It wasn’t human. Its face was bestial, but the deep lines carved into its brow gave it the air of a being consumed by thought, its dark, lank hair lying close to its scalp and falling past its shoulders. Its nose was little more than upswept slits, and its mouth was black-lipped, with white teeth, some of them fangs, protruding and in view.
The Nightmare Lady released Scorio’s shoulder, and he stood still, held by the monster’s presence, for even in sleep it had a terrible dignity, a ponderous air of grave melancholy.
For a moment all was still, and then the Nightmare Lady stepped forward. Its eyes flicked open, revealing all too human eyes, and it straightened from its slumped posture, leather armor creaking, heavy cloak slipping to one side.
It seemed to recognize the threat posed by the Nightmare Lady immediately; it lunged to its feet, snatching up a great blade that was propped against the rusted throne as it rose.
The monster had to stand some nine feet tall, had to weigh easily over a thousand pounds, but still, it moved with lithe agility, the blade whipping up as the Nightmare Lady broke into a run, sprinting across the shadowed hall right at it.
Scorio just stood there, gaping.
The ogre lowered its blade into a defensive stance, its every fiber poised and alert, letting its foe come at it, until at the last it let out a reverberating roar and lunged forward, flowing smoothly from its defensive posture to an upswing attack which would have shorn the Nightmare Lady in twain.
But she slid aside, passed by his attack, stabbed her tail into the hollow beneath its lantern jaw, and then she was past the throne, tail following sinuously after her, its tip gleaming wetly as the sword fell from the ogre’s huge hands.
For a second it simply stared at Scorio, then it crashed ponderously down to its knees, hands at its ruined throat.
The Nightmare Lady’s tail coiled about her in a sinuous loop and neatly slashed through the back of the ogre’s neck, separating its head from its neck faster than Scorio could follow.
The huge body thudded down to the ground, the head lost in the shadows, and a doorway appeared in the wall behind the throne.
“Stay with me,” said the Nightmare Lady again. “I can’t protect you at a distance.”
“I… yes.” Scorio jogged forward, staring at the fallen corpse in something akin to horrified amazement. He’d known Naomi exceeded his abilities handily, but he’d had no idea she was so far beyond him.
“This is the fifth room,” said the Nightmare Lady, hand on the door’s handle. “The end of the Char level, though this has all felt more like a Cinder’s run. The fifth room is always a powerful foe, the culminating fight. The next room will be a whole level harder.”
Scorio forced his mind to work. “So if this was a Cinder run thus far, the next room should challenge an Emberling?”
“Exactly,” she said, voice rich with hunger and something akin to desire. “I may not be able to protect you from here on out.”
“You’ve no need.” He turned to regard the twilight hall. “I’m already more grateful than you’ll ever know for your having brought me this far.”
“As long as that’s clear.” She pulled on the doorhandle, sinews standing out like harp strings all the way from her wrist to her elbow. “Let’s see how this Gauntlet is going to challenge me.”
And with that, she stepped through.
Scorio took a deep steadying breath, rubbed his hands on his hips, and ignited his Heart once more.
The influx of power steadied his nerves, illusory as it was. Raising his chin, squaring his shoulders, resigned to his no doubt sudden and impending death, Scorio stepped through.
To emerge onto a narrow ledge that led into a vertigo-inducing void of utter darkness. Before them, however, was a hallway composed of free-floating white square frames, each successive one slightly turned from the last, so that the floor seemed to warp up and eventually become the wall, then farther away, the ceiling.
Through this twisting hallway ran a flat tongue of gray stone, a walkway as straight as an arrow, to end in a stone platform some twenty yards away.
Scorio grimaced as he hunched his shoulders in close, inhaling deeply as he scrutinized the layout, the bizarre, glowing white frames, the innocuous walkway that floated through their center, deceptively inviting and easy to cross.
“Not good,” said the Nightmare Lady, reaching out to place a hand on Scorio’s chest, holding him back. “You can’t see them, but there are invisible blades hanging in the air, points aimed toward us.”
“Invisible what now?” Scorio blinked and tried to focus on the empty air above the walkway. Nothing.
“Emberlings develop the ability to detect the hidden,” said the Nightmare Lady, her skeletal tail lashing uneasily behind her. “There’s a clear but narrow path to walk between the blades. If you remain directly behind me, you should be all right.”
“What else can you do?” asked Scorio.
“Not the time.” The Nightmare Lady moved to the edge of the platform. “Ready? Stay close.”
Scorio summoned his Igneous Heart, and startled; the air was rich with floating clouds of copper-hued mana, bright and airy. He swept his will through it, but it was like splashing his hand through mist after a lifetime of trying to churn honey; the mana parted before his determined sweeps.
“One second,” he said, closing his eyes. This time he focused on his Heart, causing it to inhale, to draw the copper into its center mass. The mana responded smoothly, streaming into him, and when his Heart ignited, it burned with brassy flames that leaped and flickered a thousand times faster than the black ones.
The strength that flowed into him was invigorating, imbuing him with a sense of quicksilver power and causing the pain and fatigue to sluice away.
“Now,” he said, opening his eyes.
The Nightmare Lady nodded and stepped onto the walkway.
Immediately the free-hanging square frames of glowing white began to revolve, the cumulative effect mesmerizing and disorienting, causing the stationary walkway to appear to warp and twist within their center.
“Careful!” cried the Nightmare Lady as she started forward, “there’s a force pulling us forward!”
Scorio stepped off the ledge and was immediately gripped by it, an inexorable drawing forth that made him focus more on controlling his speed than anything else; his sandals slid forward an inch with every step he took, and his hair and clothing immediately were drawn forward, toward the walkway’s terminus.
The Nightmare Lady edged forward, her control infinitely superior, but she seemed tense, hesitant; Scorio tried to mimic her movements precisely, but a line of blood appeared across his shoulder as something slid about him, parting the cloth of his robes.
“The blades are rotating as well,” snarled the Nightmare Lady. “Move closer!”
Scorio pressed in as tightly as he could as she moved on, contorting her body to avoid unseen perils, crouching, lifting a leg here, swaying out to the side, turning in a slow gyre as she continued to walk.
But it wasn’t enough to simply mimic her movements; almost immediately a dozen cuts flowered across his body, some an inch deep, and despite his newfound strength Scorio felt his heart began to pound, his throat to constrict.
Whatever passageway the Nightmare Lady was navigating, the safe zone didn’t extend much farther behind her.
The force pulling him forward grew with each step he took. He felt as if he were inching his way down a nearly vertical slope, all his weight on his heels, aware that one misstep could cause him to slam into the Nightmare Lady and send her flying forward. But the more he held back, the worse he was cut up.
There was nothing he could do but keep going.
Lines of pain blossomed across his back, and then a particularly deep cut passed through his heel as he hesitated, struggling to not topple forward. He felt the muscle of his calf contract violently as the great tendon was severed, the pain astonishing.