Over the years, Zelgadiss had trained himself to sleep lightly and wake quickly. So, when he faintly heard the muffled sound of voices coming from what sounded like another room, his eyes snapped open in an instant.

Consciousness came back so quickly that he was almost overwhelmed. All at once, he was aware of the weight pressing against his abdomen and the fact that his arms were stiff and sore. The room he was in was almost completely dark; only a tiny amount light leaked in from somewhere he couldn't see. The floor below him was bumpy and smelled of earth and something else that was vaguely familiar. He wrinkled his brow as he became aware of a dull throbbing pain on the side of his head. Groaning inwardly, he tilted his chin and peered through the darkness to see what was lying on top of him.

"Ameria?!" he gasped involuntarily. The little princess had been dropped so that she was lying across his body face-down, her wrists and ankles bound by metal cuffs, the same kind of cuffs that held his own wrists, he realized. Her head rested against the floor, which was covered with woven straw mats, and he couldn't tell if she was breathing or not. Fear galvanized him into action; he struggled to sit up without dumping her to the floor. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he was able to gently move her body and lay her on the ground despite the cuffs on his wrists. Kneeling over her, he checked her pulse and breathing--thankfully, both seemed normal. In the faint light, he could see a trickle of dried blood on her forehead where she must have been hit by the Chakanai. Without thinking, he began to cast a healing spell. When nothing happened, he cursed under his breath and looked around for Janak--hadn't he said he could do Chana healing? But he stopped short when he saw Lina and Gourry.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, his face split into a wry grin. Lina was sprawled on her back on the ground, unconscious, with Gourry half covering her, face down, his cheek resting against her bosom. Zel started forward on his knees to pull his friend off of her before she awakened to spare him the inevitable pounding she would administer. He stopped, however, when he heard someone call his name softly from somewhere by Gourry's feet.

"Zelgadiss," Erika whispered, and he turned on his knees and squinted, trying to see her in the dark. She was lying on the straw mat closest to what appeared to be a door, judging by the thin sliver of light that was visible near the floor beyond her. He could barely see the outline of her face in the light. An egg-shaped lump protruded from her forehead and he winced sympathetically.

"Where are we?" he whispered back. "And where's Janak? Ameria--"

"Shhhhhh, we have to stay quiet," she interrupted, holding a finger to her lips as she sat up, moving stiffly.

Zel opened his mouth to question her further, but at that moment they heard a groan coming from the Lina/Gourry pile to the right. Zel's and Erika's eyes locked and widened; they didn't need telepathy to know exactly what each other was thinking.

"Lina! Lina, shhhh! Stay calm, stay calm!" Erika hissed at the same time Zel stumbled on his knees toward them. He reached out to grab the criss-crossed straps of Gourry's armor but the fabric of his pants caught on the woven mat, and he lurched forward, falling short of Gourry onto his elbows with a grunt. He was too late, anyway; the Dra-mata had already awakened.

"Gouuurrrrryyyyy..." Zel and Erika heard her rumble in her patented low, dangerous tone.

The resulting scuffle was short but violent; it ended with a confused Gourry nursing a fresh lump on the head next to the one the Chakanai had given him and Zel kneeling between them, physically holding Lina back so she couldn't follow it up with more bruises.

"Will you keep quiet?!" Erika hissed as Lina shoved against Zel, struggling with the wrist-cuffs and sputtering her outrage at Gourry. Zel raised his bound wrists and slapped a hand over her mouth, for the moment grateful that they were still somewhere in which the Astral Plane did not exist. In any other circumstance, anyone who tried to shut Lina up usually ended up burnt and crispy.

"Lina," Gourry groaned, bringing both hands up to his head to massage his new injury, "come on. It's not like there's much there to--"

"MmouuuuuuEEEEEEEEE!!" Lina screeched, the sound muffled by Zel's hand. She started smacking at Zel's arms to get him to let go, but only ended up hurting herself more than him.

"Lina," Erika said roughly, "shut up or they'll shut you up!" Lina paused, blinking, and everyone looked at Erika in surprise at her uncharacteristic gruffness. Ignoring them, Erika turned toward the door and strained to hear whether someone was coming--their captors would have to have been deaf to miss the sounds of struggle coming from the room, she thought with dread. Mercifully, the low hum of voices from the next room only paused, and no one came to check on them.

Zel heard a low groan coming from behind him and turned sharply. Lina lost her balance and tumbled to the floor with a growl of protest. "Ameria," Zel said, and immediately he and Gourry crawled to her side.

"Ameria, are you all right?" Gourry asked quickly.

The dark-haired girl squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them, wincing in pain. "Zelgadiss-san? Gourry-san?" she guessed by the sound of their voices. She started to bring one hand to her head, but paused as she realized her other hand seemed to be attached to the first. "What happened?" she asked.

"Looks like they got us," Gourry supplied. "The Chachanai."

"Chakanai," everyone else in the room groaned at the same time.

"Where's Janak?" she asked, rolling to her side and pushing herself to her knees, fighting a wave of nausea as she felt her head begin to pound where she had been struck.

Zelgadiss blinked. "Good question," he muttered, and turned and resumed his search for the prince, squinting to see in the darkness.

"He's not here!" Lina concluded a little louder than Erika would have liked. "That jerk, he got loose and ran off without us!"

Erika turned and threw a sharp look over her shoulder at Lina, for all the good it did in the dark. "For your information," she whispered coldly, "Janak is in the next room, trying to negotiate with the Elder of the Chakanai for our lives."

There was a pause. All Lina could say was, "Oh."

Zel's eyes widened as he suddenly thought of something. "I'm sure they took our weapons--I can't find my sword anywhere. But what about the book, Erika?"

Sucking in a breath, Erika's eyes widened and she felt her stomach turn hollow. "It was in a pocket in my cloak..." she trailed off.

"Is it there now?" asked Gourry.

Erika fumbled with the fabric of her cloak, searching for its pockets. After a moment, she sighed and said dully, "It's not here. They must have taken it as well."

"Greeeeeat," Lina moaned, putting her hands to her forehead. "We have to figure out where they put everything and get out of here--that book was the reason we came here in the first place!"

"Where is here, anyway?" Ameria asked, looking around the darkened room for some clue as to their whereabouts.

"We've all been out for a while, but they couldn't have gotten that far," Gourry reasoned, rubbing his chin with his fingers.

Lina growled, reached over, and bonked the swordsman across the head. "Idiot! They can teleport--we could be anywhere by now!"

"Ow! Lina, those cuffs hurt!" Gourry exclaimed in protest, rubbing his head where yet another lump was beginning to form.

"Shhh!" Erika hissed, and everyone looked at the crack of light under the door fearfully. After a few moments, during which no one came to see what the ruckus was, they relaxed a little and Erika said in a hushed tone, "My guess is we're in a small Chakanai outpost, probably far to the eastern side of the Tes'sha Forest."

"How do you know?" Zel asked.

Erika shook her head. "I don't know for sure, but it would make sense." Glancing around the room at her friends, barely illuminated by the light, she explained, "You see, before the schism, the Chakar tribe was scattered throughout the forest, which covers a significant portion of the continent. There were a few large towns, but mostly people lived in small villages nestled among the trees. Over time, the people in the eastern part of the forest and the people in the south and west began to grow apart--the easterners are miners and metalsmiths, while the people in the west and south are generally farmers, and they didn't interact much except when it came to trading their wares. Different cultures and philosophies, especially about Chana, developed, and so by the time the Chorioni civil war broke out a little more than a century ago, tensions between the two peoples were already high. My family's ascension to the Chorioni throne was the straw that broke the camel's back." She shrugged and continued, "So when the tribe split, each side turned some of its smaller villages into military outposts from which they could stage attacks on each other. Now the forest is littered with military camps. For each tribe, the location of its capital is its most closely guarded secret--so closely guarded that the Chakar tribe will move the whole camp if the Elder feels that the Chakanai may have discovered a clue as to its whereabouts. They wouldn't bring us to their capital on the off chance that one of us managed to escape or communicate with the Elder of the Chakar."

"Well...why can't you just do that?" Gourry asked.

Erika shook her head. "It's not like Janak and I haven't tried. We haven't gotten any response, not over the past two or three days. Something's going on. We think there's a big battle going on elsewhere in the forest." She paused and looked away apprehensively. "I just hope nothing has happened to Elder Ashri..."

As she turned her head, Ameria could see in the dim light a large bruise on her face and exclaimed, "Erika, you're all bruised! Are you all right?"

"I'm...fine," she replied dismissively, but everyone could hear the hesitation in her voice. "They weren't too careful with me, that's all."

Lina wrinkled her brow and said suspiciously, "What do you mean?"

Reluctantly, Erika turned so more of her face was visible. The small amount of light in the room revealed the cuts and bruises on her face and arms and the twin black rings around her eyes. Ameria gasped, "Erika!" but the former princess shushed her before she could say anything more.

"I'm all right, I'm all right," she assured her. "They must have just kicked me when I was down a little."

Gourry snorted. "That's more than a little," he growled. "There's no honor in hitting anyone--much less a girl--like that."

"Anyway," Erika said, waving her hands as if to wave away their concern, "can everyone please stay quiet? I'd like to hear what Janak is saying to the Chakanai Elder."

"I still don't understand why he's out there and we're in here," Zel grumbled under his breath, but everyone ignored him, straining to hear the conversation taking place in the next room. No one but Erika could understand their words, since they were speaking in Ancient Chorioni, but they listened to their tone nonetheless.

After a minute, Erika exhaled in frustration. "Nice try, Janak, but I don't think it'll work," she whispered bleakly at the door, knowing Janak couldn't possibly hear her.

"What's he saying?" Ameria asked worriedly.

Shaking her head, Erika glanced at them and explained in a hushed tone, "Janak is in a tricky diplomatic situation, and he's no diplomat, not like his older brothers, at least. The Orian monarchy is officially neutral in this war, which is the only reason he isn't in here as well. In practice, the Orians have been allies of Chorion since my family came into power, since they're descended from a Chakar, not a Chakanai line. Janak is trying to say we're prisoners of war, not enemies of the state, and he's asking that they first ask the Chakar for a ransom or prisoner exchange before they start planning our executions."

No one liked the sound of that. "What do you mean, our executions?" Lina protested. "We didn't do anything wrong!"

Just then, a voice interrupted Janak loudly enough that Erika didn't have to try very hard to catch what its owner was saying. "Who's that?" Ameria asked. The voice sounded old and rough and it carried a coldness that she didn't like.

"The Elder of the Chakanai. Shhhh..." Erika trailed off, and then began translating. "You know our laws...outsiders must join us or die, once they've been to one of our camps." Nodding grimly to herself, she finished with a snort, "And since magic-users are forbidden to join the Chakanai...not to mention Chorioni royalty..."

"Gourry doesn't use magic," Lina pointed out right away. "They should let him out! Maybe he could--"

"They won't," Erika answered. "They wouldn't want to risk him leading Chakar forces back here."

Zel asked, "Look, can't you tell Janak what to say? I'm not ready to trust my life to a rookie negotiator."

"Zel, your style of negotiation usually involves blowing things up to get what you want and discussing it later," Lina said under her breath.

"Oh, like you're one to talk," Zel retorted hotly.

"Erika, couldn't you do that?" asked Ameria quickly, hoping to break up the impending argument.

Erika didn't answer right away. "I'm trying..." she whispered. In the next room, they heard the Elder finish speaking, and Janak started talking.

"What did you tell him to say to the Older?" Gourry asked, listening to the unintelligible syllables.

"Elder..." Lina corrected wearily.

"I told him to ask the Elder if he would speak to his honored father. The Orian monarchy has always sought the counsel of the tribes, so it makes some sense for the Chakanai to speak with the monarchy before they do anything to us. Furthermore, I asked him to point out that I'm not technically royalty anymore, and we were simply traveling to the Chakar tribal grounds," she replied, listening to Janak repeat the same ideas.

The Elder seemed to listen up until Janak began explaining what had happened in Chorion City, that Erika was in self-exile and would never be queen. Then, the older man interrupted, cutting down Janak's arguments without waiting to hear the rest of what he had to say. Janak began to raise his voice and Erika cringed, smacking a hand to her forehead in dread and yelling at him telepathically to calm down.

"What happened? What did he say?" Lina asked insistently as they heard chairs scraping against the floor as the two men stood up.

"Great. Just great," Zel moaned. "I didn't think we could trust him to--"

At that moment, the door to the room in which they were imprisoned flew open; the light that poured in blinded everyone temporarily and they recoiled in surprise. The stout frame of the Elder of the Chakanai was silhouetted in the door frame. "Ell'shek! Vachtu feren hraichkr!!" he spat. He threw his arms up in the air and Erika's body wrenched up from the floor. She cried out in shock.

"Hokhten amirr fa tul maklahren, raaf'rakken!" Janak protested, grabbing the Elder's shoulder, but the older man shrugged him off. He gestured with both hands, and Erika floated toward him, her feet dangling a few inches off the floor. He stared up into her face for a moment, his gray eyes smoldering embers. Then he flung her to the floor with such force that she felt her ribs crack in an explosion of pain. She heard the shink of a sword as it was drawn and heard her friends shouting, but she kept her eyes closed as she felt cold steel touch her throat.

His face twisting into a cruel grin, Elder Malikh drew the tip of the weapon along her skin, applying just enough pressure that it created a long, shallow cut. "I can see right through your lies, dishonored one, including those Prince Janak just repeated to me," he said quietly so that everyone could understand, his voice as cold as the blade of his sword. "I have plenty of reasons to kill you right now, but I'll wait just a little longer. I'm a patient man."

Turning, he resheathed his sword and headed toward the door. He stopped in the doorway and threw a disgusted glance at the rest of the room's occupants. Then he looked at Janak, whose left fist was clenching and unclenching as he tried to keep control of himself, kicking himself for letting his anger get the better of him. "My word carries weight with your honored father," he said, again refraining from using Ancient Chorioni so that everyone could understand, "but his word has no power over me. However." He stopped and fingered his beard, giving Janak a hard, calculating look. "I will consult the rest of my tribe, so that no one can claim I did not do the will of my people."

Janak could only watch as the Elder waved a hand and the door closed. As it latched shut, he turned to Malikh and bowed slightly. "[Thank you for your consideration,]" he said formally, although he meant none of it. Inside the room, everyone heard Malikh give orders to a handful of Chakanai soldiers who took up positions by the door just before he led Janak out of the building.

"Erika?" Ameria asked shakily when they heard the Elder leave. "Are you all right?"

Zel and Lina immediately crawled over to her side. She had already started to curl up, hugging her arms close to her chest as she blinked away silent tears. "Erika, talk to us," Lina said firmly, trying to see her face in the dimness.

She drew in a labored breath and whispered, "I think...I think I broke...a rib."

Gourry knelt by her head and brushed some strands of hair that had come loose from her braid away from her face. "We've got to get out of here," he whispered as Ameria joined him. His face was hard, his expression conveying the restrained outrage within him. Getting angry wouldn't take away anyone's injuries, though, nor would it help them figure out a way to escape.

Lina reached out and gently touched the end of the cut on Erika's neck, making sure it wasn't too deep. Blood had welled up from it and was now running along her skin and dripping onto the floor mat beneath her. Grimly, Lina wiped her fingers off on her tunic and nodded. "We have to get past the guards out there before they have the chance to do anything like this again," she said so softly they could barely hear her, nodding down at Erika.

"I'll...be all right," the injured girl said hoarsely.

Ameria reached out and ran her hand along Erika's arm comfortingly. Adrenaline would kick in shortly, hopefully reducing her pain somewhat, but they had to get her to a doctor soon. "What we need is a plan," she said quietly.

"I have an idea," Zelgadiss whispered, looking at the door thoughtfully. "I thought I smelled something familiar when I woke up," he explained, "and I caught a whiff of it when the Elder closed the door. It's gunpowder. I think they may be storing some in this building."

Everyone's eyes widened, even Erika's. "Good nose, Zel," Lina said appreciatively. "Now that we know that, let's get planning."

The massive double doors of Zelas Metallium's throne room parted and Xelloss stepped through, closing them again with a wave of his hand. He had just returned from his patrol around the island, searching the Astral Plane for intruders. It was a nuisance, keeping minor demons with little power and even less brain away from Wolf Pack Island so they could not disturb his master, but he had his orders, and he would follow them. He glanced from side to side as he crossed the room to the throne, his cloak billowing out behind him, and the torches attached to the obsidian pillars flared to life, throwing the room into high relief in a way it rarely was. Unlike Zelas, Xelloss didn't mind the light. He reached his master's throne and threw himself onto it carelessly, draping one leg lazily over an armrest.

Once Deep-Sea Dolphin and Dynast Grausherra had arrived at Wolf Pack Island, Zelas had sealed the three of them in the room she had showed Xelloss earlier, the room that contained the magic circle and the mysterious block of ice that would never melt. Once the seal was complete, the three dark lords had immediately begun whatever it was they were planning to do in there, a task that apparently involved tremendous amounts of power, given the massive amounts of energy that was radiating from there. Every lesser Mazoku around was drawn to this power like a moth to a flame, and he had been kept quite busy driving them away.

He could understand their attraction, though, as the energy emitted from Zelas's focal room could be felt all through the island. Periodically it spiked sharply, glowing like a sunburst visible to all astral beings. Xelloss exhaled slowly, the feeling of it intoxicating even to him. He was glad she had sent away her lesser minions--the waves of power emanating from within her fortress would have sent them into a frenzy, possibly interrupting their overlord at a very sensitive time. He had no idea what she was doing in that room that would generate such energy, but whatever it was, it was big, important, and probably very delicate spellwork.

Lounging back in the throne, the Mazoku priest idly pondered just what it was that the three dark lords were up to. He was used to Zelas's secrecy with her plans, but she had told him next to nothing about this plot, despite its obvious importance. The last time the dark lords of Shaburnigdo collectively made a move toward their destructive goals was the Kouma Sensou, the war in which a piece of Ruby-Eye had been resurrected. Prior to that, the lords had sent their underlings throughout the world, gathering power in the form of hatred, fear, and anger. They had taken preemptive strikes against their enemies, culminating in the destruction of one thousand golden dragons. Xelloss's amethyst eyes darkened at the memory. Actually, Zelas had merely hinted to him at the dragons' plan to bring the humans, elves, and other creatures of the world together to fight the Mazoku, since it would have damaged her to admit lesser beings were capable of putting up a fight against her. She simply let him take care of the details.

Shifting on the black stone throne, Xelloss felt another burst of power from the central room, bringing his thoughts back to the present. Grausherra hadn't been doing much out of the ordinary nowadays except perhaps for a few attacks on some human villages far to the north, near the focal point of his domain. Dolphin had been all but dormant, content, it seemed, with her little corner of the Astral Plane and what chaos she could wreak upon it. It was unlikely, despite the magnitude of power involved in whatever the three dark lords were doing, that they were planning on making a substantive move anytime soon. No, he reasoned, this was more of a beginning, the start of something grandiose and decisive, and he was certain he'd figure out just what was going to happen soon enough.

Xelloss changed position again and lounged a few minutes more, bored. He let his gaze sweep through the room, noting how differently it looked when it was well lit. His purple eyes took in the obsidian pillars that supported the arched ceiling, the table beside him and the empty golden cigarette dish atop it, and the stone tablet hanging on the far wall to the left of the double doors. Having nothing better to do, he stood up and crossed the throne room, his footfalls echoing softly. He stopped before it, studying it casually. It had been there for as long as he could remember, a decoration, Zelas had told him, that had struck her fancy. The characters haphazardly chiseled into it were foreign to him, although he could see a few similarities to a few ancient alphabets he knew. He studied it for a few minutes more, and then, bored once again, he returned to the throne and conjured up a book.

Holding the volume carefully in his gloved hands, he ran a finger over the cracked leather cover. It was so worn the lettering had mostly faded away, but he could still barely make out the name inscribed on its surface. He held it closed for a few minutes, staring at it with uncharacteristic fondness. Finally, shaking his head, he opened it to a yellowed page near the middle and began to read.

He had only gotten about ten pages from where he started, however, when the light in the throne room suddenly intensified. Looking up sharply, the book disappeared and Xelloss rose to his feet, irritation flashing across his face. He thought Grausherra's and Dolphin's minions had been warned, as Zelas's had, to stay away from Wolf Pack Island. To appear in the middle of the Beastmaster's throne room unannounced took some nerve, not to mention more than a little power. Zelas had plenty of surprises planted around her castle to keep out unwanted visitors. So, when he sensed that the glowing orb hovering a few feet off the floor had no Astral body, he guessed right away that this was not a typical kind of visitor. It was merely a projection and, for all it had no face or body, it seemed as astonished to see him as he was to see it.

Xelloss made it a policy to be polite even in the most extenuating circumstances. Smiling and bowing slightly, letting none of his surprise carry though to his voice, he said calmly, "Welcome to Wolf Pack Island. Is there something I can do for you?"

The orb hovered hesitantly; shock seemed to have given way to agitation, and Xelloss found himself marveling at its ability to convey emotion despite its lack of features. From within it, a deep, masculine voice rumbled, "I wish to speak with Beastmaster Zelas Metallium."

No honorific, Xelloss noted--just Beastmaster, her title. Filing that little detail away for later consideration, he kept smiling and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, but you've dropped in at a rather busy time. I have been left with strict orders from my master that she is not to be disturbed."

The orb said nothing at first, eyeing Xelloss critically, it seemed. Finally, it spoke. "Give her this message: I have found what we were looking for, but I still require more time to prepare."

Nodding, Xelloss replied courteously, "Of course. Is there a name I may attach to the message?"

The orb gave a small snort and bobbed once. If it had a head, Xelloss thought, it probably would have shaken it. "No, she knows who I am. Thank you."

And with that, as suddenly as it had come, the orb vanished.

Frowning, Xelloss backed up a few steps and reclaimed his seat on Zelas's throne. "Curious," he murmured to himself, frowning. "Very curious." Whoever it was that had spoken to him through that apparition had to be someone with a fair amount of power. He didn't pretend to know all of Grausherra's or Dolphin's servants; it could have been one or more of them that had created the apparition. Unlike Zelas, not all of the five generals of Shaburanigdo had insisted on perfect courtesy in their underlings, which could explain the lack of honorific after Zelas's name. Something didn't feel right about that, though. Rubbing his chin, Xelloss went through a mental checklist of the Mazoku he had met in the course of his life. Some of Gaav's and Fibrizo's minions were still around; he supposed it could have been one of them. It was true that the destruction of Gaav and Fibrizo had caused a bit of restructuring in the ranks of the Mazoku--there was a fair number of reasonably powerful Mazoku who swore loyalty to no one, and even more that had come to the service of the three remaining dark lords once their masters perished.

Wiping the frown from his face, Xelloss draped his legs over the armrest of the throne, linked his arms behind his head, and rested his back against the other armrest. Whoever had sent that orb, it was another interesting piece of the puzzle, and one that he was fairly certain Zelas had not intended to show him. It gave him a satisfying edge in figuring out the mystery of his master's latest plans. Xelloss grinned. He loved a good mystery.

If his friends' lives weren't on the line, Janak would have been a lot rougher with the people stationed in the room with him to guard him. "[You know,]" he growled, looking up from his seat at the woman positioned by the door, her painted face expressionless, "[I think if my honored father knew about this, he'd be highly offended.]" He gestured over his shoulder at the man behind him who was seated on the floor, his sword resting on the matted floor in front of him, in obvious concentration. The man was maintaining a Chana blockade, a technique that essentially neutered any telepath's ability to send or receive thoughts. The ability was somewhat rare, but highly useful in war and against people who seemed untrustworthy. The fact that the Chakanai were using it against Janak spoke volumes. "[The Orian monarchy is neutral in this war and always has been. You have no right to treat me in this manner,]" he said indignantly.

"[Honored Elder ordered it,]" answered the woman by the door.

"[If you object, take it up with him,]" added the guard to Janak's right, a burly man holding a shakak in his beefy hands.

Janak thumped his elbow down on the table in front of him and then began drumming his fingers against its surface. He had no way of communicating with Erika to make sure they were all right and to plot their escape. They had to do something, since he was absolutely certain he knew what the Chakanai would say when Malikh put Erika’s case to them. Their toughest decision would be how to execute their captives. The Chakanai had all sorts of painful ways to execute prisoners: telekinetically tearing them apart, slowly burning them to death pyrokinetically, or setting them in front of a firing squad of archers and letting them bleed to death, to name a few. They had to get out of there before the Chakanai figured out which particular method to use.

The prince threw an irritated glance over his shoulder at the man maintaining the blockade and drummed his fingers on the tabletop in front of him even harder. Typically, distress signals were sent telepathically, but the Chana blockade precluded him from that and his previous calls for help hadn't been received. It was highly probable that the Chakar Elder and his army had been pinned down somewhere, locked in battle against the Chakanai, and the enemy soldiers had blockaded the whole area to prevent him from calling for reinforcements. Without telepathy, Janak had few potential solutions, and none looked very attractive.

As his mind raced to find other ways to reach the Chakar, he let his gaze sweep over the room, resting on a table along the wall to his left where their weapons and other belongings had been dumped. His sword and axe lay next to Zelgadiss's heavy weapon and Erika's smaller, lighter sword. The short sword Lina had bought in Chorion to replace the one she lost was dwarfed even by Erika's sword; it was barely longer than a knife. Erika's bow and quiver of arrows must have been lost in the ambush; they were nowhere to be found. Gourry's sword lay near the back of the table, and as Janak looked at it, he could feel it trying to drain energy from him. He tore his eyes away from its swirled, jeweled hilt and instead concentrated on the other items on the table: a pile of throwing knives, various specimens of which belonged to Zelgadiss, Erika, or himself, Ameria's pouch, and the strange book that had brought them all on this quest in the first place.

Janak heard the door to the small cabin swing open and he turned to see two guards, followed by Elder Malikh, enter. He rose from his seat quickly and looked at Malikh's smiling face grimly. "[Come,]" the Elder said. "[Your friends are waiting.]"

Reluctantly leaving behind his weapons, he followed the guards. Malikh fell into step behind him. Outside, Janak surveyed the small camp, taking in any details that might prove important later. There were five small cabins plus a larger one, which was currently serving as his friends' prison. The little wooden buildings were arranged in a semicircle around an area of rocky, packed dirt. Scattered in what seemed like no particular pattern around the entire camp were Chakanai soldiers--probably a little less than two hundred, by Janak's reckoning. He knew better than to underestimate them by their seemingly sloppy formation; Chakar and Chakanai soldiers alike rarely lined up in neat rows or columns. Instead, they formed small strike teams of anywhere from four to eight people, and they were assigned to the teams strategically according to their individual affinities. Two soldiers were busy carrying short sections of thick chain through the middle of camp toward the sturdy, old trees that faced the cabins. They stopped before five adjacent trees and dropped one section of chain on the ground by each tree, dumping the extra sections by another tree out of the way. Janak realized immediately this meant. "[A firing squad,]" he murmured.

Malikh, walking calmly behind him, chuckled in a low voice. "[Very observant of you,]" he commented.

"[My honored father won't stand for this,]" Janak said in an equally low voice.

"[He will,]" countered the Elder, his voice filled with underlying meaning, "[or he will risk destroying the delicate balance of power that exists between our two peoples.]"

Janak said nothing in reply--at that moment, there were shouts of confusion from the largest cabin, and several soldiers around the camp ran to their comrades' aid. He could hear the sounds of a scuffle coming from within the building, punctured by Lina's piercing yell and battle cries from Gourry and Ameria. He started toward the cabin, but Malikh grabbed him by the arm and held him back. "[Remember my words, young prince,]" he said calmly.

Janak struggled against the Elder's grip, but for all the older man was shorter and of slighter build, he had plenty of strength, some of which undoubtedly came from the ring he wore on his hand. They kept walking toward the prison-cabin slowly while the Chakanai subdued his friends inside it.

It didn't take long for the scuffle to end; after a minute or two, a young man of about seventeen came running up to the Elder and reported, "[They tried to start the cabin on fire, honored Elder. We put it out before it reached the explosives in the back room.]"

The Elder nodded, ignoring the sharp glance Janak threw in his direction. He didn't remember seeing bombs in the building, but then again he could remember there being a little room next to the one in which his friends were kept, and he hadn't seen the inside of that one. Both tribes rarely used explosives as weapons--they were difficult to make correctly and they drew too much attention from the outside world. If they got out of this alive, Janak thought, he would have to tell Elder Ashri, the leader of the Chakar, all he had seen and heard.

"[Bring them out now,]" Malikh commanded, and the young man bowed and sprinted off. A few minutes later, about fifteen men and women exited the building, lining up loosely in two rows near the door.

Shouting in protest and angry that their plan hadn't worked, Lina appeared in the doorway, her body hovering in the air a few feet off the ground. Two soldiers broke off from the lines near the door and walked her across the open area of packed dirt. Powerless to do anything against them, the little sorceress thrashed and yelled, and a few times the two men had to duck to avoid her fists and feet. They kept her aloft, however, until they reached the row of trees. They set her down with her back to one thick tree trunk. The section of chain lying on the ground rose up of its own accord and wrapped itself around the trunk. The ends of the chain clipped themselves to the metal loops on the cuffs around Lina's wrists. Her ankles still bound, she hopped forward as far as she could, straining against the chain and twisting her wrists in the wild hope that she could break it. She quickly found herself face-to-face with one of the soldiers who had brought her there. From out of nowhere, it seemed, he drew a knife and pressed it to her throat. She stopped moving immediately as he pushed her back against the tree, growling something in his own language.

"Yeah, yeah, it's easy to talk when I'm locked up like this," she replied, her red eyes flashing. "But wait'll I get loose and I can fight fair and square." She grinned dangerously. "You'll be eating that knife outta my hand by the time I'm done."

She didn't know whether he understood her words, but he at least understood her tone, for he stepped back and swiftly cuffed her across her head with his fist. Lina gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. The soldier turned on his heel and marched off, followed by his partner, just as Lina saw Gourry hovering toward her, escorted by two guards in the same manner she had been. She saw his eyes blaze with rage when he saw the guard hit her, but, despite his best efforts, he couldn't break free of the Chakanai telekinetic hold to teach the guard how not to treat a girl.

They put Gourry in front of the tree to Lina's left at the end of the line of trees, stripping his breastplate off and tossing it to the side unceremoniously. Ameria came next; they chained her up two trees to Lina's right. After her came Zelgadiss, who they secured to the tree to Ameria's right. They all thought for a moment that Zel would be able to break the chains with his chimeric strength, but he stopped when a Chakanai guard drew his sword and leveled its tip at Ameria's chest in warning.

Finally, they brought out Erika, who, unlike her friends, put up no fight at all. The assembled Chakanai jeered at her as she floated toward the trees. In the light they could all see clearly the cuts and bruises on her body and that her clothes were stained with blood and dirt. Her cloak had been ripped off at some point in the scuffle in the cabin. She passed by Janak wordlessly, warning him with her eyes to be cautious. He simply nodded slightly.

Once the Chakanai secured Erika to the center tree, making sure to be as rough with her as possible, they backed away while small groups of guards began to distribute bows and quivers of arrows among their ranks. Malikh approached his captives, Janak following quietly behind, his face set as hard as granite. The Elder walked slowly in front of each of them, starting with Lina. He stopped in front of Erika, scrutinizing her with his cold, gray eyes, a half smile tugging at the corner of his mouth at her obvious suffering. Adrenaline had only alleviated the pain a little; each breath she took was excruciating. Malikh kept going until he reached Zelgadiss at the end of the line.

"What is this armor you've witched all over yourself, sorcerer?" he mused more to himself than to Zelgadiss, poking the chimera in the chest. Zel merely glared at him. Malikh turned and called a few of the soldiers over by name. They must have been student fighters, Zel realized, since they seemed barely fourteen years old and their tunics had a simple embroidered insignia along the collar, as opposed to the complicated designs on the older soldiers' uniforms. Their face paint was of a simpler design, too. As soon as they reached Zelgadiss, staring at him in wide-eyed apprehension and disgust, Malikh spoke to them in Ancient Chorioni too softly for Erika or Janak to hear. After a moment, the Elder turned to Zel and chuckled mirthlessly. "One of my young students wishes to know how we are to pierce your skin with our arrows, since it seems too thick."

Zel's eyes widened as the older man produced an ordinary small knife from the sleeve of his robe; its blade flared brightly with energy. Before anyone could blink, the Elder drove the weapon into the muscle of Zel's left upper arm.

"Zelgadiss-san!!" Ameria cried.

"You bastard!!" Lina spat almost at the same time as Gourry.

Erika gritted her teeth and growled furiously, "I won't forgive you for that."

Zel grit his teeth but showed no other sign of pain, however. "Don't worry," he said defiantly to his friends, glaring at Malikh venomously, "it's just a scratch."

Pulling the knife from Zel's arm and tossing it to the ground carelessly, he turned to the young apprentice soldiers, ignoring the chimera's words. "[There, you see? Just infuse the blade with a little Chana--that's all you need to do. It should slice right through.]" He grinned cruelly, gestured to all of the soldiers waiting with readied bows barked some instructions to them. They responded simultaneously, "She'eh!" and began to line up a comfortable distance from their targets.

Satisfied, Malikh shooed the children behind the line of archers and walked back toward the center of the line, beckoning Janak toward him. He glanced at a man in the line of archers and said something to him telepathically. As the man came forward, Janak caught Erika's eyes, his expression telling her better than even telepathy could what he had planned.

"Now, young prince," Malikh said, taking the bow from the man he had called and telekinetically pulling an arrow from the man's quiver, "I think a demonstration of your neutrality in this war is in order." He nudged him with the bow, forcing it into the young man's hands, at the same time repeating what he just said in Ancient Chorioni for those who only understood that. Gesturing to Erika with a smile, he said calmly, "Shoot her, and I will know that the Orians have not chosen to side against my tribe."

There was a collective gasp from the five chained to the trees; even Erika took a deep breath and closed her eyes, wincing from the effort of it and the pain it caused in her broken ribs. There was a long, silent pause as Janak looked down at the bow, his green eyes narrowed to slits, apparently considering the Elder's words. Finally, he wordlessly lifted the bow and strung the arrow to it, aiming straight for Erika's chest.

"J-Janak...you couldn't possibly..." Ameria began, but trailed off in shock as he didn't respond. Everyone else was too stunned to say anything at all.

The prince didn't reply. He pulled the arrow back and held it there, closing one eye and focusing on his target. The tip of the arrowhead gleamed in the sunlight as he infused it with just a touch of Chana. It was too little to be sensed by the Chakanai around him, but enough so that any teleporter looking for a beacon would find it. At the same time, he swiftly gathered all his power until his mind hummed with it. A heartbeat before Elder Malikh realized what he was about to do, Janak released the arrow and all his energy at the same time.

The arrow leapt from his bow and surged toward Erika, but screeched to a halt as the ground around Janak's feet lit up in a circle. The light exploded upward, forming a pillar of dazzlingly white energy, engulfing the prince within it. Like the arrow, everything else around him also froze, unable to move as reality and time itself came unglued. Janak could see Malikh out of the corner of his eye and grinned internally at the look of shock on the older man's face. Most Chakar and Chakanai knew the main affinities of the Orian royal family and had assumed Janak's was telepathy, like his father. What they didn't know was that his powers of telepathy were merely average; his strongest affinity was something far rarer: the ability to separate a limited geographical area from the flow of time.

Janak was counting on them not knowing it. The energy released from disrupting time provided the perfect distress signal-- a pillar of light, visible even against the daytime sky for hundreds of miles. It was an enormous amount of power--it took everything he had to maintain the disruption. The longer he held on to it, the better his chances were that the Chakar would see it, find his beacon, and rescue them. If they have the forces to spare, he thought worriedly.

But he couldn't keep it up forever, not with Malikh around. It took a few minutes, which hung in the air like hours, but the older man was able to fight back against the effects of Janak's Chana enough to slowly, excruciatingly slowly, put out a hand and touch the column of light.

The second his fingers came into contact with the light, the world seemed to be thrown violently into fast forward. The arrow screamed toward Erika but changed direction just slightly at her mental command. It glanced off the tree mere inches from her head and sailed off into the forest. At the same time, Chakanai soldiers piled on top of Janak, subduing him without much of a fight, for the prince had expended too much energy to fight back against their Chana. Other Chakanai warriors began appearing out of nowhere near the edge of the little camp, abandoning the siege they were maintaining on a Chakar outpost elsewhere in the forest to investigate the tower of light and provide backup. Everyone was shouting, including the five captives; Erika yelling Janak's name with the rest of them either doing the same or demanding an explanation as to what just happened. The scene was one of barely controlled chaos and within moments, it rose to a fever pitch until Malikh's voice rang out above the noise, "[SILENCE!!]"

Everyone, including Malikh's captives, stopped shouting at the sound of his command. Swiftly, he began barking orders to his troops, both telepathically and out loud in Ancient Chorioni. The Chakanai troops resumed their positions around the camp and the newly arrived soldiers joined them while the pile of people who had tackled Janak began to disperse.

Lina, Gourry, Zel, and Ameria all turned and looked at Erika, wide-eyed, as two men seized a pale and shaken Janak. "What was that?" Ameria asked.

"What the hell just happened?!" Lina demanded.

"Not now," the former princess replied, nodding in Malikh's direction.

"Don't tell me 'not now!'" Lina bit back. "I want to know--"

"So," the Elder began loudly, stepping in front of Janak and peering into his face with satisfaction. The prince struggled a little against the men holding him, but not much. He looked shockingly exhausted, like he hadn't slept in days, too tired to even glare at Malikh's grinning face. In fact, Zel realized, he looked as worn out as Erika had been after their first battle against her uncle Rolard. "So," Malikh repeated, "we Chakanai now know where the Kingdom of Orios stands, not to mention your strongest weapon. You made a very foolish move for their sake, and now you will die with them." He nodded to the soldiers, who immediately dragged Janak toward the edge of the settlement.

As they chained Janak to a tree near Zelgadiss, the chimera watched, his eyes narrowed. When they finished and stepped back, he murmured, "That was a pretty little display. I thought for a second there it might have actually accomplished something."

Janak, who had sagged against the tree as soon as they shoved him up against it, let out a ragged breath and looked at Zel from beneath his bushy eyebrows. He gave a small snort and managed a wry grin. "Shut up, Zelgadiss," he said as amicably as he could muster.

Malikh reassembled the line of archers and turned to his captives when he finished with his orders. "Everything is in place. Now, it's time for you to die." He stepped behind the line of archers. "Fa'hret! Kekuret!" The archers raised their bows and took aim.

"Eeeeerikaaaaaa..." Lina said in a low voice, throwing a nervous look to her right. "There's got to be something you can do to stop this--we're completely helpless, here," she said insistently.

"Erika?" Ameria said with a gulp. Erika was staring ahead resolutely, her face set. "Tell us you're going to do something..." Ameria trailed off.

"Too late," Erika simply murmured in reply.

"What?!" Zel and Gourry exclaimed.

"Lla-SHAH!" Elder Malikh cried and a chorus of arrows, some of them glowing with enough Chana energy to pierce Zel's skin, whistled through the air. Ameria shrieked; Lina and Gourry gave twin gasps. Zel just gritted his teeth, unable to believe this could really be the end of them all.

Then a white wall flashed in front of them so suddenly that Ameria shrieked again. The arrows bounced off it, mere feet away from their targets, and clattered to the ground. Four heads snapped to Erika, but she was looking to her right, her expression suspended between fear and relief.

Silence hung in the air for a microsecond as a child of about fourteen, dressed completely in white, stepped out from between the trees to which Erika and Ameria were chained, her hands outstretched and her eyes closed. Four others stepped out at the same time from between the other trees. Before any of the captives could comprehend what was happening, a deafening chorus of war cries erupted behind them. Running around the giant barrier that separated the six trees from the Chakanai, a new troop of soldiers clad in patchy green uniforms began to stream into the camp, weapons raised and ready.

For all the Chakanai were caught off guard, they sprang into action within seconds, weapons raised to meet the oncoming invaders. Janak gave a triumphant whoop that sounded very similar to the war cries that were filling the camp along with the sound of clashing steel.

"The Chakar?" Ameria shouted over the noise to Janak. He nodded, his face split in a wide grin.

The six captives had no time to watch the battle unfold. Several men and women clad in the same green uniforms stepped around the children maintaining the barrier and approached them. At the same time, each child was joined by an adult, similarly dressed in white; all of them held their hands out in front of them steadily. The barrier became a filmy, translucent white as it stretched upward and behind the trees, encapsulating both captives and rescuers inside. Several Chakanai attacked it with shakaks or bursts of energy, but it held soundly.

A woman with a red insignia embroidered on her collar approached Erika and made a hasty bow. She spoke rapidly in Ancient Chorioni and Erika replied, nodding in Zelgadiss's direction. The woman turned to a dark-haired woman behind her; this one had a pattern embroidered on her collar in white thread. Without hesitation, the dark-haired one rushed to Zelgadiss and began to tear his blood-soaked sleeve away from the knife wound in his arm. In the meantime, the woman with the red insignia was joined by two men, one of whom was around Gourry's age while the other was much older. They held Erika's shoulders gently while the woman did something to the cuffs around her wrists and ankles that her friends couldn't see. There was a loud popping sound, and Erika slumped to the ground. The woman left the two men, who Lina and Gourry guessed were healers, to tend to Erika's injuries, and she approached Lina swiftly.

"Arkhten shumia--" She interrupted herself quickly as Lina shook her head, indicating she didn't understand her words. Holding a hand out in front of her, she motioned for Lina to stand still.

"I'm staying," Lina assured her hastily as the woman lifted her wrists and touched the metal cuffs around them with a finger. "What are you--" she started to ask, but wasn't able to finish her question. There was a flash of light and a loud pop and she turned her head away reflexively. The next second, she felt the cuffs fall away from her hands. She looked down, impressed. Her wrists were tingling with energy, but while the metal cuffs now lying on the ground looked scorched, her hands were unscathed.

The Chakar woman did the same thing to the cuffs around her ankles, then went over to Gourry and quickly freed his wrists and feet as well. Lina noticed a tall, imposing, dark-haired man who also had red embroidery along his collar unlocking Ameria's cuffs and then Zelgadiss's in the same way. Once he was done, he bowed to Janak, whom he had freed first, and Janak bowed back. The man disappeared and Janak leaned against Erika's tree, looking weary but relieved.

Gourry, meanwhile, thanked the woman with the red insignia and rushed over to Lina's side. The woman said something to one of the adults maintaining the protective shield, and then ran through it to join the battle. A Chakanai soldier attacked the filmy white field right after she exited it, but it remained as solid as a brick wall.

Lina and Gourry arrived at Janak's side to watch the two Chakar men as they held their hands over Erika, healing her ribs as she lay prone on the forest floor. "Janak, just what did you do a few minutes ago? You never said you could do anything like that," Lina pointed out, eyeing him shrewdly.

"And are we safe behind this thing?" Gourry asked, jerking a thumb toward the Chana wall separating them from the war zone beyond. It wasn't that he didn't trust Janak or the Chakar, but Gourry never felt completely secure entrusting his safety to something as abstract as a magical--or Chana, for that matter--wall.

Janak nodded. "Absolutely safe," he replied. "These people are experts in shields like this--don't let the kids' age fool you. They all have a strong affinity for telekinesis and they've all been trained to put it to use this way." He stopped when he heard a small whimper coming from Erika and looked down at her in concern.

Just then, Ameria came up to join them, Zelgadiss at her side. The dark-haired healer woman had disappeared as soon as she finished with Zel's arm. He was bending and straightening it, examining the thin line that was now the only evidence that he had been wounded.

"Please answer Lina-san's question, Janak," the little princess said, planting her fists on her hips and looking at him reproachfully. "I really thought you were going to shoot Erika."

"Ah..." Janak brought his left hand up and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, throwing a sidelong glance at Zelgadiss. "That was...well, let's say it was my distress signal." Zel stopped moving his arm and looked at the prince sharply, then away quickly with a scowl. Janak pushed himself off the tree he had been leaning against and explained. "You see, I haven't told many people about my strongest affinity except my family and Erika. It's very rare and shouldn't be used often, partly because of its effects and partly because it drains me of most of my energy. It's difficult to explain, but I can temporarily separate a limited area in the physical world from the flow of time."

Everyone stared at him, blinking in surprise. "Huh," Lina said, impressed, after a second.

"Aaaaaah!" came Erika's sharp, pain-filled cry before they could comment on that further. Everyone jumped; Lina and Gourry bent over to see her better so quickly they almost bumped heads.

Ameria quickly knelt by Erika's side, looking at her with helpless concern. "Erika! Will she be all right?" she asked the healers worriedly.

The older one nodded. "When we force bones to knit so quickly," he explained in heavily accented speech, "it can be very painful for the patient. But we have no choice; they can only maintain the Chana barrier for another few minutes." He nodded toward the group of children and adults dressed in white. The strain was beginning to show on the younger ones' faces; their eyes were closed tightly as they fought to concentrate. They had moved closer, lessening the amount of space they had to defend.

"We'd better get ready," Gourry said. He quickly returned to his tree and collected his breastplate from where it had been dropped by the Chakanai soldiers.

"They're going to need help," Janak said, sizing up the battle that was raging beyond the barrier. The scene was completely chaotic. Battles between people with Chana were different than any other kind of battle; people were disappearing and reappearing in the blink of an eye while others were locked in combat in mid air. At the same time, everyone had to watch out for misaimed bolts of Chana energy, which were flying around like bullets. Blades clashed with a ferocity unmatched in typical combat; telekinesis made even the smallest warrior a force to be reckoned with, especially those armed with heavy shakaks. Many soldiers carried them, but Janak saw a variety of other weapons being used on the battlefield, including swords, axes, and throwing knives. Chakar and Chakanai archers alike had positioned themselves in the trees, trying to pick off their respective enemies with Chana-charged arrows. But what made this battle, and all battles like it different, Janak knew, was the fact that there was a noticeable lack of dead bodies strewn throughout the camp. The fighting was fierce, but because of their special abilities, few Chakar or Chakanai died in combat. The Chakar were still outnumbered, though, from what Janak could tell. He estimated about one hundred fifty troops on the Chakar side, compared to over two hundred for the Chakanai, with more enemy soldiers streaming into the camp every minute.

"I'm ready to give these guys a taste of their own medicine," Lina said, looking up at Janak with a dangerous gleam in her ruby eyes as she cracked her knuckles. "What are we waiting for?"

"Me," said Erika weakly. She winced as Ameria and the two healers helped her sit up. Janak was at her side in a second. He held out a hand and she took it, pulling against him as she rose from the ground.

"We were worried," he said quietly, holding on to her hand a little longer than was really necessary.

"I was worried. But your plan was ingenious--it saved us all," Erika replied, smiling up at him as she extracted her hand from his. "I'm so sorry this happened to all of you," she said, her gaze traveling over her friends' faces.

Gourry waved a hand as if to dismiss her apology. "It wasn't your fault."

"I'm just glad everyone's all right," Ameria chimed in.

"Thank you," Erika said softly, grateful for her friends' loyalty. She turned to Zelgadiss, eyeing his blood-soaked shirt, and winced sympathetically. "I'm sorry about that in particular, Zelgadiss. Are you all right?"

The chimera shrugged. "It's fine now," he said nonchalantly.

"What about you, Erika?" Ameria asked, stepping quickly to her side. Erika was pale and she moved a little stiffly, but the sickening look of pain in her eyes was gone, replaced with something else--a sense of purpose. She nodded reassuringly and turned to the healers to thank them in Ancient Chorioni. They spoke for a few seconds, until, with a wave, they disappeared.

For the first time, one of the adults maintaining the shield, a thin man in his early thirties, called something out to Erika. His words were short and clipped, and they all got the message, even though four of them couldn't understand the language. This was no time for pleasantries; the shield wouldn't be there much longer.

"We need our weapons and the book back," Gourry said as he buckled on his breastplate. "Any ideas as to where they put them?"

Janak turned and pointed to one of the small cabins on the other side of camp from where they were. "They're in there. I could try to teleport some of you there--"

"No," Erika said firmly. She reached up and tilted his chin downward, looking at his face intently. "You're drained, I can see it in your eyes." She released him and said heavily, "We'll have to fight our way across. It's probably a bad idea for all of us to go--we'll be easily spotted. Two or three of us should be enough to slip through the battle. The rest should stick around here with Janak."

"I'll go," Zel volunteered.

"Gourry and I will stay," Lina said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the swordsman and grinning recklessly. "I want to show all of them just what happens to people who mess with Lina Inverse."

"Erika," Janak said insistently, catching the torn remains of her sleeve, "you're doing this the hard way. Just concentrate on my axe." She furrowed her brow as he looked at her meaningfully, but then she smacked her fist against her palm in understanding.

"Clever, Janak, very clever," she said with a slow smile.

"What's clever?" Ameria asked.

Erika turned to her. "Looks like I can take us directly there. Are you coming?" Ameria nodded. "Then let's go." She held out a hand to the dark-haired princess and the other to Zel.

"I don't understand, you just said you couldn't do this, but now you can?" Zel asked, but Erika was busy giving the people still maintaining the shield instructions.

As soon as they were acknowledged, she said, "All right, we're ready. Be on your guard, just in case there's someone in the room waiting for us." Glancing over her shoulder at Janak, she said quietly, "Be careful."

"We will," he replied, his expression more confident than his body language, an observation that didn't escape Erika. He turned to Lina and Gourry, sizing them up quickly. Gourry was a world-class swordsman, but he had no idea how well Lina could fight without magic. "Stay close to me. I'll cover us as much as I can with Chana, but I don't have much energy left. This could get ugly."

Gourry nodded grimly and glanced down at Lina, as if to tell him to protect her first. Janak nodded back without Lina noticing; she was too busy peering around the battlefield in search of discarded weapons. "C'mon guys, let's go! They're just waiting for me to make mincemeat outta them!" she said, with her typical evil grin. Gourry took it as a good sign that through all of this, she had kept her spirit up.

With that, Janak nodded to the people holding up the shield. One of them started counting down in Ancient Chorioni. Ten seconds later, the shield and the ones maintaining it disappeared. They were now in the thick of battle.

Still bewildered as to how she could take them someplace she had never been before, Zel and Ameria held on to Erika's hands as the world shifted and faded into indiscriminate blurry shapes. They phased back into the physical world a heartbeat later, and instantly Erika dropped their hands and stepped into a fighting stance. Fortunately, the room was empty. It was a plain room with a bare, wooden table and a chair alongside it. Two glassless windows leaked light and the raucous sounds of the battle going on outside. Erika threw out a hand and the curtains that hung on either side of the windows snapped closed. She turned and discovered a little table behind her that contained their belongings. Picking up Janak's axe, she quickly explained to Zel and Ameria, "Normally, it's unsafe to teleport somewhere you haven't been before. Not only that, but it's difficult to find the place you want to teleport to without some prior knowledge of it. A beacon, though, can help overcome some of that difficulty. It's still not safe, but it's safer. Safer than trying to cross that battlefield out there."

"Makes sense," Zel said.

"All right, let's get everything and get out of here," Erika said, turning to the table. She reached out a hand to start passing out weapons, but recoiled sharply.

"What is it?" Ameria asked quickly, looking up at Erika with concern.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Erika pointed at the golden broadsword on the table. "That...sword. I can't even look at it without it draining me..."

Zel and Ameria exchanged a glance. The chimera reached out and touched the sheath experimentally, then pulled his hand away quickly. "I think its power has gotten stronger. I don’t know how Gourry controls it," he said, respect evident in his voice.

"Someone has to grab it. I can't--" Suddenly, Erika opened her eyes and gasped. Her sword flew from the table to her hand as she shouted, "Incoming!"

Before she had even finished the word, two Chakanai soldiers appeared in the room, one a tall, burly man and the other a shorter, stouter one. The big one was no more than three feet away from Erika; as soon as he saw her, he swung the shakak in his hands with a shout. She ducked and rolled, leading him away from Ameria. Zelgadiss wasn't so lucky; the shorter man appeared behind him and managed to clobber him with the flat of his axe using telekinesis to strengthen the blow. The chimera was sent sprawling across the floor. As he fell, something small and blue flew out of a pocket in his cloak and landed on the matted floor not far from his head.

"Zelgadiss-san!" Ameria shrieked. She grabbed Lina's short sword from the table and held it up in front of her in desperation. The man turned, thinking he had taken Zel down, and swung his axe at her, connecting with the still sheathed weapon and knocking it from her small hands. She stepped back, unsure of what to do without her magic. The man swung again with an unintelligible war cry and Ameria barely dodged it. Using her smaller frame to her advantage, she stepped to the man's side faster than he could follow and threw her leg out in a high roundhouse kick to his shoulder. He took the blow with barely a grunt and raised the axe again, unfazed. He took a step closer, his weapon poised to strike, but suddenly stumbled and fell forward. Ameria leapt out of his way reflexively. As he fell, she saw Lina's sword embedded in his back and Zelgadiss standing where the man had been a few seconds before. He threw her one of his patented smirks and stepped over to the fallen man to retrieve Lina's weapon, which he tucked into his belt once he cleaned it off on the man's tunic.

Meanwhile, Erika had drawn her sword, still holding on to the sheath with her left hand. She deflected intense shakak blows with the blade, concentrating more on staying on her toes than on forcing her opponent back. The soldier would have none of it though; he spun and threw a kick in her direction, which she dodged, but followed it with a vicious swipe with the scythe-shaped blade of the shakak. Forced to drop the sheath, Erika brought her sword to bear against it with both hands, throwing the full weight of her Chana behind her block. The blades locked and Erika and the taller man came face-to-face, eyes narrowed and teeth gritted in concentration. Then Erika sensed something that almost ended the battle in tragedy--another soldier was about to appear right behind the spot in which Ameria was standing. "Ameria!!" Erika screeched, at the same time breaking the lock with the soldier in front of her. He took advantage of this distraction, tearing her sword from her hands with his weapon and, in the same movement, sweeping her legs out from under her with his foot. She went down with a shriek of surprise.

Zel saw the soldier behind Ameria phase in just as he saw another one begin to appear off to his right and did the only thing he could think of. Grabbing Ameria around her waist, he swung her away from the woman who had just appeared behind her mere heartbeats before the woman would have sliced her head off. Using Ameria's momentum to his advantage, he spun in a half circle and Ameria's boot connected with the temple of the man who had just appeared to Zel's right. The Chakanai man stopped in mid-step, stunned. Dropping Ameria quickly, he lunged past the Chakanai woman's glowing blade--apparently she had been watching Malikh's demonstration of how to break his stony skin. He managed to grab a throwing knife off the little table and flicked it at her; it was misaimed, but it did the trick. The second she moved to evade it, he was ready with a rock solid punch to the side of her head. She went down with a groan. By then, the stunned man recovered from Ameria's blow. He threw himself at Zel, who stepped aside, grabbing his wrist and wrenching it behind him as he moved past. The man cried out and dropped his sword. Without hesitation, Zel shoved his knee into the man's stomach and bopped him on the head with his fist. He, took, went down with a groan.

Erika rolled first left, then right to avoid the large Chakanai soldier's shakak blade as he tried to slash her with it. Desperately, she threw out her hand and called Janak's sword to her. The man brought his blade down again but she held the sheathed sword out horizontally to block the strike. Scrambling to her feet, she tore the sheath from the sword and traded blows once, twice, three times. The fourth time, she ducked the heavy weapon completely; he lunged at her but she disappeared, reappearing directly behind him and hovering a foot off the ground so she could reach his head better. Before he could turn, she brought the hilt of Janak's sword down decisively with both hands, knocking the big man unconscious. He collapsed to the matted floor and Erika landed next to him, calling Janak's sheath toward her with her Chana. She slid the weapon into it and dashed over to Zel and Ameria, relieved that both were all right.

Ameria had her fists balled and pressed against her face in suspense by the time Zel was done with the two soldiers. When they were safe, she put her hands down and flashed him a relieved V sign with her fingers. To her surprise, he flashed her one in return. After being so helpless against the Chakanai before being rescued, it felt good for both of them to be able to put up a fight against such powerful people.

"We have to get out of here," Erika said, panting, calling her own sword and sheath to her at the same time. Her smaller weapon sheathed itself in mid air and floated to her hand as she stepped over the fallen Chakanai bodies. "They know we're here, and it won't be long before they surround the place." She laid Janak's on the table temporarily while she clipped her sword to her belt.

"Then let's go," Ameria said. She picked up her purse and began to reattach it to her belt.

"Can you keep the book in there?" Zel asked, holding out the ancient volume. She nodded and tucked it inside the bright pink bag.

"I'll take Gourry-san's sword too," Ameria offered, lifting the heavy weapon from the table with both hands and stepping away from the table, wincing as she felt it trying to suck energy out of her. She didn't protest, though; someone had to carry it back to Gourry. Zelgadiss took his sword from the table and clipped it to his belt while Erika grabbed Janak's axe.

Then, Erika began sorting the pile of throwing knives on the table, Zel at her side. "Mine, yours, yours, Janak's, mine, Janak's, Janak's, yours..." she murmured, her hands flying through the pile of small, sheathed blades. Once they were separated, she hastily tucked hers into various hiding places in her clothes along with as many of Janak's as she could carry. Zel's mostly went into his remaining sleeve, with the exception of two that he placed in hidden slots in his boots. She passed Janak's sword to him to hold on to while she teleported them all out.

"Ready," Erika said, holding out her hands for Zel and Ameria while trying not to look at the golden sword. Ameria couldn't hold it in one hand without dropping it, so Erika placed her hand on her shoulder and extended the other one to Zelgadiss.

The chimera hesitated, however. "Wait," he said, his expression turning thoughtful for a second.

"We don't have time, they're going to surround this place in another minute," Erika said insistently, leaning over to grab his hand. She was beginning to feel the presence of many minds around the little cabin; it was only a matter of time before the Chakanai set up a blockade that would effectively trap them inside.

Zel avoided her grasp, a smirk building on his stony face. "I have an idea." He leaned in closer and explained his idea to an impatient Erika and Ameria. By the time he was finished, though, they weren't as impatient.

Wide-eyed, Erika nodded. "I can do that--you'll just have to let me monitor your mind so I know when to bring you back," she said uncertainly. Zel shrugged, handed her Janak's sword, and took a step back. "If you're sure..." she trailed off.

"I'm sure," he replied. "Now hurry--you're the one who said we don't have much time."

Reluctantly, Erika released Ameria's shoulder and held out a hand. The next second, he disappeared, leaving the two girls behind in the little cabin.

Ameria looked up at Erika anxiously. "Do you think it will work?" she asked, laying Gourry's sword on the ground to relieve her arms of the strain of holding it.

Making sure not to look at the sword, Erika nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "They're sure to get a bang out of it," she said. Ameria groaned, but didn't have time to protest the bad pun; at that second, an arrow sliced through the curtains covering one of the windows and embedded itself in the wooden wall not far from where the two girls stood. Ameria yelped and Erika threw up a hand, dropping Janak's sword. The walls around them flashed white once--she put up a shield around the entire building.

Zelgadiss was immediately on guard as soon as he materialized inside the cabin in which they had been kept prisoner. Like the other cabin, though, this one seemed to be empty as well. The little prison room looked dark and smelled musty, but there was another hint of a smell he recognized. He glanced around, noting the scorch marks on the mats where they had tried to start the place on fire. His eyes adjusting to the dimness, he sniffed the air once, and then headed out the door.

He came into the common room and stopped. There, off to his left, was another small room. Quickly, he reached the door and threw it open. "Just as I thought, gunpowder," he murmured, and entered. His aqua eyes traveled the contents of the room, scanning the rolls of wire and the small bundles of explosives they connected to. He knelt down and grabbed a wire that was coiled near one of the bundles. He uncoiled it and dashed back into the prison room, leaving the wire as a trail behind him. "That should give us enough time," he said to himself.

Then he returned to the smaller room and selected a few bundles, cradling them in the crook of his left arm. Mere seconds later, he was back in the prison room. He put the bundles in his arm down a good distance away and then pulled a flint out of a hidden pocket in his cloak. Rolling up his sleeve to expose his wrist, he struck the flint against his skin, sending sparks onto the wire that lay on the ground. He repeated this until sparks began traveling down the wire, and quickly retrieved the extra bundles. "Okay, Erika, I'm ready," he said, looking up toward the ceiling. He felt the faintest brush against his mind, as if someone had gently touched the top of his head, and then reality disintegrated into meaningless colors and shapes.

As Erika waited with Ameria for Zelgadiss's signal, she struggled to maintain the shield around the cabin, cringing every time the Chakanai attacked it. "Can you hold it long enough?" Ameria asked desperately, cringing each time Erika did.

"I...don't know," Erika replied, her eyes squeezed shut in concentration.

"Oh, hurry, Zelgadiss-san," Ameria said, looking from one window to the other anxiously. The curtains remained closed but she could see faint shapes of people trying to get in through them, shouting their horrible war cries.

A long minute crept by until Erika's eyes flew open. "He's ready," she whispered, and held out her free hand. Ameria stepped back, watching as Zelgadiss appeared a few feet in front of her.

"Thank goodness," Ameria said, relieved. She followed Zel as he went to one corner of the room, depositing a bundle of explosives there, avoiding the Chakanai bodies strewn around. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asked him, eyeing the bundle nervously.

"Quite," Zel replied, sparing a glance in her direction. "I told you a while ago, Rezo experimented with gunpowder. It's not as strong as magic, but in a pinch..." He crossed the room to another corner and placed another bundle there. Ameria stepped in front of him to watch, but bent down when she noticed something blue out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh," she said, holding the little blue ball up, "it's my other bracelet."

Zel looked up at her sharply. "How did you get that?"

"It was on the floor," Ameria replied, straightening and showing it to him.

He looked at it for a second, and then swept past Ameria to place another set of explosives on the floor. "It's yours, of course," he said indifferently.

"No, it's not," Ameria said, following him. He turned, looking at her questioningly, and she placed it in his hand. "I told you before I returned home that you can give it back when you come to Saillune."

Zel closed his hand around the bracelet and stuffed it into his pants pocket, clearing his throat in the process. He whirled around, hiding the pink that tainted his cheeks.

"Can we hurry this up?" Erika called gruffly, now holding two hands in the air above her head, her face twisted in concentration. "This shield isn't going to last forever!"

Ameria returned to the middle of the room while Zel gathered the wires protruding from the bundles in the corners. Repeating the same trick he used in the other cabin, he struck a flint against his wrist and lit the wires. "Get ready," Erika warned them. "I'm going to send up a warning flare that only the Chakar should be able to see. Then I'm getting us out of here."

As soon as Zel was finished, Erika held up a finger and a small, translucent ball of energy appeared above it. She snatched it out of the air and threw it straight up. The ceiling rippled as the ball passed through it, evidence that her shield was still holding. Zel grabbed Janak's weapon and Ameria, Gourry's, and Erika took hold of Zel's hand and Ameria's shoulder. Instantly, the wooden cabin faded into a brown blur.

Gourry ducked the flashing broadsword of a Chakanai soldier, bringing his fist up to bear against the man's chin. He followed that up with a knee to the stomach and let Janak take care of the rest, blasting the man back with a burst of energy from his hand. Lina hovered at Gourry's side, wielding a pair of slightly curved blades that were really no more than long knives that she had picked up off of a dead Chakar woman--one of the few dead on the battlefield. Her typical style of taking challengers head on wouldn't work in this case, she knew. Instead, she hid behind Gourry, darting out around him to slash at his opponents while they were busy fending off the big swordsman.

But it was still a mostly fruitless effort, both Lina and Gourry knew. Gourry had already pointed out several times that the two of them were really no match for the Chakanai soldiers, even the smallest and youngest of them. If it weren't for Janak at their side, doing his best to prevent them from being blown apart by Chana energy bursts or sliced in two by Chakanai weapons with his Chana shielding, they would have been dead. It was rather like fighting the Mazoku, Lina realized. She had no doubt she had just as much will to fight and win as any soldier in the little encampment, but the type of power she knew was completely different and completely incompatible with the type of power she faced. Just as most magic wouldn't hurt a Mazoku, even if they were in a place in which the Astral Plane existed, her magic would be mostly useless against these people. What was disturbing was that, like the Mazoku, the Chakar and Chakanai alike had power that was completely unstoppable except by their own kind. Lina swallowed against that thought and readied her borrowed blades, keeping her back close to the tree against which she had been chained. "What's taking them so long?" she demanded of Janak, sparing a glance at the prince to her right.

Janak held a sword-calloused hand out and sent a short blast of energy racing toward a woman who was heading straight for them, shakak in both hands. A nearby Chakar man intercepted her as she dodged the blast, drawing her off. He shook his head, flicking a few strands of his disheveled sandy hair away from his eyes. "They should--wait." He furrowed his brow and then jumped to the side quickly, almost crushing Lina's foot with his own. "Here they come," he said, relief evident on his dirt-streaked face.

At that instant, Zelgadiss, Ameria, and Erika teleported in, immediately on guard for attackers. "What took you so long?!" Lina demanded, waving one of her knives in Erika's face.

"Whoa!" Erika ducked the blade, holding her hands out in a placating gesture. "Lina, Lina calm down, please! It's not our fault!" She threw a hapless glance at Zel and Ameria.

With a huff of disgust, Zel grabbed Lina by her shoulder guard and whirled her around. "No time to explain," he growled.

"We need to get out of here," Janak agreed, taking his sword from Zel. He covered everyone while Lina also took her sword from Zel and Janak collected his axe from Erika.

"What about these?" Lina asked, holding up the dead Chakar woman's weapons.

"Keep them," Janak instructed. "The woman's family will be honored that you carried them into battle in her memory." Lina fastened the blades to her belt hastily using the thick cords that had been woven around the sheaths.

Meanwhile, Ameria handed Gourry his broadsword. Instantly, she felt as if a giant weight had been lifted from her shoulders; she shook her head to fight a wave of dizziness that hit her as soon as she let the sword go. Gourry took hold of the swirled hilt with barely a reaction. He reattached it to his belt, looking down sternly at it, although Ameria thought she saw a strange glimmer in his eyes as he did so.

All of this took a few seconds. "Let's go," Erika directed, and the other five turned and followed her out of the Chakanai camp and into the woods.

"Where are we going?" Ameria called as she ran right on Erika's heels.

"To find a teleporter, someone who can take us to the Chakar camp," she shouted back over her shoulder. Glancing at Zel to her left, she asked more quietly, "Do you think it worked?"

"What worked?" Gourry said, running alongside Ameria.

Suddenly, a huge explosion of heat and sound rocked the forest. Everyone gasped as the ground shook with the force of the detonation coming from the camp. Zel grinned triumphantly and Ameria cheered. Another smaller explosion, which sounded more like the crack of a log in the fire in comparison to the other, echoed amid the trees. Lina reached forward as she ran and grabbed his cloak. He turned but didn't stop running. "Is that what she was talking about?" the little sorceress demanded.

Still grinning, Zel reached behind and removed her hand from his cloak. "You're not the only one who enjoys blowing things up," he said, obviously pleased with himself.

As they ran, they heard others behind them; those Chakar who couldn't teleport themselves were running into the woods after them, chased by the Chakanai. Apparently they had decided to use the explosions to cover their retreat. "Over there, Erika," Janak said from the back of the group. He pointed ahead and to the right and they veered off in that direction. Chakanai arrows whistled through the air after them; as he ran, Janak turned and flicked a knife at an archer that had just appeared in a tree alongside them. The blade sprouted from her leg and she disappeared with a cry.

People were scattered in the forest, each of them holding up a hand that apparently indicated that they were the teleporters Erika had spoken of. As they approached one of them, a slender young man of about twenty, Erika started barking out orders in Ancient Chorioni. "Archten lladu hra'chnir! F'tul mi'hren k'sheh tol dakar Erika rarek'ken vol'hr na!"

The young man looked surprised, and began shouting back at her. She shook her head violently as they slowed to a halt in front of him, gesturing wildly to the four non-Chakar. The man looked at her companions dubiously but nodded, reaching out for their hands. As Lina, Gourry, Zel, and Ameria formed a circle, Janak and Erika backed away. "Wait, what are you doing?" Lina yelled in disbelief, tearing her hand away from the Chakar man's and stepping toward the pair.

"We have to help the others escape," Janak explained hastily.

"But--" Ameria said.

"It's our duty," Erika insisted, cutting her off. She waved a hand toward the teleporter and commanded, "Sha'hren kh'tah dul tarmia!" The man nodded, grabbing Lina's gloved hand in his own. "Go!" she shouted, and, before they could do anything else, the four and the teleporter disappeared.

They phased in a second later, to a place that looked almost exactly the same as the place they had left. Ameria opened her mouth to ask the Chakar man where they were and what they were to do now when a husky, feminine voice from behind her stopped her.

"Welcome, honored guests," said a tall but delicate-looking woman as she walked up to greet them. The man who had brought them there bowed to this woman and then disappeared, presumably to bring more Chakar soldiers back home. The woman's dark-skinned face was streaked with two light blue lines of paint on each of her cheeks; the paint matched the color of the simple embroidered loops along the collar of her green tunic. Her black hair was twisted and knotted into a complicated set of braids that quivered with each step. Her eyes were a startling blue in direct contrast to her chocolate complexion and they sparkled with intelligence. She held out a hand to Lina and said in accented, but understandable speech, "Welcome to Elik'haren, the current home of the Chakar tribe. I am Rikha, the steward of the Chakar. Elder Ashri will meet with you in a moment, as soon as the others arrive." The four friends exchanged a glance; they couldn't help but feel a sense of awe around her. Rikha exuded the understated serene confidence of a warrior of both mind and body without a hint of smugness or arrogance. Lina grasped her hand and shook it, feeling relief but at the same time an unexplained twinge of trepidation. Filing that away for later consideration, she introduced herself and her friends, each of them expressing their thanks for being rescued.

Meanwhile, Erika and Janak raced back toward the Chakanai camp, swords drawn and ready. They clashed with Chakanai soldiers, although the battle was mostly over, anyway. Erika brought her blade up to meet a man's heavy broadsword and blasted him aside with Chana. Janak threw another knife; this one embedded itself in the shoulder of another archer in the trees. Erika followed suit, using one of her own knives to pick off a woman about to sneak up behind a fleeing Chakar soldier. Three men were busy carrying the body of one of their friends out of the camp; Janak escorted them back to a teleporter while Erika stayed near the edge of the forest to help anyone she could. As she fought, she felt an uneasy prickling feeling on the back of her neck--someone was watching her. She shoved aside the unconscious form of a burly Chakanai man who had tried to overwhelm her and stopped cold when she caught a glimpse of cold, gray eyes staring at her from fifty feet or so away.

Amidst the chaos of the remainder of the battle, Elder Malikh stood in the center of the little encampment, surrounded by the still flaming wreckage of some of the cabins that had made up the camp. He raised two fingers in a gesture that she echoed, and she heard his rough voice in her mind. We shall meet again, he warned her.

Erika stood transfixed for a moment, her green-blue eyes locked with his. I'll be ready, she replied as Janak came up behind her, panting slightly.

"Come on, Erika, that's the last of them," he said, tugging at her arm. She shook her head, breaking off contact with the older man and nodded. Janak followed her gaze and his eyes widened when he realized who she had been talking to. "Erika, what are you doing? That's dangerous!!" he exclaimed, but she didn't answer. With a snarl, the usually easygoing prince grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her into a run, heading toward the teleporters and toward safety.

Author's Notes:

Whew! This one took a long time to finish. That's mostly because of how many times I rewrote it--three major rewrites, plus countless other changes. It went through two rounds of revision with Xanthix (usually we only do one, since this isn't a real, published book). So I'd like to say a huge thank you to him--this would not turned out nearly as solid without his help--and also to Akane and Myrddin, who double-checked it to make sure it didn't lose anything in the revising process.

The next chapter should go faster, hopefully. I have it pretty well planned out in my mind, and there are no fight scenes, so there should be no reason it takes so long. Well, I have a double load of classes and a wedding to plan, so I guess that would be the reason if it does take forever. ^^;;;

So, what's next for our heroes? Well, it's not hard to guess that they all make it to the Chakar capital. But the four Slayers are in for a bit of a surprise--that Erika, she never tells them the whole story, does she? In the meantime, some new characters make an appearance, ones we've never heard from before in Slayers, and they're a little disturbed about some recent events that point to another prophesy in the works. But enough about them, back to the main characters. What happens to Lina-tachi next is something I've been waiting to write since I first got the idea. It's really the crux of the story, the underlying reason I started writing this in the first place. Of course, the cast doesn't know that this is a real turning point, and they won't quite realize it for quite some time. Sound intriguing? Keep watching for the next exciting chapter of Slayers Balance!