10 The Labyrinth of Crystals

There was a familiar scent in the air, one that Makaskas had sniffed as they pursued Nami back in the forest. The stench was faint but as Makaskas made his way through the lower levels of the palace, it became much stronger. Little had it done to affect his senses. The miasma was residual as though it had been cast elsewhere and the scent he picked up was merely a trace of it.

Despite it though, Makaskas had to lean on a stone wall to keep his fleeting strength. The sentient flames he battled was merely a spell of the nine tailed fox and it almost killed him had it not been for Liang's familiar. Makaskas wasn't so sure if he could face the nine tailed fox alone…not when he's at full strength and especially not now when he was troubled by merely keeping his balance.

There was a doorway not far from him. It was pitch black and from his vantage it looked like the entrance to another realm. There were no windows to offer moonlight and there were no torches that could guide his way.

The crow perched on Makaskas's shoulder, looking at him with its beady eyes.

"Would it be much to ask if you go ahead for me?" Makaskas asked half-jokingly but the crow merely cawed and took to the air, diving into the darkness without second thought.

Makaskas pushed his shoulder against the wall to get him standing again and he limped toward the doorway until he was descending on steps. To him, it wasn't completely dark. He had a keen vision in the darkness but the stairs were so repetitive that he might as well have been depraved of vision all the same. It was like walking a loop in the first minutes and Makaskas began considering the possibility of getting hexed by the fox spirits. But in time, he reached the hollow belly of the castle.

The scent of miasma was stronger but something else, something rotten, overpowered it. There were faint whispers in the air, voices far away but were detected by Makaskas's ears. He followed the sound, passing by cells with rats nibbling on what remained of human skeletons.

A dark and cold pit, the dungeon was deeper under the mountain where the castle lay. And just when Makaskas thought it could not go deeper, he was proven otherwise. He waded through the airy darkness silently until he reached a collapsed floor emanating a turquoise glow. It lead to a cavernous pit, hundreds of feet deep with a murky yet glowing pool at the bottom. The light came from luminous crystals that grew in bunches on the stone walls of the unclimbable depths and extended below the waters masking everything in a bluish green tint.

Makaskas stopped inches before the collapse and knelt. He peered intently below for the voices he heard earlier but there was no one in sight. The water of the pool was so still it looked like brittle glass and it terrified Makaskas to fall on its surface. There seemed to be no dry shore and no way out should Makaskas ever fall.

From the center of the pool there fizzed a bubble. Then the calm surface rippled and more bubbles appeared. Makaskas squinted his eyes after catching sight of a figure underwater. It was opaque in the depth until it gradually darkened and shattered the surface of the pool in a chorus of grumbling roars and whips. The water exploded like a geyser, obstructing everything in sight. Makaskas had to secure his balance from suddenly getting shaken by whatever beast's roar had startled the floor beneath him. Sprays of water dampened his face and when it settled, Makaskas saw the nine-tailed fox in a furious battle with the giant serpent. But this was no ordinary serpent, Makaskas thought and looked again. It was no serpent at all.

The beast was snakelike and titanic with cerulean scales and a white underbelly. Sharp spines followed the length of its back, weaving in and out of the water's surface like arches. The behemoth itself could not freely stretch its entire body in the cavern which meant that it was much bigger than what appeared before Makaskas. Like a catfish, the monster had a pair of whiskers that dangled like heavy chains.

The creature beneath Makaskas was neither once a shadow that crossed to mortality nor was it created by the primordial gods. It was something that came to their world uninvited thousands of years ago sent by Bakunawa himself to mark this world for his arrival. It was an elemental dragon—a parasite that devoured the likes of spirits, men and objects. These creatures had been dormant for centuries and if one had awaken, the others will soon follow.

The nine-tailed fox was afloat in the air, orbited by five balls of flame. Her kimono was blood-red and sagging from the water and her skin was pale. Her nine tails whipped behind her like startled vipers. She hurled the fireballs one by one until she fell to the water once again. The flames surged toward the dragon like comets but upon collision, it barely singed the dragon's scales.

The water dragon roared and sprayed a beam of pressurized water out of its mouth which submerged the nine-tailed fox in the deep. Then it dove after her. Makaskas watched as the entire length of the dragon descend into the water until it was entirely gone, not a trace of its appearance left save for the undulating water which would soon come to settle.

Makaskas got up, watching the cavern intently as though the dragon might return. He hadn't even realized that he was breathing heavily until the sound of sloshing waters ceased. Slowly, he turned away until Liang's familiar alerted him with a caw. It was underneath the pit, perched on a protruding crystal. Makaskas extended his hand for the crow to land on but it did not come to him. Instead it flew low and dove to a tunnel Makaskas could not see from his vantage.

Makaskas opted to call the crow to return but he stopped midway, mouth open, when he realized that he did not know what to call it. He stepped forward, determined to follow then stepped back after changing his mind. Once, twice, he turned away but he kept looking back at the pit as if there was something that stopped him from leaving the castle without the children he promised to save.

Finally, Makaskas turned to the pit and cursed the air before diving in. He was falling hundreds of feet when he felt regret come to him. Upon meeting the water, Makaskas immediately resurfaced. There was a tunnel not far from him and he swam toward it.

He stopped just before the entrance, bobbing up and down from the waves.

"Crow!" he yelled and his voice echoed thrice, giving him an estimation of how deep the tunnel went with each repetition of the sound. Then after a moment there came the reply. The crow screeched from inside and Makaskas began swimming toward it.

The luminous crystals guided Makaskas's way in the labyrinthine dungeon. The tunnel was not singular. There came a point when the path Makaskas swam branched into three and the clouded leopard had to call for the crow again to know which tunnel to enter.

After swimming for minutes, Makaskas began to feel his weight pull him down. Nevertheless he kept paddling and until his feet scratched shallow surface. Makaskas scrambled quickly with hands and feet until he was crawling on stone ground where he collapsed, breathing lethargically.

The crow perched right in front of Makaskas's face, pecking at his fur.

"I'm still alive," Makaskas hissed and turned to lie on his back. Then he turned his head to the crow. "If this was your plan to kill and eat me, you're gonna have to try harder."

The crow tilted its head sideways before flapping its wings and flying deeper inside the tunnel. Though fatigued, Makaskas got up, almost falling to his feet in his attempt, and walked to where the crow leaded him.

There was an entire world underneath Emperor Dai's castle. A labyrinth of crystals, pools and a water dragon. This made Makaskas wonder if the emperor of Hatsukochi was aware of what lied underneath his manse. The crystals were untouched, so it could not have been mined. There were no contraptions that aided the maneuver inside the labyrinth. A dragon was a terrible thing to house even at its dormancy but humans naively believed that it brought good fortune.

Makaskas walked deeper into the cave until he saw the crow and with it, the two children. Makaskas did not think that he would ever be overjoyed seeing the children he did not care for. It was strange to him, even now as he felt relieved, how Nami was so fond of children. Seeing them, what was it that was so special, their godkissed souls?

"Keiko, Hanabi," Makaskas called their names.

The two children were wet and terrified, clinging on to each other as they shivered.

Makaskas knelt down and extended his hand. "It's just me, come. Nami is so worried about you. Let's tell her you're all right, ok?"

Makaskas stepped forward and the children startled.

"Don't be afraid. I'll keep you safe."

Keiko and Hanabi looked at each other once before finally reaching out to grab Makaskas's hand. Gently, Makaskas pulled them toward him and got up. The two children clung tightly on the cloth of Makaskas's trousers as they walked. The crow perched on Makaskas's shoulder.

"I think it's about time I call you something," Makaskas said to the crow then looked at the children who were staring back at him. "What do you want to call it?" he asked the children but there was no reply.

"I'm not very good at names," Makaskas said, "But if I should name this crow, I think I'd call him Itohm. It means black in Maalonian."

"Itohm…" Keiko said.

"Itohm," Hanabi repeated with a smile.

"You like that?" Makaskas chuckled. "I guess you're Itohm now," he said to the crow. "Now, Itohm, help us find a way out of this cave."

Itohm squawked and he was back in the air, scouting their path.