[Episode 123129] [Episode 123129]Amelia went back over her notes one last time as she waited for Ranma to fetch everyone. She didn't really need to, of course; she'd spent the past five hundred years studying this problem and the last two hundred making sure she hadn't made any mistakes. Her two apprentices Hotaru and Yomiko had both spent equally long going over her notes for mistakes.
None of them had found anything. Her mystical research was flawless.
They probably could have done things faster, but rushing seemed pointless when they literally had all the time in the world. Even if they were all sick of staying on the barren chunks of rocks that had once been her home.
This particular chunk had the ruins of the city where she had been born several millennia ago; the old wards had preserved her family's palace and the city around it beyond Phibrizo's return from the dead, beyond the death of its citizens, even beyond the Silence.
Amelia absently rubbed the Talismans of the Dark Lords she'd received as a parting gift from Lina as the memories returned.
Lina Inverse was clearly frustrated as she apologized. "I'm sorry Prince Phil. There's nothing I can do. Amelia has the White Burn."
Prince Philionel practically collapsed at the news. The White Burn was a plague that had spread across the world and already claimed several lives.
White Burn was given that name because it seemed to be triggered by white magic. Clerics and shrine maidens infected with White Burn always clamed to feel as though there was a fire raging inside them, a fire that burned worse with every white magic spell cast. Most victims eventually went up in plumes of white fire, reduced to fine white ash.
"No. There has to be something I can do," Amelia protested even as sweat dripped down her face. "I refuse to believe there is nothing I can do about this!" She stormed out of the room.
Amelia wiped the sweat from her brow once more as she poured over the ancient texts in the Saillune libraries, careful not to get the old parchments wet. "Are you just going to stand there frowning at me, Zel?"
Zelgadis jumped a bit, obviously believing she was too distracted to have noticed his entrance. "You're not going to find any answers in there, Amelia. I should know; I've been over them all."
Amelia sighed, but closed the books. "Well, you're the expert in ancient texts and magics. Where would you suggest I look? I can't just stand by and let my people suffer." The White Burn was still wrecking having among the healers, and with the healers sick, other plagues that they would have easily bested now spread like wild fire among the populous of every city. Saillune, due to its port and the trade routes going through it, suffered more than most.
Zelgadis shook his head, sitting down in a nearby chair. "I don't know. I only really paid attention to the chimera sections, and my chimera nature hasn't kept me safe."
"Have you heard anything at all from Lina?" Lina had vowed to head toward the Clair Bible to see if it held any answers.
"No, I haven't. Given what happened with Filia though..." He trailed off.
Amelia nodded. As a gold dragon, Filia had access to holy magic that made the white magic humans practiced look like a candle next to a bonfire. Filia had been driven mad with pain within a few hours of contracting the White Burn. She'd laid waste to the town she'd been in before finally burning away as the holy power consumed her.
If the gold dragons guarding the Clair Bible had caught the plague as well, it was possible the mountain range where the Clair Bible had been hidden didn't even exist anymore.
Unexpected motion drew their attention as a dove flew into the room. The bird dropped a small metal cylinder before turning and flying off once more.
Zelgadis was frowning even as Amelia reached for the message. They both recognized the handiwork of the Ferious Breed spell.
"It's from Lina," Amelia stated, fear rising. Lina had contracted White Burn just before leaving Saillune. Using Ferious Breed would have been very painful; whatever message she'd sent must have been important. She continued reading quietly.
"Did she find something?" Zelgadis asked.
"The dragons had gone mad, as we feared," Amelia said. "She sent Gourry back with some manuals she managed to find that might hold a cure."
"If it held a cure why didn't she use it?"
"I don't know. The note doesn't say much else."
Amelia stood silently over the grave of Zelgadis Greywers. He'd been killed by a mob of desperate people, so maddened by disease and loss that they were striking out at anything different. By the time anyone could get to him, he was already bleeding badly; even his stony skin couldn't protect him, not when the mob had already looted the magic shops and nearly empty temples.
It was nearly midnight now, and most of the people of Saillune were long asleep. It was the only time she could find to visit his grave.
Intellectually she recognized that finding a cure for the White Burn had become an obsession with her. But her obsession was the only thing she really had to hold on to anymore. Everything else was gone.
Gourry had died within hours of arriving of things she could have cured in a moment if her father hadn't gone and gotten her sealed off from all white magic. As long as that seal remained, she couldn't even cast a simple light spell.
Never before had she hated her father as she did when he had had the seal placed on her. Gourry and Zelgadis' deaths on deepened the sense of betrayal she felt. Now she barely talked to the man, preferring to stay in the tower she'd claimed as her own while she researched the tomes Gourry had died delivering.
The Tailsmans of the Dark Lords he'd brought told her Lina was likewise likely dead; she would never have willingly parted with those artifacts if she thought she had a chance of surviving.
And certainly, she no longer felt any loyalty to the people of Saillune. Not after, they killed Zelgadis. Not after days of mob violence had destroyed much of the city she loved so much.
Tomorrow it would be over. She had found a cure for the White Burn. A part of her suspected she'd lost her mind to the same pains that consumed the people of Saillune for even considering it. She wondered if she would even be considering this if she could still talk to her friends. But she could do nothing else now but go forward.
Amelia dropped her hands to her sides, snapping her thoughts away from the memories. The transformation to an archlich had been unpleasant when she'd experienced it, but it did protect her from the White Burn.
And she performed her duty, and used her restored white magic to save as many people as she could. Despite her distaste for the people of Saillune, she had still been their princess, and her duty was clear.
But one lone white mage couldn't save everyone. Especially not against armies of mazoku and undead.
It was only centuries after her transformation that she learned the White Burn was Phibrizo's creation. A prelude to his other plagues, which were themselves preludes to his own return from the dead. And when he returned he lead an army that laid waste to all before them. He began systematically turning whatever happened to survive his plagues into undead of his own, undead that were bound to his will, unlike her.
She smirked a little to herself as she remembered his rather unpleasant discovery that mazoku could get no sustenance from the undead. By the time he and the other mazoku learned that, however, there were barely enough humans remaining to sustain the species, much less feed the plethora of mazoku.
Mazoku turned on each other then, warring among themselves for possession of the few humans remaining until Phibrizo discovered a way to open portals to one of the other pillars. The portals were too small and too short lived for more than one or two people to go through at a time, and no mazoku survived the trip through the portal regardless. (Amelia suspected that the Lord of Nightmares had something to do with that; she doubted the Lord of Nightmares wanted a repeat of Darkstar.)
So the Mazoku had turned to the undead servants they'd created. Those servants could pass through the portals, grab some of the living from the other side, and then return.
Thus started the dungeons of captive humans, the endless torture rooms to eke out every last bit of terror, hatred, and sorrow, and the chambers where ever more bizarre undead were spawned.
Noticing Hotaru and Ranma coming into view, she began the preparations for her own variation on Phibrizo's portal spells.
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(Posted Sun, 31 Oct 2004 02:50)
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