Leviathan (Fist of Light Series) (34 page)

In an all-out sprint, we dashed across the remaining distance, no more than a hundred feet. It might as well have been five thousand. A swarm of tentacles burst from the water, each longer and thicker than the last. It was clear that they weren't going to let us escape so easily.

“Go!” I commanded. “I'll hold them off until you make it.”

I didn't wait for a response, instead turning to face the swarm as they slowly began to encircle me. There was no rush; they had me dead to rights. Bringing another sword into being, I figured the slight deduction in power wouldn't matter much in the scheme of things. My eyes tracked a questing appendage and I lopped the tip off, a warning.

Jas burst into the circle, slashing through the mass of tentacles with what remained of his sword. “You fatalistic ass!” he yelled as he bowled me over, grasping the two swords and pulling them from my hands.

“What the hell are you doing?!” I screamed. “Get out of here!”

“The show can't go on without you.” He tried at a grin, failed. “Go. I've got this. I'll catch up. GO!”

I scrambled to my feet, backing away but unwilling to go. “I'm not going to leave you.” The power stirred at my touch, waiting for me to call it into being.

“Don't.” He shook his head. “You'll need every last drop. Destroy this monstrosity. For me and Simon.”

Emotion wracked me and tears threatened to spill. “I will.”

Jas cleaved a tentacle in two, its remains snaking back into the brackish water. “We had a good run. But all things come to an end. Avenge me.” He launched himself at the horde arrayed against him.

I didn't have it in me to stay behind and make his sacrifice worthless. But neither was I able to watch him die. Tears leaking from the corners of my eyes, I sprinted through the rapidly closing hole of he’d made when he barged through. I couldn't stop myself from looking back as I ran to safety, however. The collective mass sensed most of its prey had escaped. It wouldn't allow the last to do the same. In a concerted effort they struck, burying two unwavering lights beneath acidic slime and coiling purple. Shadow whimpered and licked my hand consolingly, but there was nothing that would fix this sort of pain. I felt my heart shriveling and hardening at the deaths that continued to pile up. It was if anyone who ever got near me ended up hurt, or worse.

“Jas!” Mary's face was streaked with tears as she tried to bull her way through Zack's restraining embrace and get to Jas.

“It's too late,” he told her, but the words fell on deaf ears.

I wanted to do the same. Hell, I wanted to shake my fist at whatever sick god got his jollies from these kinds of things. I wanted to sit down, curl up in a ball, and wait for my death to come knocking. But I didn't do any of those things.

I placed a comforting hand on Mary's straining form. “He sacrificed himself so that we could have a chance at nailing this thing. He wouldn't have wanted you to throw your lot in with his.”

“I know.” She wiped angrily at the wet tears streaking down her face. “I know,” she repeated, firm and resolute once more. “It won't be for nothing.” The words were becoming frighteningly common, empty.

Kathryne seemed similarly affected, but she tried not to show it. It was a part of her character, that showing emotion might be equated to weakness. Maybe, where she was raised, that might have been the case. I wiped away the wet from my eyes and shifted my attention to the road ahead. Kathryne's eyes chased after mine and she nodded. Throughout the entire exchange, Gallick had been largely silent, standing off to one side and doing his best to not get involved.

“We be holding the course?” Gallick nodded, as if he had already heard the answer.

“We keep going.” I stuffed the flaming remnants of my emotion onto the back-burner, to burn down and die for all I cared. “Shadow, let's go boy.”

The hound leapt forward and began leading us through the maze. As we rounded a corner, I couldn't help chancing a look over my shoulder. Where Jas had been, there wasn’t the slightest clue that we’d ever been through there. The brackish water sloshed silently, ambiguous and nonthreatening, waiting for another victim. I crushed the last remains of my indecision in that instant, promising that I'd do the same to Cusion. There wouldn't be enough of the Leviathan left to scrape into a petri dish and look at under a microscope.

I put my head down and bulled through another series of convoluted corridors. My eyes traced a side passage as we ghosted by it. Mary started as a wall of flame burst up twenty feet into the air, vibrant red that singed hair even from the safety of the main path. Wincing, I looked down at the welts rising across the exposed areas of my skin. And gulped at the patches of flesh that had been eaten away. Muscle and sinew lay exposed, even the white of bone in one place. Thinking back, it couldn't have been anything other than the acidic slime the tentacles flung. My mind conjured up the agony one would be in if covered in that fluid, but I threw off those thoughts insistently.

“I'd wager me mother's soul we be passing by dozens of those traps.” Gallick hooked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the roaring flame that illuminated the corridor in a lurid light before it died down.

“I sure hope Shadow knows what he's doing,” Zack said.

“Running into just one of those wouldn't be pretty,” I said. “I've faith he can bring us through. Cusion made a fatal mistake when he built this place. He never considered a portion of himself might turn against him.”

“And that will be his undoing,” Kathryne said, speaking for the first time since Jas' sacrifice.

It was easier that to think of his death that way. He did save us all, by giving me a chance to kill Cusion. After all, I was the only one who had a weapon that could hurt the beast. At least we had some benefits of being on the inside, rather than chasing the Leviathan around a heavily populated urban city. In here, he had nowhere to run. In here, we potentially had
decades
to exact our revenge, considering time passed so much more quickly. A rumbled warning was voiced by Shadow.

“Move!” Zack demanded.

My sight and mind hadn't been focused on the prize, which almost brought another trap down on us. Kathryne's lithe form rammed into me and pushed me up against the retaining wall. My breath exploded outwards in a gasp, while hers was warm and rasping against my face. A strand of fiery hair stuck to my cheek before it was tucked behind one ear.

“Idiot,” she rasped.

I craned my head around and looked at the ground below. A pressure plate had sunk into the ground where I'd been standing just a moment earlier. In its place was a shining array of sharp instruments jutting out of the ground and another set of gleaming pikes jutting out of the wall across from us.

I released a relieved breath. “That was close.”

“Too close,” Zack agreed. He stood with the others, safely removed from danger.

“Don't be letting that mind of yours wander, boy,” Gallick said. “Next time it might be the end of ya.”

Thankfully, Kathryne's distracting presence was removed. After the adrenaline of our brush with death died down, our closeness was more than apparent. Almost nervously, she rearranged her cloak and looked down at the offending trap. A grim smile turned up one corner of my face as we continued down the path.

“Anyone else hopelessly lost?” Zack filled the pervasive silence.

I chuckled darkly. “Been lost since we got here. Lucky for us Shadow has the blueprints.”

“Ye have no idea,” Gallick agreed.

We settled into a pace, a calming regularity that soothed frayed nerves. I couldn't guess at the size and scope of this place, but the maze seemed practically endless. We'd been walking for what seemed like hours with hardly a pause for thought. Hopefully it did have an end and wasn't just constructed to ward off potential threats, the vulnerable core hidden safely away in some dark corner. Studying the group, my eyes looked for anyone beginning to flag. It helped that the energy left to our wandering souls powered our exercise. If it hadn't, this would have been made all the more difficult. As it was, we just had to worry about going the way of the hordes if we ran out of that precious power.

Mary's head whipped around as we spanned the length of a widened causeway. Shrugging off a feeling of apprehension, I surveyed the area for threats. Broken pillars were spaced across the length of the place, their purpose unknown. An empty throne sat in the corner, its hard obsidian curves not inviting in the slightest. Nonetheless, Shadow led us toward that very thing which none wanted to approach. By the time we stood before it, there was a palpable tension enshrouding the group.

“What now?” Zack queried.

“Seems to be there's a skewed compass in that there hound,” Gallick croaked.

Shadow had leapt up on the throne and paced in a circle before lying down. He eyed me from his perch, impressing his thoughts into my mind. Instantly, I understood.

“We've gotta shift it,” I told them.

“How do you know?” Kathryne scrunched up her face.

Shadow growled impatiently. “Shadow told me.” I motioned.

Gallick was a little taken aback by this, but he rolled with it. Our diminished group situated ourselves on the right side, getting into position. Placing my hands firmly into the unrelenting stone, I questioned whether we'd be able to move it. Muscles flexed and bulged as we threw ourselves against it. Gallick joined in the challenge and put his bulky frame to the task, but it didn't budge.

“It's no use,” Zack threw up his hands in disgust, sliding down against the stone in exasperation.

“Ain't be no help with the extra weight.” Gallick eyed Shadow and received a dark glare.

“Maybe there's a switch?” Mary raced around the throne determinedly, tapping and pressing in likely places.

“Don't think so.” I drummed my fingers on the cold stone, thinking.

By now, a flurry of activity arose as everyone instigating their own search for a secret lever or pressure plate. Rubbing my hands together, I searched inside myself, looked at the harsh light of energy whirling around inside. It took a few minutes to bring the power to bear, but Earth tingled at my fingertips. A slow churning made itself at home in my stomach and I moved unhurriedly, putting newfound strength to task. Stone ground piercingly as the massive weight shifted reluctantly. A drain was felt as the throne shifted, but the energy was a toll that needed to be paid.

All had halted their search and thrown their own weight into the effort at the sight of the progress. A series of slashes gouged deep furrows into the ground below. This thing hadn't been made to move, its secret meant to remain undiscovered by any who made it this far. The narrow passageway, cleverly hidden behind the throne, extended ominously into an impenetrable darkness. None of the churning yellow light drifted into its depths.

Kathryne spoke up and I broke out a smile at her words. “How inviting. What? Did I say something wrong?”

She might actually be getting ahold of the many intricacies of sarcasm. “No, you got it right,” I said.

Shadow hopped down from his lofty perched and scampered into the darkness,
woofing
excitedly. It looks like we had hit a milestone of some sort. Maybe there
was
an end to this maze after all.

“Feeling up to the challenge?” Zack asked.

Mary moved forward before any of us thought to, her eyes fixed on the inky blackness. I stuck close behind her. Footsteps followed in my wake, which meant we weren't the only ones to brave the dark.

“Looks like,” Gallick responded, his voice echoing.

“Keep your hand on the left wall,” Kathryne said.

I nodded my head in approval before realizing that the movement would go unnoticed. “Good idea. That way we won't get separated.”

“That be the idea, at least,” Gallick grunted.

We plodded along sightlessly for a few tense minutes. In that time, my eyes had incrementally transitioned to the absence of light. Although I wasn't able to see in any adequate form, a dark smudge was visible ahead. I took that to be Mary, although I'd no idea where Shadow had gotten off to. Without any form of light, it was even harder to keep track of time.

Finally, however, a break in the monotonous black was visible where a streamer of pale yellow light trickled into the passageway off to the right. If it hadn't been there, I never would have noticed Mary breaking off from the group. She was fixated on some unknown sight, eyes glimmering in the low light. But Shadow wasn't there.

“Wait!” I called after her, but Mary wasn't listening.

She stepped out of the corridor and onto the adjoining causeway. “Jas!” she waved dreamily.

“What the…” Zack's voice trailed after me from behind.

Propelling myself forward with a burst of speed, I stretched out a hand and snatched at thin air, where she'd been a second before. Sensing the need for more time, I reluctantly spared a stream of energy and called Air. My body sped up only slightly under the rationed power, but it was enough. Mary was walking into a gray fog, which crammed itself into the small chamber. I snatched her just as one hand entered into that roiling mist and used my weight to topple us back into safety.

“No!” Mary cried. “Jas needs me,” she threw a flurry of punches into my midsection.

“Jas is gone.” I encircled my arms more firmly, exhaling a hiss at each landed blow.

We tussled and struggled, but finally Kathryne and Zack were able to wrench Mary away and bring her back to us. Her sanity returned, she stopped struggling and sagged in their grasp.

“Tricks.” Gallick narrowed his eyes at the writhing mist.

“Your hand!” Kathryne examined the appendage closely.

“What's wrong?” I moved over to get a better look.

“Does it hurt?” Gallick asked, quick to see the problem.

Then again, it was hard to miss. A section of her hand had become transparent, the white skin of her flesh but a distant memory. It looked like the fog had taken a bite out of her. Even as we watched, a flash of energy puddled into the damaged hand and filled it with color.

Mary gasped, encompassing her injured hand in a protective fist. “What was that?”