The Torch that Ignites the Stars (Arcane Ascension Book 3)

by Andrew Rowe

  “Nice!” I smiled and nudged her. “You’ve got a good arm there.”

  “Same as yours, sister. I simply chose something better to throw.”

  I snorted. “Fine, fine. C’mon. We’ll take it slow.”

  “Could we not return from whence we came and get another spear first?”

  I frowned. “I don’t want to.”

  “An injury would cost us more time than going back a short way.”

  I sighed. “Fine, fine.”

  We went back. I climbed up, grabbed two more spears, and tossed them down.

  Then we headed back to where we were and cautiously prodded the floor as we moved on.

  We reached the area where I’d thrown my spear without incident.

  “See? Didn’t need to waste the time on these.” I shook my head.

  “We did not know that beforehand. The caution was warranted. And now we have two spears to carry again, rather than one.”

  “Fair. Alright, let’s move on.”

  Rai frowned. “Should we not, perhaps, use this as a chance to return home and tell Mother about our progress? I believe she would—”

  I put a hand on her lips. “No. She wouldn’t.”

  Rai frowned. Then nodded.

  I pulled my finger back. “This is our only chance. One chance. Let’s not waste it.”

  “For you, sister.” Rai shook her head. “For you.”

  We walked on.

  The next trap didn’t require prodding. It was, in fact, entirely visible.

  There was a section of the floor that was entirely missing.

  Unlike the fissure that had led us into this place, his hole was natural. The gap was only a few feet across, easy enough to jump.

  When we looked down, we could see some sort of bubbling and churning pit of liquid below.

  “Soup!” I pointed.

  “That is acid, sister.”

  “It looks delicious!”

  Rai stared at me.

  I poked the opposite side of the pit.

  Rin and I side-stepped the weighed net trap that fired from a distant wall, which had presumably been designed to knock whoever just jumped straight across into the pit.

  “Ooh!” I headed to where the net had fallen and picked it up.

  Then, after that, I prodded the opposite side of the pit again.

  Another net shot out. We dodged it.

  “Ooh!” I repeated. I now had two nets.

  I repeated this process fifteen times, until I had a pile of nets — I couldn’t carry that many — and I had appearently exhausted the trap’s supply.

  “Remind me to empty out the arrow trap later, too,” I told Rin.

  “We have no place to put so many arrows.”

  “We have nets!”

  “The logistics of that seem...never mind, sister. Let us move on.”

  I nodded agreeably.

  Rai insisted on setting one of the net traps across the pit and weighing it down with rocks before we moved on. I didn’t know if it would actually hold our weight, but I agreed because it was a reasonable precaution.

  We jumped across the pit and weighed it down some more on the other side.

  We actually managed to avoid the next trap entirely with our constant poking and prodding. Two jets of flame shot out from sides of the hallway, enveloping the spot above the trap we’d triggered, but we were completely out of range.

  My poor spear, however, was dust.

  I headed back and grabbed the one I’d thrown earlier. We marked the spot where we’d triggered the flame jets with a line of chalk before moving on, since unlike the other traps, we didn’t have a good way of disabling this one permanently.

  We took a little bit of time testing the bounds of the trap to be safe, triggering it a few times and pulling our spears back to avoid them from getting charred.

  Then we prodded the floor just in front of the trap to make sure that part was safe. Back-to-back traps were always possible.

  We didn’t find another trap. With that, we jumped over the one we’d marked, chalked the other side of it just to be safe, and then moved on.

  “Perhaps we could go back and get a plank of wood to put over this? Secure it to the walls, and then step on that if need be?” Rai suggested.

  I shrugged. “You’re worrying too much. We’ll just jump over it on the way out.”

  “As you say.” But she sounded uncertain.

  I moved on.

  Tap tap. Prod prod.

  I didn’t find any more traps before the end of the hall, where we found a colossal door, similar to the one at the entrance.

  The door wasn’t alone. It was guarded by a single stone statue, one that looked something like a cross between a lion and a dog.

  “Nice statue,” I remarked, stepping closer.

  “That will come to life and eat us if we try to proceed further, sister.”

  “Yeah, obviously.” I pet the top of the stone statue’s head. “You’re a good man-eating guardian dog, aren’t you boy? Yes you are!”

  Rai stared at me.

  “Okay, boy. Here’s what you need to do.”

  Rai’s eyes narrowed. “Rin, don’t.”

  I smiled at her. “You can back down the hall. I’ll be quick.”

  “Rin. That thing is probably designed to fight people of Adept-level. You have no chance.”

  I snorted. “Obviously.”

  Rai narrowed her eyes, nodded, then raised her spear. “I will fight with you, then.”

  “Fight? Oh, no, no.” I shook my head. “We’re not going to fight this thing.”

  I waved toward the hall.

  Rai withdrew cautiously, heading back to the fire trap.

  I wrapped my weighted net around the dog.

  Then I went back down the hall, retrieved ten more nets, and draped those over it as well.

  Finally, I jammed my spear into the wall.

  Sparks flew, and once again, my spear was on fire.

  The stone dog’s eyes shifted from stone to gold, and it began to move.

  “Okay, boy.” I smiled. “Now fetch!”

  I hurled my blazing spear down the hall.

  The dog ignored the spear entirely, completely ruining my joke.

  Instead, it turned toward me and howled.

  I bolted.

  I’d already pushed my spirit into my legs.

  “Rin!” Rai yelled.

  “Get ready!”

  I rushed toward her.

  The stone dog chased me rapidly. Fortunately, it was still sluggish from presumably centuries of slumber, and it was still entangled in a total of eleven weighted nets.

  It also wasn’t a “true” guardian hound — just a statue that resembled one. If it had been, I’d have been eaten alive in moments.

  And my destination wasn’t far.

  I jumped over the chalk line.

  The dog didn’t.

  Flames blasted out of the walls, enveloping the stone dog. And, in spite of its great spiritual power, the dog began to melt.

  Began, but didn’t finish. It was through the trap in a moment.

  Rai smashed her spear into its face.

  The spear broke without effect.

  We ran on.

  We weren’t quite fast enough.

  I heard Rai yelp behind me. I spun.

  The dog had taken a bite out of her right side. Blood flowed freely from the wound.

  “Get off her!”

  A surge of spirit flowed into my arm, and I threw a punch.

  I very nearly broke my fist. I was not strong enough then to break ordinary stone with a punch, and this guardian was hardly ordinary.

  I did, however, get its attention.

  The creature released my sister, turning its gold-eyed gaze toward me.

  And it leaped.

  Rai was there in a moment, shoving into it. Where my punch failed, the force of her movement was enough to shift it, just slightly. It crashed heavily into the wall.

  We ran
on.

  The guardian dog followed.

  We saw something familiar on the ground and leapt.

  The guardian dog did not.

  And while the net we’d left on the floor might have been enough to hold our weight, it was certainly not enough to hold the weight of a stone statue.

  We had, in the end, accidentally laid a trap of our own.

  As the net tore beneath it, the guardian dog fell howling into the bubbling liquid below.

  “Huh,” I said, as statue splashed into the liquid below and began to dissolve. “You were right. Definitely not soup.”

  Rai gave me a soft smile, then collapsed, still bleeding badly, to the ground.

  ***

  We were no fools. We’d brought bandages.

  Okay, maybe we were fools. But we were mildly prepared fools, at least.

  I dressed and wrapped Rai’s wound. The statue’s teeth had torn a great gouge in her skin and muscle, but they hadn’t hit anything vital.

  Then, I gently shook her awake.

  “Hm?” She blinked. Her hand drifted down. “Oh.”

  “Rai. Are you okay? You still with me?”

  She nodded. “I am well, sister. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me.” My hand tightened into a fist. “I’m sorry. This was a terrible idea. I’m so sorry.”

  I didn’t tell her that I’d been crying, but it was obvious enough from the stains across my face. I didn’t know if she could see them in the dark, though.

  Rai shook her head. “Do not worry, sister. I am well. Help me stand?”

  I nodded and gave her my hand, then helped her to her feet.

  “The guardian?” She asked.

  “Dissolved.” I pointed at the hole. “We have nothing to fear from it. Do you think you can walk? I can carry you.”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I can lift you—”

  Rai shook her head. “No, I mean we should not leave so soon. I have studied places like this. That guardian may have marked the end of the dangers to this place.”

  I frowned. “You...certain?” It was uncharacteristic for Rai to be the one pushing for danger. I wondered if the loss of blood might have impacted her judgment.

  Rai touched her wound again, winced, then nodded to me. “It is a superficial injury. I will be fine. We should complete our task.”

  I drew in a deep breath, inspecting my sister. “I don’t think...”

  “Remember your goal.”

  My jaw tightened. “Okay.” I paused. “But you wait here and rest. Drink water. I’ll be back.”

  Rai frowned, then she nodded and sat back down. “That is an acceptable compromise.”

  “Good.” I kissed her on the top of the head. “Be back soon.”

  “Authority be with you.”

  “In a place like this?” I laughed. “Probably better off if he doesn’t catch us.”

  I headed back to the door, planning along the way.

  Can I get some of that acid to burn through the area around the door somehow? Maybe take it off the hinges?

  It didn’t matter.

  The door was wide open.

  And beyond it was...virtually nothing.

  There were no grand piles of treasure like I pictured, no stacks of preserved elixirs and glittering magical spears.

  There was simply a large stone container in the center of the room.

  A coffin. In a tomb! Who knew?

  The coffin was the fancy kind. The top of it had been carved into a likeness of the Authority in that particular incarnation, which turned out to be a man of indeterminate age that was, let’s say, a little on the heavy side.

  Not what I’d been picturing, but hey, I guess reincarnations of gods have to enjoy some of their lives somehow.

  I debated leaving. But I was stubborn, and I hadn’t found any delicious loot yet.

  So I prodded the top of the box.

  Nothing happened. No sparks.

  I took that as a sign, grabbed the side of the lid, and shoved.

  Surprisingly enough, it budged.

  There was no body inside the tomb. I’d researched this particular incarnation of the Authority, and he’d been obliterated by the flames of one of the Origin Beasts.

  Not a particularly fun end, that one.

  The tomb was not entirely symbolic, however. Inside, I found something — presumably an item he’d considered important at some point in his life.

  A small, rune-covered box.

  “A box inside a box. Someone had a sense of humor.” I grinned.

  Then I took the box and opened it.

  No, there wasn’t another box inside.

  Instead, there was something far more valuable — a vial of brilliant golden liquid.

  “Gotcha.”

  I smiled and headed back to Rai.

  “Mission complete.” I waved the box at her. “Let’s head home.”

  About the Author

  Andrew Rowe was once a professional game designer for awesome companies like Blizzard Entertainment, Cryptic Studios, and Obsidian Entertainment. Nowadays, he’s writing full time.

  When he’s not crunching numbers for game balance, he runs live-action role-playing games set in the same universe as his books. In addition, he writes for pen and paper role-playing games.

  Aside from game design and writing, Andrew watches a lot of anime, reads a metric ton of fantasy books, and plays every role-playing game he can get his hands on.

  Interested in following Andrew’s books releases, or discussing them with other people? You can find more info, update, and discussions in a few places online:

  Andrew’s Blog: https://andrewkrowe.wordpress.com/

  Mailing List: https://andrewkrowe.wordpress.com/mailing-list/

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Arcane-Ascension-378362729189084/

  Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClimbersCourt/

  Other Books by Andrew Rowe

  The War of Broken Mirrors Series

  Forging Divinity

  Stealing Sorcery

  Defying Destiny

  Arcane Ascension Series

  Sufficiently Advanced Magic

  On the Shoulders of Titans

  The Torch that Ignites the Stars

  Weapons and Wielders Series

  Six Sacred Swords

  Diamantine

  Soulbrand (Coming Soon)

  Other Books

  How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps