Benediction Denied: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel Read online

  He paused. Didn’t Jolmy say that the underworld king of gods or whatever ruled the sun and the moon? And stars?

  There was a moon card. And a star card.

  This can’t be happening.

  “I need to be out of here,” he whispered, then thought if he was going to ask favors of magic, he ought to be very, very specific. If it worked, he needed it to work correctly. This was not a time to be sloppy or to be careless with his word choice.

  He held up the Sun card. “I wish to be above ground,” he said. He shielded the blue flame from the anticipated shockwave and flicked the card at the wall.

  The now-familiar rings of light blasted forth and then faded.

  Nothing. He was still here, five inches tall, stuck in a rat tunnel. Thirsty, hungry, lonely, scared.

  Dying.

  He took a deep, disappointed breath and leaned back against the wall. He set the flame on the ground next to him, unfolded his foil blanket, wrapped it around him, and closed his eyes.

  Maybe he could sleep for a little while and when he awoke, the magic he had summoned would have had time to work. Maybe it wasn’t always as instantaneous as he imagined, or as he demanded.

  He let his head fall back to rest on the dirt wall and tried not to think about water. Instead, he thought about praying again, but that was an activity that seemed more appropriate above ground, where everything made sense. How could God make one set of rules for the daylight, society, life and families, and another set of rules for the underworld?

  Jolmy knew.

  Jolmy had been far more willing to incorporate Adam’s Christian god into his life than Adam had been willing to incorporate Jolmy’s.

  He had much to learn.

  Adam curled up and closed his eyes.

  He dreamed of his girls. He dreamed of pushing the littlest one, Mouse, in a swing. It was a beautiful sunny day, blue sky, puffy clouds. The other two girls were playing next to a stream, and Chrissie was laying out a picnic lunch on a red checked tablecloth.

  She pulled a big, frosty bottle of water from the basket. Adam could see each droplet of condensation sliding down. He walked toward it, suddenly thirsty beyond all reason.

  “Daddy!” Mouse called. “Daddy!”

  But he ignored her, walking directly to his beautiful wife and that cool, delicious water. He only had eyes for the water. His tongue licked parched lips as he imagined tasting that cool water, feeling it slide down his throat and hit his hot belly with a wondrous splash.

  Halfway to it, thunder rolled.

  He looked back toward Mouse, still in the swing, only now she was screaming: “Daddy!”

  He couldn’t see what was causing thunder; the sky was clear blue.

  Mouse was pointing now and shouting at him. He turned, and a black moving blanket, a living, undulating horde covered the ground, a billion feet thundering toward him and his family.

  “Run!” he shouted at his wife, who smiled up at him, oblivious.

  “Run!”

  Adam startled awake. The thunder was real. It was coming from his left, straight down the tunnel.

  He picked up the blue flame that had begun to sputter, and abandoning his gum wrapper blanket, he hurried down the tunnel, away from whatever monstrous thing was roaring toward him.

  The thundering approached Adam with astonishing speed. He began to trot, and then to run, full out, as the sound got closer and closer. In the midst of his raspy breathing, he realized that it wasn’t thunder at all, but footfalls. Hundreds and millions of feet pounding the ground. He had no idea what multitudes approached, but he didn’t care much to find out.

  Lungs burning with exhaustion, limbs weak with dehydration, he fumbled in his pocket for a card. Any card. He grabbed one and without looking at it, stopped and stood his ground. The last time he flung a card, he had wished for a way out. Instead, he got thundering hordes. This magic was unpredictable. It seemed as though he had it figured out at one point, but this latest showed that he had no idea. Worst of all, he was racking up magic debt every time he used one of the cards. Who knew what payback would be?

  The pounding of feet shook the ground beneath him. Again, he shielded the faint, flickering blue flame. “I need to not be trampled,” he whispered. He thought about that. No, that’s not right. I need to get out of here.

  Whatever it was, was almost upon him. Their stench was already upon him.

  Hurry! Make a decision!

  “Show me the way out!” he yelled, and flicked a card down the tunnel into the darkness. In the explosive shockwave that followed, he saw what was nearly upon him: Army ants.

  The tunnel was filled with African ants with their giant red heads, their jagged mandibles, marching on the ground, the walls, the ceiling, many of them carrying white larvae, others carrying leaves and other detritus. He must have stumbled into some kind of an ant mound.

  They were approaching with astonishing speed, and they were right in front of him, ready to trample him in their single-minded rush to wherever they were going.

  Adam shielded his face with his arms, ready to be torn to pieces.

  But the magic worked. In the flash of a moment, the stinking mass of ants vanished, and in its place was an ornate brass elevator, sitting calmly, its doors open and inviting.

  What?

  Adam blinked at it in disbelief.

  This had to be a dream. Either that, or he really had gone completely insane.

  One moment he was about to be trampled or torn to pieces by a horde of Army ants, and the next second they were gone and he was invited to step into an antique brass elevator.

  All while he was trapped inside a rat tunnel.

  He rubbed his hands over his face, over his eyes.

  That had seemed to be such a close call. Those ants would have overcome him and ripped him to pieces in seconds. They would have devoured him.

  Waning adrenaline sapped the last of his energy and he fell to the ground in gratitude that he hadn’t been eaten by insects. Instead of chattering serrated mandibles, in front of him yawned the door of an old style brass elevator, red carpet, mirrored walls, and all.

  This is not the dream of a sane man.

  He sat quietly, watching to see if the elevator did anything odd, other than just appearing. It did not. He wished he still had his space blanket, but it had been abandoned. All that he had was the string/rope, the photo of his girls, a piece of glass, and the cards.

  Traditionally, elevators went up and down. Perhaps this one would take him up.

  The little blue flame he still carried sputtered and went out, but Adam was not left in the dark.

  The elevator had its own faint, indistinct light source.

  With great effort, he got to his feet, and stepped inside. The control panel was hidden by the double doors, the first of which was scissored.

  He pulled it closed.

  Automatically, the outer doors closed, and by the time he saw that this elevator only went down, it was too late to stop it. The metal box dropped into a stomach-lurching freefall. He waved his arms in a futile effort to keep his balance. Still, the car went down. Every second it went down, his hopes of ever seeing the sun again fell as well.

  Eventually, he fell to the ground as the car’s descent slowed and he tried to find comfort in the feel of actual carpeting underneath him.

  The car shuddered to a stop.

  Adam sat up and stared at the door. He didn’t want to open it. He didn’t want any of this. He wanted to be home in Minnesota with his wife and daughters, making breakfast in the morning and helping them get ready for school. He wanted to go to work as a normal person, wearing a shirt and tie, and drinking terrible office coffee and joking with the others in the engineering firm. He wanted to be up above ground in the village with his Congolese family and his Justice Corps family. He wanted to laugh with Jolmy and the crew, he wanted to hear them sing as they worked, he wanted to eat Belvina’s delicious yam and rice dinners.

  He did not want to be
five inches tall, stuck in an impossible elevator deeply under the ground.

  But sitting and wishing was going to get him nowhere. He needed water, he needed food, he needed to get out of here. Slowly, achingly, he stood up, grabbed the handle and pulled back the inner door. Then he backed away, not having any idea at all what might be on the other side of the outer doors.

  They opened.

  Blackness.

  “Hello?” His voice echoed in an enormous room. He was no longer in a tunnel, he was in some type of a cave. Well, sometimes caves had water. He patted his breast pocket, sent love and affection to the photo of his wife and daughters, appreciated the comfort of the remaining weird cards, and stepped out of the elevator.

  The light from the elevator winked out. He turned around, but all that was behind him was blackness.

  No elevator, no light.

  He shouted into the darkness. “Hello?” then listened to his voice echo.

  He ran his hands over the wall. Smooth rock, as if it had been carved, worn, or chiseled out of stone. By hands or by water? This was not unlike water-carved caverns he had known in his past.

  Water. The very thought of it made him weak. He held his head up and sniffed the air. Dank. There was definitely water somewhere near. If only he had more light. Dare he spend another card on the possibility of either water or light?

  Why not?

  He had fuckall to lose.

  He pulled a card at random from his pocket and threw it at the wall. The circles of shockwave illuminated only the immediate environs, but what he did see was a giant pit, and it was mere steps from his feet. Had he taken two steps, he would have fallen to his death.

  But did he get water? No.

  Did he get light? No.

  The magic wasn’t working, at least it wasn’t working in the way he needed it to work.

  But wait.

  What was that sound?

  He doubted even his own sanity at this point, so of course he doubted all his senses. Slowly, as if the sound was emerging, coming into focus, he heard water.

  It sounded like a little stream, tiny splashes over rocks, teeny waves against a shore, little drips from hanging mosses.

  He got down on his knees and approached the edge of the pit. Slowly, testing the integrity of the edge, he put his face over the abyss and listened. Yes! Definitely water.

  His thirst blossomed into a desperate need.

  It could be just a mirage. An auditory hallucination. It could be magic water. It could be harmful. It could be acid.

  He had to get down to the source. All he had was the rope he carried across his torso. He closed his eyes and tried to envision the size and scope of the pit from the brief flash of the card concussion, but it was so brief—and he hadn’t looked down to see how far down the water was. He needed something to tie the rope to, then he could rappel down to the water.

  Who was he kidding? He was no athlete. His upper body strength had left him right after high school basketball. He was a scholar, not a climber. An engineer, not a gym rat. How the hell could he rappel down a rope?

  Not only that, but he didn’t know if the pit was deeper than his rope was long. And what was the situation with the water below? Was it a raging river that would sweep him deeper underground? Or would it flow gently out above ground in a nice river, or stream, where he could actually see the sun and the sky, and swim for shore?

  He had no choice. On hands and knees, he crawled the perimeter of the pit until he found a rock outcropping that seemed solid enough to hold his weight. He tied one end of his rope around the rock, and as he knelt to tie handhold knots in the line, the dirt edge crumbled and gave way.

  He slid into the abyss.

  He clung to the rope, but his grip was no match for his weight on the steep decline.

  He dug his heels into thick moss to try to slow his descent, but it didn’t help. The moss just scraped off the smooth rock.

  The rope quickly burned his palms, and then it was gone, and still he slid, arms and legs out wide, holding his head up so it wouldn’t be beaten on the rocks, trying not to tumble, trying desperately not to start rolling.

  Down and down, faster, and faster, until the slope ended, and he went airborne, as if off a ski jump.

  He flailed in the complete darkness, not even knowing for certain which way was up.

  And then he was in the water. Deep, cold water. He thrashed about, kicking and swimming as fast as he could to get back to the surface, but the water was deep, deeper than he expected, and the current strong.

  When he broke the surface, he took great gulping breaths of air, and then he took huge swallows of cool water. It slid across his tongue and down his throat as smoothly and sweetly as any water he had ever tasted.

  This was not the ice cold water of Minnesota, but it was cool on his overheated body. He splashed around deliriously, paying little attention at first to the fact that he was headed downstream, and headed downstream fast.

  He maneuvered himself so that he was going down feet first. That way, if there was a rock, he would hit it with his feet and not his head. Minnesota River Rafting 101. He arched his back and let the river take him, floating lightly and fairly effortlessly along.

  The hydrologist in him knew that this water was leading most likely to a lake, or a bigger river. Even if it stayed underground for miles, eventually it would merge with other waters and spill into the ocean.

  The village was a long way from any ocean, but there were myriad lakes and rivers, and any one of them would do.

  With any luck …

  He busied himself with floating, staying horizontal in the underground stream, head up and out of the water, moving feet first in total blackness, ready for the next change.

  This river wasn’t going to stay underground forever.

  He didn’t wait long. The water sped up as the cavern the water flowed through began to narrow.

  The walls closed in, and he could hear his breath on the ceiling of the cavern. He sped along like a bullet in a rifle barrel.

  Within moments, the passage would likely narrow further, and he would be underwater. Perhaps it would narrow to the point that he couldn’t fit. He could get stuck. There would be no going back, not against this current.

  The taste of panic on the back of his tongue returned.

  He gulped great breaths in anticipation—each breath could be his last—but the river carried him along with just enough room for his face to surface and take a breath. He tried to slow his progression by walking his hands along the ceiling of the cavern, feeling the water tug on his clothing, the waistband of his pants, his shoes.

  He listened carefully, in case the cavern opened up on one side or another and he could crawl out for a rest, but so far, the river just kept on sweeping him down through the small tunnel in the pitch dark, to parts unknown.

  Something hit him in the face, ripped off his glasses, and when he reached for it, he found it to be a root, sucking moisture from the river. There were many. He grasped at them with hands blistered and burned from their slide down the rope, and held on. He hooked his arm through a loop of root as the river pulled him relentlessly forward.

  The current pulled hard on him, and the root gave a little bit.

  The rushing water sucked off a shoe.

  Then the river pulled off his other shoe, and he was in danger of losing his pants.

  He hitched up his waistband with his free hand and crossed his legs as best he could, while fumbling in his breast pocket for another card.

  The current ripped a few cards from his hand and he held on to the others with desperation.

  The deck was dwindling fast.

  That didn’t matter. He either had enough cards or he didn’t. He either had enough magic or he didn’t.

  Perhaps this time the Knave of Coins would bless him with a boat for this river. Adam barked out a quick laugh. This could be the River Styx, taking him straight to Hell.

  “I need to be above ground,�
� he said, and flicked the card into the river. The familiar concentric circles blew him off his handhold, and he sailed on down the waterway.

  He grabbed onto his belt, saving his pants, and on his chest burned the soft blue light.

  It was back! And it seemed to be waterproof.

  Magic was pretty cool, after all.

  “Hello, old friend,” he said, and desperately worked his arms to keep himself upright and cruising down the river feet first.

  The river shot him into a tunnel so small again he feared he would get stuck.

  His hands scraped rock on all sides, and the current pulled on him, harder, relentlessly. He took a last gasp of air and stretched out his arms and legs and tried to make himself as thin as possible.

  He went right through the tube and out the other side.

  The current slowed.

  He bobbed to the surface, and though he couldn’t see much by the light of the blue flame that stuck to his shirt, he could tell he had come out into a big cavern.

  The river had emptied into a great underground lake.

  Adam took a moment to take a couple of deep breaths and calm his heart. That had been one crazy ride in absolute darkness. But hydrated and moving was better than dehydrated and stuck in a hot dirt tunnel.

  “Hey!” he shouted. His voice echoed off the ceiling, far above his head.

  The cavern wall on the left seemed far away but not so far on the right.

  “Hello!” he called, and the sound of his voice bounced right back from the right.

  Waves lapped on the shore.

  Slowly, holding the flame above the water, he swam long, slow strokes toward the shore. His stocking feet touched a pebbly bottom.

  Not having shoes was going to be a real problem.

  He put the flame on his shoulder and a healing warmth begin to work on the knot on his head. Perhaps the flame was not only a light, but also a healing magic. He could use a little of that as well. He climbed out of the water and onto a rocky shore, strewn with what looked like small pieces of driftwood, smoothed off by years of water wear. There was other junk, too, old ripped-up plastic bottles, fishing nets, a mailbox big enough for him to live in, the remnants of a paperback book, all manner of crap that civilization had created.