"Who's channeling the barrier then?" Isabella asked.

  "I am," a ghostly voice rolled in.

  The others, who were hearing it for the first time, were all grabbing their weapons and looking around, searching for the source of the voice.

  Gaius, silent and tense, waited. He knew exactly who was addressing them.

  Under the barrier, right by the barricade, the Shadow of Mallia emerged from the ground, like a ghostly flower blooming under the full moon.

  "I'm really beginning to dislike you, Guy," Shadow said.

  "Who's this now and how do we blast him?" Esven asked.

  "The Shadow of Mallia. I told you the name was literal."

  "You were just floating that as a suggestion if memory serves me right," the captain noted.

  "And I was correct."

  It was clear Shadow was enjoying the back and forth.

  "How precious," the specter said. "You still harbor a desire to hide that we're good pals. I can practically see the gears in your head turn, Guy, as you try to come up with a way to spin this."

  "You've known who the Shadow of Mallia was all this time and you somehow failed to mention it?" Isabella was radiating righteous fury.

  "It's hard to explain, and now isn't the time to do it," Gaius hissed.

  "Much as I enjoy seeing you squirm, I agree," Shadow said. "There's so much to do still before our brothers can be free."

  "Whatever you do, don't let him touch you."

  Only those around Gaius were supposed to hear that, but Shadow wasn't having any of this secrecy.

  "Why would I do something so crude when brothers need to stretch their limbs?"

  Shadow's words were followed by a wave of power that infused the air around them.

  Esven broke the silence by once again invoking Mallia's bosom. The string on his arbalest snapped, leaving the captain with a fancy club.

  Alessia's dress that withstood everything up to that point emitted a loud crack that resulted in one of the sleeves separating from the rest of the garment.

  And Isabella had such look of helplessness about her that Gaius could barely recognize the knight.

  Before Gaius had a chance to figure out what was going on, a group of alefs separated from the main stream and rushed towards them.

  These alefs were faster and more ferocious than any that came before.

  Victor met their advance. Whatever Shadow did wasn't having any visible effect on the northerner. His swings were as forceful and precise as before. Yet they were not enough. These alefs weren't content with blindly attacking. They worked as a coherent unit, dodging and covering one another.

  Forced to hold this alef charge all alone, Victor was immediately covered in bruises and deep cuts. And when Alessia tried to approach him with a salve in hand, one of the alefs turned to attack her instead.

  Out of time and options, Gaius sent his axe at the creature. The axe lodged itself between the alef's protruding shoulder blades and threw it off balance. A metal claw went right past Alessia's body, giving Gaius an opening to knock the alef down with a kick and dislodge his axe in the process.

  The witch poured the contents of one of her countless vials on the downed creature. The thick green liquid seemed to have a mind of its own. It engulfed the alef and consumed its body before dissipating.

  This victory was a small one, as two more alefs were upon them, pushing Gaius to his limits with a relentless assault of metal and bone.

  In this mad scramble, Gaius managed to spot Victor who was in a similar situation. Only he was assaulted by a good dozen of the buggers.

  And then there was Isabella, frozen in place, her weapon still sitting on her belt.

  "A little help?" Gaius shouted when he got a chance.

  "The beast. An agent of the beast," Isabella replied, not even trying to move.

  Some of the alefs managed to move past Victor by then, descending on the motionless knight. Their approach released Isabella from her stupor, but her moves were lacking their usual surety.

  Gaius had no idea what was going on. He saw one of the alefs throw a blade that whirled dangerously close to Isabella's ribs. There was no plinking sound of the knight's shield deflecting this simple attack. A crimson streak of blood colored the pristine toga.

  The knight, so used to her invulnerability, was completely defenseless. Going by her poor attempts at protecting herself, she wasn't used to it.

  Esven charged the creatures attacking Isabella. His armored shoulder was able to withstand a direct collision with their sharp exteriors.

  The captain was nothing if not industrious. After his last big fight, he apparently modified the arbalest to allow for a blade to be attached, which turned it into a suitably weighty melee weapon.

  Isabella did the best she could to help him, but without her shield, her attacks were lacking commitment and power.

  Shadow observed all this from above, and Gaius suspected that his presence was that special ingredient in the alefs' newfound battle prowess.

  If they were to survive the next minute, he needed to deal with the specter.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  An alef's claw caught his tunic, and Gaius fell. This sequence looked perfectly natural, and almost was, but Gaius made sure to fall towards the barrier. He hit the ground and rolled forward. Just as Gaius suspected, the barrier was no longer there, disabled along with Isabella's shield.

  This allowed Gaius to make his next move. He knew Shadow was susceptible to light. This time, he put all of his power into three light orbs covering the specter from every angle.

  He could only hope that Alessia would be able to fend for herself without his assistance while he was busy with all of this.

  The orbs were bright enough to turn night into day for that particular spot of Siembra's outskirts.

  Shadow's wail could rival a banshee in its raw volume and power. The specter writhed and distorted as his ghostly exterior was torn to pieces by the light.

  Without Shadow to guide them, alefs turned docile again and shuffled off to their kin.

  Paralyzed by the sizzling light, the Shadow of Mallia was no longer a specter but a man, once vigorous, now pale and malnourished.

  "If anyone has anything saved up, now's the time to use it," Gaius shouted.

  He couldn't see much, but he heard chanting in response to his call. Shield or no shield, Isabella still had her faith.

  Then, the chanting stopped and was replaced by a steady hum that grew in volume, overpowering Shadow's wails before erupting in a finger-wide beam of pure white radiance, even brighter than the lights Gaius produced.

  The beam hit Shadow in the chest, tearing away bits of his frail outline until only a jagged fist-sized wisp of energy remained. Free from the confines of its spectral body, the wisp rushed straight towards the tube.

  Despite the alefs all around it, Gaius hopped the barricade in pursuit. When he got to the tube, he heard a pleasant voice say, "Going down?" as a solid metal gate closed right in front of him.

  In the brief moment before the tube retracted underground and buried the entire tunnel with its departure, Gaius spotted a palm-sized depression on the tube's side accompanied by a pictogram that looked suspiciously like the two tablets sitting in his pocket.

  There were still plenty of alefs around, but they weren't showing any signs of aggression now. Gaius decided to backpedal away from the collapsed tunnel and leave them be. With any luck, the town's adventurers and guards would deal with them.

  Bleeding from a hundred small wounds, Gaius stumbled back to his companions who were all gathered around Isabella. The knight was kneeling with her head low and her arms propping her up.

  Upon getting to her, Gaius could see that the first alef blade cut much deeper than he originally thought. It was a miracle Isabella managed to stay up as long as she did, and even fight in this condition.

  The others were all injured to a varying degree, but Isabella was the one who needed immediate help.

  Gaius grabbed the potions he had on him and slowly poured them down her throat. When nothing happened, Gaius cursed his own ale-based work that lacked the kick of a pure healing potion.

  "Don't just stand there, help her," he shouted at Alessia.

  The witch made no effort to move.

  "Her gods can help her now for all I care," she said.

  "This isn't the time for your bullshit. Do your thing, witch." For the second time that evening, Gaius had to abandon his merchant act.

  "I don't think I will." Alessia wasn't backing down. "I despise her and everyone like her. Holy people." The witch spat on the ground. "These zealots hounded my old teacher until she was forced to live in the thick of the woods, weeks away from other people, in constant fear of their holy retribution. And why? Because her methods were unsavory for these types? A mage summons a demon to do his bidding, and that's perfectly fine. An old lady does the same, and suddenly she must be put to the sword."

  Gaius wasn't saying a word. He was simply staring at Alessia, breathing deep long breaths.

  "I'm not a bad person," the witch continued. "Neither was my teacher. And if she wasn't forced to live in the swamp but had a warm house and easy access to supplies, maybe she'd still be alive. I wasn't there to help her when she fell sick, and I'm not helping your Isabella now."

  Still silent, Gaius grabbed Isabella's saber lying by her feet, spun around, and when he finished his move, the sword's tip was pressed to Victor's throat.

  "Yes. You are," Gaius said.

  The northerner froze with a surprised look on his face. It was hard to tell what shocked him more. His wife's story, or Gaius' move. In the end, he simply stood there, not trying to move away or defend himself.

  "You wouldn't dare," Alessia said.

  "You know me better than the others here. You really willing to take that chance?"

  A slight move of Gaius' wrist that pushed the blade further into Victor's skin forced Alessia to capitulate. She reached inside one of her bags and started applying an ointment to Isabella's side. When that was done, she gave the knight one of her tinctures to drink.

  "I'm not moving until I see results," Gaius said once Alessia moved away from Isabella.

  He didn't have to wait long. In less than a minute, the knight was able to move. A minute after that, she was standing.

  That was the signal Gaius needed to drop the saber and go make sure Isabella remained standing.

  "Come, we're leaving," Alessia said to Victor. She was about ready to storm off and try her chances with the alefs.

  The northerner didn't say a word. He approached his wife and hugged her from behind, keeping her in place and looking at others with anticipation.

  "What happened?" Gaius asked when Isabella appeared strong enough to answer.

  "It was the beast. Its agent."

  Gaius pressed his hand to the knight's forehead. She wasn't feverish.

  "You're not making a lot of sense, you know," he said.

  Isabella took one long look at the alefs shuffling about in the distance. The creatures weren't showing any signs of aggression at the moment. She took it as an invitation to find the nearest boulder and use it for a chair.

  "Nova and Mallia, our goddesses, both participate in the cycle of life and death. One can't exist without the other," she started. When Gaius nodded, she continued, "What you don't know is that they cooperate out of necessity. Because of the adversary. The beast. It exists only to tear things away from the cycle of rebirth, destroy them with no chance for restoration."

  Esven, who was awfully quiet after the fight butted in. "Hold on, why is this the first time I'm hearing anything about this beast?"

  "Because it's a well-kept secret. Only high-ranking knights and priests have any knowledge of it," Isabella said. "The beast corrupts, you see. Its agents are said to possess echoes of its disruptive power."

  This explained why Gaius had such difficulty maintaining his light spells around Shadow. And while Isabella's words dispelled one mystery, they raised another question at the same time.

  "The agents are said to have these powers? Said by whom? How many of those agents have you encountered in the past?" Gaius asked.

  "Not a one," Isabella replied. "I don't think there's anyone alive who'd actually met an agent of the beast. Well, I guess now there's me."

  Gaius couldn't help but start pacing around Isabella. "Just perfect," he said. "And the beast itself? What exactly is it, and how do we stay away from it?"

  Isabella hummed, a pale imitation of her usual laughter. "I can no more answer that than point you to Nova or Mallia. The goddesses are the goddesses, and the beast is the beast. You don't just find them sitting in a cave. They move in celestial spheres, far beyond our reach."

  "So where does this leave us?"

  The question came from Victor, surprising everyone, including his wife.

  "This leaves the two of us searching for a new place to stay," Alessia said, looking up from the northerner's enveloping hug.

  "Don't be like that, hun," Victor said. "Remember the guide. Making a name for yourself is the most important thing for a young adventurer. And what's a better way to do that, if not going after a malignant celestial trickster of untold power?"

  "How do we know if Shadow is still alive?" Alessia wasn't trying to get from under her husband's grasp, nor was she shutting down his reasoning.

  "You saw the same thing everyone else did," Gaius said. "He's alive, somewhere deep underground. I've no clue how we find him down there, but something tells me if we don't, he will find us sooner or later."

  "I may have some ideas for how we find him."

  Esven was using the frame of his arbalest for support. This leaning pose and his slightly changed tone surrounded the captain with the air of grim determination.

  "What do you mean?" Gaius asked.

  "When you illuminated him. Shadow, I mean. I got a good look at the bastard's face. He was pale and sickly, but there's no question in my mind, the Shadow of Mallia is Lucius. The guy everyone thought I offed to get my current post. And look at him, still kicking. Not only playing for the other team, running Siembra's crime, but also working with an enemy of the goddesses? Mallia's tits, when I get to him, I swear, I'll make those rumors a reality."

  Story Facts - Chapter 28