Slayers Fan Fiction ❯ Flam Gush ❯ Chapter 14
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
Flam Gush 14
She watched him sleep, truly seeing him for the first time in a very long time. There were dark circles under his eyes, silent testimony of the strain he had been under. Bruises had faded to a sickly, but pale, yellow, a wrenching indication of how much time had passed.
Time. It was hard to believe that so much had gone by. He was familiar, but at the same time, he had changed. The only question was how much. Could she trust him?
For now, Lina chose caution above all else. The metal pin Elaina had given her thrummed in her hand. She could feel the power in it, although she was not exactly sure what to do with it. Gingerly, and carefully, she held it between thumb and forefinger, twisting her head and squinting to try to get a good look at it. It looked just as it felt, basically like a smooth dull-iron rod. It fit nicely in her palm, and its power was strangely soothing. Although Lina's hands were stiff from disuse and poor circulation, her fingers closed easily over the metal rod, and her right arm felt strangely refreshed.
Okay, so it helped her circulation. Was that all? Lina considered. Although it was clear the rod had some type of magical power, it was not activating the beads. Was it possible that it could counteract the beads? She tried casting a simple spell, just a trick really, not even anything as strong as a light spell, and immediately the pain arced up her body. She bit her lips against the scream, having no desire to wake Ryan. So much for that idea.
Lina was fully aware that it was possible that the rod did nothing more than make her arm feel refreshed, although she seriously doubted it. Why else would Elaina go to the trouble of giving it to her? At any rate, she had little better to do at the moment, so she continued her investigation.
Maybe if she touched the rod to one of the beads? Given the fact that she had very little slack, this required a very careful manipulation of rod and fingers, and she was heartily grateful that she seemed to have retained her manual dexterity. Even so, she almost dropped it a couple of times. If only it were a bit longer! But then, it would not hide so neatly in the palm of her hand, either. Finally, she made contact between rod and bead, waiting expectantly and hoping for something . . . anything . . .
Nothing.
She wanted to howl in frustration. Instead, she grit her teeth and moved on to the next item on her mental list. Maintaining the contact between rod and beads, she focused a small pulse of power in her right hand. She started with a short burst, and figured she would work her way up in intensity.
Lina squinted down her arm. The bead had crumbled into a powdery substance. The good news was that it only took a minimal amount of magic. The bad news was that she could only neutralize one bead at a time and she was unable to affect the underlying wire.
This was going to take a while.
******************
The moonlight streamed in through the window, leeching all color and casting the room into a stark contrast of shadow and pools of opalescence. There was no warmth in the pale glow.
The light called him. Gourry awkwardly pushed himself out of the bed, and half-staggered into the largest pool on feet that alternatively burned and went numb. He stood, bathed in the pale glow of moonlight, hearing it whisper half-coherent promises. It spoke of escape from all pain.
Pain. Pain was once again awakening to find himself alone. Pain was the near-constant burning in his limbs, the ache of abused belly that could barely tolerate weak tea.
Ah, but it need not be like this, the moon whispered in his ear, soft and seductive, like a lover. He lifted his face to the full orb that hung low in the sky, pregnant and inviting, a mischievous capricious woman who taunted him, called him closer with a siren cry.
Fingers that had lost much of their former dexterity fumbled with the latch that held the window closed. A soft cool breeze rifled through his hair, adding its sibilant promise to that of the moon.
Come, they called. Come to us. Be free!
Free! Gourry echoed as he stared at the moon. She dipped closer to him, held out her hand, promising him release. The breeze surrounded him, caressed him, supported him.
Gourry stepped out of the second story window to grasp the hand of the moon.
******************
With each bead, it got easier. As each one collapsed into a fine white powder, the pain lessened—it was barely perceptible, but it was there. Lina quickly discovered however, that while less pain made it easier to concentrate, she still had difficulty tapping into her full potential. No wonder Erik had scoffed at her. She might eliminate the pain caused by the beads, but the circlet on her head still sealed the magic, even if improperly and incompletely.
A tiny part of her screamed that she was stripping herself of any protection. The threat of pain seemed to be the only thing that kept Erik from touching her. A small jolt, and another bead crumbled into dust. Even if she could destroy all of the beads—and it remained to be seen if she could do so—she still had the wire and the manacles to contend with. With a grunt, she destroyed yet another, working as quickly and methodically as she could, in spite of the chaotic whirling of her thoughts. And that was just one arm. She had yet to figure out how she was going to get the rod over to the other hand . . . Still, the pain was the major obstacle keeping her pinned to the wall at the moment. She was just going to take this one step at a time. One bead at a time. She pressed her lips into a thin line as she carefully maneuvered the metal rod. Patience was never her virtue, and it was being stretched awfully thin at the moment.
“So, what's your plan?”
Lina jerked involuntarily at Ryan's question, nearly loosing her grip on the metal rod. “No plan,” she bit out between clenched teeth. Her neck positively ached from craning it, trying to get a better view of the beads looped around her wrist. “I'm just making this up as I go.” She steeled herself against the jolt, and then sighed in barely suppressed frustration. One more down . . . who knew how many more to go? It may be getting easier, but it was not getting any less tedious.
“Neat trick,” Ryan observed. “So that's how it works, huh?”
Lina fought the urge to hurl the metal rod at Ryan when his stupid comment nearly made her drop it. Never mind that he was breaking her concentration with inane observations, the fact that he could tell what she was doing from across the room could mean one of two things: the missing beads were so obvious that anyone could see (which meant that she had better be finished before anyone showed up—a near impossible task under the best of circumstances), or he knew about the pin, and had chosen not to say anything about it until now. “Exactly how long,” she said, enunciating very carefully and deliberately as she tried to focus her attention on the task at hand, “have you been watching me?”
“You don't trust me,” Ryan answered bitterly. “Do you.” His tone made it a statement, rather than a question.
“Why'd you tell Erik that I could only cast light?” Lina shot back in a scathing tone. “Doesn't exactly inspire trust, you know. Not to mention the fact that I saw you chasing after him in Levahn, and he set you up to kill Gourry—”
“When did I—” Ryan cut himself off with visible effort, and took a deep breath. “I-I only told him . . . because I hoped it would discourage him . . . He thought he had sealed your magic completely . . . I—”
“Of all the stupid, idiotic,” Lina interrupted, finding a ready target for her frustration. “If I weren't stuck in these stupid chains, I'd fireball you into tomorrow! Don't you know that information is incredibly valuable! If I wanted Erik to know what I could do, I would've given him a demonstration! Sheesh, and I thought Jellyfish-for-Brains was stupid, but you—” She broke off and swallowed hard, wondering what had happened to Gourry.
“I . . .” Ryan trailed off and swallowed hard. “He's . . . obsessed . . . with you . . . with possessing you . . .” He looked visibly ill.
If he was acting, he was doing an awfully good job of it. She found herself torn between angry suspicion and . . . a very strange emotion. It was part sympathy and part disgust for his sniveling. Sure, things had not exactly been a walk in the park for either of them, but he should just take these things like a man. Lina closed her eyes, clearly seeing Gourry walking beside her through a forest glade, telling her that she should take her hunger like a man. It made the contrast between him and Ryan all the more stark.
“He told me, you know,” Ryan forced out in a strangled sounding voice. “About that day . . . in the barn . . .”
Lina recoiled, and she could feel the panic welling up in her once again. Her own memory of that day was so raw, so recently brought to the surface. Even now, she fought the urge to cringe, remembering how helpless she had felt, the desperate terror, and the sharp tearing sensation of being split apart in violence.
“I . . . I'm sorry,” Ryan whispered.
“Sorry?” Lina asked, surprised. “What do you have to be sorry about? You're not the one who raped me!” The words burst forth before she could censor them.
Ryan blanched.
Lina forced herself to continue, forced herself to say something—anything—to break the power of that horrible memory. “At least . . . at least I had . . . a way to defend myself . . . at least I discovered . . . the magic—”
“That's sick!” Ryan burst out.
“It's better than wallowing!” she returned with equal heat. “It happened. I can't change it! You can't change it!”
“But it changed everything, didn't it?” he asked bitterly. “That's why you broke our engagement, isn't it?”
“Why I . . .” Lina trailed off, flabbergasted, her mind working furiously. And suddenly, it all made sense. All the little pieces fit together: why Luna had told her to go and travel the world, why Ryan seemed so wistful every time he looked at her, why Gourry had thought that she had broken it off . . . “Let me guess,” she said bitterly. “Your parents sat you down and told you I had broken it off, right? Some time after I left for the Sorcerers' Guild?”
“What are you saying?” Ryan asked angrily, “that my parents lied?”
“Who told you Erik was dead?” Lina answered quietly. “My parents told me that you broke it off. Right before I left for training.”
Ryan stared at her with growing horror in his eyes. Lina's heart wrenched, wondering how much more he could take. She ached for what they had once had, even if she could not regret its loss. Part of her railed against their parents for making such an important decision for them . . . And for what purpose? Lina closed her eyes. Yes. It all made sense. For the honor of the family, Erik was disowned, disavowed—for them, he probably became dead, even if he refused to actually roll over and die . . . Was that why her parents had sent her to the Guild? For training, certainly. Even with the help of Luna and her mother, she still had too much raw talent to control it without proper guidance. She had been surprised—albeit extremely relieved—when they encouraged her to travel. In her mind's eye, she could see Luna ruffling her hair and telling her to go see the world . . . to grow up strong and wise . . .
She had left everything behind and had never even looked back. Like she had told Gourry, it was done and over. Gone. Almost.
“Ryan—”
“Don't say it,” he interrupted, a look of panic flitting across his face.
Lina sighed internally. How well they knew each other, even now, even after all this time apart. But even if he knew what she was going to say, she still had to speak the words aloud. “I really did love you—I would've happily spent my life with you . . . but . . . there's no going back.” And even if it were possible to go back, too much had happened. She had no desire to live that life anymore.
“I told you not to say it,” he replied bitterly, pinching the bridge of his nose. The silence stretched out, a tense and awkward thing between them. “It's him, isn't it?” he finally asked.
There was no need to ask which “him” he meant. “A lot of it is,” she admitted. Gourry had become such an enormous part of her life, and even without the dimension of their recent physical intimacy, even if things were still between them as they had been for such a long time, she still would choose him over Ryan. It was brutal, but it was true. Gourry fit who she had become. Ryan . . . she could still read him, but she also knew that he had changed, even as she had. “Not all of it, though. I think . . . we're on . . . different paths, now.”
He looked at her without answering for the longest time. “Yeah,” he finally replied. “You're . . . still you, I can see it in your eyes, but you're not, too. You're different.” He laughed, although it sounded more forced than genuine. “More confident—someone who can look trouble in the face without running. Who woulda thought, huh?”
Lina winced a bit at the memory of the girl she had been. She really had gotten them into such outrageous messes, and he had been the one to bail them out or take the heat more often than not. “You ain't seen nothin' yet,” she replied with a mock-feral smile. “Now, shut up and let me work.”
“Not everything's changed,” Ryan responded, and this time his smile was genuine. “Still the same old bossy Lina.”
She bit back the urge to retort that he always had to get the last word in. With a shrug, she turned her attention back to neutralizing beads.
******************
Gourry struggled to get air back into his lungs. Part of him wondered how he had ended up flat on his belly in a pile of hay. He had a vague recollection of staring at the puddles of moonlight on a floor . . . everything was distant and disconnected, like the memory of a dream. Maybe he was dreaming now. It was harder and harder for him to tell the difference, and while a small part of his mind was very disturbed by that fact, the rest of him found it difficult to care.
Right now, whether it was dream or reality, he had somehow gotten the wind knocked out of him. Long term experience told him that it was just a matter of time, and that panic would not help anything. Still, feeling like a gasping fish out of water was a distinctly unpleasant sensation. It was even worse than the burning pain he had been experiencing lately.
Finally, his lungs obeyed him, and he drew a long shuddering breath.
He flipped over onto his back and stared at the stars. They were dim, overshadowed by the pearly luminescence of the full moon and the ruddy glow of guttering torches scattered around the village square. In their flickering light, the moon seemed to grow and pulse. She looked angry. Gourry found himself cringing involuntarily under her baleful gaze.
A soft breeze gusted around the torches, causing them to dip and flare. And then, apparently bored with the torches, she fluttered over to him, playfully lifting stray strands of his hair so that they tickled his face. The flow of air soughing over his skin felt reassuring, almost as if the breeze was protecting him from the moon. He could almost hear her sigh an affirmative as she puffed softly in his ear.
He could close his eyes against the accusatory glare of the moon, but he could still feel her anger pulsing, just out of reach, even through the reassuring shield of the breeze. He threw his forearm over his eyes, trying to block out the moon, to no avail.
What did she want from him? She radiated disapproval, but also . . . was it a touch of desperation?
The breeze danced over his face, lingering on his parted lips, and then he heard her address the moon. “I don't want to lose him,” she said in a voice with a slight petulant edge.
“I've told you how we can fix that,” the moon replied in rich voice. She spoke in the tone of one accustomed to wielding authority.
“It's too risky!” the breeze wailed, obviously upset.
Gourry lay in the hay forgotten, as the moon and the breeze argued over . . . what? Their voices pulsed in his ears, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“Not that risky.” The moon pressed her case, sounding smoothly persuasive. Gourry tentatively peeked at her, just barely lowering his forearm. She still pulsed, but she no longer glared at him.
“What about my uncle?” There was just the slightest hint of desperation in the breeze's question. Gourry wondered idly that a gust of moving air could have an uncle. “Maybe—”
“Deremar doesn't sneeze without Erik's permission,” the moon interrupted, her voice full of scorn. “And you know it, too.”
Deremar . . . Erik . . . the names had a familiar ring to them and filled him with a sense of foreboding far worse than the baleful glare of the moon. He had the sudden and awful nagging sense that he was forgetting something important . . . something crucial . . .
The breeze swirled in agitation, sounding uncannily like the rustle of heavy skirts. There was a loud thunk, followed by a creak, and then the voice of the moon called out, even louder than before, “You promised to help.”
With a sigh, the breeze stopped. “I promised him, too,” she said quietly.
“All you have to do is tell me where,” the moon—who was starting to sound a lot like his mother—continued. “You can even tell him that you tried to stop me . . . and then we'll both have what we want.”
“What about Gourry?” He started at hearing his name, and steeled himself, just in case the moon decided to glare at him again, reminded of his presence with that simple question.
“He should sleep for a while, don't you think?” Odd. Now the moon sounded both bitter and amused. She was not too terribly observant though, if she took his hiding behind his arm as a sign that he was asleep. It reminded him of the small child who thought he was hiding from everyone else whenever he closed his eyes.
The breeze had no reply; she just waited in silent expectation.
“I-I don't know how much longer he can hold out . . .” For the first time, the cool confident mask slipped aside, revealing desperation in the moon's broken whisper. “We're running out of time!”
“He's not going to be happy.” The breeze rustled once again, sounding just as unhappy as she thought “he” would be, but Gourry had the sense that she was wavering and seriously considering the moon's request. He wondered what it was that the moon wanted so desperately.
“I'll take care of it,” the moon announced, her voice confident, once again sounding like the lady of the keep.
“Promise?” The breeze sounded both nervous and hopeful.
“Promise.”
The crunch of boot heels on gravel distracted Gourry from the conspiracy hatched between the moon and the breeze. He followed their very audible progress as they moved farther away from him. And then the breeze was whispering in his ear, once more.
“Follow me,” she said. “I'll show you the way, but we have to go quick, while she's not looking.”
Gourry glanced up, and noticed that a cloud had covered the moon. “Is that your uncle?” he asked.
A silvery peal of laughter was her only response. With sibilant tugs on his hair, she led him unerringly in the direction the booted footsteps had gone. In the distance, he saw a large black shadow, looming ominously and blotting out the stars behind it.
“The Dark Keep,” the breeze whispered, sounding both awed and frightened. “The princess awaits you there.”
“What must I do?” he asked, feeling very much like the hero in half-remembered childhood tales.
“What else?” the breeze answered in surprise. “Storm the keep, kill the monster, save the princess.”
Save the princess. No matter what else happened, no matter the odds, he had to save the princess. Gourry clenched his hands, not even noticing how they shook and refused to completely obey the command he was sending. The breeze blew stronger, billowing his shirt so that he felt like he was wearing a heroic white cape. He puffed his chest with pride, his thoughts full of the tiny princess with the flame hair whom he was pledged to protect and serve. Oblivious to the fact that he was missing sword and armor, and that the billowing white cloth behind him was nothing more than a simple shirt, he fixed his attention on the Dark Keep ahead.
Gourry was storming the castle, and heaven help anyone who got in his way.
******************
A hiss from Ryan alerted her to the commotion outside the cell, and Lina hurried to finish one last bead before concealing the metal rod in her fist. She heard an unfamiliar feminine voice, one that commanded imperiously. It sounded like someone was trying to get past guards? Lina strained her ears, trying to figure out what was going on.
Before she could put anything coherent together, the door to the cell burst open. Two women stood on the threshold. One was about Lina's height with elaborately coifed curly blonde hair. The other woman stood about a head taller, completely cloaked in an air of regality. Lina recognized them both.
As Lucilla whispered something in Lady Gabriev's ear, she stared at Lina with her eyes filled with loathing. Although she wore a grin of smug self-satisfaction, Lina could not help but notice that she seemed nervous about something. Maybe it was all the jerky glances she kept throwing over her shoulder. It was definitely odd to see someone look nervously behind them, only to turn back and glare daggers. Lady Gabriev turned her ruined face unerringly in Lina's direction as she drew a plain dagger from the folds of her skirt.
“Now, Lina Inverse,” Lady Gabriev announced in a voice throbbing with emotion as she advanced unerringly to stand a mere hands breath from where Lina was chained to the wall. “Now, you will pay for your foul crimes against the Gabrievs!”
Lina watched in horror and confusion as Lady Gabriev extended the dagger before her. She only realized that she was in mortal danger as she felt the blade scraping against her ribs.
Her first thrust had missed the mark. Although the sudden sharp pain that erupted just beneath her breast hurt like hell, Lina knew she was not seriously injured. It was just a flesh wound—maybe a broken rib at the worst—as the dagger had hit bone rather than sliding through.
Lady Gabriev laughed. “I should slice you to ribbons! Fitting retribution, don't you think?” She ran her hands over Lina's body, her fingers tracing along Lina's breastbone, and then finding the gap between ribs, stopping unerringly over Lina's heart. “Just a thrust right here . . .” she placed the dagger on the spot marked by her fingers and slowly pressed it into Lina's flesh. “You don't deserve a quick death,” she hissed in a voice full of hate, “but I'm running out of time.”
Lina was dimly aware that several people were yelling. She could feel the blood welling up in the gash along her ribs, running down over her midriff in warm rivulets. Her shock over the sudden attack was heightened by its source. Why was Gourry's mother trying to kill her? It made no sense! And how could she defend herself? Instinctively, Lina tried to cast a wind spell to push Lady Gabriev back without hurting her, but as the familiar feel of intense electrical energy arced through her body, it was matched by the sharp pain of the dagger sliding through flesh and scraping against bone. Her concentration shattered, Lina stared stupidly at the dagger impaled in her flesh, barely even registering that she had somehow pushed Lady Gabriev back—she lay in a heap of heavy skirts..
“Stop!” a man roared. “Back off, Gisella! Now!”
Lady Gabriev drew a small knife from her boot and pulled herself up from the floor gasping. The fingers of her right hand scrabbled over Lina's body, looking for the dagger, while her left hand slashed indiscriminately with the knife, leaving shallow slices on Lina's torso and abdomen. “You promised me her death!” she screeched. “Now I'm going to take it!”
Gourry's mother was trying to kill her. Lina had no idea why, but the woman was nearly crazed with hate. Blood oozed from the multiple gashes Lady Gabriev was inflicting. She had to do something—anything—but it was Gourry's mother . . . Lina stared in horror as questing fingers came closer to the dagger impaled over her heart.
“Gisella, No!”
There was no time left. Lady Gabriev's fingers brushed against the dagger, and her lips curled in a triumphant smile. “You can't stop me now, Erik!” she shouted as her arm tensed up to thrust the dagger into Lina's heart.
This was it. After all the bandits, monsters, crazed copies, and Dark Lords she had faced, she was going to die in some stinking dungeon, pinned to the wall and draped in pink silk. How ignominious.
Time slowed, stretched out. Lina heard the steely rasp of a sword being drawn from its sheath, and the thud of boot heels on the rough cobble-paved floor. She felt Lady Gabriev's hot breath on her flesh, and warm blood—her own—here flowing copiously, there merely oozing. Lady Gabriev's hand closed on the dagger, but before she could plunge it in, there was a cry of fury that caused her to flinch.
Erik pulled Lady Gabriev off Lina, violently hurling her to the floor. Lady Gabriev rolled, coming to her feet a short distance away, holding the dagger in one hand and the knife in the other. Part of Lina marveled at her tenacity and skill. Even blinded, she still moved with grace and an easy comfortable confidence with the weapons she held.
Suddenly, Lina felt a searing pain in her left arm. Even faster than her eyes could follow, Lady Gabriev had thrown her knife at Lina. It had sliced deeply into muscle before impacting against the wall and clattering to the floor. Erik roared and lunged forward with his weapon—the replica Sword of Light that Gourry had claimed from Ryan. Amazingly Lady Gabriev parried his thrust and countered with a slicing move that left a long shallow gash across Erik's midriff. Erik was a capable enough fighter, but no where near good enough to match Gourry, or his mother apparently.
Almost immediately, she turned and renewed her assault on Lina. Her single-mindedness was astonishing. Erik dashed forward, his sword extended, and pulled Lady Gabriev violently back, once again. But this time, instead of hurling her to the ground, he pulled her onto his sword. There was a wet tearing sound as Lady Gabriev was impaled. Her hands dropped the dagger she was holding and closed convulsively around the blade emerging through the center of her chest.
“No . . .” she said softly, in a voice of frank disbelief. And then hands suddenly nerveless fell limply to her side.
Erik said nothing. Although tears streamed down his face, his attention was solely focused on Lina. She had never liked being the center of his attention. But now, as he stared at her over the shoulder of Lady Gabriev's body, she suppressed a shudder at what she saw in his face. Underneath sadness and regret, Lina could clearly see stark panic as he visually appraised her wounds, seemingly in an attempt to assure himself that she was still breathing. The way he looked at her made her feel . . . less than human. It was if she were a prized possession—a thing to be treasured and protected—rather than a person with her own hopes, desires, and volition. There was an underlying ruthless implacability, in spite of the tears. He was determined to have her on his own terms, regardless of the price to the people around him—regardless of her own inclinations.
At last, the macabre tableau ended as Lady Gabriev collapsed onto the floor of the dungeon, looking like a child's discarded rag doll.
Apparently satisfied that Lina was bloodied, but not broken, Erik shouted for a maid to come tend Lina's wounds. Then he did something very strange. With a sigh, he knelt beside Lady Gabriev's body, bowing his head for a moment. Then he stood up and motioned to Elfred, the infamous steward who had crossed their paths several times, now. Lina had not even seen him come in. “Have someone take her body to Deremar,” he said quietly, his voice hitching ever so slightly. “Tell him to make whatever arrangements he thinks appropriate.” He paused and turned to look at Lucilla, who had collapsed into a heap in the threshold and was muffling her sobs in her heavy skirts. “As for the Lady Lucilla,” he growled with a menacing undertone, “have her escorted to my chambers. She and I are going to have a . . . long talk.”
Elfred bowed obsequiously and started shouting orders down the corridor while Erik closed the distance between him and Lucilla in two strides. He grabbed a hank of her hair, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Start working on your story,” he said with a feral grin. “I'm rather looking forward to hearing it.”
Lucilla bit back her sobs. “You didn't have to kill her,” she said just barely louder than a whisper.
“It was your job to keep her under control,” Erik savagely bit out. “If I have to clean up after your mistakes, I choose my methods.” He grabbed her elbow and hauled her up to her feet, pushing her in the direction of one of the guards. “Take her,” he barked out as he turned his attention back to Lina.
“What's going on here?” she demanded angrily, as she tried to make sense out of everything that had just happened. Although several of the pieces refused to slot neatly into place, one thing was absolutely clear: she had no idea what she was going to say to Gourry about his mother being murdered . . . again.
“It looks like I'm out of practice,” Erik replied with a weak attempt at a self-deprecating grin. “It's been a long time since I've had to protect you, Lina.”
Lina's blood started to boil. For this man who was the bane of her childhood, who had assaulted her in the worst way possible, to claim to have protected her was ludicrous! She struck back immediately, in a manner calculated to do maximum damage. “There's only one man who can call himself my protector!” Lina retorted angrily. “And it's not you, Erik!”
“Is that so?” Erik asked in a cold tone. Without breaking eye-contact with Lina, he called out, “Elfred? I have one more task for you.”
Lina felt her heart clench up at his next words.
“Kill Gabriev.”
******************
Gourry leaned against the rough-hewn stone wall he was following, trying to catch his breath and figure out where he was. Although he was accustomed to having hazy memories, how he had gone from his mother's room to . . . where ever here was . . . He had a vague impression of listening to two women fight, and someone telling him that Lina was here.
Somehow, he had found himself a weapon. He stared at the short sword he held in his hand. It was more ceremonial than serviceable—the edge was dull and chipped for all that the sword was polished to a bright silver sheen. It was so bright, in fact, that he could have easily used the blade as a mirror. Reflexively, he ran his hand over an accumulation of stubble, wondering when he had last shaved.
With a shrug, he lowered the sword and started to push a lank strand of hair out of his face, but he froze in mid motion to stare at the hair in his hand. Well, that answered the question about the sword. Someone—most probably him—had twisted a long strand of hair into a thin rope and used it as a garrote. He could see the frayed and snapped hairs where desperate hands had clawed at it, attempting to get air, and he had the sudden disconcertingly clear image of himself pushing his knee into the back of a flimsily armored guard while twisting the rope of his hair tighter and tighter . . . Gourry swallowed hard against the sudden urge to vomit.
Before he was consciously aware of what he was doing, he had sawed off the impromptu garrote with his dull blade and hurled the rope of hair far from him. What had possessed him? Maybe he was just going mad.
Being crazy would certainly explain a lot of things, he thought wearily as he slid down along the wall into a sitting position. He would rather be insane than believe that his mother had become hate-crazed and obsessed with wreaking her revenge on Lina.
Lina.
Gourry forced himself to stand up, forced his hand to form into a semblance of his usual grip around the hilt of the short sword, forced himself to stand on his own two feet without leaning on the wall.
The problem with going mad was that he was Lina's protector. And he would hardly be able to keep her safe if he was insane. Of course, he would also have a hard time doing his job properly if he had no clue where she was. Which meant that there was no reason to worry about any possibly troubling mental issues until after he found Lina.
She had to be here somewhere. He had utter confidence in that. The only question was whether he should look high or low.
Instinct said that she would be in the dungeons, and that he should head down. After all, dungeons were usually in dark and damp underground places. They (whoever they were) would want to keep Lina underground also, because she was a powerful sorceress. Gourry remembered her saying something about the earth containing magic, and that was why sorcerers' labs were always underground.
In spite of the fact that searching low had a lot of things going for it, Gourry had a hard time shaking a persistent little voice that told him that he should be headed for the higher floors of the tower. After all, she was the princess. And they always kept the princess locked up in the tower. Gourry pressed the heel of his hand against an eye.
Things would be so much easier if Lina would just show up and tell him which way to go. That was the way things were supposed to be: Lina cooked up the schemes, made the decisions, and he kept her safe.
Gourry fought against the urge to slump against the wall again, and just wait until the two warring urges worked it out between them and stopped shouting at each other inside his skull. They had no right to be so upset, he thought resentfully. He was the one hamstrung by their inability to get their act together. A particularly loud shriek had him wincing, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache, which prompted him to press the heel of his hand against his eye yet again, in a vain attempt to push back the impending pain.
It took him a few moments to realize that the shriek was not in fact coming from inside his head, but instead from outside. He heard the heavy thud of hob-nail boots pounding against stone, and coming distressingly closer.
Gourry looked up in time to come face-to-face with a young man wearing a grease-spattered apron, and holding another one of those shiny short swords the way one might hold a long wooden cooking spoon. They appraised each other for a brief moment. Under normal circumstances, the kid would have been no threat: he looked shocked at seeing someone else in the corridors and ill-at-ease with his weapon.
Before Gourry could decide on a course of action, however, the kid glanced over Gourry's shoulder. His eyes widened and his mouth formed an “o” of surprise. Even in his current condition, Gourry's years of experience prevented him from looking over his shoulder. But when the kid started backing away, and Gourry heard the rushing sound of heavy nail-studded boots coming from behind him, he realized his mistake too late.
There was garbled shouting, and a splitting pain in the back of his head. Someone yelled, “Sir! I've found him!” And then—