Lost Legends 16

The owl had been right; it was cold. The rest of their trip to the apex of Outset Peak had taken only half a week, but that half a week was the most difficult, miserable leg of the journey yet. Kaikara had long since put on her boots and put her chain mail over her tunic instead of below. Trow clutched his red cloak around him as he stumbled along. As they climbed, she realized that the white stuff she had seen at the top of the mountain was another thing she had never seen before except in pictos and books.

It was snow.

And it was cold.

During the day, the wind howled, numbing their noses and fingers, and blowing Trow's light cape out so hard it was hardly any use. Kaikara's bare arms were red and chapped, and her eyes watered, dripping freezing water onto her already-frozen cheeks. Trow, as skinny as he was, constantly shivered, and Kaikara was a little worried about him.

The night was better. It was far colder at night, but they were usually able to find little caves and dens beneath the dense lower branches of the fir trees, where they could gather fallen branches around them and huddle together for warmth. The branches shielded them from the wind and their body heat made it all a bit more tolerable.

Kaikara did begin to see signs of civilization as they traveled, however, such as broken weapons and other leavings from the garrison that had manned the fort Zaeraja spoke of. They were heading in the right direction, at least; she did not like to think what would happen if they got lost up here in this cursed wasteland. She had been taught in school that there were some tribes of people who actually lived in cold such as this and could not fathom it.

At last, as they neared the peak, she caught sight of stone walls, frosted over with snow and ice.

There it is!" she called, pointing, her reddened hand shaking with cold. She took a step, and a second later she was on her back, her body numbed not just with cold, but with impact. She had slipped on the ice that hid beneath the blanket of snow, so quickly she'd not even had a chance to yell in surprise before she landed.

"You okay?" Trow asked, his voice shaking as he carefully approached.

Kaikara groaned, sitting up. The cold ate into her skin, her thin clothing no protection against it. Her hat, another thing she had not been wearing until now, was also frosted with snow, and the legs of her breeches above her boots were soaked through and icy—and now her rear end was bruised. She scowled.

"Yeah," she said, hurrying to get on her feet and off the cold snow. But it was too late; the back of her trousers from the rump down were now soaked and freezing. She swore viciously.

"I'm cold," whined Trow, but Kaikara was not cross with him as she had been in the past. She was utterly sympathetic; she felt rather like whining, too, but there was no one to whine to.

"I know," she said. "Come on—it'll be warmer inside." She paused, then added in a cold-shaky voice, "I hope."

The walk would normally have taken less than an hour, but not here, not in this icy purgatory. The trees had thinned out greatly as they approached the peak, and the wind howled, unimpeded, around them. Kaikara knew it was not possible, but it felt like the ice-cold wind went straight through her body, freezing her from the inside out. She was shivering so hard she could barely walk and her bare arms were chapped and red. Trow looked just as miserable, his cheeks and the tips of his ears looking as red and chapped as her arms. She herself could hardly feel those parts of her body.

Trow had slipped once in the ice, bruising his knee and elbow, and Kaikara slipped once more, skidding into a sharp outcrop of rock and cutting a gash open in her shin. She howled in surprised pain and scrambled to her feet, grimacing, her teeth clenched. "I hate mountains!" she snarled to the wind, which seemed to rise in pitch in reply. Their progress was slow and painful.

But they did make progress.

Four hours after Kaikara had spotted the walls of the fortress, she and Trow stood at its door, which rose at least twice as high as she was tall. Maybe thrice. In the second before her hand grasped the icy-coated handle of the door, she had the awful and morbidly hilarious thought that it was going to be locked, that the last of the soldiers who had held this fort had left the door latched from inside, and they would not be able to get inside.

She did not have time to panic at the thought. The door opened easily, so easily that she almost fell backwards, catching herself only at the last minute. She had fallen enough times in the past few days and was not about to do it anymore if she could help it.

Trow did not even giggle at her near-fall. He only scuttled through the doorway, his stiff hands clenched so tightly his knuckles were white. Kaikara followed Trow into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her.

The entrance hall was narrow and not dark, as Kaikara had expected. She had not lingered outside long enough to inspect the building, and so had not noticed the narrow windows that lined one of the walls. Arrow-slots, she thought. The windows let in enough of the dim light from outside that she could at least see well enough to perceive where she was walking—mostly.

It was still very cold, but the wind did not howl, and what air came through the narrow windows was not enough to blow onto her and Trow. It was still miserable, but not as bad as it had been outside.

It seemed to be a guardroom of some sort, with a wooden table covered in papers of some sort, and two cots along the wall to one side. These had blankets, Kaikara was glad to realize! She and Trow could take those on the way out and perhaps not be quite as miserable.

There was a small basin with a pump handle, and Kaikara tried it curiously to see if it still worked. She pumped the handle several times and nothing happened; either it was broken or frozen. Probably frozen. Seconds later, she found a locked door and kicked it in frustration. She hated locked doors.

"Maybe there are torches here," said Trow hopefully, "like in the ruins."

The idea was a hopeful one, and Kaikara nodded in agreement. "Maybe."

She squinted around, trying to make out the slim, long shapes of wall torches around the room, but the gloom was thick, and the dust in the room was thicker. She could not tell if there were torches in the room or not.

Trow squeaked suddenly in excitement as he found a half-open door. Kaikara was at first alarmed, but when Trow's muffled voice came back to her saying, "I found stuff!" she relaxed. She made her way over to where Trow stood, squinting her eyes as much as possible, trying to make out what was inside the cupboard. It was nearly impossible, but Trow was feeling around the storage area with his hands, looking for something useful.

And he found it. "Matches!" he cried happily. "Kaikara, I found matches!"

"All right!" Kaikara cried. "Great job! Let's light one."

Trow did as she asked fumbling around with the box for a moment before Kaikara heard the scratch and hiss of the match lighting, shielding her eyes from its sudden, small gleam.

It was nice to be able to see better, even if it was only a little bit. Kaikara took the box and grabbed another match, wanting to explore the room before the matches went out. All in all, it took five matches before they found what they had hoped for: torches. There were four of them along the walls, and Kaikara could not help a crow of triumph at the sight of them. She jumped up onto one of the cots, reaching up to the torch which sat on the wall above it, and touched her match to it.

She was afraid that whatever fuel had been used on it would have long since dried out, but she was in luck; the torch blazed up at once, and she could smell hot pitch. She was amazed it had lasted so long, but she was not about to question it. She was far too grateful for the light and warmth.

Kaikara laid the torch on the stone floor and she and Trow crouched by it, warming themselves. The smell of burning dust made them cough and their eyes water, but neither said a word. They were too cold to think about moving away. Kaikara sighed in relief as feeling began to return to her fingers and toes, her ears and cheeks. They began to tingle, and then hurt, but she could deal with that; it was worth it to be warm.

After thawing a bit, Trow wandered back over to the closet, looking inside to see what else was there, and Kaikara followed him with the torch. There were two more boxes of matches, which Trow took and set down on the table. (Kaikara saw the papers on them were charts and maps, with several charcoal pencils nearby.) He found some uniforms, so dusty that the particles flew up and sizzled in the flames of the torch when Trow moved them. He coughed and drew back, and Kaikara sneezed, making the torch flame flutter.

There was a canteen, which Kaikara added to the matches, and a small bag meant to be worn over one's shoulder like a main carrier's delivery bag. She took that, too. Kaikara said they could grab the items they had found and the blankets from the cots on their way out. Trow found a pouch full of rupees and tied it to his belt.

There was not much more in the little closet, and she and Trow finally went over to sit on the cots, taking a bit more time to rest and warm up. Still, they could not spend much time here. Kaikara was still nervous about what might den here in this old fortress, and she wanted to get away from this place as soon as possible.

There was a third door in this guardroom, and Kaikara stood up with the torch, looking at it. "C'mon, let's go. And be careful." She thought this door would lead into the main area of the fortress; if it did not, then Kaikara would have no idea how to proceed. "The Owl said there're monsters in here." She didn't know what kind of "monsters" might be here, but she was ready for about anything. "Come on."

Trow nodded, the bright red of his hood bobbing up and down in the gloom, and the two of them walked along, huddling close together for what warmth their torch had to share.

Kaikara was confronted by a bluish blur the second they stepped through the door. It came at her from above, a blaze of what looked like blue fire, and Kaikara yelled in alarm. Before she had time to even see what it was, how big it was, or even what shape it was, it had hit her.

A horrid, ice-cold paralysis hit her, spreading through her body in seconds, and the torch dropped from her hands. She could not move, could not escape the unnatural, freezing cold that held her still, clouding her vision, damping the sound of Trow's alarmed cry. She tried to scream, panicked, but could not move. She could not move her limbs, could not move her eyes, or even force in a breath through her shocked lungs.

The paralysis did not last long, but in her panic, it seemed like hours. A shattering sound nearly deafened her, and her body was suddenly released from its bonds. She staggered, gasping in a breath and letting it out in a shocked sob. Her shivering intensified, and a thin sheen of icy water coated her body.

Trow cried out again, ducking from something that had dove at him, and Kaikara finally saw what was attacking them: Keese. Ice Keese. The kind that flew about coated in icy flames, the kind who hunted by coating their prey with ice long enough for them to make the kill. Trow and Kaikara were not small enough to be hunted, but the Keese did not seem to care. They were ten times more aggressive then the ordinary Keese Kaikara was used to dealing with.

Trow had his bow out and aimed at the flock of Keese. He had taken one down already but it was difficult for him to fire while ducking their horrid attack. Though Kaikara could now barely feel her arms, she forced herself to move them, grabbing for the Master Sword, only grasping the hilt after two tries. She pulled the blade and sliced toward one of the icy beasts going for Trow, slicing it in half. It shattered like ice, its twitching pieces landing with a glass-like tinkle on the stone floor

The other Keese did not slow, but she and Trow were able to kill the rest of them, until the floor was littered with icy bits of Keese. Shuddering uncontrollably, Kaikara stared at them, her face pale and strained. "What the HELL!" She looked at Trow, expecting him to say he had read about them before, but he could only shake his head. Apparently these creatures were beyond what he had ever learned. Kaikara herself had heard of them but thought they were myth.

She should be getting used to that!

"A-are you okay?" Trow asked, retrieving his arrows. He had only half a dozen or so left, but at least he was able to recover all of them this time.

Kaikara still felt cold, and the parts that had frozen solid began to throb with horrible pain. Still, the feeling was returning to them, and that was something. "I th-think so," she said through teeth that wanted to chatter. "Those things are horrible…."

Trow did not argue. Instead he looked around the strange chamber they had walked into. It was not dark, even though only the one torch they had brought in was lit. A domed ceiling, made of a material she at first thought was glass but after a moment thought just might be some kind of transparent, polished rock, spread above them, letting in the gray light from outside. The chamber was round, and beyond them stretched several pathways of black stone. These pathways were bridges that spanned a huge pool of water, water that was sluggish with ice and debris. Kaikara peered down at this pool of water without understanding—what could such a place be for?

Trow looked just as fascinated, and just as wary, but stayed away from the edge of the pathway. There were no railings, and Kaikara remembered that he could not swim. She had meant to begin teaching him, but had never gotten around to it; they had been a bit distracted by other matters for much of their journey.

Kaikara caught movement in several places, and she thought she might recognize some of what roamed the strange fortress. Spidery figures hopped and scuttled about on the stone, and she thought they might be what were called Tektites. She had seen only one or two in her life, and her father had warned that they were dangerous and aggressive. Kaikara was not thrilled to see them.

This chamber, at least, was rather warmer than the previous ones, though the air still seemed to bite her skin. And as she looked around, she saw torches on the walls, one for each spoke of the wheel configuration the walkways made. Shaking, she reached for the nearest one, only just able to grab it by standing up on her toes, and used the first torch to light it.

She had not yet touched the flame to this torch before it blazed up, seemingly on its own, and the smell of pitch filled the air around them. Kaikara blinked, looking back and forth between her own torch and this new one. She looked at Trow, who shrugged, and Kaikara sighed…she did not want to try and figure this one out. Her head already hurt.

Instead, she stood on her toes, grabbed the new torch, and handed it to Trow.

He took the torch from her and just stood there, looking around in awe. Kaikara took the opportunity to stand very close to the flame, setting her own torch on the floor in order to warm her lower half, to try and get rid of the horrid cold from the ice Keese. She kept a sharp eye on the creatures that surrounded them, and kept looking upwards so she would not be caught by surprise by the ice Keese again. Nothing bothered them, at least not yet.

Eventually, Kaikara sighed with relief. She did not want to admit it, even to herself, but she had been very scared. Heat was something she understood. Pain and injuries were things that she had suffered before and thus understood, but the cold was a terrifying new enemy, and it had scared her.

Finally, she felt she could continue. When she asked Trow if he was also ready, he nodded, and the two of them stood. They grasped the torches and faced the pathways in front of them.

The pathways spoked out like those of a wagon wheel, each spoke leading to a different door; they all looked the same, and Kaikara realized it would be very easy to lose one's bearings here. She and Trow stood at the end of one spoke, and in front of them was a circular area that was the hub of the wheel. "Why do you think they did it this way?" she asked.

But Trow could only shake his head. "I don't know…it's weird."

It was weird. Was this really a fortress, or was it something else? To her knowledge, fortresses were usually plainer and less convoluted than what lay before them now. "I guess we just try doors?" Kaikara asked.

Trow nodded, but he looked nervously down at the icy water below then glared at the narrow pathways. "I don't like these."

Kaikara did not like them either, and she did know how to swim. But not in water that was half ice, not in water that was several yards below the bridge on which she stood. So far as she could see, there was no way out of the water that roiled below them. Kaikara asked Trow for one of the Mogma Mitts he still wore, wanting a backup weapon in case she needed it. He nodded and handed one over, the left one, and Kaikara put it on. She kept her sword hand free, however, covered only with the gauntlet that had come with the hero's garb she now wore.

"Just…stay in the middle of the trail," she said. She smiled reassuringly at Trow, hoping she looked more confident than she felt, then looked back to the hub. It was time to explore this place.

The "monsters" the Owl had mentioned were not monsters like the shadowbeings Kaikara had fought, but natural creatures that had apparently taken shelter in the old fort. But they were large, aggressive, and threatening, and Kaikara intended to avoid them at all costs. Unfortunately, that would prove to be much more difficult than it sounded.

They made it to the hub without confrontation, but every other spoke on the wheel had some sort of beast roaming around it, almost as if they were on patrol. Kaikara supposed that if they had not come here of their own volition, that it was even possible that some fell magic could have set them on these routines, hoping to deter any outsiders from penetrating the secrets of the fortress. Either way, they were a problem.

Kaikara looked around and finally chose a spoke that had only two red Tektites running around on it, their sharp, metal-hard legs clicking on the stone walkway. She stepped in front of Trow, feeling the comforting warmth of his torch at her back, the Master Sword drawn and ready in front of her, and slowly walked onto the bridge.

The moment her foot hit the spoke, the Tektites turned to her, their single glaring eye glinting dangerously at her. She froze, her eyes wide; this was not normal behavior, even for so violent a beast. She was now certain that she had been right, and that someone had put these creatures here to guard the door.

She took a big breath and readied her sword.

A Tektite's weak spot was its single, glass-like eye. Her father said that the beasts had supposedly been part machine once, and that they had procreated and evolved this formidable form, but she was not sure how true that was. Still, they were tough and quick, and the walkway was narrow.

Kaikara backed up a step (Trow backed up quickly as well so she could not back into the flame of the torch), hoping to lure them onto the hub of the wheel, but the moment her foot left the walkway, the Tektites resumed their aimless wandering, not approaching.

"Jerks," Kaikara hissed. She was going to have to fight them where they were. She set down the torch she held and faced them once more.

Kaikara was lucky this time. She ran onto the walkway, hoping to catch them by surprise, thrusting forward with the blade of the Master Sword. Her move was quick, and the creature's eye shattered. It let out a screech so high-pitched that Kaikara could scarcely hear it, and drew back, scuttling away from her on the stone. She flashed a foot out at it, kicking it toward the end of the walkway, and he slipped over the side, clutching for a moment the edge of the bridge. But the stone was slick, not quite icy but wet, and it fell to the water below.

The second Tektite attacked while Kaikara was distracted, and its sharp, lance-like front legs stabbed out at her. She was able to avoid one of the legs, but the other sank into her side, the sharp, narrow tip slipping through her chain-mail armor and piercing her side. The wound was not deep, thanks to her armor, but it hurt, and she cried out. She swung the Master Sword at the creature, knocking it aside, but the blade itself only bounced off of its natural armor.

The thing made another run at her and Kaikara this time landed a blow on its eye, shattering the solid organ and making it screech that strange, barely audible cry. This one did not fall off the walkway but rushed past her, heading straight for Trow, who jumped back from it. But it did not attack; it only fled.

Kaikara did not waste time watching it. She grabbed Trow's hand and the two of them made a run for the door the Tektites had been guarding.

This door was not locked, but the narrow passageway they found themselves in was small and dark. It was enclosed, however, which was a relief to both of them, and Trow's torch shed enough light to see by. Kaikara took a moment to listen, heard nothing alarming (yet), and moved on. In this enclosed area, the torch warmed her almost to a level that was comfortable.

Almost.

Kaikara and Trow did not encounter beasts or monsters in these corridors, but they wandered through many twists and turns, often having to choose between two different paths—or even among three or four paths. After four or five of these turns, Kaikara was completely lost—and very frustrated. What was this insane place for?

Only luck brought them to a door. Already tired and frustrated, Kaikara let out an inarticulate sound that expressed her relief. It was about time they found the way out! As Trow stood aside so she could reach past the torch, she grasped the handle and pulled it open.

When she stepped out, her cry was of dismay and outrage. What she saw ahead of her was the same wheel hub of walkways, spanning the same great pool of water. And the bridge in front of her swarmed with Tektites, twice as many as had patrolled it before. She swore, her face twisted into an expression of anger. "What IS this place?"

But Trow understood. He stepped up beside her, eyeing the Tektites warily. "It's a maze," he said, and his voice was small and frightened. Kaikara suddenly understood something, too. If this pattern continued, every time they stepped back onto the spokes of the wheel, then the monsters would increase in number. She swallowed hard.

The Tektites turned, their eyes glinting, and Kaikara readied her sword.

An hour later, Kaikara had learned something else: the maze was huge, complex, and infuriating. Kaikara and Trow had wandered through so many hallways that she had lost count, and fought so many vicious creatures that she was almost getting used to them.

In the corridors themselves, there patrolled no monsters, but they encountered several obstacles and booby traps. One hallway had slots in its walls, and it was only dumb luck that Kaikara first walked down it, for the daggers that shot from the slots bounced off her armor. She and Trow had to crawl along on the floor to get past them.

Another hallway had a pool of water that was ice cold. Kaikara and Trow did not want to cross it, but a barrier had automatically slid down behind them, barring the way, and they had no choice. The pool was deep, and Kaikara had to help Trow across as well as keeping herself afloat in the freezing water. Trow did know how to dog paddle, but the cold made his limbs sluggish, and the swim across was exhausting and numbing. It had also put out their torch.

That, at least, was replaceable. Some of the inner corridors were lighted by identical torches, and she grabbed one of those.

She had been right about the monsters, too. They multiplied every time they stepped back onto the bridge hub, and she had taken a lot of damage. Her arms and legs were covered in cuts and scrapes, and as she walked out onto one walkway, she was charged at by what looked to her like a huge rat with a battle helm. It rammed her, knocking her to one side of the walkway, and she had nearly plunged into the icy waters below. She caught herself at the last minute, grasping the edge of the walkway, while Trow aimed an arrow at the thing's backside. The arrow struck and it turned, furious, charging the boy who had shot it.

Trow was able to dodge the creature without falling, while Kaikara scrambled to get back onto the walkway, clenching at the pain in her bruised side. Trow loosed another arrow as Kaikara gained the walkway once more, and she lunged at the thing to deal it a final blow. It cried out in agitation, keeling over, its legs kicking for only a moment before it stilled. Shuddering, Kaikara shoved the creature over the side.

Trow suddenly called a warming, pointing up and Kaikara yelled—a flock of ice Keese flew at her, and she threw herself to the ground, avoiding the first attack. She swiped her blade at them and took one out of the sky as it swooped at her, and Trow fired one of his last arrows. Kaikara sliced another Keese when Trow looked down at the torch that he had somehow managed to keep a hold of this entire time. His eyes widened, and he grabbed for the torch, thrusting this at the Keese instead of shooting at them.

The second the fire touched the closest of the Keese, it shrieked and disappeared in a spray of acrid mist. Kaikara stared, amazed, and then beamed proudly at Trow. "Now that's smart!" she exclaimed. She had never thought to use the torch as a weapon! And against a creature of ice, it was a formidable tool. "Great idea—I bet it would work on the Tektites, too—maybe those rat things, too!" she said. The battle helms the charging rodents wore were metal, and would heat up quickly. Surely the torch would drive them back.

The torch did work as a decent weapon, but a half-hour later, Kaikara was shaking with fatigue. The twisting corridor they had just blundered through had been filled with slick chutes of ice, and the slightest miscalculation would have sent them both flying off the edge of these slides and into what looked like an endless chasm. Even Kaikara was terrified as they slipped and slid down them, clutching each other, trying desperately not to slew off to one side or another. Kaikara vowed to avoid that door at all costs in the future.

Finally, she told Trow that they needed to retreat, that they needed to rest. Panting, Trow could only nod at Kaikara in agreement, and the two of them began to cross the chasm toward the door they knew led to the guardroom. They knew which door it was because it was at the end of the only pathway which was clear of monsters

Trow was caught from behind by one of the ice Keese on the way across the hub, and Kaikara saw his eyes widen in panic, and then freeze solid as the blue flames touched him. Kaikara snarled at the Keese, who then turned around to fly at her, but she met it with her sword, cleaving it in half as it flew toward her. A second and a third beast flew at her and she cut them before they could touch her. She hated this place! She hated it more than any other thing she had ever met, except maybe for Ghirahim himself.

Trow had thawed from the attack by the time she got rid of the rest of the Keese, and he was shivering. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and his torch had been frozen. Kaikara put an arm around his shoulders and they made a break for the guardroom door.

The guardroom was cold, but Kaikara was never so glad to set foot in it. She was still damp from the freezing pool of water that two of them had had to cross, and again shivered with cold, but it was still better to be here than out there, where everything that moved seemed to want to attack them. She did not, however, have the urge to give up. She was more certain than ever that what they needed was here, and that they had to overcome their trials to get what lay within.

Trow staggered over to one of the cots that lined the far wall, trying hard to stop crying. Kaikara set her own torch on the floor nearby and sat next to him, both huddling together in the room, long enough to at least stop shivering so violently. Once they had both calmed enough to think, Trow grasped the torch he had been holding and asked Kaikara if she could grab the matches from the table. Kaikara said he should just light it on her torch and he gave her a sheepish grin. "Good idea." He bent down, holding his torch over Kaikara's, and it finally blazed into life.

As she and Trow warmed themselves, Kaikara wracked her brain, trying to figure out how to deal with this cursed fortress. Blundering around blindly was getting them nowhere, and Kaikara did not want to deal with any more monsters. Trow was sick of them, too. He had not taken as much damage as she had, but he still had some bruises and scrapes. They both looked as if they had come out the worst of a nasty brawl.

Kaikara rubbed her aching head. She had never expected that thinking could make one's head hurt.

Trow sat quietly on his cot, his torch leaned up against a corner of the room. He had moved the bunk as close to the torch as possible without setting it and himself on fire. He sat quietly, his eyes distant, and Kaikara supposed that he, too, was thinking.

Suddenly, Trow looked up, his eyes widening a little.. "Kaikara—is there a charcoal here? Something that'll make marks on the walls?"

It was a very strange request, and Kaikara gave Trow a very odd look. "Um, there are some on the table," she said. "Do you want to write a letter?"

This made Trow giggle softly, and he shook his head. "No," he said, getting up from the cot. He stepped up to the table and leaned over it, grabbing one of the charcoal pencils. He stepped back, clutching his prize, and headed for the door that led back to the hub of walkways. Kaikara grabbed their torches and ran after him, shouting for him to wait. "Take this!" she said roughly, grabbing his arm before he could open the door, shoving one torch into his hand. "There'll be monsters outside!"

He gave her a sheepish look and took the torch. When he had an idea, or had something he wanted to do, he sometimes forgot about everything else around him. It was a dangerous way to be at times. Like now. "Sorry."

Kaikara sighed, putting her hand on the doorknob. "It's okay," she said. She had given up trying to figure out what Trow was doing, and had decided to simply let him do it. His ideas were usually good ones.

When Kaikara opened the door, there were no monsters waiting for her. She blinked, first surprised, and then suspicious. While she did not like the creatures that had caused her so much pain and trouble, but she liked their sudden disappearance even less. Was something yet worse waiting for them?

She and Trow exchanged an uneasy look. Kaikara took a deep breath and began to walk, ready for anything.

But there did not seem to be anything to be ready for. The two of them reached the door across from them without being hindered by anything, and the door opened as easily as it had before. Trow held his torch up as they walked in, and made a large, dark mark on the door they had just come through. Kaikara did not immediately understand what he was doing, but when Trow made a mark on the wall at the first fork in the road, she got it. He was marking their course so they did not retrace their steps.

It was the right thing to do. As Trow marked more and more of their course, Kaikara began to realize the maze was not nearly as big as she had thought. Many of the twists and turns simply wound around and connected with each other, making the maze seem to go on forever. Once they had marked out the clear course, it was easy to figure out where they were.

No obstacles barred their way this time, and Kaikara did not try to figure out the magic that ruled this fortress. Her head hurt enough. All she could figure was that once they stared using their heads (okay, Trow's head) the monsters and traps disappeared. Each time they cleared a maze, the torches beside the entrance and exit doors blazed up on its own, as the first one had.

Finally there remained only one door, and she and Trow stood in front of it, holding their torches up. Trow made a final charcoal mark on it, turned to Kaikara, and smiled. Kaikara smiled, then frowned, cocking her head.

From behind the door came a sound that made her a little leery. There was a snarl of frustration, a horrible clanging of metal against stone, and another snarl—and it was a familiar voice. Kaikara bit her lip and readied her sword. She did not want to go in and see who was there, or what he (she?) was doing, but there was no choice. There was no way she and Trow had gone through all of this only to turn around and retreat.

Kaikara took a big breath, put her hand on the chilly door handle…and opened the door.

The second she and Trow stepped into the next room, the door shut behind them, and a barred gate slammed down in front of it, preventing them from going back through. Her heart suddenly pounding, Kaikara spun around, grabbing for the door knob through the barred gate, but the handle did not budge. She swore, turned back around…and then swore again.

They were not alone in the chamber.

A slim, white-clad figure knelt in the center of the room, a black sword in his hands, a steel pillar rising from the floor in front of him. He seemed to be trying to pry off the top of the pillar, as if it were a lid. A red cape hung from his shoulders. The figure spun around, his face twisted in a snarl of rage. "You!" he growled, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Ghirahim!" Kaikara cried, her own tone half indignation and half fear.

Kaikara reached behind her, her mind racing frantically, grabbing for her shield, but Ghirahim did not give her a chance to do much else. He stood up, leaping up onto the steel pillar he had apparently been trying to break, and glared blazingly down at Kaikara. "I don't have time to deal with you, Hero," he said, spitting the word out with such venom that Kaikara grimaced. "I need to find a way to get into this obelisk." His snarl turned into a sadistic grin. "But I don't intend for you to get out of here alive. I'll come back later to see how many pieces you end up in!"

With that, Ghirahim raised one hand, snapped his fingers, and huge chasms suddenly appeared in the floor they were standing in. Trow let out a cry of startlement as the chasms filled with water, leaving only narrow walkways that mimicked the hub room they had spent so much time trying to navigate.

Kaikara looked frantically around before looking back to Ghirahim, her eyes wide. "What did you do?" she demanded. "What did you do, you—"

Ghirahim did not answer, except to laugh and snap his fingers once more. As he disappeared in a flurry of diamond shapes, Kaikara saw something move in the water beneath them. She watched, horror rising in her heart, as the unspeakable thing oozed in the water beneath them. Whatever it was, it was huge. It slid beneath the hub of the walkways, disappearing from sight.

Breathing hard, shaky with fear, Kaikara backed toward the barred door, one arm out in front of Trow, meaning to shield him from whatever it was that Ghirahim had set on them. Her eyes darted around, looking for the creature below them, but there was no movement for at least a full minute.

"What is it?" Trow whispered.

Before Kaikara could answer, a huge splash of water burst from the water that now surrounded them…and an enormous, gelatinous…thing rose toward the ceiling, throbbing with obscene energy, its blunt end swinging blindly around. It looked like an earthworm, or the tentacle of a squid, except that it was thicker than Kaikara's entire body and so long it disappeared into the water while its tip early reached the high, arched ceiling. Her heart seemed to shrivel in her chest at the sight of it.

"We're dead," she whispered.