Capítulo 51: Their Scent
With no apparent rush to continue, they decided to wait a few hours. Morne and Geleb both had no Chimh left in their Wells, and only a fool would walk headlong into danger without preparing as much as they could.
They sat on the stone platform, backs against the wall, and beheld their handiwork.
The muddy trail of death they had left behind was already starting to dry, the Scuddins that remained filling in the gaps after the ink had run its course and turning the ground solid once again.
'We won't be going out that way,' Morne thought. They didn't have another pen, and he couldn't take them the entire way.
Earl grumbled the entire while they waited for the Chimh Wells to refill, though it was his stomach that spoke the loudest.
They had left all of their food left at the entrance to the temple, which was now sealed off from them, and their last meal had been that morning shortly before breaking camp.
Combine that with the walking through a howling blizzard that they had done all day and Earl's evacuation of his stomach after Morne had rescued him, and it was no wonder he was hungry.
But no matter how much he complained or how loud his stomach gurgled, it couldn't change their situation. It certainly wouldn't stop him from trying, however.
"We get it, you're hungry," Geleb sighed, finally unable to take it any longer. "Morne is just as big as you are, and you don't see him complaining, do you?"
"How much longer do I have to sit here and wait for you two, anyway?" Earl said, apparently not taking Geleb's remark to heart. "It's been at least two hours, likely more."
Earl had no way to judge the time accurately, seeing as how they were inside. Normally he'd use the sun for a rough estimate, but the false sky above had no such celestial body to mark the passage of time with.
"My Well is almost full," Morne replied, eyes closed as he examined the Well in question. "I should be ready to go in another ten minutes."
"Same here," Geleb stated. "We should check the door. If there's another ridiculously long hallway, we might as well start walking now."
Morne and Earl agreed, the latter glad to finally have something to do, and they all stood and went to the door, leaving dirty tracks in their wake.
It swung open at their approach, revealing the extensive, dark hallway they had expected.
"It occurs to me that we've lost our torches," Geleb said as they stared into the darkness.
"That is a problem," Earl replied.
"You don't have anything in those pouches of yours?" Morne asked. "A single match would be better than wandering blindly into the next trial."
"I doubt they'd light after the swim," Geleb said. He fished a tinderbox out of a pouch and flipped the lid open, peering inside. "I still have this tinderbox.
"The container kept the tinder dry, but a few flaming sticks won't be doing us any favors when it comes to seeing. Everything else in these pouches is too wet to catch fire.
"What about that Spell you used to guide the ink earlier?" Morne asked. "Can't you use that to dry your stuff?"
"It only works with ink." Geleb shook his head. "That's the limited scope of an Apprentice-Grade Spell for you. I learned it because I thought it would be easier than writing with a pen, but that turned out to be wrong. Anyway, it won't help here."
"Then into the dark it is," Morne said after a while.
They didn't exactly have an alternative. What were they supposed to do, sit there and die of starvation? They might as well feed themselves to the Scuddins.
"Into the dark," confirmed Geleb. "Earl, place a hand on my shoulder, and Morne, you do the same with Earl. I'll keep my hand on the wall to feel our way forward. Stay close and maintain contact."
The three joined up in a single-file line, doing as Geleb had planned, and entered the corridor.
.......
"About time," Earl grunted as the three stepped out and into a wide, grassy field with another false sky up above. "I was starting to think we'd never make it out."
"Don't get too excited. This trial might be worse than the last one," reminded Geleb.
"Bah," Earl exclaimed. "Harder, perhaps, but worse? I doubt it. Can't imagine much worse than dying with lungs full of dirt, boss."
"Tresek ot Eme!" boomed the sudden voice of the golden serpent, causing the three men to wince.
The grass around them surged into motion. Faster than they could blink, they were surrounded on all sides by towering grass walls too thick to see through. Ahead, they saw the path branch off to the left and right.
Somewhere within the maze of plant matter that they now found themselves in, a roar shook the grassy walls, soon followed by two more.
"You were saying?" Geleb glared at Earl.
"I stand by what I said," Earl sniffed.
Morne strode forward, not in the mood to loiter around talking when they had a task to complete. "Let's just get this over with."
"At least one of you has good ideas," Geleb said jokingly, following behind. It seemed he had regained his former cheery attitude in the tunnel.
The trio stopped at the intersection, looking down both paths.
Earl swore, Geleb's smirk became strained, and even Morne couldn't help but feel like he had been scammed.
Down each path were three more, going this way and that. The few of those other paths that they could see down turned or branched off themselves, and each path was so narrow that there was only just enough room for the three of them to walk shoulder to shoulder.
"Great, just great." Geleb's head swiveled from one path to the next. "A maze. Of course this had to happen after I broke my pen."
"We could be dead," Morne reminded him stoically.
"I suppose that's true," Geleb conceded, "but that doesn't change our situation."
A roar sounded once again, this time closer.
Whatever was in here with them had their scent.
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