The inside of the temple was labyrinthine. Hallways snaked around strangely shaped rooms, most of which were bolted shut. A few doors were left hanging open, showing messy bedrooms and dining halls, which made sense considering the way everybody scrambled outside. I wondered why they weren’t on high alert, considering it was the day of the ceremony, but perhaps they had not expected our party to leave the army behind and get here so quickly.

People ran through the hallways, some putting on their clothes or armor while running. Some were looking for weapons or searching for commanders. The entire thing was an uncoordinated disaster. The rooms closest to the entrance had been empty but as we went further and further inside, we started passing rooms where robed figures were getting ready, asking what was going on, or still snoring loudly.

It was also clear the hallways were gently sloping downwards. Judging by the way we had never reached any stairs and the temple was not large enough from the outside for us to have been running in a straight line, I knew we were spiraling downwards. Spiraling downwards towards rooms that were larger and more luxurious.

Rooms with larger beds, better tables, even some fancy furniture. Fancy contraptions that seemed to run on magic and would help someone brew a drink or cook up food. Jars full of fancy ingredients. Silk-like sheets and gaudy clothes. Even the robes hanging on hooks inside their fancier cupboards looked like they were made from better stuff than the robes the guards had been wearing outside.

The people inside these rooms were higher ranked followers of the immortals. Some of their robes had five or six red stars or silver moons. We walked right past them as they fixed their collars or smoothed out their hair. Were they trying to defend their temple or looking for a date? They didn’t notice us at all and we didn’t stop to take them out or anything. Our mission was too important. We couldn’t afford to be slowed down by the fighting, especially if this temple complex was going to keep going down like this. Just how deep was this place? Did they really need this many followers inside their temple?

Had they been anticipating an assault? Were all of these followers meant to slow down any attackers, hopefully giving the Ikons enough time to finish off what they were doing or return if they were out somewhere else?

The hallways became darker and dustier. There were wider spaces between rooms now and none of these rooms were residences. Instead, they looked like training rooms full of dangerous equipment and orbs giving off strange lights. These orbs were similar to the orb I had found underneath Bek Tepe, the human temple. Except, these orbs were smaller and did not have the little birds that had been attacking the orbs at Bek Tepe. I was tempted to pick up and analyze one of these orbs, perhaps it would help us against the Ikons, but thought better of it. There wasn’t enough time to analyze everything and there was no telling if it would really help us out in the end.

Kelser frowned. He must have realized it too. We had been running for so long and yet had not crossed any other robed followers. Either the information about the attack hadn’t reached this far down the complex, or the truly powerful followers were under orders to guard the complex from the inside. We were also approaching ground level and yet there was no sign of the end of the hallways. Each ‘floor’ was getting larger too, as the slope became gentler and gentler. By the time we crossed what I thought was the ground floor, the ground felt almost completely flat.

And yet it kept going.

On and on and on in an endless spiral that made me question if we would even make it in time. By my calculations, it was almost noon. The ceremony would begin at sunset, which would be very early this high up the mountains. In fact, it was such an arbitrary time of day for a place like this, that I had no idea when exactly it would take place. Was it when the sun was no longer visible from the temple atop the mountain or at the level of the valley? Considering how far down we had come, I began to fear the ‘sunset’ the ceremony was supposed to begin at would be a lot sooner than I’d thought.

We finally came upon another follower of an Immortal. She was a red-robed demon with a massive scar on her face, accentuating the fearsome look in her eyes. She had a domineering seven red stars on her robe, and stood resolutely in the middle of the hallway. She stared down the hallway but judging by how unfocused her eyes were, I knew she couldn’t tell that we were here.

Kelser and I exchanged a glance. The plan had been to lure out practically everybody to the entrance and have Paris, Kol, and Taoc tie them up for a while. Those three were supposed to slowly retreat if necessary, and could always jump off the mountain with the flight magic I had barely managed to teach Kol and Taoc in time. The reason we hadn’t used flight magic to enter the temple was because we needed to be as close to the ground as possible to let the Simurgh defend us against the Evil Eye and Madness, a strategy that was vindicated by the strange power that had almost turned the day to night when we first attacked the temple. But now that Kelser and I were inside, the Immortals probably didn’t care too much about the people at the entrance. Perhaps these higher ranked followers hadn’t left the temple because the Immortals had sent out orders through their Ikons. The Immortals definitely knew Kelser and I were inside. Now it was just a question of how they were going to stop us.

The Simurgh would stop them from interfering too directly, that I was sure of. The Simurgh needed us to retrieve the Book of Annihilation before the ceremony was completed. The Simurgh might even take some risks to make sure that we succeeded, considering how important this Book was to it.

For their part, Madness and the Evil Eye would probably realize the Simurgh was standing in their way, and would keep pushing at it. They would probably direct Noel and Alek to prepare as well, and if Norn Izlandi was around, she would get involved somehow too.

We passed by the seven star follower of the Evil Eye and she didn’t even flinch. We crossed some more grim looking beings, ignoring their deathly stares and running right through the corridors. I could feel my nerves tensing up. If the people we were passing were ordered to turn around and box us in, we would be in a terrible situation. The hallways were narrow and long. If we had to fight through this place we would never get to the ceremony in time. It didn’t help that I couldn’t use as much magic to speed us up because that increased the chance that I would slip up and give us away by not stopping dust from kicking up or being unable to avoid a cobweb or something.

An eight moon beastman snarled at the hallway behind us. I had no idea why the tiger like beastman was snarling down the hallway if he couldn’t even see us, but I didn’t question it too much. By the time we reached this level, the hallways were unbearably long and empty. Each new follower that appeared in the dim light almost made my heart jump into my throat, since the candles that were lighting the path had some sort of strange property that made them diffuse light very irregularly.

A nine star beastman sat on a chair in the middle of the hallway. The old snake beastman sipped his tea in silence, his eyes closed and forked tongue coming out to taste the tea and the air. As a beastman in the service of the Evil Eye, this guy must be some sort of bigwig. We were insanely far underground now, past even the surface of the dark lake we had slept near last night.

Kelser and I ran past the nine star beastman and only glanced over our shoulders once we had left him behind. As expected, he couldn’t detect us either. We approached a nine star demon knitting a sweater, a nine moon beastman eating cake, and even a ten star demon who was oiling his blade. Somehow, just looking at their nonchalant expressions and the quiet confidence that they exuded, I could tell that these guys were trouble. Kol, Taoc, and Paris would not be able to handle them on their own, which was fine because they were clearly not planning on leaving their positions.

The only way they would move is if there was an attack deeper inside the temple. Then, they would come swarming up the hallways, smashing us between the Ikons on one end and powerful demons and beastmen on the other. I looked at Kelser and he looked at me. I nodded.

We approached a ten moon beastwoman who was fixing her glasses with trembling hands. Kelser raced up to the wrinkly old turtle beastwoman who looked like she was a friendly neighborhood grandma, and gave her a devastating uppercut.