Journeys: Beyond the Wall of Sleep

The "Journeys" series is presented by various talent from the Zel/Gourry YML. Each month will feature new work from a different writer.

Disclaimer: not mine, no money

Warnings: AU bits, sorta ['I'm not an Alternate Universe, but I play one on TV!'], lemon, dark and scary things, [eventually, not in this part, though] but plenty of WAFF too. A little bit o' lemon-lime, and it starts to get a bit weird, here...but what do you expect of dreams?

Author's Notes: I know there's a song by REM [!] or someone called Behind the Walls of Sleep [or at least it's a line from the chorus], but my reference here is the title of an early short story by H. P. Lovecraft. The dream-seeker idea comes from 'Tower of Dreams' by Jamil Nasir. I fiddled with it only slightly. Further theft occurred from Tanith Lee's 'Tamastara', and Sheri Tepper's 'Six Moon Dance'. Ouji-sama means 'prince'. A santoor is a stringed instrument; a kind of zither. There are some 'easter eggs' in this, for the keen of eye. ^_~ Doumo arigatou gozaimasta to Koi for betaing. Sumimasen to everyone else for the length... ^.^;;;

If this world is wearing thin and you're thinking of escape;
I'll go anywhere with you; just wrap me up in chains.
But if you try to go alone, don't think I'll understand.
Stay with me Stay with me.
In the silence of your room, in the darkness of your dreams,
You must only think of me; there can be no in-betweens.
When your pride is on the floor, I'll make you beg for more.
Stay with me. Stay with me.
You'd better hope and pray that you make it safe
Back to your own world.
You'd better hope and pray that you'll wake one day
Back in your own world.
'Cause when you sleep at night they don't hear your cries
Back in your own world.
Only time will tell if you can break the spell
Back in your own world.
Stay with me. Stay with me.
Stay ...stay with me. Stay... stay... stay...

Zel resisted the urge to slip into the dream; whatever it was, if it was good, they could try it when the tall blond awoke, and have the more vivid body-life memories of it later. Zel grinned and cuddled him closer. A faint breeze slipped between the carved shutters to stir the netting around their bed, but outside it was already getting hot, even with the sun a bare handswidth above the horizon. Not that the heat bothered Zel any. Or Gourry either, anymore. Zel brushed a strand of white-gold, sun-bleached hair aside to stroke a tanned cheek. His own hand was just as dark, though on him this translated as a deep marine blue. They'd been on Santoor for how many years, now? Five? Something like that.

Outside the east window, the scream of braking thrusters told of another near-miss at the midlevel intersection. Gourry started and woke, blinking down at Zel confusedly for a moment. Damn...with the way people drive around here, you'd think we'd be used to that sound by now...oh well...

Gourry yawned and crossed his arms on his lover's hard chest, resting his chin on his hands. "Hmm..." He fished about for the beginning of the dream; sometimes it was hard to say, they so often blended one into the next. As trained dream-seekers, they both tended to dream almost continually through their sleep; their minds sorting through the deep well of consciousness of the culture around them. "We were in a temperate pine forest, by a campfire. You were a young rajah, a prince...white horse and everything. I was a mercenary soldier. Hired to protect you I guess, though you were a djinn or something, too; a sorcerer of some kind...you lit the fire with magic."

"Besides, whose mythologies aren't mixed, these days? I think it's a good thing, if you ask me. Like cultural outbreeding..."

"And the whole Pan-Eurasian complex back on Terra has been mixing it up since the late Pleistocene anyway, right?"

"Hah! Bias!" Gourry bounced him on the bed, kneeling astride him and holding him down by the shoulders. "You thought Western European, didn't you! Arabian! Domestic horses introduced from the Fertile-"

Zel tapped his fingers on the silver bedside tray on the nightstand, making quite a racket. Although he enjoyed the bouncing. He suppressed the urge to wriggle his hips and let the heat rise slowly instead.

"-Crescent..." Gourry said absently. He scooted back a little farther. Zel made a small sound and closed his eyes. "So. A prince...and you lit the fire... There was a crimson-eyed shadow behind you...but I came to you and it disappeared." He brushed Zel's hair back and kissed his forehead. "I touched you....and you were so shy..." Zel stroked his hands up and down Gourry's thighs, rubbing the inner sides with his thumbs. "...So shy...but..." He tossed his head back, his long, pale hair flying up then settling back like veils around them. "...You...opened up like a lord of fire..."

"Virginity dreams," Zel rumbled, amused. "What next?" He turned over onto his belly, clutching the pillow to his chest, lifting his hips enticingly, thrusting slowly on the mattress. Gourry made a strangled, unintelligible noise. Zel looked back over his shoulder at him and grinned. The big blond was flushed and panting, staring at him and touching himself. Zel reached for the carafe and poured the chilled water down over himself, shivering pleasantly. The hotel staff would be having to change the sheets anyway...

Gourry hissed between his teeth and grabbed Zel's hips, sinking into him with one smooth movement. "So much for foreplay..."

"Foreplay schmoreplay." Zel spread his legs wider and pushed back. "Shiva's balls, Gourry...h-harder!"

Mm...in one of those moods... Gourry bared his teeth and grabbed Zel's long, heavy braid, pinning the chimera's shoulders down with it, pounding into him, not caring that he'd have bruises from it later. Zel rose to his hands and knees, lifting Gourry's full weight easily. He reached down and grasped himself, pulling gently, still arching into Gourry's thrusts, waiting... Gourry gave a shivering, slow thrust, then buried himself with force, spilling into Zel's white-hot depths. Zel tightened his fist and stroked downward at the same time, jerking his hips and gasping as seething fluid gushed onto the sheets.

He lowered himself gently as Gourry collapsed on top of him. They lay in a damp, contented tangle of arms and legs and hair, but the room, despite the overpriced conditioning unit, was becoming stifling. After a while, Zel ramped his core temperature down ten degrees C, pushing the extra energy into his internal organic batteries. Gourry sighed happily and wrapped himself around the sudden coolness.

"Shower?" Zel suggested softly. Gourry nuzzled his ear and got up, extending a hand to take Zel's, so that they walked hand in hand into the blue and white tiled shower. Their mouths met as the lukewarm water sluiced over them; hands and fragrant soap limning each other's bodies, tongues stroking continuously. They hardly parted even to wash their luxuriant hair. Zel surreptitiously scanned Gourry and used the tissue-regeneration stimulators in his hands to take care of the emerging bruises and abrasions on the taller man's skin.

As they rinsed off, reluctant to leave the fall of soothing water, and each other, Gourry felt Zel's cock brush against his thighs. He smiled into Zel's mouth - another excuse to linger - and kissed his way downward. Zel backed into a corner and leaned heavily on the tile as Gourry's lips wrapped around him. Gourry stroked his hips and flanks, then the backs of his knees, then tickled his way up his inner thighs to pet his balls. Zel writhed, trying to stay upright, only managing it because of the walls behind him, finally releasing with a choked cry as Gourry petted very very softly while sucking very very hard.

Gourry stood, smiling rather smugly, licking his lips then leaning in for a deep kiss. Got some noise out of you for once. Not bad, fireheart...

Zel reminded himself not to keep tally. They'd agreed soon after they'd become lovers not to try to keep track of who got whom off how many times. When he'd designed his body to have preternatural resilience in this as well as other ways, he hadn't counted on the emotional aspect that might be affected. He was still left with the feeling that it just wasn't fair...that he was always pestering poor Gourry for more... Not that the tall blond ever complained of this; no of course not, but... He stifled a sigh as they toweled each other off and went back into the main part of the suite to get dressed.

Down in the lobby, Zel donned his blue-lensed sunglasses and adjusted the loose turban that kept his metallic hair from getting so hot as to ignite things it brushed against, while Gourry checked at the front desk for any messages. Santoor had as good an e-network as any other third-generation colony world, but a lot of people still used the paper or voice methods from the earliest days when power - even the equipment for solar - was at a premium. Their Personal Digital Assistants had both been quiet that morning.

A handsome, brown-skinned, black-haired couple passed him and stared covertly, then conversed in hushed whispers to each other as they exited into the actinic daylight. Zel could hear them perfectly well and grinned to himself. He and Gourry had both questioned the wisdom of assigning them to a world colonized by a people who for thousands of years had depicted their gods with blue skin. But, gene-tech being as popular as it was, those people either thought he was just some kind of vain dandy, and underestimated him, or assumed - correctly - that he was from offworld and had chosen the color for other reasons. Both reactions could be used to their advantage.

Gourry returned waving a handwritten note. "We're to meet Madame Pai Rasa Rakha the storyteller in the Parbati Dasi Sunken Gardens this afternoon."

The two men passed through the double sets of doors into the dripping heat that hit them like a smothering cloak. Zel let his core temperature rise again. The lower levels of Lumpur-Narsith were decoratively tiled, landscaped, dotted with fountains both real and holographic, and reserved for foot traffic only, both two- and the occasional four-footed, while the upper reaches swarmed with air busses and lightfliers. Gourry looked up and down the street and shrugged. "Dharshival's?"

Smiling, Gourry slipped on his sunglasses and pulled the broad brim of his hat a bit lower as they sauntered down the patterned brick street.

That afternoon. Following the map on Zel's wristcom, they found the inconspicuous entrance to the semi-private Sunken Gardens and carefully descended the mossy stone steps into the ferny grottoes. The liquid twang of an electracoustic sitar led them along a tiny brook and dripping stone walls more than half hidden by tropical foliage and creeping vines. Tall, palm-like trees with their roots in water and their fronds in the sky shaded them. At last they came to a large, raised, square pool of dark water dotted with bright blue lilies, with a three-tiered copper fountain in the center. An old woman sat on the far edge, dangling her long fingers in the water for fish of unknown species to nibble at. In a cavelike alcove the sitar player perched on the enormous, lichen-covered head of some lost statue, half buried, and tilted as if the body was merely reclining, underground.

The old woman lifted her head and beckoned them closer, her saffron sari glowing in the dimness. Zel and Gourry found two nearby rocks that weren't too damp and sat facing her, their heads respectfully lower than hers, the sitar player behind them.

"What tale have you come to hear, children?" Her eyes were bright and lively and black as jet, netted in a fine lace of wrinkles. Plain silver bands circled each finger. Her hair, mostly hidden by the wrap of the sari, was pure white.

"Whatever tale you would tell us, Grandmother," Gourry answered, smiling and bowing his head slightly.

"Indecisive, but cute," the storyteller said. She grinned at them, then looked at Zel contemplatively. "Very well, then, children. I shall tell you the tale of the Ruby Prince and the Swordsman of Light."

Zel settled himself comfortably, smiling. He hadn't heard this one before. But Gourry sat up suddenly and blinked as if in recognition. Zel glanced at him inquiringly, but the blond man simply shrugged, puzzled himself.

The storyteller smiled at them and folded her hands in her lap. "Long and long ago, O best Beloved, in the Age of Elephants, there was a Ruby Prince. He rode an elephant as black as onyx, and his palanquin was draped with crimson silk, and his clear eyes were the color of deep blue topazes. The Ruby Prince had a companion, the Swordsman of Light, who rode an alabaster horse, and carried a shining sword, and had eyes as blue as sapphires.

One day, the Ruby Prince was visited by his grandfather. Though a famous sage and magician, the Prince's grandfather had an illness no-one - not even himself - could cure. But at last he thought he had found a way.

'My Grandson, you must bring me the fabled Philosopher's Stone. With that I may be able to cure myself.' The Prince agreed; had not his grandfather given him unique, magical armor of stone, that withstood any weapon save the sword borne by his companion, the Swordsman of Light?

After many adventures, the Ruby Prince and the Swordsman at last found the Philosopher's Stone. It was in the possession of the Sorceress Rhin'aah, who must be bargained with very carefully..."

The tale went on; an alliance with the sorceress, the possession of the grandfather by a powerful demon, which had caused the illness, and the pooling of the powers of the three allies to defeat him, thereby saving the world. The sadness of the Prince at having to kill his own kin, and the cleansing he had to endure in order to free his own soul thereafter.

Evening had fallen by the time the storyteller finished. Zel and Gourry thanked her, and offered to buy her dinner, but she declined, accepting only her usual, minimal fee. "Dream well," she told them, smiling fondly and patting their cheeks, and disappeared into the indigo shadows down a pathway the two men hadn't known was there.

"Be careful what you wake, when you sleep," said a voice behind them. The sitar player alit from the statue's head and passed between the two men, face entirely hidden by veils. From the voice, even from the long, brown hands, they couldn't tell if the player was male or female.

"What do you mean?" Zel didn't really expect an answer. Nor did he get one. The sitar player went along the path around the pool and along the pillars of the trees, disappearing in the ferns and jeweled leaves. The two men looked at each other and shrugged. When one made one's living interpreting one's own dreams, cryptic comments in the waking world, no matter how mysterious, didn't seem particularly strange.

Gourry yawned hugely and followed Zel up and out of the garden, into the warm, silky night. "Can we go to Ladyglen's Jeweled Cafe for dinner?" he asked, a bit plaintively. "You know I won't 'dream well' if I eat anything too spicy this late."

Zel dreamed. What books would you bring with you, to begin a new civilization? The children were escaping a hard, cold land, covered in asphalt, chased by police, registered and turned in by their own parents. Zel ran, always three or a dozen steps ahead; his mother and his aunt bid him a teary farewell at a little diner. It was going to rain, soon. The scene shifted, and he was packing in haste, trying to sort through his disarranged library, sure the books he wanted were among those dumped in sliding heaps on the floor. He found some, but not the one he really wanted. Hurry, hurry! Hands beckoned, guided him, pulled him through the door. He followed down the long, long slide, made of half logs hollowed out, and giant banboo, propelled by water. The angle was steep and the turns sharp, but he kept his head and his balance; hadn't he done this before somewhere? He didn't know where he was going, but he knew the children in the jungle needed him, wanted his help. At the bottom was a wooden trough, and the water was very dark...

Gourry dreamed. They were searching for a book. The book that might hold the knowledge to make Zelgadis human again. Lina was going to step into the mind of a dragon, while he and Zel had to hold off another dragon long enough for her to find what they sought. A secret that would save not just their own lives, but the world they lived in as well. The red dragon laughed; they couldn't hurt him, but Zel and Gourry stood their ground. The blue dragon was dying as Lina swam desperately for answers. A golden dragon healed them all. But Gourry was confused; none of the dragons looked like dragons. A laughing shadow appeared before the red dragon, then was gone, shredding away on the wind. A red sword came whistling down toward Gourry's head...

The blond got up and walked around the room, banging his knee on a table, but dispelling the dread of the dream with physical motion. "Yeah. That one wasn't like last night's though, that's for sure!" He rubbed his face, scrubbed fingers over his scalp, went back to the bed. "How about yours?"

Zel shrugged and laced his fingers behind his head on the pillow. "A little odd, maybe, but no workable Images, unless someone wants to build a waterslide park here."

Gourry snorted and looked down at him, breathing softly, only the chatoyant eyes visible. But his body knew Zel's so well he didn't need sight. He lowered his mouth to Zel's chest, tongue searching for a nipple. Zel shivered and clenched his teeth on a gasp. Gourry pushed the thin sheets down off their bodies. He felt Zel's hands move on him, guiding him, bringing his hips around so he knelt over the chimera's face, dangling, warm breath washing over him. He arched his back and moaned, spreading his legs wider. He let himself fall forward, his hair raying over Zel's legs, his lips brushing over Zel's erect tip. They took each other with the skill borne of familiarity, almost telepathic. Release washed over them like the ocean, bringing the tide of sleep. Not exactly in the Dreamwork Company Handbook, but hey... Gourry smiled, settled back into Zel's arms, and returned to the depths of his own mind.

The next morning. Zel sat at the com console, posting his latest batch of images, and a transcript of Madame Rakha's story, back to the Company. A few minutes later, Gourry brought in their breakfast in takeout bags. Zel bit into a pancake absently, trying to tweak the image he was working on into shape. The color of the sky just wasn't coming out properly, and something was wrong with the algorithm for the water texture.

"Probably cockroaches in the heat exchanger again," he muttered, using the age-old technique of slapping the side of the machine.

"Yeah. A water park isn't as farfetched an idea as I thought last night. And running slides through a jungle setting would be appropriate. If not here, then I bet people on Arratooine would love it. A nice oasis, in the middle of all those endless dunes..."

Gourry snorted. "You're not a biologist, you're an ad-man." Actually, Gourry knew, Zel g'Hadiss Grayweir had once been a special agent of the Metallia secret police. An organization one did not normally retire from. Not alive anyway. But the planet Metallia no longer existed.

When Zel was finally finished, Gourry took his place to make his own report. By the time he was done, the noontime heat was upon them. They went down to Ladyglen's for iced drinks, then retired to their suite to nap and make love. That evening they attended a dance production of the Rig Veda, which had been cleverly merged with and disguised by the Saga of Princess Moonglider. The costumes and sets were gorgeous, the music divinely inspired. Zel and Gourry looked forward to having splendid dreams that night...

Zel dreamed of trying to bounce on his parents' thermofoam bed. He'd seen kids doing it in some historical tri-dee drama and thought it looked like fun. But the foam mattress had too much give and not enough spring. Zel knew if he could only jump hard enough he'd go so high he wouldn't ever have to come down again. Higher he bounced. The ceiling turned to clouds; he could almost touch them. Suddenly he knew he could touch them; that he was dreaming, after all, and could fly without the aid of a springy mattress. Rei Wing! On the next bounce he reached up to touch the clouds and just didn't come down, lifting straight up until the entire peninsula of the known world spread out beneath him. He laughed in sheer joy and streaked away west, in search of adventure in the Unknown Lands...

Lina shook his shoulder with her foot. "C'mon, Zel, get up! The rest of us are starving, even if you aren't!"

What the hell????? Finely made but travel-worn, ivory leathers covered him from chin to ankle, including a hooded cloak, pinned with a crimson gem, and fingerless gloves. A sword banged against his thigh as he stood. The girl with flaming red hair seemed familiar. And he knew her name, didn't he? Lina. Wait, wasn't it Rhin'aah? The sorceress from Madame Rakha's tale. I'm still dreaming. He sighed in relief. This sort of transition was a little unusual for him; generally he never had any trouble distinguishing when he truly woke up. But it wasn't unheard-of, either. So.

Gourry was yawning and stretching on the other side of the dead fire -- Gourry! -- and Amelia and Lina were already getting their admittedly sparse belongings ready to move on. Zelgadis sighed and got the fire started again, brewing enough coffee and tea for everyone while Gourry cooked up the eggs he'd found the night before and some reconstituted bacon. This rather meager fare meant they'd be stopping again in a few hours to refuel Lina and the others. Sometimes Zelgadis wished he'd never told Lina he was looking for the Bionomicon...

Gourry cried out in his sleep. His own thrashing woke him up, sweaty and cold from the nightmare he suddenly couldn't remember at all. And that scared him more. He turned, but Zel was still peacefully asleep. I won't wake him... Well, obviously not, if I haven't already, sheesh!

The tall blond got up and padded into the bathroom to wash his face and neck, then returned to bed, flipping the ceiling fan on and punching his pillow into a satisfactory shape.

Noon. Gourry sat up and rubbed the sticky grit out of his eyes. Zel lay somnolent beside him, one arm weighing down Gourry's middle, the other flung over the edge of the bed. Gourry grinned. It was so cute when Zel got possessive. Reluctantly shoving Zel's arm aside, Gourry got up to take care of bodily functions, glancing at the wall chronometer on the way. Shiva's balls! How'd it get so late? It wasn't like Zel in particular to oversleep for so long. Unless he had an unpleasant dream too and had trouble getting back to sleep. That must be it.

Gourry dressed and left Zel a note, then went out alone in search of food, feeling strange despite his self-assurances.

When he returned, Zel was sitting groggily up in bed, amid a mass of rumpled sheets.

Mmmm... Nice image... Gourry set the packages of food on the table and sauntered over. "Afternoon, sleepyhead! Jeeze, Zel, what happened?"

Zel looked up at him, muddled. "Huh?" He looked at the clock. "How'd it get so late?" He automatically accepted the cup of coffee Gourry handed him and took a sip. "I was dreaming such a long coherent sequence, I guess. Narrative, first person. You and I were part of some medieval band of travelers in a forest. I think it stemmed from the Ruby Prince story; there were similar elements. The sorceress. Two magical swords. No elephants, though."

"You're getting all Western European again. We're supposed to be studying the dynamic of the Indo-Asian complex in a non-Terran environment, remember?"

Zel merely cocked an eye-ridge at him; Gourry grinned. He couldn't object too much; with them sleeping in, it usually meant they'd be up half the night, having wild monkey jungle sex. Hopefully this time Gourry wouldn't break a table...

Their quest had, as usual, been diverted. At the center of the spiral labyrinth the adventurers had found not the Bionomicon, but a copper tablet describing another artifact; the legendary chess service of Montlemaigne. Lina was in transports of ecstasy, cavorting around with the tablet, that, she was sure, when deciphered correctly was also a map to where the service was hidden. "If I get my hands on this, I'll become the most powerful sorceress in the world! Mwaaahahahahahahahahha!!"

Zelgadis reached out and caught her by her outflung wrist. Something in his stance stopped her cold.

"Very well," he said quietly. "If you become the most powerful sorceress in the world, will you change me back?"

Lina stared. His face was hidden by his hair. She could tell he didn't expect her to answer seriously. She didn't yank her arm out of his grasp - well, that was pointless anyway, if he insisted on holding on - and took a step closer instead. "You know I'm not into that kind of stuff, but...look, Zel, if I ever find anything that might help you, you know I'll tell you, right? I know I get sidetracked sometimes-"

Zelgadis sighed and crossed his arms, looking skyward. Then he tipped his head in her direction and unleashed a half-grin at her.

To cope with the excess energy, Lina whooped and bounced at him, slapping his shoulder...and instantly wished she hadn't, as she hopped around blowing on her bruised hand. "Shimatta! I always forget that!! Iteeee!"

Gourry and Amelia, watching all this with held breaths, sighed and relaxed visibly.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. C'mon you guys! If we hurry, we can get back to town in time for dinner!"

That night, in their shared room at the inn, Zelgadis and Gourry held hands as they settled into bed, promising to meet in the sanctuary of their dreams. Though that sanctuary had gotten strange of late. Usually Zelgadis could direct them to their idyllic spot beneath the tree, but for several nights, now, their dreams had been of some other world, with objects and ideas even Zelgadis was hard-pressed to put names to when they woke up. They seemed to understand everything perfectly well while dreaming, though. And the dreams themselves were actually rather lovely. He almost didn't mind that he couldn't control them. Almost.

"Are you thinking we're gonna go back...there?" Gourry murmured, giving Zelgadis' hand a squeeze.

Zelgadis sighed. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it all day. So far it's been...rather enjoyable. But, well, if we end up there again, that will be three nights running. It's like a message, maybe..." He didn't want to alarm Gourry with his vague sense of foreboding. He himself couldn't quite pin down what it was that was making him feel like he had a small, dark rock in his stomach; not enough to cause actual discomfort, but there was definitely some small, niggling thing wrong. It had taken him this long to even fish that much out; the sexual element was so powerful, so compelling. It was becoming more difficult to hide their passion from the girls.

"I don't know, really." Zelgadis shrugged and squeezed Gourry's hand back. "It's just an impression I have. That place seems so complete, so deep. I feel like it must be real somehow, somewhere."

"Maybe we aren't them. Or, rather, we're just...somehow borrowing the perceptions of those two men, and in our dreams they look like us because we think they should. Or something..."

Zelgadis grinned. "You're not alone, there." He rolled up onto his side, facing Gourry, bunching the pillow comfortably under his head. "Haven't you ever had a dream where you weren't yourself? Either you were just observing everything, or you understood somehow that you were someone else?"

Gourry thought about this. "I guess so," he said, scratching the side of his jaw and looking at the ceiling. "So you think that's what we're doing? We're kinda ourselves, but kinda these other guys too?"

"Okay. So, let's see if we end up there again tonight, ne?" Gourry beamed his sunny smile and brushed the chimera's hair aside to kiss his forehead.

A voice rippled through the high, dim columns of air; the only other noise being the hush, hush of the slow fans hung from the ceiling.

Zel turned and straightened from the large map he'd been poring over on the Dadnijoms District library's LCD table. "Yes?"

A slender person with beautiful brown skin approached him, carrying a small stack of brightly colored memory cards. "I've located the manuscripts you asked for, Professor."

"Ah! Thank you." Zel nodded and took the cards and set them on the side of the table. The person bowed and smiled, teeth very white against the dark skin.

But the person had already gone, leaving Zel to return to the map in puzzlement. He had found what he was looking for at any rate. The story of the Ruby Prince and the Swordsman of Light had supposedly been set in ancient India, but the landmarks cited had been those of Santoor. The Apalita Mountains, the Jilmoon Forest, Xyliea's Forge, the twin islands of Kellis and Kylar, the Darvinda Sea. Zel smiled. It was a charming adaptation; and he found he wanted to hear more stories of the Ruby Prince and his handsome companion. The memory cards of legends and myths - Santoorese retellings, all - he'd asked for might contain such tales; he and Gourry would start on those tonight.

Back at their suite, and comfortably full of takeout from Ladyglen's, Gourry made himself a nest out of pillows on the bed and settled back to listen to Zel read aloud the first of the stories he'd checked out of the library. Zel's storytelling voice came from deep in his chest, resonant and wildly adaptable; his interpretation of characters and events unfurling as the story itself did. Gourry loved to listen to him.

"Attend, O Beloved," Zel said, already taking on the roll and rhythm of Hindi, though he spoke Nihonglish. "'Come,' said the god. 'Come, be valorous, and descend into the city of the wise and wicked ones. Who shall hurt thee there, seeing thou hast my protection? Thou shalt behold marvels. And maybe thou mayest recover what the shape-changer stole...'"

Lina leaned against the door, pressing her ear to the wood. "Amelia, it's after noon. Several hours after noon. It's not like either of them to sleep so late, for one thing. And no-one could sleep through all my yelling and pounding!" The only thing that had kept her from just breaking the door down was the growing feeling that the guys were...well, doing something she didn't want to know about. They kept sneaking off together when they thought everyone else was asleep. And while the two had always been friends, they seemed closer lately. Gourry was getting downright possessive, even. And Lina didn't want to think about it, because whenever she did, she had to deal with how jealous she was, and she couldn't even figure out who she was jealous of. It was all just too irritating. "If you guys don't come out right now, I'll bust this door down anyway!"

Amelia didn't think it was right to break up the innkeeper's property for no reason, but what if there was something really wrong? What if Zelgadis-san and Gourry-san had been...oh, attacked and hurt somehow? Those pesky mazoku were always doing mean things like that, weren't they? And there were probably lots of mazoku who'd like to hurt poor Zelgadis-san. Or steal Gourry-san's sword.

"Lina-san," Amelia said, rather meekly. The fire-haired sorceress was already gearing up for a fireball. "Don't you know any spells for unlocking the door from the outside?"

Lina stopped in mid-spell and sighed. "You're no fun." She muttered the thief-spell anyway, unenthused, but, fine, it got the job done. Boring.

As the door swung open, they saw Zel and Gourry, curled up together on one bed, hands loosely clasped, unmoving, deeply asleep. Lina yelled and stomped up to them, shoving at the nearest shoulder, grabbing the sheathed Astral Vine from the bedpost and hitting them both over the heads with it repeatedly. "WAAAAKE UUUUUUP!!!!" Neither man stirred. Only their eyes flickered, dreaming.

Lina dropped Zel's sword and leaned over them, suddenly serious, checking their pulses, whispering a restoration spell. Nothing happened. "Amelia?"

Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune tried every restorative, healing, awakening and revitalizing White Magic and Shamanist spell she knew. Nothing worked. "Lina-san, what are we going to do?"

Lina looked away. She didn't want to see the silver-lavender hair spilling into the gold. Seyruun would be the ideal place to riddle out something like this, but they were still so far from there. "I'm not lugging Gourry around, and neither of us can lift Zel...er, except in an emergency... No, the best thing to do for now is keep an eye on them and see what happens. We're actually pretty close to RavenHawke City. You stay here with the guys; you're the one paying for the rooms anyway, right? I'll Rei Wing off and do a little research in the City Library. I'll come back in three or four days, whether I find anything or not, and we'll see from there. Okay?"

Amelia wasn't altogether happy about this, she hated being left behind. On the other hand, watching over Zelgadis-san wasn't exactly a hardship. Maybe something dramatic would happen while Lina was away, and Amelia would be here to save her valiant Ze-uh, help the guys by herself. "Okay, Lina-san."

"'...Valor and strength thou shalt have,'" Zel murmured, his voice fading as the tale did. "'Beauty and favor, fortune and sweetness all thy days, but also a perfect and enduring love shall be thine, a love even as the love of demons and gods. Remember me, but once, lord, when thou hast found her.'"

Gourry sighed happily, sleepily, and stroked Zel's thigh. He had shed his clothing as the young student in the story had shed his skins of childhood and weakness. "'Even as the love of demons and gods,'" he said.

Gourry chuckled deep in his throat and stalked up the chimera's body, taking the palm reader out of his hand and tossing it aside. "The demon, of course," he growled, pushing Zel down into the pillows. But with all his seeming ferocity, Gourry descended upon Zel with tenderness. They cradled one another, rocking long into the night in slow rhythm, half hearing the distant hum of a sarod and deep heartbeat of a pakhawaj, and the chanting of Santoor voices in ancient devotionals to love and divine passion.

Gourry fell into dreaming first, and Zel followed him, treading the wavering, moonlit path deeper and deeper...to Gourry's core (a ferny cave, bathed in sunlight, with turquoise and cobalt and pale golden mosaics on the floor, woven in complex patterns he was just on the edge of understanding), which became the world's core; solid fire, wrung with power, something sleeping, something stirring after a billion years of slumber. An uneasy shifting, ripples sluggish through the mantle, but the waves are felt. A sudden jarring of the bed sent them both awake to the heaving floor.

"Earthquake!" Zel hissed, grabbing Gourry and skittering them both under the solid teak desk, holding on with his enhanced strength to both lover and desk, until the temblor stopped.

He scanned Gourry quickly, finding him unhurt, and went in search of the palmtop. Finding it under the bed, he returned to Gourry still wisely under the desk. Zel keyed up the satellite links and pulled up the Geological Survey site.

"There wasn't any warning," Gourry said, looking over his shoulder, a bit peeved. The Seismological Service was supposed to keep on top of these things; and the Lumpur-Narsith area hadn't been due for any noticeable quakes until next month. Sirens began to wail in the distance.

"Net's still up," Zel said. " Initial estimate: 5.7 Richter. So far no major damage reported."

Cities on Santoor were built with earthquakes in mind, and the populace was more or less used to them. What damage there was was slight, and casualties had more to do with frayed nerves than broken bodies. The Seismological Service [colloquially called the SeSe] was scrambling to find an explanation, and reminded everyone to prepare for aftershocks, though they could give no indication of when those might occur or how severe they might be.

Zel and Gourry picked up the few scattered miscellany in their suite and went back to bed, sleeping fitfully until late the next morning.

That day they mostly wandered the city, collecting impressions of the people's reactions.

"Spoiled," Zel muttered, as they passed yet another group complaining loudly about the lack of warning from the SeSe.

"The Slumbering One awakens!" screeched an old woman in Hindi on a corner in the fountained square ahead. The two men exchanged a glance and headed for her.

"Tell us, please, Dadi [paternal grandmother]," Gourry said, also in Hindi, as they approached. The woman turned on them and seemed both calmer and more afraid as her eyes searched their faces.

"Thou," said the woman, bringing her hands together and greeting Zel. "With thy countenance of Lord Shiva, pretty enough to be the Ardhanarishvara, the Dancing One, thou."

"But, Dadi," Gourry said, smiling, for blue-skinned Zel had been so named before. "His forehead isn't properly marked."

The old woman sniffed, looking up and up at Gourry. "Nevertheless. And you, great Kshatriya arrogance in a dark skin." But she smiled and patted his arm. "My dears, the world wakens with your dreaming. The Brahmins, the learned men, they came with their machines and they told us this world was barren, ready for us to come and do as we would. And we were eager to believe them."

"What? How do you know? What evidence...?" Zel crossed his arms, frowning, as Gourry waved a hand at him.

"How do I know?" The old woman's face creased in anger. "How can you not know? How can you keep from dreaming? The heart speaks to us in dreams." She wrapped the scarf of her parrot-green sari more securely and stalked off into the milling crowd, deaf to Gourry's protests and apologies.

Gourry grinned at him. "Yeah, well, probably she just watches too much Sci Fi Channel or something. That 'aliens were here before us' thing is a favorite colony myth. Hey, look, Chief Talon's Mongolian Barbecue is right over there; I'm starving!"

The next day, Zel and Gourry were on their way to meet another storyteller, in search of further tales of the Ruby Prince, walking up the steep Fae Street, with its intricate stone paving and inlaid copper tiles, towards the Mughar-styled Shining Miracle Park. They were passing through a popular, and crowded, shopping area when the aftershock struck.

The windows in the Intravox Building across the street suddenly shattered. Zel grabbed Gourry and the nearest couple of passersby, enveloping them all in his hastily-activated forceshield. But he couldn't protect everyone on the street as the building collapsed; supports were weakened by the first quake, the flaws unnoticed in the general furor. Plascrete and alloy toppled like dominoes, engulfing the area in shrapnel and clouds of dust. Zel dumped more power into the shield, bracing against the continued shaking of the ground; with this many people his antigrav unit was useless.

The quake ceased at last, and as the dust slowly cleared, the terrified screams of the hurt and dying rose up to replace it.

Zel looked down in surprise. One of the two besides Gourry he'd been able to shield, a young, red-haired girl with startling magenta eyes, gazed up at him with acquisitive delight.

"Hey, Sahab, can you teach me how you did that? I didn't know they could make RM fields that strong that small! And portable! Is it on your belt? Can I see the module? You're one of those gene-tech chimera guys aren't you!"

Her companion, an even more petite girl with jet black hair and vivid blue eyes tugged at the sleeve of her friend's tunic, blushing furiously. "Lasi! That's so rude! He just saved our lives! And people are hurt, we should help!"

"Are you two okay?" Gourry asked. Both girls nodded. "Good. Get to the Shining Miracle Park as quick as you can; the open area will be safest. Stay there and try to help others keep calm, all right? Don't try to call your parents on your cels right away; it'll tie up bandwidth. When the emergency crews get here they'll probably set up triage there in the Park too."

"Yes, Sahab!" the younger girl piped, as the red-head fumed and muttered something about how Gourry must be some kind of Dumb Med Student. Zel and Gourry turned to the task of finding and aiding the injured.

Zel's strength and shield proved invaluable in helping extract those trapped by rubble. He used his healing ability sparingly, not wanting to run out of power too quickly. Gourry became a calm voice amid the tumult, and a lifeline to the trapped ones who couldn't otherwise be touched until engineers could assess how best to get them out without crushing them.

Only a handful of structures in the city failed, but even that many was as unexpected as the quake itself had been. Over the next several days, when they had time to contemplate anything, Zel and Gourry wondered if there was really any connection to the warnings they'd had about the awakening of something vast and ancient.

Amelia was worried. The guys still hadn't woken, and Lina wasn't back yet. The Seyruun Princess had spent a lot of time pacing the small room and gnawing her fingernails down to the beds, racking her mind for ideas. She'd already tried combining various spells, trying to scry out what was wrong, and hoping to stumble upon a solution as Lina often did.

Convinced the answer lay with air spells - air being the element of vision, and insight - she was preparing a wind barrier and the difficult Aerius Lunuli; the Eye of Storms. The small, shallow glass lens among the material components she had arranged on a small table before her began to rock gently.

A vibration rose, rattling the panes of the window. The candle sconces fell from the walls; fortunately the candles extinguished themselves. Amelia cast Lighting, then dove for the bed and held on as the whole inn shuddered on its foundations.

Zel dreamed. Descend, the woman had said, and the Ruby Prince descended, into the city of the wise and wicked ones. He and Gourry did not fall, did not faint, but awakened on the shore of a dark, subterranean lake, strewn with faintly glowing blue lotus. Across the lake the city shimmered behind its golden walls. Naked, they slipped into the silken waters; the flowers brushed against their lips and foreheads as they threaded between them. They climbed upon the ghats - the platforms jutting out over the water beneath the golden wall - and found before them a broad, high stairway, leading upward to a huge, keyhole-shaped doorway, edged in emeralds. Wound around the seven red pillars that were all that barred the way were seven golden cobras, each five meters long with girth to match. They spread their royal hoods and addressed the sojourners.

"Who art thou, that darest these waters, this gate, naked and mortal, to come to the City of the Gods, the shape-changers, the Crushers, venom-fanged, we?"

A person came from between the crimson pillars, swathed in yellow silk. A beautiful hand beckoned Zel and Gourry up the steps. Their silver and gold hair trailed like banners behind them, igniting in the light.

Lina came in the broken window and staggered, almost dropping the leather pouch she carried.

Amelia burst into tears and flung herself at her. "Lina-san! The earthquakes won't stop, and the innkeeper threatened to kick us out; he said he didn't want a roomful of sorcerous plague! As if it was our fault! I still can't get them to wake up, no matter what I do, and Gourry-san looks so pale, and you didn't come back and didn't come back...!"

Lina bore up under this onslaught tiredly, but patted Amelia's shoulder anyway. "Hey, hey, Amelia, pull yourself together, there. I'm here now, okay? I have a couple of new things we can try, see? I'm sure at least one of them will work, and then we can all be back on our way to Seyruun, right? That's the spirit! Justice for all and all that!" Lina cleared the table with a swipe of her arm and placed the things in her pouch there. "Darkcure's Handbook of Sleeping Spells, the Tome of Lethe by Chaos Angel, the Zillah Prophecies. And, hey, check this out! I, uh, borrowed it from Lady Hart's castle...I'll give it back, I promise! Anyway, I'm sure you've heard of it; this is the actual, honest-to-Cepheid Raven Mask!"

Amelia gasped. "You mean...I can't believe it! Wow! It really is! The Raven Mask! No-one's dared use this for centuries! You... Lina-san! You stole it! Oh, that is such bad luck! You have to go right away and give it back! I can't believe you broke into Lady Hart's castle! She's so nice; how could you??"

The Seyruun princess looked at her feet. "You think we might use it to help Zelgadis-san and Gourry-san. Oh, Lina, it's so risky! But..." She looked down at their sleeping companions. Gourry's face seemed thinner, and drawn. Their expressions, young and peaceful a moment ago, had tightened into frozen grimaces of fear. Amelia sucked in a breath and grabbed the bedpost. "Hang on, Lina!"

Lina threw herself over Gourry and Zel just as the shaking began; hard, jarring tremors that sent everything not nailed down, including the bed, jumping and sliding across the floor. Lina was surprised the building itself had held up if this happened every day.

After several minutes, the quake died away. Lina looked at Amelia. "Maybe we should get them out of here, before the place falls down."

"What do you think the connection is?" Amelia asked, breathless and pale. "And why is Gourry-san affected? He doesn't have any magic abilities."

Lina didn't want to think about the second question. "I have no idea - yet!" That should cover both well enough, anyway. "But before we do anything else: FEED ME!!!"

Zel walked closer to Gourry, their fingers interlacing automatically as they followed the yellow-clad person between the red pillars and into the city. The chimera loved it when they dreamed these elaborate settings; even scent and taste were engaged; strange spices and perfumes filled the air, floating on currents of alien music. He looked at Gourry and they grinned.

"Ishi to hikari," Gourry said, the confirming code that told them they were indeed lucid, and bonded together within the same dream. The person led them onward through the city. Golden stone surrounded them in monumental, voluptuous forms, decorated with rubies and emeralds and pearls the size of a man's fist; enamelwork and cloisonn� like stained glass, unsettling bas-reliefs and peculiarly grained marble. The people of the city were all very beautiful and quite deadly; Nagini as Zel and Gourry knew perfectly well, for giant serpent shapes lounged everywhere, coiled and looped over trellises and high platforms designed for snakely comfort. All watched them out of narrowed, curious, gleaming eyes.

At last they came to a white palace, more like a mandir, or temple, than the famous, Terran Taj Mahal. Fluted stonework densely carved, with erotic figures, and, of course, serpents were everywhere. The person bid them sit on brocade cushions, to eat and drink, and later, bathe and rest.

The person smiled, and both men felt their faces grow warm. "You have felt the stirring of That Which Slumbers already. I have brought you here to prepare you; from here you must go deeper, and it will not be pleasant, nor easy."

The two nodded gravely. Then Gourry frowned. "Was it our dreaming that...causes That Which Slumbers to stir?"

Their guide poured them tea sweetened with a kind of honey they had never tasted before. "Perhaps, because the way you dream is unusual, That Which Slumbers was disturbed slightly. Should It wake fully, all life on this world will perish."

Lina drew the final rune, and threw the remaining end of chalk into the brazier. She and Amelia had Levitated the bed with its occupants to the center of the room, and made every warding they could think of - that didn't cancel each other out, at any rate - around it.

They chanted and danced and gestured through every spell in every book that seemed to have even a glimmer of a chance of aiding them. To no avail. Gourry and Zelgadis slumbered on, though Lina thought perhaps Gourry showed a bit more color. It was harder to tell with Zel...

Neither girl noticed (or wanted to notice) the other things occurring to the two men's bodies.

"I really wish you wouldn't swear, Lina-san," Amelia sighed. "It isn't ladylike."

"I'm not a Lady, Dammit!" Lina stomped around the room. "All right. Raven's Mask it is! Right after we go down and get something to eat!"

Amelia groaned, but followed, her own stomach growling with embarrassing loudness.

"Morning and evening have no meaning here," said the guide. "When you are ready, I will return and take you to the first door." There was a rustle and swish of silk, and then Zel and Gourry were alone amid the glittering lamps and sheer muslin curtains and the high alabaster columns, smooth as Nagini skin.

Zel stood, and by his posture, Gourry knew the chimera was set on exploration. But the flickering lamplight glowed on dark skin the color of deep water, and made of the fall of silver hair haloed wings. An octagonal pool beside their resting place was scented with amber and heady, Damascene roses; petals floated on the water's surface.

And we've been walking around naked this whole time... Gourry had been feeling the low hum of arousal from the moment they'd stepped into the lake before the Nagini city. If we have 'time', I know what I want to do!

The chimera shivered, his long hair continuing the motion even as he turned and looked down at Gourry; who lay amid the pillows and thick carpets, one hand lazily stroking his stomach, wandering lower, drawing attention to but not yet touching the roseate curve of his stiffening cock. He smiled as Zel's aventurine eyes closed, the deceptively slender neck arched. The lithe, dancer's body approached; Shiva incarnate indeed, lingam rising, midnight nipples standing up from the smooth, stony chest. Zel approached - and walked right by him, to the edge of the pool, stooping to investigate the contents of the elaborate metal and glass bottles collected there. Finding one he apparently liked, he returned, and knelt gracefully between Gourry's legs.

Gourry moaned and bit his lips, trying to relax as Zel opened the bottle and began applying the light sandalwood oil to his skin, rubbing it in firmly, slowly; starting with hands and feet, working his way in toward Gourry's trunk, up the neck, behind the ears, caressing the temples. Yet he avoided the groin, deliberate torment, as Gourry clutched at the pillows and writhed. Zel poured a measure of oil into his right palm. His eyes glowed suddenly, as he ramped his core temperature upward, his hair floating on the convection currents of the air rising from his heated skin. Closing his hand slightly, he tipped it, letting a fine drizzle of warm oil fall directly over the slit at Gourry's tip, watching as the fluid dripped down the shaft, pooling in the golden curls, running over velvety balls. Gourry's moans grew louder.

Zel stood, and held his hands out to Gourry; the tall blond took them, rising up, joining the dance, swaying serpentine, a golden flower nodding on a slender stalk.

"Yes...oh, yes..." Gourry clutched him tightly, not afraid of falling, Zel's body like the feel of wings around him, powerful beating, like a heart, and the never-palling glory of making love in midair. Muslin draperies brushed against their heated skin, over their faces, mouths joined, fingers joined, pulsing furnace glowing between their salamander bellies.

Zel drifted them near a lamp, reached out a hand, drew out a spiral of fire. And the fire became like the water below, scented, gently bubbling, washing over them, harming them not. Zel smiled; flame was the only garment suitable for his sun-love; flickering around deep honey skin, honed muscle like a long-legged cat's. Their hair rose and fanned out, weaving patterns with the flame. Zel's hair grew white-hot, fire-flowers blossomed in it; Zel smiled and shook his head, scattering the snow-white fire-flowers like sparks. Gourry laughed in delight and kissed him, engulfing himself in the taste and feel of that hard-soft mouth as if it were that first, tentative but desperate kiss long ago.

They slowly sank downward, the fire wreathing away, back to the lamps, as the emerald water rose over their bodies, over their heads, for here they could breathe water as easily as air. Zel's hair steamed. Still weightless, though now shimmering aquamarine and teal and peridot pressed on them, making each movement resonate, magnifying each caress. Their bubble-jeweled hair made them mermen, drifting around them in glowing, abyssal streamers; a forest of the deeps. They arched, unfurling like lotus petals, joined at the hips; their shafts rubbed together, creating underwater lightning. Breaking the surface, their control broke as well; both clenched and shuddered and fell against one another, their chests bathed in hot, primal fluids.

Silently, they floated among the rose petals. Only their breath stirred the water, and their minds were ocean deeps; still, but full of secrets.

Later, refreshed and vital rather than exhausted or languorous, they stood ready when their guide came for them. Out of the palace they were led, and downward through darker alleys of the city. Vines grew here without the touch of sunlight; blood red, and black tourmaline, with pale, golden veins and phosphorescent white flowers that gave off a heady perfume. They passed into a dim chamber; the ceiling of earth was lower here, visible, instead of the deceptive "sky" of mists in the rest of the city.

At the far end of the chamber, at the Gate of Titanium, the Sorceress Rhin'aah stood in their way. "Do not go," she said, laying her hand on Gourry's arm. "Thou shalt be sorely harmed."

Further along, at the Gate of Steel, a smiling priest, a fantastic monk, tapping his staff to get their attention, said, "Do not go, for thou shalt be put to shame."

As they reached the last gate, this one made entirely of copper, a little girl bearing garlands of marigolds ran up to them. The two men bowed low and she placed a garland around each of their necks. "Do not go," she whispered. "Thou shalt surely die."

Beyond the Gate of Copper, they were alone; the guide could go no further. The tunnel they found themselves in was very dark, but Zel could see, and he cast Lighting for Gourry's sake. Which dream am I in, anyway? he wondered.

Gourry found himself clothed in blue armor; familiar as skin, but strange, too. A sword hung at his left hip; he moved as though it had always been there, and a part of him knew how to use it. It was no ordinary sword. Just ahead of him - and Gourry liked this arrangement, since from here he could observe Zel's tight little ass - Zel was also clothed; ivory leathers which hid all but a delicious hint of him from chin to toes and fingertips, with a labrys-hilted sword at his hip as well. What does he need with a sword? He has magic. But the answer was inside his own head somehow. Magic can fail. And then they must rely on steel. Even Lina wears a sword. Lina? Rhin'aah? That girl, during the aftershock - Lasi? Why do I know all this? What's going on?

Down and down, spiraling first sunwise, then widdershins, their path folded back on itself in intestinal loops. Gourry wasn't happy with that particular metaphor. Then the tunnel lurched and bucked, a deafening, basso profundo roar rumbling through their bones. The two men clutched each other, four legs braced against the wild rocking of the stone around them.

"No! No! No earthquake!" Gourry pleaded. "Not down here!" Even Zel looked rather wide-eyed, as the quake subsided.

Something had pushed through the walls. Zel brightened his Lighting sphere and leaned forward, brushing a hand against the stone.

Bones. Shells and teeth, and bones; some of them human, all charred and blackened; imbedded in the stone as if fossilized there. Impossible. Kurohone's dead. We killed him ourselves. Who or what the hell is Kurohone??

"C'mon, Zel." Gourry took his arm gently and pulled him along. "The only way out now is to go on. We have to pay our respects to Ereshkigal and Hades, you know." He tried to muster a grin, but it was a bit shaky.

The tunnel grew closer, and humid, and their feet crushed the powdery bones of millions of rats. A sudden, convulsive heave threw them down a sharp, slick incline, to land in an undignified heap at the feet of an enormous, olive-complexioned, grimly beautiful woman smoking a huge, rank cigar, sitting in a vast throne adorned with heads.

"Took ya long enough," she grated in a heavy Bronx accent, while Zel and Gourry tried to collect themselves. "What the hell were ya doin' up there, anyway?" She took the cigar out of her mouth and grinned at them; her teeth were very white, and sharp. "Never mind, I already know. You boys better hurry up before whatsitsface stops snoring." The cigar was again clamped between those big teeth, and a cloud of foul smoke puffed their way.

"Great Durga help us," Gourry murmured. Despite the woman's manner, her presence was awesome, full of hidden power; they could feel it on their skin.

"Good boy!" Ereshkigal said, taking the cigar out again and pointing at Gourry with it. Gourry quashed the impulse to kowtow and kiss her glorious feet only with difficulty. "You're gonna need that courage, boys, and don't forget it! Now run along, I got work ta do."

Keeping their eyes on the shining hem of her dark gown, the two backed out of her chamber, not daring to meet the star-filled eyes of the Sumerian goddess of the Underworld. Perhaps one of the oldest goddesses known to humankind. Through a wrought iron gate they went, emerging into familiar jungle.

From behind a poisonous green tower studded with thorns leapt a creature with an appalling number of arms, and too many heads, and far, far too many teeth. Zel and Gourry had their swords out before they quite realized what they were doing.

"Hikari-O!!" Gourry shouted, and a blade of light sprang forth from the hilt. Lightsaber??? Gourry had just enough time to wonder, before the demon and he blurred into battle.

"Astral Vine!" said Zel, and his sword glowed crimson as he joined them; two swords now against twenty. The demon towered above them, blows raining down like iron hammers with crushing force. The jungle foliage beneath their feet was churned into a treacherous sludge. The few cuts the two made on the monster healed with sickening swiftness.

"I don't think we'd better start cutting off heads," Gourry panted, between parries. The last thing they needed was for the thing to grow two more...

"No... let's not try that..." Zel agreed. Quicker than his partner, he kept trying for shots at the body, where the ten serpentine necks joined; the demon - Ravana, they recognized - defended this spot with noticeably greater vigor. "All right, Gourry, how did Rama defeat this thing?"

Gourry dodged a particularly vicious blow and staggered back, the deadly gleam of the Hikari no Ken acting as his shield. "He shot a--. Zel, neither of us are archers!"

"Oh hell." A blade rang across Zel's shoulder, marring the fabric but only striking sparks off his stony hide. Dark clouds oozed and slithered across the bloody sky.

Zel dove into the roiling mess farther, his sword flickering, faster than mortal sight. "I'm not surpr-- Gourry?!!"

The blond swordsman took another step back, sank to one knee. Red crept over the azure armor.

"BASTARD!!!" Zel roared, springing between the monster and Gourry, throwing his sword like a knife at the demon's heart. "RA TILT!!"

At the last moment, he aimed the spell at the clotted sky. Lightning uncoiled, charged with the Shaman's astral might, burning through the superheated air, atomizing the demon where it stood.

Zel sprang to the blond swordsman's side. "Let me see that. Oh gods... Gourry... No, hold still, I can heal this." The glow of the healing spell surrounded his hands and Gourry's side, bright as the Hikari no Ken. Color slowly flushed the swordsman's face and lips again, and his breathing steadied. When he was finished, Zel sat back, gasping.

"Gourry, you shouldn't come any farther. This is crazy; wake up! Then give me an hour and wake me up, too, okay?" Nightmares were never supposed to get this far, in Dream-seeking. Certain of Dreamwork Inc.'s doctors would put them both on happy pills for months if they ever found out about this. And Zel knew they weren't through yet.

"Are you out of your cement mind?? I'm not leaving you down here! And don't you dare go without me, Zelgadis Graywords! I'll never forgive you!"

"...Zelgadis...that is your name, right? Or have you been keeping me in the dark about that, too?"

Zel helped the taller man to his feet. "Come on, then. Ereshkigal herself told us to hurry, don't you think we'd better listen?"

Lina pressed her cloak to the gaping wound in Gourry's side, biting back her tears, casting healing again and again to stop the blood...too much of it... all over the floor...

Suddenly, the gash closed. Lina sat down hard, her head aching, face just a little too pale. Zel seemed unmarked, but Amelia had felt a vast gout of power leave him, then another, slightly smaller outpouring just as Gourry was healed. Amelia was sobbing into the quilts on Zel's side of the bed.

We've tried everything we can think of. Lina rubbed her eyes and dragged herself into a chair. The Raven Mask - which they had left as a last resort - had failed. The eyes glowed red, the flesh-tearing beak opened, manic laughter issued forth; then the mask went dead. Whatever was going on with the guys had nothing to do with Black Shamanism. I can't believe I'm even THINKING this, but I actually wish Xellos would show up.

The two sojourners emerged onto a rocky plain. A jagged cliff marked the horizon, and at the base they could see the gaping black entrance to a cave.

"Well, the Slumbering One is at the heart, the core, right? I just hope we don't have to swim through some version of the planet's mantle to get there."

"Uh, Zel, don't say things like that. I mentioned Ereshkigal, and look what happened."

The two made their way across the plain, keeping a wary eye out. It was tricky going; the ground was covered with sharp, spiky a'a lava, crunching and clinking and sometimes shattering under their feet. Zel was about to Levitate them both over the whole mess, when movement at the top of the cliff caught his eye.

Wings similar in span to 10-seater aircraft spread over the crags. About fifty pairs of them. Dragons.

Gourry's palm itched for his sword hilt, but he did nothing, other than to keep walking, casually, as if he hadn't noticed. "What's that saying? 'Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and go good with ketchup'?"

A hundred meters from the cave, they looked up and saw a pouch expand in the throat of the dragon directly above the entrance; the head drew back, the chest broadened.

"REI WING!" Zel grabbed Gourry, shielding the swordsman with his own body, and flashed toward the cave, jigging his course as much as he dared without sacrificing speed. Dragon eyes gleamed, amused. They weren't going to make it.

Oily, dripping fire spat from the dragon's mouth, as if propelled by laser cannon. Zel's barrier sizzled and shrieked, overloaded as they shot into the tunnel. Gourry dropped free and rolled to his feet. Zel plowed a long furrow into the ground and slammed into the wall where the tunnel curved to the left. Gourry ran to him.

"Get it off! Get it off!" Zel rolled and shuddered on the ground, clawing at his back awkwardly. Gourry tore gingerly at the smoking material, baring his teeth at the unpleasant hissing of acid etching into stone. The swordsman dragged off the entire cloak and shirt, throwing them some distance away, where they continued to smoke and give off evil fumes.

Zel's back was a mess. Oh, gods, please tell me he can heal this! The chimera was hunched over, making terrible, gasping, gulping noises; and Gourry wasn't sure where it was safe to touch him. Carefully, he placed his hands down to either side of Zel's face, cupping it, supporting him until he could regain enough control. Zel put his hands over Gourry's, and the noises subsided. Gourry felt more than heard Zel's swift chanting. Zel's hands moved to his own shoulders; a faint glow spreading from there downwards toward his waist, until his stone skin was more or less whole again. A little pitted, here and there, something like scars; but Zel might like that, a reminder that he was, after all, human.

Zel groaned and sat up. Gourry kept his hands on the sides of the chimera's face, wanting Zel to look him in the eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Your braid's still in one piece." Gourry reached over and displayed the evidence. "How'd that happen?"

"I... We're dreaming for one thing." He cast Lighting and made a face, and Gourry grinned. "I'm okay, let's go."

This tunnel was larger than the first had been, drier and hotter. And still they went down. After an indeterminable distance, they felt fresh air on their faces; Zel extinguished his light sphere. The glow ahead seemed like sunlight, but with a peculiar, greyish green cast. Oddly, the last several yards they had to crawl on their bellies. Zel, having insisted on going first, in case the dragons were waiting on the other side, could see a broad green prairie stretching out and out as he reached the opening. A winding, ox-bowed river gleamed a dull pewter in the distance.

He and Gourry wormed their way out onto the grass, and realized they were up on a slope, with the landscape rolled out wide before them, but rearing up into thin peaks, like broken teeth, behind.

Zel stood and looked up. Clouds lowered in enormous, dark, threatening banners across the sky, like immense fingers or reaching tentacles, with paler, thinner sections boiling in between, shining faintly green. Zel backed up against the slope and hunkered down, eyes very wide, more afraid because no sky on any planet had ever made him so frightened before. It's only a mackerel pattern... two layers of air moving in opposite directions, creating bands of turbulence... But he'd never seen formations this huge on a world smaller than Jupiter.

Then, to the west, a sliver of light opened up, and molten orange fire poured down from the sky like a terrifying waterfall of liquid steel thousands of miles across; Zel could feel the sound in his bones, as the fall hit earth beyond the horizon. He cowered further, desperately wanting to get back inside the tunnel, but unable to; it had sealed itself behind them.

The clouds tore and knotted and tore again, bubbling into threatening, green mammatus pockets. The air was muggy; the thunder of the impossible sky-falls grew stronger.

"Whoa!" Gourry shouted, pointing, jumping as a heavy rain fell suddenly. "Funnel cloud!"

Zel, supporting himself on Gourry's courage, stood again and blinked through the rain. "More than one. Six...seven...no. Eight. Little ones." They wriggled and hopped around, almost cute, if he and Gourry weren't out in this weather...

Zel grimaced. "Hard to tell; they move with the prevailing wind." He and Gourry both staggered as the gusts - heretofore wild and directionless - suddenly slammed them against the slope behind them. "Never mind, they're coming this way!" He scanned their surroundings for some kind of shelter; another cave, anything. Two of the little twisters wound themselves together; forming one, larger tornado. "Dammit! This is our dream! We should be able to control this."

"Uh, Zel, we haven't controlled anything since we left the Nagini city." Gourry picked his way down the steep, grassy slope, running when it shallowed out a little, and Zel followed. Whatever else, they needed to get down off the high ground. Two more pairs of tornadoes had merged. As they reached the prairie floor, the last two went; now there were four twisters, each twice the size of the original eight. Zel could hear a faint hissing, over all the other noise of wind and rain and occasional hail, as the funnels danced and bounced, flirting with the earth.

Zel shook his head and pointed. The four tornadoes had become two. They heard the roaring as the funnels dragged their tails along the ground, blasting up tons of earth and debris, drawing it up to blacken themselves with, cloaking deadly winds with darkness. The boiling cloud deck lowered perceptibly as the two columns wheeled around one another.

[At over 300 mph, the winds inside a tornado tear off hands. Tear off feet. Arms. Heads. Zel thought of Gourry, dismembered by the wind, and shuddered. His own body would be pierced by branches, twigs, even straw or dried reeds. But he didn't think of that.]

"Oh shit," they both said. Then Zel wrapped his arms around Gourry's waist; Gourry held on tight, hoping whatever the chimera had in mind was good...

"BEHFIS BRING!" The ground beneath them collapsed, dropping them a couple of meters. Zel did it again, and again, until they stood amid the rubble of a circular hole about six meters deep. Letting go of the swordsman and laying his hands on the curving, damp wall, Zel muttered, "Dug Haut." Being very careful about where he directed the energy, and where the spikes of rock appeared. He moved a third of the way around and did it again, the spikes interlacing. And again. Now there were just a few small holes for ventilation. Zel hoped this arrangement would work, because he couldn't think of anything better on short notice, and he'd never built a storm-cellar before. The noise was at least slightly muffled, and though the wind whistled shrilly through the air-holes, whirling dust and grass leaves and roots around, the two men hunkered down at the bottom of their well and felt a little better.

"Flying in this weather is no good, even shielded," he explained to Gourry, igniting a small lighting sphere.

"Well, we survived that Marlon Brando of the Copy-Rezo's. But that was only with Lina, Amelia, Sylphiel and me, all together."

Gourry forbore to mention that he had felt particularly useless on that occasion, and said instead, "Marlon Brando?"

Zel shrugged, sitting down next to him with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up. After a moment he rested his head on his taller companion's shoulder. Gourry, in turn, tipped his head onto Zel's, and they both yawned hugely, sighing and relaxing against each other. Holding each other, while the storm screamed and roared above them.

At last they had found their idyllic place beneath the tree by the lake. But they weren't alone. Zel and Gourry lay on the grass, with their fingers touching, and sunlight speckling them through the canopy of leaves. Their eyes were closed. In their minds, sunken far, far below, until gravity no longer meant anything but pressure all around, uncoiled a feeling of imminence, immanence, vastness in time and space - and difference. Something slept. Something hadn't moved in eons. But now something moved, stirred, had not yet, perhaps decided to wake.

There were no words; words are a human thing. But Zel and Gourry later could only remember the words they used to try to describe - to others, and to themselves - what happened. In the dream within the dream [within a dream], the presence they found inhabited the shape of the tree. It was only the vaguest of metaphors; they had to direct their attention to something. It was as old as the planet itself, had traveled huge distances to find a place suited to its needs. It was asleep; metamorphosing, cocooned in the world's core. Dreaming. And then came a disturbance, an odd, doubled kind of dreaming. It was curious, it twitched in its cocoon. Perhaps if it woke, and broke free, the metamorphosis would be complete, and it would be able to understand this strange twinned dreaming thing. But here the two-dreaming-one thing was; finally fast enough asleep to communicate properly. Or almost so; strange, tiny, microscopic thing. Stunted? Germ, seed, perhaps? To grow into something greater later?

Yes, perhaps! But if vast, slumbering thing awakens, the other things living on its shell - yes small, yes tiny, yes microscopic - would cease to live. Then no seed, no growing, no finding out later what it would be. If vast, slumbering thing might wait - what's a billion turns around the star, after all? - the seed would have time to grow.

A billion; a number; such things coded deep within self. Understood. Metamorphosis not quite complete; sleeping still is good. A few hundred, a million, more or less; will that matter? No. Seed will grow. The dream of the seed will become complete. Satisfaction for now, further curiosity can wait. Sleep. The two-dreaming-one now accounted for. Sleep.

Zel and Gourry woke. Sunlight slipped golden through the carved, wooden shutters. The ceiling fan hummed softly. The Santoorian air was full of spices, and already hot. Zel checked the chronometer and sat up.

"No way," said Gourry. They'd been asleep for about thirty-two hours. "No wonder my mouth's growing stalactites."

Gourry leered at him good-naturedly. "I know which stalagmite I want a piece of..."

"The Ruby Prince, indeed. That makes me the Swordsman of Light. That was a pretty interesting sword." Gourry struck a dramatic, if supine, pose. "Do you think I should take up fencing?"

Zel shuddered for dramatic effect. "I'd rather you didn't. Myths and legends aren't very pleasant to actually live through, you know." He got up and cast about for the palmtop. The scattered miscellany about the suite spoke of another aftershock, maybe more than one, but not severe. When he checked at the SeSe site, this was confirmed. Two very mild aftershocks the day before, and nothing since. There would be no more unpredicted earthquakes for a very long time.

"Ne, Zel?" Gourry rolled onto his stomach and toyed with the tassel on one of the pillows. "How are we going to report...what happened. To Dreamwork."

Zel set the palmtop on the table and sat back on the bed. "We have to tell them something."

Zel and Gourry woke. Aching and stiff, Gourry tried to sit up, but fell back, trembling and weak. What the...?

"They moved! Lina-san, they moved!" Suddenly, they had a roomful of bouncing Amelia to contend with. Lina had been dozing in a chair, between the ever more frequent earthquakes. Now she sat bolt upright, then shot herself right at the bed; mostly at Gourry, but Zel caught a sideswipe of it too.

"You're awake! You're all right! How could you do that to me! I was worried sick over you guys! We tried everything to get you to wake up! What the hell were you doing? What happened? How dare you go off on some adventure without me! You could at least have left a note! Even if it was something someone else did to you, though we couldn't find any sign of that...

Lina carried on in this vein for a good half hour, during which time not even Amelia could get a word in edgewise; no mean accomplishment. The two guys just let her wind down on her own.

"Lina, Amelia," Zel said, finally. "We'll try to explain, though...it was so strange... No, understand, we will try, it's just a little difficult. But before that, can we get something to eat?"

The shock of Zel actually asking for food was enough to stop Lina in her boots. Instead she and Amelia quietly went downstairs for a while and came up in a bit with two trays amply stacked with food. They didn't even join in the meal, despite Gourry and Zel's wary invitations. Lina and Amelia merely sat and watched them eat, with weary relief plain on their faces.

"Almost two weeks," Lina said grimly. "We could get water down you in little sips, but that was all. I...we thought Gourry was dying. And we...weren't sure what was happening to you, Zel." She gestured at all the books and paraphernalia cluttering the room. Zel and Gourry both noticed the two pallets on the floor, too. "We tried every spell we could find to wake you up. Nothing worked. And now you guys just blithely wake up on your own and demand food! I should fireball you both into next week!"

"What? No spells worked?" Zel put down his cup, wide-eyed. "Did you try Darkcure's-"

"We tried everything in that book! I told you; NOTHING worked. Now spill it; what happened?"

Zel gave as brief a synopsis as possible; Gourry was still eating, and there were things that he and Gourry would rather not try to explain to Lina. Particularly not with the Princess of Seyruun present. It would be...bad. As he spoke, he found that more and more the being cocooned in the center of the planet Santoor was jogging his memory about something. When he finished, Lina's exclamation crystallized it.

"Ourobouros! You guys were dreaming Ourobouros back to sleep!" The petite sorceress smacked her palm with a fist. "I can't believe I missed out on the most mysterious legend in thousands of years! Aaauuggh!!"

Zel sat back, his head thumping the wall. "Ourobouros! I never even thought of that..."

Amelia sat quietly, all her fingers in her mouth as she looked in amazement from one companion to another.

Lina almost fell out of her chair, but she was used to this from Gourry, and merely sweatdropped. "According to legend - are you listening? - according to legend, there's a huge creature living under the world. Some say it's a serpent, some say it's a dragon, a giant squid, whatever. Whatever it is, it's neither mazoku nor of Cefeid's children, nor of dragonkind. Every eleven thousand years, or so - or eleven hundred, it kinda varies - Ourobouros starts to wake up. If it does, the world will be destroyed. Well, supposedly there's a way to keep it asleep, but the legends are so old, no-one remembers how it was done. Last time it happened, apparently its tail twitched and knocked off a piece of the staff of the gods that holds up the world. That piece flew up and landed here on the Peninsula."

"The Philosopher's Stone! Jeeze! You remember? That thing we had, when we first met Zel?"

"Oh, that." Gourry smiled at Zel in a peculiar way, and the chimera smiled back. Lina decided firmly not to notice.

"Lina-san," Amelia piped up. "Do you mean that you think Zelgadis-san and Gourry-san somehow kept Ourobubo...Ororo...Ourobouros from waking up? But how?"

"By talking to it, apparently." Lina tapped her chin. "It sounds like you had to dream within a dream within a dream in order to get the right brainwaves or whatever." She suddenly yawned hugely and sat back in her chair. "I'm beat! Come on, Amelia, let's hit the sack. I think it's only fair that the guys keep watch this time!"

Zel and Gourry watched in sympathy and surprise as the girls zonked out immediately. Gourry picked his teeth meditatively for a while, and Zel sipped his coffee.

"Not at all," said the chimera, and they slipped out the window for a little stroll in the moonlight. And if they did more than stroll...well...

They lay under a willow, hidden even from the moon. Zel sighed and traced a design on Gourry's bare chest. "I didn't want to wake up, Gourry." He'd been wrestling with this all evening, and knew he'd worry at it for a long time to come.

Zel closed his eyes; feeling sullen, and hating it. "He...he had everything he wanted. He was clever and quick, powerful and mysterious. He had a sense of humor. He was so beautiful people nicknamed him after a god..."

Zel stood, his hands fisted at his sides, determined to show no weakness, not even in front of Gourry. "Well. It can't happen. It doesn't matter. We probably won't ever dream that place again."

Gourry sighed. "Zel, weren't you the one who taught me dreams could be made real?" Their union had come about because of their dreams, after all. And they had learned to fight important battles, there, too; defeating the Mazoku Kurohone. "You just described yourself, you know. Except for the 'everything he wanted' part. I know you're still unhappy about... Well, anyway, you do too have a sense of humor. You wouldn't love me if you didn't."

Now Gourry did the groaning. Little does he know! "Oi, you could grow your hair, couldn't you? Have you ever tried?"

"I dunno. I've seen you cut it only slightly less often than Amelia does, to keep her hair short, so..."

"You wouldn't care," Gourry said, stepping up and caressing Zel's neck. "You're so strong... And you could take your clothes off, the next time you're travelling in a desert. Get a tan...mmm..."

"Gou...rry... Ohh... But I...nnnngh...you... you remember THAT! Ohhhhh, gods... Ahh... Yes, there...aaahhhhhhhhhhh... Nnnnnnhhh...mmmmm... Hahhhhh... Please...yes...more...oh gods... Uhhnnnn! Ah... Ahh! Ahhh!! AHHHH!!! NNNNNNNN!!! NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGG...GOURRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"