Chapter 53: The Prison in Stone, Part 3

The prison was disturbingly silent. Lighstone fixtures covered in a permanent layer of grime cast the stone corridors in a dim orange glow, and with no windows in sight, large stretches of hall and multiple rooms were cloaked entirely in shadow.

List took the lead, Kaleb and Valerie close behind her, and Arden and Xigbar bringing up the rear. More than once, they passed cells like the one they had been in, each of them filled with statues. With people, frozen in stone.

Valerie couldn't count how many of them there were.

Their presence only made the place seem more empty somehow. So far, the only sound they'd heard were the quiet scuff of their own footsteps. Maybe it was Arden's training, but she didn't trust it. 

So far, exploring hadn't been hard. There was only really one way to go, and as they found nothing but empty room after empty room, List picked up her pace, which only made Valerie more paranoid that they were going to run into something.

It turned out, she was right.

As they were coming up on a corner, Valerie's ears pricked at a pattering sound that didn't quite matching any of their gaits.

"Up ahead," she warned. "Something's—"

"Basilisk, shut your eyes!" Arden shouted.

"What?" Xigbar asked. Everyone else obeyed instantly.

Valerie recognized what Arden already had a second later—there was a pattern to the pattering, too fast for even a quadruped. More than four legs in a prison full of petrified prisoners. The pattering got closer, and then there was a hiss followed closely by swearing from List.

"Shitshitfuckshit!"

Everyone scrambled away from the sound of swearing and warbling growls. Valerie bumped into someone—she only knew it was Xigbar when she brushed his hand and felt scales—and nearly tripped over an uneven stone in the floor.

"How the fuck do I fight with my—whoa!" List's searing was interrupted as a hand like stone clamped around her wrist and yanked her back. 

A second later, there was a loud, wet crunch, and something broke against the stone walls. Kaleb grunted, and there was another, louder crunch. And another. And another. The last one sounded a lot wetter than the rest.

Breathing only a little heavier than he had been, Kaleb asked, "Are basilisks safe to look at when they're dead?"

"Yes," Arden and Valerie said at the same time.

"You can open your eyes."

They did. The basilisk was lying on its side, its midsection and skull both caved in, orange fluid leaking from the latter. One of the tone tiles in the wall had been cracked, and several of the crystal spines along its back were broken. Kaleb, meanwhile, had a fist dripping orange and red fluids.

Before anyone could say anything, there came the sound of more footsteps. A lot more.

"Run," Arden said. "And don't look back!"

And they did. Sprinting with their eyes shut in these corridors would be a good way to trip, so as they ran, they did everything they could to keep the sound of basilisks at their back. The one time they nearly ran headlong into more of the creatures, Kaleb was reacted in time, shouting for everyone to close their eyes and stop as he shot to the front of the group.

With his eyes shut, he grabbed a basiliks out of the air as it pounced for List, and threw it clear over everyone's heads and behind all of them. As soon as nobody was in danger of looking at the creature, they opened their eyes and kept running. It took less than a second.

There was no way to know exactly how many of the beasts were behind them, or how close they were. The answer was too many and too close, especially when only one of them was even remotely in a position to fight them off.

"Doors up ahead!" Arden shouted.

They reached a large doorway different from any other they'd passed so far. Rather than iron bars, the doors were made of more stone, and currently wide open. The group rushed through the threshold, and Valerie, List, and Kaleb all immediately worked together to shove the doors shut behind them.

On the other side, they heard a chorus of warbling cries and scratches as the monsters struggled against he barrier blocking them from their prey, but there was no chance of them getting through. Basilisks weren't known for their brute strength, and those doors were sturdy.

Still, it was sheer luck Kaleb happened to be as good at fighting blind as he was. Without him, things could have gone much worse. Valerie had seen him fight blind before, against the Pavers. Both then and against the basilisks, there had been more pressing concerns than curiosity, but now that they had a moment to breath, she had to know.

"Seriously. How do you do that?" she asked as she caught her breath. She waved her hands in front of her face to indicate her eyes, and Kaleb only took a few seconds to understand what she meant.

"Enziri thing," he panted back. "I can . . . sense the vibrations of footsteps."

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"Oh, you're—I didn't know," Valerie said. She supposed the earthen tones made more sense now that she knew he had elemental magic in his veins. But Valerie never would have guessed. He looked so human. "Earth elemental, right?"

"On my father's side."

"Not to be rude, but—what?" List asked.

"Kaleb's an enziri," Valerie said. "They're like hellborn, but for elementals instead of devils and demons."

"How does that even work?"

"Almost certainly exactly the way you imagine," Arden said. "But perhaps we should focus on the matter at hand."

The new chamber they found themselves in was easily several times larger than any previous. In the center of the room towered a fifteen foot tall dragon carved of stone, perched back on its haunches, wings folded and head bowed. Old, rusted weapons scattered the floor, along with scraps of metal, wood and bone.

Besides the doors they came in through, there were no other entrances or exits—in the walls. Far, far above them, in a ceiling that was vaulted beyond all sense, there was a round circle of bright light. Sunlight.

Xigbar let out a low whistle.

"Well, I hope the rest of you can climb."

"You want to climb up to that?" Valerie asked.

The walls of the chamber weren't smooth by any stretch. Even discounting the arching supports and decorative outcroppings, there were cracks and nicks and missing bricks in the stone. There might have been enough hand and footholds to make a climb theoretically possible. But it would be a complete free climb of hundreds of feet.

"I've climbed higher."

Kaleb, meanwhile, was staring at the dragon. It wasn't like the rest of the prisoner statues they'd seen, even beyond just being a dragon. The prisoners had all looked fearful or angry. Some of them had even been frozen mid-action. The dragon looked peaceful, like it was sleeping.

At that thought, he stared closer at it, waiting to see if he caught any movements that would give it away as breathing. Nothing.

"It could simply be decorative," Arden said, as if reading Kaleb's mind. "A symbol of Digax himself keeping the prisoners here."

"If our jailer is supposed to be a dragon, do you think maybe the room was built for people to fly in and out of?"

"For us this to be an entrance for dragons, Digax would need to employ younger one in his service, and I've heard nothing of the sort," Arden said. He gestured upward. "That hole would be too small for a dragon as old as Digax himself. Honestly, even a flying skiff would struggle without entering a nose dive."

"Flying carpet, maybe?" Kaleb asked.

"Maybe it's the big obvious control panel at the base of the big statue," List called out.

There was indeed a small pedestal at the dragon's feet, and as List approached, arcane glyphs flickered to life in the air above it. Arden's spine stiffened.

"List, wait!"

She had already touched one of the glyphs. Instantly, everything lit up. A circle of glyphs in the floor blazed to life, encompassing most of the room. More circles mimicked the one on the floor, appearing in midair at staggered intervals rising all the way up to the ceiling. Seams running all the way up the walls lit up, and everything began to hum.

"Oh," Kaleb said. "Elevator."

"Well, nevermind on climbing out, I guess," Xigbar said. "You know, I know everybody who gets locked up here is supposed to be a statue, but you'd think a prison would have better security."

Valerie, List, and Kaleb all looked at him, and Xigbar winced. "Yeah, I realized as soon as I said it."

The lights of the glyphs abruptly shifted from bluish white light to red, shading everything crimson, and dull drone reverberated through the walls. Everyone took another look at the scattered weapons and tattered remains of armor that littered the floor here as the detritus took on a new meaning. 

As they all looked around and did their best to brace for whatever threat was coming next, there came a rumble of stone as the statue of the dragon opened its eyes.

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