Tower of Trials: Book One of Guardian Spirit (3 page)

“Come with me, Mortal Seekers,” Guard said. “Leave your iron here.”

“Just you wait.” She dropped to her knees and groped in her bag without lowering her gaze. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

The iron remained in her hand.

“Dear—” Percy glanced over his shoulder. “Lydia, that won’t work. I’m not even sure a spirit ring would threaten the likes of him.”

Guard stilled, thinking,
A ring.

She rose, leaving the iron dust on the cobblestones, having replaced it with her muff. “That may not, Percy, but this will.” She pulled from the furry hand warmer a small revolver. “He’s mortal, isn’t he? If he’s not a spirit, this will do very well.”

“When did you tuck that in there, Lydia?” Her male stared at the hand warmer dangling from her wrist by its strap. Then his gaze lifted to her weapon. “And who taught you to shoot?”

“Ravenscar. It is his, and he had me practice on it every weekend.” She moved around her staring companion. “I am ready for your obedience or your wrath, False Spirit.” She cocked the gun and steadied her aim. “But in no way am I leaving without my fiancé’s shade.”

Guard was still stuck on the unexpected threat of the ring. For years, he had been fed on aether-laced
spirit breath, but he was not a full spirit. Would that be enough to save him from being bound to a spirit ring and its bearer? His right hand tightened on the bow. At the moment, the difference between mortality and immortality felt very slight, slighter than a magicked iron band about a finger.

But remembering the collar of normal iron and the ironweed net, he thought a cambion stood in no danger.

But he wasn’t sure.

Guard peered at their bag, straining his senses, and gained nothing.

No spirit could sense a ring, despite its iron content, until it was too late.

But why would they not wield it against him in the first place?

Guard turned his gaze to the weapon aimed at his chest. And as uncertain as he was about the ring, and their possession of one, he was even less certain that bone-wood cloth fibers would protect him against bullets as it well as it did ghoul claws and teeth. He had yet to test mortal weapons on his clothing on any account. He fought the urge to draw his duster tighter about himself.

Instead, he widened his stance to seem imposing and kept any trace of emotion from his face. He refused to betray a touch of fear or doubt, heavy as a collar about the throat, because he needed them, their quest—as much as they needed him to retrieve their shade.
Remember that.
“I have come to guide you to through The Crypt so you can reclaim the shade of your intended spouse, Lydia.” What had he seen other humans do to seal deals? Shake hands? Hers were busy with a weapon. Bow? So he did.

When he lifted his head, her gun was lowered to below his midsection. Not the most comforting response.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you change your mind?”

“You shouldn’t trust him, Lydia. It might be a trick.”

While Guard disliked revealing secrets, his or others’, he did not lie easily. Not like humans did. So he told them the truth: their success was his success now.

By the end of his explanation, the gun had dipped until it was pointed at the ground. A better direction for it.

“Dear.” Percy covered her hand with his own. “Careful.”

“Oh. I know what I am doing.” She uncocked it and stuffed it and her gloved hands inside her muff. “What do we need to do to prepare, Guide?”

Good. They were moving in the right direction now.

“You must do as I ask, Seekers. Leave your iron behind.” And on second thought: “And that weapon.” Guard shifted his bow to his left hand, pushed his duster off his pouch, and loosened the flap. “You only need to bring that with which you will summon your shade and that which will contain him. I have everything else we need in here.”

She crept closer, but Percy caught her arm. “Lydia! You can’t trust him!”

“As your guide, it would defeat my purpose to harm you.”

“Do you hear that? Besides, spirits cannot lie.”

“Pledge it three times, and I might believe you.”

“Oh, Perce!” She shook his arm off. “Ravenscar said spirits cannot lie. Not without harming themselves or turning themselves into a ghoul.”

Not true, but so went most human knowledge of things beyond their narrow range of experiences. Guard only cared to correct one misapprehension, though, for it disgusted him. “A spirit cannot turn into another spirit, much less a ghoul, which is not one.” He almost shuddered at the thought.

“Oh.”

“He’s not a spirit, Lydia.”

“Well, not yet. Not until we succeed, right?”

At Guard’s nod, she knelt down, replaced her iron dust and muff in her bag, and picked up the fallen book—her fiancé’s journal? It was filled with drawings and handwritten notes. She smoothed a page. Then she set it aside and began rummaging in her bag.

Hopefully not for something stronger than iron.

Such as the casually mentioned spirit ring.

Guard watched her carefully, but once again, her companion tried to block his view. Percy said, “I still want you to swear it thrice, Spi—whatever you are: you will not harm us, or we will not go.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and concentrated on moving items (none of which were iron-related) into a small, knit bag that resembled a sock. Though Guard suspected it mattered little to her, he obeyed her companion’s dictate to forestall another delay from ignorance and argument. Doing so caused a smile to flit across her lips. Then, equipped with her fiancé’s journal, the small bag (smelling of herbs), and an empty, lidded jar (for holding the shade), she marched across to him.

She had tucked the gun-holding muff in the bag during her preparations, but it did not stay there. Unknown to her, her companion retrieved the weapon. He defiantly met Guard’s eye as he slid it into his coat pocket.

It was not worth arguing over. Besides, he was the lesser threat.

Lydia was busy peeking inside the pouch he held open. “There doesn’t seem to be much room.”

“It is made of bone-wood fibers.” When that gained him a curious look, he explained to her, “The inclusion of such fibers means a bag holds more than it appears to.”

“But it does not hold food. And you have no water canteen. Is the journey so short?”

Food? Water? How often did normal mortals eat and drink? He only needed mortal food and drink once a week. So, since they were so very mortal . . . once a day? Surely they had already taken care of those needs before coming here this night. “One does not linger in The Crypt.”

“Good, for I’m in enough trouble as it is for spending the night with a man.” She looked up at Guard. “Men. Our parents would force us—Percy and me—to marry to preserve my honor.”

Something fell behind her, pinging against the stone, and she whirled around. “What are you doing, Percy?”

“Nothing.” His face was red, everywhere, with emotion. But Guard had seen what he had swiped from the stones and placed in his coat pocket. An extra bullet. Probably to join several others. Percy closed their travel bag and set it beside the shrouded corpse. “Just making sure we have everything. I don’t like leaving behind the—the lantern. I like a lot of . . . light.”

“You heard our guide. Bring nothing else.”

An order Percy was already disobeying. The gun was one thing, but what other deception might he be up to, since he found it so easy to lie? Perhaps he should not be so easily dismissed. “If you have a spirit ring,” Guard suggested, “you must leave it behind.”

“This is our only ring.” Lydia pulled off her left glove, fiddled with something on her finger, and offered up her hand for inspection. On her ring finger was jewelry: a black stone set inside red. The black stone looked like a raven with elevated wings and about to take flight; the rectangular red gem was perhaps a ruby. The band looked made of gold. Harmless mortal jewelry. “It is my fiancé’s, from his mother. It was meant for his sister, but bad spirits snatched her up eighteen years ago when she was but three and he nine. Speaking of which, do we take . . . ” She looked over her shoulder. Her gaze stole toward the corpse. “ . . . him?”

“No. We deliver his shade to his body.”

“But will . . . he be safe here?”

“Nothing will happen to his body during your quest. The spirits will ensure that.”

She nodded, turned the ring upside down, and pulled back on her glove. Then, taking hold of his pouch’s lip, she eased one corner of the journal inside.
In a gray, obscuring haze, it slid in easily, and she laughed. “Oh, how nice!” Squinting, she tugged the “shrinking” journal back out halfway before pushing it back in, fascinated by how the journal’s size would adjust and readjust, fascinated by how the gray pouch’s cloth would expand without changing size, even at the mouth. “I would love one of those when I travel, for I have ever so many dresses and not enough room for them all. Do they come in other colors?”

“It’s dyed.”

“How nice! Though pink or green would be even nicer.” She tugged on the journal again. “You should see this, Perce!”

“I’d rather we held onto our items, Lydia. For safety’s sake.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, secured the journal, and added her other items. “Never mind him.” She lowered her voice. “You should have heard how he complained all the way here, enough to set the strongest head to pounding, until, well, I let him have his way and he played bait. Which, I, uhm, you understand was a misunderstanding now, Good Spirit? Ahem, yes, well.” She stepped back, smiled over her shoulder at her glaring companion, and raised her voice, “Lead the way, Guide—or, do you have a name?”

At last. Guard shook his head, returned his bow to his right hand, and started across the forecourt. Fortunately, they took the hint and scampered after. He never realized how hard it was to herd humans, even toward their own declared goal, until he had to try; they had to talk over everything and were so easily distracted. Hopefully, they would be more manageable in The Crypt, where it really mattered. Realizing more distractions lay dead ahead, he shortened his stride once he reached the entrance to The City; this way, they fell in at his side, Lydia nearest. Even three abreast, they had ample room as they walked down West Arcade.

“You see? He’s won’t answer,” Percy said. “Why do you even ask?”

Lydia shot Guard a sly look. “I could compel him by asking three times.”

“He’s not a spirit, remember?”

“I will be,” Guard reminded them, “after we succeed tonight.”

“Such confidence!” She beat on her companion’s shoulder with a gloved fist. “You should try it on for size.”

“I never said we couldn’t—I just said we shouldn’t—that you should have left it in my hands. This place is not for the faint of heart.”

“Faint! When have I ever been—oh.” Lydia stopped short at the other end of the archway. “It is so small. I thought . . . ” She blushed and reached out and patted Guard on his arm, startling both men. Though only one of them shouted her name. She spoke over it, “I meant no offense, Guide. I am sure it is a perfectly nice Purgatory. Cozy—quaint. Though very white—not that there’s anything wrong with white. I wear it often. Too often; all unmarried women sadly do, even if it’s not their color.” She peered across the courtyard at the opposite arcade. Or beyond it, where rose an ivory-white tower. “Is that our destination? How interesting! It’s as craggy as a giant tree. But it has external stairs! And are those stained glass windows? How pretty!” She craned back her head to where its spire disappeared into a perpetual cloud. “And very tall. But where are the doors?”

Though it counted as a delay, Guard was caught up as she. After all, it struck him this was the last time he’d see the Tower with mortal eyes.

Unlike the other buildings, all built from both common and uncommon stones, this one came from an amarant named stone-
wood.
In fact, it came from the stone-wood of a single white tree centuries old. It was a majestic structure. Solid, unbroken, and white throughout, except for two things: The external, railless stairway and landings that spiraled along its length. And the spectral windows that punctured the undulated walls. That glass represented every color of spirit—yellow for sylphs, red for reapers, gray for guardians, white for ghosts, and black for shades. Ghouls deserved no color; abominations with caliburn, their corrupted aether, had no place in the spirit realms. Besides, spectral windows couldn’t be used to spy on the monsters anyway, not without The City being spotted back. And like the aetheric reaper’s mark placed on the soon-to-die mortal, it too drew the monster’s unwanted attention.

After Guard finished in The Crypt below, he would ascend to the Cloud Chamber. Like all other Chambers, for security reasons, it was reached only by the external staircase and the hidden entries that Threshold Guardian Hasp managed, yet it differed greatly in purpose. The Cloud Chamber was set aside for the goddess Purgatory and her attendant sylphs. Therein, one of Purgatory’s most trusted sylphs would slay him—he dared not hope the goddess herself would so honor him with her presence. He’d rise from his own ashes and claim his new life as a full spirit. Thereafter, he would be admitted into the regular Chambers. He’d peer out a spectral window. Sit at their round Council table. Make decisions. Be one of them.