The pungent smell drifting through the tunnels was almost unbearable, and Henry had once thought the cells he was locked in were the worst-smelling place he had ever been—but he was wrong.
He had taken a forward-leading path by guess alone, unsure where it would lead, but he still hadn't run into the guy he had followed.
He walked carefully, eyes scanning the darkness, wondering why the soldiers hadn't followed him down here. Or perhaps they had missed the manhole just as he had. Still, it felt absurd—they knew this prison better than anyone.
He brushed the thought away and focused on traversing the tunnel when a voice reached him.
"Are you sure that's the right way?"
Henry quickly spun around to find the man from the cell standing behind him, a flame flickering in his hand. It lit his face in shifting shadows, his emerald-green eyes glowing almost golden in the firelight.
"You're a—"
Henry couldn't finish his sentence.
"I'm not a wizard," he said quickly.
It took years of study to perfectly master the control of flames, and only wizards were known to possess such patience for magical discipline.
"But the fire," Henry said. "Then that would mean you're—"
"Just an ordinary spellcaster," he cut in, extinguishing the flame in his hand.
Darkness swallowed them again.
"The name is Darius," he said shortly, extending his hand.
"Henry Futhark," he replied, but he didn't take it immediately. "You seemed in a bit of a hurry back there. I didn't expect you to still be lingering down here."
Darius gave a faint, unreadable look, then lowered his hand as Henry finally shook it briefly.
"We need to leave the tunnels soon," Darius said as they separated their hands.
"I don't hear them following," Henry said, listening carefully into the dark. "I think they missed the manhole… maybe."
Darius chuckled. "Impossible. Even if they'd, there are hundreds more of them," he added. "But getting down here is the last thing any prison guard would think of doing. It wasn't my plan to use this path either… but I was out of options."
A chill crept through Henry's body, sinking deep into his bones as he scanned their surroundings.
"What's down here?" he asked quickly.
"Don't know," Darius replied, turning his gaze toward the tunnel ahead. "But no prisoner has ever escaped using these tunnels, or so I hear. There've been thousands of attempts… but all of them ended up down here somewhere."
Henry exhaled slowly.
"The prison was designed for magic wielders like you and me," Darius continued.
"Wait—so you're telling me this is Havla Valum?" Henry exclaimed. He had heard tales of prisons built to hold the strongest mages, places no one ever escaped from. And this… this was one of them.
Darius gave a low, uneasy chuckle. "Scary, isn't it?" he said. "They claim their Oryx chains are stronger than iron… yet a lowly mage just broke himself out of them." His eyes flicked toward Henry as he spoke.
Henry sighed, taking a few steps forward, remembering how he had escaped the chains.
"You must be some powerful mage—"
"I told you, I'm not a mage, but a warlock," Darius said, turning slightly. "And there's a difference—"
He stopped.
Henry fell silent as well, noticing the horrified look on Darius's face as he stared at something behind him.
It wasn't their argument that had broken his focus.
Something else was in the tunnels.
He slowly turned back to see what Darius was seeing. His heart began hammering as his eyes met the sight of something thin, tall, and almost chalk-white, with blazing red eyes fixed on him.
"RRRRAAAHHH!"
A guttural screech tore through the tunnel—inhuman and jagged—seeming to claw at their ears.
Henry shrieked and fell onto his back, scrambling backwards.
"Burn!" Darius shouted.
A jet of flames erupted from his hands, engulfing the creature as it screamed in agony.
"Let's go!" he grabbed Henry's hand and pulled him to his feet. "Move!"
They fled into a side passage, disappearing into the unknown tunnels.
Behind them, the creature's screams faded into the distance, swallowed by suffocating silence. Neither of them dared slow down. Their footsteps echoed unevenly against the cold stone walls as they ran.
The deeper they went, the heavier the air became—thick with a damp, metallic scent that clung to their lungs. Every path they took seemed to drag them further into darkness rather than toward escape.
"We stop here," Darius said at last, his voice firm despite the strain beneath it, pulling Henry into a narrow recess carved into the tunnel wall.
He leaned against the stone, catching his breath, eyes scanning the shadows as though expecting them to move.
Henry bent over, chest heaving, unease tightening in his gut. He glanced back the way they had come, half-expecting flames or claws to tear through the dark.
"What the hell was that thing?" Henry whispered.
Darius didn't answer immediately. Instead, he raised his finger to his lips, signalling silence. The tunnel seemed to hold its breath with them, stretching into an unnatural stillness.
Then, quietly, he spoke.
"No idea," he said. "But at least now we know why no mage has ever escaped these tunnels."
"That can't be all," Henry said, staring deeper into the maze ahead. "A thousand wizards couldn't all be killed by that thing. We survived it."
"Maybe fear alone was enough," Darius said with a chuckle. "Because it sure had you! I can't imagine the worst things lurking down here."
Henry could hardly believe the guy still had a sense of humor with him after what they had just seen back there.
He paused for a moment before speaking again.
"Haven't you mages—warlocks," he added quickly, "ever had books on anything like that? I mean, it would be a hell of a help to know what we're facing down here, especially if more of them show up."
Henry shook his head. "Not in my sect," he said. "We only collected stories about mystic beings—not facts, and certainly nothing useful for a situation like this."
"Then, we gotta move," said Darius briefly, straightening up; "before we find out what's more is down here."
"Great idea," said Henry. "But which way we go?"
He looked ahead. Three separate tunnels stretched into the darkness.
"We'll take the one in the middle," Darius said, pointing into the gloom.
Henry gave him a hesitant, uncertain look.
"Come on," Darius said. "Left and right are twins. Whatever's on one side is probably on the other, too. Be my guest, warlock."
Without waiting, he started walking toward the middle path.
Henry hesitated, his eyes drifting between the two abandoned tunnels on either side. They looked identical—both swallowed in silence, both waiting like mouths that had never been fed.
With a quiet sigh, he followed Darius into the darkness.
Behind them, the tunnel they had come from seemed to shift subtly, the stillness no longer feeling empty—but watching.
And ahead, the middle path welcomed them like an open wound.