Page 44 of Taurus's Quest
“What if you don’t hear it coming?”
“I’ll still know. We have more than one sense. Air currents will change. Scent might intensify. If you’re in tune with your surroundings, you immediately notice when something changes or is amiss.”
“Guess you’re the expert.”
They resumed walking, and he didn’t need to put his hand on a wall because the path had no forks. No side tunnels. No decision to make on a direction. Just one long, winding hall. While he could see several paces ahead, the slight curve meant each step could bring a surprise, meaning he remained braced for a possible ambush. Ten minutes into their journey and he couldn’t help a bit of disappointment, as nothing pounced.
“There’s no dust,” Circe remarked.
“Maybe the minotaur likes to keep his maze clean.”
She snorted. “That seems doubtful. Isn’t he supposed to be dead?”
“True legends never die.” In the case of the Zodiac Warriors, they got replaced. And quickly, too. A warrior expired or quit and usually, within a day or so, the Astraeus had already chosen their next champion. Kind of cold, but then again, what could you expect from celestial beings?
Their first indication that the Labyrinth did have inhabitants came in the form of webbing crisscrossing thickly across the passage.
“Let me hack us a path through so we’re not covered in sticky strands.” He pulled his sword, but a hand on his arm paused his slashing.
“Hold on a second. Have you looked at those webs?” Circe asked.
“Kind of hard to miss them.”
“I mean the size. This wasn’t built by a tiny house spider.”
“No shit. Although, given the width and height of this hallway, it definitely won’t be as large as the one Pisces dispatched in that South American jungle.”
“You were supposed to laugh at me and tell me giant spiders don’t exist.”
“That would be lying.”
“I wouldn’t have minded. I hate arachnids. Actually, make that all bugs.” She shuddered.
“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll be your bug slayer. Now you stay here while I go handle whatever built that web.”
He advanced on it and poked the strands stretched across the hallway with his sword tip. The whole thing vibrated. If the spider hadn’t abandoned it, his poke would bring it scurrying. He sliced through the middle, severing the sticky threads so that they collapsed against the wall, opening a path that showed yet more webbing. Gross, sticky shit. It clung to his blade, and the loose pieces that brushed his clothing stuck as well.
A few paces in, he came across a cocoon standing upright against the wall. While he had a feeling he knew what it contained, he still cut through the tightly wound shell to reveal a desiccated body, one caught sometime in the seventies he’d wager, given the mustache and polyester, wide-collared shirt. Fun decade, even if he never did participate in the disco craze.
“Did you find something?” Circe whispered.
“Just a body.”
“Just!”
He kept forgetting how new this kind of adventuring was to Circe. “Long dead. Don’t worry.”
“I will worry since it obviously got killed by the spider.”
“More like trapped and then drained dry, which won’t happen to us.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because.”
“Not an answer.”
“How’s I’m too awesome to be taken out by a bug?”
