Jamace glanced about with growing urgency as he trekked through the winding cave. His torch hissed and flickered from the moisture in the air and cast dancing shadows on the walls. There was a low moaning from somewhere deeper, the wind blowing across a passage, perhaps. Could it be an escape from this labyrinth? It had to be. However, the sound materialized over an hour ago, and while he felt closer to the source than before, it invariably seemed to be further away, around the next bend, just out of the light.
As he traversed ahead, the rough-rock path gave way to smooth, worn stone as the cave widened dramatically. Water dripped like rain, running down a thousand tiny spikes from the ceiling and gathering in clear pools on the cavern floor. Jamace moved carefully toward the still ponds, taking time with each step to secure his footing. The cold air stung with death’s chill. He stopped beyond the sill waters on an outcropping that overlooked a bottomless crevasse and cavern beyond. The crackling torchlight reached out and faded into the distant dark.
Jamace peered over the edge, searching for a way around or path downward. With no warning, the outcropping gave way. He clawed out for something, anything, as the slick rock face carried him away. The torch rattled ahead of him, rolling down the slope. Everything went black as Jamace landed hard in a pool of clear liquid. The fall could have killed him, but through luck, he’d avoided significant injury.
With a groan, he picked himself up. A shiver ran along his skin as his soaked clothes pulled the heat from his body. The torch lay in the shallows, its flame swaying on the edge of death. Jamace scooped it up, shook off the water, and blew into the embers. After tense minutes, the weak fire reignited the oil-soaked fibers, and its glow grew once again, though not at brightly as before.
As a breath of relief escaped his lips, something in the deeper part of the pool glimmered in the light. The image wavered as a drop of water rippled the crystal pond. Jamace reached down and grasped the object, bringing it before his eyes. A silver trinket in the shape of an intricate knot on a chain glistened between his fingers. What was it doing here? He stood for what may have been minutes or hours captured by its beauty, the complex weave occupying his mind. Finally, he slipped it around his neck, then raised his torch high, illuminating the area for the first time: tunnels and more tunnels. Along every wall and cliff face, like a sea of hungry mouths, dark holes beckoned him. There might be a hundred paths. He thought despairingly, shaking his head. I’m not going to get out of here by standing around. He stepped out of the pool and picked an entrance.
* * *
Jamace walked down a twisting path and emerged into the large cavern dripping with water. He recognized it immediately as the place he had found the silver trinket two days ago. This was the seventh time he had arrived at this same room, or was it the eighth? Still, a hundred dark openings waited, unexplored. He glanced at the silver knot of intricate coils that wove together in a never-ending circle. He had tried to get rid himself of the accursed thing, dropping it in some lonely passageway, but the moment he pushed it from his mind, he would find it once again hanging around his neck. This time he thought he could beat it, though. He stood over the crystalline pool where he had first laid eyes on the damned object. Someone had dropped it here, and here it had stayed. Perhaps this was a magic pool that would neutralize the curse. It didn’t matter, as long as he rid himself of it and found his way out. For some minutes, he stood peering into the hypnotic pattern of slow ripples on the water as the knot and chain dangling from this outstretched hand. That’s when he noticed the smooth white bones hiding in the shadows of the pool—the last owner of the small silver matrix.
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