Shadowbound

by Gage Lee

  “Yep, and just now.” I shrugged. “I’m really getting the hang of this engineer thing. Let’s head up to the shadow vault. I want to be ready to pop it open as soon as everything is working.”

  “I don’t see why we can’t,” Baylo said. “This stuff will run itself.”

  The warrior led us all up to the fourth floor, where we’d first run into her. I could tell she was uncomfortable with the Tribunal’s other members in her territory, but she kept her cool.

  Something rumbled deep in the building. Things were happening.

  “Ew,” Biz said. “What is that?”

  “It’s just—” I was about to say the generator when I saw what my sister was pointing at.

  Swirls of black-and-green fluid oozed out from beneath the door to the shadow vault chamber. The viscous material coalesced into a pulsing mound that grew larger with every passing second. A blob pushed up from the center of the mound and opened a single eye.

  “Oh,” Baylo said in a surprisingly quiet voice. “That’s the guardian. I forgot I’d left that here.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A PAIR OF BUDS EMERGED from the mound’s sides with sickening squelches and a nose-wrinkling odor. The new appendages stretched themselves out into noodly arms tipped with club-like hands. More appendages oozed up from the creature’s bulk with surprising speed and kept growing as fluid oozed from under the door. I did not like the way this was headed.

  >>>Academy Guardian, Eternal construct

  No further information is available at this access level.

  Estimated threat level is one onyx skull.<<<

  That really wasn’t good. If the guardian was as powerful as a Fell Lord, we were in serious trouble. Out of curiosity, I focused the interface on the members of the Tribunal. Maybe they were stronger than they looked.

  >>>Access to Tribunal construct data is not available at this interface level.

  The approximate threat level of each member of the Tribunal within the Academy’s bounds unavailable.

  Interface level three is required for additional information.<<<

  Or maybe not.

  “This wasn’t here the last time,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “Your presence didn’t trigger the guardian,” Baylo explained. “It’s designed to stop Ylor and Reesa. Very forcefully.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?” Ylor practically shouted.

  “You tried to take over part of my territory!” Baylo roared in response. “What did you expect would happen?”

  Reesa and Ylor both threw up their hands in exasperation.

  Meanwhile, the guardian was growing larger by the second. The Tribunal’s members watched it nervously.

  “Turn it off,” I barked at Baylo.

  “I can’t,” Baylo said. “Once it’s activated, the guardian will pursue those who triggered it until either it or they have been disposed of.”

  The squabbling between the Tribunal’s members had just taken a very deadly turn. It was hard for me to believe that Baylo, as fierce as she was, would’ve set such a deadly booby trap to take out her peers. The horrified looks on Reesa’s and Ylor’s faces showed me that they hadn’t expected this, either. They were clearly terrified of the monster, which made me wonder what it was capable of doing. Unfortunately, the interface couldn’t tell me anything about the thing.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Biz said. “Bunch of babies.”

  Her hands burned bright as she squared up with the guardian. The thing only acknowledged my sister’s presence by stretching its eyestalk to peer over her shoulder at its real targets. Biz drew her fist back, ready to punch a hole straight through the thing.

  “Do not do that,” Ylor said hurriedly. “You are not currently on its list of targets, but that will change if you attack it. Reesa and I will have to dispose of it ourselves.”

  The worm woman stared at the eldwyr as if he’d just asked her to jump into a bonfire. She shook her head vigorously, sending flakes of dandruff flying from her scraggly hair.

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “I could never fight this thing, and you and I both know you won’t do anything, either.”

  “I would if I could,” Ylor snapped. “I suppose we could lead it around in shifts. It is not very smart or fast. If we work together, it would not be able to catch either of us any time soon.”

  This didn’t sound like much of a plan to me. The idea of two members of the Tribunal running around the Academy with an unstoppable blob monster on their tails was a recipe for disaster. Especially when we were about to unleash a bunch of new students into the building. Sooner or later, somebody would make a mistake, and the guardian would eat them.

  “That’s stupid,” I said. “Can this thing open doors?”

  The blob flung one pseudopod out of its mass, stuck it to the floor, and then dragged itself toward Ylor.

  “Yes,” Baylo said. “The guardian is technically part of the Academy, so it can open doors, even locked ones, to pursue its quarry. I may have gone overboard with this one.”

  Ylor and Reesa both took a step away from the guardian, careful to keep it between them. The blob hesitated for a few moments, its bulging eye swiveling back and forth as it tried to decide who to go after. The looks of absolute horror on the faces of the Tribunal told me this thing was a lot more trouble than I wanted to deal with.

  “Does it have ghostlight?” I asked.

  Baylo considered my question while the guardian slopped its way after Reesa. I caught a glint of confusion in Ylor’s eyes, as if he wasn’t sure why the monster had decided the worm woman was more of a threat than he was.

  “No,” Baylo finally said. “It doesn’t.”

  “Perfect.” At least something was working in our favor. “Ylor and Reesa, head to the garden. We’ll be right behind you.”

  “Explain what you plan to do,” Ylor demanded.

  “Keep you alive.” I waved a hand at him. “No more questions. Move along. And take the stairs, not the lift.”

  The eldwyr made an unpleasant face. He clearly didn’t like taking orders from a fifteen-year-old kid. He just as clearly was willing to do that to stay alive, though. I had no doubt he’d try to make me pay for my insolence later, but that was a problem for tomorrow, as Baylo would say. Reesa and Ylor led the way downstairs with the guardian slopping along behind them. The slime creature reminded me of a slinky as it threw half its body down the steps, sort of rolled down on top of it, then extended another part of itself to descend again. The green blob was much faster going downstairs than across level ground, and I couldn’t help but grin when Ylor hiked up his robes to double-time it down to the Academy’s first level.

  >>>One hundred blades of ghostlight have been refined and stored in the reserves. Commencing generator activation.<<<

  A low hum throbbed through the Academy the instant the interface’s voice went silent. Everyone froze for a moment as the floor shook beneath us. Fitful bursts of light erupted from crystal globes that extended from the walls on long brass arms. Even the guardian froze, its eyestalk darting around as it watched the lights come to life, one by one. The glowing globes would make it much easier to get around, but they also showed the true extent of the damage the building had suffered. The structure looked like it was coming apart at the seams.

  “Keep moving,” I said to Ylor and Reesa. “Looks like your friend is on the hunt again.”

  The pair of them grumbled and hustled toward the archway on the hall’s eastern wall. The guardian took a shortcut under the table and had nearly caught up to them by the time we reached the garden.

  “Where are we supposed to go now?” Reesa asked plaintively. “We can’t just lead it around all day.”

  “Get up on the platform,” I answered.

  The eldwyr and worm woman eyed me uncertainly. They didn’t like the way this was headed, and they were right to be nervous. This next part of my plan was tricky.

  “Oh, I like this idea.” Baylo grinned and
rubbed her hands together. “Send them all down into the dark.”

  “That’s not what we’re doing,” I said. “And I’ve got a job for you, too. Stand near the lift’s edge.”

  The green-skinned warrior grumbled but did as I asked. The other members of the Tribunal also complied with my plan and stood uneasily in the lift’s center. The guardian had reached the edge of the platform and was feeling along the raised surface with a pair of pseudopods. It was only a few feet away from Ylor and Reesa, who both looked like it was taking all the self-control they could muster not to flee at full speed.

  “Move to the back of the lift, by Baylo,” I told them.

  “It will reach us,” Reesa complained. “How long are we supposed to stand here?”

  “I’ll let you know.” The greasy blob had nearly reached the lift’s edge. “When I give you the word, send the lift down to the chapel.”

  “You’d trap us down there with it?” Reesa practically screeched. “It will kill us before we reach the bottom.”

  “Calm down,” I said. “You’re not going all the way down. Be ready to jump. Baylo, you grab them if they need help getting out of there.”

  The guardian reached the lift. The front half of its body sloshed forward onto the stone square. It emitted a pungent, feral scent that reminded me of the time my mom had taken us on a forest hike to hunt mushrooms. We’d found a likely spot and lifted a log to get at the morels beneath. But we’d uncovered a clutch of copperheads and had to abandon our prize. Those snakes smelled just like the monster did now.

  “Send the lift down, Ylor. Slowly.” I ordered. “Unless you want it to eat you.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.” Ylor snapped his fingers, a hopeless frown pulling down the corners of his mouth, and the square shuddered into motion. It moved far more slowly than it had when the eldwyr sent Biz and me down. I’d have to remember to ask Ylor how he controlled that.

  The guardian froze in place, half on the platform, its eye raised high in the air. Then gravity took hold and dragged the rest of its body down to join the front half. It probed the walls with its stubby tentacles, withdrew them, then went back to the task it had been designed for. Hunting Ylor and Reesa.

  “Help me,” Reesa called to Baylo. “I can’t climb out of here. It’s almost on me!”

  The warrior rolled her eyes but grabbed one of the worm woman’s upraised hands. Ylor put his hands on the platform’s edge and levered himself up. His robes rucked up past his knees as he dragged the upper half of his body out of the hole and slung one leg over the edge. The eldwyr was surprisingly scrawny underneath those robes, his legs like pale white twigs. With a grunt, Baylo pulled Reesa up with one hand and dragged Ylor the rest of the way up with the other.

  The lift continued to descend, and the guardian with it. The fiendish little creature vanished from sight, and Reesa let out an audible sigh of relief. There was something about that creature that had terrified the worm woman to the core. I’d have to ask Baylo more about that when I found myself with a second or two to take a breath.

  “Now we’ll never be able to cleanse the chapel,” Ylor groused as he straightened his robes.

  “On the positive side, you are still alive,” I said.

  “My brother’s got you there,” Biz said with a grin. “Plus, he restarted your stupid generator. I can feel a difference already.”

  I hadn’t noticed it with all the commotion the guardian had caused, but Biz was right. The air seemed cleaner, somehow, and the black weeds that had littered the ground in the meditation garden had pulled back from the territory they’d conquered to reveal rich, moist earth. There was still a long way to go to get the gate back up and running, but we were off to a good start.

  >>>Two hundred blades of ghostlight have been refined. Commencing food storage restoration.

  Approximately five minutes remain before living quarters restoration can begin.<<<

  “Let’s go to the shadow vault,” I said. “Are there any more surprises waiting for us up there, Baylo?”

  The emerald warrior shuffled her feet and shook her head. “No. To be fair, I put that guardian there years ago. I can’t be expected to remember every booby trap I set to keep these two out of my territory.”

  As we made our way back to the fourth floor, Baylo tried to explain why she’d left a deadly trap lying around. Apparently, the Tribunal’s members had been at each other’s throats since the Academy was torn away from its baseline and became a splinter world. Each member of the Tribunal had staked out territories to call their own and work on their pet projects while they waited for an engineer to show up and get them back up and running. Baylo claimed the second through fifth floors on the west side. Reesa had claimed the same floors on the east side. The ground floor was neutral, and Ylor was given all of the subterranean levels for his use. But, as time had passed without an engineer answering the call, the Academy’s resources began to run low. The Tribunal’s members started swiping whatever they could use from other territories, and Baylo had gotten sick of her things being stolen. Which, I supposed, explained her violent reaction to the fuzzball swiping her dagger.

  “But that guardian was the only really dangerous thing I used,” Baylo insisted. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Spend some time finding whatever other nasties you forgot about,” I said to Baylo, and then to the rest of the Tribunal, “and if there are any more dangerous toys lying around, clean them up. We don’t want any of the students getting hurt after they wake up from their long nap.”

  >>>Three hundred blades of ghostlight have been refined. Commencing living quarters restoration.<<<

  The Tribunal fell to bickering over whose fault it was that they now had to spend hours of their precious time collecting traps they’d all set. Reesa and Ylor blamed Baylo for the guardian, and the warrior blamed them for intruding on her territory. Before the argument went full nuclear, though, the three found something that was of interest to all of them.

  “And how should all of these students be assigned?” Ylor asked me. “If the lion’s share go to the Silent Council, we will train them to summon spirits. The servitors will not be as strong as the ones I could have summoned from the chapel, but many hands will make light work of our current tasks.”

  “Repairing the sutras should be our first priority,” Reesa said. “I’m sure none of you will listen to me, but now that we have the generator up and running, the Cognate could do a lot of good work with those students. It would improve the Academy’s innate defenses, at the very least.”

  Baylo rolled her eyes and shook her head. She crossed her arms, casually resting one hand on the pommel of the dagger on her right hip. She didn’t seem to notice that the matching blade was missing from the sheath on her left.

  “Not this again,” the fighter groaned. “Give all the newbies to me. I’ll teach them how to fight and keep any monstrosities out of our home. We just encountered a Fell Lord. We could be invaded at any moment. We need soldiers more than anything.”

  I didn’t think that was true. If the Fell Lord was going to attack us, he would’ve done it as soon as he freed himself from the rubble. His bat mount would’ve had no trouble tracking my scent the short distance from where I’d sprung my trap to where I’d fled. The fact that he’d chosen to fly away and regroup told me he wasn’t quite ready to launch a frontal assault on the Ghostlight Academy. I wasn’t sure what had kept him away, but whatever it was gave me hope that we’d have some time to prepare for his inevitable return.

  “That’s enough,” I nearly shouted. “We’ll let the students decide who they wish to study with. They’ve been trapped in the dark for years according to you. The least we can do is give them some choice in their future.”

  “Ridiculous,” Ylor started. “Do you expect children to know what’s best for them?”

  “I do,” I said. “They can’t make any worse decisions for themselves than you three have made for them.”

  Biz raised her f
ist into the air, and I bumped it. The fuzzball had returned and was now perched on her shoulder, its small satchel bulging with whatever it had dug out of the banquet hall downstairs. It also raised one tiny hand, and I gently rapped its knuckles with my own.

  >>>Four hundred blades of ghostlight have been refined. The refinery is now empty.

  Three hundred blades of ghostlight have been used to restore the generator, food storage, and first-year living quarters. One hundred blades remain in available reserves. Would you like to select another project for the production queue?<<<

  “Everyone stand back from the door.” I cracked my knuckles and rolled my shoulders to release the tension I’d been carrying around. “I’m going to crack the shadow vault. Is there anything I should know before I do?”

  The members of the Tribunal glanced at one another, and Reesa cleared her throat.

  “To be honest, we’ve never retrieved any living creatures from the shadow vault.” She smoothed her ink-stained smock with smudged fingers. “This will be a first for all of us.”

  I bit down on my temper. These jerks had put a bunch of kids in cages without even knowing whether they could get them back out. I wanted to strangle all of them but took a deep breath and cleared my thoughts instead. Ylor and the others weren’t idiots. They’d done their best to save the Academy, their city, and as many of its inhabitants as they could. While Biz and I hadn’t chosen to get yanked out of our world and into this one, the Tribunal hadn’t wanted this, either. They’d have been much happier if none of this had ever happened. I needed to remember that.

  “The students will be confused when they come out of there. Be kind to them,” I ordered the Tribunal. “Whatever help they need, give it to them. Do you understand?”

  Ylor looked almost sheepish when he nodded his agreement. Baylo and Reesa gave me stern, stoic nods.

  I gave the interface the order to pop the vault. There was a faint click, and the door opened.

  >>>Disengaging security seals...

  Releasing concealment...<<<