Chapter 8
“What exactly are we searching for?” Fara asked Rys.
“Lots of things,” he answered. “More of the power slates from yesterday. Loot for Vallis to sell. I’m also on the lookout for something special.”
Fara raised an eyebrow. The two of them led the group into the Labyrinth. Well, almost. Orthrus hovered ahead, sometimes pausing for a few moments. Grigor took up the rearguard. Fortunately, the Labyrinth’s ceilings were massive enough that he didn’t need to stoop despite his height.
This was only the third floor of the Labyrinth and not much had changed. Rooms of gray granite blended together. Water flooded some rooms, forcing them to wade through it. Other times they crossed bridges. Huge halls full of strange traps slowed their passage occasionally.
Despite the obstacles, their path had been a straight line, only broken up by the stairs down. Rys felt like they weren’t getting anywhere, but he had no choice but to rely on Orthrus here.
Most of Rys’s demons were with him. Grigor had given Terry a dozen lesser demons to use as guards and kept the rest. That gave Terry enough strength to beat up any locals, while keeping the best fighters with the Labyrinth group.
Not that Rys felt there was much difference between the greater and lesser demons. The difference between the two was that a greater demon had a Gift of some sort, but demons relied almost entirely on physical strength and skill. Lesser demons often gained Gifts as they grew older, or they purchased them from devils.
And the noble demons could mop the floor with every other demon anyway. But Rys wouldn’t turn away fighters right now.
Given Fara’s reaction to them, every demon was worth their weight in the skulls of future enemies. If he gave them a chance to improve their combat skills, they’d be an elite fighting force that could wipe out whatever threats lurked outside the castle.
“I take it you won’t tell me what that ‘something special’ is?” Fara asked, pulling Rys back into the conversation.
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Rys said. Maybe she wouldn’t, but it seemed like a good guess.
“Is your adviser guiding us?” she asked.
“Yes.” He paused. “I may need to talk aloud with them from time to time. The Labyrinth seems to make it difficult to contact them.”
Fara raised her eyebrow again. “I’m surprised you can talk with them at all. I don’t know of any method of communication that works down here. Both sendings and teleportation are impossible.”
Well, wasn’t that convenient? Nobody could teleport in or out of the Labyrinth.
“Sendings?” Rys asked, unsure about what those were.
“How do you not know about those?” Fara asked. “They’re the primary method of communication for human mages. They use evocation to instantly communicate with one another mentally.”
“In case you forgot, I predate the invention of evocation,” Rys said drily.
Instant mental communication, huh? Devils had a method of doing that, but it was a racial thing. Maybe Rys should take Darus’s advice and learn evocation after all.
Unearthly screams interrupted them. Instantly, the demons charged forth. Labyrinth monsters met demons in a bloody melee. Rys stood back and watched.
Grigor joined the two of them, hefting his axe over his shoulder. His eyes glowed dimly as he surveyed the battle.
Although the Labyrinth hadn’t changed in appearance, the monster had. Shark-beasts continued to burst from within whatever water was nearby. In this room, there was a large pool in one corner from which a dozen sharks leaped out from.
But six-armed lizard monsters had joined the fray. They showed genuine intelligence and tactics, unlike the misshapen goblins. Each of their arms carried either a bronze weapon or buckler. Their surprising ability to attack with six arms at once would have made them deadly to humans, particularly as they always attacked from multiple directions and in large numbers.
For the demons, the lizards made great punching bags. The bronze weapons of the lizards bounced off the armored hides of the demons. But the demons cut through two or even three lizards with a single blow, sending rainbow scales clattering everywhere.
The noble demons didn’t even use their runic axes. They instead made sport out of the lizards and beat them to death with their bare hands. Every time a noble demon punched a lizard’s head off, the demon shouted out a number. They were keeping count of how many lizards they each killed.
Fara watched with a dull gaze, her tails curled up close around her.
“Dangerous place, huh?” Rys said.
“Don’t start,” Fara muttered.
“it is good practice for them,” Grigor said. “And good fun. I believe Lady Vallis will be pleased with our haul.”
A few handcarts were loaded up with whatever loot looked valuable. The bronze weapons of the lizards sometimes carried interesting inscriptions, and some rooms had some interesting pottery. But a lot of the “artifacts” were junk. Vallis could use them to guide the demons on what was valuable and what wasn’t for future reference.
After the current group of enemies was defeated and their corpses picked clean of anything valuable, the group continued on.
On the fifth floor, they came to a crossroads. An enormous hall stood at the bottom of a long balcony staircase, shrouded in darkness. Two other staircases stood in the far corners. In the center, four pillars rose up to the ceiling, each the width of a small house. The ceiling rose two or three times the height of the previous rooms.
“Can you make out what’s down there?” Fara asked.
“No. The darkness is magical,” Rys said.
“A trap. The moment we walk down into the hall, the foe will descend on us,” Grigor said.
The demons looked over the edge of the staircase, murmuring to each other.
Orthrus hovered down there. After a few minutes, he returned.
“There is a power slate here,” he said. “But it’s a trap.”
“Of course it is,” Rys said, ignoring the looks he received. “The moment we take the slate, enemies will attack us, right?”
“Most likely. There are many monsters down here already, but their numbers will only swell once you take the slate.”
Rys sighed. “Business as usual, then. There’s a big prize here. Lots of enemies in the darkness. When we take the loot, more enemies will come. Fara, can your flames light things up? I’ll try the same.”
Both of them hurled balls of fire below. The light they projected fought against the magical darkness and won. Well over a hundred lizards awaited them. They were joined by dozens of four-legged beasts covered in bony spikes but which lacked heads.
“Nobody punch the spiky dogs,” Rys said.
The noble demons grumbled but complied, unslinging their weapons for the first time.
Below them, the monsters began to stir. The flames awakened them and they howled up at the intruders.
“Let’s go,” Rys said.
He held up a hand. A ball of hellfire appeared in it, and he launched it at the base of the staircase. The blast of flame incinerated a dozen lizards, the hellfire consuming even their screams.
Grigor vaulted off the staircase. His bulk crushed two of the lizards upon landing, and his axe scythed through a dozen others. The dogs leaped at him. He grunted and smashed them aside, sending pieces of bone flying everywhere. Several lizards were impaled by the projectiles, but the mass ignored this fact.
For whatever reason, the Labyrinth monsters didn’t feel fear. They hesitated in shock or surprise, but they never ran away. Grigor’s raw power startled them, but they threw themselves at him regardless.
The demons poured down the staircase, shouting as they went. A great melee ensued. The entire hall filled with the echo of battle. Blood and gore seeped across the floor and ran across the grooves between the stonework.
Rys’s eyes focused on the prize in the center, now visible in the darkness. A small shrine housed a black power slate within glass windows. Unfamiliar runes were etched into the glass. The moment Grigor had landed on the ground, the runes lit up.
This trap couldn’t be any more obvious. Rys wondered if the glass could even be broken, or if simply walking close to the shrine triggered it.
“I take it we want that?” Fara said. She had held back her true strength, although her tails weaved patterns behind her.
Rys felt magic emanating off her and knew she was ready for combat. Most likely she had cast her physical empowerment spells. If an enemy got close, she could pulverize them with her fists.
He frowned. Had Fara decided she was his bodyguard or something? That fact annoyed him, given he could easily take care of himself.
“Yes,” he said. “Let’s crack open the glass vault and see what greets us.”
The demons had cleaved apart a lot of the monsters by the time they descended the steps. Fara’s tails moved and the glass exploded, blown apart by her force blast.
Nothing appeared.
Rys stepped up to the shrine. As he had suspected, the trap sprung and a rumbling sounded throughout the entire chamber.
Grigor froze where he was and looked up. Following his gaze, Rys saw the source of the sound.
Dust poured down from a circular section of the ceiling. It gradually separated from the rest of the ceiling, revealing a large platform connected to the chamber by hinged arms. Glowing veins of energy ran along those arms.
On top of the newly revealed platform were dragons. A dozen of them.
“Is that bad?” Fara said, her tails standing on end.
Rys frowned. “Unless my eyesight has gone, those are baby dragons.”
Each dragon couldn’t be bigger than a large horse. Even teenage dragons were larger than that. Rys knew from experience.
In the Infernal Empire, knowing the rough size of dragons was both common knowledge and important. Especially for succubi. They had a particularly special reason to know the size of dragons, given their depravities.
The Labyrinth dragons took off, and Rys got a better look at them. Their scales were rotting, their heads dripping with pus and rotting flesh. Their eyes glowed a sickly green from within empty sockets.
Fara’s eyes bulged. Her tails whirled and blue flames burst from her hands.
One of her fireballs crashed into a dragon. It exploded and crashed into the ground, turning into a pile of ash within seconds.
“Nope,” Fara said, jumping away from the flaming undead corpse. “Nope. Nope. Absolutely not.”
She summoned more fire and Rys helped her, but the dragons began their strafing run. Grigor bellowed out for the demons to scatter, but many were caught in combat.
A dragon opened its maw and black light burst from it. One of the demons rotted away on impact, his flesh flaking and turning to dust. Rys felt the connection with the demon break.
More streams of that eerie black light filled the room. Most of them missed, as the demons ran and rolled away from the dragons.
One of the dragons homed in on Rys. He blew it apart with a stream of hellfire, before turning to face another.
He saw a noble demon shove a pair of smaller demons out of the way. Lizard monsters surrounded them, and the huge pale demon cut them down with a single blow. But a dragon hovered right above them, opening its mouth.
Readying a spell, Rys prepared to blow it away. Grigor beat him to it. The demon prince crashed down and cut through the dragon with his axe, killing it in a single blow. The dragon’s undead body collapsed in a pile of rotting bones and dust.
Rys lowered his arm. The dragons retreated back to their platform, trying to avoid Fara’s blasts.
At least half of the dragons were dead. Rys had only lost a single demon.
“Grigor, send the demons back,” Rys shouted.
Grigor nodded and ordered them out.
By the time the demons had retreated up the stairwell, the dragons had licked their wounds. They peeked their heads over the platform’s edge and stared down at them. Those glowing green eyes glowed in the darkness above them.
“Creepy fucking things,” Fara said, shuddering. “Why do they have to leak pus everywhere?”
“Your fire works well on them,” Grigor said, standing next to both Rys and Fara.
“It’s spiritual fire. They’re undead. It’s supposed to work well. If it didn’t, I’d be a pretty awful mystic fox,” Fara replied.
The dragons came at them again. This time, they were ready.
Three of the dragons exploded before they got close. Grigor hurled his axe at another and blew it apart in midair.
But the other two landed on the ground, surprising the party. Before they could react, the dragons looked at Grigor and unleashed their breath attacks.
“Grigor!” Fara screamed. Her tails stood on end and weren’t casting a spiritual technique.
Rys scratched his cheek. He felt Grigor’s power rising through the connection they had.
When the demon prince let out a defiant roar, the strength along the connection peaked. Grigor’s form surged through the stream of black light. One of the dragons stopped attacking, and the other followed suit shortly after for a different reason.
Grigor stood over the first dragon, holding its rotting head aloft. He hurled it to the ground and stared at the other dragon. Not a single scratch lay on Grigor’s body, and every fur on his body looked untouched along with his armor and mask.
Before the dragon attacked again, Rys incinerated it.
“But… how?” Fara asked, staring at Rys.
The demons streamed back into the room, cheering at their leader’s show of power. They surrounded Grigor, each taking the opportunity to slap him on the back and bump their fists against his.
Fara turned her face toward Rys, her question outstanding.
“Grigor has a few Gifts. One of them is a revival Gift. It allows him to restore his body and magical power to his peak once every twenty-four hours,” Rys said.
Fara stared at Rys. “He’s immortal? Literally immortal?”
“Not quite. But it’s a very powerful Gift. I got it off another of Malusian’s generals, the Demon Lord Argran.”
“You mentioned him before, back when you introduced Grigor. Who is he? And Malusian?” Fara asked.
“Malusian is one of the three archdevils. I used to work for him, back when the Infernal Empire was a thing,” Rys explained. “He’s one of the oldest infernals around. Dates back to the Emergence. He thinks he should have become the Devil King, instead of Ariel, and has refused to recognize her authority as Devil Queen since she took the throne.”
Fara stared at him. “And Grigor has a Gift from one of Malusian’s generals?”
“You’re forgetting that I’m also one of Malusian’s generals,” Rys said drily. “But yes. Argran also appointed Grigor as demon prince. My opinions of infernals vary a bit, but Argran’s a fairly decent guy. I’ve spent a lot of nights drinking with him and Araunth.”
“Don’t,” Fara said flatly. “Do not tell me you know who Araunth is.”
Rys smirked. “Know who he is?”
“Everybody knows who Araunth is. I used him as a bedtime story to scare Vallis.” Fara groaned. “It’s becoming a lot harder to write you off as a pretender now. Grigor shrugging off literal death. Crushing five floors of the Labyrinth like its nothing. The demons being terrified of you. The raw power of your infernal sorcery.”
If she was impressed by this, he wondered how she’d feel about what was to come.
“We’ve retrieved the slate,” Grigor said to Rys, approaching him. “We lost one of my comrades. No body. Was he banished?”
Rys nodded. “The magic in their breath was powerful, but nothing too special. We’ve seen worse during the dragon rebellions that took down the Infernal Empire.”
Infernals didn’t die in Harrium. Instead, their physical bodies were destroyed and they reformed in Hell. How long it took depended on how powerful the infernal is.
The lesser demon who had died would reform within weeks. Rys would feel it happen and could resummon the demon immediately.
Killing an infernal permanently required specialized magic or weaponry. Somebody like Fara, for example.
With the slate added to their haul, Rys watched Orthrus bounce back and forth between the two exits. They now had two paths to take.
“I feel the seals in both directions,” Orthrus said. “To make matters worse, I believe there are more power conduits in one direction than the other.”
Rys raised an eyebrow. The others had formed small groups and were relaxing across the hall. The demons roughhoused and exercised. Grigor meditated. Fara combed her tails and pretended she wasn’t watching Rys.
“Do you know what that means?” Rys asked.
“Most likely one direction leads to the Labyrinth on other islands,” Orthrus explained. “The other direction leads to a power conduit within this island.”
“You mentioned that the Labyrinth extended between the islands. But Fara thought that was a myth. Why?” Rys asked.
“Because those connections are closed. You can reopen them, however. But it involves certain complications,” Orthrus said. “You will need to reactivate certain mechanisms within the Labyrinth that have lain dormant for millenia.”
“I’d rather avoid complications right now. If we go down one path, we’ll stay within the Kavolara section of the Labyrinth and won’t need to reactivate anything, correct?” Rys asked.
“Ideally.”
“Then let’s go.”
The path they took ended up being long. They didn’t descend any farther, and the Labyrinth grew greatly in complexity. Many of the rooms had multiple exits. Several times, Orthrus paused and pondered the route for several minutes.
“Are we certain we’re not going in circles?” Fara asked.
“Would we know if we are?” Rys replied.
“Ha. True.” She sighed. “I think some of these paths are entrances from the surface, or they at least lead there. The beasts we’re fighting match the descriptions I hear from some of the hunters. They don’t like going this deep. Most likely this is the true Labyrinth, and everything above us is a distraction.”
That made this place sound like a playpen to keep people busy.
Rys genuinely wondered what this place had been built to do. Why would somebody even need a gigantic underground complex that randomly changed its layout and spawned an infinite supply of monsters? Leaving aside the economic issues it might cause, it lacked any real utility.
The only reason it hadn’t shattered the world economy was likely that the monsters in here were too dangerous for most warriors to handle. They had barely scratched the surface of the place and already it had thrown undead dragons that literally spewed death at them.
Rys already believed in the dangers of the Labyrinth before they found the next room.
He called everybody to a stop.
“I think this may be a dead end for the day,” he said.
The stairs led down into another hall filled with darkness. At the far end stood a steel door twice Grigor’s height.
Unlike the previous hall, this one didn’t need lighting to see the dangers within it. The spine of a dragon poked up out of the darkness, clearly curled around a shrine hidden within the darkness. Rotten scales and flesh ran along its backside, and huge pools of pus and goo shined in the dim light.
Fara closed her eyes and stepped away.
“I believe that is the size of an adult dragon,” Grigor said, staring down at the enemy below them.
“A small one. But yes.”
The dragon would barely fit inside the hall of the castle. That’s how big it was.
If this thing breathed death at them, it would kill everything on one side of the hall.
Rys stared at Orthrus, who hovered in the air beside him.
“I am less certain of my earlier conclusion,” Orthrus said. “This is one of the Labyrinth’s defense mechanisms. I had thought them all disabled, but somebody must have reactivated them at some point.”
“How?” Rys asked.
Orthrus remained silent for some time. “Most likely for the same reason you are sealed here, if I were to hazard a guess.” That was more honesty than Rys expected. “But I do not know where we are now. I will need time to ponder this.”
Shit.
“A problem, General?” Grigor asked aloud, reading Rys’s expression.
“Our guide is lost,” Rys said flatly. “He didn’t think this thing should be here.”
Rys eyed their haul, as well as the exhausted demons. They’d been exploring the Labyrinth for hours now. For that matter, he wasn’t sure how Fara felt. She hid any exhaustion, but hadn’t fought outside of the encounter with the dragons.
“Let’s head back. I think we have enough. A power slate. A bunch of trash for Vallis to hawk to dumb nobles. And, most importantly, knowledge about the Labyrinth,” Rys said.
They headed back up to the surface. As with their last trip, the Labyrinth had completely changed. All of the monsters reappeared, and they needed to fight their way back.
“I can’t believe you thought you’d do better than this, and go even deeper,” Fara said when they took a break, her tails nearly flat against the ground behind her. “You’ve been here a day and have gone deeper than I’ve been in fifty years. I bet there’re things in those carts that haven’t been seen since this place was discovered.”
Rys cracked a smile. “There’s a lot about me that hasn’t been seen in a long time, Fara. I’m glad you appreciate that. And there’s plenty more to see.”
Fara gave him a flat look and her tails curled around her. “Maybe. I’m sure some parts are worth seeing more than others.” She smirked at him, her eyes darting lower on his body for a moment.
Silence reigned for a minute. A trickling sound filled the room they were in, as a fountain dominated the center of it. The demons huddled together and chatted. A few sharpened their weapons or cleaned their armor.
“This may sound odd,” Fara said, then trailed off.
Rys waited.
“You’re clearly used to this,” she continued. “You don’t even react to ambushes or even the dragons appearing. But don’t you worry about what happens if something goes wrong and the worst happens?”
Her gaze became distant. Was she thinking about Vallis?
“I said before that I let Grigor deal with the demons. That’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because I have faith in him. Over time, that becomes faith in those demons,” Rys explained. “If I spend time worrying about all the little things, then I’ll question every decision I make or try to do everything myself.”
“Does that faith extend to me?” Fara asked.
“Until you give me a reason not to trust you, yes,” Rys said. He smirked at her incredulous look. “Despite your attitude, you’ve been surprisingly helpful. And your love for Vallis is plain as day. The most surprising thing you’ve done was let her head home by herself, but even that was to avoiding smothering her.”
Fara let out a shuddering sigh. “Supreme confidence. I should have guessed.” Despite her words, her expression was uncertain. “How do you do it?”
“Are you asking me that question, or yourself?” Rys asked.
Wincing, Fara looked away. “You don’t know me.”
A chink in her emotional armor.
“I asked if we were swapping life stories yesterday. I’m happy to do that if it helps,” Rys said.
She remained silent. But her expression twisted in frustration.
“I swore an oath to protect the Tornnes line,” Fara said eventually. “But once I get my fifth tail, I need to return to my clan. They approved my oath, which allowed me to avoid fulfilling my duties to the clan for the last fifty years. But I’ll need to go back to them.”
“I take it you don’t want to do that?” Rys said.
“It’s not that. But…” Fara scowled. “My clan let me wander off for fifty years. That’s how little they care about me. And they’re right. Vallis nearly died yesterday. That would have been three times I’ve failed in my oath to protect her family.”
“Have you ever thought about doing something for yourself?” Rys asked.
Fara blinked. “What does that have to do with my ability?”
“We’re talking about confidence.” Rys gave her a small smile, but his mind churned as he searched for the right words. Her emotions were on full display, but he barely knew her. “People bring out their best when doing what truly motivates them. Are you doing that right now?”
Fara stared at him. “Given I’m surrounded by a bunch of demons, clearly not.”
“Why not?” he asked, ignoring her jibe.
“Because I value my honor. I want…” She sighed. “I wanted to see Gregory succeed. It had been years since I met somebody with his drive. I love Vallis like a daughter, but she doesn’t motivate me the same way. But you…”
Fara’s tails curled around her. “You have a charisma I don’t fully understand. That confidence of yours, where you seem certain that you’ll succeed no matter what action others take. Vallis was taken in instantly by it.”
“And you’re not?”
“It’s attractive, like you,” Fara said. She rolled her eyes at his smirk. “You’re practically sculpted from marble. Any woman will find you attractive. But we’ll see about anything more.”
She stepped away from him and no more words were said between them. The rest of the trip back was relatively uneventful.
Rys’s first Labyrinth dive was over. He hadn’t succeeded at everything he wanted to, but it was his first day. Once he regained some of his power, he’d turn that undead dragon into a proper corpse.