Lin stood outside of the room, looking around the doorframe inside with Furball doing likewise. Nii-chan's sister had ordered him to leave and not come in again until she said so, even if the house was burning down around their ears. After he left, she sat down cross-legged on one of the beds and closed her eyes. Lin didn't know what she was doing, just sitting there.
"I wonder if Nii-chan is alright..."
The wolf pup whined and rubbed against Lin's leg in reassurance.
"Maybe I should make some food. Everyone missed lunch."
Furball made a sound that could pass as a wolf's version of a gag. Then inexplicably, he began to growl, eyes and ears flattening as the book, which had been sitting quietly on the table, began to rustle. From an unnatural wind, the book swung open, pages flipping wildly to one of the last ones that rose only partly. The pure white page began to darken in the middle, tongues of flame licking out slowly before moving more rapidly to devour the ready fuel.
"The book!" The boy moved forward to...to...well, do something though he hadn't figured out what yet. Both his mother and Nii-chan had admonished him many times not to get near fire or burning objects but this book was important to whatever Nii-chan was doing now. Almost fruitlessly, Furball tried to keep back his master, biting down on the cuff of Lin's pants and digging his paws into the wooden floor.
The mysterious fire that consumed the page did not disappear with the page or begin to feed on the rest of the book. Instead it continued to grow, widening into a whirlpool of flames when a boom not unlike a thunderclap shook the building. Something was expelled through the flames, completely exhausting them in the effort.
"Nii-chan!!"
Zelgadiss, having just gone through the roar of an inferno, still wasn't hearing just right but he could feel just fine as Lin and Furball jumped on him, knocking whatever little breath had been left in him. They've been doing that a lot lately.
"Nii-chan, are you alright? Where were you? Were you in the book? What were you doing in the book? What is Nii-chan's sister doing? Where are Nii-chan's friends? Is Nii-chan hungry? Why did a page in the book burn up?" Lin shot question after question at the still disoriented Zelgadiss.
"Lin. Not now," he gritted between his teeth, trying to sort through his muddled thoughts. How did he end up on the floor? Sylphiel had been trying to divine something out of the book and then what? What was Lin talking about, that he was in the book? "Off of me, both of you."
Sitting up, Zel looked around the room, still the same one he remembered except that Sylphiel and Gourry were gone, and now Lin, Furball, and Terisa were here. Terisa?? His younger sister was sitting cross-legged a bed, her eyes closed in some type of meditative state. Initially loose and relaxed, her body suddenly shuddered slightly. Then the blue eyes opened, briefly appearing as disoriented as Zelgadiss felt before a wall slammed down on them.
"Honestly, Zel, can't you do anything by yourself?" she grumbled, stretching and twisting her body to get a feel of being physical again. Terisa needed it more so this time than usual since she really felt like a ghost. "I take a one in a thousand chance to try to enter whatever pocket dimension that world leads to, risk my own life to pull out your sorry stone-hard hide, and then I don't even get a 'Thanks' afterwards."
Zelgadiss blinked. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't tell me you don't remember."
"Remember what?" he asked testily. "At least be so kind as to tell me what it is you're angry about this time?"
"Baka! The carnival! The fire! The day our parents died! Hello?? Does that ring a bell? You were caught in some warped version of that day where the fire never happened! I pulled you out of it and back out here. Gods, why did I even bother!" Terisa grumbled. Upon seeing Zel's still confused expression, she decided to jog his memory in a not very sister-like fashion. She punched him.
A distant voice in Zel's mind wondered if this was how Gourry felt, always receiving the brunt of Lina's anger and rarely understanding why. At least in his case, he didn't feel as much pain. The person physically venting her frustrating on him would feel more.
"Damn," Terisa grimaced, shaking out her stinging hand. "It's like hitting a blasted rock. Or maybe the port side of the flying ship."
"So maybe next time you'll remember not to hit your older brother...what?" Zel's sixth sense was pulled back toward the table over which the open book now floated. The air above it shimmered, like the effects of a heat wave rising from the ground on an extremely hot day. And from it, four small balls of fire appeared.
"Get down!" he yelled, probably unnecessarily as anyone with eyes could see what was coming. Zel grabbed Lin and threw his dark blue cloak over both of them. From another thud, he knew Terisa was also taking refuge on the floor. The heat of the spheres flew over their heads, one of the lower ones scorching his cloak, and slammed into the wall, immediately setting the wood aflame.
"What threw those?" Zelgadiss growled, still keeping Lin's head down in case more orbs of fire came flying toward them.
"Better yet," Terisa corrected, pointing at the book or more accurately, at what was above the book. "What is that?"
In the space of the shimmering air now floated the alleged kidnapper of Sairaag's citizens, the twig-thin man dressed in a ringmaster's tailcoat and top hat, his face hidden behind a smiling white mask. The smile was not reassuring, its width and fixed appearance gave the expression a touch of insincerity and something else, something quietly sinister.
"Wouldn't it be that character you said your spirits told you captured Lina?"
"I wasn't asking about that," Terisa snapped. "I was asking what it is. Not human, not Mazoku, not spirit, how many possibilities can you come up with?"
"...burn..." It whispered in broken tones that seemed to echo.
"He's got fire in his mouth," Lin pointed out, managing to worm his way out from under Zel's arm to look at the floating apparition. The fake ringleader indeed had fire roiling in his 'mouth', the fires licking away the mask to reveal a dark ugly black and red underneath.
Zel had a bad feeling that it wasn't just going to be small fireballs this time. He didn't know of any spells to defend against fire spells, and trying to counter with an equally powerful fire spell in this small space was not possible. Which only left the cliché oppose fire with water, or ice in this case, route.
"Van Rehl!"
From Zel's hand flowed ribbons of ice, spinning by his command into a dome of ice between themselves and the fire that was coming toward them. Belatedly, he also noticed that the cold shield cut them off from the room's only exit, the door, and there was still a fire growing behind them. In addition, Lin and Furball were trapped in here with him and Terisa, he knew, couldn't cast any magic to help.
"Damn it, where did Gourry and Sylphiel go?" he swore as from the ringleader's mouth spewed forth a wide blast of fire that enveloped the dome and the entire room in its fiery embrace. To add to his worries, the shield of ice was already melting under the intense heat and once it was gone, the burning timbers of the ceiling would be on them.
CRACK
Or perhaps sooner.
"Fire! Fire! The houses are on fire!!" were the cries around Neo Sairaag. Being a recently built city, many of the houses were naturally made hastily out of wood and most still did not have adequate protection against one of the common destroyers of cities. Neo Sairaag could get noted in history as the most short-lived city if the fire was allowed to spread.
Of course, seeing as how many priests and sorcerers were in the city, fire control shouldn't have been a problem. However, being humans and having the tendency to be petty, the two groups wouldn't stop their bickering over the new path of the city and the new city would have been half-drowned and half-frozen by their competitiveness to outdo the other had the fire succumbed to their spells.
It didn't.
And amidst the confusion and screams, two people ran out of one of the burning buildings, coughing from the smoke, each carrying something in their arms. With his free arm, Zelgadiss quickly tore off what remained of his cloak that had caught partially on fire on their escape from what remained of Sylphiel's home. He hoped this wasn't going to become a trend.
"Lin, are you alright?"
The boy, face slightly darkened by ashes with tears from stinging eyes nodded, coughing slightly. Having been held close against his guardian, the boy suffered no injuries. Furball had fared a little worse in Terisa's arms, the tip of his tail slightly singed, but otherwise was his normal frisky self as he squirmed in Terisa's arms.
"Talk about firebugs," Terisa coughed. "I wonder if he had anything to do with that place I pulled you out of. It certainly was turning into an inferno."
"Fire, carnival, inferno, ringleader, book," Zelgadiss muttered trying to make some sense of it all. He only had a vague sense that he knew what Terisa was talking about but he could very easily remember the day his life changed for the worse, the first in a long string of turns for the worse. "And why hasn't anyone tried to put out the fire yet?!"
"This is impossible! Neither spells nor water can douse the flames!" yelled a sorcerer whose dress marked him as from the Sorcerer's Guild that was trying to establish itself here. "This must be magical in nature!"
"That doesn't mean it can't be put out," the chimera gritted his teeth.
"Well, it isn't being put out," Terisa pointed out, glaring at the people who in their panic jostled her as they tried to run away. "So how does this relate to that thing that tried to attack us for no reason? Was it angry that you escaped and I helped you do it?"
"...burn..." spoke many voices drowned in anguish.
More screams joined the cacophony as from the same burning remains that Zelgadiss and his sister had escaped from. Walking forth from the flames was a something that might have once been human but was only bore the vague shape of a black and red humanoid now. If it had clothes once, they must have been burned away from the intense aura of heat that was visible once it stepped away from the flames and was felt by those unfortunate to be near. As it neared, the black and red resolved themselves into old and new scabs and burns that covered its entire body. Floating behind it, somehow safe from the flames of its master, was the book in which were still trapped a number of people.
Unerringly, it walked toward the two Graywords siblings, ignoring the splashes of water and thrown ice spells that were as useless against it as they were against the unnatural fires. Zelgadiss put Lin down and signaled to Terisa.
"Take Lin and the wolf pup out of the city."
"But Nii-chan - "
"What? You think I'm going to - "
"Do it!"
The little boy's violet eyes welled up with tears. Terisa though was a bit harder.
"Like hell I'm going to listen you and get saddled down with a kid and a puppy! You want them out of here? Take them yourself!" she snarled, keeping one eye on their firebug. "You're the one responsible for him, not me."
"Terisa, this isn't a question about responsibility. You can't do anything here or against that!"
"And you can?" she shot back.
"Maybe not but I'll certainly last longer! Now get out of here!"
"...neither of you...will escape...again..."
"Again?" Zel muttered as fire shot forth from the creatures two arms into the ground. As if they were alive, the streams of fire raced across the ground, erupting into high walls of flame that encircled the Graywords and itself.
"Nii-chan!!" Lin screamed from the other side of the fire circle.
"Lin! Don't come near! Get away from here now!!"
"Bu-But..." the little boy stammered, eyes watering from the smoke and fire. "I...I'll go find Nii-chan's friends...!!"
"Lin, forget that! Just get out of the city!" Zelgadiss's yell fell on deaf ears as Lin was already gone with Furball on his heels.
"Kids," Terisa shook her head, before looking off to the side. "He's not going to find anything but Death in this place."
Of course, at that moment, Zel saw Death walking untouched through the flames, a number of recently deceased people trailing behind him.
"And there he goes."
"You can see Death??" But then, Terisa could see spirits. Why couldn't she see Death? And given the 'of-course-idiot' look she was giving him, it was only a logical conclusion anyone would come up with.
"...die...with us...come...to us..." moaned the figure covered with deep burns as above it grew a large Fireball that Lina wasn't above casting herself to get rid of a horde of trolls. This was getting better and better.
"Terisa, behind me!" Zel ordered, calling forth a shield of swirling wind to deflect the incoming blast. It couldn't add that much more to the conflagration around them.
The human-sized ball of fire slammed into the shield, pushing it to its limit and Zelgadiss to his to keep it up. If Lina, Sylphiel, or even Amelia was here, one of them could have used a spell to extinguish the fires or at least help him with the shield. Well, Amelia was weeks away in Saillune and Lina and Sylphiel...
The fires finally died away, much to Zel's relief. Behind the creature, he could see the book floating. The book in which were probably trapped Lina, Sylphiel, and Gourry, if Terisa was right. But what was this creature, some kind of magical experiment gone wrong, and what was that book? And why was it specifically targeting them?
"...die...with us...must die..."
"It sounds the same." Zel heard Terisa mutter.
"Sounds the same as what?" he growled, chanting another spell to try and ends the thing's flames. The fires were undeniably created by it, so perhaps if its flames were extinguished, the fire ranging through the city would also extinguish. Or at least become extinguishable. He just hoped Lin had the sense to get out of this deathtrap.
"Like a tortured spirit. I haven't come across too many but they're formed when the person dies with thoughts filled with anger, despair, sorrow, and other such negative feelings. I suppose since Mazoku feed on such things there wouldn't be many floating around but - "
Her words highlighted something in Zel's memory, a fragment of a talk he had with that Earl in the Land of the Dead. What was it? ' The Dark Ones are the accumulations of despair, anger, violence, and a bunch of other nasty stuff. They like to devour stranded spirits but are just as likely to suck the life out of normal creatures as well.' "Dark Ones..."
"What was that?"
"Demona Crystal!" he replied instead, summoning forth crystals of ice to erupt before him toward the creature. Was it a Dark One? Even if it was, he was still back on square one because he had no idea how to defeat it. Probably a moot point to worry about as the ice crystallized around the firebug. "...is it over?"
"The fires that trapped us here are dying down," Terisa noted, looking around. Of course, the fire burning the city was still raging. "Seems that you've killed the source of the fire."
"I hope not." Zel ignored Terisa's disbelieving look, skirting around the icy prison and took the floating book into his hand. "The people that are supposed to be trapped in this book are still in there. Either their release is keyed to this creature or something else entirely."
"I am not going in there and pulling everyone out. It probably won't even work with complete strangers."
"No one asked you to. Perhaps Kelvan knows a way," Zelgadiss said, looking at the book that looked very plain and ordinary now. "We'll need to stop this fire first and - !!"
He almost dropped the book as it suddenly exploded in his face. Or from Terisa's point of view, several pages of book suddenly burst into flame in her brother's face. And then something exploded for real, the prison of ice. Shards of ice flew in all directions as the flaming Dark One's aura of heat erupted into real flames, reviving the fiery circle around them.
"Everything will burn!!" it screamed in torment and anger, a column of fire shooting up into the sky before splitting up and raining down on the already beleaguered city.
"Great, Zel, you just made things worse! And now it's angry to boot!" Terisa yelled, dodging the fire that began to rain down from the sky. "It was better was it was calmer!"
Calmer...? "That's it!"
Terisa looked at her brother's suddenly renewed hope. "And to add icing to the cake, he's lost his mind."
"No! Terisa, how do you pacify a tortured spirit?" Zelgadiss yelled, appearing at his sister's side and shielding them both from the brunt of the firestorm. A Megido Flare wouldn't work on a strong spirit.
"Pacify? Well, if it's a weak one, talking and reasoning sometimes work. Really angry ones are a bit harder because they're too blinded to realize that they are the only ones that know what they're angry about. It all comes down to figuring out why they're tortured souls in the first place. If this is a tortured spirit, it must have died in a fire or something."
"This is your realm of expertise," Zel said grimly, wincing as one of the last of the raining fire clumps exploded fully against the shield. "And it's focused on us. You saw how it never went after everyone else."
"Zel, I think we've established that this thing does has a higher presence on the physical side than any spirit I've ever met."
"What I'm thinking about isn't a normal spirit, not from what my sources were hinting at. I'll explain later. Now tell me, if this was a tortured spirit, then what is it about fire and us that is making it attack us?"
"Let's see, between fire and us, the only connection is the carnival fire," she said wryly, humoring her brother. "...masaka."
"We were the only two survivors..." the chimera muttered, looking at the Dark One who seemed to be taking a breather after the massive blaze centered around just them. "Everyone else died in that fire, never knowing why or how, during a time they would never have expected it. Is that all it takes to create one?"
"A twisted version of survivor guilt," Terisa continued. "Those who survive feel guilty about living while others died. And the dead begrudge the living because they're living. It probably wants us dead as well. What are we going to do? Let it kill us?"
"Not even an option. Perhaps reason with it?"
"How? As a pile of ashes?"
"Could you please be serious?"
"Well, if it's all of the spirits from the fire, then if we can somehow separate them, they would be much weaker individually then together. I might be able to do that by striking through the spiritual side if I can get close enough. But right now, it'll roast me if I get within several feet."
Zel winced as the book in his hand shuddered again from the force of several more pages exploding. "It must be drawing power from the people it's trapped in it."
"But if person is a page then..."
"There isn't much time left. How long will it take you to prepare an attack?"
"Anytime," Terisa snorted. "I haven't been enjoying the company of spirits for years for nothing. Good, one of you got back here in time."
Zelgadiss looked up to see a sheathed blade floating above them. He opened the shield and the spirit holding the blade let the weapon fall into Terisa's waiting hand. She attached it to her belt and unsheathed it, hefting the familiar scimitar in her hand.
"So what are you going to do?" she asked warily as the Dark One began to prepare for another onslaught of fire.
"A spell to drop the temperature to freezing," Zel said shortly in between the Chaos Words. "That should reduce the flames to heat or at most, brief sparks."
"So which should I be more worried about, getting hypothermia or it drawing more power out of the book?"
"I'm hoping it will be too focused on trying to kill you to try that. How are you going to attack it through its spiritual side? Do you mean an astral attack?"
"It means I'm going to force the spirits to separate. Anything else is a trade secret. Do you have that spell ready?"
"Yes. Gray Buster!"
The effect was almost instantaneous. Frozen moisture in the air replaced the shimmer effect of the heat of the flames in their immediate area. Terisa was already feeling the cold permeate her clothes, which had not been chosen with a winter climate in mind. She had her doubts about Zel's claim that this was a conglomeration of spirits but now that the aura of the heat had been lessened to nearly invisible and if she concentrated, Terisa could barely make out the different spirits bound together. She had never done anything like this, and she hoped it would work.
After all, Zel's spell should take care of the thing's heat aura and agility should get her by any close attacks it will probably try. So all she would need to concentrate on was focusing her power to allow her blade to strike at the spiritual side. Easy right? As her fingers began to tingle and long claws grew from its hands, Terisa was beginning to doubt that.
"Waz zrong?"
Lin looked up, eyes blurred by tears, at the person who spoke to him. It was a red hair, bleary eye man dressed sloppily in wrinkled clothes, an uncorked bottle in one hand. Unlike most of the other people milling around, he didn't appear distressed about the fire in the city.
"Nii-chan and Nii-chan's sister are still in there," the boy sniffled, one arm wrapped tightly around Furball's neck. "I was trying to find Nii-chan's friends because Nii-chan and Nii-chan's sister were fighting something bad that started the fire. But I couldn't find them and someone made me come out here and I want Nii-chan but no one lets me go back in because the fire is dangerous and they keep saying that Nii-chan is dead but Nii-chan won't die, Lin knows Nii-chan won't die and...and..."
"There, there," the bum said, handing Lin a surprisingly clean handkerchief to wipe his face with. Actually, since the bum was still tipsy, it came out as 'zere, zere'. "You want to go see your Nii-chan? Well, if the fire stopped then there wouldn't be a problem would there?"
"But no one's been able to put it out," Lin mumbled into the handkerchief.
"That's because they don't know the magic words," the bum winked with a knowing look, leaning close to the little boy as if sharing a great secret. He whispered, "But I know'em. Want me to teach you?"
"Magic words? They'll make the rain stop?" asked the boy hopefully, looking up. "What are they? What are they?"
"Now now, not so fast. You need to do some things along with the words. Let me show you. First, stand up. And let the poor wolf pup down before he chokes. Good. Now you hold your hands together like this, close your eyes, and repeat the words after me, okay?"
Lin nodded.
Losing all signs of drunkenness, the red hair man placed both hands on Lin's shoulders and the boy felt a pervading calm spread through him. No one around them even noticed what was going on.
"Humbly do I present..." the man started in a deep voice that should have been heard all around except something was diverting the crowd's attention.
"Humbly do I present..." Lin repeated.
"My wish to those that grant me divine protection."
"My wish to those that grant me divine protection."
A cool wind began to blow, pulling in clouds whose dark colors were not the result of the fire's smoke.
"Blue water, blue light, and freezing sigh; destroy my enemy!!"
"Blue water, blue light, and freezing sigh; destroy my enemy!!"
People cried out in surprise as lightning and thunder suddenly rumbled across the sky, followed by first a few, and then more large plump raindrops. Some could almost swear that they saw something moving in the clouds, gathering them together.
"Appear before me!! Come forth, SohRyu!!!"
"Appear before me!! Come forth, SohRyu!!!"
Everyone was blinded as one particular lighting bolt flashed brightly. But most cared little as the rain began to pour down, successfully quenching the fires that had refused to yield to anything else. Cheers and praises rose up among the dusty and tired people. These were quickly followed by arguments among the sorcerers and priests about whom deserved the credit for the timely rains.
"Wai, it really did make it rain!" Lin cheered, holding his hands out to catch the drops.
"Yes, it did. So are you going to find your Nii-chan now?"
"Hai!" Lin cried joyfully, running back toward the burnt sector of the city.