Chapter XI: Into the Dark

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

So, I've been mentally calling this 'The Post-Rock Chapter' in my head now, partly because I just have not been able to think of a good name, but mostly because every time I've written it I've either been listening to the Magnus Archives podcast (exquisite creepy tone) or just letting 'Worldhaspostrock' play on shuffle on Youtube. I highly recommend the latter - it provides some great background to write to, really oddly inspiring.

Trying for a very horror tone to this pair of chapters. Let me know how it turns out.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

We step out of the Way, glancing around as it closed behind us. My first impressions of Illinois..? Cold. As. Fuck. Dog, I really hate winter. That's with a small 'W', in case any faeries are reading this. This being my mind, I mean. You guys are awesome, I promise.

Phew. Bullet dodged, I think.

My ballistic gymnastics aside, all I really want is to go curl up with a fluffy blanket in front of a fire and watch movies. And, uh, if a lanky bluenette happened to be along for the ride, I'd probably agree to that too. A specific one, I mean.

Ahem.

So glad Chloe can't read minds either.

During my little mental ramble, the Wardens had been busy. Luccio was wafting her sword over trees in the vicinity, muttering something in Italian under her breath. She'd apparently ordered Ellis and Anna to do the same, though they were both using the pseudo-Latin many Wardens cast spells in. Ebenezar was just standing mutely in the background, looking all around. Maybe he drew the short straw and had to keep watch?

Caoimhe was just leaning against a tree, watching all the goings-on with amusement. "What's with all the," She waved her hand around vaguely. "wafting?"

Luccio looked back at her, a single eyebrow raised. I think that meant she was shocked? "You mean you can't feel it?"

The Faerie maybe-Assassin shrugged. "Nope. Can't feel a thing. What're you-"

Luccio suddenly whirled, her sword flashing into the undergrowth. The greenery suddenly exploded in a spurt of red as a trio of cardinals scattered, chirping in complete terror. I chuckled, though I was the only one. The other wardens had some sense. I'd spent too long with Dresden to have a keen grasp on any of that. At least he'd helped me develop some self-awareness about it. Luccio turned and stowed her sword at her back. She glared at me. With her sweet, young face, it wasn't all that intimidating regardless of my lacking sense of self-preservation. I smiled back. She rolled her eyes. "Maybe it's nothing. Whatever it is, it's not stopping us from our goal."

I was slightly surprised when she turned to me instead of McCoy. "Where to?"

I blinked, about to question why the bloody hell she was asking me, and- oh! The map! I pulled it out of my pack and unrolled it. I'd made it early on in the planning after Weatherwax had taught me her little improv on my sketch-picture spell, hence the forgetting entirely about it until now thing. Also, my memory sucks. I look at Goldfishes with envy.

"Uh... According to this, the camp should be about a mile... thataway." I pointed off to the right. I think that might've been East North-East, but however cool this map thing was, it did not come with a compass and I hadn't been orienteering since I was twelve. I would've used Satusnavus, but I was honestly terrified that the thing had a battery and would run out if I used it to get places I hadn't seen before. That was always the rule, right?

Luccio nodded, and waved some bizarre arcane hand signals at the two Wardens, who returned her nod, a few hand signals of their own, and disappeared into the wood. I blinked again and Luccio was suddenly looking right at me. "Are you coming?"

I nodded hurriedly, and skittered after her out of the clearing. After a moment, Ebenezar and Caoimhe followed too.

A faint layer of mist lay over everything in sight. Dog, whoever roadies for the imaginary hypothetical band playing here is incredible. The mist, the twilight, the slight biting cold to the still air... it made for an atmosphere I hadn't been in since that school trip to Auschwitz. There'd been the same fog, the same still bite to the air then. It was sad and melancholy and hopeful and nightmarish, all at once. It acknowledged that something terrible had happened here, something truly fucking awful, but spoke to how people had fought to survive it, how people were trying to make sure it never happened again.

The old Native American camp ahead gave off the same vibes as the most deadly concentration camp in one of the deadliest wars in history.

Not to state the obvious, but that was a bad sign.

I wanted to lean forward, to ask Luccio or Ebenezar if we were really sure that this of all places was where we'd find our Native American councillor Joseph Listens-to-Wind, but I couldn't get the words out. I didn't want to disturb the air. Something told me it wasn't a good idea.

I stopped briefly, just outside the camp, as a splash of vivid colour caught my eye. Beneath the layers of frost and fog, I could see... flowers. Beautiful, living flowers. Tulips, in fact. Red. They had always been one of my favourites. When I was a kid, back when I was still scared of the dark rather than the things in it, my mom used to tell me about them after I'd gotten back from a day of school bullies and disinterested teachers. A tulip, she said, doesn't strive to impress anyone. It doesn't try to beat the rose because it doesn't have to. They're unique without trying, individual without effort, they're always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can, without fear of looking at the sun or anything else above them right in the face.

She loved her metaphors and analogies. A life of being married to a Knight, I suppose. Eventually the scripture starts to get to you.

A hand landed gently on my shoulder, and I looked up into the kind, craggy face of my Master's Master. "Come on, Max. Best not to fall behind here."

I nodded and skittered forward to catch up with the Wardens. Ellis had some book open and was flicking through, muttering intently about old cultural practices and Native American architecture. Not sure what he was actually so interested in, but apparently it was a Big Thing^TM. Glad he was enjoying himself, at least. Kept him insulated from the creepy. And boy, was there a metric fucktonne of that around here.

Anna, Luccio, and Caoimhe were talking about securing the area and preparing to check the surrounding forest. And uh... no. Just no. So, I walked over to McCoy. He was leaning on his staff and looking over the ruined husk of one of the shelters. He looked back as I approached. "This was his, once."

"His, sir?"

"Joe's. His home. His responsibility. His people." The old man sighed. "And they all died. An entire people. I really don't know how he can come back here. I sure couldn't, if it were me."

I admit, I didn't know all that much about Native Americans. I'd studied some of the tribes from Oregon, back in school, but I barely remembered any of it. I'd never heard of anything like this, though. "So, why did he come back here?"

Ebenezar's expression took on a grim set. He leaned a little harder on his staff, looked a little older. It was almost harder to see than the devastated village. At least that was unfamiliar, distant. I knew Ebenezar. I knew what it took to make him look like that. And his four solid, guilty words said far more to me because of that. "Because we made him."

I tilted my head, trying not to seem... combative. I wanted answers, but I sure as hell did not want to piss him off. Not about something like this. He'd never hurt me, I wasn't afraid of that. Ebenezar in action seemed so solid, so dependable, but when he got like this, all old and brittle, I was afraid of saying something that would damage that relationship permanently. That would make him think less of me. Even more so, now that Dresden... now that it was just me and Ebenezar. "Why, sir?"

He took a deep breath and raised a hand in demonstration. Or supplication, maybe? "The sympathetic magics, thaumaturgy. Those spells that allow you to track or detect, they're hard to block once they're cast. Since you can't avoid making mistakes, dropping some hair or DNA somewhere or another, you got to plan for someone trying to find you. You could just hop into the Nevernever, but that only delays the spell. Soon as you hop back, it'll latch onto you again. Places like this... places of Death, they provide a cover. That which lingers after events like this, it confuses the connection." He shook his head. "I got lucky, going out to Tunguska. Never knew anyone out there, probably never will. Joe... his life's wrapped up in this place. All his regrets."

I stayed utterly silent, trying to wrap my head around all of... that. Councillor Listens-to-Wind (because I sure as hell couldn't call a two-hundred plus year old, super powerful Native American Medicine Man and my Bosses' bosses' boss 'Joe') lived here, and protected some of his people, but something killed them all. And then they forced him to go back? Fuck. "That's..."

"Terrible of us?"

I tried to shake my head, to deny his blunt and entirely too accurate assessment. He just chuckled. "Yeah. It was. There ain't no denying that, Max. But needs must on the road to Hell."

I choked back a sudden laugh. "Chris Rea, sir?"

He raised a craggy brow. The corner of his lip upturned, ever so slightly. "Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Max."

"Who?"

He waved a dismissive hand. "He was a French monk who helped form the Cistercian order in the 12th Century."

"Oh."

"Yep." There was a pause as he looked around us again. "Max?"

"Yeah, sir?"

"Don't use the Sight here."

His voice had a terrifyingly sincere tone to it.

I nodded.

"O-okay, sir."

He glanced up as Luccio called us over. "Duty calls, looks like. Come on, let's go see what she wants." I trailed after him obediently, still thinking over Councillor Listens-to-Wind's past.

Luccio greeted McCoy with a nod. She gestured to the two ladies standing in front of her. "Caoimhe and Anna found a small cave system to the east, nearer the river. We think we'll find the Councillor there."

"You looked it over?" McCoy asked them.

Anna shook her head. "There was a note. Apparently from Councillor Listens-to-Winds, saying he was going down to somewhere. As the nearest cave, we thought that would probably be it."

McCoy leaned on his staff for a moment. "Well," He drawled. "Let's get goin' then."

Those red tulips again. They were all over this wood, in spite of the harsh winter frost. They poked out from under rotting logs, from under tree-roots, all across the grounds. So very persistent. So very pretty.

I stuck to McCoy's side, humming absently as I maintained the map-spell. It wasn't quite like Weatherwax's version - I just didn't have the power to make it permanent like that - but I could keep it running for the breadth of the journey at least. Unless we had to go up any particularly large hills. Heh, no. I just had to stay conscious.

The cave ahead jutted out of the forest floor like a sleeping bear. A big, tough one. All scarred and pock-marked and grey. The entrance to the cave was covered by a wood and cloth structure that I guess acted like some kind of door? I mean, obviously it was a way-in, but a door was more than a way in and out. It was a threshold. This door seemed to have some kind of significance to it. Something that made it seem like a boundary.

There were symbols stitched into the fabric and carved into the wood. An arch of charcoal-black symbols on the rock surrounded the whole structure, except the bottom right was blatantly smudged.

I almost instinctively started to open my Sight, to see the unseen and reveal the hidden behind those symbols, but I recalled McCoy's face and his voice as he told me not to use the Sight. He wasn't just sincere... he was wary. Something here concerned one of the strongest dog-damn wizards on the planet.

So, what the hell was I doing here? I'm an apprentice, and barely one of those now that my master is... Gone. I'm a shitty wizard who destroyed the brains of my two best friends and nearly killed several people. I'm a liability, and a borderline crazy one at that. What if I get someone killed? What if I kill someone? I shouldn't be here. I start to back away. I shouldn't. I couldn't. I can't. I-

"Max?"

I whirled, thunking into Ebenezar's freakishly solid rancher-given muscles. My train of thought suddenly derailed in a fiery crash. Ow. "Huh?"

"You okay?" He asked, flashing a reassuring smile that filled his face with the wrinkled cracks of a life long-lived. "Breathe deep, Max. Calm your mind and you'll be fine." I kept his eye and tried to slow my breathing. In and out. Ebenezar knew what he was doing. He had to. It... was harder than I thought it would be, keeping the mounting panic down. So, I just focused and breathed. Dresden had tried teaching me meditation, but, well, it'd never really taken. Time to see how good a teacher the old guy really was. I breathed in and out and in and out again and focused on the motions. The feeling of the air passing through my lungs. The panicked thoughts were still there, but they started to become... distant. Insulated. Like the air I was breathing slowed down the torrential flow of terror. Ebenezar stayed calmly present the whole time. As my heart finally slowed to its normal speed, Ebenezar offered a simple explanation. "It's the symbols. They're designed to keep folks out of places like this."

I nodded slightly absently. The explanation made sense, but it didn't seem to matter. Everything was slow and- I shook my head tightly, clearing that heavy fog and revealing the hard pride underneath. Thanks, Harry. Maybe you were better at the teaching thing than you thought. I was just a crappy student. I shook my head again and turned that focus outward, back onto Ebenezar, who was watching me with concern. "They're, um... not fun."

He eyed me for a moment, and then the concern vanished. He just chuckled. "No they're not. Stay close to me, Max. I'll keep you shielded, best I can."

I almost sighed in relief. "Thank you, Sir."

We all walked up to the canvas curtains and pushed it aside. The inside was darker than pitch, seeming to glare out at us with malice and affront. And I found I could understand where it was coming from. How dare we disturb it? How dare we bring light into its demesne? How dare we continue?

The three Wardens lit up their blades and the darkness fled into shadows cast by the obelisk standing in the centre of the chamber and the ring of standing stones around its edge. The wall at the other side opened up into another hole of impenetrable looking dark.

Ellis skittered forward and fell to his knees in front of the Obelisk, his hands going over it and picking out the various symbols and carvings across its surface. He hmmed once, then stood. "It's a warning. Bugger off and stay quiet while you do, so as to not disturb their rest, basically."

"Leaving isn't an option." Ebenezar said simply, and he was right. We couldn't leave Listens-to-Wind here, surrounded by his past like this. We couldn't leave him alone. In the dark. Poor fucking bastard.

"Well, let's get going then. You wanna go first Sir, or shall I?" I gave him my best cheeky grin. He knew it was bullshit, but from his answering smile, he appreciated the effort.

He nodded. "We'll both go. Wardens, you take the middle. Caoimhe, you watch our backs."

The Wardens, without prompting, each muttered something over their swords. The three blades glowed with a bright blue-white light. Then, the Wardens all returned his nod and we got into our marching order, heading into the next chamber and pushing back the dark once again.

Y'know when you're a little kid, and you do something that you've been told is wrong, just to find out what would really happen? And you get that feeling of wrongness afterward, how your chest tightens and your eyes start to tear up ever so slightly? And you know, absolutely, undoubtedly, that you fucked up big time? And you fear that it'll follow you forever and nothing you do will ever be bigger or worse?

This place gave off those feelings in spades.

As we continued on, the path behind us was reclaimed by the dark, shadows rushing back into place like torrential water, leaving us in a little island of light surrounded by inky black sea. None of us spoke, leaving only the sounds of our footsteps and breathing to accompany us. Behind us, the Wardens seemed to try, but after a brief 'ah', they trailed off. Even those slight sounds, they felt like an intrusion. A sacrilege.

Like farting in Church.

And how long was this fucking tunnel? It felt like it was going on forever, like we'd been walking for miles. My leg muscles burned, and I could feel sweat dripping off of me, running into places that sweat really shouldn't be. Eurgh. Gross. And the still cold only made it worse.

Eventually, we got to a y-junction. The floor-area where the two tunnels ahead met was covered in more symbols that sent another flare of panic running through me. This felt slower than the feeling I got by the entrance. Deeper too, I suppose. I didn't feel like fleeing, but I dreaded what was to come, felt like it was something obvious to avoid. A shadow over the shoulder from a darkened alleyway. The feeling flowed over me from the darkness, strong and slow, and I could feel it through the beating of my heart. A slight shift. A second rhythm, going slightly off beat. Ebenezar's hand came down on my shoulder and he gave me a comforting squeeze. "Breathe, Max. Push through it."

I nodded, syncing my breathing to my own heartbeat and focused on ignoring this... intruder. The second beat jerked, once, twice, then... I blinked, and it was gone. I gave a slow sigh of relief and rolled my shoulders in an attempt to reduce the tension that hadn't left with the panic. I looked up and met Ebenezar's eye. After a moment, I gave a nod. "I'm good."

He smiled, squeezed my shoulder again, then dropped his hand. "Everyone else good?"

Caoimhe gave a cheery "Yep!" from somewhere in the black, while the Wardens stuck to business-like nods.

The symbols glowed, dull and ruddy, before suddenly vanishing.

We stood for a second, waiting for something else to happen, then... "Huh. Guess we can continue?" I offered, slightly surprised that, well, that that even worked. I fought the rhythm and I won. Then the defence went down entirely? That seemed... Low budget. Couldn't these people afford a laser grid or something?

The Wardens eyed me with mild amusement. "I don't believe Native Americans would've had laser grids in the seventeen-hundreds, Max."

Oh. I said that out loud. Woops.

I flushed, then grumpily grabbed Ebenezar and pushed forward. The man let himself be dragged, hiding his low, irritating chuckle when I glared at him. Son of a... very nice lady who probably feels really disappointed in her son right now.

The next corridor, I... woah. I blinked forward as my vision stretched wildly, the walls flexing and extending unnaturally ahead of us, like they were being spaghettified into a black hole, as what should've been a normal-sized tunnel doubled, tripled in length and seemed to thin out into the horizon. I shook my head, but the image remained.

Still, we pressed on. Luccio seemed unfazed by the distance, but bookish Ellis kept stopping, shaking his head, looking down, then back at the corridor ahead, then down again. Whenever he faltered, the Warden Commander would wiggle her fingers and mutter something in not-quite-Latin that seemed to straighten all his limbs and infuse them with energy. It never lasted long, not on this long walk, but fuck. It worked, and that was tha-

Luccio suddenly stopped, barked out, "What was that?"

We all froze, listening to the dark. Something ahead was... whining? Crying, maybe? It was still too far off to tell what it was exactly, but something was there! So, I tried for some hopeful assumptions - this walking was getting ridiculous and my morale was flagging so hard it was about to start the Pledge of Allegiance. I needed some bullshit to think about. "There's something ahead of us. This corridor actually ends soon!"

As I said the words... they became true.

The dark path ahead of us melted away to reveal a widening entrance into a new room. It was a wide room, maybe thirty feet in total. There were two new exits, one in each opposite corner, giving it another y-junction shape, just far boxier. As we all stepped over the threshold, what was making that noise became evident - it was in the middle of the room and was carrying a glowing gemstone. I recognised the creature immediately. It was Little Brother, Listens-to-Wind's raccoon friend/familiar (I never asked which he was).

He seemed to be doing okay, no visible injuries or distress. The gemstone's light, however, was dying. The dull orange-umber was flickering against the dark that seemed almost... mist-like in this room. Congealed into something solid and tangible. Something about the dark seemed to move and flow towards the creature, then rush away as the light brightened for a brief second.

As we walked in, the light from the Wardens pushed back the dark from us. The mist ebbed harder against the raccoon once, twice, then retreated as we got to him and added our light to his. I dropped to my knees and held out a hand to the little guy. "Hey, Little Brother. You're okay now, you're okay. We're here to help your master, your... um, friend? We're wizards, from the Council. You're okay now, you're okay."

I may have been rambling. I've never had a pet or really dealt with animals other than that one trip to the zoo when I was a kid. And Bungo never really liked me. Ebenezar seemed more at ease, reaching over me and plucking the raccoon up and resting him on one arm.

He looked Little Brother over, then gave a nod. "You alright there, little guy?"

I let Ebenezar Interrogate The Witness and joined the Wardens in keeping watch on the room. The darkness was still pushing up against our light, a dense, writhing inky fog on the sea bank below a bright-beacon of a lighthouse. Wow, that was a cheesy metaphor. Something about this seemed to be bringing it out of me.

I found myself staring up at it and, before I knew it, my Sensitive mind started to wander. I could feel the anger in this place. The hunger for retribution against something. Violence. Lust. Gluttony. Wrath. Protectiveness. Obsession. Darkness. They all melded together in whatever was feeling these things and bound themselves up in the anger until they were virtually indistinguishable from the Dark.

How dare we disturb it? How dare we bring light into its demesne? How dare we continue? Our every breath was a sacrilege, our beating hearts antithetical to the oppressive dark. Our light was a fool's lantern, leading us astray into places even angels fear to tread. Fools. We were fools.

We were fools!

I barely registered the blur before it hit us. Coming out of the black, a fast-moving, slithering and slimy creature exploded into the light, screeching as it was touched by it. Teeth-covered tentacles latched on to Anna's arm and she screamed - something between them, hooked and sharp, dug greedily into her flesh. She pulled up her sword and tried to stab, but the creature was within her guard and she couldn't bring enough force down onto it to pierce the... skin? Hide? I don't know.

Luccio stepped forward and, with a cry of fury, slashed downward with her scimitar. The sword, still glowing, carved through the creature's inky purplish flesh and it screamed - though it seemed more bothered by the light than the cut - the two sides were already starting to curl back toward each other. It retreated back into the dark with another burst of speed.

As we focused on the creature's retreat, another slammed into us from the back. Shit. They're Ambushers. "Sneaky bastards!"

Tentacles lashed out and sliced up Caoimhe's arm before she could dodge. The Sidhe Assassin never cried out, but pulled her sword and took a swipe at the creature. She didn't pierce it, the closeness of the creature making it near impossible to bring enough force at the angle needed to do so, but the hit was strong enough to knock it away from her. It left several teeth in her skin.

It was very gross.

The creature's speed was all that saved it from her. Her next swipe was barely an inch away from the creature's own leathery pelt. But, it vanished into the dark again before she could do any real damage.

That was when Luccio took command. "Wretched beasts are using the Dark as cover. Septimus Formation! Huddle up and stand strong, everyone!"

I had no idea what that meant until the others dragged me into a circle formation with Wardens and non-Wardens alternating and the still pained-looking raccoon in the centre. I had to be pulled into place when I re-noticed and got distracted. Wowzers. Poor lil' guy.

Five swords, a staff, and two wands extended out towards the sea of black surrounding us as we waited for the next attack. Several long moments passed and the room felt far too still.

Fools. We dared?

The air was unmoving, but something in the room, something beyond mundane perception, crackled with an unearthly energy that reminded me of some of the less logical areas of the Nevernever. Those places where up was down and beauty was truth and sanity was long, long since discarded.

More moments passed, quiet aside from the sounds of our slow breathing. Nothing but silence.

Then, the darkness exploded again. Three of them came at us this time, two for Anna and one for Ebenezar. Anna's sword, lithe and sharp, flashed out and jabbed into the first creature as it came at her, slavering and slathering. Its momentum carried it over her guard, the blade sliding and the tentacles latched onto her upper right shoulder, tearing deep into the flesh.

She screamed out and yelled a word in what sounded like Russian, flaring brightly for a second before the tentacles touching her turned black as the cavern. The creature flinched back from the burns and let go of her, falling away. It twisted in mid-air and the tentacles elongated, latching onto me. I didn't see the second one meet a similar fate, too focused on the creature grasping at me. Ugly, horrible, writhing, monstrous, evil!

Hella fucking gross!

I almost howled in agony. I certainly freaked the fuck out. I hadn't felt anything like this since the Fetches. Good God, those teeth! They seemed to twist and gouge in the wound, widening and deepening and tearing until my arm was nothing but pain. I couldn't concentrate enough to bring up any magic. I could barely concentrate enough to think. Waves and waves of pain and- The thing was torn from me and tossed out into the dark.

In, out, in, out. I breathed deeply, trying to get control of my mind again.

Anna's elbow dug into my side - ow, that was fucking sharp! - and she hissed a warning. "Stay focused!"

Not a good warning, but a good point. Getting distracted here would really be- "MAX"

Weatherwax's voice came suddenly, a yell that caused me to flinch instinctively. Prey before predator. Lucky instinct, as it took me out of the path of a leaping thing. My hand moved before I could think and I whispered a faint word and a... tornado of water burst from my hand. Water spiralled and roared into the quiet chamber and I could hear the creatures screaming. It was worryingly loud. There were more of them than we'd seen.

One of them burst out of the water and launched itself at me. The tentacles grasped on and- The creature's beak cracked. Hell, it was barely a fracture at first. But I clenched my hand and twisted, muttering another soft phrase and the fracture widened. The entire surface began to warp, wrenching itself from whatever secured it to the flesh of this creature. The poor thing screamed.

My hand loosened and fell open, and the thing dropped to the ground.

The room was quiet. Everyone stared at me. Even the Darkness felt somehow... shocked. Or... interested, maybe? Still. Even the things that didn't have eyes had them locked on me. I felt like a bug under a million microscopes. It wasn't a comfortable place to be. I... I didn't even know what I just did.

"You did nothing." Weatherwax's voice spoke inside my head. "I simply found a way to... lend a hand."

"Please don't do that again." That was... I felt like I was doing all of that, but I never moved. Never thought... Was this what it was like for Kristen and Fernando? "Just... don't."

"Noted." Weatherwax sounded amused. "I apologise for causing you discomfort."

"Th-thanks." I sighed. Her agreement was good to hear. No Sword of Damocles needed, right? We could be civil, mature adults and agree that mental manipulation was bad and she wouldn't do it again. "Do you, um, have any input on this whole... burial cave system thing?"

"Hmm." She actually said 'Hmm'. Who does that? "I would recommend caution, but not so much as Councillor McCoy suggests. The Sight would be useful here, to find what the designers of this place hid." A pause. "Though, perhaps the most useful would be your newest acquisition."

"Satusnavus?"

"Yes. It has no charge or power requirement, as you feared." She sounded amused again. Damn her. "You may use it as freely and for as long as you need."

I flushed. "How did you-"

"You seemed hesitant to use the device. Given your history of certain magical usage, worrying over corruption seemed unlikely, so fear of using it up seemed most likely. Hardly a difficult leap of logic."

Her dry voice drawled the words and for a moment I thought I could actually pick out an accent. American, definitely. West Coast, maybe? She certainly wasn't from New Orleans or Boston, but other than that I couldn't decide any way for certain.

"Fair."

She hmm'ed an acknowledgement of my praise and said nothing more. I got the feeling that she was being distracted. That feeling was validated when, after a half-minute of painfully awkward silence, Weatherwax groaned and almost breathed her indulgent "Oh, very well. Max, Chloe would like you to know that she wishes to speak with you upon your return."

"Cool. Thanks, Weatherwax. Tell her I'll meet her when we get back."

I turned back to the others. Ebenezar's eyes were bunched up in concern, but the others who'd been with us in the warehouse were unfazed. "I can talk to Weatherwax in my head." I explained.

'Explained'... Wasn't much of an explanation, but at least he was up to speed with everyone else. Including me. I really needed to ask Weatherwax how she did that.

"Ah." Ebenezar said. "That's useful."

He left it at that. We had more immediate things to worry about. The monsters hadn't all been killed - the skittering and slurping in the dark was evidence enough of that - but they seemed... wary. The Darkness was watching us carefully: evaluating, analysing, but staying back.

I stepped away from the circle with a momentary instruction to the others to keep an eye out, running a hand over my wounds and muttering slow, loping syllables in Greek that sounded far more impressive than the translated Chinese Takeout menu they were. The wound began stitching itself together - without anaesthetic. The spell hurt like a bitch, but it came in handy. I knelt by the little Raccoon and asked him "Do you know where Listens-to-Wind is?"

He stared at me for a long moment. That examined feeling grew. Only it wasn't just the Darkness peering in at me. This tiny raccoon was somehow looking me over, taking my measure. I hoped he didn't find me wanting. That'd be a fuckin' shame. And kinda embarrassing.

Little Brother finally nodded. I grinned. "Alright! That's cool. Can you take us to him?"

Another nod. The little raccoon pulled himself upright, took two steps forward and promptly flopped down onto my shoe. I very, very carefully did not laugh. After a moment, he dragged himself up my body and planted himself solidly on my shoulders. I put on the tiara-thing and spoke. "Um, Satusnavus? Could you direct us to Listens-to-Wind?" I let out a burst of my magic and watched as the tiara glowed brightly, then extruded the light out into a thin line pointing off into the black.

"Um. Okay then. Is he that way, Little Brother?"

The Raccoon nodded earnestly.

"Great." I reached up and scratched under his cheeks, getting a little squirm and a delighted chitter in response. I walked over to the side of the circle, in the direction of the line, and put my hand on Luccio's shoulder. "We're going that way."

She tilted her head slightly, enough to put me in her eyeline. "What?"

"That way." I pointed. "Satusnavus and Little Brother both say the Councillor is that way." I paused, gave a little smirk. "Unless you'd prefer to stay here with the tentacle monsters. No shame if you're into that, but I would've thought it was too new for a centuries old-"

Luccio's head turned further and pinned me with a glare. I stopped talking. Ahem. "Let's go."

"Oh my..."

Ellis... really spoke for us all. This place was spectacular. I almost felt that 'took my breath' away cliche as literal. Though that was probably the depth. Not much oxygen flow down here. Still though. That view...

The space ahead was dominated by a towering pyramid of roughly carved stone and piled earth. The earth formed into three larger plateau-like layers, with the carved stone melding between them as carved steps and iconography showing various battles between people and... something else.

The edges of each plateau were lined with a dark, carved wood. It looked like it'd been taken from the trees in the forest back on the surface. Back in the light. The wood had no iconography, only swirling patterns interlinked with shards of coloured glass. At the edge of the lowest plateau, arcane torches had been placed at even intervals all across the entire boundary. Those coloured glass shards sparkled like a rainbow under their flickering light.

The structure was immense, and the cavern felt even larger, but a few feet out from the pyramid, everything was shrouded in the pure black darkness. For all the size of what little we could see, there was the untraceable feeling that the darkness could've concealed boundless more. It was filled with it. It just... loomed.

Though the place was only theoretically bigger, anyway. Practically speaking, it probably wasn't that much bigger than it looked and we all knew that. But that feeling... That feeling that boundless spaces lay in that inky, infinite void. Something told me that I should probably avoid going there. I might never come back.

It was hard not to want to go anyway.

The way up to the edge of the pyramid was a single, thin line of stone. I could've laid down and stretched my arms out and reached both sides. Mid-way across was a... loop. The stone rose up and entwined with itself to form a sort of archway. We'd have to go through to get to the pyramid. We walked forward, all staying quiet.

How dare we. Intruders. Fools. Bringing the light, our breath, our hearts, our curiosity.

The distance, which had looked quite far at first, disappeared in a moment. I blinked and we were there, right up against it. Ellis peered closely at the archway, muttering to himself about carbon decay and essence dating and all sorts of shit I just didn't understand.

He stood back and looked at the arch with some satisfaction. "I don't think it's enchanted. It just seems like,.. decoration." His arm went up and one finger pointed ominously toward the nearest corner of the plateau - right on the other side of the arch. "That, however, is not. It reeks of protection magics, but something stinks about it. It's foul stuff."

The Wardens and Ebenezar looked at one another and nodded. Something passed between them, something I didn't get in the slightest, followed by a feeling of resigned understanding. "It's like that, is it?"

"Like what?" I asked. They looked at me blankly, like they hadn't really noticed I was there. I saw Caoimhe was peering in at us too, trying not to seem interested but all the more blatantly interested for it.

"Just stay behind us, Max. There's danger ahead." Ebenezar gave me a kind, worried look.

I snorted. "No shit, Sir. Sorry. Obviously, Sir. I think I noticed that, what with the monsters in the dark and the generally oppressive as he-ell-eck feeling about this place."

A little chuckle rippled through the group. I wasn't trying to be funny.

"You're right, Max. But this is more than you can handle." That demeanour came over him again - the Blackstaff, Senior Council Member - and I was hit again with the reminder that Ebenezar was one of the deadliest things on this planet. At that moment, the man bristled with power. I could feel the magic crackling and shifting across his physical form, occasionally reaching outward toward one of the others, then immediately snapping back as he bound his magic again.

But I hadn't been Dresden's apprentice for nothing. I might not be able to go toe to toe with the heavyweights, but I could sure as fuck mouth off to every last one of them (AN1). Defiance. It's a greater power than any spell.

"Unprocessed bovine waste, sir. I might not be able to fight it, but I can be useful. Just tell me what this thing you're all worried about is." I gave him my best glare. The Forrest Whittaker gimlet eye. Stern shoulders and angry arms. Yeah. I was scary. I was tough.

He looked unsure, glanced at Luccio, who shook her head. He paused for another beat, then nodded to himself. His hand clutched his staff just a little tighter. Fuck. "Sorry, Max. Just stay behind us and stay out of it. This fight is beyond you - and I know sayin' that only makes you want to fight more, you're too like Dresden for anything else - but you have to stay back."

I meet his eye with no hesitation and only a little disappointment. "Hell is empty, huh?"

"There's only one Devil up there, Max." He breathed out a deep, weary sigh. Pure resignation. "But yes, it's like that."

"Damn."

One bushy brow went up.

"I mean Darn."

The brow went down.

"Good." A pause. "Come on, then. Lets get this over with."

I stepped through the arch and the Darkness... stopped. Not vanished. Just... stopped. The pressure that'd been on my mind since we walked into the caves let up and I found myself thinking clearer. The sparkles stopped, too. The twinkling off the rainbow of glass disappeared entirely and the room was utterly silent.

We walked forward, and our steps made no sound.

Upward from the first plateau. The stairs were steep enough that climbing them took noticeable effort. I half expected to see a short, pudgy, and endlessly loyal ginger fall past us. The sides, what could generously be called 'railings', were slime-slick and hard to grasp. Where was safe to put my feet? Where could I cling to the railing without slipping? I had to think carefully about both. If I fell here... Fuck. It wouldn't be good.

The second plateau. I could feel my breaths coming harder. There was something solemn about the experience. Something that felt important. Something that felt like it mattered. Like what we did here would effect others on a grand scale, even though it would never be remembered. I think it was the lack of air. Might be getting to me. Might be the Black, silent and distant but still watching. Always watching. With each step forward, the malevolence grew.

The lip of the final plateau approached and I braced myself for whatever Devil was up there.

Fools. Trespassers. How dare we? Our every heartbeat was an affront. Our every breath a sacrilege. Heresy, monstrous, wrong. So, so wrong.

The flat top of the Pyramid was slightly inset, another stair leading down to an open square. The perimeter was lined with that same carved wood and that same coloured glass. The rainbow had returned, blazing brighter than ever before. I was expecting stone, or dirt, or wood in the floor, but it was glass. Or maybe ice, I wasn't sure. But it was pure, and clear, and all that stood between us and an apparently endless fall. The walls in that long, endless cavern were covered in bodies. Each one pristine, preserved. A faint shimmer to their skin betrayed the magic behind their state - some sort of spell protected them from the decay of time, kept them fresh.

Was this whole place here to protect them? To... display them?

Whichever it was, the Mausoleum certainly caught my attention. I almost didn't notice the other thing, not at first. A single man, kneeling in the precise centre of the square.

His skin was a ruddy bronze, tanned from time out in plenty of sunshine. His clothing was simple, blue jeans and faded band shirt (Pink Floyd? Really?) with a pair of fringed fabric moccasin boots up to mid-shin. Even his height was plainly innocuous, an utterly un-notable five-eight or five-nine. The only thing of interest was the small cloth bag around his neck and the plain-looking and still-living branch across his knees. A ring of jewellery surrounded him: a small necklace of bone-bits, a beaded bracelet, some kind of eagle-feather head or ear-thing, two bangles, a smooth wooden anklet, and a necklace of woven roots. I looked up from the ring of bling and back to its presumed-owner, recognising him immediately. I added another notable feature to the list - those eyes, dark and intense and locked, unmovingly, onto their target.

It was Listens-to-Wind. And he was fighting.

Not visibly, not like that. He wasn't hitting or punching or casting, but he was fighting all the same. As we walked down and we got closer, it was all over his face. The effort. Old and tired and still straining to keep on keeping on. I knew the feeling. It's how I was before Dresden came along. Life beats on you, sometimes, trying to knock you down, and you've just gotta buckle with it. I felt another burst of gratitude for Dresden. Before him, I'd have stayed a bitter, beaten hunchback. Afterward... well. You've gotta get knocked down to get back up again. I wasn't sure which step he was in, but Listens seemed to know that. His fingers were tapping a light beat on the twig. And the monster was contained.

The monster - and I honestly couldn't describe it any other way, the thing was fucking freaky - loomed over the Councillor, maybe twenty feet tall, maybe thirty, and it was pure undulating colour. Looking at it was like a blot, a barren spot in my brain that I just couldn't focus on. It was just so Bright. I wasn't sure whether that rippling was light bending around it or it dragging the light in. Devouring or burying. What a fucking choice. Somehow, Listens-to-wind's eyes never left it.

Huh. Never met a tye-dyed bad guy before. That's new.

As a group, we walked forward toward the... tableau. Caoimhe stepped onto the glass first. I half expected it to shatter instantly. It was fine. Not even a crack appeared. The Wardens fanned out to either side, Ebenezar in the middle like the palm of a hand. I did as instructed and stayed back.

As we approached, Ebenezar called out to Listens-to-Wind. "Hey, Joe! Have you got a handle on that thing?"

'Joe' - and wasn't that an odd thing for a centuries-old wizard to be named - called back. His voice made it sound like he'd never had any doubt we'd turn up like this. "Nothin' to worry about, Old Man. What brings a redneck hillbilly, a team of wardens, a Blade of Winter, and the troublemaker's apprentice to a place like this?"

Ebenezar chuckled. "Good. We were almost worried about you, Joe. We're bringing the Council back together. Take the fight to the enemy. And we thought we'd come... pick you up, as the young un's say these days." He turned to look at me, clearly looking for approval on the funny things young people did these days. I just shrugged. I didn't speak much more slang than he did.

Ebenezar just frowned. Looked back to Listens-to-Wind. He opened his mouth to talk. I cut in. "So, um. What is it, anyway?" I asked. They all looked at me. Ebenezar seemed irritated, despite his amusement. "What? Like you weren't all thinking it! It's a big glowy, multi-coloured blot-thing that none of us can really look at properly! Evolution makes some weird shit and all, but that's got to be something supernatural."

Ebenezar chuckled, said again "Definitely Dresden's apprentice." I flushed, but I think I managed to pull off pretending that it was pride and not embarrassment.

Fools. Our constant worrying about social irrelevancies. We'd quibble ourselves to death before the end could even get to us. Our griping, moaning anxieties about embarrassment were nothing before the grand spectrum of the sparkling, glorious infinity of the universe. It made our trespass even worse, all the bleating, damnable noise of life. It was an offence. We were pathe-

I shook my head. That voice was beginning to get irritating. Maybe I was right. Maybe we were fools, coming down here. I couldn't even look at the thing that Joe was fighting, I should probably go back up and- Wiat. Wati. Wait. I shook my head again and focused. That wasn't me speaking. That wasn't my voice. They weren't my thoughts.

"Damn."

The others looked at me. Concern slipped out of their controlled expressions. "What? Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just..." My focus slipped and the voice crept in again, this time barely a whisper at the edge of my perception. I rubbed at my temple, concentrated, and the voice vanished again. "That thing is in my head. Or maybe it's just this place. Keeps telling me that I'm a trespasser and my breathing is sacrilege or something."

Joe said nothing. That was enough answer, in itself.

After a minute of pure quiet, one of the Wardens spoke up. "So, you didn't actually answer her question." Ah. Ellis, then. "What is this thing? I can barely look at it straight. It's like it forgot to bother with a veil and just ate the light and shat every colour it could think of."

"The Old Thing is part of the reason why this place was built. The Deaths of my People, they keep it contained here, in this place. They were supposed to keep it out of the Mausoleum, too, but-"

"So it is a Mausoleum! Fuckin' A, I thought it was and I was ri-" I trailed off, flushing as everyone glared at me. Fool. Your inane suggestions trespass on their minds. On their intellects. You will- I closed my eyes and grit my teeth. No. I have enough voices in my head already. A mental chuckle as an old memory surfaces. Get thee behind me, bastard. The voice stopped again. "Sorry."

Listens-to-Wind sighed. None of us noticed at the time, but the Old Thing... twitched as he did. Got a little brighter, a little more... solid. "Take a look. It should be down there."

We peered over the wall where he pointed. For a moment, I couldn't see what he was referring to. There were the same lights, the same wood, the same gla- Oh. If I hadn't stared right at it, I definitely would've missed it. A small gap in the rainbow. I had to assume the glass had been shattered because there was a colour missing.

This thing, it seemed, had slithered in through the crack. Wriggled and wormed, contorted and crawled, burrowed and bored, this thing had made it through and it had grown. Dog, had it fucking grown. Like a bacteria. Two then four then eight then sixteen then, well, that thing. It liked to remain unnoticed. Unbothered. It liked getting in under your guard. It liked festering. Knowing that... it helped. If it had a pattern I could see, it wasn't too alien for me to understand. It could be familiar.

"Okay, so it snuck in through a hole in the fence. That makes it a supernatural creepy teenager, not a threat. Why are you so concerned about it that you'd come down here?" The 'where your dead people are interred' was left unsaid.

"If the Old Thing escaped, it'd try eat the Sun."

"Ah," I blinked. That was really not an answer I was expecting. Listens-to-wind looked uncomfortably comfortable giving it too, which was just confusing. "Okay, um... what now?"

The question was left unanswered for a few moments. Then, Listens-to-wind jolted. The Old Thing, still unnoticed by all of us, twitched again. And yes, I only knew all of that in retrospect. I'll get to that, before the end.

"You need to go down."

The stick across his legs glowed brightly, previously invisible symbols lined in light and colour. He spoke a single word and a loud crack echoed through the cavern.

Fools. The door is opening now. Your trespass will-

For a moment I expected to fall - the floor had shattered, right? - and was utterly befuddled when I didn't. I looked down and the floor had gone from pure, clear glass to a mosaic of colour and lightning-linework. Each piece shimmered, that same rainbow effect once again, and suddenly they all just rotated. Pivoted, really, like they were opened. The doors really were open now. If the floor could be considered a door.

After a long, long moment of silence, we fell. Downward and down, faster and faster and ever-further into that pure, unending black before it exploded into a cascade of colour and light. My lungs seized and a memory long-since repressed, when I'd fallen into a swimming pool and nearly drowned, flooded through my mind. I panicked, heart pounding and mind racing, searching, hunting for anything that would get me out. Out of this void of sheer, utter colour.

I had the most uncomfortable sensation of being devoured.

AN1 - Do Americans say this? 'Mouth off', I mean? You also might've heard someone call a person 'mouthy', if that helps? I couldn't find anything conclusive on google as to whether Max might use it. In case it is only English, it means being verbally rude and disruptive. You'd often find it used to refer to errant schoolchildren being pricks to their teachers.