Chương 43: What You Do When No One Is Watching

The first beast died without a sound. Zayn waited until the three small presences were close enough to the carcass, then struck from behind the overturned table. No heroic shout. No wide motion. Just a short blade dropping onto the densest one. The dagger went through the back of its neck. [Soul strength absorbed: +0] Nothing. He did not stop. The second tried to flee toward the leg of a table. Zayn crushed its paw under his boot, bent down, stabbed, pulled.

[Soul strength absorbed: +0] The third, the weakest one, froze. It did not understand. Or understood just enough to feel there was no escape. Zayn stood motionless over it. The little thing had a maw too wide, white eyes, thin fingers clenched in the dust. It trembled, belly pressed to the floor, unable to attack, unable to flee. He could have finished it. One motion. Quick. No reason to waste time. He did not. Instead, he crouched in front of it, dagger in one hand, the other resting on his knee.

The beast drew back an inch. No farther. Its claws scraped against the stone. Zayn watched it for a long time. The silence around them was nearly total. The carcass used as bait stank against the pillar. The other two corpses were slowly losing their heat. Somewhere deeper in the network, the 47 had not moved. The weaver was still waiting. Very well. Everyone was waiting for something, apparently. Even this little piece of filth at 4 was waiting for Zayn to decide what kind of ending it deserved.

He raised the dagger. The beast curled in on itself. Zayn stopped. Then lowered the blade, not onto its throat, but just in front of its snout. The creature froze. He slowly drew a line in the dust. To the left. Then another. To the right. The beast followed the movement of the blade with its white eyes. Zayn smiled faintly. It was stupid. Cruel too, probably. But at the bottom of Rhel-Fosse, the two words had stopped excluding each other.

"You understand lines?" he murmured. The beast trembled.

"No. Of course you don't." He moved the blade to the left. The creature backed to the right. Good. Fear learned quickly. Faster than a lot of nobles, even. He moved the blade again. The beast shifted sides. Again. Again. For almost a minute, Zayn did not kill it. He guided it. Forced it to choose a smaller space, then another, then another. Each time, the blade did not strike. It merely promised. The little thing ended up cornered against the leg of a broken table, its body shaking with spasms.

Zayn watched it tremble. And something inside him settled. Not a good thing. Not peace. A cold, low, intimate satisfaction. Proof that he could reduce a living being to a reaction. That he could become, for something else, the wall, the blade, the dead-end corridor. Not because he had to survive. Not because it paid. It probably paid nothing. Just because he could. That thought should have frightened him more than the fall, more than the weaver, more than the dark.

It mostly taught him that some doors did not need a system to open. He finally killed the beast. [Soul strength absorbed: +0] Zero. Obviously. Zayn remained crouched, the blade in the tiny corpse. Then he started to laugh. Not loudly. Not long. A dry breath, almost ridiculous.

"Not even one point." The words vanished against the walls. He pulled his blade free. The bottom of Rhel-Fosse did not answer. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Or rather, it answered in its own way. A voice rose from the lower passage. Not Lena this time. Not Elias. His own voice.

"Not even one point." Zayn froze. The voice repeated it from below, with exactly his fatigue, his breath, his irony.

"Not even one point." The weaver. Good. Now it was imitating what it had just heard. Zayn rose slowly. In the darkness of the passage, the 47 had come closer. Not enough to be visible. Enough to be heard. Zayn's voice came again, but distorted at the end, as if something were wearing his face without understanding the shape of his mouth.

"You count." Silence. Then:"You count very well." Zayn tightened his grip on the dagger. This time, he did not answer. The weaver wanted that. A reaction. A sentence. Anger. It had gotten enough already. The voice changed again. Lena.

"Zayn…" No. Bad version. Zayn picked up the rest of the black bread from the satchel he had found earlier, bit off an infinitesimal piece, and put the rest away without taking his eyes off the passage. The 47 did not move. Lena's voice came again, lower this time.

"You could have told me the truth." That time, something landed cleanly. Not because it was perfectly imitated. Because the sentence could have been real. Zayn chewed slowly. The bread scraped at his throat like gravel.

"You're not very original," he said at last. The voice fell silent. Then the weaver spoke with another voice. The messenger he had killed in the alley in Aurelis. Zayn had barely heard him say anything. A panicked breath. The beginning of a word muffled off. Nothing enough to make a full voice from. The weaver invented the rest.

"Wa—" Just that. The interrupted beginning. Zayn felt his expression harden. He was not afraid of the memory. Not enough. What bothered him was the precision of the choice. The weaver had perhaps not seen the alley. It did not know. It could not know. So why did that syllable sound like an accusation dropped by chance onto exactly the right place? Zayn got to his feet. The low room was turning bad. Worse than before. He had used this shelter enough.

He picked up the satchel, tightened the bandage around his arm, took his dagger and the shard of rusted metal. Before leaving, he looked at the four corpses on the floor. Three little beasts dead for nothing. One useful carcass used as bait. A filthy scene. And him, still at 29. He should have told himself it was not worth it. Instead, he understood something worse: Even without a reward, he had kept going. The system was not the cause. Just the mirror.

He marked the wall with chalk and took a side corridor rather than the weaver's passage. Do not follow the invitation directly. Simple rule. He descended anyway. Because every path in Rhel-Fosse seemed to end by descending. The hunger was becoming more than a nuisance now. His stomach contracted in short waves. The black bread had quieted the first bite, not the fatigue. His throat was dry. He needed water before anything else.

He found a trickle of moisture at the end of a narrow gallery, dripping from a crack in the stone. Not really water. A succession of brown drops, smelling of metal and earth. He stood in front of it for almost a minute. Then laughed again, without joy.

"Wonderful. First local tasting." He held out his hand, caught a few drops, smelled them. Bad. But not as bad as dying of thirst out of delicacy. He drank. The taste was foul. Iron, dust, old stone. His stomach protested. He waited. No immediate burning. No spasm. Acceptable. He filled the crushed waterskin as much as he could, drop by drop, with absurd slowness. Every sound in the gallery made him stop.

Every moving value in the walls forced him to reconsider the angle of his back, the distance to the next obstacle, the time it would take to draw his blade. He was no longer on a mission. He was inside a permanent calculation. And that calculation made him calmer than the others' speeches ever had. When the waterskin held a pitiful amount, he started walking again. Deeper down, he found a door. Not a mine door. A recent door. Black wood, metal plates, the weaver's marks all around it.

It had been torn from somewhere else and fixed here with hooks. In the center, a human symbol had been carved and then crossed out. An old Marches sigil. Behind the door, one value. Human. Not demon. Not beast. Human. Zayn placed a hand on the wood. A voice rasped behind it. Real. Weak.

"Who… is there?" He stayed silent. The value trembled. Not dying. Wounded, probably. A prisoner. A scout. Maybe one of the missing. Maybe something else. Zayn looked at the marks around the door. Not active like those in the pit. Simpler. A lock. Maybe an alarm. A link to the network. He could open it. Maybe. The safest thing would be to leave. The most useful thing would be to understand. Behind the door, the man coughed.

"Answer…" Zayn brought his mouth close to the wood.

"Alone?" A silence. Then:"Yes." Possible lie.

"Name."

"Harven… Marches scout… Rhel-Fosse patrol." The voice trembled. Not enough to be immediately false. Zayn watched the value. Steady despite the fear.

"How many with you?"

"Not anymore." Correct answer. Or very well prepared. Zayn smiled faintly. He thought of Lena. She would have wanted to open it. Elias would have wanted to secure it, then open it. Mira would have analyzed the marks longer. Jonah would have asked why prisoners always talk from behind the most suspicious doors in the world. Selka would probably have said that if the man was still alive behind one of the weaver's doors, then the door was serving some purpose.

Zayn, on the other hand, thought: If I free him, he can talk. If I kill him, he can give. If I leave him, he can attract something else. If I use him, he can walk ahead. There it was. Four options. None of them clean. The voice spoke again.

"I can help you… I know a path to an old ventilation shaft…" Interesting. Too interesting. Zayn lowered his eyes to the marks.

"Why did the weaver leave you your mouth?" Silence. Long. Too long. Then the value behind the door shifted slightly. 18 17 No visible wound. An expenditure. An effort. The wall to Zayn's left vibrated. Shit. He threw himself backward just before a black filament punched through the door from the inside, piercing the wood where his torso had been a second earlier. The human voice screamed. Not in surprise. In pain. So there really was someone in there. And the trap ran through him.

The filament searched again, twisting in the air like a blind tongue. Zayn cut it. The piece dropped to the ground, convulsed, then shriveled. Behind the door, Harven was almost sobbing.

"I… I don't control…" Zayn inhaled slowly. Very well. Not just a trap. A living tool. Again. The man's value dropped to 15. The weaver was consuming its prisoners to attack through them. Zayn could have left. He probably should have. But a living scout might know an exit. And even trapped, he was still useful. He broke the lock with the metal shard and threw the door open in one sharp movement, staying to the side. Another filament lashed out immediately. Into empty air. Zayn cut it. Then he saw Harven.

A thin man, nailed to the wall by black hooks driven through his ribs and shoulder. Not sewn shut like the other survivor. Not transformed yet. But dark threads ran into his skin and climbed toward the ceiling, disappearing into a crack. His eyes were human. Terrified. Zayn stepped inside. Harven tried to speak.

"Cut them… please…" Zayn looked at the threads. Then at the man. Then back to the threads.

"If I cut them wrong, what happens?" Harven almost cried.

"I don't know."

"Bad answer."

"I don't know!" The panic was real. Zayn approached slowly. The threads reacted to his presence. Not all of them. Three only, vibrating under the man's skin. He could free him. Maybe. Or he could use him as a remote trigger. Cut one thread, see the reaction. Cut the next, learn something. The man would survive or not depending on how strong his body still was. The idea came so cleanly that Zayn did not push it away. He set the tip of his dagger against the first thread. Harven stared at him.

"Wait…" That word again. Always. Zayn pressed just slightly. The thread vibrated. Harven arched, choking off a scream. Zayn watched. The ceiling to the right reacted. A small stone fell. Not lethal. Information. He cut the thread. Harven screamed. A section of wall opened behind them, revealing a narrow passage. Zayn looked at the opening. Then at Harven.

"You see? You really were helping." The man stared at him in pure horror. Not because Zayn had freed him. Because he had understood that before trying to save him, Zayn had just used him to test the trap. And in the red, trembling light, Zayn felt no need to justify himself. Not to him. Not to anyone. He cut the second thread. Faster. Harven screamed again. This time, a hook dropped out of his shoulder, and the man sagged halfway down, still held by the last link. His value fell. Zayn leaned toward him.

"The ventilation shaft. Where?" Harven was shaking too hard to answer. Zayn laid the blade against the final thread.

"Where?" The man sobbed, then pointed toward the revealed passage.

"There… then… left… always left until the cold draft…" Good. Very good. Zayn cut the last thread. Harven fell to the floor. Still alive. Very low. Zayn looked at him. The man was almost incapable of walking. Leaving him here meant condemning him. Carrying him, impossible. Killing him, maybe +0. Maybe +1. But more importantly, no more noise. No more mouth. No more risk that he would attract something else. Harven looked up. He understood.

"No…" Zayn remained silent. The dagger was already in his hand. Then, farther in the network, the 47 suddenly moved. Toward them. Fast. Too fast. Zayn turned toward the passage. Limited time. He looked at Harven once more. Not out of pity. Out of calculation. A terrified man on the floor could still serve as bait for a few seconds. Zayn backed toward the passage. Harven understood something worse than death.

"Don't leave me…" Zayn entered the crawlspace. Behind him, the man tried to drag himself forward.

"Don't leave me!" His voice filled the little room. Perfect. Useful. The weaver was coming. Zayn slipped into the passage and pulled the panel half-shut behind him. Not completely. Enough to watch. Through the gap, he saw a gray silhouette enter the room. The 47. The weaver bent over Harven. The man screamed. Zayn did not move. He watched. Because now, at last, he had a chance to see how his enemy fed on screams.