“Nothing.” I turned towards Silverwood, even with my eyes closed I could see the light of his power. “Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.”
I turned back to the portal, and it slid down around me, sucking me into itself, and with my eyes closed, I Travelled.
21
I could sense the cold stone surrounding me even before I opened my eyes.
I found myself standing in a small alcove, every inch of it made of grey stone. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, everywhere I looked my eyes were met by cold grey stone. It was oppressive, to say the least.
I poked my head out of the alcove and surveyed my surroundings. I was in the middle of a long hallway. Long being an understatement because from where I stood it seemed to stretch into infinity with no apparent lefts or rights. Big flaming torches were spaced along the walls, their flames so massive they licked the ceiling high above them.
This place had two things going for it; creepy and weird. An excellent combo to take the girlfriend home to.
"Just great," I mumbled to myself, “Maybe it gets better.” Unconvinced, and making an entirely random choice, I turned to my left and started walking.
I passed other alcoves as I walked; some were totally empty while others held discarded pieces of clothing. At this point, I realised that I was going to get very lost if I didn’t mark the alcove I’d come from. So I grabbed a piece of clothing at random and hurried back to where I’d started. I was worried I wouldn’t recognise it in this maze of niches, but it was quite clear which I had come from because of my footprints in thick dust that covered the ground.
“Dust?”
That didn’t seem right. If this was Archer’s home why was there dust all over the entryway? The foot traffic would stop it from forming. Wouldn't it? I checked the alcoves on either side; they were also coated with dust. In an effort to verify my footprints I stepped a foot onto the dust covered floor. Yep, it matched. I had come out of that alcove. I spread out the piece of clothing I’d grabbed. I figured if I spread it out on the floor of the alcove it would be easy to spot.
I took what I discovered was an old, yellowing shirt and shook it out. With the shirt held up in front of me, a giant blood stain was revealed.
“Oh, this just gets better and better.”
I was trying to stay light, but my hands had started to shake. I quickly draped the shirt across the floor of the niche. It lay there, its big blood stain staring up at me.
“Well, that’ll be easy to spot.” I tried to force a chuckle, but my throat wouldn’t work. I tore my gaze from the shirt and continued walking down the hall.
As I asked myself ‘what the hell is this place?’ for the hundredth time, an even wider hallway opened up on my right. I jumped back from the entrance and tried to calm my now hammering heart. “This is why I’m here,” I reminded myself. Then, with a deep breath that did very little to chill me out, I stepped into the hallway.
There were a couple of things that differentiated it from the previous hall; the first was the size, it was at least twice as wide; the second was the sound of screaming that came from somewhere deep within the stone maze.
“Oh shit,” I whispered.
I took a few hesitant steps forward. A man screamed long and hard, another shouted words I could not discern.
“Oh double shit.”
I had to get out of here. This was a really, really bad idea. And if Archer was here, well, I didn’t want to know. This was a side of him I knew nothing of, and I wanted it to stay that way. I started backing away from the screams, wondering, in a panicked sort of way, if the Archer and I really had a future together.
“What are you doing here?”
I think the only reason I didn’t scream was that I had gone to that little-known place beyond fear. That place where your body has been so confused by the choices of fight or flight that, stuck in an infinite loop, it simply shuts down. The screaming in front of me and the strange voice behind me were too much, I had frozen.
“I said, what are you doing here?”
The voice went to grab my arm, but the moment their skin touched mine, my brain and body reunited and I spun around, adrenaline filling my veins.
“None of your business,” I spat, not very tough, but hey, I was speaking.
I found myself face to face with a female Archer. Her skin was the exact same shade of silver, her hair a lustrous black and her body just as incredibly muscular. Her hair was extremely long, and she wore a headpiece of silver. She was wearing similar leather pants to his, and a matching bra that accentuated just how broad her shoulders were.
“Who are you?” I asked, taken aback by her appearance.
“Has Archer never told you about me, Phoenix?”
She knew my name. That’s never a good sign. A glimmer of anger, no, hatred, flickered across her face. She quickly hid it, but not before I had registered it. I had a feeling that if given a chance, this woman would love nothing more than to tear me apart with her bare hands. Like with a dog, never show fear. I answered her question.
"I'm afraid not."
“I am Mhyr.” She said the name like it should mean something to me. It didn’t.
“Okay.”
"You truly do not know me." There was no hint of a question in her tone. "But I know you, Phoenix." There was my name again. "Everyone knows you." She looked me up and down taking in my jungle covered appearance. "Hmmm, I thought you'd be shorter, and less filthy.”
This girl was weird. I was already scared of the place itself, and Mhyr was not helping things. A man's scream, louder than the previous ones, echoed down the hall. I jumped and spun towards the sound.
"My, you are a jumpy bird," Mhyr mocked. The screams appeared not to faze her.
I had to get out of here.
"Yep, that's me, jumpy bird. Ka kaa, ka...." The bird call died in my throat. "Yeah..." Mhyr was looking at me like she was trying to decide if I was a total loser or food. "I'm gonna get going now." I backed up a few steps. "It was, um, nice to meet you."
I waited until I was sure I was out of easy grabbing territory before I turned from her. I had only taken two quick steps when I felt her cold, strong fingers loop around my right forearm.
Moving on instinct, I grabbed her hand with my left and twisted her wrist away from me while simultaneously moving my right arm under and around so that I caught her in a wrist lock. It took about two seconds, and even in my panicked state, I thought it looked cool. Mhyr gasped, and I pushed into her arm, a small crack sounded, and she let out a sharp cry. It echoed like a crow's call through the hallway. I dropped her arm and ran.
I could hear her heavy steps bearing down on me. For such a muscular lady she sure was fast. Trying to lose her, I ran down a random hallway that had appeared at my left, this one was also lined with alcoves, and I ducked into one and flattened myself against the stone. I heard Mhyr enter the hall. She took slow even steps.
"I can feel your presence, Phoenix." She whispered the words, which was weird. "And if I can, the others will soon. You are in danger here." As she said the word danger, new screams bounced down the hall. I whimpered. If I made it out of here alive, I was going to kill Archer.
I could hear Mhyr approaching my ill-conceived hidey-hole. There was nowhere to go. I was beyond screwed. She stepped casually in front of me. Her right wrist was swollen, point for Phoenix.
"We need to get you out of here."
"Huh?" I was so shocked by her words that I could not form a coherent response.
"Yes, I'm trying to help you, bird-girl. You are making it very difficult for me." She held up a swollen wrist. “I’m going to give you a pass on this, mainly because I'm impressed you got me so easily, and get you out of here. Archer would have my head if I let anything happen to you in our tunnels. But…..” She braced herself against the walls of the alcove, I could hear her damaged wrist grind as she leant into me, forcing my wings and sword to press against my back as I tried to shrink into the stone. Another roun
d of screams echoed through the halls. She smiled at the sound. “Know this, bird-girl, in another time, another place, I would tear out your heart and let you watch it beat while you died." More screams, they covered my whimpers. "And that is nothing compared to what they would do to you."
Now, I'm a generally strong person, and I've handled some big time situations with grace and aplomb, okay with a dirty mouth and a lot of attitudes, but right then with Mhyr's stale breath against my cheek and the sounds of men being tortured, well, I started to cry. It was a soft cry, I didn't sob, and my nose didn't run, tears simply streamed down my face in uncontrolled rivulets. The streams of saline dripped off my chin and down my chest, pooling between my breasts. Myhr took a step back from me, panic on her face for the first time.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm crying." You idiot, I added silently. "Don't tell me you've never seen anyone cry before." I pawed at my eyes, trying to wipe the tears away.
"Of course I have!" Her voice was an angry whisper. "But why are you shimmering?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Look at yourself!"
I looked down at my hands, I wasn't shimmering, but my tears sure were. Everywhere they had touched shimmered like a sprinkling of mother of pearl. It instantly made me feel better.
"Cool!"
"No, not cool, not cool at all." Mhyr grabbed my arm and pulled me from the alcove. "Come on, we've got to hurry." I had to trot to keep up with her. "They'll be here soon."
"They?" That word totally brought me back down.
"The others, the ones you heard screaming. They play some brutal games. They will know you are here now and if we do not hurry, they will find you." She looked at me over her shoulder, an evil grin on her face. "You do not want that."
“Shit.”
She laughed.
"Exactly."
We were back at the main hallway where she had found me, we turned the corner and Myhr began to run, dragging me behind her.
"Hurry." She commanded through gritted teeth.
"I am." I'm not a runner, and even the massive amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins wasn’t going to turn me into one.
A shout, a man's voice, sounded much closer than any of the screams I had heard. A second and third man responded to him. Footsteps echoed towards us.
"Then you will die!" Myhr grunted.
My wings went ridged at my back; they had no desire to be separated from me again. The reminder of their presence calmed me enough to focus and draw on my power. I called it forth, and green lightning sprang from my heart and filled my bones, coated my muscles, I began to run faster. Myhr looked back for me, but I was already at her side. She dropped my hand, and we ran together.
"Hey!" A man's voice sounded behind us.
"Stop!" A second man, then heavy footsteps pounding towards us.
"Left," whispered Mhyr and we turned down the final passageway.
All the alcoves looked the same.
"I don't remember which is Archer's!" I gasped, even with my power behind me my lungs were screaming.
"Seventh on the left." Mhyr was not even winded.
In the back of my mind I wondered why she had committed the location to memory and what, exactly, was her relationship to Archer. In the front of my mind, I was counting alcoves. I was about to pass the sixth when Mhyr shoved me.
"Learn to count, bird!"
She pushed me into the alcove. My feet slipped on the shirt I'd laid out, and I tumbled forward. Mhyr grabbed me by throat and pinned me to the back wall of the niche. I could hear the men at the end of the hall as I struggled to breathe.
"You get one pass with me, bird." Spit flew from her mouth with every word, her face contorted with hate. "One pass for him and no more." The men were closer. "They would kill you here and now,” She leant in and licked a tear from my cheek. "But I will kill you next time."
She let go with such force that my head smacked against the wall behind me. As I slid into Travel and oblivion, two men, as silvery and muscled as the Archer, rushed at Mhyr.
The last thing I saw was her knock them both to the ground.
22
Everything was grey. I looked left and right, stars erupted before my eyes making me grunt with pain, but beneath them all was grey. I was in the Void. A voice sounded above me, a very familiar voice.
"Well aren't you a ssssight for sore eyesssss..."
I struggled through the blinding pain in my skull and sat up.
"Hello, Mastyx."
"You've got some balls coming here." He laughed, it was a slithering sound. "And I always said you had balls."
"No, you didn’t."
"Oh, but I implied it, darling, I implied it."
I was having serious trouble getting up. Mastyx appeared before me and offered me his hand. I took it, and he helped me to my feet. I swayed, and he held me still.
"Would I have dropped you in it with Cosima if I thought you didn't have gigantic balls?" He laughed at his own absurdity.
"So you admit you did that on purpose?" I tried to turn, and the world spun. I bent forward and braced my arms on my knees, willing myself not to throw up.
"We could debate that all day, darling, but from the looks of you, we have more pressing matters." He touched the back of my head, his fingers came back red. "Yes, I thought I smelled blood.” His long snake like tongue zipped from his lipless mouth and licked the blood from his fingers. "You do taste wonderful." He reached for my skull again.
"I don't freaking think so." I tried to move away from him, stumbled and fell to my knees. This time I did throw up. Not much, but enough to make my eyes burn, and to realise I had a serious head injury.
"Good lord, darling,” Mastyx said, then as an afterthought, he added, "and please note that I am not saying your name, thus preventing a horde of idiots from raining down upon us. Now tell me, darling, what happened to you."
I wiped snot and vomit from my face with the back of my hand. Mastyx passed me a hanky. The dude basically walks around naked, where is he hiding a hanky? I didn't want to know. I was just grateful for the opportunity to wipe my face.
"Mhyr. Mhyr happened to me."
"What!" He sounded truly shocked. "How in Time did you run into her? She hardly ever leaves the Compound."
"Ah, so that's where I was. The Compound."
Mastyx was on his knees in front of me before the words left my mouth.
"Please don't tell me the Archer took you there."
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were concerned for my wellbeing, Mastyx."
He smirked.
"You're interesting, I like interesting. I definitely don't want to see such an interesting creature get her skull bashed in.”
"Awww, that's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me," I replied through the acid on my tongue. I crawled away from my pile of vomit and leant against a nearby tree.
I looked out at the scene before me. A sinewy snake man crawled towards me, his body undulating as his forked tongue flicked in and out scenting the air. That wasn't the most disturbing thing I saw, that title belonged to the grey: the massive amounts of unending grey that saturated every molecule of the land before me. The sky was an oppressively solid hue the colour of clouds before a winter storm. The land was a shade darker, and it moved and rippled slowly, I could almost perceive the changes as I scanned the horizon. There were a few trees scattered here and there, all like the one I now leant against; dead and peeling with few leaves and the skeletal appearance of an ageing birch. The Void did nothing to lift my spirits.
Mastyx came to a halt beside me. He stretched out on his side and looked at me with something in his eyes that resembled true concern.
"So did Archer take you there?"
"No, that was all me. I didn't do it on purpose though. I was trying to find him, and Silverwood showed me how to read the portals and..."
"Yes, Silverwood, the great trusting tree. Let me guess, he told you to think of your man and
then jump into the portal that showed his energy?"
"That's exactly what he said."
"Yes, and that's usually a good plan if you're looking for puppies or rainbows, but when you're trying to track a creature as dangerous as the Archer, you need to be more careful."
Dangerous? Archer was dangerous? I'd never really considered that before, but after seeing that stone clad hell they call the Compound, it didn't seem that farfetched.
"Don't look so hurt, darling," he droned. "Did you really think you knew everything there was to know about him?"
"Well..."
"Oh please," he laughed again, it sounded like nails on a chalkboard, and chewing tinfoil had a baby. "You get so angry when everyone else is surprised that you've 'changed'". He actually made air quotes, it really showed off the webbing between his fingers. "But you don't allow others a similar courtesy." He sat up and pierced me with his yellow eyes. "You weren't even in the loop before your banishment. You really don't know anything about anyone." His voice dropped to a sibilant whisper, “Who are the people you trust?"
His words were meant to shock me, but they didn't, the logic was too plain for me to hide behind fear. I didn't know any of these creatures. Look at what had happened with Noiryn and Benyst; a few days ago I would never have predicted that I could piss them both off so badly. And Sid, that had been conundrum from the start, I had known him longer, spent more time with him than any of the others, and still, he betrayed me. At least I'd had Yeren's number from the beginning.
Mastyx was looking at me like he was expecting me to cry. I let my lower lip quiver and looked at him with the biggest, most innocent eyes I could muster.
"So, you're the only friend I have?" He looked pleased; I put on my baby voice and continued. "Will you take care of me? Pwetty pwease?"
"Ha!" he snorted and sat up. "Amusing, were you a comedienne in your human life?"
"You're not scaring me, Mastyx. You're not telling me anything I haven't told myself."
Using the tree as a support, I got to my feet. I had had enough of sitting there with Mastyx in my face. My vision stayed steady and I didn't throw up again, which was good, my head was pounding in a borderline tolerable kind of way, so I continued talking.
Bounty Of Ash (The Phoenix Series Book 2) Page 9
