Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (33)

Ziel stood in the doorway between the ancient stone chamber and the new one. He scribbled something onto a wooden tablet.

“This is why I wanted your expertise,” Lindon said. “What do you think about the different scripts?”

Ziel didn’t look up from his notes. “Well, clearly these are two different traditions, but that won’t surprise you. This outer room might be a thousand years newer, so of course their scripts are different. I’m more interested in the circles that seem to regulate spatial travel.”

He ducked back inside the room as Lindon took them onward again.

Lindon mused aloud over Ziel’s comment. “I have no thorough understanding yet, but they feel to me like…guard-rails, I suppose you could say. I could command this room to move, but without the script to define its location in relation to the others, it might take me a hundred miles away. Or deep into the earth.”

With one finger, Ziel scribbled a few more sentences of light into his wooden tablet. The notes sank inside for retrieval later. “It will be hard to give you a complete picture, me not being a Sage myself.”

“You were an Archlord for years, though,” Lindon said. He gestured for Ziel to follow him. Their chamber had hooked into another hallway, sloping downward, and this one was a fixed point. They had to descend into the next room to continue.

Dross noted that down.

“Not a peak Archlord. And I had always seen myself as more of a Herald than a Sage anyway.” Ziel’s cape fluttered behind him as he walked.

“So you did intend to advance? You didn’t just want to ascend?”

“I gained what power I did for the sake of my sect. I wasn’t going to ascend until I knew it was in good hands. Now…” He rolled his shoulders. “Sounds like we have a chance to do one good thing before we leave.”

This new chamber was made of larger blocks of stone, and each block was darker and smoother than the bricks that made up the earlier parts of the labyrinth. Rather than a deep brown, these were blue-black, and they gave off an even greater sense of weight.

Ziel seemed to sense it, shifting uncomfortably in his outer robe and looking up. “Where are we now?”

“This is as low as I can take us. Lower than Subject One’s prison, but it’s…somewhere else in the world.”

Even Lindon and Dross couldn’t tell where. They could feel that they were far from Sacred Valley, but the power hiding them wasn’t entirely under their control. He suspected it would take one of the Abidan to find them here.

Lindon reached into his left pocket and rolled Suriel’s marble between his fingers. He wondered if she had seen the room they were about to enter.

Over the doorway to the next room was a strange, complex rune. It resembled a circular nest of curling vines, or perhaps the map of a bush with many tangled branches. Even with no power flowing through it, the authority it gave off was overwhelming, so that Lindon had to look away from it.

Ziel winced when he caught a glimpse of it. He held a hand between his horns and staggered.

Lindon caught his shoulder. “Apologies, I should have warned you. I have reason to believe this is the oldest place in the labyrinth. Perhaps one of the oldest places in the world.”

“No, I…” Ziel shook himself. “I have nothing to complain about. I used to assume I’d die by activating a script far beyond my own ability.”

Together, they walked through the circular doorway to the room beyond. This one was a sort of crossroads, with eight doors leading away from it.

Seven doors, Lindon corrected himself.

The eighth exit had clearly been added later, carved into the stone by what he suspected was destruction madra. It wasn’t covered by a door, but was just an opening into darkness.

The symbol over its entrance was a crescent-bladed scythe.

Ignoring that one for the moment, Lindon turned to the first door on their left, which Ziel was already inspecting. The rune over it was an angular figure, maybe an animal, surrounding concentric circles that perhaps represented an eye. Its door was round and made of the same stone as the walls, but it had a window in the center. The window was made not of glass, but of a transparent barrier that reminded Lindon of Suriel’s marble.

Inside the room was a thousand images playing out in different ways. Lindon caught a glimpse of Northstrider in battle with the Wandering Titan, then a Herald summoning lightning against Red Faith, then the Sword Sage drawing his white blade against an unseen opponent. Images from the past and present and future flew by, hundreds per second, each flipping and twisting and mixing and merging with the others.

It was enough to give him a headache.

[Not dream madra,] Dross muttered. [Not dream aura. Something more than those, deep and secret as the ocean.]

It feels older than those, Lindon thought.

[Yes…older than dreams…]

That was how it felt, but Lindon didn’t continue the discussion.

The second chamber was marked with an abstract drawing that suggested a closed fist, or perhaps a shield, and inside it contained intersecting planes of blue light that gave off a strong impression of permanence and stability.

There were seven such chambers, and the sixth gave off radiance that felt identical to Suriel’s marble. That had been one of his first clues about the nature of this place.

Nevertheless, he didn’t voice his thoughts, instead asking Ziel. “What do you think?”