Chapter 31 #2
After an eternity of grief, I whispered, “He…he asked that we finish what he started, Rei.”
No answer. Just a slow nod, like he was barely conscious.
The roiling pool behind us shot up towards the ceiling like a geyser, spraying us with scalding water.
It took my attention away from Ash’s body and Reiven enough to notice the orange glow that filled the tunnel we had all come from.
Magma crawled towards us through the shadows, accompanied by the sound of crunching glass and a blast of heat as it picked up into a steady flow inside the cavern.
I had no experience with lava, but there was no way it was natural. It slithered straight towards us even as Reiven picked up Ash’s body and yelled for me to run for the tunnel on the opposite side of the grotto. I seized Ash’s crutch and did as I was told. The molten rock followed.
The tunnels ahead were lit by reddish veins struck through the black, glassy stone. I sprinted inside, and my heart dropped when I saw the gaping holes of three different paths to take, each one identical to the last.
“Just go!” Reiven called, throwing a glance behind at the magma.
Our path became a labyrinth, twisting and tangling like ropes in a barrel.
We forged forward blindly until I completely lost all sense of where we were.
There was no way to tell where we were going, if we were running in circles.
The orange glow of a fiery death filled some of the tunnels ahead of us, as if the magma was slowly limiting our options for escape. Like Hell itself was toying with us.
There were voices down one path ahead, arguing. Perhaps another illusion or trick, but I pushed towards it, until we ran into a pair of Druinns, shouting in each other’s faces.
Calinia breathed a hurried sigh of relief and threw her arms around me while Shaddan glared. “Oh, I’m so happy you’re alright! Where is…”
She trailed off and stared at Ash’s limp body in Reiven’s arms. She said his name weakly and brushed some hair out of his lifeless face.
“We have to keep going!” Shaddan said. “Drop the corpse and let’s move if we don’t want to join it!”
“Be quiet, you!” Calinia screamed back at him before I could.
Reiven glowered. “We aren’t leaving him behind. I’ll carry him, just keep running.”
Shaddan whirled on his heel, muttering under his breath, but he led the way.
The lava chased us and blocked off our paths until there was nowhere left to go.
Magma and impossible heat filled all three passages before us and the one behind, leaving us completely boxed in.
Shaddan cursed and raked his fingers through his hair, flourishing his spear at the lava as if he planned to somehow fight it off.
Calinia took my hand and gripped it tight as all our will to fight ebbed away at the sheer impossibility of living. She approached Reiven again, staring only at Ashkade’s body. “I should have told you…saving your life was the greatest thing I ever did with mine.”
Shaddan growled and ran into the tunnel behind us to shove his spear inside the molten rock that crept ever closer. The metal sizzled.
I shut my eyes and focused on that sound over the deep crunch of glass that filled the labyrinth. Our panicked breaths and Calinia’s quiet sobs came into focus as I fought to keep calm.
Then…another sound caught my ear. Soft, like a distant bell carried by a gentle wind.
Ethereal vocalizations. Siren song. It was coming from the tunnel closest to me, accompanied by the flowing melody of trickling water.
“Do you hear that?” I asked dumbly, taking a few unsteady steps towards the passage.
Shaddan dashed to my side and tilted his head to listen. “Is that…water?”
Didn’t he hear the singing? The voice I heard felt inviting, welcoming. Familiar. My Siren blood sang with it, pulling me forward until Shaddan seized my arm to stop me.
“Siren, the lava.”
Yes, there was lava ahead. My skin sweltered as it sludged closer, but the song seemed to grow in strength, now that I had noticed it. The lullaby I sang every night to annoy Reiven.
I pointed down the tunnel. “I hear…the Song of the Void.”
That was enough for Reiven. He strode past Shaddan and I, walking straight into the glowing orange magma until he was ankle-deep. He didn’t scream in pain. He didn’t even flinch as he turned back to face us. “It’s an illusion. Lead the way, Zephra.”
I followed him, hesitating for just a moment before the unquestionable heat, but when I stepped within, the scorching air cooled around me. He was right. The magma down that path wasn’t real.
With renewed hope, I chased the Song and the sound of water, while the three of them trailed after me through the illusory molten rock.
The sound didn’t grow any closer, but it remained clear in my mind.
Twists and turns, left then right, squeezing through rifts in the wall.
We followed the Song of the Void through the labyrinth for hours.
The Song faded after it led us to a new chamber, a cavern that stretched upwards until the ceiling was out of sight, and the four of us felt like plankton within its vast space.
At the far end was a pool of water no larger than the base of the fountain at the manor where I met Reiven, and before it—a pedestal.
Reiven carefully set Ash’s body and crutch against the wall, and we moved towards the object we had come so far to find. The Voidtome lay closed on the stone pedestal. Silver lettering in an unfamiliar language was embedded in the midnight-blue velvet cover.
With every step closer I felt its power course through me, even if I couldn’t quantify what that power meant. It was a gift from the Water Spirit herself. I should have been awestruck in reverence.
But I stared down at the ageless Tome gifted to my people, and I had to clench my fists to keep from hurling it against the wall.
Ash died for this stupid thing.
We were quiet for one moment of peace. Just one moment…before Shaddan brandished his spear at us.
“This temporary truce is over,” he declared. “I’m claiming the Voidtome for the Druinns, so you three can just back away.”
Reiven snarled and finally drew his own weapon. “Try to take it.”
“Men are all the same,” Calinia muttered, weaving silver threads of light between her fingers to form a spiderweb-like sphere which expanded.
Both Reiven and Shaddan froze in their battle stances, comically still within her time magic, though she left me able to move.
“We won’t allow this artifact to fall into the hands of any who might use it for their own devices.
So, Zephra. Don’t you think it is time that the Voidtome is returned to its rightful home, with its underwater protectors? ”
We had come a long way from that apothecary where we first met, when I had been heartlessly plotting to use the Voidtome to destroy Arvensis, not unlike Shaddan.
And while I had long left that silly revenge plan behind me, now Ashkade had entrusted his dream of a peaceful future to Reiven and I.
That dream started with the return of the Voidtome.
“Take it. Run.” Calinia wiped away the blood that slipped from her nose, and her sphere of frozen time disappeared.
Reiven and Shaddan’s weapons met in a clang of metal, but the moment the Druinn realized I held the Tome, he stretched a hand towards me.
It didn’t matter what Calinia yelled at him, how many times Rei struck at him, or how fast I ran, I wasn’t a match for his power.
A second spear manifested out of the earth beside Shaddan, glowing and golden, almost phantasmal.
Without Shaddan even uttering a word, it sang through the air to press the sharp edge against my throat, jerking me to a halt to keep from being run through.
“Really now, just hand it over. You’re all free agents in this challenge of ours.
Give it to me. Let me bring ruin to our foul Human neighbors, and my people will undoubtedly be willing to forge a truce with Sirens and Mourners—”
A rumbling rocked the chamber, interrupting Shaddan and showering us with pebbles and dust from the ceiling.
The blade against my neck wavered as Shaddan struggled to remain standing, but it stayed close enough to draw a thin line of blood across my throat.
The disturbance went far, far below us, maybe deeper than my home.
Perhaps all the way to our world’s core.
A massive slab of stone crashed into the ground to block the way we came, leaving us well and truly caged.
The chamber, maybe the entirety of Hell, groaned with effort as something burrowed its way towards us with the speed of a killer whale on the hunt—and a hundred times the power.
“What in the Mourner Hell?”
Shaddan just had to say something.