Tower of Trials: Book One of Guardian Spirit (2 page)

Weakness, such human emotions. Yet which being, human or cambion, had been tricked?

Lydia looked away from her male, blushing herself now and saying too loudly, “I mean the eyes are not baleful or scary in the least. Nor is his face.”

This unfroze her man. He scrambled for his bag and dragged it back to her side. “D-do you need R-Ravenscar’s journal, dea—Lydia?”

She shook her head, pouting. “No, he is a spirit, which means he is bound by the rules.” She lowered herself before “her captive,” carefully tucking her skirts beneath her knees. “Spirit, you will guide us safely through your frightful City to our . . . to my fiancé’s shade. You will see us three safely from this place after he is alive once more. And I will declare it twice more to bind you to my purpose.” And she did.

When she was done, Guard knew enough, and marveled at it. He had almost failed Holm and its denizens. But he had not because Purgatory smiled on this little City of hers; if he had been the full spirit that he longed to become, the trespassers would not have temporarily impeded him. They would have bound him. Won. Leaving this City of the Dead defenseless.

Ghouls were simple. Guardians killed them. But humans? Rules protected them from too much harm. So his plan hinged on succeeding at his original goal—scaring them. He hoped they would flee The City, but he counted only on delaying a new attack. To forcibly remove them, he needed the ability to safely aetherize. Thus a brief retreat was called for. And iron-cutting tools.

His plan was set: Delay. Retreat. Cut. Return. Remove.

Simple.

Time to begin.

Guard sat up. Carefully. He tugged at the ironweed net. Gently. With his fingertips, an inch at a time. He left his bow by his side, untouched, non-threatening.

“You are ready to obey? I thought you would . . . protest, lash about a little, or . . . ” She raised her pointed chin. “Good, Spirit. I applaud your compliance. Once you have done your duty, I will free you. I will swear this thrice.” Afterward, in a normal tone, she said, “Help me remove the net, Percy.”

“If you are certain.” They drew it off Guard.

Not a single dry flower fell. Guard sighed and relaxed. Just for a second.

Then, as they were bundling it away, heads so close their puffed breaths mingled, he picked up his bow and stood. He stalked over to their crouched forms. “Mortals, leave and take your corpse with you.” He pointed his bow down the hill, to where he heard something rocking in the fast current, their boat. “You are not welcome here.” He turned on his bootheel and marched back to the archway of the arcade.

“Wait!” There was a scamper of shoes on stone, followed by a shouted
“Lydia!”
Then the woman was before him, waving her iron key under his nose. She peered up into his hooded face. “You must obey! I have bound you in iron and by the number three. I control you!”

Guard smiled. She clutched her key close to her breast.

By this point, her companion had reached her and thrust her behind himself. Poor protection, given the mortals were of the same height and he was barely broader than she.

Before the one named Lydia could renew her demands or claw her way out from behind the one named Percy, Guard spoke, “You are mistaken. I am not a spirit.”

“No, you must be!” She clutched onto her companion’s shoulder and arm, peering around his slender form. “You must! You can’t be human. You—you were in spirit form.” Her almost shade-black eyes grew wet as she whispered, “And we need you so.”

Her man’s eyes crept back toward the corpse they had left behind. “What are you going to do, Spir—Denizen of Purgatory? I will not let you harm Ly—this woman.”

More misinformation. Names were tools in mortal hands, not spirits’. But Guard did not enlighten the humans. Instead, he broadened his smile and watched them shake under it. Good. “Lydia. Percy.” They clutched each other. Great. “I depart to undo this.” He gestured at his throat. “If I find you lingering, I will not treat you kindly. Rather you will see a guardian’s wrath. You have been warned.”

With that, Guard marched past their flinching forms into the covered passageway.

Wonderful.

He’d run once out of sight.

CHAPTER 2

In the courtyard outside Guard’s home was company: Mace, his foster-mother’s guardian; Mace’s dapple-gray bayard horse; and Mother’s young bayard horse, Susurrus. Mace walked toward him, holding out a hand and tipping back her gray hood from her long, dark hair. “Reaper Swift awaits you in your home.”

“The mortals . . . ” He pointed back the way he had come.

“They will keep.”

He doubted it.

“That’s an order, Guard.”

Guard nodded. At least, this had been his destination anyway. He stepped over the doorless threshold and heard Susurrus following; his hoofs, shod in bone-wood, rang out like death knells.

Mother’s firm voice emerged, “Not you, Susurrus. I will speak to my foster-son alone.”

Guard looked over his shoulder. The sorrel bayard, who had shrunk himself to pet-pony size, paused with one hoof poised in the air. Then, with a snort of discontent, he turned and fake lipped at dead grass, as if snapping at the brittle forage were his original intention for stepping forward.

“The young,” Mother said with a sigh, “rarely do what they are told. Rarest yet is the youth who obeys without complaint. Son, what are you doing?”

She stood in the middle of his one-room home, a distance Guard covered in two quick strides. She had not bothered to tip back the red hood of her duster, but she did hold out a gloved hand. No sooty darkness stained the red. He took it. She had not been reaping recently; she must have been watching him. He knelt before her red boots, head lowered, still clasping her hand, and set his bow down on the white stones.

“Mother.” She must have disapproved of his handling of the humans and was calling him to task. “I know the trespassers have not fled, but I will succeed there once I remove and dispose of this iron.”

“I would hope they’ve not fled. Can you not see? Guiding them on their quest is how you complete your initiation.”

Guard blinked up at her. “
That
is the secret to finalizing my guardianship? Helping mortals penetrate our domain?” Father had told him a little of how such things happened in the past (for such events were rare nowadays), but he had not revealed how seekers proved worthy of the attempt. Guard thought on the ironweed, and the iron currently encircling his throat. “It is hard to believe these humans are worthy of the goddess’s blessing.”

“All spirits face the final test in a City’s Tower, but the timing is left up to the goddess Purgatory. The Council was told to watch this night for a sign, and we thought you would have a sense of it, that you would realize this is one of the few times mortals are welcome in a City, but it is no matter. They remain. You will guide them through The Crypt to The Vault at the bottom of the Tower, to shade they seek. As their worthiness to reclaim the dead is tested, so will be your worthiness to become a spirit. The trials will shear away the last of your humanity, and when you emerge triumphant, you will be Archer, Guardian Spirit of Holm of Kaskey.”

Guardian.
Some part of him thrilled at those words, at real spirithood and a real name at last.
Archer.
A very human part of him, found in a quickened heart, a caught breath, a growing smile. Guard did not eagerly reach for his waiting bow, making sure to hold himself absolutely still, betraying nothing. Only then did the excitement quiet enough for him to process the rest of her pronouncement.

“Guardian of the City? I had thought—” Had hoped for something more . . . mobile. Not a replacement for the one who ferried spirits to and from the shores. As important as those spirits were, they rarely lasted a decade because the running water nibbled at them as it did the riverbanks. And he had so much life to live, so much world to see—which was why he had hoped there might be room for another reaper in this City. Though not tethered to the small but rapidly growing mortal town across the river, of late Holm had seen more traffic in death. He had hoped for a position like Mace’s at the new reaper’s side.

Hoped.

Mother pulled her hand from his, her face shadowed by her hood, but even without it, her face would be expressionless as always. “Are you ignorant of the honor Holm’s Council of Spirits will bestow upon you? Has already? You are the first mortal to take the place of a City’s guardian. Holm may be small and well protected by the river, but it is not an easy duty, especially for a human. You have proven yourself capable of the temporary position. Now you must prove yourself worthy of the permanent.”

“It is an honor I will rise to, Mother.” Guard bowed his head again.

City’s Guardian was an honor. A great honor. How could he have forgotten that?

She stepped toward the door but stopped at his side. He did not look her in the face, instead focusing on her boots, half-hidden by the hem of her red duster. She always seemed too small for her outfit, much less her designation of reaper, but the body only mattered to humans, not spirits. Mother was the toughest, most ruthless spirit he knew, especially when she disapproved of something.

But when her hand settled atop his head, he knew it for the blessing it was. A feeling of warmth spread through him, and he blinked heavily despite himself. Focusing on her words helped rein in his wayward emotions.

“Remember, Son, though Purgatory has seen this night as a milestone in your life, she has not seen your success. That is yours to earn or lose. Your fate is now linked to your charges’ quest.”

Then she stalked outside to the welcoming whicker of Susurrus.

Guard rose and almost leapt over the raised threshold. Too late. Mother had galloped off, bursting herself and her mount into red smoke once she reached the mouth of West Arcade. She avoided the exit at the far end, instead surging
up
through the opening where ghouls had once leapt down upon his foster-father, when they had killed him.

He flinched at the memory.

And startled at a touch on his shoulder: Mace leaning down in her saddle. “Don’t worry, Future Archer. I know you fear boredom in this little City, but once you are a spirit, you’ll no longer be plagued with that or other human emotions. There is only duty.”

Duty. Duty had assigned him, through the Council, his foster-parents. Duty had allowed for a single day of mourning for a lost comrade.

That ceremony had made things worse, sharper, because it had been too brief.

By human standards, not spirit.

If Fuller were here today . . . he would have left as quickly as Swift herself.

“Did you hear me, Future Archer? Tip your head back; I want to get that troublesome bit of metal off your throat.”

As soon as he complied, her blade moved, a slick of gray slanting upward. She was already resheathing her vanilla-like-scented bone-wood sword by the time he caught the shorn collar in his gloves.

“Oh, and take this.”

He accepted the roll of thick, old paper but didn’t open it.

“The map only covers The Second Trial of The Crypt, but Swift thought it might help you. Now I must follow my charge to where we will watch and await your return. We will not be far, just outside The City. I will see that nothing happens to it in your absence. Good luck, Future Archer.” She tipped her head and kneed her bayard forward.

She disappeared the same way his mother had gone, aetherizing herself and her horse.

And then Guard was alone.

With a map his mother had given him. With a future name more solid than the broken metal in his hand. And with a future purpose, which while not perfect, was still one he longed to earn. Spirithood. Guardianship. Honor. Duty.

So when he returned to his home, he crossed the short way to the wall opposite the door, tossed aside the blankets that were his occasional bed, and lifted the trapdoor over his cache. He placed inside the iron until he could properly dispose of it, taking care to wrap it in bone-wood cloth so when he was a full spirit he could safely touch it. Then he pulled out his bag and removed from it what he might need. He would travel light. The map and a few other items went into a magically expandable pouch. He secured it to the belt over his right hip. On his right leg, he strapped on a sheathed bone-wood knife. And this time, he remembered to add his bone-wood short sword over his left hip. But it was his bow he retrieved and squeezed and smiled over.

By the time a new night fell, he would no longer be mortal.

He’d be Guardian Spirit of the City of Dead, Holm of Kaskey. He’d be . . .

“Archer,” he breathed.

CHAPTER 3

Guard found his charges arguing over the corpse. Percy was for taking it back and trying the next day with a real spirit, but Lydia was shaking her head, rummaging through the iron-smelling contents of her bag and ignoring the slide of the leather-bound book on her lap toward the cobblestones.

Guard pushed back his gray hood and approached.

She spotted him before he could speak.

“You!” Lydia shouted. She stood, the book striking the stones of the forecourt, a jar of iron dust clutched in her gloved fist. Percy stepped around her to block her (partly) from view.