Slayers - Volume 8 - Chapter 3

3: Sairaag, an Illusion of the Past

It wasn’t long after I set foot in the forest that I found myself stopping and looking around me.

“Huh... hmm.”

Cool air and green smells. No insects or birdsong, just the rustle of leaves... Exactly like the last time I was here.

See, I was currently in the Miasma Forest that grew outside of Sairaag City. It was said that the blood of the magical beast Zanaffar, vanquished by the Sword of Light, had pooled here long ago and given life to a forest of pure miasma.

But although the sights and sounds were the same as I remembered, the thin air of miasma that had once lingered throughout the woods was now gone without a trace.

Surely this had something to do with Hellmaster, right? But how could that be? Wouldn’t his presence make the miasma worse? One way or the other, standing around thinking about it wasn’t going to get me answers. This too should become clear once I made it to Sairaag.

Thus I continued to sally forth on my own.

My journey had been smooth sailing since I’d defeated Rashart. I tried upping my pace to catch up with Amelia and Zel, but they must have been hustling themselves, as I still hadn’t managed to reach them. I’d asked after them in the villages I’d stopped in, and gleaned that they were two days ahead of me.

I’d learned something else interesting along the way, too. Word on the street was that Sairaag had indeed been rebuilt. The people in the town I’d just left this morning said that the city had popped up out of nowhere—right along with all the folks who used to live there. Stranger still, if you asked any of said folks what had happened, the answer was always the same: “I can’t say.”

What had Hellmaster done to Sairaag? I had questions upon questions. Most of them weren’t anything I could reason my way around, but damned if I didn’t try to hash it all out as I kept walking... Then suddenly, the view opened up around me.

I’d come out of the forest. Before me lay the metropolis of Sairaag.

Prior to its most recent destruction, the tree Flagoon had stood tall at the city center like a massive monument. But now that trademark piece of the skyline was missing, as if it had just been snatched up out of the ground.

As for the rest of the city, it looked like the stories were true. Even from a distance, I spied people walking the streets. Yet I knew there was no way Sairaag could have magically sprung back to life, so the people had to be illusions created by Fibrizo... or worse, demons.

Nah, if he had that many demons at his disposal, why wouldn’t he just set them loose on the world instead of bothering with all this skullduggery?

There was no question in my mind about one thing, though—if Hellmaster was behind the city’s rebirth, the people of Sairaag were my enemies. To be honest, I would’ve been happy to give this whole place a wide berth, but I’d come too far to simply turn back now. Most importantly, the others were there.

“Welp... guess I’d better get going,” I whispered, then made my way into the city.

Sairaag was the very image of peace. People walked the streets lined with houses and shops. There was laughter in the air as children ran the flagstones, playing. Not one suspicious thing jumped out at me... which actually made it all the creepier. I’d expected Hellmaster to show up as soon as I set foot in town, all like, “Welcome, Lina Inverse. I’ve been waiting for you.” Yet I hadn’t heard a peep from the dude.

Ah well. Guess I’d better find the others before anything else. The fastest way to track them down would be to ask around, but I had minor reservations—okay, make that major reservations—about just walking up and starting a conversation with the possible pawns of a hostile demonic overlord. Nonetheless, I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere just aimlessly wandering this huge city forever.

Ugh! Fine, just do it already! With a feeling of desperation, I headed for a nearby stall. I bought a juice, paid the vendor, and asked about Zelgadis. I figured he would make more of an impression than Amelia or Sylphiel; if she’d seen a man all in white and hiding his face pass through here, she was bound to remember.

“A man in white, eh?” The shopkeeper, who looked like an ordinary old lady as far as I could tell, thought for a minute and shook her head. “I don’t recall. I’ve been set up here for a while, but...”

“He’d be with a young girl. About my age, with black hair,” I added as I drank.

She thought a moment longer, then said, “I’m afraid not... I’m sorry. Why don’t you try asking around at the inns?”

“Good idea. Thanks, ma’am.”

With that, I polished off my juice and hit the street again.

Hmm... That was a surprisingly normal conversation.

Not that I wanted the townspeople to act like obvious servants of Hellmaster. Anyway, that meant it was back to Operation Wander Aimlessly.

What a pain in the neck... I thought as I walked onward. After a while, I heard a voice cut through the din of the hustle and bustle.

“Mistress Lina!”

I turned back to see a familiar form standing across the road. Her pale-colored vestments and long, shiny black hair helped her stand out in the crowd.

“Sylphiel!” I called, making my way through the throng.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said. “What happened to the Chaos Dragon servant who was trying to kill you?”

“He’s dead as a doornail. Hey, have you seen Amelia or Zelgadis? By my math, they should’ve made it here a couple of days ago.”

“As a matter of fact...” she whispered hesitantly.

“Did... something happen?”

“I haven’t seen them. Not since yesterday.”

“Yesterday?!”

“Yes. Well... I’ll explain on the way.” As we proceeded down the lane, Sylphiel continued on awkwardly: “I arrived here five days ago myself. Everything’s exactly as it was before the city was razed. I found myself... as if I were being called... walking to the temple, and there...” Her voice was trembling faintly. “There, my father came to greet me. My father... who died that day. He smiled at me as kindly as ever and said, ‘Welcome home, Sylphiel.’”

“Sylphiel...” She was a few steps ahead of me, and I could see her shoulders shaking.

“It simply isn’t fair. I know... I know they can’t really be alive, but I couldn’t keep myself from hoping that perhaps, rather than this... it was the destruction of the city that was the illusion, a bad dream.” She paused there for a long moment and then let out a heavy sigh before saying firmly, “Forgive me. Let us return to the subject at hand. While it’s true that I was partly taken in by the fantasy, I was also able to do some investigating. I believe the place most relevant to our interests... is here.”

There, Sylphiel came to a stop. We’d left the avenue at some point and arrived at the heart of the city. It was where the great tree Flagoon had once stood, but now...

“This is...” I whispered, gazing at the massive building before me.

Well, it was massive, but not in a “towering” kind of way. It was probably only one story tall. The remarkable part was its sprawling breadth. It was reminiscent of your standard temple made from gray stone or the like, but this one had been built to take up a whole city block—almost as if to fill the void left by the now-missing Flagoon.

“I heard rumors in a nearby village that it appeared out of nowhere,” Sylphiel explained.

The structure looked like it might be a perfect circle, but its most striking feature was the absence of any windows or doors—there was no apparent way in or out.

“This is the most likely location Hellmaster could be hiding both himself and Sir Gourry. Yet I couldn’t find any doors or windows, or any other way to get inside... I even used Levitation to look from above to no avail. I tried asking my father and the other people of the city about it, but their response was a uniform, ‘I cannot answer. Those who can imagine it don’t require an explanation, and for those who cannot, an explanation would do no good.’”

“I see... So they’re definitely in cahoots with Hellmaster, huh?”

“Yes. And while I was considering my next move, two days ago, Mistress Amelia and Master Zelgadis arrived in town. They spent the day examining this building, then came to stay at the temple with me. Yesterday morning, they said they were headed out to investigate a bit more... but they’ve never returned.”

“They were investigating, huh?” I said, gazing intently back at the building. “So chances are... they found a way in and that’s where they are right now.”

“Via a hidden door, you mean?”

It wasn’t uncommon to see secret doors disguised as carvings and whatnot, so it was entirely possible that Amelia and Zel had stumbled upon one such way in.

“But wouldn’t they return to let me know first?” Sylphiel whispered.

“Don’t be so sure. Amelia could tell at a glance how you felt about Gourry. She would’ve known that if you found out there was a door, no one would be able to stop you from going through it. She’d also know that the minute you found Gourry inside, you’d try to beat her and Zel to the punch. And since I’m betting she’d want to avoid all that, don’t you think it’s more likely they’d go in without telling you?”

“Hmm...” Sylphiel fell silent, as if stung a bit by the comment.

“Well, either way, the important thing now is to find the way in,” I said as I approached the building.

I began scrutinizing the walls, which looked like they were made completely of stone... Well, it certainly felt like stone, but I couldn’t tell you what kind. I’d never seen anything quite like it before. I couldn’t see any seams on the surface either. Just carved pillars here and there. I didn’t check every single one, but there didn’t seem to be anything rigged up to them.

It was... odd. If Hellmaster was waiting for me here, shouldn’t he be throwing open the gates upon my arrival? I wasn’t exactly eager for whatever qualified as his red carpet treatment, but still. The windowless, doorless building refused to yield.

Well, as the old saying goes, sometimes you just gotta make your own entrance. As a test, I began chanting a spell enhanced by the power of the talismans I’d bought from Xellos.

“Dam Blas!”

This puppy was meant to pulverize its target. It packed plenty of punch in a normal cast, but with the amplification chant on top of that, it should be capable of blasting away way more than a meager rock wall. And yet...

Splish! The Dam Blas I unleashed just crashed harmlessly against the surface without leaving so much as a scratch.

Aha... I’d seen the same phenomenon inside Rashart’s barrier in Ruald City, leading me to think we had a similar deal going on with this building.

Well, here we go! I once again recited the amplification chant, this time in preparation for a Ragna Blade. It had made short work of Rashart’s barrier before, so it seemed fair to assume it’d do the trick here. However, just as I began the chant...

Thunk. Part of the wall slid inward with a dull, heavy sound.

Ha! Good ol’ Hellmaster. He’d chosen to open a door rather than see me improvise one. I canceled the spell, happy to conserve my personal magic stores, and sidled up to our newly opened door.

I couldn’t see anything from where I stood. It was nothing but impenetrable darkness within, as if there was a black curtain hung just inside. While Sylphiel goggled in shock at the door’s sudden appearance, I decided to step on in. Yet the moment I passed through the dark curtain... the view opened up around me.

“Huh?” I whispered as I gazed upon the familiar view of Sairaag City—completely with Sylphiel standing there staring at me. “Er...” I quickly turned and saw the same pitch-black doorway was still in the wall behind me.

“Er... what?” Sylphiel asked.

I didn’t know how to answer her. I was sure I’d just gone through the door... But now here I was back outside.

“Hang on. Gimme a sec.”

I turned and walked through the dark door a second time as a test. And for the second time, I found myself right in front of Sylphiel.

“Might I ask what you are doing?” she asked.

“Hmm...” I scratched my head thoughtfully. “I guess Hellmaster doesn’t want me going in. Just FYI, I wasn’t turning around the second I stepped inside or anything. I went in, passed through the darkness... and wound up right back here. He’s probably warping space somehow or other.”

“Warping space? Is such a thing possible?”

“For a certain class of demon, totally,” I said. In fact, I’d been trapped in one such warped space by a demon in Saillune City. I’d escaped that one fairly easily, but I doubted the same trick would help me here. Breaking out was a whole different ball game from breaking in. “The question is, why doesn’t Hellmaster want me going inside?”

“Could someone other than Hellmaster be in there?” Sylphiel said, proposing a truly groan-worthy possibility.

“Doubt it. Hellmaster Fibrizo said that he’d be waiting in Sairaag. Why stick anyone else here in his place?”

“Indeed,” Sylphiel whispered quietly. “His entire reason for taking Sir Gourry hostage is to make you use that spell... to see it escape your control and drown the world in darkness.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding in agreement.

Yup. Everything pointed to that answer: the Giga Slave spell. I’d used it to destroy one of the seven pieces of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu before, an act which may have been perceived by the other Shabranigdu known as the Dark Lord of the North, who was frozen in the Kataart Mountains. According to legend, Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu was cleaved into seven pieces and sealed away after battling Flare Dragon Ceifeed. It wasn’t a stretch to think that fragments of a formerly united entity shared memories and consciousness.

That meant he’d know all about the almighty spell that called upon the power of the Lord of Nightmares, and about the person who could wield it—that is, me. And so the Dark Lord of the North must have come up with a plan: for me to lose control of a Giga Slave and send the whole world back into a state of void.

There were just a few pesky things standing in the way. One was Chaos Dragon’s uprising. Another was my incomplete knowledge of the Lord of Nightmares. I’d once had the pleasure of witnessing a stunning feat—a certain caster had flubbed the chant and summoned Flare Arrows that looked like carrots. The Giga Slave I was throwing around was probably a lot like those Carrot Arrows compared to the real deal.

Therefore, as executor of the plan, Hellmaster had had me doing double duty: following Xellos to the Claire Bible while serving as bait for Chaos Dragon. He knew I’d be completely at the demons’ mercy and looking for a way to fight back—that I’d seek out knowledge of the Lord of Nightmares to get it. And now that I had it, he’d captured Gourry and called me to this city.

He’d also sent Rashart after me to feign attempts on my life. It was a ploy to drive me to desperation, all in hopes that I’d resort to a Giga Slave and subsequently lose control of it. I’d foiled that plan but good by pegging Rashart as the newest member of team Hellmaster... Problem was, now that I knew Hellmaster’s subordinates wouldn’t kill me, Fibrizo only had one recourse—and that was to use his hostage, Gourry, to threaten me directly. “Cast the spell, or I’ll kill him.”

So what was the deal? Why wouldn’t he just let me in? With Rashart dead, it was hard to believe he’d try to send a new assassin—rather, a new pretend assassin.

“Anyhoo... I guess this means we’re withdrawing for today. I don’t think they’ll let us in no matter how many holes we put in the wall.”

“Agreed. Would you like to stay at the temple, then?”

I balked for a moment at Sylphiel’s invitation, but I’d be subject to Hellmaster’s whims no matter where I stayed in the city.

“Um... sure,” I accepted with a nod.

I then heard the same dull, heavy sound behind me again. I turned back to see the entrance gone, leaving nothing but a clean wall of gray stone.

“You’re a friend of Sylphiel’s? We’re so very pleased to have you.”

We were now at the temple to Ceifeed tucked away in a corner of the city. Lunch was on the table, and the temple’s head priest, Sylphiel’s father—or at least, something made in his image—greeted me with a smile.

Hoo boy. Easy to see why Sylphiel was so tempted by the illusion...

He was a man in his early forties with a black beard. He looked like a friendly... uh, person? Well, at least appearance-wise, he seemed like a perfectly normal human. And it wasn’t just him. The other priests and shrine maidens in the temple—even the statues of Flare Dragon—all seemed completely authentic.

And yet it was clear that they didn’t belong here. To be frank, I still wasn’t quite sure how to conduct myself around them, so I’d settled on playing it cool. It wasn’t like acting cagey and hostile would get them to spill the beans. Besides, being angry and suspicious all the time was personally exhausting.

Moreover, these pawns didn’t necessarily even know the whole story... Which meant my first order of business was to feel out exactly how much they did know.

I nodded along while the head priest made small talk, all while waiting for my chance to nonchalantly ask, “Say, Your Reverence, do you know what that building in the center of town is?”

Sylphiel shot me a silent but critical glance. Yeah, I understood how she felt. I already knew it was Hellmaster’s home base, yet here I was asking the head priest about it point-blank. Personally, I just wanted to see how he reacted, but to the head priest, it probably just seemed like a spiteful question. Sylphiel was unhappy I was giving a dead ringer for her dad a hard time, but she also couldn’t give me too much of a hard time when she knew deep down it was all a sham.

As expected, my question brought a troubled expression to the priest’s face. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” he said.

“How come?” I asked casually as I popped an asparagus and smoked salmon roll into my mouth.

“Because... I was not made to answer it,” he replied.

At this, Sylphiel and I both paused in our eating.

“You weren’t... made to answer it?”

“Indeed. Just as humans were not made to breathe underwater without magical assistance, we were not made to answer that question. Though we understand that it’s a rather pathetic state of affairs...” He quietly muttered that last part with a self-effacing smile.

Wow, he... That was when it hit me. He had a self-image as a person—specifically, as the head priest of Sairaag—yet at the same time, he knew he was a duplicate created by Hellmaster.

But if Hellmaster dictated what his puppets could and couldn’t do down to the smallest detail, it was obvious I wouldn’t get any information out of them. Worse, putting the ol’ thumbscrews on the priest would just be torment for him, as he could only reveal things that Fibrizo wanted me to know.

Hahh... I let out a deep sigh, then silently went back to my meal.

“So... what do you intend to do?” Sylphiel asked, her tired gaze on me.

It was later that afternoon. The temple had put me up in Sylphiel’s room, where I was now slumped in a chair after bringing in my luggage. I stared idly out the window, enjoying the cool breeze that carried the sounds of a bustling city.

“What do you mean?” I asked, turning back to where Sylphiel stood in the doorway.

For some reason, she averted her eyes. “I said that I would save Sir Gourry... yet here I am, sitting idle. And because I failed to save him before you arrived, Hellmaster may yet threaten his life to force you to cast that forbidden spell. If he does, Lina... will you do it?”

After a period of silence, I quietly shook my head. “Dunno. If you’d asked me that before I knew what the Lord of Nightmares really was, I probably would have said, ‘As long as I can keep it from going out of control.’ But... if I’m perfectly honest, I don’t have any confidence in my ability to handle the perfect version.”

“Then...” Sylphiel said, her gaze plaintive.

“Nevertheless,” I interjected, shaking my head again, “one thing I can say for sure is that I’m not abandoning Gourry.”

“Yes... of course not,” Sylphiel whispered, then fell quiet. For a time, the only sounds in the room were the wind and the faint clamor of the city outside.

“Let’s go,” I said, breaking the silence.

“Where?”

“To that building. I want to check it out again. I doubt we’ll make it inside, but it’s better than sitting around a room racking our brains over things outside our power.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Sylphiel whispered, then smiled faintly. “Very well. Then I’ll accompany you.”

“Great. Then let’s get going,” I said with a flourish of my cape.

“What... in the world?” I whispered, staring at the building in the center of Sairaag.

“The door is open now,” Sylphiel likewise whispered, also staring in disbelief.

That’s right. When Sylphiel and I returned to the stone temple, we found the door wide open like it was waiting for us. I mean... why go to the trouble of warping space to keep us out in the morning, then bust open the vaults when we come back in the afternoon? This thing wasn’t on some kind of timer, was it?

“I wonder why it was closed earlier...” Sylphiel muttered.

“No clue. Maybe they had to get the welcome party ready,” I answered in desperation. “But we can take this as a signal that they’re ready for us now.”

“Yes... I suppose you’re right,” she said, and I heard her gulp softly. “Very well. Then... I shall accompany you.”

Yeah, go figure...

“I’m betting I can’t stop you, can I?” I asked with a wince.

“You cannot,” she replied the same way.

Okay! I’m comin’ in, just like you wanted, Hellmaster Fibrizo! I took a deep breath, then sallied through the door. This time, rather than being spit back outside, I entered the building normally. Sylphiel was a step behind me.

Inside was nothing more than an ordinary-looking passageway that branched out to my left and right. The walls were pale gray, just like the outside of the building, and curved slightly in both directions.

Aha... I didn’t hesitate to head right.

“You know which way to go?!” Sylphiel inquired, quickly following after me.

“Nope,” I responded indifferently. “But I bet we’ll end up at the same place either way. The bifurcated path is probably to get us to split up, or to get us feeling anxious about the route we pick. So I say we go whichever way we want with worry-free confidence. We know Hellmaster wants me to reach him, so he wouldn’t just let me wander around forever.”

“I see...” she said, looking slightly nervous.

We proceeded down the dimly lit hallway. I figured it would get darker the farther in we went, but despite there being no lamps or magical lighting, it maintained the same level of brightness. Of course, there was no sign of luminescent moss on the walls either. It was more a liminal kind of lighting, like we were wandering in a place where darkness and light naturally coexisted.

After walking for a while, we eventually came across a door to our left that led further inside the building. It looked completely ordinary with no decoration whatsoever, including an utterly mundane-looking doorknob. I suspected it was made from the same material as the walls.

“I guess we’re supposed to go inside,” I said with a glance to Sylphiel, who nodded back.

I put my hand on the knob and slowly turned it. The door opened without a sound.

The room on the other side was strange, spacious, and round, with a kind of crystal pillar at the center. Though in terms of overall impression, it was less like a pillar and more like a mass. It stretched floor to ceiling and was thick enough to carve another whole room out of.

“What in the world...?” Sylphiel whispered, when just then, a flickering form appeared at the center of the pale blue crystal.

Is that...?!

“Sir Gourry!” Sylphiel cried out as she ran up to the pillar.

Indeed, the person hovering at the center of the crystal was unmistakably Gourry. He just floated there silently, eyes closed. It was hard to tell what condition he was in.

“Sir Gourry! Sir Gourry!” Sylphiel shouted as she pounded on the crystal.

But whether he heard her or not, Gourry didn’t move.

“There’s no point. It’s merely a projection,” a familiar voice said from inside the crystal pillar.

Gourry’s image rippled, then disappeared. The following instant, it was replaced with a small figure dressed in black.

“Fibrizo!” I shouted.

“What?” Sylphiel gasped, taking a few steps back from the crystal. “This... child is...”

“Oh, I don’t believe we’ve met before. I don’t know how you know Lina Inverse, but I assume you’re a ‘friend’ in human parlance. A pleasure to meet you. And yes, I am Hellmaster Fibrizo, one of Lord Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu’s five lieutenants. I am king of this Hellpalace, and of Sairaag, City of the Dead. Our acquaintance will be brief, but I welcome you regardless,” he said, finishing his absurd introduction with a bow.

“What did you do to Sairaag?! What happened to Flagoon? To the townspeople?” I demanded to know.

In response, he just smiled and said, “The tree died the instant I arrived. I believe it fed off of miasma... but it was incapable of processing the sheer quantity I put out, and so it simply burst. Of course, that would make it impossible for most humans to approach the city, so after I recreated it, I also suppressed the miasma in the area.”

Of course... Intentionally or otherwise, he’d neutralized the miasma of the Miasma Forest.

“I then used the well left by the tree’s roots as a foundation for my Hellpalace.”

“So what are the people in the city? Illusions? Or...”

“Ah, those. I extracted the lingering thoughts of the deceased residents and gave them physical form. With various restrictions, of course.”

“Then... my father is...” Sylphiel asked hoarsely.

“Long dead, of course. What you met is more like... a marionette I created with his consciousness. Surely you realized that, didn’t you?” Fibrizo responded breezily.

If the citizens were residual thoughts given physical form, then the head priest and the woman at the stall were more or less like ghosts. In other words, Hellmaster Fibrizo had raised the City of the Dead into a true phantom city...

“That’s all pretty nasty,” I said. “And I’m sure you didn’t let us in here earlier today because of some other plan you’ve got cooking, right?”

“Naturally,” the Hellmaster in the crystal admitted readily. “Setting up all these little tricks and traps is such fun. And it feels wonderful when the victim falls for them.”

“Sucks about Rashart then, huh?”

“Ah... yes, that.” He smiled awkwardly at my quip. “I was glad to have him following my orders once Gaav was gone, though I didn’t expect him to be beaten so easily. He really was a terrible actor. Seeing his incompetence gives me a little bit more sympathy for Gaav.”

“Enough of this!” Sylphiel shouted, interrupting Hellmaster. “Where is Sir Gourry? Is he safe?!”

“Oh, that man? He’s fine—for now. He’s sealed inside a crystal I made of magic power, in a state of suspended animation. Don’t tell me you have feelings for him.”

“That’s none of your business!”

“So be it. Allow me to explain, then. He’s sealed inside the lowest section of this crystal pillar, which runs centrally through my Hellpalace as a support. You’re free to try to retrieve him—if you think you can. More importantly, I’ve made the conscious decision to reveal myself to you because there’s something I wanted to show you. Here.”

As he spoke, the Hellmaster in the crystal snapped his fingers. His image immediately disappeared and was replaced with a scene of two familiar figures walking down a pale gray hallway somewhere.

“Amelia! Zel!” Indeed, it was my two missing companions.

“They stopped by yesterday, so I decided to invite them in ahead of schedule,” said Hellmaster’s voice, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to—”

“I won’t kill them, no. Not yet. But I do want to make it clear that most of what you humans are capable of can’t harm me.”

“So, what? They’ve just been wandering around the Hellpalace for a whole day?”

“More or less. Of course, I’m playing with time a little bit. To them, it hasn’t been long at all since they entered.”

“You’re controlling time?!” Sylphiel cried in shock.

“He’s exaggerating, I’m sure,” I responded calmly. “He’s probably scrambling their senses to slow their perception of it and tire them out.”

“Exactly right. It seemed like a pain to explain in detail, so I thought ‘playing with time’ would suffice. Regardless, however... it seems they’ve finally arrived.”

Arrived where?

Amelia and Zelgadis in the crystal came to a halt at a door. They looked at each other, and the door slowly opened on its own. After a moment’s hesitation, they passed through it.

The scene in the crystal then shifted, revealing the inside of the room. I don’t know how the thing worked, but it was really a clever little device.

Amelia and Zel now found themselves in a large chamber identical to the one we were in. I could see their backs come into view, and just a little ways ahead of them... stood a small figure in front of a crystal pillar that ran from floor to ceiling.

“So you’ve been waiting for us here... Must have been exhausting,” Zel said, his voice resounding all around us.

“I wasn’t waiting for you. But Lina Inverse just arrived, you see...”

“Lina? Already?”

“That’s right. I wanted to demonstrate that no matter how you two might try, you don’t stand a chance against me.”

“Not so fast!” Amelia declared, boldly pointing a finger at Hellmaster. “No matter how powerful you may be, evil never prospers! As long as flames of justice burn in our hearts, your despicable plans will never come to fruition!”

“Oh... then you’re righteous heroes of justice, are you?” Hellmaster asked tauntingly.

Amelia remained quiet for a second, still pointing at Fibrizo, then answered, “All of us except Lina!”

“Hey! Amelia!” I shouted at her, even knowing she couldn’t hear me. I mean, I didn’t think of myself as a hero either, but it still stings to hear someone say it like that!

“Ah, yes, of course,” Fibrizo continued. “But you mean your human conception of righteousness, don’t you? To us demons, righteousness would be returning the world to the void.”

“You can’t lead me astray with your trivial hair-splitting! A heart filled with justice never wavers!”

“It’s far from trivial, I assure you. We all came from the same source, you see. The only difference is that you seek to continue this existence, whereas we seek the opposite—to destroy it. If you ask us demons, life is nothing but limitless contradictions. Yet in the void, void is all there is. We prefer the perfect order of nothingness to the perpetual gainsaying of existence. It’s simply our nature.”

“I told you I won’t heed your nonsense!” Amelia declared, unmoved.

Was she refusing to listen, or did she simply not understand what Fibrizo was saying? Maybe I’d better not think about it too hard...

“Besides, if you want to destroy something so badly, why not destroy yourselves? No one would stop you!”

“You simply don’t get it,” Hellmaster said, sighing in response. “We don’t only wish to end our own existence. Our goal is to destroy the entire world. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand. To be fair, we find you equally inscrutable—why in the world do you want to go on existing? We just weren’t made to comprehend each other.”

“So... nothing to do but play this out, right?” Zelgadis muttered.

“That’s right,” Hellmaster replied with a nod and a big grin. “But to be honest, it doesn’t seem fair to fight you here myself. If I wanted to be rid of you, I could snap you to dust before a single spell left your lips. Except that wouldn’t be very fun, would it? So why don’t we play a little game?”

“A game?” Amelia asked, frowning at Fibrizo’s words.

“Indeed. The rules are simple. You both attack me. I’ll defend, but I won’t fight back. If you can beat me under those conditions, you win. If not, I win.”

“That’s a pretty big handicap,” Zel remarked. “So? If we win, will you free Gourry?”

“That’s right,” Fibrizo replied. The image of Gourry flashed into the pillar behind him. “He’s in suspended animation, sealed inside the crystal pillar at the very bottom of my Hellpalace. Should you defeat me, there would naturally be no one left to stop you from taking him.”

“But if we lose, we die, right?”

“Certainly not,” Hellmaster answered, shaking his head with a smile. “If you lose, it will simply serve as proof that humans like you can never defeat me. That’s all I’m after.”

Of course... that made sense. Hellmaster’s “game” here wasn’t really meant for Amelia and Zel. It was an encoded message to me: “If you want to beat me, you’ll have to break out a Giga Slave.”

“Very well!” Amelia said, pointing meaninglessly again at Fibrizo. “I’ll make you regret that overconfidence of yours!”

You’re one to talk about overconfidence, girl...

Amelia then began chanting a spell. Zel did the same. But Fibrizo just stood there, smiling confidently.

Okay! Time for us to move too!

“Let’s get going!” I shouted.

“Very well!” Sylphiel agreed immediately.

While Fibrizo was playing with Amelia and Zel, we’d make a beeline for the basement. If we could find Gourry and save him ourselves, we’d be sitting pretty. Of course, I doubted it would be that easy, but this plan would still hopefully reunite us with our comrades, at worst.

Sylphiel and I ran around to the other side of the crystal and, surprisingly, found a stairway leading downward smack in the middle of the floor. I hadn’t expected it to be right there, but since the Hellpalace took whatever form Fibrizo wanted, he clearly wanted us to go downstairs. There was no way this would take us straight to Gourry. Hellmaster probably intended to lead us to his fight with the others so we could witness his power for ourselves.

Okay! Let’s go, then! Sylphiel and I looked at each other and nodded, then started to descend... down the staircase that would take us to Fibrizo.