CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #3
I could not have been more grateful when the aforementioned ceiling returned to its normal height, allowing me to stand up straight. My back and shoulders truly were hurting from the muscle strain of hunching and bending.
Reaching a stone wall that almost touched the ceiling, I couldn’t help but silently groan. Frustration made the backs of my eyes sting. I was tired. Hurting. Bleeding. And the last thing I wanted to do while my palms were cut to shit was traverse a freaking wall.
It hit me that, making things harder, I would have to do it blindly. I couldn’t hold onto my power and climb.
Sometimes, I hated my life.
I scanned every inch of the wall, trying to memorize the locations of the best fissures, ledges, crevices, and knobby edges that I could use as both handholds and footholds.
The quake having passed, I set one foot on a ledge. Intensity rubbing at my nerves, I let my sparks disintegrate. Pitch blackness swallowed my surroundings.
Taking a shaky breath, I reached for a bulging piece of the wall and started to climb. It hurt like holy hell, aggravating almost every wound I had, but I kept going. Even when I was pretty sure that I’d accidentally touched a splatter of bat guano—I knew the smell of it—I kept going.
I felt a slight give in the rock beneath my foot, and panic slapped me. I lifted my leg fast, listening as bits of rock scattered down to the ground. Dust gusted up to meet me, fanning my face.
I kept my mouth closed to muffle my cough as I scrabbled to gain another foothold, scraping my face and knee on the wall in the process.
If I never climbed anything again in my life, it would suit me just fine.
Grimacing at the taste of gritty dust on my tongue, I kept ascending, my heart pounding each time my sweaty palms seemed like they were about to lose their grip on a handhold.
Another quake hit. I heard something clatter to the ground behind me. Bits of shale shook loose, skipped down the wall to which I clung, and tumbled down on my head.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the barrage, clinging so tight to the wall that my sore hands spasmed. Ow, ow, and ow. I’d have new wounds on my skull for sure.
The moment the quake subsided, I wasted no time in moving, not wanting to be still on the wall when the next one struck. Within minutes, I’d slid over the top of it and was making my descent, sadly and accidentally kicking loose bits of rock that noisily then went skidding along the ground.
My feet finally on the floor once more, I rubbed my palms on my tunic to wipe away the dust and guano.
I then called to my power again.
I supposed I should be relieved that the labyrinth wasn’t instead a maze. If there was more than one path to follow, I would get lost down here for certain, and no one would ever see me again.
The ground began to tremble once more. Ugh. I flattened my back against the wall. The quake was harder this time, making my body tremor and my teeth clatter.
Stone scraped stone as a statue rubbed and heaved against another. A nearby coffin tumbled to the floor, the lid burst open, and something clattered to the ground.
I froze, staring down at a skeleton covered in rags. Little worms were sliding through the holes in its skull. A prop. It was just a prop, I told my churning stomach.
Once the quake passed, I started walking again, moved as fast as I dared. I felt the tickle of warm, wet trails drizzling down my face. Not sweat, blood. I ignored it, focusing on listening for sounds that I was being pursued. Still, I heard nothing. It seemed—
My foot caught on something, and there was a slight wrench in my ankle as I tumbled forwards. My sparks of moonlight popped out of existence as my palms slammed to the floor. Fuuuuuck.
Gritting my teeth through the throbbing pain, I conjured another small shower of moonlight and peered behind me. A fissure. There was a fissure in the ground, and the toe of my boot was wedged in it.
It took some awkward fumbling before I’d pulled it free. That my ankle was smarting like a mother was not a good sign. I gingerly tested it when I pushed to my feet. Pain zipped up my calf, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. I’d trekked through the Pines in worse pain than this.
I realized that pretty much everything I’d encountered during my treks throughout the last forty days had prepared me for the wonders of the labyrinth—well, prepared me as much as possible. I wasn’t sure anyone could truly be mentally primed to face these caverns.
Though it didn’t hurt too bad, I pretty much hobbled my way down the passage in an attempt to not put too much weight on my sore ankle—I’d learned from my treks that strains healed faster that way, and my enhanced healing should make it happen even quicker.
Many of my earlier wounds were likely almost fully healed at this point. I just kept gaining new ones, unfortunately.
The ground bucked again minutes later. I staggered into the wall, wincing as my hip banged into a fist of stone. Mother—
Right now, I really wanted to punch someone. I didn’t even care who. Though I would prefer it to be whoever had created the labyrinth, or the Sovereigns for possibly sending a little boy down here.
Again grateful that I hadn’t bumped the burned side of my body, I walked on. Well, hobbled. I dodged more obstacles, ducked under dips in the ceiling, and braced myself against more ground tremors.
I halted when I came upon a huge and very deep trench. Peering over the edge, I swallowed hard. At the bottom was a bed of spikes.
Yes, spikes.
There was a way to cross the trench, of course.
Not a bridge or spires or ledges this time, though.
A long, iron tube rested above the middle of the trench and spanned its entire length.
A tube big enough for a person to fit in, but not big enough for them to crawl through.
I’d have to lie flat on my stomach and shuffle my way along it using my elbows, knees, and toes.
How perfect.
Well, it could be worse. Right?
Hunching my shoulders, I squeezed my way into the tunnel, pausing only when the entire front of my body was pressed against the bottom of it.
I edged forward on my elbows—
The tunnel moved. Skidded to the left. Rolled.
Terror clattered in my system as I tumbled and slid and bashed against the inside of the tunnel. It stopped on hitting the wall, and I crashed onto my belly, almost banging my chin.
Breathing hard, I blinked. Several parts of me ached and pulsed from having been tossed all over the place. I’d earlier had the thought that this obstacle could be worse. It was worse.
Okay, maybe if I inched forward very, very slowly it would stay still.
I inched forward very, very slowly.
It didn’t stay still.
It rolled again—making me skid, lurch, and flop—not stopping until it made contact with the other wall.
Anger gripped my gut. How the hell was I supposed to reach the end of the tunnel if it rolled every time I moved?
With great difficulty. That was how.
Scrapping the inching-slowly-forward plan, I shoved myself as far along the tube as possible before it could start spinning. Again and again, I repeated the move, creeping closer and closer to the end. I occasionally had to pause, since the entire thing shook whenever a quake came along. Not fun.
Finally, I got to the end of the tunnel. I worried it would move again once I began to edge out of it—which would leave my upper body dangling as it rolled—but the tube remained in position, just as it had when I was first lodged myself inside it.
Once back on my feet, I groaned. Every part of me felt battered and bruised. My burns hurt even worse than before, and I was pretty certain that some of my scabbed-over wounds were now once more bleeding.
Two circuits left. You’re almost done.
With that thought in mind, I hobbled to the end of the passage, followed the sharp turn, shoved aside the hanging moss, and slammed into a wall of cold. That’s what it felt like. The change in temperature was that drastic.
The stone walls were covered in a sheet of ice. Snow blanketed the uneven ground. Icicles dangled from the arched ceiling. Small, sporadic bunches of hardy grass stuck out of the snow. A thick carpet of white topped the spires, totems, crumbled walls, and statues.
It would have been a pretty sight if the air wasn’t arctic.
What made the bitterly low temperature even worse was the shrieking, powerful wind. It whistled over the walls, ruffled the tufts of grass, and blew around snow so that it peppered the air like dust motes. As such, visibility wasn’t great.
I shivered, clasping my hands together. The only pleasant thing I could say about this circuit was that there were no awful scents here. Only the clean smell of fresh snow.
Having no wish to hang around this passage any longer than absolutely necessary, I immediately started forward. The gusts of wind stole the sound of snow crunching beneath my boots.
I could see faint footprints that hadn’t yet been filled with the falling snow. Someone had passed here very recently, so either I was making good time, they’d slowed down, or we were both moving too slowly.
My every exhale fogged the air as I walked. Air so crisp that it irritated my nostrils, throat, and chest to breathe it in.
Large and glittery flakes of snow pinged against my skin, hair, and clothes. They also found their way into my boots—not pleasant.
Shuddering, I raised my shoulders to my ears. My clothes were sadly no real barrier against the icy blades of the wind. That same wind pitilessly sliced at my exposed wounds, sharper than any knife.
I jammed my hands beneath my armpits to protect them from the cold, wishing I had my gloves with me.
I would never complain about the heat again.
I wondered what possible blockades and challenges I would come up against in this passage. Honestly, I doubted there was anything that could be more difficult to bear than the subzero temperature. That in and of itself was an obstacle.
Snow slid beneath my boot. I slipped, landing hard on my ass. Blinking, I let out a grunt. “Ow.”
My irritated exhale puffed the air like a plume of fog. Hadn’t I taken enough abuse from this damn place? Personally, I thought so.
Promising myself that I’d indulge in a long, hot bath when I returned to the garrison, I struggled to my feet. Maybe Talon would even let me use his tub—it was bigger than those in the bathhouses.
I slogged on, tromping through the snow. It was slow going, since I still wasn’t putting my full weight on my sore ankle. I flexed my fingers—painful tingles were streaking down all my extremities.
Spotting something blocking my path up ahead, I blinked hard to shake off the flakes of snow from my lashes. A wall. A floor-to-ceiling wall of pure ice.
How was I supposed to get past an actual wall?
Frowning, I picked up my pace to get a better look at it, stupidly almost tripping over a tuft of dead grass. Finally stood directly in front of the block of ice, I realized that there was a short gap at the bottom of it. As if a large animal had burrowed a hole into it or something.
Crouching, I pursed my dry lips. I could squeeze through it. I had to. It was that or hang out here and eventually die.
With that delightful thought in mind, I laid flat on my stomach on the ground, sucking in a sharp breath at the wintry feel of the snow pressed against my entire front.
Better this than having to climb over it, though.
I would struggle to traverse a wall right now.
My fingers would be too clumsy due to the numbing cold.
I scooched forward little by little, easing my way under the hole. The spikes of frost on the wall scraped my skin, tugged at my hair, and plucked at my clothes. Finally through the gap, I rose to my feet. The wind smacked into my wet front, and a powerful shiver wracked my entire body.
Fuck this shit.
I rubbed my hands together, trying to get rid of the aches that were cramping them, as I walked onwards. My nipples ached just as much. I folded my arms to shield the buds, once more tucking my hands beneath my armpits.
I shook and trembled with every step. Not only from the cold, but with fatigue. My body was using up what energy it had to keep my body temperature from hitting critically low levels, and it was leaving me drained.
I jumped as an icicle dropped from the ceiling and crashed to the ground in front of me. It shattered, pieces of it scattering across the ground like diamonds. I swallowed nervously, because that icicle had been a little too close for comfort.
Leery of more falling icicles, I watched out for them as I continued down the passage. A throb soon took root in my ears—they were so cold they burned. Little snow crystals were forming on my clothes, making them feel crusty and stiff.
A whooshing sound tugged at my awareness. No, two whooshes.
Through the gale of snow fogging the air, I could see sporadic flashes of red/orange. Flames, maybe? Thirty seconds or so later, I had my answer. Two plumes of fire were randomly erupting out of holes in the left wall. Beneath them was a hazardous patch of ice.
Ah, this wasn’t going to be fun.
Like the bursts of steam from the previous circuit, there was no pattern to the eruptions of the flames. A person’s best chance of avoiding them was to move fast. Which would be much easier and safer if it wasn’t for the ice.
Maybe I could sort of propel myself over the patch. Jump it. Like it was a ditch.
Checking its width, I wrinkled my nose. Nah. Not even if one of my ankles weren’t sore could I pull off a jump like that. Which meant I’d have to be swift on my feet and try to skate over the ice—all while hoping for the best. As plans went, it sucked.
Then I recalled something that my cousin had once done on a frozen lake at Phoenixia.
Squinting, I twisted my mouth. It would probably stand a better chance of success than attempting to skate on my boots.
Don’t think. Just do.
My heart kicking up, I rolled my shoulders and waited for the whooshing plumes to die off. Once they did, I took off at a run, dropped to my sore knees on the ice, and then let the momentum carry me forward. It worked.
Until it didn’t.