The Nadir of the Labyrinth

by Christopher DeRosa

Table of Contents

Part 2: The Mage’s Tale

Nephele and I became mages together. It had been our dream as we grew up in a little village south of the High City. We had seen the mages line the streets of the High City with magical fire and turn the seas all sorts of colors. We had seen them move the stars in the sky to tell the stories of great heroes.

We decided when we were very young to study magic and we did as best we could. Each trial and test we underwent we did together. Nephele and I were inseparable. We were both admitted to the Cirene together, in the same class. Such a thing was quite rare, and we were terrified they would separate us into different classes, but they never did.

Even the headmasters of the school seemed to want to keep us together. Maybe it was because we did our best work together, studied harder together. Maybe they noticed. So many nights the two of us spent awake, reading by a single candle. She and I had a knack for magic it seemed, though maybe it was just the enthusiasm of youth.

Nephele was, I must admit, the better conjurer. My magefire paled next to the glow of hers, the birds she summoned forth from feathers and twigs flew farther and faster than mine. I was the one who had a mind for all the books and calculations. I measured out ingredients when we worked our spells together. I recited the words of each ritual with all the proper inflections. Together we delved into deeper magic than the summoning of birds or lighting fires with blood.

We eventually completed our studies and became scholars of the Cirene instead of students. We were still inseparable, and we created projects and rituals that would make the best use of both of our talents. For years we worked and studied and shared a beautiful life.

Of the two of us, Nephele was by far the more adventurous. Whenever our work necessitated materials that were out of our reach at the Cirene, she would organize a long voyage to collect them. She brought back strange herbs and flowers from far-flung lands, the bones of creatures we had believed to be myth. She would regale me by the fire of the lands she had seen. I missed her dearly while she was gone and was ever glad for those nights full of stories upon her return.

One of those evenings, she told me of an island with a deep network of caves, saturated by magic so powerful that water flowed up out of the depths of the mountain. She told me how, deep inside those caves were veins of crystalized magic, potent beyond what most mages believed possible. She had brought back samples of those crystals to test. She was so excited, and it made me happy beyond words to see that joy on her face.

We gathered the next day in one of the towers of the Cirene that overlooked the sea. It was spring then, and cool breezes blew to us over the water. Nephele decided to test the gem with the first spell a mage learns: to light fire from blood. Blood fuels the heart much the way that wood fuels a fire. One of the first lessons we were taught was that a mage would never be without light so long as a fire burned in their heart.

The gem, small and pale blue, glowed slightly. You could feel the magic emanate from it. Nephele gripped the gem and pricked her finger with a sewing needle to draw just a droplet of blood. The spell to ignite the blood into magefire is simple. It requires no incantations or signs, only fuel.

We had expected that the gem would make the fire larger, burn more brightly. The flame surged into a roaring fireball! Nephele looked up at her magefire, a surprised smile spread on her lips. The flames licked out hungrily. There was no warning as the blaze burst. In an instant, Nephele was screaming, fire pulsated within her veins. Her blood was alight. I didn’t know what to do, magefire is not supposed to burn the one who fuels it.

I drew water down from the clouds in a torrent that filled the little tower room with icy rain. I called on the four winds to extinguish the blaze. The gem was a conduit for my magic as well and the tower became a tempest. I lay there, frozen and soaked through, but there was no crackle of fire. I ran to Nephele, but her blood and body were burned up. I knelt there beside her and sobbed.

Desperately I tried to get my hands to stop shaking long enough to try to mend her, though she was beyond the help of my magic even with the gem still clutched unharmed in Nepehele’s charred fist. Her ashes floated up around the gem, hovered over us like a shroud. I held her close, willed some primordial magic, hitherto unknown to bring her back to me.

The magic failed me and all I could do was nudge her body, and murmur her name over and over. The other mages found us there. Such accidents were not unheard of among mages. She was given a lavish funeral and buried under a tree as all mages are, so that their bodies might become part of the natural world that had served them.

There is just one taboo among mages and it is thus; do not try to call back a soul from the Underworld. Our ancient laws have long forbade us from tampering with corpses, and the magic of necromancy is forbidden by both the laws of the Cirene and the kingdom of Cnossus.

I began my research into it at once. It was long since deemed impossible, the taboo a remnant of ages, but I had the gem. On nights when the moon was new or covered by clouds to mask me, I crept out to her grave and called out to her with the stone.

I was a mage of the Cirene, the notes and books of ancient mages were mine to learn from, and learn from them I did. I memorized the words of calling that mages of old thought would let them speak to loved ones who had passed across the River Styx. I reached out with the stone night after night. I was not able to hear her call back, but I sent my words out across the void in hopes she would hear them. The risk meant nothing to me, this was my only choice.

I was found out, of course. Perhaps one of my colleagues saw me from one of the towers of the Cirene on a night where the clouds were just not deep enough to blot out the moon. Maybe it was merely an apprentice out for a walk on the grounds one warm evening in summer.

I would lose myself out there, poured all of myself into my work. I thought to myself many times that I ought to be more vigilant, more careful. Grief drove me, consumed me. When I snuck back to the Cirene one night, the headmasters were waiting for me with accusations.

My guilt was plain to see upon the notes and scrolls I carried. The rest, I feel, is plain. I was arrested and brought before the king who decreed that if I desired to see my friend again, it would be a long wait, while I bargained for a spare coin on the banks of the Styx.

* * *

“So, there you have it.” Penelope sighed, and the flame in her hand burned down. “Are you satisfied?” She turned to me; the gleam of confidence gone from her eyes. The years of strain were visible in the lines on her face, thrown into shadowy contrast by her dwindling flame.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, not able to meet her eyes. I avoided the flame she held as I had avoided the sun.

She sighed again. “You have no need to be sorry. I have enough sense to know that you are not your father, even if you do share his blood.” She stood, her limbs creaked as she did so. Sophia watched her with a puzzled expression as she wiped her eyes dry with her sleeve.

Penelope continued: “We have a long way to go. We should cover more ground before we sleep.”

“If ya need time, I can afford that much,” Adrian chimed in but he, too, was already on his feet. He had listened intently through the story, but now seemed eager to delve deeper again.

“I’ve had many years now, but thank you.” Penelope managed a small smile. “We must go deeper. I have to get back to my work. I know it all would have been possible if I’d had more time.” Penelope slipped a hand under the makeshift bandages around her forehead, and her fingers came away sticky and crimson. The droplets of blood rose and ignited, illuminated the cavern more clearly again.

“What about our silent friend?” Adrian asked as he looked over his shoulder. A moment passed. From behind us, we heard the soft footsteps again as the nameless man approached. He shivered, head still downcast.

“So which way should we go?” Sophia piped up.

“We should follow the water. If we follow it, the stream will lead us down to the source.” Penelope replied, her lecturer’s voice returned. Adrian pointed out the thickest stream of water that trickled along the roof of the cavern and led the way down the passage. It, like the first, wound its way slowly as it spiraled down through the rock.

We walked in silence for a time, and followed the floating river by the light of Penelope’s magic down into the Underworld. Adrian slowly fell into place beside me. He whispered to me there in the half light.

“You high-borns all know a thing or two of magic. Can what she’s talking about be true? Bringing back the dead?” His voice was softer than I had heard thus far and surprised me with its tenderness.

I whispered back to him: “No. I was never schooled in spellcraft, but I learned of magic from my tutors. The dead can never be revived. It has been proven to be impossible.”

Adrian nodded and, without word, picked up his pace to take the lead again. As he did so, I could not be sure in the dim light, but it looked as though a tear ran down his check and settled in his beard.

We spent our first night in those caverns, though it was impossible to know if it truly was night. We simply walked until we could walk no more. Penelope’s fire died out, and we agreed to sleep on the hard, cold stone as best we could. Adrian insisted that he keep lookout and I volunteered to take a second watch and allow him some sleep.

He awoke me in the darkness, though I could not see him. As I stretched the aches and pains out of my limbs, he leaned close again and whispered, “Keep an ear out for the quiet one. I don’t know where he lay down to sleep, and he hasn’t spoken a word to us since we left the door. Just be careful.”

I assured him that I would and, with that, he leaned against the wall of the cave and closed his eyes. I waited there in the darkness; not knowing how exactly I was supposed to keep watch in the pitch blackness of that maze. I assumed I would hear the Minotaur if it came, but images still loomed out of the darkness at me and phantom sounds floated past my ears.

I did not understand how the men my father had imprisoned in the windowless dungeons below the palace could ever come out again. Court malcontents condemned to a solitary week underground for a misspoken word would appear at the next ball, full of life again. Perhaps there was unspoken misery in their eyes I had been blind to, without experiencing it myself.

Out in the dark, I did hear something. Quiet, almost imperceptible. It was the soft padding sound of the silent man’s steps. I whispered then, into the dark. The words echoed, carried easily in the still air. “Are you there? We won’t hurt you. You can join us.” I spoke as gently as I could and heard the footsteps stop. A reply came, floating like cobwebs through the air.

“I’m so scared.”

“I’m afraid, too. We all are. You don’t have to be alone.” I spoke more loudly and insistently.

“No. I can’t. I can’t stop shaking. I want to go back,” the voice whimpered.

“Will you tell me your name, at least?” I said, but only silence answered me.

Penelope woke the others later and relit the mage fire. We sipped water through cupped hands as it flowed ever upwards along the cold stone above us.

“Do you really think we’ll be able to leave here? Is it even possible?” Sophia asked, head down. Tears began to flow up her face and into the stream above.

“Of course, it is,” Penelope said, not missing a beat.

“I think we can,” I said. I had no way to be sure. But the thought of leaving after what I had to do here seemed surreal.

Sophia looked up at me then, eyes narrowed. “You’re the reason we’re here. You and all the royals. That’s what you do, just throw people like us into holes in the ground and forget about them. Leave them to rot there!” Her voice echoed back to us a hundred times over.

“Well, then, I’ll do whatever I can to pull you up out of this one,” I said, and tried to offer the brightest smile I could to the young girl. She gritted her teeth and turned away.

As we made to leave our makeshift camp, Penelope passed by me. “Don’t forget you own me an explanation, too.” I nodded, and she moved ahead of me to catch up with Adrian.

Our path opened into the largest cavern we had seen yet. Many pools of water had formed on the ceiling, and the floor was tiered by layers of pale rock. It was difficult to determine the best route to follow the stream down to the source.

The trek was made all the harder by the stalagmites that jutted up out of the ground like teeth. Some were large around as lances, others small and thick like knives. With our meager footwear, we trod carefully through the forest of blades. Ahead, more loomed in Penelope’s light like groups of spearmen.

Adrian led the group through this battlefield. We stopped once to dress a cut on Sophia’s foot that a jagged stone had given her. The more cloth he tore from his sleeve, the more scars I could see crisscrossing his arm.

We stopped a second time to examine another skeleton he uncovered. “These are even older than the ones up by the door,” he announced as he examined a stained skull without skin or muscle attached.

We followed the stream on the ceiling as best we could and as we neared a passageway out of that cavern, we came upon a group of stalagmites that had been knocked over like fallen soldiers. It looked like the aftermath of a battle with pointed stones that extended every which way. There was another skeleton among the rubble, it leaned against a large broken column of rock as though it had been thrown against it. Large marks were gouged into the rock like the claw marks of a bird of prey on wood.

I heard Adrian’s breath catch in his throat. “It passed through here.” He mumbled and strode over to the skeleton. He knelt down beside it. Slowly, he plucked something dark it held in its hands. We stood there and watched him as Adrian slowly began to cry, great bellowing sobs wracked his muscled form. I remembered his question from the day before.

“Adrian? Are you all right?” I asked gently. In response, the big man only raised what the skeleton had grasped in its last moments of life. It was a knife, rusted over by the years, small enough to have been smuggled in past the wardens. Set into the pommel, it shone brightly despite the ruin of the rest of the blade was a single crimson ruby. Sophia and Penelope gathered around behind me.

“It’s my father’s.” Adrian choked out.

“Your father?” Sophia asked in a half-whisper.

It took Adrian a long moment to stifle his tears and wipe them away with a scarred hand. “Yes, no doubt, this was his knife. He...” Adrian trailed off.

“Is that why you’re here?” Sophia asked.

“It is. Elena, I know your story was to be next, but could you all spare me a moment to tell you about my father? To do some justice to his memory?” Adrian sat down on the stone floor. He held the knife delicately in the palms of his hands.

“Of course,” Penelope said as the rest of us settled ourselves around Adrian. The silent one sat apart from us, but still within the firelight. Adrian placed the knife gently aside and wiped his eyes again.

Proceed to part 3...

Copyright © 2022 by Christopher DeRosa

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