When Zelgadis opened his eyes, he knew the wound was mortal.
Lina had let herself go into shock, stolidly denying herself a good cry, and Gourry was holding an extraordinarily distraught Amelia.
"Lina," he gasped.
"What!" she answered sharply, but her whole mood changed when their eyes met. "Zel, it's you! It's really you!" she breathed, and touched his face.
"Are you .. all right?" It hurt quite a bit to speak.
"He - didn't hurt me." Physically.
"I'm so sorry...."
"It was Xellos, wasn't it?" she asked. "You left the inn last night, and went out, and he p - he p - he possessed you," she finished, somewhat tearfully. He shut his eyes, turned his face away.
"... yes...."
Lina cringed, shuddered horribly, and collected herself to begin a healing spell. There was a twist of amused derision from Xellos.
"Amelia - help me - it won't take! I can't stop the bleeding!"
"Xellos," Zelgadis nearly whispered. "Immune, to...."
In frustration, Lina tore open the remains of his shirt and tried to hold the wound shut with her bare hands. It was the length of her forearm at the surface, and the stone was sticky and slippery with blood.
"Then we'll just have to exorcise you first!" she nearly snapped.
"No...." Zelgadis swallowed. "Gourry - "
"Huh?"
"... finish me quickly...."
"What?" He held Amelia tighter, as if to keep her from hearing the request (it didn't work).
"Don't listen to him," Lina commanded Gourry, and addressed Zelgadis again. "You are not gonna die, just because there's some stupid mazoku in your body!" Tears pricked at her eyes again; blood was smeared on her cheek when she wiped them away.
"It's your best chance," Zelgadis gasped "to eradicate Xellos."
"No it isn't!" It's not worth it! "Take care of this," Lina instructed, passing the sword to Gourry. "Amelia, you'll have to cover Gourry; we'll have to make an emergency flight. We've got to reach Sailloon Capitol tonight." She gathered Zelgadis' heavy body to her and cast Raywing.
I love this! She's in more pain than you are! Xellos laughed. Zelgadis seethed.
"Lina," he winced. "The Sword of Light - ah - can kill Xellos - "
"I told you, we're not doing it that way," she insisted fiercely.
"You don't understand," he continued hoarsely. "When I die, Xellos will have my body...."
Lina understood, with nauseating horror. As pure mazoku, Xellos would have Zelgadis' body repaired moments after his death. And what he would do with the body then ... Lina didn't want to think about that.
"... kill us now, while I'm still here to impede him," Zelgadis was saying.
"No. No. Only ... if the exorcism fails," she yielded very slightly " - but it won't fail, because I'll do it myself!"
His eyelids began to slide closed.
"Zel, don't do that!" she urged. Xellos chuckled.
They were still half an hour from the city when exhaustion caught up with Amelia.
"Miss Lina, I can't keep up!" she whimpered. "Mr. Gourry's heavy!"
"Well - I'll just have to carry all of us," Lina resolved through gritted teeth. With remarkable midair delicacy, she maneuvered her Raywing very close alongside Amelia's, merged the two spells neatly, and swept in the two additional passengers.
Her head began to throb.
When at last she dumped the group on a balcony of the royal palace at Sailloon Capitol, Lina could do no more than lie in a gasping heap.
"I think - I just set - a new Raywing - endurance record," she panted. Amelia was only slightly more lively, and Gourry had fallen asleep during the flight. Luckily they were discovered by the palace employees who had heard the crash of their arrival. Lina staggered to her feet while they were still fussing over Amelia.
"Quickly! I need a basic amulet kit, a magic circle for exorcism, and all the most powerful healers in Sailloon!" she demanded. "Now!!"
"Go, go! Do what she says, hurry!" Amelia prompted as Lina tended to Zelgadis again. The bleeding had slowed considerably, but so had his pulse and respiration.
"Zel - wake up - are you in there?" she coaxed nervously.
When she got him to open his eyes, they were still blue.
"We can't stay here; they'll be taking all the things to the main spells room," she heard Amelia saying.
"Brace yourself," Lina warned Zelgadis. "Gourry - you'll have to carry Zel - be careful!"
"I know what I'm doing," Gourry insisted, stooping to collect his comrade with astonishing gentleness. Zelgadis gritted his teeth, despite. "I carried you, didn't I?"
"This way - come on, hurry!" Amelia directed.
"Hang on, Zel - it's not long now," Lina assured him, leaning heavily on Gourry.
"No," he agreed, and she paled.
Waiting for them in the designated spells room was an assortment of priests and healers; some in white robes, some in green robes, and some in bath robes, since it was very late at night.
"Where's the magic circle?" Lina nearly panicked.
"It's right here - " The sorcerers crowded back to make room for two servants with a huge carpet roll, which they set down and unfurled ... to reveal a very large, very fine magic circle designed for exorcisms.
"Are you sure you want one for an exorcism?" one of the healers asked, regarding the quantity of blood on Zelgadis and Lina (and now Gourry).
"Yes! Where's the amulet kit?"
" - We'll take him from here - " A pair of priests began to relieve Gourry of the semiconscious chimera; Zelgadis flinched, stirred, reached out a hand -
"Lina...." And immediately she was right there.
"What is it?"
"Lina, you know," he whispered painfully "how much you mean to me...."
" - !!!" A momentary blush graced her cheeks. He smiled, a very small, brief smile quickly stamped out by a wave of agony. Then he was carried off to the circle. Lina blinked a bit and took Gourry aside for a moment.
"Gourry, I'm gonna need you standing by," she confided. "From what Zel's told me - if this exorcism doesn't work - we're going to need you to kill him." Gourry's eyes grew huge.
"I - I can't kill Zelgadis!" he protested.
"He's already dying!" Lina reminded, blinking fast to keep the tears back. "And as long as Xellos has him, he can't be healed, and he'll die, and Xellos will have Zel's body all to himself and do horrible things - " She smacked herself suddenly to end the frantic babbling. "Do you understand at all now?"
"You mean ... I'll be killing Xellos?"
"... That's about the size of it. Where's that amulet kit?"
While Zelgadis lay on the magic circle, having his ribs bandaged at the entry and exit wounds, his half-lidded eyes changed from sapphire to amethyst.
Tsk! Zelgadis, you're a mess!
it's your doing.... a master at work, my ass
Now, now - Lina Inverse is no ordinary woman - she might even succeed in this undertaking. That being the case, a condemned mazoku must have his final meal, yes? Let's see what's in that memory of yours -
no, no, no... Zelgadis pleaded, but Xellos was already rummaging, throwing out images of
his father: "How can anything as pathetic as you be descended from me?" "What good are you, anyway?"
his grandfather: "You wish to be strong, Zelgadis?" "You will be completely transformed."
Lina: "You're the type that .. I'd rather die than join forces with the likes of you."
Oh, that hurt.
"You brought this on yourself, you know."
At the brink of everything, Zelgadis could not even think; he just hurt. And Xellos relished his mental and physical agonies.
Lina swept aside the cheap gemstones from the amulet kit, selected a perfectly square sheet of something that wasn't quite paper, and quickly traced a large circle on it.
"What are you doing, Lina?" Gourry had to ask, bending to see over her shoulder - she lay sprawled on her belly on the floor, drawing like a little kid. She shook the fatigue from her head and picked out a geometric stencil.
"I'm drawing Xellos' name," she answered.
"But that's a picture, not proper writing."
"It's his sigil," she explained, trying to be patient. "His personal glyph of definition; like those squiggly drawings they use sometimes instead of a dark lord's name? Only it's more powerful than a name because you can't pronounce it. There! Pass me the ink?"
"What are you drawing his - uh - his name for?"
"Xellos is too powerful to exorcise with conventional white magic," Lina determined. "But if I tailor the spell to target him specifically, it should be much more effective." Her quick hands traced a fine web of special black ink over the diagram, and she stood to admire it. "That should do it! Amelia - "
Amelia was fast asleep on the floor.
"Someone put her to bed," Lina requested, and Amelia stirred when she was picked up.
"I'm not sleepy," she murmured. "I want to help Mr. Zelgadis.... Don't send me away.... Lina!"
"Amelia, you're worn out. Just go to bed and you'll see him in the morning." And if this doesn't work, you'll be glad you didn't see it. Amelia yawned enormously, and Lina waited until she was out of the room before outlining her strategy.
"Okay! This is how it's gonna work," she announced to the handful of healers, and strode into the circle where Zelgadis' body lay aligned with the pentagram. "Very simply, as soon as I've pulled off the exorcism, you lot take over and heal Zelgadis as far as he can take. Don't waste a moment! - Unless the spell fails," she added soberly. "Then you'll have to contain him, while Gourry ... does his thing."
Gourry nodded gravely.
"I have a question," the patient said very clearly, because Xellos was using his body. "How do you plan to keep from exorcising the subject's preexisting mazoku element? I'm sure you already know that without it, a fusion of golem and human is fatally unstable...."
Lina caught her panic instantly. "Thanks for bringing it up, Xellos. As for that...." She untied her headband, bent and fastened it around his left deltoid. Xellos regarded it with real alarm as she slipped the drawing of his name under his back, right between the shoulder blades. She laid a printed card over Zelgadis' heart and cast a basic set-spell.
"Source of all power / flames that glow red." The body flinched, cried out when a brilliant red bolt vanished both sheets of not-quite-paper. Lina stood up.
"Now: you twisted creature, not of this world, by the Light of Purity I possess / I bid thee, begone to the nexus of our two worlds - Megiddo Flare!"
She focused tightly, and channeled the spell directly into his chest. The magic circle blazed with light.
The body screamed, spine arcing, and perfectly opaque black smoke began to issue from the mouth and ribs - twisting out the wound through the bandages. It collected in the air above the circle, forming an intimidating thunderhead. When the last few wisps of vapor had trickled from the exhausted body, Xellos spoke:
"Lina Inverse - I promise you misery!" Then he twisted himself into a tornado and vanished. The circle winked out.
"NOW!" Lina yelled, waving the healers in and backing swiftly out of the circle. Gourry returned her hug as she whispered a mantra of desperation into his breastplate: "Zel-don't-die, Zel-don't-die, Zel-don't-die, Zel-don't-die, Zel-don't-die...."