Chapter 53
Hoku stumbled back, keeping an upright posture as he put a few meters between himself and the peculiar apertures.
Though they were surely old, the mere idea of remaining left him strangely unsettled.
The flame in his palm cast a subtle, pearlescent glow over the dust and broken fragments ahead, as if a handful of tiny stars had slipped down to rest at his feet.
He slowed his pace once he felt safely distanced.
However, even as he tried treading lightly, his boots coaxed a tiny squeak from the slick, aging tiles.
Hoku couldn't help but wince, worried that even a small sound might stir something in the darkness.
After a short moment had passed, he began to inspect the corridor more intently.
It hadn't been long before an even colder draft settled around him, subtly hinting that the temperature had dropped further.
He looked ahead into the empty hallway; nothing obvious could explain the sudden fluctuation.
He frowned and drew his shoulders inward.
'Most of the cold air gathers in the joints or gaps of the floor,'
'But the small draft behind me was too weak and narrow for that. Unless…' he mused,
'The air was slipping in from somewhere else. Perhaps the gaps beneath the tiles extended farther ahead, under one of those side rooms. That could explain why the cold was pooling under the floor and escaping from the other side.'
After a moment of thought, Hoku eventually arrived next to the first archways and tentatively set toward the left branch of the hallway.
The second corridor ran deeper than he expected. It took nearly a full minute before he noticed a lower archway tucked to the side, opening into a small adjoining chamber.
Inside the chamber, one door stood slightly ajar—the only open one among three doors in the square room beyond.
Suddenly, a gust of frigid air expelled from that narrow gap.
It was a steady rush, nowhere near the earlier blast that had almost ruptured his ears.
Hoku crept inside the threshold but immediately froze just outside the open door.
His heart pounded wildly, even though nothing in the corridor appeared any different.
At least, nothing he could immediately discern.
Then a faint puff of white escaped his lips, lingering in the air in a way that felt out of place for an indoor passage.
It only further confirmed his suspicion that there might've been a hidden channel beneath the tiles that was exuding the cold within the grandeur hall.
Holding his breath, Hoku reached for the door handle and eased it open a little wider.
The old hinges groaned softly.
He leaned in, lowering the light to cast its glow ahead and look inside first.
Before he caught so much as a glimpse past the threshold, a thin, pallid arm darted out of the darkness and closed around his throat.
Hoku's skin crawled.
A second hand sealed his mouth before he could even gasp.
The stiff, cold fingers, mottled gray like stone, held him in an unyielding grip.
Hoku writhed violently, pulling back with all his strength.
His empty hand flailed, reaching desperately to pry the icy fingers from his throat.
The terror made bile rise in his mouth, and a bitter taste coated his tongue.
With the tiles underfoot slickened by water, his boots could find no purchase. Every time he tried to step back, he felt himself being dragged forward again.
In desperation, Hoku held the small flame aloft, not wanting to lose sight of his surroundings.
Then he twisted in blind panic, swinging his elbow back with all the force he could muster, aiming at the arm coiled around his throat.
His elbow slammed against something solid, like the shell of a beetle, rather than soft flesh.
A resonant crack raced up his arm, yet the assailant did not flinch.
More pain suddenly lanced through Hoku's shin as the doorframe bit into his knee.
The unseen figure was pulling him deeper into the adjoining room!
'No! Fuck!' he inwardly cursed.
Hoku's adrenaline piqued further, and he slumped forward briskly, letting his hips yield to the movement.
The pressure on his throat eased at once.
Seizing the chance, he grabbed the arm near his mouth and yanked backward through the gap he had opened.
His hand slipped, just enough to lose leverage, and both of their arms fell from him utterly.
CRASH!
Hoku staggered back and collapsed into the doorframe.
His shoulder slammed against the wood, knocking him off balance.
Falling to a knee, he seized the frame to steady himself.
Within the fray, the deck of cards he'd been holding flew from his hand in the scuffle, scattering the flames even as each one continued to flicker around them.
Amid their descent, Hoku's eyes fell upon a single card, turning clockwise as it neared the ground.
The face of the card was glossy black, intricately illustrated.
At its center, a man stood in a pale, carefully arranged scene.
One hand was raised as if commanding an invisible presence, while the other steadied an object on the ground before him.
There lay a wand, a cup, a slender sword, and a small disc, each suspended in a delicate thread of possibility, awaiting its turn to be spun.
Ornate lettering at the bottom named him: The Magician.
The moment that the card came to rest face up, a subtle energy amplified from its core, causing the space around it to distort ever so slightly.
Sound and motion alike were swallowed by an unseen wave, leaving everything stagnant.
Hoku took his chance. He scrambled to his feet and raced for the other door.
He threw it wide and lunged into the room beyond.
Before he could slam it shut, a wave of nausea rolled over him.
For a brief moment, he felt unmoored, as if his consciousness had slipped halfway out of his body and his limbs dragged behind.
A searing numbness writhed across his skin. Then, without warning, a dazzling white light swept through his vision.
In a blink, it illuminated the bare outlines of the walls around him and then vanished.
Hoku's body recoiled when the acrid aroma of smoldering undergrowth and trampled weeds briskly filled his nostrils.
He raised his hand instinctively.
When the brilliance finally faded, everything had appeared changed.
The cold and mustiness that had hung in the corridor vanished entirely.
Tall grasses of light golden hue surrounded Hoku, swaying up to his shins.
There were no paths, nor fences, nothing but endless desolation.
A strange breeze swept over the plain, driving the grass flat in one direction, holding it down for a heartbeat, then letting it spring upright again in a uniform, rippling undulation.
He remained utterly dumbfounded, and it was several moments before he noticed the shadow that stretched across half the plain.
At first, he thought it might be a cloud, but as he gazed, he realized it was something distant on the horizon.
The shape was massive and sharply peaked; it looked far too rigid and high for a natural hill.
'...Perhaps a ruined castle,' he guessed, rising there on the plains.
Behind the silhouette, the sky was hypnotic and unsettling.
Near the horizon, it bled deep red, and above that, bruised blue-black swirled across the heavens, as though two nights had been painted one on top of the other.
A swollen, pale moon hung behind a thin veil of clouds, bright enough to cast additional shadows on the land.
Beneath the moon, narrow shafts of light descended in perfect verticals, disappearing into the dark cloudbank.
From a longer vantage, they looked like beams dropping from the distant sky.
Although he was too stunned to move, Hoku's thoughts remained lucid.
By sheer resolve, he took several deep breaths and pushed himself to his feet.
His knees faltered briefly under aching muscles, but he regained stability by leaning against the warm grass.
"Ah… at this rate, I should start leaving notes for myself wherever I go," he muttered, trying to calm his voice.
But his attempt at making light of the situation spoiled quickly when he discerned that the strange numbness in his body hadn't gone away.
His joints felt oddly slack, as if he himself had become one with the drifting dust before him.
Hoku blinked and slowly raised his hand to examine it more closely.
His skin had taken on a ghostly translucence, like fog wrapped around bones.
Before the odd moonlight, he could almost make out the colors of the grass blades through the paleness of his arm.
Dread gathered in the pit of his stomach.
Though when he took a step forward, he immediately sensed a strange buoyancy, as though something had leisurely pushed at his back.
His gaze moved over the surroundings, searching for something tangible, but his gaze instead settled on a shallow pool a few inches away, its rim of soft-gold stems leaning inward in a near-perfect circle.
The water lay still beneath the sky, though the surface bore a muted sheen that did little to dispel the depth.
As Hoku knelt beside the pool, his heartbeat thudded in his ears, and he lowered his gaze.
What lay before him, however, was not the vista above but the obscure outline of a broad shape overhead.
Its contours wavered with the water's slow unrest, as though something solid was hidden just out of view.
The sight made his head spin.
He regained some composure and looked again.
This time, he looked to the lower center.
It was the first time he had deliberately looked at his own reflection in a year.
His face appeared pale and hazy; his eyes indistinct and red along the rims.
His face and throat bore patches of bruising, evidently left behind by the earlier assault, as well as countless tiny cuts and bruises that mottled his skin.
Aside from the marks on his hands, which he had long since grown accustomed to, Hoku looked as if he had endured far more battles than he truly had.
What frightened him most, however, was the way his form appeared in the water.
His entire outline looked ghostlike, taking on a smoky, translucent quality.
It seemed as if two versions of Hoku were overlapping one another.
As he kept his gaze fixed on the water, his reflection suddenly extended a hand toward him—even though he himself had not moved at all!
He stumbled back in surprise, nearly losing his balance in his lowered stance.
"I won't say I was simply seeing things," he muttered under his breath. "There've been enough incidents to prove that such things are possible, but even so…"
His thoughts churned. Was this some effect of the Divination card, or was it something inherent to this place?
He still had no clear understanding of the Magician card's true significance.
Another bout of fatigue overtook him, and he steadied himself with one arm against the ground.
'There has to be a way out.'
As if responding to that thought, he found himself reaching toward the water again. He raised a trembling hand and let two fingers touch the surface. At once, ripples spread outward from the pool's center.
Without consciously realizing he'd made a decision, Hoku raised a trembling hand and dipped three fingers into it.
At once, ripples spread outward from the pool's center.
FSHHHHH!—
From its heart, a thick plume of white smoke blasted upward, swiftly swallowing his reflection.
His surroundings crackled like thunder, even though no storm was present.
Hoku let out a short cry when the cool fog coiled around his arms.
His lungs seared in the next instant, and he fell forward as everything skewed to one side without warning.
When Hoku came to, he was lying face-down on a wooden floor, coughing up muddy water.
Salt stung at the corners of his eyes.
He spluttered and wiped grit from his mouth.
His pupils contracted as he sat up in the same square room he had attempted to enter moments earlier.
The entire floor was submerged, the dark, motionless water reaching at least to his ankles. Candlelight from two small flames flickered across it.
On one side stood a wooden bookshelf, its lower shelves barely above the waterline.
Nevertheless, the room didn't carry the scent of the corridor; rather, it was a blend of where he had just been, with the heavier scent of old paper and melted wax settling over it.
Dazed, Hoku hauled himself back to his feet.
He inwardly disliked how he never managed to land on his feet by the end of it, but he didn't see any point in dwelling on the matter beyond a simple, 'Maybe I'll get lucky.'
—
Even though Hoku was indoors again, he felt strangely exposed in this open, watery space.
His shirt hung in wet, tattered strips.
Something in his hand snapped him back into focus: he was clutching something tightly.
He slowly relaxed his fingers and opened his palm.
A torn piece of card fluttered free. Its corners were singed and curling, as if it had withstood both the flames and the flooding.
He quickly inferred what it must be, especially since his compass hadn't been returned. However, its surface now carried additional letters, subtle but still noticeable, illuminating with a silvery hue that differed from the glossy black and gold this particular Divination Caster should have had.
He had squinted as he approached the small candle flames, yet he was unable to distinguish anything more than their existence.
Frustrated, Hoku spat out the remaining dirty water and yelled, "Son of a— can I at least get some light when I need it?"
His exclamation seemed to awaken the ambience. Almost immediately, a faint whoosh passed through the room, and every candle flame rose together.
Hoku blinked a few times as the room filled with light, and the water at his ankles reflected thin bands of gold across its surface.
All around were neat rows of carved wooden shelves, stretching up toward a high vaulted ceiling.
The ceiling itself was a masterpiece of stonework, as each arch was carved into intricate patterns.
As he took it in, a sudden realization hit him. "This is the same ceiling I saw in the water!"
Hoku looked down at his hands and sighed with relief to find they were ordinary once more.
And the translucent ghostliness had gone away.
To be continued…