Chapter X (10)

  It wasn’t darkness that consumed her, but rather a deep, all-consuming nothingness. Her senses went blank. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. Even other sensations like balance and hunger. All entirely numb. Her thoughts were muddled and she couldn’t process how much time was passing. Dimly, she worried about trying to maintain her grip on the rope, if the rope was still there. But she would have already fallen if that was the case. Or maybe not. Who was to say gravity worked in this place? With nothing to feel or see, time slipped beyond her grasp. Perhaps it was only a fraction of a second? Unlikely. Days? Also seemed unlikely. Perhaps she was already dead?

  Everything came rushing back. Hard stone beneath her boots. Dim light overhead, muted by thick smog but still blinding. She gasped for air, lungs burning as her heart thumped back into motion.

  She stood in a cobblestone street. Stone buildings surrounded her. But, even with her ears working again, the only sound was the sound of her own ragged breathing.

  No sign of the rope or pit. She suspected some sort of spatial spell. But it hadn’t taken her too far if the gray smog overhead was any indicator.

  A flick of her wrist and she held a sword in her hand. She gripped it, taking comfort from its wicked cold bite. Then she cast her compass spell, identifying north. Behind her. She’d gotten turned around. But that was obvious. Something had sent her here. An enchantment to send her to entirely different part of the island.

  She licked her chapped lips. A step forward. Then another.

  “You’ve come.”

  The voice was no longer a whisper, instead now a growling demand. A masculine voice different from before. But nobody stood near her. Not even Sett. The one-armed cook was nowhere to be seen.

  “Who are you?” Mitsuko called into the air. “Where is my companion?”

  “Face me.”

  And, with that message, the voice left her again in silence.

  Instead of charging down the streets, looking for the culprit, Mitsuko stepped up to the nearest building and opened the front door.

  She expected old rotting furniture. Bones. Shattered pottery. Spiderwebs.

  Instead, she stared at a perfectly furnished home. The floral wallpaper was pristine without even a rip. The wood piled up next to the fireplace was perfectly stacked, not a single piece toppled or out of place. There was even food on the kitchen table. A stew with meaty chunks floating alongside carrots. It looked perfectly preserved.

  But that was just a backdrop. A pair of humans sat side-by-side at the table. A man and a woman. The woman had a bloated, exposed belly and the man rested a hand on it, smiling at her while she spoke to him. Only, no words came out. Her mouth was frozen in place, a twinkle forever trapped in her eye.

  Mitsuko slowly picked up a clay cup from the table, carefully watching.The pair didn’t move so Mitsuko turned her attention to the cup. Inside was a red liquid. Maybe wine. She tipped it. Then flipped it upside-down. Nothing fell out. After righting the cup, Mitsuko reached in with a finger and poked at the drink. Her finger penetrated though and the liquid rose slightly in the cup, but no ripples appeared. When she removed her finger, the hole remained.

  Stasis. Mitsuko recognized the effect. It was the result of a coveted potion that could keep something or someone hanging, trapped in time. Only, the entire house was under its effect. A few magical creatures existed that could perform the effect naturally, but she knew of nothing that could do something of this magnitude.

  She slowly stepped back, out of the house. Then she cautiously continued down the empty stone street. Her sword quivered in her hand as her heart pulsed in her ears.

  Nothing else moved.

  She rounded street after street, activating her compass spell each time. Then she forked onto a larger road. All the smaller streets and alleyways converged. Mitsuko debated darting down one. Or even going the opposite direction and trying to leave the frozen city. That would be the intelligent decision. But she told herself that Holly might be here somewhere.

  That wasn’t truly her reason for taking step after step. It was part of it, certainly. On a normal day though she would retreat and regroup.

  But something in her burned. Definitely not excitement. And it wasn’t quite fear. An emotion related to both. Something she craved beyond all other sensations.

  Wonder.

  Mitsuko shook with anticipation and a smile touched the edges of her lips.

  She had never heard a tale spun about a city crystalized in time. No bard sang of this place. This was a sight for her exclusively. Nothing could have prepared her for it. And that was the point. She was an explorer. She felt the novelty of her career wash over her. The yearning in her heart expanded all around her, absorbing the abandoned streets. This moment belonged to her.

  “You’ve arrived.”

  Mitsuko stood in front of a church. The multi-colored stained glass windows were dulled by the lighting but they remained in pristine condition. Marble statues were spread all around the building, depicting monsters and people. Green grass even grew in a perfect circle around the church. This location alone was an oasis of color in a desert of gray.

  A juggernaut in gleaming back armor stood in the stone garden in front of the church. He rested both hands on a massive sword, easily as tall as she was and made from the same material as the creature’s armor. The blade’s edge was stained in crimson. She knew him immediately as the speaker, although he showed no signs of life.

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  “Who are you?” Mitsuko asked, her words cutting into the silence.

  “I am The Warden.” His voice echoed all around her.

  “Will you kill me?”

  “As many times as needed, Champion.”

  “Where is Holly?” she demanded.

  “All who face me meet their doom.”

  At that comment, her earlier wonder faded, replaced by fury. Mitsuko raised a shaking blade.

  The juggernaut shifted, the tip of his blade rising from the stone road, and he pointed it at her.

  He stepped forward, revealing the open entrance of the church. Inside were bodies piled high. Each of them had a hole in their chests where their hearts once were. Sett’s upper body was slumped on the top, his head lolling forward, eyes blank. His body ended at the stomach, where his intestines draped out on the other corpses. Onto a purple scalp sandwiched between larger bodies.

  The sight filled her with cold unyielding anger. This thing had slain Holly. Nothing else mattered. She gritted her teeth and shifted her stance. She’d cut him down. Dice him into pieces. Melt down that shiny armor for chamber pots. She’d..she’d….

  Her mind stumbled. Holly was dead.

  And he was already moving.

  Her body took over. His massive blade swept forward, cleaving the air. Mitsuko stepped back on instinct honed by a hundred battles, the sword missing her by a hair’s width. She felt the wind of the blow’s wake. The only shred of wind in the entire city. This monster’s city.

  His blade arced back, faster than seemed possible for its size. She deflected it with her blade, directing the blow into the road Stone cracked as the weapon bit deep into the cobblestones. It snapped free before she could act, sending rubble flying.

  The stones screamed past her as she danced between them.

  Somewhere inside her, she recognized the sword technique. The stance, it’s rhythm, it’s unyielding momentum. Scarcely used because of the sheer amount of strength it required., legend said it was perfected by a half troll swordmaster millennia ago.

  “Graab’s Jig.” She deflected the final piece of rubble.

  “Bladedancer.” The juggernaut said. “You know of my mentor.”

  His mentor? This monster was at least a thousand years then. More, perhaps.

  She said nothing else. She didn’t care who he learned from. She wanted him dead.

  Graab’s Jig. It never used any feints. Designed to be the most straightforward style, for strength over all else. Honorable, they called it. The word made bile rise in her throat.

  He tilted his massive sword, and knocked her ice blade aside. Then he raised a foot and kicked her.

  The blow crushed into her stomach and knocked the wind from her lungs. She staggered back, but didn’t fall. Her stance let her keep her feet while others four times her size would be toppled. If the juggernaut was impressed, he said nothing.

  He chopped at her, and this time when she raised her blade to deflect his sword, it shattered on impact. In the fraction of a second before his sword could finish her she dropped, shard of ice clattering beside her. His sword whooshed over her. Prone, exposed, dead….

  She flicked her wrist.

  A new blade formed and she lunged up, driving her blade into the narrow gap between his breastplate and tassets. The blade sank in. It didn’t cut through flesh, at least not any she was familiar with, but it still disappeared under the armor with only slight resistance. She bared her teeth in victory.

  The juggernaut looked down at her. Nonplussed.

  “Hm.”

  He said nothing else. Now that she was in close, he couldn’t effectively strike her with his blade. Instead, he reached for her with a gauntleted hand. She tried to pull away, but he still caught her arm. Her sword arm.

  She dangled as he raised her up. She kicked him, putting both legs to use in to loosen his grip on her. She bit back a scream as her shoulder tore from its socket.

  Her sword fell from her hand and clattered on the stone, only a handspan of blade remaining. The rest had melted away. Not by heat though. She felt no warmth from the juggernaut.

  Then she understood.

  Antimagic. The juggernaut’s body must be laced with an extremely potent antimagic. It hadn’t been her sword entering him earlier, but rather the slight resistance had been her blade’s magic dissolving as it ceased to exist.

  Her hand twitched uselessly above her head. She couldn’t create another blade in this position.

  “Weak. Not the Champion then. Too early, I suppose.”

  Then he held her out and swung.

  As she collapsed on the ground, her arm’s pain was gone, replaced by something worse.

  He dropped it beside her. Her mangled limb splattered blood across her face.

  With her remaining hand she clawed for the ring. A sword. She needed a sword. Even a magic sword was better than none.

  Her hand brushed against the ring when the juggernaut grabbed her leg. Her severed arm slipped from her fingers as he dragged her into the church.

  He tossed her onto the pile of bodies. She slid down them, limp, and stared dimly into the dead eyes of a man she vaguely recognized from the Selcouth Sable.

  So this is it.

  She wanted to see Holly again one more time. She hadn’t saved her. Mitsuko had failed her friend. She couldn’t avenge her. But she still wanted to see her, unworthy as she was.

  She remained conscious out of sheer spite. Pain threatened to overtake her, but she refused. Her life was over, but she clung to it anyway, desperate for any form of vengeance, no matter how petty. She pushed herself forward.

  The juggernaut watched her squirm. She tumbled down the pile of bodies and something pressed into her back. A bone?

  “Your heart is mine.”

  Not a bone, a hilt.

  She reached behind her with her remaining arm and her fingers closed around its grip.The juggernaut raised his blade for a final blow.

  With every shred of remaining strength, Mitsuko lunged.

  The juggernaut didn’t bother to dodge her sloppy attack. Either surprised by her persistence, or utterly unconcerned about it he stood steadfast. What he didn’t seem to expect, however, was the object clutched in her remaining hand.

  A cutlass. It wasn’t enchanted. Just cold steel. And this time, she felt with satisfaction as it sunk into juggernaut’s armpit. The armor froze in place. She twisted the blade, forcing it home

  “Eat your heart out,” she spat.

  They hit the floor together.

  “Well done,” a new voice whispered. “Find me.”

  And then, Mitsuko died for the first time.

  *ding*

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