by James Beamon
“No, no, no,” Jason said, shaking his head and waving his arm club like a truce flag. “Most mazes are built in what’s called a ‘simply-connected’ design. To keep from getting lost or going down the same tunnels over and over, you keep your left hand on the left wall and follow it around. Do that and you never go down the same tunnel twice.”
“Why can’t we do the same thing with the right?” Rich asked.
“Talk about this later!” Melvin cried, taking off down the left passage with Jason and Rich scrambling behind. The tunnel opened up into a barracks room. The wooden frames had caved in on most of the bunk beds, spilling mattress and support slats onto the bottom bunk. Dust lay thick and undisturbed on footlockers. Netherfire in wall recesses told them this room was a dead end.
They turned around and saw three pairs of eyes shining in the darkness. Strandwolves, and this time there was no escape route.
Melvin brought his trembling sword up as he backed up into the barracks. Beside him, Jason raised his arm club, a look of menace etched into his gray aian face. Behind them, Rich looked around the room frantically as if something useful lay hidden in the dilapidated wood.
The strandwolves lunged. A massive hairy body dominated Melvin’s field of vision as it jumped at his face.
He flinched, stabbing wildly at air while his eyes stayed squinted shut. He felt his sword hit something, followed by a yelp.
He opened his eyes and saw his blade stained with blood tinted blue under the netherfire light. One of the strandwolves was down, blood steadily seeping from a wound in its chest. Beside that one, another strandwolf lay asleep. Jason must have hit it with his arm club.
Jason was yelling. The third strandwolf was on his good arm, its maw full of sleeve and the forearm underneath. Apparently, Jason’s swing had knocked out the one but had left his arm exposed. Now the strandwolf was shaking its head violently, pulling an already off balance Jason down.
Rich kicked the strandwolf in the face. It yelped and released Jason’s arm as it backed away snarling. Melvin readied his sword, but he noticed the strandwolf was looking beyond them, snarling at something low to the ground.
He turned and saw the strandwolf he had stabbed in the chest was back on its feet. Its eyes were vacant. The beast was clearly dead... and freshly risen.
“What the...!”
Melvin didn’t get to finish the expression, as the living strandwolf exploded past them and launched itself at the undead beast. The two went at each other, snapping and growling in the barracks. Rich pushed Melvin out of the room and grabbed Jason by the arm. Together, they fled back to the intersection.
When Melvin looked at the three identical passages, a surge of panic rose and died a moment later. The “always go left” trick meant the way to the mess hall was on their right. Their only options were left or straight. He was able to keep it all clear in his head, despite his heart racing and the fear rising.
“Left,” he said and began proceeding. He stopped short because Rich had followed him but Jason had stayed in the intersection. Jason was shaking his head, staring into the tunnel that led back to the barracks.
“Might as well give up,” Jason said to the empty tunnel. “Nothing stays dead here.”
“Jason...”
“It all comes back. It all comes after us.”
“Jason... c’mon man...”
Melvin took a step toward his friend. Hands emerged from the darkness of the tunnel behind Jason, several hands, their fingers caked with dirt or missing nails in places.
“Jason!”
Jason looked back and screamed as the hands grabbed him and pulled him into the darkness. Melvin ran forward to see the briefest glimpse of his friend getting pulled into a sea of corpse warriors. The undead shuffled toward Melvin and Rich.
“Free... me.”
Melvin raised his sword. Rich grabbed Melvin’s arm and shook it.
“Mel! There’s too many. We gotta run!”
Melvin shook his head, looking for his friend in the mass of bodies growing closer.
“Mel!”
Rich was right. Melvin yelled out, a mixture of anger, despair and frustration before turning to run with Rich down the tunnel.
JASON WAS IN THE MIDST of festering rot. Slimy, putrefied hands pushed and pulled him. Every second he expected all their mouths to start biting into him. But their hands just kept pushing, pulling, herding him where they wanted.
He was ushered through a grand chamber. The netherfire light revealed four weagrs in the center of it, fighting against an undead army of weagrs, men and strandwolves. One of the undead weagrs put his axe through a living one’s forehead. His eyes went vacant around the axe handle before pulling it out and turning on the remaining three weagrs.
Jason was pushed out of the chamber, down tunnels and through halls until he could no longer tell where he was. When the undead finally stopped pushing, he was in a small room with a high ceiling. Dead men lined the walls and blocked the way back.
A creature occupied the center of the room. It was black, as if its skin was made from total darkness. A white aura of sorts surrounded it, allowing Jason to see the humanoid contours of its legs and head. Jason saw it was kneeling down and looking back at him with white, pupil-less eyes.
The creature opened its mouth and only white light escaped. However, the corpses in the room spoke words in sync with the creature.
“Free... me.”
Jason saw no bars, chains, nothing holding the creature down. He looked above the kneeling creature. A glowing, red crystal floated at eye level.
He had seen this before, in the Secret Blades expansion. A Majora witchlock. Resembling a twelve sided die, it created an invisible magic prison. The creature was helpless beneath it.
As helpless as the ruler of an undead army; some of the dead pushed Jason forward while others spoke their master’s wishes. “Free... me.”
Jason had never seen this creature, not in any bestiary or expansion or even in the background of any artwork. And he knew if it was under a witchlock, it was for a good reason. They were difficult to make and too rare to waste on even dangerous criminals.
“Uh...” was all he could say as they pushed him ever closer to it. He was pretty sure the creature wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Can’t you, I don’t know... free yourself?” he indicated the legion of the dead around him.
One of the undead stepped out from the ranks lining the wall. It reached a hand out to the Majora witchlock. When its fingers touched, the red light swelled within the crystal and melted the fingers. The red light continued to travel along the corpse’s body, incinerating as it went, even burning up the ancient armor it wore. In seconds there was nothing left but ash.
“You want me to touch that?!”
The all white eyes of the darkness creature stared at Jason. The corpses spoke around them.
“You... give... to me. I... give... to you.”
Jason felt pain shoot through his shoulder blades. Hot, excruciating, unbearable; he screamed as the pain consumed him.
MIKE BASHED ANOTHER corpse in the head, sending it tumbling to the chamber below. He knew it was a useless win. A fall like that would seriously injure or kill most folks. This enemy was just going to get up and shuffle his ass back up here.
Him and Runt were on a stone bridge spanning a huge chamber. Runt was on the other end of the bridge, dual axes flying, while Mike was on this end, doing his level best to crack skulls. They were both giving ground slowly as the dead kept coming.
Mike had no illusions about what was going to happen. He had seen four weagrs in the chamber below go from alive and angry to Night of the Living Dead. Eventually, this crowd was going to push him and Runt back to back. After that, even if he decided to jump to his death, he knew he wouldn’t stay dead for long.
He bashed another one, sending it over the side. “There’s your freedom!” he told it. “Give me a chance, I’ll free every one of you bitches,” he said as the grasp
ing hands forced him another step back. Between strikes he thought of Melvin, hoping his dumb ass had made it out alive.
MELVIN AND RICH WERE fresh out of left turns. An undead pack of strandwolves followed them. The strandwolves had lost their sense of urgency after rising from the dead, and were just plodding after the two. Behind the strandwolves, dead men shuffled in their own slow pursuit. If they had leashes, it would look like zombies taking their dogs for a walk.
Melvin had run out of steam two tunnels back. Now the two of them just kept backing away from the encroaching corpses, occasionally looking behind them to see what lay ahead.
“This doesn’t look good,” Rich said.
They were slowly approaching a chamber. It was hard to make out very much in it. But Melvin saw the undead lining the walls, waiting for them.
“Do something!” Rich cried to Melvin. “We can’t walk into that!”
“What the hell do you want me to do?”
“Turn on Zhufira mode and cut us out of here!”
“Zhufira mode? What, like I’m a lightbulb with a sword?! You’re supposed to be Razzleblad, superbad super mage. Razzle already!”
Melvin turned to see the chamber had grown much closer in the time they spent arguing. The undead still lined the chamber, making no move toward them.
They were almost at the entrance to the chamber when Melvin noticed the person in the center. It was an aian standing over something black and reaching out to something with a red glow. A severed arm protruded from his back.
“Jason!” Melvin called out as Jason took the red thing in his hand and crumbled it. A shock wave boomed through the fort, knocking Jason down and shaking the walls and ceiling with earthquake force.
Melvin and Rich rushed over to Jason. He looked up at Melvin. “It—it—made me,” was all he said. Jason reached out to Melvin, an act that made Melvin jerk back in horrified shock.
Shiny white bone protruded from the cauterized wound of Jason’s severed shoulder. He had an arm of bone, and he had reached out to Melvin with skeleton fingers. Jason pointed the skeleton hand at the black shape.
It was a man of total darkness. Melvin could only see how giant he was because of the white outline around him. He was twice the size of Runt as he stood up and stretched. Four pitch black wings unfurled behind him. Then he lowered himself to one knee, as if he was going to charge at them.
The winged man exploded upward, fast as a bullet, breaking through ceilings of solid stone. He was gone in the night after a moment, leaving massive holes in his wake.
All the undead men lining the walls fell where they stood, once again lifeless.
Fort Law began to shake much worse than before. Stones started falling from the roof. In the middle of the room, a circle of blue and white light swirled into existence and grew bigger.
“Is this making the fort shake?” Melvin asked, looking at the growing circle of light.
“No, that’s a portal,” Jason said. “Between the Majora witchlock breaking and that creature making its own exit, this place is coming down around us.” As he finished talking more stones, bigger stones, started falling.
The quaking got worse as more of the roof fell away. Even if Melvin knew the fastest way to get back to the entrance of Fort Law, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t get buried under tons of rock first.
He knew about portals. They were magic gateways that could lead anywhere. The few times he had used one in the game he had met a quick and cheap death.
Also a quick and cheap death was getting crushed by roof rocks. He looked at Rich and Jason. He said nothing; he didn’t have to. They nodded.
As they plunged into the swirling portal, Melvin looked up through the massive hole left by the creature. He caught the briefest glimpse of Mike looking down from a bridge many stories up. Giant rocks fell on the bridge, as Fort Law collapsed in on itself.
Chapter 6
Quest Proper
Melvin saw nothing but blue and white light for long, tense moments. When the light finally died, he wasn’t quite sure if their situation had improved.
They were in a grand circular library. The polished marble floors, the smell of oiled leather and the soft glow of paper lanterns were all things that made him want to exhale a much needed sigh of relief. But he couldn’t. A man and woman, their faces twisted in rage, kept his breath bated. In their bare hands they held blazing fire raised as if to throw at them.
The woman yelled at them. “What have you done?! Explain this malice or burn!”
“Whoa! Whoa! No malice here,” Melvin said as he waved his hands. Then he realized he was waving a sword at two people who had fire aimed at his head. He dropped the sword on the floor with a jarring clang.
“We didn’t mean it,” Jason said. “But the undead were chasing us. And the weagrs and the strandwolves. And the black thing made me. And the fort was falling on our heads. And we’re not even supposed to be here. We’re from the suburbs!”
The man and woman looked at each other. The woman nodded and the two of them closed their hands, smothering the fire. She stood with poise, wearing what seemed to be a soft green nightgown. Asian features and skin the color of honey gave an exotic look to the expression of concern on her face.
“Wait, I know you,” Rich said pointing. “You’re the Hierophant Majora.”
“I am,” she said. “And one of you broke my lock. I need to know why.”
They explained in sloppy, broken fragments the events that led them there. One would tell the story and then someone else would interject with details or corrections and pick the story back up. Hierophant Majora and the man with her said nothing the whole time. When Melvin, Rich and Jason finally reached the present, the lady spoke.
“It is late, and you three have been through much. My questions, and yours I’m sure, will keep until morning.” She looked at the man. “Druze, please show them quarters.”
“Wait,” Melvin said. “What about my brother?”
Majora looked at him. “Who can say? Just as you hope for his safety, put faith in those hopes. That is all you can do at the moment, my dear.”
She left them with Druze, a dark featured man with black robes. He took them out of the library and onto a breezeway. Wide marble columns ascended into an arched ceiling and both sides of the breezeway revealed a majestic garden, with colorful flowers, lush plants, and sculpted fountains that sprayed water. It all twinkled in the light of paper lanterns.
“The Hierophane,” Rich said as he looked around in wonder.
The breezeway ended at a tower. The interior of the tower made Melvin feel like he was inside a giant bottle. He stood in the atrium courtyard looking all around at doors and windows ascending up to open sky.
It was a clean, elegant design. Perhaps that was due in some part to the fact there were no stairs. Doors, no matter how high up, opened up to empty air.
Druze led them on the path until they stood on a section covered with charcoal colored gravel. He knelt down and traced out a pattern into the gravel. Once he was done, the strange character he had drawn glowed orange and the square of gravel they were standing on rose into the air.
It coasted up gently several floors, stopping in front of a door. When Druze opened the door, the light came on and he put his hand out for them to go inside.
Rich and Jason went in but Druze put his arm up to block Melvin. “These are not your quarters.”
Before Melvin could understand the what’s and why’s, Druze was drawing in the gravel again. The square rose up a few more floors, leaving Rich and Jason with an open door and quizzical looks on their faces.
Melvin understood when he walked into the room Druze opened. Sheer gossamer curtains surrounded a bed layered with furry throw blankets. The wall, the bed, the curtains—it was all a soft shade of pink. He whirled on Druze, anger etched into his pretty features.
“I’m not a girl!”
Druze’s reply was written in gravel, leaving Melvin with an open door.
<
br /> Melvin shut the door, but not without a dizzying look down first. He knew the height was intentional. Hierophant Majora wanted answers from them; there would be no leaving until she had them.
Right about now, Melvin didn’t care if he was stuck in a pretty pink prison. It was the safest place he’d been since reality shifted. He looked through his quarters.
He found a rectangular tub of cut stone. His day had consisted of hours of traveling, dueling with weagrs, and running from the undead in a decrepit fortress. The grime of it all felt like glue stuck to him.
He saw two pictographs on the tile wall at the head of the tub, one of a raincloud and the other a row of waves. He touched the raincloud and water sprayed out from tiny holes cut into the ceiling directly above the tub.
He peeled off the steel bikini and let the hot water work its own kind of magic. Worries dissipated into the steam. Troubles swirled down the drain.
He was beyond exhausted. Once the water stopped raining down, he was barely cognizant of toweling off, finding some night clothes, and getting under the fuzzy throw blankets of his bed. Soon as his head hit the pillow it was like a knockout punch.
A loud, powerful knock woke him up. Melvin opened up crusty eyes to a bleary world. Daylight was streaming through the windows.
“I will come back to collect you in thirty minutes,” a man’s voice said through the door. Must be Druze, Melvin assumed.
Melvin got up, his legs stiff and sore. He looked out the window and his breath caught in his throat.
A giant river wove a course from the top of the horizon to almost the base of the tower before bending around, its water sparkling blue and violet. Dense tropical foliage lined the banks of the river. Melvin’s eyes followed a flock of majestic white birds as they flew over a lush copse of palm trees. The birds flew in a triangular formation, a living arrow that pointed to fog shrouded mountains barely visible in the distance.