Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana #1)

Thirty-Nine

In the dim torchlight, the space around them was shadowy and maze-like. It was not so much a chamber as a throat of stone lined with obstacles. The rock formations were close and awkward. Ellie struggled to see how she and Adam were meant to proceed through it.

“That looks like a path.” Adam pointed ahead of them.

The narrow, uneven track twisted through the stones. It was visible for only a short distance ahead of them before turning from view. The cleared ground looked barely wide enough for Ellie to put her feet side-by-side on it.

She took a determined breath and started forward. She had only gone a few steps when Adam let out a sharp hiss of pain behind her.

“What’s wrong?” Ellie said as she whirled back to him.

“Damned cave bit me,” Adam returned.

He shook out his hand—and a quick, wet splatter darkened the nearby stones. Ellie’s pulse jumped uncomfortably at the sound.

Adam noticed it too. He glanced down at his hand and then flashed her a distinctly guilty look.

“Just scratched myself a little,” he said.

Ellie grabbed his hand and turned it over. A gash crossed his palm, as clean as the mark of a surgeon’s scalpel. Blood welled out of it as she studied it.

“Adam, this isn’t a scratch,” she protested.

Adam took his hand back.

“It’s fine,” he insisted stubbornly.

“It absolutely is not. Give it back to me. Now,” she added when he hesitated.

Adam sighed and gave in.

“There’s not much we can do about it in here,” he pointed out as she examined him.

“I could sew it,” Ellie countered.

“Do you even know how to sew?”

“Of course I do,” Ellie replied, and then hedged a bit. “I mean—I despise it and avoid it if at all possible. But I can do it. We can disinfect the thread with my illicit liquor.”

“I don’t think so.” Adam tried to take his hand back.

Ellie hung onto it. “You prefer to keep bleeding all over the cave?” she retorted.

“It’ll stop,” he insisted stubbornly.

“When?” Ellie pushed back.

“Uh—soon.”

More blood splatted down onto the stones by her feet.

Ellie pulled her supplies from her pocket and set them out neatly on the ground. She took out a bit of thread and worked to stick it through the eye of the needle.

It took a few tries.

She unscrewed the flask. Tilting it, she brought the fiery-scented liquid inside up to the top. She dipped the needle and thread into it.

“Ready?” she asked impatiently with the flask in one hand and the needle in the other.

“This is a terrible idea,” Adam asserted.

“Would you rather do it yourself?” she challenged.

“Maybe?” Adam returned, and then took in the scowl on Ellie’s face. “Okay. Fine. You sew me up. Have at it.”

He held out his hand. Ellie eyed the cut uncomfortably. Now that he had given her permission to play doctor, she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it.

She took a deep breath. She could do this. Who knew what could get into that wound while they were scrambling around in the cave? An infection could kill him out here. Stitching it closed was the prudent, rational thing to do.

Ellie steeled herself and sloshed a glug of liquor across his palm.

“Ow—ouch!” Adam complained with a hiss of pain.

“Really?” Ellie raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“It burns,” Adam insisted mulishly. “You try pouring cask strength hooch on an open wound and tell me how you like it.”

“Well, I doubt you’re going to like this much better,” Ellie returned as she took hold of his hand and turned it to find the right angle.

There really wasn’t a right angle.

This would be just like fixing her socks. The principles were exactly the same… except with human flesh instead of wool.

Ellie stuck her needle into Adam’s skin and immediately felt queasy.

He grunted but made no further protest.

“In and out,” she breathed deliberately as she looked down at the silver needle protruding from Adam’s palm. “Nothing to it.”

Ellie wriggled it through to the opposite side of the wound.

Adam’s brow creased as he grimaced.

“That’s… Mmm.” He bit back something else that clearly wanted to come out of his mouth.

“Sorry…” Ellie winced as she tugged the needle out, pulling the thread through with it.

The sight of the string emerging from Adam’s bloody hand made her feel a bit dizzy. She forced in another deep breath as she readied for her next stitch—and then froze.

“Do I go back in from the same side or cross over?” she blurted.

“Over,” Adam said flatly.

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

“How do you know?” she pressed.

“Because I’ve had stitches before?” he retorted thinly.

“Right, yes,” Ellie said carefully, sensing the thinness of his temper. “Very sensible. Crossing over.”

She jabbed the needle in again. This time, she managed to get the angle a little better. Pulling the thread through made her slightly less queasy.

She made another jab and started to feel better.

“This really isn’t so difficult,” she declared as she pushed the needle through his skin again.

“Great,” Adam said through his gritted teeth. “Glad you’re enjoying it.”

“There,” Ellie announced a moment later as she made her last pull through the end of the wound. “Do I tie it off now like one of my stockings?”

“Huh?” Adam returned as he raised an alarmed eyebrow at her.

“Same basic principles,” Ellie asserted with more confidence than she felt.

She finished the knot. A bit of thread hung from the end of the uneven row of black stitches.

“We need something to cut the—Oh!” she exclaimed as Adam thrust the torch into her hands.

He set the loose end of the thread between his teeth, pulled it taut, and yanked the machete from his belt.

A neat slice severed it right at the knot.

Adam shoved the machete back into place and eyed the wound with a frown.

“Your stitches are all over the damned place,” he complained.

Ellie stiffened defensively.

“They are perfectly fine, thank you very much,” she countered. “I should like to see you do any better.”

“I have done better,” Adam retorted. “Just wasn’t gonna try with my left hand.”

At her answering glower, he shuffled a bit.

“But thank you,” he replied carefully. “Much appreciated.”

“We should bandage it as well.” Ellie turned, presenting him with her shoulder. “You may take my sleeve.”

“I don’t need your sleeve,” Adam said as he suppressed a sigh.

“It is still an open wound,” she pointed out. “It will take time to scab up properly and we cannot afford to wait around for that. Tear off my sleeve and wrap it up.”

Adam’s narrowed his eyes mischievously.

“So you want me to tear your clothes off you,” he clarified.

Ellie’s cheeks heated. “The sleeve should be more than sufficient,” she returned primly.

“Sure about that?” Adam asked as he loomed a little closer. His newly stitched hand neatly flicked at her topmost button.

Ellie had lost a pair of buttons in the cenote, so the one he touched was already indecently low.

She might lose all her buttons down here, she thought thickly as her eyes dropped to the sweat-slicked muscle on Adam’s chest. What did she really need them for anyway? Bothersome things, buttons…

“Sleeve,” she said through her suddenly dry mouth.

He flashed her a grin.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “Hold still.”

“Hold still?” Ellie echoed, and then flinched as the machete flashed up again.

Adam took hold of the shoulder of her shirt and stabbed it. The knife passed close enough to Ellie’s cheek that she could feel the soft wind of its passing.

He jerked the blade up, slicing the fabric in two. Taking hold of the cut from both sides, he ripped it apart.

The sleeve severed with a jerk. Adam peeled it down Ellie’s arm. The fabric was still a bit damp from her plunge into the cenote and the humid, sweaty warmth of the council chamber.

“We should probably sterilize that with the alcohol as well,” Ellie said thoughtfully as she eyed the stained, filthy piece of cloth.

“Sure,” Adam replied. “Gimmie the booze.”

She took the flask from her pocket and handed it over. Adam flipped it open and tossed the contents down his throat.

“Gahhh,” he gasped as he finished. “That really is awful. Who the hell did you steal this from?”

“I took it off Mr. Mendez,” Ellie retorted as she snatched the flask back, along with her shirtsleeve.

She splashed the remaining liquor on the fabric.

“No wonder he’s in such a bad mood all the time,” Adam grumbled.

“There,” Ellie declared after firmly binding the wound. “Now we may proceed… though I should very much like to know how you managed to do that to yourself so easily.”

“I just touched a rock,” Adam complained in response.

“Which one?” Ellie asked, and then realized she didn’t need Adam to answer. She could see the splatter of dark blood on the ground where he had been standing. “The torch, please.”

Adam handed it to her. Ellie used the light to study the stone column beside them.

She spotted another splash of blood on its surface. Something odd protruded from the center of the stain—a small sliver of black stone.

“Something’s stuck here,” she said. “It looks like… a tiny little piece of knapped obsidian.”

It certainly explained Adam’s wound. Obsidian could be chipped into a terribly fine edge. That was why Mesoamerican societies had used the stone to create blades and arrowheads. Though brittle, the facets could be sharper than Adam’s machete blade.

Ellie shifted her perspective. From the path, the knife-like sliver would have been nearly invisible.

With a jolt, she realized that there were more of them. A spine of tiny, razor sharp slivers bristled from the column.

“They’re all over it!” she declared.

Adam’s mouth formed a grimmer line. He plucked the torch from her and directed his sharp blue gaze out over the twisting, maze-like chamber.

Glittering shards of black stone winked at them from almost every surface.

“This place is full of them,” Ellie said in slow horror. “We can’t touch anything without the risk of being shredded.”

“Didn’t you say Xibalba had a cave of razors?” Adam asked.

“The House of Knives,” Ellie replied uncomfortably.

“Gotta admire their attention to detail,” he muttered.

Ellie gazed out at the labyrinth, chilled with fear. The path was a veritable tightrope. They would have to squeeze between stalagmites, duck under veils of stone, and edge around boulders, all of which were lined with blades… and that was just what she could see from where she stood.

Adam’s wound was nasty enough, but as long as they could keep it from becoming infected, it wouldn’t be life threatening.

A cut to a wrist or thigh could have them bleeding out within minutes on the floor of the cave.

“How are we supposed to get through this?” Ellie burst out nervously.

“Very damned carefully,” Adam retorted as he gazed at the death trap before them.

Adam set the pace, and they picked their way forward through the maze. He held the torch overhead as he moved with the slow, careful tread of a stalking panther. Ellie kept her own steps just as painstaking, wary of the glinting daggers of stone that flashed at her in the torchlight from every angle.

Ellie wondered if she and Adam might avoid the obstacle course more readily if they simply left the path. A glance at the black shards shimmering at her from the further reaches of the cave killed that notion dead. The people who had built this place had done their work thoroughly.

Built it, Ellie thought with wonder as she squeezed her way between two close-set rows of knives. All of this had been deliberately constructed by the people of Tulan. The challenges she walked through had likely been pulled from their now-lost myths of heroism and kingship. Those stories had carried such importance that whispers of them had filtered down into the annals of the neighboring cultures across hundreds of years.

“It really is quite fascinating,” Ellie said as she lay down on the ground and allowed Adam to drag her under a rippling limestone veil edged with obsidian scalpels.

“I’ll appreciate it a bit more when it isn’t trying to kill us,” Adam replied. He picked up the torch again and turned to see what came next.

The light flickered across another stretch of claustrophobic knife-edged stone formations—but beyond them, a wide black mouth revealed the way to the next chamber.

Adam took a big step over a fallen column.

“Well, that’s a relie—” he began.

His words were cut short as the ground beneath his boot gave out a loud, ominous crack.

Adam froze as he looked down. Beneath his foot, the stone of the cavern floor had snapped, revealing itself to be no more than a thin veneer disguised by a few centuries of dust and rubble.

Even as Ellie watched, a few more hairline cracks opened along the edges. The ground Adam stood on jarred another half-inch lower.

He sighed as he looked down.

“What’s the betting this opens onto a nice big pit of those razors?” he said.

Ellie swallowed thickly.

“I should say it is probably likely,” she replied.

“I’ll jump for it,” he announced.

“No!” Ellie burst out as she threw up a warning hand. “You’ll put more pressure on the fracture.”

He met her eyes evenly across the short distance that separated them.

“Then I’m going to step off it. Very carefully,” he added.

“I would assume that any change in the dispersion of your weight could be problematic,” she snapped back.

There was another soft crack and a shifting of pebbles.

“Leaving my weight where it is sounds pretty problematic as well, Princess,” Adam warned.

Ellie made a quick and desperate assessment of the situation. Only one reasonable solution presented itself.

Her gaze shifted to a wide, flat circle of stone that lay just ahead of them. It was a remnant of some long-ago broken stalagmite.

“Set down the torch,” Ellie ordered. “Carefully.”

“Why?” Adam demanded skeptically, even as he obeyed.

The ground shifted and snapped again beneath him at the slight motion.

“Are there any razors on that limestone shelf to your right?” Ellie prodded.

She took a careful step back as she readied herself.

Adam glanced back at the platform. The move elicited another ominous crack from the trap under his boots.

“Nah,” he said. “Looks like that bit’s pretty—”

“Good,” Ellie cut in and launched herself at him.

She had three paces of a running start. She used every inch of it, building up as much momentum as possible. There was just enough time for Adam’s face to shift into lines of horrified surprise before Ellie reached the edge of the cracked stone and leaped.

Her shoulder collided with the solid mass of Adam’s chest. Her arms flew around his waist. The impact sent him toppling backwards even as Ellie heard the rock giving way beneath his feet.

Adam landed on the shelf with an audible oomph. Ellie was sprawled on top of him.

She lifted her face from a pectoral to assess the damage. He was rubbing the back of his head and wincing.

“Are you intact?” she demanded as she pushed herself awkwardly to a sitting position.

“I… uh…” His expression went a bit blank as he looked down at where she straddled him with her hands braced on the dust-streaked musculature of his chest.

“Are you concussed?” Ellie demanded urgently. She felt a spark of panic.

He slowly let his head drop back down onto the stone and pointed his gaze deliberately at the ceiling.

“Not the time, Bates,” he muttered to himself pointedly. “Not. The. Time.”

Ellie’s cheeks flushed as she realized the impropriety of their position. She scrambled awkwardly free of him and stood up to brush the dirt from her trousers.

Adam levered himself upright. He shook the dust out of his hair with his uninjured hand, and then hopped nimbly back up to his feet on the limited platform of the broken stalagmite.

He looked down at the place where he’d been standing. The floor had crumbled away beneath it, revealing a pit.

“Yup,” he concluded. “Chock full of knives.” He glanced ruefully at Ellie. “Thanks for that.”

He was so very large, filthy, and under-dressed. The room began to feel a bit warmer. Ellie wondered if someone had let steam into it.

“It was no trouble at all,” she replied weakly. “Maybe for the rest of this chamber, we should test the ground before we put our weight down on it.”

“Sure,” Adam agreed and promptly hopped off the platform.

“Test the ground, Bates!” Ellie exclaimed with strangled panic.

“What?” he complained. “This part had to be okay or it would’ve fallen in with the rest.” He read the expression on her face and lifted his hands. “Got it. Very carefully.”

Ellie gingerly slid her way off the ledge to stand beside him. Together, they turned toward the black, looming hole of the passage.

“What other tests did they have in that book of yours?” he asked carefully.

“There’s a House of Bone Chilling Cold,” she offered uncomfortably. “Er… a House of Jaguars, and, um…”

“I get the idea,” Adam cut in grimly, and stalked—carefully—through the black-mouthed door.