“I can’t go back,” Verran cried. “I think I killed Majida. She surprised me as I was taking the elixir out of the Spirit Vault, and I hit her. I think she’s dead.”
“Verran, please,” Harp called to the boy. “Let us help you.”
“No one can help me!” Verran said desperately. “Ask Kitto. He saw the marks across my back. You know why I have them, Harp. You know what they make me.”
Verran held out the vial like he was presenting Shristisanti with an offering. The guardian slithered forward, but just as Shristisanti’s hand would have grasped the vial, Verran darted under his arm and sprinted around the screen and to the door leading into the great hall. Surprised by Verran’s unexpected quickness, Shristisanti whipped his body around and plunged after the boy.
When the guardian left the chamber, the bubbling floor hardened with a crackling sound, and a webbing of cracks laced the cloudy surface like ice that was about to shatter. By the time the others had dashed across the slippery floor and into the cavernous hall, the guardian was already on top of Verran. He lifted his hand and let the boy scramble to his feet before slamming him to the ground with his tail. Frantically, Verran twisted free and rolled away, but the serpent pinned him again.
“He’s just playing with him,” Boult said with horror as the grisly game continued.
Harp yanked his crossbow off his back.
“That won’t hurt him,” Boult said irritably, but he followed Harp’s example.
They shot bolts into the guardian’s back. When the bolts pierced his yellow scales, Shristisanti arched in shock. The guardian whirled around with his fangs bared, and the pupils of his red eyes narrowed to thin slits. Black blood oozed out from the arrow wounds, and Shristisanti’s long body undulated rhythmically as if in response to the pain.
“He’s not healing!” Harp shouted. Somehow the guardian’s invulnerability had disappeared. Hissing furiously, Shristisanti yanked the bolts out of his wounded back. Leaving Verran sprawled on the ground, the guardian coiled his body in a tight spiral. He splayed his fingers out the way he had done inside the chamber. But instead of liquefying into molten red glass, the dusty debris-strewn stones remained unchanged.
“The chamber was the source of his power!” Liel said. “He can’t cast if he’s out of it.”
Kitto and Harp rushed forward, but the Guardian swung around and swatted them both away with a sweeping arc of his tail. Boult reloaded and launched another bolt that lodged in Shristisanti’s shoulder. The guardian ignored it and swiveled around to face Harp. Liel rammed her sword into the base of the beast’s tail, cleaving a large chunk of flesh off the top. She darted away as the bloody tail flailed wildly and crashed down on the spot where she had been standing.
“Keep him out of that chamber,” Boult said, circling around the guardian to Verran and the debris pile.
“He wants the blood more than the Torque,” Harp yelled back. He was between Shristisanti and the entrance to the Torque chamber, but he doubted he would be much of an obstacle if the guardian decided to slither back into his enchanted lair. The guardian curled and spiraled around himself as he swung back and forth, making him a very hard target to hit.
Shristisanti turned his attention back to Verran, who had scrambled to his feet and backed away from the guardian until he was pressed against the pile of debris from the collapsed roof. Dazed and bleeding, he stood there, staring up at Shristisanti’s ruthless expression. If there were mercy to be had that day, it would not come from the ancient ophidian warrior. As if in a trance, Verran made no move to climb the rubble and get away from the guardian.
“Run, Verran,” Liel called.
“Throw me the blood,” Harp yelled as he and Kitto charged the guardian again. Harp’s sword sliced Shristisanti below the shoulder blade, and Kitto stabbed him in the side. Coiling around like a whirlpool, the undulations of the Guardian’s body kept them at bay. Verran stood passively, as if he knew what was coming but had no will or inclination to stop it. Shristisanti reached forward and snapped Verran’s neck, snatching the vial as the boy fell to the ground.
“Verran!” Harp screamed.
Shristisanti held his prize up to the sunlight flooding through the jagged hole in the roof. As he peered at the blood elixir, the red light coming through the glass vial stained the guardian’s haughty, self-satisfied face. Harp knew that as soon as the guardian slithered back into the chamber with the Torque, they would be powerless against him. Staring at Verran’s body slumped on the ground, his head twisted wrong on his neck, Harp was struck by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness-evil always won, and there was nothing he could do to change it. A flood of images filled his mind: Majida lying dead by Verran’s hand, Tresco smugly leading Ysabel down the aisle of a cathedral to marry Cardew, Anais’s palace in flames. Harp heard Liel calling his name and looked up to see Shristisanti moving toward him. Harp was overcome by a sense of desperation. He’d failed, yet again.
Boult screamed in Dwarvish and sprinted to the pile of rubble. In the instant that Harp understood what Boult planned to do, his hopelessness evaporated, and his survival instincts kicked him into action. Across the hall, Liel immediately grasped the dwarf’s plan as well. She grabbed Kitto’s hand, and everyone scattered away from the guardian.
Still holding the vial of elixir above his head, Shristisanti stared in surprise as they ran like frightened bunnies. With his loaded crossbow in his arms, Boult charged up the debris pile like he was being chased by a pack of flaming hellbeasts. Liel and Kitto dashed under the gallery and dived behind one of the marble statues. Since the guardian was between him and the debris pile, Harp bolted for the Torque chamber. Scrambling through the door, he skidded past the blackened screen, slid feet first onto the glassy floor, and smacked into the stone wall.
When he reached the top of the rubble, Boult leaped high into the air, fired his crossbow at the apex of his jump, and rolled down the far side of the pile.
“You missed,” Shristisanti boomed as he watched the bolt soar harmlessly over his head.
The bolt struck the wall above the pearl door, precisely in the center of the mosaic depicting the Captive in the last moments of his life. The impact of the bolt against the hard tile snapped the wooden shaft in half, and the splintered pieces fell to the floor. In the heartbeat of silence that followed, Kitto sucked in his breath, Liel laid her hand on Kitto’s arm, and the sound of a wire snapping echoed across the hall.
The mosaic swelled outward from the wall, like a giant hand was pushing it from behind. Licks of fire burned between the gaps in the tile. A flaming piece of ceramic blasted out of the mosaic, ricocheted and sank deep into the stone pillar near Liel and Kitto. With increasing speed and frequency, fragments of tile snapped off the wall, shot through the air with a whine, and peppered the cavernous hall with flaming projectiles. Most of them sailed over Shristisanti’s head, but one shard winged him, piercing his flesh and carving out a circular hole all the way through his shoulder.
The remainder of the mosaic tiles exploded from the blackened stones of the wall behind them. The flames blinked out, and deafening noise, like the sound of a tidal wave crashing into a forest, swept across the hall. The mosaic exploded in a maelstrom of knifelike shards and choking dust. The torrent of blistering hot shards engulfed Shristisanti, slicing through his scales and shredding his body. The bloody remains of his body dropped to the floor with a wet thud while the shards continued on their trajectory. They sailed through the air until they hit the debris pile and stuck into the rubble like colorful spikes.
“Everyone all right?” Harp yelled from inside the chamber. When the gritty dust cleared, he saw the fleshy chunks of Shristisanti heaped on the floor.