White Devil

by Janina Franck

  It was a cloudy but windless morning, and Port Kalhes’ streets were still empty, a sight that could only be seen in the small hours of the day. They turned the corner outside the inn to reach a larger street and got ready. Lilith glanced at Selene as the girl hauled herself onto Ayalon’s back. Their eyes met and Selene gave a brief but encouraging nod. Lilith returned it, queasiness moving in her belly like a writhing snake. Just as they lifted off and over the rooftops of the city, it began to rain lightly.

  They headed toward the docks first, then followed the coastline. They stayed low, flying just above the waterline, past the last settlements of Port Kalhes, and further around the bay. They traveled at different speeds along the south-facing cliff to make sure they didn’t miss anything, Lilith squinting and trying to shield her eyes from the rain as she flew. The rain battered against her spread wings, making it more difficult to keep them open and glide undisturbed. Having had similar problems, Amethyst had already given up and was nestling on Ayalon’s back together with Selene. Zero had turned into a shark to see if he could find anything underwater. Lilith could vaguely make out his shape beneath the surface. She decided she disliked flying in rain. It was so much more strenuous than flying normally, and it didn’t help soothe her uneasiness.

  In the end, it was Ayalon who saw the opening first. Pointing a talon, he shouted to draw everyone’s attention to it. Lilith was impressed by his noticing it, as it was barely visible, the better part of it still being underwater. After flying closer, Lilith noticed a symbol carved deep into the rock above it, and filled with Arc-glass. As she had suspected, it was the same symbol they had previously found in Arceolus. Peeking into the opening, Lilith couldn’t see much, but Zero turned back into human shape, still swimming to keep himself above water.

  “There is a cave,” he yelled up to them. “It looks like there is a tunnel above the waterline that leads landward.”

  Lilith and Selene exchanged a glance. Selene shrugged and Lilith bit her lip.

  “Let’s do it,” she decided. “It’s our best bet.”

  Ayalon was the first to act, with Selene on his back. Like the previous day, the dragon pulled his wings close to his body and shot into the water. Amethyst leapt off just in time, but Selene held on tightly, pressing her entire body flat against his back. They were in. Lilith hesitated.

  Zero, still in human shape, looked up to her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, when she made no movement toward the water.

  “The sea,” Lilith replied, glancing toward it nervously. “I do not think I can swim. And earlier it made me ill. What if something bad happens?”

  “It will be fine,” he promised. “I’ll help you.”

  He smiled reassuringly, before turning back into a shark, waiting for her just below the surface. The rain continued beating against her wings, as if telling her to give up.

  “Come on,” Amethyst urged. “We’ve come so far, you don’t want to give up now, do you?”

  “No,” Lilith agreed, whispering. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and, holding Amethyst close to her body with one hand, she shot straight into the water like Ayalon, making her wings disappear just before she hit the surface. Under water, her free hand found Zero’s fin quickly, and she held on tightly until he brought her back to air, inside the cave. She crawled out of the water, onto a ledge and waited.

  Gasping for air, even though she had only been underwater for a moment, she looked around. Everything sounded hollow and resonating, even the movement of the water, as Zero climbed out, back in human shape. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light reaching them through the narrow slit of the opening that remained above water, but it was enough. The ledge wasn’t large enough to hold them all, so Ayalon had already advanced a little into the tunnel. A large, gaping opening took up most of the wall, though it started higher up. As she stood up, cold and wet, Lilith wondered if the water would fill the tunnel at high tide.

  The opening to the tunnel was definitely big enough for Ayalon with folded wings, and the rest of the caves and tunnels would likely be as well, since centaurs and minotaurs had been able to reach the labyrinth. They weren’t much smaller than him.

  There was no need to speak, they all knew the plan. Lilith carefully climbed up to the entrance and looked inside. Pure darkness. Wiping a wet strand of hair out of her face, she wished they had brought some lights.

  The others joined her on the ledge. Zero took charge of the situation and shifted into a lightning bug. He led the way, brightening up the walk and thereby moving shadows, while Ayalon let everyone pass him and took the rear. Lilith let her hand run along the tunnel wall. It was cold, rocky, and slightly moist. The air smelled old and rotten, mixed with the salty smell of the sea. The floor was mostly uneven, and she paid attention to every step, to make sure she didn’t fall along the long way. She hadn’t expected anything else. As they continued their journey through the clammy tunnels, she found herself wondering if they would need to take the same way back, or if, perhaps, there was some other possibility.

  The Anomaly was getting closer. Death began to fear what her child might do if something went wrong, if the Anomaly was not strong enough. She had seen the power her child possessed, and it had caused so much destruction and work for her. She hoped that it would not come to that this time.

  Meddling never leads to anything good, she decided. Then she smiled to herself. Unless it is meddling with the meddling of others.

  As her child hummed louder, more violently, and began to shiver and shake, Death thought back to the last visitors it had received. It had been over half a century, certainly.

  There had been so many. And only one of them, only that one, young thing had survived. That poor thing which had to live with that pain all its life. So much pain that she could not yet take away. She could not help yet, as much as she wished she could. His daughter, she had taken her pain away, only recently. But his had only increased.

  Death pitied him. She would not wish being cursed to live with such monstrous amounts of suffering in their mind upon anyone. However, no matter whether her child would be calmed or not, Death knew she would come to someone in this town tonight.

  The tunnel started to slope downward. Lilith was sure that they were already beneath the water level. As the tunnel mostly went straight, it was safe to assume that it did indeed lead back beneath the city. Even so, Lilith wished she could see further than the glow Zero was emitting, even just to see if the labyrinth was already in sight.

  It finally appeared suddenly and surprisingly. The tunnel seemingly ended in a wall, but to their left, there was an opening through which a red glow could be seen. They hadn’t been able to see the light until they stood right in front of it.

  Again, they all hesitated for a moment. Selene and Lilith nodded at one another and Lilith took a few steps inside. In the first moment, she was blinded. The light seemed to burn through her eyelids after they had walked through darkness for so long. It emanated from everywhere.

  This was the entrance. The beginning of the labyrinth. She glanced back at her friends, shrouded in darkness, and tried to continue breathing deeply and evenly. The air smelled fresher but felt heavy, almost as if it was filled with pollen. And then Lilith realized how much warmer it was. She could almost feel her clothes drying on her skin.

  After this first impression, Lilith stepped back into the dark tunnel.

  “I do not think we should all go in,” she admitted. “Someone should wait here, just in case.”

  Selene nodded slowly in agreement. Lilith could tell that the other girl didn’t like it, but sense overruled her personal feelings about the matter.

  “I’m coming with you,” Amethyst announced.

  “So am I,” Ayalon added.

  Selene shook her head.

  “Ayalon, you’re not going. Zero, you’re up. This is a maze; turn into a bat and you can lead Lilith to the center,” she reasoned, ignorin
g Ayalon’s disappointed huffing.

  Lilith cleared her throat.

  “I am afraid that might not work here,” she said. “Other forces are in play here and I think it may be better to have Zero outside here with you,” she smiled at the shapeshifter before continuing talking to Selene, “he can adapt quickly to any situation and that is just what you might need.”

  Lilith smiled at Ayalon, who returned her look with a sparkle in his eyes and a grateful nod. She didn’t want him to feel useless again, and she did believe Zero would be of more use to Selene, even if just as a light source.

  It was decided. Lilith turned to the maze and with one last deep breath, she stepped inside. She immediately noticed the undeniable strangeness of the place. There was no breeze, no source of light, nothing of the sort. And yet fresh air reached her lungs, and everything was bright. No shadows were being cast, not even their own.

  Taking a closer look, Lilith realized that it was because of the walls. The ground and ceiling were smooth obsidian, but the walls, they were made of some equally smooth rock that Lilith was not able to identify. It glimmered orange gold, and when she touched it, it felt warm to her skin. To Lilith, it looked like the embers of a dying fire had been held in place by some sort of spell, as though trapped behind glass, creating an ever-changing golden glow, but she knew it couldn’t be true. There was only one person she knew of who could have woven a powerful spell like this, and he hadn’t known about this place. In addition to that, it wasn’t nearly hot enough to be a maze made of real embers.

  Lilith progressed carefully, Amethyst on her shoulder and Ayalon following behind her. The maze was narrower than the tunnels, not allowing Ayalon to spread his wings, or even walk beside her. There were a few twists and turns at the start of the maze, causing Lilith to lose sight of the entrance almost immediately. When they got to the first fork, Lilith stood there for a moment cluelessly, looking down both tunnels. She strained to hear anything which would give her any clues about which path to take, but there were no sounds. It was eerie.

  “Can you smell anything?” she asked Ayalon. Her voice sounded loud and strange down here. It reverberated through the maze, making it seem like she had spoken a lot louder than she had. The dragon lifted his head up high and flared his nostrils. After a moment he shook his head.

  “Nothing.”

  Lilith sighed. They would have to proceed by luck. She closed her eyes and tried to listen to her inner voice. She decided to go left. The next time, she chose right and then right again, before taking left three times and then a right once more. Then she went straight ahead and ahead a further three times, before choosing left and coming to a dead end. It occurred to her then that they might have just as many problems finding their way back from the center of the maze, as they would have getting there.

  “This is not working,” she mumbled to herself.

  “I’ll try,” Ayalon announced after a moment. For a little while, Lilith and Amethyst followed the dragon’s lead, but he took them down four different dead ends in not even half the time Lilith had. They were just returning from one of them to take a different turn, when Lilith heard it. She stopped mid-step, Ayalon following her example.

  “Are you okay?” Amethyst asked concerned.

  Lilith put one finger to her lips before closing her eyes and cupping her hands around her ears. Yes, she could hear it clearly. It sounded like a low humming, resonating through everything. She knelt down and put her hand on the ground. She could feel the vibration. It wasn’t strong, but it was there. She had the strong instinctive feeling that it originated at the maze’s center. She could only imagine how loud and strong it must be at the source.

  “Listen,” Lilith said. The raven and dragon listened intently with confused expressions. Amethyst flapped his wings lightly.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he declared.

  “I don’t either,” Ayalon admitted.

  Lilith frowned. She couldn’t be the only one to hear this, could she?

  “Then follow me.”

  Lilith took the lead again, following the humming noise with her eyes closed. Whenever they reached a turn now, Lilith made sure to choose the path from which the humming sounded the loudest. They advanced in this manner for a long time, and the turns they took did not appear to make any sense or follow a specific pattern.

  Eventually, Lilith took a turn and after the first step the sound was suddenly gone, even though it had been getting louder up until this point. She stopped abruptly and Ayalon almost walked into her. She stared down the tunnel. Something was wrong with it, she was certain of it. It looked exactly like all the other tunnels, no different in any detail: it had the same walls, the same ground, the same twists and turns.

  “Do we have anything we no longer need?” she asked her friends.

  “I’ve got a pebble?” Amethyst offered. Lilith opened her hand, and he spit a tiny pebble into it, he’d been carrying inside his beak.

  “Why do you have a rock in your mouth?” Ayalon side-eyed the raven. Amethyst flapped his wings twice.

  “I like the way it feels. Deal with it.”

  Lilith critically inspected the stone for a moment before muttering, “It will have to do,” and tossing it into the tunnel.

  Nothing happened.

  Amethyst and Ayalon gasped and scurried back several meters. Lilith looked back at them, raising one eyebrow.

  “Are you two alright?” she asked.

  “Th-th-the ground! You would have fallen on those spikes if you hadn’t done that!” Amethyst stuttered. Lilith looked back into the unchanged tunnel where the raven’s pebble laid exactly where she had thrown it to, and no spikes or drop were in sight.

  “Magic,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Someone used magic to create an optical illusion. Probably to coax people into taking a different path, like that one back there.”

  She pointed at the other option leading out the opposite end of the tunnel they had taken to get to this point.

  “I saw Colm teach it to Milly, it is a simple trick that does not require much magical power. It is more like a charm, a glamour. If there are more of these tricks around here, I can fully comprehend how someone forced to wander these halls might go mad,” she explained.

  “So… It’s not real? You promise the tunnel is still there?” Amethyst asked anxiously.

  Lilith nodded and smiled reassuringly. Wincing at every step, Ayalon now walked back toward Lilith and the precipice she could not see.

  “Hold on, I will show you. Besides, you have wings, Amethyst. We all do,” she told them, and walked slowly over to the pebble. As soon as she stepped into the tunnel, the humming started up again she noticed, satisfied. Simultaneously, Amethyst and Ayalon gasped.

  “It’s back!” Ayalon breathed.

  “I told you,” Lilith smiled. The dragon trotted very quickly to her side and now kept as close as he possibly could, while Amethyst took his seat on Lilith’s shoulder once more. To calm them and reassure them both of her presence, she kept one hand on Ayalon’s hide and gently stroked Amethyst’s feathers. She could feel them both shaking, though it was decreasing the more distance they put between them and the bewitched tunnel.

  As they continued their way through the labyrinth, the same phenomenon occurred many times more: they saw spears shoot from the walls and ceiling into the tunnel, stabbing any unsuspecting wanderer, the walls moved together, squashing anyone and anything that was caught in between, the tunnel was closed off and filled with water, drowning all stuck inside. All of them were merely illusions and Lilith disproved each one. But these three were the only ones her friends dared to describe. By the end of it, both Ayalon and Amethyst were two bundles of nerves. Lilith couldn’t blame them. They couldn’t trust their senses; everything they saw was a lie. She didn’t even want to imagine having to go through that torment. Lilith found herself wondering if the poor unfortunate souls that had come here
with the minotaur had even made it to the weapon, or if they had all been driven crazy on the way there and died somewhere in this labyrinth of hunger and thirst.

  Then again, she hadn’t seen any remains on the way. In fact, there had been nothing. There was not even dust or tiny pebbles around, aside from the one Amethyst had brought. It was unnaturally clean and pure. Lilith was concerned. In her admittedly limited experience, abandoned places weren’t supposed to be this clean. But she had already seen that there was magic in this place, who was to say this didn’t have something to do with it as well?

  Nevertheless, she decided not to mention it as they continued. Her friends were already dealing with enough stress; they didn’t need another thing to worry about. She led them further, hoping this place would not drive them mad like it had others before them. As they proceeded, the humming steadily grew in volume. Occasionally, Lilith was quite certain that they had been in a place before and had simply entered it via a different tunnel. But she trusted in the hum and prayed to the Enforcer that it would show them the way to their destination.

  They walked for a long time, and eventually they needed a break. They didn’t have provisions with them, they hadn’t thought they would need any. Lilith hoped that their friends would return to the surface if they needed to and wouldn’t stoically wait at the entrance for them.

  Both her companions nodded off as soon as they laid down. They looked much more at peace this way. Lilith was glad that they were sleeping. The exhaustion must have been terrible, especially considering the extra mental stress they had to deal with from the illusions. By the end, both of them had held their heads low, barely keeping their eyes open, lest they should show them more horrors. Perhaps their spirits would be higher again once they awoke.