The first human dwellings he saw, he initially mistook for rocks or larger ruins, until he drew close enough to see curtains blowing in the breeze, and children playing in the dirt. He drew on his mask and hood quickly.
These must be refugees, he reasoned, passing by rows of dusty shanties. This neighborhood was far too young and clean to be a slum. When he came to another curve in the trail, the view struck him all at once, with realization: the lower slopes and bowl of the valley were carpeted with similar habitations, deliberately disguised as stones and heaps of debris.
This many people, trying to hide in plain sight -- there must be a war on, Zelgadis mused.
The largest building in sight was a battered, derelict mansion flanked with thorn trees, and it was here the trail eventually led. The front gate, to his surprise, was orihalcon, and efficiently guarded. A pack of mastiffs behind the gate barked themselves into a froth at his approach, and were reined in with no little effort by the human guards.
"Can I help you?" Rodimus asked him, with a good measure of suspicion. Zelgadis whipped his head up from the gates and choked down his surprise.
Rodimus! He's alive!
"Who ... who governs this place?" he brought himself to ask.
"Well, Her Majesty does, thickwit. What are you here for?"
"I'm here for an audience with Her Majesty," Zelgadis answered easily.
Rodimus chuckled. Then he signalled the other guards to open the gate.
"Certainly sir; an audience with Her Majesty," he echoed, in a tone Zelgadis mistrusted. He passed through with escalating caution.
And as soon as the gates closed behind him, he was knocked down from behind and pressed full-length against the ground by five brawny men, all with surprising speed.
"I knew they were getting bolder, but I didn't think they'd get stupider," the man pinning his legs commented. "'An audience with Her Majesty?'"
Zelgadis' hood had been knocked off in the struggle, and now whoever was forcing his head down was also examining the point of his ear and texture of his hair. He gritted his teeth.
"Hurry it up, Justen," Rodimus called. "He's stronger than he looks -- and he's definitely not human!"
Zelgadis squirmed. "What the hell -- " he growled, and suddenly a rigid steel collar was clapped around his neck, and his arms were securely manacled. Then he was pulled to his feet and disarmed. The guards were still holding him when Rodimus unmasked him.
"Definitely not human," he repeated on inspection. "Very close, but still not quite there -- Her Majesty needs to see this. -- See, you'll get your audience," he assured Zelgadis. "We aim to please!" And the guards laughed. Rodimus grasped his collar. "But first -- tell your masters I send this -- " and he wound up his fist --
"Rodimus, don't -- " Zelgadis gasped hastily, and was ignored. The layers of stone and muscle over his belly absorbed the blow nicely, but Rodimus nearly broke his fist. He swore a blue streak.
"I tried to warn you," Zelgadis said.
"How did he know your name?" someone asked.
"Lots of demons know my name; I kill demons," Rodimus grunted, nursing his hand.
"Yeah, but I mean, how did he know yours, and not the Queen's?"
It was at that point that the group was hollered at from the house for not watching the gate, and Rodimus appointed one of them to escort Zelgadis with him into the mansion.
"Look, I don't know what you think is going on, but I assure you I'm not here out of any malicious intent," Zelgadis offered.
"Sure, whatever."
The mansion was considerably better-kept on the inside than the outside, and to Zelgadis' relief, the royal crest of Sailloon was tastefully scattered throughout the furnishings.
"So, who's your master, then?" he was asked.
"What?"
"What dark lord made you, Dynast? You look a little like his work -- "
"I'm not a mazoku!" Zelgadis insisted.
"Oh, don't give us that! You set off all the alarms."
"Seriously, if I were mazoku, wouldn't I have turned into something pointy or poisonous by now?" he illustrated as the new angle occurred to him, and the guards stopped in their tracks.
"He's right, you know," the second guard told Rodimus.
"He's just waiting until he's in the Queen's presence," Rodimus concluded, starting them along the passage again. "It doesn't much matter; nothing gets past Sir Gourry."