Chapter 8

The Four Guards

Only after successfully navigating herself into a circle did Kagome finally realize that her marks were being changed without her knowing it.

"What a horrible place this is!"

"Hey! The Labyrinth isn't horrible!"

Surprised, Kagome turned and stared at the oddest pair of door guards she'd ever seen. More surprising were the other pair who both poked their heads out from under the shields of the first two. "What in the world…I thought…but the dead end?"

"The one behind you?"

"It's not-DAMNIT!" She chucked her eyeliner at the wall and screamed in frustration.

"It's nothing to get all snippy about, miss!" The first of the four protested, his other half nodding in agreement.

"How do I get through?" Kagome asked as she rubbed her temples to fight away the oncoming headache.

"You have to choose a door," It was the second set of guards that spoke, his strange appearance and blue outfit capturing her attention. "One leads to the Castle at the center of the Labyrinth, the other to certain death!"

"Oh great, so I'm generally screwed either way I go." Kagome took a step forward and paused. "Well…which one is it?"

"We can't tell you that!" He protested, looking up from his place at the bottom of the shield. "They can but…well…"

"Well what?"

It was the red one that spoke next, grinning over the brim of the shield he held. "One of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies."

"Hooray for me," Kagome looked between them. "Ok, so, which one of you lies?" Her eyes lingered on the red guards for a moment longer than the blue. There was something about that red color that set off alarms in her mind, calling to her to remember something. The color of fire…beautiful, deadly, dangerous, and fierce. What was it about that color that had her mind reeling?

"He does!" Both of them said it at the same time and pointed at each other. Kagome looked between them and wanted to cry. She'd heard of this riddle before, but it would take a lot of critical thinking to deduce the correct conclusion. Time. Time she didn't have.

"Ok," She pointed at the red guard and demanded, "Does your door lead to the castle?"

"Yes?"

"You," She looked to the blue guard. "Is he telling the truth?"

"Yes,"

"That's what I thought," She moved for the blue door and made a shooing motion.

"Wait! My door leads to the castle!" The red protested as she shoved the blue aside.

"And you could be lying,"

"So could he!"

"Nope, he wouldn't be. If he were lying he would have said no,"

"Is she right?" He looked down at his partner.

"I don't know! I've never understood it!"

Kagome groaned and moved through the doorway, pausing as she heard the snickers from behind her. "What's so fun-ahhh!" Down she fell, screaming out for help, her arms flying out beside her to catch on any kind of surface. Suddenly, without warning, her descent stopped and she found herself being held up by the most disgusting sets of slimy green hands she'd ever seen in her life. "Stop it! You're hurting! HELP!"

"We are helping!"

Stunned, she stared at the weird looking face the hands formed. "We're helping hands!"

"This is one for the books…"

"For what?"

Kagome shook her head and looked above her. "Great…" Below her was darkness.

"Which way do you want to go?"

"What?" Those face/hands couldn't possibly be asking such a stupid question, could they? Up, of course! She wanted to go up because up was light and down was dark and she hated the dark. Besides, going back up was the logical explanation, was it not? After all, it was merely the King playing tricks on her so that she would avoid the correct path. At least, she would firmly believe that. It seemed like the closer she got to figuring things out, something would happen to throw her off and make her start from almost the beginning. Simple things would have to be thought through more thoroughly than before, like it was a highly advanced trig equation with no possible way to come up with an answer.

And no calculator in the world could solve this math problem.

"Up, of course,"

Kagome looked up then, expecting to be moving towards the light, only to find the door she fell through closing with a loud snap. "Wait a minute!"

And then down she went. Down into darkness and beyond. She screamed in horror, reaching out desperately for the aide of those creepy hands. But the faces were gone, the hands had gone limp, and there was nothing but the echoes of her screams as she fell.

Below her another door opened and, by some miracle, she cleared the tiny opening, landing with a hard thud onto hard ground. She cried out in pain as her knees connected with rock, her body jolting to the aftereffects of the pain. Her hands ached from the pebbles that had scraped them and her head started to pound ruthlessly behind her eyes. Around her, the dust and dirt had flown up disturbed and swirled around her eyes and nose, choking her, making her miserable.

Oubliettes were never pleasant.