Powerlessly, he slapped a palm against the stone. “I think the heavens are playing a joke on me.”
Dross laughed uproariously. [Weep! Despair! No matter what you do, you end up alone!]
Lindon turned to face down the hallway. “I’m not alone. I have you.”
Dross’ laughter faded.
This hall was soaked with was the most concentrated hunger madra he’d ever sensed. The tunnel walls glowed a soft, eerie gray-white. The mummified hand in his pocket pulsed in time with the light, even through the silver metal sealing it off.
Lindon’s right arm ached and started to twitch. He forcibly suppressed it and began to walk.
The white light had grown, and the hunger aura was so strong here that Lindon couldn’t open his aura sight for fear of being blinded. The stone had begun to turn white and merge together like overgrown skin, corrupted by centuries of hunger madra.
Lindon’s hunger arm had begun twitching to the point that he couldn’t control it anymore. In his other hand, he held Suriel’s marble for comfort.
He stopped in the middle of the hallway and replicated what Yerin had done. He stretched his will into the walls and spoke.
“Pardon, but you must be Subject One. My name is Lindon.” He inclined his head to the wall. “You’ve seen everything that’s gone on in the labyrinth, so I’m certain you understand the situation. I am here to negotiate. There has to be something that you want.”
Suddenly, the entire labyrinth shuddered.
Lindon felt the crushing will of the Dreadgod. He felt Subject One’s anger. Despair. Relief. And a final sense of wistful, unfulfilled hunger.
None of that was directed at Lindon.
[Your words have angered the beast!] Dross cried.
I don’t think I had any effect at all. I think this was…something else.
That hadn’t felt like a response to Lindon’s plea. If anything, it had sounded like a dying man’s final breath.
The labyrinth shuddered, convulsing like a swallowing throat. The wall at the end of the hallway peeled away, and Lindon glimpsed an open room filled with a pale, unhealthy light.
A chill ran up Lindon’s spine, and even Dross was quiet. Lindon crept down the hallway and came face to face with the Slumbering Wraith.
With Little Blue on his back, Orthos strode up to the stone door that slowly slid open. The door was a massive gateway that would have towered over him even at his true size, but it opened for them alone.
The Nethergate. The exit to the labyrinth.
When he passed the threshold of the door, and the script containing his spiritual perception, he sensed the powers outside.
Then he scrambled back the other way.
Little Blue wailed out a long whistle. Overlords and Archlords were fighting over Sacred Valley, and he had glimpsed a cloud fortress of staggering size carrying even more intimidating powers. There were Heralds clashing here, and he wanted nothing of that.
More importantly, someone had to tell Lindon and the others. Lindon should be able to feel their alarm—assuming the labyrinth didn’t block it—but he would have no idea what caused it.
Or what killed us, Orthos thought as two Overlords and an Archlord dropped around them.
All three sacred artists were dressed in robes of red-and-black, sewn with an emblem he remembered. They gave off a sense similar to Yerin, and the two Overlords carried weapons shrouded in Blood Shadows. One a hammer, the other a long chain.
The Archlady, as Orthos now saw it was a female human, had gray-streaked hair and a Shadow in the form of a serpent. The great snake hissed at Orthos, and he had never before appreciated how menacing snakes could be to mice. Usually he was the one preying on snakes.
“I am Emissary Kahn Mala,” the Archlady said. She looked as though her skin had been glued to her bones. “Name yourselves or be devoured.”
Orthos had been preparing himself to die with blood on his shell and fire in his mouth, so he preferred this alternative. He lifted his head proudly.
“I am called Orthos.”
Little Blue gave a chime.
“This is my partner, Little Blue.”
Kahn Mala’s eyes narrowed. “You are contracted to Lindon Arelius.”
Orthos moved his eyes from the Lady to the two Lords. So they were after Lindon. More of his fear turned to anger.
Deliberately, he looked away and scooped up a stick in his mouth. He crunched it while he looked back to the Archlady.
“Who?” Orthos asked.
Little Blue hopped off his shell and stood beside him, arms crossed. The sound she made was among the harshest he’d ever heard from her; it sounded like someone had slapped a cat.
The Blood Shadow in the form of a snake wrapped around them. Not tightly, as though constricting them, but to fence them off. Its head reared up, and skin flared into a hood. So it was a giant cobra. Its jaws parted, and it made a sound that was like a thousand hissing screeches at once.
Orthos had to stop from pulling his head back into his shell.
He didn’t blame himself; there was something instinctive about being so small and facing something giant. Similar to what he’d felt against the Titan.
But this was no Titan, and he glared back at the cobra defiantly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Little Blue had flinched and taken a slight step behind him. That relieved him. At least he wasn’t the only one afraid.
“Besides Lindon Arelius, who else is down there?” the Archlady continued. “We want to protect them as best we can.”
That seemed reasonable, and Emissary Kahn Mala looked kinder than she had at first. He had likely been predisposed against her just because she was part of Redmoon Hall, which wasn’t fair.
He opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut when he noticed what was happening. With the last remaining spark of his soulfire, he blew away the dream aura she was weaving around his head.
She had been using her soulfire to influence the aura of his mind. That was terrifying. He had never seen anyone use their soulfire to manipulate minds; at least, not as far as he’d noticed. But she couldn’t have been a dream artist. Not only could he feel her madra, but an Archlord-level dream artist wouldn’t have been bothered by Orthos’ pathetic soulfire.
Kahn Mala’s lips thinned further, but now his fury was fully aflame. “Whoever this Lindon Arelius is, I’m sure he’d rather die than receive your protection.”
He kept her eye as he leaned down and munched on another stick.
Little Blue popped up from behind his shell to lend a ring of agreement.
The Archlady snorted in annoyance and addressed her pair of henchmen. “Keep them contained. I will return if anyone else arrives.”
So began a boring period of waiting and eating sticks.
Orthos only knew someone else was coming when the Nethergate cracked again. The Archlady appeared at his side in an instant, barking orders to her pair of Overlords.
Mercy arrived, hair pulled back into a tail and Suu in the form of a walking stick. She blinked at the sight of the Redmoon Hall Emissaries arrayed before her.
“Akura Mercy,” Emissary Kahn Mala announced. “You are under our protection per the agreement between our forces and your mother. Please cooperate and confirm the identity of your companions so we can protect them as well.”
Orthos and Little Blue shook their heads.