Nineteen #2
I shivered as Raithe let me go. “Well, they certainly love to use giant dead things to populate their temples, don’t they?”
I muttered. “Do you think there’s only one, or are there more?”
“More,” Meeka said. “Many. Many dead things walking around. Sometimes bump into each other. But keep walking, around and around.”
“We’ll have to be careful, then.” Raithe walked to the end of the corridor, making no sound over the stones. “Avoiding them
would be best, of course.” He pressed his back to the wall and peered around the corner. “It’s clear,” he murmured. “Let’s
go.”
We made our way through the dark corridors, listening for the sounds of heavy footsteps or the scrape of iron on stone.
“This isn’t just a temple,” I whispered after several minutes of walking through endless narrow hallways. “It’s a maze.”
“Yes,” Raithe agreed, gazing down another twisting path. “I’m surprised we haven’t had to deal with worse things yet, but maybe having the Fateless with us is a shield against whatever the Deathless put here.”
I caught a shimmer of white from the corner of my eye. Whirling around, I saw something pale and ghostly vanish behind a wall,
and my stomach dropped.
On my shoulder, Meeka gave me a curious look. “Why human turn around?”
“Did you see that?” I whispered, as Raithe stopped as well, his expression concerned as he looked back. “I thought I saw . . .
something following us.”
The jair’oa twitched his large ears and cocked his head. “Meeka not see anything.”
Fateless. You have come.
A chill crept up my back. The whisper seemed to emanate from the walls and floors of the temple itself. Neither Raithe nor
Meeka reacted to the sudden voice, both still gazing at me.
“I take it you two didn’t hear that, either.” I grimaced and rubbed at my temple. “Am I the only one hearing voices in the
walls?”
“Human acting strange.” Meeka shook his head and leaped to the floor, then turned to peer up at me. “Meeka not hear voices.
Meeka not see things following.” His ears twitched, then pricked in my direction. “Human eat bad food?”
Raithe stepped forward, holding out his hand. I took it and let him pull me close. “What did it say?” he asked, worry shadowing
his eyes.
“It knows I’m here,” I answered, grateful that he wasn’t questioning me. “I don’t know what it wants. If it wants anything. But something here is aware of my presence.”
Raithe nodded. “We can only press on,” he said. “If it’s aware of us, it will either try to stop us or not, but we should
be careful. And be wary of anything strange.”
“Everything here strange,” Meeka said.
I had to smile at that. But then the heavy thud of hooves sounded behind us, making Raithe tense and Meeka leap to my shoulder
again. We hurried away as quietly as we could, ducking into another passage.
I followed closely behind Raithe as he led us through the labyrinth. The iylvahn seemed to have an uncanny sense of direction,
not to mention knowing where the Tauryss creatures were just by sound. He held up a hand, bringing us to a halt in another
corridor. Ahead, the ground shook with footfalls, and the huge, decaying bull creature lumbered into view. I pressed close
to Raithe, waiting for the monster to pass, and felt a chill against my back. Not the creepy sensation of something watching
me, an actual coldness that made my exposed skin prickle. Again, neither Raithe nor Meeka seemed to feel it.
I turned . . . and came face-to-face with a ghostly figure not two feet from me, its eyes hollow black pits. Strange white
threads drifted around it like spiderwebs, trailing off its body until they faded away into tendrils of mist.
Every muscle in my body seized. I couldn’t move, or I would alert the monster at the end of the corridor. On my shoulder, Meeka tensed, but it was a response to my own reaction. I stared at the figure, my breath coiling into the air in front of me, unable to look away.
The figure stared back at me . . . then lunged right through my body.
I jerked back with a yelp, hitting the wall of the corridor. An image blinked through my mind: an enormous tree in the center
of a chamber, roots splitting solid rock as it rose into the air, branches spread to block out the open ceiling. The gnarled
trunk, roots, limbs, and leaves were wrapped in hair-thin tendrils that waved and thrashed about, as if seeking to snare whatever
came close. Something dark lurked in the same room, a massive presence I couldn’t see, but I sensed boiling anger and power
as if they were physical things.
I blinked . . . and was in the corridor again with Raithe and Meeka as a terrifying bellow shook the air and the bull creature
charged.
“Run,” Raithe growled, and Meeka leaped off my shoulder. We fled, charging down the passage the way we’d come, the ground
trembling as the monster pursued. I glanced back once and regretted it immediately, seeing the undead creature’s entire body
fill the corridor, horns lowered to ram us into the stones. If we stood and fought, that much momentum would be like trying
to stop a runaway oxen cart, and there was no room in the narrow passage to dodge out of the way. So we ran, ducking around
corners and into adjacent corridors, trying to break the line of sight long enough to escape.
With a roar, a second bull creature lunged out of an adjoining passage, smashing at us with a bony fist. Raithe ducked beneath its arm, and I dodged aside as the hand crushed the stones beneath it, shaking the floor.