Anilee fell off Illus at the sound of the distant rifle shot, clutching her hat like she had just been the target. Illus jumped up, trying to see if there were any lights in the distance, but nothing. Adrenaline surged through him, so he pulled Anilee to her feet, threw his pack over his shoulders, and flashed the window of his lantern down the mountain.
Flash, flash. No response came so he flashed again. The icy mountain air whirled around them, but Illus’s spine chilled from the thoughts of his sister and Sator in peril.
“Ani, come now, we need to go!” Illus started down the steps, tugging her along behind him.
Anilee pulled back. “And do what, Illus? We cannot make it down in time, and they were probably hunting something.” She stepped forward, guiding Illus’s hand around her waist. “Don’t you want to keep going? See where it leads?” She caressed his bare chest, down his core.
He pulled away, the adrenaline dominating his emotions. “I’ve just heard a rifle shot and gotten no response by light, Ani! From my best friend and my bloody sister! There is no time to waste if something has happened!”
“Illus, but-”
Illus yelled into Anilee’s face with more rage than he had ever shown her. “Then you wait! Sit atop this mountain the rest of the night and I’ll fetch you at dawn! You’ll only slow me down anyway!”
He pushed the bag into her, knocking her onto her rear, then picked up his shirt and took off in a jog down the steps.
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Sator woke up to a cold emptiness where Tyza should have been. From outside she yelled “Give it back, fox!” Then her footsteps ran away.
Sator shot up, his hand landing on Tyza’s bag where her head was supposed to be. The chalice was gone too. He stumbled out of the tent in a dazed panic, searching for where she went, then his eyes caught lantern light moving toward the gully.
“Ty! Tyza!” He tripped over roots, stumbling through the tree limbs until he was flat on his face, scrambling to his feet again.
His mind raced about what she was doing until his mind finally registered what he heard. “Tyza! The fox! Stay away from the fox!” He wasn’t sure if his voice would reach her to pierce the fox’s magic, but he kept screaming her name nonetheless.
Suddenly, through the moonlight, he caught a glimpse of light disappearing into the tunnel that the fox had come from. He forced his way through the overgrowth, spotting light down the stairs. From his panicked rush and the shred of moonlight illuminating the corridor, it appeared safe. He held his fear at bay and trespassed into the space the fox had warned of. What he had not considered was the possibility of a false step, and when his foot found nothing beneath it, he tumbled down the stone stairs, the faint moonlight disappearing, head slamming stone until finally he was spinning in the depths, warm liquid dripping down his ear, blind except for a pale glow at the top of the stairs.
Lantern light appeared directly above him- Tyza. No, a shimmering projection of Tyza holding a lantern as the fox cackled madly next to his aching body. The revolving walls were made of bones, the dusty floor littered with age-old remains.
“A specter to test, then to you the rest.” The fox whispered. “The others are safe from ghosts and ghouls, while you and your love perish in pools!”
All light died. Sator tried screaming, but the most he could force out was a weak groan. The fox bit the scruff of Sator’s shirt and dragged him further into the catacombs.
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Tyza inhaled the cool night air, gazing at the mosaic of the masked woman before returning to the tent from her latrine break. “Thank you,” she quietly muttered, then opened the flap of the tent.
Her heart froze. A chill ran down her spine as everything she worried about was coming to fruition.
Sator was gone, his rifle by where he had been laying. The fox hadn’t toyed with them the night it listened in, nor any other times after it tried to scare Illus and Sator. She cursed herself for not shooting it sooner. She grabbed the rifle and turned around to see the masked woman there, long, ethereal blue robes drifting in the night breeze.
“The fox lured him toward the cave! Surely he will make it your love’s grave!” She pointed to the gully, the fox casually sauntering from the trail to the square.
Without hesitation, Tyza raised the rifle and shot the fox. The blast sent shocks through the night air, sharp ringing pervading in her ears. The fox spun through the air, the bullet sending it into a bush.
“You must go!” The woman hollered. “No time to be slow!”
Tyza took off toward the trail in a frenzy, the woman shimmering and disappearing in blue haze behind her.
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Illus held his rhythm steady, the lantern light disorienting him every step. To trip and fall now would spell disaster for him, but he couldn’t imagine what had caused his sister or Sator to fire off a shot. They had plenty of rations and a very limited supply of cartridges, so they wouldn’t fire for nothing.
He stumbled, twisting his ankle, but staying steady in his run. The pain was nothing to him.
Suddenly, fingers brushed the back of his neck. Before he could turn his head to look, she was already ahead of him on the trail, the masked woman in Anilee’s nightgown.
Illus’s body resisted less with each step, like gravity all but ceased. His feet drifted above the soil in bounding leaps.
“Beneath the bridge lies a tunnel into darkness, where it has taken your friend,” she ran alongside, “leap here, land there, watch your step.” She pointed to an outcropping of rock that broke off from the stairs. “Hold each other close and do not let go.”
Illus had too much momentum to stop and too little gravity to firmly plant his feet. Careening over the edge he soared head over heels, the canopy above him rolling into a sprawling starscape, wind rushing around him. In that gentle freefall the world became silent. Light body and unafraid of impact in a still night. Amazement overcame him, the surreal sensation of falling so slowly, as if soaring through a dream. His hair fell out of its tie, white strands lightly whipping before his pale gray eyes. The masked woman glanced over the edge he fell from, and she pointed down.
Then Illus whacked into a tree, landing in the branches. Still light as a cloud, he pulled himself up, grabbing onto the tree so as to not drift off again, and spotted the bridge.
He looked up to her. “Thank you!”
Illus leaped, the ground below soaring past his eyes, aimed directly for the gully beneath the bridge. He tried grabbing branches in the canopy, but flipped around, twirling in circles until he smacked the ground. He whirled to his feet just in time to see another lantern’s light disappear into an overgrown tunnel. It was his sister.
“Tyza!” Illus yelled, bounding toward her.
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She ignored him, tears and panic across her face as she disappeared into the darkness. Illus raced to the tunnel, almost careening past it had he not clutched a vine. Tyza blindly raced down the stairs and Illus chased after her. He watched her foot fall through a step and jumped down to catch her.
Illus reached as far as his body would let him until his hand caught the back of her head. It was colliding with the corner of a step when her body became lighter with him. They spun wildly down the stairs, Illus holding onto her for dear life until they finally bounced around at the bottom. Tyza’s eyes cleared, confusion taking hold of her face for a moment, then spotted a slurry of bloody bone dust at the base of the stairs. She held the lantern forward. The walls glowed dismal chalky yellows and grays, human bones making up the walls of the muted stone corridor as far as the light reached.
“Sator!” Tyza screamed down the tunnel, then took off following the trail of blood. Her voice echoed a thousand times over, dissipating lighter until it became like a chuckle from the abyss.
Pitch darkness snuffed all light from traveling farther than a stone’s throw. Hollow skulls watched the siblings tread into the silent catacombs, their wicked smiles mocking the living as jawless skulls love to do. They came to an intersection where the trail of blood turned left. Tyza took off, too panicked to look closer.
“Stop, Tyza!” He grabbed her arm, holding his own lantern down the way forward. The dust and scattered bones on the floor were thicker forward, and Illus caught a flash of red beneath the bones.
Tyza followed his eyes, then they shared a glance. They stepped forward with trepidatious steps, wary of false floors and potential traps. The walls were littered with holes and divots, the floors littered in too many bones to confidently step anywhere. A faint scratching sound emanated from ahead of them, and Tyza raised the rifle, taking point.
“Sator?” Tyza asked of the darkness, but all it returned was more scratching and scraping, louder the farther they traipsed. Finally, their lanterns illuminated the edge of the fox’s black and blue pelt.
Tyza yanked the bolt back and chambered another cartridge, aimed it at the fox and fired without a moment’s hesitation.
“Ty!” Illus threw his arm out, knocking the barrel upward. The deafening blast silenced everything except for a high pitched whirring of the bullet ricocheting down the tunnel. Gunsmoke trickled into their noses, overpowering the musty smell of the underworld.
Just as she fired, the fox leapt over Sator’s limp, injured body. It had intended for her to shoot Sator. Tyza and Illus reeled from the blast, brutal ringing blocking them from communicating.
The fox was gone. Sator laid still in a pool of blood, his head badly split. Tyza pushed the rifle into Illus’s arms and took off toward Sator. She pulled him to her chest, tears streaming down her face. He sputtered air to her, eyes in a daze.
Illus squeezed next to her, grabbing Sator, who he raised into the air with ease. He cradled Sator’s head and fought against his fears, allowing the adrenaline to push him further.
“It’s a straight shot, Tyza! Follow me!”
Her ears struggled to make sense of his words through the muffled ringing, but she grabbed onto the back of Illus’s shirt and they clumsily careened through the tunnels, then up the stairs and into the gully. Bounding forward, they reached the square and Illus yelled to Tyza.
“The first aid! Get whatever you can!”
Illus pulled off his shirt and set Sator down, head on the bunched up cloth. His body lurched for a moment, stomach rising to his chest. Gravity returned to him. He glanced up at the mountain in time to see a blue silhouette leap away in the moonlight.
Tyza raced into the tent and emptied her bag onto the ground, clothes, rations, and the chalice tumbling onto the tiles. Illus saved his questions and began administering aid. Sator was badly bruised, head bleeding, a gnarly bump growing next to his temple. Illus gently felt around Sator’s cranium, not sure what to look for, but finding no oddities.
He cleaned and bandaged Sator’s head. The bleeding had stopped, but Sator would be in no condition to continue with the expedition. Tyza kneeled next to her husband, cradling his head in her lap, silently crying while stroking his hair.
Illus sat back, the adrenaline cooling off, ears ringing, and body aching terribly. He was unsure of how long had passed, but the night had grown quite old when Sator finally awakened.
“My- my-” Sator heaved, weakly muttering to Tyza. “Ty move… my head. Augh.”
Tyza gently lifted his head and set it back on the shirt. She sat at his side, clutching his hand. “We’re getting out of here, Sator, as soon as you can stand. We have-” She clambered to the chalice and held it above his face. “We have it! We’ll leave here and-” her face wrinkled, breaking down again. Thick bunches of tangled white hair dangled in front of her eyes. She raised her hand to push them back, instead crying into her hand.
“I’ll live.” Sator wheezed. “What’s another scar?”
“Sator,” Illus interrupted, “do you have any internal pains, broken bones, uh-”
“No,” Sator clenched his face, “just my head. I’m dizzy and it hurts like the Dickens, but I’ve had worse.”
“Okay, alright… Where did you get that chalice?” Illus changed the subject to calm his sister down.
Tyza wiped away her tears, a smile breaking free. “The woman, her,” pointing to the mosaic, “she gave it to us in exchange for a canteen and the beaver skin bag. The fox called her Enae.”
“That’s…” Illus passed it back to her. “That’s amazing. What are you going to do with it?”
“It’s solid gold, encrusted by the most beautiful emeralds I’ve ever laid eyes upon. Ani will not know of it, and we will sell it. I don’t know how much money we can make from it, but it should be enough to finally settle down.”
Illus’s face filled with excitement and he hugged his sister. “Then once Sator’s up, we’re getting out of here. I’m-” he got choked up, a chuckle breaking through, “I always worried my baby sister would settle down before me, but here we are and I couldn’t be prouder of you.”
Tyza laughed at him, holding each other tight in their hug, and Sator even spared a few wheezes.
He let go and glanced up the mountain, noticing the silhouette of Anilee up there.
Tyza lightly slapped his arm, worriedly following his eyes up. “Did you leave her up- oh dear.”
Sator groaned and sat up, grabbing onto Illus and Tyza. “Then we need to get going.”
“Sator,” Illus held him steady, “you are in no condition to move!”
Sator pointed up at the sky. “No choice.”
Ominous clouds rolled in the distance, slowly smothering the night sky in thick darkness.
Illus stood up and yelled toward the mountain, “Ani! Come down! I’ll be back to get you!” He had no idea if his words reached her, but he had hope.
“You can’t leave her up there,” Tyza grabbed Illus’s shoulder.
“She can make it down before the clouds roll in. All we have to do is get to the other side of the river, then we’re safe and we’ll put him atop a mule. We take Sator now, Ani works her way down, and I’ll cross again to make sure she gets back okay. I’ll grab what bags I can, everything.”
Tyza nodded. She tossed everything back in her bag and helped Illus walk Sator down to the river. Their lanterns were all they had for light, and the world darkened even further once the clouds smothered the moon. The light drizzle quickly turned into heavy rain by the time they reached the wall of roses. Vines slithered like snakes before them, the darkness concealing their depths. Passing the fountain, Tyza cleared her throat.
“Tyza what-”
She shushed her brother.
“We are-” a rose at the end of a vine lurched out at her, stopped in front of her, and rubbed the rose against her hand as if feeling her. “We are sorry for the fright we caused you. May we please pass?”
The rose crept toward her face, then back to her hand where it released the rose into her palm. She held the rose forward and the vines parted. They passed through in silence, quietly and cautiously observing the writhing hedge around them.
Once out, they continued slowly down the hill. One wrong step in the wet soil could send Sator to his death and injure the others, but their time to get out grew thinner every second spent moving so carefully. The stream below had already grown stronger. Their time was running out quickly. Tyza and Illus helped Sator up the series of ledges, then they all stumbled to the top, gasping for breath beneath a thick roof of leaves.
Muted light crept up the distant horizon and the storm clouds only grew darker, heavier. Thunder clapped above them, and Illus forced himself to stand, his muscles exhausted.
“Be careful Illus, please!” Tyza handed him the rose. “I don’t know if you can kill the fox, but the rifle at least hurts it.”
Illus nodded, took a swig from his canteen, and checked the oil of the lantern on his belt. He pushed his wet hair back and climbed down to refill his water in the stream. With a silent prayer that Anilee would be down the mountain by the time he arrived, he began his return trek into the ruins.