Mazoku were as mysterious and rarely seen as the fey, but as stories go, perhaps many times more dangerous. While the extent of tricks the fey could play were often limited by their rulers, the Mazoku extended their reaches even farther, warping and guiding the life of those whose wills were weak.
Mazoku were also the catch-all scapegoat, if something went wrong on a grand scale, the Mazoku would surely be blamed. Not that these creatures particularly minded, since there never seemed to be any complaints from their side. Whatever they did do was directed by their one master and creator, a being known only from stories as the Ruby Eye Lord.
But there are plenty of other sources of trouble. One was a bundle of bored fey magic by the name of Emiri and when this little fey was bored, she was bored. Bored enough to even break the law of the Queen and wander beyond the twilight branches of the Seelie Court and flit around in the outer world.
At least she wasn't alone, much to her regret.
"Emiri, can't we go back now? I'm sure mother is calling us for lunch. Or is it dinner now? But she's going to find out we're gone and then she'll have the entire court out looking for us and then they'll find out we're not in there and we'll be really in trouble. Emiri, are you listening to me?"
Emiri pulled the cotton out of her ears. "Sorry, Kashie, I wasn't listening. Hey! There are some lights and music up ahead. Maybe there's some kind of party or festival or something. Let's go!"
"Emiri!" Kashandra called helplessly after her younger, impulsive twin. This had always been the way, Emiri flying off into trouble and Kashandra the elder responsible one flying after to try to keep Emiri out of trouble. The long purple-haired fey wrung her hands as she fluttered after her blond sister. "Didn't you listen at all to what the messenger said?"
What Emiri had spied was a party, but not the kind of either fey was expecting. The light was from the fires that burned from torched trees and wagons, the song from flutes and pipes of hollowed bone. Dancing around the bonfires were satyrs and dryads though not of the kind that the young feys knew. These were dark and twisted, garbed in thorned brambles and dead leaves, filling the air with their unworldly screeches.
"What is going on?" Emiri unknowingly whispered, shocked by the sheer brutality of the scene, so radically different from everything she's known. She could see winged creatures, whose size were not that different from hers but the wings... Unlike the glistening, translucent wings that graced her back, the wings of those others were tattered and black. "Who are they?"
Her older sister shivered. More in tune than her sister with the harmony of nature, Kashandra felt more of the metaphysical and spiritual impact. She saw less the bloody gore but the darkness that had now entwined itself in the living things, choking and corrupting the natural essences.
"Emiri, we have to get out of here! Hurry! Before the they notice we're here!" Kashandra whispered frantically, pulling her transfixed sister's arm. "If they find us they - "
"May slice you, dice you, and serve you up for stew," giggled a high-pitched voice. Kashandra stifled a shriek as a long-nosed orange face pushed itself at her. Like the others Emiri had noticed, it was no bigger than either of them, but its bat-like wings and mismatched features marked it for what it was. "Hey, everyone! We've got some wallflowers here!"
With cackles of glee and malice, the feys' unspoken-of, dark cousins descended on the twins, pulling the frightened pair out into the blazing scene. Bloodshot eyes followed them hungrily and hatefully as the feys were herded with pokes and zaps into a hand-worked iron cage. Once locked inside, the cacophony rose to a new feverish pitch as if to further terrify the captives.
The twins huddled together in the middle of their prison hanging over the largest bonfire. Emiri held her older sister protectively as the more sensitive twin had been reduced to almost mindless babbling from evil energies raised by the celebrating Unseelie. As if she was retreating to a safer time, the purple-haired fairy unknowingly repeated the story her mother used to tell them.
"Let me get this straight," Zelgadiss said pleasantly as he alternated between clenching and relaxing his fist. "You two were both fighting over a godparent assignment, which was Lina, and in the end assisted her in destroying the Mazoku. Am I correct?"
"Very," Xelloss agreed amiably. "However, we're only supposed to be seen by our assignment so we had to cast a veil of forgetfulness on all of you to prevent you from remembering our presence."
"And while you were at it, you hid the fact that Lina was still alive." His stone fist closed tightly, resulting in a little 'Eep!' from the fairy being squeezed there.
"Right again," the fairy 'godfather' squeaked, his head a bit inflated from all the pressure on his body. "Of course, strictly speaking, dear Lina was barely alive. It was a Mazoku she was dealing with."
"That's right. It took almost all of our power to deflect its power from killing her," Filia added grudgingly. She hated to admit that she had to work with that perverted fairy. "It would look very bad to have a client die on the job."
"So with the help of our fairy brethren, we brought her back for healing. Of course, healing the body was the easier task of the two. Trying to restore her mind to some level of sanity is a much more difficult and delicate thing to do." Filia sighed as she rearranged the folds of her pink gown. "But we couldn't keep her in the Court. So we created a protected glade out here."
"Let me guess, someone broke into the glade?"
"Worse! It's been corrupted, twisted into a dark, vile mockery of life and sunshine. Instead of gentle rays of sunlight and moonlight, an eternal cloud of gloom as fallen, turning flowers and young leaves into poisoned thorns and grasping branches. Oh that - "
"Yes, yes, I do believe we get the picture, my dear," Xelloss nodded, wriggling like a worm to crawl out of Zelgadiss's iron grip. "Oof! Got the crick out of my back. Quite a grip you have young man."
"So you came here to get me to embark on a quest to either destroy whatever evil has your little glade in its grasp or to rescue Lina from there or the worst possibility of all, do both."
"Actually, we came here just to get your opinion on the best candidate for the job," the fairy godfather replied glibly before his fellow fairy grandmother brought her mace down on his head. "In truth, we came because you're lovesick enough to go rescue someone you barely knew for two days on our word who you also barely know and should probably trust even less."
Filia whacked him across the room. "Ignore him."
Zelgadiss sweatdropped. "Done."
"We come to ask you Zelgadiss Graywords, son of Terim Graywords and a person of questionable lineage, to undertake this honorable quest. Shall you do it?"
If you want to ask someone to do something for you, insulting one of his parents isn't the way to go. If Zel was as sensitive about his mom as he used to be about his dad, he would have taken offense. If, since the rule of three must be obeyed, if Zel actually was some handsome, blond prince dressed in white and schooled since the time he could walk that he was destined to undertake ridiculous quests for no other reason than he was a charming prince, he would have automatically said yes.
However, he was neither a prince nor handsome (having never believed comments to the contrary), so the answer to him wasn't immediately obvious. Oh there were a number of reasons why he couldn't go galloping off on some wild quest.
Someone had to keep the household running.
Oh be honest. There were plenty of other paper-pushers that could handle it, at least for the period of time he would be gone.
He was too old for this.
Actually, this body had reduced his aging by half. He's only aged ten years since the transformation when he was fifteen.
There was probably some prince needing to fulfill some cradle prophecy who could do it.
"We already checked that angle. Would it help if we made one up for you right now?" Xelloss gurgled from the far side of the room. He sat up, shaking his head left and right to make sure it was back in working condition. "We can throw excuses and counter-excuses all day and night but knowing Filia, you'll go along with this eventually so why not save some time and just go now?"
"It would be foolhardy to go alone..."
"Ta-da!" Xelloss hopped onto the doorknob and opened the chamber door to let two eavesdroppers fall in. "Two ready and waiting henchmen!" But no one was listening.
"Shala. Vandanes. What would your protocol and etiquette tutor have to say about this kind of behavior?" the seneschal asked evenly, arms crossed and towering over the two.
"Five hundred lines of 'I will not eavesdrop on other people's private conversations'," Vandanes muttered before his older sister pinched him. "Ouch! Watch it, I'm delicate."
"So Vandanes's vision was true? Lina Inverse really is alive somewhere?" the princess asked eagerly. The final tale of Lina Inverse had been her favorite bedtime story when she was a child. "You are going to save her, aren't you Zelgadiss?"
"Let's not jump to conclusions - "
"I'll tell father right away and clear it up with him. Mother too. And I'm sure the servants can manage for a few days without an overbearing seneschal breathing down their throats. I believe Jenkins has sufficient training to serve as a substitute. Mother can supervise," Shala said hurriedly but in an authoritative tone that brook no argument. She was off and ordering with her younger brother chasing after her.
"Perhaps we should have talked to her first," Xelloss mused. "Things would have gone much quicker."
"Alright, so I'm on this quest that you wanted me to go on so badly," Zelgadiss glared at the fairy flitting around the head of his dark stallion. Xelloss only smiled, well, he did little else but smile. "But why are you two coming as well?"
Shala managed to look convincingly innocent under the chimera's sharp look. Vandanes just squirmed and concentrated on staying on his saddle despite the aches in his lower body. His horsemanship lessons had only started a month ago.
"You might need some help," the dark-haired princess said reasonably. "Plus a priest's support may come in need if Lina Inverse needs some healing and someone needs to protect Vandanes since he hasn't had much combat training either."
"Thank you so much for pointing that out," the blond muttered, cheeks aflame because of the way he was being treated. It was like everyone still thought of him as a sickly, weak child.
Zelgadiss didn't know what possessed Gourry to let his two children come with him on this possibly foolhardy quest. They were heirs of the realm for crying out loud. And he wasn't just talking about them getting hurt on the quest. There were also matters of politics, Shala was of marriageable age and though wandering whims in male heirs could be tolerated, the same didn't apply for females.
Terrific. Now I'm thinking like a father.
"Is this the place?"
Zelgadiss, two royal siblings, and a pair of fairies stood before a wall of tangled brambles with long sharp thorns that glistened with some kind of liquid. High above the thorny vines, dark bare branches reached up to catch any avian that dare to fly through.
"I don't like this place."
"Who in their right mind would?"
"No, Shala, I really mean it. I don't like this place. There's something...wrong with it," Vandanes shivered, pulling his robes closer to himself as if to conserve warmth. But the chill was not a physical one. He felt the urge to retch and was glad he hadn't inherited his father's enormous appetite. "It's...sick."
"The prince is sensitive, too sensitive," Filia frowned, putting her small hand to the youth's brow which was burning to the touch. "The perversion of his place is affecting him, making him ill. Strange that a human has such a sensitivity."
"You two aren't affected? Aren't the fairies supposed to be sensitive to nature?" Zelgadiss asked, raising his mask to filter some of the stagnant, dead smell that was wafting out of the dead grove. It was repugnant but not something that would make one sick. Normally that is.
"Well, we fairy godfathers and godmothers are made of sterner stuff than most other fairies," Xelloss explained, landing on Zel's shoulder. His smile looked a bit strained though. "However, it would still be highly advisable for us to remain outside of that grove's sphere of influence."
"In other words, I'm going in alone." Zel tossed the reins of his mount to Shala. "Take Vandanes and the horses and set up camp a good distance upwind of this place. Wait there for...how long should it take you think?"
"Well, it really isn't such a deep grove but that was before all of this foul magic descent upon it."
"Then wait for two days after Vandanes to get better before moving on to the nearest town. You are not to approach this grove under any condition. If I don't return after a week, return home immediately and put together a large force of priests and mages to destroy this place. I doubt whomever did this did it for beneficial purposes."
"Wait a minute! You can't go in alone!" Shala protested, an arm around her brother who had begun coughing uncontrollably. "It's bound to be dangerous and - "
"I knew that before we even started," Zelgadiss said, pulling out his sword as he critically surveyed the tangle in his path. "Someone would have to have done this on purpose and there's no way they'd make it easy to get to someone like Lina. Now take Vandanes out of here before he gets any worse! You fairies stay with them if you have nothing else to do."
"Please find her," Filia prayed, hovering next to the prince and princess. She pressed a button on her mace and a grapple attached to a wire popped out. With it, she hooked her fellow fairy and reeled him in. "We cannot do more."
Her purple eyes drooped, the exhaustion of keeping them open all night beginning to get to her. But no, she strengthened her resolve, determined not to take her eyes off of the hellish Unseelie for a second even as the things she saw made her want to retch. They probably did it all for her own benefit, knowing that she wouldn't leave her sister defenseless as she slept.
For most of the night, Kashandra had muttered the stories over and over, rocking herself as their mother used to rock them. It was all her fault that Kashie was like this now and Emiri wasn't going to let any of those Unseelie do anything to her older sister.
Dawn was coming soon, as was evident by the growing pink lining to the eastern sky. The Unseelie had no physical aversion to sunlight for the most part, but she hoped that psychologically they'd go away once the sun rose. They certainly should need to sleep after all of their nighttime activity!
And maybe the novelty of two captured fairies would have worn off by now and just be forgotten. Or perhaps they were going to be killed now. The blond fairy wasn't reassured as one of the twisted satyrs picked up their iron cage, cackling madly. All of the Unseelie began running deeper into the forest whose edges just touched this site of frolic.
Emiri held her sister even closer. She didn't know where they were being taken and though she didn't possess the close connection to nature as most other Seelie did, she knew wherever they were going as darker and far more dead than where they had been.