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And that’s precisely what it was. A wrongness. The magic in this place wasn’t dark, it wasn’t evil—it was just wrong.
Like the man without a face, I thought absently, though it was doubtful they were in any way connected.
Each rune in the circle was a little bit different from its neighbor, except at the north and south points, where a set of six identical ones appeared. Exit and entry points, perhaps?
I stopped when I reached the tunnel entrance again and studied the walls themselves. There appeared to be another exit to the left, but on closer inspection, it proved to be little more than a niche. Whoever had built this place obviously used it for storage, because it was filled with an odd assortment of things—including a shovel, a crowbar, a hammer, and various-sized jars of nails. The sort of stuff you’d need if you wanted to repair a floor or bury a body.
I shivered, and hoped like hell we got out of this damn hole long before we had to worry about either of those things.
“Now what?” Jak crossed his arms and stared at the pillars thoughtfully. “Do we attempt to breach the magic?”
“Nope, we use our ‘ring a friend’ option.” I dug the phone out of my pocket, hit the vid-button, then called Ilianna.
“You found something?” she said by way of hello.
“Yeah. I need you to tell me what it is. Hang on and I’ll show you.” I turned the phone around and did a slow sweep of the cavern.
“Fuck,” she said. “That’s some heavy-duty magic they have happening there.”
“But what sort of magic?”
“I have no idea what the script on the pillars is, but it’s obviously some form of gateway.”
“To heaven, hell, or somewhere in between?”
“I’d guess in between, if that’s where earth falls in that little list.”
I supposed that was something. At the very least, it meant we didn’t have the immediate worry of hellhounds making a sudden appearance. I walked around to the north point. “Does this signify an exit or entrance?”
“The pattern the stones are placed in suggest exit. The entrance should be the other side.”
“How can identical rocks form a pattern?” I walked around to the other side.
“They’re not identical to the trained eye.”
I shoved the phone down so she could see the stones, and she added, “Yep, that’s it.”
“And is there anything in these runes that would stop Jak and me leaving via this gate?”
“Other than the fact that it would be sheer stupidity, you mean?”
I grinned. “Yeah, other than that.”
“Um, Ris—” Jak said.
I made a “quiet” motion with my hand as Ilianna said, “I honestly don’t know.” She hesitated. “The runes shouldn’t offer a problem, but as I said, I can’t read the script on the pillars so I really have no idea just what might happen or even how to activate them.”
“Ris—” Jak intervened again.
“What?” I said, looking up in exasperation.
He waved a hand at the pillars. Light shimmered between them, as if it were a mirror catching the first sickly rays of the day.
“Oh, fuck,” I said. “The pillars just activated.”
“Then get the hell out of there!”
“Love to, but we’re stuck underground in a fucking cavern. Call you back.”
