"You talk as much as Lina."
"SHUT UP, JELLY-FISH-BRAINS!"
Aoife laughed. "Gourry, ya didna have to sit up with us, it ya don't want."
"No, I'll stay. I want to help. I'll try not to ask any stupid questions, ok, Lina?" Gourry rubbed his head where Lina had punched him.
"Try real hard, Gourry." Lina glared at him.
Aoife nodded, then continued. "Before we start, I have ta ask ya a question, Zelgadis." She caught his eyes with hers. "Have ya truly thought about what ye'll be like not a chimera?"
"What?" Zelgadis sat straight up in surprise. "I'll be human again!"
"Yer human now, ye amadan! Ye've jsut got a spell on ya. If ya weren't human, ya wouldna have the problem yer having! D'ye remember asking me how I was so comfortable with meself?"
"Yes." Zelgadis was quiet a moment, then said, "You said you never let the chimera define you. I ... I think I see what you mean. I've let the chimera define me for so long."
"Zel...." Lina reached out and touched his arm. "We never did that."
"I know, Lina. That's why you and Gourry and Amelia are my only friends." Lina smiled at Zel, then he turned back to Aoife. But Aoife was shaking her head.
"Tis not only the face ya see in the mirror, which if I may say, is not so bad to look on, eh, Lina?" Aoife tossed Lina a wink, and Lina unaccountably blushed. "Tis the strength, the speed, the magic. Were ye a magic user before the curse?"
"No," Zelgadis admitted, "I concentrated on the sword."
"So, how will ya feel when ya canna cast magic anymore? If ya canna travel so swiftly? If ya canna stand in front of yer friends and take a cannonball for them, eh? Aye, Lina told me the tale. Lina told me all sorts of tales of you."
"Aoife, knock it off!" Lina protested.
Zelgadis looked from one to the other, but he wasn't sure what Aoife meant with that last comment. Don't even think about what it might mean. He deliberately responded only to Aoife's comments about his abilities. "I'm prepared to be a common swordsman, not nearly as good as Gourry, but there IS more to the world than adventuring. As for the magic.... are you certain that if I'm cured, I'll lose that ability?"
Aoife shrugged, clearly her favorite expression. "I canna say. But, tis a possibility."
Zelgadis thought about it for a long mimute, then said, "Why don't we see if it's possible first? Then if we think that... no, the magic may be tied to the beserker, and if I have to give up the magic to get rid of the beserker, I will!"
"Right," Aoife agreed. "Yer a finer man than I gave ye credit for. I'm sorry for the things I said before."
"Can we just get to work? PLEASE?!?" Lina whined, eager to begin the analysis.
Aoife brushed her hands over the two sets of crytals. With a shimmer, two images appeared like phantom sculptures over the crystals. The looked like a tiny grove of twisted trees, intertwined and intergrown, relatively simple at the base, then growing into a mess of branches and side branches and seemingly pointless knotted patterns. She carefully demonstrated with the representation of herself the elements of the spell, comparing it to Zelgadis's. The key point was the faultline in her enchantment running near to the base. "Tis the Counter. By elven magic, all enchantments MUST have a Counter. Ye see, I can turn meself back if I want by activating the Counter. All above it breaks down if I do."
"What IS your Counter, Aoife?" Lina asked.
"A dip in the original spas of Mipross."
"THAT'S IT?!?!?" Lina cried, amazed.
"Ohch, ya dinna have to yell," Aoife winced, as Zelgadis peered at the fault, then searched for a similar one in his spell. There was none. None obvious, at any rate.
Aoife noticed his intent search, and pointed out, "Ya canna think it'd be simple. Rezo was a dyed-in-the-wool bastard. A regular villain. Yer man would've slote candy from a babe, would it give him eyes to see." Zelgadis snorted in wry, wordless agreement. "We look for smaller ones, hidden ones. Let's move on."
For hours the traced hte veins of Zelgadis's curse. After a few, Gourry curled up on the floor and slept, leaving the three mages muttering and arguing. Aoife filled every page of her notes with comments and sidebars and even sketched a map of Zel's curse, what they could make sense of. Finally, they determined that one particular thread of magic, with a dark red shimmer throughout, was the root of the beserker curse. What ifs and maybes rounded the table a number of times, until finally Lina, tired and becoming desperate, said, "You two will talk this to death. You're exactly alike, all analytical and logical. Why can't we just rip it out?"
Aoife sucked in a breath and stared at Zelgadis. Zelgadis stared right back. In a whisper, Aoife said, "Ya know, it just might work."
"HUH?" was Lina's swift responce.
"Aye, jsut lay hands on it and yank it out. It'll hurt like nothing ye'd ever imagine, but tis not so deeply imbedded in any other part of the spell. Tis like an afterthought. And the last thought's the easiest discarded." Aoife pointed to another part of the spell, the one they'd identified as the golem essence. "Another thing. Here ya see the properties of yer skin. Stone, solid. But in me, there's a tiny branch into me humanness. I canna be sure, but I think I can ADD the branch to you."
"What would that do?" Zelgadis asked.
She muttered under her breath. "Take my hand," she then said, reaching across the table. He grasped her hand, and it felt as soft and pliant as any normal human skin. He inhaled swiftly and gave Aoife a wondering look. Curious, Lina laid her finger on Aoife's wrist.
"It's regular! I mean, it's like normal! How?"
"I can control it. I canna do it for too too long, but long enough for... for... oh, ya don't want me to reveal me whole life to ya!" Aoife blushed, the first time they'd seen any sort of insecurity on her face. Almost immediately, Zelgadis blushed too.
Lina almost choked, she herself was so red. "You... you could... ahem... take a lover?"
"Aye," Aoife admitted. "I dinna think, I ken, er, oh, this is embarassing!" She shook herself all over, hand still held by Zel, and screwed up her courage. "I canna have children like this, but I can do.... uh.. me Master was good with the details, and dinna want me to be lonely. So, I could change the spell on ya, Zelgadis, in the same manner."
Zelgadis blushed even more, if that was possible, cleared his throat, and said in a husky voice, "That's um, certainly.... a possibility..." He didn't dare look at Lina. He gasped suddenly and shut his eyes tight. His grip on Aoife's tightened until she cried out a word in her own tongue, then relaxed.
"Control, Zelgadis, control! Ya nearly crushed me hand.!" She yanked it away from him.
"Zel," Lina said quietly, "hang in there."
Eventually, Zel exhaled heavily and opened his eyes. Aoife shook her hand with a little laugh, trying to relieve some of the tension. "Sorry," Zelgadis apologized.
"Naw, tis not so bad. Just warn me next time, eh?" She grinned, then continued. "We canna find a full cure in one sitting, that's clear, not with a spell so twisted as this. Keep the crystals, consult others. And we can try to remove the beserker, and alter the golem here, if ya wish. I think ya better sleep on it."
Both Lina and Zelgadis started to protest her summary end to the session, but Aoife overrode them. "Ciunas a phaistl! Be quiet, children!" Lina gave an indignant 'hey!' to that, but Aoife ignored it. "Tis nigh well dawn again. Sleep now, else we'll all be relying on Gourry to do all the work." All three looked down at the snoring swordsman, and Lina began to laugh. They gave in to Aoife's orders, and after Zelgadis' lugged Gourry upstairs, they slept.
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