Knight Purged
Page 19
He’s not alone, came Una’s voice. This time even Mammon seemed to hear it. He frowned and glanced upward.
“I’m not alone,” Guyon echoed. “And you are not, and never will be, master over me!” He shot forward, grabbing Mammon by the neck once again. “Now give me the amulet.”
Mammon gasped, truly at the mercy of Guyon’s hold. Guyon didn’t know if the Sin’s visions were real or just illusions to earn his loyalty. But they did not matter. If his parents were trapped in this place, the best course of action was to eliminate their tormentors, and he would have to start with Mammon.
He is ready, said Una.
HE IS READY! Thundered a voice around him. This was not a human voice, but one made of everything. It seemed to come from all around Guyon, from the very walls itself. Instinctively he knew it was the voice of the Shadow Realm itself, or perhaps the voice of the object he came to seek.
Whatever the voice, in that moment, the world around them rippled once more and both Mammon and Guyon were transported to another chamber. Based on the golden makeup of the walls, Guyon guessed they were back in that giant treasure chamber. That suspicion was confirmed when he glanced up and saw spiders scurrying across the ceiling.
YOU HAVE PROVEN YOURSELF WORTHY! came the booming voice once more. Guyon looked up to see a pedestal at the top of a great mountain of treasure. A winding staircase he had not noticed before led up to the top.
Guyon thrust Mammon away from him. The Sin choked as Guyon’s hold was released. “No!” he croaked. “You cannot…”
But Guyon was no longer listening. He stepped forward till he was at the base of the mountain of wealth. Then, avoiding all the gems, trinkets, and gold coins, he began his assent up the winding stairs.
26
Mammon did not follow, nor did anyone else in the chamber stir. It seemed even the spiders were carefully watching him.
It was as though his strength drained from him as he climbed. He soon grew short of breath, and the muscles in his legs screamed.
Hurry, Guyon, said Una. Your three days are nearly up.
Gathering his strength, he marched up the last section of the staircase, until he finally reached the top pedestal. There, sitting comfortably in a glass case lay the amulet.
It was surprisingly small from what Guyon had imaged. The broach at the end of it was not much larger than the chain that held it up. A thin strand of rope wove through the chain from one end to the other, and the broach bore a relief of an ancient Greek warship. He had finally found the Amulet of Odysseus.
He reached his hand out, and it was as though every creature in the room leaned in closer. Guyon glanced up at the spiders, the spawn of Arachne, Mammon had called them. Would they come for him if he took the amulet? He had to assume they would, even when he had the right to take it.
“Stop!” called Mammon. Guyon turned to see the Sin crawling up the last few steps behind him. His body had changed. His face was pale and gaunt. His body was thin and malnourished in appearance. Guyon’s resistance had somehow hurt the Sin. “You cannot take it, my master will never forgive me. I will be locked away forever.”
“Then that is how it must be.”
“What about second chances?” Mammon pleaded. “Did you not say that you would give any a second chance?”
“Humans, and even some from your world,” said Guyon, remembering the deserters, Occasion and Furor. “But I said most, not all. And you are one of the Seven Sins. To give you a second chance would be to doom others. And I cannot allow that.”
With that, he brought his fist down onto the glass case that held the amulet. It shattered to pieces.
Instantly, the ceiling became a torrent of moving bodies. Guyon didn’t bother to look too closely, knowing that the spiders were coming for him. He did not know what they were, if they were physical manifestations of some force that would try to stop him from leaving, or if they were literal in any sense. Regardless, it was time to leave this place as fast as he could.
Grabbing the amulet, he flung it over his neck and turned to go back down the stairs. Mammon was gone, disappeared somehow. Guyon did not bother to search for him. He flew down the staircase, ignoring the chittering sound of many legs coming from all around.
A black mass of spiders was creeping down the walls of the enclosure, and several merely dropped from the ceiling in front of him, directly in his path.
Guyon did not have time to think. He drew his half-broken sword. Whether it would do any good against such meta-physical creatures, he did not know. But before he could even consider what would happen if his sword did not do its work, he swung it at the nearest spider that jumped at him. Up close, the spider was roughly the size of his head, and it wasn’t alone. More followed its lunge, coming at Guyon from several direction.
The amulet began to glow with a pale blue light. That light reflected out from the blade itself, and it seemed to Guyon as though the glow coalesced into something like a blade of its own, completing the broken half of his sword, making it whole once again. Part sword, part blade of pure light.
He swung at the nearest spider, and the blade cut through it like it was made of pure air. The beast screamed and fell back, its legs curling around its body as it died. More spiders came, but those that got too close shrank back from the light emanating from the amulet and Guyon’s sword.
The amulet gave him power. He could literally feel it strengthening his resolve, fortifying his senses.
Most of the spiders shrank back from the glow that he projected, but some still thought to attack. Guyon’s sword made short work of them.
Yet they crowded in on him still. Soon he could barely make out anything beyond a few meters in any direction. Spiders surrounded him on all sides. They literally formed a wall. Well, he would just have to break through that wall.
The amulet pulsed, and suddenly Guyon had a clear vision in his mind of where to go. He turned until he was facing right and slightly behind his previous position. There. The door was somewhere beyond that wall of spiders.
Without pausing to consider the danger of charging such a mass of arachnids, he sprinted forward. The light coming out of the amulet and his sword was enough to push the spiders back. All but a sorry few moved out of the way, and Guyon’s sword eliminated the rest. By now the blade appeared almost complete and solid down its length. Yet only part of the sword was made up of steel now. The rest was a beacon of pure light emanating out of the amulet, giving power to Guyon’s ability to resist.
He didn’t have to run far before he found the door he had first entered earlier. Wrenching open the lock, he flew through into the chamber that housed the great pillars of gems, the entranceway to the hall of wealth.
But he saw no pillars. Nothing but another mass of spiders lay in front of him. But as before, they remained just out of reach of the shining light from the amulet.
With so many spiders piled up on each other, however, it was inevitable that many would fall down in front of him as he ran. Many tried to attack Guyon despite his amulet, but most died.
Yet even as he swung at one, another landed on his back. A sharp pain in the back of his neck caused him to gasp, and he quickly flung the beast off of him with one hand, slicing it in half even as it fell.
His vision wavered for just a moment, but it was enough to nearly trip him as he plunged ahead. He was not out of danger yet.
The amulet continued to guide him, instinctively pointing out where he should go. Una’s voice had silenced in his head, perhaps because it, or she, knew that he was already making for the exit as best he could. And if he didn’t make it out now, he never would.
The amulet took him down one street, then up another. When he made the mistake of glancing back, he could see nothing but black shapes crawling and tumbling over each other to get to him. It was as though they were consuming the very world behind him.
He redoubled his pace, sprinting up another side passageway and around a corner until he reached...nothing.
A wave of exhaustion hit him, and he swayed on the spot. Whatever had come from that spider-bite, it would overtake him eventually. He would not long survive, especially if he fell. He could not fall.
Yet he still felt the amulet urging him onward, directing him to push on. But where? There was no way to move forward.
Glancing back, he froze as he saw the entire collective of spiders hovering just out of reach of his amulet’s light. They regarded him, inching ever closer, braving the light. It wouldn’t be long before they consumed him completely.
He took a step backward, then another. The wall of spiders followed, tumbling over themselves. Guyon reached his spare hand backwards to rest on the wall behind him.
And found nothing.
Off balance, he reeled backward, falling through the nothingness where the side of the cavern should have been.
With a crunch, he landed on his back, and raised his sword to take out the inevitable swarm of spiders. This was it. He couldn’t hold them all back like this.
But no spiders came. Guyon glanced around. He was in a tunnel like the one he had entered through. Behind him, far away, was a distant light. That was what got his attention.
Somehow the amulet had brought him through the stone wall, and he would bet everything that the light was the way out. He had to get to it.
Yet his exhaustion had not disappeared with the spiders. Whatever venom he’d received, it was working its way to his brain. His vision wavered as he pushed himself to his feet and began running as fast as he could towards that light.
The tunnel led uphill, and it seemed his muscles lost more strength with every step. Yet the light was closer. The amulet called to it, pulled at Guyon. He had to get through, he had to push on.
Closer and closer came the light, but so too did Guyon grow weaker. If he did not reach the light soon, he would never come out of this place alive. Mammon, or whoever was in charge of this place, would have him forever.
Cutting through his exhaustion with one final, desperate burst of speed, he charged directly into the light.
Light faded to night, as he burst out of a portal much like the one Phaedria had created to first send him to the Shadow Realm. He fell to the ground, tumbling down a small hill as he did so. The light of the amulet faded, even as Guyon reached one hand up to clutch at it.
He had done it. He had recovered the Amulet of Odysseus.
That was his last, glorious thought before losing complete consciousness.
27
Three days. Una had been hiding on this miserable island for three days. Archimago, Phaedria, and the two brother-knights, had wandered the length of the small landmass every day for hours. It had been all Una could do to avoid them.
Yet her magic had come in handy. Though she had to be wary of the voices, they had been surprisingly helpful to her. They even managed to spot Pyrochles coming towards her before she was even aware of him herself. Then that trick with invisibility was incredibly useful, though it often drained Una of energy. So she only used it whenever one of the others drew near.
Finding enough food and fresh water was often more of a trial. There was enough rain that she managed to catch enough water to survive, but once she had been forced to sneak into Archimago and the others’ camp to steal some. Thankfully none of them had noticed.
Instead, she spent most of her time using her magic in other ways, reaching out through the thin barriers between her world and this shadow of Annwyn. The voices had explained it a little bit, and there were times when she was able to fully observe what was happening to Guyon. Though the images were often difficult to perceive, like looking through a pool of water at something a mile beneath. The voices explained that was because much of what Guyon experienced was metaphorical rather than literal. The images were more like manifestations of how Guyon’s mind interpreted the Shadow Realm.
And it was a good thing too. Those spiders were horrifying.
Una did what she could to urge him along, and she was reasonably sure that Guyon heard her. But she couldn’t be there all the time, since she had to watch out for the enemy so they didn’t stumble across her hiding places. Yet as the days dragged on, and Guyon approached his third day inside the Shadow Realm, she began to grow anxious. She tried to remind Guyon that his time was short, but to her great delight, she found him in possession of the amulet, and coming out of the Shadow Realm.
He was closing in on the breach between their two worlds. She could see it, almost like watching a friend rise from a deep dive in the water. He was about to break the surface.
She could find him, she realized. She could reach the spot before the others, assuming they weren’t already there by happenstance.
Yes, Guyon was drawing closer. He would be here soon, and just in time too. His third day in the Shadow Realm would have finished within the hour. Light was fading fast in the west. She had to get to this place soon.
Forgetting about her own stealth and safety, she rose from the rocks on the north shore where she’d been hiding, and began to run up the steep incline, towards the top of the island. It wasn’t a large piece of land, to be sure, but it was tall. It wasn’t long before her breath came in ragged gasps as she struggled to reach the top.
Something burst to life ahead of her. Her magic felt its vibrations more than she could see it. Somewhere beyond her field of vision, Guyon had just come out of a portal of some kind.
They will come for him soon, said one of the voices in her head. It might have been the timid one. Go to him.
Redoubling her pace, she kept climbing, forcing her protesting muscles to pull herself upward. Though it was not like climbing a sheer rock wall, it wasn’t all that different. One slip and it would be a while before she could catch herself again. The difficulty in navigating this area had been why she picked it as a hideout. Archimago, Pyrochles, and the others had rarely come this way. But now she kind of wished she’d been closer to the top.
Finally cresting the rise, she pulled herself up and over the edge.
She would have taken a moment to catch her breath, save for the fact that the moment her head had risen above the edge of the cliff-like incline, she immediately caught sight of Guyon.
He was lying on his front, still clothed in his armor, clutching his broken sword in one hand, while the other held something wrapped around his neck.
Una stumbled forward, closing the distance between her and her friend.
When she caught up to him, she could clearly see that he was unconscious. His eyes were closed, and he lay sprawled among the grass and weeds.
We will heal him, said a voice in her head. The others will be here soon.
No, Una cautioned. She had been willing to let the magic help her in the past, but that would not mean she would use it for every little thing. He’s breathing. I can help him.
She leaned down and pulled at one of his arms. He barely budged. Pulling harder, she tried to get him to spin around slightly, enough that she could direct him towards a collection of boulders nearby that would at least provide them with minimal cover. They were too exposed here.
“You will have to protect him.”
Una spun and her magic was nearly ripped away from her by the voices in shock. She saw no one behind her, no indication of where the voice had come from.
“Over here,” said the voice again. It was a faint voice, coming from over by a small trip. And it was familiar...
At once, Una understood. Perched on a branch was a small sparrow, a sparrow with a tiny saddle attached to it. And beside the sparrow sat a little man.
Letting out a breath, she said, “Tom, you need to not sneak up on people like that.”
“Apologies,” said the diminutive Tom Thumb,
getting to his feet on the branch. “But we don’t have much time. The others will be here soon.”
That was exactly what her magic had said. Despite herself, Una glanced around looking for the magician or Duessa’s knights.
“I cannot protect him physically,” she said, glancing back at Tom. “Not without resorting to magic.”
“It may come to that,” said the little man. “But I hope it does not. Nevertheless, he has been through many trials and will not be able to protect himself for now.”
“Are you telling me this? Or Gloriana?”
He smirked. “I think you know.”
Una grimaced. “So the Faerie Queen wants him protected, why? Why send me in particular?”
“You are the only one here with the capability of defending him at the moment,” Tom pointed out.
“Yes, but Gloriana knew we would come across each other. She could have sent anyone, why me?”
Tom shrugged. “It’s not my place to question her decisions. She has access to information the rest of us lack.”
“Well you’re no help.”
“Hey, don’t kill the messenger. You need to focus on the present. Protecting this one.”
“That’s exactly what I was doing before you showed up.”
“Remember,” said Tom, seemingly ignoring her last comment. “Courage will restore him. He could be the leader of the Order of Maidenglory someday. Gloriana already deemed him for that role many years ago.”
“When she saved him from death from his parents’ murderers.”
Tom nodded.
“And what about them? Could she have saved them as well, or was it all some elaborate plan to set him on the path he has taken?”
“You think so little of the Faerie Queen.”
“I think she’s manipulative, I just don’t know to what degree. If she would allow others to die for the sake of Guyon’s future, that I could not accept.”
“I do not know what happened then,” said Tom. “But I know what she asks is right. Stay with Guyon, protect him. You will hear from us again when it is time to follow another.”