Chapter 29 -- Darkness Within

Zed felt the walls rush past him as he fell. He tumbled up and down. His hands clawed the surfaces for any purchase, but the sword stuck to his hand limited his movement. He grabbed the sword with both hands and jammed it into a wall as it rushed past him. The shock of the sudden stop almost dislocated his shoulders, but the sword held and Zed's fall stopped.

"Fuck, who the fuck pushed me from up there?!"

He waited for his breath to come back to normal and hung there in empty darkness.

"Put your foot down Zed," the sword said.

He stretched one foot as far as it would go, it touched solid ground. He put his other foot down and pulled the sword out of the wall.

"It's so dark."

In the silence of the pit, his sword started to hum with a blue light. He raised the sword above his head and the walls around him were illuminated in the same blue eerie glow as above in the labyrinth. He pointed the sword to his feet and saw a bloody smear on the floor. It looked like something wet, heavy and very dead was dragged from here.

"Krazkaf," he said to himself, "seems he didn't make it in one piece."

He started to walk in the direction of the blood stains. A noise behind him startled him and his foot slipped in the blood. He put one hand on the wall to balance himself and the small barbs in the wall dug into his hand.

"Yeaaowch!" he pulled his hand back and looked at it in the blue light from the sword. Little droplets of blood were dripping from his hand and falling on the floor.

"Blood in the labyrinth...shit."

He started to walk forward, taking care to stay away from the walls and place his foot carefully. Somewhere along the way, the smear of the blood faded and Zed realized that he was lost. He tried to back trace the way he had come from, but it was a dead end.

"Lord Zed," a voice called him from the darkness.

Zed recognized the voice.

"Olag? Is that you?"

"Follow my voice, hurry up, before those things catch you."

"What things?!" Zed said, as he walked towards Olag's voice.

"The things that live in the labyrinth. They ate Krazkaf."

"Ate?"

Zed walked faster towards Olag's voice. He saw the little man cowering in a hollow in the wall.

"Lord Zed," Olag said, "I am sorry."

"What are you saying man?"

And Olag buried a small knife with a black blade in Zed's foot.

Zed looked at the knife. Then he looked at Olag. Then he was looking at the darkness of the ceiling as Olag's face appeared in his fading eyesight and the little man spat at Zed.

"Fuckery," Zed burbled, "this is all fuckery."

And the world faded away from Zed.

----

Two more days! :)