by Andrew Rowe
I raised the dueling cane, my hand still aching from my earlier uses of the weapon pulling mana through my veins. I was no longer pointing it toward Keras.
I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it.
Several things happened at once.
Vera broke from cover, rushing toward the fallen child.
Katashi raised his left hand with his palm forward, golden light forming in his grasp. His palm was pointed at Vera.
Keras moved. He was a blur, impossible for my ordinary eyes to discern. When a twisting helix of light ripped forward from Katashi’s hand, Keras appeared in front of Vera, deflecting the blast with a casual swipe of his own left hand.
“Go.”
Vera grabbed the child and lifted him over her shoulder, moving toward me with almost painful slowness.
Katashi’s jaw tightened. “I did not permit—”
Keras was next to him in an instant, smashing a fist into the visage’s armored chest. I saw a blast of concussive force on the impact, a spherical wave of disruption.
Katashi took a single step back at the impact, his expression unchanged.
Keras flickered back just in time to avoid a slash from the visage’s crystalline blade.
When Keras reappeared, I realized the left sleeve of his coat had been burned away where the blast of light had connected. The skin beneath was burned and cracked.
He might be faster and stronger than me, but Keras isn’t invincible. This isn’t an even fight. It’s not even close.
What could I do to alter the outcome?
I didn’t even know what they were fighting about, let alone their strengths and weaknesses. If a visage of the goddess said someone needed to die, conventional wisdom said that they needed to die.
But conventional wisdom had also abandoned my brother in this same tower. Conventional wisdom and I hadn’t been on speaking terms since then.
That single punch from Keras looked like it had carried more force than anything I could put out from my dueling cane and it had barely affected the visage. I knew how to pour additional mana into a burst, but I doubted I’d have an impact. Katashi fought armies, some of which contained attuned.
A cheap shot to the head? The lack of armor might have made a difference, but I couldn’t count on my ability to land the shot.
What else did I have at my disposal?
I shrugged off my backpack and found the book.
By the time I looked back, Katashi was surrounded by a flickering aura of burning light. He pointed his crystalline weapon at Vera. I could see the fiery aura gather in his left hand, then flow through his body, glowing brighter until it gathered in his sword, turning the blade white.
“This must be.” There was no inflection in his words.
Vera wasn’t moving fast enough to avoid the helix of incendiary light that emerged from the blade.
Keras blurred again. A streak of silver severed the air, splitting the bolt of light in twain. The deflected energy smashed into the floor, leaving long cracks in the marble.
The swordsman stood a little straighter, his expression grim. The sword he held was long enough to be used in two hands, but he held it with his right with no sign of effort. The silvery blade had only a slim flat surface toward the center, the outer portions angled into viciously sharp edges. A subtle white glow flowed within the blade, a clear sign of an enchantment.
I doubted it would be enough.
I set my dueling cane down, letting Vera approach while I grabbed my quill and flipped through the book to the end.
You have reached the entrance to the second floor of the tower.
You must flee. The visage will not permit you to leave with the prisoners. You don’t stand a chance.
You’re not reading this right now, but if you do...
Please, leave. Please. While you can.
That ink was dry, but new writing appeared as I watched.
The visage will not be distracted for long. You must leave.
I raised the quill to write.
You’re clearly watching here. Can you help us?
No words appeared in the seconds that followed.
Keras shrugged off his coat, revealing a black vest crossed with leather straps. Six sheathed knives were attached to the straps on his back. He kicked his coat to the side, drawing one of the knives with his left hand.
Katashi remained at the top of the stairway, turning his gaze toward Keras and maintaining an impassive expression. He jammed his crystalline sword into the stone floor, bringing his hands in front of him. Globes of flame appeared in the air around him, one after another, spinning and rotating.
Keras flipped the knife in his hand and hurled it straight at the visage’s face.
The visage didn’t even move. The knife impacted an invisible barrier and clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Keras gave the slightest frown.
The burning orbs did move. They weren’t as quick as the lightning, moving only at the speed of a thrown ball. But there were eight of them... and they had different targets.
Seeing Keras’ expression sink, I knew that he couldn’t stop them all.
Vera had almost reached me.
The dueling cane was in my hand before I processed what I was doing. Two clicks in rapid succession. I felt the mana surge through my chest, burning hotter than it ever had.
I blew the two closest spheres of flame out of the air, dispersing them with kinetic force. Keras moved quickly enough to slash five of the others, successfully deflecting the last of the projectiles aimed for Keras and the child.
The last sphere struck him in the back.
The force of the impact barely staggered him, but his vest ignited instantly. He shivered for a moment, wincing, and reached toward his back with his left hand.
The flames pulled away, gathering in his hand.
A wave of his hand across the blade of his sword. The flames swept across the weapon, the weapon’s edges shifting to glow crimson.
I could see the burned skin across his back as he rushed toward the stairs. He was still fast — faster than anyone I’d seen before.
But I could see him. He was slowing down, the wounds weighing on him more than his expression showed.
I looked back at the book.
I will try, child. I will try.
You must leave the room.
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
“Vera, we need to go.”
Vera gave me a curt nod, shifting the burden on her back. The boy was nearly as tall as she was; I was surprised she could carry him at all.
I flipped the book and quill into the pack. Katashi turned his head. He’d heard me, but Keras had nearly flown up the stairs. He didn’t have time to intervene.
The door behind me opened. Vera pushed through.
I gave a last look toward Keras.
He’d reached the top of the stairs. He waved his left hand, and the five remaining daggers slipped out of their scabbards, floating in the air behind him. As I watched, their blades extended as they hovered in formation. They were wings of steel.
He gripped the hilt of his weapon with two hands, the blade still glowing with inner light.
I took a deep breath, retrieving my backpack as the swordsmen began to circle each other, and I fled the room.
Chapter IV — Escape
My right hand was trembling as I gripped the hilt of the dueling cane. Part of it was the pain from drawing too much mana, but a larger part was my state of mind.
I’d sided with a prisoner against a visage of the goddess and I... didn’t feel guilt. I felt like I should have done more.
I’d left Keras behind.
I shook my head, trying to regain my focus. Nothing in this tower was safe, and if Keras did fall, I had little doubt that the visage would follow us and finish what he had started.
This room was rectangular, maybe forty feet across. It was clearly divided into sections that were about ten feet each, each section being elevated a bit above the previou
s section.
I could see a few tiles in each section that were just a sliver thicker than they should have been — probably traps.
There were dozens of fist-sized holes on the side walls of the room. Probably more traps.
Those weren’t the real problem, though.
Each of those elevated sections in front of us had a set of monsters, and each was more dangerous than the last.
And, predictably, the sole visible exit was on the opposite side of the room.
The monsters in the section right in front of us were the simplest threats possible. Teardrop shaped creatures of gelatinous acid, barely intelligent. Slimes. They were already hopping forward.
Behind them, two massive creatures that resembled bears, but with brown scales and three vicious horns. Barghensi. They were extremely resistant to physical damage, but magic would work — including my dueling cane. Unfortunately, I could barely even hold it at this point.
There was a cylindrical pillar in that section, right between the barghensi. It wasn’t solid stone like the other ones in the previous room; it was some kind of transparent crystalline structure. Maybe just thick glass, but I doubted I’d be that lucky.
Inside the pillar, I could see a sheathed sword floating in what looked like mid-air. At a second glance, I realized my mistake. The sword was submerged in water.
Finally, right in front of the door, an eight-foot tall bronze statue. It had six arms and each arm carried a different weapon.
Its eyes were glowing with crimson light.
Pretty sure that’s a spire guardian.
Spire guardians were deadly monsters that guarded the ways up to higher floors of the tower. I wasn’t supposed to have to face any during the Judgment. They were strong enough to fight fully trained attuned. I knew I didn’t stand a chance by myself.
Vera glanced at the slimes, then back to me. “Switch.”
I understood her meaning immediately, slipping the dueling cane into her grip and lifting the child out of her arms. I didn’t know what level of skill she had with the weapon, but it was our best chance.
Vera swept her arm across the room, rapidly tapping the button on the hilt as she moved. Blasts of force rippled out of the cane’s tip and slammed into an invisible barrier at the boundary between our section and the one in front of us.
Vera grimaced. “Should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I’ll have to get up there to take care of those. Wait here for now, yeah?”
I nodded as Vera crept ahead. She ducked at the border of one of the raised tiles and felt along the side of it. Fortunately, she didn’t press it down, but I had no idea what she was doing.
Something to do with her attunement, maybe? Some kind of trap disarming magic?
I didn’t see any visible effect when she moved away from the tile. She did something similar along the wall, putting her hand right up against one of the sides of the holes. Then, after a moment, she stuck her hand inside. She pulled it back out a moment later.
She turned her head back toward me. “Don’t step on the raised tiles.”
I’m pretty sure I could have guessed that on my own. “Right.”
Then she stepped on the tile closest to her.
She didn’t.
I stepped backward out of instinct, but it wasn’t necessary. The traps weren’t aimed at me.
A hail of arrows fired out from the holes in the wall directly in line with Vera.
She just grinned, stepped forward, and caught one of the arrows with her off-hand as they whizzed by. She tilted her head to the side after the flurry subsided, inspecting the arrow. “Yeah, these’ll do.”
Then she charged.
She leapt onto the next raised section without resistance. Apparently that barrier was only meant to stop magic, not people.
As she landed, the slimes hopped toward her with surprising speed.
She blasted the first one with the dueling cane three times, then stepped backward as it recoiled, triggering another trap.
Vera dodged the incoming arrows again. The slimes didn’t.
The arrows took care of three of them.
The sole slime she’d already bombarded wasn’t airborne, so it was low enough to the ground that it didn’t get hit. Instead, it just sort of slid across the ground toward Vera until she blasted it twice more. Then it vanished.
And the other slimes vanished along with it.
Not bad.
Vera wasn’t done, though.
She walked forward, avoiding the rest of the traps on that section, and came to rest next to the next one. “Move up,” she instructed me.
I complied quickly, but I moved slowly. Both because I was carrying someone else that was almost my size and because I really didn’t want to set off an arrow trap.
I made it to the next section without incident.
“Great.” Vera hopped onto the barghensi platform.
The barghensi charged.
Vera took a couple shots at the lead barghensi, then tried to step back down to where I was to avoid being barreled over by the still-charging monster.
That, it seemed, was not allowed.
The barrier popped into existence and she bounced off it, stumbling backward.
She managed to regain her footing, but the lead barghensi was almost on top of her.
I set the child down and dug into my pack, but I was far too slow to help.
The barghensi opened its jaws as it closed in.
Vera jumped, pressing the other switch on the dueling cane and landing on the creature’s back. It was pretty impressive, but she fell right off. Not a combat attunement indeed.
The barghensi turned as she fell, rearing up to smash down on top of her. I did the only thing I could think of to help: I threw the candle from my bag at the tile closest to them. It wasn’t very heavy, but I hoped...
The trap triggered.
Vera, still on the floor, was still too low for the arrows to hit her. The barghensi, standing tall, was not so lucky.
In seconds, the first barghensi was riddled with arrows. It fell backward rather than forward and stilled as it struck the ground.
The second barghensi, however, was unharmed.
Vera rolled as it approached, avoiding its charge, and jammed the blade of the dueling cane into its side. The creature roared, turning toward her... and she fired a blast of mana into its open mouth.
The creature shuddered and collapsed, lifeless.
Vera pushed herself to her feet. “Thanks for the assist there. That’d have been a lot messier otherwise.”
My eyes were fixed on the second barghensi’s corpse, and my hand drifted up toward my throat. I wondered what it felt like to swallow a blast like that.
I shook it off. “Glad to help. Can you get back down now that those things are dead?”
She tested it. She could. “Guess we can probably move freely in and out of any section we’ve cleared.”
I pointed at the kid. “Should I put him back at the entrance and help you with that guy, then?” I indicated the bronze statue. “He looks pretty mean.”
It might have been my imagination, but I was pretty sure it turned its head toward us when I said that.
That was disconcerting.
“Not sure if that’s a good idea... you still don’t have an attunement. But I’m not going to refuse help if you insist.”
After seeing her almost get mauled back there? “I insist.”
She helped me move the kid back to the entrance, and then we stepped back to where the barghensi had fallen.
I turned my head to her. “You fought anything like that before?”
She shook her head. “No, but it’ll probably be tough to crack with physical attacks. Doubt the arrows will do much. Maybe the sword in there is special?”
I’d considered the same. Maybe the book knew more, but I was worried about taking the time to send a message and await a response. “Probably worth trying to get it out, at least. And if we can’t, I can just tr
y to distract it while you hit it with the dueling cane?”
Vera nodded. “Sounds good. Lemme see...” She put her hand up against the pillar. “Not glass. It’s just thick ice. I think I can break it.”
I nodded, stepping out of the likely path of any water that the pillar might release. “Go right ahead, then.”
She stepped back, too, then fired a shot from the dueling cane into the center of a pillar. A crack spread across the surface where the mana had connected.
The statue moved. An echoing voice emerged from its mouth. “Defilers!”
That didn’t sound good.
There was grinding sound, then a crack as the statue’s foot shattered the stone where it stepped.
Vera shot the pillar again, broadening the crack.
The statue bent its knees and leapt, right at Vera.
“Resh!” Vera dodged out of the way as it descended, already beginning to swing its swords at her.
She ducked a swing aimed at her head, blasting the statue in the chest in response, but it barely budged from the shot.
The pillar was cracked, but the crystal still hadn’t broken.
I didn’t have anything heavy to hit it with.
“Can you hit it again?” I shouted to Vera.
The statue turned toward me and hurled a sword in my direction.
I just barely stepped out of the way in time.
Realizing that might be a viable weapon, I rushed for the thrown sword — only for it to vanish as soon as it hit the opposite wall.
“I’m a little busy!” Vera replied to my request, deflecting a sword with the dueling cane’s blade. She was better with the weapon than I’d expected, swiftly deflecting two cuts from the statue with perfect precision, but it was overwhelming her with the sheer number of angles it could attack from.
She stepped back, giving more ground, and barely avoided triggering another trap.
I rushed back toward them, but I still didn’t have a weapon.
I’m going to regret this.
I rammed myself shoulder-first into the crack in the pillar.
The ice caved on impact. I was bathed in freezing water and tiny fragments of frost.