"WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!" Lina yelled, but no one answered her because they were just as confused as she was.
"Where did Mister Zelgadis go?" Amelia looked frantically around the room. Though the overpowering darkness seemed to have been magical in nature there wasn't a signal trace of magic anywhere.
"I don't know but I'm going to check something." Xellos said before he went into a trance like state. When he finally came out he bore a puzzled expression. "From what I can tell he's fine -- "
"But WHERE IS HE?!"
"Apparently in this room." Everyone glared at Xellos. Then they looked around the room. The spirit like Zelgadis didn't even bother to use his voice. He figured they wouldn't be able to hear him anyway. He did nothing more then wave his hands in front of their eyes. When he got no reaction he slumped back on his chair.
"Miss Lina, you said that you all went to a library and took out some books before this happened? Did Mister Zelgadis take out any?" Sylphiel glance around the room. It was relatively empty, but then Zel doesn't really have that many possessions in the first place. But what she did notice was three books on a nearby desk.
"Yeah those three over there. We found them on the floor. I think he was reading them before any of this happened." Lina grumbled. She did even know what was going on, only that she didn't like it one bit.
"May I please see them?"
"Sure but I doubt you that they would do any good." Lina threw them over to Sylphiel. The first book was easily readable; it was on the different ways to break curses. And from Sylphiel knew of Zelgadis she could tell that he had tried them all before on previous adventures. The second book was bit worse for wear but it was a book on popular myths. A bookmark was on a fable about a chimera. And the third book was in bad condition. It was torn up in places and it was missing several pages at the end. But the worst part about it was that it was in a language she had never seen before.
"Miss Lina can you read any of this?" Sylphiel thumbed through the mysterious book some more. She felt a small presence of magic in it. The book it's self was probably a spell book of some sort but it also had magical amplifying properties to it.
"Not a word. And no one we ask can read it either. And we can't go back to the library until the librarian gets back from his trip." Lina glared at that book. She had poured over it for hours figuring that it might be the cause of what had conspired. The spirit like Zelgadis also figured that too and read over her shoulder, but like her couldn't make out a word of it. The weird thing was that Zelgadis knew that he should be able to read it. But something was blocking parts of his memory. And the longer he stayed in his non-tangible form the more trouble had trying to recall things. His memory was slowly being taken away bit by bit.
"When will the librarian be back?"
"He was supposed to be back yesterday. Oh when I get my hands on him!"
"Miss Lina I doubt this is his fault. My guess it more or less has to do with this book."
Sylphiel frowned, it was obvious that they needed to pay the good librarian a visit.
Librarian didn't show up that day, in fact he didn't show up till two days later. Lina practically tackled him when he finally came back into town. She dragged him back to his library along with everyone else. Zelgadis gloomily followed.
"Now what exactly is the problem? And what happened to your chimera friend?" Mister Hender the librarian questioned Lina after he was in the main library. She had definitely startled him, but he could tell by the looks on all of their faces that something was terribly wrong.
"Do you know this book?!" Lina held out said book which was of course the only book out of the three that Zelgadis had taken out that no one seemed to be able to read.
"Oh yes that one! Your chimera friend took that one out. Did he find his cure like he was looking for?"
"No that's the problem something has happened to him. First he was asleep and wouldn't wake up. We tried for days and nothing would wake him up. And then two days ago we were all forced to shut our eyes by some unknown force only to find Zel had disappeared when we opened them!" Lina yelled out waving her arms in the air while still holding the book.
"May I please see that book?" Lina handed Mister Hender the book and put on his spectacles and started to read. "Oh my he didn't try this, now did he?" He mumbled to himself not able to bring himself to believe the conclusion that he had come up with.
"WHAT?! What does it say?!"
"Well in short Miss Lina if I had looked more closely at this book at little more then I wouldn't have let Mister Zelgadis borrow it. This book is from an ancient band of people. These people believed that with the power of the soul one could change anything by will." Mister Hender cleared his throat before going on. "This book itself is about changing ones own body. I believe Mister Zelgadis was planning to change his body to rid himself of his curse."
Zelgadis rubbed his head. It hurt quite a bit all of a sudden but what the librarian did somehow seem right to Zelgadis.
"But it didn't work! He was still the same and he was asleep too!" Lina felt like breaking something and huffed in anger.
"Mister Hender I tried to see into Mister Zelgadis' mind but all I found was a dark void, and it physically repelled me. That wasn't Mister Zelgadis' mind in his body."
"That's because the spell backfired. He was trying to use a spell to can his body only his soul couldn't do it. First of all mastering this sort of magic took this band of people centuries to perfect. I would imagine it would take a large considerable amount of time to grasp even the basic of concepts. Second he was trying to change the form of a body that wasn't his by birth."
"What are you saying?"
"You can only change stuff about yourself provided you are changing things that are natural for your body. In Mister Zelgadis' case he was turned into a chimera only a part him was like what he once was. So when he tried to change himself he only succeeded in separating himself from his chimera body."
Everyone gasped and looked at Mister Hender with wide eyes.
"He's dead?" Amelia dared to ask, but only in a whisper.
"No he's not. When his created body was separated from his mind the chimera body had no human soul part to keep it all together. So without his human mind his chimera body could not keep physical shape. Which is why he disappeared. His spirit on the other hand was separated not killed. Until his spirit dies he's still alive. For now he's walking around like a ghost." Zelgadis shivered. He remember parts of casting the spell. Once when he had been young he had found some of Rezo's books about long dead tribes of people and the magic secrets that had died with them. It was the first time he had heard anything about a group of people which history only referred to them as soul casters. Rezo had tried to use a similar spell to change his eyes and make them see, but it failed. But little Zelgadis had been interested in the language of this band of people. It was a very rare occasion, Rezo actually sat down and taught Zelgadis how to read and write the soul casters language. It was one of the few fond moments Zelgadis had of insane great-grandfather.
"Is there anyway to reverse the effects and return him back to normal?"
"I really don't know. This book might have explain that only..."
"Only what?!"
"Only about the last thirty pages are missing."