10 — A Second Trial

10 — A Second Trial

I knocked on Granhart’s door but received no response. I felt a tense presence on the other side, as if someone were waiting for me to leave, and knocked again.

“It’s Luciel,” I said. “Granhart, are you there? Estia?”

The tension in the air dissipated and the door opened. Estia was on the other side. Behind her was Granhart, face down on his desk. He seemed to be sleeping.

“What’s happening here?” I asked.

“The oaf needs to choose his words with a little more tact,” the girl said, two voices overlapping one another. “Maybe he’ll learn in his dreams.”

I was evidently speaking with the spirit, but maintained my composure. “It’s a long way from dusk. What are you doing taking control of Estia this early in the morning?”

“Well, our oafish friend here had some questions for her, and he seemed to think every stumble of her words was his cue to lambast the girl further. If he wanted answers, he should not have begun interrogating her as if she had committed a crime.”

She was certainly in a bad mood. What was Granhart doing questioning one of Her Holiness’s direct subordinates? He did have a tendency to make even the most simple of inquiries feel like an accusation, though, and he was easily the most uptight individual at HQ, so I couldn’t blame Estia for feeling threatened. If nothing else, the guy took his job seriously.

“Did that really warrant knocking him out?” I asked.

“Place yourself in Estia’s shoes, will you?” The voices resonated. “The pressure, the endless questions, it’s a miracle the girl didn’t up and flee entirely.”

“What did he want to know about her?”

“Wrong,” the spirit said. “It is not what he wanted to know about her, it is what she wanted to know about you.”

Before I could get the next word out, I felt the air around her relax.

“Um, I...didn’t know what kind of person you were. Really were, I mean,” she said in one voice.

“I’m speaking to Estia now, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What kinds of things were you looking for?” I asked.

“Your reputation,” Estia replied. “If your status was dishonest. If maybe you were a slaver. But, well, you didn’t seem dishonest, um, but a lot of healers don’t necessarily seem dishonest at first.”

Finally. Something was starting to make sense. This was why she had put so much distance between us and why I had struggled to trust her for so long.

“You could have just talked to me,” I said. “Granhart’s as strict as they come in Shurule. He probably thought you were asking questions to get up to no good.”

“I’m sorry.”

The misunderstanding was resolved. Waking up Granhart, though, was sure to be a mess of its own, so I focused on Estia for the time being. The matter of the exorcist who had come after me would have to wait.

“Water under the bridge. Come with me,” I said.

“To where?” she asked hesitantly.

“Her Holiness.”

“Now hold on,” the second voice chimed in, overlapping Estia’s. “You would report me for this? All to keep me from my dear sister? Who is it, human? Who have you fallen for so hard that you’ve lost your wits? My sister? Estia? Or...could it be? Me? It better not be me, human.”

All right, she liked Forêt. A lot. That much was abundantly clear. The rest of that little tirade? Yeah, no idea what that was about. In any case, the spirit seemed awfully afraid of the pope, and I was dangerously lacking in patience.

I took a deep breath. “I would like you to list everything you think could possibly indicate that I have any romantic feelings for you, Estia, or your sister.”

“You would?”

“I’m begging you. You have to learn to understand human behavior one of these days.” I looked at Granhart snoozing at his desk and suddenly felt extremely jealous. I left a note next to him. “There. You shouldn’t feel so intimidated anymore if he brings you in for questioning again. Let’s get going.”

“I knew you weren’t as stupid as you seem,” the voices said. “You’re positive you don’t fancy me?”

I refused to continue to entertain the spirit, and soon, we were back at the pope’s chambers.

“Here we are,” the spirit remarked. “This brings back memories. It was but a fleeting moment in the life of a spirit, but there was another I came here with in the past.”

She had actually been here with Estia not too long ago, but maybe she didn’t know what was happening while lying dormant inside her. But that wouldn’t make sense; the spirit sure liked to show up with perfect timing.

The “other one” she had come with was probably Lord Reinstar, if I had to guess. I had no end of questions, really, but the spirit within Estia simply smiled.

I knocked on the door. “It’s Luciel again. I’m here with Estia.”

“Enter,” a voice on the other side replied.

The door opened an instant later as the attendants filed out of the hall and we replaced them. The horse standing next to the pope of the Church of Saint Shurule made the scene a little incongruent, and I could only imagine how it must have looked to the innocent attending ladies.

I moved to bow before Her Holiness when Estia continued walking past me and towards the pope. Sensing danger, I stood between them at once, but the pope lay a hand on my shoulder from behind and placed herself before Estia.

“It has been a long time, Dusk,” Her Holiness said.

“Last I saw you, there were tears in your eyes, Fluna,” the spirit replied, sighing. “Now you’re a pope.”

For some reason, possibly because I was here, they spoke without any odd use of magic, in the common Galdardian tongue. And they talked like it had been an eternity, but the pope had dispatched Estia herself. Unless she hadn’t met the Spirit of Dusk at the time? Perhaps someone had been in the room and the spirit hadn’t been able to reveal herself.

“I take it you know each other,” I said.

“I am acquainted with all spirits,” the pope replied. “There was a time, however, when I was...less strong.”

“A good man knows when to let sleeping giants lie, you know,” the spirit said.

Forêt neighed as if in agreement. I elected to make myself scarce and take my place as the conversation’s third (fourth?) wheel with pride.

“You did not send your errand boy to me simply to exchange pleasantries, I assume,” the spirit continued.

“I did want to see you again, truthfully,” the pope replied, “but that question may be better answered by Luciel.”

The longer I spoke with Her Holiness, the more I found her voice growing on me. It was regal, ethereal, and honestly, a little cute.

“First of all,” I said, “do you know about the labyrinth underneath the Church?”

“A labyrinth?” The spirit closed her eyes and was silent for a while. “True, I feel darkness emanating from what used to be an audience chamber.”

“Indeed,” the pope remarked. “It came into being some fifty years ago and has played no small part in the Church’s atrophy. That is, until Luciel conquered it on his own and we were finally able to lay our fallen clergy to rest.”

The Spirit of Dusk looked at me.

“I only managed because all the monsters happened to be undead,” I explained.

The spirit nodded and murmured, “Yes, I feel a deep darkness. A common enough environment for monsters of the night. Still, you have much to be proud of if it’s true you survived a labyrinth on your own. It’s a great achievement that’s been celebrated for generations.”

“Thank you.”

The spirit raised an eyebrow at me “So, what’s the dilemma?” she asked.

I turned to Her Holiness, and she nodded. “I went into the labyrinth yesterday and found powerful monsters,” I said. “As if the dungeon had been reactivated. Do you have any idea what that could mean?”

“No,” the spirit answered flatly. “And I will add that I’ve nothing to do with it. I couldn’t possibly do something so mindlessly dangerous to Estia.”

“I was worried that you entering it might have caused some kind of resuscitation at first, but now I see that you wouldn’t do that,” I replied.

“I’d have called you blind otherwise. Yes, I’m well aware of the demonic connotations of dark magic, but I’ll have you know I don’t make a habit of running about spreading miasma for the fun of it.”

There was more sadness than anger in her voice, a quiet sound that hid far more emotion underneath than was visible on the surface.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know, but that’s still no excuse.”

“Don’t waste your effort. It’s nothing I’m not used to,” she stated. “Well, aside from Reinstar. And Fluna and her mother. They were different.”

The gentle expression on her face told me everything I needed to know about how much she cherished those people.

“Dusk, have you manipulated anyone recently?” the pope asked.

“I have induced amnesia and put others to sleep, but I’ve not toyed with any minds directly. My host limits me, so I’m unable to, and even if I were, I would do nothing to bring harm to Estia.”

She couldn’t have been lying. Not just because I didn’t expect a spirit to lie. Forêt would have known had she tried. And that put the majority of suspicion on the exorcist who’d come after me. The next question was how a healer could have made it through the entire labyrinth, even weakened as it was. Unless...

“I think I have another possible perpetrator besides a simple exorcist,” I said.

“Go on,” Her Holiness urged me.

“What if,” I murmured, “there’s an Illumasian spy? I understand that the possibility would place me in a questionable light since I’m the one who brought Lionel here, but for what it’s worth, I haven’t been here in over a year.”

“What basis do you have for this assumption?”

“When I was in Yenice, there was a man who had been posing as a slaver there for years, which tells me it’s entirely possible for a spy to be hiding right under our noses as a knight or even healer. Of course, that’s all it is right now. A possibility.”

And with enough people, a guide, and magic item countermeasures for the wraiths, the labyrinth was entirely traversable for someone like that. Then again, maybe a magic item itself could have restarted the labyrinth. No, too convoluted.

“I will entrust Catherine with that concern. May I entrust the labyrinth to you?”

“I’m not particularly keen on going through it by myself again, but I will obey your orders.”

It wouldn’t be like before anyway. I was well-equipped and at a much higher level. Naturally, if it were any other labyrinth, I would have been out, no question, but the undead were no real issue to me.

“Then I will join you,” the spirit offered.

“I don’t take anyone who can’t resist the wraiths’ mind magic,” I stated firmly. “Sorry, I’m not looking to get stabbed in the back.”

“Then it’s a good thing such spells are useless against me even when Estia is in control. My presence protects her from outside interference.”

For a moment, I considered how that might be extended to Lionel and the others, then remembered that the labyrinth was supposed to be a secret and scrapped the thought. Anyway, the more help the better, I figured.

“In that case, I need to fill in my team first, so we’ll begin after lunch.”

“Whatever you think is best,” said the pope.

I bowed in reply, and the spirit added, “I do have old memories of that place.”

“You be careful as well, Dusk,” Her Holiness cautioned the spirit.

“I always am.”

I felt like several rules of etiquette and rank were being breached as Estia patted the pope on the head, and yet I was powerless to stop it.

I explained the situation to the team with Estia over lunch, dancing around mentioning the labyrinth by referring to my mission as “a special S-rank ceremony.” Estia, of course, as a member of the Church, would be joining me.

Until I returned, they were to help whip the Knights into shape for as long as they were needed, which made Lionel, Ketty, and Kefin very enthusiastic about putting their plans together. When Lionel asked how he should handle the apathetic paladins he had noticed during the drills, I told him that if he and Catherine couldn’t find a suitable solution, he could take appropriate measures at his own discretion.

It was painfully obvious that they had seen through me almost immediately—I remembered how poorly they had evaluated the Knights to be during the drills, and they had told me in no uncertain terms that another training session would not be pretty. Yet, they played along.

“Return safely,” Lionel said. “And quickly, so that my rematch with the Whirlwind can come all the sooner.”

“Or at least before I get bored,” Ketty added.

“I will not bring shame to you in your absence, sir,” Kefin declared.

I offered my thanks. It was nice to have people worrying about me, people I could trust to leave in my place.

Dhoran, Pola, and Lycian had been out since morning. They were free to act as they pleased now, and people knew they were with me, so I could only guess that they were out procuring materials. Hopefully Pola and Lycian were seeing the sights, learning a lot, and coming up with ideas for convenient new inventions.

I boarded the magic elevator with Estia. Whatever the problem with the labyrinth was, it was stemming from either the fortieth- or fiftieth-floor boss rooms. Until then, though, crises notwithstanding, we could probably look around for treasure chests. As long as the Spirit of Dusk kept a close eye on Estia.

We soon came to the labyrinth’s entrance.

“Ready?” I asked her.

“Yes, sir,” Estia replied. “I’ll follow your lead.”

“The spirit’s not taking over?”

“She says she won’t step in unless it gets dangerous.” She gave me a nervous smile. “And she also says to not worry because she’ll protect me from the miasma.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I took her word for it.

“First, wear this,” I told her.

“A Church-issue robe?”

“It’ll help with the miasma.”

“I see. Thank you.” Estia appeared to have softened up quite a bit around me.

The shop in front of the elevator was closed up and unmanned. Evidently, no one had taken Catherine’s place, which certainly didn’t do anyone taking my place any favors. I made a note to bring that to someone’s attention. But it didn’t look like anyone had rummaged through the empty store, so maybe it wasn’t a real problem.

With that, we took our first steps into the Labyrinth of Trials.