by Jodi Ralston
And now so had the one before him.
Between the two of them he was trapped.
He was not the only one. Elsewhere, a masculine cry sounded. Further away, a feminine one. After that? A few retorts of a gun, and a faint echo of “Lydia!”
Then the statue behind him touched him, and he dropped into mortal form. The sudden transition hurt, and his vision blazed white—until its gauntlets grabbed his forearms, picked him up, and carried him forward.
This went beyond numbness. He couldn’t move; his body, his limbs were not his own. Even his senses dulled and narrowed to a few feet in front him. His body wanted to shiver, but it couldn’t even move that much.
And the gap between the two tomb-wood enforcers narrowed.
Would it crush him? Because he was not human? Because he was alone?
No. The foremost enforcer had begun to back up along its path . . . and reverse itself, somehow pulling its eyes and arms through its own body. Soon only its smooth back faced him.
And so they went, pausing only for the front enforcer to reinsert itself into its opening. Then slowly Guard and his enforcer trundled along the path, all of the others already back in place and eyeless once more.
His captor took him to the entrance of his maze-path and dumped him on the floor. Then it about-faced its features and retreated.
After a moment, he could mind-sense the hourglass. The timer’s grains had not returned to the upper half of the glass. He suspected they would not until this weapon—a formidable retriever—had returned to its spot in the wall. It would have a long trip ahead of itself.
And he had his own wait ahead of him, lying on the floor—fortunately, one made of stone-wood, not tomb-wood, or he’d never recover.
After six minutes or so, he began to shiver. A good sign.
A moment later, tingly aches began. A great sign. They started in his neck and crept down his shoulders in little spasms. The discomfort was mostly due to the returning warmth and departing numbness. Also perhaps due to the twist of his body, the angle of his chin.
He lifted and moved his head. Gratified he could do so well, he checked first on his clothing and weapons, discovered their color was normal. Finally, he sought—and discovered—his seekers.
They were sitting before the pedestal, their backs to it, the male’s arm around the female, her covered head resting against his shoulder, and her gloved hands in his free one. They no more noticed his arrival than he had sensed their presence these last few minutes.
Weakness, Guard thought. No survival instincts. Too focused on themselves, not their surroundings, not their mission. Then he realized what their behavior really meant, and their weakness gave him an idea of how to defeat the maze.
But he had to be sure.
He watched them a while more as he moved one knee and dragged one arm out from beneath his body. By the time the grains had returned to the top of the glass, he was certain of his plan, so he made a noise as he levered himself up onto his elbows.
Too soft. It went unnoticed.
So he groaned.
Lydia lifted her head and gasped. “Oh, my, Guard!” She shot a look to her companion, face reddening, and disentangled herself, though he seemed reluctant to let her go. As soon as he did, she hurried to Guard’s side and knelt. “Are you all right?”
“I will be. I was in smoke form when the retriever grabbed me.” He moved onto his knees, and she tried to help pull him upright. “We can dismiss the right-hand path. I will try the middle next, and you two can work on the left.”
She looked back at Shalott as he rose and stood over them. He spoke, “You could have told us about the retrievers.”
“I could have if I knew of them.” Guard stood, slowly. Eager hands steadied him. The last of the pin-and-needle numbness faded as he marched toward the timer. “This maze was built to test the seeker and her motivation.”
“But I hate mazes.”
“Which is why the spirits picked it, dear,” Shalott said, reaching for her.
Yes, Guard thought, as he handed out the grains. Those of the Upper Tower who had designed this maze knew that much—and more. She had undertaken this quest, chose to defy death, out of love. Watching them cuddle before and watching them walk now hand-in-hand down the leftmost path, he suspected the true nature of her heart, how it would be tested, and what the fastest route would be.
Speculation he must confirm on this attempt.
Guard just hoped he hadn’t guessed wrong.
For either way, time was running out.
CHAPTER 6
If anything, the maze was more frustrating than before. Guard didn’t know if it was due to the mortals journeying together or just a complication added to make try two harder than try one. Either way, this time around, dead ends abounded, and retrievers moved faster, both in waking up and in hunting. Forewarned, Guard still only managed to dart around three before they swelled to fill the path and trapped him.
But he had confirmed a few important things. One, the maze-paths shared walls, and his chosen middle tunnel was lined on both sides with retrievers; a hurried glance, not up-close inspection revealed that. Two, all the retrievers stayed out until one caught him. And the third thing he had discovered but had not suspected: repeated prolonged exposure to tomb-wood was detrimental to his weapons and armor, and his health. Color took longer to restore; draining numbness hit harder and lasted longer.
That meant, one touch by them at the wrong time, and his plan was for naught, and all was lost. They’d fail. But he couldn’t have done as the male ranted afterward; he couldn’t have taken them with him. He needed to see the pattern—
The male, glaring as Guard half reclined against Lydia’s lap, didn’t give him time to explain what pattern he had sought. “Do you have to touch him so, Lydia? It’s unseemly.”
She continued to rub Guard’s shivering arms. “He isn’t well.”
“He’s untrustworthy. We should never have split up, I tell you! What? Do you deny it?”
Lydia rubbed at her head, and then undid her heavy, green neck scarf. Dark, stray curls, which once bounced against its material, tumbled down to her shoulders now. She wrapped the material around Guard’s neck as if it could possibly help speed his recovery. The same motive had resulted in the removal of his short sword and bow and quiver so he could rest more easily against her. Her methods did not have much success—
“Gods, Lydia!” The male stomped about in a circle, face red.
—except for inciting that reaction.
Much more of this, and Guard suspected the male might make use of the temporarily forgotten gun.
What would that feel like in his current state?
“Perce, you have already said all that. Repeatedly. And it still doesn’t change the fact he is our guide. He knows best.”
“He hasn’t guided us! What has he done? Gone off on his own. It could be a trick!”
“My fate,” Guard said, eyeing the flailing arms, “is linked with yours.”
“Is it?” More flailing. “Truly?” More stomping. “Or is that another lie—?” And more reddening of the face. “Lydia, please! For godsakes, stop coddling him.”
“I am rubbing the sensation back into his body.” She squeezed Guard’s arms.
“I have no romantic interest in her, Shalott.”
“You see? He has no romantic interest me.”
Redder, if possible. “So he says! His body says another thing, lying against you like that!”
Guard, feeling pins and needles in his arms at last, sat up and cocked his head. “If that is a sign of romantic interest, then when she leans into you, is that a sign, too?”
Lydia flushed. So did the male; Guard didn’t think that depth of color possible. “You—you—you don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t even know women, do you, False Spirit? How can you speak on it?”
I know of a woman. A ghost. For a moment, when Guard thought of Victoria, he imagined her waiting in the courtya
rd, ready to hear of his victory and speak his name, taking heart from it all for her own ordeal. Guard shook his head. He knew better; she was already gone, busy with her own trials. Only humans wasted time on what was not. “If I know nothing of women, Shalott, then how can my interest be romantic?”
“See, tricksy! He’s tricksy!”
“Oh, I think not. Innocent, maybe. That’s refreshing in a man his age.” Lydia guided him to sit back against the wall between the middle and last entrances. “When will you be ready to try again, Guard? Is there anything I can do to help you?”
Ignoring the male’s growl, Guard made a fist. He mostly felt it; his fingers mostly obeyed. “We need to wait a little longer.” He looked at his weapons she had laid near him. Weapons he couldn’t use yet. “I’m currently unable to alter my form.” Then, touching the green scarf with his glove, he thought of a human expression and said, “Thank you for your kindness, Lydia.”
She smiled.
“How can you just sit there and listen to that? He’s—he’s—he’s buttering you up! He will leave us, just you watch.”
After another fifteen minutes and the ability to set his armor and rearm himself, Guard shouldered his bow, stood, and tested his ability to aetherize.
It was a strain, as if his muscles were a little tense, too tightly sprung. His movements were choppy as stormy waters.
He returned to mortal form, a little dizzy. “Another five minutes.”
The male marched off, spitting about the villainy of spirits.
“Oh, be careful.” Lydia moved in, close to Guard. But the dizziness had already passed. Even so, Lydia remained at his side, hand on his arm to steady him. “You have a plan for this last run, don’t you, Guard?”
“Yes.”
“Oh!” She clasped her hands together and rocked on her heels. Then quickly returned her unnecessary support. Her voice lowered as she asked, “Will you tell me it?”
Guard shook his head and spoke normally, “It is better if I don’t. You are the seeker. If you know, the Trial may know and counter it.”
She nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“Lydia, gods!”
“And why not, Perce? I suspect mazes are capable of any number of treacheries.”
When they had swallowed their last grains and entered the last path together, the male pestered with him with “Now what, grand leader?” “Perhaps now?” And “See, Lydia, see!”
The doubt she betrayed was far less annoying: she tucked closer and asked, “Shouldn’t we move a little faster? Even though you are certain this is the right path—” She closed her dark eyes, swayed in place a little, then reopened them. “We have been going fifteen minutes now.”
Guard nodded. “We may walk faster if you want.”
So they walked faster . . .
. . . down the many dead ends the male kept leading them into.
Apparently, he had tried to eliminate the false routes with penciled Xs, but no longer found his markers in place, or if they were, they no longer lead true. After the third mistake, the male’s verbal barrage of doubts was evenly divided between Guard and the maze. Looking backward, as they retreated once more to the main branch, the male muttered, “I was quite sure it was the left fork . . . ”
“The nature of the tunnels may not be fixed.”
“Then how are we supposed to solve it!” The male chucked his nub of contraband pencil down that last erroneous branch. “The answer might be down one the other two paths!”
“It might, but I doubt it.”
“Damn you! If you leave us here to run off and claim your prize!”
“Oh, he wouldn’t!” But Lydia reached out and clutched the sleeve of his duster. “You wouldn’t!”
“I would not. Our fates are linked.”
“So he says.”
“Yes, so I just did.”
After that, the male gave up trying to lead, too busy watching Guard closely to note paths. Shalott also no longer had a problem with Lydia touching him, as if clasping his sleeve or arm would keep him in place if he really desired to leave. That was at the half-hour point.
During the last fifteen minutes, the retrievers’ eyes began to appear, and she slunk closer.
During the last five minutes, the retrievers began to shake, and the male drew closer as well.
“Guard.” Lydia tugged his sleeve to get his attention. She whispered, “Didn’t you say you had a plan?”
“Yes, Lydia.”
“Soon?”
“Yes.”
With a small breath, she said, “All right.”
The male was too busy dancing past and cursing the retrievers to grumble at them.
Then the last twelve grains were quivering in the hourglass. While Shalott shouted they couldn’t be much past halfway, Guard grabbed their elbows and hauled them between two stationed retrievers. During the first attempt, when the retrievers burst forth from the walls, they took about a minute to swell to full size. The second time, half a minute. Now, he would have seconds.
Last nine grains. He closed his eyes and told them, “Hold your breath.”
“Why?” the male shouted, tugging at Guard’s grip, while Lydia reached across and shushed him.
Last six.
The transition was awful, resisting.
Five.
Tangled.
Four.
Thick.
Three . . .
Heavy. Come on.
Two . . .
Come on!
One.
And it was the fastest and worst change he had ever made, a roiling mess, a torpor. But he had done it. Like Mother and Mace with their bayard horses, he had changed the seekers with him.
And now it was time to move.
The growing retriever was darting for him. Guard darted faster. Felt the drag. It nearly ripped him out of aetheric form, but he persisted. The gap between wall and retriever narrowed.
Narrowed.
Narrowed.
And he just eked past what felt like two arctic blasts on either side of him. He shuddered as he towed his burden through the opening in the wall the retriever had left behind. Dragging them forward, past the next filled retriever-spot, he metaphorically held his breath.
The retriever shook loose.
It chased after.
Chased out there in the maze proper—not here, in the tunnel. They couldn’t shrink to follow, only expand to trap. Out there.
Which was fortunate, because his plan had some flaws. His body ached where he held onto his charges, burned as if he were hauling them on sore muscles. This tugged at his focus, but he could hold this form, he could continue on. For now. He plunged onward. He had not counted on his charges’ effect upon himself. Mother and Mace had never spoken on the burden of aetherizing their mounts.
Of course, bayards were not ordinary horses; they, too, had aether in them. And Mother and Mace were full spirits, strong where he was weak.
But still all that begged the question: Should they all drop back into human form now? Would running on feet be faster, or would it spell failure since this was their last chance?
Guard eyed the back of a retriever he passed, noting how quickly it popped out, how quickly it and others shushed along the after him. They were much faster than he had counted on, too.
Far faster than humans could run.
But not quite as fast as a spirit. Even a cambion one.
Even one so burdened?
At least, due to his opponents’ size, they could only attack one-on-one. That was something.
Guard hefted his burdens and, despite the spreading pain, redoubled his speed—
Which made the mortals shake and not stop.
The mortals! He had forgotten to consider their needs. Prolonged journeys this way could asphyxiate the bayards—what about the far weaker, far more mortal humans?
Guard slowed down. Their shaking eased slightly . . . but the retrievers shushing movements sped up.
Close, we have
to be close to the exit, Guard thought as he took a bend, sheering too closely to a wall. That set off a flare of anger in the parts he considered Shalott.
Guard “whispered” to him to be still.
Of course, that incited worse behavior.
And of course, they couldn’t obey. How could they? Humans weren’t made to handle aetherization. He couldn’t, not until he was nine, after years of partaking aether-laced breath. He remembered how the early transformations felt like drowning, not strangling. Drowning.
They thrashed from panic and . . . the lack of air, clawing at him, nearly making him lose his hold. They both dipped dangerously, and he couldn’t hold back a cry of pain as he caught them, bunched them tighter, and lifted.
His vision blurred.
Everything hurt.
That was why he first thought it an illusion, a warning sign, that shaky splash of white a ways ahead, the color he sometimes saw with a bad transition back to human form. But it was the only color beside bronze.
Thank the goddess, it was real. The white stone-wood that covered the false tomb-wood exits existed inside the tunnel’s far wall, too. That meant . . . he turned his “head” to count the retrievers remaining, to pick block shapes from the blurs of bronze, but he found he couldn’t move that much.
So Guard relied on memory and guesswork instead. There couldn’t be three left, with the final one in this stretch at least nine feet from the exit.
Now two left. Smoke-Lydia’s shakes were stilling. Not a good sign.
He couldn’t even “shout” an encouragement; he was too tired.
Now one retriever.
Guard passed it up and waited impatiently for the patch of bronze to shift (indicating the retriever was moving into the maze proper). He darted out the opening it left behind . . .
. . . and badly misjudged its speed and proximity. Its gauntlet swiped, the freezing cold burning less than an inch from his trailing back.
He lost his grip on his charges.
With one last burst of energy, Guard thrust both dilating, throbbing masses ahead of him, through the black opening cut through the searing white. The male tumbled into mortal form and to safety out the maze. But once through, Shalott began to scream raggedly.
