She turned toward the tower and started walking, hoping like hell that by some miracle this would work.
Chapter 19
The massive iron doors at the base of the tower swung open soundlessly as they approached, as if beckoning them inside. Sephi walked into the darkness, followed by the others, and as soon as they were all through, the doors clanged shut behind them, sealing them in.
Orbs of burning blue light ignited along the walls around them, revealing a wide, high-ceilinged room with smooth stone walls. The massive room was noticeably bare of furnishings or ornamentation, and Sephi wondered what that could mean.
Her question was soon answered when the rustling of a thousand leathery wings filled the air. A small hole opened in the ceiling, and a swarm of bats rushed into the room. The chittering creatures swirled around Sephi and her friends. She pulled the Heretic Blade and dropped into a fighting stance, even though her dagger wouldn’t do much good against these flying vermin.
The bats didn’t attack. Instead, they amassed into a whirling black spiral at the opposite end of the room. A black figure formed at their center, and when the bats exited through the same hole from which they had entered, a spectral man in dark robes smiled at them.
“Welcome to Zekariah’s tower,” he said, bowing his head. “I am Hextius Black. If you are seeing this message, I am most likely dead. Unfortunate for me, but lucky for you. If I was here to greet you myself, I would murder you where you stand for trespassing. But alas, those days are gone.”
Hextius smiled sadly, as if remembering past victims fondly. “Your presence here means you found one of the artifacts I had my acolytes hide around Esper. And you’ve earned the secrets contained within. Congratulations. Such tremendous sacrifice shows your commitment to seeking ultimate power and to carrying on my work now that I’m gone.”
Sephi took a step toward Hextius. “Tell us about this final test.”
The ghostly figure didn’t react. Clearly, he was just an illusion and not a sentient ghost like Cris had been.
Hextius continued. “Opening the artifact has put you on the path to greatness, but any idiot can kill the person they hold most dear. I have to ensure that you are worthy of taking up my mantle and inheriting the secrets at the top of this tower. To prove your worth, all you have to do is make it through this room and walk through this door.” An iron door appeared in the wall behind him. “Good luck!”
“Good luck?” Sephi muttered. “What the fuck sort of message was that?”
Slits opened in the wall beside the door, and two enormous saw blades shot at the group, flying horizontally through the air.
“Move!” Sephi cried and rolled to the side. One of the blades sliced through the space where her head had been a second before.
She looked behind her to see the blade buried halfway into the stone wall. “Everyone okay?”
Her friends all answered in the affirmative, but before she could say anything else, the floor beneath her slid away, revealing a pit with wickedly sharp spikes jutting from the bottom. She hopped backward onto firmer ground, narrowly avoiding a lethal fall.
Other holes opened in the floor all around them, but not all of them were traps. Nightmarish abominations crawled up from beneath their feet. The one nearest to Sephi looked like different body parts had been crudely stitched together, and not all of those parts were human.
The thing had scaly arms with claws at the end, somehow connected to a man’s torso. The claws bit into the stone floor as it dragged itself up from the hole.
All around the room, similarly mutilated creatures emerged from hiding. One had the horned head of a bull, another bristled with quills, and one looked like it was all hair and teeth. Seeing these impossible creatures, Sephi felt her sanity fray at the edges.
She was almost relieved when the scaly-armed monster in front of her swiped its claws at her face. It forced her to narrow her focus on survival, blocking out the dreadful chaos around her.
Her attacker moved sluggishly, but every time she darted in to slash with her dagger, the room itself got in her way. The floor beneath her would shift, or a gout of flame would shoot from the wall, forcing her to dodge out of the way.
However, she noticed that the room didn’t target any of her opponents. If she stayed close enough to them, maybe the traps wouldn’t trigger.
Sephi rolled forward, narrowly avoiding a clumsy, but powerful slash of the creature’s claws. She thrust her dagger up into its belly and twisted the blade. To her surprise, black fire erupted from the wound, engulfing her attacker. She ducked away from it, watching it writhe in agony.
What the fuck was that?
You’re welcome.
In her panic, she’d let control of the Heretic’s voice slip. You did that?
Not directly, but my soul is stuck inside your weapon now. Some of my power has imbued the dagger with strength.
Your power? I think you mean some of your corruption.
Call it what you want, you ungrateful bint. It saved your ass either way.
Another creature lunged at her, and she clamped down on the Heretic’s voice so he wouldn’t distract her. Still, she was glad to know that having the Black Soul in her dagger wasn’t all bad. She made a mental note not to cut herself, though.
Her new opponent had a hooded snake head like a cobra, and its long serpentine neck allowed it to strike at her from far away. The monster’s fangs dripped with venom as it snapped at her, and she didn’t want to find out what that nasty shit would do to her insides.
As she dodged its darting attacks, she realized this creature reminded her of Moros. Hextius had created the Nyx in this tower, and she wondered if these creatures were the failed experiments of the mad warlock before he managed to perfect his designs.
The floor opened up behind the snakeman, and Sephi kicked him square in the chest, sending him hurtling down into the hole before it could close up. She briefly wondered why a supposed test of strength had so many traps. That seemed more like a test of agility than power. Maybe the trial had been designed this way so that an army of simple soldiers couldn’t force their way through to the top.
Sephi shook the thoughts away and took the opportunity to see how her friends were faring.
Echo and Magnus fought back to back in a corner of the room where the traps didn’t seem to trigger. His sword cleaved through any creature foolish enough to get too close. Echo fired off wand blasts, but the arcane bolts looked fragile and dim, powerful enough to wound but not kill.
Despite the weakness of their magic, Echo and Magnus were holding their own. Working in tandem, she would weaken a creature, and Magnus would finish it off. The pair made a good team.
Francisco was near them. His hands moved in complex patterns as he manipulated a hulking golem of stitched-together flesh. Francisco’s guardian kept him shielded, but the White’s limbs trembled from the strain, and sweat poured down his face. The man was probably one of the most powerful mages alive—she had seen him command an army of undead—and even he could barely maintain his spell in Tartarus.
Moros, on the other hand, showed no signs of fatigue. He leapt from one monster to the next, using his incredible strength to crush skulls with his fists or hurl one creature at another. As Sephi watched, the Nyx picked up a shaggy man with ivory tusks and dragged the creature across the saw blade embedded in the wall, slicing it in two.
The Nyx took no joy in the slaughter. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he let out a bleating wail every time he struck down one of the creatures. His distress confirmed her earlier suspicions. These monstrosities were the ones who came before Moros’s people, somehow kept alive by the First Magic all these years.
She didn’t know much about the goatman, but in the short time she’d known him, he had shown a fierce pride in his people. To Moros, this must be like killing his own kind.
She would have to thank him for his help later. Without him on their side, she doubted they would all still be standing. Despite ho
lding their own, Sephi knew they couldn’t keep fighting like this forever. The bad guys were still coming.
New horrors worked their way into the room, each more vile than the last. Blobs of lumpy flesh oozed along like slugs. Things with giant spider legs and too many eyes dragged themselves across the floor, too heavy to walk. Men with bird heads and fleshy wings scrambled out of new holes in the walls.
Sephi rushed over to her friends. They would have to stay together if they hoped to face the new onslaught of abominations. As she reached Echo and Magnus’s side, the doors to the outside flew open, bathing the room in daylight.
A dozen warlocks streamed into the tower, drawing the attention of the monsters. A swarm of bats appeared in the center of the room, and the image of Hextius reappeared amidst the chaos.
“Welcome to Zekariah’s tower,” he said, barely audible over the sounds of fighting.
The warlocks didn’t seem prepared for the bedlam they’d walked into. A few of them were quickly swallowed up by traps, and others fell to the failed experiments. Hemogoblins arose from the blood of the dead to fight against the twisted guardians of the tower, and more dark mages filed in through the doors to replace their fallen brethren.
Echo grabbed Sephi’s arm. “We’re fucked.”
Sephi didn’t want to agree, but she couldn’t see a way out of this where her friends were victorious. The warlocks were too busy facing off against the room’s threats to notice Sephi and her friends in the corner, but once they did, Sephi couldn’t do shit to stop them.
Without the full use of their magic, Sephi’s group had no chance against the blood magic wielding mages.
She watched them hurl bolts of energy at the monsters, cutting them down almost as fast as they appeared. This was the strength Hextius was looking for when he devised this test. Only blood mages could tear through such overwhelming odds in Tartarus, ensuring that the evil legacy of this place could only be carried on by evil mages.
Sephi had been a fool to think she and her friends could survive. The warlocks’ intrusion had probably saved their lives, but that was of little comfort, considering their stay of execution would be exceedingly brief.
A feeling of intense hopelessness crashed over her, making her feel hollow. “Echo, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”
Echo smiled sadly. “I know what to do. You have to sneak through that door and find the Whispers before they do.”
Sephi shook her head. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
“You’re not,” Echo insisted. “It’s our only chance now. We can’t beat them. And we can’t all escape. You can.”
Magnus nodded. “Echo’s right.”
“So I’m just supposed to leave you to die?” Sephi asked.
“We won’t die,” Magnus said. “They’ll take us prisoner. If you get away, you can free us.”
“You can’t know they’ll take you prisoner,” Sephi said.
“They’ll want to interrogate me for Council secrets,” Magnus said. “And I’m certain they’ll want to talk to the Night Brother.”
Sephi narrowed her eyes. “And Echo?”
Magnus shrugged. “Leverage.”
“Leverage for what?” Sephi asked.
“Leverage against you,” he said. “To lure you out of hiding. Look, it’ll work out, but you have to go now.”
Echo nodded. “Go.”
“I’ll come back for you,” Sephi said, hating herself the minute the words left her lips.
“Well yeah, you better,” Echo said. “Now go, dammit.”
Sephi cursed and then went invisible. She weaved between monstrosities and traps, all the while trying to keep herself from falling apart with despair.
She should have never let her friends come into the tower with her. If she had come in alone, she could have sneaked through the room like she was doing now, without putting their lives in danger.
The monsters couldn’t seem to sense her through her illusion, and the traps didn’t trigger beneath her feet. What a stupid test this was if it could be defeated by a simple invisibility spell. Maybe Hextius Black wasn’t as clever as he thought he was.
She made it across the room without incident, and now she stood in front of the door. Glancing behind her at her friends, she found them still holding fast in their corner of the room. She could only pray that they would be okay. Then she looked at the warlocks.
The dark mages might notice the door opening and closing, but she hoped she would have enough of a head start to reach the Whispers before they could give chase. If she could manage that, this rotten situation of leaving her friends behind might be worth it.
With a deep breath, she placed her hand on the iron door knob. It wouldn’t turn. The door was locked.
“Motherfucker,” she cursed under her breath.
Hey, Heretic. Any idea why this door won’t open?
Isn’t it obvious?
Not to me.
The trial isn’t over, dummy.
She sighed and forced his voice away before he could make her feel stupider than she already felt. So much for their great plan. Getting to the Whispers before the warlocks would be impossible now.
But maybe part of their plan could still work.
She could stay hidden and walk through the door once it opened. Then she could try to free her friends or sneak her way past the Occultum mages. She would have to figure out her next move on the fly.
Whatever happened, she saw no sense in revealing herself. At best, she would be taken captive. At worst, well, the warlocks could think of a million ways to make her last hours on Esper miserable.
Now, she just had to find a place to hide. Her invisibility was almost flawless when she stood still, but she couldn’t just hang out next to the door and hope no one bumped into her. The room offered little in the way of hiding spots. Its bare walls and floor had plenty of openings, but all of them contained things that would kill her, and they could seal themselves up at any time.
She spotted a pile of misshapen corpses, their bodies charred and still smoking from the blast that had killed them. It wasn’t the most glamorous hiding place, but she didn’t see any other options close enough to the door.
When she ducked behind the dead bodies, her hand landed in something wet on the floor. The black goo oozing from the corpse’s wounds wasn’t blood, and it smelled like the Devil’s diarrhea. Her eyes watered, and she forced back the bile rising in her throat.
If she made it through this alive, she would definitely leave this part out when she retold the story of her adventure.
The warlocks continued their assault on the tower’s guardians until their leader strode into the room. The blue flames engulfed his face, seeming to drink in the light around him. He raised his hands above his head and summoned a crackling ball of dark energy like he’d done in the Valley of the Lost.
The ball exploded into a hundred smaller orbs, each one homing in on one of the hideous creatures standing in his way. The monsters fell before him like wheat to a scythe. The gurgling sounds of their deaths filled the air, and then everything went still and silent.
The floor and walls returned to their smooth, solid state, leaving only the dead as evidence of the former chaos. The trial was over.
Sephi’s brain told her to make a break for the door, but her body refused to move. She cowered in awe at the raw power of the warlock leader. He was the man who the tower had been waiting for all these years, someone evil enough and powerful enough to inherit its dark secrets. If he got his hands on the Whispers, all of Esper would be his.
She couldn’t let that happen.
Chapter 20
The remaining warlocks regrouped around their leader. The Occultum had arrived in force this time, probably because they didn’t want to get their asses handed to them like outside of the Valley, but the battle had taken its toll on the dark mages. Only about a dozen or so were left.
As one, they confronted Sephi’s friends. Her fists clenched tightly at he
r sides as she watched from across the room, hoping that they would be all right. She couldn’t hear the words being exchanged, but the warlocks sounded angry. After some back and forth between both groups, the warlock leader barked some orders to his underlings, and they bound her friends in shackles.
Sephi let out a breath, feeling relief flood through her. This situation had to be one of the few where seeing her friends get taken prisoner was a good thing.
The dark mages relieved her friends of their weapons and then marched them single file through the carnage littering the floor. The mage with the burning face walked in front, and she got her first real look at him.
Black robes and gloves covered his body, leaving only his hairless head bare. His skin had a dark blue cast to it like the ambient light reversed itself when it touched him. His eyes glowed a ghostly indigo as they scanned the room, and Sephi forced herself to remain motionless so he couldn’t see the telltale shimmer of her invisibility illusion.
He didn’t hesitate when he got to the door. His hand grasped the knob firmly, and the door opened easily, like the tower welcomed its new master eagerly. He pointed at two of his warlocks.
“Guard the door,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “Watch for the girl.”
With that, he walked through the door and out of sight. The rest of the group followed, including her friends. The two warlock guards planted themselves on either side of the door, which remained open.
The guards would be a problem. She couldn’t sneak past them without them noticing. Maybe if they were lounging around bored, they wouldn’t notice her behind her invisibility spell, but they were on high alert. And the entire room was still, so the slightest hint of movement would draw their attention.
She considered casting an illusion to look like one of the monsters had come back to life, but she discarded the idea. The distraction would allow her to slip by, but as soon as they realized they had been tricked, they would know she was nearby.
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