Chapter XII: Found the Light

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Part 2. Enjoy. Same question as before - does this come off as spooky?

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

I woke up in a ditch, my shoulders cramped and pressed up against the cold, rough stone beneath me. And anyone who ever told you that sleeping on the ground was comfortable is an idiot or a fucking masochist. Dog. I rolled my shoulders and groaned as the bones or joints or whatever popped and cracked.

Fucking. Ow.

I let my eyes flicker open and breathed out deeply. Oh... fucking ow! What was that pain? That sensation right there... that was... I poked a little harder. Yep. That- That's a rib. Ow. Why does that ache so much? Oh dog, I think this is what being kicked in the chest by a horse must feel like. Only I got hit in the chest by the floor. Does that make it worse? The floor is a lot bigger than a horse. I don't remember much from AP Physics, but I think widening the hit makes things worse. Or maybe it was better. Fucking ugh. Who cares. My ribs hurt.

I stared up at the ceiling. I could actually see one, which was interesting. I was expecting more Darkness. More... black? Oh. That's what happened. We... we fell. Through the dead. Walls and walls of them. Eyes blank, but so alive. I fumbled slightly, grabbed both my wands, and sat upright. Another twinge of pain through my chest. I could feel the air, cold and still, move with my motion. This place hadn't been disturbed in a very, very long time. And Dog, it fucking stank. I don't know what that smell was, but my stomach twitched every time I breathed in and just... eurgh.

Oh. Okay. I'm alone. Did not expect that. I'm gonna give them all the benefit of the doubt and believe they didn't just abandon me here, in the middle of this rock cavern thing. We must've fallen separately, then. Well, that's the second thing to do, then. What was the first? To find out where I was. Can't find them if I can't find me. Wow, that was deep. Almost as deep as I was right now...

I shook my head, blinked hard. Some of the fog cleared. I twitched. Ow. Damn ribs. I took a look around me. The cavern was vaguely circular, maybe more oval than circle, with three exits (two behind me, one in front), and- Wait. There's something... What am I missing? I know I saw... I know there's- Oh. Damnit. I looked back up at the ceiling. There... there was no hole.

"What the fuck?"

How did I get down here? This makes no sense, was I dragged? Is there some anti-gravity spell keeping me to this surface and I just fell out of one of those exits? I looked down at the ground. It was very... ground-ey. Kinda grey, mostly that weird scouring-pad surface that some rocks get, um... What does a drag-mark look like? Damn it, Dresden never... I sighed. Pity there weren't any caves back home. Maybe I'd actually know how to do all this.

Still. I may have had no idea how I got there, but I now knew where I was. In a cave with three entrances and no hole for me to fall through to get here.

In short, I was right in the middle of my usual weirdness. The more things change, eh?

Well, come on, Max. No time to just lie around. Gotta get working on thing two now.

I stood up, facing the single-exit side of the cavern. I stared at it. The inky black seemed to taunt me. Not verbally this time. No voices in my head but mine right now. It was taunting more in just... in its, like, general attitude. Was this how my parents felt when I did the talk to the hand, silent-treatment thing? Was I being cranky-teenagered by a lack of light?

Usual weirdness levels double confirmed.

I reached up and I tapped gently on the circlet I somehow still had on my head. Must be magic - there wasn't a comb or a clip or anything. I pushed some magic through my finger and let it flood into the circlet. "Satusnavus? Any way out?"

The circlet flared again and another line pointed backward. Toward the left of the two passages. Well, that's a clear answer, I guess. Couldn't get clearer without a little pop-up stationary-thing asking me if I was really trying to find a route and if I maybe wanted any help with that. Ahem. I followed it along.

Everything got darker as I walked. Or it felt like it did, anyway. I couldn't see well enough to judge the actual light levels, but my heart felt colder and colder as I continued down the tunnel. It tickled down the back of my neck, like icy-fingers stroking gently across the hairs there.

Fingers that vanished every time I turned around. Cowardly fuckers.

It... they weren't jumpy turns, strangely enough. I didn't feel panicked by the dark tickling my neck or the cold squeezing my heart. How can you jump at shadows when it's all shadows?

I could hear my heart beating in my ears though, which was kind of annoying.

And how long was this damn tunnel? My thighs were starting to hurt with all the - ugh - walking. The road stretched ever on... I chuckled. Heh. "Home is behind, the world ahead..." I sang, feeling the words echo out into the darkness. Guess it's true what they say about having a song in your heart. My step picked up as I continued, feeling more pep to it with each line of the melancholy song. Odd, I guess, but whatever works.

Easier to move forward than back, like my dad said... my dad. My dad! Somewhere off in the back of my head, a mist receded. As my step stalled, my attention immediately set on what was revealed. My parents... What had... why would... *how* could...

Why hadn't I thought about them?

They hadn't even come into my head once since all of this started. Not once. How could I... Look, I love my family. I don't understand them half the time, and I probably fight with them the other third, but I do love them. Really. I should've thought about them. They'll be so... I sighed. So, that was... weird. I'm going to go see them, when I get out of this place. I swear it.

So, how to - I paused, pondered - actually do that.

I wafted a wand, muttered a word in badly-pronounced Urdu, and smirked as it began to glow.

It... I really should not have done that. Oh no. It's- It's- I screamed in horror as the hideous, wriggling things revealed by the light tore into me, burrowing into my skin and ripping me limb from limb and-

Eh. Actually, it was fine.

I was just in a tunnel. Rough-hewn rock surrounded me, same as the cavern I'd woken up in. It could've been natural, it could've been not, but whatever it was, it was still it. I took a moment to look backward. Nothing.

The world ahead, Max. Keep your eye on the prize - getting out of here and not being dead. So, prizes, I guess. Lucky I had two eyes, then. I started forward. Though I'd never been able to go cross-eyed. Except once. It was Chloe's... ninth, maybe tenth birthday. Her 'party' was literally just me and her, same as it had always been. But William had gotten all dressed up, like a fifties doo-wap version of a clown, and tried to entertain us. He'd muttered something - something that my brain had itched trying to work out at the time, utterly believing in 'magic words' and shit like that - and then pulled a nickel from my nostril. I'd been so shocked, I'd gone cross-eyed trying to get a glance at my nose. I remember blurting "Oh dog, what if my nose got bent! I'd look like a wrestler! I can't look like a wrestler, what if people ask me what my favourite fighting move is? Somehow, I don't think 'Circle, circle, square, right trigger' would be the correct answer!" as the other two laughed.

I sighed. I hadn't been in Chloe's house for long, but... not so much laughter, these days. Wait. Chloe! I immediately stopped. "Weatherwax? Can you hear me?"

There was a pause. It stretched on. I swore. Dog, this is taking too long. "Pick up already, Weatherwax! Fucking hell, when I need fucking help, she's off-"

I stopped myself, gritting my teeth around the words to stop more coming out of me. Fucking hellfire. Nothing. "Well, just in case you can hear me and I can't hear you, we're stuck in a Dark cave." I made certain I pronounced that capital letter. "There's a bunch of weird monsters, and something Listens called 'The Old Thing' that apparently wants to eat the Sun, but nothing I can't handle. There's just no way out. I'm kinda wandering about pretty aimlessly, even with Satusnavus, so if there's anything you can do to help with that, I'd, uh, really appreciate it?"

I paused for another moment, managing to bite back some of the more... effusive expressions of gratitude I might've been tempted to give. 'cause fucking fuck that noise. But still, silence. Well, never mind. Cross that option off the list. Screw it. I'm continuing onward. And maybe I wouldn't even need Satusnavus. Even I couldn't manage to get lost in a straight-

Ahem.

I turned around, and followed the line of light.

Maybe I would keep Satusnavus on. Just in case.

The endless rock and dark turned out to have an end after all. It took almost an hour for me to reach it, and the tunnel veered up and down and left and right throughout, more and more as I closed on the final stretches. It was almost worm-like. Like some giant slithering creature had carved this like humans would hack out a path through dense foliage. Only it carved a path through rock. Maybe not a creature I'd like running into.

Not that I really had any options.

Or rather, no options that I knew would help me avoid that hypothetical worm-thing. After a rather abrupt downturn in the tunnel, leaving me a slope I had to slide down, it suddenly opened wide into a cavern. I stared at it. Fuck, and I thought the last lot of rock looked rough. The cavern's walls were a nebulous network of holes, like honeycomb. But if it was bees that made this, they'd've had to be the size of dogs. Big ones, like... like... Big Dogs. Yeah.

I muttered another word of Urdu and flung the light from my wand up to the ceiling of the cavern, where it illuminated the entire thing clearly.

Okay, so, that's... onetwothreefourfive- twenty seven possible routes. Just... wow. Thank fuck I have Satusnavus. I walked into the vague centre of the cavern - it was an oddly marshmallow shaped thing, so there wasn't really an actual 'centre' as such, but I found something workable - and pushed a bit more Will into it. The light line glowed brightly before flicking off to point to my left.

Then it flickered out. I tapped the crystal a few times. Nothing. So, I closed my eyes and pushed yet more of my will into the thing. It bloomed back into life, still pointing off to the left.

Unfortunately, that didn't narrow it down to a level that would actually be helpful - there were a dozen different tunnels off in that direction. But at least it was a direction, I guess. I paused for a second and looked them all over. Man, I really hope it isn't that one in the roof. Flying is not as simple as Harry Potter makes it look.

I took a deep breath. Okay, Max. Let's do this.

It took me an hour to narrow it down to two side-by-side passages. Whenever I got close to one tunnel, Satusnavus would focus on it for a few seconds before wobbling over to the other.

This, I had decided, was a big problem.

Namely, because I now had a decision to make. Which fucking corridor did I damn well use? I knew it was meaningless, I know it was meaningless - I had absolutely no way to tell which way was right - but for some reason I just could not decide. The closer I stepped to each one, the less I wanted to take it.

Something in my head kept telling me was a mistake.

This went on for about half an hour before something profound occurred to me.

Of fucking course it was a mistake. And that was fine! I made those all the time. And I'll be damned if being all alone in a dark cave makes me stop doing that. Onward!

I ran into the hole, too fast to see the sudden drop. I coyote-style ran in air for a moment, before I plummeted down yet again. Man, I thought, as I screamed in shock, this is happening way too often for my taste.

I woke up in a ditch. Again. Seriously, not a habit I ever expected to pick up, and not one I wanted to keep. The rock was still uncomfortable - sharp little points jabbing into my back - and the air was still still and stale and so very, very cold.

I really don't like it down here.

My eyes flickered open. Darkness. I sighed. Really, really don't like it down here. I muttered the Urdu once again and flicked out my- out my... fuck. Fucking fuckballs, that's just... ugh. This was... Calm down, Max. You can do this.

mistakemistakemistakedeadlydeadlymistakemis-

"Shut up!"

My voice echoed around me, tauntingly, loudly. And... weirdly pitched. Did my voice just get deeper or have I really had no idea what I sound like all this time? I couldn't help myself.

I tried it again.

"What the fuck?"

Again, the cave echoed. My profanity-laden inquiry pingponging about, the tone and pitch still off. Still a lot deeper than my voice could ever go. There was a rumble beneath it, a vibration that felt like the rock itself was talking back to me. Something was tickling at the edge of my mind, like a realisation at the very tip of my tongue that would take only a tiny microstep more to be realised.

I scrabbled about the rock nearby, hand landing on one wand. Yes! I grabbed it and immediately cast light. The Urdu word echoed around me, pitch and tone changing wildly. I got to my feet, rising with the wand in my hand. One more. I had to know.

With a deep breath, I screamed "Purple People Eater!" My screams and the cave's echoed yells bounded off the walls, the resonance making them louder and louder until the sound was completely deafening. All-consuming. There was nothing in my head but me and the sound. And me was quiet.

And then, in a sudden snap, it all went still and silent.

That... yeah. That was creepy.

Don't judge. I wanted to make it... unexpected.

Maybe the stillness was less natural cave stuff and more of a hint. Scream not into the void, or the void will scream back. So, come on Max. Be the void. Be the void! Insert gym-bro squawk here.

I tried to stay quiet and pushed forward, quickly using my wand to find the other and stowing it away again. The shadows parted around me like water. It felt a little like swimming, too. That stagnant stillness seemed almost like it was trying to push back against me. So, I did what I always do. In the grand tradition of both my family and my mentor, I shoved that darkness back and dropkicked it into the lake. Okay, maybe that was more Dresden than my Dad, but my Mom would definitely pull something like that. Probably.

Either way, on I went. I could feel the strain in my muscles. My arms and thighs burned with it. But I could do this. I wouldn't let it win. I just kept my eyes on the prize. Wait, prizes. Not dying and getting out of here.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my ankles and pulled. Hard. I went down. Hard.

I slid for a distance, then finally hit a flat floor. I lay there for a long minute, trying to calm my racing heart. And to think of where my wand might have gone. I really need to get a strap on that thing, like one of those nintendo remote things. Not for the first time, I cursed my magic making video games impossible. With a whole bunch of effort, I pulled up my hand and planted it flat on the floor to lift myself up. I crawled forward, feeling along the floor for my wand.

After a few moments, I felt a powder beneath my hand. Which first, gross, but second... worrying.

I scrabbled about in the dirt and the stone, before remembering that I only dropped one wand. The advantages of redundancy, people. I pulled my other wand and one word of Urdu later, the room was lit. And my stomach dropped harder than I had.

That powder? It was some kind of coloured chalk, and I was right in the middle of a giant circle of it. Oh fuck.

Nothing was glowing, but that didn't necessarily mean anything with magic circles. Actually, come to think of it, that may just have been Dresden pulling my leg. Either way, I was going to be very, very careful. I paused, looked around, reminded myself that I'd accidentally wandered into the middle of a possibly live and complete circle. And then cast magic.

I'd be careful, starting from now.

"Okay, calm down-" "Okay, calm down-"

I paused. "Did that-" "Did that-"

Huh. Weird. The voices were back. Like, back in the cave, I mean. I got to my feet, quickly scanning about the room. Not that I was expecting much. Like before, I didn't see anything or anyone. Hm. What to do, what to do... I needed to get out of this circle, so getting out was worth a shot. I gently walked over to the edge, trying not to disturb the dust across the floor too much. I stopped a short ways away and reached out a hand.

The room flashed and I smelt an odd mix of after-the-rain and lightning-burn. I thought I could taste both slightly too. Okay, so. Not an option.

I thought for a moment. I'd need my wand to focus here, but if I use it I drop the light...

Fuck it.

I took another look to make sure I knew exactly where I was going to be pointing this thing and broke the light spell, plunging the room into inky darkness.

The stillness was so much worse.

I quickly pointed the wand at a particular spot in the circle and cast, a few dozen rapid words and sounds of Xhosa. As I cast, the cave spoke along with me. The spell revealed very little, beyond the fact that I had no idea what this circle was for. The only thing it clarified was a word - Meaning.

Which honestly, just... wow. Unhelpful.

Did something mean something?

Did I need to mean something?

Does it want to know the meaning of something?

I groaned. The cave echoed my groan. Dogdamnit. Okay, Max. Time to mix some of the old grey matter together and come up with an answer. Or you're going to starve to death in this circle. Hey, maybe that's what the powder is! I cast my light again and collected a small handful that wasn't part of any recognisable symbols and ran another few identification spells.

I really hate it when I'm right about these things.

There were many, many bones here. From many, many people.

Right. Not that I needed any more motivation to get out of here, but if I had that would've done the trick. Okay, can't just walk out, so I probably can't just- Huh. I tried to smudge the circle with my foot. Petrichor and ashes again. Yep. Can't just break it. Means there's either something powering it, or some sort of clause or criteria to breaking it.

Power. Okay. I brought up the light. Still no glowing from the circle. I threw the light across the room, going through it step by step. Just a cave. Nothing. Oh, hey, there's my other wand! Outside the circle, of course. "Fuck." "Fuck."

Right, yes. That again. It still made me shudder - little shivers down my spine like cold fingers.

What purpose does mimicking me actually serve? It's definitely not an echo. So, it's something deliberate, which means it's been done for a reason. Damned if I can think of what that reason would be, though. It's not like I have any pretty spirits lusting over me to offend.

I went back to the circle. Another few spells later, in the quiet dark, revealed another aspect to the circle - containment and manipulation. It wanted to catch something and do something with it. Maybe my voice? I mean, it's hardly done anything bad. I can still speak.

I can still speak, right?

"Testing!" "Testing!"

Great.

So, it's not taking my voice, just mimicking it. Or am I giving it my voice? Important distinction, magically speaking. What can I give but still keep?

And how the hell does this link to the Old Thing up on the pyramid? Is it a trap for it? The thing did talk in my head a lot. Maybe... oh. Oh shit! Meaning! I get it now. They are connected! I took a deep breath and said, as clear as I could, "Word."

A moment passed with nothing, and I thought I'd fucked it up, but then the cave intoned my word right back at me. "Word."

The only thing you give and keep at the same time. The thing all meaning is bound up in, conveyed through.

The circle suddenly blazed with light, like someone had turned all the Christmas lights on at once and threw in the 4th of July Fireworks for good measure. It felt like a pat on the back, and a gold star back in Kindergarten.

The light vanished, and with it the circle went. All magical pressure vanished - though the shape was still there in the floor, it wasn't holding me any more. I took a few cautious steps forward and grinned. I quickly dashed over to grab my second wand. "Yes! One win for me!" "Yes! One win for me."

I groaned. "Fuck." The cave groaned. "Fuck."

"Why are you why are still you still talking talking?"

That one gave me a headache. Seriously, I beat the circle. This should've stopped. I growled.

"What-what-do-do-you-you-want-want-from-from-me-me!"

I stopped. That was weird.

"Did you get quicker?"

My train of thought derailed in a fiery crash. I just stood there. "That's not good. That's not good at all."

The voice was speaking at the same time as me now. Still deeper, more resonant, more dark cave-ey than my actual voice, but yeah. It just sounded like an odd vibration to my words now.

And then it spoke without me, in my fucking voice. "They're heeeere."

What.

"Run."

Something snarled behind me.

Leathery, bloated, inky-black slugs, the size of fucking bears. Their skin (?!) undulated with each sinewy, relaxed movement that seemed to propel them far further than it should. I stared, slackjawed, as the shadow charged.

For a moment, I thought I might just stand and let it overtake me. Let myself fall into the black and experience that endless cascade of colour. But a whisper in my ear and the faint flickering of fire across my fingertips-

I was a student of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. His last student.

No way I could give up.

The faint flickering became a blaze and I grinned, wide enough to show all my teeth. The monsters may not recognise that particular signal, but it was enough to let me straighten my spine and face them, head on. I threw out my hands and a torrent of fire blasted from them, the monsters screamed. For a moment, it looked like pieces of the shadow were melting away, revealing the faces... the- the- Oh dog.

I dropped the flames and ran.

I was a student of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. His last student.

Running was something I could do.

I ran with no destination, no route. The only thoughts in my head were those faces, and the need to get away. To be anywhere but here. The creatures were slow, but their loping leaps ensured they stayed on my trail.

Suddenly, I coughed.

I blinked.

I coughed?

I coughed again.

I know it's cold down here, but this is ridiculous. Why am I coughing? There's not even- My train of thought abruptly detailed in a fiery crash. There's a tickle in my throat. It wasn't there before, but it was definitely there now. The things behind still came, but that didn't seem important. It wasn't, after all. What's the worst they could do to me? But this thing in my throat was demanding my attention, so I went in after it.

It was easier than I expected. My teeth scraped unpleasantly over my skin - even tearing it slightly, I think - but in it went. Nails, fingers, nearly all of my palm until- I suddenly gagged violently and a convulsion ripped my hand out of my mouth - definitely tearing the skin - just as my fingertips gently grazed the obstruction. Apparently, I managed to grab it, as what came out was revealed barb by barb to be a feather. The vane looked a little worse for wear, but it was a simple feather.

How had that gotten in there? I wondered. Wandered. I dimly registered the creatures closing, a few steps away from reaching me, but it didn't seem important. I'd get to that. I just had to work out what was up with this feather. As I focused in on it, running my finger over the barbs and feeling them rustle across my skin - oddly like feeling the side of a deck of playing cards, actually - I noticed something. There were words in the feather. I peered closely at them. God, how did they fit so many words on a feather? I marveled at the sheer talent it must've taken to make that happen.

And then, I made a horrible mistake.

I opened my Eye. And the words took hold.

-as preening birds pose still under the gazelight, so should you freeze before the g'Len-

My lips curled around the words, curled around those unfamiliar patterns of speaking as my body moved to someone else's instruction. Became part of someone else's pattern. It wasn't like changing an accent, it was like someone used to a different jaw was trying to move mine in the same way they moved theirs. Like something with five legs trying to walk in a two-legged body. Like... Like-

It was... so utterly disconcerting I couldn't even describe it. There weren't words. But there were. They were in my head. In my mouth. My voice. But they weren't words I knew. And they had control.

The words held up the feather with my hands, and something protruded out of it. I could see the shadow of the shapes moving, through the gaps in the barbs, but I couldn't see what they were becoming. I think I'm grateful for that.

The things chasing me stopped, and stared at the feather, and the weird stuff happening on the other side of it. And then the words took my mouth and used it once again.

-freeze as prey before predator, as a pool on the tundra, freeze as this one commands-

And as instructed, they froze. Literally. And then they each violently exploded into a block of thick blue ice - it was... transformative, like their forms unfolded outward into their new shapes. Like butterflies. Exploding, icy butterflies. I just stopped and stared. Huh. That was... huh.

I didn't need to hear Weatherwax to know what she'd say. The snide sentence practically creaked itself into my head. "Was that the assistance you had in mind?"

And no, no it wasn't, not even a little bit, hypothetical brain-Weatherwax. I literally just said not... some amount of time ago that she shouldn't take over my body like this. But, as I looked over the ice-blobs all around me, I couldn't deny it was effective as hellfire. Though the traces of it still creeping in the back of my head did make me turn my light up a little brighter before I pressed on into the dark again. And whenever I saw Weatherwax again, we'd be having fucking wor- I swallowed. A conversation about doing... that ever again.

I looked back at the ice blocks. "Huh."

Well. At least it worked. Not dying is alright. I could live with that.

Heh.

A few caves later, I finally spotted something of interest. I scurried over. Another one, eh? The symbols were... similar, but not quite. The shapes were similar, those same curves and jagged, broken emphasis. Same language, but different symbols, maybe?

There was one though, right at the top, that said 'Will'. It didn't say it in English, of course, but that was what appeared in my brain after my translation spell, so that's what it meant. Lucky me that I could keep light and cast detections now.

I poked through the rest of the circle. It was focused on... empathy?

As I poked it with my magic, it began to hum. I swore, pulled everything back immediately. It made no difference. The humming grew. Slowly, out of the rough-hewn rock the circle was carved into, a... blade of stone grew. It was curved and sharp, like a stalagmite crossed with a scimitar - one of the proper ones where the top section of the blade was nearly three inches from the edge to the pointy bit. It looked heavy, and hefty, and so, so sharp.

Some of the symbols from the circle were repeated on the sword - Will. Courage. Heart. Power. Life. Hmmph. If it was three things, I'd've suspected a Schoolhouse Rock reference, ancient Native American crypt-vault or not. But five? What brought all those things together? Will, Courage, and Heart were all sort of ways of saying someone was brave. But life didn't work for that even a little.

And while the others were vital, you didn't need Power to complete tasks.

Was it part of some story in Native American culture? I know the Norse have kennings - but if there was a referential metaphor here, I didn't have the knowledge to spot it. Thinking in that direction would be pointless.

Was it... I don't know, was it an anagram? The Greeks were fond of them, and they were all over Europe in the Middle Ages. They even used them to analyse the Tanakh, so... I still had no idea if that was a thing they'd actually do here though.

Regardless, I'd keep thinking. I'd be stuck here otherwise. I could do this. I could get out. Dresden would be so disappointed if I just gave up. He always... admired... my... tenacity.

Oh.

Will - your blood, sweat, and tears. The part of humanity that drove us to endure all these years, that drove us to the greatest highs and the lowest lows.

Courage - the willingness to step forward and put the work in. To shed blood in the name of the righteous cause.

Heart - the thing that pumps it through your body.

Power - blood was the strongest power there was.

Life - if you miss that association, I don't know what else to tell you.

I reached up and in one quick motion, ran my hand down the edge of the blade. While it was sharp, it was also still rock. I screamed as it tore through my hand. But as the liquid of my life dripped down it, the circle slowly dimmed.

I fistpumped in celebration. I screamed, as pain shot through my hand. Bad idea! Bad idea!

I poked my wand into the wound and muttered a random spate of Spanish. I couldn't fix it - I sucked at healing - but I could help hurry it along.

One more test passed. What would this cave throw at me next? I'd kick its ass, whatever it was, but yeah. Feeling confident, curious, and a little hungry. It's been a while since I had anything to eat. Not sure how long, admittedly. Kinda hard to tell time in a cave. In the Dark.

I took a few steps forward to the next cave exit, and then my foot exploded into fire. I screamed. The circle hadn't faded! Fuck! I tried to concentrate, tried to focus, but every time I got close - a lance of pain flashed up my leg and whatever I had just broke. The healing spell tried to repair, but whatever was damaging me just ripped up its' work a moment later.

I brought up my hands and just threw power out.

The dull circle below my feet - oh fuck - suddenly burst like a firework. Specks of light and ashen cinders flew through the room, and then I could move. I dashed forward, out of the circle as quick as I could. The stone was rough and unsteady beneath my feet and I went tumbling almost as quickly as I started. I made it out of the circle though. Fucking thing.

The cavern walls began to glow. Fuck again. With a rusty spoon. Damnit. I wafted a hand and, with a ringing sound that echoed through the cave, summoned enough energy to stand again.

The cave rumbled and shook. For fucks sake. What now? I turned to the open entry and, huh. Okay. That's a tide of skulls cascading toward me like some kind of... skull-nami. Skull wave? Eh. It's okay. I'll workshop it. I raised my hands and cast a shield. I also racked my brain for any helpful swimming spells I could remember. I was going to need them.

The flood carried me into another chamber, depositing me on the ground with a clatter and clash as skulls scattered across the cave. I pulled myself up, planting both palms flat on the ground and pushing my weight onto my knees. Every part of my body ached. I thanked my lucky stars though. It was an honest miracle I hadn't been sliced open by all those bones. Then I looked up, and my heart fell. Maybe not so lucky...

There were dozens of circles here, every one of them active.

Rings of symbols that twitched and danced and changed even as I stared at them. Some were barely a meter across, others were twenty meters or more.

I climbed quickly to my feet, scanning the floor around me and- I sighed. Wowzers. Thank dog for that. I was outside that mess. But what the hell was it? I'd never seen anything that big or complex. I tossed a few scanning spells into the interlocking rings, my mind boggling at the byzantine responses my spells threw back. Nothing made sense.

There was one clear thing though.

In the middle of the dark, dark cavern of unfathomably complex magical prisons... of course. A single, red tulip. Growing right out of the rock. A thin and shimmering liquid dripped onto it, drop by drop, from something up above. Something long and thin and spindly and just... hanging from the ceiling I couldn't see - which meant it was hanging from the black. It looked... oddly like a hand, if it'd been carved and hewn from the thick, dark rock by something without any hands at all, something that'd seen them only once in passing. Despite the crudeness of its carving, the giant stone thing was beautiful.

I stepped forward, careful to Not Cross Into The Circle. Any of them. If it was this hard to look at, I didn't even wanna think about how it'd feel to be in one of them. Just... wowzer.

I followed the edges along both sides, until I hit wall. Damn. No way around. The tunnel in, filled with skulls. No way back. Shit. I knew what I had to do. But it broke every rule, every sense, every bit of logic and self-preservation. I didn't want to do it. But I had to. I had to go through the circles. Maybe there'd be another test to turn them off, but there was nothing I could do from here. I couldn't even tell what the circles did.

I took a deep breath. I lifted my foot and pushed forward. The still air felt thick, pushing back against my foot. It took shoving some Will into my leg, giving it a hint of magic, to finally make it through. These circles were powerful, but they didn't seem too opposed to things coming in. This was weird. Circles should not be like this. But here they were.

Dog, what am I doing?

I planted my foot on the ground and heaved the rest of me into the circle. Immediately, the air felt different. The stillness remained, but it was like a thick, heavy coat. It was almost damp, but the faint taste was magic rather than moisture. I pushed through the circle, moving closer and closer to that flower and the hand (wrongwrongwrong) dangled above it.

For all my worries about the circle, nothing happened until I got close to the flower.

The hand flexed, the stone twitching like it was actually alive (WAS IT?!) and it slowly reached down out of the dark, a long arm of somehow-solid shadow behind it. As it reached my level, it began to unfurl, revealing, sat in its palm... a notebook?

I looked at it for a few long moments, the presence of a college-lined. ring-bound A4 Oxford notebook in the middle of this... nightmare taking me an understandable extra time to get my head around. I mean, just... what?

I stepped forward, though I really didn't want to, and tried to take the notebook. Tried to, because it doggedly refused to come away from its stone spot no matter how hard I pulled. I let it be with an embarrased huff. I still probably shouldn't use my sight down here, even if it would make this easier. I guess there's only one thing for it, right? The obvious action here...

I reached forward and I opened it.

Inside it was, as advertised, college-lined.

Got that important fact out of the way first, before moving on to the truly freaky thing. On the top line of the first page was a simple, single word:

Name.

It wanted me to write down my name? Like, my name? Or my Name?

A pen popped out of the air - a Black Bic Biro, seriously what the fuck? - and landed on the page. I guess that answered that question. I took a look around the cavern. No ways out. With a shrug, I scrawled down my name. Maxine Caulfield.

The circles, vanished, now burst into bright, beaming light that spread through the room like a floodlight. The way was clear. The flower was gone. The risk I'd just taken hit me. What Dresden would've said, walking into an active set of circles like that. I didn't do well on my own. I really, really didn't.

I walked into the final chamber, and immediately my gaze was drawn to the centre. Beautiful. Floating crystals of various sizes, but all bigger than me, hung in the air and sparkled. They illuminated a small area in the middle of the cavern, dotted around a large stone chair. It was empty. I took a look around, but the cavern was so massive that, despite the crystal lights, I couldn't see the sides- or even the roof.

I took another few steps in. Something crunched beneath my boot. I looked down. It was a three-eyed skull, each socket filled with a roughly hewn sphere of crystal. All three were an odd, pale white that blended well with the bone of the skull.

Something ahead of me snorted loudly.

I looked up. The chair was no longer unoccupied, and the figure that sat in it was... me? It stood and raised a hand, calling fire from the air and leaving it hanging like the spookiest of interior lighting. She did the same four more times, until five balls of fire had joined the crystals in floating around me. Then she sat back down. Her hands clutched the arms of her chair, and I could see the stone crack faintly beneath her fingers. I could... I could feel it too. Like they were my fingers, as well as hers. One person in two bodies. Twenty fingers on four hands. Hands that were two but four but two. The same fingers, making two different movements at once.

Wowzer.

I leaned forward, met my eye. Me looked at I and I looked at me. I/she grinned. "Pay attention, Max." I/she said, "This is where things get weird."

As instructed, I did. Paid attention, I mean. I finally took a decent look at myself. As in, her-myself, not me-myself. I do not have time for that kind of self-reflection right now. She-me was dressed in a way that me-me would never be, all fancy clothes and actual make-up. I don't think I've worn actual make-up since that time Chloe and I broke into Joyce's supply for pirate scars. And I don't think that really counts. Also, for clarity, I'm going to just call her her and me me from now because I'm starting to get confused in my own head and I do not want to go through that again and wowzer this is so freaking weird because I'm me and she's me but she's not me and she is me because I can feel what she's doing and there's stuff going on that I don't-

I swore and took a deep breath, shoring up my mind. I felt myself again. Just myself. Not myselves. That was not fun.

The other-Max smiled at me, and I didn't feel it. Good. "I'm impressed, original me. I didn't think you'd be able to push back like that. I'm glad. It wouldn't be good to win by default."

"Win?" I tilted my head.

"Win." She repeated. After a moment, she explained, "If you win, you get to go ahead to the next chamber. It would be your way out of... this place." She spread her arms wide and gestured to the cavern around us. She smiled. It had too many teeth. "If I win, I get you." There was a moment where the shadow dominating the room flickered. It was just for a moment, the briefest thing, but I could see the faces of the hundreds of corpses lining the space. They all hovered there, lifeless, empty, like puppets with no strings and dolls with no life behind their shiny, empty eyes. In that moment, all their eyes were staring at me.

And then it was just darkness again.

She let that sit for a few moments, before continuing, "Pirate scars, eh? Did you get that one across the eye right in the way you thought you would?"

I looked up at her, eyes narrowing. She rolled her eyes. "Well gosh gee golly willikers. It's almost like we've run into mind-reading entities before."

I paused. I had a fair point, actually. She did. Ahem. "So, what do I actually have to do?" She looked at me. "You know. To win."

A laugh. Did my laugh really sound like that? "Yes, it does. And it's pretty simple. You have to beat me."

"Beat you?" I tilted my head and raised a wand. The tip glowed a fell green. "So, if I burned you from the inside out with acid, would that do the trick?"

"You are certainly welcome to give it a go." She shrugged. "I don't know how much good it'll-"

My arrow of acidic energy flew past her head. I could hear it sizzling as it consumed the energy I'd used to throw it, vanishing before it even hit the shadow around the edge of the room. Other me laughed. "Not bad. Though, you'll have to try a little harder than-" She twitched left, avoiding the second bolt. Another laugh. "We're sneakier than I thought. Interesting. Do you often try and sideswipe people like-" Another dodge for another bolt, but I'd anticipated that. A second bolt followed, where I thought she'd dodge.

I'll spare you the tension. She dodged it.

"I'm you. Of course I dodged it." She looked at me like I was an idiot. And perhaps I was. She wasn't me though. And I wasn't her. This was the cave. Another test. Other me rolled her eyes. "I would've thought that was obvious. Of course it's another test, dumbass."

"So, if we're not going to sit here and kill each other, how do we beat each other?"

"The old fashioned way. Mind to mind. This is another puzzle, just like the others. I just happen to have Voice, Will, and a Name." She spread her hands wide, drawing me. "You simply have to find my answer." A pause. "Our answer."

"So, what's the question?"

"Really? You of all people can't work it out. You've probably seen a hundred clues on your way in here." A cruel smile, just a little too wide for my face. "Dresden would be so proud."

"He probably would. I made it here, didn't I? Kept going and going until I got to where I needed to be."

She snorted. "And yet, that got him killed." She leaned in. There was a look in my eye that frightened me. "And it's all your fault."

What?

"My fault? How the fuck do you figure that?"

"You think he'd've been in Edinburgh if he wasn't helping out your idiot friend? If you and Chloe hadn't pushed the investigation too far, brought attention you should never have had?" The eyebrow curl was perfect and taunting. Bitch. "You put him in that situation, ergo, it's your fault." A smirk. "Not to mention the cause of all that."

"The cause? What do you mean?" My heart was beating quicker. I could almost hear it, so distantly.

Her eyes widened. The smirk crawled across her face, spreading to her eyes. "You haven't worked it out? Honestly? I thought I'd just missed it in some neatly packed box in the back of your head, but you really don't know!" She laughed, honestly and long. "That is just fantastic. Wowzers."

I... snapped. I launched myself forward, gathering power to my hands. I grabbed the bitch by the throat. "You're going to tell me!" I put force on the words, layered them with compulsion. She would share. She would tell. I demanded it.

There was a moment, where her face creased. I almost thought she'd buckle.

The compulsion snapped with another open laugh. This one was dark. Biting. There was an edge of something in the eyes that stared coldly at me. Something just a little too familiar. "Fuck, Max. You used to be smart. I told you, this isn't going to end like that. No big boss fight here. I don't have an ultimate form, and there's no special combo. It's just you."

In an instant, she was in front of me.

She seemed taller. More present. More solid. I suddenly realised how tired I felt. How the walls towered above me, so small in this vast darkness. But I could fight it. I could keep going.

"Can you?" I asked, my voice coming from inside my head and beyond. I could see my face getting closer, eyes locked on mine. "Can you really keep going? Through all of this?" She shook her head sadly. "Don't you think I'd do better? Be a better you? After all," Leaning back. "Look at everything you've done. Never mind Chloe, you've enough on your tally sheet for any devil to delight in devouring you."

The corpses on the walls were watching intently.

She reached up and gently touched my temple with a single finger. The touch was kind. The burning memory that was shoved into my mind's eye was not. I watched myself, younger, in Chloe's room, desperately crying as she raged at me. How dare I not tell her I was leaving? How dare I continue? My mere presence was an affront. A sacrilege, against all the memory of the space I was standing in.

Another touch, the memory changed again. Kristen. Fernando. Standing. The bridge. The needles. The look in their eyes as I spoke, words laced with concern and compulsion and love. So much love. The anger. The fear. The love.

The bridge, again. Kristen. Fernando. Falling. Breaking.

The voice, speaking up for me. Young. Mistakes. Can do better. Could I? I was trying, Dresden. I swear I was.

I looked up and saw him, standing tall and proud. That ridiculous coat billowing as he cast at those around him. The darkness pressed in. The monsters were ravenous. I tried to push forward, to cast a spell of my own. Anything to help. I was trying.

But the storm of fury was digging itself into my head. Tearing up the turf and paving of my brain and digging deep. I could barely thing. Thin. Think. Think. Somehow, I managed to shove the turmoil down. Compress my empathy. I pulled up a spell, something with fire. I'd bring light to the situation.

I stepped forward. Just in time to see Dresden buried in undulating darkness and screaming monsters. Everything faded once again, until I was hanging loosely in the void. The skin of reality folded back and revealed my counterpart.

She walked up to me, stepping up invisible stairs, until she had to lean down to talk to me. Her face was barely half a foot from mine. It was identical. My face. Her face. Ours. I could feel it. Wrongwrongwrong. Two faces on one person. I wasn't two faced. I was me. I was her. Shit.

"Now, you have a choice to make, Max. Are you going to let me in? Are you going to keep trying to prove yourself to people you already got killed?" She shook her head. "They don't care anymore, Max. Give in. Please. Let me take over, be the Max you should've been."

I shook my head. It was harder than I thought. My head was too heavy. Twice as heavy as usual. But I still managed. Still pushed. Tried to keep everything I was to myself. "I am Max Caulfield."

"Maxine, never Max." Her face, in my mind.

"I am from Arcadia Bay."

"But our real home is Chicago." Her face, in my memories.

"Chloe is my best friend."

"But we haven't seen her in years." Her face, in my house.

"You are not me!"

"But I will be." Her face. With my family. My friends.

With Chloe.

"...n-n-n-n-n-"

I tried to say it. The word. To push back. Courage and heart. To stand up like Dresden did. Tell them... tell them. But I couldn't. My mouth, my mind. Neither would move. I was stopping me. Me was stopping she. She was stopping I.

The force of my will was crushing. It always had been. I'd out-stubborned everything in my path. Losing Chloe and William. Moving to Chicago. Kristen and Fernando. Dresden. The Council. My mom. My dad. And now that was turned on me. I could almost feel my brain crinkling like a crisp packet. My soul searing as it was stuffed further and further down by this furious presence. I honestly don't know how hard I screamed, only that I went hoarse long before I stopped.

My body crumpled. I hit the floor. I kept screaming still.

And then I remembered the tulip. My mom's voice, unbidden, rose in my head. A tulip isn't like a rose. A tulip doesn't strive to impress anyone. It's unique without trying, individual without effort, always on the alert to enjoy life as much as it can. It doesn't fear looking at the sun. It doesn't fear looking at anything else.

Stubbornness had its place. It'd gotten me far. But it was time to... step closer to myself. I looked up at me, and met my eye. The kaleidoscopic feel of staring at myself gave me one hell of a headache. I kept the gaze, and held it. Slowly, my faces split into a grin. "Excellent. Well done, me." A pause. "Let them know I'll take care of the Old Thing. A little refraction and it'll be kept at bay another fifty years or so before I need another recharge. I'd check on it every decade though, just to be sure. Better safe than sorry."

My counterpart's form shimmered, a twist of the light revealing that the flesh and blood form was actually just glass. Lines appeared in the form as it split into shards and froze. A light built through the room, and colours I couldn't even begin to name reflected and refracted through the shards of my former other self, spreading light into every corner of the cavern. Despite the looming dark, the cavern was much smaller than it looked. The walls were barely a few feet beyond the precipice of where the shadow had started. Every inch of every one was covered in odd sigils, glyphs, shapes, and forms that shimmered against the dark rock. As the colours hit the wall, they melted into the shapes, filling them. The light spread more and more, pushing back the dark wherever it reached.

Above a pair of thick cloth... curtains (?), the light flooded into a new symbol. Two circles, one inside the other. The outer circle was bisected by three lines, dividing it into thirds. The inner circle held a diamond - a really blocky, square one - with two right-angled lines coming out of the top like wings.

I walked over to the door, and pushed on it. I wasn't expected much. But open it did. The next room was... I don't know, a temple? I didn't think Native Americans had those, but it's the only word I could think of to describe it. The walls were lined with logs and furs, and the ground with many, many pelts. Some of them were uncomfortably... inky. Dotted throughout the space were what I can only call Shrines. If there was another word for them, I didn't know it.

I walked up to the last one, furthest from the door. Dog. That was not what I expected. A blank polaroid. This situation is getting weirder and weirder. But it gave me an idea. I held my hand over it. My head was killing me. My hand was killing me. My ribs were bruised to hell and back.

Perfect.

I closed my eyes and channeled energy down into the image. The magic took hold, shifting the colours, compounds, and dyes behind the film covering. White for the snow, browns and greens for the forest, and red. For the tulips. Then I threw in the Wardens, Caoimhe, Ebenezar, and Listens-to-Winds. Oh, and Little Brother.

I felt the cold breeze on my skin. Then, I opened my eyes.

All of my companions were standing around the cold, open space outside the tented entrance to the cave. Every one of them was confused and looking around in open surprise. "What the hell?" One of them blurted. I wasn't sure who. I was too focused on one particular person. I had a message to give.

I walked over to Listens-to-Wind. "The Cave will take care of the Old Thing."

He nodded. "You passed the challenges, then?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I'll make sure we get someone to come by. Do a little cleaning, refuel the circles."

"Wait, wait." Caoimhe stepped forward, hands outstretched. "What the hell went on in there? I was wanderin', and then I was just... out here." She turned to me. "What did you do?"

What the hell, right? Nothing to prove. I told them the whole story. Kept it simple, though. As I finished off the battle, and described how I'd made my way back up here, Caoimhe leaned back on her haunches. "Damn."

"Yep."

Anna and Ellis were chatting quietly, debating parts of my story and matching it to different bits of what I vaguely recognised as Arcane Theory. I pulled myself up. Ebenezar was watching me silently. Listens-to-wind leaned in and clasped my hand in his. It was quite clammy. "Thank you, Max. You've done something great here today."

I smiled. "Thank you, sir."

"Shall we get back to the Way?" Ebenezar asked.

I jumped at the chance. "Yes, please. It's so freaking cold here." And off we went, returning to the Mill. I still needed to have that conversation with Weatherwax about my fucking vocal cords.