"It's all very simple, really, " Xelas Metallium said calmly, taking another drag off her cigarette, filling the air with the scent of cloves.
Zelgadis frowned, more alert now, having been dosed by the Beastmaster with something sharp and green smelling that would take the edge off the drug she had given them. He was propped up in a large overstuffed chair similar to the one Xelas was now occupying, wrapped in a blanket.
"What's so simple?" he asked suspiciously. Xelas took another puff before answering.
"Since Lina isn't with your happy gang, I assume she's missing too, ne?" she said, rearranging herself in the chair.
"What do you mean, too???" Zelgadis asked, straightening up, the blanket falling from his shoulders. Xelas gave him an innocent look.
"Well, coincidently, Xelloss has gone missing too," she answered.
Zelgadis groaned.
"So you think he took her and went somewhere?" Zel questioned. Xelas shook her head so hard that her earrings gave off a tinkly sound, small bones rattling together.
"No, I didn't tell him to do anything of that sort!! Xel is a good obedient boy, he wouldn't do anything that I didn't tell him to do. Besides," she said, hugging herself, "I can't feel him anymore."
"Feel him??"
"His presence, his aura, whatever you want to call it, " Xelas said. "If I concentrate hard enough, I can tell where he is, if he's hurt, etc, etc. And I can't feel him anymore. Which is very very bad."
"Do all the Dark Lords have that kind of link with their servants?" Zel asked, trying to get all the info he could from her.
Xelas hugged herself tighter, curling up into a ball at the end of her chair. Zelgadis watched her, puzzled at her extreme reaction.
"No," she said in a small voice, as thin and whispery as the smoke that curled from her cigarette. "Just us."
"Why?"
"Cause he's my son."
Zelgadis stared at her hard, at the small slender body, the fifteen year old face and voice, her delicate hands. "Your..son."
"Yeah, he is."
"He's never called you his mother."
"Because we don't refer to each other that way in public, we try to keep it quiet, cause the others don't like it." Noting his disbelief, she added defiantly, "Didn't you think it was kinda strange that I only have one servant, when all the others have at least two? Of course, Xel is a lot more efficient and smarter and better looking but.."
"Well, who's his father then?" Zel asked. Xelloss didn't look anything like Xelas. He couldn't see any resembalance between the two besides their eyes, narrow and cunning, watchful and bright.
"I am."
Zelgadis started. "How...how is that possible??"
Xelas sighed exaggaratedly, and assumed a teaching position, spine very straight. "Because it's extremely difficult for Mazoku-Mazoku pairings to have children the "normal" way, we prefer to create our children through magic. I created Xel that way, using my magic and my essence. He doesn't look like me, but he has all my powers."
"Why?"
Xelas gave him a hooded stare, her eyes darkening to amber stones, glowing like small fires in the dim room. "Why does any parent have a child?"
Zelgadis sighed, and decided to stop persuing that line of discussion, at least for now.
"So now, both Xelloss and Lina are missing, assumed to be snatched by the same person, we have no idea who took them, it was probably someone very powerful, and you can't "feel" Xelloss anymore, which means they both are likely to be somewhere far, far away."
"Or another dimension."
Zelgadis stared at her. Xelas took this moment to gulp down some amber liquid from a very large glass at her elbow, and take another cigarette.
"It's a very good possiblity. Not just anyone could have taken my Xelloss and your Lina, which means whoever took them probably has the power to mess around with the dimensional gateways, and what better place to store a loud sorceress and my son then another dimension? In fact," said Xelas, warming to her topic, "they coulda been real sneaky and created a cute little pocket dimension to stick them in, which would be a hideously eeeeeevil plan, because they would be the only ones able to access it, which means we'd be screwed. It's nothing less then I'd suspect from them."
"So, you suspect another one of the Dark Lords," Zel said resignedly. Just when they thought they were safe...
"I suspect," Xelas said, pausing to blow a smoke blossom towards her ceiling, "none other then my ugly, rat-faced, stuck-up, weasel-nosed brother, " she paused again, "Dynast Grausherra."
"Dynast," Zel said.
"Dynast," Xelas repeated gravely.
"Your brother."
"Yes. And before you ask, all of us Dark Lords are technically brothers and sisters, but we don't refer to each other that way unless we're pissed off. And," Xelas said, refilling her now empty glass, "I am EXTREMELY pissed off."
"Are you sure? What about," Zel said, mentally going over the list of the Dark Lords in his mind. Garv and Phibrezo were out of the picture, so that left Xelas, Dynast and.. "Deep Sea Dolphin?"
Xelas stared at him as if he'd sprouted extra arms and a fuzzy tail, and then threw back her head and laughed, kicking her heels into the air, and showing a lot more skin then was sanctioned by acceptable standards.
"Oh, oh!" she chortled, still spasming, "My older sister Nerissa??? Are you crazy?? That old witch is too loony to even come up with an idea like this! Oh, that's rich!"
Zelgadis frowned. "She's insane?"
Xelas nodded, still shaking a little. "She's nuts, absolutely wacko. She lives at the bottom of her damn sea and won't come up for anyone or anything. If you go anywhere close to her precious ocean, she gets this giant killer seaweed to attack you. The last time, I nearly broke six fingernails trying to get free from it. In fact, I don't think I've seen her for about 200 years now."
"So Dynast is most likely behind this," Zelgadis murmured, mulling the problem over. If that was true, they had a major problem on their hands. Dynast Grausherra was reputedly the smartest and most ruthless of the Dark Lords, as well as the one who lived in the most inhospitable enviroment. If he had Xelloss and Lina, they might as well wait for the stars to fall from the heavens before they had even a tiny chance of getting them back.
"Yeah."
Zel frowned, suddenly remembering the question he should have asked right at the beginning of this whole farce. "Wait a minute. Why the hell did you go to all the trouble of drugging us and bringing us here? You're perfectly capable of looking for Xelloss on your own. Why do you care about Lina disappearing too?"
"Because, " Xelas said slowly, "if I don't get Lina back, a certain someone is going to be very very angry at little me, and said person is capable of causing grave bodily harm with such mundane utensils as your common, everyday, spoon. I feverantly wish to stay on this person's good side."
"Who is this "said person"?"
Xelas shrugged. "I'm not at liberty to discuss that. It's a.."
"Secret," Zel finished grouchily, spotting another tie between mother and son. "This person isn't another Dark Lord?"
"Oh no," Xelas said, rapidly shaking her head and uttered a little moan. "Much, much worse then a Dark Lord. I kneel in homage to the utter terror created by the mere mention of this person's name."
Zel pondered this for a moment, when a vague memory flitted through his brain, of Lina shrieking in terror from a letter clutched in her shaking hand. He frowned. It couldn't...Nah.
"So I was thinking," Xelas continued, happily oblivious and back on the nicotine again, "that we could all look for them together!! I'm a very good person to have in a fight, plus I've wanted to kick Dynast's ass for oh, about 600 years now."
Zel thought this over. Without Lina around to cast her insanely powerful spells, a Dark Lord could be useful in the magic department. On the other hand, she smoked like a chimney, and seemed to consume alcohol at an amazing rate, but how many people could say they'd traveled with a Dark Lord and lived to tell about it?? Besides, Zel thought, a sudden hope piercing him like shafts of sunlight, Xelas Metallium had been around for at least a couple thousand years. She might know of a cure.
"Fine," Zel stated, as much authority in his voice as he could muster. "You can travel with us, but I will be in charge in Lina's absense. AND," he said, glaring at the innocent looking Beastmaster, remembering the habits of a certain child of hers, "No funny stuff!! No tricks, no pranks, no nothing that isn't absolutely necessary to this quest??? Got it??"
"Got it," Xelas said calmly, reaching for her tenth cigarette that hour. "We'll leave in the morning, after your cute little friends have woken from their snooze. And I'm off to beddy-bye." She rose and calmly collected her cigarettes, and glass, adding over her shoulder as she went, "My room is down the hall, with the big double doors. The bathroom's on the side, to the left. The kitchen is closed for the night, and I advise you not to open the door at the far right. That's Xel's room, and if I'm not mistaken, it's booby-trapped. Nighty-night!" she chirped and vanished into thin air.
Zelgadis sighed and slowly, painfully, with the ancient dignity of a man far beyond his years made a small nest for himself in his chair. Glancing at Ameria and Gourry still wrapped in peaceful slumber, he groaned and tried to deafen himself to the cries of the many vicious animals that were patrolling the island and who had all made a mutual agreement to howl right outside the window. He tried to plug his ears with his fingers, with no success.
Dimly, he heard someone howl, "SHUT UP KIDS!!" and a large explosion suddenly rocked the ground outside the windows. The beasts fled, whimpering, and Zelgadis buried himself under the quilt, groaning at the cruelty of fate.