Author's Note:
Last chapter! You made it! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this strange little world. Let me know if you want more of these guys or even just more set in this world.
Flynn
I scrounged around the room for materials when I woke up. A drawer in the desk held a spiral notebook with someone's algebra homework and a worn down, but serviceable pencil. I flipped to a clean page and carefully recreated the turns we had taken to the best of my memory. I didn't realize Owen was up until he leaned over my shoulder at the desk and squinted at my makeshift map.
"What's that?" he asked.
I steadied myself before I answered. He wasn't going to like what I was about to suggest.
"It's the way back. Or, um, it's as close as I remember. Enough to generally point the right way," I said.
"Why?" he said warily.
"So you can get out of the Labyrinth. I'll write and charge a spell for you that will open the fence around the mansion," I said. I avoided his eyes, but I heard the soft growl of frustration near my ear.
"I'm not leaving you in here alone," he said levelly.
"Right, I'm not asking you to," I said carefully. "It's, um, it's a backup plan."
"What plan has me leaving here without you?" his voice had gone quiet and still. It was the kind of tone I would have instinctually pulled away from had it come from anyone besides my shark.
"If I can't get out, um, for whatever reason, this is how you get home," I said with my eyes on the map. I forced my trembling hands to start drawing the sigil that would open the fence for him at the bottom of the same page.
"I'm not going home without you," he said slowly.
"I know you don't want to," I started. Owen cut me off.
"This has nothing to do with what I want, Bunny," he snapped. "It's not an option. There isn't a home for me out there without you."
"Shark," I pleaded softly. "Please? Just put it in your pocket. I'm doing everything I can to get us both out, but I'm a rabbit fighting gods here. There's only so far my blessings will carry me. There's the possibility that this is beyond me."
I chanced a look to find him with his eyes clenched shut and his jaw set tight. He took a few deep breaths through his nose before he opened his eyes again.
"Ok," he agreed tightly. "I'll keep the map and the spell. But, Bunny, I'm serious, there's no way in hell I would leave you trapped down here. I'll take it in case..." he stopped and shook himself instead of finishing that sentence. "I'll take it."
I leaned against him for a moment, then went back to writing the spell.
...
Owen
The sheet of paper Flynn gave me felt like lead in my pocket. I already knew I wouldn't leave without him if he was alive. I wasn't sure if I could leave if he died.
I was keeping quiet, following Flynn as he listened carefully and chose each turn. He was tired. His posture and the way his hands trembled had me worried. Whatever he was doing to find the room we needed was wearing on him. We needed to find it quick.
We found our way to a part of the maze that seemed by all accounts to be a mine shaft with hard packed dirt walls braced with decaying wooden beams. Flynn stopped and cocked his head to one side, then grimaced.
"Nowhere to go," he said softly, looking at the tunnels ahead of us. There were branches, but no doors that I could see in the dusty lantern light. He hefted the mattock on his shoulder and glanced warily back at me. "We aren't alone in here."
I nodded and moved my ax to a defensive position. No matter what Flynn thought, I wasn't helpless. He liked to remind me that he lived on the streets for years. I never pointed out that I had been active in the sketchy bounty hunting world for just as long. He had never seen it, but I was definitely capable of holding my own.
I smelled it before I saw it. Like ozone tinged with sulfur, it rolled down the passageway ahead of something with heavy footsteps. Flynn stepped in front of me and raised the mattock.
I expected something bull-like. There was a picture in my mind based on the bones we saw outside. What came around the corner wasn't a minotaur. It had been human at some point, that much was clear. It had the shape of a man and the remnants of clothing hanging in tatters off gangly limbs. The face was twisted to fit a sharp, vicious beak in place of the mouth and nose. Black eyes like obsidian beads locked on us from a field of yellow feathers.
The sound it made was a gross amalgamation of crisp birdsong and a man's shout. I was startled, but Flynn was moving. He swung the mattock as the thing charged us head-on. There was a sickening sound of bone and flesh followed by the monster's furious roar as the thing veered off, bloodied, but still standing. Flynn backed up, holding the stained mattock in front of him and trying to stay between the feathered beast and me.
"I missed," Flynn panted. He had disabled one arm with a blow to the shoulder, but he must have been going for the head.
"Distract it," I said quietly. "I'll get it."
Flynn glanced back at me and started to shake his head.
"No time to argue, Bun," I reminded him.
He growled in frustration, but he started to move away from me, drawing attention to himself and away from me. I froze in place, not wanting to catch the thing's attention with any unnecessary movement. Flynn made a wide circle. He taunted the monster with his bloodied mattock and dodged a clumsy dive.
I made my move when it stumbled in another lunge at my man. I swung the ax over my head, and I didn't miss. It slumped the floor in a twitching, feathered lump. It took some muscle to get the ax back out. My adrenaline filled swing had buried it deep in the back of the thing's skull.
"What the fuck is that thing?" I asked Flynn in a shaky whisper.
"A minotaur," he answered me. I watched in disgusted horror as he crouched by the corpse and plucked out a handful of blood stained feathers.
"It's a bird," I pointed out like he couldn't see that.
"Yeah, it's a canary. This part of the Labyrinth is a mine," he said. That must have been obvious to Flynn. It sounded like nightmare logic to me. He dipped a finger in the bird monster's blood and painted a sanguine symbol on the dirt floor. I sank down against the far wall to rest and watch him.
Flynn dropped a few of the feathers he took into the center of the symbol and placed his hands on either side. I felt the air grow heavy with the telltale weight of his magic for a moment before the feathers and the corpse burst into flame. My heart skipped at the sound of distant, monstrous screams. Those angry, agonized calls went on for too long. I covered my ears to block out the horrifying wails. The silence that followed was nearly as frightening as the noise.
"I was right," Flynn said. He sounded close to tears.
"Bunny?" I struggled to stand on my shaking legs and went to him. I tilted his head up with a gentle hand under his chin. He swallowed hard and gritted his teeth, but his breath was shaking with emotion. "What just happened?"
"I killed all of them," he said mournfully. "Or, um, I killed any of them that were created by the same covenant. We need to keep vigilant, but hopefully this section is clear for a while."
I wiped a tear off his cheek and crouched beside him.
"Why are you crying?" I asked him gently.
"They were people," he muttered. "They aren't anymore, not really, I doubt there's a way to turn them back. Frogs can't ever be polliwogs again. But they were people. Zealots for a god that turned them into monsters. Zealots like me, who said yes just like they were expected to. They may not have even known what they were agreeing to."
