by G. E. White
Suddenly it stiffened, its ears flattening against its head, before giving a yelp and dispersing like morning mist.
Turning the corner into the open, the four found a clearing somewhat lighter thanks to the glass pane directly overhead. They had at least reached the center of the maze.
Yet there at the center of the clearing lay the source of the familiar’s unease – the body of a cloaked figure lying horrifically still.
~ Chapter 26 ~
For a moment, no one moved, too shocked by the body lying so still, as if in tableau. But suddenly the figure lurched as it fought for breath. Quinn propelled into action, pushing past the adults and to the stranger’s side.
“Quinn!” Surina barked in warning, though it went unheeded as the teen knelt by the person.
He pulled the hood of the dark green cloak away to reveal the bruised and worn face of a copper haired woman in her early thirties. The woman gave a groan and attempted to roll onto her side before hissing in pain.
“Hey, take it easy,” the teen said, placing a steadying hand on the woman’s shoulder.
Surina approached, her face guarded as she crouched to face the other woman. “You okay?”
The woman weakly nodded, struggling to sit up, which she accomplished with the help of Quinn. “Yeah,” she croaked. “Just sore… a little disoriented.”
“What’s your name?” Jared asked.
“Pyra, Pyra Rhysman.”
“You’re an Earthen magi,” Surina observed, gesturing to the cloak draped over her shoulders.
The others looked on in suspicion, contemplating this new development.
“I am.”
“And I’m guessing you know what’s been going on – how you got here?”
Warily looking up at the demi-god she nodded again. “Well enough to have a general idea why you’re here.”
“So what happened?” the Death God inquired. Leo stood off behind the three now circled around the injured woman. “Did your partners decide you shouldn’t get a say in the wish?”
“It’s not like that,” she protested.
“Then what is it like?” Jared challenged.
“They weren’t my partners. They were my abductors,” Pyra explained. “The Cyclopes brothers needed access into the temples, so they took me.”
Quinn turned to Surina, “I thought you said everyone in the Earthen temple was accounted for?”
“I did,” the woman replied, suspicion coloring her words.
“Wait,” Pyra pleaded. “I was posted on a six-week reconnaissance mission. I’m not due back for at least another week, so they wouldn’t have reported me missing.”
“So you’re saying that Arges and his brothers are behind this? And that you were taken to give them information on the layout of the temples,” the demi-god said.
“That’s right.”
“Who else was involved?” Surina pressed.
“What? No one – at least no one that I know of.” Pyra replied. “They kept me in this cave of sorts, I never saw anyone else.”
Jared frowned, turning to Surina. “Even if she didn’t see anyone else, there had to be another party. The person we saw at the Lunar temple was too small to be one of the Cyclopes. Unless that was you?” he asked, directing the question at Pyra.
“No! It wasn’t me!” she argued. “I’ll admit I gave them the information on the temples.”
“And the uniforms?” Surina prodded.
The older woman hung her head, “That too – as well as this,” she said waving to the maze around them. “But they said they’d kill me if I didn’t help. Hell, they almost did anyway.”
“I’d say they worked you over pretty good,” Surina said, her gaze drifting over the various marks peppering Pyra’s exposed skin. “My question is if you built this, how were they supposed to get through the rest of it without you?”
“They didn’t. I took them through and to the other side. Once there they said I was free to go – all I had to do was go back the way I came. Seemed simple enough,” she said with a shrug. “That is until they beat the shit out of me – made retracing my steps next to impossible. I think they expected me to die here.”
“Can’t you just deconstruct this thing?” Jared questioned, looking at the structure around them.
Pyra shook her head. “I would if I could, but I just don’t have the energy.”
Surina winced, hissing as she clutched at the edge of her jacket.
“You okay?” asked Quinn.
She tilted her head back to look at the sky displayed above them. Night had fallen and the chamber had dimmed. “I’m fine. I just didn’t realize how late it is I…” the demi-god trailed off as she reached into her pocket, only to come up empty handed. “Shit! It’s gone!”
“What’s gone?” Leo asked.
Surina gave a shake of her head, “My protean watch, I must have dropped it back in the maze…I need to get it back. You guys rest up here I’ll back track and be back before sunrise.”
“What? You got to be kidding me. I thought you were the one who wanted to move quickly?” Leo argued.
“I know but moving forward while it’s dark is dangerous. And there’s no way I’m facing danaids and Cyclopes unarmed. Besides, I need a couple of hours to get my energy back to make another familiar,” she reasoned.
Jared pointed to the woman Quinn was helping to move against one of the maze walls. “What about Pyra? Couldn’t she guide us?”
“Not in her condition, and we just can’t leave her here like this. A few hours shouldn’t make too much of a difference. Perhaps by then Pyra will be able to guide us herself.”
“If you say so,” the Death God conceded.
“We’re in agreement, good. Okay, you three should rest here with Pyra. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Concerned Quinn lifted his attention from the Earthen magi’s wounds. “What if you get lost?”
“I won’t, I marked the trail along the way.” she assured.
“I could go with ya,” Leo offered.
With a pointed tilt of her head, Surina leveled her gaze to the God of War. “Thanks but I’ll move a lot faster on my own.”
“You sure?” he prodded.
“I’m sure, I’ve I also have some private matters to attend to,” she said, shooting him a significant look.
“Oh… Oh!” the large man exclaimed in understanding. “Lady-stuff, I gotcha.”
The woman gave an exasperated shake of her head before turning to Quinn. “I want you to look after her the best you can.”
“Me?”
“Yeah you,” with that said, she turned the way they came, trudging back into the maze.
“She seems high-strung. Well, more high-strung than usual,” Jared commented.
“She’s probably just worried about the Star,” Quinn tried to reason, but he too was confused by the woman’s actions. What exactly was so dangerous about traveling at night? It’s not like the chamber was much darker than it was a few hours ago. In fact, the full moon that could be seen rising through the skylight was starting to illuminate some of the maze. But Quinn was sure that for whatever reason Surina had them stop, it was a good one.
Turning to the task assigned to him, Quinn had to admit he felt for the woman. Whether she was being honest about her involvement in the theft was debatable, but he figured either way, she didn’t deserve the beating she’d received.
Quinn had set Pyra to sit with her back against one of the wooden walls.
“Here, have some water,” he offered, holding an open water bottle he had brought to the Magi’s lips.
Pyra sipped at the water as Quinn tilted the canister back; giving a wave of her hand when she had her fill.
Bruises were visible on her face yet the swelling was minimal, dried blood caked the shoulder of her cloak. Quinn ripped off the hem of the green fabric and fashioned it into a tourniquet for the magi’s upper arm. Pushing the material away from Pyra’s shoulder revealed what looked like
a spike, or horn emanating somewhere from her back, etched on the skin.
“That’s an interesting tattoo. What is it?” the teen asked.
“Huh? Oh right, ah its part of a goat-head.”
“On your back?”
“Demeter’s symbol,” Pyra explained. “I’ve had it so long I sometimes forget about it. You know what I mean?”
“I guess,” Quinn said, somewhat hesitantly.
Anything else the blonde was about to say was drowned out by a massive crash coming from some ways out further into the maze behind them. Jared and Leo turned toward the sound wide-eyed.
“Surina?” Jared called.
The only sound that answered him was the echo of another crash in the distance.
Quinn stood making his way toward the exit when Leo’s meaty hand landed on his shoulder. “Wait,” he ordered.
“What? We don’t know what happened, she could be hurt,” Quinn protested.
“Surina can take care of herself,” Jared assured the younger man. “We stay here; we don’t know what’s out there. She’ll be back, don’t worry.”
Quinn’s frown deepened. There was something that the other two weren’t saying. The teen was starting to get really sick of this whole cloak and dagger routine. Wasn’t he part of the team? But picking a fight right now was not the right move. So instead the teen focused on his charge, making sure that she was cared for as best he could.
It was times like these that Quinn was thankful for his unfathomable memory as he used the skills he recalled from the first aid pamphlet he read back in the fifth grade.
Quinn used the water from the bottle and a scrap of fabric to gently wash the caked blood away from the gash on her arm. He stopped to note that the bruised skin around the wound was yellowing.
“Does it hurt?”
“It’s not too bad.”
Quinn nodded, but said nothing else.
As an hour crept by, little was said among the four. Leo and Jared took turns pacing the clearing, just in case something happened. The creaks and crashes that they had heard earlier in the night would reoccur occasionally. Quinn would once again protest that Surina had been gone too long, and that they should go look for her, to which the older two men would reiterate their reassurances.
“If she was in trouble she would have called for us, trust me,” Jared said, and even though Quinn couldn’t find a shred of insecurity, nor doubt in his words, the teen couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going on out in the maze.
Rounding on the injured woman, he knew this was the only person right now who might be able to tell him what was going on out there.
“Did they tell you to put anything else in the maze?”
“What? No! J-Just the maze,” Pyra stammered.
“Yet you don’t have any of your concoctions left. Are you sure you didn’t use one of them in the maze?”
Leo and Jared turned from the observation of the maze to the interrogation that the young man leveled onto the magi.
“No, the Cyclopes took them from me when they grabbed me,” she replied, running a hand through her mane-like hair.
Quinn appeared to deflate with the information, both disappointed and relieved. Standing and pacing away from the woman he sighed. “That’s too bad. I’m sure you could have used that Bull’s Blood – the super speed would have come in handy in getting away.”
Pyra gave a snort. “Don’t I know it, but the damn daimons got the drop on me.”
Jared and Leo exchanged a look; what exactly was Quinn trying to prove here?
“But then you didn’t actually need to run from them anyway, right?”
The magi sneered in indignation. “What do you mean? They almost killed me – can’t you see?!” Her gestures to the bruises and cuts visible did not appear to sway the younger man.
“You say that, but most of those bruises are yellowing – old – older than a day for sure, more like a week. And while I will admit the cut on your arm is fairly recent I can’t help but notice it looks to be in the exact same place that Surina wounded the person who stole Polaris and murdered Artemis’ High Priestess.”
“I…”
“Furthermore,” Quinn persisted. “I don’t think for a second that you’re an Earthen magi. Not one of Demeter’s symbols is a goat, and Bull’s Blood gives you strength, not speed; if you were a magi of the Earthen temple you would have known that. So if you’re not an Earthen magi, you’re an accomplice.”
As each word exited the teen’s mouth the woman’s face drained of color for a moment before the blood started to rush back to her head, painting her glowering features an unsightly red.
Pyra suddenly pushed off the wall with more strength and dexterity than one with her injuries should. Quinn stepped back while Leo and Jared gripped the handles on their claymore and scythe respectively.
“I was just supposed to keep you busy for a while, point you down the wrong way into the maze,” Pyra muttered, almost to herself. “I had really hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
The three of them tensed, readying themselves for the woman to attack or reach for a weapon; neither of which happened.
The woman’s body began to writhe, her limbs moving and breaking, reforming into new angles. From under her cloak two sharp points grew out of the back of her tattooed shoulder, piercing through the material revealing two prongs attached to a goat head that emitted a bone-shaking bay.
Everything about her elongated and contorted, her skin grew coarse and covered with fur while her mane of hair truly became that, as her face changed from a human’s to a lion’s. Not only did her shape change but her size as well, as the beast that Pyra had transformed into was easily a story high.
The clothes she had once worn lay in tatters at her clawed feet. The cloak was thrown from her shoulders as she now stood on all fours. The goat head that emerged from her back twisted and turned on its own.
The spine of the now four-legged creature extended beyond its body. The tail it created was covered in scales, ending in a serpent head that hissed its displeasure to the shocked men.
The three heads of the beast gave a simultaneous roar, bleat or hiss, as was the case, startling the gods standing before it.
The three staggered back, Quinn’s eyes fearfully wide. “What is that?” he cried, turning to Jared whose face was held in a grim line.
“The daimon Chimera.”
~ Chapter 27 ~
Quinn barely had time to grip the dagger attached to his belt before the lion head opened its mouth and spewed forth a column of fire. Leo tackled the teen to the ground, out of the path of the inferno that raged overhead.
“It breathes fire?!” he gasped.
“That surprises you?” the War God replied, pulling Quinn to his feet.
Jared had his scythe poised in his hands as the tail attempted to strike him. Quinn stood frozen watching the two gods dodge Pyra’s sharp claws, scorching flames and gnashing-teeth, regardless of which head lashed out.
The teen would have assumed that these men – these gods would be able to dispatch this creature with ease but the blows of their blades seemed only to irritate her.
Her tail whipped suddenly to the right catching Leo in the side, sending him flying into the wall where he slumped to the floor dazed. With the bigger man dispatched the creature turned to the next threat in the shape of Jared.
A massive clawed paw crashed into the young man’s chest pinning him to the ground. The strangled cry that escaped his lips knocked Quinn out of his state of fear-induced stillness.
Clasping the dagger between his hands, Quinn charged the other side of the beast, sinking the blade deep into the daimon’s left thigh. Pyra reared back, releasing Jared and roaring in pain. Though expected, the reaction shocked the teen, who recoiled, dragging the blade back out.
Pyra wheeled on the teen, spitting out a stream of fire. Quinn threw his arms up in a vain attempt to shield his face. He closed his eyes expecting to feel the flames e
ating away at his clothes and skin.
Yet the heat never came.
Instead he heard a loud crash and felt a gust of wind as something large broke through one of the maze walls and into the path of the flames.
Quinn lowered his arms to see that what had shielded him from the blast, stretched to be at least ten meters long and the color of moonlight on water. He trailed his eyes up the silvery white scales of the creature before him in wonder of its beauty that not even the flames had marred. He would have said it was simply a snake if it weren’t for its massive size.
The hood of the serpent flared as it hissed at the daimon, coiling its tail poised to strike.
Jared had pulled Leo back to his feet and the two tugged Quinn away from the two beasts that were sizing one another up.
“What is that?” Quinn asked in both awe and fear. The teen rubber-necked his head around watching as the beast tried to gouge the serpent with the horns of her goat head.
Jared gripped the back of Quinn’s head turning him away from the battle of the monsters. “Do not look directly at its face,” he snapped.
“Huh? What’s going on?”
“Just stay out of their way,” Jared instructed, dragging the teen off behind one of the maze walls, giving the dueling creatures all the space they might need.
Once again Quinn realized that the two knew something that he did not. The whole situation had gone from strange to downright unbelievable. He assumed that the serpent was what had caused the noises they had heard earlier that night. But that still didn’t answer where Surina disappeared to. He was also unsure as to why this creature appeared to be protecting them, unless perhaps it had been conjured up by the missing demi-god.
It was an unlikely explanation, but Quinn would rather think that than assume the serpent was just fighting off another predator in order to get a fresh meal.
Another crash from behind the wall caused Quinn to poke his head out to see what was happening, making sure not to focus on the serpent’s head.
Pyra had leapt onto the snake, latching onto it with the massive jaws of the lion’s head. The serpent, which was now partially wrapped around its opponent, hissed in pain. Looking again to the Chimera, Quinn was interested to note that none of her many heads attempted to focus on the face of the creature. Obviously she too knew that there was some sort of danger by meeting its gaze. Unfortunately for her it was also this caution that blinded her to the serpent’s retaliation.
