“To where?”
“Do you care?”
“Yes. But I don’t fancy staying here, either.”
“Keep your knife handy.” I went through sword first. It felt like I was walking through molasses—the magic creating the illusion was thick and syrupy, and clung like tendrils to my body, resisting my movements and then releasing me with an odd sucking sound. I shuddered, my skin crawling with horror. Whatever—whoever—had made that wall was not into white magic.
I forced my hand back through the wall. Jak’s fingers entwined with mine, and he came through as I had—shuddering.
“God, that’s revolting,” he muttered, shaking himself like a dog trying to rid his coat of excess water. “Where are we?”
“I have no idea.”
I raised Amaya again. We were in a tunnel of some kind, and it was a tight fit—there was only an inch or two between my shoulders and the walls. Jak was forced not only to stand sideways but to keep his knees bent as well.
It wouldn’t be a good place to be caught in. There was no room to fight.
I looked to the left, then the right, but couldn’t see much in either direction—just the tunnel sweeping away into darkness. But as my gaze moved back to the left, the odd sense of unease increased. Something was down there. Something bad.
I shivered, then glanced up at Jak. “Does your nose tell you anything?”
“Can’t smell much more than age and dirt.” He hesitated, then glanced past me to the right. “It smells a bit fresher down that direction, though.”
It did? I studied the lilac-lit shadows dubiously, then glanced to the left again. There wasn’t a chance I was heading down there, so that left only Jak’s choice.
With Amaya’s fire lighting the way, we crept forward. The tunnel continued to narrow, until the bits of rock and debris in the soil were tearing into my shoulders and the scent of blood stung the air.
If there were hellhounds ahead, it would call to them.
I swallowed heavily and tightened my grip on Amaya. Her hissing ramped up, and I didn’t know whether she was reacting to something I’d yet to see, or merely echoing my tension. I hoped it was the latter, but I had a horrible suspicion it was the former.
At least I was better off than Jak—even as awkwardly bent over as he was, he kept hitting his head against the roof.
“Fuck,” he said eventually, “I really think we need to turn back.”
“No. There’s something down the other end of this tunnel—” I yelped as a particularly sharp rock sliced into my arm.
“At this rate,” he muttered, “we’ll bleed to death before we ever reach an exit.”
“I think I’d rather bleed than chance whatever is at the other end.”
“It can’t be any worse—”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
The words were barely out of my mouth when I burst out of the tunnel like a cork being popped from a champagne bottle. I stumbled to gain my balance and took a quick look around, once again using Amaya for illumination. No hellhounds, nothing that appeared immediately dangerous—just two innocuous-looking stones that stood like petrified soldiers in the middle of a cavern. Which didn’t mean we were out of trouble, but wherever the hell we were, it had to be better than the tunnel. Jak all but exploded out of it three seconds later and came to a halt beside me.
“Fuck me!” he said vehemently. He swept the sweaty strands of hair from his forehead with hands as bloody as mine and looked around. “Where are we?”
“I have no idea. And not in a million years.”
“I’ll remind you of those words the next time we make out—” Jak stopped, and his eyes widened. “What the hell are those?”
“I don’t know.”
It was somewhat absently said as I studied the two pillars. They were about six feet tall and stood the width of a body apart from each other, so that they formed an odd sort of doorway that seemed to go nowhere. Though they were mostly gray in color, their surface was littered with quartz that Amaya’s flames sparked to life, sending rainbow-colored flurries skating across the earthen walls. There were markings and weird symbols etched into each pillar, but it was no language I’d ever seen, and it felt ancient. No, not just ancient—powerful.
I stepped forward cautiously. Energy caressed my skin, similar to the magic I’d felt briefly when I touched the door handle. I swept Amaya’s light across the floor. While it was mainly dirt, there was a series of wide, flat stones that formed a circle around the pillars. While there was no quartz within these stones for Amaya’s flames to catch, there was writing. This time I recognized the language, even if I didn’t entirely understand the spell. They were runes, meaning the stones were some sort of protection circle.