
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of light. Spinning around so quickly she set her skirts to dancing around her, she turned to face it. It was a person—a person with golden hair. A single light shone down on them.
Her heart raced. Gathering up her skirts, she ran towards the light. As she got closer, she could tell it was the man she’d seen in her memories, the one with the golden hair that she loved. A name tried to force its way up out of her memories, but she still couldn’t quite recall it.
The man stood there under the light, motionless and facing away from her. A light wind lifted and stirred his hair so that it seemed to move with a life of its own.
"Hey!" she shouted as she got close. She reached out to him, and when he was but an arm’s length away, he turned to face her. What she saw on his face made her fall back with a scream. It was the man she’d seen, but his kind face was twisted with hate and anger, lips drawn back from a mouthful of sharply pointed teeth. His eyes…She gasped when she saw his eyes: Black pits that shown with an evil red light from within.
Backpedaling, she dodged a strike from his hands. As they whistled by, she could see the wicked, curving claws at the end of his fingers. Inhuman noises came from his throat as he leapt after her. Anger flooded her and she reached down into that power that was inside her and drew forth a bolt. With it, she struck down the phantom and watch in satisfaction as it dissolved into a million shreds of darkness.
"That was lame, Xellos!" she shouted. "Your phantoms don’t fool me!"
"Oh…?" The purple-haired priest materialized out of the darkness and stood in front of her. "Are you certain that they are phantoms?"
"I know."
"How do you know?" he persisted.
"I just know," she repeated. "You can try and twist my memories, but you can’t change what I know."
He just grinned at her in that annoying way of his. "Are you sure of that?" He waved the staff he held and more lights appeared around her. She looked around into faces of people she knew were familiar to her: A short, dark-haired girl; a man with stone skin and steel-grey hair; a tall, powerfully muscled man sporting an amazing amount of facial hair; a slim girl with long blonde hair. They looked blankly at her a moment then each of them underwent horrifying transformations into hideous parodies of themselves as their eyes went black, mouths opened in inhuman snarls, and they rushed her. Lina cut them down as easily as she had the first phantom.
"Are you certain they were really just phantoms?" Xellos asked again from behind her when the last one had been slashed into shreds. "How can you be so sure that you haven’t just destroyed all your friends?"
"I’ve already answered that! I know! I can tell that you’re just twisting the fabric of this place to create them. They aren’t real!"
His eyebrows arched under his straight-cut bangs. "Ah…I see." He turned and paced a bit in the darkness. "Then I guess I’ll have to change my tactics, then." He stopped and waved his staff: A large swirling mass appeared. It coalesced into a flat disc standing on edge in front of Lina. "Tell me what you see," he said into her ear.
She pulled away, repulsed by his closeness. Her eyes went to the disc and stared as the darkness lightened to reveal images. Stepping forward, she could see three figures on horses. In the lead was the stone-skinned man. Following him was the dark-haired girl, and bringing up the rear—
"Gau—" Lina cried, stepping forward and stretching out her hand towards the image. She stopped when she realized she almost remembered his name. The rest of it would not come, though.
She turned her attention back to the images as something caught her eye. Huge creatures leapt out of the forest on either side of the rode on which the three of them rode and attacked them. The two men leapt from their horses and drew their swords, cutting down the big monsters. They cast spell after spell into their midst. But it was to no avail; the creatures (trolls Lina’s memory provided), healed as quickly as they were cut down. The girl was struck down first; the two men whirled and converged on her. The tall blonde swordsman stood over her while the other man crouched by her, assessing her injuries. He stood, and Lina could see murderous rage on his face as he turned to face the trolls. There was blood on his hands, on his cloak, and he cast a spell that caused the ground to erupt into huge, stony spikes. Several trolls were impaled on them, but there were more to replace them.
Eventually, one got past the shorter man’s guard and ran him through with it’s short sword. It shrugged the Chimera’s body off its blade and turned to face the tall man.
He wasn’t faring very well; Lina could see that he had a bad slash on his left thigh and was at the end of his endurance. There was no way for him to defend himself from all directions at once, no matter how fast he was. A troll struck him down with its club and he fell under the mob. Clubs fell and when they were raised again, they were covered in blood—
As Lina screamed, the image dissolved into smoky vapors. She stumbled and fell to her knees, but was unable to take her eyes from that spot where she’d witnessed the deaths of her three friends. Panting, she fixed Xellos with a Death Glare. "That didn’t happen! It’s a lie!"
He spread his hands. "And how do you know that?" he asked. "What would I gain by showing you lies?"
"I don’t know. I don’t know," she said in a low, dangerous voice. She climbed back to her feet and faced him squarely, fists clenched at her sides. "But I know they’re not dead!"
He shook his head sadly. "Believe what you want, Lina-san. It doesn’t matter to me. You’ll be mine in the end."
Lina’s face went red. "Why? What do you want from me that you’d do this to me?" she demanded, her voice growing shrill.
Xellos’ eyes opened slightly and they glinted like amethyst’s in the directionless light. "What do I want from you? I don’t want anything from you; I want you!" He stepped forward. "There’s so much I can give you, Lina. All you have to do is quit fighting me and it’s yours. Power, all you could ever dream of, more than you could ever have as a human. You could live forever; all you have to do is agree to be mine. And only mine." His eyes were intense.
She backed away from him. "No," she whispered, truly terrified by the intensity in those eyes, that voice. "Never!"
His mouth twisted into a grimace of distaste. "Fine. But I hope you can live with the knowledge that you’re the cause of your friends’ demise."
Lina stared at the purple-haired man. "How am I responsible?"
"Who do you think sent those trolls after them?" he asked, a harsh edge to his voice. "I will not share you with anyone, Lina-san. No one." He paused and the finality of his words struck deep into her heart. "Think about that while you’re running from shadows." With that, he dissolved back into the darkness.
Lina continued to stare at that spot where Xellos had been standing. Could those have been true images? Could her friends really be lying dead on the road somewhere because of her? The throw around her shoulders slipped from stiff fingers and she sank down onto the cold, hard floor. She put her hands to her face and took several deep breaths. She would not start crying, she would not start crying, she told herself even as the sparkling tears leaked out from between her lashes and down her pale cheeks.
With a long shuddering breath, she finally get herself under control, and lifted her face from her hands. Those things had not happened. She had to keep telling herself that. He was lying—
And yet something from her memory told her that Xellos never lied; he merely twisted the truth. She could feel the tears beginning already. The thought of her friends lying dead on the road, beaten and slashed by the trolls, stole into her mind no matter how hard she fought it. It simply wouldn’t go away and she might never know…
Then it struck her—there was a way to find out. She folded her hands on her breast and concentrated on the tall blonde man’s face. She felt something respond inside of her and her heart leapt for joy—
Only to have that joy die as it was cut off abruptly. Lina cried out in physical pain as the connection was severed. She fought to re-establish it but nothing worked. Try as she might, she could not re-establish the calm she needed to feel the connection with him.
Hanging her head, she shivered and pulled the throw closer around her shoulders; however, the chill she felt wasn’t physical. Could she have imagined it? Or was it really gone? Her hair hung like a crimson curtain around her face as she sat, lost, alone and helpless in the dark.
* * *
Xellos watched Lina closely. Even though the scene he’d showed her had been fabricated for her benefit, he had thought that the sight of her friends being slaughtered would have affected her more than it did. Too bad they were still in Seyruun; it would have been more effective if he’d been able to show her the real thing. However, that meant either she was more callous than she let on, or—
He felt something stir in the darkness around him. Seizing on it, he found the power link that radiated off the sorceress and... He couldn’t tell where it went, but it seemed to be feeding strength into her. Was that how she was resisting him? Well, he could take care of that. With a wave of his staff, he blocked the flow. He heard her gasp with near physical pain as the power was cut off. He smiled a sad smile; he didn’t want to hurt her like this, but...He wanted her and was going to have her.
Sighing, Xellos put his chin in his hand and thought about the fire-witch. He was as helpless as she was. He saw that now; they needed each other. He could give her so much more than the swordsman ever could. He could give her power, more power than she ever dreamed of. He could give her long life; her magic wouldn’t keep her alive forever, yet he could. And that was only the beginning. So why would she resist him so much?
He sighed. She was just confused. She’d soon learn the error of her ways and then she would come to him. And he would have what he needed.
* * *
By some strange coincidence, on a road leading from the Capital City of Seyruun to the southern mountains, a small band of travellers (three to be exact) were being attacked by a horde of trolls.
"Watch out!" Zelgadis shouted over his shoulder at the others. The trolls broke from the cover of the forest and rushed them.
The three of them jumped off their horses; it was no good fighting trolls from horseback. The creatures were too large and would rip the horses right out from under them. They sent their already terrified mounts racing away out of danger then the three of them stood back to back, ready to defend each other.
"Amelia, you stay behind us," Gourry said. "Zel and I will keep them away from you while you use your spells. Zel?" The swordsman glanced over his shoulder at the Chimera.
The Shaman nodded. "We need to keep them from getting too close. Gourry, you and Amelia stick close to me." He switched his sword to his left and knelt on the ground. Amelia heard him whispering the words to a spell and readied her own spell.
"Dug Haut!" Zelgadis shouted. All around them the ground buckled upwards as huge stone spikes thrust themselves skyward. Each speared two or three trolls and knocked more back away from them, giving them room to maneuver.
Gourry leapt into the opening, slashing this way and that with his sword. It may not be the legendary Sword of Light, but it was incredibly sharp. And he was faster than most men, let alone a troll. By the time the trolls had even started to regroup, he’d fatally wounded a dozen and a dozen more were having to stagger back to recuperate while they healed.
"Flare arrow!" Amelia sent the spell directly into the group of injured trolls. The smell of charred meat and hair filled the clearing causing them to gag and retch. Zelgadis was laying about with his magically enhanced sword, and still they kept on coming.
"What we need right now," Gourry managed to get out between blows. "Is Lina’s ‘turn-them-inside-out’ spell." He swung his sword at a troll who tried to sneak past him and get at Amelia, cleaving it neatly in two. She cast an Elmekia Lance at it and its two companions coming up behind it.
"What did you say?" Zelgadis cast another spell at the group attacking him, sending them flying backwards.
Gourry, however, didn’t answer. The Chimera turned to see the swordsman down on one knee, a troll looming over him, impaled on his sword. There was a wet, crimson stain on the tall blonde man’s leg. Quickly, Zelgadis used his sword to help finish off the troll, heaving the corpse backwards into another knot of creatures. He held his hand out to the other man, who took it and pulled himself to his feet. His face was pale as he looked around.
The trolls were gone. The only things left in the clearing were the three of them and a ring of dead trolls. "Typical troll behavior," Zelgadis said as he turned to the wounded man. "The odds get too uneven and they’re gone." He went on one knee to examine the wound on Gourry’s leg. "It’s not bad; looks worse than it is. Long and deep."
"Easy for you to say," Gourry said through clenched teeth. "It still hurts like hell."
Zelgadis nodded. "I would have Amelia heal it here, but it’s too dangerous; those trolls know you were injured and they might return. I doubt it, but we can’t take that chance. You’ll just have to grin and bear it until we make camp." He wiped the blade of his sword on the corner of his traveling cloak and turned to Amelia. "Amelia, you help Gourry; I’ll go see if I can find the horses. Stick close to the road; I’m pretty sure there’s a good camping spot along the river there. I’ll be back as soon as I can."
"Okay, Zelgadis-san," Amelia said, coming up next to Gourry and putting her arm around his waist.
The tall man looked down at her and smiled. "Thanks, Amelia," he said, letting her help him. He hissed as he moved his leg. Amelia looked up at him questioningly. "I’ll be fine," he said. "I’ve been through worse."
She nodded and they continued on along the road.
Slayers copyright 1991-2000 by Hajime Kanzaka/Rui Araizumi/Kadokawa Shoten/TV
TOKYO/SOFTX/Marubeni.
The other characters copyright Wendy W Lee.