by Peach, Hanna
She felt a sudden explosion of energy and heat from behind her. The beast cried out. Alyx kept running, diving behind the glass cluster.
Alyx tumbled to a stop and peered around the corner. Jordan had distracted the beast with a huge hit of DreamWalker, saving her life. But now the beast, head swaying slightly and blinking heavily, had turned to him. She watched in helpless horror as Jordan was thrown against one of the pipes that hung from the wall. It swung against his momentum and clanged, like a church bell.
Alyx froze. For a second everything seemed to stand still. Jordan bounced off the pipe and fell in slow motion. The six silver tubes hanging from the cavern ceiling weren’t pipes. They were bells. The noise reverberated around the room like a pulsating, living thing. The beast rose up on its haunches and screeched at the noise, seemingly in reaction against it. Alyx swore she could see cracks starting to appear across his body.
Bells. Six bells. Six flute notes. The flute. The symbols. The bells. They were connected.
Alyx began to scream at Jordan, forgetting in her excitement that he couldn’t hear her. Jordan had managed to stir himself from the shock of his hit and had caught himself before he had hit the ground.
The bell sound began to fade and the beast came out of its temporary withdrawal. Both his silver eyes were pinned to Jordan. The beast was cocking back his neck like a viper about to strike.
Alyx watched the panic flash across Jordan’s face. The beast lashed forward. Jordan swung around the back of the bell using it like a shield just in time to prevent being crushed in that beaked and fanged mouth. The beast struck the bell this time. And again it reared back in what appeared to be pain.
Jordan glanced around him, no doubt looking for somewhere else to hide. Please, thought Alyx. Stay behind there. The beast hates the bell.
But she could tell from his movements, that it was a matter of time before he made a break for it. She had to do something. But what? Alyx cursed her inability to fly to him.
Come on, Alyx. You are more than your flight. Think.
She glanced around, looking for inspiration. She saw the glistening ends of hanging glass icicles dropping down from the ceiling like giant blades. Yes! Now… how to get it to fall?
Her mind went to a partial bloodink mark on her ribs. Surely if Jordan’s DreamWalker were to work in here, her EarthSifter bloodink should work, too.
She pointed her palms out towards a glass icicle hanging over the beast and pulsed. The magic that flowed from her palms was thick and green and moist like the earth. It hit the icicle in a concentrated burst. The thing cracked. Then it groaned and split off from the ceiling and began to fall.
Alyx mentally urged it on as it fell. The beast noticed the noise and turned its head in time to see the glass weapon falling for it. It moved, but not fast enough. It let out a roar of pain as the falling glass weapon pierced through the tail, skewering it to the ground. Jordan forgotten, the beast tugged at its tail and let out a tender cry.
Jordan flew around the tethered beast to land next to Alyx. Alyx grabbed his arm as soon as he landed. She pointed at the flute in his belt to indicate that she wanted it. He unattached it and gave it to her, his brows furrowed in a question.
She brought the flute to her lips and began to blow into each reed. Each note played clearly. Alyx played them all again, this time closing her eyes and trying to shut out the racket of the dragon. This one, she realized as she blew into a reed, this note was the exact same one as the note of the bell.
Each note had a symbol. There were three symbols above the doorways as they left each arena. Argyll’s words came back to her.
“…a valuable object that may help you overcome the last obstacle… Perhaps when you get to the end of this, you will realize that you had won more than you thought in each arena.”
What if… what if the three symbols above each doorway were a “prize” as well? A prize that would help them defeat this beast? Three symbols. Three notes played together.
She felt a surge of hope and she opened her eyes. Jordan had obviously seen the look of realization flash across her face because he gripped her hand. “What? You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”
* * *
Jordan watched, hope rising in him as Alyx nodded furiously. She had worked out the flute riddle. A swell of pride rose in him. Of course she did. His beautiful warrior. This thought gave him pause. Since when had he started thinking her as his?
He watched as Alyx mimed blowing each reed, then she pointed to each one, mouthing out, “One, two three…” until she had counted the six.
Okay, so six reeds.
Then she pointed straight up at the bell that Jordan had been using as a shield, then cupped her ear, then blew on the reed. But she didn’t have to finish, he had already pieced it together. Six reeds, six bells. Those bells must make a noise that he couldn’t hear in his deaf state, and each bell must correspond with a reed which had its own symbol.
They needed to play the three bells, the notes of which belonged to the three symbols that were on top of the three doorways. But first they had to figure out which symbol related to which note. And the flute was the way to do this. Jordan gazed up at the bells. They needed to play all six bells to figure out which bell sounded like which note on the flute.
“I’ll have to hit the bells because you can’t fly,” he said. “But you’ll have to piece the notes and the symbols together because I can’t hear. Okay?”
She nodded.
Jordan eyed the dragon, still tearing at his tail. He didn’t feel safe leaving Alyx down here with that beast. There had to be a safer place to put her.
He spotted a series of tall glass structures high above in a section of the cavern. It looked like a series of valleys that had been hung upside down from the ceiling. He could see that there were some nooks where she could perch on. He grabbed Alyx around the waist. “Hold on. I’m taking you somewhere safer.”
Jordan rocketed them both up and slipped into the ceiling’s inverted canyon. He moved further into the recesses of this odd labyrinth where the space between the glass became narrower. He spotted a ledge and flew for it.
Slowly he let part of their weight on the glass shelf, then more, then all of it. It held. Only then did he let her down gently. She would be safe here.
He forced himself to pull his arms away from her. “You stay here with the flute,” he said, brushing her hair from her face, an excuse to keep touching her. He couldn’t help himself. Fool. “I’m going to go ring the six bells in order. Then I’ll be back.”
She clutched at his arm as he was about to jump off the ledge. She looked like she wanted to say something, but instead she pulled him back to her. He felt her lips move against his ear, sending lightning down through his neck. He felt her sweet breath against his skin. She pulled back.
Jordan pressed his lips to her forehead. “I’ll be careful,” he said, guessing at what she had said. “I promise.”
With the smell of her hair in his nose, a light fresh scent that reminded him of spring, he flew along the glass valley towards the bells.
* * *
For a moment, Jordan’s lips lingered on her forehead. As soft as butterfly wings. Then he was gone.
Alyx felt her heart flutter and sink into her heels, like a necklace falling into an ocean. She was a coward. Hiding behind his loss of hearing.
“Please, come back to me,” she had said. “I need you.”
It was the most that she had allowed herself to admit aloud of her growing feelings for him. In the moment that he took his arms from around her and his warming presence left her space, and the cold air and the hollowness rushed back in, she realized, she was falling for him. He was the sun that warmed these deepest spaces in her soul, her empty Sahara. This desert had been cold before him and would be cold without him.
Please, come back to me. She watched him slip from the cover of this ceiling canyon and out into the open. I need you.
She viewed her ledge
– her aerial prison – with some disdain. What she wouldn’t give for the use of her flight again. She peered over the edge. She was so high up that could see most of the cavern from up here, including the bells. The beast continued to roar.
The sound of a bell rang out. Alyx’s heart gave a little clench. He made it to the first bell. The beast screeched against the unwanted reverberation. Alyx clutched the flute to her lips and blew across the top of the reeds until she found the one that matched the sound. She glanced at the symbol. Not one of the ones above the doorway.
The second bell rang. Again, not one of the ones they needed.
Moments later she heard the third bell ring. Yes! It was one of the three notes that they needed. Three more bells and two more notes to confirm.
She heard a screech and a tear. She looked down to find that the beast had torn its tail away like a lizard would. The stump of his tail was raw and covered in silver blood, but even from here Alyx could tell that it was already starting to heal over. The discarded tail lay twitching, still skewered by the glass spike. The beast roared, infuriated by the noise of the bell and the loss of its tail. It began to beat its wings, aiming for the bells.
Jordan had his back to the beast. He couldn’t hear that it was loose.
The fourth bell rang. Somewhere in the back of her mind Alyx recognized it as corresponding to one of the three symbols. She began to run along the ledge towards the bells, screaming for Jordan to turn around, despite that her voice wouldn’t reach his deaf ears.
The ledge along this glass overhang wasn’t continuous but broken in sections. She leapt across the missing sections and had to jump up to grab and pull herself up onto higher sections. As she moved forward she could see the rest of the cavern. Her mind went over the remainder of her bloodink… partial Animale and partial WaterBearer. But she could think of no way to use them that would stop the beast.
Through the glass she could make out the blurred figure of the beast coming up behind Jordan. Jordan struck the fifth bell with the end of his sword handle and the sound rang out. This was the last note for the last symbol.
The beast flinched for a second before opening his mouth and lurching forward. Perhaps he saw the shadow, or perhaps he felt he air move behind him, but Jordan turned. But it was too late. The beast closed his jaws around him.
Alyx heard screaming. Then she realized it was coming from within her. Every fiber of her fury and desperation was reverberating through the cavern. She reached the end of the ledge. She leapt off towards the beast, falling.
She landed on its back with a thud. The beast reared up and she began to slip over the side of its back. The ground was so far below her and the scales were too slippery to hang on to. She snatched out her dagger and slammed her blade into its ribs, hanging onto the handle, catching herself before she fell completely. Her feet dangled in the air.
The beast lashed around in a fury, trying to throw her off. She held on so hard she thought her fingers might break off. For a second the beast stopped thrashing. Alyx pulled out another dagger and slammed it higher on its side. She pulled out the first dagger and slammed it in even higher, using her blades to climb up his back.
The beast reared again in pain and began to beat its large wings, causing the wind to whip around her. He began to rise in the air. But she wouldn’t be stopped. She kept working her way up his back, avoiding his wings. Her eyes were burning a target on the beast’s neck. She was going to slit its throat for taking Jordan from her.
She was so close, his neck only meters away. So close. But she was so focused on her revenge, she didn’t see that the beast had flown up towards the glass ceiling. Alyx heard the scratch and cracking as the beast began to rub its head then neck along a protruding shelf of glass in order to knock her off.
She only had time to lift up her forearm to protect her face. The glass slammed into her, knocking her off the beast.
She began to fall.
The next moments felt like forever. She was falling, falling like she had never fallen before. There was nothing she could do. She gave into it, an effortless, breathless surrender.
Across the ceiling she saw the glass twinkling like stars. Jordan loved the stars.
I failed. I’m sorry.
She twisted in the air and saw the ground coming up. She couldn’t bear to watch her death coming for her. She turned her head. The light glinted off the six silver bells. Something in her hardened. Never give up. Never ever give up.
In quick succession, Alyx pulled three knives from her boots and threw them. Time seemed to slow as she watched the blades cut a blur through the air. The first bell was struck. Above her the beast cried out. Then the second bell was struck. Finally, the third... All three notes rang out throughout the cavern in a melody. A chord.
The beast roared. Then it shattered in a cloud of silver and blue splinters.
As Alyx hit the ground, everything went white.
Chapter 28
Lukas gazed upon his wife’s vacant face, and his heart broke all over again. He hadn’t seen the spark of life behind those brown eyes since – his throat squeezed tight – since their son died. Ky. Their little miracle.
“Ana, my starlight,” he said again.
Like it had been since Ky was killed, she didn’t respond. From over his shoulder, he looked at Tobias and Vix. Both their faces pinched with worry.
“We need your help, Ana,” he tried again. “A seraph is dying.”
Ana didn’t even blink.
“Ana, please.” Lukas threaded his fingers through his wife’s hands. His heart cried in pain when she didn’t move to curl her fingers around his as she once would have done.
Lukas felt a hand slip onto his shoulder. It was Tobias. “Lukas, it is clear she is still suffering too much to deal with this. We shall try something else. We shall leave you both alone.”
Lukas sat by his wife and pulled her onto his lap. “Ana, Ana, Ana,” he chanted softly into her hair. It was unwashed – she had refused to wash herself since the fire, so it still smelled like smoke. The smell made him sick, but he still pulled her closer. “Please, I need you. I lost him, too. Please don’t let me lose you.” He used the fingers of one hand to tilt her chin up so that he could look upon her face.
Ana stared through him as if he wasn’t there and he felt his already shattered heart break into tinier pieces. Who knew a heart could take this much pain and still beat?
Chapter 29
Alyx blinked. It was dark and she felt cold stone under her limbs. She moved her fingers and they brushed over small pieces of dust and rock. Her throat felt dry as if she had inhaled in a hot desert, sand, dust and all. She coughed.
“Can I just say, never get swallowed whole by a dragon. It bloody stinks in there.”
“Jordan? Oh my God, Jordan, is that you?” She might have cried tears of happiness to hear his voice if only she had any moisture left in her.
“Partially digested, but yes, it’s me.”
She looked over to the voice’s origin. Jordan was lying on the ground some meters from her.
“You’re alive,” she breathed. Without thinking she flew from where she lay over to him, slamming into his chest. Alyx was surprised to find her eyes were spilling over with hot tears. She hid her face in his neck. “I thought you were dead. I thought he had eaten you and you were dead and that I’d never see you again and…”
His arms wrapped around her shoulders. “Hey, come now,” he shushed into her hair, rocking her gently. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. Can I just say that your voice is the most beautiful sound to me right now?”
Alyx gasped and pulled back. “You can hear again.”
“And you can fly again.”
“Which means we’re out of the Game.”
“You did it.” They both said together.
“Okay,” he said. “I did it. But you helped.”
She slapped his arm and he laughed, pulling her along him again.
“Seems
like the door to the chambers is open,” he said, pointing. “And the exit to the Archives is open as well. As much as I feel like I could lie here for a month, we should get the Threads of Dark and get the hell out of here.”
Everything snapped back into place in her mind. The Threads of Dark. Mayrekk. Israel. The poison.
They got to their feet and moved cautiously to the open chamber doorway. The door led to a small circular room. There was barely enough room to walk around the stone pedestal in the middle, upon which a domed glass lid covered a black Thread rolled into a clear tube.
The Threads of Dark.
Alyx sidled into the room next to Jordan, studying the lid. He placed his fingers on either side of the glass. After a pause in which nothing happened, he lifted the case over the Thread and placed it aside on the floor. He reached for the Thread.
“Wait,” Alyx said, grabbing his arm. “Do you think we should just take it?”
“Why not?”
“Do you think it’s booby trapped? Weight-triggered maybe?”
Jordan stared at the Thread. “We’ve come all this way. We’re not leaving without it.” Alyx let go of his arm. He pulled out a dagger and held it out as he reached out with his left hand. He paused. “Just prepare to hustle if necessary.”
“Okay. Do it.”
Alyx’s body tensed as she watched Jordan slip the dagger under the tube containing the Thread. With his other hand he lifted the Thread off the pedestal. Alyx let out the breath that she realized she had been holding. Jordan tucked it into a pouch at his belt.
“Let’s go,” he said. Alyx turned to move out of the small room just as Jordan pulled his dagger off the pedestal.
The chamber started to rumble. Alyx launched herself through the doorway, Jordan close behind her, narrowly missing being squashed by the shutting stone door. Alyx flew straight for the hatch, which was also squeezing shut. She could see the exit to the Archives up ahead diminishing. They weren’t going to make it.
