Slayers REVOLT: The Calm Before

By Elderdrake

* * * * * * * * * *

CHAPTER EIGHT

Recovery

* * * * * * * * * *

The room was luxurious and only slightly over-decorated. The plush carpet was deep red and the walls were white, patterned plaster. The furniture was mostly of mahogany, but tastefully carved and unspoiled by the brass studs and gilt trim favoured by most of the self-consciously rich. The upholstery was all leather, the colour of coffee and cream, and in that perfect state of soft comfort that immediately precedes the transition to 'worn'. The windowsills, the fireplace, and the mantelpiece were all of gleaming, polished slate. And there was just enough in the way of small statuary and tapestry to lend elegance. All in all, it was a pleasant and warm sort of room - in a baroque sort of way - and the best the Royal Arms Inn had to offer.

The comfortable atmosphere projected by the room was not, however, making much of an impact on the mood of its present occupants. Sylphiel had, for almost a full day now, been sitting by Lina's bedside. She had absolutely no idea what was wrong, and couldn't even tell whether it was physical or magical. To be safe, she had been forced to avoid magical cures and resorted to the traditional treatment for fever: warm bed, warm room, no draughts, and endlessly switching off cold compresses. In the three years since last meeting Lina and company, Sylphiel had acquired a lot of skill and experience with healing. So she was able to keep a certain professional detachment, even when her patient was a friend. It was mostly fatigue and puzzled perplexity that drifted from her direction.

Gourry was another matter. Currently he was seated in a large armchair, positioned between the windows and the bed. There was a visible trail in that thick, plush carpet: evidence that Gourry had spent a lot of time pacing from window, to fireplace, to bedside, over and over again. The palpable anxiety and tension in the room all came from him.

Ostensibly, he was on guard. As daylight had already passed back into night some hours past, the windows were now no more than an opaque reflection of the room's lit interior, and curtained off for security. He had watched the rooftops, now out of sight across the dark street, all day. Nothing had happened. By suppertime, both Sylphiel and Zelgadis had been convinced that no more attacks were in the offing. Gourry, however, could not be so sanguine and refused to rest, despite the urgings of Sylphiel. Determined not to fail again as Lina's Protector, and perhaps also moved by a real desire to see meet up with those again - so he could give them hell - he had moved to his current spot at sundown, well placed to deal with anyone crashing through the glass from outside.

The room's third occupant lay in the same slackly still pose she had kept since her friends had gotten her upstairs. It was those loose, unmoving muscles that had left Sylphiel at a complete loss. Normally, anyone with a fever as high as Lina's would have muscles alternately locked or flailing and thrashing in convulsion. But the redhead just lay still, not even her eyes moving under their lids. All the Healer had been able to do was keep the fever down, make sure the room stayed warm enough that Lina didn't get chilled, and try to be patient with Gourry's unending litany of "How is she?" or "Is she all right?"

The fourth occupant was not Zelgadis, who had sensibly returned to bed after a day of watching the Inn entrance and drinking coffee. Instead, it was a black cat that had wandered in around breakfast time, and for whatever reason decided to stay. He split his time between the bed, the fireplace, and, while the sun had been up, the windowsills. The cat had mostly given up on the two available humans, being quite ignored even when he clambered his way into their laps.

* * * * * * * * *

Another hour passed, and then a second, recorded by the remorselessly ticking brass timepiece on the mantle.

Grim and disconsolate, Gourry still sat in his armchair, facing the windows, moving only to switch his crossed legs, or to turn and ask Sylphiel about Lina. Each movement brought a faint protest from the cat that now seemed to have permanently settled, in lofty grandeur, on the chair's high backrest. Every shift in Gourry's position threatened to topple the beast from his precarious perch. But, the feline seemed quite determined to stay. In fact, he seemed to quite enjoy the gloomy swordsman's proximity, in spite of all the regular jostling and preoccupied indifference.

Gourry himself was truly adrift, lost in unfamiliar waters. To begin with he couldn't sleep, a totally alien state of affairs. Almost as alien was a sense of helplessness: a true man of action, he was discovering that the inability to act meaningfully was almost unbearable. Always, in the past, when Lina had been in real trouble, there had been something useful he could DO - even if it was just buying time for her to get better. There was no waiting about, nor time to worry, when your own life was on the line in a serious fight. Like with Shabber Shamba Big Evil Boss Guy, years ago. Here, though, all he could do was wait and worry. There was no way for him to fight poison, or illness, at least not in someone else.

In truth, the keen edge of his worry had been shaved off by the long vigil and the fact that Lina's condition wasn't worsening. But it still sapped his spirit. It was very hard to see her so motionless, and silent, and, well, fragile. She was normally so volcanically full of life that it was easy to forget she was in fact a very small person. And the faint, lurking possibility of a world without Lina - logically, probably a safer and more desirable place for all - for some reason made Gourry feel like his chest was alternately caught in some monstrous crushing grip or hanging over some vast, dark abyss.

The only relief from the dark cloud in his spirit had been to try and distract himself from his own inner turmoil. He had insisted on keeping up his guard duty because it gave him the illusion of DOING something, and he tried to blank out darker thoughts with minutiae. But even dull details found a way of looping back to his real concerns

Currently his distraction was the sword he now cradled between his crooked arm and shoulder. The scabbard was pretty decent. It was quality, lacquered metal and laminate, without any gilt or other silliness, and far more durable than the common, wood and leather types he'd always used in the past. Those were always getting incinerated when Lina served him a fireball. He'd finally decided, a year past, to spend the extra coin on something that might survive Lina's temperament. It had worked, and he was no longer buying a new scabbard every two weeks or so.

His real concern was for the blade inside. It was a good sword, the one given to him by the Villagers of Justice, and well taken-care of in the months and years since. But, it was just a basic model magic sword: enchanted for permanent sharpness, always keeping itself clean of gore, unbreakable except by another magic weapon. It had no other special properties, and that was the crux of his worry. It had served well against bandits, henchmen, evil nobles and mages and crooks, beast-men, and everything else they had dealt with since their last really big adventure. But now, the Mazoku were at it again, maybe more seriously than ever. Sure, for blocking arrows it was fine, but only so long as things stayed at that level. What use would he be when real monsters like the fog-demon - or whatever it was - that had put Lina into her current condition, decided to act more directly? How could he fulfill his duty as Lina's Protector with this weapon? Short of blocking with his body - something that would likely work once only, and buy Lina only a couple of breaths - there seemed to be little he could plan for.

For the first time since returning it to its proper owner, he missed his Sword of Light. What he really needed was something like that again but you don't just find super-swords in your average magic shop. They were usually in dangerous places, guarded by the sorts of things you needed a Lina Inverse and a Sword of Light to get past.

Worst of all, Gourry worried that he might become no more than a liability for Lina. If powerful monsters were going to start showing up again, what use would he be? Against anything bigger than a Blower, Brew er, Bough? No, Brow! Demon, he'd just be in the way - maybe even a danger, if Lina had to divide her attention between him and herself - without a better weapon. Being useless in some critical fight was a terrible thing to have to contemplate. Especially if the fight was for Lina's life

Full circle. Gourry crushed the heels of his hands into his tired eyes, defeating a suspicious dampness that threatened to well up.

It was a sigh and rustle of motion from Sylphiel's direction that brought Gourry sharply out of deep introspection and away from the brink of open distress. Half rising - and almost sending that poor cat flying - he popped his head around the high backrest to see that Sylphiel had stood up and was stretching.

The words were out almost before he thought them. They had become so automatic.

"What is it? Is she all right?!"

Sylphiel, her back still towards the swordsman, seemed to wince just a little. What Gourry couldn't know was that all his turmoil and emotions had been creeping past his fatigue, into his voice, adding nuance to his words all evening. That tone - and what Sylphiel sensed beneath it - had sawn at her nerves far more than any difficulties posed by inexplicable illnesses. But she still managed to keep a professional bearing when she turned to face Gourry, and was more than a little proud of that.

"Her temperature has come down noticeably in the last half hour, and I think her fever has broken. She seems more naturally relaxed than before, and her breathing is what I'd expect of someone deeply asleep, now. I have no idea what was going on, but I'm pretty sure she'll be fine if we just let her sleep"

Her voice trailed off at the end. The transparent relief on Gourry's face was just too much. She had to turn away for a moment, fishing for and wringing out a last cold compress and putting it on Lina's forehead, while she swallowed to regain control. Then, as she turned back to the swordsman, she felt a wave of fatigue wash over her body.

"She'll be fine by morning: I'm sure of a recovery when I see one" She paused, yawned, pressed onwards with postponed real concerns for Gourry. "You really should get some sleep now, you know. All-nighters are bad health policy I'm ready to drop, myself."

Gourry shook his head, smiled gamely. "Thanks Sylphiel, but I'll keep watch. Just because Lina will get better doesn't mean more bad guys won't show up."

Sylphiel tried again. "Are you sure? You won't be guarding much if you fall asleep. Mister Zelgadis would surely be willing to take a shift"

"No. I'll be fine, and I've gotten pretty good at sleeping in the saddle. I can rest tomorrow, whether we're travelling or not. Let Zel sleep, so that at least someone will have a full night's rest behind them."

The Healer hesitated, then gave up. "All right, if you're sure. Be careful, let the fire burn down - it doesn't need to be quite so warm in here, now - but don't open the window until Miss Lina is awake and well. She's still got a fever, we don't want her to catch chill"

She gave the nodding Gourry a suspicious look, but he did look a lot better than he had just moments before the restorative effects of deep relief, she supposed.

"All right then. Good night, Gourry-dea ah cough, good night" she choked a little on her traditional appellation.

The swordsman didn't even notice. "Good night, Sylphiel. And thanks for taking care of Lina so well again!" Gourry waved and turned back towards his armchair guard post.

And with that, Sylphiel retreated to her own room down the hall.

* * * * * * * * *

Now, no matter how many times one experiences it, waking up when one can't remember going to bed is very unsettling. In Lina's case, it was only the second time she'd done it - the first, being the consequence of her eventful first brush with cherry liqueur a few months earlier - and it most definitely was not any less weird a sensation for having done it just once before.

Just like last time, there was a lingering ghost of really weird dreams. Unlike last time, the aches and pains were spread through all her body and not concentrated somewhere between her eyes. Her head felt clear - a difference - but there was also a sense of things she should be remembering and couldn't - not so different. Last time, Gourry (she hoped it was Gourry) had just slid her into bed with most of her clothes still on. This time, she could feel the quality of the sheets of whatever bed she was in over every square inch of her body.

There was also a substantial weight around about her midsection, and that final detail set off a panic alarm. Her patented Automatic Virtue Protection System (™) went to emergency status. She tensed, eyes still screwed tight in mortified horror, ready to pounce upon and kill whoever might have messed with her innocence Which turned out to be not so good an idea. Every sore, stiff muscle in her body (as it turned out, pretty much all of them, even ones she didn't know she had) screeched in protest. With a wince and a faint groan, she collapsed back into the mattress.

It all turned out to be for naught, too. Her motions had jostled the weight, and as she had collapsed it let out a mild rumble of protest, plodded the length of her legs on what was definitely four small feet, settled back down at her feet, and began purring. A cat, of all things! Maybe her innocence was unblemished, after all. But then why the hell was she buck-naked in a strange bed, with no memory of the night before?

Wary, but less on edge than she had been, she finally ventured to open an eye. All she could see was a mountain of comforter limned, faintly, with a rosy glow. Ever so slowly - now very aware that anything less cautious would really hurt - she inched her way to a slightly sitting position, braced by her pillows.

Somewhere, a fairly expensive timepiece was ticking away. The room was dark except for the few thin rays of rosy light that seeped between and under thick, fully drawn curtains. The silhouette of a large, high-backed chair interposed itself between the nearest window and her bed. The faint pink glow washed her bedcovers, a couple of cabinets and armoires, a bedside table. A second chair, rather less grandiose than the looming armchair, was also at her bedside. On the table was a large basin, draped with damp, limp white cloths.

Upon seeing those, her hand instinctively went to her own forehead. Sure enough, there was a cloth there too, though it was dried out. What the? Have I been sick? She stared at the cloth for just a moment, then let it drop to the floor at her bedside. And who's been tending me, then?

A faint, muffled pop from across the room drew her startled glance It was the fireplace, with a few faint orange embers still glowing within. A fire this close to full summer? Sure, it had been unseasonably cool, but a fire seemed a bit of an overkill.

The rosy light continued to brighten, slowly becoming more yellow, and Lina decided it must be dawn. Yeah but of what day? She was soon able to make out the clock on its mantelpiece, and the hands confirmed it was just before six in the morning. As she continued scanning her surroundings, she finally spotted her clothing in a basket just inside the door. Neatly laundered, apparently pressed and certainly folded by the looks of things, but at least a good fifteen feet away.

Too far for her to want to move her aching body, yet. She drew the coverlets closer about her shoulders for warmth, and tried to force her memory back into operation. How had she come to be where she was? Why did she hurt so much? Something must have happened to put her here. She hoped Gourry and Zel were okay then that thought brought a wave of suspicious aggravation: she hoped they were okay, but they sure as heck wouldn't stay that way if either of them had been the ones to strip her down!

A flicker of motion caught her attention. The almost forgotten cat - she could see now that it was a black one - had sat up and twitched an ear. The sorceress and cat exchanged stares for a moment. Then, apparently deciding to get better acquainted, the latter got up and sauntered closer.

Lina suddenly chuckled softly to herself. The cat was definitely a tom. She muttered quietly at him: "So, you're the first guy to manage sharing a bed with Lina Inverse! That probably makes you the bravest male alive, you know" She hadn't really meant it of course, but the cat seemed to agree anyway and started purring. Lina found she could muster the energy to scratch between its ears without hurting too much, and returned to pondering her recent past.

They had been six days out from Atlass. She recalled rain, and drizzle fog, and the usual pointless arguing and bickering with Gourry and Zel that did wonders for passing time on slow, boring roads but after that, she found she could only draw blanks, no matter how hard she prodded at her memory.

Only a quarter hour passed before she decided wracking her brains was going to be fruitless. She glanced at the cat, again. "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me something about whatever is going on?"

The cat didn't offer any better reply than to partly turn away, flop onto his haunches and start washing himself. Between passes of his forepaw, it continued to look her over with one eye. Lina could almost swear the beast was somehow laughing at her

"Right. The laughingstock of kitty-cat, a new low for Sorcery Genius Lina Inverse." She shifted to a sitting position, and in doing so found the soreness everywhere was starting to fade. There were also the first sounds of activity coming from the hall outside her door.

"Well, the heck with you then, cat. It's about time I was getting dressed." And with that, she threw back the covers, ready to make the dash - or limp, more likely - for the door and her basket of clothes.

* * * * * * * * *

Fate is a cruel and heartless entity, made all the worse by being in possession of the wickedest sense of humour in the known cosmos.

In his armchair, Gourry had finally succumbed to fatigue and fallen into a light doze in the hour before dawn. Being only in a light doze, he wasn't snoring as he usually did. Shielded as he was by the high-backed chair, and soundless, there was no warning of his presence

Lina had, in her last few comments directed at the cat, been speaking in a normal tone of voice. That was certainly loud enough to awaken anyone who was dozing within a few feet, particularly someone who was desperate to hear her, hale and well.

So naturally, the poor blond swordsman awoke at just the wrong moment. From behind him came the firm voice of the sorceress, apparently healed enough to load her tone with irony and humour. " A new low for Sorcery Genius Lina Inverse"

He snapped to, and began to stand, turn, ready to greet happily as she spoke again "Well, the heck with you then cat. It's about time I was getting"

Here, fate hit the cosmic 'slo-mo' button she saved for just such savoury moments, and probably grinned in evil anticipation.

"Lina! You're okay! I'm so glaack" His words died in his throat. For, of course, just as he completed his turn and began speaking, Lina threw back her bedcovers. And, of course, the haste of rising and his turn had been just enough to swirl the curtains, just enough to let in the glowing rays of a sun just rising over the town rooftops.

Everything froze in tableau, for a fraction of a second. Gourry was a horrified silhouette surrounded by a sunny nimbus. Lina, equally horrified, was fully bathed in cheery morning light for just an instant. One could almost hear the 'click' of a camera shutter as fate took a snapshot of the moment for her scrapbook. Lina and Gourry both began to draw breath, and then fate turned off 'slo-mo' to let things play out, to their inevitable conclusion, in real time.

"AAAAAAHHHH! NO! I'M SORRY"

"AAAAAAHHHH! PERVERT!"

Gourry's life flashed before his eyes as he ducked back down behind his armchair, praying it might just afford him enough cover to survive this.

Lina somehow managed to simultaneously yank up a coverlet and recite her second-favourite spell, both in record time. " FIREBALL!"

* * * * * * * * *

Out in the hall, it had been the noises of an early-rising Zelgadis that Lina heard as she berated her feline bedmate. His own Chimeric hearing had caught the sound of Lina's voice. He had, of course, immediately headed for her door, pleased as any comrade at the recovery of another.

Suddenly, there were two bloodcurdling screams and a massive explosion.

With his characteristic dramatic chivalry, Zel drew his sword, smashed through Lina's door with a somersault, and came up in a fighting pose, pretty much all in one motion.

His sweeping survey of the room started with the missing outer wall, its rubble still sailing through the air and landing in the street below. It ended with the barely sheet-wrapped form, blazing with both fury and the glow of morning sun that now streamed in, which turned to face a new interloper.

Zel had just long enough to gulp before receiving his own Lina Inverse Outrage Special.

* * * * * * * * *

Sylphiel had gone to bed carrying some hefty new emotional burdens of her own, but had been too tired to even begin sorting things out. She had fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

It was, at best, only four hours later when she was blasted awake by the sound of a huge explosion that also set the Inn to shaking. Still in her pajamas, she immediately flew to her door and into the hall, ready to help her friends however she could. So, she was just in time for the second explosion, and to see fried Zelgadis come sailing out of Lina's room - along with much of the doorframe masonry - to make a notable impression on the wall opposite.

The Healer dashed into the room, breaking her own speed-incantation record on one of her strongest defense spells. It certainly saved her, though not from the expected terrible villain. A third fireball ricocheted of Sylphiel's shield and shot straight up through the Inn roof. It exploded high in the sky and sent every bird within a mile into squawking flight, as well as woke half the town of Aspelund.

Sylphiel instantly took in the tableau: Zelgadis twitching in a smoking hole behind her; Gourry sprawled amongst rubble in the street below, also twitching, wearing a stunned expression on his face and for some reason bleeding a little through his nose. Lina, also twitching - with fury, rather than pain - was wrapped, standing, in a twist of bed sheets, and apparently in a state of total surprise at seeing Sylphiel.

The destruction around her, the sheer unexpected audacity of Lina's behaviour after everyone had spent so much time worrying about her, the fresh wounds to her own emotions regarding Gourry It was all too much piled up at once. Sylphiel developed a twitch of her own, entirely focused in the area of her left eye.

For only the second time in her life (curiously, the first also having had Lina at its root), the Healer was ready to give someone a real piece of her mind. And she did. At length, in measured cadence, sparing nothing, a truly inspired delivery, and something of a catharsis for her own troubles. But she failed to take into account that the outside wall was open and there was already a whole crowd of bystanders gathering in the street outside.

* * * * * * * * *

More than an hour later, all four were seated silently around a breakfast table. Sylphiel was looking embarrassed, Lina actually looking contrite, Gourry still more than a little dazed, and Zel was in a deep sulk.

The town magistrates had left only moments before, gleefully pocketing a considerable sum in punitive fines. Sylphiel had paid her own on the charge of disturbing the peace, but it had been Zel's Royal Badge that had to pay for all the damages to the inn and Lina's fines for disturbing the peace with her spells. And he'd been the least to blame of the lot.

Then the food started to arrive. The apologetic expression was suddenly wiped from Lina's face, and Gourry clicked back into the present. The two immediately fell upon the heaped platters and started bickering over the sausages.

After a few minutes, Lina realized the other two weren't eating. It was a measure of her genuine contrition - or the effectiveness of Sylphiel's rare scolding - that she actually abandoned the tabletop to Gourry's unchallenged pillaging, in order to try and set things right with her other friends.

"Oh get over it, Zel! Take it like a man. I even blew up Prince Philionel when he stumbled across my bath once, and after I healed him, he didn't hold a grudge er, for long, anyway."

The Chimera's eye twitched, once.

"Come on, I healed you guys. And I'll pay you back, okay. I'm paying for breakfast, right? Doesn't that count as a start?"

Zel's eye twitched, again, and he still didn't speak. But at least he reached for the coffeepot.

Sylphiel interjected. "Miss Lina! That's hardly the problem! You haven't even really apologized yet."

"For what?"

"Blowing your friends through the wall, of course! It's not like it was their fault that they saw you like that!"

"Okay, okay! Sorry already, guys. Jeez!" Lina's eyes then bored into Sylphiel's. "But then, just whose fault was it my clothes were so far away, and a man left in my room without supervision, eh?" she emphasized her point with a jab of pancake-bearing fork.

The Healer gasped a little, and blushed. "Um, well oh dear."

"Ah ha! Thought so!" Lina waggled her fork towards Sylphiel in vindication; then, realizing the utensil was about to lose its load from all the waving around, jammed the cooling piece of pancake into her mouth.

Sylphiel tried to recover some honour, and, maybe fish for some answer to her own questions. "But, Miss Lina, how could you have blasted poor Gourry-dea Mister Gourry through the wall, after he'd been so worried about you?"

Gourry finally put in his two bits. "Hey I'm not really mad, gulp at least we know for sure that Lina is definitely all better slurp, right?"

Lina, reminded by Gourry's speaking between mouthfuls that he'd been given freedom of the tabletop for the whole minute she'd been talking, was distracted for a moment by the need to compete for the last few bacon strips. Then she returned her attention to the others.

"Well, Okay, maybe I did that, but he should have been more careful and kept his eyes to himself! And how could I know what had been going on? I'm the one with a two-day hole in her memory. I didn't even know you were here, Sylphiel. How else was I to react to being completely er, well, undressed with Gourry in the same room?"

Sylphiel opened her mouth to retort in defense, but Zel had finally quit fuming enough to jump on another part of Lina's statement.

"Do you really not remember a thing about the attack, or the ride after, or meeting Sylphiel?"

"Not a thing. All I've got to cover the last couple of days are hazy impressions of having had really weird dreams."

Sylphiel blinked, her curiosity roused. "What sort of dreams?" Maybe some hint could be garnered about whether it had been magic or poison or just a really nasty 'flu.

"I dunno. They're hazy, remember?"

In a tone that harked back to her earlier eruption, Sylphiel was quite firm: "It might be important, so TRY."

In the middle of spooning up mountains of whipping cream from a rolled fruit crepe, Lina paused, glanced sidelong at the healer, and gulped hard. Sylphiel being firm was almost as scary as big sister Luna.

She thought hard for a second. In that odd way dreams sometimes had, a few details had wandered back into conscious memory as the morning had passed by. As each detail popped up, it led to a few others

"Well, okay. A big dark bubble I couldn't escape. It suddenly turned inside out, but that somehow really hurt. For a moment, a lot of swirling bright lights merging and splitting, bouncing and cascading all over the place. Just at the end, a feeling like I was going to burst that I had to force down, but made me ache all over and then I guess it was about then that I woke up, actually."

Even Gourry had paused in his ravening of the breakfast platters to listen, but it was Zel that spoke up.

"I thought you said they were hazy!"

Lina gripped the table in irritation. "Well, soo-rry! It just bubbled back while I was explaining it. Sheesh...! Aaagh! Hey! Gourry! Those are MY crepes!"

"You're the one who said you felt like bursting. I thought you were full!"

"Even YOU know that's not what I meant, jellyfish! Give'em back! Now!"

As Lina and Gourry erupted into a fork-sparring contest over the last peach and cherry-filled crepe rolls, Zel glanced towards Sylphiel who was looking very thoughtful.

She shrugged and replied softly. "I don't know, Mister Zelgadis. I'm a healer, not a dream interpreter. It just sounded like a common, loopy fever-dream to me. And the aches she felt in it were probably just a reflection of what she was really feeling outside of the dream I'll gve it ore thought once I've rested and can think straight." She reached for a plate of waffles the two tabletop raveners had missed, and a teapot as she spoke. " Pass the cream?"

* * * * * * * * *

After another hour, they had passed through Aspelund's Saillune Gate and set forth on the pleasant, well-kept road towards the White Magic Capital. Hereabouts, less than a day from the great city, their route crossed no greater wilderness then the odd dozen-acre wood. Real spring seemed to finally be in full bloom, albeit less than two weeks before summer solstice. The sun was warm; the sky pocked with only a few fluffy little clouds, the fields were green with fresh sprouts. Birds chased each other on the wing, staking claims and singing their virtues. Pleasant farms and hamlets, the odd summer villa, all in the Saillune style - whitewashed, red-or orange-tiled, well-kept, and afloat in gardens - dotted the roadside.

There was a fair amount of traffic. Household servants were headed out to prepare country villas, vanguard for the usual mass summer exodus of the wealthy. There was a steady stream of small merchant caravans and produce carts. This time of year, far from the last harvest and nowhere near the next, they mostly carried root vegetables and produce, so there was a constant lingering odour of turnip, parsnip, potato and soil, mixed with cheese and milk as the carts passed by. Herders created small traffic jams with their beasts headed to market. Then there were the Royal Post couriers dashing by every hour, and a few country nobles heading into Saillune early, ahead of the crowds expected for Princess Amelia's celebrations in two weeks.

Even Gourry quickly conceded there was no likelihood of trouble in this busy, warm, open, and - most importantly - fog-free country. Within minutes of leaving Aspelund, he had passed out in the saddle, sleeping off his double all-nighter and huge breakfast. Sylphiel passed out soon after, dozing on her cart bench. Her two horses were initially quite confused at the loss of leadership, enough that Zel had had to grab their leads a couple of times. It stopped the unplanned trips into the ditch but also jolted Sylphiel back awake, spouting profuse apologies.

To everyone's surprise, Lina offered to take over, though not without making a big deal of her wonderfulness for doing so. Normally, she would never lower herself from Sorcery Genius to Wagon Driver, but she had a bunch of reasons. Most of all, she was still more sore than she cared to admit, and getting back in the saddle had only made it worse. The padded cart bench would be welcome relief without having to reveal her lack of toughness. She also felt she owed some apology to Sylphiel, or at least thanks for taking care of her. And, as the daughter of a modest merchant, she had learned to handle two horses in harness as a child, so she was the logical substitute for the exhausted healer. Despite a new tension between the two girls (Lina recognized it existed, but was clueless as ever about its source), they ended up travelling side by side, one deeply sleeping, the other enjoying a little flashback to her childhood upbringing and merchant roots.

On such a fine day, even the horses - who had also benefited from an unexpected full day of rest - were inspired to move smartly along. They were within sight of Saillune's outer walls by mid-afternoon, scot-free and more than an hour ahead of schedule.

* * * * * * * * * *

NEXT CHAPTER: Saillune at last! Who's that fancy-dress guy?

* * * * * * * * * *

Slayers Characters © 1991-2003 Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi, a whole lot of other people and not a few multinational corporations. I'm not looking for a piece of their action, just paying homage to it. Story and all other content © 2002-2003 D. Robbins

Special thanks to Debbie for editing!