“That’s, ah, one way to do it,” said Scorio, his throat suddenly dry.
“Proceed,” said the Nightmare Lady, her voice Naomi’s, and as ever incredibly disconcerting.
Scorio nodded, took a couple of quick steps back, and then turned to stride to the now visible black door.
He passed through without bothering to ignite his Heart, and emerged into the second chamber. It was becoming painfully familiar. The river of darkness like a bottomless chasm running between the twelve statues, each powerfully limned in the cone of white light shining from above.
Scorio had fought almost all of them by this point. Killed three. He stared at them, wanting to brood, to ponder his failures, examine his successes for means of winning through, but then the Nightmare Lady was by his side and moving forward, never breaking her stride.
“They activate when you pass before them,” he said, but wasn’t sure she cared. “We never know which will awaken first—”
The second statue on the left stepped off its plinth. The hooded assassin with her curved knife and short stabbing blade.
Scorio and his friends had fought her three times. The third and last time had been worst. He regarded her with a special loathing and hatred.
Nightmare Lady’s tail swept out like a whipcrack, faster than Scorio could follow, the blade passing through the statue’s neck like a knife through a cream pie.
The statue froze mid-step, then collapsed into shards.
Scorio stopped, mouth opening, but all he could do was croak.
The next statue to step off its plinth was the archer; it immediately raised its bow, hand reaching up over its shoulder for a shaft, but again the Nightmare Lady’s black tail flashed out, the blade passing through its chest as if it weren’t there.
The statue stood still for a moment, hand frozen on the fletching of its stone arrow, seeming to have not registered the deep incision that crossed neatly across its torso.
Then it, too, fell apart.
Scorio realized that his mouth had gone slack. Gathering himself he ran to catch up with the Nightmare Lady, whose pace had yet to change.
“That was… I mean…”
The Nightmare Lady didn’t even glance at him. “I’m an Emberling, Scorio. That means something.”
“No kidding.” He glanced down and around himself as he stepped over the chunks of raw rock that had been the archer but moments ago, and gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head. His whole body was tense, ready for combat, for pain, for a desperate battle, and yet there was nothing for him to do but follow his teacher as she strode toward the second black door.
“No idea what lies on the other side,” he said, voice husky. “Though I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”
“Stay close,” she said, pulling the door open. “If you can.”
Then she stepped into the dark void beyond and was gone.
Scorio turned to gape at the fallen statues, the room that had witnessed so much struggle and pain that day, and with a final shake of his head, hurried after.
The next room was a cube, the walls high and covered in a black latticework between which glowed white squares the size of Scorio’s fist.
The floor and ceiling were white, and a diffuse illumination rendered everything starkly clear.
The Nightmare Lady strode forwards, bold and certain, and Scorio hurried after her, igniting his Heart with an unsteady sweep of Coal. Where was the threat? The hundreds if not thousands of white square gaps between the black pattern on the walls? But they weren’t holes, they were—
A white cube flew out from the wall to the left, leaving a hollow where it had been embedded, coming at them at knee height.
The Nightmare Lady’s tail cracked out, slicing it in half.
It had been aimed right at Scorio’s leg.
Another blew out from the right, chest high, and again the Nightmare Lady’s tail flexed and slashed it in half.
More cubes came flying at them in rapid succession, from different angles and different heights.
Scorio walked forward in a cage of the Nightmare Lady’s making, her tail whipping about them as if possessed of a will of its own. It was everywhere, slashing and shattering the cubes, and still, she walked on, gaze never wavering, her awareness preternatural, defending them both as they crossed the chamber.
Scorio flinched, jerked from side to side, unsure as to when a cube would slip past her guard, ready to evade, but there were too many and they were coming too quickly.
He’d have had to sprint through, taking his knocks as he went, and pray he made it to the far wall.
Which manifested a black door when they reached it, the cubes ceasing their endless attacks.
Scorio’s chest was tight, the blood rushing in his ears, his eyes wide as he turned back to examine their passage.
Two lines of shattered white stone marked the way they’d come.
The Nightmare Lady placed a taloned hand on the door before them and pulled it open, then paused.
She turned to look back at him.
Scorio dragged his vision to meet her own, and was unable to resist giving a spontaneous laugh.
“Focus,” she said, voice cold and hard, and the bewildered humor died in his chest.
“Yes,” he said and gave a curt nod. “Ready.”
They passed through the void into a tower of a room, the ceiling easily some thirty or forty yards above. The far wall was only five yards away from the doorway, painted a pure white and textured like a natural cliff face, complete with disparate handholds and small ledges. These extended all the way up the face of the cliff, making for a difficult but not impossible climb.
“This isn’t so bad,” said Scorio, and then the floor fell out from under them.
He gave out a cry of panic as he fell, only to feel fingers curl around his arm with steely strength as the Nightmare Lady leaped and latched onto the wall—which immediately began to scroll downward, toward the suddenly yawning void that had appeared at their feet.
“Amusing,” said the Nightmare Lady, pressing Scorio to the wall as it slowly moved down. “Start climbing.”
Scorio didn’t even bother nodding, but again swept Coal into his Heart and ignited it. He was breathing rapidly, shallowly, and as strength flooded into his limbs, he forced himself to slow, to take control of his body, and to focus his attention on the wall above him.
The Nightmare Lady climbed with lazy elegance, using handholds, or simply digging her talons into the very fabric of the wall to create her own where needed.
He had no such luxury. Clenching his jaw he surged upward, reaching for new handholds, straining and stretching.
He could do it, he realized. The real trap had been the falling floor. If you managed to reach the wall, all you had to do was exceed the speed with which it dropped—
—and that’s when he felt the wall began to scroll down faster.
Biting back a curse, he struggled to climb quicker, lunging and seeking ever more sparse ridges and cracks. His Cinder strength saved him again and again—narrow fingerholds that he’d not have been able to grip with his regular strength were all that he could find now, and to his horror he realized that despite his efforts, he was slowly descending toward the dark gap in the floor again, the wall scrolling down faster than he could climb.
A hand closed around the collar of his robes and plucked him from the wall. Scorio let out a strangled cry of panic as he swung free, and the Nightmare Lady scuttled upward, leaping with spider-like agility till she reached the top and stepped out onto a solid ledge a foot wide.
Scorio did his best to maintain his dignity as she sauntered down the ledge to the doorway that had appeared in the chamber’s side.
This she plucked open and then, together, they passed through and into a dark room whose true extent was hidden by cloying shadows.
A soft halo of light fell like a benediction upon a massive figure that sat slumped over in a great rusted throne at the room’s far side, a creature far larger than Leonis, its bulk clad in dark, umber leather armor vaguely shaped to its anatomy. A heavy leather cloak was draped across its chest, and it rested its broad chin on an upraised fist, eyes closed.