Chapter Thirty-Nine
We ran hard, and elongated flames burst out of the walls, straight at us. The oppressive heat was too much, but I knew that if I stopped moving, I would be engulfed in fire.
“Jump!” Zain said, and I used my running start to go as far as I could, hanging on to his hand. I pulled him along and crashed into the stone wall on the far side. I let out an “oof” when I hit, and then Zain was already in motion, tugging me into the opening.
We turned to see that the hourglass had run out and every trap in the room tripped itself, filling the cavern with weapons and fire and what smelled a bit like poison.
“Let’s keep moving,” he suggested, and we hurried away down another hallway. Would the poison follow us or would it be contained to that one room?
The hallway led into a much smaller room. I used the torch and could see a large metal box in the center of the room, with a metal door behind it.
“Is it safe to go in?” I asked.
“I think so,” he said.
That did not reassure me. “I really hope those aren’t the words that are going to be put on our gravestones.”
We entered the room quietly and I swung the torch from side to side, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Not that a large box sitting in the middle of a room was ordinary.
Zain went to the far side and tested the door. “It’s locked. Hand me the torch.”
I gave it to him and he used it to peer at the keyhole. “This can’t be picked,” he said. “We need a key.”
There were metal bars on the door at eye level. I went over to peer through. I saw more rocks on the other side. I wondered if I could yank the beams out and fit through the opening. I grabbed with both hands and pulled as hard as I could, but nothing happened.
He straightened up and looked at the box. “This was all created by an Epirian, correct?”
“An Epirian with magic,” I said.
“Then we have to think like a thief. There’s a locked door, and the only other item in the room is a box, which means the key must be in there.” He went over to the box, running his hands along the edges, testing it. “It’s somehow sealed to the floor, and there’s a lock on it.”
“Does that mean we have to find a key for the box to find a key for the door?”
He held the torch so that he could see into the box’s keyhole. “No. This one I can open.”
Handing the torch back to me, he then reached into one of his pockets and pulled out two thin and small metal bars. He held them up and then hesitated.
“I can’t believe it would be as simple as opening the box and getting the key and leaving. Something else is going to happen.”
“That sounds about right,” I said, taking out my sword.
“Ready?” he asked, and I nodded. “Here we go.”
I heard the sound of metal on metal, and then another sound filled the room. Like a hundred tiny doors all sliding open at the same time and then . . . silence.
Holding the torch aloft, I saw something at the end of the light. I moved forward and realized it was tiny spiders.
Thousands and thousands of tiny spiders.
They weren’t afraid of the light and they rushed toward me and the box. One climbed up my leg and there was a burst of pain. I slapped it while falling back toward Zain to protect him.
“Spiders,” I said. “One just bit me.”
He kept all his focus on the lock. “Are they venomous?”
I held the torch so that I could see my leg. It wasn’t red or swelling. It didn’t hurt now. “I don’t think so, but it hurts when they bite.”
“I can—ow!—see that!”
Spiders had started to crawl up his leg. I brushed them off as best as I could while stomping everything around me.
“I usually do well in high-pressure situations,” he said, “but this is completely different! I’m not—ow! I’m not normally being eaten alive while I’m trying to work!”
My focus continued to be on killing as many of them as I could while keeping them away from the box. I brushed ten of them out of his hair.
“In my mouth! One just got in. My. Mouth!” he yelled.
“Keep your mouth shut and then you won’t be eating spiders!”
They were peppering my body with their tiny bites. I ignored the ones crawling all over me and kept getting them off Zain. How did they keep coming? How were there so many?
None of this made sense.
“Done!” he shouted, throwing the lid of the box back. Doing so caused the four sides of the box to open and fall flat to the floor.
Every tiny spider suddenly disappeared. As if they had never even been there.
“There’s another box,” he announced wearily.
“Well, at least now we know what’s going to happen when you start to pick the lock.”
“If there’re more of these boxes, they will keep getting smaller and smaller, which will make the keyholes smaller and more difficult to open,” he said.
“Hopefully that means the spiders will be smaller next time, too. I have faith in you,” I told him.
He lifted his tools as if he was about to begin.
“Wait,” I said. “Do you have some kind of accelerant?”
He reached into a different pocket and tossed me a vial. “Put it in your mouth and spit through the flames. This is all I have left, so make sure it counts.”
I tucked it into my belt for when I needed it.
“I’m ready,” I told him.
What had happened the last time happened again. The clink of metal on metal and the sound of those doors opening.
Would it be spiders again?
Or something else?
Preparing myself for anything, I lifted the torch again.
Spiders.
But they were twice the size the last ones had been. I provided cover for Zain, being bitten continually while brushing them away from him and then smashing them beneath my feet. My sandals began to feel a bit slippery, given how many spiders I had squashed.
You just have to hold on until he opens the box, I told myself. Then this will all go away.
I clenched my teeth, determined not to call out despite all the bites. I didn’t want him distracted.
“Done!” he finally yelled, and I nearly collapsed with relief. The spiders vanished.
I turned. “Another box?”
“Another box,” he confirmed.
“It will be fine,” I said in an attempt to convince both of us. “They’re just spiders. We’ll be fine.”
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
There was the clinking of metal, doors opening.
Spiders that were twice as big as the last ones. Like the size of small mice.
They were much harder to stomp on, as their larger size seemed to make their bodies thicker and stronger. I got my sword out and started stabbing everything around me. These ones didn’t attempt to climb on me—they were headed straight for Zain.
I heard him call out a few times and curse. I sliced and stabbed and skewered everything I could. I could feel sweat pouring down my back. I couldn’t ever let up because we would be overwhelmed.
At one point I had stabbed so many that my sword fell, laden with bodies. I used one of my feet to clear the blade and went back to protecting Zain.
Because the lock was smaller, it did take him more time. It felt like an eternity. Like this would never be over.
Until it was. “Done!”
I was breathing hard and sat down on the ground next to him. I handed him the torch and took out my waterskin. I was in dire need of a drink. I offered it to him and he shook his head. “I just want to finish this.”
As did I. After a few moments I corked the waterskin and took the torch from him. “Keep going.”
“Are you sure? We can rest for longer if you need to.”
“I’m doing good. I’ll keep you safe.” I hoped. “We need to get out of this room.”
The box in front of him was so tiny that I wasn’t sure how his tools would even fit. When I said as much, he reassured me that he would get it open.
“And hopefully this is the last one.”
I nodded. If there was a smaller one in there, I wasn’t sure we’d survive the spiders that would emerge.
Because the ones that came out when he began picking the lock were the size of cats. Hairy and menacing and legs everywhere.
“As fast as you can!” I yelled to him as I started killing spiders and kicking others away from us. These ones didn’t seem to care who they attacked and tried to swarm both of us.
They climbed on top of one another in their desperation to get at us. Which made them easier to kill and move away because I could take out the spider on the bottom and the huge tower of them would collapse to the ground.
I heard a noise coming from above me and lifted the torch. Those hairy bastards had climbed the walls and were now dropping down on us from the ceiling. I yelled and stabbed the one closest to my head in the gut while also trying to keep the ones on the ground at bay.
“I got it!” Zain yelled. “I have the key!”
But the spiders didn’t disappear.
If anything, they seemed more desperate to get at us. “Get to the door!” I told him, handing him my sword. I took the accelerant from my belt, tore the cork out, and then put it in my mouth.
It tasted foul, but it was better than being eaten alive by spiders.
I spit the accelerant through the torch and it became a stream of flame. I sprayed it from side to side while Zain worked on getting the door open. I used the torch on the spiders hanging above me, forcing them to fall to the ground.
Taking the rest of the accelerant, I again sprayed down the spiders.
It not only caused shooting flames, but drops of it landed on the spiders and caught the beasts on fire.
They began to panic and ran into other spiders, catching them on fire as well.
They made a horrible high-pitched shrieking noise that I now feared I would hear every time I closed my eyes.
The ones who had avoided the flames still tried to get at me. I sprayed everything until all the accelerant was gone. Then I took out one of my knives to keep killing them.
“It’s open!” Zain shouted, and I turned and ran for the door.