No need to worry about him. He’s crazy but not in danger. His madness protects him.
Hefertus’s platform is empty.
My heart stutters for a moment and then I see his cup is glowing. He’s solved his puzzle already.
I find him at the organ, playing that melancholy song, golden head down, arms spidered out, lost in his anguished melody.
Though the Saint statues attack from every side, their blows miraculously miss both him and the organ. I sense the power of the God at work there.
Behind him, the floor is cracked, all the vessels crushed to dust, and around the pipe organ there are bits of stonework battered to nothing. I watch as one of the Saints pulls down his stone cowl and throws a hammer at Hefertus.
It whips toward him end over end. I grunt, feeling the blow before it hits my friend. It slams into his skull.
No.
It doesn’t.
It falls to the ground right behind him as if it hit a stone wall where his head is.
A chunk of stone flies up from the floor where the hammer rebounds.
The Prince Paladin can clearly take care of himself. Or the God can. Or something.
I find the Majester next. He’s looking at Hefertus. His hands are up. I see one make a flinging motion and then one of the Saints flings a discus at my friend.
Wait.
He’s controlling that statue. And he’s attacking my friend with it. I feel my mouth form a firm line. Interesting how challenges bring out the heart of people. If it was he who screamed; I don’t have time for his pain.
I hear a shout from below — higher pitched, feminine. My heart is in my throat as I spin.
Victoriana.
She’s not on her platform and her cup isn’t glowing. She either hasn’t figured out the puzzle or she’s not her own adversary and therefore can’t use her own blood. She should take her dog’s blood. There’s an adversary if I’ve ever seen one.
I scan through the bodies and find her standing over her fallen dog. He’s lying at her feet in a clump of fur and blood as she spins and bats at the statues, her braid an inky whip around her, her sword an extension of her arm.
I knew that creature would get her in trouble; I just thought it would be the perpetrator, not the victim.
What’s she doing halfway to the Inquisitor’s platform?
Oh.
He’s fallen, pinned under a broken statue. It’s in three pieces and the Inquisitor is under one of them. I do not know if he lives. It seems his qualms about this place were justified.
Saints and Angels. He must be the source of the original scream, and she’s trying to get to him.
Of course she is. She has more honor than anyone else here — and I include Hefertus in that, because my dear friend would rather play music as everyone around him dies than lift a hand to help.
I need to get to her.
Even as I think that, I see the High Saint cutting through the chaos, a statue clearing space before him and another keeping the rest of them off his back. Both these Saints he controls are slow and lumbering. How are they doing that? He doesn’t have the Majester’s way with command, but he’s figured out a rudimentary system.
I don’t have time to discover what has given them power over the denizens of this place. Perhaps they merely asked and were granted their requests.
I need to move.
Something catches the edge of my peripheral vision and my breath is jagged in my chest as my gaze is torn back to the movement.
