20. Golem

Tally and Aerris begin to feel their skin again; the spell is wearing off. Sturdy twine binds their hands and feet, and cloth soaked with their own saliva gags their mouths. They are in a large, triangular cavern. Nearby, a wet, pinkish-grey substance drips from a stone altar. There are men in robes surrounding the altar. Tally’s eyes bulge in shock when she recognizes the white-haired man from the tavern, the Lord Master, P’laak.

“Ahhh, you’re awake, Taliendia,” P’laak says in a calm and confident voice. He bends down toward her with a curved knife in his hand.

Tally struggles fruitlessly, trying to back away, but she’s pinned up against a rough stone statue.

“Don’t worry, young Countess,” P’laak says as he draws a thumb along the knife’s edge. “I’m not going to kill you. I just need something to complete our flesh golem, our little doppelganger.” He grabs her bound hands and pokes her thumb with the point of the knife. He squeezes and a stream of blood crawls along the blade. “Thank you. I think you’re positioned close enough so your little protection trinket won’t work. We tried taking it off your arm, but none of us could touch it. Miros is a clever fellow, I’ll grant him that.”

Tally grunts and mumbles through the gag, but nothing but noise comes through.

P’laak then brings the knife to the altar, but Tally cannot see what he does with her blood. The Lord Master then moves to the other side of the altar. His voice is low and chanting. Suddenly a purplish glow fills the temple, and a breeze stirs Tally’s clothes momentarily. P’laak then speaks in a strange language. A different voice, a sound of branches scraping against glass, responds. Then a dark figure moves to the altar and melts into the flesh golem on its surface. Several of the surrounding priests inhale suddenly in awe.

One of the priests says, “Lord Master, she’s perfect!”

“Of course,” P’laak responds. “Now, check for life. Does our doppelganger breathe?”

The priest nearest Tally bends his head down to the figure lying on the altar; he then holds up an arm and feels for pulse in the wrist. “Yes!” he whispers. “There is a heartbeat!”

“Good!” says the Lord Master. We must make the sacrifice before the demon awakes. Ogu will be pleased…”

A loud thud reverberates around the chamber.

Lord P’laak shouts, “The front entrance! Miros must have detected Tally’s presence.” He hands the curved knife to Phil Nicker. “Finish the sacrifice. You know how. I will deal with the Gorscaren troops and that annoying wizard.” As he walks toward the far end of the chamber, his laughing voice calls, “Perhaps we’ll even catch ourselves a Count!”

Tally was intently watching the action surrounding the altar, but she caught a subtle movement coming from Aerris beside her. She turned her head slightly and saw that he was slowly twisting his body toward her, not so that he could lean in close to her, but rather, so that his bound hands were obscured by her body. She met his eyes. He used his own to tell her to look down at his hands. When he had turned enough to hide what he was doing, he closed his eyes in concentration. In a moment, Chorlash was in his hands. And then it was gone. But Tally noticed that Aerris’s hand still gripped something, so she knew the blade had turned itself invisible. The bonds around his wrist tightened; then they started splitting. Aerris was free. Tally turned slowly so her hands were aimed slightly towards her companion. Tally felt the cold metal brush against her wrist; then she too was free.

Aerris slowly moved his left hand up so that Tally could see it. He wiggled his ring finger.

Tally’s eyes widened as understanding struck. She nodded.

That was as much planning as they had time to do. At that moment, violence broke out by the altar. Phil’s face had contorted into something vicious; he didn’t look human. With the knife P’laak had given him, he started slashing the body on the altar. All the other priests watched with a kind of fiendish delight.

Aerris nudged her as he got up. He pointed to the priest to the right of where they had been laying, while he slid Chorlash into the back of the priest on their left. The man screamed and tried to reach back to remove the blade. Aerris, however, had already pulled it free, and in moving to the priest’s right, slashed the blade across his throat. Priest Lusan fell backwards gurgling his last breath through the gash in his windpipe.

Tally thought the command word for ‘ice’ that Breen had taught her. Instantly a short javelin of crystalized water formed in her left hand. She pointed to the priest standing directly in front of the large statue, and the bolt, with its own magical force, plunged itself sideways deep into the man’s chest. Priest Kardis fell over without a sound, for the ice bolt had pierced both of his lungs.

Only Priest Jordahn and Head Priest Phaelyano remained. Priest Jordahn pulled a short sword from the sheath at his belt and stood at the opposite side of the altar, waiting to see which of these dangerous children would strike. Phil Nicker, however, wielded P’laak’s long, black knife, which was slick with blood. He stepped back, away from Aerris, until he was within the borders of a double circle which had been scribed on the floor. Ancient symbols crowded around the ring formed by the outer and inner circle. When he reached the center, he muttered a few words and waved his free hand in a swirly, zigzag pattern. Suddenly the air in front of him and surrounding his left arm became denser and shimmered like the space above a hot surface in summer; blurry and moving.

Tally called up another bolt, this time it was like a tube of boiling water; and she was grateful that it did not burn her. Tally also knew, or felt, that this was the last bolt she could summon from the ring. She didn’t know how she knew, it was a sense the ring gave to her.

Tally held her position, looking from Erice’s husband to the Hand with the short sword. She did not know who she should strike at with the bolt. Then she noticed the figure on the altar. It was herself. Every feature was the same: hair, lips, eyes, hands – except the Tally on the altar had been horribly mutilated and was still with death. The neck had been sliced open and several long cuts criss-crossed the chest and torso, exposing muscle, bone, and organ. Tally suppressed the urge to wretch and pulled her eyes away from the disfigured version of herself.

Aerris, too, held his position to see what direction he would strike next. Part of him waited for an impulse from Chorlash. Already he had killed two men; his brain and his heart would have to sort that out once he and Tally were safe. But in both killings, he had surrendered his muscles and his will to the intelligence of the blade. Chorlash had spoken in his mind, ‘Let go of your intentions. Don’t think. I will do the thinking for us both while you fight – it’s quicker this way. Just surrender to me.’ For some reason unknown to Aerris, he trusted the voice of the blade and let it control him. He amazed himself at the speed and accuracy with which he moved and struck. Every stroke of the knife was precise – exactly as deep and long a cut as was needed to incapacitate his opponent. Every movement of his body was efficient – just enough muscle, rotation, and angle to maneuver into position or make the strike. Now he saw that Phil Nicker was protected within a magic circle, and there was some sort of shielding spell surrounding him; the other priest wielded a much longer sword and was partially protected by the altar. Tally for the moment was safely positioned to his rear flank and behind the altar.

Phil Nicker, however, wasn’t waiting. He stepped out of the circle and moved toward Aerris. He needed to eliminate that threat immediately. But he also needed to be careful around Tally; somehow she was producing bolts of ice and water – and she was protected by Miros’s charm. He kept his shielded left arm aimed at Tally in case she shot a bolt at him. He then focused on the boy who had now killed two of Ogu’s priests with seemingly effortless ease. How was he doing it? The blade that the boy wielded was unlike anything he’d seen before. Could that be the reason? Perhaps it was enchanted. Phil considered the best way to disarm the boy as he stepped forward.

Aerris saw Phil’s movement the moment he made it. Chorlash made his knees buckle into a forward roll that put him just beneath the man with the sword. Aerris stabbed upward into the man’s gut, pulled the blade out, grabbed the sword arm at the wrist, and sliced across the forearm muscles. He felt Chorlash scrape the man’s arm bones as the short sword slid across his kneeling back and clattered to the floor. By the time the sword stopped moving, Aerris was standing behind Priest Jordahn, with the cut forearm pinned at his back and Chorlash buried into his throat.

Phil had swung his knife downward at Aerris as he rolled toward Priest Jordahn, but the boy was too fast. How was he doing that? Suddenly, he felt a forceful heat at his right shoulder. It was enough to knock him off his balance and send him tumbling sideways deeper into the main body of the temple. He could tell by the fact that he had even felt the heat that the attack from Tally could have killed him if he wasn’t protected by the force shield.

Aerris released the forearm at the same time he pulled Chorlash from the dead priest’s throat. Three. Would they all be this easy? Why did he not feel a wrongness or guilt for taking a life?

Chorlash answered his thoughts. “As long as you fight for the forces of good and justice; as long as you protect Queen Bathora and her servants; as long as you wield me with honor against those who would spread evil on Tarondar – then I will shield you from the pain, guilt, and judgment for the lives you must take.”

“Thank you,” was all he could think.

Aerris saw Phil Nicker look at him, then at Tally, then at the bodies of the slain priests. He saw desperation in the man’s face. He was threatened by Aerris.

Phil looked at Tally once more and made a sudden decision. If he could get to Tally, he might be able to use her as a shield, get this boy to yield up his weapon until the Lord Master returned. He ran towards the Gorscaren girl.

Before Phil had finished his first step, Chorlash simultaneously controlled Aerris’s arm and told him to throw. Aerris stepped one foot over the fallen priest, flipped Chorlash so that he held it by the tip, and threw it at Phil’s back. The blade spun once in the air and stuck into Phil’s lower spine, the blade divided the vertebrae and severed the spinal cord. Phil dropped to the floor in a heap. Aerris closed his eyes, pictured Chorlash in his hand, and she was there. He ran over to Tally and held her by the shoulders. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Me?” Tally responded, astonished. “Are YOU alright? Did you even get a scratch? How did you do that, Aerris? I’ve never seen anyone fight like that!”

Aerris held Chorlash in front of his chest as he did back in Tally’s room. “Chorlash and I are one in our service to you and Queen Bathora,” he said formally to Tally. Then he looked at the blade in his hand and spoke to it aloud. “Was that the right way to say it?”

Chorlash told him it was.

“I’m so glad I have you as a friend and now a Guardian, Aerris. Now, let’s get out of here before the Lord Master finds us!”

“You think you’ve won?” The voice was gurgly; it was Phil. He had propped his upper body onto his right shoulder and held his orange medallion in both hands. By the look on his face they could tell he was in anguish. “Your blade may work against flesh, boy, but you won’t find the temple guardian so easy to defeat!” Phil made to break the medallion with his feeble hands.

Chorlash told Aerris to kill him quickly, but for the first time this night, he wasn’t in time. Just as Aerris reached Phil on the floor, the medallion snapped in half. Aerris pulled Phil’s head back gently and sliced Chorlash across his jugular. As he allowed Phil’s head to return, lifeless, to the floor, he heard the sound of stone scraping against stone.

The huge statue, that before stood in the dark corner behind the altar, began to move toward them. The children looked up at the monstrous form. They hadn’t seen it properly before when they were lying at its base. It was in the shape of a huge upright slug balancing on its tail end, but this one had arms and a gaping maw filled with sharp crystalline teeth.

Aerris grabbed Tally’s hand and shouted, “Run!”

They ran toward the far end of the temple, which was shrouded in darkness fifty yards away. They could hear the grinding of the statue as it moved around the altar in pursuit of the intruders. As they got near the far wall, they noticed that the temple was in the rough shape of a triangle. The altar was at one angle, but the doors were at each of the other two corners. Not knowing which way to go, they ran toward the right corner.

The Ogu golem, moving with unnatural speed for its mass and the amount of friction it created with the floor, angled toward the fleeing children, arms outstretched, teeth grating against each other.

Tally and Aerris reached the right-side corner of the temple and found the double doors there locked. They spun around in a panic; the grinding sound was loud and echoing around the temple. The monster was getting closer – and it was bringing its own light source. Atop its head were two eye-stalks. At the end of each eye-stalk glowed an orange crystal sphere the size of an acorn squash. Tally recognized the light! It was the same glow that she saw on the rectangular medallions on the Makanai Oguntuul operatives! It was unnatural; they weren’t supposed to be glowing that color. Aerris started running for the opposite corner. Tally followed behind, a little slower as her mind puzzled over the orange light.

Aerris reached the other corner well before Tally and tried the single door there. Locked as well! Chorlash told him to use her and try to slice through the bolt. He didn’t understand how, but she told him to push the blade into the keyhole and slice sideways. The door was made of thick oak strapped together with beaten iron bands. The keyhole was a thick slit in a steel lockbox. Aerris didn’t understand what Chorlash could do, and he was afraid of ruining the edge or, goddess forbid, chip the blade! Chorlash smirked in Aerris’s mind, if that were a possible way to interpret the message the blade was sending him. He took the long knife and dragged the tip along the lockbox until it slid into the keyhole. Under Chorlash’s command he pushed as hard as he could. The blade bit into the steel of the box as easy as a knife cutting into a pumpkin.

Tally ran up to Aerris, watching the golem getting closer and closer, staring at those nauseating orange globes on its eyestalks, wondering why they looked familiar. And then it hit her! Could it be? But how? They were the same size as she remembered in her dream. Could they be used in such an evil creation? Was it possible that the Hands of Ogu had found an evil use for the Tears of Bathora?

Aerris sliced through the lockbox, and the door swung open. “Tally, let’s get out of here!” he yelled, but her hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Aerris, wait!” she said, never taking her eyes off the Tears. “Look up at its eyestalks. It’s the Tears of Bathora!”

Aerris turned around and looked up. “Gods above, how do we get them?”

The golem was getting dangerously close to their position.

“Quick!” shouted Tally. “Back towards the altar, we need time to make a plan!” They ran along the right-hand wall, thankful that there were no obstacles on the floor to trip them up. Tally shouted back to Aerris, who was right behind her. “Maybe you can cut them free with Chorlash!” The grinding of the golem on the floor made it hard to think.

“Good idea! Let’s get some distance on that thing first!”

They ran as fast as they could until they were behind the altar. Aerris held Chorlash by the blade and said to it aloud, “Try to slice them both free.”

Chorlash snickered and said, “Of course!”

Aerris hurled the blade. Chorlash spun several times before it neared the eyestalks of the approaching golem. When it came within a yard of the nearest Tear it slowed and deflected at a right angle before spinning its way to the floor somewhere in the darkness of the temple proper.

“Uh oh,” said Aerris with a touch of panic.

“Um… what now?” yelled Tally.

Aerris had a thought. “Split up! You run towards that door, and I’ll run to the other!” He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. Chorlash appeared in his outstretched palm. “Maybe I can climb up its back and cut them free myself.”

Tally understood his plan – divide its attention. She was the bait. She took off running in a wide circle around the right side of the golem, headed for the left corner door – the one Aerris had opened.

Aerris waited behind the altar to see what it would do. The golem followed Tally. Aerris had to run hard to keep up with it before it reached his best friend. It was so tall; Aerris was having a hard time figuring out how it would be able to climb up the back far enough to slice the eyestalks.

“I may be able to pierce the rock enough for you to use me as a handhold,” suggested Chorlash.

”I’ve got to try,” Aerris thought back.

Meanwhile, Tally had reached the far corner door. She turned around to see that the golem had gotten closer to her than she had expected. She screamed and raced along the wall toward the other corner. The golem changed its course to intercept her! Where was Aerris? Wasn’t he supposed to distract it now?

Suddenly the golem shot out a bulky arm toward Tally’s head. She fell into a forward roll that would put her back on her feet if she escaped. She felt the air buffet the back of her neck as she tumbled, and she shivered with fear at how close she had come to getting crushed. Tally reached the corner with the locked double doors and spun around. Her way was blocked! She had run herself into a corner, and the golem was advancing! She took a deep breath – something the Captain had told her to do in a combat situation when fear was threatening to take over her brain. She took another breath and let it out slow this time. She thought about her options. What tools did she possess? The medallion – no help there. The Pebble of Return – she couldn’t abandon Aerris to fight this thing alone; besides she needed to get the Tears. Bathora’s Ring – Bathora’s Ring! She could turn herself to water!

The golem halted its advance. It started twisting left, then right, and it was swinging its arms in an attempt to reach around behind itself. Then Tally saw the reason why. Aerris was standing on its tail section, and he was trying to climb up the monster’s back. Chorlash was buried partially into the stone, and Aerris was using the blade to pull himself upward. He needed another blade or something else to keep climbing. He was only a few feet from the eyestalks, but he would need Chorlash to cut them free. Tally thought quickly. Phil had a blade about the same size as Chorlash! She ran around the living statue to find it. As she approached the body, a strange thought fluttered into her mind: this was Erice’s husband – she would be crushed by the news. She tipped the body up and over on its back; Phil’s dead eyes stared at the ceiling. Tally averted her gaze as another thought floated at the back of her brain: did Erice know that Phil was part of this evil cult? There was the blade! She grabbed it and started running back toward Aerris and the golem. Aerris was dangling by one hand from Chorlash. The thought came to the front of her mind: Was Erice also a part of this conspiracy against her father? Against the king? She would have to think about this later when she and Aerris were free with the Tears.

“Aerris!” she called up to him. “Catch!” She gently tossed the knife up to him, handle first, and gave a silent prayer that she didn’t hurt him.

Aerris smiled as he caught the black knife. “Thanks!” he shouted back.

The golem swung around in an attempt to reach the pest that clung to its back, and Aerris was thrown free!

Tally, distracted by Aerris’s fall, didn’t notice the huge hand that swung toward her. She screamed as the golem’s right hand caught her at the waist. The left hand stopped its fruitless attempt to catch Aerris and joined its mate in pinning Tally. Tally could not budge from the statue’s grip.

Tally screamed, “Aerris!” as the golem began squeezing and lifting her off the ground. The pressure was tremendous. She could no longer breathe! Above her she saw the gaping maw stretch open. It was going to eat her and grind her to bits! If it didn’t burst her open first. The glowing orange light blinded her. The Tears were so close! She had almost succeeded. “I’m sorry, Goddess,” she thought.

As if by divine inspiration, as if Queen Bathora had heard her, another thought came suddenly to her mind: her medallion. She remembered the image of it cinching closed, and how she had worried that she would have lost her head when she put it on. Her arms were pinned against her body slowly getting crushed by the huge rock hands of the golem; but she needed to take the necklace off her own head and get it around the Tears.

Suddenly she knew she was experiencing the death of the body trial; she needed to let go of her body. But how? The golem by now had lifted her past parallel with the ground, her head aimed toward the grinding maw. The pressure of being squeezed and nearly upside down was making her vision blur – she was slipping into unconsciousness.

The Ring! With her last thoughts she willed herself into liquid form. Her arms flowed free from the golem’s grip and reformed. Tally grabbed her necklace with both hands, lifted it off her head, and let it drop over both eyestalks. Then she surrendered her body to its fate.

Darkness took her.

Aerris rolled out of the way as the huge stone statue fell over. The Tears, having been freed from their prison on the eyestalks, no longer gave the golem life. It cracked in several places and the arms shattered into tiny shards of gravel. Aerris jumped upon the fragmentary remains desperately hoping Tally hadn’t been crushed beneath its mass.

He saw her body crumpled on the ground near where the golem had just been towering. “Tally!” he shouted. Kneeling by her side, Aerris straightened out her limbs and gently cradled her head. “Are you alright? Tally, speak to me!” he pleaded to her unresponsive form. “Wake up, Tally, c’mon, wake up!”

He felt her neck for a pulse. He thought he was feeling in the wrong place because he felt nothing. He quickly stretched her body out properly on the floor and felt for her pulse again. Nothing!

“No!!!!” he shouted, tears rolling off his cheeks and onto her lifeless face.

Like a bolt of lightning had struck his mind, Aerris thought of the Tears. He had watched their power in the Mirror of Memory. He stood up in a panic. What had happened to the Tears? He looked left and right, feeling each pounding beat of his heart in his neck; knowing Tally’s heart had stopped. And then he saw them – they had both rolled away toward the corner by the door he had cut open. Aerris ran as fast as he could and grabbed the first one he could find off the floor. He almost fumbled it because it was slick with moisture. Holding it securely in both hands Aerris ran back to Tally and positioned the shallow point so that it was over her mouth, the way he had seen the priest do it in the mirror. He watched as one, then another drop, and another splashed past her lips into her mouth.

Time stopped.

He watched the fourth droplet gather on the tip, dangle forever on the crystal, and shimmer and spin as it traversed the few inches on its journey to Tally’s lips. When it touched her lips and splashed, Aerris had a sudden urge to press his lips to hers, to breathe life into her, to transfer his life to hers if necessary. He moved the Tear out of the way. Would the water from the Tear take his life and give it to Tally? It didn’t matter – he had to try.

Tally took a violent breath inward, her eyes shot open and stared at Aerris, and her hands clutched his arm and leg. She exhaled and said, “Aerris?”

“Tally! You’re alive!” He pulled her into a hug.

She coughed and spoke into his ear, “Aerris, what happened?”

“You did it, Tally! You did it! You destroyed that nightmare, and you rescued the Tears, Tally!” He slid his leg under her head and let her rest in his lap.

“I did?”

“Yeah, and you didn’t die! I thought you had, but the Tears brought you back!”

“Thank the goddess,” Tally said with a smile. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are you well enough to walk?” Aerris asked with concern in his voice.

Tally responded with actions. She bounded upright and onto her feet. “I feel great! Where’s the other Tear?”

Aerris stood up cradling one Tear in his left hand, and he concentrated on his open right palm. Chorlash appeared. Tally found the other Tear and put it in her backpack. She then took the other from Aerris and stored it in the backpack as well, keeping the two separated by the jacket she had bunched up inside.

“Which way do you think we should go?” Aerris asked.

As Tally looked up to answer him, a blinding green light struck Aerris in the chest and sent him hurtling across the floor of the temple. His body lay motionless twenty feet away.

“Aerris!”

“He won’t be going anywhere,” said a calm and bitter voice behind Tally.

Tally turned toward the open door.

The white-haired priest called P’laak, the Lord Master, scowled at her from across the short distance. “But you, on the other hand,” he began, “you’ll be coming a long way with me. Father and his wizard are breaking through the cave entrance. We must be gone before they do.”

He surveyed the damage and the death in the room. “I’m not surprised, Tally, that you accomplished all this in such a short time, given the blood in your veins.” The Lord Master walked over to Tally, who stood motionless with shock. “You have the Tears? Excellent.” He grabbed her by the arm as he touched the purple gemstone at his throat.

They both disappeared.