Cryos & Jade Labyrinth Read online

  She found herself standing on a platform. Before her was a sea of gears, ropes, and pulleys. She looked around hoping to find what she was looking for, if this creature even had one.

  Cryos roared as he felt the thing squeeze him in its grip. He pushed out against the hand with every muscle fiber in his body. He saw the plates on the thing’s wrist move and shift. Taking a chance, he reached for the plates. Even as the thing’s finger closed in and squeezed, Cryos grabbed the plates and pried them apart with an ear-splitting screech. Inside, were a series of ropes and gears. He grabbed the ropes and pulled. The fingers loosed and he would have fallen but for the ropes he held. He severed them with his claws and fell to the floor with spread wings. The fingers on the one hand fell limp, but the other wand was coming for him. Cryos leapt up as the hand reached for him and landed on its arm. He ran on all fours up to its shoulder. A squat, flat head turned to face him. The thing’s faceplate had no fetures save for two large eye sockets that glowed a bright green. Cryos gripped the faceplate from beneath and pulled, the sound of bending metal echoing the pain he felt from his limbs. The thing’s useless hand attempted to grab him, then slid off. He got underneath the faceplate and pushed as hard as he could. The inside was empty save for a glass orb shining with a green light. A glass tube ran from the orb down into the chest. Cryos leapt at the orb, but was jerked back before reaching it. The thing’s other hand had found him.

  He felt it squeezing him, the integrity of his ribs stressed to their limit. His arms were pinned reaching above his head, reducing his range of movement. He couldn't reach the wrist plates. He couldn't get his hands in a good position to push the fingers apart. All he could do was lay helpless in the thing’s grip as it squeezed him to death.

  A distant grinding noise cut through his pain. Then the pressure released, and he was falling. He tried to spread his wings, but by the time he managed it, his body slammed against the hard, stone floor. Writhing in pain, he forced himself around so he could see the golem. He was just in time to see it lean, and crash to the floor with the terrible sound of grinding and twisting metal. Then all was quiet.

  Cryos stood, holding his side with one arm and called out to Jade. The action pained him and he grimaced. No answer came. He walked around the now lifeless golem, searching for her corpse which he was certain he would find, but saw no sign of her.

  “Jade!” he called again.

  Again he received no answer.

  He walked over to one massive limb and lifted it, the metal grinding and screeching as he did so.

  “Cryos?”

  Cryos dropped the limb with a crash and looked to the torso.

  “Where are you?” he called out.

  “I'm in here! Inside the chest,” came Jade's muffled response.

  Cryos moved to the thing's back and found the backplates by which Jade had entered. Working his fingers into the crack, he pried open the plates with another screeching of metal. Jade lay deep inside tangled in a mess of ropes. Her clothes were torn in a couple places and Cryos could smell blood. In her arms she cradled what looked like a large rock. Cryos wasted no time crawling in, cutting the ropes with his claws, and carrying Jade out over his shoulder.

  He set her down on the floor once they were off the golem.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “I will heal,” Cryos responded. He looked at the stone she held.

  Jade held it up for him to see. It was what might be called a jade crystal the size of his head. It glowed with an iridescent light and seemed to reflect in green the light of the orbs.

  “It was the golem's heart,” Jade told him. “I guessed it must have a heart, something that was making it move. It's...well I don't know what it is. It isn't an emerald, I've seen those. But it doesn't quite seem like jade either.”

  The two stared at it a moment, both fascinated by its crafting.

  “I think…” Jade said as she stared, “…I think…this must be the crystal.”

  “If that is the crystal,” Cryos ventured, “how is it you are able to touch it?”

  Jade hesitated.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps this is a different crystal, not the same as the one of which the inscription spoke.”

  “Should we go back into the labyrinth to find the real crystal?”

  Jade looked at him, her face showing hints of fear.

  “You have banished Ixtus,” Cryos assured her. “I serve only your will. I will leave the labyrinth’s secrets to its depths if that is your wish.”

  Jade stared at him for a long moment, then looked back at the crystal she held.

  “My wish is to get out of here and find out what all this means. The silver gear, the crystal, the three figures, the darkness, the jade woman...all of it. I want to know, Cryos.”

  Her eyes gained a distant look and she spoke in a wondering voice.

  “I want to know how you and I fit into all of this.”

  “I do not understand.”

  Jade snapped her head to look at him.

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, how we fit into all of this?”

  Jade gained a look of confusion.

  “What are you saying? I didn't say that.”

  Cryos stared at her, his brow crinkling.

  “We've been here to long,” Jade said, stuffing the crystal half-way into her satchel which was too small for it. “Let's find a way out of here and-“

  Her words were cut-off by a deep rumbling. The ground beneath her feet vibrated. Some movement caught her eyes and she turned to see the wall of gears moving up into the ceiling, more gears being revealed as the wall scrolled past.

  “We are sinking,” Cryos said over the noise.

  Jade sprinted down the hall, stopping at the glass barrier. The gap was too large for her to leap on her own. She turned to Cryos, but he grabbed her and threw her across the gap, then backed up and made a running leap across it. His claws dug into the stone at the edge. He reached forward, gripping the stone. Jade went to him, grabbing his waist and pulling.

  Once he was up, the both of them sprinted down the hall. The entrance to the spike room was only open near the ceiling and the gap was narrowing. Cryos grabbed Jade and tossed her through the opening then scrabbled up himself. Jade again moved to help him up. As she got his arms around his waist and pulled, her eyes caught sight of something in the hall.

  A figure in green stood there, staring up at the two of them. She saw her only a moment, before Cryos was out, and the two tumbled into the fake spikes.

  *****

  Beverly lay the crystal in the chest, covered it with her tunic, jerkin, breeches, boots, and satchel, and closed the lid with a snap of the lock.

  “How will we find the three?” Cryos asked.

  Beverly stared down at the chest, fidgeting with her nightgown.

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled in reply. She wasn’t really thinking on the question. Her mind went over the chamber with the images and the woman she saw just before their escape. Still thinking, she walked over and sat down on the edge of her bed. Cryos stood before her silent and still.

  “Cryos,” she asked, “do you…do you ever…wish you were someone else?”

  “I do not understand,” the gargoyle replied.

  “It’s not a difficult question. Do you ever think about how your life would be different? Do you ever question your role? All the time you were with Ixtus, did you not wish that you weren’t his servant?”

  Cryos was silent, his tail swishing.

  “My…he had other gargoyles that he created. All were cruel and filled with hate as he was. They desired to be like him. I was the same, until the jade woman came. By the time she came, all the others had been killed. I was the last. When I awoke after her attack, I was the same…but…”

  “But what?”

  “I sat on my perch a long time. My master did not return and no more intruders came until you. In all that time, my mind thought. It seems now that it
was the first time it had ever done that. I looked at the deeds I had done and how he was towards me and the others, how he was towards his victims. Deep in my thoughts…someone was speaking. I could not hear what it said, but it made me question why I did the things I did, why I remained loyal to him.

  “For a gargoyle, loyalty and obedience is all there is. To question that…it questions my purpose, my reason to live. What am I…if I am not those things?”

  “It terrified you. So you shut it away.”

  “Yes. Until you came and made me question it again.”

  “I’m sorry, Cryos. I never want to hurt you.”

  Cryos stared at her. Jade could somehow tell that he was confused.

  “That’s what a good ruler…a good master does,” Beverly continued. “She cares about those she rules over. It’s called compassion.”

  She bit her lip, fearful of saying what was on her mind.

  “Do you…want to be free, Cryos?”

  Cryos turned his head away, his tail slapping the stone.

  “If that is your wish,” he said.

  “Oh, Cryos!” Beverly pounded her fists on her bed. “Stop acting like a slave!”

  She reached forward and cupped his beaked head in her hands, forcing him to look at her. She could feel her own eyes welling up with tears.

  “I don’t want you trapped. I don’t want you subject to the whims of someone just as imperfect as you. If you want to leave, to make your own decisions, to live your life…I don’t want to keep you from those things. I…I care about you, Cryos. I want you to be happy, complete.”

  “But…serving is what I want. It is what is in me. Can I not have all those things in serving you?”

  Beverly opened her mouth to reply, but the words died in her throat. Her mind rang with what Cryos’ had said in more depth than the loyal gargoyle had intended. Her heart was caught. She lowered her hands to her lap and turned her head away. It took effort to bring her mind back to Cryos and the issue at hand. When she replied, her tone was subdued.

  “Yes, I suppose you can. But you won’t have your own life.”

  “Serving is my life. Serving you is my life. I have not known life, but to serve you. It is…better than mere serving for its own sake. It is more. It is what I want.”

  Beverly pulled her knees to her chest and said no more.

  Serving is my life.

  It is what I want.

  The rest of the words faded out of her mind. Those that remained seemed to her a net of cords, trapping her and threatening to drag her back into her life of drudgery and boredom. A tear trickled down her cheek and she spoke in a small voice.

  “But that’s not what I want.”

  A knock came at the door.

  “My lady?”

  Beverly instinctively looked to Cryos who was already settling into his spot. She turned her head back to rest on her knees.

  “Enter,” she said, her voice choked.

  Katrise entered and approached her.

  “My lady?”

  Beverly looked up, tears having streaked down her face.

  “My lady what is the matter?” Katrise asked, sitting down on the bed.

  “What is it, Katrise?”

  Beverly saw the old woman shudder. Nevertheless, she composed herself and answered, “Your duties await, my lady. There are important matters to be overseen.”

  “Let my father see to them. He is more than capable.”

  Katrise reached for Beverly’s face.

  “My lady, what is-“

  Beverly turned her head from Katrise’s reach and slapped her hands away.

  “Oh, be gone with you,” she said. “Go…see to the cooks or something. I don’t wish to be disturbed.”

  She continued to look away, though she could tell the maidservant was still there. After a time, she felt the bed shift as Katrise rose.

  “As you wish, my lady.”

  Beverly heard her soft footfalls and the door close behind her. She turned her head to the door, then to Cryos. Grabbing one of her pillows and a blanket, she dragged them over to Cryos and laid down beneath him. Cryos moved his head to look at her and moved his tail to make room. Shifting until she was comfortable, Beverly grabbed Cryos’s tail and draped it over her. She adjusted so that her arms were wrapped around one of his and her face leaned against it.

  “You don’t sleep?” she asked him, her eyes closed.

  “No.”

  “Well, have a good…rest…anyway.”

  Cryos looked back ahead, resuming his pose, his mind thinking. A strange sensation coursed through him, one he never had before. His tail slid more fully around the snoozing princess as he thought on her sadness. Silently, he wondered how he might save her from it.

  King Lithos of the Greys walked through the halls of his castle. The hour was late and he should have retired long before. But his mind was heavy with thought and he’d needed to walk to bring his body to the point where he could sleep.

  Katrise, his daughter’s nursemaid had voiced concern over Beverly’s behavior that morning. He had noticed a slight day-dreaminess to his daughter lately, and had not seen her at all that day, being told that she wished not to be disturbed. He could have disturbed her if he wanted, but she was becoming an adult. He wanted to give her space. He would inquire of her before long. In the mean time, he was still her father and he still worried about her. His mind went from her to her mother and a deep sadness came over him, though it did not outwardly show. He suddenly felt very fatigued and headed for his chambers, the thought of sleep bringing much comfort to his weary mind.

  He entered his chambers, already yawning, and shut the door behind him. His eyes swept the room and he started as they fell on the figure of a jade woman standing near the far window. She stared at him, her face blank.

  “Jade?” his body went weak, but he gathered himself and swallowed. “It has…been so long.”

  “Forgive me, David,” the figure said, her voice sounding as if coming through crystals. “I have been trapped much of this time. But…I was released.”

  “I…I am glad,” the king said. He approached her. “Have you found anything; anything to undo your curse?”

  “I have not. I must continue to search. Now that I am freed from that place, I can continue. But I wanted to come here…to tell you.”

  The king looked upon her. He was standing before her now. She was shorter than he. Her skin was solid jade, sooth and glossy. Her hair, made up of thin strands of the same marbley substance.

  “You…you could remain here,” he suggested, cursing his own hesitation. She was the only person besides his own daughter that could make him act so. “I can send servants, scouts to find what you seek. Surely that will be...”

  He allowed his voice to trail off as she stared at him.

  “No, of course not.”

  His weariness returning, the king wandered to his bed and sat down on its edge, his eyes on the floor. He heard what sounded like many small shards of glass tinkling against one another. He looked up to see the jade woman walk to stare out the window at the rising sun. She was silent a long time. David sat silent as well, not knowing what to say or do.

  “It has been so long since I felt the sun,” the jade woman murmured. “I still cannot feel it.”

  She turned her head to look over her shoulder. When she spoke again, her voice was serious.

  “Mind that daughter of yours,” she said. “She is close to repeating her mother’s mistake.”

  “Beverly?” he asked, rising to his feet. He glanced to the door. “What of her?”

  When he looked back, the jade woman was gone.

  *********

  Far below the Temple of the Lady of the Leaves, in the depth of the earth, the gears continued to turn.

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  Copyright

  Cryos & Jade Labyrinth

  Copyright © 2018 by Luke T. Barnett

  All rights reserved in all media.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locales and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance to people, places, or events is purely coincidental or fictionalized.

  Published in the United States of America 2018 by Strong Tower.

  Thanks for reading!