The Problem With a Cult Following

The Problem With a Cult Following

The barrage of clichés dropped down on us like monkey poop.

“Hand over the coin if you value your lives,” snarled the masked bandit.

One of the other rogues, who probably realized we weren’t taking his gang very seriously, brandished his long sword at us. But that only made him look lamer.

Someone’s obviously overcompensating.

I think the three of us—Gourry, Amelia, and I—all yawned simultaneously.

“W-what?!” grunted the first bandit. “What’s with the attitude here?! Don’t get smart!”

Why would I need smarts around a bunch of bozos?

“It’s not being smart,” I told him in a glum tone. “It’s just resignation.” I sighed, casting a glance at the dirt path below my feet.

“Man,” I grumbled, “I thought nobody used these back roads anymore. But no, we get one idiotic bandit gang after another. I can’t get any peace, can I?”

I decided to lay it on pretty thick and get the guy riled up. “We’d all be better off if you back-road bandits grew some balls and did your business out on the main road where the real action is. Y’know, like real highway robbers. But maybe you’re too chicken to die like real men.”

The bandits stared at us slack-jawed, probably too stunned to believe what they heard. Stretching my arms, I went on.

“Ever since we started on this road, you’re the… I dunno, third group of bandits to hold us up today? You understand why I lose track of these things.”

“H-hey, hey, hey!” the bandit protested. “Wait a sec. You’re not gonna pull the old ‘The Bandits up the Road Took Everything So We’ve Got Nothing to Give You’ routine, are ya?!”

I rolled my eyes. This guy just doesn’t get it, does he?

“It’s annoying having to beat up riff-raff like you all day,” I snapped. “Gimme a break, okay?”

“Annoying?” piped in Gourry from my side. “I dunno. The last bunch of guys seemed pretty shrewd to me.”

Ah, Gourry—one of my traveling companions, the slightly clueless comic relief. He’s your typical tall, blond, and handsome hero type. And did I mention he’s an ultra kick-ass swordsman? Maybe the best I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, he also has the brains of a crab.

“Shut up!” I grunted from the corner of my mouth. “They were nothing but trash! And I’m busy here.”

Tormenting bandits. It’s one of my favorite pastimes.

It can give you a hell of a rush, y’see—ambushing a large group of crooks and pummeling the crap out of them, then, when they’re dead and you’ve wiped the dust off your clothes, you sort through their stolen loot and take what you like. Plundering from evil plunderers; no harm in that. And so what if I’m a little greedy? It’s my guilty pleasure. My craving for treasure is what gets me up in the morning.

Not only that, but this little hobby allows me, warrior and sorceress Lina Inverse, to keep my fighting and magic skills in tip-top shape. Your average warrior sorceress attacked by bandits for ten days straight would have most certainly been on a one-way trip to the afterlife, but for me, it had served as a decent workout. Maybe bandits always resort to cheesy lines and tend to stink, but squaring off with them can be somewhat interesting because of their clever use of surrounding terrain.

Lately, though, all of them had the same effect on me: flat-out boredom. So I waited to see what sort of spin our new bunch of dorks would put on a tired, old act.

“Okay,” I said. “So you guys have gotta have some serious loot on you, right? Y’know, to make this worth it.”

“C-can it!” the bandit stuttered. “You’ve got some nerve considering you’re at our mercy, little girl!”

Little girl? And since when am I at anyone’s mercy?

“Fine!” the bandit roared. “So you wanna fight it out, do ya?!”

“Sheesh,” I moaned, truly bored. I slipped off my mantle and let it fall with a dull thud; I saw Gourry extend his hand toward the hilt of his sword.

“Hey,” muttered another of the masked bandits, almost as an afterthought. “What the hell is that?”

“What’s what?” asked the first bandit. His friend pointed at the silhouetted figure of my other companion, Amelia, who now stood in a nearby tree.

“That looks like… someone standing in a tree,” commented the first bandit, sounding surprised and confused.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

“Who’ve you got up there?” the bandit snapped.

“Just give it a sec,” I answered shortly. “And we’re not done with this conversation.”

“Uh… if you say so,” the bandit replied slowly. “A-anyway, I say we drop the small talk and settle things by force!”

He was about to make a move when Amelia boomed out from the trees.

“That’s far enough, villains!” she roared, her voice resounding like the Voice of Doom.

“What?!” shouted the first bandit.

“Where?!” another hollered.

The bandits huddled in a group, darting panicky glances all over the place.

It was the sort of stupidity you read about in storybooks. One of them shouted and pointed to the tree their fearless leader had mentioned thirty seconds earlier, and the lot of them—including the leader—gasped in surprise.

This is all kinds of sad.

In the tree, of course, was Amelia, now a single step into the sunlight and no longer hidden by the leaves’ shadows. She stood proudly on her branch like some all-powerful deity about to rain hellfire on the rest of us.

As it turned out, Amelia was about to rain down something much worse: a speech.

“Wherever there is death, there is life,” Amelia announced. “Wherever there is darkness, there is light. Wherever there is evil, there is justice! You have lost your way and surrendered your souls to the blackness that is immorality!”

Then, like the drama queen she is, she raised her arm and pointed a condemning finger at the bandits. “As heavens executioner, I shall mete out your punishment under the blazing sun! No matter what excuses you offer, know you can no longer escape your fate!”

In simpler terms, Amelia said: “I’m justice and it’s too late to say you’re sorry.”

“Let’s go!” Amelia commanded. “Yaa!”

With that, she bounded from the branch toward the ground below. Far below.

SPLAT!

I winced.

“Hey!” Gourry cried, wide-eyed as he knelt down to make sure Amelia wasn’t knocked out. “You okay?”

Amelia spat out a twig and coughed. “No need to be concerned!” she cried as she got to her feet. Something was very wrong.

“Amelia?” I asked. “Your, uh, neck’s all crooked. You okay?”

“It’s all right!” Amelia declared with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’ll take more than a measly fall to break my spirit!”

… But it was plenty to break her neck?

One of the masked bandits seemed to come to his senses. “I think,” he mumbled, “we shouldn’t mess with these people.”

Too late for that, pal, I thought. Nobody gets out of a fight after getting Amelia worked up.

“Prepare thyselves, servants of evil!” Amelia shouted before beginning to chant a spell.

To make a short story even shorter, the final curtain fell over that battle no sooner than it had started. Not to toot our own horns, but our blistering, offensive magic spells were more than enough to take care of a sorry gang of bandits.

“Um… hey,” muttered Gourry after the very quick frenzy. He stood alone, dejected, idly poking his sword at the dirt behind Amelia and me. Amelia was too busy striking her Heroic Pose to notice, so I was the one to turn.

“Next time we have a chance to kick some bandit tail,” Gourry asked, “could you please leave one for me?”

Quickly and firmly, I replied, “No.”

Amelia and I weren’t about to wait around for Gourry to get caught up with the situation. It takes the guy long enough just to tie his shoes in the morning. Besides, I wanted to grill those pitiful bandits about the whereabouts of their loot.

I grabbed the nearest crook by the collar and ripped off his ratty mask. The man under the disguise looked very unbanditlike. He wasn’t ugly like your typical wart-nosed scoundrel—but let’s not get carried away, he wasn’t handsome, either. He was just very normal-looking.

“Hey!” I yelled as threateningly as I could. “Wake up!” I shook him by the collar a bunch of times until his eyes fluttered open. “Uh… mmm?” he moaned, followed by, “yaaaagh!”

I could tell he wanted nothing more than to run in the opposite direction until his body gave out. You see what happens when you mess with Lina, kids?

“W-wait!” he stuttered. “Please! I don’t wanna die!”

I cackled as diabolically as I could. “Your treasure in exchange for your life, perhaps.”

They were the very words he and his sorry ilk used to filch money from innocent victims. How do you like it, you thieving scumbag?

“Th-that’s uncalled for,” the bandit whined. “How could you be so cruel?!”

That sounded particularly funny coming from a bandit. “Where do you get off questioning our morals?” I railed at him. “Don’t even go there! And tell me where you’re stashing the stash!”

“Sorry.” The voice came from somewhere behind us. “Would you mind letting that gentleman go?”

“Wha—?!” Amelia blurted as we spun around on our heels.

In the shadow of a tree, a woman stared at us calmly.

The bandit I was interrogating suddenly cried out, “M-Miss Mazenda!”

She looked around twenty years old and wore soft white clothing that accentuated her fair skin. Her long hair and lips were both glossy red and vibrantly beautiful.

She was the kind of woman lovestruck guys could call a “peerless beauty.” The image of her on a snow-white mountain peak, sipping delicious sherbet, crossed my mind.

“I didn’t want anyone getting hurt here.”

“Er,” the bandit blabbered. “Bay, over there, he put us to it and—”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Mazenda interrupted. After cutting the man’s words off with such commanding ease, she went on addressing us: “As useless as they may seem, they are in my service. Could you see it in your heart to let them go?” She’s gotta be kidding, right?

“Do you really expect us to agree to that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mazenda shook her head at my question, a wry smile on her lips. “No,” she said simply, unfazed. “Hmm… so what shall we do about this? I’m tired of formalities. Let’s settle this with fewer distractions.”

As she spoke, she took a decisive step forward.

It was enough to put Amelia, Gourry, and me on our guards. Amelia leapt far to the rear while Gourry readied his hand on the hilt of his sword. As for me, I released the bandit I was interrogating and began chanting a spell.

The treetops suddenly shuddered violently. An instant later, leaves showered down on us, filling the air and almost completely obscuring our vision.

All I could squeak out was “Ugh?!”

I sensed a presence somewhere above us and looked up. Mazenda hovered high in the air, that same wry smile fixed on her lips. She held a stone in one of her hands.

Was she going to start pelting us with rocks? I wondered if she was casting some kind of warding magic. She did hurl the stone, not at me, but at the ground near me.

I immediately recoiled, leaping sideways. I soon found out that was a bad idea.

ZAP!

A weak charge of lightning struck me. For a moment, a numb, tingling sensation coursed through my limbs.

The effect didn’t last long, at least. I came back to my senses fast, but I still couldn’t figure out what stunt that woman was trying to pull. I rapidly chanted a spell.

“Elmekia Lance!” I shouted and released it in her direction…

… Or didn’t, actually.

My head went completely blank. It was like a light had suddenly been switched off, and all those supercharged flashes of thoughts in my brain abruptly vanished.

“You appear to be the leader of this small group,” Mazenda taunted, her voice drawling from somewhere behind the thick curtain of wildly dancing leaves. “So, since I’ve grown bored, I’ve decided to make you my new playmate. If you defeat me, you will be restored. Come to the village of Mane if you’re interested.”

Another flurry of leaves tumbled from above, the noise of their furious rustling enveloping the forest. Then, just like that, it was as quiet and peaceful as before.

Amelia, Gourry, and I stood there dumbfounded. I had no idea how, but the defeated gang of bandits had disappeared with Mazenda—it was as if we’d never run into them in the first place.

“Argh!” I snapped, gripping my temples. It felt like a walnut was knocking around inside my brain. What the hell had that woman done to me?!

“They’re gone,” Amelia breathed in disbelief.

“Lina?” Gourry called, sheathing his blade. “Are you all right?” As he stepped toward me, something barely snagged his foot.

“What’s this?” he asked, his eyes lowering to the ground. A long, red needle poked out of the dirt path, slender and glinting in the sunlight. Gourry reached down and pulled it free; the instant he did so, the needle lost its rigidity and dangled in his fingers like string.

“It’s a hair,” Amelia declared in her commanding voice, which really wasn’t necessary. “It’s probably from that Mazenda woman.”

A few quick glances were all it took to spot four more needles planted in the dirt around me. Together with the one Gourry had found, they added up to five… arrayed in a pentagram with me at its center.

Um, yikes.

Mazenda’s big display of angry leaves had just been a feint. In the moment I’d dropped my focus, she’d created a warding field around me using her own hair as its five points.

But something else bothered me, something potentially worse. I needed to test my theory right away.

“What’s wrong, Lina?” Gourry asked, probably worried about the twisted scowl on my face.

I never bothered to answer his question. I began casting a spell.

“Lighting!”

And yes, boys and girls, the absolute worst possible thing happened at that very moment.

Nothing.

“Miss Lina!” Amelia exclaimed. “What’s going on?” Her face went white in the blink of an eye.

Gourry, though, still hadn’t caught on. “Now Amelia’s upset?” he noted like the brilliant detective he was. “What the heck’s going on here?!”

With Gourry, you go half speed, if that.

The blankness inside my head confirmed the truth. I turned to Gourry, gritting my teeth so hard I practically made sparks.

“Gourry,” I said very, very slowly, almost to convince myself as much as to convince him. “I… can’t… cast… spells.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahl

* * *

I didn’t manage to collect my thoughts until we reached an inn near the village. I thought a good gorging would calm my nerves (the way it usually does), but my mind was so wracked with confusion and panic that not even two servings of the Special of the Day could bring me back to my senses.

“So… what you’re telling me,” Gourry said, slowly putting two and two together, “is that Lina can’t use spells at all?”

“That’s what it looks like.” Amelia sighed.

Gourry’s dim-wittedness wasn’t even vaguely funny right then, and I was in no mood to deal with him. I let Amelia— Miss Happy to Pipe In—field his questions instead.

“Man,” Gourry commented, thumping the table with his hand. “That sucks. I guess we’d better figure out a way to deal with that, huh?”

Wow, what a philosopher!

Amelia nodded vigorously. “Definitely. A Lina who can’t cast spells is just…” She trailed off, obviously trying to find the right words.

“A pest?” Gourry offered.

My eye twitched.

Say what?

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Amelia said. “Although she won’t exactly be able to back up her attitude with any useful skills.”

TWITCH! Excuse me? Attitude?!

“Her ego’s huge, but her breasts are so puny,” Gourry whined.

“Yeah,” Amelia mumbled, chewing a carrot. “And it’s not as if she’s sexy in any other way to counteract—”

“SILEEEEEEENCE!” I roared. “Trying to kick me when I’m down, are ya? Keep that up and it’ll cost you your teeth!”

Gourry and Amelia glanced at each other quizzically. “But…” Gourry began, scratching at his face.

“Please don’t be angry, Miss Lina,” Amelia said. “Mister Gourry and I were just saying those things to try and cheer you up.”

Cheer me up? Why don’t you just pour acid over me instead?!

“You little… !” I shrieked as I lunged.

“W-wait, Lina!” Gourry tried to jam his arms between Amelia and me. “Strangling Amelia won’t solve anything! How sure are you that you can’t use your spells? You really can’t cast them at all?”

“Not unless I defeat Mazenda,” I said, panting. “That’s what she said, anyway.” I loosened my fingers from Amelia’s windpipe and quietly sat back down. Amelia cleared her throat and went back to finishing her meal.

“So it’s simple, right?” Amelia raised her hand and, with a slight grimace, tried to work the kinks out of her neck. “Why don’t we face off with her like she recommended? She is a villain, after all, because the friends of villains are villains, too. There’s no need for mercy here.”

Mazenda may be a villain, I wanted to tell her, but that isn’t going to make beating her any easier. Especially considering my own situation.

“Where are we even gonna find her?” Gourry asked.

I sighed at Gourry. It took me a full half-minute to muster enough patience to answer him.

“Mane Village,” I grated. “Mazenda said so herself. She said it loud enough for the unconscious bandits to hear, Gourry.”

“Oh, I heard it loud and clear,” Gourry explained. “I just forgot.”

Gourry is the only guy I know who takes pride in being clueless.

Gourry shrugged. “Sounds good to me. It’s on our route, right? Let’s go for it.”

I looked up at Gourry in shock, realizing he’d actually said something halfway intelligent. I slowly nodded. He turned to me then, his eyes suddenly serious, and I found myself actually wondering what he had to say.

Any more tidbits of insight, Gourry?

“But back to the matter at hand,” he announced. He reached over and picked a not-quite-bare bone from my plate. “Do you mind if I chew on this? ‘Cause there’s still a lot of meat on here.”

I spent the rest of the meal trying to jam that bone down his throat.

* * *

“Whaaaaaat?!”

Amelia’s outburst shattered the calm and peaceful quiet of the inn.

“Keep it down!” the grizzled old innkeeper said in a harsh whisper, his eyes darting about the room. “You trying to alert the press or somethin’?”

The village of Mane was nestled along the old back roads that led from Saillune, through the Kingdom of Dils, and onward to Kalmaart. In other words, Mane was only two villages away from the town we stayed in that night.

I was glad we’d made it so far from Saillune, but Mane Village was Mazenda and company’s stronghold. Our journey was going to get very treacherous very fast, and I sincerely doubted we could traipse into Mane and pull off an easy victory. In other words, we were going to take our sweet time making that final leg of the journey to Mane. We’d been planning to lodge in the village we were in—use it as a base for stocking up on information about Mane’s background, making local inquiries, and “investigating” nearby hole-in- the-wall eateries—but the innkeeper hadn’t started us off on the most confident note. He’d pretty much told us to avoid Mane entirely.

Hence Amelia’s shrieking. She hadn’t liked hearing that, y’see.

“How could you say such a thing?!” she demanded, proving for the second time in thirty seconds that she had no volume control. “If you know there is evil afoot so near your own village, how can you keep it from the local authorities? Is there no love of justice in your heart?!” The innkeeper looked at Amelia like she’d suddenly sprouted jackass ears.

“L-love of what?” he stammered. “This isn’t about justice, girlie! I told you—all that ‘evil’ stuff is just rumor! You think I’m gonna go to an official with rumors and no proof? I’d just get myself into a load of trouble!”

The innkeeper had a valid point, but Amelia wasn’t one to be swayed by common sense.

“No, I see what’s going on!” she announced. She leapt onto a wooden chair and shook her right fist high over her head. “There is a great conspiracy of evil in progress! A great vortex swirling somewhere nearby!”

If you mean a vortex of crazy swirling right above your head, then yeah.

Even Gourry was getting worried. “She’s starting up again,” he whined in that anguished, my-fried-chicken-got- overcooked tone.

I took Gourry by the elbow and led him to a far corner of the room. Amelia’s screaming had gotten me thinking, and I wanted to talk it out—not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to be seen with her during a righteousness fit.

“Listen,” I muttered to Gourry under my breath. “If Amelia’s reaction is anything to go by, then maybe Mane’s even more dangerous than we thought. She’s got a pretty good sense for evil, remember.”

“Well, I dunno…” Gourry started, then trailed off. “Okay,” I breathed. Remember his tiny brain, I reminded myself. “Then why would Mazenda, as conniving as we know she is, try to bait us into that village? Are you saying we should take her words at face value?”

“Er, no,” Gourry replied gingerly. “That’d be dumb.”

“So what’s the problem, Gourry?”

“Um, well…” Gourry couldn’t come up with more than a few monosyllabic grunts as a response. Soon, he was sitting on a nearby chair, his face scrunched up in thought.

“Look at it this way,” he said finally. “Everybody we’ve met and everything we’ve seen up ‘til now hasn’t been what we expected, right? So maybe Mane’s like that—we’ll think it’s really bad, but then we’ll go there and it’ll be an ostrich ranch or something.”

I could see that reasoning with Gourry was getting us nowhere. “Never mind,” I groaned and dragged him back to our table.

It was around that time that Amelia returned with a very grave expression on her face.

“What is it?” I asked. But she wouldn’t answer; she just shook her head.

“Not right now,” she murmured. “We’ll talk when we get back to our rooms.”

Gourry and I looked at each other.

Okay, I thought. Does this mean it’s time to panic?

* * *

Amelia, Gourry, and I gathered in the middle room of the three adjacent ones we’d reserved for the night. By meeting there and keeping our voices hushed, we could keep the possibility of eavesdroppers listening in on us to a minimum. The last thing we needed right then was undue attention from the locals.

“All right,” I told Amelia. “Get talking.”

She took a breath. “I know that this is all rumor—” she began before abruptly pausing, her jaw clenched so tight, in fact, that I thought she might break all her teeth.

“From what I’ve learned,” she continued slowly, “a secret society is using Mane Village as its stronghold.”

“We know that already.” Gourry smirked. “It’s the bandit group, the one that woman runs, right? Next topic!” He slapped his hands together, pleased with himself.

Let her talk, dumbass!

Amelia shook her head solemnly. “No, not them. It’s a religious cult, and that woman Mazenda and her bandits are probably just followers.”

“A religious cult?” I repeated, my eyebrows raised.

“Yes. But listen to this.” She swallowed. “The man downstairs called it the Cult of Shabranigdu.”

“C-Cult of Shabranigdu?!” I shrieked.

Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, the Demon Lord believed to be the master of all darkness in the world. The insanely evil bastard we’d had a hell of a time fighting in the past.

“Shh! Your voice is too loud!” Amelia berated.

“Sorry.” I furrowed my eyebrows. “Amelia, are you sure this info’s good?”

“Who knows?” Amelia replied with a resigned shrug. “As the innkeeper said earlier, it’s all rumor. But it sounds pretty suspicious to me. I mean, why would people in an obviously fear-riddled town just make up a Cult of Shabranigdu? That’s probably the most frightening and evil thing I can think of.”

I pondered that for a minute, but I wasn’t connecting the dots between this rumored cult and Mazenda baiting me into Mane. “What’s your point?” I came out and asked.

Amelia thought about that for a moment, then said, “That’s it,” with a light-hearted smile.

Yes, she actually smiled. I resisted the urge to wipe it off her face.

“All the innkeeper knows,” Amelia continued, “is that Mane is supposedly the center for the cult and that there’s a good chance evil’s going on. But that’s all he’s heard; I think that’s all he wants to hear.”

I frowned. The scenario was getting more and more complicated, and not in that good, tangled-up-with-an-excess- of-unclaimed-jewels way.

“Lina?” Gourry piped in. He’d been completely silent up until then, no doubt daydreaming about his next battle or meal. “Something she said before is beginning to bug me.”

“What is it?” I asked, bracing myself for a mind-bendingly stupid question.

“Shabunigrado. Just what is that?”

And he didn’t let me down. You can always count on Gourry for some things.

“Shabranigdu, Mister Gourry?” Amelia corrected him. Even she seemed stunned by Gourry’s brain mush, since she turned to me with an “is he all right?” look.

Gourry was oblivious to it, though, and sat there scratching his head.

“Mmm,” he mumbled. “I feel like I’ve heard that name before. I’m really bad with names, especially long ones like that.”

“Gourry, you moronic—!” I managed to hold the rest of my words back.

“Whoa,” Gourry protested. “Lina, it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything. It’s just a name, right?”

“Of course it’s a big deal!” I shouted. “How can you not remember Shabranigdu?!”

“Er…” Gourry trailed off. “Well, uh…”

“The Demon Lord!” I snarled. “The personification of evil! Red eyes, yea tall, churning with the malice of a thousand dying worlds?!”

After mulling over this information for a moment, Gourry nodded and smacked his palm with his fist. “Oh, yeah,” he declared. “That dude. I remember now.”

Gourry’s not just a dimwit, he’s also a liar.

“I wonder what this cult’s all about?” I ventured. “What are they after? I doubt they’re out to organize a symposium on evil with the Demon Lord as their guest of honor.”

“I did catch wind of one thing,” Amelia whispered ominously. “Apparently, their evil beliefs require them to make material sacrifices to satisfy the Demon Lord’s greed.”

Hmm. If that were true, the bandits were suddenly beginning to make sense. First, you overrun a perfectly peaceful and prosperous village. Then, to serve the Demon Lord’s lust for possession, you plunder the townsfolk for all they’re worth before rampaging through the countryside and looting from everyone you can.

“If this cult does exist,” I said, “then the bandits we tangled with earlier are all members of it, right?”

“That’s exactly what I think!” Amelia said excitedly. She thrust her fist triumphantly into the air. “No matter how many people have lost their way and given themselves over to the darkness, no matter how many people have joined this cult and sacrificed common decency for a sense of belonging, we need not fear!” She stood now, assuming that heroic pose again. “So long as justice exists, victory shall undoubtedly embrace us!”

Gourry spat a fingernail out of his mouth. “But that’s gonna be tough without Lina using magic.”

“Right,” I said. “About that.” I promptly began chanting a spell.

“Lighting!”

At the end of my fingertip, I did notice a faint shimmer of light. But it vanished almost immediately, leaving us all to stare at a dainty but otherwise uninteresting finger.

“Hey!” Amelia twittered. “I saw something!”

I nodded at her. “I admit that was pretty pathetic for a lighting spell, but it did prove that the pentagram’s ward seems to be weakening.” I sighed. “Unfortunately,” I went on, “Lighting is all I can manage right now. I can forget about attack spells; I’ll barely be able to work up a puff of wind.”

“Cheer up,” Gourry said happily as he patted me on the back. “Doesn’t that mean your powers are gonna return to normal eventually? Just give it some time.”

“It’s not that simple,” I moped. “A complete recovery could take years! And even then, there’s no guarantee I’ll get all my spells back.” I clenched my fists. Stupid Mazenda!

“Anyway, we need to do our homework first. Someone has to check up on any rumors regarding the cult’s hideout and gather whatever info’s available on Mane. That’s quite a job, isn’t it, Gourry?”

Gourry looked up from staring at the floor. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, you know,” I said as casually as I could. “First of all, I’m absolutely certain our enemy’s been informed of what we look like. So, whatever we do, we’ll have to do it under the cover of darkness.”

Gourry frowned. “And?”

“And darkness is beauty’s greatest foe,” I said, hoping to stump Gourry by sounding profound.

Beside me, Amelia nodded at my words. She knew what I was getting at, but Gourry had checked out again.

“Uh…” Gourry’s eyebrows knotted up so tightly he could have easily passed for the village idiot.

Sensing that I’d confused Gourry past the point of no return, I struck while the iron was hot: “So, I must humbly appoint he who is least burdened by fairness of face and body to fulfill the task at hand. That makes you our brave investigator, Gourry. Congrats!”

Gourry blinked. “H-hold on,” he mumbled feebly. “What do you take me for, a ranger? You think I tramp around mountain ranges every night snooping around for stuff?”

“Ho ho!” I laughed with a wink at Gourry. “You’re certainly built for it!”

“Don’t you dare! Even I know how dangerous that kind of scouting is. You can’t trick me with all that fancy talking and think I’ll go just ‘cause you said so…” Gourry’s words petered out. He sat there, panting, while I scratched my head and tried to devise a new strategy.

“You’ve got a point, Gourry,” I finally admitted. “This isn’t my decision to make. If we decide on it properly, as a group, then will you still have a problem?”

“Well, no,” Gourry said sheepishly. “I’d be fine with it if we decided all fair-like.”

And just like that, I spring my trap!

“Okay,” I said, “we’ll vote! Everyone who thinks Gourry should be our investigator, raise your hand.”

Amelia and I both shot our hands up.

“Then it’s settled.” I smiled at Gourry. “Good luck!”

“Hey!”

“Mister Gourry” Amelia murmured. She frowned solemnly and patted him on the shoulder. “I do feel the anguish in your heart, but know that you are serving the higher forces of democracy” She even sniffled.

Never one to betray his manliness, Gourry straightened up and choked back tears. I was starting to feel bad for the guy when he suddenly brightened.

“Ha!” he cried triumphantly, pointing a finger in my face. “You’ve gone soft, Lina! Your scheme has one fatal flaw!”

“W-what?!” My schemes never have flaws, so I had to take offense.

He stood up proudly and crossed his arms. “Do you really think sending me, who has no idea what’s going on, is going to get us anywhere?” he scoffed. “What do you take me for?”

It was like a hammer had been thrown full-force at my head. “Yikes!” I hollered, nearly falling out of my chair. Gourry, being astute? “You’re scaring me, Gourry. Could this mean that your brains are finally taking shape?”

“Now, wait just a…” Gourry scowled and wagged a finger at me. “Don’t talk about people’s brains like they’re breasts!”

Okay, we can see where this guy’s been putting his brainpower.

I’d just thought up a witty comeback to Gourry’s breast obsession when the door to our room flew open. The nearly dehinged wood surface slammed against the wall, sending all of us reaching for our weapons.

“Excuse me!” snarled our uninvited guest. “Could you please be a little quieter in here?”

The innkeeper, burly and snorting, stood in our doorway with his arms folded. It was quite an intimidating sight, let me tell you. All the three of us could think to do was apologize— very quietly.

In the end, we decided who would play investigator using the only tried-and-true method known to intelligent life: rock-paper-scissors. Too bad we all chose rock.

Countless torches flickered in the darkness. Their tiny flames illuminated a large arena, its bowed walls looming over an assembly of hundreds of masked men.

“There’s a lot more here than I counted on,” I whispered.

We’d made our way deep inside a mountain range not far from Mane. The coliseum we were hiding in had probably been impressive in its earlier days, but the slow erosion of time—not to mention human neglect—had left it a chipped, decrepit ruin.

A sloping array of tiered benches circled the large internal region, and more than half the seats had already crumbled away; those that remained intact were all occupied by the masked men.

The three of us perched on the uppermost part of the coliseum’s sides, furthest from the proceedings taking place below. Those higher tiers had suffered the most wear and were pretty much unreachable—unless, of course, you knew how to use levitation. Not only did that mean no sentries, but the shadows and our sheer height made us practically invisible to anyone below. Amelia had spotted the ruins the night before. I silently reminded myself to give her a cookie later.

“Those guys don’t look like much to me,” Gourry muttered.

“I thought the cult would only have a few members,” I explained, “but this is incredible. Their beliefs must be pretty popular if they can get a crowd all the way out here.”

“Incredible is right,” Amelia snapped. “Adherents of evil in a place as venerated as this? Does the word justice have no meaning here?!” Her hands curled into fists. “I cannot forgive this!”

I ignored her. You learn to do that after a while.

We waited and watched the assembly below us. A few minutes later, the masked crowd erupted into cheers.

“Someone’s coming out!” Gourry exclaimed, stating the obvious.

And that, folks, is why we love him!

Five men appeared from a corridor once used by coliseum combatants. Their robes and mantles were deep red, and they each brandished executioner’s swords with blades steeped in the same crimson. While the first four of them wore masks— all of them red, of course—the face of the fifth and last man was uncovered. The masks that they wore were different from those worn by the crowd members; the style of mask probably denoted rank.

The bare-faced man walked to the center of the arena. The other four positioned themselves about six paces away from him, each faced outward in the four points of the compass: north, south, east, and west.

“I see,” Amelia snarled disgustedly. “The five retainers!”

“Retainers?” Gourry mumbled. “The heck’s that?” He looked in my direction, so I obliged him with a basic explanation.

“They’re five high-ranking Mazoku, the ones Ruby Eye Shabranigdu gave birth to.” I didn’t know if the story was truth or legend, but I knew it by heart just the same. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good yarn.

“Yeah,” Amelia joined in. “The outer four represent Chaos Dragon, Deep Sea, Dynast, and Greater Beast.” She took a deep breath, then added, “And the man at the center is Hellmaster. The names are based on their positions.”

I wondered, though, if the man at the center could really be the cult’s founder. He was thin by anybody’s standards. He looked, in fact, like some half-starved, third-rate sorcerer villain, right down to his complete lack of charisma.

“Gentlemen!” the man boomed. Contrary to his weakling appearance, his voice was surprisingly buff. “I have good news for you today! Master Krotz will return to us very soon!”

An upsurge of cheers filled the entire coliseum. From the ecstatic response, I could only guess that this Krotz fellow was the group’s leader. So what did that make the skinny chump addressing the assembly? A fill-in?

“Moreover,” the speaker continued, “I have been advised that he has obtained that which we seek!” His voice took on a zealous, if somewhat uptight, tone. The cheers that followed were even louder and more ecstatic.

“Now none can oppose us! The hypocrites worshipping Ceiphied and the other false gods shall know their error! With true power, all that we desire shall be ours!”

This guy sure likes the sound of his own voice.

I stole a quick glance at Amelia to see how she was holding up. The girl was prone to blowing her top at the slightest provocation, and the last thing we needed right then was an Amelia-sized debacle. I saw her mumbling to herself, her face sullen, but she was keeping a lid on it.

The man below continued his speech: “The nature of existence is contradictory, and therefore evil. We cannot tolerate such a—”

And that’s when Amelia released the lid. She suddenly bolted straight up and began wreaking havoc.

“Burst Rond!”

Dozens of balls of blazing light sprang up around her, then plunged down into the arena.

KA-BOOOOOM!

“Yaaaaah!” a masked follower screamed.

“Yiiiii!” another cried out, tumbling off his tier and into the benches below.

Flames and shrieks erupted from one end of the meeting place to the other. It was pandemonium!

I immediately sank down where I was crouched and covered my head. Dammit! I thought. I should’ve known better!

Amelia’s earlier mumbling hadn’t been her trying to contain her rage but, rather, her chanting a no-holds-barred attack spell. Here’s a piece of advice: if you’re going to let loose with attack spells, at least give your companions some kind of warning before you unleash.

Now, before you get the impression that the fusillade of fireballs created by that spell blew the place to smithereens, listen up. The power was on the low end of the scale, so the damage was very localized—direct hits made blackened toast, but indirect ones didn’t do much. Unfortunately, it was quite enough to make a statement, and that statement was simple: Amelia, on behalf of the three of us, had declared war on the Cult of Shabranigdu.

* * *

It wasn’t long before we were spotted.

“Look up there!” I heard one of the cult members cry out.

“I can see someone!” another hollered. “Have we no lookouts?”

At that instant, Amelia sprang into action again. I wasn’t sure I wanted her to spring into action again.

“Lighting!” she shouted. The spell illuminated a large chunk of sky directly above her.

“Listen well, all ye who worship the darkness!” she shouted at the scrambling people below. “No matter how many deceptions besiege us, there is but one truth! If there is even one of you with the light of truth in his heart, realize the wickedness of the path you have chosen and choose the right course—of your own free will!”

“Dispose of them!” the speaker demanded.

Big surprise there.

As soon as the beanpole gave the word, the “believers” thronged and proceeded toward us. But they could only go so far; as I said, the place we’d chosen for our stakeout was pretty much unreachable, so all the believers could do was rail, stamp their feet, and watch us helplessly.

“Amelia!” I shouted. “Gourry! We need to make a tactical retreat!”

“Why?!” Amelia protested. “We can fight them all here and—”

“We can’t fight on this footing!” I shot back, cutting Amelia off mid-sentence. “What do we do if one of them can use attack spells? The tier below us is unsteady as it is!”

“B-but showing our backs to the enemy…” Amelia complained.

“Bear momentary disgrace, fall back, return again and counterattack!” I told her emphatically, recalling words that were hammered into me when I’d been a sorceress-in-training. Guess I did pay attention to one or two things back in school

“That’s what Champions of Justice do!” I added encouragingly.

The fury left Amelia’s eyes. “You’re right!” she declared, her tone swiftly changing from angry to inspired. “That’s absolutely true!” And with that, she immediately began chanting another spell.

I was lucky Amelia’s goodness also made her extremely easy to manipulate.

“Levitation!” she cried. Amelia’s spell lifted the three of us into the sky.

“Sorcery?!” a man below yelled, half angry and half shocked.

“Why, you!” another roared. “You won’t get away! Everybody head out!” The countless masked men fell all over each other as they rushed for the nearest exits.

They were beginning to make me nervous. “Hurry, Amelia!”

“This is as fast as we can go!” she argued as we floated out of there and above the trees.

Gourry didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. The sweat dripping off his forehead said it all.

As a spell, Levitation has excellent maneuverability, but in using it you’re sacrificing speed; it only goes about as fast as a walking adult. As we floated toward the ground, I saw that our pursuers were already advancing on us.

“Into the forest!” Amelia yelled. She took off running as she spoke, not even bothering to make sure Gourry and I followed. From behind us, we heard the run-of-the-mill lines that all pursuers use: “Let’s go!” and “Over here!” Under the circumstances, I wasn’t about to dock points from our pursuers for not using original lines; the giant mob was threatening enough, and that lit the fire under our butts to keep us racing through the woods.

Suddenly, Amelia veered off the path and into the trees.

“Both of you, hands!” she called out, reaching toward us with one of her own. Gourry and I gripped it. Amelia, it seemed, had already chanted her spell and was ready to go, but as spells go, it was a rather unusual one, and it certainly brought to mind not the most pleasant memory.

“Dark Mist!” The moment she said it, the world went pitch black.

You can’t see your hand in front of your face in a Dark Mist. Of course, that also meant that none of our pursuers could see us. We fumbled in the blackness, but at least we were safely hidden.

A certain assassin used that spell on me once. I realized its potential, but it also made me queasy.

“Amelia!” I called to her. “When did you learn that?”

I could sense her smile in the darkness. “It seemed like a useful spell, so I practiced it in secret.”

“Nice!” I said with a chuckle. “Your father would blow a gasket if he found out. Gourry, you should be more proactive like Amelia.”

I heard Gourry grunt, “But—” or something along those lines.

“There!” a voice from outside the Dark Mist field shouted. “I hear voices!”

Gourry cut whatever he was saying short as we realized just how close our pursuers were. All three of us clammed up in a big hurry.

“Over here!” another cried. “I definitely heard voices this waaaa—?!”

“What’s wro—whoa! What’s this black stuff doing here in the middle of the woods?!”

It sounded like Dark Mist had thrown our pursuers off our trail. In the glow of torches, the mist had probably appeared as nothing more than a great amorphous blackness. I was sure they were weirded out.

Way to go, Amelia!

“I’m inside it!” a panicky voice cried. “I can’t see a damn thing in here! It has to be some sort of sorcery!”

“Yeek!” another yelled. “Somebody call Lady Mazenda!”

“She’s at the temple!” a different pursuer shot back.

The temple, eh? Now we’re getting somewhere.

* * *

“Hey, Lina!” Gourry called. “You plan to stop running anytime soon?”

We were by then more than two villages past Mane. None of us had said anything before Gourry’s sudden question; we’d been so busy hotfooting it from that gang of masked creeps that we hadn’t bothered to think of what to do next. We’d been on our feet without a single break for hours.

“That’s right,” Amelia squealed, panting. “It’ll be dawn soon. Can we take a break, please?” She did look ready to collapse any second.

“Fine,” I replied. “We’ll rest at the next village, okay?”

I was pretty wiped out myself, and my feet were sore as hell. Gourry amazed me, though; even after all the running, he seemed totally composed and didn’t show any signs of slowing down. The man was a machine.

All I cared about was putting as much distance between the enemy and us as was humanly possible. Of course, there was always the option of camping in the forest, but Amelia and I vetoed that idea damn fast. No camping for us.

“While we’re talking,” Amelia chirped exhaustedly (if that’s even possible), “what have you been thinking about since we left that place, Miss Lina? A counterattack plan, I hope.”

“Wouldn’t we have been better off fighting those guys back there?” Gourry asked. “We could’ve destroyed them all in one shot.”

Gourry thought like a toddler, and I was used to that, but seeing Amelia nod so energetically at his suggestion was disappointing. Sleep deprivation must’ve been fogging up her head.

“First of all,” I reasoned with them, “smashing that meeting place to smithereens would’ve accomplished nothing. Don’t you remember? Their leader was away somewhere; the guy making the speech said so.”

“You mean that wasn’t their headquarters?” Gourry asked, his face all screwed up with puzzlement.

“Ugh,” I groaned. “Gourry, since when does a broken- down monstrosity like that coliseum make a good home base? Even if it is hidden in the forest, it’d get found as soon as someone ventured even a little ways into the mountains. Besides, don’t you remember one of those masked guys saying that Mazenda was at a temple?”

“A temple? Someone said that?”

I suddenly felt like banging my head against the nearest tree.

“Yes!” I fumed. “Mazenda wasn’t anywhere to be seen when Amelia set off her fireworks. So, logically, this place they call ‘the temple’ is somewhere other than where the cult met. Are you following me?” I squinted my eyes and braced for his answer.

Gourry thought about this. “So the temple’s their headquarters, then.”

“Good.” I sighed with relief. “At any rate, defeating Mazenda and restoring my magic powers have to top our priority list right now. You follow me, right?”

Gourry raised his finger and cocked his chin skyward. “Ahhhh,” he said, then quite simply added, “No.”

“Gourry!”

“Wait,” he interjected, his tone becoming more urgent. “Look at Amelia.”

“Amelia?” I repeated, then turned.

What the hell?

Amelia just stood there, motionless, her arms slack at her sides as she stared into space. Gourry strode over to her and passed his hand back and forth in front of her face. He snapped his fingers inches from her nose.

“Don’t worry,” he said at last. “She just went to sleep standing up. We should leave her be for a bit.”

“Excuse me?” I stomped over to Gourry. “We’re in no place to ‘leave her be,’ genius. Use that glop between your ears every once in a while.”

I turned to Amelia. “Hey!” I shouted. “Amelia! I’m talking to you!” I shook her by the shoulders several times until her eyelids fluttered open.

“Ah,” she warbled like a little bird. “Miss Lina.”

“Not used to all-nighters?”

“No,” she bubbled. “I’m a… sound… sleeper.”

You don’t say.

“Then we don’t have a choice,” I decided. “Gourry, you’re gonna have to carry her on your back.”

But by then Gourry was laid out and snoring.

“ARGH!” I cried. “Get up, you idiot! This isn’t the place for a nap!”

My yelling snapped him awake. “You’re right,” Gourry agreed, yawning and getting to his feet. “It isn’t.” In that split second, though, the expression on his face suddenly got very intense. He’d drawn his blade without my even realizing it.

In the next moment, I knew why—I sensed a presence. It had taken me awhile to catch on to it; I was more tired than I’d realized.

“An enemy?” Amelia asked. Her eyes, too, had gone alert and shone with focus. The sense of danger had completely startled the sleep out of her.

The boughs of the trees before us rustled.

“Lina, listen to me,” Gourry said under his breath. “Take Amelia and get out of here. I’ll stay and hold them off.”

“A-are you nuts?” I stammered in disbelief. “Are you even sure we’re under attack?!”

“Yeah, and I can tell they’re not amateurs. You can’t cast spells, and Amelia doesn’t have an ounce of strength left. Let me take care of ‘em.”

“Ah,” someone cawed from the trees. “A rather optimistic outlook, wouldn’t you say?”

The voice was high-pitched and male. We peered into the shadows of the forest, but I couldn’t see anyone. Whoever was about to ambush us was well hidden.

“Stop hiding like a cowardly villain and show yourself!” Amelia yelled, but the presence in the woods didn’t even bother to respond to her.

A long, tense silence passed before the male voice spoke again. “I admire your gall in picking a fight back at the assembly while we were not present,” it commented. “You were lucky to have evaded us then, but your luck has now come to an end. All you managed to do was delay your own death.” The voice suddenly began to cackle.

I’m sorry, did I miss something funny?

“Gilfa,” growled a second voice. “You talk too much.” Unlike the first voice, I could actually see who—or, rather, what—spoke: a beast-man. At first glance, he resembled a lizard man, but a closer look revealed some telling differences. If the large bulge on his back was anything to go by, he was probably some hybrid of a black cobra and a human.

Slung low in one of his hands was a great sword. Its blade was tall enough to reach the top of Gourry’s head; very impressive-looking, I had to admit.

“How unsociable of you, Vedur,” chortled the one whose name was Gilfa. “I simply want the short-lived humans to know what they’re dealing with.”

“Irrelevant,” snarled Vedur, the beast-man. “Our orders were ‘pursue and kill.’ Fulfilling that is our job. Being sociable wastes time.”

Vedur began to stride menacingly out from the cover of the trees. That’s when I noticed Gourry carefully sheathing his sword back into his scabbard and pulling a needle out of a side pocket. That was going to come as a big surprise to our guests: the Sword of Light!

A little background? But of course. A long time ago, when Sairaag was known as the City of Sorcery, the Demon Beast Zanaffar razed the place. It’s said that Zanaffar was destroyed by a legendary sword, one able to channel the will and energy of its bearer through its blade and thus cleave the Demon Beast in half. And yes, for the slower members of the audience—I’m talking about the Sword of Light.

Although he tended to strike people as a dunderhead, Gourry did happen to be the rightful inheritor of the Sword of Light—an extremely skilled inheritor, in fact.

To call on a weapon like that automatically meant Gourry deemed the situation pretty dangerous. Our assailants hadn’t yet impressed me very much, but I guessed Gourry saw something in them that I didn’t.

“Lina!” Gourry warned. “Amelia! Don’t get careless!” He didn’t take his eyes off Vedur. “There’s a third guy out there!”

I blinked. A third?

“My, my,” Gilfa cooed. “Impressive. Did you hear that, Vedur? Grouj is completely hidden, and yet this fellow here can still detect his presence.” Gilfa’s tone was so lighthearted you’d think he was hosting an afternoon tea party “Very impressive, indeed.”

Guessing from the direction of Gilfa’s voice, he was situated right next to Vedur—but Vedur was clearly standing alone. Unless one of our assailants was a professional ventriloquist, I couldn’t see how Gilfa could throw his voice so perfectly. My gaze darted around for signs of the unseen enemy.

Slowly, power began to surge through Vedur’s body, and that’s when all the commotion started.

“Flare Arrow!” Amelia shouted.

I’d been so busy looking for the invisible Gilfa that I hadn’t noticed her chanting a spell.

KA-BOOM!

I was impressed. A couple of minutes earlier Amelia had fallen asleep standing up, yet now she fired several direct- hit shots to Vedur’s body. The instant the shots hit, Gourry sprinted straight for Vedur!

“Light come forth!” Gourry boomed. Drawing forth the Sword of Light, he sliced both Vedur and his great sword right in two.

At least, that’s how it should’ve gone.

“Huh?” Gourry grunted, a mixture of pain and confusion in his voice. He gasped and stumbled back, trying to catch his breath. That’s when I noticed the heavy gash in his iron serpent scale breastplate.

What the hell?! I thought. I was groggy, maybe, but I knew what I saw.

The moment Gourry had drawn the Sword of Light, Vedur’s shadow had erupted out of the ground and attacked Gourry with several shadow blades. While Gourry had cut through the blades with his Sword of Light, Vedur had swung his great sword and gashed Gourry’s breastplate.

“Ha ha!” Gilfa cackled. “Look at that, Vedur! The Sword of Light! I’m not sure about his skill, but that blade puts your own sword to shame!” Gilfa giggled some more. “It even cleaved right through my shadow!”

Something was obviously hilarious to that guy. I was glad someone was having fun.

“Not a bad effort,” Gilfa prattled on with malicious delight, “but you’ve miscalculated, I’m afraid. A spell like that won’t make a dent in Vedur’s body.”

Just what we needed. Vedur, it seemed, had the magic resistance of a lesser demon. I’d confronted a beast-man with the same type of magic resistance before, but it was still bad news.

“Silence!” the beast-man roared at Gilfa.

My thoughts exactly.

“Oh!” Gilfa hooted. “Don’t be that way, Vedur. If I hadn’t used my shadow, your sword would be in pieces. And where would you be without your sword? Dead, I should think.”

I was starting to guess that Gilfa was a Shadow Master. This day just keeps getting better and better.

“Either way,” Gilfa continued, “our opponents don’t stand a chance.” And then he went on giggling.

“It takes one to know one!” Gourry grunted defiantly as he leapt to his feet. With that thoroughly nonsensical reply, he rushed again for Vedur.

I was still confused with Gilfa. No matter how expertly skilled a Shadow Master is, I’d never known one with the ability to speak through another’s shadow. Was it possible?

“Mister Gourry!” Amelia shouted. “The shadow!”

“I’m on it!” Gourry cried back as he broke into a sprint, the Sword of Light hefted high over his head. Before I knew it, he was already upon Vedur’s shadow and plunging his sword into… well, into the spot of ground where Vedur’s shadow lay.

Vedur took the opportunity and slashed his great sword down in an overhead strike. Gourry parried it with unbelievable speed and, even better than that, managed to hew Vedur’s sword in half like he was slicing through warm butter.

That’s when Vedur’s left fist smashed squarely into Gourry’s belly.

“Agggh!” Gourry gasped.

“Gourry!” I cried.

Vedur’s punch sent Gourry flying backward quite a ways. As Gourry skidded across the ground, Vedur made a beeline straight for him, but Gourry was too fast—by the time Vedur got to him, Gourry had recovered his senses enough to jump up and regrip his Sword of Light.

Vedur backed away. Without his own sword, he probably knew he didn’t stand a chance against Gourry.

“Rather bumbling of you, Vedur,” Gilfa said with a note of annoyance in his voice. “Now we’ve got no choice but to call on Grouj’s power.”

“No choice,” the beast-man agreed in a pained tone.

“You mean the shadow wasn’t him?” Amelia blurted out. She’d clearly thought that Grouj resided in Vedur’s shadow.

“Run!” Gourry shouted at us. “Both of you, just go! I’ll take care of these guys myself!” I noticed blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“No way!” I shot back. “You’re bleeding!”

“I just bit my tongue! Now get outta here!”

It went against every fiber of my being, but I knew what I had to do. “All… right,” I grunted.

“Miss Lina?”

As much as I hated to admit it, Gourry was right. “There’s no point in us staying,” I told Amelia. “Your spells won’t do a damn thing here, and as for me, I’m… I’m a liability right now. I’ll only get in the way.”

Saying that last part was like twisting a knife in my gut, but there it was. Despite my other fighting skills, with my primary power—my magic—sealed up, I knew I’d be of no use to Gourry.

Amelia frowned worriedly but didn’t argue.

“Gourry!” I shouted “We’re gone!”

“I’ll catch up with you later!” he yelled back. “Amelia, take care of Lina!” Gourry glanced back at me with a hint of worry in his eyes. He did his best to smile bravely, then whipped back around and brandished his sword at Vedur.

“Let’s get this over with, ugly. Bring out your number three guy and we’ll fight this fair and square!”

“Very well,” Vedur snarled. “Grouj! Come!”

As Vedur shouted his order, a shape leapt out from the forest. It was the last thing I saw as Amelia and I retreated as fast as our weary legs could carry us.

* * *

“Miss Lina?” Amelia’s normally upbeat tone sounded way more worried and earnest than usual.

She and I panted in a thick grove of trees. It was a secluded little place, one that seemed safe enough for cooling our heels. We’d veered into the woods just off the dirt road.

I still felt awful. How could I have left Gourry alone by himself? It was the only way, I kept telling myself, but that didn’t calm the knots in my stomach.

“Miss Lina?” Amelia asked again.

“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m trying to figure out the best course of action for us. Give me a sec, okay?”

I went over the facts again and again, but there was no getting around it: I had to defeat Mazenda to regain my spells, but I didn’t have a chance in hell without using those spells. And if Amelia went up against Mazenda, she’d probably just suffer the same fate I had.

That left Gourry. Only he stood a chance in a battle against Mazenda, but right then, I didn’t want to think about Gourry. It only got me worrying again.

“All right,” I said at last, trying not to lose my grip. “Let’s hide out for a while, then we’ll look for Gourry. Rendezvousing with him is our top priority.”

“How unfortunate that you’ll be dead long before that,” said a man’s voice.

We’d heard that voice before. It came from directly ahead. “Dammit!” I muttered, gritting my teeth as I noticed the red robe and matching mantle. His gaunt face and pale eyes didn’t do much to intimidate, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Looks can be deceiving.

By the way, it was the thin guy from that night—the one who’d given an ecstatic speech to his assembly of jerks.

“Though I, Balgumon, may not look it,” the man intoned, “I am the organization’s second-in-command. While I preside over the association, I cannot tolerate such an assault as occurred this past night, and I am thus left with only one choice: to defeat you and restore my good name, a duty that must be fulfilled in the appropriate place.”

Man, is this guy a windbag.

He claimed to be die cult’s number two. One thing was for sure: his organization wasn’t very organized, considering how easy it was to throw it into complete turmoil.

“I’m sorry,” I replied flatly, “but we’re gonna have to turn down your request.” I sneakily drew my short sword from my hip.

You don’t want to tangle with Lina Inverse in a fight, with or without my magic powers. With nothing but a sword I could take on a good four or five ne’er-do-wells in any alley in any city on any day of the week.

Did that mean I stood a chance against Slim Jim? Probably not—unless he was just an average sorcerer, in which case… maybe.

“Amelia!” I called over my shoulder. “Cover me!”

And with that, I charged Balgumon with my naked sword ready. I could hear Amelia cast a spell behind me.

“Bah,” Balgumon snarled. “Come, then.” He began chanting his own spell.

Too bad for him, Amelia was already done. She let her spell fly.

“Take this!” I hollered with my blade held high. The second before my intended slice, I dove abruptly to the side and squeezed my eyes shut.

I could feel Amelia’s maximum-brightness, zero-duration lighting spell envelope the clearing in brilliant light. I was glad I’d guessed her strategy—and even more glad to hear Balgumon curse and slap his hands over his face.

Now’s my chance! The instant the light waned, I whipped around and dashed straight for Balgumon. I slashed at him with a shout, timing my attack as precisely as I could.

Imagine how bummed I was when my blade only caught air.

“What?!” I cried.

Balgumon should’ve been completely blinded by the lighting spell, but he still dodged my attack with embarrassing ease. I recovered my balance and quickly chased after him.

Had he faked the first blindness? I could tell he was chanting a spell even as I tore through the undergrowth after him. The guy was a shifty one, so I wasn’t about to cut him any slack. Charging directly at him and giving him the least amount of time for an evasive maneuver was still the best plan I could come up with.

“Miss Lina!” Amelia yelled, a jolt of unusual panic in her voice.

As soon as she spoke, I sensed another attacker streaking overhead—and boy, was he mad. I grunted and leapt to one side as rapidly as I could, watching as a silver light flared downward and cracked open the earth I’d been standing on a moment before. If my evasion had been a fraction of a second later, my head would’ve been split open like an unsuspecting watermelon.

“Another one?” I yelped. I got to my feet and tried to put some distance between Balgumon and me.

“Hmph!” the new attacker huffed. “She dodged it!”

He was another beast-man, only hairier than Vedur and armed with a long sword. At first glance he looked like an ordinary werewolf, but I suspected a closer inspection—which I had no intention of making—would reveal physical subtleties that would prove me wrong. Like Vedur, he was probably a hybrid.

“That wasn’t necessary, Feltis,” Balgumon snapped. Feltis’ appearance had interrupted his spell chant.

“Are your eyes okay, then?” Feltis asked.

“Yes,” Balgumon answered impatiently. “I can see well enough to take care of these fools.”

As he spoke, the beast-man closed in, planting his nasty self between Balgumon and me. I brought up my sword in preparation for whatever attack he had in mind.

“Oi!” I cried. “Amelia! Take your kiddie gloves off! Show no mercy, you hear me?!”

“Understood!” Amelia cried back. With that, she began chanting another spell.

The way I saw it, we had only one shot at winning that fight, and it would take everything that Amelia had. Unfortunately, Balgumon was smart enough to not just stand around and wait to get hit. Before Amelia could finish chanting, he started running straight for her!

“Amelia!” I cried. The beast-man blocked my path so I couldn’t intercept Balgumon; Amelia was on her own. Seeing Balgumon charging toward her, she quickly adopted a fighting stance.

“Don’t worry, Miss Lina!” she shouted. “One villain or two, it doesn’t matter; in the end, they shall all know the power of just—oof!”

Balgumon slammed a knee into Amelia’s solar plexus. She promptly buckled, her face twisted in pain, and dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks.

“Don’t move!” Balgumon ordered as he grappled with Amelia from behind.

I began to sweat. Easy, Lina, I told myself. Just think for a second. Think!

I wondered if I could bluff our way out of the suddenly delicate situation. I decided to try it.

“Yeah, right,” I snapped. “What difference would it make if I cooperated with you? My partner and I would both get killed in the end. If anything, I oughta let loose with my sword right now, no holds barred!”

Balgumon smirked at my words. “Now, wait just a moment,” he drawled carefully “Maybe I can offer you a better option. Let me first ask, are you the sorceress whose magic Mazenda sealed?”

There was no way around it. “I am,” I conceded, lowering my sword. There was no point hiding that rather glaring fact. Somebody as familiar with magic as Balgumon had probably been able to figure it out easily.

“Then another question,” Balgumon continued “This girl referred to you as ‘Lina’ before. Would you be that Lina Inverse?” “Yes,” I groaned. “I’m probably that Lina Inverse.” This may not be the best time to mention it, but I was becoming something of a celebrity sorceress. Word of my name and deeds—as notorious as they both were—had reached far and wide. Pardon the lack of modesty here, but I’d developed quite a reputation for my wild and crazy adventures, both magic and non-magic related.

“Hmm,” Balgumon murmured. “In that case, I shall spare your life, and I shall tell Mazenda to remove the seal.”

I blinked. Say what?!

“But in return…” he continued.

Oh, here we go. There’s always a catch when the bad guys offer favors.

“… you shall become one of us.”

All right, hell no. I knew I’d rather die than join a cult that worshipped Ruby Eye; not only was the troop evil, but every member I’d come in contact with had been insufferably annoying. But I didn’t particularly want them to kill Amelia and me, either—that meant we’d both die petty, trivial deaths inflicted by petty, trivial enemies. And I think I deserve to die far more gloriously than that, don’t you?

They had me backed into a corner. I sighed with deep resignation, but before I could agree to their terms, a voice called out from the trees.

“Ah! Mister Feltis! I’ve finally found you at long last!”

The voice was carefree and even personable. It was the friendliest voice I’d heard in a long time.

“Y-you!” Feltis raged. “You filthy priest! You came after me all the way here?!”

Obviously, Feltis wasn’t feeling the love; he and the filthy priest, whatever his name was, had some bad blood between them. All the better for me! I turned to get a look at the guy I hoped would be my ally by default.