The Forsaken Call

by Jamie Murray

  Luke paused a few moments and then faced the mural again. "So maybe, in that sense, it is your destiny, then," he said.

  "You don't understand," Raven decided.

  "Out of everyone here, I understand the most," Luke reminded her.

  Raven's face softened just barely in response to Luke's truthfulness. She looked as though she would say something but was interrupted when Baloric called out for the others to come over to him. He was leaning on a small stone table which stood about as high as his knees and was located in the center of the room. When the others gathered around it, they found there wasn't anything particularly notable about it at first.

  Baloric brushed his hand over the surface and dust fluttered up in the air around it. "This is where I found the Shadow Stone," he said.

  Jameson had almost forgot that it was Baloric who had first come to the Shadow Shrine a year before they even met him at the Angel's complex. After a second's thought, abruptly Baloric placed his hands on either side of the tabletop and gave one hefty pull. The emptiness of the high room echoed the sound of one stone grating against another.

  "It moved," Jameson said, placing his hands on the table as well to help Baloric move it further. They pulled at the stone together and, at first, it seemed like a useless endeavor, but the entire Shrine appeared to quiver all at once, helping them completely uproot the table from its spot. While they inspected what was underneath, Luke ran to the doorway of the Shrine and looked out to find the source of what caused the Shrine to shake.

  With the cover of the table removed, it revealed a dark black hole extending so far into the ground that the bottom was not visible from where they were. "This must be it right in plain sight," Raven said, kneeling beside the overturned table. "Are we going to go down there?"

  "We have to," Jameson replied.

  "I can't see it," Luke reported from the doorway. "But can't you feel the ground moving?"

  "There's no more time," said Baloric. "It's unlikely Louisa and Cyrus will be able to keep up with it if it's after you, Jameson. We have no choice but to hurry down into the Shrine and hope we make it up in time before it's leveled."

  "I'll go first," said Luke, striding quickly to the hole, but Jameson stopped him.

  "I will," he said.

  Luke nodded and let Jameson step over the sides of the table. He gripped the edges and stepped down the side of the wall, allowing his foot to dangle briefly as he hoped to find solid ground. Disappointedly, he shook his head at the others who were waiting for the verdict, and then he closed his eyes and let go of the edge.

  The drop was not as far as he expected. Even so, it surprised him enough to put some pain in his ankles when he landed, and his knee nearly collapsed under his weight, reminding him of the fall he had taken outside the Shrine. He put his hands against the wall and looked up, judging the distance as about fifteen feet, which was hardly formidable; he had climbed higher trees in his childhood.

  "I think there are grooves in the wall," Jameson said. "Maybe they're footholds."

  "Do you see anything else?" Baloric questioned.

  Jameson turned around and squinted into the darkness. Far away, there was a faint glow about the size of a coin with a fuzzy outline, but it was promising.

  "There's some light," Jameson reported, looking up at his friends looking down at him. "I don't know where it's coming from."

  "Come on," said Baloric.

  He swung his legs over the edge and felt around with his feet the way Jameson had done before. He paused a moment in thought, searching the wall for the footholds Jameson mentioned.

  "They're up here too," he said. "We can use them to climb up afterwards."

  Jameson stepped to the side as Baloric let go of the edge and dropped down, landing gracefully next to Jameson. The first thing he did was inspect Jameson's claim for the existence of the glow, and then waved his hand for the rest to follow him.

  Raven was next and, at first, Baloric did not move out of the way. Jameson suspected his intention was to catch his sister when she landed, so Jameson tried to inconspicuously nudge Baloric out of the way after a quick assessment that Baloric was not physically strong enough to support her weight after the drop. She landed and Baloric did not attempt to cradle her and, as far as Jameson could tell, he was not offended at Jameson's intervention. William was next and, once the group had moved out of the way, Luke joined them at the bottom of the hole.

  Baloric was the first to move and took a few short steps towards the very distant glow, then turned and asked, "Jameson, are you sure you can't offer us any light?"

  Jameson instinctively reached his hand into his pocket for the five remaining stones. He pulled them out into his fist, not expecting any of them to actually show any promise, but was pleasantly surprised to discover the darkest one was emitting the faintest hint of light. The Shadow Stone was noticeably bright, though that stone had never been prone to emitting light the way the others had. He picked it out from the pile and held it up for just a few seconds before his eyes met with Luke's, reminding him what he was supposed to do.

  He held the stone out for Raven.

  "What?" she said, sounding more irritated than confused.

  "Take it," Jameson urged her.

  He glanced over to Baloric who looked weirdly opposed to the idea. Still, Raven reached out and took the stone and, as soon as her fingertips grazed its surface, the light increased exponentially. It was not so bright that they had to avert their eyes like it had been in the Rain Shrine, and only appeared to serve the purpose of showing the outlines of the room.

  "How is this happening?" William breathed so quietly, it was almost silent.

  "It's destiny," Raven replied simply, staring straight in the center of the stone.

  They quickly surveyed the area; a long hallway which opened at the end where the additional light was coming from.

  "It's just like the Rain Shrine," Luke said. "After we went through that hole in the floor, there was a hallway like this."

  "Do you think all the Shrines are the same?" Jameson asked.

  "We'll see," Luke said.

  "Come on," Baloric called from partway down the hall. "We don't have any spare seconds to even look around."

  46. We Call it a Skeleton

  Chapter 46

  The glow at the end of the hallway was coming from an enormous fire which burned to the ceiling, creating a wall of flames that appeared too fierce to be doused.

  "How is this possible?" Raven demanded. "Does this mean someone started a fire here recently?"

  "It's not real," Baloric said dismissively as he put his hand in the direction of the fire and shook his head. "There's no heat."

  He began to walk towards the fire, but none of the others seemed to think it was a very good idea and he was promptly ambushed by basically everyone else.

  "Just because it's not fire doesn't mean you should go blindly walking into it," Jameson said, oddly surprised with his own statement, since usually it was other people instructing him not to strut into chaos.

  "There's something we have to worry about more than that," William added.

  He raised both his hands and, as he did so, a gust of wind swirled the air, spiraling upwards. The fire did not change at all and the wind was visible because there was a distinct gray hue to it. After a few moments of allowing the air to settle, William lowered his hands again and the gray disappeared.

  He faced the others and waited for input. When none came, he explained, "It's the poison from the maze."

  "In here?" Luke questioned.

  "The other side of the fire," William said, and his eyes rose towards the ceiling. "You hear the echo?"

  "A little," Baloric agreed.

  "There's a deep hole on the other side," William said. "The gas is coming from there."

  "What does that mean?" Jameson led. "The maze and the Shrine are connected?"

  "That makes sense," Raven nearly exclaimed, bringing the echo to attention. "There are unexp
lored sections of the maze and that place goes on forever. It's probably the same hole."

  "But we saw that gray gas came from the Forces and we killed it," Luke reminded them.

  "It's true the Forces produced that gas," said William. "But if the same type of Forces was born in the same type of place, there are probably more of them."

  "Like the one approaching the Shrine right now," Jameson said with a nod.

  "What do we do then?" said Raven helplessly.

  "We have to see what's on the other side of that fire," Baloric said, backing up towards the flames.

  Jameson reached out to stop him at first, but then he stopped himself. It was strange to see Baloric so proactive, especially since the Baloric he remembered was hesitant and always second guessing himself. It may have just been because they were pressed for time, but Baloric was so terrifyingly adamant, it felt almost improper to try to convince him to do anything besides what he had his mind set on.

  In that sense, William was just like his older brother and immediately followed him to the edge of the flames.

  "Let me test it," William said, grabbing onto Baloric's arm. "My life is the only one that doesn't matter."

  "Are you serious?" said Baloric, looking almost offended.

  "You're all in the Prophecy," William said. "I'm not. If I die, I wouldn't be missed."

  Weirdly, Jameson felt William had a point, although morbid. He didn't think there was any justification to just go around sacrificing someone's life, and he felt secure knowing he wouldn't have to say it because Baloric was on top of it already.

  "Your life matters, William, are you kidding?" said Baloric, taking William by the shoulders and holding him tightly as Raven slowly approached the two. Baloric looked at his sister briefly, and then back at William. "We would miss you."

  William was about to speak, but the ground shook. Jameson steadied himself and inspected the integrity of the room, finally deciding it was not going to collapse on them within the next few minutes. After a sideways glance at Luke, he realized he was thinking the same thing.

  "But you also said we didn't have seconds to spare," William said.

  Abruptly, he wrenched himself from Baloric's grip and used magic to propel both Baloric and Raven backwards towards where Luke and Jameson were still standing. The action happened so suddenly that no one had an intelligent reaction; as Baloric and Raven hit the ground, William dashed for the fire and leapt through, disappearing in only a few short seconds. Jameson was shocked at first, but found himself not terribly surprised that it had happened the way it did.

  "William!" Raven shouted in the voice of a disciplinarian, but also terribly concerned.

  Baloric got to his feet and seemed to want to leap through the fire in a similar manner, but Jameson held onto him to wait. At first, Baloric pulled at Jameson's grip, and then he stopped and stood very still, listening with his eyes pointed at the floor. Raven only got to her knees and listened as well, swallowing hard and gasping with every breath.

  Baloric's voice broke the silence as he called, "William?"

  "I'm all right." William's voice came from the other side of the fire; lucid, calm and completely at ease. "There's an archway over here. The gas is coming from there. The ground is solid."

  Raven let out such a sigh of relief that it was unlikely she heard a word William said. Jameson finally released his grip on Baloric, hardly realizing he had been holding so tight, and allowed him to advance to the flames. Without hesitating at all, Baloric stepped right through.

  Jameson went to pass through as well, and Raven ran by him as he stepped over the flames and felt nothing. Once on the other side, the fire looked just as it did, and the only thing that changed was the large entrance in front of them. Raven grabbed onto William and pulled him into a grateful hug while commanding him not to do anything like that again, as Luke joined the rest of them.

  Jameson started with the gray gas which barely covered the surface of the ground, then he raised his eyes to the archway William had mentioned. Sure enough, although it was rather unremarkable, he did recognize it and was sure at least something similar had been in the maze. There were also two out-of-place stone pillars with orbs balanced on top on either side of the arch.

  "It looks just like the archway in the maze where we found that chest," Luke said.

  "I was just noticing that," Jameson said, also nodding his head toward the pillars which were nearly identical to the ones which had been both under Market City and in the Rain Shrine.

  "It's familiar?" Baloric said to Luke and Jameson.

  Before Jameson before could elaborate, Baloric raised a hand to tell him to be quiet, swiftly turning his head to the side and inspecting the walls and the floor. Jameson put his hand on the handle of his sword and scanned the area as well, unsure of what he was looking for and unable to hear anything.

  Then he heard it; a distant whistling. At first, he suspected it was coming from inside the archway, but he raised his head to look directly at the ceiling, and the others followed suit.

  "Nothing," Luke observed confusedly.

  Luke was right; although the whistling was definitely coming from above them, there was nothing hanging.

  "Wait, look," Raven suddenly announced, pointing at the ground.

  Jameson instinctually stepped backwards and looked to where Raven was pointing to see a black circle was forming around his feet, gradually expanding. When he stepped away, the circle retracted and disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place, while at the same time the distant whistling subsided.

  "Get out of this room," Baloric instructed as he stepped to the side as well, noticing the same black circle was forming underneath him as well.

  He scanned the ceiling again and then gestured for everyone to follow. Jameson kept frantically looking back and forth between the ceiling and the space in front of him. His interpretation of what happened was that there was something hanging over him, and the black circle had been its shadow as it dropped down. That, however, did not explain the reason for why it had vanished so suddenly.

  Once under the archway, Baloric stopped them and waited, trying to listen for another indication of the whistling. At first, Jameson was relieved not to hear anything at all, but then it began, faintly at first, slowly becoming louder, so he drew his sword in case a battle was the only option. Each of them had a circle around their feet but, as Baloric shuffled them forward again, the circles disappeared.

  "We have to keep moving," William said. "They come back when we stop!"

  "What are they?" Luke practically demanded. "Are they the same as those things outside the Shrine?"

  "No, these are different," Baloric answered, hurrying them through the tunnel. "Try not to think about them. As long as we keep moving, we don't even have to engage them."

  Jameson thought that was a rather unrealistic way of thinking about this quite serious problem, but he didn't want to explore the other option of standing still to allow whatever was over him to drop down.

  As long as they kept their pace consistent, they did not hear the mysterious whistling sound. The hallway began to open up to reveal a large circular room with an oddly low ceiling which wasn't even comfortable to stand up straight in. Jameson advanced towards a ledge which dropped down into darkness and peeked hesitantly over the edge.

  "Could you bring some light over here, Raven?" Jameson asked. "I think I can see something down there…"

  Raven leaned over the ledge while the others watched quietly. The layer of gray gas was thick and was clearly emanating from the hole, and it was emitting a distinct odor Jameson recalled from their adventure in the maze. Without a doubt, the maze and the Shrine had to be connected.

  "What is that?" Raven said, sounding repulsed as she scrunched up her nose in disgust.

  "I think it's just the gas," Jameson admitted. "It was in the maze too."

  "Gas?" questioned Baloric as he glanced up at the ceiling in response to the whistling starting
up again.

  "Maybe we should let it come so we can kill it," William said.

  "Just stay moving," Baloric instructed.

  However, even after they all stepped aside, the whistling did not stop, though there was not a distinct circle on the ground like there had been before. Finally, Raven let out a gasp and pointed at the wall across the gorge to a lanky creature scaling it, using toeholds similar to the ones near the entrance. It looked almost like a human, but its arms and legs were too long and it climbed with speed too great for even an exceptionally nimble person. Its movements were choppy and anything but fluid, spinning its head nearly all the way around to look at the group standing on the ledge. The eyes were sunken and hollow, and its jaw hung and swayed, unhinged, producing the whistling sound they had heard so eerily in the previous rooms.