Cryos & Jade Labyrinth Read online

  Cryos & Jade

  Labyrinth

  Luke T. Barnett

  http://luketbarnett.com

  Click here to sign up for my email newsletter. You’ll receive news, updates, and get a free novella!

  Everyone was dead.

  Jade somehow knew this as she stalked through the empty forest, her boots making soft crunches on the snow. She was the only left. The cold prickled her skin. Her shallow breaths came in small clouds of mist. Her eyes searched the darkness around her, the light of her torch scarcely keeping it at bay. Her hand was sweaty making her grip on the jade dagger looser than she would have liked.

  Where are you? Come out! I know you’re here!

  But she didn’t dare speak. Aside from the fact that she shook so hard, her voice would betray her, speaking would give her away. It was a strange thought especially with her boots making so much noise. She needed-

  Her thoughts froze as the darkness closed in, like walls collapsing in on her. Her torch still burned bright, but the flame was all she could see. A hand of shadow lashed about her neck, squeezing her throat shut. Another shot forward and pierced her chest like a sword. She tried to scream, but the hand choked her. The two thoughts circling her brain were the jade dagger and the torch. In her indecision on which to use, she faded into blackness, her soul screaming.

  ***********

  Breath flooded her lungs and Beverly started awake. Her heart slammed at her chest. Her body shook and a cold sweat trickled down her back. A sweaty hand went to her chest as she heaved huge, gulping breaths.

  A dream. I was dreaming.

  She blinked. Before her sat the large, gilded mirror of her vanity. A brush was in her left hand where she had been holding…something. She stared at the brush, but it did not bring back the memory of what she had been dreaming. She swallowed, attempting to calm her nerves. Her eyes looked to the massive gargoyle that sat silent and still on the other side of a four-poster bed. Its bat-like wings sat partially spread, its thick tail wrapped around its legs, its wide, flat beak open in a silent roar.

  Beverly rubbed her hands together. Her body wouldn’t stop trembling!

  How could I have fallen asleep? I’m not even weary!

  She looked at the gargoyle again. It still looked the same.

  “How long can you hold that pose?” she asked, attempting to distract herself as she wiped her face with a kerchief.

  “Indefinitely,” Cryos responded, at last moving his beak in order to speak.

  Beverly shifted in her chair, the mere thought making her itch to move.

  “Perhaps someone touches you?” she asked.

  “If that happens, they will know that I am flesh. That is usually when I kill or capture them.”

  Beverly shook out her hands and resumed brushing her hair. Her nerves were calming and her heart wasn’t trying to hammer its way out her chest anymore, but her nerves still felt raw.

  “Remember what we discussed. You’re not to kill anyone unless I instruct.”

  “And if someone has a knife to your throat?”

  Beverly paused in her brushing as the thoughts ran through her mind. Cryos turned his head towards her.

  “You have asked me to be your protector and I have accepted. I will not hesitate to kill any who would seek your harm. I will only keep back from doing so if you command me.”

  Beverly swallowed and turned back to her vanity.

  “Killing isn’t always the answer. In fact it rarely is.”

  She felt Cryos’s stone eyes staring at her.

  “I do not understand.”

  A knock came at the door.

  “My lady?”

  Cryos turned his head back to his frozen posture.

  “Enter,” Beverly called.

  The door opened and Beverly’s nursemaid entered carrying a basket of ribbons and pins. Beverly watched in her mirror as the maid moved towards her, staring uneasily at Cryos.

  “My lady, you’ve already dressed!” the maid exclaimed when she saw her.

  Beverly looked down at the pale-yellow and white gown she wore. “You should have allowed me to do that,” the maid insisted.

  “I’m not an invalid, Katrise,” Beverly protested as the maid set down her basket and proceeded to braid Beverly’s hair. “And I’m not a child. I am perfectly capable of putting on a dress.”

  “You are a princess of a noble house,” Katrise said through the pins she held in her teeth. “You shouldn’t have to bother with such mundane tasks.”

  Beverly rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

  And what of the ten-thousand other mundane tasks I must endure in this place? What of those?

  Katrise braided the princess’s hair with practiced efficiency. In a few short minutes, she had it completed into a crown of braid that encircled her head and then fell just past her shoulders, pearls and lavish pins intertwined in its brown locks. Katrise put her hands on her hips and blew a breath through her nose.

  “It would be much finer if you had not butchered your hair, but it will do,” she said.

  Beverly turned her head, admiring Katrise’s work. The woman was good at what she did, she had to admit.

  “I’m to inform you the trade delegates have arrived,” Katrise was saying. “Also, there is a stonesmith here who insists you have sent for him.”

  Beverly paused, the circlet that had been resting on her vanity half-way to her head.

  “Master Klador?”

  “You know him?” Katrise asked, hands back on her hips.

  Setting the circlet on her head, Beverly viewed herself in the mirror and adjusted it.

  “I inquired of him to carve a second statue in the same likeness as the first as well as a set of pillars on which they are both to be placed.”

  “My lady! Two of those hideous things?”

  Beverly stood up, her face showing no signs of any insult.

  “He will be taking sketches of the gargoyle. See that he doesn’t touch it. Under no circumstances is he to touch it. Instruct him to make the pillars three feet in height. They, along with the other statue, are to be placed outside my chambers when they are completed on either side of the doorway.”

  Katrise gaped.

  “Am I understood, Katrise?”

  Pulling herself to stand straight and closing her mouth, Katrise bowed her head.

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Beverly smiled.

  “Thank you. I must see to the delegates.”

  *****

  The chamber door opened and Beverly trudged in, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against it and breathed out a long breath, her eyes closed. She then stepped away from the door, took off her circlet, and struggled out of her dress. She paused, suddenly remembering Cryos. The gargoyle seemed to stare ahead at the wall next to the door, his stone eyes not seeing her, his body still as a statue.

  Beverly moved behind the privacy screen and continued to change.

  “Did the stonemason examine you?” she asked, half-expecting to receive no answer.

  “He did,” Cryos replied. “He said little. Your servant is determined to see me gone.”

  “She may be as determined as she likes,” Beverly said, donning the breeches, tunic, and leather jerkin. “I’ve told her you’re to remain. The only one who can overrule me is my father. He’s not concerned about you and Katrise knows she can’t usurp my authority in order to persuade him. Regardless, this isn’t the first thing I’ve done of which she’s disapproved.”

  She stepped from behind the privacy screen and worked her feet into a pair of boots while securing the jade dagger beneath her belt. A rope and satchel she retrieved from the chest.

  “What I am about to do would be far worse in
her eyes,” she said, passing in front of Cryos. “Come- oh! These ridiculous ornaments!”

  Cryos followed her as she walked to her vanity table and proceeded to remove the many pins and decorations that adorned her hair. After a few minutes, she had them all out, and moved to one of the chairs that sat by the hearth. She braced her hands against the wall and pushed. A door opened up in the wall, leading down a flight of stairs. She lit a torch on the hearth and led Cryos inside, shutting the door behind them.

  *******

  The metal gate creaked on its hinges as it swung open and Jade stepped from the passageway, Cryos in tow. Jade turned to look back at the castle, now a long way off. Its towers and turrets were lit up with torchlight. In the fading twilight.

  “This passageway was built by my father in case of invasion or insurrection. But we’ve never been attacked. Ever.”

  Regret stung at her, not for never being attacked, but for the passageway’s intended use and the use she had forced upon it because of her sense of imprisonment. She turned away from the castle and took in a deep breath of the nighttime air.

  “Now,” she said. “The Temple of the Mistress of the Leaves is on the eastern coast. The castle sits on the west coast. The temple is a good night’s journey east of here. If we march hard and don’t waste time, we shall be there by midnight. Supposedly there’s a deep labyrinth undernea-yah!”

  Her feet left the ground and she clung to Cryos’s arm. The gargoyle carried her over to a tree and slammed his rock-hard talons into the trunk.

  “Cryos, what are you doing?” she asked.

  Cryos climbed the tree, digging the talons of his three free limbs into the thick trunk.

  “I am taking you to the temple,” he replied.

  He climbed until they were well above the other tree-tops, and spread his wings wide.

  “Cryos, what are you doing?” Jade shouted.

  Cryos answered by pushing off the tree and launching the two of them out into the night air. Jade caught her breath as they dropped. Their descent leveled-out and they were gliding through the night sky. Jade’s deathgrip on Cryos’s arm relaxed and she smiled. She dared to release her grip completely and stretch her arms out as if she too were in flight. The risk thrilled her. She smiled widely at it and the feeling of freedom as the cool air swept about her.

  Far below her, she saw the canopy of trees abruptly end as the eastern coast came into view. The moonlight shone on a small, stone structure at the edge of the tree-line on a cliff overlooking the sea.

  “There!” she pointed. “That must be the temple!”

  Cryos banked. They descended in wide arcs over the structure. Jade’s hands gripped Cryos’s arm as the ground shot up to met them. At the last second, Cryos flared his wings and they jerked to a soft landing. Jade felt his arm loosen and she touched her feet to the earth.

  “Have you carried a person like that before?”

  “My former master would often send us out to bring back those on which he wished to feed. He wanted them unharmed.”

  Jade shivered and stepped away from him, her hands clasping her arms. When she realized what she was doing, she cursed herself for being afraid and shook out her hands.

  The structure before them was a single-level and circular in shape with a domed roof. Two stone doors stared at them, designs of leafy vines etched into them. Jade reached out a still shaking hand and pushed one open. The door opened silent and smooth, reminding her of the doors at Ixtus’ keep. She shuddered and rubbed the hand that had touched the door.

  Inside was large, circular room. Flagstones covered the floor and no windows perforated the walls. Only an opening in the ceiling allowed the moonlight to shine down in the center where stood a statue of an elven female wrapped in a cloak of leaves. Jade’s boots made loud clunks on the stone as she walked up and stood before the statue. Some sense of knowing sat at the back of her mind. It was always there whenever she thought about this person.

  “Do you know her?” she mumbled to herself.

  “I have never seen her before,” Cryos replied in his gravelly voice. “Who is she?”

  Jade stared a moment longer, hoping for something more or that sense of knowing to awaken fully in her mind. But it remained shrouded.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. She then knelt onto the flagstones and read aloud the inscription at the base of the statue.

  “For those who seek wisdom,

  your journey is at an end.

  But for those who seek the crystal,

  beware the golem’s wrath.

  “What’s a golem?”

  “A living statue.”

  “Like a gargoyle?”

  “No. A golem can only obey simple commands with no thought of how. A gargoyle must obey its master, but...”

  Jade turned to him. He was staring at the ground, looking himself like a statue.

  “But what?”

  “That cannot be,” he mumbled.

  His claw moved to his head. Jade stood and faced him.

  “Cryos, what troubles you? Cryos?”

  She touched her hand to his arm, causing the gargoyle to start. Jade reared, her arms tense and her hand going to her dagger. Cryos stared at her with those stone eyes.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I…do not know what was happening.”

  “You looked like you were thinking of something, something that disturbed you.”

  His claw went to his head a moment.

  “Are…you weary?” Jade ventured. “Do you need to…sleep…or such? We can always return tomorrow night.”

  “Gargoyles do not sleep, nor do we tire. I will…put the thoughts away.”

  Jade’s eyes searched his featureless face. The moonlight shone upon it, but cast the rest of him in shadow.

  “Very well,” she said. She bit her lip, wondering if she should ask him to share his thoughts with her later. Deciding not bring it up in the moment, she turned back to the statue and again knelt at its base. Drawing her dagger, she tapped the pommel on the floor. She was rewarded with a hollow sound.

  “There’s a passage under the statue,” she said, stepping aside. “Can you move it?”

  Cryos placed a massive hand on the statue and shoved it over. It fell to the floor, breaking in pieces. Jade felt an unexplainable feeling of satisfaction and some tension she hadn’t known was there eased out of her neck and shoulders.

  Where the statue had been was now a large, square shaft running down into darkness. Jade pulled a rope from her satchel, tied one end around the base of the statue and threw the other end into the shaft. Her eyes went to sizing-up Cryos.

  “Can you fit in there?” she asked.

  Cryos leaned closer to the shaft.

  “I believe so,” he replied.

  “Good,” Jade said as she grabbed the rope and dropped down inside. Darkness swallowed her up as Cryos squeezed into the shaft above her.

  She descended until she reached the end of the rope and waited for Cryos to catch up. The scraping sound that signified his movement stopped as she was about to sound out not to run into her.

  “Cryos?”

  “I am here.”

  “Can you see in the dark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Well I don’t have anymore rope and we’re still in this shaft as far as I can tell. I’m going to brace myself against the walls and keep moving. Mind your steps and don’t trample me.”

  Jade braced her hands and feet against the walls and continued her descent. The shaft went on for some ways, her arms and legs ached and shook. Beads of sweat formed on her skin, despite the cool air of the shaft. She was thinking she would not be able to maintain this for much longer, when her hand hit open air, her other hand slipped and she fell. A thick arm encircled her waist and she was jerked to a stop after only a short fall. She breathed in gasping breaths, trying to calm her slamming heart.

  “What happened?” she asked when she was able.

  “We are still falling,” Cryos replied
. “My wings are slowing us. There is a platform below. I will land on it.”

  A few moments later and Jade felt her legs buckle as her boots slammed against stone.

  “Are you hurt?” Cryos asked.

  “No, but that was a rough landing.”

  “There are no air currents in here. I was not able to slow our fall very well. May I request something?”

  Jade scrunched her brow. That was an odd question.

  “Cryos,” she said, rubbing her shins, “If you wish to ask something, speak. You’re not a slave. I mean, you’re a servant, but…what is it?”

  “I have noticed that when you are in danger, you do not cry out as others do. I request that you call me or scream that I may know you are in danger. I was watching you and saw you fall. If I had not been watching you-“

  “-I would have died,” Jade said in somber tones. A chill ran up her spine and she hugged herself. She had never been one to cry out for help. Instead her mind would immediately run to finding a solution. She would have to become used to having Cryos watching over her. She replied in a subdued voice, “Granted.”

  Utter darkness surrounded them. Jade dug in her satchel and found a torch and some flint and steel. Squatting on the floor, she lit the torch and replaced her items. The sight of the flame and the light it gave eased her nerves. She picked it up and stood to see Cryos’s face mere inches from hers. She shuddered, and then breathed out a breath.

  Surrounding the square platform on which they stood were rows upon rows of short spikes. They stretched off into the darkness beyond the light of her torch.

  “Can you see anything beyond the darkness?” she asked, moving behind him. As he turned, she shifted to keep the torch out of his eyes.

  “There is an open passage way over there,” he replied, pointing.

  Jade knelt down at the edge of where he was pointing and tapped the spikes with her dagger. It clinked loudly in the deafening silence. She shuffled around the platform, testing the spikes until her blade passed through one of them. Testing it again as well as the spikes around it, gave her a clear path. She then dug in her satchel and produced one of her stones. Standing, she tossed it forward. It passed through the spikes and clacked loudly on the stone beneath. Jade slipped off the platform into the midst of the false spikes, the ground being lower there. Cryos followed.