As Adjaash and Heror went down the steps, the walls changed from a smooth, regal marble to a rough, patchy sandstone, and the stairs below became chipped and worn. Orange torchlight cast across the browned walls. The echoes of their footsteps rang out in the chamber, as the ceiling sloped not far above.
They descended for a time longer – perhaps over fifty feet below the desert – until they saw light again at the bottom of the passageway, and eventually they saw Brocus waiting for them. The tunnel air was chilled and tense. Inbetween steps, an ominous silence lingered.
Adjaash reached Brocus first, and when Heror reached the bottom, he turned and looked back up the stairs. The torchlight only stretched so far, and he could no longer see the temple entrance. The light had been displaced by darkness – darkness that seemed to seal off the way out and trap them in the depths.
Now Heror turned back to the group, and the three stood for a moment – light and heat from the torches intermingling in the small space. Brocus ran his hand along the left wall and grimaced.
“Rushed, mediocre stonework,” the scholar muttered with distaste. “Even the tunnel at the dome was more refined than this.”
Adjaash looked down the way. Up ahead, a narrow, low-ceiling sandstone passage continued into the underground, but the light was drowned out by darkness farther down. She sent a hesitant glance at Heror, but before they could say anything, Brocus’ curiosity took him farther down the tunnel. They followed.
They walked, brushing the darkness back with torchlight, as tendrils of shadow clawed at them across the walls. And eventually, after a couple minutes, they came to a small inlet in the tunnel. On either side of the tunnel, lining the walls, two clay bars stretched from floor to ceiling. Heror at first followed the torchlight to the ceiling, and as he traced the bars downward, he saw a chain looped around the bottom of the rightward bar. Inside the chain, he saw the bony hand of a skeleton.
Now Heror stepped to the left to get a better angle, and he saw it just as Brocus and Adjaash did: A chained skeleton lying on its side in tattered cloth remnants, with its back against the sandstone wall – jawbone open in an eternal gasp for air.
Heror took a step back, startled by the sight, while Brocus’ eyes snaked upward from the skeleton to the wall above it. On the wall, there was another ancient Pylanthean inscription. This one was larger, cruder – written in a dried dark red ink of some kind.
“‘If you have come to Dyugan, you see fit to challenge My Rule and My Divine Right,’” Brocus read the inscription aloud. “‘I will show you how foolish you are – Caitan Jurund IV, Descendent of Nehlox, Sparhh-Kin.’”
Brocus pondered for a moment, his brow creased, then let out a grunt of confusion. Heror and Adjaash eyed him.
“What is it?” Heror asked.
“It’s just…” Brocus began. “There is a gap in ancient Pylanthean records. No one knows exactly how this great Kingdom fell from its former glory. It’s as if that knowledge was expunged from history. But I recognize this name: Jurund IV. He is the last Caitan before the ancient records end and the gap begins, around 2,000 years ago. This message appears to be intended for his contemporaries.”
“What does it mean?” Adjaash asked. “Is the Sword still here?”
“Oh yes, it must be,” Brocus reaffirmed. “When it rematerialized, it no doubt would have returned to Sparhh’s Kingdom, into the protection of Neutanae. The map led us here. This is where it has to be. But…”
“But what?” Adjaash prodded.
Brocus’ eyes glanced over the red inscription one last time. He frowned.
“Nothing…” he murmured. “Let’s carry on.”
And so they went on. The chamber narrowed a bit more, and in another minute of walking, they saw the torchlight reflecting down the tunnel. Before long, they reached what appeared to be a dead end. But there was an impression in the end wall, running along the height and length of the passage, as if a hidden door. To the right of the impression, a worn circular stone button sat, and next to it another inscription written in red. Brocus leaned in and read this one.
“‘I am the Giver and Taker and Master of Life,’” the scholar echoed. “‘Should you move forward, your Life will be your Pennance – Jurund IV.’”
And then he gasped lowly, as his eyes sunk below the inscription. Adjaash and Heror both stepped forward, unnerved by this reaction.
“What is it?” Adjaash asked, voice firm.
Brocus slowly pointed to a smeared red symbol below the inscription – a bird with wide wings, a cloak and collar of feathers, and a hooked raptor beak.
“The vulture,” he whispered. “The totem of Geliagg…”
He paused, then continued, his voice grim.
“There are dark forces at work here…”
“What is this?”
It was Heror who spoke now. While the others observed the inscription on the right wall, Heror observed the left wall, where another red symbol sat. It was a strange rectangular prism, with lines and pathways snaking past and around and inbetween one another within – like a maze of some sort. At the bottom of the rectangle, there was an opening, and at the top, there was a pathway that led to a small circular room.
“It looks like a map,” Adjaash surmised, stepping toward the left wall.
“A labyrinth,” Brocus said with a nod. “I don’t think it’s an exact map – only a representation. A warning.”
Heror glanced at Brocus.
“Brocus, do you know anything about this?”
Brocus shook his head.
“There was nothing in the ancient tomes about this.”
They stood in silence. And then by impulse, Brocus stepped toward the circular button and pressed it down with his free hand. Just as there had been with the staircase above, there was the sound of stirring stone. Dust fell from the ceiling as gears and cogs collided, and after a moment, a thick stone slab door sunk into the ground, revealing a hidden passageway behind the wall. And the three stood before the opening, staring into the shadow beyond.
They stood in silence – as if listening for activity in the newly-opened passageway. But sixty seconds passed, and there was no sound. No sound at all. Only the light rises and falls of their wary breathing, and the crackling of the torches.
“A mad King left us a final test,” Brocus theorized.
Adjaash was the first to lean into the passageway. She lifted her torch forward – to try and send the light farther down the corridor – but the darkness swallowed it all. The light spread out and dissipated in the long corridor, as sprawling sandstone halls and passageways branched off into the black.
“Brocus,” Adjaash began. “You stay back here.”
“What?” Brocus protested with a scowl. “You can’t be serious. Not when we’re so close.”
“This passage is narrow, and we don’t know what’s in there,” Adjaash reasoned. “If we run into something and have to escape, we don’t want to be tripping over each other.”
Adjaash glanced at Heror, then looked back at Brocus.
“Heror and I will scout ahead,” she decided. “It’ll be easier for two of us than it would be for three. If the way is clear, we’ll come back for you.”
“But I want to–”
“Brocus,” Adjaash said firmly. “You’re not a fighter. Let us clear the way first.”
Brocus glared at Adjaash, but his expression soon lightened, and with a sigh, he finally nodded. Adjaash returned the gesture, and she started to turn back toward the passageway when Brocus called her again.
“Wait.”
Adjaash turned around. Brocus reached into his green tunic and pulled out a small fabric roll. He handed it to Adjaash, and as she unrolled it, she saw a clump of fresh harvested silk from the camp.
“I was using it to treat my horse’s ankle,” Brocus said. “I kept it on me and brought it down here.”
He paused, then gestured toward the darkened passage.
“Use the silk strands to mark your path so you know where you’ve been,” Brocus told Adjaash. “Easy to get lost in places like this.”
Adjaash looked at the scholar, then offered him a small smile of gratitude and nodded once more. She set her torch on the ground by the open doorway, then slung her bow off her shoulder and glanced at Heror.
“Let’s go,” she said to him.
And at once, Heror and Adjaash stepped into the dark, following the light of Heror’s torch.
Their first step into the passage was slow. Still, Heror could see nothing past the fading torchlight. He and Adjaash shared a glance, and then Adjaash took another step. But as soon as she took this step, a wide, flat pressure plate disguised within the stone floor sank ever so slightly. She heard a click. She froze, eyes wide.
“No…”
Now Adjaash whirled around, and she saw the rock wall shooting up from its track in the floor, kicking up dust as the stone slid into place.
“No!!”
Adjaash lunged back to the door, but by the time she reached it, the trap door had already latched into place with a low rumble, closing the gap between the tunnel and the staircase. Adjaash swung and slapped the door with her hands, but it wouldn’t budge. She pressed against the stone, and after another failed effort, she let out a frustrated sigh.
“Brocus! Can you hear me?”
Her voice echoed, and for a moment, there was no response. Then, after a few seconds, she heard Brocus’ voice – muffled behind the thick rock wall.
“I hear you,” she heard him say, faintly. “The button is locked. It won’t press down.”
“Shit,” Adjaash hissed to herself.
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“There may be a pressure release on your side somewhere – perhaps when you find the Sword. But I’ve never seen this before…” Brocus said from beyond the wall. “I’ll stay here and keep trying. You two go on ahead – and be careful…”
Adjaash checked both sides of the rock wall and saw nothing. She cursed under her breath again, then turned to Heror.
“I’m sorry, Heror,” she said with another exhale.
“It’s alright. I didn’t see it, either.”
Adjaash was about to speak again, when both of them heard something further down the passageway. It was distant – almost too faint to hear or distinguish. And as soon as they heard it, it was gone. But to Heror’s ear, it sounded like a scuff of a foot, echoing off the stone.
Something was in the labyrinth with them.
Adjaash took a deep breath, then turned back to Heror. In the firelight, their eyes met.
“Finding the Sword is our best chance,” she reasoned. “You lead the way with the torch. I’ll use the silk to mark our path. If we hit a dead end, we’ll double back while I pick up the silk, and then we’ll pick up where we left off. We keep going until we find it.”
Heror nodded. Adjaash inhaled and exhaled again, and turned her eyes ahead.
“Stay close to me,” she told Heror.
“You don’t need to tell me,” Heror told her.
Adjaash smiled small, while Heror took his next step into the dark, holding his torch in front. Adjaash loomed behind him, readying the silk.
They only walked fifteen feet before they came across another body. It was another skeleton, long dead – adorned in a gilded light armor set and red cloak. Heror instantly recognized it as a siephall from Ardys. Its skull was cracked, its helmet hopelessly dented through, as it sat against the wall, legs sprawled out on the sandstone.
Their footsteps echoed alone in the dark as Adjaash left silk behind them, and a few minutes later, they came to their first fork in the tunnel. It was a four-way intersection that branched off into three different paths from the entryway. Another skeleton sat upright against the center wall between the two rightmost paths – this one wearing the dark, heavy armor set of an elite Cuyoch from Ghiovan.
Heror took a deep breath, then glanced at Adjaash, who looked just as stumped as he was. To the light crackles of the torch, they surveyed the three paths forward. All three went dark not far past the entryways – narrow walls and low ceilings giving a sense of suffocation.
“I’d only be guessing if I chose one,” Heror admitted in a whisper.
“Me too,” Adjaash grumbled, forcing a quiet laugh to dispel her unease.
Heror smiled only for a second. Then his expression leveled out again, and he studied the three entryways as best as he could. After a moment, he sighed and shook his head.
“Whatever we choose… we can work our way back if it’s wrong…”
He took one more deep breath, then turned his gaze to the far right path, tilting the torchlight in that direction. Adjaash stood close behind him.
“Let’s try this one first,” Heror said to himself.
And then he started toward the rightmost path, fitting his free hand on his sword’s hilt, leading with the torch. Behind him, Adjaash left strands of silk on the ground in steady increments, careful to ration as much as she could.
The tunnel continued to narrow as they walked, until it was almost at shoulder width. To the right, there was another small corridor, but Heror saw the reflection of light marking a dead end. And so he carried on, until this tunnel branched off into two opposing paths – both mired in darkness.
They had already gone right, and so Heror went left this time. But he only took two steps before he heard another noise down the passage – a bit closer this time. It resembled a low grunt, but echoed and disappeared as quickly as it came.
Heror and Adjaash froze again. Heror glanced toward the adjacent path – but in both directions, the orange torchlight died out after less than twenty feet. As much as Heror tried to pry through the dark with his eyes, he could see nothing.
Slowly, Heror wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword and unsheathed it. Adjaash let down one more strand of silk, and then pocketed the silk wrap and equipped her bow.
In the cold tunnel, they inched forward again. As they did, the torchlight flowed precariously down the passage, like water in a weak stream. In the dark, another skeleton appeared leaning against the wall – smeared and dried blood staining the stone behind it. Heror swallowed a lump in his throat and kept moving, eyes ahead.
There was nothing still – only the quiet, hollow echo of cautious footsteps against the rock. And then this passage narrowed and swerved sharply to the right. Heror paused for a moment, then glanced back at Adjaash before tilting his shoulders to fit through the gap.
The claustrophobic corridor zig-zagged left and right, and the ceiling sank. Heror slowed to a shuffle, peeling carefully around each corner. His eyes led his feet. In his head, he could hear his heart pounding. And after each turn, the torchlight bathed the next wall. Nothing, nothing… nothing…
At last, the zig-zags ended, and Heror emerged into another long hallway that widened out again, light dissipating with the spread of the walls. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Adjaash was still behind him. As he did so, the girl stepped out and joined him.
Now they stopped at the head of the tunnel, listening for more noises – but there was nothing. The silence itself was unnerving, deafening. After a few seconds, Adjaash grabbed Heror’s arm to try and comfort him. Heror offered her a glance, then started forward again.
More steps. Empty air. Dark. Adjaash’s eyes thinned and scanned. Heror suppressed an anxious feeling. Scratches and streaks of red tore upon the walls – bones strewn about on the floor. They carried on for a time longer. And then suddenly, Heror froze.
“What?” Adjaash whispered. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I think I saw something,” Heror whispered back.
He stared ahead; he couldn’t be sure if the darkness was playing tricks on his eyes, toying with the torchlight. He took another step forward. Nothing.
“What did you see?” Adjaash prodded.
Heror paused and took another long, deep breath. He felt his knuckles tighten against his sword handle. He rotated, readying his stance. And then he took another step, letting the torchlight flow farther.
Still nothing.
Heror blinked. Another breath. Maybe he had imagined it. He took another step…
And then they both saw it. For a split second, it flashed in the fireglow – before fleeing into the dark without a sound. It had looked almost like a humanoid, but Heror couldn’t be sure. He looked back at Adjaash, his voice low.
“Get your bow ready.”
“It’s ready.”
Heror nodded and breathed. And then, with sudden haste, he took a couple more steps, urging the torchlight forth. And their eyes fell on it again, standing in the center of the passageway not fifteen feet away.
It was indeed a humanoid, but if it had ever been human, it was no longer. It was a wight – tall and lanky, with pale white, wrinkly skin that was tight against the bone. It was dressed in tattered armor and robes long decayed beyond recognition. Its nails were long and dirty, as if claws. Its hair was scraggly and unkempt. And as Heror’s eyes reached its face, he saw only a mess of rotten skin and black teeth, below black and beady eyes.
Heror and Adjaash froze at the sight. And at first, the creature did not react to the light. But then, as it stood in place, it opened its teethy mouth and let out a low hum or murmur.
“…nnnnnnn…”
Heror took a step toward the creature, starting to wind his sword. But as he did, the creature lurched back and entered a defensive stance. It planted its feet and arched its back, and then it widened its jaw. The murmur turned to a hissing, scratching cry.
“… nnnnnnnnNNNAAAAUUUUUGHHHH…”
And then it was a feverish bellow – a stomach-wrenching, bone-chilling sound that reverberated off the walls and stopped Heror in his tracks. Adjaash stepped out and let loose an arrow which lodged in the creature’s jaw. But the creature still wailed its deafening wail with the arrow piercing through its mouth – as if sounding an alarm – until Heror finally sent forth a fierce swing and lopped off its head, sending flakes of bone matter to the floor. There was a small puff of air, as if a soul had been freed.
The creature collapsed and crumbled to the ground, but now Heror heard another menacing wail farther down the tunnel – and another, even farther down. And another, back behind them, inside one of the smaller cavities – until the entire passageway shook and vibrated, as dozens of demon calls came from the dark, overlapping and echoing and flooding the walls.
“Adjaash…” Heror drawled, glancing back.
But Adjaash was in a laser focus. She nocked another arrow and turned her back to Heror, covering the tunnel entrance from which they came – as the calls faded and gave way to the stampede of frantic, scratching footsteps..
“You cover that side, I’ll cover you!” she shouted, staring into the dark.
“Adjaash, if we don’t make it, there’s something I need to–”
“Save it!” Adjaash hissed, hair lashing over her face. “We’re getting out of here. Hold your torch steady!”
Heror turned and huffed, readying his sword again while the torch blazed. The footsteps were closer now – growing louder and louder – until all at once, two wights charged out from the darkness, sprinting toward Heror, arms and claws flailing.
In a rush, Adjaash whirled around and fired an arrow, and the arrowtip lodged in the wight’s head. The other swung its claws at Heror, but Heror ducked the slash to the right and stabbed his sword into the creature’s chest. The creature gnashed at Heror’s ear with its teeth as he wrenched it into the air – torch fire burning its skin – and then Heror threw it down with force, slicing its torso open from end to end.
More were coming. Adjaash covered Heror, until she heard noises from the way they’d entered. She turned around, and from the smaller zig-zagging tunnels, she saw a wight prying its way into the open space. It landed on all fours, and then it darted toward Adjaash, who sent an arrow through its skull just before it closed its advance.
Behind this creature, two more came, and then two more – piling on top of one another and fighting to enter the tunnel first. Adjaash shot one, but her second arrow just missed its mark, and two wights climbed over their fallen and rushed toward her. She started to nock another arrow, but the creatures were closing too quickly – so instead, she swung out with her bow, knocking one wight off-balance. She slammed the other into the wall with a grunt, then stabbed the arrow into its temple herself.
The first creature scrambled to its feet and lunged at Adjaash again, but Adjaash let loose a kick to its abdomen, then – in a flash – loaded another arrow and embedded it in the beast’s skull, leaving the wight mounted into the wall by the arrow. Without delay, she loaded and turned again and arched another creature, sending it skidding along the ground – and then she nocked and whirled around to aid Heror.
From Adjaash’s bow, an arrow rushed inches past Heror’s cheek and struck down an approaching wight – but two more came for him. With a relentless backhand swing, Heror sliced through one. The second hooked its claws underneath Heror’s blade, then lashed at him with its other arm. Just barely, Heror ducked beneath the attack, and as the creature lunged again, Heror stabbed his sword upward, into the creature’s chin and out through its cranium.
Still, more were coming. As Heror reset his stance and pushed out a breath, another creature emerged from the shadows, maniacally crawling sideways along the wall with its claws. It hissed and snarled, then dove off the wall and sprawled out its arms, but before it could make contact, Heror let loose a mammoth backhand slice, severing its neck.
In greater numbers, they charged from the wider passage. Heror blocked and slashed. Adjaash loomed behind him, sniping hordes of undead with deadly precision – a second reaping. With Adjaash’s support, Heror could hold them off – but as Adjaash glanced over her shoulder, she saw a creature coming from the narrow entryway again.
In a panic, Adjaash twisted around again, but it was too late for her to nock an arrow. She swung her bow to block the slash of claws. This time, her bow slipped from her grasp, and clattered on the sandstone floor, while Adjaash fell onto her side.
Hastily, Adjaash sat up, and in the same motion, she rolled to the left to dodge another ferocious hail of claws. She hopped to her feet and ripped her twin daggers from beneath her poncho. And as the creature lunged again, she sliced her daggers outward from inside the beast’s torso and cut off both its arms at the stems.
While this creature writhed on the ground, two more came from the entryway. Now Adjaash went on the offensive. With a shout, she dashed forward and took the first one by surprise, piecing up its arms from its hands to its wrists to its elbows with lightning-quick slashes – a tempest of swirling knives – before finally wrenching up and stabbing both daggers into the base of its head. Then she tossed this wight aside, pulled back, and threw her right-handed dagger into the next wight’s skull. Before this wight could fall, she tackled and shoved it into the narrow entryway, stacking it on top of another dead wight and almost fully blocking the path.
While Adjaash guarded the rear, Heror could feel himself being overwhelmed. The creatures were dry and brittle, but they were relentless, and they seemed to multiply from the dark. No matter how many times he slashed and swung, more came, from all different angles. Heror cut down and cut across – until there was a pile at his feet – but at last, a creature scrambled from the right wall, crawling along the stones with frantic claws. It launched off the sandstone – catching Heror off-guard – and pinned him against the left wall of the passage.
Grunting, Heror kept his sword at an armbar beneath the creature’s wrists, barely blocking its claws from sinking into his skin. The creature drove and skidded its feet against the floor as it clacked its teeth and screeched, beady eyes glowing red in the light of the torch. Its claws came closer and closer… until a throwing dagger embedded itself in the side of the wight’s head.
Heror turned to see Adjaash dashing toward him. The girl ripped the dagger out of the creature’s head, then shoved it to the ground, freeing Heror from its grasp. She reset both daggers and re-entered her stance. Heror did the same with his sword, and as they turned ahead, they saw at least a half-dozen more creatures looming in the firelight, behind a mound of dead wights.
At first, Heror expected them to advance. But these creatures hesitated, black eyes staring blankly ahead. And then, one of the wights in front took a step back, hunched its shoulders and craned its neck, and let out a smooth, hollow cry. As it did, Adjaash matched this cry with a ferocious yell of victory, and then all at once, the creatures retreated into the dark, leaving the two in silence.
For a few seconds more, they stood on-edge, watching the dark boundary at the edge of the firelight. And then Adjaash took a deep breath. She stowed her daggers back beneath her poncho and went to pick up her bow, when she heard more creatures struggling past the narrow entryway. Heror heard it too, and their eyes met.
“Here,” Adjaash said. “Help me block the path.”
They carried a few more wight bodies to the entryway and stacked them – Heror grimacing as they did so – until the way was fully blocked. Then they turned back to the path ahead and carried on with caution, past littered and scattered wight remains. One wight still writhed on the ground, its arms severed; Heror finished it off.
“At least now we’ll know where we’ve been,” Adjaash muttered dryly, kicking a wight’s severed head aside.