Chapter 66

I spluttered to my feet. Kassandra was already upright beside me.

‘What the hell was that?’ I said immediately. She glowered at me.

‘He was guilty. We didn’t have time to-‘

‘He was innocent!’ I cried. ‘Obviously, or didn’t those two others attacking us and the flames closing in tip you off at all?’

‘How was I supposed to know that? What is this place, what even was that?’

‘You should’ve consulted with me first,’ I said. I wasn’t letting this go. She’d almost gotten us killed, and we hadn’t even found the tyrant of the labyrinth yet. ‘You acted without thinking.’

‘And you were thinking without acting!’ she shot back. ‘You think we have all the time in the world? That the Drenched will just hold back and let us find the relic at leisure?’ Her eyes darkened. ‘You don’t know what it cost me to be here.’

And you don’t know what it cost me to be here, I wanted to say, but I could see how hot she was. All she saw was red. She was angry, sure, but not at me. She barely knew me.

Now was not the time to get bogged down in a stupid fight.

‘Just…this place, it will play tricks on your mind,’ I said. ‘Before you do anything, let’s just figure it out together okay?’

She didn’t reply, but she also didn’t outright disagree. That was something, I guessed.

We were in a new part of the labyrinth entirely. Gone were the narrow limestone corridors. This seemed to be some kind of industrial area. The water we’d fallen into flowed in one direction with narrow stone walkways on either side of it, which we followed, opening up to a larger area filled with gears and cogs, some of them so large they would’ve dwarfed even Cyrus’s ship.

‘You…you wish to get through?’ A small, squeaky voice spoke, startling me. I hadn’t realised anyone was nearby and when I saw the source of the voice I saw how I’d missed him.

It was some kind of walking fish creature, with a large head and bulbous yellow eyes. It only came to about my waist, and seemed nervous rather than hostile. I examined it.

[Mrgin – Bronze one – The industrial clans of the waterways, the mrgin left the ocean to escape the Drenched, becoming industrious architects and engineers for whomever would offer them sanctuary.]

‘Ah,’ said Kassandra, bending low and placing her hand out. The mrgin took it, putting its grey fleshy hand on hers. It seemed visibly relieved.

‘You’ve encountered these things before?’ I asked.

‘They hate the Drenched almost as much as I do,’ said Kassandra, ‘but what are they doing in the labyrinth?’

‘When we arrived at the shores, the king wanted to kill us all,’ squeaked the mrgin. He jumped a little in the air, as though underlining the barbarity of this. ‘But good, kind Daedalus said we could be of use. That our engineering could help power and keep the labyrinth moving!’

I looked out to the vast array of machinery, cogs, gears. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, other than it seemed to be water-powered. ‘Minos built this place?’ The mrgin nodded effusively. ‘That…what? So he put the tyrant here? What’s your name anyway?’

Kassandra rolled her eyes. ‘Mrgin do not have names, as we would understand them.’

‘The kind, tall, beautiful woman is correct,’ said the mrgin. Now I was fighting not to roll my eyes, as Kassandra beamed. She seemed to have something of her glow back.

‘I still don’t understand why Minos would build this place, and then put a tyrant here. And then send people down to kill it?’

‘You speak of the tyrant?’ The mrgin shrank into itself. ‘The queen begged Minos not to kill it! She begged him to keep him safe!’

‘Why?’ said Kassandra. ‘Why…would the queen care about some monster in the labyrinth?’

‘Because…because…’ The mrgin seemed quite beside himself. ‘The tyrant, it is the queen’s own son!’

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I blinked. I opened my mouth to speak. No words came out. I looked to Kassandra. She also did not seem to speak.

The mrgin, who did not have a name as their culture apparently dictated, led us further into the water-powered machinery. More mrgin appeared. Wary at first, but soon there were a dozen or so of them around us. Most of them were actually under level ten, and none of them were hostile. They didn’t even carry weapons, just tools, hammers and such.

I got the distinct feeling that this was not a part of the labyrinth at all. That we were somehow behind the curtain. Not that I minded. A single encounter had almost killed us. If we could somehow bypass encounters, get to the tyrant, then all the better.