Chapter 2

Scorio emerged on the far side into a dimly lit, low-ceilinged chamber. He received a brief impression of rusted walls, a dirt floor, and heavy shadows when instinct screamed at him to lunge aside.

Not thinking, not questioning, he hurled himself to the left and crashed down to one knee just as something metallic clanged against the iron wall behind him and spun away into the gloom.

He stared, dumbfounded, even as part of him reached within his being, seeking to grasp—what? He didn’t even know. It felt like an instinct without a home.

The glowing amber wall was gone. In its place was a heavy wall of dull iron, streaked with rust. A small fleck of bright steel shone at roughly chest height where he’d stood.

“What the…?” Frowning, he went to rise when a shape emerged from the iron wall, pushing through as if it were insubstantial, hands groping blindly, revealing Leonis’s bearded face, eyes wide, expression strained.

He grunted, almost stumbling as he came all the way through, then oriented on where Scorio knelt.

“What—?”

“Watch out—”

There was no sound, just a sense of movement, and Leonis jerked aside, obeying instincts of his own as another projectile ricocheted off the iron wall.

Scorio jumped to his feet. “The others, when they come through—”

But it was too late. Two pairs of hands emerged from the iron wall, both a good distance apart. They came through quickly with the determined steps of people committed to their fate, Asha’s eyes screwed shut, Lianshi blinking, bewildered.

“Watch out!” shouted Scorio, lunging forward to tackle Asha.

She froze, eyes opening in alarm, staring at him in shock as he crashed into her a second later.

They fell roughly to the ground, Asha’s shoulder clipping the wall, but the rigid object that jutted against Scorio’s arm told him it was too late.

“No, no no no,” he hissed, pulling himself free to kneel beside the young woman. She looked down at where a thick bolt of gray metal had sunk deep into her gut.

“What…?” Her voice was thick, hands closing about the shaft.

“Leonis!” Scorio looked over to where the massive man was helping Lianshi to her feet, one hand clapped to his bloody side. “Either of you know anything about healing?”

Blank looks as they hurried over.

“Stay with me,” said Scorio as Asha lowered her head back down, eyelids fluttering. “Stay with me, Asha.” He jerked his gray overrobe off his shoulders and struggled out of it, some mad thought of wadding it into the wound filling his mind.

Leonis touched his arm. “It’s too late.”

Scorio froze, overrobe half off, and stared down at her. Her eyes had closed, and thick, dark blood was welling up around the iron bolt, soaking into her clothing, running down her side into the dirt floor.

Lianshi took one of Asha’s hands and held it tight.

“Too late?” Scorio felt dizzy, at a loss. “But she’s still breathing, she’s…”

Leonis just shook his head grimly.

And Scorio saw that he was right. The young woman’s breath was already coming in ever-shallower gasps, ever longer pauses between them. The blood which had welled up thickly before seemed to slow, no longer pulsing.

The three of them knelt around her, watching in horror, as Asha’s breaths slowed, slowed, and finally stopped.

Scorio studied her face. The thick brows, the eagle-like nose, the high cheekbones, the parted lips. Such fierce strength, such dour resolve, all of it smoothing into an expression of peace, of gentle sleep.

And then her body began to fade. Subtly at first, then it disappeared altogether before them, and was gone.

The iron bolt dropped to the blood-soaked dirt, revealing a wicked, crescent moon-shaped head.

Lianshi grasped after Asha’s hand, as if it were a bar of soap slipping from her fingers, then covered her mouth in shock.

“Who loosed those bolts?” growled Leonis, rising and turning to face the depths of the hallway. “Who’s there?”

Scorio felt a deep and ugly rage arise within him, familiar in a way he couldn’t understand, welcome and hot and demanding. He tore his eyes away from the bloody earth and also rose, studying the depths of the hall in search of movement.

Nothing.

After the vast space of the first room, the immensity of its scale and the vivid lighting of that amber beam, the chamber seemed cramped, mean, and utterly unimpressive. Leonis’s head almost scraped the ceiling, and the dull light came from a hemisphere of pale glass embedded halfway down the wall. It glowed with a pale, creamy light that did more to enhance the shadows than anything else.

Made almost sullen by the lack of a target, Scorio turned to the man by his side. “You’re hurt.”

“Just a scratch,” growled Leonis, refusing to remove his hand from his bloody side.

It was clearly more than that.

Scorio curled his hands into fists and stalked down the hallway, Leonis beside him. He could feel his companion’s fury, how it curdled the air, and it matched his own.

“I’m going to wring their filthy necks,” growled the large man, and Scorio believed him.

“Wait for me,” called Lianshi, hurrying up behind them.

But there was nobody else in the hallway. No weapon, no mounted bow, no signs of a trap. Just a wall on the far side with a black door set in its center.

“How…?” Leonis came to a stop, turned in a slow circle, then glowered at Scorio. “What just happened?”

“A trap,” said Lianshi, voice hushed. “A magical trap, perhaps. Triggered by our entering this hall?”

“But to what end?” Leonis sounded ready to smash his fist through the wall. “I thought we were going to meet a god or get an explanation in here. Not a gutful of metal.”

“I don’t know,” said Scorio, voice soft. “Perhaps there’s no way to know. But there’s a door.”

“Leading to what? Another filthy trap? Is this someone’s idea of a game?”

Lianshi bit her lower lip and gave a firm shake of her head. “That first room. The size of it. The feel. It was… too grand for a mere game. Whatever’s going on, it’s serious.”

They stood in silence, studying the dismal hallway. Scorio scanned the sides of the room, but there was no sign of the iron bolts that had missed them. Nor, when he made his way back to the beginning, any sign of Asha’s blood or the bolt that had killed her.

“It’s gone,” he said, crouching down to pass his hand over the dirt where she’d lain. “Her blood. The bolt. Just… disappeared.”

Lianshi stopped just behind him. “As if it had never happened.”

“You think she’s back in that tomb?” Leonis pressed his palm against the iron wall. He strained for a moment, the muscles and tendons standing out in his forearm, then desisted. “No way back, at any rate.”

“I wonder.” Scorio scooped up a fistful of the dirt, then allowed it to trickle free. “That dream we all had before waking up. Was it of dying in here? Do we get sent back each time?”

“No,” said Lianshi, shaking her head slowly and stepping back. “That can’t be true. I don’t want it to be true.”

Leonis growled deep in his chest and turned back to the far door. “Only one way to go.”

“Only one way,” agreed Scorio, rising to his feet. “Maybe we’ll get answers on the other side.”

“Should we… should we say goodbye?” Lianshi glanced at both of them, then back down to where Asha had lain. “I mean, I don’t quite feel like it’s the right thing to do, but…”

“Why not?” Scorio took a deep breath, fighting back his anger. “Wherever you are, Asha, I hope you’ve found peace.”

Leonis grunted in agreement, then together they turned to face the far door.

“Who goes first?” asked Lianshi.

“I will,” said Scorio, moving forward.

Leonis hurried to catch up. “We should take turns. It’s not fair on you to go first again.”

“It’s just a door.” Scorio studied it as they drew closer. “We’ll crack it open and see what’s on the other side.”

“I vote in favor of that idea,” said Lianshi, raising her hand before quickly dropping it.

They crowded around the door. It was a heavy, brutish thing, seemingly made out of pure iron, the hinges massive and rusted. Scorio took a deep breath, took hold of the handle, and slowly, carefully, pulled it down. He heard some manner of lock or catch withdraw, then gestured to the others to move away.

“It opens inwards. Stand over there where the door will protect you from whatever’s inside.” He could see Leonis starting to protest.

“You’re hurt. It’s common sense to let me take a look.”

Leonis reluctantly agreed, so Scorio cracked the door open a fraction of an inch.

Nothing happened.

He took a shallow, silent breath, then carefully peered around the jamb and into the next room, only to be met by a wall of absolute darkness.

“Great,” he murmured. No breeze came through, no smells, no indication of what lay beyond.

Leonis pressed forward. “What?”

“Another blank doorway.” Scorio opened the door wider. “Watch out for bolts.”

They stood in silence, studying the blackness. Lianshi bent, took up a handful of dirt, and cast it through.

The dirt disappeared.

“Well?” Leonis cracked his knuckles in the other, blood-soaked palm. “Waiting here isn’t doing anything. Let’s go.”

Scorio nodded reluctantly. “Let’s expect a trap on the other side. Keep your wits about you.”

“I’ll go first,” said Leonis, placing a hand on Scorio’s shoulder. “I’ll step through and immediately move to the left, keeping the wall to my back. You move to the right when you enter.”

“And me?” asked Lianshi.

Leonis ran a hand in exasperation through his long hair. “I don’t know. Crouch down?”

“All right.” She gave a firm nod. “I’ll give Scorio a couple of seconds, then come in low.”

They stared at the darkness again, nobody moving.

“Well, let’s do it. Good luck to all of us,” said Leonis, moving to stand square before the portal. “And if we die horribly on the other side, I hope to see you both again soon. You seem like good people.”

Scorio couldn’t help it. He laughed. “I couldn’t wish for better comrades with whom to face an infuriatingly obtuse death. Good luck.”

Leonis clapped his hands loudly together once, twice, three times, then shrugged his shoulders. “All right. Here we go. Here we go.”

And he stepped through to disappear.

Scorio forced a smile. “Luck.”

Lianshi began to respond, but he didn’t wait, stepping into the wall of inky darkness, and through into a shadow-drowned chamber. As he tried to get a sense of what lay before him, he stepped to the right and pressed his back to the wall.

The room was pitch dark but for some thirty, fist-sized circular holes clustered high in the ceiling above, through which streamed columns of dusty, white light. Each column illuminated a perfect circle the size of a dinner plate on what proved to be pale stone, all of them clustered together to form a compact island of light in an ocean of dark.

Scorio fought to control his breathing, to listen, to get a sense of what else was in the room. Despite the darkness, it lacked the imposing sense of scale of the first chamber, instead feeling close, surprisingly small.

“You there?” he whispered.

“Here,” rasped Leonis, voice tight with tension.

“Here,” whispered Lianshi from between them, crouched low.

A pause.

“Don’t see anything but those lights,” whispered Leonis. “Maybe we should—”

And then something the size of a child passed through one of the corner columns—a flicker of movement, a hint of an enlarged, angular ear, a scrawny body, a quick, serpentine undulation behind it as if it possessed a tail.

“All right,” said Leonis, voice growing hard. “Let’s just stay put.”

“What was that?” Lianshi’s voice was tinged with panic. “Did you see that? What was it?”

“Easy,” breathed Scorio. “Easy. Stay alert. Our backs are to the wall. It can’t get behind us.”

“But we won’t see it if it comes at us.” Lianshi had stood up. “We should get in the light, stand in the center, back-to-back.”

“She’s right,” said Leonis. “We’ll not see an attack coming out here in the dark.”

Then the small creature leaned into the light, slowly, deliberately, revealing its hideous visage, a face out of a nightmare. A great, bald head with liver spots mottled across its scalp, a hole for a nose, a wide, lipless mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth, great batwing ears, and eyes that were little more than beady black gems, eyes that glittered with malice and amusement, that studied the three of them before it pulled back into the darkness.

Scorio felt his stomach tighten with fear and his mouth go dry. “To the lights,” he said. “Move together. Hurry.”

And he led the way, running across the eight or so yards that separated them from the slender columns, expecting at any time to be attacked, for that horrific creature to leap out, claws swiping—

He staggered to a stop as he entered the clustered columns, each so bright and pale that they seemed to set him on fire where he passed through them. He heard Leonis cry out in pain, but then the large man was there, stumbling into him, half-turning to look back into the darkness, blood vivid and crimson across his shredded thigh.

“Lianshi!” cried out Scorio, and she emerged from the darkness, eyes wide, hair a disordered halo about her pale face, crashing into them, turning, pressing her back to them, facing out into the darkness.

“Turn,” said Scorio, wanting instead to check in with Leonis, to see how bad his wound was, to bind it.

But there was no time.

Leonis did as he was bid, breathing harshly. Together they stood thus, forming a triangle, shoulder to shoulder, staring out through the blazing white columns at the pitch darkness beyond.

“It got me,” said Leonis, still breathing heavily as if he couldn’t catch his breath. “Talons.”

Scorio stared into the darkness, eyes narrowed, trying to pick up on a sense of movement. Anything. Even a fraction of a warning.

“How do we kill it?” asked Lianshi, and to Scorio’s surprise, her voice had steadied, grown hard.

Leonis shifted his weight off his bad leg. “Grab it. Smash it against the floor. It’s small. Looks light.”

Lianshi’s laugh was completely without humor. “Grab it and smash it. Got it.”

A flicker, a bounding leap, and the creature burst out of the darkness to fall upon Scorio, fast as a nightmare, wicked fingers terminating in black nails flexing and seeking his face, lips writhing back to reveal fangs, mouth yawning open, impossibly wide.

Scorio cried out in alarm and grabbed hold of its wiry body, its waist so thin he could almost close his hands around it. But for all its small stature it was wickedly strong, and flailed at him, slashing open his arms and a line of fire across his cheek. It was like trying to hold a wild cat by the waist, the thing hissing and spitting, and snapping its jaws.

Leonis roared in fury and lunged over Scorio’s shoulder to slam his knuckles into the creature’s face. Scorio wasn’t holding it firmly enough for the blow to do much damage, but then Leonis took hold of the creature with both hands and with another cry drove it into the ground, falling upon it, smashing it down with all his considerable strength.

Lianshi screamed and she fell into Scorio, nearly knocking him over. He twisted about and saw another of the imps latched onto her, one hand gripping her shoulder, feet planted on her chest, desperately trying to get its fangs into her neck.

Scorio let out a wordless cry and plunged in, grabbed it by the scrawny neck, and tore it away from her. The monster screeched and scratched at his wrists, shredding his flesh. Scorio’s instinct was to just hold it away from his face, but some remote part of his mind recalled Leonis’s advice and he hurled it at the ground as one might a thick clay jar, seeking to shatter it.

The little beast hit the ground on its side but was flexible enough, sufficiently sinewy, to bounce right back to its feet unharmed. Scorio kicked it across the jaw, punting as hard as he could, and knocked it back and out of the light. He followed right after, still shouting, his fury finding release in his barks of fear and anger, to stomp on its wiry frame, crushing it beneath his heel as hard as he could.

“Leonis!” Lianshi’s cry was horrified, and Scorio looked back to see a third imp on the large man’s back, its own spine arched so that its knobby vertebrae were in sharp relief, its face buried in his companion’s neck. Lianshi had grasped it around the waist and was hauling at it, but it clung on with tenacious strength.

One final stomp, the feeling of bones breaking beneath his sole, and Scorio hurled himself back, staggering wildly to crash into Leonis, grabbing the monster by the base of both ears and wrenching it away.

Its jagged maw tore free in an arc of blood.

He fell to his side, the beast writhing in his arms, then Lianshi was beside him, hammering her fist down over and over against its head, not really hurting it but keeping it from getting back up, from twisting around and breaking free.

A roar sounded—Leonis, hoarse and furious, and he lurched up and dropped down upon the monster, his entire weight behind his elbow. The blow was a terrible one, and Scorio felt the imp shudder and go still as the architecture of its skull collapsed.

Leonis rolled onto his side, only his legs still in the light. Lianshi, sucking in great, ragged heaves, took hold of Leonis’s feet and began dragging him into the light.

“Help, Scorio. Help!”

He flung away the corpse, climbed to all fours, and seized Leonis’s leg. Pulled. The man was impossibly heavy, but together they dragged him into the white islands of light.

Scorio almost wished they hadn’t.

Leonis lay with his lips pursed, jaw set, hand shoved hard into a deep wound in his neck. The blood pouring out between his fingers was so dark in the harsh illumination as to be nearly black, and quickly began to flood out across the pale stone.

“Oh no,” moaned Lianshi, letting go and sitting back on her heels. “Oh no, no no no.”

“I’m fine,” said Leonis. “Just need a moment. And…” For a few seconds, he lost focus, staring past Scorio, then came back to himself. “Just need a moment and a new neck.”

Scorio laughed helplessly. “I’d give you mine if I could.”

Leonis didn’t seem to be in pain. His face was weirdly swollen and pale. He considered Scorio, gaze steadfast, musing, then grimaced. “You know, I almost believe you. Nice of you to say.”

Emotion suddenly caused Scorio’s throat to close up, and he leaned over Leonis, a hand on his chest. “Don’t leave us, man. Come on. Please. Don’t go.”

“Apologies.” Leonis’s voice had grown thick, grown slurred. “Feeling… losing my… yeah. Words. Find that god, yeah? Kick it between…”

He blinked, slowed, stopped.

“Oh no,” sighed Scorio, sitting back. “Oh damn.”

Lianshi bit her lip, then pressed the back of her wrist tightly against her mouth.

For a moment they remained thus, then Leonis faded away and was gone, leaving a large pool of blood in his place.

Neither of them spoke. Scorio realized he’d completely let down his guard. If there had been a fourth of those imps, they’d have been history.

But there hadn’t been.

“Three of them,” he said, forcing himself to speak. “One for each of us.”

Lianshi stirred, dropped her hand to her lap. “You still think this is a test?”

“I’ve no clue. But that… the odds of that being a coincidence are small, don’t you think?”

“Your arms,” said Lianshi, reaching out but drawing back her fingers at the last moment. “This isn’t good.”

The imp’s talons had cut several deep lacerations in a crosshatching pattern from his wrist up to his elbow. Scorio regarded the wounds. He felt bemused, numb, as if his arms belonged to someone else.

“Hold on,” she said and shrugged out of her dark gray outer robe. Biting at the hem, she then tore a broad strip away with a yank. “Hold your arm out.”

Scorio did so, and watched, almost indifferent, as she bandaged him tightly. He couldn’t tell if it was expertly done, but she wrapped his arm with confidence.

“The other one,” she said.

“And you?”

She glanced down at her own arms, then gingerly touched her shoulder. “I’ll live a little longer. Let’s take care of you first.”

So he held out his other arm. She bandaged it like the first, tearing two more strips from her outer robe, till little was left behind but the short sleeves.

“Your turn,” he said. “Let me take a look.”

She grimaced, looked like she’d protest, then relented. The bright light helped. She’d been cut three times across the upper arm, each cut vicious, and had a dozen puncture wounds in an arc around her shoulder.

“It got a bite in,” she said, voice dull. “Before I yanked it away.”

He nodded and set to bandaging as best he could, removing his own outer robe to tear it apart when he ran out of material.

Finally, he was done. It was a poor job, but better than nothing. He considered asking her if she thought the talons and bites were venomous but decided there was no point. Grunting as he rose to his feet, he extended a hand. “Might as well continue.”

She took his hand this time, allowed him to haul her up. “Where do we go?”

Together they turned in slow circles, peering out into the darkness. They both saw it at once. A faint outline, rectangular, a dozen yards away.

“What do you think is in the next room?” asked Lianshi, walking beside him.

“Don’t think it matters too much,” he said. “We’re both in rough shape.”

“I can’t figure it out. Numbers at the base of the tombs. Only ours opening up. And then this series of rooms. Surprise bolts to the stomach. Then… what were those things?”

“Bastards?” he suggested.

“One for each of us. There’s something directing this. It doesn’t feel random.”

They stopped before the thin, chalky-white glow of the outline.

“But to what end?” asked Scorio, knowing there was no answer. “Just to torment us?”

“I wish I knew,” said Lianshi softly. “Shall we?”

“Yeah, why not.” He fumbled at the dark door, found the handle, and pulled it down. Taking a steadying breath, he then pulled it open to be greeted by a rectangle of pale, shimmering white light.

“I’m starting to sense a pattern here,” he said.

“Whoever runs this place, or designed it, doesn’t want us seeing into the next chamber,” she said. “It’s definitely starting to feel like a test.”

“Same as before? We step in, each move to the side to put the wall to our backs? You take the left, I’ll take the right?”

“Sure,” she said. Glancing behind them, she shuddered, then before Scorio could protest, she stepped into the shimmering light and was gone.

He bit back his annoyance, having planned to go first. He thought for a moment of Leonis, the large man’s grin, his steadying presence, and how quickly he’d come to count on his being there.

With a deep pang of regret, then a centering burn of cold rage, he stepped into the light.