I stand before the dungeon entrance and am engulfed. It is a grand thing, stretching into the sky in an arch that leans over us, casting us into shade and adding a chill to the air. It yawns open. A dark passage squeezed between the fallen buttresses of two towers that would once have dwarfed mountains.

  “There are three passages inside so we will split into groups. Mishi, Scara, and myself will lead one group each. Pola and Geremai will remain with the tribe to fend off any trouble. But be aware, those of you remaining on the surface will be more vulnerable while we Marked are inside, so please prepare yourselves.” Lakal paces back and forth before us; his chest is puffed out and he punctuates his words with slashes of his glaive.

  He stops and stretches out his arms in a v-shape. “Left with Mishi. Right with Scara. You lucky sunlovers in the middle are with me.” He winks at me. I was keener than was prudent and scurried over to be one of the first in when we arrived. It put me dead center of the group. I am going with Lakal. So are Garl and his scowling friends.

  The next few minutes are filled with warnings. Watch where you place your feet because every step could be a trap. Watch the walls because monsters crawl from the cracks. Watch the ceiling as there are things that fall upon you. Watch your back and the backs of all your tribe. We don’t leave anyone behind so if your companion falls, pick them up. If we can’t go on then we turn back; it is a braver thing to keep living than it is to push ahead and die foolishly.

  Now we are moving. We enter in a glorious bunch with shoulders jostling and spirits high. As I am swallowed by the dungeon and we descend into gloom the joviality around me subsides. I never shared it, too wrapped in my own fearful excitement. The fork comes quickly, the corridor splits into three similar openings and we take the middle, waving optimistic goodbyes to the other groups.

  “Stay close to me.” Lakal smiles at us. He holds his glaive in one hand with its point forwards; there is no room in the corridor to swing.

  There is little light in the dark place except the sputtering brightness of white lights above. They hum with an arcane power even as they flicker and fade in and out. The walls are the same crumbling but solid concrete as above; in places they are covered in a shiny coloured substance that is cool to the touch. There are windows too. They are broken with soil and dirt pouring through or a solid view into the underground world beyond the submerged walls.

  I realise that it is not just that the walls are like the buildings above; the dungeon is one of the great towers that has been overtaken by the earth and and soil, buried whole by the passage of time and the will of the architects.

  I step over something wooden and an image from the architect’s cocoon invaded my thoughts. Chair. Then another. Cabinet. The false memories ache in my mind. I’m already having enough trouble staying focused with my eyesight compromised by my injury, adding a headache to my maladies would be a terrible development.

  We continue down for what seems an hour before something changes.

  A Heightened screams and stumbles back. The spike that would have impaled him from groin to crown quivers and beside it shudders the man. Lakal had moved so quickly that I hadn’t seen his motion. One moment he’d been at the front and the next the man had been knocked aside and the trap rendered ineffective.

  “Beware of where you place your feet, leaf. We are through the outer shell of this place. From now expect more danger. You.” He points to me. “Wanderer. Scout ahead for me.”

  “What?” I squeak.

  “I need someone to take the lead. It’s better if I’m in the middle just in case something comes from elsewhere.”

  “I don’t…what am I supposed to do?”

  “Just walk that way and try not to die.” Lakal smiles. “It’s not too complicated. I saw you fight, you’ll be fine. I’ll let you have first pick of any weapons we come across.”

  I am his pawn. Was this his plan all along? Pick me to be in his group and let the dungeon take me instead of one of his own? His big arms don’t look so comforting now that I believe them to be ready to sacrifice me instead of protect me.

  My hands shake around my claw but it’s all I have, that and my pride. Since when did I have pride? I didn’t when I was part of the fifth tribe; what use is pride to an Unenlightened failure? Lakal wouldn’t let me die, would he?

  The dark and my lack of depth perception makes it hard to find my footing and I stumble a few times in the first moments. Lakal lets out an encouraging grunt and I push myself on. The tribe huddle close to the big Marked and I am left out in front further than is comfortable.

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  I lead them down and down into the darkness, each step a terror that builds in my chest until I ready to scream and run. Perhaps it is my fear that lets me react so fast when the monsters come from the walls.

  I leap forward as the insectoid creatures pour from holes in the walls that were hidden by a break in the stuttering lights. They are small, the size of my foot, with pincers about their mouths and black carapaces that cast dancing lights back at us as our world turns from black to light and back again.

  My claw skitters from the first shell but I feel it crack under the pressure. I turn it and use the blunt end as a hammer. I am rewarded by the spray of blue-black ichor that falls on my face. A droplet falls onto my tongue and I gag. It is sweet. I have no time to wonder or savour because the one I killed was not the last of the ambush.

  I kill another three before the tribe dispatch the remainder.

  They didn’t come for me.

  Lakal barks with laughter. “Good job, leaf. You see, we’re strong. We can beat the dungeon. Come now, wanderer, lead us into excitement.”

  Garl and his cronies laugh. Some of the of the other members of the leaf tribe look uneasy, but their consciences are salved by the simple fact that they are not the one in front. They don’t mean for me to leave the dungeon, that much is clear.

  I will. I’ll go all the way and get a weapon; then I’ll return to…I don’t want to think that far ahead; the dungeon is dangerous enough without clouded thoughts.

  I don’t find any traps; that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any, simply that I walk over without triggering them. Two of the tribe wouldn’t have survived without Lakal’s intervention. I don’t look back.

  The next monsters are queer things; creatures of twisted metal and flesh that squirm from the ceiling like water drops off the underside of leaves. I huddle beneath a battered table and press myself into the wall. I clutch my claw out in front of me and it feels like poor protection against the hybrid monstrosities.

  One of Garl’s friends falls as a monster latches onto his chest; it strikes at his face with ragged and jagged metal fingers, tearing the man’s skin to bleeding ribbons before Garl and another of the tribe pull it off and finally dash it to pieces. Lakal is a brutal whirlwind through it all. The small corridor doesn’t slow his strikes and creature after creature is cut in two under the sharp edge of his glaive. The ones that break through and strike him find their fingers lack purchase on his glimmering skin; they skim off with the sound of metal striking metal.

  I’m up and moving on before the leaf tribe can berate me for not warning them, or not fighting, or whatever it is that they feel they should blame on me. They carry their wounded and we press on.

  The deeper we delve into the dungeon, the dimmer, danker, and more decrepit it becomes. The walls were mostly hale nearer the surface but as we descend they are pocked and putrid. Wires pierce through crumbling holes and something glistens and quivers in places between.

  The windows show only darkness.

  Now, at the end of things, stand a door. Two panels wide with porthole windows, the words come from the cocoon and I sway with unfamiliar memories, a heavy chain holds it closed and emblazoned across the width are bold, jagged words.

  Turn back, champions. Despair is all the treasure that you will find.

  Lakal strolls up to the door and pushes me to the side with as much effort as he might have with a child. I scurry to the edge of the group, content to be out of his eye and ire. He taps on the door with the tip of his weapon.

  “You see this, leaf. This is the kind of thing you’ll come across in these dungeons. Mysterious nonsense.” He laughs. “We’re strong. We’ve made it this far. Now, who’s ready for the prize?”

  The tribe let out a subdued cheer. The tribesman who had been injured by the metallic flesh creatures moans and sobs at the rear of the group. Lakal’s cheek twitches at the interruption. He clears his throat.

  “Well. We’re here now. All dungeon routes lead to a monster that’s stronger than what we’ve faced so far. Once we get that thing out of the way, there will be nothing between us and the dungeon treasures. So. Garl, you want to be Marked. Come up here; we’ll face this one together.”

  Garl steps forward with his eyes bright. His hand is on the spear that he’s carried through the dungeon, not a fancy thing worthy of a marked warrior, but the basic spear that a Heightened might treasure.

  “I’m ready for this.” He eyes Lakal. “There’s going to be a marking—” he waves his hands, “thing, at the end?”

  “You’ll see. Don’t worry. Prove yourself and the architects will provide.” Lakal claps Garl on his shoulder and beams. “Ready, leaf?”

  Garl shakes himself out of Lakal’s embrace and steps towards me. He raises his spear with the tip pointing between my eyes. “Wanderer. You got my friend hurt today. I want my shirt back.”

  “Your shirt?” I answer, my mind blank of anything but his spear tip. He can’t be thinking of stabbing me, can he? The architects wouldn’t— I interrupt my thoughts with a memory of Oran beating me. The architects didn’t care then. But…Garl couldn’t know that. It is only a shirt. It is much more, really, it is warmth, comfort, dignity.

  I am weak again.

  Lakal looms behind the Heightened; a level of power to which I aspire but I fall short. I became Heightened. I killed. I ate. I survived and yet here I am in the dark. With strangers. With no hope but that which I make for myself. The spear tip wavers and I can’t focus on it with one eye; it could be coming closer or it could be distant and I am so, so weak.

  I take off Garl’s shirt and he takes it from me on the point of his spear. He doesn’t speak to me. He takes what is his with a smirk and a smattering of laughter from his tribe and I am alone. Naked but for my ragged trousers. Cold and defenceless but for a stolen claw that can never be a match for a spear.

  Lakal squeezes Garl’s shoulder and in one swift motion bisects the chain.