“Is your wife and child in one of these?” Kerian whispered, horrified by the suffering and torment he was witnessing. He glanced back over his shoulder and realised that Octavian was struggling to contain his emotions, his eyes swollen with tears. The gypsy bit his lip and simply nodded. Kerian turned, his features grim. This could not be allowed to continue. These spectral phantoms needed to be laid to rest, given proper funerals and allowed to pass over rather than serve as ghostly lanterns for a ruined castle.
“He keeps them here to remind others what will happen if they fail to pay ransom.” Octavian offered.
“But they are all dead.” Kerian replied. “Do these people not know this?”
“They still pay to release the bodies, even if their loved ones have passed.” Octavian replied grimly. “And there is always the slim hope that the ransom will be gathered and paid in time for their family to be released alive.” Kerian noted the timbre of his friend’s voice and shuddered, realising this was Octavian’s forlorn hope that the gypsy was describing. The two men slipped into an uneasy silence, heading towards a door at the end of the passageway, Octavian paused to actually sniff the air.
“What is it?” Kerian hissed. “What do you smell?” Octavian shook his head as if something were buzzing about his ears, then gripped it in both hands, his face contorting in pain.
“He’s in there waiting.” Octavian grunted, dropping to his knees, his hands still gripping his skull. “Kerian you have to get away from here. He is too strong he is too…” the words were lost as Octavian fell to the floor, his skin warping, his body making sickening snapping and crunching noises as his limbs started to re-shape and metamorphose into the creature Kerian had fought in the desert.
Kerian felt torn between staying and helping with his friend’s agony or trying to find a reason for it. Even as he edged away from Octavian’s snarling form, the door ahead of him creaked slowly open revealing a room with bookcases on the walls and a roaring fire in the hearth. Kerian stepped forward, relieved to leave his friend in the passage, whilst taking in the sight of tables and chairs covered in large dusty volumes, stacked on every available space apart from a high-backed chair around which lay several dark and snarling figures.
A slender, blonde haired man sat in the chair, his hair wild and wispy, his thin slitted eyes scrutinizing the knight from behind a pair of wire framed spectacles of smeared glass. He wore a dirty, stained apron over patched trousers and a linen shirt streaked with grime. In his lap was an open ledger showing pages of tight dark script and drawings of what looked like coloured prisms. The man leant forward, his hand dropping to stroke the hair of a warped creature laying at his side, his pale fingers pulling tightly at a luminous stripe of white fur running down the creature’s back. Her lip curled back and her hackles rose as Kerian stepped further into the room but her dark eyes showed nothing but pain as her master pulled at her hide.
“Steady. Agnezkia. Steady. Is that any way to greet our guests? Please, do come in.” The man gestured towards a small stool that sat in front of him, a tray of something red, moist and shiny perched upon it. “Just move the tray, place it carefully on the ground.” Kerian stepped closer and identified the morsels as pieces of dark flesh sitting in a pool of congealing blood. He had no intentions of moving the tray and made no move to do so. If this upset his strange host then so be it. Kerian swallowed hard and tried to ignore the tightness he suddenly felt in his throat.
“I have come to pay the ransom on Octavian’s wife and child and wish them and Octavian released into my custody,” he stated, with more confidence than he actually felt. The door crashed open behind him and Octavian, now fully transformed into his animal form, prowled into the room and stalked over to the tray, his long pink tongue lapping the congealed blood before hooking a succulent piece of meat into his jaws and swallowing it with relish.
“I don’t think my hound wishes to go anywhere.” The man stated calmly. “And I for one have no intentions of giving him up.” He clicked his fingers and Octavian immediately stopped eating, blood dripping from his jaws. He padded over to the strange host and bowed his head before him in subservience, before turning and fixing Kerian with a dark emotionless stare.
“Welcome home my hound.” The mysterious host began. “You are a little late but your arrival is not unexpected. Now, why don’t you introduce me to your new plaything.”
The Labyris Knight
-: Part Four :-
The Descent of Darkness
“You must experience the depth of terror in darkness,
before you can truly appreciate the wonder of light.”
Ana Silvestri Gypsy Fortune Teller
Chapter Forty-Seven
“I think Captain Aelius that your men need to improve on their fitness.” Wanessa snapped, swinging her stubby legs from the litter that had carried her substantial bulk up the stairs. “I was going to invite one or two of your men back to my bedchamber after the tournament to celebrate in style but they don’t look able to draw breath let alone satisfy my needs.”
“Guards fall in!” Aelius roared, making his wheezing troop stagger back to their feet and form the semblance of a line. “The Lady Wanessa says you are all a disgrace. I tend to agree with her.” He moved closer to his troops, approaching one who was really struggling with his wheezing. He leaned in close as if to examine the Minotaur’s uniform then whispered in his ear.
“Looks like you dodged a crossbow bolt eh? I know she likes you!” He moved away winking. “Now I am so disappointed I want you all down those stairs patrolling the lower levels no one is allowed up here but me! Do you understand? And when I summon you to carry these fair ladies down again, you all better be fit and ready. Now jump to it!”
The Minotaur ran for the stairs, eager to get away, leaving Aelius alone to guard the two most powerful members of the Matriarchy. He moved over into the shadows by the archway and took up his post, his grey eyes observed Mora and Wanessa walking towards the table upon which the ceremonial goblet and wine awaited.
Aelius knew the procedure. The goblet was filled once the Labyris was gained, then the departing Matriarch would pass the goblet to the winner as a mark of allegiance and fellowship. The victor toasted from the goblet first, signifying to all that the departing monarch was willing to serve her replacement, that she held the Labyris knight in higher esteem than herself. A drink to herald an arrival, a drink to seal a departure.
He watched as the serving girl moved to offer wine to the two female Minotaur, then offered a tray of finger food that Wanessa snatched from her hand, before pushing her away. It showed the arrogance of the two women that they failed to acknowledge those who worked for them and whom they deemed lower than their own exalted station.
Aelius took a deep calming breath and moved back into the alcove his mouth suddenly dry. What he was doing was incredibly risky, it was treason, punishable by death but he knew he had to make a stand for what was right, needed to give Kristoph every advantage he could. His eyes may have started to fail him but he knew for a fact that the serving girl who came up the stairs had black hair. The one serving them now was distinctly blonde.
* * * * * *
The crowd were clearly upset, loudly voicing their disapproval, pushing and shoving, trying to stare down into the maze to see with their own eyes the thing that others had only dared to whisper. In some places scuffles had broken out, people crying, tempers fraying, whilst others sat in their seats not daring to believe the impossible.
Thomas pushed his way through the agitated crowd and stared down into the labyrinth alongside several angry spectators who were shaking their fists at the Minotaur standing about them. He observed a bewildering scene of several guards poking at the floor of the maze with their spears and scratching their heads, whilst others held back a large jelly like mass with flaming torches, causing it to shy away from the naked flame any time one was waved too close to its viscous surface.
“So w
hat’s going on?” Mathius asked squeezing through the crowd and coming up alongside the captain. “I don’t like the mood of this crowd. It looks like there is about to be a riot at any moment.”
“I have absolutely no idea.” Thomas confessed, risking a quick glance back down into the labyrinth, as if by taking a second glance something new and useful would be seen. As he watched, a section of the maze wall swung open to reveal a dark passage. A guard exited shaking his head, confirming that their quarry had not passed that way. The door slid closed with a soft rumble, its carefully shaped stonework appearing to merge with the rest of the wall, making it nearly impossible to spot if you were not aware it was there. “They seem to have lost something.”
The guards held an agitated conversation. The guard who had previously left the passage stabbed at a stone situated at the bottom of the secret doorway revealing the opening once again.
“That’s actually quite clever positioning the button on the floor.” Mathius commented. “These Minotaur with their self-indulgent thoughts of grandeur would not consider looking down to where their servant race resides, never stoop that low. Hey… stoop that low. That’s quite funny.” Mathius turned towards Thomas smiling, then stopped when he saw the captain’s face.
“This isn’t helping us.” Thomas murmured, staring about the terraces for an explanation of what was going on. People were throwing their ribbons down onto the floor and starting to walk away towards the entrance of the labyrinth, the looks of disgust and disappointment not dissimilar to baseball fans leaving Yankee stadium in the Bronx, if a game had not gone their way.
“Kristoph has gone,” one spectator sobbed as she walked past, clutching a corn doll of a Minotaur that was decked out in black armour and wearing a golden ribbon tied about his left arm. “He’s gone, leaving us in our hour of need.” The words made Thomas stop and focus more intently on the young woman, noting her red puffy eyes from crying, the golden ribbons that she had tied in her long ponytail and her worn green dress, patched in a couple of places.
“Excuse me? What happened to Kristoph?” The spectator stopped her sad slow walk and wiped her eyes, staring up at Thomas in disbelief. How could this man not know the horrors she had just witnessed? She gasped in some air, as if by simply mentioning the words she would cause herself yet more distress, then began theatrically relaying the terrible news.
“The labyrinth opened up and swallowed him.” She wailed. “There was a disturbance, a small child was fighting with a guard, he was probably a pick pocket or something. Then the child and several crowd members fell into the maze, it was horrific. People were terribly hurt.” She paused taking in another shuddering breath.
“I don’t suppose this child had a black and white bird by any chance?” Mathius asked, a suspicion rising in his mind.
“What? I… there might have been.” She looked flustered, annoyed that her story had been interrupted. “Look… do you want to hear my story or not?”
“And…And?” Thomas beckoned with his hands, trying to coax more out of the young girl and giving Mathius a warning look, causing the assassin to cross his arms and scowl.
“Then someone shouted something about a zombie. Everything got confused. The child climbed up onto Kristoph and it looked like it was trying to eat Kristoph’s brain, he was flailing about in the maze, clearly in pain. Oh… do you think maybe the child was the zombie?” Her eyes widened, suddenly excited at this revelation. “Where was I? Oh yes… Then the floor of the labyrinth swallowed up the zombie and Kristoph and several spectators got eaten by the jelly.”
“Can you show me where?” Mathius asked, indicating towards the edge of the seating area.
“Right there.” The girl wailed, pointing down at the gelatinous mass. “You can still see parts of them floating inside it.” Mathius opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again, rolling his eyes to the heavens as the girl started crying again.
“I know this is really upsetting.” Thomas said quietly, stepping forwards and shoving Mathius to one side, “but it is really important that we know where the maze swallowed Kristoph.”
“Right under the jelly.” The spectator replied, her face flushed with anger now. “Right where I told you. If neither of you are going to listen to me then I shall take my leave.” She spun in a huff, hugging her miniature Kristoph to her breast and stormed off through the crowd.
“Well… I think she likes you.” Mathius stated sarcastically. Thomas followed the girl’s path through the crowd, suddenly lost for words, then turned back towards the maze. The gelatinous flood reached out and snatched an inattentive Minotaur guard by the leg, dragging the shrieking creature into its body with a wet sounding splotch. All the other guards instantly retreated in shock, then started beating at the jelly with their torches in a vain attempt, to rescue their kinsman. The surface rucked up, leaving painful black marks on the creature’s skin.
“There is no way we are going to get down there to help him.” The captain muttered. “We don’t have a hope of coaxing that creature away and there are way too many guards. Whatever mess Rauph is in, I’m afraid that for now he’s on his own.”
“At least Ashe is with him.” Mathius replied. Thomas turned towards his companion and fixed him with an incredulous stare.
“That’s what scares me.” He murmured.
* * * * * *
The huge spider stared hungrily towards Ashe, its intense black beady eyes surveying the succulent morsel that had magically fallen into its lair. If it had had lips and a tongue it would have been running one over the other in an enthusiastic display of anticipation for the meal it was about to receive. Instead, the massive silvery blue headed arachnid quivered it’s black and white striped hairy legs in excitement, lifting its two front pedi-palp to paw gently at the musty air.
Ashe stood open-mouthed, awed that something he normally found about the El Defensor no bigger than a silver bit and which normally met a grisly end crushed beneath the sole of the Halfling’s boot, or dropped in Marcus’s socks could be found on such a massive scale!
“Look Rauph! Look…” he whispered breathlessly. “Isn’t it beautiful? I think it’s waving to us.”
A huge crash sounded behind the Halfling, as something equally hairy and large, eight-foot-tall in actuality, thudded to the floor in a dead faint. Clouds of dust billowed up into the air, dried bones from long dead spider meals snapped and crunched, a dented helmet went spinning off across the floor sliding to a stop near Ashe’s feet and tendrils of dusty web danced excitedly within the unexpected currents of air.
“I’m really sorry about my friend.” Ashe apologised, turning back towards the spider and noting that it had inched ever so slightly closer than when he had last been looking. “He’s not normally this shy. I don’t know what has come over him. Clearly running about in the maze upstairs has taken it out of him.” He bent to retrieve the helmet from the floor and lifted it up only to discover, much to his distaste, that it still had its previous owner’s shrunken head inside.
“Oh dear. Whatever has happened here?” he asked himself, looking up to see if the spider could help illuminate the situation, only to find that it had moved closer still. Eight images of Ashe’s questioning face reflected back from the surface of the spider’s onyx eyes and a little voice suddenly recommended caution in the back of an inquisitive Halfling’s mind.
“Have you not heard of respecting someone’s personal space?” Ashe remarked, taking a cautious step backwards, only for the spider to match him and shuffle forwards the same distance. “I mean we hardly know each other. That’s how accidents happen.”
Ashe looked about the rectangular chamber, taking in the thickly cobwebbed corners of the room where vague human-shaped forms hung cocooned in sticky webs, then over to a grate set low in the far-left wall where a shrivelled-up torso of a Minotaur lay on its side, a hole in its chest exposing dusty desiccated innards. He then looked back at the helmet and head he still held in his ha
nds and suddenly realised that there had been a fair share of accidents in this room.
The Halfling turned the helmet over slowly, then jumped as he caught a reflection of the spider advancing closer within its tarnished surface. The helmet slipped from his hands in shock, the desiccated head rolling out from inside it as it bounced. Ashe bent to pick it up, just as the arachnid pounced.
Ashe shrieked as the spider jumped, its hairy legs instantly forming a tight trap about him and knocking him to the floor. Sinders squawked loudly and flew away in an explosion of feathers, swooping about the subterranean chamber and crying out a cacophonous alarm. The arachnid gazed down at the squirming Halfling and slowly, almost lovingly extended its sickle shaped fangs, already beading with clear drops of deadly venom.
“Oh mouldy acorns!” Ashe screamed, his little hands struggling furiously.
The arachnid lunged and bit down hard on Ashe’s head, its fangs striking hard into each side then recoiling with a dull clang, before it pinned the Halfling securely in place with its abdomen and struck again, its fangs spearing down once more in an attempt to crush the little thief’s skull.
Ashe grunted as the blue spider bit him, its bulk crushing him to the floor, forcing a submission where all the Halfling could do was lie there and let the creature feast. Venom oozed from its fangs, running down the outside of the dented helmet that Ashe had miraculously managed to clamp onto his own head seconds before the deadly fangs had struck. He stared past the fangs into the spider’s maw and could not help himself screaming at a view he, unlike scholarly arachnologists, would never truly appreciate.
He kicked out with his feet, sending the crispy skull that had once occupied where his own now resided, out across the floor, bouncing and spinning in a lopsided lazy curve. The spider heard the sound and paused, still frustrated at its lack of success in stopping its prey from wriggling around. It looked up, dropping Ashe from its fangs and stared about the room, looking for the source of the disturbance and wondering if further food had arrived, whilst still bouncing hard up and down on the Halfling.
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