The first set of footfalls in probably a hundred years to find the dark
hallways were in no hurry to stick around. It wasn’t fear of the
morbid
rumors or the many blessings and/or curses thrown their way upon their
inquiries that fueled their pace; it was impatience and a fear of being
beaten for asking to slow down.
“Linnnnnaaaaaaa!”
“I told you, Gourry, it should be right up here!”
“You could have at least helped me out with all those booby traps back
there!”
“What’re you talking about? I helped you with the first batch,
remember?”
“You opened the door!”
“Right, I did my part. Now shut up, we’re getting close and I wanna be
able
to hear anything we may have to deal with inside.”
Ever mindful of his partner’s instincts, Gourry closed his mouth and
opened
his ears, hands tightening on the hilt of his sword. Waiting a
suitable
amount of time to both check for traps and satisfy the dramatic streak
she
would forcibly deny she had, Lina carefully nudged into the room. All
was
still. Satisfied that there wasn’t any immediate threat, the
sorceress’s
waiting Fireball dissipated, though she was sure to have the spell
ready in
case something should come up.
“All those booby traps outside and nothing here?” Gourry asked from
where he
had been flanking his partner in crime. “That seems kind of strange.”
Inwardly Lina agreed. It didn’t make any sense, and she doubted the
people
who built this place were stupid enough to think that the periphery
defenses
would be enough to stop anyone truly determined. Especially since the
Scrolls of Remeed were known about only in advanced magical circles,
and
then only taken for truth by the truly brilliant or insane. Lina,
being the
former if not the latter, had heard of them and immediately decided
they
must be hers. It had been a painstaking and time-consuming ordeal to
track
down all the mages in the land who knew even a little about the obscure
myth. Being the canny young woman she was, Lina had carefully and with
much
forethought beaten the information out of them (and in the process
gotten
more insight into their personal lives than she ever cared to know).
After months of fruitless searches, she and Gourry had run across
a hot lead purely on chance and had now finally hit the jackpot. Only
it
seemed fate had once more set an obstacle for them to hurdle before they would
claim
the prize.
“EYYYYYAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” Lina’s shriek echoed painfully off the close
bare
walls. “Where is it??? It has to be here!!!” Her wiry body lept
around
the tiny room with almost inhuman energy seemingly powered by her
mouth.
“Oi, Lina,” Gourry ventured when she paused to catch her breath, “could
someone else have gotten here first?”
After thoroughly beating him for stating the painfully obvious, she
grumpily
marched back to their inn, Gourry still rubbing his sore head. All the
way
through her seven course meal she turned the situation over in her
head,
trying from every possible angle. Even in the huge building there had
only
been the one room. It had been designed specifically to hold the
scrolls,
there was no staff to house nor patrons to cater to. And in that room
there
was only the pedestal in the very center. No shelves, no doorways, no
tables, simply stone, and she had checked the walls for secret
compartments
or passageways. Judging from the amount of dust she’d seen accumulated
around the edge of the top of the pedestal and almost complete lack
thereof
in the center where the scrolls should have been, she would guess that
whoever had reached them first had been there very recently, perhaps
only a
day or so before her. Perfect. No one looks for the damned things for
eons, then as soon as she gets there someone else beats her to it.
Even
managed to get to them without setting off all the traps set all
through the
fortress. Whoever they had been were most likely long gone, her prize
with
them.
“Lina?” Gourry blinked quizzically at her from across the table. She
realized she had been chewing at the same chicken bone for several
minutes,
too lost in thought to notice.
“Sorry, Gourry, I was just thinking.” She tossed the bone aside and
attacked a plate of pasta with renewed gusto.
“Oh. What about?”
“About what I’ll do to the jerk that got the scrolls before us if I
ever get
my hands on hi--”
A carefully wrapped and tied bit of cloth clattered noisily to the
table
before her, narrowly missing what remained of her meal. A figure stood
not
too far off, concealed in the shadows of the dimly lit room. As he
advanced
on them, Gourry shifted slightly, hands on the hilt of his sword, and
Lina
already had a Flare Arrow ready to go, needing only to be cast. So far
their mysterious visitor hadn’t made any threatening moves, but one
didn’t
survive in the mercenary
business as long as those two had by trusting too easily.
The stranger stopped at the edge of their table, looking at them
expectantly
in the torchlight. Lina squinted slightly at him, his hood revealing
nothing of his features and yet striking a familiar chord in her
memory. A
synapse fired and she mentally berated herself for being such an idiot,
letting her spell disperse. Before she could react further, however,
he
drew his hood back, wire hair clinking slightly and catching the light
unnaturally.
“Zel!” Gourry’s surprise soon matched Lina’s delight and his sword
slid
back to rest in its scabbard. The solemn young man nodded back, the
hint of
a smile lurking around the corners of his mouth, and accepted their
invitation to sit. They exchanged pleasantries and brought each other
up to
speed on what they had been doing for the past year. Neither Lina nor
Zelgadis had changed physically, and Gourry’s only difference was his
hair
getting a bit longer and his
looking a bit closer to twenty-five than twenty-three.
At the young sorceress’s question, Zel revealed that he had learned
they
were in town when he overheard gossip of a young flame-haired girl and
her
bodyguard asking about the Scrolls of Remeed and threatening to blow up
half
the town if the food service had been any slower. Her memory jogged,
Lina
looked down at her present and practically tore the cloth from it.
What she
found didn’t really surprise her, but it did bring a smile to her face.
“Huh? The scrolls!” Gourry, on the other hand, was not as quick on
the
uptake.
Zel nodded sagely and gestured towards Lina, who was busy cooing over
the
ancient artifacts. “Keep them. They’re of no use to me.”
A frown crossed her youthful face and she scanned the carefully penned
runes
a bit more closely.
“But if you don’t need them,” Gourry asked, “why did you take them?”
Zel sighed wearily, collecting his thoughts, Lina still frowning over
scripture. “I thought they might contain a possible cure. From
legend,
these scrolls were supposed to hold the key to altering reality. This
is
why virtually no one knows about them. Back when they were first
penned,
there was such a fear of their power and the potential for disaster
that
they were sealed away, never to meet human eyes again. Soon the
knowledge
of it was lost but to a few well-read souls, passing into obscurity and
myth.” The chimera paused to take a sip from his ever present coffee
mug.
“But it appears that something was lost in the translation over the
decades.
The scrolls say nothing of altering reality, but instead have
instructions
on casting spells to see across dimensional barriers.”
“So you can see alternate realities?” Lina piped up, the dim light
dancing
in her eyes. Zel simply nodded, disappointment hidden beneath stone
and
shadow. Lina crowed and clutched the parchment to her slim frame, eyes
a-sparkle.
“But Lina,” Gourry looked confused again, “they don’t do what you
thought
they did. You still want them?” A plate bounced off his head.
“Of course I do! They’re still the legendary Scrolls of Remeed, who
cares
if the legend was a little garbled? This is way better anyway! Not to
mention a lot less dangerous.” She cast a glance in Zel’s direction,
neverminding that she had been looking for them earlier herself.
His own stare was just as accusatory. “You’re actually going to use
them?”
“Of course I am! You think I’m just going to let an opportunity like
this
pass me by? A chance to see how my life turned out if something was
just a
little different? Ne, Zel, I’d think you of all people would want to
see
that.”
“Why would I?” His tone was icy and unnecessarily harsh. “To see
myself
with everything I never had? All my dreams made reality to some other
me,
close enough for me to see but never to touch, to have? Or to see
myself
with less than I have now, burning in my own private hell? I don’t
know
which would be worse.” His eyes fixed hers with an intense gaze, ice
and
fire at a standoff. “There are some things one is better off not
knowing,
Lina. Especially about
themselves.”
Silence reigned at their dark little table, no one having anything to
add to
that grim statement. Finally, Lina pushed her chair back, and
gathering the
scrolls in her arms and tossing a bit of change on the table, declared
she
was going to bed. Looking a bit relieved, Gourry bid a more cheerful
goodnight, wandering off to his own room, leaving the chimera to sit in
his
shadows.
Only when he had heard both of their doors close did Zel allow himself
to
look to where they had gone, a crease of concern marring his forehead.
He
truly hoped Lina wouldn’t be foolhardy enough to use them, but he knew
it
was in vain. Lina would do what she wanted, and nothing anyone could
say
would change that.
~ ~ ~
Setting the scrolls on her bedside table, Lina scoffed at her friend’s
cryptic remarks. What was so wrong with seeing how things would have
turned
out in a different life? If another you had it better, then you could
be
happy in that somewhere you were mind-blowingly happy, and maybe even
pick
up a few pointers on how to improve your own life along the way. If
another
you had it worse off, you could rejoice in the fact that your life
didn’t
suck that badly after all. Whiney ol’ Zel just had to go and see the
worst
in everything, as usual. He’d been a “glass is half empty” type of guy
the
entire time she’d known him. Amelia and Gourry were “glass half full”
types
if she’d ever seen them. Lina just wanted to know who the hell had
been
drinking out of her glass and how to get a free refill.
Half undressed and sitting in front of an old vanity, a brush absently
running through her hair, Lina became more and more annoyed at her
stony
associate. Since she had met him years ago he had made amazing
progress in
his people skills, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him now. But
four
years ago, instead of hand-delivering the scrolls and sticking around
to
converse over coffee, he would have left the items at the front counter
for
her and been gone before she got back. If he’d have given them to her
at
all, that is.
A smile touched the corner of her mouth as she remembered the old days,
before Trickter Priests and Dragon Maidens. It had been less than half
a
decade and yet a lifetime had passed since then. They had all come
such a
long way, looking back she saw people she could not believe she knew.
They
were still the same, yet different in so many smaller ways, like the
people
she had met were echoes of the people they were to become, more
charicatures
of their truer selves. Bonds had been forged, friendships made, loves
kindled and lost, responsibilities discovered, and courage revealed.
It had
been fantastic, a wonderland journey with good times, bad times, more
bad
times, weird times, and frusterating times. But she wouldn’t trade
them for
a thing, and she doubted any of the others would either.
And yet...
The reflection of the scrolls found her eye, temptation knawing at her.
They sat so innocently at the table, so harmless looking. And what
harm
could really come of it? She couldn’t change the past, nor would she
want
to. But maybe something in there could help her have a better future,
and
what harm could possibly come of that? She could have a brighter
tomorrow
and get the last laugh on Zel for once. Serve him right for being so
serious all the time, the stuffy bastard.
Setting the hairbrush down, she marched over to the table and grabbed
the
scrolls, leafing through for the instructions. Maybe if she was lucky
she’d
get some really juicy dirt on Zel she could loard over him at
breakfast.
"The Slayers" is the product of Software Sculptors, Tokyo TV, Enoki Films Co., Ltd., Monthly Dragon Magazine, Weekly Comic Dragon, Fujimi Books, Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, and Kadokawa Publishing Co., Ltd.
