MAZE HAD thought he still held a pass to the extravaganza, a seat for the liberty of an observer to rubberneck, where he could remain a mere spectator without the price of danger. He had intended to let the Child of Sufferance and the Child of Hope tear into the Father Darkness while he hoarded his remaining fifty leaves. It was a comfortable delusion.
But the reality of an opening trial was not a stage, and the Eidolon was no mere actor.
The massive, red-hay head tilted, its ivory ear-wings flared with an abrupt yet aggressive flap. In an instant, the creature ignored the heavy blade of the Heir of the Anchor and the thorny blood threads of Stavros's spear. It bypassed the two geniuses as if they were nothing more than static in the wind.
It was now fixating its direction entirely toward him.
"Why did I anger it?" The thought was loud enough that he mumbled it to himself. Yet, it remained an enigma he could not decipher nor could he offer a bargain.
Athelstan had asked this to him: "Perhaps obtaining a key when you are supposed to not have one? Perhaps . . . learning something an Orphan must not have learned?"
Maze felt the sudden shift in the atmosphere. The air grew sharp with the scent of blood drawing near, driven by a single, ravenous desire. The swamp's steady pulse turned into a violent shake beneath him. For the likes of Maze, he was no longer a mere spectator — sadly, he had become the center of the hunt.
And so he began jumping from one boat to another once more, without leaning on his Essence and borrowing from it. He might not last any longer if he had done so. But what unfortunate luck did he have that most of the boats were distant away to where he was now.
Maze looked back and saw the Eidolon growled.
How did he anger such Father Darkness?
Knowledge about the Towers Yonder, even other Orphans had learned about them, so that might never be the case.
Then, it is the key. It was the only valid revelation he could ever sought for whatever this Eidolon was doing this for. The determination by which seemed to guarantee his death, what orchestration would the higher-ups pull that they wanted a feeble Orphan like him to die?
This might be the only way they could completely erase him from the world.
There was nothing special about him, nor his ability, and so, why would they get this far?
He could not brush off the thought away.
Seconds later, a limb had already gone for his body, about to be smashed.
SLASH!
A spear sliced through the air, not at the Child of the Below's countenance, but at a crushing tentacle inches from his body. In due time, Stavros landed like a storm, but he said nothing, had never even glance at the blind Orphan he saved. It felt like it happened like a deja vu.
⠀
GARETH, as his lower half was brushing against the blades of the grass in the central land, looked at the Door farther from where he could be found. This time around, he could have gotten the chance to unlock it through the key and go to the Camp for rest, but for the mere sake of his other Siblings of his sect, with no exemption for his own Heritage, who might not have yet obtained keys, he could not do so. Such troubles were part of a precept given to him by the Highness.
"Gareth!" A choir of voices from a boat followed by other boats behind was coming closely to the central land. From the boat in front, there was a group of five people wearing gold uniforms, waving at him.
When the boat had safely landed at the edge, the group of five approached Gareth. One of them, who was a full-figured girl whose shoulder was clinging to a quiver's harness and a bow on the other, spoke.
"Our dear star," the girl praised as she looked to the passing Eidolon behind them. "Why is this horrifying thing in this place? It is out of the ordinary and . . . " She sighed as she averted her gaze to Gareth. "It took us some time to get here, since its limbs are sometimes afloat, and sometimes too deep into the swamp. Who would have thought that such a behemoth figure could fit into a swamp? That could only mean the swamp is indeed that deep, could it be not?"
"Others did say that they could not reach the bottom of it and they almost sink too deep." Gareth twitched his lips. "To think about it, one from Time did drown, and others also said that such liquid was heavy to the body, as if the only way to make it to the surface is to use one's Essence. And so, I guess . . . " His eyes flickered. "The Eidolon truly is in this place. But it was asleep. How come . . . "
"What is it, Gareth?" the full-figured girl creased her forehead.
He tried to shake off the thought. Instead, he searched for the other faces.
Among them were two girls. One with a boycut matted by soot, the other with a frayed ponytail, whose gold-trimmed sleeves were torn as if they had narrowly escaped a thorny thicket. These were Hesperia and Quintin, both of his own Heritage of the Anchor, their countenance pale, as if haunted by a previous predicament they just escaped from.
"Gareth," Hesperia gasped, her voice thin and brittle as she gripped his armored arm. "We . . . we reached the land the lone Heir pointed out, where keys could be found, but we never thought it would be that dangerous."
Gareth's eyes narrowed, his shoulders seemed to be weighty. "And the others? You were eight when you steered for the eastern reeds."
Quintin let out a choked sob, her knuckles whitening. "She lied, Gareth. Athelstan . . . she led us into a nest. There was a Father Darkness waiting in the deep. But it is not a Tier I. It flies and spits fire, without beak and wings, without tail and feet. But it crawls like a serpent and flies like it floats in the water. When we could create a presumption that such was not a Tier I, we tried to escape, and later, we could only find three keys."
The full-figured girl from their Heritage looked down at the bloodied grass, her voice a trembling whisper. "I stumbled upon them when they were escaping from it and helped them get on a boat. They told me three are gone. Hesperia told me a Sibling of your Heritage had not even time to trigger a SovereignDeclaration. The beast . . . it harvested them."
"That is why I told you to come and follow me."
"But — !"
Gareth gestured for the girl to stop reasoning. "It is not anyone's fault that you do not want to be burdened. However, I am a responsible Sibling, and I wish for all of us to survive in this hellfire. Simply put, we could not change the fact that death indeed will come, whether we are from Hope, or from another sect."
Each of them quieted upon hearing that.
The weight of the numbers settled into Gareth's chest. Fifteen were harvested for the Sect of Hope. With three dead and five here, six remained lost or wandering somewhere, including the three by which he sought help on fighting the Father Darkness in a land before he got to intervene in the battle between Stavros and the Eidolon.
Truthfully, in the six lands, five were given to each of the Heirs with a good potential of their sect — that included Gareth from Hope. However, the Father Darkness from each of the five lands was only confidential to each of them. This meant that they could also not tell the others about what exactly could be found in the land they were tasked to conquer, and could only brief their fellow Heirs of each sect about certain precepts. For Time, however, that was not the case, as there were two that were seen fit of a potential, including the lone Heir, Athelstan.
The loss of three Siblings was a fracture in their very foundation, a debt of blood that the Highness would not easily overlook. But why would she point others toward a land that was not even mentioned when they were briefed? Not that they were warned to go there, but that they were not even asked to go.
"So the 'freak' has begun her games," Gareth rumbled, gritting his jaws. He looked at his kin, seeing the trauma etched into them. "Hesperia, Quintin — you five, get to the Door. Use the keys you have and do not look back."
"But Gareth, the three . . . " Quintin started, her voice breaking. "How about their bodies? We left them in that place."
"Their souls are anchored to the Tower now," Gareth shushed gently, as if he wanted to soothe his fellow Heirs. "I will not let the remaining six follow them into the dark. If Athelstan has compromised the given directive, then I could only hope the others would not do so."