Tower of Trials: Book One of Guardian Spirit (7 page)

“He’s untrustworthy. We should never have split up, I tell you! What? Do you deny it?”

Lydia rubbed at her head, and then undid her heavy, green neck scarf. Dark, stray curls, which once bounced against its material, tumbled down to her shoulders now. She wrapped the material around Guard’s neck as if it could possibly help speed his recovery. The same motive had resulted in the removal of his short sword and bow and quiver so he could rest more easily against her. Her methods did not have much success—

“Gods, Lydia!” The male stomped about in a circle, face red.

—except for inciting that reaction.

Much more of this, and Guard suspected the male might make use of the temporarily forgotten gun.

What would that feel like in his current state?

“Perce, you have already said all that. Repeatedly. And it still doesn’t change the fact he is our guide. He knows best.”

“He hasn’t guided us! What has he done? Gone off on his own. It could be a trick!”

“My fate,” Guard said, eyeing the flailing arms, “is linked with yours.”

“Is it?” More flailing. “Truly?” More stomping. “Or is that another lie—?” And more reddening of the face. “Lydia, please! For godsakes, stop coddling him.”

“I am rubbing the sensation back into his body.” She squeezed Guard’s arms.

“I have no romantic interest in her, Shalott.”

“You see? He has no romantic interest me.”

Redder, if possible. “So he says! His body says another thing, lying against you like that!”

Guard, feeling pins and needles in his arms at last, sat up and cocked his head. “If that is a sign of romantic interest, then when she leans into you, is that a sign, too?”

Lydia flushed. So did the male; Guard didn’t think that depth of color possible. “You—you—you don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t even know women, do you, False Spirit? How can you speak on it?”

I know of a woman. A ghost.
For a moment, when Guard thought of Victoria, he imagined her waiting in the courtyard, ready to hear of his victory and speak his name, taking heart from it all for her own ordeal. Guard shook his head. He knew better; she was already gone, busy with her own trials. Only humans wasted time on what was not. “If I know nothing of women, Shalott, then how can my interest be romantic?”

“See, tricksy! He’s tricksy!”

“Oh, I think not. Innocent, maybe. That’s refreshing in a man his age.” Lydia guided him to sit back against the wall between the middle and last entrances. “When will you be ready to try again, Guard? Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Ignoring the male’s growl, Guard made a fist. He mostly felt it; his fingers mostly obeyed. “We need to wait a little longer.” He looked at his weapons she had laid near him. Weapons he couldn’t use yet. “I’m currently unable to alter my form.” Then, touching the green scarf with his glove, he thought of a human expression and said, “Thank you for your kindness, Lydia.”

She smiled.

“How can you just sit there and listen to that? He’s—he’s—he’s buttering you up! He will leave us, just you watch.”

After another fifteen minutes and the ability to set his armor and rearm himself, Guard shouldered his bow, stood, and tested his ability to aetherize.

It was a strain, as if his muscles were a little tense, too tightly sprung. His movements were choppy as stormy waters.

He returned to mortal form, a little dizzy. “Another five minutes.”

The male marched off, spitting about the villainy of spirits.

“Oh, be careful.” Lydia moved in, close to Guard. But the dizziness had already passed. Even so, Lydia remained at his side, hand on his arm to steady him. “You have a plan for this last run, don’t you, Guard?”

“Yes.”

“Oh!” She clasped her hands together and rocked on her heels. Then quickly returned her unnecessary support. Her voice lowered as she asked, “Will you tell me it?”

Guard shook his head and spoke normally, “It is better if I don’t. You are the seeker. If you know, the Trial may know and counter it.”

She nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

“Lydia, gods!”

“And why not, Perce? I suspect mazes are capable of any number of treacheries.”

When they had swallowed their last grains and entered the last path together, the male pestered with him with “Now what, grand leader?” “Perhaps now?” And “See, Lydia, see!”

The doubt she betrayed was far less annoying: she tucked closer and asked, “Shouldn’t we move a little faster? Even though you are certain this is the right path—” She closed her dark eyes, swayed in place a little, then reopened them. “We have been going fifteen minutes now.”

Guard nodded. “We may walk faster if you want.”

So they walked faster . . .

. . . down the many dead ends the male kept leading them into.

Apparently, he had tried to eliminate the false routes with penciled Xs, but no longer found his markers in place, or if they were, they no longer lead true. After the third mistake, the male’s verbal barrage of doubts was evenly divided between Guard and the maze. Looking backward, as they retreated once more to the main branch, the male muttered, “I was quite sure it was the left fork . . . ”

“The nature of the tunnels may not be fixed.”

“Then how are we supposed to solve it!” The male chucked his nub of contraband pencil down that last erroneous branch. “The answer might be down one the other two paths!”

“It might, but I doubt it.”

“Damn you! If you leave us here to run off and claim your prize!”

“Oh, he wouldn’t!” But Lydia reached out and clutched the sleeve of his duster. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would not. Our fates are linked.”

“So he says.”

“Yes, so I just did.”

After that, the male gave up trying to lead, too busy watching Guard closely to note paths. Shalott also no longer had a problem with Lydia touching him, as if clasping his sleeve or arm would keep him in place if he really desired to leave. That was at the half-hour point.

During the last fifteen minutes, the retrievers’ eyes began to appear, and she slunk closer.

During the last five minutes, the retrievers began to shake, and the male drew closer as well.

“Guard.” Lydia tugged his sleeve to get his attention. She whispered, “Didn’t you say you had a plan?”

“Yes, Lydia.”

“Soon?”

“Yes.”

With a small breath, she said, “All right.”

The male was too busy dancing past and cursing the retrievers to grumble at them.

Then the last twelve grains were quivering in the hourglass. While Shalott shouted they couldn’t be much past halfway, Guard grabbed their elbows and hauled them between two stationed retrievers. During the first attempt, when the retrievers burst
forth from the walls, they took about a minute to swell to full size. The second time, half a minute. Now, he would have seconds.

Last nine grains. He closed his eyes and told them, “Hold your breath.”

“Why?” the male shouted, tugging at Guard’s grip, while Lydia reached across and shushed him.

Last six.

The transition was awful, resisting.

Five.

Tangled.

Four.

Thick.

Three . . .

Heavy.
Come on.

Two . . .

Come on!

One.

And it was the fastest and worst change he had ever made, a roiling mess, a torpor. But he had done it. Like Mother and Mace with their bayard horses, he had changed the seekers with him.

And now it was time to move.

The growing retriever was darting for him. Guard darted faster. Felt the drag. It nearly ripped him out of aetheric form, but he persisted. The gap between wall and retriever narrowed.

Narrowed.

Narrowed.

And he just eked past what felt like two arctic blasts on either side of him. He shuddered as he towed his burden through the opening in the wall the retriever had left behind. Dragging them forward, past the next filled retriever-spot, he metaphorically held his breath.

The retriever shook loose.

It chased after.

Chased out there in the maze proper—not here, in the tunnel. They couldn’t shrink to follow, only expand to trap. Out there.

Which was fortunate, because his plan had some flaws. His body ached where he held onto his charges, burned as if he were hauling them on sore muscles. This tugged at his focus, but he could hold this form, he could continue on. For now. He plunged onward. He had not counted on his charges’ effect upon himself. Mother and Mace had never spoken on the burden of aetherizing their mounts.

Of course, bayards were not ordinary horses; they, too, had aether in them. And Mother and Mace were full spirits, strong where he was weak.

But still all that begged the question: Should they all drop back into human form now? Would running on feet be faster, or would it spell failure since this was their last chance?

Guard eyed the back of a retriever he passed, noting how quickly it popped out, how quickly it and others shushed along the after him. They were much faster than he had counted on, too.

Far faster than humans could run.

But not quite as fast as a spirit. Even a cambion one.

Even one so burdened?

At least, due to his opponents’ size, they could only attack one-on-one. That was something.

Guard hefted his burdens and, despite the spreading pain, redoubled his speed—

Which made the mortals shake and not stop.

The mortals!
He had forgotten to consider their needs. Prolonged journeys this way could asphyxiate the bayards—what about the far weaker, far more mortal humans?

Guard slowed down. Their shaking eased slightly . . . but the retrievers shushing movements sped up.

Close, we have to be close to the exit,
Guard thought as he took a bend, sheering too closely to a wall. That set off a flare of anger in the parts he considered Shalott.

Guard “whispered” to him to be still.

Of course, that incited worse behavior.

And of course, they couldn’t obey. How could they? Humans weren’t made to handle aetherization. He couldn’t, not until he was nine, after years of partaking aether-laced breath. He remembered how the early transformations felt like drowning, not strangling. Drowning.

They thrashed from panic and . . . the lack of air, clawing at him, nearly making him lose his hold. They both dipped dangerously, and he couldn’t hold back a cry of pain as he caught them, bunched them tighter, and lifted.

His vision blurred.

Everything hurt.

That was why he first thought it an illusion, a warning sign, that shaky splash of white a ways ahead, the color he sometimes saw with a bad transition back to human form. But it was the only color beside bronze.

Thank the goddess, it was real. The white stone-wood that covered the false tomb-wood exits existed inside the tunnel’s far wall, too. That meant . . . he turned his “head” to count the retrievers remaining, to pick block shapes from the blurs of bronze, but he found he couldn’t move that much.

So Guard relied on memory and guesswork instead. There couldn’t be three left, with the final one in this stretch at least nine feet from the exit.

Now two left. Smoke-Lydia’s shakes were stilling. Not a good sign.

He couldn’t even “shout” an encouragement; he was too tired.

Now one retriever.

Guard passed it up and waited impatiently for the patch of bronze to shift (indicating the retriever was moving into the maze proper). He darted out the opening it left behind . . .

. . . and badly misjudged its speed and proximity. Its gauntlet swiped, the freezing cold burning less than an inch from his trailing back.

He lost his grip on his charges.

With one last burst of energy, Guard thrust both dilating, throbbing masses ahead of him, through the black opening cut through the searing white. The male tumbled into mortal form and to safety out the maze. But once through, Shalott began to scream raggedly.

Lydia did not make it as far, too weak. She ended up on her side, arm outstretched toward the door. With a moan, she drew up one leg. Guard swooped down, grabbed her, but it was hard to find a hold on her flesh, as his smoke form fell apart. He collapsed next to her.

But the opening was there. Right there. Inches away.

And the last retriever, not weak in the least, had gained, rolling over the hem of her green skirt. It stopped, reached down, and reached for her nearest ankle. Guard was faster. Bow not ready at hand, he pulled his knife and threw it instead.

It hit true, embedding itself in a bronze palm.

When the retriever reached to remove the now milky white and quivering blade, Guard grabbed Lydia under her arms and hauled her to the door. The trapped edge of her skirt ripped easily, freeing her.