Labyrinth (8 page)

She guessed that she’d fallen at least twenty feet but couldn’t be sure. It was still completely dark in the…pool she found herself in, adding to her insecurity about her position. After all, Fairclough had warned her that it would become obvious there were challenges within the maze itself. And Annja had the distinct impression that meant Fairclough might have stocked the maze with a few living surprises.

There might even be piranha in the water with her right now.

She wiped her eyes and tried to focus.

In any event, she was out of the room with no exit. Now she just had to figure out where she was.

And what had become of Kessel.

Chapter 8

The first thing she did was determine the size of the pool she’d dropped into. Annja swam in one direction until she bumped into stone. A wall. There, she thought, that tells me there’s at least some end to this.

She swam back the way she’d come but grew tired partway across. It wasn’t a small pool.

Annja took a deep breath and dove down, but again, she couldn’t find the bottom before her lungs threatened to burst. She surfaced and gasped for air.

Not good, she decided. Better to stay close to the stone wall she’d felt. So she paddled back over and felt the cool, slimy stones, covered in mossy algae. And Annja hadn’t detected any chlorine, so this was a natural body of water.

And that meant there might be other things living in it besides the algae.

Almost as soon as she came to that realization, Annja felt something brush against her legs. She jerked them up and away. She wasn’t in salt water, so that ruled out sharks. And while she didn’t relish the thought of facing anything in the dark, she could control her panic.

Now might be the time to see what it is I’m up against here, she thought. Annja visualized the sword waiting for her in the otherwhere. Instantly, the sword was in her hands, forcing her to tread water with her legs only. But the dull gray light the sword cast provided much-needed illumination.

Annja held the blade high overhead and attempted to see where she was. She glanced up at the ceiling and saw she’d misjudged the distance she’d fallen by perhaps a dozen feet. She could see the hole in the ceiling where she’d come plummeting through.

Any higher and I would have broken my back when I landed, she thought. Fairclough must have worked it out that way on purpose.

The stone wall at the one end gleamed in the light. Annja could see that the stones reached all the way to the ceiling, but looked impossible to climb. Then she slowly traced the wall. It went all the way around the water. She estimated that the pool was the length of a football field. Completely enclosed by the stone wall.

Again, she was in a room with no apparent exit.

She’d already tried to dive and hadn’t reached the bottom. So how deep was it? And did the exit lie somewhere beneath the surface?

One way to find out.

Annja took a deep breath and dove, holding the sword out in front of her while she kicked through the water. Just having the sword gave her a lot more strength and her system felt flush with energy. Her lungs didn’t protest so much as she swam deeper.

She could make out all sorts of plants and a sandy bottom roughly thirty feet below her.

She marveled at Fairclough’s construction of this maze. It wasn’t the type of maze she’d expected. This wasn’t a series of corridors and dead ends; it was a complex series of rooms, each with its own unique set of conditions. In order to get through this, Annja was going to need all of her wits about her.

A school of small fish swam away from the light of the sword, and Annja saw their large white eyes, more accustomed to the darkness than the light. What else lived down here?

She got her answer a second later as she spotted what looked like a bull shark. It cruised lazily some distance away from her. Annja felt her heartbeat kick up a notch as she remembered that bull sharks could live in fresh water. They’d been found up rivers hundreds of miles away from the ocean.

The shark suddenly seemed to notice her and altered its course. It wasn’t huge. But at roughly six feet long, it was still large enough to give Annja some problems.

If she’d been unarmed in the dark, it would have made short work of her.

But with the light and the sword, Annja felt ready for anything.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to kill it. It was simply doing what it was supposed to do. As an apex predator, its job was to hunt and eat. But when it swam suddenly closer with its pectoral fins jutting downward, Annja could see that its attitude had changed from mild curiosity to anger. It seemed to view Annja as an intruder.

I don’t blame it, she thought. If I ruled this place and someone threatening showed up, I’d be pretty pissed, too.

She flicked the sword blade up and aimed it at the shark’s snout. It brushed against the steel and Annja felt the blade cut into the nostrils. The shark bucked and jumped away.

Annja watched it retreat into deeper water trailing a thin line of blood in its wake. She hoped that would be the last of interest it expressed in her.

She turned her attention back to surveying the area beneath her. Unfortunately, she ran out of air, so she had to surface and take several deep breaths.

There was no doubt the sword helped her stay underwater longer. But there were limits to what it could do. And if Annja was going to figure out how to get out of here, she’d have to be sure she could reach the exit in one breath; otherwise, she’d drown.

Annja waited until her heartbeat had calmed down and then took another deep breath and dove.

She barely missed the set of teeth that flashed past her head.

The bull shark was back.

Annja kicked hard to put distance between them and then floated in the water with the sword in front of her.

The bull shark came at her hard. Annja knew this was no time for indecision. She cut fast, slashing across the water in front of her, severing part of the bull shark’s snout with a single swipe.

Blood flooded the water and the shark reeled away. Annja cut it again, a killing thrust to the underbelly.

I hope there’s only one of them, she thought. Otherwise, the mess in the water would draw others in no time.

She surfaced, took another breath and then swam deeper, beneath the blood cloud that hung suspended in the water.

The sword lit her way and Annja swam for the reeds growing down near the bottom of the pool. An underground pool stocked with a bull shark? Annja shook her head and kicked on.

The sword’s light illuminated more of the bottom. Annja spotted more fish and a few turtles. There must have been a way to keep the shark fed, aside from the fish population contained in the pool.

Would have been nice if Fairclough had given me a warning, Annja thought.
I could have been killed back there.
And he didn’t even know about the sword she carried. His only reason for getting her here was to warn her about the existence of that precious history book.

Annja made it to the other end of the pool and surfaced once more. With one hand on the stone wall, she held out the sword. She hadn’t seen any other sharks and she doubted there’d be more than one. It would be too difficult to keep two of them fed properly.

Still, she didn’t doubt that Fairclough could spring other surprises on her. She had to find her way out of the pool. While the sword would keep her healthy for some time, she could tell that the temperature of the water would eventually drop her core temperature and bring on hypothermia.

And that would kill her just as easily as a bull shark.

Annja waited again and then took a series of shallow breaths followed by one deep breath. Then she plunged beneath the surface again, kicking stronger than she had previously.

I’ve got to find a way out of here quickly, she thought.

She traced her way down the wall toward the bottom. A mass of boulders sat near the wall itself. Was the exit there?

Annja floated in the water and tried to reason out what Fairclough would have planned for this room. Obviously, the real challenge would have been the shark. Once that was dispatched, though, was there a secondary puzzle?

Annja swam toward the boulders. Small crabs scurried away from her as she approached. Annja thought the topmost boulder looked unusual and she pushed against it.

It moved suddenly, almost causing Annja to lose her balance. As it rolled away, it revealed a long black tunnel.

Annja frowned.

That was the last thing she wanted to see. She jabbed the sword into the opening, but the blade’s light faded about ten feet from the entrance.

Wonderful, she thought. There’s no way of telling how far it goes. She could run out of breath and find herself drowning inside.

Not exactly the way she’d envisioned herself dying.

Annja surfaced and looked around, trying to see if she’d missed anything. But as far as she could tell, there was no choice. The stone walls of the pool ran right up to the ceiling high overhead. There was no way to climb the walls. And Annja doubted the exit would have been up there. Fairclough might have been devious, but he would have also planned for someone to find a way out, provided they got past his pet shark.

No, the more Annja thought about it, the more she suspected the exit really was the tunnel beneath the surface. She’d just have to take a chance that she could swim it in one breath.

Here goes nothing, she thought. Annja took another breath and plunged straight down toward the tunnel, pulling herself through it as she kicked harder than she thought possible.

The darkness seemed to stretch before her, yawning like some great black maw. Annja drove the sword out ahead of her, willing it to carry her forward, to lend her its strength.

Her legs ached from kicking. And she kept bumping her head against the tunnel itself, which was only about six feet in diameter.

I’ve got to keep going, she thought.
Come on, Annja, keep swimming!

Annja didn’t dare stop and look back. She had a gut feeling that she’d already passed the point of no return.

Her lungs started to crave oxygen more than they ever had before.

Keep going.

Annja closed her eyes and imagined the sword in her mind’s eye. A new wave of strength surged through her body and it felt as if her muscles had more oxygen now. Annja’s lungs still hurt from holding her breath, but she kept her eyes shut and kept plowing forward.

Just a little bit more.

The tunnel couldn’t go on forever. At some point, Fairclough would have to end it and bring the person into another room so the fun could continue.

Right?

She prayed she was right.

Her legs ached now and Annja knew that this was the final energy she could pull from the sword. Eventually, it would need to be put back into the otherwhere. Annja didn’t think it had an inexhaustible supply of energy to give her.

Nothing did.

I’m almost there, Annja told herself. A few seconds more.

And then she had the sensation of light ahead. Annja opened her eyes and saw that the tunnel had already started to open up. She could see the lighter water in front of her. The tunnel must have opened into a different room.

She kicked with every last ounce of strength she possessed and was rewarded by finally clearing the tunnel.