Yuriel’s home was only about a day’s hike from the tower, though our progress was slowed by the spirit’s insistence on inspecting every terrain feature that was even the slightest bit different from the endless plains. We’d spent at least an hour on the first chasm we came across while Yuriel flew inside and explored the whole thing.

It was a little frustrating to be wasting time, but I couldn’t really blame her. This was all very new to her and it wasn’t so bad to see a little joy for once. There certainly wasn’t much of it in my everyday life. It was enough to make me forget, even if only for a little while, the peril that awaited us.

Yuriel’s sheer sense of wonder even allowed me to see the landscape with free eyes. While it was as desolate as ever, it no longer seemed quite so miserable a place. Now there was a certain stark beauty to the arid soil, with its jagged breaks and vast stretches of nothing. It was rather peaceful in its own way, even if its denizens were anything but.

Elmidath, on the other hand, didn’t seem to share my views, growing ever more exasperated with every delay until she finally boiled over and voiced her displeasure to the spirit. “Enough, this has gone on far too long. We can’t afford to waste any more time on your nonsense. I was trying to be charitable, out of respect for your desire to help us, but this is simply unacceptable.”

Yuriel, who’d been conducting a thorough examination of a nearby rock formation, floated over. “What’s wrong? Have I done something I wasn’t supposed to?”

“I take it Cathal explained to you the importance of what we’re doing?”

“He did, why?”

“Then why are you staring at rocks when we’ve got far more important things to do?”

“Um.”

Yuriel looked to me for help, and while I was none too eager to be part of this, I could see that she was out of her depth. “I don’t think Yuriel has the same kinds of priorities as us. She probably didn’t realize quite how important this was to us, or that she we might be in a hurry. Or at least, that’s my assumption.”

It was quite a leap, given how little I knew about Yuriel, but she nodded. “That’s right, I didn’t realize. Do we not have time to look at things before we get there then?”

She asked it in such an innocent way that even Elmidath looked a little embarrassed at having lectured her. “I suppose some of that is to be expected, but surely you’ve had enough of it for now and we can move on.”

In case she wasn’t already convinced, I chipped in. “We can always do this on the way back too, we should have plenty of time then.”

Not strictly true, but if it would get us moving again then that was good enough for me. While I was far from eager to arrive at the tower, it wasn’t something we could put off for long. Especially when Elmidath was likely to explode if we kept her waiting much longer. With one last look at the rocks she’d been so interested in, Yuriel fell in line with the rest of us and we set off.

Free of her exploratory intermissions, we made much better time and before long the tower was in sight. Or at least what remained of it. The structure was right up against a sheer cliff, which appeared to have collapsed on it. A good half of the tower had broken off vertically and lay on the ground beside it, though the remaining half was still standing.

I turned back to Tagath. “Are you sure this is the place? It doesn’t look like much.”

“I’m certain.”

I’d expected the tower to be somehow sinister, instead it just looked like a ruin. Would we really find anything of use in here? It looked like the best we could expect was some worked stone to salvage, which would be quite a disappointment when we were trying to prevent the world being enveloped in darkness. Or something close to that.

“How do we get in there then and get what we came for?”

The only visible entrances were all blocked off by rubble and fallen stone.

“I’m afraid there’s no easy way around it, we’ll just have to shift enough of the debris until we can get inside.”

The prospect of manual labour almost made me wish we’d brought the ogres along, they certainly looked suited to such tasks. Though I doubt they’d do it willingly unless we could concoct some suitable reason to rouse them to action, and we’d lied to them more than enough already.

With nothing more left to say, we got stuck into the work. Or at least, all of us except for Yuriel. Being composed of leaves made shifting rocks rather difficult I’d imagine, but she stayed out of our way and amused herself by drifting along the cliff face.

Slow going as it was, Elmidath and I began shifting the wreckage blocking access to the lowest level by hand. While I worked, I thought of all the ways this could be easier. Like if we had access to some explosives, that would’ve gotten us in a whole lot faster. And quite probably destroyed whatever we’d come here for, but that was a separate issue.

Tagath spent most of time supervising the work rather than taking part, not that I begrudged him his role given his advanced age. We’d cleared most of what was now the entrance, which appeared to have once been an internal doorway, when we heard a high-pitched screech of metal against metal. Halting our work, Elmidath and I hopped back.

I reached for my sword, while keeping my eyes fixed on the broken tower. The screech sounded once more, louder and longer, joined now by a repetitive clanging. More and more sounds joined the growing cacophony, bringing the noise to ear-splitting proportions. I’d intended to ask Tagath how we should proceed, but there was no chance of him hearing me now

The discordant mass of sound drew closer, growing louder yet and the remaining rubble shifted. I caught glimpses of dull grey beyond the debris, before they were sent flying by the horror that lay within. A tide of metal, flesh and stone erupted from the opening with speed entirely out of proportion with its bulk.

Hellishly fused into one being, its form hinted at what it had once been; sharp edges that might have once been blades, flat blocks and partial faces. I took several quick steps to the side, letting it charge right past me while I brought my sword down upon its side. The blade cut flesh before bouncing off the harder portions of its anatomy.

I was preparing to strike once more when it shot past me, half-slithering, half-dragging itself along with its many pseudo-limbs, and went right for Tagath. The old demon ran for it, but it was clear he wasn’t fast enough to get away. Emboldened by the creature ignoring me, I sprinted after it and plunged Shotensho through one of the many malformed heads.

The steel cut through flesh without much resistance, encountering no bone or other hard substances, until it was deep within the monstrosity. It shuddered so violently that it nearly tore my weapon from my grasp, before tripping over itself and ending up in a heap on the ground.

I was wrenching my blade free for another blow when the horrible mass changed targets and went for me in a flurry of scrabbling protrusions. Now it was my turn to scrabble back, narrowly avoiding being bowled over. I didn’t know what it intended to do once it reached me, and I had no desire to find out.

A long red-orange tendril sprung from Elmidath’s gauntlet, snaring several of the creature’s limbs and slowing it down. Moving at a brisk jog was enough to keep ahead of it now, but I still wasn’t sure what to do. While my last attack had stopped it briefly, it was hard to tell if I’d done any actual damage to it. There was no blood to be seen from the hole I’d carved in it, just more of the same pale twisted flesh.

As it appeared to be solely focused on me now, I ran a circuit around the others so as not to stray too far and used my link with Elmidath. “How are we meant to stop this thing?”

I doubted she had any more familiarity with a monstrosity like this than I did, but at least it wasn’t chasing after her. Maybe she could think of something.

“I’m guessing you can’t freeze it?”

“Nope.”

While Shotensho might have recovered some fraction of its strength, it wouldn’t be enough to do much to something of this size. The whole thing had to be more than a dozen metres long. I wasn’t sure if the ice would even have much effect on the non-organic parts of the abomination’s body.

“Then I guess we just keep hitting it until it dies or we come up with a better plan.”

To punctuate her suggestion, Elmidath raked the creature’s fleshy parts with another of her constructs. It wasn’t enough to stop it entirely, but the horror did hesitate. Taking advantage of the opening, I slashed one of the faces near the front where it’s head would be, if it had anything resembling a normal anatomy.

I cut deep within it once more, and it shuddered once more. Except this time, it didn’t fall. Instead it stopped dead in its tracks, all momentum ceasing as if it had never been, while every misshapen eye across its body turned toward me. I unthinkingly held their gaze and my breath caught in my throat as I stared into their discoloured depths. There was a glimmer of intelligence in their eyes, which I’d thought to be blind and lifeless.

Or perhaps it was just the shock of it all getting the better of me, it was hard to be sure. Whatever momentary connection we might have had, imagined or not, was broken when Elmidath unleashed a series of lightning quick stabs. Her spears punctured the monstrous creature all over and it fell to the ground. It shuddered for a time before finally going still.

While I was relieved to see the awful thing die, for some reason I felt a little bad for it. Well, if it really had possessed any intelligence, this would be a mercy. Or at least that’s what I told myself. After waiting a few moments to make sure it wasn’t going to start moving again, I went to confront Tagath.

“What the hell was that thing?”

“An experiment gone awry due to the merging, as I said before.”

While he had mentioned something like that, this was nothing like what I’d imagined. Did the merging really create such horrors? Or was it related to what they’d been trying to do? “What was this experiment supposed to achieve?”

Tagath fell silent, looking at the monstrous corpse behind me. I turned around to see Yuriel hovering over it, inspecting it closely. That, at least, came as no surprise. Realizing that Tagath had no intention of answering me, I went to Elmidath for help.

“He knows a lot more about this then he’s telling us.”

Elmidath shrugged. “Probably, but does any of that matter now? I think we’ve got what we came here for.”

“Of course it matters. Who knows what kind of horrible things they were doing?”

“Even if they were doing things we’d disagree with, which we have no proof of, what difference would it make now? Their experiments ended a long time ago.”

I switched over to our mental link, not wanting the others to overhear. “It would make me a lot more hesitant to work with Tagath for a start.”

“Not this again. You know we have very little choice in these matters. Besides, he’s always been faithful to my father and I. Why would we discard him over something he may or may not have done in the past?”

I tried to think of a good argument for why we should get rid of them, but beyond his connections with the Oritsfel, which we were already well aware of, I came up dry. Why did Elmidath have to be so damn logical about all this? It was frustrating how unconcerned she seemed about all this, but I couldn’t deny that she was right. We had to make do with whatever we had.

“Aren’t you at least a little curious as to what they were doing?”

“I’ve heard a bit about the sorts of things they used to do during the war. Trust me when I say we’re both better off not knowing.”

There was a chill in her voice that made me inclined to believe her. It still wasn’t enough to entirely satisfy me, but I turned my attention to Yuriel instead. “Will this thing work for your seed then?”

“I believe it will work perfectly. There’s an excellent source of magical energy here, just waiting to be tapped. Assuming you’re happy for me to go ahead?”

I glanced at Elmidath, who nodded. “Alright, do your thing.”