“I don’t know, exactly,” I whispered back. “A room and a tree. Maybe a door?”
“No tree here,” Meeka observed, gazing at the statues around us. “No doors, either. Sure Fateless is in right place?”
“I don’t...” I began, but then stopped, terror freezing the words in my throat.
We had reached the center of the room. I could tell because of the large square dais surrounded by broken statues, a flight of shattered stairs leading up to the platform. Sprawled on that platform, gleaming in the lantern’s glow, was a massive skeleton. It was not a human skeleton. The enormous, grinning skull of a bull stared down with empty eye sockets, huge, sweeping horns framing the sides of its face. In life, it must have been over fourteen feet tall, almost twice the size of the undead Tauryss roaming the maze. The skeletal body had a few dark patches of fur clinging to its arms and shoulders, but was otherwise stripped clean of flesh and cloth. An immense, rusty axe lay near one giant bony hand.
“Oh,” Meeka said in a small voice. “Bones. Meeka not wrong.”
A sigh went through the room, smelling of dust and grave dirt. And, on the platform, the monstrous skeleton stirred. Green flames lit its eye sockets, the skull lifted, and the huge undead rose to its terrible, horrifying height. The axe scraped over the ground as the creature picked it up, then turned its bleached skull in our direction.
With a roar that made the statues tremble, the monstrous undead charged down the platform and came right at us.
Twenty
We scattered and dove behind pillars as the huge bull skeleton plowed into them. Stones shattered, exploding outward or crumbling completely with the power of the undead’s attack.
“Sparrow!” Raithe drew his sword as the monster turned, shaking its horned head. “Get to the platform,” the iylvahn said, gesturing at the dais with his blade. “Find whatever it is we’re supposed to find. I’ll keep it distracted.”
The monster roared again, swinging its axe and crushing several statues as Raithe leaped away. The kahjai didn’t bother attacking it, perhaps knowing that swords would be useless against its gigantic bulk and bones. He dodged as the monster swung at him again, bringing its weapon down with a boom that shattered the stones beneath it and sent rocks flying in every direction.
Meeka and I ran for the platform. Racing up the steps, I looked around frantically, searching for anything that seemed out of place. But the dais seemed empty; broken pillars surrounded it and were scattered across the surface, but there were no doors, levers, hatches, or anything that pointed to a way out.
“Nothing here,” Meeka said, hopping onto a chunk of rock that was once a statue torso. “Human sure we went right way?”
“It has to be,” I whispered. “This is the center of the maze. There has to be something here.”
A chill went through me.Unless the Deathless never intended for anyone to find the loom piece. Unless they raised the temple around it and made it truly impossible to get to.
A crash at the edge of the dais made me flinch. Raithe was still holding the attention of the monster. He was counting on me to find a way out, to unravel this puzzle. I had to solve this; otherwise, we would all be crushed under falling pillars and grinding bones.
“Where is it?” I hissed after a few more seconds of futile searching. This wasn’t right. Why would the ghostly figure lead me here if there was nothing?
A roar in the darkness reminded me that time was running out, and I slammed a fist into a pillar in desperation. “Void, I don’t even know what I’m looking for! But we must be missing something.”
“Wait.”
Meeka froze, tail up and ears twitching. “Meeka feel something,” he said as I rushed to his side, kneeling on the broken stone surface. “Here,” the jair’oa said, tapping the ground with his paws. “Feel here.”
I hovered my hand over the rocks and felt a cold wind gusting up from a crack in the surface. “The platform is hollow,” I gasped. “There’s something beneath the floor.”
“Is hole,” Meeka said. “Meeka can smell different air.” He scratched at the cracked stones with tiny claws. “Not easy to get to, though. Meeka can’t break ground.”
I slammed the hilt of my dagger into the stones, barely making a dent in the rocky surface. Air wafted from the crack,smelling of sand and confirming my suspicion. Somehow, we had to break through this floor made of solid rock.
A tremor of fear went through me, but I pushed it down and rose, steeling myself for what I had to do. “I know what will,” I told the jair’oa, who cocked his head at me. “Go hide, Meeka. Hopefully, this will work.”
The roars of the giant skeleton made the ground tremble as I rushed to the edge of the dais, scanning the room for Raithe and the monster. I could see the creature’s skull looming over the maze of statues.
“Raithe!” I called into the darkness, hoping he would hear me over the cacophony of howls and breaking stone. “I think found the way out! But we have to bring that thing up here! It’s beneath the platform—”
The huge skeleton turned its head at the sound of my voice, the sickly flames in its eye sockets glowing brighter. With a roar, it charged, smashing through pillars in explosions of rock and plowing its way toward me.
Okay, that got its attention.
I scrambled into the center of the dais, hearing the thunderous footfalls of the monster smashing its way up the stairs. Spinning around, I gazed up at the hulking monstrosity of bone and hair as it lumbered onto the platform, cloven hooves crushing the stones beneath it. Peering down with those sickly green flames, it let out a roar that shook the pillars and the entire dais.
“Sparrow!”
