Paladins of the Pickle Goddess

“Left.”

“No, the last turn was left.” Balbinus folded his arms. “Who let you lead, anyway.”

Camilla raised the lantern higher. “Because the last time you led, we ended up in the spike pit!”

“Okay, and you almost got us into that hallway of snakes.”

“Snakes aren’t always bad.”

As they argued, they moved at a quick pace down the hallway. Balbinus would have felt better about it if he’d known they were going in the right direction- or any direction at all. He would have even followed Camilla, if he’d known she knew where to go.

Unfortunately, he didn’t.

He hated this place. He hated the stones, he hated the sounds. The way the water trickled underneath their feet. The constant statues. The traps. The statues of Squid. He didn’t even like squid.

“I’m allergic to squid, you know,” he said, trying to keep up with Camilla. She walked quickly. As if they didn’t need to inspect every turn, to make sure they wouldn’t get lost!

“I know,” she said. “You mentioned it. Two minutes ago.” She reached back and adjusted her hair. How could she be thinking about hair, in times like this!

Balbinus reached up and straightened his hair, too. They were assistants to competing councilmen, after all. He couldn’t be seen looking worse than Camilla.

He lowered his hand. Wait- what was he thinking! The instant he got out of here, he was quitting!

“I can hear you thinking,” she said. She stopped walking and lifted the lantern, right in his face. “Stop it. Stop whining, stop thinking about our bosses. We need to focus on the temple. Then, once we’ve completed it, we can leave, and you can quit, and I can get my promotion.”

“Why are you the only one getting a promotion, here?”

“I’ll be the one getting a promotion because I got us out of the spike pit. Also, because my councilman is actually clever, and yours is an idiot who probably ran out of the temple the first chance he got.”

Admittedly, she was right about Herminius. But she didn’t have to say it.

“He was right to run!” She’d already started walking away. She’d even chosen a branch of the maze- turning right- without him! “After that earthquake, he knew it was his only chance at life! He was helping out his constituents!”

“We both know you’re the only one writing his motions.” She jumped over a trip-wire. He followed, slowly. How was she still so nimble? It had been months- well, a month and change. They’d been reduced to living off of the food left as offerings in the palms of those squid goddess statues, and some of those biscuits were horribly stale. Not to mention the taste of the water trickling through the temple….

He shuddered. He’d never get angry about the reduced-price wine they were offered at gatherings of the assistant’s union again. At least that was fermented.

“So you like the motions,” he tried.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Uninspired, boring, in-the box completely and barely achieving anything. You just write what you think people will vote for.”

“Is that not the point?”

“Well,” she said. “At least they don’t have any mis-spellings.”

She stopped. Anticipating another spike pit, Balbinus stopped moving, peering over her shoulder. His legs still ached from the climb out of the last one. He didn’t want to fall in again. “Is everything…”

Camilla held up a hand. Their lantern flickered as she held it up. The oil they’d found burned a strange color, blue at the edges- bright and hot. It made her face look strange as she peered around. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Music.”

They stood in silence for a long few heartbeats. This was it, Balbinus decided. She had finally lost her mind. All it had taken was some discussion of his completely normal motions.

Then, just as he’d given up on it completely, he heard it too. A few chords. “Is that- a harp?”

“I think so,” she said. She lowered the lantern and cocked her head to the side. Balbinus was reminded of a hunting dog. “I’m finding that music,” she said. “If we can find someone else-”

All they needed was a clue. Someone who knew the secret. Someone who could get them out of here. “If you think you can…” Balbinus said. For a while they’d tried to follow the flow of water, but they’d ended up going in circles. He wondered if this was another red herring.

Camilla was off like a shot. It was all he could do to follow in her footsteps, jumping over trip wires and dodging iron plates in the ground. There was evidence of traps that had been thrown- they even had to jump over a spike pit. Camilla didn’t slow, not once. She was on the hunt.

The harp music got ever-louder. He thought he could make out the sound, from where it was filtering through the stone walls. Balbinus stopped, trying to catch his breath next to one of the endless statues of Teuthida. She stared at him, hands out for an offering and eyes blank.

“Is that," he huffed, barely able to breathe. “A hymn?”

“Whatever it is, it’s out of tune,” said Camilla. “I thought it was a cry for help at first.”

“No, I think I can hear the words,” said Balbinus. “It’s Teuthida’s Plea.”

He didn’t remember Teuthida’s Plea having any minor chords, though. And it sounded like one of the harp’s strings was broken. Not to mention the singing was… he winced. It sounded more like shrieking.

Camilla patted him on the back. “Well? Are you ready to go? They might stop playing.”

“If I say no, will you stay?” He tried, but she was already gone. He pushed himself up and did his best to maintain a jog. Why hadn’t he been trapped with someone else? Anyone else?

Another few turns, and he was rapidly losing hope. “It just sounds the same,” he tried. Camilla had her ear to the wall and was moving it to the right and left. They’d come to another fork, both paths leading in the wrong direction. “I really don’t know if we can find them.”

“They’re in with us. I can feel it.” She pressed her ear closer to the wall. Her perfect hair had come undone, and her assistant’s cloak was askew. Balbinus held back the instinct to fix it for her. “Just a few more turns. We’ll be there.”

A few more turns, and the harp had changed from an ear-paining constant sound to a faint echo. Camilla clenched her fists. “No!” She turned, kicked at the wall. “We were close! I could feel it!”

Balbinus backed up, hands out. “Why don’t we camp for the night,” he suggested. “Tomorrow we could try going back. Go for a few more forks.”

“Don’t you see? There’s no guarantee they’ll keep playing. This is our one chance!”

She stopped yelling, chest heaving, and Balbinus began to speak before he realized she was right. The sound was gone. “Look,” he tried, but she’d already stomped off and begun to spread out her cloak.

“There’s always tomorrow,” he tried, but it sounded false to himself. He curled up against the wall, looking at a statue of Teuthida. “I could use some help,” he told her. She had the flask of water.

No reply. He began to say something about her needing to stop sulking before he realized her lamplight was gone, too.

He froze. He turned.

There was nothing but blank wall beyond.

The maze continued. There was no Camilla. Only darkness.

“Camilla?”

His voice echoed. There was no harp. There was no sound. He stumbled to the ground, began to feel for something- for anything. Had she stumbled onto an iron plate? Fumbled a trip wire? Even now, was she in a spike pit?

It felt like hours passed. He found nothing. It was like within one moment and the next, she’d just been eaten by the stone. Nothing remained.

With nothing else to do, he sat down. “I’m sorry,” he said, to the floor. “I do think you should get a promotion.”