Chapter 16 – A Labyrinth of Remnants

After resting for a while, in which Adam regained some strength, Emily and he left the cellar. Their reasoning was that if Oliver had left the hemispherical cave through one of the tunnels, he had probably left a sign that he did. If they couldn’t find anything, they’d begin the long and dangerous search through the town itself.

Carefully, they made their way to the edge of town. Although they found many masses of the Overgrowth—and avoided them wherever possible—they didn’t see any Roots or blue people.

Where the buildings ended, the ground sloped upwards and gradually transitioned into the walls of the hemispherical cave. Scattered across the slopes were the openings of tunnels that Adam had seen before. Glowing, leaf-vein-like patterns, inlaid in the ground, flowed from the tunnels towards the pyramid in the centre of the town. Taking care not to be seen by anyone, Adam and Emily made their way around the slopes.

“So, have you picked up anything Oliver-ish yet?” Adam asked after a while. He admired two faceless wooden statues of men dressed like the blue people who had kidnapped him. The statues flanked the entrance of a winding tunnel. The light from the mysterious pattern on the ground shone on the bushes and oaks that grew inside.

“By Aves, I swear if you keep asking me that every five seconds…” Emily said. She squeezed her eyes shut with a focused expression. “Not that tunnel.”

“Pity.” The statues truly were well made, even the hairs on the old man’s arms were visible. The lack of a face was a bit creepy though.

“If only a certain someone could help me, that would be great,” Emily muttered.

“Hey! I am helping,” Adam protested as he peeked into a crudely crafted tunnel, barely two feet wide, that smelled like olives. “It’s not like I can sense Oquira. But I’ll be sure to tell you if I see traces of combat or Roots. Or when you bump into a tree again.”

“Shut up! That only happened once!”

Adam smiled. The advantage of others having their eyes closed was that they can’t see any self-satisfied smirks.

“And could you stop standing in front of the tunnels? You’re making it hard for me to find Oliver’s trace!”

“How come?” He remembered that Caine didn’t need such precautions whenever they had been looking for traces. However, he figured that wouldn’t exactly be the most tactful thing to point out.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Ugh, look, when Novaseers use Invocations, they’re not using their own energy—”

“Yeah, I know,” Adam said. “Since people are born sinful—especially the left heart—the energy inside the veins is evil incarnate as it submits them to the Crimson Urges. So, using that pisses off the big owl in the sky, who naturally dooms you forever, yada yada. Which is why Novaseers use their Awakened right heart and their meridians to control the Oquira in the air and use it for Invocations. Thanks for listening to Adam’s introduction on sorcery for ten-year-olds.”

Emily clearly suppressed a chuckle. “Point taken. You’re into blasphemy, aren’t ya? Or do you just save that for when you’re talking to a Talon of Aves?”

“Oh, I forgot the part where…” Adam coughed and imitated the dramatic tone of priests. “ ‘Oquira, the sacred energy of Aves himself, flows from the thousand glowing eyes on His body: the nightly sky. All to hold the earth in His holy embrace.’ Ugh. Come on, I know you’re a Talon of Aves, but how could that ever be true? What would an owl huge enough to form the whole night’s sky and stars even eat to feed that body mass? How could He fly with that weight? And I sure hope He has some enormous divine toilet hidden somewhere. If He uses the same tactic all birds—”

“I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that. You’re so immature you—” Emily stumbled over a rock. Adam suppressed a snicker.

Emily brushed a lock of chestnut hair from her face with an agitated flick of her wrist. “AS I WAS SAYING. Since Oquira flows through the air like invisible streams of gas or liquid, it is disturbed when bearded buffoons stand in its way. And as Oliver’s trace is probably just a subtle alteration…”

Adam nodded and made some space.

Emily sighed. “Thanks. This is pretty difficult to do, so I could use a bit of silence, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Quietly, they continued following the sloped edge of the cave for a while.

"So, I was wondering,” Emily said.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Adam smirked. “I thought you liked the silence so much?”

“Ugh, shut up.” She clearly tried to suppress a smile behind her focused expression. “Were you able to get on top of the pyramid and ‘associate?’ ”

“To what now?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ The blue people really urged me to get to the top and associate, whatever that means.”

"Wait, didn’t they tie you up in a chariot?”

Emily laughed. A bit too loud, maybe, but Adam couldn’t say he really minded the sound. “You really have a knack for making people like you, huh? No, to me they were very polite! Two of them tried to sneak me through the streets to get to the ‘Palace of Origin.’ They didn’t say much though, terrified of being heard by the Roots and all.”

“Huh, guess they liked you better.” He rubbed his beard, remembering a bit too clearly how the blue lady hit him on his temple. “Maybe they have a library about you as well, eh? But did you lose them inside the pyramid?”

“No, we got attacked by a horde of Roots near the entrance. The blue guys rushed me in and stayed behind to hold them off. Poor fellas… I wasn’t even able to reach the top.”

Adam frowned, remembering how there had been no guards at the pyramid’s entrance when he showed up. “Bold move... Maybe they’re still alive though; when Roots attacked the blue people who kidnapped me, they didn’t go for the kill. It seemed like they bound them to take them somewhere. But why would the blue people want you to go up the pyramid?”

Adam looked at the flattened top of the structure. Although it was partially covered by the Overgrowth, the goldish-green spiral around Catherine’s statue could clearly be seen. It was more difficult than Adam would like to admit not to look at the beautiful statue again. “With all the Roots swarming inside, getting to the top is dangerous enough. But once you’ve reached it there’s no way off!”

Emily stood beside him and peered at the pyramid. “Maybe to ‘associate’ and that spiral are related to the strange sorcery they practice over here?”

“I guess so. Whatever those patterns in the ground are for, they converge beneath the pyramid, with that spiral at its centre…” Adam softly snapped his fingers and smiled widely. “Wait, the fresco on the ceiling! You know, the one in the room where we fought!”

Emily raised an eyebrow. “You were looking at some stupid paintings while I was fighting my ass off? No wonder you got beaten up so bad.”

“Ugh, a fresco isn’t just a normal painting,” Adam grumbled something about the state of cultural education these days while he sat down. He drew lines and figures in the ground. “The entire picture was circular and had an idealized depiction of Caine in the centre. Spreading outwards from it were these decorated green lines that led towards spirals. Each spiral was connected to other spirals with similar green lines and thus formed this immense network, see? At first, I thought it resembled Caine’s network of servants, as the blue people have a spiral tattooed on those protruding foreheads. But what if it’s a map of this place? The blue people did talk about several ‘Nodes’ as separate locations that were near.”

Emily looked back and forth between Adam’s drawing and the pyramid and her face lit up. “Ooh! The spiral on the pyramid is one of those in the painting! And all these patterned trails in the tunnels are pictured by the lines!”

Adam grinned, gesturing for Emily to go on. “Which means…”

“That if we go through the tunnels, we would end up in more caves, or ‘Nodes’, with other spirals. And if we pick the correct path...”

“We might just find Caine, at the centre of this underground maze!” Adam said, drawing an arrow towards the centre of his drawing. He absent-mindedly rubbed the scars on his wrist. “More like a labyrinth, actually. The fresco showed hundreds of spirals at the very least, so if this is true, and other caves are just as big as this one, the entire complex is gigantic. Would there be more of these disturbing libraries? Why would they build something like this?”

Emily smiled and waved Adam’s worries away with a gloved hand. “Oh, we will figure it out! But if this is true it would be amazing; the first time in history that a painting is actually useful! So, oh Great Cultured One, where would we be on this map and where should we go to find Caine?”

Adam frowned at his drawing. “Hmm, I’m not sure. There were markings and symbols beside the spirals, but I didn’t have the time to study them before a certain someone kicked me in the side.”

Emily’s expression drooped a bit. “Riiight, sorry about that. In my defence, the Roots did seem ready to swarm us and turn us into compost. So, if we went through one of these tunnels, we would have no clue in which direction we’re going or where we’re going to end up?”

Adam rubbed the scars on his wrist, deep in thought. “Wait, when I looked at the fresco, it reminded me of branches that grow out of the stem of a tree. They start thick, but they get narrower and narrower. One branch splits up in smaller branches, just like the lines that branch out in different directions at the spirals.”

Emily squinted at Adam’s drawing in the ground and cocked her head to the side. “Really? That is supposed to resemble a tree? Looks more like a horse to me.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Oh, sorry I didn’t take drawing classes before I got abducted to this shithole! Why don’t you demonstrate your skills in the fine arts and show me how it’s done, hmm?”

Emily raised the corner of her mouth. “Why would I? I’m not the one lecturing others about these fancy frescoes. So, a tree, you were saying?”

“Yes, a damned tree,” Adam grumbled. “I’ll talk slowly so even an uncultured aardvark like you can follow.” He pointed at the lines near the centre. “The lines here are the thickest, and they get thinner the closer they get to the edge of the picture. So, if we consistently choose the tunnels with the broadest patterns…”

“We’d get closer to Caine!” She nodded approvingly. “Not bad. The idea of hundreds of caves, filled to the brim with Roots and Schultoras, isn’t the most reassuring ever. But at least we’ll have an idea of where to go once we find Oliver.”

“Thanks.” Adam couldn’t deny a sense of pride; he’d finally made a bit of sense of the bizarre place they’d ended up. Step by step. “However, I do believe the current score in finding the right way is one to zero at the moment. Do you mind, my lady?” He gestured broadly at the way ahead of them. “I’ll be sure to catch you if you bump into something, again.”

Emily’s cheeks reddened. She opened her mouth a couple of times, undoubtedly trying to come up with a witty answer. Finally, she grunted and stomped forward. “Asshole.”