Slayers volume 4, p.7
Slayers, Volume 4, page 7
“So, what happened with the talk?” I asked.
“It was called off, obviously. The atmosphere after the attack... wasn’t exactly conducive, let’s say.”
“So other than us confirming that someone’s after me, nothing’s changed?”
“Oh, that’s not true,” Amelia said, still with a beaming smile. “Kanzel’s gone missing now.”
It was two days later that Lady Amelia brought us something significant. Gourry and I were in our umpteenth uneventful hour of standing outside of Sir Phil’s office.
“Hey there!” she called with a wave.
“Hey there!” we replied, lightly returning the gesture.
Ever since we came to the conclusion I was being targeted, we’d decided that it was too dangerous for me and Gourry to split up. That meant we spent all our time with Sir Phil now... generally speaking, with very little to do. There hadn’t been any more attacks (which, I mean, was a good thing!), but Lady Amelia’s arrival was a welcome break to the otherwise uninterrupted monotony.
With a meaningful glance, she asked, “Could you guys come with me a minute?”
Gourry and I looked at each other. It had to be something serious—serious enough that she didn’t want to say it in front of the other guards. Thus we followed her to a nearby room... presumably a guest room, as it looked exactly like the rooms where Gourry and I were staying.
“Something happened, right?” I asked.
“Hey, don’t look so worried. It’s nothing too serious,” she said with a smile as she retrieved a piece of paper from her pocket. “Yesterday, Clo— I mean, Lord Clophel went into the city for an errand and kinda got himself kidnapped. Hahaha.”
“What?!” Gourry and I exclaimed in unison.
“That sounds pretty serious to me,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, same,” he agreed.
“From a certain perspective, I guess so... Anyway, they sent me this today,” she continued, revealing the piece of paper to us.
It was a letter addressed to Sir Phil. Your typical ransom note. “If you want Clophel back alive, come alone, et cetera, et cetera,” complete with your standard array of stock threats. I mean, sure, I know originality’s not what you really look for in a ransom note, but still...
“I bet they sent it to me because security’s too tight on my dad. Knowing him, I’m sure he’ll rush right out to handle things himself the moment I show it to him. It’s not like I can just toss the note out, though. Which means I’ve got a favor to ask you guys.”
“You want us to save Lord Clophel?”
“Bingo! But I probably can’t keep this a secret from my dad any longer than, say, tomorrow morning. So you’ll get it done by then, right? Okay, later!”
“W-Wait, Lady Amelia!” I called as she made to leave. “I’m n-not sure this is—”
“You won’t do it?”
“We will, but—”
“Then what’s the big deal?”
“It’s just... I feel like this has to be a trap.”
“Hahaha! Oh, Mistress Lina, of course it’s a trap!” she said with an unconcerned wave.
“Well, I mean... they probably sent you that letter knowing you’d ask us to handle it. Which means they’ll likely try to attack Sir Phil while we’re out of the palace.”
“Oh, yeah, could be,” she said, still unfazed.
What the heck? Does she really understand what’s going on here?
Her cavalier demeanor gave me a real case of the nerves, but Lady Amelia clearly had no time for such reservations.
“Don’t you worry! I’m sure it’ll work out,” she proclaimed.
You’re sure, huh?
“Look, if you guys split up, they’ll probably come after you again, Mistress Lina. And we can’t just abandon Lord Clophel! The meetup location isn’t somewhere that we can easily surround with soldiers, which means it has to be you guys. I mean, if it were up to me, I’d be happy to go with and unleash some justice on these unspeakable villains, but we should also have a magic-user back here just in case. So, I know it’s a pain in the rear, but I really need you guys on the job. Thanks!”
And with that, she was out the door and gone... leaving Gourry and me behind, staring dumbly at each other.
The city was bathed in fine evening mist, with the Lighting spells upon its lampposts casting the avenue in a hazy light.
We were currently walking through the fifteenth block in the furthest reaches of Saillune City. It was your stereotypical “sleazy downtown.” Cheap, dingy apartments. Brothels and bars alight with raucous voices drifting on the wind. But—perhaps due to the chaos and the eerie fog—there was no one in sight around us.
Sneaking out of the palace had been a cinch. And once we saved Lord Clophel, we’d be able to just march back in through the front gate. The only question now was how powerful the enemy we were facing would be. If they had Zuma or one of those bugs on their side, things might get dicey.
According to the map Amelia had given us, the meetup spot was in the middle of a spider’s web of weaving alleyways in a shady part of town. She was right about the location, at least; it would’ve been impossible to reliably stage soldiers around a maze like this.
There were streetlamps here and there, but their faint light in the mist mainly made things creepier. We avoided them and stuck to the darkness. I figured the people who’d kidnapped Lord Clophel probably had men on the lookout, and we wanted to avoid a fight if possible.
I couldn’t use my spells freely in such tight city quarters, for one thing. But more importantly, the enemy would almost certainly use Lord Clophel against us. My usual MO would be to simply to send both captor and hostage flying with a not-quite-lethal spell, but treatment like that would probably give the poor old man a heart attack. Better to forgo that possibility with a stealthy slip into enemy territory.
“Stop,” I urged Gourry quietly.
There was a small plaza just ahead of us. Well... less of a plaza and more of a small break between buildings. Perhaps there had been a structure there that was now long torn down. The ground was hardpack dirt with a lonely streetlamp at the center standing over a large pile of oversized refuse. We’d have to cross the space in order to reach our destination, but the plaza-not-plaza was pretty wide open... There was bound to be a lookout or two around. There was no way we’d make it through unseen, even through the fog.
We stowed away in the shadows beyond the lamplight and projected our senses to search for nearby signs of life.
“Two in the alley beyond,” Gourry whispered.
“One to hold us off while the other sounds the alarm, I bet.”
“Most likely. One of them seems pretty skilled.”
“How skilled?”
“Remember those guys who attacked us at the palace? Probably not quite that good, but close.”
“Tricky...”
Even if we could beat them in a fight, it would be better to avoid one.
“Is there another way around?” Gourry asked.
“Maybe, but they probably have guys doing shifts everywhere. Sneaking around trying to avoid them would just waste time. We need to break through, and fast.”
“But how?”
“Well... how about this?”
I whispered my plan into Gourry’s ear.
The two of us strode boldly into the plaza. We stayed along the edges of the lamplight, but kept our cool as we made a beeline for the two lookouts crouched in the alley beyond. My senses told me they were remaining in place as we approached... but they had also put up their guard as we remained obscured from each other by the dark and the mist.
“Anything to report?” Gourry asked, hushed.
No response. It seemed they weren’t expecting us to address them, leaving them uncertain about how to react.
“We just got word that the targets have left the palace. They’ll be headed this way soon,” Gourry continued on as we slowly moved closer. We could now clearly see the two lookouts down the alleyway. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t scare me like that,” one said, finally breaking the silence. “I thought you were them.”
“We are,” I replied... just as Gourry planted a fist in the man’s solar plexus.
“What—?!”
Before his cohort could even call out, Gourry landed a hard chop on the back of his neck. And with that, both sentries were out cold.
“I can’t believe they fell for it,” Gourry said in vague disbelief.
“Well, they’re probably just hired goons. There’s no way they all know each other on sight. So acting the way we did—with a little help from the mist—just made them assume we were part of the gang. Anyway, we’d better hurry—” I started to say, then froze.
A presence had abruptly appeared behind me... a place I was sure had been unoccupied moments ago.
Gourry and I whipped around. Beneath the streetlights, shrouded in the pale fog, stood a man whose cold eyes were fixed on us. It was unmistakably...
Kanzel the sorcerer.
“It’s been a while... Or so I’d say, but it hasn’t really been all that long, has it?” he asked.
“What are you doing here? I thought you had a falling out with your employer and fled the palace,” I asked, meeting his gaze.
But... whew, this guy! The pressure he put out was incredible. Just looking him in the eye got the sweat rolling down my cheeks. I already knew Kanzel was a force to be reckoned with, but seeing him here and now... he might be even more of a monster than I’d thought!
“It’s true that we’ve parted ways,” he said unflinchingly. “It seems my sponsor didn’t care for my methods. I suppose that stands to reason... I found his conditions rather stifling myself. His demand to act under the radar and suppress my magical power resulted in a number of failures.”
“So... what exactly do you want?” I managed to squeeze out of my throat, which felt like dried straw.
Gourry swiftly drew the Sword of Light. He must have felt it, too, instinctively—if we let our guard down for a second, we were dead meat. That was the kind of threat we were dealing with here.
“What do I want, you ask?” A thin smile appeared on Kanzel’s face. “I think you know, Lina Inverse... I mean to kill you.”
“Why?!”
“I have no need to explain myself.”
And with that... Vwish! Kanzel disappeared. The next thing I knew, a presence appeared behind me.
“What?!”
I immediately turned around... and right in front of my eyes was Kanzel’s outstretched palm, glowing with pale blue magical light.
No way! I can’t dodge that!
“Die.”
Kfffwish! The ball of energy he unleashed broke up just before it hit me. Gourry had used the Sword of Light to block it in the nick of time before promptly slashing at Kanzel with a backswing. Kanzel evaded with a leap backward, then vanished as promptly as he’d appeared.
Above us?!
This time, rather than looking, I simply jumped away. A split second later, balls of pale blue light rained down where I’d just been standing. They were small, but I knew any one would be lethal with a direct hit.
“Very impressive,” Kanzel said with admiration, hovering in the air against the backdrop of the night. “If you’d bothered to look up, that would have been all the opportunity I needed.”
“You can’t be...” I said hoarsely.
Blinking through space without even reciting a spell, much less gathering and firing magic in an instant... That shouldn’t be possible. No, it wasn’t possible—for a human.
“Oh, come now.” He smiled thinly as he touched back down upon the ground. Gourry took a good swing at him from behind, but the sorcerer dissolved once more into the darkness and reappeared beneath the streetlight. “That fool Seigram could do this much. Is it so surprising that I can as well?”
“Seigram?!” Gourry and I cried in unison.
He was talking about a demon we once tangled with in a harrowing fight. While we beat him, he nearly killed us for the trouble. Worse yet, we didn’t actually manage to finish him off. I had a feeling we’d see him again, and yet... to hear someone speak of him so trivially...
“You’re a demon?!” Gourry exclaimed.
“I am. To think a humanlike appearance would make you so blind to my true nature... You humans really are pathetic,” Kanzel mocked.
I didn’t have time to argue. I was already reciting a spell under my breath.
Still, I knew it was unlikely that my magic could beat him. That bug back at the palace—which I was now almost certain had been summoned by Kanzel—soaked up an Asher Dist with barely a flinch. How powerful was he, then, to control something like that?
A Dragon Slave might be able to take him out, but if I used that in the middle of a city, the collateral damage would be unfathomable. In fact, in a Venn diagram of spells you could safely cast inside a city and spells that could actually hurt a demon... the intersection was woefully small and underwhelming. My arsenal available under the circumstances would require me to score at least a few dozen successive hits to take him down.
That left us only Gourry’s Sword of Light to rely on, and landing a solid blow with that would be tricky considering Kanzel’s blinking ability... But regardless of the odds, we simply had to get the job done.
“Let’s go!” Gourry shouted, taking off in a run as I fell into line behind him.
“You’re fast!” Kanzel praised as he disappeared before our charge.
Gourry’s sword cut fruitlessly through the air. I quickly leaped away. Staying in one place for long would be inviting another surprise attack from a yet-unknown direction. This time, he reappeared a little to the right of the streetlamp.
“Elemekia Lance!” I cried, firing my spell the moment I detected his presence.
It was a magical lance meant to do astral damage to demons, but I didn’t think it would do much against Kanzel. It was really my only option at the time, but even if it hit...
“Pathetic,” he whispered as he simply brushed it aside. “You can’t defeat me like that.”
With those words came a searing flash of light, which was especially effective against my dark-adjusted pupils.
“Gwuh!”
My eyes were stinging and I was effectively blind, but I didn’t have time to sit and sulk about it. I jumped to the right and felt something hot pass just to the left of my head—then an explosion behind me. I’d managed to dodge one hit, but could I keep this up until my vision recovered?
As my gears were turning, I felt several new presences arrive on the scene. Most likely, Lord Clophel’s kidnappers had overheard our fight with Kanzel and come running. This could be my break!
I set illumination to maximum and duration to zero, and threw a spell at the newly arriving figures...
“Lighting!”
“Wuh?!”
The men screamed and scrambled, temporarily blinded. In the confusion, I dove into their ranks. Sorry, fellas! I just needed some warm bodies to shield me from Kanzel. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to attack through bystanders, but I had to buy time somehow to recover my sight.
“Tch!” Kanzel clicked his tongue before disappearing again.
Where will he come from next?! Above, or—
I scanned the area with my senses fervently, but I couldn’t detect Kanzel anywhere. Instead, I felt a number of additional presences approaching from an alley. Probably more of Lord Clophel’s abductors. But, dang it, my sight wasn’t quite back yet!
“Lina!” I heard Gourry call. He then grabbed my hand, apparently having recovered already. “You’re okay?!”
“I think so...” I replied. “Where’s Kanzel?”
“Don’t know. He just vanished. How’re you doing?”
“My vision’s still a little blurry... Swordplay’s out of the question, but I think I can swing just about anything else.”
“Enemies abound. The alleys are too narrow for us to break through their ranks. We’ll have to use a flight spell to pass overhead. Can you manage that?”
“I’ll give it a try!” I said and began the chant.
Before Kanzel had shown up, I’d been holding off on my travel magic in the event the enemy had someone who could sense it. But the cat was out of the bag now, so I just grabbed Gourry and held on tight.
“Lei Wing!”
And with that, we ascended.
“You made it pretty far. Credit where it’s due,” spat the man standing between us and our destination.
My hope had been to just smash our way in before the enemy could react, but their hideout turned out to be a pretty big abandoned apartment building with no lights on inside. It would take time to search every nook and cranny, meaning the captors could easily make off with Lord Clophel through another exit while we searched for him.
So, instead of all that mess, I landed in the hopes of grabbing a local to give us a little tour, you could say... And now we found ourselves here, cut off by this guy. Probably the commander.
“Hey, thanks for greeting us with that old cliche. Now, how about you make this easy and hand over the old man you kidnapped? I’ll make it worth your while... by, you know, not killing you maybe?”
“Sounds to me like you don’t care what we do to the hostage,” the man countered, seemingly unperturbed by my threat.
“Sure, go ahead and kill him if you really want. But that’ll mean there’s nothing holding us back from just murdering you lot. And, in case there’s any doubt, yeah—we walk the walk as far as that goes.”
“I know,” he replied condescendingly. “But you should know the old man is too valuable for us to kill. There’s someone here in this building quietly watching what happens, though... and if you try anything funny, he’ll cut off one of the old man’s hands.”
“What?!” we cried in unison.
“And if you ignore that warning, he’ll lose the other one too. You can try to take one of us hostage, but we’re all mercenaries who don’t owe a thing to each other. The guy watching from the shadows won’t hesitate to cut the old man to pieces.”
