The Covenant Of Timeless Mysteries

「Prelude」

Chapter 28

The chaos twisted and churned.

Cards, gears, and shards of broken glass circled him, caught in a violent spiral, illuminated under transient gold streaks. 

The cards floated close with slow movements before they sliced through the air with blinding speed. Their edges glinted like the teeth of a blade.

Hoku's breathing was uneven as he gasped for air. 

The tunnel groaned with grinding metal melded with the softer sounds of cards snapping shut midair like distant finger taps.

His hands clawed at nothing as he desperately searched for an anchor.

'How much—more of this must I survive!?' His had become thoughts scrambled with panic.

Suddenly, it was like he was witnessing a mirage of flashing images.

The lower he descended the more that would appear and change erratically as if he were flipping the pages of a picture book.

Landscapes he couldn't begin to comprehend, and a castle engulfed in fire, its reflection dancing on molten water. 

A forest of crooked trees stretching endlessly. 

Hoku gritted his teeth and forced his attention back to the cards. 

It began to dawn on him that they weren't random after all.

Patterns were painted across their surfaces.

Knights were galloping through distant battles, and jesters were grinning with eerie glee, queens whose painted eyes seemed to track his movement. 

A single ace of spades brushed his shoulder and split apart, scattering embers that stung his skin like sparks.

He sucked air in through his teeth and his hand reflexively smacked over the burn.

The lash of heat reminded him briefly of the files he had burned in the manor. 

As more cards appeared from the ether, and rearranged randomly before him, he recalled the prototype puzzle from the study.

The combination had consisted of the same suits.

Although he had only managed to steal a glimpse, he half-remembered their order.

Shortly after realizing he could no longer glimpse above himself, the tunnel started shuddering violently.

By then, he assumed the last strings holding his sanity together had been severed as the passage seemed to shrink into a narrower passage.

Hoku felt his body begin to bend under the force.

From the center, his eyes locked onto something even more unimaginable—a massive, golden wheel, carved and burning faintly.

It turned slowly, like a gear that orchestrated every element surrounding him.

The air turned warm and heavy as the scene began to veer further. 

Quickly, the cards disintegrated into dust, while the frames and shattered fragments dissolved into motes of light. 

The golden wheel spun faster, shedding with haste into a tangled pile of thread until it disappeared, leaving an empty pocket of space.

Caught between fear and resignation, Hoku pressed his lips into a tight line and squeezed his eyes shut.

Unexpectedly, he was released from a random end of the burrow.

As cold air slapped against his face and rushed into his nostrils, he couldn't help but wheeze and cough.

Before he could even steady his breath, his body broke through a translucent barrier of moisture, before falling into a shallow pool of water.

The liquid gleamed faintly as his knees struck first into it, sending ripples of water skimming across the surface.

Hoku was still huffing harshly, as his hands pressed against a pile of slick, uneven stones.

He exhaled as his jaw hung open. His eyes widened as he stared at the across the water.

Once he had regained enough composure in his lungs, he pushed himself upright.

He winced as he saw his arms tremble beneath his weight. 

The water level had dropped so low that the tops of a few rocks jutted out, like the jagged edge of a stream.

"Augh! Damn! My knees—" He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, fighting the intense ache sweeping through his legs. 

'Is this what I get for smirking at that two-faced bastard? I didn't even laugh at him.' 

Hoku wheezed and slowly bent his knees a few times, testing the joints.

The pain still throbbed, but it didn't seem to be enough to keep him from moving. It was bad, but not debilitating—just scraped and discolored. 

He took a breath, bearing the discomfort, and focused on steadying himself.

"It would be more unusual if someone who had seen it didn't laugh," Hoku continued his thought loudly as he raised a hand, running a few fingers through his hair. 

He sighed, flipping his loose hair back over his shoulders.

As he looked around, Hoku noted foremost that the space resembled the space below Abel's astrapie. However, the atmosphere was different.

The lighting, temperature, and pervasive mist all set it apart.

The concave room was bathed in a soft, pale glow.

Hoku looked up and quickly identified the source looming ahead.

An open shrine both immense yet considerably small in standard, cast a serene, imposing presence.

It appeared to have been carved from luminous stone—accentuated by the surrounding moisture. 

A shaft of light flowed in from the cavern ceiling, lighting the center inside of the shrine.

​​Hoku staggered on his feet, while his legs quivered under him. 

Hearing water drip from his robe, he glanced down and grimaced at how the fabric hung heavily against his skin and clung uncomfortably.

He reached for the lower edge, lifting the skirt-like part of the robe with both hands. 

As he wrung the water from it, the droplets sparkled faintly, catching the glare from the strange shrine ahead. 

He shivered, though not merely from the cold atmosphere.

There was something else in its place that gnawed at his nerves.

Hoku let go of the damp fabric and it slumped back into place. 

He approached the structure and wavered under the scenery before placing his boots on the low steps that wrapped around the base. 

Upon making his way closer, to where the light spread across the surface, his eyes immediately narrowed onto a faint outline of a shape etched into the ground beneath him. 

At first, it seemed like just an arrangement of smooth, glistening stones, but as he stared longer, his stomach lurched.

The shape was familiar: a star with four deliberate points.

A design that was identical to one he had seen on the mural.

His eyes traced its edges until he spotted something gleaming in the middle.

'The compass…?'

Hoku's hands twitched at his sides.

"This thing…" he muttered with a low voice. 

He reluctantly reached out to pick it up, flinching instinctively before his fingers curled around the edges. 

The metal was cool to the touch.

After lifting it carefully, he turned it over in his hands. 

It looked exactly as it did before, unchanged by the destruction he thought it had endured. 

He stared at it, as his mind raced, but, eventually, he took a deep breath, and tucked the object into his robe.

As he did, he noticed, almost absently, that the cloth he had wrapped it in was gone, but swiftly he pushed it aside.

Suddenly, a sound broke the silence, it was small and metallic, like a gentle chime. 

It echoed from within the structure, pivoting Hoku's gaze again. 

The shrine's columns stretched high into the cavern, their surfaces adorned with faint, unrecognizable markings. 

A wide archway framed its entrance, shadows pooling just beyond.

As Hoku walked slightly past the center, under the columns, something else caught his eye. 

There were droplets of water suspended in midair. 

His eyes widened as he examined them, and a question crossed his mind, 'Why do things seem to keep repeating themselves in different ways here?' 

One that hung just above the ground, trembled faintly.

He moved his arm higher and scratched the back of his head, then, he crouched and extended a finger.

'Just before this I had seen floating droplets... this makes it the second time. I have even been slapped awake twice!"

Hoku squinted in confusion, narrowly tilting his head, 'Twice I have descended into places while conscious, and twice I have woken up without another presence.'

The instant his skin made contact, the droplet shattered, emitting a single, even, and clear note. 

Rather than splashing, it carried a pure and resonant sound. 

Hoku blinked, then reached for another. 

It broke apart too, creating a second note that was higher than the first.

Soon, a strange, tentative melody began to form as he poked them each one by one.

Then, the atmosphere seemed to drain as the breeze from above fell eerily still, and the droplets stopped responding. 

They trembled violently before piercing upward through the columns and over the shrine. 

After they all left the center, each began to glow sharper under the light, and gradually they gleamed bright enough to appear comparable to tiny stars. 

Lines formed between each, spreading across to resemble raindrops that accumulated in a spider's web.

Hoku folded his arms across his chest and hummed suspiciously, 'Now, it has been twice that I've seen 'stars' display these unexplainable patterns.'

The shapes grew in complexity, composing a bright web, almost like a map of constellations.

Near the end of the massive web, an outline slowly emerged, seemingly building an anomaly within the spiral pattern as it stacked from behind like a misplaced node.

"Could that be…?" Hoku muttered, straining his eyes.

To be continued…