SLASH.
Blood splashed upwards, defying the laws of physics to splash in her eyes as she completed the final lunge. He looked at her in shock, partly because she had defeated him, and partly because his blood dyed her deep brown eyes crimson, but mostly because he hadn't realized that he was even capable of bleeding anymore.
"I will find you," he stated simply, ignoring the long blade that pinned him to the wall like a bug. "Even if I have to hunt you for a thousand years, I will find you."
"Rot in Hell, bastard," she growled, pulling away from him. His pale hand fell limply to his side as she turned and walked away.
"Rynia!" His cry was shortly followed by a loud, hollow beat that shook the castle to the very foundation. "RYNIA!"
She did not turn around.
"Rynia..." A familiar numbness filled him as she left him to die. Alone. Again.
Ashe Rhyder presents...
THE SORCERER'S FOLLY
Snow and sleet pelted a group of weary travelers as it painfully made its way down the icy mountain side.
"How much farther do you think it is to a town?" The leader, a girl who's slender form and fiery red hair were mostly obscured by her black traveling cloak, called back to her companions.
"It's impossible to tell." One of her comrades who now spoke was a somewhat lean young man who was nearly rendered invisible due to the combination of his slightly-darker-than-ivory clothing and the blindingly white snow. "There should be a town at the bottom of this mountain, but with this weather, it would be too easy to stumble and break away from the group. We might be going straight down, or we may be going in circles."
"We're lost!" A small girl with black hair covered mostly by a green hood wailed.
"Yare, yare, minna, you're not lost." A tall man dressed as a priest addressed them cheerfully, despite the less than pleasant weather. "The town is less than half a mile ahead, provided that you veer slightly to the right."
"Really?" The final member of the team was a tall blond man wearing blue armor. "But Amelia just said we were lost..."
It was not the first nor the last time that his friends collectively face-faulted on that trip.
Half an hour later they managed to forge their way through the heavy snow and to the edge of town, where to their immense relief, the town's inn was located. Lina knocked impatiently on the door, and was quite happy to find that she still had some feeling in her hand, albeit a small amount.
After a very long minute the innkeeper, a tall, skinny, middle-aged man in a brown tunic and pants, arrived at the door, carrying a candlestick.
"Hurry up, hurry up, the story teller is about to start!" The innkeeper held open the door for them, closing it quickly behind the last traveler.
"Storyteller?" The priest arched one of his purple eyebrows as he brushed the snow from his red-headed companion, much to her distress. Oddly enough, the violet-haired man had no snow on him, but the local wrote it off as a clerical spell and helped the others remove their snow-caked over-garments.
"Aye. A story teller arrived in the village before the blizzard began yesterday," he nodded, hanging up the two women's cloaks. "He's to earn his room and board by providing us with a bit of entertainment while we wait for the storm to blow over." He moved to the white clad man to help remove his iced over clothing, but the youth drew back quickly. With a sharp manipulation of the elements fire and air he stood more or less dry, then slipped over to the red-head's side. The innkeeper shrugged; if the boy wanted to hide his face, he probably had a very good reason... which was none of the older man's business. As long as the young man didn't drip on the floor...
"What story is he going to tell?" The violet tresses of the priest swayed slightly as he tilted his head to the side. "I'm a... collector of rare stories from many cities. I've heard some quite interesting ones regarding this area."
"Not quite sure." The older man admitted. "Not that it matters. The important thing is to keep the people entertained."
"Ah." Xellos Metallium smiled, but it was a dark grin that graced his face.
The group sat down around an elderly man with the rest of the audience, and listened intently as the story teller constructed a legend of a beautiful heroine and an evil sorcerer who had threatened to bury the entire valley in ice and snow.
Zelgadis frowned under his ivory cowl and gently massaged away the growing discomfort in his chest as the story teller ended his fable with the girl impaling the sorcerer on her sword. He glanced over to Lina, and found the red-head with an expression of boredom on her face. Her ruby-red eyes only reflected her displeasure. Amelia and Gourry, however, were fascinated with the tale. Zelgadis sighed; there was just no accounting for taste with some people.
"Pardon me, sir, but if I may, I'd like to tell a story as well." Violet-haired Xellos stood up and approached the bard, who watched the priest carefully. "You see, I have also heard of the legend you spun for us, but my version is right. This story must be told properly, or else it loses its meaning entirely."
The old story teller gaped at the traveler's audacity and sputtered in protest, but Xellos shoo-ed him away.
"This story has been spread throughout my people for nearly a thousand years." The trickster cleared his throat purposefully, then began to gather power between his hands to form an image spell. "We call it the Sorcerer's Folly.
"Once upon a time, this valley was ruled by a powerful sorcerer named Zeruphim. Zeruphim was a master of astral and elemental magic, but he preferred to use ice magic because it was nearly as cold as he was. Zeruphim wasn't a cruel ruler, mind you, but he was cold; terribly cold. He felt nothing. No love, no hate, and no pain. Because of this, his heart ceased to beat. He did not breathe, did not bleed, and he most certainly did not die." Xellos' spell showed a picture of a man who's face was hidden by shadows. "But he was not alive."
"That's you in ten or twenty years if you don't lighten up, Zel." Lina whispered, elbowing her friend. Zelgadis snorted in response and glared at her.
"The sorcerer ruled over the valley for five hundred years, never changing, ever cold, until one day, something terrible happened." Xellos paused for dramatic emphasis.
"War broke out?" Amelia supplied.
"He lost his powers?" Lina looked worried.
"He ran out of food?" Gourry paled.
"He fell in love?" Zelgadis rolled his eyes.
"Exactly." The priest smiled at the shaman, causing Zelgadis to have to swallow the discomfort that welled up. "The sorcerer fell in love with a beautiful girl from the village named Rynia." The image spell showed a slender girl with unruly auburn hair and light brown eyes. "Rynia was vibrant and energetic, full of very deep emotions. This is part of what drew him to her. Others say that it was because of her beauty, but no mater the reason, he fell in love with her. As most men do when they are courting women, he gave her a gift."
"What kind?" Amelia demanded. "Was it sweet and romantic, and did he profess his undying love for her - " the young princess was cut off as Lina whapped her upside the head.
"Let him finish," the sorceress scowled.
"Because this valley is located between five mountains, it normally shouldn't see weather as drastic as the storm out there." Xellos gestured towards the door. "That natural factor, in addition to the sorcerer's power, kept the weather here relatively mild at the time. Most of the snow the villagers had seen was on the distant mountain tops; it was rare for it to snow as much as once per generation. In an effort to please her with the delicate beauty of the tiny crystals, he made it snow, fashioning his domain into a winter's wonderland. Then he disguised himself well and went down to the village to see if she was enjoying his gift. If she was, he would present himself to her and pledge his love. If not... well, he didn't want to think about that.
"When he appeared in the city, he found her standing at the fountain in the town square." A hunched -over figure in a dark cloak hobbled to the girl in the picture. Despite the ragged cloak and decrepit posture, if one looked carefully enough, he or she would find that the flesh on the hands was a little too smooth to be an old man's, and were far too delicate looking to belong to a beggar. No one was paying close enough attention but Zelgadis, who was always a little too observant than was good for him.
He's taking a great interest in this story, the chimera thought. With detail like that...
" 'How do you like the snow?' he asked the girl." Xellos' voice changed between characters; softer and airy for the sorcerer, and higher and perky for the girl. " 'It is cold and lifeless,' the girl replied, 'Much like the sorcerer who sent it to us. His heart is like this snow. I doubt he could ever even love someone. The world would probably end before then.' The sorcerer was deeply hurt and shocked by her words. He was so surprised that he let his disguise fall off, revealing his true form." On the spell's image plane the heavy mantle fell down. The shot showed him from the back, so only his long, silver hair could be seen as he took a step back. The girl looked shocked, then angry.
"She rejected him?" Amelia's jaw dropped. Several angry glares turned on her.
"Don't interrupt!" Lina whapped her again.
"Pained by her scorn, the sorcerer fled back to his castle, and was not heard from again all winter. He spent a very cold month brooding alone, and because of his distraction and depression, the light snowfall became a heavy blizzard. By the end of that first month, the valley was almost buried in snow. Finally the village elders decided to send the girl up to the castle in hopes that she would apologize. The girl agreed to go because the lives of her friends and family were at stake, but she had no intentions of apologizing. She saw the blizzards as a childish act of vengeance on the sorcerer's half, just as she saw him as a spoiled-rotten over-grown child throwing a temper tantrum when something didn't go his way."
"How terrible!" Once more Amelia interrupted, and once more people glared.
"It is how it happened." Xellos shrugged. "She made her way through the storms, up the mountain and to the castle named Kokoro no Yami." The trickster's spell eliminated the need to explain why the fortress was named Heart of Darkness. With high walls made of the blackest stone and windows made of blood-red glass, the castle appeared to be the very heart of all darkness. Lina could imagine standing in one of the great halls that the palace must have, watching the rain run down the windows, lightning throwing the crimson hue onto the walls. The glare from the windows almost made the light seem like blood running down the walls...
The red head shuddered, expelling the gruesome image from her conscious thought.
"When the girl arrived at the castle, the sorcerer was waiting for her." Xellos' spell showed a young woman dressed in winter furs standing in a large entrance chamber facing a tall man garbed in white robes leaning against the railing of one of the twin staircases. "He easily disarmed her, but he was still in love with her, so he could not bring himself to kill her. Zeruphim's heart ached when she attacked him, and a slight tremor ran through his body. The sorcerer and the girl reached a stalemate; she could not kill him, and he would not kill her. So Rynia decided, being the bluntly honest person she was, to tell him why she had come. 'I want you to stop the snow,' she told him. 'The village will be buried under snow and ice if the blizzards don't stop.' The sorcerer was shocked, partially because he had forgotten about the weather, but also because she spoke to him. 'I will stop the storms under one condition,' he said at last. 'This valley will remain free of the snow and ice, but only as long as you stay with me in this castle. Should you decline, or ever leave, I will bury this valley in the cold forever.' "
"What an unjust thing to do!" The young princess yelled.
"Amelia, would you please just BE QUIET!" Lina finally lost her temper and nearly threw a fireball at the shorter girl, but Zelgadis gently grasped her wrist.
"Not here." His cool, detached voice whispered, reminding her in two words that it was neither the time nor the place for ventilation of anger.
"If I may continue?" Xellos gestured to the frozen image.
"Go ahead." The white clad youth nodded.
"In order to protect her family and friends in the valley, Rynia agreed to stay with him." The girl in the spell nodded. "And so she spent three months with him. He endeavored to become her friend, offered her gifts and was kinder to her than to anyone in his five hundred years of life. Yet he never once told her that he loved her, because he knew that she hated him, and that she would use his love of her to hurt him further. So while he grew to love her more and more, the intensity of her hatred for him grew. She hated him for keeping her away from the people she loved, and she never knew that he loved her at all. His love for her was to be his downfall, though, because it was an emotion of the essence of life. It caused the impossible to happen."
The whole tavern seemed to shake as the sound of a single heartbeat magnified a hundred times echoed throughout the chamber. Zelgadis jerked at the noise; the long, pointed ears hidden by his hood caught the sound waves and further amplified them.
"What the hell?" Lina gasped.
"A heartbeat..." The hooded youth murmured.
"That's right." The priest agreed. "The sorcerer loved her so much that his heart began to beat again. Not anywhere near the rate of a normal human heartbeat, of course, it began very slowly, only around one beat per day. But his heartbeat would echo through the castle, and Rynia knew that he was weakening.
"One day right before summer's equinox, she found him kneeling before a pillar of white marble located inside the temple of the castle." Xellos continued. "It was a great surprise to her to find something as pure and white inside the Heart of Darkness, at the very heart of the castle, no less. Still it was here that she issued her final challenge to him. 'Either kill me or let me go,' she told him, 'because I can no longer stand to be kept here.' Zeruphim looked up at her and very calmly asked, 'Why? Do I not give you everything you need, and anything you want, save your freedom?' To which she replied, 'I hate you and cannot stand to be near you! I would kill you before I called you by name!' And Zeruphim fell silent for a moment as he thought about her words. 'Did you know,' said he, 'that you have never once smiled at me? I will do anything if you will smile at me.' Rynia was infuriated. How dare he ask for a show of kindness when he kept her prisoner for so very long? 'The only thing that would make me smile,' she growled, 'is to see my family sword buried in your heart.' A great pain went through the sorcerer, because at that moment he realized that she would never love him."
The picture spell showed the man's hand twitch nervously, as if he were debating on grabbing an object by his side. Finally his hand closed, but not on open air. The sorcerer's hand tightly gripped the handle of Rynia's family sword.
"Finally the sorcerer made a decision." Zeruphim drew the sword out of its scabbard and handed it to the girl on screen. " 'If it will make you smile, I will allow you to pierce my heart with your blade. But know this, no wound you can inflict upon me now will ever compare with the damage you have already dealt me.' The girl shrugged; his words held no meaning to her. Then all at once, she lunged and caught him of guard. Her sword easily cut through his flesh and impaled his heart, but the damage did not stop there. The power of the thrust plunged the blade deep into the marble behind him, pinning him there forever."
Amelia opened her mouth automatically to say something about the horrible circumstances, but a glare from both Lina and Zelgadis silenced her.
"As if by magic, a bit of his blood splashed from his wound into her eyes and dyed them forever crimson." A faint trail of scarlet liquid lit up the otherwise dark screen. "He was capable of bleeding again from the moment that his heart began beating again, you see, though not very much for his heart did not beat anywhere near human pace.
"He grabbed her by the hand while she was blinded by the blood and held her palm to his cheek." Xellos looked over at his traveling companions and made note of Lina's rapt attention, Amelia's shocked expression, Gourry's frown, and the slight pressure the chimera was applying to his white clad chest. "He said, 'Do you see what I am willing to do for you? I will suffer for you, create or destroy for you, I would grant you your freedom if you ever would return to me once I let you go. I bleed for you, and no other, because I lo - " He was cut off by her slapping him. 'You are sick,' she spat and turned to leave. 'Wait, Rynia, please!' He grabbed her hand again. 'Won't you smile for me? I have done all you asked of me, please smile at me.' She spun to glare at him and hissed. 'I will never smile at you, Zeruphim,' she sneered. The sorcerer was shocked into silence because she had said his name, but recovered as she tried to pull away again. 'I will find you,' he said simply, ignoring the pain that blossomed in his chest. 'Even if I have to hunt you for a thousand years, I will find you.' Rynia jerked away and growled, 'Rot in Hell, bastard.' Then she turned and walked away. 'Rynia!' The sorcerer cried. 'RYNIA!' And when she was gone from his sight, he tenderly whispered, 'Rynia... I love you...' "
"Xellos-san, that's a horrible, depressing ending!" Amelia shouted.
"I'm not finished," the priest smirked darkly, causing the princess to swallow the icy lump of fear that suddenly leapt into her throat. "There's more to he Sorcerer's Folly than a mere unrequited love, or it wouldn't have been so widely known amidst my people." Xellos tapped his staff on the ground, causing the image of a blurred silvery figure to sharpen.
"Oh, is there now?" Zelgadis snorted and flexed his left hand, as if it went to sleep and he was trying to reawaken the numb appendage.
"Zeruphim could have removed the sword from his chest on his own strength at any time, you see," the Trickster explained. "But he didn't, because his beloved had willed that he be in that position. After a year, though, his depression and the growing weakness of his heart, he was unable to move it. Not that he tried very hard, mind you, he didn't try at all. However, it was at this time that he was approached by a demon."
"What kind of demon?" Lina raised an eyebrow.
"Probably a Vengeance one." Gourry shrugged and received many surprised and bemused looks from the people who knew him. "What?"
"As Gourry said, it was a Vengeance demon." Xellos marveled. "This demon was drawn to the Heart of Darkness by the intense loathing and depression surrounding the sorcerer. The demon was unaware that Zeruphim's hatred was of himself for messing up his once chance at love, but it didn't matter. The demon offered the sorcerer a deal; the demon could set Zeruphim's soul wandering for a thousand years so that he might possess a body, hunt down the girl, torture her, and kill her (not necessarily in that order). However, if Zeruphim failed to get revenge on her within those thousand years, the sorcerer's soul would be destroyed. On top of that, if he ever returned to the castle, his soul would be ripped from whatever body he was wearing and thrown back into his old body.
"Zeruphim knew that he had very few options because his heart was beating. If he remained in his body, he would die slowly and painfully. Yet if he left, he would never be able to bring himself to kill her." Xellos' spell showed the silver-haired man with his face bowed to the ground. "He accepted the deal, though, even knowing that his body would suffer and his death would be drawn out over a millennium, because he knew he could be near her. He could be near her, and she would never have to know. In this way, with him as a free-floating spirit and her as a being of flesh and blood, he was sure that he could love her and not get hurt.
"It took three days for the demon to strip Zeruphim's soul from his body." Xellos' illusion shone upon a pale man bound to a pillar by steel and rope; steel to hold his heart, and rope to prevent a premature death due to the sorcerer's struggling. "Three days of mind-numbing pain, worse than any he had ever felt before. A lesser man would have snapped. By all rights, he should have snapped. To go five hundred years without feeling a thing, and then to violently be assaulted by pain on levels usually reserved for the damned, it was a miracle and a testament to his love for Rynia. Finally, when the spell was finished, Zeruphim was free. Naturally, the first thing he wanted to do was check on Rynia, but the demon cautioned him once more. 'Remember, should you return to this castle while the sword is still in your body, your soul will be thrown back into it's original body, and you will die. Or, should you fail to extract revenge by the time one thousand years is up, your soul will be destroyed.' Zeruphim nodded. He didn't care, after all. He only wanted to be near her for as long as he could before he vanished.
"Zeruphim followed Rynia in spirit form for the rest of her life, by her side, but eternally out of sight. When she died, he followed her soul into her next life. He was pleasantly surprised to see that when she awoke as a new born child, she retained the brilliant crimson eyes of her former life. It was a sign to him that he was still a part of her, to transcend time and space...
"He spent many of her lifetimes by her side in the form of an invisible and untouchable ghost of the past. He found that he was able to use his magical powers as a spirit, and would secretly use them to protect her throughout her life." The image spell showed a wispy silver figure floating happily by a young woman with sandy blond hair and scarlet eyes. A large beast crept up silently behind the girl, but there was a brief flash of blue light, and the creature disappeared. The girl continued on without noticing. "However, after nine hundred and seventy-nine years, he found that he would only be able to be near her one more lifetime before he was destroyed. His one thousand year time limit was almost up, and in not one of her reincarnations has he done a thing that could be counted toward 'revenge'. So Zeruphim made a very difficult decision; he decided to take a mortal body in order to pursue her as a living being. He dreamed of holding her in his arms just once, and telling her he loved her before he was destroyed. Over the years, he had watched her grow and develop into a kinder, more loving person. He watched her become someone who could love him.
"Zeruphim took great care in finding a body. He did not want to displace another soul in his abrupt 'hijacking' because his experience on the astral plane taught him that it wasn't an ordeal to place innocent people into. Cold he may have been, but still he had morals. Besides that, he knew Rynia wouldn't have wanted him to steal another's chance at life. So he chose the body of a still-born child, one that was strangled during birth by accident. The original soul had fled the dying body, so Zeruphim settled in with ease. However, the majority of his former powers were lost when he did this, for they were used to restore life to the child's body. As a result, he was incredibly weak." The baby on the illusion's plane suddenly moved in the grieving midwife's hands. The elderly woman had given up the child or dead when he quite sharply grabbed her hand and opened his wide, crystal blue eyes.
"Whatever happened to him?" Amelia asked. "Did he find Rynia and confess his love for her?"
"No one really knows." Xellos smiled mysteriously. "No one even knows if he ever found her before his thousand years ended. Actually, according to legend, Zeruphim is still wandering. If my calculations are correct, he's got less than a year left. Who knows? Maybe he's found her. Maybe he's by her side, waiting for the right moment to say that he lo - "
"ARGH!!!" Zelgadis suddenly pitched forward, clutching his chest.
"Zelgadis?" Lina and Amelia were at his side in a second, while Gourry hovered protectively above them. Xellos stayed where he was, but his violet eyes slipped open and regarded the scene with detached interest.
"Zelgadis?" Lina reached out to touch his shoulder, but his gloved hand darted out and intercepted. His smooth stone fingers closed tightly around her wrist; tightly, but not painfully. His glacial eyes pierced hers, but they were no longer cold and calculating. Instead, the blue depths were full of fear and pain. No one else could see these emotions because his hood had miraculously stayed in place during his fall, and, as he was facing Lina, only she was able to look under his cowl.
"I'm going to die," he whispered. "This adventure will kill me."
"Zelgadis, what are you talking about?" She hissed.
"The Heart of Darkness will destroy me." His eyes did not move, but the fear subsided and was replaced by deep sorrow.
"Gourry, let's get him upstairs." She shifted to the side to allow the tall blonde to pick up the semi-conscious young man, then turned to the innkeeper. "How much...?"
"On the house." The elder man waved it off. "Your priest tells excellent stories."
Lina's glee was cut short as Zelgadis let out a choked cry and Gourry grunted under the exertion of carrying the chimera's weight.
"Thanks," she smiled weakly. "Which room?" He told them, and then sighed as the rushed to find it.
"Hope that kid will be okay," he shook his head.
"Oh, he'll be around for a little while longer." Xellos shrugged as he walked past the innkeeper. "He's survived much worse. It's probably just something that he picked up from wandering around in the snow. I hear that the atmosphere here can be killer..." The Mazoku smirked as he ascended the stairs to follow his companions.
Zelgadis was lying still on the bed inside the room; too still. The violet haired youth barely moved to even breathe; if Lina and her friends hadn't long ago become accustomed to his slight motions, they would have thought he was dead. His normally blue skin was an ashen shade of blue-gray found only in clouds on rainy days and was freezing to the touch. His icy blue eyes were glazed over and unfocused, adding to the notion that he should be dead. Lina clasped one of his frigid hands in hers, and Amelia did the same with his other hand. Both girls whispered the incantations to every healing spell they knew, hoping that one of them would effect him.
"C'mon Zelgadis, please snap out of it," Lina thought. "Whatever's wrong, you're stronger than this, aren't you?" Please, Zel, please ..."
The chimera, under their watchful gazes, suddenly sat up with a coughing fit. Lina took the opportunity to relax and prepared to scold him -
"L-sama, Zel, you scared the - "
- but stopped as she noticed flecks of crimson staining the hand he was using to weakly cover his mouth.
"Zelgadis!" Immediately she had him lay on his side and focused her healing magic on his upper chest.
Gourry turned and left the room; there was nothing left that he could do.
"How is Rock-head doing?" Xellos asked from the hall, sitting cross-legged in mid-air. The swordsman paused, watching the dark priest through jaded eyes.
"I don't think he'll make it." The blond finally admitted. "I had an uncle once who had similar symptoms... The healers said his heart just gave up; they couldn't do anything for him. Didn't sound like Zel had much of a will to live earlier. Why is he sick, Xellos? Why here, why now?"
"Sore wa himitsu desu," the purple haired man taunted, but his smile was strained. "I don't have your answers, Gourry. And even if I did, I don't think I'd be at liberty to tell you." The blond gazed at him with in confusion, as if he was trying to see behind the trickster's mask.
"You know." The swordsman stated at last. "You won't tell us, but you do know what's making Zel sick." His expression didn't change as he spoke; his face remained neutral and relaxed. Upon saying that, the taller man turned away and went back into the room.
Xellos opened his eyes and stared intently at the chamber wherein the comatose chimera lay.
"We shall see," he murmured with a returning smirk. "We shall see..."