She held the crystal in one gloved hand, inspecting it carefully with a practiced eye. She turned it one way, then the other, closely watching the patterns that reflecting light created on its faceted surface. So deep was her concentration that she almost didn't hear the old peddler's eager words.
"A fine crystal, eh, m'lady? I can assure you meself, it ain't no ordinary run-of-th'-mill scrying crystal. I done brought it meself - from Therilon!"
Lina Inverse almost dropped the crystal in shock. "Therilon," she whispered, wide-eyed. She held the crystal cautiously, as far away from herself as possible, as if it might bite her at any moment.
Lina's three companions, who had previously been looking through the peddler's other wares with varying degrees of interest, gasped at his astonishing words. Gourry Gabriev even took an involuntary step backwards, and yelped, "You mean, you've actually been there? To Therilon, the Fallen Kingdom?"
The flame-haired sorceress, still a little stunned, thought to herself, Amazing - even Gourry's heard of the place!
At Gourry's words, the peddler's wizened face cracked into the semblance of a grin. "Yep, I've been there. I've seen things that none of you young'uns -" his ancient gaze passed over the four companions; the red-haired sorceress, the blond swordsman, the dark-haired girl, and the masked, hooded one - "'ve ever seen. Nor want to," he added, quite unnecessarily. "Now, that fine crystal there, I done took it with me own hands, from Therilon's castle itself. 'Twas a hell of a job, getting it out past all the ghoulies and the beasties, and..."
Lina interrupted the venerable peddler's tale, an indescribable expression on her youthful face. "You said you've been to the castle. Did you visit the Great Hall?"
"Of course I've been there, m'lady," enthused the peddler. "Why, that's where I found this here crystal!"
Lina continued, saying, "I've often heard tales, saying crystals like this one are embedded in the Great Hall's vaulted ceiling." For some mysterious reason, a dangerous note had crept into her voice.
Without noticing the alarming change in Lina's voice, the peddler blithely continued his tale. "You've heard right, m'lady! I climbed up the walls there - what a job it was, with me aching back and all - and spent the better part of an hour prying that very crystal from the high ceiling, at great risk to life and limb..."
"Enough!" snapped Lina. "Let's get out of here. This guy's a fraud; he's never even been to Therilon." She pitched the crystal into the astonished peddler's lap as hard as she could, and self-righteously led her friends away.
Amelia, however, refused to be led away. "Deceiving people is wrong!" she cried. "Peddler, your fraudulent and therefore evil deeds must be punished! I, Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune, will -"
"Uh, Amelia?" said Zelgadis Greywers, standing behind her.
"What is it, Zel?" she said, teeth clenched, incensed at the interruption of her duty to dispense justice to the world, whether it wanted justice or not.
"I think he's already been punished," said her stone-skinned friend.
Amelia finally noticed the way the peddler was lying doubled up on the floor of his small shop, moaning in agony, testament to Lina's excellent aim and strong throwing arm. "Never mind," she said, and meekly followed her friends out of the shop.
They walked rapidly through the rambling, twisted streets of Masaoc, adeptly dodging the other pedestrians, as well as the occasional horse-drawn chariot. As he tried to keep up with Lina's relentless pace, a puzzled-looking Zelgadis finally asked a question of his sorceress friend. "Lina, how could you possibly know he was a fraud? I mean, it's not like you've ever visited the Fallen Kingdom yourself..."
"Of course I have," said Lina simply.
Zelgadis stopped dead in the middle of the street, mouth gaping behind his mask, staring at Lina in sheer astonishment. "You've what?" he gasped.
Gourry tripped and fell flat on his face at the news, while Amelia bounced up and down excitedly. "You've been there?" she asked Lina breathlessly. "Really?" At Lina's nod, the young princess of Saillune shrieked, "You've been to Therilon and you've never even mentioned it? How could you? I've always wanted to know what it's like there! Tell me, pleeease!"
Lina frowned. "It's dangerous," was all she said, before abruptly trying to change the subject. "We're so lucky!" she said brightly, a fake smile plastered on her face. She picked up her pace, continuing even more rapidly on her way through the streets of the city of Masaoc. "If those old maps were telling the truth, all our troubles will be over! As soon as we get back to the inn -"
But her friends were not so easily dissuaded. "Lina! Pleeease!" shouted Amelia, grabbing the sorceress's cape to slow her down. "Tell me about Therilon. Tell me tell me tell me!"
"Wow," gasped Gourry while picking himself up off the ground, a new respect for (and a little more fear of) his red-haired friend evident in his blue eyes. "You're braver than I thought, Lina."
Zel still seemed to be a little confused. "You... you've been to Therilon?" he asked, in a daze.
Lina didn't hear her friends' words, as she was too busy choking to death; Amelia's insistent yanking on her cape was cutting off her air supply. Coughing and spluttering, she finally managed to wrench her cape back, gasping "Alright already! I'll tell you about Therilon, if you'll just let me breathe!" The look of joy on Amelia's face was awe-inspiring.
The four friends once again set off down the street, walking towards the inn where they were staying for the night. Lina spoke as she walked. "You've probably heard all kinds of stories about the Fallen Kingdom, about all the hideous monsters that wander around absolutely everywhere, about the hidden dangers at every turn, about the magical treasures that are locked away in every cellar, stuff like that." Her friends listened attentively. "Well, none of those stories are true." Amelia looked particularly disappointed at this revelation. "The reality is at least five times worse than the stories. It's just that the people who've run into the worse things generally don't come back to talk about it."
"Awesome!" said an excited Amelia.
As she thought back to her journey to Therilon, a haunted expression clouded Lina's face. "And it's not just the monsters and dragons and - well, all the other things there, that make it so dangerous," she murmured. "The whole time I was there, the people were... even the atmosphere of the place was... I don't know how to describe it... strange. Dark and strange..."
"Have you been to the castle, Lina?" asked Zel suddenly.
"No way!" she exclaimed, snapping out of her dark reverie. "Even I'm not that crazy!"
"Then how did you know that the peddler was lying?" asked her stone-skinned friend suspiciously. "If you've never been in the castle, never seen the Great Hall's ceiling, then how -"
"I never went into the castle, but I got close enough to see that the Great Hall's just a pile of ruins. It doesn't even have a roof anymore, and by the looks of it, hasn't had one for a really long time."
"Oh," said Zel, accepting her explanation.
Gourry looked lost. "I don't get it," he said. "Why does that make the peddler a fraud?"
"Weren't you listening, Gourry?" said Lina impatiently. "That faker said he took the crystal from the Hall's ceiling, right?" She waited for the swordsman's hesitant nod before continuing. "And I saw that the Hall's roof is gone, right? If it doesn't have a roof, then it can't have a ceiling, right?" It took a few seconds, but Gourry again nodded his understanding. "Now, if it doesn't have a ceiling, then the peddler couldn't have taken a crystal from its ceiling. Right?"
Gourry still looked confused, but said "Okay!" anyway, just to get Lina off his case.
Amelia's curiosity was pretty much satisfied by Lina's short tale. She skipped merrily down the bustling streets of Masaoc, saying, "That's amazing, Lina! I wish I could go to Therilon."
"No you don't," muttered the red-haired sorceress.
"I wish I could have seen it fifteen years ago, before the disaster happened," said Amelia wistfully, not having heard Lina's last comment. "The most magical kingdom in all the world... I wonder what could have destroyed it?"
"No one knows," said Lina, shaking her head sadly. "It's one of the biggest mysteries of our time. What could possibly have ruined Therilon, and killed every last member of its Royal Family? That's the question that every -"
"But they're not all dead!" cried Amelia. "Remember Princess Amethyst?"
Lina rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me that you believe that old story. There's no way that a three-year-old girl could possibly survive when all the rest of her family was killed."
"She was three when it happened..." said Amelia, ignoring Lina's skepticism, "and that was fifteen years ago. So, right now, she'd be about eighteen years old! Somewhere out there, there's an eighteen-year-old girl who's really the princess of Therilon! Isn't that exciting?"
"Sure, whatever," said Lina. She looked around herself, and frowned. "We should have found the inn by now. This blasted city is so confusing! Gourry, do you still have the map?"
"The map?"
"Yes, Gourry! The map I gave you yesterday. Where is it?" snapped Lina.
With his brow furrowed in concentration, the swordsman thought hard. "I remember!" he finally said, exultantly.
"So where is it, Gourry?" asked Lina.
"In my room at the inn!"
"Aauggh... I give up!" she cried in disgust. Walking up to a young man who looked like he knew where he was going, she said, "Excuse me? Could you please tell us how to get to the Twoflower Inn?"
He looked down at Lina as if she were the most tiresome creature on the face of the planet. "As anyone with half a brain would know, you go straight down Wermia Lane, hang a left at the Tim Jensen's, then take Dorian Street around to where it meets the river. Then, you obviously go north along the river until you hit the old abandoned warehouse, then take a right turn. Keep going in that direction for about five minutes. Only a congenital idiot wouldn't be able to find it." He strode off abruptly, muttering "Tourists..." under his breath.
Lina fumed silently. Behind her, Zelgadis, ever the voice of reason, said, "Well, at least he told us where it was. That's more than most of these people would do." Shaking his head sadly, he said, "I've never before been to a city that prided itself on being rude and incomprehensible before. It's definitely an interesting experience." He looked around himself. "Now all we have to do is find Wermia Lane, right, Lina?" Looking worried, he repeated, "Lina?"
The flame-haired sorceress was trembling with rage. She continued to stare at the retreating back of the young citizen of Masaoc who had rudely given her directions, as if she wanted nothing more than to rip out his spine with her bare hands. Sheer power crackled in the air around her. Gourry, acting hastily, grabbed her arm just before she sent a blast in the young man's direction and yelled, "Lina, no! You promised!"
A half-panicking Zelgadis added, "No more Dragu Slaves in densely populated areas, remember?"
But it was Amelia who finally brought Lina back to her senses, by saying, "We have to get back to the inn; it's almost time for dinner!"
All rudeness forgotten, Lina harmlessly released her magic and set off eagerly down the street. "Well, what are you guys waiting for?" she called back to her slightly stunned friends. "Come on! Dinner's waiting for us back at the inn!"
Even with the directions, it took them most of an hour to find the Twoflower Inn. It was incredibly easy to get lost in the city of Masaoc, with its miles and miles of twisting, branching streets that all managed to look exactly the same, but finally, they reached their goal. The four friends settled down at a nice table in the inn's big dining hall, and spent the next few hours eating virtually everything the kitchens could produce.
Lina grabbed the last stuffed tomato off a platter, shoved it in her mouth, and chewed meditatively. Around her were stacks of now-empty dishes; similar stacks were piled all over the table, and a few stacks were even on the floor, since they had run out of room on the table. A squadron of waitresses were huddled in a corner of the dining hall, trying to muster enough fortitude to start to tackle what was turning out to be a massive plate-hauling job. Finally they gave up, and piled back into the kitchen to find the fork-lift.
Lina finished chewing, swallowed, and fixed Zelgadis, who was sitting across from her at the table, with a curious stare. "Have you ever been to the Fallen Kingdom, Zel?" she asked.
"Never," he said, and shivered. The mere thought of going to Therilon made his blood run cold.
"I'm surprised," said the red-headed sorceress, leaning back in her chair. "I would've thought you'd have visited the place; it's probably the most magical kingdom on the planet, and after all, you've been absolutely everywhere else, in search of a cure for your... um... minor skin condition..."
"Uh, well... I was... kind of... keeping Therilon as, er, the last resort," he answered nervously.
"Hah, you're just scared of the place," she remarked slyly. "Well, you won't have to worry about going there anymore; not as long as we have these," she said, patting a well-concealed pocket, out of the top of which was poking a couple of old, yellowing papers. "These maps hold the ultimate answer to your little problem. The power to make wishes come true..." murmured Lina, almost in awe. [author's note: No, this is NOT going to be a Fushigi Yuugi crossover!]
"Well, it's obvious what your wish is gonna be," she remarked to Zelgadis. "So, Gourry, what're you going to wish for?" She waited a few seconds. "Hey, Gourry, are you listening to me?" she said, frowning. The sound of muffled snoring reached her unbelieving ears. Pushing aside a stack of plates, she saw her swordsman friend sleeping peacefully, his head resting on the table amid his own stacks of empty plates. "Gourry! Wake up!" she yelled, smacking him on the head. "I was talking to you!"
"Huh?" The dazed swordsman woke up slowly. "Wha'?"
"I said, what are you going to wish for?" snapped Lina, exasperated.
"To go back to sleep..." groaned Gourry, yawning.
"Gourry..." she growled menacingly.
Before Lina could do anything drastic, Zelgadis cut in, saying, "It is late; we're the last ones to leave the dining hall. Why don't we all go to our rooms and let the waitresses do their job?"
"... Oh, all right." Lina got up, stretched, then kicked Gourry until he got up too.
Zelgadis found Amelia sleeping in her seat, as well; he poked her cautiously until she woke up. Momentarily disoriented, she looked around frantically, then took stock of the situation and said brightly, "Oh... I must've fallen asleep, waiting for Lina to finish eating!"
The red-haired sorceress grumbled, "It's not my fault that the food here is really good..."
The four friends finally made their way up the stairs to their rooms, while the waitresses, who'd been unable to get the fork-lift to start, began the monumental task of carrying the mountain of empty plates back to the kitchen.