Retribution, p.61
Retribution, page 61
“What are you doing?” Ellie asked, taking a step back, a slight flush coming to her ghostly pale cheeks.
“I’m going to take you back.”
“No, I don’t—”
“This isn’t a debate,” I said firmly, not looking at her. I didn’t want to see the expression of hurt I knew was on her face. “I know exactly what you’ve just been through, because I went through it myself a hundred times in Epheotus. But now, unlike there, we don’t know if you’ll come back again, or how many times. We don’t have any idea what’s happening here. The platforms are only going to get harder, and if I couldn't protect you in the earlier ones…”
Ellie grabbed my arm and pulled at me, reminding me suddenly of the way she’d used to drag my mother around the shopping district. Bile rose up in my throat as I imagined telling Mom that Ellie had died…
Warm tears slid down my face. “I can’t lose you too, El.”
“You won’t—Boo, help me!” she sputtered.
The guardian bear sat down and huffed, turning his face away from Ellie. Her grip loosened and slid off my arm. “Boo…”
She approached her bond slowly, but he kept turning, putting his back to her. She sighed and leaned in against him, pressing her face into his fur.
I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to crush the metal half-sphere in my trembling fingers.
I needed an existing portal frame to use the Compass on, but we had appeared through the black doors. Out of desperation, I activated the relic and focused on the closest door. Nothing happened, of course. There was no shortcut out.
We were trapped.
One of the doors glinted with internal light, and Mica appeared within it. Her breathing was labored, and I almost thought I could hear the rapid hammering of her heart. I released her almost instantly. She solidified in front of her door, her hands patting up and down her body frantically as she confirmed it was really there.
“It’s okay, you’re—”
“I died…” She blinked several times in a fashion that would have been almost comical if not for the horror of our situation. “But…I’m not dead.”
“You’re very much alive,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “We’re not sure what’s—”
“Oh,” Mica said, the exhalation part gasp, part moan.
I turned to follow the line of her gaze. Lyra had appeared in her doorway, looking slightly green.
I hurried over and, with a spark of aether, drew her out. Her eyes drifted closed, and she took a deep breath, then wrapped her arms around herself.
“I can still feel it, the claws and teeth inside me, ripping and tearing at the meat,” she said in a breathy whisper. “I’ve been subjected to many tortures in my life, but that was by far the worst…”
After taking a few minutes to calm down, we were all sitting in a circle around a small bottled flame that Mica had brought. It took some prodding, but I had convinced Ellie, Mica, and Lyra to eat, and they were chewing mindlessly on some of their rations. Ellie was leaning back against Boo’s side, her focus somewhere deep in the void darkness. Lyra and Mica both watched the flames curl and snap with matching haunted expressions. Regis was standing several feet away from everyone else, his back to the fire.
“When we first arrived here, you two mentioned feeling strange in your own skin,” I said, breaking the long-held silence. “And some of my godrunes are dormant and unusable.”
Mica only grunted in response.
Lyra leaned toward the fire, moving her index finger in and out of one lashing tongue of flame. “You think…what, exactly? That we’re…” She waved her hand in shallow circles, trailing off as she searched for the words.
“I doubt even the Relictombs can resurrect the dead,” I said, steepling my fingers in front of my lips. “This zone is different. I don’t think it’s real. Not in a physical sense, anyway.”
“What does that even mean?” Mica asked gloomily. She punched the ground beside her. “That feels pretty real to me.”
I shook my head. “I know, but hear me out. When I trained in Epheotus, I spent a lot of time—years, actually—inside a relic called the aether orb. It’s complicated, but it basically manifested my mind and spirit inside another realm, where I could train and fight—and die—indefinitely.”
Lyra hissed. “Vritra’s teeth, that’s cruel even by Alacryan standards. So what we just went through…”
I gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I’ve done hundreds, if not thousands, of times. You…” I looked at Ellie and hesitated. “Experiencing death over and over is something you can never get used to. It messes with your mind and warps your sense of what’s real. I didn’t bring you here to experience that.” After all, what was the point of going through such trials myself, if not to keep those I loved from experiencing the same?
“You think this is…like that?” Ellie asked, plucking absently at Boo’s fur.
“I know the djinn have similar magic. In the first two ruins I discovered, I fought the djinn manifestations inside of my mind. It felt real, but it was separate from physical reality. This zone could be too.”
The silence crept back in as everyone considered this theory. After a couple of minutes, Lyra said, “Perhaps this is the universe punishing us, forcing us to feel the deaths of all those we’ve killed…”
“Don’t lump me in with you,” Mica snapped, jumping to her feet and leveling a glare at Lyra. “I’ve always had reasons to kill someone. Right reasons.”
Barely audible, Lyra whispered, “From where I stood at the time, so did I.”
Mica scoffed but sat back down, glaring into the small flame. “We need some kind of plan of attack here.”
“Agreed. Even if we cannot die here, I have no desire to experience that again.” A shiver ran through Lyra as she finished speaking.
We discussed it for a while. Although no revelation was made about how we could progress deeper into the zone, it provided an opportunity for the others to rest and rebuild their confidence.
But one aspect of our progress in particular continued to vex me. I didn’t voice my concern out loud, but those last moments where it was just me and Ellie on the platform were the most difficult and dangerous.
How can I protect Ellie from the increasing number of monsters while we both have to concentrate on creating the connection between doorways?
My aetheric powers had given me the strength to reclaim a lifetime of training and power in a matter of months, but I was well aware that there were limitations to what I could accomplish with such limited flexibility.
‘The problem with a sword is that it’s only as useful as the swordsman’s ability to wield it,’ Regis said, watching me from across the fire. ‘Which, of course, is why I am the superior weapon.’
When I was a quadra-elemental mage, I had a dozen spells at my disposal that would have been more effective. I need to be able to defend myself without one hand tied behind my back, so to speak.
‘You’re thinking about the second djinn projection,’ Regis noted, frowning.
I should have pushed myself harder to learn her techniques.
‘Isn’t the point of all this insight business that you have to discover these things for yourself?’ Regis pointed out.
It’s not enough. If I can—
I cut myself off, acknowledging the spiraling pattern of my thoughts. It was a deep, twisting road down the path of self-doubt and regret. And another part of me knew that I had learned what I could, or what I had to in order to progress. Now, though, was one of those times. Without increasing my skills, there was no way to get my companions through this zone.
“Don’t think talking’s going to get us any further,” Mica said unexpectedly. When she turned to face me, her huge hammer coalesced in her hands. She let the hammer’s head fall heavily to the floor, and I felt the weight of it tremble through the mana. “I don’t care if I die a thousand times, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this place get the better of me.”
Beside her, Ellie gave me a grim-faced nod.
Lyra unfolded from her sitting position, rolling her shoulders as she stood. “Indeed. Though, I would prefer to avoid feeling the grasping claws of death again…”
I studied my companions for a moment. Although I could sense the scars of their experience hidden just beneath the surface, outwardly they projected strength and defiance. With aether, I plucked at the force that was always tethered to me. Black scales inlaid with gold feathered into existence over my body as the relic armor enveloped me.
Mica cracked her neck and gave me a vicious grin. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
“I wasn’t ready for that,” Mica gasped, wiping vomit off her mouth.
She was on her hands and knees, a pool of sick splattered across the ground beneath her, but I understood the reaction. Watching as a headless horror pulled her intestines out through a gaping hole in her stomach wasn’t like the quick deaths I had experienced at Kordri’s hands so many times.
Taking her under the arm, I helped lift her to her feet, then wiped a streak of bile off her cheek with my sleeve.
As we had moved to the fourth platform, the horde of grotesque monsters had overwhelmed Mica before Lyra could even arrive. Regis had fought them off, killing enough to make way for Lyra, and the rest of us tried to push on. Unfortunately, it had taken Regis three attempts to find the fifth platform, and in that time Boo fell under a wave of attackers.
Deciding there was no point in moving forward, we headed backward, but that proved just as difficult, and Lyra perished on the way, dragged off the platform by rending claws. But at least my sister hadn’t died again.
Once Mica was steady on her feet, I went about releasing the others from their doorways. Boo seemed unphased by his repeated deaths. Lyra was quiet, and the others seemed to take their cue from her.
I wasn’t sure how much of this they could take.
“We need to move faster,” Mica said after the post-death fog had cleared. “Sometimes there are multiple doors facing the next platform, right? We should send two through at once.”
“But that removes two people from the battlefield,” I countered.
“True, but it would speed up getting two of us to the next platform, which is when things are the most dangerous for us,” Lyra pushed back. “You are always the last to leave one platform for the next, and you are the strongest. It is as the rest of us move to a new platform that we are going to struggle, especially the first person there.”
Regis hummed deep in his chest, almost more of a growl. “Even if Ellie and Arthur can keep up with sending two more or less at once, there have only been a couple of platforms where that’s even an option. Really, whoever is following me needs to get there and turtle up until help arrives.”
“Then send me first this time,” Lyra said, not quite able to hide the quaver of fear in her voice. Mica scowled, looking as if she wanted to argue, but Lyra forged on. “My defensive spells are more potent. If we can’t be sent at the same time, then I go first. You’ve”—her tone softened somewhat—“had it worse than I have. It is my turn to take that risk.”
Mica’s anger morphed into uncertainty, then begrudging acceptance. “Yeah, all right. Whatever.”
“Third time’s a charm,” Regis muttered, then vanished through a door.
As Ellie finished firing the connecting arrows between two doors, Boo’s image vanished from the door in front of us. I was keeping tabs on the battle at the next platform through my link with Regis. So far so good.
Ellie transitioned from preparation to combat with growing ease. Arrows of white light and pure mana leapt rapidly from the string of her bow, hitting target after target. We were on the sixth platform, and the monsters were surging constantly from the void, manifesting two or three at a time.
I counted in my head as I cut them down, moving constantly so as to try and protect her from every direction. Her arrows picked off some just as they formed, but any who closed in on us, she left to me.
My blade carved through a slashing arm, severing it at the elbow, then reversed direction and bit deep into the monster’s boney hip. With my free hand, I pulled Ellie away from the scything claws of a four-armed horror that was skittering up from behind. With a forward kick, I sent it flying off into the void, where it vanished, reabsorbed by the darkness that birthed it.
Vaulting over Ellie, I came down blade first, bisecting a headless creature from shoulder to hip. Two closed in on me at once, one lunging at my legs while the other leapt into the air, pushing off a skeletal, whiplike tail. Focusing aether into my fist, I sidestepped the low attack as I caught the flying creature on the tip of the aether blade. Its body slid onto the blade effortlessly, and gnashing jaws closed around my throat as claws raked across the black scales of my armor.
A surge of aether from my core answered, reinforcing the armor. At the same time, I yanked my blade sideways, tearing a line through one monster’s chest as I released the aetheric blast. The second attacker vanished in a violet cone.
Twenty.
“Ellie, door!” I shouted.
She conjured her arrows, which I struggled to imbue with aether as I simultaneously fought off our attackers. Without her arrows picking them off as they formed, it grew even more difficult.
Her first arrow sank into the corner of the door in front of us. Her second went flying off into the void, aimed at the next platform.
I was surrounded by the grisly creatures, my focus split between getting her into the door and defending her.
The distant arrow sank into the void, falling just short of the door she’d been aiming for. In the quarter second the sight of the plummeting arrow distracted me, one of the creatures darted beneath my swinging blade. It’s three clawed limbs wrapped around Ellie, the force of the impact jerking her off her feet and carrying her out over the void.
I jumped into the air, reaching for her.
Her hand closed around mine, but a dozen spindly arms had already grabbed her and were dragging her down. Three more of the horrible things slammed into me from behind, and I was half pushed, half dragged over the edge with her. In an instant, we were both pulled into the darkness, and then everything went cold and blank.
I stepped out of the door onto the starting platform the moment I manifested. Across from me, Ellie was staring out from her door with a defeated expression.
‘Well, shit,’ Regis thought, sensing my frustration and angst. ‘What do we do?’
Can you hold out long enough for us to get back? I sent, moving to Ellie’s door and releasing her. The instant I did, Boo popped out of nowhere, nudging between Ellie and me and growling sternly.
‘Not now,’ Regis thought. ‘Lyra’s already wounded, and we’re completely surrounded.’
Only a few seconds passed before Lyra once again appeared in her door. Wearily, I released her. She sank to the ground and leaned her back against it, her eyes closed.
Mica returned less than a minute later. “What happened?” she asked as she manifested. “I felt like we were getting the hang of things.”
“I missed my shot,” Ellie answered, her voice sinking. She rubbed her hands down her face, then turned away, groaning and mussing her hair. “And then one of those things got me and dragged me off the platform.”
Mica kicked the ground with the armored toe of her boot. “I really hate this place.”
“What now?” Lyra asked, not bothering to open her eyes. “We made it farther, but…”
“But I’m too slow,” Ellie said matter-of-factly. “And Arthur has to split his attention.”
“Take some time to rest,” I suggested. “Prepare yourselves mentally. That’s the important part.”
“What are you going to do, then?” Mica asked, raising a brow.
“What I do best,” I said with a humorless smile. “Train.”
With a mental command to Regis, I headed for Ellie’s door, taking it to the second platform. As I drifted through empty space, surrounded by the perception of shadows moving within the darkness, I forced my mind clear of all my worries and fears, all considerations beyond this very instant and what I planned to do with it.
When I arrived at the second platform, I moved to the center. With my eyes closed, I pictured the second djinn projection, the woman who had guarded over the keystone containing knowledge of Realmheart. I copied the stance she had used during our battle. The aether, responding to my intentions, flowed into the shape of a blade in my right hand. A moment later, a second blade consolidated in my left.
It wasn’t strenuous to hold them both, but this kind of two-weapon fighting had never been my focus. Acknowledging this fact helped me see part of the problem: I’d learned to fight with a single blade, been taught that my weapon was an extension of my arm.
One of the monsters congealed out of the void, crawling onto the platform and snarling with a mouth that took up most of its face. Yellow eyes stared at me from its shoulders, and a long, segmented tail snapped back and forth.
I waited. When it lunged, I took a step back, letting its claws pass right in front of me. My swords swept across its neck, closing like shears, cleanly removing the grotesque head. The monster dissolved, and I returned to my starting position.
Even now, the way I held a sword, the way I fought, was based on the principles I had learned as King Grey. Kordri’s influence was there, too, in my footwork and timing, in mastery over the micromovements of my blade and body in concert. But really, I was still very much the same swordsman I had been in my previous life.
Except I couldn’t be. It was a limiter, locking my perspective into a single way of doing things. What was it the djinn had said?
“It is not power you lack. It is perspective. Constraining yourself to a system that already exists around you only holds you back.”
I was unknowingly locked into an out-of-date methodology, and this was preventing me from utilizing my own abilities fully. My abilities as a swordsman made me strong—or so I’d thought, but now I recognized the need to evolve past what I already knew.
