Black claws gripped Leo’s shoulders like a vice, nearly immobilizing him, talons digging deep into his flesh. It stung like a vat of boiling acid, like salt poured into an open wound. The hand over his face made it impossible to see.

  Whatever it was, it felt fleshy. If only he could grasp his sword…

  Come on Whisper, he pleaded, if you only ever come to my aid once more, do so now.

  But his enchanted longsword did not reply. He could always feel it vibrating in its scabbard when it was keening, but it did not do so now.

  Ah, fuck you. I’ll do it myself.

  With a surge of effort, with what little range of movement he could avail, he strained against the chitinous mass, liberating Wraith from its scabbard. He tilted it up with as much force as he could muster, bringing it up and slicing at the claws which gripped his shoulders.

  It released him slightly, just enough to allow his arms greater range of movement. And then he rained a fury of blows upon it, until they retracted enough to release his torso. Now, regaining full use of his arms and upper body strength, he issued a powerful blow against the hand gripping his head. Finally, it released him entirely, and he stumbled forward, panting and dropping to his knees.

  He heard a gurgled cry. “He-h-h-nng.” Two obsidian arms were strangling Cosimo, their freakish fourteen fingered hands compressing his larynx. Life was bleeding out of Cosimo’s eyes, the light fading, his skin turning pale.

  “Run!” Leo shouted to the others. Snakelike appendages had been extending from the walls, encircling around Dani’s feet, tripping her. Leo struck at it, lopping it off. The part that was severed squirmed on the ground like an angry snake. He struck it again, and this time succeeded only making two snakes.

  Leo helped Danieli stand up. “Get the hell out of here!” he roared to Nico.

  Nico grabbed Dani’s arm, pulling her forward.

  With Nico and his orb of illumination gone, pure blackness had returned. Leo could not see Cosimo, but he could hear his pained groans.

  He brought his sword down on the creature which had claimed Cosimo. He rained blows down upon it with a fury like lightning.

  It had no effect.

  The fleshy mass which had gripped Cosimo had become stronger. Hard as obsidian.

  “I’m not going to let you die on me, you old fool — not yet.”

  He slashed and slashed. His blade skittered impotently. Struck sparks. Infinitesimal luminescence unveiled something above: a face — a human face, eyeless, its mouth opened impossibly wide, pressing against the metallic sheen of the wall like an amniotic sac.

  In a final desperate effort, Leo drove his sword into the face’s gaping maw.

  Its scream was guttural and unearthly, so deafening that the sheer force of it knocked Leo back and he once again fell on his rump.

  Cosimo was released. He stumbled onto the floor next to Leo, gasping for breath, his hand clawing at his throat, desperate for air.

  But there was no time to delay. The wall was collapsing inward, the cavernous space filled with the deafening roar of some unseen monster. More and more chitinous appendages lashed outward. The dark forms they belonged to were becoming more absolute, more defined.

  Leo scooped up Cosimo by the arm and forced him forward.

  “We have to get out of here,” he shouted, as a black hand reached out and raked his gambeson, cutting another deep gouge in his upper left arm.

  Cosimo, still panting, was in no condition to run. Leo picked him up, throwing him over his shoulders, and ran for his life…

  He did not know how long he ran. But eventually the screams of the wall subsided, and then he reached a small halo of light, so bright it was almost blinding.

  He blinked, holding a hand up over his face.

  “Lee!” Gianna came up and hugged him. “Oh, thank Azrael above.”

  Now he saw that the light came from Nico’s Illuminate spell. The white globe hung suspended in the middle of the tunnel, its light stretching as far as the walls, which were several feet apart. Nico and Dani were huddled close together, their eyes wide in terror. Gianna looked like she might cry as she looked up at Leo. He mussed her hair.

  Why have I brought her here? He thought. Why did I involve her in this Quest?

  She looked at him with such relief, with such hope. But all he felt was guilt. He set Cosimo down.

  “As ever, the Oracle’s warning proved prescient,” Danieli said, giving Cosimo a hard look. “We ought to have heeded his counsel. I warned you.”

  “I don’t…” Cosimo coughed again, practically hacking up a lung. When he caught his breath, he continued. “I don’t need the fucking Oracle to advise caution in a bloody Ilhen deathtrap, you idiot girl. And speaking of Oracles and Divination, where is that crystal ball of yours? Can you not foresee these perils in advance?”

  “No,” she said. “Not in this dim light. I can scarce see my own hands.”

  “Me neither,” said Gianna. “How are we supposed to avoid boobytraps if we can barely see where we’re walking?”

  “We need to be methodical,” Leo said, striding forward, ignoring the pain his arms and shoulders. “Keep silent, walk single file. Be on alert for any strange sights, sounds, smells. I’ll take the lead. Nico, you take the rear.”

  They continued down the passage in that fashion. In the next area, the walls were craggy stone. Blood dribbled from some of the crevices, and a steady thump-thump thump-thump sounded from within. Like a heartbeat.

  The temple itself, Nico decided, was itself a living creature. Its darkness was its blood, a parasite which yearned to infect them. And with each breath Nico drew, he could feel its insidious poison seeping into him, occluding his vision, sapping his strength, eroding his sanity.

  Leo, at the fore of their column, moved forward at a deliberate pace. Thrice he pulled Whisper from its scabbard, checking to see if the mystical longsword was in a mood to fight. Each time it was not. Thrice-cursed piece of shit, he thought, you’re no better than Ice. Since unearthing the blade in a demigod’s arctic mausoleum, its dormant powers had activated on no more than five occasions. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it.

  They came to a passage lit by crimson torches which offered plenty of light to see by. They illuminated a fork in the path.

  To the left, the path was lined along the edge with scattered bones and a cairn of red skulls.

  To the right, voices could be heard, whispering indistinctly. Whispering in a tongue Nico did not recognize.

  Both options made him feel queasy.

  It led to a broad octagonal room with doors on each side, eight in all including the one from which they had entered. A dead ogre lay prone on the floor, its pallid green skin turned to rot. Torches on the wall shed ample white light. The sudden brightness made their eyes hurt.

  No sooner had they entered than they heard the voice again, the voice that spoke directly in their minds.

  Well done. Your party survived intact… Almost intact. It cackled.

  This room marks a crucial junction. Seven doors, seven options. Retreat is forbidden. Six doors lead to certain death. One offers advancement, and one clue awaits discovery. You have sixty seconds.

  Again Nico heard the heartbeat-like thump thump thump, this time even louder, as though it were ticking off the seconds.

  Nico darted around the room, searching the walls and the doors, seeking any hint or clue. Leo and Gianna did the same. It felt like the escape room, except this time the stakes were higher and they had much less time.

  There were icons above each door, save for the one they’d entered from. A heart, a sword, a book… There must be some meaning to them.

  “Look!” said Gianna. “There’s something under him.” Nico dropped down on all fours. Trapped under the ogre’s belly was a crimson tapestry. A geometric code was printed on it. Perhaps some connection to the doors?

  “Help me try to lift him,” Leo said to Gianna and Nico. “You too, Cosimo. Your own wretched life is on the line too.”

  Cosimo seemed paralyzed by fear. When the voice announced a sixty second time limit, he had simply frozen. Leo’s words snapped him out of his fugue.

  “Right,” he said, his voice different now. He came around, and together the four of them tried to lift the ogre’s torso. But even with their combined efforts, the ogre wouldn’t budge an inch.

  “Damn thing must weight fifty stone,” Leo cursed. If only Bj?rn was here. Their time was elapsing.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Cosimo said, voice returning to its usual authority. “Danieli — use your crystal ball. There’s light enough to see by. What can you divine about the seven doors?”

  Danieli fished in her satchel and produced the palantir. She held it up to the first door.

  “Not this one… No, definitely not.”

  She turned to the next. “A cruel fate lies beyond this door — venomous asps and poisoned slime.”

  She turned to the third door. “Nor this…” her voice trailed off. “Wait.” She placed a hand on the door, her gaze still fixed on the swirling pale silver contents of her crystal ball. She bent closer to it, squinting.

  “Actually… Beyond this door… beyond it … I see light. Darkness and peril, yet light prevails at its terminus. Yes, yes! This is the way. And beyond that, I see… I see…” She turned the handle and pushed the door open just a hair. The thump thump thump sound abruptly stopped.

  We are still alive, Nico thought. If it was the wrong door she’d opened, we’d be dead by now.

  A silent, tense moment passed. A dark look had passed over Danieli.

  “You see what?” Cosimo practically screamed at her. “Tell us, fool!”

  Danieli shook her head. “Oh, Azrael above,” she wailed, as though all hope had suddenly fled her.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Him,” she said in a small voice.

  “Who?” said Leo. “Who are you talking about?”

  “No no no,” she said, her voice quivering in terror, her arms spasming. “It’s a trap. We’ve been tricked.”

  “Obviously,” said Cosimo. “We’re in Ilhen’s Seventh. A deathtrap.”

  “Not Ilhen’s Seventh. NOT Ilhen’s Seventh…” she dropped the crystal ball and it shattered into a million fine pieces. Dani’s hands clutched at her temples, groaning.

  “What the fuck are you on about?” Cosimo said.

  “Oh Azrael, it hurts,” she said, scratching at her temples, which were now red and swollen. She gripped her scarlet hair at the roots and pulled out clumps of it, scraping and scraping her head as though she were trying to claw down to her skull. “It hurts it hurts it hurts. I can’t—”

  The voice spoke again. You cheated. That was ill-conceived. I will not suffer intrusions on my privacy. Consider this a warning.

  And then, Danieli’s head exploded. Bone fragments pelted Nico’s face. A jet of blood sprayed from her open neck in arterial bursts. Her headless form took one backwards step and then fell to the floor, limbs quivering.

  Nico could taste the salt of her blood on his lips. He stared down at her corpse in disbelief. Blood was still oozing in pulsing bursts from her carotid.

  Gianna was crying. In three years of knowing her, Nico had never seen Gianna cry. Like Leo, she seemed possessed of an impenetrable tranquility. But now even Leo looked deeply disconcerted.

  We’re all going to die in here, Nico thought once again. Whatever spirit lurks within here, I’d rather face the Duke’s wrath. But it’s too late now.

  “We have to go back,” Gianna said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You heard her — this is a trap. It’s not Ilhen’s Seventh. Your stupid treasure isn’t here.”

  Cosimo did not even deign to look at her.

  “I don’t give a fuck where we are at this point,” he said. “Like I said earlier, wherever we are, the only way out is through.”

  “He’s right,” said Nico. “Whatever infernal creature is speaking to us, it’s not going to let us go back. We have to proceed.”

  Leo nodded, and wrapped a fatherly arm around Gianna’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he muttered to her. “I’ve got Whisper. I’ll will cut a damn hole in the wall if I have to…” He said the words but did not mean it. Whisper, it seemed, had abandoned him.

  Wiping tears from her face, Gianna joined them as they walked forward through the door Danieli had opened, leaving the light and entering another passage that was dark and dank.

  The luminous globe birthed by Illuminate still hovered by his shoulder, but the darkness was slowly eating it. It was small and anemic and sickly, offering feeble light. It would not long endure. Nico could scarcely see his feet, or what he was walking on. Each step made a wet, squelching sound. Nico had the uneasy sense that the floor was littered with limbs and intestines, eyeballs and genitalia.

  He was relieved when they emerged on a broad chamber. It had stone walls and a ceiling over one hundred feet high. A glowing orange door waited at its far end, shedding a bit of light on the environs. More bodies littered the floor, many decayed and mutilated, their limbs hacked off. The stench was putrid. Diji shields and sigils could be glimpsed among the carnage.

  Yes, Nico thought, his certainty growing, we are inside a Diji tomb. As adventurers they had visited many Diji temples and tombs, but this was unlike any other.

  The voice spoke again. My final test. Only one may pass; the rest must perish.

  Pale wisps of smoke rose up from the perished bodies, coalescing into spectres: dark shadows of pure black with vaguely humanoid shapes, seven feet tall. They had neither eyes nor mouths; their faceless heads were a featureless swirl of gray. Each had several arms of varying lengths, their forms monstrously asymmetrical. They massed before the adventurers, perhaps a dozen in all.

  And amidst all the terror and carnage and despair, Leo started laughing. A deep laugh that bubbled up from the pit of his belly. Nico, Gianna, and Cosimo looked at him like he had gone utterly mad. Even the faceless spectres gave pause.

  “Alas!” Leo shouted, pulling Wraith free from its scabbard once again, “finally you summon a worthy foe to test me. All things considered, I’ve found your deathtrap rather dull heretofore, Mr. Ilhen Rim — Rir — whatever your surname is.”

  As if in reply, one of the spectres arms telescoped twenty feet forward, clamping around Cosimo’s neck, lifting him several feet off the ground. He gurgled, swatting impotently at the shadowy appendage. Leo darted forth, bringing Wraith down upon the arm, slicing it cleanly. Cosimo fell down, rasping.

  And then the battle began.

  Gianna screamed, charging into the fray with Poinsettia. Nico had no suitable blade of his own, so he pulled Leo’s saber Ice from its scabbard.

  “To me!” Cosimo said, standing up on wobbly knees and falling back down. He had his own blade, a decorative Parthian rapier. It had a stylish gilded hilt, but lacked any charms or other arcane fortifications; it was more ornamental than practical. He held it aloft with quivering hands. “Protect me! Form a ring around me! I fucking command you!”

  “Sorry, Cosimo,” Leo said slyly. “That wasn’t part of the contract.”

  Leo twirled Wraith, nimbly dodging the furious blows of one spectre and landing a powerful blow against the midsection of another. The enchanted blade cut through it like a knife through hot butter, and then there was a sound like a thousand souls screaming in terror as the spectre exploded in a spray of opal-white mist.

  At the same time, Gianna was ably fending off two spectres with Poinsettia. With each slash she hacked off more bits of their grotesquely long limbs. But it was like fighting a hydra — with each segment she slashed off, new bits of putrid grey flesh sprouted to replace it. Only a direct blow to the spectre’s head or midsection would slay it, but her blade was too short — the spectres’ limbs too long — for her to reach it.

  The spectres had fanned out, cutting off retreat.

  Four of them surrounded Nico, moving with a slow but deliberate pace. Nico was no stranger to swordplay, but he was no match against four spectres. He aimed a blow at one, rolled to dodge another, and then hurtled past them. It was at that point he noticed a spectre emerge from the gloom right behind Gianna.

  “Gianna — behind you!” Nico yelled.

  But before she could react the spectre had enveloped her, fully subsuming her into its own form, and slowly backing away. Her small hand reached out desperately. Nico ran towards her.

  “Leo!” he called. “I need—”

  His words were knocked out of him when a spectre bowled into him, striking him like a sack of bricks. Ice went flying out of his hands. The spectre raised its oversized fists, ready to make a killing blow when Leo leapt forward, sinking Wraith into its belly. The fiend instantly disintegrated into chalky white dust. It stung Nico’s eyes.

  Wiping them, he sprang back to his feet, searching for Gianna.

  He caught one final glimpse of her small pale hand just before it sank into the wall.

  “Help me!” Cosimo screamed. “Leo — get this thing off me! I command you!”

  A spectre had clamped itself onto Cosimo’s face. He was batting at it with his hands ineffectually.

  Leo charged towards him, Wraith held at the ready, dodging multiple other spectres along the way. But before he could reach Cosimo, the spectre had burrowed itself into Cosimo’s throat. He doubled over, groaning in pain. His muscles spasmed, his back arched. The veins on his body stood out starkly.

  Leo hesitated before Cosimo, then he looked around wildly, finding Nico.

  “Where’s Gianna?” he said, voice now laced with terror. “Where is she?”

  The spectres were in full retreat. Nico could not fathom why. Still facing Nico and Leo, they glided swiftly backward.

  “She’s gone,” said Nico, more calmly than he felt. “A spectre…” he could not even speak the words.

  “Gone? Gone where?” Leo looked around the room, as though perhaps Nico was mistaken. Spectres were gaining on them, and they fell back several steps.

  “A spectre… one of them took her. She’s… she’s dead, Leo. I’m sorry.”

  He could see the anguish in Leo’s face, but to Leo’s credit he hid it well. Cosimo was now rolling on the floor, wailing in pain. He stretched a hand out to them.

  “K-kill m-m-me,” he whimpered.

  “Gladly,” said Leo with unadulterated contempt. But before he could raise his sword, Cosimo’s chest burst.

  Something black and wet crawled from the open wound, using its deformed embryonic tentacles to lever itself out of Cosimo’s chest, crunching rib bones as it did so. It was a shapeless wet tumor, perhaps a foot in diameter, but it was growing — expanding at an alarming rate. Soon it became a monstrous, tentacled creature with multiple maws each filled with needle-like teeth. Corrosive black mucus rained down from it, quickly rendering Cosimo's corpse into a thin yellow gruel, wisps of smoke curling up from it.

  Nico and Leo backed off, running to the orange door. It was not far, but before they could reach it the voice spoke again.

  Only one may pass. The rest must perish.

  “You go,” Leo said, sliding to a halt. “I’ll find another way.”

  “There's no other way, Leo. And the darkness is so, it’s so — it’s palpable, Leo. I have no more illumination spell scrolls.”

  The globe had winked out of existence. The only remaining light came from the luminescent door.

  “I don’t need one.” And he lifted Whisper from its scabbard — at last the blade was keening, emitting a bright silver light that effortlessly cleaved the darkness. “I’ll find another way — I’ll make another way if need be. Happy trails, Nico. I’ll see you on the other side.”

  Undaunted, Leo turned to face the sickening monstrosity that loomed over them. Still, the terror grew larger — forty feet, sixty feet tall, growing and growing. It raised one of its tentacles, curling the barbelled end, preparing to crush Leo with a hammering blow. And Leo started charging at it.

  Turning, Nico took a deep breath and stepped through the glowing orange door.

  A man waited for him on the other side.

  A man whom he recognized.