They found the steel mage quickly enough. The stairs that ascended from the marble hall gave way onto another passage, one that bent to the left around several turns, until the corridor should have twisted back onto itself. The two mages shared a look, but they already knew that the Labyrinth didn’t obey normal rules, and there was no sense in wasting time pondering the impossible.
The passage jerked to the left once more, and ended in an arch that should have been a dead-end, or opened onto the corridor they’d just traversed. Instead, looking through the arch revealed another spacious, brightly-lit chamber, divided into a foyer and a slightly higher annex on the far side, with six thick pillars separating the two. A broad staircase led up to the annex.
Standing in front of the stairs was Marthek.
Ashandra and Keric could instantly see that something was wrong; the steel mage was standing awkwardly, as if he’d been frozen in mid-step. A faint halo of light surrounded him, and as they looked up, they could see that the pillars were topped by glowing golden spheres, shining so brightly that they almost could not look at them directly.
“Paralysis field,” Ashandra said. She took out an amulet from one of the hidden pockets in her dress. “I should be able to get through, but I don’t know that I’ll be able to drag Marthek clear.”
“Hold on a moment,” Keric said. He scanned the room, but it was difficult to see with the brilliant light of the spheres filling the room. He took out one of his last scrolls, but instead of opening it to read, he kept it rolled, and looked through it. With the glare of the globes thus reduced, he could see that there was another arched exit on the far side of the chamber, in the rear of the raised annex, and something else as well; a lever jutted from the wall near the arch.
“There,” he said, handing the scroll to Ashandra so that she could see it. “A triggering mechanism, I believe.”
“Well then,” she said. “I’ll just go over there and deactivate it.”
“And if your ward cannot withstand the field? Then there are two of you trapped.”
“And your alternative idea? Unless you have a scroll of telekinetic manipulation in that wallet there.”
“You know that I do not; no student could manage such a working.”
“Then it is up to me.” Her expression softened slightly, and she reached out a hand to touch Keric’s arm. “Trust me; when it comes to this sort of thing, I do know what I’m doing.”
He nodded. The shield mage affixed the amulet to the front of her dress, directly beneath her throat. She touched it with the index fingers and thumbs of both of her hands, closed her eyes for a moment, and incanted a brief triggering phrase. Keric’s Delving had faded, but he could still perceive the subtle shift to her aura, and could feel how strong the warding was.
But as she stepped boldly forward into the room, he wondered if it would be enough.
The golden glow that held Marthek captive erupted around her before she’d covered three steps into the room. Faint at first, it steadily brightened with each step she took, until a golden nimbus shone around her, an echo of the light radiating from the spheres above. Ashandra kept walking forward, passed Marthek without slowing, reached the steps leading up to the annex. There she faltered, stumbling slightly on the steps. The glow was pulsing at her now, battering at her defenses, and Keric could see the physical reaction; the shield mage was bending low, as though a heavy weight was being dropped onto her shoulders, and she raised her arms above her head as if to protect it from the deluge. Keric wanted to shout encouragement, but knew better than to distract her; all he could do was watch and hope.
Ashandra reached the top of the stairs and staggered forward into the annex. A deep, guttural sound came from her throat, and she drifted right, then left, nearly losing her balance. Golden flashes exploded around her, obscuring her from view, then Keric heard a furious yell of defiance, and the light abruptly died. He felt a momentary surge of panic as darkness surrounded him; the image of Trave’s dead body filled his thoughts, and he could imagine who or whatever had killed him coming for him, striking him down before he even knew it was there.
“Ashandra?” he asked, tentatively.
“Light,” came a tired voice in response. The voice belonged to Marthek, not Ashandra, and in response a dim glow appeared around the steel mage, the illumination coming from his drawn sword. The steel mage’s face was lined with exhaustion, but he held the blade up proudly, and its tip did not waver in the slightest.
“Ashandra,” Keric said, rushing toward the far exit. Marthek followed, and as the light from his sword spread, they could see the shield mage slumped against the wall under the lever. Keric felt a momentary stab of fear before she stirred her head and looked up at him.
“Remind me not to volunteer to do that again,” she said.
“Are you all right? Can you stand?” Keric asked.
“I don’t quite know,” she said. This time she accepted his hand, and did not shrug off his steadying grip once she was back on her feet. She nodded at Marthek. “How are you, soldier?”
“I will survive.” He looked them over, taking in their condition with a single weighing glance. “I take it that the Labyrinth has been cheating with you as well,” he said. “Where is Trave?”
“Dead,” Keric said. “We found his body near the entry.”
“Dead? Then this contest has become one of survival.” The young steel mage seemed to take strength from the realization, standing straighter, the brightness of the glow coming from his sword intensifying slightly.
“I think that whatever is corrupting the Labyrinth, it is getting stronger,” Keric said. “We need to find the way out, and quickly.” He looked at Ashandra. “Can you continue?”
“I guess I’d better, no?” She turned to the exit. “Let’s get going.”
The next passage started like all the others, but after a short distance it became a spiral ramp that descended at a manageable but definitely noticeable angle. They stayed close together, for the reassurance of proximity as much as for physical support. Marthek’s light gave them enough illumination to see by, though there was not much to see, except for the unadorned and smooth stone of the walls and floor. They were alert for another trap, though, knowing that even an instant’s warning might be the difference between life and death.
But no traps or other hazards materialized, and the slant of the passage leveled out before it straightened and deposited them into a vast chamber. They walked through the arch into a cavernous hall, dominated by a dome of white marble that stretched a good fifty strides from one side to the other, its peak easily that high above them. Alcoves along the walls were occupied by statues of robed men, decorated with fringes of colored cloth that rose almost to the rim of the dome above. The floor space was dominated by a large tiered gallery, full of ranks of cushioned benches, and a rostrum in the center where a speaker would dominate the attentions of those gathered. There were numerous exits, huge vaulted arches that one might have driven a wagon through, and small side doors that blended almost invisibly into shadowed crevices along the walls.
The place was empty, sepulchrave, a vast and quiet tomb.
“The Hall of Order,” Keric said. “This is the Mage Council’s chamber.”
“Seems bigger than I remember,” Ashandra said. “Of course, it was full of arguing mages at the time.”
“This… this cannot be!” Marthek said.
“Of course it can be, and it is,” Ashandra said to him. “We’re in the Labyrinth, remember?”
The steel mage flushed and lowered his eyes, abashed at his own outburst.
“So I wonder what we have to face here,” Ashandra said. “Maybe the Mage Council will appear and we have to kill them to get past? That would have a certain appeal, I would admit.”
“You speak of treason,” Marthek chided her. She rounded on him, but before an argument could begin, Keric stepped between them. “I think the exits are the test,”
he told them. “Look.”
The mages stared at the varied routes out of the chamber. At first they saw nothing; the corridors beyond the great arches were deep in shadow, but that was not unusual in and of itself. But after a moment, they recognized what Keric had seen; each exit, from the arched corridors to the small doorways, was covered with a faint, hazy film, an aura of distortion that was just barely visible. Once they’d seen it, though, they could feel the slight tingle of contained magic.
“So which way do we go?” Marthek asked.
“If we wanted to get out of the building, the fastest way would be the main doors,” Ashandra said, pointing to the double doors on the far side of the room. If this had been the real Hall, those doors would lead to the Great Foyer, and then out into the central square of Sacreth beyond. She had actually taken a step in that direction before Keric stopped her.
“Wait,” he said, turning to a small, almost invisible opening in the side of the room opposite the rostrum, nearly hidden behind the outermost tier of seats, under a subtle arch that was barely defined from the surrounding stone. “That’s it. The Petitioner’s Arch.”
Ashandra nodded. “The gateway that every one of us must go through, to present themselves before the Council and be admitted to the ranks of Sacreth’s wizards.” She looked at Keric. “It’s the other entrances that are used by mages, ambassadors, people with wealth or power. Even the most humble citizen can use the front doors. The petitioner comes in through the little side door, to remind her of the importance of humility. I think you’re right, it would be just like Seris to make that the test.”
“Come on, we can get to it by cutting through the chamber,” Marthek said. He started forward, but the others had barely taken their first step when a noise drew them up short.
The sound startled them, disturbing the silence of the vast empty chamber as it did. It was a sick, wet sucking noise. Its source was close, and getting closer. The three mages drew back reflexively from the sound, which seemed to come from one of the arched corridors on the far side of the room, along the route that would take them to the Petitioner’s Arch, and the way forward.
When the source of the sound finally appeared, emerging through the archway into view, each of them felt a cold terror in their guts. Trave’s killer had finally found them.
It was roughly the size and shape of a man, but at that all similarity between themselves and the entity ended. Its skin was a glistening red mess the color of freshly spilled blood, its features amorphous, lacking anything even as remotely familiar as a mouth or eyes. Its arms ended in slightly curved blades, and as it stepped closer, they could see that with each tread a splatter of viscous gore was splashed upon the floor. The sucking noise came when it lifted a foot; the substance, even the bits that had separated from the creature, followed it, parting from the white stone to be reabsorbed, leaving only a vaguely discolored mark in its wake.
“By Neva’s grace,” Ashandra gasped, her skin almost as pale as the white marble walls of the great chamber.
Squelching with each step, the blood golem approached the three mages.
* * * * *
Chapter 7
The Labyrinth Page 6