Eighteen || Yordaf's Lament

The back of the small room had opened into a passageway, a set of stairs that led downward at a rather sharp angle. The light from the small, hidden room only went so far, but the end of the passage was illuminated in a cool, white light, and it was enough to maneuver by.

Rue headed down the stairs and emerged into a short corridor that met up with another hallway. He stepped forward tentatively and pressed against the corner, leaning around to see if there was anything waiting there. The passage was empty, but it was also short; the room seemed to be little more than a transition hall, taking them in a tight turn until they looped back beneath the cathedral proper.

He slipped out from around the corner and proceeded.

The architecture was different down here, lacking the care taken to make the cathedral itself beautiful. It was far more utilitarian; the walls were gray concrete, the lighting in the form of simple bulbs positioned at even intervals along the ceiling. In that short corridor, there was nothing else to disrupt the stark aesthetic.

Next corner. He peered around and saw another hallway extending before him, gray walls lit up by that strange, sterile white light. This one, however, was pockmarked by slabs of unadorned concrete inset into the walls– doors, maybe.

He stepped around the corner and looked over his shoulder. Duke was watching him with anticipation.

"See anything?" he asked.

"Just the hall," Rue said. "Come on."

He led the way down the path, slowly at first, but he quickly realized that being deliberate would do nobody any favors. They had to find Elena.

He picked up the pace, moved to a fast walk, and reached the first of the doors. He looked it over quickly and realized that there was no handle or knob or keyhole or even rough indentation that would indicate how the door was supposed to open. He touched the surface, trying to feel along for some clue, but no matter how he pushed it he couldn't find a means of opening the door.

Behind him, Duke was having the same issue.

"What are these?" Duke said. "Are they even a thing?"

"Weird architecture choice if they aren't," Rue said.

They tried the next couple of doors they encountered, but they continued to refuse to budge.

So they kept going, down to the end of the long hall, where it terminated at another door– an actual door, a surprisingly ornate one, covered in swooping gilded patterns. Rue approached the door carefully and pressed his hand against it, pushed, and felt it give.

"This'll open," he said. "Take the other door."

"Charge in together, huh?" Duke said. "Sounds like a plan."

Duke pressed his shoulder against the other door. Rue unsheathed the gladius and angled himself. Duke counted them down, and at 'Go!' they slammed through the doors, ready to fight anything that was in the next room.

But they weren't entirely ready for the next room.

It was a large square, several feet deep and several feet wide, but the ceiling was just as low as it had been in the hallway and made the room feel cramped and claustrophobic, even for its size. Decorating the room were four long, thin tables, covered over by rumpled sheets. The room itself was not nearly so sterile as the hallway; old stains splattered the floor and flecked the walls, and a strange, dank scent still hung heavy in the room.

"What is this?" Duke said quietly.

Rue stepped forward, toward one of the tables, and examined it more closely. Sets of straps lay across the top, attached to the bottom of the tables and meant to be tightened and secured on the top. He gave it one more look over, just to be certain.

"I think it's an operating theater," he said.

Duke was at another one of the operating tables, slowly working on getting the cloth off the top. When he yanked it away, it became clear; the tables had a thin cushion to them, badly worn down by time, but it was clearly meant for somebody to lie down on. Or be placed on. Rue didn't particularly like the look of the straps.

"Well," Duke said. "This is a little..." His words trailed off, and he shivered visibly.

"If it's any consolation, it looks like this hasn't been used in centuries."

"No dust, though."

Rue looked back at the table. "No," he said. "No dust." He looked around the room and his gaze finally settled on the door in front of them, directly across from the one they had entered through. "Duke?"

"Hmm?"

"You saw them take Elena, right? I mean, they just knocked you out but they took her down here."

Duke thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. "Yeah, that's right."

"They took the bag too, right? With the armor?"

"I think so." He headed toward the next door. "You think they took her 'cuz she was holding on to that stuff?"

"Maybe." Rue looked around the room again and found himself hoping that was their entire impetus. Given what he was seeing, he didn't want to contemplate the other possibilities.

Duke grunted and pushed the next door open. He peeked out into the room, then leaned back in. "Coast is clear. None of those doll-things."

"Where did they go? I wasn't outside that long, how deep in are they?"

"How deep can it get?" Duke asked. "How big you think this place is?"

A legitimate question. He had assumed that the atelier was just beneath the cathedral, but even if that was correct he had failed to account for the possibility of how deep it might go. But then, remembering Doyle's story, he didn't think it was that deep, not if people could still hear the screams in the cathedral. Granted, Yordaf might have performed his rites closer to the surface than the atelier reached, but then why build the rest of his unholy temple if he was staying so close to the surface?

They entered into the next hallway, and Rue assessed it quickly; clear and empty before it took another sharp turn at the end... and like the last one, it was also interrupted at uneven intervals by the unmoving doors.

They made their way down to the end, but as they neared the corner Rue felt something in his chest start to tighten, and breathing was coming a little harder. He felt cold, he felt nervous, and he had to run to the front, ahead of Duke, to confirm his suspicions. He reached the corner and pressed his back against it, then gave himself a few seconds to get steady again. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, pressed his fingers against his temples to fight the light-headedness that was slowly coming over him. After a moment – a moment more – the feeling had mostly passed, and even though he was still shaky and frightened, he could at least function again.

He leaned around the corner.

There they were, maybe a dozen of them total, all congregating near the end of the next hallway. They were moving as one, shuffling slowly, and he saw that a couple of them were very close together at the head of the pack, although there were so many between him and them that he couldn't see anything more than that.

"Puppets," Rue said. "They're– they're all up ahead."

He sounded breathless and tried very hard not to, but Duke picked up on it immediately. "What is it with those things?" he asked.

"They're damage," Rue said. "I mean, their, ah, their souls are damaged."

He waited for a follow-up question – 'How do you know that?', anything of the like – but Duke was shooing him to the side so he could get a better look. Rue ducked out of his way, and Duke took his place peering around the corner.

"Oh, wow," he said. "That's... there's a lot of them."

He looked over his shoulder.

"Gonna have to fight through 'em," Duke said. "You got my back?"

Rue blinked, a bit taken aback by the question, but finally nodded.

Duke nodded back and slipped out from behind the cover of the corner, and without further warning charged straight down the hall toward them. Rue was slow in following, the abruptness of Duke's actions catching him off guard, but it was just as well; those few seconds gave Duke the head start he needed to plow straight through the gathering of puppets.

The puppets turned upon Duke, and even as he tore through them – admittedly impressive to watch – the others were descending upon him just the same, striking and shrieking. Rue had an obvious shot to get through the ones in the back – the ones attacking Duke's back – but he hesitated just a moment when he saw a flash of blue up ahead. The two puppets leading the ground and turned and together lifted what they were carrying, and were working their way out of the congregation and toward the farthest concrete door. They approached the door and it slid open before them, easy as anything, and shoved themselves into the opening. Just before they vanished behind the concrete slab, he saw that they were carrying Elena.

He almost threw himself down the hall. The oppressive aura of the puppets weighed down on him, but he focused on that image – of them stealing Elena deeper into the atelier – and kept that foremost in his mind. He was screaming at himself that he had to get out of here, that there were too many, that one was too many, that they were wrong and vile and he shouldn't be here nobody should be here and he let the thoughts just carry on as terrible background noise while he kept hold of that image and it didn't matter, didn't matter how many of those monstrous things there were, he had to save her he couldn't let her be taken by them but they didn't belong they shouldn't be there what could have made these creatures because something had done this to them and there was evil here he had to leave but he wasn't leaving without Elena had to

Duke's hand came down on his shoulder and Rue wheeled and barely stopped himself from slicing into Duke's chest. Rue had to force himself to step back, force himself to calm down. He was shaking and the adrenaline was screaming through him and he was overwhelmed by the sound of blood rushing through his ears and he had to tell himself over and over again to

"Stop, woah, stop," Duke said. "They're gone."

Slowly, his body unknotted, the fog over his mind drifted away, and Rue looked around.

They weren't gone, of course, but the whole mass of puppets lay strewn on the ground, broken and lifeless once more. He felt a wave of cold wash over his skin and involuntarily tensed again as he saw the first flickering remnants of their desiccated souls start to coalesce. Carefully, deliberately, he sheathed the gladius.

"Sorry," Rue said, his voice cracking slightly as he spoke. He swallowed and tried again; "Sorry, I just–"

"Don't apologize," Duke said. "That was intense. What happened to you?"

Rue decided that saying 'crazed fear' was probably not the best answer. Fortunately, he had another, equally legitimate one.

"The ones up front," he said. "They had Elena."

"What? Where is she?"

Rue walked to the door they had disappeared through. "In here," he said, and shoved himself against the door. "I saw them– walk through this." He shoved again. "But I don't know how!"

Duke stood back and studied the door. "So," he said finally, "maybe only these puppet-things can get inside."

Rue looked at him.

"That's–" He exhaled and looked back at the door and realized that Duke had a pretty solid idea. "Okay. Um... maybe..."

"I got it," Duke said. He reached up for one of the puppets and brought it over to the door, and waited for a few seconds. A few more. Frowning, he slapped it against the concrete and held it there, waiting for the door to respond. Still nothing. With a sigh, he laid it back on the ground.

"Never mind," he said, and not a moment afterward suddenly cried out; "Wait! Rue!"

"Yeah."

"Can you... can you maybe transform into of them? Maybe this isn't working because they're kind of... you know. Dead."

Rue opened his mouth to speak. Immediately words failed him. He gave up, tried again, and all he managed was a high-pitched exhalation. He snapped his teeth together and looked down the hall. There were still a few lingering spirits twining their way up in the air, all of them fragmented and misshapen and it was actually hurting him somewhere deep in his head just looking at them.

The idea was repulsive. He had never dealt with such a fundamentally broken, twisted spirit. He didn't know if he could even do anything with it, which was better than the other thought; he didn't know what it would do to him.

And maybe the idea wasn't even going to work. Maybe the puppets had some kind of magic that they had used to open the door, even though he couldn't feel any of the active bindings of it. But they were so alien – so wrong – that perhaps there was something else to it, something he could never hope to understand, which–

Which still meant that, if that were the case, transforming into one of these creatures would still work out for him.

"I–" He swallowed. His mouth seemed abruptly dry. "I can give it a shot."

One of the lingering spirits had vanished while he had been trying to come to a conclusion, but two others remained. He tried to study them, see which one was less anomalous, but they both twitched and mutated so freely there was no easy way to tell, and if he stood there for much longer they would both be gone and they would have to seek out another of these creatures and he couldn't afford to wait any longer. He focused on the one closest to him and willed it to himself.

The spirit bobbed through the air, lilting and twisting in odd ways as its shape continued to deform and twist. His whole body tensed, and he had to put everything he had into refusing to run; every fiber of himself was refusing to assimilate this thing.

This isn't about me, he reminded himself. If we can't reach Elena...

He relaxed just enough that he could forced himself to catch the light. The soul energy suffused his body, and he shut his eyes tightly and clenched his teeth to combat the vague sickness he felt on acquisition– although this was more than just vague. A few seconds later, when the feeling should have passed, he was hit suddenly by a foul sensation settling in his stomach, something so abrupt and strong that he doubled over and had to brace himself against the floor. Discomfort turned to full-blown nausea, and he buckled over completely, gagging into the stonework. It was dumb luck he hadn't bothered to eat anything that morning.

After what felt an eternity, his limbs stopped shaking and his stomach settled and he looked up blearily. With one arm he wiped away the tears of nausea, and then ran his hand through his hair, getting it out of his eyes. He leaned back and stared to rise, slowly – painfully – only to look up and find a hand in front of his face.

"C'mon up," Duke said.

"Thanks," Rue gasped, and Duke helped him back to his feet. When he was standing he was hit by another wave of disorientation, and had to lean against the wall for a few seconds until it passed.

"What was that?" Duke asked.

Rue shook his head. "Don't– don't worry about it."

He had to get this over with quickly.

He turned toward the door, gave himself a few more seconds to settle, and then closed his eyes and focused again, on the puppet's form. He felt it rise within him, a cold and almost prickly sensation that made his skin itch, and he concentrated on it, braced himself, let go. Azure light exploded behind his eyelids, and as it faded, he

the master demands sacrifice

he will bring her back if only you can make him happy

they're all insufficient, he'll never approve of this

I'll fix it

take matters into your own hands

stitches them back together but it never holds never holds never holds never

I'm sorry

Rue's eyes snapped open and he found himself sprawled on the floor, slick with sweat, gasping for air. He reached up and pressed his hand against his head, felt the sharp edge of crystal under the cloth headband. His hair was tousled and falling in his face again, such bright white, everything else seemed so gray...

"Hey." A voice. It sounded like it was far away, and filtered through some kind of pipe, all distant and hollow and faintly echoing. He tried to latch on to it, but he could feel his conscious effort slip away. He latched on to something else, then; the impossibility of it.

Because yes, that was right, he was in the atelier, and he was right where he had been, and Duke had to still be there, so the voice wasn't far away at all. That's right. That's right...

Now pressure on his shoulders, gentle shaking, although it felt like his brain was knocking around the inside of his skull and most of his organs felt strangely detached and floating, sloshing around inside of him. He felt sick again, wanted to throw up, fought down the urge. Nothing there, nothing there, it would only make his chest hurt and he felt hurt enough.

"Hey, you there? You okay?"

Rue tilted his head back. Dark hair, sharp features, gray eyes, pupils dilated. Fear.

"Help me up," Rue said, or at least tried to; the sound was far more garbled than liked. Duke seemed to understand it, at least, and helped haul Rue back to his feet. When he was standing again, he pressed his whole hand against his face, trying to fight back the pressure building up all through his skull. "What...?"

"I dunno," Duke said. "I thought you were gonna do your thing but then you just kind of... collapsed. What happened?"

What did happen? Voices, he remembered that, and– flashes, too, images bursting into his head too quick and too abstract for him to understand. He tried to focus on them, but when he did he almost felt his entire head would collapse. He stepped back, didn't concentrate, but still tried to understand...

"Yordaf... did something," Rue said, the words forcing themselves through his teeth. "Trying to... augh, geez." He pressed his hand against his head again, Too much pressure.

"Look," Duke said. "I'm gonna see if there's another way around."

"No," Rue said quickly. "No, I think– I think you're right. They can go through these things, I just need to– hold on to something."

Duke raised an eyebrow. "Like a... hand bar, or something...?"

And Rue laughed– or made a sound that was close enough to it.

Then he focused. First on the puppet, but then after that, he summoned something else to mind, something much warmer that cast away the frigid prickling under his skin.

Watch over me, Claire.

He released his hold.

Light blazed around him, and he heard it again, the chattering of voices, whispering and screaming through his mind, clawing at his consciousness. But they were distant now; there was something between him and them now, soft, powerful.

He looked up.

He was blind; the puppets had no eyes, and as he extended his self-awareness he also realized that there was no face, either. Artificial parts, bits of machinery and cloth crudely fashioned into humanoid form and held together by binds of expertly sewn magic. They had been mass produced this way, devoid of individuality and identity and life. That had to come later.

Focus!

Right. Blind. But he didn't need vision, not in the traditional sense. The puppet had a tactile awareness of its surroundings, and though it took him a few seconds to acclimate he already understood the principal; it was almost the way he could feel magic.

He moved forward, ignoring the strange, numb grinding of machinery inside him, and stood in front of the door. He dug through the storm of thoughts being held at bay until he found one that seemed relevant, and cast its echo forward, toward the door.

The master desires me to enter.

The door opened, and immediately Rue abandoned the transformation and without another thought jumped forward in case it slammed shut behind him. Duke was hardly a second behind, and just as well; as soon as he cleared the doorway, the concrete slab snapped down, locking in behind them.

"You still okay?" Duke asked.

"B-better," Rue said. "I'm... I'm not doing that again."

"Yeah," Duke said. "That's okay."

Rue leaned against the wall and slid down until he was sitting at the base. "Gimme a minute," he said. "I just... a few minutes."

"All right," Duke said. "I'm gonna scout ahead. Meet up with me when you're good."

Rue nodded, and heard Duke's footsteps recede as he walked away.

When Rue was sure he was far enough away, he reached up to his forehead and touched the crystal. He willed the puppet forward again, but this time pushed it all the way to the forefront of his mind. He wasn't actually sure if this would work, but there was no sense not trying.

He focused, then pulled his hand away. Almost instantly he felt better, his sickness disappearing almost completely, and when he looked up he saw the puppet's soul, contorting and writhing, twisting up and swallowing itself. He watched it for a few seconds until it twisted, swept itself away, and disappeared. A sense of catharsis swept through him.

He got himself back on his feet just in time for Duke to come back into the room.

"You're up?" Duke asked.

"Seem to be."

"Great. I found where they took the girl. Just down the hall."

"Let's go."

Duke led the way this time, even though the hall was a straight shot to the end. When they got there, Duke pressed up against the door – another larger, more ornate set – and gently pushed it open.

Rue felt their presence before Duke had fully opened the door, but he wasn't quite prepared for the number of gathered puppets in the room, or the state of the room in general. It was another operating theater, although this one only bore one table, and the staining around that table was far more erratic and far more ingrained. Elena was laid out on top of it, on her stomach, plainly unconscious; the bag with the small armor pieces lay discarded beneath her.

"Up for another go?" Duke asked, flashing him a grin.

"Not much choice," Rue said.

But before they were ready to burst into the room, the puppets turned as one to the other door. There was noise, almost like chatter, and then they scattered, streaming to the two sides of the room. On either side, one of their personal doors opened, and the puppets managed – with a great deal of bumping and inadvertent shoving and awkward maneuvering – to filter themselves out of the room.

Rue and Duke stood motionless.

"They left," Duke said.

Rue did not respond. He opened his door a little further, peered into the room, and then stepped fully inside. All of the puppets had vacated, and they had not bothered to strap Elena down to the table or anything.

He moved quickly, straight to the middle of the room, scooping Elena up in his arms and retreating right back to the corridor. He emerged from the doors and lay her gently on the ground.

"What, that was it?" Duke asked.

"I doubt it," Rue said. "Hold on."

He went back into the room, moving toward the bag of accessories, his eyes on the opposite door. The puppets had fled from something; with any luck he could be in and out before it came back, and then they could concentrate on finding a way out of the atelier.

He grabbed the bag and was halfway back to the other door when he felt it, a fog rolling over the back of his head, a jolt down his spine, a constriction in his chest. He stopped cold and tried to force himself to move, but it was no good; he couldn't even keep his grip on the bag, and it slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a metallic clatter.

He heard the doors open and managed to jerk his head around, looking over his shoulder.

Oh, god.

There was a creature there, long and impossible thin, its limbs little more than over-extended bones, its torso all spine and sternum wrapped in loosely-clinging flesh. The arms and legs were far too long, forcing it into slow and deliberate movement as it found the ideal way to place its too-human hands. Long, boney fingers reached forward and grasped the sides of the operating table, and the other arm tilted down, lowering the upper torso so its head was roughly Rue's level.

No, heads. The first one was almost predictable, some thin-skinned skeletal visage, grinning at him with exposed teeth and empty eye sockets, poorly stitched and shriveling flesh tearing at the seams to reveal the dull ivory of the skull beneath. It seemed an appropriate mask for the rest of the elongated, twisted creature, but it was actually the second face that left him paralyzed.

It was a woman.

A woman's head, eyes closed, lolling lifelessly to the side, long brown hair dripping to the floor. Thin features, high cheekbones– she was still perfectly formed, and it would have been easy to think she was somehow simply asleep were it not for her neck terminating rather grotesquely into the monster's torso, where the poor stitching was coming undone.

He stared, unmoving, as the fine limbs of the monster tilted and moved, and its torso glided toward him. Its head stopped a few feet in front of him, and the skeletal face tilted to the side. It exhaled, carrying strange, rattling words on its breath.

"Where is...skin..."

The stench of its breath, heavy with rot and mildew, suddenly jolted him back to the present. Rue coughed and turned away from the creature, grabbing the edge of his shirt to try and cover his nose, but he felt it moving over him, leaning closer. Its limbs reached forward, hands splayed out on either side of him, tall spidery limbs holding the creature's torso right over his head.

"Stole it..."

He scrambled to pick up the bag again.

"Beloved... I will bring you..."

As soon as his hand was around the mouth of the bag, he hurled himself through the doors. He emerged, stumbled, barely caught himself, and looked over his shoulder.

"Duke! Elena! Get!"

Duke picked her up gently, but was staring at Rue. "What's–"

The door creaked open, and one slender arm emerged from the room. The hand opened and splayed against the floor, and the rest of the arm began to move through. Then the shoulder, and shortly after the shoulder the torso swung out through the door.

"Young," it hissed. "Be young again, beloved."

Duke stared, mouth ajar. Rue shoved him in the direction they had come from. He staggered, shook it off, and started running back down the path, with Rue following just behind.

They slid into the room they had come in from, and Rue slammed the door behind them. It wouldn't stop the thing once it caught up to them, but they would at least have a few extra seconds. He turned from there, ready to head out the other door, and stopped himself.

Right. The door that only puppets could walk through.

"You're gonna need to do that thing again," Duke said.

Rue ran up to the door and pressed his hands against it, trying to force it to slide in the direction it had opened in. Naturally, it did not.

"Look, I know that messed with you pretty bad, but–"

"I can't," Rue said quickly.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"I mean that it is physically impossible. I–"

Something thudded outside. The door rattled, then exploded inward, and the stitched monster thrust its upper body into the room. It turned slowly, regarding Duke and Elena, then twisted itself to look at Rue. Rue dropped the bag and drew his sword.

The monster laughed– rather, made a strange noise somewhere between laughter and screeching. Without further warning, its chest burbled, ballooned, and then burst in a cloud of putrid air and dry bone shards. Emerging from a hole now torn its upper right ribs was a third head, elongated and almost serpentine. It opened its jaws, gathering power in the back of its throat, and then exhaled a plume of flame. Rue pulled back and slammed against the wall, away from the flames but not out of the heat.

"Duke, out of the way," he said.

Duke almost objected before he looked down at Elena, and then took a few steps back from Rue. Rue reached down and with his free hand grabbed the bag again, and stared the monster down.

Unfortunately, the creature seemed more interested in Duke and Elena; it was turning to face them, its arms making an awkward scramble to twist around, and he couldn't have that. Rue lunged, swinging the gladius, and slammed the blade into one of the creature's arms. It rebounded off the bone, but now he had its attention again.

The serpentine head hissed, fire gathering in its jaws, and Rue dashed forward and jabbed the sword up. He felt it connect with the thing's lower jaw, heard it shrill, and quickly removed the blade and pulled back to where he had been standing.

The serpent shrieked; the whole monster reared back on its awkward hind legs, heads brushing the ceiling, and then it slammed forward and brought the entire weight of its body down. Rue threw himself to the side, and the monster slammed into the space where he had been a moment before– and then through it, its torso crashing into the wall and into the door. When it leaned back, covered in rubble and dirt, the door was jacked to one side, its mechanism broken.

Except he needed it completely open.

He looked at the monster as it twisted to face him, then under it, toward Duke and Elena. He shot Duke a look and a nod and hoped that it was enough for him to understand, and then started moving backward again, this time angling toward the other door.

The monster was turning with him, its skeletal face keeping its eyeless gaze on him, its too-long limbs twisting and turning to keep it moving. He continued to back up, and the creature pressed forward. Behind it, he saw Duke must have figured out what he was saying; he was at the door, Elena laid down next to him, working to shift the thing entirely out of the way.

He only saw a glimpse, though, as the monster, now stable and facing him, lowered its torso again. He expected a blow from the head, or for the serpent to wake up and spew flame, and prepared himself to parry only to be struck from the side by one of its claw-like hands.

He flew, hit the ground, and skidded along the stones until he came to a painful stop, scraped all down his side. His arm especially seemed to have taken it badly; there was a fine trail of blood leading from just about where he had hit the ground to right where he was lying, connecting him to where the gauntlets and sollerets had fallen.

He dragged himself upright, trying to use the gladius to balance, his left side screaming in pain. He managed to right himself and stared up at the creature, bracing himself as best he could even though his limbs felt liquified.

He just needed an opening, a moment, just a sliver of time to–

The creature raised its hand and grasped for him again, and Rue dove forward. He reached out, grabbed the bag, rolled to his feet and ran. He was flagging, his adrenaline was almost all used up, but all he had to do was reach the door and then the thing couldn't follow him, it was just too large, he just had to outrun it...

And he could. Its misshapen limbs tangled it up as it tried to turn to face him, and even though he was rapidly running on empty and starting to stumble, he made it back to the room, back to the door, and as he had hoped Duke had somehow jarred it loose and the concrete slab rested along the bottom of the door opening. He jumped over it and nearly knocked himself out when he completely failed to actually gain altitude, slamming his chest against the top of the stone.

He backed off, coughing, and looked over his shoulder. The monster was almost on top of him. He tossed the bag and sword through the hole and managed to shove himself over the other side. He splayed on the ground, briefly winded, then kicked off the stone door and managed to drag himself a couple of feat away, just within reach of what he had already thrown ahead, when a bony hand grasped his ankle and yanked him back toward the door. He scrambled for purchase, but no good, and the monster nearly had him dragged back through the door opening.

"Come back here," the monster said. "Such... sublime architecture, I must–"

"Sunrise Uppercut!"

Rue barely had time to process what he was hearing before Duke, hurling himself from where he had been waiting in the corner of the room, rocketed upward and slammed his blazing fist into the creature's primary head. The skeletal head snapped up and immediately crashed against the top of the opening, then slumped down, body slack, back into the room. Duke caught Rue by the collar and dragged him several feet away from the door opening, and then doubled back to the corner where he – and Elena – had been hiding. He picked her up and jogged back to Rue. Rue managed, very carefully, to get himself back on his feet, and stared at Duke.

"What was that?" Rue asked.

Duke smiled thinly. "The hero always waits until the most dramatic moment."

Rue considered.

"All right, I'll give you that one," he said.

"C'mon, we're out of here."

The monster slammed into the wall behind them, its rasping voice screaming unintelligible threads down the corridor as it continued to try to crash its way through the walls.

"Yes," Rue said. "We are."

. .

Leaving the atelier was slow going, but mercifully uninterrupted, and the path back was mostly a straight shot. They clambered up the stairway and back into the red room, then out into the cathedral itself. Rue allowed himself a few minutes of recovery, then went back into the red room and shifted all of the furniture around. It had been disrupted by the puppets emerged earlier, but now he used it to create a makeshift wall in front of the passage.

"That's not gonna stop 'em," Duke said.

"It'll trip them up," Rue said. "And it makes me feel better."

"Eh, fair enough."

Rue was concerned that the doors would still be locked by the they left, but when they reached the front doors they swung inward easily as though they had been oiled, and without another question or further hesitation they left the cathedral and didn't stop walking until they were beyond the outskirts of town and at the edge of the lake, at which point Rue could not force himself on any more. He sat down on the grass and stared out over the lake. It was barely past midday.

"That was fun," Elena said. "But can you put me down now?"

Duke looked down at her and blinked. "When did you wake up?"

"A coupla minutes ago." He obliged, gingerly placing her on the grass, and she immediately sprang back to her feet and dusted off her dress. "You two saved me, huh?"

Duke looked away and ran his hand through his hair. "Well, I couldn't not," he said. "Monsters kidnapping a girl? I can't abide that."

Her smile widened. "Thank you, Duke," she said, and half-bowed to him. "You really are super nice, aren't you?"

"Feh."

"What's the last thing you remember, Elena?" Rue asked.

"Hmm." She turned to face me. "Those guys took me down into a big hallway. I tried to hit them, but it didn't really do anything. Then they got annoyed and knocked me out." She looked at him more closely, then gasped. "What happened to you!"

"A few different things," he said. "It's superficial, don't worry about it."

She gave him a heavy glare and brought out the little healing bottle. "Nuh-uh," she said. "I can fix you up and you're not gonna stop me."

Rue put up his hands in surrender. "If you insist."

She did. She knelt down next to him and immediately got to work, soaking the edge of her dress with the ointment and applying it along the scrape of his arm.

"Stubborn streak," Duke said.

"I guess so."

"Well." Duke stretched, shook out his limbs, and started to walk. "I'm gone."

"That's it?" Rue asked. He looked at the little bag of armor and nudged it. It felt like everything was still there. "I thought you were interested in whatever I was collecting."

Duke rounded to face him. "You really wanna fight over it?"

"No fighting," Elena said flatly.

And Duke laughed. "Guess I can't go against that kinda request. You're lucky, Rue. If your lady friend wasn't here I'd gladly take you up on that offer." He grinned. "Although it wouldn't be much of a fight. How 'bout you stop bleeding all over the place and we'll have a real battle?" He nodded to the bag. "I'll win that stuff back easy. And then some."

"Can't say I look forward to it," Rue said.

"No, but you better be ready for it."

And with that, Duke turned and headed off at a jog. Rue looked over to Elena.

"Elena?" he said.

"Hmm? Does it hurt?"

"What? No." Actually it was a rather pleasant sensation, cool and almost bubbly- which sounded very much like a potion Mel would concoct. "I was just gonna ask. What exactly did you have in mind tonight?"

Her brow furrowed. "Well," she said, "you and Mint are working so hard to help Dad, I thought maybe we could just relax. I was gonna set up a picnic and we could come out here on the lake – the other side, I mean – and maybe watch the sunset. Or– or not. I really just wanted to talk to you guys."

"That..." He exhaled and closed his eyes. "That sounds delightful, actually."

Elena perked up. "You mean it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that actually sounds really nice. Let's do that."

"Yes! Oh, I'm so excited, what should we pack? I know Mom had some really good leftovers, and– oh! I might have time to bake a pie! Would you like that? Mom and I make a really good pumpkin pie."

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be delicious."

Elena continued patching up his wounds, now grinning broadly, and Rue looked out over the water, first to the altar, then to the opposite shore. He really liked the idea of relaxing.