Elise gritted her teeth.
The portal waited for them, beckoning them with flashes of blue magic. It looked so innocuous.
But she knew what was hiding behind its shiny entrance.
The experience was much like the first time. Even though Elise was better prepared, it still set off every alarm in her head. The space beyond the entrance to the portal was filled with darkness. Elise held her breath as fluid surrounded her, slowing her to a crawl as she forced herself towards the faintly glowing blue ring barely two fen before her.
It was otherwise pitch black around her. Elise couldn’t see Ermolt or Claus, even though she knew they were with her. She could feel Ermolt’s hand on her shoulder. But her extremities felt tingly and confused. She kept her numb fingers clenched, hoping that Claus was still in her grip.
The true spectacle of the space between the two portals was above her.
Five brilliantly glowing threads crossed the sky, shifting colors rapidly between two or three radiant hues. One was gold, shimmering into red. Another was blue, shimmering into yellow. It made it hard to keep track of them. They spun and waved in the air, never touching each other, though sparks flashed when they grew near.
There was a sixth thread, lower, almost low enough above her head to be reached with help. It didn’t wave or shimmer like the rest, and it stayed a monotoned gray color.
Above the threads was nothing. But there was a sense of something in the void. A weight hanging in the darkness.
Her rational mind called it a ceiling, but a deeper part of Elise warned that it was a presence. An unseen bulk barely held up by the weight of the thick fluid that filled the space.
It felt like a bell before her foot reached the unseen ground, pushing slowly through the thick atmosphere of this place between the world. She knew it couldn’t have been that long, or she would have suffocated long ago.
As she took her next step, her foot became visible in the glowing ring of the portal she was pushing towards. It felt like another bell before she was pushing her face back into the real world, and she gasped for breath as she felt the resistance of the fluid behind her release. Elise stumbled and staggered out onto the stone floor. She wasn’t driven to tears this time, although she still felt overwhelmed by what she had witnessed.
Claus and Ermolt were right behind her, though neither seemed affected by the bizarre experience of passing through the portals.
The first time, she thought perhaps it was a barbarian thing.
But Claus’ easy breath and lack of visible discomfort made her doubt herself. It could have been that he was used to it by now, but perhaps Elise was able to see things differently? Or it was something only visible to those devoted to Gods that weren’t Isadon.
Elise frowned at the thought and looked up. They weren’t in a room this time. It was a small square platform hanging out over the pit in the middle of the Temple. The next portal was visible across the empty space, glowing and ready for them to use once more. But the space between it was filled with moving platforms, long rectangular things that spun at different speeds. They passed above and below one another only a few fen apart, creating a dangerous shifting path to the other side.
Her first thought was that if they could prepare a trap, they could hobble the Champion here. But the second thought that crossed her mind was recognition of the hulking bulk of the Champion standing next to the portal on the other side of the room.
And it was staring right at her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
At Ermolt’s side, Elise froze. He wasn’t sure why, but when he followed her eyes, he froze too. The Champion loomed ahead, having bypassed them on the third floor to wait here.
Claus must have seen him too. He made a high-pitched squeaking noise and whirled, immediately trying to sprint back through the portal. The shimmering magic finished fading away with almost comedic timing, and the old man ran into the stone wall behind the empty metal ring instead. He clawed at it, desperately, as if he could dig his way out of the Temple with just his bare hands.
“Mercy! Mercy!” he shrieked as his nails scrabbled against the stone. “I’ve guided these adventurers right to you! Take them! Take them and leave me! Let me live! I just want—”
Ermolt went to reach for the old man, but Elise beat him to it. She spun Claus around and slapped her hand over his mouth, likely a bit harder than she meant to. He flinched, but still tried to scream through her flesh. She held her hand there firmly, and grasped his arm with her other hand as if to draw his focus. His eyes rolled around in his skull for a moment before orienting on her.
“Claus, please. We need your help,” Elise said, quietly. The intensity in her voice would have frightened Ermolt, if he didn’t feel her desperation as well. “If we need to kill the Champion to use the Favor, then we need to kill the Champion. Is there anything you can tell us that will help?” She removed her hand from his mouth.
“I don’t…” He paused, and looked back and forth between Elise and Ermolt. “I’ve told you everything I know! Besides combat, he’s little more than a child! He barely has any understanding of object permanence!”
“There has to be something,” Ermolt said, looking behind him. The Champion hadn’t moved yet. Had it not seen them? Or was there another reason it waited. “What you’ve told us doesn’t help us if we can’t get the drop on him. Please. Is there some detail?”
Claus didn’t hesitate. “Nothing! I swear it! Maybe it’d be better to… If you just left and came back later with a real plan. If whatever you need from the Favor is even worth it.”
“No.” Elise released Claus, almost as if she were afraid that she would hurt him. “I will not leave here without it.” That intensity was back in her voice, but instead of flinching away, Ermolt put a hand to her shoulder. “I won’t leave here without her. I’ll die first.”
“Without who? What do you need the Favor for?”
Ermolt spoke up before Elise could. “Our friend died.” He looked to Claus, purposefully not looking at Elise. He couldn’t stand to see the pain in her eyes. “What we need is to get her back.”
“She didn’t just die,” Elise said, and it almost broke Ermolt’s heart to hear her so helpless and lost. “She was killed. By Meodryt at Ydia’s command, no less.”
“Ydia?” The panic vanished from Claus’ eyes and he reached out to grab Elise’s shoulder. “Truly? Ydia killed your friend? That’s why you’re here?”
“Yes.” Elise pulled away from the old man’s grasp as if on instinct, but Claus held her firm. “And we need her back. We made a promise to return her… and… besides that…” She mumbled something Ermolt didn’t hear.
“What is it?” Claus asked, pressing forward. He leaned in towards Elise with a sudden intent and stability that he hadn’t shown the entire time they’d spent with him. “Say it. So that I can hear it.”
“I want to make Her pay!” Elise said, snarling in his face. “Does that answer you? I want to hunt down Her dragon and kill it for what it did to Athala! I want Ydia to regret turning my prayers aside. I want Her to know that She hurt me, and I want Her to pay for it with Her life!”
Silence fell over them and Ermolt looked to the Champion. He still loomed next to the portal. To Ermolt, it looked as if he hadn’t moved a rhen.
“Good,” Claus said eventually and he clasped Elise’s shoulder. His warm smile was vaguely unsettling in a way Ermolt couldn’t put word to. It wasn’t like he was happy with Elise’s proclamation, but like he knew he could work with it. “Don’t give up. There is nobility in your goal, truly.”
“But… then what do we do?” Ermolt asked, pointedly looking at the Champion once more. The fact that he silently waited, ageless and eternal, with time on his side, unnerved Ermolt. “He’s still there, and if we need to kill him to use the Favor, we don’t have a lot of options.”
Claus looked to Ermolt, and then away. “There is one thing.” His voice was quiet, distant. “It could give you a chance, bu
t the risk is great.”
“What? What is it?” Elise looked to Ermolt, and then to Claus. “Whatever it is. We’ll make it work.”
“The Champion was once the Knight-Commander, as you know. He was a living man, and while his mind has gone to Maehala, there are things from his life that persists.” Claus gestured across the way to the Champion. “Knight-Commander Kolby joined the Temple at an older age than most. He spent much of his young life as a guard in the mines under the southern mountains. While there, he fought many a wild beast and bandit to protect miners who were punished harshly if they stopped working, even if it was due to an attack.” He paused, and then pointed to Ermolt’s hip. “That is your key.”
“The mattock?” Ermolt drew it from his belt. It didn’t feel like a key—it felt like a tool. Nothing more than a saw for rocks. “What, would he see me as an ally? Maybe not attack me if I’m holding it?”
Elise snorted derisively and Claus shook his head. “No, not anything like that.” He then suddenly nodded with a grin. “But almost exactly like that. As long as you aren’t attacking him, someone with a pick would seem like just part of the landscape.”
“Alright,” Ermolt said with a shrug, holding the pick out to Elise. “I’ll face him. You hold this and wait here for a chance to strike.”
“No.” Elise crossed her arms over her chest and looked across to the Champion. “I need to be the one who faces him.”
Ermolt felt as if he’d been slapped. It wasn’t like he wanted to go in bare-fisted against the Champion once more, but there was a bit of a thrill to it. “What? No. Why? You’ve had no luck against him at all.”
He expected Elise to talk about revenge. To tell him how she needed to stand against the Champion to prove something or some other some rotten nonsense. But instead, she laughed. “I’d have less luck with the mattock, truth be told. As Claus said, we can’t attack him with it. And as for what needs to be done? My arms are too short.” When Ermolt’s confused expression didn’t magically disappear, she pointed downwards, past the edge of the platform they stood on.
Their platform—and the platform the Champion resided on—was built into the wall like any other floor. They were sturdy, well reinforced, and stationary. But the platforms in the center of the room were connected to a series of rotating stone rings that encircled the pit in the center.
“If we break one of those, and the platform falls with the Champion on it…” She looked out over the pit. “We don’t need to kill the Champion. We just need it to die.”
“And a fall will kill cleaner than any blade,” Claus said, nodding emphatically as if it was the wisest thing he’d ever uttered.
“But I can’t reach,” Elise said, pointing back at the supports. “If I lay down on my belly on the floor, I could barely reach it, let alone strike it. But you? You could do it easily.”
“I could,” Ermolt said, nodding in agreement. “But it’s too dangerous. He’s too strong.” He sighed and looked once more across the way. Why didn’t the Champion move? Attack? Anything? Did their lack of visible weapons make them incapable of being a threat? Or did he dislike the moving platforms, like he did the teleporters? “In all honesty, Elise, I’m not sure I could take him on alone. I won’t have you killed right in front of me when I could be the one fighting him.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Elise stood up straight and returned her attention to the Champion. “You’re the only one who can bring down a platform. And that leaves me as the only one left to fight it while you do.” The ex-Conscript closed her eyes and sighed. “I won’t negotiate this. Unless you have another idea, you can’t change my mind.”
Ermolt stared at her for a long moment.
He wanted to say Elise had come a long way since they’d first met in Khule so many months before. That she’d matured or perhaps even grown stronger in conviction. And while there was a change in her, especially since Jirda, this woman here was still the same stubborn Conscript who had helped hire him in the first place.
The worst part was, she was right. The plan, as laid out before them, was the only one he could come up with. And he was the only one who could enact it. That meant that Elise was the only one who could put herself in danger to be the distraction.
With the tools and information that they had, there was no other way.
His compulsion to protect her—as he had failed to protect Athala—had to be put aside. They had to work together to beat this foe. If that meant that she was the one protecting him, he would have to swallow his pride and accept that.
Ermolt sighed, and the sudden noise caused Elise to open her eyes. He nodded at her, even though if felt like defeat. “Alright. It’s the only plan we have, and you’re right. This is the only way it can be.” He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look up at him. “Just promise me that you’ll be careful. Do not take unnecessary risks. And if you need help, for all of Dasis’ fauna, please say so. I would rather we escape back through the portal and regroup than have to put your leg back in place without a potion to heal it.”
Elise grimaced. “Thank you for that.” She rubbed her thigh as if she could still feel the pain. “And don’t worry—I’ll be sure to let you know if I’m overwhelmed. But unless I say otherwise, just focus on the platform.” With a twist of her upper body she righted herself away from him. “We’ll get through this.”
“I know.”
She stepped forward, towards the nearest platform. “Or we’ll die trying.” And with that, she jumped onto the platform as it swept by, leaving Ermolt and Claus alone.
“You’re both going to die horribly you know,” Claus said, his voice calm and even for once. “And as soon as that portal comes up, I’m through it.”
Ermolt nodded, numbly, watching Elise as she circled around the outside of the room. “I know, and I don’t blame you.” He gripped the mattock firmly. “Not one bit.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
She was filled with dread.
Elise could hear her own heartbeat rushing through her ears, drowning out all other sound. Her limbs shook—a light tremor that she could not still—but she walked with her chin up. She would face death head on, and she just prayed that Ermolt would be fast enough to save her from her own eventual failure.
As Elise leapt onto the rotating platform, the Champion stirred, almost as if it had been asleep this whole time. The body shuddered to life and it moved with that unnatural speed to meet her. It once again mirrored Elise’s actions, dropping onto a platform on the other side of the room. But while Elise rode her platform towards it, the Champion walked opposite the rotation of the platforms, hopping lightly between them as it stayed in place just in front of the far portal.
It wanted her to know it would stand between her and escape.
Between her and Athala.
Riding the platforms towards her impending death wasn’t as simple as standing and waiting. The platforms were layered, and so she was forced to occasionally hop over a slab of stone that was passing opposite of the way she was riding. Just the same, it was an easy enough activity to allow her to consider her course of action for the oncoming fight.
Survival was her primary goal.
She needed to avoid being hurled off the platforms to her death. Or having her bones broken again. There was also his blade to worry about.
Elise rolled the shoulder of her shield arm. It would be busy soon, and she wanted to know if it was feeling any strain. She’d need to keep the shield between her and the Champion’s attacks, and be sure to not let the undead pin it aside. The shield would also need to stay nimble enough that the creature couldn’t circumvent it.
Again.
She looked down at the shield.
There was no hiding that it had been useless against the Champion so far. After their first encounter, she had been ready for its strikes to be angled around her defense. But then it had simply pulled it out of its way and rendered the shield useless. What if it had a third plan?
What if it were something she could not possibly predict, and it was the thing that would cause her to lose her life?
She couldn’t take that risk.
But what other options did she have? She couldn’t forgo the shield entirely, could she?
Elise chewed on her bottom lip and watched the Champion as it danced between platforms.
The act of wielding the pointed shield had been drilled into Elise as a vital and central part of her training for years. It was part of her role as a Conscript. The central focus of the fighting style she had trained in for so very long.
But she was also aware of the weight of the weapons on her belt.
No. Not her belt.
Merylle’s belt.
There was not just a sword there, but a dagger as well. Without her shield, Elise could fight as Merylle had. Elegance and skill, weaving a web of steel before herself to ward away the Champion’s attacks. Her armor would be able to accept a few blows from the undead’s baton, and she would have twice as many weapons to parry its blade. All this, and without the risks of the shield’s weight against such a blindingly fast foe.
Elise frowned at the metal shield. With a firm nod, she deftly unbuckled the shield from her arm. It was a liability. She had other options, now that she could see them clearly. When the shield was no longer secured, she held it loosely in the fingers of her dominate hand. She flexed the fingers of her shield arm and shook out her wrist and elbow. When they were limber, she then focused on her shoulder, allowing it to get used to moving without the familiar weight.
When she was sure of her approach, she looked up and met the Champion’s eye once more.
The platforms had brought her around the pit quicker than she could have walked, but it was a circular approach that felt so slow. But now that she was closer, Elise could hear the rhythmic click of the creature’s cane as it stepped between platforms to keep itself in place amid the rotating room. She was only fifteen fen away.
Elise was determined to strike first. She didn’t need to kill the Champion—Ermolt would see to that—but if she could startle and confuse it, that would buy her more time. Starting off in a way that would disorient it, maybe even shake its confidence, would do her good. It had disabled and seriously injured her last time in barely a dozen breaths. Every moment she had before it was comfortable enough to do that again was another moment Ermolt could spend breaking the platform.
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