by S T G Hill
"So don't keep me in suspense. What is it? ...Thorn?"
She looked over and saw that Thorn had collapsed fully onto his cot, both legs hanging over the side as well as one arm.
He snored softly.
Ellie glanced from the second, vacant cot to the banquet of food. She didn't know which she wanted more: rest or a full belly.
Not wanting to repeat her last mistake, she decided on food first.
Saliva squirted into her mouth when she went over to the table. So many delicious smells! She ate some cheese and some bread and took a slice of sponge cake with chocolate frosting.
The sweetness went right to her head, and it actually took her several minutes to zonk out when she finally flopped down on the thin padding of her cot.
She dreamed.
She saw it again: her vision of Thorn. His scared and bloody face stared at her.
"Do it! Finish it!" he said.
What, Thorn? Finish what? Ellie wondered. Her body twitched uneasily on the cot.
She looked up in her dream. Her eyes picked out the awful face of their attacker. It snorted, got ready to charge with those awful horns on its head...
The vision ended abruptly, interrupted by a grinding sound.
Ellie opened her eyes in time to see the wall of the rest stop closing in on them.
She fell off her cot and half-crawled, half jumped over to Thorn. She shook him by the shoulders.
"Get up! It's closing in again!"
Thorn looked better than when they'd got to this place. Not by much, but a little. Much of the darkness around his eyes had disappeared at least.
"What...?" he blinked against the sleep still fogging up his brain.
Then the grinding sound and what it signified hit him. The grogginess cleared away from his face so quickly that it could've been magic.
He rolled out of his cot and pushed himself up, groaning when he put weight on his bad leg.
Where the warning had been on the wall stood a door, once more leading into blackness.
"We have to go!" Thorn said, limping for the opening.
"Just a sec!" Ellie turned back.
We need to be smart, she thought. The wall moved towards them steadily, but not so quickly that Ellie couldn't stop at the banquet.
She went over and made a little shelf out of the bottom of her shirt, which she then filled with a couple of apples and some bread.
"Stop wasting time!" Thorn said, already at the door and looking back at her.
The wall slammed into the banquet just as Ellie left, toppling it over and sending all that amazing food flying. Glass dishes shattered, metal plates clattered.
Ellie rushed over to him and glanced down at her load of food, "I couldn't leave it all."
"Fine," Thorn shook his head, but couldn’t quite suppress a small smile, "Let's go."
He put his arm over her shoulders and they walked through into this new blackness.
Chapter 36
"Another maze?" Ellie looked with dismay into the new hallway.
Thorn limped ahead a couple of steps. "No, a labyrinth. The Labyrinth."
It was similar to the first trial, but only a little. And it wasn't a true maze. The stone hallway curved and turned, but never offered a different path.
Ellie and Thorn walked this path slowly, both of them eating from her small stock of food, leaving apple cores in their wake.
"So if it's not another maze, what is it?" Ellie kept her pace slow so he could keep up, "Are you finally going to tell me?"
Thorn tore a chunk out of a bread roll with his teeth, chewing and swallowing for slower than Ellie cared for before answering. "It's from Greek mythology. The Labyrinth was a big maze, but that wasn't the main threat. There's another creature in here with us somewhere called the Minotaur."
Ellie's hackles rose at that. She thought of Thorn's bloody face. And those horns, getting ready to charge.
"It's like a cross between a man and a bull. And I think defeating it is the final trial," Thorn answered her next question before she could ask.
Ellie stopped, brushing the remaining crumbs from her shirt. She closed her eyes, hoping. It took a lot of anger to access her power, but she didn't have much trouble dredging said anger up.
She thought of Belt for putting them all in this place. Then she thought of Matilda, betraying them all for a second time and taking Casey with her.
That did it.
She smiled a little at the tingling rush of magical energy coursing through her veins and muscles.
The sleep hadn't been long, but it seemed like it had been enough.
Well, almost enough.
"You have it back?" Thorn looked her up and down, taking stock.
Ellie opened her eyes and looked at him, the power shutting down once more when she couldn't maintain her rage. "Not all of it. But enough to beat one more monster."
"Maybe," Thorn said. He went and leaned against the wall, flinching when he rubbed at his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, I don't know how to heal anyone yet," Ellie balled her hands into frustrated fists.
Thorn pulled down the neck of her shirt, revealing a massive black-and-purple bruise that took up most of the left side of his body. Ellie winced.
"It's okay," Thorn said, "I tried when we first came through the door, but healing spells won't work here. And we can't underestimate the trial. This won't be like those white apes or the Ophidians. It's going to be much tougher."
Ellie crossed her arms and looked up into his face. It beat looking at that puffy purple bruise. "We'll beat it and we'll get out of here."
Thorn gave her a thin-lipped smile. "That's the other thing, Ellie. There's only one winner in the trial. It has to be you... It's going to be you. No matter what, okay?"
Ellie blinked and saw Thorn's bloody, desperate face in her mind again. "What? Not okay! What are you saying?"
Thorn didn't answer her. Instead he pushed away from the wall and worked his left arm in slow circles, wincing all the while. "That's a bit better. Let's keep going; I don't think it'll be much farther, not this close to the end of all this."
Ellie wanted to press, but decided against it. Thorn was too weak to do anything too stupid, she thought.
I'll take care of this Mino-whatever and we'll get out of here.
"I can't believe Casey is gone," Ellie said when they started walking again.
She couldn't really believe any of them were gone, but especially him.
"He seemed like a good kid. I didn't really know him, though," Thorn said, staring down at the ground while he concentrated on limping one foot in front of the other.
"In the foster system," Ellie’s stomach went tight at the memories, "You never really know exactly how long you'll be with anyone. I thought I was used to people coming in and out of my life. But I'm not."
Thorn leaned up against the wall again. They hadn't gone very far, but all the effort already had him panting. A ring of sweat soaked the neck of his already dirty shirt.
"Some people are only worth knowing for a little bit," Thorn said between breaths, "Other people I think it'd be better if we hadn't known them at all."
Ellie realized then that she'd hardly ever pressed Thorn at all about his own past. Probably, she figured, because she didn't want him poking around much in hers.
She didn't much like her past. And it sounded a lot like Thorn had jumped into that particular cab with her.
"Are you an orphan, Thorn?"
Thorn's heavy breathing paused and he looked up at her. "No."
Then something else occurred to her, "You're not, like, secretly Darius Belt's son or anything like that, are you?" If that were the case, it'd be like she'd jumped into one of those soap operas that Mr. Fichtner told her to never tell anyone that he watched.
Thorn gave her some side-eye that said, seriously? "No. Enough rest. Let's keep going. It can't be far."
Thorn pushed away from the wall and used that momentum to carry forward around a sharp
turn to the left ahead. Ellie followed.
"You're the one who stopped for a rest," she offered him a smirk.
He didn't reply.
She knew he said it to cut short any more conversation about his past. Ellie could respect that.
Her stomach growled and she wished she'd grabbed more food. She wished she'd gotten more sleep.
She wished she wasn't in this stupid trial.
"The first one," Thorn muttered from ahead of her, "That was the prognosticator's test with those pearls. Building the bridge was for channelers. This one has got to be for kinesists. When we find the Minotaur, keep your eyes open for anything to do with kinesinomy."
"Sure," she said.
That made her think of her final private lesson with Arabella, right before getting dumped into this place.
"It's not just about moving heavy things or turning your body into a weapon, kinesinomy is also the empath's school. Kinesinomy is about feeling. Whether that's something you feel, or someone else. Don't forget that."
The words from that lesson popped into her head. She didn't really see how they could be useful for fighting some big bull-thing.
They made a turn to the right, passing by a pair of torches that cast flickering orange light into the false maze.
Up ahead, the hall ended, leading into a large, echoi chamber. Ellie started to go in but Thorn put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
"Wait," he said. He turned back.
Ellie watched him go grab one of the torches from its sconce on the wall. He flinched at no longer having the support of his good arm on his bad, but didn't say anything about it.
"Do you think it's in there?" Ellie peered into the cavernous space. She thought she already knew the answer.
Chapter 37
Little tingles of warning crawled up and down her arms and legs and wrapped around her spine.
The big room looked empty, though.
It seemed about the size of a football field. Some sort of skylight let in whatever passed for sun outside.
And what looked like a dry fountain sat in the middle of the cavernous room.
A statue of a robed man stood on the plinth in the fountain, his face hooded. His hands reached out in a grasping gesture, as though holding an invisible steering wheel.
"Weird," Ellie considered the pose, wondering what it might mean.
"Yeah. It has to be in here. Look, there's no way else out of this place," Thorn gestured at the walls.
He was right. Ellie saw nothing but more torches along the walls.
"But where's the Minotaur?" she said, eyes wide and searching.
That awful feeling of being watched intensified when they stepped into the room. The skin on her arms pebbled with goosebumps.
Their footsteps echoed.
"I don't like this," Ellie whispered. Her whisper echoed as well. This... This... This...
With nowhere else of interest to go, they moved towards that dry fountain. The closer they came, the more Ellie's skin prickled.
She kept looking over her shoulders, trying to keep her head on a swivel to see.
See what? she thought.
She went the whole way from the door to the fountain holding her breath, not realizing until her lungs started burning.
Then they both felt it: the breeze. The flames of Thorn's torch fluttered in it.
"Ellie, look!" Thorn thrust the torch out.
She did. There, past the fountain against the opposing wall, a door appeared. As they watched, burning words spread in the wall over the door. Little licks of flame dropped from them to spatter on the floor as sparks.
Only One May Leave, they read.
This time an actual door stood in the doorway. A thick wooden thing with steel bands. An equally thick chain barred it from opening. A chain with no lock on it, and no apparent way to remove it.
Her whole body buzzed with warning.
"Are you sure there's going to be a Minotaur?" Ellie glanced around the still monster-free room.
Thorn glanced at her. He started to open his mouth, but didn't have time to say anything.
Something snorted behind them. Ellie got a whiff of unwashed fur, reminding her of a dog in desperate need of a bath.
It stood blocking the door they'd come in through. Almost twice as tall as Thorn, with shoulders to put any linebacker to shame. Huge, thick fingers gripped the haft of a massive battle-ax, the twin heads of the blade chipped and rusty.
And the too-human eyes in its snouted face looked angry.
"Watch out!" Thorn said right before it lowered its horned head and charged.
Thorn body checked her out of the way so that she sprawled on the floor. She hit so hard the impact jarred her teeth.
Thorn lurched back at the last second, avoiding a goring on those horns.
Instead the Minotaur's thick skull found the robed statue, snapping it off its plinth at the waist.
One of the statue's grasping hands broke off at the wrist. The skylight above revealed a face within the hood, but Ellie didn't have time to do more than notice it.
The Minotaur reared back and shook its shaggy head, spraying marble crumbs from its fur, glancing first at Thorn and then at Ellie. Its eyes narrowed when they picked her out.
She turned over and pushed herself up, wanting some distance from that thing.
It lowered its head to charge her again.
Thunder clapped in the room. The smell of unwashed fur changed to acrid burnt hair. The Minotaur roared.
Thorn had struck it with a bolt of lightning from behind.
His eyes widened when he realized that maybe he'd gotten its attention a little too well. He held the sputtering torch out in front of him as though it could actually help.
"Look out!" Ellie said.
The Minotaur swung its huge age in a sweeping cut.
Thorn ducked beneath it, wincing at the pain it caused in his bad leg.
Then he thrust the torch forward and made his bad arm reach out towards it. "Just burn!" he screamed at the monster.
A torrent of flame shot from the torch, urged out by his free hand.
The Minotaur threw one meaty forearm up, blocking the fire.
With only one hand on the bottom of the haft of the ax, it couldn't wield it well. It swung.
The flat of the blade caught Thorn on the side.
Ellie's stomach turned at the awful crunch sound of the impact. A Mack truck couldn't have hit as hard.
The torrent of flame from the torch stopped.
"No!" Ellie took a step towards him, not sure what to do.
Thorn flew through the air and slammed into the wall, then crumpled to the floor. He didn't get back up.
Ellie screamed wordlessly. A hot surge of power ran through her body, taking her over. She didn't think. She acted.
The Minotaur turned towards her, eyes narrowing. It started to lower its head to charge.
Then Ellie reached upward, threading magic into the ceiling.
"Just die!" Power coursed through her, hot and electric.
Then she wrenched her arms down. Stone and dirt and mortar tore free from the ceiling.
The Minotaur looked up in time to catch the corner of a massive block in the face.
More and more came down from the ceiling, burying the beast in many tons of shattered stone.
The entire room, the entire world for all Ellie knew, shook with the avalanche. She kept tearing it all down until the sky took up more space than the ceiling once had.
When she stopped, gray dust covered everything and hung in the air like mist.
There was no sign of the Minotaur beneath that pile of jagged rubble. Ellie smiled. She hoped it had hurt.
She felt good. Great, in fact. The magic flowing through her energized every nerve and muscle. The air around her sparked and shimmered with her power.
Then she caught sight of Thorn.
He'd rolled over onto his back. Some of the shattered ceiling lay close to him, and Ellie realized t
hat she'd almost crushed him along with the beast.
Good, then I can get out of this place, the power within said with her own voice.
This isn't me, Ellie thought, rejecting the voice's suggestion.
Except she knew that on some level, it was her. She thought then of the Errants and what their addiction to magic did to them. And they didn't have even a fraction of her power.
It was a cold and sobering thought. One that put a damper on her rage. Her magic cut off to a trickle, the static leaving the air.
"Thorn!" Ellie scrambled over the broken rocks, wincing at their sharpness against her palms.
Thorn opened his eyes when she sank down beside him.
Blood smeared his face and matted his hair. The left side of his body had caught the impact of the Minotaur's ax. It had become a single, massive bruise of battered flesh and broken bone.
Ellie's breath caught just looking at him, and a terrible pressure built behind her eyes.
Thorn swallowed with some difficulty. "You have to get out of here."
"No," Ellie said, "I took care of the Minotaur. It's buried. I brought the roof down on it."
Thorn shook his head. She hated how his face looked exactly like it had in her dreams, all bloody. "It's not that easy. It's not the way the Trial wants you to beat it."
"I don't care about Belt's trial!" Ellie balled her fists up. Then she thought: hey, wait, I have my powers back. "Don't worry, I can fix you."
She started reaching for him. She didn't know the healing spells, but that didn't seem to matter when she tapped into the magic within. It knew.
"Ellie!" Thorn said, his voice dire.
It came a split second before she heard the rumble behind her. Her stomach clenched with an awful sick feeling when she looked back.
The Minotaur stood up from beneath the many tons of rubble covering it, shaking the dust from its fur.
Its eyes narrowed into two sinister slits when it saw her.
"Do it! Finish it!" Thorn gritted his teeth to speak through the pain.
Ellie's eyes widened even has her stomach turned to ice.
My dream, she thought.
The Minotaur had lost its ax beneath the rubble. So instead it picked up a massive chunk and hurled it at her.
The magic came to her rescue. Her right fist glowed with it. She snarled and punched out. Her fist shattered the rock into two, missing her.
