Oh, It’s On Now!

Oh, It’s On Now!

Gourry shook his head as Zorom spoke… or oozed… or whatever it was that Zorom did to produce sounds.

“An ally of the girl, are you?”

“I’m more than her ally. I’m this girl’s guardian.”

My guardian?

“This really doesn’t make any difference to me. Whichever way you define your relationship to the girl, you still wind up my enemy. Am I mistaken?”

“Not at all, old man.”

“Then I shall destroy you.”

“Go on… take your best shot!” Gourry shouted, as he took off running, luring the big, ugly pincushion away from me.

“Haaaaaa!” With that blood-curdling battle cry, the demon unleashed his flame whips and silver needles in a single volley

Gourry’s sword flashed.

Damn! I couldn’t even track the blade with my eyes. It was the first time I’d really watched Gourry’s swordsmanship in action. His skill was on a completely different level from my own.

An instant later, his blade sliced Zorom’s head open. Nice!

“Ha!” Zorom laughed.

Gourry turned just in time to knock away a battery of silver flashes headed for his back.

“So young, too! Impressive for someone so new.” Zorom spoke as if the cuts didn’t matter.

“You’re a demon, then… Gourry tossed out the question as casually as if he were asking, “So, where’re you from?”

Of course he’s a demon, doofus! Haven’t you been paying attention?

“Oh yes. Which means, you will not be able to do me damage with that blade, young man. It just won’t cut it.” Demon humor. You just knew it had to be yucky.

He was right, though. All Mazoku, including half demons, lesser demons, brass demons, and especially pureblooded demons like this one, exist on the astral plane. Their physical forms cannot be destroyed because they’re not really there— make sense? You have two options, then, for prevailing over a Mazoku: trapping him in a holy talisman (none of which were handy at the moment) or defeating him with a magical sword. Gourry was amazing with his blade, but the blade itself seemed unremarkable. Even my enchanted sword wasn’t powerful enough to do the job.

In my estimation, the situation was just about as futile as Zorom said it was. With no other choice, I was going to have to get serious.

“Oh, it’ll cut,” Gourry said curtly.

It’ll cut his hair maybe, but a fat lot of good that’ll do us!

“Oh, really?” Zorom mocked him. “Then, show me, please. I’m anxious to see this.”

“Well, since you asked…”

I had absolutely no idea what Gourry was thinking when instead of sheathing his sword he withdrew a single needle from his pocket with his right hand.

“Do you intend to annoy me to death with pinpricks?” Zorom could barely contain his amusement. “Perhaps you’ll finish me off with paper cuts?”

“Of course not.” Gourry smiled as he gripped his sheathed sword’s hilt with his left hand. “Don’t be silly.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly is it that you intend to do?”

“This.” And with that, Gourry threaded the needle into the hilt.

Huh? What is he doing? He was messing around with the joint that locked the blade of his sword to its hilt. Which meant… he was detaching the blade?

Why?

Gourry drew the now-bladeless hilt, pocketed the needle, and looked up and smiled. “Do you understand now?”

Understand what?!

He was both calm and confident. Neither of which made any sense, since he was about to take on a demon pureblood while brandishing… a hilt.

“Young man,” Zorom sighed. “I am greatly amused and am grateful to you for that. But I cannot claim any understanding whatsoever.”

“Then how about—THIS!“ Gourry grasped the sword hilt with his right hand, thrusting it forward.

Yeah, no, you still look like an idiot brandishing a wooden handle, Gourry. Sorry.

“Well… I understand that you are a fool!“ Zorom laughed as dozens of flaming arrows appeared, all targeted at Gourry.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Gourry scoffed and—incredibly— managed to dodge the lot.

Still, he wasn’t any closer to defeating Zorom. It didn’t matter how many attacks he evaded, it was just prolonging the inevitable.

Zorom closed in. And then…

“Light come forth!” Gourry roared.

Zorom stiffened. My eyes widened. Zorom was bisected from his head to his toes. It took me a minute, but I did manage to scream.

Gourry held his sword in his right hand. Where the steel blade had been, a blade of light shone forth.

“Th-th-the Sword… of L-L-Light…” I stuttered.

Before my very eyes, flickering in Gourry’s hand… there was no doubt about it. It was the legendary Sword of Light. Hot damn.

Zorom’s body cleaved in two like a split log, before crumbling into dust and returning to the astral plane.

Gourry sheathed the Sword of Light, since it had done its duty.

“G-Gourry…” I finally managed, my voice crackling like oil in a hot iron skillet.

“Yes, ma’am?” Gourry grinned widely and looked my way. “How’ve you been, little lady?”

“Gourry—!” I broke into a run and headed toward him with all the speed my dainty legs could muster. I stopped and stood right in front of him, gazing up at his face.

“Gourry?”

“Lina?”

“Gimme that sword!” I screeched. “Gimme gimee gimee!” Gourry nearly fell over.

Don’t fall on the sword!

“Hey now, just a minute…” Gourry acted as if he were stumbling out of bed. “How about jumping into my arms and telling me how happy you are to see me, huh?”

“That? Sure, okay. We can do that later. But now, gimme that sword! No, wait, that’s rude. I’m sorry. Don’t give me the sword— I’ll buy it from you. How could I have been so thoughtless? I’m sorry. Five hundred! I’ll buy it from you for five hundred!”

“Now you just wait a darn minute!” Gourry raised his voice. “Five hundred… that’s totally a fair price for that run-of-the-mill rapier of yours!” I was talking so fast, it was hard to catch my breath. “Oh, all right, five hundred and fifty! But that’s just because we’re friends. Now, c’mon! Fork it over! Gimme, gimme, gimme! Don’t be stingy.”

“Don’t be stingy? Do you seriously think I’m going to hand over the Sword of Light for five hundred?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“You’re nuts! And you’re cheap.“

Throw away enough pennies, and soon you’ll have wasted a fortune. I am a merchant’s daughter, after all.

“First of all, this sword is a family heirloom, passed down from generation to generation. I wouldn’t sell it at any price!”

“So give it to me, and it’ll be my family heirloom! It’ll be okay then, right? Right? Just so long as it stays in a family?”

“You’re a lunatic! What’s wrong with you? No, I’m not doing it! N! O!”

“You monster! How dare you treat a little girl like that! I mean it! I’m going to cry!”

“So cry!”

“Okay, so I’m not going to cry. So what?”

As soon as I said that, I snapped back to my senses. I didn’t know why but I’d taken one look at that sword and just lost my grip. A couple of deep breaths and I was moderately sane again. Poor Gourry was just as freaked out by my snapping back as he’d been by my initial snap.

“What the… ?”

“Sorry, I’m better now. I have a thing for swords, what can I say?” I didn’t wait for a response; it was urgent we moved on. “Listen. I don’t have time to explain, but a guy who bailed me out of a pinch while you were away is in big trouble. Can you come with me to help? I owe him.”

“A-ah, yeah, sure…”

“Okay, great! This way!” I broke into a run, hoping we’d make it in time to rescue Zelgadiss. Good as he was, he was monstrously outnumbered—by actual monsters, no less. The ogres and berserkers were just the appetizers. If he spent too much time on them, he wouldn’t have the energy for the main course of war mantises and durahans, with a side of Dilgear.

We ran in Dildork’s direction.

Gourry brought out the Sword of Light and cut down a nearby durahan before he even saw what was coming.

“Here we are to save the day!” I announced.

Except, apparently, the day didn’t need saving. I had the situation totally backward. Rezo’s forces were already retreating, only one ogre and one berserker were still standing along with Dilgear, who was groaning audibly.

And…

“What do you know?” Zelgadiss sighed.

The three of us stopped.

“Yes!” Dilgear looked over his shoulder; joy spreading over his face. “Rodimus!”

The old man…

Rodimus stood there, halberd in hand. He had a companion with him I didn’t recognize. A remarkably good-looking older man.

“You came! You finally came! We’re saved!” hissed a war mantis in as exuberant a hiss as he could muster.

“You’re half right,” the swordsman replied, and he struck out at Dilgear without warning. The werewolf sailed through the air and smacked into a nearby tree, making an unfortunate crunching sound. We were all too shocked to move.

“R-Rodimus! What are you… ?” The war mantis was appalled. “Have you gone mad?”

“I am not crazy, if that’s what you mean!” He moved deliberately. “I pledged my loyalty to Lord Zelgadiss, and no nonsense from the Red Priest will cause me to stand against my comrades!”

“W-why you!” The war mantis rushed Rodimus in a frenzy. Unfortunately, that made him easy prey for the halberd.

“Doryaa!” The fight ended the instant that Rodimus yelled out. The war mantis’ torso had been divided cleanly in two. The lower half took several steps before walking into a tree. The upper half fell to the ground, squirmed for an excruciating while, then stopped. The remaining combatants scattered without a word.

“Thank you for coming,” Zelgadiss said humbly, “but I believe we have things under control.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Gourry smiled, and then turned to the two elder swordsmen. “Seriously, just so we’re clear: We’re all on the same side here, right?”

“For the time being,’“ the handsome guy responded.

Wait, where have I heard that voice before… ?

“I’m sorry for dragging you two into this, Rodimus… Zolf,” said Zelgadiss.

Z-Z-Zolf?! The good-looking guy was Zolf?! Nuh-uh!

Zolf’s gaze turned in my direction. “Well, young lady I’m glad to see you made it.”

Yeah, I’ll bet.

Don’t go thinking I changed my mind about him just because he was a looker, okay? All that mattered at this point was that he was an enemy of Rezo the Red Priest. That made him a friend of mine… an inordinately good-looking friend of mine.

“In the interest of maximizing our forces, I hope we can agree to a fresh start,” he said.

I nodded, indicating my intention to let bygones be bygones. “You do have small feet. I’m standing by that one. And you are a third-rate sorcerer—and a sadist. But an ally is an ally. Since we’re stronger together than separate, I’ll be happy to call you friend. “

“Lucky me. Guess I’m not the only one who can hold a grudge.”

“Who, me? No, not me. You are totally forgiven for trying to get me knocked up by a walking flounder. Totally. The only people who hold grudges are the ones who let their pride get the better of them. It warps their personalities after a while, and no matter how good-looking they are—”

“Look, you little bitch—!”

“Lina!” Gourry butted in. “Not to change the subject, but I need you to catch me up on what I’ve missed.”

Oh, yeah. I hadn’t given Gourry any of the details yet. Starting with the moment we’d been separated, I filled him in on everything that had happened since. The church, the fish, the escape, Dilgear, the poison, my nap… I recounted it all in rich detail. I have a gift for storytelling, as you well know.

I finished up as the sun set, “… and that’s where you came in. Understand?”

I fished for a response. “Hellooo? Any questions?”

Gourry didn’t say a word. He looked—no, stared—blankly in my direction. Everyone but me was sitting on the ground. I guessed all that fighting had worn them out. Sheesh, you guys. And I thought I had a problem with stamina.

“You know,” Rodimus said, staring at a series of tally marks he’d made on the ground in front of him. “You’ve been talking nonstop for over an hour.”

“I have?”

Everyone nodded decisively

Really… ? Huh.

“Well, anyway You got the gist?”

“Oh, I think I got more than the gist,” Gourry said, climbing slowly to his feet.

“I have a question,” Zelgadiss said, and he rose to his feet as well. “Will you now hand over the Philosopher’s Stone?”

“Nope.” I sighed. “Sorry.”

“I’m not surprised,” Zelgadiss replied. There was hostility in his tone.

“Rezo wants it to restore his sight. You want it for vengeance. They’re both selfish acts, neither of them worthy of the stone.”

“Do not judge me, girl, unless you intend to start a war.”

“I don’t want to start a war, Zelgadiss, but I’m not going to hand over the stone. That’s all there is to it. If that means we’re foes, then so be it. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that this is all a scheme between you and Rezo, remember.”

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” Zelgadiss said, drawing his sword. “But it seems you give me no choice.”

“You could walk away,” Gourry said, hilt in hand. I guess he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Aw jeez, guys.

Zolf and Rodimus took their places on either side of Zelgadiss.

“You two fall back,” Zelgadiss commanded.

At least he was after a fair fight. Rodimus took a single step backward, then managed a grin.

“B-but…” Zolf stuttered.

“Fall back,” Zelgadiss repeated.

Dejected, Zolf withdrew.

“Wait,” I said. “Cut it out, all of you! This is stupid!”

Neither combatant could take his eyes off his foe. Zolf and Rodimus wouldn’t look at me, either.

Gourry and Zelgadiss gradually closed the distance between them.

I raised my voice. “I said, cut it out!” I screamed. “We’ll have plenty of time to fight among ourselves later. Right now, we have more pressing problems to attend to!”

“The lady has no idea just how right she is,” said a voice like very sharp glass. It was coming from right behind—no, right beside my ear. I felt something sharp and cold making its way up the back of my neck. I knew instinctively that if I so much as flinched, I’d die.

Everyone’s eyes swung around in my direction, and had a good look at who was behind me. I didn’t have to see him to know who it was. The voice was unmistakable.

“Rezo.” Gourry was the first to say his name.

“Yes. Sorry for not keeping in touch. Let us skip the usual formalities, shall we? You must know what I want, don’t you… Gourry? Oh, yes. I can feel it. Yes, you most certainly do.”

“You want the stone.”

“I do indeed want “the stone,’ as you have so disrespectfully called it. I’m certain that you understand, but please let me spell it out for you: If you should try anything rash, if you should so much as sneeze unexpectedly, I might lean forward the slightest little bit. And that motion, however slight, would be enough to drive this needle into this lovely neck, killing the girl… instantly.”

Yikes.

My heartbeat picked up the pace as I grasped the reality of what was happening. I started to sweat. Buckets.

I don’t want to die.

“He’s bluffing! Don’t do it!” Zelgadiss raised his voice to a shriek. No one bought it for a moment. Zelgadiss knew better than anyone that Rezo wasn’t the type to bluff. He was willing to sacrifice me for the stone.

A drop of sweat made its way down my cheek to my chin. It might have looked like a tear.

“Tell me what you want with the stone,” Gourry commanded.

“The girl explained it to you earlier. I desire only to see the world with my own eyes. Nothing more.”

“You would sacrifice my life for your sight?” I asked him, standing rigidly. “Why?”

“There is no explanation that a sighted person could possibly understand.”

So, that’s that.

“Now, the stone…” He tightened his hold.

“All right.” Gourry dropped his blade.

“Stop! No! Don’t give it to him—!”

Ignoring Zelgadiss’ pleas, Gourry produced the Orihalcon statue.

“Here,” he said as he tossed the statue to Rezo. It seemed to have curved through the space between them in slow motion. Rezo extended his right hand and caught it, clasping it tightly.

“I have it,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “I have it… After all these years, it is mine!” His voice had changed. He was overcome with wicked delight.

“Let the girl go!” Gourry shouted.

“Never you fear. I will release her momentarily.”

With a smash, the Orihalcon statue self-destructed as Rezo held it in his hand. The proximity of the power of the great sorcerer combined with the power of the stone was too much even for a substance as strong as Orihalcon.

Rezo extracted a small black stone from the rubble. It looked like… a rock, or maybe a piece of coal. Nothing a geologist would bother picking up. That pebble was the Philosopher’s Stone.

“Yes! This is it… this, most certainly, is it!”

Rezo tossed me onto my back.

“Oof!” I slid several paces over rough ground before coming to a stop. I reached back right away, found the needle still protruding from my neck, and pulled it out.

Brrr. Just the thought still gives me chills.

The pain had been bearable, but if that needle—which was about the length of a man’s thumb and more like a tiny sharpened razor than a pin—had been pushed in any further; it would have severed the bundle of nerves in my spinal column, and I’d have been dead or paralyzed for sure. That fiendish plot was brought to you by the renowned Red Priest. Thankyouverymuch.

Zelgadiss began chanting a spell. Gourry drew the Sword of Light.

And Rezo? He took the tiny stone from his hand and popped it into his mouth.

He wouldn’t…

Yes, he would. He swallowed it.

A strong wind gusted out of nowhere, sending my mantle flying into my face, and nearly scooping me up like a kite into the air. I covered my mouth as nausea welled within me. It wasn’t vertigo or fear. It wasn’t the wind. It was the certain knowledge that something was very, very wrong in the world.

The shears of wind that tore through the air weren’t part of a sudden storm. They were the physical manifestations of an intense miasma. In the center of that miasma, Rezo was alone. And laughing.

A roar came from Zelgadiss. With it, he sent a pillar of blue flames toward Rezo. They wound around the Red Priest like a chrysalis and then… disappeared.

Whatever spell that was—and I wasn’t familiar with it—had no effect whatsoever.

“Ah ha ha ha… ! I can see! I can SEE!”

I was mesmerized. We all were. We’d never seen anything like it in our lives. Rezo’s eyes opened. Orbs of red emanated from the darkness within. His eyes were at once the color of rubies and blood, and the tongues of fire, and behind them…

“Bwa ha ha ha ha ha! They’re open! My eyes have opened!” The flesh from his cheeks fell to the ground with a plop. Something white could be seen underneath.

“What was that?” someone asked.

Plop. From his forehead this time.

And then… I understood. I knew what had been sealed behind Rezo’s eyes. Rezo’s face transformed into a mask of white stone, with rubies fit in where his eyes should have been. His entire body, still covered in red robes, hardened into something that wasn’t human.

“It can’t be…” Zelgadiss muttered. He’d recognized it as well: Ruby Eye Shabranigdu lived.

A silence fell across the land like no silence before or since. The birds ceased their singing. The gurgling of the rivers hushed. It was as though everything had stopped to witness what was happening.

“You may choose the path that you desire,” Rezo, or Shabranigdu, said calmly, his marble mouth fixed open. “If you choose to obey me, you will be permitted to live out your natural lives. I offer you this as an expression of gratitude for having restored me to life.

“However, if you should choose to be enemies, then I will show you no mercy. Before I go to release the Demon Lord of the north, another aspect of myself that was sealed up long ago, I shall be your opponent. Choose wisely.”

It wasn’t exactly what you’d call an easy choice. To allow him to release the Demon Lord of the north was to condemn the world to destruction. To fight him was to take as our enemy one of the seven aspects of the Demon Lord, whom a God—a God—had divided while both fought for hegemony over the world. Victory in that battle had drained every ounce of that God’s power. A band of unorganized sorcerers and warriors, then, was not likely to fare well.

To outlive the destruction of the world was no better a fate than death itself.

Such was the choice we faced.

“This is foolishness!” Zolf belted out, showing no appreciation of the weight of the situation whatsoever.

“Humans are not as you remember us, Lord Shabranigdu! We have had a thousand years to evolve while you stayed stagnant!” he boasted. “No Demon Lord of the last era can stand against Zolf!”

Wow, he really did not get it. He raised both his hands high above him as he began to chant a spell.

Thou art darker than night,
Thou art redder than the flowing blood,
Thou through whom time flows, I call upon thy exalted name.

No way! The Dragon Slave?! The Dragon Slave is the school of Black Magic’s most powerful spell.

The Dragon Slave is a highly destructive spell that was originally created to take down a dragon in a single blow. Two or three sorcerers chanting the spell at the same time could wipe out an entire kingdom. I couldn’t believe that Zolf could handle the Dragon Slave.

I know it wasn’t very nice considering our status as allies, hut up to this point I had no idea why someone like Zelgadiss would put someone of Zolf’s apparent abilities on retainer. Mystery solved. So much for third rate…

But…

Just as I’d feared, the spell wasn’t going to defeat Shabranigdu.

“Stop it, Zolf! It’s useless!” I cried, but Zolf wasn’t listening.

“What’s this now?” Ruby Eye wondered admiringly. Of course, he knew damn well what it was.

“Wait…” Zelgadiss feebly attempted a cry. Zolf had finished his spell a moment before Zelgadiss had put it all together.

“Dragon Slave!“

An enormous explosion shot out from around the Demon Lord’s body.

“Yes!” Zolf shouted, raising his arms overhead like he’d just won a joust.

“Zolf! Ruuuun!” Rodimus shouted. He sensed it, too. It was still alive.

“What?” Zolf still didn’t understand, but a look of doubt was slowly making its way across his face.

“Dammit!” Rodimus muttered as he broke into a run toward Zolf, intending to tackle him.

A moment later, the two were engulfed in a sea of flames.

“Rodimus! Zolf!” Zelgadiss cried out. “Nooo!”

The only reply came in the form of a red silhouette in the midst of the flames. A silhouette glowing more crimson than the flames themselves.

No…

I felt like I could almost hear a voice from within the roar of the fire, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was saying.

“Run…” Zelgadiss muttered under his breath.

“What?” I replied, starting to unfreeze.

“RUN!”

On that note, the three of us fled like rats leaving a sinking ship.

* * *

Silently, we watched the small flames of our campfire burn. Each of us was reminded of the wretched sight we’d all witnessed earlier.

We didn’t stand a chance against Shabranigdu, and we knew it. We’d escaped for the time being, but we knew that no matter how far we ran, he’d find us. And you can’t outrun your destiny.

“I’ll fight…” Zelgadiss muttered at last.

“I realize I won’t win, but if I keep running, Rodimus and Zolf will never forgive me.”

Poof. The fire burned out again.

“Guess I’ll go with you,” Gourry said, perhaps finding an omen in the dying of the flames. “Even if it’s not going to work,

I can’t let you go alone.”

“I’m sorry… it wasn’t your fight,” Zelgadiss whispered.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s my world, too. And it’s my choice,” Gourry replied.

With that settled, they both returned to silence. I understood, of course, that they were waiting for my reply. It wasn’t that I couldn’t say it. It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention.

I was just watching the fire smolder.

“I…” I opened my mouth and tried to speak. Neither of them responded, not wanting to influence my decision, I suppose. They remained still, gazing at the glowing embers.

“I don’t want to die,” I muttered, and I kept my eyes on the fire.

“No one’s forcing you to,” Gourry turned and looked at me kindly as he spoke.

I got up. I felt anger in my blood.

“Is that so? You know what? Fighting to die is stupid. Men always talk about stupid things like ‘backbone’ and ‘honor’ before throwing their lives away! When you die—that’s it! It’s all over, folks. You can’t take honor to the grave!”

“You do as you must,” Zelgadiss spoke. “Keep running if you so choose. Just… do not ally yourself with him. If you do that, I will kill you with my own hands.”

I put my hands on my hips and let out a huge sigh. “Hey… did you hear me say I wasn’t going to fight?”

“What?” They both looked up at me, neither one understanding.

“Don’t get me wrong. Saying ‘I don’t want to fight to lose’ isn’t just another way of saying ‘I don’t want to fight,’ got it? It’s another way of saying ‘I don’t want to lose.‘ If we have even a 1 percent chance of winning, and we fight to lose, that 1 percent becomes a big, fat zero.

“I absolutely do not want to die. That’s why, when I fight… I fight to win! With you guys, of course… if you’ll have me.”

The two of them exchanged glances.

“Of course, we want to win, but I don’t know that we have even a 1 percent chance, Lina. I’m sorry,” Zelgadiss replied in what was, for him, an unusually weak voice.

“I certainly can’t defeat him with my Black Magic, but maybe in combination with your Shamanic Magic, we might have a chance….”

“No, Lina.”

“N… o? No?”

“That’s right. No. Did you notice the spell I cast on him at the time of his revival?”

“The blue flames? Yeah. I didn’t know what spell you were using, but it bounced right off him. Wait…”

“Yes. It was Ra Tilt.”

“Holy crap!” I held my face in my hands.

“What? What does that mean? What’s a raw tilt?” Gourry asked, clueless as ever.

“Ra Tilt is…” I paused, searching for a simple answer. “Ra Tilt is the most powerful attack spell of Shamanic Magic. It’s a technique used to destroy an opponent from the astral plane. Although it affects only one individual, it’s as powerful as a Dragon Slave in its own tradition.”

“Drag and slave?”

You bonehead! Haven’t you ever read a book? “Dragon Slave is the most powerful Black Magic spell that humans can use. It was the first spell used by a sage named Ray Magnus to destroy a six-thousand-year-old Arc Dragon, so they called it Dragon Slayer.

Over time, that evolved into Dragon Slave. That’s the spell that Zolf tried to use on the Red Priest.”

“If these spells are so powerful, why didn’t they work? Did they do them wrong?”

Argh, I’d had enough. “Pass. Zelgadiss, you explain it.”

“Shamanic Magic is composed of magic that uses the four major elements—earth, water, fire, and air—as well as spiritual magic that uses the astral plane. As Lina said, Ra Tilt is a spell that draws on spiritual energy from the astral plane. However, a Demon Lord is much closer to a being of pure spirit than is a human being. So, even an attack powered from the astral plane, if done by a human, barely registers against a demon. It goes without saying that elemental spells of earth, water, fire, and air can destroy a human. But of course, the power level required to destroy something made of spirit is much greater than what Shamanic Magic can muster.

“So, all the tools of Shamanic Magic are pretty useless in this case,” he concluded. “Pass.”

“Black Magic will not work on Shabranigdu for a very simple reason,” I explained, picking up where Zelgadiss left off. “The primary source of the power of Black Magic is the dark side of human nature: hatred, fear, and malice. But the ultimate embodiment of that power is the Dark Lord himself.

“Zolf said it at the start of his spell, remember? Thou art darker than night, thou art redder than flowing blood. That’s Shabranigdu he was talking about.”

I was interrupted mid-sentence.

“He said that?” Gourry looked at me funny.

“Of course he did! You were there! Oh, yeah, that’s right, you don’t know about Chaos Words.”

“Chaos Words?”

“Yeah, they’re… they’re the words you use when you’re casting Black Magic. It’s hard to explain. Anyway. That’s how it is. It’s a trade secret. Explaining it further is like saying, ‘Here, let me help you kill me!’ Even you can understand what idiocy that is.”

“What do you mean, even me?“

Oops.

“At any rate,” I continued, “White Magic doesn’t really have any attack spells. It has spells for exorcism that’ll work on ghosts and zombies, but they aren’t nearly powerful enough to affect him.

“So the long and short of it is this: Zelgadiss and I can’t beat him using magic.”

“Well, we’ve got to do something,“ Zelgadiss said, turning his gaze toward Gourry. “It looks like you and the Sword of Light are our best hope.”

“So, in the end, you’re the one who’s going to have to fight him. We’ll back you up as much as we possibly can.”

“Huh. All right. That’s easier said than done, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t think there are any other options left,” I said. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Well… no,” Gourry sighed.

“It’s settled, then.” Zelgadiss nodded, sealing the deal.

“I’m pleased you’ve finally come to an agreement.”

Our gazes shot in the direction of his voice. There was no mistaking that fiendish sound.

When did he get here? How long has he been there? His blood-red darkness hidden in the nightshade of the trees… the Dark Lord, Ruby Shabranigdu.

“Combatants such as the two who met their fate back there… they weren’t—how shall I put this? They weren’t a good exercise. Too easy. I so hoped that you would choose to train with me. I have been locked away for so very long. I am—how do you say it—rusty? My countless important travels can wait until we have completed our exercises.”

“This is bullshit….” I muttered, rising to my feet. He wants to slaughter us for practice. He went to the trouble of following us so he could train, because his destruction muscles were apparently feeling a little stiff.

Sure, Zolf had a distasteful personality. Sure, Rodimus wasn’t very easy on the eyes. But he burned them alive… for sport.

I didn’t think I was qualified to give any lectures on acting humane. I’d killed people, too. And it was certainly no different for Zelgadiss or Gourry.

But…

This was different somehow. This, I would not forgive or forget.

“Train, you say? Sure, we’ll play along. We could use some training, couldn’t we, boys? But be careful, Rezo. You might be the one to regret this.”

“Ha ha ha. Perhaps. But these high spirits are good. Feisty is what I want. Or else, coming after you would have been a waste of my time.”

“We don’t intend to lose, you know,” Gourry said. Both he and Zelgadiss rose.

“Intent is completely irrelevant. Surely even you could realize this.”

“Sure,” I replied. “I get what you’re saying, Lord Shabranigdu. But we still intend to kick your ass.”

It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw the Demon Lord flinch.

“Let us begin.” And with that, the Demon Lord stabbed the ground with the staff he held in his hand. And the earth moved,

No… !

The movement wasn’t coming from the ground, rather, it came from under the ground—from the roots of the forest’s trees. Shabranigdu had animated them, causing them to creep through the earth beneath our feet like giant serpents.

“That’s kind of a lame attack.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hey, Zelgadiss!”

“Right! Dug Haut!” He instantly understood my request.

This time, the earth truly shook.

With a single quake, the tree-root snakes were torn asunder. The twitching roots fell into their ready-made graves, the cracks in the earth spawned by Dug Haut.

“Okay, next one’s mine!”

“All yours, young lady.” Zelgadiss strained to smile.

“Oh, goody. I wonder what you’ll try. Do make it something interesting?” the Demon Lord whined.

“It’s not anything big. It’s only special because it’s mine,” I raised my right hand. A ball of light burst into being.

“Surely, you do not intend to use a fireball against me?” said the Demon Lord. He sounded disappointed. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“Yep! fireball, sure enough…” and I lightly tossed it in his direction. The flaming ball lazily winged its way to Shabranigdu, finally stopping right before his eyes.

“This one is orange…” the Demon Lord said, the same way a child might identify a pet: “This one’s a bunny .”

“A direct hit from a fireball—even a direct hit from an orange fireball—won’t harm me in any way,” he whined, bemused.

“I know that,” I said, “But let’s give it a shot, just for grins and giggles.”

“I am neither grinning, nor giggling,” Shabranigdu said, slowly raising up the staff he held in his hand.

“Break!” I shouted at the appropriate moment. The ball of light split apart, its remnants falling on the Demon Lord in a helix pattern.

“What now? What is this?” the Demon Lord asked, his voice registering surprise. He hadn’t been prepared for this, and his form soon disappeared in a fiery sandstorm.

“Gourry! It’s your turn!”

“Gotcha!“ Gourry responded, breaking into a run, Sword of Light at the ready.

“Run, Gourry!” Zelgadiss called out.

“DIE, Demon Lord!” Gourry issued his battle cry. The Sword of Light hummed.

Then… Shabranigdu, the creature we’d first known as Rezo the Red Priest… began to laugh.

“The Sword of Light? The sword that slew Zanaffar, the Demon Beast, at Sairaag, in the City of Sorcery? Oh, I am sh-sh-shaking, my foes,” he stuttered. He was shaking all right. With laughter. “You will find that a Demon Beast half-breed is a gnat compared to a Demon Lord.”

Then he… stopped the Sword of Light with one bare hand.

“A little warm, perhaps, but it feels almost pleasant,” he guffawed.

Quite a monster, he was.

Gourry growled under his breath. No matter how hard he pushed, the sword wouldn’t budge.

“Little man, even in the hands of a master, such means are far too weak to defeat me. However, if it will give you comfort, you may die knowing you’ve done as much as a human can do.”

There was an explosion.

“Gwaa!” Gourry was blown back about fifty feet. He hit the ground hard.

“Gourry!”

“I’m all right!” He shouted while still on the ground, and not looking “all right” at all.

“I believe I am done toying with you. Have you made your peace? Your time to die has come,” the Demon Lord announced matter-of-factly. Some bedside manner, huh?

“Dammit, no!” Zelgadiss retreated. His form was instantly engulfed in flames.

“Zel!” I screamed.

“He’s made out of rock, Lina, it’s all right! He’s not going to burn. And anyway—take this!” Gourry shouted, tossing something in my direction. I caught it reflexively.

The heck?!

I grasped it but my eyes were on the Demon Lord, who took a step forward.

The Sword of Light?!

“Use it well, Lina!” Gourry said. “Use the sword’s power with your Black Magic!”

“You intend to use the power of Light to heighten the power of Darkness?” Shabranigdu was so amused, he no longer tried containing his mirth. “Foolishness…” He chuckled.

He was right. You can’t combine Light Magic and Dark Magic. The two opposing forces only cancel each other out.

However… !

“Sword! Give me your power!” I felt its power building in my hands. In a second, the blade of light sprang forth. Whereas when Gourry had used it, the blade was the length of a long sword, but this blade was the size of a short sword.

Which meant I’d figured right.

“Such futility!” The Demon Lord sneered. He was growing impatient with this little training exercise. No telling how much longer it would last. I began chanting as quickly as I could.

It started out just like the Dragon Slave. A spell calling on all the darkness in the entire world was nothing compared to the darkness of Shabranigdu, but I knew of another legend, about a Demon Lord among Demon Lords, who had fallen from the heavens themselves. He was known both as the Golden Demon Lord, and as the Lord of Nightmares.

Black Magic calling on Shabranigdu’s own power could not be used to harm Shabranigdu himself. But it was possible that even Ruby Eye could be wounded by power drawn from an even more powerful Demon Lord.

Thou who art darker than dark,
Thou who art deeper than night,
Thou of the Sea of Chaos,
The Golden King of Darkness…

I swore I saw Shabranigdu begin to tremble. “You crafty little bitch! Who told you to call that name?”

I ignored him and continued:

I call upon thee,
I pledge myself to thee;
Let us stand together,
And let the fools Who would destroy us Feel the force of our true power.

Darkness suddenly appeared, surrounding me. It was as though the air bled black—darkness become visible. An impenetrable absence from which no one could be brought back… a portal into death itself.

It worked both ways, I knew. If I lost control of the spell, the magic would absorb all of my energy… and I would die.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, having calmed considerably. “And it’s almost charming how you refuse to see the futility!” Still contemplating my charm, the Demon Lord began to chant, creating and releasing several energy balls. Each undoubtedly contained enough power to split a stone.

Suddenly, the darkness coiled around me vanished. This was to be my first-ever public demonstration of my most secret of secret techniques—the Giga Slave.

The first time I tried it, I turned a nice sandy beach into a huge inlet. I’ve heard that even now, fish avoid the place.

I was aware that no single spell of mine could defeat Ruby Eye. No matter how hard I might try. No human in history had ever been able to devise a spell that could defeat a Demon Lord. There was only one alternative left.

The shining blade of the Sword of Light continued to absorb the darkness around me. Maybe that, at least, would be felt by Shabranigdu.

The Light Magic imbued within the sword was in fact canceling out the Dark Magic from my spell. That part, Gourry hadn’t expected. However, I suspected something else was happening, too.

Confirming my suspicions, the Demon Lord appeared nervous.

Got to give it a shot… “Sword!” I called out. “Consume the darkness with your blade!”

“What are you up to, girl?”

The darkness created by the Giga Slave flowed from my hands into the blade, merging with it. It was just as I’d thought:

The Sword of Light was an amplifier of human will. The “light” is just the form it takes. What tipped me off was how Gourry could use it despite neither possessing nor understanding mystic power whatsoever. It’s willpower that both controls it and determines its strength.

I wasn’t at all convinced my plan would work, but it was quite literally the only option remaining….

“Enough of this!” The Demon Lord readied his priest’s staff. He muttered in a low voice, speaking in a language I had never heard before.

Not good! My sword still needed more time to absorb all of the darkness from the Giga Slave.

No matter how large or small the spell a sorcerer is casting, a mystic field protects him or her for the duration. As long as I was casting the Giga Slave spell, the field would be protected from those powerful energy balls. The question was: How much could the Demon Lord’s mystic field withstand while he cast a spell? To be honest, I really wanted some way to test my idea before actually trying it.

In any case, I was still in the middle of pouring the Giga Slave’s energy into the sword. Finding out whether or not the mystic barrier would hold was going to have to wait.

The tip of the Demon Lord’s staff glowed red.

Faster!

A Demon Lord wasn’t going to go down in half-measures. This was—

“End this!” Zelgadiss’ voice called out.

Who is he talking to?

“That’s enough…! You said you wanted to see the world, didn’t you?! I don’t believe you want to destroy it! LORD REZO! Hear me!”

His speech was frenzied. He was close to babbling.

But then… the spell stopped. The red glow atop the Demon Lord’s staff vanished.

Shabranigdu—or Rezo, perhaps?—lowered his gaze to stare at Zelgadiss.

Gotcha! I just need a moment more…

After a long pause, Shabranigdu spoke scornfully, “Foolishness…”

At that instant, the Sword of Darkness was fully loaded.

“Rezo the Red Priest!“ I called out. “Hear me!”

The blade of the Sword of Darkness extended as I spoke.

“You can allow Shabranigdu to completely devour your soul, or you can avenge yourself! The outcome is yours to determine. Choose well!”

“Yes…” whispered a gracious voice from within the Red Priest’s form.

“Impossible,” cried Shabranigdu from the same mouth, at the same time.

“Sword! Destroy the red darkness!” I said as I brought my weapon down upon him.

The black light abandoned its shape and advanced toward the Demon Lord.

“Such a pathetic little cloud! I shall return it to you in a storm!“ The Demon Lord raised his staff. Dark energies massed together, forming a pillar of black flame, and then…

Something went wrong on his end. Perhaps whatever was left of the good priest Rezo had intervened… ? What-ever had happened, the power of the sword was able to break through.

“Yes…” I whispered, and for a moment, felt real hope. I wiped the sweat off my brow.

Within the pillar of flames, I could discern a quivering form. The silence was finally broken.

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” The Demon Lord’s laughter was loud enough to shake the forest.

“No…” I collapsed to my knees.

“Congratulations, human!“ he continued laughing. “I didn’t think it possible!”

I heard a quiet crackling sound.

“Well done. Well done, little bitch. You, above all others of your kind, deserve to hold the title of “Master.’“

Hey, I’m usually happy to take compliments wherever I can find them, but at that point, I had no energy left for happiness. I had used all of my power in that one attack. Not one ounce of strength remained for escaping the radiating heat of the pillar of fire. All I could do was fall to the ground and try not to breathe in the searing smoke.

“Unfortunately, child, I doubt you’ll live long enough to repeat this feat. As impressive a sorceress as you may be, you are still only human.“

CR-ACK.

That crackling sound, again. What… ?

“Then again, those who employ sorcery sometimes live for centuries. Even I cannot predict the course of history, or if another part of me will awaken while you live….”

Huh? What does he mean… ?

I raised my head, finally seeing it: Countless small cracks ran along the body of Shabranigdu the Demon Lord.

“I could recover over a lengthy period, and do battle with you again… but no… no. I choose to honor you, and accept… my destruction.”

“Here… I die.” Both voices became heavy. Ruby Eye Shabra-nigdu’s, and Rezo the Red Priest’s.

The cheek of the Demon Lord’s mask split off. Before falling to the ground, it turned to dust and scattered through the air.

“It was amusing… young… lady…” the wind sang. “Thank you… my regrets…”

“Truly… truly…”

“Ugh… uhhhh… ughhh…”

I stared blankly as the smiling form of the Demon Lord, Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, turned to dust before my eyes.

Only his laughter remained, released in the wind.