18. Do Not Run Into the Suspicious Wall
Olzu looked incredibly indignant as he stood up, angrily fixing his necklace and tugging the cord back into its original shape. On closer inspection, the stone pendant hanging from its center shifted hues in the glowing red light of the walls, changing from a dark grey to a mix of crimson and violet. Something about it felt familiar, but Isaac wasn’t sure from what.
“—impudent, insolent, puny, audacious children—“
“I think I’m older than you,” Mortimer calmly cut in. Olzu abruptly stopped talking, blinking rapidly at the half undead man. He looked like he was rethinking his life choices, and before Isaac had a chance to talk, the demon spun around and pointed a clawed finger at him.
“Aha! But you’re younger!” He grinned triumphantly. “Which means you are indeed an impudent inso—“
“Do you know where Lucius is?” Isaac interrupted, rubbing his forehead. He was gaining even more respect for said demon if this was what he dealt with daily. Olzu let out a loud gasp.
“That’s Lord Lucius to you!”
Isaac sighed. “Look, I’m not even from the Underside. I don’t know all your titles and customs or whatever.”
The demon huffed indignantly. “That’s hardly an excuse!”
“Right. Sure.” He pulled open his tablet again, idly checking the map just in case Lucius had appeared on his own, thus saving him from continuing this conversation. No such luck. He shoved the device back into his pocket. “Look, do you know where he is? He’s not showing up on the map.”
“Oh, he’s in the Tunnels.”
“The tunnels.” What a thoroughly disappointing name. He squinted down at the demon. “That’s in the walls, right?”
Olzu’s expression was changing from discontent to something dangerously close to glee. Glee at Isaac’s expense, more specifically.
“Has the Traveler not been in the Tunnels before? Well well well—“
“Look, can you tell us how to get inside or not?” He raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe you don’t know either?”
Olzu puffed out his chest, and despite looking nothing like a cat, the action reminded Isaac of one. Maybe the heat was getting to him. “Of course I know!” the demon exclaimed. “Why, as Lord Lucius’s most trusted assistant and the one responsible for showing hospitality when his regal presence is away, I’ll lead you to him myself!”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Isaac exchanged a look with Mortimer, who looked vaguely amused at the whole thing. He turned to face the demon again. “Yeah, okay, lead the way then.”
Olzu’s tiny wings flapped a few times, and the creature half jumped half dashed forward. Isaac barely had time to think “there’s literally a wall right there” before the demon ran straight into said wall. Isaac braced himself for the impact, but instead of a thud, the walls glowed an even brighter red and rippled in response to the contact. He blinked, and in the next instance Olzu had vanished, leaving only the pulsing cavern wall and glowing stones behind.
“…I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore,” he said at the same time as Mortimer said, “That’s very convenient.”
Isaac glanced over at the man, who was staring intently at the wall. “We should follow him,” he said.
“Somehow I don’t think running into a wall with zero explanations is a very good idea.”
Mortimer frowned and stepped up to it. It might’ve been Isaac’s imagination, but the stone’s waving seemed to speed up. “It looks soft,” the half undead man observed. “Fleshy.”
“Please don’t ever describe it like that again.” Isaac walked up himself and knocked against it a few times. Despite the ripples, the cavern wall itself felt as hard as, well, stone. He paused, recalling some old story or show featuring a similar scenario. In that story, sudden impacts made a substance hard and you had to approach more gently. Olzu definitely hadn’t done that, but maybe it was different for demons. He reached out to touch the wall again, this time slower, only to find it just as solid as ever. He drew his hand back quickly at the total failure and looked around to check if anyone had seen. He coughed.
“It’s probably demon magic,” Isaac said. “Olzu hit the wall like a week ago and that didn’t happen, so he can probably control it.”
“Or perhaps it only occurs in specific locations.”
Isaac narrowed his eyes. “You really want to run into this wall, don’t you.”
Mortimer met his gaze calmly. “I do not want to run into any walls.”
Before Isaac could retort, the cavern wall vibrated, jerking around from side to side, and he stepped back just in time to avoid Olzu’s head popping out from behind the stone. With just his head there and none of his body visible, he looked a bit like those animal heads they hung in old school diners, except for the fact that he was very much alive, very much not an animal, and actively scowling at the two of them.
“Hurry up!” The demon’s arm popped out of the wall next to his head, and he made a waving gesture. As he did so, the stones of the cavern split open a crack, revealing blinding red light pouring out from within. Isaac squinted, now able to see an actual, visible opening between the stones that most certainly hadn’t been there before. Yep, definitely magic.
Mortimer stepped forward first, moving a little faster than usual as he ducked into the small entry and disappeared past an impatient Olzu. Isaac took a step closer, blinking as his eye adjusted to the glowing red, and he paused when a blast of heat hit his face.
Logically, given that the heat had always emitted from the cavern walls, which literally glowed red, it would follow that the interior of the walls would be the source of the terrible temperature and thus infinitely worse. Unfortunately Isaac hadn’t separated his own personal image of a damp, cool tunnel with what was evidently heatstroke central before it was too late to rethink his decisions.
“Hurry hurry!” Olzu said again. Sighing, Isaac inhaled and thought about cold things like the giant icicles that grew from the apartment roof in the winter or the coolness of a metal bowl of butter cream as he pulled it out of the fridge. He clutched the eternally cold tablet a little closer, like some sort of shield, and with one final look at the Inferno’s cavern, he stepped through the opening and into the tunnels.