The candle was looking low, its light dimming or at least seeming to dim to Tiren’s eyes. Her feet were sore from traversing the seemingly never-changing expanse of the black labyrinth with not so much as a thread to guide her way. The candle’s flame had stopped pointing her ahead after she had killed the forester. Whether the two things correlated in any way, she had no idea. A sword, she thought. I need a sword.
Here the hallways were punctuated by a series of nooks in the walls, evenly spaced to the right then left. Alternating, like footsteps. Each one held some strange black shape, the same mysterious living material – and it was living, she was sure of that now, that she was moving through the body of some unnameable being that led her onwards. The shapes were obscure, fractal, set into or growing out of the wall. She recognised some of them from the walls of the monastery outside, the public face of the silent monks.
How long had they been abducting travellers into this maddening place? Those claiming sanctuary were rarely of a sort to be missed if they did disappear. The forester would be thought to have abandoned his village due to guilt, or perhaps beset by bandits. Either way, his people would never know closure. Tiren felt a sting of sadness at that, but no regret. She knew well enough the difference between a man and a beast, and no man’s eyes had shone white at her in the forest.

She saw the sword at once as she turned the corner. It would have been a hard thing to miss, shining silver in the wall like that. Leather wrapped around the hilt – the remains of an ancient gauntlet which fell apart as Tiren touched it, and revealed the pommel of the sword – an eyeball, round and glass with iris of blood-red that stared blindly out at her. She recoiled from the evil-looking thing for a moment, and then weighed her options.
Better to have a sword than not, she decided, even if the thing’s provenance was unknown. The sword was driven to half the blade into the black wall, and it took her a mighty pull to get the thing out, but pull it out she did, staggering back into the wall opposite. She weighed the sword in her hand, tested the balance. There wasn’t room to swing, so she gave it a couple of experimental thrusts. It was perfect. It sang. And to make things even better, when she tested the edge with her thumb it seemed to have been miraculously undulled by being pushed with such force into a wall that was as unyielding as stone.
When she tried to check the hole that it had been pulled out from, she could find none. Of course, it had healed.
Suddenly, the candle died at last, its blue flame flaring its last light in the pan of the ornate candlestick. But Tiren’s vision was clear. She realised that the sword itself contained some strange, white light that spilled out ahead of her.
Rapid, echoless footsteps behind her, she turned to face the straight-backed monk who walked with automaton certainty, carrying a staff from the tip of which swung a black morningstar. His scowling silver mask bore the image of a cruel-faced man with sharp features and as he came closer, Tiren found herself compelled to retreat under his burning gaze. She raised her new weapon as the tall monk made a slight move with his staff that brought the deadly star down from above her and forced her yet further back with deceptive swiftness.
“I’ve killed your brothers before,” said Tiren, trying not to let tiredness enter her voice. She kicked at the base of the staff and it skidded, the monk struggling to keep control as the heavy morningstar swung in reaction.
Just then she heard a noise – this one was behind her, the direction she had been travelling before the tall monk had made himself known. It was a rhythmic clanking sound, again echoless, as if it were through a room draped with thick cloth. Louder, louder, horribly fast-growing. She turned, twisting the sword to lead in the other direction, to ward off what ever kind of thing might be coming.
It was at least the same shape as a monk, under its habit. Though its joints seemed to be twisted inhumanly, metallic noises emanating as it moved perpetually. It tilted its head sideways, and Tiren could see the mask slip slightly. The face beneath was open-mouthed, locked in a silent scream, skin and bone seeming to twist and melt and become one with the mask as she watched. The mask took its place on the head again, and the line that had existed between the skin and the steel was blurred, and disappeared. The iron-fisted monk swung an arm, catching Tiren on the shoulder and sending her spinning.
She hit the wall and looked back between the two monks. The tall one’s robe had fallen open as she staggered into it, and where a body might have been there was a writhing mass, like worms in wet soil. She drove her blade into the mass, and it passed through without resistance, the strange strands moving aside to allow her through. The tall monk swung its black morningstar at her, and she ducked aside again, feeling the wind whistle past her ear.
She turned, hearing the iron-fisted monk’s joints crackle again as it prepared to attack. She looked over her shoulder at the tall monk, and smiled to herself.
Come and get me you son of a bitch, she thought, and as the iron-fisted monk raised a mighty hand like a hammer she pressed herself flat against the wall, ignoring the crawling horrible sensation and let it lurch right past her. There was a sound of tearing metal and flesh as the black morningstar came down like the wrath of god on the steel-and-bone horror skull, and the iron-fist let out a vile, inhuman scream of finality.
The tall monk struggled to disentangle its body from the thrashing gears of the hideous machine, its habit torn and hanging loosely about the swelling throng of amorphous entities beneath it. Tiren levelled her sword at the monstrous thing, which made no sound and slipped away. Probably it had no way to make a noise if it wanted to, thought Tiren. She glanced down at the iron-fisted monk, a body turned in on itself, and looked away quickly. She was far from faint of heart, but some things were not meant to be dwelt on.

In the Library she came upon, shelves rising high with books and ancient papers, there was a figure hunched over at a reading-machine.
“Another visitor?” said the gregarious scholar, lifting his head a fraction. “Another interruption?” Tiren said nothing, and the scholar went on: “Our friend the swordswoman. I see you’ve met our gracious hosts as well.” He didn’t look up, or move in any way.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” said Tiren. “Do those books hold any secrets?”
“Countless secrets,” said the scholar. “Alas, none as yet relate much to our present situation. Most interesting, nonetheless.”
Tiren could sense something was amiss, immediately she knew it. She advanced on the scholar cautiously.
“We have to keep searching for an exit,” she said. “This place is… doing something strange to people.”
“Oh, you’re wrong about that,” said the scholar. “It isn’t strange at all. And it isn’t this place.” Tiren could hear a chittering, high-pitched clicking from the anonymous black clothing of the scholar. Resolving to wait no longer she thrust her sword through his back. He gasped, choked, and then laughed.
What happened next was difficult for Tiren to understand. It was as if he turned himself inside-out, and then came back out facing her, his face emerging from the back of his head in an instant.
“It isn’t strange,” he said. “It’s perfect. I understand so much now, because he has shown it to me!” The mouth that spoke these words was half-like an ant’s, the eyes that met hers bulging and multifaceted. “He is silent no longer! He is here! He is here!” said the scholar, reaching out with twisted fingers to clasp Tiren’s shoulders. She flinched, stepped back.
“You can feel the change in yourself, can’t you? You can hear his voice, can’t you? You may not know it yet, but he speaks to you too!” he laughed. “When you sleep! When you sleep!” He stepped closer again, and those evil hands raised, and Tiren acted on the instinct borne of lifetimes of battlefields and raised her sword in a shining arc.
The arm hit the ground first, sliced clean under the elbow. Following it by a second was the half-mutant head of the scholar. His body stood still for a second, then toppled over slowly.
Tiren cleaned her sword and carried on.