“Maybe we’re close to the other side.” Eira sounded more optimistic than she felt.
The whispers grew, more and more voices joined. It was a disorienting murmuring: every step there was a new voice, like a room of ghosts all having a conversation at once. Even though no one individual voice was loud on its own, the void had become deafening. There were prayers to Yargen and praises for Ulvarth. There were utterances disparaging those beyond Meru as forsaken and evil.
“What is happening?” Alyss shouted.
“There must be a way through it.” Olivin’s remark wasn’t an answer to her question. But it was a good point and kept Eira focused.
“You’re right.” She couldn’t see him behind her, but she knew he was somewhere in the darkness along the chain of hands held tightly. “There has to be some secret to it.” If there were no guards on the outside then it must be because the Pillars presumed the contents within to be guard and protector well enough.
“Maybe they’re telling us how to get through in code?” Ducot said.
“Great, if that’s the case we’re screwed.” Olivin’s muttering was almost entirely drowned out.
True to form, Alyss looked for a solution, undeterred by the disheartened remarks. “Perhaps there’s some kind of riddle, or passcode, hidden in the remarks!”
“Or we’re supposed to follow one voice?” Cullen suggested as the whispers faded in and out.
One voice. “Cullen, you might be on to something,” Eira stated.
“What?”
“Really?” Alyss was just as shocked as he was.
“How will we know which one?” Olivin asked.
“We don’t have to listen for any of the voices woven into the shift,” Eira said confidently. “We’re going to look for the ones that aren’t. Keep your hands tight and stay with me. I suspect when we’re on the other side, we’ll need to run for cover quickly.”
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through her nose, using it as an opportunity to steady herself. The world around her was carved magic. But there was a consistency in that. It wasn’t the reality she was used to, but it was reality, of a sort. And that meant there should be echoes.
With her magic, she reached out and tried to ignore all the other whispers and murmurs, focusing only on what her magic said to her. The world fell away and the void consumed her. The only tether was her hand wrapped firmly around another, but even that felt far away.
Like a cloth across spilled ink, she swept away the chaos and looked only for what wasreal. There had been countless people who must have traversed through these passages. The original person to make it…one of them would’ve left an echo.
There.
We’re following only the prayers, right?one disembodied voice asked another as an echo in the back of Eira’s mind.Yes. They changed what the voices said again.
Eira didn’t release her hold. Instead, she moved toward the point at which the voices originated. If the Pillars were changing the words within this labyrinth of whispers then she couldn’t trust that prayers were still the right way. So, instead, she staked her hope on the path itself being set. The guideposts mightchange, but not the directions. That where those people stood had once been the right course.
Once she arrived at the source of the murmurs, Eira stopped, and repeated the process. Using her magic, she sifted through the churning whispers, working to find what was real and what was fabricated. Her free hand twitched, like she was plucking the strings of an invisible harp.
Time felt like fleeting moments and ages simultaneously. Every pause, turn, and slow march was uncertain progress. There was a time when being plunged into darkness of the Pillars’ making would tug at the threads of her mind. But now she moved with confidence. With the knowledge that her friends and her magic were at her side and with them she was unstoppable.
At last, they beheld a dim point of light in the distance and the whispers began to abate.
“Is that…” Alyss didn’t finish.
“An exit?” Cullen heaved a sigh of relief.
“We’re not out until we’re out,” Eira cautioned them, her focus on the archway ahead. Now that they were a bit closer, it was easy to make out the roadway and houses beyond. “We’ll go out under the cloak of illusion once more. Be ready for anything.”
Heart hammering in her throat, Eira shifted the focus of her power to settle over their shoulders like winter’s embrace. She readied herself for what awaited them on the other side of the wall. The moment they emerged, Eira found herself stopping short—face-to-face with a Pillar.
36
Where had the man come from? She hadn’t seen anyone then, suddenly, he was there. But he looked right through her with vacant, dull eyes.
Eira’s heart had gone from hammering, to thundering, to stopping entirely. No one made a move, no one breathed. If he took one step closer, they’d be caught.
