All Ari could see within the opening was a ladder extending downward into the impenetrable blackness. He rubbed his hands together and looked over at Eva.
“Shall we?” he said.
“Be careful, Aristial,” whispered Kerys. “I’m serious. I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid or hurt yourself while you’re down there.”
“Of course I won’t, Kerys,” said Ari. “It’ll be fine.”
He couldn’t help but let his excitement leak into his voice. His thoughts were brought back to the labyrinth he’d explored near the tower’s original location and how much valuable loot he’d found within it. It was enough to prime his anticipation, making him feel like one of the fictional treasure hunters in the stories the mistresses would occasionally tell back in Golias Hollow.
“Ready, Eva?” he asked.
In response, she gave him a small nod and flashed with light, shifting from her human-like incarnate form into Azurelight, the slender, elegant greatsword with the flawless sapphire pommel. It was long enough to necessitate two hands to wield properly, with a thick cross guard and a gleaming silver blade.
Ari briefly adopted one of the sword fighting stances Eva had taught him just to see how it would feel. She hadn’t taken her sword form in the entire time they’d been on Deepwater Spire, and though he’d appreciated her companionship, a part of him loved how elegant she was as an actual weapon.
“Let’s do this,” said Ari, tucking the greatsword back into the scabbard across his shoulders.
“Yes…” said Eva, through the bond. “We… even pace... artifacts.”
Ari frowned. Her voice sounded hazy even though it was being projected directly into his head, and some of her words were missing or indecipherable. He tried not to let the stab of unease that sent through him show on his face as he lowered himself onto the ladder and began climbing down into the spire.
“I’ll wait up here!” Kerys called after him. “Be back before dinner, so I don’t start worrying!”
“I somehow doubt that that will stop you from worrying,” called Ari. “But I’ll do my best.”
He climbed farther down the ladder, moving outside of the reach of the sunlight. It was dark inside the spire but strangely not pitch black. Ari’s eyes were those of someone who’d spent the first eighteen years of his life underground, in a hollow, and they didn’t have much trouble adjusting to the ambient illumination currently available.
He reached the floor beneath the ladder and spent a few seconds taking in his surroundings. He was in a massive curving hallway that sloped downward as it continued forward. There was a wall behind him, preventing him from going in any direction other than straight ahead or back up the ladder.
He licked his lips, resisting the urge to immediately start walking along without a care.
“Any thoughts, Eva?” he whispered.
“Watch… traps,” she said.
“I can’t hear you that well,” he said. “It’s like every second or third word comes out too fuzzy for me to understand. Do you think this has something to do with the fact that we’ve stopped strengthening our bond?”
“That… is possible,” said Eva. “My apolo… gies.”
Ari took Azurelight out of its sheath and tossed it into the air. Eva was quick on the uptake, and the blade flashed with light as she shifted back into her incarnate form. She was frowning, and she wouldn’t meet Ari’s gaze when he looked at her.
“It makes more sense for us to start exploring like this, then,” he said. “Otherwise, I won’t be able to fully absorb your wise feedback.”
“Yes, Lord Aristial,” said Eva, in a quiet voice. “I agree.”
“Hey.” Ari reached his hand out and set it on her shoulder. “It’s not a big deal. We can manage well enough like this, and if we encounter any enemies, I figure you’ll still be plenty sharp in sword form, which is what counts.”
She gave him a quick nod, but her expression remained clouded. Ari gestured toward the passageway, and they both started walking.
The hallway was unbelievably thick with cobwebs. Ari defaulted to a strategy of waving his arms in front of him like a lunatic after the first few. Even in the dark, he could tell that they were probably centuries old, and they had a snap to them that was very unlike the flexible consistency of a fresh spiderweb but no less annoying.
The hallway continued in a slow, sloping curve for what felt like an eternity, but it was probably just a single rotation around the spire’s midpoint, as massive as it was. Ari had to pull back on the urge to break into a sprint when he finally saw a chamber at the end of it.
He and Eva exited out into a large, circular space that had a few dimmed ward lights offering illumination from various points on the ceiling and several other objects of note. The chamber was at least a hundred feet in diameter, and several dozen ancient, skeletal bodies littered the floor and sat against the curved wall.
“Mud and blood,” muttered Ari. “That’s a lot of death.”
Eva walked over to the nearest skeleton and knelt by its side.
“I see no signs of battle, at least on this one,” she said. “It is possible that they died peaceful deaths.”
“Peaceful deaths,” muttered Ari. “That still includes a pretty wide range of unsavory possibilities.”
The most unnerving part about the long-dead corpses was the fact that they were mostly all still dressed, and their clothing had barely aged in comparison to their long-since-decayed flesh. A few loose garments, tunics mostly, lay scattered around the floor. Ari’s imagination briefly played out a scene of a few men, dying and uncomfortable, casting off their shirts in rebellion against their fate.
“I’m not a huge fan of this chamber,” said Ari. “Let’s figure out where we can go from here.”
They had options. The room had four exits, five counting the hallway they’d entered through. The one directly across from that hallway was easily the most conspicuous of the bunch.
The door was massive, spanning from floor to ceiling, and it was at least four or five times higher than Ari was tall. It was made of polished black stone and had three hand-sized keyholes near the bottom, level with where a person would be able to reach.
Each of the three was surrounded by a different pattern: triangles, linked circles, and crescent moons. Ari examined them slowly, prodding one with the tip of his finger as though he expected it to burn him or trigger a hidden trap. Nothing happened, which was a small relief given how many people had evidently died in the past within the chamber.
Three keyholes, one for each of the other massive, unexplored hallways leading to places unknown. Ari noticed a subtle patterning etched into the stones of each of the halls that seemed to correspond with the shapes of the keyholes. The triangular one was the closest, and he set a hand on Eva’s shoulder and gestured toward it with exaggerated movements.
“Shall we?” he said.
Eva smiled at him. “I am at your side.”
CHAPTER 5
Each of Ari and Eva’s footsteps echoed through the length of the triangularly patterned hallway. It was empty aside from a few more unpleasant cobwebs. Ari found himself wishing that they weren’t so stringently rationing water as he considered how many dusty shreds of ancient webs were clinging to his hair.
There was a plain wooden door with a normal handle at the end of the hall. Ari tried it and furrowed his brow in surprise as it opened without giving him any trouble. He slowed as he entered the room on the other side. It was a smaller chamber than the one with the keyhole door, but it was still far larger than it felt like it needed to be.
Rows of benches carved from the same stone the spire was made of ran in two columns toward a platform in the back. Upon the platform sat an ancient contraption that Ari assumed was a large instrument from the pipes jutting from the back and the rows of keys.
A purple mesmer sat in front of the instrument, giving an enthusiastic, if completely soundless, performance. Ari took another
step forward and saw the mesmer hesitate momentarily before standing up and turning to face him and Eva.
The mesmer wore a set of heavy armor that left only his head revealed. He had the thin, pale natural features of one of the Sai, along with long, black hair. He was also carrying a weapon, a spiked mace that must have weighed at least fifty pounds. The mesmer said something in Saidios, a language which, of course, Ari didn’t understand.
“Uh… can you translate for me?” asked Ari.
“He asked how you got past the guards,” whispered Eva. “Judging from the color of this mesmer alone, I must warn you that he is likely very powerful.”
“And probably worth a ton of essence,” said Ari. “This is exactly what we came down here for.”
He held his hand out to the side. Eva seemed slightly reluctant.
“Be careful,” she said. “Given our communication trouble, once I’m in sword form, I will not be able to—”
“I know, I know,” said Ari. “Come on. No time to waste.”
Eva flashed with light, and Ari caught the hilt of Azurelight in midair, shifting into one of the offensive stances she’d taught him. The purple mesmer warrior had already hopped down off the platform and reacted immediately, charging forward.
Ari was a little surprised at how fast the warrior could move. He didn’t get a chance to attempt the first strike, even though he should have had the opportunity. The purple mesmer swung his mace in a vicious downward arc, and it was all Ari could do to spin to the side.
He slashed at the mesmer’s armored breastplate. The mesmer hopped back before his blade could make contact, twisting into a counterstrike with his mace from the side. Ari swung his sword up to deflect it with less than a fraction of a second to spare.
Fighting a mesmer was not the same as fighting a physical opponent. They were ghostly, ethereal remnants of the people they’d once been. In this instance, it gave Ari a massive advantage. He would have stood no chance of trying to block a blow from the heavy mace the mesmer was wielding had it actually been made of iron or steel.
The mesmer hopped back several paces before Ari could follow up on his opening. He allowed himself a smile, twirling his greatsword in a small flourish and silently thanking Eva for her diligent tutelage.
The mesmer let the head of his mace drop to the floor and lifted one hand, palm aimed outward. Ari had time to get out a single syllable of a long series of curses before the hand flashed with blue light and a spell exploded forth.
A spike of glacial ice the approximate size and length of a throwing spear sang as it soared through the air, directly at Ari’s chest. He launched himself to the side in time to avoid being impaled, but the ice spike shattered into bits of shrapnel as it impacted with the far wall. A few of them ricocheted back into Ari, and he felt a dull, freezing pain at the points of contact.
“Dormiar’s blood,” he muttered. “I hate battlemages.”
“Perhaps it… consider retreating,” came Eva’s half-muffled reply.
“Forget it,” said Ari. “He surprised me with the spell, but that’s a trick that will only work once.”
The mesmer warrior seemed intent on making him eat his words. He launched a salvo of ice spikes, one after another. Some of them were aimed at Ari, while others he directed toward the ceiling or toward walls, letting the shrapnel they ejected bounce outward from annoying angles.
None of the spikes hit Ari, but plenty of ice shrapnel did. Each direct encounter with it sapped away at his soul essence while also chilling him to the bone. It was different from physical pain, like the damage skipped past his skin and inflicted harm directly on what lay within.
He felt dizzy, even, and as the purple mesmer finally let the torrent of spells subside, he could barely keep his footing and hold his greatsword up. It felt like the fight was starting over from the beginning, except now the mesmer warrior had a massive advantage.
“Not fair…” muttered Ari. “I want magic.”
The mesmer feinted and then swung his mace low instead of high. Ari jumped over it, but stumbled as he landed. The mace arced, carrying its momentum all the way around in a swing that continued at a diagonal from above. Ari blocked it with Azurelight.
He was caught completely off guard when the mesmer let go of the mace with one hand and punched him hard in the stomach. The pain was unreal, a mixture of vicious cold and pain so intense that Ari couldn’t and didn’t want to think about it. It was enough to make him realize, seconds too late, that he’d dropped his weapon and was being pushed into a corner.
The mesmer laughed and said something that Ari caught the gist of without needing to understand a single word. The fight had reached its conclusion, and that necessitated a final, taunting farewell.
He watched with gritted teeth as the mesmer raised his mace to deliver what could potentially be the last blow. Ari shot his hand out to the side in the direction of Azurelight and focused his will, summoning it to him.
Nothing happened. The sword stayed exactly where it was. Ari didn’t even get a sense of it responding to his command. The mesmer brought the mace down, and he only had time to shield his head with his arms before everything went black.
CHAPTER 6
When Ari opened his eyes, he was in the midst of a painful, body-wracking dry heave. A gentle hand ran through his hair and then cupped his cheek, repositioning his mouth so that anything that needed to come out would be able to.
“I’m so sorry,” whispered Eva. “I… I’m so sorry.”
“It’s—” Ari felt his stomach spasm, cutting off his sentence. “It’s… okay. I’m fine.”
His head was laying in her lap. He tried to roll over and sit up to prove his point and only managed to instigate a bout of vertigo that kept him where he was.
“Aristial,” whispered Eva. “Are you in pain? Can you move all of your body?”
Ari groaned and closed his eyes for a moment, half wishing that he could pass out for a while longer. He finally forced himself to look down at his body, wiggling his fingers and shifting his feet to answer Eva’s question.
“I don’t exactly feel great,” he said in a raspy voice. “My body still works, though. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that I didn’t win that last fight?”
Ari looked up at Eva as he heard her take a shaky breath. Even in the dark, he could recognize what was off about her. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were reddened and puffy. He reached a hand up and gently caressed her cheek.
“Eva?” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “Apologies, milord. No, you did not win. You tried to call for me while I was still in sword form, but it seems that the current state of our bond won’t allow for that anymore.”
“It’s alright,” he said. “How did I survive that last attack, though? I saw the mace coming down.”
“I shifted into my incarnate form and attacked the mesmer,” said Eva. “It was not enough to stop the blow from landing, but it shifted it away from your head. Even still, the amount of soul essence it drained from you is not insubstantial. I’m so sorry.”
“I already told you that I’m fine,” said Ari. He forced himself up into a sitting position and glanced down at his tunic. The front of it was completely stained, and it took him a couple of seconds to realize that it was as much blood as it was vomit, judging from the color.
“I pulled you out of the chamber, and blessedly, the purple mesmer declined to follow us,” said Eva. “You went into seizures for a while, followed by a long bout of retching. Followed by a period where… I suspected that you might have been lost.”
Eva took his hand into hers and gave it a tight squeeze.
“Damn,” muttered Ari. “I’m going to have to ditch this tunic. I can’t let Kerys see this. She’ll start worrying for no good reason.”
Ari took his tunic off and tossed it to the side, glad to be free of the nastiness of what was on the front of it. They were sitting in the chamber with the keyhole door
, on the side of the room furthest away from the ancient corpses.
He felt pangs of empathy for Eva as he considered how horrible it must have been to watch him on the brink of death, surrounded by the remains of so many other long-departed souls. She still looked visibly upset, and he put an arm around her and pulled her in closer to him.
“Lord Aristial,” whispered Eva. “This is entirely my fault.”
“Nonsense,” said Ari. “I lost the fight. My currently pathetic state has got nothing to do with you.”
“If you had been able to summon me to your hand when you tried, you would—”
“And if Rin hadn’t stolen my mud damned Feathercloak back before we came here, I would have been jumping circles around the bastard,” said Ari. “Not to mention the fact that if the mesmer had been a more agreeable sort to begin with, we might have sat down for a chat and a laugh instead of dueling to the near-death.”
Eva gave him a small nod, but from the expression on her face, Ari could tell that she still very much blamed herself.
“How long was I out for?” he asked.
Eva shrugged. “A good while. Seven or eight hours, at least.”
“Mud and blood,” muttered Ari. “We should get moving again. Kerys is going to do her impersonation of a peeved mistress if we aren’t back in time for dinner.”
He stood up on unsteady legs, doing his best to ignore the stabbing pain emanating outward from his chest with each beat of his heart. He spotted one of the ancient, discarded tunics he’d noticed on their way through the chamber and started browsing through them for one in his size.
“Those tunics likely belonged to the dead within this chamber,” said Eva.
“They obviously took them off before they died,” said Ari. “Well, probably. I guess there’s a chance that someone stripped them off the newly departed, but let’s just pretend that it was unusually warm down here and a few were just looking to cool off.”
Vision Voyage (The Weatherblight Saga Book 2) Page 3
