Chapter 369 - 360 — The Third Relic I

Chapter 369: Chapter 360 — The Third Relic I

`[ COUNTDOWN: 00:02:21]`

`[ACCUMULATING — 27%]`

James took the Keeper’s attention and Maeve took its feet.

That was the whole of it. He went in at the front of the thing with Durendal in both hands and made it swing at him, and every time it swung it had to plant, and every time it planted Maeve was somewhere off its right hip putting violet into the joint behind the knee.

`[MAEVE CALLAHAN — HEXLIGHT BRAND APPLIED]`

`[NECRO BLAST — 60 MANA]` ×2

`[MANA: 2,780 / 3,100]`

It took ninety seconds and it was not interesting, because Team Zero had killed two of these in the gallery below and knew exactly where the plate stopped overlapping.

Across twelve metres of solid stone, on the other side of the central block, James heard Finn’s voice go up and then stop, which meant the left one was down.

`[GALLERY KEEPERS SLAIN ×2]`

---

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:01:52]`

The columns came up in both route mouths at the same moment.

James turned round to look at the one on his own side and got three bright blank spaces in a column two metres tall, and nothing in them at all.

"I can’t read mine."

"I can read it," said Maeve. She was standing four metres closer to it than he was. "Crescent at the top, then a — it’s a ring with a break in it. Then the eye."

"Crescent, broken ring, open eye."

"That’s it."

"*Finn.*"

"Give me a second, I’m looking *through* the thing—"

James waited, and thought about it, and got something out of the waiting: the columns were not left-and-right. In the gallery below, the left one had been readable and the right one had needed the relic. Here it was the other way round.

*So it’s not the side. It’s the column. We’re going to have to find out which is which every single time.*

"Right," said Finn. "Three-bar at the top. Then a ring with a break in it. Then the wedge."

Maeve did not even pause.

"Broken ring."

"Broken ring," James agreed.

---

Something came up out of the floor at the junction where the two routes met, sixty metres below and behind them.

James saw it from the right-hand ramp: two and a half metres, segmented plate, long-hafted axe, and a close-fitted transparent shell round the whole of it.

`[GLASS KNIGHT]`

`[LEVEL: 64]`

`[HP: 9,800 / 9,800]`

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:01:34]`

"*Finn. Junction. Shielded one.*"

"On it—"

"Can you see it?"

There was a pause of about two seconds, which was Finn coming back down the left ramp far enough to get past the corner of the central block, and then the pale line came across the open floor of the junction from an angle James could not have taken.

The shell came apart from the point of contact outward.

The second beam killed it.

`[GLASS KNIGHT — SLAIN]`

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:01:11]`

`[+00:01:00]`

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:02:11]`

"That’s the clock," said Cillian, from somewhere on the left. "That is a *lovely* clock."

---

Ronan came up the right-hand ramp thirty seconds later and put the disc up without being asked.

The dome went out five metres and the thickening at the edges of James’s vision simply stopped existing.

`[ACCUMULATING — 41% → 0%]`

Maeve stepped in beside him for two seconds and came out clean.

"Right," she said, and stayed where she was. "James. Look up the gallery."

He looked.

Past the level section they were standing on, the right-hand route went up again in two more ramps toward the landing at the top of the central block — and the left one did the same on the other side, and from here to the top there was no crossing point at all.

"They split again," said Maeve. "All the way to the door. Which means if he’s down at the junction and we’re up there—"

"—he’s a fifty-second round trip, and we only find out we need him when somebody’s at sixty per cent."

"That’s how the last twenty minutes went."

---

James did the arithmetic out loud because it was faster.

"That’s what cost us the first half of this room. Every single time, we noticed the dark after it had built up, then Ronan had to cross, then whoever he wasn’t with started climbing again. We’ve been paying for that four times."

"So what?"

"So we stop reacting to it." He pointed down at the junction floor, thirty metres below and between the two ramps. "Ronan, you don’t follow anybody. You stay on that junction. Both groups come back down to *you* when we get to forty, and we come down before we’re in trouble."

"That’s giving up ground," said Finn’s voice, from the other side of the block. "Every time we come back we lose the climb."

"It’s twenty seconds down and twenty back. It’s cheaper than fifty seconds of him crossing while we’re half blind."

"It’s *cheaper* if nobody forgets."

"Then nobody forget," said James.

---

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:01:58]`

"We should go now," said Finn. "We’ve just had a minute put back on and we’re standing here talking."

"We’re going now."

"*Confirm the point,*" said Maeve.

"Maeve—"

"Finn, say it back to me."

There was a pause long enough for Finn to be annoyed in.

"Junction floor. Ronan stays there. We come down at forty."

"Thank you."

"You’re all very tiring," said Finn, and went up the left-hand ramp.

---

The second pair was near the top, and the geometry of it was the point.

James came up the last ramp on the right and there was a Keeper thirty metres ahead of him on a flat section in front of the landing, standing still with its maul grounded.

And there was another one on the left, in the matching position, and the two of them were separated by the whole width of the central block. There was no route between. Finn and Cillian could not have reached James’s one in under forty seconds and they would have had to abandon theirs to do it.

"Separate fights," said Maeve.

"Separate fights."

"Cillian can’t help you."

"I know."

---

He killed it with Maeve and it was the best piece of work James did on that floor.

It had a plan and he took the plan off it. Thirty seconds in, with its right knee branded and one shoulder open, the thing stopped fighting forward and started going backwards toward the raised section at the mouth of the landing — the same thing the Steward had done twice, the same thing the Horned Champion had done, the same thing everything with a brain did when it stopped winning.

James had been waiting for it since the second exchange.

He went round it rather than after it. Four strides wide to the right, past the swing of the maul, into the ground between the Keeper and the step it was backing toward — and when it turned to deal with him being there, its whole flank came round to a woman standing eleven metres away with a staff.

`[NECRO BLAST — 60 MANA]`

`[MANA: 2,720 / 3,100]`

`[GALLERY KEEPER — SLAIN]`

"That was neat," said Maeve.

"That was you branding a knee for ninety seconds."

"It was both."

---

The column came up and James could not read a single mark in it.

Three blank bright spaces, two metres tall, four metres in front of him.

He did not ask Finn about it.

That was the thing he was pleased with afterwards, in a small way — because his first instinct had been to shout across the gallery and ask Finn what he could see, and Finn was on the far side of twelve metres of stone and could not see this column at all, and the only reason James had known that in the first gallery was that he had happened to be standing in the right place.

*Don’t assume. Ask the man who can look at it.*

"Ronan," he called down the ramp. "When you come up — I need you to read something."

"Read something?"

"You’re carrying a relic. Come and look at this and tell me if you can see it."

---

`[COUNTDOWN: 00:01:12]`

`[ACCUMULATING — 38%]`

Ronan came up and put the disc out first, because he was not stupid, and James and Maeve stood in five metres of clean air for two seconds and came out at zero.

Then he lowered it and looked at the column.

"Ring with a cross in it," he said. "Then a spiral. Then the wedge."

"You can see them."

"I can see them clear as that wall."

"Not the Lens, then," said Maeve. "Any of them. It’s being a *bearer* that does it, not which one you’re holding."

"That’s worth knowing," said James.

"That’s worth knowing about four minutes ago," said Maeve.