“Brave Whirlwind!” I shouted as I revolved round and round like a pinwheel.
SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH SCHWING
I came to a stop and smiled as four golem heads tumbled through the air and clunked against the ground. Their headless bodies lunged at me and were quickly met with another heavy swing that shattered their torsos.
After exiting our holding cell, we’d rushed up the stairs and into the domed hall. Golems were streaming from every doorway and doing everything they could to slow us down. No matter how hard we hit them they kept on moving. Every golem we smashed would cause severed arms, torsoless legs, and even rolling heads to come after us moments later. We’d made it halfway to the bone hallway, but every step was getting harder as the resistance stiffened.
“Keep moving!” ordered the captain. He grabbed an armless golem and threw it to the ground, then ran past it as two more carrying daggers charged at him.
“These dames just keep coming!” said Clance. He sliced a golem’s hand off and ducked beneath a swing from Priss’ axe as she cleaved its arms off
“Haha! If only it could be like this on a normal day!” chuckled Tuet as he kicked away a rolling head. He grabbed a golem by the hand, twirled it around like he was ballroom dancing, and shoved it towards Priss.
“There won’t be any more normal days if we don’t make it out of here!” snapped Priss.
CRUNCH
She heaved her axe over her shoulder and chopped the golem in half. Not to compliment her or anything, but that axe of hers packed a punch when she actually landed a hit.
“Less talking, more fighting!” said Jedda.
She shoulder-bashed a golem into a column and punched it in the chest repeatedly, her fists a blur, until it was dust.
“Ah, watch out Darni!” said Sherri. She sliced the arm of a nearby golem off with her golden knife and threw it like a five-fingered javelin. It flew past my face and struck a golem I hadn’t noticed in the side of the head, shattering its eyes.
“Thanks for the save!” I said with a raised thumb. It was surprising well she was managing without using her bow. Or well not that surprising. She is my partner after all. I cleaved the eyeless golem apart with two heavy swings and whirled around to cut down another that had approached.
From what I’d seen I’d taken out the most with Jedda close behind. Priss was in third, but her numbers were being inflated due to Tuet and Clance shoving golems they’d already softened up her way. If it hadn’t been for their support, she’d have been in fifth after Tuet and Captain Kastel. Even without her bow, Sherri was faring better than Clance, who was in dead last. I’d say we were doing pretty well against the onslaught, but we wouldn’t be able to hold out forever. The golems could keep picking themselves up and seemed to increase in number constantly. Even if we made it out of the domed hall, we’d inevitably collapse from exhaustion if the battles continued.
DING— DONG— DING— DONG—
The rumbling din of the immense bell vibrated through the whole palace. The golems all stopped in place, frozen like the statues they were. Many of the ones we’d been fighting toppled to the ground as they were locked into their awkward fighting positions. Their eyes all glowed faintly, and then they dinged like chimes. It was faint at first, but then it grew in intensity until they were replaying the song we’d heard in the holding cell, albeit without the singing.
“What do you think they’re doing?” I asked. I crouched down and cautiously rolled one over. It vibrated in my hands so fiercely that they almost went numb. I dropped it with a yelp and hopped back, Bravesreign at the ready.
“I haven’t the foggiest . . .” said Captain Kastel. “The scroll never mentioned anything like this.”
“Whatever it is, it’s buying us some time!” said Jedda. “Let’s hightail it before they get back up!”
“You will do no such thing,” came a woman’s voice from above. We all looked up and gasped. Thick fog flew in from every doorway in the hall and whirled into a small cyclone just below the dome. It dispersed, and in its place floated a woman cradling an ornate silver mirror in the crook of her arm. She descended slowly and touched down on the ground in the center of the hall. The golems all ceased their chiming and lined up on either side of her before kneeling. She walked down the newly formed aisle and stopped in front of us.
She looked exactly like the golems, only made of flesh instead of stone. She wore an orange, ankle-length skirt that had slits on the sides to reveal her legs. Her stomach was bare and her bosom was wrapped with an orange bra of the same fabric as her skirt. Bangles and bracelets made of bone, silver, and gold jangled on her wrists and ankles, and from each bangle hung smile chimes that rang out with her every movement. On her head was a golden crown with an engraving of three women praying, and covering her face was a smooth, featureless stone mask with slanted slits for her red eyes to peer through. Set into the mask, right where her mouth would be, was a tiny, triangular blue gem with a lustrous finish. Her hair, blue, wavy, and decorated with orange beads, floated in the air around her head like she was submerged in water.
She placed her hand on her chest and lowered her head just enough to be noticeable.
“I am Nestemed, Shaper of Valtameri,” she said. Her voice had a tinge of reluctance to it like she didn’t want to talk to us. She waved her arm over the golems. “And these are my children, they who have been shaped from stone.” Her eyes sharpened. “You have brought an end to many today, doomed them to live as fragments of their former selves. Never to be made whole again.” She glared at us, her gaze hopping from person to person. I felt like I’d been frozen in a block of ice when her eyes trained on me. Something about her wasn’t right. She had this aura around her that made it feel like I was looking through fog, like I could never quite focus my eyes on any one part of her form. “Tell me, are you related to the previous intruding pair?”
“The previous pair?” I asked. She must have meant the guy who wrote the captain’s scroll. Him having a partner made sense. The captain had mentioned that the notes stop suddenly, and someone had to escape and offload the sword so the captain’s grandpa could get his hands on it.
“Questions are not met with questions,” hissed Nestemed. Two of the golems snuck up from behind and grabbed me. One hugged me tightly, binding my arms to my sides, while the other covered my mouth with its hands.
“Hey, what’s the big idea!? Let me go you chiseled cheater! At least attack me from the front! Let me go! Let me go!” I yelled. Sadly, all that came out were muffled grunts as the golem’s fingers blocked my lips. I kicked my legs wildly as I struggled to get free, but the golems refused to budge even an inch.
“You,” said Nestemed. She pointed a long, slender finger at Captain Kastel. “You are the leader of this party, correct? Explain your reasons for your intrusion. Choose your words wisely.”
Captain Kastel looked down at Nestemed for a moment. I had a feeling he was trying to decide between playing along or shoving his sword through her chest. After a while, he cleared his throat and adjusted his cap, then took a step forward.
“I’ll be frank with you, Miss Nestemed,” she said. “We’re here to explore this place, take anything we think’s worth taking, then go home and have a nice meal afterwards. We’ll be the first group to ever reach The Prism Palace and live to tell the tale. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but that’s how it’s gonna be.”
Nestemed stared at him without moving. “Such hubris!” she spat. “No doubt you are that man’s descendent! You even have his smell . . .”
The captain drew his sword, his eyes alight, and said, “Who’s descendent? Has a Kastel set foot in this place prior?”
“You are ignorant? Fitting. I will educate you then, intruder.” Nestemed raised her mirror. Its surface looked more like still water than glass. She tapped it in the center and sent a series of ripples across it. “Witness, the shame of your ancestor.” The mirror’s ripples dissipated, and in its place was something I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It was like her mirror had become a window into a room that didn’t exist. There were two men on the other side, one of whom looked like Captain Kastel, only younger and wearing scarred leather armor. He was grabbing a large, blonde-haired man by the shoulders and shouting something, tears in his eyes. The blonde man was lying against a bone wall and clutching his side. There was blood staining his tattered yellow clothes.
“I’m done for,” said the blonde man. He grabbed the captain lookalike by the arm. “You’ve— got to get out of here Parman! You’ve got to live on, to tell the world of our discovery!” He released his bloodied side and grabbed a sword from the ground. It was the same sword that Captain Kastel was wielding at that very moment. “Take this. It will be my—” the man coughed blood onto his chest. “My legacy!” He held the sword up over himself.
“I’m not leaving you behind!” shouted Parman. “We’re getting out of this together, you hear me? We didn’t make it this far just to have it all fall apart!” He wiped the tears from his eyes and lifted the blonde man from the ground.
“Don’t be a fool! It’s plain as day I’m at the end of my wick! Leave me here and— gah!” the man shouted before grunting as agony overtook him. Parman set him back down and grimaced.
CLINK CLINK CLINK CLICK
The echoes of stone footsteps bounced down the hall. The blonde man shoved his sword into Parman’s hands and said, “There’s no more time argue! Take this and go!” he reached behind himself and pulled a dagger from his back. “I’ll do what I can to distract them while you make your escape!”
“But how am I—”
“Don’t start! You’ll figure out somehow, I know you will,” said the blonde man with a bloody smile. “Now this is the last time I’ll say it. Get going! Don’t look back no matter what you hear!” Parman gripped the sword tightly and rose to his feet. He wiped the tears from his eyes one last time and ran down the hall, out of the mirror’s view.
Nestemed spun the mirror in her hands, and when it faced us again it’d returned to its waterlike stillness. The window had closed. “The only intruder to escape,” she said. She looked at the captain. “Your thoughts, intruder?”
The captain lowered his sword and smiled. “Based on that there mirage of yours, my grandpappy was one heck of a liar. Ha! Telling us he won this thing in a game of chance!” He shook his head and sighed. “Can’t believe I was naive enough to fall for that crock of malarky . . .”
“Intriguing. You feel no shame?” asked Nestemed flatly. “Your ancestor abandoned his comrade, left him to his doom.”
“Shame for what? I’d have done the same! His buddy was down, out, and telling him to scram. Leaving was the best move he could have made. Far better than sticking around here with you and the statue sisters. Besides, if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here today!”
“Hmph, I agree with you for once, Kastel,” said Priss. “There is absolutely no shame in surviving.”
“Silence!” said Nestemed. A pair of golems grabbed hold of Priss and bound her the same way I was. I took a bit of cruel satisfaction in watching her squirm and kick desperately, her face getting redder as her rage grew. Tuet and Clance drew their swords, but froze as Nestemed looked at them sidelong. “I have little mercy to spare for intruders. Do not waste it wantonly.”
“Then hurry up and tells us what you want,” said Jedda. “I’m guessing you didn’t stop by just to say hello after siccing your golems on us.”
“Impudent,” growled Nestemed. She raised her hand towards Jedda. “Begone from—” she stopped mid-sentence, then looked to either side frantically. “I know that, but it does not matter! Intruders are intruders all the same! Return to your duties! I will –“ She clutched the sides of her head and closed her eyes.
DING— DONG— DING— DONG—
Her hair writhed in the air like a mass of furious snakes, then stopped in place. “The shaper has come to a decision,” she said mechanically. “Though you are intruders, you have been deemed interesting. You will be granted full preservation by my hand. Come with me.”
“Preservation? W-What does that mean?” asked Sherri. She quickly covered her mouth. “Ah! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to speak!”
Nestemed opened her eyes. “You have shown immediate remorse for your transgression, and as such I shall overlook it. This time. Do not let it happen again,” she said. She pointed at me. “You have disrespected The Shaper. Begone until your preservation!” She pointed to Priss. “Be gone as well. Remove them, my children!”
“You’re not taking the boss anywhere!” roared Clance. He charged at Nestemet with his sword’s tip trained on her chest. He yelled and thrust it, then recoiled as it snapped on contact.
Nestemed raised her hand and said, “Freeze: Mists of Azic!” A thick mist appeared around Clance, and in an instant he was encased in a clear block of crystal. She turned to look at the rest of the group. “Come without rebellion.”
With that, any chance of resistance was squashed. The others begrudgingly shuffled after Nestemed as she floated out of the hall with Clance’s ice block floating close behind her. Sherri mouthed “I’ll save you, okay?” over her shoulder as she walked, likely too afraid to speak aloud. The golems lifted Priss and me from the ground and carried us out of the hall and into a side corridor. I flailed and struggled as well as I could, but their stone arms refused to slacken even a little. After a few minutes I gave in and let myself be carried. I’d just have to wait for my chance to make my epic escape.
We traveled down corridors, up and down zig-zagging staircases, around winding bends, along beautiful outdoor walkways, and even slid down a narrow ramp or two. Wherever the golems were taking us, it was as remote as could be. As they trudged along, I got to thinking about Nestemed.
Within two seconds I’d deemed her a villain, and within five I’d decided I needed to defeat her. Nothing about her felt right. She’d somehow been around when the captain’s grandfather explored the palace, yet she didn’t look any older than thirty. She had that weird blurry aura that made my eyes spazz out when tried to focus on her. And then there was that mirror. I’d have shaken my head to clear its image from my mind if I’d been able. I don’t know what power she used to create that window to the past, but it felt like something people aren’t supposed to mess with.
We exited the palace through a huge archway and crossed a long, narrow bridge to one of the smaller towers that flanked the palace’s main structure. The bridge lacked rails or safety features of any kind, and as the golems plodded along, I couldn’t think of anything but a slip sending me tumbling over the edge. I closed my eyes and did my best to focus on something else.
The golems entered the tower and came to a sudden stop. We were in front of a spartan stone room with nothing more than a woven mat and an urn full of water inside. Vines crept in through a small barred window at the back of the room and cracks ran along the ceiling.
What was it that Nestemed had said she was going to do with the others? Preserve them? No, grant them preservation. What did that even mean? Did she intend to freeze them all in crystal like she did Clance? Pickle them in brine like a cucumber? Maybe turn them into hideous golems that would wander the palace’s halls for eternity? The image of everyone posing together as a block of marble flickered in my mind. Just as I got to thinking of Sherri’s art piece name, the golems came to a stop.
I opened my eyes and saw we were inside a featureless stone hallway now. In front of us was a spartan stone room with nothing more than a woven mat and an urn full of water inside. Vines crept in through a small barred window at the back of the room and cracks ran along the ceiling.
“Prisoners need no arms,” said the golem carrying me.
She grabbed Bravesreign from my back and tossed me into the room as hard as she could. The one carrying Priss took her axe in the same way and threw her right on top of me. The two golems slid down the room’s heavy door slab with an echoing CRASH and walked away, their stone feet clinking and crunching the shells underfoot.
I threw Priss off and scrambled to my feet. Were they really just going to leave us to rot? I ran over to the door slab and slid my fingers along the bottom hoping to find some divot or indent to slide my fingers between. Sadly, it was perfectly flush with the smooth, polished floor.
“Well, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten me into, Darni Voker!” grumbled Priss. She brushed herself off and stood up.
“What?” I snapped as I turned around. “I didn’t get you into anything! You’re the one that mouthed off to her like an idiot!”
“Incorrect!” she said with an accusatory point of her finger. “You annoyed that Nestemed woman and primed her to rebuke my comment! If you hadn’t chimed in with your question like a dullard, I’d be with the others right now!” She hung her head and collapsed against a wall dramatically. “Ah! To think that I’ve been imprisoned more in a single day than the rest of the Afinsheer lineage combined!”
Dullard? I felt my eyebrow twitch. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me or something?”
She paused her lamenting and looked at me sharply. “You would know if I was picking a fight with you, Darni Voker,” she said. “I wouldn’t be subtle about it.”
I put my hands on my hips and smirked. “That good, because I’d whip you even without Bravesreign!” I said. I chuckled to myself, then pursed my lips when it sunk in that I didn’t have Bravesreign with me. I’d have to track it down first if I was to have any hopes of saving the others.
“Oh, do you really think so?” said Priss. She pushed off the wall and walked right up to me so her oversized chest was pressed against mine. “I’ll have you know I’ve received formal training in the art of pugilism! In a battle of the martial arts, I’d have you defeated in a matter of seconds!” She covered her mouth playfully and glanced to the side with the smugest little grin. “Just like I’ve defeated you in this battle of busts! Oh ho ho ho!” Her hair drills bobbed up and down with her “ho” in her laugh.
I grit my teeth and pushed her away. It was one thing to insult my skills, but it was inexcusable to insult my body! I’m really proud of it, you know! I pointed at her sidelong and said, “That’s it! You and me, right here, right now!”
“Oh, is that a challenge I hear?” said Priss. She raised her fists and took a boxer’s stance. “Bring it on then, Darni Voker! I’ve been waiting two weeks for this rematch! Once I’m done with you, you’ll finally understand who the better is between us!”
I raised my fists as well and held them close to my chest. We circled the room slowly, always inching to the left, then both lunged forward with our fists ready to strike.
“Blazing Brave Hook!” I shouted.
“Skullbreaker Straight!” shouted Priss.
WHAM WHOOSH
We froze there, each staring the other dead in the eyes. We’d both landed heavy, brain-rattling punches on each other’s cheeks. I opened my mouth to say something witty and situation-appropriate, then felt my legs give out beneath me. We both fell to the ground without another word as the weight of our strikes finally sunk in and crushed us underneath.