“I will kiss the feet of beggars and gutter whores, if I must,” the Lord of Light said. “I will do whatever it takes to make amends for my sins.”
“You’ll do all of that, and more, I promise you that,” I said before I turned to address everyone else. “But that can wait; right now, we have to access the Inner Vaults and get our hands on the Dragon Heart and this asshole’s magic tear. Let’s move.”
We left the dungeon chamber, moving with stealth and silence. Because there was ample evidence of a massacre there, I resurrected the guards who hadn’t been chopped to pieces and ordered them to barricade the door from the inside with their bodies, so nobody could get in. After that, Yollah led us deeper into the maze.
This place was maddening in its complexity, far larger than any crypt I’d robbed. I could now see why it took new guards months to simply memorize routes through this place. I asked the Lord of Light if he knew his way around, but this section of his domain was as unfamiliar to him as it was to me. It seemed that, in his haughtiness, he never entered the subterranean depths of his spires. Without Yollah’s crisp memory of the place and all of its twists and turns, it wouldn’t have taken us very long to get hopelessly lost. We’d have been able to fight our way out, but that could have taken hours, if not days.
Finally, after about an hour of endless twists and turns around identical looking corners, past walls and doors that were all exact replicas of each other, Yollah paused at a corner and held up a hand to stop us.
“The entrance to the inner vaults is around this corner,” he whispered. “But it’ll be heavily guarded. From this point on, stealth is out the window. It’s going to be a fight for our lives. No matter how swiftly and viciously we attack, at least one guard will raise the alarm before we kill them all. There’s a system of bells throughout this maze, and all it’ll take is one tug on the rope to get them all ringing. And every guard knows that when those bells ring, it’s a signal that the Inner Vault has been breached.”
“Bring ‘em on,” I said, drawing Grave Oath. “Consecrated Knights, elite guards, I’ll cut every last one of them down.”
The Lord of Light stepped forward. “Wait, God of Death,” he said. “I may be able to get in without raising the alarm.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” I asked.
“My powers are restored, thanks to you. Most of these guards have no idea I had been imprisoned in this place, and they are, I presume, still dedicated to serving and worshiping me. Remember, the treasures in the Inner Vault are all technically my property, not Elandriel’s. I should be able to simply walk in, take what I wish, and walk out, and all the while the guards will kneel before me.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we will fight,” he said. “But please, allow me to attempt this way first.”
“Go ahead, but I’m gonna be pissed off if you get yourself killed before you get to make that apology to the people of Prand,” I said. “If that happens, I’ll resurrect your sorry ass and make you do it as a zombie, just so you know.”
“I understand. May I try my way?”
“You shouldn’t trust him.” Yumo-Rezu stared at the Lord of Light with a venomous mixture of contempt and hatred in her eyes. “After the role he played in the Purge, he long ago proved that he’s nothing but a two-faced liar who cares about nothing but his own power. If you let him go, Vance, he’ll just turn around and command those guards to attack us, and he’ll fight alongside them against us.”
“I only knew about the Purge after it happened, Dragon Goddess,” the Lord of Light said. “I admit that my negligence and self-absorbed detachment from reality was a major contributing factor to what happened, but I never ordered the deaths of any gods, I swear this to you.”
“Liar,” she spat. “Filthy, fork-tongued liar! Most of the old gods are dead because of you and your genocidal Church of Light!”
“It was never my intention that my followers would become so … fanatical,” he said, sighing sadly. “All I wanted was to bring light into a dark world. All of this,” he continued, sweeping his arms around him, “just … happened. And yes, I was too absorbed in studying the mysteries of the universe to know or care what was being done in my name, but I never desired this. Please, allow me to make amends for what has happened because of me.”
I hated this glowing chump as much as Yumo-Rezu did, but, regardless of my feelings about him, he had a major role to play in my quest. Still, I considered myself a good judge of character, and I had never been betrayed by someone without first predicting their betrayal. And, for all his faults, I could discern the honesty in the Lord of Light’s words. I knew, on a deep, instinctual level, that I could trust him.
“Go and do your thing,” I said, holding up my hand to pre-emptively silence Yumo-Rezu, who looked as if she was about to explode with unbridled fury. “But I promise you this, Lord of Light, if you betray or backstab us, your death at my hands will be more agonizing than anything Elandriel or the Blood God could subject you to.”
“I will not betray you, God of Death.”
He drew in a deep breath and stepped around the corner, while we waited with bated breath, with our weapons in our hands, ready to explode into action at a moment’s notice. I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen; part of me felt quite certain that the guards did know that
