by Zara Stark
“Spiders and butterflies, is your era dominated by bugs?” Lelras asked.
If I wasn’t terrified out of my mind, I might’ve laughed. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”
“The web carries all sorts of information. Someone from one continent can talk to someone from another without either of them leaving the comfort of their own homes,” Ciardha explained to Lelras before looking at me. “There, Alexander, a nice sum up without butterfly effect consequences,”
I flashed him a thumbs up when the sound of hooves and growls sounded from down the hall.
“Uh Seabiscuit, tell me you don’t have any cousins coming here to look for you do you?” Ciardha asked.
“No of course not,” Lelras huffed.
“Wendigos! They’re following us!” I yelled. “Run!”
“Oh fuck, the wards on the grootslang cage must not have gone off yet, the wendigos tracked us down here!” Mab yelled, she grabbed my hand again and pulled me along. “Hurry!”
“I hope your stupid ass coin knew what it was doing!” Ciardha snapped, flickering in and out of his ghost form. “I’m not risking a wendigo bite.”
“You’re a phantom, you idiot!” Mab yelled at him.
“Those are undead creatures! They can see and touch me in my ghost form!” Ciardha yelled frantically.
I knew those wendigos had been able to see us when we had been scouting the day before!
“This hall is dusty but there is air flow, there is an exit ahead!” Tefra yelled, pushing Mab and me along in front of him.
We ran down the hall kicking up even more dust, the hall got darker and darker as we descended deeper and deeper into the prison. Maybe the dust would obscure our scents?
I clenched my coin in my hand, flipping it between my fingers. As we ran, Mab and I in front with Ciardha hovering beside us, Tefra right behind us and Lelras trotting behind us, we saw a small green light at the end of the tunnels.
“More cells covered in wards,” Mab whispered and I nodded, that’s what I had been thinking too.
The sound of the wendigos cloven hooves behind us grew louder and louder. My heart pounded frantically in my chest in time with the sounds of their hooves against the stone.
Chapter 7
We made it to the glowing green hall but instead of relief my heart sank. These weren’t mindless monsters in locked up, these weren’t giant monsters. I craned my neck up to try and make out how tall the creatures in the cells around us were. I could hardly see where they ended.
“Oh my Gods,” I looked around at the monsters sitting behind bars. They were huge, monsters the size of cruise ships, the size of skyscrapers! Bigger than dragons! All long claws, spikes, and leathery skin. “What kind of monsters are these?”
“Primordial gods, Titans or older,” Tefra looked around, whistling low. “They aren’t like us, voluntarily here to give Tar a power boost. No Dis Pater sent them here after Jupiter’s coup against his father. Old as time.”
Ciardha looked down the hall, the sound of the wendigos growing even louder. “Free them, Alexander! Do it!”
“Are you sure? I mean is Tar going to be able to lock them back up?” I whispered, rubbing the coin between my hands until the metal grew hot.
“No, she can’t, they’ll break free and terrorize the world,” Lelras spoke up.
“No way, the only way out is Tar’s little portal and seeing how we’re going to high jack it, they’ll be stuck here,” Mab chimed in.
“You’re making a lot of assumption based on very little information. How do you know that that portal that you haven’t even seen with your own eyes is the only way out? Or is a way out at all?” Tefra smirked at the faerie dragon.
“Why do you even care? If she frees them maybe one of those primordial god monsters thingies will stomp you into mush, bones, and feathers, killing you once and for all just like you want,” Ciardha growled, his form growing a bit more opaque.
“Wow, how dark,” Tefra smiled at the shadow dragon, his eyes half-lidded. “I like it.”
Ciardha let out a low snarl at the phoenix.
“Ugh, either fight each other or make out already,” Mab laughed. She was so my new best friend. I'm keeping her. I nodded my head in agreement.
She looked at me. “Go for it Octavia. We can’t decide so let chance decide.”
I shrugged.
Terrible idea? Probably.
Our only chance to get away from the wendigos? Most likely.
I flipped the coin high into the air, catching it with one hand and flipping it onto the back of my hand.
I hesitated a moment before lifting my hand off of the coin.
“Heads it is,” Feeling a weird euphoria pump through me as I felt my magic sizzle in the air.
The massive cell doors blasted open, the wards going dark immediately instead of taking time to ebb away. The creatures in the cages lifted their massive heads one by one, glowing in the half-light. All of their eyes locked onto me and I froze under their ancient stares. Those weren’t the eyes of monsters but the eyes of ancient beings full of knowledge and power.
The primordials nodded their massive heads to me, kicking up so much dust that the simple gesture almost sent me flying across the hall.
A dozen wendigos stepped into the light and the primordials looked over to the terrible creatures with bored expressions.
“Let’s go!” Mab grabbed my upper arm hard, her nails digging into my skin. “Stop staring at the monster gods, we need to go now!”
She pulled me along as the wendigos closed in on us, their large blackened claws curling as they took in the sight of us. A steady diet of cannibalism left most of them looking more gaunt than the one I had battled against with my team. We probably looked like a delicious five-course meal. I swallowed a hard lump in my throat and tried to look less delicious.
We ran as a primordial stomped out of its cage, it’s massive footsteps shaking the prison. It blocked the wendigos from us.
The primordial creature lifted its head, a monstrous gaze met mine. Side-ways pupils embedded in bright red and gold eyes met mine, it blinked slowly, the lids closing vertically. I shoved down a feeling of repulsion at the alienness of the creature, I sure didn't want to offend the giant monster I was freeing, I wanted it to fight some wendigos not me after all.
Thank you for freeing me, little one, I heard in my head in a thick rumbling voice, the accent was in perfect American English, making me deduce that it was using magic to make itself sound like that.
Correct, it rumbled in my head.
Uh, you're welcome, I thought back to it. I grinned at the creature weakly. I hate to tell you this but there are a bunch of wendigos heading our way right now.
And that is why you have freed me? It asked me.
Well no, chance freed you, a flip of this coin, I held the coin up to the creature.
With its monstrous face, it gave me a toothy grin, humor in its strange eyes.
Well, we best make sure it's good luck to you rather than bad. It said. Go on, young one.
"O! What are you doing? Let's go!" Mab screeched.
“Good looking out, old timer!” I yelled to the god as we ran toward the opposite hall, none of us dared to look back.
A deafening roar from above us shook the prison. It didn’t sound like a wendigo and it sure as hell didn’t come from the tunnel behind us. It was the same roar Ciardha and I had heard when we were exploring.
“Daddy’s home,” Mab whispered. “Tar knows what we’re up to.”
“Daddy? That’s creepy,” Ciardha chuckled from next to us.
I slapped his arm, or I tried to, instead, my hand passed right through him. “Don’t you kinkshame her, you voyeur.”
“Hypocrite, you’re trying to kinkshame me right now,” He snapped. “You exhibitionist.”
“Seriously? Can we do this later? You know, when we aren’t running for our lives?” Tefra yelled from behind us.
“That’s ironic coming from you,” M
ab shook her head at Tefra.
“I agree with the phoenix, can we save the banter until we make it through the portal?” Lelras coughed.
“You wouldn’t know banter if it bit you on your horse’s ass,” Ciardha snorted.
“Everyone shut up! Ciardha lead the way to the portal and shut your trap,” I snapped at him.
“You’re pretty mouthy for a human,” He rolled his eyes at me.
“I’m pretty, mouthy and human. So what?!” I yelled. “I think we’ve established it a hundred times over by now.”
That shut him up. Instead of ghosting through the floors and walls like last time, Ciardha led us down hallways and through doorways. My legs burned with lactic acid build up, my muscles sore. I couldn’t even imagine how painful my muscles would feel if Raiden hadn’t put me through hell during training.
I imagined this situation differently as we ran, picturing it with my team instead. I highly doubted that we would even be in this situation, stuck under the thumb of Tartarus if they were here.
As we ran deeper into the bowels of the prison, I noticed a change in the stone of the walls. Instead of the light, dusty granites the walls slowly became formed by a dark, more compacted stone, more ancient and sturdy. Running along each side of the hall were gnarled tree roots, thick and petrified to a ghostly white with black shining lines running the through the wood grain. A weird chill passed through me, I didn't really have the time to be paying attention to minor details but weird alarm sirens went off in my head. Mab dragged me along, her fingers gripped like iron on my arm. I knew her nails were going to leave marks.
I clenched my coin hard in my hand, the metal growing hot against my hand.
Holy fuck, I really hoped those monsters or primordials as Tefra called him destroyed those wendigos. Would they keep each other occupied long enough for us to escape? Worst case scenario they would come after us next, possibly infected my wendigos claws.
For some reason, I was more terrified of the wendigos then those giant primordials. At least the primordials seemed sentient and could be reasoned with.
My eyes kept darting to the roots along the walls, I could've sworn the gnarled roots were moving.
"Tefra?" I looked back at him, as we ran. "Do you know what those roots are? I think they're moving."
His dark eyes flashed as he darted his gaze from mine to look at the roots snaking up and down the hall. "They most certainly are moving but what they are is a mystery. This is a very old and archaic part of the prisoner, more powerful, strong enough to contain the great ones that you just freed. I can only guess as to what their purpose is."
"And those guesses a--" I didn't get to finish my sentence as my foot caught an uneven stone jutting out from the stone floor. I tumbled to the ground, taking Mab with me.
Running forward while looking backward hadn't been a good idea. Go figure.
"Ow," Mab growled, jumping up to her feet. Her hand still awkwardly clamped on my forearm for dear life. She yanked me up to my feet with one hand and brushed off the dirt from her dress. I wobbled on my feet for a second, my knees were skinned and bloody.
"Watch out!" Ciardha yelled, grabbing my arm and ghosting me and Mab with him. A milk-pale tree root had reared up like a cobra and struck toward my chest. It passed right through me. If Ciardha had been a second later, my death certificate would have really said murdered by a tree.
We all rushed away from the snake-root, as it moved back and forth where I had been a moment before.
"Thanks, Danny Phantom," I sighed, patting his shoulder. "Good looking out. You saved my life."
He shrugged. "No biggie, it cost nothing."
"No, you saved us when you had no reason to! Thank you!" Mab gushed.
"What the hell are these snake-root things?" I shrieked as all the roots surrounding us started to slither and hum in the darkness.
"I think it's Tartarus' much older feeding system, roots dig deeper and deeper into the soil to absorb nutrients, I think that root was trying to latch onto you to feed on your power," He shrugged, looking nonplussed.
"Why would it pick me? Plants have biomechanisms to almost choose the best light source and the best soil to grow in. Following what you just said, wouldn't it pick someone else? You or Mab maybe?" I asked, confused.
"Thanks, babe," Mab winked at me.
"Hey! I just saved your life!" Ciardha yelled at me.
"Sorry," I cringed at him. "Or Ciardha?"
"How do you know it didn't choose the most powerful source?" Tefra asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
Was I?
"I'm just a human though," I shrugged.
Tefra shrugged back. "Whatever you say."
The roots started to move faster and faster.
Lelras started to stomp nervously. "We must get going."
He broke out into a full gallop, tearing down the hall, stomping at any root that dared to snake near him.
"To be continued," Tefra told me.
Tefra ran after him, his movement fluid and fast.
Ciardha let go of us and went after them.
"Oh great, we're stuck in the back," Mab sighed, pulling me along with her again.
"Those jerks," I shook my head. I made the tsk tsk sound with my tongue.
"At least if there's something bad up ahead, it will eat them first," Mab laughed.
"Yeah, that's always nice," I chuckled nervously as we ran. Raiden's brutal training had really helped me, I was barely out of breath at all. I would even tell him that if--. I shook my head when I saw him again. I would tell him how much he had helped me, even though I knew it was dangerous to feed into his immense ego.
As we ran after the guys, many of the root-snakes (as I dubbed them, it was better than calling them parasitic people-eating roots, at least it was less of a mouthful), most of them had been thoroughly stomped by Lelras's massive, black hooves. Yay for My Little Pony! A small portion of them were still writhing in agitation, ready to feed on us.
"How much further?" Mab complained.
"Out of shape, my old girl?" I sniggered at her.
"I'm in better shape than you'll ever be, faerie and dragon remember?" She snorted at me.
"That's definitely true," I grinned. "I'm only so good at running because Raiden worked me out so hard."
"Oh yeah, I'm sure he worked you out real good and it was so hard," Mab mocked.
"Well I was talking about literal exercise but that's true too, don't be jelly," I told her in jest.
"I'm not," She said defensively. She dropped her voice into a whisper "In fact, I think I've found my guys."
"You mean---" She clamped her hand over my mouth and nodded.
"Only one of them is a dragon though, one is a fatalistic Phoenix and the other a prince on a quest," I whispered.
"And the last an Underworld Prison God who wants nothing to do with me and whose prison we're destroying at the moment," She shrugged.
"What?! Him?! How?!" I yelled and she clamped her hand back over my mouth.
"Will you be quiet?" She hissed in a whisper.
"How do you know?" I asked, feeling very curious about her situation and my own. I know my guys had had a prophetic heads up about me and I loved all of them but what made us work together?
"Fate or pheromones? Who gives a fuck? All I know is that we're supposed to be together and things are going to keep getting more and more complicated and out of control. I have no idea what to do or how to act."
"You probably aren't looking for advice. In fact, I'm probably the last person who should give any advice at all. But just be honest as you can, go with the flow, stay true to yourself and fight for what you want. You're Mab, the only hybrid of two powerful species, the world is your oyster or whatever, those guys are lucky to have you. and if a certain douche bag Underworld god thinks he's better than you because he's a deity then he can shove it where the sun doesn't shine."
Mab stared at me with wide eyes. "Wow, that was the best worst pep talk I've ever heard i
n my life."
"Thanks!" I grinned as we turned a corner that we saw Ciardha run down. We slammed into all three of them.
Tefra and Ciardha righted Mab back in her feet and Lelras propped me back up.
"This is it," Ciardha whispered. "I think."
"How many golden doors could there be in this place?" Mab asked.
"Probably an infinite amount actually," Tefra whispered. "Only one way to find out if it's the right one."