Dragon Chess (pt. 3)

[moonshadows]

 

Travel, of course, doesn’t happen for a while. There is food to be eaten, ancient holy places to be searched for magic items, and a spire to be perched on. Filia is slowly coming to a boil, impatience and self-importance burning her up from the inside. There’s a cloud of ‘how dare they’ surrounding her most deliciously. Ah, the taste of angry young dragon. Almost as sweet as irritated Lina. She has a point, however. I’ll just have to help her ‘encourage’ our little friends to get a move on.

With the current situation, Amelia has been promoted from Pawn to Bishop. Her fondness for heights and casual use of healing magic have gotten her dubbed an angel, and she’s preaching justice to an adoring crowd. The chimera has been a Rook since the incident with the Chaos Dragon; he’s systematically breaking into holy places in search of ancient magic that can restore his human body. A human form, a quick word to the city guard, and Zelgadis is dubbed a demon. Minimum effort expended, and the result is a face-off between the ‘angel’ and the ‘demon’. The dragon can’t take it – she shrieks at both of them and lands a solid blow on the chimera with her mace. It has the desired effect, however, as the contrite group agrees to finally start the journey to the Fire Dragon King’s temple. Time for my entrance!

I slip into the physical plane, wearing my usual form, and wait for the group to pass. My aura is completely bound, and the dragon passes without detecting me. Once I’m behind her, however, I begin a quick but fun game of tease-the-dragon. By unbinding my aura and then binding it again, I am able to cause her to feel my presence but never identify where it’s coming from. She hasn’t been around mazoku before, much less a powerful mazoku like me, and it’s not even a minute before she loses control of her form and the tail slips out. My little friends surround her, trying to both calm her and hide the tail. I scamper through the crowd and step out into the street, letting Lina catch a glimpse of me. She’s not dumb; she grasps instantly that I’m behind Filia’s unease and takes off after me in a rage. Perfect! I lead her on a merry little chase through dark alleys, her cries of ‘get back here!’ and ‘show yourself, damnit!’ following me through the shadows. Almost bursting from the effort of not laughing, I finally leap into a puddle of sunlight – and promptly vanish into the Astral Plane before she can confirm my identity. She stands there, irritation drowning beneath the sinking knowledge that if I’m involved, things must be truly serious. Gourry and Amelia run up after a few minutes, followed by the chimera and the dragon. An explanation is demanded; Lina replies cryptically that ‘a real demon’ may have shown up, one they haven’t seen in a while.

“You saw Danas?” Gourry uses the assumed name I first introduced myself with. Lina takes vengeful pleasure in using my true name, but the others are more comfortable with the false one.

“It had to be him. I’m sure I saw him coming towards us as we were leaving town.” Lina avoids naming me, not wishing to upset the dragon priestess further.

“But it’s not like Danas doesn’t know us. Why would he vanish like that?”

Lina twitches, knowing that I’d gleefully pull a stunt like that simply for the reaction. “I have a feeling that Filia’s prophesy and his appearance are connected.” She doges the question entirely, getting straight to the bad news.

“Miss Lina, you mean . . . ?” Amelia grasps the hint immediately, despair warring with unhappy resignation. “Are you saying . . .?”

“Yeah.” My favorite sorceress is already resigned to the fact that she’ll have to deal with me again, and steeling herself for the battle of wits sure to come. “I think the mazoku might be involved in this mess, too.”

“I’m more inclined to believe in the prophesy, now.”

The chimera’s biting cynicism amuses me, but not as much as the dragon’s reaction. She’s practically having a nervous breakdown at the thought of a mazoku invading her holy personal space, and hasn’t quite gotten past that to the realization that she, personally, will have to cooperate with a mazoku. She screams an almost incoherent demand for the mazoku to show himself, aura flaring with panicky anger and drawing a casual blast from a bound aura closing in on us from further into the desert. I bind myself tighter and slink closer to investigate, then saunter back once I’ve tasted that uniquely abhorrent aura. If I had lips and salivary glands, I would spit.

Well, well. It looks like all the rats are coming out of the woodwork. My Lord Beastmaster is just as pleased by this development as I am – we never bothered hunting Valgaav down and destroying him, but if he’s going to muck up our chessboard . . . well then, he’ll just have to be eliminated.

The usual taunts and smart-aleck replies pass for introductions and pleasantries, and then the abomination pulls off an imitation Gaav Flare that pulls from his own substance rather than the deceased Chaos Dragon. He’s able to cast it without even the name of the spell; he must have been refining it since he was separated from his ‘lord’ by the seal. It misses, but Lina is able to feel the Chaos Dragon’s energy signature and she comes to the realization that this enemy must be one of the late Gaav’s minions.

“Bring back any memories?” The abomination lashes out, half-accusation and half-brag. “At the very least, this power is beyond any that you know!”

Mmm-hmm. Not quite, you wretched mismatched thing. The memory of the Golden Lord flashes through my mind and Lina’s; the comment shakes our sorceress out of her slight panic and puts the steel back in her aura. She demands an explanation, and is told to suffer the way the Chaos Dragon suffered. A second Valgaav Flare pummels the protective shield the three mages are holding up. The element of surprise is gone, replaced by the reflexive cooperation of battle. Amelia wails in mourning for the lost tranquility of the day; Lina curses the circumstances that bring chaotic events to her feet like adoring puppies. The fire in her aura overwhelms the steel, and in a tone that demands blind obedience, she shouts for me to show myself and do something helpful. I comply with half the demand, hovering in the physical plane a hundred and fifty feet up from the combatants. I suppose I could do something helpful, but where would be the fun in that?

The wretched thing calling itself Valgaav intensifies the blast, knocking Queen, Bishop, and Rook backwards. We shall have to give the abomination a designation; despite our distaste, My Lord Beastmaster firmly assigns him Knight status. He’s working for someone, and we’ll need all the information before we take him out. In the meantime, he’s too powerful to be considered a mere Pawn. Knight resorts to physical violence, tossing Amelia out of the way and blasting Gourry and the chimera backwards before they can come closer. The insult to Lina’s person brings the steel back out, and she trades barbs with the abomination, using all the tricks she learned from dealing with me. Unfortunately, she’s mostly bluffing. It will take time to cast the Ragna Blade, and Valgaav’s not going to give her time to do anything.

Knight attacks Knight; Gourry’s got the Sword of Light out and makes an attack that’s half distraction to give Lina a chance to get to her feet. Valgaav uses the blade to channel a spell directly into the man’s body, and the energy of the blade pulsates weirdly at being used in such a way. There’s a faint echo of that pulsation nearby, and even fainter echoes further out. I retreat to the Astral Plane to track them, and two things become clear. There are four echoes responding to the pulsation of the Sword of Light, and one of them correlates with the seal the Ancient Dragons placed over the Bow of Light. This is not good. Well, it might be useful later, but we know now who Valgaav is taking orders from. The chessboard gains a third side, and My Lord Beastmaster begins calculating all the changes it will bring.

“I know.” The abomination replies to some unheard comment.

Shit. I bind myself tighter still and creep closer, examining his aura for . . . there! A seed of substance that does not taste like the Flare Dragon, nor Lord Ruby Eye. Revulsion sends me skittering back, away from this triple abomination. This changes things. I’ll have to be extra-careful with this one.

Bishop and Rook attack Knight with a double wind spell, knocking Gourry and Valgaav apart. Lina cries out as the swordsman reaches the apex of a truly impressive arc, concern for the swordsman streaking through her aura. Well, he is useful to us . . . can’t have him just dying, and she did order me to do something helpful . . .

When the dust settles, all eyes are on me as I perch on a pillar of stone, swordsman held casually in one hand, dangling by his ankle. I pose for a few seconds, then let him drop this safer distance to the sand.

“I’ve finally found you, Valgaav.” I twist his name into a mockery, volumes of disdain for the name and for him infusing that one word. He knows I’m here to kill him.

“Xelloss.” His tone in turn challenges me to do my worst.

It wouldn’t be polite to offer and not follow through. We both unbind our auras fully, feeling each other out before engaging in a magic fight on the physical plane. Being the unholy mismatch that he is, he’s not very good at controlling his aura, nor is he very comfortable on the Astral Plane, and I’m more than happy to let him stay in the physical plane. I blink in and out, dodging blasts and sending out attacks of my own. The ones on the physical are more of a distraction than anything else; my real attacks impact on his astral body, which roars in pain and thrashes uselessly. There’s another reason, as well.

“Elmekia Lance!”

Lina knows better than to trust me, but she also knows that despite all appearances, I am her ally. Given the choice of a mazoku that is tying to kill her and one that helped her find the Ragna Blade, she’ll cheerfully help me to spite him. The shamanistic spell impacts painfully on one astral wing, and Valgaav dives away from her . . .

. . . right into the path of our other Knight, energy-blade at the ready. Where Lina goes, Gourry also goes. He’s not very effective – the seed of foreign substance gives the abomination-Knight protection from the sword’s edge – but it herds Valgaav nicely to the ground where he’s faced with Lina and her friends on one side, and me on the other. He makes a quip about us ganging up on him unfairly, and Lina comes right back with his ‘lord’ having faced us in the same configuration. A taunt to his ego, and she bullies him into facing us all at once. The conflicting auras must have softened his brain; he’s too reckless and not considering the danger of the situation. An unnatural earthquake distracts him and the humans, and in a flash I’m on him, swarming his astral form and raking it with a thousand talons. With a normal mazoku, my goal would be shredding his substance. With this abhorrent patchwork, however, my first priority is to tear out that seed from another world. Valgaav reverts to the Astral Plane before I can rip through enough of his aura to reach it, trying his best to rake me with his talons. Where his form is a mimicry of his natural draconic body, however, my form is fluid and he can’t get a grip. He takes off then, shooting straight for the location of the closest echo. There must be another foreign lord there; I have no wish to face a Queen I have no chance of defeating.

I break off and return to our side’s Queen, going into my usual routine of nonchalance and feigned surprise. Lina mimics my act, then puts me in a headlock and vents her frustrations on me. I give her the satisfaction of thinking she’s forced a confirmation of her suspicions out of me, then feed her a cryptic warning to herd her along. A quick break to retrieve the dragon from where she got buried in the sand, and I am treated to Lina versus the Golden Dragons, round two. I get accused of involving Lina in an unspeakable, horrible plot and go along with it, neatly deflecting the accusation back at her.

“Oh, I get it! It’s okay for you to lure her out here on a pretext – but it’s horrible if I did it first?” It’s true, we do use Lina in our plots, but we manipulate her only with utmost skill. Filia’s blatant, clumsy manipulation is still fresh in Lina’s mind, however.

“Even if I did use a pretext, I’m trying to save the world from a threat!” Self-righteousness surrounds the young dragon in a smothering cloud, grating on Lina’s nerves. “It isn’t like the selfish pretexts a mazoku would use.” She smirks at me, thinking she’s got a hit in. 

Lina remembers the devastation at the docks, and my distracting the Chaos Dragon to give her a chance to run away.

“A pretext is a pretext, isn’t it?” I reply sweetly, sending the dragon into a fit of sputtering.

“All right! Calm down, you two.”

Lina pushes us apart wearily, then turns from Filia in silent dismissal and demands that I tell her everything I know. In seeming compliance, I reveal two things that they already knew, and drop another crumb by hinting that the ‘enemy’ is looking for a weapon similar to Gourry’s sword, but more powerful. Dropping another clue unasked-for, I send them all on a wild-goose chase to the origin of the earthquake. After all, it would be an excellent ambush, and an ambush is only effective if one doesn’t see it coming.

The ambush goes as expected; the sword guarded by the Sand People is removed by one of Valgaav’s flunkies, releasing a moderately challenging creature. Our chess pieces opt to not fight it, instead using creative spellcasting to replace the sword and re-seal the beast. Right on schedule, the Knight-abomination appears with – well, that’s interesting. It seems the other Queen brought his weapon along and lent it to Valgaav. It’s a sort of double-bladed sword, and definitely more powerful than Gourry’s. Knight attacks Knight again; the two energy blades impact and merge, forming a resonating, pulsating vortex of energies going wild. The swirling energies shoot up like a fountain of madness, then separate with an explosion that sends both Knights flying, and when the dust clears . . .

The third Queen is hovering there where the vortex was, aura completely unbound. It washes against me like an acidic tide, eroding me through sheer overwhelming power rather than by polarity. There can be no mistake – this is one of the Lords of another world, one of the five that belong to Lord Dark Star’s opposite. Frantically, I beat back terror and struggle to think. I can feel My Lord Beastmaster’s dismay as she tries to analyze and plan for this. It’s an almost physical relief when this “Alumace” orders his Knight to retreat.

“Like we’re gonna let you do what YOU want to do? You’re not getting away!”

If I had a heart, our Queen’s cry would have made it stop beating. Lina casts an Elmekia Flame, followed by the chimera’s Ra Tilt, and I close my eyes. Those spells wouldn’t kill me, and this foreign lord is much more powerful than I am. Nightmare magic is our only chance, and Lina won’t get the time she needs to be able to cast it. She’s going to die, and there’s nothing I or My Lord Beastmaster will be able to do about it.

“Oh no, their magic wasn’t strong enough!” The dragon is irritatingly shocked.

“That’s not it.” If we’re all doomed, the least I can do is dash her hopes before we die. “It’s not that their magic wasn’t strong enough. Magic won’t work against someone like him.” Not white magic, not black magic, and none of us are strong enough for shamanistic magic to work. And only Lina can cast Nightmare magic . . .

Alumace regards us with a distantly amused expression as the fires of the Ra Tilt disperse, then with a burst of light, he teleports away with Valgaav. My Lord Beastmaster’s flash of insight shocks me out of my swirl of despair, and I agree with whatever Filia just said out of reflex. Alumace didn’t cast. He didn’t shield, he didn’t attack, he didn’t defend, and even his teleportation only drew upon his own abilities. He and his Knight had the upper hand; he has to know that he could crush us easily, so why didn’t he use any magic?

::This is the key to everything, my pup.:: My Lord Beastmaster’s excitement is held in check by the high stakes we face. ::Find that answer, and we’ll have all the knowledge we need.::

We start to drift away, in the direction of the Fire Dragon king’s temple. Like My Lord Beastmaster, I am busily assessing the situation and going over every remembered detail of Alumace’s aura, and the seed in the abomination’s. Filia seems to have recovered from her fright; she starts laying into me without any pause longer than what it takes to gasp for breath. I wonder idly if she realizes what a hypocrite she’s being, acting in all the ways she’s accusing me of acting. Very prejudiced of her, considering she’s known me for all of an hour or two. Well, Milgasia eventually learned how to talk to me like a civilized being. I wonder how long it will take me to break this one of her arrogant hypocrisy.