The thing descending from the darkness wasn't a creature. It was a silhouette cut from the fabric of the universe.
It had no face, only a vertical slit of white light where a head should be. Its limbs were long, multi-jointed blades of obsidian that dragged silently against the walls.
"Run," Kael said.
"Where?" Elric shouted, backing away. "It blocks the only exit!"
The Guardian didn't charge. It flickered. One moment it was on the ceiling; the next, it was standing on the platform between them and the ramp.
The silence of the Spire was broken by a sound like a tuning fork being struck against a coffin.
...Unauthorized... the voice boomed. ...Purge...
The Guardian raised a bladed arm. It didn't swing. It slashed the air, and a wave of force—visible distortion—ripped toward Elric.
Elric threw himself flat. The force wave hit the stone column behind him, shearing it in half as if it were soft clay.
"It cuts space!" Elric screamed.
Kael engaged. He didn't have a choice.
He activated the Void Sight. The world turned into a wireframe of glowing lines. But the Guardian...
the Guardian was a hole in the vision. A blind spot.
Kael lunged, his own obsidian arm glowing. He struck the Guardian's torso.
Clang.
His sword sparked and bounced off. The Guardian didn't even flinch. It backhanded Kael.
The blow felt like being hit by a siege ram. Kael flew across the chamber, slamming into a wall of dead husks. Bones crunched—his, and the mummies'.
He gasped, tasting blood. His ribs were broken.
The Guardian turned toward Elric. The old Knight scrambled backward, raising his sword in a futile guard.
...Organic matter detected... purging...
"No!" Kael screamed.
He forced himself up. The Cylinder was screaming in his mind.
...offering... pay the toll...
"What toll?" Kael shouted at the voice. "I have the Key!"
...The Key opens the door... The Toll passes the Guard...
...Sacrifice...
Kael looked at Elric. The Guardian was raising its blade for the killing stroke.
"What do I sacrifice?" Kael demanded.
...Memory...
It wasn't asking for blood. It wasn't asking for flesh. It was asking for the Ash.
"Take it," Kael whispered.
He focused on the image of his mother. Her face. Her voice singing in the kitchen. The smell of bread. The last time he saw his father smiling.
He visualized it. And then, he pushed it into the Cylinder.
The pain was spiritual. It felt like a hook being dragged through his brain, ripping out a piece of his soul.
Kael screamed.
The Cylinder flared with a light so bright it cast no shadows. A pulse of pure, white energy erupted from Kael's chest, washing over the chamber.
The Guardian froze. Its blade, inches from Elric's neck, stopped.
The white light hit the Guardian. The creature didn't burn. It bowed.
...Toll accepted...
The Guardian stepped back, melting into the shadows of the ramp. The path was clear.
Kael fell to his knees. He was weeping, but he didn't know why. He tried to remember what he had lost. He knew it was important. He knew it was something he loved.
But there was nothing there. Just a grey, empty space in his mind.
"Kael!" Elric was beside him, shaking him. "It stopped! How did you stop it?"
"I paid," Kael whispered. "I paid the toll."
"What toll?"
"I don't remember," Kael said. And that was the horror of it. He didn't remember.
"We have to finish this," Kael said, standing up. He felt lighter. Hollower.
They walked past the bowing Guardian, up the final spiral of the ramp.
They reached the Inner Sanctum. The Cell of the First Sword.
It was a colossal chamber at the very top of the Spire. In the center lay a sarcophagus of black crystal, suspended in a beam of anti-gravity.
But the sarcophagus wasn't sealed.
It was shattered.
Massive shards of crystal lay across the floor. They hadn't been broken from the outside. The blast pattern was outward.
Elric walked to the ruin of the prison. He looked inside.
Empty.
"He's gone," Elric whispered. "The First Sword... he isn't here."
"He hasn't been here for a long time," Kael said, looking at the dust on the shards. "Centuries."
"Then what is this place?" Elric asked. "If the prisoner escaped... why is the prison still running? Why call for a Key?"
Kael walked to the edge of the sanctum. There was a window—a single pane of diamond looking out over the Deep Waste.
He looked down.
He saw the Spire's true purpose. It wasn't just a prison. It was a plug.
The inverted mountain was corking a hole in the world. A hole that looked into a void of writhing, hungry darkness.
"It wasn't keeping him in," Kael realized, the Cylinder humming a warning note.
"It was keeping Them out."
And the cork was crumbling.