Chapter 22
“Rys, defend yourself!” Grigor roared.
Vision returned to Rys, and he found himself back in the Labyrinth. The ruins of the obelisk stood beside him, his axe embedded in them.
Rys cursed and pulled it free, looking to his side for the attacker.
He only saw Orthrus, floating in the air next to him.
On closer inspection, there were some differences. Two golden glowing eyes stared out from within his wispy form, and the shape of a beak and a skull could also be made out.
“How unexpected. I did not expect to undergo physical changes,” Orthrus said. The gasps from Grigor and Fara made it clear that they could hear him now.
Rys lowered his axe and gestured for the others to calm down. Confused, they dropped their aggressive stances. Fara’s face made it clear she wanted an explanation. Grigor seemed satisfied with a simple order.
“This is Orthrus, my adviser,” Rys said.
Fara’s eyes shot up. “And he became visible after you destroyed whatever this thing was? You do realize how dangerous he must be?”
Given the power flowing through Rys’s body, he didn’t care. Orthrus hadn’t lied. Destroying the power conduit had been the secret to restoring his memories and power. Knowledge of infernal summoning techniques flooded Rys’s mind. His strength Gift exuded more power than it had before. Skills he had forgotten returned to him.
No, not forgotten. The seal had stolen what Rys had earned in his life. He regained knowledge that he should always have had.
Most importantly, Rys regained a substantial amount of his old magical power. Although his Gifts were important, his personal strength mattered even more. He felt stronger than he had since awakening, even if he still had a long way to go.
“That is not all that changed,” Grigor said. “I see now, Rys.”
Fara looked between Grigor and Rys, annoyed that she appeared to be out the loop.
Rys waved a hand in the general direction of Orthrus. “He might be dangerous, but so am I. I don’t need you to trust him, only to trust me. Orthrus’s knowledge is invaluable, and we would never have made it this far without him.”
“This place was built to seal away something immensely dangerous, Rys,” Fara said. “Whatever created this place might be trapped here.”
“He is not,” Orthrus said confidently.
Rys stared at the wisp. How did he know that? Assuming he wasn’t lying.
“That makes me feel so much better,” Fara muttered. Her ears twitched a moment later and she gave Rys an odd look. “Rys, why were you so interested in shattering something clearly intended to seal away a great power? The vault doors, the defense systems, even summoning an angel to stop us—a lot was thrown at us to make us turn back.”
Or die, but she left that part unsaid.
Grigor remained silent, but his soulsight meant that he already knew what had happened. His eyes saw the visible increase in power that Rys gained from destroying the obelisk.
Could Rys trust Fara?
No, the question was whether revealing this information helped Rys. Her trust seemed guaranteed. She had followed him into this chamber despite her worries. Whatever her misgivings toward him, her hostility was long gone.
“I’ll level with both of you,” Rys said. He folded his arms and inclined his head toward the obelisk ruins. “You already know that I was far more powerful before. The reason is that my powers and memories are sealed within this Labyrinth. By destroying these obelisks—Orthrus calls them power conduits—I can regain my freedom.”
Silence. Fara froze. Not even her tails moved.
“I’m helping an ancient infernal superpower return to the world,” Fara said. She shook her head. “I said that the vault doors sealed away an ancient evil, but I guess the real evil was beside me the whole time?”
“And?” Rys asked.
Grigor didn’t move, but his eyes bore down on Fara.
“Why are you sealed?” Fara asked. “It would help to know.”
“Dunno.”
Fara glared at him, an exasperated sigh escaping her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I was.” Rys shrugged. “Many of my memories are sealed away. Some of those contain my skills and knowledge. Others relate to… important moments of my past.” He wasn’t sure how to feel about what happened with Azrael yet. “The rest relate to the time shortly before I disappeared.”
“Ah, that explains much,” Grigor said. “I had wondered why you didn’t ask about—”
Rys’s mind went blank. The world blurred, preventing him from reading Grigor’s lips or even the reactions of those nearby. Rys felt off-balance and tried to grip his head with his hand.
“Is something wrong, Rys?” Fara asked, her tails and ears bolt upright.
“That was more severe than usual,” Rys muttered. “For future reference, don’t try to tell me about things I clearly don’t remember.”
“I see,” Grigor said. A grim—almost sad—expression crossed his face. “It is deeply troubling to see that you have forgotten some of the most important things in your life, Rys.”
What the Hell had he forgotten that made Grigor so sentimental?
“It’s been 1500 years. Anything I’ve forgotten about can wait a few more years,” Rys said. “It’s going to have to. I’m not sure I want to find out what happens if something I can’t remember shows up in front of my face. Does my head explode?”
“That is a good question,” Orthrus said, allaying Rys’s fears with his certainty and willingness to explain everything about the seal and everything in the Labyrinth.
“Do not waste the effort glaring at me like that. I truly do not know what the result would be,” Orthrus said.
Sighing, Rys waved the wisp off.
The two of them needed to have words about what happened here—especially Orthrus’s changed appearance—but now wasn’t the time. Rys needed time to dwell on what happened, and to formulate his suspicions into coherent questions.
Explanations doled out, they all left the chamber. The exterior doors had opened and lost all power, but the other infernals only stared from the outside. Their orders had been absolute. Rys hadn’t wanted any of them learning things they didn’t need to.
Fara trailed behind them, and Rys waved Grigor ahead.
“Get everybody organized. I want to depart as soon as possible,” Rys said.
Then he turned to Fara, whose ears flattened against her head due to his attention. He felt a strong urge to ruffle them. The white fluff inside her black ears looked especially tantalizing.
“You didn’t ask me if I still supported you,” Fara muttered.
“Actions speak louder than words,” Rys said.
“That’s… nice to hear from you.” Fara shot him a smile, her eyes shimmering. “That you think I’ve done enough to earn your trust.”
Huh. So Fara worried about whether he trusted her. Truly the world was a strange place.
Sighing, he gave in and ruffled her ears. She let out a small squeal when he first touched them, then only sullenly glared up at him.
“Well?” Rys asked. “What’s your answer?”
Fara tried to roll her eyes, but he brushed the white fluff in her ears. She jumped instead, her pupils shrinking in shock.
“That part is sensitive,” she said, batting away his hands. She covered her ears with her hands. “You do realize those are my ears, right? Don’t stick your fingers in them!”
Sensitive ears, huh? Rys added that to his growing list of mystic fox knowledge.
After she calmed down, Fara said, “You’ve done nothing to make me walk away from you. Evil is a relative thing, and while I don’t understand some of the things you let happen, it’s hard to say that you’ve made my life worse. Or the lives of those I care about.”
She appeared to have more to say, so Rys waited.
“My life has changed more in the past month than it has in decades,” Fara said. She grabbed one of Rys’s hands. “Maybe I will regret this, but right now I’m happier than I remember ever being.” She grimaced. “That’s cold, isn’t it? But it’s been so long since I remember being truly happy that until you came along, I couldn’t even remember what it felt like. Or what it was like to make decisions for myself. Everything has been about others for so long.”
A deep, shuddering sigh escaped her lips. Then Fara smiled up at Rys.
“Well, I suppose words can be important,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and hit him with her tails. “Asshole. I empty my heart and you say something pithy.” She giggled. “But I guess that’s part of what I love about you.”
Fara bounced away and deliberately kept her distance from him once outside. Her smirk made it clear she knew what she was doing.
“Grigor, are we ready to leave?” Rys asked.
“Yes. We found a power slate beneath the platform here. I am unsure why we missed it earlier,” Grigor said.
Orthrus said nothing, but Rys suspected the power slate had some connection to the power conduit and likely the defenses here. He still didn’t know what Orthrus had done while missing.
The room they exited into was completely different to the vault room that led here. When they walked back through the vault door, the conduit’s antechamber had vanished.
They found another power slate in this room, as it formed a large crossroads. Orthrus led them back to the castle afterward, only he was visible to others this time.
Once safely back home, Fara vanished before Rys could catch her. He assumed she was intentionally playing hard to get, but he left her alone for the time being.
She’d come to him when she wanted to do more than flirt and tease.
Instead, he took both power slates to the control room. There were plenty of empty spaces for these slates to go, but only two available.
First, Rys slid one into the module that granted him access to the castle’s power. The first slate had proven invaluable, but Rys was loath to draw on it more than he currently was. By slotting a second slate in, he gave himself options.
The second slate was harder to decide on. He wanted to finish building his castle, which meant using it in the construction module—although perhaps it should be called the castle size module, given it maintained the castle after it was built.
But if Rys wanted to extend the borders of the castle, or see whether the control room had more available to it, he needed to put another power slate in one of the three remaining hollows near the dais.
The Labyrinth module still didn’t make sense to him, so he ignored it. The conduit’s defense systems proved that Rys had only scratched the surface of what the Labyrinth could do. He refused to interfere with something that powerful until he knew what he was doing.
Eventually, he decided to focus on finishing what he had started. Maria had talked about moving in, and he was about to create a nation here. His little mansion needed some expanding. As such, he slotted the second slate into the castle size module.
That left Rys with a slate in the dais, which powered the castle itself; two slates providing him with power from the castle for use in summoning; and one slate to help him build and maintain the castle. Four in total.
And another in close reach within the Labyrinth, when he felt strong enough to find and defeat that massive undead dragon.
Power slates didn’t reappear after they had been taken, and Rys had found them roughly every five levels, or powering the Labyrinth’s defense systems. When they had ascended from the power conduit, he had counted the number of staircases, only to learn that they rose one more than he expected. That meant the power slate they found in the crossroads had been on the tenth floor.
They had entered the antechamber of the power conduit—the cylindrical hall that resembled the Marnn citadel—from the ninth floor. When they exited, it had been on the tenth floor. The Labyrinth could even mess with the level they were on while they moved around.
That meant that power slates were special. Irreplaceable, even. The fact they were created from the same material as the obelisks that powered the seals raised questions.
That meant that the seals were powered by the Labyrinth. That helped explain why he could move freely within it, but not outside of it. Given the appearance of the door leading to the power conduit, the seals drew on the Labyrinth’s power in a similar way to the castle.
But it still left too many questions unanswered. Rys pondered the problem, before deciding that only speaking to Orthrus could help.
Unfortunately, he had gone into hiding. After some time, Rys located the wisp within a small chamber in the middle sub-level.
Orthrus hovered over a book. For several seconds, Rys watched as Orthrus glared at the book, as if willing it to open itself and unveil its secrets.
Rys half-expected Orthrus to start threatening the book, but nothing of the sort happened. Only silence, and the almost tangible disappointment of Orthrus.
“You still can’t interact with anything,” Rys said.
Silence.
“That power conduit we broke…” Rys began to say.
“When you shattered it, you saw something, didn’t you?” Orthrus asked. “I felt you change. It was an experience unlike any in my memories.”
Rys narrowed his eyes. “If your memories are sealed like mine, then shouldn’t you have seen the same thing?”
Orthrus sighed, then turned to Rys. The sight disconcerted Rys somewhat. The beak combined with the unblinking, glowing golden eyes gave Orthrus an almost deific appearance.
“My seal is different to yours,” Orthrus said. “I regained knowledge. And apparently some measure of my old strength. But apparently nothing as substantial as what you gained.”
“Different,” Rys repeated. “So the two seals are separate, and one is for each of us.” Orthrus had left that part out. “If that’s the case, then why did we both regain power?”
“It is a curiosity, isn’t it?” Orthrus said. “My seal has been active longer than yours. I wonder if the two intertwined when you were sealed away. It is highly likely that your captors hardly understood what they were meddling with.”
That was almost too good of an explanation, as Rys had nothing to counter it with. He knew that the Labyrinth powered at least one seal—presumably, both. What if somebody used the power of Orthrus’s seal to keep Rys here?
“Then why not tell me the truth to begin with?” Rys asked.
“Ah, yes, because a human who served as one of Malusian’s most trusted generals is exactly who I should place my faith in.” Orthrus’s face shifted, and Rys felt that he was trying to sneer. “You have proven a better ally than I ever dared hope, so I do apologize in retrospect, but I cannot trust you. Freedom is something too great to risk. If you knew that we had two separate seals, you might go out of your way to keep me trapped here.”
“But now I know that our seals are intertwined. Or at least, mine is with yours,” Rys said. “A cynical man would say you planned this.”
Orthrus said nothing, but Rys felt the smugness in his gaze.
“Fine. I won’t hold it against you, given what’s at stake. But I’ve proven that I’m a winning hand of cards. I’ve had enough of your complete refusal to provide basic information and help,” Rys said. “I doubt we can ever trust each other, but we need one another right now.”
“True,” Orthrus replied. “Very true. I am glad that we agree, then. We are each the keys to one another’s freedom.”
Rys frowned.
When he had first awakened, Orthrus had said that to him.
Now, it made a lot more sense. Orthrus required Rys’s help to ever break free, as he couldn’t do anything. That had always been obvious to Rys.
But Rys had originally thought that he needed Orthrus’s guidance and knowledge to free himself. That remained a possible interpretation.
Or perhaps, the real truth was that they were now deeply connected by the seals, regardless of whether they chose to help each other. By freeing himself, Rys would free Orthrus. Perhaps the opposite was true as well.
“I have something else I want to talk to you about,” Rys said. “But I need more time to digest it.”
“Something that you saw?” Orthrus asked. “I am curious that you even thought to tell me it.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re already aware of it, even if I don’t tell you,” Rys said, fishing.
Orthrus remained silent. He had a great poker face.
“Like I said, I’ll sleep on it,” Rys said after several seconds. “For now, I need to practice my rediscovered skills.”
With those words, Rys left.
He hadn’t lied about practicing. Immediately afterward, he set to work on confirming his power.
The most obvious change was that he had more magical power at his disposal. His balls of hellfire lasted longer and were noticeably larger. He suspected they would burn his targets faster as well, converting matter into energy rapidly.
Rys also had access to more of his strength Gift. It felt closer to what Krisanem had originally given him now—the ability to match the physical strength of any opponent, even if they used magic to enhance themselves.
Another technique rose to the front of his mind. Hefting his axe, he channeled raw infernal energy into its blade. Red light shimmered into existence over the black surface of the axe.
Rys let the spell fade, and the energy burst into prismatic light. That was a technique known as an infernal blow, and was a specialty of Arcas devils. The unstable infernal energy imbued into a weapon allowed for a singular explosive attack, punching through defenses and blowing apart armor and flesh alike. A useful technique.
But the greatest change was that he now knew dozens more summoning rituals than he had before. Including ways to stretch his limited pool of power much further, as well as how to bind more dangerous beings.
He still felt too weak to summon many of the people he wanted to. His summoning ability right now relied more heavily on binding his targets to his will. But stronger infernals could never be bent like that—they always served willingly.
If Rys summoned Asa and tried to bind her, she’d probably shatter the ritual circle with a punch and then try to rip his head off.
No, that would require too much effort for her. She’d probably just flip him off until he got bored and unsummoned her. He lacked the power to forcibly bind her. For now.
But the potential lingered. He had some ideas, including how to use the castle’s power, but left them at ideas for now.
He slept. Tomorrow, he began his plan to defeat Barul. This new power would serve its purpose.