“Hang on,” I mumbled to Persephone as I rounded the next corner, fingers curled around the edge of the stone wall. “I just need a sec . . .”
I leaned my right shoulder against the wall, resting my cheek on the cool stone, wishing the floor would stop tilting back and forth. I closed my eyes, dragging in deep breaths of the poisoned air.
When I finally raised my eyelids to look for Persephone, icy dread washed over me. This passage ended with a solid stone wall, and the corridor was littered with the bodies of the dead—more than I’d seen anywhere else in the labyrinth. But Persephone was nowhere to be seen.
I stumbled forward a few steps, then paused to look back the way I’d come. The last intersection only had one other corridor. Maybe I mixed up which way she had gone.
Brow furrowing, I shook my head, like that might dispel some of the cobwebs tangling my thoughts. The jarring motion was a mistake, only making my head spin more.
“Cora . . .”
I stiffened, going absolutely still. Up until now, the whispering, disembodied voices had been unrecognizable, their words indiscernible. But that had very clearly been my name, and there was no mistaking my mom’s voice drifting up the corridor behind me.
“Come here, Cora,” she said, her voice faint and wispy. She sounded weak, pained. “I need your help.” Her words were accompanied by the sound of shuffling feet slowly drawing nearer.
I held my breath.
“Help me . . .” The two words devolved into a throaty gurgle. It was a sound nothing living would make, and it sent shivers cascading down my spine.
Instinct took over, and I pushed off the wall, stumble-running farther down the corridor. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know where to go from here; all that mattered was getting away from the thing creeping up the last passageway, pretending to be my mom. I ran until I reached the end of the corridor, then turned, looking for the next passageway.
But the wall to the left was solid stone, no arched opening to pass through, just a torch in a bronze sconce.
I spun around.
The wall to the right was just as solid.
I glanced over my shoulder, looking back the way I’d come.
The long corridor was empty, save for the dead. And, thankfully, it was quiet . . . for the moment.
I turned back to the wall at the end of the passage. This was the first dead-end Persephone had led me to. I had spotted others down untraveled corridors, but this was the first one I had come to, personally.
Which made me think that it had to be more. That it wasn’t a dead-end at all. That maybe, just maybe, it was a door—the door to the triangular room at the heart of the labyrinth.
I ran my hands over the cool stone, eyes scanning from ceiling to floor. An arch had been built into the wall, framing what appeared to be a walled-off passage, much like the entrance to the labyrinth. Except this archway wasn’t blocked by a holographic stone slab. This one was blocked by a very real, very solid wall of stacked stone blocks.
And while the walls throughout the labyrinth were relatively smooth to the touch, this one was pocked with perfectly round, dime-sized divots, gouged out of the stone blocks in clean, symmetrical patterns. Clearly, the holes had been carved into the faces of the blocks purposely.
Some of the stone blocks had more divots; some had less. Just one, chest-high near the center of the wall, had a single divot carved into its face.
I traced my fingertip around the lone divot, then dipped my finger into the shallow hole. Just the white crescent at the base of my nail was visible, making the hole about half an inch deep.
The faintest hint of whispering touched my ears, and I bowed my head and closed my eyes, taking a moment to gather myself.
It wasn’t real. It was all in my head. It had to be.
The stone shifted slightly under the pressure from my finger, and my eyes popped open. Frowning, I pulled my finger out of the hole and pushed on the stone with my whole hand.
With the sound of stone grinding on stone, the block depressed about an inch, until there was a metallic click.
A second later, fire exploded in my hand and then in my shoulder as a needle-thin silver spike speared through me.
I shrieked, staring wide eyed at the spike, following it from the back of my hand to the place where it disappeared into my shoulder.
Almost as quickly as the spike shot out of the wall, it retracted.
Shaking, I pulled my hand away from the wall and turned it around to stare at my palm. Blood seeped out of the wound and streamed down my forearm. I could feel the warmth of more blood soaking into my T-shirt, as well. But despite the intensity of the pain a moment ago, I almost couldn’t feel it, now.
Shock, I realized. As a defense mechanism, my brain must have turned off the pain receptors in this part of my body. I wasn’t sure if this reaction to pain was normal or if it was just another part of my increasingly obvious other-ness, but I was glad for it, nonetheless.
I was even more glad for the momentary silence. The burst of adrenaline must have been enough to clear my head of some of the neurotoxin, giving me respite from the relentless whispers. I doubted the quiet would last, but I savored the silence while it was there.
Holding my wounded hand to my chest, I took a couple unsteady steps backward, putting some distance between myself and the booby-trapped wall.
My gut—and years of gaming experience—told me this wasn’t just a senseless booby trap. It was a puzzle. It had to be, and I felt certain that depressing the right stone would reveal a passage. But press on the wrong stone, and another trap would be triggered.
I wondered if all of the stones released spikes, or if there were a variety of deadly options. I supposed there was only one way to find out.
Narrowing my eyes, I focused on the wall as a whole.
Only some of the stone blocks in the wall were pocked with holes. The rest were smooth, like those throughout the rest of labyrinth. The marked blocks were arranged in a diamond pattern, starting one row up from the floor and reaching almost to the top of the wall. The stone blocks near the center of the diamond arrangement had a lower concentration of holes—with the block that housed the spike that had impaled my hand residing at dead center—and it looked like the number of holes on any given block generally increased the farther it was from the center. That was as much of a pattern as my mold-muddled mind could spot.
The whispers, silenced by the shot of pain-induced adrenaline, were starting up again. As they grew louder, it became harder and harder to concentrate.
Blowing out a breath, I shifted my focus to the individual stones. The diamond arrangement was made up of twenty-five stone blocks, and so far as I could tell, there were also twenty-five holes in the most pock-marked block. That led me to believe that each stone block had a different number of holes, ranging from one to twenty-five. I just had to figure out which number was the right number.
Math was far from my strong suit. But the history of mathematics—and mathematical discoveries—was something I knew a little more about.
I ran through the various famous or significant numbers in my head. There was Pi—3.1415 . . .—which represented the relationship between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. And then there was Phi, or the “Golden Ratio”—1.618 . . .—which represented the relationship between two specific shapes, as seen in naturally occurring spirals. There was also Euler’s number—2.718 . . .—which related to exponential growth.
I frowned. None of those were whole numbers, which seemed to be my only options.
A few other significant numbers came to mind, like the speed of light and sound, but those numbers were way too big.
No single whole number between one and twenty-five stood out in my mind as being all that significant—other than one, and I’d already tried the one-hole stone block. Oh no, one was definitely not the winning number.
My eyes opened wide as an idea popped into my head. “What if it’s not a single number?” I though
t aloud. What if it was a sequence of numbers?
Two incredibly important sequences came to mind—the Fibonacci Sequence, and the sequence of prime numbers. The Fibonacci Sequence started with one, which ruled it out. But the first prime number was two. Neither of the divots in the two-hole stone block had stabbed me, yet, and I didn’t have any other ideas so I figured it was worth a shot.
Taking a couple more steps back, I raised the doru and tucked one end of the staff under my arm, pressing the other end against the middle of the stone block with two holes drilled into its surface. It was one of the blocks directly below the lethal one block.
I stepped to the side so I wasn’t in line with the pair of holes. If this wasn’t the right choice, I really didn’t want to be shot with poisoned darts or impaled by any more ancient spikes.
The initial shock that had numbed the pain in my hand and shoulder was wearing off, and both were beginning to throb. The pain no longer had a clarifying effect on my mind. It combined with the increasingly loud whispers and moans filling the corridor, further muddling my thoughts.
I took a deep breath, focusing my ever-diminishing mental capacity on the task that would hopefully get me out of this mess. Once I was through this wall, I would grab whatever artifacts had been locked away in the center of the labyrinth and find a way out.
Closing my eyes, I leaned into the doru. The stone block resisted for a fraction of a second, and then it sank into the wall.
I held my breath, waiting for the click that would signal another trap triggered or the deep rumble I imagined I would hear as the wall opened up to let me pass.
For a solid ten seconds, I stood there, eyes closed and breath held, doru pressed into the stone block, waiting.
Nothing happened.
I blew out my breath and opened my eyes. Lowering the doru, I scanned the wall ahead of me, then glanced at the walls on either side.
A doorway hadn’t opened up, at least, not anywhere I could see. The only change was that the stone block with two holes was still sunken into the wall. It was more than a little disappointing.
But on the plus side, I wasn’t dead. So, there was that.
Eyes narrowed, I raised the doru again and pressed the end against the stone block with three small holes drilled into the surface. Three was the next prime number. Maybe the barrier to entry wasn’t selecting the right stone, but selecting the right series of stones. Maybe, in order to pass, I needed to prove that I knew the sequence of prime numbers, not just the first number in the sequence.
It made sense, from a wheedling-out standpoint; anyone could randomly select the right single stone block. In fact, there was a one in twenty-five chance of randomly picking the right number. Which meant that, statistically speaking, one out of every twenty-five of the yahoos who had attempted to solve the puzzle would have found a way through the wall. There were well over twenty-five dead guys in the labyrinth—well over three times that many—and according to Henry, not a single person had ever made it out. That meant there had to be more to the puzzle.
Tensing my core muscles, I leaned into the doru and pushed the next stone block into the wall.
Again, I held my breath. Again, I waited for the click that would signal a trap triggered. And again, nothing happened.
I lowered the doru and stared at the wall. Now, two stone blocks were depressed, and I still hadn’t triggered another booby trap. Looked like I was on the right track.
I repeated the process five more times, pressing in and locking into place the stones blocks with five, seven, eleven, thirteen, and seventeen holes drilled into their surfaces.
The whispers had grown louder—so loud that they were nearly deafening in the corridor. My thoughts were a jumble, and my hand and shoulder throbbed in sync with my heartbeat, the pain no longer dull, but sharp and dizzying. Each successive prime number was more difficult to remember, each stone block harder to push in.
I pressed the end of the doru against a block several feet above my head, this one with twenty-three holes drilled into its surface. It was the largest prime number on the wall.
The instant the stone was fully pushed in, the other stones slid back to their original places.
I froze, staring at the wall, waiting for something else to happen.
But nothing did.
I lowered the doru and looked around. Nothing had changed. There were no new openings in the walls. There was no new passageway. It was just me and the dead, and the voices in my head.
Figuring I must have missed something, I turned back to the wall, running through the sequence of prime numbers out loud. “Two, three, five, seven . . . seven . . . seven . . .” With all of the whispering and moaning, I couldn’t think of the next number.
“Cora . . .”
I stiffened.
“Cora, help me.” It was Raiden. He was behind me. Not in some other corridor, about to round the corner. I could hear his shuffling steps. He was right behind me.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I may have been hearing Raiden’s voice, but I knew he wasn’t really behind me. There was no way Henry would have let Raiden slip from his grasp. This was just another trick of the mind. A hallucination caused by the toxic mold.
I refocused on the task at hand, listing prime numbers in my head.
Two . . . three . . . five . . . seven . . .
“Cora . . .”
“Shut up!” I hissed, restarting the sequence.
Two . . . three . . . five . . . seven . . .
“Eleven,” I whispered, eyes popping open.
I raised the doru, pressing the butt of the staff against the first stone block. I pushed the block in, locking it into place, then did the same with three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, and seventeen. I was raising the end of the doru to the stone block with twenty-three drilled into the surface again, when I paused.
Twenty-three wasn’t the next prime number; nineteen was. I’d skipped nineteen the first time. That must have been the reason it didn’t work.
I lowered the end of the doru, pressing it against a chest-high stone block with nineteen perfect little holes gouged into its surface. I pushed it in, locking it into place, then did the same with the final stone block high above.
As the block locked into place, a deep gonging sounded within the wall, charging the air and echoing down the corridor.
Not a second later, the wall shifted, slowly sinking into the floor with a deafening rumble. The whole corridor trembled, the vibrations seeping into my body as anticipation took hold within me.
I’d done it. I’d solved the puzzle. I’d beaten the labyrinth.
Finally, it was over.
35
As I passed under the archway, my excitement was replaced by confusion, quickly followed by a wash of disappointment. A skeletal corpse blocked my way, curled up on its side in the fetal position. Whoever it was had made it past the booby-trapped wall, but they hadn’t made it out of the labyrinth.
Which meant I hadn’t reached the end. It wasn’t over.
Numbly, I stepped over the corpse and looked around. The dead priest’s map had been accurate about the shape of the chamber at the heart of the labyrinth.
It was triangular, and small, each side no longer than a dozen feet. The space was completely enclosed, save for the opening in the wall behind me, and a single torch burned in a sconce on either of the walls ahead. The walls, ceiling, and floor were stone, like the rest of the labyrinth, but in here, the ceiling was free of the thick carpeting of mold. A triangular stone pedestal stood in the center of the chamber, its foot-long sides parallel to the walls. It was topped with a shallow basin, maybe two inches deep and four inches across. The floor was made of long, narrow wedges of stone fanning out around the pedestal, stretching all the way to the walls.
I crinkled my nose. There was a sharp bitterness to the air, making me think of menthol and bleach. The smell wasn’t unpleasant, exactly—preferable to the musty sweetness pervading the rest of the labyrinth. But it
was extremely pungent. So strong, that it took me a few seconds to realize that the whispers and moans had fallen silent. I couldn’t hear a single shuffling footstep, and Raiden’s voice no longer taunted me.
And the headache—it was fading, and fast.
I stretched my neck, tilting my head first one way, then the other. Whatever the source of the medicinal odor, it was doing a damn good job of clearing the effects of the mold from my head. I inhaled and exhaled deeply, appreciating the cleansing scent more and more with each successive lungful of air.
As my mind cleared and my awareness sharpened, the pain in my hand and shoulder intensified. My eyes watered, and for the briefest moment, I missed the dulling effect of the mold-induced haze.
I squeezed my eyes shut, gave myself three deep breaths to gather my wits about me, then opened my eyes and turned my attention to the pedestal at the center of the room. I reached it in three steps.
Around the shallow basin, narrow grooves divided the surface of the pedestal into nine sections, three on each side. They extended out from the basin like the rays of the sun, each ending with a small depression about the size of a quarter. At the bottom of the basin, a handful of marble-sized gemstones glittered in the dancing torchlight.
I leaned over the pedestal to get a better look at the gemstones. They were huge, spanning a range of vibrant colors from yellow to violet. I had no doubt that any single gemstone would be priceless. At least, they would be priceless out in the world; in here, each gemstone was just another puzzle piece.
Cautiously, I reached into the basin and picked up a gleaming, deep-blue sapphire.
The sound of stone grinding on stone made me spin around. The wall between the labyrinth and this chamber was slowly rising up from the floor, sliding back into place.
My fingers closed around the sapphire, and my heartbeat stumbled as it sped up. I lunged toward the closing wall, but froze after taking just the one step. Retreating into the labyrinth wouldn’t do me any good. Out there, I would end up just like the dozens upon dozens of bodies scattered about the maze.
Legacy of the Lost Page 25