Maederysshelp me. I cannot lose him. Even if the queen decides to end his life, I won’t allow it. I will fight the Deathless, the gods, and Fate itself to keep him here.
“Humans!”
The patter of paws on stone interrupted us. Raithe pulled back as Meeka scampered toward us and slid to a stop a few feet away.
“Things ahead,” he announced. His tail bristled, and the fur along his back stood up like that of an angry sand cat. “Many things. Dead things. Humans must be careful. Many dead things roam halls. Smell rotten.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Dead things,” Raithe repeated. “Human or monster?”
“Not human. Not monster, either.” Meeka twitched his ears and looked back at the corridor. “Large dead things. Carry swords and shields. But not human.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand, Meeka.”
His tail lashed, and he leaped onto my shoulder. “Meeka will show you.”
Carefully, we ventured into the temple halls. Meeka was tense, his tail curled tightly around my neck. The corridors loomed around us, black walls radiating heat as the shadows closed over us. Dust, smoke, and the smell of sulfur mingled, scratching my throat as we continued down the pitch-black hallways.
A low, scraping raised the hairs on the back of my neck. A hollow thud, like the sound of a heavy footstep, followed, and the smell of death wafted into the corridor.
Meeka’s claws dug into my skin, and I froze. “Sparrow,” Raithe whispered behind me. “Over here.”
I quickly joined the iylvahn behind a broken section of wall, pressing myself into the hot stones. Raithe wrapped an arm around my waist, and we gazed at the end of the corridor.
The scraping and heavy footfalls continued, getting closer, until something huge and terrible lurched into view.
I dug my fingers into Raithe’s arm, and Meeka huddled down on my shoulder, ears flat to his skull. The creature standing at the break in the corridor was over nine feet tall, huge and shaggy, decayed flesh and bone poking through its rotting armor. It had the body of a massive human, but the bleached skull of a bull. An enormous two-headed axe was held in one giant claw, dragging along the floor.
The undead bull creature gazed sightlessly down the hallway. Raithe, Meeka, and I didn’t move. Finally, the terrible creature turned and continued walking, the hollow clump of its hooves and the scrape of its axe grating in my ears until it finally faded into the darkness.
Meeka uncoiled and shook himself vigorously as if flinging away the tension. “Now humans understand?” he asked.
“The Tauryss,” Raithe said. “They were a race of giants from the beginning age of the Deathless. But their kind went extinct thousands of years ago. I guess the Deathless left them here to guard the loom.”
I shivered as Raithe let me go. “Well, they certainly love to use giant dead things to populate their temples, don’t they?” I muttered. “Do you think there’s only one, or are there more?”
“More,” Meeka said. “Many. Many dead things walking around. Sometimes bump into each other. But keep walking, around and around.”
“We’ll have to be careful, then.” Raithe walked to the end of the corridor, making no sound over the stones. “Avoiding them would be best, of course.” He pressed his back to the wall and peered around the corner. “It’s clear,” he murmured. “Let’s go.”
We made our way through the dark corridors, listening for the sounds of heavy footsteps or the scrape of iron on stone.
“This isn’t just a temple,” I whispered after several minutes of walking through endless narrow hallways. “It’s a maze.”
“Yes,” Raithe agreed, gazing down another twisting path. “I’m surprised we haven’t had to deal with worse things yet, butmaybe having the Fateless with us is a shield against whatever the Deathless put here.”
I caught a shimmer of white from the corner of my eye. Whirling around, I saw something pale and ghostly vanish behind a wall, and my stomach dropped.
On my shoulder, Meeka gave me a curious look. “Why human turn around?”
“Did you see that?” I whispered, as Raithe stopped as well, his expression concerned as he looked back. “I thought I saw... something following us.”
The jair’oa twitched his large ears and cocked his head. “Meeka not see anything.”
Fateless. You have come.
A chill crept up my back. The whisper seemed to emanate from the walls and floors of the temple itself. Neither Raithe nor Meeka reacted to the sudden voice, both still gazing at me.
“I take it you two didn’t hear that, either.” I grimaced and rubbed at my temple. “Am I the only one hearing voices in the walls?”
