Slayers Fan Fiction ❯ Slayers Inheritance ❯ In the Clutches of Evil! Welcome to Wolfpack Island! ( Chapter 10 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

SLAYERS INHERITANCE

"In the Clutches of Evil! Welcome to Wolfpack Island!"

by Michael Hopcroft

"Anya Inverse here! Not that I'm exactly sure where 'here' is; last
thing I knew we were fighting demon wolves then Xellos pops up out of
nowhere and suddenly I'm ... well, I'm wherever I am frankly I have no
idea. Those wolves have better not have gotten Valgaav, or there'll be
hell to pay!"

' RAH TILT!" cried Prince Cardanis as one of the wolves leapt at him.
The wolf dissipated and vanished. He looked back at Valgaav. "OK, two of
them, two of us. We need to get rid of these wolves. I'll hit the one on
the left, you hit the one on the right!"

"Got it, Your Highness." Said Valgaav, who slew a wolf with his breath
weapon. Cardanis let fly with another Rah Tilt, slaying the other one.
They then looked around in dismay. The common room of the inn was in
ruins, and worst of all Anya and Titania were not there.

"This is not good at all," said Cardanis. "I feel like I've failed them.
Who knows where Xellos could have taken them?"

"You've never faced adversity, have you, Cardanis?" Valgaav asked.

"Not like this."

"I can tell because you're letting your panic interfere with your
memory. Remember Anya and Titania's dreams? They both had a dream in
which Xellos summoned them to Wolfpack Island, and then Xellos appears
and whisks them away. Whenever I put two and two together I invariably
get four."

Cardanis grabbed Valgaav by the shoulder. "Wolfpack Island! That's when
Beastmaster Xellas Mentallium, Xellos' mistress, lives! The place is
crawling with Mazoku! And it's thousands of miles away!"

"Yes, I know it's a very bad place for the girls to be. Which is why
we're going there to get them." Valgaav smirked. "Are you up to a
suicide mission, Your Highness?"

Cardanis shrugged. "If we go in expecting to die, we'll fail. My father
says that was the most important lesson Lina Inverse taught him. We're
going to go there and get our girls out!"

Valgaav blanched. "Wait just a minute here! Who said Anya was my girl?
Certainly not Anya!"

"You'll never know unless you get her back. So do you have any idea how
we can get there?"

A man in gold priest robes suddenly appeared in front of them. "Maybe I
can help answer that question. I've been watching from your mother's
house, Valgaav."

"Milgasia! Then you know what happened?"

"I know that Lina is ready to roast Xellos over an open spit. Your
teleportation won't get you far enough unless I boost it. Besides, you
don't even know where Wolfpack Island is, and I do."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Cardanis asked. "Or can you not send
both of us?"

"Oh I can send both of you, but you won't arrive in exactly the same
place. And once you're there we won't be able to watch over you. You're
going to be on your own, in the middle of the enemy. The odds will be
very much not in your favor."

Valgaav grabbed Milgasia's hand. "Right now I don't give a flying damn
about the odds! Just do it! Tell Mother I'm coming back WITH Anya!"

Cardanis took Milgasia's other hand and Milgasia recited a spell. In an
instant the two were teleported away. Milgasia teleported away himself,
and was soon back in Filia's inn.

"Well," asked Lina, "what's going to happen to my daughter?"

"Valgaav is charging to the rescue. I've got to give you credit, Filia
dear, you raised the boy with guts."

Filia frowned grimly. "I just hope those guts don't get splattered the
length and breadth of Wolfpack Island."

Lina was visibly shaking. In all her travels, not even she had dared
take on the horrors of Wolfpack Island. Gourry took her shoulders in his
calloused hands. "Darling, please calm down. Anya's going to come out of
this. I promise."

"I shouldn't have let her go out alone!"

"And if you hadn't gone out alone all those years ago, none of us would
be here. Have faith in our daughter ... we owe her that much."

Lina kissed one of Gourry's hands and clutched it in her own for dear
life. "I know, I'm just scared. I've never been this scared."

"You're a mother, whose beloved child is going into battle. Millions of
people have experience what you're going through. All we can do now is
hope and pray. L-sama willing, that will be enough."

Anya woke up alone in an ornate bedchamber. She looked at herself in the
dim candlelight and saw that she was fully clothed and appeared
unmolested. That, she thought, was the only good thing about her situation.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that there was no visible
door out of the room. On the walls were frescoes of numerous things too
revolting to mention. The situation was getting worse. She grabbed one
of the bedposts and chanted a light spell, which illuminated the room
much more brightly. More importantly, to Anya, it proved her magic still
worked.

She was thinking about this when Xellos suddenly teleported into the
room. "How do you like your new quarters?" he said. "I trust the bed is
comfortable and the decor not too excessive."

"I'd be happier with the decor if it included an exit." Anya replied.
"What right do you have to bring me here, anyway? And where's Titania?"

"Safe. And frankly you don't want to leave this room. It's very
dangerous to mortals inside. Some of the residents might think you're an
intruder, and they don't like intruders. Trust me, you're safer here."

"All right, you might as well tell me what's going on. I know about
Titania being your daughter and all, but what the hell do you want with me?"

Xellos sat down on the bed, and offered the spot next to him to Anya.
She shook her head. "You see, Anya dearest, it's all about power. You
have inherited from your mother great power, power too dangerous to my
kind to be allowed to go unchecked. But that power could also be of
great use to us if exercised properly. Did your mother ever tell you the
goal of the Mazoku?"

"To destroy the world, and return it to a sea of Chaos.'

"OH, more than that. You see, once this world is destroyed we can
reshape it ... rebuild it into something more to our liking. You must
admit the world outside is a cold, frightening place. With all this free
will business running around, people keep making mistakes, falling into
pits of their own devising, Greed, lust, hatred ... so many traps that
make people's lives miserable. We can change all that. We can build a
world in which there is no lust, no greed, and no envy."

Anya shook her head. "But there would also be no hope, no joy, and no
love. None of the things that make life worthwhile. Sorry to disappoint
you, Xellos, but I won't be turned. I AM going to get out of here. I AM
going to find Titania. The world may indeed go back to the Sea of Chaos
... but not today."

"Odd," said Xellos, "you're talking as though I were YOUR prisoner and
not the other way around. The chamber pot is under the bed. I'll send
you food and a new one every day until you see reason." With that,
Xellos vanished.

Anya began to think. "Now what would be the best way to make a door?"

Titania had been trying every wall in her room. None of them budged. "Do
they teleport everywhere around here?" she thought out loud.

"Now, now, Titania" said a voice behind her that Titania instantly
recognized as Xellos. "Exercises in futility will get you nowhere."

Titania turned around. "You! Where am I? What have you done to Anya?
Where's Cardanis?"

"Was that the young chimera's name? It's wouldn't surprise me if the
Hounds had made short work of him. Princes belong in palaces, not in
battles with monsters."

Titania looked him square in the eye. "You're lying. Cardanis is alive.
Do you know how I know that? I know because there's something inside me
that would tell me if he were dead."

"You're starting to sense the world around you. That's good. You are
proving quite worthy, daughter. Now you must master the arts of subtlety
and discretion. So far you've been able to exhibit flashes of raw
destructive power, but to truly serve our mistress you're going to have
to learn to control yourself, to use your powers when it is to your best
advantage."

Titania walked up to Xellos and whispered in his ear. "Yes, discretion.
Discretion tells me you know the way out of here, so it would be unwise
to do what I really want to do right now ... and kill you."

"Is that so? Well, let me let you in on a little secret, darling
daughter of mine. If you did kill me, you would probably be doing my
Mistress a favor. I sense she's growing tired of me, of my tricks and
experiments. Pleasing such a demanding mistress is so wearing."

"Is that why you brought us here? So I could kill Xellas Mentallium for
you?"

"No. You see, I love my mistress in spite of everything and would hate
to see her come to harm. Aside from which, you couldn't hurt her anyway."

"Then why did you bring us here?'

"That is a secret." And with that Xellos vanished.

Valgaav appeared in the middle of a darkened hallway. He took out a
stick from his belt ouch and cast a Light spell on it. The area thus
illuminated did not make him feel very comfortable at all. "Cardanis!"
he called out. "Are you there?" he got no answer, which led him to
believe they must be farther apart than he had thought.

At that moment he heard a noise behind him. Valgaav turned and saw a
great ravening beast, with huge, dripping jaws, bearing down on him.
Apparently the thing thought lunch had been served unexpectedly.

As he tucked the lighted stick into the headband behind him so he
wouldn't drop it, Valgaav came to the conclusion that this simply wasn't
his day....

TO BE CONTINUED...