These book-lined hallways are neverending.
I'm not sure how much time we spend wandering, nor am I sure that time exists here in the first place. It simultaneously feels like mere minutes and several days. There's nothing here but bookshelves, books, stone floors, stone ceilings, and that's it. Nothing changes at all no matter how far we go. But I'm not growing any more tired. It feels as though I could walk forever, and never be hungry, thirsty, or weary.
Maybe that's the divinity of this maze.
It just never fucking ends. Ever.
And anyone who gets lost will be lost forever.
And they will never die.
Penny suddenly stops, and I nearly barrel right through her. Without saying a word, she steps closer to the shelves on the right, counts up each one to the sixth, then taps a claw on the books' spines, counting from left to right in a whisper. When she gets to thirty seven, she counts again before she plucks it out from the rest and turns around, going back the way we came.
Zip and I trade a look, but neither of us say anything.
After another few days, Penny takes a book from the left, shelf three, book seventeen. A week later, she takes another from the left, shelf seven, book forty. Not ten seconds after, she takes another from the right, shelf five, book twenty eight. After a month drags by, she takes another from the left, shelf four, book thirty three. Then left, shelf one, book twenty one. Then left again, shelf seven, book nine. Then right, shelf six, book forty seven.
Zip is carrying all of them for her. "That it?"
"Yes." Penny takes a left turn at the next intersection. "Now we need to return them."
"Hells, really? Back where we found them?"
"No. We return them to the librarian."
"What the fu–I mean, right! Right. The librarian."
I'm hugging Graves' tail for reassurance.
After weeks and weeks of wandering, we finally come across something different. The way ahead ends at a pair of giant decorative dark oaken doors reinforced with black wrought iron. Penny stops in front of them and gazes up in stoic silence for a moment before taking the books from Zip and gently depositing them through a slat in the door. After that, she steps back and waits.
There's a resonant knock from the far side, like something just fell into place. Or maybe fell out of place. With that, the doors slowly start to creak and groan and pop as they drag inward and open just a few meters wide.
All four of us peek through.
Something is there in the darkness.
It's the silhouette of a person–horrifically thin, extremely tall, and impossibly long, standing completely motionless just past the opening with its limbs contorted in disturbing angles, and that makes my scales crawl as my skin goes clammy and cold. The labyrinth is stone dead silent. We may as well be frozen in time.
With a sickening series of cracks, its head quickly turns. I cannot see its face but I know it's looking at us. A frigid bead of fear sinks through my core. My hands are shaking. I'm scared to breathe too loudly.
What is that? What is that?
What the fuck is that thing?
It's a person. It's like us.
No, it's not. It's nothing like us.
Why is it trying to look like us?
A disjointed and unnatural motion seizes its arm.
It takes a book off a shelf ten meters above us.
Then it's gone. It runs away into the dark.
The faint slap of bare feet fades away.
It's gone. It's gone? Right? Did it leave?
Zip and I look to Penny for answers. Her face is pale, her pink glow has gone dark, and her antennae are stock still, pointed up. A croaking mumble creeps out of her. "I… I've… never seen it. Before…"
I wish I hadn't. I'll never unsee that.
Or unhear those cracks and pops.
My body involuntarily shivers from the top down.
Zip slowly points a claw. "Do we have to… go that way? Follow the string bean monster? I don't think I want to do that. Call me a bitch. I don't care. Fuck. That."
"We have to," Penny says but doesn't move. "We have to. Mmm… We have to…"
I'm not going first.
Zip isn't either.
Penny hasn't moved.
Graves crosses the threshold.
Nothing happens to her.
She crosses her arms and expectantly waits.
The three of us trade baffled stares.
Zip finds her defiance and refusal to be outdone, taking us both by the arms and pulling us through. Nothing happens as we cross into the next area, which is a huge hexagonal space that towers above us so far up that I can't see the ceiling through the darkness. Every wall in the structure is lined with books and bookshelves, not unlike the Lighthouse, and the floor is completely empty all across except for one small lonely pedestal in the center. It's breathtaking. If only I weren't terrified to set foot in here.
"Where?" Graves asks Penny.
"U–Um. The… pedestal."
Without hesitation, Graves turns and walks toward it. Her tail cinches and I stumble forth after her, dragging the other two along with me. Not permitting us to drag our heels, Graves keeps a brisk pace and forces us to keep up as she clears the long distance to the pedestal.
When we near it, I notice a book resting on the marble. "What–What is that? Is it… bad?"
Penny shakes her head. "A passage through the pages. The librarian selects the portal according to the books we bring it. That book, when opened, will pull us all through it. Transporting us to the Lighthouse's basements."
"Huh." Zip leans closer. "So the string bean monster is a jackdaw? Now that's a corkscrew. Well, alright then. Wings up."
I'm not convinced enough to wing it.
Not that it matters. I don't get a choice.
Graves casually flips the book open.
All four of us are whisked into the pages.
Moments later, we stumble out of the portal and into a cramped basement chamber. The first thing I notice is that it's much warmer, thankfully. The second is that it's much brighter, which hurts my eyes. The third is that we're not alone. A handful of Scribes in maroon robes are caught completely off guard, just as astonished to see us as we are to see them.
"Who–"
Fwip fwip fwip!
The three of them go right to sleep.
"Damn, you're good," Zip sighs, patting Graves' arm. "Glad you're on our side. This almost isn't fair. Do you ever run out of those quills?"
"No." She tightens her tail around my waist and turns to Penny. "Where?"
"I… Um." She adjusts her glasses, scanning around. "Past this point, I don't know. I've never been down here. I haven't read any books on the Lighthouse's subterranean floors either. All I know is that… It's dangerous. For interlopers. Like us…"
"Hm." Graves takes the lead, bringing me with her. "Follow."
Outside the room, we come across yet another stone hallway, this one lined with nothing but amber torches. It's much less plain and geometric than the labyrinth, with more patterns in the masonry and dozens of elegant archways. Graves keeps close to the wall so we do too, struggling to keep up with her long and hurried stride. It's a total blackout as to how she knows where she's going–or if she even does–but she's moving with such confidence that I can't help being inspired by her leadership.
After a few twists and turns through oddly shaped rooms cluttered with all sorts of strange furniture and fixings, including a room full of skeletons from various creatures which I get a little distracted in, Graves comes to a halt outside of a sizable storage room. We can hear voices coming from inside.
A few heartbeats pass.
Graves effortlessly throws us all into her shadow.
"Wha–Hey! That's just rude, drac!"
"What are we… Oh. This is strange."
Wow. Graves is tall. Her legs are very long.
In a blink, she slips into the room, cuts wide into the right corner, casts some sort of dark magic spell, extinguishes every light in the room, then bolts in for the kill. To my surprise, this time she stabs them with her quills by hand, and even more surprising, she tackles one to the floor without sedating him and slaps a hand over his mouth as she presses the quill into his neck so hard it bleeds.
Her voice drips with venom. "Sword."
The wyvern struggles but she's much stronger.
"Sssss! Shhh. Quiet. Sword. Now."
His eyes are bugging out as he writhes and heaves.
"My name is Graves. Shall I send you to yours?"
He frightfully shakes his head, whimpering with terror.
She lifts her hand. "Speak."
He inhales a deep breath.
Graves stabs him with the quill.
"Wha–Hey!" Zip leaps out of the floor and pulls her away. "What the fuck, drac? Why? He was just about to tell us!"
"Shhh." Graves stands and shoves her back down out of sight. "No."
Penny's voice murmurs, "He was about to cry for help…"
"Wait, is that–Are you sure? Am I wrong?"
"Yes."
Graves stabs the next one with another quill. He wakes up with a sharp gasp and she repeats the same demands, but he too remains faithful to his duty. With an agitated flick of her tail, she wakes up the third and politely requests directions once more.
"I–I don't know! Sword? What fucking sword?"
"Longevity."
"The–The fucking… What? That old thing? The Elder has it in study! He's examining it right this very moment! Please, that's all I know!"
"Shhh. Sleep."
Once she puts him back to sleep, she darts out of the room and back into the hallways, sprinting like a drake on all fours. As a crossblood, I'm in awe of just how much she embraces her oddities and nonconformities, and uses them to her advantage. It truly is inspiring to be in her shadow watching her move unhindered. I'm watching closely so I can copy her movements into my own stealth maneuvers.
"Where are we going?" Penny peeps.
"Blackout, drac! She's way too fast!"
Graves keeps running, cornering so tightly that her spines brush the edge behind her. Hells, she could sweep the footraces without competition. It'd be a shutout. After she darts up a few flights of spiral stairs, she stops at the top and lingers, tail curling up high like a cat's. Then she cuts to the right and keeps going.
When she arrives at a set of doors that are identical to those we passed through in the labyrinth, Graves picks up her speed and darts through the narrow gap.
"Aw, nice! Threaded it, drac!"
I snicker. "Stitched up. Wings."
"Shhh." Graves stands back up and slinks into the Lighthouse proper. Voice shifting to the frigid hiss of Umbra's musical whisper, she declares, "Xikarius. So good to see you again."
The Elder Scribe turns his heads.