Leviathan (Fist of Light Series) (32 page)

I sensed that this was the crucial moment. Funny how when it came down to it, there wasn't really a choice at all. Bending down, I clutched the dark fabric in my hands, feeling the life squirming around in there. A mental nudge at my foot and a brief impression of images lent the idea that Shadow was on board.

I narrowed my eyes and allowed myself a small smile. “All right then. Let's go find the black heart of this place and make it bleed.”

Jas grinned, his thumb trailing along his fangs. “Let's.”

“Someone has to keep you from running in the wrong direction.” Kathryne sighed maternally.

“All this light was playing hell with my night vision, anyways.” Simon puffed himself up.

I was extraordinarily lucky to have friends like these. Others might have thought twice about risking their skin for others, setting themselves against the odds. Clenching my fists, I hoped I'd be able to figure out how to get my powers back before it was too late.

Getting out of the hold had been a frighteningly easy task. Then again, one wouldn't think to find resistance when no one expected an escape attempt. Plus, there hadn't been that many people about in the first place. It wasn't like there was a crowd of citizens to notice our departure. Instead of leading us back the way we had entered, Gallick had other ideas. We'd traveled down a set of seemingly infinite stairs set in an alcove behind the whirling ball of power and had been relentlessly pounding down them ever since.

“Where are we going? I think
up
would be a better idea,” Simon said.

“There be many things you must learn if you want to survive. This be a foreign world, with foreign rules.” Gallick grinned.

I conserved my energy, not trying to bend my mind into accepting some undisclosed truth in a twisted reality. The unnatural illumination of the hold was slowly fading and had become an uncertain twilight. We ran, cloaks billowing out behind us, our progress marked by the echoing corridor. I was almost surprised that everyone in the entire dimension couldn't hear our raucous descent.

Finally, we came to a rasping halt and Gallick bent down, obscuring himself in shadow. We were on a platform of sorts, a small thing. The problem was that the endless staircase we had been sprinting down for the past twenty minutes was a fallacy. It had led to nothing but blank darkness and black rock. Someone had gone to the trouble of carving out all this stone for nothing.

“Aha! Gotcha, ya damn bugger. Always playing hard to get.” I sensed more than felt a slab of stone moving beneath our feet.

I braced myself for some catastrophic upheaval of earth, but none came. Opening my eyes, I focused on the sickly yellow light filtering into my eyes. Cocking my head curiously, I got down on hands and knees next to Gallick. When I thrust my head forward into the light, I was presented with a disconcerting paradox.

“What twisted mind...” Jas began.

Before us lay a mirrored landscape of dark plains, similar to those we had originally traversed in our quest for safety. The only thing was, we'd left those thousands of feet above us under a blood moon, its red radiance shining down. Here, there was still the scraggly rock, the enveloping darkness. My world shifted queasily as I maneuvered myself through the opening on hands and knees, uncertain if I'd fall forever into the twinkling red stars above. Instead, I just looked like an idiot, made all the more comedic by the pallid yellow light of an entirely different moon.

“Not possible,” Simon said. He screwed up his eyes and held his head, as if the paradox threatened to blow his head off his shoulders.

It was causing me a similar discomfort. My brain was painfully trying to process the separation from reality I was confronted with. One doesn't have their world turned upside down that often. “This is something. Although I'd half hoped to see daisies and sunshine.”

Gallick grinned. “Feast yer eyes. Ye be on the other side of the world. This world shifts, though the red moon always brings new blood, new souls into the fold. Lucky for us, that means the hordes like to migrate. Bad news be that the most powerful and hungry remain.”

“Lovely,” Kathryne said, her vibrant eyes peeled for enemies. She had adjusted to the paradoxical shift with ease.

“At least the larger ones will be easy to see,” Zack said.

“I don't think that's a good thing.” Mary glared.

For a moment, we hesitated on the periphery of the staircase as Gallick strained to close the bulky hatch. The hardest thing to get used to was the lack of life, the absence of sound. The little certainties that allayed fears and cemented your place in reality. Here, there was nothing but a draining darkness, a potent concoction of concentrated
nothing
. Yeah, adjusting was difficult.

“So there's a reason these holds of yours are burrowed into the earth, besides the obvious,” I said.

“That'd be as good a guess as any. We ain't the ones who dug up this blasted rock in the first place. I doubt any still remember that feat, except Midreal. They be a long-standing hold.” He glanced nonchalantly into the slight shadow cast by the moon's filthy light.

“I assume you know the way?” Jas ran a hand through his sweaty hair. “I'm not sure if I want to wait around until your
friends
figure out we didn't invite them on our little field trip.”

“Right good idea, that. And where we be going, they won’t follow.” Gallick slapped Jas on the shoulder with a meaty arm, peering uncertainly into the dark.

“I thought you knew where this maze was,” Simon asked, shifting his weight nervously.

“I do at that, but—” Gallick looked in my direction. “There is one that knows better.”

“Caleb? How is he supposed to know anything? We just got here,” Mary complained.

“Not him.” He shook his head. “The hound.”

“Shadow?” Jas spoke up first. “We haven't seen him since we got dragged into this hellhole.”

“And yet here he be.” Gallick reached down into my shadow and pulled the hound from it, grabbing it by the scruff like a disobedient pup.

The hound let out a scratchy bark, yelping its displeasure. Carefully, Gallick placed Shadow onto the ground, where he flowed between my legs like a cat, rubbing up against them playfully. Smiling, I bent down to pet him, thinking I'd already become attached.

“Hiding like that in plain sight. Who would've thought?” Zack tilted his head and frowned.

Everyone looked to me for an explanation. “I found out he stowed away after they asked about him. Figured I'd keep it a secret since they'd been looking to drain him like they were going to do to us. Didn't seem right to hand Shadow over like some bartering chip, after all he's done for us.”

“I'm not sure I like things being kept secret,” Jas told me. “But that was the right move.”

My eyes tracked Gallick's; it was his move.

Powerful muscles bulged as Gallick clenched the hilt of his sword. “Well, can't say as I blame ya, lad. But ye got a powerfully ally in that mutt, there. That beast be both Midreal and Cusion, a blend of sorts, even if it has taken to ya. I don't believe he be meaning you harm, since he had a right good chance before. That there dog's gonna sniff out the maze for us. It ain't easy to find on the best of days, let alone enter.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That right, boy?”

I impressed a set of images into the hound’s mind, trying to convey the conversation to him. It was probably redundant and quite likely insulting, but I didn't want to chance it. Shadow leaped into the air and loosed a confident
woof
, certain he had his bearings. To prove he wasn't kidding, he struck a pose, freezing and extending his nose in the apparent direction. There wasn't much to validate the hound's assertion, but I didn't doubt he had the wherewithal to lead us to the maze. There were only minute differences in the landscape, just repeating rises of black stone, harsh and cruel, dead.

“I sure hope that dog knows what he's doing,” Mary muttered.

“Shadow knows,” I reassured her. “He led us to the Leviathan before. This isn't much different, I guess, just on a different playing field.”

“Little Cusion here be our best chance.” Gallick shrugged. “I've walked these plains more than most, and it'd be a gamble for even me.”

Shadow growled, a clear note that clearly projected
challenge accepted
. He circled around the group a few times, a rumble resonating through his throat. As he did, his body brushed up against the back of our legs, effectively herding us. A burst of laughter congealed, sounding foreign in this depressing world. After Shadow had our attention, he burst off in the chosen direction, chortling all the way. Many times the hound doubled back, making sure his charges were maintaining the correct course.

“Are you sure this will hide us from the things skulking about?” Zack tapped his cloak dubiously as we walked, as if trying to unearth the answer from its folds.

“Can't be so sure with all the noise we be making, but they should mask the energies we be broadcasting. We need not worry too much about the hordes marching, but there are others lurking that might become curious.”

“That's just great,” I huffed, though I'd yet to begin really fretting the possibility.

“So keep
silent
,” Kathryne said and I shut up, teeth clacking together audibly.

“Wise woman, there,” Gallick managed to get out before her glare silenced him as well.

We walked into the endless night, the red constellations above predicting that blood would still be shed, no matter what advantages we had gained in Shadow. Trekking over rises and down again, the predictable pattern returned some of the comfort of predictable certainties that had been absent up to this point. We didn't come across anything trying to tear us limb from limb and consume our essence, thankfully. Hours passed and the dull monotony of restless inactivity settled in. I never became overly tired. That would probably be due to the nature of our existence, considering we didn't actually have tangible muscles to tire out anymore. We were pure spirit, and I figured each cautious step we took forward drained energy from the core of our being.

I shook myself at that realization, and brought it together with the speculation that if we waited long enough, we would eventually be destroyed and engulfed by this world, though the hordes would probably find us first. My mind struggled with this line of thinking, figuring I was on the verge of some discovery. However, try as I might, I couldn't force the secrets of this place to reveal themselves.

S
hadow
woofed
loudly, breaking me from my reverie. A rumble went through the earth below us, morphing into a violent shaking that tore my feet out from under me. My hands reached for weapons that weren't there as the first strike landed in our midst. A giant hand slammed into the ground beside my head, spewing rock fragments in an expanding arc, drawing blood as some of the sharper pieces found unprotected skin. I hadn't even gotten to my feet before that same hand snatched Simon up and broke him in two. A bright light escaped his broken form, seeping into the body of our attacker. It illuminated the immense form, approximately man-shaped but four times the size and fashioned from pure darkness. Without that spot of light, it blended almost perfectly into the scenery. Then the Simon we knew disappeared, a dark shade taking its place. All this occurred in a short span of seconds, before anyone had a chance to react.

“Simon!” Mary cried and a collective groan went through the pack.

“Dammit, dammit!” I hollered, rushing the beast with nothing but my bare hands for weapons.

I flailed at the giant, but it was no use and only served to make me lightheaded. The behemoth chuckled darkly, some sentience allowing it to seemingly grasp and feed off pain. Then Gallick charged the massive thing in a display of fearless action, slicing deep into the shadowy limbs. Shadow growled and attached himself to a leg, clenching powerful jaws down on dark flesh and refusing to let go.

“What do we do?” Zack cried in anguish.

“There is nothing you can do.” Gallick grimaced as he swerved between the thing's legs and struck again.