The path winded almost at random, down into the earth, and then arched out to the right, far out from under the actual hill above ground. When it cut back under the hill, the path split into three tunnels and they took the rightmost one. The next break in the path had six other tunnels, stacking like honeycombs. As they continued downward, they found themselves entering larger caverns with an increasing selection of tunnels to explore. However, since the original tunnel stayed in the same physical location, they could follow the map. When at last they reached the edge of their map, where the Brotherhood’s probes had stopped tracing, Pearl couldn’t find a reason why. Beyond the line on the map stood more tunnel, the only noticeable change being the tunnel’s steeper decline.
“We’ve been walking these tunnels for hours and this is the first piece of fungi I’ve seen.” Theseus raised his lantern to reveal a patch of black moss with dark purple tumors on the wall. “Conditions are no different here than they are anywhere else, so why or how is it growing here?”
Pearl and the Ghost Boy ate from their provisions as Theseus investigated the area where the probes failed, mumbling to himself the whole time. Then, with a cheer, he announced, “Ha! There’s a barrier here. Invisible, but here nonetheless, stopping any magic from crossing through it.”
“Why did it stop the probes then?” Pearl asked as Theseus sat down and dug into his food provisions. “And what about our weapons? Can they get through?”
“I’ve been through the barrier several times, and my Titan Gloves still respond to my will, so our weapons will be able to pass through,” he explained between bites. “And the probes were conjured, constructs created from mana, lacking any mechanical components.”
“So it’s mana that can’t get through.” She stood up, faced the direction of the invisible barrier, and threw a fireball at it. The spell exploded against the unseen wall, the boom echoing throughout the tunnel. The flames skirted along the barrier and onto the tunnel’s walls, extinguishing against the stone. Several fungus patches ignited and burned away, leaving a bitter smoke in the air.
“What the hell did you do that for, girl?” Theseus roared, uncovering his ears he had shielded before the explosion. The Ghost Boy glared at Pearl as well.
“I wanted to see whether barrier negates a spell’s mana to stop it or simply stops it like a shield,” Pearl confessed. “It’s the latter. I’m sorry.”
“You couldn’t have taken my word for it?” He stared at her in befuddlement. “You’ve just alerted whatever is here to our presence.”
“But we haven’t seen anything,” Pearl countered.
“And that’s what we want. Otherwise, we would be fighting every step forward.” Pearl heard the explosion’s echo returning from the tunnel’s end ahead of them. By the time it reached her, it sounded like the rolling of distant thunder.
“I’m sorry, Theseus. I am.”
“Maybe we got lucky,” he sighed as he lifted his pack onto his back. “Let’s get moving.”
The tunnel spiraled downward, growing steeper until they had to walk on their heels to slow themselves, and a growing weight fell upon them. A weight pressed harder on them the deeper they journeyed, the air growing thicker with moisture and spores from the dark fungi. The darkness itself had grown heavier, crushing against their circle of light until it could only illuminate the three of them. Their march slowed to a crawl as breathing became more demanding, the airborne spores and shadows choking them.
When she thought she could bear no more, Pearl felt a breath of cool, fresh air brush past her. The spores grew sparse and a dim light ahead of them alleviate the pressing darkness. As they drew closer to it, the light ahead brightened and the tunnel floor leveled out until it laid flat around the last turn. The tunnel ended in a wide, squat opening which Pearl and the Ghost Boy could walk through, but Theseus needed to bend over to pass. All three came to a stop on the other side as they looked out at the cavern beyond.
“How?” escaped Pearl’s lips with her breath. Before them waited a mountainous dome carved into the earth, an entire underground world of which Pearl couldn’t see the opposite side. Small clouds gathered at the faraway ceiling around a ball of blue light shining over the landscape below. The landing they stood on led to a long, slope ending at an empty field. Beyond the field, covering almost the entire floor of the cavern, awaited a labyrinth of black stone.
From here, she could see the twists and turns leading to the center of the maze, the only part covered by a stone roof. Even at a distance, the walls towered high. The entrance opened wide, a hungering maw ready to devour all who entered. A vague memory drifted into her mind: a dying monster and his curse. Pearl looked at Theseus, his face as grim and still as the stone of the labyrinth. She touched his arm and he leapt out of whatever thoughts trapped his mind.
“I’m fine,” he answered.
“Does any of this look familiar?” Pearl changed the subject.
“None of this,” Theseus admitted. “I didn’t see much of it the last time I was here, but this…none of this was here.”
The Ghost Boy stood in wide eye silence when his glove pinged, a song like pebbles dropping into a metal pot. He pointed at the blackened and rugged plain at the bottom of the slope.
“You heard the boy. Let’s get a move on,” Theseus forced a chuckle to Pearl. Before Theseus could take a step, the Ghost Boy grabbed Theseus and pointed to Theseus’s katana and Pearl’s bastard sword. Weapons drawn, they descended the slope to the plain below. The ground crackled underfoot, and when Pearl looked down, the ground looked back. Hundreds of skulls watched them tiptoe across the thick layer of bones covering the earth as they tried their best to not disturb the dead.
The Ghost Boy’s glove went silent and he dug through the bones, pulling out several bands like his armlet of varied sizes. He snapped one on his other wrist, another around his head, a wide one around his waist, and two on his ankles. He concentrated on his new armlet and, after a few seconds, it expanded into a matching glove. He smiled and walked without cracking single bone.
In the center of the field of bones, Pearl’s Forewarn sent a shiver up her spine and she came to a halt, scanning the area for danger. Theseus froze as well and the gems on his Titan Gloves lit up, their colors dancing upon the bones around him. A clattering arose around the bones, low and quiet at first, growing more excited by the second. The bones bounced and bumped around into small piles with skulls on top, then rose to form erect, animated skeletons. Only a few skeletons were complete, most of them missing arms, legs, ribs, and skulls. A handful wore the clothes and armor they had worn in life, but all armed themselves with swords, daggers, and even the jagged bones of themselves and their comrades.
“What…who are they?” Pearl asked with trembling voice. The skeletons stalked closer, trying to separate her from Theseus. She leapt through the closing gap between the skeletons to Theseus’s side.
“Those that came before us. The members of both the Brotherhood’s and the Ghost People’s assaults.” She felt something brush up against her. The Ghost Boy had somehow made his way to them and the three of them stood back to back to back. “There’s necromancy at play. The bones must have been enchanted to reanimate when someone crosses through them.”
Pearl’s Forewarn yelped a warning as a skeleton lunged towards her with a bone fragment. She sidestepped the stab, severed the skeleton’s arm, the brought her sword down onto its head. Ragenoz Rako crunched through its skull and shattered through the skeleton’s ribs. Whatever magic held the skeleton together dissipated and it scattered apart on the ground. Theseus roared behind her, and more bones snapped under the force of his attacks. The Ghost Boy’s gloves fired bolts of light with the sound of soft gunshots, piercing through the skeletons and cutting them in half.
“Fight to the labyrinth’s opening,” Theseus commanded as he cut down several skeletons with a wide sweep of his katana. Together, he and Pearl broke the line of skeletons in front of them, while the Ghost Boy cove
red their rear.
“What now? Run and have them chase us?” Pearl asked as they drew closer to the labyrinth.
“That’s all we can do.” He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to cleave three skeletons apart. “Just beyond the entrance, the labyrinth’s path splits in two. We’ll make a choke point down the right path and hold our ground there. I’ll be damned if I die here.”
Pearl swung her sword at a skeleton rushing her, but her sword almost flew out of her hand as it cut through empty air. All of the skeletons broke apart on their own and their bones fell motionless onto the ground. Theseus and the Ghost Boy held themselves from leaping into the now non-existent battle. Before they could say anything, the bones started clattering and shaking again. They bounced across the field and gathered into a single, titanic pile. Chaos energy condensed and blew past them, sucked in by a whirlwind surrounding the bones.
As the energy soaked into the bones, the eyes of every skull turned towards them and two giant arms made of hundred bones each took hold of the ground. A pair of squatting legs formed on the sides of the pile. A gaping maw on the front opened and closed like a fish gasping on dry land. Several skulls clustered together, their eyes and mouths glowing red, creating two eyes that shifted around until the weight of their gaze fell upon Pearl, Theseus, and the Ghost Boy.
“What is that?” The monster heard Pearl and roared, the bones in its mouth vibrating to produce the sound. It lifted itself up, bones rolling over its form to complete its body.
“A bone construct, and a damn big one.” His wide eyes shot towards the labyrinth. The bone construct opened its mouth and a bright, purple ball of energy gather inside, electrifying the air. The Ghost Boy’s metal glove beeped with frantic urgency. “Run now. Now!”
The construct thrusted its head forward and unleashed an earthshaking stream of chaotic energy that carved through the ground as it chased after them. Pearl pushed herself to run faster, the sounds of screams filling her head. No, she thought. Forget that. Focus on the now. Something caught her foot and she flipped over onto her rear. An oomf from Theseus told her he too had fallen, but he quickly pushed himself to his feet. The Ghost Boy, still on his feet, slid to a stop, his gloved hands digging into the dirt to slow himself down. A black stone wall had risen from the ground, tripping them as they ran past, and closed off the entrance to the maze. The construct’s blast crashed against the wall with the sound of heavy rain, loose energy sparking over the top.
“Safe, but trapped,” Pearl sighed.
“The Black Heart is watching us,” Theseus replied. “It doesn’t want us to leave.”
The ground shook once more as another black wall shot up, separating Pearl from Theseus and the Ghost Boy. She stared at the wall, unable to comprehend its existence. She touched it, ran her hand over it, yet still couldn’t believe it was in front of her.
“Pearl!” Theseus’s worried voice carried over the wall. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. Just…stuck over here. I’m going to try and get over.”
“Won’t work. The boy just tried to jump over and some kind of a barrier stopped him. I don’t think anything is supposed to move over the walls.” Theseus, and the world, fell silent. “Pearl, you’re on your own for now. These paths must connect somewhere deeper in the maze. Keep moving forward until we find one another.”
“Wha—?“ Pearl slammed her fist against the wall. “No. No. I can’t.”
“Don’t panic,” Theseus tried to calm her. “This is exactly what you trained for, and you’re stronger than you believe. I’ll find yo—we’ll find you. Just keep moving and keep fighting.”
The path forward disappeared around the corner not too far ahead. Pearl took a deep breath and drew her swords. “Hurry, Theseus.”
She charged into the labyrinth, the walls stirring with life as the Khaous crawled down towards her.
Chapter 16
Hantā no Musuko ate well, turning the Chaos energy of the scores of Khaous Pearl had slain into additional speed and strength. But no matter how many she killed, she couldn’t outrun the waves of Khaous pouring over the walls. The black soil packed underfoot allowed her to speed around corners without fear of losing her footing, but she ran without knowing her direction, her course, or her current location. She fled when she could, but when she fought, she spun, twirled, and pivoted as she swung her blades, often losing track of her heading. The scratches on the walls looked familiar as she passed them, but the Khaous gave her no time to regain her bearings.
The runes on Ragenoz Rako shone with a bright orange light of a warm light, but the blade had yet to release its torrent of flames. She wondered how much Chaos energy the Grey King contained, but the thought vanished as she ducked under a swiping claw. She severed the claw and lunged at the Khaous, leaping through its body as she slashed it into a black mist cloud. The cloud obscured her vision, but she could have sworn a rectangular stone had risen to close off a path further down the left wall. The right path remained open, so she followed it. She turned the corner in time to see walls rising out of the ground, sealing off all but an opening at the left end of the path. Someone wanted her to go somewhere specific, manipulating the labyrinth to direct her path.
“Not like you’re giving me a choice,” Pearl grumbled as the Khaous closed in behind her. Turns slowed them, and sometimes a few of them would crashed into a wall, blocking the path until the fallen Khaous moved or another Khaous destroyed them. Certain she would lose the Khaous, she took every turn she could. Her legs and lungs screamed for a moment’s rest. She turned into the opened path and found it brimming with Khaous skulking towards her. The Khaous chasing her caught up and blocked off her only escape.
“Damn it,” she roared and raised a sword to each of the approaching hordes. They took their time, letting her suffer in anticipation. They ignored her yells to just get it over with, if they could understand her at all. Pearl didn’t know what happened to those the Khaous consumed, but she didn’t want to find out. Lizard-like Khaous the size of wolves darted out from among their taller brethren and beelined towards Pearl.
Her katana’s enhancement had faded without being fed, but not enough to render her an easy target. She cut down the first wave with a flurry of slashes, their energy fueling her and her weapons. She begged the runes to unleash their fire, but they responded with a warm glow and cool silence. The remaining Khaous, monstrous amalgamations of man and beast, lumbered towards her. One Khaous had the face and horns of a bull, the body and arms of a man, and the lower half a snake. Another looked and squatted like a frog, but with the face of an eyeless old woman.
“I need the flames now,” she pleaded with her bastard sword. She concentrated on the blade and tried to feed it with her own energy. The blade refused her mana, but another energy within her flowed into it. The world slowed and her arms dropped from their sudden weight, but the runes on the sword glowed brighter as Ragenoz Rako drained the Chaos energy her katana had consumed. Slower and weaker, she dropped Hantā no Musuko and grasped the bastard sword with both hands. “Fire. Now.”
Nothing happened.
A shadow fell over her and she looked up to see a large fist falling down on her. With nowhere to run, she stabbed up. The tip of the blade grazed the Khaous’s flesh and the whole sword erupted, fire washing out in every direction, swallowing every Khaous it passed over. For Pearl, they felt like a cool summer breeze. Some of the ache in her body subsided, but her lungs still screamed for air. She took several deep breathes and watched with a gleeful smile as the flames move down each of the paths and around the corner. Shrieks from incinerated Khaous echoed up from other parts of the maze. The labyrinth fell quiet for the first time since she saw it and Pearl sat down to rest, allowing herself a short, “Ha.”
“Pearl.” A whisper came through the wall behind her. She leapt to her feet, kicked her katana up into her hand, and stood ready. The wall slid into the earth and beyond it was a long, straight path leading to cavern w
all. The lack of anything suspicious made the path that much more suspicious. She considered ignoring the new path, but, as the thought crossed her mind, stones rose up to seal off the other two paths.
“Bugger,” Pearl cursed under her breath and walked down the path to an obvious trap. Reflected light coming from a small round pool of water danced on the cavern’s wall.
“Pearl,” whispered the pool. Pearl couldn’t see the bottom, but saw hundreds of what looked like white blankets gliding below the surface. She looked closer and one looked back at her. It drifted towards her through the water as if moving through molasses. The features and the details of its body formed until George Chaucer floated on the other side of the surface.
“Father..?” Pearl couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Pearl.” Her father spoke without moving his mouth. He reached up to her, the pool’s surface a barrier he couldn’t pass. His face shook as Pearl’s tears rippled the water. So much had happened since he died and she had forgotten just how much she missed him. But now, the feeling poured into her and burned inside, and she reached out to him.
“I wouldn’t do that.” A man snatched her wrist before she touched the water. She recognized the voice, but from where she couldn’t say. She twisted to her feet and raised her sword.
“Who—“ The sight of the man shook her and stopped her words. A tall, slim, clean shaven man with a head of short, messy blonde hair stood behind her, wearing a blood red shirt under a spotless white jacket, a pair of white pants, and a pair of polished black shoes. He bore no weapons, save for his reassuring and venomous smile. She knew him, but she had never seen him in real life. “You? You’re the man from my dreams.”
The Lamplighter (Lamplighter Saga Book 0) Page 15