Afterworld

by Lynnette Lounsbury

  The minutes gurgled and swirled and then began to slowly drip downwards. Dominic smiled and stepped onto the path.

  With his first step the vision of the path dissolved into blackness and he felt himself falling. It was a tumbling freefall and it took so long that he could no longer tell which was up or down. He held his hourglass and satchel tight to his chest and curled to keep the bag on his back and eventually he felt the spray of a waterfall around him and heard its roar growing louder. A very dim, diffused light showed him he was falling down a huge waterfall and the water below was rushing up to meet him.

  He hit it hard and the heavy bag with its weapons and tools, rope and torches pulled him deep under the water. As he struggled for the surface he found that it felt thicker than water and was full of heavy reeds that made it difficult to move. They swarmed through the churning water and held him, tangling his bag, his legs and arms. He finally found purchase on something hard and pushed upwards, getting his head free of the water long enough to take a breath. He looked for an edge, something to swim towards, but he could see only a few drops of water catching the dim light and little else. He sank again and let himself drift downwards until he found something else to push off. The bag was too valuable to lose and he was determined to hang on to it. He went deeper this time, but eventually found a rock to push upwards from, his legs pumping to get him high enough for a breath. This time he managed to tread water for a moment, and he heard something in the darkness. A voice calling.

  It had to be Eva. He called back. The voice called again, but he couldn’t make out what it was saying or be sure where it was coming from. He repeated his process a few more times, pushing himself closer to the sound. The light seemed to have vanished and he was in complete darkness, making it very difficult to know where the surface of the water was. He struggled to swim a few strokes with each breath, but the bag was too heavy. Just as he was about to give up and let it go he heard the voice again. Much closer this time, echoing so much it was clear that they were in some sort of cave.

  ‘Dominic?’

  ‘Yes. Eva? I’m here.’

  The words tumbled around themselves with the echo and it was hard to decipher what her reply was. He swam towards the sound.

  ‘Rope.’ He heard the word and reached around to try and unhook the rope from the side of his bag. He sank immediately. When he spluttered to the surface he tried to explain that he couldn’t get the rope free, but something bobbed gently against his head. He grabbed at it. Rope. He pulled himself along it, arm over arm as quickly as he could. Finally his feet hit solid ground and he clambered gracelessly onto a rock ledge, gasping for breath and reaching around in the dark until he found Eva’s hand and pulled himself closer.

  He panted, ‘Thank God I found you. That was crazy.’

  He heard the sound of a flint being struck a couple of times in the dark and suddenly light flared around him, blinding him for a couple of seconds.

  ‘I know.’ The voice was clear now and it scalded Dominic’s breath from his throat. He rubbed his eyes quickly and peered into the soft light that surrounded the pale face and wet blonde hair of Deora. ‘I thought I’d lost you. But here you are.’

  PART III

  THE MAZE

  Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

  LAO TZU

  1

  Dominic’s Hourglass

  9004 Minutes

  Dominic didn’t want to open his eyes again. If he could have shut his ears he would have done that too. Deora’s lilting voice drifted on and on in front of him as they climbed, hand over hand, up the wet, slippery rocks. There was no point in opening his eyes anyway, it was too dark to see anything except the faintest fizzle of the torch Deora had managed to light. It hissed and glowed with only the most begrudging of rays, enough for Deora to have the vague feeling she had ‘been here before’ and setting her off up the goat track beside the pounding waterfall that had brought him here.

  Where was Eva? He slipped again, his hands grasping at the sharp rocks to stop himself from plummeting. His bag was soaking wet and only the one torch was anything less than doused. He was unable to see, but it felt as though everything else was just as wet: the food, the rope which had doubled in weight, and Eva’s notebook which felt swollen and unpromising. Deora never seemed to slip. Or be quiet. Her feet stepped lightly up the rocks, which were near vertical, and she recounted her first trip through the Maze, which was apparently horrific. Dominic couldn’t forget that she had recently tried to kill him, but he decided that mentioning it to the woman with the only light source was not wise, so he kept silent. The water dulled her voice to muffled background noise, so Dom was able to gather his thoughts. Eva had to be here somewhere. He bit his lip and berated himself for taking so long. He had to be almost thirty minutes behind her. He shouldn’t have let her go first.

  Perhaps she was waiting at the top of the interminable cliff, somewhere dry and well-lit. The water was ice cold, but the air was dank and his body heat was turning the damp into an uncomfortable steamy cloud. He hadn’t liked rock climbing back in life – mostly because of the gung-ho, knife-toting wilderness boys who favoured it. Of course, it would have to turn up in his death! Scrambling onto the rock in front of him, he was surprised to find it was a right angle. They were at the top. Not far away was a light source, dim, diffuse and not particularly welcoming, but he’d take anything right now. Deora stood nearby smoothing her dress, which was wet, clinging to her substantial curves and strangely, even in the murk, seemed to still be white. He grunted and huffed his legs over the edge, trying not to let the heavy backpack twist him backwards down the cliff. She watched without helping and said something he couldn’t hear. He flopped onto the ground and peered around at the small space, an open flat area a few feet across with the cliff behind them. The land dropped off around them on three sides, leaving only one direction to go. One option. A small doorway, narrow, low and perfectly rectangular, through which a yellowish light was shining. Eva wasn’t here, but if she had come this way before him, there was only one way she could have gone.

  He checked the contents of his bag. The bread was soggy and almost inedible, but he was ravenous so he broke off a piece and held it out towards Deora. She shook her head in disgust and Dom shrugged before shoving it into his mouth. It tasted like bag and rope and the paper of the notebook. Not worth more than a few chews, but it was food and it helped. His head cleared a little.

  ‘I guess that’s the way then?’

  She smiled. ‘Obviously. The tunnels will begin through there. The Maze is mostly a series of tunnels. We have to find our way through them to the centre. It is a labyrinth.’

  She led the way again, though he noticed she was more tentative, walking slowly and looking back a couple of times to check he was close. Her nervousness made him uneasy. The doorway led to a corridor, long enough for the dim light to fade into darkness, with a ceiling low enough that Deora had to bend and Dom’s head skimmed the smooth surface. It felt like stone, but was warmer than he expected, as though there was some heat source deep inside. There were markings on the wall, but they had faded to faint scratchings; cave paintings. He studied them as he walked, trying to find some sense of picture in them, but all he could recognise was a strong resemblance to the Egyptian hieroglyphs he had seen in school and then again in Eva’s notebook. The symbols seemed to become sharper the further into the tunnel they walked, first with clearer edges and soon with vibrant colours. A bird. Maybe an eagle. A snake. A king. A jackal-headed man. Dom fixed his eyes on that one, remembering. Anubis. Focused on the paintings, he didn’t notice Deora stop and he walked right into her.

  She was standing at an intersection, where the tunnel offered a simple choice. Left or right. Dom moved to stand beside her. Across from them, in a recess in the wall, was an exquisitely wrought golden urn. It wasn’t large, only the length of his arm, but it had a bird etched on the front of it and the detail and colour were so
vivid both of them paused to admire it.

  ‘Strange.’ Deora frowned slightly.

  ‘Why strange?’

  ‘It’s watching us.’ She gestured. ‘These pictures are always in profile, but this hawk is looking directly at us. It isn’t telling us which direction to turn.’

  ‘Perhaps it is telling us to get the hell back where we came from.’ He peered down both corridors, but they were identical and trailed into blackness. The light source for the tunnels seemed to be following them, and he knew it couldn’t be the lick of flame on the torch Deora was carrying. It must be part of the Maze. The only welcome part so far. He glanced back at the bird. He was sure he knew what kind of bird it was. If only he could remember. From Eva, or school. Its blue eyes stared straight into his as he concentrated, trying to will the memory into his conscious mind. It always seemed easier to grab memories when he wasn’t trying to. Like a butterfly that landed on your shoulder when you weren’t watching.

  ‘Horus!’ he exclaimed triumphantly. ‘It’s Horus. The hawk. Woah!’

  The bird moved suddenly. Dom grabbed at Deora’s arm and she reached for his. She smiled. The hawk’s head and right wing were now pointing firmly to Dom’s left.

  ‘See? I told you.’ She gestured for him to go ahead.

  Walking confidently down the left-hand corridor, Dom spoke over his shoulder. ‘Well that wasn’t too challenging. If everything is that simple to figure out, we might make it after all.’ He took another step and fell into nothingness. Swinging around grasping for anything, he felt a branch whip through his fingers, but he couldn’t hold it. All it did was flip him so that he could see Deora’s face above him as he landed hard on the ground. The backpack cushioned his fall slightly, but his head snapped and hit the ground with a crack that dissolved his vision into darkness.

  2

  Eva’s Hourglass

  7999 Minutes

  Enough.

  Eva got up and used her hands to feel through the thick darkness until she reached something that felt like a wall. Pushing her face as close as she could, she tried to see some clue as to her surroundings, but it was too dark. It felt glass-smooth, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t painted with the hieroglyphic instructions that might help her find her way forwards through the Maze. She sighed. This was just typical. She couldn’t count on anything to ever work out the way she planned in the Afterworld. When she had stepped through the gate she had been full of hope and confidence that Dom would be right behind her. He was carrying the bag containing all of their supplies: ropes, food, her notebook and, of course, the torches.

  But when the gate had swung shut behind her, she was in total darkness in what seemed to be a corridor, but could well be the edge of a cliff. She should have made Dom go first. While sitting alone for an hour, she had imagined all the different scenarios that might have occurred. Dom could be in another part of the Maze. Someone might have stopped him from even entering the gate – Satarial being her first suspect. He might have even changed his mind. Eva hated herself instantly for this thought – of course he hadn’t changed his mind, if only for the fact that the Nephilim would make his life hell if he stayed in the City. But what if he had? What if he had gone back for Deora?

  ‘Get a grip.’ The words echoed unnaturally around her. Immediately there was a long, low growl. Like a dog, but with far more depth. It sounded distant. She froze. The growl was followed by the far more terrifying sound of sniffing, something following her scent. Turning away from the sound, she kept one hand on the wall and began to run, her other hand in front of her in case she fell or came to a wall. The sniffing became a panting run and it was getting closer. To her horror, the creature howled into the darkness and was answered by dozens of others. The thudding patter of dozens of huge paws filled the chamber with so many echoes she stopped running. They were in front of her too. She sank into a ball on the floor, her back to the wall and her hands over her head. Too much of a realist to ever imagine she would outrun the creatures, she kept as silent as possible and waited.

  It took only a few more moments for the pack to find her. Eva could still see nothing, but now she could smell them, their hot breath stinking of meat and blood. The puffs of breath hit her from all sides and she counted at least four animals. Finally there was a short sharp bark and a jaw clamped on her arm, pulling it away from her face. It didn’t hurt too much, the teeth weren’t breaking the skin, but they would if she resisted at all, so she stopped struggling and waited, trying to keep her breath even and her panic in check. There had been no dogs in the Maze when she travelled it last time. She had never been hunted like this.

  The dog pulled her and she rose first to her hands and knees and finally struggled to her feet. It was leading her and she had no choice but to follow. As compliantly as her pride would allow, she walked beside the creature, keeping a slight tension on her hand to show she had not surrendered completely. With her other hand, she felt her way along the wall. Behind her she heard the other dogs, following softly. At least she thought they were dogs. Everything about them seemed slightly too large. The one biting her wrist was taller than her waist and their growls sounded more like those of a grizzly bear. They walked only a short distance before she was pulled sharply around a corner into another corridor that held the promise of a very dim light at the end. Her pace quickened. Whatever was down there would be visible. She could fight something she could see, but in the dark, it was hard to know how courageous to be. As the light penetrated the smoggy blackness she dared to look down at the dog and was startled to see it was watching her, its yellow eyes sharp. Intelligent.

  They were jackals, with silken hair that glistened over slinking haunches, and ears, sharp like knife blades, that pointed directly upwards. Their bodies were rippled with muscle, thin as whippets, but strong as a mastiff. Eva knew there wouldn’t be any running away. There were five of them and they walked in perfect formation around her, controlled and silent. Shadows. In the brightening light she noticed collars around their necks, gaudy and golden, decorated with blue stones. They looked Egyptian. At least she knew she was in the right place. She remembered the people at the lake outside the Necropolis talking about dogs in the Maze. Now she understood. Perhaps that was what they were doing. Taking her straight back to the Necropolis. Turning back, she felt a vague hope that she might still find Dom, but her spirits fell when she saw only the piercing yellow eyes of the jackals watching her every move.

  They led her to a room lit by torches, flames that threw dancing shadows across the four walls, but after being so long in darkness she had to squint and blink to focus. There was little in the room. The walls were covered with hieroglyphs in bright colours, and the large relief on the far wall was a description of the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony – the ceremony that occurred when you reached the very centre of the Maze. There was nothing that gave her an idea of where she was. A small, gilded chair sat in the centre, but it was empty. The dog led her into the centre of the room and then let go of her arm and retreated slightly to stand across the doorway. Eva examined the pictographs around her, searching for anything else she might recognise.

  ‘Human.’ A deep voice startled her. The chair was no longer empty, but was filled to capacity with an immensely tall, muscled man with skin the same colour as the dogs. It reflected a golden hue in the flame-light: god-like. He was wearing only a short kilt of black fabric with an ornate blue and gold belt and his eyes were dark, but had a slight yellow tint like those of the jackals. He leaned forward to rest his huge folded hands on his knees and, as he did, Eva saw the hinges of folded wings rising above his shoulders.

  ‘Anubis,’ she whispered. It had to be him. She was slightly surprised, but not unhappy, to see that he did not indeed have the head of a jackal. They stared at each other a moment longer before he sighed in boredom and stood. She gathered herself. ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘Want with you?’ He sounded amused, one side of his mouth rising in what may have been
a slight smile. ‘I don’t want you. You are just . . .’ He let the words slide away.

  ‘What?’ she pushed.

  ‘Everything you need to complete the Maze is in this room, human.’ His head tilted and his voice sharpened to a sarcastic edge. ‘I’m sure you will find . . . enlightenment.’ His broad smile lasted only long enough for her to see his razor-sharp canine teeth before he stood and briskly strode out the doorway. It slid shut behind him leaving her alone in the windowless room. A vaulted space, painted floor to ceiling with cryptic passages in an ancient language.

  Eva let out a long empty breath, looking at the indecipherable inscriptions around her. They were nothing like the ones she had studied. ‘Great.’

  3

  Dominic’s Hourglass

  8018 Minutes

  Dom had forgotten how strong Deora was. She pulled him to his feet with one hand and very little effort. He swayed and his eyes strained to keep things still. Everything in front of him was weaving, and he had to shake his head to bring the world back into focus.

  ‘Where are we?’ He could see bright light and green grass in one blink, and darkness in another.

  ‘You fell.’ She led him to the small cliff he had tumbled over. It was only three or four metres high, but still his body ached. He didn’t seem to heal as quickly here in the Maze. ‘I knew we shouldn’t trust Horus.’

  ‘Really?’ Dom rubbed the back of his head. Had he been dreaming? Parts of a story seemed to be wafting through his head. ‘You didn’t feel like you could have said that aloud? I thought Horus was one of the good gods? Wait . . . you let me go first so I would fall?’