During the course of his life, Arran had broken into many houses and squeezed himself into the tightest of spaces to escape a wary guard's searching gaze. Yet, he had never felt as restless as he did now, as though the darkness watched him with a thousand pairs of eyes. The faint, red glow of the flames licking at Inna's hands was their only source of light in this labyrinth of cramped corridors. His head had scraped against the low ceiling so many times already that a dull headache spread across his scalp and his lower back hurt with the strain of walking hunched like an old man. The carpet, though light at first, now pressed onto his shoulder with the cumbersome weight of a bag of flour.
Conversation had faded to a halt a long time ago. Inna led the way silently, only pausing at a crossroads to whip her head this way and that for a while, to choose the direction her gut steered her toward in the end. The feline swaying of her hips formed a great distraction for Arran's overworked mind. With her back turned to him, he could watch her for as long as he liked, and imagine how he'd love to run his hands down the curved line of her waist ...
The gods curse you, Arran, he internally scolded himself. Maybe he should have accepted that Rasirian noblewoman's repetitive invitations to her bedroom after all, instead of pining over a princess. That ought to have satisfied his needs for a while. Ah well, too late for that now.
His chin bumped against the back of Inna's head. Lost in his longing daydreams, he hadn't noticed that she had stopped walking. She faltered, her arms flailing in the air, and he caught her around the waist before she could topple over the edge of a steep chasm. The carpet dropped onto the stone floor with a muffled thud.
A wavering breath rolled across the length of her spine. "Habi Onshra, that was close. What were you thinking?"
I was thinking about you. "Sorry," he mumbled, releasing her. "I got distracted. How are we going to cross that?" He gestured at where the ground had split in two behind her. His heart still palpitated in his chest, just like it had when his mother had caught him stealing candy at a vendor's stall as a child.
She scratched her neck. "Give me a moment."
She rubbed her palms together. The flames in them grew into a ball of pulsating fire, which she tossed at the dark crack. It floated above the chasm and illuminated the path on the other side, too far to jump. Climbing down was not an option, even if they'd had the right equipment: at least a dozen iron spikes waited at the bottom for any inattentive treasure seeker to fall in.
Arran swallowed. "If these are the normal traps, I can't wait to see what the magical ones look like."
Inna elbowed him in the ribs, hard enough to elicit a grunt from him. "Don't jinx it." Her eyes darted to the carpet on the floor. "Besides, why do we have a flying carpet if we're never going to ride it? Hop on; we'll have crossed this chasm in a heartbeat."
He could have kicked himself for not having thought of such a simple solution sooner. Disgruntled, he sank down onto the worn carpet and clenched his fingers around its edges when it took off. Both of them groaned in pain as Inna's navigational skills led them a bit too close to the ceiling.
"Watch it, woman," he grumbled, rubbing his maltreated scalp.
"Oh, stop whining already. I'd like to see how you'd fare flying this thing in such a tight space."
He poked her in the side. She yelped, startled, and glared over her shoulder when he erupted into a fit of laughter. Of course, this was too much of the good stuff for his poor lungs, and his body heaved with violent coughs until he retched.
"There, justice," Inna mumbled, although her warm hand on his knee was comforting.
The coughing fit left him completely exhausted. Red-eyed, he let Inna pull him to his feet on the other side of the chasm, leaning against the wall for support. His hair stuck to his forehead, wet with sweat. After she had rolled up the carpet again, she walked up to him and brushed the locks away.
"Are you all right? Should we take a break?"
"No," he wheezed, short of breath. "I'm good."
She raised a skeptical eyebrow, but didn't insist. Instead, she stooped to hoist the carpet onto her shoulder. "I'll carry this for the time being, then. Come on. The next trap won't be so easy."
The corridors narrowed even further, to the point where they had to crawl on hands and knees to proceed. Inna's flames cast flickering shadows on the crumbling walls with every one of her movements. Since she could no longer bear the thing, she had to shove the carpet through the tunnels, which slowed down their progress even more.
A bead of sweat rolled between Arran's shoulder blades. His head spun with the heat and the lack of a destination. There was no way of telling whether they were still heading in the right direction; for all he knew, they might as well be going in circles until they were trapped at the pyramid's center, with backward being the only exit.
After an eternity of sliding and squirming, a welcome breeze ruffled his hair and cooled his skin. He closed his eyes, yet opened them again when Inna tapped his arm with her foot. A rectangular frame of mellow, white light beckoned them further ahead. The promising lure of open space energized his muscles, and he sped after Inna toward freedom from these terrible tunnels.
They emerged into a vast chamber, the air fresh instead of dank and oppressive. The ceiling parted at its highest peak into a small oculus, through which a thin beam of moonlight fell into the room and broke into glittering rays of gold, reflected by the treasure that littered the corners. Frescos covered every square inch of the walls, their scarlet, azure and gold hues as vivid as though the paint was still wet. Arran and Inna stood on a platform, from which wide steps descended to a great, round basin with a sparkling fountain at its center.
Arran ran his tongue along his dry lips. "Gods, I'm thirsty. If we drink from that fountain, we won't have to use up our own rations."
"Wait." Inna held out an arm to bar him from taking another step forward. "We have to test if the water's drinkable first."
"It looks clear."
She gave him a hard look. "Not all poison is blue or green, Arran." While he rubbed his eyes, biting back a sarcastic retort, she kneeled down to rummage around in the duffel bag. She pulled out a vial with a dark blue liquid. Pinning it between her thumb and index finger, she crossed the room to the fountain and poured a drop of the liquid into the water.
It dissolved immediately. Inna released a breath in a low hiss. "It's safe to drink."
"Good." He dipped his hands in the fountain and brought them back to his mouth to drink. The water had a sweet aftertaste, which soothed his scorched throat. With his thirst quenched, he filled his hands once more and splashed the water in his face to clear his head. He felt ten times better than a mere instant before.
Reawakened, he gazed around the room, assessing the treasure stocked inside. Even if he stuffed his pockets with only a fraction of the gold, jewels, daggers and armor pieces displayed in here, he would probably still be richer than most merchants in the Bronze District. Nevertheless, an invisible force, call it intuition, prevented him from actually scooping up handfuls of the riches, greedy as he was. As he lifted the Vahja to look beyond, his eyes confirmed his suspicions.
"It's cursed. The whole lot. None of it is real."
Inna's shoulder brushed his. "Of course it is," she replied. "Afthar The Sane was a nomad who didn't believe in earthly possessions. No one who respected him would have buried him amidst heaps of gold."
He sighed. "A pity."
Inna looked up at the oculus above their heads, exposing her neck. The moon bathed her skin in a white, ethereal glow. Clenching his fists, Arran averted his gaze before he had the chance to do something stupid and irreversible. "It's nighttime, yet I don't feel tired anymore," she said. "Though it's been a long day."
"I feel it too. That energy," he clarified when she turned her head to look at him. "Could it be something in the water?"
"Possibly." She flicked her braid over her shoulder and started untangling it. "Judging by the angle of that oculus and the height of the ceiling, I'd say we're near the pyramid's heart and Afthar The Sane's grave. Yet, I don't see any exits apart from the tunnels which led us here in the first place. Do you think this is a dead end?"
He made a face. "Gods, I hope not."
Zazi chose that moment to drop from Inna's neck and slither toward the fountain, distracting him from his previous train of thought. He followed her with his eyes. A distant memory stirred at the edge of his mind. "Inna, who is that snake really?"
Her finger froze. "What?"
"She doesn't act like a snake. Snakes don't communicate telepathically. First, I thought you might be an animal charmer, but that's not true, is it?"
Inna's head dropped. Sadness crossed her face, though it was gone a moment later. "To be honest, I don't think Zazi was always a snake. She used to be my mother's companion, who also had the ability to talk to her. Her loyalty shifted around the time I learned to control my magic. She has been with me ever since." She paused, her brow furrowed. "I've asked her before who she used to be, but she says her memories were stolen from her. The first thing she remembers is being nursed back to health by a woman with golden eyes. Like mine."
"The silver-eyed woman in your vision told you that Zazi would guide us," Arran said. "It's just a silly thought, but maybe she meant that Zazi could lead us to the Prophet's grave? However that may be possible."
Inna laughed, scrubbing her face, but it sounded far from joyous. "That's ridiculous." Yet, she stiffened when Zazi curled around her ankle and stared up at her with those yellow, unblinking eyes. "I ... What?"
The snake cocked her head. Then she lowered herself back to the ground and started pulling Inna along toward the wall on the opposite side of the tunnels' entrance.
Arran quickly gathered the carpet and duffel bag and hurried to catch up to them. With his free hand, he grabbed Inna's chin and shoved her mouth closed. "You're gawking, princess. What did she say?"
"She ... she said that she sensed a familiar kind of magic nearby," Inna stammered. "She knows the way."
His lips parted into a smug grin. "See? I told you."
"I don't understand," she muttered, careful not to step on the snake's tail. "Zazi claims the magic resembles my own, which is why she recognizes it."
That made him pause too. "Are you related to Afthar The Sane?"
"No. At least, I don't think so."
"Then what's pulling at her?"
"I don't know!"
Zazi stopped when they had reached the wall and let go of Inna's ankle. With the tip of her tail, she traced a rune cleverly hidden in a drawing of an old man with a long, gray beard and a colorful sphere in his hands. Afthar The Sane, carrying the Sphere of Truths. The rune glowed, just like the ones on the pyramid's entrance had when the sphinx had granted them access. However, contrary to Arran's expectations, the wall didn't split in two or reveal a hidden door, but the entire room began to change. The bright frescos faded to an empty brown, the fountain evaporated along with the water in its basin, and the oculus in the ceiling closed to wrap them in impenetrable blackness.
The ragged sound of his breathing filled the air as Inna reignited her palms. Their new environment was considerably smaller, about fifteen paces from one corner to the next. No doors in sight. A dozen or so mirrors of various sizes hung and stood scattered across the room, yet each of them reflected a different, impossible scene: a lonely torch, a wooden chest, bloody spikes with a human skeleton pinned to them. The stench of rotting corpers had returned tenfold, mixed with the more pleasant smell of salt and sweet herbs.
A sense of dread settled in the pit of Arran's stomach.
"What are you two doing at my grave?"
Gasping, Inna clutched his wrist and pulled him toward one of the smaller mirrors. The flowers and leaves engraved in the bronze framework formed a stark contrast with the sullen expression of the old man who had appeared at the other end of the silver surface. Arran glimpsed over his shoulder, but except for Inna, Zazi and him, the room was still empty.
"We believe someone recently stole a precious artifact from this pyramid, great Prophet," Inna said diplomatically. "We wish to discover why."
Afthar The Sane pursed his lips, chapped and dry with old age. His brown eyes skimmed over Arran, yet lingered a bit too long on Inna's impassive features. "Ask the right questions, and you will find what you seek," he answered after a long moment of consideration.
Arran suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Was there really no one who could give them a plain answer to their questions?
"However," the Prophet continued, his eyes narrowed at Arran as though he had heard his complaint, "you must find your way out of this room first. The door is over there." He pointed at a larger, rectangular mirror which showed the image of a simple wooden door. It might as well have been on the moon. "My grave is on the other side of it."
"How do we get there?" Arran asked, relieved when his voice was steady instead of desperate.
A small smile, almost gloating, played on the Prophet's lips. "That is up to you to figure out."
He vanished.