This would be the very first time I actually tried to bring out a monster from a disk. I had no idea it was a difficult task either. I had watched the shrine master at my home town bring monsters forth before. Knew the various motions he practiced in doing so. But I thought it was mostly for show. Just put the disk down and call out for the monster to appear.

Boy, was I wrong. But as with most mistakes, you find out the hard way. After placing the stone in the indent on the floor, the shrine started to glow slightly. Light coming from under the disk, the moss seeming to glow on its own accord. I repeated the chant from the top of my head, as Angel stood back, by the door next to all our equipment. 'Ancient sleep be cast aside.' The glow started to pulse, erratically at first. 'No longer need you hide.' The pulsing lights seemed to flow out of the middle of the shrine now, filling the cracks in the floor and walls. 'Monster of the disk, ancient bindings I bid break. From your slumbering prison, you I !!!'

The last work was take. But I didn't quite make it that far. I had felt a sort of... Strangling sensation, and suddenly the last word fell back from my tongue and I was facing a person, a specter, I thought.

'SILENCE! You have not passed the trial, you have NO RIGHT to call on the monster in this disk.' A beautiful woman, slender and regal, in the shrine keeper's robes stood before me. Not really there, but the invisible hand on my throat convinced me she wasn't 'not there' either. 'You have DEFILED this shrine with your attempt at restoring this monster.' She was also very angry. Her face, while beautiful with dark liquid blue eyes and framed with sea green hair, was drawn up in rage.

I couldn't see Angel, being locked into place before this angry specter of the shrine, I could hear nothing but the spinning of the sacred disk on the altar, and the sound of my own heart pounding in my ears. Then the hard feminine voice raged on. 'Only one who has been tested may use this shrine!'

I remember willing my body to move. It felt suddenly as if a giant hand had clamped itself around my body, and simply held me there. After what felt like an eternity of gritted teeth and strained muscles, I managed to grind out the word 'Take!'

Things started to happen in slow motion then. First the lady before me gasped, as if surprised, her image taking a step back. The pressure holding me let go, and I fell, in that odd slow motion feeling, to my knees. I could swear I felt the whole temple beat as if it had some great heart pulsing underneath it, the eerie green white light pulsing in time. The disk behind the mostly see through lady spun faster, the design blurring then vanishing into the surface. Then the sound of something cracking, the disk, and the lady smiling at me as I once again felt the 'hand' start to hold me in place.

'Your defilement of this place will cost you this disk, hear how it breaks apart?'

Deep inside I felt despair. Everything depended on that monster. My life, my father's last request, and Angel. Everything. But something pushed past that despair, and I threw my head back and screamed at the top of my lungs before the invisible hand could hold my breath in place. 'Come out! DUUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAAANNNNNN!!'

A blinding white flash, even through my tightly closed eyelids it was almost unbearably bright. I felt that hand vanish from around me, just in time for an explosive shove, as if from a fast moving cushion throw me backwards with great force, into something almost as soft. Then the dull jarring thump as I hit my head.

***

I pause in my writing, and look up to Zan. He is sleeping now, if you could really call it that. Kneeling in almost a runner's start position, his back to a corner of the room with no windows nearby, he looked as if he was about to pounce somebody, the long blade like arms ready to slash and kill.

That's exactly what he was. Ready. Even in sleep, he would not be unprepared.

I shiver, and not because of cold.

Dipping my quill again, I take a deep breath, quietly, and write once more.

***

I was standing in a dark room. Well... To call it a room would be a little of a guess. The floor disappeared into blackness, and I could not see the ceiling. I looked around, and found that yes, it was a big dark empty room.

As my mind sorted this out, the same shrine maiden appeared before me. Deep liquid blue eyes, and sea green hair, with her white robes. She was solid too, and not angry looking at all. The absolute befuddlement must have shown on my face, because she smiled, and said 'You have passed. Awaken, and continue your quest.'

When she said this, and even now as I remember and write this, I had a dozen questions run rampant through my mind. But suddenly, the 'room' I stood in lit up, again unbearably bright, and I found myself not in some black endless room, but looking up at the face of Angel, my head on her lap, with the broken ceiling above her head letting a the full moon's light shine in on me. The walls of the shrine were only aglow with the moss now, but the altar itself was still glowing from what I could see looking between my feet.

Sitting up slowly so I wouldn't bump heads with Angel, I looked at the altar again. Down on one knee, a suit of gray metal armor knelt. Over its left shoulder was a bright red half cape, meant to cover the arm to display its banner proudly. In the right hand, a sword, the blade a least four feet long, was point down, stuck into the floor. I stood up, and approached. Watching the suit of armor stand, using its sword as a bit of a lever. I was a little shocked at it's appearance. Here in front of me, was a suit of half plate armor, with no body in it. 'So this, is Durahan.' I said.

The response I got was quite interesting. The suit of armor, stood at attention, hefted its sword in a chivalrous salute, and froze in position, seemingly waiting. This was another thing I wasn't very good at. Right off the altar monsters. My father handled all that.

'If you understand me. Um... At ease.' The Durahan let its right arm drop, to rest at its side. 'Come here please?' I tried again. And it did so too. I found myself eye level with the chin guard on its helmet, and looked back to Angel... Who had passed out?

Ooh oh.

She looked like she had just fainted, right from her kneeling position to support my head, to looking like she was pushed over like a sac of potatoes. Kneeling down quickly, my new Durahan blinking right out of my mind, I looked her over. As my mother had taught me, look before you move, I circled around her prone form a moment looking for what had caused her to faint. Blow to the head? No. Cuts? No. What colour would she bleed anyhow? I thought.

I heard a faint *clank* noise and looked up to see Durahan point to Angel's chest, where her arm had lain across her belly. I gently, noting that the sword was very sharp looking, nudged it aside, and looked closer. Lifting up her arm slightly I touched a hand against her side.

Up until that point in my life, I thought I wasn't at all squeamish. I'd seen bad tempered and evil monsters really hurt other monsters in the arena. I've hunted and skinned animals for food. But when I felt a couple of Angel's ribs shift, even under my light rubbing, I could have sworn I looked green. 'Oh crap.' I said quietly. 'She must have caught me... And...'

I remember being frantic. I remember pacing back and forth for a little while, looking for the answer to make Angel better. What was I supposed to do? Despite being a monster, I'd known her all my life and thought of her almost as my mother. And here she was, maybe dying, on the floor, because I don't know how to do th...!'

I felt a heavy, hard and cold hand grab my shoulder. Instantly snapping my mind out of its mental loop. That's right, I thought. I have help. 'Um. Can you pick her up gently?' I asked Durahan.

After a moment of tentative tries, Durahan kneeling down trying to pick up Angel while still holding his sword, I asked, 'Should I hold your sword?'

I would never have thought an empty suit of armor could portray 'offended' so well without coming to blows. It stood to its full height, and took a step backwards, crossing its arms over the chest plate, sword still in hand. 'Okay, keep the sword in hand. Let me lift her and you carry, like... Ah... This!" I picked up my backpack, and put it in the crook of my left arm. After receiving a nod (that went 'squeaky squeak') I gently propped up Angel, lifted her under the back and behind the knees, and sort of 'seated' her in the crook of the taller Durahan's arm.

This done, I put my pack on my back, and carried Angel's pack in my arms, and sort of waved with my head to Durahan to follow. 'We are going to the nearest town. Please, be careful?' This plea got me that same formal salute, done in a slow solemn way. And with that, we walked to town.


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Happy reading. (to the people who do in fact read this.) Comments craved. Good bad ugly, I don't care.