Despite his earlier bravado, Terry’s heart pounded like he’d just sprinted a mile. Sweat cloyed to his back and underarms, the fear-smell infecting his nostrils, creating a feedback loop. There was no one around, so he spoke to distract his mind.
“Why do you want to go in to the dungeons?”
The knife point pricked his lower back in warning, but Tenebrous clicked his tongue as if in thought. A moment passed, then his gravely voice spoke out softly.
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”
Terry squinted, the words echoing in his mind, triggering a distant memory.
“Sun Tzu?” he asked.
The arm around his neck loosened.
“You know the Art of War?” Tenebrous asked with a quiet chuckle.
Terry shrugged casually, though his mind was racing. Keep him talking. Keep him talking and he’ll make a mistake.
“My Duelist teacher is a big fan. Well, obsessed would be the word, I think.”
Tenebrous scoffed. “Oh, Whipvine? Why am I not surprised. Bastard’s a god of war—even I'll admit it.” His breath whispered against Terry's ear. “Too bad he ain't here. Maybe I woulda just fled. Then that maid would be alive.”
Terry was unable to hide his flinch.
Tenebrous laughed cruelly. “Ho ho, that pinged a nerve, didn't it?” Terry gulped painfully past the man’s arm. “I saw your daddy leave with the army, too. Left all alone with a useless doctor, a washed-up supervillain, and a crippled rotbag. Must sting.”
His chest was heaving, his molars grinding. A tempting thought entered his mind. Just flip around like before, get him out of my shadow. I’ll probably die, but at least Tenebrous won’t get whatever it is he wants.
The thought rattled around in his brain, bouncing off but inevitably returning like a boomerang.
I’m probably dead no matter what I do, he admitted. Tenebrous isn’t letting me go after we reach the dungeons and that’s a fact.
Before he could muster the courage to act, they rounded a corner and came into sight of two human guards manning the stairs leading down to the Catacombs. As soon as they saw him, they stood straighter, their eyes glued to the far wall.
The moment passed and he felt a sliver of relief. If he exposed the Shadow now, these guards would surely die.
Coward, his mind whispered. Shut up! he screamed back.
As they approached, both guards inclined their heads as Crunch, Terry, and the Shadow passed by.
His footsteps echoed on the stairs, the only other sound besides his heaving breaths. Crunch loped downward silently, and Terry wouldn’t have even known Tenebrous was with them except for the arm wrapped around his neck and the needle-sharp point pricking his back.
The lighting was dimmer down in the Catacombs, amplifying the unsettling effect of descending underground where the dead things lived. Only a lifetime among the undead had inoculated Terry against the terror. But he felt the tension in the arm around his throat, the knife pressing slightly harder than before against his lower back.
The Shadow was scared.
That knowledge emboldened him, filling his limbs with a restless need to act. But the time wasn’t right; the stairs offered no cover. But deeper…deeper in the Catacombs was another story.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs, the narrow passage opened into a large cavern bustling with activity. Towering walls of red rock cast broad shadows from the fluorescent lights anchored to the ceiling. Human servants scurried through the cavern, entering or exiting from the dozens of tunnels and stairs that led into this central area. This was only one of half a dozen landings, each as broad and open as this one. The stairs they had taken down were from the human servants' quarters and less traveled then most.
While the human servants and guards hurried through the cavern like they were eager to finish their duties and return to the surface, the undead were at home. Liches and ghouls made up the majority of the undead that he could see, but he spotted a handful of wraiths passing through the air high above.
Despite the bustle, this was less than a third of the usual traffic and Terry realized just how much of the Fairway force his Emperor had pulled to the north in a bid for Topeka.
A painful prick at his back spurred him forward.
“To the dungeons, kid,” the man whispered in his ear. “And if you try anything, you’re the first to die.”
He considered those words. Did he really care about that? He’d almost died twice in the past week. Shouldn’t he be coming to terms with the idea by this point?
No, he realized. I very much want to live still. The pain of the loss of his mother had tricked him into thinking otherwise for a day or two, but the truth was, he didn’t want to martyr himself to stop Tenebrous. He felt selfish. Childish. But also, honest.
Besides, if he escaped now, Tenebrous had a hundred people’s shadows to hide in. Terry would probably die and the Shadow would escape.
Decision made, he started for the tunnels that led toward the dungeons. He had never been himself, but he knew the way mostly. There were no signs or markings like the other tunnels, which was indication enough. It was also the only tunnel he had never been allowed to follow, so by process of elimination, it had to be the one.
A few curious glances were cast his way as he beelined for the tunnel, followed shortly by bows and respectful nods as they realized their prince was among them. But he walked with a false confidence and Crunch cleared the way with a stiff arm.
Once they entered the tunnel, the traffic faded entirely. After a hundred steps, they were alone again.
“Smart boy,” Tenebrous whispered. “I half expected you to try and make a scene. I’d have slaughtered a dozen of them, then flit away in the chaos.”
It took everything in him not to flinch as the hot breath splashed against his skin. He wouldn’t give the Shadow an inch, no matter what happened. When he didn’t respond, Tenebrous grunted.
They walked in silence, delving deeper underground. The lighting was dimmer the further they traveled, the stark white fluorescent lighting replaced with soft yellow pot lights embedded into the walls. Though the floor was smooth enough to be carved by an Earth Elementalist, he had to squint to see his footing.
After another hundred paces, they came to a four-way junction and he paused uncertainly.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know the way,” the man growled.
Terry was about to tell him that very thing, when his eye caught on something in the dim light. A sigil carved into the stone above the passage two from the left. His heart quickened at the familiar sight.
“No, this way.” His voice trembled and he fought to steady himself.
Whether or not the Shadow heard something off in his voice, he didn’t react. With a grunt, he spurred Terry onward.
They came to two more junctions and each time, Terry knew exactly which tunnel to take. At some point, the silence had broken and sad cries echoed down from the other tunnels. Cries for help. Cries of pain. And crazed cries that spoke of broken minds.
Shock paralyzed his thoughts as he slowly realized the sounds he heard weren’t the wraiths of his grandfather, but the desperate pleas of his prisoners. For some reason, Terry had assumed the dungeons beneath the Catacombs lie empty. A precaution in times of unrest—not filled with the terrible wails he heard now.
“Your grandfather’s been busy.” Tenebrous chuckled, breaking the minutes-long silence.
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Terry wanted to argue, but the evidence of his ears was irrefutable. So he stayed silent, continuing his march ever deeper.
They came to another junction and Terry’s eyes scanned for that familiar sigil. His stomach flipped and his feet faltered.
Have I been following a false trail? Reading something in the cave wall that wasn’t there?
No, he had definitely recognized that sigil. Maybe he had taken the wrong tunnel in the last junction.
“Why’d you stop?” Tenebrous’ arm tightened around his throat.
He tried to speak a lie, but his words froze in his throat. Snaking along the cavern floor were wrist-thick wires he hadn’t noticed before. Before he could connect the dots, deep thuds sounded all around them at once. Impossibly bright lights flashed into existence, completely blinding Terry. The arm around his neck loosened by the barest margin and he grasped for his escape like an adrift man coming across a raft.
With a panicked cry, he twirled around—still blind—and threw himself to the ground. The knife at his back grazed across his hip, the arm wildly grasping for him in the white blindness—and missing. As soon as he felt his back hit the stone, he rolled away out of reach of the flailing super. The sound of Crunch’s grating teeth echoed in the cavern, following by the sound of flesh thudding against flesh.
He blinked away the white spots, shielding his eyes with both hands. The scene before him slowly resolved in his vision.
Crunch was on one knee in the center of the cavern, seeming to rise from where he had fallen. A flicker of movement and a glimpse of a back fleeing down a tunnel were his only signs of Tenebrous. Of the five tunnels leading from the cavern, four were doused in blinding white light, illuminating the throngs of ghouls blocking the passages. Only the tunnel they had come from was unlit and unguarded.
“Crunch?” Terry called weakly, his throat aching from the memory of Tenebrous’ forearm.
The ghoul shot over, his wicked claws retracing as he reached down to help Terry to his feet.
“My prince? Hurt?”
He touched his throat gingerly and found it painful to swallow. Other than that, and the flesh wound on his hip, he was completely fine.
“All good, Crunch. You?”
The ghoul nodded, his long, spindly hand running over Terry as if not trusting his diagnosis.
A moment later, movement erupted in the cavern as nearly two dozen ghouls filtered in from the adjacent tunnels and chased after Tenebrous. A handful remained, including a familiar face.
Standing out from the sea of undead was Dr. Wong, rushing past the ghouls to fuss over Terry.
“My prince!” he cried. “Are you injured?” Then his eyes locked on Terry’s neck and went wide. “That son of a—Oh, the Emperor will have his head on a pike.”
Before Terry could ease the man’s worries, he held out a hand, his eyes turning bright green as he accessed his powers. A cool wash numbed the tightness in his throat and he felt the skin over his hip knitting together with a feeling like ants crawling over him.
“Thank the Emperor you saw my sign! The wait down here was driving me mad.”
Terry glanced at the ring on Dr. Wong’s hand, noting the exact same sigil as the one he had spotted over the tunnels.
“How?” Terry shook his head. “What…how?”
A pleased smile spread across the man’s face. “I’m very in tune with your energy, my prince. I knew straight away something was off, but I chalked it up to your recent encounter with the draugr. But when you were so crass with the girl…” He grimaced.
“Tania!” Terry’s eyes went wide. “Oh, my God, she must be so mad with me. I was scared!” he blurted out. “Scared Tenebrous would kill her. Kill you! I-I—”
Dr. Wong put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“I know, my prince. I know. As soon as we left you, I told her the danger and raced off to beat you to the Catacombs.”
Terry breathed a sigh of relief.
“Was she…was she really mad?”
The doctor shrugged. “To be honest, I didn’t stick around to see. My powerset is far from physical, so the run down here took me longer than I would have liked.”
Something wasn’t adding up now that the adrenaline of the moment was fading.
“How did you know we were coming here, though?” He glanced around, his brow furrowing. “And how did you get all these lights setup in time?”
Dr. Wong glanced around and waved idly. “Oh, these? They’ve been there for a week. The Emperor suspected Tenebrous would come for the dungeons sooner or late—” He clammed up, his teeth clicking shut suddenly. “Anyway, I’m just glad you’re safe—”
Terry’s mouth gaped as he came to the only possible conclusion.
“He was on a rescue mission,” he breathed. But who was it? The Scourge? Terry had never heard what happened with the super. Or was it Sol himself? He had assumed the leader of the Knights was dead, but why? No one had told him that and he had fallen unconscious during the fight. “Sol…?” he dared to whisper.
Dr. Wong wasn’t the worst actor among Terry’s teachers, but he was certainly not the best either.
“No, of course not,” he said a touch too quickly. “Don’t you think the Emperor would have turned him or…” The man trailed off at Terry’s skeptical look. With a hint of panic, he glanced around before leaning in. “Okay, fine! But if anyone asks, I didn’t say a word!”
Terry sat back on his heels, floored by the revelation.
Sol, one of my idols, is sitting somewhere in my grandfather’s dungeon.
“What is the Emperor planning to do with him?”
“Shhh, keep your voice down, my prince.” He glanced around fitfully, but there were only a handful of ghouls nearby and they were dutifully minding their own business. Dr. Wong cringed, realizing that the undead could hear everything in the echoing cavern. “I-uh, can’t discuss those matters.”
Terry arched a brow, but the doctor’s face hardened and he crossed his arms.
Seeing that the man wouldn’t be swayed to give more info, he changed topics to the more immediate concern.
“What about Tenebrous? He got away. Aren’t you…” He squinted as a sly smile crossed the doctor’s face. “…concerned?” There was a twinkle in the super’s eye and he shrugged far too casually. Terry turned to study the chamber where they’d sprung their trap. Four tunnels glowed stark white, with only the fifth—the tunnel they’d come from—shadowed and dim.
“It wasn’t a mistake leaving that tunnel dark, was it?”
“Of all your grandfather’s revenants, Whipvine stands as the best fighter, the Professor the most knowledgeable, War Crimes—” He grimaced at the super’s nickname. “—the most bloodthirsty. But among the six, none are as cunning or as studied in psychology as Mesmer.”
If it was intentional, then there was only one reason.
Sound echoed from the fifth tunnel, light beginning to filter in like the coming of dawn. The corner of Dr. Wong’s lip turned up in a satisfied smirk.
“You never corner a wild animal.”
A team of ghouls carrying heavy industrial lamps turned the corner and came into sight. White light scoured the tunnels ahead and behind, burning away the shadows as they marched. At the center of the illuminated circle, two hulking patches shambled, their heads scraping the tunnel ceiling. Clutched between their oversized hands, was a man decked in torn black leather armor—a man who had seemed larger than life, impossibly strong and violent only minutes earlier, now tiny and insignificant beside his undead captors. His feet dragged across the stone, his head hanging limp as they marched.
The undead procession entered the larger cavern, their stark-white lights lost in the sea of lamps burning so bright that the room had become uncomfortably warm in minutes. Behind them, Mesmer followed closely, his gaze pulled tight to the unconscious prisoner. A flick of his eyes caught Terry and he called out to halt.
“Seb,” Dr. Wong said with a wave. “I see you had no troubles.”
Mesmer glanced at the doctor and shook his head briefly, his eyes searching Terry’s face. He thought he might have an idea what the revenant was looking for: anger.
Terry crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows but didn’t throw a fit perhaps like the revenant expected. Dr. Wong glanced between the two, recognizing the tension, but not the source. He backed away with a nod, moving over to check on Tenebrous.
When the doctor was out of earshot, Terry spoke.
“You used me as bait.”
It wasn’t a question, but Mesmer answered like it was anyway.
“Yes.”
Terry felt some of the anger drain away at his open admission.
“Did my grandfather know?”
“I informed him via Wraithglass twenty minutes ago.”
“So you knew he would take me when I left your office?” He knew any teenager in his position would be furious. He could just imagine Tania raging at the revenant now. That was a more appropriate reaction…so why wasn’t he more angry?
Because it was the right plan. Because it had saved lives.
“I knew,” Mesmer replied, his violet eyes studying Terry intently. “I feel like I’ve said this so many times today, but I apologize for the decept—”
Terry waved his words away, shaking his head.
“No, it was the right thing to do.” He hesitated, his mind flashing to the image of that maid’s neck twisted unnaturally. “When did you suspect Tenebrous was in the palace?”
Mesmer examined him a moment longer, as if not believing he was letting the revenant off the hook so easily. After a moment, Mesmer leaned back to study the cavern still blazing with the uncomfortably hot light.
“We found a dead servant shoved into a closet yesterday,” he said with a frown. “We decided rather than raise the alarm, we’d wait and see if Tenebrous made a move for the prisoner.”
Terry raised his eyebrows. “Sol, you mean?”
Mesmer sighed, kneading his temple with a knuckle as he glanced in Dr. Wong’s direction. The royal healer saw the look and visibly cringed.
“Don’t be too hard on Dr. Wong,” Terry said with a wave toward the healer. “He’s a terrible actor.”
Mesmer snorted and shook his head.
“Yes, we have Sol. We set up these lamps almost as soon as we brought him down here. But I promise, we never intended to use you as bait. We hoped the Shadow had fled for Topeka after Sol was captured.” He looked off toward where the doctor was standing over Tenebrous. “But once the opportunity presented itself, the Emperor told me to take it.”
Terry nodded, surprised that he wasn’t surprised. If the last week had taught him anything about his grandfather, it was that the man was ruthless and cold. But he also had to admit, the plan had worked and no lives had been lost other than those two servants. It was cruel to think it, but two lives to capture a powerful A-ranker like Tenebrous…that was a trade any leader would take.
“I don’t blame you, Mesmer. I’m just happy he was caught and can't hurt anyone else.”
“I do blame myself, Terry, but all the same, I appreciate your maturity.” He put a hand on Terry’s shoulder. “I would think that’s enough excitement for today, hm? But I would like to start up our sessions again next week if you think you’ll be up for it?”
Terry felt distant, distracted from the adrenaline dumping for the second time of the day. He nodded absentmindedly, waving toward where the patches were holding Tenebrous.
“Sure thing. Looks like you’ve got some pressing matters to deal with. Don’t let me hold you.”
Mesmer hesitated, his mouth opening like he wanted to say something else. After a lingering second, the revenant seemed to second guess himself and nodded. Without another word, he relieved Dr. Wong from guarding Tenebrous.
The doctor approached, a chagrined look on his face.
“I guess Seb knows that you know…” He trailed off upon seeing Terry’s distracted expression. “You must be exhausted, Terry. Why don’t you go lay down and I’ll attend to your aura after a nap—”
Terry shook his head, his eyes snapping back toward the doctor.
“No.” He turned to Crunch, who was dutifully waiting by his side. “I wasn’t lying when we passed in the halls. Crunch and I are heading for the Evolution Chamber.”