Page 105 of Frost Like Night
Does it matter which key fits which hole? I guess we’ll find out.
“On three,” I say, and count it out. We plunge our keys into the holes, twist, and . . . wait. They all fit, but nothing happens.
I step back from the wall. “Maybe we need to—”
But my voice is ripped from my throat by a sudden onslaught of darkness.
Mather and Sir yelp. My body registers the weightlessness of falling as the torches’ light fades above me. The fall makes my panic have to scramble to catch up with me as I smack into the wall of a tunnel sloping ever downward, careening me into the earth.
Mather and Sir aren’t in this tunnel with me—not that I can tell, at least. By the time I catch my breath, the tunnel dumps me onto a smooth stone floor, the darkness giving way to harsh, bright light that’s somehow . . . ancient.
I’m not sure there’s a spot on my body that isn’t bruised. A moan gurgles in my throat as I roll onto my elbows, head still spinning.
But that disorientation retracts on a burst of clarity when I turn over and find that the stone floor justends.
I scramble back, heart galloping anew.
I’m on a ledge, at least seven stories in the air, over a long, rectangular room. The tunnel that dumped me here offers the only way off the ledge, but one glance at the smooth stone of the walls and I know climbing isn’t an option.
I stand, one hand to a particularly nasty bruise on my temple. The residual panic from the fall leaves a metallic taste on my tongue. This has to be the first test of our worthiness. What did the Order’s clue say?
Three people the labyrinth demands
Who enter with genuine intent
To face a test of leadership,
A maze of humility,
And purification of the heart.
To be completed by only the true.
This will be the test of leadership.
My arm drops. Rares said the Order wasn’t told what the actual tasks would be, beyond this message, and I haven’t wondered what they could be either. Partly because I had no idea where to even begin wondering, and partly because a piece of me didn’t really believe I’d get here.
But Iamhere. In the labyrinth. A place no one else has reached in centuries.
I take a deep breath. I’ve come this far. I can make it through these tests too.
Roaring fire pits crown the room. A circular dais waits directly below me, too far to jump without receiving a number of broken bones, and beyond it, a wall rises halfway up, cutting the entire room down the middle.
I drop to my knees and bend over the edge, trying toget a better view. Like the floor of the entrance chamber, this floor seems to be carved—but not into diamonds, into platforms. Mismatched shapes spread from wall to wall on either side of the divide, and the edges are carved deeper than normal, giving the illusion that each platform stands independent of the rest.
That would have been odd enough, but as I lean forward to get a better view, my fingers touch something cold on the ledge. I jerk back, hand tingling in a way I know all too well—conduit magic.
A small silver oval sits embedded in the rock, coated with the fine brown dust of years. I use the hem of my sleeve to wipe the dust clear—and laugh.
It’s a mirror. At first glance, it looks like any other mirror, but as I tip my head to the side, the light catches and reveals a luminescent picture—the Order of the Lustrate’s seal. Just like the one I found in Yakim’s library. This one, though, is firmly planted in the stone; it’s not a gear to be cranked as the one in Yakim was. I frown at it, then press my finger to its reflective surface.
Instantly the platforms below me start to softly glow—green, white, brown, red, maroon, silver, gold, and purple.
Snow above—these are the colors of theconduits. White for Winter, brown for Autumn, red for Summer, silver for Ventralli, gold for Yakim, and purple for Cordell. The green and maroon must be for Spring and Paisly.
Again my hand starts to tingle, and I know this mirroredplate has been infused with magic as the keys were. When I touched those keys, they showed me visions of what I needed to do to reach the chasm. Maybe this plate will show me what I need to do next? It makes sense—if the Order created this labyrinth to keep unworthy souls out, they’d still want a worthy soul to pass it someday, to rid the world of magic, as was their original goal. But how to make sure a worthy soul would pass the tests when the time came?
I lower the barriers I have around my mind and open myself to whatever help the plate can offer.
