The moment Janu stepped into the corridor, his nerves quietened. Having walls so close to either side and not a window in sight left him far less exposed than the wide cavern he had just left. Even so, there was room enough for two to walk abreast, and Ilarion took up the lead alongside him. They both held their lanterns aloft, watching the darkness swallow the reach of their light until it slipped away to reveal a wall where the corridor turned.

Janu couldn’t match Ilarion’s pace. The man had a glint in his eye – the boyish excitement of an adventurer, not the caution of a thief. Even if his steps hadn’t been so eager, his legs were longer anyway. So he rounded the corner first.

Again, their lantern light met blackness. Janu’s inner map had them moving parallel to the side wall of the barracks now. How far would this labyrinth take them? If this doesn’t lead to the horn, I won’t be impressed.

Ilarion slowed a fraction, examining something on the walls as he walked. Before Janu could look at whatever had caught his attention, Galnai shouted something and a section of floor shifted beneath Ilarion’s foot. Something clicked. In the same moment, Galnai shot her arm out and yanked Ilarion back by his sword belt. A dozen bolts zipped out of holes in either wall and clattered against the other side loud enough to echo. Splinters showered Janu’s arms as he flinched away and protected his face.

Ilarion staggered back against Galnai, his mouth wide in a comical ‘o’. Blood bloomed across the front of his shirt where it clung to his skin.

‘Are you hurt?’ Janu asked. His blood rushed in his ears, all his senses on alert.

Touching a hand to his shirt and examining the result, Ilarion swore. ‘I should have brought my armour.’

Galnai turned him half around by one shoulder. ‘Eh. It’s a scratch. You’re fine.’ When he gave her a wounded look, she added, ‘You can go back and have Divya patch it up if you’re so worried.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We carry on.’

‘Hold on there.’ Janu stuck his arm out in front of him, worried he would just walk back into the same trap. ‘We don’t know if it’s just going to do the same thing again.’

Ilarion frowned. ‘It just shot its bolts. Unless there are people back there, I can’t see how the mechanism would reload.’

Janu reached forwards with one foot and pressed down on the plate Ilarion had triggered. A dozen more bolts shot out and shattered against the walls. The perplexed look on Ilarion’s face might have been worth it if putting it there hadn’t made so much noise.

‘I see you haven’t heard of repeating crossbows,’ Janu said. ‘Even if that’s not what this is, we have no idea what kind of magic Critobulus can work. He might be conjuring up infinite bolts for all we know.’ Janu was fairly sure no sorcerer could conjure something so substantial out of thin air, but ‘fairly sure’ wasn’t something he often liked to hang his hopes on.

He knelt down, examining the pressure plate. If they had something heavy enough, putting it on top would likely trigger the mechanism once, then leave it dormant until they removed the weight. But he had had to use a fair amount of force to trigger it just poking with his toes. None of their tools or weapons would do the trick. They could pile up furniture from the abandoned barracks, but that would make a lot of noise and create an obstacle course for them to climb over.

‘Could we lever up the blocks?’ Ilarion asked. ‘The gap looks big enough to shove something through.’

Janu raised an eyebrow. ‘What were you planning to shove in there? Your sword?’

The mere suggestion made Ilarion’s hand dart to the hilt of his sword and turn aside as if to protect it. ‘I was more thinking a long piece of wood. You looked in the barracks. Assuming there are beds in there, were they the kind with slats?’

All of the beds in the barracks had been bunks. Janu hadn’t paid close attention to them, but more than likely they did have slats.

He stood and nodded. ’Good call. Let’s go and check.’

They traipsed back up the corridor into the cavern, prompting a sarcastic ‘that was quick’ from Divya, still at work on Critobulus’ door. Janu hesitated before reopening the barracks, wary of the racket they had made with the trap and the unknown potential of that staircase leading up. At last, though, he worked up the courage to go in. Nothing had changed. All was silent. Not a speck of dust had been disturbed.

Picking out the first bed he saw, Janu lifted one of the slats away then, after a moment’s hesitation, bundled a few more under his arms for good measure. They may need more than one to lift the plate, if lifting it even worked. And one slat alone might break. Best to avoid return trips where possible.

When he returned to the main chamber, Ilarion peered at the ends of the slats.

‘They might need shaving down to size,’ he said. ‘Do you have a knife somewhere in those pouches of yours?’

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Janu inclined his head to the labyrinth entrance. ‘Let’s try them first. If not, Galnai usually has a knife.’

Galnai nodded. Little about this situation was their usual, but it was nice when the little things stayed the same.

To Janu’s dismay, upon their return to the trapped corridor, they soon discovered the slats didn’t fit. So Galnai spent a precious few minutes crouched on the floor, carving the end of one slat into a thin wedge. All the while, Janu leaned against the wall of the corridor, anxiety forcing his gaze up and down its length every few seconds in anticipation of unwelcome visitors.

‘That should do it,’ she said at last, holding the slat up for someone to take.

Ilarion took it and touched the thin end to the gap between the plate and the rest of the floor. ‘Get ready with the others.’

Janu grabbed another slat as Galnai climbed to her feet. With only room for two abreast, she took up position behind the two men, though she took hold of a slat anyway, perhaps hoping to slip it between their legs if they needed help.

Ilarion’s slat slid in with little effort, and he pressed down to begin lifting up the stone. A moment later, the trap’s crossbows twanged again. One bolt smashed against the wall, its splintered end flying back to slice across Ilarion’s temple, but he kept hold of the slat. By now the gap had widened enough for Janu to wedge his own slat underneath. Together, they made smoother work of it. The stone slab tilted back and fell into the shallow pit that housed the pressure mechanism with a hollow thud.

Careful not to knock the mechanism that stuck out from the ground like a wide pillar, Ilarion picked up the slab and set it to one side of the corridor.

Janu swore. Beyond the slab they had just removed and beneath the next section of floor lay another pillar-like mechanism. When he crouched and peered from the side with his lantern held close, he could make out even more of them, stretching out to the end of the corridor.

‘No one go rushing ahead,’ he said. This would take a while.

----------------------------------------

Some time later – Janu wanted to say an hour, but all the heaving and grunting and nervous alertness had stretched his perception of time – they stood at the far end of the line of traps, stone slabs leaning neatly against the wall in their wake. The gruelling work had littered the ground with broken bits of crossbow bolt and left them in a corner.

More corridor stretched out before them.

Armed with the last unbroken slats, Galnai and Ilarion took the lead. They shuffled as if blind, testing every inch ahead of them with as much force as they could bring to bear. Every mark on the wall or ceiling became a point of suspicion. Every crack in the floor became a potential trap.

Nothing more lived up to that potential, however, and they came at length to a fork in the path. One branch went straight ahead, the other right. Both turned a corner not long after the fork.

‘Doesn’t look like he’s made any marks,’ Galnai said, examining the floor where the paths met. ‘Nothing to say he goes one way or the other.’

Janu consulted his mental map. They had turned three times since the trap corridor, and now travelled parallel to the windowed wall of Critobulus’ chambers – which meant parallel to the path of the collapsed tunnel, too. If they carried on straight ahead and followed the corridor’s turn to the left, that would in theory keep them closer to the tunnel. The right path would take them further away. They could always double back if they hit a dead end.

As he explained his reasoning to the others, he took out a piece of chalk and marked the intersection to show which way they had come. It didn’t live up to the title of labyrinth so far, but who knew how much more convoluted this would get.

They filed along the next section of corridor, still checking for traps. Two corners and no traps later, they came to a simple wooden door. Janu spent some time prodding and poking it with the end of his chisel before deeming it safe to turn the handle, and even then he half expected a spike to shoot out of the woodwork and impale his hand.

The door opened onto a completely empty room. Janu held his lantern aloft and stuck his head into the room without stepping through. Another closed door stood in the far right corner. The incongruity of it made the hair of his arms stand on end.

Ilarion was about to step past him when Janu stuck his arm across his chest.

‘Don’t,’ Janu said. ‘As much as you’ve proven a very effective trap finder, let’s not push your luck.’

‘What can you see that I can’t?’

‘Nothing. That’s what I don’t like about it.’ Why would Critobulus put an empty room down here? It was smaller than the room he had tunnelled away from, so it couldn’t have been the next stop for his captive dragon, and carving into the rock down here was too much hard work for a whole lot of unused space.

Janu tapped his toes against the floor as he thought. ‘Let’s go back and try the other path. We can always come back here if it comes to nothing.’

With a sigh, Ilarion nodded his agreement and started back down the corridor. When they turned at the other path, they found a longer journey than the one they had just completed. The corridor twisted and turned without a door in sight until after the fifth turn. It took more effort for Janu to keep his mental map on track, now. They must have walked the length of the upper palace already, but they had still ended up walking parallel to the collapsed tunnel.

Another plain wooden door blocked their way. It had no lock and no dust had gathered to indicate disuse, but then the same had been true of the other door. Whether that was a good or bad thing, he had no idea.

Once he had satisfied himself with another thorough test of the door, Janu pushed it open. Relief flooded through him. Neat shelves of scrolls lined the walls and a desk stood ready with ink and parchment against the far wall. Well-worn rugs marked the most-used path around the room, drifting between the entrance, the shelves, the desk, and another door in the centre of the far wall. To the left, the room narrowed a fraction and the scroll shelves gave way for a stretch to jars and pouches of ingredients. Lantern light flickered from metal equipment laid out on another desk beside the ingredients shelf.

‘All this to guard a library?’ Galnai edged past them and stepped into the room, looking around with her nose wrinkled in distaste. ‘If we don’t find the horn in here, we’d better find it in the next room.’

Ilarion joined her and began to light some of the candles dotted around the room. Firelight gradually suffused it with a gentle glow.

The further they went, the more Janu suspected Critobulus had the horn hidden in his chambers. It was certainly more likely than having stuffed it inside a scroll here. They would find out if that was the case when they returned to Divya, if she had managed to break through. For now, all they could do was search.

‘Let’s get on with it.’ Janu made a beeline for the ingredients shelf. The sooner they found the horn and got out of here, the better.