Lies & Labyrinths

Lilith wasn’t sure what to expect in the library on the other side of reality. She definitely hasn’t expected it to have taken on so many more… dimensions. It no longer simply stretched in a few directions on each floor, but everywhere. The center of the room was another hallway going down and up, and there were even halls that grew diagonally. The tree floated on an island of books, roots dangling off the edge with lanterns floating about, and hundreds of pages folded into neat facsimiles of flowers, plants, and even animals that moved about on their own.

The Alphas were here; the place was too quiet for there to be any other option. But where? And when would they reveal themselves?

Two lanterns floated nearby. Emily grabbed one, motioning for Lilith to follow while pantomiming to stay quiet.

“Where do we tell it to go?” Lilith whispered, grabbing her own lantern.

“Up.” Emily responded, and up she went. With a shrug, Lilith repeated the word and set off towards the higher floors.

Apprehension hung in the air much as the two students hung from the lanterns. It was too quiet, like hundreds of eyes were watching from every direction.

Then a single bolt of fire went racing across the sky, blowing a lantern above them into oblivion.

Lilith and Emily exchanged a look, both knowing that it was a warning shot. A hundred fireballs must have followed after that, whistling before exploding, various flourishes of more talented mages compared to the rougher spells of the Betas and Deltas.

The lantern next to Lilith burst into green flame, close enough that she could feel the intensity of the heat.

“Let go!” She shouted up to Emily, dropping before she could have a chance to rebut. The evocations whizzed through the air as the five material elements were swung; fire and ice and gusts of wind mixed with pelts of stone and metal. Lilith could not see the assailants still, hiding against ledges and bookshelves, sniping the pair as the fell down, down towards the infinite chasm of endless halls. Lilith reached out, grabbing a passing lantern and holding herself up with her left arm, the spectral hand gripping her hand closed as she held the orb for dear life. She was going to win this, to prove all of them wrong. She didn’t care how.

“GET ME TO THE EXIT!” She shouted to the lantern, which jerked and whizzed, ducking down a hall that she would not have guessed, Emily somewhere behind her. Her newfound vehicle did not last long as a well placed bolt of lightning exploded it, depositing the girl on to the floor. She rolled into a near cartwheel, continuing her run. There was a light at the far end, a side exit of some sort. It had to be the version of the door Lilith had opened for The Knave top-side. Lilith glanced back, glad to see Emily was keeping up. Her eyes swung back to the front-

-and caught the sight of the trio from Arleigh’s class step into view, blocking the way out.

Drat, Lilith thought to herself. She really should have taken the opportunity to figure out their strategies. Oh well, hindsight was twenty-twenty. An inkling of a memory came scratching at the backside of her brain as she tried to recall what they had been studying for.

The trio each laid hands on one another, suits of armor appearing, and then flames growing around them, followed by an aura of spheres.

Ah, that was it. Synergy.

“They’re each doing a different spell to help the other!” Lilith shouted to Emily. Emily closed the gap between she and Lilith, who was slowing her approach as the three Alphas stood there, giving their best menacing pose.

The Knave stepped out from behind the three, who seemed completely unaware of the wanted criminal directly behind them. The rogue grabbed the heads of the boys on the left and right, colliding them into the head of the middle Alpha. A sound not unlike coconuts thunking echoed in the hall, the three collapsing into a pile as the spell faded.

“Wizards really need to work on their physical prowess, don’t you think?” The Knave said, stepping over the pile of unconscious students.

“Stay back!” Lilith shouted, drawing her dagger.

“I have crossed endless paths and countless people to make it here. I shall do no such thing. Come on, follow me you two.”

Lilith and Emily stood their ground, glaring. Behind them, the explosions had stopped. Then a terrible sound thundered from some direction as various screams began, and then a new focal point of attack as all the Alphas began lobbing spells at something. And by the sounds of it, that something was large. The two felt the ground shake by what felt like heavy footsteps. Was it the Minotaur? A roar echoed through the building, one that made the hairs on Lilith’s body stand as goosebumps spread from head to toe.

Something was coming.

“We don’t have much time, come on.” The Knave said, extending a hand.

The two friends exchanged a look, nodded, and against their better judgement, followed The Knave.

Beyond the exit of the Endless Library, the doorway had melted into a hallway of dark blue stone on the verge of grey, with latticed flooring marked with pocks of chipped away stone. The Knave led the pair, not turning to look if they were following or not, simply trusting the pair wholeheartedly.

“How do you know where to go?” Lilith shouted ahead.

“I was here when I was your age.” They replied. “It’s not much further.”

“To the pyramid where I put this?”

“No, to the truth.”

Always with the riddles. Lilith was about to ask what they meant, when all of the walls fell away leaving only a large railed walkway that covered some great gap, leading to a floating structure that looked remarkably like the Headmaster’s tower. It was nestled between two structures, the first, the undercarriage of what appeared to be the pyramid that Lilith had briefly seen as she had arrived into this strange world, and the second, a large spire that stretched far below into the great labyrinth that covered the rest of the world. A storm swirled around the spire, stretching up around the center of the building and fed into the structure directly above the Headmaster’s.

The roar echoed from behind, somehow sounding much closer.

“What is this place!?” Lilith shouted.

“It’s the dirty secret of The Veil. You wouldn’t have believed me!”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I wouldn’t have believed me!” The Knave was halfway across the bridge when they wheeled about on one heel, drawing their gauntlet.

“It’s nearly here.”

“What, the Minotaur?”

The Knave gestured over their shoulder at the bridge, where the body of the minotaur lay, slain in battle by something with rather large claws and even bigger teeth.

“I want to go back.” Emily cried out.

“To go back now would be certain death, girl.”

A roar bellowed from the darkness at the end of the bridge they had just fled from. Whatever it was, it was close. Very close.

“Inside you’ll see everything you need to see. There should be some stairs from there. Just get to the top and get Emily out.”

“But-”

“DO IT LILITH!” The Knave shouted, charging forward past them. There was the sound of small explosions as The Knave opened fire on the unseen creature at the far end of the bridge. Something hit it, a bellow of pain loud enough to briefly stun Lilith and Emily, who promptly took their chance to finish the trek across the railed bridge towards the Headmaster’s office.

The doors were carved in an elaborate display of gold, silver, bronze, iron and copper. A relief of ten figures overcoming ten great dragons, while seven figures sat on seven thrones above. Two heavy rings hung from the mouths of the dragons on display, all elaborate and well maintained, undoubtedly of the finest Anaestrian quality. Emily and Lilith took no the time to study the history lesson carved on the relief, instead swinging each door open as the sound of The Knave clashing with the great unknown beast echoed in the dark behind them.

Lilith dared to look back, catching the silhouette of something grotesquely large, a hulking monstrosity with one glowing red eye in the dark like a burning coal on a cold winter morning. She promptly turned back, yanking on the ring again.

“Don’t look back!” Lilith shouted.

“Why-OH GODS” Emily shrieked, struggling to keep pulling. The doors began to give slack, a loud groan greeting the pair as a rush of wind depressurized the chamber, letting them slip in. The weight of the doors closed behind them, separating the two from the battle outside. They had only enough time to breathe a sigh of relief as their eyes fell on what lay inside the chamber, before they immediately regretted the decision to seek shelter inside, as what lay in was far worse than any conceivable monster on the outside.