"Up."
I groaned and pretended I was liquid. Liquid had no nerves and could melt into the ground flawlessly, never to lift, never to rise above the soil and gather itself wholly enough to obtain a glimmer of consciousness. Never to feel aches.
What a wonder is that? To never feel pain? If my murky memories - no, not even memories, just a watery background, a dim context - were correct, pain was omnipresent. It was a part of everything, a piece of every last crumbling thing on this earth, and yet it itself was eternal. It was a deity all its own.
And so more out of curiosity than anything else, I wanted to be liquid again, to see just how completely I could escape Pain and break the laws of the world. Just to see. To experience. What would it be like?
"Up, Tribe-killer! Now!"
Pain was suddenly very close, however. It shot up my right arm so fast I forgot all about liquid sleep and jolted up with a sharp cry.
I instantly regretted it. My body shrieked in protest. An involuntary sound slid past my lips, burning and bubbling in my wounded throat, and I slumped back onto the cold ground.
Solid ground. No cracks for liquid to seep into here.
The set of jaws clamped on my right triceps vanished slowly, each tooth leaving pulsing signatures in my arm. A wet muzzle thrust itself into my face and sniffed furiously. The sound was like a freaking hurricane and the smell was vile.
"Tribe-killer," the thing growled angrily.
I was not in the mood to converse with this thing. My eyes cracked open and I did my best to give it the same glare Bianca had given me the day I proudly showed her the magnum opus of my vocab-absorbtion skills and then told her she should be glad I was smart enough to use that offensive four-letter word correctly rather than yelling.
I don't think it worked.
The thing was massive. Seven feet tall, maybe, with the hulking head of a maned, snarling wolf. It had a coat of fur like ash-stained snow and eyes of glowing, indifferent blue. It had the expression of a man greatly displeased. "Up," he spat, and then stood roughly. I saw the blur of his pale hind paw swim past my eyes as he went.
Some part of my mind was a little denser than the seeping mush the rest of it was, and it made me move. That little bit realized that things were going to hurt a lot more if I disobeyed my captor. Better to face the horrors coming on my wobbly, turncoat feet than leave it all to the enemy, to the maze.
My part of the game board was still not all that grand. But it still was mine.
So I sat up unsteadily and only then did I realize that I wasn't dead.
I'm alive. Look at that, the notion arrived rather dully.
My gaze lifted to the giant dog-man. We were still in a narrow, dark place, so it must've been in a corridor. Still in the maze. He was standing straight with nose and ears pointed forward. From where light came from. A bright, painful, troubling light. I had a bad feeling about it. It ended our little hallway here but I knew very, very well that it wasn't an exit.
"Fight-place," the dog scowled without looking at me. "We needing across. No bridge. Must fight." The last word was snarled with either disgust or pleasure; I couldn't tell which.
Another heartbeat, another pulse of pain from too many places. My wounded leg, my throat, my temple. "I can't," I said simply.
"Will. Needing impressive not. Bloodtooth win. You be Bloodtooth prize. Bloodtooth be bridge for us both. You obey Bloodtooth. Obey!"
I wasn't quite sure who Bloodtooth was and my mind couldn't figure it out any more than I could walk through walls. I just grunted. Whatever, by this point. Whatever.
I normally would insist that simply waiting for an option to open up is suicide and stupid. The maze doesn't open options up for you, especially when it's on the brink of a bloody victory. But right then, about the only thing I understood was that there was nothing else for me to do.
From somewhere nearby, a loud noise erupted. A thousand voices screaming themselves raw. I flinched.
The dog grunted. "Fight over. Us next. Remember, obey!" At that he strode off into the light. The screams grew louder.
...A crowd?
Something nudged me impatiently in the right side. My wounded side. I gasped and blinked away tears to glimpse it was another one of those massive bugs. It was shoving me off towards the light with that squished, baldly indifferent human face.
Standing up was like trying to stand on nothing but water amid Charybdis, but if I didn't think too hard about it, instinct could get me up and moving. The light burned and I had a really bad feeling that, once I left this calm and cool hallway, I would never escape the heat and the screams beyond that shining gateway.
I stepped through without hesitation.
The arena slowly faded into existence for me. A medium-sized, dirt-packed floor. Cement walls topped with spikes, in turn topped with skulls. They were the screams I heard. If I squinted, I could still see countless transparent people standing here on the arena floor, wailing and cursing and pleading. The words were unintelligible in my state.
There was a living crowd, too, mostly comprised of demons. Not too many. I could not hear them.
High up to one side was a platform. A giant sat there. Fifteen feet tall, maybe, with red skin and tattoos I was too far from and too dazed to comprehend. He also did not look happy.
I was in the arena. Across from me was the light-grey wolf-man.
"You cannot," bellowed a voice so deep it had to be the giants, "pick..."
It faded in and out. I think the wolf-man said something back. I'm not sure.
Eventually, someone shoved me again. I blinked up at them in shock. It was the dog. He was prodding me with my own sword, sheathed and proud as it'd always been.
"Take your claws," it snarled. "Fight good. I gave up many meat to chose you as fight-enemy."
The gurgling whispers and cries of the dead grew louder at that. The voices rose in fear and protest and a whole lot of other things I couldn't focus on without feeling my mind slide blissfully away.
Behind them slithered the bulging voice of the giant. "Round one!"
That one part of my mind still functioning, at this point, noted that I was screwed.
DUCK! the nearest ghost shrieked so loudly that for a moment my limbs were hers and I ducked without a moment's stalling. There was the sleek clash and swish of blades overhead moments later.
Long claws taking a swipe.
Die! some ghosts yelled. Win for us! cried others.
Left! barked another. I jumped left blindly. Then jerked back on instinct.
Something about the energy buzzing around was... familiar...
Fight! a ghost screamed.
I jerked awake. There was a dog-man in front of me, big but not as big as the leader of the group that'd attacked Mr. Bombastic and I before, and he was approaching fast. There were ghosts nearby but for the moment I snapped back into myself, like a rubber band stretched too far. They were distant. Much less real than the claws moments from my throat.
My right leg was weak and aching. I let it give and rolled into the fall, beneath the demons' lunge. The ground shoved away my air but honestly not dying was very worth it.
I got to my feet again and for one scary moment found that my balance was nonexistent. I nearly toppled over.
Diemovefightwinduckleavehelpstopruncowerpleadlostmazestuckburning the ghosts thought feverishly. They were so packed here in this arena that I could feel their cool temperature everywhere, was always stuck with my arm or leg or everything wedged through a bodiless soul.
A flash of awareness that wasn't mine saw fur swinging in from the left. I managed another clumsy duck and doge.
I couldn't keep this up for long.
First task; don't die. Forget escaping. Just don't die. Spirits jeered, cheered, and spat in response to my resolution. But it was mine and I knew it well. I lost more ground ducking beneath large blows that moved faster than I could think.
Right! yelled the ghost who'd been the most helpful so far. I ducked and rolled right. My sword flashed out as I went, anchored in something solid, and swung my momentum around in a circle. I wrenched it free and retreated a few feet into a loose battle stance almost entirely by habit.
Not bad, the spirit commented, thoughts swimming with grim memories.
Swordsmen a thousand times better than you have died here! spat another, mind red-hot with anger. You deserve no better!
Though my own eyes and too many colored, raw, painful spirit-senses to count, I saw the wolf-man swagger as he turned, unfazed but mad as a hellhound on a leash. Then my thoughts vanished again.
A surge of eagerness ran through me. It was tinged with a sour aftertaste. The ghost I was reading could feel the searing heat of the monster as it lurched forward. Maybe the ghost would be lucky and get to watch this annoying little kid who thought he could saunter around the business of the dead get eaten and become as bound and hopeless as everyone else here.
I stumbled out of the way again. Not fast enough to avoid a great clawed-hand hitting my shoulder, but enough to be sure that my shoulder hadn't been the target.
Then, with a moldy taste of blue, from another angle came a memory of a similar monster, making similar moves, similar strikes. An undercut from the right came next.
I dragged my feet back, knowing I had no prayer of dodging with a jump. Not to mention the momentum was already barreling the beast forward.
Another memory boiled to the surface with a clarity like none other - it was of Bianca, of how strange she looked in silver and how unnerving it was to see her lift a bow as if it were a part of her and always had been. That memory... it... it was mine...
In a flash, I had my sword leveled. The surging dog got a muzzle full of Stygian iron. A screeching whine escaped it as it wheeled back in a panic.
There had been no halting its force, though. It was like being hit with a truck. I crumpled into the dirt. The sword strayed from my fingertips. The weight of pain and wounds suddenly was real again, too, along with all the too-sharp memories and the cries of the living monster crowd around us. The ghosts retreated into a frightened hum in the background.
The soil was warm and grainy and hard. My gaze moved around, looking for my sword-
-A clawed hand now, at my throat. Not much pressure but enough to keep me still.
"Move not," the dog hissed. Out of options again, I moved not.
Up in the stands, the great read fuzz in my vision that marked the giant began to shift and move. A limb of some sort extended in a signal.
"Be dead," the demon dog warned, and locked its jaws over my throat.
Panic sprang to life. I choked and thrashed against the thick neck, strong jaws, snarling lips. My heart hammered. The sword was gone and the mere thought of magic was exhausting but I didn't care, didn't care, Bianca... she was...
The dream-like quality that'd hung over the world since I woke advanced again. My thoughts scattered in its wake. All but the memory of her in silver.
I tried to move. My body would not react. I watched, confused, as my hands dangled and were dragged across a dark surface. Wood? Dirt? I didn't know.
"Good. Stay dead," the dog whispered softly. "Stay dead. Bloodtooth being bridge."
A loud voice was bombing from a place I couldn't identify. "Good entertainment!" it said, over and over.
The light vanished. Cold winds brushed against my cheek. Terror seized me as I recognized the maze, but there was not a nerve in my body that was able to react.
"Good fight, Tribe-killer," the dog said around my throat, which was handled rather gingerly. "Naughty, but good. Did not know Tribe-killer could bleed and fight well."
I had no idea what he was talking about.
"Tribe-killer and Bloodtooth past fight-place now. Good job for Bloodtooth. We track Tribe. There, Tribe-killer be dead for real. Worry not. Bloodtooth knows way."
That's the last thing I can remember.
oOo
I had two dreams.
Or, I think it was two. The one about the arena had faded in and out, in and out. Dreams that mean something - like all demigod dreams - don't do that. That one, though, had been real one moment and watery the next. One second I was among ghosts and using them desperately against a dog and then the next I was swimming through meaningless swatches of color. It might have been a dream, I guess. Or it might've been a memory plagued with delusion and/or delirium.
The next one was definitely a dream. I knew because I'd had it before.
I was sitting in a desert. It was nighttime, not too cold, not too hot. But it was dry. There was sand crammed between my toes and it'd opened many a nick and crimson crevice across my skin. My eyes were so crusted with the sand it was like they were rusted into squinting for life. And my throat was screaming in pain.
I was thirsty.
The thing is with night and deserts, though, is that it's when those nameless hours between light and dark slip by, when the sky thinks nothing in its hustling to get to the next important thing, that things come out to play. In the forgotten hours, they thrived.
Nobody came to kill them in the forgotten hours. Lizards and snakes could bask without the sun drying them to a crisp. Scorpions would hunt the lazy insects that were either returning to home or leaving it. Owls were just waking and eagles were dozing off. The same way I did not move as I utilized my sword but rather used my sword as I moved, these things slid into action amid the action, in hidden times and places, in the precious spaces overlooked.
The sky was staining purple and my throat was very dry and the monster came out to play.
This was not a monster as my sword would recognize it. It was worse.
My height, perhaps. Gleaming like a star in the sand. Or like water. Yes, yes, liquid water. I wanted the sparkling water so bad. It'd wash away the sand and save my parched throat.
It had hands and feet like a man, but carved of metal. Eyes where eyes should be, but they were soulless, thoughtless, careless. Like the brainwashed humans in the cities but thousands of times worse.
It walked towards me calmly, just like the demon in the maze.
There was a sinking feeling, as always, that this thing had nothing to do with life-saving water.
I backed away slowly at first, hands held up in surrender. It did not care. It kept marching forward at that same, slow speed. I yelled for it to shoo and shoved a finger off into the waxing night.
It kept coming. Closer and closer, step by slow, tiny step.
I drew a sword (not my sword but a sword, I always had a weapon of some sort, a knife or a deck of cards or once even a dart gun) and held it up threateningly. It didn't even seem to notice, not even when I slashed it through the air.
Terror seized me then. Against all my ten-year-old wisdom and everything I'd seen on television, I threw my only weapon.
It wouldn't have been so bad if the thing bounced off harmlessly. Thing is it didn't. I had a good arm and lucky aim. The sword sheared straight through the head of the metal monster, leaving only its jaw and part of one ear atop the neck.
It did not stop.
Step, step. Psh, psh, in the sand. One arm swinging at a time, always the one opposite the advancing foot. Perfectly in time to a perfect beat.
I gave up. I turned and ran.
From the direction I fled to, things appeared. Arrows of silver flying through the air to impale themselves mercilessly into the shimmering bronze. I found a knife lying in the sand and threw that, too. Even a little lizard I found, hoping maybe the tail would fall off and jam those whirring gears.
Whirring. It was close enough to hear now.
It never stopped marching.
By the time I had worked it down to nothing but the torso, all limbs left behind like meaningless trash along our trail, night had been born in honest, and the slick in-between hours were gone. Stars did not shine.
Whirrrrrrr. Whirrrrrr. Psh. Whirrrrrr.
It made footsteps with no feet. The shining core of the demon continued to move forward at its normal pace, floating just above the sand.
Whirrrrr. Psh. Whirrrrr. Whirrrr. Whirrrr-psh.
Metal arms erupted from the sand. They clamped down on my ankles so hard that the bone cracked. I screamed and fell backwards into the golden grains. The action tore my throat to shreds and I was condemned to silence.
Whirrrr, the machine went. Same pace. Same pitch. Unexcited. Uncaring even in victory.
The dream goes on beyond that. It involves Bianca and a much bigger machine and a lot of blood and a lot of pain. For many reasons, one of which being I don't like to wallow in that moment, I do not talk about it.
oOo
There was not a single thing I could name that was as disheartening as that nightmare. A worthy punishment, I guess, for all the times I messed up and soiled the maze's carefully planned corridors.
Punishment for every memory that urged on a stinging smile. For laughing with Mr. Bombastic. The maze punished happiness.
So I didn't really protest against the hollow feeling I had when I woke. There was still no time for tears or screams, but I let it hurt. I rode it out in a way I hadn't been able to do the first time I'd had that dream.
As the mental ache faded I became aware of my wounds again. They stung. But my head was nowhere near as bad as it'd been in the arena/fight-place dream, and things seemed to make sense now. For the most part. The ground I laid on was hard-packed, dry, grainy dirt. I could feel it move and vibrate as things moved and spoke nearby, seemingly indifferent to me. Which was good, for now.
Around us, the maze had resumed its usual droning. Thank the gods. All of this was more luck than I'd dared to wish for.
No doubt something in this Labyrinth was going to kill me if I didn't get moving soon, wounded or not. I grit my teeth against the hot pain in my throat and sat up, slowly, carefully. Then once up I made sure my back was straight, because Bianca always insisted on not ruining myself with poor posture. I was ruined enough as it was, so I guessed that bad posture was not a risk I should take.
My head didn't like that. First it spun and then it hurt but, if I was patient, patient the way the maze had taught me to be, patient the way Bianca had tried time and time again to coax from me, it trailed away. For a moment there, I'd felt like I was going to be sick, but that passed too.
Not bad. Not too bad. Holy Hera, look at that, I'm alive. I guess the game's not over.
I'd long since known that the maze could cheat with impunity, and so it enjoyed that freedom frequently, but this was a new one. A new configuration. A new trap. I had no clue what to expect of it next. What I needed to do to get out. I wasn't even sure what to expect upon turning to examine the large moving things.
It was the dog-men.
There were at least twenty of them, most likely more. So many and moving too naturally in that heavy but sleek way of theirs to be anything but comfortable with that, even in a room where they'd be hard-pressed to find a place for their fathom to fit. They milled around in a circular room with a domed ceiling so high I could only imagine its top. Perhaps we were beneath a mountain.
Strewn across the room in a semi-orderly fashion that existed to make things convenient and nothing more were various things; nests of old cloth and feathers were generally gathered on the far side and to the left. Across from it and closer to where I was sat a cleared area that reeked. The soil there was red save for where the gleam of white bones showed through. An empty mess hall.
Along the curved walls, rocks thrust themselves up from the dense soil. Here the dogs were sharpening their claws. Before where I sat was another collection of bones. These were clean, though, and among other things such as old socks and ravaged soccer balls and even a skull. Dog toys, I figured, though I didn't see any pups.
Probably because I was here, despite that I was trapped in a cage. I wouldn't have let puppies near it even if it were empty. It was a rectangular thing build sturdily of bones and wood and barbed wires, each of its many legs thrust into the soil and crawling overhead to gleam down at me in the strange yellow light they had here.
Perhaps I could have dug myself out, if I had time and no enemies nearby...
"Awake. Tribe-killer second is awake."
I instinctively stiffened at that voice, my own growl on the tip of my tongue. The pale-furred male that'd dragged me here leaned into view and peered through the bristling bars. "Hello, pup. Pup is small to be Tribe-killer. Tragic pup story."
Another dog narrowed its eyes at me. This one was female, wearing loose cloth where necessary but for the most part covered simply in short fur of smoky blue. She had yellow eyes. Another joined in, too, with black fur and crooked teeth. A second male with large ears and amber eyes. Many noses twitched and sniffed curiously.
I scowled at them. I couldn't play against the maze while trapped in a kennel. Much less while being watched.
"Move."
Frantic shuffling and quick, important shoves were made. The dog-people retreated real fast.
In their place, looming and dripping spit from old yellow fangs, was a massive one suffering from mange. His eyes were a flickering orange, like sickly embers from a long-dead fire, and they stood out as if the sun had given up and the whole world was pitch black.
He knelt before the bars to my cage, callused fingers bleeding on the spikes but coldly indifferent. This close I could smell the stink of the parasites and see too clearly the ragged, torn flesh where they had struck. The tan fur was dirty and ragged and brushed the wrong way in many places. The whole thing smelled of brutally sick.
But he moved, breathed, and snarled as if he were healthy.
I backed up slowly.
He snorted and stood abruptly. "Tribe-killer second?"
It took me too long to realize he was talking to me. "...Yes?"
"Yes Alpha," the dog snapped.
"Yes, Alpha?"
The dogs nearby made rough, guttural noises. A few barked. Sneers of fangs and bold molars lit up like torches around us. The Alpha remained unamused.
He glared a few more moments before saying, "You kill tribe. Yes?"
I was very, very tempted to break Bianca's rules and lie. Lying would be good.
Instead I said, "Yes, Alpha."
"Kill pup?"
"Not that I know of. Alpha."
Those eyes narrowed. "Big pup. My pup." He pointed with one claw to where a female stood in the back of the crowd, a blue-furred thing with more fur but no more robust. She would not meet my eyes.
I recognized the face nonetheless.
Quick, think. Who killed that first one? Me or Mr. Bombastic?
My silence was taken as an answer.
A snarl quickly turned into a bark. The sound was like gunfire, shattering the air between us. I flinched back. "Ages, we track you! We track you and you kill more! One pup? Forgive not. Many Tribe? War. War on all flat-faced no-furs. No more hunt for food. Now, hunt no-furs as sport. As war. Many dead no-furs." His tail swished and he bent over the cage. Claws poked down at my eyes. Dog slobber slowly advanced from above. "You cause all of it."
I swallowed thickly and nodded.
He leaned back and growled, perilously dissatisfied. "You, too, be dead no-fur. Soon."
Dogs whined and scowled at that. All except for the pale one, who narrowed his eyes eagerly.
"Hurry," the Alpha told him. "Want Tribe-killer first. Want Tribe-killer first and second dead soon. Then we fear them not."
"Bloodtooth hurry," the dog said. He dipped his head once and flattened his ears. Then he vanished down a side tunnel. Not before, however, I saw my sword strapped across his back.
Alpha did not look at me again. He left, too, taking his saturnine mate with him.