A clock ticked in a dark and lonely room. It was more like a cave than a room in truth. Smooth feattureless grey stone sloped down from a high stalagtite strewn ceiling. The space was like an inverted squat teardrop. A flat top and sloped bottom leading into a pool. Little beads of condensation gathered an the walls and followed down them, gathering to small streams ans curiving along grocies that rippled aong the caves bottom. Feeding the pool.

Tick, the clock went.

Drip a drop, let feel into the pool.

Clink, the priest’s chisel carved a new wandering groove.

His hammer fell, and his chisel clinked against stone. It would’ve taken hundreads of thousands years of steady flow to shape the stone. The water would need to be just right. Pure enough leech to minerals from the rock, yet not so much that it dug the cave into a cavern as it seeped through the rock. Rich water would seeping through stoone to bead and build into stalagtites. A thousand little things would need to go right. Over thousands of years. All to form a beauty none may see.

Clink.

The priest gathered the chipped stone and dust and spitited it away in hus vestmants. He ran a finger along the groove, and smiled in statisfaction before standing. He took a breath, cool humidty greeted him. That too was just right. He went about the cave. He ran his fingers along its walls and tasted the residue. He hummed and tapped his hamers on the stone.

Tapping and chipping here and there. He went over every detail to ensure everything was just so. The walls smooth but not too regular. When he was certain all was perfect he sat by the growing pool. His clock swung from his neck tocking in the dark. Counting down the hours until the pool filled and this place would be graced by the presence of something great and holy.

“And may there be ever more work to be done.” He prayed and though the puddle did not answer he knew he was heard.

“I take take that to mean you are done priest.” The preist smilled as the wounded dragon stepped into the cave. The divine had an odd sense of humour.

“Excellent timing Lord Rhevier, you are correct.” The priest said good naturedly. “My work is done for the time being and I await the pilgrim’s arrival.”

“The student,” Rhevier stated, both dry and insistent. The priest glanced at the man. Heaven’s blessing let him pierce the dark. They frowned heavily as if all that was before him was some great offence. The writhing bruises that plagued them swam beneath his skin.

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He met their eyes and chuckled it was a deep sound that traveled from his belly all the way to shake his shoulders. “Leaning? Worship? What is the difference she will tread itnto the halls of self in pusuit of the divine and personal. What could that be but a pilgrimage, and what is a student but a person in search of higher knowledge.”

The noble walked beside the priest and looked at the pond with great distaste. “The difference, is that a student works for their knowledge. No teacher can force enlightenment down their throat.”

“That is true,” the priest gave with a genial hum. “The divine can be heavy handed with their wisdom.” Conversation lapped and was replaced by the ticking of a clock and dripping stalagtights.

The dragon held themselves tight. Not a scrap of essence escaped them, but they saw all they needed if the set of their shoulders. “What worries you, Lord.”

They did not turn from the pool.

The priest huffed a laugh. “That bad? Worry not the Labyrinth is not a cruel god. While they are not as gentle as our ancestors, they will abuse the pilgrim. Test, yes, but never abuse.”

The Imperial glanced down at him. Their horns curled like a crown, and their slit eyes burned with an inner glow. Were it not for the bruises, they would have cut an imperious figure. With them, they looked like a leering corpse. The priest had long learned to look past the surface.

The pair locked eyes cold pride against patient acceptance. They did not brake first.

The noble looked into the shallow pool as if it were bottomless. “I do not fear for the girl. I fear for those who might come after.” The priest nodded and joined them in staring into the pool. “How many children will be cast into pools like this to test the method? How many will be spat out broken as the Empire refines the method? Success or failure, thousands will be committed to this path and many not will have chosen it like that fool girl.” Their words were a tired, grating drawl. One of compassion worn thin and raw under reality’s tread.

The priest listened as was his duty.

“Are you satisfied priest?”

He shook his head, “I can’t say I am. I cannot argue your family’s callous nature. I imagine you’d know them better being related to them at all.” The noble sent him a flat glance. He chuckled and waved them off. “But I can say that the Labyrinth is not a thing to be used.” A though came to him, but not one of his own. It did not intrude into his mind but presented itself to him, and waited. He smiled, and tapped the pool’s surface. “Isn’t that right?” A ripple went across the water’s surface, but it did not end there. It continued across the rock, carried up the walls and down the tunnel Rhevier had come from. Then it was gone like a dream.

But something had changed. The shallow puddle wasn’t so shallow anymore. It was dark to the point that night and shadow and all other things that called themselves gloom seemed pale in comparison. A black so certain that even in the lightless cave, it yawned.

A second passed, the loack did not tick.

Down, down the pool shaped abyss went. Kilometres and kilometres of sheer, raw, absolute nothing. The priest cackled and the noble stared.

The dark did not stare or reach. If one could ignore their brain screaming there there couldn’t be anything darker than the dark, then it was just an od puddle. But nothing could do that, nothing could ignore the playful breath of something divine.

A drop fell from a stalactite above the hole in the world. Both men followed its fall. It hit the abyss and the abyss rippled. Where the ripple passed sanity returned and water became water one more. When the ripple met the pool’s edge, it lapped the store with a quiet sound that could have been a burble felt like a giggle.

The priest looked up at the noble’s wide eyes with a wider grin. “The pilgrims will make of themselves what they will, that is and has always been the Labrynth’s promise.”

“I see.” The noble said and squinted at priest and pool both. “I shall leave you to your preparation then. The ‘pilgrim’ will be along in a soon.”

The priest cackled as the noble left the holy place.