by Billy Wong
Expansion of the tunnels had uncovered an entrance to an ancient buried ruin, and though the miners quickly sealed off the new passageway out of fear, Clifford proclaimed there were likely great treasures to be found and insisted on exploring. Despite his current poverty—he had no wealth besides a jeweled shield he would never sell—his title of baron still afforded him a fair deal of authority, and the miners had reluctantly unblocked the tunnel to facilitate his entry. Unfortunately monsters had soon poured out of the ruin, killing two miners and maiming several more. The mine was thus closed for now, with Clifford and Len's fate unknown.
"So those two have been in there for a week now, huh?" Finn mused after being informed. "They're probably dead by now."
Amber figured her father was likely right. "That's sad, but I just hope the monsters haven't put his shield anywhere too hard to reach."
The mine tunnels were predictably cramped and stuffy, and Amber hoped the ruins they led to would give them more room to stretch their limbs. She hated this! By the time they found the square entrance to a smooth-walled structure beneath the earth and walked into a wide templelike room littered with great pillars, they were all covered in dirt. "I knew I should have worn clothes I didn't care about!" Amber moaned.
"You should always wear clothes you don't care about when out adventuring," Finn said. "You never know how cut up you're going to get."
Despite her physical discomfort, Amber laughed. Her father finally seemed to be getting better here in his element. She'd had the right idea for helping him after all, though it'd taken the threat of the demon lord to get him on his feet as needed. She heard a shrill cry from behind a pillar on the right. A seven-foot cross between a man and a bat stepped out, turned and leapt at them. It was intercepted by a crossbow bolt to the shoulder, a dagger in the belly, and a hand axe to the forehead, and fell quite dead.
Looking down at it, Jacob sidestepped its spreading blood. "Do either of you know what this thing is?"
"No," Amber replied.
It took Finn a little longer to make sure he hadn't forgotten meeting a creature like this, but eventually he too said, "No. It wasn't too tough, but seemed like it'd be fast on the attack. We have to be careful."
"Hey, there's an arrow already in its back," Jacob noted.
It must have been wounded by Clifford or his squire sometime in the recent past. "How long ago do you think it got shot?" Amber asked.
"I don't know, I'm not an expert in this kind of stuff."
She knelt to get a better look. "The wound's pretty fresh. Maybe they're still alive."
Seeming a bit doubtful at her conclusion, Finn examined the bat-thing himself. "You're right, it wasn't wounded long ago. Well, if those two are alive, let's go save them. Hopefully, they'll be of a mind to repay our favor."
Seeing only one door out of the front room, they walked forward onto a thin bridge across a pitch-black chasm. To their dismay, dozens of shrill voices came to life above them. They set their sights on the portal across the bridge and ran as an incredible swarm of bat-creatures swooped down, bared fangs seeking their flesh. As the first wave closed in, Finn spun striking with mace and shield at once. Bones crunched as multiple monsters were killed or disabled, some careening into others to hamper their approach.
The respite this bought notwithstanding, the family was soon surrounded by screeching beasts which tore relentlessly at them with snapping maws and hooklike claws. Abandoning his crossbow in such close quarters, Jacob drew his longsword and fought in a tight triangle with his father and sister. They felled foes with coordinated efficiency, but could not avoid every blow directed at them. Amber felt her brother lean heavily against her, bleeding profusely from gashes on his side and chest. "Dad, Jacob's hurt!" she yelled just before a bat sank fangs into her neck and bore her to the ground.
Amber pried its jaws loose and threw it off herself into a pair of its fellows, sending two of the trio falling stunned into the chasm below. Yet she had been badly hurt, blood pouring down her neck, and was soon downed again by claws to both shoulders by a high-flying creature. She tried to raise her sword to defend, but as the creature dove at her, a gigantic lightning bolt flew upward from her father's raised hands and split into a score of smaller bolts, striking an equal number of monsters out of the air.
Exhausted by his powerful spell, Finn dropped to one knee with two smoking bat-corpses still clinging to his body. Amber slowly helped him up, breathing a sigh of relief as the remaining beasts retreated to their high perches. "You okay, Dad?"
"Still have all my important parts." Frowning as he regarded her own torn form, he whispered, "Your neck..."
She touched the profusely bleeding puncture wounds and hissed. "Yeah, I know it's bad. Nothing I can't heal, though. Jacob?"
"Just flesh wounds," he said while she picked him up off the floor. "Your neck's a mess, sis."
"So is your back. Let's get out of here and patch ourselves up before we faint."
They staggered together to the far side of the bridge, where they did what they could with healing magic before taking care of the rest through mundane means. Continuing wearily into the temple, if that was what it was, they fought more bat-things as they navigated many rooms, but not enough at once to really threaten them again. Eventually they came to a hallway where half a dozen dead bats lay before a metal door.
"Think our rescuees are in there?" Jacob asked.
Glancing over the creatures which had been felled by sword blows and shortbow arrows, Finn answered, "Mostly likely. Be ready to defend yourselves, though. They might be too messed up to realize we're human before attacking us." He smashed the door off its hinges with a pair of mighty kicks before jumping back and to the side, away from any retaliatory attack. To Amber's surprise, it wasn't a typical weapon that flew out, but the head of a statue, which she caught with some difficulty while the screaming man who'd thrown it raised his shortsword and charged. As he ran past Finn, the veteran warrior tripped him, and he fell clumsily.
Only then did he notice, "Y-you're humans! Really beat up humans."
Amber scowled. "Yes, we're humans, and we got beat up looking for you. Now lend us your shield and we'll get you out of this hellhole."
"What shield?"
She realized he was short, skinny, and about thirty years old—ten years too young to be Clifford. He also looked more dehydrated than anyone living ought to. Gosh, she hoped he wasn't just a lost miner... Giving him some water, she said, "Please tell me you're Len."
"Yeah, I'm him."
"Where is your master?"
His face grew frightened. "I don't know. Fighting our way through the bat-things, I got a knock on the head, and seeing I was dizzy he told me to wait here while he went on ahead. So I did, but I'm getting scared with him not being back yet."
Finn gave him a questioning look. "And just how long have you been waiting?"
"I'm not sure, I can't see the sun in here, but it feels like it's been years since my water ran out."
"Can you walk?" Jacob asked.
Amber glowered, rubbing a sore wrist. "Of course he can! He just threw a twenty pound statue head at me and then tried to skewer me!"
"Yeah, I can walk," Len agreed in an apologetic tone.
Finn asked, "So Clifford went straight ahead, or into one of those side passages?"
"Straight ahead. I think the others just lead to dead end rooms."
With Finn and Amber in the lead, the four advanced deeper still into the vast structure, passing many a monstrous corpse. Clifford was, or had been, quite good. Seeing the flattened-out body of what resembled a wagon-sized cross between a slug and a shark, Finn said, "Now that type of monster, I recognize. One of them gave me fits in my younger days, until your mom cut it open like a pro." At the happy memory, he began to cry for the new ones that would never come.
"Dad, not now," Jacob said. Though it seemed insensitive, Amber understood her brother's point—it wouldn't do to be distracted in a place like this.
Unable to help herself, though, Amber too began to sniff, and Len asked, "What's wrong?"
"Our mom died," Jacob said with a sob, and now the whole trio was in tears. How could they be here, doing what Rose loved, without her at their side? It felt wrong to Amber, as it must to her brother and father. She belonged with them, it was so unfair!
After some more walking, Amber noticed Len start to cry as well, and for a second grew confused. Did he empathize that much with their sorrow? Then she realized he stared at something on the floor, and walking closer saw it to be a human finger. "Cliff," Len breathed, "Cliff!"
"Don't be so sad," she tried to comfort him. "A finger doesn't mean he's dead. Lots of people survive losing a finger." But it wasn't a good sign by any means.
Eventually they entered what appeared to be the innermost room, a huge chamber filled with thirty-foot statues of anthropomorphic beings with no other exits and a single stone post at the very back. And no Clifford. What was going on? Had he been eaten by a monster? Had the shield too been swallowed? They searched the room thoroughly, Len looking more frantically than any of them, and became frustrated when not only did they find no trace of the knight, but no clues as to his whereabouts either.
Maybe he had been eaten after all—in which case, finding the shield could be all but impossible. As she pondered the disheartening notion, Amber heard the rumble of a huge object moving. She turned to see one of the statues lift its leg to stomp on an unsuspecting Len, too preoccupied to notice even something that big. In the spot where the enormous foot had rested was a red paste sandwiched between flattened sheets of metal that had once been armor. Clifford. Still intact amidst the gore were a brilliant jeweled shield and equally stunning helmet, pressed into depressions on the floor.
"Look out!" Amber screamed. Len looked up, but froze as the lion-headed granite statue began to put its foot down. Finn's mace shattered the foot before it could descend. The colossus toppled backward, striking its head against another statue behind it. For a moment, Amber thought it would be that easy, but as it lay on the ground, the thing—golem?—flailed its limbs. A heavy stone hand grazed her and knocked her on her butt while its remaining foot caught Finn to launch him across the room. Then it was up, balanced somehow on one foot.
Amber stood with a wince, an arm hugging her ribs. Not expecting that her sword could damage its good leg fast enough, she aimed a lightning spell at her adversary's head. But her magic was too weak, and did naught but to make it face her and hop comically forward. She tried a different tactic, crouching to cast a spell which softened the stone she touched. She backed away further from the advancing golem.
As it stepped onto the weakened spot, it broke the surface with its weight and fell again, this time breaking a chunk off its head against the floor. Looking to her family after it stilled, she saw that Finn and Jacob were okay, the latter tending to Len who'd been knocked senseless by a flying piece of statue. She walked closer curiously to the strange creature. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite done, and flinging up its gigantic fist caught Amber with a battering ram of a punch.
#
Jacob saw his sister sail across the room to smack against the wall with a second sickening sound of breaking bone. He ran to Amber to find the now-familiar sight of blood leaking from her mouth as she lay motionless. Frightened as before, he held her limp hand while the statue hopped back up again. "Amber, are you okay? Wake up, say something!"
Opening her eyes a tiny bit, she said with a grimace, "Kill the bastard."
The statue grabbed one of its inanimate fellows by the head and pulled, sending it toppling down at Jacob and Amber. Jacob dove out of the titan's way, the impact of stone against stone nearly bursting his eardrums. He looked fearfully back for Amber. To his relief she'd managed to roll aside in the opposite direction, and he shot an exploding fireball up behind the golem's head. But the spell was too feeble to affect it even damaged—dammit, he should have learned from Amber's fight. It reached down, grabbed him and lifted him high.
He knew it could have already crushed him, and thanked its creators for its lack of tactical acumen. He wondered what it would to do with him, but didn't get a chance to find out as his father had already climbed up its back. With a mighty mace blow he chipped the golem's head further. It dropped to its knees, its grasp on Jacob weakening so he could slip free. After doing so, he shouted his idea to finish the battle to his sister. Their combined lightning bolt to the ceiling broke loose a huge wedge which fell on the statue, finally shattering the gargantuan cranium and ending its animation for good.
"That would have been a tough fight for Rose or the demon lord!" Finn said as they gazed over the defeated golem. "But I could've taken him."
Hurrying to Amber's side, Jacob knelt again beside her. "How are you? Are you badly hurt?"
Amber shook her head though she certainly looked bad. "I'll live. Kind of glad I won't be extracting Clifford's shield and helm from that mess of him, actually." She coughed excruciatingly. "That hit broke something else besides just bones."
Cradling her heavy body gently in his sore arms, Jacob said, "Stay strong, I'm sure you'll be okay."
"I know. Tell me when something interesting happens." She closed her eyes, head lolling sideways and hands going limp.
Setting her down, Jacob rushed to check her breathing and pulse. He found them easily, not especially weak. Amber was probably just sleeping, as opposed to dying from some horrible internal injury... still, he'd rarely seen her look so vulnerable before, and continued to worry. "Is your sister all right?" Finn called.
"She s-seems to be."
"Then come over here and let her rest!"
Though none too eager to leave Amber lying there , Jacob realized there was little they could do for her right now with their exhausted spellcasting ability and bodies in general. He trotted over to join his father. "That helmet survived intact too?" he asked.
Finn wiped crusted blood off the eerily serene visage molded onto the full-face helm, which had preserved Clifford's head inside it as the only remaining intact part of his body. "Yup, and my guess would be that it's yet another creation of the Guardians of Salvation."
Its ornate design supported that along with its obvious arcane properties. "So what does it do, and what about the shield?"
"Besides the obvious"—they were, of course, both magically strengthened to a high degree—"I'd bet these things are both intended to break some kind of seal."
Just like the sword that had started the whole treasure hunt. "Is it possible all three items are for the same seal?"
Finn frowned. "It would be almost unheard of to have so many keys to a single seal. If that's the case, what they unlock must be of incredible importance."
"I would hope that's true. Something important and powerful enough to beat Justin! So a sword, shield, and helmet—what kind of seal could they be used together to break?"
"How about one on a statue?" Amber suggested. Jacob did a double take as he saw that she was standing up, her face a mask of pain while she leaned heavily on one of the room's inanimate sculptures. He chuckled, chiding himself for getting overly worried about his sturdy sister. She continued, "The sword in one hand, shield in the other, and helmet on the head?"
Realizing what she was thinking, he said, "But that statue we found in the Spire of Pental wasn't even magical."
She pouted at the rebuttal of her theory and began to slide down the stone leg supporting her, disappointment sapping what was left of her strength. But then she perked up again with a smile. "We've already seen so many strange things in our journeys, what's another? We know the ancients were far superior to us in magic—how do we know they wouldn't have a way to hide magical auras we're unaware of, anyway?"
"We don't, really," Finn conceded. "Okay Amber, let's go visit Derrick and test your little theory on our metal friend. Here, let me carry you."
She climbed with a giggle into her loving father's arms, allowing her injured body to drift o
ff into carefree sleep. Sighing at the task left for him, Jacob lifted the unconscious Len to follow them out of the ruins.
#
"I'm sorry, Len. Your master's dead," Jacob sadly informed the little man as he awakened in his arms, crying out for Clifford.
With wide-eyed horror, he asked, "That red thing on the floor w-was him, wasn't it?"
"Yes." Jacob recognized that just a few months ago, he too would have been shaken to his core by the sight, but he'd become fairly desensitized for better or for worse...
Len sniffed. "He wasn't just my master, but my closest companion—what am I supposed to do?"
What indeed? None of his family had really come to terms with his mother's death, and he thought maybe they never would. He decided to say, "Live a life to honor him, to do him proud." It sounded good at least, and Jacob supposed he was doing a halfway decent job of acting the heroic role. But how little pride he took in it! He yearned to go back to what had been, to again feel the safety of his mighty mother watching over him. He didn't care about being strong for himself, he only wanted his mom back!
He took not the slightest pleasure in the knowledge that if he and Amber did defeat the demon lord with whatever they unsealed, they would finally do something Rose hadn't been able to, and achieve their own great deed to step out of her shadow as Amber had dreamed. He'd rather spend the rest of his life in her shadow if only she could have the years of happy life she deserved.
She'd still had so much to share with him and Amber too, had looked forward to helping them grow into mature adults, and now they'd have to navigate that treacherous path without her guidance. Well, at least she'd taught him one lesson he knew he would never forget. Like her, he would never allow himself to be led off the path he knew was right, and always fight to the end for what he believed in. Even if he died as young as her, he wouldn't regret it if he could do half as much good as she did in her short life.