by S. M. Boyce
“It’s possible,” Fyrn admitted. “In which case we are going to have to be very protective of you, Audrey. Any other traps or enchantments that remain may target you specifically for your blood, especially now that you’re more attuned to your gifts. Any survivors may hate you instantly. You don’t exactly look human anymore, and that tiara is a dead giveaway to your heritage.”
“But it’s just a silver headband.”
“That’s Atlantean metalwork, child, with an Atlantean crystal embedded in its tip. If there are wizards and witches here, they will know what it is and what you are.”
Audrey nearly gulped. “But they aren’t, right? There were no survivors.”
“There was also not supposed to be a lingering warning cry on the entrance,” Fyrn said solemnly.
“Touché,” Audrey admitted softly.
“You should practice shifting into a witch, Audrey. You must be ready. If we encounter survivors, you must pass as one of them.”
“But the tiara remains on my head when I shift.”
“I believe you can hide even that with practice. I urge you to try as we walk.”
Audrey nodded. Victoria studied her as the girl nervously balled her hands into fists. She could read her friend easily—Audrey hated this place. It didn’t take a genius to realize Audrey wished with all her heart that she could leave immediately. From her expression, everything in her soul told her to flee as fast as her strong legs could carry her.
But after one look at Victoria, a flicker of understanding crossed her face. She must have realized this was exactly how Victoria had felt in the bowels of Atlantis.
“The shit we do for our friends,” she muttered.
“You have no idea,” Victoria said with a laugh. She carried on down the tunnel, and the wizards walked after her.
Not long afterward Audrey’s soft footsteps followed, and Diesel dropped to the back of the party so that Audrey would never be in the vulnerable spot at the rear.
After a few moments of walking with Styx buzzing around her head, Victoria picked up the distinct sound of chattering voices. They reminded her of Styx, but were higher in pitch. He squeaked and landed on her head, thumping her scalp to get her attention. His soft wings tickled her scalp.
Around a bend, a recess in the tunnel wall let in a trickle of silver light from somewhere overhead. A thin stream of water bubbled over the rock wall in a small waterfall, pooling by a moss-covered boulder.
On the rock sat a tiny creature that reminded Victoria of a fuzzy pink tennis ball with stubs for legs. As she neared, four little ears popped up from within the fluff, all of them focused on her. Seconds later, two massive eyes opened. The black irises covered half the creature’s body and it stared at her as though more intrigued than afraid. It cooed.
“Aw, what a cutie,” Victoria said softly.
Styx muttered and tugged on her hair jealously, but she waved him away. He fluttered into the air, pouting.
“Nothing could replace you, Styx,” she said with a wink to her little companion.
He smiled, blushing a bit, and reluctantly waved her on as if he wanted her to continue complimenting him.
Instead, Victoria leaned in toward the little fluff ball. It bounced once, gaining new footing on the boulder as its adorably massive eyes stared her down.
“What is this?” Victoria asked Fyrn.
To her surprise, the old wizard shrugged. “I haven’t read anything of these creatures.”
“What? The mighty Fyrn doesn’t know?” Victoria had to bite back her shit-eating grin as she teased him.
He grumbled and nodded toward Diesel. “Have you ever heard of these creatures? Should we be concerned?”
Victoria quirked an eyebrow. “Concerned? They’re adorable!”
Diesel shook his head. “This thing looks somewhat like a snuffle, but those are supposed to be extinct. No one has any drawings of the creatures, only descriptions. One moment…I simply must document this.”
Fyrn groaned in annoyance. “This isn’t a school trip. I merely need to know if we should kill it or not.”
Diesel pulled out his quill and notebook. “This will take only a moment. I’m quite an accomplished artist.”
“Of course you are,” Audrey muttered.
Victoria stifled a chuckle and neared the endearing little creature. It cooed softer the closer she got, and she couldn’t help but feel grateful to find something sweet in this supposed cave of horrors.
And then her instincts flared for no logical reason. She took a proactive step back seconds before the creature opened a mouth the size of her fist, gums littered with jagged and broken teeth. It lunged for her.
Diesel yelped. “It’s not a snuffle! It’s definitely not a snuffle!”
Victoria didn’t comment. She ducked out of the way with practiced ease, the little monster missing her by inches. Out of reflex she summoned her sword and skewered the fuzzy bastard.
Her hopes for a bit of beauty and kindness in this cave dashed, she dismissed her sword and grabbed the furry little corpse out of the air as it fell. It squished in her hand, not nearly as soft as she had expected.
With a disgusted grunt she tossed the creature to Diesel, who caught it with a grimace. “Knock yourself out.”
“Ew,” Diesel said as he held the creature between two fingers.
Victoria fumed. First a golem attacked her best friend, and now an adorable creature tried to rip her throat out. What next, a dragon?
She winced, hoping she hadn’t just jinxed herself.
Without another word she stormed down the hall, cursing this damned place all the while.
Chapter 13
This whole “not knowing how much time had passed” thing was starting to grate on Victoria’s nerves as much as Audrey’s. Styx fluttered overhead, oblivious to her discomfort. He probably didn’t fully understand the lack of time in these caves, and if he did, he obviously didn’t care.
Victoria walked in step with Fyrn down the jewel-lined corridor. There hadn’t been a single fork in the road, nor had there been another landmark since the not-a-snuffle had attacked her.
For all she knew they could be walking in place, and she absently checked the floor for built-in treadmills.
Nothing. Just endless rock.
“Are we there yet?” she asked, intentionally adding a bored teenager inflection to the question.
“Close,” Fyrn said.
“How can you tell? I feel like I’m on a treadmill.”
Fyrn chuckled. “I imagine this is torture to you. If you were a witch, you would feel the various side passages and the time we’ve spent walking. There’s a reason Diesel is dragging at the rear.”
“He’s tired? I thought he was guarding Audrey.”
“A bit of both, I suppose. If you’ll notice, he hasn’t said anything annoying for quite some time.”
Huh. Come to think of it, Fyrn was right. Diesel must really have been tired if he wasn’t hitting on her. Victoria peered over her shoulder. Diesel was walking with one hand in his pocket, the other leaning a little too heavily on his staff while his eyes scanned the cave around them.
He caught her gaze and shot her a charming wink.
She shook her head, about to turn back around when she noticed a slight shimmer at the edges of Audrey’s form. The Atlantean pinched her eyes tightly shut, and the tiara on her head slowly began to fade. It blurred like a desert horizon, almost disappearing completely before it popped back into sharp focus. Audrey let out a breath and nearly threw up. Apparently she had held it a bit too long.
“Keep going, Audrey,” Victoria said with a smile. “You’ve got this.”
Shoulders heaving, Audrey nodded wearily. Victoria knew these shifts took a lot of energy, but if anyone could master it, Audrey was the best bet.
Chapter 14
Though Victoria had no concept of time, she imagined it was ages before they abruptly came to a stop at the opening to a massive cavern. The vast expanse stretch
ed forever, and was filled with various islands of rock.
Victoria inched toward the cavern. A carved walkway led down, but beyond the ten-foot-wide path was a forty-foot drop she didn’t want to risk.
“Something is wrong,” Fyrn said softly. As he spoke, a light-blue glow radiated from the crystal at the tip of his staff. His eyes scanned the darkness.
Victoria did the same, tensed for battle despite the odd grogginess that seemed to come out of nowhere and slow her down as her foot crossed the threshold. Another charm, no doubt.
She scanned the cavern, its many crags and islands lit by the same glowing jewels and gems as their tunnel. The seemingly endless expanse truly made it seem as though space itself had opened up to greet them with a twinkling rainbow of color and pinpricks of dazzling light.
If Fyrn hadn’t been on such high alert, Victoria might have savored the beauty of the scene.
Leaving the tunnel to see more of the cavern, they inched out onto a ledge lit by the stones around them. Victoria was careful to keep away from the edge, lest she plummet into the deep shadows beyond. Audrey grabbed the back of Victoria’s shirt as if doing so would root her to stable ground, and even Diesel’s hand found its way around her waist, though Victoria doubted his motives were as pure.
“We should head back,” Fyrn said softly.
Victoria gestured back the way they had come. “Why? The tunnel ended here and you seemed confident this was the route to take, Fyrn. What’s wrong?”
“There shouldn’t be a cavern, Victoria. This shouldn’t exist. Even if every twist we took was imperceptible to non-wizards, we’ve been taking forks in the road since the beginning. Up until this moment, I instinctively knew exactly where to go. Then out of nowhere the tunnel ended here, but that doesn’t make sense. The route to Lochrose is one of tunnels, not caverns. Something is very, very wrong.”
“Fine, fine. We’ll go.” Victoria spun on her heel and nearly ran into a cliff wall. She gasped, confused. A second ago there had been a tunnel, and now the way was blocked with rock. She pressed her hands against it, wondering if it were another illusion like the entrance at Montezuma’s Well, but the sharp edges nearly cut open her palm.
Fyrn followed suit, pressing his fingers against the rock. “Fuck.”
Victoria’s brows shot up. “I’ve never heard you cuss like that before.”
“We’ve never been in this much trouble before.” He spun around, staff at the ready for an attack. The landscape that met their gaze was different yet again. The towers and islands of rock had shifted while their backs were turned, and they now faced an entirely new vista.
“Shit,” Diesel muttered.
“It must be bad if you two are suddenly sailors,” Audrey snapped. She drew her sword and crept to Victoria’s side, while Diesel stood at the end of the line so as to sandwich the girls with wizards.
“Four little travelers, lost in the shadows,” a woman’s voice said. It was ageless and eternal, echoing from the depths of the cavern much like the golem’s roar had.
“Fuck,” Fyrn said again, his grip tightening on his staff.
Oh, this was not good.
Victoria summoned her sword, eyes scanning the darkness for something—anything at all—that might reveal what they were up against.
A massive shadow stalked past the jewels deep below, but Victoria couldn’t quite tell how big it was. Without a proper frame of reference it could be several stories tall or no larger than a lion, though neither thought was very reassuring.
A draft of air blew past her face, and she had the dizzying sensation of vertigo. They seemed to be up high, and if that was true this creature had to be the size of several eighteen-wheelers stacked on top of each other.
“What the hell was that?” Audrey hissed, voice hushed as her eyes darted along the cavern walls.
Fyrn raised his staff, its tip glowing brilliantly as he prepared to fight. “I’m not sure yet, but I’m fairly certain we don’t want to know.”
The voice chuckled, the sound echoing several times over. “You’re correct, old wizard. You do not want to know me, but you will. One by one, I will savor your hot blood between my teeth.”
“That’s a little dark,” Audrey muttered.
“Who are you to criticize the darkness, Atlantean? I quite enjoy the taste of hypocrites.”
With that, the shadow deep in the cavern launched itself. It sailed toward them impossibly fast, and Victoria raised her blade seconds before the beast was upon them.
In the chaos time slowed, but still Victoria could barely react fast enough.
To her left, a blinding bolt of light shot from Fyrn’s staff. To her right, a white burst of lightning tore from Audrey’s palm. Green energy sparked and fizzled from Diesel’s staff not far away.
The sudden burst of light illuminated one of the most horrifying things Victoria had ever seen in her life.
A giant woman snarled at Victoria, her beautiful eyes contorted with hatred. Her towering face was easily three times Victoria’s height, and a lion’s mane flanked her cheeks and temples like flawless strawberry hair.
The red fur along her neck and paws—paws?—shimmered copper in the light, and the brilliant blue feathers of her massive wings matched the azure-blue glow of her eyes. She—although whatever the hell this woman was, she was definitely not human—bared her teeth. They were sharp as daggers and she attacked, inches from skewering all four of them with a single bite.
Victoria struck first.
She drove her sharpened blade into the creature’s mouth, drawing a rush of blood that spilled like a waterfall onto the ledge where the four stood. It coated Victoria’s hands and arms, but she gritted her teeth and drove her blade in farther.
The monster shrieked and batted its wings, pulling itself away from Victoria’s blade and fading into the darkness as a barely-visible wraith overhead.
“Hold onto each other!” Fyrn shouted. He struck his staff against the ground as Diesel grabbed Victoria’s waist and tugged her close. Before she could push him off, light splintered from beneath the elder wizard’s staff and the ground beneath them rumbled as though he had started an earthquake.
The ground gave under them, and they fell.
She and Diesel plummeted down the rocky cliff with nothing to catch them as they fell into the darkness.
A second later Audrey screamed, and Victoria had a split second to be grateful her friend hadn’t been lost in the chaos. Her moment of gratitude came and went, replaced by panic, and Victoria couldn’t help but scream as well. Even Diesel yelled on their way down, but Victoria couldn’t hear Fyrn.
She stretched her neck, her panic worsening. She couldn’t hear Fyrn.
They landed with a thump at the bottom, all of them rolling away from the base as small rocks continued to fall down the cliff. Not missing a beat, Diesel grabbed her and Audrey’s hands and bolted, nearly dragging them behind him. Victoria protested, desperate to find her mentor, but Diesel was too strong.
“I don’t see Fyrn!” she shouted.
“He’s— Victoria, look out!” Diesel grabbed her, swinging her out of the way of a massive boulder seconds before it smashed to the ground.
He pulled her and Audrey into a tunnel lit by the dim glow of more gemstones in the rock. He pressed himself against the wall and set his arm across Victoria’s body, pushing her against the rock as well. Since she couldn’t wriggle out of his grasp, she pointed into the cavern’s darkness. “I’m not leaving Fyrn!”
“You don’t have to,” the old wizard said as he ambled around the corner into the tunnel. Though he no longer had his pack, he walked with all the calmness of a man who had merely gone on a morning stroll, not someone who had faced a monster before falling down a cliff.
Victoria let out a sigh of relief and slumped against the wall, heart hammering in her chest. She needed a second to calm down, to catch her breath and—
“No!” the monster shrieked, her shrill voice like nails on a chalkboa
rd as it echoed through the endless cavern. “No one escapes me. No one!”
Fyrn pressed himself against the wall as well, eyeing the tunnel’s entrance as the massive shadow bolted past. The shrieking continued as the creature shuffled around at the base of the cliff. It sniffed, reminding Victoria of a dog searching for a toy to rip to shreds.
She shuddered.
With a gentle wave of his hand, Fyrn pointed down the tunnel and silently crept away from the giant pot of crazy kicking up dust in the cavern. Victoria nodded and followed, finally letting herself pause to process what she had just seen.
A sphinx. Having pieced together the puzzling array of the monster’s features, she knew exactly what it was. Face of a human. Body of a lion. Wings of an eagle.
A sphinx, no question.
Once again the Lochrose tunnels’ wards kicked in, and Victoria lost all sense of time. She might have been traveling for days or merely seconds, but when she looked over her shoulder the cavern was long gone. Only the endless tunnels remained.
Fyrn finally paused and sat in a heap on the ground, wiping his weathered face as he leaned against the wall. “Damn it all. I lost my pack when we fell. All the healing tonics and explosives are gone.”
“At least you didn’t die,” Victoria said with relief.
He shrugged as if he almost preferred that option to losing his precious tonics. Victoria rolled her eyes.
Diesel slumped against the wall, and Victoria followed suit. Audrey, however, paced their makeshift camp. “What was that thing?”
Fyrn opened his mouth, but Victoria answered first. “A sphinx.”
“Yes. Very good!” Fyrn said with a hint of surprise.
“But what’s it doing in a wizard ruin?” Audrey demanded.
“And why did it seem to lose us when we entered the tunnels?” Diesel added.
Fyrn stroked his beard. “I’m not entirely certain, but I believe this has something to do with why we lost Lochrose in the first place. The enchantments on that cavern are powerful. Immortal. Immovable. It is the creature’s lair. Whatever magic we fell into is part of the sphinx’s defenses, and it ensnares victims by changing the tunnel structure. We should never have arrived at that cavern.”