Holy Opposites 18

	“Axio, the roof,” I croaked.  “He can get out the skylight.”

	“No, he can’t,” Axio said.  He jerked his thumb up.  “It’s in this room.”  He knelt by my side and rested his hands on my face.  “Hold still, okay?  I’m going to heal you.”

	I closed my ravaged eyes and tried not to scream as he poured healing magic into me.  “Lesser restoration,” he whispered, and I felt my eyes heal.  He sent an extra jolt of healing magic into my body, channeled from his pool of divine energy, and I was instantly feeling better.

	I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze as I rose to my feet and retrieved my glaive.  “Thanks, Axio,” I said.  “He threw his spell component bag in my face.”

	“I saw.  I’ll send him straight to his master for that,” Axio promised darkly.

	I pointed at the door.  “Can you dispel that?”

	“It’s a high-level spell, I won’t bother,” Axio said.  He stepped back and looked at the wall.  “Is he still in there?”

	I closed my eyes and extended my fiend senses.  Sure enough, there was an evil signature on the other side of the door.  “Yes.”

	“Fine.”  Axio looked up at the ceiling.  “This store hasn’t been maintained in decades.”

	“No.”

	“And the roof is wood.”

	“Yes.”

	Axio looked down at the floor – stone.  The walls next, they were wood.  “Fine.”

	He stepped up to the wall beside the door and drew his sword.  “We go under.”

	“Through the ceiling, from below?” I asked.

	“No.”  Axio drove his sword into the old wood of the ceiling, gouging a hole.  Splinters rained down on the floor around him.  “Cut the roof beam here,” he said, pointing at the central wooden spar of the room.  I was confused, but I did as I was told.  “Now above the doorframe,” he said.  I did so.

	“Axio, what are we doing?” I demanded.

	“Going under the wall,” Axio said.  “When I give the signal, I need you to get through and incapacitate the wizard.  Got it?”

	I squared my shoulders.  “I can do that.”

	“Good.”  Axio put his sword in the sheath and set the sheath on the floor, next to his shield.  He walked to stand beside the cut he had made in the wall and crouched down.  He stuck his hands in the holes and… and lifted…

	I watched in awe and total shock as my Aasimar partner simply removed the wall.  The old wood shuddered in his hands, divine light poured from his eyes and lit the room in sapphire blue; somebody on the other side of the wall screamed, and the wall moved.  It simply wasn’t where it had been.  The wood warped, tore, splintered, and lifted, as the Chosen of Ryaire put his immense strength, more than a mortal could ever have naturally, against the durability of old wood.

	I hear the skylight behind us splinter.  The ward on the door exploded in fire and light, scattering sparks all over the floor.  Bystanders outside screamed and ran as Axio tore the back fifth of the building’s top floor and the roof above it off and lifted it high, pivoting on the outside wall like a fulcrum..

	The wizard scrabbled back against the floor, agog, as Axio destroyed his lair.  Axio raised the part of the wall he had ripped loose, and that whole corner of the building pivoted up on the stump of wood behind the mage, at the wall opposite where Axio had cut.  Axio held it up long enough for me to duck under, then stooped down to retrieve his sword and shield… with one hand still holding the building…

	I was glad my features were concealed behind my magic disguise.  I would have been unable to hide my shock, and even then, I suspect it would have shone through to my face had we not been in shadow.  Axio held the wooden wall over his head, and the parts of roof that weren’t crashing all around us, long enough to retrieve his gear, then walked through, letting the wall collapse behind him with a thunderous smash.  Parts of building fell out into the streets.  I heard more screaming.

	I loomed over the terrified wizard and held my glaive to his chest, but he wasn’t looking at me, and I don’t blame him.  Axio’s eyes were still leaking blue smoke as he slowly walked over to us.  He stopped a mere foot from the huddled elf and leaned forward, very slightly.

	His voice was a divine commandment.  “Confess!” he thundered.  “Name your patron!”

	“B-B-Bane,” the elf said, teeth chattering in fear.  I felt a prickle of fiendish delight in his suffering and fear, and quashed it as hard as I could.  I would NOT let my evil flesh control me, I would not.

	“Why are you collecting children?” Axio demanded.

	“The M-Master commands it,” the elf stammered.  “Please, please don’t kill me.”

	Axio stooped and picked the elf up with his free hand and let him hang a foot off the ground.  “I won’t need to, scum,” he said flatly.  “The people out there are about to learn who it was that has been sending monsters to attack their children.”

	“No!”

	“Then tell me.  Why does your master want children?” I growled.

	“I don’t know!” the elf insisted.  He clutched at Axio’s hand as if it would have made the slightest difference.  “I swear!”

	Axio and I rolled our eyes at the same time.  We both heard the lie in his voice.  “Wrong answer,” Axio said.  He squeezed.  “Try again.  Truthfully.”

	“I really don’t know!” the elf insisted, sweating and bleeding from the falling wood cuts.

	Axio glowered.  “Again, wrong.”  He drew back one meaty fist and punched, and the elf rocked back, unconscious.  “We’ll see what the Watch gets from him,” he grunted, dropping the elf on the floor in a heap.

	I stepped back and blew out a breath of tension.  “Axio, that… that was unreal,” I said.

	Axio didn’t pretend he didn’t know what I was saying.  “The wall, eh?  Well, being Ryaire’s Chosen grants all kinds of powers,” he explained.  “Strength is the most obvious.”

	“No kidding,” I joked.  The lack of negative emotion from the elf was helping me calm down.  “So… no children here.”

	“Yes, I’m disappointed,” Axio said, looking around.  “They must take them somewhere else once they’re here.  How, I don’t know.”

	I looked around.  “Well, this place is trashed now.”

	Axio nodded.  “Right.  I bet the Watch knows we’re here,” he said drily.  “Let’s go out and greet them.”

	“Are you seriously that calm, or are you freaking out inside over having to fight, like I am?” I asked, taken aback by how cavalier he was.

	He sighed.  “I know it seems odd, but I really am that calm.”

	“I envy you that,” I admitted.  I stooped down and started tying up the prisoner.

	He looked away and said nothing.  I had expected a comment on my remark, but all I heard was silence.  When I finished binding the prisoner, I grabbed my weapon and Axio hoisted the elf onto his shoulder.

	“Off we go,” he remarked, letting me lead the way.


	Below, the street was anarchy.  Suivi Embersson watched the scene with shocked eyes.  The Aasimar strode out of the place into the knifepoints of the Watch like an avenging god, with a person over his shoulder.  The woman was standing off to the side, looking at all the smashed material in the street.

	He hadn’t beaten the gargoyles with martial skill; he had ripped the fucking roof off the place and dropped it.  Suivi felt ice crawl down his spine as he watched the total nonchalance on Axiopistos’ face.  The Paladin had removed his helm and had it under one arm as he explained the circumstances of the fight.  Suivi stood close enough to listen and recorded everything Axiopistos said in his mind, but it was a mechanical, rote thing.  The sheer destruction the Aasimar had caused looked like what the Tarrasque had done some years before; whole buildings smashed to flinders.

	The spy waited until the Paladin was done talking and walked back in before he took off.  Toller needed to know about this.  Embersson pulled his hood up and walked as fast as he dared towards the distant building with the impossible interior.


	Toller already knew.  He watched the entire scene unfold on the enchanted stone in his altar room. The image transmitted through the eyes of a statue on the roof of an adjacent building.  The old cleric’s hands tightened on the tabletop as he watched the Paladin rip the roof off the building.

	He wanted to shout at the screen for Greenpath to kill himself, or to jump out the window, or something, anything other than being taken alive by the monster who had just walked into his operation.  Embersson had warned him that the Paladins knew of the hideout, and he had sent the order to strip the place if need be, but this…

	He watched in disgusted silence as the Paladins emerged with Greenpath on their shoulders, tied up.  The Watch took him into custody, and Embersson walked off from the crowd.

	Toller sat still for a few more seconds before slamming his hands down on the table.  He rose to his feet and stormed down the corridor to the sacrificial chair.  He burst into the room without a knock and glared around, seething.

	“Gastor!” he snapped.  “Where are you?”

	A pile of rags and sinew in the corner unspooled and regarded him with three baleful eyes.  “Oh, what now?” it demanded.

	“Greenpath’s rookery was taken by the Watch and the Ryairans,” Toller said bluntly.  “What can you do?”

	The sinew golem waved one fibrous hand.  “From here?  Not a thing.”

	Toller bit back a curse.  “And the gargoyles?”

	“What about them?  I can’t bloody command what isn’t here!” the beast said angrily.  “Go to the others for help, if you need it.”

	Toller clenched his meaty hands.  “If the others knew what we were doing…” he muttered, before trailing off.  “No.  We just lay low.  Greenpath won’t talk.”

	“And my food?” the golem demanded.

	“I’ll do what I can,” Toller said, and he slammed the door.  He cursed under his breath with every step he took back up to the altar.  A piteous wailing arose from the nearest little door, but he ignored it.  He had far greater concerns.