I shifted my attention from War and back to our surroundings. More statues lined the hall, except there were far more of them down here than above, and they were also in a lot of different positions.
The ones above fascinated me, but these caused an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I turned the flame to Bale to illuminate the pallor of her skin and the whiteness of her compressed lips as she stared around the cavern with wild eyes.
“Are you okay?” I rested my hand near the blood seeping onto her shirt.
“I’m fine,” she muttered. “It’s already healing, and so is my hand.”
I glanced at the hand resting in her lap. It was black and blue and looked more like a lump of dirt than a hand. I ground my teeth together as I took in the damage that asshole had inflicted on her. Then she tilted her head back to look above us.
Lifting the flame higher, I returned my attention to the hole we fell through. Zorn now stood there with his head hanging through the hole. He snorted and stomped his hooves off the rocks.
“Go!” I commanded. “Get out of the tunnels and get outside before the others return. I’ll find you as soon as I can.”
“Shh,” Bale whispered.
Zorn snorted again and stomped his hooves one more time before vanishing. I stared at the hole, hoping he would get free of the tunnels before the others returned. They couldn’t kill him, but they could keep him from me. I’d rather have my eyes poked out every day for a thousand years than endure the loss of Zorn.
Finally, I turned my flame back to discover Bale staring at me.
“This is bad. This is so very,verybad,” she whispered.
“War is dead.”
“This is worse than War. This is… This is… We’ve fallen throughthedarkness.”
“The darkness from your dreams?”
“Yes. I finally know what’s been coming for me.”
Despite her paleness and the small tremor in her voice, she lifted her chin higher, and her eyes blazed with determination.
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“Eldorata. The darkness is Eldorata.”
I glanced at the golden walls surrounding us. “And what is Eldorata?”
She lifted a hand to her forehead and took a deep breath; she held it before slowly releasing it. “Of course, the darkness would be Mytaz.”
“I’m confused. Is the darkness Mytaz or Eldorata?”
“It’s both. Mytaz is a demon last seen about three hundred years ago. He terrorized demons for a couple of hundred years before that, but he mainly stuck to his little corner of Hell. A corner he named Eldorata. It wasn’t until he started to expand out of Eldorata that Kobal decided it was time to eradicate him.”
“Of course, the varcolac decided he should be judge and jury.”
The look she sent me could have withered a calamut. “You have no idea the havoc and misery Mytaz inflicted before then. He had to be destroyed.”
“What did he do that was so bad?”
Bale waved a hand at the golden walls. “This. He didallof this.”
I gazed at the gold surrounding us before shrugging. “So what? He liked carving statues out of hell rock and turning them an ugly color. I’m not sure how he turned them gold, but there are many secrets in Hell.”
“The statues aren’t carvings made from hell rock. They’re demons.”
I stared at her as I tried to process her words. Before I could question her further, she rose and walked away. When she disappeared into the shadows, I waited for her to come back, but she didn’t return.
I pushed myself to my feet and followed her into the darkness. The golden floor was cool and smooth beneath my bare feet, and I didn’t make a sound as I moved; neither did Bale.
