Duran stirred the stew. I stared into the broth. Like a sign, a fish head popped up. We made brief and unfortunate eye contact before it got shoved down underneath again.
Aemelia was off in the corner napping, her snoring echoing off of the walls. Apis was climbing up the stack of furniture, tapping on each ceiling tile with a walking stick he’d extracted from the pile. He thought he had seen light coming through one and was determined to check each one to see if it was loose.
Combined with the bubbling of the pot, it made for a horrible soundscape. I almost missed the trickling of the canal.
I sat up and tried to crack my back. Balbinus was in the corner, clutching his knees and staring at the stone. “Cheer up,” I told him. “This is the last section, right?”
Aemilia had been decidedly unhelpful after telling us that the Voice of Teuthida was captured- she seemed to think that was the only necessary information, really- but it seemed they had gone to the center of the temple. Given that Durandus the first was apparently possessed and one of her lackeys, it seemed I would have to confront her yet again if only to solve the problem that had brought me here in the first place.
Based on my last confrontation with her, I assumed she was behind the problem again. I tried to remember what that secretary had said.
I probably should have listened to him instead of instantly dismissing him. Now that I tried to remember it, it was all a vague muddle. He had been worried about her, that was for sure. She had wanted to do something new, that was true. Something impressive.
That meant nothing, though. That could refer to a big hat with a feather in.
“Apis,” I said. “What do you know about necromancers?”
He tapped on another ceiling tile. “I heard that they can bring back souls from the land of the dead,” he said. “Everyone says it drains your life force, though. And that woman, uh…well, I’m not sure she’s entirely normal, as far as necromancers go.”
She had seemed very lively to me. “Maybe she isn’t a necromancer,” I said. “Maybe it’s something else. A new god, with new powers. To make, uh…”
“That was definitely a spirit of the dead in my mind,” said Balbinus. He hadn’t moved from where he was in the corner. “He remembered the war. Everything. He was in the fields of the dead before, too. I saw little glimpses of it.”
“Ah. Necromancers fought in the last war,” I hazarded. I was fairly sure about that. “Right? Maybe she was one of the, uh, battle necromancy people. That’s how she stays strong? Practice?” She seemed way too young to have been in the war, though.
Apis tapped at another tile. It sounded solid. As I watched, he moved the chair he was balancing on top of and restacked four pieces of furniture so he could reach the ceiling in another place. “Everyone says the real reason we lost the war was supply chain failure.”
“Yes, but now that I’ve seen evil necromancers, I’m beginning to believe the story,” I said. I had always thought the official excuse for losing the north was a fairy story for children, just like Apis. A way to cover up bureaucratic failure like most of the nonsense in the Capital.
Now that I’d seen that axe-woman surrounded by green ghosts trying to eat me, I had a little more sympathy for the troops. I would have lost too. “I mean, what if it was real? If paladins are the only thing that can fight against the ghosts, maybe they were outnumbered.” Or they just made the smart choice and ran away.
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“That doesn’t explain why they didn’t come south when all of the paladins failed," he said. “Or why the paladins failed in the first place. Think about it,” Apis continued. “If you’re an evil necromancer and you can bring back souls from the fields of the dead, and you don’t even need to pay the price like we all thought- if you can just infinitely generate them- why not just conquer everything? Who wouldn’t want to just take over the whole empire?”
“There has to be a cost. We just aren’t seeing it.”
Before he responded to me, Apis poked at another tile with the cane. It pushed upwards.
We all stopped to stare. Even Apis himself froze in surprise before he pushed himself upwards. With another few movements, the tile pushed up and slid sideways, revealing nothing but open sky.
We could get out. The temple had an exit. Had this been planned, or was it just there because of shoddy workmanship? Above him, there was a beam of light. It was pale. Outside, it was nighttime. But I thought I could see the moon.
He stopped and looked down at me. “Well?”
It would be so easy to leave. I wouldn’t even have to fight off Aemilia’s expectations- she was snoring in the corner, unaware.
I stared up at the moon for a second. “You should leave,” I told Apis. “You almost died, or at least got possessed, back there.”
“What about you?”
It would be stupid to stay. I knew I was bad with a blade, no matter how much last minute training I got with a woman twice my age. And yet….
Aemilia seemed to think that without a paladin, the necromancers were sure to get what they wanted. For a second, she’d even seemed hopeful about my chances of survival.
Elysia, don’t fall for it. She just wants someone to throw on the front lines. As much as I tried to talk myself out of it, I could feel myself weakening. It wasn’t about the Voice. For all I cared, she could get crunched up by ghosts and I wouldn’t shed a tear. She had started this and she could end it.
It wasn’t even about Durandus I, although I would feel a little bad if he got hurt and he was possessed during the important moment. It would probably be the first time in his life that something went wrong and it wasn’t his fault.
No. This was personal now. That woman had tried to kill me. She’d set ghosts on me and Duran. She’d tried to put some creature in Apis’s body. It made my blood run hot just thinking about leaving and letting her get away with it.
I stared up at the moon for a moment more. It would be the smart thing to leave. I could get over it. In life, you didn’t always get revenge. In fact, it was better not to. It was the more mature, intelligent thing to do- you moved on. You were the better person.
“I’m staying,” I said. “But Apis, Duran, Balbinus- you don’t have to.”
I didn’t care how much I had to train. I was going to come back and show that axe-woman exactly what she’d started.
Apis cleared his throat. “It’s supposed to be bad luck to leave a temple before proving yourself fully,” he said. “Also, we don’t have any rope, and I don’t want to jump off of the roof. My knees have enough problems as it is.”
Ah, yes. We still had no supplies. I made a mental note that the next time I tried to go into a Temple of Teuthida, I was taking enough food and supplies for three months. Twice now I’d ended up with nothing. Twice!
We both looked at Duran. “I’m not going to leave!” he said. He folded his arms. “Even if jumping off of a roof sounds fun. We’re going to save the whole temple. And the world, probably.”
“Let’s just keep ourselves alive for now.” I turned to Balbinus. “Well?”
He sighed. “I can’t just leave her in here!”
“…Camilla?”
“You saw it! One of those things was in her head too. It was probably telling her to pray, too.”
I was losing the thread a little bit, but I was able to figure out the main part of his thoughts. “So you don’t want to leave,” I said. “You’re sure? It’s been very bad in here so far. And, if you’ll allow me to say it, your employer probably isn’t going to pay you.” I thought again of both councilmen we’d met. One coward and one fool. “Actually, you might get fired.”
He just shook his head. Well. There was that opportunity, wasted. Before I could ask Apis to check behind the tile again- maybe I wanted to leave after all- he’d pulled back and let it fall closed with a thunk.
With the light of the moon gone, it was suddenly cold and very dark in the room. I had to blink to force my eyes to adjust.
Beyond, Aemilia stopped snoring. The tile falling must have woken her up. She pushed herself up with a creaking of the cushions. “Is that stew I smell? Are you done yet?”