Tower of Trials: Book One of Guardian Spirit (10 page)

Perhaps he meant Guard to flinch, but it was his friend who did instead, turning away from them.

Guard did not like to agree with the male, but in this case, there was a grain of truth to it. One the size of Time’s hourglass sand. Hard to ignore. “You are right, Shalott. This place will prevent like action.”

“Oh, really! Oh. You—” Shalott stopped, evidently confused by his agreement. This lead to a growl, a retreat, and his hand scrubbing through his straight, blond hair. “Fine, then. Why don’t you make yourself useful and start guiding, Oh Fearless Guide?”

Guard dipped his head in assent then resumed his descent, and they all fell into previous positions.

Lydia didn’t speak as they walked on, passing another Ravenscar statue. Or perhaps it was the same statue, for the first had shrunk back into the wall before this one had emerged a short time later in their journey. It seemed to submerge and reemerge at unknown intervals, sometimes after five deep stairs, sometime after ten, or three. Speed made no difference. At least, the occurrence caused Shalott to alternate his mutters between Guard’s usefulness and a distrust for how numerous and “smirky” the “smirkers” were.

After a long march with no change, they took a break. Shalott slumped onto a stair with a grumble. Lydia eased down and rubbed her sore knee—under the staring tomb-wood eyes of her fiancé’s statue. It had been a few stairs up, but the moment she sat, it emerged but a foot from her side.

The stairs were narrower after they began again. If Guard were free to walk as normal, he would not need to the full two strides to move from one to the next. The others, with their shorter pace, did not notice. Guard decided not to bring it up until her next break.

CHAPTER 9

Definitely narrower.

The stairs were not the only change. The statue that had emerged during their break looked different. The curly hair had grown longer.
And . . .
Guard stepped down to the stair nearest Lydia, so he could stand even with the statue.
Yes, it is shorter: only as tall as me now.

The map confirmed what he had noted about the stairs; the statues, however, remained bronze semi-circles inked upon parchment.

“Why do you keep looking at that?” Shalott looked up from the stair below Lydia’s he had perched on. “It’s not going to miraculously change.”

Guard’s explanation about the stairs was not met with instant acceptance from Shalott. He stood up, demanding to see the map he had so callously disregarded a moment before. Lydia, far more trusting, just lifted her head from her hands and let out a small sound of dismay, twin to the one she had given at the start of the break, when, no matter how many stairs she moved down, the statue followed, emerging at her side. Now, from her seat, she asked, a little breathily, “So I shouldn’t take breaks?”

Because of this reaction, Guard decided to not to inform her about the statues, which she already considered “hateful.” He doubted the small alterations in appearance, or those to come, would make them less so. Instead, he answered, “I don’t know.”

She rose. “Or should our breaks be shorter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course, he doesn’t.” Shalott glared down at the map in his hand. “Why would he? Your heart is being tested? What does a cambion know of that?” Shalott tossed the map at Guard as he turned quickly on the stair. He stumbled, caught himself, and growled at Guard’s hand offered in assistance. “How can you guide anyone in this place, Half Spirit? By Bara, I think you are supposed to be more of a hindrance than a help.”

“Oh, no, we never would have made it this far, without you, Guard!”

Guard, replacing the map in his pouch, wondered if that was an example of human irony. A guide was required by the Trials—a guide bound by rules as much as the seekers were, a guide who wanted to succeed as much as, or more than, they did.

“Maybe we should resume,” Guard suggested. Partly because it was easier to puzzle out the changes and their impact by progressing.

Mostly because the seekers found it hard to talk and argue while descending the stairs.

* * *

Many stairs later, since their energy declined more rapidly than their downward progress toward the unseen exit, Shalott ordered breaks every half hour. “Starting now.” He groaned as he sat. “Because, there’s no way we’ll survive longer goes without refreshment. Too bad we didn’t think to bring any.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh wait, some of us wanted to but were overruled. Who could that be, Oh Glorious Guide?”

“Oh, Perce.” Then Lydia blushed as she caught herself rubbing at her mouth. “Sorry. You didn’t know any better, Guard.” From her seat, she reached up and patted Guard’s . . . booted ankle consolingly.

“He should’ve.”

“And how should we measure thirty-minute increments, Shalott? Did you bring a timepiece?”

Shalott scowled. “Fat lot of good it would have done us if I had remembered one, Guide—not part of your list of ‘necessities,’ now was it?”

“Oh, Perce.”

That did not stop you from bringing the revolver,
Guard thought. Instead of saying this, Guard simply put away his map (still no exit or new clues) and wished his mother had given him a manual on human maintenance instead. He’d especially like a section on how to make males stop arguing that didn’t involve physical methods, like a firm shake or a gag. The spirits would approve; unfortunately, Lydia would not.

“We should move on,” Guard suggested.

So they did.

And the stairs narrowed a little.

The statues shrank and changed a little.

The seekers weakened a little.

* * *

The next break featured a minor blasphemy, all because Guard made the mistake of trying to hearten drooping Lydia by more than an offered arm. During the walk, he spoke on how the Trials were like the ordeals Purgatory’s ghosts underwent. Except those were in the name of penance. And lasted nine years before her ghosts faced The Vault, their final judgment, and their ultimate destination. Guard didn’t like to say too much on it because it reminded him Victoria, of her years of ordeal, and of the locket that embodied her temptation (her daughter Rose and her husband, whose pictures rested inside)—but it mostly reminded him of her journey that ended this night, and he didn’t want to think on that now. So Guard kept the explanation brief.

Guard’s “wonderful little pep talk”—as Shalott later called it—had not gone over well. If anything, Lydia tired more as they walked. And Shalott must have decided a rebuttal was required, for once the rest had restored his breath, he launched a diatribe on “Purgatory,” as he still miscalled The City:

“It just proves how arbitrary and unfair your kind is. And what do you know of sin anyway? Your shade snatchers decide this sin or this person gets a second chance, and so after nine years, he goes on to Pleasance? And what of the living? People make mistakes all the time. How many of them get second chances? Blast, there are many second chances I’d love . . . ” Shalott trailed off—blushing, Guard thought, though it was hard to tell, since he and Lydia both were heavily flushed from the labors. Then with a groan, he pushed to his feet and cut their break short. “What are we wasting time for?”

The stairs narrowed.

The statues shrank and changed.

The seekers weakened.

And Guard stayed silent, electing not to disabuse them on their mistaken beliefs about The City and her goddess. He didn’t desire another blasphemy during the next break.

* * *

Guard got one anyway. Shalott had just eased his legs out, stiffly, before him on the stair and nearly fell off it despite the care he’d taken. “Bara take this! What is the point of this? A maze to test your love? A long set of stairs? These Trials are as ludicrous as our guide. They are just meant to torture you.”

Lydia, who sat perilously near the chasm to avoid the proximity of the staring statue, hunched her shoulders. “Oh, please, Perce. Don’t.”

“The truth is, this is just Purgatory, lots of endless suffering, and for what?”

“Perce, please.” Lydia hunched further. “Stop.”

If anything his voice, cracking, grew louder, “A pipe dream. That’s all Purgatory is. A lie. Sins and mistakes are forever, not something a select, random few get to work off. At least, the people in the Pit know they have nothing to hope for.”

“Perce—” She placed her hands over eyes. “Please!”

“And these Trials are the same.
Lies.
”

Unlike reapers, when Purgatory’s ghosts went out in the world, they went out unguarded. They performed their ordeal of labor by entering dreams or inspiring visions, and in this way, they subtly assisted humans in avoiding their fate. In this way, they made up for past sins. All the while, they could not forget they did so at risk of their own lives. After all, there was no safe passage to Pleasance’s Garden; one either paid for it with life’s risks and struggles, or with death’s. Many of the goddess’s ghosts did not return from their laboring. At first, Guard blamed the ghouls and spirit holders. It was not until later he learned, from those who watched through spectral windows, that some had simply given up the attempt. Because labor wore one down, making one want to surrender to the easier path. That was one of its purposes—to weed out the weak.

Its other was a boon. Labor could cut away all distractions, clearing one’s vision of everything but the one goal worth struggling for. The ghosts who returned knew this well and became more determined than ever to escape the obsessions and temptations that had fostered their greatest sins.

After listening to the male’s incessant dogging, Guard knew which purpose Shalott embodied for Lydia and what would happen if he continued unchecked.

So Guard shouted, “Stop!”

Shocked out of his momentary diatribe, Shalott turned to him.

Even Lydia lifted up her head. “Did you see something, Guard?” She struggled to rise. “Oh, please tell me you found an exit. I don’t know if I can walk another step.”

Guard reached for the map on instinct. He stopped once he saw how little of Ravenscar was left in the statue. Its strongest holdover was the smirk. Otherwise, it had shrunk to Shalott’s height, and its hair had lengthened and straightened, too. It looked like nothing more than a more muscular, arrogant . . . Shalott.

An incessant, dogging distraction.

When Victoria returned from her labors, sometimes she was so tired, physically and emotionally, she could not manifest her desired form. She became just a vague white-dressed human shape. Not even the red of her hair showed through. Once when he expressed concern, she said, in her musical voice, “No sympathy, Guard. I did it to myself by straying from my purpose.” She called those distractions “the heavy embrace of labor.”

And this time, Guard’s own distraction gave him an idea. “There is a hidden door here.”

“Does your wonderfully detailed map show you that, Guide?”

“My map has a purpose—”

“Oh, really. I couldn’t tell.”

Guard firmed his mouth and tried again. “Not every weapon is suitable for every circumstance, nor is every tool. I suspect we will discover the map’s true purpose once we enter the true stage of Labor.”

“And what is this?!”

“Also Labor. Purgatory’s ghosts have to travel far to complete their duty, but that instance of labor is not complete until they finish their attempt to influence a human onto the right path. There is more to this Trial than much walking.”

“Ha! Influence us? I’ve never seen anyone influenced.” Shalott, having found his balance on the stairs, smirked up at him in a poor imitation of the statue. “And I never heard of anyone ever climbing out the Pit, much less from your Purgatory. That’s just church lore, giving people false hope, like your Purgatory.”

“The chance of redemption is only offered to those torn between the Slough and the Garden, and I do know one.”

Shalott rubbed at his eased out his leg with a groan. “Know one what?”

“A City ghost who has earned her place in the Garden.” After spending so many years with her, he could imagine no other fate for Victoria this night. “She takes her own path to The Vault tonight to relinquish her temptation. She will succeed. She will be judged worthy.” Guard turned to Lydia. When they had started this Trial, she couldn’t bear to be near the chasm; now she sat nearer it than the wall, and had barely stirred during the pointless argument Guard had been distracted by. There was something worse than the void she couldn’t bear. Something she’d have to face, nonetheless. “So it is with my friend, so it will be with you, Lydia, if you trust me.”

Guard held out a hand.

She looked at it. Then, after a brief struggle, she rose and took a hesitant step forward. Her gaze focused on him, not the statue. “How?” She slipped her hand into his.

Guard moved her, not so she leant on him, but so she faced the statue square on. Her gaze shied away.

“We have to cut through the distractions.”

“What distractions?” growled Shalott, focusing on fully straightening his other leg, though there was not enough room on the stairs for both.

“Exactly. Lydia, the way lies through this statue.” At his words, Lydia hunched in his hold, trying to turn away. He held her firm. Her behavior made for stronger clues than ink on parchment; she had never needed him to reveal, or avoid revealing, the changes in the statue to her. She was more than aware of it; and he hoped, more than aware of what Ravenscar blending into Shalott meant. “Lydia. This is your path. Your Labor. I will not break the statue unless you believe this is the way.”