'So what do we do?'
Exiting the cave, we were greeted by a vision of wiry whiskers and teeth — thousands. At this desperate point, I considered slitting this woman's throat and making a suicidal run through the vermin. I also thought of dragging her as cover to the very exit of this labyrinth, to the 9th Fortress if need be. However, all the mad deliberations were scrubbed as the iron grate nearest us dropped open with a frightful clang. This elementary action caused rats to shriek nonsensically then scatter like cockroaches from the light. The mother too, struggled in my arms to cut her neck on my blade. She squirmed so violently that she tore the hair from my hand and her own scalp. I was utterly lost as that half rat, half woman, returned to her diseased children in their pit, their home, without a single look back. We three couldn't possibly contemplate the meaning of this, for we were rattled by the domino effect of other grates, falling open all across the labyrinth. SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!
'You just know this is bad!' said Eddinray. 'Extremely!'
We agreed and ran for it, subsequently taking left turns at a breathless sprint, leaping over opened grates and through their venting steam.
'Jump!' yelled Harmony, successfully vaulting over an open grate.
Preparing to spring over the next grave, the suffocating high walls suddenly shook, knocking us three to the bone dashed ground. This promptly became a shattering earthquake like none ever recorded, a force to sack cities and crack a planet's core — the power of god in Hell. Our screams were throttled by these brutal tremors, the very rip and tare of this realm; but oddly, despite the battering, the labyrinth endured, the high walls showed no crack or clue of collapse. We took to our feet again when all of a sudden, over the sound of shaking stone came the sustained groans of a monster, as if the sky itself were bawling.
'We have to move!' I howled, cowering. 'We have to…'
'What?' cried Harmony, staggering like a drunk. 'Can't! Hear! You!'
I steadied myself against one vibrating wall, and pale faced with shock, I raised a hand to the sky and screamed. 'Look out!'
Gargantuan shadows steadily grew over the labyrinth now, and over the sound of thunder, two trolls appeared to amaze and terrify us. Unfathomable in size, they carried heavily loaded buckets of granite in their arms. Their bodies taller than any mountain, the trolls were a combination of fatty rolls and defined muscle, with reptilian flesh with purple spots.
Another quake hit, shaking the entire structure and spilling us backwards. This hefty rollicking was the result of one troll's bucket being set atop the labyrinth wall, hundreds of feet from us. Some of the buckets contents spilled over one side, and I noticed its yellow liquid drip like hot syrup. I recognized this lethal mixture for what it was, and how we had only one pathetic option left:
'Run!'
We set off at once from the overlooking, impossible trolls, who tipped their bucket loads into the backward corridors of the winding labyrinth. The lava — the flood — funnelled down routes too fast for any living thing to outrun.
We ran against the thunder and the quakes, arriving at a fork and taking the left turn. We leapt vents one after the other, then another before venturing left yet again. Still and still the thunder, still the ear bursting moans above and the catching chase behind. Harmony glanced back at a bearing down wave of yellow, and screamed. The incinerating tsunami had already caught us. We turned a final left, leapt the last vent for our lives and saw Kat at the foot of an upward slope, frantically motioning us onward.
'Move! Move! Move!' he bawled.
Kat started up the slope and we reached his back before the flood reached ours. We climbed and climbed, grunting and panting, the flood gaining at our footsteps, scorching licks at our heels. Eddinray's mail fizzed on its touch and the animal skin of my boots disintegrated. But up we charged; ascending this scale till our bodies were sucked of all energy, till we collapsed one by one on the stone slope; the consuming flow of lava stopping mere inches behind us. At last…we where out of the accursed labyrinth. We were alive.
This life saving incline continued skyward, the flow itself however would travel no higher than the labyrinth walls — filling its narrow corridors and patterns with a luminous, mesmerizing glow. It remained briefly at this high tide, before sinking through the many open vents — stripping all life from the surface and leaving but steaming puddles over the labyrinth floor.
26. Parts Broken
Our life-saving slope did not soar as high as the opposite steps, and after resting a while, the scale to the top was easily achieved. There we faced a flat wall covered in soot, with five indistinguishable slate doors lining up side by side. 'The second door will lead you the quickest and safest route to the 9thFortress,” I said. 'That's what Virgil told us. What do you think, Harmony?'
'Me?' she asked, innocently.
'You're the reason for his advice. What door do you suggest?'
She shrugged shyly then recoiled behind Eddinray's arm, keeping that good opinion to herself.
'But should it really be that easy?' the knight pondered. 'That bloody ghost did not mention a thing about killer rats, nor flow of incinerating lava! I suspect he didn't think we would make it this far. Underestimated us he did!'
'We wait,” Kat muttered, causing me to sigh. That would be that. Kat would crouch now, caress his handfuls of earth and consider the options. Nightfall now upon us, here we would wait it out.
***
As the seven suns set, Kat shivered. Sitting on his backside with legs crossed, he daydreamed for a solid hour over the five slabs, while an oblivious angel and knight overlooked the various contours of the labyrinth puzzle, most of it concealed in darkness.
Before sleep, I decided to check our status with the samurai, and looking him over, I recognized his withdrawn expression — it was that same hollowed-out human I had seen in the centre of the labyrinth.
'My gown is all bloody,” complained Harmony, in the background.
'Completely ruined!'
'Kat?' I whispered. 'Are you there?'
His teeth chattered, and a growing saliva bubble burst from his lip. I bent and roused him with a delicate touch, and after his long held blink, his spirit seemed to return. 'Fox?' he said, confused to find me near him.
'Yes, it's me…How are you?'
'Beat it,” he snarled, wiping his face of any fever.
Glancing back, Harmony implored me to continue, thus I shrugged off Kat's objections and did just that. 'I want to talk,” I started, hearing his growl as I took my seat next to him. 'We're all concerned about you.'
Agitated, Kat searched over his shoulder to witness Harmony's caring smile and Eddinray's thoughtful nod; he then returned his sight to the slabs.
'You're our friend,” I said.
Appearing slightly embarrassed, Kat deflected his face from my mine.
'Are you in pain?' I asked, pointlessly, for if Kat were in excruciating agony, he would hardly express it, let alone share. I prepared myself for a night of this, but the man surprised me by asking a question — an easy question with a difficult answer.
'What happened?'
'What,' I stuttered, 'do you mean?'
Words teetered on the edge of Kat's lips, his mind searching for precious moments and misplaced memories. Like a child with learning difficulties, he was profoundly frustrated, and I became careful.
'What don't you remember Kat?'
'Fox,' he hissed, leaning closer. 'I do not remember that labyrinth. Not a thing.'
His armor coated in a dry blood, the disturbed samurai had no idea how it got there, no notion either why his body was so thoroughly exhausted, why his sword wielding palm was raw from overuse; and no possible explanation for the hideous new scar covering a large portion of his face.
