Silent Prayer

Death In Harmony: Part Fourteen of Twenty-Nine

Death In Harmony is the fifth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the fourteenth chapter.

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This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.

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Silent Prayer

The past: below Youlbridge

The whole idea of the Maze had felt at odds with the rest of Youlbridge. Of all the places Flin had travelled to, whether before or after Rharsle’s death, the city had seemed the calmest, the most peaceful, civilised, and safest.

It had been an early topic of conversation with Sarah and Mariea; how could a city devoted to the arts, to the finer things in life, to peace and prosperity, allow such a violent event every fifth year?

Their discussion had taught Flin much about human nature, about how even the most peaceful of places hid darkness. The pair had patiently explained how, by having a spectacle of such barbaric magnitude to look forward to, the vast majority of the inhabitants of Youlbridge lost any violent urges of their own. A small number of days of visible, audible, death and pain—death and pain for others, and others who had chosen that possibility—meant they were happy to be almost exclusively peaceful for the time between Mazes. Years in which the riches of the games were shared among the inhabitants of the city.

Sarah and Mariea’s explanation had made Flin sad. She had thought she had found a place where peace was the way and had felt somehow cheated. More than that, though, the idea of the contest made a chilling sort of sense and she had felt disgusted in herself when she began to consider what it would be like to witness the next Maze, to craft tales and new songs of heroism and death.

As Flin waited, peering into darkness, ready to release the arrow nocked to her string, she felt anger at the idea of the Maze, anger at the city, at the fighters, the citizens, and anger at herself for being tempted by the lure of new songs.

The clicking and slithering was much closer now, just the other side of the pool of light. Something moved in her vision, something pale and careful, testing and waiting.

Overhead, there was a sudden rending, ripping groan and a sharp crack. Flin wasted no time in leaping backward, as a clattering and snapping announced the swift arrival of something heavy falling toward her down the wide shaft.

Dust and smoke flooded the tunnel and she was forced to close her eyes, staggering back further, temporarily blinded, the lantern almost falling from her hand, arrow disappearing into the thick smoke and hanging, swirling motes.

There was another crash, accompanied by a raw and inhuman, hissing scream. Flin opened her eyes a fraction and raised a corner of her tightly-woven woollen cloak to shield Kadan and her own mouth and nose. A second thick, dark timber, had landed atop the first, both still burning and both huge, structural and ancient, most likely from whenever the gallery above was roofed over. Trapped between the timbers was a monster, there was no other word for it.

It had four short limbs, each ending in webbed and clawed feet. Its skin, although covered in scales, was translucent, blood vessels clearly visible beneath the surface. Whatever it was had been bred and lived in darkness for a long time.

It screamed again, revealing a mouthful of teeth in a wedge-shaped head, each small and bent backward, like dozens of serrated hooks. It struggled against the weight of the timber, its hide beginning to blacken where tiny flames charred it. Letting out a gurgling gasp, it looked directly at Flin and she could see fear in its tiny black eyes. A monster it might be, but it appeared to be an intelligent one: it knew it was trapped, it knew it was dying.

She did not pause, but released the corner of her cloak she held, nocked a fresh arrow and immediately pulled back and let it fly. It pierced one of the eyes and entered the creature’s brain. The monster twitched once, sighed, and died.

Flin checked on Kadan, but her child had somehow slept through the whole encounter, his lips pursing, sucking on still-dusty, smoky air. She looked back at the creature. She could have left it trapped, but that would have been an agonising death and she hated to see anything suffer, even a monster which had clearly tried to eat her and her baby.

She kept one eye on the shaft above and moved forward, placed her sodden boot on the creature’s head and tried to pull the arrow free. It was hard to do so, but she managed. After she wiped it clean, she saw the tip was slightly chipped but she knew she could repair it, given time. She also knew it was better to take it with her, to not waste ammunition, even slightly damaged, especially after already losing at least one arrow—two, if she could not recover the other she had accidentally let fly moments earlier.

‘Time to go.’

One last look upward showed more smoke, as the city continued to burn. Flin skirted the fallen timbers and dead creature and moved further into the darkness beyond, pausing to pick up the surprisingly undamaged arrow some distance away.

She felt emboldened, braver, ready to face whatever lay ahead, but she knew the feeling was likely to be temporary, simply the effect of surviving not only the falling timbers, but also the attack of the monster, and she also knew she should make the most of it while it lasted.

For the first time since the grille had dropped, she believed she could find a way out. She moved carefully but confidently, and deliberately pushed the knowledge that she had barely enough oil left to refill the lantern one more time to the back of her mind. When she saw the reservoir was only a quarter full, a sudden cold pulse of fear flashed and evaporated along her spine, and she continued as quickly as possible.

She would make it. She could do it, she had to, she was not on her own any longer, she had responsibilities, and Kadan was her priority.

‘We can do this, Kadan, we can.’

Flin barely paused at the first junction she came to, choosing the left-hand route, she scratched a small cross on the wall with her knife tip, in case she needed to retrace her steps then, at the next junction, she took the right. This was repeated several times, each tunnel seemingly longer than the last but with no other identifying features.

At some point, the flame of the lantern began to dip and flicker and she refilled it with the last her supply, confidence waning in tandem with the oil as it slowly drained into the reservoir. If she was on the surface, she would be able to cross the city from wall to wall, return, and go back again, all the while with the lantern lit. Down here, in the dark and dank, there was no telling how far the tunnels travelled, doubling back, twisting, up and down. She swallowed the fear once more and set off, even faster now, taking less time to look for traps.

Flin’s haste almost killed her. One moment she had been trotting along the tunnel, the next she had almost fallen, barely catching herself in time as the path completely vanished into a pool of ink-black shadow.

‘Shit.’

She crouched down, one hand on the wall to steady herself, buttocks clenching, as she tried to calm her rapid heart and shallow, fast breathing. Her legs quivered, feeling like marrowbone jelly, unsteady, fear-infected. Just one more step and she would have fallen.

Raising the shutter on the lamp and holding it out, she peered down the shaft. Below, she could make out other tunnels ending just as abruptly, some directly beneath hers, some at an angle. The Maze, this underworld, was layer upon layer of tunnels and chambers, more honeycombed than she had imagined.

To the right of the gap there remained three carved pieces of masonry, which Flin guessed had previously supported the floor but now looked like oversized teeth, jutting from a stone jaw. If she was careful and the stones held, she knew she could make it across. She did not wait, in case fear and overthinking put her off, strapped her bow across her back, hooked the lantern to her pack, and immediately stretched out her leg to the first stone.

It held. Another long step, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the wall, deliberately looking across and not down, and she was on the second of the three, but now she could see the final stone was at an angle, loose mortar on its top. She paused, and briefly considered trying to switch her footing to step back the way she had come but instead, for some unknown reason, she stepped forward and onto the rock.

It did not hold, shifted, slipped out and caught briefly, and Flin used the pause and her momentum to leap forward. Behind her, the entire wall gave way, crashing into the void below, echo after echo after echo. Somehow, she managed to land on her knees in the soft, wet, sand, and skidded across the tunnel, falling to her side, to come to rest against the opposite wall. She was sure she had kept Kadan protected, but he began to cry, louder and louder.

Unhitching the mercifully-undamaged lantern, she examined the baby for injury, all the while talking softly, trying to calm him. She changed his moss and realised he was probably also hungry and the sudden, jarring movement had disturbed him. His screams became sobs and then greedy, hungry sounds as she fed him. There was no obvious injury and she said a quick, silent prayer, to various Gods who felt applicable in the moment.

Flin looked back. The stone from where she had leapt was gone, as was a large part of the wall—to either side, above and below—the masonry disappeared deep into the darkness of the hole. She raised the lantern higher and saw the collapse had left a gap behind the wall, perhaps another tunnel or chamber, hidden long ago.

Standing, she carefully approached the edge and peered in. It was definitely another tunnel, running parallel to the one she had followed, separated by the thick wall, its own sides damp, shining in the lantern-light. She had a decision to make: either continue along the route she had been following, or clamber through the hole.

It seemed to make sense to follow the new route, to not spurn fate or chance and to leave behind the Maze she had been trapped in. She knew she would likely be in an even older Maze, but she had seen nowhere with a chance of escape since the thick iron grille had dropped, what seemed a lifetime ago. Perhaps the older the Maze, the more gaps and places to crawl through, with fewer monsters?

Flin knew she was simply trying to convince herself this was the right move and moved back to where she had fallen just moments earlier. She sat down with her back to the wall, and continued to feed Kadan, the lantern turned down low and placed on the muddy floor beside her.

As she fed him, she realised she was staring at a set of large prints, heading off into the darkness. She had no idea how fresh they were, or what had made them and, at that moment, swore that if she managed to get out of the Maze, she would find someone to teach her more advanced tracking than that she had picked up as a child, before her Father had sold her to Rharsle.

The urge to shout and scream, to vent her frustration verbally, was strong.

‘Never scream. Never hit anything,’ the memory of an early lesson came flooding back. ‘Screaming damages your voice, hitting things can ruin your hands. Instead, breathe deeply, exhale the anger, the irritation. It’s a useful trick, it calms you and reminds you of the importance of breathing. If you must, then sing a strong song, one which builds, so you don’t wear out your voice. Now, play the scale again. This time, close your eyes.’

She began to breathe, in, two, three, four, out, two, three, four. In, two, three, four. Kadan continued to feed.

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