Tower of Trials: Book One of Guardian Spirit (5 page)

“But be warned, Seeker: for this quest, you must be like one of Purgatory’s shades. Before her shade leaves The Vault to become a ghost, it is required to choose one possession, and only one, of any nature, of any time, to retain and mediate upon. Others it must choose to leave to The Vault. As a seeker, if you enter The Vault, you may only leave it by taking one, and only one, possession: the shade.”

“All my possessions?” She wrapped her arms around herself, blushing. “Even my clothes?” At Hasp’s nod, she turned to Guard and asked, “Can’t I just reach in and partway and . . . ” She mimicked her intent. “Pull him through?”

Guard shook his head, and Hasp confirmed, “No, Mortal.”

Lydia shuddered and clutched at her coat. “I should have brought another wrap for one of you to carry for me.” She did not look at Shalott who was staring at her, face aflame, but at Guard. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

Humans. What could be stronger than their natural desire to cling to their belongings and not choose between them? Another reason he was glad he would soon be a spirit.

But even Purgatory’s ghosts had difficulties understanding this concept. It was nothing to be coveted, this hindrance, this temptation forced upon them. Rather, it embodied all the obsessions that kept the majority of Purgatory’s ghosts from reaching her sister’s paradise.

The point was the release, not the holding.

But that fact rarely calmed ghosts. It hadn’t Victoria, instead making her clutch her rosebud-shaped locket—and the family portraits it contained—closer. He doubted it would calm a human, especially this human. So Guard pointed out instead, “Your fiancé can take a possession as well.” Though, that was a corruption of the rule’s original purpose. “Perhaps he will choose a wrap to shelter you.”

“Oh, Ravenscar! He’ll see—it is not proper . . . even if we are engaged—oh! Oh, he’ll have no choice but to wed me this month, after all this!”

Guard spoke over Shalott’s shout of
“Lydia!”

“Lydia,” he said calmly, “your focus concerning this rule is poor. Understand: once you start on this quest, you cannot return without the shade.”

Though Father had told him little of these Trials, due to the rarity of worthy seekers nowadays, that rule Guard remembered well. How poorly informed were mortals these days? What had the priests—and the more knowledgeable Spirit Holders—taught these seekers? Guard’s left hand tightened on the bow, once, and then eased up as dismissed the thieves from mind.

“That is true, Seekers’ Guide,” Hasp spoke. “That is my next warning. Once this path is begun, The Trials must be run, lost or won. Failure bars the way back.”

“What?” Percy said. “We can’t do this, Lydia. We can die in there!”

“You don’t have to; I do. Why did you not say this before, Guard?”

“Why did not your fiancé’s Society?”

“Oh. Oh, of course. I . . . maybe I should have . . . read a little more, but I was distracted. One moment, we four were taking noon tea, discussing the two-day trip his cousin and I were about to embark upon, and the next—” She made a toppling gesture with her hand. “And then it was so hard to sneak his body out of his house, right under the servants’ noses, any one of whom might have been the right hand of the murderer, even though his cousin, after a little convincing, helped and—”
(Percy cleared his throat noisily.)
“And, of course, yes, you helped, too, Percy. Though you shouldn’t have been so harsh with Gwyneth—” (“
Harsh? With that iron-spined cold fish?”
) “—Gwyneth would have come, too—”
(“Ravenscar’s dead, not in need of a doctor, Lydia. Especially not one who took half a day to pronounce him dead.”) “—
Oh,
fine, it’s no matter. His cousin is investigating there. We are here. I am here. For my fiancé.” She turned back around to face Hasp. “It makes no sense to stop now, just because it is a little harder than I thought it would be.”

“Of course, it makes sense, Lydia!”

She ignored that to ask Guard, “But what about you? You said your own quest is linked to ours. What happens if we fail? Do you . . . are you locked inside, too?”

To be honest, failure had not entered his mind. Now that it had, an image came to him, of all those Chambers barred to him, blank as this wall moments ago.

No. That would not be.

He pushed aside such sentiments, their weight heavier than an ironweed net tossed on an aetherized spirit; he
pushed aside foolish humanish distractions and focused on the truth, on what mattered, on the mission. Focused as a spirit would.

“If you were to completely abandon your quest, Seeker, I can as well, for I would have no purpose at your side. Or if you were to perish, then I can leave. In either case, if I have had done my duty by you, I will still emerge triumphant.”
With my future as Archer sealed.
“Otherwise, I remain at your side during your quest to The Vault.”

That response made her perk up as her companion spluttered and muttered about a better use for the gun. Lydia rolled her eyes. “I know you’ll do your best by us, Guard.” As the male spluttered some more, she turned to Hasp. “Well, I do believe I am ready, Good Threshold Guardian.”

“We are ready,” Percy said. “We go together or not at all.”

Lydia beamed at him, and Percy blushed.

Percy blushed a lot,
Guard thought,
even for a young human. Poor choice for a companion.

Hasp boomed, interrupting all, “So be it. Listen, now, to the nature of your first Trial. When you enter The Crypt, you will find an hourglass. The Trial of Time will not start until it runs. It will not run until each of you swallows a grain. You will only be given three attempts to succeed at this Trial. If time runs out before you reach the exit, you will be returned to the beginning. At that point, you must once more swallow a grain to start The Trial.”

After a moment passed in silence, Percy griped, “Can you be any vaguer? What does this Trial look like? What dangers will we face?”

“I can tell you nothing more on The Trial of Time.”

“Percy, a little courtesy, please.” Lydia turned to Hasp, reached out, hesitated, then patted his large boot. “Thank you for your patience and warnings, Good Threshold Guardian of Holm. You’ve been nothing but kind. I am ready to enter.”

Hasp inclined his head, narrowed, and shuffled aside, revealing a human-sized opening. Holding her head high, Lydia marched inside, and Percy scurried to catch up. As Guard took a step, his heart beat hard despite himself. Just like when Mother announced his name.
Enter as Guard, leave as—

Creaking, gray knees bent, and a finger rested on Guard’s shoulder. When Guard looked up, tall, narrowed Hasp spoke, “Warning for you, Little One. Do not cross The Vault’s Threshold yourself.”

The thought had not crossed his mind. But now that it had . . . “What happens if I do?”

“You will fail your mission and be banished, for you cannot solve the quest for the seekers.”

Why would I want to perform their duty for them?
“Thank you, Hasp. I will be careful.”

“Also, you should know I tried to use my position, as the oldest guardian in residence, to sway the vote in your favor. But no one seconded West Entry as your position, Future Archer. If there were but one other threshold guardian in Holm . . . ” He shook his head. “So much for a sense of balance, but I do admit City’s Guardian is a good fit, for you are already filling it. I just thought you would like a change.”

“I . . . thank you, Hasp.”

The old threshold guardian nodded and chucked Guard’s chin with his finger. A little too hard.

“No tears, Little One. You’ll be one of us soon enough, and you’ll no longer be plagued with such human frailties. Now get on with you; your future awaits.” With that, Hasp stood tall and straight once more, as if he had said nothing.

And so with that encouragement—and a smarting head—Guard squeezed his bow and hurried through the opening in the Tower to find his destiny . . . and his wards.

CHAPTER 5

They had waited for him. The male gleefully pointed out the lack of hourglasses in the long, narrow room—and then less gleefully, he pointed out that the door had disappeared behind Guard. Lydia was more interested in the faint, liquid light sliding down threads near them. The threads stretched along the white stone-wood walls, from ceiling to floor; she wondered if they would sound like harp strings when plucked. Guard noticed his head almost brushed the ceiling, and he was not tall. Only a little above average when he had compared himself to male market-goers. The room was a hall. His keen eyesight picked out details from the unlit stretch ahead, which opened onto a larger area. That area contained, besides at least one doorless opening, an hourglass on a white stone-wood pedestal.

He shared this with his seekers.

The male’s reaction was to scoff and march off a step and peer down the way, but the light from the wall-strings only advanced as far as he did, and only faintly. When all three walked as one down the hall, the lights brightened. A clue.

A bigger one: though they appeared to be walking straight forward a little ways, they were in fact moving downhill at a great pace. He could see both contradictions if he focused his aetheric senses; but he could feel it without that aid, a disconcerting touch of dizziness, mostly settling in the stomach and head.

This he shared with them; not the sensation, but the fact. They didn’t need to know the other.

“What does it mean?” Lydia looked down at her boots as she took an exaggerated step forward. “How odd. I can’t see or feel any difference.”

“We descend into The Crypt. The hall must be an anteroom.”

“Must be? You don’t know?”

He knew The Crypts were for designed for human Trials—according to Father’s lore. A ghost’s route was more direct.

He knew, though their destination was the same place tonight, Victoria and he would not run into each other. Their routes were different.

He knew that he’d never see her again in her favored form, her most humanlike, the one with the long, braided red hair and green summer dress and perpetually sad smile.

He’d never see her in her smoke form either, or anything in between.

They’d never talk again.

By the time he emerged, she would be gone.

He also knew that such human emotions wouldn’t matter soon, that she would no longer materialize into his thoughts at odd moments, and so Guard shifted the bow to his right hand, firmed his shoulders, and said, “Like you, Shalott, this is my first time in the Tower.”
Though, not my last.
And with that heartening thought, he marched on. “Come, the hourglass awaits.”

Lydia, rushing to catch up, thought that exciting. Shalott thought it only worthy of a scoff. “Some guide you’ve turned out to be.” And Shalott walked faster, to beat Guard to the main room.

How very human.

How very little it mattered to anyone but that human.

Once there in the other room, the lowering sensation leveled off, and once there the wall-string lights did little to beat back the dark. Still, even human eyes could not miss the three entrances, side by side, nor miss what stood before the middle one: the pedestal and its item. Guard marched toward it; Shalott rushed to arrive before him, to hover and glare down at the hourglass. And do nothing more.

Guard gestured. “Do you wish to pick it up?”

“No, after you, Oh Great Guide.”

Guard grasped the hourglass in his left hand.

Its “sand” burst into green light.

The pilfered gun was aimed at the nonexistent threat once more.

“That would not be wise, Shalott.”

Once the male grunted and stowed away the gun, turning his attention to things he could not accidentally harm—the entrances—Guard lifted the hourglass.

And uncovered another clue. The pedestal’s white top was striped with black lines. The design made up a simple maze with one entrance, several dead ends, and one exit.

Lydia rolled her eyes at her chosen companion and then stepped close and touched the top portion of the hourglass. “How pretty. Oh, but I don’t swallow pills well, especially large ones.” Then her eyes dropped to the pedestal top. “Oh, no!”

Shalott wasted no time pushing between them. “What is it?” He reached for his gun pocket. “Did he hurt you?”

“Lydia has spotted a clue about the nature of this Trial.” Guard’s eyes lifted to the entrances. “Reality offers three possible paths; the pedestal indicates one. Only one path will lead true.”

“Oooh!” Lydia stamped a boot. “A maze, it just had to be a maze! Nasty things. I got lost in one once, but that one was a prickly hedge and open to sky, though there was no climbing one’s way out to freedom, now was there?” She shuddered. “I still have nightmares.” Then she shook her head. “You’ll stay close won’t you, Guard?”

That would prove imprudent
, Guard thought. Three people could cover more ground separately. “The Trial will not begin until we swallow a grain.” After resting his bow against the pedestal, Guard unscrewed the top of the hourglass and carefully spilled onto his glove three “grains.” They were of the same circumference as the boy’s bullets. “You may chew yours.”