Thinking up to that point Hao Xuan got worried that Princess Helena might not know the way either. He wanted to ask her about it but remembered her incessant warnings of not making too much noise.
And since the stone bridge was too small to even have two people walk side by side, they had to move in a single file with her at the front and Hao Xuan at the very back, making it more than a little challenging to have a conversation.
'Damn it!'
He cursed inwardly a few times before giving up. All he could do now was hope she knew her way around, even though it was maybe the second or third time she was using this passage.
Princess Helena, the first female guard, Princess Inara, the second female guard, Uri, Ma Jiang and then finally Hao Xuan at the end. That was the group's layout as they slowly navigated the seemingly endless labyrinth one measured step at a time.
Before Hao Xuan realized more than three hours had passed but he knew it only felt that way. It was difficult to determine whether or not there was some sort of temporal discrepancy or a simple perception manipulation but either way, it was not normal.
After crossing every three or four bridges and stairways Princess Helena would stop for a moment and change her direction. Hao Xuan couldn't see exactly what she was doing but it became pretty obvious she was following some kind of predetermined path.
And it wasn't that she remembered it, but knew a way to calculate it on the go.
Hao Xuan started leaving his own marks to identify every path they had taken while making a mental note of them.
Another two hours passed. Hao Xuan's candle was half gone by now and the flame started flickering every time they stepped on a new path. But his mind was elsewhere. His brow was locked in a tight furrow as a familiar pattern started to emerge from his findings of all the paths they had taken so far.
'Left, right, right, left, down at 70-degree angel- no no, it was more like 50 degrees...right, 50 seems about right.'
Hao Xuan's eyes swiveled left and right saccadically as he guided Baracus to come up with a 3D model of their journey so far through this place.
'Yes yes, that's right. Now align all of them and give me a bird's eye view of every possible direction. Cut them off at every junction we stopped.'
The 3D model's perspective continuously changed until he was looking at it from the top.
'Stop! This is it. My god I was right. It actually is the exact same!' Hao Xuan exclaimed inwardly, almost clapping his hands in excitement.
The image in front of his eyes was showing a pattern of interconnected symbols that were ingrained in Hao Xuan's memory by now. It was the 24 prime letters that he used to access the webway.
All the paths they had taken so far were almost identical to many of the prime letters. They were moving according to various letters, changing directions whenever one letter ended and another began.
'So this is her secret. But does she even know what it is she has learned? Or is she just following some predetermined path?'
Hao Xuan became a lot less anxious the moment he realized what was going on.
'But this is really amazing. I never thought the prime letters could be used in such a way. From what I can tell, instead of opening a direct gateway into the webway and traveling through that, she simply moves in the same pattern to...? To do what exactly? If she doesn't enter the webway how will the shortcut be opened? Or could it...'
He continued to come up with one possible explanation after another and was so engrossed in it that he completely missed the new development.
The candle's flame had started to change color. From bright golden to having a tinge of green on its outer edges. It was only when it had almost entirely become a shade of ghostly green that Hao Xuan came to, but only because his ears twitched.
"Hmm?"
He slowly turned his head halfway to peer behind him from the corner of his eye. Just now he had heard the faint pitter-patter of naked feet scurrying across a hard surface.
But there was nothing behind him at all, no sign of any living being. He couldn't pick up any scents either which only made him more apprehensive.
'I should be able to see our own scents left behind, but there's nothing there....'
*Tap*tap*tap*
*Crunch*
His ears twitched again. Hao Xuan jerked his head back around towards the front and craned his neck to look ahead.
'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.'
There were two additional figures ahead of him but there were only six sets of footsteps.