The two-headed giant waited for their answer.
Above him, eight ice pixies hovered among the crystal branches, each with an arrow resting against a tiny bowstring. Lady Frost stood at his right hand. Dark Voice sat motionless upon the lesser throne to his left, its hood turned toward Nethnarel.
The frozen garden had become perfectly still.
Only the two heads of the giant moved.
One watched the heroes.
The other watched the sealed passage behind them.
“You have heard my offer,” the first head said.
“Wallowdale lives for one week,” said the second. “You bring me the Shard of Everlasting Life. The village receives food, fuel, and protection until you return.”
“And if we refuse?” Kaylor asked.
The giant smiled with both mouths.
“Then the winter continues.”
Lady Frost rested both hands upon the pommel of her sword.
“Your village has no boats,” she said. “Its storehouses burned. Its fields are frozen. Even if we depart without spilling another drop of blood, how many days do you believe those people will survive?”
Grazim hated her calm certainty.
She did not need to threaten Wallowdale. Hunger and cold would accomplish what her soldiers had not.
Hexen Brew stepped forward.
Heat rolled from him.
A wall of flame rose across the crystal garden, separating the heroes from the giant’s throne. The ice pixies scattered upward, drawing their bows.
Lady Frost lifted one hand.
The fire vanished.
Not extinguished.
Erased.
A thin ribbon of steam curled from the crystal floor where it had stood.
Hexen stared at the empty space.
The giant’s first head laughed.
The second did not.
Kaylor raised his sword.
Fendor had already selected one of the archers above. Isamu shifted his weight toward the nearest crystal column, measuring how quickly he could reach the giant. Nethnarel’s hands filled with violet light.
Dark Voice leaned forward.
The whisper beneath its hood entered Nethnarel’s thoughts.
Please.
Nethnarel extinguished her magic immediately.
“I do not believe we should give it what it wants.”
Grazim looked at the enemies surrounding them.
They had survived the mountain, the mines, the Queen’s attack, and the frozen road. They had defeated creatures that should have destroyed them.
But defeating the court before them was not the same as saving Wallowdale.
Even if they somehow killed the giant, Lady Frost, Dark Voice, and every ice archer in the garden, the villagers would still be starving beneath an unnatural winter.
“Your name,” Grazim said to the giant.
The garden remained tense.
The giant’s hostile head frowned.
The other looked amused.
“You would ask my name before deciding whether to kill me?”
“I would know whose bargain we are accepting.”
A murmur passed between the two heads.
Then both spoke together.
“I am Grom.”
The sound shook frost from the crystal trees.
“Grom the Everlasting.”
Kaylor reacted to the name.
A fragment surfaced in his mind: a giant falling beneath a burning blade, a voice declaring that Grom had been slain.
The memory disappeared before he could seize it.
“We killed you,” Kaylor said.
One of Grom’s heads laughed.
The other smiled without humor.
“You killed someone who permitted you to believe he was Grom.”
“You remember us,” Grazim said.
“I remember what you were.”
“Then tell us.”
“No.”
Grom descended another step from his throne.
“You have awakened weak, incomplete, and dangerously curious. The truth would not strengthen you. It would lead your enemies directly to whatever remains of your souls.”
“Convenient,” Nethnarel said.
Dark Voice turned its hood toward her.
“Truth has never been convenient for you.”
Nethnarel’s violet magic returned.
Grazim stepped between them.
“One week,” he said. “You supply Wallowdale until we return. No soldiers enter the village. No villager is taken. No one is punished for our actions.”
Grom considered the terms.
His two heads whispered to one another in a language that sounded like breaking glaciers.
Finally, the smiling head nodded.
“One week.”
The other added, “If you do not return, the bargain ends.”
“And Wallowdale?” Kaylor asked.
“Becomes mine.”
Hexen’s jaw tightened.
Grazim held up one hand before he could answer.
“Where is the shard?”
“Inside a place built to consume those who seek it.”
Grom’s smile widened.
“The Labyrinth of Wicked Souls.”
Even Lady Frost’s expression changed at the name.
Grom returned to his throne.
“An enemy stole the shard from me long ago. I have sent warriors, hunters, sorcerers, and thieves to retrieve it. None returned.”
“How long ago?” Fendor asked.
Grom’s two heads looked at each other.
“Long enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you require.”
The giant gestured toward Lady Frost.
“She will take you to the labyrinth’s threshold. She cannot enter. Neither can I.”
“Why?” asked Isamu.
The hostile head answered.
“Because the labyrinth knows us.”
The smiling head added, “It does not yet know you.”
Dark Voice laughed softly.
The whisper seemed to come from beneath every crystal flower.
“It will.”
Lady Frost removed a scroll from within her silver cloak.
The parchment appeared ancient. Lines of blue fire moved across its surface, forming and dissolving into symbols faster than the eye could follow.
“This will return all who stand near its reader,” she said. “Speak Wallowdale’s name when the shard is in your possession.”
“And if we use it before then?” Nethnarel asked.
“It will still take you wherever you name.”
Grom’s unfriendly head leaned toward them.
“But if you return without my property, you will find little left to save.”
Kaylor took the scroll.
Lady Frost did not release it immediately.
Their eyes met.
“You arranged yourselves in the same order during your final battle,” she said quietly. “The priest beside the paladin. The archer watching the left. The monk waiting for the opening.”
Her gaze moved to the others.
“The druid ready to become the beast. The sorcerer pretending she was not afraid of herself.”
Nethnarel smiled thinly.
“And how did that battle end?”
Lady Frost released the scroll.
“With all of you dead.”
The heroes were permitted to rest within the frozen garden.
Servants brought food, water, blankets, and healing salves. Other servants departed through hidden passages carrying sacks of grain and dried meat toward Wallowdale.
Hexen sat with two spears laid across his knees.
They were matched weapons, each with a dark wooden shaft and a broad, leaf-shaped head. They had been among the equipment waiting beside him when he awakened at the monument, and he had carried them down the mountain without giving them much thought. Since then, most battles had called something else from him first—the bear, the great cat, the wolves.
He cleaned frost from one spearhead with a strip of cloth.
A faint warmth moved through the metal beneath his fingers.
Not enough to explain what the weapons were, or who had placed them beside him on the summit. Only enough to awaken the familiar certainty that his hands had wielded them before.
Hexen rose and spun one spear experimentally. The shaft passed around his body and settled beneath his arm without effort. The second followed just as naturally, turning through his opposite hand before stopping with its point held low beside him.
His mind did not remember the weapons.
His body did.
Hexen studied the faintly gleaming spearheads for another moment, then secured both weapons across his back.
Grazim watched every bundle leave.
He did not trust Grom.
He trusted hunger even less.
When they had recovered what strength they could, Lady Frost led them back through the frozen road. No creatures challenged them. The ice itself seemed to withdraw from her path.
They emerged upon a ledge overlooking the valley.
Wallowdale could not be seen through the storm, but far below, small figures moved along the mountain trail carrying the promised supplies.
Lady Frost began her ritual.
She drew a circle in the snow with the point of her sword. Symbols spread outward from the line, glowing beneath the frost. The air around the six heroes tightened.
“Where are you sending us?” Kaylor asked.
“To the edge of an active volcano.”
Nethnarel stared at her.
“Was there no less active entrance?”
“No.”
Lady Frost completed the final symbol.
Magic rose around them in spirals.
Grazim felt his body begin to dissolve.
His hands became golden dust. Kaylor blurred into pale flame. Fendor fragmented into countless dark feathers. Hexen became a shifting succession of beasts. Nethnarel vanished in an explosion of violet sparks, while Isamu simply faded like a shadow at sunset.
The world disappeared.
Heat replaced it.
The six reformed upon black stone beneath a red sky.
For several moments, none of them could breathe.
The air was filled with ash and sulfur. Rivers of molten rock crawled between plates of hardened lava. The earth cracked and shifted underfoot, revealing orange light beneath the black crust.
They stood near the inner edge of a vast volcanic crater.
At its center rose an island of dark stone surrounded by lava.
A narrow bridge connected the island to the crater’s edge.
Upon the island stood a ziggurat.
Its broad base emerged from the volcanic rock in five ascending tiers. Each level stood ten feet higher than the last, placing the flat summit nearly fifty feet above the lava field.
The structure was not built from local stone.
Its blocks were gray, smooth, and untouched by the heat.
Fendor studied the rising terraces.
“No openings above the first level.”
“None that wish to be seen,” said Isamu.
The heroes crossed the bridge.
Heat rose from the lava on either side, shimmering around them. Far below, something large turned beneath the molten surface and disappeared.
At the base of the ziggurat stood a pair of immense doors.
The stone around them had been scorched black. Melted armor lay scattered across the stairs—breastplates collapsed inward, helmets fused to the floor, swords bent into useless curves.
Some of the armor still contained bones.
Nethnarel stopped at the edge of the blast marks.
“Grom sent others.”
“Many others,” Fendor said.
Isamu examined the blackened stone.
“The fire came from the doorway.”
Kaylor approached no closer.
“Can we open it from a distance?”
Isamu removed a slender silver chime from his pack.
He did not remember acquiring it.
He remembered how to use it.
He pointed the instrument toward the doors and struck it once.
The note was clear and impossibly pure.
It traveled through the stone beneath their feet.
Something unlocked inside the ziggurat.
The doors opened.
A torrent of fire and molten rock erupted from the entrance.
The heroes threw themselves flat as the blast crossed the steps. It roared over the place where they would have stood had Isamu opened the door by hand.
The flames continued for several seconds.
Then stopped.
Molten stone ran down the stairs in glowing streams.
The doors remained open.
Hexen looked at Isamu.
“Useful chime.”
“It has limited uses.”
“More limited than our lives?”
“Considerably less.”
They waited until the stone cooled enough to cross.
Inside, the ziggurat was dark and cool.
The sudden absence of heat felt unnatural.
The entrance opened into a vast square chamber supported by thick pillars. A metal grate lay at its center. Beside it stood a single iron lever.
Kaylor looked at the lever.
“No.”
Nethnarel looked at the grate.
“Agreed.”
Fendor searched the floor, walls, and pillars.
“No wires. No pressure plates. No visible mechanism beyond the lever.”
“That does not make it safe,” said Hexen.
“No. It makes the trap well hidden.”
Isamu approached the grate.
The shaft beneath it descended only several feet into darkness. He heard breathing below.
Small breaths.
Many of them.
He stepped away.
“There is something underneath.”
Grazim looked at the remaining doors leading from the chamber. All were sealed.
“The lever may open them.”
“Or it may open that,” said Kaylor.
Nethnarel pointed toward the grate.
“Which would be foolish.”
Hexen gripped the lever.
“Then everyone stand back.”
“Hexen—”
He pulled.
Metal doors beneath the grate snapped open.
Four snarling creatures leapt from the pit.
They were short, dog-faced humanoids with hairless bodies and long arms. Crude spears filled their clawed hands. Their eyes reflected the heroes’ light like those of animals caught in darkness.
They moved with astonishing speed.
The first struck Grazim’s armor before he could raise his hammer. The second rushed Nethnarel, only to be thrown aside by a barrage of violet bolts. Kaylor drew the heavier sword as another attacker closed upon him.
Beside him, the pale blade slipped free of its sheath and flew across the chamber, moving under its own power to intercept one creature while Kaylor fought the fourth directly.
Fendor’s arrows struck from the chamber’s edge.
Isamu met the creatures between the pillars, stepping through their spear thrusts and turning them against one another.
Hexen reached over both shoulders and drew the matched spears from across his back.
They settled into his hands as naturally as claws.
He drove one creature away from Nethnarel with the first spear and turned the second beneath another attacker’s guard, pinning it against the edge of the open grate.
The battle ended almost as quickly as it began.
The last dog-faced thing tried to retreat into the pit.
Kaylor directed the floating blade after it.
A brief cry came from below.
A moment later, the pale blade rose from the grate and returned to Kaylor’s waiting hand.
Hexen looked at the lever, which had locked in its lowered position.
“I believed I could close it again.”
“Why?” Fendor asked.
“It seemed reasonable.”
“This is the Labyrinth of Wicked Souls.”
Nethnarel looked toward the open pit.
“Reason may not live here.”
They searched the dead and found only a handful of coins, crude weapons, and collars marked with a symbol resembling a mouth swallowing a flame.
No doors had opened.
They chose a passage and continued.
The labyrinth changed as they moved through it.
Corridors turned where no turn had been visible. Doors appeared behind them and vanished when they looked away. One stairway descended for nearly a hundred steps before opening onto the same chamber they had just left.
They marked the walls with chalk.
The marks moved.
They tied cord between intersections.
The cord was found cut and neatly coiled in front of them.
At last, they reached a heavy stone door that neither key nor chime would immediately open.
Kaylor struck it with his shoulder.
The door shifted.
He struck it again.
Stone cracked around the hinges, and the slab fell inward with a crash.
Beyond lay a square room covered by a single immense mosaic.
Thousands of tiny tiles formed the image of four ghouls crouched around the bodies of fallen men and women. Pale shapes rose from those bodies—their souls—and the ghouls tore at the spirits with teeth and claws.
The artwork was too skillful.
The suffering in the faces was too precise.
The eyes of the painted souls seemed to follow the heroes into the chamber.
Kaylor remained at the threshold.
“Something is wrong.”
Grazim raised his holy symbol.
He sensed no creature.
No immediate undead presence.
Yet the room was saturated with malice, as though evil had soaked into every tile.
Fendor examined the mosaic from the doorway.
“The ghouls are arranged around the center.”
“Do not step on the center,” Nethnarel said.
Kaylor stepped inside.
His divine awareness ignited.
The four painted ghouls turned their heads.
They pulled themselves from the floor.
Tile became bone. Colored stone became gray flesh. Claws emerged first, followed by hunched backs and hungry faces. They rose from their own images, leaving empty black shapes in the mosaic beneath them.
Grazim entered with his hammer raised.
The symbol at his chest blazed.
A radiant figure appeared behind him—indistinct but unmistakably divine, a warrior goddess surrounded by the light of battle.
Three of the ghouls recoiled.
They fled toward the corners of the room, clawing at walls that offered no escape.
The fourth remained.
Kaylor met it with three rapid cuts, the last dividing the creature from shoulder to hip. It collapsed into broken tiles.
Isamu and Hexen pursued the fleeing undead. Nethnarel’s magic struck another before it could climb the wall. Fendor pinned a third to the floor with an arrow through its spine.
The last ghoul turned as Grazim approached.
Its mouth opened around a scream that had once belonged to a living person.
Grazim’s hammer struck.
Golden light passed through the creature.
It shattered, returning to the mosaic as a rain of blackened tile.
Silence returned.
The four empty shapes remained in the artwork.
Kaylor looked toward the souls depicted beneath them.
Their expressions had changed.
They no longer appeared terrified.
Now they appeared watchful.
A second door stood at the far end of the room.
Heat radiated through it.
Before approaching, the heroes searched the chamber. They found no treasure and no explanation for the mosaic.
Fendor placed one hand near the far door.
“The next room is hot.”
“How hot?” asked Hexen.
“Hot enough that I would prefer the volcano outside.”
Isamu examined the lock.
A narrow line in the stone above it caught his attention.
He withdrew his hand just as a guillotine blade dropped from the ceiling.
The blade struck the floor and returned into its hidden slot.
Isamu looked at the door.
Then at his silver chime.
Another pure note sounded.
The lock opened.
Behind them, the mosaic began to vibrate.
Tiny tiles jumped upon the floor.
Hexen turned.
“Something is moving.”
Dust rose from the empty outlines where the ghouls had been. Grime gathered from the corners. Fragments of tile lifted into the air.
The debris began to spin.
A body formed within the storm.
It had no fixed shape. Arms stretched from clouds of dust and collapsed again. Broken pieces of the mosaic became teeth, eyes, and claws before dissolving back into the swirling mass.
The souls depicted in the floor opened their mouths.
The creature rose above them.
A wave of dust exploded outward.
Everyone disappeared inside it.
Grazim felt grit strike his armor like thrown gravel. Kaylor covered his face as fragments cut across his scales. Fendor was hurled against the wall. Isamu dropped beneath the densest part of the blast, but the dust curved downward in pursuit.
Hexen inhaled.
Something entered his lungs.
Heat spread through his body—not the heat of the room beyond, but fever. His vision blurred. Sweat covered his skin as his strength abandoned him.
Nethnarel released a spell into the storm.
Violet light passed through it without effect.
“Magic is not finding anything solid!”
“Then give it something solid!” Kaylor shouted.
He swept his sword through the creature.
Tiles broke beneath the blade, but the dust reformed around it.
Fendor fired toward the densest part of the storm.
His arrows vanished.
Isamu moved through the debris, searching for a pattern.
The creature expanded before each attack.
Contracted after releasing its dust.
Expanded.
Contracted.
Like breathing.
“There!” he called. “When it draws itself inward!”
The monster inhaled.
The chamber’s dust rushed toward its center.
For one instant, the broken tiles formed a crude skull around a knot of darkness.
Kaylor struck.
The blade opened the skull, but the darkness remained.
Hexen attacked despite the fever, his spears passing through the creature’s center and emerging coated in black ash.
Nethnarel’s magic struck next, filling the cracks with violet flame.
The creature screamed in dozens of stolen voices.
It released another cone of dust.
Hexen took the full blast.
His fever worsened. His knees nearly failed.
Grazim reached the monster before it could expand again.
His hammer had been forged to destroy the dead.
The creature was not wholly undead, but the souls bound within it recognized the weapon.
The hammer began to sing.
Not with sound.
With judgment.
Grazim swung into the knot of darkness.
The radiant goddess appeared again.
This time, she did not stand behind him.
She descended through the hammer.
The blow struck the center of the storm.
The dust creature collapsed inward. Tiles shattered. Darkness folded beneath the divine light. The stolen voices rose together in a final cry and then separated—no longer screams, but breaths released after centuries of pain.
Pale figures lifted from the mosaic.
One by one, the trapped souls vanished through the ceiling.
The remaining dust fell.
The empty outlines of the ghouls disappeared from the artwork.
Only four dead bodies remained in the mosaic.
At peace.
Hexen collapsed to one knee.
Kaylor caught him.
“He is burning.”
Grazim placed a hand against Hexen’s forehead.
The fever was unnatural but curable. Divine light passed from Grazim’s symbol into Hexen’s body, drawing out a thread of black vapor.
Hexen inhaled sharply.
The fever broke.
He looked at the quiet mosaic.
“Did we free them?”
“I believe so,” Grazim said.
Nethnarel looked toward the open door.
“Then perhaps the labyrinth will reward us.”
A pulse of heat rolled through the doorway.
Nethnarel sighed.
“Or not.”
A short passage led into the next chamber.
The temperature increased with every step. The stones beneath their feet glowed faintly red. At the end of the passage, they found a wide room surrounding a central pool of molten rock.
The lava did not flow from anywhere.
It simply existed, bubbling inside a perfect circle cut into the floor.
Something moved beneath its surface.
A long shape coiled through the molten stone.
Then another.
Grazim saw them first.
“There are creatures inside.”
Fendor removed a vial from his pack and held it toward the light.
“One potion against fire.”
Kaylor pushed it back toward him.
“Keep it for whoever falls.”
“Encouraging.”
Nethnarel summoned frost around her fingertips.
The nearest shape stopped moving.
“I can draw it out.”
“Wait,” Grazim said.
Nethnarel’s spell had already crossed the room.
Cold struck the center of the pool.
The lava hardened in a black circle.
A creature erupted from beneath it.
It had the upper body of a humanoid warrior and the lower body of a massive serpent. Red scales covered its flesh. Fire burned between the plates of its skin. It carried a long spear heated white at the point.
Two more rose behind it.
Salamanders.
The first swept its spear toward Kaylor.
He blocked, but the weapon’s heat passed through his sword and into his hands. The creature’s mere presence scorched the air around it.
Hexen shifted toward the bear.
The transformation began and faltered.
He was still weakened from the fever.
The second salamander struck him before he could complete it. The spear entered beneath his ribs and threw him backward.
He struck the floor and did not rise.
“Hexen!” Grazim shouted.
Fendor fired while moving toward him. One arrow struck the salamander’s shoulder. The second burst into a wave of restorative light that spread through the chamber.
Hexen’s eyes opened.
He rolled aside as the salamander’s spear struck the place where his chest had been.
Isamu attacked the creature’s hands and wrists, avoiding the burning scales wherever possible. His strikes redirected the spear long enough for Hexen to crawl clear.
Kaylor fought the first salamander at the pool’s edge. The pale sword danced beside him, attacking independently while he wielded the heavier blade in both hands.
The salamander wrapped its serpentine tail around his leg.
Kaylor was dragged toward the lava.
Grazim struck the tail with his hammer.
The scales cracked.
Kaylor tore free and drove his sword through the creature’s chest. Radiant fire met elemental flame.
The salamander screamed and collapsed into the molten pool.
The second attacked Hexen again.
He had regained his feet but not his strength. The creature’s heat washed over him. Its spear struck twice.
Hexen fell for the second time.
Fendor saw him drop.
He abandoned his next shot and released another wave of healing light. It crossed the room, closing wounds and forcing breath back into Hexen’s lungs.
Hexen opened his eyes.
The salamander loomed above him.
“Again?” he muttered.
He rolled away and healed himself as he retreated.
Nethnarel summoned blades made from shadow, but the darkness warped in the heat. She sent them at the third salamander anyway, forcing it back from Isamu.
Fendor’s arrows struck the opening.
Kaylor’s sword followed.
The creature fell beneath a final blow that nearly divided it in two.
Only one remained.
It turned upon Grazim.
The air around it burned his exposed skin. Its spear swept toward his head.
Grazim called upon the last fragment of battle strength within him.
The divine warrior appeared at his side.
Her hands closed over his upon the hammer.
Together, they struck.
The blow crushed the salamander’s breastbone. Golden light exploded through its burning body. The creature fell backward into the pool, where the lava closed above it.
The chamber began to cool.
The unnatural heat faded from the walls. The molten pool hardened slowly from its edges inward.
No more shapes moved beneath the surface.
For a long while, the heroes remained where they had fallen.
Hexen lay upon his back, breathing carefully.
Fendor sat beside him with his final healing arrow resting across his knees.
Kaylor leaned upon his sword. Nethnarel’s shadow blades dissolved from her hands. Isamu stood near the entrance, listening for anything approaching through the passage.
Grazim looked back toward the mosaic chamber.
The Labyrinth of Wicked Souls had tested them with flame, hunger, traps, the dead, and the imprisoned remains of those who had failed before them.
They had not yet found the shard.
They had not found the labyrinth’s center.
They had barely crossed its threshold.
Kaylor removed Lady Frost’s scroll and confirmed that it remained intact.
“One week,” he said.
Fendor looked toward the doors leading deeper into the ziggurat.
“How much of it remains?”
No one answered.
Nethnarel sat on the cooling stone.
“I recommend that the next room contain beds, clean water, and no creatures formed from human suffering.”
A deep grinding sound traveled through the ziggurat.
One of the sealed doors opened by itself.
Beyond it waited a descending passage filled with red light.
Hexen closed his eyes.
“The labyrinth heard you.”
Nethnarel stood reluctantly.
“And has chosen to disappoint me.”
The six gathered their weapons.
Behind them, the lava hardened into black glass.
Ahead, something ancient began to breathe.
The Heroes of the New Beginning entered the passage together.